18 MY GARDEN ACQUAINTANCE. 



rarer visitant is the turtle-dove, whose pleasant coo (some 

 thing like the muffled crow of a cock from a coop covered 

 with snow) I have sometimes heard, and whom I once had 

 the good luck to see close by me in the mulberry-tree. The 

 wild-pigeon, once numerous, I have not seen for many 

 years.* Of savage birds, a hen-hawk now and then 

 quarters himself upon us for a few days, sitting sluggish 

 in a tree after a surfeit of poultry. One of them once 

 offered me a near shot from my study-window one drizzly 

 day for several hours. But it was Sunday, and I gave him 

 the benefit of its gracious truce of God. 



Certain birds have disappeared from our neighbourhood 

 within my memory. I remember when the whippoorwill 

 could be heard in Sweet Auburn. The night-hawk, once 

 common, is now rare. The brown thrush has moved 

 farther up country. For years I have not seen or heard 

 any of the larger owls, whose hooting was one of my boyish 

 terrors. The cliff-swallow, strange emigrant, that eastward 

 takes his way, has come and gone again in my time. The 

 bank-swallows, well-nigh innumerable during my boyhood, 

 no longer frequent the crumbly cliff of the gravel-pit by the 

 river. The barn-swallows, which once swarmed in our 

 barn, flashing through the dusty sunstreaks of the mow, 

 have been gone these many years. My father would lead 

 me out to see them gather on the roof, and take counsel 

 before their yearly migration, as Mr. White used to see 

 them at Selborne. Eheu, fugaces / Thank fortune, the 

 swift still glues his nest, and rolls his distant thunders 

 night and day in the wide-throated chimneys, still sprinkles 

 the evening air with his merry twittering. The populous 

 heronry in Fresh Pond meadows has been well-nigh broken 

 up, but still a pair or two haunt the old home, as the 

 gypsies of Ellangowan their ruined huts, and every evening 

 fly over us riverwards, clearing their throats with a hoarse 

 hawk as they go, and, in cloudy weather, scarce higher 

 than the tops of the chimneys. Sometimes I have known 

 one to alight in one of our trees, though for what purpose 

 * They made their appearance again this summer (1870). 



