Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1873-11-12

preaching SHOWS, If they can ind 1t. Ihey
eat up our cherries, currants and straw
berries; they pluuder the garden of the
late grapes, they ravage the fOwer-stalk OF
its seed and spoil the brilliant mountain
ash OF its scarlet berries, and clematls of
its purple fruitage, and the sumach OF its
crimson spikes and after they reach the
Carolinas, they betray the same inordlnate
appetite, by cramm;ng their crops with the
aromatic juniper berries to such an extent
that, whether through the intoxicating
fumes of the fruit, they are unable to sus-
tain themselves upon their perch, and tum-
BILE off into the hands of watchtul little
darkeys, who know their gluttonous habits.
The robin returns to US early IN April
often,in mild seasons, by the last OF March
| they are here. in the very face of the late
snowstorms. Already paired, they attend
strictly to business Their first nest is
constructed before the leaves are out and
they will warble you such song while
they are building lt-such clarion out
burst of hope and faith, and certainty in
the summers success-that they storm
your heart, in spite of yourself, into cor
responding belief. They sing with like &C.
stasy until the autumn, but less frequently,
and with little falling off, perhaps,ln ex-
preston.
The American robin is domestic in his
nature, but he never becomes familiar like
his English namesake. Let him choose
his hom, ever so near your house, he wants
nothing of you but his rent, and for that
he pays in music. A robin has built dur.
| ing five successive years IN niche not Tar
from our door. We have not marked her,
bnt we Judge her to be the same bird.
This nest is made early, and soon as the
brood is out of 1t she begins nimby on
second the third follows in process of
time During two Of these years she has
bnilt the second and third nests In the
near neighborhood of the frs, on two elms
growing one on each side of the house,
sometimes clearing out the old habitatlon
and refining it for present occupation
But she is cunning and sharp as she is bold
and independent; it is the cherry-trees
which bring US the honor OF her company,
and she guides her fedglings on to the
loaded branches with an impunity which
defes red rags and the other insignia of
scarecrow She rears, on an average, nine
young birds during one season and 1t is In
these small family companies that the
robins forage, in the fail, before their de-
parture. But he leaves his song when he
goes south when there he only chlrps IN
broken, croaky sort of way to his fellows
as though lamenting his exile. A resident
of South Carolina told me that he discov-
cred there in summer, in live oak grove
robin withs broken wing. The disa-
bled bird had found it impossible to accom-
pany his companions away, and it haunted
this grove, where probably it had passed
the winter, all the summer, chirping dis
mally to itself, but never raising a song
note
THE WILD PIGEONS.
The wild pigeons move south from the
dense forests of the Northwest and West
at this season, in hordes. Audubon, IN his
g B rds of America" gives an account OF
a migration of these birds. He counted
one hundred and sixty-three focks of wild
pigeons passing given point, IN ONO
during twenty-one minutes; and he lett OH
counting them because he found it impossi-
BILE to keep an accurate account Of the
great numbers in focks. He said g The
light of MONDAY was ecipsed, and the buzz
of their wings had a tendency to lull the
senses to repose if hawk approached
their rear, they rushed into compactness
like torrent and with noise like thun.
der" Bat this was long ago; now, not
withstanding the bird quadI Iuples itseli
yearly, owing to the dill gence Of the mod
ern sportsman, the mulutudes of the wild
pigeons in our forests are greatly diminish
ed This bird hes with great rapidlty
and resorts to the southern and south
western states during the winter.
The nghthawks, whose returning
; screech salutes our ears in New York IL
the late warm May twilrghts, as they cir.
Gle far above the house-tops, make an ex-
tensive migration. Their range is >from
Maine to Mexico, and in October they
pass in great numbers over the table lands
of Texas, over the Rio Grande and the
western shores of the Gulf into the sunny
valleys of the Sierra Madre. These birds
|
evolution. The changing seasons impel a
corresponding change of habitation to div
ers hawks and falcons which raise their
Young in northern latitudes, but which
move southerly with the moving sun. The
garrulous crow, which Is gregarlous after
its broodlng. resorts in f1ocks OF thousand:
; down the Atlantic coast; the cuckoo, the
friend of solitude the whip-poor-wlll, cry
ing mandate from the most sequestered
, glens, take wings for more salubrious airs
and the humming-bird, whose motion il
swifter than the eye can follow, and whose
beauty, like that of blossoms, seems borr
of the untwisted rays of sunlight, flies tal
towards the Equator into The realm:
where the soft tradewinds blow. The
humming- bird has been caught and confin'
ed in conservatories in the middle states
but has never lived through a winters
captivity. 1t raises two young birds only
in a summer.
THE TITBITs OF THE TABLE.
The amphibious birds follow fast in the
wake of the denizens of our woods, swamp:
and meadows. The Canada or wild goose
which in spring is seen by myriads on
flight to the far North-to Anticortl Is
lands, the Maydeleins, to Bay Chaleure
Labrador, few stopping even in Nova
Scotia-where they breed, is now thence
They arrive on the Upper Lakes in Oc
tober, and towards November they wing
! past in flocks, keeping in the course Of
rivers and streams, to the neighborhood oi
the inland bays and waters of the southern
states. Of the ducks, which take warning
as the sun crosses the equinox, and hasten
to the broad lagoons and estuaries which
indent the southeast coast, it is pleasure
to speak and to think. The first in point
8 of favor in the cuisine is the canvas-back