Homes Without Hands: Being a Description of the Habitations of Animals, Classed According to Their Principle of Construction

In point of beauty neither yields to the other, for the materials are much the same, and the mode of structure is nearly identical. The nest of the Goldfinch, however, is shallower than that of the chaffinch, and the lichens and moss of which it is partly made are not stuck on the outside, but are woven so deeply into the walls that the whole surface is quite smooth.

Nest of the Goldfinch.

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The position of the two nests, however, is very different. Instead of choosing the forks of a bough, the Goldfinch likes to make its nest near the end of a horizontal branch, so that it waves about and dances up and down as the branch is swayed by the wind. It might be thought that the eggs would be shaken out by a tolerably sharp breeze, and such would indeed be the case were they not kept in their place by the form of the nest. If one of the best examples be examined, it will be seen to have the edge thickened and slightly turned inward, so that, when the nest is tilted on one side by the swaying of the bough, the eggs are still retained within. I have seen the branches of a tree violently agitated by ropes and sticks, and noticed that the eggs in a Goldfinch’s nest retained their position until the branch was struck upward close to the spot on which the nest was made, all the previous agitation having failed to dislodge them.

The lining of the Goldfinch’s nest is unlike that which is used by the chaffinch. The latter bird mostly employs hair, while the former makes great use of vegetable down, such as can be obtained from the willow, the coltsfoot, and other plants. Like other birds, the Goldfinch will not take needless trouble, and if it can find a stray tuft of cotton wool, will carry it off and work it into the nest. Sheep wool is also used for the same purpose; but the bird likes nothing so well as down, and will use it in preference to any other material. On this soft bed repose the five pretty eggs, white, tinged with blue, and diversified with small grayish-purple spots. Now and then a small streak is seen; but the spots are the rule, and the streaks the exception.

Altogether, it is hardly possible to find a more beautiful group than is made by a pair of Goldfinches, their nest, and eggs.

THE nest of the BULLFINCH (Pyrrhula vulgaris) is unlike that of the goldfinch, though it is sometimes found in similar localities. This bird seems to be rather capricious in its ideas of nest-making, sometimes preferring trees, and sometimes building in shrubs.

There was a little spinney which I once knew, in which were any number of Bullfinch nests, the underwood being very attractive to the birds. All the nests were built very low, seldom more than four feet from the ground, and, to the best of my recollection, were placed among the branches of hazel and dogwood. The nest of the Bullfinch is by no means so neat and smooth as that of the goldfinch, but is made in a much looser manner, the foundation being formed of slender twigs, usually those of the birch, and the inner wall of the nest woven of delicate fibrous roots. This wall is flimsy in structure, rather shallow, and neither so deep nor so round as that of the goldfinch. The lining is made of similar materials, but of a finer kind.

The quantity of sticks used as the foundation for this nest varies according to the kind of branch on which it is placed; for when the bird selects a forked twig, such as that of the hazel or dogwood, it uses a considerable quantity of sticks; but when it places its nest on the nearly horizontal spray of the fir, it finds a sufficient foundation ready made, and only just lays a few twigs to fill up a blank space. The egg of the Bullfinch is something like that of the goldfinch, but larger and more conspicuously spotted.

In some works upon the eggs and nests of birds, the Bullfinch is said to build in bushes of considerable height and size. Now this is not necessarily the case, inasmuch as the spinney which has just been mentioned was composed entirely of trees and low brushwood, and the Bullfinches always preferred the latter. I certainly have often found their nests in tall bushes, and sometimes in trees; but they were always placed at so low an elevation that the height of the tree or bush had no effect on that of the nests.

IF the reader will refer to page 199, he will see a short account of the Hoop-shaver Bee, which strips off the down that clothes the stem of the common bladder campion, or white-bottle (Silene inflata), and uses it for the lining of her nest.

There is a bird found in North America which has a similar habit, peeling off the downy hairs of plants, and using them in the structure of its nest. This is the pretty little BLUE-EYED YELLOW WARBLER (Sylvia citrinella), remarkable for the contrast afforded by its blue bill and eyelids with the golden yellow of its head and breast. When the bird builds her nest, she places it in the foot of a shrub, either among briers or under them, and weaves its outer walls of vegetable fibre, using flax or tow whenever she can find it. The walls of the nest are strongly made, and woven firmly into the twigs that support it. When she has finished the outer nest, the bird goes to the fields, and carries off the hair of cattle and other animals, and weaves them into a lining, which is made softer and warmer by the downy hairs which grow on the stems of certain ferns, and which the bird plucks off with great address.

