the body, and the instinctive powers are very perfect. A few kinds are
rather dull and stupid; but the Parrot, Magpie, Raven, and many others,
show great vivacity and quickness of intellect. The Raven has a great
deal of humour in him. One, a most amusing and mischievous creature,
would get into a well-stocked flower-garden, go to the beds where the
gardener had sowed a great variety of seeds, with sticks put in the
ground with labels, and then he would amuse himself with pulling up
every stick, and laying them in heaps of ten or twelve on the path. This
used to irritate the old gardener, who drove him away. The Raven knew
that he ought not to do it, or he would not have done it. He would soon
return to his mischief, and when the gardener again chased him (the old
man could not run very fast), the Raven would just keep clear of the
rake or the hoe in his hand, dancing before him, and singing as plainly
as a Raven could. "Tol de rol de rol! tol de rol de rol!" with all kinds
of mimicking gestures.
The signal of danger among Birds seems to be of universal comprehension;
because the instant it is uttered we hear the whole flock, though
composed of various species, repeat a separate moan, and away they
all scuttle into the bushes for safety. The sentinel Birds give the
signal, but in some cases they are deceived by false appearances. Dr.
Edmonstone, in his "View of the Zetland Isles," relates a very striking
illustration of the neglect of the sentinel, in his remarks on the Shag.
"Great numbers of this species of the Cormorant are sometimes taken
during the night, while asleep on the rocks of easy access; but before
they commit themselves to sleep, one or two of the number are appointed
to watch. Until these sentinels are secured, it is impossible to make a
successful impression on the whole body; to surprise them is, therefore,
the first object. With this view, the leader of the expedition creeps
cautiously and imperceptibly along the rock, until he gets within a
short distance of the watch. He then dips a worsted glove into the sea,
and gently throws water in the face of the guard. The unsuspecting Bird,
either disliking the impression, or fancying, from what he considers to
be a disagreeable state of the weather, that all is quiet and safe,
puts his head under his wing and soon falls asleep. His neck is then
immediately broken, and the party dispatch as many as they choose."
Addison was a true lover of nature, which he shows in two letters
written by him to the Earl of Warwick (afterwards his son-in-law),
when that nobleman was very young. "My dear Lord," he writes, "I have
employed the whole neighbourhood in looking after Birds'-nests, and
not altogether without success. My man found one last night, but it
proved a hen's, with fifteen eggs in it, covered with an old broody
Duck, which may satisfy your Lordship's curiosity a little; though I
am afraid the eggs will be of little use to us. This morning I have
news brought me of a nest that has abundance of little eggs, streaked
with red and blue veins, that, by the description they give me, must
make a very beautiful figure in a string. My neighbours are very much
divided in their opinions upon them: some say they are a Skylark's;
others will have them to be a Canary-Bird's; but I am much mistaken
in the colour and turn of the eggs if they are not full of Tomtit's."
Again, Addison writes:--"Since I am so near your Lordship, methinks,
after having passed the day amid more severe studies, you may often
take a trip hither and relax yourself with these little curiosities of
nature. I assure you no less a man than Cicero commends the two great
friends of his age, Scipio and Lælius, for entertaining themselves
at their country-house, which stood on the sea-shore, with picking up
cockle-shells, and looking after Birds'-nests."
In another letter Addison writes:--"The business of this is to invite
you to a concert of music which I have found out in a neighbouring wood.
It begins precisely at six in the evening, and consists of a Blackbird,
a Thrush, a Robin-Redbreast, and a Bullfinch. There is a Lark, that, by
way of overture, sings and mounts till she is almost out of hearing; and
afterwards, falling down leisurely, drops to the ground as soon as she
has ended her song. The whole is concluded by a Nightingale, that has a
much better voice than Mrs. Tofts, and something of the Italian manner
in her divisions. If your Lordship will honour me with your company, I
will promise to entertain you with much better music, and more agreeable
scenes, than you ever met with at the Opera; and will conclude with a
charming description of a Nightingale out of our friend Virgil:--
"'So close, in poplar shades, her children gone,
The mother Nightingale laments alone;
Whose nest some prying churl had found, and thence
By stealth convey'd the unfeathered innocence:
But she supplies the night with mournful strains,
And melancholy music fills the plains.'"
