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-The Project Gutenberg eBook of Birds and their nests, by Mary Howitt
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
-will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
-using this eBook.
-
-Title: Birds and their nests
-
-Author: Mary Howitt
-
-Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68416]
-
-Language: English
-
-Produced by: Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
-             at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
-             generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
-             Libraries.)
-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS ***
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Notes
-
-Hyphenation has been standardised.
-
-For the CONTENTS on page v, Chapter IX—Peewits 51 was missed from
-print in the original, and has been added.
-
-The layout of the Contents continuation page on page vi, has been
-changed to replicate the layout of the previous Contents page.
-
-Page 41—changed cemetries to cemeteries.
-
-Page 55—changed artifical to artificial.
-
-
-
-
-BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.
-
-[Illustration: ROBIN AND NEST.]
-
-
-
-
-    BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS,
-
-    BY
-
-    MARY HOWITT.
-
-    [Illustration]
-
-    _With Twenty-three Full-page Illustrations by Harrison Weir._
-
-    NEW YORK:
-    GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, 416, BROOME STREET.
-    London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 9, Paternoster Row.
-
-    _All rights reserved._
-
-[Illustration: WATSON AND HAZELL,
-
-_Printers_,
-
-London and Aylesbury.]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CONTENTS.
-
-
-                                                                PAGE
-
-    Introductory Chapter                                           1
-
-    Chapter    I.—THE WREN                                         8
-
-       ”      II.—THE GOLDFINCH                                   15
-
-       ”     III.—THE SONG THRUSH                                 20
-
-       ”      IV.—THE BLACKBIRD                                   26
-
-       ”       V.—THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL                      33
-
-       ”      VI.—THE NIGHTINGALE                                 37
-
-       ”     VII.—THE SKYLARK                                     42
-
-       ”    VIII.—THE LINNET                                      47
-
-       ”      IX.—THE PEEWIT                                      51
-
-       ”       X.—HOUSE-MARTINS, OR WINDOW-SWALLOWS, AND NESTS    56
-
-       ”      XI.—CHIFF-CHAFFS, OR OVEN-BUILDERS, AND NEST        66
-
-       ”     XII.—GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST                   70
-
-       ”    XIII.—WAGTAIL AND NEST                                76
-
-       ”     XIV.—JACKDAW AND NESTLINGS                           82
-
-       ”      XV.—SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST                   86
-
-       ”     XVI.—WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST                           92
-
-       ”    XVII.—WHITE-THROAT AND NEST                           98
-
-       ”   XVIII.—BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS                       102
-
-       ”     XIX.—MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST                       106
-
-       ”      XX.—YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD, AND NEST        112
-
-       ”     XXI.—MAGPIE AND NEST                                116
-
-       ”    XXII.—NUTHATCH AND NEST                              120
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-_Birds and their Nests._
-
-
-
-
-INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
-
-
-The birds in these pictures of ours have all nests, which is as it
-should be; for how could the bird rear its young without its little
-home and soft little bed, any more than children could be comfortably
-brought up without either a bed to lie upon, or a home in which to be
-happy.
-
-Birds-nests, though you may find them in every bush, are wonderful
-things. Let us talk about them. They are all alike in the purpose for
-which they are intended, but no two families of birds build exactly
-alike; all the wrens, for instance, have their kind of nest; the
-thrushes have theirs; so has the swallow tribe; so has the sparrow,
-or the rook. They do not imitate one another, but each adheres to its
-own plan, as God, the great builder and artist, as well as Creator,
-taught them from the very beginning. The first nightingale, that sang
-its hymn of joyful thanksgiving in the Garden of Paradise, built
-its nest just the same as the bird you listened to last year in the
-coppice. The materials were there, and the bird knew how to make use
-of them; and that is perhaps the most wonderful part of it, for she
-has no implements to work with: no needle and thread, no scissors, no
-hammer and nails; nothing but her own little feet and bill, and her
-round little breast, upon which to mould it; for it is generally the
-mother-bird which is the chief builder.
-
-No sooner is the nest wanted for the eggs which she is about to lay,
-than the hitherto slumbering faculty of constructiveness is awakened,
-and she selects the angle of the branch, or the hollow in the bank or
-in the wall, or the tangle of reeds, or the platform of twigs on the
-tree-top, exactly the right place for her, the selection being always
-the same according to her tribe, and true to the instinct which was
-implanted in her at the first.
-
-So the building begins: dry grass or leaves, little twigs and
-root-fibres, hair or down, whether of feather or winged seed, spangled
-outside with silvery lichen, or embroidered with green mosses, less
-for beauty, perhaps—though it is so beautiful—than for the birds’
-safety, because it so exactly imitates the bank or the tree-trunk in
-which it is built. Or it may be that her tenement is clay-built, like
-that of the swallow; or lath and plaster, so to speak, like an old
-country house, as is the fashion of the magpie; or a platform of rude
-sticks, like the first rudiment of a basket up in the tree-branches, as
-that of the wood-pigeon: she may be a carpenter like the woodpecker,
-a tunneller like the sand-martin; or she may knead and glue together
-the materials of her nest, till they resemble thick felt; but in all
-this she is exactly what the great Creator made her at first, equally
-perfect in skill, and equally undeviating year after year. This is very
-wonderful, so that we may be quite sure that the sparrow’s nest, which
-David remarked in the house of God, was exactly the same as the sparrow
-built in the days of the blessed Saviour, when He, pointing to that
-bird, made it a proof to man that God’s Providence ever watches over
-him.
-
-[Sidenote: _Jules Michelet on Birds._]
-
-Nevertheless, with this unaltered and unalterable working after one
-pattern, in every species of bird, there is a choice or an adaptation
-of material allowed: thus the bird will, within certain limits, select
-that which is fittest for its purpose, producing, however, in the end,
-precisely the same effect. I will tell you what Jules Michelet, a
-French writer, who loves birds as we do, writes on this subject:—“The
-bird in building its nest,” he says, “makes it of that beautiful
-cup-like or cradle form by pressing it down, kneading it and shaping
-it upon her own breast.” He says, as I have just told you, that the
-mother-bird builds, and that the he-bird is her purveyor. He fetches in
-the materials: grasses, mosses, roots, or twigs, singing many a song
-between whiles; and she arranges all with loving reference; first,
-to the delicate egg which must be bedded in soft material; then to
-the little one which, coming from the egg naked, must not only be
-cradled in soft comfort, but kept alive by her warmth. So the he-bird,
-supposing it to be a linnet, brings her some horse-hair: it is stiff
-and hard; nevertheless, it is proper for the purpose, and serves as a
-lower stratum of the nest—a sort of elastic mattress: he brings her
-hemp; it is cold, but it serves for the same purpose. Then comes the
-covering and the lining; and for this nothing but the soft silky fibre
-of certain plants, wool or cotton, or, better still, the down from her
-own breast, will satisfy her. It is interesting, he says, to watch the
-he-bird’s skilful and furtive search for materials; he is afraid if he
-see you watching, that you may discover the track to his nest; and, in
-order to mislead you, he takes a different road back to it. You may see
-him following the sheep to get a little lock of wool, or alighting in
-the poultry yard on the search for dropped feathers. If the farmer’s
-wife chance to leave her wheel, whilst spinning in the porch, he steals
-in for a morsel of flax from the distaff. He knows what is the right
-kind of thing; and let him be in whatever country he may, he selects
-that which answers the purpose; and the nest which is built is that of
-the linnet all the world over.
-
-Again he tells us, that there are other birds which, instead of
-building, bring up their young underground, in little earth cradles
-which they have prepared for them. Of building-birds, he thinks the
-queerest must be the flamingo, which lays her eggs on a pile of mud
-which she has raised above the flooded earth, and, standing erect all
-the time, hatches them under her long legs. It does seem a queer,
-uncomfortable way; but if it answer its end, we need not object to it.
-Of carpenter-birds, he thinks the thrush is the most remarkable; other
-writers say the woodpecker. The shore-birds plait their nests, not very
-skilfully it is true, but sufficiently well for their purpose. They
-are clothed by nature with such an oily, impermeable coat of plumage,
-that they have little need to care about climate; they have enough to
-do to look after their fishing, and to feed themselves and their young;
-for all these sea-side families have immense appetites.
-
-[Sidenote: _How various Birds Build._]
-
-Herons and storks build in a sort of basket-making fashion; so do the
-jays and the mocking birds, only in a much better way; but as they
-have all large families they are obliged to do so. They lay down, in
-the first place, a sort of rude platform, upon which they erect a
-basket-like nest of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry
-twigs strongly woven together. The little golden-crested wren hangs her
-purse-like nest to a bough, and, as in the nursery song, “When the wind
-blows the cradle rocks.” An Australian bird, a kind of fly-catcher,
-called there the razor-grinder, from its note resembling the sound of
-a razor-grinder at work, builds her nest on the slightest twig hanging
-over the water, in order to protect it from snakes which climb after
-them. She chooses for her purpose a twig so slender that it would not
-bear the weight of the snake, and thus she is perfectly safe from her
-enemy. The same, probably, is the cause why in tropical countries,
-where snakes and monkeys, and such bird-enemies abound, nests are so
-frequently suspended by threads or little cords from slender boughs.
-
-The canary, the goldfinch, and chaffinch, are skilful cloth-weavers
-or felt makers; the latter, restless and suspicious, speckles the
-outside of her nest with a quantity of white lichen, so that it
-exactly imitates the tree branch on which it is placed, and can hardly
-be detected by the most accustomed eye. Glueing and felting play an
-important part in the work of the bird-weavers. The humming-bird, for
-instance, consolidates her little house with the gum of trees. The
-American starling sews the leaves together with her bill; other birds
-use not only their bills, but their feet. Having woven a cord, they fix
-it as a web with their feet, and insert the weft, as the weaver would
-throw his shuttle, with their bill. These are genuine weavers. In fine,
-their skill never fails them. The truth is, that the great Creator
-never gives any creature work to do without giving him at the same time
-an inclination to do it—which, in the animal, is instinct—and tools
-sufficient for the work, though they may be only the delicate feet and
-bill of the bird.
-
-And now, in conclusion, let me describe to you the nest of the little
-English long-tailed titmouse as I saw it many years ago, and which I
-give from “Sketches of Natural History”:—
-
-[Sidenote: _The Titmouse’s Nest._]
-
-        There, where those boughs of blackthorn cross,
-        Behold that oval ball of moss;
-        Observe it near, all knit together,
-        Moss, willow-down, and many a feather,
-        And filled within, as you may see,
-        As full of feathers as can be;
-        Whence it is called by country folk,
-        A fitting name, the feather-poke;
-        But learned people, I have heard,
-        _Parus caudatus_ call the bird.
-        Yes, here’s a nest! a nest indeed,
-        That doth all other nests exceed,
-        Propped with the blackthorn twigs beneath,
-        And festooned with a woodbine wreath!
-        Look at it close, all knit together,
-        Moss, willow-down, and many a feather;
-        So soft, so light, so wrought with grace,
-        So suited to this green-wood place,
-        And spangled o’er, as with the intent
-        Of giving fitting ornament,
-        With silvery flakes of lichen bright,
-        That shine like opals, dazzling white.
-        Think only of the creature small,
-        That wrought this soft and silvery ball,
-        Without a tool to aid her skill,
-        Nought but her little feet and bill—
-        Without a pattern whence to trace
-        This little roofed-in dwelling place—
-        And does not in your bosom spring
-        Love for this skilful little thing?
-        See, there’s a window in the wall;
-        Peep in, the house is not so small,
-        But snug and cosy you shall see
-        A very numerous family!
-        Now count them: one, two, three, four, five—
-        Nay, _sixteen_ merry things alive—
-        Sixteen young, chirping things all sit,
-        Where you, your wee hand, could not get!
-        I’m glad you’ve seen it, for you never
-        Saw ought before so soft and clever.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I.
-
-THE WREN.
-
-
-Truly the little Wren, so beautifully depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir,
-with her tiny body, her pretty, lively, and conceited ways, her short,
-little turned-up tail, and delicate plumage, is worthy of our tender
-regard and love.
-
-The colouring of the wren is soft and subdued—a reddish-brown colour;
-the breast of a light greyish-brown; and all the hinder parts, both
-above and below, marked with wavy lines of dusky-brown, with two bands
-of white dots across the wings.
-
-Its habits are remarkably lively and attractive. “I know no pleasanter
-object,” says the agreeable author of “British Birds,” “than the wren;
-it is always so smart and cheerful. In gloomy weather other birds
-often seem melancholy, and in rain the sparrows and finches stand
-silent on the twigs, with drooping wings and disarranged plumage; but
-to the merry little wren all weathers are alike. The big drops of the
-thunder-shower no more wet it than the drizzle of a Scotch mist; and as
-it peeps from beneath the bramble, or glances from a hole in the wall,
-it seems as snug as a kitten frisking on the parlour rug.”
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  WRENS AND NEST.      [Page 8.
-]
-
-[Sidenote: _A Builder of Many Nests._]
-
-“It is amusing,” he continues, “to watch the motions of a young family
-of wrens just come abroad. Walking among furze, broom, or juniper, you
-are attracted to some bush by hearing issue from it the frequent
-repetition of a sound resembling the syllable _chit_. On going up you
-perceive an old wren flitting about the twigs, and presently a young
-one flies off, uttering a stifled _chirr_, to conceal itself among the
-bushes. Several follow, whilst the parents continue to flutter about
-in great alarm, uttering their _chit, chit_, with various degrees of
-excitement.”
-
-The nest of the wren is a wonderful structure, of which I shall have a
-good deal to say. It begins building in April, and is not by any means
-particular in situation. Sometimes it builds in the hole of a wall
-or tree; sometimes, as in this lovely little picture of ours, in the
-mossy hollow of a primrose-covered bank; and because it was formerly
-supposed to live only in holes or little caves, it received the name of
-_Troglodytes_, or cave-dweller. But it builds equally willingly in the
-thatch of out-buildings, in barn-lofts, or tree-branches, either when
-growing apart or nailed against a wall, amongst ivy or other climbing
-plants; in fact, it seems to be of such a happy disposition as to adapt
-itself to a great variety of situations. It is a singular fact that it
-will often build several nests in one season—not that it needs so many
-separate dwellings, or that it finishes them when built; but it builds
-as if for the very pleasure of the work. Our naturalist says, speaking
-of this odd propensity, “that, whilst the hen is sitting, the he-bird,
-as if from a desire to be doing something, will construct as many as
-half-a-dozen nests near the first, none of which, however, are lined
-with feathers; and that whilst the true nest, on which the mother-bird
-is sitting, will be carefully concealed, these sham nests are open
-to view. Some say that as the wrens, during the cold weather, sleep
-in some snug, warm hole, they frequently occupy these extra nests as
-winter-bedchambers, four or five, or even more, huddling together, to
-keep one another warm.”
-
-Mr. Weir, a friend of the author I have just quoted, says this was the
-case in his own garden; and that, during the winter, when the ground
-was covered with snow, two of the extra nests were occupied at night by
-a little family of seven, which had hatched in the garden. He was very
-observant of their ways, and says it was amusing to see one of the old
-wrens, coming a little before sunset and standing a few inches from the
-nest, utter his little cry till the whole number of them had arrived.
-Nor were they long about it; they very soon answered the call, flying
-from all quarters—the seven young ones and the other parent-bird—and
-then at once nestled into their snug little dormitory. It was also
-remarkable that when the wind blew from the east they occupied a nest
-which had its opening to the west, and when it blew from the west, then
-one that opened to the east, so that it was evident they knew how to
-make themselves comfortable.
-
-And now as regards the building of these little homes. I will, as far
-as I am able, give you the details of the whole business from the diary
-of the same gentleman, which is as accurate as if the little wren had
-kept it himself, and which will just as well refer to the little nest
-in the primrose bank as to the nest in the Spanish juniper-tree, where,
-in fact, it was built.
-
-[Sidenote: _How a Nest was built._]
-
-“On the 30th of May, therefore, you must imagine a little pair of
-wrens, having, after a great deal of consultation, made up their minds
-to build themselves a home in the branches of a Spanish juniper. The
-female, at about seven o’clock in the morning, laid the foundation
-with the decayed leaf of a lime-tree. Some men were at work cutting
-a drain not far off, but she took no notice of them, and worked away
-industriously, carrying to her work bundles of dead leaves as big
-as herself, her mate, seeming the while to be delighted with her
-industry, seated not far off in a Portugal laurel, where he watched
-her, singing to her, and so doing, making her labour, no doubt, light
-and pleasant. From eight o’clock to nine she worked like a little
-slave, carrying in leaves, and then selecting from them such as suited
-her purpose and putting aside the rest. This was the foundation of the
-nest, which she rendered compact by pressing it down with her breast,
-and turning herself round in it: then she began to rear the sides.
-And now the delicate and difficult part of the work began, and she
-was often away for eight or ten minutes together. From the inside she
-built the underpart of the aperture with the stalks of leaves, which
-she fitted together very ingeniously with moss. The upper part of it
-was constructed solely with the last-mentioned material. To round it
-and give it the requisite solidity, she pressed it with her breast and
-wings, turning the body round in various directions. Most wonderful to
-tell, about seven o’clock in the evening the whole outside workmanship
-of this snug little erection was almost complete.
-
-“Being very anxious to examine the interior of it, I went out for that
-purpose at half-past two the next morning. I introduced my finger,
-the birds not being there, and found its structure so close, that
-though it had rained in the night, yet that it was quite dry. The
-birds at this early hour were singing as if in ecstasy, and at about
-three o’clock the little he-wren came and surveyed his domicile with
-evident satisfaction; then, flying to the top of a tree, began singing
-most merrily. In half-an-hour’s time the hen-bird made her appearance,
-and, going into the nest, remained there about five minutes, rounding
-the entrance by pressing it with her breast and the shoulders of her
-wings. For the next hour she went out and came back five times with
-fine moss in her bill, with which she adjusted a small depression in
-the fore-part of it; then, after twenty minutes’ absence, returned
-with a bundle of leaves to fill up a vacancy which she had discovered
-in the back of the structure. Although it was a cold morning, with
-wind and rain, the male bird sang delightfully; but between seven and
-eight o’clock, either having received a reproof from his wife for his
-indolence, or being himself seized with an impulse to work, he began
-to help her, and for the next ten minutes brought in moss, and worked
-at the inside of the nest. At eleven o’clock both of them flew off,
-either for a little recreation, or for their dinners, and were away
-till a little after one. From this time till four o’clock both worked
-industriously, bringing in fine moss; then, during another hour, the
-hen-bird brought in a feather three times. So that day came to an end.
-
-“The next morning, June 1st, they did not begin their work early, as
-was evident to Mr. Weir, because having placed a slender leaf-stalk
-at the entrance, there it remained till half-past eight o’clock, when
-the two began to work as the day before with fine moss, the he-bird
-leaving off, however, every now and then to express his satisfaction on
-a near tree-top. Again, this day, they went off either for dinner or
-amusement; then came back and worked for another hour, bringing in fine
-moss and feathers.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Patient Industry of this Bird._]
-
-“The next morning the little he-wren seemed in a regular ecstasy,
-and sang incessantly till half-past nine, when they both brought in
-moss and feathers, working on for about two hours, and again they
-went off, remaining away an hour later than usual. Their work was now
-nearly over, and they seemed to be taking their leisure, when all at
-once the hen-bird, who was sitting in her nest and looking out at her
-door, espied a man half-hidden by an arbor vitæ. It was no other than
-her good friend, but that she did not know; all men were terrible,
-as enemies to her race, and at once she set up her cry of alarm. The
-he-bird, on hearing this, appeared in a great state of agitation, and
-though the frightful monster immediately ran off, the little creatures
-pursued him, scolding vehemently.
-
-“The next day they worked again with feathers and fine moss, and again
-went off after having brought in a few more feathers. So they did for
-the next five days; working leisurely, and latterly only with feathers.
-On the tenth day the nest was finished, and the little mother-bird laid
-her first egg in it.”
-
-Where is the boy, let him be as ruthless a bird-nester as he may, who
-could have the heart to take a wren’s nest, only to tear it to pieces,
-after reading the history of this patient labour of love?
-
-The wren, like various other small birds, cannot bear that their nests
-or eggs should be touched; they are always disturbed and distressed by
-it, and sometimes even will desert their nest and eggs in consequence.
-On one occasion, therefore, this good, kind-hearted friend of every
-bird that builds, carefully put his finger into a wren’s nest, during
-the mother’s absence, to ascertain whether the young were hatched; on
-her return, perceiving that the entrance had been touched, she set up
-a doleful lamentation, carefully rounded it again with her breast and
-wings, so as to bring everything into proper order, after which she and
-her mate attended to their young. These particular young ones, only six
-in number, were fed by their parents 278 times in the course of a day.
-This was a small wren-family; and if there had been twelve, or even
-sixteen, as is often the case, what an amount of labour and care the
-birds must have had! But they would have been equal to it, and merry
-all the time.
-
-    For all these little creatures, which so lightly we regard,
-    They love to do their duty, and they never think it hard.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II.
-
-THE GOLDFINCH.
-
-
-The Goldfinch, which is cousin to the Linnet, is wonderfully clever and
-docile, as I shall show you presently. In the first place, however, let
-me say a word or two about bird cleverness in general, which I copy
-from Jules Michelet’s interesting work, “The Bird.” Speaking of the
-great, cruel, and rapacious family of the _Raptores_, or Birds of Prey,
-he expresses satisfaction in the idea that this race of destroyers is
-decreasing, and that there may come a time when they no longer exist
-on the earth. He has no admiration for them, though they may be the
-swiftest of the swift, and the strongest of the strong, because they
-put forth none of the higher qualities of courage, address, or patient
-endurance in taking their prey, which are all weak and powerless in
-comparison with themselves; their poor unoffending victims. “All these
-cruel tyrants of the air,” he says, “like the serpents, have flattened
-skulls, which show the want of intellect and intelligence. These birds
-of prey, with their small brains, offer a striking contrast to the
-amiable and intelligent species which we find amongst the smaller
-birds. The head of the former is only a beak, that of the latter is a
-face.” Afterwards, to prove this more strongly, he gives a table to
-show the proportion of brain to the size of the body in these different
-species of birds. Thus the chaffinch, the sparrow, and the goldfinch,
-have more than six times as much brain as the eagle in proportion to
-the size of the body. We may look, therefore, for no less than six
-times his intelligence and docile ability. Whilst in the case of the
-little tomtit it is thirteen times as much.
-
-But now for the goldfinch, of which our cut—which is both faithful
-and beautiful—shows us a pair, evidently contemplating with much
-satisfaction the nest which they have just finished on one of the
-topmost boughs of a blossomy apple-tree. This nest is a wonderful
-little fabric, built of moss, dry grass, and slender roots, lined with
-hair, wool, and thistle-down; but the true wonder of the nest is the
-exact manner in which the outside is made to imitate the bough upon
-which it is placed. All its little ruggednesses and lichen growths
-are represented, whilst the colouring is so exactly that of the old
-apple-tree that it is almost impossible to know it from the branch
-itself. Wonderful ingenuity of instinct, which human skill would find
-it almost impossible to imitate!
-
-The bird lays mostly five eggs, which are of a bluish-grey, spotted
-with greyish-purple or brown, and sometimes with a dark streak or two.
-
-The goldfinch is one of the most beautiful of our English birds, with
-its scarlet forehead, and quaint little black velvet-like cap brought
-down over its white cheeks; its back is cinnamon brown, and its breast
-white; its wings are beautifully varied in black and white, as are also
-its tail feathers. In the midland counties it is known as “The Proud
-Tailor,” probably because its attire looks so bright and fresh, and it
-has a lively air as if conscious of being well dressed.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  GOLDFINCHES AND NEST.      [Page 16.
-]
-
-[Sidenote: _Daily Life of this Bird._]
-
-Like its relation, the linnet, it congregates in flocks as soon as
-its young can take wing, when they may be seen wheeling round in
-the pleasant late summer and autumn fields, full of life, and in
-the enjoyment of the plenty that surrounds them, in the ripened
-thistle-down, and all such winged seeds as are then floating in the air.
-
-How often have I said it is worth while to go out into the woods and
-fields, and, bringing yourself into a state of quietness, watch the
-little birds in their life’s employment, building their nests, feeding
-their young, or pursuing their innocent diversions! So now, on this
-pleasant, still autumn afternoon, if you will go into the old pasture
-fields where the thistles have not been stubbed up for generations, or
-on the margin of the old lane where ragwort, and groundsel, and burdock
-flourish abundantly, “let us,” as the author of “British Birds” says,
-“stand still to observe a flock of goldfinches. They flutter over the
-plants, cling to the stalks, bend in various attitudes, disperse the
-down, already dry and winged, like themselves, for flight, pick them
-out one by one and swallow them. Then comes a stray cow followed by a
-herd boy. At once the birds cease their labour, pause for a moment,
-and fly off in succession. You observe how lightly and buoyantly
-they cleave the air, each fluttering its little wings, descending in
-a curved line, mounting again, and speeding along. Anon they alight
-in a little thicket of dried weeds, and, in settling, display to the
-delighted eye the beautiful tints of their plumage, as with fluttering
-wings and expanded tail, they hover for a moment to select a landing
-place amid the prickly points of the stout thistles whose heads are now
-bursting with downy-winged seeds.”
-
-[Sidenote: _The Goldfinch._]
-
-The song of the goldfinch, which begins about the end of March, is
-very sweet, unassuming, and low—similar to that of the linnet, but
-singularly varied and pleasant.
-
-Now, however, we must give a few instances of this bird’s teachable
-sagacity, which, indeed, are so numerous that it is difficult to make a
-selection.
-
-Mr. Syme, in his “British Song Birds,” says, “The goldfinch is easily
-tamed and taught, and its capacity for learning the notes of other
-birds is well known. A few years ago the Sieur Roman exhibited a number
-of trained birds: they were goldfinches, linnets, and canaries. One
-appeared dead, and was held up by the tail or claw without exhibiting
-any signs of life; a second stood on its head with its claws in the
-air; a third imitated a Dutch milkmaid going to market with pails on
-its shoulders; a fourth mimicked a Venetian girl looking out at a
-window; a fifth appeared as a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel;
-whilst a sixth acted as a cannonier, with a cap on its head, a firelock
-on its shoulder, and a match in its claw, and discharged a small
-cannon. The same bird also acted as if it had been wounded. It was
-wheeled in a barrow as if to convey it to the hospital, after which
-it flew away before the whole company. The seventh turned a kind of
-windmill; and the last bird stood in the midst of some fireworks which
-were discharged all round it, and this without showing the least sign
-of fear.”
-
-Others, as I have said, may be taught to draw up their food and water,
-as from a well, in little buckets. All this is very wonderful, and
-shows great docility in the bird; but I cannot greatly admire it, from
-the secret fear that cruelty or harshness may have been used to teach
-them these arts so contrary to their nature. At all events it proves
-what teachable and clever little creatures they are, how readily they
-may be made to understand the will of their master, and how obediently
-and faithfully they act according to it.
-
-Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence to the
-animal world. In him the creatures should ever find their friend and
-protector; and were it so we should then see many an astonishing
-faculty displayed; and birds would then, instead of being the most
-timid of animals, gladden and beautify our daily life by their sweet
-songs, their affectionate regard, and their amusing and imitative
-little arts.
-
-[Sidenote: _Introduced into Pictures._]
-
-The early Italian and German painters introduce a goldfinch into their
-beautiful sacred pictures—generally on the ground—hopping at the feet
-of some martyred saint or love-commissioned angel, perhaps from an old
-legend of the bird’s sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an
-intuitive sense that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird
-and beast as well as to man.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III.
-
-THE SONG THRUSH.
-
-
-We have here a charming picture of one of the finest and noblest of
-our song-birds—the thrush, throstle, or mavis. The trees are yet
-leafless, but the bird is in the act of building, whilst her mate, on
-the tree-top, pours forth his exquisite melody. The almost completed
-nest, like a richly ornamented bowl, is before us.
-
-This bird belongs to a grandly musical family, being own cousin to the
-missel-thrush and the blackbird, each one having a kindred song, but
-all, at the same time, distinctly characteristic.
-
-The colouring of the thrush is soft and very pleasing; the upper parts
-of a yellowish-brown; the chin, white; the under part of the body,
-grayish white; the throat, breast, and sides of the neck, yellowish,
-thickly spotted with dark brown.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  SONG THRUSH AND NEST.      [Page 20.
-]
-
-The thrush remains with us the whole year, and may occasionally be
-heard singing even in the winter, though April, May, and June are the
-months when he is in fullest song. They pair in March, and by the end
-of that month, or early in April, begin to build. They have several
-broods in the year. The nest, which, as we see, is commodious, is
-placed at no great height from the ground, in a thick bush or hedge,
-and sometimes, also, in a rough bank, amongst bushes and undergrowth.
-They are particularly fond of spruce-fir plantations, building on
-one of the low, spreading branches, close to the stem. Though the
-structure is so solid and substantial, yet it is built very rapidly;
-indeed, the thrush seems to be wide awake in all its movements; he
-is no loiterer, and does his work well. As a proof of his expedition
-I will mention that a pair of these birds began to build a second,
-perhaps, indeed, it might be a third nest, on a Thursday, June 15; on
-Friday afternoon the nest was finished, and on Saturday morning the
-first egg was laid, though the interior plastering was not then dry. On
-the 21st the hen began to sit, and on the 17th of July the young birds
-were hatched.
-
-The frame-work, so to speak, of the nest is composed of twigs, roots,
-grasses, and moss, the two latter being brought to the outside. Inside
-it is lined with a thin plastering of mud, cow-dung, and rotten wood,
-which is laid on quite smoothly, almost like the glaze on earthenware;
-nor is there an internal covering between this and the eggs. The
-circular form of the nest is as perfect as a bowl shaped upon a
-lathe, and often contracts inwards at the top. The eggs, which are
-generally five in number, are of a bright blue-green, spotted over with
-brownish-black, these spots being more numerous at the larger end.
-
-The food of the thrush is mostly of an animal character, as worms,
-slugs, and snails; and, by seasides, small molluscs, as whelks and
-periwinkles. On all such as are enclosed in shells he exercises his
-ingenuity in a remarkable way. We ourselves lived at one time in an
-old house standing in an old garden where were many ancient trees and
-out-buildings, in the old ivied roots and walls of which congregated
-great quantities of shell-snails. One portion of this garden, which
-enclosed an old, disused dairy, was a great resort of thrushes, where
-they had, so to speak, their stones of sacrifice, around which lay
-heaps of the broken shells of snails, their victims. I have repeatedly
-watched them at work: hither they brought their snails, and, taking
-their stand by the stone with the snail in their beak, struck it
-repeatedly against the stone, till, the shell being smashed, they
-picked it out as easily as the oyster is taken from its opened shell.
-This may seem easy work with the slender-shelled snail, but the labour
-is considerably greater with hard shell-fish. On this subject the
-intelligent author of “British Birds” says, that many years ago, when
-in the Isle of Harris, he frequently heard a sharp sound as of one
-small stone being struck upon another, the cause of which he, for a
-considerable time, sought for in vain. At length, one day, being in
-search of birds when the tide was out, he heard the well-known click,
-and saw a bird standing between two flat stones, moving its head and
-body alternately up and down, each downward motion being accompanied
-by the sound which had hitherto been so mysterious. Running up to the
-spot, he found a thrush, which, flying off, left a whelk, newly-broken,
-lying amongst fragments of shells lying around the stone.
-
-Thrushes are remarkably clean and neat with regard to their nests,
-suffering no litter or impurity to lie about, and in this way are a
-great example to many untidy people. Their domestic character, too,
-is excellent, the he-bird now and then taking the place of the hen on
-the eggs, and, when not doing so, feeding her as she sits. When the
-young are hatched, the parents may be seen, by those who will watch
-them silently and patiently, frequently stretching out the wings of
-the young as if to exercise them, and pruning and trimming their
-feathers. To put their love of cleanliness to the proof, a gentleman,
-a great friend of all birds, had some sticky mud rubbed upon the backs
-of two of the young ones whilst the parents were absent. On their
-return, either by their own keen sense of propriety, or, perhaps, the
-complaint of the young ones, they saw what had happened, and were not
-only greatly disconcerted, but very angry, and instantly set to work to
-clean the little unfortunates, which, strange to say, they managed to
-do by making use of dry earth, which they brought to the nest for that
-purpose. Human intellect could not have suggested a better mode.
-
-[Sidenote: _How a Day was spent._]
-
-This same gentleman determined to spend a whole day in discovering how
-the thrushes spent it. Hiding himself, therefore, in a little hut of
-fir boughs, he began his observations in the early morning of the 8th
-of June. At half-past two o’clock, the birds began to feed their brood,
-and in two hours had fed them thirty-six times. It was now half-past
-five, the little birds were all wide awake, and one of them, whilst
-pruning its feathers, lost its balance and fell out of the nest to the
-ground. On this the old ones set up the most doleful lamentations, and
-the gentleman, coming out of his retreat, put the little one back into
-the nest. This kind action, however, wholly disconcerted the parents,
-nor did they again venture to feed their young till an artifice
-of the gentleman led them to suppose that he was gone from their
-neighbourhood. No other event happened to them through the day, and by
-half-past nine o’clock at night, when all went to rest, the young ones
-had been fed two hundred and six times.
-
-Thrushes, however, become occasionally so extremely tame that the
-female will remain upon her eggs and feed her young, without any
-symptom of alarm, in the close neighbourhood of man. Of this I will
-give an instance from Bishop Stanley’s “History of Birds”—
-
-“A short time ago, in Scotland, some carpenters working in a shed
-adjacent to the house observed a thrush flying in and out, which
-induced them to direct their attention to the cause, when, to their
-surprise, they found a nest commenced amongst the teeth of a harrow,
-which, with other farming tools and implements, was placed upon the
-joists of the shed, just over their heads. The carpenters had arrived
-soon after six o’clock, and at seven, when they found the nest, it was
-in a great state of forwardness, and had evidently been the morning’s
-work of a pair of these indefatigable birds. Their activity throughout
-the day was incessant; and, when the workmen came the next morning,
-they found the female seated in her half-finished mansion, and, when
-she flew off for a short time, it was found that she had laid an egg.
-When all was finished, the he-bird took his share of the labour, and,
-in thirteen days, the young birds were out of their shells, the refuse
-of which the old ones carried away from the spot. All this seems to
-have been carefully observed by the workmen; and it is much to their
-credit that they were so quiet and friendly as to win the confidence of
-the birds.”
-
-The song of the thrush is remarkable for its rich, mellow intonation,
-and for the great variety of its notes.
-
-[Sidenote: _Wordsworth’s Verses on the Thrush._]
-
-Unfortunately for the thrush, its exquisite power as a songster makes
-it by no means an unusual prisoner. You are often startled by hearing,
-from the doleful upper window of some dreary court or alley of London,
-or some other large town, an outpouring of joyous, full-souled melody
-from an imprisoned thrush, which, perfect as it is, saddens you, as
-being so wholly out of place. Yet who can say how the song of that bird
-may speak to the soul of many a town-imprisoned passer-by? Wordsworth
-thus touchingly describes an incident of this kind:—
-
-    At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
-    Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three years:
-    Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard,
-    In the silence of morning, the song of the bird.
-
-    Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
-    Down which she so often has tripped with her pail,
-    And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,
-    The one only dwelling on earth which she loves.
-
-    ’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? she sees
-    A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
-    Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
-    And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
-
-    She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade—
-    The mist and the river, the hill, sun, and shade;
-    The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
-    And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV.
-
-THE BLACKBIRD.
-
-
-The Blackbird is familiar to us all. It is a thoroughly English bird,
-and, with its cousin the thrush, is not only one of the pleasantest
-features in our English spring and summer landscape, but both figure
-in our old poetry and ballads, as the “merle and the mavis,” “the
-blackbird and the throstle-cock;” for those old poets loved the
-country, and could not speak of the greenwood without the bird.
-
-    When shaws are sheen and fields are fair,
-      And leaves both large and long,
-    ’Tis merry walk’ng in the green forest
-      To hear the wild birds’ song;
-
-    The wood merle sings, and will not cease,
-      Sitting upon a spray;
-    The merle and the mavis shout their fill,
-      From morn till the set of day.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  BLACKBIRD AND NEST.      [Page 26.
-]
-
-The blackbird takes its name from a very intelligible cause—its
-perfectly black plumage, which, however, is agreeably relieved by the
-bright orange of its bill, the orange circles round its eyes, and its
-yellow feet; though this is peculiar only to the male, nor does he
-assume this distinguishing colour till his second year. The female is
-of a dusky-brown colour.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Notes of the Blackbird._]
-
-Sometimes the singular variety of a _white_ blackbird occurs, which
-seems to astonish even its fellow birds; the same phenomenon also
-occurs amongst sparrows; a fatal distinction to the poor birds, who are
-in consequence very soon shot.
-
-This bird is one of our finest singers. His notes are solemn and
-flowing, unlike those of the thrush, which are short, quick, and
-extremely varied. The one bird is more lyrical, the other sings in
-a grand epic strain. A friend of ours, deeply versed in bird-lore,
-maintains that the blackbird is oratorical, and sings as if delivering
-an eloquent rhythmical oration.
-
-This bird begins to sing early in the year, and continues his song
-during the whole time that the hen is sitting. Like his relatives, the
-thrush and the missel-thrush, he takes his post on the highest branch
-of a tree, near his nest, so that his song is heard far and wide; and
-in fact, through the whole pleasant spring you hear the voices of these
-three feathered kings of English song constantly filling the woods and
-fields with their melody. The blackbird sings deliciously in rain, even
-during a thunderstorm, with the lightning flashing round him. Indeed,
-both he and the thrush seem to take great delight in summer showers.
-
-The blackbird has a peculiar call, to give notice to his brood of the
-approach of danger; probably, however, it belongs both to male and
-female. Again, there is a third note, very peculiar also, heard only
-in the dusk of evening, and which seems pleasingly in harmony with the
-approaching shadows of night. By this note they call each other to
-roost, in the same way as partridges call each other to assemble at
-night, however far they may be asunder.
-
-The nest of the blackbird is situated variously; most frequently in
-the thicker parts of hedges; sometimes in the hollow of a stump or
-amongst the curled and twisted roots of old trees, which, projecting
-from the banks of woods or woodland lanes, wreathed with their trails
-of ivy, afford the most picturesque little hollows for the purpose.
-Again, it may be found under the roof of out-houses or cart-sheds,
-laid on the wall-plate; and very frequently in copses, in the stumps
-of pollard trees, partly concealed by their branches; and is often
-begun before the leaves are on the trees. The nest is composed of dry
-bents, and lined with fine dry grass. The hen generally lays five eggs,
-which are of a dusky bluish-green, thickly covered with black spots;
-altogether very much resembling those of crows, rooks, magpies, and
-that class of birds.
-
-Universal favourite as the blackbird deservedly is, yet, in common with
-the thrush, all gardeners are their enemies from the great liking they
-have for his fruit, especially currants, raspberries, and cherries.
-There is, however, something very amusing, though, at the same time,
-annoying, in the sly way by which they approach these fruits, quite
-aware that they are on a mischievous errand. They steal along, flying
-low and silently, and, if observed, will hide themselves in the nearest
-growth of garden plants, scarlet runners, or Jerusalem artichokes,
-where they remain as still as mice, till they think the human enemy has
-moved off. If, however, instead of letting them skulk quietly in their
-hiding-place, he drives them away, they fly off with a curious note,
-very like a little chuckling laugh of defiance, as if they would say,
-“Ha! ha! we shall soon be back again!” which they very soon are.
-
-But we must not begrudge them their share, though they neither have
-dug the ground nor sowed the seed, for very dull and joyless indeed
-would be the garden and the gardener’s toil, and the whole country in
-short, if there were no birds—no blackbirds and thrushes—to gladden
-our hearts, and make the gardens, as well as the woods and fields,
-joyous with their melody. Like all good singers, these birds expect,
-and deserve, good payment.
-
-The blackbird, though naturally unsocial and keeping much to itself,
-is very bold in defence of its young, should they be in danger, or
-attacked by any of the numerous bird-enemies, which abound everywhere,
-especially to those which are in immediate association with man. The
-Rev. J. G. Wood tells us, for instance, that on one occasion a prowling
-cat was forced to make an ignominious retreat before the united onset
-of a pair of blackbirds, on whose young she was about to make an attack.
-
-[Sidenote: _Macgillivray’s Account._]
-
-Let me now, in conclusion, give a day with a family of blackbirds,
-which I somewhat curtail from Macgillivray.
-
-“On Saturday morning, June 10th, I went into a little hut made of green
-branches, at half-past two in the morning, to see how the blackbirds
-spend the day at home. They lived close by, in a hole in an old wall,
-which one or other of them had occupied for a number of years.
-
-“At a quarter-past three they began to feed their young, which were
-four in number. She was the most industrious in doing so; and when he
-was not feeding, he was singing most deliciously. Towards seven o’clock
-the father-bird induced one of the young ones to fly out after him.
-But this was a little mistake, and, the bird falling, I was obliged to
-help it into its nest again, which made a little family commotion. They
-were exceedingly tidy about their nest, and when a little rubbish fell
-out they instantly carried it away. At ten o’clock the feeding began
-again vigorously, and continued till two, both parent-birds supplying
-their young almost equally.
-
-“The hut in which I sat was very closely covered; but a little wren
-having alighted on the ground in pursuit of a fly, and seeing one of
-my legs moving, set up a cry of alarm, on which, in the course of a
-few seconds, all the birds in the neighbourhood collected to know what
-was the matter. The blackbird hopped round the hut again and again,
-making every effort to peep in, even alighting on the top within a few
-inches of my head, but not being able to make any discovery, the tumult
-subsided. It was probably considered a false alarm, and the blackbirds
-went on feeding their young till almost four o’clock: and now came the
-great event of the day.
-
-“At about half-past three the mother brought a large worm, four inches
-in length probably, which she gave to one of the young ones, and flew
-away. Shortly afterwards returning, she had the horror of perceiving
-that the worm, instead of being swallowed was sticking in its throat;
-on this she uttered a perfect moan of distress, which immediately
-brought the he-bird, who also saw at a glance what a terrible
-catastrophe was to be feared. Both parents made several efforts to push
-the worm down the throat, but to no purpose, when, strange to say, the
-father discovered the cause of the accident. The outer end of the worm
-had got entangled in the feathers of the breast, and, being held fast,
-could not be swallowed. He carefully disengaged it, and, holding it up
-with his beak, the poor little thing, with a great effort, managed to
-get it down, but was by this time so exhausted that it lay with its
-eyes shut and without moving for the next three hours. The male bird in
-the meantime took his stand upon a tree, a few yards from the nest, and
-poured forth some of his most enchanting notes—a song of rejoicing no
-doubt for the narrow escape from death of one of his family.
-
-[Sidenote: _Macgillivray’s Day with this Bird._]
-
-“From four till seven o’clock both birds again fed their young, after
-which the male bird left these family duties to his mate, and gave
-himself up to incessant singing. At twenty minutes to nine their
-labours ceased, they having then fed their young one hundred and
-thirteen times during the day.
-
-“I observed that before feeding their young they always alighted upon
-a tree and looked round them for a few seconds. Sometimes they brought
-in a quantity of worms and fed their brood alternately; at other times
-they brought one which they gave to only one of them.
-
-“The young birds often trimmed their feathers, and stretched out their
-wings; they also appeared to sleep now and then.
-
-“With the note of alarm which the feathered tribes set up on the
-discovery of their enemies all the different species of the little
-birds seem to be intimately acquainted; for no sooner did a beast or
-bird of prey make its appearance, than they seemed to be anxiously
-concerned about the safety of their families. They would hop from tree
-to tree uttering their doleful lamentations. At one time the blackbirds
-were in an unusual state of excitement and terror, and were attended
-by crowds of their woodland friends. A man and boy, who were working
-in my garden, having heard the noise, ran to see what was the cause of
-it, and on looking into some branches which were lying on the ground,
-observed a large weasel stealing slyly along in pursuit of its prey. It
-was, however, driven effectually from the place without doing any harm.
-It is astonishing how soon the young know this intimation of danger;
-for I observed that no sooner did the old ones utter the alarm-cry,
-than they cowered in their nest, and appeared to be in a state of great
-uneasiness.”
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V.
-
-THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL.
-
-
-The Dipper, or Water-ousel, of which Mr. Weir has given us a charming
-and faithful portrait, is very like a wren in form and action, with
-its round body and lively little tail. Its mode of flight, however,
-so nearly resembles the kingfisher that, in some places, the country
-people mistake it for the female of that bird. But it is neither wren
-nor kingfisher, nor yet related to either of them. It is the nice
-little water-ousel, with ways of its own, and a cheerful life of its
-own, and the power of giving pleasure to all lovers of the free country
-which is enriched with an infinite variety of happy, innocent creatures.
-
-The upper part of the head and neck, and the whole back and wings of
-this bird, are of a rusty-brown; but, as each individual feather is
-edged with gray, there is no deadness of colouring. The throat and
-breast are snowy white, which, contrasting so strongly with the rest of
-the body, makes it seem to flash about like a point of light through
-the dark shadows of the scenes it loves to haunt.
-
-I said above that this bird gave pleasure to all lovers of nature. So
-it does, for it is only met with in scenes which are especially beloved
-by poets and painters. Like them, it delights in mountain regions,
-where rocky streams rush along with an unceasing murmur, leaping over
-huge stones, slumbering in deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between
-rocky walls, in the moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild
-rose flings out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the
-hardy polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with
-their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for the
-cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character with the
-scenes.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  DIPPERS AND NEST.      [Page 34.
-]
-
-[Sidenote: _The Home of the Dipper._]
-
-And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few weeks in
-summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my constant advice
-as regards the study and truest enjoyment of country life and things.
-Go out for several hours; do not be in a hurry; take your book, or
-your sketching, or whatever your favourite occupation may be, if it be
-only a quiet one, and seat yourself by some rocky stream amongst the
-mountains; choose the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can
-reach you, if you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet
-witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat yourself
-quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a piece of
-rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, or tangle of
-bramble, and before long you will most likely see this merry, lively
-little dipper come with his quick, jerking flight, now alighting on
-this stone, now on that, peeping here, and peeping there, as quick as
-light, and snapping up, now a water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now
-diving down into the stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking
-into the shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer
-delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and away,
-and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of stone, which
-rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in a stormy sea,
-with the rush and roar of the water full above him. Yet there he is
-quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny wren, and hopping
-about on his rocky point, as if he could not for the life of him be
-still for a moment. Now listen! That is his song, and a merry little
-song it is, just such a one as you would fancy coming out of his jocund
-little heart; and, see now, he begins his antics. He must be a queer
-little soul! If we could be little dippers like him, and understand
-what his song and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often
-find the time tedious for want of something to do.
-
-We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of his small
-experience, all that his heart desires. He has this lonely mountain
-stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, laughing waters to bear
-him company, all these fantastically heaped-up stones, brought hither
-by furious winter torrents of long ago—that dashing, ever roaring,
-ever foaming waterfall, in the spray of which the summer sunshine
-weaves rainbows. All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden
-hair, and this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up
-his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of rock,
-and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, is built
-the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits the
-hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most unwearied
-love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with red.
-
-This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large size, the
-reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally near to the
-water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is always so fresh,
-looking so like the mass of its immediate surroundings as scarcely to
-be discoverable by the quickest eye. When the young are hatched they
-soon go abroad with the parents, and then, instead of the one solitary
-bird, you may see them in little parties of from five to seven going on
-in the same sort of way, only all the merrier because there are more of
-them.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI.
-
-THE NIGHTINGALE.
-
-
-Philomela, or the Nightingale, is the head of the somewhat large
-bird-family of Warblers, and is the most renowned of all feathered
-songsters, though some judges think the garden-ousel exceeds it in
-mellowness, and the thrush in compass of voice, but that, in every
-other respect, it excels them all. For my part, however, I think no
-singing-bird is equal to it; and listening to it when in full song, in
-the stillness of a summer’s night, am ready to say with good old Izaak
-Walton:—
-
-“The nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet
-music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind
-to think that miracles had not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
-weary labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often
-heard, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and
-falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted
-above earth and say, ‘Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the
-saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!’”
-
-In colour, the upper parts of the nightingale are of a rich brown;
-the tail of a reddish tint; the throat and underparts of the body,
-greyish-white; the neck and breast, grey; the bill and legs, light
-brown. Its size is about that of the garden warblers, which it
-resembles in form—being, in fact, one of that family. Thus, the most
-admired of all singers—the subject of poets’ songs and eulogies, the
-bird that people walk far and wide to listen to, of which they talk for
-weeks before it comes, noting down the day of its arrival as if it were
-the Queen or the Queen’s son—is yet nothing but a little insignificant
-brown bird, not to be named with the parrot for plumage, nor with
-our little goldfinch, who always looks as if he had his Sunday suit
-on. But this is a good lesson for us. The little brown nightingale,
-with his little brown wife in the thickety copse, with their simple
-unpretending nest, not built up aloft on the tree branch, but humbly
-at the tree’s root, or even on the very ground itself, may teach us
-that the world’s external show or costliness is not true greatness. The
-world’s best bird-singer might have been as big as an eagle, attired
-in colours of blue and scarlet and orange like the grandest macaw. But
-the great Creator willed that it should not be so—his strength, and
-his furiousness, and his cruel capacity were sufficient for the eagle,
-and his shining vestments for the macaw; whilst the bird to which was
-given the divinest gift of song must be humble and unobtrusive, small
-of size, with no surpassing beauty of plumage, and loving best to hide
-itself in the thick seclusion of the copse in which broods the little
-mother-bird, the very counterpart of himself, upon her olive-coloured
-eggs.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Philomela of Surrey._]
-
-Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a sweet little picture of the
-nightingale at home. Somewhere, not far off, runs the highroad, or it
-may be a pleasant woodland lane leading from one village to another,
-and probably known as “Nightingale-lane,” and traversed night after
-night by rich and poor, learned and unlearned, to listen to the
-bird. In our own neighbourhood we have a “Nightingale-lane,” with its
-thickety copses on either hand, its young oaks and Spanish chestnuts
-shooting upwards, and tangles of wild roses and thick masses of
-brambles throwing their long sprays over old, mossy, and ivied stumps
-of trees, cut or blown down in the last generation—little pools
-and water courses here and there, with their many-coloured mosses
-and springing rushes—a very paradise for birds. This is in Surrey,
-and Surrey nightingales, it is said, are the finest that sing. With
-this comes the saddest part of the story. Bird-catchers follow the
-nightingale, and, once in his hands, farewell to the pleasant copse
-with the young oaks and Spanish chestnuts, the wild rose tangles, the
-little bosky hollow at the old tree root, in one of which the little
-nest is built and the little wife broods on her eggs!
-
-Generally, however, the unhappy bird, if he be caught, is taken soon
-after his arrival in this country; for nightingales are migratory, and
-arrive with us about the middle of April. The male bird comes about
-a fortnight before the female, and begins to sing in his loneliness
-a song of salutation—a sweet song, which expresses, with a tender
-yearning, his desire for her companionship. Birds taken at this time,
-before the mate has arrived, and whilst he is only singing to call and
-welcome her, are said still to sing on through the summer in the hope,
-long-deferred, that she may yet come. He will not give her up though
-he is no longer in the freedom of the wood, so he sings and sings, and
-if he live over the winter, he will sing the same song the following
-spring, for the want is again in his heart. He cannot believe but that
-she will still come. The cruel bird-catchers, therefore, try all their
-arts to take him in this early stage of his visit to us. Should he be
-taken later, when he is mated, and, as we see him in our picture, with
-all the wealth of his little life around him, he cannot sing long. How
-should he—in a narrow cage and dingy street of London or some other
-great town—perhaps with his eyes put out—for his cruel captor fancies
-he sings best if blind? He may sing, perhaps, for a while, thinking
-that he can wake himself out of this dreadful dream of captivity,
-darkness, and solitude. But it is no dream; the terrible reality at
-length comes upon him, and before the summer is over he dies of a
-broken heart.
-
-It is a curious fact that the nightingale confines itself, without
-apparent reason, to certain countries and to certain parts of England.
-For instance, though it visits Sweden, and even the temperate parts
-of Russia, it is not met with in Scotland, North Wales, nor Ireland,
-neither is it found in any of our northern counties excepting
-Yorkshire, and there only in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. Neither
-is it known in the south-western counties, as Cornwall and Devonshire.
-It is supposed to migrate during the winter into Egypt and Syria. It
-has been seen amongst the willows of Jordan and the olive trees of
-Judea, but we have not, to our knowledge, any direct mention of it in
-the Scriptures, though Solomon no doubt had it in his thoughts, in his
-sweet description of the spring—“Lo, the winter is past, the rain is
-over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing
-of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” A
-recent traveller in Syria tells me that she heard nightingales singing
-at four o’clock one morning in April of last year in the lofty regions
-of the Lebanon.
-
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  NIGHTINGALES AND NEST.      [Page 40.
-]
-
-
-[Sidenote: _Sir John Sinclair’s Attempt._]
-
-There have been various attempts to introduce the nightingale into such
-parts of this country as it has not yet frequented; for instance, a
-gentleman of Gower, a sea-side district of Glamorganshire, the climate
-of which is remarkably mild, procured a number of young birds from
-Norfolk and Surrey, hoping that they would find themselves so much at
-home in the beautiful woods there as to return the following year. But
-none came. Again, as regards Scotland, Sir John Sinclair purchased a
-large number of nightingales’ eggs, at a shilling each, and employed
-several men to place them carefully in robins’ nests to be hatched. So
-far all succeeded well. The foster-mothers reared the nightingales,
-which, when full-fledged, flew about as if quite at home. But when
-September came, the usual month for the migration of the nightingale,
-the mysterious impulse awoke in the hearts of the young strangers, and,
-obeying it, they suddenly disappeared and never after returned.
-
-Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a very accurate drawing of the
-nightingale’s nest, which is slight and somewhat fragile in
-construction, made of withered leaves—mostly of oak—and lined
-with dry grass. The author of “British Birds” describes one in his
-possession as composed of slips of the inner bark of willow, mixed with
-the leaves of the lime and the elm, lined with fibrous roots, grass,
-and a few hairs; but whatever the materials used may be, the effect
-produced is exactly the same.
-
-In concluding our little chapter on this bird, I would mention that
-in the Turkish cemeteries, which, from the old custom of planting a
-cypress at the head and foot of every grave, have now become cypress
-woods, nightingales abound, it having been also an old custom of love
-to keep these birds on every grave.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII.
-
-THE SKYLARK.
-
-
-The Skylark, that beautiful singer, which carries its joy up to the
-very gates of heaven, as it were, has inspired more poets to sing about
-it than any other bird living.
-
-Wordsworth says, as in an ecstasy of delight:—
-
-    Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
-      For thy song, lark, is strong;
-    Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
-      Singing, singing.
-      With clouds and sky about me ringing,
-    Lift me, guide me till I find
-    That spot that seems so to my mind.
-
-Shelley, in an ode which expresses the bird’s ecstasy of song, also
-thus addresses it, in a strain of sadness peculiar to himself:—
-
-            Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
-              Bird, thou never wert—
-            That from heaven, or near it,
-              Pourest thy full heart
-        In profuse strains of unpremeditated art!
-
-            Higher, still, and higher
-              From the earth thou springest,
-            Like a cloud of fire;
-              The deep blue thou wingest,
-        And singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singest!
-
-               *       *       *       *       *
-
-            Better than all measures
-              Of delightful sound,
-            Better than all treasures
-              That in books are found,
-        Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.
-
-            Teach me half the gladness
-              That thy brain must know,
-            Such harmonious madness
-              From my lips should flow;
-        The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
-
-[Sidenote: _James Hogg’s Verses._]
-
-James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who had listened to the bird with
-delight on the Scottish hills, thus sings of it:—
-
-            Bird of the wilderness,
-            Blithesome and cumberless,
-    Sweet is thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
-            Emblem of happiness,
-            Blest is thy dwelling-place—
-    Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
-
-            Wild is thy lay, and loud;
-            Far in the downy cloud
-    Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
-            Where on thy dewy wing,
-            Where art thou journeying?
-    Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
-
-            O’er fell and fountain sheen,
-            O’er moor and mountain green,
-    O’er the red streamer that heralds the day;
-            Over the cloudlet dim,
-            Over the rainbow’s rim,
-    Musical cherub, soar, singing away!
-
-            Then when the gloaming comes,
-            Low in the heather blooms,
-    Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
-            Emblem of happiness,
-            Blest is thy dwelling-place—
-            Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
-
-But we must not forget the earthly life of the bird in all these sweet
-songs about him.
-
-The plumage of the skylark is brown, in various shades; the fore-part
-of the neck, reddish-white, spotted with brown; the breast and under
-part of the body, yellowish-white. Its feet are peculiar, being
-furnished with an extraordinarily long hind claw, the purpose of which
-has puzzled many naturalists. But whatever nature intended it for, the
-bird has been known to make use of it for a purpose which cannot fail
-to interest us and call forth our admiration. This shall be presently
-explained. The nest is built on the ground, either between two clods
-of earth, in the deep foot-print of cattle, or some other small hollow
-suitable for the purpose, and is composed of dry grass, hair, and
-leaves; the hair is mostly used for the lining. Here the mother-bird
-lays four or five eggs of pale sepia colour, with spots and markings
-of darker hue. She has generally two broods in the year, and commences
-sitting in May. The he-lark begins to sing early in the spring.
-Bewick says, “He rises from the neighbourhood of the nest almost
-perpendicularly in the air, by successive springs, and hovers at a
-vast height. His descent, on the contrary, is in an oblique direction,
-unless he is threatened by birds of prey, or attracted by his mate, and
-on these occasions he drops like a stone.”
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  SKYLARKS AND NEST.      [Page 44.
-]
-
-With regard to his ascent, I must, however, add that it is in a spiral
-direction, and that what Bewick represents as springs are his sudden
-spiral flights after pausing to sing. Another peculiarity must be
-mentioned: all his bones are hollow, and he can inflate them with air
-from his lungs, so that he becomes, as it were, a little balloon, which
-accounts for the buoyancy with which he ascends, and the length of
-time he can support himself in the air: often for an hour at a time.
-Still more extraordinary is the wonderful power and reach of his voice,
-for while, probably, the seven hundred or a thousand voices of the
-grand chorus of an oratorio would fail to fill the vast spaces of the
-atmosphere, it can be done by this glorious little songster, which,
-mounting upwards, makes itself heard, without effort, when it can be
-seen no longer.
-
-[Sidenote: _Its Solicitude for its Young._]
-
-The attachment of the parents to their young is very great, and has
-been seen to exhibit itself in a remarkable manner.
-
-The nest being placed on the open-ground—often pasture, or in a field
-of mowing grass—it is very liable to be disturbed; many, therefore,
-are the instances of the bird’s tender solicitude either for the young
-or for its eggs, one of which I will give from Mr. Jesse. “In case of
-alarm,” he says, “either by cattle grazing near the nest, or by the
-approach of the mower, the parent-birds remove their eggs, by means
-of their long claws, to a place of greater security, and this I have
-observed to be affected in a very short space of time.” He says that
-when one of his mowers first told him of this fact he could scarcely
-believe it, but that he afterwards saw it himself, and that he regarded
-it only as another proof of the affection which these birds show their
-offspring. Instances are also on record of larks removing their young
-by carrying them on their backs: in one case the young were thus
-removed from a place of danger into a field of standing corn. But
-however successful the poor birds may be in removing their eggs, they
-are not always so with regard to their young, as Mr. Yarrell relates.
-An instance came under his notice, in which the little fledgeling
-proved too heavy for the parent to carry, and, being dropped from an
-height of about thirty feet, was killed in the fall.
-
-Of all captive birds, none grieves me more than the skylark. Its
-impulse is to soar, which is impossible in the narrow spaces of a cage;
-and in this unhappy condition, when seized by the impulse of song, he
-flings himself upwards, and is dashed down again by its cruel barriers.
-For this reason the top of the lark’s cage is always bedded with green
-baize to prevent his injuring himself. In the freedom of nature he is
-the joyous minstrel of liberty and love, carrying upwards, and sending
-down from above, his buoyant song, which seems to fall down through the
-golden sunshine like a flood of sparkling melody.
-
-I am not aware of the height to which the lark soars, but it must be
-very great, as he becomes diminished to a mere speck, almost invisible
-in the blaze of light. Yet, high as he may soar, he never loses the
-consciousness of the little mate and the nestlings below: but their
-first cry of danger or anxiety, though the cry may be scarce audible
-to the human ear, thrills up aloft to the singer, and he comes down
-with a direct arrow-like flight, whilst otherwise his descent is more
-leisurely, and said by some to be in the direct spiral line of his
-ascent.
-
-Larks, unfortunately for themselves, are considered very fine eating.
-Immense numbers of them are killed for the table, not only on the
-continent, but in England. People cry shame on the Roman epicure,
-Lucullus, dining on a stew of nightingales’ tongue, nearly two thousand
-years ago, and no more can I reconcile to myself the daily feasting on
-these lovely little songsters, which may be delicate eating, but are no
-less God’s gifts to gladden and beautify the earth.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII.
-
-THE LINNET.
-
-
-Linnets are a branch of a larger family of finches, all very familiar
-to us. They are cousins, also, to the dear, impudent sparrows, and the
-pretty siskin or aberdevines.
-
-The linnets are all compactly and stoutly built, with short necks and
-good sized heads, with short, strong, pointed bills, made for the ready
-picking up of seed and grain, on which they live. Most of them have two
-broods in the season, and they build a bulky, deep, and compact nest,
-just in accordance with their character and figure; but, though all
-linnet-nests have a general resemblance of form, they vary more or less
-in the material used.
-
-Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce
-and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They
-are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season
-when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted
-to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards,
-and amongst stacks.
-
-The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers
-of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four; the others
-are the twit or mountain-linnet, the mealy-linnet, and the lesser
-red-pole—the smallest of the four—all very much alike, and easily
-mistaken for each other. The name red-pole is given from the bright
-crimson spot on their heads—_pole_ or _poll_ being the old Saxon word
-for head. The back of our linnet’s head and the sides of his neck are
-of dingy ash-colour, his back of a warm brown tint, his wings black,
-his throat of a dull white, spotted with brown, his breast a brilliant
-red, and the under part of his body a dingy white.
-
-The linnet, amongst singing birds, is what a song writer is amongst
-poets. He is not a grand singer, like the blackbird or the thrush,
-the missel-thrush or the wood-lark, all of which seem to have an epic
-story in their songs, nor, of course, like the skylark, singing up to
-the gates of heaven, or the nightingale, that chief psalmist of all
-bird singers. But, though much humbler than any of these, he is a sweet
-and pleasant melodist; a singer of charming little songs, full of the
-delight of summer, the freshness of open heaths, with their fragrant
-gorse, or of the Scottish brae, with its “bonnie broom,” also in golden
-blossom. His are unpretending little songs of intense enjoyment, simple
-thanksgivings for the pleasures of life, for the little brown hen-bird,
-who has not a bit of scarlet in her plumage, and who sits in her snug
-nest on her fine little white eggs, with their circle of freckles and
-brown spots at the thicker end, always alike, a sweet, patient mother,
-waiting for the time when the young ones will come into life from that
-delicate shell-covering, blind at first, though slightly clothed in
-greyish-brown—five little linnets gaping for food.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  LINNETS AND NEST.      [Page 48.
-]
-
-The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its
-favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and
-moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it here in our picture;
-for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts
-of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.
-
-Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it
-too rises a _chevaux de frise_ of furze spines, green and tender to
-look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on
-hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with
-the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and,
-below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands
-of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and
-spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the
-man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the
-horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man
-thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when
-he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the
-while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune,
-impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment
-years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada;
-or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of
-trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and
-to his God.
-
-[Sidenote: _Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote._]
-
-Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the
-parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is
-very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the
-following anecdote in proof of it:—
-
-“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some
-children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming
-them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping, fluttered round the
-children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs
-and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the
-nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards
-placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left
-open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still
-farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage,
-but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening
-actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several
-children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the
-cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent
-shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor
-parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully
-in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX.
-
-THE PEEWIT.
-
-
-The Peewit, lapwing, or plover, belongs to the naturalist family of
-_Gallatores_ or Waders, all of which are furnished with strong legs and
-feet for walking, whilst all which inhabit watery places, or feed their
-young amongst the waves, have legs sufficiently long to enable them to
-wade; whence comes the family name.
-
-The peewit, or lapwing, is a very interesting bird, from its peculiar
-character and habits. Its plumage is handsome; the upper part of the
-body of a rich green, with metallic reflections; the sides of the neck
-and base of the tail of a pure white; the tail is black; so is the
-top of the head, which is furnished with a long, painted crest, lying
-backwards, but which can be raised at pleasure. In length the bird is
-about a foot.
-
-The peewit lives in all parts of this country, and furnishes one of
-the pleasantly peculiar features of open sea-shores and wide moorland
-wastes, in the solitudes of which, its incessant, plaintive cry has an
-especially befitting sound, like the very spirit of the scene, moaning
-in unison with the waves, and wailing over the wide melancholy of the
-waste. Nevertheless, the peewit is not in itself mournful, for it is
-a particularly lively and active bird, sporting and frolicking in the
-air with its fellows, now whirling round and round, and now ascending
-to a great height on untiring wing; then down again, running along the
-ground, and leaping about from spot to spot as if for very amusement.
-
-It is, however, with all its agility, a very untidy nest-maker; in
-fact it makes no better nest than a few dry bents scraped together in
-a shallow hole, like a rude saucer or dish, in which she can lay her
-eggs—always four in number. But though taking so little trouble about
-her nest, she is always careful to lay the narrow ends of her eggs in
-the centre, as is shown in the picture, though as yet there are but
-three. A fourth, however, will soon come to complete the cross-like
-figure, after which she will begin to sit.
-
-These eggs, under the name of plovers’ eggs, are in great request as
-luxuries for the breakfast-table, and it may be thought that laid thus
-openly on the bare earth they are very easily found. It is not so,
-however, for they look so much like the ground itself, so like little
-bits of moorland earth or old sea-side stone, that it is difficult to
-distinguish them. But in proportion as the bird makes so insufficient
-and unguarded a nest, so all the greater is the anxiety, both of
-herself and her mate, about the eggs. Hence, whilst she is sitting, he
-exercises all kinds of little arts to entice away every intruder from
-the nest, wheeling round and round in the air near him, so as to fix
-his attention, screaming mournfully his incessant _peewit_ till he has
-drawn him ever further and further from the point of his anxiety and
-love.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  PEEWITS AND NEST.      [Page 52.
-]
-
-[Sidenote: _Stratagems of the Bird._]
-
-The little quartette brood, which are covered with down when hatched,
-begin to run almost as soon as they leave the shell, and then the poor
-mother-bird has to exercise all her little arts also—and indeed the
-care and solicitude of both parents is wonderful. Suppose, now, the
-little helpless group is out running here and there as merry as life
-can make them, and a man, a boy, or a dog, or perhaps all three, are
-seen approaching. At once the little birds squat close to the earth,
-so that they become almost invisible, and the parent-birds are on the
-alert, whirling round and round the disturber, angry and troubled,
-wailing and crying their doleful _peewit_ cry, drawing them ever
-further and further away from the brood. Should, however, the artifice
-not succeed, and the terrible intruder still obstinately advance in the
-direction of the young, they try a new artifice; drop to the ground,
-and, running along in the opposite course, pretend lameness, tumbling
-feebly along in the most artful manner, thus apparently offering the
-easiest and most tempting prey, till, having safely lured away the
-enemy, they rise at once into the air, screaming again their _peewit_,
-but now as if laughing over their accomplished scheme.
-
-The young, which are hatched in April, are in full plumage by the end
-of July, when the birds assemble in flocks, and, leaving the sea-shore,
-or the marshy moorland, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks,
-where they soon become fat, and are said to be excellent eating.
-Happily, however, for them, they are not in as much request for the
-table as they were in former times. Thus we find in an ancient book
-of housekeeping expenses, called “The Northumberland Household-book,”
-that they are entered under the name of _Wypes_, and charged one penny
-each; and that they were then considered a first-rate dish is proved by
-their being entered as forming a part of “his lordship’s own mess,” or
-portion of food; _mess_ being so used in those days—about the time,
-probably, when the Bible was translated into English. Thus we find in
-the beautiful history of Joseph and his brethren, “He sent messes to
-them, but Benjamin’s mess was five times as much as any of theirs.”
-
-Here I would remark, on the old name of _Wypes_ for this bird, that
-country-people in the midland counties still call them _pie-wypes_.
-
-But now again to our birds. The peewit, like the gull, may easily be
-tamed to live in gardens, where it is not only useful by ridding them
-of worms, slugs, and other troublesome creatures, but is very amusing,
-from its quaint, odd ways. Bewick tells us of one so kept by the Rev.
-J. Carlisle, Vicar of Newcastle, which I am sure will interest my
-readers.
-
-[Sidenote: _A Winter Visitor._]
-
-He says two of these birds were given to Mr. Carlisle, and placed
-in his garden, where one soon died; the other continued to pick up
-such food as the place afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual
-supply. Necessity then compelled it to come nearer the house, by
-which it gradually became accustomed to what went forward, as well as
-to the various members of the family. At length a servant, when she
-had occasion to go into the back-kitchen with a light, observed that
-the lapwing always uttered his cry of _peewit_ to gain admittance.
-He soon grew familiar; as the winter advanced, he approached as far
-as the kitchen, but with much caution, as that part of the house was
-generally inhabited by a dog and a cat, whose friendship the lapwing
-at length gained so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort
-to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and
-night with his two associates, sitting close to them, and partaking
-of the comforts of a warm fireside. As soon as spring appeared he
-betook himself to the garden, but again, at the approach of winter,
-had recourse to his old shelter and his old friends, who received him
-very cordially. But his being favoured by them did not prevent his
-taking great liberties with them; he would frequently amuse himself
-with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of, and
-whilst he was thus employed he showed marks of the greatest indignation
-if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died, poor
-fellow, in the asylum he had chosen, by being choked with something
-which he had picked up from the floor. During his confinement he
-acquired an artificial taste as regarded his food, and preferred crumbs
-of bread to anything else.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X.
-
-THE HOUSE-MARTIN, OR WINDOW-SWALLOW.
-
-
-During our winter, swallows inhabit warm tropical countries, migrating
-northwards with the first approaches of summer. They are usually seen
-with us from the 13th to the 20th of April, and are useful from the
-first day of their arrival, by clearing the air of insects, which they
-take on the wing; indeed, they may be said to live almost wholly on the
-wing, and, except when collecting mud for their nests, are seldom seen
-to alight, and, in drinking, dip down to the water as they skim over it
-on rapid wing.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  HOUSE-MARTINS AND NESTS.      [Page 56.
-]
-
-We have three kinds of swallows in England: the chimney-swallow, the
-house-martin, and the sand-martin, of which I shall have something to
-say in due course. The chimney-swallow and house-martin are especially
-worthy of the affectionate regard of man; for they love his society,
-build around his dwelling, destroy nothing that he values, have no
-appetite for his fruits; they live harmoniously amongst themselves,
-and have no other disposition than that of cheerfulness, unwearying
-industry and perseverance, and the most devoted parental affection.
-
-Mr. Weir has given us a lively picture of swallow-life—four nests
-grouped together on a house-side: more there probably are; but there
-are as many as we can manage with; indeed we will presently confine
-our attention to one single nest, and, by so doing, I flatter myself
-that I shall win your admiration for these birds, and that you will
-agree with me in thinking that if we all, men and women, boys and
-girls, had only their persevering spirit, and their courage under
-adversity, there would not be so much unsuccess, either at school or in
-life, as is now, too often, the case.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Nests on Traquair House._]
-
-Some people are very fond of having martins about their houses, under
-their eaves, and even in the corners of their windows. The Earl of
-Traquair was one of these; he was, indeed, a great lover of all kinds
-of birds, and all were protected on his premises. In the autumn of
-1839, there were no less than one hundred and three martins’ nests on
-Traquair House—which is a very fine old place—besides several which
-had been deserted, injured, or taken possession of by sparrows, which
-is a very unwarrantable liberty taken by these birds.
-
-From six to twenty days are required to build a martin’s nest. If all
-goes on well it may be finished in the shorter time.
-
-Let us now see how the birds set about building. Here are several
-nests in our picture; and turning to the pages of Macgillivray’s
-“British Birds,” I shall find exactly the information we need. I will,
-therefore, extract freely from this interesting writer, that my young
-readers may be as grateful to him as I am myself.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Domestic Life of a Pair._]
-
-Again turning to our picture, we find four nests. “A party of eight
-martins arrived here on the 1st of May. As this was quite a new
-location, they spent the whole day in examining the eaves of the house,
-the corners of the windows, and the out-buildings. By the following
-morning the question was settled, and they had, as you see, fixed
-upon a high wall with a slate coping, and an eastern aspect, and at
-once commenced making a general foundation for their nests. Suitable
-materials are procured from the banks of an adjoining pond, or a puddle
-in the lane. Let us go down and see them. Here they come, sailing
-placidly over the tree-tops; now they descend so as almost to sweep the
-surface of the pond; some of them alight at once, others skim round, as
-if borne away by a brisk wind. Those that have alighted walk about with
-short steps, looking round for materials. Some seem not to find the mud
-suitable, but seize on a piece of straw, or grass, which, tempering
-in the mud, they then fly off with. Returning now to the building, we
-see one using its tail planted against the wall, or against the nest,
-if sufficiently advanced, as a support, deposit the material it has
-brought by giving its head a wriggling motion, so that the mud slides
-gently into the crevices of yesterday’s work; then he retouches the
-whole. See, one has now arrived with his supply before the other has
-finished: he is impatient to disburden himself, and wants to drive
-off the worker, who rather snappishly retorts, and he, poor fellow,
-goes off for a while with the mud sticking to his bill. Now she has
-finished; there is room for him, and he goes back again and works hard
-in his turn. They never alight on the nest without twittering. At noon,
-if the weather be hot, they betake themselves to the fields, or, after
-a dip in the pond, sun themselves on the house-top for half-an-hour or
-so. Then they will hawk about for food, and after awhile one of them
-may, perhaps, return and give another touch or two to the work, or seat
-herself in the nest to consolidate the materials. But if cold, wet, or
-windy, they keep away. What they do with themselves I know not; but
-as soon as it clears up, they are at work again. At the beginning of
-their building, they seem to have no objection to leave it for a whole
-day; but as it advances, they become more interested or anxious, and
-one or both will sit in it all night, even though the weather be bad.”
-
-So much for the building of these four nests of our picture; and now
-I will bespeak your attention to a little narrative of the joys and
-sorrows of the domestic life of a pair of martins, which, we will
-suppose, belong also to our group.
-
-“The building began on the 1st of May, at daybreak. But the weather was
-very much against them, being cold and stormy, and it was the 18th of
-the month before it was finished.
-
-“Seeing their labours thus brought to a close, one could not help
-wishing, considering how much it had cost, that the nest might last
-them for many years. But on the 23rd of June, during a heavy fall of
-thunder rain, almost the entire nest was washed to the ground, together
-with the young birds which it contained. A short time before the
-catastrophe, the old birds were observed hovering about, and expressing
-great uneasiness. Almost immediately after it happened they left the
-place, but returned the following day, and spent it in flying about and
-examining the angle of the wall.
-
-“Next morning they commenced repairing the nest. In three days they had
-made great progress; but again rain fell, and their work was stayed.
-On the 30th, they advanced rapidly, and both remained sitting on the
-nest all night. The next day it was finished; and now they began to
-rejoice: they twittered all the evening till it was dark, now and then
-pruning each other’s heads, as, seated side by side, they prepared to
-spend the dark hours in the nest. Eggs were soon laid again, but,
-sad to say, on the morning of the 18th of July, again, during a great
-storm of wind and rain, the upper wall fell, carrying with it one
-of the eggs. The old birds again fluttered about, uttering the most
-plaintive cries, and early the next morning began to repair the damage,
-though it rained heavily all day. Part of the lining hanging over the
-side was incorporated with the new layers of mud. The urgency of the
-case was such, that they were obliged to work during the bad weather.
-Throughout the day one bird sat on the nest, whilst the other laboured
-assiduously. Kindly was he welcomed by his mate, who sometimes, during
-his absence, nibbled and retouched the materials which he had just
-deposited. In a few days it was finished, the weather became settled,
-the young were hatched, and all went well with them.
-
-“Sometimes when the nests are destroyed, the birds, instead of
-attempting to repair the damage, forsake the neighbourhood, as if
-wholly disheartened. Nothing can be more distressing to them than to
-lose their young. In the storm of which I have just spoken, another
-martin’s nest was washed down with unfledged young in it. These were
-placed on some cotton wool in a basket, covered with a sheet of
-brown paper, in an open window, facing the wall. During that day and
-the following, the parents took no notice of them, and their kind
-human protector fed them with house-flies. That evening he tried an
-experiment. He gently placed the young ones in a nest of that same
-window, where were other young. It was then about eight o’clock in the
-evening; the rain was falling heavily, and no sound was heard save
-the _cheep, cheep_, of the young birds, and the dashing of the storm
-against the window-glass. A minute elapsed, when forth rushed the
-parents shrieking their alarm notes, and, again and again wheeled up to
-the nest, until at last they drifted away in the storm. He watched them
-till they disappeared about half-past-nine. During all this time they
-only twice summoned courage to look into the nest. Next morning I was
-rejoiced to see them attending assiduously to the young ones.”
-
-[Sidenote: _The Feeding of the Young._]
-
-And now, turning again to our group of four nests on the walls,
-supposing it be the month of July, every one of them with its
-fledgeling brood sitting with gaping mouths, ever ready for food, you
-may, perhaps, like to know how many meals are carried up to them in the
-course of the day. If, then, the parents began to feed them at about
-five in the morning, and left a little before eight at night, they
-would feed them, at the lowest calculation, about a thousand times.
-
-With all this feeding and care-taking, the young ones, as the summer
-goes on, are full-fledged, and have grown so plump and large that the
-nest is quite too small for them; therefore, they must turn out into
-the world, and begin life for themselves.
-
-It is now a fine, brisk, August morning, and at about eight o’clock,
-you can see, if you look up at the nests, how the old birds come
-dashing up to them quite in an excited way, making short curves in the
-air, and repeating a note which says, as plain as a bird can speak,
-
-          This is the day
-          You must away!
-    What are wings made for, if not to fly?
-          Cheep, cheep,
-          Now for a leap!—
-    Father and mother and neighbours are by!
-
-This flying away from the nest is a great event in swallow-life, as you
-may well believe. Let us therefore now direct our attention to one nest
-in particular, in which are only two young ones—a very small family;
-but what happens here is occurring all round us.
-
-One of these little ones balances itself at the entrance, looking
-timidly into the void, and, having considered the risk for awhile,
-allows its fellow to take its place.
-
-During all this time, the parents keep driving about, within a few feet
-of the entrance, and endeavour, by many winning gestures, to induce
-their charge to follow them. The second bird also, after sitting for
-some time, as if distrustful of its powers, retires, and the first
-again appears. Opening and shutting his wings, and often half inclined
-again to retire, he, at length, summons up all his resolution, springs
-from the nest, and, with his self-taught pinions, cleaves the air. He
-and his parents, who are in ecstasies, return to the nest, and the
-second young one presently musters courage and joins them. And now
-begins a day of real enjoyment; they sport chiefly about the tree-tops
-till seven in the evening, when all re-enter the nest.
-
-In several instances I have seen the neighbours add their inducements
-to those of the parents, when the young were too timid to leave their
-home. If the happy day prove fine, they seldom return to the nest
-till sunset; if otherwise, they will come back two or three times. On
-one occasion, when the young were ready to fly, but unwilling to take
-the first leap, the parents had recourse to a little stratagem, both
-ingenious and natural. The he-bird held out a fly at about four inches
-from the entrance to the nest. In attempting to take hold of it, they
-again and again nearly lost their balance. On another occasion, the
-mother bird, trying this plan to no purpose, seemed to lose patience,
-and seizing one of them by the lower mandible, with the claw of her
-right foot, whilst it was gaping for food, tried to pull it out of the
-nest, to which, however, it clung like a squirrel. But the young, every
-one of them, fly in time, and a right joyous holiday they all have
-together.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Autumn Migration._]
-
-So the summer comes to an end; and towards the middle of September,
-the great family cares being over, and the young having attained
-to an age capable of undertaking the fatigues of migration, that
-mysterious impulse, strong as life itself, and probably affecting
-them like some sickness—the necessity to exchange one country and
-climate for another—comes upon them. Under this influence, they
-congregate together in immense numbers, every neighbourhood seeming
-to have its place of assembly—the roofs of lofty buildings, or the
-leafless boughs of old trees: here they meet, not only to discuss the
-great undertaking, but to have a right merry time together—a time
-of luxurious idleness, lively chatterings, singing in chorus their
-everlasting and musical _cheep, cheep_, eating and drinking, and making
-ready for the journey before them.
-
-At length the moment of departure is come, and at a given signal the
-whole party rises. Twittering and singing, and bidding a long farewell
-to the scenes of their summer life, they fly off in a body, perhaps, if
-coming from Scotland, or the north of England, to rest yet a few weeks
-in the warmer southern counties; after which, a general departure takes
-place to the sunny lands of Africa.
-
-Though gifted with wings wonderfully constructed for prolonged flight,
-and though having passed every day of so many successive months almost
-wholly on the wing, the swallow frequently suffers great fatigue and
-exhaustion in its long migration. Sometimes, probably driven out of
-its course by adverse winds, it is known to alight by hundreds on the
-rigging of vessels, when worn out by hunger and fatigue it is too
-often shot or cruelly treated. Nevertheless the swallow, protected
-by Him who cares for the sparrow, generally braves the hardships of
-migration, and the following spring, guided by the same mysterious
-instinct, finds his way across continents and seas to his old home,
-where, identified by some little mark which has been put upon him—a
-silken thread as a garter, or a light silver ring—he is recognised as
-the old familiar friend, and appears to be no less happy to be once
-more with them than are they to welcome him. Sometimes swallows coming
-back as ordinary strangers, prove their identity, even though the scene
-of their last year’s home may have been pulled down, together with the
-human habitation. In this case, he has been known to fly about in a
-distracted way, lamenting the change that had taken place, and seeming
-as if nothing would comfort him.
-
-Though the fact of swallows coming back to their old haunts does not
-need proving, yet I will close my chapter with an incident which
-occurred in our own family. During a summer storm, a martin’s nest,
-with young, was washed from the eaves of my husband’s paternal
-home. His mother, a great friend to all birds, placed the nest with
-the young, which happily were uninjured, in a window, which, being
-generally open, allowed the parent-birds access to their young. They
-very soon began to feed them, making no attempt to build any other
-nest; so that the young were successfully reared, and took their flight
-full-fledged from the window-sill.
-
-[Sidenote: _A Welcomed Return to Old Haunts._]
-
-The next spring, when the time for the arrival of the swallows came,
-great was the surprise and pleasure of their kind hostess, to see,
-one day, a number of swallows twittering about the window, as if
-impatient for entrance. On its being opened, in they flew, and,
-twittering joyfully and circling round the room, as if recognising the
-old hospitable asylum of the former year, flew out and soon settled
-themselves under the eaves with the greatest satisfaction. There could
-be no doubt but that these were the birds that had been reared there.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI.
-
-THE CHIFF-CHAFF, OR OVEN-BUILDER.
-
-
-The Chiff-chaff, chill-chall, lesser pettichaps, or oven-builder, is
-one of the great bird-family of warblers, and the smallest of them in
-size; indeed, it is not much larger than the little willow-wren. Like
-all its family it is a bird of passage, and makes its appearance here,
-in favourable seasons, as early as the 12th of March—earlier than
-the warblers in general—and also remains later, having been known to
-remain here to the middle of October.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  CHIFF-CHAFFS AND NEST.      [Page 66.
-]
-
-It is a remarkably cheerful little bird, and is warmly welcomed by all
-lovers of the country as being one of the first visitants of spring,
-sending its pleasant little voice, with an incessant “chiff-chaff,”
-“chery-charry,” through the yet leafless trees.
-
-Its plumage is dark olive-green; the breast and under part of the body,
-white, with a slight tinge of yellow; the tail, brown, edged with pale
-green; legs, yellowish-brown.
-
-The nest is not unlike that of a wren, built in a low bush, and,
-sometimes, even on the ground. The one so beautifully and faithfully
-depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir, seems to be amongst the tallest grasses
-and picturesque growths of some delicious woodland lane. It is a
-lovely little structure; a hollow ball wonderfully put together, of
-dry leaves and stems of grass, and a circular hole for entrance at
-the side; lined with soft feathers—a little downy bed of comfort. The
-mother-bird, as we now see her, sits here in delicious ease on five or
-six white eggs, beautifully spotted with rich red-brown.
-
-[Sidenote: _Mr. Howitt’s Account of this Bird._]
-
-This dainty little bird, which seems made alone for pleasure, is
-very useful to man, and should be made kindly welcome everywhere,
-living entirely on caterpillars and other troublesome and destructive
-creatures. The Rev. J. G. Wood says that it saves many a good oak from
-destruction by devouring, on its first arrival, the caterpillars of
-the well-known green oak-moth, which roll up the leaves in so curious
-a manner, and come tumbling out of their green houses at the slightest
-alarm.
-
-He says, also, that a little chiff-chaff, which had been caught and
-tamed, was accustomed to dash to the ceiling of the room in which it
-was kept, and to snatch thence the flies which settled on the white
-surface.
-
-My husband, writing of this bird, says:—
-
-“Gilbert White gave, I believe, the name of chiff-chaff to this
-little bird from its note. In the midland counties it is called the
-chill-chall from the same cause; and, indeed, this name is, to my ear,
-more accordant with its continuous ditty. Its cheery little voice is
-one of the pleasantest recognitions of returning spring. It is sure to
-be heard, just as in former years, in the copse, the dell, the belt
-of trees bordering a wayside; we catch its simple note with pleasure,
-for it brings with it many a memory of happy scenes and days gone
-by. We see the little creature hopping along the boughs of the yet
-only budding oak, and know that it is as usefully employed for man
-as agreeably for itself. It tells us, in effect, that sunny days,
-flowers, and sweet airs, and the music of a thousand other birds, are
-coming. We revert to the time when, tracing the wood-side or the bosky
-dingle in boyhood, we caught sight of its rounded nest amongst the
-screening twigs of the low bush, and the bleached bents of last year’s
-grapes. We remember the pleasure with which we examined its little
-circular entrance, and discovered, in its downy interior, its store
-of delicate eggs, or the living mass of feathery inmates, with their
-heads ranged side by side and one behind another, with their twinkling
-eyes and yellow-edged mouths. Many a time, as we have heard the ever
-blithe note of chill-chall, as it stuck to its unambitious part of the
-obscure woodland glade, we have wished that we could maintain the same
-buoyant humour, the same thorough acceptance of the order of Providence
-for us. As Luther, in a moment of despondency, when enemies were rife
-around him, and calumny and wrong pursued him, heard the glad song of a
-bird that came and sang on a bough before his window, we have thanked
-God for the lesson of the never-drooping chill-chall. The great world
-around never damps its joy with a sense of its own insignificance; the
-active and often showy life of man, the active and varied existence of
-even birds, which sweep through the air in gay companies, never disturb
-its pleasure in its little accustomed nook. It seems to express, in its
-two or three simple notes, all the sentiment of indestructible content,
-like the old woman’s bird in the German story by Ludwig Tieck—
-
-    Alone in wood so gay,
-    ’Tis good to stay,
-    Morrow like to-day
-    For ever and aye;
-    Oh, I do love to stay
-    Alone in wood so gay!
-
-[Sidenote: _The Bird’s Ditty._]
-
-“This little bird appears to feel all that strength of heart, and to
-put it into its little ditty, which seems to me to say—
-
-“Here I continue ‘cheery cheery, and still shall, and still shall!’”
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII.
-
-THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.
-
-
-We have here the Golden-crested Wren—the _Regulus cristatus_
-of naturalists—the tiniest of our British birds, “the pleasing
-fairy-bird,” as Bewick calls it, one of the large family of warblers,
-and a near relation to Jenny Wren. It is a very charming little bird,
-with a sweet melodious song of its own, and so many curious little ways
-that it is well worth everybody’s notice and everybody’s love.
-
-It is very active and lively, always in motion, fluttering from branch
-to branch, and running up and down the trunks and limbs of trees, in
-search of insects on which it lives. It may as often be seen on the
-under as on the upper side of a branch, with its back downwards, like
-a fly on a ceiling, and so running along, all alert, as merry and busy
-as possible. In size it is about three inches, that is with all its
-feathers on, but its little body alone is not above an inch long; yet
-in this little body, and in this little brain, lives an amazing amount
-of character, as I shall show you, as well as a great deal of amusing
-conceit and pertness which you would hardly believe unless you were
-told.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST.      [Page 70.
-]
-
-The colour of the bird is a sort of yellowish olive-green, the under
-part of pale, reddish-white, tinged with green on the sides; the quill
-feathers of the wing are dusky, edged with pale green, as are also
-the tail feathers. Thus attired by nature, that is, by the great
-Creator who cares for all His creatures, this little bird, creeping
-and fluttering about the branches and bole of the leafy summer tree,
-can scarcely be distinguished from the tree itself: hence it is that
-the bird is so unfamiliar to most people. The he-bird, however, has
-a little distinguishing glory of his own—a crest of golden-coloured
-feathers, bordered on each side with black, like a sort of eye-brow to
-his bright hazel eyes. This crest, which gives him his distinguished
-name, can be erected at pleasure, when he is full of life and
-enjoyment, or when he chooses to lord it over birds ten times as big as
-himself.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Lively Gambols of this Bird._]
-
-It is worth anybody’s while, who has a love for the innocent denizens
-of nature, and no desire to do them harm, to go into a wood on a
-summer’s day on purpose to watch the doings of this lively little bird
-amongst the tree-branches. Fir-woods are the best for this purpose, as
-this bird has an especial liking for these trees, and ten to one, if
-you will only be patient and quite still, you may soon see him at work
-busily looking after his dinner, running along the branches, up one and
-down another, then like a little arrow off to the next tree, scudding
-along its branches, then back again, up and down, round and round
-the bole, going like a little fire, so rapid are his movements; now
-running up aloft, now hanging head downward, now off again in another
-direction. What a wonderful activity there is in that little body! He
-must devour hundreds of insects, as well as their eggs, which he thus
-seeks for under the scaly roughnesses of the bark, and finding, devours.
-
-Pretty as he is, his nest, of which Mr. Harrison Weir has given a most
-accurate drawing, is quite worthy of him. It is always the same, swung
-like a little hammock from a branch, and always hidden, it may be by
-leaves or a bunch of fir-cones. The cordage by which it is suspended
-is of his own weaving, and is made of the same materials as the nest,
-which are moss and slender thread-like roots. In form it is oval, as
-you see, with a hole for entrance at the side, and is lined with the
-softest down and fibrous roots. It is a lovely little structure, like
-a soft ball of moss, within which the mother-bird lays from six to a
-dozen tiny eggs, scarcely bigger than peas, the delicate shell of which
-will hardly bear handling. The colour of the egg is white, sprinkled
-over with the smallest of dull-coloured spots.
-
-Mr. Jesse describes one of these lovely nests which was taken from the
-slender branches of a fir-tree where it had been suspended, as usual,
-by means of delicate cordage, secured to the branch by being twisted
-round and round, and then fastened to the edge or rim of the nest,
-so that one may be sure that the making and securing of these tiny
-ropes must be the first work of the clever little artizan. The nest
-thus suspended sways lightly to and fro with the movement of the bird.
