Volume 5 — From Chambers's Journal. Architecture Of Birds.

If we desire to look upon something which the first inhabitants of our planet saw exactly as it is to-day, we have only to stand before a bird's nest. Your bird is no innovator: he laid down the plan of his dwelling at the creation of the world, and, while everything around him has been changing, assuming new forms, yielding to the influence of fashion, has remained content with his primitive architecture ever since. He calculates the number, and considers the necessities of his family, and with unerring sagacity provides for them all. He imitates none of his neighbors, and his neighbors, in their turn, display no inclination to imitate him. There is in our rural districts a tradition of a farmer's daughter, who, having observed her mother winnow at a certain barn-door, stuck to the same locality through life, without the slightest reference to the quarter from whence the wind blew. So exactly is it with the bird. He cares for nothing but his own ideas of comfort, convenience, suitability—whether the original type of his mansion necessitated its being built on the summit of a rook or a tree, under the eaves of a house, or in the thick foliage of a bush, in the crevice of a cliff, or amid the rustling grass of a meadow.

To study the habitations of birds is to traverse the whole extent of man's universal habitation, through every zone from the equator to the polar circle; from the tops of the highest ranges, amid unscalable crags and snows, to the sedgy margin of the sea, and the mossy banks of streams. Whenever the air is fanned by a wing—wherever eggs are deposited— wherever little bills are opened almost hourly for food—wherever the hen sits, and the male bird roves and toils to support her—wherever, from bough or twig, he pours music into the woods, to cheer his helpmate during her labor of love, there is poetry; whether, as on the lofty surface of Danger Island, or amid the flowery bogs of the Orinoco, the airy artisan works in solitude, or, on village roof and church spire, clings to the vicinity of man. Naturalists gravely inform us that birds are bipeds like ourselves, which in some cases may be thought to account for their fondness for our society, as with the sparrow, the swallow, the red-breast, and the martin; but, on the other hand, several members of this numerous family, though they boast of no more legs than we, make careful use of those they have to keep out of our way. Even among the swallow tribe, there is one remarkable branch which abjures the man-loving qualities of his congeners—we mean the sea-swallow of the Twelve Thousand Islands, which in breeding-time mounts high into the air, takes a scrutinizing survey of the earth beneath, and, selecting for his quarters the least frequented, descends, skims into some lofty cave, and there builds his procreant cradle. In this way he hopes to elude observation. Flattering himself that his whereabouts will remain undiscovered, he darts away with his wife to their favorite element the ocean, where it breaks upon solitary shores, and, flying along its crested surges, gathers from amid the foam and spray the materials of its dwelling, the nature of which still remains unknown. Whatever it may be, it forms a delicate bassinet in which to deposit its eggs and rear its young. Less white than alabaster, the nest of the sea-swallow is of a light color, and semi-transparent, odoriferous in smell, glutinous, and rather sweet to the taste. Rows of these little bowls, which look like so many vessels of porcelain, run along the rocky walls of caverns, and are filled with a thickly bedropped with spots of celestial blue. To the people of the Flowery Land, these nests are a delicacy, which, when of the best quality, are weighed in the market against gold. What, however, renders some nests better than others is uncertain; it may be that in parts of the ocean the ingredient which imparts the most delicate flavor to the substance is not to be found; or else, on shore, the flowers that supply the perfume are too few, so that the swallow is compelled to have recourse to blossoms of inferior sweetness.

From the mouth of the swallow's cave, you may sometimes, from a long distance, discern another and very different specimen of ornithological building. This is a mound, sometimes sixty or seventy feet in length, almost as much in diameter, and about six feet high. This also is a nest, or rather a city of nests, for it is constructed so as to receive a whole republic of birds, who, as in a well-ordered state, have all their separate dwellings, with streets, highways, common chambers, breeding apartments, and so on. In some, there you find callow citizens, or fledglings, or eggs, or the grave parents of the state, discussing or meditating upon its common interests. Nothing can be more curious than a section of such a bird mound, with its various cells and compartments laid open to the view.

