CUCKOOS, NIGHTJARS, HUMMING-BIRDS, WOODPECKERS, AND TOUCANS
In Europe the cuckoo is one of the most familiar and well-known birds,
and every one recognizes its note, and regards it as a sure sign that
summer is near. The bird usually reaches England about the second week
in April, and very soon after that time the cock bird may be heard
uttering his cry, which is one of the most familiar sounds of the
country, until two months later. Then the bird's voice breaks, and after
crying "cuck-cuck-cuck-oo" for a few days, instead of the simple
"cuckoo," he becomes quite dumb, and is quite unable to utter his note
again until the following spring.
This cuckoo is famous for its singular habit of placing its egg in the
nest of some other bird, instead of making a nest of its own. The hen
bird seems, first of all, to lay her egg on the ground; then, picking it
up in her beak, she flies off to look for a suitable nest in which to
put it. Having found one, she waits her opportunity, when the occupant
is absent, and then slips in the egg and flies away. The owner of the
nest, strange to say, hardly ever seems to notice when she comes back
that there is a strange egg among her own, although very often it is not
in the least like them in color and markings. So before very long a
young cuckoo is hatched out, together with her own little ones. Then on
the very day of its birth the cuckoo seems to make up its mind that
before long there will be no room in the nest for any one but itself,
and actually pushes all its little foster brothers and sisters over the
side, one after the other! And, strange to say, the mother bird does not
seem to mind, but just gives all the food which her own young would have
eaten to the cuckoo, and takes the greatest care of it in every way
until it is able to fly.
The cuckoo family is a large and varied one, with representatives in all
parts of the world, and few of them show this extraordinary disposition
to impose upon their neighbors, though all are careless home-makers. In
the United States we have two kinds of cuckoos, the black-billed and the
yellow-billed, which have much the same slim form and plain yet elegant
dress as their European cousin, but a different note, uttering a loud
rattling cry instead of the soft _cuck-oo_; and both of these make
nests, lay eggs in them, and rear their young as faithfully as other
birds. The nests, however, are merely loose platforms of twigs set among
the branches of some small tree, through which, often, the greenish-blue
eggs are distinctly visible.
NIGHTJARS
The nightjars are another world-wide family, with great similarity in
both appearance and habit among its members. All are nocturnal, have big
heads, large eyes, and very small beaks, although the mouth opens very
wide. They hunt their food by night, resting during the day in shady
forests or caves; and like owls they have plumage so plainly brown and
gray, and so soft, that their flight is noiseless and almost invisible.
The name--which refers to its jarring cry, which is more or less
characteristic of the whole family--was given first to the British
species, which is often called fern-owl in England. Late in the evening
you may often hear it uttering its curious note--"chur-r-r-r-r-r"--which
sometimes goes on without any break for three or four minutes.
This continuous calling is one of the most characteristic things about
our American nightjar, the whippoorwill, whose loud, musical cry is
heard in summer from almost every hillside in the land, during the
dusk of evening or morning or when the woods are whitened with
moonlight; and sometimes two or three birds will sing against one
another, as if in jealous rivalry, repeating the call several hundred
times without a pause. In the Western United States, and in tropical
America, are several kinds of whippoorwills; and in the Southern
States a bigger cousin which calls its name loudly through the
darkness--_chuck-will's-widow_. More nearly deserving the name
nightjar, however, is our night-hawk, or bullbat, which is often seen
flying swiftly about, high in the air, even before sunset, uttering
a hoarse scream, or a queer-booming note, as it rushes, open-mouth,
after unlucky insects.
All the birds of this group are insect catchers and eaters, and their
mouths, which have only a tiny pretence of a beak, open exceedingly
wide, so that they may scoop in a dozen little flies at once, or seize
and swallow a great moth. Then the tongue is exceedingly sticky, like
that of an ant-eater; besides this, the sides of the beak are fringed
with long, stiff bristles. So, when the bird catches an insect, its
victim nearly always sticks firmly to its tongue, while, if it should
break away from that, the bristles act just like a cage, and prevent it
from escaping.
The nightjars make no nest at all, but lay their eggs in a small hollow
in the ground, generally under the shelter of a fern, or a tuft of
bramble or heather. These eggs are never more than two in number, and
are grayish white in color, mottled and marbled with gray and buff.