-We cannot see in our cut the slender ropes that suspend it; they are
-concealed under the thick foliage; but we can easily see what a dainty
-little structure it is.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Jackdaw and Mischievous Wrens._]
-
-Delicate and lovely as is this bird, and pleasing and harmless as is
-his life, he yet possesses some curious traits of character, as I
-said. For instance, though so small, with a body only an inch long,
-he has, apparently, a wonderful conceit of himself, and loves to be
-lord and master of creatures that will not dispute with him, as not
-worth their while, or perhaps because there really is some inherent
-mastership in him by which he contrives, under certain circumstances,
-to rule over them. In proof of this, I will tell you what the Rev. J.
-G. Wood relates from the experience of a lady, a friend of his. One
-severe winter, when she had housed and fed a number of birds, amongst
-which were a jackdaw, a magpie, two skylarks, a goldfinch, and a robin,
-in a warm aviary, feeding them regularly and abundantly, other birds
-came, of course, to partake of the plentiful feast, and amongst them
-two golden-crested wrens. These little things made themselves not
-only quite at home, but lorded it over the other birds in the most
-extraordinary way possible. For instance, if the jackdaw had possessed
-himself of a nice morsel which he was holding down with his foot to
-eat comfortably, and the golden-crested wren had also set his mind on
-it, he hopped on the jackdaw’s head and pecked in his eye, on the side
-where his foot held the delicacy. On this the poor jackdaw instantly
-lifted his foot to his head where he thought something was amiss, and
-the mischievous little fellow snatched up the treasure and was off. At
-first the jackdaw would pursue him in great wrath, but he soon learned
-that it was no use, for the creature would only jump upon his back
-where he could not reach him, and so was safe from punishment. “Before
-the winter was over,” continues the lady, “the little gold-crests were
-masters of all the birds, and even roosted at night on their backs;
-finding, no doubt, that in this way they could keep their little feet
-much warmer than on a perch.”
-
-Conceited and dominant, however, as these little birds may be, they are
-yet either extremely timid, or their nervous system is so delicately
-constituted, that a sudden fright kills them. Thus if, when they are
-all alert and busy on the tree-branch, seeking for insects and fearing
-no evil, the branch be suddenly struck with a stick, the poor bird
-falls dead to the ground. The shock has killed it. It has received no
-apparent injury—not a feather is ruffled—but its joyous, innocent
-life is gone for ever. This fact is asserted by Gilbert White, and was
-proved by my husband, who brought me home the bird which had thus died.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII.
-
-THE WAGTAIL.
-
-
-This elegant little bird belongs to the Motacilla, or Wagtail family.
-There are three brothers of them in this country—the pied, the grey,
-and the yellow. The pied is the most familiar, and our friend Mr.
-Harrison Weir has given us a lovely picture of it at home in a cleft of
-the rock, with fleshy-leaved lichens above, and green springing fronds
-of the great fern, which will presently overshadow it. Around are the
-solemn mountains, and the never silent water is foaming and rushing
-below.
-
-This bird has many names besides his Latin one of Motacilla. In Surrey
-he is called washer, or dish-washer, by the common people, from his
-peculiar motions in walking, which are thought to resemble those of a
-washer-woman at her tub. The colours of the pied wagtail are simply
-black and white, but so boldly and clearly marked as to produce a very
-pleasing and elegant effect.
-
-We have, every year, several wagtails in our garden, to which they add
-a very cheerful feature, walking about, nodding their heads and tails
-as if perfectly at home, afraid neither of dog nor cat, much less of
-any human being about the place. A little running brook as one boundary
-of the garden is, no doubt, one of the attractions; but here they are
-seen less frequently than on the smoothly-mown lawn, where they pick up
-tiny insects, gliding along with a smooth motion, accompanied by the
-quick movement of head and tail.
-
-It is bitterly cold wintry weather as I write this, and they now visit
-the kitchen door, where, no doubt, little delicacies of various kinds
-attract them. They are more fearless and familiar than either sparrows,
-robins, or blackbirds; yet all of these are our daily pensioners,
-having their breakfast of crumbs as regularly before the parlour window
-as we have our own meal. Yet they fly away at the slightest sound,
-and the appearance of the cat disperses them altogether. They have,
-evidently, the old ancestral fear of man, stamped, as powerfully as
-life itself, upon their being. They are suspicious, and always in
-a flutter: nothing equals the calm self-possession of the wagtail,
-excepting it be the state of mind into which the robin gets when the
-gardener is turning up the fresh soil, just on purpose, as he supposes,
-to find worms for him.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  WAGTAIL AND NEST.      [Page 76.
-]
-
-[Sidenote: _Its Quest for Food._]
-
-And now let me give you a wagtail picture, drawn by a faithful hand.[A]
-It is the end of July, the young wagtails are abroad with their
-parents, like human families, a month or two later, gone out or abroad
-to take their holiday. “Often,” he says, “one may see them wading in
-shallow places, in quest of insects and worms, carefully holding up
-their tails to prevent them being draggled. If you watch the motions
-of an individual just coming up to join the party, you see it alight
-abruptly, twittering its shrill notes, and, perching on a small stone,
-incessantly vibrate its body, and jerk out its tail.” This of course
-is the polite way in which a stranger wagtail introduces itself
-amongst its friends. There they are; now walking out into the water,
-and looking round for food. Now they are on the shore again, running
-rapidly along, picking up, now and then, a dainty morsel, and every
-moment spreading out the ever-vibrating tail. Now they are in the
-adjoining meadow, each one in pursuit of a fly, which it has no sooner
-caught, than it spies another. The lazy geese, which have nibbled
-the grass bare, allow the wagtail to pass in their midst without
-molestation. When the cows are grazing in the midst of a swarm of
-gnats and other insects, as Gilbert White says, as they tread amongst
-the bush herbage they rouse up multitudes of insects which settle on
-their legs, their stomachs, and even their noses, and the wagtails are
-welcomed by the cows as benefactors. Watch them, for they are worth the
-trouble; see, one comes forward and catches a small fly, bends to one
-side to seize another, darts to the right after a third, and springs
-some feet in the air before it secures a fourth, and all this time
-others are running about after other flies, passing close to the cows’
-noses or amongst their feet. With all this running to and fro, and
-hither and thither, they every now and then run in each other’s way;
-but they do not quarrel, aware, no doubt, that there is room enough for
-them in the world, nay, even in the meadow, though it now seems to be
-full of wagtails, all busily occupied, some walking, others running, a
-few flying off and many arriving. You may walk in amongst them; they
-are not very shy, for they will allow you to come within a few yards of
-them. They may always be met with on the shore when the tide is out, as
-well as in the meadow; you will meet with them by the river-side, or by
-the mill-dam. Occasionally you may see them perched on a roof, a wall,
-or a large stone, but very rarely on a tree or bush.
-
-[Footnote A: “British Birds.”]
-
-[Sidenote: _The Taunton Pair._]
-
-They pair about the middle of April, and build by the side of rivers
-in crevices of rock—as in our picture, on a heap of stones, in faggot
-or wood stacks, or in a hole in a wall, but always near water and
-carefully hidden from sight. The nest is made of dry grass, moss, and
-small roots, thickly lined with wool and hair. The eggs are five or six
-in number, of a greyish white, spotted all over with grey and brown.
-As a proof of the confiding nature of this bird, I must mention that
-occasionally it builds in most unimaginable places, directly under the
-human eye—as, for instance, “a pair of them last summer,” says Mr.
-Jesse, “built their nest in a hollow under a sleeper of the Brighton
-Railway, near the terminus at that place. Trains at all times of the
-day were passing close to the nest, but in this situation the young
-were hatched and reared.” Mr. Macgillivray also mentions that a pair
-of these birds built their nest in an old wall near a quarry, within a
-few yards of four men who worked most part of the day in getting the
-stone, which they occasionally blasted. The hen-bird laid four eggs,
-and reared her brood, she and her mate becoming so familiar with the
-quarry-men as to fly in and out without showing the least sign of fear;
-but if a stranger approached they would immediately fly off, nor return
-till they saw him clear off from the place. Another nest was built
-beneath a wooden platform at a coal-pit, where the noisy business of
-unloading the hutches brought up from the pit, was continually going
-forward. But soon the wagtails were quite at home, becoming familiar
-with the colliers and other people connected with the work, and flew
-in and out of their nest without showing the slightest sign of fear.
-Again, another pair built close to the wheel of a lathe in a workshop
-at a brass manufactory at Taunton amid the incessant din of the
-braziers; yet here the young were hatched, and the mother-bird became
-perfectly familiar with the faces of the workmen; but if a stranger
-entered, or any one belonging to the factory, though not to what might
-be called her shop, she quitted her nest instantly, nor would return
-till they were gone. The male, however, had much less confidence, and
-would not come into the room, but brought the usual supplies of food to
-a certain spot on the roof whence she fetched it. All these anecdotes
-prove how interesting would be the relationship between the animal
-creation and man, if man ceased to be their tyrant or destroyer.
-
-As regards this particular bird, it is not only elegant in its
-appearance, but amiable and attractive in all its ways. “They are,”
-says Bewick, “very attentive to their young, and continue to feed and
-train them for three or four weeks after they can fly; they defend them
-with great courage when in danger, or endeavour to draw aside the enemy
-by various little arts. They are very attentive also to the cleanliness
-of their nests, and so orderly as to have been known to remove light
-substances, such as paper or straw, which have been placed to mark the
-spot.” As regards this proof of their love of order, however, I would
-rather suggest that it may be a proof of their sagacity and sense of
-danger: they suspected that some human visitor, of whose friendly
-character they were not convinced, was intending to look in upon them,
-and they thought it best, therefore, to decline the honour of his
-visit.
-
-The ordinary note of this bird, uttered rapidly if alarmed, is a sort
-of _cheep, cheep_. In the summer morning, however, it may be heard
-singing a pleasant, mellow and modulated little song. Like the swallow,
-for which it is a match in elegance, it lives entirely on insects. If
-you would only stand silently for a few minutes by a water-side, where
-it haunts, you would be delighted with the grace and activity of its
-movements. “There it stands,” says one of its friends, “on the top of
-a stone, gently vibrating its tail, as if balancing itself. An insect
-flies near; it darts off, flutters a moment in the air, seizes its
-prey, and settles on another stone, spreading and vibrating its tail.
-Presently it makes another sally, flutters around for a while, seizes
-two or three insects, glides over the ground, swerving to either side,
-then again takes its stand on a pinnacle.” Not unfrequently too it
-may be seen on the roof of a house, or in a village street, still in
-pursuit of insects.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV.
-
-THE JACKDAW.
-
-
-We have called the Rook and Jackdaw first cousins. They are so, and
-are greatly attached to each other. There is a difference, however, in
-their character; the rook is grave and dignified, the jackdaw is active
-and full of fun. But they are fond of each other’s society, and agree
-to associate for nine months in the year: during the other three they
-are both occupied with their respective family cares.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  JACKDAWS AND NESTLINGS.      [Page 82.
-]
-
-Rooks build in trees in the open air, the nests of the young being
-exposed to all the influences of wind and weather. The jackdaw does not
-approve of this mode. He likes to live under cover, and, therefore,
-makes his nest in holes and crannies, amongst rocks, as in our picture;
-in old and tall buildings, as church towers and steeples, old ruinous
-castles, or old hollow trees. The traditional structure of the family
-nest is certainly that of the rook; a strong frame-work of sticks upon
-which the eggs can be laid, and the clamorous young jackdaws be brought
-up. This our friend Mr. Weir has shown us plainly. But, after all, it
-does not appear that the jackdaw, with all his sharpness, has much
-scientific knowledge, the getting the sticks into the hole being often
-a very difficult piece of work. Mr. Waterton amused himself by watching
-the endless labour and pains which the jackdaw takes in trying to do
-impossibilities. Thinking it absolutely necessary that a frame-work
-of sticks should be laid in the hole or cavity as the foundation of
-the nest, he brings to the opening just such sticks as the rook would
-use in open spaces, and may be seen trying for a quarter of an hour
-together to get a stick into a hole, holding it by the middle all the
-time, so that the ends prop against each side, and make the endeavour
-impossible. He cannot understand how it is; he knows that sticks ought
-to go into holes, but here is one that will not; and, tired out at
-length, and thinking perhaps that it is in the nature of some sticks
-not to be got into a hole by any means, he drops it down and fetches
-another, probably to have no better result, and this may happen several
-times. But jackdaws have perseverance, and so, with trying and trying
-again, he meets with sticks that are not so self-willed, and that can
-be put into holes, either by being short enough or held the right way,
-and so the foundation is laid, and the easier part of the work goes on
-merrily; for the jackdaw is at no loss for sheets and blankets for his
-children’s bed, though we cannot see them in our picture, the clamorous
-children lying at the very edge of their bed. But if we could examine
-it, we should most likely be amused by what we should find. The jackdaw
-takes for this purpose anything soft that comes readily—we cannot say
-to _hand_—but to _bill_. In this respect he resembles the sparrow,
-and being, like him, fond of human society, gleans up out of his
-neighbourhood all that he needs for the comfort of his nestlings. Thus
-we hear of a nest, built in the ruins of Holyrood Chapel, in which,
-on its being looked into for a piece of lace which was supposed to be
-there, it was found also to be lined with part of a worsted stocking,
-a silk handkerchief, a child’s cap, a muslin frill, and several
-other things which the busy jackdaw had picked up in various ways; for
-it must be borne in mind that he is own cousin to the magpie, whose
-thievish propensities are well known.
-
-The call of the jackdaw is much quicker and more lively than the rook,
-somewhat resembling the syllable _yak_, variously modulated, and
-repeated somewhat leisurely, but at the same time cheerfully. Its food
-is similar to that of the rook, and going forth at early dawn it may be
-seen in pastures or ploughed fields, busily searching for larvæ, worms,
-and insects. They walk gracefully, with none of the solemn gravity
-either of the rook or raven, and may occasionally be seen running along
-and sometimes quarrelling amongst themselves.
-
-Like the rook, the jackdaw stows away food in its mouth or throat-bag
-to feed its young. Its plumage is black, with shining silvery grey
-behind the head. Occasionally they are found with streaks or patches of
-white, as are also rooks, but these are mere sports of nature.
-
-[Sidenote: _Mr. Waterton’s Opinion._]
-
-Mr. Waterton was of opinion that jackdaws lived in pairs all the year
-round, as he had seen them sitting in November on the leafless branches
-of a sycamore, side by side, pruning each other’s heads, and apparently
-full of mutual affection; and as they mostly left the trees in pairs,
-and so returned, he was inclined to think that it was their custom
-always to remain paired.
-
-I will now give you his _carte de visite_ from Macgillivray’s “British
-Birds.” “He is a remarkably active, pert, and talkative little fellow,
-ever cheerful, always on the alert, and ready either for business or
-frolic. If not so respectable as the grave and sagacious raven, he
-is, at least, the most agreeable of the family, and withal extremely
-fond of society, for, not content with having a flock of his own folk
-about him, he often thrusts himself into a gang of rooks, and in winter
-sometimes takes up his abode entirely with them.”
-
-As to _thrusting_ himself into a gang of rooks, I am, however, of
-opinion that the rooks make him heartily welcome. How do we know what
-amusement they, with their stolid gravity and solemn dignity, find in
-him with all his fun and loquacity? That rooks are really fond of the
-society of jackdaws is proved by an observation of Mr. Mudie. He says
-that “in the latter part of the season, when the rooks from one of the
-most extensive rookeries in Britain made daily excursions of about six
-miles to the warm grounds by the sea-side, and in their flight passed
-over a deep ravine, in the sunny side of which were many jackdaws, he
-observed that when the cawing of the rooks in their morning flight was
-heard at the ravine, the jackdaws, who had previously been still and
-quiet, instantly raised their shriller notes, and flew up to join the
-rooks, both parties clamouring loudly as if welcoming each other; and
-that on the return, the daws accompanied the rooks a little past the
-ravine as if for good fellowship; then both cawed their farewell: the
-daws returned to their home and the rooks proceeded on their way.”
-
-Jackdaws, like rooks, are said to be excellent weather-prophets.
-If they fly back to their roost in the forenoon, or early in the
-afternoon, a storm may be expected that evening, or early in the
-morning.
-
-[Sidenote: _The Rev. J. G. Wood’s Anecdote._]
-
-The anecdotes of tame jackdaws are numerous. The Rev. J. G. Wood
-speaks of one which had learnt the art of kindling lucifer matches,
-and thus became a very dangerous inmate, busying himself in this way
-when the family was in bed, though, fortunately, he seems to have done
-nothing worse than light the kitchen fire which had been laid ready
-for kindling over night. Clever as he was, however, he could not learn
-to distinguish the proper ignitable end of the match, and so rubbed
-on till he happened to get it right. He frightened himself terribly
-at first by the explosion and the sulphur fumes, and burned himself
-into the bargain. But I do not find that, like the burnt child, he
-afterwards feared the fire and so discontinued the dangerous trick.
-
-The jackdaw is easily domesticated, and makes himself very happy in
-captivity, learns to articulate words and sentences, and is most
-amusing by his mimicry and comic humour.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV.
-
-THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER.
-
-
-This pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird from the
-position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly in gardens,
-it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of a beam or piece
-of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or gateway, the nest being,
-however, generally screened, and often made a perfect little bit
-of picturesque beauty, by the leaves of some lovely creeping rose,
-woodbine, or passionflower, which grows there.
-
-This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, though
-always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond of human
-society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Virginian creeper, at
-the back of our house.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST.      [Page 86.
-]
-
-According to her peculiar fancy she built exactly in the doorway,
-though there were some yards of verandah on either hand; but here was
-the convenient ledge, forming an angle with the upright support; and
-here was placed, as in our picture, the small, somewhat flat nest,
-beautifully, though slightly, put together, of dried grass and moss,
-lined with wool and hair. Here the mother-bird laid her four or five
-greyish-white eggs, with their spots of rusty red, and here she reared
-her young. She had, however, it seemed to us, an uncomfortable time of
-it, for, though we carefully avoided giving her needless disturbance
-that we almost ceased to use the door, yet there was an unavoidable
-passing to and fro to which she never seemed to get accustomed,
-starting off her nest with a little flutter whenever we came in sight;
-nor—although before she had finished sitting the quick-growing shoots
-of the Virginian creeper, with its broadly-expanding leaves, hid her
-nest so completely that, had it not been for her own timidity, we need
-not have known of her presence—she never lost this peculiar trait of
-character.
-
-The nest which Mr. Harrison Weir has drawn is, doubtless, taken from
-life. I wish, however, he could have seen ours, only about ten feet
-from the ground, a little dome of love, embowered amongst young shoots,
-vine-like leaves and tendrils—a perfectly ideal nest, in which our
-friend, who has as keen a sense of natural beauty as any artist living,
-would have delighted himself.
-
-The colours of this bird are very unobtrusive: the upper parts
-brownish-grey, the head spotted with brown, the neck and breast
-streaked or spotted with greyish-brown. It is a migratory bird, and
-arrives in this country about the middle or end of May, remaining with
-us till about the middle of October, by which time the flies on which
-it lives have generally disappeared.
-
-[Sidenote: _How it takes its Prey._]
-
-Its mode of taking its winged prey is curious. Seated, stock-still,
-in a twig, it darts or glides off at the sight of an insect, like the
-bird of our picture, and seizes it with a little snapping noise; then
-returns to its perch ready for more, and so on; incessantly darting out
-and returning to the same spot, till it has satisfied its hunger, or
-moves off to another twig to commence the same pursuit.
-
-When they have young, the number of flies consumed only by one little
-family must be amazing. It is recorded[B] in one instance that a pair
-of fly-catchers, beginning to feed their nestlings at five-and-twenty
-minutes before seven in the morning, and continuing their labour till
-ten minutes before nine at night, supplied them with food, that is to
-say with flies, no less than five hundred and thirty-seven times. The
-gentleman who made these observations says:—“Before they fed their
-young they alighted upon a tree for a few seconds, and looked round
-about them. By short jerks they usually caught the winged insects.
-Sometimes they ascended into the air and dropped like an arrow; at
-other times they hovered like a hawk when set on its prey. They drove
-off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approached their
-nest, as if bidding them to go and hunt in their own grounds, where
-there were plenty of flies for them. Sometimes they brought only one
-fly in their bills, sometimes several, and flies of various sizes.”
-
-[Footnote B: See Macgillivray’s “_British Birds_.”]
-
-This bird seems to become attached to particular localities, where
-he finds himself conveniently situated and undisturbed. Mr. Mudie
-mentions, in his “Feathered Tribes,” “that a pair of these birds had
-nested in his garden for twelve successive years.” What is the length
-of life of a fly-catcher I cannot say; but probably if they were
-not the same birds, they would be their descendants—birds hatched
-there, and consequently at home. The Rev. J. G. Wood also speaks of
-the same locality having been used by this bird for twenty successive
-years; and he supposes that the young had succeeded to their ancestral
-home. He gives also an interesting account of the commencement of a
-nest-building by this bird. He says that the female, who seems to be
-generally the active builder, placed, in the first instance, a bundle
-of fine grass in some conveniently-forked branches, and after having
-picked it about for some time, as if regularly shaking it up, she
-seated herself in the middle of it, and there, spinning herself round
-and round, gave it its cup-like form. She then fetched more grasses,
-and after arranging them partly round the edge, and partly on the
-bottom, repeated the spinning process. A few hairs and some moss were
-then stuck about the nest and neatly woven in, the hair and slender
-vegetable fibres being the thread, so to speak, with which the moss was
-fastened to the nest.
-
-[Sidenote: _Mr. Mudie on Nest-building._]
-
-Mr. Mudie, also speaking of their nest-building, says that, in one
-instance which came under his notice, “the bird began at seven o’clock
-on a Tuesday morning, and the nest was finished in good time on Friday
-afternoon.” This was certainly rapid work. Mr. Yarrell says that the
-he-bird brings the materials to the hen, who makes use of them—which
-is stated as a general fact by Michelet—and that in constructing her
-nest the little fly-catcher, after she had rounded it into its first
-form, moves backwards as she weaves into it long hairs and grasses with
-her bill, continually walking round and round her nest. This, however,
-can only be when the situation of the nest will allow of her passing
-round it. Our fly-catcher’s nest, and the nest of our picture, are
-placed as a little bed close to the wall, and in such situations the
-nest has sometimes no back, but simply the lining. A very favourite
-place with the fly-catcher for her nest is the hole in a wall, the
-size of a half brick, in which the builder fixed the spar of his
-scaffolding, and omitted to fill up when he had finished. In these
-convenient little nooks the fly-catcher’s nest fills the whole front
-of the opening, but has seldom any back to it. From all this, I think
-it is clear that the fly-catcher is, in her arrangements, guided by
-circumstances: only, in every case, her little home is as snug as it
-can be.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI.
-
-THE WOOD-PIGEON.
-
-
-The wood-pigeon, ring-dove, or cushat is one of the most familiar and
-poetical of our birds. Its low, plaintive coo-goo-roo-o-o is one of the
-pleasantest sounds of our summer woods.
-
-    “Tell me, tell me, cushat, why thou moanest ever,
-    Thrilling all the greenwood with thy secret woe?
-    ‘I moan not,’ says the cushat, ‘I praise life’s gracious Giver
-    By murmuring out my love in the best way that I know.’”
-
-The wood-pigeon belongs to a large family of birds—_columbinæ_ or
-doves. The earliest mention of them in the world is in Genesis,
-when Noah, wearied with the confinement of the ark, and seeing
-that the mountain tops were visible, selected from the imprisoned
-creatures—first the raven, then the dove, to go forth and report to
-him of the state of the earth. The raven, however, came not back, no
-doubt finding food which tempted him to stay; whilst the dove, finding
-no rest for the sole of her foot, returned, and Noah, putting forth his
-hand, took her in. Again he sent her forth, and she came back in the
-evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. A third
-time she was sent forth, but now she returned no more. So Noah looked
-out, and behold the face of the earth was dry. And he and his family,
-and all the creatures, again went forth and possessed all things.
-
-This dove might probably be of the carrier-pigeon tribe, which is more
-nearly related to the rock-pigeon, also a native of this country,
-or rather, of the northern parts of Scotland. These carrier-pigeons
-were, in the old times, long enough before the invention of electric
-telegraphs, or even before post-offices were established, used instead
-of both. Anacreon, the Greek poet, speaks of them as being used to
-convey letters; the pigeon, having, as it were, two homes, being fed in
-each; thus, a letter from a friend in one home was tied to the wing,
-and the bird turned into the air, probably without his breakfast, when
-he immediately flew off to his distant home, where the letter was
-joyfully received, and he fed for his pains. Whilst the answer was
-prepared he would rest, and it, perhaps, taking some little time, he
-grew hungry again; but they gave him nothing more, and, again securing
-the letter on his little person, he was sent back, making good speed,
-because he would now be thinking of his supper. Thus, the answer flew
-through the air.
-
-      “Come hither, my dove,
-        And I’ll write to my love,
-    And I’ll send him a letter by thee!”
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST.      [Page 92.
-]
-
-So says the old song. And we are told that a young man named
-Taurosthenes, one of the victors in the great Olympian games of Greece,
-sent to his father, who resided at a considerable distance, the tidings
-of his success, on the same day, by one of these birds. Pliny, the
-Roman historian, speaks of them being used in case of siege; when the
-besieged sent out these winged messengers, who, cleaving the air at
-a secure height above the surrounding army, conveyed the important
-intelligence of their need to their friends afar off. The crusaders
-are said to have made use of them at the siege of Jerusalem, and the
-old traveller, Sir John Maundeville—“knight, warrior, and pilgrim,” as
-he is styled—who, in the reign of our second and third Edwards, made
-a journey as far as the borders of China, relates that, “in that and
-other countries beyond, pigeons were sent out from one to another to
-ask succour in time of need, and these letters were tied to the neck of
-the bird.”
-
-But enough of carrier-pigeons. Let us come back to our ring-dove or
-cushat, brooding on her eggs in the sweet summer woods, as Mr. Harrison
-Weir has so truthfully represented her. She is not much of a nest-maker.
-
-          “A few sticks across,
-          Without a bit of moss,
-    Laid in the fork of an old oak-tree;
-          Coo-goo-roo-o-o,
-          She says it will do,
-    And there she’s as happy as a bird can be.”
-
-The nest, however, is not at all insufficient for her needs. You see
-her sitting brooding over her two white eggs in every possible bird
-comfort; and whether her mate help her in the building of the nest
-or not, I cannot say, but he is certainly a very good domesticated
-husband, and sits upon the eggs alternately with her, so that the
-hatching, whatever the building may be, is an equally divided labour.
-
-[Sidenote: _Wordsworth’s Tribute of Praise._]
-
-Wordsworth sees in this bird an example of unobtrusive home affection.
-He says:—
-
-        “I heard a stock-dove sing or say
-        His homely tale this very day:
-        His voice was buried among the trees,
-        Yet to be come at by the breeze;
-
-        He did not cease, but cooed and cooed,
-        And somewhat pensively he wooed;
-        He sung of love with quiet blending,
-        Slow to begin, and never ending;
-        Of serious faith and inward glee;
-        That was the song—the song for me.”
-
-Wood-pigeons have immense appetites, and, being fond of all kinds of
-grain, as well as peas and beans, are looked upon by the farmer with
-great disfavour. They are, however, fond of some of those very weeds
-which are his greatest annoyance—for instance, charlock and wild
-mustard; so that they do him some good in return for the tribute which
-they take of his crops. They are fond, also, both of young clover and
-the young green leaves of the turnip, as well as of the turnip itself.
-Either by instinct or experience, they have learned that, feeding
-thus in cultivated fields, they are doing that which will bring down
-upon them the displeasure of man. “They keep,” says the intelligent
-author of “Wild Sports in the Highlands,” “when feeding in the fields,
-in the most open and exposed places, so as to allow no enemy to come
-near them. It is amusing to watch a large flock of these birds whilst
-searching the ground for grain. They walk in a compact body; and in
-order that all may fare alike—which is certainly a good trait in their
-character—the hindermost rank, every now and then, fly over the heads
-of their companions to the front, where they keep the best place for
-a minute or two, till those now in the rear take their place. They
-keep up this kind of fair play during the whole time of feeding. They
-feed, also, on wild fruit and all kinds of wild berries, such as the
-mountain-ash, and ivy; and where acorns abound, seem to prefer them to
-anything else. At the same time, I must confess that they are great
-enemies to my cherry-trees, and swallow as many cherries as they can
-hold. Nor are strawberries safe from them, and the quantity of food
-they manage to stow away in their crops is perfectly astonishing.”
-
-[Sidenote: _Its Necessary Watchfulness._]
-
-Besides man, the wood-pigeon has its own bird-enemies. “In districts
-where the hooded crow abounds,” says the author whom I have just
-quoted, “he is always on the look-out for its eggs, which, shining out
-white from the shallow, unsubstantial nest, are easily seen by him.
-The sparrow-hawk seizes the young when they are half-grown and plump;
-he having been carefully noticed watching the nest day by day as if
-waiting for the time when they should be fit for his eating. The larger
-hawks, however, prey upon the poor wood-pigeon himself.”
-
-With all his pleasant cooings in the wood, therefore, and all
-his complacent strutting about with elevated head and protruded
-breast—with all his gambols and graces, his striking the points of
-his wings together as he rises into the air, to express a pleasure to
-his mate beyond his cooing, he has not such a care free life of it. He
-is always kept on the alert, therefore, and, being always on the watch
-against danger, is not at all a sound sleeper. The least disturbance at
-night rouses him. “I have frequently,” continues our author, “attempted
-to approach the trees when the wood-pigeons were roosting, but even
-on the darkest nights they would take alarm. The poor wood-pigeon
-has no other defence against its enemies than its ever watchful and
-never sleeping timidity; not being able to do battle against even the
-smallest of its many persecutors.”
-
-Gilbert White says that the wood-pigeons were greatly decreasing, in
-his time, in Hampshire, and there were then only about a hundred in the
-woods at Selborne, but in former times the flocks had been so vast, not
-only there, but in the surrounding districts, that they had traversed
-the air morning and evening like rooks, reaching for a mile together,
-and that, when they thus came to rendezvous there by thousands, the
-sound of their wings, suddenly roused from their roosting-trees in an
-evening, rising all at once into the air, was like a sudden rolling of
-distant thunder.
-
-Although the wood-pigeon is considered to be the original parent of
-the tame pigeon, yet it does not seem possible to tame the young of
-this bird, though taken from the nest quite young. It is a bird which
-appears to hate confinement, and, as soon as it has the opportunity,
-spite of all kindness and attention, it flies away to the freedom of
-the woods.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII.
-
-THE WHITE-THROAT.
-
-
-With none of our migratory birds, our spring visitants from southern
-lands, is the lover of the country more familiar than with the
-White-throat, which, with its nest, is here so beautifully and livingly
-depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir.
-
-This bird, with its many names—White-throat, Peggy-white-throat,
-Peggy-chaw, Charlie-mufty, Nettle-creeper, Whishey-whey-beard or
-Pettichaps—comes to us in April, about the same time as the cuckoo and
-the swallow; the male bird, like his cousin the nightingale, coming
-before the female, but he does not make himself very conspicuous till
-the hedges and bushes are well covered with leaves; then he may be
-found in almost every lane and hedge the whole country over.
-
-As soon as the female is here, and the birds have paired, the business
-of nest-building begins, and they may then be seen flying in and out
-of the bushes with great alertness, the he-bird carolling his light
-and airy song, and often hurling himself, as it were, up into the air,
-some twenty or thirty feet, in a wild, tipsy sort of way, as if he
-were fuller of life than he could hold, and coming down again with a
-warble into the hedge, where the little hen-wife is already arranging
-her dwelling in the very spot probably where she was herself hatched,
-and her ancestors before her, for ages. For I must here remark that
-one of the most remarkable properties of birds is, that facility by
-which they so regularly disperse themselves over the whole country on
-their arrival after their far migration, each one, in all probability,
-attracted by some attachment of the past, stopping short at, or
-proceeding onward to, the exact spot where he himself first came into
-the consciousness of life. This is one of the wonderful arrangements of
-nature, otherwise of God, by which the great balance is so beautifully
-kept in creation. If the migratory bird arrives ever so weary at Dover,
-and its true home be some sweet low-lying lane of Devonshire, a thick
-hedgerow of the midland counties, or a thickety glen of Westmoreland,
-it will not delay its flight nor be tempted to tarry short of that
-glen, hedgerow, or lane with which the experience of its own life and
-affection is united.
-
-At this charming time of the year none of the various performers in
-nature’s great concert bring back to those who have passed their youth
-in the country a more delicious recollection of vernal fields and lanes
-than this bird of ours, the little white-throat.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  WHITE-THROAT AND NEST.      [Page 98.
-]
-
-Yes, along those hedges, fresh and fragrant with their young leaves,
-along those banks studded with primroses, campions, blue-bells and
-white starwort, and through the thick growth of the wild rose bushes,
-all of which have a beauty especially their own, the white-throat
-salutes you as you pass, as if to recognise an old acquaintance. He
-is brimful of fun; out he starts and performs his series of eccentric
-frolics in the air, accompanied by his mad-cap sort of warble; or,
-almost as if laughing at you, he repeats from the interior of the
-bushes his deep grave note, _chaw! chaw!_ whence comes the name
-of peggy-chaw. This, however, is to tell you—and to those who
-understand bird-language it is intelligible enough—that he has now a
-family to attend to, and he begs, very respectfully, that you will not
-trouble yourself about it.
-
-[Sidenote: _Description of the Bird._]
-
-A Scotch naturalist says that “the peasant boys in East Lothian imagine
-that the bird is mocking or laughing at them, as it tumbles over the
-hedge and bushes in the lane, and, therefore, they persecute it at all
-times, even more mercilessly than they do sparrows.”
-
-The white-throat is an excitable little bird, rapid in all its
-movements; and though it will apparently allow a person to come near,
-it incessantly flits on, gets to the other side of the hedge, warbles
-its quaint little song, flies to a short distance, sings again, and so
-on, for a long time, returning in the same way. It erects the feathers
-of its head when excited, and swells its throat so much when singing,
-that the feathers stand out like a ruff, whence it has obtained the
-name of _Muffety_, or Charlie-mufty, in Scotland.
-
-Its colour, on the upper parts of the body, is reddish-brown,
-brownish-white below, with a purely white throat. Its food is
-principally insects and larvæ of various kinds, for which it is always
-on the search amongst the thick undergrowth of the plants and bushes
-where it builds. One of its many names is Nettle-creeper, from this
-plant growing so generally in the localities which it haunts.
-
-Its nest—one of the most light and elegant of these little abodes—may
-truly be called “gauze-like,” for being constructed wholly of fine
-grasses, and very much of the brittle stems of the Galnim aparine, or
-cleavers, which, though slender, are not pliant, and bend only with an
-angle; they prevent the whole fabric from being closely woven, so that
-it maintains a gauzy texture; the inside, however, is put together more
-closely of finer and more pliant materials, delicate root-filaments,
-and various kinds of hair. The eggs, four or five in number, are of a
-greenish-gray colour, often with a tawny hue, blotched and spotted over
-with dark tints of the same colour.
-
-A correspondent of the author of “British Birds” says that, one morning
-in June, when walking in his shrubbery within about eighty yards of a
-White-throat’s nest, which he was taking great interest in, he found a
-portion of the shell of one of the eggs of this bird, and, fearing that
-a magpie had been plundering it, hastened to the spot, but found to his
-satisfaction that the nest was then full of newly-hatched birds. “The
-shell had,” he says, “been instinctively taken away by the mother in
-order to prevent the discovery of the place of her retreat.” He adds
-that the mother-bird was very shy, and usually dropped from her nest
-with the most astonishing rapidity, and, treading her way through the
-grasses and other entanglements, disappeared in a moment. The young,
-too, seemed greatly to dislike observation, and on his taking one into
-his hand to examine it, it uttered a cry, no doubt of alarm, on which
-all the other little things leapt out of their abode, although not more
-than half-fledged, and hopped amongst the grass. It is a singular fact
-that almost every kind of young bird, if they be caused to leave their
-nest through alarm, or by being handled, can never be induced to stay
-in the nest again, though they may be put back into it time after time.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII.
-
-THE BULL-FINCH.
-
-
-This bird, which is common to all parts of the country, is very shy,
-and for the greater part of the year haunts the woods and thickets.
-In spring, however, its fondness for tender fruit-buds tempts it into
-gardens and orchards, where, being considered an enemy, it is destroyed
-without mercy. It is a question, however, whether it devours these
-young buds as favourite food, or whether it may not be the equally
-distinctive grub or insect which is the temptation; and thus, that
-it ought rather to be regarded as the friend than the enemy of the
-gardener and fruit-grower. At all events, the general opinion is
-against the poor bull-finch. He is declared to be a devourer of the
-embryo fruit, and no mercy is shown to him. The Rev. J. G. Wood, always
-a merciful judge where birds are concerned, thinks that public opinion
-is unfairly against him. He says that a gooseberry tree, from which it
-was supposed that the bull-finches had picked away every blossom-bud,
-yet bore the same year an abundant crop of fruit, which certainly
-proved that they had picked away only the already infected buds, and so
-left the tree in an additionally healthy state, doubly able to mature
-and perfect its fruit.
-
-Bull-finches seldom associate with other birds, but keep together in
-small flocks as of single families. Its flight, though quick, is
-somewhat undulating or wavering; and in the winter it may sometimes
-be seen in large numbers flitting along the roadsides and hedges,
-being probably forced out of some of its shyness by the stress of
-hunger. Its ordinary note is a soft and plaintive whistle; its song,
-short and mellow. It is, in its native state, no way distinguished as
-a singing-bird, but at the same time it is possessed of a remarkable
-faculty for learning tunes artificially, of which I may have more to
-say presently.
-
-The bull-finch begins to build about the beginning of May. She places
-her nest, as we see in our illustration, in a bush, frequently a
-hawthorn, at no great distance from the ground. The nest is not very
-solidly put together; the foundation, so to speak, being composed of
-small dry twigs, then finished off with fibrous roots and moss, which
-also form the lining. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a dull
-bluish-white, marked at the larger end with dark spots.
-
-Although there is so little to say about the bull-finch in his natural
-state—excepting that he is a handsome bird, with bright black eyes,
-a sort of rich black hood on his head; his back, ash-grey; his breast
-and underparts, red; wings and tail, black, with the upper tail-coverts
-white—yet when he has gone through his musical education, he is not
-only one of the most accomplished of song-birds, but one of the most
-loving and faithfully attached little creatures that can come under
-human care. These trained birds are known as piping bull-finches.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS.      [Page 102.
-]
-
-[Sidenote: _How it is taught to pipe._]
-
-Bishop Stanley, in his “History of Birds,” thus describes the method by
-which they are taught:—
-
-“In the month of June, the young ones, which are taken from the nest
-for that purpose, are brought up by a person, who, by care and
-attention, so completely tames them that they become perfectly docile
-and obedient. At the expiration of about a couple of months, they first
-begin to whistle, from which time their education begins, and no school
-can be more diligently superintended by its master, and no scholars
-more effectually trained to their own calling, than a seminary of
-bull-finches. They are formed first into classes of about six in each,
-and, after having been kept a longer time than usual without food, and
-confined to a dark room, the tune they are to learn is played over
-and over again, on a little instrument called a bird-organ, the notes
-of which resemble, as nearly as possible, those of the bull-finch;
-sometimes, also, a flageolet is used for this purpose, and birds so
-taught are said to have the finer notes. For awhile the little moping
-creatures will sit in silence, not knowing what all this can mean; but
-after awhile one by one will begin to imitate the notes they hear, for
-they have great power of imitation as well as remarkably good memories.
-As soon as they have said their lesson all round, light is admitted
-into the room, and they are fed.
-
-“By degrees the sound of the musical instrument—be it flageolet or
-bird-organ—and the circumstance of being fed, become so associated in
-the mind of the hungry bird, that it is sure to begin piping the tune
-as soon as it hears it begin to play. When the little scholars have
-advanced so far they are put into a higher class, that is to say, are
-turned over each to his private tutor; in other words, each bird is put
-under the care of a boy who must carry on its education, and who plays
-on the little instrument from morning to night, or as long as the bird
-can pay attention, during which time the head-master or feeder goes
-his regular rounds, scolding or rewarding the little feathered scholars
-by signs and modes of making them understand, till they have learned
-their lessons so perfectly, and the tune is so impressed on their
-memories, that they will pipe it to the end of their days; and let us
-hope, as I believe is the fact, that they find in it a never-ending
-delight.
-
-“Just as in human schools and colleges, it is only the few out of the
-great number who take the highest honours or degrees, or become senior
-wranglers, so it is not above five birds in every hundred who can
-attain to the highest perfection in their art! but all such are valued
-at a very high price.”
-
-It is allowable to hope that the poor bull-finch, which has thus
-industriously applied himself to learn, and has thus become
-artificially gifted with the power of pleasing, takes great
-satisfaction in his accomplishment. Perhaps also the association with
-his human teacher calls forth his affection as well as his power of
-song, for it is a fact that the piping bull-finch is, of all birds,
-given to attach itself to some one individual of the family where it
-is kept, expressing, at their approach, the most vehement delight,
-greeting them with its piping melody, hopping towards them, and
-practising all its little winning ways to show its love, and to court a
-return of caresses.
-
-“An interesting story,” says the bishop, “was told by Sir William
-Parsons, who was himself a great musician, and who, when a young man,
-possessed a piping bull-finch, which he had taught to sing, ‘God save
-the king.’ On his once going abroad, he gave his favourite in charge
-to his sister, with a strict injunction to take the greatest care of
-it. On his return, one of his first visits was to her, when she told
-him that the poor little bird had been long in declining health, and
-was, at that moment, very ill. Sir William, full of sorrow, went into
-the room where the cage was, and, opening the door, put in his hand,
-and spoke to the bird. The poor little creature recognised his voice,
-opened his eyes, shook his feathers, staggered on to his finger, piped
-‘God save the king,’ and fell down dead.”
-
-[Sidenote: _The Devoted Affection of Birds._]
-
-We see in the piping bull-finch—a bird which in its education is
-closely associated with man—the deep and devoted affection of which
-it is capable; and if we could only live with the animal creation as
-their friends and benefactors, we should no longer be surprised by such
-instances of their intelligence and love.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX.
-
-THE MISSEL-THRUSH.
-
-
-This is the largest of our British song birds. It remains with us
-through the whole year, not being migratory, excepting in so far as it
-moves off in considerable flocks into Herefordshire and Monmouthshire
-for the sake of the mistletoe which abounds in the orchards there,
-on the viscous berries of which it delights to feed, and whence it
-has obtained its familiar name of missel, or mistletoe thrush. It is
-generally believed that this curious parasitic plant was propagated or
-planted upon the branches of trees, by this bird rubbing its bill upon
-the rough bark to clean it from the sticky substance of the berry, and
-thus introducing the seeds into the interstices of the bark.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST.      [Page 106.
-]
-
-The Missel-thrush is a handsome bird; the head, back, and upper coverts
-of the wings olive-brown, the latter tipped with brownish-white,
-spotted with brown; the breasts and under parts pale yellow, covered
-with black spots; the legs are yellow and the claws black.
-
-It is a welcome bird, being the earliest harbinger of spring, the first
-singer of the year. Long before the swallow is thought of, before even
-the hardy familiar robin has begun his song, its clear rich voice
-may be heard on Christmas or New Year’s day, often amidst wild winds
-and winterly storms, whence its also familiar name, the storm-cock.
-It is known by different names in different parts of the country.
-The origin of its more general appellation—the missel-thrush—I have
-already mentioned. In the midland counties it is called the thrice
-cock, but why I know not. In Wales it is known as _Pen-y-llwyn_, which
-means the head or master of the coppice. Why it is so called I will
-mention presently.
-
-[Sidenote: _A Description of the Nest._]
-
-The nest of the missel-thrush is large and well constructed, being
-made of almost every material ordinarily used for nest-making
-purposes—moss, and hay, and straw, and dry leaves, and little twigs,
-and locks of wool, with occasional odds and ends of every possible
-kind. All these are woven and wrought together very compactly; not,
-however, without loose straws and little tangles of wool hanging about.
-Within is a smooth casing of mud, as in the nest of the throstle, and
-within that a second coating of dry grass. Our picture represents all
-as being now complete. The busy labours of the year are now over; the
-eggs, four or five in number, of a greenish-blue, marked with reddish
-spots, are laid, and the mother-bird has taken her patient seat upon
-them, whilst her mate, from the branch above, sings as if he never
-meant to leave off again.
-
-The song of this bird is loud, clear, and melodious—a cheering,
-hopeful song; and when heard amidst the yet prevailing winter-storms,
-as if in anticipation of better times, it well deserves our admiration.
-It resembles, to a certain degree, the song of the blackbird and the
-thrush, and is often mistaken for them; but it has not the short,
-quick, and varied notes of the one, nor the sober, prolonged, and
-eloquent melody of the other. On the contrary it is of an eager,
-hurrying character, as if it could not sufficiently express its
-emotion, and yet was trying to do so.
-
-The missel-thrush is a bird of very marked character, and is both bold
-and chivalrous. Its harsh, jarring note of anger and defiance is the
-first to be heard when a bird-enemy is at hand. If a cuckoo or hawk is
-anywhere near meditating mischief, the missel-thrush is vehement in his
-expression of displeasure. In our own neighbourhood, where the jays in
-summer come from the wood to carry the young of the sparrows from their
-nests in the ivied boles of the trees round our garden, the outcry of
-the parent sparrows instantly arouses the sympathetic missel-thrushes,
-who, with a scolding defiance, rush to the rescue. Of course these
-birds, which are of so militant a character, and so loud in protesting
-against a wrong done to another, will be equally alive to their own
-rights, and active in defending their own nests and young. Some
-naturalists have suggested that this combatant temper and extraordinary
-courage are but the natural consequence of the bird finding its nest
-open to common attack; for, being of a large size, and built early in
-the year whilst the trees are yet leafless, it is visible to every
-enemy and depredator.
-
-Mr. Thompson says: “Often have I seen a pair of these birds driving off
-magpies, and occasionally fighting against four of them. One pair which
-I knew attacked a kestrel which appeared in their neighbourhood when
-the young were out. One of them struck the hawk several times, and made
-as many more fruitless attempts, as the enemy, by suddenly rising in
-the air, escaped the cunning blow. They then followed the kestrel for a
-long way, until they were lost to our sight in the distance.”
-
-The old Welsh name of “master, or head of the coppice,” refers to the
-same warlike spirit. “The missel-thrush,” says Gilbert White, “suffers
-no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and
-is, for the time, a good guardian of the new-sown crops. In general, he
-is very successful in defence of his family. Once, however, I observed
-in my garden that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of
-the missel-thrush. The parent-birds defended their mansion with great
-vigour, and fought resolutely. But numbers at last prevailed, and the
-poor missel-thrushes had the pain of seeing their nest torn to pieces,
-and their young carried off.”
-
-[Sidenote: _The Gardeners’ Enemy._]
-
-The missel-thrushes, however, as the year goes on, make for themselves
-enemies even more formidable than hawks or magpies; these are the
-gardeners. Towards the end of summer, when the young have flown,
-and they and the parent-birds congregate in large flocks, having
-then nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, like human families when
-children are all home for the holidays, they too go abroad on their
-excursions of pleasure; not, however, to sea-side watering places, but
-into gardens where the cherries and raspberries are ripe. Poor birds!
-Little aware of their danger, or if they be so, defiant of it in the
-greatness of the temptation, they make sad havoc amongst the fruit,
-and many unfortunates are shot or snared, and then hung up amidst the
-cherry-boughs or the raspberry-canes as a terror to their associates.
-It is a pity we cannot make them welcome to some and yet have enough
-left for ourselves.
-
-The berries of the mountain-ash and the arbutus, and later on in the
-year those of the holly and ivy, supply them with food, as do also
-in the spring and summer insects of various kinds—caterpillars and
-spiders—so that in this respect they are good friends to the gardener,
-and might, one thinks, be made welcome to a little fruit in return.
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX.
-
-THE YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD.
-
-
-This, though an extremely pretty bird, is so common that very
-little notice is taken of it. Its colours are varied and beautiful:
-the back and wings, bright red; the central part of each feather,
-brownish-black; the head and throat, bright yellow; the feathers of the
-upper part tipped with black; the breast, brownish-red. The colours of
-the female are much duller.
-
-The yellow-hammer resembles linnets, finches, and sparrows in character
-and habits, and often associates with them, resorting to the fields in
-open weather, and often perching in hedges and bushes as well as in
-trees. In the winter, when the weather is severe, it congregates, with
-other birds, about houses, farm-buildings, and stack-yards.
-
-One of the most pleasing features of autumn is, to my mind, these
-flocks of kindred birds, which are at that time all abroad and yet
-together, circling in their flight, all rising as you approach, and
-wheeling away into the stubble-field, or into the distant hedges, now
-rich with their wild fruits—the blackberry, the wild rose hip, and the
-bunches of black-privet berries—and then away again, as you approach,
-with their variously modulated notes, through the clear air into the
-yet more distant stubble or bean-field.
-
-The flight of the yellow-hammer is wavy and graceful, and, alighting
-abruptly, he has a curious way of jerking out his tail feathers like
-a little fan. All at once a whole flock of them will descend from a
-considerable height and settle on the twigs of a tree, clothing it as
-with living leaves. Whatever number the flock may consist of, there
-is no impatient hurry or jostling among them to get the best perch,
-every individual settling as if on its own appointed place. As I have
-already observed, nothing is more charming at this season than these
-congregated companies of small birds. All the cares of life are now
-over, their young broods are around them, and now, with nothing to
-do but to enjoy themselves in the freedom of nature, where—on every
-hand, on every bush and tree, and in every outlying field—though the
-crops are now carried, all except, perhaps, here and there a solitary
-field in which the bean-shocks stand up black in the golden autumnal
-sunshine; but here, and there, and everywhere, a full table is spread,
-and they are welcome to enjoy.
-
-In spring and summer, the yellow-hammer sings a peculiar but
-mournful sort of little ditty, composed of a few short, sonorous
-notes, concluding with one long drawn out. In the midland
-counties, where stocking-weaving is the business of the people,
-the note of the bird is said to resemble the working of the
-machine—ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-e-e-chay—the prolonged latter syllable being
-what the stockinger calls, in the machine movement, “pressing over the
-arch.” In other parts of the country this bird’s song is interpreted as
-“A little bit of bread, and—no-cheese!” which may just as well be “A
-little bird am I, and—no thief!”
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  YELLOW-HAMMER AND NEST.      [Page 112.
-]
-
-The food of this bird consists of the seeds of all kinds of grasses,
-chickweeds, polygonums, and other such weeds; also, in summer, when
-food is needed for the young, insects and larvæ.
-
-[Sidenote: _Its Picturesque Nest._]
-
-The winter congregations break up in April, and then the yellow-hammer
-begins to think of family joys and cares. But, unlike their relations
-the sparrows and finches, the he-birds take everything quietly, without
-having their little skirmishes to show their spirit and prowess, like
-the knights of old, at the tournament, before the admiring ladies. The
-yellow-hammer does everything quietly, choosing his mate in an orderly
-way; and now that the buds are swelling on the trees, the primroses
-gemming the hedge-banks, and the golden catkins hanging on the willows
-by the watersides, hither come the little yellow-hammers, and, having
-selected some sweet, hidden spot, under a bush, or on the fieldy banks
-amongst the thick herbage—we see it a month later in our picture,
-when the buds have expanded into leaves, in a wild growth of beautiful
-grasses and herbage—begin to make their nest. How picturesque it is!
-William Hunt never painted anything more beautiful. The nest itself
-is somewhat large, and of simple construction, woven externally of
-coarse bents and small pliant twigs, and lined with hair and wool. Here
-the hen lays four or five eggs of a purplish white, marked with dark,
-irregular streaks, often resembling musical notes.
-
-These poor little birds are extremely attached to their home and their
-young, so much so, that if these be taken by the pitiless bird-nester,
-they will continue for some days about the place uttering the most
-melancholy plaint, which, though still to the same old tune as the song
-of their spring rejoicing, has now the expression of the deepest woe.
-
-The author of “British Birds” thus sums up their various characteristic
-actions:—“When perched on a tree, especially in windy weather, they
-crouch close to the twigs, draw in their necks, and keep their tails
-declined. After pairing, the male is generally seen on a bush or tree,
-raising his tail by sudden jerks, and slightly expanding it. His notes
-are then usually two chirps, followed by a harsher note—cit, chit,
-chirr—with considerable intervals. When feeding in the stubble-fields,
-they advance by very short leaps, with their breasts nearly touching
-the ground; when apprehensive of danger they crouch motionless, and
-when alarmed give information to each other by means of their ordinary
-short note.”
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI.
-
-THE MAGPIE.
-
-
-You have here a living portrait of the Magpie, sitting, so to speak, on
-his own door-sill, and contemplating it with rather a sentimental air,
-perhaps rather with tender admiration; and as to his dwelling, it is,
-we must confess, a wonderful structure—a half-timbered edifice, so to
-speak, walled-round and roofed-in, with its front-door and all complete.
-
-The magpie is one of our most beautiful as well as most amusing and
-characteristic birds. He is cousin to the jackdaw, and has, like him,
-odd ways of his own. In all countries where he is found, he is just the
-same. An old Greek poet, who lived two thousand years ago, speaks of
-him as a great mimic, and such an inordinate talker, that, in his own
-satirical humour, he pretends to believe that magpies were originally a
-family of young ladies, in Macedonia, who were noted for the volubility
-of their tongues. Handsome he is, as well as talkative, and very droll
-and mischievous.
-
-Being such, we need not wonder that his nest is very original. He likes
-to place it in a secure angle of branches, on some lofty tree, as we
-see it here, fifty feet or so from the ground; and prefers to have it
-on a tree bare of branches to a considerable height, knowing that it
-is then more inaccessible. He is wise in all this, for its bulk being
-so large it is discernible to a great distance. As magpies, however,
-are found almost everywhere, and in some parts of the country, the
-north of Scotland for instance, where there are no trees, the poor
-magpie is then obliged to build in a bush, and do the best he can. In
-such a case, in Norway, he was known to barricade his nest with thorny
-branches, brought thither by himself for that purpose, till it was next
-to impossible for the domicile to be invaded. A cat could not get to
-it, and a man only with hedging-mittens on his hands, and by help of a
-bill-hook.
-
-Like the rook, the magpie inhabits the same nest for several years,
-perhaps for the whole of his life, putting it into repair every year
-before he again needs it for family use—like a wealthy country family
-taking possession of their ancestral mansion in the spring.
-
-And now, turning to our picture, we find our magpie in excellent
-circumstances. Every thing has gone well with him. Here he is, and I
-will have the pleasure of giving you a bit of every-day magpie life,
-as sketched by that true pen-and-ink artist, the author of “British
-Birds.” Our scene opens a few minutes before the time indicated in our
-picture:—
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  MAGPIE AND NEST.      [Page 116.
-]
-
-[Sidenote: _A Search for Food._]
-
-“There, on the old ash-tree, you may see a pair, one perched on the
-topmost twig, the other hopping on the branches below, keeping up an
-incessant chatter. How gracefully she, on the topmost twig, swings in
-the breeze! Off she starts, and directs her flight to the fir-woods
-opposite, chattering all the way, seemingly to call her mate after her.
-But he prefers remaining behind. He is in a brown study, or something
-of that kind, as we can plainly see. Now, having spied something
-below, he hops downwards from twig to branch, and descends to the
-ground. His ash-tree, you must understand, grows close to, and in part
-overshadows, a farmyard; so now he is on ground which, as is customary
-in such places, is not over clean; therefore, lifting up his tail to
-prevent it being soiled or wet, as the farmer’s wife might hold up her
-Sunday gown, and raising his body as high as possible, he walks a few
-paces, and, spying an earth-worm half out of his hole, drags it forth
-by a sudden jerk, breaks it in pieces, and swallows it. Now, under the
-hedge, he has found a snail, which he will presently pick out of its
-shell, as an old woman would a periwinkle. But now something among the
-bushes has startled him, and he springs lightly upwards, chattering
-the while, to regain his favourite tree. It is a cat, which, not less
-frightened than himself, for both are intent on mischief, runs off
-towards the barn. The magpie again descends, steps slowly over the
-grassy margin of the yard, looking from side to side, stops, listens,
-advances rapidly by a succession of leaps, and encounters a whole brood
-of chickens, with their mother at their heels. If she had not been
-there he would have had a delicious feast of one of those chickens;
-but he dare not think of such a thing now, for, with fury in her eye,
-bristled plumage, and loud clamour, the hen rushes forward at him,
-overturning two of her younglings, and the enemy, suddenly wheeling
-round to avoid the encounter, flies off to his mate.
-
-“There again you perceive them in the meadow, as they walk about with
-their elevated tails, looking for something eatable. By the hedge, afar
-off, are two boys, with a gun, endeavouring to creep up to a flock of
-plovers on the other side. But the magpies see them, for there are not
-many things which escape their sharp eyes, and presently rising, they
-fly directly over the field, chattering vehemently, and the flock of
-plovers on this take wing, and the disappointed young sportsmen sheer
-off in another direction.”
-
-Magpies always make a great chattering when they are disturbed, or
-when they apprehend that danger is near. Waterton says that they
-are vociferous at the approach of night, and that they are in truth
-valuable watchmen on that account. “Whoever enters the wood,” he
-says, “is sure to attract their notice, and then their challenge is
-incessant. When I hear them during the night, or even during the
-day, I know that mischief is on the stir. Three years ago, at eleven
-o’clock in the day, I was at the capture of one of the most expert
-and desperate poachers, to whose hiding-place we were directed by the
-chatter of the magpies.”
-
-The poor magpie has many enemies, and, knowing this, is always on the
-watch, and easily alarmed.
-
-Its mode of walking is like that of the rook, but not having any
-dignity to maintain, it every now and then leaps in a sidelong
-direction. When alarmed itself, or wishing to announce danger to other
-birds, it utters a sort of chuckling cry or chatter. If a fox or cat,
-or any other unfriendly animal, approaches, it hovers about it, and
-alarms the whole neighbourhood by its cries till the enemy is out of
-sight.
-
-Like the jackdaw, it generally keeps in pairs the whole year round;
-and, indeed, when birds continue to inhabit the same nest, season after
-season, it is quite natural that they should do so. It is a curious
-fact, however, that if by any accident the hen-magpie is killed, whilst
-sitting on her eggs, her mate sets off at once and brings home another
-wife, who takes to the nest and eggs, just as if she had laid them; and
-if by another mischance she too should come to an untimely end, the
-widower again goes off, and, without any loss of time, brings back a
-third wife, and she takes to her duties quite as naturally and lovingly
-as the other did; but where all these surplus mothers come from is a
-question which no naturalist has yet answered, and the magpie, with all
-his chattering, is not clever enough to explain the wonder.
-
-[Sidenote: _Its Beautiful Plumage._]
-
-The beauty of this bird’s plumage is familiar to all; and although it
-is simply black and white, yet the exquisitely-coloured gloss of green,
-blue, and purple, with their varying and intermingling tints, produce
-such a charming effect that one cannot sufficiently admire them.
-
-With the external structure of the magpie’s nest we are acquainted: the
-lower part, inside, is neatly plastered with mud, “and is furnished,”
-says Bewick, “with a sort of mattress, formed of wool or fibrous roots,
-on which from three to six eggs are laid.” The eggs frequently vary,
-both in size and colour; sometimes they are of a pale green, freckled
-over with amber-brown and light purple; sometimes pale blue, with
-smaller spots of the same dark colours.
-
-The nest is, so to speak, a sort of little domed chamber, of a good
-size for its purpose; but then comes the question—What does the magpie
-do with her long tail as she sits on her eggs? It would certainly
-poke a hole through the wall if left to its full extent; she must,
-therefore, lift it up, as she does when walking amongst the wet grass,
-and sit with it laid flat against the wall, which probably is not
-inconvenient to her.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII.
-
-THE NUTHATCH.
-
-
-This bird is almost an entire stranger to most people. It belongs to
-the rather large family of creepers; birds which, like the woodpecker
-and the little golden-crested wren, run up the holes and branches of
-trees in search of food. The nuthatch, however, has an advantage over
-all its other creeping relatives, by being gifted with the power of
-coming down the tree head foremost, which none of them have. It can
-also sleep with its head downwards; neither in its rapid ascent has it
-occasion to press its tail against the tree for help; so that it is the
-most accomplished little acrobat of the whole race of creepers.
-
-[Illustration:
-
-  NUTHATCH AND NEST.      [Page 120.
-]
-
-The nuthatch cannot be called a rare bird, and yet it is not often
-seen, being of a shy and retiring disposition, though naturally lively
-and active. The plumage is very pleasing in colour; the upper parts
-of the body are bluish-grey; a black line passes from the corners of
-the mouth to the back of the neck; the breast and under parts light
-reddish-yellow, and the sides reddish-brown.
-
-It delights in woods and trees; nor need it be looked for elsewhere,
-as it derives its food entirely amongst them, either of insects and
-larvæ, hidden in the bark, or of fruits and nuts, as kernels of
-fir-cones, beech, and other nuts, the shells of which it breaks in
-a very ingenious manner, as I shall presently describe. Now and then
-it alights on the ground, and then advances by short leaps. It has no
-song; but in winter, when living in small companies, perhaps the whole
-summer-family associating together, it has a little piping note, which,
-however, is supposed to be simply the call to each other. It is said to
-be sensitive to the cold, and always feeds on the side of the wood or
-of the tree which is defended from the wind. In spring, however, when
-all nature is renovated with a quicker pulse of life—for, as Tennyson
-says:—
-
-    In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;
-    In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
-    In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove—
-
-then, also, the silent nuthatch sends forth through the awakening
-solitude of the woods his two little notes, one short and twittering,
-the other a low, mellow, flute-like whistle, which is so clear that it
-may be heard to a considerable distance.
-
-[Sidenote: _Its Favourite Food._]
-
-The graphic author of the “British Birds” says, “It is, at all times,
-a busy and cheerful bird, particularly at nesting-time. Its favourite
-food is nuts of any kind. It builds and roosts in hollow trees, and
-is seldom seen in the open fields, unless when in quest of the stones
-of the white-thorn or sloe. It may, therefore, be properly called a
-forester. Its dexterity in opening nuts and the stones of fruit is
-curious. It fixes the nut in a crack, on the top of a post, or in the
-bark of a tree, and, placing itself above it, head downwards, striking
-with great force and rapidity, with its strong, wedge-shaped bill on
-the edge of the shell, splits it open. When their food is plentiful,
-they have a favourite crack for unshelling the kernels, as sometimes a
-peck of broken shells may be seen under this crack.”
-
-The Rev. W. T. Bree tells us that “the tapping of the bird on the hard
-shell may be heard at a considerable distance, and that during the
-operation it sometimes happens that the nut swerves from its fixture
-and falls towards the ground. It has not descended, however, for the
-space of more than a few yards, when the nuthatch, with admirable
-adroitness, recovers it in the fall, and, replacing it in its former
-position, commences the attack afresh. The fall of the nut in the air,
-and the recovery by the bird on the wing, I have seen repeated several
-times in the space of a few minutes.”
-
-This is a little act of skill in the bird which it would be charming to
-observe; and here again I would remark, as I have so often done before,
-that this is but a single instance of what many of us, living in the
-country, might witness in some woodland nook near at hand, if we would
-only be lovingly still and patient, and interest ourselves in the ways
-and means of the innocent animal-life around us.
-
-The nest of the bird also deserves our notice; and let me here call
-your attention to the beautiful and living little portrait of the bird
-at home, given us by Mr. Harrison Weir, than which we have nothing more
-truthful from his pencil. The home of the nuthatch is nothing more, to
-begin with, than the hole in an old tree, which, probably, has been
-deserted by the woodpecker. As, however, the woodpecker either requires
-a more enlarged entrance to her nursery, or considers it more seemly,
-the nuthatch, who merely likes a snug little hole to creep in at, and
-nothing more, walls up the opening with a plastering of clay or mud,
-leaving only just room enough for herself to enter. Perhaps she may be
-afraid of the old tenants returning and again taking possession, so
-builds up a little defence in front; but of that I cannot say; certain
-it is she makes herself comfortably at home in rather an untidy nest,
-composed mostly of dead oak-leaves, and here she lays six or seven
-white eggs, with ruddy spots on them.
-
-[Sidenote: _Her Defence of her Young._]
-
-If the plaster wall be by any chance removed, the poor bird loses not
-a moment in replacing it; and though she has apparently great dread
-of any enemy—the woodpecker, snake, man, or whatever else he may be,
-disturbing her—yet so faithfully devoted is she to her duties, that
-scarcely anything will induce her to leave the eggs or young. She
-fights vigorously in defence of her home and its treasures, striking
-out with her bill and wings, and making a hissing, angry noise. Nay,
-timid and shy as she naturally is, she will suffer herself to be
-carried off captive rather than desert her charge.
-
-Let me conclude with one of Bechstein’s anecdotes of the nuthatch:—
-
-“A lady amused herself in the winter by throwing seeds on the terrace,
-below the window, to feed the birds in the neighbourhood. She put some
-hemp-seed and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, for
-her particular favourites, the blue-tits. Two nuthatches came one day
-to have their share of this repast, and were so well pleased that they
-became quite familiar, and did not even go away in the following spring
-to get their natural food and to build their nest in the wood. They
-settled themselves in the hollow of an old tree near the house.
-
-“As soon as the two young ones which were reared here were ready to
-fly, they brought them to the hospitable window, where they were to be
-nourished, and soon after disappeared entirely. It was amusing to see
-these two new visitors hang or climb on the walls or blinds, whilst
-their benefactress put their food on the board. These pretty creatures
-as well as the tits, knew her so well, that when she drove away the
-sparrows, which came to steal what was not intended for them, they did
-not fly away also, but seemed to know what was done was only to protect
-and defend them. They remained near the house for the whole summer,
-rarely wandering, till one fatal day, at the beginning of the sporting
-season, in autumn, on hearing the report of a gun, they disappeared and
-were never seen again.”
-
-[Illustration]
-
-
-Watson & Hazell, Printers, 28, Charles Street, Hatton Garden.
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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68416 ***
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+Hyphenation has been standardised.
+
+For the CONTENTS on page v, Chapter IX—Peewits 51 was missed from
+print in the original, and has been added.
+
+The layout of the Contents continuation page on page vi, has been
+changed to replicate the layout of the previous Contents page.
+
+Page 41—changed cemetries to cemeteries.
+
+Page 55—changed artifical to artificial.
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.
+
+[Illustration: ROBIN AND NEST.]
+
+
+
+
+    BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS,
+
+    BY
+
+    MARY HOWITT.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    _With Twenty-three Full-page Illustrations by Harrison Weir._
+
+    NEW YORK:
+    GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, 416, BROOME STREET.
+    London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 9, Paternoster Row.
+
+    _All rights reserved._
+
+[Illustration: WATSON AND HAZELL,
+
+_Printers_,
+
+London and Aylesbury.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                PAGE
+
+    Introductory Chapter                                           1
+
+    Chapter    I.—THE WREN                                         8
+
+       ”      II.—THE GOLDFINCH                                   15
+
+       ”     III.—THE SONG THRUSH                                 20
+
+       ”      IV.—THE BLACKBIRD                                   26
+
+       ”       V.—THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL                      33
+
+       ”      VI.—THE NIGHTINGALE                                 37
+
+       ”     VII.—THE SKYLARK                                     42
+
+       ”    VIII.—THE LINNET                                      47
+
+       ”      IX.—THE PEEWIT                                      51
+
+       ”       X.—HOUSE-MARTINS, OR WINDOW-SWALLOWS, AND NESTS    56
+
+       ”      XI.—CHIFF-CHAFFS, OR OVEN-BUILDERS, AND NEST        66
+
+       ”     XII.—GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST                   70
+
+       ”    XIII.—WAGTAIL AND NEST                                76
+
+       ”     XIV.—JACKDAW AND NESTLINGS                           82
+
+       ”      XV.—SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST                   86
+
+       ”     XVI.—WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST                           92
+
+       ”    XVII.—WHITE-THROAT AND NEST                           98
+
+       ”   XVIII.—BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS                       102
+
+       ”     XIX.—MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST                       106
+
+       ”      XX.—YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD, AND NEST        112
+
+       ”     XXI.—MAGPIE AND NEST                                116
+
+       ”    XXII.—NUTHATCH AND NEST                              120
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+_Birds and their Nests._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
+
+
+The birds in these pictures of ours have all nests, which is as it
+should be; for how could the bird rear its young without its little
+home and soft little bed, any more than children could be comfortably
+brought up without either a bed to lie upon, or a home in which to be
+happy.
+
+Birds-nests, though you may find them in every bush, are wonderful
+things. Let us talk about them. They are all alike in the purpose for
+which they are intended, but no two families of birds build exactly
+alike; all the wrens, for instance, have their kind of nest; the
+thrushes have theirs; so has the swallow tribe; so has the sparrow,
+or the rook. They do not imitate one another, but each adheres to its
+own plan, as God, the great builder and artist, as well as Creator,
+taught them from the very beginning. The first nightingale, that sang
+its hymn of joyful thanksgiving in the Garden of Paradise, built
+its nest just the same as the bird you listened to last year in the
+coppice. The materials were there, and the bird knew how to make use
+of them; and that is perhaps the most wonderful part of it, for she
+has no implements to work with: no needle and thread, no scissors, no
+hammer and nails; nothing but her own little feet and bill, and her
+round little breast, upon which to mould it; for it is generally the
+mother-bird which is the chief builder.
+
+No sooner is the nest wanted for the eggs which she is about to lay,
+than the hitherto slumbering faculty of constructiveness is awakened,
+and she selects the angle of the branch, or the hollow in the bank or
+in the wall, or the tangle of reeds, or the platform of twigs on the
+tree-top, exactly the right place for her, the selection being always
+the same according to her tribe, and true to the instinct which was
+implanted in her at the first.
+
+So the building begins: dry grass or leaves, little twigs and
+root-fibres, hair or down, whether of feather or winged seed, spangled
+outside with silvery lichen, or embroidered with green mosses, less
+for beauty, perhaps—though it is so beautiful—than for the birds’
+safety, because it so exactly imitates the bank or the tree-trunk in
+which it is built. Or it may be that her tenement is clay-built, like
+that of the swallow; or lath and plaster, so to speak, like an old
+country house, as is the fashion of the magpie; or a platform of rude
+sticks, like the first rudiment of a basket up in the tree-branches, as
+that of the wood-pigeon: she may be a carpenter like the woodpecker,
+a tunneller like the sand-martin; or she may knead and glue together
+the materials of her nest, till they resemble thick felt; but in all
+this she is exactly what the great Creator made her at first, equally
+perfect in skill, and equally undeviating year after year. This is very
+wonderful, so that we may be quite sure that the sparrow’s nest, which
+David remarked in the house of God, was exactly the same as the sparrow
+built in the days of the blessed Saviour, when He, pointing to that
+bird, made it a proof to man that God’s Providence ever watches over
+him.
+
+[Sidenote: _Jules Michelet on Birds._]
+
+Nevertheless, with this unaltered and unalterable working after one
+pattern, in every species of bird, there is a choice or an adaptation
+of material allowed: thus the bird will, within certain limits, select
+that which is fittest for its purpose, producing, however, in the end,
+precisely the same effect. I will tell you what Jules Michelet, a
+French writer, who loves birds as we do, writes on this subject:—“The
+bird in building its nest,” he says, “makes it of that beautiful
+cup-like or cradle form by pressing it down, kneading it and shaping
+it upon her own breast.” He says, as I have just told you, that the
+mother-bird builds, and that the he-bird is her purveyor. He fetches in
+the materials: grasses, mosses, roots, or twigs, singing many a song
+between whiles; and she arranges all with loving reference; first,
+to the delicate egg which must be bedded in soft material; then to
+the little one which, coming from the egg naked, must not only be
+cradled in soft comfort, but kept alive by her warmth. So the he-bird,
+supposing it to be a linnet, brings her some horse-hair: it is stiff
+and hard; nevertheless, it is proper for the purpose, and serves as a
+lower stratum of the nest—a sort of elastic mattress: he brings her
+hemp; it is cold, but it serves for the same purpose. Then comes the
+covering and the lining; and for this nothing but the soft silky fibre
+of certain plants, wool or cotton, or, better still, the down from her
+own breast, will satisfy her. It is interesting, he says, to watch the
+he-bird’s skilful and furtive search for materials; he is afraid if he
+see you watching, that you may discover the track to his nest; and, in
+order to mislead you, he takes a different road back to it. You may see
+him following the sheep to get a little lock of wool, or alighting in
+the poultry yard on the search for dropped feathers. If the farmer’s
+wife chance to leave her wheel, whilst spinning in the porch, he steals
+in for a morsel of flax from the distaff. He knows what is the right
+kind of thing; and let him be in whatever country he may, he selects
+that which answers the purpose; and the nest which is built is that of
+the linnet all the world over.
+
+Again he tells us, that there are other birds which, instead of
+building, bring up their young underground, in little earth cradles
+which they have prepared for them. Of building-birds, he thinks the
+queerest must be the flamingo, which lays her eggs on a pile of mud
+which she has raised above the flooded earth, and, standing erect all
+the time, hatches them under her long legs. It does seem a queer,
+uncomfortable way; but if it answer its end, we need not object to it.
+Of carpenter-birds, he thinks the thrush is the most remarkable; other
+writers say the woodpecker. The shore-birds plait their nests, not very
+skilfully it is true, but sufficiently well for their purpose. They
+are clothed by nature with such an oily, impermeable coat of plumage,
+that they have little need to care about climate; they have enough to
+do to look after their fishing, and to feed themselves and their young;
+for all these sea-side families have immense appetites.
+
+[Sidenote: _How various Birds Build._]
+
+Herons and storks build in a sort of basket-making fashion; so do the
+jays and the mocking birds, only in a much better way; but as they
+have all large families they are obliged to do so. They lay down, in
+the first place, a sort of rude platform, upon which they erect a
+basket-like nest of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry
+twigs strongly woven together. The little golden-crested wren hangs her
+purse-like nest to a bough, and, as in the nursery song, “When the wind
+blows the cradle rocks.” An Australian bird, a kind of fly-catcher,
+called there the razor-grinder, from its note resembling the sound of
+a razor-grinder at work, builds her nest on the slightest twig hanging
+over the water, in order to protect it from snakes which climb after
+them. She chooses for her purpose a twig so slender that it would not
+bear the weight of the snake, and thus she is perfectly safe from her
+enemy. The same, probably, is the cause why in tropical countries,
+where snakes and monkeys, and such bird-enemies abound, nests are so
+frequently suspended by threads or little cords from slender boughs.
+
+The canary, the goldfinch, and chaffinch, are skilful cloth-weavers
+or felt makers; the latter, restless and suspicious, speckles the
+outside of her nest with a quantity of white lichen, so that it
+exactly imitates the tree branch on which it is placed, and can hardly
+be detected by the most accustomed eye. Glueing and felting play an
+important part in the work of the bird-weavers. The humming-bird, for
+instance, consolidates her little house with the gum of trees. The
+American starling sews the leaves together with her bill; other birds
+use not only their bills, but their feet. Having woven a cord, they fix
+it as a web with their feet, and insert the weft, as the weaver would
+throw his shuttle, with their bill. These are genuine weavers. In fine,
+their skill never fails them. The truth is, that the great Creator
+never gives any creature work to do without giving him at the same time
+an inclination to do it—which, in the animal, is instinct—and tools
+sufficient for the work, though they may be only the delicate feet and
+bill of the bird.
+
+And now, in conclusion, let me describe to you the nest of the little
+English long-tailed titmouse as I saw it many years ago, and which I
+give from “Sketches of Natural History”:—
+
+[Sidenote: _The Titmouse’s Nest._]
+
+        There, where those boughs of blackthorn cross,
+        Behold that oval ball of moss;
+        Observe it near, all knit together,
+        Moss, willow-down, and many a feather,
+        And filled within, as you may see,
+        As full of feathers as can be;
+        Whence it is called by country folk,
+        A fitting name, the feather-poke;
+        But learned people, I have heard,
+        _Parus caudatus_ call the bird.
+        Yes, here’s a nest! a nest indeed,
+        That doth all other nests exceed,
+        Propped with the blackthorn twigs beneath,
+        And festooned with a woodbine wreath!
+        Look at it close, all knit together,
+        Moss, willow-down, and many a feather;
+        So soft, so light, so wrought with grace,
+        So suited to this green-wood place,
+        And spangled o’er, as with the intent
+        Of giving fitting ornament,
+        With silvery flakes of lichen bright,
+        That shine like opals, dazzling white.
+        Think only of the creature small,
+        That wrought this soft and silvery ball,
+        Without a tool to aid her skill,
+        Nought but her little feet and bill—
+        Without a pattern whence to trace
+        This little roofed-in dwelling place—
+        And does not in your bosom spring
+        Love for this skilful little thing?
+        See, there’s a window in the wall;
+        Peep in, the house is not so small,
+        But snug and cosy you shall see
+        A very numerous family!
+        Now count them: one, two, three, four, five—
+        Nay, _sixteen_ merry things alive—
+        Sixteen young, chirping things all sit,
+        Where you, your wee hand, could not get!
+        I’m glad you’ve seen it, for you never
+        Saw ought before so soft and clever.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE WREN.
+
+
+Truly the little Wren, so beautifully depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir,
+with her tiny body, her pretty, lively, and conceited ways, her short,
+little turned-up tail, and delicate plumage, is worthy of our tender
+regard and love.
+
+The colouring of the wren is soft and subdued—a reddish-brown colour;
+the breast of a light greyish-brown; and all the hinder parts, both
+above and below, marked with wavy lines of dusky-brown, with two bands
+of white dots across the wings.
+
+Its habits are remarkably lively and attractive. “I know no pleasanter
+object,” says the agreeable author of “British Birds,” “than the wren;
+it is always so smart and cheerful. In gloomy weather other birds
+often seem melancholy, and in rain the sparrows and finches stand
+silent on the twigs, with drooping wings and disarranged plumage; but
+to the merry little wren all weathers are alike. The big drops of the
+thunder-shower no more wet it than the drizzle of a Scotch mist; and as
+it peeps from beneath the bramble, or glances from a hole in the wall,
+it seems as snug as a kitten frisking on the parlour rug.”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WRENS AND NEST.      [Page 8.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _A Builder of Many Nests._]
+
+“It is amusing,” he continues, “to watch the motions of a young family
+of wrens just come abroad. Walking among furze, broom, or juniper, you
+are attracted to some bush by hearing issue from it the frequent
+repetition of a sound resembling the syllable _chit_. On going up you
+perceive an old wren flitting about the twigs, and presently a young
+one flies off, uttering a stifled _chirr_, to conceal itself among the
+bushes. Several follow, whilst the parents continue to flutter about
+in great alarm, uttering their _chit, chit_, with various degrees of
+excitement.”
+
+The nest of the wren is a wonderful structure, of which I shall have a
+good deal to say. It begins building in April, and is not by any means
+particular in situation. Sometimes it builds in the hole of a wall
+or tree; sometimes, as in this lovely little picture of ours, in the
+mossy hollow of a primrose-covered bank; and because it was formerly
+supposed to live only in holes or little caves, it received the name of
+_Troglodytes_, or cave-dweller. But it builds equally willingly in the
+thatch of out-buildings, in barn-lofts, or tree-branches, either when
+growing apart or nailed against a wall, amongst ivy or other climbing
+plants; in fact, it seems to be of such a happy disposition as to adapt
+itself to a great variety of situations. It is a singular fact that it
+will often build several nests in one season—not that it needs so many
+separate dwellings, or that it finishes them when built; but it builds
+as if for the very pleasure of the work. Our naturalist says, speaking
+of this odd propensity, “that, whilst the hen is sitting, the he-bird,
+as if from a desire to be doing something, will construct as many as
+half-a-dozen nests near the first, none of which, however, are lined
+with feathers; and that whilst the true nest, on which the mother-bird
+is sitting, will be carefully concealed, these sham nests are open
+to view. Some say that as the wrens, during the cold weather, sleep
+in some snug, warm hole, they frequently occupy these extra nests as
+winter-bedchambers, four or five, or even more, huddling together, to
+keep one another warm.”
+
+Mr. Weir, a friend of the author I have just quoted, says this was the
+case in his own garden; and that, during the winter, when the ground
+was covered with snow, two of the extra nests were occupied at night by
+a little family of seven, which had hatched in the garden. He was very
+observant of their ways, and says it was amusing to see one of the old
+wrens, coming a little before sunset and standing a few inches from the
+nest, utter his little cry till the whole number of them had arrived.
+Nor were they long about it; they very soon answered the call, flying
+from all quarters—the seven young ones and the other parent-bird—and
+then at once nestled into their snug little dormitory. It was also
+remarkable that when the wind blew from the east they occupied a nest
+which had its opening to the west, and when it blew from the west, then
+one that opened to the east, so that it was evident they knew how to
+make themselves comfortable.
+
+And now as regards the building of these little homes. I will, as far
+as I am able, give you the details of the whole business from the diary
+of the same gentleman, which is as accurate as if the little wren had
+kept it himself, and which will just as well refer to the little nest
+in the primrose bank as to the nest in the Spanish juniper-tree, where,
+in fact, it was built.
+
+[Sidenote: _How a Nest was built._]
+
+“On the 30th of May, therefore, you must imagine a little pair of
+wrens, having, after a great deal of consultation, made up their minds
+to build themselves a home in the branches of a Spanish juniper. The
+female, at about seven o’clock in the morning, laid the foundation
+with the decayed leaf of a lime-tree. Some men were at work cutting
+a drain not far off, but she took no notice of them, and worked away
+industriously, carrying to her work bundles of dead leaves as big
+as herself, her mate, seeming the while to be delighted with her
+industry, seated not far off in a Portugal laurel, where he watched
+her, singing to her, and so doing, making her labour, no doubt, light
+and pleasant. From eight o’clock to nine she worked like a little
+slave, carrying in leaves, and then selecting from them such as suited
+her purpose and putting aside the rest. This was the foundation of the
+nest, which she rendered compact by pressing it down with her breast,
+and turning herself round in it: then she began to rear the sides.
+And now the delicate and difficult part of the work began, and she
+was often away for eight or ten minutes together. From the inside she
+built the underpart of the aperture with the stalks of leaves, which
+she fitted together very ingeniously with moss. The upper part of it
+was constructed solely with the last-mentioned material. To round it
+and give it the requisite solidity, she pressed it with her breast and
+wings, turning the body round in various directions. Most wonderful to
+tell, about seven o’clock in the evening the whole outside workmanship
+of this snug little erection was almost complete.
+
+“Being very anxious to examine the interior of it, I went out for that
+purpose at half-past two the next morning. I introduced my finger,
+the birds not being there, and found its structure so close, that
+though it had rained in the night, yet that it was quite dry. The
+birds at this early hour were singing as if in ecstasy, and at about
+three o’clock the little he-wren came and surveyed his domicile with
+evident satisfaction; then, flying to the top of a tree, began singing
+most merrily. In half-an-hour’s time the hen-bird made her appearance,
+and, going into the nest, remained there about five minutes, rounding
+the entrance by pressing it with her breast and the shoulders of her
+wings. For the next hour she went out and came back five times with
+fine moss in her bill, with which she adjusted a small depression in
+the fore-part of it; then, after twenty minutes’ absence, returned
+with a bundle of leaves to fill up a vacancy which she had discovered
+in the back of the structure. Although it was a cold morning, with
+wind and rain, the male bird sang delightfully; but between seven and
+eight o’clock, either having received a reproof from his wife for his
+indolence, or being himself seized with an impulse to work, he began
+to help her, and for the next ten minutes brought in moss, and worked
+at the inside of the nest. At eleven o’clock both of them flew off,
+either for a little recreation, or for their dinners, and were away
+till a little after one. From this time till four o’clock both worked
+industriously, bringing in fine moss; then, during another hour, the
+hen-bird brought in a feather three times. So that day came to an end.
+
+“The next morning, June 1st, they did not begin their work early, as
+was evident to Mr. Weir, because having placed a slender leaf-stalk
+at the entrance, there it remained till half-past eight o’clock, when
+the two began to work as the day before with fine moss, the he-bird
+leaving off, however, every now and then to express his satisfaction on
+a near tree-top. Again, this day, they went off either for dinner or
+amusement; then came back and worked for another hour, bringing in fine
+moss and feathers.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Patient Industry of this Bird._]
+
+“The next morning the little he-wren seemed in a regular ecstasy,
+and sang incessantly till half-past nine, when they both brought in
+moss and feathers, working on for about two hours, and again they
+went off, remaining away an hour later than usual. Their work was now
+nearly over, and they seemed to be taking their leisure, when all at
+once the hen-bird, who was sitting in her nest and looking out at her
+door, espied a man half-hidden by an arbor vitæ. It was no other than
+her good friend, but that she did not know; all men were terrible,
+as enemies to her race, and at once she set up her cry of alarm. The
+he-bird, on hearing this, appeared in a great state of agitation, and
+though the frightful monster immediately ran off, the little creatures
+pursued him, scolding vehemently.
+
+“The next day they worked again with feathers and fine moss, and again
+went off after having brought in a few more feathers. So they did for
+the next five days; working leisurely, and latterly only with feathers.
+On the tenth day the nest was finished, and the little mother-bird laid
+her first egg in it.”
+
+Where is the boy, let him be as ruthless a bird-nester as he may, who
+could have the heart to take a wren’s nest, only to tear it to pieces,
+after reading the history of this patient labour of love?
+
+The wren, like various other small birds, cannot bear that their nests
+or eggs should be touched; they are always disturbed and distressed by
+it, and sometimes even will desert their nest and eggs in consequence.
+On one occasion, therefore, this good, kind-hearted friend of every
+bird that builds, carefully put his finger into a wren’s nest, during
+the mother’s absence, to ascertain whether the young were hatched; on
+her return, perceiving that the entrance had been touched, she set up
+a doleful lamentation, carefully rounded it again with her breast and
+wings, so as to bring everything into proper order, after which she and
+her mate attended to their young. These particular young ones, only six
+in number, were fed by their parents 278 times in the course of a day.
+This was a small wren-family; and if there had been twelve, or even
+sixteen, as is often the case, what an amount of labour and care the
+birds must have had! But they would have been equal to it, and merry
+all the time.
+
+    For all these little creatures, which so lightly we regard,
+    They love to do their duty, and they never think it hard.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE GOLDFINCH.
+
+
+The Goldfinch, which is cousin to the Linnet, is wonderfully clever and
+docile, as I shall show you presently. In the first place, however, let
+me say a word or two about bird cleverness in general, which I copy
+from Jules Michelet’s interesting work, “The Bird.” Speaking of the
+great, cruel, and rapacious family of the _Raptores_, or Birds of Prey,
+he expresses satisfaction in the idea that this race of destroyers is
+decreasing, and that there may come a time when they no longer exist
+on the earth. He has no admiration for them, though they may be the
+swiftest of the swift, and the strongest of the strong, because they
+put forth none of the higher qualities of courage, address, or patient
+endurance in taking their prey, which are all weak and powerless in
+comparison with themselves; their poor unoffending victims. “All these
+cruel tyrants of the air,” he says, “like the serpents, have flattened
+skulls, which show the want of intellect and intelligence. These birds
+of prey, with their small brains, offer a striking contrast to the
+amiable and intelligent species which we find amongst the smaller
+birds. The head of the former is only a beak, that of the latter is a
+face.” Afterwards, to prove this more strongly, he gives a table to
+show the proportion of brain to the size of the body in these different
+species of birds. Thus the chaffinch, the sparrow, and the goldfinch,
+have more than six times as much brain as the eagle in proportion to
+the size of the body. We may look, therefore, for no less than six
+times his intelligence and docile ability. Whilst in the case of the
+little tomtit it is thirteen times as much.
+
+But now for the goldfinch, of which our cut—which is both faithful
+and beautiful—shows us a pair, evidently contemplating with much
+satisfaction the nest which they have just finished on one of the
+topmost boughs of a blossomy apple-tree. This nest is a wonderful
+little fabric, built of moss, dry grass, and slender roots, lined with
+hair, wool, and thistle-down; but the true wonder of the nest is the
+exact manner in which the outside is made to imitate the bough upon
+which it is placed. All its little ruggednesses and lichen growths
+are represented, whilst the colouring is so exactly that of the old
+apple-tree that it is almost impossible to know it from the branch
+itself. Wonderful ingenuity of instinct, which human skill would find
+it almost impossible to imitate!
+
+The bird lays mostly five eggs, which are of a bluish-grey, spotted
+with greyish-purple or brown, and sometimes with a dark streak or two.
+
+The goldfinch is one of the most beautiful of our English birds, with
+its scarlet forehead, and quaint little black velvet-like cap brought
+down over its white cheeks; its back is cinnamon brown, and its breast
+white; its wings are beautifully varied in black and white, as are also
+its tail feathers. In the midland counties it is known as “The Proud
+Tailor,” probably because its attire looks so bright and fresh, and it
+has a lively air as if conscious of being well dressed.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  GOLDFINCHES AND NEST.      [Page 16.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _Daily Life of this Bird._]
+
+Like its relation, the linnet, it congregates in flocks as soon as
+its young can take wing, when they may be seen wheeling round in
+the pleasant late summer and autumn fields, full of life, and in
+the enjoyment of the plenty that surrounds them, in the ripened
+thistle-down, and all such winged seeds as are then floating in the air.
+
+How often have I said it is worth while to go out into the woods and
+fields, and, bringing yourself into a state of quietness, watch the
+little birds in their life’s employment, building their nests, feeding
+their young, or pursuing their innocent diversions! So now, on this
+pleasant, still autumn afternoon, if you will go into the old pasture
+fields where the thistles have not been stubbed up for generations, or
+on the margin of the old lane where ragwort, and groundsel, and burdock
+flourish abundantly, “let us,” as the author of “British Birds” says,
+“stand still to observe a flock of goldfinches. They flutter over the
+plants, cling to the stalks, bend in various attitudes, disperse the
+down, already dry and winged, like themselves, for flight, pick them
+out one by one and swallow them. Then comes a stray cow followed by a
+herd boy. At once the birds cease their labour, pause for a moment,
+and fly off in succession. You observe how lightly and buoyantly
+they cleave the air, each fluttering its little wings, descending in
+a curved line, mounting again, and speeding along. Anon they alight
+in a little thicket of dried weeds, and, in settling, display to the
+delighted eye the beautiful tints of their plumage, as with fluttering
+wings and expanded tail, they hover for a moment to select a landing
+place amid the prickly points of the stout thistles whose heads are now
+bursting with downy-winged seeds.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Goldfinch._]
+
+The song of the goldfinch, which begins about the end of March, is
+very sweet, unassuming, and low—similar to that of the linnet, but
+singularly varied and pleasant.
+
+Now, however, we must give a few instances of this bird’s teachable
+sagacity, which, indeed, are so numerous that it is difficult to make a
+selection.
