makeshift. The haste of the female to deposit her eggs as the season
advances seems very great, and the structure is apt to be
prematurely finished. I was recently reminded of this fact by
happening, about the last of July, to meet with several nests of the
wood or bush sparrow in a remote blackberry field. The nests with
eggs were far less elaborate and compact than the earlier nests,
from which the young had flown.
Day after day, as I go to a certain piece of woods, I observe a male
indigo-bird sitting on precisely the same part of a high branch, and
singing in his most vivacious style. As I approach he ceases to
sing, and, flirting his tail right and left with marked emphasis,
chirps sharply. In a low bush near by, I come upon the object of his
solicitude,--a thick, compact nest composed largely of dry leaves
and fine grass, in which a plain brown bird is sitting upon four
pale blue eggs.
The wonder is that a bird will leave the apparent security of the
treetops to place its nest in the way of the many dangers that walk
and crawl upon the ground. There, far up out of reach, sings the
bird; here, not three feet from the ground, are its eggs or helpless
young. The truth is, birds are the greatest enemies of birds, and it
is with reference to this fact that many of the smaller species
build.
Perhaps the greatest proportion of birds breed along highways. I
have known the ruffed grouse to come out of a dense wood and make
its nest at the root of a tree within ten paces of the road, where,
no doubt, hawks and crows, as well as skunks and foxes, would be
less likely to find it out. Traversing remote mountain-roads through
dense woods, I have repeatedly seen the veery, or Wilson's thrush,
sitting upon her nest, so near me that I could almost take her from
it by stretching out my hand. Birds of prey show none of this
confidence in man, and, when locating their nests, avoid rather than
seek his haunts.
In a certain locality in the interior of New York, I know, every
season, where I am sure to find a nest or two of the slate-colored
snowbird. It is under the brink of a low mossy bank, so near the
highway that it could be reached from a passing vehicle with a whip.
Every horse or wagon or foot passenger disturbs the sitting bird.
She awaits the near approach of the sound of feet or wheels, and
then darts quickly across the road, barely clearing the ground, and
disappears amid the bushes on the opposite side.
In the trees that line one of the main streets and fashionable
drives leading out of Washington city and less than half a mile from
the boundary, I have counted the nests of five different species at
one time, and that without any very close scrutiny of the foliage,
while, in many acres of woodland half a mile off, I searched in vain
for a single nest. Among the five, the nest that interested me most
was that of the blue grosbeak. Here this bird, which, according to
Audubon's observations in Louisiana, is shy and recluse, affecting
remote marshes and the borders of large ponds of stagnant water, had
placed its nest in the lowest twig of the lowest branch of a large
sycamore, immediately over a great thoroughfare, and so near the
ground that a person standing in a cart or sitting on a horse could
have reached it with his hand. The nest was composed mainly of
fragments of newspaper and stalks of grass, and, though so low, was
remarkably well concealed by one of the peculiar clusters of twigs
and leaves which characterize this tree. The nest contained young
when I discovered it, and, though the parent birds were much annoyed
by my loitering about beneath the tree, they paid little attention
to the stream of vehicles that was constantly passing. It was a
wonder to me when the birds could have built it, for they are much
shyer when building than at other times. No doubt they worked mostly
in the morning, having the early hours all to themselves.
Another pair of blue grosbeaks built in a grave-yard within the city
limits. The nest was placed in a low bush, and the male continued to
sing at intervals till the young were ready to fly. The song of this
bird is a rapid, intricate warble, like that of the indigo-bird,
though stronger and louder. Indeed, these two birds so much resemble
each other in color, form, manner, voice, and general habits that,
were it not for the difference in size,--the grosbeak being nearly
as large again as the indigo-bird,--it would be a hard matter to
tell them apart. The females of both species are clad in the same
reddish-brown suits. So are the young the first season.
