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

The cavity in which the Hoopoe makes its nest is notable for a most horrible stench, which, in countries where the bird is plentiful, has become proverbial. The odor which emanates from the kingfisher is most unsavory, but it does not possess the pungent offensiveness which distinguishes that of the Hoopoe. The food of the Hoopoe was long considered to be the cause of this unpleasant peculiarity; but as the bird lives entirely on insects, it is evident that some other cause must be sought. This is found in certain glands near the tail, which secrete a substance that certainly must be useful to the bird in some mysterious way, just as the odorous secretion of the musk-deer must be beneficial to the animal; but it possesses a singularly offensive smell, and renders the nest unendurable to human nostrils.

ONE or two of the Titmice are in the habit of making their nests in similar situations. The COLE-TIT (Parus ater) will always take advantage of hollow places, though it is perfectly capable of building a nest among the dense underwood, and its habitation may be mostly found in such localities. Young fir plantations are favorite resorts of this bird, which finds a congenial resting-place among the low, horizontal branches.

In Mudie’s “Feathered Tribes of the British Islands,” there is a brief and valuable summary of the bird-attracting powers of the fir in its different stages of development. “In a fir plantation, which is neither so low as to partake of the mushroom growth of pines (especially Pinus sylvestris) upon too rich soils, nor too inland and upland, there is a succession of birds. Linnets and other brake-birds come to them as long as they are mere bushes; but the note of the cuckoo is not heard in them. After a while the Cole-tit becomes one of their most plentiful inhabitants; and by that time the cuckoo perches and sings on the margin. A few years longer, and the ringdove moans in the tops of the trees, which have then begun to open toward the surface of the ground, and the covers for the brake-birds, and resting-places for all birds that build hideling and near the earth, are gone. The cuckoo is then heard less frequently, unless there are coppices of deciduous trees, or young pines come up in succession, in the vicinity. If the trees form a belt between rich grounds, the magpie, though he loves the ‘home’ trees better, will sometimes come, a little after the wood-pigeon; and if the plantation is deep and secluded, the jay will, perhaps, come a little earlier. To all these succeeds the rook, which nestles in the mature trees, with the long boles clear of branches, and he quits them not until they are cut down or perish in the lapse of time.”

In my note-book there is a sketch of a curious habitation occupied by a Cole-tit. One of the large trees at Walton Hall had been infested by the fungus, which has already been mentioned, and had broken asunder some eighteen or twenty feet from the ground. Several spots where these fungi had softened the wood were excavated by Mr. Waterton, in order to make nesting-places for various birds. In such spots the owls come and breed, and so do the jackdaws, starlings, and other birds. To one of these cavities Mr. Waterton fitted a door, composed of bark, and in the upper part of the door he cut a little circular hole. The Cole-tit soon found out the hollow, and discovering that the cavity would make a good dwelling-place, and that the hole afforded an easy mode of entrance and egress, she proceeded to make her nest therein. When I saw the tree, the Cole-tit had not begun to build, but the pieces of the old nest were there, and could easily be seen by opening the door.

ANOTHER example of birds that make their nests within the hollow of trees is the strangely-formed TOUCAN (Ramphastos Ariel).

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There are many species of Toucan, all of which are easily recognizable on account of the colors of the beak, for in all these birds the enormous bill is decorated with strangely brilliant tints. In one species the bill is rich orange and black, in another it is scarlet and yellow, and in another it is green and red; and in all it is of enormous dimensions when compared with the body, and is of great strength, though very light. Indeed, it is but a mere shell of horny substance, in some places not thicker than writing paper, and colored by means of certain membranes in the interior, which shine through the semi-transparent horn.

It has long been known that the Toucan nested in hollow trees, and that it preferred those cavities which could only be entered by a small aperture, the reason for this predilection being rather absurd. It was supposed that the young of the Toucan were liable to the attacks of monkeys and large birds of prey, and that whenever the parent bird was alarmed, all she had to do was to poke her beak out of the aperture. The assailant, on seeing such a huge bill, fancied that an animal of corresponding size must be behind it, and therefore fled from so doughty a foe. One writer puts this idea in a very quaint manner. The monkeys, he says, are very noisome to young birds, and try to pull the unfledged Toucans out of their nests. But the mother bird, when she sees a monkey approaching, “so settles herself in her nest as to put her bill out at the hole, and gives the monkeys such a welcome therewith, that they presently pack away, and glad they escape so.”

According to some writers, the Toucan makes the burrow for itself, using the huge beak as the tool wherewith it excavates its work. I very much doubt, however, whether the bird has the power of doing so, and think that, at the most, it only adapts and slightly alters the interior of the hollow in order to suit its own purposes.

