THE SORROWS OF THE BIRDS.—CURIOUS AFRICAN BIRDS.—THE BARBATULA DU
CHAILLUI.—THE BARBATULA FULIGINOSA.—THE SYCOBIUS NIGERRIMUS.
Now I must speak to you of little birds!
I do love birds. They are Nature’s beautiful creatures.
They are one of God’s loveliest creations.
They cheer us in our lonely hours, when from their bowers their songs
come upon our ears and gladden our hearts. Their melodies have often
told me how happy they were, and how much one bird loved the other. They
are the poets of nature.
Oh, little birds, I have often wondered how many sorrows you have! Pain
I know you have. The shrill cries and plaintive notes I have often heard
from you have told me that your little breasts felt the pangs of
anguish. The hurried flights which I have often watched have said how
anxious you were.
In our Northern climes, when the leaves have withered, when the cold
winds blow, when the snow covers the earth, I know that you suffer from
hunger, and I feel so sorry for you. When you come by the window you
seem to say—“Do feed me, for I am so hungry and so cold!”
I have crossed the seas, and hundreds of miles away from land I have
seen you, in your forlorn flight, looking in vain for the way that might
lead to a land where your poor little bodies and tired wings and tiny
little feet could find rest. The storm and the winds had carried you
away from the land where you were accustomed to rejoice and sing, and
taken you above that ocean on which you looked with such dread, and
which is always ready to engulf you. You were so tired that you had not
even the strength to utter your cries. How then I pitied you, for I
thought of the days and sleepless nights you had spent over the vast
sea! how weary those little wings of yours were! how painful must have
been each effort you made to support you in the air. How sad must have
been your thoughts, for you could see nothing to guide you to that place
you longed to reach!
I have seen you when the good ship was close at hand. How welcome its
sight seemed to be to you, who had suffered so much from thirst, hunger,
and starvation, fatigue and exhaustion! and, as I watched your coming, I
could detect joy and fear; for how strange the vessel appeared to you,
how strange its ropes, how strange its sails.
[Sidenote: _DEATH OF THE BIRDS._]
When I have thought its masts and ropes would afford you rest, and seen
you ready to reach them, you have dropped on the waves to rise no more.
How you struggled before you came to this! You almost touched the water,
when another effort would send you flying high above the sea; then again
your flight became weaker; gradually you came down and made another
frantic effort to escape by flight. At last you seemed not to know any
longer what you were doing, and despite all your valiant struggles for
life your doom came, and you dropped into the waves; and as the vessel
sailed away I left you to your sad fate. At other times you fell on
deck, for you were not strong enough to perch. Then how your bright
little eyes became dim, for the touch of death was soon to close them,
despite the care and the little water I would give you. How sweetly you
looked as you laid still in the embrace of death! The storms of your
life were over, your sorrows were ended, and your merry songs were to be
heard no more in the groves you used to love. I know of nothing sweeter
to look at than a dead little bird! and yet there is nothing which more
pathetically touches my heart.
When the eagle, the hawk, and the falcon soar high in the sky, I know
that they are your enemies. When the snake glides from branch to branch
in search of your nest, to destroy your offspring, I know that pain will
reach your heart. When you and your mate are flying above the earth,
perchance a heartless sportsman appears, and with his gun brings one of
you down. How I have seen you follow the unfortunate one in its downward
flight! How painful to hear were your cries; how you tried to arrest the
fall of the poor wounded one, and how touching was the scene as you
soared and soared above the body of the little victim who had fallen on
the ground. So plaintive were your cries that they ought to have
disarmed the ruthless hand that separated you, so that he would say to
himself—“I will nevermore kill a harmless little bird, for God has given
them to us to cheer, to enliven the nature that surrounds us.” When
night comes, and your mate does not return, how anxious and sad you seem
to feel! Perhaps a cruel cat, or some wild animal has destroyed his
life. How often I have heard you call for the missing one, and could
detect despair in the tone of your voice!
When the young fall from the nest I have watched your anxiety, and when
danger threatened them I have seen you brace up your courage; and how
angry then you did look, with your little feathers all standing out as
if you were ready for a fight! When the storms had tumbled down the
little nest you had built with so much trouble, how distressed you
seemed to be, and how industrious you were to build another one! So,
little birdies, I found that, like man, you have your joys, your cares,
your troubles, and your sorrows. The stormy billows of life are also for
you. I love you the more for this. I wish I were a poet, so that my lyre
could sing songs to you, and I might tell you a softer tale than that
which the nightingale tells to us.