SWIFTS
In these arrangements and habits the nightjars show how nearly they are
related to the very differently appearing chimney-swifts, which look so
much like swallows that we often call them chimney-swallows, but this is
wrong. Before this country was inhabited by white men, the swifts dwelt
in companies in hollow trees, but as fast as the settlers built houses
and chimneys the swifts left the trees and made their homes in the
chimneys, where they fasten to the bricks little shelf-shaped nests
composed of their glue-like saliva and bits of twigs. In the East Indies
a kind of swift makes such a nest wholly out of its saliva, which
hardens into a whitish material like isinglass. This is fastened against
the wall or roof of some cave by the sea, and the Malays and Chinese
gather these nests at the peril of their lives, where they are built in
hundreds in dark caverns, and sell them as delicacies to be made into
bird's-nest soup.
The swift feeds upon flies and small beetles, which it catches
in the air, and on any fine summer's day you may see it hawking for
prey. It well deserves its name, for it dashes through the air with most
wonderful speed, and is said to be able to fly at the rate of two
hundred miles an hour! And as it flies it keeps twisting and turning
after the fashion of a bat, and is evidently snapping up insect after
insect as it goes.
Yet, strange to say, the bird never seems to be tired. It is often on
the wing before three o'clock in the morning, and is still darting about
as actively as ever after sunset.
[Illustration: FOUR HANDSOME BIRDS.
1. American Pileated Woodpecker, or Logcock. 2. European Roller.
3. European Kingfisher. 4. European Jay.]
HUMMING-BIRDS
Although they are not very much like swifts, the humming-birds are
closely related to them, and have powers of flight which are really
almost as wonderful. Indeed, if you alarm one of these birds when it is
hovering over a flower, it will dart away with such astonishing speed
that it is almost impossible for the eye to follow its course. And even
while it is hovering the wings vibrate so rapidly that you cannot see
them, all that is visible being a faint blur on either side of the body.
These exquisite little birds are found in Central and South America, in
the West Indies, and in the warmer parts of the United States. Several
very beautiful species are known west of the Rocky Mountains, but only
one, the ruby-throat, visits the Eastern States. As a rule they are most
beautifully colored, their plumage shining with metallic gold, and
copper, and bronze, and purple, and crimson, and blue, and green.
Sometimes, too--for there are a great many different species--there is a
ruff round the neck, or long tufts upon the head; or perhaps two of the
tail-feathers may be produced until they are longer than the head and
body and the rest of the tail put together.
As a rule, the beaks of humming-birds are very long, in order that they
may be poked into flowers in search of any insects which may be lying
hidden within them. And the bird will hover over a bush, and move on
from one blossom to another, until every one has been thoroughly
explored.
The nests of humming-birds are nearly always very small and
cup-shaped, and are made of little bits of lichen and moss neatly
fastened together with the silken threads of certain spiders. Only two
eggs are laid, which are quite white, and so tiny that it seems
impossible that a bird could be hatched out of them. At least five
hundred kinds of these beautiful little birds have already been
discovered.
WOODPECKERS
North America has a large population of woodpeckers, including
the biggest and finest one in the world. This is the great
ivory-bill--twenty inches in length, and jet-black, with white
wing-tips, a grand scarlet topknot, and a beak like an ivory pickax. It
used to be abundant all over the Southern States, but now is nearly
extinct. Almost as fine, and still frequently seen all over the eastern
parts of the United States and Canada, is the similar but smaller
logcock, or pileated woodpecker, as it is named in the books, whose
shrill scream may be heard half a mile.
Most of our familiar woodpeckers, however, are much smaller, and their
plumage is a checker of black and white. Everywhere common in town, as
well as among the farmlands, are three or four species, of which the
most often seen, and the smallest, is the downy woodpecker, which gets
its name from the broad stripe of soft white feathers up and down the
middle of its back. It is not so large as a sparrow, and haunts the
woods, the farmer's orchards, the shade-trees along the rural roads or
beside the streets of our villages, and often makes itself a welcome
visitor to the city parks and gardens. From morning till night, and all
the year round, it scrambles up and down the trunks of the trees and
round and round their branches, cleverly finding and dragging out
insects or their young concealed under the scales of the bark; and
though it digs many pits none is deep enough to injure the tree, as the
only woodpecker which digs deep enough to do harm is the yellow-bellied
one, which appears only in the spring, going far north to breed, and
which country people call the sapsucker. The downy and its relatives, on
the other hand, are doing good every day. Especially welcome is this
active little visitor in winter, often with such small companions as the
chickadee and nuthatch, when birds, or any other sort of living
things are scarce, and we are longing for their return.
If you sit down for awhile at the foot of a tree, and keep very still
indeed, without moving even so much as a finger, it will very likely
come and sit on the trunk of another tree close by and begin to peck
away with its long, sharp beak in search of insects.
How it makes the chips fly! Its beak is just like a chisel, and when the
bird finds that a beetle or a grub has burrowed into the trunk, it does
not take very long to dig it out. And it also has an extremely odd
tongue, which is very long and slender, and very sticky, and has a
curious tip. By means of this tongue the bird can often drag an insect
out of its burrow without being obliged to dig right down to it.
