THE DESIGN OF THE CATBIRD. BIRD ARCHITECTURE By Gene Stratton-Porter (Illustrated by the Author) Come, summer visitant, attach To my cabin roof thy nest of clay, And let my ear thy music catch, Low twittering underneath the thatch, At the gray dawn of day. BIRD architecture utilizes every conceivable material from the few chips on the ground of the killdeer, to the elaborate swinging nest of lint, lichens and hair of the oriole; every shape from the hummingbird s cup to the mud scoop of the swallow or the pensile purse of the vireo; and every location ranging from six feet under, and on the ground, over bushes, fences, shrubs, buildings, trees up to the highest towers, monuments and mountain crags. If an effort were made to establish a rule by which could be determined the hight at which members of different bird families choose locations for nesting its most distinguished feature would in all probability be its exceptions. The extremes seem to seek earth and sky, and the means occupy the middle distance; that is, very small birds, wrens, linnets, finches and most sparrows keep on or near the earth; owls, hawks, herons and eagles as near as possible to the sky, and birds averaging the size of a robin equi-distant between. But this rule will only hold good to establish an average, and scarcely that, for many large birds such as bitterns and pheasants nest on the ground, many small ones such as ruby-throated hummingbirds and chipping sparrows select extreme hights, while of the middle class larks, bobolinks and nighthawks build on the ground and orioles, vireos and kingbirds take to dizzy hights. Many times the chief characteristic of a bird and the location he chooses for his nest seem to go by contraries. The sweetest note from the throat of a bird is flung by the lark from unseen hights to his mate nesting on the dark breast of Mother earth. The kingfisher, with the purple of royalty on his crest and the clear cry of freedom in his throat, goes darting from one lofty tree top to another along the river bank and his mate broods in their winding burrow six feet from the light. The oriole loves to splash in the water, dig in the dirt, hunt worms and berries and skim along near earth, while his mate and nestlings swing free in their purse-shaped nest at a sickening hight. The heron is a bird of
438 Bird Architecture the swamps and marshes, not only feeding but pleasuring there, yet his nest is at the top of the tallest tree he can select. The birds are their own architects, builders and householders, and as no law concerning their choice of location can be established, either by their characteristics or size, neither can there be any as to what governs their choice of material. In this the birds frequently yield to necessity rather than follow the instinct of their species and build their nests of the most suitable material they can find in their chosen locations. Again in a locality abounding in the material usually selected by a species a pair will take a new departure and construct a nest only to be identified by its builders. For example, the rosebreasted grosbeak always prefers to locate high in a thicket of wild grape vines and construct its nest solely of the dead wooden tendrils from last year s climbing. Not a scrap of lining or other material will they use, if these can be secured, and on the merest handful of these dried curlers they will lay from four to six eggs, and rear such a lusty brood that one wonders how they ever hang on, for they seem to overflow the nest on all sides and each little bird will be found clinging with both feet for dear life. It seems incredible, yet six wellconditioned young grosbeaks winged their first flight from the nest, reproduced on this page. But in those parts of the country where they cannot secure their chosen location and material they build in trees, preferably maples, a loose, carelessly constructed nest, very like their cousin cardinals. Dusky flycatchers like most particularly to line their nests with wool but when they cannot secure it they substitute fine, soft moss; and crested flycatchers much prefer cast snake skins, but failing to locate in a snakey region and having a nest completed to the lining, they use fish scales or onion skins instead. The architecture of about one-half the birds that build on the ground is a disgrace to decent bird carpentry, as witness the eggs of the snipe, killdeer and others of different families, laid on the ground with a few bits of wood or weed stalks to keep them from rolling away; and the other half build a grassy hair and down-lined structure that is exquisitely neat, as in the case of the field sparrow, oven bird and several members of the warbler family. Birds that build in the middle distance use small sticks, twigs, leaves, hair, moss, wool, feathers, plant fiber, paper, rags, thistle and milkweed down; mud and many other materials and only about half of them are neat, particular builders. Conspicuous among those using the rough, crude style of architecture, and coarse, crude material, with little if any lining, are every species of grosbeak, doves, robins, thrashers and catbirds. Those using a finer grade of material and great care YOUNG GROSBEAK ONE OF SIX.
