Chapter 4

Real castles in the air are the nests of the orioles; no other nests are better hidden or apparently more safe from the depredations of crows and squirrels. To start the oriole's nest successfully is quite an engineering feat. The birds inspect the branches many times before they make a decision. When they have decided on the site, the mother bird brings her first string or vegetable fiber and attaches it to a twig by winding it around and around many times, leaving one or both ends hanging free. I have nests where these foundation strings are wound around a twig a dozen times. In her blind windings and tuckings and loopings the bird occasionally ties a substantial knot, but it is never the result of a deliberate purpose as some observers contend, but purely a matter of chance. When she uses only wild vegetable fibers, she fastens it to the twig by a hopeless kind of tangle. It is about the craziest kind of knitting imaginable. After the builder has fastened many lines to opposite twigs, their ends hanging free, she proceeds to span the little gulf by weaving them together. She stands with her claws clasped one to each side, and uses her beak industriously, looping up and fastening the loose ends. I have stood in the road under the nest looking straight up till my head swam, trying to make out just how she did it, but all I could see was the bird standing astride the chasm she was trying to bridge, and busy with the hanging strings. Slowly the maze of loose threads takes a sacklike form, the bottom of the nest thickens, till some morning you see the movement of the bird inside it; her beak comes through the sides from within, like a needle or an awl, seizes a loose hair or thread, and jerks it back through the wall and tightens it. It is a regular stitching or quilting process. The course of any particular thread or fiber is as irregular and haphazard as if it were the work of the wind or the waves. There is plan, but no conscious method of procedure. In fact, a bird's nest is a growth. It is not something builded as we build, in which judgment, design, forethought enter; it is the result of the blind groping of instinct which rarely errs, but which does not see the end from the beginning, as reason does. The oriole sometimes overhands the rim of her nest with strings and fibers to make it firm, and to afford a foundation for her to perch upon, but it is like the pathetic work which an untaught blind child might do under similar conditions. The birds use fine, strong strings in their nest-building at their peril. Many a tragedy results from it. I have an oriole's nest sent me from Michigan on the outside of which is a bird's dried foot with a string ingeniously knotted around it. It would be difficult to tie so complicated a knot. The tragedy is easy to read. Another nest sent me from the Mississippi Valley is largely made up of fragments of fish-line with the fish-hooks on them. But there is no sign that the bird came to grief using this dangerous material. Where the lives of the wild creatures impinge upon our lives is always a danger-line to them. They are partakers of our bounty in many ways, but they pay a tax to fate in others.

The orioles in my part of the country always use the same material in the body of their nests--a kind of soft, gray, flaxlike fiber which they apparently get from some species of everlasting flower. Woven together and quilted through with strings and horse-hairs, it makes strong, warm, feltlike walls. In the nest sent me from Michigan the walls are made of something that suggests brown human hair, except that it is too hard and brittle for hair.

Our orchard oriole also makes a pendent nest, but not so deep and pocketlike as that of the Baltimore oriole, and showing no such elaborate use of strings and hairs. It is made entirely of some sort of dried grass, very elaborately woven together.

Bullock's oriole of California weaves its nest entirely of the long, strong threads which it draws out of the palm-leaves. The only one I have seen was suspended from the under side of one of those leaves.

I think the prize nest of the woods, if we except the nest of the hummingbird, is that of the wood pewee. It is as smooth and compact and symmetrical as if turned in a lathe out of some soft, feltlike substance. Of course, the phœbe's artistic masonry under the shelving rocks, covered with moss and lined with feathers, or with the finest dry grass and bark fibers, sheltered from the storms and beyond the reach of four-footed prowlers, is almost ideal. It certainly is a happy thought.

The least flycatcher, the kingbird, the cedar-bird, the goldfinch, the indigo-bird, are all fine nest-builders, each with a style of its own.

About the most insecure nest in our trees is that of the little social sparrow, or "chippie." When the sudden summer storms come, making the tree-tops writhe as if in agony, I think of this frail nest amid the tossing branches. Pass through the grove or orchard after the tempest is over, and you are pretty sure to find several wrecked nests upon the ground. "Chippie" has never learned the art of nest-building in trees. She is a poor architect. She should have kept to the ground or to the low bushes. The true tree nest-builders weave their nests fast to the branches, but "Chippie" does not; she simply arranges her material loosely between them, where the nest is supported, but not secured. She seems pathetically ignorant of the fact that there are such things as wind and storm. Hence her frail structure is more frequently dislodged from the trees than that of any other bird.