+
+Mr. Syme, in his “British Song Birds,” says, “The goldfinch is easily
+tamed and taught, and its capacity for learning the notes of other
+birds is well known. A few years ago the Sieur Roman exhibited a number
+of trained birds: they were goldfinches, linnets, and canaries. One
+appeared dead, and was held up by the tail or claw without exhibiting
+any signs of life; a second stood on its head with its claws in the
+air; a third imitated a Dutch milkmaid going to market with pails on
+its shoulders; a fourth mimicked a Venetian girl looking out at a
+window; a fifth appeared as a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel;
+whilst a sixth acted as a cannonier, with a cap on its head, a firelock
+on its shoulder, and a match in its claw, and discharged a small
+cannon. The same bird also acted as if it had been wounded. It was
+wheeled in a barrow as if to convey it to the hospital, after which
+it flew away before the whole company. The seventh turned a kind of
+windmill; and the last bird stood in the midst of some fireworks which
+were discharged all round it, and this without showing the least sign
+of fear.”
+
+Others, as I have said, may be taught to draw up their food and water,
+as from a well, in little buckets. All this is very wonderful, and
+shows great docility in the bird; but I cannot greatly admire it, from
+the secret fear that cruelty or harshness may have been used to teach
+them these arts so contrary to their nature. At all events it proves
+what teachable and clever little creatures they are, how readily they
+may be made to understand the will of their master, and how obediently
+and faithfully they act according to it.
+
+Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence to the
+animal world. In him the creatures should ever find their friend and
+protector; and were it so we should then see many an astonishing
+faculty displayed; and birds would then, instead of being the most
+timid of animals, gladden and beautify our daily life by their sweet
+songs, their affectionate regard, and their amusing and imitative
+little arts.
+
+[Sidenote: _Introduced into Pictures._]
+
+The early Italian and German painters introduce a goldfinch into their
+beautiful sacred pictures—generally on the ground—hopping at the feet
+of some martyred saint or love-commissioned angel, perhaps from an old
+legend of the bird’s sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an
+intuitive sense that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird
+and beast as well as to man.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SONG THRUSH.
+
+
+We have here a charming picture of one of the finest and noblest of
+our song-birds—the thrush, throstle, or mavis. The trees are yet
+leafless, but the bird is in the act of building, whilst her mate, on
+the tree-top, pours forth his exquisite melody. The almost completed
+nest, like a richly ornamented bowl, is before us.
+
+This bird belongs to a grandly musical family, being own cousin to the
+missel-thrush and the blackbird, each one having a kindred song, but
+all, at the same time, distinctly characteristic.
+
+The colouring of the thrush is soft and very pleasing; the upper parts
+of a yellowish-brown; the chin, white; the under part of the body,
+grayish white; the throat, breast, and sides of the neck, yellowish,
+thickly spotted with dark brown.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  SONG THRUSH AND NEST.      [Page 20.
+]
+
+The thrush remains with us the whole year, and may occasionally be
+heard singing even in the winter, though April, May, and June are the
+months when he is in fullest song. They pair in March, and by the end
+of that month, or early in April, begin to build. They have several
+broods in the year. The nest, which, as we see, is commodious, is
+placed at no great height from the ground, in a thick bush or hedge,
+and sometimes, also, in a rough bank, amongst bushes and undergrowth.
+They are particularly fond of spruce-fir plantations, building on
+one of the low, spreading branches, close to the stem. Though the
+structure is so solid and substantial, yet it is built very rapidly;
+indeed, the thrush seems to be wide awake in all its movements; he
+is no loiterer, and does his work well. As a proof of his expedition
+I will mention that a pair of these birds began to build a second,
+perhaps, indeed, it might be a third nest, on a Thursday, June 15; on
+Friday afternoon the nest was finished, and on Saturday morning the
+first egg was laid, though the interior plastering was not then dry. On
+the 21st the hen began to sit, and on the 17th of July the young birds
+were hatched.
+
+The frame-work, so to speak, of the nest is composed of twigs, roots,
+grasses, and moss, the two latter being brought to the outside. Inside
+it is lined with a thin plastering of mud, cow-dung, and rotten wood,
+which is laid on quite smoothly, almost like the glaze on earthenware;
+nor is there an internal covering between this and the eggs. The
+circular form of the nest is as perfect as a bowl shaped upon a
+lathe, and often contracts inwards at the top. The eggs, which are
+generally five in number, are of a bright blue-green, spotted over with
+brownish-black, these spots being more numerous at the larger end.
+
+The food of the thrush is mostly of an animal character, as worms,
+slugs, and snails; and, by seasides, small molluscs, as whelks and
+periwinkles. On all such as are enclosed in shells he exercises his
+ingenuity in a remarkable way. We ourselves lived at one time in an
+old house standing in an old garden where were many ancient trees and
+out-buildings, in the old ivied roots and walls of which congregated
+great quantities of shell-snails. One portion of this garden, which
+enclosed an old, disused dairy, was a great resort of thrushes, where
+they had, so to speak, their stones of sacrifice, around which lay
+heaps of the broken shells of snails, their victims. I have repeatedly
+watched them at work: hither they brought their snails, and, taking
+their stand by the stone with the snail in their beak, struck it
+repeatedly against the stone, till, the shell being smashed, they
+picked it out as easily as the oyster is taken from its opened shell.
+This may seem easy work with the slender-shelled snail, but the labour
+is considerably greater with hard shell-fish. On this subject the
+intelligent author of “British Birds” says, that many years ago, when
+in the Isle of Harris, he frequently heard a sharp sound as of one
+small stone being struck upon another, the cause of which he, for a
+considerable time, sought for in vain. At length, one day, being in
+search of birds when the tide was out, he heard the well-known click,
+and saw a bird standing between two flat stones, moving its head and
+body alternately up and down, each downward motion being accompanied
+by the sound which had hitherto been so mysterious. Running up to the
+spot, he found a thrush, which, flying off, left a whelk, newly-broken,
+lying amongst fragments of shells lying around the stone.
+
+Thrushes are remarkably clean and neat with regard to their nests,
+suffering no litter or impurity to lie about, and in this way are a
+great example to many untidy people. Their domestic character, too,
+is excellent, the he-bird now and then taking the place of the hen on
+the eggs, and, when not doing so, feeding her as she sits. When the
+young are hatched, the parents may be seen, by those who will watch
+them silently and patiently, frequently stretching out the wings of
+the young as if to exercise them, and pruning and trimming their
+feathers. To put their love of cleanliness to the proof, a gentleman,
+a great friend of all birds, had some sticky mud rubbed upon the backs
+of two of the young ones whilst the parents were absent. On their
+return, either by their own keen sense of propriety, or, perhaps, the
+complaint of the young ones, they saw what had happened, and were not
+only greatly disconcerted, but very angry, and instantly set to work to
+clean the little unfortunates, which, strange to say, they managed to
+do by making use of dry earth, which they brought to the nest for that
+purpose. Human intellect could not have suggested a better mode.
+
+[Sidenote: _How a Day was spent._]
+
+This same gentleman determined to spend a whole day in discovering how
+the thrushes spent it. Hiding himself, therefore, in a little hut of
+fir boughs, he began his observations in the early morning of the 8th
+of June. At half-past two o’clock, the birds began to feed their brood,
+and in two hours had fed them thirty-six times. It was now half-past
+five, the little birds were all wide awake, and one of them, whilst
+pruning its feathers, lost its balance and fell out of the nest to the
+ground. On this the old ones set up the most doleful lamentations, and
+the gentleman, coming out of his retreat, put the little one back into
+the nest. This kind action, however, wholly disconcerted the parents,
+nor did they again venture to feed their young till an artifice
+of the gentleman led them to suppose that he was gone from their
+neighbourhood. No other event happened to them through the day, and by
+half-past nine o’clock at night, when all went to rest, the young ones
+had been fed two hundred and six times.
+
+Thrushes, however, become occasionally so extremely tame that the
+female will remain upon her eggs and feed her young, without any
+symptom of alarm, in the close neighbourhood of man. Of this I will
+give an instance from Bishop Stanley’s “History of Birds”—
+
+“A short time ago, in Scotland, some carpenters working in a shed
+adjacent to the house observed a thrush flying in and out, which
+induced them to direct their attention to the cause, when, to their
+surprise, they found a nest commenced amongst the teeth of a harrow,
+which, with other farming tools and implements, was placed upon the
+joists of the shed, just over their heads. The carpenters had arrived
+soon after six o’clock, and at seven, when they found the nest, it was
+in a great state of forwardness, and had evidently been the morning’s
+work of a pair of these indefatigable birds. Their activity throughout
+the day was incessant; and, when the workmen came the next morning,
+they found the female seated in her half-finished mansion, and, when
+she flew off for a short time, it was found that she had laid an egg.
+When all was finished, the he-bird took his share of the labour, and,
+in thirteen days, the young birds were out of their shells, the refuse
+of which the old ones carried away from the spot. All this seems to
+have been carefully observed by the workmen; and it is much to their
+credit that they were so quiet and friendly as to win the confidence of
+the birds.”
+
+The song of the thrush is remarkable for its rich, mellow intonation,
+and for the great variety of its notes.
+
+[Sidenote: _Wordsworth’s Verses on the Thrush._]
+
+Unfortunately for the thrush, its exquisite power as a songster makes
+it by no means an unusual prisoner. You are often startled by hearing,
+from the doleful upper window of some dreary court or alley of London,
+or some other large town, an outpouring of joyous, full-souled melody
+from an imprisoned thrush, which, perfect as it is, saddens you, as
+being so wholly out of place. Yet who can say how the song of that bird
+may speak to the soul of many a town-imprisoned passer-by? Wordsworth
+thus touchingly describes an incident of this kind:—
+
+    At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
+    Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three years:
+    Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard,
+    In the silence of morning, the song of the bird.
+
+    Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
+    Down which she so often has tripped with her pail,
+    And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,
+    The one only dwelling on earth which she loves.
+
+    ’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? she sees
+    A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
+    Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
+    And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
+
+    She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade—
+    The mist and the river, the hill, sun, and shade;
+    The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
+    And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE BLACKBIRD.
+
+
+The Blackbird is familiar to us all. It is a thoroughly English bird,
+and, with its cousin the thrush, is not only one of the pleasantest
+features in our English spring and summer landscape, but both figure
+in our old poetry and ballads, as the “merle and the mavis,” “the
+blackbird and the throstle-cock;” for those old poets loved the
+country, and could not speak of the greenwood without the bird.
+
+    When shaws are sheen and fields are fair,
+      And leaves both large and long,
+    ’Tis merry walk’ng in the green forest
+      To hear the wild birds’ song;
+
+    The wood merle sings, and will not cease,
+      Sitting upon a spray;
+    The merle and the mavis shout their fill,
+      From morn till the set of day.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  BLACKBIRD AND NEST.      [Page 26.
+]
+
+The blackbird takes its name from a very intelligible cause—its
+perfectly black plumage, which, however, is agreeably relieved by the
+bright orange of its bill, the orange circles round its eyes, and its
+yellow feet; though this is peculiar only to the male, nor does he
+assume this distinguishing colour till his second year. The female is
+of a dusky-brown colour.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Notes of the Blackbird._]
+
+Sometimes the singular variety of a _white_ blackbird occurs, which
+seems to astonish even its fellow birds; the same phenomenon also
+occurs amongst sparrows; a fatal distinction to the poor birds, who are
+in consequence very soon shot.
+
+This bird is one of our finest singers. His notes are solemn and
+flowing, unlike those of the thrush, which are short, quick, and
+extremely varied. The one bird is more lyrical, the other sings in
+a grand epic strain. A friend of ours, deeply versed in bird-lore,
+maintains that the blackbird is oratorical, and sings as if delivering
+an eloquent rhythmical oration.
+
+This bird begins to sing early in the year, and continues his song
+during the whole time that the hen is sitting. Like his relatives, the
+thrush and the missel-thrush, he takes his post on the highest branch
+of a tree, near his nest, so that his song is heard far and wide; and
+in fact, through the whole pleasant spring you hear the voices of these
+three feathered kings of English song constantly filling the woods and
+fields with their melody. The blackbird sings deliciously in rain, even
+during a thunderstorm, with the lightning flashing round him. Indeed,
+both he and the thrush seem to take great delight in summer showers.
+
+The blackbird has a peculiar call, to give notice to his brood of the
+approach of danger; probably, however, it belongs both to male and
+female. Again, there is a third note, very peculiar also, heard only
+in the dusk of evening, and which seems pleasingly in harmony with the
+approaching shadows of night. By this note they call each other to
+roost, in the same way as partridges call each other to assemble at
+night, however far they may be asunder.
+
+The nest of the blackbird is situated variously; most frequently in
+the thicker parts of hedges; sometimes in the hollow of a stump or
+amongst the curled and twisted roots of old trees, which, projecting
+from the banks of woods or woodland lanes, wreathed with their trails
+of ivy, afford the most picturesque little hollows for the purpose.
+Again, it may be found under the roof of out-houses or cart-sheds,
+laid on the wall-plate; and very frequently in copses, in the stumps
+of pollard trees, partly concealed by their branches; and is often
+begun before the leaves are on the trees. The nest is composed of dry
+bents, and lined with fine dry grass. The hen generally lays five eggs,
+which are of a dusky bluish-green, thickly covered with black spots;
+altogether very much resembling those of crows, rooks, magpies, and
+that class of birds.
+
+Universal favourite as the blackbird deservedly is, yet, in common with
+the thrush, all gardeners are their enemies from the great liking they
+have for his fruit, especially currants, raspberries, and cherries.
+There is, however, something very amusing, though, at the same time,
+annoying, in the sly way by which they approach these fruits, quite
+aware that they are on a mischievous errand. They steal along, flying
+low and silently, and, if observed, will hide themselves in the nearest
+growth of garden plants, scarlet runners, or Jerusalem artichokes,
+where they remain as still as mice, till they think the human enemy has
+moved off. If, however, instead of letting them skulk quietly in their
+hiding-place, he drives them away, they fly off with a curious note,
+very like a little chuckling laugh of defiance, as if they would say,
+“Ha! ha! we shall soon be back again!” which they very soon are.
+
+But we must not begrudge them their share, though they neither have
+dug the ground nor sowed the seed, for very dull and joyless indeed
+would be the garden and the gardener’s toil, and the whole country in
+short, if there were no birds—no blackbirds and thrushes—to gladden
+our hearts, and make the gardens, as well as the woods and fields,
+joyous with their melody. Like all good singers, these birds expect,
+and deserve, good payment.
+
+The blackbird, though naturally unsocial and keeping much to itself,
+is very bold in defence of its young, should they be in danger, or
+attacked by any of the numerous bird-enemies, which abound everywhere,
+especially to those which are in immediate association with man. The
+Rev. J. G. Wood tells us, for instance, that on one occasion a prowling
+cat was forced to make an ignominious retreat before the united onset
+of a pair of blackbirds, on whose young she was about to make an attack.
+
+[Sidenote: _Macgillivray’s Account._]
+
+Let me now, in conclusion, give a day with a family of blackbirds,
+which I somewhat curtail from Macgillivray.
+
+“On Saturday morning, June 10th, I went into a little hut made of green
+branches, at half-past two in the morning, to see how the blackbirds
+spend the day at home. They lived close by, in a hole in an old wall,
+which one or other of them had occupied for a number of years.
+
+“At a quarter-past three they began to feed their young, which were
+four in number. She was the most industrious in doing so; and when he
+was not feeding, he was singing most deliciously. Towards seven o’clock
+the father-bird induced one of the young ones to fly out after him.
+But this was a little mistake, and, the bird falling, I was obliged to
+help it into its nest again, which made a little family commotion. They
+were exceedingly tidy about their nest, and when a little rubbish fell
+out they instantly carried it away. At ten o’clock the feeding began
+again vigorously, and continued till two, both parent-birds supplying
+their young almost equally.
+
+“The hut in which I sat was very closely covered; but a little wren
+having alighted on the ground in pursuit of a fly, and seeing one of
+my legs moving, set up a cry of alarm, on which, in the course of a
+few seconds, all the birds in the neighbourhood collected to know what
+was the matter. The blackbird hopped round the hut again and again,
+making every effort to peep in, even alighting on the top within a few
+inches of my head, but not being able to make any discovery, the tumult
+subsided. It was probably considered a false alarm, and the blackbirds
+went on feeding their young till almost four o’clock: and now came the
+great event of the day.
+
+“At about half-past three the mother brought a large worm, four inches
+in length probably, which she gave to one of the young ones, and flew
+away. Shortly afterwards returning, she had the horror of perceiving
+that the worm, instead of being swallowed was sticking in its throat;
+on this she uttered a perfect moan of distress, which immediately
+brought the he-bird, who also saw at a glance what a terrible
+catastrophe was to be feared. Both parents made several efforts to push
+the worm down the throat, but to no purpose, when, strange to say, the
+father discovered the cause of the accident. The outer end of the worm
+had got entangled in the feathers of the breast, and, being held fast,
+could not be swallowed. He carefully disengaged it, and, holding it up
+with his beak, the poor little thing, with a great effort, managed to
+get it down, but was by this time so exhausted that it lay with its
+eyes shut and without moving for the next three hours. The male bird in
+the meantime took his stand upon a tree, a few yards from the nest, and
+poured forth some of his most enchanting notes—a song of rejoicing no
+doubt for the narrow escape from death of one of his family.
+
+[Sidenote: _Macgillivray’s Day with this Bird._]
+
+“From four till seven o’clock both birds again fed their young, after
+which the male bird left these family duties to his mate, and gave
+himself up to incessant singing. At twenty minutes to nine their
+labours ceased, they having then fed their young one hundred and
+thirteen times during the day.
+
+“I observed that before feeding their young they always alighted upon
+a tree and looked round them for a few seconds. Sometimes they brought
+in a quantity of worms and fed their brood alternately; at other times
+they brought one which they gave to only one of them.
+
+“The young birds often trimmed their feathers, and stretched out their
+wings; they also appeared to sleep now and then.
+
+“With the note of alarm which the feathered tribes set up on the
+discovery of their enemies all the different species of the little
+birds seem to be intimately acquainted; for no sooner did a beast or
+bird of prey make its appearance, than they seemed to be anxiously
+concerned about the safety of their families. They would hop from tree
+to tree uttering their doleful lamentations. At one time the blackbirds
+were in an unusual state of excitement and terror, and were attended
+by crowds of their woodland friends. A man and boy, who were working
+in my garden, having heard the noise, ran to see what was the cause of
+it, and on looking into some branches which were lying on the ground,
+observed a large weasel stealing slyly along in pursuit of its prey. It
+was, however, driven effectually from the place without doing any harm.
+It is astonishing how soon the young know this intimation of danger;
+for I observed that no sooner did the old ones utter the alarm-cry,
+than they cowered in their nest, and appeared to be in a state of great
+uneasiness.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL.
+
+
+The Dipper, or Water-ousel, of which Mr. Weir has given us a charming
+and faithful portrait, is very like a wren in form and action, with
+its round body and lively little tail. Its mode of flight, however,
+so nearly resembles the kingfisher that, in some places, the country
+people mistake it for the female of that bird. But it is neither wren
+nor kingfisher, nor yet related to either of them. It is the nice
+little water-ousel, with ways of its own, and a cheerful life of its
+own, and the power of giving pleasure to all lovers of the free country
+which is enriched with an infinite variety of happy, innocent creatures.
+
+The upper part of the head and neck, and the whole back and wings of
+this bird, are of a rusty-brown; but, as each individual feather is
+edged with gray, there is no deadness of colouring. The throat and
+breast are snowy white, which, contrasting so strongly with the rest of
+the body, makes it seem to flash about like a point of light through
+the dark shadows of the scenes it loves to haunt.
+
+I said above that this bird gave pleasure to all lovers of nature. So
+it does, for it is only met with in scenes which are especially beloved
+by poets and painters. Like them, it delights in mountain regions,
+where rocky streams rush along with an unceasing murmur, leaping over
+huge stones, slumbering in deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between
+rocky walls, in the moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild
+rose flings out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the
+hardy polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with
+their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for the
+cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character with the
+scenes.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  DIPPERS AND NEST.      [Page 34.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Home of the Dipper._]
+
+And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few weeks in
+summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my constant advice
+as regards the study and truest enjoyment of country life and things.
+Go out for several hours; do not be in a hurry; take your book, or
+your sketching, or whatever your favourite occupation may be, if it be
+only a quiet one, and seat yourself by some rocky stream amongst the
+mountains; choose the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can
+reach you, if you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet
+witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat yourself
+quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a piece of
+rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, or tangle of
+bramble, and before long you will most likely see this merry, lively
+little dipper come with his quick, jerking flight, now alighting on
+this stone, now on that, peeping here, and peeping there, as quick as
+light, and snapping up, now a water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now
+diving down into the stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking
+into the shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer
+delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and away,
+and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of stone, which
+rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in a stormy sea,
+with the rush and roar of the water full above him. Yet there he is
+quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny wren, and hopping
+about on his rocky point, as if he could not for the life of him be
+still for a moment. Now listen! That is his song, and a merry little
+song it is, just such a one as you would fancy coming out of his jocund
+little heart; and, see now, he begins his antics. He must be a queer
+little soul! If we could be little dippers like him, and understand
+what his song and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often
+find the time tedious for want of something to do.
+
+We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of his small
+experience, all that his heart desires. He has this lonely mountain
+stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, laughing waters to bear
+him company, all these fantastically heaped-up stones, brought hither
+by furious winter torrents of long ago—that dashing, ever roaring,
+ever foaming waterfall, in the spray of which the summer sunshine
+weaves rainbows. All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden
+hair, and this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up
+his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of rock,
+and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, is built
+the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits the
+hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most unwearied
+love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with red.
+
+This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large size, the
+reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally near to the
+water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is always so fresh,
+looking so like the mass of its immediate surroundings as scarcely to
+be discoverable by the quickest eye. When the young are hatched they
+soon go abroad with the parents, and then, instead of the one solitary
+bird, you may see them in little parties of from five to seven going on
+in the same sort of way, only all the merrier because there are more of
+them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE.
+
+
+Philomela, or the Nightingale, is the head of the somewhat large
+bird-family of Warblers, and is the most renowned of all feathered
+songsters, though some judges think the garden-ousel exceeds it in
+mellowness, and the thrush in compass of voice, but that, in every
+other respect, it excels them all. For my part, however, I think no
+singing-bird is equal to it; and listening to it when in full song, in
+the stillness of a summer’s night, am ready to say with good old Izaak
+Walton:—
+
+“The nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet
+music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind
+to think that miracles had not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
+weary labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often
+heard, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and
+falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted
+above earth and say, ‘Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the
+saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!’”
+
+In colour, the upper parts of the nightingale are of a rich brown;
+the tail of a reddish tint; the throat and underparts of the body,
+greyish-white; the neck and breast, grey; the bill and legs, light
+brown. Its size is about that of the garden warblers, which it
+resembles in form—being, in fact, one of that family. Thus, the most
+admired of all singers—the subject of poets’ songs and eulogies, the
+bird that people walk far and wide to listen to, of which they talk for
+weeks before it comes, noting down the day of its arrival as if it were
+the Queen or the Queen’s son—is yet nothing but a little insignificant
+brown bird, not to be named with the parrot for plumage, nor with
+our little goldfinch, who always looks as if he had his Sunday suit
+on. But this is a good lesson for us. The little brown nightingale,
+with his little brown wife in the thickety copse, with their simple
+unpretending nest, not built up aloft on the tree branch, but humbly
+at the tree’s root, or even on the very ground itself, may teach us
+that the world’s external show or costliness is not true greatness. The
+world’s best bird-singer might have been as big as an eagle, attired
+in colours of blue and scarlet and orange like the grandest macaw. But
+the great Creator willed that it should not be so—his strength, and
+his furiousness, and his cruel capacity were sufficient for the eagle,
+and his shining vestments for the macaw; whilst the bird to which was
+given the divinest gift of song must be humble and unobtrusive, small
+of size, with no surpassing beauty of plumage, and loving best to hide
+itself in the thick seclusion of the copse in which broods the little
+mother-bird, the very counterpart of himself, upon her olive-coloured
+eggs.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Philomela of Surrey._]
+
+Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a sweet little picture of the
+nightingale at home. Somewhere, not far off, runs the highroad, or it
+may be a pleasant woodland lane leading from one village to another,
+and probably known as “Nightingale-lane,” and traversed night after
+night by rich and poor, learned and unlearned, to listen to the
+bird. In our own neighbourhood we have a “Nightingale-lane,” with its
+thickety copses on either hand, its young oaks and Spanish chestnuts
+shooting upwards, and tangles of wild roses and thick masses of
+brambles throwing their long sprays over old, mossy, and ivied stumps
+of trees, cut or blown down in the last generation—little pools
+and water courses here and there, with their many-coloured mosses
+and springing rushes—a very paradise for birds. This is in Surrey,
+and Surrey nightingales, it is said, are the finest that sing. With
+this comes the saddest part of the story. Bird-catchers follow the
+nightingale, and, once in his hands, farewell to the pleasant copse
+with the young oaks and Spanish chestnuts, the wild rose tangles, the
+little bosky hollow at the old tree root, in one of which the little
+nest is built and the little wife broods on her eggs!
+
+Generally, however, the unhappy bird, if he be caught, is taken soon
+after his arrival in this country; for nightingales are migratory, and
+arrive with us about the middle of April. The male bird comes about
+a fortnight before the female, and begins to sing in his loneliness
+a song of salutation—a sweet song, which expresses, with a tender
+yearning, his desire for her companionship. Birds taken at this time,
+before the mate has arrived, and whilst he is only singing to call and
+welcome her, are said still to sing on through the summer in the hope,
+long-deferred, that she may yet come. He will not give her up though
+he is no longer in the freedom of the wood, so he sings and sings, and
+if he live over the winter, he will sing the same song the following
+spring, for the want is again in his heart. He cannot believe but that
+she will still come. The cruel bird-catchers, therefore, try all their
+arts to take him in this early stage of his visit to us. Should he be
+taken later, when he is mated, and, as we see him in our picture, with
+all the wealth of his little life around him, he cannot sing long. How
+should he—in a narrow cage and dingy street of London or some other
+great town—perhaps with his eyes put out—for his cruel captor fancies
+he sings best if blind? He may sing, perhaps, for a while, thinking
+that he can wake himself out of this dreadful dream of captivity,
+darkness, and solitude. But it is no dream; the terrible reality at
+length comes upon him, and before the summer is over he dies of a
+broken heart.
+
+It is a curious fact that the nightingale confines itself, without
+apparent reason, to certain countries and to certain parts of England.
+For instance, though it visits Sweden, and even the temperate parts
+of Russia, it is not met with in Scotland, North Wales, nor Ireland,
+neither is it found in any of our northern counties excepting
+Yorkshire, and there only in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. Neither
+is it known in the south-western counties, as Cornwall and Devonshire.
+It is supposed to migrate during the winter into Egypt and Syria. It
+has been seen amongst the willows of Jordan and the olive trees of
+Judea, but we have not, to our knowledge, any direct mention of it in
+the Scriptures, though Solomon no doubt had it in his thoughts, in his
+sweet description of the spring—“Lo, the winter is past, the rain is
+over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing
+of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” A
+recent traveller in Syria tells me that she heard nightingales singing
+at four o’clock one morning in April of last year in the lofty regions
+of the Lebanon.
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  NIGHTINGALES AND NEST.      [Page 40.
+]
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Sir John Sinclair’s Attempt._]
+
+There have been various attempts to introduce the nightingale into such
+parts of this country as it has not yet frequented; for instance, a
+gentleman of Gower, a sea-side district of Glamorganshire, the climate
+of which is remarkably mild, procured a number of young birds from
+Norfolk and Surrey, hoping that they would find themselves so much at
+home in the beautiful woods there as to return the following year. But
+none came. Again, as regards Scotland, Sir John Sinclair purchased a
+large number of nightingales’ eggs, at a shilling each, and employed
+several men to place them carefully in robins’ nests to be hatched. So
+far all succeeded well. The foster-mothers reared the nightingales,
+which, when full-fledged, flew about as if quite at home. But when
+September came, the usual month for the migration of the nightingale,
+the mysterious impulse awoke in the hearts of the young strangers, and,
+obeying it, they suddenly disappeared and never after returned.
+
+Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a very accurate drawing of the
+nightingale’s nest, which is slight and somewhat fragile in
+construction, made of withered leaves—mostly of oak—and lined
+with dry grass. The author of “British Birds” describes one in his
+possession as composed of slips of the inner bark of willow, mixed with
+the leaves of the lime and the elm, lined with fibrous roots, grass,
+and a few hairs; but whatever the materials used may be, the effect
+produced is exactly the same.
+
+In concluding our little chapter on this bird, I would mention that
+in the Turkish cemeteries, which, from the old custom of planting a
+cypress at the head and foot of every grave, have now become cypress
+woods, nightingales abound, it having been also an old custom of love
+to keep these birds on every grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SKYLARK.
+
+
+The Skylark, that beautiful singer, which carries its joy up to the
+very gates of heaven, as it were, has inspired more poets to sing about
+it than any other bird living.
+
+Wordsworth says, as in an ecstasy of delight:—
+
+    Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
+      For thy song, lark, is strong;
+    Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
+      Singing, singing.
+      With clouds and sky about me ringing,
+    Lift me, guide me till I find
+    That spot that seems so to my mind.
+
+Shelley, in an ode which expresses the bird’s ecstasy of song, also
+thus addresses it, in a strain of sadness peculiar to himself:—
+
+            Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
+              Bird, thou never wert—
+            That from heaven, or near it,
+              Pourest thy full heart
+        In profuse strains of unpremeditated art!
+
+            Higher, still, and higher
+              From the earth thou springest,
+            Like a cloud of fire;
+              The deep blue thou wingest,
+        And singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singest!
+
+               *       *       *       *       *
+
+            Better than all measures
+              Of delightful sound,
+            Better than all treasures
+              That in books are found,
+        Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.
+
+            Teach me half the gladness
+              That thy brain must know,
+            Such harmonious madness
+              From my lips should flow;
+        The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
+
+[Sidenote: _James Hogg’s Verses._]
+
+James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who had listened to the bird with
+delight on the Scottish hills, thus sings of it:—
+
+            Bird of the wilderness,
+            Blithesome and cumberless,
+    Sweet is thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
+            Emblem of happiness,
+            Blest is thy dwelling-place—
+    Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
+
+            Wild is thy lay, and loud;
+            Far in the downy cloud
+    Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
+            Where on thy dewy wing,
+            Where art thou journeying?
+    Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
+
+            O’er fell and fountain sheen,
+            O’er moor and mountain green,
+    O’er the red streamer that heralds the day;
+            Over the cloudlet dim,
+            Over the rainbow’s rim,
+    Musical cherub, soar, singing away!
+
+            Then when the gloaming comes,
+            Low in the heather blooms,
+    Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
+            Emblem of happiness,
+            Blest is thy dwelling-place—
+            Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
+
+But we must not forget the earthly life of the bird in all these sweet
+songs about him.
+
+The plumage of the skylark is brown, in various shades; the fore-part
+of the neck, reddish-white, spotted with brown; the breast and under
+part of the body, yellowish-white. Its feet are peculiar, being
+furnished with an extraordinarily long hind claw, the purpose of which
+has puzzled many naturalists. But whatever nature intended it for, the
+bird has been known to make use of it for a purpose which cannot fail
+to interest us and call forth our admiration. This shall be presently
+explained. The nest is built on the ground, either between two clods
+of earth, in the deep foot-print of cattle, or some other small hollow
+suitable for the purpose, and is composed of dry grass, hair, and
+leaves; the hair is mostly used for the lining. Here the mother-bird
+lays four or five eggs of pale sepia colour, with spots and markings
+of darker hue. She has generally two broods in the year, and commences
+sitting in May. The he-lark begins to sing early in the spring.
+Bewick says, “He rises from the neighbourhood of the nest almost
+perpendicularly in the air, by successive springs, and hovers at a
+vast height. His descent, on the contrary, is in an oblique direction,
+unless he is threatened by birds of prey, or attracted by his mate, and
+on these occasions he drops like a stone.”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  SKYLARKS AND NEST.      [Page 44.
+]
+
+With regard to his ascent, I must, however, add that it is in a spiral
+direction, and that what Bewick represents as springs are his sudden
+spiral flights after pausing to sing. Another peculiarity must be
+mentioned: all his bones are hollow, and he can inflate them with air
+from his lungs, so that he becomes, as it were, a little balloon, which
+accounts for the buoyancy with which he ascends, and the length of
+time he can support himself in the air: often for an hour at a time.
+Still more extraordinary is the wonderful power and reach of his voice,
+for while, probably, the seven hundred or a thousand voices of the
+grand chorus of an oratorio would fail to fill the vast spaces of the
+atmosphere, it can be done by this glorious little songster, which,
+mounting upwards, makes itself heard, without effort, when it can be
+seen no longer.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Solicitude for its Young._]
+
+The attachment of the parents to their young is very great, and has
+been seen to exhibit itself in a remarkable manner.
+
+The nest being placed on the open-ground—often pasture, or in a field
+of mowing grass—it is very liable to be disturbed; many, therefore,
+are the instances of the bird’s tender solicitude either for the young
+or for its eggs, one of which I will give from Mr. Jesse. “In case of
+alarm,” he says, “either by cattle grazing near the nest, or by the
+approach of the mower, the parent-birds remove their eggs, by means
+of their long claws, to a place of greater security, and this I have
+observed to be affected in a very short space of time.” He says that
+when one of his mowers first told him of this fact he could scarcely
+believe it, but that he afterwards saw it himself, and that he regarded
+it only as another proof of the affection which these birds show their
+offspring. Instances are also on record of larks removing their young
+by carrying them on their backs: in one case the young were thus
+removed from a place of danger into a field of standing corn. But
+however successful the poor birds may be in removing their eggs, they
+are not always so with regard to their young, as Mr. Yarrell relates.
+An instance came under his notice, in which the little fledgeling
+proved too heavy for the parent to carry, and, being dropped from an
+height of about thirty feet, was killed in the fall.
+
+Of all captive birds, none grieves me more than the skylark. Its
+impulse is to soar, which is impossible in the narrow spaces of a cage;
+and in this unhappy condition, when seized by the impulse of song, he
+flings himself upwards, and is dashed down again by its cruel barriers.
+For this reason the top of the lark’s cage is always bedded with green
+baize to prevent his injuring himself. In the freedom of nature he is
+the joyous minstrel of liberty and love, carrying upwards, and sending
+down from above, his buoyant song, which seems to fall down through the
+golden sunshine like a flood of sparkling melody.
+
+I am not aware of the height to which the lark soars, but it must be
+very great, as he becomes diminished to a mere speck, almost invisible
+in the blaze of light. Yet, high as he may soar, he never loses the
+consciousness of the little mate and the nestlings below: but their
+first cry of danger or anxiety, though the cry may be scarce audible
+to the human ear, thrills up aloft to the singer, and he comes down
+with a direct arrow-like flight, whilst otherwise his descent is more
+leisurely, and said by some to be in the direct spiral line of his
+ascent.
+
+Larks, unfortunately for themselves, are considered very fine eating.
+Immense numbers of them are killed for the table, not only on the
+continent, but in England. People cry shame on the Roman epicure,
+Lucullus, dining on a stew of nightingales’ tongue, nearly two thousand
+years ago, and no more can I reconcile to myself the daily feasting on
+these lovely little songsters, which may be delicate eating, but are no
+less God’s gifts to gladden and beautify the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE LINNET.
+
+
+Linnets are a branch of a larger family of finches, all very familiar
+to us. They are cousins, also, to the dear, impudent sparrows, and the
+pretty siskin or aberdevines.
+
+The linnets are all compactly and stoutly built, with short necks and
+good sized heads, with short, strong, pointed bills, made for the ready
+picking up of seed and grain, on which they live. Most of them have two
+broods in the season, and they build a bulky, deep, and compact nest,
+just in accordance with their character and figure; but, though all
+linnet-nests have a general resemblance of form, they vary more or less
+in the material used.
+
+Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce
+and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They
+are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season
+when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted
+to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards,
+and amongst stacks.
+
+The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers
+of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four; the others
+are the twit or mountain-linnet, the mealy-linnet, and the lesser
+red-pole—the smallest of the four—all very much alike, and easily
+mistaken for each other. The name red-pole is given from the bright
+crimson spot on their heads—_pole_ or _poll_ being the old Saxon word
+for head. The back of our linnet’s head and the sides of his neck are
+of dingy ash-colour, his back of a warm brown tint, his wings black,
+his throat of a dull white, spotted with brown, his breast a brilliant
+red, and the under part of his body a dingy white.
+
+The linnet, amongst singing birds, is what a song writer is amongst
+poets. He is not a grand singer, like the blackbird or the thrush,
+the missel-thrush or the wood-lark, all of which seem to have an epic
+story in their songs, nor, of course, like the skylark, singing up to
+the gates of heaven, or the nightingale, that chief psalmist of all
+bird singers. But, though much humbler than any of these, he is a sweet
+and pleasant melodist; a singer of charming little songs, full of the
+delight of summer, the freshness of open heaths, with their fragrant
+gorse, or of the Scottish brae, with its “bonnie broom,” also in golden
+blossom. His are unpretending little songs of intense enjoyment, simple
+thanksgivings for the pleasures of life, for the little brown hen-bird,
+who has not a bit of scarlet in her plumage, and who sits in her snug
+nest on her fine little white eggs, with their circle of freckles and
+brown spots at the thicker end, always alike, a sweet, patient mother,
+waiting for the time when the young ones will come into life from that
+delicate shell-covering, blind at first, though slightly clothed in
+greyish-brown—five little linnets gaping for food.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  LINNETS AND NEST.      [Page 48.
+]
+
+The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its
+favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and
+moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it here in our picture;
+for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts
+of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.
+
+Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it
+too rises a _chevaux de frise_ of furze spines, green and tender to
+look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on
+hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with
+the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and,
+below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands
+of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and
+spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the
+man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the
+horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man
+thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when
+he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the
+while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune,
+impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment
+years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada;
+or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of
+trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and
+to his God.
+
+[Sidenote: _Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote._]
+
+Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the
+parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is
+very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the
+following anecdote in proof of it:—
+
+“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some
+children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming
+them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping, fluttered round the
+children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs
+and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the
+nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards
+placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left
+open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still
+farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage,
+but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening
+actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several
+children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the
+cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent
+shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor
+parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully
+in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE PEEWIT.
+
+
+The Peewit, lapwing, or plover, belongs to the naturalist family of
+_Gallatores_ or Waders, all of which are furnished with strong legs and
+feet for walking, whilst all which inhabit watery places, or feed their
+young amongst the waves, have legs sufficiently long to enable them to
+wade; whence comes the family name.
+
+The peewit, or lapwing, is a very interesting bird, from its peculiar
+character and habits. Its plumage is handsome; the upper part of the
+body of a rich green, with metallic reflections; the sides of the neck
+and base of the tail of a pure white; the tail is black; so is the
+top of the head, which is furnished with a long, painted crest, lying
+backwards, but which can be raised at pleasure. In length the bird is
+about a foot.
+
+The peewit lives in all parts of this country, and furnishes one of
+the pleasantly peculiar features of open sea-shores and wide moorland
+wastes, in the solitudes of which, its incessant, plaintive cry has an
+especially befitting sound, like the very spirit of the scene, moaning
+in unison with the waves, and wailing over the wide melancholy of the
+waste. Nevertheless, the peewit is not in itself mournful, for it is
+a particularly lively and active bird, sporting and frolicking in the
+air with its fellows, now whirling round and round, and now ascending
+to a great height on untiring wing; then down again, running along the
+ground, and leaping about from spot to spot as if for very amusement.
+
+It is, however, with all its agility, a very untidy nest-maker; in
+fact it makes no better nest than a few dry bents scraped together in
+a shallow hole, like a rude saucer or dish, in which she can lay her
+eggs—always four in number. But though taking so little trouble about
+her nest, she is always careful to lay the narrow ends of her eggs in
+the centre, as is shown in the picture, though as yet there are but
+three. A fourth, however, will soon come to complete the cross-like
+figure, after which she will begin to sit.
+
+These eggs, under the name of plovers’ eggs, are in great request as
+luxuries for the breakfast-table, and it may be thought that laid thus
+openly on the bare earth they are very easily found. It is not so,
+however, for they look so much like the ground itself, so like little
+bits of moorland earth or old sea-side stone, that it is difficult to
+distinguish them. But in proportion as the bird makes so insufficient
+and unguarded a nest, so all the greater is the anxiety, both of
+herself and her mate, about the eggs. Hence, whilst she is sitting, he
+exercises all kinds of little arts to entice away every intruder from
+the nest, wheeling round and round in the air near him, so as to fix
+his attention, screaming mournfully his incessant _peewit_ till he has
+drawn him ever further and further from the point of his anxiety and
+love.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PEEWITS AND NEST.      [Page 52.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _Stratagems of the Bird._]
+
+The little quartette brood, which are covered with down when hatched,
+begin to run almost as soon as they leave the shell, and then the poor
+mother-bird has to exercise all her little arts also—and indeed the
+care and solicitude of both parents is wonderful. Suppose, now, the
+little helpless group is out running here and there as merry as life
+can make them, and a man, a boy, or a dog, or perhaps all three, are
+seen approaching. At once the little birds squat close to the earth,
+so that they become almost invisible, and the parent-birds are on the
+alert, whirling round and round the disturber, angry and troubled,
+wailing and crying their doleful _peewit_ cry, drawing them ever
+further and further away from the brood. Should, however, the artifice
+not succeed, and the terrible intruder still obstinately advance in the
+direction of the young, they try a new artifice; drop to the ground,
+and, running along in the opposite course, pretend lameness, tumbling
+feebly along in the most artful manner, thus apparently offering the
+easiest and most tempting prey, till, having safely lured away the
+enemy, they rise at once into the air, screaming again their _peewit_,
+but now as if laughing over their accomplished scheme.
+
+The young, which are hatched in April, are in full plumage by the end
+of July, when the birds assemble in flocks, and, leaving the sea-shore,
+or the marshy moorland, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks,
+where they soon become fat, and are said to be excellent eating.
+Happily, however, for them, they are not in as much request for the
+table as they were in former times. Thus we find in an ancient book
+of housekeeping expenses, called “The Northumberland Household-book,”
+that they are entered under the name of _Wypes_, and charged one penny
+each; and that they were then considered a first-rate dish is proved by
+their being entered as forming a part of “his lordship’s own mess,” or
+portion of food; _mess_ being so used in those days—about the time,
+probably, when the Bible was translated into English. Thus we find in
+the beautiful history of Joseph and his brethren, “He sent messes to
+them, but Benjamin’s mess was five times as much as any of theirs.”
+
+Here I would remark, on the old name of _Wypes_ for this bird, that
+country-people in the midland counties still call them _pie-wypes_.
+
+But now again to our birds. The peewit, like the gull, may easily be
+tamed to live in gardens, where it is not only useful by ridding them
+of worms, slugs, and other troublesome creatures, but is very amusing,
+from its quaint, odd ways. Bewick tells us of one so kept by the Rev.
+J. Carlisle, Vicar of Newcastle, which I am sure will interest my
+readers.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Winter Visitor._]
+
+He says two of these birds were given to Mr. Carlisle, and placed
+in his garden, where one soon died; the other continued to pick up
+such food as the place afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual
+supply. Necessity then compelled it to come nearer the house, by
+which it gradually became accustomed to what went forward, as well as
+to the various members of the family. At length a servant, when she
+had occasion to go into the back-kitchen with a light, observed that
+the lapwing always uttered his cry of _peewit_ to gain admittance.
+He soon grew familiar; as the winter advanced, he approached as far
+as the kitchen, but with much caution, as that part of the house was
+generally inhabited by a dog and a cat, whose friendship the lapwing
+at length gained so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort
+to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and
+night with his two associates, sitting close to them, and partaking
+of the comforts of a warm fireside. As soon as spring appeared he
+betook himself to the garden, but again, at the approach of winter,
+had recourse to his old shelter and his old friends, who received him
+very cordially. But his being favoured by them did not prevent his
+taking great liberties with them; he would frequently amuse himself
+with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of, and
+whilst he was thus employed he showed marks of the greatest indignation
+if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died, poor
+fellow, in the asylum he had chosen, by being choked with something
+which he had picked up from the floor. During his confinement he
+acquired an artificial taste as regarded his food, and preferred crumbs
+of bread to anything else.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE HOUSE-MARTIN, OR WINDOW-SWALLOW.
+
+
+During our winter, swallows inhabit warm tropical countries, migrating
+northwards with the first approaches of summer. They are usually seen
+with us from the 13th to the 20th of April, and are useful from the
+first day of their arrival, by clearing the air of insects, which they
+take on the wing; indeed, they may be said to live almost wholly on the
+wing, and, except when collecting mud for their nests, are seldom seen
+to alight, and, in drinking, dip down to the water as they skim over it
+on rapid wing.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  HOUSE-MARTINS AND NESTS.      [Page 56.
+]
+
+We have three kinds of swallows in England: the chimney-swallow, the
+house-martin, and the sand-martin, of which I shall have something to
+say in due course. The chimney-swallow and house-martin are especially
+worthy of the affectionate regard of man; for they love his society,
+build around his dwelling, destroy nothing that he values, have no
+appetite for his fruits; they live harmoniously amongst themselves,
+and have no other disposition than that of cheerfulness, unwearying
+industry and perseverance, and the most devoted parental affection.
+
+Mr. Weir has given us a lively picture of swallow-life—four nests
+grouped together on a house-side: more there probably are; but there
+are as many as we can manage with; indeed we will presently confine
+our attention to one single nest, and, by so doing, I flatter myself
+that I shall win your admiration for these birds, and that you will
+agree with me in thinking that if we all, men and women, boys and
+girls, had only their persevering spirit, and their courage under
+adversity, there would not be so much unsuccess, either at school or in
+life, as is now, too often, the case.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Nests on Traquair House._]
+
+Some people are very fond of having martins about their houses, under
+their eaves, and even in the corners of their windows. The Earl of
+Traquair was one of these; he was, indeed, a great lover of all kinds
+of birds, and all were protected on his premises. In the autumn of
+1839, there were no less than one hundred and three martins’ nests on
+Traquair House—which is a very fine old place—besides several which
+had been deserted, injured, or taken possession of by sparrows, which
+is a very unwarrantable liberty taken by these birds.
+
+From six to twenty days are required to build a martin’s nest. If all
+goes on well it may be finished in the shorter time.
+
+Let us now see how the birds set about building. Here are several
+nests in our picture; and turning to the pages of Macgillivray’s
+“British Birds,” I shall find exactly the information we need. I will,
+therefore, extract freely from this interesting writer, that my young
+readers may be as grateful to him as I am myself.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Domestic Life of a Pair._]
+
+Again turning to our picture, we find four nests. “A party of eight
+martins arrived here on the 1st of May. As this was quite a new
+location, they spent the whole day in examining the eaves of the house,
+the corners of the windows, and the out-buildings. By the following
+morning the question was settled, and they had, as you see, fixed
+upon a high wall with a slate coping, and an eastern aspect, and at
+once commenced making a general foundation for their nests. Suitable
+materials are procured from the banks of an adjoining pond, or a puddle
+in the lane. Let us go down and see them. Here they come, sailing
+placidly over the tree-tops; now they descend so as almost to sweep the
+surface of the pond; some of them alight at once, others skim round, as
+if borne away by a brisk wind. Those that have alighted walk about with
+short steps, looking round for materials. Some seem not to find the mud
+suitable, but seize on a piece of straw, or grass, which, tempering
+in the mud, they then fly off with. Returning now to the building, we
+see one using its tail planted against the wall, or against the nest,
+if sufficiently advanced, as a support, deposit the material it has
+brought by giving its head a wriggling motion, so that the mud slides
+gently into the crevices of yesterday’s work; then he retouches the
+whole. See, one has now arrived with his supply before the other has
+finished: he is impatient to disburden himself, and wants to drive
+off the worker, who rather snappishly retorts, and he, poor fellow,
+goes off for a while with the mud sticking to his bill. Now she has
+finished; there is room for him, and he goes back again and works hard
+in his turn. They never alight on the nest without twittering. At noon,
+if the weather be hot, they betake themselves to the fields, or, after
+a dip in the pond, sun themselves on the house-top for half-an-hour or
+so. Then they will hawk about for food, and after awhile one of them
+may, perhaps, return and give another touch or two to the work, or seat
+herself in the nest to consolidate the materials. But if cold, wet, or
+windy, they keep away. What they do with themselves I know not; but
+as soon as it clears up, they are at work again. At the beginning of
+their building, they seem to have no objection to leave it for a whole
+day; but as it advances, they become more interested or anxious, and
+one or both will sit in it all night, even though the weather be bad.”
+
+So much for the building of these four nests of our picture; and now
+I will bespeak your attention to a little narrative of the joys and
+sorrows of the domestic life of a pair of martins, which, we will
+suppose, belong also to our group.
+
+“The building began on the 1st of May, at daybreak. But the weather was
+very much against them, being cold and stormy, and it was the 18th of
+the month before it was finished.
+
+“Seeing their labours thus brought to a close, one could not help
+wishing, considering how much it had cost, that the nest might last
+them for many years. But on the 23rd of June, during a heavy fall of
+thunder rain, almost the entire nest was washed to the ground, together
+with the young birds which it contained. A short time before the
+catastrophe, the old birds were observed hovering about, and expressing
+great uneasiness. Almost immediately after it happened they left the
+place, but returned the following day, and spent it in flying about and
+examining the angle of the wall.
+
+“Next morning they commenced repairing the nest. In three days they had
+made great progress; but again rain fell, and their work was stayed.
+On the 30th, they advanced rapidly, and both remained sitting on the
+nest all night. The next day it was finished; and now they began to
+rejoice: they twittered all the evening till it was dark, now and then
+pruning each other’s heads, as, seated side by side, they prepared to
+spend the dark hours in the nest. Eggs were soon laid again, but,
+sad to say, on the morning of the 18th of July, again, during a great
+storm of wind and rain, the upper wall fell, carrying with it one
+of the eggs. The old birds again fluttered about, uttering the most
+plaintive cries, and early the next morning began to repair the damage,
+though it rained heavily all day. Part of the lining hanging over the
+side was incorporated with the new layers of mud. The urgency of the
+case was such, that they were obliged to work during the bad weather.
+Throughout the day one bird sat on the nest, whilst the other laboured
+assiduously. Kindly was he welcomed by his mate, who sometimes, during
+his absence, nibbled and retouched the materials which he had just
+deposited. In a few days it was finished, the weather became settled,
+the young were hatched, and all went well with them.
+
+“Sometimes when the nests are destroyed, the birds, instead of
+attempting to repair the damage, forsake the neighbourhood, as if
+wholly disheartened. Nothing can be more distressing to them than to
+lose their young. In the storm of which I have just spoken, another
+martin’s nest was washed down with unfledged young in it. These were
+placed on some cotton wool in a basket, covered with a sheet of
+brown paper, in an open window, facing the wall. During that day and
+the following, the parents took no notice of them, and their kind
+human protector fed them with house-flies. That evening he tried an
+experiment. He gently placed the young ones in a nest of that same
+window, where were other young. It was then about eight o’clock in the
+evening; the rain was falling heavily, and no sound was heard save
+the _cheep, cheep_, of the young birds, and the dashing of the storm
+against the window-glass. A minute elapsed, when forth rushed the
+parents shrieking their alarm notes, and, again and again wheeled up to
+the nest, until at last they drifted away in the storm. He watched them
+till they disappeared about half-past-nine. During all this time they
+only twice summoned courage to look into the nest. Next morning I was
+rejoiced to see them attending assiduously to the young ones.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Feeding of the Young._]
+
+And now, turning again to our group of four nests on the walls,
+supposing it be the month of July, every one of them with its
+fledgeling brood sitting with gaping mouths, ever ready for food, you
+may, perhaps, like to know how many meals are carried up to them in the
+course of the day. If, then, the parents began to feed them at about
+five in the morning, and left a little before eight at night, they
+would feed them, at the lowest calculation, about a thousand times.
+
+With all this feeding and care-taking, the young ones, as the summer
+goes on, are full-fledged, and have grown so plump and large that the
+nest is quite too small for them; therefore, they must turn out into
+the world, and begin life for themselves.
+
+It is now a fine, brisk, August morning, and at about eight o’clock,
+you can see, if you look up at the nests, how the old birds come
+dashing up to them quite in an excited way, making short curves in the
+air, and repeating a note which says, as plain as a bird can speak,
+
+          This is the day
+          You must away!
+    What are wings made for, if not to fly?
+          Cheep, cheep,
+          Now for a leap!—
+    Father and mother and neighbours are by!
+
+This flying away from the nest is a great event in swallow-life, as you
+may well believe. Let us therefore now direct our attention to one nest
+in particular, in which are only two young ones—a very small family;
+but what happens here is occurring all round us.
+
+One of these little ones balances itself at the entrance, looking
+timidly into the void, and, having considered the risk for awhile,
+allows its fellow to take its place.
+
+During all this time, the parents keep driving about, within a few feet
+of the entrance, and endeavour, by many winning gestures, to induce
+their charge to follow them. The second bird also, after sitting for
+some time, as if distrustful of its powers, retires, and the first
+again appears. Opening and shutting his wings, and often half inclined
+again to retire, he, at length, summons up all his resolution, springs
+from the nest, and, with his self-taught pinions, cleaves the air. He
+and his parents, who are in ecstasies, return to the nest, and the
+second young one presently musters courage and joins them. And now
+begins a day of real enjoyment; they sport chiefly about the tree-tops
+till seven in the evening, when all re-enter the nest.
+
+In several instances I have seen the neighbours add their inducements
+to those of the parents, when the young were too timid to leave their
+home. If the happy day prove fine, they seldom return to the nest
+till sunset; if otherwise, they will come back two or three times. On
+one occasion, when the young were ready to fly, but unwilling to take
+the first leap, the parents had recourse to a little stratagem, both
+ingenious and natural. The he-bird held out a fly at about four inches
+from the entrance to the nest. In attempting to take hold of it, they
+again and again nearly lost their balance. On another occasion, the
+mother bird, trying this plan to no purpose, seemed to lose patience,
+and seizing one of them by the lower mandible, with the claw of her
+right foot, whilst it was gaping for food, tried to pull it out of the
+nest, to which, however, it clung like a squirrel. But the young, every
+one of them, fly in time, and a right joyous holiday they all have
+together.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Autumn Migration._]
+
+So the summer comes to an end; and towards the middle of September,
+the great family cares being over, and the young having attained
+to an age capable of undertaking the fatigues of migration, that
+mysterious impulse, strong as life itself, and probably affecting
+them like some sickness—the necessity to exchange one country and
+climate for another—comes upon them. Under this influence, they
+congregate together in immense numbers, every neighbourhood seeming
+to have its place of assembly—the roofs of lofty buildings, or the
+leafless boughs of old trees: here they meet, not only to discuss the
+great undertaking, but to have a right merry time together—a time
+of luxurious idleness, lively chatterings, singing in chorus their
+everlasting and musical _cheep, cheep_, eating and drinking, and making
+ready for the journey before them.
+
+At length the moment of departure is come, and at a given signal the
+whole party rises. Twittering and singing, and bidding a long farewell
+to the scenes of their summer life, they fly off in a body, perhaps, if
+coming from Scotland, or the north of England, to rest yet a few weeks
+in the warmer southern counties; after which, a general departure takes
+place to the sunny lands of Africa.
+
+Though gifted with wings wonderfully constructed for prolonged flight,
+and though having passed every day of so many successive months almost
+wholly on the wing, the swallow frequently suffers great fatigue and
+exhaustion in its long migration. Sometimes, probably driven out of
+its course by adverse winds, it is known to alight by hundreds on the
+rigging of vessels, when worn out by hunger and fatigue it is too
+often shot or cruelly treated. Nevertheless the swallow, protected
+by Him who cares for the sparrow, generally braves the hardships of
+migration, and the following spring, guided by the same mysterious
+instinct, finds his way across continents and seas to his old home,
+where, identified by some little mark which has been put upon him—a
+silken thread as a garter, or a light silver ring—he is recognised as
+the old familiar friend, and appears to be no less happy to be once
+more with them than are they to welcome him. Sometimes swallows coming
+back as ordinary strangers, prove their identity, even though the scene
+of their last year’s home may have been pulled down, together with the
+human habitation. In this case, he has been known to fly about in a
+distracted way, lamenting the change that had taken place, and seeming
+as if nothing would comfort him.
+
+Though the fact of swallows coming back to their old haunts does not
+need proving, yet I will close my chapter with an incident which
+occurred in our own family. During a summer storm, a martin’s nest,
+with young, was washed from the eaves of my husband’s paternal
+home. His mother, a great friend to all birds, placed the nest with
+the young, which happily were uninjured, in a window, which, being
+generally open, allowed the parent-birds access to their young. They
+very soon began to feed them, making no attempt to build any other
+nest; so that the young were successfully reared, and took their flight
+full-fledged from the window-sill.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Welcomed Return to Old Haunts._]
+
+The next spring, when the time for the arrival of the swallows came,
+great was the surprise and pleasure of their kind hostess, to see,
+one day, a number of swallows twittering about the window, as if
+impatient for entrance. On its being opened, in they flew, and,
+twittering joyfully and circling round the room, as if recognising the
+old hospitable asylum of the former year, flew out and soon settled
+themselves under the eaves with the greatest satisfaction. There could
+be no doubt but that these were the birds that had been reared there.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE CHIFF-CHAFF, OR OVEN-BUILDER.
+
+
+The Chiff-chaff, chill-chall, lesser pettichaps, or oven-builder, is
+one of the great bird-family of warblers, and the smallest of them in
+size; indeed, it is not much larger than the little willow-wren. Like
+all its family it is a bird of passage, and makes its appearance here,
+in favourable seasons, as early as the 12th of March—earlier than
+the warblers in general—and also remains later, having been known to
+remain here to the middle of October.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  CHIFF-CHAFFS AND NEST.      [Page 66.
+]
+
+It is a remarkably cheerful little bird, and is warmly welcomed by all
+lovers of the country as being one of the first visitants of spring,
+sending its pleasant little voice, with an incessant “chiff-chaff,”
+“chery-charry,” through the yet leafless trees.
+
+Its plumage is dark olive-green; the breast and under part of the body,
+white, with a slight tinge of yellow; the tail, brown, edged with pale
+green; legs, yellowish-brown.
+
+The nest is not unlike that of a wren, built in a low bush, and,
+sometimes, even on the ground. The one so beautifully and faithfully
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir, seems to be amongst the tallest grasses
+and picturesque growths of some delicious woodland lane. It is a
+lovely little structure; a hollow ball wonderfully put together, of
+dry leaves and stems of grass, and a circular hole for entrance at
+the side; lined with soft feathers—a little downy bed of comfort. The
+mother-bird, as we now see her, sits here in delicious ease on five or
+six white eggs, beautifully spotted with rich red-brown.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Howitt’s Account of this Bird._]
+
+This dainty little bird, which seems made alone for pleasure, is
+very useful to man, and should be made kindly welcome everywhere,
+living entirely on caterpillars and other troublesome and destructive
+creatures. The Rev. J. G. Wood says that it saves many a good oak from
+destruction by devouring, on its first arrival, the caterpillars of
+the well-known green oak-moth, which roll up the leaves in so curious
+a manner, and come tumbling out of their green houses at the slightest
+alarm.
+
+He says, also, that a little chiff-chaff, which had been caught and
+tamed, was accustomed to dash to the ceiling of the room in which it
+was kept, and to snatch thence the flies which settled on the white
+surface.
+
+My husband, writing of this bird, says:—
+
+“Gilbert White gave, I believe, the name of chiff-chaff to this
+little bird from its note. In the midland counties it is called the
+chill-chall from the same cause; and, indeed, this name is, to my ear,
+more accordant with its continuous ditty. Its cheery little voice is
+one of the pleasantest recognitions of returning spring. It is sure to
+be heard, just as in former years, in the copse, the dell, the belt
+of trees bordering a wayside; we catch its simple note with pleasure,
+for it brings with it many a memory of happy scenes and days gone
+by. We see the little creature hopping along the boughs of the yet
+only budding oak, and know that it is as usefully employed for man
+as agreeably for itself. It tells us, in effect, that sunny days,
+flowers, and sweet airs, and the music of a thousand other birds, are
+coming. We revert to the time when, tracing the wood-side or the bosky
+dingle in boyhood, we caught sight of its rounded nest amongst the
+screening twigs of the low bush, and the bleached bents of last year’s
+grapes. We remember the pleasure with which we examined its little
+circular entrance, and discovered, in its downy interior, its store
+of delicate eggs, or the living mass of feathery inmates, with their
+heads ranged side by side and one behind another, with their twinkling
+eyes and yellow-edged mouths. Many a time, as we have heard the ever
+blithe note of chill-chall, as it stuck to its unambitious part of the
+obscure woodland glade, we have wished that we could maintain the same
+buoyant humour, the same thorough acceptance of the order of Providence
+for us. As Luther, in a moment of despondency, when enemies were rife
+around him, and calumny and wrong pursued him, heard the glad song of a
+bird that came and sang on a bough before his window, we have thanked
+God for the lesson of the never-drooping chill-chall. The great world
+around never damps its joy with a sense of its own insignificance; the
+active and often showy life of man, the active and varied existence of
+even birds, which sweep through the air in gay companies, never disturb
+its pleasure in its little accustomed nook. It seems to express, in its
+two or three simple notes, all the sentiment of indestructible content,
+like the old woman’s bird in the German story by Ludwig Tieck—
+
+    Alone in wood so gay,
+    ’Tis good to stay,
+    Morrow like to-day
+    For ever and aye;
+    Oh, I do love to stay
+    Alone in wood so gay!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bird’s Ditty._]
+
+“This little bird appears to feel all that strength of heart, and to
+put it into its little ditty, which seems to me to say—
+
+“Here I continue ‘cheery cheery, and still shall, and still shall!’”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.
+
+
+We have here the Golden-crested Wren—the _Regulus cristatus_
+of naturalists—the tiniest of our British birds, “the pleasing
+fairy-bird,” as Bewick calls it, one of the large family of warblers,
+and a near relation to Jenny Wren. It is a very charming little bird,
+with a sweet melodious song of its own, and so many curious little ways
+that it is well worth everybody’s notice and everybody’s love.
+
+It is very active and lively, always in motion, fluttering from branch
+to branch, and running up and down the trunks and limbs of trees, in
+search of insects on which it lives. It may as often be seen on the
+under as on the upper side of a branch, with its back downwards, like
+a fly on a ceiling, and so running along, all alert, as merry and busy
+as possible. In size it is about three inches, that is with all its
+feathers on, but its little body alone is not above an inch long; yet
+in this little body, and in this little brain, lives an amazing amount
+of character, as I shall show you, as well as a great deal of amusing
+conceit and pertness which you would hardly believe unless you were
+told.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST.      [Page 70.
+]
+
+The colour of the bird is a sort of yellowish olive-green, the under
+part of pale, reddish-white, tinged with green on the sides; the quill
+feathers of the wing are dusky, edged with pale green, as are also
+the tail feathers. Thus attired by nature, that is, by the great
+Creator who cares for all His creatures, this little bird, creeping
+and fluttering about the branches and bole of the leafy summer tree,
+can scarcely be distinguished from the tree itself: hence it is that
+the bird is so unfamiliar to most people. The he-bird, however, has
+a little distinguishing glory of his own—a crest of golden-coloured
+feathers, bordered on each side with black, like a sort of eye-brow to
+his bright hazel eyes. This crest, which gives him his distinguished
+name, can be erected at pleasure, when he is full of life and
+enjoyment, or when he chooses to lord it over birds ten times as big as
+himself.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Lively Gambols of this Bird._]
+
+It is worth anybody’s while, who has a love for the innocent denizens
+of nature, and no desire to do them harm, to go into a wood on a
+summer’s day on purpose to watch the doings of this lively little bird
+amongst the tree-branches. Fir-woods are the best for this purpose, as
+this bird has an especial liking for these trees, and ten to one, if
+you will only be patient and quite still, you may soon see him at work
+busily looking after his dinner, running along the branches, up one and
+down another, then like a little arrow off to the next tree, scudding
+along its branches, then back again, up and down, round and round
+the bole, going like a little fire, so rapid are his movements; now
+running up aloft, now hanging head downward, now off again in another
+direction. What a wonderful activity there is in that little body! He
+must devour hundreds of insects, as well as their eggs, which he thus
+seeks for under the scaly roughnesses of the bark, and finding, devours.
+
+Pretty as he is, his nest, of which Mr. Harrison Weir has given a most
+accurate drawing, is quite worthy of him. It is always the same, swung
+like a little hammock from a branch, and always hidden, it may be by
+leaves or a bunch of fir-cones. The cordage by which it is suspended
+is of his own weaving, and is made of the same materials as the nest,
+which are moss and slender thread-like roots. In form it is oval, as
+you see, with a hole for entrance at the side, and is lined with the
+softest down and fibrous roots. It is a lovely little structure, like
+a soft ball of moss, within which the mother-bird lays from six to a
+dozen tiny eggs, scarcely bigger than peas, the delicate shell of which
+will hardly bear handling. The colour of the egg is white, sprinkled
+over with the smallest of dull-coloured spots.
+
+Mr. Jesse describes one of these lovely nests which was taken from the
+slender branches of a fir-tree where it had been suspended, as usual,
+by means of delicate cordage, secured to the branch by being twisted
+round and round, and then fastened to the edge or rim of the nest,
+so that one may be sure that the making and securing of these tiny
+ropes must be the first work of the clever little artizan. The nest
+thus suspended sways lightly to and fro with the movement of the bird.
+We cannot see in our cut the slender ropes that suspend it; they are
+concealed under the thick foliage; but we can easily see what a dainty
+little structure it is.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Jackdaw and Mischievous Wrens._]
+
+Delicate and lovely as is this bird, and pleasing and harmless as is
+his life, he yet possesses some curious traits of character, as I
+said. For instance, though so small, with a body only an inch long,
+he has, apparently, a wonderful conceit of himself, and loves to be
+lord and master of creatures that will not dispute with him, as not
+worth their while, or perhaps because there really is some inherent
+mastership in him by which he contrives, under certain circumstances,
+to rule over them. In proof of this, I will tell you what the Rev. J.
+G. Wood relates from the experience of a lady, a friend of his. One
+severe winter, when she had housed and fed a number of birds, amongst
+which were a jackdaw, a magpie, two skylarks, a goldfinch, and a robin,
+in a warm aviary, feeding them regularly and abundantly, other birds
+came, of course, to partake of the plentiful feast, and amongst them
+two golden-crested wrens. These little things made themselves not
+only quite at home, but lorded it over the other birds in the most
+extraordinary way possible. For instance, if the jackdaw had possessed
+himself of a nice morsel which he was holding down with his foot to
+eat comfortably, and the golden-crested wren had also set his mind on
+it, he hopped on the jackdaw’s head and pecked in his eye, on the side
+where his foot held the delicacy. On this the poor jackdaw instantly
+lifted his foot to his head where he thought something was amiss, and
+the mischievous little fellow snatched up the treasure and was off. At
+first the jackdaw would pursue him in great wrath, but he soon learned
+that it was no use, for the creature would only jump upon his back
+where he could not reach him, and so was safe from punishment. “Before
+the winter was over,” continues the lady, “the little gold-crests were
+masters of all the birds, and even roosted at night on their backs;
+finding, no doubt, that in this way they could keep their little feet
+much warmer than on a perch.”
+
+Conceited and dominant, however, as these little birds may be, they are
+yet either extremely timid, or their nervous system is so delicately
+constituted, that a sudden fright kills them. Thus if, when they are
+all alert and busy on the tree-branch, seeking for insects and fearing
+no evil, the branch be suddenly struck with a stick, the poor bird
+falls dead to the ground. The shock has killed it. It has received no
+apparent injury—not a feather is ruffled—but its joyous, innocent
+life is gone for ever. This fact is asserted by Gilbert White, and was
+proved by my husband, who brought me home the bird which had thus died.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE WAGTAIL.
+
+
+This elegant little bird belongs to the Motacilla, or Wagtail family.
+There are three brothers of them in this country—the pied, the grey,
+and the yellow. The pied is the most familiar, and our friend Mr.
+Harrison Weir has given us a lovely picture of it at home in a cleft of
+the rock, with fleshy-leaved lichens above, and green springing fronds
+of the great fern, which will presently overshadow it. Around are the
+solemn mountains, and the never silent water is foaming and rushing
+below.
+
+This bird has many names besides his Latin one of Motacilla. In Surrey
+he is called washer, or dish-washer, by the common people, from his
+peculiar motions in walking, which are thought to resemble those of a
+washer-woman at her tub. The colours of the pied wagtail are simply
+black and white, but so boldly and clearly marked as to produce a very
+pleasing and elegant effect.
+
+We have, every year, several wagtails in our garden, to which they add
+a very cheerful feature, walking about, nodding their heads and tails
+as if perfectly at home, afraid neither of dog nor cat, much less of
+any human being about the place. A little running brook as one boundary
+of the garden is, no doubt, one of the attractions; but here they are
+seen less frequently than on the smoothly-mown lawn, where they pick up
+tiny insects, gliding along with a smooth motion, accompanied by the
+quick movement of head and tail.
+
+It is bitterly cold wintry weather as I write this, and they now visit
+the kitchen door, where, no doubt, little delicacies of various kinds
+attract them. They are more fearless and familiar than either sparrows,
+robins, or blackbirds; yet all of these are our daily pensioners,
+having their breakfast of crumbs as regularly before the parlour window
+as we have our own meal. Yet they fly away at the slightest sound,
+and the appearance of the cat disperses them altogether. They have,
+evidently, the old ancestral fear of man, stamped, as powerfully as
+life itself, upon their being. They are suspicious, and always in
+a flutter: nothing equals the calm self-possession of the wagtail,
+excepting it be the state of mind into which the robin gets when the
+gardener is turning up the fresh soil, just on purpose, as he supposes,
+to find worms for him.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WAGTAIL AND NEST.      [Page 76.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Quest for Food._]
+
+And now let me give you a wagtail picture, drawn by a faithful hand.[A]
+It is the end of July, the young wagtails are abroad with their
+parents, like human families, a month or two later, gone out or abroad
+to take their holiday. “Often,” he says, “one may see them wading in
+shallow places, in quest of insects and worms, carefully holding up
+their tails to prevent them being draggled. If you watch the motions
+of an individual just coming up to join the party, you see it alight
+abruptly, twittering its shrill notes, and, perching on a small stone,
+incessantly vibrate its body, and jerk out its tail.” This of course
+is the polite way in which a stranger wagtail introduces itself
+amongst its friends. There they are; now walking out into the water,
+and looking round for food. Now they are on the shore again, running
+rapidly along, picking up, now and then, a dainty morsel, and every
+moment spreading out the ever-vibrating tail. Now they are in the
+adjoining meadow, each one in pursuit of a fly, which it has no sooner
+caught, than it spies another. The lazy geese, which have nibbled
+the grass bare, allow the wagtail to pass in their midst without
+molestation. When the cows are grazing in the midst of a swarm of
+gnats and other insects, as Gilbert White says, as they tread amongst
+the bush herbage they rouse up multitudes of insects which settle on
+their legs, their stomachs, and even their noses, and the wagtails are
+welcomed by the cows as benefactors. Watch them, for they are worth the
+trouble; see, one comes forward and catches a small fly, bends to one
+side to seize another, darts to the right after a third, and springs
+some feet in the air before it secures a fourth, and all this time
+others are running about after other flies, passing close to the cows’
+noses or amongst their feet. With all this running to and fro, and
+hither and thither, they every now and then run in each other’s way;
+but they do not quarrel, aware, no doubt, that there is room enough for
+them in the world, nay, even in the meadow, though it now seems to be
+full of wagtails, all busily occupied, some walking, others running, a
+few flying off and many arriving. You may walk in amongst them; they
+are not very shy, for they will allow you to come within a few yards of
+them. They may always be met with on the shore when the tide is out, as
+well as in the meadow; you will meet with them by the river-side, or by
+the mill-dam. Occasionally you may see them perched on a roof, a wall,
+or a large stone, but very rarely on a tree or bush.
+
+[Footnote A: “British Birds.”]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Taunton Pair._]
+
+They pair about the middle of April, and build by the side of rivers
+in crevices of rock—as in our picture, on a heap of stones, in faggot
+or wood stacks, or in a hole in a wall, but always near water and
+carefully hidden from sight. The nest is made of dry grass, moss, and
+small roots, thickly lined with wool and hair. The eggs are five or six
+in number, of a greyish white, spotted all over with grey and brown.
+As a proof of the confiding nature of this bird, I must mention that
+occasionally it builds in most unimaginable places, directly under the
+human eye—as, for instance, “a pair of them last summer,” says Mr.
+Jesse, “built their nest in a hollow under a sleeper of the Brighton
+Railway, near the terminus at that place. Trains at all times of the
+day were passing close to the nest, but in this situation the young
+were hatched and reared.” Mr. Macgillivray also mentions that a pair
+of these birds built their nest in an old wall near a quarry, within a
+few yards of four men who worked most part of the day in getting the
+stone, which they occasionally blasted. The hen-bird laid four eggs,
+and reared her brood, she and her mate becoming so familiar with the
+quarry-men as to fly in and out without showing the least sign of fear;
+but if a stranger approached they would immediately fly off, nor return
+till they saw him clear off from the place. Another nest was built
+beneath a wooden platform at a coal-pit, where the noisy business of
+unloading the hutches brought up from the pit, was continually going
+forward. But soon the wagtails were quite at home, becoming familiar
+with the colliers and other people connected with the work, and flew
+in and out of their nest without showing the slightest sign of fear.
+Again, another pair built close to the wheel of a lathe in a workshop
+at a brass manufactory at Taunton amid the incessant din of the
+braziers; yet here the young were hatched, and the mother-bird became
+perfectly familiar with the faces of the workmen; but if a stranger
+entered, or any one belonging to the factory, though not to what might
+be called her shop, she quitted her nest instantly, nor would return
+till they were gone. The male, however, had much less confidence, and
+would not come into the room, but brought the usual supplies of food to
+a certain spot on the roof whence she fetched it. All these anecdotes
+prove how interesting would be the relationship between the animal
+creation and man, if man ceased to be their tyrant or destroyer.
+
+As regards this particular bird, it is not only elegant in its
+appearance, but amiable and attractive in all its ways. “They are,”
+says Bewick, “very attentive to their young, and continue to feed and
+train them for three or four weeks after they can fly; they defend them
+with great courage when in danger, or endeavour to draw aside the enemy
+by various little arts. They are very attentive also to the cleanliness
+of their nests, and so orderly as to have been known to remove light
+substances, such as paper or straw, which have been placed to mark the
+spot.” As regards this proof of their love of order, however, I would
+rather suggest that it may be a proof of their sagacity and sense of
+danger: they suspected that some human visitor, of whose friendly
+character they were not convinced, was intending to look in upon them,
+and they thought it best, therefore, to decline the honour of his
+visit.
+
+The ordinary note of this bird, uttered rapidly if alarmed, is a sort
+of _cheep, cheep_. In the summer morning, however, it may be heard
+singing a pleasant, mellow and modulated little song. Like the swallow,
+for which it is a match in elegance, it lives entirely on insects. If
+you would only stand silently for a few minutes by a water-side, where
+it haunts, you would be delighted with the grace and activity of its
+movements. “There it stands,” says one of its friends, “on the top of
+a stone, gently vibrating its tail, as if balancing itself. An insect
+flies near; it darts off, flutters a moment in the air, seizes its
+prey, and settles on another stone, spreading and vibrating its tail.
+Presently it makes another sally, flutters around for a while, seizes
+two or three insects, glides over the ground, swerving to either side,
+then again takes its stand on a pinnacle.” Not unfrequently too it
+may be seen on the roof of a house, or in a village street, still in
+pursuit of insects.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE JACKDAW.
+
+
+We have called the Rook and Jackdaw first cousins. They are so, and
+are greatly attached to each other. There is a difference, however, in
+their character; the rook is grave and dignified, the jackdaw is active
+and full of fun. But they are fond of each other’s society, and agree
+to associate for nine months in the year: during the other three they
+are both occupied with their respective family cares.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  JACKDAWS AND NESTLINGS.      [Page 82.
+]
+
+Rooks build in trees in the open air, the nests of the young being
+exposed to all the influences of wind and weather. The jackdaw does not
+approve of this mode. He likes to live under cover, and, therefore,
+makes his nest in holes and crannies, amongst rocks, as in our picture;
+in old and tall buildings, as church towers and steeples, old ruinous
+castles, or old hollow trees. The traditional structure of the family
+nest is certainly that of the rook; a strong frame-work of sticks upon
+which the eggs can be laid, and the clamorous young jackdaws be brought
+up. This our friend Mr. Weir has shown us plainly. But, after all, it
+does not appear that the jackdaw, with all his sharpness, has much
+scientific knowledge, the getting the sticks into the hole being often
+a very difficult piece of work. Mr. Waterton amused himself by watching
+the endless labour and pains which the jackdaw takes in trying to do
+impossibilities. Thinking it absolutely necessary that a frame-work
+of sticks should be laid in the hole or cavity as the foundation of
+the nest, he brings to the opening just such sticks as the rook would
+use in open spaces, and may be seen trying for a quarter of an hour
+together to get a stick into a hole, holding it by the middle all the
+time, so that the ends prop against each side, and make the endeavour
+impossible. He cannot understand how it is; he knows that sticks ought
+to go into holes, but here is one that will not; and, tired out at
+length, and thinking perhaps that it is in the nature of some sticks
+not to be got into a hole by any means, he drops it down and fetches
+another, probably to have no better result, and this may happen several
+times. But jackdaws have perseverance, and so, with trying and trying
+again, he meets with sticks that are not so self-willed, and that can
+be put into holes, either by being short enough or held the right way,
+and so the foundation is laid, and the easier part of the work goes on
+merrily; for the jackdaw is at no loss for sheets and blankets for his
+children’s bed, though we cannot see them in our picture, the clamorous
+children lying at the very edge of their bed. But if we could examine
+it, we should most likely be amused by what we should find. The jackdaw
+takes for this purpose anything soft that comes readily—we cannot say
+to _hand_—but to _bill_. In this respect he resembles the sparrow,
+and being, like him, fond of human society, gleans up out of his
+neighbourhood all that he needs for the comfort of his nestlings. Thus
+we hear of a nest, built in the ruins of Holyrood Chapel, in which,
+on its being looked into for a piece of lace which was supposed to be
+there, it was found also to be lined with part of a worsted stocking,
+a silk handkerchief, a child’s cap, a muslin frill, and several
+other things which the busy jackdaw had picked up in various ways; for
+it must be borne in mind that he is own cousin to the magpie, whose
+thievish propensities are well known.
+
+The call of the jackdaw is much quicker and more lively than the rook,
+somewhat resembling the syllable _yak_, variously modulated, and
+repeated somewhat leisurely, but at the same time cheerfully. Its food
+is similar to that of the rook, and going forth at early dawn it may be
+seen in pastures or ploughed fields, busily searching for larvæ, worms,
+and insects. They walk gracefully, with none of the solemn gravity
+either of the rook or raven, and may occasionally be seen running along
+and sometimes quarrelling amongst themselves.
+
+Like the rook, the jackdaw stows away food in its mouth or throat-bag
+to feed its young. Its plumage is black, with shining silvery grey
+behind the head. Occasionally they are found with streaks or patches of
+white, as are also rooks, but these are mere sports of nature.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Waterton’s Opinion._]
+
+Mr. Waterton was of opinion that jackdaws lived in pairs all the year
+round, as he had seen them sitting in November on the leafless branches
+of a sycamore, side by side, pruning each other’s heads, and apparently
+full of mutual affection; and as they mostly left the trees in pairs,
+and so returned, he was inclined to think that it was their custom
+always to remain paired.
+
+I will now give you his _carte de visite_ from Macgillivray’s “British
+Birds.” “He is a remarkably active, pert, and talkative little fellow,
+ever cheerful, always on the alert, and ready either for business or
+frolic. If not so respectable as the grave and sagacious raven, he
+is, at least, the most agreeable of the family, and withal extremely
+fond of society, for, not content with having a flock of his own folk
+about him, he often thrusts himself into a gang of rooks, and in winter
+sometimes takes up his abode entirely with them.”
+
+As to _thrusting_ himself into a gang of rooks, I am, however, of
+opinion that the rooks make him heartily welcome. How do we know what
+amusement they, with their stolid gravity and solemn dignity, find in
+him with all his fun and loquacity? That rooks are really fond of the
+society of jackdaws is proved by an observation of Mr. Mudie. He says
+that “in the latter part of the season, when the rooks from one of the
+most extensive rookeries in Britain made daily excursions of about six
+miles to the warm grounds by the sea-side, and in their flight passed
+over a deep ravine, in the sunny side of which were many jackdaws, he
+observed that when the cawing of the rooks in their morning flight was
+heard at the ravine, the jackdaws, who had previously been still and
+quiet, instantly raised their shriller notes, and flew up to join the
+rooks, both parties clamouring loudly as if welcoming each other; and
+that on the return, the daws accompanied the rooks a little past the
+ravine as if for good fellowship; then both cawed their farewell: the
+daws returned to their home and the rooks proceeded on their way.”
+
+Jackdaws, like rooks, are said to be excellent weather-prophets.
+If they fly back to their roost in the forenoon, or early in the
+afternoon, a storm may be expected that evening, or early in the
+morning.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Rev. J. G. Wood’s Anecdote._]
+
+The anecdotes of tame jackdaws are numerous. The Rev. J. G. Wood
+speaks of one which had learnt the art of kindling lucifer matches,
+and thus became a very dangerous inmate, busying himself in this way
+when the family was in bed, though, fortunately, he seems to have done
+nothing worse than light the kitchen fire which had been laid ready
+for kindling over night. Clever as he was, however, he could not learn
+to distinguish the proper ignitable end of the match, and so rubbed
+on till he happened to get it right. He frightened himself terribly
+at first by the explosion and the sulphur fumes, and burned himself
+into the bargain. But I do not find that, like the burnt child, he
+afterwards feared the fire and so discontinued the dangerous trick.
+
+The jackdaw is easily domesticated, and makes himself very happy in
+captivity, learns to articulate words and sentences, and is most
+amusing by his mimicry and comic humour.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER.
+
+
+This pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird from the
+position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly in gardens,
+it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of a beam or piece
+of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or gateway, the nest being,
+however, generally screened, and often made a perfect little bit
+of picturesque beauty, by the leaves of some lovely creeping rose,
+woodbine, or passionflower, which grows there.
+
+This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, though
+always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond of human
+society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Virginian creeper, at
+the back of our house.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST.      [Page 86.
+]
+
+According to her peculiar fancy she built exactly in the doorway,
+though there were some yards of verandah on either hand; but here was
+the convenient ledge, forming an angle with the upright support; and
+here was placed, as in our picture, the small, somewhat flat nest,
+beautifully, though slightly, put together, of dried grass and moss,
+lined with wool and hair. Here the mother-bird laid her four or five
+greyish-white eggs, with their spots of rusty red, and here she reared
+her young. She had, however, it seemed to us, an uncomfortable time of
+it, for, though we carefully avoided giving her needless disturbance
+that we almost ceased to use the door, yet there was an unavoidable
+passing to and fro to which she never seemed to get accustomed,
+starting off her nest with a little flutter whenever we came in sight;
+nor—although before she had finished sitting the quick-growing shoots
+of the Virginian creeper, with its broadly-expanding leaves, hid her
+nest so completely that, had it not been for her own timidity, we need
+not have known of her presence—she never lost this peculiar trait of
+character.
+
+The nest which Mr. Harrison Weir has drawn is, doubtless, taken from
+life. I wish, however, he could have seen ours, only about ten feet
+from the ground, a little dome of love, embowered amongst young shoots,
+vine-like leaves and tendrils—a perfectly ideal nest, in which our
+friend, who has as keen a sense of natural beauty as any artist living,
+would have delighted himself.
+
+The colours of this bird are very unobtrusive: the upper parts
+brownish-grey, the head spotted with brown, the neck and breast
+streaked or spotted with greyish-brown. It is a migratory bird, and
+arrives in this country about the middle or end of May, remaining with
+us till about the middle of October, by which time the flies on which
+it lives have generally disappeared.
+
+[Sidenote: _How it takes its Prey._]
+
+Its mode of taking its winged prey is curious. Seated, stock-still,
+in a twig, it darts or glides off at the sight of an insect, like the
+bird of our picture, and seizes it with a little snapping noise; then
+returns to its perch ready for more, and so on; incessantly darting out
+and returning to the same spot, till it has satisfied its hunger, or
+moves off to another twig to commence the same pursuit.
+
+When they have young, the number of flies consumed only by one little
+family must be amazing. It is recorded[B] in one instance that a pair
+of fly-catchers, beginning to feed their nestlings at five-and-twenty
+minutes before seven in the morning, and continuing their labour till
+ten minutes before nine at night, supplied them with food, that is to
+say with flies, no less than five hundred and thirty-seven times. The
+gentleman who made these observations says:—“Before they fed their
+young they alighted upon a tree for a few seconds, and looked round
+about them. By short jerks they usually caught the winged insects.
+Sometimes they ascended into the air and dropped like an arrow; at
+other times they hovered like a hawk when set on its prey. They drove
+off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approached their
+nest, as if bidding them to go and hunt in their own grounds, where
+there were plenty of flies for them. Sometimes they brought only one
+fly in their bills, sometimes several, and flies of various sizes.”
+
+[Footnote B: See Macgillivray’s “_British Birds_.”]
+
+This bird seems to become attached to particular localities, where
+he finds himself conveniently situated and undisturbed. Mr. Mudie
+mentions, in his “Feathered Tribes,” “that a pair of these birds had
+nested in his garden for twelve successive years.” What is the length
+of life of a fly-catcher I cannot say; but probably if they were
+not the same birds, they would be their descendants—birds hatched
+there, and consequently at home. The Rev. J. G. Wood also speaks of
+the same locality having been used by this bird for twenty successive
+years; and he supposes that the young had succeeded to their ancestral
+home. He gives also an interesting account of the commencement of a
+nest-building by this bird. He says that the female, who seems to be
+generally the active builder, placed, in the first instance, a bundle
+of fine grass in some conveniently-forked branches, and after having
+picked it about for some time, as if regularly shaking it up, she
+seated herself in the middle of it, and there, spinning herself round
+and round, gave it its cup-like form. She then fetched more grasses,
+and after arranging them partly round the edge, and partly on the
+bottom, repeated the spinning process. A few hairs and some moss were
+then stuck about the nest and neatly woven in, the hair and slender
+vegetable fibres being the thread, so to speak, with which the moss was
+fastened to the nest.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Mudie on Nest-building._]
+
+Mr. Mudie, also speaking of their nest-building, says that, in one
+instance which came under his notice, “the bird began at seven o’clock
+on a Tuesday morning, and the nest was finished in good time on Friday
+afternoon.” This was certainly rapid work. Mr. Yarrell says that the
+he-bird brings the materials to the hen, who makes use of them—which
+is stated as a general fact by Michelet—and that in constructing her
+nest the little fly-catcher, after she had rounded it into its first
+form, moves backwards as she weaves into it long hairs and grasses with
+her bill, continually walking round and round her nest. This, however,
+can only be when the situation of the nest will allow of her passing
+round it. Our fly-catcher’s nest, and the nest of our picture, are
+placed as a little bed close to the wall, and in such situations the
+nest has sometimes no back, but simply the lining. A very favourite
+place with the fly-catcher for her nest is the hole in a wall, the
+size of a half brick, in which the builder fixed the spar of his
+scaffolding, and omitted to fill up when he had finished. In these
+convenient little nooks the fly-catcher’s nest fills the whole front
+of the opening, but has seldom any back to it. From all this, I think
+it is clear that the fly-catcher is, in her arrangements, guided by
+circumstances: only, in every case, her little home is as snug as it
+can be.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE WOOD-PIGEON.
+
+
+The wood-pigeon, ring-dove, or cushat is one of the most familiar and
+poetical of our birds. Its low, plaintive coo-goo-roo-o-o is one of the
+pleasantest sounds of our summer woods.
+
+    “Tell me, tell me, cushat, why thou moanest ever,
+    Thrilling all the greenwood with thy secret woe?
+    ‘I moan not,’ says the cushat, ‘I praise life’s gracious Giver
+    By murmuring out my love in the best way that I know.’”
+
+The wood-pigeon belongs to a large family of birds—_columbinæ_ or
+doves. The earliest mention of them in the world is in Genesis,
+when Noah, wearied with the confinement of the ark, and seeing
+that the mountain tops were visible, selected from the imprisoned
+creatures—first the raven, then the dove, to go forth and report to
+him of the state of the earth. The raven, however, came not back, no
+doubt finding food which tempted him to stay; whilst the dove, finding
+no rest for the sole of her foot, returned, and Noah, putting forth his
+hand, took her in. Again he sent her forth, and she came back in the
+evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. A third
+time she was sent forth, but now she returned no more. So Noah looked
+out, and behold the face of the earth was dry. And he and his family,
+and all the creatures, again went forth and possessed all things.
+
+This dove might probably be of the carrier-pigeon tribe, which is more
+nearly related to the rock-pigeon, also a native of this country,
+or rather, of the northern parts of Scotland. These carrier-pigeons
+were, in the old times, long enough before the invention of electric
+telegraphs, or even before post-offices were established, used instead
+of both. Anacreon, the Greek poet, speaks of them as being used to
+convey letters; the pigeon, having, as it were, two homes, being fed in
+each; thus, a letter from a friend in one home was tied to the wing,
+and the bird turned into the air, probably without his breakfast, when
+he immediately flew off to his distant home, where the letter was
+joyfully received, and he fed for his pains. Whilst the answer was
+prepared he would rest, and it, perhaps, taking some little time, he
+grew hungry again; but they gave him nothing more, and, again securing
+the letter on his little person, he was sent back, making good speed,
+because he would now be thinking of his supper. Thus, the answer flew
+through the air.
+
+      “Come hither, my dove,
+        And I’ll write to my love,
+    And I’ll send him a letter by thee!”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST.      [Page 92.
+]
+
+So says the old song. And we are told that a young man named
+Taurosthenes, one of the victors in the great Olympian games of Greece,
+sent to his father, who resided at a considerable distance, the tidings
+of his success, on the same day, by one of these birds. Pliny, the
+Roman historian, speaks of them being used in case of siege; when the
+besieged sent out these winged messengers, who, cleaving the air at
+a secure height above the surrounding army, conveyed the important
+intelligence of their need to their friends afar off. The crusaders
+are said to have made use of them at the siege of Jerusalem, and the
+old traveller, Sir John Maundeville—“knight, warrior, and pilgrim,” as
+he is styled—who, in the reign of our second and third Edwards, made
+a journey as far as the borders of China, relates that, “in that and
+other countries beyond, pigeons were sent out from one to another to
+ask succour in time of need, and these letters were tied to the neck of
+the bird.”
+
+But enough of carrier-pigeons. Let us come back to our ring-dove or
+cushat, brooding on her eggs in the sweet summer woods, as Mr. Harrison
+Weir has so truthfully represented her. She is not much of a nest-maker.
+
+          “A few sticks across,
+          Without a bit of moss,
+    Laid in the fork of an old oak-tree;
+          Coo-goo-roo-o-o,
+          She says it will do,
+    And there she’s as happy as a bird can be.”
+
+The nest, however, is not at all insufficient for her needs. You see
+her sitting brooding over her two white eggs in every possible bird
+comfort; and whether her mate help her in the building of the nest
+or not, I cannot say, but he is certainly a very good domesticated
+husband, and sits upon the eggs alternately with her, so that the
+hatching, whatever the building may be, is an equally divided labour.
+
+[Sidenote: _Wordsworth’s Tribute of Praise._]
+
+Wordsworth sees in this bird an example of unobtrusive home affection.
