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

Mr. M'GILLIVRAY, in his "Voyage of the Rattlesnake," gives a curious account of the nesting-place of an allied bird, which burrows in Goose Island, off the North Australian coast.

"The rock is a coarse syenite, forming detached bare masses and ridges, but none of considerable height. In the hollows the soil appears rich, dark, and pulverulent, with much admixture of unformed bird guano. The scanty vegetation is apparently limited to a grass growing in tussocks, and a few maritime plants. The ground resembles a rabbit warren, being every where undermined by the burrows of the MUTTON BIRD (Puffinus brevicaudus) the size of a pigeon. A person in walking across the island can scarcely avoid frequently stumbling among these burrows, from the earth giving way under his feet; and I was told by the residents that snakes are very numerous in these holes, living upon the Mutton Birds. I myself trod upon one which, fortunately, was too sluggish to escape before I had time to shoot it, and ascertain it to be the well-known 'blacksnake' of the Australian colonists (Acanthophis tortor), a very poisonous species.

"About dusk, clouds of Mutton Birds came in from the sea, and we amused ourselves with chasing them over the ground among their burrows, and as many specimens as I required were speedily provided by knocking them down with a stick. As usual with the petrel tribe, they bite severely if incautiously handled, and disgorge a quantity of offensive oily matter, the smell of which pervades the whole island, and which the clothes I then wore retained for a long time afterward." The curious association of the burrowing bird and the venomous snake is very remarkable, and reminds the observer of the burrowing owl and the rattlesnake which inhabit the tunnels of the prairie dog.

THERE are many other birds which pass a semi-burrowing life, making their nests in hollows already excavated, and either using them without adaptation or altering them very slightly for the purpose of depositing their eggs and rearing their young. The JACKDAW, for example (Corvus monedula), is frequently one of the semi-burrowers, making its nest within deserted rabbit burrows, when it can find no more congenial locality. The STOCKDOVE (Columba œnas) is frequently found in similar situations, placing its rude platform of sticks within the burrow; and the common SHELDRAKE (Tadorna Vulpanser) possesses the same habit.

The nest of the last-mentioned bird is always placed close to the water, so that the young may be fed with marine crustacea. The female is accustomed to cover the eggs with down plucked from her own breast. Rabbit warrens upon sea-edged cliffs are favorite resorts of the Sheldrake. In default, however, of rabbit burrows, the Sheldrake is well content with any moderately deep holes in the shore, and therein lays her enormous deposit of eggs, which are from ten to fifteen in number, and of a white color. Burrows thus tenanted may be found in many situations, especially on the banks of estuaries, localities which are always sheltered, and almost always produce an abundant supply of food for the bird and its young brood.

THERE is a bird which sometimes visits our island, and which is more lovely in color than the kingfisher, and far more elegant in shape. This is the BEE-EATER (Merops apiaster), so common in the warmer parts of the Old World. Not only is it rich in color and delicately shaped, but it is most graceful in its movements, sweeping through the air with the ease and rapidity of the swift, and much resembling that bird in the character of its flight.

It is not a large bird, being about the size of the common thrush, and formed in a more slender manner. Its feathers are colored in the most exquisite manner, green, azure, yellow, orange, and chocolate-brown, being mixed in a singularly harmonious manner, and relieved by a little white on the forehead, and a narrow band of deep blue-black under the throat. When the sunbeams fall on these gorgeously decorated feathers, the effect is magnificent in the extreme, for there is not only the light azure hue which gives to our kingfisher so brilliant an aspect, as it darts along in its meteor-like flight, but with every movement of the bird the colors change like those of "shot" silk.

The peculiarly graceful flight of these birds is calculated to display their lovely colors to the best advantage, and as they are partially gregarious in their habits, and love to assemble in little flocks, they afford a magnificent spectacle as they sweep through the air in devious flight, crossing and recrossing each other's course, rising and sinking on facile wing, wheeling swiftly, as some more active insect strives to escape from the lovely destroyers, and ever and anon shooting with arrowy speed as their ruby-cinctured eyes catch a glance of some distant prey. Were it not for their harsh, screaming notes, they would seem almost too beautiful to belong to this world. The splendor of plumage is quite tropical, and though the Bee-eater may not possess the metallic radiance of the humming-bird, the extreme beauty of the silken plumage, which shines in the sunbeams like spun glass, can not be surpassed, and is far too subtle to be approached by human art. The greatest master of the brush, aided by all the resources of the chemist, can do no more than indicate the wondrous beauty of this bird.

