RARE AND CURIOUS NESTS.

From time immemorial it has been the current popular belief that birds of the same species never varied their style of architecture, but constructed the same form of nest, and out of the same materials, as their remotest progenitors did, instinct being the principle by which they were guided. This opinion, though long since exploded by scientific research, is still, I am sorry to say, entertained by persons who should know better. An examination of nests from different and widely-separated localities affords evidence of the most convincing character of its erroneousness. Most marked differences will always be found to exist in composing materials, as these are sure to vary with environment, and in a wider degree in the nests of some than in those of other species; even configuration, which is less prone to change, is often influenced by circumstances of position and latitude.

Among the Thrushes, the nest of the Robin is the most addicted to variation, and this is not wholly restricted to the constituents of its usually mud-plastered domicile, but is quite frequently observed to occur in the arrangement of materials, and in contour and position as well. Where low marshy woods abound on the outskirts of towns and villages, as is the case in Southern New Jersey, nests of this species have been taken that contrasted in a most wonderful manner with those one is accustomed to see in more northern localities. The great masses of grayish-green fibrous lichen, which depend from shrub and tree in sylvan marshes, are most freely used, and from its very nature to mat when pressed together all necessity for mud is precluded.

NEST OF THE ROBIN.
Built Upon a Railroad Cutting.

But the most curious nest I have ever met with was built upon a railroad cutting, where the ground had a slope of more than forty-five degrees. Such a position for a dwelling of the kind the Robin is known to build, to one not conversant with the facts, must appear incredible. But that it was accomplished, the nest itself was the monument of the builders’ thoughtful skill and labor. A semicircular wall of mud, eight inches in diameter and five inches in height, constituted the groundwork, and within the cavity thus formed was reared a coarse, substantial, bulky fabric, that was entirely composed of the stems of grasses, leaves and roots, loaded down and held in place by pellets of mud.

NEST FROM THE TOP.

SECTION OF TWO-STORIED NEST.

RED-EYED VIREO’S TWO-STORIED NEST WITH COW-BIRD’S EGG BENEATH

A more remarkable position, and one that seemed as difficult to manage, I shall now relate. Few birds care so little for position as the common House Wren. Almost any place answers its purpose. Near the little town of Thornbury, in the State of Pennsylvania, a pair of these birds, in the summer of 1882, took possession of a derrick, and, as a site for a home, selected the space over a sheave in one of the stationary blocks, where, in due time, was deposited their rude, yet comfortable, nest of sticks and feathers. A similar structure occupied the spot the previous year, and a brood of eight birds was raised. It was not the elements of composition of these nests that excited interest and surprise, for they are not materially different from the usual form, but the strange, anomalous situation which they occupied. So dexterously were the materials arranged within the space that the revolution of the wheel was not in the least interfered with. The nest was approached on the side facing the rope that moved the pulley. The opposite side could have been used for this purpose, and doubtless with less danger to life or limb, but preference seemed to be shown for the other. Why this was so was for some time a mystery. But when the birds were seen to alight upon the rope at the top of the derrick and ride down to the nest, the explanation at once became apparent.

Never did linnet enjoy the rocking twig, or bobolink the swaying cat-tail, with half the zest than did these eccentric creatures their ride down the rope. A hundred times a day, when necessity arose, they treated themselves to the pleasure, the rope all the while moving at the rate of thirty feet in a second. Six of the seven days, from early morn till night, they availed themselves of this strange conveyance, and never a danger occurred to mar their delight. In due time a family of happy, rollicking children was raised, and the nest on the derrick deserted.

More beautiful are the nests which the Red-winged Blackbirds build. These are the birds that affect our swamps and marshes, and make the air ring with their loud, clear, resonant notes. Before me is a nest that surpasses in beauty the average structure. It is a bulky affair for the species, but so symmetrical in contour, and so quaintly, deftly woven, that the eye never tires in looking at it, nor the mind in contemplating its wonderful mechanism. Broad ribbons of grasses are its composing materials, and eight of them are so woven into the nest as to securely fasten it to the tall typhas in the summit of which it was placed.

RED-WINGED BLACKBIRD’S NEST.
Located in a Field of Timothy.

