Natural History / Or, Uncle Philip's Conversations with the Children about Tools and Trades among Inferior Animals

by Francis L. Hawks

"This, boys, is the nest of the chaffinch. The goldfinch makes a nest of the same kind, only rather neater and smoother than that of the chaffinch; for it takes pains to show nothing but the wool, and covers up all the other materials which it uses."

"Uncle Philip, do these birds all use the same things to make their nests?"

"All use wool, boys; but the truth is, that birds will commonly take for their nests that article which they can get most easily, if it will suit. A gentleman, named Bolton, tried this with some goldfinches. He saw a pair of these birds beginning to build in his garden; they had laid the foundation of their nest with moss, and grass, and such things, as they commonly use: he scattered some wool about in different parts of the garden; the birds took the wool: afterward he scattered cotton; they took the cotton: on the next day he gave them some very fine down; they took that, and finished the nest with it, and a very handsome nest it was."

"How long were they in making it, Uncle Philip?"

"Three days. The canary-bird, boys, which you sometimes see in cages, when free, builds a nest of the same kind. But the most curious felt-makers among the birds, are in Africa. There is the Cape-tit, a bird in the southern part of Africa, which builds a very strange nest: it is shaped like a bottle of India-rubber, as thick as a coarse worsted stocking, and made of cotton, and down, and other things felted together. On one side of the nest there is something like a pocket, and here is a picture of it."

Nest of the Cape-tit, from Sonnerat.

"Uncle Philip, what is that pocket for?"

"Why, boys, some have supposed that it was for the male bird to sit on and keep watch, while the female was inside of the nest sitting on the eggs; but I think this is a mistake. And some have said, that when the female leaves the nest, and the male wishes to go too, he sits in this pocket, and beats against the side of the nest with his wing until he has made the edges of the top meet, and thus shuts up the mouth of the nest, and keeps off insects and other animals that would eat the young ones; but I do not believe this story."