American Ornithology: Or The Natural History of the Birds of the United States, Volume 2Constable and Company, 1831 - Birds |
Contents
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Common terms and phrases
appearance April barn swallow belly and vent bill branches breast breed brown brown creeper brown thrush bush cage cat bird chin coverts dark deep dull dusky edged eggs favourite feeding five inches flesh colour flycatcher frequently genus golden-winged warbler grass green greenish hazel hind head inches long inhabits inner vanes insects larvæ LATHAM legs and feet LINNÆUS little bird male mandible marked marsh wren middle mocking bird nearly neck nest nostril notes numbers numerous observed pale Pennsylvania PLATE plumage pure white purple martin reddish resembling round rump scarcely scarlet tanager season seen sides sometimes song spot of white spring streaked summer SYLVIA tail-coverts thickets three exterior feathers throat tinged tips tipt with white titmouse tree TURDUS upper mandible warbler whip-poor-will whitish whole lower William Bartram WILSON wing-coverts wings and tail winter winter wren wood thrush wren yellow olive YELLOW-RUMP WARBLER
Popular passages
Page 8 - ... listened to by almost all with great interest. At first they issue from some retired part of the woods, the glen, or mountain : in a few evenings, perhaps, we hear them from the adjoining coppice, the garden fence, the road before the door, and even from the roof of the dwelling-house, long after the family have retired to rest. Some of the more ignorant and superstitious...
Page 92 - The crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark When neither is attended, and I think The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be thought No better a musician than the wren.
Page 88 - The ease, elegance, and rapidity of his movements, the animation of his eye, and the intelligence he displays in listening and laying up lessons from almost every species of the feathered creation within his hearing, are really surprising, and mark the peculiarity of his genius.
Page 179 - In the month of June, a mower hung up his coat, under a shed, near a barn; two or three days elapsed before he had occasion to put it on again; thrusting his arm up the sleeve he found it completely filled with some rubbish, as he expressed it, and, on extracting the whole mass, found it to be the nest of a Wren completely finished, and lined with a large quantity...
Page 168 - Green meadows and brown furrowed fields re-appearing: The fishermen hauling their shad to the shore, And cloud-cleaving geese to the lakes are a-steering; When first the lone butterfly flits on the wing, When red glow the maples, so fresh and so pleasing, O then comes the blue-bird, the herald of spring, And hails with his warblings the charms of the season.
Page 89 - ... imitations. He many times deceives the sportsman, and sends him in search of birds that perhaps are not within miles of him, but whose notes he exactly imitates ; even birds themselves are frequently imposed on by this admirable mimic, and are decoyed by the fancied calls of their mates, or dive with precipitation into the depth of thickets at the scream of what they suppose to be the Sparrow-hawk.
Page 165 - Storms and (Jeep snows sometimes succeeding, he disappears for a time ; but about the middle of March is again seen, accompanied by his mate, visiting the box in the garden, or the hole in the old apple tree, the cradle of some generations of his ancestors.
Page 168 - Oh then to your gardens, ye housewives, repair, Your walks border up, sow and plant at your leisure ; The blue-bird will chant from his box such an air, That all your hard toils will seem truly a pleasure ! " He flits through the orchard, he visits each tree, The red flowering peach, and the apple's sweet blossom; He snaps up destroyers, wherever they be...
Page 90 - ... discover, with astonishment, that the sole performer in this singular concert is the admirable bird now before us. During this exhibition of his powers, he spreads his wings, expands his tail, and throws himself around the cage in all the ecstasy of enthusiasm, seeming not only to sing, but to dance, keeping time to the measure of his own music. Both in his native and domesticated state, during the solemn stillness of night, as soon as the moon rises in silent majesty, he begins his delightful...