+He says:—
+
+        “I heard a stock-dove sing or say
+        His homely tale this very day:
+        His voice was buried among the trees,
+        Yet to be come at by the breeze;
+
+        He did not cease, but cooed and cooed,
+        And somewhat pensively he wooed;
+        He sung of love with quiet blending,
+        Slow to begin, and never ending;
+        Of serious faith and inward glee;
+        That was the song—the song for me.”
+
+Wood-pigeons have immense appetites, and, being fond of all kinds of
+grain, as well as peas and beans, are looked upon by the farmer with
+great disfavour. They are, however, fond of some of those very weeds
+which are his greatest annoyance—for instance, charlock and wild
+mustard; so that they do him some good in return for the tribute which
+they take of his crops. They are fond, also, both of young clover and
+the young green leaves of the turnip, as well as of the turnip itself.
+Either by instinct or experience, they have learned that, feeding
+thus in cultivated fields, they are doing that which will bring down
+upon them the displeasure of man. “They keep,” says the intelligent
+author of “Wild Sports in the Highlands,” “when feeding in the fields,
+in the most open and exposed places, so as to allow no enemy to come
+near them. It is amusing to watch a large flock of these birds whilst
+searching the ground for grain. They walk in a compact body; and in
+order that all may fare alike—which is certainly a good trait in their
+character—the hindermost rank, every now and then, fly over the heads
+of their companions to the front, where they keep the best place for
+a minute or two, till those now in the rear take their place. They
+keep up this kind of fair play during the whole time of feeding. They
+feed, also, on wild fruit and all kinds of wild berries, such as the
+mountain-ash, and ivy; and where acorns abound, seem to prefer them to
+anything else. At the same time, I must confess that they are great
+enemies to my cherry-trees, and swallow as many cherries as they can
+hold. Nor are strawberries safe from them, and the quantity of food
+they manage to stow away in their crops is perfectly astonishing.”
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Necessary Watchfulness._]
+
+Besides man, the wood-pigeon has its own bird-enemies. “In districts
+where the hooded crow abounds,” says the author whom I have just
+quoted, “he is always on the look-out for its eggs, which, shining out
+white from the shallow, unsubstantial nest, are easily seen by him.
+The sparrow-hawk seizes the young when they are half-grown and plump;
+he having been carefully noticed watching the nest day by day as if
+waiting for the time when they should be fit for his eating. The larger
+hawks, however, prey upon the poor wood-pigeon himself.”
+
+With all his pleasant cooings in the wood, therefore, and all
+his complacent strutting about with elevated head and protruded
+breast—with all his gambols and graces, his striking the points of
+his wings together as he rises into the air, to express a pleasure to
+his mate beyond his cooing, he has not such a care free life of it. He
+is always kept on the alert, therefore, and, being always on the watch
+against danger, is not at all a sound sleeper. The least disturbance at
+night rouses him. “I have frequently,” continues our author, “attempted
+to approach the trees when the wood-pigeons were roosting, but even
+on the darkest nights they would take alarm. The poor wood-pigeon
+has no other defence against its enemies than its ever watchful and
+never sleeping timidity; not being able to do battle against even the
+smallest of its many persecutors.”
+
+Gilbert White says that the wood-pigeons were greatly decreasing, in
+his time, in Hampshire, and there were then only about a hundred in the
+woods at Selborne, but in former times the flocks had been so vast, not
+only there, but in the surrounding districts, that they had traversed
+the air morning and evening like rooks, reaching for a mile together,
+and that, when they thus came to rendezvous there by thousands, the
+sound of their wings, suddenly roused from their roosting-trees in an
+evening, rising all at once into the air, was like a sudden rolling of
+distant thunder.
+
+Although the wood-pigeon is considered to be the original parent of
+the tame pigeon, yet it does not seem possible to tame the young of
+this bird, though taken from the nest quite young. It is a bird which
+appears to hate confinement, and, as soon as it has the opportunity,
+spite of all kindness and attention, it flies away to the freedom of
+the woods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE WHITE-THROAT.
+
+
+With none of our migratory birds, our spring visitants from southern
+lands, is the lover of the country more familiar than with the
+White-throat, which, with its nest, is here so beautifully and livingly
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir.
+
+This bird, with its many names—White-throat, Peggy-white-throat,
+Peggy-chaw, Charlie-mufty, Nettle-creeper, Whishey-whey-beard or
+Pettichaps—comes to us in April, about the same time as the cuckoo and
+the swallow; the male bird, like his cousin the nightingale, coming
+before the female, but he does not make himself very conspicuous till
+the hedges and bushes are well covered with leaves; then he may be
+found in almost every lane and hedge the whole country over.
+
+As soon as the female is here, and the birds have paired, the business
+of nest-building begins, and they may then be seen flying in and out
+of the bushes with great alertness, the he-bird carolling his light
+and airy song, and often hurling himself, as it were, up into the air,
+some twenty or thirty feet, in a wild, tipsy sort of way, as if he
+were fuller of life than he could hold, and coming down again with a
+warble into the hedge, where the little hen-wife is already arranging
+her dwelling in the very spot probably where she was herself hatched,
+and her ancestors before her, for ages. For I must here remark that
+one of the most remarkable properties of birds is, that facility by
+which they so regularly disperse themselves over the whole country on
+their arrival after their far migration, each one, in all probability,
+attracted by some attachment of the past, stopping short at, or
+proceeding onward to, the exact spot where he himself first came into
+the consciousness of life. This is one of the wonderful arrangements of
+nature, otherwise of God, by which the great balance is so beautifully
+kept in creation. If the migratory bird arrives ever so weary at Dover,
+and its true home be some sweet low-lying lane of Devonshire, a thick
+hedgerow of the midland counties, or a thickety glen of Westmoreland,
+it will not delay its flight nor be tempted to tarry short of that
+glen, hedgerow, or lane with which the experience of its own life and
+affection is united.
+
+At this charming time of the year none of the various performers in
+nature’s great concert bring back to those who have passed their youth
+in the country a more delicious recollection of vernal fields and lanes
+than this bird of ours, the little white-throat.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WHITE-THROAT AND NEST.      [Page 98.
+]
+
+Yes, along those hedges, fresh and fragrant with their young leaves,
+along those banks studded with primroses, campions, blue-bells and
+white starwort, and through the thick growth of the wild rose bushes,
+all of which have a beauty especially their own, the white-throat
+salutes you as you pass, as if to recognise an old acquaintance. He
+is brimful of fun; out he starts and performs his series of eccentric
+frolics in the air, accompanied by his mad-cap sort of warble; or,
+almost as if laughing at you, he repeats from the interior of the
+bushes his deep grave note, _chaw! chaw!_ whence comes the name
+of peggy-chaw. This, however, is to tell you—and to those who
+understand bird-language it is intelligible enough—that he has now a
+family to attend to, and he begs, very respectfully, that you will not
+trouble yourself about it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Description of the Bird._]
+
+A Scotch naturalist says that “the peasant boys in East Lothian imagine
+that the bird is mocking or laughing at them, as it tumbles over the
+hedge and bushes in the lane, and, therefore, they persecute it at all
+times, even more mercilessly than they do sparrows.”
+
+The white-throat is an excitable little bird, rapid in all its
+movements; and though it will apparently allow a person to come near,
+it incessantly flits on, gets to the other side of the hedge, warbles
+its quaint little song, flies to a short distance, sings again, and so
+on, for a long time, returning in the same way. It erects the feathers
+of its head when excited, and swells its throat so much when singing,
+that the feathers stand out like a ruff, whence it has obtained the
+name of _Muffety_, or Charlie-mufty, in Scotland.
+
+Its colour, on the upper parts of the body, is reddish-brown,
+brownish-white below, with a purely white throat. Its food is
+principally insects and larvæ of various kinds, for which it is always
+on the search amongst the thick undergrowth of the plants and bushes
+where it builds. One of its many names is Nettle-creeper, from this
+plant growing so generally in the localities which it haunts.
+
+Its nest—one of the most light and elegant of these little abodes—may
+truly be called “gauze-like,” for being constructed wholly of fine
+grasses, and very much of the brittle stems of the Galnim aparine, or
+cleavers, which, though slender, are not pliant, and bend only with an
+angle; they prevent the whole fabric from being closely woven, so that
+it maintains a gauzy texture; the inside, however, is put together more
+closely of finer and more pliant materials, delicate root-filaments,
+and various kinds of hair. The eggs, four or five in number, are of a
+greenish-gray colour, often with a tawny hue, blotched and spotted over
+with dark tints of the same colour.
+
+A correspondent of the author of “British Birds” says that, one morning
+in June, when walking in his shrubbery within about eighty yards of a
+White-throat’s nest, which he was taking great interest in, he found a
+portion of the shell of one of the eggs of this bird, and, fearing that
+a magpie had been plundering it, hastened to the spot, but found to his
+satisfaction that the nest was then full of newly-hatched birds. “The
+shell had,” he says, “been instinctively taken away by the mother in
+order to prevent the discovery of the place of her retreat.” He adds
+that the mother-bird was very shy, and usually dropped from her nest
+with the most astonishing rapidity, and, treading her way through the
+grasses and other entanglements, disappeared in a moment. The young,
+too, seemed greatly to dislike observation, and on his taking one into
+his hand to examine it, it uttered a cry, no doubt of alarm, on which
+all the other little things leapt out of their abode, although not more
+than half-fledged, and hopped amongst the grass. It is a singular fact
+that almost every kind of young bird, if they be caused to leave their
+nest through alarm, or by being handled, can never be induced to stay
+in the nest again, though they may be put back into it time after time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE BULL-FINCH.
+
+
+This bird, which is common to all parts of the country, is very shy,
+and for the greater part of the year haunts the woods and thickets.
+In spring, however, its fondness for tender fruit-buds tempts it into
+gardens and orchards, where, being considered an enemy, it is destroyed
+without mercy. It is a question, however, whether it devours these
+young buds as favourite food, or whether it may not be the equally
+distinctive grub or insect which is the temptation; and thus, that
+it ought rather to be regarded as the friend than the enemy of the
+gardener and fruit-grower. At all events, the general opinion is
+against the poor bull-finch. He is declared to be a devourer of the
+embryo fruit, and no mercy is shown to him. The Rev. J. G. Wood, always
+a merciful judge where birds are concerned, thinks that public opinion
+is unfairly against him. He says that a gooseberry tree, from which it
+was supposed that the bull-finches had picked away every blossom-bud,
+yet bore the same year an abundant crop of fruit, which certainly
+proved that they had picked away only the already infected buds, and so
+left the tree in an additionally healthy state, doubly able to mature
+and perfect its fruit.
+
+Bull-finches seldom associate with other birds, but keep together in
+small flocks as of single families. Its flight, though quick, is
+somewhat undulating or wavering; and in the winter it may sometimes
+be seen in large numbers flitting along the roadsides and hedges,
+being probably forced out of some of its shyness by the stress of
+hunger. Its ordinary note is a soft and plaintive whistle; its song,
+short and mellow. It is, in its native state, no way distinguished as
+a singing-bird, but at the same time it is possessed of a remarkable
+faculty for learning tunes artificially, of which I may have more to
+say presently.
+
+The bull-finch begins to build about the beginning of May. She places
+her nest, as we see in our illustration, in a bush, frequently a
+hawthorn, at no great distance from the ground. The nest is not very
+solidly put together; the foundation, so to speak, being composed of
+small dry twigs, then finished off with fibrous roots and moss, which
+also form the lining. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a dull
+bluish-white, marked at the larger end with dark spots.
+
+Although there is so little to say about the bull-finch in his natural
+state—excepting that he is a handsome bird, with bright black eyes,
+a sort of rich black hood on his head; his back, ash-grey; his breast
+and underparts, red; wings and tail, black, with the upper tail-coverts
+white—yet when he has gone through his musical education, he is not
+only one of the most accomplished of song-birds, but one of the most
+loving and faithfully attached little creatures that can come under
+human care. These trained birds are known as piping bull-finches.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS.      [Page 102.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _How it is taught to pipe._]
+
+Bishop Stanley, in his “History of Birds,” thus describes the method by
+which they are taught:—
+
+“In the month of June, the young ones, which are taken from the nest
+for that purpose, are brought up by a person, who, by care and
+attention, so completely tames them that they become perfectly docile
+and obedient. At the expiration of about a couple of months, they first
+begin to whistle, from which time their education begins, and no school
+can be more diligently superintended by its master, and no scholars
+more effectually trained to their own calling, than a seminary of
+bull-finches. They are formed first into classes of about six in each,
+and, after having been kept a longer time than usual without food, and
+confined to a dark room, the tune they are to learn is played over
+and over again, on a little instrument called a bird-organ, the notes
+of which resemble, as nearly as possible, those of the bull-finch;
+sometimes, also, a flageolet is used for this purpose, and birds so
+taught are said to have the finer notes. For awhile the little moping
+creatures will sit in silence, not knowing what all this can mean; but
+after awhile one by one will begin to imitate the notes they hear, for
+they have great power of imitation as well as remarkably good memories.
+As soon as they have said their lesson all round, light is admitted
+into the room, and they are fed.
+
+“By degrees the sound of the musical instrument—be it flageolet or
+bird-organ—and the circumstance of being fed, become so associated in
+the mind of the hungry bird, that it is sure to begin piping the tune
+as soon as it hears it begin to play. When the little scholars have
+advanced so far they are put into a higher class, that is to say, are
+turned over each to his private tutor; in other words, each bird is put
+under the care of a boy who must carry on its education, and who plays
+on the little instrument from morning to night, or as long as the bird
+can pay attention, during which time the head-master or feeder goes
+his regular rounds, scolding or rewarding the little feathered scholars
+by signs and modes of making them understand, till they have learned
+their lessons so perfectly, and the tune is so impressed on their
+memories, that they will pipe it to the end of their days; and let us
+hope, as I believe is the fact, that they find in it a never-ending
+delight.
+
+“Just as in human schools and colleges, it is only the few out of the
+great number who take the highest honours or degrees, or become senior
+wranglers, so it is not above five birds in every hundred who can
+attain to the highest perfection in their art! but all such are valued
+at a very high price.”
+
+It is allowable to hope that the poor bull-finch, which has thus
+industriously applied himself to learn, and has thus become
+artificially gifted with the power of pleasing, takes great
+satisfaction in his accomplishment. Perhaps also the association with
+his human teacher calls forth his affection as well as his power of
+song, for it is a fact that the piping bull-finch is, of all birds,
+given to attach itself to some one individual of the family where it
+is kept, expressing, at their approach, the most vehement delight,
+greeting them with its piping melody, hopping towards them, and
+practising all its little winning ways to show its love, and to court a
+return of caresses.
+
+“An interesting story,” says the bishop, “was told by Sir William
+Parsons, who was himself a great musician, and who, when a young man,
+possessed a piping bull-finch, which he had taught to sing, ‘God save
+the king.’ On his once going abroad, he gave his favourite in charge
+to his sister, with a strict injunction to take the greatest care of
+it. On his return, one of his first visits was to her, when she told
+him that the poor little bird had been long in declining health, and
+was, at that moment, very ill. Sir William, full of sorrow, went into
+the room where the cage was, and, opening the door, put in his hand,
+and spoke to the bird. The poor little creature recognised his voice,
+opened his eyes, shook his feathers, staggered on to his finger, piped
+‘God save the king,’ and fell down dead.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Devoted Affection of Birds._]
+
+We see in the piping bull-finch—a bird which in its education is
+closely associated with man—the deep and devoted affection of which
+it is capable; and if we could only live with the animal creation as
+their friends and benefactors, we should no longer be surprised by such
+instances of their intelligence and love.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE MISSEL-THRUSH.
+
+
+This is the largest of our British song birds. It remains with us
+through the whole year, not being migratory, excepting in so far as it
+moves off in considerable flocks into Herefordshire and Monmouthshire
+for the sake of the mistletoe which abounds in the orchards there,
+on the viscous berries of which it delights to feed, and whence it
+has obtained its familiar name of missel, or mistletoe thrush. It is
+generally believed that this curious parasitic plant was propagated or
+planted upon the branches of trees, by this bird rubbing its bill upon
+the rough bark to clean it from the sticky substance of the berry, and
+thus introducing the seeds into the interstices of the bark.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST.      [Page 106.
+]
+
+The Missel-thrush is a handsome bird; the head, back, and upper coverts
+of the wings olive-brown, the latter tipped with brownish-white,
+spotted with brown; the breasts and under parts pale yellow, covered
+with black spots; the legs are yellow and the claws black.
+
+It is a welcome bird, being the earliest harbinger of spring, the first
+singer of the year. Long before the swallow is thought of, before even
+the hardy familiar robin has begun his song, its clear rich voice
+may be heard on Christmas or New Year’s day, often amidst wild winds
+and winterly storms, whence its also familiar name, the storm-cock.
+It is known by different names in different parts of the country.
+The origin of its more general appellation—the missel-thrush—I have
+already mentioned. In the midland counties it is called the thrice
+cock, but why I know not. In Wales it is known as _Pen-y-llwyn_, which
+means the head or master of the coppice. Why it is so called I will
+mention presently.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Description of the Nest._]
+
+The nest of the missel-thrush is large and well constructed, being
+made of almost every material ordinarily used for nest-making
+purposes—moss, and hay, and straw, and dry leaves, and little twigs,
+and locks of wool, with occasional odds and ends of every possible
+kind. All these are woven and wrought together very compactly; not,
+however, without loose straws and little tangles of wool hanging about.
+Within is a smooth casing of mud, as in the nest of the throstle, and
+within that a second coating of dry grass. Our picture represents all
+as being now complete. The busy labours of the year are now over; the
+eggs, four or five in number, of a greenish-blue, marked with reddish
+spots, are laid, and the mother-bird has taken her patient seat upon
+them, whilst her mate, from the branch above, sings as if he never
+meant to leave off again.
+
+The song of this bird is loud, clear, and melodious—a cheering,
+hopeful song; and when heard amidst the yet prevailing winter-storms,
+as if in anticipation of better times, it well deserves our admiration.
+It resembles, to a certain degree, the song of the blackbird and the
+thrush, and is often mistaken for them; but it has not the short,
+quick, and varied notes of the one, nor the sober, prolonged, and
+eloquent melody of the other. On the contrary it is of an eager,
+hurrying character, as if it could not sufficiently express its
+emotion, and yet was trying to do so.
+
+The missel-thrush is a bird of very marked character, and is both bold
+and chivalrous. Its harsh, jarring note of anger and defiance is the
+first to be heard when a bird-enemy is at hand. If a cuckoo or hawk is
+anywhere near meditating mischief, the missel-thrush is vehement in his
+expression of displeasure. In our own neighbourhood, where the jays in
+summer come from the wood to carry the young of the sparrows from their
+nests in the ivied boles of the trees round our garden, the outcry of
+the parent sparrows instantly arouses the sympathetic missel-thrushes,
+who, with a scolding defiance, rush to the rescue. Of course these
+birds, which are of so militant a character, and so loud in protesting
+against a wrong done to another, will be equally alive to their own
+rights, and active in defending their own nests and young. Some
+naturalists have suggested that this combatant temper and extraordinary
+courage are but the natural consequence of the bird finding its nest
+open to common attack; for, being of a large size, and built early in
+the year whilst the trees are yet leafless, it is visible to every
+enemy and depredator.
+
+Mr. Thompson says: “Often have I seen a pair of these birds driving off
+magpies, and occasionally fighting against four of them. One pair which
+I knew attacked a kestrel which appeared in their neighbourhood when
+the young were out. One of them struck the hawk several times, and made
+as many more fruitless attempts, as the enemy, by suddenly rising in
+the air, escaped the cunning blow. They then followed the kestrel for a
+long way, until they were lost to our sight in the distance.”
+
+The old Welsh name of “master, or head of the coppice,” refers to the
+same warlike spirit. “The missel-thrush,” says Gilbert White, “suffers
+no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and
+is, for the time, a good guardian of the new-sown crops. In general, he
+is very successful in defence of his family. Once, however, I observed
+in my garden that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of
+the missel-thrush. The parent-birds defended their mansion with great
+vigour, and fought resolutely. But numbers at last prevailed, and the
+poor missel-thrushes had the pain of seeing their nest torn to pieces,
+and their young carried off.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Gardeners’ Enemy._]
+
+The missel-thrushes, however, as the year goes on, make for themselves
+enemies even more formidable than hawks or magpies; these are the
+gardeners. Towards the end of summer, when the young have flown,
+and they and the parent-birds congregate in large flocks, having
+then nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, like human families when
+children are all home for the holidays, they too go abroad on their
+excursions of pleasure; not, however, to sea-side watering places, but
+into gardens where the cherries and raspberries are ripe. Poor birds!
+Little aware of their danger, or if they be so, defiant of it in the
+greatness of the temptation, they make sad havoc amongst the fruit,
+and many unfortunates are shot or snared, and then hung up amidst the
+cherry-boughs or the raspberry-canes as a terror to their associates.
+It is a pity we cannot make them welcome to some and yet have enough
+left for ourselves.
+
+The berries of the mountain-ash and the arbutus, and later on in the
+year those of the holly and ivy, supply them with food, as do also
+in the spring and summer insects of various kinds—caterpillars and
+spiders—so that in this respect they are good friends to the gardener,
+and might, one thinks, be made welcome to a little fruit in return.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD.
+
+
+This, though an extremely pretty bird, is so common that very
+little notice is taken of it. Its colours are varied and beautiful:
+the back and wings, bright red; the central part of each feather,
+brownish-black; the head and throat, bright yellow; the feathers of the
+upper part tipped with black; the breast, brownish-red. The colours of
+the female are much duller.
+
+The yellow-hammer resembles linnets, finches, and sparrows in character
+and habits, and often associates with them, resorting to the fields in
+open weather, and often perching in hedges and bushes as well as in
+trees. In the winter, when the weather is severe, it congregates, with
+other birds, about houses, farm-buildings, and stack-yards.
+
+One of the most pleasing features of autumn is, to my mind, these
+flocks of kindred birds, which are at that time all abroad and yet
+together, circling in their flight, all rising as you approach, and
+wheeling away into the stubble-field, or into the distant hedges, now
+rich with their wild fruits—the blackberry, the wild rose hip, and the
+bunches of black-privet berries—and then away again, as you approach,
+with their variously modulated notes, through the clear air into the
+yet more distant stubble or bean-field.
+
+The flight of the yellow-hammer is wavy and graceful, and, alighting
+abruptly, he has a curious way of jerking out his tail feathers like
+a little fan. All at once a whole flock of them will descend from a
+considerable height and settle on the twigs of a tree, clothing it as
+with living leaves. Whatever number the flock may consist of, there
+is no impatient hurry or jostling among them to get the best perch,
+every individual settling as if on its own appointed place. As I have
+already observed, nothing is more charming at this season than these
+congregated companies of small birds. All the cares of life are now
+over, their young broods are around them, and now, with nothing to
+do but to enjoy themselves in the freedom of nature, where—on every
+hand, on every bush and tree, and in every outlying field—though the
+crops are now carried, all except, perhaps, here and there a solitary
+field in which the bean-shocks stand up black in the golden autumnal
+sunshine; but here, and there, and everywhere, a full table is spread,
+and they are welcome to enjoy.
+
+In spring and summer, the yellow-hammer sings a peculiar but
+mournful sort of little ditty, composed of a few short, sonorous
+notes, concluding with one long drawn out. In the midland
+counties, where stocking-weaving is the business of the people,
+the note of the bird is said to resemble the working of the
+machine—ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-e-e-chay—the prolonged latter syllable being
+what the stockinger calls, in the machine movement, “pressing over the
+arch.” In other parts of the country this bird’s song is interpreted as
+“A little bit of bread, and—no-cheese!” which may just as well be “A
+little bird am I, and—no thief!”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  YELLOW-HAMMER AND NEST.      [Page 112.
+]
+
+The food of this bird consists of the seeds of all kinds of grasses,
+chickweeds, polygonums, and other such weeds; also, in summer, when
+food is needed for the young, insects and larvæ.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Picturesque Nest._]
+
+The winter congregations break up in April, and then the yellow-hammer
+begins to think of family joys and cares. But, unlike their relations
+the sparrows and finches, the he-birds take everything quietly, without
+having their little skirmishes to show their spirit and prowess, like
+the knights of old, at the tournament, before the admiring ladies. The
+yellow-hammer does everything quietly, choosing his mate in an orderly
+way; and now that the buds are swelling on the trees, the primroses
+gemming the hedge-banks, and the golden catkins hanging on the willows
+by the watersides, hither come the little yellow-hammers, and, having
+selected some sweet, hidden spot, under a bush, or on the fieldy banks
+amongst the thick herbage—we see it a month later in our picture,
+when the buds have expanded into leaves, in a wild growth of beautiful
+grasses and herbage—begin to make their nest. How picturesque it is!
+William Hunt never painted anything more beautiful. The nest itself
+is somewhat large, and of simple construction, woven externally of
+coarse bents and small pliant twigs, and lined with hair and wool. Here
+the hen lays four or five eggs of a purplish white, marked with dark,
+irregular streaks, often resembling musical notes.
+
+These poor little birds are extremely attached to their home and their
+young, so much so, that if these be taken by the pitiless bird-nester,
+they will continue for some days about the place uttering the most
+melancholy plaint, which, though still to the same old tune as the song
+of their spring rejoicing, has now the expression of the deepest woe.
+
+The author of “British Birds” thus sums up their various characteristic
+actions:—“When perched on a tree, especially in windy weather, they
+crouch close to the twigs, draw in their necks, and keep their tails
+declined. After pairing, the male is generally seen on a bush or tree,
+raising his tail by sudden jerks, and slightly expanding it. His notes
+are then usually two chirps, followed by a harsher note—cit, chit,
+chirr—with considerable intervals. When feeding in the stubble-fields,
+they advance by very short leaps, with their breasts nearly touching
+the ground; when apprehensive of danger they crouch motionless, and
+when alarmed give information to each other by means of their ordinary
+short note.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE MAGPIE.
+
+
+You have here a living portrait of the Magpie, sitting, so to speak, on
+his own door-sill, and contemplating it with rather a sentimental air,
+perhaps rather with tender admiration; and as to his dwelling, it is,
+we must confess, a wonderful structure—a half-timbered edifice, so to
+speak, walled-round and roofed-in, with its front-door and all complete.
+
+The magpie is one of our most beautiful as well as most amusing and
+characteristic birds. He is cousin to the jackdaw, and has, like him,
+odd ways of his own. In all countries where he is found, he is just the
+same. An old Greek poet, who lived two thousand years ago, speaks of
+him as a great mimic, and such an inordinate talker, that, in his own
+satirical humour, he pretends to believe that magpies were originally a
+family of young ladies, in Macedonia, who were noted for the volubility
+of their tongues. Handsome he is, as well as talkative, and very droll
+and mischievous.
+
+Being such, we need not wonder that his nest is very original. He likes
+to place it in a secure angle of branches, on some lofty tree, as we
+see it here, fifty feet or so from the ground; and prefers to have it
+on a tree bare of branches to a considerable height, knowing that it
+is then more inaccessible. He is wise in all this, for its bulk being
+so large it is discernible to a great distance. As magpies, however,
+are found almost everywhere, and in some parts of the country, the
+north of Scotland for instance, where there are no trees, the poor
+magpie is then obliged to build in a bush, and do the best he can. In
+such a case, in Norway, he was known to barricade his nest with thorny
+branches, brought thither by himself for that purpose, till it was next
+to impossible for the domicile to be invaded. A cat could not get to
+it, and a man only with hedging-mittens on his hands, and by help of a
+bill-hook.
+
+Like the rook, the magpie inhabits the same nest for several years,
+perhaps for the whole of his life, putting it into repair every year
+before he again needs it for family use—like a wealthy country family
+taking possession of their ancestral mansion in the spring.
+
+And now, turning to our picture, we find our magpie in excellent
+circumstances. Every thing has gone well with him. Here he is, and I
+will have the pleasure of giving you a bit of every-day magpie life,
+as sketched by that true pen-and-ink artist, the author of “British
+Birds.” Our scene opens a few minutes before the time indicated in our
+picture:—
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MAGPIE AND NEST.      [Page 116.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _A Search for Food._]
+
+“There, on the old ash-tree, you may see a pair, one perched on the
+topmost twig, the other hopping on the branches below, keeping up an
+incessant chatter. How gracefully she, on the topmost twig, swings in
+the breeze! Off she starts, and directs her flight to the fir-woods
+opposite, chattering all the way, seemingly to call her mate after her.
+But he prefers remaining behind. He is in a brown study, or something
+of that kind, as we can plainly see. Now, having spied something
+below, he hops downwards from twig to branch, and descends to the
+ground. His ash-tree, you must understand, grows close to, and in part
+overshadows, a farmyard; so now he is on ground which, as is customary
+in such places, is not over clean; therefore, lifting up his tail to
+prevent it being soiled or wet, as the farmer’s wife might hold up her
+Sunday gown, and raising his body as high as possible, he walks a few
+paces, and, spying an earth-worm half out of his hole, drags it forth
+by a sudden jerk, breaks it in pieces, and swallows it. Now, under the
+hedge, he has found a snail, which he will presently pick out of its
+shell, as an old woman would a periwinkle. But now something among the
+bushes has startled him, and he springs lightly upwards, chattering
+the while, to regain his favourite tree. It is a cat, which, not less
+frightened than himself, for both are intent on mischief, runs off
+towards the barn. The magpie again descends, steps slowly over the
+grassy margin of the yard, looking from side to side, stops, listens,
+advances rapidly by a succession of leaps, and encounters a whole brood
+of chickens, with their mother at their heels. If she had not been
+there he would have had a delicious feast of one of those chickens;
+but he dare not think of such a thing now, for, with fury in her eye,
+bristled plumage, and loud clamour, the hen rushes forward at him,
+overturning two of her younglings, and the enemy, suddenly wheeling
+round to avoid the encounter, flies off to his mate.
+
+“There again you perceive them in the meadow, as they walk about with
+their elevated tails, looking for something eatable. By the hedge, afar
+off, are two boys, with a gun, endeavouring to creep up to a flock of
+plovers on the other side. But the magpies see them, for there are not
+many things which escape their sharp eyes, and presently rising, they
+fly directly over the field, chattering vehemently, and the flock of
+plovers on this take wing, and the disappointed young sportsmen sheer
+off in another direction.”
+
+Magpies always make a great chattering when they are disturbed, or
+when they apprehend that danger is near. Waterton says that they
+are vociferous at the approach of night, and that they are in truth
+valuable watchmen on that account. “Whoever enters the wood,” he
+says, “is sure to attract their notice, and then their challenge is
+incessant. When I hear them during the night, or even during the
+day, I know that mischief is on the stir. Three years ago, at eleven
+o’clock in the day, I was at the capture of one of the most expert
+and desperate poachers, to whose hiding-place we were directed by the
+chatter of the magpies.”
+
+The poor magpie has many enemies, and, knowing this, is always on the
+watch, and easily alarmed.
+
+Its mode of walking is like that of the rook, but not having any
+dignity to maintain, it every now and then leaps in a sidelong
+direction. When alarmed itself, or wishing to announce danger to other
+birds, it utters a sort of chuckling cry or chatter. If a fox or cat,
+or any other unfriendly animal, approaches, it hovers about it, and
+alarms the whole neighbourhood by its cries till the enemy is out of
+sight.
+
+Like the jackdaw, it generally keeps in pairs the whole year round;
+and, indeed, when birds continue to inhabit the same nest, season after
+season, it is quite natural that they should do so. It is a curious
+fact, however, that if by any accident the hen-magpie is killed, whilst
+sitting on her eggs, her mate sets off at once and brings home another
+wife, who takes to the nest and eggs, just as if she had laid them; and
+if by another mischance she too should come to an untimely end, the
+widower again goes off, and, without any loss of time, brings back a
+third wife, and she takes to her duties quite as naturally and lovingly
+as the other did; but where all these surplus mothers come from is a
+question which no naturalist has yet answered, and the magpie, with all
+his chattering, is not clever enough to explain the wonder.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Beautiful Plumage._]
+
+The beauty of this bird’s plumage is familiar to all; and although it
+is simply black and white, yet the exquisitely-coloured gloss of green,
+blue, and purple, with their varying and intermingling tints, produce
+such a charming effect that one cannot sufficiently admire them.
+
+With the external structure of the magpie’s nest we are acquainted: the
+lower part, inside, is neatly plastered with mud, “and is furnished,”
+says Bewick, “with a sort of mattress, formed of wool or fibrous roots,
+on which from three to six eggs are laid.” The eggs frequently vary,
+both in size and colour; sometimes they are of a pale green, freckled
+over with amber-brown and light purple; sometimes pale blue, with
+smaller spots of the same dark colours.
+
+The nest is, so to speak, a sort of little domed chamber, of a good
+size for its purpose; but then comes the question—What does the magpie
+do with her long tail as she sits on her eggs? It would certainly
+poke a hole through the wall if left to its full extent; she must,
+therefore, lift it up, as she does when walking amongst the wet grass,
+and sit with it laid flat against the wall, which probably is not
+inconvenient to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE NUTHATCH.
+
+
+This bird is almost an entire stranger to most people. It belongs to
+the rather large family of creepers; birds which, like the woodpecker
+and the little golden-crested wren, run up the holes and branches of
+trees in search of food. The nuthatch, however, has an advantage over
+all its other creeping relatives, by being gifted with the power of
+coming down the tree head foremost, which none of them have. It can
+also sleep with its head downwards; neither in its rapid ascent has it
+occasion to press its tail against the tree for help; so that it is the
+most accomplished little acrobat of the whole race of creepers.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  NUTHATCH AND NEST.      [Page 120.
+]
+
+The nuthatch cannot be called a rare bird, and yet it is not often
+seen, being of a shy and retiring disposition, though naturally lively
+and active. The plumage is very pleasing in colour; the upper parts
+of the body are bluish-grey; a black line passes from the corners of
+the mouth to the back of the neck; the breast and under parts light
+reddish-yellow, and the sides reddish-brown.
+
+It delights in woods and trees; nor need it be looked for elsewhere,
+as it derives its food entirely amongst them, either of insects and
+larvæ, hidden in the bark, or of fruits and nuts, as kernels of
+fir-cones, beech, and other nuts, the shells of which it breaks in
+a very ingenious manner, as I shall presently describe. Now and then
+it alights on the ground, and then advances by short leaps. It has no
+song; but in winter, when living in small companies, perhaps the whole
+summer-family associating together, it has a little piping note, which,
+however, is supposed to be simply the call to each other. It is said to
+be sensitive to the cold, and always feeds on the side of the wood or
+of the tree which is defended from the wind. In spring, however, when
+all nature is renovated with a quicker pulse of life—for, as Tennyson
+says:—
+
+    In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;
+    In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
+    In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove—
+
+then, also, the silent nuthatch sends forth through the awakening
+solitude of the woods his two little notes, one short and twittering,
+the other a low, mellow, flute-like whistle, which is so clear that it
+may be heard to a considerable distance.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Favourite Food._]
+
+The graphic author of the “British Birds” says, “It is, at all times,
+a busy and cheerful bird, particularly at nesting-time. Its favourite
+food is nuts of any kind. It builds and roosts in hollow trees, and
+is seldom seen in the open fields, unless when in quest of the stones
+of the white-thorn or sloe. It may, therefore, be properly called a
+forester. Its dexterity in opening nuts and the stones of fruit is
+curious. It fixes the nut in a crack, on the top of a post, or in the
+bark of a tree, and, placing itself above it, head downwards, striking
+with great force and rapidity, with its strong, wedge-shaped bill on
+the edge of the shell, splits it open. When their food is plentiful,
+they have a favourite crack for unshelling the kernels, as sometimes a
+peck of broken shells may be seen under this crack.”
+
+The Rev. W. T. Bree tells us that “the tapping of the bird on the hard
+shell may be heard at a considerable distance, and that during the
+operation it sometimes happens that the nut swerves from its fixture
+and falls towards the ground. It has not descended, however, for the
+space of more than a few yards, when the nuthatch, with admirable
+adroitness, recovers it in the fall, and, replacing it in its former
+position, commences the attack afresh. The fall of the nut in the air,
+and the recovery by the bird on the wing, I have seen repeated several
+times in the space of a few minutes.”
+
+This is a little act of skill in the bird which it would be charming to
+observe; and here again I would remark, as I have so often done before,
+that this is but a single instance of what many of us, living in the
+country, might witness in some woodland nook near at hand, if we would
+only be lovingly still and patient, and interest ourselves in the ways
+and means of the innocent animal-life around us.
+
+The nest of the bird also deserves our notice; and let me here call
+your attention to the beautiful and living little portrait of the bird
+at home, given us by Mr. Harrison Weir, than which we have nothing more
+truthful from his pencil. The home of the nuthatch is nothing more, to
+begin with, than the hole in an old tree, which, probably, has been
+deserted by the woodpecker. As, however, the woodpecker either requires
+a more enlarged entrance to her nursery, or considers it more seemly,
+the nuthatch, who merely likes a snug little hole to creep in at, and
+nothing more, walls up the opening with a plastering of clay or mud,
+leaving only just room enough for herself to enter. Perhaps she may be
+afraid of the old tenants returning and again taking possession, so
+builds up a little defence in front; but of that I cannot say; certain
+it is she makes herself comfortably at home in rather an untidy nest,
+composed mostly of dead oak-leaves, and here she lays six or seven
+white eggs, with ruddy spots on them.
+
+[Sidenote: _Her Defence of her Young._]
+
+If the plaster wall be by any chance removed, the poor bird loses not
+a moment in replacing it; and though she has apparently great dread
+of any enemy—the woodpecker, snake, man, or whatever else he may be,
+disturbing her—yet so faithfully devoted is she to her duties, that
+scarcely anything will induce her to leave the eggs or young. She
+fights vigorously in defence of her home and its treasures, striking
+out with her bill and wings, and making a hissing, angry noise. Nay,
+timid and shy as she naturally is, she will suffer herself to be
+carried off captive rather than desert her charge.
+
+Let me conclude with one of Bechstein’s anecdotes of the nuthatch:—
+
+“A lady amused herself in the winter by throwing seeds on the terrace,
+below the window, to feed the birds in the neighbourhood. She put some
+hemp-seed and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, for
+her particular favourites, the blue-tits. Two nuthatches came one day
+to have their share of this repast, and were so well pleased that they
+became quite familiar, and did not even go away in the following spring
+to get their natural food and to build their nest in the wood. They
+settled themselves in the hollow of an old tree near the house.
+
+“As soon as the two young ones which were reared here were ready to
+fly, they brought them to the hospitable window, where they were to be
+nourished, and soon after disappeared entirely. It was amusing to see
+these two new visitors hang or climb on the walls or blinds, whilst
+their benefactress put their food on the board. These pretty creatures
+as well as the tits, knew her so well, that when she drove away the
+sparrows, which came to steal what was not intended for them, they did
+not fly away also, but seemed to know what was done was only to protect
+and defend them. They remained near the house for the whole summer,
+rarely wandering, till one fatal day, at the beginning of the sporting
+season, in autumn, on hearing the report of a gun, they disappeared and
+were never seen again.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Watson & Hazell, Printers, 28, Charles Street, Hatton Garden.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68416 ***
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-<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Birds and their nests, by Mary Howitt</p>
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-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
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-</div>
-
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Birds and their nests</p>
-<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mary Howitt</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68416]</p>
-<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
-  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p>
-<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS ***</div>
-
-<div class="transnote">
-<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
-
-<p>Hyphenation has been standardised.</p>
-
-<p>For the CONTENTS on <a href="#Page_v" title="">Page v</a>, Chapter IX—Peewits  51 was missed from print
-in the original, and has been added.</p>
-
-<p>The layout of the Contents continuation page on <a href="#Page_vi" title="">Page vi</a>, has been
-changed to replicate the layout of the previous Contents page.</p>
-
-<p class="noindent"><a href="#Page_41" title="">Page 41</a>&#8212;changed cemetries to <b>cemeteries</b>.</p>
-
-<p class="noindent"><a href="#Page_55" title="">Page 55</a>&#8212;changed artifical to <b>artificial</b>.</p>
-</div>
-
-
-
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_cover"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" width="1986" height="2560" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<p class="space-above4"></p>
-
-<h1>BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.</h1>
-
-<p class="space-above4"></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_frontis"><img src="images/i-frontis.jpg" alt="" width="486" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">ROBIN AND NEST.</p>
-</div>
-
-<p class="space-above4"></p>
-
-<div class="title-page">
-<p class="p140">    BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS,</p>
-
-<p class="center">    BY</p>
-
-<p class="center">    MARY HOWITT.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_title"><img src="images/i-title.jpg" alt="" width="327" height="300" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">    <em>With Twenty-three Full-page Illustrations by Harrison Weir.</em></p>
-
-<p class="space-above2"></p>
-
-<p class="p80">NEW YORK:</p>
-<p class="p80">GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, 416, BROOME STREET.</p>
-<p class="p80"><span class="smcap">London: S. W. Partridge &amp; Co., 9, Paternoster Row.</span></p>
-
-<p class="center">    <em>All rights reserved.</em></p>
-</div>
-
-<p class="space-above2"></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_004"><img src="images/i-004.jpg" alt="" width="366" height="200" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">WATSON AND HAZELL,<br />
-<em>Printers</em>,<br />
-
-<span class="smcap">London and Aylesbury</span>.</p>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_005"><img src="images/i-005.jpg" alt="" width="405" height="400" /></a>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2>
-</div>
-<table>
-<tr>
-    <td>&#160;</td>
-    <td>&#160;</td>
-    <td>&#160;</td>
-    <td class="right"><span class="smcap">PAGE</span></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="cont1" colspan="2">Introductory Chapter</td>
-  <td class="cont3">&#160;</td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#INTRODUCTORY_CHAPTER" title="Page 1">1</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="cont1a"><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span></td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="1">I.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE WREN</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_8" title="Page 8">8</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="2">II.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE GOLDFINCH</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15" title="Page 15">15</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="3">III.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE SONG THRUSH</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20" title="Page 20">20</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE BLACKBIRD</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26" title="Page 26">26</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="5">V.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33" title="Page 33">33</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-    <td class="chn">” </td>
-    <td class="cont2"><abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> </td>
-    <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE NIGHTINGALE</span></td>
-    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE SKYLARK</span> </td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42" title="Page 42">42</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE LINNET</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47" title="Page 47">47</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE PEEWIT</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51" title="Page 51">51</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="10">X.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">HOUSE-MARTINS, OR WINDOW-SWALLOWS, AND NESTS</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56" title="Page 56">56</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">CHIFF-CHAFFS, OR OVEN-BUILDERS, AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_66" title="Page 66">66</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70" title="Page 70">70</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WAGTAIL AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75" title="Page 75">76</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">JACKDAW AND NESTLINGS</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81" title="Page 81">82</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_86" title="Page 86">86</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_91" title="Page 91">92</a></td>
-</tr>
-<tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="17">XVII.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WHITE-THROAT AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_97" title="Page 97">98</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101" title="Page 101">102</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="19">XIX.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_106" title="Page106">106</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="206">XX.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD, AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_111" title="Page 111">112</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="21">XXI.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">MAGPIE AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_115" title="Page 115">116</a></td>
-</tr><tr>
-  <td class="chn">”</td>
-  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="22">XXII.</abbr></td>
-  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">NUTHATCH AND NEST</span></td>
-  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120" title="Page120">120</a></td>
-</tr>
-</table>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_006"><img src="images/i-006.jpg" alt="four eggs in a nest" width="458" height="400" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_007"><img src="images/i-007.jpg" alt="two birds on tree branch" width="796" height="650" /></a>
-</div>
-
-
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Birds_and_their_Nests"><em>Birds and their Nests.</em></h2>
-  </div>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTORY_CHAPTER">INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.</h2>
-</div>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> birds in these pictures of ours have all nests, which is as it
-should be; for how could the bird rear its young without its little
-home and soft little bed, any more than children could be comfortably
-brought up without either a bed to lie upon, or a home in which to be
-happy.</p>
-
-<p>Birds-nests, though you may find them in every bush, are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> wonderful
-things. Let us talk about them. They are all alike in the purpose for
-which they are intended, but no two families of birds build exactly
-alike; all the wrens, for instance, have their kind of nest; the
-thrushes have theirs; so has the swallow tribe; so has the sparrow,
-or the rook. They do not imitate one another, but each adheres to its
-own plan, as God, the great builder and artist, as well as Creator,
-taught them from the very beginning. The first nightingale, that sang
-its hymn of joyful thanksgiving in the Garden of Paradise, built
-its nest just the same as the bird you listened to last year in the
-coppice. The materials were there, and the bird knew how to make use
-of them; and that is perhaps the most wonderful part of it, for she
-has no implements to work with: no needle and thread, no scissors, no
-hammer and nails; nothing but her own little feet and bill, and her
-round little breast, upon which to mould it; for it is generally the
-mother-bird which is the chief builder.</p>
-
-<p>No sooner is the nest wanted for the eggs which she is about to lay,
-than the hitherto slumbering faculty of constructiveness is awakened,
-and she selects the angle of the branch, or the hollow in the bank or
-in the wall, or the tangle of reeds, or the platform of twigs on the
-tree-top, exactly the right place for her, the selection being always
-the same according to her tribe, and true to the instinct which was
-implanted in her at the first.</p>
-
-<p>So the building begins: dry grass or leaves, little twigs and
-root-fibres, hair or down, whether of feather or winged seed, spangled
-outside with silvery lichen, or embroidered with green mosses, less
-for beauty, perhaps—though it is so beautiful—than for the birds’
-safety, because it so exactly imitates the bank or the tree-trunk in
-which it is built. Or it may be that her tenement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> is clay-built, like
-that of the swallow; or lath and plaster, so to speak, like an old
-country house, as is the fashion of the magpie; or a platform of rude
-sticks, like the first rudiment of a basket up in the tree-branches, as
-that of the wood-pigeon: she may be a carpenter like the woodpecker,
-a tunneller like the sand-martin; or she may knead and glue together
-the materials of her nest, till they resemble thick felt; but in all
-this she is exactly what the great Creator made her at first, equally
-perfect in skill, and equally undeviating year after year. This is very
-wonderful, so that we may be quite sure that the sparrow’s nest, which
-David remarked in the house of God, was exactly the same as the sparrow
-built in the days of the blessed Saviour, when He, pointing to that
-bird, made it a proof to man that God’s Providence ever watches over
-him.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Jules Michelet on Birds.</em></div>
-
-<p>Nevertheless, with this unaltered and unalterable working after one
-pattern, in every species of bird, there is a choice or an adaptation
-of material allowed: thus the bird will, within certain limits, select
-that which is fittest for its purpose, producing, however, in the end,
-precisely the same effect. I will tell you what Jules Michelet, a
-French writer, who loves birds as we do, writes on this subject:—“The
-bird in building its nest,” he says, “makes it of that beautiful
-cup-like or cradle form by pressing it down, kneading it and shaping
-it upon her own breast.” He says, as I have just told you, that the
-mother-bird builds, and that the he-bird is her purveyor. He fetches in
-the materials: grasses, mosses, roots, or twigs, singing many a song
-between whiles; and she arranges all with loving reference; first,
-to the delicate egg which must be bedded in soft material; then to
-the little one which, coming from the egg naked, must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> not only be
-cradled in soft comfort, but kept alive by her warmth. So the he-bird,
-supposing it to be a linnet, brings her some horse-hair: it is stiff
-and hard; nevertheless, it is proper for the purpose, and serves as a
-lower stratum of the nest—a sort of elastic mattress: he brings her
-hemp; it is cold, but it serves for the same purpose. Then comes the
-covering and the lining; and for this nothing but the soft silky fibre
-of certain plants, wool or cotton, or, better still, the down from her
-own breast, will satisfy her. It is interesting, he says, to watch the
-he-bird’s skilful and furtive search for materials; he is afraid if he
-see you watching, that you may discover the track to his nest; and, in
-order to mislead you, he takes a different road back to it. You may see
-him following the sheep to get a little lock of wool, or alighting in
-the poultry yard on the search for dropped feathers. If the farmer’s
-wife chance to leave her wheel, whilst spinning in the porch, he steals
-in for a morsel of flax from the distaff. He knows what is the right
-kind of thing; and let him be in whatever country he may, he selects
-that which answers the purpose; and the nest which is built is that of
-the linnet all the world over.</p>
-
-<p>Again he tells us, that there are other birds which, instead of
-building, bring up their young underground, in little earth cradles
-which they have prepared for them. Of building-birds, he thinks the
-queerest must be the flamingo, which lays her eggs on a pile of mud
-which she has raised above the flooded earth, and, standing erect all
-the time, hatches them under her long legs. It does seem a queer,
-uncomfortable way; but if it answer its end, we need not object to it.
-Of carpenter-birds, he thinks the thrush is the most remarkable; other
-writers say the woodpecker. The shore-birds plait their nests, not very
-skilfully it is true, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> sufficiently well for their purpose. They
-are clothed by nature with such an oily, impermeable coat of plumage,
-that they have little need to care about climate; they have enough to
-do to look after their fishing, and to feed themselves and their young;
-for all these sea-side families have immense appetites.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>How various Birds Build.</em></div>
-
-<p>Herons and storks build in a sort of basket-making fashion; so do the
-jays and the mocking birds, only in a much better way; but as they
-have all large families they are obliged to do so. They lay down, in
-the first place, a sort of rude platform, upon which they erect a
-basket-like nest of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry
-twigs strongly woven together. The little golden-crested wren hangs her
-purse-like nest to a bough, and, as in the nursery song, “When the wind
-blows the cradle rocks.” An Australian bird, a kind of fly-catcher,
-called there the razor-grinder, from its note resembling the sound of
-a razor-grinder at work, builds her nest on the slightest twig hanging
-over the water, in order to protect it from snakes which climb after
-them. She chooses for her purpose a twig so slender that it would not
-bear the weight of the snake, and thus she is perfectly safe from her
-enemy. The same, probably, is the cause why in tropical countries,
-where snakes and monkeys, and such bird-enemies abound, nests are so
-frequently suspended by threads or little cords from slender boughs.</p>
-
-<p>The canary, the goldfinch, and chaffinch, are skilful cloth-weavers
-or felt makers; the latter, restless and suspicious, speckles the
-outside of her nest with a quantity of white lichen, so that it
-exactly imitates the tree branch on which it is placed, and can hardly
-be detected by the most accustomed eye. Glueing and felting play an
-important part in the work of the bird-weavers.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> The humming-bird, for
-instance, consolidates her little house with the gum of trees. The
-American starling sews the leaves together with her bill; other birds
-use not only their bills, but their feet. Having woven a cord, they fix
-it as a web with their feet, and insert the weft, as the weaver would
-throw his shuttle, with their bill. These are genuine weavers. In fine,
-their skill never fails them. The truth is, that the great Creator
-never gives any creature work to do without giving him at the same time
-an inclination to do it—which, in the animal, is instinct—and tools
-sufficient for the work, though they may be only the delicate feet and
-bill of the bird.</p>
-
-<p>And now, in conclusion, let me describe to you the nest of the little
-English long-tailed titmouse as I saw it many years ago, and which I
-give from “Sketches of Natural History”:—</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Titmouse’s Nest.</em></div>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent4">There, where those boughs of blackthorn cross,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Behold that oval ball of moss;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Observe it near, all knit together,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Moss, willow-down, and many a feather,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">And filled within, as you may see,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">As full of feathers as can be;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Whence it is called by country folk,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">A fitting name, the feather-poke;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">But learned people, I have heard,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4"><em>Parus caudatus</em> call the bird.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Yes, here’s a nest! a nest indeed,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">That doth all other nests exceed,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Propped with the blackthorn twigs beneath,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">And festooned with a woodbine wreath!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Look at it close, all knit together,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Moss, willow-down, and many a feather;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">So soft, so light, so wrought with grace,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">So suited to this green-wood place,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">And spangled o’er, as with the intent</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span></p>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Of giving fitting ornament,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">With silvery flakes of lichen bright,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">That shine like opals, dazzling white.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Think only of the creature small,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">That wrought this soft and silvery ball,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Without a tool to aid her skill,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Nought but her little feet and bill—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Without a pattern whence to trace</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">This little roofed-in dwelling place—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">And does not in your bosom spring</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Love for this skilful little thing?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">See, there’s a window in the wall;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Peep in, the house is not so small,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">But snug and cosy you shall see</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">A very numerous family!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Now count them: one, two, three, four, five—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Nay, <em>sixteen</em> merry things alive—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Sixteen young, chirping things all sit,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Where you, your wee hand, could not get!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">I’m glad you’ve seen it, for you never</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Saw ought before so soft and clever.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_013"><img src="images/i-013.jpg" alt="bird on branch" width="497" height="500" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE WREN.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Truly</span> the little Wren, so beautifully depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir,
-with her tiny body, her pretty, lively, and conceited ways, her short,
-little turned-up tail, and delicate plumage, is worthy of our tender
-regard and love.</p>
-
-<p>The colouring of the wren is soft and subdued—a reddish-brown colour;
-the breast of a light greyish-brown; and all the hinder parts, both
-above and below, marked with wavy lines of dusky-brown, with two bands
-of white dots across the wings.</p>
-
-<p>Its habits are remarkably lively and attractive. “I know no pleasanter
-object,” says the agreeable author of “British Birds,” “than the wren;
-it is always so smart and cheerful. In gloomy weather other birds
-often seem melancholy, and in rain the sparrows and finches stand
-silent on the twigs, with drooping wings and disarranged plumage; but
-to the merry little wren all weathers are alike. The big drops of the
-thunder-shower no more wet it than the drizzle of a Scotch mist; and as
-it peeps from beneath the bramble, or glances from a hole in the wall,
-it seems as snug as a kitten frisking on the parlour rug.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_015"><img src="images/i-015.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">WRENS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_8" title="Page 8">Page 8.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>A Builder of Many Nests.</em></div>
-
-<p>“It is amusing,” he continues, “to watch the motions of a young family
-of wrens just come abroad. Walking among furze, broom, or juniper, you
-are attracted to some bush by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>hearing issue from it the frequent
-repetition of a sound resembling the syllable <em>chit</em>. On going
-up you perceive an old wren flitting about the twigs, and presently
-a young one flies off, uttering a stifled <em>chirr</em>, to conceal
-itself among the bushes. Several follow, whilst the parents continue to
-flutter about in great alarm, uttering their <em>chit, chit</em>, with
-various degrees of excitement.”</p>
-
-<p>The nest of the wren is a wonderful structure, of which I shall have a
-good deal to say. It begins building in April, and is not by any means
-particular in situation. Sometimes it builds in the hole of a wall
-or tree; sometimes, as in this lovely little picture of ours, in the
-mossy hollow of a primrose-covered bank; and because it was formerly
-supposed to live only in holes or little caves, it received the name of
-<em>Troglodytes</em>, or cave-dweller. But it builds equally willingly in
-the thatch of out-buildings, in barn-lofts, or tree-branches, either
-when growing apart or nailed against a wall, amongst ivy or other
-climbing plants; in fact, it seems to be of such a happy disposition as
-to adapt itself to a great variety of situations. It is a singular fact
-that it will often build several nests in one season—not that it needs
-so many separate dwellings, or that it finishes them when built; but it
-builds as if for the very pleasure of the work. Our naturalist says,
-speaking of this odd propensity, “that, whilst the hen is sitting, the
-he-bird, as if from a desire to be doing something, will construct as
-many as half-a-dozen nests near the first, none of which, however,
-are lined with feathers; and that whilst the true nest, on which the
-mother-bird is sitting, will be carefully concealed, these sham nests
-are open to view. Some say that as the wrens, during the cold weather,
-sleep in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> some snug, warm hole, they frequently occupy these extra
-nests as winter-bedchambers, four or five, or even more, huddling
-together, to keep one another warm.”</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Weir, a friend of the author I have just quoted, says this was the
-case in his own garden; and that, during the winter, when the ground
-was covered with snow, two of the extra nests were occupied at night by
-a little family of seven, which had hatched in the garden. He was very
-observant of their ways, and says it was amusing to see one of the old
-wrens, coming a little before sunset and standing a few inches from the
-nest, utter his little cry till the whole number of them had arrived.
-Nor were they long about it; they very soon answered the call, flying
-from all quarters—the seven young ones and the other parent-bird—and
-then at once nestled into their snug little dormitory. It was also
-remarkable that when the wind blew from the east they occupied a nest
-which had its opening to the west, and when it blew from the west, then
-one that opened to the east, so that it was evident they knew how to
-make themselves comfortable.</p>
-
-<p>And now as regards the building of these little homes. I will, as far
-as I am able, give you the details of the whole business from the diary
-of the same gentleman, which is as accurate as if the little wren had
-kept it himself, and which will just as well refer to the little nest
-in the primrose bank as to the nest in the Spanish juniper-tree, where,
-in fact, it was built.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>How a Nest was built.</em></div>
-
-<p>“On the 30th of May, therefore, you must imagine a little pair of
-wrens, having, after a great deal of consultation, made up their minds
-to build themselves a home in the branches of a Spanish juniper. The
-female, at about seven o’clock in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> morning, laid the foundation
-with the decayed leaf of a lime-tree. Some men were at work cutting
-a drain not far off, but she took no notice of them, and worked away
-industriously, carrying to her work bundles of dead leaves as big
-as herself, her mate, seeming the while to be delighted with her
-industry, seated not far off in a Portugal laurel, where he watched
-her, singing to her, and so doing, making her labour, no doubt, light
-and pleasant. From eight o’clock to nine she worked like a little
-slave, carrying in leaves, and then selecting from them such as suited
-her purpose and putting aside the rest. This was the foundation of the
-nest, which she rendered compact by pressing it down with her breast,
-and turning herself round in it: then she began to rear the sides.
-And now the delicate and difficult part of the work began, and she
-was often away for eight or ten minutes together. From the inside she
-built the underpart of the aperture with the stalks of leaves, which
-she fitted together very ingeniously with moss. The upper part of it
-was constructed solely with the last-mentioned material. To round it
-and give it the requisite solidity, she pressed it with her breast and
-wings, turning the body round in various directions. Most wonderful to
-tell, about seven o’clock in the evening the whole outside workmanship
-of this snug little erection was almost complete.</p>
-
-<p>“Being very anxious to examine the interior of it, I went out for that
-purpose at half-past two the next morning. I introduced my finger,
-the birds not being there, and found its structure so close, that
-though it had rained in the night, yet that it was quite dry. The
-birds at this early hour were singing as if in ecstasy, and at about
-three o’clock the little he-wren came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> and surveyed his domicile with
-evident satisfaction; then, flying to the top of a tree, began singing
-most merrily. In half-an-hour’s time the hen-bird made her appearance,
-and, going into the nest, remained there about five minutes, rounding
-the entrance by pressing it with her breast and the shoulders of her
-wings. For the next hour she went out and came back five times with
-fine moss in her bill, with which she adjusted a small depression in
-the fore-part of it; then, after twenty minutes’ absence, returned
-with a bundle of leaves to fill up a vacancy which she had discovered
-in the back of the structure. Although it was a cold morning, with
-wind and rain, the male bird sang delightfully; but between seven and
-eight o’clock, either having received a reproof from his wife for his
-indolence, or being himself seized with an impulse to work, he began
-to help her, and for the next ten minutes brought in moss, and worked
-at the inside of the nest. At eleven o’clock both of them flew off,
-either for a little recreation, or for their dinners, and were away
-till a little after one. From this time till four o’clock both worked
-industriously, bringing in fine moss; then, during another hour, the
-hen-bird brought in a feather three times. So that day came to an end.</p>
-
-<p>“The next morning, June 1st, they did not begin their work early, as
-was evident to Mr. Weir, because having placed a slender leaf-stalk
-at the entrance, there it remained till half-past eight o’clock, when
-the two began to work as the day before with fine moss, the he-bird
-leaving off, however, every now and then to express his satisfaction on
-a near tree-top. Again, this day, they went off either for dinner or
-amusement; then came back and worked for another hour, bringing in fine
-moss and feathers.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Patient Industry of this Bird.</em></div>
-
-<p>“The next morning the little he-wren seemed in a regular ecstasy,
-and sang incessantly till half-past nine, when they both brought in
-moss and feathers, working on for about two hours, and again they
-went off, remaining away an hour later than usual. Their work was now
-nearly over, and they seemed to be taking their leisure, when all at
-once the hen-bird, who was sitting in her nest and looking out at her
-door, espied a man half-hidden by an arbor vitæ. It was no other than
-her good friend, but that she did not know; all men were terrible,
-as enemies to her race, and at once she set up her cry of alarm. The
-he-bird, on hearing this, appeared in a great state of agitation, and
-though the frightful monster immediately ran off, the little creatures
-pursued him, scolding vehemently.</p>
-
-<p>“The next day they worked again with feathers and fine moss, and again
-went off after having brought in a few more feathers. So they did for
-the next five days; working leisurely, and latterly only with feathers.
-On the tenth day the nest was finished, and the little mother-bird laid
-her first egg in it.”</p>
-
-<p>Where is the boy, let him be as ruthless a bird-nester as he may, who
-could have the heart to take a wren’s nest, only to tear it to pieces,
-after reading the history of this patient labour of love?</p>
-
-<p>The wren, like various other small birds, cannot bear that their nests
-or eggs should be touched; they are always disturbed and distressed by
-it, and sometimes even will desert their nest and eggs in consequence.
-On one occasion, therefore, this good, kind-hearted friend of every
-bird that builds, carefully put his finger into a wren’s nest, during
-the mother’s absence, to ascertain whether the young were hatched; on
-her return,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> perceiving that the entrance had been touched, she set up
-a doleful lamentation, carefully rounded it again with her breast and
-wings, so as to bring everything into proper order, after which she and
-her mate attended to their young. These particular young ones, only six
-in number, were fed by their parents 278 times in the course of a day.
-This was a small wren-family; and if there had been twelve, or even
-sixteen, as is often the case, what an amount of labour and care the
-birds must have had! But they would have been equal to it, and merry
-all the time.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">For all these little creatures, which so lightly we regard,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">They love to do their duty, and they never think it hard.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_022"><img src="images/i-022.jpg" alt="a bee flying around a nest" width="441" height="500" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE GOLDFINCH.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Goldfinch, which is cousin to the Linnet, is wonderfully clever and
-docile, as I shall show you presently. In the first place, however,
-let me say a word or two about bird cleverness in general, which I
-copy from Jules Michelet’s interesting work, “The Bird.” Speaking of
-the great, cruel, and rapacious family of the <em>Raptores</em>, or
-Birds of Prey, he expresses satisfaction in the idea that this race of
-destroyers is decreasing, and that there may come a time when they no
-longer exist on the earth. He has no admiration for them, though they
-may be the swiftest of the swift, and the strongest of the strong,
-because they put forth none of the higher qualities of courage,
-address, or patient endurance in taking their prey, which are all weak
-and powerless in comparison with themselves; their poor unoffending
-victims. “All these cruel tyrants of the air,” he says, “like the
-serpents, have flattened skulls, which show the want of intellect and
-intelligence. These birds of prey, with their small brains, offer a
-striking contrast to the amiable and intelligent species which we find
-amongst the smaller birds. The head of the former is only a beak, that
-of the latter is a face.” Afterwards, to prove this more strongly, he
-gives a table to show the proportion of brain to the size of the body
-in these different species of birds. Thus the chaffinch, the sparrow,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
-and the goldfinch, have more than six times as much brain as the eagle
-in proportion to the size of the body. We may look, therefore, for no
-less than six times his intelligence and docile ability. Whilst in the
-case of the little tomtit it is thirteen times as much.</p>
-
-<p>But now for the goldfinch, of which our cut—which is both faithful
-and beautiful—shows us a pair, evidently contemplating with much
-satisfaction the nest which they have just finished on one of the
-topmost boughs of a blossomy apple-tree. This nest is a wonderful
-little fabric, built of moss, dry grass, and slender roots, lined with
-hair, wool, and thistle-down; but the true wonder of the nest is the
-exact manner in which the outside is made to imitate the bough upon
-which it is placed. All its little ruggednesses and lichen growths
-are represented, whilst the colouring is so exactly that of the old
-apple-tree that it is almost impossible to know it from the branch
-itself. Wonderful ingenuity of instinct, which human skill would find
-it almost impossible to imitate!</p>
-
-<p>The bird lays mostly five eggs, which are of a bluish-grey, spotted
-with greyish-purple or brown, and sometimes with a dark streak or two.</p>
-
-<p>The goldfinch is one of the most beautiful of our English birds, with
-its scarlet forehead, and quaint little black velvet-like cap brought
-down over its white cheeks; its back is cinnamon brown, and its breast
-white; its wings are beautifully varied in black and white, as are also
-its tail feathers. In the midland counties it is known as “The Proud
-Tailor,” probably because its attire looks so bright and fresh, and it
-has a lively air as if conscious of being well dressed.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_025"><img src="images/i-025.jpg" alt="" width="494" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">GOLDFINCHES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_16" title="Page 16">Page 16.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span></p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Daily Life of this Bird.</em></div>
-
-<p>Like its relation, the linnet, it congregates in flocks as soon as
-its young can take wing, when they may be seen wheeling round in
-the pleasant late summer and autumn fields, full of life, and in
-the enjoyment of the plenty that surrounds them, in the ripened
-thistle-down, and all such winged seeds as are then floating in the air.</p>
-
-<p>How often have I said it is worth while to go out into the woods and
-fields, and, bringing yourself into a state of quietness, watch the
-little birds in their life’s employment, building their nests, feeding
-their young, or pursuing their innocent diversions! So now, on this
-pleasant, still autumn afternoon, if you will go into the old pasture
-fields where the thistles have not been stubbed up for generations, or
-on the margin of the old lane where ragwort, and groundsel, and burdock
-flourish abundantly, “let us,” as the author of “British Birds” says,
-“stand still to observe a flock of goldfinches. They flutter over the
-plants, cling to the stalks, bend in various attitudes, disperse the
-down, already dry and winged, like themselves, for flight, pick them
-out one by one and swallow them. Then comes a stray cow followed by a
-herd boy. At once the birds cease their labour, pause for a moment,
-and fly off in succession. You observe how lightly and buoyantly
-they cleave the air, each fluttering its little wings, descending in
-a curved line, mounting again, and speeding along. Anon they alight
-in a little thicket of dried weeds, and, in settling, display to the
-delighted eye the beautiful tints of their plumage, as with fluttering
-wings and expanded tail, they hover for a moment to select a landing
-place amid the prickly points of the stout thistles whose heads are now
-bursting with downy-winged seeds.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Goldfinch.</em></div>
-
-<p>The song of the goldfinch, which begins about the end of March, is
-very sweet, unassuming, and low—similar to that of the linnet, but
-singularly varied and pleasant.</p>
-
-<p>Now, however, we must give a few instances of this bird’s teachable
-sagacity, which, indeed, are so numerous that it is difficult to make a
-selection.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Syme, in his “British Song Birds,” says, “The goldfinch is easily
-tamed and taught, and its capacity for learning the notes of other
-birds is well known. A few years ago the Sieur Roman exhibited a number
-of trained birds: they were goldfinches, linnets, and canaries. One
-appeared dead, and was held up by the tail or claw without exhibiting
-any signs of life; a second stood on its head with its claws in the
-air; a third imitated a Dutch milkmaid going to market with pails on
-its shoulders; a fourth mimicked a Venetian girl looking out at a
-window; a fifth appeared as a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel;
-whilst a sixth acted as a cannonier, with a cap on its head, a firelock
-on its shoulder, and a match in its claw, and discharged a small
-cannon. The same bird also acted as if it had been wounded. It was
-wheeled in a barrow as if to convey it to the hospital, after which
-it flew away before the whole company. The seventh turned a kind of
-windmill; and the last bird stood in the midst of some fireworks which
-were discharged all round it, and this without showing the least sign
-of fear.”</p>
-
-<p>Others, as I have said, may be taught to draw up their food and water,
-as from a well, in little buckets. All this is very wonderful, and
-shows great docility in the bird; but I cannot greatly admire it, from
-the secret fear that cruelty or harshness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> may have been used to teach
-them these arts so contrary to their nature. At all events it proves
-what teachable and clever little creatures they are, how readily they
-may be made to understand the will of their master, and how obediently
-and faithfully they act according to it.</p>
-
-<p>Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence to the
-animal world. In him the creatures should ever find their friend and
-protector; and were it so we should then see many an astonishing
-faculty displayed; and birds would then, instead of being the most
-timid of animals, gladden and beautify our daily life by their sweet
-songs, their affectionate regard, and their amusing and imitative
-little arts.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Introduced into Pictures.</em></div>
-
-<p>The early Italian and German painters introduce a goldfinch into their
-beautiful sacred pictures—generally on the ground—hopping at the feet
-of some martyred saint or love-commissioned angel, perhaps from an old
-legend of the bird’s sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an
-intuitive sense that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird
-and beast as well as to man.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_029"><img src="images/i-029.jpg" alt="bird's nest" width="190" height="200" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE SONG THRUSH.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have here a charming picture of one of the finest and noblest of
-our song-birds—the thrush, throstle, or mavis. The trees are yet
-leafless, but the bird is in the act of building, whilst her mate, on
-the tree-top, pours forth his exquisite melody. The almost completed
-nest, like a richly ornamented bowl, is before us.</p>
-
-<p>This bird belongs to a grandly musical family, being own cousin to the
-missel-thrush and the blackbird, each one having a kindred song, but
-all, at the same time, distinctly characteristic.</p>
-
-<p>The colouring of the thrush is soft and very pleasing; the upper parts
-of a yellowish-brown; the chin, white; the under part of the body,
-grayish white; the throat, breast, and sides of the neck, yellowish,
-thickly spotted with dark brown.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_031"><img src="images/i-031.jpg" alt="" width="478" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">SONG THRUSH AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_20" title="Page 20">Page 20.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The thrush remains with us the whole year, and may occasionally be
-heard singing even in the winter, though April, May, and June are the
-months when he is in fullest song. They pair in March, and by the end
-of that month, or early in April, begin to build. They have several
-broods in the year. The nest, which, as we see, is commodious, is
-placed at no great height from the ground, in a thick bush or hedge,
-and sometimes, also, in a rough bank, amongst bushes and undergrowth.
-They are particularly fond of spruce-fir plantations, building on
-one of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>the low, spreading branches, close to the stem. Though the
-structure is so solid and substantial, yet it is built very rapidly;
-indeed, the thrush seems to be wide awake in all its movements; he
-is no loiterer, and does his work well. As a proof of his expedition
-I will mention that a pair of these birds began to build a second,
-perhaps, indeed, it might be a third nest, on a Thursday, June 15; on
-Friday afternoon the nest was finished, and on Saturday morning the
-first egg was laid, though the interior plastering was not then dry. On
-the 21st the hen began to sit, and on the 17th of July the young birds
-were hatched.</p>
-
-<p>The frame-work, so to speak, of the nest is composed of twigs, roots,
-grasses, and moss, the two latter being brought to the outside. Inside
-it is lined with a thin plastering of mud, cow-dung, and rotten wood,
-which is laid on quite smoothly, almost like the glaze on earthenware;
-nor is there an internal covering between this and the eggs. The
-circular form of the nest is as perfect as a bowl shaped upon a
-lathe, and often contracts inwards at the top. The eggs, which are
-generally five in number, are of a bright blue-green, spotted over with
-brownish-black, these spots being more numerous at the larger end.</p>
-
-<p>The food of the thrush is mostly of an animal character, as worms,
-slugs, and snails; and, by seasides, small molluscs, as whelks and
-periwinkles. On all such as are enclosed in shells he exercises his
-ingenuity in a remarkable way. We ourselves lived at one time in an
-old house standing in an old garden where were many ancient trees and
-out-buildings, in the old ivied roots and walls of which congregated
-great quantities of shell-snails. One portion of this garden, which
-enclosed an old,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> disused dairy, was a great resort of thrushes, where
-they had, so to speak, their stones of sacrifice, around which lay
-heaps of the broken shells of snails, their victims. I have repeatedly
-watched them at work: hither they brought their snails, and, taking
-their stand by the stone with the snail in their beak, struck it
-repeatedly against the stone, till, the shell being smashed, they
-picked it out as easily as the oyster is taken from its opened shell.
-This may seem easy work with the slender-shelled snail, but the labour
-is considerably greater with hard shell-fish. On this subject the
-intelligent author of “British Birds” says, that many years ago, when
-in the Isle of Harris, he frequently heard a sharp sound as of one
-small stone being struck upon another, the cause of which he, for a
-considerable time, sought for in vain. At length, one day, being in
-search of birds when the tide was out, he heard the well-known click,
-and saw a bird standing between two flat stones, moving its head and
-body alternately up and down, each downward motion being accompanied
-by the sound which had hitherto been so mysterious. Running up to the
-spot, he found a thrush, which, flying off, left a whelk, newly-broken,
-lying amongst fragments of shells lying around the stone.</p>
-
-<p>Thrushes are remarkably clean and neat with regard to their nests,
-suffering no litter or impurity to lie about, and in this way are a
-great example to many untidy people. Their domestic character, too,
-is excellent, the he-bird now and then taking the place of the hen on
-the eggs, and, when not doing so, feeding her as she sits. When the
-young are hatched, the parents may be seen, by those who will watch
-them silently and patiently, frequently stretching out the wings of
-the young as if to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> exercise them, and pruning and trimming their
-feathers. To put their love of cleanliness to the proof, a gentleman,
-a great friend of all birds, had some sticky mud rubbed upon the backs
-of two of the young ones whilst the parents were absent. On their
-return, either by their own keen sense of propriety, or, perhaps, the
-complaint of the young ones, they saw what had happened, and were not
-only greatly disconcerted, but very angry, and instantly set to work to
-clean the little unfortunates, which, strange to say, they managed to
-do by making use of dry earth, which they brought to the nest for that
-purpose. Human intellect could not have suggested a better mode.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>How a Day was spent.</em></div>
-
-<p>This same gentleman determined to spend a whole day in discovering how
-the thrushes spent it. Hiding himself, therefore, in a little hut of
-fir boughs, he began his observations in the early morning of the 8th
-of June. At half-past two o’clock, the birds began to feed their brood,
-and in two hours had fed them thirty-six times. It was now half-past
-five, the little birds were all wide awake, and one of them, whilst
-pruning its feathers, lost its balance and fell out of the nest to the
-ground. On this the old ones set up the most doleful lamentations, and
-the gentleman, coming out of his retreat, put the little one back into
-the nest. This kind action, however, wholly disconcerted the parents,
-nor did they again venture to feed their young till an artifice
-of the gentleman led them to suppose that he was gone from their
-neighbourhood. No other event happened to them through the day, and by
-half-past nine o’clock at night, when all went to rest, the young ones
-had been fed two hundred and six times.</p>
-
-<p>Thrushes, however, become occasionally so extremely tame that the
-female will remain upon her eggs and feed her young,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> without any
-symptom of alarm, in the close neighbourhood of man. Of this I will
-give an instance from Bishop Stanley’s “History of Birds”—</p>
-
-<p>“A short time ago, in Scotland, some carpenters working in a shed
-adjacent to the house observed a thrush flying in and out, which
-induced them to direct their attention to the cause, when, to their
-surprise, they found a nest commenced amongst the teeth of a harrow,
-which, with other farming tools and implements, was placed upon the
-joists of the shed, just over their heads. The carpenters had arrived
-soon after six o’clock, and at seven, when they found the nest, it was
-in a great state of forwardness, and had evidently been the morning’s
-work of a pair of these indefatigable birds. Their activity throughout
-the day was incessant; and, when the workmen came the next morning,
-they found the female seated in her half-finished mansion, and, when
-she flew off for a short time, it was found that she had laid an egg.
-When all was finished, the he-bird took his share of the labour, and,
-in thirteen days, the young birds were out of their shells, the refuse
-of which the old ones carried away from the spot. All this seems to
-have been carefully observed by the workmen; and it is much to their
-credit that they were so quiet and friendly as to win the confidence of
-the birds.”</p>
-
-<p>The song of the thrush is remarkable for its rich, mellow intonation,
-and for the great variety of its notes.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Wordsworth’s Verses on the Thrush.</em></div>
-
-<p>Unfortunately for the thrush, its exquisite power as a songster makes
-it by no means an unusual prisoner. You are often startled by hearing,
-from the doleful upper window of some dreary court or alley of London,
-or some other large town, an outpouring of joyous, full-souled melody
-from an imprisoned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> thrush, which, perfect as it is, saddens you, as
-being so wholly out of place. Yet who can say how the song of that bird
-may speak to the soul of many a town-imprisoned passer-by? Wordsworth
-thus touchingly describes an incident of this kind:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three years:</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">In the silence of morning, the song of the bird.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Down which she so often has tripped with her pail,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The one only dwelling on earth which she loves.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? she sees</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The mist and the river, the hill, sun, and shade;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_037"><img src="images/i-037.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="137" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE BLACKBIRD.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Blackbird is familiar to us all. It is a thoroughly English bird,
-and, with its cousin the thrush, is not only one of the pleasantest
-features in our English spring and summer landscape, but both figure
-in our old poetry and ballads, as the “merle and the mavis,” “the
-blackbird and the throstle-cock;” for those old poets loved the
-country, and could not speak of the greenwood without the bird.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">When shaws are sheen and fields are fair,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And leaves both large and long,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis merry walk’ng in the green forest</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">To hear the wild birds’ song;</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">The wood merle sings, and will not cease,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Sitting upon a spray;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">The merle and the mavis shout their fill,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">From morn till the set of day.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_039"><img src="images/i-039.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">BLACKBIRD AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_26" title="Page 26">Page 26.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The blackbird takes its name from a very intelligible cause—its
-perfectly black plumage, which, however, is agreeably relieved by the
-bright orange of its bill, the orange circles round its eyes, and its
-yellow feet; though this is peculiar only to the male, nor does he
-assume this distinguishing colour till his second year. The female is
-of a dusky-brown colour.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Notes of the Blackbird.</em></div>
-
-<p>Sometimes the singular variety of a <em>white</em> blackbird occurs,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>which seems to astonish even its fellow birds; the same phenomenon
-also occurs amongst sparrows; a fatal distinction to the poor birds,
-who are in consequence very soon shot.</p>
-
-<p>This bird is one of our finest singers. His notes are solemn and
-flowing, unlike those of the thrush, which are short, quick, and
-extremely varied. The one bird is more lyrical, the other sings in
-a grand epic strain. A friend of ours, deeply versed in bird-lore,
-maintains that the blackbird is oratorical, and sings as if delivering
-an eloquent rhythmical oration.</p>
-
-<p>This bird begins to sing early in the year, and continues his song
-during the whole time that the hen is sitting. Like his relatives, the
-thrush and the missel-thrush, he takes his post on the highest branch
-of a tree, near his nest, so that his song is heard far and wide; and
-in fact, through the whole pleasant spring you hear the voices of these
-three feathered kings of English song constantly filling the woods and
-fields with their melody. The blackbird sings deliciously in rain, even
-during a thunderstorm, with the lightning flashing round him. Indeed,
-both he and the thrush seem to take great delight in summer showers.</p>
-
-<p>The blackbird has a peculiar call, to give notice to his brood of the
-approach of danger; probably, however, it belongs both to male and
-female. Again, there is a third note, very peculiar also, heard only
-in the dusk of evening, and which seems pleasingly in harmony with the
-approaching shadows of night. By this note they call each other to
-roost, in the same way as partridges call each other to assemble at
-night, however far they may be asunder.</p>
-
-<p>The nest of the blackbird is situated variously; most frequently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> in
-the thicker parts of hedges; sometimes in the hollow of a stump or
-amongst the curled and twisted roots of old trees, which, projecting
-from the banks of woods or woodland lanes, wreathed with their trails
-of ivy, afford the most picturesque little hollows for the purpose.
-Again, it may be found under the roof of out-houses or cart-sheds,
-laid on the wall-plate; and very frequently in copses, in the stumps
-of pollard trees, partly concealed by their branches; and is often
-begun before the leaves are on the trees. The nest is composed of dry
-bents, and lined with fine dry grass. The hen generally lays five eggs,
-which are of a dusky bluish-green, thickly covered with black spots;
-altogether very much resembling those of crows, rooks, magpies, and
-that class of birds.</p>
-
-<p>Universal favourite as the blackbird deservedly is, yet, in common with
-the thrush, all gardeners are their enemies from the great liking they
-have for his fruit, especially currants, raspberries, and cherries.
-There is, however, something very amusing, though, at the same time,
-annoying, in the sly way by which they approach these fruits, quite
-aware that they are on a mischievous errand. They steal along, flying
-low and silently, and, if observed, will hide themselves in the nearest
-growth of garden plants, scarlet runners, or Jerusalem artichokes,
-where they remain as still as mice, till they think the human enemy has
-moved off. If, however, instead of letting them skulk quietly in their
-hiding-place, he drives them away, they fly off with a curious note,
-very like a little chuckling laugh of defiance, as if they would say,
-“Ha! ha! we shall soon be back again!” which they very soon are.</p>
-
-<p>But we must not begrudge them their share, though they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> neither have
-dug the ground nor sowed the seed, for very dull and joyless indeed
-would be the garden and the gardener’s toil, and the whole country in
-short, if there were no birds—no blackbirds and thrushes—to gladden
-our hearts, and make the gardens, as well as the woods and fields,
-joyous with their melody. Like all good singers, these birds expect,
-and deserve, good payment.</p>
-
-<p>The blackbird, though naturally unsocial and keeping much to itself,
-is very bold in defence of its young, should they be in danger, or
-attacked by any of the numerous bird-enemies, which abound everywhere,
-especially to those which are in immediate association with man. The
-Rev. J. G. Wood tells us, for instance, that on one occasion a prowling
-cat was forced to make an ignominious retreat before the united onset
-of a pair of blackbirds, on whose young she was about to make an attack.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><cite>Macgillivray’s Account.</cite></div>
-
-<p>Let me now, in conclusion, give a day with a family of blackbirds,
-which I somewhat curtail from Macgillivray.</p>
-
-<p>“On Saturday morning, June 10th, I went into a little hut made of green
-branches, at half-past two in the morning, to see how the blackbirds
-spend the day at home. They lived close by, in a hole in an old wall,
-which one or other of them had occupied for a number of years.</p>
-
-<p>“At a quarter-past three they began to feed their young, which were
-four in number. She was the most industrious in doing so; and when he
-was not feeding, he was singing most deliciously. Towards seven o’clock
-the father-bird induced one of the young ones to fly out after him.
-But this was a little mistake, and, the bird falling, I was obliged to
-help it into its nest again, which made a little family commotion. They
-were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> exceedingly tidy about their nest, and when a little rubbish fell
-out they instantly carried it away. At ten o’clock the feeding began
-again vigorously, and continued till two, both parent-birds supplying
-their young almost equally.</p>
-
-<p>“The hut in which I sat was very closely covered; but a little wren
-having alighted on the ground in pursuit of a fly, and seeing one of
-my legs moving, set up a cry of alarm, on which, in the course of a
-few seconds, all the birds in the neighbourhood collected to know what
-was the matter. The blackbird hopped round the hut again and again,
-making every effort to peep in, even alighting on the top within a few
-inches of my head, but not being able to make any discovery, the tumult
-subsided. It was probably considered a false alarm, and the blackbirds
-went on feeding their young till almost four o’clock: and now came the
-great event of the day.</p>
-
-<p>“At about half-past three the mother brought a large worm, four inches
-in length probably, which she gave to one of the young ones, and flew
-away. Shortly afterwards returning, she had the horror of perceiving
-that the worm, instead of being swallowed was sticking in its throat;
-on this she uttered a perfect moan of distress, which immediately
-brought the he-bird, who also saw at a glance what a terrible
-catastrophe was to be feared. Both parents made several efforts to push
-the worm down the throat, but to no purpose, when, strange to say, the
-father discovered the cause of the accident. The outer end of the worm
-had got entangled in the feathers of the breast, and, being held fast,
-could not be swallowed. He carefully disengaged it, and, holding it up
-with his beak, the poor little thing, with a great effort, managed to
-get it down, but was by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> this time so exhausted that it lay with its
-eyes shut and without moving for the next three hours. The male bird in
-the meantime took his stand upon a tree, a few yards from the nest, and
-poured forth some of his most enchanting notes—a song of rejoicing no
-doubt for the narrow escape from death of one of his family.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Macgillivray’s Day with this Bird.</em></div>
-
-<p>“From four till seven o’clock both birds again fed their young, after
-which the male bird left these family duties to his mate, and gave
-himself up to incessant singing. At twenty minutes to nine their
-labours ceased, they having then fed their young one hundred and
-thirteen times during the day.</p>
-
-<p>“I observed that before feeding their young they always alighted upon
-a tree and looked round them for a few seconds. Sometimes they brought
-in a quantity of worms and fed their brood alternately; at other times
-they brought one which they gave to only one of them.</p>
-
-<p>“The young birds often trimmed their feathers, and stretched out their
-wings; they also appeared to sleep now and then.</p>
-
-<p>“With the note of alarm which the feathered tribes set up on the
-discovery of their enemies all the different species of the little
-birds seem to be intimately acquainted; for no sooner did a beast or
-bird of prey make its appearance, than they seemed to be anxiously
-concerned about the safety of their families. They would hop from tree
-to tree uttering their doleful lamentations. At one time the blackbirds
-were in an unusual state of excitement and terror, and were attended
-by crowds of their woodland friends. A man and boy, who were working
-in my garden, having heard the noise, ran to see what was the cause of
-it, and on looking into some branches which were lying on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> the ground,
-observed a large weasel stealing slyly along in pursuit of its prey. It
-was, however, driven effectually from the place without doing any harm.
-It is astonishing how soon the young know this intimation of danger;
-for I observed that no sooner did the old ones utter the alarm-cry,
-than they cowered in their nest, and appeared to be in a state of great
-uneasiness.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image_046"><img src="images/i-046.jpg" alt="bird singing" width="408" height="400" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Dipper, or Water-ousel, of which Mr. Weir has given us a charming
-and faithful portrait, is very like a wren in form and action, with
-its round body and lively little tail. Its mode of flight, however,
-so nearly resembles the kingfisher that, in some places, the country
-people mistake it for the female of that bird. But it is neither wren
-nor kingfisher, nor yet related to either of them. It is the nice
-little water-ousel, with ways of its own, and a cheerful life of its
-own, and the power of giving pleasure to all lovers of the free country
-which is enriched with an infinite variety of happy, innocent creatures.</p>
-
-<p>The upper part of the head and neck, and the whole back and wings of
-this bird, are of a rusty-brown; but, as each individual feather is
-edged with gray, there is no deadness of colouring. The throat and
-breast are snowy white, which, contrasting so strongly with the rest of
-the body, makes it seem to flash about like a point of light through
-the dark shadows of the scenes it loves to haunt.</p>
-
-<p>I said above that this bird gave pleasure to all lovers of nature. So
-it does, for it is only met with in scenes which are especially beloved
-by poets and painters. Like them, it delights in mountain regions,
-where rocky streams rush along with an unceasing murmur, leaping over
-huge stones, slumbering in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between
-rocky walls, in the moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild
-rose flings out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the
-hardy polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with
-their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for the
-cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character with the
-scenes.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-049"><img src="images/i-049.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">DIPPERS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_34" title="Page 34">Page 34.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Home of the Dipper.</em></div>
-
-<p>And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few weeks in
-summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my constant advice
-as regards the study and truest enjoyment of country life and things.
-Go out for several hours; do not be in a hurry; take your book, or
-your sketching, or whatever your favourite occupation may be, if it be
-only a quiet one, and seat yourself by some rocky stream amongst the
-mountains; choose the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can
-reach you, if you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet
-witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat yourself
-quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a piece of
-rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, or tangle of
-bramble, and before long you will most likely see this merry, lively
-little dipper come with his quick, jerking flight, now alighting on
-this stone, now on that, peeping here, and peeping there, as quick as
-light, and snapping up, now a water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now
-diving down into the stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking
-into the shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer
-delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and away,
-and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of stone, which
-rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>a stormy sea,
-with the rush and roar of the water full above him. Yet there he is
-quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny wren, and hopping
-about on his rocky point, as if he could not for the life of him be
-still for a moment. Now listen! That is his song, and a merry little
-song it is, just such a one as you would fancy coming out of his jocund
-little heart; and, see now, he begins his antics. He must be a queer
-little soul! If we could be little dippers like him, and understand
-what his song and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often
-find the time tedious for want of something to do.</p>
-
-<p>We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of his small
-experience, all that his heart desires. He has this lonely mountain
-stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, laughing waters to bear
-him company, all these fantastically heaped-up stones, brought hither
-by furious winter torrents of long ago—that dashing, ever roaring,
-ever foaming waterfall, in the spray of which the summer sunshine
-weaves rainbows. All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden
-hair, and this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up
-his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of rock,
-and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, is built
-the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits the
-hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most unwearied
-love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with red.</p>
-
-<p>This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large size, the
-reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally near to the
-water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is always so fresh,
-looking so like the mass of its immediate surroundings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> as scarcely to
-be discoverable by the quickest eye. When the young are hatched they
-soon go abroad with the parents, and then, instead of the one solitary
-bird, you may see them in little parties of from five to seven going on
-in the same sort of way, only all the merrier because there are more of
-them.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-052"><img src="images/i-052.jpg" alt="bird's nest on the ground" width="468" height="400" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE NIGHTINGALE.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Philomela</span>, or the Nightingale, is the head of the somewhat large
-bird-family of Warblers, and is the most renowned of all feathered
-songsters, though some judges think the garden-ousel exceeds it in
-mellowness, and the thrush in compass of voice, but that, in every
-other respect, it excels them all. For my part, however, I think no
-singing-bird is equal to it; and listening to it when in full song, in
-the stillness of a summer’s night, am ready to say with good old Izaak
-Walton:—</p>
-
-<p>“The nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet
-music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind
-to think that miracles had not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
-weary labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often
-heard, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and
-falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted
-above earth and say, ‘Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the
-saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!’”</p>
-
-<p>In colour, the upper parts of the nightingale are of a rich brown;
-the tail of a reddish tint; the throat and underparts of the body,
-greyish-white; the neck and breast, grey; the bill and legs, light
-brown. Its size is about that of the garden warblers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> which it
-resembles in form—being, in fact, one of that family. Thus, the most
-admired of all singers—the subject of poets’ songs and eulogies, the
-bird that people walk far and wide to listen to, of which they talk for
-weeks before it comes, noting down the day of its arrival as if it were
-the Queen or the Queen’s son—is yet nothing but a little insignificant
-brown bird, not to be named with the parrot for plumage, nor with
-our little goldfinch, who always looks as if he had his Sunday suit
-on. But this is a good lesson for us. The little brown nightingale,
-with his little brown wife in the thickety copse, with their simple
-unpretending nest, not built up aloft on the tree branch, but humbly
-at the tree’s root, or even on the very ground itself, may teach us
-that the world’s external show or costliness is not true greatness. The
-world’s best bird-singer might have been as big as an eagle, attired
-in colours of blue and scarlet and orange like the grandest macaw. But
-the great Creator willed that it should not be so—his strength, and
-his furiousness, and his cruel capacity were sufficient for the eagle,
-and his shining vestments for the macaw; whilst the bird to which was
-given the divinest gift of song must be humble and unobtrusive, small
-of size, with no surpassing beauty of plumage, and loving best to hide
-itself in the thick seclusion of the copse in which broods the little
-mother-bird, the very counterpart of himself, upon her olive-coloured
-eggs.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Philomela of Surrey.</em></div>
-
-<p>Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a sweet little picture of the
-nightingale at home. Somewhere, not far off, runs the highroad, or it
-may be a pleasant woodland lane leading from one village to another,
-and probably known as “Nightingale-lane,” and traversed night after
-night by rich and poor, learned and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> unlearned, to listen to the
-bird. In our own neighbourhood we have a “Nightingale-lane,” with its
-thickety copses on either hand, its young oaks and Spanish chestnuts
-shooting upwards, and tangles of wild roses and thick masses of
-brambles throwing their long sprays over old, mossy, and ivied stumps
-of trees, cut or blown down in the last generation—little pools
-and water courses here and there, with their many-coloured mosses
-and springing rushes—a very paradise for birds. This is in Surrey,
-and Surrey nightingales, it is said, are the finest that sing. With
-this comes the saddest part of the story. Bird-catchers follow the
-nightingale, and, once in his hands, farewell to the pleasant copse
-with the young oaks and Spanish chestnuts, the wild rose tangles, the
-little bosky hollow at the old tree root, in one of which the little
-nest is built and the little wife broods on her eggs!</p>
-
-<p>Generally, however, the unhappy bird, if he be caught, is taken soon
-after his arrival in this country; for nightingales are migratory, and
-arrive with us about the middle of April. The male bird comes about
-a fortnight before the female, and begins to sing in his loneliness
-a song of salutation—a sweet song, which expresses, with a tender
-yearning, his desire for her companionship. Birds taken at this time,
-before the mate has arrived, and whilst he is only singing to call and
-welcome her, are said still to sing on through the summer in the hope,
-long-deferred, that she may yet come. He will not give her up though
-he is no longer in the freedom of the wood, so he sings and sings, and
-if he live over the winter, he will sing the same song the following
-spring, for the want is again in his heart. He cannot believe but that
-she will still come. The cruel bird-catchers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> therefore, try all their
-arts to take him in this early stage of his visit to us. Should he be
-taken later, when he is mated, and, as we see him in our picture, with
-all the wealth of his little life around him, he cannot sing long. How
-should he—in a narrow cage and dingy street of London or some other
-great town—perhaps with his eyes put out—for his cruel captor fancies
-he sings best if blind? He may sing, perhaps, for a while, thinking
-that he can wake himself out of this dreadful dream of captivity,
-darkness, and solitude. But it is no dream; the terrible reality at
-length comes upon him, and before the summer is over he dies of a
-broken heart.</p>
-
-<p>It is a curious fact that the nightingale confines itself, without
-apparent reason, to certain countries and to certain parts of England.
