Читать книгу Bird Portraits - Эрнест Сетон-Томпсон, Seton Ernest Thompson - Страница 5

There is no pleasanter sight among birds than a family of young reared in the neighborhood of man and often on some part of his house itself. Visit an old farmhouse; look about and see how many welcome guests the farmer shelters without thought of pecuniary profit. Under the woodshed, on a beam, the Phœbe has built a nest of moss, from which she flies to the barnyard to pursue the insects that swarm there. In the vines on the piazza, Robins and Chipping Sparrows have reared their young. In the old elm over the door, an Oriole has woven a nest with thread twitched from the clothesline or perhaps purposely laid out for her, and the orchard shelters numbers of species – Bluebirds, Woodpeckers, Kingbirds, and Chebecs. Of all these tenants, however, none seem so completely at home as the swallows; none show so little concern at man's presence; none take possession so coolly of the boxes, the eaves, or the rafters where they build. Their kindred lived with man, ages ago, in Greece and Rome; they have been welcomed each spring as heralds of a joyful season; their departure has been watched with regret. Though they have but few notes which are musical, yet their grace, agility, and swiftness have passed into proverb and song.

There are several species of swallow, or martin, which take advantage of man's structures in or on which to place their nests, but the most numerous, the most familiar to people in general, and perhaps the most attractive, is the Barn Swallow. This is the only species whose outer tail feathers are long and pointed, and form with the rest of the tail the peculiar figure known as "swallow-tail." The head, back, wings, and tail are all of a beautiful lustrous blue, and the tail, when spread, shows large white spots in the inner feathers. The under parts vary from whitish in immature birds to a rich chestnut in fully mature ones, who have also the throat and forehead of a darker reddish brown. The bill opens far back, so that there is a wide cavity to engulf any insect which may be met in the ceaseless flight backward and forward over grass and water.

The nest of the Barn Swallow is familiar to all who have enjoyed life on a farm. It is made of straws and grass, plastered together with mud, and is placed on a beam or rafter in the barn. One hospitable farmer drove a horseshoe into a beam, and on this ledge a swallow built each year. Through the open door or window of the barn the swallows fly in and out, and up into the gloom above, where twittering sounds tell of young that are being fed. As soon as the young are old enough, the parents urge them to fly, and in a few days they become skillful enough to take food on the wing. This is an extremely pretty spectacle; the parent and the young meet, and then fly upward for an instant, their breasts apparently touching, while the food is passed from one bill to the other. One July afternoon the writer watched a row of six young swallows clinging to the shingles on a barn roof, every mouth gaping for food whenever the parents approached. When the father brought the food, the bird sitting nearest him got the mouthful, and in an instant later another from the mother. Five times in succession this favored youngster was fed, while the other five seemed neglected. But when the little fellow had all that he could hold, he went to sleep, and the next wide-open mouth received the food. What seemed at first an unfair arrangement was after all the surest way to feed all alike.