Stories of South American Birds 



PERSONAL EXPERIENCES WITH ESPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE NESTING 

 HABITS OF FLYCATCHERS, SPINETAILS, JACAMARS, ORIOLES, AND 



PUFF BIRDS 



Bv GEORGE K. (' HERRI E 



IN my long experience as a natural history 

 collector, particularly in South America, 

 I have derived the greatest pleasure 

 from studying the nesting habits of the 

 birds. In addition to the pleasure obtained, 

 a careful study of nests, eggs, and habits of 

 the adult birds at nesting time has enabled me 

 to learn much regarding relationships of vari- 

 ous species. There is much also to be learned 

 about bird psychology as a result of such 

 study. 



Apropos of the latter, I have frequently 

 been asked if I thought individual birds 

 showed peculiar tastes, in any way differing 

 from other birds of the same species, and in 

 reply I have sometimes told of my experience 

 with the broad-billed yellow flycatcher of the 

 genus Rhynchocycluhi, which is very abundant 

 along the middle Orinoco. Near my camp, 

 in the neighborhood of Caicara, I found many- 

 nests of these birds; in one case three of them 

 within a radius of fifty yards. One of these 

 three was composed entirely of small, thread- 

 like vegetable fibers of a shiny black color. 

 Another was of dark graj'-brown fibers, while 

 the third was composed of very fine grasses, 

 pale brownish-gray in color. There is little 

 doubt that the black vegetable fibers were 

 just as abundant and as easily accessible to 

 the two other pairs, as to the birds that em- 

 plo3^ed them in the construction of their nest ; 

 so also were the gray fibers as accessible to the 

 birds using the black ones. If it was not 

 individual taste that induced the birds to 

 employ the different colored fibers, I do not 

 know what it was. 



As showing how light can be thrown on the 

 relationships of birds the following instance 

 is of interest. Of the nests of six species of 

 spinetail {Synallaxis) that I have found, five 

 were of the usual form and materials; ex- 

 traordinary structures about three-fourths of 

 a yard long, composed of dry, usually thorny 

 twigs, skillfully woven into a cylindrical mass, 

 with a long tubular entrance to the nest 

 cavity, which occupies the lower half of the 



cylindrical nest body. This nest might be 

 described as retort shaped. It is sometimes 

 built within a few inches of the ground, but 

 may be several yards above it. The nest 

 proper is supported ordinarily between the 

 twigs or small branches of the limb, while the 

 entrance to the nest lies along the main 

 branch and is held up by it. As a rule, these 

 thorny nests are not concealed in any way by- 

 surrounding foliage or bushes, the birds ap- 

 parently depending upon the sharp thorns of 

 which the nest is composed for protection; 

 also, the nest proper is concealed by the great 

 mass of twigs on the top of it. These twigs 

 are laid longitudinally, so as to form a kind of 

 thatched roof, thus protecting the nest from 

 rain — as it is usually occupied during the 

 height of the rainy season. 



The nest cavity is lined with soft dry 

 leaves and wood fiber, as a foundation for an 

 inner nest lining of gray lichens. The nests 

 of five of the species of spinetail were all of 

 this general type, but that of the sixth species, 

 the fox-red spinetail, was entirely different. 

 I had been seeking the nest of this species 

 for weeks, and some time prior to my discov- 

 ery of it I found a pair of the birds hovering 

 about what appeared to me to be a mass of 

 drift grass, that had lodged between the forks 

 at the top of a slender sapling. At that 

 time it was about two meters above the 

 surface of the river. (The sapling stood in 

 a flooded area perhaps one hundred meters 

 from the river shore.) 



Masses of drift grass, like that on which 

 the spinetails were at work, are very common 

 along the river after the season of high water, 

 and in many cases represent merely accumu- 

 lations of drift. On the other hand, in many 

 cases they have as their foundation old nests 

 of Pitangus or Myiozeletes, or other birds 

 that construct nests of grass toward the tips 

 of the limbs in trees growing in these season- 

 ally submerged areas. These nests become 

 impregnated with a fine sediment from the 

 surrounding water, and as the water recedes, 



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