BIRDS' EGGS AND NESTS.
The Eggs of Birds are variously tinted and mottled, and hence they
become objects of interest to the collector. In this diversity of
colour nature has, doubtless, some final object in view; and though not
in every instance, yet in many, we can certainly see a design in the
adaptation of the colours to the purpose of concealment, according to
the habits of the various classes of Birds. Thus, as a general rule, the
Eggs of Birds which have their nests in dark holes, or which construct
nests that almost completely exclude the light, are white; as is also
the case with those Birds that constantly sit on their Eggs, or leave
them only for a short time during the night. Eggs of a light blue or
light green tint will also be found in nests that are otherwise well
concealed; while, on the other hand, a great proportion of those nests
that are in exposed situations have Eggs varying in tints and spots in a
remarkable degree, corresponding with the colours of external objects in
their immediate neighbourhood. Thus, a dull green colour is common in
most gallinaceous Birds that form their nests in grass, and in aquatic
Birds among green hedges; a bright green colour is prevalent among Birds
that nestle among trees and bushes; and a brown mottled colour is found
in those Eggs that are deposited among furze, heath, shingle, and grey
rocks and stones.
Birds'-nesting, we need hardly remark, is a favourite pursuit of
boyhood; but, in some cases, its attractions have induced young
persons to take up more important branches of natural history, or the
collection, systematic arrangement, and comparison of Birds' Eggs, which
is, in scientific study, termed Oology; and as the study of Birds cannot
be considered complete until they are known in every stage, it forms a
branch of Ornithology. In this case Birds'-nesting has an useful object;
but many persons are content to acquire collections of Eggs without
troubling themselves about the Birds which have laid them.
The late Mr. John Wolley, M.A., was one of the leading authorities
upon the subject of European Ornithology, and was one of a number
of University men, who, about twelve years ago, established the
ornithological journal called "The Ibis," and who visited far-distant
and unexplored regions, where they might hope to discover strange
Birds and unknown Eggs. For several years Algiers and Tunis were their
favourite resorts, and the meeting-places of many of our rarer Birds
were hunted up in these countries, even so far as the Desert of the
Great Sahara. Others preferred the New World as the scene of their
labours, and collected long series of specimens in the highland of
Guatemala, and the tropical forests of Belize. Mr. Wolley, however,
confined his attention principally to the northern parts of Europe--that
region being the breeding-quarters of a large number of Birds which
are only known in this country as winter visitants. In order to be
at his collecting-station at Muonioniska, on the frontier of Finnish
Lapland, at the earliest commencement of the breeding-season, Mr. Wolley
frequently passed the whole winter in that remote region. But the rigour
of the climate under the Arctic Circle contributed to bring on a malady
which terminated fatally in November, 1859.
Upon the decease of Mr. Wolley, his large collection of Birds' Eggs,
in accordance with his last wishes, became the property of his friend,
Mr. Alfred Newton, who is publishing a Catalogue of Mr. Wolley's Egg
Cabinet, with notes from the deceased naturalist's journals. The first
part contains the Eggs of Birds of Prey (_Accipitres_), recognisable at
once by their strongly-hooked bill, formed to assist them in tearing
their prey, and their large feet and sharpened claws, which aid them to
grasp it. They are divisible into two very distinct groups--the diurnal
Birds of Prey, consisting of the Hawks, Vultures, and Eagles; and the
nocturnal Birds of Prey, or Owls. In the latter the Eggs are invariably
colourless; in the former they are often strongly marked, and present
some of the most beautiful objects in the whole series of Birds' Eggs.
