Infinite in varieties and species is the guild of basket-makers and weavers. To note the starting-point, the advance, and the climax of an industry so varied, would be a prolonged labour.
The shore birds plait, to begin with, but very unskilfully. Why should they do better? So warmly clothed by nature with an unctuous and almost impermeable coat of plumage, they have little need to allow for the elements. Their great art is the chase; always lank, and insufficiently fed, the piscivora are controlled by the wants of a craving stomach.
The very elementary weaving of the herons and storks is already outstripped, though to no great extent, by the basket-makers of the woods, the jay, the mocking-bird, the bullfinch. Their more numerous brood impose on them more arduous toil. They lay down rude enough foundations, but thereupon plant a basket of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry twigs strongly woven together. The cistole delicately interlaces three reeds or canes, whose leaves, mingled with the web, form a safe and mobile base, undulating as the bird rocks. The tomtit suspends her purse-like cradle to a bough, and trusts to the wind to nurse her progeny.
The canary, the goldfinch, the chaffinch, are skilful felters. The latter, restless and suspicious, attaches to the finished nest, with much skill and address, a quantity of white lichens, so that the spotted appearance of the whole completely misleads the seeker, and induces him to take this charming and cunningly disguised nest for an accident of vegetation, a fortuitous and natural object.
Glueing and felting play an important part in the work of the weavers. It would be a mistake to separate these arts too widely. The humming-bird consolidates its little house with the gum of trees. Most birds employ saliva. Some—a strange thing, and a subtle invention of love!—here make use of processes for which their organs are least adapted. An American starling contrives to sew the leaves with its bill, and does so very adroitly.
A few skilful weavers, not satisfied with the bill, bring into play their feet. The chain prepared, they fix it with their feet, while the beak inserts the weft. They become genuine weavers.
In fine, skill never fails them. It is very astonishing, but implements are wanting. They are strangely ill-adapted for the work. Most insects, in comparison, are wonderfully furnished with arms and utensils. But these are true workmen, are born workmen. The bird is so but for a time, through the inspiration of love.