Sometimes woodpeckers make a most amusing mistake. They hear the humming
of a telegraph wire, and think that it must be caused by insects living
in the posts. So they set to work with the utmost energy to dig them
out, and are so diligent and so persevering that they have often been
known to cut a big hole right through a telegraph post before finding
out that there were no insects there after all!
There is another thing that we wish you especially to notice about the
woodpecker, and that is the way in which it is enabled to sit on an
upright tree-trunk for a long time without getting tired. The fact is
that it really sits on its own tail, which serves as a kind of
camp-stool! If you look at a woodpecker's tail you will find that the
feathers are very short and very stiff, and that they are bent downward.
When the bird perches on the trunk of a tree the tips of these feathers
rest upon the bark and prop it up, so that there is very little strain
upon the muscles of the feet and legs.
Downy, after the manner of its kind, uses its chisel-beak to form a deep
and safe home in some old tree or stump, and often has enough confidence
in its friends of the village or farm to choose a tall fence-post; and
therein it deposits its pure white eggs and shelters its babies.
Moreover, Papa Downy often digs near by a more shallow tunnel for
himself, where he spends the night in safety and comfort as his mate is
doing in her own snug chamber.
The hairy woodpecker is very similar to the downy in dress, but one-half
larger, and by no means so numerous or familiar. There are several
northern and far-western kinds of checkered woodpecker such as the
three-toed, the arctic and others, but their habits are very similar,
and we may pass them by to speak of two species more notable in every
way.
THE REDHEAD AND THE FLICKER
The redhead is most strikingly colored, for its whole head and neck are
scarlet, its shoulders and back black, its wing-quills and rump white,
and the tail black. It is a fairly large bird and a bold one, though
like all woodpeckers it will slip around to the other side of the tree
when it hears your step, and then peep out with comical caution to see
whether you are dangerous. If you keep quiet it is likely soon to
scuttle back and go on hammering, making the chips fly and the forest
ring with its busy search after some buried grub. The Indians made a
good deal of use of the scarlet feathers of this bird; and it is always
a tempting mark for the wandering gunner, so that it is no wonder it is
becoming rare in thickly settled regions.
A much less handsome but more numerous woodpecker in all parts of the
country is the golden-winged, or flicker, or high-hole, for it goes by
many names among the boys who love to trace it to its nesting-hole in
some tall stub, and take, if they can, the pearly eggs that lie on a bed
of chips in the bottom of the cavity. This nesting-hole, with its
accurately round doorway and hall, goes straight into the tree-trunk for
two inches or so, and then turns downward sometimes to the depth of a
foot. This large woodpecker is not black and white, like most of the
others, but wears a dress of greenish brown with wing-quills that look
just as though they were gilded, and a small bonnet of red on the back
of its head where there is no crest. In fact, the flicker is a queer
sort of woodpecker generally, for it spends quite as much time in fields
and gardens as in the woods, and much of this on the ground in search of
insects--mostly ants.
Woodpeckers are noisy birds, both in their hammering and in
their rough cries, and this one is perhaps the noisiest of all; but its
call is so joyous that one cannot hear it without a sense of cheer.
TOUCANS
We now come to a group of really extraordinary birds. They are found in
the forests of Central and South America, and are chiefly remarkable for
their beaks, which in the first place are so enormous that they look as
if they had been intended for birds at least six times as big, and in
the second place are most gaudily colored. It is not very easy to
describe them, because there are a good many kinds of toucans, and each
has its bill differently colored. In one the beak is partly orange and
partly black, with a lilac base. In another it is light green, with the
tip and edges of the most brilliant scarlet. In a third it is half
scarlet and half bright yellow; while in a fourth it is creamy white
with a broad streak of crimson running along the middle; and in a fifth
is a most singular mixture of orange and blue and chocolate brown and
white.
Owing to the great size of their bills these birds are most ungainly in
appearance, and one cannot help wondering how they manage to hold up
their heads. But in reality these huge beaks are not at all heavy, for
instead of being made of solid horn, the whole of the interior is broken
up into cells, the divisions between which are no thicker than paper--a
structure which gives them not only great lightness but great strength.
Toucans live chiefly in the trees, and spend most of their time in the
topmost branches, where they are fond of gathering together in large
flocks. They are very noisy birds, for they not only utter hoarse cries
and loud yells in chorus, but have a way of clattering their beaks
together as well. Owing to this habit the natives of South America
sometimes call them "preacher-birds."
