Love's Meinie Part 11

Hirundo Rustica. G. and Y.

Chimney-Swallow. B.

III.

143. HIRUNDO MONASTICA. MARTLET.

Hirundo Urbica. L.

Hirondelle de Fenetre. F.

Kirch-schwalbe. (Church-Swallow.) T.

Balestruccio. I.

Chelidon Urbica. D. and G.

Hirundo Urbica. Martin. Y.

Martlet, Martinet, or Window-Swallow. Y.

I cannot get at the root of this word, 'Martlet,' which is the really cla.s.sical and authoritative English one. I have called it Monastica, in translation of Shakspeare's "temple-haunting." The main idea about this bird, among people who have any ideas, seems to be that it haunts and builds among grander ma.s.ses or clefts of wall than the common Swallow.

Thus the Germans, besides Church-Swallow, call it wall,--rock,--roof,--or window, swallow, and Mur-Spyren, or Munster Spyren. (Wall-walker?

Minster-walker?) But by the people who have no ideas, the names 'town'

and 'country,' 'urbica' and 'rustica,' have been accepted as indicating the practical result, that a bird which likes walls will live in towns, and one which is content with eaves may remain in farms and villages, and under their straw-built sheds.

My name, Monastica, is farther justified by the Dominican severity of the bird's dress, dark gray-blue and white only; while the Domestica has a red cap and light brown bodice, and much longer tail. As far as I remember, the bird I know best is the Monastica. I have seen it in happiest flocks in all-monastic Abbeville, playing over the Somme in morning sunlight, das.h.i.+ng deep through the water at every stoop, like a hardcast stone.

IV.

144. HIRUNDO RIPARIA. BANK MARTLET.

Hirundo Riparia. L.

Hirondelle de Rivage. F.

Rhein-schwalbe, (Rhine-Swallow,)--ufer-schwalbe, (Sh.o.r.e-Swallow,)--erd-schwalbe, (Earth-Swallow). T.

Topino, (The mouse-color.)--Rondine de riva. I.

Cotyle Riparia. G. Hirundo Riparia. Y.

Bank-Martin. B.

The Italian name, 'Topino,' is a good familiar one, the bird being scarcely larger than a mouse, and "the head, neck, breast, and back of a mouse-color." (B.) It is the smallest of the Swallow tribe, and shortest of wing; accordingly, I find Spallanzani's experiment on the rate of swallow-flight was, for greater certainty and severity, made with this apparently feeblest of its kind:--a marked Topino, brought from its nest at Pavia to Milan, (fifteen miles,) flew back to Pavia in thirteen minutes. I imagine a Swift would at least have doubled this rate of flight, and that we may safely take a hundred miles an hour as an average of swallow-speed. This, however, is less by three-fifths than Michelet's estimate. See above, Lecture II., -- 48.

I have subst.i.tuted 'bank' for 'sand' in the English name, since all the six quoted authorities give it this epithet in Latin or French, and Bewick in English. Also, it may be well thus to distinguish it from birds of the sea-sh.o.r.e.

V.

145. HIRUNDO SAGITTA. SWIFT.

Hirundo Apus. L.

Martinet Noir. F.

Geyr-schwalbe. (Vulture-Swallow.) T.

Rondone. (Plural, Rondini.) I.

Cypselus Apus. G. and Y.

Swift, Black Martin, or Deviling. B.

I think it will be often well to admit the license of using a substantive for epithet, (as one says rock-bird or sea-bird, and not 'rocky,' or 'marine,') in Latin as well as in English. We thus greatly increase our power, and a.s.sist the brevity of nomenclature; and we gain the convenience of using the second term by itself, when we wish to do so, more naturally. Thus, one may shortly speak of 'The Sagitta' (when one is on a scientific point where 'Swift' would be indecorous!) more easily than one could speak of 'The Stridula,' or 'The Velox,' if we gave the bird either of those epithets. I think this of Sagitta is the most descriptive one could well find; only the reader is always to recollect that arrow-birds must be more heavy in the head or shaft than arrow-weapons, and fly more in the manner of rifle-shot than bow-shot.

See Lecture II., ---- 46, 67, 71, in which last paragraph, however, I have to correct the careless statement, that in the sailing flight, without stroke, of the larger falcons, their weight ever acts like the _string_ of a kite. Their weight acts simply as the _weight_ of a kite acts, and no otherwise. (Compare -- 65.) The impulsive force in sailing can be given only by the tail feathers, like that of a darting trout by the tail fin. I do not think any excuse necessary for my rejection of the name which seems most to have established itself lately, 'Cypselus Apus,' 'Footless Capsule.' It is not footless, and there is no sense in calling a bird a capsule because it lives in a hole, (which the Swift does not.) The Greeks had a double idea in the word, which it is not the least necessary to keep; and Aristotle's cypselus is not the swift, but the bank-martlet--"they bring up their young in cells made out of clay, _long_ in the entrance." The swift being precisely the one of the Hirundines which does _not_ make its nest of clay, but of miscellaneous straws, threads, and shreds of any adaptable rubbish, which it can s.n.a.t.c.h from the ground as it stoops on the wing,[26] or pilfer from any half-ruined nests of other birds.

