The winners in life's race

by Arabella B. Buckley

Fig. 44.

The Kingfisher.[104]

Indeed, we shall now soon begin to make progress in nest building, for the next group of birds, which dart at their food with wide-gaping mouth and seize it on the wing, have among them many clever little architects. It is true our English kingfisher builds in holes on the river bank, lining her nest with fishes’ bones, and the Nightjar (wrongly called the goatsucker), with her wide-gaping mouth, lays her egg on the ground. But both these are lowly Darters, for the kingfisher sits on a bough close above the water, and pounces down upon the fish or water-insects; and the lonely nightjar, with her strange wailing cry, flits among the bushes in the twilight, or often even creeps after her prey.

Neither of these birds can compare in flight with the Swifts, as they dart upon the wing from some high pinnacle to collect a mouthful of insects, and come back to eat them, nor to the lovely little Humming Birds of America, which poise themselves so deftly on the wing, while their slender bill searches the long-tubed flowers for insects or seizes these as they pass. These living jewels of nature build beautiful and delicate nests of leaves and grass and spiders’ webs interwoven like fairy cradles; while the swift makes a far stronger home of hair and feathers, grass and moss, glueing them together with saliva[105] from his mouth, and fastening them under the eaves or on the top of some tall waterspout. It is easy to see why the swift chooses such lofty spots, for his slender weak toes are ill-fitted for standing on the ground, and he rises with great difficulty when once he has alighted there, but from a height he can drop easily on to the wing, and skim the air for his food.

Now the swift, which visits us only in summer to build his nest, when insects are plentiful, and spends the rest of his time in Africa, is a type of a whole army of birds, lovely, bright, and gay, with short weak feet, long wings, and a gaping mouth surrounded by bristly hairs, which swarm in hot countries where insects are to be found all the year round. Among these are the beautiful little Bee-eaters and Rollers of the East and Africa, which revel in insect food, and sometimes visit us in the summer, coming over to the south of Spain, or even, in the case of the rollers, as far north as Sweden; while in South America the dull-coloured Puff-birds, the brilliant Jacamars with their metallic-looking feathers, the delicate little Todies, the bright green Motmots, and the lovely Humming-birds, swarm in countless numbers, hiding among the dense foliage, or darting in the bright sunshine after bee or butterfly, or other unwary insects.

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But we must not pause too long among these smaller groups of birds, for the multitude of perching birds, which form nine-tenths of the whole bird kingdom, await us with their delicate nests and their happy family life. Ah! now we are really coming to nature’s feathered favourites, for what can be sweeter than the song of the nightingale, the skylark, or the thrush? or more touching than the fact that the young ones learn from their father the loving notes; that they, in their turn, may be able to woo and win some gentle mate to share their nests and bring up their young ones? It is for this that they have gained that wonderful singing instrument which they have deep down in their throat. For they do not produce their sounds as we do, just below the back of the mouth, but at the lower end of the windpipe, just where it divides into two branches, one going to each lung. There, where the rush of the air is strongest, is found a complicated apparatus, moved by a whole set of muscles, upon which the little fellow plays, and seems never to be exhausted, so much air has he in all parts of his body. And as the song pours through the windpipe there again he can help to give it its soft mellow tones, for while in hoarse-crying birds, like the sea birds and the waders, this tube is long and stiff, in the sweet singing birds it is short, and the bony rings composing it are thin and far apart, with soft delicate membrane between them, which can be shortened or lengthened to modulate the tones. And so we hear them in the springtime pouring forth their full tide of song to tempt a young wife to come and help them to build a nest; or, in the full pleasure of success, trilling out their delight in the warm bright sunshine, and calling on all the world to be as happy as they.

Yet it is not by any means all the perching birds which have this wonderful gift of song. Even among our own birds, the jay, the crow, the raven, and others, use their musical instrument for talking in a way that is no doubt useful to them, but scarcely pleasant to hear; and in America there is a whole group of songless perching birds—the bright coloured chatterers, the fly-catching tyrant-birds, the American ant-thrushes, which have not even developed a true singing instrument in their throat, and only utter shrill or bell-like cries. Yet they all build nests and cherish their helpless young ones; and so large and varied is the group of perching birds, whether in the Old or New World, that they fill all the stray nooks and corners of bird-life, often imitating the habits of the other smaller groups so as to get at food of all kinds. Thus, while the Finches with their delicate matted nests, the Warblers, and a large number of the smaller birds, lead a true tree and bush life, feeding on fruits and insects, the Thrushes, Blackbirds, Crows, Redbreasts, and Larks are ground-feeders, which, though they do not scratch with their feet like the partridges, turn up the ground with their bills and pick out the worms and grubs.

For this reason the Song-thrushes love to build their nest of twigs and moss lined with soft wood chips, in some thick hedge near to a meadow or garden, where they can drop down and pull up the unfortunate worms before they have gone home underground after their nightly rambles, or pounce upon unwary snails, and, taking them in their beak, crack the shell upon a stone, and carry off the dainty morsel to their brood; while the Lark, with her long hind toe, so well fitted for walking, hides her nest in a furrow on the ground; and the greedy cunning Magpie, feeding, as she often does, on young animals, seems to fear the same fate for her own brood, and builds a large egg-shaped dome of thorny branches, with the thorns sticking out on all sides, and lined with mud and soft roots, leaving only a small hole for a door. Lastly, the sagacious Rooks, though ground-feeders, build strong homes which last from year to year, in the top of the high elms, and set out in companies in the early morning to their feeding grounds.