: Argentine Ornithology, Volume I (of 2) by P. L Sclater, W. H Hudson (books to read in your 20s female .txt) 📖

about it,

sportively skimming above the roof, or curiously peering under the

eaves, and incessantly uttering their gurgling happy notes.

 

For a period of a month to six weeks before building begins they seem to

be holding an incessant dispute, reminding one in their scolding tones

of a colony of contentious English House-Sparrows, only the Swallow

has a softer, more varied voice, and frequently, even when hotly

quarrelling, he pauses to warble out his pretty little song, with its

sound like running water. However many eligible chinks and holes there

may be, the contention is always just as great amongst them, and is

doubtless referable to opposing claims to the best places. The excited

twittering, the incessant striving of two birds to alight on the same

square inch of wall, the perpetual chases they lead each other round

and round the house, always ending exactly where they began, tell of

clashing interests and of great unreasonableness on the part of some

amongst them. By-and-by the quarrel assumes a more serious aspect;

friends and neighbours have apparently intervened in vain; all the

arguments of which Swallows are capable have been exhausted, and, a

compromise of claims being more impossible than ever, fighting begins.

Most vindictively do the little things clutch each other and fall to the

earth twenty times an hour, where they often remain struggling for a

long time, heedless of the screams of alarm their fellows set up above

them; for often, while they thus lie on the ground punishing each other,

they fall an easy prey to some wily pussy who has made herself

acquainted with their habits.

 

When these feuds are finally settled, they address themselves diligently

to the great work and build a rather big nest. They are not neat or

skilful workers, but merely stuff a great quantity of straw and other

light materials into the breeding-hole, and line the nest with feathers

and horsehair. On this soft but disorderly bed the female lays from five

to seven pure white eggs.

 

All those species that are liable at any time to become the victims of

raptorial birds are very much beholden to this Swallow, as he is the

most vigilant sentinel they possess. When the hurrying Falcon is still

far off, and the other birds unsuspicious of his approach, the Swallows

suddenly rush up into the sky with a wild rapid flight to announce the

evil tidings with distracted screams. The alarm spreads swift as light

through the feathered tribes, which, on all sides, are in terrified

commotion, crouching in the grass, plunging into thickets, or mounting

upwards to escape by flight. I have often wondered at this, since this

swift-winged and quick-doubling little bird is the least likely to fall

a prey himself.

 

They possess another habit very grateful to the mind of every early

riser. At the first indication of dawn, and before any other wild bird

has broken the profound silence of night, multitudes of this Swallow, as

if at the signal of a leader, begin their singing and twittering, at the

same time mounting upwards into the quiet dusky sky. Their notes at this

hour differ from the hurried twittering uttered during the day, being

softer and more prolonged, and, sounding far up in the sky from so many

throats, the concert has a very charming effect, and seems in harmony

with the shadowy morning twilight.

30. ATTICORA CYANOLEUCA (Vieill.). (BANK-SWALLOW.)

 

+Atticora cyanoleuca+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 479; _Scl. et

      Salv. Nomencl._ p. 14; _Hudson, P. Z. S._ 1872, p. 844 (Buenos

      Ayres); _Durnford, Ibis_, 1876, p. 158 (Buenos Ayres), 1877,

32 (Chupat), p. 170 (Buenos Ayres), 1878, p. 392 (Central

      Patagonia); _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 596 (Catamarca); _Barrows,

      Bull. Nutt. Orn. Cl._ viii. p. 90 (Concepcion, Bahia Blanca);

      _Sharpe, Cat. B._ x. p. 186.

 

    _Description._--Above dark glossy blue; quills and tail-feathers

    black; cheeks and under surface of body pure white, the sides of the

    neck blue, descending in a half-crescent on the sides of the chest;

    sides of body and flanks brown; under tail-coverts black; bill and

    feet black: total length 4·7 inches, wing 4·05, tail 2·2. _Female_

    similar.

 

_Hab._ Central and South America.

 

This diminutive dark-plumaged species is the smallest of our Hirundines.

In Buenos Ayres they appear early in September, arriving before the

Martins, but preceded by the Common Swallow. They are bank-birds,

breeding in forsaken holes and burrows, for they never bore into

the earth themselves, and are consequently not much seen about the

habitations of man. They sometimes find their breeding-holes in the

banks of streams, or, in cultivated districts, in the sides of ditches,

and even down in wells. But if in such sites alone fit receptacles for

their eggs were met with, the species, instead of one of the commonest,

would be rare indeed with us; for on the level pampas most of the

water-courses have marshy borders, or at most but low and gently

sloping banks. But the burrowing habits of two other animals--the

Vizcacha (_Lagostomus trichodactylus_), the common large rodent

of the pampas, and the curious little bird called Minera (_Geositta

cunicularia_)--have everywhere afforded the Swallows abundance of

breeding-places on the plains, even where there are no streams or other

irregularities in the smooth surface of the earth.

