. Bird-life; a guide to the study of our common birds . Plate XXIII. Page 114. BELTED KINGFISHEK. Length, 13 -00 inches. Male, upper parts bluish gray; under parts white,a bluish-gray breast-band and sides. Female, similar, but breast andsides with reddish brown. BIRDS EGGS. 69 which is deposited in layers. The final layer varies greatlyin appearance, and may be a rough, chalky deposit, as inCormorants and others, or thin and highly polished, as inWoodpeckers. The colors of eggs are due to pigments, resemblingbile pigments, deposited by ducts while the egg is in theoviduct. One or more of the
. Bird-life; a guide to the study of our common birds . Plate XXIII. Page 114. BELTED KINGFISHEK. Length, 13 -00 inches. Male, upper parts bluish gray; under parts white,a bluish-gray breast-band and sides. Female, similar, but breast andsides with reddish brown. BIRDS EGGS. 69 which is deposited in layers. The final layer varies greatlyin appearance, and may be a rough, chalky deposit, as inCormorants and others, or thin and highly polished, as inWoodpeckers. The colors of eggs are due to pigments, resemblingbile pigments, deposited by ducts while the egg is in theoviduct. One or more of the layers of shell may be pig-mented, and variations in the tints of the same pigmentmay be caused by an added layer of carbonate of lime,producing the so-called clouded or shell markings. While the eggs of the same species more or lessclosely resemble one another, there is often so great arange of variation in color that, unless seen with the. Fig. 24.—Egg of (a) Spotted Sandpiper, (b) Catbird, to show difference in* size of eggs of prascocial and altricial birds of same size. (Natural size.) parent, it is frequently impossible to identify eggs withcertainty. The eggs of prsecocial birds, whose young areborn with a covering of down and can run or swim atbirth, are, as a rule, proportionately larger than the eggsof altricial birds, whose young are born in a much lessadvanced condition. This is illustrated by the accom-panying figure of the eggs of the Spotted Sandpiper andthe Catbird. The period of incubation is apparently closely depend-ent upon the size of the egg, and varies from ten daysin the Hummingbird to forty odd in the Ostrich and, itis said, some fifty in the Emu. 70 YOUNG BIRDS. Among some species both sexes share equally the taskof incubation. In others, the female is longer on thenest, the male taking her place during a short period eachday while she is feeding. Less frequently the female isnot at all assiste
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