which merits description, besides that of the Bower-bird. Such is the
nest of the Brush Turkey, which appears more like a small haystack than
an ordinary nest, and the methodical manner in which it is constructed
is thus described:--Tracing a circle of considerable radius, the birds
begin to travel round it, continually grasping with their huge feet the
leaves and grasses and dead twigs which are lying about, and flinging
them inwards towards the centre. Each time that they complete their
round, they narrow their circle, so that in a short time they clear away
a circular belt, having in its centre a low irregular mass. By repeating
the same process, however, they decrease the diameter of the mound as
they increase its height, and at last a large and rudely conical mound
is formed.
In this nest as many as a bushel of eggs are deposited, at regular
intervals, long end downwards. The leaves form a fermenting mass, which
relieves the mother of the necessity of setting upon them. The male,
however, has to regulate the temperature of the mass, which would
otherwise get too hot. This he does by making a central ventilating
shaft, which carries off the superfluous heat; and, lest the temperature
should fall too low, he is constantly engaged in covering and uncovering
the eggs in order to hit the exact temperature to be applied until the
egg is warmed into life.
FOOTNOTE:
[10] Abridged from the "Saturday Review."
THE EPICURE'S ORTOLAN.
We have allotted this bird to the epicure, because it is rarely heard
of but in association with his luxurious table. Mr. Beckford describes
the Ortolans among the delicacies which he saw in the kitchen of the
monastery of Batalha as "lumps of celestial fatness."
Ortolan is the French and English names for a species of _Fringillidæ_
(Finches). It is the _Hortulanus_ of Gesner and other naturalists;
_Miliaria pinguescens_ of Frisch; _Emberiza Hortulana_ of Linnæus;
_Ortolano_ of the Italians generally; _Tordino Berluccio_ of the
Venetians; _Garton Ammer_ and _Fetammer_ of the Germans; and _Gerste
Keneu_ of the Netherlanders. This wide dispersion on the Continent
bespeaks the pet character of the bird. Montagu terms it the
Green-headed Bunting.
The French have a fanciful derivation of the name: they say it is from
the Italian word for gardener, which is from the Latin _hortus_, garden;
because, according to Menage, in Italy, where the bird is common, it is
quite at home in the hedges of gardens.
The male bird has the throat, circle round the eyes, and a narrow band
springing from the angle of the bill, yellow; head and neck grey, with a
tinge of olive, and small brown spots; feathers black, edged with red;
breast, belly, and abdomen, reddish grey, the feathers terminated with
ash-colour; tail blackish, two external feathers, in part white; length
rather more than six inches. There are, also, varieties marked white,
green, blackish, and entirely black. The nest, which is constructed
of fibres of plants and leaves, is frequently found on the ground in
corn-fields, and sometimes in hedges and bushes.
The Ortolan is not famed for its song, which is, however, soft
and sweet. Like the Nightingale, to which it has other points of
resemblance, the Ortolan sings after, as well as before sunset. It was
this bird that Varro, the lyric poet, called his companion by night and
day.
The south of Europe may be considered the summer and autumnal
head-quarters of the Ortolan, though it is a summer visitor in the
central and northern parts. In Italy it is said to be common by Temminck
and others. The Prince of Musignano states it to be found in the Sabine
mountains; adding that it rarely flies in the plains of Rome, but is
frequent in Tuscany. Lapland, Russia, Denmark. Sweden, and Norway,
are among the countries visited by it. In the British Isles it seems
only entitled to rank as an autumnal visitor, but it may occur more
frequently than is generally supposed; for, especially to an unpractised
eye, it might be mistaken for the Yellow Hammer, and in some states of
plumage for other Buntings. It has been taken in the neighbourhood of
London. In 1837 there was a live specimen in an aviary of the Zoological
Society in Regent's-park; and many Ortolans are sent alive to the London
market from Prussia. There is, however, some consolation for the rarity
of the Ortolan in England. It is approached in delicacy by our Wheatear,
which is termed the _English Ortolan_. Hence it has been pursued as a
delicate morsel throughout all its island haunts. Bewick captured it at
sea, off the coast of Yorkshire, in May, 1822. Every spring and autumn
it may be observed at Gibraltar, on its migration. Mr. Strickland saw it
at Smyrna in April. North Africa is its winter residence. Colonel Sykes
notes it in his catalogue of the birds of the Deccan.
