Once, while walking in the woods, I saw quite a large nest in the
top of a pine-tree. On climbing up to it, I found that it had
originally been a crow's nest. Then a red squirrel had appropriated
it; he had filled up the cavity with the fine inner bark of the red
cedar, and made himself a dome-shaped nest upon the crow's
foundation of coarse twigs. It is probable that the flying
squirrel, or the white-footed mouse, had been the next tenants, for
the finish of the interior suggested their dainty taste. But when
I found it, its sole occupant was a bumblebee,--the mother or queen
bee, just planting her colony. She buzzed very loud and
complainingly, and stuck up her legs in protest against my rude
inquisitiveness, but refused to vacate the premises. She had only
one sack or cell constructed, in which she had deposited her first
egg, and, beside that, a large loaf of bread, probably to feed the
young brood with, as they should be hatched. It looked like Boston
brown bread, but I examined it and found it to be a mass of dark
brown pollen, quite soft and pasty. In fact, it was unleavened
bread, and had not been got at the baker's. A few weeks later, if
no accident befell her, she had a good working colony of a dozen or
more bees.
This was not an unusual incident. Our bumblebee, so far as I have
observed, invariably appropriates a mouse-nest for the site of its
colony, never excavating a place in the ground, nor conveying
materials for a nest, to be lined with wax, like the European
species. Many other of our wild creatures take up with the
leavings of their betters or strongers. Neither the skunk nor the
rabbit digs his own hole, but takes up with that of a wood-chuck,
or else hunts out a natural den among the rocks. In England the
rabbit burrows in the ground to such an extent that in places the
earth is honeycombed by them, and the walker steps through the
surface into their galleries. Our white-footed mouse has been
known to take up his abode in a hornet's nest, furnishing the
interior to suit his taste. A few of our birds also avail
themselves of the work of others, as the titmouse, the brown
creeper, the bluebird, and the house wren. But in every case they
refurnish the tenement: the wren carries feathers into the cavity
excavated by the woodpeckers, the bluebird carries in fine straws,
and the chickadee lays down a fine wool mat upon the floors. When
the high-hole occupies the same cavity another year, he deepens and
enlarges it; the phbe-bird, in taking up her old nest, puts in a
new lining; so does the robin; but cases of reoccupancy of an old
nest by the last-named birds are rare.