Dear little birds, I thank you for all the joys you have given me during
my wanderings. Your songs and melodies have often cheered me when
wearied and lonely. Your plumage I have admired, and often have I
exclaimed—“Little birds, how beautiful you are!” I thank you for the
many days I have passed pleasantly while watching you; for I love dearly
to look at you, to study your habits, to see how nice and loving you
are. Many times I have said to myself, when admiring you—“Little birdie,
do come to me, so that I may kiss thee and feel thy little beak upon my
lips.” O God, how kind to man thou art! for he is able to understand thy
works. The wonders of thy creation he can admire, so that he may praise
thee for thy goodness.
[Sidenote: _AFRICAN BIRDS._]
And now I will speak to you of some little birds of which we knew
nothing, of little birds that had no name, and wandered unknown to
civilized man, till he who has written this book saw them and brought
them here.
In a forest of Equatorial Africa, on the banks of the Ovenga River not
far from Obindji Village, there was a plantation where birds came every
day. There were many curious kind of birds there, and many I had never
seen before. The time to see them was early in the morning, before the
sun became so hot that they had to retire in the forest, or in the
afternoon after the sun was hidden by the hills. But the morning was the
best time. The natives had no name for many of these birds. Among the
most curious ones were the fly-catchers, the stranger bee-eaters, the
queer crimpers, and some very strange woodpeckers; while flying over
them all were some nice little black swallows that were very pretty
indeed. I remember how much I loved in the morning to go over that
plantation and watch them all, so that I might learn their habits and
tell you something about them.
Among the strangest of them all there was one that especially attracted
my attention. As I approached the plantation I could hear, just on the
edge of the forest, a noise that sounded very much as if some far-away
people were hammering at something, or I should rather say, as if people
were hammering at a tree. I carefully approached the place. I am sure
you could not have heard my steps on the ground, so carefully I
approached. I was dressed in a dark-blue suit of cotton goods, so that
the birds might not notice me. At last I recognized the noise as coming
from old friends of mine. They were birds that were hammering at two or
three dead trees in such earnest that none of them observed me.
It was a very pretty sight! The country being nothing else than a
gigantic forest, of course, wherever a village or plantation is made,
the trees have to be cut down, and nearly all are cut from a height of
ten or fifteen feet. These in the course of time become dry, and after
being dead a sufficient time the wood softens, and becomes the object of
the attack of the beautiful little bird I am writing about. It is really
a beautiful bird, and was unknown before I brought it here. It has been
named the _Barbatula du Chaillui_. The throat and breast are of a glossy
blue-black color; the head is scarlet; a line of canary yellow from
above the eyes surrounds the neck, and the back, which is black, is
covered with canary yellow spots. Above the bill it has what might be
termed two little brushes.
The trunks of the trees on which they were so busily engaged were within
a few yards of the forest. These birds were hard at work with their
bills, pecking out circular openings about two inches in diameter. It
was a tedious operation, and now and then a little bird had to rest, or
its mate would come and take its place. Their little feet are
constructed like those of the woodpeckers, to whom they are somewhat
related, but their bill is much thicker, stronger, and shorter, hence
better adapted to make holes in the trunks of trees.
[Sidenote: _HOW THEY BUILD THEIR NESTS._]
It was very interesting to see them holding to the trees, sometimes with
their heads upward and sometimes with their heads downward. Some had
just begun to work at the aperture, others had already made a pretty
deep hole, and the end of their tail only could be seen, while still
others were working inside, and their bodies could not be seen at all,
though now and then they came forth, bringing the wood they had pecked
out.
[Illustration: THE BARBATULA WORKING.]
What difficult and patient toil! The making of one of these nests
requires many days. It is no easy work for birds a little bigger than a
sparrow to peck out a circular opening of two inches in diameter, and
more than two inches deep. This done, they dig perpendicularly down for
about four inches. The cavity thus made is their nest. As they are small
birds, it takes them a long time to finish this piece of
carpentering—often two or three weeks. There the female lays her eggs
and hatches them in security, no snake or wild animal being able to
disturb them.
Not only do they use these nests while they are hatching, but also
during the rainy season. How cosy they must feel in these places of
refuge when a storm is raging! Nothing could be safer, or better shelter
them from the rain. The aperture being about two inches in thickness
before you come to the perpendicular hollow, of course the rain can not
reach the inside.
I have seen trees entirely perforated by them; that is to say, having
more than a dozen of these holes in them; and thus forming what we may
call a little village of themselves. I wonder if they had a king! These
birds are very shy, and the least noise will frighten them. How
affectionate the pair seemed to be, how willing they were to help each
other in their work!
There is also another species of _Barbatula_ which I have discovered, of
a gray color, called now _Barbatula fuliginosa_, of the same habits, but
found in greater numbers. I have seen colonies of them, composed of
thirty or forty nests, on the same tree.