But a more clever nest of these birds, and one that is as unique in shape as it is in texture and composition, was found in the summer of 1879 in the vicinity of Philadelphia. It was built in a field of timothy, many of the stalks of which being wrought into the fabric. Its shape is that of an inverted cone, and so beautifully, symmetrically and compactly put together is it, that one could hardly credit the builders with the possession of the skill necessary to the production of so perfect a domicile. Externally the nest is formed of grasses and rushes, neatly and intricately interwoven, with here and there a head of the dry pappus of some species of hawkweed. Sedges and fine grasses make for it a cosy and comfortable lining. This nest shows quite conspicuously in the [drawing], but in its natural position, in the centre of a large field, the authors had spared no pains to have its concealment as perfect as possible.

Typical nests of these Blackbirds are somewhat irregular in outline, and rather coarsely and rudely built of stubble and broad grasses, variously intermingled, and lined with soft meadow grass. Usually they are placed in clusters of weeds or in the tops of small bushes alongside of streams of water. High positions are seldom chosen for nesting purposes, as they offer poor facilities for food-collecting, the aquatic larvæ, may-flies, dragon-flies and mosquitos, which constitute a prominent part of the diet of these birds, being only found in marshy situations. Small bushes along the margins of streams, from the double advantage which they possess, are almost exclusively adopted in certain localities. Being convenient to appropriate food-stuffs, they are, at the same time, out of the reach of snakes, especially water-snakes, which have a decided fondness for young birds.

Of the sub-family of Orioles, to which the Red-wing belongs, no member, unless it be the namesake of Maryland’s distinguished proprietor, builds a more magnificent nest than the one that inhabits the orchard. In the books it is known by the no means euphonious title of Icterus spurius. Its nest is shaped like a pouch, and generally pensile. Soft, flexible meadow grasses, neatly and compactly woven together, make up the outer fabric, while within is a lining of vegetal or animal wool, or one of fine grasses intermingled with horse-hair. But the handsomest ever seen was one that was found in the vicinity of Nazareth, Pa., by Richard Christ, in the summer of 1883. It is of the usual size, five inches in height, three in external diameter, but differing from the normal form only in materials of composition. The proverbial meadow grasses are absent, and in lieu thereof are the headed stems of such as grow by the roadside, notably conspicuous for their golden brightness in a state of desiccation.

DOUBLE NEST OF ORCHARD ORIOLE.
Female Sitting, Male Standing Guard.

More noteworthy, however, than the Nazareth nest, is one that was removed from a silver maple-tree. It is a double structure, composed of long, flexible grasses, and is firmly bound by the same to several small, slender branches. The larger nest, inversely sub-conical, is joined to the smaller, somewhat similarly shaped, but less compact in structure, by ribbons of the same kind of grass that composes the nest. A circular opening, one inch in diameter, is a noticeable feature of the smaller. That the additional structure served some useful purpose there can be no doubt. I am inclined to believe that it was built for the accommodation of either parent while the other was sitting. The aperture was a convenient outlook for the non-sitting bird, who, from this position, could with little difficulty, like a sentinel from an outpost, detect the approach of an enemy.

But nothing can exceed in beauty and skill the nest of a female Baltimore Oriole in the writer’s possession. It was built under peculiar circumstances, the builder being a prisoner, having been taken from home when quite a fledgling. A male companion was brought away at the same time. These birds, the property of Dr. Detwiler, of Easton, Pa., in 1883, were a source of considerable pleasure to that elderly gentleman in his leisure moments. Under his careful, kindly management, they became quite tame, the female manifesting greater familiarity than the male. That either would become so accustomed to confinement as to evince a desire to build never entered the mind of the Doctor. They had, when he was alone, the freedom of his studio. One lovely June morning, the outside world brimming over with life and joy and sunshine, the door of their cage was thrown open, and the Doctor settled himself into a soft easy-chair to read. Hardly had he scanned a dozen lines, when something pulling at his hair caused him to drop his paper and look around. He was not slow to detect the offender in the person of his female feathered friend who was seen flying towards the most distant corner of the room with something, resembling hair, in her bill. The reading was resumed, and again the culprit stole cautiously to where he was sitting, and, seizing another hair, was off in a twinkling.

FEMALE BALTIMORE ORIOLE.
Nest the Exclusive Work of Her Bill.

Permitting for a while these liberties, and noticing that bits of strings were, when placed in positions to be seen, quite as much the objects of interest as the hairs of his head, the Doctor was not slow in divining the motive which led to this strange and unexpected behavior. Convinced by actions, as significant as words themselves could be, that his little friend was desirous to build a home, he began to cast about for a corner where she could be free to carry out her intentions without fear or interference. The attic furnished the place, and after fitting it up with a large tree-branch for a perch, and plenty of new white strings for building purposes, he bore his favorite and her partner to their new quarters. Soon the female became at home and entered into her voluntarily-imposed labor with alacrity, and at the end of a week had constructed a domicile which her untamed prototypes of field and roadside would strive in vain to excel. But the male would have nothing at all to do with the matter, but remained the same cold, indifferent being as I found him to be upon my first introduction.

