The Life of a Bird1851 - 435 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
American crow anecdote animal appears artificial incubation attention Audubon barbules beak beautiful bill bird's bones British birds brood built BURROWING OWL chaffinch chick chickens colour common common guillemot construction covered cuckoo cuckoo's egg curious degree delicate deposited duck dunlin eagle egg-shell employed fact feathers feet female foot fowl frequently grass ground guillemot habits hatched heat hole inches incubating bird ingenious instance jackdaws Jesse jungle fowl kind laid large number leaves LESSER NODDY male bird manner mate materials membrane moss mound nature nest nestlings number of eggs observed old birds ornithologists ostrich pair parent bird perch period placed purpose reared Réaumur remarkable rendered resembles rock Savi's Warbler says scarcely seen selected shell side singular sitting situation small birds sometimes sparrow species spot sticks structure surface temperature texture tion titmouse tree various wings wren Yarrell yolk young birds
Popular passages
Page 384 - In a day or two more they become flyers, but are still unable to take their own food; therefore they play about near the place where the dams are hawking for flies ; and when a mouthful is collected, at a certain signal given, the dam and the nestling advance, rising towards each other, and meeting at an angle ; the young one all the while uttering such a little quick note of gratitude and complacency, that a person must have paid very little regard to the wonders of Nature that has not often remarked...
Page 383 - June, or the first week in July. The progressive method by which the young are introduced into life is very amusing : first, they emerge from the shaft with difficulty enough, and often fall down into the rooms below : for a day or so they are fed on the chimney-top, and then are conducted to the dead leafless bough of some tree, where, sitting in a row, they are attended with great assiduity, and may then be called perchers.
Page 225 - In the centre of this grove there stood an oak, which, though shapely and tall on the whole, bulged out into a large excrescence about the middle of the stem. On this a pair of ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of the Raven Tree.
Page 226 - ... in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the butt, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the woods echoed to the heavy blows of the beetle or mallet, the tree nodded to its fall ; but still the dam sat on. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and, though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground.
Page 139 - ... its load with a jerk, and quite disengaged it from the nest. It remained in this situation a short time, feeling about with the extremities of its wings, as if to be convinced whether the business was properly executed, and then dropped into the nest again.
Page 226 - Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this eyry: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task. But when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the most daring lads were awed, and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. So the ravens built on, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day arrived in which the wood was to be levelled. It was in...
Page 347 - ... poor thing had its young ones in the hole of a wall, and the nest had been nearly all drawn out of the crevice by the paw of a cat, and part of its brood devoured. In revisiting its family, the bird discovered a portion of it remaining, though wrapped up and hidden in the tangled moss and feathers of their bed, and it then drew the whole of the nest back into the place from whence it had been taken, unrolled and resettled the remaining little ones, fed them with the usual attentions, and finally...
Page 2 - The construction and selected situations of the nests of birds, are as remarkable as the variety of materials employed in them ; the same forms, places and articles, being rarely, perhaps never, found united by the different species, which we should suppose similar necessities would direct to a uniform provision. Birds that build early in the spring seem to require warmth and shelter for their young : and the blackbird and the thrush line their nests with a plaster of loam, perfectly excluding, by...
Page 346 - Who provideth for the raven his food ? when his young ones cry unto God, they wander for lack of meat.
Page 348 - ... and probably in the earlier part of the morning more frequently ; but if we allow that they brought food to the hole every minute for fourteen hours, and provided for their own wants also, it will admit of perhaps a thousand grubs a day for the requirements of one, and that a diminished brood > and give us some comprehension of...