-For instance, though it visits Sweden, and even the temperate parts
-of Russia, it is not met with in Scotland, North Wales, nor Ireland,
-neither is it found in any of our northern counties excepting
-Yorkshire, and there only in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. Neither
-is it known in the south-western counties, as Cornwall and Devonshire.
-It is supposed to migrate during the winter into Egypt and Syria. It
-has been seen amongst the willows of Jordan and the olive trees of
-Judea, but we have not, to our knowledge, any direct mention of it in
-the Scriptures, though Solomon no doubt had it in his thoughts, in his
-sweet description of the spring—“Lo, the winter is past, the rain is
-over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing
-of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” A
-recent traveller in Syria tells me that she heard nightingales singing
-at four o’clock one morning in April of last year in the lofty regions
-of the Lebanon.</p>
-
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-057"><img src="images/i-057.jpg" alt="" width="503" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">NIGHTINGALES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_40" title="Page 40">Page 40.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p>
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Sir John Sinclair’s Attempt.</em></div>
-
-<p>There have been various attempts to introduce the nightingale into such
-parts of this country as it has not yet frequented; for instance, a
-gentleman of Gower, a sea-side district of Glamorganshire, the climate
-of which is remarkably mild, procured a number of young birds from
-Norfolk and Surrey, hoping that they would find themselves so much at
-home in the beautiful woods there as to return the following year. But
-none came. Again, as regards Scotland, Sir John Sinclair purchased a
-large number of nightingales’ eggs, at a shilling each, and employed
-several men to place them carefully in robins’ nests to be hatched. So
-far all succeeded well. The foster-mothers reared the nightingales,
-which, when full-fledged, flew about as if quite at home. But when
-September came, the usual month for the migration of the nightingale,
-the mysterious impulse awoke in the hearts of the young strangers, and,
-obeying it, they suddenly disappeared and never after returned.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a very accurate drawing of the
-nightingale’s nest, which is slight and somewhat fragile in
-construction, made of withered leaves—mostly of oak—and lined
-with dry grass. The author of “British Birds” describes one in his
-possession as composed of slips of the inner bark of willow, mixed with
-the leaves of the lime and the elm, lined with fibrous roots, grass,
-and a few hairs; but whatever the materials used may be, the effect
-produced is exactly the same.</p>
-
-<p>In concluding our little chapter on this bird, I would mention that
-in the Turkish cemeteries, which, from the old custom of planting a
-cypress at the head and foot of every grave, have now become cypress
-woods, nightingales abound, it having been also an old custom of love
-to keep these birds on every grave.</p>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE SKYLARK.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Skylark, that beautiful singer, which carries its joy up to the
-very gates of heaven, as it were, has inspired more poets to sing about
-it than any other bird living.</p>
-
-<p>Wordsworth says, as in an ecstasy of delight:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">Up with me! up with me into the clouds!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">For thy song, lark, is strong;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Up with me! up with me into the clouds!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">Singing, singing.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">With clouds and sky about me ringing,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Lift me, guide me till I find</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">That spot that seems so to my mind.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Shelley, in an ode which expresses the bird’s ecstasy of song, also
-thus addresses it, in a strain of sadness peculiar to himself:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">Hail to thee, blithe spirit!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">Bird, thou never wert—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">That from heaven, or near it,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">Pourest thy full heart</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">In profuse strains of unpremeditated art!</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">Higher, still, and higher</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">From the earth thou springest,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Like a cloud of fire;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">The deep blue thou wingest,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">And singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singest!</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent4">
-
-<hr class="tb" /></div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p>  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">Better than all measures</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">Of delightful sound,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Better than all treasures</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">That in books are found,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">Teach me half the gladness</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">That thy brain must know,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Such harmonious madness</div>
-    <div class="verse indent10">From my lips should flow;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">The world should listen then, as I am listening now.</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>James Hogg’s Verses.</em></div>
-
-<p>James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who had listened to the bird with
-delight on the Scottish hills, thus sings of it:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">Bird of the wilderness,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Blithesome and cumberless,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Sweet is thy matin o’er moorland and lea!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Emblem of happiness,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Blest is thy dwelling-place—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">Wild is thy lay, and loud;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Far in the downy cloud</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Where on thy dewy wing,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Where art thou journeying?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">O’er fell and fountain sheen,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">O’er moor and mountain green,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">O’er the red streamer that heralds the day;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Over the cloudlet dim,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Over the rainbow’s rim,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Musical cherub, soar, singing away!</div>
-  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent8">Then when the gloaming comes,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Low in the heather blooms,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Emblem of happiness,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Blest is thy dwelling-place—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent8">Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p>
-<p>But we must not forget the earthly life of the bird in all these sweet
-songs about him.</p>
-
-<p>The plumage of the skylark is brown, in various shades; the fore-part
-of the neck, reddish-white, spotted with brown; the breast and under
-part of the body, yellowish-white. Its feet are peculiar, being
-furnished with an extraordinarily long hind claw, the purpose of which
-has puzzled many naturalists. But whatever nature intended it for, the
-bird has been known to make use of it for a purpose which cannot fail
-to interest us and call forth our admiration. This shall be presently
-explained. The nest is built on the ground, either between two clods
-of earth, in the deep foot-print of cattle, or some other small hollow
-suitable for the purpose, and is composed of dry grass, hair, and
-leaves; the hair is mostly used for the lining. Here the mother-bird
-lays four or five eggs of pale sepia colour, with spots and markings
-of darker hue. She has generally two broods in the year, and commences
-sitting in May. The he-lark begins to sing early in the spring.
-Bewick says, “He rises from the neighbourhood of the nest almost
-perpendicularly in the air, by successive springs, and hovers at a
-vast height. His descent, on the contrary, is in an oblique direction,
-unless he is threatened by birds of prey, or attracted by his mate, and
-on these occasions he drops like a stone.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-063"><img src="images/i-063.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">SKYLARKS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_44" title="Page 44">Page 44.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>With regard to his ascent, I must, however, add that it is in a spiral
-direction, and that what Bewick represents as springs are his sudden
-spiral flights after pausing to sing. Another peculiarity must be
-mentioned: all his bones are hollow, and he can inflate them with air
-from his lungs, so that he becomes, as it were, a little balloon, which
-accounts for the buoyancy <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>with which he ascends, and the length of
-time he can support himself in the air: often for an hour at a time.
-Still more extraordinary is the wonderful power and reach of his voice,
-for while, probably, the seven hundred or a thousand voices of the
-grand chorus of an oratorio would fail to fill the vast spaces of the
-atmosphere, it can be done by this glorious little songster, which,
-mounting upwards, makes itself heard, without effort, when it can be
-seen no longer.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Solicitude for its Young.</em></div>
-
-<p>The attachment of the parents to their young is very great, and has
-been seen to exhibit itself in a remarkable manner.</p>
-
-<p>The nest being placed on the open-ground—often pasture, or in a field
-of mowing grass—it is very liable to be disturbed; many, therefore,
-are the instances of the bird’s tender solicitude either for the young
-or for its eggs, one of which I will give from Mr. Jesse. “In case of
-alarm,” he says, “either by cattle grazing near the nest, or by the
-approach of the mower, the parent-birds remove their eggs, by means
-of their long claws, to a place of greater security, and this I have
-observed to be affected in a very short space of time.” He says that
-when one of his mowers first told him of this fact he could scarcely
-believe it, but that he afterwards saw it himself, and that he regarded
-it only as another proof of the affection which these birds show their
-offspring. Instances are also on record of larks removing their young
-by carrying them on their backs: in one case the young were thus
-removed from a place of danger into a field of standing corn. But
-however successful the poor birds may be in removing their eggs, they
-are not always so with regard to their young, as Mr. Yarrell relates.
-An instance came under his notice, in which the little fledgeling
-proved too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> heavy for the parent to carry, and, being dropped from an
-height of about thirty feet, was killed in the fall.</p>
-
-<p>Of all captive birds, none grieves me more than the skylark. Its
-impulse is to soar, which is impossible in the narrow spaces of a cage;
-and in this unhappy condition, when seized by the impulse of song, he
-flings himself upwards, and is dashed down again by its cruel barriers.
-For this reason the top of the lark’s cage is always bedded with green
-baize to prevent his injuring himself. In the freedom of nature he is
-the joyous minstrel of liberty and love, carrying upwards, and sending
-down from above, his buoyant song, which seems to fall down through the
-golden sunshine like a flood of sparkling melody.</p>
-
-<p>I am not aware of the height to which the lark soars, but it must be
-very great, as he becomes diminished to a mere speck, almost invisible
-in the blaze of light. Yet, high as he may soar, he never loses the
-consciousness of the little mate and the nestlings below: but their
-first cry of danger or anxiety, though the cry may be scarce audible
-to the human ear, thrills up aloft to the singer, and he comes down
-with a direct arrow-like flight, whilst otherwise his descent is more
-leisurely, and said by some to be in the direct spiral line of his
-ascent.</p>
-
-<p>Larks, unfortunately for themselves, are considered very fine eating.
-Immense numbers of them are killed for the table, not only on the
-continent, but in England. People cry shame on the Roman epicure,
-Lucullus, dining on a stew of nightingales’ tongue, nearly two thousand
-years ago, and no more can I reconcile to myself the daily feasting on
-these lovely little songsters, which may be delicate eating, but are no
-less God’s gifts to gladden and beautify the earth.</p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE LINNET.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">Linnets</span> are a branch of a larger family of finches, all very familiar
-to us. They are cousins, also, to the dear, impudent sparrows, and the
-pretty siskin or aberdevines.</p>
-
-<p>The linnets are all compactly and stoutly built, with short necks and
-good sized heads, with short, strong, pointed bills, made for the ready
-picking up of seed and grain, on which they live. Most of them have two
-broods in the season, and they build a bulky, deep, and compact nest,
-just in accordance with their character and figure; but, though all
-linnet-nests have a general resemblance of form, they vary more or less
-in the material used.</p>
-
-<p>Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce
-and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They
-are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season
-when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted
-to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards,
-and amongst stacks.</p>
-
-<p>The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers
-of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four; the others
-are the twit or mountain-linnet, the mealy-linnet, and the lesser
-red-pole—the smallest of the four—all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> very much alike, and easily
-mistaken for each other. The name red-pole is given from the bright
-crimson spot on their heads—<em>pole</em> or <em>poll</em> being the old
-Saxon word for head. The back of our linnet’s head and the sides of his
-neck are of dingy ash-colour, his back of a warm brown tint, his wings
-black, his throat of a dull white, spotted with brown, his breast a
-brilliant red, and the under part of his body a dingy white.</p>
-
-<p>The linnet, amongst singing birds, is what a song writer is amongst
-poets. He is not a grand singer, like the blackbird or the thrush,
-the missel-thrush or the wood-lark, all of which seem to have an epic
-story in their songs, nor, of course, like the skylark, singing up to
-the gates of heaven, or the nightingale, that chief psalmist of all
-bird singers. But, though much humbler than any of these, he is a sweet
-and pleasant melodist; a singer of charming little songs, full of the
-delight of summer, the freshness of open heaths, with their fragrant
-gorse, or of the Scottish brae, with its “bonnie broom,” also in golden
-blossom. His are unpretending little songs of intense enjoyment, simple
-thanksgivings for the pleasures of life, for the little brown hen-bird,
-who has not a bit of scarlet in her plumage, and who sits in her snug
-nest on her fine little white eggs, with their circle of freckles and
-brown spots at the thicker end, always alike, a sweet, patient mother,
-waiting for the time when the young ones will come into life from that
-delicate shell-covering, blind at first, though slightly clothed in
-greyish-brown—five little linnets gaping for food.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-069"><img src="images/i-069.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">LINNETS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_48" title="Page 48">Page 48.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its
-favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and
-moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>here in our picture;
-for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts
-of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.</p>
-
-<p>Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it too
-rises a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chevaux de frise</i> of furze spines, green and tender to
-look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on
-hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with
-the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and,
-below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands
-of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and
-spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the
-man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the
-horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man
-thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when
-he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the
-while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune,
-impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment
-years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada;
-or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of
-trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and
-to his God.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote.</em></div>
-
-<p>Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the
-parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is
-very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the
-following anecdote in proof of it:—</p>
-
-<p>“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some
-children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming
-them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> fluttered round the
-children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs
-and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the
-nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards
-placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left
-open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still
-farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage,
-but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening
-actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several
-children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the
-cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent
-shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor
-parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully
-in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-072"><img src="images/i-072.jpg" alt="A Linnet on a branch" width="233" height="200" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE PEEWIT.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Peewit, lapwing, or plover, belongs to the naturalist family of
-<em>Gallatores</em> or Waders, all of which are furnished with strong
-legs and feet for walking, whilst all which inhabit watery places, or
-feed their young amongst the waves, have legs sufficiently long to
-enable them to wade; whence comes the family name.</p>
-
-<p>The peewit, or lapwing, is a very interesting bird, from its peculiar
-character and habits. Its plumage is handsome; the upper part of the
-body of a rich green, with metallic reflections; the sides of the neck
-and base of the tail of a pure white; the tail is black; so is the
-top of the head, which is furnished with a long, painted crest, lying
-backwards, but which can be raised at pleasure. In length the bird is
-about a foot.</p>
-
-<p>The peewit lives in all parts of this country, and furnishes one of
-the pleasantly peculiar features of open sea-shores and wide moorland
-wastes, in the solitudes of which, its incessant, plaintive cry has an
-especially befitting sound, like the very spirit of the scene, moaning
-in unison with the waves, and wailing over the wide melancholy of the
-waste. Nevertheless, the peewit is not in itself mournful, for it is
-a particularly lively and active bird, sporting and frolicking in the
-air with its fellows, now whirling round and round, and now ascending
-to a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> height on untiring wing; then down again, running along the
-ground, and leaping about from spot to spot as if for very amusement.</p>
-
-<p>It is, however, with all its agility, a very untidy nest-maker; in
-fact it makes no better nest than a few dry bents scraped together in
-a shallow hole, like a rude saucer or dish, in which she can lay her
-eggs—always four in number. But though taking so little trouble about
-her nest, she is always careful to lay the narrow ends of her eggs in
-the centre, as is shown in the picture, though as yet there are but
-three. A fourth, however, will soon come to complete the cross-like
-figure, after which she will begin to sit.</p>
-
-<p>These eggs, under the name of plovers’ eggs, are in great request as
-luxuries for the breakfast-table, and it may be thought that laid thus
-openly on the bare earth they are very easily found. It is not so,
-however, for they look so much like the ground itself, so like little
-bits of moorland earth or old sea-side stone, that it is difficult to
-distinguish them. But in proportion as the bird makes so insufficient
-and unguarded a nest, so all the greater is the anxiety, both of
-herself and her mate, about the eggs. Hence, whilst she is sitting, he
-exercises all kinds of little arts to entice away every intruder from
-the nest, wheeling round and round in the air near him, so as to fix
-his attention, screaming mournfully his incessant <em>peewit</em> till he
-has drawn him ever further and further from the point of his anxiety
-and love.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-075"><img src="images/i-075.jpg" alt="" width="481" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">PEEWITS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_52" title="Page 52">Page 52.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Stratagems of the Bird.</em></div>
-
-<p>The little quartette brood, which are covered with down when hatched,
-begin to run almost as soon as they leave the shell, and then the poor
-mother-bird has to exercise all her little <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>arts also—and indeed the
-care and solicitude of both parents is wonderful. Suppose, now, the
-little helpless group is out running here and there as merry as life
-can make them, and a man, a boy, or a dog, or perhaps all three, are
-seen approaching. At once the little birds squat close to the earth,
-so that they become almost invisible, and the parent-birds are on the
-alert, whirling round and round the disturber, angry and troubled,
-wailing and crying their doleful <em>peewit</em> cry, drawing them ever
-further and further away from the brood. Should, however, the artifice
-not succeed, and the terrible intruder still obstinately advance in
-the direction of the young, they try a new artifice; drop to the
-ground, and, running along in the opposite course, pretend lameness,
-tumbling feebly along in the most artful manner, thus apparently
-offering the easiest and most tempting prey, till, having safely lured
-away the enemy, they rise at once into the air, screaming again their
-<em>peewit</em>, but now as if laughing over their accomplished scheme.</p>
-
-<p>The young, which are hatched in April, are in full plumage by the end
-of July, when the birds assemble in flocks, and, leaving the sea-shore,
-or the marshy moorland, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks,
-where they soon become fat, and are said to be excellent eating.
-Happily, however, for them, they are not in as much request for the
-table as they were in former times. Thus we find in an ancient book of
-housekeeping expenses, called “The Northumberland Household-book,” that
-they are entered under the name of <em>Wypes</em>, and charged one penny
-each; and that they were then considered a first-rate dish is proved
-by their being entered as forming a part of “his lordship’s own mess,”
-or portion of food; <em>mess</em><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> being so used in those days—about
-the time, probably, when the Bible was translated into English. Thus
-we find in the beautiful history of Joseph and his brethren, “He sent
-messes to them, but Benjamin’s mess was five times as much as any of
-theirs.”</p>
-
-<p>Here I would remark, on the old name of <em>Wypes</em> for this
-bird, that country-people in the midland counties still call them
-<em>pie-wypes</em>.</p>
-
-<p>But now again to our birds. The peewit, like the gull, may easily be
-tamed to live in gardens, where it is not only useful by ridding them
-of worms, slugs, and other troublesome creatures, but is very amusing,
-from its quaint, odd ways. Bewick tells us of one so kept by the Rev.
-J. Carlisle, Vicar of Newcastle, which I am sure will interest my
-readers.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>A Winter Visitor.</em></div>
-
-<p>He says two of these birds were given to Mr. Carlisle, and placed
-in his garden, where one soon died; the other continued to pick up
-such food as the place afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual
-supply. Necessity then compelled it to come nearer the house, by which
-it gradually became accustomed to what went forward, as well as to
-the various members of the family. At length a servant, when she had
-occasion to go into the back-kitchen with a light, observed that the
-lapwing always uttered his cry of <em>peewit</em> to gain admittance.
-He soon grew familiar; as the winter advanced, he approached as far
-as the kitchen, but with much caution, as that part of the house was
-generally inhabited by a dog and a cat, whose friendship the lapwing
-at length gained so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort
-to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and
-night with his two associates, sitting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> close to them, and partaking
-of the comforts of a warm fireside. As soon as spring appeared he
-betook himself to the garden, but again, at the approach of winter,
-had recourse to his old shelter and his old friends, who received him
-very cordially. But his being favoured by them did not prevent his
-taking great liberties with them; he would frequently amuse himself
-with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of, and
-whilst he was thus employed he showed marks of the greatest indignation
-if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died, poor
-fellow, in the asylum he had chosen, by being choked with something
-which he had picked up from the floor. During his confinement he
-acquired an artificial taste as regarded his food, and preferred crumbs
-of bread to anything else.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-079"><img src="images/i-079.jpg" alt="Peewit standing on a rock." width="565" height="500" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE HOUSE-MARTIN, OR WINDOW-SWALLOW.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">During</span> our winter, swallows inhabit warm tropical countries, migrating
-northwards with the first approaches of summer. They are usually seen
-with us from the 13th to the 20th of April, and are useful from the
-first day of their arrival, by clearing the air of insects, which they
-take on the wing; indeed, they may be said to live almost wholly on the
-wing, and, except when collecting mud for their nests, are seldom seen
-to alight, and, in drinking, dip down to the water as they skim over it
-on rapid wing.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-081"><img src="images/i-081.jpg" alt="" width="485" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">HOUSE-MARTINS AND NESTS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_56" title="Page 56">Page 56.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>We have three kinds of swallows in England: the chimney-swallow, the
-house-martin, and the sand-martin, of which I shall have something to
-say in due course. The chimney-swallow and house-martin are especially
-worthy of the affectionate regard of man; for they love his society,
-build around his dwelling, destroy nothing that he values, have no
-appetite for his fruits; they live harmoniously amongst themselves,
-and have no other disposition than that of cheerfulness, unwearying
-industry and perseverance, and the most devoted parental affection.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Weir has given us a lively picture of swallow-life—four nests
-grouped together on a house-side: more there probably are; but there
-are as many as we can manage with; indeed we <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>will presently confine
-our attention to one single nest, and, by so doing, I flatter myself
-that I shall win your admiration for these birds, and that you will
-agree with me in thinking that if we all, men and women, boys and
-girls, had only their persevering spirit, and their courage under
-adversity, there would not be so much unsuccess, either at school or in
-life, as is now, too often, the case.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Nests on Traquair House.</em></div>
-
-<p>Some people are very fond of having martins about their houses, under
-their eaves, and even in the corners of their windows. The Earl of
-Traquair was one of these; he was, indeed, a great lover of all kinds
-of birds, and all were protected on his premises. In the autumn of
-1839, there were no less than one hundred and three martins’ nests on
-Traquair House—which is a very fine old place—besides several which
-had been deserted, injured, or taken possession of by sparrows, which
-is a very unwarrantable liberty taken by these birds.</p>
-
-<p>From six to twenty days are required to build a martin’s nest. If all
-goes on well it may be finished in the shorter time.</p>
-
-<p>Let us now see how the birds set about building. Here are several
-nests in our picture; and turning to the pages of Macgillivray’s
-“British Birds,” I shall find exactly the information we need. I will,
-therefore, extract freely from this interesting writer, that my young
-readers may be as grateful to him as I am myself.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Domestic Life of a Pair.</em></div>
-
-<p>Again turning to our picture, we find four nests. “A party of eight
-martins arrived here on the 1st of May. As this was quite a new
-location, they spent the whole day in examining the eaves of the house,
-the corners of the windows, and the out-buildings. By the following
-morning the question was settled, and they had, as you see, fixed
-upon a high wall with a slate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> coping, and an eastern aspect, and at
-once commenced making a general foundation for their nests. Suitable
-materials are procured from the banks of an adjoining pond, or a puddle
-in the lane. Let us go down and see them. Here they come, sailing
-placidly over the tree-tops; now they descend so as almost to sweep the
-surface of the pond; some of them alight at once, others skim round, as
-if borne away by a brisk wind. Those that have alighted walk about with
-short steps, looking round for materials. Some seem not to find the mud
-suitable, but seize on a piece of straw, or grass, which, tempering
-in the mud, they then fly off with. Returning now to the building, we
-see one using its tail planted against the wall, or against the nest,
-if sufficiently advanced, as a support, deposit the material it has
-brought by giving its head a wriggling motion, so that the mud slides
-gently into the crevices of yesterday’s work; then he retouches the
-whole. See, one has now arrived with his supply before the other has
-finished: he is impatient to disburden himself, and wants to drive
-off the worker, who rather snappishly retorts, and he, poor fellow,
-goes off for a while with the mud sticking to his bill. Now she has
-finished; there is room for him, and he goes back again and works hard
-in his turn. They never alight on the nest without twittering. At noon,
-if the weather be hot, they betake themselves to the fields, or, after
-a dip in the pond, sun themselves on the house-top for half-an-hour or
-so. Then they will hawk about for food, and after awhile one of them
-may, perhaps, return and give another touch or two to the work, or seat
-herself in the nest to consolidate the materials. But if cold, wet, or
-windy, they keep away. What they do with themselves I know not; but
-as soon as it clears<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> up, they are at work again. At the beginning of
-their building, they seem to have no objection to leave it for a whole
-day; but as it advances, they become more interested or anxious, and
-one or both will sit in it all night, even though the weather be bad.”</p>
-
-<p>So much for the building of these four nests of our picture; and now
-I will bespeak your attention to a little narrative of the joys and
-sorrows of the domestic life of a pair of martins, which, we will
-suppose, belong also to our group.</p>
-
-<p>“The building began on the 1st of May, at daybreak. But the weather was
-very much against them, being cold and stormy, and it was the 18th of
-the month before it was finished.</p>
-
-<p>“Seeing their labours thus brought to a close, one could not help
-wishing, considering how much it had cost, that the nest might last
-them for many years. But on the 23rd of June, during a heavy fall of
-thunder rain, almost the entire nest was washed to the ground, together
-with the young birds which it contained. A short time before the
-catastrophe, the old birds were observed hovering about, and expressing
-great uneasiness. Almost immediately after it happened they left the
-place, but returned the following day, and spent it in flying about and
-examining the angle of the wall.</p>
-
-<p>“Next morning they commenced repairing the nest. In three days they had
-made great progress; but again rain fell, and their work was stayed.
-On the 30th, they advanced rapidly, and both remained sitting on the
-nest all night. The next day it was finished; and now they began to
-rejoice: they twittered all the evening till it was dark, now and then
-pruning each other’s heads, as, seated side by side, they prepared to
-spend the dark hours in the nest. Eggs were soon laid again, but,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>
-sad to say, on the morning of the 18th of July, again, during a great
-storm of wind and rain, the upper wall fell, carrying with it one
-of the eggs. The old birds again fluttered about, uttering the most
-plaintive cries, and early the next morning began to repair the damage,
-though it rained heavily all day. Part of the lining hanging over the
-side was incorporated with the new layers of mud. The urgency of the
-case was such, that they were obliged to work during the bad weather.
-Throughout the day one bird sat on the nest, whilst the other laboured
-assiduously. Kindly was he welcomed by his mate, who sometimes, during
-his absence, nibbled and retouched the materials which he had just
-deposited. In a few days it was finished, the weather became settled,
-the young were hatched, and all went well with them.</p>
-
-<p>“Sometimes when the nests are destroyed, the birds, instead of
-attempting to repair the damage, forsake the neighbourhood, as if
-wholly disheartened. Nothing can be more distressing to them than to
-lose their young. In the storm of which I have just spoken, another
-martin’s nest was washed down with unfledged young in it. These were
-placed on some cotton wool in a basket, covered with a sheet of
-brown paper, in an open window, facing the wall. During that day and
-the following, the parents took no notice of them, and their kind
-human protector fed them with house-flies. That evening he tried an
-experiment. He gently placed the young ones in a nest of that same
-window, where were other young. It was then about eight o’clock in the
-evening; the rain was falling heavily, and no sound was heard save the
-<em>cheep, cheep</em>, of the young birds, and the dashing of the storm
-against the window-glass. A minute elapsed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> when forth rushed the
-parents shrieking their alarm notes, and, again and again wheeled up to
-the nest, until at last they drifted away in the storm. He watched them
-till they disappeared about half-past-nine. During all this time they
-only twice summoned courage to look into the nest. Next morning I was
-rejoiced to see them attending assiduously to the young ones.”</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Feeding of the Young.</em></div>
-
-<p>And now, turning again to our group of four nests on the walls,
-supposing it be the month of July, every one of them with its
-fledgeling brood sitting with gaping mouths, ever ready for food, you
-may, perhaps, like to know how many meals are carried up to them in the
-course of the day. If, then, the parents began to feed them at about
-five in the morning, and left a little before eight at night, they
-would feed them, at the lowest calculation, about a thousand times.</p>
-
-<p>With all this feeding and care-taking, the young ones, as the summer
-goes on, are full-fledged, and have grown so plump and large that the
-nest is quite too small for them; therefore, they must turn out into
-the world, and begin life for themselves.</p>
-
-<p>It is now a fine, brisk, August morning, and at about eight o’clock,
-you can see, if you look up at the nests, how the old birds come
-dashing up to them quite in an excited way, making short curves in the
-air, and repeating a note which says, as plain as a bird can speak,</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent6">This is the day</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">You must away!</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">What are wings made for, if not to fly?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">Cheep, cheep,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">Now for a leap!—</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Father and mother and neighbours are by!</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span></p>
-<p>This flying away from the nest is a great event in swallow-life, as you
-may well believe. Let us therefore now direct our attention to one nest
-in particular, in which are only two young ones—a very small family;
-but what happens here is occurring all round us.</p>
-
-<p>One of these little ones balances itself at the entrance, looking
-timidly into the void, and, having considered the risk for awhile,
-allows its fellow to take its place.</p>
-
-<p>During all this time, the parents keep driving about, within a few feet
-of the entrance, and endeavour, by many winning gestures, to induce
-their charge to follow them. The second bird also, after sitting for
-some time, as if distrustful of its powers, retires, and the first
-again appears. Opening and shutting his wings, and often half inclined
-again to retire, he, at length, summons up all his resolution, springs
-from the nest, and, with his self-taught pinions, cleaves the air. He
-and his parents, who are in ecstasies, return to the nest, and the
-second young one presently musters courage and joins them. And now
-begins a day of real enjoyment; they sport chiefly about the tree-tops
-till seven in the evening, when all re-enter the nest.</p>
-
-<p>In several instances I have seen the neighbours add their inducements
-to those of the parents, when the young were too timid to leave their
-home. If the happy day prove fine, they seldom return to the nest
-till sunset; if otherwise, they will come back two or three times. On
-one occasion, when the young were ready to fly, but unwilling to take
-the first leap, the parents had recourse to a little stratagem, both
-ingenious and natural. The he-bird held out a fly at about four inches
-from the entrance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> to the nest. In attempting to take hold of it, they
-again and again nearly lost their balance. On another occasion, the
-mother bird, trying this plan to no purpose, seemed to lose patience,
-and seizing one of them by the lower mandible, with the claw of her
-right foot, whilst it was gaping for food, tried to pull it out of the
-nest, to which, however, it clung like a squirrel. But the young, every
-one of them, fly in time, and a right joyous holiday they all have
-together.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Autumn Migration.</em></div>
-
-<p>So the summer comes to an end; and towards the middle of September,
-the great family cares being over, and the young having attained
-to an age capable of undertaking the fatigues of migration, that
-mysterious impulse, strong as life itself, and probably affecting
-them like some sickness—the necessity to exchange one country and
-climate for another—comes upon them. Under this influence, they
-congregate together in immense numbers, every neighbourhood seeming
-to have its place of assembly—the roofs of lofty buildings, or the
-leafless boughs of old trees: here they meet, not only to discuss the
-great undertaking, but to have a right merry time together—a time
-of luxurious idleness, lively chatterings, singing in chorus their
-everlasting and musical <em>cheep, cheep</em>, eating and drinking, and
-making ready for the journey before them.</p>
-
-<p>At length the moment of departure is come, and at a given signal the
-whole party rises. Twittering and singing, and bidding a long farewell
-to the scenes of their summer life, they fly off in a body, perhaps, if
-coming from Scotland, or the north of England, to rest yet a few weeks
-in the warmer southern counties; after which, a general departure takes
-place to the sunny lands of Africa.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span></p>
-
-<p>Though gifted with wings wonderfully constructed for prolonged flight,
-and though having passed every day of so many successive months almost
-wholly on the wing, the swallow frequently suffers great fatigue and
-exhaustion in its long migration. Sometimes, probably driven out of
-its course by adverse winds, it is known to alight by hundreds on the
-rigging of vessels, when worn out by hunger and fatigue it is too
-often shot or cruelly treated. Nevertheless the swallow, protected
-by Him who cares for the sparrow, generally braves the hardships of
-migration, and the following spring, guided by the same mysterious
-instinct, finds his way across continents and seas to his old home,
-where, identified by some little mark which has been put upon him—a
-silken thread as a garter, or a light silver ring—he is recognised as
-the old familiar friend, and appears to be no less happy to be once
-more with them than are they to welcome him. Sometimes swallows coming
-back as ordinary strangers, prove their identity, even though the scene
-of their last year’s home may have been pulled down, together with the
-human habitation. In this case, he has been known to fly about in a
-distracted way, lamenting the change that had taken place, and seeming
-as if nothing would comfort him.</p>
-
-<p>Though the fact of swallows coming back to their old haunts does not
-need proving, yet I will close my chapter with an incident which
-occurred in our own family. During a summer storm, a martin’s nest,
-with young, was washed from the eaves of my husband’s paternal
-home. His mother, a great friend to all birds, placed the nest with
-the young, which happily were uninjured, in a window, which, being
-generally open, allowed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> the parent-birds access to their young. They
-very soon began to feed them, making no attempt to build any other
-nest; so that the young were successfully reared, and took their flight
-full-fledged from the window-sill.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>A Welcomed Return to Old Haunts.</em></div>
-
-<p>The next spring, when the time for the arrival of the swallows came,
-great was the surprise and pleasure of their kind hostess, to see,
-one day, a number of swallows twittering about the window, as if
-impatient for entrance. On its being opened, in they flew, and,
-twittering joyfully and circling round the room, as if recognising the
-old hospitable asylum of the former year, flew out and soon settled
-themselves under the eaves with the greatest satisfaction. There could
-be no doubt but that these were the birds that had been reared there.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-091"><img src="images/i-091.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="427" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE CHIFF-CHAFF, OR OVEN-BUILDER.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Chiff-chaff, chill-chall, lesser pettichaps, or oven-builder, is
-one of the great bird-family of warblers, and the smallest of them in
-size; indeed, it is not much larger than the little willow-wren. Like
-all its family it is a bird of passage, and makes its appearance here,
-in favourable seasons, as early as the 12th of March—earlier than
-the warblers in general—and also remains later, having been known to
-remain here to the middle of October.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-093"><img src="images/i-093.jpg" alt="" width="462" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">CHIFF-CHAFFS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_66" title="Page 66">Page 66.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>It is a remarkably cheerful little bird, and is warmly welcomed by all
-lovers of the country as being one of the first visitants of spring,
-sending its pleasant little voice, with an incessant “chiff-chaff,”
-“chery-charry,” through the yet leafless trees.</p>
-
-<p>Its plumage is dark olive-green; the breast and under part of the body,
-white, with a slight tinge of yellow; the tail, brown, edged with pale
-green; legs, yellowish-brown.</p>
-
-<p>The nest is not unlike that of a wren, built in a low bush, and,
-sometimes, even on the ground. The one so beautifully and faithfully
-depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir, seems to be amongst the tallest grasses
-and picturesque growths of some delicious woodland lane. It is a
-lovely little structure; a hollow ball wonderfully put together, of
-dry leaves and stems of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>grass, and a circular hole for entrance at
-the side; lined with soft feathers—a little downy bed of comfort. The
-mother-bird, as we now see her, sits here in delicious ease on five or
-six white eggs, beautifully spotted with rich red-brown.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Howitt’s Account of this Bird.</em></div>
-
-<p>This dainty little bird, which seems made alone for pleasure, is
-very useful to man, and should be made kindly welcome everywhere,
-living entirely on caterpillars and other troublesome and destructive
-creatures. The Rev. J. G. Wood says that it saves many a good oak from
-destruction by devouring, on its first arrival, the caterpillars of
-the well-known green oak-moth, which roll up the leaves in so curious
-a manner, and come tumbling out of their green houses at the slightest
-alarm.</p>
-
-<p>He says, also, that a little chiff-chaff, which had been caught and
-tamed, was accustomed to dash to the ceiling of the room in which it
-was kept, and to snatch thence the flies which settled on the white
-surface.</p>
-
-<p>My husband, writing of this bird, says:—</p>
-
-<p>“Gilbert White gave, I believe, the name of chiff-chaff to this
-little bird from its note. In the midland counties it is called the
-chill-chall from the same cause; and, indeed, this name is, to my ear,
-more accordant with its continuous ditty. Its cheery little voice is
-one of the pleasantest recognitions of returning spring. It is sure to
-be heard, just as in former years, in the copse, the dell, the belt
-of trees bordering a wayside; we catch its simple note with pleasure,
-for it brings with it many a memory of happy scenes and days gone
-by. We see the little creature hopping along the boughs of the yet
-only budding oak, and know that it is as usefully employed for man
-as agreeably for itself. It tells us, in effect, that sunny days,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>
-flowers, and sweet airs, and the music of a thousand other birds, are
-coming. We revert to the time when, tracing the wood-side or the bosky
-dingle in boyhood, we caught sight of its rounded nest amongst the
-screening twigs of the low bush, and the bleached bents of last year’s
-grapes. We remember the pleasure with which we examined its little
-circular entrance, and discovered, in its downy interior, its store
-of delicate eggs, or the living mass of feathery inmates, with their
-heads ranged side by side and one behind another, with their twinkling
-eyes and yellow-edged mouths. Many a time, as we have heard the ever
-blithe note of chill-chall, as it stuck to its unambitious part of the
-obscure woodland glade, we have wished that we could maintain the same
-buoyant humour, the same thorough acceptance of the order of Providence
-for us. As Luther, in a moment of despondency, when enemies were rife
-around him, and calumny and wrong pursued him, heard the glad song of a
-bird that came and sang on a bough before his window, we have thanked
-God for the lesson of the never-drooping chill-chall. The great world
-around never damps its joy with a sense of its own insignificance; the
-active and often showy life of man, the active and varied existence of
-even birds, which sweep through the air in gay companies, never disturb
-its pleasure in its little accustomed nook. It seems to express, in its
-two or three simple notes, all the sentiment of indestructible content,
-like the old woman’s bird in the German story by Ludwig Tieck—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">Alone in wood so gay,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis good to stay,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Morrow like to-day</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">For ever and aye;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, I do love to stay</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Alone in wood so gay!</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span></p>
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Bird’s Ditty.</em></div>
-
-<p>“This little bird appears to feel all that strength of heart, and to
-put it into its little ditty, which seems to me to say—</p>
-
-<p>“Here I continue ‘cheery cheery, and still shall, and still shall!’”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-097"><img src="images/i-097.jpg" alt="" width="435" height="500" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have here the Golden-crested Wren—the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Regulus cristatus</i>
-of naturalists—the tiniest of our British birds, “the pleasing
-fairy-bird,” as Bewick calls it, one of the large family of warblers,
-and a near relation to Jenny Wren. It is a very charming little bird,
-with a sweet melodious song of its own, and so many curious little ways
-that it is well worth everybody’s notice and everybody’s love.</p>
-
-<p>It is very active and lively, always in motion, fluttering from branch
-to branch, and running up and down the trunks and limbs of trees, in
-search of insects on which it lives. It may as often be seen on the
-under as on the upper side of a branch, with its back downwards, like
-a fly on a ceiling, and so running along, all alert, as merry and busy
-as possible. In size it is about three inches, that is with all its
-feathers on, but its little body alone is not above an inch long; yet
-in this little body, and in this little brain, lives an amazing amount
-of character, as I shall show you, as well as a great deal of amusing
-conceit and pertness which you would hardly believe unless you were
-told.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-099"><img src="images/i-099.jpg" alt="Golden-crested wrens" width="480" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_70" title="Page 70">Page 70.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The colour of the bird is a sort of yellowish olive-green, the under
-part of pale, reddish-white, tinged with green on the sides; the quill
-feathers of the wing are dusky, edged with pale <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>green, as are also
-the tail feathers. Thus attired by nature, that is, by the great
-Creator who cares for all His creatures, this little bird, creeping
-and fluttering about the branches and bole of the leafy summer tree,
-can scarcely be distinguished from the tree itself: hence it is that
-the bird is so unfamiliar to most people. The he-bird, however, has
-a little distinguishing glory of his own—a crest of golden-coloured
-feathers, bordered on each side with black, like a sort of eye-brow to
-his bright hazel eyes. This crest, which gives him his distinguished
-name, can be erected at pleasure, when he is full of life and
-enjoyment, or when he chooses to lord it over birds ten times as big as
-himself.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Lively Gambols of this Bird.</em></div>
-
-<p>It is worth anybody’s while, who has a love for the innocent denizens
-of nature, and no desire to do them harm, to go into a wood on a
-summer’s day on purpose to watch the doings of this lively little bird
-amongst the tree-branches. Fir-woods are the best for this purpose, as
-this bird has an especial liking for these trees, and ten to one, if
-you will only be patient and quite still, you may soon see him at work
-busily looking after his dinner, running along the branches, up one and
-down another, then like a little arrow off to the next tree, scudding
-along its branches, then back again, up and down, round and round
-the bole, going like a little fire, so rapid are his movements; now
-running up aloft, now hanging head downward, now off again in another
-direction. What a wonderful activity there is in that little body! He
-must devour hundreds of insects, as well as their eggs, which he thus
-seeks for under the scaly roughnesses of the bark, and finding, devours.</p>
-
-<p>Pretty as he is, his nest, of which Mr. Harrison Weir has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> given a most
-accurate drawing, is quite worthy of him. It is always the same, swung
-like a little hammock from a branch, and always hidden, it may be by
-leaves or a bunch of fir-cones. The cordage by which it is suspended
-is of his own weaving, and is made of the same materials as the nest,
-which are moss and slender thread-like roots. In form it is oval, as
-you see, with a hole for entrance at the side, and is lined with the
-softest down and fibrous roots. It is a lovely little structure, like
-a soft ball of moss, within which the mother-bird lays from six to a
-dozen tiny eggs, scarcely bigger than peas, the delicate shell of which
-will hardly bear handling. The colour of the egg is white, sprinkled
-over with the smallest of dull-coloured spots.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Jesse describes one of these lovely nests which was taken from the
-slender branches of a fir-tree where it had been suspended, as usual,
-by means of delicate cordage, secured to the branch by being twisted
-round and round, and then fastened to the edge or rim of the nest,
-so that one may be sure that the making and securing of these tiny
-ropes must be the first work of the clever little artizan. The nest
-thus suspended sways lightly to and fro with the movement of the bird.
-We cannot see in our cut the slender ropes that suspend it; they are
-concealed under the thick foliage; but we can easily see what a dainty
-little structure it is.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Jackdaw and Mischievous Wrens.</em></div>
-
-<p>Delicate and lovely as is this bird, and pleasing and harmless as is
-his life, he yet possesses some curious traits of character, as I
-said. For instance, though so small, with a body only an inch long,
-he has, apparently, a wonderful conceit of himself, and loves to be
-lord and master of creatures that will not dispute with him, as not
-worth their while, or perhaps because there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> really is some inherent
-mastership in him by which he contrives, under certain circumstances,
-to rule over them. In proof of this, I will tell you what the Rev. J.
-G. Wood relates from the experience of a lady, a friend of his. One
-severe winter, when she had housed and fed a number of birds, amongst
-which were a jackdaw, a magpie, two skylarks, a goldfinch, and a robin,
-in a warm aviary, feeding them regularly and abundantly, other birds
-came, of course, to partake of the plentiful feast, and amongst them
-two golden-crested wrens. These little things made themselves not
-only quite at home, but lorded it over the other birds in the most
-extraordinary way possible. For instance, if the jackdaw had possessed
-himself of a nice morsel which he was holding down with his foot to
-eat comfortably, and the golden-crested wren had also set his mind on
-it, he hopped on the jackdaw’s head and pecked in his eye, on the side
-where his foot held the delicacy. On this the poor jackdaw instantly
-lifted his foot to his head where he thought something was amiss, and
-the mischievous little fellow snatched up the treasure and was off. At
-first the jackdaw would pursue him in great wrath, but he soon learned
-that it was no use, for the creature would only jump upon his back
-where he could not reach him, and so was safe from punishment. “Before
-the winter was over,” continues the lady, “the little gold-crests were
-masters of all the birds, and even roosted at night on their backs;
-finding, no doubt, that in this way they could keep their little feet
-much warmer than on a perch.”</p>
-
-<p>Conceited and dominant, however, as these little birds may be, they are
-yet either extremely timid, or their nervous system is so delicately
-constituted, that a sudden fright kills them.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> Thus if, when they are
-all alert and busy on the tree-branch, seeking for insects and fearing
-no evil, the branch be suddenly struck with a stick, the poor bird
-falls dead to the ground. The shock has killed it. It has received no
-apparent injury—not a feather is ruffled—but its joyous, innocent
-life is gone for ever. This fact is asserted by Gilbert White, and was
-proved by my husband, who brought me home the bird which had thus died.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-104"><img src="images/i-104.jpg" alt="bird's nest with eggs" width="461" height="491" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE WAGTAIL.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">This</span> elegant little bird belongs to the Motacilla, or Wagtail family.
-There are three brothers of them in this country—the pied, the grey,
-and the yellow. The pied is the most familiar, and our friend Mr.
-Harrison Weir has given us a lovely picture of it at home in a cleft of
-the rock, with fleshy-leaved lichens above, and green springing fronds
-of the great fern, which will presently overshadow it. Around are the
-solemn mountains, and the never silent water is foaming and rushing
-below.</p>
-
-<p>This bird has many names besides his Latin one of Motacilla. In Surrey
-he is called washer, or dish-washer, by the common people, from his
-peculiar motions in walking, which are thought to resemble those of a
-washer-woman at her tub. The colours of the pied wagtail are simply
-black and white, but so boldly and clearly marked as to produce a very
-pleasing and elegant effect.</p>
-
-<p>We have, every year, several wagtails in our garden, to which they add
-a very cheerful feature, walking about, nodding their heads and tails
-as if perfectly at home, afraid neither of dog nor cat, much less of
-any human being about the place. A little running brook as one boundary
-of the garden is, no doubt, one of the attractions; but here they are
-seen less frequently than on the smoothly-mown lawn, where they pick up
-tiny<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> insects, gliding along with a smooth motion, accompanied by the
-quick movement of head and tail.</p>
-
-<p>It is bitterly cold wintry weather as I write this, and they now visit
-the kitchen door, where, no doubt, little delicacies of various kinds
-attract them. They are more fearless and familiar than either sparrows,
-robins, or blackbirds; yet all of these are our daily pensioners,
-having their breakfast of crumbs as regularly before the parlour window
-as we have our own meal. Yet they fly away at the slightest sound,
-and the appearance of the cat disperses them altogether. They have,
-evidently, the old ancestral fear of man, stamped, as powerfully as
-life itself, upon their being. They are suspicious, and always in
-a flutter: nothing equals the calm self-possession of the wagtail,
-excepting it be the state of mind into which the robin gets when the
-gardener is turning up the fresh soil, just on purpose, as he supposes,
-to find worms for him.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-107"><img src="images/i-107.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">WAGTAIL AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_76" title="Page 76">Page 76.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Quest for Food.</em></div>
-
-<p>And now let me give you a wagtail picture, drawn by a faithful hand.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
-It is the end of July, the young wagtails are abroad with their
-parents, like human families, a month or two later, gone out or abroad
-to take their holiday. “Often,” he says, “one may see them wading in
-shallow places, in quest of insects and worms, carefully holding up
-their tails to prevent them being draggled. If you watch the motions
-of an individual just coming up to join the party, you see it alight
-abruptly, twittering its shrill notes, and, perching on a small stone,
-incessantly vibrate its body, and jerk out its tail.” This of course
-is the polite way in which a stranger wagtail introduces itself
-amongst its friends. There they are; now walking out into the water,
-and looking round for food. Now they are on the shore again, running
-rapidly along, picking up, now and then, a dainty morsel, and every
-moment spreading out the ever-vibrating tail. Now they are in the
-adjoining meadow, each one in pursuit of a fly, which it has no sooner
-caught, than it spies another. The lazy geese, which have nibbled
-the grass bare, allow the wagtail to pass in their midst without
-molestation. When the cows are grazing in the midst of a swarm of
-gnats and other insects, as Gilbert White says, as they tread amongst
-the bush herbage they rouse up multitudes of insects which settle on
-their legs, their stomachs, and even their noses, and the wagtails are
-welcomed by the cows as benefactors. Watch them, for they are worth the
-trouble; see, one comes forward and catches a small fly, bends to one
-side to seize another, darts to the right after a third, and springs
-some feet in the air before it secures a fourth, and all this time
-others are running about after other flies, passing close to the cows’
-noses or amongst their feet. With all this running to and fro, and
-hither and thither, they every now and then run in each other’s way;
-but they do not quarrel, aware, no doubt, that there is room enough for
-them in the world, nay, even in the meadow, though it now seems to be
-full of wagtails, all busily occupied, some walking, others running, a
-few flying off and many arriving. You may walk in amongst them; they
-are not very shy, for they will allow you to come within a few yards of
-them. They may always be met with on the shore when the tide is out, as
-well as in the meadow; you will meet with them by the river-side, or by
-the mill-dam. Occasionally you may see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> them perched on a roof, a wall,
-or a large stone, but very rarely on a tree or bush.</p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[A]</a> “British Birds.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Taunton Pair.</em></div>
-
-<p>They pair about the middle of April, and build by the side of rivers
-in crevices of rock—as in our picture, on a heap of stones, in faggot
-or wood stacks, or in a hole in a wall, but always near water and
-carefully hidden from sight. The nest is made of dry grass, moss, and
-small roots, thickly lined with wool and hair. The eggs are five or six
-in number, of a greyish white, spotted all over with grey and brown.
-As a proof of the confiding nature of this bird, I must mention that
-occasionally it builds in most unimaginable places, directly under the
-human eye—as, for instance, “a pair of them last summer,” says Mr.
-Jesse, “built their nest in a hollow under a sleeper of the Brighton
-Railway, near the terminus at that place. Trains at all times of the
-day were passing close to the nest, but in this situation the young
-were hatched and reared.” Mr. Macgillivray also mentions that a pair
-of these birds built their nest in an old wall near a quarry, within a
-few yards of four men who worked most part of the day in getting the
-stone, which they occasionally blasted. The hen-bird laid four eggs,
-and reared her brood, she and her mate becoming so familiar with the
-quarry-men as to fly in and out without showing the least sign of fear;
-but if a stranger approached they would immediately fly off, nor return
-till they saw him clear off from the place. Another nest was built
-beneath a wooden platform at a coal-pit, where the noisy business of
-unloading the hutches brought up from the pit, was continually going
-forward. But soon the wagtails were quite at home, becoming familiar
-with the colliers and other people connected with the work, and flew
-in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> and out of their nest without showing the slightest sign of fear.
-Again, another pair built close to the wheel of a lathe in a workshop
-at a brass manufactory at Taunton amid the incessant din of the
-braziers; yet here the young were hatched, and the mother-bird became
-perfectly familiar with the faces of the workmen; but if a stranger
-entered, or any one belonging to the factory, though not to what might
-be called her shop, she quitted her nest instantly, nor would return
-till they were gone. The male, however, had much less confidence, and
-would not come into the room, but brought the usual supplies of food to
-a certain spot on the roof whence she fetched it. All these anecdotes
-prove how interesting would be the relationship between the animal
-creation and man, if man ceased to be their tyrant or destroyer.</p>
-
-<p>As regards this particular bird, it is not only elegant in its
-appearance, but amiable and attractive in all its ways. “They are,”
-says Bewick, “very attentive to their young, and continue to feed and
-train them for three or four weeks after they can fly; they defend them
-with great courage when in danger, or endeavour to draw aside the enemy
-by various little arts. They are very attentive also to the cleanliness
-of their nests, and so orderly as to have been known to remove light
-substances, such as paper or straw, which have been placed to mark the
-spot.” As regards this proof of their love of order, however, I would
-rather suggest that it may be a proof of their sagacity and sense of
-danger: they suspected that some human visitor, of whose friendly
-character they were not convinced, was intending to look in upon them,
-and they thought it best, therefore, to decline the honour of his
-visit.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span></p>
-
-<p>The ordinary note of this bird, uttered rapidly if alarmed, is a sort
-of <em>cheep, cheep</em>. In the summer morning, however, it may be heard
-singing a pleasant, mellow and modulated little song. Like the swallow,
-for which it is a match in elegance, it lives entirely on insects. If
-you would only stand silently for a few minutes by a water-side, where
-it haunts, you would be delighted with the grace and activity of its
-movements. “There it stands,” says one of its friends, “on the top of
-a stone, gently vibrating its tail, as if balancing itself. An insect
-flies near; it darts off, flutters a moment in the air, seizes its
-prey, and settles on another stone, spreading and vibrating its tail.
-Presently it makes another sally, flutters around for a while, seizes
-two or three insects, glides over the ground, swerving to either side,
-then again takes its stand on a pinnacle.” Not unfrequently too it
-may be seen on the roof of a house, or in a village street, still in
-pursuit of insects.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-112"><img src="images/i-112.jpg" alt="" width="402" height="450" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE JACKDAW.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have called the Rook and Jackdaw first cousins. They are so, and
-are greatly attached to each other. There is a difference, however, in
-their character; the rook is grave and dignified, the jackdaw is active
-and full of fun. But they are fond of each other’s society, and agree
-to associate for nine months in the year: during the other three they
-are both occupied with their respective family cares.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-115"><img src="images/i-115.jpg" alt="" width="478" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">JACKDAWS AND NESTLINGS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_82" title="Page 82">Page 82.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Rooks build in trees in the open air, the nests of the young being
-exposed to all the influences of wind and weather. The jackdaw does not
-approve of this mode. He likes to live under cover, and, therefore,
-makes his nest in holes and crannies, amongst rocks, as in our picture;
-in old and tall buildings, as church towers and steeples, old ruinous
-castles, or old hollow trees. The traditional structure of the family
-nest is certainly that of the rook; a strong frame-work of sticks upon
-which the eggs can be laid, and the clamorous young jackdaws be brought
-up. This our friend Mr. Weir has shown us plainly. But, after all, it
-does not appear that the jackdaw, with all his sharpness, has much
-scientific knowledge, the getting the sticks into the hole being often
-a very difficult piece of work. Mr. Waterton amused himself by watching
-the endless labour and pains which the jackdaw takes in trying to do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>
-impossibilities. Thinking it absolutely necessary that a frame-work
-of sticks should be laid in the hole or cavity as the foundation of
-the nest, he brings to the opening just such sticks as the rook would
-use in open spaces, and may be seen trying for a quarter of an hour
-together to get a stick into a hole, holding it by the middle all the
-time, so that the ends prop against each side, and make the endeavour
-impossible. He cannot understand how it is; he knows that sticks ought
-to go into holes, but here is one that will not; and, tired out at
-length, and thinking perhaps that it is in the nature of some sticks
-not to be got into a hole by any means, he drops it down and fetches
-another, probably to have no better result, and this may happen several
-times. But jackdaws have perseverance, and so, with trying and trying
-again, he meets with sticks that are not so self-willed, and that can
-be put into holes, either by being short enough or held the right way,
-and so the foundation is laid, and the easier part of the work goes on
-merrily; for the jackdaw is at no loss for sheets and blankets for his
-children’s bed, though we cannot see them in our picture, the clamorous
-children lying at the very edge of their bed. But if we could examine
-it, we should most likely be amused by what we should find. The jackdaw
-takes for this purpose anything soft that comes readily—we cannot say
-to <em>hand</em>—but to <em>bill</em>. In this respect he resembles the
-sparrow, and being, like him, fond of human society, gleans up out of
-his neighbourhood all that he needs for the comfort of his nestlings.
-Thus we hear of a nest, built in the ruins of Holyrood Chapel, in
-which, on its being looked into for a piece of lace which was supposed
-to be there, it was found also to be lined with part of a worsted
-stocking, a silk <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>handkerchief, a child’s cap, a muslin frill, and
-several other things which the busy jackdaw had picked up in various
-ways; for it must be borne in mind that he is own cousin to the magpie,
-whose thievish propensities are well known.</p>
-
-<p>The call of the jackdaw is much quicker and more lively than the rook,
-somewhat resembling the syllable <em>yak</em>, variously modulated, and
-repeated somewhat leisurely, but at the same time cheerfully. Its food
-is similar to that of the rook, and going forth at early dawn it may be
-seen in pastures or ploughed fields, busily searching for larvæ, worms,
-and insects. They walk gracefully, with none of the solemn gravity
-either of the rook or raven, and may occasionally be seen running along
-and sometimes quarrelling amongst themselves.</p>
-
-<p>Like the rook, the jackdaw stows away food in its mouth or throat-bag
-to feed its young. Its plumage is black, with shining silvery grey
-behind the head. Occasionally they are found with streaks or patches of
-white, as are also rooks, but these are mere sports of nature.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Waterton’s Opinion.</em></div>
-
-<p>Mr. Waterton was of opinion that jackdaws lived in pairs all the year
-round, as he had seen them sitting in November on the leafless branches
-of a sycamore, side by side, pruning each other’s heads, and apparently
-full of mutual affection; and as they mostly left the trees in pairs,
-and so returned, he was inclined to think that it was their custom
-always to remain paired.</p>
-
-<p>I will now give you his <em>carte de visite</em> from Macgillivray’s
-“British Birds.” “He is a remarkably active, pert, and talkative little
-fellow, ever cheerful, always on the alert, and ready either for
-business or frolic. If not so respectable as the grave and sagacious
-raven, he is, at least, the most agreeable of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> family, and withal
-extremely fond of society, for, not content with having a flock of his
-own folk about him, he often thrusts himself into a gang of rooks, and
-in winter sometimes takes up his abode entirely with them.”</p>
-
-<p>As to <em>thrusting</em> himself into a gang of rooks, I am, however, of
-opinion that the rooks make him heartily welcome. How do we know what
-amusement they, with their stolid gravity and solemn dignity, find in
-him with all his fun and loquacity? That rooks are really fond of the
-society of jackdaws is proved by an observation of Mr. Mudie. He says
-that “in the latter part of the season, when the rooks from one of the
-most extensive rookeries in Britain made daily excursions of about six
-miles to the warm grounds by the sea-side, and in their flight passed
-over a deep ravine, in the sunny side of which were many jackdaws, he
-observed that when the cawing of the rooks in their morning flight was
-heard at the ravine, the jackdaws, who had previously been still and
-quiet, instantly raised their shriller notes, and flew up to join the
-rooks, both parties clamouring loudly as if welcoming each other; and
-that on the return, the daws accompanied the rooks a little past the
-ravine as if for good fellowship; then both cawed their farewell: the
-daws returned to their home and the rooks proceeded on their way.”</p>
-
-<p>Jackdaws, like rooks, are said to be excellent weather-prophets.
-If they fly back to their roost in the forenoon, or early in the
-afternoon, a storm may be expected that evening, or early in the
-morning.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Rev. J. G. Wood’s Anecdote.</em></div>
-
-<p>The anecdotes of tame jackdaws are numerous. The Rev. J. G. Wood
-speaks of one which had learnt the art of kindling lucifer matches,
-and thus became a very dangerous inmate,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> busying himself in this way
-when the family was in bed, though, fortunately, he seems to have done
-nothing worse than light the kitchen fire which had been laid ready
-for kindling over night. Clever as he was, however, he could not learn
-to distinguish the proper ignitable end of the match, and so rubbed
-on till he happened to get it right. He frightened himself terribly
-at first by the explosion and the sulphur fumes, and burned himself
-into the bargain. But I do not find that, like the burnt child, he
-afterwards feared the fire and so discontinued the dangerous trick.</p>
-
-<p>The jackdaw is easily domesticated, and makes himself very happy in
-captivity, learns to articulate words and sentences, and is most
-amusing by his mimicry and comic humour.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-119"><img src="images/i-119.jpg" alt="Castle tower" width="354" height="420" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">This</span> pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird from the
-position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly in gardens,
-it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of a beam or piece
-of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or gateway, the nest being,
-however, generally screened, and often made a perfect little bit
-of picturesque beauty, by the leaves of some lovely creeping rose,
-woodbine, or passionflower, which grows there.</p>
-
-<p>This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, though
-always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond of human
-society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Virginian creeper, at
-the back of our house.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-121"><img src="images/i-121.jpg" alt="" width="476" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_86" title="Page 86">Page 86.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>According to her peculiar fancy she built exactly in the doorway,
-though there were some yards of verandah on either hand; but here was
-the convenient ledge, forming an angle with the upright support; and
-here was placed, as in our picture, the small, somewhat flat nest,
-beautifully, though slightly, put together, of dried grass and moss,
-lined with wool and hair. Here the mother-bird laid her four or five
-greyish-white eggs, with their spots of rusty red, and here she reared
-her young. She had, however, it seemed to us, an uncomfortable time of
-it, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>for, though we carefully avoided giving her needless disturbance
-that we almost ceased to use the door, yet there was an unavoidable
-passing to and fro to which she never seemed to get accustomed,
-starting off her nest with a little flutter whenever we came in sight;
-nor—although before she had finished sitting the quick-growing shoots
-of the Virginian creeper, with its broadly-expanding leaves, hid her
-nest so completely that, had it not been for her own timidity, we need
-not have known of her presence—she never lost this peculiar trait of
-character.</p>
-
-<p>The nest which Mr. Harrison Weir has drawn is, doubtless, taken from
-life. I wish, however, he could have seen ours, only about ten feet
-from the ground, a little dome of love, embowered amongst young shoots,
-vine-like leaves and tendrils—a perfectly ideal nest, in which our
-friend, who has as keen a sense of natural beauty as any artist living,
-would have delighted himself.</p>
-
-<p>The colours of this bird are very unobtrusive: the upper parts
-brownish-grey, the head spotted with brown, the neck and breast
-streaked or spotted with greyish-brown. It is a migratory bird, and
-arrives in this country about the middle or end of May, remaining with
-us till about the middle of October, by which time the flies on which
-it lives have generally disappeared.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>How it takes its Prey.</em></div>
-
-<p>Its mode of taking its winged prey is curious. Seated, stock-still,
-in a twig, it darts or glides off at the sight of an insect, like the
-bird of our picture, and seizes it with a little snapping noise; then
-returns to its perch ready for more, and so on; incessantly darting out
-and returning to the same spot, till it has satisfied its hunger, or
-moves off to another twig to commence the same pursuit.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p>
-
-<p>When they have young, the number of flies consumed only by one little
-family must be amazing. It is recorded<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> in one instance that a pair
-of fly-catchers, beginning to feed their nestlings at five-and-twenty
-minutes before seven in the morning, and continuing their labour till
-ten minutes before nine at night, supplied them with food, that is to
-say with flies, no less than five hundred and thirty-seven times. The
-gentleman who made these observations says:—“Before they fed their
-young they alighted upon a tree for a few seconds, and looked round
-about them. By short jerks they usually caught the winged insects.
-Sometimes they ascended into the air and dropped like an arrow; at
-other times they hovered like a hawk when set on its prey. They drove
-off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approached their
-nest, as if bidding them to go and hunt in their own grounds, where
-there were plenty of flies for them. Sometimes they brought only one
-fly in their bills, sometimes several, and flies of various sizes.”</p>
-
-<div class="footnote">
-
-<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[B]</a> See Macgillivray’s “<cite>British Birds</cite>.”</p>
-
-</div>
-
-<p>This bird seems to become attached to particular localities, where
-he finds himself conveniently situated and undisturbed. Mr. Mudie
-mentions, in his “Feathered Tribes,” “that a pair of these birds had
-nested in his garden for twelve successive years.” What is the length
-of life of a fly-catcher I cannot say; but probably if they were
-not the same birds, they would be their descendants—birds hatched
-there, and consequently at home. The Rev. J. G. Wood also speaks of
-the same locality having been used by this bird for twenty successive
-years; and he supposes that the young had succeeded to their ancestral
-home. He gives also an interesting account of the commencement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> of a
-nest-building by this bird. He says that the female, who seems to be
-generally the active builder, placed, in the first instance, a bundle
-of fine grass in some conveniently-forked branches, and after having
-picked it about for some time, as if regularly shaking it up, she
-seated herself in the middle of it, and there, spinning herself round
-and round, gave it its cup-like form. She then fetched more grasses,
-and after arranging them partly round the edge, and partly on the
-bottom, repeated the spinning process. A few hairs and some moss were
-then stuck about the nest and neatly woven in, the hair and slender
-vegetable fibres being the thread, so to speak, with which the moss was
-fastened to the nest.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Mudie on Nest-building.</em></div>
-
-<p>Mr. Mudie, also speaking of their nest-building, says that, in one
-instance which came under his notice, “the bird began at seven o’clock
-on a Tuesday morning, and the nest was finished in good time on Friday
-afternoon.” This was certainly rapid work. Mr. Yarrell says that the
-he-bird brings the materials to the hen, who makes use of them—which
-is stated as a general fact by Michelet—and that in constructing her
-nest the little fly-catcher, after she had rounded it into its first
-form, moves backwards as she weaves into it long hairs and grasses with
-her bill, continually walking round and round her nest. This, however,
-can only be when the situation of the nest will allow of her passing
-round it. Our fly-catcher’s nest, and the nest of our picture, are
-placed as a little bed close to the wall, and in such situations the
-nest has sometimes no back, but simply the lining. A very favourite
-place with the fly-catcher for her nest is the hole in a wall, the
-size of a half brick, in which the builder fixed the spar of his
-scaffolding, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> omitted to fill up when he had finished. In these
-convenient little nooks the fly-catcher’s nest fills the whole front
-of the opening, but has seldom any back to it. From all this, I think
-it is clear that the fly-catcher is, in her arrangements, guided by
-circumstances: only, in every case, her little home is as snug as it
-can be.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-126"><img src="images/i-126.jpg" alt="children looking out a window" width="438" height="550" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE WOOD-PIGEON.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">The</span> wood-pigeon, ring-dove, or cushat is one of the most familiar and
-poetical of our birds. Its low, plaintive coo-goo-roo-o-o is one of the
-pleasantest sounds of our summer woods.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Tell me, tell me, cushat, why thou moanest ever,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Thrilling all the greenwood with thy secret woe?</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">‘I moan not,’ says the cushat, ‘I praise life’s gracious Giver</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">By murmuring out my love in the best way that I know.’”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The wood-pigeon belongs to a large family of birds—<em>columbinæ</em>
-or doves. The earliest mention of them in the world is in Genesis,
-when Noah, wearied with the confinement of the ark, and seeing
-that the mountain tops were visible, selected from the imprisoned
-creatures—first the raven, then the dove, to go forth and report to
-him of the state of the earth. The raven, however, came not back, no
-doubt finding food which tempted him to stay; whilst the dove, finding
-no rest for the sole of her foot, returned, and Noah, putting forth his
-hand, took her in. Again he sent her forth, and she came back in the
-evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. A third
-time she was sent forth, but now she returned no more. So Noah looked
-out, and behold the face of the earth was dry. And he and his family,
-and all the creatures, again went forth and possessed all things.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p>
-
-<p>This dove might probably be of the carrier-pigeon tribe, which is more
-nearly related to the rock-pigeon, also a native of this country,
-or rather, of the northern parts of Scotland. These carrier-pigeons
-were, in the old times, long enough before the invention of electric
-telegraphs, or even before post-offices were established, used instead
-of both. Anacreon, the Greek poet, speaks of them as being used to
-convey letters; the pigeon, having, as it were, two homes, being fed in
-each; thus, a letter from a friend in one home was tied to the wing,
-and the bird turned into the air, probably without his breakfast, when
-he immediately flew off to his distant home, where the letter was
-joyfully received, and he fed for his pains. Whilst the answer was
-prepared he would rest, and it, perhaps, taking some little time, he
-grew hungry again; but they gave him nothing more, and, again securing
-the letter on his little person, he was sent back, making good speed,
-because he would now be thinking of his supper. Thus, the answer flew
-through the air.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent2">“Come hither, my dove,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">And I’ll write to my love,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And I’ll send him a letter by thee!”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-129"><img src="images/i-129.jpg" alt="" width="476" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_92" title="Page 92">Page 92.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>So says the old song. And we are told that a young man named
-Taurosthenes, one of the victors in the great Olympian games of Greece,
-sent to his father, who resided at a considerable distance, the tidings
-of his success, on the same day, by one of these birds. Pliny, the
-Roman historian, speaks of them being used in case of siege; when the
-besieged sent out these winged messengers, who, cleaving the air at
-a secure height above the surrounding army, conveyed the important
-intelligence of their need to their friends afar off. The crusaders
-are <span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>said to have made use of them at the siege of Jerusalem, and the
-old traveller, Sir John Maundeville—“knight, warrior, and pilgrim,” as
-he is styled—who, in the reign of our second and third Edwards, made
-a journey as far as the borders of China, relates that, “in that and
-other countries beyond, pigeons were sent out from one to another to
-ask succour in time of need, and these letters were tied to the neck of
-the bird.”</p>
-
-<p>But enough of carrier-pigeons. Let us come back to our ring-dove or
-cushat, brooding on her eggs in the sweet summer woods, as Mr. Harrison
-Weir has so truthfully represented her. She is not much of a nest-maker.</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent6">“A few sticks across,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">Without a bit of moss,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Laid in the fork of an old oak-tree;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">Coo-goo-roo-o-o,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent6">She says it will do,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">And there she’s as happy as a bird can be.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>The nest, however, is not at all insufficient for her needs. You see
-her sitting brooding over her two white eggs in every possible bird
-comfort; and whether her mate help her in the building of the nest
-or not, I cannot say, but he is certainly a very good domesticated
-husband, and sits upon the eggs alternately with her, so that the
-hatching, whatever the building may be, is an equally divided labour.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><cite>Wordsworth’s Tribute of Praise.</cite></div>
-
-<p>Wordsworth sees in this bird an example of unobtrusive home affection.
-He says:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent4">“I heard a stock-dove sing or say</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">His homely tale this very day:</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">His voice was buried among the trees,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Yet to be come at by the breeze;</div>
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span></p>  </div>
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent4">He did not cease, but cooed and cooed,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">And somewhat pensively he wooed;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">He sung of love with quiet blending,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Slow to begin, and never ending;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">Of serious faith and inward glee;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent4">That was the song—the song for me.”</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>Wood-pigeons have immense appetites, and, being fond of all kinds of
-grain, as well as peas and beans, are looked upon by the farmer with
-great disfavour. They are, however, fond of some of those very weeds
-which are his greatest annoyance—for instance, charlock and wild
-mustard; so that they do him some good in return for the tribute which
-they take of his crops. They are fond, also, both of young clover and
-the young green leaves of the turnip, as well as of the turnip itself.
-Either by instinct or experience, they have learned that, feeding
-thus in cultivated fields, they are doing that which will bring down
-upon them the displeasure of man. “They keep,” says the intelligent
-author of “Wild Sports in the Highlands,” “when feeding in the fields,
-in the most open and exposed places, so as to allow no enemy to come
-near them. It is amusing to watch a large flock of these birds whilst
-searching the ground for grain. They walk in a compact body; and in
-order that all may fare alike—which is certainly a good trait in their
-character—the hindermost rank, every now and then, fly over the heads
-of their companions to the front, where they keep the best place for
-a minute or two, till those now in the rear take their place. They
-keep up this kind of fair play during the whole time of feeding. They
-feed, also, on wild fruit and all kinds of wild berries, such as the
-mountain-ash, and ivy; and where acorns abound, seem to prefer them to
-anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> else. At the same time, I must confess that they are great
-enemies to my cherry-trees, and swallow as many cherries as they can
-hold. Nor are strawberries safe from them, and the quantity of food
-they manage to stow away in their crops is perfectly astonishing.”</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Necessary Watchfulness.</em></div>
-
-<p>Besides man, the wood-pigeon has its own bird-enemies. “In districts
-where the hooded crow abounds,” says the author whom I have just
-quoted, “he is always on the look-out for its eggs, which, shining out
-white from the shallow, unsubstantial nest, are easily seen by him.
-The sparrow-hawk seizes the young when they are half-grown and plump;
-he having been carefully noticed watching the nest day by day as if
-waiting for the time when they should be fit for his eating. The larger
-hawks, however, prey upon the poor wood-pigeon himself.”</p>
-
-<p>With all his pleasant cooings in the wood, therefore, and all
-his complacent strutting about with elevated head and protruded
-breast—with all his gambols and graces, his striking the points of
-his wings together as he rises into the air, to express a pleasure to
-his mate beyond his cooing, he has not such a care free life of it. He
-is always kept on the alert, therefore, and, being always on the watch
-against danger, is not at all a sound sleeper. The least disturbance at
-night rouses him. “I have frequently,” continues our author, “attempted
-to approach the trees when the wood-pigeons were roosting, but even
-on the darkest nights they would take alarm. The poor wood-pigeon
-has no other defence against its enemies than its ever watchful and
-never sleeping timidity; not being able to do battle against even the
-smallest of its many persecutors.”</p>
-
-<p>Gilbert White says that the wood-pigeons were greatly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> decreasing, in
-his time, in Hampshire, and there were then only about a hundred in the
-woods at Selborne, but in former times the flocks had been so vast, not
-only there, but in the surrounding districts, that they had traversed
-the air morning and evening like rooks, reaching for a mile together,
-and that, when they thus came to rendezvous there by thousands, the
-sound of their wings, suddenly roused from their roosting-trees in an
-evening, rising all at once into the air, was like a sudden rolling of
-distant thunder.</p>
-
-<p>Although the wood-pigeon is considered to be the original parent of
-the tame pigeon, yet it does not seem possible to tame the young of
-this bird, though taken from the nest quite young. It is a bird which
-appears to hate confinement, and, as soon as it has the opportunity,
-spite of all kindness and attention, it flies away to the freedom of
-the woods.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-134"><img src="images/i-134.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="404" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE WHITE-THROAT.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">With</span> none of our migratory birds, our spring visitants from southern
-lands, is the lover of the country more familiar than with the
-White-throat, which, with its nest, is here so beautifully and livingly
-depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir.</p>
-
-<p>This bird, with its many names—White-throat, Peggy-white-throat,
-Peggy-chaw, Charlie-mufty, Nettle-creeper, Whishey-whey-beard or
-Pettichaps—comes to us in April, about the same time as the cuckoo and
-the swallow; the male bird, like his cousin the nightingale, coming
-before the female, but he does not make himself very conspicuous till
-the hedges and bushes are well covered with leaves; then he may be
-found in almost every lane and hedge the whole country over.</p>
-
-<p>As soon as the female is here, and the birds have paired, the business
-of nest-building begins, and they may then be seen flying in and out
-of the bushes with great alertness, the he-bird carolling his light
-and airy song, and often hurling himself, as it were, up into the air,
-some twenty or thirty feet, in a wild, tipsy sort of way, as if he
-were fuller of life than he could hold, and coming down again with a
-warble into the hedge, where the little hen-wife is already arranging
-her dwelling in the very spot probably where she was herself hatched,
-and her ancestors before her, for ages. For I must here remark that
-one of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> most remarkable properties of birds is, that facility by
-which they so regularly disperse themselves over the whole country on
-their arrival after their far migration, each one, in all probability,
-attracted by some attachment of the past, stopping short at, or
-proceeding onward to, the exact spot where he himself first came into
-the consciousness of life. This is one of the wonderful arrangements of
-nature, otherwise of God, by which the great balance is so beautifully
-kept in creation. If the migratory bird arrives ever so weary at Dover,
-and its true home be some sweet low-lying lane of Devonshire, a thick
-hedgerow of the midland counties, or a thickety glen of Westmoreland,
-it will not delay its flight nor be tempted to tarry short of that
-glen, hedgerow, or lane with which the experience of its own life and
-affection is united.</p>
-
-<p>At this charming time of the year none of the various performers in
-nature’s great concert bring back to those who have passed their youth
-in the country a more delicious recollection of vernal fields and lanes
-than this bird of ours, the little white-throat.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-137"><img src="images/i-137.jpg" alt="" width="470" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">WHITE-THROAT AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_98" title="Page 98">Page 98.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>Yes, along those hedges, fresh and fragrant with their young leaves,
-along those banks studded with primroses, campions, blue-bells and
-white starwort, and through the thick growth of the wild rose bushes,
-all of which have a beauty especially their own, the white-throat
-salutes you as you pass, as if to recognise an old acquaintance. He
-is brimful of fun; out he starts and performs his series of eccentric
-frolics in the air, accompanied by his mad-cap sort of warble; or,
-almost as if laughing at you, he repeats from the interior of the
-bushes his deep grave note, <em>chaw! chaw!</em> whence comes the name
-of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>peggy-chaw. This, however, is to tell you—and to those who
-understand bird-language it is intelligible enough—that he has now a
-family to attend to, and he begs, very respectfully, that you will not
-trouble yourself about it.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Description of the Bird.</em></div>
-
-<p>A Scotch naturalist says that “the peasant boys in East Lothian imagine
-that the bird is mocking or laughing at them, as it tumbles over the
-hedge and bushes in the lane, and, therefore, they persecute it at all
-times, even more mercilessly than they do sparrows.”</p>
-
-<p>The white-throat is an excitable little bird, rapid in all its
-movements; and though it will apparently allow a person to come near,
-it incessantly flits on, gets to the other side of the hedge, warbles
-its quaint little song, flies to a short distance, sings again, and so
-on, for a long time, returning in the same way. It erects the feathers
-of its head when excited, and swells its throat so much when singing,
-that the feathers stand out like a ruff, whence it has obtained the
-name of <em>Muffety</em>, or Charlie-mufty, in Scotland.</p>
-
-<p>Its colour, on the upper parts of the body, is reddish-brown,
-brownish-white below, with a purely white throat. Its food is
-principally insects and larvæ of various kinds, for which it is always
-on the search amongst the thick undergrowth of the plants and bushes
-where it builds. One of its many names is Nettle-creeper, from this
-plant growing so generally in the localities which it haunts.</p>
-
-<p>Its nest—one of the most light and elegant of these little abodes—may
-truly be called “gauze-like,” for being constructed wholly of fine
-grasses, and very much of the brittle stems of the Galnim aparine, or
-cleavers, which, though slender, are not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> pliant, and bend only with an
-angle; they prevent the whole fabric from being closely woven, so that
-it maintains a gauzy texture; the inside, however, is put together more
-closely of finer and more pliant materials, delicate root-filaments,
-and various kinds of hair. The eggs, four or five in number, are of a
-greenish-gray colour, often with a tawny hue, blotched and spotted over
-with dark tints of the same colour.</p>
-
-<p>A correspondent of the author of “British Birds” says that, one morning
-in June, when walking in his shrubbery within about eighty yards of a
-White-throat’s nest, which he was taking great interest in, he found a
-portion of the shell of one of the eggs of this bird, and, fearing that
-a magpie had been plundering it, hastened to the spot, but found to his
-satisfaction that the nest was then full of newly-hatched birds. “The
-shell had,” he says, “been instinctively taken away by the mother in
-order to prevent the discovery of the place of her retreat.” He adds
-that the mother-bird was very shy, and usually dropped from her nest
-with the most astonishing rapidity, and, treading her way through the
-grasses and other entanglements, disappeared in a moment. The young,
-too, seemed greatly to dislike observation, and on his taking one into
-his hand to examine it, it uttered a cry, no doubt of alarm, on which
-all the other little things leapt out of their abode, although not more
-than half-fledged, and hopped amongst the grass. It is a singular fact
-that almost every kind of young bird, if they be caused to leave their
-nest through alarm, or by being handled, can never be induced to stay
-in the nest again, though they may be put back into it time after time.</p>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE BULL-FINCH.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">This</span> bird, which is common to all parts of the country, is very shy,
-and for the greater part of the year haunts the woods and thickets.
-In spring, however, its fondness for tender fruit-buds tempts it into
-gardens and orchards, where, being considered an enemy, it is destroyed
-without mercy. It is a question, however, whether it devours these
-young buds as favourite food, or whether it may not be the equally
-distinctive grub or insect which is the temptation; and thus, that
-it ought rather to be regarded as the friend than the enemy of the
-gardener and fruit-grower. At all events, the general opinion is
-against the poor bull-finch. He is declared to be a devourer of the
-embryo fruit, and no mercy is shown to him. The Rev. J. G. Wood, always
-a merciful judge where birds are concerned, thinks that public opinion
-is unfairly against him. He says that a gooseberry tree, from which it
-was supposed that the bull-finches had picked away every blossom-bud,
-yet bore the same year an abundant crop of fruit, which certainly
-proved that they had picked away only the already infected buds, and so
-left the tree in an additionally healthy state, doubly able to mature
-and perfect its fruit.</p>
-
-<p>Bull-finches seldom associate with other birds, but keep together in
-small flocks as of single families. Its flight, though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> quick, is
-somewhat undulating or wavering; and in the winter it may sometimes
-be seen in large numbers flitting along the roadsides and hedges,
-being probably forced out of some of its shyness by the stress of
-hunger. Its ordinary note is a soft and plaintive whistle; its song,
-short and mellow. It is, in its native state, no way distinguished as
-a singing-bird, but at the same time it is possessed of a remarkable
-faculty for learning tunes artificially, of which I may have more to
-say presently.</p>
-
-<p>The bull-finch begins to build about the beginning of May. She places
-her nest, as we see in our illustration, in a bush, frequently a
-hawthorn, at no great distance from the ground. The nest is not very
-solidly put together; the foundation, so to speak, being composed of
-small dry twigs, then finished off with fibrous roots and moss, which
-also form the lining. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a dull
-bluish-white, marked at the larger end with dark spots.</p>
-
-<p>Although there is so little to say about the bull-finch in his natural
-state—excepting that he is a handsome bird, with bright black eyes,
-a sort of rich black hood on his head; his back, ash-grey; his breast
-and underparts, red; wings and tail, black, with the upper tail-coverts
-white—yet when he has gone through his musical education, he is not
-only one of the most accomplished of song-birds, but one of the most
-loving and faithfully attached little creatures that can come under
-human care. These trained birds are known as piping bull-finches.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-143"><img src="images/i-143.jpg" alt="" width="482" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_102" title="Page 102">Page 102.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>How it is taught to pipe.</em></div>
-
-<p>Bishop Stanley, in his “History of Birds,” thus describes the method by
-which they are taught:—</p>
-
-<p>“In the month of June, the young ones, which are taken from the nest
-for that purpose, are brought up by a person, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>who, by care and
-attention, so completely tames them that they become perfectly docile
-and obedient. At the expiration of about a couple of months, they first
-begin to whistle, from which time their education begins, and no school
-can be more diligently superintended by its master, and no scholars
-more effectually trained to their own calling, than a seminary of
-bull-finches. They are formed first into classes of about six in each,
-and, after having been kept a longer time than usual without food, and
-confined to a dark room, the tune they are to learn is played over
-and over again, on a little instrument called a bird-organ, the notes
-of which resemble, as nearly as possible, those of the bull-finch;
-sometimes, also, a flageolet is used for this purpose, and birds so
-taught are said to have the finer notes. For awhile the little moping
-creatures will sit in silence, not knowing what all this can mean; but
-after awhile one by one will begin to imitate the notes they hear, for
-they have great power of imitation as well as remarkably good memories.
-As soon as they have said their lesson all round, light is admitted
-into the room, and they are fed.</p>
-
-<p>“By degrees the sound of the musical instrument—be it flageolet or
-bird-organ—and the circumstance of being fed, become so associated in
-the mind of the hungry bird, that it is sure to begin piping the tune
-as soon as it hears it begin to play. When the little scholars have
-advanced so far they are put into a higher class, that is to say, are
-turned over each to his private tutor; in other words, each bird is put
-under the care of a boy who must carry on its education, and who plays
-on the little instrument from morning to night, or as long as the bird
-can pay attention, during which time the head-master<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> or feeder goes
-his regular rounds, scolding or rewarding the little feathered scholars
-by signs and modes of making them understand, till they have learned
-their lessons so perfectly, and the tune is so impressed on their
-memories, that they will pipe it to the end of their days; and let us
-hope, as I believe is the fact, that they find in it a never-ending
-delight.</p>
-
-<p>“Just as in human schools and colleges, it is only the few out of the
-great number who take the highest honours or degrees, or become senior
-wranglers, so it is not above five birds in every hundred who can
-attain to the highest perfection in their art! but all such are valued
-at a very high price.”</p>
-
-<p>It is allowable to hope that the poor bull-finch, which has thus
-industriously applied himself to learn, and has thus become
-artificially gifted with the power of pleasing, takes great
-satisfaction in his accomplishment. Perhaps also the association with
-his human teacher calls forth his affection as well as his power of
-song, for it is a fact that the piping bull-finch is, of all birds,
-given to attach itself to some one individual of the family where it
-is kept, expressing, at their approach, the most vehement delight,
-greeting them with its piping melody, hopping towards them, and
-practising all its little winning ways to show its love, and to court a
-return of caresses.</p>
-
-<p>“An interesting story,” says the bishop, “was told by Sir William
-Parsons, who was himself a great musician, and who, when a young man,
-possessed a piping bull-finch, which he had taught to sing, ‘God save
-the king.’ On his once going abroad, he gave his favourite in charge
-to his sister, with a strict injunction to take the greatest care of
-it. On his return, one of his first visits was to her, when she told
-him that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> poor little bird had been long in declining health, and
-was, at that moment, very ill. Sir William, full of sorrow, went into
-the room where the cage was, and, opening the door, put in his hand,
-and spoke to the bird. The poor little creature recognised his voice,
-opened his eyes, shook his feathers, staggered on to his finger, piped
-‘God save the king,’ and fell down dead.”</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Devoted Affection of Birds.</em></div>
-
-<p>We see in the piping bull-finch—a bird which in its education is
-closely associated with man—the deep and devoted affection of which
-it is capable; and if we could only live with the animal creation as
-their friends and benefactors, we should no longer be surprised by such
-instances of their intelligence and love.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-147"><img src="images/i-147.jpg" alt="a nest among the leaves" width="403" height="450" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE MISSEL-THRUSH.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">This</span> is the largest of our British song birds. It remains with us
-through the whole year, not being migratory, excepting in so far as it
-moves off in considerable flocks into Herefordshire and Monmouthshire
-for the sake of the mistletoe which abounds in the orchards there,
-on the viscous berries of which it delights to feed, and whence it
-has obtained its familiar name of missel, or mistletoe thrush. It is
-generally believed that this curious parasitic plant was propagated or
-planted upon the branches of trees, by this bird rubbing its bill upon
-the rough bark to clean it from the sticky substance of the berry, and
-thus introducing the seeds into the interstices of the bark.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-149"><img src="images/i-149.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_106" title="Page 106">Page 106.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The Missel-thrush is a handsome bird; the head, back, and upper coverts
-of the wings olive-brown, the latter tipped with brownish-white,
-spotted with brown; the breasts and under parts pale yellow, covered
-with black spots; the legs are yellow and the claws black.</p>
-
-<p>It is a welcome bird, being the earliest harbinger of spring, the first
-singer of the year. Long before the swallow is thought of, before even
-the hardy familiar robin has begun his song, its clear rich voice
-may be heard on Christmas or New Year’s day, often amidst wild winds
-and winterly storms, whence its also familiar name, the storm-cock.
-It is known by different names <span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>in different parts of the country.
-The origin of its more general appellation—the missel-thrush—I have
-already mentioned. In the midland counties it is called the thrice
-cock, but why I know not. In Wales it is known as <em>Pen-y-llwyn</em>,
-which means the head or master of the coppice. Why it is so called I
-will mention presently.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>A Description of the Nest.</em></div>
-
-<p>The nest of the missel-thrush is large and well constructed, being
-made of almost every material ordinarily used for nest-making
-purposes—moss, and hay, and straw, and dry leaves, and little twigs,
-and locks of wool, with occasional odds and ends of every possible
-kind. All these are woven and wrought together very compactly; not,
-however, without loose straws and little tangles of wool hanging about.
-Within is a smooth casing of mud, as in the nest of the throstle, and
-within that a second coating of dry grass. Our picture represents all
-as being now complete. The busy labours of the year are now over; the
-eggs, four or five in number, of a greenish-blue, marked with reddish
-spots, are laid, and the mother-bird has taken her patient seat upon
-them, whilst her mate, from the branch above, sings as if he never
-meant to leave off again.</p>
-
-<p>The song of this bird is loud, clear, and melodious—a cheering,
-hopeful song; and when heard amidst the yet prevailing winter-storms,
-as if in anticipation of better times, it well deserves our admiration.
-It resembles, to a certain degree, the song of the blackbird and the
-thrush, and is often mistaken for them; but it has not the short,
-quick, and varied notes of the one, nor the sober, prolonged, and
-eloquent melody of the other. On the contrary it is of an eager,
-hurrying character,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> as if it could not sufficiently express its
-emotion, and yet was trying to do so.</p>
-
-<p>The missel-thrush is a bird of very marked character, and is both bold
-and chivalrous. Its harsh, jarring note of anger and defiance is the
-first to be heard when a bird-enemy is at hand. If a cuckoo or hawk is
-anywhere near meditating mischief, the missel-thrush is vehement in his
-expression of displeasure. In our own neighbourhood, where the jays in
-summer come from the wood to carry the young of the sparrows from their
-nests in the ivied boles of the trees round our garden, the outcry of
-the parent sparrows instantly arouses the sympathetic missel-thrushes,
-who, with a scolding defiance, rush to the rescue. Of course these
-birds, which are of so militant a character, and so loud in protesting
-against a wrong done to another, will be equally alive to their own
-rights, and active in defending their own nests and young. Some
-naturalists have suggested that this combatant temper and extraordinary
-courage are but the natural consequence of the bird finding its nest
-open to common attack; for, being of a large size, and built early in
-the year whilst the trees are yet leafless, it is visible to every
-enemy and depredator.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Thompson says: “Often have I seen a pair of these birds driving off
-magpies, and occasionally fighting against four of them. One pair which
-I knew attacked a kestrel which appeared in their neighbourhood when
-the young were out. One of them struck the hawk several times, and made
-as many more fruitless attempts, as the enemy, by suddenly rising in
-the air, escaped the cunning blow. They then followed the kestrel for a
-long way, until they were lost to our sight in the distance.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p>
-
-<p>The old Welsh name of “master, or head of the coppice,” refers to the
-same warlike spirit. “The missel-thrush,” says Gilbert White, “suffers
-no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and
-is, for the time, a good guardian of the new-sown crops. In general, he
-is very successful in defence of his family. Once, however, I observed
-in my garden that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of
-the missel-thrush. The parent-birds defended their mansion with great
-vigour, and fought resolutely. But numbers at last prevailed, and the
-poor missel-thrushes had the pain of seeing their nest torn to pieces,
-and their young carried off.”</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>The Gardeners’ Enemy.</em></div>
-
-<p>The missel-thrushes, however, as the year goes on, make for themselves
-enemies even more formidable than hawks or magpies; these are the
-gardeners. Towards the end of summer, when the young have flown,
-and they and the parent-birds congregate in large flocks, having
-then nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, like human families when
-children are all home for the holidays, they too go abroad on their
-excursions of pleasure; not, however, to sea-side watering places, but
-into gardens where the cherries and raspberries are ripe. Poor birds!