Bird Architecture 439 in construction and lining are linnets, finches, bluebirds, flycatchers and several species of warblers. Birds of the hights must of necessity, from the peril of their locations, use more substantial architecture and they employ a different and finer class of material. Baltimore orioles construct a large purse-shaped nest of lint, lichens, old hornet s nests, horsehair and strings, swung free from the topmost hight of a down beside; the whole daintily worked together and bound round and round with coarse spider webs. Orchard orioles build a cup-shaped, grassy nest and use such care in the selection of material and construction that they are entitled to a place among the most skilful bird builders. Birds of the extreme hights, such as eagles and hawks, when building on mountain crags are crude, careless architects, but when they THE NEATEST NESTS ARE THOSE OF THE FINCHES THE GOLDFINCH. tall tree, preferably over water, and their nest is possibly the most difficult construction of our native bird architecture. They have a close second in the vireos whose work is something similar in shape and construction. Vireos choose slightly lower and more secluded locations and combine an amazing mass of material including all the oriole uses and leaves, old paper, pine needles, wool, bits of rag, plant fiber and nest in trees the monarchs of the forest are selected, and the nests, while coarse, ramshackle affairs of sticks and twigs, have some attempt at lining and must of necessity be built more substantially than those having rocky foundations. Cranes and herons are high builders and their work appears even coarser than a dove s from its greater size and bulkier material, differing too, in the fact that some attempt at lining
440 Bird Architecture is made. Ravens and buzzards are builders of the tree-tops and very frequently select a last year s crow s nest which they enlarge and reline. The neatest nests and the most skilful combinations of materials as a rule are the work of small builders, hummingbirds, wrens and those specie of the Fringillidae family, including sparrows, finches, linnets and buntings and some two dozen different species of warblers of the Mniotiltidæ family. Some of the stump and hollow tree builders make beautiful and comfortable downy nests. Kingbirds and shrikes build a substantial nest carefully lined, especially in we except cuckoos, the craziest piece of bird architecture among bush and tree builders is the nest of a dove. Doves belong to the order Columbidæ and from the neat looking, plump little Quaker-colored builders one would be led to expect neater and more substantial architecture. The nest is frequently located in the spread of a wild plum tree long since dead, moss grown and lichen covered, and is constructed solely of a few loose sticks and twigs, so carelessly thrown together that it seems as if the two beautiful eggs, so thin shelled and opalescent that one can see the globe of gold within, would roll from it THE GROUND SPARROW S NEST. the case of the shrikes whose nests are elaborately lined and finished at the top with such a beautiful boa of Plymouth Rock feathers that the lice carried from the chicken yards on them frequently infest and kill the young. The nests chosen to illustrate this article are most interesting examples of bird architecture at its best, showing in three cases a rare thing, the almost exclusive use of one material by the little builders and in the fourth an exquisite combination. If at the touch of the mother bird on coming to and leaving the nest. Not a particle of lining is used and it would seem that the coarse material of the nest would bruise the tender bodies of the young doves cruelly. The extreme gentleness of a dove s disposition does not come from being cradled in a nest of down. Robins are of the family Turdidae and among our most common birds. They are notoriously rough, ugly builders, yet I have seen a nest which was a most beautiful
specimen of bird architecture, and a distinct departure from their usual material and construction. It was built under a veranda where the logs crossed at a southeast corner of our cabin, in the latter part of February and early in March of 1900. It was the work of a pair of robins that had homed with us every summer for seven years and were as familiar about the premises as our doves. They really were bigger and brighter than ordinary robins, the male especially being the king of his kind and a magnificent singer. They had formed the habit of coming two and three weeks earlier than any other birds because they expected our protection and to be fed. They were such a delight about the premises we were all foolish over them: March might bluster and rave, and April empty her wateringpot in icy showers over us, but first at morning and last at night came floating into us the cheery notes of our loved robin. Having grown too careless the female was pounced upon by a cat, just as she began brooding and the nest was removed in a few days in the hope that it would help the male, whose pitiful calls and alarming cries were torture to us, to forget, and seek a new mate. Ordinarily the nest of a robin is constructed of a half peck of twigs, strings, roots, grass, leaves, rags and a liberal plastering of mud. While writing there is one in the course of construction outside my window. It has a foundation of sticks and twigs eight inches deep placed in the crotch of a wisteria vine and supported by the vine up