A Book of Natural History
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Title: A Book of Natural History
Editor: David Starr Jordan
Release date: April 28, 2006 [eBook #18274]
Language: English
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| YOUNG FOLKS' |
| |
| LIBRARY |
| |
| |
| SELECTIONS FROM THE CHOICEST LITERATURE OF ALL LANDS: |
| FOLK-LORE, FAIRY TALES, FABLES, LEGENDS, NATURAL |
| HISTORY, WONDERS OF EARTH, SEA AND SKY, |
| ANIMAL STORIES, SEA TALES, BRAVE DEEDS, |
| EXPLORATIONS, STORIES OF SCHOOL AND |
| COLLEGE LIFE, BIOGRAPHY, |
| HISTORY, PATRIOTIC |
| ELOQUENCE, POETRY |
| |
| |
| THIRD EDITION |
| |
| REVISED IN CONFERENCE BY |
| |
| THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, |
| PRESIDENT WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER, |
| HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE, HENRY |
| VAN DYKE, NATHAN HASKELL DOLE |
| |
| |
| _TWENTY VOLUMES_ _RICHLY ILLUSTRATED_ |
| |
| BOSTON |
| HALL AND LOCKE COMPANY |
| PUBLISHERS |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
COPYRIGHT, 1902,
BY HALL & LOCKE COMPANY.
BOSTON, U. S. A.
Stanhope Press
F. H. GILSON COMPANY
BOSTON, U. S. A.
EDITORIAL BOARD
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, Editor-in-chief,
Author, poet, former editor _Atlantic Monthly_, Boston, Mass.
The HON. GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR,
United States Senator, Worcester, Mass.
The HON. JOHN D. LONG,
Secretary of the United States Navy, Boston.
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE, LL.D.,
Author, literarian, associate editor _The Outlook_, New York.
ERNEST THOMPSON-SETON,
Artist, author, New York.
JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE,
Author, poet, and editor, Arlington, Mass.
The REVEREND CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY,
Archdeacon, author, Philadelphia.
JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS,
Humorous writer, Atlanta, Ga.
MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD,
Historical novelist, Chicago.
LAURA E. RICHARDS,
Author, Gardiner, Me.
ROSWELL FIELD,
Author, editor _The Evening Post_, Chicago.
TUDOR JENKS,
Author, associate editor _Saint Nicholas_, New York.
GEORGE A. HENTY,
Traveller, author, London, England.
KIRK MUNROE,
Writer of stories for boys, Cocoanut Grove, Fla.
EDITH M. THOMAS,
Poet, West New Brighton, N.Y.
CAROLINE TICKNOR,
Author, editor, Boston.
WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER, D.D., LL.D.,
President Chicago University.
DAVID STARR JORDAN, M.D., LL.D.,
President Leland Stanford Junior University, naturalist, writer,
Stanford University, Cal.
CHARLES ELIOT NORTON, A.M., LL.D., etc.,
Scholar, author, Emeritus Professor of Art at Harvard University.
HENRY VAN DYKE, D.D., LL.D.,
Clergyman, author, Professor Princeton University.
The REVEREND THOMAS J. SHAHAN,
Dean of the Faculty of Divinity, Professor of Early Ecclesiastical
History, Catholic University, Washington, D.C.
WILLIAM P. TRENT,
Author, editor, Professor of English Literature, Columbia
University, New York City.
EDWARD SINGLETON HOLDEN, A.M., LL.D.,
Ex-president University of California, astronomer, author, U.S.
Military Academy, West Point.
EDWIN ERLE SPARKS,
Professor of American History, Chicago University.
The VERY REV. GEORGE M. GRANT. D.D., LL.D.,
Educator, author, vice-principal Queen's College, Kingston, Ont.
NATHAN HASKELL DOLE,
Author, translator, literary editor _Current History_, Boston.
ABBIE FARWELL BROWN,
Author, Boston.
CHARLES WELSH, Managing Editor,
Author, lecturer, editor, Winthrop Highlands, Mass.
LIST OF VOLUMES
VOLUME I.
THE STORY TELLER
Edited by CHARLES ELIOT NORTON
VOLUME II.
THE MERRY MAKER
Edited by JOEL CHANDLER HARRIS
VOLUME III.
FAMOUS FAIRY TALES
Edited by ROSWELL FIELD
VOLUME IV.
TALES OF FANTASY
Edited by TUDOR JENKS
VOLUME V.
MYTHS AND LEGENDS
Edited by THOMAS J. SHAHAN
VOLUME VI.
THE ANIMAL STORY BOOK
Edited by ERNEST THOMPSON-SETON
VOLUME VII.
SCHOOL AND COLLEGE DAYS
Edited by KIRK MUNROE and MARY HARTWELL CATHERWOOD
VOLUME VIII.
BOOK OF ADVENTURE
Edited by NATHAN HASKELL DOLE
VOLUME IX.
FAMOUS EXPLORERS
Edited by EDWIN ERLE SPARKS
VOLUME X.
BRAVE DEEDS
Edited by JOHN TOWNSEND TROWBRIDGE
VOLUME XI.
WONDERS OF EARTH, SEA, AND SKY
Edited by EDWARD SINGLETON HOLDEN
VOLUME XII.
FAMOUS TRAVELS
Edited by GEORGE A. HENTY
VOLUME XIII.
SEA STORIES
Edited by CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY
VOLUME XIV.
A BOOK OF NATURAL HISTORY
Edited by DAVID STARR JORDAN
VOLUME XV.
HISTORIC SCENES IN FICTION
Edited by HENRY VAN DYKE
VOLUME XVI.
FAMOUS BATTLES BY LAND AND SEA
Edited by JOHN D. LONG
VOLUME XVII.
MEN WHO HAVE RISEN
Edited by HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE
VOLUME XVIII.
BOOK OF PATRIOTISM
Edited by GEORGE FRISBIE HOAR
VOLUME XIX.
LEADERS OF MEN, OR HISTORY TOLD IN BIOGRAPHY
Edited by WILLIAM RAINEY HARPER
VOLUME XX.
FAMOUS POEMS
Selected by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH, with Poetical Foreword by
EDITH M. THOMAS.
[Illustration: THE CONDOR.]
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
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| _Young Folks' Library in Twenty Volumes_ |
| _Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Editor-in-Chief_ |
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| A BOOK OF |
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| NATURAL |
| |
| HISTORY |
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| EDITED BY |
| DAVID STARR JORDAN |
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| _VOLUME XIV_ |
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| [Illustration] |
| |
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| BOSTON |
| HALL AND LOCKE COMPANY |
| PUBLISHERS |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+
CONTENTS
PAGE
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii
ANIMALS, BIRDS, AND FISHES xv
BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.
THE WONDER OF LIFE 1
BY PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY.
LIFE GROWTH;--FROGS 10
BY MARGARET WARNER MORLEY.
THE MAN-LIKE APES 15
BY PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY.
SOME STRANGE NURSERIES 46
BY GRANT ALLEN.
HOW ANIMALS SPEND THE WINTER 69
BY W. S. BLATCHLEY.
BIRDS' NESTS 88
BY JOHN BURROUGHS.
BIRDS IN THEIR RELATION TO AGRICULTURE 121
BY LAWRENCE BRUNER.
THE SCISSOR BEAK 143
BY CHARLES DARWIN.
THE CONDOR 146
BY CHARLES DARWIN.
THE UMBRELLA BIRD 153
BY SIR A. R. WALLACE.
HUMMING BIRDS 155
BY THOMAS G. BELT, F.G.S.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF A WONDERFUL CITY 158
BY MAURICE MAETERLINCK.
WASPS 175
BY THOMAS G. BELT, F.G.S.
A WASP AND ITS PREY 180
BY G. W. AND E. G. PECKHAM.
LEAF-CUTTING ANTS 190
BY THOMAS G. BELT, F.G.S.
SOME WONDERFUL SPIDERS 197
BY CHARLES DARWIN.
WHAT I SAW IN AN ANT'S NEST 201
BY ANDREW WILSON.
THE WILD LLAMA 228
BY CHARLES DARWIN.
BATS 232
BY W. S. DALLAS, F.G.S.
HOW SNAKES EAT 258
BY CATHERINE C. HOPLEY.
WHAT WORMS DO 264
BY CHARLES DARWIN.
TWO FOPS AMONG THE FISHES 284
BY W. S. BLATCHLEY.
SEA SLUGS AND CUTTLE-FISH 292
BY CHARLES DARWIN.
THE COW FISH 295
BY SIR ALFRED RUSSELL WALLACE.
OLD RATTLER AND THE KING SNAKE 297
BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.
THE STORY OF A STRANGE LAND 303
BY DAVID STARR JORDAN.
THE COLOR OF ANIMALS 315
BY SIR JOHN LUBBOCK BART.
PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCES IN SPIDERS 343
BY E. G. PECKHAM.
THE BATH OF THE BIRDS 369
BY RICHARD JEFFERIES.
THE LOON 378
BY HENRY D. THOREAU.
THE DARTMOOR PONIES 384
BY ARABELLA R. BUCKLEY.
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 396
SUGGESTIONS FOR SUPPLEMENTARY READING 398
NOTE.
The publishers' acknowledgments are due to Miss Margaret Warner Morley
and Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co. for permission to use "Life
Growth,--Frogs"; to Mr. W. S. Blatchley and _The Popular Science
Monthly_ for "How Animals Spend the Winter" and "Two Fops Among the
Fishes"; to Messrs. Houghton, Mifflin & Co. for "Birds' Nests," by
John Burroughs; to Mr. L. Bruner and the Nebraska Ornithologists'
Union for "Birds in Their Relation to Agriculture"; to G. W. and E. G.
Peckham for "A Wasp and Its Prey" and "Protective Resemblances in
Spiders"; to President David Starr Jordan and _The Popular Science
Monthly_ for "Old Rattler and the King Snake"; to President Jordan and
A. C. McClurg & Co. for "The Story of a Strange Land."
LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
THE CONDOR Frontispiece
THE GORILLA Face Page 40
THE YELLOW BELLIED WOODPECKER 92
THE UMBRELLA BIRD 154
THE GUANACO 230
THE VAMPIRE BAT 242
THE COW FISH 296
AND ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-TWO BLACK AND WHITE ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE
TEXT.
ANIMALS, BIRDS, AND FISHES
BY
DAVID STARR JORDAN, LL.D.
This volume is made up from the writings of naturalists who have told
us of the behavior of animals as they have seen it at first hand and
of the beginnings and the growth of life so far as they know about it.
In selecting these from the wealth of available material the editor
has been guided by this rule: The subject matter must be interesting
to young people; it must be told in a clear and attractive style; and
most important of all, it must deal with actualities. We have seen in
the last few years a marked revival of nature studies. This has led to
a wider range of interest in natural phenomena and in the growth and
ways of animals and plants. If this movement is not to be merely a
passing fad, the element of truthfulness must be constantly insisted
upon. If a clever imagination, or worse, sentimental symbolism, be
substituted for the truth of nature, the value of such studies is
altogether lost.
The essence of character-building lies in action. The chief value of
nature study in character-building is that, like life itself, it
deals with realities. One must in life make his own observations,
frame his own inductions, and apply them in action as he goes along.
The habit of finding out the best thing to do next and then doing it
is the basis of character. Nature-study, if it be genuine, is
essentially doing. To deal with truth is necessary, if we are to know
truth when we see it in action. The rocks and shells, the frogs and
lilies, always tell the absolute truth. Every leaf on the tree is an
original document in botany. When a thousand are used or used up, the
archives of Nature are just as full as ever. By the study of realities
wisdom is built up. In the relations of objects he can touch and move,
the child finds the limitations of his powers, the laws that govern
phenomena, which his own actions must obey. So long as he deals with
realities, these laws stand in their proper relation. "So simple, so
natural, so true," says Agassiz. "This is the charm of dealing with
nature herself. She brings us back to absolute truth so often as we
wander."
So long as a child is led from one reality to another, never lost in
words or abstractions,--so long this natural relation remains. "What
can I do with it?" is the beginning of wisdom. "What is it to me?" is
the beginning of personal virtue.
By adding near things to near, the child grows in Knowledge.
Knowledge, tested and set in order, is Science. Nature-study is the
beginning of science. It is the science of the child. The "world as
it is" is the province of science. In proportion as our actions
conform to the conditions of the world as it is, do we find the world
beautiful, glorious, divine. The truth of the world as it is must be
the final inspiration of art, poetry, and religion. The world, as men
have agreed to say that it is, is quite another matter. The less our
children hear of this, the less they may have to unlearn. Nature
studies have long been valued as "a means of grace," because they
arouse the enthusiasm, the love of work, which belongs to open-eyed
youth. The child blase with moral precepts and irregular conjugations
turns with fresh delight to the unrolling of ferns or the song of
birds.
Nature must be questioned in earnest, or she will not reply. But to
every serious question she will return a serious answer. "Simple,
natural, and true," she tends to create simplicity and truth. Truth
and virtue are but opposite sides of the same shield. As leaves pass
over into flowers, and flowers into fruit, so are wisdom, virtue, and
happiness inseparably related.
This little volume is a contribution to the subject matter of Nature
Study. It is the work of students of nature, and their work is
"simple, natural, and true," in so far as it is represented here.
[Illustration: (Signature) David Starr Jordan]
LELAND STANFORD JR. UNIVERSITY,
CALIFORNIA, _April_ 22, 1902.
A BOOK OF NATURAL HISTORY
THE WONDER OF LIFE
(FROM HIS SCIENCE PRIMER, INTRODUCTION.)
BY PROFESSOR, T. H. HUXLEY.
[Illustration]
Every one has seen a cornfield. If you pluck up one of the innumerable
wheat plants which are fixed in the soil of the field, about harvest
time, you will find that it consists of a stem which ends in a root at
one end and an ear at the other, and that blades or leaves are
attached to the sides of the stem. The ear contains a multitude of
oval grains which are the seeds of the wheat plant. You know that when
these seeds are cleared from the husk or bran in which they are
enveloped, they are ground into fine powder in mills, and that this
powder is the flour of which bread is made. If a handful of flour
mixed with a little cold water is tied up in a coarse cloth bag, and
the bag is then put into a large vessel of water and well kneaded with
the hands, it will become pasty, while the water will become white. If
this water is poured away into another vessel, and the kneading
process continued with some fresh water, the same thing will happen.
But if the operation is repeated the paste will become more and more
sticky, while the water will be rendered less and less white, and at
last will remain colorless. The sticky substance which is thus
obtained by itself is called gluten; in commerce it is the substance
known as maccaroni.
If the water in which the flour has thus been washed is allowed to
stand for a few hours, a white sediment will be found at the bottom of
the vessel, while the fluid above will be clear and may be poured off.
This white sediment consists of minute grains of starch, each of
which, examined with the microscope, will be found to have a
concentrically laminated structure. If the fluid from which the starch
was deposited is now boiled it will become turbid, just as white of
egg diluted with water does when it is boiled, and eventually a
whitish lumpy substance will collect at the bottom of the vessel. This
substance is called vegetable albumin.
Besides the albumin, the gluten, and the starch, other substances
about which this rough method of analysis gives us no information, are
contained in the wheat grain. For example, there is woody matter or
cellulose, and a certain quantity of sugar and fat. It would be
possible to obtain a substance similar to albumin, starch, saccharine,
and fatty matters, and cellulose, by treating the stem, leaves, and
root in a similar fashion, but the cellulose would be in far larger
proportion. Straw, in fact, which consists of the dry stem and leaves
of the wheat plant, is almost wholly made up of cellulose. Besides
this, however, it contains a certain proportion of mineral bodies,
among them, pure flint or silica; and, if you should ever see a wheat
rick burnt, you will find more or less of this silica, in a glassy
condition, in the embers. In the living plant, all these bodies are
combined with a large proportion of water, or are dissolved, or
suspended in that fluid. The relative quantity of water is much
greater in the stem and leaves than in the seed.
Everybody has seen a common fowl. It is an active creature which runs
about and sometimes flies. It has a body covered with feathers,
provided with two wings and two legs, and ending at one end in a neck
terminated by a head with a beak, between the two parts of which the
mouth is placed. The hen lays eggs, each of which is inclosed in a
hard shell. If you break an egg the contents flow out and are seen to
consist of the colorless glairy "white" and the yellow "yolk." If the
white is collected by itself in water and then heated it becomes
turbid, forming a white solid, very similar to the vegetable albumin,
which is called animal albumin.
If the yolk is beaten up with water, no starch nor cellulose is
obtained from it, but there will be plenty of fatty and some
saccharine matter, besides substances more or less similar to albumin
and gluten.
The feathers of the fowl are chiefly composed of horn; if they are
stripped off and the body is boiled for a long time, the water will be
found to contain a quantity of gelatin, which sets into a jelly as it
cools; and the body will fall to pieces, the bones and the flesh
separating from one another. The bones consist almost entirely of a
substance which yields gelatin when it is boiled in water, impregnated
with a large quantity of salts of lime, just as the wood of the wheat
stem is impregnated with silica. The flesh, on the other hand, will
contain albumin, and some other substances which are very similar to
albumin, termed fibrin and syntonin.
In the living bird, all these bodies are united with a great quantity
of water, or dissolved, or suspended in water; and it must be
remembered that there are sundry other constituents of the fowl's body
and of the egg, which are left unmentioned, as of no present
importance.
The wheat plant contains neither horn, nor gelatin, and the fowl
contains neither starch, nor cellulose; but the albumin of the plant
is very similar to that of the animal, and the fibrin and syntonin of
the animal are bodies closely allied to both albumin and gluten.
That there is a close likeness between all these bodies is obvious
from the fact that when any of them is strongly heated, or allowed to
putrefy, it gives off the same sort of disagreeable smell; and careful
chemical analysis has shown that they are, in fact, all composed of
the elements carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, combined in very
nearly the same proportions. Indeed, charcoal, which is impure carbon,
might be obtained by strongly heating either a handful of corn, or a
piece of fowl's flesh, in a vessel from which the air is excluded so
as to keep the corn or the flesh from burning. And if the vessel were
a still, so that the products of this destructive distillation, as it
is called, could be condensed and collected, we should find water and
ammonia, in some shape or other, in the receiver. Now ammonia is a
compound of the elementary bodies, nitrogen and hydrogen; therefore
both nitrogen and hydrogen must have been contained in the bodies from
which it is derived.
It is certain, then, that very similar nitrogenous compounds form a
very large part of the bodies of both the wheat plant and the fowl,
and these bodies are called proteids.
It is a very remarkable fact that not only are such substances as
albumin, gluten, fibrin, and syntonin, known exclusively as products
of animal and vegetable bodies, but that every animal and every plant,
at all periods of its existence, contains one or other of them,
though, in other respects, the composition of living bodies may vary
indefinitely. Thus, some plants contain neither starch nor cellulose,
while these substances are found in some animals; while many animals
contain no horny matter and no gelatin-yielding substance. So that the
matter which appears to be the essential foundation of both the animal
and the plant is the proteid united with water; though it is probable
that, in all animals and plants, these are associated with more or
less fatty and amyloid (or starchy and saccharine) substances, and
with very small quantities of certain mineral bodies, of which the
most important appear to be phosphorus, iron, lime, and potash.
Thus there is a substance composed of water + proteids + fat +
amyloids + mineral matters which is found in all animals and plants;
and, when these are alive, this substance is termed protoplasm.
The wheat plant in the field is said to be a living thing; the fowl
running about the farmyard is also said to be a living thing. If the
plant is plucked up, and if the fowl is knocked on the head, they soon
die and become dead things. Both the fowl and the wheat plant, as we
have seen, are composed of the same elements as those which enter into
the composition of mineral matter, though united into compounds which
do not exist in the mineral world. Why, then, do we distinguish this
matter when it takes the shape of a wheat plant or a fowl, as living
matter?
In the spring a wheat-field is covered with small green plants. These
grow taller and taller until they attain many times the size which
they had when they first appeared; and they produce the heads of
flowers which eventually change into ears of corn.
