Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The Hair-Bird has a singular habit of sitting upon the ground, while chirping in the early morning. His nest is placed commonly upon an apple-tree, sometimes in a bush, but never on the ground. It is very neatly constructed of the fibres of roots closely woven together, and beautifully lined with fine soft hair, whence he has obtained his name.
But if the Robin were supposed to represent the German flute, the Blue-Bird might be considered as the flageolet, frequently, but not incessantly, interposing a few mellow strains, the Swallow and the Hair-Bird the octave flute, and the Golden Robin the bugle, sounding occasionally a low but brief strain. The analogy could not be carried farther without losing force and correctness.
How little soever the Hair-Bird may generally be valued as a songster, his voice, I am sure, would be most sadly missed, were it never more to be heard charmingly blending with the other louder voices of the feathered choristers.
It is common to speak disparagingly of the little Hair-Bird, as if he were good for nothing, without beauty and without song, and, what is of still more consequence in the eyes of the sordid epicure, too small to be eaten, his weight of flesh not being worth a charge of powder and shot.
Yet the birds which most endear summer are not necessarily the finest performers; and certainly there is none whose note I could spare less easily than the little Chipping-Sparrow, called hereabouts the Hair-Bird.
The low, mellow warble of the Blue-Bird seems a sort of echo to the louder voice of the Robin; and the incessant trilling or running accompaniment of the Hair-Bird, the twittering of the Swallow, and the loud and melodious piping of the Oriole, frequent and short, are sounded like the different parts of a regular band of instruments, and each performer seems to time his part as if by design.
There sounds the sweet, low, long-continued trill of the little hair-bird, or chipping-sparrow, a suggestion of insect sounds in sultry summer, and produced, like them, by a slight fluttering of the wings against the sides: by-and-by we shall sometimes hear that same delicate rhythm burst the silence of the June midnights, and then, ceasing, make stillness more still.
His haunts are the pastures which have been half reduced to tillage, and are still partially filled with wild shrubbery; for he is not so familiar in his habits as the Hair-bird, that comes close up to our door-step, to find the crumbs that are swept from our tables.
We can never sufficiently rejoice that there are some birds too small to excite the avaricious feelings of these knights of the fowling-piece and the rifle. The Hair-Bird is not to be despised, except by epicures.
The little Hair-Bird, for example, is called the "Chipping-Sparrow," as if he were in the habit of making chips, like the Carpenter-Bird; and the Red Thrush is called the "Thrasher," which is a low corruption of Thrush, and would signify that the bird had some peculiar habit of threshing with his wings.
Word Of The Day