Some nests are curious on account of shape. The birds often, it would seem, try their very best to see how oddly they can build their homes. The little Acadian Flycatcher, so common in Eastern Pennsylvania during the breeding-season, sometimes appears to be controlled by cranky ideas with regard to building. Dry blossoms of the hickory are the materials it ordinarily uses, and they can always be obtained whenever needed, but in a nest discovered by the writer in 1882, not a blossom was to be found, but in place of them there were long, stringy fibres of the inner bark of some species of herbaceous plant, which the birds had modelled into a compactly-built, shallow, saucer-like cavity, and from which they had caused to depend a gradually tapering train of the same for nearly nine inches.

ACADIAN FLYCATCHERS.
Nest Curious on Account of Its Train.

The King Bird, a distant relative of the Flycatcher, often displays as much eccentricity. Once upon a time a pair of King Birds took a fancy to an old apple-tree that stood within a few yards of my Germantown home. It was certainly not a place of quiet and retirement, for scores of noisy, dirty children daily resorted to its leafy shelter for coolness and pastime. But the birds were not the least disquieted. They had fixed their minds upon the spot, and build they did. The nest was posed between a forked branch, just out of the reach of the urchins. It was a crazy affair. Black, slender roots, wrinkled and knotted and tendrilled, made up the body of the fabric. As it was nearing completion, the opportune discovery of a bunch of carpet rags was hailed with delight. They were instantly appropriated, and promptly adjusted to the outside, but in such a manner that long ends, some fourteen inches in length, were made to project from the sides and bottom. Whether all this was for ornament or protection, or for both, I could not say, but I am inclined to think that safety was uppermost in the minds of the builders, for, looking from below at the nest it seemed but a mass of rags that had been thrown into a tree-crotch, which, the birds perceiving, and its close resemblance to an entangled bunch, had utilized.

LONG BILLED MARSH WREN’S NEST.

Certainly no more beautiful nests in shape exist than the spherical in form. The Long-billed Marsh Wren builds a nest of this type. Upon its arrival in the spring it seeks the inland swamps, or the brackish marshes of the sea-shore, where, amid the splatterdocks of the former and reeds of the latter, it finds suitable shelter and protection. There, day in and day out, during its entire summer stay, it pursues the even tenor of its life, happy and contented, never caring, like many of its remoter kin, for the charmed circle of man. Active, energetic and buoyant with hope, it skips about the tall rank herbage, in every direction, in quest of insects, making its presence known and felt by the lively chattering song, which resembles more nearly the sounds of an insect than those of a bird, which emanates from its grassy haunts. As these birds reach their breeding-grounds early in May, nest-building is soon begun, but so secret and mysterious are their movements at first, that we hardly know anything of their presence, except when they are colonized for the summer. The labor of building is entered into with considerable alacrity, and is mainly the result of the combined labor of both birds. Their nests are usually placed in low bushes, a few feet above the ground, or woven into the tops of sedges out of the reach of ordinary tides; but in very rare instances upon the ground in the midst of a clump of grasses. Ground nests are loosely-constructed affairs, which is not the case with those that are elevated to the tops of tussocks, or to the branches of shrubs and trees, which require more compactness and a better finish. The most beautiful, as well as artistic, nest which I have ever seen is the one shown in the [cut]. This nest was discovered in the vicinity of Philadelphia in the summer of 1878. A willow-branch, some fifteen feet above the ground, which was bifurcated, was made to do service. No ordinary skill was that which surmounted the seemingly insuperable difficulty of building a nest, not pensile in character, to such a swaying branch. That the birds accomplished the feat the nest itself was the evidence. In form this nest was nearly globular, four and a half and five inches in the two diameters. It was woven of the broad leaves of a species of scirpus, closely and evenly, and had its interstices well seamed with brownish cottony down. A thin delicate curtain of gauze, of the same material, hung around the opening, and this was continued within, forming a thick bedding of the softest, fluffiest nature, of which the most voluptuous sybarite might envy its fortunate possessor.

LONG-BILLED MARSH WRENS.
Nest Placed Out of the Reach of Tides.