In so far as this is a process of growth, accompanied by the
assumption of a definite form, it might be compared with the growth of
a crystal of salt in brine: but, on closer examination, it turns out
to be something very different. For the crystal of salt grows by
taking to itself the salt contained in the brine, which is added to
its exterior; whereas the plant grows by addition to its interior: and
there is not a trace of the characteristic compounds of the plant's
body, albumin, gluten, starch, or cellulose, or fat, in the soil, or
in the water, or in the air.
Yet the plant creates nothing; and, therefore, the matter of the
proteins and amyloids and fats which it contains must be supplied to
it, and simply manufactured, or combined in new fashions, in the body
of the plant.
It is easy to see, in a general way, what the raw materials are which
the plant works up, for the plant get nothing but the materials
supplied to it by the atmosphere and by the soil. The atmosphere
contains oxygen and nitrogen, a little carbonic acid gas, a minute
quantity of ammoniacal salts, and a variable proportion of water. The
soil contains clay and sand (silica), lime, iron, potash, phosphorus,
sulphur, ammoniacal salts, and other matters which are of no
importance. Thus, between them, the soil and the atmosphere contain
all the elementary bodies which we find in the plant; but the plant
has to separate them and join them together afresh.
Moreover, the new matter, by the addition of which the plant grows, is
not applied to its outer surface, but is manufactured in its interior;
and the new molecules are diffused among the old ones.
The grain of wheat is a part of the flower of the wheat plant, which,
when it becomes ripe, is easily separated. It contains a minute and
rudimentary plant; and, when it is sown, this gradually grows, or
becomes developed into, the perfect plant, with its stem, roots,
leaves, and flowers, which again give rise to similar seeds. No
mineral body runs through a regular series of changes of form and
size, and then gives off parts of its substance which take the same
course. Mineral bodies present no such development, and give off no
seeds or germs. They do not reproduce their kind.
The fowl in the farmyard is incessantly pecking about and swallowing
now a grain of corn, and now a fly or a worm. In fact, it is feeding,
and, as every one knows, would soon die if not supplied with food. It
is also a matter of every-day knowledge that it would not be of much
use to give a fowl the soil of a cornfield, with plenty of air and
water, to eat.
In this respect, the fowl is like all other animals; it cannot
manufacture the proteid materials of its body, but it has to take them
ready made, or in a condition which requires but very slight
modification by devouring the bodies either of other animals or of
plants. The animal or vegetable substances devoured are taken into the
animal's stomach; they are there digested or dissolved; and thus they
are fitted to be distributed to all parts of the fowl's own body, and
applied to its maintenance and growth.
The fowl's egg is formed in the body of the hen, and is, in fact, part
of her body inclosed in a shell and detached. It contains a minute
rudiment of a fowl; and when it is kept at a proper temperature by the
hen's sitting upon it, or otherwise for three weeks, this rudiment
grows, or develops, at the expense of the materials contained in the
yolk and the white, into a small bird, the chick, which is then
hatched and grows into a fowl. The animal, therefore, is produced by
the development of a germ in the same way as the plant; and, in this
respect, all plants and all animals agree with one another, and differ
from all mineral matter.
Thus there is a very broad distinction between mineral matter and
living matter. The elements of living matter are identical with those
of mineral bodies; and the fundamental laws of matter and motion apply
as much to living matter as to mineral matter; but every living body
is, as it were, a complicated piece of mechanism which "goes," or
lives, only under certain conditions. The germ contained in the
fowl's egg requires nothing but a supply of warmth, within certain
narrow limits of temperature, to build the molecules of the egg into
the body of the chick. And the process of development of the egg, like
that of the seed, is neither more nor less mysterious than that, in
virtue of which, the molecules of water, when it is cooled down to the
freezing-point, build themselves up into regular crystals.
The further study of living bodies leads to the province of biology,
of which there are two great divisions--botany, which deals with
plants, and zooelogy, which treats of animals.
Each of these divisions has its subdivisions--such as morphology,
which treats of the form, structure, and development of living beings,
and physiology, which explains their actions or functions, besides
others.
[Illustration]
LIFE GROWTH;--FROGS
(FROM A SONG OF LIFE.)
BY MARGARET WARNER MORLEY.[1]
[1] Copyright by A. C. McClurg & Co., 1891.
[Illustration]
Somewhat higher than the fish in the scale of life is the frog.
Although he begins life as a fish, and in the tadpole state breathes
by gills, he soon discards the water-diluted air of the pond, and with
perfect lungs boldly inhales the pure air of the upper world. His life
as a tadpole, although so fish-like, is much inferior to true fish
life: for though the fish has not the perfect lung, he has a
modification of it which he fills with air, not for breathing
purposes, but as an air-sac to make him float like a bubble in the
water. Will he rise to the surface? he inflates the air-bladder. Will
he sink to the bottom? he compresses the air-bladder. But in the frog
the air-bladder changes into the lungs, and is never the delicate
balloon which floats the fish in aqueous space. When the frog's lungs
are perfected, his gills close, and he forever abandons fish-life,
though being a cold-blooded creature he needs comparatively little
air, and delights to return to his childhood's home in the bottom of
the pond. But although he can stay under water for a long time, he is
obliged to hold his breath while there, and when he would breathe must
come to the surface to do so. It is possible to drown him by holding
him under water.
[Illustration: A FROG.]
As a feeder the frog relies upon animal life, which he expertly seizes
with a tongue fastened by the wrong end, as compared with our tongues.
He is a certain marksman, and when he aims at an insect the chances
are that the insect will enter his stomach and be there speedily
changed into a new form of animal life.
Although from the moment the gills disappear the frog is a true land
animal, he is obliged, on account of the fish-like character of his
young, to lay his eggs in the water. For this purpose the frogs enter
the pools in early spring. The surface of every country pond swarms
with the bright-eyed little creatures. They have awakened from a
long, cold, winter sleep, to find the spring about them and within
them. Life has suddenly become abundant and joyous. Their sluggish
blood flows faster, their hearts beat quicker; they leap, they swim,
they swell out their throats and call to each other in various keys.
The toads are with them, and the pretty tree-frogs that change their
color to suit their emotions. And all are rapturously screaming. Their
voices are not musical, according to man's standard, but seem to
afford great satisfaction to the performers in the shrill orchestra of
the swamps, who thus give vent to the flood of life that sweeps
through them after the still, icy winter.
As though the new spring-life were too plentiful to find room in the
frogs and toads already existing, it calls for more frogs and toads;
and new creatures are born to share the extra vitality. Like the
flowers and the fish, the frogs, too, give forth new life. Within
them, too, the miracle is performed. The tiny eggs of the one wake up
and begin to grow. The tiny living bodies in the fertilizing principle
of the other also wake up and begin to grow. But higher life is better
guarded, because less prolific. The frog and the toad lay but few eggs
as compared with the fish. Fish eggs may drop under the stones or
float away, and so escape the vital touch of the fertilizing
principle. There are so many that numbers may be lost and yet enough
remain to continue the family. Not so with the frog family. No egg may
be lost. So we find that the eggs of the frog are not dropped singly,
like so many shot, but are bound together by a colorless, transparent,
jelly-like substance, much like that found in the morning-glory seed,
and which like that supplies nourishment to the young life, for the
tadpole feeds upon it until he is able to seek other food. Moreover,
instinct has taught the frog the need of extreme caution in the act of
fertilization. Every egg _must_ be fertilized. As the time draws near
for the dropping of the few eggs into the water, the male frog so
places himself that the moment the eggs are being laid, he pours over
them, one by one, as they fall into the water, the fertilizing fluid.
And thus the mystery of life is again repeated. The union of the
living, microscopic bodies of the fertilizing principle with the new
laid egg is followed by the growth of the two elements into a living
creature, able to eat, to breathe, to see, to feel. In some unknown
way the atom of fertilizing principle seems to have contained the
whole life of the father-frog, for it can give to his sons and
daughters any of his peculiarities, either of color, form, motion, or
disposition; and the tiny egg seems to have contained the whole life
of the mother-frog, and can give to her sons and daughters any of her
peculiarities; though, as is true of all inheritance, the tadpoles, as
the young frogs are called, share the natures of both parents,
inheriting some peculiarities from the father and others from the
mother.
[Illustration: A FROG.]
But, like other life, although the frogs may vary a good deal within
frog limits, none of them can escape their own limits and enter into
those of any other life. Once a frog, always a frog; and no frog-egg
may hope to develop into a turtle, or a bird, or anything but a frog.
The life in the fertilizing principle of the frog is sacred to frog
eggs, and is lifeless in contact with any other.
Our common frogs, like many of the fishes, do not trouble themselves
about the fate of their eggs after they are carefully laid in a safe
place. They trust Mother Nature to see the little tadpoles safely
through the perils of childhood, to help them change their dresses and
get rid of their tails, and cut, not their teeth, but their arms and
legs.
In Venezuela, however, there dwells a frog with well developed
maternal instinct. The mothers have pockets on their backs, not for
their own convenience, but as cradles for their babies. The fathers
put the fertilized eggs into the pockets of the mothers; and there
they remain, well guarded, until the young are able to care for
themselves.
[Illustration: TADPOLES.]
THE MAN-LIKE APES
(FROM EVIDENCE AS TO MAN'S PLACE IN NATURE.)
BY PROFESSOR T. H. HUXLEY.
[Illustration: HEAD OF GORILLA.]
Sound knowledge respecting the habits and mode of life of the man-like
Apes has been even more difficult of attainment than correct
information regarding their structure.
Once in a generation, a Wallace may be found physically, mentally, and
morally qualified to wander unscathed through the tropical wilds of
America and of Asia, to form magnificent collections as he wanders,
and withal to think out sagaciously the conclusions suggested by his
collections; but, to the ordinary explorer or collector, the dense
forests of equatorial Asia and Africa, which constitute the favorite
habitation of the Orang, the Chimpanzee, and the Gorilla, present
difficulties of no ordinary magnitude; and the man who risks his life
by even a short visit to the malarious shores of those regions may
well be excused if he shrinks from facing the dangers of the interior;
if he contents himself with stimulating the industry of the
better-seasoned natives, and collecting and collating the more or less
mythical reports and traditions with which they are too ready to
supply him.
In such a manner most of the earlier accounts of the habits of the
man-like Apes originated; and even now a good deal of what passes
current must be admitted to have no very safe foundation. The best
information we possess is that based almost wholly on direct European
testimony respecting the Gibbons; the next best evidence relates to
the Orangs; while our knowledge of the habits of the Chimpanzee and
the Gorilla stands much in need of support and enlargement by
additional testimony from instructed European eye-witnesses.
It will therefore be convenient in endeavoring to form a notion of
what we are justified in believing about these animals, to commence
with the best known man-like Apes, the Gibbons, and Orangs; and to
make use of the perfectly reliable information respecting them as a
sort of criterion of the probable truth or falsehood of assertions
respecting the others.
Of the Gibbons, half a dozen species are found scattered over the
Asiatic Islands, Java, Sumatra, Borneo, and through Malacca, Siam,
Arracan, and an uncertain extent of Hindostan on the mainland of Asia.
The largest attain a few inches above three feet in height, from the
crown to the heel, so that they are shorter than the other man-like
Apes, while the slenderness of their bodies renders their mass far
smaller in proportion even to this diminished height.
Dr. Salomon Mueller, an accomplished Dutch naturalist, who lived for
many years in the Eastern Archipelago, and to the result of whose
personal experience I shall frequently have occasion to refer, states
that the Gibbons are true mountaineers, loving the slopes and edges of
the hills, though they rarely ascend beyond the limit of the
fig-trees. All day long they haunt the tops of the tall trees, and
though toward evening, they descend in small troops to the open
ground, no sooner do they spy a man than they dart up the hillsides
and disappear in the darker valleys.
All observers testify to the prodigious volume of voice possessed by
these animals. According to the writer whom I have just cited, in one
of them, the Siamang, "the voice is grave and penetrating, resembling
the sounds goek, goek, goek, goek, goek ha ha ha ha haaaaa, and may be
easily heard at a distance of half a league." While the cry is being
uttered, the great membranous bag under the throat which communicates
with the organ of voice, the so-called "laryngeal sac," becomes
greatly distended, diminishing again when the creature relapses into
silence.
M. Duvaucel, likewise, affirms that the cry of the Siamang may be
heard for miles--making the woods ring again. So Mr. Martin describes
the cry of the agile Gibbon as "overpowering and deafening" in a room,
and "from its strength, well calculated for resounding through the
vast forests." Mr. Waterhouse, an accomplished musician as well as
zooelogist, says, "The Gibbon's voice is certainly much more powerful
than that of any singer I ever heard." And yet it is to be recollected
that this animal is not half the height of, and far less bulky in
proportion than, a man.
[Illustration: A GIBBON.]
There is good testimony that various species of Gibbon readily take to
the erect posture. Mr. George Bennett, a very excellent observer, in
describing the habits of a male _Hylobates syndactylus_ which remained
for some time in his possession, says: "He invariably walks in the
erect posture when on a level surface; and then the arms either hang
down, enabling him to assist himself with his knuckles; or, what is
more usual, he keeps his arms uplifted in nearly an erect position,
with the hands pendent ready to seize a rope, and climb up on the
approach of danger or on the obtrusion of strangers. He walks rather
quick in the erect posture, but with a waddling gait, and is soon run
down if, while pursued, he has no opportunity of escaping by
climbing.... When he walks in the erect posture, he turns the leg and
foot outward, which occasions him to have a waddling gait and to seem
bow-legged."
Dr. Burrough states of another Gibbon, the Horlack or Hooluk:
"They walk erect; and when placed on the floor, or in an open field,
balance themselves very prettily by raising their hands over their
head and slightly bending the arm at the wrist and elbow, and then run
tolerably fast, rocking from side to side; and, if urged to greater
speed, they let fall their hands to the ground, and assist themselves
forward, rather jumping than running, still keeping the body, however,
nearly erect."
Somewhat different evidence, however, is given by Dr. Winslow Lewis:
"Their only manner of walking was on their posterior or inferior
extremities, the others being raised upward to preserve their
equilibrium, as rope-dancers are assisted by long poles at fairs.
Their progression was not by placing one foot before the other, but by
simultaneously using both, as in jumping." Dr. Salomon Mueller also
states that the Gibbons progress upon the ground by short series of
tottering jumps, effected only by the hind limbs, the body being held
altogether upright.
But Mr. Martin, who also speaks from direct observation, says of the
Gibbons generally:
"Pre-eminently qualified for arboreal habits, and displaying among the
branches amazing activity, the Gibbons are not so awkward or
embarrassed on a level surface as might be imagined. They walk erect
with a waddling or unsteady gait, but at a quick pace, the equilibrium
of the body requiring to be kept up, either by touching the ground
with the knuckles, first on one side then on the other, or by
uplifting the arms so as to poise it. As with the Chimpanzee, the
whole of the narrow, long sole of the foot is placed upon the ground
at once, and raised at once, without any elasticity of step."
After this mass of concurrent and independent testimony, it cannot
reasonably be doubted that the Gibbons commonly and habitually assume
the erect attitude.
But level ground is not the place where these animals can display
their very remarkable and peculiar locomotive powers, and that
prodigious activity which almost tempts one to rank them among flying,
rather than among ordinary climbing mammals.
Mr. Martin has given so excellent and graphic an account of the
movements of a _Hylobates agilis_, living in the Zooelogical Gardens,
in 1840, that I will quote it in full:
"It is almost impossible to convey in words an idea of the quickness
and graceful address of her movements: they may indeed be termed
aerial, as she seems merely to touch in her progress the branches
among which she exhibits her evolutions. In these feats her hands and
arms are the sole organs of locomotion, her body, hanging as if
suspended by a rope, sustained by one hand (the right, for example),
she launches herself, by an energetic movement, to a distant branch,
which she catches with the left hand; but her hold is less than
momentary; the impulse for the next launch is acquired; the branch
then aimed at is attained by the right hand again, and quitted
instantaneously, and so on, in alternate succession. In this manner
spaces of twelve and eighteen feet are cleared, with the greatest ease
and uninterruptedly, for hours together, without the slightest
appearance of fatigue being manifested; and it is evident that, if
more space could be allowed, distances very greatly exceeding eighteen
feet would be as easily cleared; so that Duvaucel's assertion that he
has seen these animals launch themselves from one branch to another,
forty feet asunder, startling as it is, may be well credited.
Sometimes, on seizing a branch in her progress, she will throw
herself, by the power of one arm only, completely round it, making a
revolution with such rapidity as almost to deceive the eye, and
continue her progress with undiminished velocity. It is singular to
observe how suddenly this Gibbon can stop, when the impetus giving by
the rapidity and distance of her swinging leaps would seem to require
a gradual abatement of her movements. In the very midst of her flight
a branch is seized, the body raised, and she is seen, as if by magic,
quietly seated on it, grasping it with her feet. As suddenly she again
throws herself into action.
"The following facts will convey some notion of her dexterity and
quickness. A live bird was let loose in her apartment; she marked its
flight, made a long swing to a distant branch, caught the bird with
one hand in her passage, and attained the branch with her other hand,
her aim, both at the bird and at the branch, being as successful as if
one object only had engaged her attention. It may be added that she
instantly bit off the head of the bird, picked its feathers, and then
threw it down without attempting to eat it.
"On another occasion this animal swung herself from a perch, across a
passage at least twelve feet wide, against a window which it was
thought would be immediately broken: but not so; to the surprise of
all, she caught the narrow framework between the panes with her hand,
in an instant attained the proper impetus, and sprang back again to
the cage she had left--a feat requiring not only great strength, but
the nicest precision."
The Gibbons appear to be naturally very gentle, but there is very good
evidence that they will bite severely when irritated, a female
_Hylobates agilis_ having so severely lacerated one man with her long
canines that he died; while she had injured others so much that, by
way of precaution, these formidable teeth had been filed down; but if
threatened she would still turn on her keeper. The Gibbons eat
insects, but appear generally to avoid animal food. A Siamang,
however, was seen by Mr. Bennett to seize and devour greedily a live
lizard. They commonly drink by dipping their fingers in the liquid and
then licking them. It is asserted that they sleep in a sitting
posture.
Duvaucel affirms that he has seen the females carry their young to the
water-side and there wash their faces, in spite of resistance and
cries. They are gentle and affectionate in captivity--full of tricks
and pettishness, like spoiled children, and yet not devoid of a
certain conscience, as an anecdote, told by Mr. Bennett will show. It
would appear that his Gibbon had a peculiar inclination for
disarranging things in the cabin. Among these articles a piece of soap
would especially attract his notice, and for the removal of this he
had been once or twice scolded. "One morning," says Mr. Bennett, "I
was writing, the Ape being present in the cabin, when, casting my eyes
toward him, I saw the little fellow taking the soap. I watched him
without him perceiving that I did so: and he occasionally would cast a
furtive glance toward the place where I sat. I pretended to write; he
seeing me busily occupied, took the soap, and moved away with it in
his paw. When he had walked half the length of the cabin, I spoke
quietly, without frightening him. The instant he found I saw him he
walked back again and deposited the soap nearly in the same place from
whence he had taken it. There was certainly something more than
instinct in that action: he evidently betrayed a consciousness of
having done wrong both by his first and last actions--and what is
reason if that is not an exercise of it?"
The most elaborate account of the natural history of the Orang-Utan
extant is that given in the "_Verhandelingen over de Natuurlijke
Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche overzeeche Bezittingen (1839-45)_," by
Dr. Salomon Mueller and Dr. Schlegel, and I shall base what I have to
say upon this subject almost entirely on their statements, adding here
and there particulars of interest from the writings of Brooke,
Wallace, and others.
The Orang-Utan would rarely seem to exceed four feet in height, but
the body is very bulky, measuring two thirds of the height in
circumference.
The Orang-Utan is found only in Sumatra and Borneo, and is common in
either of these islands--in both of which it occurs always in low,
flat plains, never in the mountains. It loves the densest and most
sombre of the forests, which extend from the seashore inland, and thus
is found only in the eastern half of Sumatra, where alone such forests
occur, though, occasionally, it strays over to the western side.
On the other hand it is generally distributed through Borneo, except
in the mountains, or where the population is dense. In favorable
places the hunter may, by good fortune, see three or four in a day.
[Illustration: HEAD OF ORANG-UTAN.]
Except in the pairing time, the old males usually live by themselves.