The bird does not restrict itself to insects. My friend, E. Arnold, Esq., tells me that in India he has seen the Bee-eater catch and devour small fish equal in dimensions to the well-known minnow of England. These fish are eaten by human beings as well as by birds, and seem to be intermediate between the smelt and the white-bait. Among the residents they are known by the quaint name of "Havildar-and-ten," because a dish consists of eleven or twelve fishes. In the Indian army the Havildar is equivalent to our sergeant, and has ten men under him, so that a "Havildar-and-ten" signifies a sergeant and his guard, making altogether eleven men. The external resemblance between the Bee-eater and the kingfisher is patent to all, in spite of the short, clumsy-looking body and stunted tail of the one, and the slight, elegant form and lengthened tail of the other; and it is sufficiently curious, that a light and airy bird, like the Bee-eater, which feeds upon the most active insects, and catches them on the wing, should invade the realms of the kingfisher, and procure a meal from the water.

Near the spot where the Bee-eater hovers about in search of its daily food, the nest may be found.

As the bird is generally as gregarious in its nesting as in its flight, there is little difficulty in finding the locality in which it has formed its temporary home. The Bee-eater is one of the true burrowers, excavating a hole in some bank, and depositing its eggs therein. The burrow is not a deep one, seldom exceeding a foot in length, so that the sitting bird is plainly visible from the exterior. The extremity of the hole is floored and partially lined with moss, upon which are placed five or six eggs, of pearly whiteness. Whenever the bank happens to be a convenient one, it is pierced with holes as numerous as those of the sand martin of our own country; and if the observer can manage to conceal himself in close proximity to the nest, and will remain perfectly quiet, he will witness a scene which is unsurpassable for beauty.

Although gifted with the rapid wing of the swift, the Bee-eater does not possess the untiring flight of that bird, and, therefore, is accustomed to repose at short intervals, whenever it has caught a butterfly, or some large and active insect. Numbers of these lovely birds may be seen perched in rows upon the branches of neighboring trees, exhibiting masses of color that have a peculiarly magnificent effect to the eye. Here they sit for the purpose of eating the prey which they have captured, and the ground beneath these favored branches is thickly strewn with wings of butterflies and other insects which they have devoured.

I do not think that the Bee-eater ever makes its nest in England, for it is only an occasional visitor, and is generally shot before it has passed many days, or even hours, in this country. But its nest may be plentifully found in the warmer latitudes of Europe, and many parts of Asia and northern Africa.

WE often find burrowers where we least expect them.

Who would think, on inspecting a specimen of the well-known STORMY PETREL (Thalassidroma pelagica), that it was able to dig into the ground, and form the burrow in which it makes its nest? Such, however, is the case, and the pretty little traverser of the ocean shows itself to be as accomplished in excavating the ground as it is in flitting over the waves with its curious mixture of flight and running. If the Stormy Petrel can find a burrow already dug, it will make use of it, and accordingly is fond of haunting rocky coasts, and of depositing its eggs in some suitable cleft. It will also settle in a deserted rabbit-burrow, if it can find one sufficiently near the sea, and is found breeding in many places which would equally suit the puffin.

Failing, however, all natural or ready-made cavities, the Stormy Petrel is obliged to excavate a tunnel for itself, and even on sandy ground is able to make its own domicile. Off Cape Sable, in Nova Scotia, there are many low-lying islands, the upper parts of which are of a sandy nature, and the lower composed chiefly of mud. Not a hope is there in such localities of already existing cavities, and yet to those islands the Petrels resort by thousands, for the purpose of breeding. The birds set resolutely to work, and delve little burrows into the sandy soil, seldom digging deeper than a foot, and, in fact, only making the cavity sufficiently large to conceal themselves and their treasure.

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Each bird lays a single egg, which is white, and of small dimensions. The young are funny-looking objects, and resemble puffs of white down rather than nestlings. The parent attends to its young with great assiduity, feeding it with the oleaginous fluid which is secreted in such quantities by the digestive organs of this bird. So large indeed is the amount of oil, that in some parts of the world the natives make the Stormy Petrel into a lamp, by the simple process of drawing a wick through its body. The oil soon rises into the wick, and burns as freely as in any of the really rude and primitive, though ornamental lamps of the ancients.

Many shore-going birds are equally notable for their capacities of producing fat in large quantities when they procure a plentiful supply of food. The common sand-piper, for example, which haunts the muddy shores of tidal rivers, and feeds upon the various living creatures with which the mud is peopled, accumulates fat to such an extent that to skin the bird properly is almost impossible, the thick coating of fat between the skin and the flesh melting by the heat of the fingers, and running like oil over the feathers. I could never bring myself to believe in the petrel-lamp until I had opened the sand-piper when in full condition.

The Petrel only feeds its young by night, remaining on the wing during the day, and flying to vast distances from the land. Owing to this habit, and its custom of taking to the sea during the fiercest storms, it has long been an object of dread to sailors, whose illogical minds are unable to discriminate between cause and effect, and fancy that the Petrel, or Mother Carey's Chicken, as they call the bird, is the being which, by the exercise of some magic art, calls the storm into existence. They even fancy that the Petrel never goes ashore nor rests; and will tell you that it does not lay its egg in the ground, but holds it under one wing, and hatches it while engaged in flight. To the vulgar mind, every thing incomprehensible is fraught with terrors, and so the harmless, and even useful Petrel, is hated with strange virulence.