The architecture of birds / [Anon].

  • James Rennie
Date:
[1831]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The architecture of birds / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    its size, must appear impossible. That it does, how- ever, make its nest in the holes of trees has been tes- tified by every observer from Dierville* and Du Pratz to Wilson. ‘The latter informs us that instances have been known in which the nest was constructed with a few sticks laid on the fork of the branches, though it is usually in the inside of a hollow tree, and, as it would appear, very near if not upon the ground. * On the 18th of May,’ continues Wilson, ‘ | visited a tree containing a nest of a summer-duck, on the banks of Tuckahoe river, New Jersey. It was an old grotesque white oak, whose top had been torn off by a storm. It stood on the declivity of the bank, about twenty yards fromthe water. In this hollow and broken top, and about six feet down, on the soft decayed wood, lay thirteen eggs, snugly covered with down, doubtless taken from the breast of the bird. ; * This tree had been occupied, probably by the same pair, for four successive years, in breeding-time. The person who gave me the information, and whose house was within twenty or thirty yards of the tree, ‘said that he had seen the female, the preceding spring, carry down her young one by one in less than ten minutes. She caught them in her bill by the wing or back of the neck, and landed them safely at the foot of the tree, whence she afterwards led them to the water. Under this same tree, at the time I visited it, a large sloop lay on the stocks nearly finished ; the deck was not more than twelve feet distant from the nest, yet, notwithstanding the presence and noise of the work- men, the ducks would not abandon their old breeding- place, but continued to pass out and in as if no_per- son had been near. ‘The male usually perched on an adjoining limb, and kept watch while the female was * Dierville, Voyage au Port-Royal, p, 112. Le Clerc, Gas- pesic, p. 485. — .
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