Friends Worth Knowing: Glimpses of American Natural History |
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abundant ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE animals Arctic Arvicola Baltimore oriole bank-swallow bark barn bill birds of prey bison Bison latifrons blackbirds bluebird breeding brood BROWN CREEPER buffalo burrows Cloth coast colors creeper crow domestic eggs enemies eyes feet female fields finches flight flocks forest Frank Buckland grass ground habits hawks herds holes hollow house-mouse Illustrations insects Jaculus larvæ leaves less male meadow-mouse meadows mice migration mollusks mouse Natural History nest night northern northward nuthatches orchard oriole owls pigeons plains plumage prairies prey purple martins redwing River Rocky Mountains season seems seen shell snails snakes snow snow-bird sometimes song song-sparrow sort sparrows species spots spring summer swallows tail thickets tion trees WAXWING weather West white-footed white-footed mouse whole wild wing winter birds winter wren woodpecker woods wren YELLOW-BIRD young
Popular passages
Page 86 - A good ornithologist should be able to distinguish birds by their air as well as by their colours and shape; on the ground as well as on the wing, and in the bush as well as in the hand. For, though it must not be said that every species of birds has a manner peculiar to itself, yet there is somewhat in most genera at least, that at first sight discriminates them, and enables a judicious observer to pronounce upon them with some certainty.
Page 250 - HOMES WITHOUT HANDS; a Description of the Habitations of Animals, classed according to their Principle of Construction.
Page 65 - ... familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes. It could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one day, it ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept the latter close, and dodged and played at bopeep with it; and when at last I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and finger, it came and nibbled...
Page 23 - Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow ; But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow.
Page 55 - When Winter fringes every bough With his fantastic wreath. And puts the seal of silence now Upon the leaves beneath; When every stream in its penthouse Goes gurgling on its way, And in his gallery the mouse Nibbleth the meadow hay; Methinks the summer still is nigh, And lurketh underneath. As that same meadow-mouse doth lie Snug in that last year's heath.
Page 214 - ... brood with exhausting labor, like yonder Robin, whose winged picturesque day is spent in putting worms into insatiable beaks, at the rate of one morsel in every three minutes. He has to teach them to fly, as among the Swallows, or even to hunt, as among the Hawks. His life is anchored to his home. Yonder Oriole fills with light and melody the thousand branches of a neighborhood ; and yet the centre for all this divergent splendor is always that one drooping dome upon one chosen tree.
Page 247 - Illustrations. Cr. 8vo. 7s. 6d. Prairie and Forest. A description of the Game of North America, with Personal Adventures in its Pursuit.
Page 242 - ... in the original workmanship. The bird, in fact, always uses its own body to determine the proportions of the gallery, — the part from the thigh to the head forming the radius of the circle. It does not trace this out, as we should do, by fixing a point for the centre around which to draw the circumference ; on the contrary, it perches on the circumference with its claws, and works with its bill from the centre outwards ; and hence...
Page 67 - Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste An' weary winter comin' fast, An' cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till, crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell. That wee bit heap o' leaves an' stibble Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Page 65 - The mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said to have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind not found in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before ; and it soon became...