The old females and the immature males, on the other hand, are often
met with in twos and threes; and the former occasionally have young
with them, though the pregnant females usually separate themselves,
and sometimes remain apart after they have given birth to their
offspring. The young Orangs seem to remain unusually long under their
mother's protection, probably in consequence of their slow growth.
While climbing the mother always carries her young against her bosom,
the young holding on by the mother's hair. At what time of life the
Orang-Utan becomes capable of propagation, and how long the females go
with young is unknown, but it is probable that they are not adult
until they arrive at ten or fifteen years of age. A female which lived
for five years at Batavia had not attained one-third the height of the
wild females. It is probable that, after reaching adult years, they go
on growing, though slowly, and that they live to forty or fifty years.
The Dyaks tell of old Orangs which have not only lost all their
teeth, but which find it so troublesome to climb that they maintain
themselves on windfalls and juicy herbage.
The Orang is sluggish, exhibiting none of that marvellous activity
characteristic of the Gibbons. Hunger alone seems to stir him to
exertion, and when it is stilled he relapses into repose. When the
animal sits, it curves its back and bows its head, so as to look
straight down on the ground; sometimes it holds on with its hands by a
higher branch, sometimes lets them hang phlegmatically down by its
side; and in these positions the Orang will remain for hours together,
in the same spot, almost without stirring, and only now and then
giving utterance to its deep, growling voice. By day he usually climbs
from one tree-top to another, and only at night descends to the
ground: and if then threatened with danger he seeks refuge among the
underwood. When not hunted, he remains a long time in the same
locality, and sometimes stops for many days on the same tree, a firm
place among its branches serving him for a bed. It is rare for the
Orang to pass the night in the summit of a large tree, probably
because it is too windy and cold there for him; but as soon as night
draws on he descends from the height and seeks out a fit bed in the
lower and darker part, or in the leafy top of a small tree, among
which he prefers Nibong palms, Pandani, or one of those parasitic
orchids which gave the primeval forests of Borneo so characteristic
and striking an appearance. But whenever he determines to sleep, there
he prepares himself a sort of nest; little boughs and leaves are drawn
together round the selected spot, and bent crosswise over one
another; while to make the bed soft, great leaves of ferns, of
orchids, of _Pandanus fascicularis_, _Nipa fruticans_, etc., are
laid over them. Those which Mueller saw, many of them being very fresh,
were situated at a height of ten to twenty-five feet above the ground,
and had a circumference, on the average, of two or three feet. Some
were packed many inches thick with _pandanus_ leaves; others were
remarkable only for the cracked twigs, which, united in a common
centre, formed a regular platform. "The rude _hut_," says Sir James
Brooke, "which they are stated to build in the trees, would be more
properly called a seat or nest, for it has no roof or cover of any
sort. The facility with which they form this nest is curious, and I
had an opportunity of seeing a wounded female weave the branches
together and seat herself within a minute."
According to the Dyaks the Orang rarely leaves his bed before the sun
is well above the horizon and has dissipated the mists. He gets up
about nine, and goes to bed again about five; but sometimes not till
late in the twilight. He lies sometimes on his back, or, by way of
change, turns on one side or the other, drawing his limbs up to his
body, and resting his head on his hand. When the night is cold, windy,
or rainy, he usually covers his body with a heap of _pandanus nipa_,
or fern leaves, like those of which his bed is made, and he is
especially careful to wrap up his head in them. It is this habit of
covering himself up which has probably led to the fable that the Orang
builds huts in the trees.
Although the Orang resides mostly amid the boughs of great trees
during the daytime, he is very rarely seen squatting on a thick branch
as other apes, and particularly the Gibbons, do. The Orang, on the
contrary, confines himself to the slender leafy branches, so that he
is seen right at the top of the trees, a mode of life which is closely
related to the constitution of his hinder limbs, and especially to
that of his seat. For this is provided with no callosites such as
are possessed by many of the lower apes, and even by the Gibbons; and
those bones of the pelvis, which are termed the ischia, and which form
the solid framework of the surface on which the body rests in the
sitting posture, are not expanded like those of the apes which possess
callosities, but are more like those of man.
An Orang climbs so slowly and cautiously as, in this act, to resemble
a man more than an ape, taking great care of his feet, so that injury
of them seems to affect him far more than it does other apes. Unlike
the Gibbons, whose forearms do the greater part of the work as they
swing from branch to branch, the Orang never makes even the smallest
jump. In climbing, he moves alternately one hand and one foot, or,
after having laid fast hold with the hands, he draws up both feet
together. In passing from one tree to another he always seeks out a
place where the twigs of both come close together, or interlace. Even
when closely pursued, his circumspection is amazing; he shakes the
branches to see if they will bear him, and then bending an overhanging
bough down by throwing his weight gradually along it, he makes a
bridge from the tree he wishes to quit to the next.
On the ground the Orang always goes laboriously and shakily on all
fours. At starting he will run faster than a man, though he may soon
be overtaken. The very long arms which, when he runs, are but little
bent, raise the body of the Orang remarkably, so that he assumes much
the posture of a very old man bent down by age, and making his way
along by the help of a stick. In walking, the body is usually directed
straight forward, unlike the other apes, which run more or less
obliquely, except the Gibbons, who in these, as in so many other
respects, depart remarkably from their fellows.
The Orang cannot put its feet flat on the ground, but is supported
upon their outer edges, the heel resting more on the ground, while the
curved toes partly rest upon the ground by the upper side of their
first joint, the two outermost toes of each foot completely resting on
this surface. The hands are held in the opposite manner, their inner
edges serving as the chief support. The fingers are then bent out in
such a manner that their foremost joints, especially those of the two
inner-most fingers, rest upon the ground by their upper sides, while
the point of the free and straight thumb serves as an additional
fulcrum.
The Orang never stands on its hind legs, and all the pictures
representing it as so doing are as false as the assertion that it
defends itself with sticks and the like.
The long arms are of especial use, not only in climbing, but in the
gathering of food from boughs to which the animal could not trust his
weight. Figs, blossoms, and young leaves of various kinds, constitute
the chief nutriment of the Orang; but strips of bamboo two or three
feet long were found in the stomach of a male. They are not known to
eat living animals.
Although, when taken young, the Orang-Utan soon becomes domesticated,
and indeed seems to court human society; it is naturally a very wild
and shy animal, though apparently sluggish and melancholy. The Dyaks
affirm that when the old males are wounded with arrows only they will
occasionally leave the trees and rush raging upon their enemies, whose
sole safety lies in instant flight, as they are sure to be killed if
caught.
But, though possessed of immense strength, it is rare for the Orang to
attempt to defend itself, especially when attacked with firearms. On
such occasions he endeavors to hide himself, or to escape along the
top-most branches of the trees, breaking off and throwing down the
boughs as he goes. When wounded he betakes himself to the highest
attainable point of the tree, and emits a singular cry, consisting at
first of high notes, which at length deepen into a low roar, not
unlike that of a panther. While giving out the high notes the Orang
thrusts out his lips into a funnel-shape; but in uttering the low
notes he holds his mouth wide open, and at the same time the great
throat bag, or laryngeal sac, becomes distended.
According to the Dyaks, the only animal the Orang measures his
strength with is the crocodile, who occasionally seizes him on his
visits to the water-side. But they say that the Orang is more than a
match for his enemy, and beats him to death, or rips up his throat by
pulling the jaws asunder!
Much of what has been here stated was probably derived by Dr. Mueller
from the reports of his Dyak hunters; but a large male, four feet
high, lived in captivity under his observation for a month, and
receives a very bad character.
"He was a very wild beast," says Mueller, "of prodigious strength, and
false and wicked to the last degree. If any one approached he rose up
slowly with a low growl, fixed his eyes in the direction in which he
meant to make his attack, slowly passed his hand between the bars of
his cage, and then, extending his long arm, gave a sudden
grip--usually at the face." He never tried to bite (though Orangs will
bite one another), his great weapons of offence and defence being his
hands.
His intelligence was very great; and Mueller remarks that, though the
faculties of the Orang have been estimated too highly, yet Cuvier, had
he seen this specimen, would not have considered its intelligence to
be only a little higher than that of a dog.
His hearing was very acute, but the sense of vision seemed to be less
perfect. The under lip was the great organ of touch, and played a very
important part in drinking, being thrust out like a trough, so as
either to catch the falling rain or to receive the contents of the
half cocoanut shell full of water with which the Orang was supplied,
and which, in drinking, he poured into the trough thus formed.
In Borneo, the Orang-Utan of the Malays goes by the name of "_Mias_"
among the Dyaks, who distinguish several kinds as _Mias Pappan_, or
_Zimo_, _Mias Kassu_, and _Mias Rambi_. Whether these are distinct
species, however, or whether they are mere races, and how far any of
them are identical with the Sumatran Orang, as Mr. Wallace thinks the
Mias Pappan to be, are problems which are at present undecided; and
the variability of these great apes is so extensive that the
settlement of the question is a matter of great difficulty. Of the
form called "Mias Pappan," Mr. Wallace observes: "It is known by its
large size, and by the lateral expansion of the face into fatty
protuberances, or ridges, over the temporal muscles, which have been
mistermed callosites, as they are perfectly soft, smooth, and
flexible. Five of this form, measured by me, varied only from 4 feet
1 inch to 4 feet 2 inches in height, from the heel to the crown of the
head, the girth of the body from 3 feet to 3 feet 71/2 inches, and the
extent of the outstretched arms from 7 feet 2 inches to 7 feet
6 inches; the width of the face from 10 to 131/4 inches. The color and
length of the hair varied in different individuals, and in different
parts of the same individual; some possessed a rudimentary nail on the
great toe, others none at all; but they otherwise present no external
differences on which to establish even varieties of a species.
"Yet, when we examine the crania of these individuals, we find
remarkable differences of form, proportion, and dimension, no two
being exactly alike. The slope of the profile, and the projection of
the muzzle, together with the size of the cranium, offer differences
as decided as those existing between the most strongly marked forms of
the Caucasian and African crania in the human species. The orbits vary
in width and height, the cranial ridge is either single or double,
either much or little developed, and the zygomatic aperture varies
considerably in size. This variation in the proportions of the crania
enables us satisfactorily to explain the marked difference presented
by the single-crested and double-crested skulls, which have been
thought to prove the existence of two large species of Orang. The
external surface of the skull varies considerably in size, as do also
the zygomatic aperture and the temporal muscle: but they bear no
necessary relation to each other, a small muscle often existing with a
large cranial surface, and vice versa. Now those skulls which have the
largest and strongest jaws, and the widest zygomatic aperture, have
the muscles so large that they meet on the crown of the skull, and
deposit the bony ridge which separates them, and which is the highest
in that which has the smallest cranial surface. In those which combine
a large surface with comparatively weak jaws, and small zygomatic
aperture, the muscles, on each side, do not extend to the crown, a
space of from 1 to 2 inches remaining between them, and along their
margins small ridges are formed. Intermediate forms are found, in
which the ridges meet only in the hinder part of the skull. The form
and size of the ridges are therefore independent of age, being
sometimes more strongly developed in the less aged animal. Professor
Temminck states that the series of skulls in the Leyden Museum shows
the same result."
Mr. Wallace observed two male adult Orangs (Mias Kassu of the Dyaks),
however, so very different from any of these that he concludes them to
be specially distinct; they were respectively 3 feet 81/2 inches and
3 feet 91/2 inches high, and possessed no sign of the cheek excrescences,
but otherwise resembled the larger kinds. The skull has no crest, but
two bony ridges, 13/4 to 2 inches apart, as in the _Simia morio_ of
Professor Owen. The teeth, however, are immense, equalling or
surpassing those of the other species. The females of both these
kinds, according to Mr. Wallace, are devoid of excrescences, and
resemble the smaller males, but are shorter by 11/2 to 3 inches, and
their canine teeth are comparatively small, subtruncated and dilated
at the base, as in the so-called _Simia morio_, which is, in all
probability, the skull of a female of the same species as the smaller
males. Both males and females of this smaller species are
distinguishable, according to Mr. Wallace, by the comparatively large
size of the middle incisors of the upper jaw.
So far as I am aware, no one has attempted to dispute the accuracy of
the statements which I have just quoted regarding the habits of the
two Asiatic man-like Apes; and if true, they must be admitted as
evidence that such an ape--
1stly, May readily move along the ground in the erect, or semi-erect,
position, and without direct support from its arms.
2dly, That it may possess an extremely loud voice--so loud as to be
readily heard one or two miles.
3dly, That it may be capable of great viciousness and violence when
irritated; and this is especially true of adult males.
4thly, That it may build a nest to sleep in.
Such being well-established facts respecting the Asiatic anthropoids,
analogy alone might justify us in expecting the African species to
offer similar peculiarities, separately or combined; or, at any rate,
would destroy the force of any attempted _a priori_ argument against
such direct testimony as might be adduced in favor of their existence.
And if the organization of any of the African apes could be
demonstrated to fit it better than either of its Asiatic allies for
the erect position and for efficient attack, there would be still less
reason for doubting its occasional adoption of the upright attitude,
or of aggressive proceedings.
[Illustration: HEAD OF CHIMPANZEE.]
From the time of Tyson and Tulpius downward the habits of the young
Chimpanzee in a state of captivity have been abundantly reported and
commented upon. But trustworthy evidence as to the manners and customs
of adult anthropoids of this species, in their native woods, was
almost wanting up to the time of the publication of the paper by Dr.
Savage, to which I have already referred, containing notes of the
observations which he made, and of the information which he collected
from sources which he considered trustworthy, while resident at Cape
Palmas, at the north-western limit of the Bight of Benin.
The adult Chimpanzees, measured by Dr. Savage, never exceeded, though
the males may almost attain, five feet in height.
"When at rest, the sitting posture is that generally assumed. They are
sometimes seen standing and walking, but when thus detected, they
immediately take to all fours and flee from the presence of the
observer. Such is their organization that they cannot stand erect, but
lean forward. Hence they are seen, when standing, with the hands
clasped over the occiput, or the lumbar region, which would seem
necessary to balance or ease of posture.
"The toes of the adult are strongly flexed and turned inward, and
cannot be perfectly straightened. In the attempt the skin gathers into
thick folds on the back, showing that the full expansion of the foot,
as is necessary in walking, is unnatural. The natural position is on
all fours, the body anteriorly resting upon the knuckles. These are
greatly enlarged, with the skin protuberant and thickened like the
sole of the foot.
"They are expert climbers, as one would suppose from their
organization. In their gambols they swing from limb to limb at a great
distance, and leap with astonishing agility. It is not unusual to see
the 'old folks' (in the language of an observer) sitting under a tree
regaling themselves with fruit and friendly chat, while their
'children' are leaping around them, and swinging from tree to tree
with boisterous merriment.
"As seen here, they cannot be called _gregarious_, seldom more than
five, or ten at most, being found together. It has been said, on good
authority, that they occasionally assemble in large numbers, in
gambols. My informant asserts that he saw once not less than fifty so
engaged, hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs,
which is done in the latter case with equal facility by the four
extremities. They do not appear ever to act on the offensive, and,
seldom, if ever, really on the defensive. When about to be captured,
they resist by throwing their arms about their opponent, and
attempting to draw him into contact with their teeth."
With respect to this last point Dr. Savage is very explicit in another
place:
"_Biting_ is their principal art of defence. I have seen one man who
had been thus severely wounded in the feet.
"The strong development of the canine teeth in the adult would seem to
indicate a carnivorous propensity; but in no state save that of
domestication do they manifest it. At first they reject flesh, but
easily acquire a fondness for it. The canines are early developed, and
evidently designed to act the important part of weapons of defence.
When in contact with man almost the first effort of the animal is--_to
bite_.
"They avoid the abodes of men, and build their habitations in trees.
Their construction is more that of _nests_ than _huts_, as they have
been erroneously termed by some naturalists. They generally build not
far above the ground. Branches or twigs are bent, or partly broken,
and crossed, and the whole supported by the body of a limb or a
crotch. Sometimes a nest will be found near the _end_ of a _strong
leafy branch_ twenty or thirty feet from the ground. One I have lately
seen that could not be less than forty feet, and more probably it was
fifty. But this is an unusual height.
"Their dwelling-place is not permanent, but changed in pursuit of food
and solitude, according to the force of circumstances. We most often
see them in elevated places; but this arises from the fact that the
low grounds, being more favorable for the natives' rice-farms, are the
oftener cleared, and hence are almost always wanting in suitable trees
for their nests.... It is seldom that more than one or two nests are
seen upon the same tree, or in the same neighborhood: five have been
found, but it was an unusual circumstance." ...
"They are very filthy in their habits. It is a tradition with the
natives generally here that they were once members of their own tribe;
that for their depraved habits they were expelled from all human
society, and that, through an obstinate indulgence of their vile
propensities, they have degenerated into their present state of
organization. They are, however, eaten by them, and when cooked with
the oil and pulp of the palm-nut considered a highly palatable morsel.
"They exhibit a remarkable degree of intelligence in their habits,
and, on the part of the mother, much affection for their young. The
second female described was upon a tree when first discovered, with
her mate and two young ones (a male and a female). Her first impulse
was to descend with great rapidity and make off into the thicket with
her mate and female offspring. The young male remaining behind, she
soon returned to the rescue. She ascended and took him in her arms, at
which moment she was shot, the ball passing through the forearm of the
young one, on the way to the heart of the mother....
"In a recent case the mother, when discovered, remained upon the tree
with her offspring, watching intently the movements of the hunter. As
he took aim, she motioned with her hand, precisely in the manner of a
human being, to have him desist and go away. When the wound has not
proved instantly fatal, they have been known to stop the flow of blood
by pressing with the hand upon the part, and when they did not
succeed, to apply leaves and grass.... When shot, they give a sudden
screech, not unlike that of a human, being in sudden and acute
distress.
"The ordinary voice of the Chimpanzee, however, is affirmed to be
hoarse, guttural, and not very loud, somewhat like 'whoo-whoo.'"
The analogy of the Chimpanzee to the Orang, in its nest-building habit
and in the mode of forming its nest, is exceedingly interesting,
while, on the other hand, the activity of this ape, and its tendency
to bite, are particulars in which it rather resembles the Gibbons. In
extent of geographical range, again, the Chimpanzees--which are found
from Sierra Leone to Congo--remind one of the Gibbons rather than of
either of the other man-like Apes; and it seems not unlikely that, as
is the case with the Gibbons, there may be several species spread over
the geographical area of the genus.
The same excellent observer, from whom I have borrowed the preceding
account of the habits of the adult Chimpanzee, published an account of
the Gorilla, which has, in its most essential points, been confirmed
by subsequent observers, and to which so very little has really been
added, that, in justice to Dr. Savage, I give it almost in full:
"It should be borne in mind that my account is based upon the
statements of the aborigines of that region (the Gaboon). In this
connection it may also be proper for me to remark that, having been a
missionary resident for several years, studying, from habitual
intercourse, the African mind and character, I felt myself prepared to
discriminate and decide upon the probability of their statements.
Besides, being familiar with the history and habits of its interesting
congener (_Trogniger_, Geoff.), I was able to separate their accounts
of the two animals, which, having the same locality and a similarity
of habit, are confounded in the minds of the mass, especially as but
few--such as traders to the interior, and huntsmen--have ever seen the
animal in question.
"The tribe from which our knowledge of the animal is derived, and
whose territory forms its habitat, is the _Mpongwe_, occupying both
banks of the River Gaboon, from its mouth to some fifty or sixty miles
upward....
"If the word 'Pongo' be of African origin, it is probably a corruption
of the word _Mpongwe_, the name of the tribe on the banks of the
Gaboon, and hence applied to the region they inhabit. Their local name
for the Chimpanzee is _Enche-eko_, as near as it can be Anglicized,
from which the common term 'Jocko' probably conies. The _Mpongwe_
apellation for its new congener is _Enge-ena_, prolonging the sound of
the first vowel, and slightly sounding the second.
"The habitat of the _Enge-ena_ is the interior of Lower Guinea, while
that of the _Enche-eko_ is nearer the seaboard.
"Its height is about five feet; it is disproportionately broad across
the shoulders, thickly covered with coarse black hair, which is said
to be similar in its arrangement to that of the _Enche-eko_; with age
it becomes gray, which fact has given rise to the report that both
animals are seen of different colors.
