The Swamp Sparrow (Spiza palustris, Wils.), Volume 1, Plate 64

The watercolor carries the inscription: “Drawn from nature by Lucy Audubon, Mr. Havell will please have Lucy Audubon [sic] name on this plate instead of mine—.” Havell followed Audubon’s orders. The bird dates from 1812; the plant, a mandrake or may–apple, was possibly done at a later date and may be Audubon’s or his assistant Joseph Mason’s work.

Audubon had seen these diminutive sparrows in great numbers along the banks of the Mississippi River in 1820. If the plate was intended as a tribute to Lucy Audubon, it is not immediately clear why Audubon picked such an unremarkable species and why he chose to depict it sitting on a plant whose roots and leaves, though they can cure warts, were also known to be poisonous. Dwarfed by the may-apple’s blossom and its umbrella-shaped leaves, the tough little bird-a male, but as self-sufficient as Lucy was-looks skeptically at the viewer. Was the ambiguous may-apple a metaphor for Audubon and his madcap and (from the long-suffering Lucy’s perspective) toxic project to “paint all the Birds of America, life-sized”?

From John James Audubon’s Ornithological Biography

The shores and such flat sand-bars as are overgrown with grasses and rank weeds, along the Mississippi, from its mouth to a great height, as well as the swamps that occur in the woods, within a short distance from the margins of that river, are the resorts of the Swamp Sparrow, during autumn and winter. Although these birds do not congregate in flocks, their numbers are immense. They form the principal food of the many Sparrow Hawks, Pigeon Hawks, and Hen-harriers, which follow them as well as several other species, on their return from the Middle Districts, where they go towards spring, for the purpose of breeding. In those districts they continue to prefer low swampy places, damp meadows, and the margins of creeks and rivers.

It is a timid species, destitute of song, and merely uttering a single cheep, which is now and then heard during the day, but more frequently towards evening. They skulk along the weeds with activity, and feed principally upon the seeds of grasses, with a few insects, sometimes wading in shallow water. When wounded and forced to fall in the stream, they swim off to the nearest tuft of grass and hide in it. Their flight is short, low, and assisted by strong jerking motions of the body and tail, accompanied by a rustling of the wings. They alight by dropping suddenly amongst the weeds, seldom making towards a high tree. They are rarely if ever met with in dry woodlands.