The picture given by the artist represents the birds working and making
their nests.
[Sidenote: _THE SYCOBIUS NIGERRIMUS._]
Now I must speak to you of another bird, a very curious one, the
_Sycobius nigerrimus_, which is found in almost if not all the regions I
have explored in Equatorial Africa. The habits of this bird are most
extraordinary. They are extremely sociable birds; the woods or the
uninhabited plantations have no charm for them; they must be where
people live, and hence they prefer always to live in the neighborhood of
a village. If there are trees in the middle of the village they will
live there, or on the trees back of the huts, and not far from where the
palm or plantain-trees abound; but man must be in sight, for they seem
to love his society.
[Illustration: AFRICAN HANGING BIRDS’ NESTS.]
In some villages they are found in immense numbers, often there are
several hundreds of nests on the same tree, but it depends on the size
of the tree. I have seen several thousands of nests on a single tree, of
which they take entire possession for years. The _Sycobii_ are a little
larger than sparrows, and the habits of these little twitterers are so
remarkable that I never wearied of watching their curious ways, and very
skillful and intelligent manœuvres in nest-building or in gathering
food. A native village would lose a great charm without them. In many
villages of the interior, where people do not move about, trees are
planted specially for them, and it is considered an ill omen if they do
not come. They make such a noise from morning till night that sometimes
it is almost impossible to hear when close to them; the harder at work
they are the more noise they make.
There are two species, but both live in the same trees and associate
indiscriminately with each other, though not, of course, in the same
nests. The male of one species is entirely black, and the female a dark
gray, while in the other the male is yellow, with black and yellow
throat. The eggs of the first mentioned are bluish, with black spots,
while those of the other species are light pink, with dark spots. Both
kinds of eggs are very beautiful.
They are singularly industrious birds: they seem never to weary of work.
When they have settled upon a tree on which to plant a colony, they
labor from daylight till dark, day after day, with seemingly the utmost
joy, fun, and perseverance at their very singular pendent nests.
The nest is round in shape, or nearly so, with a narrow passage for
entrance and exit leading down one side and opening beneath. It is
securely fastened to an outstretched twig, and I have sometimes counted
in one tree more than two thousand of such pendent little balls, each
inhabited by a family, male and female, of these birds; and once I am
sure I saw four or five thousand of these nests. This I saw in the
Ishogo country, of which I may speak to you one of these days. The birds
when building strip the leaf off the palm, or plantain, or banana tree.
They split the leaf into very narrow strips, not more than two or three
lines wide, but through the whole length of the leaf in the palm, and
the whole breadth of the leaf in the plantain, beginning from the rib.
Male and female both work at gathering this material, and every piece is
brought up to the tree. How strangely they look as they fly with them
from the place where they took them to that where their colony is
situated! It seems as if they were carrying away a long, narrow ribbon.
The pendent twig having been chosen, the birds begin to turn their
leaf-strips over the twig, and to interlace them below in such a way as
to enable the finished nest to shed rain. The birds work with the
greatest assiduity with both beak and feet, sometimes with the head up,
sometimes with the head down. Often I would see one little fellow one
minute holding by his feet and working the strips in with his bill, the
next suspended by his bill and pushing all together with his feet, then
adroitly slipping inside, and by pushing and working with his body
giving the nest a round shape. The entrance is the last made, and they
are knowing enough to build its mouth down, so that the inside may be
sheltered from the rains, which I can assure you pour down in good
earnest in these equatorial regions. A few leaves are put inside where
the eggs are to be laid.
[Sidenote: _TIME OF NEST-BUILDING._]
Sometimes trees on which these industrious little fellows build are
quite killed by the weight of so many nests, and by the space they
occupy preventing the regular growth of the branches. The nests are not
only used to breed in, but also to live in, and each pair breeds several
times a year, raising two young ones in a brood. Of course, with such a
rapid increase, they are always needing new nests, so that the building
process is going on almost all the time.
The nests looked all alike to my eyes, yet each bird was always able to
find its own. But sometimes I noticed a strong fellow trying with might
and main to oust one of his weaker brethren from his home, or to drive
him from the work he had begun; then there was a downright fight for
possession.
They have a foreknowledge of the rainy season evidently, for just before
this sets in they are particularly active in building and repairing, and
at such a time the village where they have settled is alive with their
merry twittering and active bustle.
Of course, during the dry or cold season very little building is going
on.
I shall always have a pleasant recollection of these _Sycobii_, and no
one was ever allowed to disturb them at Washington, where I had three or
four little trees full of their nests. The natives like to see them
round them, and no village is thought to be perfect without them.
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]