It is not only a pretty, but a useful and interesting bird. It is useful, because it is one of the insect-eaters, and may be constantly seen at work among the leaves, picking up the little green caterpillars which destroy the trees, and which form its chief food. Moreover, it brings up two broods of young during the year, each brood being four or five in number, so that the havoc which it makes among the caterpillars may be imagined. It is interesting on account of the love which it bears toward its young, and its undaunted courage in defending them. When it is free from the cares of a family it is as timid as any other bird, and makes the best of its way from the danger; but if its nest be approached while the eggs or young are still in it, the little bird seems to lose all fear, and devotes itself to the task of decoying away the approaching foe. It pretends to be very ill or lame, stretches out its neck, trails its wings, drops its tail, and flutters feebly along the branches, in order to delude the enemy into an idea that it is so lame that it can easily be caught. The male is even a greater adept than the female at this practice, and, if he thinks that he has not decoyed the intruder far enough, he will slip through the branches, fly round, and repeat the process.

ANOTHER North American bird is a mighty nest-maker, trusting for safety to the inaccessible nature of the tree on which its home is placed. This is the well-known BALD-HEADED EAGLE, sometimes called the BIRD OF WASHINGTON (Falco leucocephalus), which has been accepted as the emblem of the United States of America. The nest of this bird has been admirably described by the two great masters of American ornithology, Audubon and Wilson; and as it is not easy to improve upon the language of those who were at the same time good observers and practiced writers, their accounts will be given in their own words. The reader will perceive that the two histories are placed side by side, because the points that are omitted by one are supplied by the other.

I may mention that the term “bald-headed,” as applied to this splendid bird, is by no means correct, because the head is feathered as densely as any other part of the body; but as the head of the adult bird is white, it produces an effect, when viewed at a distance, as if it were deprived altogether of feathers, and covered with a white skin. The following account is by Wilson:

“The White-headed Eagle is seldom seen alone, the mutual attachment which two individuals form when they first pair seeming to continue until one of them dies or is destroyed. They hunt for the support of each other, and seldom feed apart, but usually drive off other birds of the same species. They commence their amatory intercourse at an earlier period than any other land bird with which I am acquainted, generally in the month of December.

“At this time, along the Mississippi, or by the margin of some lake not far in the interior of the forest, the male and female birds are observed making a great bustle, flying about and circling in various ways, uttering a loud cackling noise, alighting on the dead branches of the tree on which their nest is already preparing, or in the act of being repaired, and caressing each other. In the beginning of January incubation commences. I shot a female on the 17th of that month, as she sat on her eggs, on which the chicks had made considerable progress.

“The nest, which in some instances is of great size, is usually placed on a very tall tree, destitute of branches to a considerable height, but by no means always a dead one. It is never seen on rocks. It is composed of sticks from three to five feet in length, large pieces of turf, rank weeds, and Spanish moss in abundance, whenever that substance happens to be near. When finished, it measures from five to six feet in diameter; and so great is the accumulation of materials, that it sometimes measures the same in depth, it being occupied for a great number of years in succession, and receiving some augmentation each season. When placed in a naked tree, between the forks of the branches, it is conspicuously seen at a great distance.

“The eggs, which are from two to four, more commonly two or three, are of a dull white color, and equally rounded at both ends, some of them being occasionally granulated. Incubation lasts for more than three weeks; but I have not been able to ascertain its precise duration, as I have observed the female, on different occasions, sit for a few days on the nest before laying the first egg. Of this I assured myself by climbing to the nest every day in succession during her temporary absence—a rather perilous undertaking when the bird is sitting.

“I have seen the young birds not larger than middle-sized pullets. At this time they are covered with a soft cottony kind of down, their bills and legs appearing disproportionately large. Their first plumage is of a grayish color, tinted with brown of different depths of tint, and before the parents drive them off from the nest they are fully fledged.

“I once caught three young eagles of this species, when fully fledged, by having the tree on which their nest was cut down. It caused great trouble to secure them, as they could fly and scramble much faster than any of our party could run. They, however, gradually became fatigued, and at length were so exhausted as to offer no resistance when we were securing them with cords. This happened on the border of the Lake Pontchartrain, in the month of April. The parents did not think to come within gunshot of the tree while the axe was at work.”