Of course in the deep, primitive woods, also, are nests; but how
rarely we find them! The simple art of the bird consists in choosing
common, neutral-tinted material, as moss, dry leaves, twigs, and
various odds and ends, and placing the structure on a convenient
branch, where it blends in color with its surroundings; but how
consummate is this art, and how skillfully is the nest concealed! We
occasionally light upon it, but who, unaided by the movements of
the bird, could find it out? During the present season I went to the
woods nearly every day for a fortnight without making any
discoveries of this kind, till one day, paying them a farewell
visit, I chanced to come upon several nests. A black and white
creeping warbler suddenly became much alarmed as I approached a
crumbling old stump in a dense part of the forest. He alighted upon
it, chirped sharply, ran up and down its sides, and finally left it
with much reluctance. The nest, which contained three young birds
nearly fledged, was placed upon the ground, at the foot of the
stump, and in such a position that the color of the young harmonized
perfectly with the bits of bark, sticks, etc., lying about. My eye
rested upon them for the second time before I made them out. They
hugged the nest very closely, but as I put down my hand they all
scampered off with loud cries for help, which caused the parent
birds to place themselves almost within my reach. The nest was
merely a little dry grass arranged in a thick bed of dry leaves.
This was amid a thick undergrowth. Moving on into a passage of large
stately hemlocks, with only here and there a small beech or maple
rising up into the perennial twilight, I paused to make out a note
which was entirely new to me. It is still in my ear. Though
unmistakably a bird note, it yet suggested the bleating of a tiny
lambkin. Presently the birds appeared,--a pair of the solitary
vireo. They came flitting from point to point, alighting only for a
moment at a time, the male silent, but the female uttering this
strange, tender note. It was a rendering into some new sylvan
dialect of the human sentiment of maidenly love. It was really
pathetic in its sweetness and childlike confidence and joy. I soon
discovered that the pair were building a nest upon a low branch a
few yards from me. The male flew cautiously to the spot and adjusted
something, and the twain moved on, the female calling to her mate at
intervals, _love-e, love-e_, with a cadence and tenderness in the
tone that rang in the ear long afterward. The nest was suspended to
the fork of a small branch, as is usual with the vireos, plentifully
lined with lichens, and bound and rebound with masses of coarse
spider-webs. There was no attempt at concealment except in the
neutral tints, which made it look like a natural growth of the dim,
gray woods.
Continuing my random walk, I next paused in a low part of the woods,
where the larger trees began to give place to a thick second-growth
that covered an old Barkpeeling. I was standing by a large maple,
when a small bird darted quickly away from it, as if it might have
come out of a hole near its base. As the bird paused a few yards
from me, and began to chirp uneasily, my curiosity was at once
excited. When I saw it was the female mourning ground warbler, and
remembered that the nest of this bird had not yet been seen by any
naturalist,--that not even Dr. Brewer had ever seen the eggs,--I
felt that here was something worth looking for. So I carefully began
the search, exploring inch by inch the ground, the base and roots of
the tree, and the various shrubby growths about it, till, finding
nothing and fearing I might really put my foot in it, I bethought me
to withdraw to a distance and after some delay return again, and,
thus forewarned, note the exact point from which the bird flew. This
I did, and, returning, had little difficulty in discovering the
nest. It was placed but a few feet from the maple-tree, in a bunch
of ferns, and about six inches from the ground. It was quite a
massive nest, composed entirely of the stalks and leaves of dry
grass, with an inner lining of fine, dark brown roots. The eggs,
three in number, were of light flesh-color, uniformly specked with
fine brown specks. The cavity of the nest was so deep that the back
of the sitting bird sank below the edge.
In the top of a tall tree, a short distance farther on, I saw the
nest of the red-tailed hawk,--a large mass of twigs and dry sticks.
The young had flown, but still lingered in the vicinity, and, as I
approached, the mother bird flew about over me, squealing in a very
angry, savage manner. Tufts of the hair and other indigestible
material of the common meadow mouse lay around on the ground
beneath the nest.