Recently, after a day of violent northwest wind, I found a wrecked robin's nest and eggs upon the lawn under a maple--not a frequent spectacle. The robin's firm masonry is usually proof against wind and rain, but in this case the nest was composed almost entirely of dry grass; there was hardly a trace of mud in it, hence it was flexible and yielding, and had no grip of the branches. It was evidently the second nest of the pair this season, and the second nest in summer of any species of bird is frailer and more of a makeshift than the first nest in spring. Comparatively few of our birds attempt to bring off a second brood unless the first attempt has been defeated, but the robin is sure to bring off two, and may bring off three. But the robin is a hustler, probably the most enterprising of all our birds. I recall a mother robin that, in late June, repaired a nest in a climbing rosebush which her first brood had vacated only a week before. A brood of wood thrushes which left their nest about the same time was still being fed by their parents about the place.

The song sparrow, the social sparrow, the phœbe, the bluebird, all build a second nest. The first brood of the bluebird will be looked after by the father in some near-by grove or orchard, while the mother starts a new family in the old nest. If all goes well with them, those two bluebird families will unite and keep together in a loose flock till they migrate in the fall.

So many of our birds nest about our houses and lawns and gardens and along our highways, that at first sight it seems as if they must be drawn there by a sense of greater security for their eggs and young. The robin has become almost a domestic institution. It is rarely that one finds a robin's nest very far from a human habitation. One spring there were four robins' nests on my house and outbuildings--in the vines, on window-sills, or other coigns of vantage. There were at the same time at least fifteen robins' nests on my lot of sixteen acres, and I am quite certain that I have not seen all there were. They were in sheds and apple-trees and spruces and cedars, in the ends of piles of grape-posts, in rosebushes, in the summer-house, and on the porch. We did not expect to get one of the early cherries, and might count ourselves lucky if we got any of the later ones.

A robin has built her nest in my summer-house. She abuses me so when I try to tarry there, after incubation has begun, that I take no comfort and presently withdraw. Until her brood has flown, I am practically a stranger in my open-air rest-house and study.

When the fish crows come egging in the spruces and maples about the house, and I hear the screaming of the robins, I seize my gun and rush out to protect them, but am not always successful, as the mischief is often done before I get within reach; I am not sure but that the robins think--if they think at all--that I am in league with the crows to despoil them. I was not in time to save the eggs of the wood thrush the other morning, when I heard the alarm calls of the birds, but I had the satisfaction of seeing the black marauder go limping over the hill, dropping quills from his wings at nearly every stroke. I am sure he will not come back. The fish crow is one of the most active enemies of our small birds. Of course, he only obeys his instincts in hunting out and devouring their eggs and young, but I fancy I obey something higher than instinct when I protest with powder and shot.

The birds do not mind the approach of the domestic animals, such as the cow, the horse, the sheep, the pig, and they are only a little suspicious of the dog, but the appearance of the cat fills them with sudden alarm. I think that birds that have never before seen a cat join in the hue and cry. What alarms one alarms all within hearing. The orioles are probably the most immune from the depredations of crows and jays and owls of all our birds, and yet they will join in the cry of "Thief, thief!" when a crow appears. (The alarm cry of birds will even arrest the attention of four-footed beasts, and often bring the sportsman's stalking to naught.)

I fancy that Phœbe selects our sheds and bridges and porticoes for her nesting-sites because they are so much more numerous than the overhanging rocks where her forbears built. For the same reason certain of the swallows and the swifts select our barns and chimneys.

If the birds themselves are not afraid to draw near us, why should their instinct lead them to feel that their enemies will be afraid of us? How do they know that a jay or a crow or a red squirrel will be less timid than they are? And why also, if they have such confidence in us, do they raise such a hue and cry when we pass near their nests? The robin in my summer-house knew, if she knew anything, that I had never raised a finger against her. On the contrary, my hoe in the garden had unearthed many a worm and slug for her. Still she sees in me only a possible enemy, and tolerate me with my book or my newspaper near her nest she will not. Another robin has built her nest in a rosebush that has been trained to form an arch over the walk that leads to the kitchen door and only a few yards from it; but whenever we pass and repass she scurries away with loud, angry protests and keeps it up as long as we are in sight, so that we do not feel at all complimented by her settling down so near us. If one's appearance is so alarming, even when he is going to hoe the garden, why did the intolerant bird set up her household gods so near? If I keep away her enemies, why will she not be gracious enough to regard me as her friend? The robin that trusted her brood to the sheltering vines of the woodshed, and lined her nest with the hair of our old gray horse--why should she scream, "Murder!" whenever any of us go to the well a few feet away?