Ortolans are solitary birds; they fly in pairs, rarely three together,
and never in flocks. They are taken in traps from March or April to
September, when they are often poor and thin; but if fed with plenty
of millet-seed and other grain, they become sheer lumps of fat, and
delicious morsels. They are fattened thus in large establishments in the
south of Europe; Mr. Gould states this to be effected in Italy, and the
south of France, in dark rooms; and the Prince of Musignano, having
described the process, adds the relishing words. "Carne exquisita."
The fattening process in Italy is one of great refinement in the manner
of feeding. It is the fat of the Ortolan which is so delicious; but it
has a peculiar habit of feeding which is opposed to the rapid fattening,
this is, it feeds only at the rising of the sun. Yet this peculiarity
has not proved an insurmountable obstacle to the Italian gourmands.
The Ortolans are placed in a dark chamber, perfectly dark, with only
one aperture in the wall. The food is scattered over the floor of the
chamber. At a certain hour in the morning the keeper of the birds places
a lantern in the orifice of the wall; when the dim light thrown from the
lantern on the floor of the apartment induces the Ortolans to believe
that the sun is about to rise, and they greedily consume the food upon
the floor. More food is now scattered over it, and the lantern is
withdrawn.
The Ortolans, rather surprised at the shortness of the day, think it
their duty to fall asleep, as night has spread her sable mantle round
them. During sleep, little of the food being expended in the production
of force, most of it goes to the formation of muscle and fat. After they
have been allowed to repose for one or two hours, in order to complete
the digestion of the food taken, their keeper again exhibits the lantern
through the aperture. The "rising sun" a second time illumines the
apartment, and the birds, awaking from their slumber, apply themselves
voraciously to the food on the floor; after having discussed which,
they are again enveloped in darkness. Thus the sun is made to shed its
rising rays into the chamber floor four or five times every day, and
as many nights following. The Ortolans thus treated become like little
balls of fat in a few days. This not uninteresting process has been
detailed by Dr. Lyon Playfair to the Royal Agricultural Society. It
may, probably, be applied to purposes with less luxurious objects than
fattening Ortolans.
Notwithstanding its delicacy, the Ortolan fattens very fast; and it is
this lump of fatness that is its merit, and has sometimes caused it
to be preferred to the Becafico. According to Buffon, the Greeks and
Romans understood fattening the Ortolan upon millet. But a lively French
commentator doubts this statement: he maintains that had the ancients
known the Ortolan, they would have deified it, and built altars to
it upon Mount Hymettus and the Saniculum; adding, did they not deify
the horse of Caligula, which was certainly not worth an Ortolan? and
Caligula himself, who was not worth so much as his horse? However, this
dispute belongs to the "classics of the table."
The Ortolan is considered sufficiently fat when it is a handful, and
is judged by feeling it, and not by appearance. It should not be
killed with violence, like other birds; this might crush and bruise
the delicate flesh, and spoil the _coup-d'oeil_, to avoid which it is
recommended to plunge the head of the Ortolan into a glass of brandy.
The culinary instruction is as follows: having picked the bird of its
feathers, singe it with the flame of paper or spirits of wine; cut off
the beak and ends of the feet; do not draw it; put it into a paper case
soaked in olive oil, and broil it over a slow fire of slack cinders,
like that required for a pigeon _à la crapaudine_; in a few minutes the
Ortolan will swim in its own fat, and will be cooked. Some gourmands
wrap each bird in a vine-leaf.
A gourmand will take an Ortolan by the legs and craunch it in delicious
mouthfuls, so as absolutely to lose none of it. More delicate feeders
cut the bird into quarters, and lay aside the gizzard; the rest may be
eaten, even to the bones, which are sufficiently tender for the most
delicate mouth to masticate without inconvenience.
On the Continent, Ortolans are packed in tin boxes for exportation.
