The birds of Jamaica

by Philip Henry Gosse

The whirring made by the vibrating wings of the male Polytmus is a shriller sound than that produced by the female, and indicates its proximity before the eye has detected it. The male almost constantly utters a monotonous quick chirp, both while resting on a twig, and while sucking from flower to flower. They do not invariably probe flowers upon the wing; one may frequently observe them thus engaged, when alighted and sitting with closed wings, and often they partially sustain themselves by clinging with the feet to a leaf while sucking, the wings being expanded, and vibrating.

The Humming-birds in Jamaica do not confine themselves to any particular season for nidification. In almost every month of the year I have either found, or have had brought to me, the nests of Polytmus in occupation. Still as far as my experience goes, they are most numerous in June; while Mr. Hill considers January as the most normal period. It is not improbable that two broods are reared in a season. In the latter part of February, a friend showed me a nest of this species in a singular situation, but which I afterwards found to be quite in accordance with its usual habits. It was at Bognie, situated on the Bluefields mountain, but at some distance from the scene above described. About a quarter of a mile within the woods, a blind path, choked up with bushes, descends suddenly beneath an overhanging rock of limestone, the face of which presents large projections, and hanging points, encrusted with a rough, tuberculous sort of stalactite. At one corner of the bottom there is a cavern, in which a tub is fixed to receive water of great purity, which perpetually drips from the roof, and which in the dry season is a most valuable resource. Beyond this, which is very obscure, the eye penetrates to a larger area, deeper still, which receives light from some other communication with the air. Round the projections and groins of the front, the roots of the trees above have entwined, and to a fibre of one of these hanging down, not thicker than whipcord, was suspended a Humming-bird’s nest, containing two eggs. It seemed to be composed wholly of moss, was thick, and attached to the rootlet by its side. One of the eggs was broken. I did not disturb it, but after about three weeks, visited it again. It had been apparently handled by some curious child, for both eggs were broken, and the nest was evidently deserted.

But while I lingered in the romantic place, picking up some of the landshells which were scattered among the rocks, suddenly I heard the whirr of a Humming-bird, and, looking up, saw a female Polytmus hovering opposite the nest, with a mass of silk-cotton in her beak. Deterred by the sight of me, she presently retired to a twig, a few paces distant, on which she sat. I immediately sunk down among the rocks as quietly as possible, and remained perfectly still. In a few seconds she came again, and after hovering a moment disappeared behind one of the projections, whence in a few seconds she emerged again and flew off. I then examined the place, and found to my delight, a new nest, in all respects like the old one, but unfinished, affixed to another twig not a yard from it. I again sat down among the stones in front, where I could see the nest, not concealing myself, but remaining motionless, waiting for the petite bird’s reappearance. I had not to wait long: a loud whirr, and there she was, suspended in the air before her nest: she soon espied me, and came within a foot of my eyes, hovering just in front of my face. I remained still, however, when I heard the whirring of another just above me, perhaps the mate, but I durst not look towards him lest the turning of my head should frighten the female. In a minute or two the other was gone, and she alighted again on the twig, where she sat some little time preening her feathers, and apparently clearing her mouth from the cotton-fibres, for she now and then swiftly projected the tongue an inch and a half from the beak, continuing the same curve as that of the beak. When she arose, it was to perform a very interesting action; for she flew to the face of the rock, which was thickly clothed with soft dry moss, and hovering on the wing, as if before a flower, began to pluck the moss, until she had a large bunch of it in her beak; then I saw her fly to the nest, and having seated herself in it, proceed to place the new material, pressing, and arranging, and interweaving the whole with her beak, while she fashioned the cup-like form of the interior, by the pressure of her white breast, moving round and round as she sat. My presence appeared to be no hindrance to her proceedings, though only a few feet distant; at length she left again, and I left the place also. On the 8th of April I visited the cave again, and found the nest perfected, and containing two eggs, which were not hatched on the 1st of May, on which day I sent Sam to endeavour to secure both dam and nest. He found her sitting, and had no difficulty in capturing her, which, with the nest and its contents, he carefully brought down to me. I transferred it, having broken one egg by accident, to a cage, and put in the bird; she was mopish, however, and quite neglected the nest, as she did also some flowers which I inserted; sitting moodily on a perch. The next morning she was dead.