-Little aware of their danger, or if they be so, defiant of it in the
-greatness of the temptation, they make sad havoc amongst the fruit,
-and many unfortunates are shot or snared, and then hung up amidst the
-cherry-boughs or the raspberry-canes as a terror to their associates.
-It is a pity we cannot make them welcome to some and yet have enough
-left for ourselves.</p>
-
-<p>The berries of the mountain-ash and the arbutus, and later<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> on in the
-year those of the holly and ivy, supply them with food, as do also
-in the spring and summer insects of various kinds—caterpillars and
-spiders—so that in this respect they are good friends to the gardener,
-and might, one thinks, be made welcome to a little fruit in return.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-154"><img src="images/i-154.jpg" alt="nest in a tree" width="389" height="450" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">This</span>, though an extremely pretty bird, is so common that very
-little notice is taken of it. Its colours are varied and beautiful:
-the back and wings, bright red; the central part of each feather,
-brownish-black; the head and throat, bright yellow; the feathers of the
-upper part tipped with black; the breast, brownish-red. The colours of
-the female are much duller.</p>
-
-<p>The yellow-hammer resembles linnets, finches, and sparrows in character
-and habits, and often associates with them, resorting to the fields in
-open weather, and often perching in hedges and bushes as well as in
-trees. In the winter, when the weather is severe, it congregates, with
-other birds, about houses, farm-buildings, and stack-yards.</p>
-
-<p>One of the most pleasing features of autumn is, to my mind, these
-flocks of kindred birds, which are at that time all abroad and yet
-together, circling in their flight, all rising as you approach, and
-wheeling away into the stubble-field, or into the distant hedges, now
-rich with their wild fruits—the blackberry, the wild rose hip, and the
-bunches of black-privet berries—and then away again, as you approach,
-with their variously modulated notes, through the clear air into the
-yet more distant stubble or bean-field.</p>
-
-<p>The flight of the yellow-hammer is wavy and graceful, and,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> alighting
-abruptly, he has a curious way of jerking out his tail feathers like
-a little fan. All at once a whole flock of them will descend from a
-considerable height and settle on the twigs of a tree, clothing it as
-with living leaves. Whatever number the flock may consist of, there
-is no impatient hurry or jostling among them to get the best perch,
-every individual settling as if on its own appointed place. As I have
-already observed, nothing is more charming at this season than these
-congregated companies of small birds. All the cares of life are now
-over, their young broods are around them, and now, with nothing to
-do but to enjoy themselves in the freedom of nature, where—on every
-hand, on every bush and tree, and in every outlying field—though the
-crops are now carried, all except, perhaps, here and there a solitary
-field in which the bean-shocks stand up black in the golden autumnal
-sunshine; but here, and there, and everywhere, a full table is spread,
-and they are welcome to enjoy.</p>
-
-<p>In spring and summer, the yellow-hammer sings a peculiar but
-mournful sort of little ditty, composed of a few short, sonorous
-notes, concluding with one long drawn out. In the midland
-counties, where stocking-weaving is the business of the people,
-the note of the bird is said to resemble the working of the
-machine—ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-e-e-chay—the prolonged latter syllable being
-what the stockinger calls, in the machine movement, “pressing over the
-arch.” In other parts of the country this bird’s song is interpreted as
-“A little bit of bread, and—no-cheese!” which may just as well be “A
-little bird am I, and—no thief!”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-157"><img src="images/i-157.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">YELLOW-HAMMER AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_112" title="Page 112">Page 112.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The food of this bird consists of the seeds of all kinds of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>grasses,
-chickweeds, polygonums, and other such weeds; also, in summer, when
-food is needed for the young, insects and larvæ.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Picturesque Nest.</em></div>
-
-<p>The winter congregations break up in April, and then the yellow-hammer
-begins to think of family joys and cares. But, unlike their relations
-the sparrows and finches, the he-birds take everything quietly, without
-having their little skirmishes to show their spirit and prowess, like
-the knights of old, at the tournament, before the admiring ladies. The
-yellow-hammer does everything quietly, choosing his mate in an orderly
-way; and now that the buds are swelling on the trees, the primroses
-gemming the hedge-banks, and the golden catkins hanging on the willows
-by the watersides, hither come the little yellow-hammers, and, having
-selected some sweet, hidden spot, under a bush, or on the fieldy banks
-amongst the thick herbage—we see it a month later in our picture,
-when the buds have expanded into leaves, in a wild growth of beautiful
-grasses and herbage—begin to make their nest. How picturesque it is!
-William Hunt never painted anything more beautiful. The nest itself
-is somewhat large, and of simple construction, woven externally of
-coarse bents and small pliant twigs, and lined with hair and wool. Here
-the hen lays four or five eggs of a purplish white, marked with dark,
-irregular streaks, often resembling musical notes.</p>
-
-<p>These poor little birds are extremely attached to their home and their
-young, so much so, that if these be taken by the pitiless bird-nester,
-they will continue for some days about the place uttering the most
-melancholy plaint, which, though still to the same old tune as the song
-of their spring rejoicing, has now the expression of the deepest woe.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p>
-
-<p>The author of “British Birds” thus sums up their various characteristic
-actions:—“When perched on a tree, especially in windy weather, they
-crouch close to the twigs, draw in their necks, and keep their tails
-declined. After pairing, the male is generally seen on a bush or tree,
-raising his tail by sudden jerks, and slightly expanding it. His notes
-are then usually two chirps, followed by a harsher note—cit, chit,
-chirr—with considerable intervals. When feeding in the stubble-fields,
-they advance by very short leaps, with their breasts nearly touching
-the ground; when apprehensive of danger they crouch motionless, and
-when alarmed give information to each other by means of their ordinary
-short note.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-160"><img src="images/i-160.jpg" alt="nest of eggs" width="440" height="450" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE MAGPIE.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">You</span> have here a living portrait of the Magpie, sitting, so to speak, on
-his own door-sill, and contemplating it with rather a sentimental air,
-perhaps rather with tender admiration; and as to his dwelling, it is,
-we must confess, a wonderful structure—a half-timbered edifice, so to
-speak, walled-round and roofed-in, with its front-door and all complete.</p>
-
-<p>The magpie is one of our most beautiful as well as most amusing and
-characteristic birds. He is cousin to the jackdaw, and has, like him,
-odd ways of his own. In all countries where he is found, he is just the
-same. An old Greek poet, who lived two thousand years ago, speaks of
-him as a great mimic, and such an inordinate talker, that, in his own
-satirical humour, he pretends to believe that magpies were originally a
-family of young ladies, in Macedonia, who were noted for the volubility
-of their tongues. Handsome he is, as well as talkative, and very droll
-and mischievous.</p>
-
-<p>Being such, we need not wonder that his nest is very original. He likes
-to place it in a secure angle of branches, on some lofty tree, as we
-see it here, fifty feet or so from the ground; and prefers to have it
-on a tree bare of branches to a considerable height, knowing that it
-is then more inaccessible. He is wise in all this, for its bulk being
-so large it is discernible to a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> distance. As magpies, however,
-are found almost everywhere, and in some parts of the country, the
-north of Scotland for instance, where there are no trees, the poor
-magpie is then obliged to build in a bush, and do the best he can. In
-such a case, in Norway, he was known to barricade his nest with thorny
-branches, brought thither by himself for that purpose, till it was next
-to impossible for the domicile to be invaded. A cat could not get to
-it, and a man only with hedging-mittens on his hands, and by help of a
-bill-hook.</p>
-
-<p>Like the rook, the magpie inhabits the same nest for several years,
-perhaps for the whole of his life, putting it into repair every year
-before he again needs it for family use—like a wealthy country family
-taking possession of their ancestral mansion in the spring.</p>
-
-<p>And now, turning to our picture, we find our magpie in excellent
-circumstances. Every thing has gone well with him. Here he is, and I
-will have the pleasure of giving you a bit of every-day magpie life,
-as sketched by that true pen-and-ink artist, the author of “British
-Birds.” Our scene opens a few minutes before the time indicated in our
-picture:—</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-163"><img src="images/i-163.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">MAGPIE AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_116" title="Page 116">Page 116.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>A Search for Food.</em></div>
-
-<p>“There, on the old ash-tree, you may see a pair, one perched on the
-topmost twig, the other hopping on the branches below, keeping up an
-incessant chatter. How gracefully she, on the topmost twig, swings in
-the breeze! Off she starts, and directs her flight to the fir-woods
-opposite, chattering all the way, seemingly to call her mate after her.
-But he prefers remaining behind. He is in a brown study, or something
-of that kind, as we can plainly see. Now, having spied something
-below, he hops downwards from twig to branch, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>descends to the
-ground. His ash-tree, you must understand, grows close to, and in part
-overshadows, a farmyard; so now he is on ground which, as is customary
-in such places, is not over clean; therefore, lifting up his tail to
-prevent it being soiled or wet, as the farmer’s wife might hold up her
-Sunday gown, and raising his body as high as possible, he walks a few
-paces, and, spying an earth-worm half out of his hole, drags it forth
-by a sudden jerk, breaks it in pieces, and swallows it. Now, under the
-hedge, he has found a snail, which he will presently pick out of its
-shell, as an old woman would a periwinkle. But now something among the
-bushes has startled him, and he springs lightly upwards, chattering
-the while, to regain his favourite tree. It is a cat, which, not less
-frightened than himself, for both are intent on mischief, runs off
-towards the barn. The magpie again descends, steps slowly over the
-grassy margin of the yard, looking from side to side, stops, listens,
-advances rapidly by a succession of leaps, and encounters a whole brood
-of chickens, with their mother at their heels. If she had not been
-there he would have had a delicious feast of one of those chickens;
-but he dare not think of such a thing now, for, with fury in her eye,
-bristled plumage, and loud clamour, the hen rushes forward at him,
-overturning two of her younglings, and the enemy, suddenly wheeling
-round to avoid the encounter, flies off to his mate.</p>
-
-<p>“There again you perceive them in the meadow, as they walk about with
-their elevated tails, looking for something eatable. By the hedge, afar
-off, are two boys, with a gun, endeavouring to creep up to a flock of
-plovers on the other side. But the magpies see them, for there are not
-many things which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> escape their sharp eyes, and presently rising, they
-fly directly over the field, chattering vehemently, and the flock of
-plovers on this take wing, and the disappointed young sportsmen sheer
-off in another direction.”</p>
-
-<p>Magpies always make a great chattering when they are disturbed, or
-when they apprehend that danger is near. Waterton says that they
-are vociferous at the approach of night, and that they are in truth
-valuable watchmen on that account. “Whoever enters the wood,” he
-says, “is sure to attract their notice, and then their challenge is
-incessant. When I hear them during the night, or even during the
-day, I know that mischief is on the stir. Three years ago, at eleven
-o’clock in the day, I was at the capture of one of the most expert
-and desperate poachers, to whose hiding-place we were directed by the
-chatter of the magpies.”</p>
-
-<p>The poor magpie has many enemies, and, knowing this, is always on the
-watch, and easily alarmed.</p>
-
-<p>Its mode of walking is like that of the rook, but not having any
-dignity to maintain, it every now and then leaps in a sidelong
-direction. When alarmed itself, or wishing to announce danger to other
-birds, it utters a sort of chuckling cry or chatter. If a fox or cat,
-or any other unfriendly animal, approaches, it hovers about it, and
-alarms the whole neighbourhood by its cries till the enemy is out of
-sight.</p>
-
-<p>Like the jackdaw, it generally keeps in pairs the whole year round;
-and, indeed, when birds continue to inhabit the same nest, season after
-season, it is quite natural that they should do so. It is a curious
-fact, however, that if by any accident the hen-magpie is killed, whilst
-sitting on her eggs, her mate sets<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> off at once and brings home another
-wife, who takes to the nest and eggs, just as if she had laid them; and
-if by another mischance she too should come to an untimely end, the
-widower again goes off, and, without any loss of time, brings back a
-third wife, and she takes to her duties quite as naturally and lovingly
-as the other did; but where all these surplus mothers come from is a
-question which no naturalist has yet answered, and the magpie, with all
-his chattering, is not clever enough to explain the wonder.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Beautiful Plumage.</em></div>
-
-<p>The beauty of this bird’s plumage is familiar to all; and although it
-is simply black and white, yet the exquisitely-coloured gloss of green,
-blue, and purple, with their varying and intermingling tints, produce
-such a charming effect that one cannot sufficiently admire them.</p>
-
-<p>With the external structure of the magpie’s nest we are acquainted: the
-lower part, inside, is neatly plastered with mud, “and is furnished,”
-says Bewick, “with a sort of mattress, formed of wool or fibrous roots,
-on which from three to six eggs are laid.” The eggs frequently vary,
-both in size and colour; sometimes they are of a pale green, freckled
-over with amber-brown and light purple; sometimes pale blue, with
-smaller spots of the same dark colours.</p>
-
-<p>The nest is, so to speak, a sort of little domed chamber, of a good
-size for its purpose; but then comes the question—What does the magpie
-do with her long tail as she sits on her eggs? It would certainly
-poke a hole through the wall if left to its full extent; she must,
-therefore, lift it up, as she does when walking amongst the wet grass,
-and sit with it laid flat against the wall, which probably is not
-inconvenient to her.</p>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
-
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="center">THE NUTHATCH.</p>
-
-
-<p><span class="smcap">This</span> bird is almost an entire stranger to most people. It belongs to
-the rather large family of creepers; birds which, like the woodpecker
-and the little golden-crested wren, run up the holes and branches of
-trees in search of food. The nuthatch, however, has an advantage over
-all its other creeping relatives, by being gifted with the power of
-coming down the tree head foremost, which none of them have. It can
-also sleep with its head downwards; neither in its rapid ascent has it
-occasion to press its tail against the tree for help; so that it is the
-most accomplished little acrobat of the whole race of creepers.</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-169"><img src="images/i-169.jpg" alt="" width="482" height="650" /></a>
-<p class="caption center">NUTHATCH AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_120" title="Page 120">Page 120.</a></p>
-</div>
-
-<p>The nuthatch cannot be called a rare bird, and yet it is not often
-seen, being of a shy and retiring disposition, though naturally lively
-and active. The plumage is very pleasing in colour; the upper parts
-of the body are bluish-grey; a black line passes from the corners of
-the mouth to the back of the neck; the breast and under parts light
-reddish-yellow, and the sides reddish-brown.</p>
-
-<p>It delights in woods and trees; nor need it be looked for elsewhere,
-as it derives its food entirely amongst them, either of insects and
-larvæ, hidden in the bark, or of fruits and nuts, as kernels of
-fir-cones, beech, and other nuts, the shells of which it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>breaks in
-a very ingenious manner, as I shall presently describe. Now and then
-it alights on the ground, and then advances by short leaps. It has no
-song; but in winter, when living in small companies, perhaps the whole
-summer-family associating together, it has a little piping note, which,
-however, is supposed to be simply the call to each other. It is said to
-be sensitive to the cold, and always feeds on the side of the wood or
-of the tree which is defended from the wind. In spring, however, when
-all nature is renovated with a quicker pulse of life—for, as Tennyson
-says:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-  <div class="stanza">
-    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove—</div>
-  </div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>then, also, the silent nuthatch sends forth through the awakening
-solitude of the woods his two little notes, one short and twittering,
-the other a low, mellow, flute-like whistle, which is so clear that it
-may be heard to a considerable distance.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Favourite Food.</em></div>
-
-<p>The graphic author of the “British Birds” says, “It is, at all times,
-a busy and cheerful bird, particularly at nesting-time. Its favourite
-food is nuts of any kind. It builds and roosts in hollow trees, and
-is seldom seen in the open fields, unless when in quest of the stones
-of the white-thorn or sloe. It may, therefore, be properly called a
-forester. Its dexterity in opening nuts and the stones of fruit is
-curious. It fixes the nut in a crack, on the top of a post, or in the
-bark of a tree, and, placing itself above it, head downwards, striking
-with great force and rapidity, with its strong, wedge-shaped bill on
-the edge of the shell, splits it open. When their food is plentiful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>
-they have a favourite crack for unshelling the kernels, as sometimes a
-peck of broken shells may be seen under this crack.”</p>
-
-<p>The Rev. W. T. Bree tells us that “the tapping of the bird on the hard
-shell may be heard at a considerable distance, and that during the
-operation it sometimes happens that the nut swerves from its fixture
-and falls towards the ground. It has not descended, however, for the
-space of more than a few yards, when the nuthatch, with admirable
-adroitness, recovers it in the fall, and, replacing it in its former
-position, commences the attack afresh. The fall of the nut in the air,
-and the recovery by the bird on the wing, I have seen repeated several
-times in the space of a few minutes.”</p>
-
-<p>This is a little act of skill in the bird which it would be charming to
-observe; and here again I would remark, as I have so often done before,
-that this is but a single instance of what many of us, living in the
-country, might witness in some woodland nook near at hand, if we would
-only be lovingly still and patient, and interest ourselves in the ways
-and means of the innocent animal-life around us.</p>
-
-<p>The nest of the bird also deserves our notice; and let me here call
-your attention to the beautiful and living little portrait of the bird
-at home, given us by Mr. Harrison Weir, than which we have nothing more
-truthful from his pencil. The home of the nuthatch is nothing more, to
-begin with, than the hole in an old tree, which, probably, has been
-deserted by the woodpecker. As, however, the woodpecker either requires
-a more enlarged entrance to her nursery, or considers it more seemly,
-the nuthatch, who merely likes a snug little hole to creep in at, and
-nothing more, walls up the opening with a plastering of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> clay or mud,
-leaving only just room enough for herself to enter. Perhaps she may be
-afraid of the old tenants returning and again taking possession, so
-builds up a little defence in front; but of that I cannot say; certain
-it is she makes herself comfortably at home in rather an untidy nest,
-composed mostly of dead oak-leaves, and here she lays six or seven
-white eggs, with ruddy spots on them.</p>
-
-<div class="sidenote"><em>Her Defence of her Young.</em></div>
-
-<p>If the plaster wall be by any chance removed, the poor bird loses not
-a moment in replacing it; and though she has apparently great dread
-of any enemy—the woodpecker, snake, man, or whatever else he may be,
-disturbing her—yet so faithfully devoted is she to her duties, that
-scarcely anything will induce her to leave the eggs or young. She
-fights vigorously in defence of her home and its treasures, striking
-out with her bill and wings, and making a hissing, angry noise. Nay,
-timid and shy as she naturally is, she will suffer herself to be
-carried off captive rather than desert her charge.</p>
-
-<p>Let me conclude with one of Bechstein’s anecdotes of the nuthatch:—</p>
-
-<p>“A lady amused herself in the winter by throwing seeds on the terrace,
-below the window, to feed the birds in the neighbourhood. She put some
-hemp-seed and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, for
-her particular favourites, the blue-tits. Two nuthatches came one day
-to have their share of this repast, and were so well pleased that they
-became quite familiar, and did not even go away in the following spring
-to get their natural food and to build their nest in the wood. They
-settled themselves in the hollow of an old tree near the house.</p>
-
-<p>“As soon as the two young ones which were reared here were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> ready to
-fly, they brought them to the hospitable window, where they were to be
-nourished, and soon after disappeared entirely. It was amusing to see
-these two new visitors hang or climb on the walls or blinds, whilst
-their benefactress put their food on the board. These pretty creatures
-as well as the tits, knew her so well, that when she drove away the
-sparrows, which came to steal what was not intended for them, they did
-not fly away also, but seemed to know what was done was only to protect
-and defend them. They remained near the house for the whole summer,
-rarely wandering, till one fatal day, at the beginning of the sporting
-season, in autumn, on hearing the report of a gun, they disappeared and
-were never seen again.”</p>
-
-<div class="figcenter">
-<a id="image-174"><img src="images/i-174.jpg" alt="" width="313" height="350" /></a>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" />
-
-<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Watson &amp; Hazell</span>, Printers, 28, Charles Street, Hatton Garden.</p>
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+</head>
+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68416 ***</div>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
+
+<p>Hyphenation has been standardised.</p>
+
+<p>For the CONTENTS on <a href="#Page_v" title="">Page v</a>, Chapter IX—Peewits  51 was missed from print
+in the original, and has been added.</p>
+
+<p>The layout of the Contents continuation page on <a href="#Page_vi" title="">Page vi</a>, has been
+changed to replicate the layout of the previous Contents page.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href="#Page_41" title="">Page 41</a>&#8212;changed cemetries to <b>cemeteries</b>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href="#Page_55" title="">Page 55</a>&#8212;changed artifical to <b>artificial</b>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_cover"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" width="1986" height="2560" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p class="space-above4"></p>
+
+<h1>BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.</h1>
+
+<p class="space-above4"></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_frontis"><img src="images/i-frontis.jpg" alt="" width="486" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">ROBIN AND NEST.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="space-above4"></p>
+
+<div class="title-page">
+<p class="p140">    BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS,</p>
+
+<p class="center">    BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">    MARY HOWITT.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_title"><img src="images/i-title.jpg" alt="" width="327" height="300" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">    <em>With Twenty-three Full-page Illustrations by Harrison Weir.</em></p>
+
+<p class="space-above2"></p>
+
+<p class="p80">NEW YORK:</p>
+<p class="p80">GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, 416, BROOME STREET.</p>
+<p class="p80"><span class="smcap">London: S. W. Partridge &amp; Co., 9, Paternoster Row.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">    <em>All rights reserved.</em></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="space-above2"></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_004"><img src="images/i-004.jpg" alt="" width="366" height="200" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">WATSON AND HAZELL,<br />
+<em>Printers</em>,<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">London and Aylesbury</span>.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_005"><img src="images/i-005.jpg" alt="" width="405" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+<table>
+<tr>
+    <td>&#160;</td>
+    <td>&#160;</td>
+    <td>&#160;</td>
+    <td class="right"><span class="smcap">PAGE</span></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="cont1" colspan="2">Introductory Chapter</td>
+  <td class="cont3">&#160;</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#INTRODUCTORY_CHAPTER" title="Page 1">1</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="cont1a"><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span></td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="1">I.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE WREN</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_8" title="Page 8">8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="2">II.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE GOLDFINCH</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15" title="Page 15">15</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="3">III.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE SONG THRUSH</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20" title="Page 20">20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE BLACKBIRD</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26" title="Page 26">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="5">V.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33" title="Page 33">33</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+    <td class="chn">” </td>
+    <td class="cont2"><abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> </td>
+    <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE NIGHTINGALE</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE SKYLARK</span> </td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42" title="Page 42">42</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE LINNET</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47" title="Page 47">47</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE PEEWIT</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51" title="Page 51">51</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="10">X.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">HOUSE-MARTINS, OR WINDOW-SWALLOWS, AND NESTS</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56" title="Page 56">56</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">CHIFF-CHAFFS, OR OVEN-BUILDERS, AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_66" title="Page 66">66</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70" title="Page 70">70</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WAGTAIL AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75" title="Page 75">76</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">JACKDAW AND NESTLINGS</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81" title="Page 81">82</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_86" title="Page 86">86</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_91" title="Page 91">92</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="17">XVII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WHITE-THROAT AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_97" title="Page 97">98</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101" title="Page 101">102</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="19">XIX.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_106" title="Page106">106</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="206">XX.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD, AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_111" title="Page 111">112</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="21">XXI.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">MAGPIE AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_115" title="Page 115">116</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="22">XXII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">NUTHATCH AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120" title="Page120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_006"><img src="images/i-006.jpg" alt="four eggs in a nest" width="458" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_007"><img src="images/i-007.jpg" alt="two birds on tree branch" width="796" height="650" /></a>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Birds_and_their_Nests"><em>Birds and their Nests.</em></h2>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTORY_CHAPTER">INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> birds in these pictures of ours have all nests, which is as it
+should be; for how could the bird rear its young without its little
+home and soft little bed, any more than children could be comfortably
+brought up without either a bed to lie upon, or a home in which to be
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>Birds-nests, though you may find them in every bush, are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> wonderful
+things. Let us talk about them. They are all alike in the purpose for
+which they are intended, but no two families of birds build exactly
+alike; all the wrens, for instance, have their kind of nest; the
+thrushes have theirs; so has the swallow tribe; so has the sparrow,
+or the rook. They do not imitate one another, but each adheres to its
+own plan, as God, the great builder and artist, as well as Creator,
+taught them from the very beginning. The first nightingale, that sang
+its hymn of joyful thanksgiving in the Garden of Paradise, built
+its nest just the same as the bird you listened to last year in the
+coppice. The materials were there, and the bird knew how to make use
+of them; and that is perhaps the most wonderful part of it, for she
+has no implements to work with: no needle and thread, no scissors, no
+hammer and nails; nothing but her own little feet and bill, and her
+round little breast, upon which to mould it; for it is generally the
+mother-bird which is the chief builder.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner is the nest wanted for the eggs which she is about to lay,
+than the hitherto slumbering faculty of constructiveness is awakened,
+and she selects the angle of the branch, or the hollow in the bank or
+in the wall, or the tangle of reeds, or the platform of twigs on the
+tree-top, exactly the right place for her, the selection being always
+the same according to her tribe, and true to the instinct which was
+implanted in her at the first.</p>
+
+<p>So the building begins: dry grass or leaves, little twigs and
+root-fibres, hair or down, whether of feather or winged seed, spangled
+outside with silvery lichen, or embroidered with green mosses, less
+for beauty, perhaps—though it is so beautiful—than for the birds’
+safety, because it so exactly imitates the bank or the tree-trunk in
+which it is built. Or it may be that her tenement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> is clay-built, like
+that of the swallow; or lath and plaster, so to speak, like an old
+country house, as is the fashion of the magpie; or a platform of rude
+sticks, like the first rudiment of a basket up in the tree-branches, as
+that of the wood-pigeon: she may be a carpenter like the woodpecker,
+a tunneller like the sand-martin; or she may knead and glue together
+the materials of her nest, till they resemble thick felt; but in all
+this she is exactly what the great Creator made her at first, equally
+perfect in skill, and equally undeviating year after year. This is very
+wonderful, so that we may be quite sure that the sparrow’s nest, which
+David remarked in the house of God, was exactly the same as the sparrow
+built in the days of the blessed Saviour, when He, pointing to that
+bird, made it a proof to man that God’s Providence ever watches over
+him.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Jules Michelet on Birds.</em></div>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, with this unaltered and unalterable working after one
+pattern, in every species of bird, there is a choice or an adaptation
+of material allowed: thus the bird will, within certain limits, select
+that which is fittest for its purpose, producing, however, in the end,
+precisely the same effect. I will tell you what Jules Michelet, a
+French writer, who loves birds as we do, writes on this subject:—“The
+bird in building its nest,” he says, “makes it of that beautiful
+cup-like or cradle form by pressing it down, kneading it and shaping
+it upon her own breast.” He says, as I have just told you, that the
+mother-bird builds, and that the he-bird is her purveyor. He fetches in
+the materials: grasses, mosses, roots, or twigs, singing many a song
+between whiles; and she arranges all with loving reference; first,
+to the delicate egg which must be bedded in soft material; then to
+the little one which, coming from the egg naked, must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> not only be
+cradled in soft comfort, but kept alive by her warmth. So the he-bird,
+supposing it to be a linnet, brings her some horse-hair: it is stiff
+and hard; nevertheless, it is proper for the purpose, and serves as a
+lower stratum of the nest—a sort of elastic mattress: he brings her
+hemp; it is cold, but it serves for the same purpose. Then comes the
+covering and the lining; and for this nothing but the soft silky fibre
+of certain plants, wool or cotton, or, better still, the down from her
+own breast, will satisfy her. It is interesting, he says, to watch the
+he-bird’s skilful and furtive search for materials; he is afraid if he
+see you watching, that you may discover the track to his nest; and, in
+order to mislead you, he takes a different road back to it. You may see
+him following the sheep to get a little lock of wool, or alighting in
+the poultry yard on the search for dropped feathers. If the farmer’s
+wife chance to leave her wheel, whilst spinning in the porch, he steals
+in for a morsel of flax from the distaff. He knows what is the right
+kind of thing; and let him be in whatever country he may, he selects
+that which answers the purpose; and the nest which is built is that of
+the linnet all the world over.</p>
+
+<p>Again he tells us, that there are other birds which, instead of
+building, bring up their young underground, in little earth cradles
+which they have prepared for them. Of building-birds, he thinks the
+queerest must be the flamingo, which lays her eggs on a pile of mud
+which she has raised above the flooded earth, and, standing erect all
+the time, hatches them under her long legs. It does seem a queer,
+uncomfortable way; but if it answer its end, we need not object to it.
+Of carpenter-birds, he thinks the thrush is the most remarkable; other
+writers say the woodpecker. The shore-birds plait their nests, not very
+skilfully it is true, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> sufficiently well for their purpose. They
+are clothed by nature with such an oily, impermeable coat of plumage,
+that they have little need to care about climate; they have enough to
+do to look after their fishing, and to feed themselves and their young;
+for all these sea-side families have immense appetites.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How various Birds Build.</em></div>
+
+<p>Herons and storks build in a sort of basket-making fashion; so do the
+jays and the mocking birds, only in a much better way; but as they
+have all large families they are obliged to do so. They lay down, in
+the first place, a sort of rude platform, upon which they erect a
+basket-like nest of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry
+twigs strongly woven together. The little golden-crested wren hangs her
+purse-like nest to a bough, and, as in the nursery song, “When the wind
+blows the cradle rocks.” An Australian bird, a kind of fly-catcher,
+called there the razor-grinder, from its note resembling the sound of
+a razor-grinder at work, builds her nest on the slightest twig hanging
+over the water, in order to protect it from snakes which climb after
+them. She chooses for her purpose a twig so slender that it would not
+bear the weight of the snake, and thus she is perfectly safe from her
+enemy. The same, probably, is the cause why in tropical countries,
+where snakes and monkeys, and such bird-enemies abound, nests are so
+frequently suspended by threads or little cords from slender boughs.</p>
+
+<p>The canary, the goldfinch, and chaffinch, are skilful cloth-weavers
+or felt makers; the latter, restless and suspicious, speckles the
+outside of her nest with a quantity of white lichen, so that it
+exactly imitates the tree branch on which it is placed, and can hardly
+be detected by the most accustomed eye. Glueing and felting play an
+important part in the work of the bird-weavers.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> The humming-bird, for
+instance, consolidates her little house with the gum of trees. The
+American starling sews the leaves together with her bill; other birds
+use not only their bills, but their feet. Having woven a cord, they fix
+it as a web with their feet, and insert the weft, as the weaver would
+throw his shuttle, with their bill. These are genuine weavers. In fine,
+their skill never fails them. The truth is, that the great Creator
+never gives any creature work to do without giving him at the same time
+an inclination to do it—which, in the animal, is instinct—and tools
+sufficient for the work, though they may be only the delicate feet and
+bill of the bird.</p>
+
+<p>And now, in conclusion, let me describe to you the nest of the little
+English long-tailed titmouse as I saw it many years ago, and which I
+give from “Sketches of Natural History”:—</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Titmouse’s Nest.</em></div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">There, where those boughs of blackthorn cross,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Behold that oval ball of moss;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Observe it near, all knit together,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Moss, willow-down, and many a feather,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And filled within, as you may see,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">As full of feathers as can be;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Whence it is called by country folk,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">A fitting name, the feather-poke;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">But learned people, I have heard,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4"><em>Parus caudatus</em> call the bird.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Yes, here’s a nest! a nest indeed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That doth all other nests exceed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Propped with the blackthorn twigs beneath,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And festooned with a woodbine wreath!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Look at it close, all knit together,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Moss, willow-down, and many a feather;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">So soft, so light, so wrought with grace,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">So suited to this green-wood place,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And spangled o’er, as with the intent</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span></p>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Of giving fitting ornament,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">With silvery flakes of lichen bright,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That shine like opals, dazzling white.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Think only of the creature small,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That wrought this soft and silvery ball,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Without a tool to aid her skill,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Nought but her little feet and bill—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Without a pattern whence to trace</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">This little roofed-in dwelling place—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And does not in your bosom spring</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Love for this skilful little thing?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">See, there’s a window in the wall;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Peep in, the house is not so small,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">But snug and cosy you shall see</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">A very numerous family!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Now count them: one, two, three, four, five—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Nay, <em>sixteen</em> merry things alive—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Sixteen young, chirping things all sit,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Where you, your wee hand, could not get!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">I’m glad you’ve seen it, for you never</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Saw ought before so soft and clever.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_013"><img src="images/i-013.jpg" alt="bird on branch" width="497" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WREN.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Truly</span> the little Wren, so beautifully depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir,
+with her tiny body, her pretty, lively, and conceited ways, her short,
+little turned-up tail, and delicate plumage, is worthy of our tender
+regard and love.</p>
+
+<p>The colouring of the wren is soft and subdued—a reddish-brown colour;
+the breast of a light greyish-brown; and all the hinder parts, both
+above and below, marked with wavy lines of dusky-brown, with two bands
+of white dots across the wings.</p>
+
+<p>Its habits are remarkably lively and attractive. “I know no pleasanter
+object,” says the agreeable author of “British Birds,” “than the wren;
+it is always so smart and cheerful. In gloomy weather other birds
+often seem melancholy, and in rain the sparrows and finches stand
+silent on the twigs, with drooping wings and disarranged plumage; but
+to the merry little wren all weathers are alike. The big drops of the
+thunder-shower no more wet it than the drizzle of a Scotch mist; and as
+it peeps from beneath the bramble, or glances from a hole in the wall,
+it seems as snug as a kitten frisking on the parlour rug.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_015"><img src="images/i-015.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WRENS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_8" title="Page 8">Page 8.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Builder of Many Nests.</em></div>
+
+<p>“It is amusing,” he continues, “to watch the motions of a young family
+of wrens just come abroad. Walking among furze, broom, or juniper, you
+are attracted to some bush by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>hearing issue from it the frequent
+repetition of a sound resembling the syllable <em>chit</em>. On going
+up you perceive an old wren flitting about the twigs, and presently
+a young one flies off, uttering a stifled <em>chirr</em>, to conceal
+itself among the bushes. Several follow, whilst the parents continue to
+flutter about in great alarm, uttering their <em>chit, chit</em>, with
+various degrees of excitement.”</p>
+
+<p>The nest of the wren is a wonderful structure, of which I shall have a
+good deal to say. It begins building in April, and is not by any means
+particular in situation. Sometimes it builds in the hole of a wall
+or tree; sometimes, as in this lovely little picture of ours, in the
+mossy hollow of a primrose-covered bank; and because it was formerly
+supposed to live only in holes or little caves, it received the name of
+<em>Troglodytes</em>, or cave-dweller. But it builds equally willingly in
+the thatch of out-buildings, in barn-lofts, or tree-branches, either
+when growing apart or nailed against a wall, amongst ivy or other
+climbing plants; in fact, it seems to be of such a happy disposition as
+to adapt itself to a great variety of situations. It is a singular fact
+that it will often build several nests in one season—not that it needs
+so many separate dwellings, or that it finishes them when built; but it
+builds as if for the very pleasure of the work. Our naturalist says,
+speaking of this odd propensity, “that, whilst the hen is sitting, the
+he-bird, as if from a desire to be doing something, will construct as
+many as half-a-dozen nests near the first, none of which, however,
+are lined with feathers; and that whilst the true nest, on which the
+mother-bird is sitting, will be carefully concealed, these sham nests
+are open to view. Some say that as the wrens, during the cold weather,
+sleep in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> some snug, warm hole, they frequently occupy these extra
+nests as winter-bedchambers, four or five, or even more, huddling
+together, to keep one another warm.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Weir, a friend of the author I have just quoted, says this was the
+case in his own garden; and that, during the winter, when the ground
+was covered with snow, two of the extra nests were occupied at night by
+a little family of seven, which had hatched in the garden. He was very
+observant of their ways, and says it was amusing to see one of the old
+wrens, coming a little before sunset and standing a few inches from the
+nest, utter his little cry till the whole number of them had arrived.
+Nor were they long about it; they very soon answered the call, flying
+from all quarters—the seven young ones and the other parent-bird—and
+then at once nestled into their snug little dormitory. It was also
+remarkable that when the wind blew from the east they occupied a nest
+which had its opening to the west, and when it blew from the west, then
+one that opened to the east, so that it was evident they knew how to
+make themselves comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>And now as regards the building of these little homes. I will, as far
+as I am able, give you the details of the whole business from the diary
+of the same gentleman, which is as accurate as if the little wren had
+kept it himself, and which will just as well refer to the little nest
+in the primrose bank as to the nest in the Spanish juniper-tree, where,
+in fact, it was built.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How a Nest was built.</em></div>
+
+<p>“On the 30th of May, therefore, you must imagine a little pair of
+wrens, having, after a great deal of consultation, made up their minds
+to build themselves a home in the branches of a Spanish juniper. The
+female, at about seven o’clock in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> morning, laid the foundation
+with the decayed leaf of a lime-tree. Some men were at work cutting
+a drain not far off, but she took no notice of them, and worked away
+industriously, carrying to her work bundles of dead leaves as big
+as herself, her mate, seeming the while to be delighted with her
+industry, seated not far off in a Portugal laurel, where he watched
+her, singing to her, and so doing, making her labour, no doubt, light
+and pleasant. From eight o’clock to nine she worked like a little
+slave, carrying in leaves, and then selecting from them such as suited
+her purpose and putting aside the rest. This was the foundation of the
+nest, which she rendered compact by pressing it down with her breast,
+and turning herself round in it: then she began to rear the sides.
+And now the delicate and difficult part of the work began, and she
+was often away for eight or ten minutes together. From the inside she
+built the underpart of the aperture with the stalks of leaves, which
+she fitted together very ingeniously with moss. The upper part of it
+was constructed solely with the last-mentioned material. To round it
+and give it the requisite solidity, she pressed it with her breast and
+wings, turning the body round in various directions. Most wonderful to
+tell, about seven o’clock in the evening the whole outside workmanship
+of this snug little erection was almost complete.</p>
+
+<p>“Being very anxious to examine the interior of it, I went out for that
+purpose at half-past two the next morning. I introduced my finger,
+the birds not being there, and found its structure so close, that
+though it had rained in the night, yet that it was quite dry. The
+birds at this early hour were singing as if in ecstasy, and at about
+three o’clock the little he-wren came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> and surveyed his domicile with
+evident satisfaction; then, flying to the top of a tree, began singing
+most merrily. In half-an-hour’s time the hen-bird made her appearance,
+and, going into the nest, remained there about five minutes, rounding
+the entrance by pressing it with her breast and the shoulders of her
+wings. For the next hour she went out and came back five times with
+fine moss in her bill, with which she adjusted a small depression in
+the fore-part of it; then, after twenty minutes’ absence, returned
+with a bundle of leaves to fill up a vacancy which she had discovered
+in the back of the structure. Although it was a cold morning, with
+wind and rain, the male bird sang delightfully; but between seven and
+eight o’clock, either having received a reproof from his wife for his
+indolence, or being himself seized with an impulse to work, he began
+to help her, and for the next ten minutes brought in moss, and worked
+at the inside of the nest. At eleven o’clock both of them flew off,
+either for a little recreation, or for their dinners, and were away
+till a little after one. From this time till four o’clock both worked
+industriously, bringing in fine moss; then, during another hour, the
+hen-bird brought in a feather three times. So that day came to an end.</p>
+
+<p>“The next morning, June 1st, they did not begin their work early, as
+was evident to Mr. Weir, because having placed a slender leaf-stalk
+at the entrance, there it remained till half-past eight o’clock, when
+the two began to work as the day before with fine moss, the he-bird
+leaving off, however, every now and then to express his satisfaction on
+a near tree-top. Again, this day, they went off either for dinner or
+amusement; then came back and worked for another hour, bringing in fine
+moss and feathers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Patient Industry of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>“The next morning the little he-wren seemed in a regular ecstasy,
+and sang incessantly till half-past nine, when they both brought in
+moss and feathers, working on for about two hours, and again they
+went off, remaining away an hour later than usual. Their work was now
+nearly over, and they seemed to be taking their leisure, when all at
+once the hen-bird, who was sitting in her nest and looking out at her
+door, espied a man half-hidden by an arbor vitæ. It was no other than
+her good friend, but that she did not know; all men were terrible,
+as enemies to her race, and at once she set up her cry of alarm. The
+he-bird, on hearing this, appeared in a great state of agitation, and
+though the frightful monster immediately ran off, the little creatures
+pursued him, scolding vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>“The next day they worked again with feathers and fine moss, and again
+went off after having brought in a few more feathers. So they did for
+the next five days; working leisurely, and latterly only with feathers.
+On the tenth day the nest was finished, and the little mother-bird laid
+her first egg in it.”</p>
+
+<p>Where is the boy, let him be as ruthless a bird-nester as he may, who
+could have the heart to take a wren’s nest, only to tear it to pieces,
+after reading the history of this patient labour of love?</p>
+
+<p>The wren, like various other small birds, cannot bear that their nests
+or eggs should be touched; they are always disturbed and distressed by
+it, and sometimes even will desert their nest and eggs in consequence.
+On one occasion, therefore, this good, kind-hearted friend of every
+bird that builds, carefully put his finger into a wren’s nest, during
+the mother’s absence, to ascertain whether the young were hatched; on
+her return,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> perceiving that the entrance had been touched, she set up
+a doleful lamentation, carefully rounded it again with her breast and
+wings, so as to bring everything into proper order, after which she and
+her mate attended to their young. These particular young ones, only six
+in number, were fed by their parents 278 times in the course of a day.
+This was a small wren-family; and if there had been twelve, or even
+sixteen, as is often the case, what an amount of labour and care the
+birds must have had! But they would have been equal to it, and merry
+all the time.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For all these little creatures, which so lightly we regard,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They love to do their duty, and they never think it hard.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_022"><img src="images/i-022.jpg" alt="a bee flying around a nest" width="441" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE GOLDFINCH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Goldfinch, which is cousin to the Linnet, is wonderfully clever and
+docile, as I shall show you presently. In the first place, however,
+let me say a word or two about bird cleverness in general, which I
+copy from Jules Michelet’s interesting work, “The Bird.” Speaking of
+the great, cruel, and rapacious family of the <em>Raptores</em>, or
+Birds of Prey, he expresses satisfaction in the idea that this race of
+destroyers is decreasing, and that there may come a time when they no
+longer exist on the earth. He has no admiration for them, though they
+may be the swiftest of the swift, and the strongest of the strong,
+because they put forth none of the higher qualities of courage,
+address, or patient endurance in taking their prey, which are all weak
+and powerless in comparison with themselves; their poor unoffending
+victims. “All these cruel tyrants of the air,” he says, “like the
+serpents, have flattened skulls, which show the want of intellect and
+intelligence. These birds of prey, with their small brains, offer a
+striking contrast to the amiable and intelligent species which we find
+amongst the smaller birds. The head of the former is only a beak, that
+of the latter is a face.” Afterwards, to prove this more strongly, he
+gives a table to show the proportion of brain to the size of the body
+in these different species of birds. Thus the chaffinch, the sparrow,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
+and the goldfinch, have more than six times as much brain as the eagle
+in proportion to the size of the body. We may look, therefore, for no
+less than six times his intelligence and docile ability. Whilst in the
+case of the little tomtit it is thirteen times as much.</p>
+
+<p>But now for the goldfinch, of which our cut—which is both faithful
+and beautiful—shows us a pair, evidently contemplating with much
+satisfaction the nest which they have just finished on one of the
+topmost boughs of a blossomy apple-tree. This nest is a wonderful
+little fabric, built of moss, dry grass, and slender roots, lined with
+hair, wool, and thistle-down; but the true wonder of the nest is the
+exact manner in which the outside is made to imitate the bough upon
+which it is placed. All its little ruggednesses and lichen growths
+are represented, whilst the colouring is so exactly that of the old
+apple-tree that it is almost impossible to know it from the branch
+itself. Wonderful ingenuity of instinct, which human skill would find
+it almost impossible to imitate!</p>
+
+<p>The bird lays mostly five eggs, which are of a bluish-grey, spotted
+with greyish-purple or brown, and sometimes with a dark streak or two.</p>
+
+<p>The goldfinch is one of the most beautiful of our English birds, with
+its scarlet forehead, and quaint little black velvet-like cap brought
+down over its white cheeks; its back is cinnamon brown, and its breast
+white; its wings are beautifully varied in black and white, as are also
+its tail feathers. In the midland counties it is known as “The Proud
+Tailor,” probably because its attire looks so bright and fresh, and it
+has a lively air as if conscious of being well dressed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_025"><img src="images/i-025.jpg" alt="" width="494" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">GOLDFINCHES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_16" title="Page 16">Page 16.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Daily Life of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>Like its relation, the linnet, it congregates in flocks as soon as
+its young can take wing, when they may be seen wheeling round in
+the pleasant late summer and autumn fields, full of life, and in
+the enjoyment of the plenty that surrounds them, in the ripened
+thistle-down, and all such winged seeds as are then floating in the air.</p>
+
+<p>How often have I said it is worth while to go out into the woods and
+fields, and, bringing yourself into a state of quietness, watch the
+little birds in their life’s employment, building their nests, feeding
+their young, or pursuing their innocent diversions! So now, on this
+pleasant, still autumn afternoon, if you will go into the old pasture
+fields where the thistles have not been stubbed up for generations, or
+on the margin of the old lane where ragwort, and groundsel, and burdock
+flourish abundantly, “let us,” as the author of “British Birds” says,
+“stand still to observe a flock of goldfinches. They flutter over the
+plants, cling to the stalks, bend in various attitudes, disperse the
+down, already dry and winged, like themselves, for flight, pick them
+out one by one and swallow them. Then comes a stray cow followed by a
+herd boy. At once the birds cease their labour, pause for a moment,
+and fly off in succession. You observe how lightly and buoyantly
+they cleave the air, each fluttering its little wings, descending in
+a curved line, mounting again, and speeding along. Anon they alight
+in a little thicket of dried weeds, and, in settling, display to the
+delighted eye the beautiful tints of their plumage, as with fluttering
+wings and expanded tail, they hover for a moment to select a landing
+place amid the prickly points of the stout thistles whose heads are now
+bursting with downy-winged seeds.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Goldfinch.</em></div>
+
+<p>The song of the goldfinch, which begins about the end of March, is
+very sweet, unassuming, and low—similar to that of the linnet, but
+singularly varied and pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, we must give a few instances of this bird’s teachable
+sagacity, which, indeed, are so numerous that it is difficult to make a
+selection.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Syme, in his “British Song Birds,” says, “The goldfinch is easily
+tamed and taught, and its capacity for learning the notes of other
+birds is well known. A few years ago the Sieur Roman exhibited a number
+of trained birds: they were goldfinches, linnets, and canaries. One
+appeared dead, and was held up by the tail or claw without exhibiting
+any signs of life; a second stood on its head with its claws in the
+air; a third imitated a Dutch milkmaid going to market with pails on
+its shoulders; a fourth mimicked a Venetian girl looking out at a
+window; a fifth appeared as a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel;
+whilst a sixth acted as a cannonier, with a cap on its head, a firelock
+on its shoulder, and a match in its claw, and discharged a small
+cannon. The same bird also acted as if it had been wounded. It was
+wheeled in a barrow as if to convey it to the hospital, after which
+it flew away before the whole company. The seventh turned a kind of
+windmill; and the last bird stood in the midst of some fireworks which
+were discharged all round it, and this without showing the least sign
+of fear.”</p>
+
+<p>Others, as I have said, may be taught to draw up their food and water,
+as from a well, in little buckets. All this is very wonderful, and
+shows great docility in the bird; but I cannot greatly admire it, from
+the secret fear that cruelty or harshness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> may have been used to teach
+them these arts so contrary to their nature. At all events it proves
+what teachable and clever little creatures they are, how readily they
+may be made to understand the will of their master, and how obediently
+and faithfully they act according to it.</p>
+
+<p>Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence to the
+animal world. In him the creatures should ever find their friend and
+protector; and were it so we should then see many an astonishing
+faculty displayed; and birds would then, instead of being the most
+timid of animals, gladden and beautify our daily life by their sweet
+songs, their affectionate regard, and their amusing and imitative
+little arts.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Introduced into Pictures.</em></div>
+
+<p>The early Italian and German painters introduce a goldfinch into their
+beautiful sacred pictures—generally on the ground—hopping at the feet
+of some martyred saint or love-commissioned angel, perhaps from an old
+legend of the bird’s sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an
+intuitive sense that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird
+and beast as well as to man.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_029"><img src="images/i-029.jpg" alt="bird's nest" width="190" height="200" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE SONG THRUSH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have here a charming picture of one of the finest and noblest of
+our song-birds—the thrush, throstle, or mavis. The trees are yet
+leafless, but the bird is in the act of building, whilst her mate, on
+the tree-top, pours forth his exquisite melody. The almost completed
+nest, like a richly ornamented bowl, is before us.</p>
+
+<p>This bird belongs to a grandly musical family, being own cousin to the
+missel-thrush and the blackbird, each one having a kindred song, but
+all, at the same time, distinctly characteristic.</p>
+
+<p>The colouring of the thrush is soft and very pleasing; the upper parts
+of a yellowish-brown; the chin, white; the under part of the body,
+grayish white; the throat, breast, and sides of the neck, yellowish,
+thickly spotted with dark brown.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_031"><img src="images/i-031.jpg" alt="" width="478" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">SONG THRUSH AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_20" title="Page 20">Page 20.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The thrush remains with us the whole year, and may occasionally be
+heard singing even in the winter, though April, May, and June are the
+months when he is in fullest song. They pair in March, and by the end
+of that month, or early in April, begin to build. They have several
+broods in the year. The nest, which, as we see, is commodious, is
+placed at no great height from the ground, in a thick bush or hedge,
+and sometimes, also, in a rough bank, amongst bushes and undergrowth.
+They are particularly fond of spruce-fir plantations, building on
+one of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>the low, spreading branches, close to the stem. Though the
+structure is so solid and substantial, yet it is built very rapidly;
+indeed, the thrush seems to be wide awake in all its movements; he
+is no loiterer, and does his work well. As a proof of his expedition
+I will mention that a pair of these birds began to build a second,
+perhaps, indeed, it might be a third nest, on a Thursday, June 15; on
+Friday afternoon the nest was finished, and on Saturday morning the
+first egg was laid, though the interior plastering was not then dry. On
+the 21st the hen began to sit, and on the 17th of July the young birds
+were hatched.</p>
+
+<p>The frame-work, so to speak, of the nest is composed of twigs, roots,
+grasses, and moss, the two latter being brought to the outside. Inside
+it is lined with a thin plastering of mud, cow-dung, and rotten wood,
+which is laid on quite smoothly, almost like the glaze on earthenware;
+nor is there an internal covering between this and the eggs. The
+circular form of the nest is as perfect as a bowl shaped upon a
+lathe, and often contracts inwards at the top. The eggs, which are
+generally five in number, are of a bright blue-green, spotted over with
+brownish-black, these spots being more numerous at the larger end.</p>
+
+<p>The food of the thrush is mostly of an animal character, as worms,
+slugs, and snails; and, by seasides, small molluscs, as whelks and
+periwinkles. On all such as are enclosed in shells he exercises his
+ingenuity in a remarkable way. We ourselves lived at one time in an
+old house standing in an old garden where were many ancient trees and
+out-buildings, in the old ivied roots and walls of which congregated
+great quantities of shell-snails. One portion of this garden, which
+enclosed an old,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> disused dairy, was a great resort of thrushes, where
+they had, so to speak, their stones of sacrifice, around which lay
+heaps of the broken shells of snails, their victims. I have repeatedly
+watched them at work: hither they brought their snails, and, taking
+their stand by the stone with the snail in their beak, struck it
+repeatedly against the stone, till, the shell being smashed, they
+picked it out as easily as the oyster is taken from its opened shell.
+This may seem easy work with the slender-shelled snail, but the labour
+is considerably greater with hard shell-fish. On this subject the
+intelligent author of “British Birds” says, that many years ago, when
+in the Isle of Harris, he frequently heard a sharp sound as of one
+small stone being struck upon another, the cause of which he, for a
+considerable time, sought for in vain. At length, one day, being in
+search of birds when the tide was out, he heard the well-known click,
+and saw a bird standing between two flat stones, moving its head and
+body alternately up and down, each downward motion being accompanied
+by the sound which had hitherto been so mysterious. Running up to the
+spot, he found a thrush, which, flying off, left a whelk, newly-broken,
+lying amongst fragments of shells lying around the stone.</p>
+
+<p>Thrushes are remarkably clean and neat with regard to their nests,
+suffering no litter or impurity to lie about, and in this way are a
+great example to many untidy people. Their domestic character, too,
+is excellent, the he-bird now and then taking the place of the hen on
+the eggs, and, when not doing so, feeding her as she sits. When the
+young are hatched, the parents may be seen, by those who will watch
+them silently and patiently, frequently stretching out the wings of
+the young as if to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> exercise them, and pruning and trimming their
+feathers. To put their love of cleanliness to the proof, a gentleman,
+a great friend of all birds, had some sticky mud rubbed upon the backs
+of two of the young ones whilst the parents were absent. On their
+return, either by their own keen sense of propriety, or, perhaps, the
+complaint of the young ones, they saw what had happened, and were not
+only greatly disconcerted, but very angry, and instantly set to work to
+clean the little unfortunates, which, strange to say, they managed to
+do by making use of dry earth, which they brought to the nest for that
+purpose. Human intellect could not have suggested a better mode.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How a Day was spent.</em></div>
+
+<p>This same gentleman determined to spend a whole day in discovering how
+the thrushes spent it. Hiding himself, therefore, in a little hut of
+fir boughs, he began his observations in the early morning of the 8th
+of June. At half-past two o’clock, the birds began to feed their brood,
+and in two hours had fed them thirty-six times. It was now half-past
+five, the little birds were all wide awake, and one of them, whilst
+pruning its feathers, lost its balance and fell out of the nest to the
+ground. On this the old ones set up the most doleful lamentations, and
+the gentleman, coming out of his retreat, put the little one back into
+the nest. This kind action, however, wholly disconcerted the parents,
+nor did they again venture to feed their young till an artifice
+of the gentleman led them to suppose that he was gone from their
+neighbourhood. No other event happened to them through the day, and by
+half-past nine o’clock at night, when all went to rest, the young ones
+had been fed two hundred and six times.</p>
+
+<p>Thrushes, however, become occasionally so extremely tame that the
+female will remain upon her eggs and feed her young,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> without any
+symptom of alarm, in the close neighbourhood of man. Of this I will
+give an instance from Bishop Stanley’s “History of Birds”—</p>
+
+<p>“A short time ago, in Scotland, some carpenters working in a shed
+adjacent to the house observed a thrush flying in and out, which
+induced them to direct their attention to the cause, when, to their
+surprise, they found a nest commenced amongst the teeth of a harrow,
+which, with other farming tools and implements, was placed upon the
+joists of the shed, just over their heads. The carpenters had arrived
+soon after six o’clock, and at seven, when they found the nest, it was
+in a great state of forwardness, and had evidently been the morning’s
+work of a pair of these indefatigable birds. Their activity throughout
+the day was incessant; and, when the workmen came the next morning,
+they found the female seated in her half-finished mansion, and, when
+she flew off for a short time, it was found that she had laid an egg.
+When all was finished, the he-bird took his share of the labour, and,
+in thirteen days, the young birds were out of their shells, the refuse
+of which the old ones carried away from the spot. All this seems to
+have been carefully observed by the workmen; and it is much to their
+credit that they were so quiet and friendly as to win the confidence of
+the birds.”</p>
+
+<p>The song of the thrush is remarkable for its rich, mellow intonation,
+and for the great variety of its notes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Wordsworth’s Verses on the Thrush.</em></div>
+
+<p>Unfortunately for the thrush, its exquisite power as a songster makes
+it by no means an unusual prisoner. You are often startled by hearing,
+from the doleful upper window of some dreary court or alley of London,
+or some other large town, an outpouring of joyous, full-souled melody
+from an imprisoned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> thrush, which, perfect as it is, saddens you, as
+being so wholly out of place. Yet who can say how the song of that bird
+may speak to the soul of many a town-imprisoned passer-by? Wordsworth
+thus touchingly describes an incident of this kind:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three years:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the silence of morning, the song of the bird.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Down which she so often has tripped with her pail,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The one only dwelling on earth which she loves.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? she sees</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The mist and the river, the hill, sun, and shade;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_037"><img src="images/i-037.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="137" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE BLACKBIRD.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Blackbird is familiar to us all. It is a thoroughly English bird,
+and, with its cousin the thrush, is not only one of the pleasantest
+features in our English spring and summer landscape, but both figure
+in our old poetry and ballads, as the “merle and the mavis,” “the
+blackbird and the throstle-cock;” for those old poets loved the
+country, and could not speak of the greenwood without the bird.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When shaws are sheen and fields are fair,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And leaves both large and long,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis merry walk’ng in the green forest</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">To hear the wild birds’ song;</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The wood merle sings, and will not cease,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Sitting upon a spray;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The merle and the mavis shout their fill,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">From morn till the set of day.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_039"><img src="images/i-039.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">BLACKBIRD AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_26" title="Page 26">Page 26.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The blackbird takes its name from a very intelligible cause—its
+perfectly black plumage, which, however, is agreeably relieved by the
+bright orange of its bill, the orange circles round its eyes, and its
+yellow feet; though this is peculiar only to the male, nor does he
+assume this distinguishing colour till his second year. The female is
+of a dusky-brown colour.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Notes of the Blackbird.</em></div>
+
+<p>Sometimes the singular variety of a <em>white</em> blackbird occurs,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>which seems to astonish even its fellow birds; the same phenomenon
+also occurs amongst sparrows; a fatal distinction to the poor birds,
+who are in consequence very soon shot.</p>
+
+<p>This bird is one of our finest singers. His notes are solemn and
+flowing, unlike those of the thrush, which are short, quick, and
+extremely varied. The one bird is more lyrical, the other sings in
+a grand epic strain. A friend of ours, deeply versed in bird-lore,
+maintains that the blackbird is oratorical, and sings as if delivering
+an eloquent rhythmical oration.</p>
+
+<p>This bird begins to sing early in the year, and continues his song
+during the whole time that the hen is sitting. Like his relatives, the
+thrush and the missel-thrush, he takes his post on the highest branch
+of a tree, near his nest, so that his song is heard far and wide; and
+in fact, through the whole pleasant spring you hear the voices of these
+three feathered kings of English song constantly filling the woods and
+fields with their melody. The blackbird sings deliciously in rain, even
+during a thunderstorm, with the lightning flashing round him. Indeed,
+both he and the thrush seem to take great delight in summer showers.</p>
+
+<p>The blackbird has a peculiar call, to give notice to his brood of the
+approach of danger; probably, however, it belongs both to male and
+female. Again, there is a third note, very peculiar also, heard only
+in the dusk of evening, and which seems pleasingly in harmony with the
+approaching shadows of night. By this note they call each other to
+roost, in the same way as partridges call each other to assemble at
+night, however far they may be asunder.</p>
+
+<p>The nest of the blackbird is situated variously; most frequently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> in
+the thicker parts of hedges; sometimes in the hollow of a stump or
+amongst the curled and twisted roots of old trees, which, projecting
+from the banks of woods or woodland lanes, wreathed with their trails
+of ivy, afford the most picturesque little hollows for the purpose.
+Again, it may be found under the roof of out-houses or cart-sheds,
+laid on the wall-plate; and very frequently in copses, in the stumps
+of pollard trees, partly concealed by their branches; and is often
+begun before the leaves are on the trees. The nest is composed of dry
+bents, and lined with fine dry grass. The hen generally lays five eggs,
+which are of a dusky bluish-green, thickly covered with black spots;
+altogether very much resembling those of crows, rooks, magpies, and
+that class of birds.</p>
+
+<p>Universal favourite as the blackbird deservedly is, yet, in common with
+the thrush, all gardeners are their enemies from the great liking they
+have for his fruit, especially currants, raspberries, and cherries.
+There is, however, something very amusing, though, at the same time,
+annoying, in the sly way by which they approach these fruits, quite
+aware that they are on a mischievous errand. They steal along, flying
+low and silently, and, if observed, will hide themselves in the nearest
+growth of garden plants, scarlet runners, or Jerusalem artichokes,
+where they remain as still as mice, till they think the human enemy has
+moved off. If, however, instead of letting them skulk quietly in their
+hiding-place, he drives them away, they fly off with a curious note,
+very like a little chuckling laugh of defiance, as if they would say,
+“Ha! ha! we shall soon be back again!” which they very soon are.</p>
+
+<p>But we must not begrudge them their share, though they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> neither have
+dug the ground nor sowed the seed, for very dull and joyless indeed
+would be the garden and the gardener’s toil, and the whole country in
+short, if there were no birds—no blackbirds and thrushes—to gladden
+our hearts, and make the gardens, as well as the woods and fields,
+joyous with their melody. Like all good singers, these birds expect,
+and deserve, good payment.</p>
+
+<p>The blackbird, though naturally unsocial and keeping much to itself,
+is very bold in defence of its young, should they be in danger, or
+attacked by any of the numerous bird-enemies, which abound everywhere,
+especially to those which are in immediate association with man. The
+Rev. J. G. Wood tells us, for instance, that on one occasion a prowling
+cat was forced to make an ignominious retreat before the united onset
+of a pair of blackbirds, on whose young she was about to make an attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><cite>Macgillivray’s Account.</cite></div>
+
+<p>Let me now, in conclusion, give a day with a family of blackbirds,
+which I somewhat curtail from Macgillivray.</p>
+
+<p>“On Saturday morning, June 10th, I went into a little hut made of green
+branches, at half-past two in the morning, to see how the blackbirds
+spend the day at home. They lived close by, in a hole in an old wall,
+which one or other of them had occupied for a number of years.</p>
+
+<p>“At a quarter-past three they began to feed their young, which were
+four in number. She was the most industrious in doing so; and when he
+was not feeding, he was singing most deliciously. Towards seven o’clock
+the father-bird induced one of the young ones to fly out after him.
+But this was a little mistake, and, the bird falling, I was obliged to
+help it into its nest again, which made a little family commotion. They
+were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> exceedingly tidy about their nest, and when a little rubbish fell
+out they instantly carried it away. At ten o’clock the feeding began
+again vigorously, and continued till two, both parent-birds supplying
+their young almost equally.</p>
+
+<p>“The hut in which I sat was very closely covered; but a little wren
+having alighted on the ground in pursuit of a fly, and seeing one of
+my legs moving, set up a cry of alarm, on which, in the course of a
+few seconds, all the birds in the neighbourhood collected to know what
+was the matter. The blackbird hopped round the hut again and again,
+making every effort to peep in, even alighting on the top within a few
+inches of my head, but not being able to make any discovery, the tumult
+subsided. It was probably considered a false alarm, and the blackbirds
+went on feeding their young till almost four o’clock: and now came the
+great event of the day.</p>
+
+<p>“At about half-past three the mother brought a large worm, four inches
+in length probably, which she gave to one of the young ones, and flew
+away. Shortly afterwards returning, she had the horror of perceiving
+that the worm, instead of being swallowed was sticking in its throat;
+on this she uttered a perfect moan of distress, which immediately
+brought the he-bird, who also saw at a glance what a terrible
+catastrophe was to be feared. Both parents made several efforts to push
+the worm down the throat, but to no purpose, when, strange to say, the
+father discovered the cause of the accident. The outer end of the worm
+had got entangled in the feathers of the breast, and, being held fast,
+could not be swallowed. He carefully disengaged it, and, holding it up
+with his beak, the poor little thing, with a great effort, managed to
+get it down, but was by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> this time so exhausted that it lay with its
+eyes shut and without moving for the next three hours. The male bird in
+the meantime took his stand upon a tree, a few yards from the nest, and
+poured forth some of his most enchanting notes—a song of rejoicing no
+doubt for the narrow escape from death of one of his family.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Macgillivray’s Day with this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>“From four till seven o’clock both birds again fed their young, after
+which the male bird left these family duties to his mate, and gave
+himself up to incessant singing. At twenty minutes to nine their
+labours ceased, they having then fed their young one hundred and
+thirteen times during the day.</p>
+
+<p>“I observed that before feeding their young they always alighted upon
+a tree and looked round them for a few seconds. Sometimes they brought
+in a quantity of worms and fed their brood alternately; at other times
+they brought one which they gave to only one of them.</p>
+
+<p>“The young birds often trimmed their feathers, and stretched out their
+wings; they also appeared to sleep now and then.</p>
+
+<p>“With the note of alarm which the feathered tribes set up on the
+discovery of their enemies all the different species of the little
+birds seem to be intimately acquainted; for no sooner did a beast or
+bird of prey make its appearance, than they seemed to be anxiously
+concerned about the safety of their families. They would hop from tree
+to tree uttering their doleful lamentations. At one time the blackbirds
+were in an unusual state of excitement and terror, and were attended
+by crowds of their woodland friends. A man and boy, who were working
+in my garden, having heard the noise, ran to see what was the cause of
+it, and on looking into some branches which were lying on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> the ground,
+observed a large weasel stealing slyly along in pursuit of its prey. It
+was, however, driven effectually from the place without doing any harm.
+It is astonishing how soon the young know this intimation of danger;
+for I observed that no sooner did the old ones utter the alarm-cry,
+than they cowered in their nest, and appeared to be in a state of great
+uneasiness.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_046"><img src="images/i-046.jpg" alt="bird singing" width="408" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Dipper, or Water-ousel, of which Mr. Weir has given us a charming
+and faithful portrait, is very like a wren in form and action, with
+its round body and lively little tail. Its mode of flight, however,
+so nearly resembles the kingfisher that, in some places, the country
+people mistake it for the female of that bird. But it is neither wren
+nor kingfisher, nor yet related to either of them. It is the nice
+little water-ousel, with ways of its own, and a cheerful life of its
+own, and the power of giving pleasure to all lovers of the free country
+which is enriched with an infinite variety of happy, innocent creatures.</p>
+
+<p>The upper part of the head and neck, and the whole back and wings of
+this bird, are of a rusty-brown; but, as each individual feather is
+edged with gray, there is no deadness of colouring. The throat and
+breast are snowy white, which, contrasting so strongly with the rest of
+the body, makes it seem to flash about like a point of light through
+the dark shadows of the scenes it loves to haunt.</p>
+
+<p>I said above that this bird gave pleasure to all lovers of nature. So
+it does, for it is only met with in scenes which are especially beloved
+by poets and painters. Like them, it delights in mountain regions,
+where rocky streams rush along with an unceasing murmur, leaping over
+huge stones, slumbering in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between
+rocky walls, in the moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild
+rose flings out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the
+hardy polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with
+their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for the
+cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character with the
+scenes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-049"><img src="images/i-049.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">DIPPERS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_34" title="Page 34">Page 34.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Home of the Dipper.</em></div>
+
+<p>And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few weeks in
+summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my constant advice
+as regards the study and truest enjoyment of country life and things.
+Go out for several hours; do not be in a hurry; take your book, or
+your sketching, or whatever your favourite occupation may be, if it be
+only a quiet one, and seat yourself by some rocky stream amongst the
+mountains; choose the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can
+reach you, if you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet
+witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat yourself
+quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a piece of
+rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, or tangle of
+bramble, and before long you will most likely see this merry, lively
+little dipper come with his quick, jerking flight, now alighting on
+this stone, now on that, peeping here, and peeping there, as quick as
+light, and snapping up, now a water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now
+diving down into the stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking
+into the shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer
+delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and away,
+and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of stone, which
+rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>a stormy sea,
+with the rush and roar of the water full above him. Yet there he is
+quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny wren, and hopping
+about on his rocky point, as if he could not for the life of him be
+still for a moment. Now listen! That is his song, and a merry little
+song it is, just such a one as you would fancy coming out of his jocund
+little heart; and, see now, he begins his antics. He must be a queer
+little soul! If we could be little dippers like him, and understand
+what his song and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often
+find the time tedious for want of something to do.</p>
+
+<p>We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of his small
+experience, all that his heart desires. He has this lonely mountain
+stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, laughing waters to bear
+him company, all these fantastically heaped-up stones, brought hither
+by furious winter torrents of long ago—that dashing, ever roaring,
+ever foaming waterfall, in the spray of which the summer sunshine
+weaves rainbows. All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden
+hair, and this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up
+his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of rock,
+and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, is built
+the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits the
+hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most unwearied
+love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with red.</p>
+
+<p>This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large size, the
+reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally near to the
+water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is always so fresh,
+looking so like the mass of its immediate surroundings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> as scarcely to
+be discoverable by the quickest eye. When the young are hatched they
+soon go abroad with the parents, and then, instead of the one solitary
+bird, you may see them in little parties of from five to seven going on
+in the same sort of way, only all the merrier because there are more of
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-052"><img src="images/i-052.jpg" alt="bird's nest on the ground" width="468" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE NIGHTINGALE.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Philomela</span>, or the Nightingale, is the head of the somewhat large
+bird-family of Warblers, and is the most renowned of all feathered
+songsters, though some judges think the garden-ousel exceeds it in
+mellowness, and the thrush in compass of voice, but that, in every
+other respect, it excels them all. For my part, however, I think no
+singing-bird is equal to it; and listening to it when in full song, in
+the stillness of a summer’s night, am ready to say with good old Izaak
+Walton:—</p>
+
+<p>“The nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet
+music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind
+to think that miracles had not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
+weary labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often
+heard, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and
+falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted
+above earth and say, ‘Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the
+saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!’”</p>
+
+<p>In colour, the upper parts of the nightingale are of a rich brown;
+the tail of a reddish tint; the throat and underparts of the body,
+greyish-white; the neck and breast, grey; the bill and legs, light
+brown. Its size is about that of the garden warblers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> which it
+resembles in form—being, in fact, one of that family. Thus, the most
+admired of all singers—the subject of poets’ songs and eulogies, the
+bird that people walk far and wide to listen to, of which they talk for
+weeks before it comes, noting down the day of its arrival as if it were
+the Queen or the Queen’s son—is yet nothing but a little insignificant
+brown bird, not to be named with the parrot for plumage, nor with
+our little goldfinch, who always looks as if he had his Sunday suit
+on. But this is a good lesson for us. The little brown nightingale,
+with his little brown wife in the thickety copse, with their simple
+unpretending nest, not built up aloft on the tree branch, but humbly
+at the tree’s root, or even on the very ground itself, may teach us
+that the world’s external show or costliness is not true greatness. The
+world’s best bird-singer might have been as big as an eagle, attired
+in colours of blue and scarlet and orange like the grandest macaw. But
+the great Creator willed that it should not be so—his strength, and
+his furiousness, and his cruel capacity were sufficient for the eagle,
+and his shining vestments for the macaw; whilst the bird to which was
+given the divinest gift of song must be humble and unobtrusive, small
+of size, with no surpassing beauty of plumage, and loving best to hide
+itself in the thick seclusion of the copse in which broods the little
+mother-bird, the very counterpart of himself, upon her olive-coloured
+eggs.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Philomela of Surrey.</em></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a sweet little picture of the
+nightingale at home. Somewhere, not far off, runs the highroad, or it
+may be a pleasant woodland lane leading from one village to another,
+and probably known as “Nightingale-lane,” and traversed night after
+night by rich and poor, learned and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> unlearned, to listen to the
+bird. In our own neighbourhood we have a “Nightingale-lane,” with its
+thickety copses on either hand, its young oaks and Spanish chestnuts
+shooting upwards, and tangles of wild roses and thick masses of
+brambles throwing their long sprays over old, mossy, and ivied stumps
+of trees, cut or blown down in the last generation—little pools
+and water courses here and there, with their many-coloured mosses
+and springing rushes—a very paradise for birds. This is in Surrey,
+and Surrey nightingales, it is said, are the finest that sing. With
+this comes the saddest part of the story. Bird-catchers follow the
+nightingale, and, once in his hands, farewell to the pleasant copse
+with the young oaks and Spanish chestnuts, the wild rose tangles, the
+little bosky hollow at the old tree root, in one of which the little
+nest is built and the little wife broods on her eggs!</p>
+
+<p>Generally, however, the unhappy bird, if he be caught, is taken soon
+after his arrival in this country; for nightingales are migratory, and
+arrive with us about the middle of April. The male bird comes about
+a fortnight before the female, and begins to sing in his loneliness
+a song of salutation—a sweet song, which expresses, with a tender
+yearning, his desire for her companionship. Birds taken at this time,
+before the mate has arrived, and whilst he is only singing to call and
+welcome her, are said still to sing on through the summer in the hope,
+long-deferred, that she may yet come. He will not give her up though
+he is no longer in the freedom of the wood, so he sings and sings, and
+if he live over the winter, he will sing the same song the following
+spring, for the want is again in his heart. He cannot believe but that
+she will still come. The cruel bird-catchers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> therefore, try all their
+arts to take him in this early stage of his visit to us. Should he be
+taken later, when he is mated, and, as we see him in our picture, with
+all the wealth of his little life around him, he cannot sing long. How
+should he—in a narrow cage and dingy street of London or some other
+great town—perhaps with his eyes put out—for his cruel captor fancies
+he sings best if blind? He may sing, perhaps, for a while, thinking
+that he can wake himself out of this dreadful dream of captivity,
+darkness, and solitude. But it is no dream; the terrible reality at
+length comes upon him, and before the summer is over he dies of a
+broken heart.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious fact that the nightingale confines itself, without
+apparent reason, to certain countries and to certain parts of England.
+For instance, though it visits Sweden, and even the temperate parts
+of Russia, it is not met with in Scotland, North Wales, nor Ireland,
+neither is it found in any of our northern counties excepting
+Yorkshire, and there only in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. Neither
+is it known in the south-western counties, as Cornwall and Devonshire.
+It is supposed to migrate during the winter into Egypt and Syria. It
+has been seen amongst the willows of Jordan and the olive trees of
+Judea, but we have not, to our knowledge, any direct mention of it in
+the Scriptures, though Solomon no doubt had it in his thoughts, in his
+sweet description of the spring—“Lo, the winter is past, the rain is
+over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing
+of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” A
+recent traveller in Syria tells me that she heard nightingales singing
+at four o’clock one morning in April of last year in the lofty regions
+of the Lebanon.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-057"><img src="images/i-057.jpg" alt="" width="503" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">NIGHTINGALES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_40" title="Page 40">Page 40.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p>
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Sir John Sinclair’s Attempt.</em></div>
+
+<p>There have been various attempts to introduce the nightingale into such
+parts of this country as it has not yet frequented; for instance, a
+gentleman of Gower, a sea-side district of Glamorganshire, the climate
+of which is remarkably mild, procured a number of young birds from
+Norfolk and Surrey, hoping that they would find themselves so much at
+home in the beautiful woods there as to return the following year. But
+none came. Again, as regards Scotland, Sir John Sinclair purchased a
+large number of nightingales’ eggs, at a shilling each, and employed
+several men to place them carefully in robins’ nests to be hatched. So
+far all succeeded well. The foster-mothers reared the nightingales,
+which, when full-fledged, flew about as if quite at home. But when
+September came, the usual month for the migration of the nightingale,
+the mysterious impulse awoke in the hearts of the young strangers, and,
+obeying it, they suddenly disappeared and never after returned.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a very accurate drawing of the
+nightingale’s nest, which is slight and somewhat fragile in
+construction, made of withered leaves—mostly of oak—and lined
+with dry grass. The author of “British Birds” describes one in his
+possession as composed of slips of the inner bark of willow, mixed with
+the leaves of the lime and the elm, lined with fibrous roots, grass,
+and a few hairs; but whatever the materials used may be, the effect
+produced is exactly the same.</p>
+
+<p>In concluding our little chapter on this bird, I would mention that
+in the Turkish cemeteries, which, from the old custom of planting a
+cypress at the head and foot of every grave, have now become cypress
+woods, nightingales abound, it having been also an old custom of love
+to keep these birds on every grave.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE SKYLARK.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Skylark, that beautiful singer, which carries its joy up to the
+very gates of heaven, as it were, has inspired more poets to sing about
+it than any other bird living.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth says, as in an ecstasy of delight:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Up with me! up with me into the clouds!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">For thy song, lark, is strong;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Up with me! up with me into the clouds!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Singing, singing.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">With clouds and sky about me ringing,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Lift me, guide me till I find</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That spot that seems so to my mind.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Shelley, in an ode which expresses the bird’s ecstasy of song, also
+thus addresses it, in a strain of sadness peculiar to himself:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Hail to thee, blithe spirit!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">Bird, thou never wert—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">That from heaven, or near it,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">Pourest thy full heart</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">In profuse strains of unpremeditated art!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Higher, still, and higher</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">From the earth thou springest,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Like a cloud of fire;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">The deep blue thou wingest,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singest!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">
+
+<hr class="tb" /></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p>  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Better than all measures</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">Of delightful sound,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Better than all treasures</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">That in books are found,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Teach me half the gladness</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">That thy brain must know,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Such harmonious madness</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">From my lips should flow;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">The world should listen then, as I am listening now.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>James Hogg’s Verses.</em></div>
+
+<p>James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who had listened to the bird with
+delight on the Scottish hills, thus sings of it:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Bird of the wilderness,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Blithesome and cumberless,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sweet is thy matin o’er moorland and lea!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Emblem of happiness,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Blest is thy dwelling-place—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Wild is thy lay, and loud;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Far in the downy cloud</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Where on thy dewy wing,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Where art thou journeying?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">O’er fell and fountain sheen,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">O’er moor and mountain green,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O’er the red streamer that heralds the day;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Over the cloudlet dim,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Over the rainbow’s rim,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Musical cherub, soar, singing away!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Then when the gloaming comes,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Low in the heather blooms,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Emblem of happiness,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Blest is thy dwelling-place—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p>
+<p>But we must not forget the earthly life of the bird in all these sweet
+songs about him.</p>
+
+<p>The plumage of the skylark is brown, in various shades; the fore-part
+of the neck, reddish-white, spotted with brown; the breast and under
+part of the body, yellowish-white. Its feet are peculiar, being
+furnished with an extraordinarily long hind claw, the purpose of which
+has puzzled many naturalists. But whatever nature intended it for, the
+bird has been known to make use of it for a purpose which cannot fail
+to interest us and call forth our admiration. This shall be presently
+explained. The nest is built on the ground, either between two clods
+of earth, in the deep foot-print of cattle, or some other small hollow
+suitable for the purpose, and is composed of dry grass, hair, and
+leaves; the hair is mostly used for the lining. Here the mother-bird
+lays four or five eggs of pale sepia colour, with spots and markings
+of darker hue. She has generally two broods in the year, and commences
+sitting in May. The he-lark begins to sing early in the spring.
+Bewick says, “He rises from the neighbourhood of the nest almost
+perpendicularly in the air, by successive springs, and hovers at a
+vast height. His descent, on the contrary, is in an oblique direction,
+unless he is threatened by birds of prey, or attracted by his mate, and
+on these occasions he drops like a stone.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-063"><img src="images/i-063.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">SKYLARKS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_44" title="Page 44">Page 44.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>With regard to his ascent, I must, however, add that it is in a spiral
+direction, and that what Bewick represents as springs are his sudden
+spiral flights after pausing to sing. Another peculiarity must be
+mentioned: all his bones are hollow, and he can inflate them with air
+from his lungs, so that he becomes, as it were, a little balloon, which
+accounts for the buoyancy <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>with which he ascends, and the length of
+time he can support himself in the air: often for an hour at a time.
+Still more extraordinary is the wonderful power and reach of his voice,
+for while, probably, the seven hundred or a thousand voices of the
+grand chorus of an oratorio would fail to fill the vast spaces of the
+atmosphere, it can be done by this glorious little songster, which,
+mounting upwards, makes itself heard, without effort, when it can be
+seen no longer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Solicitude for its Young.</em></div>
+
+<p>The attachment of the parents to their young is very great, and has
+been seen to exhibit itself in a remarkable manner.</p>
+
+<p>The nest being placed on the open-ground—often pasture, or in a field
+of mowing grass—it is very liable to be disturbed; many, therefore,
+are the instances of the bird’s tender solicitude either for the young
+or for its eggs, one of which I will give from Mr. Jesse. “In case of
+alarm,” he says, “either by cattle grazing near the nest, or by the
+approach of the mower, the parent-birds remove their eggs, by means
+of their long claws, to a place of greater security, and this I have
+observed to be affected in a very short space of time.” He says that
+when one of his mowers first told him of this fact he could scarcely
+believe it, but that he afterwards saw it himself, and that he regarded
+it only as another proof of the affection which these birds show their
+offspring. Instances are also on record of larks removing their young
+by carrying them on their backs: in one case the young were thus
+removed from a place of danger into a field of standing corn. But
+however successful the poor birds may be in removing their eggs, they
+are not always so with regard to their young, as Mr. Yarrell relates.
+An instance came under his notice, in which the little fledgeling
+proved too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> heavy for the parent to carry, and, being dropped from an
+height of about thirty feet, was killed in the fall.</p>
+
+<p>Of all captive birds, none grieves me more than the skylark. Its
+impulse is to soar, which is impossible in the narrow spaces of a cage;
+and in this unhappy condition, when seized by the impulse of song, he
+flings himself upwards, and is dashed down again by its cruel barriers.
+For this reason the top of the lark’s cage is always bedded with green
+baize to prevent his injuring himself. In the freedom of nature he is
+the joyous minstrel of liberty and love, carrying upwards, and sending
+down from above, his buoyant song, which seems to fall down through the
+golden sunshine like a flood of sparkling melody.</p>
+
+<p>I am not aware of the height to which the lark soars, but it must be
+very great, as he becomes diminished to a mere speck, almost invisible
+in the blaze of light. Yet, high as he may soar, he never loses the
+consciousness of the little mate and the nestlings below: but their
+first cry of danger or anxiety, though the cry may be scarce audible
+to the human ear, thrills up aloft to the singer, and he comes down
+with a direct arrow-like flight, whilst otherwise his descent is more
+leisurely, and said by some to be in the direct spiral line of his
+ascent.</p>
+
+<p>Larks, unfortunately for themselves, are considered very fine eating.
+Immense numbers of them are killed for the table, not only on the
+continent, but in England. People cry shame on the Roman epicure,
+Lucullus, dining on a stew of nightingales’ tongue, nearly two thousand
+years ago, and no more can I reconcile to myself the daily feasting on
+these lovely little songsters, which may be delicate eating, but are no
+less God’s gifts to gladden and beautify the earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE LINNET.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Linnets</span> are a branch of a larger family of finches, all very familiar
+to us. They are cousins, also, to the dear, impudent sparrows, and the
+pretty siskin or aberdevines.</p>
+
+<p>The linnets are all compactly and stoutly built, with short necks and
+good sized heads, with short, strong, pointed bills, made for the ready
+picking up of seed and grain, on which they live. Most of them have two
+broods in the season, and they build a bulky, deep, and compact nest,
+just in accordance with their character and figure; but, though all
+linnet-nests have a general resemblance of form, they vary more or less
+in the material used.</p>
+
+<p>Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce
+and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They
+are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season
+when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted
+to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards,
+and amongst stacks.</p>
+
+<p>The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers
+of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four; the others
+are the twit or mountain-linnet, the mealy-linnet, and the lesser
+red-pole—the smallest of the four—all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> very much alike, and easily
+mistaken for each other. The name red-pole is given from the bright
+crimson spot on their heads—<em>pole</em> or <em>poll</em> being the old
+Saxon word for head. The back of our linnet’s head and the sides of his
+neck are of dingy ash-colour, his back of a warm brown tint, his wings
+black, his throat of a dull white, spotted with brown, his breast a
+brilliant red, and the under part of his body a dingy white.</p>
+
+<p>The linnet, amongst singing birds, is what a song writer is amongst
+poets. He is not a grand singer, like the blackbird or the thrush,
+the missel-thrush or the wood-lark, all of which seem to have an epic
+story in their songs, nor, of course, like the skylark, singing up to
+the gates of heaven, or the nightingale, that chief psalmist of all
+bird singers. But, though much humbler than any of these, he is a sweet
+and pleasant melodist; a singer of charming little songs, full of the
+delight of summer, the freshness of open heaths, with their fragrant
+gorse, or of the Scottish brae, with its “bonnie broom,” also in golden
+blossom. His are unpretending little songs of intense enjoyment, simple
+thanksgivings for the pleasures of life, for the little brown hen-bird,
+who has not a bit of scarlet in her plumage, and who sits in her snug
+nest on her fine little white eggs, with their circle of freckles and
+brown spots at the thicker end, always alike, a sweet, patient mother,
+waiting for the time when the young ones will come into life from that
+delicate shell-covering, blind at first, though slightly clothed in
+greyish-brown—five little linnets gaping for food.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-069"><img src="images/i-069.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">LINNETS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_48" title="Page 48">Page 48.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its
+favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and
+moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>here in our picture;
+for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts
+of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it too
+rises a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chevaux de frise</i> of furze spines, green and tender to
+look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on
+hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with
+the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and,
+below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands
+of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and
+spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the
+man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the
+horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man
+thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when
+he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the
+while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune,
+impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment
+years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada;
+or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of
+trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and
+to his God.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote.</em></div>
+
+<p>Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the
+parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is
+very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the
+following anecdote in proof of it:—</p>
+
+<p>“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some
+children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming
+them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> fluttered round the
+children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs
+and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the
+nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards
+placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left
+open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still
+farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage,
+but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening
+actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several
+children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the
+cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent
+shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor
+parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully
+in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-072"><img src="images/i-072.jpg" alt="A Linnet on a branch" width="233" height="200" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE PEEWIT.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Peewit, lapwing, or plover, belongs to the naturalist family of
+<em>Gallatores</em> or Waders, all of which are furnished with strong
+legs and feet for walking, whilst all which inhabit watery places, or
+feed their young amongst the waves, have legs sufficiently long to
+enable them to wade; whence comes the family name.</p>
+
+<p>The peewit, or lapwing, is a very interesting bird, from its peculiar
+character and habits. Its plumage is handsome; the upper part of the
+body of a rich green, with metallic reflections; the sides of the neck
+and base of the tail of a pure white; the tail is black; so is the
+top of the head, which is furnished with a long, painted crest, lying
+backwards, but which can be raised at pleasure. In length the bird is
+about a foot.</p>
+
+<p>The peewit lives in all parts of this country, and furnishes one of
+the pleasantly peculiar features of open sea-shores and wide moorland
+wastes, in the solitudes of which, its incessant, plaintive cry has an
+especially befitting sound, like the very spirit of the scene, moaning
+in unison with the waves, and wailing over the wide melancholy of the
+waste. Nevertheless, the peewit is not in itself mournful, for it is
+a particularly lively and active bird, sporting and frolicking in the
+air with its fellows, now whirling round and round, and now ascending
+to a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> height on untiring wing; then down again, running along the
+ground, and leaping about from spot to spot as if for very amusement.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, with all its agility, a very untidy nest-maker; in
+fact it makes no better nest than a few dry bents scraped together in
+a shallow hole, like a rude saucer or dish, in which she can lay her
+eggs—always four in number. But though taking so little trouble about
+her nest, she is always careful to lay the narrow ends of her eggs in
+the centre, as is shown in the picture, though as yet there are but
+three. A fourth, however, will soon come to complete the cross-like
+figure, after which she will begin to sit.</p>
+
+<p>These eggs, under the name of plovers’ eggs, are in great request as
+luxuries for the breakfast-table, and it may be thought that laid thus
+openly on the bare earth they are very easily found. It is not so,
+however, for they look so much like the ground itself, so like little
+bits of moorland earth or old sea-side stone, that it is difficult to
+distinguish them. But in proportion as the bird makes so insufficient
+and unguarded a nest, so all the greater is the anxiety, both of
+herself and her mate, about the eggs. Hence, whilst she is sitting, he
+exercises all kinds of little arts to entice away every intruder from
+the nest, wheeling round and round in the air near him, so as to fix
+his attention, screaming mournfully his incessant <em>peewit</em> till he
+has drawn him ever further and further from the point of his anxiety
+and love.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-075"><img src="images/i-075.jpg" alt="" width="481" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">PEEWITS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_52" title="Page 52">Page 52.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Stratagems of the Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>The little quartette brood, which are covered with down when hatched,
+begin to run almost as soon as they leave the shell, and then the poor
+mother-bird has to exercise all her little <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>arts also—and indeed the
+care and solicitude of both parents is wonderful. Suppose, now, the
+little helpless group is out running here and there as merry as life
+can make them, and a man, a boy, or a dog, or perhaps all three, are
+seen approaching. At once the little birds squat close to the earth,
+so that they become almost invisible, and the parent-birds are on the
+alert, whirling round and round the disturber, angry and troubled,
+wailing and crying their doleful <em>peewit</em> cry, drawing them ever
+further and further away from the brood. Should, however, the artifice
+not succeed, and the terrible intruder still obstinately advance in
+the direction of the young, they try a new artifice; drop to the
+ground, and, running along in the opposite course, pretend lameness,
+tumbling feebly along in the most artful manner, thus apparently
+offering the easiest and most tempting prey, till, having safely lured
+away the enemy, they rise at once into the air, screaming again their
+<em>peewit</em>, but now as if laughing over their accomplished scheme.</p>
+
+<p>The young, which are hatched in April, are in full plumage by the end
+of July, when the birds assemble in flocks, and, leaving the sea-shore,
+or the marshy moorland, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks,
+where they soon become fat, and are said to be excellent eating.
+Happily, however, for them, they are not in as much request for the
+table as they were in former times. Thus we find in an ancient book of
+housekeeping expenses, called “The Northumberland Household-book,” that
+they are entered under the name of <em>Wypes</em>, and charged one penny
+each; and that they were then considered a first-rate dish is proved
+by their being entered as forming a part of “his lordship’s own mess,”
+or portion of food; <em>mess</em><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> being so used in those days—about
+the time, probably, when the Bible was translated into English. Thus
+we find in the beautiful history of Joseph and his brethren, “He sent
+messes to them, but Benjamin’s mess was five times as much as any of
+theirs.”</p>
+
+<p>Here I would remark, on the old name of <em>Wypes</em> for this
+bird, that country-people in the midland counties still call them
+<em>pie-wypes</em>.</p>
+
+<p>But now again to our birds. The peewit, like the gull, may easily be
+tamed to live in gardens, where it is not only useful by ridding them
+of worms, slugs, and other troublesome creatures, but is very amusing,
+from its quaint, odd ways. Bewick tells us of one so kept by the Rev.
+J. Carlisle, Vicar of Newcastle, which I am sure will interest my
+readers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Winter Visitor.</em></div>
+
+<p>He says two of these birds were given to Mr. Carlisle, and placed
+in his garden, where one soon died; the other continued to pick up
+such food as the place afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual
+supply. Necessity then compelled it to come nearer the house, by which
+it gradually became accustomed to what went forward, as well as to
+the various members of the family. At length a servant, when she had
+occasion to go into the back-kitchen with a light, observed that the
+lapwing always uttered his cry of <em>peewit</em> to gain admittance.
