The architecture of birds / [Anon].

  • Rennie, James, 1787-1867.
Date:
[1831]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The architecture of birds / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    99/428 (page 67)
    the circumstance too often to suppose the abandoning of these nests to have arisen from the accidental death of the birds.* The effects of moisture, as either beneficial or injurious, might be copiously illustrated, both in the hatching of eggs, and the germination of seeds. We shall content ourselves with one or two instances, in addition to those already mentioned. The red ant (Myrmica Rubra, Larreitie), whose colonies are common in gardens, as well as those of most of their congeners, cannot well build their inge- nious archways and vaulted chambers without the aid of dew or rain to moisten the earth which they knead fer the purpose. But though, on this account, they rejoice in refreshing showers, they are well aware that their eggs would be injured or destroyed by the moisture ; and if they have previously exposed them on the top of their nest to the influence of the heat during sunshine, they may be observed to display the utmost eagerness in carrying these into the dry chambers of the interior upon the first appearance of rain. A still more remarkable circumstance oc- curs, with regard to the. eggs of a dung-fly (Scato- phaga stercoraria, Mercen), which Reaumur found could not be hatched without a certain degree of moisture, although too much destroyed them. But Providence has furnished these eggs with two pro- jecting arms at the outer end, to prevent their sinking too deep in the cow-dung in which the mother fly deposits them.T In the germination of seeds, it requires, in many cases, a similar moderate proportion of moisture to insure success, — hence the value of a dry March, the usual sowing season, to our agriculturists and gar- deners. We knew a Scotch gardener, the first year he was in England, commit a very excusable mistake Ae AN + See Insect Transformations, p. 44.