On the 7th of May, a lad showed me another nest of the same species, containing two young newly hatched. It was stuck on a twig of a seaside grape tree, (Coccoloba), about fifteen feet above the ground, almost above the sea, for the tree grew at the very edge of the shore, and the branches really did stretch over the sea. The bird was wary, and would not return to the nest while I staid there, or Sam, whom I stationed in the tree to catch her; but on our receding a few minutes, we found her on the nest. Sam watched sometime vainly with the insect-net; but as I thought, if I could secure her in a cage with her nest, the claims of her young would probably awaken her attention more than the mere unhatched eggs had done the former one, we proceeded to the tree at night with a lantern. The noise and shaking of the tree, however, had again alarmed her, (at least so we concluded,) for she was not on the nest when reached. The next morning Sam had occasion to pass twice by the grape-tree, but at neither time was the bird on the nest. Still suspecting nothing, we went after breakfast, to set a noose of horse-hair on the nest, a common artifice of the negro boys, to capture small birds when sitting. On mounting to set it, however, Sam discovered that the nest was quite empty, no trace of the unfledged young being left. It is probable that the bird, annoyed at being watched, had removed them in her beak, a thing not without precedent. Sam assured me, that if a Bald-pate Pigeon be sitting on a nest containing young, and be alarmed by a person climbing the tree, so as to be driven from the nest, twice in succession, you may look for the young the next day, in vain.

In June I found a nest of the same species on a shrub or young tree in the Cotta-wood. It contained one egg; I looked at it, and went a little way farther. In a few minutes I returned; the bird was sitting, the head and tail oddly projecting from the nest, as usual. I hoped to approach without alarming it, but its eye was upon me, and when I was within three or four yards, it flew. I looked into the nest, but there was no egg: on search, I found it on the ground beneath, much cracked, but not crushed. How could it have come there? The bush, to the main stem of which it was attached, was too strong for the rising of the bird to have jerked it out; beside which, such result was not likely to happen from an action taking place many times every day. It must, I think, have been taken out by the bird. I replaced the cracked egg, and a day or two afterwards, visited it again: the nest was again empty, and evidently deserted.

On the 12th of November, we took, in Bluefields morass, the nest of a Polytmus, containing two eggs, one of which had the chick considerably advanced, the other was freshly laid. The nest was placed on a hanging twig of a black-mangrove tree, the twig passing perpendicularly through the side, and out at the bottom. It is now before me. It is a very compact cup, 1¾ inch deep without, and 1 inch deep within; the sides about ¼ inch thick, the inner margin a little overarching, so as to narrow the opening: the total diameter at top, 1½ inch; 1 inch in the clear. It is mainly composed of silk-cotton very closely pressed, mixed with the still more glossy cotton of an asclepias, particularly around the edge; the seed remaining attached to some of the filaments. On the outside the whole structure is quite covered with spiders’ web, crossed and recrossed in every direction, and made to adhere by some viscous substance, evidently applied after the web was placed, probably saliva. Little bits of pale-green lichen, and fragments of thin laminated bark, are stuck here and there on the outside, by means of the webs having been passed over them. The eggs are long-oval, pure white, save that when fresh, the contents produce a reddish tinge, from the thinness of the shell. Their long diameter ⁷⁄₁₂ inch; short ⁴⁄₁₂. The above may be considered a standard sample of the form, dimensions, and materials of the nest of this species. Variations, however, often occur from local causes. Thus, in the one from Bognie cave, only moss is used, and the base is produced to a lengthened point; one of exceeding beauty now before me, is composed wholly of pure silk-cotton, bound profusely with the finest web, undistinguishable except on close examination; not a fragment of lichen mars the beautiful uniformity of its appearance. Others are studded all over with the lichens, and these, too, have a peculiar rustic prettiness. The situations chosen for nidification, as will have been perceived, are very various.