"Head.--The prominent features of the head are the great width and
elongation of the face, the depth of the molar region, the branches of
the lower jaw being very deep and extending far backward, and the
comparative smallness of the cranial portion; the eyes are very large,
and said to be like those of the _Enche-eko_, a bright hazel; nose
broad and flat, slightly elevated toward the root; the muzzle broad,
and prominent lips and chin, with scattered gray hairs; the under lip
highly mobile, and capable of great elongation when the animal is
enraged, then hanging over the chin; skin of the face and ears naked
and of a dark-brown, approaching to black.
"The most remarkable feature of the head is a high ridge, or crest of
hair, in the course of the sagittal suture, which meets posteriorly
with a transverse ridge of the same, but less prominent, running round
from the back of one ear to the other. The animal has the power of
moving the scalp freely forward and back, and when enraged is said to
contract it strongly over the brow, thus bringing down the hairy ridge
and pointing the hair forward, so as to present an indescribably
ferocious aspect.
[Illustration: THE GORILLA.]
"Neck short, thick, and hairy; chest and shoulders very broad, and
said to be fully double the size of the _Enche-ekos;_ arms very long,
reaching some way below the knee--the forearm much the shortest; hands
very large, the thumbs much larger than the fingers....
"The gait is shuffling; the motion of the body, which is never upright
as in man, but bent forward, is somewhat rolling, or from side to
side. The arms being longer than the Chimpanzee, it does not stoop as
much in walking; like that animal, it makes progression by thrusting
its arms forward, resting the hands on the ground, and then giving the
body a half-jumping, half-swinging motion between them. In this act it
is said not to flex the fingers, as does the Chimpanzee, resting on
its knuckles, but to extend them, making a fulcrum of the hand. When
it assumes the walking posture, to which it is said to be much
inclined, it balances its huge body by flexing its arms upward.
"They live in bands, but are not so numerous as the Chimpanzees; the
females generally exceed the other sex in number. My informants all
agree in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in a band; that
where the young males grow up a contest takes place for mastery, and
the strongest, by killing and driving out the others, establishes
himself as the head of the community."
Dr. Savage repudiates the stories about the Gorillas carrying off
women and vanquishing elephants, and then adds:
"Their dwellings, if they may be so called, are similar to those of
the Chimpanzee, consisting simply of a few sticks and leafy branches,
supported by the crotches and limbs of trees; they afford no shelter,
and are occupied only at night.
"They are exceedingly ferocious, and always offensive in their
habits, never running from man, as does the Chimpanzee. They are
objects of terror to the natives, and are never encountered by them
except on the defensive. The few that have been captured were killed
by elephant-hunters and native traders, as they came suddenly upon
them while passing through the forests.
"It is said that when the male is first seen he gives a terrific yell,
that resounds far and wide through the forest, something like kh--ah!
kh--ah! prolonged and shrill. His enormous jaws are widely opened at
each expiration, his under-lip hangs over the chin, and the hairy
ridge and scalp are contracted upon the brow, presenting an aspect of
indescribable ferocity.
"The females and young, at the first cry, quickly disappear. He then
approaches the enemy in great fury, pouring out his horrid cries in
quick succession. The hunter awaits his approach with his gun
extended; if his aim is not sure he permits the animal to grasp the
barrel, and as he carries it to his mouth (which is his habit) he
fires. Should the gun fail to go off, the barrel (that of the ordinary
musket, which is thin), is crashed between his teeth and the encounter
soon proves fatal to the hunter.
"In the wild state their habits are in general like those of the
_Troglodytes niger_, building their nests loosely in trees, living
on similar fruits, and changing their place of resort from force of
circumstances."
Dr. Savage's observations were confirmed and supplemented by those of
Mr. Ford, who communicated an interesting paper on the Gorilla to the
Philadelphian Academy of Sciences, in 1852. With respect to the
geographical distribution of this greatest of all the man-like Apes,
Mr. Ford remarks:
"This animal inhabits the range of mountains that traverse the
interior of Guinea from the Cameroon in the north to Angola in the
south, and about one hundred miles inland, and called by the
geographers Crystal Mountains. The limit to which this animal extends,
either north or south, I am unable to define. But that limit is
doubtless some distance north of this river [Gaboon]. I was able to
certify myself of this fact in a late excursion to the head-waters of
the Mooney (Danger) River, which comes into the sea some sixty miles
from this place. I was informed (credibly, I think), that they were
numerous among the mountains in which that river rises, and far north
of that.
"In the south, this species extends to the Congo River, as I am told
by native traders who have visited the coast, between the Gaboon and
that river. Beyond that, I am not informed. This animal is only found
at a distance from the coast in most cases, and, according to my best
information, approaches it nowhere so nearly as on the south side of
this river, where they have been found within ten miles of the sea.
This, however, is only of late occurrence. I am informed by some of
the oldest Mpongwe men that formerly he was only found on the sources
of the river, but that at present he may be found within half a day's
walk of its mouth. Formerly he inhabited the mountainous ridge where
Bushmen alone inhabited, but now he boldly approaches the Mpongwe
plantations. This is doubtless the reason of the scarcity of
information in years past, as the opportunities for receiving a
knowledge of the animal have not been wanting; traders having for one
hundred years frequented this river, and specimens, such as have been
brought here within a year, could not have been exhibited without
having attracted the attention of the most stupid."
One specimen Mr. Ford examined weighed one hundred and seventy pounds,
without the thoracic or pelvic viscera, and measured four feet four
inches round the chest. This writer describes so minutely and
graphically the onslaught of the Gorilla--though he does not for a
moment pretend to have witnessed the scene--that I am tempted to give
this part of his paper in full, for comparison with other narratives.
"He always rises to his feet when making an attack, though he
approaches his antagonist in a stooping posture.
"Though he never lies in wait, yet, when he hears, sees, or scents a
man, he immediately utters his characteristic cry, prepares for an
attack, and always acts on the offensive. The cry he utters resembles
a grunt more than a growl, and is similar to the cry of the Chimpanzee
when irritated, but vastly louder. It is said to be audible at a great
distance. His preparation consists in attending the females and young
ones, by whom he is usually accompanied, to a little distance. He,
however, soon returns with his crest erect and projecting forward, his
nostrils dilated, and his under-lip thrown down; at the same time
uttering his characteristic yell, designed, it would seem, to terrify
his antagonist. Instantly, unless he is disabled by a well-directed
shot, he makes an onset, and, striking his antagonist with the palm of
his hands, or seizing him with a grasp from which there is no escape,
he dashes him upon the ground, and lacerates him with his tusks.
"He is said to seize a musket, and instantly crush the barrel between
his teeth.... This animal's savage nature is very well shown by the
implacable desperation of a young one that was brought here. It was
taken very young, and kept four months, and many means were used to
tame it; but it was incorrigible, so that it bit me an hour before it
died."
[Illustration: HAND OF GORILLA, ORANG, GIBBON, AND CHIMPANZEE.]
SOME STRANGE NURSERIES
(FROM NATURE'S WORKSHOP.)
BY GRANT ALLEN.
[Illustration]
You could hardly find a better rough test of relative development in
the animal (or vegetable) world than the number of young produced and
the care bestowed upon them. The fewer the offspring, the higher the
type. Very low animals turn out thousands of eggs with reckless
profusion; but they let them look after themselves, or be devoured by
enemies, as chance will have it. The higher you go in the scale of
being, the smaller the families, but the greater amount of pains
expended upon the rearing and upbringing of the young. Large broods
mean low organization; small broods imply higher types and more care
in the nurture and education of the offspring. Primitive kinds produce
eggs wholesale, on the off chance that some two or three among them
may perhaps survive an infant mortality of ninety-nine per cent, so as
to replace their parents. Advanced kinds produce half a dozen young,
or less, but bring a large proportion of these on an average up to
years of discretion.
[Illustration: SEA-HORSES.]
Without taking into account insects and such other "small deer,"--to
quote Shakespeare's expression,--this fundamental principle of
population will become at once apparent if we examine merely familiar
instances of back-boned or vertebrate animals. The lowest vertebrates
are clearly the fishes: and the true fishes have almost invariably
gigantic families. A single cod, for example, is said to produce,
roughly speaking, nine million eggs at a birth (I cannot pretend I
have checked this calculation); but supposing they were only a
million, and that one-tenth of those eggs alone ever came to maturity,
there would still be a hundred thousand codfish in the sea this year
for every pair that swam in it last year: and these would increase to
a hundred thousand times that number next year; and so on, till in
four or five years' time the whole sea would be but one solid mass of
closely-packed cod-banks. We can see for ourselves that nothing of the
sort actually occurs--practically speaking, there are about the same
number of cod one year as another. In spite of this enormous
birth-rate, therefore, the cod population is not increasing--it is at
a standstill. What does that imply? Why, that taking one brood and one
year with another, only a pair of cod, roughly speaking, survive to
maturity out of each eight or nine million eggs. The mother cod lays
its millions, in order that two may arrive at the period of spawning.
All the rest get devoured as eggs, or snapped up as young fry, or else
die of starvation, or are otherwise unaccounted for. It seems to us a
wasteful way of replenishing the earth: but it is nature's way; we can
only bow respectfully to her final decision.
Frogs and other amphibians stand higher in the scale of life than
fish; they have acquired legs in place of fins, and lungs instead of
gills; they can hop about on shore with perfect freedom. Now, frogs
still produce a great deal of spawn, as every one knows: but the eggs
in each brood are numbered in their case by hundreds, or at most by a
thousand or two, not by millions as with many fishes. The spawn
hatches out as a rule in ponds, and we have all seen the little black
tadpoles crowding the edges of the water in such innumerable masses
that one would suppose the frogs to be developed from them must cover
the length and breadth of England. Yet what becomes of them all?
Hundreds are destroyed in the early tadpole stage--eaten up or
starved, or crowded out for want of air and space and water: a few
alone survive or develop four legs, and absorb their tails and hop on
shore as tiny froglings. Even then the massacre of the innocents
continues. Only a tithe of those which succeeded in quitting their
native pond ever return to it full grown, to spawn in due time, and
become the parents of further generations.
Lizards and other reptiles make an obvious advance on the frog type;
they lay relatively few eggs, but they begin to care for their young.
The family is not here abandoned at birth, as among frogs, but is
frequently tended and fed and overlooked by the mother. In birds we
have a still higher development of the same marked parental tendency;
only three or four eggs are laid each year, as a rule, and on these
eggs the mother sits, while both parents feed the callow nestlings
till such time as they are able to take care of themselves and pick
up their own living. Among mammals, which stand undoubtedly at the
head of created nature, the lower types, like mice and rabbits, have
frequent broods of many young at a time; but the more advanced groups,
such as the horses, cows, deer, and elephants, have usually one foal
or calf at a birth, and seldom produce more than a couple. Moreover,
in all these higher cases alike, the young are fed with milk by the
mother, and so spared the trouble of providing for themselves in their
early days, like the young codfish or the baby tadpole. Starvation at
the outset is reduced to a minimum.
It is interesting to note, too, that anticipations of higher types, so
to speak, often occur among lower races. An animal here and there
among the simpler forms hits upon some device essentially similar to
that of some higher group with which it is really quite unrelated. For
example, those who have read my account of the common earwig (given in
the sixth chapter of "Flashlights on Nature") will recollect how that
lowly insect sits on her eggs much as a hen does, and brings up her
brood of callow grubs as if they were chickens. In much the same way,
anticipations of the mammalian type occur pretty frequently among
lower animals. Our commonest English lizard, for example, which
frequents moors and sandhills, does not lay or deposit its eggs at
all, but hatches them out in its own body, and so apparently brings
them forth alive: while among snakes, the same habit occurs in the
adder or viper. The very name _viper_, indeed, is a corruption of
_vivipara_, the snake which produces living young. Still more closely
do some birds resemble mammals in the habit of secreting a sort of
milk for the sustenance of their nestlings. Most people think the
phrase "pigeon's milk" is much like the phrase "the horse-marines," a
burlesque name for an absurd and impossible monstrosity. But it is
nothing of the sort: it answers to a real fact in the economy of
certain doves, which eat grain or seeds, grind and digest it in their
own gizzards into a fine soft pulp or porridge, and then feed their
young with it from their crops and beaks. This is thus a sort of
bird-like imitation of milk. Only the cow or the goat takes grass or
leaves, chews, swallows, and digests them, and manufactures from them
in her own body that much more nutritive substance, milk, with which
all mammals feed their infant offspring.
Now, after this rather long preamble, I am going to show you in this
present article a few other examples of special care taken of the
young in certain quarters where it might be least expected. Fish are
not creatures from which we look for marked domestic virtues: yet we
may find them there abundantly. Let us begin with that familiar friend
of our childhood, the common English stickleback.
Which of us cannot look back in youth to the mysteries of the
stickleback fisheries? Captains courageous, we sailed forth with bent
pin and piece of thread, to woo the wily quarry with half an inch of
chopped earthworm. For stickleback abound in every running stream and
pond in England. They are beautiful little creatures, too, when you
come to examine them, great favorites in the fresh-water aquarium; the
male in particular is exquisitely colored, his hues growing brighter
and his sheen more conspicuous at the pairing season. There are many
species of sticklebacks--in England we have three very different
kinds--but all are alike in one point which gives them their common
name, that is to say, in their aggressive and protective prickliness.
They are armed against all comers. The dorsal fin is partly replaced
in the whole family by strong spines or "stickles," which differ in
number in the different species. One of our English sorts is a lover
of salt water: he lives in the sea, especially off the Cornish coast,
and has fifteen stickles or spines; on which account he is commonly
known as the Fifteen-spined Stickleback; our other two sorts belong to
fresher waters, and are known as the Ten-spined and the Three-spined
respectively.
The special peculiarity of the male stickleback consists in the fact
that he is, above all things, a model father. In his acute sense of
parental responsibility he has few equals. When spring comes round, he
first exhibits his consciousness of his coming charge by suddenly
enduing himself in a glowing coat of many colors and of iridescent
brilliancy. That is in order to charm the eyes of the prospective
mate, or rather mates, for I may as well confess the sad truth at once
that our amiable friend is a good parent but an abandoned polygamist.
We all know that
"In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast;
In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnish'd dove;
In the spring a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love."
Not to be out of the fashion, therefore, the romantic stickleback does
precisely the same thing as all these distinguished and poetical
compeers. And he does it for the same reason, too; because he wants to
get himself an appropriate partner. "There is a great deal of human
nature in man," it has been said: I am always inclined to add, "And
there is a great deal of human nature in plants and animals." The more
we know of our dumb relations, the more closely do we realize the
kinship between us. Fish in the spring are like young men at a
fair--all eager for the attention of their prospective partners.
[Illustration: NO. 1. FEMALE STICKLEBACK ABOUT TO ENTER NEST.]
The first care of the male stickleback, when he has acquired his
courting suit, is to build a suitable home for his future wives and
children. So he picks up stems of grass and water-weeds with his
mouth, and weaves them deftly into a compact nest as perfect as a
bird's, though some what different in shape and pattern, it rather
resembles a barrel, open at both ends, as though the bottom were
knocked out: this form is rendered necessary because the eggs, when
laid, have to be constantly aerated by passing a current of water
through the nest as I shall describe hereafter. No. 1 shows us such a
nest when completed, with the female stickleback loitering about
undecided as to whether or not she shall plunge and enter it. You
will observe that the fabric is woven round a fixed support of some
waving water-weeds; but the cunning little architect does not trust in
this matter to his textile skill alone; he cements the straws and
other materials together with a gummy mortar of mucous threads
secreted for the purpose by his internal organs.
[Illustration: NO. 2. FEMALE STICKLEBACK LAYING EGGS IN NEST.]
As soon as the building operations are fully completed, the eager
little householder sallies forth into his pond or brook in search of
a mate who will come and stock his neatly-built home for him. At this
stage of the proceedings, his wedding-garment becomes even more
brilliant and glancing than ever; he gleams in silver and changeful
gems; when he finds his lady-love, he dances round her, "mad with
excitement," as Darwin well phrased it, looking his handsomest and
best with his lustrous colours glistening like an opal. If she will
listen to his suit, he grows wild with delight, and coaxes her into
the nest with most affectionate endearments. In No. 2, as you
perceive, the mate of his choice has been induced to enter, and is
laying her eggs in the dainty home his care has provided for her. The
father fish, meanwhile dances and capers around, in a _pas de
triomphe_ at the success of his endeavors.
One wife, however, does not suffice to fill the nest with eggs; and
the stickleback is a firm believer in the advantages of large
families. So, as soon as his first mate has laid all her spawn, he
sets out once more in search of another. Thus he goes on until the
home is quite full of eggs, bringing back one wife after another, in
proportion to his success in wooing and fighting. For, like almost all
polygamists, your stickleback is a terrible fighter. The males join
wager of battle with one another for possession of their mates; in
their fierce duels they make fearful use of the formidable spines on
their backs, sometimes entirely ripping up and cutting to pieces their
ill-fated adversary. The spines thus answer to the spurs of the
gamecock or the antlers of the deer; they are masculine weapons in the
struggle for mates. Indeed, you may take it for granted that brilliant
colors and decorative adjuncts in animals almost invariably go with
irascible tempers, pugnacious habits, and the practice of fighting for
the possession of the harem. The consequence is, with the
sticklebacks, that many males get killed during the struggle for
supremacy, so that the survivors wed half a dozen wives each, like
little Turks that they are in their watery seraglios. Only the most
beautiful and courageous fish succeed in gaining a harem of their own:
and thus the wager of battle tells in the end for the advantage of the
race, by eliminating the maimed, the ugly, and the cowardly, and
encouraging the strong, the handsome, the enterprising, and the
valiant. This is nature's way of preventing degeneracy.
In No. 3 the nest is seen full of eggs, and the excellent father now
comes out in his best light as their guardian and protector. He
watches over them with ceaseless care, freeing them from parasites,
and warding off the attacks of would-be enemies who desire to devour
them, even though the intruder be several times his own size. The
spines on his back here stand him once more in good stead: for small
as he is, the stickleback is not an antagonist to be lightly despised:
he can inflict a wound which a perch or a trout knows how to estimate
at its full value. But that is not all the good parent's duty. He
takes the eggs out of the nest every now and then with his snout, airs
them a little in the fresh water outside, and then replaces and
rearranges them, so that all may get a fair share of oxygen and may
hatch out about simultaneously. It is this question of oxygen, indeed,
which gives the father fish all the greatest trouble. That necessary
of life is dissolved in water in very small quantities; and it is
absolutely needed by every egg in order to enable it to undergo those
vital changes which we know as hatching. To keep up a due supply of
oxygen, therefore, the father stickleback ungrudgingly devotes
laborious days in poising himself delicately just above the nest, as
you see in No. 3, and fanning the eggs with his fins and tail, so as
to set up a constant current of water through the centre of the
barrel. He sits upon the eggs just as truly as a hen does; only, he
sits upon them, not for warmth, but for aeration.
[Illustration: NO. 3. MALE STICKLEBACK WATCHING EGGS IN NEST.]
For weeks together this exemplary parent continues his monotonous
task, ventilating the spawn many times every day, till the time comes
for hatching. It takes about a month for the eggs to develop: and then
the proud father's position grows more arduous than ever. He has to
rock a thousand cradles at once, so to speak, and to pacify a thousand
crying babies. On the one hand, enemies hover about, trying to eat the
tender transparent glass-like little fry, and these he must drive off:
on the other hand, the good nurse must take care that the active young
fish do not stray far from the nest, and so expose themselves
prematurely to the manifold dangers of the outer world. Till they are
big enough to take care of themselves, he watches with incessant
vigilance over their safety; as soon as they can go forth with
tolerable security upon the world of their brook or pond, he takes a
last well-merited holiday.
It is not surprising under these circumstances to learn that
sticklebacks are successful and increasing animals. Their numbers are
enormous, wherever they get a fair chance in life, because they
multiply rapidly up to the extreme limit of the means of subsistence,
and develop as fast as food remains for them. There the inexorable
Malthusian law at last steps in: when there is not food enough for all
some must starve; that is the long and the short of the great
population question. But while provender is forthcoming they increase
gayly. Sticklebacks live mainly on the spawn of other fish, though
they are so careful of their own, and they are therefore naturally
hated by trout-preservers and owners of fisheries in general.