From this cyclopean style of architecture, the distance is prodigious to the house of the tailor-bird, which selects for its habitation the inside of a leaf, and with its bill and claws sews its house to it. It takes a filament of fine grass, and, steadying the leaf with one of its feet, uses its bill for a needle, or rather for a borer; then, having made a little hole, it introduces the grassy filament into the edge of the leaf, and afterward doing as much for the other edge, weaves between both a sort of herring-bone netting, strong enough to support its nest. Within this net it immediately begins building until it has wrought a small soft purse, sufficiently capacious to contain the female and her eggs. The habitation being completed, she enters tail foremost, leaving her little head and bill visible at the top of the purse, situated directly under the leaf's stem, and forthwith commences her maternal duties. Now begins the business of the male, which flies backward and forward in search of such delicacies as his lady loves; and, having been successful, approaches the leaf, and, with true martial tenderness, puts them gently into the female's mouth. He then seats himself upon a branch overhead, and, watching his helpmate as she swings to and fro in her airy couch, twitters or sings incessantly to keep up her spirit's.

Among us, the most accomplished bird-architect is the wren, which, in compliment to his building powers, is by our neighbors called the roitelet, or little king; and certainly no king has a more comfortable dwelling. The most flexible grass roots, the finest grass, the softest moss, the most delicate down from its own breast, constitute the materials of this beautiful structure, which forms a perfect sphere of dark emerald green. This edifice has two doors, one at which the little king or queen enters, the other through which it emerges when it desires to stretch its wings or plume its feathers. When at home, the point of the bill and the tip of the tail are visible at the opposite entrances, while the vaulted roof protects it from raindrops, and assists in concentrating the heat by which the regal fledglings are hatched. The builder of St. Paul's, when projecting his magnificent dome, may have taken a hint from his ancestors the wrens. But, unwilling to accumulate all her gifts on one of her children, nature has left the roitelet quite without the power of charming Madame Wren by his voice, a fact to which Shakespeare alludes where he says:

But this unmusical character does not belong to all the varieties of the wren, since there is one kind which may be regarded as a songster. With respect to external appearance, there are few northern birds more favored than the golden-crested wren, the feathers of whose crest, as they glance and quiver, look like sprays of burnished gold in the sunbeams. The war recently declared against these little people is as absurd as it is cruel. Supposed to be the gardener's enemies, they have been hunted down without pity or remorse; whereas, instead of destroying the fruit, they only eat the insects which do really destroy it, and should therefore be esteemed as little winged scavengers, who clear away from gardens very much that is pernicious. If we understood our own interest, we should look upon our diminutive ally, not exceeding two drachms in weight, much as the Turks do upon the stork, which they reverence for its filial piety. If contempt can dwell within breasts so small, the wren must surely feel it for the stone curlew, which, too ignorant or too lazy to build a nest at all, lays its eggs on the bare ground, where they are crushed by Hodge's foot or by the plough.

The country people in France love the song of the wren, which is most agreeable in the month of May, that being the breeding-season. In many French provinces, the rustics entertain so great a respect for the roitelet, that they not only abstain from injuring it, but will not so much as touch its nest, built sometimes against the sides of their houses or stables, though generally a thick bush or full-foliaged tree is preferred. Like nearly all other birds, the wren takes a fancy to some particular locality, where it will construct its habitation, in spite of dangers and difficulties. Its eggs, from ten to twelve in number, are about the size of peas, and when they are hatched it becomes so fierce and pugnacious that it will attack large birds, and put them to flight by the punctures of its sharp bill. It is the smallest of European birds, and holds, therefore, with us the place which the humming-bird occupies in Asia and America. This diminutive creature, which is as ingenious as it is affectionate, forms its tiny nest with cotton or fine, silky filaments, which it twines and arranges so as to afford the softest conceivable couch for its eggs, which never exceed two in number, and resemble small white beads, dotted with bright yellow. The young, when they first emerge from the shell, are little larger than flies, and perfectly naked, though a fine down soon appears upon the skin, which gradually ripens into feathers so brilliant and dazzling in color as not to be exceeded by the rarest gems, or even by the tints of the rainbow. So great, in fact, is the beauty of these birds, that the ladies of the countries in which they abound suspend them instead of diamonds as drops to their earings.

