Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1915-03-11
Birds as Clever Architects
How the Crested Cassique Builds to Foil It's Enemies
BY GARRETT p. sERvIss.

The interested visitor to the American
Museum Of Natural History in Central
Park West. will spend a long time among
the birds and the more he studies them
the more amazed he will he by tho
beauties and what he cannot but regard
as tho ingcnuitics Of tho winged inhab-
itants Of the earth. Everything that they
do max bc guided by instinct and not by
! reasoning intelligence, but the result, in
many cases, appears to he just about
what the intellect OF man would have
produced, II placed amid similar ctrcum-
stances and furnished with similarly re-
stricted means.
Take for instance. the little hanging
village constructed in the branches OF a
tropical tree by tho birds called crested
cassidueS. n South American species, re-
lated to our Beautiful Baltimore oriole,
which also constructs a Hanging nest.
The nests Of the cassique Cor caciuue, Tor
the name is a copy OF that given by the
Spaniards to the Indian chiefs). are often
a yard or moro In length, constructed OF
strips OF bark and long grasses intricately
interviewer into tho form of an old
fashioned money purse, such as our
gTandfathers used to carry. These nests
which would make purses for Gulliver's
siants. are suspended from the tips OF
twigs at the ends OF pendulous branches,
and their purpose Is clear at a glance
Going at fun speed the cassiuue can I'M
erringly enter the aperture in his hang
ing nest.
| In its native country the bird, its eggs
and its young are exposed to the attack
of monkeys and OF serpents. To escape
these prosecutors IL does the very thing
hat
situation. IL accomplishes IN reverse
way what the farmer does when he
wishes to protect his corn against the in
roads of rats aid squirrels. The farmer
sets his corncrlp up oh stills and puts
tin pan upside down In top OF each silt
in order that the climbing marauders
may be arrested by an insurmountable alb {
straction Just when they thing that the |
prize is theirs.
The cassique has to look out about
instead OF below for enemies. and so he |
hangs his crib or nest. at the end OF a |
long, slender, tremulous branch, and II |
possible. over the water so that his |
prowling foe may not only be defeated, |
but exposed In addition TO a ducking.
The cassique, as | have said, is related /
to the orioles. His color is sometimes all |
black and sometimes black relieved with |
yellow. red. brown or green. Mr.. Bates /,
In his travels In South America met the |
cassique under the name OF the "japim." !
in the neighborhood OF Para, and he lll- |
ened II to the English maspie. 1T has light |
grey eyes" he says. which give IL the |
same knowing expression that the mag !
pie has" He describes the entrances TO !
the nests as being near the bottom, but |
in the museum you will see some OF the
birds sitting in openings about half way
up to the top.
IL is described as n noisy and initiative
bird, capable OF mimickins barnyard
fowls, and very active, continually flying
TO ana fro, and keeping up a great chat
terlng Its nests sometimes encircle a |
tree on all sides, when II is favorably |
placed, and are at no great height above
the ground. which II another circum-
stance that might be credited TO the
shrewd intelligence OF the bird, since by
going too high ID would place itself moro
completely at the mercy Of ts climbing
enemies.
Here is a fact concerning this question
of animal intelligence which Is worth
thinking about Among savage tribes,
for instance among the American Indians.
some bird or other animal. is often re- l.