As I was about leaving the woods, my hat almost brushed the nest of
the red-eyed vireo, which hung basket-like on the end of a low,
drooping branch of the beech. I should never have seen it had the
bird kept her place. It contained three eggs of the bird's own, and
one of the cow bunting. The strange egg was only just perceptibly
larger than the others, yet three days after, when I looked into the
nest again and found all but one egg hatched, the young interloper
was at least four times as large as either of the others, and with
such a superabundance of bowels as to almost smother his bedfellows
beneath them. That the intruder should fare the same as the rightful
occupants, and thrive with them, was more than ordinary potluck; but
that it alone should thrive, devouring, as it were, all the rest, is
one of those freaks of Nature in which she would seem to discourage
the homely virtues of prudence and honesty. Weeds and parasites have
the odds greatly against them, yet they wage a very successful war
nevertheless.
The woods hold not such another gem as the nest of the hummingbird.
The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best
thing to finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by
chance. One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree,
with a solitary green leaf, forming a complete canopy, about an
inch and a half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of the bird
past my ears, as I stood under the tree, caused me to suspect that I
was intruding upon some one's privacy; and, following it with my
eye, I soon saw the nest, which was in process of construction.
Adopting my usual tactics of secreting myself near by, I had the
satisfaction of seeing the tiny artist at work. It was the female,
unassisted by her mate. At intervals of two or three minutes she
would appear with a small tuft of some cottony substance in her
beak, dart a few times through and around the tree, and alighting
quickly in the nest, arrange the material she had brought, using her
breast as a model.
The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on the side of a
mountain. The sitting bird was disturbed as I passed beneath her.
The whirring of her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short
pause, I had the good luck to see, through an opening in the leaves,
the bird return to her nest, which appeared like a mere wart or
excrescence on a small branch. The hummingbird, unlike all others,
does not alight upon the nest, but flies into it. She enters it as
quick as a flash, but as light as any feather. Two eggs are the
complement. They are perfectly white, and so frail that only a
woman's fingers may touch them. Incubation lasts about ten days. In
a week the young have flown.
The only nest like the hummingbird's, and comparable to it in
neatness and symmetry, is that of the blue-gray gnatcatcher. This is
often saddled upon the limb in the same manner, though it is
generally more or less pendent; it is deep and soft, composed mostly
of some vegetable down covered all over with delicate tree-lichens,
and, except that it is much larger, appears almost identical with
the nest of the hummingbird.
But the nest of nests, the ideal nest, after we have left the deep
woods, is unquestionably that of the Baltimore oriole. It is the
only perfectly pensile nest we have. The nest of the orchard oriole
is indeed mainly so, but this bird generally builds lower and
shallower, more after the manner of the vireos.
The Baltimore oriole loves to attach its nest to the swaying
branches of the tallest elms, making no attempt at concealment, but
satisfied if the position be high and the branch pendent. This nest
would seem to cost more time and skill than any other bird
structure. A peculiar flax-like substance seems to be always sought
after and always found. The nest when completed assumes the form of
a large, suspended gourd. The walls are thin but firm, and proof
against the most driving rain. The mouth is hemmed or overhanded
with horse-hair, and the sides are usually sewed through and through
with the same.
Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the bird is not
particular as to material, so that it be of the nature of strings or
threads. A lady friend once told me that, while working by an open
window, one of these birds approached during her momentary absence,
and, seizing a skein of some kind of thread or yarn, made off with
it to its half-finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast in
the branches, and, in the bird's effort to extricate it, got
hopelessly tangled. She tugged away at it all day, but was finally
obliged to content herself with a few detached portions. The
fluttering strings were an eyesore to her ever after, and, passing
and repassing, she would give them a spiteful jerk, as much as to
say, "There is that confounded yarn that gave me so much trouble."
