Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1873-11-12
Our Migratory Birds.
WHEN AND WHERE THEY 90

Our Migratory Birds.
WHEN AND WHERE THEY 90
The time for the departure of the birds
is at hand. Throug gh the whole belt of
the trigld and north temperate zones the
feathered inhabitants are moving, or max
ing ready. to invade the CLINE of perpetual
warmth, and no surveyor-general, with his
compass to direct and science to guide,
could more accurately calculate his dis
tances, to arrive at a gwen point, than do
these aerial travellers.
Already the swallows are gone. Weeks
ago | saw them scurry aloft in squads,
hurrying hither and thither getting ready
to join themselves into grand armies for
movement. Like poor Charles Lamb at
his business, " they come late and are the
earliest to GO They do not reach Mass
achusetts, unless the season is unusually
mild, until the middle of May, arriving in
pairs, but they leave in the beginning Of
September, after having united themselves
into focks. These focks at times assume
very large magnitudes, as the different
families of Hirondos join forces, often OBJ
scurlng the sky for some time while they
are passing over. They follow the coast
in their fight, and when bewldered by
the seaboard togs, as they often are, they
arrest their course until the sky clears,
when they rise in a spiral form from the
reeds and marshy lands, where they have
lain III harbor, and extending their ranks,
resume their way towards the tropics.
The light of the swallow surpasses in fleet
ness that of every other bird The Ameri-
can swift, or swallow, has been caught in
the spring near New York with crop
| full Of uud gostod rice, which proves it to
have flown from the rice fields of Carolina
10 twelve hours-more than one hundred
miles an hour.
THE .soNGsrERs.
But with the migration of the swallows
we miss the songsters. The different
tribes of the warblers retire before the
frosty airs and keen winds ruff1e their
pumage and make hoarse their sweet
voices. The shy blue bird, the meadow
lark, with his melancholy tone, and the
wood thrush, whose note is as fresh 10 the
ear as the odor of the damp woods is to
the nostril, are all gone. The bobolnk
whose rapturous singing made the meadows
melodlous In early summer, first lost his
Inspiration, then became bon r1eant
and then hied himself off, with his wife
and children, to regale upon the sebacious
seeds In the plains OF New Jersey and
Delaware, whence, if the sharp sportsmen
overlook him, he will proceed to the re-
mote rice fields along the coast OF the
Gulf of Mexico
On the other side of the globe the night
ngale, which is the chief of the warblers
the famous singer Of the world-now
hastens to the myrtle groves Of the Adri-
attic Sea or the rose bowers of Persia, or
the date trees Of " Araby the blest,
where ages ago its thrilling song
Pierced the sad heart of Ruth,
| Who stood i'll tears amid the alien corn"
This bird. which breeds as far north as
Sweden and Russia, ornitholo5ists tell US
is never heard in Wales, Scotland, nor the
western shires of England The male
precedes the female week or two, to the
north, in the spring, and having selected
his haunt in some bosky thicket, he lures
his mate to him, when she arrives, by his
song. 1t is said that nightingale caught
after it has paired seldom survivor.
The Baltimore oriole, or hang-nest, re.
splendent in the beauty of his scarlet and
gold dress, migrates aud returns in the
spring by the single bird. and flies only
by day. He retreats to Mexico and goes
as far north as Nova Scotia. The oriole
is rare and saga acious. and the female ex.
hibits method and a very nice distinction
of distance in building her nest. This |
saw illustrated, two or three years since,
by bird which chose the locality where.
on to hang her nest, in an elm not twenty
feet from my chamber window. She con-
structed the nest upon the extremity of q
pendant limb, which was too fexile to bear
a ladder, or even the weight of child
aud to high toe be reached by portable
steps, and which held her treasure secure
poised on its outmost tip, far from the
reach of danger. The nest-made like a
long netted purse-was woven, in and out
out and in, of horse-hair and dried marsh
grass, as deftly and cunningly as maid
ems fingers could have done it, and the en-
trance into it placed on the side opposite
from the window, so that the eggs within
could not be seen. During the process oi
nest-making, which required week, the
male watched from an adjacent tree. and
cheered on his wife in her work with bis
songs, but did not offer to help her. The
oriole possesses a song which he accents
with almost human pathos, but his cal
note is sharp and harsh.
I'LL PAY MY RENT IN MUSIC SAID WREN,
The robins are not yet all gone, but the
remnant of them are making great haste te
join the hegira. During the past few
weeks they have been in the wheat and
oat stubble, eating themselves into prodig
ious good order, to be in readiness fol
their journey. Thorough cleaners are the
redbreasts-not mustard seed d. they
leave to warm the throat of the snowbirt