They may be bought in London for half-a-crown a-piece. A few poulterers
import Ortolans in considerable numbers, and some have acquired the art
of fattening these birds.[11] Alexis Soyer put into the hundred guinea
dish which he prepared for the royal table at the grand banquet at York,
in 1850, five pounds worth of Ortolans, which were obtained from Belgium.
FOOTNOTE:
[11] The Ortolan figures in a curious anecdote of individual epicurism
in the last century. A gentleman of Gloucestershire had one son, whom he
sent abroad to make the grand tour of the Continent, where he paid more
attention to the cookery of nations, and luxurious living, than anything
else. Before his return his father died and left him a large fortune.
He now looked over his note-book to discover where the most exquisite
dishes were to be had, and the best cooks obtained. Every servant in his
house was a cook; his butler, footman, coachman, and grooms--all were
cooks. He had also three Italian cooks--one from Florence, another from
Vienna, and another from Viterbo--for dressing one Florentine dish. He
had a messenger constantly on the road between Brittany and London to
bring the eggs of a certain kind of plover found in the former country.
This prodigal was known to eat a single dinner at the expense of 70_l._,
though there were but two dishes. In nine years he found himself
getting poor, and this made him melancholy. When totally ruined, having
spent 150,000_l._, a friend one day gave him a guinea to keep him from
starving, and he was found in a garret next day _broiling an Ortolan_,
for which he had paid a portion of the alms.
TALK ABOUT TOUCANS.
The Toucans, a family of climbing-birds of tropical America, appear to
have been known in Europe by the length and great size of their bills,
long before the birds themselves found their way to England. Belon,
in 1555, described the bill of one of the family as half a foot long,
large as a child's arm, pointed, and black at the tip, white elsewhere,
notched on the edges, hollow within, and so finely delicate as to be
transparent and thin as parchment; and its beauty caused it to be kept
in the cabinets of the curious. For more than a century after Belon's
work, the birds themselves had not been seen in England; for, in the
_Museum Tradescantianum_, the standard collection of the time, and
which, from the list of contributors, appears to have been the great
receptacle for all curiosities, we read of an "Azacari (or Toucan) of
Brazil; has his beak four inches long, almost two thick, like a Turk's
sword" (A.D. 1656). From this description Tradescant knew the nature of
the bird, if he had not seen it.
Mr. Swainson states, that the enormous bills give to these birds a most
singular and uncouth appearance. Their feet are formed like those of
the parrot, more for grasping than climbing; and as they live among
trees, and proceed by hopping from branch to branch, their grasping
feature is particularly adapted for such habits. They live retired in
the deep forests, mostly in small companies. Their flight is strait and
laborious, but not graceful; while their movements, as they glide rather
than hop from branch to branch, are elegant.
Mr. Gould, in his grand Monograph of the Toucans, or _Ramphastidæ_,
remarks, that it was only within a few years of the time of Linnæus that
actual specimens of the Toucan had been received in Europe. The beaks,
however, of these birds, regarded as curiosities, had occasionally found
their way to our shores, and had occasioned some curious conjectures.
The earliest shape resembled a Turkish scimitar.
The Toucans (a word derived from their Brazilian name, _Taca, Tucà_)
received from Linnæus the title of _Ramphastos_, in allusion to
the great volume of the beak ([Greek: ramphos]--Ramphos), a family
(_Ramphastidæ_). In some respects, indeed, they resemble the Hornbills
in the development of the beak. The Toucans may be said to represent
in America the Hornbills in India and Africa. Large as is the beak of
the Toucan compared with the size of the body, it is in reality very
light. Its outer sheathing is somewhat elastic, very thin, smooth, and
semi-transparent; and the interior consists of a maze of delicate cells,
throughout which the olfactory nerves are multitudinously distributed.
The nostrils are basal, the edges of each mandible are serrated, and
the colouring of the whole beak is bright, rich, and often relieved by
contrasted markings. But these tints begin to fade after death, and
become ultimately dissipated. The eyes are surrounded by a considerable
space of naked skin, often very richly tinted. The tongue is very long,
slender, horizontally flattened, pointed, and, except at its base,
horny; it is fringed or feathered along each side. The wings are short,
concave, and comparatively feeble.
