[Illustration]
One can imagine the consternation in trade-union circles when it
becomes known that there are, among birds, those who weave and those
who sew. Their products are entirely for home consumption and there
are no minimum wage, no maximum hours, or any fair-trade or quality
agreements. None of the Audubon societies have even touched on the
matter.
WEAVING The sewing and the weaving is done entirely in the construction
of nests. To take up the weavers first, we can point to the Baltimore
oriole, which makes a sac-shaped, pendant nest, often hung from the
trailing tips of elm branches. The walls of this sac are formed of
fibers pushed and pulled back and forth with the birds' bills in a
seeming haphazard way so that a roughly woven or stitched fabric
results. But the finest weavers belong to that group of birds known
as weaverbirds. One might expect that to be an expert weaver a bird
would have to have a slender bill. But no, their bills are short,
stout, clumsy-looking, and sparrowlike. And yet these are the birds
that weave elaborate pendant nests of fibers and straws. The finest
are in shape like an inverted retort, with the nest proper in an oval
chamber, fastened to a branch by a special strand of fibers, and with
a tube or funnel for an entrance. The walls of these fine weaverbirds'
nests are amazingly strongly and neatly woven. In captivity one of the
weaverbirds, the red-billed weaver, was studied at its nest building
and it was found that the strong, intricate, and beautiful weaving of
this species actually included knots of several sorts.
TAILORING The tailoring is done by birds of quite another group. They
are Old World warblers of several sorts, some in southern Asia and
some in Africa. The tailoring consists of sewing the edges of leaves
together to form a place for their tiny nests. The Indian tailorbird is
perhaps the best known. When these tiny olive-green and gray birds set
about nest building the female punctures the margins of the leaves with
her bill. Then she brings cobwebs and pushes them through the punctures
in the edges of the leaves, and winds them around, and draws the edges
of the leaves together. Strands of cotton are used too for this.
Sometimes a single leaf is used; its two edges being drawn together
to form a funnel. Sometimes a number of leaves are joined. Sometimes
it is claimed knots are used, but this seems not to be the case. What
are mistaken for knots seem made in this way: The cotton used is soft
and frays easily, so that the part of it forced through a tiny aperture
issues as a fluffy knob, which looks like a knot. "The bird makes no
knots; she merely forces a portion of the cotton strand through a
puncture," and the edges of the puncture catch and hold it, according
to Casey Wood, who studied the birds in India. The lining of the nest
is of soft material and this the bird anchors by making a puncture in
the leaf, grasping a strand of this material, and pulling it out; the
cotton outside then expands into a minute button which helps hold the
nest and contents in place as though riveted. One nest is recorded as
having been so riveted in seventy-five places.
The camouflage of the tailorbirds' nests is very good; it is usually
built in thick foliage, the leaves are little deranged, the punctures
do not cause the leaf to die; and the leaves being the same as the
others, there is little for the eye to pick up as indicating a bird's
nest.