Volume 2

American ornithology; or the natural history of the birds of the United States / By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte. Edited by Robert Jameson.

  • Alexander Wilson
Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: American ornithology; or the natural history of the birds of the United States / By Alexander Wilson and Charles Lucian Bonaparte. Edited by Robert Jameson. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    47/354 (page 31)
    [September,] the birds quite disappeared; since which I have not observed a single individual. Though I was not so fortunate as to be present at their general assembly and council when they concluded to take their departure, nor did I see them commence their flight, yet I am fully persuaded that none of them remain in any of our chimneys here. I have had access to Ross’s chimney where they last resorted, and could see the lights out from bottom to top, without the least vestige or appearance of any birds. Mary Ross also informed me, that they have had their chimneys swept previous to their making fires, and, though late in autumn, no birds have been found there. Chimneys, also, which have not been used, have been ascended by sweeps in the winter without discovering any. Indeed, all of them are swept every fall and winter, and I have never heard of the swallows being found in either a dead, living, or torpid state. As to the court-house, it has been occupied as a place of worship two or three times a-week for several weeks past, and at those times there has been fire in the stoves, the pipes of them both going into the chimney, which is shut up at bottom by brick work: and, as the birds had forsaken that place, it remains pretty certain that they did not return there; and, if they did, the smoke, I think, would be deleterious to their existence, especially as I never knew them to resort to kitchen chimneys where fire was kept in the summer. I think I have noticed them enter such chimneys for the purpose of exploring ; but I have also noticed that they immediately ascended, and went off, on finding fire and smoke.” The chimney swallow is easily distinguished in air from the rest of its tribe here, by its leng wings, its short body, the quick and slight vibrations of its wings, and its wide unexpected diving rapidity of flight; shooting swiftly in various directions without any apparent motion of the wings, and uttering the sounds tsip tsip tsip tsee tsee in a hurried manner. In roost- ing, the thorny extremities of its tail are thrown in for its support. It is never ange to alight but in hollow