In the most recently published list of European birds fifty-two species
of birds of prey are given as occurring more or less frequently within
the limits of our continent. Of the three generally-recognised species
of European Vultures two are well represented, as regards their eggs,
in the Wolleyan series. A few years ago the nesting of all these birds
was utterly unknown to naturalists, and it was mainly through the
exertions of Mr. Wolley and his friends that specimens first reached
our collectors' cabinets. Here were found both the Egyptian Vulture
and the Griffon breeding abundantly in the Eastern Atlas in 1857; and
the eyries of these birds have since been visited by other collectors
in the same country. The Eggs of the former of these Vultures are
remarkable for their deep and rich coloration. The productions of the
Griffon are not nearly so handsome, and are occasionally altogether
destitute of markings. Of the Eagles of Europe the series of Eggs is
very full, especially of the two well-known British species--the Golden
Eagle and Sea Eagle. The Golden or Mountain Eagle is even now-a-days
much more common in the remote parts of the British islands than is
usually supposed to be the case. In 1852 Mr. Wolley was acquainted
with five nests of this bird in various parts of Scotland, and there
were undoubtedly at least as many more of which he did not learn the
particulars. The eyrie is usually placed in some mountainous district,
on the ledge of some "warm-looking" rock, well clothed with vegetation,
and often by no means wild or exposed. Not unfrequently, under proper
guidance, one can walk into the nest almost without climbing. Mr. Newton
gives a very entertaining account of the taking of a pair of eggs from
a nest in Argyllshire in 1861, where this seems to have been the case.
In the whole ascent there was only one "ticklish place," where it was
necessary to go sideways on a narrow ledge round some rocks. The Sea
Eagle, on the other hand, generally breeds on the high cliffs upon the
coast, often selecting the most inaccessible position for its eyrie.
Sometimes, however, it will choose an island in the middle of an inland
loch, and in such case places its nest upon the ground or in a tree.
Mr. Wolley's well-written notes of his adventures in quest of both
these Eagles, as also those relating to the other rapacious birds, will
be read with much interest; as will also the details concerning the
nesting-habits of many of the rarer species of European birds, several
of which, such as the Rough-legged Buzzard and the Lapp Owl, were first
tracked to their breeding-quarters in the remotest wilds of Scandinavia
by this indefatigable naturalist.[10]
Of large Eggs we are most familiar with those of the Ostrich, of which
Mr. Burchell, when in Africa, found twenty-five Eggs in a hollow
scratched in the sand, six feet in diameter, surrounded by a trench, but
without grass, leaves, or sticks, as in the nests of other birds. In
the trench were nine more Eggs, intended, as the Hottentots observed,
as the first food of the twenty-five young Ostriches. Between sixty and
seventy Eggs have been found in one nest; each is equal to twenty-four
Eggs of the domestic hen, and holds five pints and a quarter of liquid.
The shells are dirty white. The Hottentots string them together as
belts, or garlands, and they are frequently mounted as cups. One Ostrich
Egg is a sufficient meal for three persons. The Egg is cooked over the
fire without either pot or water, the shell answering the purpose of the
first, and the liquid nature of its contents that of the other.
Less familiar to the reader are the gigantic Eggs of the Epyornis, a
bird which formerly lived in Madagascar. One of these Eggs contains the
substance of 140 hens' Eggs. Mr. Geoffroy St. Hilaire describes some
portions of an Egg of the Epyornis which show the Egg to have been of
such a size as to be capable of containing about ten English quarts;
that in the Museum of the Jardin des Plantes can only contain 8-3/4
quarts. Mr. Strickland, in some notices of the Dodo and its kindred,
published in 1849, says that in the previous year a Mr. Dumarele, a
French merchant at Bourbon, saw at Port Leven, Madagascar, an enormous
Egg which held "_thirteen wine quart bottles of fluid_." The natives
stated that the Egg was found in the jungle, and "that such Eggs were
_very, very rarely_ met with."
A word or two about the nests of such gigantic birds. Captain Cook
found, on an island near the north-east coast of New Holland, a nest
"of a most enormous size. It was built with sticks upon the ground, and
was no less than six-and-twenty feet in circumference, and two feet
eight inches high." (Kerr's "Collection of Voyages and Travels," xiii.,
318.) Captain Flinders found two similar nests on the south coast of New
Holland, in King George's Bay. In his "Voyage," &c., London, 1818, he
says, "They were built upon the ground, from which they rose above two
feet, and were of vast circumference and great interior capacity; the
branches of trees and other matter of which each nest was composed being
enough to fill a cart."
