The Audubon Reader (18 page)

About daybreak they flew down to the shore of the river one hundred yards distant for the muddy sand of which the nests were constructed and worked with great assiduity until near the middle of the day, as if aware that the heat of the sun was necessary to dry and harden their moist tenements. They then ceased from labor for a few hours, amused themselves by performing aerial evolutions, courted and caressed their mates with much affection and snapped at flies and other insects on the wing. They often examined their nests to see if they were sufficiently dry, and as soon as these appeared to have acquired the requisite firmness they renewed their labors. Until the females began to sit, they all roosted in the hollow limbs of the sycamores growing on the banks of the
Licking River, but when incubation commenced the males alone resorted to the trees. A second party arrived and were so hard pressed for time that they betook themselves to the holes in the wall where bricks had been left out for the scaffolding. These they fitted with projecting necks similar to those of the complete nests of the others. Their eggs were deposited on a few bits of straw, and great caution was necessary in attempting to procure them, as the slightest touch crumbled their frail tenement into dust. By means of a tablespoon I was enabled to procure many of them. Each nest contained four eggs which were white with dusky spots. Only one brood is raised in a season. The energy with which they defended their nests was truly astonishing. Although I had taken the precaution to visit them at sunset when I supposed they would all have been on the sycamores, yet a single female happened to be sitting and gave the alarm, which immediately called out the whole tribe. They snapped at my hat, body and legs [and] passed between me and the nests within an inch of my face twittering their rage and sorrow. They continued their attacks as I descended and accompanied me for some distance. Their note may be perfectly imitated by rubbing a cork damped with spirit against the neck of a bottle.

A third party arrived a few days after and immediately commenced building. In one week they had completed their operations and at the end of that time thirty nests hung clustered like so many gourds, each having a neck two inches long. On the 27th July the young were able to follow their parents. They all exhibited the white frontlet and were scarcely distinguishable in any part of their plumage from the old birds. On the 1st of August they all assembled near their nests, mounted about three hundred feet in the air and at ten in the morning took their departure, flying in a loose body in a direction due north. They returned the same evening about dusk and continued these excursions, no doubt to exercise their powers, until the third when, uttering a farewell cry, they shaped the same course at the same hour and finally disappeared. Shortly after their departure, I was informed that several hundreds of their nests were attached to the courthouse at the mouth of the
Kentucky River. They had commenced building them in 1815. A person likewise informed me that along the cliffs of the Kentucky he had seen many
bunches
, as he termed them, of these nests attached to the naked shelving rocks overhanging that river.

Being extremely desirous of settling the long-agitated question respecting the
migration or supposed torpidity of Swallows, I embraced every opportunity of examining their habits, carefully noted their arrival and disappearance and recorded every fact connected with their history. After some years of constant observation and reflection I remarked that among all the species of migratory birds, those that remove farthest from us depart sooner than those which retire only to the confines of the United States; and by a parity of reasoning, those that remain later return earlier in the spring. These remarks were confirmed as I advanced towards the southwest on the approach of winter, for I there found numbers of Warblers, Thrushes &c. in full feather and song. It was also remarked that the
Hirundo viridis
[White-bellied Swallow] of [Alexander] Wilson (called by the French of Lower Louisiana,
Le Petit Martinet à ventre blanc
) remained about the city of
New Orleans later than any other Swallow. As immense numbers of them were seen during the month of November I kept a diary of the temperature from the third of that month until the arrival of
Hirundo purpurea
[Purple Martin]. The following notes are taken
from my journal, and as I had excellent opportunities during a residence of many years in that country of visiting the lakes to which these Swallows were said to resort during the transient frosts, I present them with confidence.

November 11
.—Weather very sharp, with a heavy white frost. Swallows in abundance during the whole day. On inquiring of the inhabitants if this was a usual occurrence I was answered in the affirmative by all the French and Spaniards. From this date to the 22nd the thermometer averaged 65°, the weather generally a drizzly fog. Swallows playing over the city in thousands.

November 25
.—Thermometer this morning at 30°. Ice in New Orleans a quarter of an inch thick. The Swallows resorted to the lee of the cypress swamp in the rear of the city. Thousands were flying in different flocks. Fourteen were killed at a single shot, all in perfect plumage and very fat. The markets were abundantly supplied with these tender, juicy, and delicious birds. Saw Swallows every day but remarked them more plentiful the stronger the breeze blew from the sea.

December 20
.—The weather continues much the same. Foggy and drizzly mist. Thermometer averaging 63°.

January 14
.—Thermometer 42°. Weather continues the same. My little favorites constantly in view.

January 28
.—Thermometer at 40°. Having seen the
Hirundo viridis
continually, and the
H. purpurea
or Purple Martin appear, I discontinued my observations.

During the whole winter many of them retired to the holes about the houses, but the greater number resorted to the lakes and spent the night among the branches of
Myrica cerifera
, the
Cirier
, as it is termed by the French settlers [Southern waxmyrtle].

About sunset they began to flock together, calling to each other for that purpose, and in a short time presented the appearance of clouds moving towards the lakes or the mouth of the Mississippi as the weather and wind suited. Their aerial evolutions before they alight are truly beautiful. They appear at first as if reconnoitering the place when, suddenly throwing themselves into a vortex of apparent confusion, they descend spirally with astonishing quickness and very much resemble a
trombe
or waterspout. When within a few feet of the
ciriers
they disperse in all directions and settle in
a few moments. Their twittering and the motions of their wings are, however, heard during the whole night. As soon as the day begins to dawn they rise, flying low over the lakes, almost touching the water for some time and then rising, gradually move off in search of food, separating in different directions. The hunters who resort to these places destroy great numbers of them by knocking them down with light paddles used in propelling their canoes.

