Nests and Eggs of Birds of The United States. Gentry Thomas George
a nest is located on the outskirts of a thicket, some species of oak, or the tulip-tree, is generally selected as the recipient thereof. In an orchard, the apple claims and receives this honor. Its height above the ground is mostly from fifteen to twenty feet in sequestered situations, but in cultivated districts, a much lower elevation is chosen.
The labor of building is performed mainly by the female, her partner lending but little assistance. The time devoted to the task seldom exceeds a period of four days, and so loosely are the fabrics put together, in the majority of cases, that they scarcely survive the season for which they were intended.
A structure before us is rather symmetrical and neatly built for the species, and quite shallow. Externally, it is composed of dried twigs, weeds and grasses, variously intermingled. Internally, there is a lining of fine roots, grass-stems, and the inner bark of the chestnut and oak. The outside diameter is five and a half inches, height two inches, diameter of cavity three and a half inches, and depth about half an inch.
Mr. Nuttall describes a nest examined by him as composed of rigid stalks of weeds and slender fir-twigs joined together with narrow strips of apocynum and pea-vine runners, and wound around with thin wiry stalks of the helianthemum, the whole so loosely and thinly plaited as to admit the light quite readily through the interstices.
The Plate represents the average structure. On examination it will be found to be nearly circular above, although somewhat irregular towards the lower two-thirds. The hase is rather loosely constructed of strips of bark, fine stems of vegetables with dried flowers attached, and rootlets of woody plants. Upon this as a basis is wrought, with more compactness and finish, a framework, which is beautifully lined with reddish-brown stems of herbaceous plants, and fine strips of inner bark. The external diameter is five inches, and the height, two inches. The diameter of the cavity is three inches, and the depth one-half of an inch. This nest is shown in its natural position over and partly between a forked branch of one of our common species of oak. The female bird is placed upon the right, as though about to assume the duty of incubation; while her illustrious partner occupies a very dignified position on the left of the picture. All the figures, however, are reduced one-third, so as to bring them within the scope of the page.
Having completed her home, the female almost immediately commences to deposit her complement of four or five eggs, at the rate of one a day, in as many consecutive days. This business being attended to, on the day succeeding the last extrusion, she takes the nest, and for a period of twelve or thirteen days of rather close sitting, supplies the warmth necessary to develop her house-full of children.
It is a remarkable fact, and one that beautifully displays the wonderful wisdom which is taught by Nature, that the brilliantly-colored males studiously avoid the nest, and only approach it, when necessary, with caution and stealth, for fear of betraying its presence; while the females, with their plain coloring in harmony with the surrounding foliage, sit thereon, and care for their helpless offspring without danger of molestation. But if the nest is approached with hostile intention, or is actually invaded, the males emerge from their places of concealment, and assist in carrying its precious treasures away. But how this is accomplished, it is impossible to say. Mr. Minot has known instances where the young have been removed, although many of the cases seemed to be beyond the ability of bird-ingenuity to accomplish.
On one occasion, while our worthy friend was ascending a tree which contained a nest of this species, and that, too, with as much care and quietness as was possible under the circumstances, he was surprised to see the parent birds return several times to the tree upon his arrival at a point which commanded full view of the inside of the domicile. Although the nest was known to contain eggs, which were seen through the interstices from below, his astonishment was undoubtedly heightened, when he discovered it to be empty. He immediately began an examination of the premises, but could find no pieces of broken shells, or traces of yolk on branch, or on the ground beneath. The eggs had certainly been spirited away, but whether they were afterwards returned and successfully hatched or not, he was unable to say.
Notwithstanding the precaution which these birds take in the selection of a building-spot, and the artfulness with which they seek to conceal their home by means of the surrounding leaves, it is a fact, not generally known, but nevertheless true, that much of their prudence and painstaking counts for naught. They may deceive the trained collector, but they cannot elude the sagacity and watchfulness of the female Cowbird, who is ever on the alert and ready to slip into their unoccupied nest and deposit her own egg.
We have known instances where as many as three of these parasitic eggs had been left in the nest alongside of one of the rightful occupant's eggs. A case of the kind came to notice last summer. But whether the owners of the nest would have hatched the intruders or not, we cannot say, as its contents were rifled shortly after the discovery had been made. Owing to its shallowness, it is highly probable that the owners would have thrown them out on becoming cognizant of their presence. With small birds, and also with those which are in the habit of building deep nests, there is considerable difficulty attending such an attempt. The birds are generally obliged to submit to circumstances, and hatch the aliens.
The food of the young is chiefly collected by the mother-bird, and consists of the larvæ of beetles, various species of lepidoptera with mature forms of the same, spiders, plant-lice, diptera and earthworms. These are fed to them for the space of a fortnight subsequent to their leaving the eggs, when they quit for the first time the close precincts of their shallow home, to receive their earliest impressions of the outside world, or to take some lessons in the secrets of bird-lore. Another week more, and they are thrown upon the cold and pitiless world to fight their way as others have done before.
The devotion of the parent to her young is shown not only in the assiduity with which she labors to supply them with the essential articles of diet, but also in the distress which she manifests when they are in perilous situations, and in her efforts to extricate them from the same.
Wilson relates a very touching instance of such devotion. Having taken a very young bird from the nest, he carried it to his friend, Mr. Bartram. The latter gentleman placed it in a cage, which he suspended near a nest containing young Orioles, in hopes that the parents of these birds would be moved to feed it. This they failed to do. Its cries, however, attracted its own parent, who diligently attended it, and supplied it with food for several days. At length she became so solicitous for its liberation, as evidenced by repeated cries of entreaty, that Mr. Bartram could bear it no longer. He immediately mounted to the cage, took out the captive, and restored it to its parents, who accompanied it to the woods with notes of great exultation.
Early in August the male begins to moult, when, after a little, he appears in the greenish livery of the female. In this stage he is not distinguishable from her or his young family. Now is the time for departure, and parents and young forsake with many regrets the land where they have experienced so much real happiness, for the sunny groves of Mexico and Peru, or the breezy forests of their West Indian home.
The eggs of this species vary from an inch to .90 in length, and have an average width of .65. The ground-color passes from a well-marked shade of greenish-blue to a dull white with scarcely the faintest tinge of blue. In some the spots differ in size, are more or less confluent, and chiefly of a reddish-brown color intermingled with a few others of an obscure purple. As a rule, there is a notable resemblance to each other, in the eggs of the same nest-complement, except where, by reason of pillage, or some adventitious circumstance, the female is called upon to deposit, after she has already furnished the necessary number, in order to compensate for those that have been taken or destroyed. It may be the earliest-laid eggs that have escaped the avaricious oologist. In that event, the additional ones must necessarily be lighter in colors, and contrast very strongly with those which remain. Locality has doubtless much to do with color-variations, southern specimens being more sharply defined than those from colder latitudes.
Plate XIV. – HIRUNDO HORREORUM, Barton. – Barn Swallow
The Barn Swallow, the chief of its fellows, is the most widely diffused, most generally abundant, and, wherever found, the best known of all our species. None are more universally or deservedly popular.
It ranges throughout North America from Florida to Greenland, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, breeding, strange to say, over nearly