What is the real explanation of the fact that so many of our birds nest so near our dwellings and yet show such unfriendliness when we come near them? Their apparent confidence, on the one hand, contradicts their suspicion on the other. Is it because we have here the workings of a new instinct which has not yet adjusted itself to the workings of the older instinct of solicitude for the safety of the nest and young? My own interpretation is that birds are not drawn near us by any sense of greater security in our vicinity. It is evident from the start that there is an initial fear of us to be overcome. How, then, could the sense of greater safety in our presence arise? Fear and trust do not spring from the same root. How should the robins and thrushes know that their enemies--the jays, the crows, and the like--are more afraid of human beings than they are themselves? Hunted animals pursued by wolves or hounds will at times take refuge in the haunts of men, not because they expect human protection, but because they are desperate, and oblivious to everything save some means of escape. If the hunted deer or fox rushes into an open shed or a barn door, it is because it is desperately hard-pressed, and sees and knows nothing but some object or situation that it may place between itself and its deadly enemy. The great fear obliterates all minor fears.

The key to the behavior of the birds in this respect may be found in the Darwinian theory of natural selection. From the first settlement of the country a few of the common birds, attracted by a more suitable or more abundant food-supply, or other conditions, must inevitably have nested near human dwellings. These birds would thrive better and succeed in bringing off more young than those that nested in more exposed places. Hence, their progeny would soon be in the ascendancy. All animals seem to have associated memory. These birds would naturally return to the scenes and conditions of their youth, and start their nests there. It would not be confidence in men that would draw them; rather would the truth be that the fear of man is inadequate to overcome or annul this home attraction.

The catbird does not come to our vines on the veranda to nest from considerations of safety, but because her line of descent runs through such places. The catbirds and robins and phœbe-birds that were reared far from human habitations doubtless return to such localities to rear their young. The home sense in birds is strong. I have positive proof in a few instances of robins and song sparrows returning successive years to the same neighborhood. It is very certain, I think, that the phœbe-birds that daub our porches with their mud, and in July leave a trail of minute creeping and crawling pests, were not themselves hatched and reared in the pretty, moss-covered structure under the shelving rocks in the woods, or on the hillsides.

How different from the manners of the robins are the manners of a pair of catbirds that have a nest in the honeysuckle against the side of the first-floor sleeping-porch! Nothing seems farther from the nature of the catbird than the hue and cry which the robin at times sets up. The catbird is sly and dislikes publicity. An appealing feline _mew_ is her characteristic note. She never raises her voice like the town-crier, as the robin does, perched in the mean time where all eyes may behold him. The catbird peers and utters her soft protest from her hiding-place in the bushes. This particular pair of catbirds appeared in early May and began slyly to look over the situation in the vines and bushes about the house. All their proceedings were very stealthy; they were like two dark shadows gliding about, avoiding observation--no tree-tops or house-tops for them, but coverts close to the ground. We hoped they would divine safety in the shadow of the cottage, but tried to act as if oblivious of their goings and comings. We saw them now and then stealthily inspecting the tangle of honeysuckle on the east side of the veranda, where a robin last season reared a brood, and the low hedge of barberry-bushes on the south side of the cottage, where a song sparrow had her nest. If they come, which will they take, we wondered. Several times in the early morning I heard the male singing vivaciously and confidently in the thick of the honeysuckle. I guessed that the honeysuckle was the choice of the male, and that his song was a pæan in praise of it, addressed to his mate. But it was nearly a week before his musical argument prevailed and the site was apparently agreed upon.

When the nest-building actually began, the birds were so shy about it that, watch as I might, I failed to catch them in the act. One morning I saw the mother bird in the garden with nesting-material in her beak, but she failed to come to the honeysuckle with it while I watched from a near-by covert. At the same time robins were flying here and there with loaded beaks, and wood thrushes were going through the air trailing long strips of white paper behind them, but the catbird was an emblem of secrecy itself. She, too, brought fragments of white paper to her nest, but no one saw her do it. Like other nest-builders, she apparently put in her big strokes of work in the early morning before the sleepers on the veranda were stirring. A few times my inquisitive eye, cautiously peering over the railing, started her from the vine, but I never saw her enter it with leaf, stick, or straw; yet slowly the nest grew and came into shape, and finally received its finishing touches. So cautiously had the birds proceeded that, were they capable of concepts like us, I should fancy they flattered themselves that we had not the least suspicion of their little secret. The male ceased to sing near the house after the nest was begun. So much time elapsed after the finishing of the nest before the first egg appeared in it that some members of the household feared the birds had deserted it, especially as they were not seen about the premises for several days. But the weather was wet and cool, and the eggs ripened slowly. Then one morning the birds were seen again, and one blue-green egg was discovered in the nest. The next morning another egg was added, and a third egg on the third morning, and a fourth on the fourth morning. In due time incubation began, and thenceforth all went well with our dusky neighbors.