Thousands and thousands are caught each year; in some places, indeed,
they are so numerous that they are used as manure. It is their
numbers, of course, that make them formidable; they are the locusts of
the streams, well armed and pugnacious, and provided with most
remarkable parental instincts of a protective character, which enables
them to fill up all vacancies in their ranks as fast as they occur
with astonishing promptitude.
To those whose acquaintance with fish is mainly culinary, it may seem
odd to hear that the father stickleback alone takes part in the care
of the nursery. But this is the rule among the whole class of fish;
wherever the young are tended, it is almost always the father, not the
mother, who undertakes the duty of incubation. Only two instances
occur where the female fish assumes maternal functions towards her
young; about these I shall have more to say a little later on. We must
remember that reptiles, birds, and mammals are in all probability
descended from fish as ancestors, and it is therefore clear that the
habit of handing over the care of the young to the female alone
belongs to the higher grades of vertebrates--in other words, is of
later origin. We need not be astonished, therefore, to find that in
many cases among birds and other advanced vertebrates a partial
reversion to the earlier habit not infrequently takes place. With
doves, for example, the cock and hen birds sit equally on the eggs,
taking turns about at the nest; and as for the ostriches, the male
bird there does most of the incubation, for he accepts the whole of
the night duty, and also assists at intervals during the daytime.
There are numerous other cases where the father bird shares the tasks
of the nursery at least equally with the mother. I will glance first,
however, at one of the rare exceptions among fish where the main duty
does not devolve on the devoted father.
[Illustration: NO. 4. FEMALE TUBE-MOUTH.]
In No. 4 we have an illustration of the tube-mouth or Solenostoma, one
of the two known kinds of fish in which the female shows a sense of
her position as a mother. The tube-mouth, as you can see at a glance,
is a close relation of our old friend the seahorse, whose disguised
and undisguised forms in Australia and the Mediterranean we have
already observed when dealing with the question of animal
masqueraders. Solenostoma is a native of the Indian Ocean, from
Zanzibar to China. In the male, the lower pair of fins are separate,
as is usual among fish; but in the female, represented in the
accompanying sketch, they are lightly joined at the edge, so as to
form a sort of pouch like a kangaroo's, in which the eggs are
deposited after being laid, and thus carried about in the mother's
safe keeping. No. 5 shows the arrangement of this pouch in detail,
with the eggs inside it. The mother Solenostoma not only takes charge
of the spawn while it is hatching in this receptacle, but also looks
after the young fry, like the father stickleback, till they are of an
age to go off on their own account in quest of adventures. The most
frequent adventure that happens to them on the way is, of course,
being eaten.
[Illustration: NO. 5. POUCH OF TUBE-MOUTH.]
[Illustration: NO. 6. PIPE-FISH.]
The common English pipe-fish is a good example of the other and much
more usual case in which the father alone is actuated by a proper
sense of parental responsibility. The pipe-fish, indeed, might almost
be described as a pure and blameless rate-payer. No. 6 shows you the
outer form of this familiar creature, whom you will recognize at a
glance as still more nearly allied to the sea-horses than even the
tube-mouth. Pipe-fishes are timid and skulking creatures. Like their
horse-headed relations, they lurk for the most part among sea-weed
for protection, and being but poor swimmers, never venture far from
the covering shelter of their native thicket. But the curious part of
them is that in this family the father fish is provided with a pouch
even more perfect than that of the female tube-mouth, and that he
himself, not his mate takes sole charge of the young, incubates them
in his sack, and escorts them about for some time after hatching. The
pouch, which is more fully represented in No. 7, is formed by a loose
fold of skin arising from either side of the creature. In the
illustration this fold is partly withdrawn, so as to show the young
pipe-fish within their safe retreat after hatching out. It is said, I
know not how truly, that the young fry will stroll out for an
occasional swim on their own account, but will return at any threat of
danger to their father's bosom, for a considerable time after the
first hatching. This is just like what one knows of kangaroos and many
other pouched mammals, where the mother's pouch becomes a sort of
nursery, or place of refuge, to which the little ones return for
warmth or safety after every excursion.
[Illustration: NO. 7. POUCH OF PIPE-FISH.]
The sea-horses and many other fish have similar pouches; but, oddly
enough, in every case it is the male fish which bears it, and which
undertakes the arduous duty of nurse for his infant offspring.
A few female fish, on the other hand, even hatch the eggs within their
own bodies, and so apparently bring forth their young alive, like the
English lizard among reptiles. This, however, is far from a common
case: indeed, in an immense number of instances, neither parent pays
the slightest attention to the eggs after they are once laid and got
rid of: the spawn is left to lie on the bottom and be eaten or spared
as chance directs, while the young fry have to take care of
themselves, without the aid of parental advice and education. But
exceptions occur where both parents show signs of realizing the
responsibilities of their position. In some little South American
river fish, for instance, the father and mother together build a nest
of dead leaves for the spawn, and watch over it in unison until the
young are hatched. This case is exactly analogous to that of the doves
among birds: I may add that wherever such instances occur they always
seem to be accompanied by a markedly gentle and affectionate nature.
Brilliantly-coloured fighting polygamous fishes are fierce and cruel:
monogamous and faithful animals are seldom bright-hued, but they mate
for life and are usually remarkable for their domestic felicity. The
doves and love-birds are familiar instances.
Frogs are very closely allied to fish: indeed, one may almost say that
every frog begins life as a fish, limbless, gill-bearing, and aquatic,
and ends it as something very like a reptile, four-legged,
lung-bearing, and more or less terrestrial. For the tadpole is
practically in all essentials a fish. It is not odd, therefore, to
find that certain frogs reproduce, in a very marked manner, the
fatherly traits of their fish-like ancestors. There is a common kind
of frog in France, Belgium, and Switzerland, which does not extend to
England, but which closely recalls the habits of the stickleback and
the pipe-fish. Among these eminently moral amphibians, it is the
father, not the mother, who takes entire charge of the family. The
female lays her spawn in the shape of long strings or rolls, looking
at first sight like slimy necklaces. I have seen them as much as a
couple of yards long, lying loose on the grass where the frog lays
them. As soon as she has deposited them, however, the father frog hops
up, twists the garlands dexterously in loose festoons round his legs
and thighs, and then retires with his precious burden to some hole in
the bank of his native pond, where he lurks in seclusion till the eggs
develop. Frogs do not need frequent doses of food--their meals are
often few and far between--and during the six or eight weeks that the
eggs take to mature the father probably eats very little, though he
may possibly sally forth at night, unobserved, in search of provender.
At the end of that time the devoted parent, foreseeing developments,
takes to the water once more, so that the tadpoles may be hatched in
their proper element. I may add that this frog is a great musician in
the breeding season, but that as soon as the tadpoles are hatched out
he loses his voice entirely, and does not recover his manly croak till
the succeeding spring. This is also the case with the song of many
birds, the crest of the newt, the plumes of certain highly-decorated
trogons and nightjars, and, roughly speaking, the decorative and
attractive features of the male sex in general. Such features are
given them during the mating period as allurements for their
consorts: they disappear, for the time at least, like a ball-dress
after a ball, as soon as no immediate use can any longer be made of
them.
[Illustration: POUCHED FROG.]
Some American tree-frogs, on the other hand, imitate rather the
motherly Solenostoma than the fatherly instincts of the pipe-fish or
the stickleback. These pretty little creatures have a pouch like the
kangaroo, but in their case (as in the kangaroo's) it is the female
who bears it. Within this safe receptacle the eggs are placed by the
male, who pushes them in with his hind feet; and they not only undergo
their hatching in the pouch, but also pass through their whole tadpole
development in the same place. Owing to the care which is thus
extended to the eggs and young, these advanced tree-frogs are enabled
to lay only about a dozen to fifteen eggs at a time, instead of the
countless hundreds often produced by many of their relations.
Tree-frogs have, of course, in most circumstances much greater
difficulty in getting at water than pond-frogs; and this is especially
true in certain tropical or desert districts. Hence most of the frogs
which inhabit such regions have had to find out or invent some
ingenious plan for passing through the tadpole stage with a minimum of
moisture. The devices they have hit upon are very curious. Some of
them make use of the little pools collected at the bases of huge
tropical leaf-stalks, like those of the banana plant; others dispense
with the aid of water altogether, and glue their new-laid eggs to
their own backs, where the fry pass through the tadpole stage with the
slimy mucus which surrounds them. Nature always discovers such cunning
schemes to get over apparent difficulties in her way: and the
tree-frogs have solved the problem for themselves in half a dozen
manners in different localities. Oddest of all, perhaps, is the dodge
invented by "Darwin's frog," a Chilean species, in which the male
swallows the eggs as soon as laid, and gulps them into the
throat-pouch beneath his capacious neck: there they hatch out and pass
through their tadpole stage: and when at last they arrive at frogly
maturity, they escape into the world through the mouth of their
father.
[Illustration: NO. 8. THE SURINAM TOAD.]
The Surinam toad, represented in No. 8, is also the possessor of one
of the strangest nurseries known to science. It lives in the dense
tropical forests of Guiana and Brazil, and is a true water-haunter.
But at the breeding season the female undergoes a curious change of
integument. The skin on her back grows pulpy, soft, and jelly-like.
She lays her eggs in the water: but as soon as she has laid them, her
lord and master plasters them on to her impressionable back with his
feet, so as to secure them from all assaults of enemies. Every egg is
pressed separately into a bed of the soft skin, which soon closes over
it automatically, thus burying each in a little cell or niche, where
it undergoes its further development. The tadpoles pass through their
larval stage within the cell, and then hop out, in the four-legged
condition. As soon as they have gone off to shift for themselves, the
mother toad finds herself with a ragged and honeycombed skin, which
must be very uncomfortable. So she rubs the remnant of it off against
stones or the bark of trees, and re-develops a similar back afresh at
the next breeding season.
Almost never do we find a device in nature which occurs once only. The
unique hardly exists: nature is a great copyist. At least two animals
of wholly unlike kinds are all but sure to hit independently upon the
self-same mechanism. So it is not surprising to learn that a cat-fish
has invented an exactly similar mode of carrying its young to that
adopted by the Surinam toad: only, here it is on the under surface,
not the upper one, that the spawn is plastered. The eggs of this
cat-fish, whose scientific name is Aspredo, are pressed into the skin
below the body, and so borne about by the mother till they hatch. This
is the second instance of which I spoke above, where the female fish
herself assumes the care of her offspring, instead of leaving it
entirely to her excellent partner.
Higher up in the scale of life we get many instances which show
various stages in the same progressive development towards greater
care for the safety and education of the young. Among the larger
lizards, for example, a distinct advance may be traced between the
comparatively uncivilized American alligator and his near ally, the
much more cultivated African crocodile. On the banks of the
Mississippi, the alligator lays a hundred eggs or thereabouts, which
she deposits in a nest near the water's edge, and then covers them up
with leaves and other decaying vegetable matter. The fermentation of
these leaves produces heat and so does for the alligator's eggs what
sitting does for those of hens and other birds: the mother deputes her
maternal functions, so to speak, to a festering heap of decomposing
plant-refuse. Nevertheless, she loiters about all the time, like
Miriam round the ark which contained Moses, to see what happens; and
when the eggs hatch out, she leads her little ones down to the river,
and there makes alligators of them. This is a simple and relatively
low stage in the nursery arrangements of the big lizards.
The African crocodile, on the other hand, goes a stage higher. It lays
only about thirty eggs, but these it buries in warm sand, and then
lies on top of them at night, both to protect them from attack and to
keep them warm during the cooler hours. In short, it sits upon them.
When the young crocodiles within the eggs are ready to hatch, they
utter an acute cry. The mother then digs down to the eggs, and lays
them freely on the surface, so that the little reptiles may have space
to work their way out unimpeded. This they do by biting at the shell
with a specially developed tooth; at the end of two hours' nibbling
they are free, and are led down to the water by their affectionate
parent. In these two cases we see the beginnings of the instinct of
hatching, which in birds, the next in order in the scale of being, has
become almost universal.
I say _almost_ universal, because even among birds there are a few
kinds which have not to this day progressed beyond the alligator
level. Australia is the happy hunting-ground of the zooelogist in
search of antiquated forms, elsewhere extinct, and several Australian
birds, such as the brush-turkeys, still treat their eggs essentially
on the alligator method. The cock birds heap up huge mounds of earth
and decaying vegetable matter, as much as would represent several
cartloads of mould; and in this natural hot-bed the hens lay their
eggs, burying each separately with a good stock of leaves around it.
The heat of the sun and the fermenting mould hatch them out between
them; to expedite the process, the birds uncover the eggs during the
warmer part of the day, expose them to the sun, and bury them again in
the hot-beds towards evening. Several intermediate steps may also be
found between this early stage of communal nesting by proxy and the
true hatching instinct; a good one is supplied by the ostrich, which
partially buries its eggs in hot sand, but sits on them at intervals,
both father and mother birds taking shares by turn in the duties of
incubation.
The vast subject which I have thus lightly skimmed is not without
interest, again, from its human implications. Savages as a rule
produce enormous families; but then, the infant mortality in savage
tribes is proportionally great. Among civilized races, families are
smaller, and deaths in infancy are far less numerous. The higher the
class or the natural grade of a stock, the larger as a rule the
proportion of children safely reared to the adult age. The goal
towards which humanity is slowly moving would thus seem to be one
where families in most cases will be relatively small--perhaps not
more on an average than three to a household--but where most or all of
the children brought into the world will be safely reared to full
maturity. This is already becoming the rule in certain favored ranks
of European society.
[Illustration: TADPOLES AND YOUNG FROG.]
HOW ANIMALS SPEND THE WINTER
(FROM GLEANINGS FROM NATURE.)[2]
BY W. S. BLATCHLEY.
[2] "Popular Science Monthly," February, 1897. Copyright by William
Stanley Blatchley, 1899.
[Illustration: A COCOON.]
One of the greatest problems which each of the living forms about us
has had to solve, during the years of its existence on earth, is how
best to perpetuate its kind during that cold season which once each
year, in our temperate zone, is bound to come. Many are the solutions
to this problem. Each form of life has, as it were, solved it best to
suit its own peculiar case, and to the earnest student of Nature there
is nothing more interesting than to pry into these solutions and note
how varied, strange, and wonderful they are.
To fully appreciate some of the facts mentioned below it must be borne
in mind that there is no such thing as "spontaneous generation" of
life. Every cell is the offspring of a pre-existing cell. Nothing but
a living thing can produce a living thing. Hence every weed that next
season will spring up and provoke the farmer's ire, and every insect
which will then make life almost intolerable for man or beast, exists
throughout the winter in some form....
Beginning with the earth-worms and their kindred, we find that at the
approach of winter they burrow deep down where the icy breath of the
frost never reaches, and there they live, during the cold season, a
life of comparative quiet. That they are exceedingly sensitive to
warmth, however, may be proven by the fact that when a warm rain comes
some night in February or March, thawing out the crust of the earth,
the next morning reveals in our dooryards the mouths of hundreds of
the pits or burrows of these primitive tillers of the soil, each
surrounded by a little pile of pellets, the castings of the active
artisans of the pits during the night before.
If we will get up before dawn on such a morning we can find the worms
crawling actively about over the surface of the ground, but when the
first signs of day appear they seek once more their protective
burrows, and only an occasional belated individual serves as a
breakfast for the early birds.
The eyes of these lowly creatures are not visible, and consist of
single special cells scattered among the epidermal cells of the skin,
and connected by means of a sensory nerve fibre with a little bunch of
nervous matter in the body. Such a simple visual apparatus serves them
only in distinguishing light from darkness, but this to them is most
important knowledge, as it enables them to avoid the surface of the
earth by day, when their worst enemies, the birds, are in active
search for them.
The fresh-water mussels and snails and the crayfish burrow deep into
the mud and silt at the bottom of ponds and streams where they lie
motionless during the winter. The land snails, in late autumn, crawl
beneath logs, and, burrowing deep into the soft mould, they withdraw
far into their shells. Then each one forms with a mucous secretion two
thin transparent membranes, one across the opening of the shell and
one a little farther within, thus making the interior of the shell
perfectly air-tight. There for five or six months he sleeps, free from
the pangs of hunger and the blasts of winter, and when the balmy
breezes of spring blow up from the south he breaks down and devours
the protecting membrane and goes forth with his home on his back to
seek fresh leaves for food and to find for himself a mate.
Next in the scale come the insects, which comprise four-fifths of all
existing animals, and each one of the mighty horde seen in summer has
passed the winter in some form. One must look for them in strange
places and under many disguises; for they cannot migrate, as do the
majority of the birds, nor can they live an active life while the
source of their food supply, the plants, are inactive.
The majority of those insects which in May or June will be found
feeding on the buds or leaves of our trees, or crawling worm-like over
the grass of our lawns, or burrowing beneath the roots of our garden
plants, are represented in the winter by the eggs alone. These eggs
are deposited in autumn by the mother insect, on or near the object
destined to furnish the young, or larvae, their food. Each egg
corresponds to a seed of one of our annual plants; being, like it,
but a form of life so fashioned and fitted as to withstand for a long
period intense cold; the mother insect, like the summer form of the
plant, succumbing to the first severe frost.
Thus myriads of the eggs of grasshoppers are in the early autumn
deposited in the ground, in compact masses of forty to sixty each.
About mid-April they begin to hatch, and the sprightly little insects,
devoid of wings, but otherwise like their parents, begin their
life-work of changing grass into flesh.
[Illustration: HEDGEHOG CATERPILLAR.]
A comparatively small number of insects pass the winter in the larval
or active stage of the young. Of these, perhaps the best known is the
brown "woolly worm" or "hedgehog caterpillar," as it is familiarly
called. It is thickly covered with stiff black hairs on each end, and
with reddish hairs on the middle of the body. These hairs appear to be
evenly and closely shorn, so as to give the animal a velvety look; and
as they have a certain degree of elasticity, and the caterpillar curls
up at the slightest touch, it generally manages to slip away when
taken into the hand. Beneath loose bark, boards, rails, and stones,
this caterpillar may be found in mid-winter, coiled up and apparently
lifeless. On the first bright, sunny days of spring it may be seen
crawling rapidly over the ground, seeking the earnest vegetation which
will furnish it a literal "breakfast." In April or May the chrysalis,
surrounded by a loose cocoon formed of the hairs of the body
interwoven with coarse silk, may be found in situations similar to
those in which the larva passed the winter. From this, the perfect
insect, the Isabella tiger moth, _Pyrrharctia isabella_ Smith, emerges
about the last of June. It is a medium sized moth, dull orange in
color, with three rows of small black spots on the body, and some
scattered spots of the same color on the wings.
By breaking open rotten logs one can find in mid-winter the grubs or
larvae of many of the wood-boring beetles, and, beneath logs and stones
near the margins of ponds and brooks, hordes of the maggots or larvae
of certain kinds of flies may often be found huddled together in great
masses. The larvae of a few butterflies also live over winter beneath
chips or bunches of leaves near the roots of their food plant, or in
webs of their own construction, which are woven on the stems close to
the buds, whose expanding leaves will furnish them their first meal in
spring.
Many insects pass the winter in the quiescent or pupal stage; a state
exceedingly well fitted for hibernating, requiring as it does, no
food, and giving plenty of time for the marvellous changes which are
then undergone. Some of these pupae are enclosed in dense silken
cocoons, which are bound to the twigs of the plants upon which the
larvae feed, and thus they swing securely in their silken hammocks
through all the storms of winter. Perhaps the most common of these is
that of the brown Cecropian moth, _Attacus cecropia_ L., the large
oval cocoon of which is a conspicuous object in the winter on the
twigs of our common shade and fruit trees. Many other pupae may be
found beneath logs or on the under side of bark, and usually have the
chrysalis surrounded by a thin covering of hairs, which are rather
loosely arranged. A number pass the cold season in the earth with no
protective covering whatever. Among these is a large brown chrysalis
with a long tongue case bent over so as to resemble the handle of a
jug. Every farm boy has ploughed or spaded it up in the spring, and is
it but the pupa of a large sphinx moth, _Protoparce celeus_ Hub., the
larva of which is the great green worm, with a "horn on its tail," so
common on tomato plants in the late summer.
