General History of Connecticut, from Its First Settlement Under George Fenwick to its Latest Period of Amity with Great BritainPeters, Samuel
History
General History of Connecticut, from Its First Settlement Under George Fenwick to its Latest Period of Amity with Great Britain
Peters, Samuel
Connecticut -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775; Connecticut -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783
The feathered tribe in Connecticut are the turkey, geese, ducks, and
all kinds of barn-door poultry; innumerable flocks of pigeons, which
fly to the south in the autumn; cormorants of all sizes; hawks, owls,
ravens, and crows; partridges, quails, heath-hen, blackbirds, snipes,
larks, humility’s, whippoorwills, dew-minks, robins, wrens, swallows,
sparrows, the flax, crimson, white, and blue birds, &c. &c.; to which
I may add the humming-bird, though it might wantonly be styled the
empress of the honey-bees, partaking with them of the pink, tulip,
rose, daisy, and other aromatics.
The partridges in New-England are nearly as large as a Dorking fowl,
the quail as an English partridge, and the robin twice as big as those
in England. The dew-mink, so named from its articulating those
syllables, is black and white, and the size of an English robin. Its
flesh is delicious. The humility is so called because it speaks the
word humility, and seldom mounts high in the air. Its legs are long
enough to enable it to outrun a dog for a little way; its wings long
and narrow; body maigre and of the size of a blackbird’s; plumage
variegated with white, black, blue, and red. It lives on tadpoles,
spawn, and worms; has an eye more piercing than the falcon, and the
swiftness of an eagle; hence it can never be shot, for it sees the
sparks of fire even before it enkindles the powder, and by the extreme
rapidity of its flight gets out of reach in an instant. It is never
known to light upon a tree, but is always seen upon the ground or
wing. These birds appear in New-England in summer only; what becomes
of them afterwards is not discovered. They are caught in snares, but
can never be tamed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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