+He soon grew familiar; as the winter advanced, he approached as far
+as the kitchen, but with much caution, as that part of the house was
+generally inhabited by a dog and a cat, whose friendship the lapwing
+at length gained so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort
+to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and
+night with his two associates, sitting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> close to them, and partaking
+of the comforts of a warm fireside. As soon as spring appeared he
+betook himself to the garden, but again, at the approach of winter,
+had recourse to his old shelter and his old friends, who received him
+very cordially. But his being favoured by them did not prevent his
+taking great liberties with them; he would frequently amuse himself
+with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of, and
+whilst he was thus employed he showed marks of the greatest indignation
+if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died, poor
+fellow, in the asylum he had chosen, by being choked with something
+which he had picked up from the floor. During his confinement he
+acquired an artificial taste as regarded his food, and preferred crumbs
+of bread to anything else.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-079"><img src="images/i-079.jpg" alt="Peewit standing on a rock." width="565" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE HOUSE-MARTIN, OR WINDOW-SWALLOW.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> our winter, swallows inhabit warm tropical countries, migrating
+northwards with the first approaches of summer. They are usually seen
+with us from the 13th to the 20th of April, and are useful from the
+first day of their arrival, by clearing the air of insects, which they
+take on the wing; indeed, they may be said to live almost wholly on the
+wing, and, except when collecting mud for their nests, are seldom seen
+to alight, and, in drinking, dip down to the water as they skim over it
+on rapid wing.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-081"><img src="images/i-081.jpg" alt="" width="485" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">HOUSE-MARTINS AND NESTS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_56" title="Page 56">Page 56.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We have three kinds of swallows in England: the chimney-swallow, the
+house-martin, and the sand-martin, of which I shall have something to
+say in due course. The chimney-swallow and house-martin are especially
+worthy of the affectionate regard of man; for they love his society,
+build around his dwelling, destroy nothing that he values, have no
+appetite for his fruits; they live harmoniously amongst themselves,
+and have no other disposition than that of cheerfulness, unwearying
+industry and perseverance, and the most devoted parental affection.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Weir has given us a lively picture of swallow-life—four nests
+grouped together on a house-side: more there probably are; but there
+are as many as we can manage with; indeed we <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>will presently confine
+our attention to one single nest, and, by so doing, I flatter myself
+that I shall win your admiration for these birds, and that you will
+agree with me in thinking that if we all, men and women, boys and
+girls, had only their persevering spirit, and their courage under
+adversity, there would not be so much unsuccess, either at school or in
+life, as is now, too often, the case.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Nests on Traquair House.</em></div>
+
+<p>Some people are very fond of having martins about their houses, under
+their eaves, and even in the corners of their windows. The Earl of
+Traquair was one of these; he was, indeed, a great lover of all kinds
+of birds, and all were protected on his premises. In the autumn of
+1839, there were no less than one hundred and three martins’ nests on
+Traquair House—which is a very fine old place—besides several which
+had been deserted, injured, or taken possession of by sparrows, which
+is a very unwarrantable liberty taken by these birds.</p>
+
+<p>From six to twenty days are required to build a martin’s nest. If all
+goes on well it may be finished in the shorter time.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now see how the birds set about building. Here are several
+nests in our picture; and turning to the pages of Macgillivray’s
+“British Birds,” I shall find exactly the information we need. I will,
+therefore, extract freely from this interesting writer, that my young
+readers may be as grateful to him as I am myself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Domestic Life of a Pair.</em></div>
+
+<p>Again turning to our picture, we find four nests. “A party of eight
+martins arrived here on the 1st of May. As this was quite a new
+location, they spent the whole day in examining the eaves of the house,
+the corners of the windows, and the out-buildings. By the following
+morning the question was settled, and they had, as you see, fixed
+upon a high wall with a slate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> coping, and an eastern aspect, and at
+once commenced making a general foundation for their nests. Suitable
+materials are procured from the banks of an adjoining pond, or a puddle
+in the lane. Let us go down and see them. Here they come, sailing
+placidly over the tree-tops; now they descend so as almost to sweep the
+surface of the pond; some of them alight at once, others skim round, as
+if borne away by a brisk wind. Those that have alighted walk about with
+short steps, looking round for materials. Some seem not to find the mud
+suitable, but seize on a piece of straw, or grass, which, tempering
+in the mud, they then fly off with. Returning now to the building, we
+see one using its tail planted against the wall, or against the nest,
+if sufficiently advanced, as a support, deposit the material it has
+brought by giving its head a wriggling motion, so that the mud slides
+gently into the crevices of yesterday’s work; then he retouches the
+whole. See, one has now arrived with his supply before the other has
+finished: he is impatient to disburden himself, and wants to drive
+off the worker, who rather snappishly retorts, and he, poor fellow,
+goes off for a while with the mud sticking to his bill. Now she has
+finished; there is room for him, and he goes back again and works hard
+in his turn. They never alight on the nest without twittering. At noon,
+if the weather be hot, they betake themselves to the fields, or, after
+a dip in the pond, sun themselves on the house-top for half-an-hour or
+so. Then they will hawk about for food, and after awhile one of them
+may, perhaps, return and give another touch or two to the work, or seat
+herself in the nest to consolidate the materials. But if cold, wet, or
+windy, they keep away. What they do with themselves I know not; but
+as soon as it clears<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> up, they are at work again. At the beginning of
+their building, they seem to have no objection to leave it for a whole
+day; but as it advances, they become more interested or anxious, and
+one or both will sit in it all night, even though the weather be bad.”</p>
+
+<p>So much for the building of these four nests of our picture; and now
+I will bespeak your attention to a little narrative of the joys and
+sorrows of the domestic life of a pair of martins, which, we will
+suppose, belong also to our group.</p>
+
+<p>“The building began on the 1st of May, at daybreak. But the weather was
+very much against them, being cold and stormy, and it was the 18th of
+the month before it was finished.</p>
+
+<p>“Seeing their labours thus brought to a close, one could not help
+wishing, considering how much it had cost, that the nest might last
+them for many years. But on the 23rd of June, during a heavy fall of
+thunder rain, almost the entire nest was washed to the ground, together
+with the young birds which it contained. A short time before the
+catastrophe, the old birds were observed hovering about, and expressing
+great uneasiness. Almost immediately after it happened they left the
+place, but returned the following day, and spent it in flying about and
+examining the angle of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>“Next morning they commenced repairing the nest. In three days they had
+made great progress; but again rain fell, and their work was stayed.
+On the 30th, they advanced rapidly, and both remained sitting on the
+nest all night. The next day it was finished; and now they began to
+rejoice: they twittered all the evening till it was dark, now and then
+pruning each other’s heads, as, seated side by side, they prepared to
+spend the dark hours in the nest. Eggs were soon laid again, but,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>
+sad to say, on the morning of the 18th of July, again, during a great
+storm of wind and rain, the upper wall fell, carrying with it one
+of the eggs. The old birds again fluttered about, uttering the most
+plaintive cries, and early the next morning began to repair the damage,
+though it rained heavily all day. Part of the lining hanging over the
+side was incorporated with the new layers of mud. The urgency of the
+case was such, that they were obliged to work during the bad weather.
+Throughout the day one bird sat on the nest, whilst the other laboured
+assiduously. Kindly was he welcomed by his mate, who sometimes, during
+his absence, nibbled and retouched the materials which he had just
+deposited. In a few days it was finished, the weather became settled,
+the young were hatched, and all went well with them.</p>
+
+<p>“Sometimes when the nests are destroyed, the birds, instead of
+attempting to repair the damage, forsake the neighbourhood, as if
+wholly disheartened. Nothing can be more distressing to them than to
+lose their young. In the storm of which I have just spoken, another
+martin’s nest was washed down with unfledged young in it. These were
+placed on some cotton wool in a basket, covered with a sheet of
+brown paper, in an open window, facing the wall. During that day and
+the following, the parents took no notice of them, and their kind
+human protector fed them with house-flies. That evening he tried an
+experiment. He gently placed the young ones in a nest of that same
+window, where were other young. It was then about eight o’clock in the
+evening; the rain was falling heavily, and no sound was heard save the
+<em>cheep, cheep</em>, of the young birds, and the dashing of the storm
+against the window-glass. A minute elapsed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> when forth rushed the
+parents shrieking their alarm notes, and, again and again wheeled up to
+the nest, until at last they drifted away in the storm. He watched them
+till they disappeared about half-past-nine. During all this time they
+only twice summoned courage to look into the nest. Next morning I was
+rejoiced to see them attending assiduously to the young ones.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Feeding of the Young.</em></div>
+
+<p>And now, turning again to our group of four nests on the walls,
+supposing it be the month of July, every one of them with its
+fledgeling brood sitting with gaping mouths, ever ready for food, you
+may, perhaps, like to know how many meals are carried up to them in the
+course of the day. If, then, the parents began to feed them at about
+five in the morning, and left a little before eight at night, they
+would feed them, at the lowest calculation, about a thousand times.</p>
+
+<p>With all this feeding and care-taking, the young ones, as the summer
+goes on, are full-fledged, and have grown so plump and large that the
+nest is quite too small for them; therefore, they must turn out into
+the world, and begin life for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It is now a fine, brisk, August morning, and at about eight o’clock,
+you can see, if you look up at the nests, how the old birds come
+dashing up to them quite in an excited way, making short curves in the
+air, and repeating a note which says, as plain as a bird can speak,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">This is the day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">You must away!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What are wings made for, if not to fly?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Cheep, cheep,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Now for a leap!—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Father and mother and neighbours are by!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span></p>
+<p>This flying away from the nest is a great event in swallow-life, as you
+may well believe. Let us therefore now direct our attention to one nest
+in particular, in which are only two young ones—a very small family;
+but what happens here is occurring all round us.</p>
+
+<p>One of these little ones balances itself at the entrance, looking
+timidly into the void, and, having considered the risk for awhile,
+allows its fellow to take its place.</p>
+
+<p>During all this time, the parents keep driving about, within a few feet
+of the entrance, and endeavour, by many winning gestures, to induce
+their charge to follow them. The second bird also, after sitting for
+some time, as if distrustful of its powers, retires, and the first
+again appears. Opening and shutting his wings, and often half inclined
+again to retire, he, at length, summons up all his resolution, springs
+from the nest, and, with his self-taught pinions, cleaves the air. He
+and his parents, who are in ecstasies, return to the nest, and the
+second young one presently musters courage and joins them. And now
+begins a day of real enjoyment; they sport chiefly about the tree-tops
+till seven in the evening, when all re-enter the nest.</p>
+
+<p>In several instances I have seen the neighbours add their inducements
+to those of the parents, when the young were too timid to leave their
+home. If the happy day prove fine, they seldom return to the nest
+till sunset; if otherwise, they will come back two or three times. On
+one occasion, when the young were ready to fly, but unwilling to take
+the first leap, the parents had recourse to a little stratagem, both
+ingenious and natural. The he-bird held out a fly at about four inches
+from the entrance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> to the nest. In attempting to take hold of it, they
+again and again nearly lost their balance. On another occasion, the
+mother bird, trying this plan to no purpose, seemed to lose patience,
+and seizing one of them by the lower mandible, with the claw of her
+right foot, whilst it was gaping for food, tried to pull it out of the
+nest, to which, however, it clung like a squirrel. But the young, every
+one of them, fly in time, and a right joyous holiday they all have
+together.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Autumn Migration.</em></div>
+
+<p>So the summer comes to an end; and towards the middle of September,
+the great family cares being over, and the young having attained
+to an age capable of undertaking the fatigues of migration, that
+mysterious impulse, strong as life itself, and probably affecting
+them like some sickness—the necessity to exchange one country and
+climate for another—comes upon them. Under this influence, they
+congregate together in immense numbers, every neighbourhood seeming
+to have its place of assembly—the roofs of lofty buildings, or the
+leafless boughs of old trees: here they meet, not only to discuss the
+great undertaking, but to have a right merry time together—a time
+of luxurious idleness, lively chatterings, singing in chorus their
+everlasting and musical <em>cheep, cheep</em>, eating and drinking, and
+making ready for the journey before them.</p>
+
+<p>At length the moment of departure is come, and at a given signal the
+whole party rises. Twittering and singing, and bidding a long farewell
+to the scenes of their summer life, they fly off in a body, perhaps, if
+coming from Scotland, or the north of England, to rest yet a few weeks
+in the warmer southern counties; after which, a general departure takes
+place to the sunny lands of Africa.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span></p>
+
+<p>Though gifted with wings wonderfully constructed for prolonged flight,
+and though having passed every day of so many successive months almost
+wholly on the wing, the swallow frequently suffers great fatigue and
+exhaustion in its long migration. Sometimes, probably driven out of
+its course by adverse winds, it is known to alight by hundreds on the
+rigging of vessels, when worn out by hunger and fatigue it is too
+often shot or cruelly treated. Nevertheless the swallow, protected
+by Him who cares for the sparrow, generally braves the hardships of
+migration, and the following spring, guided by the same mysterious
+instinct, finds his way across continents and seas to his old home,
+where, identified by some little mark which has been put upon him—a
+silken thread as a garter, or a light silver ring—he is recognised as
+the old familiar friend, and appears to be no less happy to be once
+more with them than are they to welcome him. Sometimes swallows coming
+back as ordinary strangers, prove their identity, even though the scene
+of their last year’s home may have been pulled down, together with the
+human habitation. In this case, he has been known to fly about in a
+distracted way, lamenting the change that had taken place, and seeming
+as if nothing would comfort him.</p>
+
+<p>Though the fact of swallows coming back to their old haunts does not
+need proving, yet I will close my chapter with an incident which
+occurred in our own family. During a summer storm, a martin’s nest,
+with young, was washed from the eaves of my husband’s paternal
+home. His mother, a great friend to all birds, placed the nest with
+the young, which happily were uninjured, in a window, which, being
+generally open, allowed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> the parent-birds access to their young. They
+very soon began to feed them, making no attempt to build any other
+nest; so that the young were successfully reared, and took their flight
+full-fledged from the window-sill.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Welcomed Return to Old Haunts.</em></div>
+
+<p>The next spring, when the time for the arrival of the swallows came,
+great was the surprise and pleasure of their kind hostess, to see,
+one day, a number of swallows twittering about the window, as if
+impatient for entrance. On its being opened, in they flew, and,
+twittering joyfully and circling round the room, as if recognising the
+old hospitable asylum of the former year, flew out and soon settled
+themselves under the eaves with the greatest satisfaction. There could
+be no doubt but that these were the birds that had been reared there.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-091"><img src="images/i-091.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="427" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE CHIFF-CHAFF, OR OVEN-BUILDER.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Chiff-chaff, chill-chall, lesser pettichaps, or oven-builder, is
+one of the great bird-family of warblers, and the smallest of them in
+size; indeed, it is not much larger than the little willow-wren. Like
+all its family it is a bird of passage, and makes its appearance here,
+in favourable seasons, as early as the 12th of March—earlier than
+the warblers in general—and also remains later, having been known to
+remain here to the middle of October.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-093"><img src="images/i-093.jpg" alt="" width="462" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">CHIFF-CHAFFS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_66" title="Page 66">Page 66.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is a remarkably cheerful little bird, and is warmly welcomed by all
+lovers of the country as being one of the first visitants of spring,
+sending its pleasant little voice, with an incessant “chiff-chaff,”
+“chery-charry,” through the yet leafless trees.</p>
+
+<p>Its plumage is dark olive-green; the breast and under part of the body,
+white, with a slight tinge of yellow; the tail, brown, edged with pale
+green; legs, yellowish-brown.</p>
+
+<p>The nest is not unlike that of a wren, built in a low bush, and,
+sometimes, even on the ground. The one so beautifully and faithfully
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir, seems to be amongst the tallest grasses
+and picturesque growths of some delicious woodland lane. It is a
+lovely little structure; a hollow ball wonderfully put together, of
+dry leaves and stems of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>grass, and a circular hole for entrance at
+the side; lined with soft feathers—a little downy bed of comfort. The
+mother-bird, as we now see her, sits here in delicious ease on five or
+six white eggs, beautifully spotted with rich red-brown.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Howitt’s Account of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>This dainty little bird, which seems made alone for pleasure, is
+very useful to man, and should be made kindly welcome everywhere,
+living entirely on caterpillars and other troublesome and destructive
+creatures. The Rev. J. G. Wood says that it saves many a good oak from
+destruction by devouring, on its first arrival, the caterpillars of
+the well-known green oak-moth, which roll up the leaves in so curious
+a manner, and come tumbling out of their green houses at the slightest
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>He says, also, that a little chiff-chaff, which had been caught and
+tamed, was accustomed to dash to the ceiling of the room in which it
+was kept, and to snatch thence the flies which settled on the white
+surface.</p>
+
+<p>My husband, writing of this bird, says:—</p>
+
+<p>“Gilbert White gave, I believe, the name of chiff-chaff to this
+little bird from its note. In the midland counties it is called the
+chill-chall from the same cause; and, indeed, this name is, to my ear,
+more accordant with its continuous ditty. Its cheery little voice is
+one of the pleasantest recognitions of returning spring. It is sure to
+be heard, just as in former years, in the copse, the dell, the belt
+of trees bordering a wayside; we catch its simple note with pleasure,
+for it brings with it many a memory of happy scenes and days gone
+by. We see the little creature hopping along the boughs of the yet
+only budding oak, and know that it is as usefully employed for man
+as agreeably for itself. It tells us, in effect, that sunny days,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>
+flowers, and sweet airs, and the music of a thousand other birds, are
+coming. We revert to the time when, tracing the wood-side or the bosky
+dingle in boyhood, we caught sight of its rounded nest amongst the
+screening twigs of the low bush, and the bleached bents of last year’s
+grapes. We remember the pleasure with which we examined its little
+circular entrance, and discovered, in its downy interior, its store
+of delicate eggs, or the living mass of feathery inmates, with their
+heads ranged side by side and one behind another, with their twinkling
+eyes and yellow-edged mouths. Many a time, as we have heard the ever
+blithe note of chill-chall, as it stuck to its unambitious part of the
+obscure woodland glade, we have wished that we could maintain the same
+buoyant humour, the same thorough acceptance of the order of Providence
+for us. As Luther, in a moment of despondency, when enemies were rife
+around him, and calumny and wrong pursued him, heard the glad song of a
+bird that came and sang on a bough before his window, we have thanked
+God for the lesson of the never-drooping chill-chall. The great world
+around never damps its joy with a sense of its own insignificance; the
+active and often showy life of man, the active and varied existence of
+even birds, which sweep through the air in gay companies, never disturb
+its pleasure in its little accustomed nook. It seems to express, in its
+two or three simple notes, all the sentiment of indestructible content,
+like the old woman’s bird in the German story by Ludwig Tieck—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alone in wood so gay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis good to stay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Morrow like to-day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For ever and aye;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, I do love to stay</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alone in wood so gay!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span></p>
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Bird’s Ditty.</em></div>
+
+<p>“This little bird appears to feel all that strength of heart, and to
+put it into its little ditty, which seems to me to say—</p>
+
+<p>“Here I continue ‘cheery cheery, and still shall, and still shall!’”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-097"><img src="images/i-097.jpg" alt="" width="435" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have here the Golden-crested Wren—the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Regulus cristatus</i>
+of naturalists—the tiniest of our British birds, “the pleasing
+fairy-bird,” as Bewick calls it, one of the large family of warblers,
+and a near relation to Jenny Wren. It is a very charming little bird,
+with a sweet melodious song of its own, and so many curious little ways
+that it is well worth everybody’s notice and everybody’s love.</p>
+
+<p>It is very active and lively, always in motion, fluttering from branch
+to branch, and running up and down the trunks and limbs of trees, in
+search of insects on which it lives. It may as often be seen on the
+under as on the upper side of a branch, with its back downwards, like
+a fly on a ceiling, and so running along, all alert, as merry and busy
+as possible. In size it is about three inches, that is with all its
+feathers on, but its little body alone is not above an inch long; yet
+in this little body, and in this little brain, lives an amazing amount
+of character, as I shall show you, as well as a great deal of amusing
+conceit and pertness which you would hardly believe unless you were
+told.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-099"><img src="images/i-099.jpg" alt="Golden-crested wrens" width="480" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_70" title="Page 70">Page 70.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The colour of the bird is a sort of yellowish olive-green, the under
+part of pale, reddish-white, tinged with green on the sides; the quill
+feathers of the wing are dusky, edged with pale <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>green, as are also
+the tail feathers. Thus attired by nature, that is, by the great
+Creator who cares for all His creatures, this little bird, creeping
+and fluttering about the branches and bole of the leafy summer tree,
+can scarcely be distinguished from the tree itself: hence it is that
+the bird is so unfamiliar to most people. The he-bird, however, has
+a little distinguishing glory of his own—a crest of golden-coloured
+feathers, bordered on each side with black, like a sort of eye-brow to
+his bright hazel eyes. This crest, which gives him his distinguished
+name, can be erected at pleasure, when he is full of life and
+enjoyment, or when he chooses to lord it over birds ten times as big as
+himself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Lively Gambols of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>It is worth anybody’s while, who has a love for the innocent denizens
+of nature, and no desire to do them harm, to go into a wood on a
+summer’s day on purpose to watch the doings of this lively little bird
+amongst the tree-branches. Fir-woods are the best for this purpose, as
+this bird has an especial liking for these trees, and ten to one, if
+you will only be patient and quite still, you may soon see him at work
+busily looking after his dinner, running along the branches, up one and
+down another, then like a little arrow off to the next tree, scudding
+along its branches, then back again, up and down, round and round
+the bole, going like a little fire, so rapid are his movements; now
+running up aloft, now hanging head downward, now off again in another
+direction. What a wonderful activity there is in that little body! He
+must devour hundreds of insects, as well as their eggs, which he thus
+seeks for under the scaly roughnesses of the bark, and finding, devours.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty as he is, his nest, of which Mr. Harrison Weir has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> given a most
+accurate drawing, is quite worthy of him. It is always the same, swung
+like a little hammock from a branch, and always hidden, it may be by
+leaves or a bunch of fir-cones. The cordage by which it is suspended
+is of his own weaving, and is made of the same materials as the nest,
+which are moss and slender thread-like roots. In form it is oval, as
+you see, with a hole for entrance at the side, and is lined with the
+softest down and fibrous roots. It is a lovely little structure, like
+a soft ball of moss, within which the mother-bird lays from six to a
+dozen tiny eggs, scarcely bigger than peas, the delicate shell of which
+will hardly bear handling. The colour of the egg is white, sprinkled
+over with the smallest of dull-coloured spots.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jesse describes one of these lovely nests which was taken from the
+slender branches of a fir-tree where it had been suspended, as usual,
+by means of delicate cordage, secured to the branch by being twisted
+round and round, and then fastened to the edge or rim of the nest,
+so that one may be sure that the making and securing of these tiny
+ropes must be the first work of the clever little artizan. The nest
+thus suspended sways lightly to and fro with the movement of the bird.
+We cannot see in our cut the slender ropes that suspend it; they are
+concealed under the thick foliage; but we can easily see what a dainty
+little structure it is.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Jackdaw and Mischievous Wrens.</em></div>
+
+<p>Delicate and lovely as is this bird, and pleasing and harmless as is
+his life, he yet possesses some curious traits of character, as I
+said. For instance, though so small, with a body only an inch long,
+he has, apparently, a wonderful conceit of himself, and loves to be
+lord and master of creatures that will not dispute with him, as not
+worth their while, or perhaps because there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> really is some inherent
+mastership in him by which he contrives, under certain circumstances,
+to rule over them. In proof of this, I will tell you what the Rev. J.
+G. Wood relates from the experience of a lady, a friend of his. One
+severe winter, when she had housed and fed a number of birds, amongst
+which were a jackdaw, a magpie, two skylarks, a goldfinch, and a robin,
+in a warm aviary, feeding them regularly and abundantly, other birds
+came, of course, to partake of the plentiful feast, and amongst them
+two golden-crested wrens. These little things made themselves not
+only quite at home, but lorded it over the other birds in the most
+extraordinary way possible. For instance, if the jackdaw had possessed
+himself of a nice morsel which he was holding down with his foot to
+eat comfortably, and the golden-crested wren had also set his mind on
+it, he hopped on the jackdaw’s head and pecked in his eye, on the side
+where his foot held the delicacy. On this the poor jackdaw instantly
+lifted his foot to his head where he thought something was amiss, and
+the mischievous little fellow snatched up the treasure and was off. At
+first the jackdaw would pursue him in great wrath, but he soon learned
+that it was no use, for the creature would only jump upon his back
+where he could not reach him, and so was safe from punishment. “Before
+the winter was over,” continues the lady, “the little gold-crests were
+masters of all the birds, and even roosted at night on their backs;
+finding, no doubt, that in this way they could keep their little feet
+much warmer than on a perch.”</p>
+
+<p>Conceited and dominant, however, as these little birds may be, they are
+yet either extremely timid, or their nervous system is so delicately
+constituted, that a sudden fright kills them.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> Thus if, when they are
+all alert and busy on the tree-branch, seeking for insects and fearing
+no evil, the branch be suddenly struck with a stick, the poor bird
+falls dead to the ground. The shock has killed it. It has received no
+apparent injury—not a feather is ruffled—but its joyous, innocent
+life is gone for ever. This fact is asserted by Gilbert White, and was
+proved by my husband, who brought me home the bird which had thus died.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-104"><img src="images/i-104.jpg" alt="bird's nest with eggs" width="461" height="491" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WAGTAIL.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> elegant little bird belongs to the Motacilla, or Wagtail family.
+There are three brothers of them in this country—the pied, the grey,
+and the yellow. The pied is the most familiar, and our friend Mr.
+Harrison Weir has given us a lovely picture of it at home in a cleft of
+the rock, with fleshy-leaved lichens above, and green springing fronds
+of the great fern, which will presently overshadow it. Around are the
+solemn mountains, and the never silent water is foaming and rushing
+below.</p>
+
+<p>This bird has many names besides his Latin one of Motacilla. In Surrey
+he is called washer, or dish-washer, by the common people, from his
+peculiar motions in walking, which are thought to resemble those of a
+washer-woman at her tub. The colours of the pied wagtail are simply
+black and white, but so boldly and clearly marked as to produce a very
+pleasing and elegant effect.</p>
+
+<p>We have, every year, several wagtails in our garden, to which they add
+a very cheerful feature, walking about, nodding their heads and tails
+as if perfectly at home, afraid neither of dog nor cat, much less of
+any human being about the place. A little running brook as one boundary
+of the garden is, no doubt, one of the attractions; but here they are
+seen less frequently than on the smoothly-mown lawn, where they pick up
+tiny<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> insects, gliding along with a smooth motion, accompanied by the
+quick movement of head and tail.</p>
+
+<p>It is bitterly cold wintry weather as I write this, and they now visit
+the kitchen door, where, no doubt, little delicacies of various kinds
+attract them. They are more fearless and familiar than either sparrows,
+robins, or blackbirds; yet all of these are our daily pensioners,
+having their breakfast of crumbs as regularly before the parlour window
+as we have our own meal. Yet they fly away at the slightest sound,
+and the appearance of the cat disperses them altogether. They have,
+evidently, the old ancestral fear of man, stamped, as powerfully as
+life itself, upon their being. They are suspicious, and always in
+a flutter: nothing equals the calm self-possession of the wagtail,
+excepting it be the state of mind into which the robin gets when the
+gardener is turning up the fresh soil, just on purpose, as he supposes,
+to find worms for him.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-107"><img src="images/i-107.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WAGTAIL AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_76" title="Page 76">Page 76.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Quest for Food.</em></div>
+
+<p>And now let me give you a wagtail picture, drawn by a faithful hand.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+It is the end of July, the young wagtails are abroad with their
+parents, like human families, a month or two later, gone out or abroad
+to take their holiday. “Often,” he says, “one may see them wading in
+shallow places, in quest of insects and worms, carefully holding up
+their tails to prevent them being draggled. If you watch the motions
+of an individual just coming up to join the party, you see it alight
+abruptly, twittering its shrill notes, and, perching on a small stone,
+incessantly vibrate its body, and jerk out its tail.” This of course
+is the polite way in which a stranger wagtail introduces itself
+amongst its friends. There they are; now walking out into the water,
+and looking round for food. Now they are on the shore again, running
+rapidly along, picking up, now and then, a dainty morsel, and every
+moment spreading out the ever-vibrating tail. Now they are in the
+adjoining meadow, each one in pursuit of a fly, which it has no sooner
+caught, than it spies another. The lazy geese, which have nibbled
+the grass bare, allow the wagtail to pass in their midst without
+molestation. When the cows are grazing in the midst of a swarm of
+gnats and other insects, as Gilbert White says, as they tread amongst
+the bush herbage they rouse up multitudes of insects which settle on
+their legs, their stomachs, and even their noses, and the wagtails are
+welcomed by the cows as benefactors. Watch them, for they are worth the
+trouble; see, one comes forward and catches a small fly, bends to one
+side to seize another, darts to the right after a third, and springs
+some feet in the air before it secures a fourth, and all this time
+others are running about after other flies, passing close to the cows’
+noses or amongst their feet. With all this running to and fro, and
+hither and thither, they every now and then run in each other’s way;
+but they do not quarrel, aware, no doubt, that there is room enough for
+them in the world, nay, even in the meadow, though it now seems to be
+full of wagtails, all busily occupied, some walking, others running, a
+few flying off and many arriving. You may walk in amongst them; they
+are not very shy, for they will allow you to come within a few yards of
+them. They may always be met with on the shore when the tide is out, as
+well as in the meadow; you will meet with them by the river-side, or by
+the mill-dam. Occasionally you may see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> them perched on a roof, a wall,
+or a large stone, but very rarely on a tree or bush.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[A]</a> “British Birds.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Taunton Pair.</em></div>
+
+<p>They pair about the middle of April, and build by the side of rivers
+in crevices of rock—as in our picture, on a heap of stones, in faggot
+or wood stacks, or in a hole in a wall, but always near water and
+carefully hidden from sight. The nest is made of dry grass, moss, and
+small roots, thickly lined with wool and hair. The eggs are five or six
+in number, of a greyish white, spotted all over with grey and brown.
+As a proof of the confiding nature of this bird, I must mention that
+occasionally it builds in most unimaginable places, directly under the
+human eye—as, for instance, “a pair of them last summer,” says Mr.
+Jesse, “built their nest in a hollow under a sleeper of the Brighton
+Railway, near the terminus at that place. Trains at all times of the
+day were passing close to the nest, but in this situation the young
+were hatched and reared.” Mr. Macgillivray also mentions that a pair
+of these birds built their nest in an old wall near a quarry, within a
+few yards of four men who worked most part of the day in getting the
+stone, which they occasionally blasted. The hen-bird laid four eggs,
+and reared her brood, she and her mate becoming so familiar with the
+quarry-men as to fly in and out without showing the least sign of fear;
+but if a stranger approached they would immediately fly off, nor return
+till they saw him clear off from the place. Another nest was built
+beneath a wooden platform at a coal-pit, where the noisy business of
+unloading the hutches brought up from the pit, was continually going
+forward. But soon the wagtails were quite at home, becoming familiar
+with the colliers and other people connected with the work, and flew
+in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> and out of their nest without showing the slightest sign of fear.
+Again, another pair built close to the wheel of a lathe in a workshop
+at a brass manufactory at Taunton amid the incessant din of the
+braziers; yet here the young were hatched, and the mother-bird became
+perfectly familiar with the faces of the workmen; but if a stranger
+entered, or any one belonging to the factory, though not to what might
+be called her shop, she quitted her nest instantly, nor would return
+till they were gone. The male, however, had much less confidence, and
+would not come into the room, but brought the usual supplies of food to
+a certain spot on the roof whence she fetched it. All these anecdotes
+prove how interesting would be the relationship between the animal
+creation and man, if man ceased to be their tyrant or destroyer.</p>
+
+<p>As regards this particular bird, it is not only elegant in its
+appearance, but amiable and attractive in all its ways. “They are,”
+says Bewick, “very attentive to their young, and continue to feed and
+train them for three or four weeks after they can fly; they defend them
+with great courage when in danger, or endeavour to draw aside the enemy
+by various little arts. They are very attentive also to the cleanliness
+of their nests, and so orderly as to have been known to remove light
+substances, such as paper or straw, which have been placed to mark the
+spot.” As regards this proof of their love of order, however, I would
+rather suggest that it may be a proof of their sagacity and sense of
+danger: they suspected that some human visitor, of whose friendly
+character they were not convinced, was intending to look in upon them,
+and they thought it best, therefore, to decline the honour of his
+visit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span></p>
+
+<p>The ordinary note of this bird, uttered rapidly if alarmed, is a sort
+of <em>cheep, cheep</em>. In the summer morning, however, it may be heard
+singing a pleasant, mellow and modulated little song. Like the swallow,
+for which it is a match in elegance, it lives entirely on insects. If
+you would only stand silently for a few minutes by a water-side, where
+it haunts, you would be delighted with the grace and activity of its
+movements. “There it stands,” says one of its friends, “on the top of
+a stone, gently vibrating its tail, as if balancing itself. An insect
+flies near; it darts off, flutters a moment in the air, seizes its
+prey, and settles on another stone, spreading and vibrating its tail.
+Presently it makes another sally, flutters around for a while, seizes
+two or three insects, glides over the ground, swerving to either side,
+then again takes its stand on a pinnacle.” Not unfrequently too it
+may be seen on the roof of a house, or in a village street, still in
+pursuit of insects.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-112"><img src="images/i-112.jpg" alt="" width="402" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE JACKDAW.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have called the Rook and Jackdaw first cousins. They are so, and
+are greatly attached to each other. There is a difference, however, in
+their character; the rook is grave and dignified, the jackdaw is active
+and full of fun. But they are fond of each other’s society, and agree
+to associate for nine months in the year: during the other three they
+are both occupied with their respective family cares.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-115"><img src="images/i-115.jpg" alt="" width="478" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">JACKDAWS AND NESTLINGS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_82" title="Page 82">Page 82.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Rooks build in trees in the open air, the nests of the young being
+exposed to all the influences of wind and weather. The jackdaw does not
+approve of this mode. He likes to live under cover, and, therefore,
+makes his nest in holes and crannies, amongst rocks, as in our picture;
+in old and tall buildings, as church towers and steeples, old ruinous
+castles, or old hollow trees. The traditional structure of the family
+nest is certainly that of the rook; a strong frame-work of sticks upon
+which the eggs can be laid, and the clamorous young jackdaws be brought
+up. This our friend Mr. Weir has shown us plainly. But, after all, it
+does not appear that the jackdaw, with all his sharpness, has much
+scientific knowledge, the getting the sticks into the hole being often
+a very difficult piece of work. Mr. Waterton amused himself by watching
+the endless labour and pains which the jackdaw takes in trying to do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>
+impossibilities. Thinking it absolutely necessary that a frame-work
+of sticks should be laid in the hole or cavity as the foundation of
+the nest, he brings to the opening just such sticks as the rook would
+use in open spaces, and may be seen trying for a quarter of an hour
+together to get a stick into a hole, holding it by the middle all the
+time, so that the ends prop against each side, and make the endeavour
+impossible. He cannot understand how it is; he knows that sticks ought
+to go into holes, but here is one that will not; and, tired out at
+length, and thinking perhaps that it is in the nature of some sticks
+not to be got into a hole by any means, he drops it down and fetches
+another, probably to have no better result, and this may happen several
+times. But jackdaws have perseverance, and so, with trying and trying
+again, he meets with sticks that are not so self-willed, and that can
+be put into holes, either by being short enough or held the right way,
+and so the foundation is laid, and the easier part of the work goes on
+merrily; for the jackdaw is at no loss for sheets and blankets for his
+children’s bed, though we cannot see them in our picture, the clamorous
+children lying at the very edge of their bed. But if we could examine
+it, we should most likely be amused by what we should find. The jackdaw
+takes for this purpose anything soft that comes readily—we cannot say
+to <em>hand</em>—but to <em>bill</em>. In this respect he resembles the
+sparrow, and being, like him, fond of human society, gleans up out of
+his neighbourhood all that he needs for the comfort of his nestlings.
+Thus we hear of a nest, built in the ruins of Holyrood Chapel, in
+which, on its being looked into for a piece of lace which was supposed
+to be there, it was found also to be lined with part of a worsted
+stocking, a silk <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>handkerchief, a child’s cap, a muslin frill, and
+several other things which the busy jackdaw had picked up in various
+ways; for it must be borne in mind that he is own cousin to the magpie,
+whose thievish propensities are well known.</p>
+
+<p>The call of the jackdaw is much quicker and more lively than the rook,
+somewhat resembling the syllable <em>yak</em>, variously modulated, and
+repeated somewhat leisurely, but at the same time cheerfully. Its food
+is similar to that of the rook, and going forth at early dawn it may be
+seen in pastures or ploughed fields, busily searching for larvæ, worms,
+and insects. They walk gracefully, with none of the solemn gravity
+either of the rook or raven, and may occasionally be seen running along
+and sometimes quarrelling amongst themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Like the rook, the jackdaw stows away food in its mouth or throat-bag
+to feed its young. Its plumage is black, with shining silvery grey
+behind the head. Occasionally they are found with streaks or patches of
+white, as are also rooks, but these are mere sports of nature.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Waterton’s Opinion.</em></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Waterton was of opinion that jackdaws lived in pairs all the year
+round, as he had seen them sitting in November on the leafless branches
+of a sycamore, side by side, pruning each other’s heads, and apparently
+full of mutual affection; and as they mostly left the trees in pairs,
+and so returned, he was inclined to think that it was their custom
+always to remain paired.</p>
+
+<p>I will now give you his <em>carte de visite</em> from Macgillivray’s
+“British Birds.” “He is a remarkably active, pert, and talkative little
+fellow, ever cheerful, always on the alert, and ready either for
+business or frolic. If not so respectable as the grave and sagacious
+raven, he is, at least, the most agreeable of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> family, and withal
+extremely fond of society, for, not content with having a flock of his
+own folk about him, he often thrusts himself into a gang of rooks, and
+in winter sometimes takes up his abode entirely with them.”</p>
+
+<p>As to <em>thrusting</em> himself into a gang of rooks, I am, however, of
+opinion that the rooks make him heartily welcome. How do we know what
+amusement they, with their stolid gravity and solemn dignity, find in
+him with all his fun and loquacity? That rooks are really fond of the
+society of jackdaws is proved by an observation of Mr. Mudie. He says
+that “in the latter part of the season, when the rooks from one of the
+most extensive rookeries in Britain made daily excursions of about six
+miles to the warm grounds by the sea-side, and in their flight passed
+over a deep ravine, in the sunny side of which were many jackdaws, he
+observed that when the cawing of the rooks in their morning flight was
+heard at the ravine, the jackdaws, who had previously been still and
+quiet, instantly raised their shriller notes, and flew up to join the
+rooks, both parties clamouring loudly as if welcoming each other; and
+that on the return, the daws accompanied the rooks a little past the
+ravine as if for good fellowship; then both cawed their farewell: the
+daws returned to their home and the rooks proceeded on their way.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackdaws, like rooks, are said to be excellent weather-prophets.
+If they fly back to their roost in the forenoon, or early in the
+afternoon, a storm may be expected that evening, or early in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Rev. J. G. Wood’s Anecdote.</em></div>
+
+<p>The anecdotes of tame jackdaws are numerous. The Rev. J. G. Wood
+speaks of one which had learnt the art of kindling lucifer matches,
+and thus became a very dangerous inmate,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> busying himself in this way
+when the family was in bed, though, fortunately, he seems to have done
+nothing worse than light the kitchen fire which had been laid ready
+for kindling over night. Clever as he was, however, he could not learn
+to distinguish the proper ignitable end of the match, and so rubbed
+on till he happened to get it right. He frightened himself terribly
+at first by the explosion and the sulphur fumes, and burned himself
+into the bargain. But I do not find that, like the burnt child, he
+afterwards feared the fire and so discontinued the dangerous trick.</p>
+
+<p>The jackdaw is easily domesticated, and makes himself very happy in
+captivity, learns to articulate words and sentences, and is most
+amusing by his mimicry and comic humour.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-119"><img src="images/i-119.jpg" alt="Castle tower" width="354" height="420" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird from the
+position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly in gardens,
+it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of a beam or piece
+of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or gateway, the nest being,
+however, generally screened, and often made a perfect little bit
+of picturesque beauty, by the leaves of some lovely creeping rose,
+woodbine, or passionflower, which grows there.</p>
+
+<p>This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, though
+always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond of human
+society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Virginian creeper, at
+the back of our house.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-121"><img src="images/i-121.jpg" alt="" width="476" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_86" title="Page 86">Page 86.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>According to her peculiar fancy she built exactly in the doorway,
+though there were some yards of verandah on either hand; but here was
+the convenient ledge, forming an angle with the upright support; and
+here was placed, as in our picture, the small, somewhat flat nest,
+beautifully, though slightly, put together, of dried grass and moss,
+lined with wool and hair. Here the mother-bird laid her four or five
+greyish-white eggs, with their spots of rusty red, and here she reared
+her young. She had, however, it seemed to us, an uncomfortable time of
+it, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>for, though we carefully avoided giving her needless disturbance
+that we almost ceased to use the door, yet there was an unavoidable
+passing to and fro to which she never seemed to get accustomed,
+starting off her nest with a little flutter whenever we came in sight;
+nor—although before she had finished sitting the quick-growing shoots
+of the Virginian creeper, with its broadly-expanding leaves, hid her
+nest so completely that, had it not been for her own timidity, we need
+not have known of her presence—she never lost this peculiar trait of
+character.</p>
+
+<p>The nest which Mr. Harrison Weir has drawn is, doubtless, taken from
+life. I wish, however, he could have seen ours, only about ten feet
+from the ground, a little dome of love, embowered amongst young shoots,
+vine-like leaves and tendrils—a perfectly ideal nest, in which our
+friend, who has as keen a sense of natural beauty as any artist living,
+would have delighted himself.</p>
+
+<p>The colours of this bird are very unobtrusive: the upper parts
+brownish-grey, the head spotted with brown, the neck and breast
+streaked or spotted with greyish-brown. It is a migratory bird, and
+arrives in this country about the middle or end of May, remaining with
+us till about the middle of October, by which time the flies on which
+it lives have generally disappeared.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How it takes its Prey.</em></div>
+
+<p>Its mode of taking its winged prey is curious. Seated, stock-still,
+in a twig, it darts or glides off at the sight of an insect, like the
+bird of our picture, and seizes it with a little snapping noise; then
+returns to its perch ready for more, and so on; incessantly darting out
+and returning to the same spot, till it has satisfied its hunger, or
+moves off to another twig to commence the same pursuit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p>
+
+<p>When they have young, the number of flies consumed only by one little
+family must be amazing. It is recorded<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> in one instance that a pair
+of fly-catchers, beginning to feed their nestlings at five-and-twenty
+minutes before seven in the morning, and continuing their labour till
+ten minutes before nine at night, supplied them with food, that is to
+say with flies, no less than five hundred and thirty-seven times. The
+gentleman who made these observations says:—“Before they fed their
+young they alighted upon a tree for a few seconds, and looked round
+about them. By short jerks they usually caught the winged insects.
+Sometimes they ascended into the air and dropped like an arrow; at
+other times they hovered like a hawk when set on its prey. They drove
+off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approached their
+nest, as if bidding them to go and hunt in their own grounds, where
+there were plenty of flies for them. Sometimes they brought only one
+fly in their bills, sometimes several, and flies of various sizes.”</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[B]</a> See Macgillivray’s “<cite>British Birds</cite>.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>This bird seems to become attached to particular localities, where
+he finds himself conveniently situated and undisturbed. Mr. Mudie
+mentions, in his “Feathered Tribes,” “that a pair of these birds had
+nested in his garden for twelve successive years.” What is the length
+of life of a fly-catcher I cannot say; but probably if they were
+not the same birds, they would be their descendants—birds hatched
+there, and consequently at home. The Rev. J. G. Wood also speaks of
+the same locality having been used by this bird for twenty successive
+years; and he supposes that the young had succeeded to their ancestral
+home. He gives also an interesting account of the commencement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> of a
+nest-building by this bird. He says that the female, who seems to be
+generally the active builder, placed, in the first instance, a bundle
+of fine grass in some conveniently-forked branches, and after having
+picked it about for some time, as if regularly shaking it up, she
+seated herself in the middle of it, and there, spinning herself round
+and round, gave it its cup-like form. She then fetched more grasses,
+and after arranging them partly round the edge, and partly on the
+bottom, repeated the spinning process. A few hairs and some moss were
+then stuck about the nest and neatly woven in, the hair and slender
+vegetable fibres being the thread, so to speak, with which the moss was
+fastened to the nest.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Mudie on Nest-building.</em></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Mudie, also speaking of their nest-building, says that, in one
+instance which came under his notice, “the bird began at seven o’clock
+on a Tuesday morning, and the nest was finished in good time on Friday
+afternoon.” This was certainly rapid work. Mr. Yarrell says that the
+he-bird brings the materials to the hen, who makes use of them—which
+is stated as a general fact by Michelet—and that in constructing her
+nest the little fly-catcher, after she had rounded it into its first
+form, moves backwards as she weaves into it long hairs and grasses with
+her bill, continually walking round and round her nest. This, however,
+can only be when the situation of the nest will allow of her passing
+round it. Our fly-catcher’s nest, and the nest of our picture, are
+placed as a little bed close to the wall, and in such situations the
+nest has sometimes no back, but simply the lining. A very favourite
+place with the fly-catcher for her nest is the hole in a wall, the
+size of a half brick, in which the builder fixed the spar of his
+scaffolding, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> omitted to fill up when he had finished. In these
+convenient little nooks the fly-catcher’s nest fills the whole front
+of the opening, but has seldom any back to it. From all this, I think
+it is clear that the fly-catcher is, in her arrangements, guided by
+circumstances: only, in every case, her little home is as snug as it
+can be.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-126"><img src="images/i-126.jpg" alt="children looking out a window" width="438" height="550" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WOOD-PIGEON.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> wood-pigeon, ring-dove, or cushat is one of the most familiar and
+poetical of our birds. Its low, plaintive coo-goo-roo-o-o is one of the
+pleasantest sounds of our summer woods.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Tell me, tell me, cushat, why thou moanest ever,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thrilling all the greenwood with thy secret woe?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">‘I moan not,’ says the cushat, ‘I praise life’s gracious Giver</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By murmuring out my love in the best way that I know.’”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The wood-pigeon belongs to a large family of birds—<em>columbinæ</em>
+or doves. The earliest mention of them in the world is in Genesis,
+when Noah, wearied with the confinement of the ark, and seeing
+that the mountain tops were visible, selected from the imprisoned
+creatures—first the raven, then the dove, to go forth and report to
+him of the state of the earth. The raven, however, came not back, no
+doubt finding food which tempted him to stay; whilst the dove, finding
+no rest for the sole of her foot, returned, and Noah, putting forth his
+hand, took her in. Again he sent her forth, and she came back in the
+evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. A third
+time she was sent forth, but now she returned no more. So Noah looked
+out, and behold the face of the earth was dry. And he and his family,
+and all the creatures, again went forth and possessed all things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p>
+
+<p>This dove might probably be of the carrier-pigeon tribe, which is more
+nearly related to the rock-pigeon, also a native of this country,
+or rather, of the northern parts of Scotland. These carrier-pigeons
+were, in the old times, long enough before the invention of electric
+telegraphs, or even before post-offices were established, used instead
+of both. Anacreon, the Greek poet, speaks of them as being used to
+convey letters; the pigeon, having, as it were, two homes, being fed in
+each; thus, a letter from a friend in one home was tied to the wing,
+and the bird turned into the air, probably without his breakfast, when
+he immediately flew off to his distant home, where the letter was
+joyfully received, and he fed for his pains. Whilst the answer was
+prepared he would rest, and it, perhaps, taking some little time, he
+grew hungry again; but they gave him nothing more, and, again securing
+the letter on his little person, he was sent back, making good speed,
+because he would now be thinking of his supper. Thus, the answer flew
+through the air.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“Come hither, my dove,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And I’ll write to my love,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I’ll send him a letter by thee!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-129"><img src="images/i-129.jpg" alt="" width="476" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_92" title="Page 92">Page 92.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>So says the old song. And we are told that a young man named
+Taurosthenes, one of the victors in the great Olympian games of Greece,
+sent to his father, who resided at a considerable distance, the tidings
+of his success, on the same day, by one of these birds. Pliny, the
+Roman historian, speaks of them being used in case of siege; when the
+besieged sent out these winged messengers, who, cleaving the air at
+a secure height above the surrounding army, conveyed the important
+intelligence of their need to their friends afar off. The crusaders
+are <span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>said to have made use of them at the siege of Jerusalem, and the
+old traveller, Sir John Maundeville—“knight, warrior, and pilgrim,” as
+he is styled—who, in the reign of our second and third Edwards, made
+a journey as far as the borders of China, relates that, “in that and
+other countries beyond, pigeons were sent out from one to another to
+ask succour in time of need, and these letters were tied to the neck of
+the bird.”</p>
+
+<p>But enough of carrier-pigeons. Let us come back to our ring-dove or
+cushat, brooding on her eggs in the sweet summer woods, as Mr. Harrison
+Weir has so truthfully represented her. She is not much of a nest-maker.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">“A few sticks across,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Without a bit of moss,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Laid in the fork of an old oak-tree;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Coo-goo-roo-o-o,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">She says it will do,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And there she’s as happy as a bird can be.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The nest, however, is not at all insufficient for her needs. You see
+her sitting brooding over her two white eggs in every possible bird
+comfort; and whether her mate help her in the building of the nest
+or not, I cannot say, but he is certainly a very good domesticated
+husband, and sits upon the eggs alternately with her, so that the
+hatching, whatever the building may be, is an equally divided labour.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><cite>Wordsworth’s Tribute of Praise.</cite></div>
+
+<p>Wordsworth sees in this bird an example of unobtrusive home affection.
+He says:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">“I heard a stock-dove sing or say</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">His homely tale this very day:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">His voice was buried among the trees,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Yet to be come at by the breeze;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span></p>  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">He did not cease, but cooed and cooed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And somewhat pensively he wooed;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">He sung of love with quiet blending,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Slow to begin, and never ending;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Of serious faith and inward glee;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That was the song—the song for me.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Wood-pigeons have immense appetites, and, being fond of all kinds of
+grain, as well as peas and beans, are looked upon by the farmer with
+great disfavour. They are, however, fond of some of those very weeds
+which are his greatest annoyance—for instance, charlock and wild
+mustard; so that they do him some good in return for the tribute which
+they take of his crops. They are fond, also, both of young clover and
+the young green leaves of the turnip, as well as of the turnip itself.
+Either by instinct or experience, they have learned that, feeding
+thus in cultivated fields, they are doing that which will bring down
+upon them the displeasure of man. “They keep,” says the intelligent
+author of “Wild Sports in the Highlands,” “when feeding in the fields,
+in the most open and exposed places, so as to allow no enemy to come
+near them. It is amusing to watch a large flock of these birds whilst
+searching the ground for grain. They walk in a compact body; and in
+order that all may fare alike—which is certainly a good trait in their
+character—the hindermost rank, every now and then, fly over the heads
+of their companions to the front, where they keep the best place for
+a minute or two, till those now in the rear take their place. They
+keep up this kind of fair play during the whole time of feeding. They
+feed, also, on wild fruit and all kinds of wild berries, such as the
+mountain-ash, and ivy; and where acorns abound, seem to prefer them to
+anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> else. At the same time, I must confess that they are great
+enemies to my cherry-trees, and swallow as many cherries as they can
+hold. Nor are strawberries safe from them, and the quantity of food
+they manage to stow away in their crops is perfectly astonishing.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Necessary Watchfulness.</em></div>
+
+<p>Besides man, the wood-pigeon has its own bird-enemies. “In districts
+where the hooded crow abounds,” says the author whom I have just
+quoted, “he is always on the look-out for its eggs, which, shining out
+white from the shallow, unsubstantial nest, are easily seen by him.
+The sparrow-hawk seizes the young when they are half-grown and plump;
+he having been carefully noticed watching the nest day by day as if
+waiting for the time when they should be fit for his eating. The larger
+hawks, however, prey upon the poor wood-pigeon himself.”</p>
+
+<p>With all his pleasant cooings in the wood, therefore, and all
+his complacent strutting about with elevated head and protruded
+breast—with all his gambols and graces, his striking the points of
+his wings together as he rises into the air, to express a pleasure to
+his mate beyond his cooing, he has not such a care free life of it. He
+is always kept on the alert, therefore, and, being always on the watch
+against danger, is not at all a sound sleeper. The least disturbance at
+night rouses him. “I have frequently,” continues our author, “attempted
+to approach the trees when the wood-pigeons were roosting, but even
+on the darkest nights they would take alarm. The poor wood-pigeon
+has no other defence against its enemies than its ever watchful and
+never sleeping timidity; not being able to do battle against even the
+smallest of its many persecutors.”</p>
+
+<p>Gilbert White says that the wood-pigeons were greatly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> decreasing, in
+his time, in Hampshire, and there were then only about a hundred in the
+woods at Selborne, but in former times the flocks had been so vast, not
+only there, but in the surrounding districts, that they had traversed
+the air morning and evening like rooks, reaching for a mile together,
+and that, when they thus came to rendezvous there by thousands, the
+sound of their wings, suddenly roused from their roosting-trees in an
+evening, rising all at once into the air, was like a sudden rolling of
+distant thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Although the wood-pigeon is considered to be the original parent of
+the tame pigeon, yet it does not seem possible to tame the young of
+this bird, though taken from the nest quite young. It is a bird which
+appears to hate confinement, and, as soon as it has the opportunity,
+spite of all kindness and attention, it flies away to the freedom of
+the woods.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-134"><img src="images/i-134.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="404" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WHITE-THROAT.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">With</span> none of our migratory birds, our spring visitants from southern
+lands, is the lover of the country more familiar than with the
+White-throat, which, with its nest, is here so beautifully and livingly
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir.</p>
+
+<p>This bird, with its many names—White-throat, Peggy-white-throat,
+Peggy-chaw, Charlie-mufty, Nettle-creeper, Whishey-whey-beard or
+Pettichaps—comes to us in April, about the same time as the cuckoo and
+the swallow; the male bird, like his cousin the nightingale, coming
+before the female, but he does not make himself very conspicuous till
+the hedges and bushes are well covered with leaves; then he may be
+found in almost every lane and hedge the whole country over.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the female is here, and the birds have paired, the business
+of nest-building begins, and they may then be seen flying in and out
+of the bushes with great alertness, the he-bird carolling his light
+and airy song, and often hurling himself, as it were, up into the air,
+some twenty or thirty feet, in a wild, tipsy sort of way, as if he
+were fuller of life than he could hold, and coming down again with a
+warble into the hedge, where the little hen-wife is already arranging
+her dwelling in the very spot probably where she was herself hatched,
+and her ancestors before her, for ages. For I must here remark that
+one of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> most remarkable properties of birds is, that facility by
+which they so regularly disperse themselves over the whole country on
+their arrival after their far migration, each one, in all probability,
+attracted by some attachment of the past, stopping short at, or
+proceeding onward to, the exact spot where he himself first came into
+the consciousness of life. This is one of the wonderful arrangements of
+nature, otherwise of God, by which the great balance is so beautifully
+kept in creation. If the migratory bird arrives ever so weary at Dover,
+and its true home be some sweet low-lying lane of Devonshire, a thick
+hedgerow of the midland counties, or a thickety glen of Westmoreland,
+it will not delay its flight nor be tempted to tarry short of that
+glen, hedgerow, or lane with which the experience of its own life and
+affection is united.</p>
+
+<p>At this charming time of the year none of the various performers in
+nature’s great concert bring back to those who have passed their youth
+in the country a more delicious recollection of vernal fields and lanes
+than this bird of ours, the little white-throat.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-137"><img src="images/i-137.jpg" alt="" width="470" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WHITE-THROAT AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_98" title="Page 98">Page 98.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Yes, along those hedges, fresh and fragrant with their young leaves,
+along those banks studded with primroses, campions, blue-bells and
+white starwort, and through the thick growth of the wild rose bushes,
+all of which have a beauty especially their own, the white-throat
+salutes you as you pass, as if to recognise an old acquaintance. He
+is brimful of fun; out he starts and performs his series of eccentric
+frolics in the air, accompanied by his mad-cap sort of warble; or,
+almost as if laughing at you, he repeats from the interior of the
+bushes his deep grave note, <em>chaw! chaw!</em> whence comes the name
+of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>peggy-chaw. This, however, is to tell you—and to those who
+understand bird-language it is intelligible enough—that he has now a
+family to attend to, and he begs, very respectfully, that you will not
+trouble yourself about it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Description of the Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>A Scotch naturalist says that “the peasant boys in East Lothian imagine
+that the bird is mocking or laughing at them, as it tumbles over the
+hedge and bushes in the lane, and, therefore, they persecute it at all
+times, even more mercilessly than they do sparrows.”</p>
+
+<p>The white-throat is an excitable little bird, rapid in all its
+movements; and though it will apparently allow a person to come near,
+it incessantly flits on, gets to the other side of the hedge, warbles
+its quaint little song, flies to a short distance, sings again, and so
+on, for a long time, returning in the same way. It erects the feathers
+of its head when excited, and swells its throat so much when singing,
+that the feathers stand out like a ruff, whence it has obtained the
+name of <em>Muffety</em>, or Charlie-mufty, in Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>Its colour, on the upper parts of the body, is reddish-brown,
+brownish-white below, with a purely white throat. Its food is
+principally insects and larvæ of various kinds, for which it is always
+on the search amongst the thick undergrowth of the plants and bushes
+where it builds. One of its many names is Nettle-creeper, from this
+plant growing so generally in the localities which it haunts.</p>
+
+<p>Its nest—one of the most light and elegant of these little abodes—may
+truly be called “gauze-like,” for being constructed wholly of fine
+grasses, and very much of the brittle stems of the Galnim aparine, or
+cleavers, which, though slender, are not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> pliant, and bend only with an
+angle; they prevent the whole fabric from being closely woven, so that
+it maintains a gauzy texture; the inside, however, is put together more
+closely of finer and more pliant materials, delicate root-filaments,
+and various kinds of hair. The eggs, four or five in number, are of a
+greenish-gray colour, often with a tawny hue, blotched and spotted over
+with dark tints of the same colour.</p>
+
+<p>A correspondent of the author of “British Birds” says that, one morning
+in June, when walking in his shrubbery within about eighty yards of a
+White-throat’s nest, which he was taking great interest in, he found a
+portion of the shell of one of the eggs of this bird, and, fearing that
+a magpie had been plundering it, hastened to the spot, but found to his
+satisfaction that the nest was then full of newly-hatched birds. “The
+shell had,” he says, “been instinctively taken away by the mother in
+order to prevent the discovery of the place of her retreat.” He adds
+that the mother-bird was very shy, and usually dropped from her nest
+with the most astonishing rapidity, and, treading her way through the
+grasses and other entanglements, disappeared in a moment. The young,
+too, seemed greatly to dislike observation, and on his taking one into
+his hand to examine it, it uttered a cry, no doubt of alarm, on which
+all the other little things leapt out of their abode, although not more
+than half-fledged, and hopped amongst the grass. It is a singular fact
+that almost every kind of young bird, if they be caused to leave their
+nest through alarm, or by being handled, can never be induced to stay
+in the nest again, though they may be put back into it time after time.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE BULL-FINCH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> bird, which is common to all parts of the country, is very shy,
+and for the greater part of the year haunts the woods and thickets.
+In spring, however, its fondness for tender fruit-buds tempts it into
+gardens and orchards, where, being considered an enemy, it is destroyed
+without mercy. It is a question, however, whether it devours these
+young buds as favourite food, or whether it may not be the equally
+distinctive grub or insect which is the temptation; and thus, that
+it ought rather to be regarded as the friend than the enemy of the
+gardener and fruit-grower. At all events, the general opinion is
+against the poor bull-finch. He is declared to be a devourer of the
+embryo fruit, and no mercy is shown to him. The Rev. J. G. Wood, always
+a merciful judge where birds are concerned, thinks that public opinion
+is unfairly against him. He says that a gooseberry tree, from which it
+was supposed that the bull-finches had picked away every blossom-bud,
+yet bore the same year an abundant crop of fruit, which certainly
+proved that they had picked away only the already infected buds, and so
+left the tree in an additionally healthy state, doubly able to mature
+and perfect its fruit.</p>
+
+<p>Bull-finches seldom associate with other birds, but keep together in
+small flocks as of single families. Its flight, though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> quick, is
+somewhat undulating or wavering; and in the winter it may sometimes
+be seen in large numbers flitting along the roadsides and hedges,
+being probably forced out of some of its shyness by the stress of
+hunger. Its ordinary note is a soft and plaintive whistle; its song,
+short and mellow. It is, in its native state, no way distinguished as
+a singing-bird, but at the same time it is possessed of a remarkable
+faculty for learning tunes artificially, of which I may have more to
+say presently.</p>
+
+<p>The bull-finch begins to build about the beginning of May. She places
+her nest, as we see in our illustration, in a bush, frequently a
+hawthorn, at no great distance from the ground. The nest is not very
+solidly put together; the foundation, so to speak, being composed of
+small dry twigs, then finished off with fibrous roots and moss, which
+also form the lining. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a dull
+bluish-white, marked at the larger end with dark spots.</p>
+
+<p>Although there is so little to say about the bull-finch in his natural
+state—excepting that he is a handsome bird, with bright black eyes,
+a sort of rich black hood on his head; his back, ash-grey; his breast
+and underparts, red; wings and tail, black, with the upper tail-coverts
+white—yet when he has gone through his musical education, he is not
+only one of the most accomplished of song-birds, but one of the most
+loving and faithfully attached little creatures that can come under
+human care. These trained birds are known as piping bull-finches.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-143"><img src="images/i-143.jpg" alt="" width="482" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_102" title="Page 102">Page 102.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How it is taught to pipe.</em></div>
+
+<p>Bishop Stanley, in his “History of Birds,” thus describes the method by
+which they are taught:—</p>
+
+<p>“In the month of June, the young ones, which are taken from the nest
+for that purpose, are brought up by a person, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>who, by care and
+attention, so completely tames them that they become perfectly docile
+and obedient. At the expiration of about a couple of months, they first
+begin to whistle, from which time their education begins, and no school
+can be more diligently superintended by its master, and no scholars
+more effectually trained to their own calling, than a seminary of
+bull-finches. They are formed first into classes of about six in each,
+and, after having been kept a longer time than usual without food, and
+confined to a dark room, the tune they are to learn is played over
+and over again, on a little instrument called a bird-organ, the notes
+of which resemble, as nearly as possible, those of the bull-finch;
+sometimes, also, a flageolet is used for this purpose, and birds so
+taught are said to have the finer notes. For awhile the little moping
+creatures will sit in silence, not knowing what all this can mean; but
+after awhile one by one will begin to imitate the notes they hear, for
+they have great power of imitation as well as remarkably good memories.
+As soon as they have said their lesson all round, light is admitted
+into the room, and they are fed.</p>
+
+<p>“By degrees the sound of the musical instrument—be it flageolet or
+bird-organ—and the circumstance of being fed, become so associated in
+the mind of the hungry bird, that it is sure to begin piping the tune
+as soon as it hears it begin to play. When the little scholars have
+advanced so far they are put into a higher class, that is to say, are
+turned over each to his private tutor; in other words, each bird is put
+under the care of a boy who must carry on its education, and who plays
+on the little instrument from morning to night, or as long as the bird
+can pay attention, during which time the head-master<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> or feeder goes
+his regular rounds, scolding or rewarding the little feathered scholars
+by signs and modes of making them understand, till they have learned
+their lessons so perfectly, and the tune is so impressed on their
+memories, that they will pipe it to the end of their days; and let us
+hope, as I believe is the fact, that they find in it a never-ending
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Just as in human schools and colleges, it is only the few out of the
+great number who take the highest honours or degrees, or become senior
+wranglers, so it is not above five birds in every hundred who can
+attain to the highest perfection in their art! but all such are valued
+at a very high price.”</p>
+
+<p>It is allowable to hope that the poor bull-finch, which has thus
+industriously applied himself to learn, and has thus become
+artificially gifted with the power of pleasing, takes great
+satisfaction in his accomplishment. Perhaps also the association with
+his human teacher calls forth his affection as well as his power of
+song, for it is a fact that the piping bull-finch is, of all birds,
+given to attach itself to some one individual of the family where it
+is kept, expressing, at their approach, the most vehement delight,
+greeting them with its piping melody, hopping towards them, and
+practising all its little winning ways to show its love, and to court a
+return of caresses.</p>
+
+<p>“An interesting story,” says the bishop, “was told by Sir William
+Parsons, who was himself a great musician, and who, when a young man,
+possessed a piping bull-finch, which he had taught to sing, ‘God save
+the king.’ On his once going abroad, he gave his favourite in charge
+to his sister, with a strict injunction to take the greatest care of
+it. On his return, one of his first visits was to her, when she told
+him that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> poor little bird had been long in declining health, and
+was, at that moment, very ill. Sir William, full of sorrow, went into
+the room where the cage was, and, opening the door, put in his hand,
+and spoke to the bird. The poor little creature recognised his voice,
+opened his eyes, shook his feathers, staggered on to his finger, piped
+‘God save the king,’ and fell down dead.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Devoted Affection of Birds.</em></div>
+
+<p>We see in the piping bull-finch—a bird which in its education is
+closely associated with man—the deep and devoted affection of which
+it is capable; and if we could only live with the animal creation as
+their friends and benefactors, we should no longer be surprised by such
+instances of their intelligence and love.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-147"><img src="images/i-147.jpg" alt="a nest among the leaves" width="403" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE MISSEL-THRUSH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> is the largest of our British song birds. It remains with us
+through the whole year, not being migratory, excepting in so far as it
+moves off in considerable flocks into Herefordshire and Monmouthshire
+for the sake of the mistletoe which abounds in the orchards there,
+on the viscous berries of which it delights to feed, and whence it
+has obtained its familiar name of missel, or mistletoe thrush. It is
+generally believed that this curious parasitic plant was propagated or
+planted upon the branches of trees, by this bird rubbing its bill upon
+the rough bark to clean it from the sticky substance of the berry, and
+thus introducing the seeds into the interstices of the bark.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-149"><img src="images/i-149.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_106" title="Page 106">Page 106.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Missel-thrush is a handsome bird; the head, back, and upper coverts
+of the wings olive-brown, the latter tipped with brownish-white,
+spotted with brown; the breasts and under parts pale yellow, covered
+with black spots; the legs are yellow and the claws black.</p>
+
+<p>It is a welcome bird, being the earliest harbinger of spring, the first
+singer of the year. Long before the swallow is thought of, before even
+the hardy familiar robin has begun his song, its clear rich voice
+may be heard on Christmas or New Year’s day, often amidst wild winds
+and winterly storms, whence its also familiar name, the storm-cock.
+It is known by different names <span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>in different parts of the country.
+The origin of its more general appellation—the missel-thrush—I have
+already mentioned. In the midland counties it is called the thrice
+cock, but why I know not. In Wales it is known as <em>Pen-y-llwyn</em>,
+which means the head or master of the coppice. Why it is so called I
+will mention presently.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Description of the Nest.</em></div>
+
+<p>The nest of the missel-thrush is large and well constructed, being
+made of almost every material ordinarily used for nest-making
+purposes—moss, and hay, and straw, and dry leaves, and little twigs,
+and locks of wool, with occasional odds and ends of every possible
+kind. All these are woven and wrought together very compactly; not,
+however, without loose straws and little tangles of wool hanging about.
+Within is a smooth casing of mud, as in the nest of the throstle, and
+within that a second coating of dry grass. Our picture represents all
+as being now complete. The busy labours of the year are now over; the
+eggs, four or five in number, of a greenish-blue, marked with reddish
+spots, are laid, and the mother-bird has taken her patient seat upon
+them, whilst her mate, from the branch above, sings as if he never
+meant to leave off again.</p>
+
+<p>The song of this bird is loud, clear, and melodious—a cheering,
+hopeful song; and when heard amidst the yet prevailing winter-storms,
+as if in anticipation of better times, it well deserves our admiration.
+It resembles, to a certain degree, the song of the blackbird and the
+thrush, and is often mistaken for them; but it has not the short,
+quick, and varied notes of the one, nor the sober, prolonged, and
+eloquent melody of the other. On the contrary it is of an eager,
+hurrying character,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> as if it could not sufficiently express its
+emotion, and yet was trying to do so.</p>
+
+<p>The missel-thrush is a bird of very marked character, and is both bold
+and chivalrous. Its harsh, jarring note of anger and defiance is the
+first to be heard when a bird-enemy is at hand. If a cuckoo or hawk is
+anywhere near meditating mischief, the missel-thrush is vehement in his
+expression of displeasure. In our own neighbourhood, where the jays in
+summer come from the wood to carry the young of the sparrows from their
+nests in the ivied boles of the trees round our garden, the outcry of
+the parent sparrows instantly arouses the sympathetic missel-thrushes,
+who, with a scolding defiance, rush to the rescue. Of course these
+birds, which are of so militant a character, and so loud in protesting
+against a wrong done to another, will be equally alive to their own
+rights, and active in defending their own nests and young. Some
+naturalists have suggested that this combatant temper and extraordinary
+courage are but the natural consequence of the bird finding its nest
+open to common attack; for, being of a large size, and built early in
+the year whilst the trees are yet leafless, it is visible to every
+enemy and depredator.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson says: “Often have I seen a pair of these birds driving off
+magpies, and occasionally fighting against four of them. One pair which
+I knew attacked a kestrel which appeared in their neighbourhood when
+the young were out. One of them struck the hawk several times, and made
+as many more fruitless attempts, as the enemy, by suddenly rising in
+the air, escaped the cunning blow. They then followed the kestrel for a
+long way, until they were lost to our sight in the distance.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p>
+
+<p>The old Welsh name of “master, or head of the coppice,” refers to the
+same warlike spirit. “The missel-thrush,” says Gilbert White, “suffers
+no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and
+is, for the time, a good guardian of the new-sown crops. In general, he
+is very successful in defence of his family. Once, however, I observed
+in my garden that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of
+the missel-thrush. The parent-birds defended their mansion with great
+vigour, and fought resolutely. But numbers at last prevailed, and the
+poor missel-thrushes had the pain of seeing their nest torn to pieces,
+and their young carried off.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Gardeners’ Enemy.</em></div>
+
+<p>The missel-thrushes, however, as the year goes on, make for themselves
+enemies even more formidable than hawks or magpies; these are the
+gardeners. Towards the end of summer, when the young have flown,
+and they and the parent-birds congregate in large flocks, having
+then nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, like human families when
+children are all home for the holidays, they too go abroad on their
+excursions of pleasure; not, however, to sea-side watering places, but
+into gardens where the cherries and raspberries are ripe. Poor birds!
+Little aware of their danger, or if they be so, defiant of it in the
+greatness of the temptation, they make sad havoc amongst the fruit,
+and many unfortunates are shot or snared, and then hung up amidst the
+cherry-boughs or the raspberry-canes as a terror to their associates.
+It is a pity we cannot make them welcome to some and yet have enough
+left for ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The berries of the mountain-ash and the arbutus, and later<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> on in the
+year those of the holly and ivy, supply them with food, as do also
+in the spring and summer insects of various kinds—caterpillars and
+spiders—so that in this respect they are good friends to the gardener,
+and might, one thinks, be made welcome to a little fruit in return.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-154"><img src="images/i-154.jpg" alt="nest in a tree" width="389" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span>, though an extremely pretty bird, is so common that very
+little notice is taken of it. Its colours are varied and beautiful:
+the back and wings, bright red; the central part of each feather,
+brownish-black; the head and throat, bright yellow; the feathers of the
+upper part tipped with black; the breast, brownish-red. The colours of
+the female are much duller.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow-hammer resembles linnets, finches, and sparrows in character
+and habits, and often associates with them, resorting to the fields in
+open weather, and often perching in hedges and bushes as well as in
+trees. In the winter, when the weather is severe, it congregates, with
+other birds, about houses, farm-buildings, and stack-yards.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most pleasing features of autumn is, to my mind, these
+flocks of kindred birds, which are at that time all abroad and yet
+together, circling in their flight, all rising as you approach, and
+wheeling away into the stubble-field, or into the distant hedges, now
+rich with their wild fruits—the blackberry, the wild rose hip, and the
+bunches of black-privet berries—and then away again, as you approach,
+with their variously modulated notes, through the clear air into the
+yet more distant stubble or bean-field.</p>
+
+<p>The flight of the yellow-hammer is wavy and graceful, and,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> alighting
+abruptly, he has a curious way of jerking out his tail feathers like
+a little fan. All at once a whole flock of them will descend from a
+considerable height and settle on the twigs of a tree, clothing it as
+with living leaves. Whatever number the flock may consist of, there
+is no impatient hurry or jostling among them to get the best perch,
+every individual settling as if on its own appointed place. As I have
+already observed, nothing is more charming at this season than these
+congregated companies of small birds. All the cares of life are now
+over, their young broods are around them, and now, with nothing to
+do but to enjoy themselves in the freedom of nature, where—on every
+hand, on every bush and tree, and in every outlying field—though the
+crops are now carried, all except, perhaps, here and there a solitary
+field in which the bean-shocks stand up black in the golden autumnal
+sunshine; but here, and there, and everywhere, a full table is spread,
+and they are welcome to enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>In spring and summer, the yellow-hammer sings a peculiar but
+mournful sort of little ditty, composed of a few short, sonorous
+notes, concluding with one long drawn out. In the midland
+counties, where stocking-weaving is the business of the people,
+the note of the bird is said to resemble the working of the
+machine—ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-e-e-chay—the prolonged latter syllable being
+what the stockinger calls, in the machine movement, “pressing over the
+arch.” In other parts of the country this bird’s song is interpreted as
+“A little bit of bread, and—no-cheese!” which may just as well be “A
+little bird am I, and—no thief!”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-157"><img src="images/i-157.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">YELLOW-HAMMER AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_112" title="Page 112">Page 112.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The food of this bird consists of the seeds of all kinds of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>grasses,
+chickweeds, polygonums, and other such weeds; also, in summer, when
+food is needed for the young, insects and larvæ.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Picturesque Nest.</em></div>
+
+<p>The winter congregations break up in April, and then the yellow-hammer
+begins to think of family joys and cares. But, unlike their relations
+the sparrows and finches, the he-birds take everything quietly, without
+having their little skirmishes to show their spirit and prowess, like
+the knights of old, at the tournament, before the admiring ladies. The
+yellow-hammer does everything quietly, choosing his mate in an orderly
+way; and now that the buds are swelling on the trees, the primroses
+gemming the hedge-banks, and the golden catkins hanging on the willows
+by the watersides, hither come the little yellow-hammers, and, having
+selected some sweet, hidden spot, under a bush, or on the fieldy banks
+amongst the thick herbage—we see it a month later in our picture,
+when the buds have expanded into leaves, in a wild growth of beautiful
+grasses and herbage—begin to make their nest. How picturesque it is!
+William Hunt never painted anything more beautiful. The nest itself
+is somewhat large, and of simple construction, woven externally of
+coarse bents and small pliant twigs, and lined with hair and wool. Here
+the hen lays four or five eggs of a purplish white, marked with dark,
+irregular streaks, often resembling musical notes.</p>
+
+<p>These poor little birds are extremely attached to their home and their
+young, so much so, that if these be taken by the pitiless bird-nester,
+they will continue for some days about the place uttering the most
+melancholy plaint, which, though still to the same old tune as the song
+of their spring rejoicing, has now the expression of the deepest woe.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p>
+
+<p>The author of “British Birds” thus sums up their various characteristic
+actions:—“When perched on a tree, especially in windy weather, they
+crouch close to the twigs, draw in their necks, and keep their tails
+declined. After pairing, the male is generally seen on a bush or tree,
+raising his tail by sudden jerks, and slightly expanding it. His notes
+are then usually two chirps, followed by a harsher note—cit, chit,
+chirr—with considerable intervals. When feeding in the stubble-fields,
+they advance by very short leaps, with their breasts nearly touching
+the ground; when apprehensive of danger they crouch motionless, and
+when alarmed give information to each other by means of their ordinary
+short note.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-160"><img src="images/i-160.jpg" alt="nest of eggs" width="440" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE MAGPIE.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">You</span> have here a living portrait of the Magpie, sitting, so to speak, on
+his own door-sill, and contemplating it with rather a sentimental air,
+perhaps rather with tender admiration; and as to his dwelling, it is,
+we must confess, a wonderful structure—a half-timbered edifice, so to
+speak, walled-round and roofed-in, with its front-door and all complete.</p>
+
+<p>The magpie is one of our most beautiful as well as most amusing and
+characteristic birds. He is cousin to the jackdaw, and has, like him,
+odd ways of his own. In all countries where he is found, he is just the
+same. An old Greek poet, who lived two thousand years ago, speaks of
+him as a great mimic, and such an inordinate talker, that, in his own
+satirical humour, he pretends to believe that magpies were originally a
+family of young ladies, in Macedonia, who were noted for the volubility
+of their tongues. Handsome he is, as well as talkative, and very droll
+and mischievous.</p>
+
+<p>Being such, we need not wonder that his nest is very original. He likes
+to place it in a secure angle of branches, on some lofty tree, as we
+see it here, fifty feet or so from the ground; and prefers to have it
+on a tree bare of branches to a considerable height, knowing that it
+is then more inaccessible. He is wise in all this, for its bulk being
+so large it is discernible to a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> distance. As magpies, however,
+are found almost everywhere, and in some parts of the country, the
+north of Scotland for instance, where there are no trees, the poor
+magpie is then obliged to build in a bush, and do the best he can. In
+such a case, in Norway, he was known to barricade his nest with thorny
+branches, brought thither by himself for that purpose, till it was next
+to impossible for the domicile to be invaded. A cat could not get to
+it, and a man only with hedging-mittens on his hands, and by help of a
+bill-hook.</p>
+
+<p>Like the rook, the magpie inhabits the same nest for several years,
+perhaps for the whole of his life, putting it into repair every year
+before he again needs it for family use—like a wealthy country family
+taking possession of their ancestral mansion in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>And now, turning to our picture, we find our magpie in excellent
+circumstances. Every thing has gone well with him. Here he is, and I
+will have the pleasure of giving you a bit of every-day magpie life,
+as sketched by that true pen-and-ink artist, the author of “British
+Birds.” Our scene opens a few minutes before the time indicated in our
+picture:—</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-163"><img src="images/i-163.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">MAGPIE AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_116" title="Page 116">Page 116.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Search for Food.</em></div>
+
+<p>“There, on the old ash-tree, you may see a pair, one perched on the
+topmost twig, the other hopping on the branches below, keeping up an
+incessant chatter. How gracefully she, on the topmost twig, swings in
+the breeze! Off she starts, and directs her flight to the fir-woods
+opposite, chattering all the way, seemingly to call her mate after her.
+But he prefers remaining behind. He is in a brown study, or something
+of that kind, as we can plainly see. Now, having spied something
+below, he hops downwards from twig to branch, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>descends to the
+ground. His ash-tree, you must understand, grows close to, and in part
+overshadows, a farmyard; so now he is on ground which, as is customary
+in such places, is not over clean; therefore, lifting up his tail to
+prevent it being soiled or wet, as the farmer’s wife might hold up her
+Sunday gown, and raising his body as high as possible, he walks a few
+paces, and, spying an earth-worm half out of his hole, drags it forth
+by a sudden jerk, breaks it in pieces, and swallows it. Now, under the
+hedge, he has found a snail, which he will presently pick out of its
+shell, as an old woman would a periwinkle. But now something among the
+bushes has startled him, and he springs lightly upwards, chattering
+the while, to regain his favourite tree. It is a cat, which, not less
+frightened than himself, for both are intent on mischief, runs off
+towards the barn. The magpie again descends, steps slowly over the
+grassy margin of the yard, looking from side to side, stops, listens,
+advances rapidly by a succession of leaps, and encounters a whole brood
+of chickens, with their mother at their heels. If she had not been
+there he would have had a delicious feast of one of those chickens;
+but he dare not think of such a thing now, for, with fury in her eye,
+bristled plumage, and loud clamour, the hen rushes forward at him,
+overturning two of her younglings, and the enemy, suddenly wheeling
+round to avoid the encounter, flies off to his mate.</p>
+
+<p>“There again you perceive them in the meadow, as they walk about with
+their elevated tails, looking for something eatable. By the hedge, afar
+off, are two boys, with a gun, endeavouring to creep up to a flock of
+plovers on the other side. But the magpies see them, for there are not
+many things which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> escape their sharp eyes, and presently rising, they
+fly directly over the field, chattering vehemently, and the flock of
+plovers on this take wing, and the disappointed young sportsmen sheer
+off in another direction.”</p>
+
+<p>Magpies always make a great chattering when they are disturbed, or
+when they apprehend that danger is near. Waterton says that they
+are vociferous at the approach of night, and that they are in truth
+valuable watchmen on that account. “Whoever enters the wood,” he
+says, “is sure to attract their notice, and then their challenge is
+incessant. When I hear them during the night, or even during the
+day, I know that mischief is on the stir. Three years ago, at eleven
+o’clock in the day, I was at the capture of one of the most expert
+and desperate poachers, to whose hiding-place we were directed by the
+chatter of the magpies.”</p>
+
+<p>The poor magpie has many enemies, and, knowing this, is always on the
+watch, and easily alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>Its mode of walking is like that of the rook, but not having any
+dignity to maintain, it every now and then leaps in a sidelong
+direction. When alarmed itself, or wishing to announce danger to other
+birds, it utters a sort of chuckling cry or chatter. If a fox or cat,
+or any other unfriendly animal, approaches, it hovers about it, and
+alarms the whole neighbourhood by its cries till the enemy is out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Like the jackdaw, it generally keeps in pairs the whole year round;
+and, indeed, when birds continue to inhabit the same nest, season after
+season, it is quite natural that they should do so. It is a curious
+fact, however, that if by any accident the hen-magpie is killed, whilst
+sitting on her eggs, her mate sets<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> off at once and brings home another
+wife, who takes to the nest and eggs, just as if she had laid them; and
+if by another mischance she too should come to an untimely end, the
+widower again goes off, and, without any loss of time, brings back a
+third wife, and she takes to her duties quite as naturally and lovingly
+as the other did; but where all these surplus mothers come from is a
+question which no naturalist has yet answered, and the magpie, with all
+his chattering, is not clever enough to explain the wonder.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Beautiful Plumage.</em></div>
+
+<p>The beauty of this bird’s plumage is familiar to all; and although it
+is simply black and white, yet the exquisitely-coloured gloss of green,
+blue, and purple, with their varying and intermingling tints, produce
+such a charming effect that one cannot sufficiently admire them.</p>
+
+<p>With the external structure of the magpie’s nest we are acquainted: the
+lower part, inside, is neatly plastered with mud, “and is furnished,”
+says Bewick, “with a sort of mattress, formed of wool or fibrous roots,
+on which from three to six eggs are laid.” The eggs frequently vary,
+both in size and colour; sometimes they are of a pale green, freckled
+over with amber-brown and light purple; sometimes pale blue, with
+smaller spots of the same dark colours.</p>
+
+<p>The nest is, so to speak, a sort of little domed chamber, of a good
+size for its purpose; but then comes the question—What does the magpie
+do with her long tail as she sits on her eggs? It would certainly
+poke a hole through the wall if left to its full extent; she must,
+therefore, lift it up, as she does when walking amongst the wet grass,
+and sit with it laid flat against the wall, which probably is not
+inconvenient to her.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE NUTHATCH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> bird is almost an entire stranger to most people. It belongs to
+the rather large family of creepers; birds which, like the woodpecker
+and the little golden-crested wren, run up the holes and branches of
+trees in search of food. The nuthatch, however, has an advantage over
+all its other creeping relatives, by being gifted with the power of
+coming down the tree head foremost, which none of them have. It can
+also sleep with its head downwards; neither in its rapid ascent has it
+occasion to press its tail against the tree for help; so that it is the
+most accomplished little acrobat of the whole race of creepers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-169"><img src="images/i-169.jpg" alt="" width="482" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">NUTHATCH AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_120" title="Page 120">Page 120.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The nuthatch cannot be called a rare bird, and yet it is not often
+seen, being of a shy and retiring disposition, though naturally lively
+and active. The plumage is very pleasing in colour; the upper parts
+of the body are bluish-grey; a black line passes from the corners of
+the mouth to the back of the neck; the breast and under parts light
+reddish-yellow, and the sides reddish-brown.</p>
+
+<p>It delights in woods and trees; nor need it be looked for elsewhere,
+as it derives its food entirely amongst them, either of insects and
+larvæ, hidden in the bark, or of fruits and nuts, as kernels of
+fir-cones, beech, and other nuts, the shells of which it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>breaks in
+a very ingenious manner, as I shall presently describe. Now and then
+it alights on the ground, and then advances by short leaps. It has no
+song; but in winter, when living in small companies, perhaps the whole
+summer-family associating together, it has a little piping note, which,
+however, is supposed to be simply the call to each other. It is said to
+be sensitive to the cold, and always feeds on the side of the wood or
+of the tree which is defended from the wind. In spring, however, when
+all nature is renovated with a quicker pulse of life—for, as Tennyson
+says:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>then, also, the silent nuthatch sends forth through the awakening
+solitude of the woods his two little notes, one short and twittering,
+the other a low, mellow, flute-like whistle, which is so clear that it
+may be heard to a considerable distance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Favourite Food.</em></div>
+
+<p>The graphic author of the “British Birds” says, “It is, at all times,
+a busy and cheerful bird, particularly at nesting-time. Its favourite
+food is nuts of any kind. It builds and roosts in hollow trees, and
+is seldom seen in the open fields, unless when in quest of the stones
+of the white-thorn or sloe. It may, therefore, be properly called a
+forester. Its dexterity in opening nuts and the stones of fruit is
+curious. It fixes the nut in a crack, on the top of a post, or in the
+bark of a tree, and, placing itself above it, head downwards, striking
+with great force and rapidity, with its strong, wedge-shaped bill on
+the edge of the shell, splits it open. When their food is plentiful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>
+they have a favourite crack for unshelling the kernels, as sometimes a
+peck of broken shells may be seen under this crack.”</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. W. T. Bree tells us that “the tapping of the bird on the hard
+shell may be heard at a considerable distance, and that during the
+operation it sometimes happens that the nut swerves from its fixture
+and falls towards the ground. It has not descended, however, for the
+space of more than a few yards, when the nuthatch, with admirable
+adroitness, recovers it in the fall, and, replacing it in its former
+position, commences the attack afresh. The fall of the nut in the air,
+and the recovery by the bird on the wing, I have seen repeated several
+times in the space of a few minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>This is a little act of skill in the bird which it would be charming to
+observe; and here again I would remark, as I have so often done before,
+that this is but a single instance of what many of us, living in the
+country, might witness in some woodland nook near at hand, if we would
+only be lovingly still and patient, and interest ourselves in the ways
+and means of the innocent animal-life around us.</p>
+
+<p>The nest of the bird also deserves our notice; and let me here call
+your attention to the beautiful and living little portrait of the bird
+at home, given us by Mr. Harrison Weir, than which we have nothing more
+truthful from his pencil. The home of the nuthatch is nothing more, to
+begin with, than the hole in an old tree, which, probably, has been
+deserted by the woodpecker. As, however, the woodpecker either requires
+a more enlarged entrance to her nursery, or considers it more seemly,
+the nuthatch, who merely likes a snug little hole to creep in at, and
+nothing more, walls up the opening with a plastering of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> clay or mud,
+leaving only just room enough for herself to enter. Perhaps she may be
+afraid of the old tenants returning and again taking possession, so
+builds up a little defence in front; but of that I cannot say; certain
+it is she makes herself comfortably at home in rather an untidy nest,
+composed mostly of dead oak-leaves, and here she lays six or seven
+white eggs, with ruddy spots on them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Her Defence of her Young.</em></div>
+
+<p>If the plaster wall be by any chance removed, the poor bird loses not
+a moment in replacing it; and though she has apparently great dread
+of any enemy—the woodpecker, snake, man, or whatever else he may be,
+disturbing her—yet so faithfully devoted is she to her duties, that
+scarcely anything will induce her to leave the eggs or young. She
+fights vigorously in defence of her home and its treasures, striking
+out with her bill and wings, and making a hissing, angry noise. Nay,
+timid and shy as she naturally is, she will suffer herself to be
+carried off captive rather than desert her charge.</p>
+
+<p>Let me conclude with one of Bechstein’s anecdotes of the nuthatch:—</p>
+
+<p>“A lady amused herself in the winter by throwing seeds on the terrace,
+below the window, to feed the birds in the neighbourhood. She put some
+hemp-seed and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, for
+her particular favourites, the blue-tits. Two nuthatches came one day
+to have their share of this repast, and were so well pleased that they
+became quite familiar, and did not even go away in the following spring
+to get their natural food and to build their nest in the wood. They
+settled themselves in the hollow of an old tree near the house.</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as the two young ones which were reared here were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> ready to
+fly, they brought them to the hospitable window, where they were to be
+nourished, and soon after disappeared entirely. It was amusing to see
+these two new visitors hang or climb on the walls or blinds, whilst
+their benefactress put their food on the board. These pretty creatures
+as well as the tits, knew her so well, that when she drove away the
+sparrows, which came to steal what was not intended for them, they did
+not fly away also, but seemed to know what was done was only to protect
+and defend them. They remained near the house for the whole summer,
+rarely wandering, till one fatal day, at the beginning of the sporting
+season, in autumn, on hearing the report of a gun, they disappeared and
+were never seen again.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-174"><img src="images/i-174.jpg" alt="" width="313" height="350" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Watson &amp; Hazell</span>, Printers, 28, Charles Street, Hatton Garden.</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 68416 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+The Project Gutenberg eBook of Birds and their nests, by Mary Howitt
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you
+will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before
+using this eBook.
+
+Title: Birds and their nests
+
+Author: Mary Howitt
+
+Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68416]
+
+Language: English
+
+Produced by: Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+             at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
+             generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
+             Libraries.)
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+Hyphenation has been standardised.
+
+For the CONTENTS on page v, Chapter IX—Peewits 51 was missed from
+print in the original, and has been added.
+
+The layout of the Contents continuation page on page vi, has been
+changed to replicate the layout of the previous Contents page.
+
+Page 41—changed cemetries to cemeteries.
+
+Page 55—changed artifical to artificial.
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.
+
+[Illustration: ROBIN AND NEST.]
+
+
+
+
+    BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS,
+
+    BY
+
+    MARY HOWITT.
+
+    [Illustration]
+
+    _With Twenty-three Full-page Illustrations by Harrison Weir._
+
+    NEW YORK:
+    GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, 416, BROOME STREET.
+    London: S. W. Partridge & Co., 9, Paternoster Row.
+
+    _All rights reserved._
+
+[Illustration: WATSON AND HAZELL,
+
+_Printers_,
+
+London and Aylesbury.]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                                                PAGE
+
+    Introductory Chapter                                           1
+
+    Chapter    I.—THE WREN                                         8
+
+       ”      II.—THE GOLDFINCH                                   15
+
+       ”     III.—THE SONG THRUSH                                 20
+
+       ”      IV.—THE BLACKBIRD                                   26
+
+       ”       V.—THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL                      33
+
+       ”      VI.—THE NIGHTINGALE                                 37
+
+       ”     VII.—THE SKYLARK                                     42
+
+       ”    VIII.—THE LINNET                                      47
+
+       ”      IX.—THE PEEWIT                                      51
+
+       ”       X.—HOUSE-MARTINS, OR WINDOW-SWALLOWS, AND NESTS    56
+
+       ”      XI.—CHIFF-CHAFFS, OR OVEN-BUILDERS, AND NEST        66
+
+       ”     XII.—GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST                   70
+
+       ”    XIII.—WAGTAIL AND NEST                                76
+
+       ”     XIV.—JACKDAW AND NESTLINGS                           82
+
+       ”      XV.—SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST                   86
+
+       ”     XVI.—WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST                           92
+
+       ”    XVII.—WHITE-THROAT AND NEST                           98
+
+       ”   XVIII.—BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS                       102
+
+       ”     XIX.—MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST                       106
+
+       ”      XX.—YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD, AND NEST        112
+
+       ”     XXI.—MAGPIE AND NEST                                116
+
+       ”    XXII.—NUTHATCH AND NEST                              120
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+_Birds and their Nests._
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.
