Birds and All Nature, Vol. 7, No. 5, May 1900: Illustrated by Color PhotographyVarious
History
Birds and All Nature, Vol. 7, No. 5, May 1900: Illustrated by Color Photography
Various
Birds -- Periodicals; Natural history -- Periodicals
The whippoorwill arrives, commonly, the last of March, but often
not before the 10th or 15th of April. The chuckwills-widow comes
three weeks later. Both of these strange birds rear one brood of two
young. The nest is placed upon the bare ground, under a clump of low
bushes, or a dense holly, or other low-growing tree. The eggs have the
same markings as those of the bull bat, or night hawk, another very
interesting migratory bird.
The catbird and the wood sparrows do not reach us till near the end of
April, and often May is far advanced before these birds are noticed.
The last is one of the sweetest songsters of our groves in summer,
rivaling any bird of our clime. It seeks the coolest and darkest wood,
where it pours forth its notes hour after hour, being one of the
earliest to begin its mating lays.
The humming bird is the latest visitor to come to us in summer. This
diminutive aerial voyager is one of the most charming of the migratory
tribe, and worthy all the admiration that has been lavished upon it.
It loves to sport in the flower gardens, where it sips the nectar from
the honeycups of Flora's train. Only one species comes to us, the
well-known ruby-throat.
But the young reader interested in these things should begin
observation, and make a list for himself of all the migratory birds in
his locality. A good form for such a record may be found in Howitt's
"Book of the Seasons," an English work, but one from which a great deal
about nature can be learned.
We will close our too brief sketch with the inquiry of Mrs. Kimball, of
Connecticut:
"O, wise little birds, how do ye know
The way to go,
Southward and northward, to and fro?
Far up in ether piped they,
'We but obey
A voice that calleth us far away.'"
ACROSS THE WAY.
GEO. KLINGLE.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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