[26] "I have in different times and places opened ten or twelve swifts' nests; in all of them I found the same materials, and these consisting of a great variety of substances--stalks of corn, dry gra.s.s, moss, hemp, bits of cord, threads of silk and linen, the tip of an ermine's tail, small shreds of gauze, of muslin and other light stuffs, the feathers of domestic birds, _charcoal_,--in short, whatever they can find in the sweepings of towns."--Buffon.

Belon a.s.serts (Buffon does not venture to guarantee the a.s.sertion), that "they will descry a fly at the distance of a quarter of a league"!

'Cotyle' is only a synonym for Cypselus, enabling ornithologists to become farther unintelligible. We will be troubled no more either with cotyles or capsules, but recollect simply that Hirundo, [Greek: chelidon], swallow, schwalbe, and hirondelle, are in each language the sufficing single words for the entire Hirundine race.

VI.

146. HIRUNDO ALPINA. ALPINE SWIFT.

Hirundo Melba. L.

Le grand Martinet a Ventre Blanc. F.

Cypselus Melba. G.

Cypselus Alpinus. Y.

Alpine Swift,--White-bellied Swift. Y.

Not in Bewick.

I cannot find its German name. The Italians compare it with the sea-swallow, which is a gull. What 'Melba' means, or ever meant, I have no conception.

The bird is the n.o.blest of all the swallow tribe--nearly as large as a hawk, and lives high in air, nothing but rocks or cathedrals serving it for nest. In France, seen only near the Alps; in Spain, among the mountains of Aragon. "Almost every person who has had an opportunity of observing this bird speaks in terms of admiration of its vast powers of flight; it is not surprising, therefore, that an individual should now and then wing its way across the Channel to the British Islands, and roam over our meads and fields until it is shot." (G.) It is, I believe, the swallow of the Bible,--abundant, though only a summer migrant, in the Holy Land. I have never seen it, that I know of, nor thought of it in the lecture on the Swallow; but give here the complete series of Hirundines, of which some notice may incidentally afterwards occur in the text.

VII.

147. NOCTUA EUROPaeA. NIGHT-JAR OF EUROPE.

Caprimulgus Europaeus. L.

L'Engoulevent. F. (c.r.a.paud-volant, popular.) Geissmelcher.--Nacht-schade. T.

Covaterra. I.

Caprimulgus Europaeus. G. and Y.

Night-jar. B.

Dorrhawk and Fern-owl, also given by Bewick, are the most beautiful English names for this bird; but as it is really neither a hawk nor an owl, though much mingled in its manners of both, I keep the usual one, Night-jar, euphonious for Night-Churr, from its continuous note like the sound of a spinning wheel. The idea of its sucking goats, or any other milky creature, has long been set at rest; and science, intolerant of legends in which there is any use or beauty, cannot be allowed to ratify in its dog or pig-Latin those which are eternally vulgar and profitless. I had first thought of calling it Hirundo Nocturna; but this would be too broad ma.s.sing; for although the creature is more swallow than owl, living wholly on insects, it must be properly held as a distinct species from both. Owls cannot gape like constrictors; nor have swallows whiskers or beards, or combs to keep both in order with, on their middle toes. This bird's cat-like bristles at the base of the beak connect it with the bearded Toucans, and so also the toothed mandibles of the American cave-dwelling variety. I shall not want the word Noctua for the owls themselves, and it is a pretty and simple one for this tribe, enabling the local epithet 'European,' and other necessary ones, of varieties, to be retained for the second or specific term. Nacht-schade, Night-_loss_, the popular German name, perhaps really still refers to this supposed nocturnal thieving; or may have fallen euphonious from Nacht-schwalbe, which in some places abides. 'c.r.a.paud-volant' is ugly, but descriptive, the brown speckling of the bird being indeed toadlike, though wonderful and beautiful. Bewick has put his utmost skill into it; and the cut, with the Bittern and White Owl, may perhaps stand otherwise unrivaled by any of his hand.

Gould's drawing of the bird on its ground nest, or ground contentedly taken for nest, among heath and scarlet-topped lichen, is among the most beautiful in his book; and there are four quite exquisite drawings by Mr. Ford, of African varieties, in Dr. Smith's zoology of South Africa. The one called by the doctor Europaeus seems a grayer and more graceful bird than ours. Natalensis wears a most wonderful dark oak-leaf pattern of cloak. Rufigena, I suppose, blushes herself separate from Ruficollis of Gould? but these foreign varieties seem countless. I shall never have time to examine them, but thought it not well to end the t.i.tular list of the swallows without notice of the position of this great tribe.

VIII.

148. MERULA FONTIUM. TORRENT-OUZEL.

Sturnus Cinclus. L.

Merle d'Eau. F.

Bach-Amsel. T.

Merla Aquaiola. I.