The Massachusetts spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1831-1858, 1831-12-21
From The .New England .Nagazine.
OUR BIRDS.
A TALK IN THE WAY OF oRNITHoLoG

A TALK IN THE WAY OF ORNITHOboGY.
You, gentle reader, know, | suppose, IL
great deal about the feathered cyeution.-
Very well do you know bird that can
nclthor walk nor swim "What Ques-
ton !" say you certainly not" What
n ninnyI" say | "You certainly do
Ten to one that he will flap his wirIs III
YOUR face, or whisk his tail in your ears be-
fore breakfast to morrow; he builds his nest
over your front door, or under the caves oil
yonr house, or inside the chimney, and you
need not 90 out of town for all this. Need
] mention the SWALLOW, that lively, frolIc-
some little bird, who brings you the first
welcome .idings of summer, and whose
joyous twitter enllvens our very streets
from morning to night:
The Swallow, ! say, never was famous
for practices ambulatory or natatory. HIS
legs are short, slender, and none OF the
strongest, and his claws very hooked ;
when he alights upon the ground, and spies
IL particularly fat bug or so half foot
distant, for which he has made up bis man
bibles, he chooses to fly for it, rather than
set one foot before the other; walking,
therefore. he votes to he decided bore /;
and not having the luck TO be web-iooted,
who does not see that swimming too Is en-
tirey out of the question? though he has
TO objection to dipping his wings now and
then lis he skins over the water SO, good
reader, if you have ever, in the course of
your life, read any solemn rigmarole about
the snug winter quarters of these birds in
the mud, and their general use of the div
ing bell about the end of the season, for
heavens sake, forget it all as soon as you
can, for upon the word of AN honest man, a
swallow is neither an eel nor an oyster,
but only swallow.
What would you give to fly like this lit
tie fellow See him dart along the ground
like a streak of lightning, threatening to
pop into your face, and before you can
dodge that joterhead of yours out of his
way-presto he sweeps off at an angle,
and the next instant is cutting capers over
the chimney-tops half mile distant. Do
you remember the calculation made to show
how far a swallow did, or could, or ought
to fly in ten years-his natural life J? name
ly, one mile in minute for ten hours each
day--sum total 2, 10000 miles! You laugh
at this, as if it was an attempt to prove such
a marvellously sounding thing as birds
flying two million miles and more; but is
not this MS good as the story OF the Ten men,
whose united ages make eight hundred
years, which you see regularly every six
months in the newspapers
This sociable and innocent bird is no less
endeared to US by his amiable manners and
cheerful disposition, than by his undeviat-
ing fondness for the society of man. Go
where you will in the country, among the
woods, and they are not to he seen bnt as
soon as you approach a village or farm
house, you catch sight of your friendly com
panions darling over the tree-tops, or skim
ming across the meadows, while their Joy
Gus and exulting twitter seems expressive
of honest and unbounded confidence in the
friendship and hospitality Of man. We all
remember how sacred we held, when
schoolboys, the life or nest of a swallow
The Indians had, and still retain, the same
attachment to this bird; to this day, they
invite The Swallow and Martin to their hab-
itations, by hanging up gourd-shels on the
trees, and in these the birds are allowed
peaceably to nestle. The practice, there
fore, of setting up houses for the Martin,
Blue-bird Wren, &C., is of American orr
gin, and derived from the aborigines,-a
fact somewhat remarkable.
Speaking of the Martin offers me an oc-
caslon of abiding to one of those mortali-
ties, which, strange as it may seem, sweep
Martins from the air, as well as men from
the earth. Three or four years ago, the
Martins throughout the country all died.
What killed them nobody knew; they were
found dead in their houses, and about in
the fields not an individual apparently es-
capped. Whether an epidemic like the
plague or small poX had seized them, or
whether the flies and wasps and bees upon
which they feed had grown poisonous, we
never shall know. None appe red the fcl-
lowing season, and the whole species was
thought eXterminated; hut the present year
they have made their appearance in consid
cradle numbers, and the "temple- haunted
inartlet' has again taken up his residence
IN the church stecples.
1t is surprising that, when we have so
many fine native songsters, very few people
keep in their cages any thing beside that
pert and noisy little foreigner, the Canary
"a tasteless vocifcratoi, who is solcitous
only to stun you with the iouGness of his
squulling. How much more agreeable
the notes of many birds, that people our
own woods and gardens 70 say nothing
of the larger ones, second to none in the
world for song, there are, Of the smaller
kind-the Lnnet, with his sweet rolling
warble-a bird superior even to his Euro
pean namesake the Boblnk, with his
most musical medley of pleasant sounds :
the Scarlet Tanager, at once brilliant in
plumage and gifted in song 1.-THE Oriole,
hardly less than either the Bay-winged
Bunting, the Song and Field Sparrows, the
Red-eyed and Warblng Flycatchers, and
many Others might mention, that, for mu-
steal sweetness of note, surpass infinitely
the so highly esteemed Canary bird,
But soit,-we now begin to snuff the
fresh air of the country; we have left the
city behind US, with its cIatter and dust, ITS
"sin and scacoal," and the tall trees yonder
wave their leafy arms and nod their vener-
able hea IS in the distance, rs If woolng US
TO come under their shadows All, heic
are NV faVoritcs, the jolly BoBLiNks.. gam
boiling about the green meadow. liar'
what sweet jingle the rogues are making
What stream of mellow notes, high and
low, &c. md strong, Gin linked sweetness
long drawn out" iney POUR forth at ran
dom If you had not known this bird from
your boyhood, you would suppose that five
hundred different species of the fenthered
tribe were tuning their throais together