to the eaves, against which the usual structure of the species is placed and plastered fast with mud. This nest is rough and unsightly, representing twice the amount of material and work ordinarily used. The restricted choice of material in the first mentioned nest was owing to the unusually early arrival of the robins, there being a light fall of snow that hung on for several weeks. One carpet rag and a bit of cotton cord were used, but for the rest the sole material was the mud of the foundation and rim and the long dried blades of last summer s orchard grass. This grass grew in hummocks and the spaces between were filled with ice and snow. The robins would tear a blade from the tuft close to the roots and then, walk backwards twisting their heads from side to side and pulling like a tug- o-war to drag it from under the snow. Many of the blades so secured were Bird Architecture 441 from six to eight inches in length and they coiled them around the nest and pasted them with mud that dried to exactly the same shade as the grass. The blue of robin eggs never looked more delicately beautiful than against the rich tan background of this nest. Sharply contrasting with these structures of sticks and grass was the nest of a bellbird, the body of which was built entirely of roots. Tiny fine-fibered roots, from nettles, wild raspberries and other plants and shrubs, fashioned into shape while wet, and dried to a rich reddish brown. It must have been a terrible task for these little architects to dig up and tear loose all the roots used in the construction of their nest, so different from, yet equally as beautiful as their cousin robins, It was, too, a dangerous task for it subjected the builders to more than the ordinary share of risk and dangers from snakes: and animals. Just why roots are the chosen material for this nest is a mystery. Located in this same wood I saw a half dozen nests built by other birds of this species of the material usually chosen by them and distinguishable a rod away by their waving blades of corn fodder. As a rule these birds build in the crotch of a small tree, at an average hight of about twelve feet, a large rough structure of twigs, leaves, mud and an endless variety of material, being especially partial to the long dried blades of corn fodder, and for these reasons this root-fibered nest is such an innovation in bellbird architecture as to be a curiosity. Surrounded by the graceful leaves of the elm, branch on which it was located, the delicate tints of the eggs emphasized by the rich brown of the roots on which they lay, it was indeed, an exquisite piece of bird architecture and a thing of beauty. As opposed to these nests of sticks, grass and roots the nest of the dusky flycatcher, of the family Tyrannidae, is a striking combination of material. The body of the nest is of mud thickly interlaid with hair. This nest is built with consummate skill and entails much hard work in its Construction. When the body of the nest is the proper size and shape in mud, decorations are added. First rare and exquisitely colored lichens are peeled from rocks and old snake fences, and the gray lint used by hornets and bees, and pasted on the wet mud. It is then lined and
442 Bird Architecture covered with a tiny, fine-fibered, goldengreen moss and as a finishing touch relined and covered over with white wool, which is thickest under the eggs and drawn over the edge and worked in among the moss and lichens of the outside fine, delicate and cobwebby as a bride s veil. The nest contains from four to six eggs as its usual complement. The nest of a rubythroated hummingbird placed high on a rough, knotty, lichen-covered limb is the shape of a shallow cup. It is lined with finest plant down, and so lichen and bark covered outside as to be indistinguishable from the limb on which it rests. The nest of the goldfinch is the shape of a deep cup, located in the crotch of a small branch, compactly and carefully built of hair, grass and moss, and is snowy white inside from its lining of wool, milkweed and thistle down. These two with the nests of the dusky flycatcher and oriole are the very triumphs of bird architecture among our native builders. Every scientist will agree that nests taken in the chosen location and just as placed by the birds are the only ones of any real value and have only the utmost contempt for any man or woman who, under cover of any excuse, scientific, artistic or whatsoever, goes about tearing out and cutting down nests in order to carry them to studios or place them in a better light, so that they can more conveniently and successfully photograph them. Only such nests should be preserved for collections also as can be gathered up after the birds have abandoned them. Bird architecture is one of the most interesting branches of natural history study and its surprises in the way of location, material and construction are never ending. The delight of discovering these things for yourself is enhanced by every treat for the eye and ear that nature has in store for her children; lapping water, waving grain fields, delicately colored and perfumed flowers and pungent forest odors. For every day spent exploring the secrets of Mother Nature she pays you compound interest. Not only is your mind filled with her signs, wonders and mysteries but your lungs expand with pure air, your blood washes free with delightful exercise and your heart beats in closer touch with the Creator. THE HOME OF MR. AND MRS. BOB WHITE.