It is an anxious moment for all birds when their young leave the nest. One noontime by the unusual mewing of a parent catbird I felt sure that the critical time had come. Sure enough, there sat one of the young on a twig a few inches above the nest, motionless and hushed. No lusty response to the agitated cry of the mother, as is usually the case with the robin. "No publicity" is the watchword of the young catbirds as well as of the old. An hour or two later another young one was perched on a branch, and before night, when no one was looking, they both disappeared, leaving two motionless birds in the nest. The next morning early, without any signs of alarm or agitation on the part of the old birds, they took the important step. It could hardly have been much of a flight with any of them, as their wing-quills were only partially developed, and their tails were mere stubs. For several days afterward no sign or sound of old or young was seen or heard. They were probably keeping well concealed in the near-by trees or in the vines and currant-bushes in the vineyard. In about a week the whole family appeared briefly in upper branches of the maples near the house. The young were distinguishable from the old only by their shorter tails. A few days later the parent birds were seen moving stealthily through the vines and bushes about the house, or perching on the near-by stakes that supported the wire netting. Are they coming back for a second brood? was the question in our minds.

Soon we began to hear snatches of song from the male, then one morning a regular old-time burst of joy from him in the vine that held the old nest. Then he sang in a syringa-bush near the window on the south side of the cottage, and both birds were soon seen paying frequent visits to the bush. We felt sure another brood was in the air. Whether or not the first brood were now shifting for themselves, we did not know; they never again appeared upon the scene. Finally, on the morning of the Fourth of July, the foundation of a new nest was started in the syringa-bush three feet from the ground, and barely four feet from the window!

We had a view of the proceedings that the first site did not afford us. The old nest appeared to be in perfect condition, but there was evidently no thought with the birds of using it again, as the robins sometimes do, and as bluebirds and cliff swallows always do. A new nest, built of material almost identical with that of the old, and in a more exposed position, was decided upon. It progressed rapidly, and I was delighted to find that the male assisted in the building. Indeed, he was fully as active as the female. Very often they were both in the nest with material at the same moment. They seemed to agree perfectly. At first I got the impression that the male was not quite as decided as the female, and hesitated more, once or twice bringing material that he finally rejected. But he soon warmed up to the work and certainly did his share.

With most species of our birds the nest is entirely built by the female. With the robin, the wood thrush, the phœbe, the oriole, the hummingbird, the pewee, and many others, the male is only an interested spectator of the proceeding. He usually attends his mate in her quest for material, but does not lend a hand, or a bill. I think the cock wren assists in nest-building. I know the male cedar-bird does, and probably the male woodpeckers do also. The male rose-breasted grosbeak assists in incubation, and has been seen to sing upon the nest. It seems fair to infer that he assists in the nest-building also, but I am not certain that he does, and I have heard another observer state that in a nest which he watched the female apparently did it all.

My catbirds both worked overtime one afternoon at least, being on their job as late as seven o'clock. In three days the nest was done, all but touching up the interior. During the construction I laid out pieces of twine and bits of white paper on the bushes and wire netting, also some loose material from the outside of the old nest; all was quickly used. How much labor the birds would have saved themselves had they pulled the old nest to pieces and used the material a second time! I have known the oriole to start a nest, then change her mind, and then detach some of her strings and fibers and carry them to the new site; and I once saw a "chebec" whose eggs had been destroyed pull the old nest to pieces and rebuild it in a tree a hundred feet away.

The male catbird is slightly brighter and fresher-looking than his mate, but we could easily tell her by her often simulating the actions of a young bird when she came with material in her beak; she would alight on a near-by post and slightly spread and quiver her wings in a tender, beseeching kind of way. She would do this also when bringing food to her first brood. When one of the parent birds of any species simulates by voice or manner the young birds, it is always the female; her heart would naturally be more a-quiver with anticipation than that of the male.

On the fifth day the nest was completed and received its first egg. There was considerable delay with the second egg, but it appeared on the second or third day, and the third egg the following day. Then incubation began. In twenty days from the day the nest was begun, the birds were hatched, and in eleven days more they had quietly left the nest.

A friend of mine who has a summer home on one of the trout-streams of the Catskills discovered that the catbird was fond of butter, and she soon had one of the birds coming every day to the dining-room window for its lump of fresh butter, and finally entering the dining-room, perching on the back of the chair, and receiving its morsel of butter from a fork held in the mistress's hand. I think the butter was unsalted. My friend was convinced after three years that the same pair of birds returned to her each year, because each season the male came promptly for his butter.