Part 18

In Europe some birds have become almost domesticated, like the house-sparrow, and in our own country the cliff-swallow seem to have entirely abandoned ledges and shelving rocks, as a place to nest, for the eaves and projections of farms and other out-buildings.

After one has made the acquaintance of most of the land-birds, there remain the sea-shore and its treasures. How little one knows of the aquatic fowls, even after reading carefully the best authorities, was recently forced home to my mind by the following circumstance: I was spending a vacation in the interior of New York, when one day a stranger alighted before the house, and with a cigar box in his hand approached me as I sat in the doorway. I was about to say that he would waste his time in recommending his cigars to me, as I never smoked, when he said that, hearing I knew something about birds, he had brought me one which had been picked up a few hours before in a hay-field near the village, and which was a stranger to all who had seen it. As he began to undo the box I expected to see some of our own rarer birds, perhaps the rose-breasted grossbeak or Bohemian chatterer. Imagine, then, how I was taken aback, when I beheld instead, a swallow-shaped bird, quite as large as a pigeon, with forked tail, glossy-black above, and snow-white beneath. Its parti-webbed feet, and its long graceful wings, at a glance told that it was a sea-bird; but as to its name or habitat I must defer my answer till I could get a peep into Audubon, or some large collection.

The bird had fallen down exhausted in a meadow, and was picked up just as the life was leaving its body. The place must have been one hundred and fifty miles from the sea, as the bird flies. As it was the sooty-tern, which inhabits the Florida Keys, its appearance so far north and so far inland may be considered somewhat remarkable. On removing the skin I found it terribly emaciated. It had no doubt starved to death, ruined by too much wing. Another Icarus. Its great power of flight had made it bold and venturesome, and had carried it so far out of its range that it starved before it could return.

The sooty-tern is sometimes called the sea-swallow, on account of its form and power of flight. It will fly nearly all day at sea, picking up food from the surface of the water. There are several species, some of them strikingly beautiful.

FOOTNOTES:

I am aware that the redstart is generally classed among the fly-catchers, but its song, its form, and its habits are in every respect those of a warbler. Its main fly-catcher mark is its beak, but to the muscicapa proper it presents little or no resemblance to the general observer.

INDEX.

PAGE

Audubon, 231, 241

Birds, as to nesting, classified, 143 songs of various, 17, 18, 52, 53, 67 distribution of, in a locality, 29 geographically, 50 instinct of cleanliness in, 116 propagation in, 119 relations of the sexes of, 118

Blackbird, Crow, 157

Bluebird, 12, 13, 211-224

Bobolink, 163

Bunting, Black-throated, 164 Cow, 18, 70

Buzzard, Turkey, 152

Cat-bird, 36

Cedar-bird, 100, 111, 160

Chat, Yellow-breasted, 172

Chickadee, 122

Creeper, Black and White, 80

Crow, 152

Cuckoo, Black-billed, 23, 24 Yellow-billed, 23

Dakota Skylark, 243, 244

Eagles, The, 141

Finch, Pine, 86, 100 Purple, 69, 86

Finches, The, 238

Fly-catchers, The, 236

Gnatcatcher. 134