Among the varieties of Birds'-nests are some very curious homes, of
which we have but space to notice a few. The pendulous nest of the
Indian Baya-bird is usually formed of the fibres of the palmyra, the
cocoa-nut palm, and wild date of India, sometimes mixed with grass,
neatly interlaced, and very strongly made. It consists of only one
circular chamber, with a long tubular passage leading to it, and is
suspended from a tree, preferred if overhanging water. The natives of
India say the Baya lights up its nest with fire-flies. The bird lays
from four to six white eggs. Bayas are of a very social disposition:
numbers build on the same tree, or neighbouring trees, and singing in
concert during the breeding season. The Baya is very docile, and taught
to fly off the finger and return again; to dart after a ring or small
coin, dropped into a deep well, and catch it before it reaches the
water; to fetch and carry, and perform similar tricks.
The nest of the brilliant Golden-banded Oriole is a hammock of twisted
fibrous substances, and is suspended in a low shrub, so as to swing to
the breeze. The twine-like fibres of which it is woven are the filaments
of the gigantic palm. The threads break away from the leaf, and hang
like fringe to the magnificent foliage.
The Tailor-birds are the best nest-builders of all the feathered tribes.
They interweave their nests between the twigs and branches of shrubs,
or suspend the nests from them; and some of these birds have exercised
arts from the creation which man has found of the greatest benefit to
him since he discovered them. These birds, indeed, may be called the
inventors of the several arts of the weaver, the sempstress, and the
tailor; whence some of them have been denominated Weaver and Tailor
Birds. The nests of the latter are, however, most remarkable. India
produces several species of Tailor-birds that sew together leaves for
the protection of their eggs and nestlings from the voracity of serpents
and apes. They generally select the end of a branch or twig, and sew
with cotton, thread, and fibres. Colonel Sykes has seen some in which
the thread was literally knotted at the end. The inside of these nests
is lined usually with down and cotton.
Tailor-birds are not confined to India or tropical countries. Italy can
boast a species which exercises the same art. Mr. Gould has a specimen
of this bird in his possession, and the Zoological Society have a nest
in their Museum. This little bird, a species of the genus _sylvia_, in
summer and autumn frequents marshes; but in the spring it seeks the
meadows and corn-fields, in which, at that season, the marshes being
bare of the sedges which cover them in summer, it is compelled to
construct its nest in tussocks of grass on the brinks of ditches; but
the leaves of these being weak, easily split, so that it is difficult
for our little sempstresses to unite them, and so form the skeleton
of the fabric. From this and other circumstances, the spring nests of
these birds differ so widely from those made in the autumn that it seems
next to impossible that both should be the work of the same artisan.
The latter are constructed in a thick bunch of sedge or reed: they are
shaped like a pear, being dilated below and narrow above, so as to leave
an aperture sufficient for the ingress and egress of the bird. The
greatest horizontal diameter of the nest is about two inches and a half,
and the vertical is five inches.
The most wonderful thing in the construction of these nests is the
method to which the little bird has recourse to keep united the living
leaves of which it is composed. The sole in the weaving, more or less
delicate, of the materials, forms the principle adopted by other birds
to bind together the walls of their nests; but this sylvia is no weaver,
for the leaves of the sedges or reeds are united by real stitches.
In the edge of each leaf she makes, probably with her beak, minute
apertures, through which she contrives to pass, perhaps by means of
the same organ, one or more cords formed of spiders' web, particularly
that of their egg-pouches. Those threads are not very long, and are
sufficient to pass two or three times from one leaf to another. They
are of unequal thickness, and have knots here and there, which, in some
places, divide into two or three branches.
This is the manner in which the exterior of the nest is formed: the
interior consists mainly of down, chiefly from plants, a little
spiders' web being intermixed, which helps to keep the other substances
together. The upper part and sides of the nest, that is, the external
and internal, are in immediate contact; but in the lower part a greater
space intervenes, filled with the slender foliage of grasses, and other
materials, which render soft and warm the bed on which the eggs are to
repose. This little bird feeds on insects. Its flight is rectilinear,
but consists of many curves, with the concavity upwards. These curves
equal in number the strokes of the wing, and at every stroke its whistle
is heard, the intervals of which correspond with the rapidity of its
flight.