From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom I am indebted for other
curious facts) sent me this interesting story of an oriole. He says
a friend of his curious in such things, on observing the bird
beginning to build, hung out near the prospective nest skeins of
many-colored zephyr yarn, which the eager artist readily
appropriated. He managed it so that the bird used nearly equal
quantities of various high, bright colors. The nest was made
unusually deep and capacious, and it may be questioned if such a
thing of beauty was ever before woven by the cunning of a bird.
Nuttall, by far the most genial of American ornithologists, relates
the following:--
"A female (oriole), which I observed attentively, carried off to
her nest a piece of lamp-wick ten or twelve feet long. This long
string and many other shorter ones were left hanging out for about a
week before both the ends were wattled into the sides of the nest.
Some other little birds, making use of similar materials, at times
twitched these flowing ends, and generally brought out the busy
Baltimore from her occupation in great anger.
"I may perhaps claim indulgence for adding a little more of the
biography of this particular bird, as a representative also of the
instincts of her race. She completed the nest in about a week's
time, without any aid from her mate, who indeed appeared but seldom
in her company and was now become nearly silent. For fibrous
materials she broke, hackled, and gathered the flax of the asclepias
and hibiscus stalks, tearing off long strings and flying with them
to the scene of her labors. She appeared very eager and hasty in her
pursuits, and collected her materials without fear or restraint
while three men were working in the neighboring walks and many
persons visiting the garden. Her courage and perseverance were
indeed truly admirable. If watched too narrowly, she saluted with
her usual scolding, _tshrr, tshrr, tshrr_, seeing no reason,
probably, why she should be interrupted in her indispensable
occupation.
"Though the males were now comparatively silent on the arrival of
their busy mates, I could not help observing this female and a
second, continually vociferating, apparently in strife. At last she
was observed to attack this _second_ female very fiercely, who slyly
intruded herself at times into the same tree where she was building.
These contests were angry and often repeated. To account for this
animosity, I now recollected that _two_ fine males had been killed
in our vicinity, and I therefore concluded the intruder to be left
without a mate; yet she had gained the affections of the consort of
the busy female, and thus the cause of their jealous quarrel became
apparent. Having obtained the confidence of her faithless paramour,
the _second_ female began preparing to weave a nest in an adjoining
elm by tying together certain pendent twigs as a foundation. The
male now associated chiefly with the intruder, whom he even assisted
in her labor, yet did not wholly forget his first partner, who
called on him one evening in a low, affectionate tone, which was
answered in the same strain. While they were thus engaged in
friendly whispers, suddenly appeared the rival, and a violent
_rencontre_ ensued, so that one of the females appeared to be
greatly agitated, and fluttered with spreading wings as if
considerably hurt. The male, though prudently neutral in the
contest, showed his culpable partiality by flying off with his
paramour, and for the rest of the evening left the tree to his
pugnacious consort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and
tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, these disputes
with the jealous females; and by the aid of the neighboring
bachelors, who are never wanting among these and other birds, peace
was at length completely restored by the restitution of the quiet
and happy condition of monogamy."
Let me not forget to mention the nest under the mountain ledge, the
nest of the common pewee,--a modest mossy structure, with four
pearl-white eggs,--looking out upon some wild scene and over-hung by
beetling crags. After all has been said about the elaborate,
high-hung structures, few nests perhaps awaken more pleasant
emotions in the mind of the beholder than this of the pewee,--the
gray, silent rocks, with caverns and dens where the fox and the wolf
lurk, and just out of their reach, in a little niche, as if it grew
there, the mossy tenement!