When they go to sleep toucans double their tails over upon their backs,
just as though they had hinges at the base, and bury their great beaks
among the feathers of their shoulders. The consequence is that they do
not look like toucans at all, or even like birds, and seem to be
mere bundles of loose feathers.
HORNBILLS
These are more extraordinary still, some of them having beaks so
enormous that they look as if they had been meant for birds twelve times
instead of only six times as big as themselves. And the strangest thing
of all is that upon the upper part is a great horny helmet, which in
some cases is quite as large as the beak itself. In the
rhinoceros-hornbill, indeed, the beak and helmet together are pretty
nearly as big as the body.
Both beak and helmet, however, except in one species, are made just like
the bills of the toucans, so that in spite of their enormous size they
are not at all heavy. But _why_ they should be so big is more than
we can tell you.
Hornbills are found in many parts of both Africa and Asia, and most of
them live in the trees. They nearly always hop from one branch to
another until they reach the very topmost boughs, where they will sit
for hours together, occasionally uttering a series of loud, roaring
cries, which can be heard for a very long distance. And when they fly
they keep opening and closing their beaks, and so making an odd
clattering noise which generally puzzles travelers very much when they
hear it for the first time.
There are two kinds of hornbills which live on the ground. One of these
is found in South Africa, and the Kafirs have a curious idea about it,
due to the fact that after death its body smells very nasty. They think
that if one of these birds is killed and thrown into a river it will
make the stream feel ill, and that a heavy fall of rain will take place
in order that the carcass may be washed into the sea! So in times of
drought they always try to kill a ground-hornbill and fling it into the
nearest river.
When one of these birds discovers a snake, its cries bring others to the
place, and then, it is said, three or four attack the snake and kill it.
Their plan is to advance upon it sideways with their wings spread out,
and to irritate it with the tips of the feathers until it
strikes. Then they all peck it together before it can recover itself,
and nearly always succeed in killing it in a very short time.
THE HOOPOE
This is another odd-looking bird; but instead of having a horny helmet
like the hornbills, it has a crest of very long feathers. These
feathers, which can be raised or lowered at will, are tawny brown in
color, with black tips, just before which is a streak of white. The body
is grayish brown above and nearly white below, and the wings and tail
are black, barred with white.
The real home of the bird is in the sandy deserts of Northern Africa and
Southern Asia. There its plumage harmonizes so well with the color of
the soil that it is very difficult to see it, and it is said that when a
hawk appears the hoopoe only has to flatten its body against the sand
and remain perfectly still, when it is quite sure to be overlooked by
its enemy.
The hoopoe utters its cry in a very curious manner. First it puffs out
the sides of its neck, and then it hammers its beak three times upon the
ground. Each time that it does so some of the air in its throat escapes,
and the result is a noise like the syllable "hoo" three times repeated.
AN ARAB LEGEND
The Arabs have an odd legend about the hoopoe. One day, so the quaint
old story runs, King Solomon was traveling through the desert, and was
much oppressed by the heat of the sun, till a large flock of hoopoes
came and flew just above his head, so as to protect him from its rays.
At the close of the day the grateful monarch wished to know how he could
reward them for their kindness, and the foolish birds asked that crowns
of gold might grow upon their heads. Their request was granted, and for
a few days they admired themselves immensely, and spent most of their
time in gazing at their reflections in pools of water. Very soon,
however, great numbers of them were snared by the fowlers for the sake
of their valuable ornaments, and it seemed as though in a short
time not one would be left alive. So at last the survivors went back to
King Solomon, and begged that their golden crowns might be taken away.
Once more the king listened to their petition, and gave them crowns of
feathers instead, and that is how hoopoes come to have crests upon their
heads.
KINGFISHERS
One of the most beautiful birds of our country is the kingfisher, which
is deep blue with white markings, and a chestnut band across the breast.
Upon its head is borne a high crest, like a crown. As you walk along the
banks of a stream, you may often see them darting through the air, and
looking almost like streaks of colored light. And if you sit down and
keep perfectly still for a little while you may, perhaps, see one of
them fishing. It perches on a branch overhanging the water, and waits
patiently till a fish passes underneath. Then suddenly it drops into the
water like a stone, splashes about for a moment or two, and then returns
to its perch with its victim struggling in its beak.
The kingfisher digs a deep hole into the face of some earthen bank or
cliff, and at the inner end hollows out a little cave where it lays
several pure white eggs, with almost nothing but a few fishbones for a
nest.
A good many different kinds of kingfishers are found in various parts of
the world, one of them, which lives in Australia, being known as the
laughing jackass, on account of its singular cry. Everywhere there are
birds of brilliant plumage, and in some places they have been almost
wholly destroyed for the wicked purpose of getting feathers to use as
ornaments on ladies' hats.