[Illustration: CHRYSALIS OF TOMATO WORM.]
Each of the winter forms of insects above mentioned can withstand long
and severe cold weather--in fact, may be frozen solid for weeks and
retain life and vigor, both of which are shown when warm weather and
food appear again. Indeed, it is not an unusually cold winter, but one
of successive thawings and freezings, which is most destructive to
insect life. A mild winter encourages the growth of mould which
attacks the hibernating larvae and pupae as soon as, from excess of rain
or humidity, they become sickly; and it also permits the continued
activity of insectivorous mammals and birds. Thus, moles, shrews,
and field mice, instead of burying themselves deeply in the ground,
run about freely during an open winter and destroy enormous numbers
of pupae; while such birds as the woodpeckers, titmice, and chickadees
are constantly on the alert, and searching in every crevice and cranny
of fence and bark of tree for the hibernating larvae.
Of the creeping, wingless creatures, which can ever be found beneath
rocks, rails, chunks, and especially beneath those old decaying logs
which are half buried in the rich vegetable mould, the myriapods, or
"thousand-legs," deserve more than a passing notice. They are typical
examples of that great branch of the animal kingdom known as
_arthropods_, which comprises all insects and crustaceans. Each
arthropod has the body composed of rings placed end to end and bearing
jointed appendages, and in the myriapods each ring and its appendages
can be plainly seen; whereas in the higher forms of the branch many of
the rings are so combined as to be very difficult to distinguish.
Full forty kinds of myriapods occur in any area comprising one hundred
square miles in the eastern United States. About twenty-five of them
go by the general name of "thousand-legs" or millipedes, as each has
from forty to fifty-five cylindrical rings in the body, and two pairs
of legs to each ring. The other fifteen belong to the "centipede"
group, the body consisting of about sixteen flattened segments, or
rings, each bearing a single pair of legs. When disturbed, the
"thousand-legs" generally coils up and remains motionless, shamming
death, or "playing possum," as it is popularly put, as a means of
defence; while the centipede scampers hurriedly away and endeavors to
hide beneath leaf, chip, or other object.
[Illustration: CENTIPEDE.]
All those found in the Northern States are perfectly harmless, the
true centipede, whose bite is reputed much more venomous than it
really is, being found only in the South. True, some of the centipede
group can pinch rather sharply with their beetle-like jaws; and one,
our largest and most common species, a brownish red fellow about three
inches long and without eyes, can even draw blood if its jaws happen
to strike a tender place. When handled it always tries to bite,
perhaps out of revenge for the abominably long Latin name given it by
its describer. In fact the name is longer than the animal
itself--_Sco-lo-po-cryp-tops sex-spi-no-sus_ (Say)--being its cognomen
in full. With such a handle attached to it, who can blame it for
attempting to bite? Yet, to the scientist up on his Latin, each part
of the above name bears a definite and tangible meaning. All the
myriapods found in the woods and fields feed upon decaying vegetation,
such as leaves, stems of weeds, and rotten wood, and in winter three
or four species can usually be found within or beneath every decaying
log or stump. One species with very long legs, _Scutigera forceps_
(Raf.), is often found in damp houses or in cellars. It is sometimes
called the "wall-sweeper," on account of its rapid ungainly gait, and
is even reputed to prey upon cockroaches and other household pests.
Spiders, which do not undergo such changes as do most of the common,
six-footed insects, winter either as eggs or in the mature form. The
members of the "sedentary" or web-spinning group, as a rule, form
nests in late autumn, in each of which are deposited from fifty to
eighty eggs, which survive the winter and hatch in the spring, as soon
as the food supply of gnats, flies, and mosquitoes appear. The
different forms of spiders' nests are very interesting objects of
study. Some are those close-spun, flat, button-shaped objects, about
half an inch in diameter, which are so common in winter on the under
side of bark, chunks and flat rocks. Others are balloon-shaped and
attached to weeds. Within the latter the young spiders often hatch in
early winter, make their first meal off their empty egg cases, and
then begin a struggle for existence, the stronger preying upon the
weaker until the south winds blow again, when they emerge and scatter
far and wide in search of more nutritious sustenance.
The "wandering" spiders never spin webs, but run actively about and
pounce upon their prey with a tiger-like spring. Six or eight of the
larger species of this group winter in the mature form beneath logs
and chunks, being often frozen solid during cold weather, but thawing
out as healthy as ever when the temperature rises. Retiring beneath
the loose-fitting bark of hickory or maple trees, a number of the
smaller tube-weaving spiders construct about themselves a protecting
web of many layers of the finest silk. Within this snug retreat they
lie from November until April--a handsome, small, black fellow, with
green jaws and two orange spots on his abdomen, being the most common
species found motionless within this seeming shroud of silk on a day
in mid-winter.
In any Northern State as many as four hundred different kinds of the
six-footed or true insects, in the winged or adult stage, may be taken
in winter by any one who is so disposed, and knows where to search for
them. Among the _Orthoptera_, the "grouse grasshoppers" live during
the cold season beneath the loose bark of logs, or beneath the bottom
rails of the old Virginia worm fences. From these retreats every warm,
sunny day tempts them forth in numbers. On such occasions the earth
seems to swarm with them, as they leap before the intruder, their hard
bodies striking the dead leaves with a sound similar to that produced
by falling hail. The common field cricket belongs also to the
_Orthoptera_, and the young of various sizes winter under rails and
logs, bidding defiance to Jack Frost from within a little burrow or
pit beneath the protecting shelter.
[Illustration: CHINCH BUG.]
The true bugs, or _Hemiptera_, hibernate in similar places; squash
bugs, chinch bugs, "stink" bugs, and others being easily found in
numbers beneath loose bark or hidden between the root leaves of
mullein and other plants.
Nearly three hundred species of _Coleoptera_, or beetles, occupy
similar positions. Almost any rotten log or stump when broken open
discloses a half dozen or more "horn" or "bess beetles," _Passalus
cornutus_ L., great, shining, clumsy, black fellows with a curved horn
on the head. They are often utilized as horses by country children,
the horn furnishing an inviting projection to which may be fastened,
by a thread or cord, chips and pieces of bark to be dragged about by
the strong and never lagging beast of burden. When tired of "playing
horse" they can make of the insect an instrument of music; for, when
held by the body, it emits a creaking, hissing noise, produced by
rubbing the abdomen up and down against the inside of the hard, horny
wing covers. This beetle passes its entire life in cavities in the
rotten wood on which it feeds, and when it wishes a larger or more
commodious home it has only to eat the more.
[Illustration: THIRTEEN-SPOTTED LADY BEETLE.]
The handsome and beneficial lady beetles winter beneath fallen leaves
or between and beneath the root leaves of the mullein and the thistle.
Our most common species, the thirteen-spotted lady beetle, _Megilla
maculata_ De G., is gregarious, collecting together by thousands on
the approach of cold weather, and lying huddled up like sheep until a
breath of spring gives them the signal to disperse. Snout beetles
galore can be found beneath piles of weeds near streams and the
borders of ponds or beneath chunks and logs in sandy places. All are
injurious, and the farmer by burning their hibernating places in
winter can cause their destruction in numbers. Rove beetles, ground
beetles, and many others live deep down in the vegetable mould beneath
old logs, where they are, no doubt, as secure from the ice king as if
they followed the swallow to the tropics.
Of the _Diptera_, or flies, but few forms winter in the perfect state,
yet the myriads of house flies and their kin, which next summer will
distract the busy house-wife, are represented in winter by a few
isolated individuals which creep forth occasionally from crevice or
cranny and greet us with a friendly buzz.
In mid-winter one may also see in the air swarms of small, gnat-like
insects. They belong to this order and live beneath the bark of
freshly fallen beech and other logs. On warm, sunny days they go forth
in numbers for a sort of rhythmical courtship; their movements while
in the air being peculiar in that they usually rise and fall in the
same vertical line--performing a curious aerial dance which is long
continued.
Among the dozen or more butterflies and moths which winter in the
perfect state, the most common and the most handsome is the
"Camberwell beauty" or "mourning cloak," _Vanessa antiopa_ L., a large
butterfly whose wings are a rich purplish brown above, duller beneath,
and broadly margined with a yellowish band. It is often found in
winter beneath chunks which are raised a short distance above the
ground, or in the crevices of old snags and fence rails. It is then
apparently lifeless, with the antennae resting close along the back,
above which the wings are folded. But one or two warm days are
necessary to restore it to activity, and I have seen it on the wing as
early as the 2d of March, hovering over the open flowers of the little
snow trillium.
All the species of ants survive the winter as mature forms, either in
their nests in the ground or huddled groups in half rotten logs and
stumps; while here and there beneath logs a solitary queen bumble-bee,
bald hornet, or yellow jacket is found--the sole representatives of
their races.
Thus insects survive the winter in many ways and in many places, some
as eggs, others as larvae, still others as pupae, and a large number as
adults--all being able to withstand severe cold and yet retain
vitality sufficient to recover, live, grow, and replenish the earth
with their progeny when the halcyon days of spring appear once more.
In the scale of animal life the vertebrates or back-boned animals
succeed the insects. Beginning with the fishes, we find that in late
autumn they mostly seek some deep pool in pond or stream at the bottom
of which the water does not freeze. Here the herbivorous forms eke out
a precarious existence by feeding upon the innumerable diatoms and
other small plants which are always to be found in water, while the
carnivorous prey upon the herbivorous, and so maintain the struggle
for existence. The moving to these deeper channels and pools in autumn
and the scattering in the spring of the assembly which has gathered
there constitute the so-called "migration of fishes," which is far
from being so extensive and methodical as that practiced by the
migratory birds.
Many of the smaller species of fishes, upon leaving these winter
resorts, ascend small, clear brooks in large numbers for the purpose
of depositing their eggs; as, when hatched in such a place, the young
will be comparatively free from the attacks of the larger carnivorous
forms. Among the lowest vertebrate often found in numbers in early
spring in these meadow rills and brooks is the lamprey, _Ammocoetes
branchialis_ (L.), or "lamper eel," as it is sometimes called. It has
a slender eel-like body, of a uniform leaden or blackish color, and
with seven purse-shaped gill openings on each side. The mouth is
fitted for sucking rather than biting, and with it they attach
themselves to the bodies of fishes and feed on their flesh, which they
scrape off with their rasp-like teeth. Later in the season they
disappear from these smaller streams, probably returning in midsummer
to deeper water. Thoreau, who studied their habits closely, says of
them: "They are rarely seen on their way down stream, and it is
thought by fishermen that they never return, but waste away and die,
clinging to rocks and stumps of trees for an indefinite period; a
tragic feature to the scenery of the river bottoms worthy to be
remembered with Shakespeare's description of the sea floor."
[Illustration: A LAMPREY.]
A few of the fishes, as the mud minnow and smaller catfishes,
together with most frogs, turtles, and salamanders, on the approach of
winter, burrow into the mud at the bottom of the streams and ponds, or
beneath logs near their margins. There they live without moving about
and with all the vital processes in a partially dormant condition,
thus needing little if any food.
The box tortoise or "dry land terrapin," the common toad, and some
salamanders burrow into the dry earth, usually going deep enough to
escape frost; while snakes seek some crevice in the rocks or hole in
the ground where they coil themselves together, oftentimes in vast
numbers, and prepare for their winter's sleep. In an open winter this
hibernation is often interrupted, the animal emerging from its retreat
and seeking its usual summer haunts as though spring had come again.
Thus I have, on one occasion, seen a soft-shelled turtle moving
gracefully over the bottom of a stream on a day in late December, and
have in mid-January captured snakes and salamanders from beneath a
pile of drift-wood, where they had taken temporary refuge.
[Illustration: TURTLE.]
With frogs, especially, this hibernation is not a perfect one, and
there is a doubt if in a mild winter some species hibernate at all.
For example, the little cricket frog or "peeper" has been seen many
times in mid-winter alongside the banks of flowing streams, and during
the open winter of 1888-89 numerous specimens of leopard and green
frogs were seen on different occasions in December and January, while
on February 18th they, together with the "peepers," were in full
chorus.
Of our mammals, a few of the rodents or gnawers, as the ground-hogs,
gophers and chipmunks, hibernate in burrows deep enough to escape the
cold, and either feed on a stored supply of food, or, like the snakes
and crayfish, do not feed at all.
[Illustration: CHIPMUNK.]
Others, as the rabbits, field-mice, and squirrels, are more or less
active and forage freely on whatever they can find, eating many things
which in summer they would spurn with scorn. To this class belongs
that intelligent but injurious animal the musquash or muskrat. Those
which inhabit the rivers and larger streams live in burrows dug deep
beneath the banks, but those inhabiting sluggish streams and ponds
usually construct a conical winter house about three feet in diameter
and from two to three feet in height. These houses are made of coarse
grasses, rushes, branches of shrubs, and small pieces of driftwood,
closely cemented together with stiff, clayey mud. The top of the house
usually projects two feet or more above the water, and when sun-dried
is so strong as to easily sustain the weight of a man. The walls are
generally about six inches in thickness and are very difficult to pull
to pieces. Within is a single circular chamber with a shelf or floor
of mud, sticks, leaves and grass, ingeniously supported on coarse
sticks stuck endwise into the mud after the manner of piles. In the
centre of this floor is an opening, from which six or eight diverging
paths lead to the open water without, so that the little artisan has
many avenues of escape in case of danger. These houses are often
repaired and used for several winters in succession, but are vacated
on the approach of spring. During the summer the muskrat is, in the
main, a herbivorous animal, but in winter necessity develops its
carnivorous propensities and it feeds then mainly upon the mussels and
crayfish which it can dig from the bottom of the pond or stream in
which its house is built.
The bats pass the winter in caves, the attics of houses, and barns, or
in hollow trees, hanging downward by their hind claws. Motionless for
months they thus remain, and those in the more exposed situations are,
doubtless, frozen solid. Yet, in time, their blood flows freely once
again and they become as expert on the wing as though the year were
one continual jubilee of insect chasing, and frost and snow were to
them unknown.
All the carnivora, or flesh-eaters, as the mink, skunk, opossum, fox,
and wolf, are in winter active and voracious, needing much food to
supply the necessary animal heat of the body. Hence they are then much
more bold than in summer, and the hen yard or sheep pen of the farmer
is too frequently called upon to supply this extra demand.
[Illustration: A WOLF.]
But of all our animals it seems to me the birds have solved the winter
problem best. Possessing an enduring power of flight and a knowledge
of a southern sunny sky, beneath which food is plentiful, they alone
of all the living forms about us have little fear of the coming of the
frost. True, fifty or more species remain in each of the Northern
States during the cold season, but they are hardy birds which feed
mainly upon seeds, as the snow-bird and song sparrow; on flesh, as the
hawks and crows; or on burrowing insects, as the nut-hatches and
woodpeckers.
Such are some of the solutions to the problem of life in winter which
the plants and animals about us have worked out; such some of the
forms which they undergo; the places which they inhabit.
To the thinking mind a knowledge of these solutions but begets other
and greater problems, such as how can a living thing be frozen solid
for weeks and yet retain vitality enough to fully recover? How can a
warm-blooded animal sleep for months without partaking of food or
drink? And greater than either, what is that which we call life?
I hold in my hand two objects, similar in size, color, organs,
everything--twins from the same mother in all outward respects. One
pulsates and throbs with that which we call "life." It possesses heat,
bodily motion, animal power. The other is cold, motionless, pulseless,
throbless--a thing of clay. What is that "life" which the one
possesses and the other lacks? Ah, there's the rub! With the wisest of
men we can only answer, "_Quien sabe?_" (Who knows?)
[Illustration: WINTER HOUSE OF MUSKRAT.]
BIRDS' NESTS
(FROM WAKE ROBIN.)[3]
BY JOHN BURROUGHS.
[3] Copyright by Houghton, Mifflin & Co.
[Illustration]
How alert and vigilant the birds are, even when absorbed in building
their nests! In an open space in the woods, I see a pair of
cedar-birds collecting moss from the top of a dead tree. Following the
direction in which they fly, I soon discover the nest placed in the
fork of a small soft-maple, which stands amid a thick growth of
wild-cherry trees and young beeches. Carefully concealing myself
beneath it, without any fear that the workmen will hit me with a chip
or let fall a tool, I await the return of the busy pair. Presently I
hear the well-known note, and the female sweeps down and settles
unsuspectingly into the half-finished structure. Hardly have her wings
rested, before her eye has penetrated my screen, and with a hurried
movement of alarm, she darts away. In a moment, the male, with a tuft
of wool in his beak (for there is a sheep pasture near), joins her,
and the two reconnoitre the premises from the surrounding bushes. With
their beaks still loaded, they move around with a frightened look, and
refuse to approach the nest till I have moved off and lain down behind
a log. Then one of them ventures to alight upon the nest, but, still
suspecting all is not right, quickly darts away again. Then they both
together come, and after much peeping and spying about, and apparently
much anxious consultation, cautiously proceed to work. In less than
half an hour, it would seem that wool enough has been brought to
supply the whole family, real and prospective, with socks, if needles
and fingers could be found fine enough to knit it up. In less than a
week, the female has begun to deposit her eggs,--four of them in as
many days,--white tinged with purple, with black spots on the larger
end. After two weeks of incubation, the young are out.
Excepting the American goldfinch, this bird builds later in the spring
than any other, its nest, in our northern climate, seldom being
undertaken till July. As with the goldfinch, the reason is, probably,
that suitable food for the young cannot be had at an earlier period.
Like most of our common species, as the robin, sparrow, bluebird,
pewee, wren, etc., this bird sometimes seeks wild, remote localities
in which to rear its young; at others, takes up its abode near that of
man. I knew a pair of cedar-birds, one season, to build in an
apple-tree, the branches of which rubbed against the house. For a day
or two before the first straw was laid, I noticed the pair carefully
exploring every branch of the tree the female taking the lead, the
male following her with an anxious note and look. It was evident that
the wife was to have her choice this time; and, like one who
thoroughly knew her mind, she was proceeding to take it. Finally the
site was chosen upon a high branch extending over one low wing of the
house. Mutual congratulations and caresses followed, when both birds
flew away in quest of building material. That most freely used is a
sort of cotton-bearing plant, which grows in old, worn-out fields. The
nest is large for the size of the bird, and very soft. It is in every
respect a first-class domicile.
On another occasion, while walking, or rather sauntering, in the woods
(for I have discovered that one cannot run and read the book of
nature), my attention was arrested by a dull hammering, evidently but
a few rods off. I said to myself, "Some one is building a house." From
what I had previously seen, I suspected the builder to be a red-headed
woodpecker, in the top of a dead oak stub near by. Moving cautiously
in that direction, I perceived a round hole, about the size of that
made by an inch-and-a-half auger, near the top of the decayed trunk,
and the white chips of the workman strewing the ground beneath. When
but a few paces from the tree, my foot pressed upon a dry twig, which
gave forth a very slight snap. Instantly the hammering ceased, and a
scarlet head appeared at the door. Though I remained perfectly
motionless, forbearing even to wink till my eye smarted, the bird
refused to go on with his work, but flew quietly off to a neighboring
tree. What surprised me was, that amid his busy occupation down in
the heart of the old tree he should have been so alert and watchful as
to catch the slightest sound from without.
The woodpeckers all build in about the same manner, excavating the
trunk or branch of a decayed tree, and depositing the eggs on the fine
fragments of wood at the bottom of the cavity. Though the nest is not
especially an artistic work,--requiring strength rather than
skill,--yet the eggs and the young of few other birds are so
completely housed from the elements, or protected from their natural
enemies--the jays, crows, hawks, and owls. A tree with a natural
cavity is never selected, but one which has been dead just long enough
to have become soft and brittle throughout. The bird goes in
horizontally for a few inches, making a hole perfectly round and
smooth and adapted to his size; then turns downward, gradually
enlarging the hole, as he proceeds, to the depth of ten, fifteen,
twenty inches, according to the softness of the tree and the urgency
of the mother bird to deposit her eggs. While excavating, male and
female work alternately. After one has been engaged fifteen or twenty
minutes, drilling, and carrying out chips, it ascends to an upper
limb, utters a loud call or two, when its mate soon appears, and,
alighting near it on the branch, the pair chatter and caress a moment;
then the fresh one enters the cavity and the other flies away.
