More than an hour was thus spent in drowsy meditation, when, as by common consent, they all, one after the other, leaped to the ground, where they busied themselves preening their feathers and preparing for departure. The time being ripe, the female set the example. With a run of a half-dozen yards to gain a good start, she was soon on the wing, and in fifteen minutes or more was lost in the ether. The male followed suit, and when he had vanished from sight, the young, one after another, mounted the atmosphere, and gradually circling their way through its limitless depths, were also soon lost to the earth-chained beholder.
Concluding this brief chapter of bird-history, we have a few brief comments to make. To the uninitiated in science matters, the statements just made must seem well nigh incredible. But there were other witnesses of the facts, just and reliable observers, too, whose testimony could be appealed to, to settle all doubts of their authenticity. From all that has been said, it cannot but be evident that the female was the acknowledged head of the family, a sort of feathered autocrat, whose will was the law by which the family was governed. Even the male, who did not always respect her authority, especially where her interests conflicted with his own, was made to see that might makes right when confronted with her stronger and more powerful nature. But it was the patience and orderly behavior that characterized the nearly-grown young, and their sweetness and gentleness of disposition under the most trying circumstances as well, that impressed us as extremely wonderful, and led to the opinion that man-born offspring might here learn a lesson of filial obedience and respect that would greatly redound to the honor and glory of the race.
When captured, these birds offer no active resistance, but very effectually warn off their aggressor by vomiting up the half-putrid contents of their crop. They will often simulate death at such times. On one occasion an individual having been shot by Dr. Coues was picked up for dead. While being carried to the Doctor’s tent, it was perfectly limp. On reaching his quarters, he carelessly threw it upon the ground, and went to work at something else. After a little, upon looking around, he beheld to his great surprise that the bird had changed position, and was furtively glancing around. On going up to it, its eyes instantly closed, its body became relaxed, and it lay perfectly motionless, and apparently lifeless. After compressing its chest for several minutes until he fancied life extinct, he dropped the bird and repaired to supper. Upon his return the bird was gone, it evidently having scrambled into the bushes as soon as he had turned his back upon it.
The young, when first hatched, are covered with a whitish down, and are fed upon half-digested matter which is disgorged by their parents. When taken from the nest and kept in captivity until fully grown they become exceedingly tame, and will feed on fresh meat, earthworms, crickets, grasshoppers, and other large insects, which they apparently relish, and oftentimes will also eat bits of bread, cake and particles of apples or pears which are thrown before them. The benefits which these scavengers render are too well known to need any comment. In the mature state the plumage of the Buzzard is brownish-black, and more or less glossy, the quills being paler on the under surface. The skin of the head and neck is red and wrinkled, and with scattering bristle-like feathers, the bill whitish, legs and feet pinkish, iris grayish-brown, and nostrils large and oval. Their length is about thirty inches, extent of wing seventy-two inches, wing being about twenty-five, and tail twelve.
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.