OCR Text |
Show 1871.] MR. W. H. HUDSON ON THE BIRDS OF BUENOS AYRES. 327 " The Hirundo leucorrhoa is the most common of our Swallows, and in its glossy coat of deep blue and green, with rump and under-plumage snowy white, is an elegant and beautiful bird. They are the last of all the migratory species to leave us in autumn, and invariably reappear in small numbers on every warm day in winter, so that some people do not believe that they leave us at all, but only retire to the more sheltered places when the weather is severe. In the winter of 1869 I saw three of them skimming over the plain on one of the coldest days I have ever experienced; the thermometer having stood at 29°Fahr. the preceding evening. But those that remain through the winter with us are apparently only a few individuals, while in the autumn myriads are seen passing north in their migration, and some years continue passing for upwards of a month. In April 1869, several days after all the Swallows of our five species had totally disappeared, flights of the kind I am describing began again to appear passing north ; and for ten days afterwards they continued to pass. They would descend to sip water from a pool where I watched them, alighting afterwards on the reeds and bushes to rest. Many of them appeared quite tired with their journey, rising reluctantly when approached, and some allowing me to stand within two yards of them without flying. I had never before observed any supplementary or later migration like this; and last autumn (1870) certainly nothing of the kind took place. Probably the migration of this species extends very far south ; at present they are passing in great numbers, and have been so passing for the last fifteen days. "They sometimes build in a tree, in the large nest, previously abandoned, of the Seiiatero (Anumbius acuticaudatus). I have had occasion before, and shall have it again in descriptions of other species, to mention that interesting bird and its great nest. " It is, however, under the eaves of houses that these Swallows principally breed ; and there is not a house on the pampas, however humble it be, but some of these birds are about it, sportively skimming over and about the roof or curiously peering under the eaves and incessantly uttering their gurgling, happy notes. Indeed their fondness for being close to a house is so remarkably strong that in their longest excursions they are seldom more than five minutes absent from it. " For a month or six weeks before they begin to build, they seem to be holding an incessant dispute; and however many eligible chinks and holes there may be, the contention is always just as great among them, and is doubtless referable to opposing claims to the best places. The excited twittering, the constant striving of two birds to alight on the same square inch of wall, and the chases they lead each other round and round the house, that always end exactly where they began, tell of clashing interests and great unreasonableness on the part of some among them. By-and-by the quarrel takes a more serious aspect; apparently every argument of which a Swallow is capable has been exhausted, and a compromise more impossible than ever, and so fighting begins. Most vindictively do the little things clutch each |