The Toucan is always a tree-loving bird, and does not wander from the forests. It is a native of South America, and may generally be seen perched on the topmost boughs of the lofty mora-tree, far beyond the reach of the shot-gun, and requiring a single bullet, or the Indian’s tiny poisoned arrow, to bring it from its lofty elevation. It flies only by jerks, takes no long aerial journeys, and its body always seems overweighted by the enormous beak, which makes the head bow downward as the bird passes through the air.

PERHAPS the SWIFT (Cypselus apus) may take rank among the semi-burrowing birds.

It always lays its long white eggs and makes its simple nest in holes, and in some cases is able to form the tunnel in which it breeds. When it takes up its habitation far from human abodes, it contents itself with crevices in rocks, hollow trees, and similar localities. But, when it resides near the habitations of man, it attaches itself to him like the swallow and the martin. Slates and tiles have, however, driven the Swift away from many a spot wherein it was once plentiful, for it loves to penetrate into thatch and therein to rear its hungry brood.

I can well remember the gradual ejection of the Swifts from a country town on account of architectural improvements. Formerly, when all the less pretending houses were covered with thatch, the Swifts had their nests in every roof, and the “Jacky Screamers,” as the peasants called the birds, used to hunt for flies in the streets, and boldly carry their prey to their young. The houses were so low that a man could touch the eaves merely by standing on a chair, and the habits of the birds were easily watched. Their nests were frequently robbed, but the birds seemed to care little for their bereavement, and when the eggs were removed, would quietly lay another couple or so. I seldom found more than three eggs in a nest.

By watching the Swift enter the tunnel leading to its nest, the object of the oddly-formed feet is clearly ascertained. The legs are very short but strongly made, and the toes are all furnished with strong curved claws, and directed forward, so that the bird is unable to clasp a branch with its feet. This structure enables it to scramble through its tunnel with great rapidity, and it is most interesting to see the Swift wheel round in the air with a piercing cry, answered by a little complacent chirrup from its mate within the nest, then dart into the hole as if shot from a bow, closing its wings as it enters the tunnel, and then scramble away with a quick and certain gait that never fails to excite admiration.

The nest itself is a very simple affair. Any soft material seems to suit the Swift, which brings hay, flakes of wool, bits of rag, feathers, paper, string, and many other substances into the burrow. With these materials it makes a tolerably compact nest, which is generally to be found at a distance of eighteen inches or two feet from the entrance of the burrow. The holes which have been made by rats are mostly used for this purpose, but if the bird can not find a hollow already existing, it is quite capable of forming one for itself, and by dint of pulling out the straws in some weak spot, and pushing aside those which it can not extract, it soon makes a burrow large enough for its purpose.

CHAPTER III.

BURROWING REPTILES.

The REPTILES and their Hibernation.—The LAND TORTOISE and its Winter Dwelling.—The CROCODILES.—Snakes.—The YELLOW SNAKE of Jamaica.—Its general Habits.—Its burrowing powers discovered.—Presumed Method of removing the Earth.

THE REPTILES are, as a body, not remarkable for the burrows which they make.

Many of them bore their way into the ground, pass a few months in a state of torpidity, and then push their way out again. But the hole which they make in the earth is scarcely to be called a home, inasmuch as the inhabitant merely enters it as a convenient place wherein it may become torpid, and abandons it as soon as the ordinary functions of the system are restored by the warmth of the succeeding year.

The common Land Tortoise, for example (Testudo Græca), is in the habit of slowly digging a burrow with almost painful deliberation, and then concealing itself below the surface of the earth during the cold months of winter. Many Tortoises which have lived in this country have been noticed to perform this act, and I have lately seen a very good example of a burrow which had been sunk amid some strawberry plants, and from which the inmate had just emerged.

Many other reptiles follow a similar course of action. The crocodiles, for example, burrow themselves deeply in the mud, and have more than once caused much alarm by awakening out of their hibernation, and protruding their unwelcome snouts from the mud close to the feet of the astonished spectator.

Snakes are accustomed, in like manner, to conceal themselves during the period of their hibernation, resorting to hollow trees, holes in the ground, and similar localities. Laborers, while engaged in digging, especially in breaking down banks, frequently unearth a goodly assemblage of snakes, all coiled up in an unsuspected cavity, which they must have entered through the deserted burrow of a mouse or some other little animal. But that a snake should be able to form its own burrow is a feature so remarkable in herpetology, that a single accredited example must not be passed without notice.