 

The Minera bores its hole in the sides of the Vizcacha's great burrow,

and in this burrow within a burrow the Swallow lays its eggs and rears

its young, and is the guest of the Vizcacha, and as much dependent on it

as the House-Wren and the Domestic Swallow on man; so that in spring,

when this species returns to the plains, it is in the villages of the

Vizcachas that we see them. There they live and spend the day, sporting

about the burrows, just as the Common Swallow does about our houses; and

to a stranger on the pampas one of these villages, with its incongruous

bird and mammalian inhabitants, must seem a very curious sight in the

evening. Before sunset the old male Vizcachas come forth to sit gravely

at the mouths of their great burrows. One or two couples of Mineras,

their little brown bird-tenants, are always seen running about on the

bare ground round the holes, resting at intervals with their tails

slowly moving up and down, and occasionally trilling-out their shrill

laughter-like cry. Often a pair of Burrowing-Owls also live in the

village, occupying one of the lesser disused burrows; and round them all

flit half a dozen little Swallows, like twilight-moths with long black

wings. It is never quite a happy family, however, for the Owls always

hiss and snap at a Vizcacha if he comes too near; while the little

Swallows never become reconciled to the Owls, but perpetually flutter

about them, protesting against their presence with long complaining

notes.

 

The nest, made of dry grass lined with feathers, is placed at the

extremity of the long, straight, cylindrical burrow, and contains

five or six white pointed eggs. I have never seen these Swallows

fighting with the Minera to obtain possession of the burrows, for

this industrious little bird makes itself a fresh one every spring,

so that there are always houses enough for the Swallows. After the

young have flown, they sit huddled together on a weed or thistle-top,

and the parents continue to feed them for many days.

 

As in size and brightness of plumage, so in language is the Bank-Swallow

inferior to other species, its only song being a single, weak, trilling

note, much prolonged, which the bird repeats with great frequency when

on the wing. Its voice has ever a mournful, monotonous sound, and even

when it is greatly excited and alarmed, as at the approach of a fox or

hawk, its notes are neither loud nor shrill. When flying they glide

along close to the earth, and frequently alight on the ground to rest,

which is contrary to the custom of other Swallows. Like other species

of this family, they possess the habit of gliding to and fro before a

traveller's horse, to catch the small twilight-moths driven up from the

grass. A person riding on the pampas usually has a number of Swallows

flying round him, and I have often thought that more than a hundred were

before my horse at one time; but, from the rapidity of their motions, it

is impossible to count them. I have frequently noticed individuals of

the four most common species following me together; but after sunset,

and when the other species have long forsaken the open grassy plain for

the shelter of trees and houses, the diminutive Bank-Swallow continues

to keep the traveller company. At such a time, as they glide about in

the dusk of evening, conversing together in low tremulous tones, they

have a peculiarly sorrowful appearance, seeming like homeless little

wanderers over the great level plains.

 

When the season of migration approaches they begin to congregate in

parties not very large, though sometimes as many as one or two hundred

individuals are seen together; these companies spend much of their time

perched close together on weeds, low trees, fences, or other slightly

elevated situations, and pay little heed to a person approaching, but

seem preoccupied or preyed upon by some trouble that has no visible

cause.

 

The time immediately preceding the departure of the Swallows is indeed

a season of very deep interest to the observer of nature. The birds in

many cases seem to forget the attachment of the sexes and their songs

and aerial recreations; they already begin to feel the premonitions of

that marvellous instinct that urges them hence: not yet an irresistible

impulse, it is a vague sense of disquiet; but its influence is manifest

in their language and gestures, their wild manner of flight, and their

listless intervals.

 

The little Bank-Swallow disappears immediately after the Martins. Many

stragglers continue to be seen after the departure of the main body; but

before the middle of March not one remains, the migration of this

species being very regular.

31. ATTICORA FUCATA (Temm.). (BROWN MARTIN.)

 

+Cotyle fucata+, _Burm. La-Plata Reise_, ii. p. 478 (Mendoza);

      _Scl. et Salv. Nomencl._ p. 14; _White, P. Z. S._ 1882, p. 596

      (Corrientes), 1883, p. 37 (Cordova). +Atticora fucata+, _Sharpe,

      Cat. B._ x. p. 188.

 

    _Description._--Above brown; primary-coverts and quills blackish

    brown; tail-feathers dark brown; crown of head deep rufous, becoming

    clearer on the nape; cheeks, throat, and breast pale tawny; sides of

    body brown, tinged with rufous; centre of breast, abdomen, and under

    tail-coverts white; thighs, under wing-coverts, and axillaries

    brown: total length 4·6 inches, wing 4·15, tail 2·0. _Female_

    similar.

 

_Hab._ Guiana, Brazil, and Northern Argentina.

 

This Swallow is common near Mendoza, according to Prof. Burmeister.

White obtained it in May 1881 at Santo Tomé, Corrientes, and in 1882 at

Cosquin near Cordova. At Cosquin the first individual was seen on July

20th, but towards the end of August large numbers were observed, mostly

skimming over the river.