I have attempted to rear the young from the nest by hand, but without complete success. A young friend found a nest in June, on a twig of a wild coffee-tree, (Tetramerium odoratissimum,) which contained a young bird. He took it, and fed it with sugar and water for some days, but when it was full fledged, and almost ready to leave the nest, it died and was partially eaten by ants. It was, however, a male, and formed an important link in the evidence by which I at length discovered the specific identity of the female. Latham, it is true, long ago describes it conjecturally as the female of Polytmus; but Lesson, in his “Ois. Mouches,” has treated the supposition as groundless. I may observe that to satisfy myself I was in the habit of dissecting my specimens, and invariably found, with one exception, the green-breasted to be males, the white-breasted to be females.[24] But to return. On the 20th of May of the present year (1846), Sam brought me the nest of a Polytmus, which had been affixed to a twig of sweet-wood (Laurus). It contained one young, unfledged, the feathers just budding, I began to feed it with sugar dissolved in water, presented in a quill, which it readily sucked many times a-day. Occasionally I caught musquitoes, and other small insects, and putting them into the syrup, gave them to the bird; these it seemed to like, but particularly ants, which crowded into the sweet fluid and overspread its surface. The quill would thus take up a dozen at a time, which were sucked in by the little bird with much relish. It throve manifestly, and the feathers grew apace, so that on the 29th, after having been in my possession nine days, it was almost ready to leave the nest. But on that day it died. Another I reared under similar circumstances, and in a similar way, until it was actually fledged. When nearly full grown, it would rear itself up, touching the nest only with its feet, on tiptoe, as it were, and vibrate its wings as if hovering in flight, for minutes together. At length it fairly took its flight out at the window. Both these were females.

[24] The exception is, that a specimen obtained on the 6th of May, in female livery, displayed on dissection two indubitable testes, in the ordinary situation.

The young male, when ready to leave the nest, has the throat and breast metallic-green as above, the belly-feathers blackish, with large tips of green; the tail black with green reflections, untipped. A male which I obtained in May, and which I take to be the young of the preceding winter, has the green on the head, mingled with black, the disks of the feathers being green with a black border. The emerald green of the breast is partial in its extent, reaching to the belly only in isolated feathers, separated by large spaces of brownish-drab; while on the throat and breast, the feathers have merely large round disks of the emerald-colour, with narrow edges of brown.

The tongue of this species, (and doubtless others have a similar conformation,) presents, when recent, the appearance of two tubes laid side by side, united for half their length, but separate for the remainder. Their substance is transparent in the same degree as a good quill, which they much resemble: each tube is formed by a lamina rolled up, yet not so as to bring the edges into actual contact, for there is a longitudinal fissure on the outer side, running up considerably higher than the junction of the tubes; into this fissure the point of a pin may be inserted and moved up and down the length. Near the tip the outer edge of each lamina ceases to be convoluted, but is spread out, and split at the margin into irregular fimbriæ, which point backward, somewhat like the vane of a feather; these are not barbs, however, but simply soft and flexible points, such as might be produced by snipping diagonally the edge of a strip of paper. I conjecture that the nectar of flowers is pumped up the tubes, and that minute insects are caught, when in flowers, in these spoon-like tips, their minute limbs being perhaps entangled in the fimbriæ, when the tongue is retracted into the beak, and the insects swallowed by the ordinary process, as doubtless those are which are captured with the beak in flight. I do not thoroughly understand the mode by which liquids are taken up by a Humming-bird’s tongue, though I have carefully watched the process. If syrup be presented to one in a quill, the tongue is protruded for about half an inch into the liquor, the beak resting in the pen, as it is held horizontal: there is a slight but rapid and constant projection and retraction of the tubes, and the liquor disappears very fast, perhaps by capillary attraction, perhaps by a sort of pumping, certainly not by licking.