Uncle Brown had in his Museum, a great many Birds, as well as shells. I
don't mean living birds, but stuffed birds. In the old countries there
is a class of men, who, having been taught how to do it well, make it
their regular trade to procure birds, and after having taken off their
skins, with all the feathers on, to stuff them with some soft substance.
They are exactly as if alive, and of the same size.
There are some of these Taxidermists (as they are called) in this
country, though not, I believe, very many. Uncle Brown got most of his
birds from Europe, by means of uncle sea-captain, when he came home from
his voyages.
Uncle Brown going out one day, to Charley's father's, carried several of
these birds with him, which were so pretty, that Charley was greatly
delighted.
[Illustration: EMERALD BIRD OF PARADISE.]
The first he showed him was called "the Emerald Bird of Paradise," and
was about as large as a jay. Its home is New Guinea and some other
parts of the hot regions of Asia. Its body, breast, and lower parts are
of a deep, rich brown; the front is covered thickly with black feathers,
mixed with green; the throat is of a splendid golden-green; the head is
yellow; and the tail is made up of long, downy plumes of a soft yellow,
together with a pair filaments almost two feet long.
"The bird is so vain of its beautiful plumage, that it will not let a
speck of dirt stay on it; but is continually examining its feathers to
see that they are perfectly clean. When wild, it always flies and sits
facing the wind, lest its elegant plumes should get ruffled.
"It lives partly on insects, such as grasshoppers, which it will not
touch, unless it has killed them itself, but chiefly on the seeds of the
teak tree and a kind of fig.
"There were once a great many strange stories about this bird. As the
natives of Guinea used to cut off their legs, and dry them, and sell
them, of course they reached Europe without feet. So the people there
got up a report that the bird lived always in the air, floated by, its
light feathers; that it used its shoulders for its nest; that it rested
only by hanging from a branch by its tail-filaments; that its food was
morning dew; with other reports as droll as these. There are several
kinds of Birds of Paradise, but the one in the cut is the most common,
and is that of which these fables are told."
[Illustration: TOCO TOUCAN.]
The next bird Uncle Brown showed Charley, was a very curious looking
one, named the Toco Toucan, a native of the American tropics. It has, as
you see, a monstrous sized bill, though it is not nearly so heavy, as it
looks, being mostly of a honey comb make. This bill seems to have in
it a great many nerves and so to be very sensitive, as the bird
scratches it with its foot, and also appears to enjoy holding meat and
fruits, with its tip, both of which prove the bill to have feeling in
it. It feeds on all sorts of eatable things, but is especially fond of
mice and little birds, which it kills by a strong squeeze, and then
tears to pieces and devours.
The topmost branch of a tall tree, called the Mora, when dead, is the
favorite resort of the Toucan, where it cannot be reached by the
gunner. It seems to fancy itself more beautiful, when its tail is
trimmed, and it therefore uses its beak to do this, as the barber
employs his scissors to trim our hair. When asleep, the Toucan takes
great care of its bill, covering it nicely with the back plumage, so
that the whole bird looks like a great round ball of feathers. Its body
is about eighteen inches long.
Next uncle Brown showed Charley a bird, called the Parrakeet. It was a
very pretty one, with a green body, a red bill, and a rose-colored band
round its neck, from which it is sometimes named the Rose-ringed
Parrakeet.
[Illustration: RINGED PARRAKEET.]
This bird is often tamed, and, from its gentle disposition and pleasant
ways, is a great favorite. It seems very fond of ripe walnuts halved,
and while picking out the meat, makes a little clucking noise, showing
that it is pleased.
It is soon taught to repeat words and short sentences and to speak quite
plainly. Sometimes, when angry, it screams loudly, and seems to practise
any new accomplishment when it thinks that nobody can hear it.
Another Bird, added to our Boy's Museum, was called the Brush Turkey,
because it is found mostly in the thick brush-wood of New South Wales.
The gentleman, who first made it known to the public, tells also of a
very curious way, in which the bird makes its nest. It never uses its
bill, as other birds do, but tears up grass and dirt and sticks with its
foot and flings it backward into a heap, and thus clears the ground, for
some distance round, so thoroughly, that hardly a grass blade or leaf is
left.
[Illustration: A BULLA AMPULLA. (TWO VIEWS)]
Having finished the pile and waited till it has become heated enough
it lays its eggs, not side by side, as in common cases, but places them,
with the large end upwards, from nine to twelve inches apart, perfectly
upright and buried at nearly an arm's length. The eggs are covered up,
as they are laid, and left until the heat hatches them. Sometimes a
bushel of them are found in one heap, and are very fine eating. When
this Turkey is disturbed, it runs swiftly through the under-brush, or
springs upon the low branch of some tree, and leaps from limb to limb
till it reaches the top.
Another bird, called the Mound Making Megapode, from its big feet, is
somewhat like the Brush Turkey, laying many eggs; it digs holes five or
six feet deep and deposits the eggs at the bottom. The natives gets
these eggs by scratching up the earth with their fingers--a very hard
task, since the holes seldom run straight. Some of these mounds are
enormously large, one of them being found to measure fifteen feet in
height and sixty feet round the bottom. These birds live in the close
thickets on the sea-shore and are never found far inland.
[Illustration: MOUND MAKING MEGAPODE.]
Besides these birds Mr. Brown presented Charley with a glass case
containing a number of different kinds of Humming Birds stuffed so as to
look alive and some of them perched on artificial trees, and others
attached to concealed wires, so as to appear as if they were flying.
(_See frontispiece._) This case of Humming Birds was the chief ornament
of the Museum; greatly was Charley's delight at being its possessor.
Mr. Wilson, the great ornithologist, says, "I have seen the humming
bird, for half an hour at a time, darting at those little groups of
insects that dance in the air, on a fine summer evening, retiring to an
adjoining twig to rest, and renewing the attack with a dexterity that
set all other fly-catchers at defiance." Their feet are small and
slender, but having long claws, and, in consequence they seldom alight
upon the ground, but perch easily on branches, from which also they
generally suspend themselves when sleeping, with their heads downwards.
Their tail is broad. Their nests, about an inch in diameter, and as much
in breadth, are very compactly formed, the outer coat of grey lichen,
and lined with the fine down plucked from the stalks of the fern and
other herbs, and are fixed to the side of a branch or the moss-grown
side of a tree so artificially, that they appear, when viewed from
below, mere mossy knots, or accidental protuberances. They are bold and
pugnacious, two males seldom meeting on the same bush or flower without
a battle; and the intrepidity of the female, when defending her young,
is not less remarkable. They attack the eyes of the larger birds, when
their needle-like bill is truly a formidable weapon; and it is
affirmed, that if they perceive a man climbing the tree where their
nests are, they fly at his face, and strike him also in the eyes. Most
of the species lay only two eggs, and some of them only one. They have
been tamed--a female, with her nest and eggs, brought from Jamaica to
England, was fed with honey and water on the passage, and the young
ones, when hatched, readily took honey from the lips of the lady to whom
they were presented, and one, at least, survived two months after their
arrival.
[Illustration]