. The birds' calendar . ocalaccomplishments combined with great remained so long at the place, that at last Ireally wished it would go away, feeling that itwould be wrong for me to forego the opportu-nity of watching it as long as it remained. Notbeing gregarious they are less likely to be foundthan many other species. The female dressesplainly, and is remarkably silent, all things con-sidered. Two more warblers—the blue-winged yellow,and the Nashville—^here only for a few days,and without special characteristics that were ob-servable, are to be added to the list; and at thistime als
. The birds' calendar . ocalaccomplishments combined with great remained so long at the place, that at last Ireally wished it would go away, feeling that itwould be wrong for me to forego the opportu-nity of watching it as long as it remained. Notbeing gregarious they are less likely to be foundthan many other species. The female dressesplainly, and is remarkably silent, all things con-sidered. Two more warblers—the blue-winged yellow,and the Nashville—^here only for a few days,and without special characteristics that were ob-servable, are to be added to the list; and at thistime also the pewee made his first lament of theseason; the red-eyed vireo, too, began singing,while over the Lake, day after day, were cours-ing a flock of chimney swifts (not swallows atall, say the books). Of the fifty species of swiftsfound in the temperate and warmer parts of theworld, only four are in North America. Theyare well named swifts, as they are not sur-passed and are rarely equalled, by any other birds 164 1. ROSE-BREASTED GROSBEAK May in their powers of flight, sometimes covering athousand miles in twenty-four hours, and neverresting, it is said, except in their roosting-places(chimneys or hollow trees), where they do notperch, but cling to the walls, partially supportedby their stiff tail. In flight they can be distin-guished from the true swallows by the apparentabsence of a tail, it being extremely short. Theylive upon such insects as are to be caught on thewing, and one might infer that they had con-tracted their sooty-brown color by contact withchimneys for several generations, until it be-came ingrained. The last great wave of the season cameon the 2 2d, bringing only a single new species—the bay-breasted warbler ; but for a time thewoods were full of the Canada, black-poll,Blackburnian, magnolia, Wilson, black-throatedgreen, summer-yellow, Maryland yellow-throat,wagtail, redstart, and black-and-white creep-ing warblers. Of the twenty-four warblers that I f
Size: 1362px × 1834px
Photo credit: © Reading Room 2020 / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookpublishern, booksubjectbirds