The tail is variable, equal and squared; it is remarkable for the
facility with which it can be retroverted or turned up, so as to lie
upon the back. This peculiarity results from a modification of structure
in the caudal vertebræ, which enables the tail to turn with a jerk by
the action of certain muscles, as if it were fixed on a hinge put into
action by means of a spring. When the retroversion is accomplished, the
muscles which caused it become passive, and offer no resistance to their
antagonists, which restore the tail to its ordinary direction. When they
sleep they puff out their plumage, they retrovert the tail over the
back, draw the head between the shoulders; the bill begins to turn over
the right shoulder, and becomes at last buried in the plumage of the
back; at the same time the pinions of the wings droop, and conceal the
feet. The bird now resembles an oval ball of puffed-up feathers, and is
well protected against the cold.
Toucans utter, from time to time, harsh, clattering, and discordant
cries. "Some," says Mr. Gould, "frequent the humid woods of the
temperate regions, while others resort to comparatively colder
districts, and dwell at an elevation of from six to ten thousand
feet. Those inhabiting the lofty regions are generically different
from those residing in the low lands, and are clothed in a more thick
and sombre-coloured plumage. All the members of the Hill-Toucans are
distinguished by their bills being strong, heavy, and hard, when
compared with those of the true Toucans and Araçaris, all of which
have their bills of a more delicate structure, and in several species
so thin and elastic on the sides as to be compressible between the
fingers." Their food in a state of nature consists of fruit, eggs, and
nestling birds; to which, in domestication, are added small birds, mice,
caterpillars, and raw flesh. They incubate in the hollows of gigantic
trees.
Faber was told by Fryer, Alaysa, and other Spaniards who had lived
long in America, and also by the Indians, that the Toucan even hews
out holes in trees, in which to nidify; and Oviedo adds, that it is
from this habit of chipping the trees that the bird is called by the
Spaniards _Carpintero_, and by the Brazilians _Tacataca_, in imitation,
apparently, of the sound it thus makes.
The larger feed upon bananas and other succulent plants; the smaller
upon the smaller fruits and berries. Prince Maximilian de Wied states,
that in Brazil he found only the remains of fruits in their stomachs,
and adds, that they make sad havoc among plantations of fruit-trees. He
was informed, however, that they steal and eat birds, but never himself
saw them in the act. They abound in the vast forests, and are killed
in great number in the cooler season in the year for the purposes of
the table. In their manners the Toucans resemble the Crow tribe, and
especially the Magpies: like them, they are very troublesome to the
birds of prey, particularly to the Owls, which they surround, making a
great noise, all the while jerking their tails upwards and downwards.
Their feathers, especially from their yellow breasts, are used by the
Indians for personal decoration.
Azara states that they attack even the solid nests of the white ants,
when the clay of which their nests are formed becomes moistened with the
rain; they break them up with their beaks, so as to obtain the young
ants and their eggs; and during the breeding season the Toucan feeds
upon nothing else; during the rest of the year he subsists upon fruit,
insects, and the buds of trees.
Edwards, in his voyage up the Amazon, observes, that when a party of
Toucans alight on a tree, one usually acts the part of a sentinel,
uttering the loud cry of "Tucano," whence they derive their name; the
others disperse over the branches in search of fruit. While feeding
they keep up a hoarse chattering, and at intervals unite with the noisy
sentry, and scream a concert that may be heard a mile. Having appeased
their appetites, they seek the depths of a forest, and there quietly
doze away the noon. In early morning a few of them may be seen sitting
quietly upon the branches of some dead tree, apparently awaiting the
coming sunlight before starting for their feeding-trees.