Tiny as the humming-bird is, neither the eagle nor the condor exceeds it in love for its young. A French missionary, during his residence in Surinam, took a humming-bird's nest in which the young were just hatched, and placed it on the sill of an open window in a cage. The parents, as he conjectured, followed their young, and brought them food, the male and female by turns, which they introduced between the bars of the cage. At length, finding that no attempt was made to harm them, they grew fond of the place, and perching upon the top of the cage, or flying about the room, rewarded the worthy priest by their music for the delicate fare he soon learned to provide for them. This was a sort of soft paste made of biscuit, Spanish wine, and sugar, and nearly transparent. Over this they passed their long tongues, and when they had satisfied their hunger, either fell asleep or burst forth into song. Familiarity, if it did not in their case breed contempt, at least banished all apprehension, for they alighted on the priest's head, or perched on his finger, where their long rainbow-like tails floated like little ribbons in the air. But all earthly pleasures have an end; a rat ate up the humming-birds, nest and all, and left the poor missionary to seek for new companions.

Down among the coral-reefs in the Southern Pacific you meet with other bird structures, which in their way deserve equal attention. Here the sea-eagles build their nests, always, if possible, in the same islet, and, if there be such a convenience, on the same tree. On a small wild flat in the ocean, too confined to allure inhabitants, and apparently too arid for vegetation, there grew nevertheless one tree, on which a pair of fishing-eagles erected their dwelling. There these lords of the waves, contemplating their vast empire, sat aloft in their eyrie, male and female, looking at their eggs, and dreaming of the future. Our readers will remember the Raven's Oak, which the woodman, whose brow like a penthouse hung over his eyes, felled and floated down the course of the river. So it was with the tree of the fishing-eagles; some savage applied his axe to the stem, and down it came, though, it is to be presumed, not while the young eagles were in the nest, for the mother did not break her heart, neither did the father follow the timber with vindictive pertinacity. On the contrary, having consulted his helpmate, he took up his lodgings in a bush, and there provided as well as he could for the support and comfort of his heirs and successors. There might be tall trees at no great distance, there might also be islands larger and prettier; but he was born on this sandy flat; he therefore loved it, and stuck to it, and, had it not provided him with a bush, he would have built his nest on the sand. Such, over some creatures, is the power of locality. The higher the nature, the more extensive become the sympathies, so that to some it is enough if they can rest anywhere on this globe. They love the planet in general, but would like, if they could, to make a country excursion from it to Jupiter, Sirius, or Canopus, just by way of exercising their wings.

We have seen the humming-bird building in a little garden shrub, the tailor-bird in the folds of a leaf; but there is one of their family which selects a far more extraordinary situation, in order to place its young beyond the reach of vermin. Selecting the tallest tree within the range of its experience, it weaves for itself a sort of long pouch with a narrow neck, and suspends it to the point of a bare twig some sixty or seventy feet from the ground. There, in its pensile habitation, it lays its eggs, warms them into life, and when the callow brood begin to open their bills, feeds them fifty or sixty times in the day with such dainties as their constitutions require. This bird is the Aplonis metallica, about the size of a starling, with plumage of a dark glossy green, interfused with purple, which gives forth as it flies bright metallic reflections. The aplonis is gregarious, like man, since it loves to build its nest in the close neighborhood of other creatures of its own species, so that you may often behold fifty nests on the same tree, waving and balancing in the air. On the plain beneath, the aplonis sees from its nest the long necked emu flying like the wind before the hunter, immense flights of white pigeons, or the shy and active bower-bird constructing its palace, four feet long by almost two feet in height, where it eats berries with its harem, brings up its offspring, and, darting hither and thither before the savage, seeks to allure him away from its home. All the shrubs, and vines, and low thickets in the vicinity are haunted by perroquets no larger than sparrows, whose plumage, gorgeous as the brightest flowers, may be said to light up the woods.

