Common cuckoo lay eggs that better imitate the host's eggs, the host species adapts and is more able to distinguish the cuckoo egg. A study of 248 common cuckoo and host eggs demonstrated that female cuckoos that parasitised common redstart nests laid eggs that matched better than those that targeted dunnocks. Spectroscopy was used to model how the host species saw the cuckoo eggs. Cuckoos that target dunnock nests lay white, brown-speckled eggs, in contrast to the dunnock's own blue eggs. The theory suggests that common redstarts have been parasitised by common cuckoos for longer, and so have evolved to be better
Golding Bird classified by the chemistry of the nucleus, but determined that they all fell within two overall groups: organic stones caused by a misfunctioning bodily process, and excessive inorganic salts causing sediment on which the stone could nucleate. In 1842, Bird became the first to describe oxaluria, sometimes called Bird's disease, which is caused by an excess of oxalate of lime in the urine. This is the second most common cause of kidney stones, the first being uric acid and its ammonium salt. There are several others, such as ammonium oxalate. In his great work "Urinary Deposits", Bird devotes much space