[The Republican or Cliff Swallow,
Petrochelidon pyrrhonota
, appears in Plate 68 of
The Birds of America
.]

July 13, 1819

1 pianoforte, 3 cherry tables, 3 walnut tables, 3 poplar & ash tables, 3 bureaus walnut & cherry, 1 large walnut desk, 1 portable writing desk, 20 Windsor chairs, 6 flag-bottom chairs, 2 children’s chairs, 4 carpets, 1 hearth rug, 6 tea boards, 1 pair brass hand irons, 2 pair brass shovel & tongs, 3 pair cast-iron dogs, 4 looking glasses different sizes, 2 footstools, 4 silver candlesticks, 1 pair plated snuffers and stand, 3 dozen plates assorted, ½ dozen dishes assorted, 1 dozen cups & saucers, 1 silver tea pot, 1 Britannia, 1 silver cream jug, 3 dozen assorted silver spoons, 2 silver salt sellers, 1 set plated castors, 4 decanters, 1 dozen tumblers, 1–2 dozen stone jars assorted sizes, 2 dozen B. M. & White bottles, 6 demijohns, 150 volumes of assorted books, 1 map of the world, 2 gilt picture frames, a parcel of music assorted, all my drawings, crayons, paints, pencils, drawing paper, silver compasses, rules, microscopes, presses, square, 4 ovens assorted sizes, 6 kettles assorted, 4 skillets assorted, 1 griddle, 1 gridiron, 3 pair pot hooks, 4 cranes, 5 smoothing irons,
1 Italian iron, 1 copper teakettle, 1 brass kettle, 1 frying pan, 3 bread trays, 3 bread baskets assorted, 1 dozen knives & forks, 1 coffee and pepper mill, 1 plough & 1 arrow, 2 spades, 3 hoes, 2 rakes, 2 pair of tins, scales, 4 iron weights, ½ dozen canisters different sorts and sizes, 1 single fowling piece & box, 1 duck gun, 3 shot bags, 1 double gun, 4 flasks and 2 horns, 1 smooth rifle, 3 bags shot, ½ keg powder, tin pan colanders, ladles 16, 3 wash bowls and jugs, ½ dozen chambers, ½ dozen assorted pitchers, 1 dozen assorted baskets & French, English, etc., 4 feather beds, 1 crib bed, 5 bolsters & 8 pillows, 5 bedsteads painted plain, 1 crib of cherry, 15 blankets of all sorts and sizes, ½ dozen quilts and comforter, plain, 1 dozen pair of sheets, 1 dozen bolsters and pillow cases, 1 dozen damask table cloths, 2 dozen French towels, 1 dozen common towels, 1 warming pan, 1 fiddle, 1 flute, 1 guitar, 1 flageolet, 2 brooms, 2 rolls hanging paper, 2 sets red curtains, 6 mosquito bars, 2 cows & 2 calves, 30 head of hogs more or less, my stock of them big & small, 1 ear cut & 1 [?] fork, 1 sorrel mare, 1 sidesaddle & 3 bridles, some platted, 2 pole axes, 7 wild geese and 10 tame geese, 8 bee hives, 1 doz. jugs, different sizes & sorts.

One morning while I was at the Cincinnati Museum in the State of Ohio a woman came in holding in her apron one of this delicate species alive, which she said had fallen down the chimney of her house under night and which, when she awoke at daybreak, was the first object she saw, it having perched on one of the bedposts. It was a young bird. I placed it on the table before me and drew from it the figure on the left of my plate. It stood perfectly still for two hours, but on my touching it with a pencil after my drawing was done, it flew off and alighted on the cornice of a window. Replacing it on the table I took two books and laid them so as to leave before it a passage of an inch and a half, through which it walked with ease. Bringing the books nearer each other, so as to reduce the passage to one inch, I tried the Bittern again and again it made its way between them without moving either. When dead its body measured two inches and a quarter across, from which it is apparent that this species, as well as the
Gallinules and
Rails, is enabled to contract its breadth in an extraordinary degree.

While I was in Philadelphia in September 1832 a gentleman presented me with a pair of adult birds of this species, alive and in perfect plumage. They had been caught in a meadow a few miles below the city and I kept them alive several days, feeding them on small fish and thin stripes of pork. They were expert at seizing flies and swallowed caterpillars and other insects. My wife admired them much on account of their gentle deportment, for although
on being tormented they would spread their wings, ruffle their feathers and draw back their head as if to strike, yet they suffered themselves to be touched by anyone without pecking at his hand. It was amusing to see them continually attempting to escape through the windows, climbing with ease from the floor to the top of the curtain by means of their feet and claws. This feat they would repeat whenever they were taken down. The experiment of the books was tried with them and succeeded as at Cincinnati. At the approach of night they became much more lively, walked about the room in a graceful manner with much agility and generally kept close together. I had ample opportunities of studying their natural positions and drew both of them in the attitudes exhibited in the plate. I would gladly have kept them longer; but as I was bound for the south, I had them killed for the purpose of preserving their skins.

This bird ranges over most parts of the United States but is nowhere to be found in tolerable abundance excepting about the mouths of the Mississippi and the Southern portions of the
Floridas, especially the
Everglades. I have met with them to the eastward as far as New Brunswick, on our large lakes and in the intermediate portions of the country, although I have seldom found more than one or two at a time. In the Floridas and Carolinas they have been known to breed in small communities of four or five pairs. One instance of this was observed by my friend Dr. Horlbeck of Charleston and Dr. Leitner, another friend of mine, found them quite abundant in certain portions of the Florida marshes.