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

The general habits of this tiny bird are well worthy of notice, but at present we must content ourselves with it as it appears in its nest-making capacity. Being a very small bird, only three inches and a half in total length, and very slenderly made, the nest is necessarily small. But, although we so often find that little birds build large nests, we can not but notice that the nest of this Humming-bird is even smaller than the size of its occupant seems to require. It is round, neatly made, and has thick walls and a small hollow.

The bird has a wonderful power of concealing the nest, which can not be discovered except by a practiced nest-hunter, so closely does it resemble a knob upon a branch. So careful, too, is the female of her home that she does not fly straight to it, but rises high in the air, and then darts down among the branches with such rapidity that the eye can not follow her movements, and she is fairly seated in her nest before the spectator knows exactly in which direction she has gone.

This curious trait seems to have been discovered by Mr. C. W. Webber. He had successfully tamed some Ruby-throats, and determined to find a nest, so that he might obtain the young.

After finding that a pair of Humming-birds had been seen near a certain spot on a river, he set himself determinately to discover the nest. By degrees they were watched to a point of the river, but there they always disappeared, as they had a habit of shooting perpendicularly into the air until their tiny bodies were lost to sight. At last, however, the patient watchfulness of the observer was rewarded by catching a glimpse of the female bird, as she descended perpendicularly from the height to which she had risen, and in this manner was the nest discovered.

The same agreeable writer relates an anecdote respecting the discovery of a nest belonging to the Emerald-throated Humming-bird, an edifice which is very similar to that which is made by a Ruby-throat. He had been in vain looking for a nest, when "chance favored me somewhat strangely about this time. I had been out squirrel-shooting early one sweltering hot morning, and on my return had thrown myself beneath the shade of a thick hickory, near the bank of a creek. I lay on my back, looking listlessly out over the stream, when the chirp of the Humming-bird and its darting form reached my senses at the same instant. I was sure I saw it light upon the limb of a small ironwood-tree that happened to be exactly in the line of my vision at that instant.

"In about five minutes another chirp, and another bird darted in. I saw this one drop upon what seemed to be a knob or an angle of the limb. I heard the soft chirping of greeting and love. I could scarcely contain myself for joy. I would have given any thing in the world to have dared to scream, 'I've got you, I've got you at last!' By a great struggle I choked down my ecstasy and kept still. One of them now flew away, and after waiting fifteen minutes, that seemed a week, I rose, and with my eyes steadily fixed on that important limb, I walked slowly down the bank, without, of course, seeing where I placed my feet.

"But the highest hopes are sometimes doomed to a fall, and a fall mine took with a vengeance! I caught my foot in a root, and tumbled head foremost down the bank into the river! I suppose that such a ducking would have cooled the enthusiasm of most bird-nesters, but it only exasperated mine. I shook off the water, and vowed that I would find that nest if it took me a week. But how to begin was the question, for I had lost the limb, and how was I to find it among a hundred others just like it?

"The knot that I had seen was so exactly like other knots upon other limbs all round it, that the prospect of finding it seemed a hopeless one; but 'I'll try, sir,' is my favorite motto. I laid myself down as nearly as possible in the position which I had originally occupied, but, after some twenty minutes' experiment, came to the conclusion that my head had been too much confused by the shock of my fall and ducking for me to hope to make much out of this method. Then I went under the tree, and commencing at the trunk with the lowest limb which leaned over the water, I followed it slowly and carefully with my eye out to the extremest twig, noting carefully every thing that seemed like a knot. This produced no satisfactory result after half an hour's trial, and with an aching neck I gave it up in despair, for I saw half a dozen knots, either one of which seemed as likely to be the right one as the other.

"I now changed my tactics again, and, ascending the tree, I stopped with my feet upon each one of those limbs and looked down along it. It was a very tedious proceeding, but I persevered. Knot after knot deceived me; but at last, when just above the middle of the tree, I caught a sharp gleam of gold and purple among the leaves, and, looking down upon the last limb to which I had climbed, almost lost my footing for joy as I saw, about three feet out from where I stood, the glistening back and wings of the little bird just covering the top of one of these mysterious knots, that was about half the size of a hen's egg.