But the little Golden-crowned Kinglet, a mere mite of flesh and feathers, but with a great deal of spirit, builds a much handsomer nest. It is the perfection of symmetry. Man could not make with all the appliances at his command any thing more nearly globular. But its beauty! It looks like a ball of green moss, the delicate patches of moss being so artfully arranged as to completely hide the dry stems of grasses that constitute the walls. No moss ever spread itself over the ground, or over a stump or tree-trunk, more evenly. When it is known that this Kinglet builds its nest among the slender feathered branches of the hemlock spruce, there is manifestly a reason for the fern-like tracery upon the exterior, so necessary for the preservation of its home. Such a handsome and imposing structure would be far from complete were the inside not in keeping with the outside. But the birds have left nothing to be desired in this particular. The softest and purest of down lines the little bed-chamber, and even swells in its lightness till ready to overflow the neat circular door-way.

GOLDEN-CROWNED KINGLETS.
Nest the Perfection of Beauty and Symmetry.

Perhaps the most graceful thing you may ever expect to find when on the quest, fitted to be considered the work of the fairies, is the pretty lace hammock of the Parula Warbler. You must search for it early in June, in remote but thin woods, but never far from running water. Often you will see it upon a branch overhanging a stream. The slender twig of a birch is sometimes chosen for its suspension, the terminal spray of a hemlock spruce, or a horizontal branch of a white oak. Like a watch-pocket, with the opening in the side, it is lightly suspended. It is made of a delicate lace-work, the grayish-green usnea moss, that grows on old trees. The whole fabric is the work of two little birds with slate-blue backs and yellow breasts. No other bird of our fauna builds a nest akin to its swinging, eery nest. It is true much of the material is found in position when the builders commence their labor, but the exquisite outline and finish, as well as the cozy interior, are due to the skill of the birds themselves. Even when the structure is just so far completed that occupancy by the female is possible, the male never wearies of its adornment by additional filaments of usnea brought from a distance. He is the happiest of fellows, for his little beak always finds something to do while his patient wife is busy with the duties that lead to maternity.

LACE HAMMOCK OF PARULA WARBLER.
Female Entering Nest and Male Adding to Its Adornments.

Coming like whirling leaves, half autumn yellow, half green of spring, their colors blending like the outer petals of grass-green daffodils, no more sociable and confiding little creatures are to be found in our midst than the Yellow Warblers. They are as much at home in the trees by the house as in the fields and woods. Wherever they wander, the glints of sunshine that flash from their backs should make the most miserable complainer feel the summer’s charm. But in spite of their seeming preference for man, they are prone to build in lonely fields and by-ways. In such places it becomes one of the especial victims which the Cow Bird selects to foster its random eggs. But the Warbler puts its intelligence effectively to work, and builds a second story to its nest, thus flooring over the unwelcome eggs. This expedient is repeated as long as the Cow Bird continues her mischief, until sometimes a three-story nest is achieved. The outside of the nest, composed of glistening milkweed flax, is pressed into a felt-like case, the fibres serving at the same time to lash the nest to its support. Within, to the depth of an inch, is a soft sponge-like material, which the birds have made from the wool they have gathered from the stems of young ferns. A few horse-hairs, to give shape and stability to the nest, are to be found in the inside of the felt-like lining.

THREE-STORY NEST OF YELLOW WARBLER.
Showing the Builder’s Manner of Out-witting the Cow Bird.

Hundreds of nests, quite as novel as any that have been described, might be instanced, showing varieties from so-called normal forms, but I shall content myself with only another example. Everyone is familiar with the Ruby-throated Humming Bird, so common in the eastern half of the United States. It is the smallest of all our birds. But its nest, which is by no means scarce, is a rare sight to the average man and woman. No nest can be compared with it. It is a thing of beauty and a joy forever. A mass of cotton, with a hole in the top, and thatched all round with blue-gray lichens, and just as big as a walnut, conveys a good idea of its appearance. But all nests are not made of cotton. The yellow wool that forms the dress of the undeveloped fern-frond, or the red shoddy that is wind-swept into heaps outside some woollen factory, is often made to take the place of the down of the seed of the poplar. Not to be mentioned in the same breath with these, is the nest I am now about to describe. It was saddled upon the horizontal bough of a small white oak-tree that grew on the side of a thicket, and was peculiar from the nature of the material that composed its inner fabric. This substance resembled burnt umber in color, and was as soft as the finest wool, or the fluffiest down, and proved, upon examination, to be the mycelium of a fungus which the builders had gathered from decaying stumps or mildewing tree-branch.