A few days since, I climbed up to the nest of the downy woodpecker, in
the decayed top of a sugar-maple. For better protection against
driving rains, the hole which was rather more than an inch in
diameter, was made immediately beneath a branch which stretched out
almost horizontally from the main stem. It appeared merely a deeper
shadow upon the dark and mottled surface of the bark with which the
branches were covered, and could not be detected by the eye until one
was within a few feet of it. The young chirped vociferously as I
approached the nest, thinking it was the old one with food; but the
clamor suddenly ceased as I put my hand on that part of the trunk in
which they were concealed, the unusual jarring and rustling alarming
them into silence. The cavity, which was about fifteen inches deep,
was gourd-shaped, and was wrought with great skill and regularity. The
walls were quite smooth and clean and new.
[Illustration: WOODPECKER'S NEST. (Dotted lines indicate inside of
nest and eggs).]
I shall never forget the circumstance of observing a pair of
yellow-bellied woodpeckers,--the most rare and secluded, and, next to
the red-headed, the most beautiful species found in our
woods,--breeding in an old, truncated beech in the Beaverkill
Mountains, an off-shoot of the Catskills. We had been travelling,
three of us, all day in search of a trout lake, which lay far in among
the mountains, had twice lost our course in the trackless forest,
and, weary and hungry, had sat down to rest upon a decayed log. The
chattering of the young, and the passing to and fro of the parent
birds, soon arrested my attention. The entrance to the nest was on the
east side of the tree, about twenty-five feet from the ground. At
intervals of scarcely a minute, the old birds, one after another,
would light upon the edge of the hole with a grub or worm in their
beaks; then each in turn would make a bow or two, cast an eye quickly
around, and by a single movement place itself in the neck of the
passage. Here it would pause a moment, as if to determine in which
expectant mouth to place the morsel, and then disappear within. In
about half a minute, during which time the chattering of the young
gradually subsided, the bird would again emerge, but this time bearing
in its beak the ordure of one of the helpless family. Flying away very
slowly with head lowered and extended, as if anxious to hold the
offensive object as far from its plumage as possible, the bird dropped
the unsavory morsel in the course of a few yards, and, alighting on a
tree, wiped its bill on the bark and moss. This seemed to be the order
all day,--carrying in and carrying out. I watched the birds for an
hour, while my companions were taking their turn in exploring the lay
of the land around us, and noted no variation in the programme. It
would be curious to know if the young are fed and waited upon in
regular order, and how, amid the darkness and the crowded state of the
apartment, the matter is so neatly managed. But ornithologists are all
silent upon the subject.
[Illustration: THE YELLOW-BELLIED WOODPECKER.]
This practice of the birds is not so uncommon as it might at first
seem. It is, indeed, almost an invariable rule among all land birds.
With woodpeckers and kindred species, and with birds that burrow in
the ground, as bank swallows, kingfishers, etc., it is a necessity.
The accumulation of the excrement in the nest would prove most fatal
to the young.
But even among birds that neither bore nor mine, but which build a
shallow nest on the branch of a tree or upon the ground, as the robin,
the finches, the buntings, etc., the ordure of the young is removed to
a distance by the parent bird. When the robin is seen going away from
its brood with a slow, heavy flight, entirely different from its
manner a moment before on approaching the nest with a cherry or worm,
it is certain to be engaged in this office. One may observe the social
sparrow, when feeding its young, pause a moment after the worm has
been given, and hop around on the brink of the nest, observing the
movements within.
The instinct of cleanliness no doubt prompts the action in all cases,
though the disposition to secrecy or concealment may not be unmixed
with it.
The swallows form an exception to the rule, the excrement being voided
by the young over the brink of the nest. They form an exception, also,
to the rule of secrecy, aiming not so much to conceal the nest as to
render it inaccessible.
Other exceptions are the pigeons, hawks, and water-fowls.
But to return. Having a good chance to note the color and markings of
the woodpeckers as they passed in and out at the opening of the nest,
I saw that Audubon had made a mistake in figuring or describing the
female of this species with the red spot upon the head. I have seen a
number of pairs of them, and in no instance have I seen the mother
bird marked with red.
The male was in full plumage, and I reluctantly shot him for a
specimen. Passing by the place again next day, I paused a moment to
note how matters stood. I confess it was not without some compunctions
that I heard the cries of the young birds, and saw the widowed mother,
her cares now doubled, hastening to and fro in the solitary woods. She
would occasionally pause expectantly on the trunk of a tree, and utter
a loud call.
It usually happens when the male of any species is killed during the
breeding season, that the female soon procures another mate. There
are, most likely, always a few unmated birds of both sexes, within a
given range, and through these the broken links may be restored.
Audubon or Wilson, I forgot which, tells a pair of fish-hawks, or
ospreys, that built their nest in an ancient oak. The male was so
zealous in the defence of the young that it actually attacked with
beak and claw a person who attempted to climb into his nest, putting
his face and eyes in great jeopardy. Arming himself with a heavy club,
the climber felled the gallant bird to the ground and killed him. In
the course of a few days, the female had procured another mate. But
naturally enough the step-father showed none of the spirit and pluck
in defence of the brood that had been displayed by the original
parent. When danger was nigh, he was seen afar off, sailing around in
placid unconcern.
It is generally known that when either the wild turkey or domestic
turkey begins to lay, and afterwards to sit and rear the brood, she
secludes herself from the male, who then, very sensibly, herds with
others of his sex, and betakes himself to haunts of his own till male
and female, old and young, meet again on common ground, late in the
fall. But rob the sitting bird of her eggs, or destroy her tender
young, and she immediately sets out in quest of a male, who is no
laggard when he hears her call. The same is true of ducks and other
aquatic fowls. The propagating instinct is strong, and surmounts all
ordinary difficulties. No doubt the widowhood I had caused in the case
of the woodpeckers was of short duration, and chance brought, or the
widow drummed up, some forlorn male, who was not dismayed by the
prospect of having a large family of half grown birds on his hands at
the outset.
I have seen a fine cock robin paying assiduous addresses to a female
bird as late as the middle of July; and I have no doubt that his
intentions were honorable. I watched the pair for half an hour. The
hen, I took it, was in the market for the second time that season; but
the cock, from his bright, unfaded plumage, looked like a new arrival.
The hen resented every advance of the male. In vain he strutted around
her and displayed his fine feathers; every now and then she would make
at him in a most spiteful manner. He followed her to the ground,
poured into her ear a fine, half-suppressed warble, offered her a
worm, flew back to the tree again with a great spread of plumage,
hopped around her on the branches, chirruped, chattered, flew
gallantly at an intruder, and was back in an instant at her side. No
use,--she cut him short at every turn.
The _denouement_ I cannot relate, as the artful bird, followed by her
ardent suitor, soon flew away beyond my sight. It may not be rash to
conclude, however that she held out no longer than was prudent.
On the whole, there seems to be a system of Women's Rights prevailing
among the birds, which, contemplated from the standpoint of the male,
is quite admirable. In almost all cases of joint interest, the female
bird is the most active. She determines the site of the nest, and is
usually the most absorbed in its construction. Generally, she is more
vigilant in caring for the young, and manifests the most concern when
danger threatens. Hour after hour I have seen the mother of a brood of
blue grossbeaks pass from the nearest meadow to the tree that held her
nest, with a cricket or grasshopper in her bill, while her
better-dressed half was singing serenely on a distant tree or pursuing
his pleasure amid the branches.
Yet among the majority of our song birds, the male is most conspicuous
both by his color and manners and by his song, and is to that extent a
shield to the female. It is thought that the female is humbler clad
for her better concealment during incubation. But this is not
satisfactory, as in some cases she is relieved from time to time by
the male. In the case of the domestic dove, for instance, promptly at
mid-day the cock is found upon the nest. I should say that the dull or
neutral tints of the female were a provision of nature for her greater
safety at all times, as her life is far more precious to the species
than that of the male. The indispensable office of the male reduces
itself to little more than a moment of time, while that of his mate
extends over days and weeks, if not months.
In migrating northward, the males precede the females by eight or ten
days; returning in the fall, the females and young precede the males
by about the same time.
[Illustration: NEST OF THE CHICADEE.]
After the woodpeckers have abandoned their nests, or rather chambers,
which they do after the first season, their cousins, the nut-hatches,
chickadees, and brown creepers, fall heir to them. These birds,
especially the creepers and nut-hatches, have many of the habits of
the _picidae_, but lack their powers of bill, and so are unable to
excavate a nest for themselves. Their habitation, therefore, is always
second-hand. But each species carries in some soft material of various
kinds, or, in other words, furnishes the tenement to its liking. The
chickadee arranges in the bottom of the cavity a little mat of a
light, felt-like substance, which looks as if it came from the
hatter's, but which is probably the work of numerous worms or
caterpillars. On this soft lining the female deposits six white eggs.
I recently discovered one of these nests in a most interesting
situation. The tree containing it, a variety of the wild cherry, stood
upon the brink of the bald summit of a high mountain. Gray, time-worn
rocks lay piled loosely about, or overtoppled the just visible by-ways
of the red fox. The trees had a half-scared look, and that
indescribable wildness which lurks about the tops of all remote
mountains possessed the place. Standing there, I looked down upon the
back of the red-tailed hawk as he flew out over the earth beneath me.
Following him, my eye also took in farms, and settlements, and
villages, and other mountain ranges that grew blue in the distance.
The parent birds attracted my attention by appearing with food in
their beaks, and by seeming much put out. Yet so wary were they of
revealing the locality of their brood, or even of the precise tree
that held them, that I lurked around over an hour without gaining a
point on them. Finally a bright and curious boy who accompanied me
secreted himself under a low, projecting rock close to the tree in
which we supposed the nest to be, while I moved off around the
mountain-side. It was not long before the youth had their secret. The
tree, which was low and wide branching, and overrun with lichens,
appeared at a cursory glance to contain not one dry or decayed limb.
Yet there was one a few feet long, in which, when my eyes were piloted
thither, I detected a small round orifice.
As my weight began to shake the branches, the consternation of both
old and young was great. The stump of a limb that held the nest was
about three inches thick, and at the bottom of the tunnel was
excavated quite to the bark. With my thumb I broke in the thin wall,
and the young, which were full-fledged, looked out upon the world for
the first time. Presently one of them, with a significant chirp, as
much as to say, "It is time we were out of this," began to climb up
toward the proper entrance. Placing himself in the hole, he looked
around without manifesting any surprise at the grand scene that lay
spread out before him. He was taking his bearings and determining how
far he could trust the power of his untried wings to take him out of
harm's way. After a moment's pause, with a loud chirrup, he launched
out, and made tolerable headway. The others rapidly followed. Each
one, as it started upward, from a sudden impulse, contemptuously
saluted the abandoned nest with its excrement.
[Illustration: BARN SWALLOW AND NEST.]
Though generally regular in their habits and instincts, yet the birds
sometimes seem as whimsical and capricious as superior beings. One is
not safe, for instance, in making any absolute assertion as to their
place or mode of building. Ground builders often get up into a bush,
and tree builders sometimes get upon the ground or into a tussock of
grass. The song-sparrow, which is a ground builder, has been known to
build in the knot-hole of a fence rail, and a chimney swallow once got
tired of soot and smoke, and fastened its nest on a rafter in a hay
barn. A friend tells me of a pair of barn swallows which, taking a
fanciful turn, saddled their nest in the loop of a rope that was
pendent from a peg in the peak, and liked it so well that they
repeated the experiment next year. I have known the social sparrow, or
"hair bird," to build under a shed, in a tuft of hay that hung down,
through the loose flooring, from the mow above. It usually contents
itself with a half a dozen stalks of dry grass and a few long hairs
from a cow's tail, loosely arranged on the branch of an apple-tree.
The rough-winged swallow builds in the wall and in old stone heaps,
and I have seen the robin build in similar localities. Others have
found its nest in old, abandoned wells. The house wren will build in
anything that has an accessible cavity, from an old boot to a
bombshell. A pair of them once persisted in building their nest in the
top of a certain pump-tree, getting in through the opening above the
handle. The pump being in daily use, the nest was destroyed more than
a score of times. This jealous little wretch has the wise forethought,
when the box in which he builds contains two compartments, to fill up
one of them, so as to avoid the risk of troublesome neighbors.
The less skilful builders sometimes depart from their usual habit, and
take up with the abandoned nest of some other species. The blue-jay
now and then lays in an old crow's-nest or cuckoo's-nest. The
crow-blackbird, seized with a fit of indolence, drops its eggs in the
cavity of a decayed branch. I heard of a cuckoo that dispossessed a
robin of its nest; of another that set a blue-jay adrift. Large, loose
structures, like the nests of the osprey and certain of the herons,
have been found with half a dozen nests of the blackbird set in the
outer edges, like so many parasites, or, as Audubon says, like the
retainers about the rude court of a feudal baron.
[Illustration: BALTIMORE ORIOLE AND NEST.]
The same birds breeding in a southern climate construct far less
elaborate nests than when breeding in a northern climate. Certain
species of water-fowl that abandon their eggs to the sand and the sun
in the warmer zones, build a nest and sit in the usual way in
Labrador. In Georgia, the Baltimore oriole places its nest upon the
north side of the tree; in the Middle and Eastern States, it fixes it
upon the south or east side, and makes it much thicker and Warner. I
have seen one from the South that had some kind-of coarse reed or
sedge woven into it, giving it an open-work appearance, like a
basket.
Very few species use the same material uniformly. I have seen the nest
of the robin quite destitute of mud. In one instance, it was composed
mainly of long, black horse-hairs, arranged in a circular manner, with
a lining of fine yellow grass; the whole presenting quite a novel
appearance. In another case, the nest was chiefly constructed of a
species of rock moss.
The nest for the second brood during the same season is often a mere
make-shift. The haste of the female to deposit her eggs as the season
advances seems very great, and the structure is apt to be prematurely
finished. I was recently reminded of this fact by happening, about the
last of July, to meet with several nests of the wood or bush sparrow
in a remote blackberry field. The nests with eggs were far less
elaborate and compact than the earlier nests, from which the young had
flown.
Day after day, as I go to a certain piece of woods, I observe a male
indigo-bird sitting on precisely the same part of a high branch, and
singing in his most vivacious style. As I approach, he ceases to sing,
and, flirting his tail right and left with marked emphasis, chirps
sharply. In a low bush near by, I come upon the object of his
solicitude, a thick, compact nest, composed largely of dry leaves and
fine grass, in which a plain brown bird is sitting upon four pale blue
eggs.
The wonder is, that a bird will leave the apparent security of the
tree-tops, to place its nest in the way of the many dangers that walk
and crawl upon the ground. There, far out of reach, sings the bird;
here, not three feet from the ground, are its eggs or helpless young.
The truth is, birds are the greatest enemies of birds, and it is with
reference to this fact that many of the smaller species build.
[Illustration: INDIGO BIRD'S NEST.]
Perhaps the greatest proportion of birds breed along highways. I have
known the ruffed grouse to come out of a dense wood and make its nest
at the root of a tree within ten paces of the road, where, no doubt,
hawks and crows, as well as skunks and foxes, would be less liable to
find it out. Traversing remote mountain-roads through dense woods, I
have repeatedly seen the veery, or Wilson's thrush, sitting upon her
nest, so near me that I could almost take her from it by stretching
out my hand. Birds of prey show none of this confidence in man, and,
when locating their nests, avoid rather than seek his haunts.
In a certain locality in the interior of New York, I know, every
season, where I am sure to find a nest or two of the slate-colored
snow-bird. It is under the brink of a low, mossy bank, so near the
highway that it could be reached from a passing vehicle with a whip.
Every horse or wagon or foot passenger disturbs the sitting bird. She
awaits the near approach of a sound of feet or wheels, and then darts
quickly across the road, barely clearing the ground, and disappears
amid the bushes on the opposite side.
In the trees that line one of the main streets and fashionable drives
leading out of Washington city, and less than half a mile from the
boundary, I have counted the nests of five different species at one
time, and that without any very close scrutiny of the foliage, while
in many acres of woodland, half a mile off, I searched in vain for a
single nest. Among the five that interested me most was that of a blue
grossbeak. Here this bird, which, according to Audubon's observations,
in Louisiana is shy and recluse, affecting remote marshes and the
borders of large ponds of stagnant water, had placed its nest in the
lowest twig of the lowest branch of a large sycamore, immediately over
a great thoroughfare, and so near the ground that a person standing in
a cart or sitting on a horse could have reached it with his hand. The
nest was composed mainly of fragments of newspaper and stalks of
grass, and, though so low, was remarkably well concealed by one of the
peculiar clusters of twigs and leaves which characterize this tree.
The nest contained young when I discovered it, and though the parent
birds were much annoyed by my loitering about beneath the tree, they
paid little attention to the stream of vehicles that was constantly
passing. It is a wonder to me when the birds could have built it, for
they are much shyer when building than at other times. No doubt they
worked mostly in the morning, having the early hours all to
themselves.
Another pair of blue grossbeaks built in a graveyard within the city
limits. The nest was placed in a low bush, and the male continued to
sing at intervals till the young were ready to fly. The song of this
bird is a rapid, intricate warble, like that of the indigo-bird,
though stronger and louder. Indeed, these two birds so much resemble
each other in color, form, manner, voice, and general habits that,
were it not for the difference in size,--the grossbeak being nearly as
large again as the indigo-bird,--it would be a hard matter to tell
them apart. The females of both species are clad in the same
reddish-brown suits. So are the young the first season.
Of course in the deep, primitive woods also are nests, but how rarely
we find them! The simple art of the bird consists in choosing common,
neutral-tinted material, as moss, dry leaves, twigs, and various odds
and ends, and placing the structure on a convenient branch, where it
blends in color with its surroundings; but how consummate is this art,
and how skilfully is the nest concealed! We occasionally light upon
it, but who, unaided by the movements of the bird, could find it out?
During the present season, I went to the woods nearly every day for a
fortnight, without making any discoveries of this kind, till one day,
paying them a farewell visit, I chanced to come upon several nests. A
black and white creeping warbler suddenly became much alarmed as I
approached a crumbling old stump in a dense part of the forest. He
alighted upon it, chirped sharply, ran up and down its sides, and
finally left it with much reluctance. The nest, which contained three
young birds nearly fledged, was placed upon the ground, at the foot of
the stump, and in such a position that the color of the young
harmonized perfectly with the bits of bark, sticks, etc., lying about.
My eye rested upon them for the second time before I made them out.
They hugged the nest very closely, but as I put down my hand they
scampered off with loud cries for help, which caused the parent birds
to place themselves almost within my reach. The nest was merely a
little dry grass arranged in a thick bed of dry leaves.
This was amid a thick undergrowth. Moving on into a passage of large,
stately hemlocks, with only here and there a small beech or maple
rising up into the perennial twilight, I paused to make out a note
which was entirely new to me. It is still in my ear. Though
unmistakably a bird note, it yet suggested the bleating of a tiny
lambkin. Presently the birds appeared,--a pair of the solitary vireo.
They came flitting from point to point, alighting only for a moment at
a time, the male silent, but the female uttering this strange, tender
note. It was a rendering into some new sylvan dialect of the human
sentiment of maidenly love. It was really pathetic in its sweetness
and childlike confidence and joy. I soon discovered that the pair were
building a nest upon a low branch a few yards from me. The male flew
cautiously to the spot, and adjusted something, and the twain moved
on, the female calling to her mate at intervals, _love-e, love-e_,
with a cadence and tenderness in the tone that rang in the ear long
afterward. The nest was suspended to the fork of a small branch, as is
usual with the vireos, plentifully lined with lichens, and bound and
rebound with masses of coarse spider-webs. There was no attempt at
concealment except in the neutral tints, which made it look like a
natural growth of the dim, gray woods.
Continuing my random walk, I next paused in a low part of the woods,
where the larger trees began to give place to a thick second growth
that covered an old Bark-peeling. I was standing by a large maple,
when a small bird darted quickly away from it, as if it might have
come out of a hole near its base. As the bird paused a few yards from
me, and began to chirp uneasily, my curiosity was at once excited.