Some species of Toucans have been seen quarrelling with monkeys over a
nest of eggs. Their carnivorous propensity has been strikingly shown
in the specimens which have been kept in England. On the approach of
any small bird the Toucan becomes highly excited, raises itself up,
erects its feathers, and utters a hollow clattering sound, the irides
of the eyes expand, and the Toucan is ready to dart on its prey. A
Toucan, exhibited in St. Martin's-lane in 1824, seized and devoured a
canary-bird. Next day Mr. Broderip tried him with a live goldfinch. The
Toucan seized it with the beak, and the poor little victim uttered a
short weak cry, for within a second it was dead, killed by the powerful
compression of the mandibles. The Toucan now placed the dead bird firmly
between its foot and the perch, stripped off the feathers with its bill,
and then broke the bones of the wings and legs, by strongly wrenching
them, the bird being still secured by the Toucan's foot. He then
continued to work with great dexterity till he had reduced the goldfinch
to a shapeless mass. This he devoured piece by piece with great gusto,
not even leaving the legs or the beak of his prey: to each morsel he
applied his tongue as he masticated it, chattering and shivering with
delight. He never used his foot, but his bill, for conveying his food to
his mouth by the sides of the bill.
Mr. Swainson remarks:--"The apparent disproportion of the bill is one of
the innumerable instances of that beautiful adaptation of structure to
use which the book of nature everywhere reveals. The food of these birds
consists principally of the eggs and young of others, to discover which
nature has given them the most exquisite powers of smell." Again, the
nests in which the Toucan finds its food are often very deep and dark,
and its bill, covered with branches of nerves, enables the bird to feel
its way as accurately as the finest and most delicate finger could. From
its feeding on eggs found in other birds' nests, it has been called the
Egg-sucker. Probably there is no bird which secures her young offspring
better from the monkeys, which are very noisome to the young of most
birds. For when she perceives the approach of these enemies she so
settles herself in her nest as to put her bill out at the hole, and give
the monkeys such a welcome therewith that they presently break away, and
are glad to escape.
Professor Owen, in his minute examination of the mandibles, remarks
that the principle of the cylinder is introduced into the elaborate
structure; the smallest of the supporting pillars of the mandibles are
seen to be hollow or tubular when examined with the microscope.
Light and almost diaphonous as is the bill of the Toucan, its strength
and the power of the muscles, which act upon the mandibles, are evident
in the wrenching and masticatory processes. When taking fruit, the
Toucan generally holds it for a short time at the extremity of his bill,
applying to it, with apparent delight, the pointed tip of the slender
tongue: the bird then throws it, with a sudden upward jerk, to the
throat, where it is caught and instantly swallowed.
Mr. Gould divides the Toucans into six genera. 1. The true Toucans, with
large and gaily-coloured bills, plumage black. 2. The Araçaris, with
smaller beaks, plumage green, yellow, and red. 3. The Banded Aracauris,
an Amazonian genus, proposed by Prince C. L. Bonaparte. 4. Toucanets,
small, with crescent of yellow on the back, and brilliant orange and
yellow ear-coverts. 5. Hill Toucans of the Andes. 6. Groove-bills,
grass-green plumage.
A very fine true Toucan, figured by Mr. Gould, is remarkable for the
splendour and size of the bill, of a fine orange-red, with a large black
patch on each side. Powder-flasks are made of large and finely-coloured
bills. The naked skin round the eye is bright orange. The chest is
white, with a tinge of sulphur below, and a slight scarlet margin.
Upper tail-coverts, white; under tail-coverts, scarlet; the rest of the
plumage, black. Several specimens of this beautiful bird lived both in
the menagerie of the late Earl of Derby, at Knowsley, and in the gardens
of the Zoological Society. It is a native of Cayenne, Paraguay, &c.
Toucans in their manners are gentle and confident, exhibiting no alarm
at strangers, and are as playful as magpies or jackdaws; travellers
assure us that they may be taught tricks and feats like parrots; and
although they cannot imitate the human voice, they show considerable
intelligence. One of the Toucanets is named from Mr. Gould, the plates
in whose _monograph_, from their size, beauty, and accuracy, have all
the air of portraits.
ECCENTRICITIES OF PENGUINS.
This group of amphibious birds, though powerless in the wing as an organ
of flight, are assisted by it as a species of fin in their rapid divings
and evolutions under water, and even as a kind of anterior of extremity
when progressing on the land. Their lot has been wisely cast on those
desolate southern islands and shores where man rarely intrudes, and
in many instances where a churlish climate or a barren soil offers no
temptations to him to invade their territory.