The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1894-05-14
SOME CURIOUS r D

Eeathered Kingdom.
DR.. Bowdler Sharpe gave an inter.
esting lecture in London recently on
bird life. He mentioned the hoatzin
or reptilian bird, which builds it's nest
just above the water-line, near lakes
and rivers: the chicks have little claws
or hooks on the Ell Of their unfedged
wings, with which they can climb up
out of the food if it threatens the
security of the nest.
This vas pointed to as a distinct rep
lillian characteristic, probably retained
by heredity from the remote saurian
ancestors of the bird race. Equally
odd were tire megapodes or mound
builders Of the Malayan archipelago,
which build in place of nests huge
earthen mounds ten feet high and
fifty or sixty in circumference, wherein
they place their eggs to incubate.
The young could fly Immediately
they came from the shell. DIR. Sharpe
surprised his audience with the remark
that the peacock's gorgeous tail" is
not his tail at all but an aggregation
of the long feathers from the lower
part of the back. The umbrella bird
of British Guiana, deprived Of his top
knot and bib, was nothing more than
a very ordinary old crow.
OF nesting c%uriosities the examples
were numerous and varied. There
was the industrious tailor bird" of
India-smaller than a rObin-which
sewed leaves together with a thread
in order to form a sort of hammock for
the support of its nest. An Indian
friend of the lecturer had supplied
these birds with various sorts of col
ored cotton, all of which they most
thankfully made use of in their sar-
tOrial operations.
The weaver BIRDS nest would, &C
cording to DIR. Sharpe, make an excel
lent and very durable football. It was
found all over India and the Malay ISL
ands, woven tightly together of rushes,
ferns, palm leaves and SO forth, the
workmanship being as neat and sub
stantial as any lady in the room could
turn out.
Other eccentric nest-builders were
the .pendulous titmouse and the oil
bird of Trinidad, so called on account
of it's excessively plump, fat, not to say
oily condition, a thing hardly to be
wondered at in the young birds, which
are reared most appropriately in a nest
exactly like a Stilton cheese. The
Trinidad natives 60 b~uccaneering after
these oleaginous youngsters into the
rocky and almost inaccessible caves.
where they are born at certain seasons
of the year. Tales about h jealous
horn-bill, who imprisons his wife be.
hind a muddy rampant in some hole in
q +roo ~ of 001rCa ia m iljar To eVarV
body.
DIR. Sharpe, however, mentioned one
curious fact; namely, that if the male il
shot, all his relations in the neighbOr
hood gather round and charitabl1
maintain the widow with a kind o
living subsistence" until the import
ant Matching process is over The lee
turer called attention to a bird of tn
family in New Guinea, not larger thar
a thrush, which constructs a bower 81.
feet high and fifteen feet in circumfer
ence. This bird was a very fastidiou
gardener, displaying all manner O
. l~ight-colored flowers and berries OF
bank of green moss.
DIR. Sharpe showed that the wingles
owl parrot of New Zealand, althougl
unable to fly from an enemy, yet wa
capable of throwing itself on to a be-
of moss or fern which it greatly resem
bled in color. The hoopoe of souther
Europe was Of the "desert color" an
concealed himself when pursued b
initiating a scrap of desert debris. Th
most extraordinary facts in support c
the initiative theory which the lecture
recounted were those having referenc
to the cuckoo tribes, which have to de
pend on the success with which the
can introduce their eggs into the nest
of other birds.
The gray-headed cuckoo was parasite
on the stone-chat's nest, and it secure
access to the nest by the resemblance
Of its male to the sparrow-hawk. Th
male bird frightened the little bird
temporarily away, while the femaI
dropped the egg into the nest. Their
was a resemblance between the cuckO
and the drongo, which was utilized b
the former in a curious way. Will
the drongo was away from h mes
the cuckoo could safely deposit til
egg, because at a distance the drong
would think the bird on the nest VIZ
it's te.-Bird Life.