138 THE CONDOR Vol. XV held several inches of snow. The hail-stones, however, found their way between the branches and made short work of the eggs. As an instance of ground building birds' building in Well sheltered spots, in the regions of storms, I will mention several nests of Thurber. Junco. July 2? two nests of the Junco were discovered on small stone ledges, well Underneath pro- jecting blocks of granite on the terraced slope of Pyrami'd Peak, 'granite, utterly bare of soil, extending underfoot in all directions. What would ?seem to be a more congenial spot for the species was a low thicket of dwarfed pines, encircling a tiny alpine garden on the shore of a lake not far-away. However, the uests and eggs under the rock fool were not harmed at all by the violent dashes of hail. Earlier in the season, at Bijou on the southern Shore of Lake Tahoe, I was surprised to find two nests of the Junco built inside of tin cans lying in a mead- ow. Eggs in one nest and young in the other were.not injured by several inches of snow which fell at that time. Later I was informed that this method of nest building with Juncos was not uncommon in the vicinity of Bijou. AN INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE EGGS OF TIlE NORTH AMERICAN LIMICOLAE By DR. R. W. SHUFELDT WITH SIX 'pHOTOS T WOULD seem that up to the present time no 'contribution has appeared which has been devoted to descriptions of the eggs of the limicoline birds of this country, and certainly none that has been illustrated by reliable fig- ures of the eggs of the principal genera composing this most interesting assem- blage. There are, to be sure, various books extant, in which brief descriptions of these eggs are given, indeed, one or two such books with colored illustrations of them, but they do not belong to the class of literature to which reference is made. Major Bendire's magnificent volumes did not reach the shore and water birds, a fact that every ornithologist in this country has, at one time or another, men- rioned with the most sincere regret. It may be said, too,.in passing, now that Mr. A. C. Bent is doing such admirable work in the direction of' completing that elegant classic it is to be hoped that he may be so fortunate as to command the means to bring out, as illustrations for it, plates of colored figures of eggs of all the water birds of North America, in a way that Bendire would have done,.had he lived to accomplish it. The collection of eggs of North American birds in the United States Nation- al Museum is truly of a magnificent character; it forms a part of the material under the care of the Division of Birds of that institution, where it is cased in the best class of modern cases, and arranged in such a manner as to be readily available for the o61ogical student. There is also a most beautiful display Of birds' eggs and nests in the halls of the ornithological exhibit in anotber part of the main building. Any responsible ornithologist of standing may study these eggs, but they have not been so used in the present contribution. This would have required far more time than I have at my command at present; moreover, the eggs of our limicoline birds are there in large series, consisting of hundreds of specimens; to have touched them at all would simply have meant for me to
