The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-01-26
BIRD HOMES.
Kingfishers. Woodpeckers, Bank Swal.
lows, Wood-DucIxs, Bluebirds, Etc.


of Aristotle down to the present time.
This is not wonderful, because the nests
are invariably curious and often beau
tiful, besides offering a cradle, as it
were, for a host of romantic specula-
tions and poetical theories. Imagina-
ton has taken hold of birds and their
nests with singular affection, drawing
forth, meantime some beautiful legends
to enrich romance withal, and to add to
the sum of what is most persistent in
the song of mankind.
The ancients told that the halcyon, a
beautiful aquatic bird, had its nest on
the seas breast, little floating palace,
around which the water was always
calm and sweet. Halcyon, or alcyon,
was the kingfsher, it is supposed, but
we now know every species of this bird,
and none of them builds its nest todrift
about on the sea. Indeed, as if to make
the contrast of fact with fancy as great
as possible, most of the kingfishers dig
deep holes in the ground for their
homes Our American belted alcyon,
or common kingfsher, is an expert hole
borer. There is scarcely clayey bank
along the streams of our middle and
southern states but has it's face cut by
the door of one of these gloomy-looking
houses.
The hole is usually quite round, and
goes directly into the bank, with a
slight upward slant, to distance of
from two to four feet, where it turns,
nearly at right angles, to one side or
the other, ending in a large, jug-shaped
pocket where the eggs are laid The
kingfisher is my most cheerful compan-
ion when ! am out for days or n
weeks angling. 1t is an ever fresh de-
light to watch him swooping down into
the clear brook water with a melodious
plunge, and coming forth sparkling
like flake from a blue sea-wave or
fragment of turquoise. He rarely fails
to catch the minnow he strikes at; but
his appetite is unremitting and insati-
able. He eats from morning till night
The woodpecker's home is very like
the kingfsher's, but it is dug in rotten
wood instead of being bored in a bank
OF earth. From the great ivory-billed
OF our orchards, the woodpeckers build
their nests, or rather excavate them, on
the same general plan. The hole at
first goes straight into the wood, then
turns downward, widening as it de-
sends, until it gives room for the
home. If you will go into any bit of
unshorn woodland during early spring,
and will kaap vnur axyac oman ,,o,, will
see bright red head thrust out of
round window in some decaying trunk
or bough, and the woodpecller will sing
out Peer. Peer!" which always seems
to mean that his or her home is most
comfortable and enjoyable place.
The bank swallow is another bird
whose nest is in hole excavated in
the earth along the bluffs of streams |
have seen a high bank of the Ohio
river made to look like huge honey
comb by thousands of these holes, and
the air was swarming with the birds
that lived in them. it was. indeed, n
city of sand swallows, a metropolis
where perfect equality prevailed in the
architecture, the internal finish, and
the furniture of the homes The houses
were as much alike as the birds them
selves
A considerable number of birds may
be classed as cave jewellers" They
make their homes in clefts of the rocks
natural cavities in trees, stumps and
logs, and, in fact, wherever they can
find an unoccupied hole, even if Il be
the abandoned home of woodpecker.
The wood duck, the sparrow-hawk,
the owls, one notable species of fly
catcher, the bluebird, the nuthatch,
and the chickadee are the best known
examples of birds given to the habit of
dwelling in caves. Our common house
wren often chooses a crevice, sometimes
\ deep cavity, for its westinghouse. A
workman splitting wood for me once
laid open a small log. and discovered
wren's home in a hollow of it. The
bird had entered at knot hole in a
branch, and had followed small cavity
leading into the log, and had con-
structed its nest some six feet down the
hollow of the latter.
l was fishing along the shore of a
SHALL WOOuldnu ldhe anu CnanCeO TO
discover the nest of a pair of wood
lucks in hollow plane tree. The door
IF this sylvan home was about forty
Ave feet above the ground, and it sur
orised me to see the young ducks, mere
1owny duckliugs, fearlessly throw
themselves one by one out of the hole,
and fall to the ground unhurt, to
scramble forthwith into the water and
begin swimming as if they had been
always used to it Doubtless their
home had been a place dismal enough
for their duck natures to be confined in.
At any rate / never have seen little
birds show more delight than did they
when they found themselves in the
wide, watery freedom of the lake They
spun round and round, dipped their
heads in the cool liquid, huttered their
featherless wings. and expressed their
ecstacy in variety of rudimentary
quacks and by such antics as only
young things can perform.
Our bluebird's habit of building in
the first suitable hollow that it can
find is often taken advantage of by the
mountaineers of the southern states
They cut hole in the side of a gourd
which they hang up in the branches of
a tree near the house. have seen a