Throughout South America there are several varieties of these
fruit-and-stem or watering-pot shaped nests; they are not, however, all
built by birds of one genus, while in the genus Synallaxis many species
have no tubular passageways attached to their nests. One species--erythro
thorax--in Yucatan, makes so large a nest of sticks, that the
natives do not believe that so small a bird can be the builder. They say
that when the _tzapatan_ begins to sing, all the birds in the forest
repair to it, each one carrying a stick to add to the structure; only
one, a tyrant-bird, brings two sticks, one for itself and one for the
_urubu_ or vulture, that bird being considered too large, heavy, and
ignorant of architecture to assist personally in the work.
In the southern part of South America, where scattered thorn trees grow
on a dry soil, these big nests are most abundant. "There are plains,"
Mr. Barrows writes, "within two miles of the centre of this town
(Concepcion, Argentine Republic), where I have stood and counted, from
one point within a radius of twenty rods, over two hundred of these
curious nests, varying in size from that of a small pumpkin to more than
the volume of a barrel. Often a single tree will contain half a dozen
nests or more; and, not unfrequently, the nests of several different
species are seen crowding each other out of shape on the same bush or
tree."
It would be a mistake to think that the widely different nesting habits
I have mentioned are found in different genera.
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