BIRDS' NESTSErnest Ingersoll
A bird's nest is a bird's house. Sometimes it is strong, well made and tightly roofed, and sometimes it is not, just as with men's houses. The principal difference between the bird's house and ours is that we build ours to be used all the year round, while the bird prefers to make a new one each summer. There are some birds, such as the fish-hawk, however, that keep the same nest many years in succession, repairing it each spring; and I think more birds would do so were it not that their houses are usually made so slightly that the winter's gales knock them to pieces when the owners are absent at some Southern health resort. This is a pity, too, for many of our commonest nests are exceedingly pretty and call for a great deal of work and care on the partof the builders, whose only tools are their feet and beaks.
Take, for instance, the lovely hammock-like basket, hung by its rim beneath the fork of some low branch, which is made by the little grey, red-eyed vireo, which carols to us all the early summer days from every garden and orchard. Such a nest was hung in a maple close to my porch. The bird had built it within arm's length of where we were constantly passing, yet we never saw it until it was quite finished; and the only way we could get a look at it then was by pulling aside a branch. This care was not taken from fear of us, but in the hope that the cradle would escape the sharp eyes of red squirrels, weasels, bluejays, and other creatures who hunt for and rob birds' nests of eggs and young to get food for themselves. I am happy to say, however, that the vireo's nest was not disturbed.
How to hide their nests safely is the great question in the minds of all the little birds. The big, strong ones do not need to worry about that so much, because they can drive away most robbers; therefore, we find that thehawks and crows, jays, kingbirds, and others able to take care of themselves, usually set their baskets in the crotch of some tree, where they can be seen easily enough, but all nests of this kind are strongly made, and fastened so that the winds shall not rock them out of their places or spill the contents.
But thelittlebirds try to hide their homes in various clever ways. A good many seek holes and crannies. The woodpeckers are able to dig these for themselves, for their beaks are like chisels. Others, like the wrens, bluebirds, nuthatches, chicadees, and so forth, find knot-holes, places where a branch has broken off, and various small hollows, in which to make their beds, where the young will be snug in bad weather, and pretty safe from all enemies except snakes.
Others, like the kingfisher, the sand-swallow, and certain sea-birds, make or find holes in earth-banks and rocky cliffs, so that their babies are born in a tiny cave. All of our swallows, before the country was settled by white people, lived in this manner or in hollow trees; but as soon as civilization came those we soonnamed barn-swallows left the wilds and put their nests under the roofs of barns and other outbuildings. Then some one, remembering the ways of old England, began to put bird-houses in the gardens; and now, in all parts of the United States, you may find those cousins of the swallows, the purple martins, living by the dozen in these lofty little hotels on the top of a pole.
The nests of the cliff-swallows are little jugs of mud, plastered by their bases to the face of the rock. The birds make them by bringing pellets of mud in their bills from some stream-side, and putting them one upon another, until each pair has formed a windowless, bottle-like house, with a front door like the neck of the jug, so small that no big bird can enter it. These are very safe and snug nests, and the birds can sit in their doorways and gossip with each other very sociably, for the nests are crowded together like the houses in a city block. This is the same kind of swallow that now puts its nest in rows along the outside of our barns under the eaves; but often they are mere cups instead of jugs, because the barnroof sheds the rain, and a clay roof is no longer necessary to protect the feather bed inside.
Another one of the small birds that is more and more coming to seek our protection and sympathy is the greenish-brown flycatcher that (as some folks think) calls out her own name every few minutes,Phoebe, Phoebe. She makes her home very solidly of mud and moss, lined with horse-hair, and in the old days always rested it on a ledge of rock, as many still do. Most of the phoebes, however, now think it easier and safer to get under a roof, and so they put their mossy cups on the stone piers or supporting timbers of bridges, among the rafters of sheds and porches, and in similar places.
A great number and wide variety of birds make their houses upon the ground. Most of the sea-birds do so—along the ledges of the sea-cliff. Nearly all the water fowl and game birds (except herons) also do so; and most of the ducks and similar birds nestle among the wet reeds of marshes, where their rude bedding is damp all the time and sometimes soaking wet. To keep their eggs warm when they have to leave them for a time, many of theducks pluck a large quantity of downy feathers from their breasts with which to cover the eggs. The eider of the arctic regions is the foremost in this practice, and the eider-down sold in shops is gathered from their nests; but it is a habit of many other ducks. One of the most interesting of these ground-nest birds is the least bittern, a solitary bird frequenting swamps and marshy places.
Not only the water-birds, however, but some of the smallest and prettiest of our songsters choose to dwell and lay their eggs close to the ground, although they seem to be exposed there to many more dangers than are those in the treetops or elsewhere. None try more anxiously to hide their homes than do these ground-nesters, arching the grasses above them, or building little sheds of leaves to protect and hide the shining eggs. (Adapted.)