Nearly every high projecting rock in my range has one of these
nests. Following a trout stream up a wild mountain gorge, not long
since, I counted five in the distance of a mile, all within easy
reach, but safe from the minks and the skunks, and well housed from
the storms. In my native town I know a pine and oak clad hill,
round-topped, with a bold, precipitous front extending halfway
around it. Near the top, and along this front or side, there crops
out a ledge of rocks unusually high and cavernous. One immense
layer projects many feet, allowing a person or many persons,
standing upright, to move freely beneath it. There is a delicious
spring of water there, and plenty of wild, cool air. The floor is of
loose stone, now trod by sheep and foxes, once by the Indian and the
wolf. How I have delighted from boyhood to spend a summer day in
this retreat, or take refuge there from a sudden shower! Always the
freshness and coolness, and always the delicate mossy nest of the
phoebe-bird! The bird keeps her place till you are within a few
feet of her, when she flits to a near branch, and, with many
oscillations of her tail, observes you anxiously. Since the country
has become settled, this pewee has fallen into the strange practice
of occasionally placing its nest under a bridge, hay-shed, or other
artificial structure, where it is subject to all kinds of
interruptions and annoyances. When placed thus, the nest is larger
and coarser. I know a hay-loft beneath which a pair has regularly
placed its nest for several successive seasons. Arranged along on a
single pole, which sags down a few inches from the flooring it was
intended to help support, are three of these structures, marking the
number of years the birds have nested there. The foundation is of
mud with a superstructure of moss, elaborately lined with hair and
feathers. Nothing can be more perfect and exquisite than the
interior of one of these nests, yet a new one is built every
season. Three broods, however, are frequently reared in it.
The pewees, as a class, are the best architects we have. The
kingbird builds a nest altogether admirable, using various soft
cotton and woolen substances, and sparing neither time nor material
to make it substantial and warm. The green-crested pewee builds its
nest in many instances wholly of the blossoms of the white oak. The
wood pewee builds a neat, compact, socket-shaped nest of moss and
lichens on a horizontal branch. There is never a loose end or shred
about it. The sitting bird is largely visible above the rim. She
moves her head freely about and seems entirely at her ease,--a
circumstance which I have never observed in any other species. The
nest of the great-crested flycatcher is seldom free from snake
skins, three or four being sometimes woven into it.
About the thinnest, shallowest nest, for its situation, that can be
found is that of the turtle-dove. A few sticks and straws are
carelessly thrown together, hardly sufficient to prevent the eggs
from falling through or rolling off. The nest of the passenger
pigeon is equally hasty and insufficient, and the squabs often fall
to the ground and perish. The other extreme among our common birds
is furnished by the ferruginous thrush, which collects together a
mass of material that would fill a half-bushel measure; or by the
fish hawk, which adds to and repairs its nest year after year, till
the whole would make a cart-load.
One of the rarest of nests is that of the eagle, because the eagle
is one of the rarest of birds. Indeed, so seldom is the eagle seen
that its presence always seems accidental. It appears as if merely
pausing on the way, while bound for some distant unknown region. One
September, while a youth, I saw the ring-tailed eagle, the young of
the golden eagle, an immense, dusky bird, the sight of which filled
me with awe. It lingered about the hills for two days. Some young
cattle, a two-year-old colt, and half a dozen sheep were at pasture
on a high ridge that led up to the mountain, and in plain view of
the house. On the second day this dusky monarch was seen flying
about above them. Presently he began to hover over them, after the
manner of a hawk watching for mice. He then with extended legs let
himself slowly down upon them, actually grappling the backs of the
young cattle, and frightening the creatures so that they rushed
about the field in great consternation; and finally, as he grew
bolder and more frequent in his descents, the whole herd broke over
the fence and came tearing down to the house "like mad." It did not
seem to be an assault with intent to kill, but was perhaps a
stratagem resorted to in order to separate the herd and expose the
lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. When he occasionally
alighted upon the oaks that stood near, the branch could be seen to
sway and bend beneath him. Finally, as a rifleman started out in
pursuit of him, he launched into the air, set his wings, and sailed
away southward. A few years afterward, in January, another eagle
passed through the same locality, alighting in a field near some
dead animal, but tarried briefly.