The only European bird that builds a pensile nest is one of the family that we familiarly denominate toun-tits. This liliputian architect is as choice in his materials as he is skilful in the arrangement of them—his bases, his arches, his metopes, and architraves consist of cobwebs, the finest mosses, the most silky grasses, which are woven, and twisted, and matted together, so as to defy the drenching of the most pitiless storms, while within, his wife and little ones recline on beds of down as soft as the breast of a swan. Scarcely less genius is displayed by the magpie, which, having constructed its dwelling with extraordinary care, covers it with a sheath of thorns, which, bristling all round like quills upon the fretful porcupine, effectually defend it from the approach of insidious enemies. The portal to this airy palace is at a little distance scarcely visible; but if you diligently observe, you will perceive the magpie dart swiftly between the thorns, and disappear beneath his formidable chevaux de-frise. To this stronghold he sometimes carries his strange thefts—his gold and silver coins, his spoons, his sugar-tongs, and any other bright article that strikes his fancy. Birds of the dove kind are proverbial for the slovenly style in which they provide for their families. Putting together a few sticks, which form a sort of rack to support their eggs, they think they have done enough for posterity, and forthwith lay without scruple upon this frail cradle. It may be fairly conjectured that they say to themselves: "If man will eat my eggs, my young ones, and me, upon him be the charge of seeing that I have decent accommodation." In the same spirit act all the barn-door fowls, hardly taking the trouble to find a soft place for their eggs, but laying anywhere, like the stone curlew. This reckless depravity of the maternal instinct has generally been attributed to the ostrich as well as to the domestic hen—but unjustly. She lays, it is true, her eggs in the sand, but not without knowing where she puts them, and not without visiting the same spot daily to lay a new egg, till, as the French say, she has finished her ponte. If the case were otherwise, how could we account for finding all her eggs together? Nature has informed her, that in those warm latitudes in which she shakes her feathers, it is quite unnecessary for her to squat upon her eggs, which the solar heat amply suffices to hatch; indeed, so scorching is the sand of the desert, that if she did not lay her family hopes tolerably deep, her eggs would be roasted instead of hatched. To the superficial observation of man, the surface of the desert looks all alike—smooth, undulating, or blown up into hillocks; but the ostrich's practised eye is able to detect the minutest elevations in the arenaceous plain, so that she can go straight to the spot where her first egg has been left, to deposit a second and a third close to it. Indeed, the Arabs, who habitually traverse the waste, sometimes rival her in keenness of perception, and take forth her treasures, while in maternal confidence she is scouring hither and thither in search of food.

To many others among the inferior animals, man deals forth his unthinking reproaches. To the cuckoo, for example, he objects to her habit of obtruding her egg or eggs into other people's premises, and leaving them there to be hatched by sparrow, wry-neck, or starling, as the case may be. But while bearing thus hard upon the cuckoo, he forgets the terrible curse, under which, like another Cain, she walks about the earth, urged forward by some resistless impulse, and condemned to the eternal repetition of two analogous notes—cuckoo, cuckoo. What do those syllables mean? The Abbé de Nemours, who devoted twenty years to the language of birds, or one of the original doctors of the Hellenic mythology, might perhaps have explained, but has not; so we must be content to regard as a mystery the secret of the cuckoo, which in some respects resembles those ames damnées which fly for ever over the Black Sea, according to inconsiderate tradition, for if they never paused to build nests or lay eggs, it must have been all over with them long before this time. The cuckoo has some odd tricks which have seldom been noted; for instance, she seems to find out some small bird's nest, say, in a hole in the wall, too small by far for her to enter. In this case, she squats upon the ground, lays her egg, and then, with bill or claws, takes it up, and pokes it into the hole, after which she flies away, shrieking her awfully monotonous song. In a forest in France, we used day after day to watch this smoky-blue traveller, as, in the dawn of a summer's morning, she flew across the leafy glades, or down the glens, resting her weary feet for a moment on some giant bough, and then shooting away through the soft green light, repeating her strange and ominous cry. What is the original country of the cuckoo? Has she any original country? Or is she not one of those wretched cosmopolites who know no attachment to any hallowed spot, no love or knowledge of parents, having been brought up by strangers, who regarded her from her birth as an ugly changeling, thrust by some evil spirit into their nest? Surely the cuckoo is to be pitied, since she knows no home, has never seen a hearth, or experienced the soft care of fabricating a nest or hatching an egg.