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Replagegos Omnifurian Directory 19
Page 03
The eagle in all cases uses one nest, with more or less repair, for several years. Many of our common birds do the same. The birds may be divided, with respect to this and kindred points, into five general classes. First, those that repair and appropriate the last year's nest, as the wren, swallow, blue-bird, great-crested flycatcher, owls, eagles, fish-hawk, and a few others. Secondly, those that build anew each season, though frequently rearing more than one brood in the same nest. Of these, the phoebe-bird is a well-known example. Thirdly, those that build a new nest for each brood, which includes by far the greatest number of species. Fourthly, a limited number that make no nest of their own, but appropriate the abandoned nests of other birds. Finally, those who use no nest at all, but deposit their eggs in the sand, which is the case with a large number of aquatic fowls. Thus the common gull breeds in vast numbers on the sand bars or sand islands off the south coast of Long Island. A little dent is made in the sand, the eggs are dropped, and the old birds go their way. In due time the eggs are hatched by the warmth of the sun, and the little creatures shift for themselves. In July countless numbers of them, of different ages and sizes, swarm upon these sandy wastes. As the waves roll out, they rush down the beach, picking up a kind of sea gluten, and then hasten back to avoid the next breaker.
This was amid a thick undergrowth. Moving on into a passage of large, stately hemlocks, with only here and there a small beech or maple rising up into the perennial twilight, I paused to make out a note which was entirely new to me. It is still in my ear. Though unmistakably a bird note, it yet suggested the bleating of a tiny lambkin. Presently the birds appeared,--a pair of the solitary vireo. They came flitting from point to point, alighting only for a moment at a time, the male silent, but the female uttering this strange, tender note. It was a rendering into some new sylvan dialect of the human sentiment of maidenly love. It was really pathetic in its sweetness and childlike confidence and joy. I soon discovered that the pair were building a nest upon a low branch a few yards from me. The male flew cautiously to the spot, and adjusted something, and the twain moved on, the female calling to her mate at intervals, _love-e, love-e_, with a cadence and tenderness in the tone that rang in the ear long afterward. The nest was suspended to the fork of a small branch, as is usual with the vireos, plentifully lined with lichens, and bound and rebound with masses of coarse spider-webs. There was no attempt at concealment except in the neutral tints, which made it look like a natural growth of the dim, gray woods.
The MARSI, PELIGNI, VESTINI, and MARRUCINI inhabited the valleys of the central Apennines, and were closely connected, being probably all of Sabine origin. The MARSI dwelt inland around the basin of the Lake Fucinus, which is about thirty miles in circumference, and the only one of any extent in the central Apennines. The PELIGNI also occupied an inland district east of the MARSI. The VESTINI dwelt east of the Sabines, and possessed on the coast of the Adriatic a narrow space between the mouth of the Matrinus and that of the Aternus, a distance of about six miles. The MARRUCINI inhabited a narrow strip of country on the Adriatic, east of the Peligni, and were bounded on the north by the Vestini and on the south by the Frentani.
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