When I saw it was the female mourning ground warbler, and remembered
that the nest of this bird had not yet been seen by any
naturalist,--that not even Dr. Brewer had ever seen the eggs,--I felt
that here was something worth looking for. So I carefully began the
search, exploring inch by inch the ground, the base and roots of the
tree, and the various shrubby growths about it, till, finding nothing,
and fearing I might really put my foot in it, I bethought me to
withdraw to a distance and after some delay return again, and, thus
forewarned, note the exact point from which the bird flew. This I did,
and, returning, had little difficulty in discovering the nest. It was
placed but a few feet from the maple-tree, in a bunch of ferns, and
about six inches from the ground. It was quite a massive nest,
composed entirely of the stalks and leaves of dry grass, with an inner
lining of fine, dark-brown roots. The eggs, three in number, were of
light flesh color, uniformly specked with fine brown specks. The
cavity of the nest was so deep that the back of sitting bird sank
below the edge.
In the top of a tall tree, a short distance farther on, I saw the nest
of the red-tailed hawk,--a large mass of twigs and dry sticks. The
young had flown, but still lingered in the vicinity, and, as I
approached, the mother bird flew about over me, squealing in a very
angry, savage manner. Tufts of the hair and other indigestible
material of the common meadow mouse lay around on the ground beneath
the nest.
[Illustration: NEST OF RED-EYED VIREO.]
As I was about leaving the woods, my hat almost brushed the nest of
the red-eyed vireo, which hung basket-like on the end of a low,
drooping branch of the beech. I should never have seen it had the bird
kept her place. It contained three eggs of the bird's own, and one of
the cow-bunting. The strange egg was only just perceptibly larger than
the others, yet three days after, when I looked into the nest again
and found all but one egg hatched, the young interloper was at least
four times as large as either of the others, and with such a
superabundance of bowels as to almost smother his bedfellows beneath
them. That the intruder should fare the same as the rightful
occupants, and thrive with them, was more than ordinary potluck; but
that it alone should thrive, devouring, as it were, all the rest, is
one of those freaks of Nature in which she would seem to discourage
the homely virtues of prudence and honesty. Weeds and parasites have
the odds greatly against them, yet they wage a very successful war
nevertheless.
The woods hold not such another gem as the nest of the humming-bird.
The finding of one is an event to date from. It is the next best thing
to finding an eagle's nest. I have met with but two, both by chance.
One was placed on the horizontal branch of a chestnut-tree, with a
solitary green leaf, forming a complete canopy, about an inch and a
half above it. The repeated spiteful dartings of the bird past my
ears, as I stood under the tree, caused me to suspect that I was
intruding upon some one's privacy; and following it with my eye, I
soon saw the nest, which was in process of construction. Adopting my
usual tactics of secreting myself near by, I had the satisfaction of
seeing the tiny artist at work. It was the female, unassisted by her
mate. At intervals of two or three minutes she would appear with a
small tuft of some cottony substance in her beak, dart a few times
through and around the tree, and alighting quickly in the nest arrange
the material she had brought, using her breast as a model.
The other nest I discovered in a dense forest on the side of a
mountain. The sitting bird was disturbed as I passed beneath her. The
whirring of her wings arrested my attention, when, after a short
pause, I had the good luck to see, through an opening in the leaves,
the bird return to her nest, which appeared like a mere wart or
excrescence on a small branch. The humming-bird, unlike all others,
does not alight upon the nest, but flies into it. She enters it as
quick as a flash, but as light as any feather. Two eggs are the
complement. They are perfectly white, and so frail that only a woman's
fingers may touch them. Incubation lasts about ten days. In a week the
young have flown.
The only nest like the humming-bird's, and comparable to it in
neatness and symmetry, is that of the blue-gray gnat-catcher. This is
often saddled upon the limb in the same manner, though it is generally
more or less pendent; it is deep and soft, composed mostly of some
vegetable down, covered all over with delicate tree-lichens, and,
except that it is much larger, appears almost identical with the nest
of the humming-bird.
But the nest of nests, the ideal nest, after we have left the deep
woods, is unquestionably that of the Baltimore oriole. It is the only
perfectly pensile nest we have. The nest of the orchard oriole is
indeed mainly so, but this bird generally builds lower and shallower,
more after the manner of the vireos.
The Baltimore oriole loves to attach its nest to the swaying branches
of the tallest elms, making no attempt at concealment, but satisfied
if the position be high and the branch pendent. This nest would seem
to cost more time and skill than any other bird structure. A peculiar
flax-like substance seems to be always sought after, and always
found. The nest when completed assumes the form of a large, suspended
gourd. The walls are thin but firm, and proof against the most driving
rain. The mouth is hemmed or over-handed with horse-hair, and the
sides are usually sewed through and through with the same.
Not particular as to the matter of secrecy, the bird is not particular
as to material, so that it be of the nature of strings or threads. A
lady friend once told me that while working by an open window, one of
these birds approached during her momentary absence, and, seizing a
skein of some kind of thread or yarn, made off with it to its
half-finished nest. But the perverse yarn caught fast in the branches,
and, in the bird's efforts to extricate it, got hopelessly tangled.
She tugged away at it all day, but was finally obliged to content
herself with a few detached portions. The fluttering strings were an
eye-sore to her ever after, and passing and repassing, she would give
them a spiteful jerk, as much as to say, "There is that confounded
yarn that gave me so much trouble."
From Pennsylvania, Vincent Barnard (to whom I am indebted for other
curious facts) sent me this interesting story of an oriole. He says a
friend of his, curious in such things, on observing the bird beginning
to build, hung out near the prospective nest skeins of many-colored
zephyr-yarn, which the eager artist readily appropriated. He managed
it so that the bird used nearly equal quantities of various high,
bright colors. The nest was made unusually deep and capacious, and it
may be questioned if such a thing of beauty was ever before woven by
the cunning of a bird.
Nuttall, by far the most genial of American ornithologists, relates
the following:--
"A female (oriole), which I observed attentively, carried off to her
nest a piece of lamp-wick ten or twelve feet long. This long string
and many other shorter ones were left hanging out for about a week
before both the ends were wattled into the sides of the nest. Some
other little birds making use of similar materials, at times twitched
these flowing ends, and generally brought out the busy Baltimore from
her occupation in great anger.
"I may perhaps claim indulgence for adding a little more of the
biography of this particular bird, as a representative, also, of
the instincts of her race. She completed the nest in about a week's
time, without any aid from her mate, who, indeed, appeared but seldom
in her company, and was now become nearly silent. For fibrous
materials she broke, hackled, and gathered the flax of the _asclepias_
and _hibiscus_ stalks, tearing off long strings and flying with them
to the scene of her labors. She appeared very eager and hasty in her
pursuits, and collected her materials without fear or restraint, while
three men were working in the neighboring walks, and many persons
visiting the garden. Her courage and perseverance were indeed truly
admirable. If watched too narrowly, she saluted with her usual
scolding, _tshrr, tshrr, tshrr_, seeing no reason, probably, why she
should be interrupted in her indispensable occupation.
"Though the males were now comparatively silent on the arrival of
their busy mates, I could not help observing this female and a second,
continually vociferating apparently in strife. At last she was
observed to attack this second female very fiercely, who slyly
intruded herself at times into the same tree where she was building.
These contests were angry and often repeated. To account for this
animosity, I now recollected that two fine males had been killed in
our vicinity; and I therefore concluded the intruder to be left
without a mate; yet she had gained the affections of the consort of
the busy female, and thus the cause of their jealous quarrel became
apparent. Having obtained the confidence of her faithless paramour,
the second female began preparing to weave a nest in an adjoining elm,
by tying together certain pendent twigs as a foundation. The male now
associated chiefly with the intruder, whom he even assisted in her
labor, yet did not wholly forget his first partner, who called on him
one evening in a low, affectionate tone, which was answered in the
same strain. While they were thus engaged in friendly whispers,
suddenly appeared the rival, and a violent _rencontre_ ensued, so that
one of the females appeared to be greatly agitated, and fluttered with
spreading wings as if considerably hurt. The male, though prudently
neutral in the contest, showed his culpable partiality by flying off
with his paramour, and for the rest of the evening left the tree to
his pugnacious consort. Cares of another kind, more imperious and
tender, at length reconciled, or at least terminated, these disputes
with the jealous females; and by the aid of the neighboring bachelors,
who are never wanting among these and other birds, peace was at length
completely restored, by the restitution of the quiet and happy
condition of monogamy."
Let me not forget to mention the nest under the mountain ledge, the
nest of the common pewee, a modest mossy structure, with four
pearl-white eggs, looking out upon some wild scene and overhung by
beetling crags. After all has been said about the elaborate, high-hung
structures, few nests, perhaps, awaken more pleasant emotions in the
mind of the beholder than this of the pewee,--the gray, silent rocks,
with caverns and dens where the fox and the wolf lurk, and just out of
their reach, in a little niche, as if it grew there, the mossy
tenement!
Nearly every high projecting rock in my range has one of these nests.
Following a trout stream up a wild mountain gorge, not long since, I
counted five in the distance of a mile, all within easy reach, but
safe from the minks and the skunks, and well housed from the storms.
In my native town I know a pine and oak clad hill, round-topped, with
a bold, precipitous front extending half-way around it. Near the top,
and along this front or side, there crops out a ledge of rocks
unusually high and cavernous. One immense layer projects many feet,
allowing a person or many persons, standing upright, to move freely
beneath it. There is a delicious spring of water there, and plenty of
wild, cool air. The floor is of loose stone, now trod by sheep and
foxes, once by the Indian and the wolf. How I have delighted from
boyhood to spend a summer-day in this retreat or take refuge there
from a sudden shower! Always the freshness and coolness, and always
the delicate mossy nest of the phoebe-bird! The bird keeps her place
till you are within a few feet of her, when she flits to a near
branch, and, with many oscillations of her tail, observes you
anxiously. Since the country has become settled, this pewee has fallen
into the strange practice of occasionally placing its nest under a
bridge, hay-shed, or other artificial structure, where it is subject
to all kinds of interruptions and annoyances. When placed thus, the
nest is larger and coarser. I know a hayloft beneath which a pair has
regularly placed its nest for several successive seasons. Arranged
along on a single pole, which sags down a few inches from the flooring
it was intended to help support, are three of these structures,
marking the number of years the birds have nested there. The
foundation is of mud with a superstructure of moss, elaborately lined
with hair and feathers. Nothing can be more perfect and exquisite than
the interior of one of these nests, yet a new one is built every
season. Three broods, however, are frequently reared in it.
[Illustration: NEST OF PHOEBE.]
The pewees, as a class, are the best architects we have. The king-bird
builds a nest altogether admirable, using various soft cotton and
woollen substances, and sparing neither time nor material to make it
substantial and warm. The green-crested pewee builds its nest in many
instances wholly of the blossoms of the white-oak. The wood pewee
builds a neat, compact socket-shaped nest of moss and lichens on a
horizontal branch. There is never a loose end or shred about it. The
sitting bird is largely visible above the rim. She moves her head
freely about, and seems entirely at her ease,--a circumstance which I
have never observed in any other species. The nest of the
great-crested flycatcher is seldom free from snake skins, three or
four being sometimes woven into it.
About the thinnest, shallowest nest, for its situation, that can be
found is that of the turtle-dove. A few sticks and straws are
carelessly thrown together, hardly sufficient to prevent the eggs from
falling through or rolling off. The nest of the passenger pigeon is
equally hasty and insufficient, and the squabs often fall to the
ground and perish. The other extreme among our common birds is
furnished by the ferruginous thrush, which collects together a mass of
material that would fill a half-bushel measure; or by the fish-hawk,
which adds to and repairs its nest year after year, till the whole
would make a cart-load.
The rarest of all nests is that of the eagle, because the eagle is the
rarest of all birds. Indeed, so seldom is the eagle seen, that its
presence always seems accidental. It appears as if merely pausing on
the way, while bound for some distant unknown region. One September,
while a youth, I saw the ring-tailed eagle, an immense, dusky bird,
the sight of which filled me with awe. It lingered about the hills for
two days. Some young cattle, a two year-old colt, and half a dozen
sheep were at pasture on a high ridge that led up to the mountain,
and in plain view of the house. On the second day, this dusky monarch
was seen flying about above them. Presently he began to hover over
them, after the manner of a hawk watching for mice. He then with
extended legs let himself slowly down upon them, actually grappling
the backs of the young cattle, and frightening the creatures so that
they rushed about the field in great consternation; and finally, as he
grew bolder and more frequent in his descents, the whole herd broke
over the fence, and came tearing down to the house "like mad." It did
not seem to be an assault with intent to kill, but was, perhaps, a
stratagem resorted to in order to separate the herd and expose the
lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. When he occasionally
alighted upon the oaks that stood near, the branch _could_ be seen to
sway and bend beneath him. Finally, as a rifleman started out in
pursuit of him, he launched into the air, set his wings, and sailed
away southward. A few years afterward, in January, another eagle
passed through the same locality, alighting in a field near some dead
animal, but tarried briefly.
[Illustration: EAGLE.]
So much by way of identification. The bird is common to the northern
parts of both hemispheres, and places its eyrie on high, precipitous
rocks. A pair built on an inaccessible shelf of rock along the Hudson
for eight successive years. A squad of Revolutionary soldiers also
found a nest along this river, and had an adventure with the bird that
came near costing one of their number his life. His comrades let him
down by a rope to secure the eggs or young, when he was attacked by
the female eagle with such fury that he was obliged to defend himself
with his knife. In doing so, by a mis-stroke, he nearly severed the
rope that held him, and was drawn up by a single strand from his
perilous position. Audubon, from whom this anecdote is taken, figures
and describes this bird as the golden eagle, though I have little
doubt that Wilson was right, and that the golden eagle is a distinct
species.
The sea-eagle also builds on high rocks, according to Audubon, though
Wilson describes the nest of one which he saw near Great Egg Harbor,
in the top of a large yellow pine. It was a vast pile of sticks, sods,
sedge, grass, reeds, etc., five or six feet high by four broad, and
with little or no concavity. It had been used for many years, and he
was told that the eagles made it a sort of home or lodging-place in
all seasons. This agrees with the description which Audubon gives of
the nest of the bald eagle. There is evidently a little confusion on
both sides.
The eagle in all cases uses one nest, with more or less repair, for
several years. Many of our common birds do the same. The birds may be
divided, with respect to this and kindred points, into five general
classes. First, those that repair and appropriate the last year's
nest, as the wren, swallow, blue-bird, great-crested flycatcher, owls,
eagles, fish-hawk, and a few others. Secondly, those that build anew
each season, though frequently rearing more than one brood in the same
nest. Of these, the phoebe-bird is a well-known example. Thirdly, those
that build a new nest for each brood, which includes by far the
greatest number of species. Fourthly, a limited number that make no
nest of their own, but appropriate the abandoned nests of other birds.
Finally, those who use no nest at all, but deposit their eggs in the
sand, which is the case with a large number of aquatic fowls. Thus the
common gull breeds in vast numbers on the sand bars or sand islands
off the south coast of Long Island. A little dent is made in the sand,
the eggs are dropped, and the old birds go their way. In due time the
eggs are hatched by the warmth of the sun, and the little creatures
shift for themselves. In July countless numbers of them, of different
ages and sizes, swarm upon these sandy wastes. As the waves roll out,
they rush down the beach, picking up a kind of sea gluten, and then
hasten back to avoid the next breaker.
[Illustration]
BIRDS IN THEIR RELATION TO AGRICULTURE
(FROM THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NEBRASKA ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION JANUARY,
1901.)[4]
BY LAURENCE BRUNER.
[4] By permission.
[Illustration]
When civilized man takes possession of new regions and begins
cultivating the soil and establishes his sovereignty there, the
equilibrium as it existed upon his arrival is very quickly disturbed.
One or more of the many forms of life--plant and animal--that were
previously held within certain limits gain ascendency. The
introduction of new crops that furnish an abundance of the proper food
for some insect, enables this form to increase out of all proportions
and harm soon results. The killing off of certain other forms of life
that naturally keep still others in check also assists in disturbing
the equilibrium further. The cutting down and clearing away of forests
removes the shelter and homes of others, as does also the turning
under of prairie grasses. Then, too, many of the natural residents of
primeval forests and virgin prairies shun the sight of man, hence they
gradually withdraw from the region, and their influence for good or
evil goes with them. Since the majority of such forms are timid and
inoffensive creatures, their withdrawal only adds that much more to
the already overbalanced conditions. Year by year the gap which at
first was scarcely noticeable becomes widened, so that frequent
inroads are made and harm results. Instead of trying to ascertain the
true cause for all this trouble perhaps exactly the wrong thing is
done by the settlers. This of course only has the effect of further
widening the gap between safety and danger. Since an insect or other
animal becomes noticeably harmful only when present in alarming
numbers, it stands to reason that anything which favors such an
abnormal increase is a factor in disturbing nature and should be
quickly rectified where possible. In order that these disturbances
should be looked after the all-wise God of the universe created birds
and gave them the power of flight that they might the more readily
move about rapidly from place to place, where their services might be
needed in balancing affairs. Hence birds have naturally and rightfully
been called the "balancers" in nature. This being true, let us see
just what their relations are to agriculture.
The farmer sows in order that he may reap an increased measure of what
he has sown. In doing this he must first turn over the soil. This
destroys many existing plants as well as animals that depend upon them
for food. The plants thus turned down cannot regain their position
and must of necessity die. Not so with many of the animals, however,
which soon work their way to the surface. Some of these attack the
growing plants which have been made to occupy the place of those
destroyed by the plough. Others take wing and seek suitable food in
adjoining districts where they add to the numbers already drawing upon
the vegetation up to the point of possible continued supply. Here,
then, the scales begin to vibrate. In the field the new and tender
crop entices the ever-shifting individuals of myriads of forms that
have been crowded out elsewhere. The result here too is, or would be,
very disastrous were it not for the timely visit of flocks of birds
likewise in search of food.
It is during the period of first settlement of a country, when the
fields are small, few and widely separated, that injury may and
frequently does result from birds. It is then a problem that needs
careful consideration, not only for the time being, but also for the
future welfare of that country. If animal life is destroyed
indiscriminately and without intelligent forethought, calamities
unforeseen are sure to follow in the not distant future.
Birds can be useful to man in many ways. They can benefit him by
carrying the seeds of various plants from place to place so as to
assist him in establishing new groves in which to find shelter from
the cold in winter and refuge from the heat of the noonday sun in
summer. They plant various shrubs by the wayside that spring up and
later are laden with luscious fruit. They also carry the spawn of
fishes and small crustaceans among their feathers into new waters, and
feed upon the countless seeds of weeds that are scattered broadcast
over the face of the earth. Some kinds live almost exclusively upon
insects, while others hunt out the small rodents that would, if left
to themselves, destroy great quantities of grain and other vegetation.
Still other birds benefit mankind by acting as scavengers in the
removal of putrid and other offensive matter which would endanger our
health. In addition to all these varied direct benefits which are
brought about by the presence of birds, man is further indebted to
these creatures for the cheer which their gay music, bright plumage
and pleasant manners bring to him. The birds form a carefully
organized army of police which is engaged in keeping affairs balanced
in nature.
But we can go even further summing up the benefits that men may derive
from the birds. A great many kinds make excellent food, while others
furnish sport and pleasure to a large number of men and boys who seem
to require a certain kind of entertainment while accompanied with dog
and gun. Dead birds when embalmed as mummies and attached to the
head-gear worn by some girls and women are also claimed to cause much
happiness.
_Birds as Enemies._--It would be ridiculous for me to assert here that
no injury ever results from the presence of birds on the farm or in
the orchard. Quite a number of different species are continually
stepping over to the wrong side of the "ledger" as it were, and
committing depredations of various kinds which if considered alone
would render the perpetrators liable to severe punishment--in some
cases even unto death. Some of the crimes that can be charged to the
feathered tribe are cherry and berry-stealing, grape-puncturing,
apple-pecking, corn-pulling, grain-eating, the unintentional carrying
from place to pl
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