The Australian Bower-bird, as its name implies, builds its nest
like an arbour or bower, with twigs: in the British Museum are two
specimens, each decorated--one with bones and fresh-water shells, and
the other with feathers and land-shells; remarkable instances of taste
for ornament already referred to in a preceding page. The Satin or
Bower-bird is described by settlers in Australia as "a very troublesome
rascal," which besets gardens; if once allowed to make a lodgment there
it is very troublesome to get rid of him; he signalizes his arrival by
pulling up, in his restless fussy way, everything in the garden that he
can tug out of the ground, even to the little sticks to mark the site of
seeds. A settler had formed a garden in the bush; there was no enclosure
of the kind for miles in any direction: a flock of Bower-birds came; he
got his gun and shot two or three; the flock went off, and he never saw
another bird of the kind.
The Cape Swallows build nests which show extraordinary instinct allied
to reason. A pair of these built their nest on the outside of a house
at Cape Town against the angle formed by the wall and the board which
supported the eaves. The whole of this nest was covered in, and it was
furnished with a long neck or passage, through which the birds passed in
and out. It resembled a longitudinal section of a Florence oil flask.
This nest having crumbled away after the young birds had quitted it, the
same pair, or another of the same species, built on the old foundation
again. But this time an improvement was observable in the plan of it
that can hardly be referred to the dictates of mere instinct. The body
of the nest was of the same shape as before, but instead of a single
passage it was furnished with one at each side, running along the angle
of the roof; and on watching the birds, they were seen invariably to go
in at one passage and come out at the other. Besides saving themselves
the trouble of turning in the nest and disturbing, perhaps, its interior
arrangement, they were guarded by this contrivance against a surprise by
serpents, which frequently creep up along the wall, or descend from the
thatch, and devour both the mother and her brood.
Dr. Livingstone relates a very curious instance of "Bird Confinement"
under very strange circumstances. In passing through Mopane country, in
South Africa, his men caught a great number of the birds called _Korwé_
in their breeding-places, which were holes in the mopane trees. They
passed the nest of a Korwé just ready for the female to enter; the
orifice was plastered on both sides, but a space was left of a heart
shape, and exactly the size of the bird's body. The hole in the tree
was in every case found to be prolonged some distance upwards above the
opening, and thither the Korwé always fled to escape being caught. In
another nest that was found, one white egg, much like that of a pigeon,
was laid, and the bird dropped another when captured: she had four
besides in the ovarium. Dr. Livingstone first saw this bird at Kolenbeng
in the forest: he saw a slit only, about half an inch wide and three or
four inches long, in a slight hollow of a tree; a native broke the clay
which surrounded the slit, put his arm into the hole, and brought out a
red-beaked Hornbill, which he killed. He told Dr. Livingstone that when
the female enters her nest she submits to a real confinement. The male
plasters up the entrance, leaving only a narrow slit by which to feed
his mate, and which exactly suits the form of his beak. The female makes
a nest of her own feathers, lays her eggs, hatches them, and remains
with the young till they are fully fledged. During all this time, which
is stated to be two or three months, the male continues to feed her
and the young family. The prisoner generally becomes quite fat, and is
esteemed a very dainty morsel by the natives; while the poor slave of a
husband gets so lean that, on the sudden lowering of the temperature,
which sometimes happens after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls
down, and dies.
Dr. Livingstone, on passing the same tree at Kolenbeng about eight days
afterwards, found the hole plastered up again, as if, in the short time
that had elapsed, the disconsolate bird-husband had procured another
wife. Dr. L. saw a nest with the plastering not quite finished, and
others completed; he also received elsewhere, besides Kolobeng, the same
account that the bird comes forth when the young are fully-fledged, at
the period when the corn is ripe; indeed, her appearance abroad with
her young is one of the signs they have for knowing when it ought to be
so: the time is between two and three months. She is said sometimes to
hatch two eggs, and, when the young of these are full-fledged, the other
two are just out of the egg-shells: she then leaves the nest with the
two elder, the orifice is again plastered up, and both male and female
attend to the wants of the young.