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The oven-birds, which had the carriage and somewhat the look of wood-thrushes, I am sure would prove delightful friends on a close acquaintance; they are very individual, not only in the extraordinary domed mud nests they build, but in all their ways, in their bright alertness; their interest in and curiosity about whatever goes on, their rather jerky quickness of movement, and their loud and varied calls.
Probably the oven-birds, and their nearest relations generalized, hardy, builders of strong nests, and prolific represent the parental form; and when birds of this type had spread over the entire continent they became in different districts frequenters of marshes, forests, thickets and savannas.
It is in the compartment thus formed that the female lays her eggs and broods, after having taken care to carpet it with a thick layer of small herbs. "In favourable seasons, the Oven-birds begin building in the autumn," Hudson tells us, "and the work is resumed during the winter whenever there is a spell of mild, wet weather.
In some groups the usual duet-like performances have developed into a kind of harmonious singing, which is very curious and pleasant to hear. This is pre-eminently the case with the oven-birds, as D'Orbigney first remarked.
In that treeless land the oven-birds look on telegraph-posts as specially provided by a benign Providence to afford them eligible nesting-sites, and from some perversity of instinct, or perhaps attracted by the gleam of the white earthenware, they invariably select one of the porcelain insulators as the site of their future home, and proceed to coat it laboriously with clay, thus effectually destroying the insulation.
It is amusing to see how pertinaciously they hang about the ovens of the Oven-birds, apparently determined to take possession of them, flying back after a hundred repulses, and yet not entering them even when they have the opportunity. Sometimes one is seen following a Wren or a Swallow to its nest beneath the eaves, and then clinging to the wall beneath the hole into which it disappeared.
As I approached them, a little after sundown, a chipper was trilling, and song sparrows and golden warblers were singing, as were the black-throated greens also, and the Maryland yellow-throats. A wood thrush called brusquely, but offered no further salute to the god of day at his departure. Oven-birds were taking to wing on the right and left.
They are called by the natives oven-birds, because frequently seen on the pan-shaped leaves of the before-mentioned magnificent lily. The common jacana has a black plumage, with a greenish gloss. The legs are very long and slight, as are the toes and claws, especially that of the hind-toe, which is nearly straight.
Nevertheless, if I were selling that "waste," that "hole in the ground," it would not hurt my conscience, such as it is, to declare that the birds on it alone are worth more than it cost: wood-thrushes and robins, golden orioles, scarlet tanagers, blackbirds, bluebirds, oven-birds, cedar-birds, veeries, vireos, song-sparrows, flycatchers, kinglets, the flicker, the cuckoo, the nuthatch, the chickadee and the rose-breasted grosbeak, not to mention jays or kingfishers, swallows, the little green heron or that cock of the walk, the red squirrel.
As it grew dark the crowd of warblers were still to be seen feeding busily, making the most of the lingering daylight. A small-billed water thrush was teetering along a willow-branch, while his congeners, the oven-birds, were practicing their aerial hymn.
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