"The glancing head, long bill, and keen eyes were turned upward, and perfectly still, except the latter, which surveyed me from head to foot with the most dauntless expression. It seemed not to have the slightest intention of moving, and I would not have disturbed it for the world. It was sufficient for me to gaze on my long-lost treasure, its pure white breast—or throat rather, for the breast was sunk in the nest—forming such a sweet and innocent contrast with the splendor of its back, head, and wings." The capture of the little birds which were afterward hatched in that nest served to set at rest the question of the Humming-bird's food. They lived mostly on sirup, but were obliged to fly off and eat the tiny garden spiders as they lay in the middle of their radiating webs.

The nest of the Ruby-throated Humming-bird seems to be rather variable in form, and material, and situation, but has always a peculiar character which enables the experienced observer to recognize it. According to Wilson, it is sometimes fixed on the upper part of a horizontal branch, as was the case with the nest so graphically described by Mr. Webber. Sometimes it is seen actually upon the trunk of a tree, attached to the bark by its side; and in a few rare instances it has been found in a garden, attached to some strong-stalked herb. Generally, however, the bird selects a white oak sapling if it builds in the woods, and a pear-tree if it prefers the garden.

The tiny nest is scarcely more than one inch in width and the same in depth, so that its size is very small when compared with that of its occupants, which, when full grown, are more than three inches in total length. The materials of which the nest is made are principally the delicate cotton-like fibres which form the "wings" of certain seeds, such as those of the thistle, and which are so carefully woven together that they form a tolerably stout wall. Upon this wall are stuck quantities of a light gray lichen which is found on old fences and trees, so that the external appearance of the nest is rendered very similar to that of the branch on which it is placed. The lining is composed of the fine hairs which clothe the stalks of mullein, and ferns, and other pubescent plants, and forms a thick, soft bed, on which repose the two minute pearly eggs.

The nest is not merely placed upon the branch, because in that case it would present a decided outline, and be comparatively easy of recognition. On the contrary, the base of the nest is partly continued round the branch, so that the whole fabric rises gradually from the bough, as if it were a natural excrescence.

When the young are hatched they are fed by thrusting their beaks into the opened mouths of their parents, and extracting the supply of liquid sweets which have been collected from the flowers.

THERE is another species of this group that builds a very pretty branch-nest. This is the VERVAIN HUMMING-BIRD (Mellisuga minima), one of the minutest of the feathered race. From the point of its beak to the end of its tail it only measures two inches and three quarters, so that when stripped of its feathers it seems more like an insect than a bird.

Its popular name is derived from its fondness for the West Indian vervain (Stachytarpheta), a very common weed in neglected pastures, with a slender stem, a blue flower, and averaging a foot in height. Wherever the vervain is plentiful the Humming-bird is sure to be found, darting here and there, now poising itself before a flower, and probing its recesses with the long, slender tongue, and now shooting for hundreds of feet into the air, and then descending diagonally, as if shot from a gun, toward the flower from which it started, and balancing itself before its blue petals as if it had not moved.

The nest of this bird is proportionately small, and is beautifully made of vegetable fibres, such as the silk-cotton of the bombax, and, when the eggs are laid, is only just large enough to contain them and to retain the body of the mother bird. When, however, the young are hatched, the parents add to the walls of the nest, which, by degrees, alters its shape completely. At first it very much resembles an immature acorn-cup, but when the young are ready for flight it is deep like an ordinary coffee-cup. This pretty little bird is common in Jamaica.

In the hedgerows of our own country may often be found a nest which is not only pretty in itself, but remarkable for its accessories. This is the home of the RED-BACKED SHRIKE (Enneoctonus collurio).

The predatory habits of the Shrikes are well known, and one species, the Great Gray Shrike (Lanius excubitor), was formerly used as a falcon for the purpose of catching winged game. True, the bird was not considered as a veritable hawk, and in the old days of sumptuary laws, when each degree of rank had its own particular species of hawk, this was a fact of some significance, showing that those who thus employed the Shrike were not of gentle blood.

The popular notion of the time supplied another reason why the Shrike was looked upon with disdain as a bird-catcher. It was supposed to use guile in securing its prey, instead of openly conquering in fair chase. "Sometimes," writes an old sporting author, "upon certain birds she doth use to prey, whome she doth entrappe and deceive by flight, for this is her desire. She will stand at pearch upon some tree or poste, and there make an exceeding lamentable crye and exclamation, such as birds are wonte to do, being wronged or in hazard of mischiefe, and all to make other fowles believe and thinke that she is very much distressed and stands in need of ayde; whereupon the credulous sellie birds do flocke together presently at her call and voice, at what time if any happen to approach neare her she out of hand ceazeth on them, and devoureth them (ungrateful subtill fowle!) in requital for their simplicity and pains.