+
+
+The birds in these pictures of ours have all nests, which is as it
+should be; for how could the bird rear its young without its little
+home and soft little bed, any more than children could be comfortably
+brought up without either a bed to lie upon, or a home in which to be
+happy.
+
+Birds-nests, though you may find them in every bush, are wonderful
+things. Let us talk about them. They are all alike in the purpose for
+which they are intended, but no two families of birds build exactly
+alike; all the wrens, for instance, have their kind of nest; the
+thrushes have theirs; so has the swallow tribe; so has the sparrow,
+or the rook. They do not imitate one another, but each adheres to its
+own plan, as God, the great builder and artist, as well as Creator,
+taught them from the very beginning. The first nightingale, that sang
+its hymn of joyful thanksgiving in the Garden of Paradise, built
+its nest just the same as the bird you listened to last year in the
+coppice. The materials were there, and the bird knew how to make use
+of them; and that is perhaps the most wonderful part of it, for she
+has no implements to work with: no needle and thread, no scissors, no
+hammer and nails; nothing but her own little feet and bill, and her
+round little breast, upon which to mould it; for it is generally the
+mother-bird which is the chief builder.
+
+No sooner is the nest wanted for the eggs which she is about to lay,
+than the hitherto slumbering faculty of constructiveness is awakened,
+and she selects the angle of the branch, or the hollow in the bank or
+in the wall, or the tangle of reeds, or the platform of twigs on the
+tree-top, exactly the right place for her, the selection being always
+the same according to her tribe, and true to the instinct which was
+implanted in her at the first.
+
+So the building begins: dry grass or leaves, little twigs and
+root-fibres, hair or down, whether of feather or winged seed, spangled
+outside with silvery lichen, or embroidered with green mosses, less
+for beauty, perhaps—though it is so beautiful—than for the birds’
+safety, because it so exactly imitates the bank or the tree-trunk in
+which it is built. Or it may be that her tenement is clay-built, like
+that of the swallow; or lath and plaster, so to speak, like an old
+country house, as is the fashion of the magpie; or a platform of rude
+sticks, like the first rudiment of a basket up in the tree-branches, as
+that of the wood-pigeon: she may be a carpenter like the woodpecker,
+a tunneller like the sand-martin; or she may knead and glue together
+the materials of her nest, till they resemble thick felt; but in all
+this she is exactly what the great Creator made her at first, equally
+perfect in skill, and equally undeviating year after year. This is very
+wonderful, so that we may be quite sure that the sparrow’s nest, which
+David remarked in the house of God, was exactly the same as the sparrow
+built in the days of the blessed Saviour, when He, pointing to that
+bird, made it a proof to man that God’s Providence ever watches over
+him.
+
+[Sidenote: _Jules Michelet on Birds._]
+
+Nevertheless, with this unaltered and unalterable working after one
+pattern, in every species of bird, there is a choice or an adaptation
+of material allowed: thus the bird will, within certain limits, select
+that which is fittest for its purpose, producing, however, in the end,
+precisely the same effect. I will tell you what Jules Michelet, a
+French writer, who loves birds as we do, writes on this subject:—“The
+bird in building its nest,” he says, “makes it of that beautiful
+cup-like or cradle form by pressing it down, kneading it and shaping
+it upon her own breast.” He says, as I have just told you, that the
+mother-bird builds, and that the he-bird is her purveyor. He fetches in
+the materials: grasses, mosses, roots, or twigs, singing many a song
+between whiles; and she arranges all with loving reference; first,
+to the delicate egg which must be bedded in soft material; then to
+the little one which, coming from the egg naked, must not only be
+cradled in soft comfort, but kept alive by her warmth. So the he-bird,
+supposing it to be a linnet, brings her some horse-hair: it is stiff
+and hard; nevertheless, it is proper for the purpose, and serves as a
+lower stratum of the nest—a sort of elastic mattress: he brings her
+hemp; it is cold, but it serves for the same purpose. Then comes the
+covering and the lining; and for this nothing but the soft silky fibre
+of certain plants, wool or cotton, or, better still, the down from her
+own breast, will satisfy her. It is interesting, he says, to watch the
+he-bird’s skilful and furtive search for materials; he is afraid if he
+see you watching, that you may discover the track to his nest; and, in
+order to mislead you, he takes a different road back to it. You may see
+him following the sheep to get a little lock of wool, or alighting in
+the poultry yard on the search for dropped feathers. If the farmer’s
+wife chance to leave her wheel, whilst spinning in the porch, he steals
+in for a morsel of flax from the distaff. He knows what is the right
+kind of thing; and let him be in whatever country he may, he selects
+that which answers the purpose; and the nest which is built is that of
+the linnet all the world over.
+
+Again he tells us, that there are other birds which, instead of
+building, bring up their young underground, in little earth cradles
+which they have prepared for them. Of building-birds, he thinks the
+queerest must be the flamingo, which lays her eggs on a pile of mud
+which she has raised above the flooded earth, and, standing erect all
+the time, hatches them under her long legs. It does seem a queer,
+uncomfortable way; but if it answer its end, we need not object to it.
+Of carpenter-birds, he thinks the thrush is the most remarkable; other
+writers say the woodpecker. The shore-birds plait their nests, not very
+skilfully it is true, but sufficiently well for their purpose. They
+are clothed by nature with such an oily, impermeable coat of plumage,
+that they have little need to care about climate; they have enough to
+do to look after their fishing, and to feed themselves and their young;
+for all these sea-side families have immense appetites.
+
+[Sidenote: _How various Birds Build._]
+
+Herons and storks build in a sort of basket-making fashion; so do the
+jays and the mocking birds, only in a much better way; but as they
+have all large families they are obliged to do so. They lay down, in
+the first place, a sort of rude platform, upon which they erect a
+basket-like nest of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry
+twigs strongly woven together. The little golden-crested wren hangs her
+purse-like nest to a bough, and, as in the nursery song, “When the wind
+blows the cradle rocks.” An Australian bird, a kind of fly-catcher,
+called there the razor-grinder, from its note resembling the sound of
+a razor-grinder at work, builds her nest on the slightest twig hanging
+over the water, in order to protect it from snakes which climb after
+them. She chooses for her purpose a twig so slender that it would not
+bear the weight of the snake, and thus she is perfectly safe from her
+enemy. The same, probably, is the cause why in tropical countries,
+where snakes and monkeys, and such bird-enemies abound, nests are so
+frequently suspended by threads or little cords from slender boughs.
+
+The canary, the goldfinch, and chaffinch, are skilful cloth-weavers
+or felt makers; the latter, restless and suspicious, speckles the
+outside of her nest with a quantity of white lichen, so that it
+exactly imitates the tree branch on which it is placed, and can hardly
+be detected by the most accustomed eye. Glueing and felting play an
+important part in the work of the bird-weavers. The humming-bird, for
+instance, consolidates her little house with the gum of trees. The
+American starling sews the leaves together with her bill; other birds
+use not only their bills, but their feet. Having woven a cord, they fix
+it as a web with their feet, and insert the weft, as the weaver would
+throw his shuttle, with their bill. These are genuine weavers. In fine,
+their skill never fails them. The truth is, that the great Creator
+never gives any creature work to do without giving him at the same time
+an inclination to do it—which, in the animal, is instinct—and tools
+sufficient for the work, though they may be only the delicate feet and
+bill of the bird.
+
+And now, in conclusion, let me describe to you the nest of the little
+English long-tailed titmouse as I saw it many years ago, and which I
+give from “Sketches of Natural History”:—
+
+[Sidenote: _The Titmouse’s Nest._]
+
+        There, where those boughs of blackthorn cross,
+        Behold that oval ball of moss;
+        Observe it near, all knit together,
+        Moss, willow-down, and many a feather,
+        And filled within, as you may see,
+        As full of feathers as can be;
+        Whence it is called by country folk,
+        A fitting name, the feather-poke;
+        But learned people, I have heard,
+        _Parus caudatus_ call the bird.
+        Yes, here’s a nest! a nest indeed,
+        That doth all other nests exceed,
+        Propped with the blackthorn twigs beneath,
+        And festooned with a woodbine wreath!
+        Look at it close, all knit together,
+        Moss, willow-down, and many a feather;
+        So soft, so light, so wrought with grace,
+        So suited to this green-wood place,
+        And spangled o’er, as with the intent
+        Of giving fitting ornament,
+        With silvery flakes of lichen bright,
+        That shine like opals, dazzling white.
+        Think only of the creature small,
+        That wrought this soft and silvery ball,
+        Without a tool to aid her skill,
+        Nought but her little feet and bill—
+        Without a pattern whence to trace
+        This little roofed-in dwelling place—
+        And does not in your bosom spring
+        Love for this skilful little thing?
+        See, there’s a window in the wall;
+        Peep in, the house is not so small,
+        But snug and cosy you shall see
+        A very numerous family!
+        Now count them: one, two, three, four, five—
+        Nay, _sixteen_ merry things alive—
+        Sixteen young, chirping things all sit,
+        Where you, your wee hand, could not get!
+        I’m glad you’ve seen it, for you never
+        Saw ought before so soft and clever.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE WREN.
+
+
+Truly the little Wren, so beautifully depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir,
+with her tiny body, her pretty, lively, and conceited ways, her short,
+little turned-up tail, and delicate plumage, is worthy of our tender
+regard and love.
+
+The colouring of the wren is soft and subdued—a reddish-brown colour;
+the breast of a light greyish-brown; and all the hinder parts, both
+above and below, marked with wavy lines of dusky-brown, with two bands
+of white dots across the wings.
+
+Its habits are remarkably lively and attractive. “I know no pleasanter
+object,” says the agreeable author of “British Birds,” “than the wren;
+it is always so smart and cheerful. In gloomy weather other birds
+often seem melancholy, and in rain the sparrows and finches stand
+silent on the twigs, with drooping wings and disarranged plumage; but
+to the merry little wren all weathers are alike. The big drops of the
+thunder-shower no more wet it than the drizzle of a Scotch mist; and as
+it peeps from beneath the bramble, or glances from a hole in the wall,
+it seems as snug as a kitten frisking on the parlour rug.”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WRENS AND NEST.      [Page 8.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _A Builder of Many Nests._]
+
+“It is amusing,” he continues, “to watch the motions of a young family
+of wrens just come abroad. Walking among furze, broom, or juniper, you
+are attracted to some bush by hearing issue from it the frequent
+repetition of a sound resembling the syllable _chit_. On going up you
+perceive an old wren flitting about the twigs, and presently a young
+one flies off, uttering a stifled _chirr_, to conceal itself among the
+bushes. Several follow, whilst the parents continue to flutter about
+in great alarm, uttering their _chit, chit_, with various degrees of
+excitement.”
+
+The nest of the wren is a wonderful structure, of which I shall have a
+good deal to say. It begins building in April, and is not by any means
+particular in situation. Sometimes it builds in the hole of a wall
+or tree; sometimes, as in this lovely little picture of ours, in the
+mossy hollow of a primrose-covered bank; and because it was formerly
+supposed to live only in holes or little caves, it received the name of
+_Troglodytes_, or cave-dweller. But it builds equally willingly in the
+thatch of out-buildings, in barn-lofts, or tree-branches, either when
+growing apart or nailed against a wall, amongst ivy or other climbing
+plants; in fact, it seems to be of such a happy disposition as to adapt
+itself to a great variety of situations. It is a singular fact that it
+will often build several nests in one season—not that it needs so many
+separate dwellings, or that it finishes them when built; but it builds
+as if for the very pleasure of the work. Our naturalist says, speaking
+of this odd propensity, “that, whilst the hen is sitting, the he-bird,
+as if from a desire to be doing something, will construct as many as
+half-a-dozen nests near the first, none of which, however, are lined
+with feathers; and that whilst the true nest, on which the mother-bird
+is sitting, will be carefully concealed, these sham nests are open
+to view. Some say that as the wrens, during the cold weather, sleep
+in some snug, warm hole, they frequently occupy these extra nests as
+winter-bedchambers, four or five, or even more, huddling together, to
+keep one another warm.”
+
+Mr. Weir, a friend of the author I have just quoted, says this was the
+case in his own garden; and that, during the winter, when the ground
+was covered with snow, two of the extra nests were occupied at night by
+a little family of seven, which had hatched in the garden. He was very
+observant of their ways, and says it was amusing to see one of the old
+wrens, coming a little before sunset and standing a few inches from the
+nest, utter his little cry till the whole number of them had arrived.
+Nor were they long about it; they very soon answered the call, flying
+from all quarters—the seven young ones and the other parent-bird—and
+then at once nestled into their snug little dormitory. It was also
+remarkable that when the wind blew from the east they occupied a nest
+which had its opening to the west, and when it blew from the west, then
+one that opened to the east, so that it was evident they knew how to
+make themselves comfortable.
+
+And now as regards the building of these little homes. I will, as far
+as I am able, give you the details of the whole business from the diary
+of the same gentleman, which is as accurate as if the little wren had
+kept it himself, and which will just as well refer to the little nest
+in the primrose bank as to the nest in the Spanish juniper-tree, where,
+in fact, it was built.
+
+[Sidenote: _How a Nest was built._]
+
+“On the 30th of May, therefore, you must imagine a little pair of
+wrens, having, after a great deal of consultation, made up their minds
+to build themselves a home in the branches of a Spanish juniper. The
+female, at about seven o’clock in the morning, laid the foundation
+with the decayed leaf of a lime-tree. Some men were at work cutting
+a drain not far off, but she took no notice of them, and worked away
+industriously, carrying to her work bundles of dead leaves as big
+as herself, her mate, seeming the while to be delighted with her
+industry, seated not far off in a Portugal laurel, where he watched
+her, singing to her, and so doing, making her labour, no doubt, light
+and pleasant. From eight o’clock to nine she worked like a little
+slave, carrying in leaves, and then selecting from them such as suited
+her purpose and putting aside the rest. This was the foundation of the
+nest, which she rendered compact by pressing it down with her breast,
+and turning herself round in it: then she began to rear the sides.
+And now the delicate and difficult part of the work began, and she
+was often away for eight or ten minutes together. From the inside she
+built the underpart of the aperture with the stalks of leaves, which
+she fitted together very ingeniously with moss. The upper part of it
+was constructed solely with the last-mentioned material. To round it
+and give it the requisite solidity, she pressed it with her breast and
+wings, turning the body round in various directions. Most wonderful to
+tell, about seven o’clock in the evening the whole outside workmanship
+of this snug little erection was almost complete.
+
+“Being very anxious to examine the interior of it, I went out for that
+purpose at half-past two the next morning. I introduced my finger,
+the birds not being there, and found its structure so close, that
+though it had rained in the night, yet that it was quite dry. The
+birds at this early hour were singing as if in ecstasy, and at about
+three o’clock the little he-wren came and surveyed his domicile with
+evident satisfaction; then, flying to the top of a tree, began singing
+most merrily. In half-an-hour’s time the hen-bird made her appearance,
+and, going into the nest, remained there about five minutes, rounding
+the entrance by pressing it with her breast and the shoulders of her
+wings. For the next hour she went out and came back five times with
+fine moss in her bill, with which she adjusted a small depression in
+the fore-part of it; then, after twenty minutes’ absence, returned
+with a bundle of leaves to fill up a vacancy which she had discovered
+in the back of the structure. Although it was a cold morning, with
+wind and rain, the male bird sang delightfully; but between seven and
+eight o’clock, either having received a reproof from his wife for his
+indolence, or being himself seized with an impulse to work, he began
+to help her, and for the next ten minutes brought in moss, and worked
+at the inside of the nest. At eleven o’clock both of them flew off,
+either for a little recreation, or for their dinners, and were away
+till a little after one. From this time till four o’clock both worked
+industriously, bringing in fine moss; then, during another hour, the
+hen-bird brought in a feather three times. So that day came to an end.
+
+“The next morning, June 1st, they did not begin their work early, as
+was evident to Mr. Weir, because having placed a slender leaf-stalk
+at the entrance, there it remained till half-past eight o’clock, when
+the two began to work as the day before with fine moss, the he-bird
+leaving off, however, every now and then to express his satisfaction on
+a near tree-top. Again, this day, they went off either for dinner or
+amusement; then came back and worked for another hour, bringing in fine
+moss and feathers.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Patient Industry of this Bird._]
+
+“The next morning the little he-wren seemed in a regular ecstasy,
+and sang incessantly till half-past nine, when they both brought in
+moss and feathers, working on for about two hours, and again they
+went off, remaining away an hour later than usual. Their work was now
+nearly over, and they seemed to be taking their leisure, when all at
+once the hen-bird, who was sitting in her nest and looking out at her
+door, espied a man half-hidden by an arbor vitæ. It was no other than
+her good friend, but that she did not know; all men were terrible,
+as enemies to her race, and at once she set up her cry of alarm. The
+he-bird, on hearing this, appeared in a great state of agitation, and
+though the frightful monster immediately ran off, the little creatures
+pursued him, scolding vehemently.
+
+“The next day they worked again with feathers and fine moss, and again
+went off after having brought in a few more feathers. So they did for
+the next five days; working leisurely, and latterly only with feathers.
+On the tenth day the nest was finished, and the little mother-bird laid
+her first egg in it.”
+
+Where is the boy, let him be as ruthless a bird-nester as he may, who
+could have the heart to take a wren’s nest, only to tear it to pieces,
+after reading the history of this patient labour of love?
+
+The wren, like various other small birds, cannot bear that their nests
+or eggs should be touched; they are always disturbed and distressed by
+it, and sometimes even will desert their nest and eggs in consequence.
+On one occasion, therefore, this good, kind-hearted friend of every
+bird that builds, carefully put his finger into a wren’s nest, during
+the mother’s absence, to ascertain whether the young were hatched; on
+her return, perceiving that the entrance had been touched, she set up
+a doleful lamentation, carefully rounded it again with her breast and
+wings, so as to bring everything into proper order, after which she and
+her mate attended to their young. These particular young ones, only six
+in number, were fed by their parents 278 times in the course of a day.
+This was a small wren-family; and if there had been twelve, or even
+sixteen, as is often the case, what an amount of labour and care the
+birds must have had! But they would have been equal to it, and merry
+all the time.
+
+    For all these little creatures, which so lightly we regard,
+    They love to do their duty, and they never think it hard.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE GOLDFINCH.
+
+
+The Goldfinch, which is cousin to the Linnet, is wonderfully clever and
+docile, as I shall show you presently. In the first place, however, let
+me say a word or two about bird cleverness in general, which I copy
+from Jules Michelet’s interesting work, “The Bird.” Speaking of the
+great, cruel, and rapacious family of the _Raptores_, or Birds of Prey,
+he expresses satisfaction in the idea that this race of destroyers is
+decreasing, and that there may come a time when they no longer exist
+on the earth. He has no admiration for them, though they may be the
+swiftest of the swift, and the strongest of the strong, because they
+put forth none of the higher qualities of courage, address, or patient
+endurance in taking their prey, which are all weak and powerless in
+comparison with themselves; their poor unoffending victims. “All these
+cruel tyrants of the air,” he says, “like the serpents, have flattened
+skulls, which show the want of intellect and intelligence. These birds
+of prey, with their small brains, offer a striking contrast to the
+amiable and intelligent species which we find amongst the smaller
+birds. The head of the former is only a beak, that of the latter is a
+face.” Afterwards, to prove this more strongly, he gives a table to
+show the proportion of brain to the size of the body in these different
+species of birds. Thus the chaffinch, the sparrow, and the goldfinch,
+have more than six times as much brain as the eagle in proportion to
+the size of the body. We may look, therefore, for no less than six
+times his intelligence and docile ability. Whilst in the case of the
+little tomtit it is thirteen times as much.
+
+But now for the goldfinch, of which our cut—which is both faithful
+and beautiful—shows us a pair, evidently contemplating with much
+satisfaction the nest which they have just finished on one of the
+topmost boughs of a blossomy apple-tree. This nest is a wonderful
+little fabric, built of moss, dry grass, and slender roots, lined with
+hair, wool, and thistle-down; but the true wonder of the nest is the
+exact manner in which the outside is made to imitate the bough upon
+which it is placed. All its little ruggednesses and lichen growths
+are represented, whilst the colouring is so exactly that of the old
+apple-tree that it is almost impossible to know it from the branch
+itself. Wonderful ingenuity of instinct, which human skill would find
+it almost impossible to imitate!
+
+The bird lays mostly five eggs, which are of a bluish-grey, spotted
+with greyish-purple or brown, and sometimes with a dark streak or two.
+
+The goldfinch is one of the most beautiful of our English birds, with
+its scarlet forehead, and quaint little black velvet-like cap brought
+down over its white cheeks; its back is cinnamon brown, and its breast
+white; its wings are beautifully varied in black and white, as are also
+its tail feathers. In the midland counties it is known as “The Proud
+Tailor,” probably because its attire looks so bright and fresh, and it
+has a lively air as if conscious of being well dressed.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  GOLDFINCHES AND NEST.      [Page 16.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _Daily Life of this Bird._]
+
+Like its relation, the linnet, it congregates in flocks as soon as
+its young can take wing, when they may be seen wheeling round in
+the pleasant late summer and autumn fields, full of life, and in
+the enjoyment of the plenty that surrounds them, in the ripened
+thistle-down, and all such winged seeds as are then floating in the air.
+
+How often have I said it is worth while to go out into the woods and
+fields, and, bringing yourself into a state of quietness, watch the
+little birds in their life’s employment, building their nests, feeding
+their young, or pursuing their innocent diversions! So now, on this
+pleasant, still autumn afternoon, if you will go into the old pasture
+fields where the thistles have not been stubbed up for generations, or
+on the margin of the old lane where ragwort, and groundsel, and burdock
+flourish abundantly, “let us,” as the author of “British Birds” says,
+“stand still to observe a flock of goldfinches. They flutter over the
+plants, cling to the stalks, bend in various attitudes, disperse the
+down, already dry and winged, like themselves, for flight, pick them
+out one by one and swallow them. Then comes a stray cow followed by a
+herd boy. At once the birds cease their labour, pause for a moment,
+and fly off in succession. You observe how lightly and buoyantly
+they cleave the air, each fluttering its little wings, descending in
+a curved line, mounting again, and speeding along. Anon they alight
+in a little thicket of dried weeds, and, in settling, display to the
+delighted eye the beautiful tints of their plumage, as with fluttering
+wings and expanded tail, they hover for a moment to select a landing
+place amid the prickly points of the stout thistles whose heads are now
+bursting with downy-winged seeds.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Goldfinch._]
+
+The song of the goldfinch, which begins about the end of March, is
+very sweet, unassuming, and low—similar to that of the linnet, but
+singularly varied and pleasant.
+
+Now, however, we must give a few instances of this bird’s teachable
+sagacity, which, indeed, are so numerous that it is difficult to make a
+selection.
+
+Mr. Syme, in his “British Song Birds,” says, “The goldfinch is easily
+tamed and taught, and its capacity for learning the notes of other
+birds is well known. A few years ago the Sieur Roman exhibited a number
+of trained birds: they were goldfinches, linnets, and canaries. One
+appeared dead, and was held up by the tail or claw without exhibiting
+any signs of life; a second stood on its head with its claws in the
+air; a third imitated a Dutch milkmaid going to market with pails on
+its shoulders; a fourth mimicked a Venetian girl looking out at a
+window; a fifth appeared as a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel;
+whilst a sixth acted as a cannonier, with a cap on its head, a firelock
+on its shoulder, and a match in its claw, and discharged a small
+cannon. The same bird also acted as if it had been wounded. It was
+wheeled in a barrow as if to convey it to the hospital, after which
+it flew away before the whole company. The seventh turned a kind of
+windmill; and the last bird stood in the midst of some fireworks which
+were discharged all round it, and this without showing the least sign
+of fear.”
+
+Others, as I have said, may be taught to draw up their food and water,
+as from a well, in little buckets. All this is very wonderful, and
+shows great docility in the bird; but I cannot greatly admire it, from
+the secret fear that cruelty or harshness may have been used to teach
+them these arts so contrary to their nature. At all events it proves
+what teachable and clever little creatures they are, how readily they
+may be made to understand the will of their master, and how obediently
+and faithfully they act according to it.
+
+Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence to the
+animal world. In him the creatures should ever find their friend and
+protector; and were it so we should then see many an astonishing
+faculty displayed; and birds would then, instead of being the most
+timid of animals, gladden and beautify our daily life by their sweet
+songs, their affectionate regard, and their amusing and imitative
+little arts.
+
+[Sidenote: _Introduced into Pictures._]
+
+The early Italian and German painters introduce a goldfinch into their
+beautiful sacred pictures—generally on the ground—hopping at the feet
+of some martyred saint or love-commissioned angel, perhaps from an old
+legend of the bird’s sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an
+intuitive sense that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird
+and beast as well as to man.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+THE SONG THRUSH.
+
+
+We have here a charming picture of one of the finest and noblest of
+our song-birds—the thrush, throstle, or mavis. The trees are yet
+leafless, but the bird is in the act of building, whilst her mate, on
+the tree-top, pours forth his exquisite melody. The almost completed
+nest, like a richly ornamented bowl, is before us.
+
+This bird belongs to a grandly musical family, being own cousin to the
+missel-thrush and the blackbird, each one having a kindred song, but
+all, at the same time, distinctly characteristic.
+
+The colouring of the thrush is soft and very pleasing; the upper parts
+of a yellowish-brown; the chin, white; the under part of the body,
+grayish white; the throat, breast, and sides of the neck, yellowish,
+thickly spotted with dark brown.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  SONG THRUSH AND NEST.      [Page 20.
+]
+
+The thrush remains with us the whole year, and may occasionally be
+heard singing even in the winter, though April, May, and June are the
+months when he is in fullest song. They pair in March, and by the end
+of that month, or early in April, begin to build. They have several
+broods in the year. The nest, which, as we see, is commodious, is
+placed at no great height from the ground, in a thick bush or hedge,
+and sometimes, also, in a rough bank, amongst bushes and undergrowth.
+They are particularly fond of spruce-fir plantations, building on
+one of the low, spreading branches, close to the stem. Though the
+structure is so solid and substantial, yet it is built very rapidly;
+indeed, the thrush seems to be wide awake in all its movements; he
+is no loiterer, and does his work well. As a proof of his expedition
+I will mention that a pair of these birds began to build a second,
+perhaps, indeed, it might be a third nest, on a Thursday, June 15; on
+Friday afternoon the nest was finished, and on Saturday morning the
+first egg was laid, though the interior plastering was not then dry. On
+the 21st the hen began to sit, and on the 17th of July the young birds
+were hatched.
+
+The frame-work, so to speak, of the nest is composed of twigs, roots,
+grasses, and moss, the two latter being brought to the outside. Inside
+it is lined with a thin plastering of mud, cow-dung, and rotten wood,
+which is laid on quite smoothly, almost like the glaze on earthenware;
+nor is there an internal covering between this and the eggs. The
+circular form of the nest is as perfect as a bowl shaped upon a
+lathe, and often contracts inwards at the top. The eggs, which are
+generally five in number, are of a bright blue-green, spotted over with
+brownish-black, these spots being more numerous at the larger end.
+
+The food of the thrush is mostly of an animal character, as worms,
+slugs, and snails; and, by seasides, small molluscs, as whelks and
+periwinkles. On all such as are enclosed in shells he exercises his
+ingenuity in a remarkable way. We ourselves lived at one time in an
+old house standing in an old garden where were many ancient trees and
+out-buildings, in the old ivied roots and walls of which congregated
+great quantities of shell-snails. One portion of this garden, which
+enclosed an old, disused dairy, was a great resort of thrushes, where
+they had, so to speak, their stones of sacrifice, around which lay
+heaps of the broken shells of snails, their victims. I have repeatedly
+watched them at work: hither they brought their snails, and, taking
+their stand by the stone with the snail in their beak, struck it
+repeatedly against the stone, till, the shell being smashed, they
+picked it out as easily as the oyster is taken from its opened shell.
+This may seem easy work with the slender-shelled snail, but the labour
+is considerably greater with hard shell-fish. On this subject the
+intelligent author of “British Birds” says, that many years ago, when
+in the Isle of Harris, he frequently heard a sharp sound as of one
+small stone being struck upon another, the cause of which he, for a
+considerable time, sought for in vain. At length, one day, being in
+search of birds when the tide was out, he heard the well-known click,
+and saw a bird standing between two flat stones, moving its head and
+body alternately up and down, each downward motion being accompanied
+by the sound which had hitherto been so mysterious. Running up to the
+spot, he found a thrush, which, flying off, left a whelk, newly-broken,
+lying amongst fragments of shells lying around the stone.
+
+Thrushes are remarkably clean and neat with regard to their nests,
+suffering no litter or impurity to lie about, and in this way are a
+great example to many untidy people. Their domestic character, too,
+is excellent, the he-bird now and then taking the place of the hen on
+the eggs, and, when not doing so, feeding her as she sits. When the
+young are hatched, the parents may be seen, by those who will watch
+them silently and patiently, frequently stretching out the wings of
+the young as if to exercise them, and pruning and trimming their
+feathers. To put their love of cleanliness to the proof, a gentleman,
+a great friend of all birds, had some sticky mud rubbed upon the backs
+of two of the young ones whilst the parents were absent. On their
+return, either by their own keen sense of propriety, or, perhaps, the
+complaint of the young ones, they saw what had happened, and were not
+only greatly disconcerted, but very angry, and instantly set to work to
+clean the little unfortunates, which, strange to say, they managed to
+do by making use of dry earth, which they brought to the nest for that
+purpose. Human intellect could not have suggested a better mode.
+
+[Sidenote: _How a Day was spent._]
+
+This same gentleman determined to spend a whole day in discovering how
+the thrushes spent it. Hiding himself, therefore, in a little hut of
+fir boughs, he began his observations in the early morning of the 8th
+of June. At half-past two o’clock, the birds began to feed their brood,
+and in two hours had fed them thirty-six times. It was now half-past
+five, the little birds were all wide awake, and one of them, whilst
+pruning its feathers, lost its balance and fell out of the nest to the
+ground. On this the old ones set up the most doleful lamentations, and
+the gentleman, coming out of his retreat, put the little one back into
+the nest. This kind action, however, wholly disconcerted the parents,
+nor did they again venture to feed their young till an artifice
+of the gentleman led them to suppose that he was gone from their
+neighbourhood. No other event happened to them through the day, and by
+half-past nine o’clock at night, when all went to rest, the young ones
+had been fed two hundred and six times.
+
+Thrushes, however, become occasionally so extremely tame that the
+female will remain upon her eggs and feed her young, without any
+symptom of alarm, in the close neighbourhood of man. Of this I will
+give an instance from Bishop Stanley’s “History of Birds”—
+
+“A short time ago, in Scotland, some carpenters working in a shed
+adjacent to the house observed a thrush flying in and out, which
+induced them to direct their attention to the cause, when, to their
+surprise, they found a nest commenced amongst the teeth of a harrow,
+which, with other farming tools and implements, was placed upon the
+joists of the shed, just over their heads. The carpenters had arrived
+soon after six o’clock, and at seven, when they found the nest, it was
+in a great state of forwardness, and had evidently been the morning’s
+work of a pair of these indefatigable birds. Their activity throughout
+the day was incessant; and, when the workmen came the next morning,
+they found the female seated in her half-finished mansion, and, when
+she flew off for a short time, it was found that she had laid an egg.
+When all was finished, the he-bird took his share of the labour, and,
+in thirteen days, the young birds were out of their shells, the refuse
+of which the old ones carried away from the spot. All this seems to
+have been carefully observed by the workmen; and it is much to their
+credit that they were so quiet and friendly as to win the confidence of
+the birds.”
+
+The song of the thrush is remarkable for its rich, mellow intonation,
+and for the great variety of its notes.
+
+[Sidenote: _Wordsworth’s Verses on the Thrush._]
+
+Unfortunately for the thrush, its exquisite power as a songster makes
+it by no means an unusual prisoner. You are often startled by hearing,
+from the doleful upper window of some dreary court or alley of London,
+or some other large town, an outpouring of joyous, full-souled melody
+from an imprisoned thrush, which, perfect as it is, saddens you, as
+being so wholly out of place. Yet who can say how the song of that bird
+may speak to the soul of many a town-imprisoned passer-by? Wordsworth
+thus touchingly describes an incident of this kind:—
+
+    At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,
+    Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three years:
+    Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard,
+    In the silence of morning, the song of the bird.
+
+    Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
+    Down which she so often has tripped with her pail,
+    And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,
+    The one only dwelling on earth which she loves.
+
+    ’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? she sees
+    A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
+    Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,
+    And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
+
+    She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade—
+    The mist and the river, the hill, sun, and shade;
+    The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
+    And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE BLACKBIRD.
+
+
+The Blackbird is familiar to us all. It is a thoroughly English bird,
+and, with its cousin the thrush, is not only one of the pleasantest
+features in our English spring and summer landscape, but both figure
+in our old poetry and ballads, as the “merle and the mavis,” “the
+blackbird and the throstle-cock;” for those old poets loved the
+country, and could not speak of the greenwood without the bird.
+
+    When shaws are sheen and fields are fair,
+      And leaves both large and long,
+    ’Tis merry walk’ng in the green forest
+      To hear the wild birds’ song;
+
+    The wood merle sings, and will not cease,
+      Sitting upon a spray;
+    The merle and the mavis shout their fill,
+      From morn till the set of day.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  BLACKBIRD AND NEST.      [Page 26.
+]
+
+The blackbird takes its name from a very intelligible cause—its
+perfectly black plumage, which, however, is agreeably relieved by the
+bright orange of its bill, the orange circles round its eyes, and its
+yellow feet; though this is peculiar only to the male, nor does he
+assume this distinguishing colour till his second year. The female is
+of a dusky-brown colour.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Notes of the Blackbird._]
+
+Sometimes the singular variety of a _white_ blackbird occurs, which
+seems to astonish even its fellow birds; the same phenomenon also
+occurs amongst sparrows; a fatal distinction to the poor birds, who are
+in consequence very soon shot.
+
+This bird is one of our finest singers. His notes are solemn and
+flowing, unlike those of the thrush, which are short, quick, and
+extremely varied. The one bird is more lyrical, the other sings in
+a grand epic strain. A friend of ours, deeply versed in bird-lore,
+maintains that the blackbird is oratorical, and sings as if delivering
+an eloquent rhythmical oration.
+
+This bird begins to sing early in the year, and continues his song
+during the whole time that the hen is sitting. Like his relatives, the
+thrush and the missel-thrush, he takes his post on the highest branch
+of a tree, near his nest, so that his song is heard far and wide; and
+in fact, through the whole pleasant spring you hear the voices of these
+three feathered kings of English song constantly filling the woods and
+fields with their melody. The blackbird sings deliciously in rain, even
+during a thunderstorm, with the lightning flashing round him. Indeed,
+both he and the thrush seem to take great delight in summer showers.
+
+The blackbird has a peculiar call, to give notice to his brood of the
+approach of danger; probably, however, it belongs both to male and
+female. Again, there is a third note, very peculiar also, heard only
+in the dusk of evening, and which seems pleasingly in harmony with the
+approaching shadows of night. By this note they call each other to
+roost, in the same way as partridges call each other to assemble at
+night, however far they may be asunder.
+
+The nest of the blackbird is situated variously; most frequently in
+the thicker parts of hedges; sometimes in the hollow of a stump or
+amongst the curled and twisted roots of old trees, which, projecting
+from the banks of woods or woodland lanes, wreathed with their trails
+of ivy, afford the most picturesque little hollows for the purpose.
+Again, it may be found under the roof of out-houses or cart-sheds,
+laid on the wall-plate; and very frequently in copses, in the stumps
+of pollard trees, partly concealed by their branches; and is often
+begun before the leaves are on the trees. The nest is composed of dry
+bents, and lined with fine dry grass. The hen generally lays five eggs,
+which are of a dusky bluish-green, thickly covered with black spots;
+altogether very much resembling those of crows, rooks, magpies, and
+that class of birds.
+
+Universal favourite as the blackbird deservedly is, yet, in common with
+the thrush, all gardeners are their enemies from the great liking they
+have for his fruit, especially currants, raspberries, and cherries.
+There is, however, something very amusing, though, at the same time,
+annoying, in the sly way by which they approach these fruits, quite
+aware that they are on a mischievous errand. They steal along, flying
+low and silently, and, if observed, will hide themselves in the nearest
+growth of garden plants, scarlet runners, or Jerusalem artichokes,
+where they remain as still as mice, till they think the human enemy has
+moved off. If, however, instead of letting them skulk quietly in their
+hiding-place, he drives them away, they fly off with a curious note,
+very like a little chuckling laugh of defiance, as if they would say,
+“Ha! ha! we shall soon be back again!” which they very soon are.
+
+But we must not begrudge them their share, though they neither have
+dug the ground nor sowed the seed, for very dull and joyless indeed
+would be the garden and the gardener’s toil, and the whole country in
+short, if there were no birds—no blackbirds and thrushes—to gladden
+our hearts, and make the gardens, as well as the woods and fields,
+joyous with their melody. Like all good singers, these birds expect,
+and deserve, good payment.
+
+The blackbird, though naturally unsocial and keeping much to itself,
+is very bold in defence of its young, should they be in danger, or
+attacked by any of the numerous bird-enemies, which abound everywhere,
+especially to those which are in immediate association with man. The
+Rev. J. G. Wood tells us, for instance, that on one occasion a prowling
+cat was forced to make an ignominious retreat before the united onset
+of a pair of blackbirds, on whose young she was about to make an attack.
+
+[Sidenote: _Macgillivray’s Account._]
+
+Let me now, in conclusion, give a day with a family of blackbirds,
+which I somewhat curtail from Macgillivray.
+
+“On Saturday morning, June 10th, I went into a little hut made of green
+branches, at half-past two in the morning, to see how the blackbirds
+spend the day at home. They lived close by, in a hole in an old wall,
+which one or other of them had occupied for a number of years.
+
+“At a quarter-past three they began to feed their young, which were
+four in number. She was the most industrious in doing so; and when he
+was not feeding, he was singing most deliciously. Towards seven o’clock
+the father-bird induced one of the young ones to fly out after him.
+But this was a little mistake, and, the bird falling, I was obliged to
+help it into its nest again, which made a little family commotion. They
+were exceedingly tidy about their nest, and when a little rubbish fell
+out they instantly carried it away. At ten o’clock the feeding began
+again vigorously, and continued till two, both parent-birds supplying
+their young almost equally.
+
+“The hut in which I sat was very closely covered; but a little wren
+having alighted on the ground in pursuit of a fly, and seeing one of
+my legs moving, set up a cry of alarm, on which, in the course of a
+few seconds, all the birds in the neighbourhood collected to know what
+was the matter. The blackbird hopped round the hut again and again,
+making every effort to peep in, even alighting on the top within a few
+inches of my head, but not being able to make any discovery, the tumult
+subsided. It was probably considered a false alarm, and the blackbirds
+went on feeding their young till almost four o’clock: and now came the
+great event of the day.
+
+“At about half-past three the mother brought a large worm, four inches
+in length probably, which she gave to one of the young ones, and flew
+away. Shortly afterwards returning, she had the horror of perceiving
+that the worm, instead of being swallowed was sticking in its throat;
+on this she uttered a perfect moan of distress, which immediately
+brought the he-bird, who also saw at a glance what a terrible
+catastrophe was to be feared. Both parents made several efforts to push
+the worm down the throat, but to no purpose, when, strange to say, the
+father discovered the cause of the accident. The outer end of the worm
+had got entangled in the feathers of the breast, and, being held fast,
+could not be swallowed. He carefully disengaged it, and, holding it up
+with his beak, the poor little thing, with a great effort, managed to
+get it down, but was by this time so exhausted that it lay with its
+eyes shut and without moving for the next three hours. The male bird in
+the meantime took his stand upon a tree, a few yards from the nest, and
+poured forth some of his most enchanting notes—a song of rejoicing no
+doubt for the narrow escape from death of one of his family.
+
+[Sidenote: _Macgillivray’s Day with this Bird._]
+
+“From four till seven o’clock both birds again fed their young, after
+which the male bird left these family duties to his mate, and gave
+himself up to incessant singing. At twenty minutes to nine their
+labours ceased, they having then fed their young one hundred and
+thirteen times during the day.
+
+“I observed that before feeding their young they always alighted upon
+a tree and looked round them for a few seconds. Sometimes they brought
+in a quantity of worms and fed their brood alternately; at other times
+they brought one which they gave to only one of them.
+
+“The young birds often trimmed their feathers, and stretched out their
+wings; they also appeared to sleep now and then.
+
+“With the note of alarm which the feathered tribes set up on the
+discovery of their enemies all the different species of the little
+birds seem to be intimately acquainted; for no sooner did a beast or
+bird of prey make its appearance, than they seemed to be anxiously
+concerned about the safety of their families. They would hop from tree
+to tree uttering their doleful lamentations. At one time the blackbirds
+were in an unusual state of excitement and terror, and were attended
+by crowds of their woodland friends. A man and boy, who were working
+in my garden, having heard the noise, ran to see what was the cause of
+it, and on looking into some branches which were lying on the ground,
+observed a large weasel stealing slyly along in pursuit of its prey. It
+was, however, driven effectually from the place without doing any harm.
+It is astonishing how soon the young know this intimation of danger;
+for I observed that no sooner did the old ones utter the alarm-cry,
+than they cowered in their nest, and appeared to be in a state of great
+uneasiness.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL.
+
+
+The Dipper, or Water-ousel, of which Mr. Weir has given us a charming
+and faithful portrait, is very like a wren in form and action, with
+its round body and lively little tail. Its mode of flight, however,
+so nearly resembles the kingfisher that, in some places, the country
+people mistake it for the female of that bird. But it is neither wren
+nor kingfisher, nor yet related to either of them. It is the nice
+little water-ousel, with ways of its own, and a cheerful life of its
+own, and the power of giving pleasure to all lovers of the free country
+which is enriched with an infinite variety of happy, innocent creatures.
+
+The upper part of the head and neck, and the whole back and wings of
+this bird, are of a rusty-brown; but, as each individual feather is
+edged with gray, there is no deadness of colouring. The throat and
+breast are snowy white, which, contrasting so strongly with the rest of
+the body, makes it seem to flash about like a point of light through
+the dark shadows of the scenes it loves to haunt.
+
+I said above that this bird gave pleasure to all lovers of nature. So
+it does, for it is only met with in scenes which are especially beloved
+by poets and painters. Like them, it delights in mountain regions,
+where rocky streams rush along with an unceasing murmur, leaping over
+huge stones, slumbering in deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between
+rocky walls, in the moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild
+rose flings out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the
+hardy polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with
+their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for the
+cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character with the
+scenes.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  DIPPERS AND NEST.      [Page 34.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Home of the Dipper._]
+
+And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few weeks in
+summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my constant advice
+as regards the study and truest enjoyment of country life and things.
+Go out for several hours; do not be in a hurry; take your book, or
+your sketching, or whatever your favourite occupation may be, if it be
+only a quiet one, and seat yourself by some rocky stream amongst the
+mountains; choose the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can
+reach you, if you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet
+witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat yourself
+quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a piece of
+rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, or tangle of
+bramble, and before long you will most likely see this merry, lively
+little dipper come with his quick, jerking flight, now alighting on
+this stone, now on that, peeping here, and peeping there, as quick as
+light, and snapping up, now a water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now
+diving down into the stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking
+into the shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer
+delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and away,
+and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of stone, which
+rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in a stormy sea,
+with the rush and roar of the water full above him. Yet there he is
+quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny wren, and hopping
+about on his rocky point, as if he could not for the life of him be
+still for a moment. Now listen! That is his song, and a merry little
+song it is, just such a one as you would fancy coming out of his jocund
+little heart; and, see now, he begins his antics. He must be a queer
+little soul! If we could be little dippers like him, and understand
+what his song and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often
+find the time tedious for want of something to do.
+
+We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of his small
+experience, all that his heart desires. He has this lonely mountain
+stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, laughing waters to bear
+him company, all these fantastically heaped-up stones, brought hither
+by furious winter torrents of long ago—that dashing, ever roaring,
+ever foaming waterfall, in the spray of which the summer sunshine
+weaves rainbows. All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden
+hair, and this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up
+his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of rock,
+and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, is built
+the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits the
+hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most unwearied
+love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with red.
+
+This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large size, the
+reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally near to the
+water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is always so fresh,
+looking so like the mass of its immediate surroundings as scarcely to
+be discoverable by the quickest eye. When the young are hatched they
+soon go abroad with the parents, and then, instead of the one solitary
+bird, you may see them in little parties of from five to seven going on
+in the same sort of way, only all the merrier because there are more of
+them.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+THE NIGHTINGALE.
+
+
+Philomela, or the Nightingale, is the head of the somewhat large
+bird-family of Warblers, and is the most renowned of all feathered
+songsters, though some judges think the garden-ousel exceeds it in
+mellowness, and the thrush in compass of voice, but that, in every
+other respect, it excels them all. For my part, however, I think no
+singing-bird is equal to it; and listening to it when in full song, in
+the stillness of a summer’s night, am ready to say with good old Izaak
+Walton:—
+
+“The nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet
+music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind
+to think that miracles had not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
+weary labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often
+heard, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and
+falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted
+above earth and say, ‘Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the
+saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!’”
+
+In colour, the upper parts of the nightingale are of a rich brown;
+the tail of a reddish tint; the throat and underparts of the body,
+greyish-white; the neck and breast, grey; the bill and legs, light
+brown. Its size is about that of the garden warblers, which it
+resembles in form—being, in fact, one of that family. Thus, the most
+admired of all singers—the subject of poets’ songs and eulogies, the
+bird that people walk far and wide to listen to, of which they talk for
+weeks before it comes, noting down the day of its arrival as if it were
+the Queen or the Queen’s son—is yet nothing but a little insignificant
+brown bird, not to be named with the parrot for plumage, nor with
+our little goldfinch, who always looks as if he had his Sunday suit
+on. But this is a good lesson for us. The little brown nightingale,
+with his little brown wife in the thickety copse, with their simple
+unpretending nest, not built up aloft on the tree branch, but humbly
+at the tree’s root, or even on the very ground itself, may teach us
+that the world’s external show or costliness is not true greatness. The
+world’s best bird-singer might have been as big as an eagle, attired
+in colours of blue and scarlet and orange like the grandest macaw. But
+the great Creator willed that it should not be so—his strength, and
+his furiousness, and his cruel capacity were sufficient for the eagle,
+and his shining vestments for the macaw; whilst the bird to which was
+given the divinest gift of song must be humble and unobtrusive, small
+of size, with no surpassing beauty of plumage, and loving best to hide
+itself in the thick seclusion of the copse in which broods the little
+mother-bird, the very counterpart of himself, upon her olive-coloured
+eggs.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Philomela of Surrey._]
+
+Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a sweet little picture of the
+nightingale at home. Somewhere, not far off, runs the highroad, or it
+may be a pleasant woodland lane leading from one village to another,
+and probably known as “Nightingale-lane,” and traversed night after
+night by rich and poor, learned and unlearned, to listen to the
+bird. In our own neighbourhood we have a “Nightingale-lane,” with its
+thickety copses on either hand, its young oaks and Spanish chestnuts
+shooting upwards, and tangles of wild roses and thick masses of
+brambles throwing their long sprays over old, mossy, and ivied stumps
+of trees, cut or blown down in the last generation—little pools
+and water courses here and there, with their many-coloured mosses
+and springing rushes—a very paradise for birds. This is in Surrey,
+and Surrey nightingales, it is said, are the finest that sing. With
+this comes the saddest part of the story. Bird-catchers follow the
+nightingale, and, once in his hands, farewell to the pleasant copse
+with the young oaks and Spanish chestnuts, the wild rose tangles, the
+little bosky hollow at the old tree root, in one of which the little
+nest is built and the little wife broods on her eggs!
+
+Generally, however, the unhappy bird, if he be caught, is taken soon
+after his arrival in this country; for nightingales are migratory, and
+arrive with us about the middle of April. The male bird comes about
+a fortnight before the female, and begins to sing in his loneliness
+a song of salutation—a sweet song, which expresses, with a tender
+yearning, his desire for her companionship. Birds taken at this time,
+before the mate has arrived, and whilst he is only singing to call and
+welcome her, are said still to sing on through the summer in the hope,
+long-deferred, that she may yet come. He will not give her up though
+he is no longer in the freedom of the wood, so he sings and sings, and
+if he live over the winter, he will sing the same song the following
+spring, for the want is again in his heart. He cannot believe but that
+she will still come. The cruel bird-catchers, therefore, try all their
+arts to take him in this early stage of his visit to us. Should he be
+taken later, when he is mated, and, as we see him in our picture, with
+all the wealth of his little life around him, he cannot sing long. How
+should he—in a narrow cage and dingy street of London or some other
+great town—perhaps with his eyes put out—for his cruel captor fancies
+he sings best if blind? He may sing, perhaps, for a while, thinking
+that he can wake himself out of this dreadful dream of captivity,
+darkness, and solitude. But it is no dream; the terrible reality at
+length comes upon him, and before the summer is over he dies of a
+broken heart.
+
+It is a curious fact that the nightingale confines itself, without
+apparent reason, to certain countries and to certain parts of England.
+For instance, though it visits Sweden, and even the temperate parts
+of Russia, it is not met with in Scotland, North Wales, nor Ireland,
+neither is it found in any of our northern counties excepting
+Yorkshire, and there only in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. Neither
+is it known in the south-western counties, as Cornwall and Devonshire.
+It is supposed to migrate during the winter into Egypt and Syria. It
+has been seen amongst the willows of Jordan and the olive trees of
+Judea, but we have not, to our knowledge, any direct mention of it in
+the Scriptures, though Solomon no doubt had it in his thoughts, in his
+sweet description of the spring—“Lo, the winter is past, the rain is
+over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing
+of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” A
+recent traveller in Syria tells me that she heard nightingales singing
+at four o’clock one morning in April of last year in the lofty regions
+of the Lebanon.
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  NIGHTINGALES AND NEST.      [Page 40.
+]
+
+
+[Sidenote: _Sir John Sinclair’s Attempt._]
+
+There have been various attempts to introduce the nightingale into such
+parts of this country as it has not yet frequented; for instance, a
+gentleman of Gower, a sea-side district of Glamorganshire, the climate
+of which is remarkably mild, procured a number of young birds from
+Norfolk and Surrey, hoping that they would find themselves so much at
+home in the beautiful woods there as to return the following year. But
+none came. Again, as regards Scotland, Sir John Sinclair purchased a
+large number of nightingales’ eggs, at a shilling each, and employed
+several men to place them carefully in robins’ nests to be hatched. So
+far all succeeded well. The foster-mothers reared the nightingales,
+which, when full-fledged, flew about as if quite at home. But when
+September came, the usual month for the migration of the nightingale,
+the mysterious impulse awoke in the hearts of the young strangers, and,
+obeying it, they suddenly disappeared and never after returned.
+
+Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a very accurate drawing of the
+nightingale’s nest, which is slight and somewhat fragile in
+construction, made of withered leaves—mostly of oak—and lined
+with dry grass. The author of “British Birds” describes one in his
+possession as composed of slips of the inner bark of willow, mixed with
+the leaves of the lime and the elm, lined with fibrous roots, grass,
+and a few hairs; but whatever the materials used may be, the effect
+produced is exactly the same.
+
+In concluding our little chapter on this bird, I would mention that
+in the Turkish cemeteries, which, from the old custom of planting a
+cypress at the head and foot of every grave, have now become cypress
+woods, nightingales abound, it having been also an old custom of love
+to keep these birds on every grave.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SKYLARK.
+
+
+The Skylark, that beautiful singer, which carries its joy up to the
+very gates of heaven, as it were, has inspired more poets to sing about
+it than any other bird living.
+
+Wordsworth says, as in an ecstasy of delight:—
+
+    Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
+      For thy song, lark, is strong;
+    Up with me! up with me into the clouds!
+      Singing, singing.
+      With clouds and sky about me ringing,
+    Lift me, guide me till I find
+    That spot that seems so to my mind.
+
+Shelley, in an ode which expresses the bird’s ecstasy of song, also
+thus addresses it, in a strain of sadness peculiar to himself:—
+
+            Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
+              Bird, thou never wert—
+            That from heaven, or near it,
+              Pourest thy full heart
+        In profuse strains of unpremeditated art!
+
+            Higher, still, and higher
+              From the earth thou springest,
+            Like a cloud of fire;
+              The deep blue thou wingest,
+        And singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singest!
+
+               *       *       *       *       *
+
+            Better than all measures
+              Of delightful sound,
+            Better than all treasures
+              That in books are found,
+        Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.
+
+            Teach me half the gladness
+              That thy brain must know,
+            Such harmonious madness
+              From my lips should flow;
+        The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
+
+[Sidenote: _James Hogg’s Verses._]
+
+James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who had listened to the bird with
+delight on the Scottish hills, thus sings of it:—
+
+            Bird of the wilderness,
+            Blithesome and cumberless,
+    Sweet is thy matin o’er moorland and lea!
+            Emblem of happiness,
+            Blest is thy dwelling-place—
+    Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
+
+            Wild is thy lay, and loud;
+            Far in the downy cloud
+    Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.
+            Where on thy dewy wing,
+            Where art thou journeying?
+    Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
+
+            O’er fell and fountain sheen,
+            O’er moor and mountain green,
+    O’er the red streamer that heralds the day;
+            Over the cloudlet dim,
+            Over the rainbow’s rim,
+    Musical cherub, soar, singing away!
+
+            Then when the gloaming comes,
+            Low in the heather blooms,
+    Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
+            Emblem of happiness,
+            Blest is thy dwelling-place—
+            Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!
+
+But we must not forget the earthly life of the bird in all these sweet
+songs about him.
+
+The plumage of the skylark is brown, in various shades; the fore-part
+of the neck, reddish-white, spotted with brown; the breast and under
+part of the body, yellowish-white. Its feet are peculiar, being
+furnished with an extraordinarily long hind claw, the purpose of which
+has puzzled many naturalists. But whatever nature intended it for, the
+bird has been known to make use of it for a purpose which cannot fail
+to interest us and call forth our admiration. This shall be presently
+explained. The nest is built on the ground, either between two clods
+of earth, in the deep foot-print of cattle, or some other small hollow
+suitable for the purpose, and is composed of dry grass, hair, and
+leaves; the hair is mostly used for the lining. Here the mother-bird
+lays four or five eggs of pale sepia colour, with spots and markings
+of darker hue. She has generally two broods in the year, and commences
+sitting in May. The he-lark begins to sing early in the spring.
+Bewick says, “He rises from the neighbourhood of the nest almost
+perpendicularly in the air, by successive springs, and hovers at a
+vast height. His descent, on the contrary, is in an oblique direction,
+unless he is threatened by birds of prey, or attracted by his mate, and
+on these occasions he drops like a stone.”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  SKYLARKS AND NEST.      [Page 44.
+]
+
+With regard to his ascent, I must, however, add that it is in a spiral
+direction, and that what Bewick represents as springs are his sudden
+spiral flights after pausing to sing. Another peculiarity must be
+mentioned: all his bones are hollow, and he can inflate them with air
+from his lungs, so that he becomes, as it were, a little balloon, which
+accounts for the buoyancy with which he ascends, and the length of
+time he can support himself in the air: often for an hour at a time.
+Still more extraordinary is the wonderful power and reach of his voice,
+for while, probably, the seven hundred or a thousand voices of the
+grand chorus of an oratorio would fail to fill the vast spaces of the
+atmosphere, it can be done by this glorious little songster, which,
+mounting upwards, makes itself heard, without effort, when it can be
+seen no longer.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Solicitude for its Young._]
+
+The attachment of the parents to their young is very great, and has
+been seen to exhibit itself in a remarkable manner.
+
+The nest being placed on the open-ground—often pasture, or in a field
+of mowing grass—it is very liable to be disturbed; many, therefore,
+are the instances of the bird’s tender solicitude either for the young
+or for its eggs, one of which I will give from Mr. Jesse. “In case of
+alarm,” he says, “either by cattle grazing near the nest, or by the
+approach of the mower, the parent-birds remove their eggs, by means
+of their long claws, to a place of greater security, and this I have
+observed to be affected in a very short space of time.” He says that
+when one of his mowers first told him of this fact he could scarcely
+believe it, but that he afterwards saw it himself, and that he regarded
+it only as another proof of the affection which these birds show their
+offspring. Instances are also on record of larks removing their young
+by carrying them on their backs: in one case the young were thus
+removed from a place of danger into a field of standing corn. But
+however successful the poor birds may be in removing their eggs, they
+are not always so with regard to their young, as Mr. Yarrell relates.
+An instance came under his notice, in which the little fledgeling
+proved too heavy for the parent to carry, and, being dropped from an
+height of about thirty feet, was killed in the fall.
+
+Of all captive birds, none grieves me more than the skylark. Its
+impulse is to soar, which is impossible in the narrow spaces of a cage;
+and in this unhappy condition, when seized by the impulse of song, he
+flings himself upwards, and is dashed down again by its cruel barriers.
+For this reason the top of the lark’s cage is always bedded with green
+baize to prevent his injuring himself. In the freedom of nature he is
+the joyous minstrel of liberty and love, carrying upwards, and sending
+down from above, his buoyant song, which seems to fall down through the
+golden sunshine like a flood of sparkling melody.
+
+I am not aware of the height to which the lark soars, but it must be
+very great, as he becomes diminished to a mere speck, almost invisible
+in the blaze of light. Yet, high as he may soar, he never loses the
+consciousness of the little mate and the nestlings below: but their
+first cry of danger or anxiety, though the cry may be scarce audible
+to the human ear, thrills up aloft to the singer, and he comes down
+with a direct arrow-like flight, whilst otherwise his descent is more
+leisurely, and said by some to be in the direct spiral line of his
+ascent.
+
+Larks, unfortunately for themselves, are considered very fine eating.
+Immense numbers of them are killed for the table, not only on the
+continent, but in England. People cry shame on the Roman epicure,
+Lucullus, dining on a stew of nightingales’ tongue, nearly two thousand
+years ago, and no more can I reconcile to myself the daily feasting on
+these lovely little songsters, which may be delicate eating, but are no
+less God’s gifts to gladden and beautify the earth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+THE LINNET.
+
+
+Linnets are a branch of a larger family of finches, all very familiar
+to us. They are cousins, also, to the dear, impudent sparrows, and the
+pretty siskin or aberdevines.
+
+The linnets are all compactly and stoutly built, with short necks and
+good sized heads, with short, strong, pointed bills, made for the ready
+picking up of seed and grain, on which they live. Most of them have two
+broods in the season, and they build a bulky, deep, and compact nest,
+just in accordance with their character and figure; but, though all
+linnet-nests have a general resemblance of form, they vary more or less
+in the material used.
+
+Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce
+and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They
+are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season
+when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted
+to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards,
+and amongst stacks.
+
+The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers
+of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four; the others
+are the twit or mountain-linnet, the mealy-linnet, and the lesser
+red-pole—the smallest of the four—all very much alike, and easily
+mistaken for each other. The name red-pole is given from the bright
+crimson spot on their heads—_pole_ or _poll_ being the old Saxon word
+for head. The back of our linnet’s head and the sides of his neck are
+of dingy ash-colour, his back of a warm brown tint, his wings black,
+his throat of a dull white, spotted with brown, his breast a brilliant
+red, and the under part of his body a dingy white.
+
+The linnet, amongst singing birds, is what a song writer is amongst
+poets. He is not a grand singer, like the blackbird or the thrush,
+the missel-thrush or the wood-lark, all of which seem to have an epic
+story in their songs, nor, of course, like the skylark, singing up to
+the gates of heaven, or the nightingale, that chief psalmist of all
+bird singers. But, though much humbler than any of these, he is a sweet
+and pleasant melodist; a singer of charming little songs, full of the
+delight of summer, the freshness of open heaths, with their fragrant
+gorse, or of the Scottish brae, with its “bonnie broom,” also in golden
+blossom. His are unpretending little songs of intense enjoyment, simple
+thanksgivings for the pleasures of life, for the little brown hen-bird,
+who has not a bit of scarlet in her plumage, and who sits in her snug
+nest on her fine little white eggs, with their circle of freckles and
+brown spots at the thicker end, always alike, a sweet, patient mother,
+waiting for the time when the young ones will come into life from that
+delicate shell-covering, blind at first, though slightly clothed in
+greyish-brown—five little linnets gaping for food.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  LINNETS AND NEST.      [Page 48.
+]
+
+The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its
+favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and
+moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it here in our picture;
+for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts
+of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.
+
+Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it
+too rises a _chevaux de frise_ of furze spines, green and tender to
+look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on
+hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with
+the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and,
+below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands
+of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and
+spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the
+man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the
+horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man
+thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when
+he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the
+while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune,
+impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment
+years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada;
+or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of
+trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and
+to his God.
+
+[Sidenote: _Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote._]
+
+Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the
+parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is
+very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the
+following anecdote in proof of it:—
+
+“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some
+children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming
+them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping, fluttered round the
+children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs
+and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the
+nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards
+placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left
+open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still
+farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage,
+but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening
+actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several
+children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the
+cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent
+shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor
+parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully
+in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+THE PEEWIT.
+
+
+The Peewit, lapwing, or plover, belongs to the naturalist family of
+_Gallatores_ or Waders, all of which are furnished with strong legs and
+feet for walking, whilst all which inhabit watery places, or feed their
+young amongst the waves, have legs sufficiently long to enable them to
+wade; whence comes the family name.
+
+The peewit, or lapwing, is a very interesting bird, from its peculiar
+character and habits. Its plumage is handsome; the upper part of the
+body of a rich green, with metallic reflections; the sides of the neck
+and base of the tail of a pure white; the tail is black; so is the
+top of the head, which is furnished with a long, painted crest, lying
+backwards, but which can be raised at pleasure. In length the bird is
+about a foot.
+
+The peewit lives in all parts of this country, and furnishes one of
+the pleasantly peculiar features of open sea-shores and wide moorland
+wastes, in the solitudes of which, its incessant, plaintive cry has an
+especially befitting sound, like the very spirit of the scene, moaning
+in unison with the waves, and wailing over the wide melancholy of the
+waste. Nevertheless, the peewit is not in itself mournful, for it is
+a particularly lively and active bird, sporting and frolicking in the
+air with its fellows, now whirling round and round, and now ascending
+to a great height on untiring wing; then down again, running along the
+ground, and leaping about from spot to spot as if for very amusement.
+
+It is, however, with all its agility, a very untidy nest-maker; in
+fact it makes no better nest than a few dry bents scraped together in
+a shallow hole, like a rude saucer or dish, in which she can lay her
+eggs—always four in number. But though taking so little trouble about
+her nest, she is always careful to lay the narrow ends of her eggs in
+the centre, as is shown in the picture, though as yet there are but
+three. A fourth, however, will soon come to complete the cross-like
+figure, after which she will begin to sit.
+
+These eggs, under the name of plovers’ eggs, are in great request as
+luxuries for the breakfast-table, and it may be thought that laid thus
+openly on the bare earth they are very easily found. It is not so,
+however, for they look so much like the ground itself, so like little
+bits of moorland earth or old sea-side stone, that it is difficult to
+distinguish them. But in proportion as the bird makes so insufficient
+and unguarded a nest, so all the greater is the anxiety, both of
+herself and her mate, about the eggs. Hence, whilst she is sitting, he
+exercises all kinds of little arts to entice away every intruder from
+the nest, wheeling round and round in the air near him, so as to fix
+his attention, screaming mournfully his incessant _peewit_ till he has
+drawn him ever further and further from the point of his anxiety and
+love.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  PEEWITS AND NEST.      [Page 52.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _Stratagems of the Bird._]
+
+The little quartette brood, which are covered with down when hatched,
+begin to run almost as soon as they leave the shell, and then the poor
+mother-bird has to exercise all her little arts also—and indeed the
+care and solicitude of both parents is wonderful. Suppose, now, the
+little helpless group is out running here and there as merry as life
+can make them, and a man, a boy, or a dog, or perhaps all three, are
+seen approaching. At once the little birds squat close to the earth,
+so that they become almost invisible, and the parent-birds are on the
+alert, whirling round and round the disturber, angry and troubled,
+wailing and crying their doleful _peewit_ cry, drawing them ever
+further and further away from the brood. Should, however, the artifice
+not succeed, and the terrible intruder still obstinately advance in the
+direction of the young, they try a new artifice; drop to the ground,
+and, running along in the opposite course, pretend lameness, tumbling
+feebly along in the most artful manner, thus apparently offering the
+easiest and most tempting prey, till, having safely lured away the
+enemy, they rise at once into the air, screaming again their _peewit_,
+but now as if laughing over their accomplished scheme.
+
+The young, which are hatched in April, are in full plumage by the end
+of July, when the birds assemble in flocks, and, leaving the sea-shore,
+or the marshy moorland, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks,
+where they soon become fat, and are said to be excellent eating.
+Happily, however, for them, they are not in as much request for the
+table as they were in former times. Thus we find in an ancient book
+of housekeeping expenses, called “The Northumberland Household-book,”
+that they are entered under the name of _Wypes_, and charged one penny
+each; and that they were then considered a first-rate dish is proved by
+their being entered as forming a part of “his lordship’s own mess,” or
+portion of food; _mess_ being so used in those days—about the time,
+probably, when the Bible was translated into English. Thus we find in
+the beautiful history of Joseph and his brethren, “He sent messes to
+them, but Benjamin’s mess was five times as much as any of theirs.”
+
+Here I would remark, on the old name of _Wypes_ for this bird, that
+country-people in the midland counties still call them _pie-wypes_.
+
+But now again to our birds. The peewit, like the gull, may easily be
+tamed to live in gardens, where it is not only useful by ridding them
+of worms, slugs, and other troublesome creatures, but is very amusing,
+from its quaint, odd ways. Bewick tells us of one so kept by the Rev.
+J. Carlisle, Vicar of Newcastle, which I am sure will interest my
+readers.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Winter Visitor._]
+
+He says two of these birds were given to Mr. Carlisle, and placed
+in his garden, where one soon died; the other continued to pick up
+such food as the place afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual
+supply. Necessity then compelled it to come nearer the house, by
+which it gradually became accustomed to what went forward, as well as
+to the various members of the family. At length a servant, when she
+had occasion to go into the back-kitchen with a light, observed that
+the lapwing always uttered his cry of _peewit_ to gain admittance.
+He soon grew familiar; as the winter advanced, he approached as far
+as the kitchen, but with much caution, as that part of the house was
+generally inhabited by a dog and a cat, whose friendship the lapwing
+at length gained so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort
+to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and
+night with his two associates, sitting close to them, and partaking
+of the comforts of a warm fireside. As soon as spring appeared he
+betook himself to the garden, but again, at the approach of winter,
+had recourse to his old shelter and his old friends, who received him
+very cordially. But his being favoured by them did not prevent his
+taking great liberties with them; he would frequently amuse himself
+with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of, and
+whilst he was thus employed he showed marks of the greatest indignation
+if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died, poor
+fellow, in the asylum he had chosen, by being choked with something
+which he had picked up from the floor. During his confinement he
+acquired an artificial taste as regarded his food, and preferred crumbs
+of bread to anything else.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE HOUSE-MARTIN, OR WINDOW-SWALLOW.
+
+
+During our winter, swallows inhabit warm tropical countries, migrating
+northwards with the first approaches of summer. They are usually seen
+with us from the 13th to the 20th of April, and are useful from the
+first day of their arrival, by clearing the air of insects, which they
+take on the wing; indeed, they may be said to live almost wholly on the
+wing, and, except when collecting mud for their nests, are seldom seen
+to alight, and, in drinking, dip down to the water as they skim over it
+on rapid wing.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  HOUSE-MARTINS AND NESTS.      [Page 56.
+]
+
+We have three kinds of swallows in England: the chimney-swallow, the
+house-martin, and the sand-martin, of which I shall have something to
+say in due course. The chimney-swallow and house-martin are especially
+worthy of the affectionate regard of man; for they love his society,
+build around his dwelling, destroy nothing that he values, have no
+appetite for his fruits; they live harmoniously amongst themselves,
+and have no other disposition than that of cheerfulness, unwearying
+industry and perseverance, and the most devoted parental affection.
+
+Mr. Weir has given us a lively picture of swallow-life—four nests
+grouped together on a house-side: more there probably are; but there
+are as many as we can manage with; indeed we will presently confine
+our attention to one single nest, and, by so doing, I flatter myself
+that I shall win your admiration for these birds, and that you will
+agree with me in thinking that if we all, men and women, boys and
+girls, had only their persevering spirit, and their courage under
+adversity, there would not be so much unsuccess, either at school or in
+life, as is now, too often, the case.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Nests on Traquair House._]
+
+Some people are very fond of having martins about their houses, under
+their eaves, and even in the corners of their windows. The Earl of
+Traquair was one of these; he was, indeed, a great lover of all kinds
+of birds, and all were protected on his premises. In the autumn of
+1839, there were no less than one hundred and three martins’ nests on
+Traquair House—which is a very fine old place—besides several which
+had been deserted, injured, or taken possession of by sparrows, which
+is a very unwarrantable liberty taken by these birds.
+
+From six to twenty days are required to build a martin’s nest. If all
+goes on well it may be finished in the shorter time.
+
+Let us now see how the birds set about building. Here are several
+nests in our picture; and turning to the pages of Macgillivray’s
+“British Birds,” I shall find exactly the information we need. I will,
+therefore, extract freely from this interesting writer, that my young
+readers may be as grateful to him as I am myself.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Domestic Life of a Pair._]
+
+Again turning to our picture, we find four nests. “A party of eight
+martins arrived here on the 1st of May. As this was quite a new
+location, they spent the whole day in examining the eaves of the house,
+the corners of the windows, and the out-buildings. By the following
+morning the question was settled, and they had, as you see, fixed
+upon a high wall with a slate coping, and an eastern aspect, and at
+once commenced making a general foundation for their nests. Suitable
+materials are procured from the banks of an adjoining pond, or a puddle
+in the lane. Let us go down and see them. Here they come, sailing
+placidly over the tree-tops; now they descend so as almost to sweep the
+surface of the pond; some of them alight at once, others skim round, as
+if borne away by a brisk wind. Those that have alighted walk about with
+short steps, looking round for materials. Some seem not to find the mud
+suitable, but seize on a piece of straw, or grass, which, tempering
+in the mud, they then fly off with. Returning now to the building, we
+see one using its tail planted against the wall, or against the nest,
+if sufficiently advanced, as a support, deposit the material it has
+brought by giving its head a wriggling motion, so that the mud slides
+gently into the crevices of yesterday’s work; then he retouches the
+whole. See, one has now arrived with his supply before the other has
+finished: he is impatient to disburden himself, and wants to drive
+off the worker, who rather snappishly retorts, and he, poor fellow,
+goes off for a while with the mud sticking to his bill. Now she has
+finished; there is room for him, and he goes back again and works hard
+in his turn. They never alight on the nest without twittering. At noon,
+if the weather be hot, they betake themselves to the fields, or, after
+a dip in the pond, sun themselves on the house-top for half-an-hour or
+so. Then they will hawk about for food, and after awhile one of them
+may, perhaps, return and give another touch or two to the work, or seat
+herself in the nest to consolidate the materials. But if cold, wet, or
+windy, they keep away. What they do with themselves I know not; but
+as soon as it clears up, they are at work again. At the beginning of
+their building, they seem to have no objection to leave it for a whole
+day; but as it advances, they become more interested or anxious, and
+one or both will sit in it all night, even though the weather be bad.”
+
+So much for the building of these four nests of our picture; and now
+I will bespeak your attention to a little narrative of the joys and
+sorrows of the domestic life of a pair of martins, which, we will
+suppose, belong also to our group.
+
+“The building began on the 1st of May, at daybreak. But the weather was
+very much against them, being cold and stormy, and it was the 18th of
+the month before it was finished.
+
+“Seeing their labours thus brought to a close, one could not help
+wishing, considering how much it had cost, that the nest might last
+them for many years. But on the 23rd of June, during a heavy fall of
+thunder rain, almost the entire nest was washed to the ground, together
+with the young birds which it contained. A short time before the
+catastrophe, the old birds were observed hovering about, and expressing
+great uneasiness. Almost immediately after it happened they left the
+place, but returned the following day, and spent it in flying about and
+examining the angle of the wall.
+
+“Next morning they commenced repairing the nest. In three days they had
+made great progress; but again rain fell, and their work was stayed.
+On the 30th, they advanced rapidly, and both remained sitting on the
+nest all night. The next day it was finished; and now they began to
+rejoice: they twittered all the evening till it was dark, now and then
+pruning each other’s heads, as, seated side by side, they prepared to
+spend the dark hours in the nest. Eggs were soon laid again, but,
+sad to say, on the morning of the 18th of July, again, during a great
+storm of wind and rain, the upper wall fell, carrying with it one
+of the eggs. The old birds again fluttered about, uttering the most
+plaintive cries, and early the next morning began to repair the damage,
+though it rained heavily all day. Part of the lining hanging over the
+side was incorporated with the new layers of mud. The urgency of the
+case was such, that they were obliged to work during the bad weather.
+Throughout the day one bird sat on the nest, whilst the other laboured
+assiduously. Kindly was he welcomed by his mate, who sometimes, during
+his absence, nibbled and retouched the materials which he had just
+deposited. In a few days it was finished, the weather became settled,
+the young were hatched, and all went well with them.
+
+“Sometimes when the nests are destroyed, the birds, instead of
+attempting to repair the damage, forsake the neighbourhood, as if
+wholly disheartened. Nothing can be more distressing to them than to
+lose their young. In the storm of which I have just spoken, another
+martin’s nest was washed down with unfledged young in it. These were
+placed on some cotton wool in a basket, covered with a sheet of
+brown paper, in an open window, facing the wall. During that day and
+the following, the parents took no notice of them, and their kind
+human protector fed them with house-flies. That evening he tried an
+experiment. He gently placed the young ones in a nest of that same
+window, where were other young. It was then about eight o’clock in the
+evening; the rain was falling heavily, and no sound was heard save
+the _cheep, cheep_, of the young birds, and the dashing of the storm
+against the window-glass. A minute elapsed, when forth rushed the
+parents shrieking their alarm notes, and, again and again wheeled up to
+the nest, until at last they drifted away in the storm. He watched them
+till they disappeared about half-past-nine. During all this time they
+only twice summoned courage to look into the nest. Next morning I was
+rejoiced to see them attending assiduously to the young ones.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Feeding of the Young._]
+
+And now, turning again to our group of four nests on the walls,
+supposing it be the month of July, every one of them with its
+fledgeling brood sitting with gaping mouths, ever ready for food, you
+may, perhaps, like to know how many meals are carried up to them in the
+course of the day. If, then, the parents began to feed them at about
+five in the morning, and left a little before eight at night, they
+would feed them, at the lowest calculation, about a thousand times.
+
+With all this feeding and care-taking, the young ones, as the summer
+goes on, are full-fledged, and have grown so plump and large that the
+nest is quite too small for them; therefore, they must turn out into
+the world, and begin life for themselves.
+
+It is now a fine, brisk, August morning, and at about eight o’clock,
+you can see, if you look up at the nests, how the old birds come
+dashing up to them quite in an excited way, making short curves in the
+air, and repeating a note which says, as plain as a bird can speak,
+
+          This is the day
+          You must away!
+    What are wings made for, if not to fly?
+          Cheep, cheep,
+          Now for a leap!—
+    Father and mother and neighbours are by!
+
+This flying away from the nest is a great event in swallow-life, as you
+may well believe. Let us therefore now direct our attention to one nest
+in particular, in which are only two young ones—a very small family;
+but what happens here is occurring all round us.
+
+One of these little ones balances itself at the entrance, looking
+timidly into the void, and, having considered the risk for awhile,
+allows its fellow to take its place.
+
+During all this time, the parents keep driving about, within a few feet
+of the entrance, and endeavour, by many winning gestures, to induce
+their charge to follow them. The second bird also, after sitting for
+some time, as if distrustful of its powers, retires, and the first
+again appears. Opening and shutting his wings, and often half inclined
+again to retire, he, at length, summons up all his resolution, springs
+from the nest, and, with his self-taught pinions, cleaves the air. He
+and his parents, who are in ecstasies, return to the nest, and the
+second young one presently musters courage and joins them. And now
+begins a day of real enjoyment; they sport chiefly about the tree-tops
+till seven in the evening, when all re-enter the nest.
+
+In several instances I have seen the neighbours add their inducements
+to those of the parents, when the young were too timid to leave their
+home. If the happy day prove fine, they seldom return to the nest
+till sunset; if otherwise, they will come back two or three times. On
+one occasion, when the young were ready to fly, but unwilling to take
+the first leap, the parents had recourse to a little stratagem, both
+ingenious and natural. The he-bird held out a fly at about four inches
+from the entrance to the nest. In attempting to take hold of it, they
+again and again nearly lost their balance. On another occasion, the
+mother bird, trying this plan to no purpose, seemed to lose patience,
+and seizing one of them by the lower mandible, with the claw of her
+right foot, whilst it was gaping for food, tried to pull it out of the
+nest, to which, however, it clung like a squirrel. But the young, every
+one of them, fly in time, and a right joyous holiday they all have
+together.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Autumn Migration._]
+
+So the summer comes to an end; and towards the middle of September,
+the great family cares being over, and the young having attained
+to an age capable of undertaking the fatigues of migration, that
+mysterious impulse, strong as life itself, and probably affecting
+them like some sickness—the necessity to exchange one country and
+climate for another—comes upon them. Under this influence, they
+congregate together in immense numbers, every neighbourhood seeming
+to have its place of assembly—the roofs of lofty buildings, or the
+leafless boughs of old trees: here they meet, not only to discuss the
+great undertaking, but to have a right merry time together—a time
+of luxurious idleness, lively chatterings, singing in chorus their
+everlasting and musical _cheep, cheep_, eating and drinking, and making
+ready for the journey before them.
+
+At length the moment of departure is come, and at a given signal the
+whole party rises. Twittering and singing, and bidding a long farewell
+to the scenes of their summer life, they fly off in a body, perhaps, if
+coming from Scotland, or the north of England, to rest yet a few weeks
+in the warmer southern counties; after which, a general departure takes
+place to the sunny lands of Africa.
+
+Though gifted with wings wonderfully constructed for prolonged flight,
+and though having passed every day of so many successive months almost
+wholly on the wing, the swallow frequently suffers great fatigue and
+exhaustion in its long migration. Sometimes, probably driven out of
+its course by adverse winds, it is known to alight by hundreds on the
+rigging of vessels, when worn out by hunger and fatigue it is too
+often shot or cruelly treated. Nevertheless the swallow, protected
+by Him who cares for the sparrow, generally braves the hardships of
+migration, and the following spring, guided by the same mysterious
+instinct, finds his way across continents and seas to his old home,
+where, identified by some little mark which has been put upon him—a
+silken thread as a garter, or a light silver ring—he is recognised as
+the old familiar friend, and appears to be no less happy to be once
+more with them than are they to welcome him. Sometimes swallows coming
+back as ordinary strangers, prove their identity, even though the scene
+of their last year’s home may have been pulled down, together with the
+human habitation. In this case, he has been known to fly about in a
+distracted way, lamenting the change that had taken place, and seeming
+as if nothing would comfort him.
+
+Though the fact of swallows coming back to their old haunts does not
+need proving, yet I will close my chapter with an incident which
+occurred in our own family. During a summer storm, a martin’s nest,
+with young, was washed from the eaves of my husband’s paternal
+home. His mother, a great friend to all birds, placed the nest with
+the young, which happily were uninjured, in a window, which, being
+generally open, allowed the parent-birds access to their young. They
+very soon began to feed them, making no attempt to build any other
+nest; so that the young were successfully reared, and took their flight
+full-fledged from the window-sill.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Welcomed Return to Old Haunts._]
+
+The next spring, when the time for the arrival of the swallows came,
+great was the surprise and pleasure of their kind hostess, to see,
+one day, a number of swallows twittering about the window, as if
+impatient for entrance. On its being opened, in they flew, and,
+twittering joyfully and circling round the room, as if recognising the
+old hospitable asylum of the former year, flew out and soon settled
+themselves under the eaves with the greatest satisfaction. There could
+be no doubt but that these were the birds that had been reared there.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+THE CHIFF-CHAFF, OR OVEN-BUILDER.
+
+
+The Chiff-chaff, chill-chall, lesser pettichaps, or oven-builder, is
+one of the great bird-family of warblers, and the smallest of them in
+size; indeed, it is not much larger than the little willow-wren. Like
+all its family it is a bird of passage, and makes its appearance here,
+in favourable seasons, as early as the 12th of March—earlier than
+the warblers in general—and also remains later, having been known to
+remain here to the middle of October.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  CHIFF-CHAFFS AND NEST.      [Page 66.
+]
+
+It is a remarkably cheerful little bird, and is warmly welcomed by all
+lovers of the country as being one of the first visitants of spring,
+sending its pleasant little voice, with an incessant “chiff-chaff,”
+“chery-charry,” through the yet leafless trees.
+
+Its plumage is dark olive-green; the breast and under part of the body,
+white, with a slight tinge of yellow; the tail, brown, edged with pale
+green; legs, yellowish-brown.
+
+The nest is not unlike that of a wren, built in a low bush, and,
+sometimes, even on the ground. The one so beautifully and faithfully
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir, seems to be amongst the tallest grasses
+and picturesque growths of some delicious woodland lane. It is a
+lovely little structure; a hollow ball wonderfully put together, of
+dry leaves and stems of grass, and a circular hole for entrance at
+the side; lined with soft feathers—a little downy bed of comfort. The
+mother-bird, as we now see her, sits here in delicious ease on five or
+six white eggs, beautifully spotted with rich red-brown.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Howitt’s Account of this Bird._]
+
+This dainty little bird, which seems made alone for pleasure, is
+very useful to man, and should be made kindly welcome everywhere,
+living entirely on caterpillars and other troublesome and destructive
+creatures. The Rev. J. G. Wood says that it saves many a good oak from
+destruction by devouring, on its first arrival, the caterpillars of
+the well-known green oak-moth, which roll up the leaves in so curious
+a manner, and come tumbling out of their green houses at the slightest
+alarm.
+
+He says, also, that a little chiff-chaff, which had been caught and
+tamed, was accustomed to dash to the ceiling of the room in which it
+was kept, and to snatch thence the flies which settled on the white
+surface.
+
+My husband, writing of this bird, says:—
+
+“Gilbert White gave, I believe, the name of chiff-chaff to this
+little bird from its note. In the midland counties it is called the
+chill-chall from the same cause; and, indeed, this name is, to my ear,
+more accordant with its continuous ditty. Its cheery little voice is
+one of the pleasantest recognitions of returning spring. It is sure to
+be heard, just as in former years, in the copse, the dell, the belt
+of trees bordering a wayside; we catch its simple note with pleasure,
+for it brings with it many a memory of happy scenes and days gone
+by. We see the little creature hopping along the boughs of the yet
+only budding oak, and know that it is as usefully employed for man
+as agreeably for itself. It tells us, in effect, that sunny days,
+flowers, and sweet airs, and the music of a thousand other birds, are
+coming. We revert to the time when, tracing the wood-side or the bosky
+dingle in boyhood, we caught sight of its rounded nest amongst the
+screening twigs of the low bush, and the bleached bents of last year’s
+grapes. We remember the pleasure with which we examined its little
+circular entrance, and discovered, in its downy interior, its store
+of delicate eggs, or the living mass of feathery inmates, with their
+heads ranged side by side and one behind another, with their twinkling
+eyes and yellow-edged mouths. Many a time, as we have heard the ever
+blithe note of chill-chall, as it stuck to its unambitious part of the
+obscure woodland glade, we have wished that we could maintain the same
+buoyant humour, the same thorough acceptance of the order of Providence
+for us. As Luther, in a moment of despondency, when enemies were rife
+around him, and calumny and wrong pursued him, heard the glad song of a
+bird that came and sang on a bough before his window, we have thanked
+God for the lesson of the never-drooping chill-chall. The great world
+around never damps its joy with a sense of its own insignificance; the
+active and often showy life of man, the active and varied existence of
+even birds, which sweep through the air in gay companies, never disturb
+its pleasure in its little accustomed nook. It seems to express, in its
+two or three simple notes, all the sentiment of indestructible content,
+like the old woman’s bird in the German story by Ludwig Tieck—
+
+    Alone in wood so gay,
+    ’Tis good to stay,
+    Morrow like to-day
+    For ever and aye;
+    Oh, I do love to stay
+    Alone in wood so gay!
+
+[Sidenote: _The Bird’s Ditty._]
+
+“This little bird appears to feel all that strength of heart, and to
+put it into its little ditty, which seems to me to say—
+
+“Here I continue ‘cheery cheery, and still shall, and still shall!’”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.
+
+
+We have here the Golden-crested Wren—the _Regulus cristatus_
+of naturalists—the tiniest of our British birds, “the pleasing
+fairy-bird,” as Bewick calls it, one of the large family of warblers,
+and a near relation to Jenny Wren. It is a very charming little bird,
+with a sweet melodious song of its own, and so many curious little ways
+that it is well worth everybody’s notice and everybody’s love.
+
+It is very active and lively, always in motion, fluttering from branch
+to branch, and running up and down the trunks and limbs of trees, in
+search of insects on which it lives. It may as often be seen on the
+under as on the upper side of a branch, with its back downwards, like
+a fly on a ceiling, and so running along, all alert, as merry and busy
+as possible. In size it is about three inches, that is with all its
+feathers on, but its little body alone is not above an inch long; yet
+in this little body, and in this little brain, lives an amazing amount
+of character, as I shall show you, as well as a great deal of amusing
+conceit and pertness which you would hardly believe unless you were
+told.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST.      [Page 70.
+]
+
+The colour of the bird is a sort of yellowish olive-green, the under
+part of pale, reddish-white, tinged with green on the sides; the quill
+feathers of the wing are dusky, edged with pale green, as are also
+the tail feathers. Thus attired by nature, that is, by the great
+Creator who cares for all His creatures, this little bird, creeping
+and fluttering about the branches and bole of the leafy summer tree,
+can scarcely be distinguished from the tree itself: hence it is that
+the bird is so unfamiliar to most people. The he-bird, however, has
+a little distinguishing glory of his own—a crest of golden-coloured
+feathers, bordered on each side with black, like a sort of eye-brow to
+his bright hazel eyes. This crest, which gives him his distinguished
+name, can be erected at pleasure, when he is full of life and
+enjoyment, or when he chooses to lord it over birds ten times as big as
+himself.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Lively Gambols of this Bird._]
+
+It is worth anybody’s while, who has a love for the innocent denizens
+of nature, and no desire to do them harm, to go into a wood on a
+summer’s day on purpose to watch the doings of this lively little bird
+amongst the tree-branches. Fir-woods are the best for this purpose, as
+this bird has an especial liking for these trees, and ten to one, if
+you will only be patient and quite still, you may soon see him at work
+busily looking after his dinner, running along the branches, up one and
+down another, then like a little arrow off to the next tree, scudding
+along its branches, then back again, up and down, round and round
+the bole, going like a little fire, so rapid are his movements; now
+running up aloft, now hanging head downward, now off again in another
+direction. What a wonderful activity there is in that little body! He
+must devour hundreds of insects, as well as their eggs, which he thus
+seeks for under the scaly roughnesses of the bark, and finding, devours.
+
+Pretty as he is, his nest, of which Mr. Harrison Weir has given a most
+accurate drawing, is quite worthy of him. It is always the same, swung
+like a little hammock from a branch, and always hidden, it may be by
+leaves or a bunch of fir-cones. The cordage by which it is suspended
+is of his own weaving, and is made of the same materials as the nest,
+which are moss and slender thread-like roots. In form it is oval, as
+you see, with a hole for entrance at the side, and is lined with the
+softest down and fibrous roots. It is a lovely little structure, like
+a soft ball of moss, within which the mother-bird lays from six to a
+dozen tiny eggs, scarcely bigger than peas, the delicate shell of which
+will hardly bear handling. The colour of the egg is white, sprinkled
+over with the smallest of dull-coloured spots.
+
+Mr. Jesse describes one of these lovely nests which was taken from the
+slender branches of a fir-tree where it had been suspended, as usual,
+by means of delicate cordage, secured to the branch by being twisted
+round and round, and then fastened to the edge or rim of the nest,
+so that one may be sure that the making and securing of these tiny
+ropes must be the first work of the clever little artizan. The nest
+thus suspended sways lightly to and fro with the movement of the bird.
+We cannot see in our cut the slender ropes that suspend it; they are
+concealed under the thick foliage; but we can easily see what a dainty
+little structure it is.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Jackdaw and Mischievous Wrens._]
+
+Delicate and lovely as is this bird, and pleasing and harmless as is
+his life, he yet possesses some curious traits of character, as I
+said. For instance, though so small, with a body only an inch long,
+he has, apparently, a wonderful conceit of himself, and loves to be
+lord and master of creatures that will not dispute with him, as not
+worth their while, or perhaps because there really is some inherent
+mastership in him by which he contrives, under certain circumstances,
+to rule over them. In proof of this, I will tell you what the Rev. J.
+G. Wood relates from the experience of a lady, a friend of his. One
+severe winter, when she had housed and fed a number of birds, amongst
+which were a jackdaw, a magpie, two skylarks, a goldfinch, and a robin,
+in a warm aviary, feeding them regularly and abundantly, other birds
+came, of course, to partake of the plentiful feast, and amongst them
+two golden-crested wrens. These little things made themselves not
+only quite at home, but lorded it over the other birds in the most
+extraordinary way possible. For instance, if the jackdaw had possessed
+himself of a nice morsel which he was holding down with his foot to
+eat comfortably, and the golden-crested wren had also set his mind on
+it, he hopped on the jackdaw’s head and pecked in his eye, on the side
+where his foot held the delicacy. On this the poor jackdaw instantly
+lifted his foot to his head where he thought something was amiss, and
+the mischievous little fellow snatched up the treasure and was off. At
+first the jackdaw would pursue him in great wrath, but he soon learned
+that it was no use, for the creature would only jump upon his back
+where he could not reach him, and so was safe from punishment. “Before
+the winter was over,” continues the lady, “the little gold-crests were
+masters of all the birds, and even roosted at night on their backs;
+finding, no doubt, that in this way they could keep their little feet
+much warmer than on a perch.”
+
+Conceited and dominant, however, as these little birds may be, they are
+yet either extremely timid, or their nervous system is so delicately
+constituted, that a sudden fright kills them. Thus if, when they are
+all alert and busy on the tree-branch, seeking for insects and fearing
+no evil, the branch be suddenly struck with a stick, the poor bird
+falls dead to the ground. The shock has killed it. It has received no
+apparent injury—not a feather is ruffled—but its joyous, innocent
+life is gone for ever. This fact is asserted by Gilbert White, and was
+proved by my husband, who brought me home the bird which had thus died.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+THE WAGTAIL.
+
+
+This elegant little bird belongs to the Motacilla, or Wagtail family.
+There are three brothers of them in this country—the pied, the grey,
+and the yellow. The pied is the most familiar, and our friend Mr.
+Harrison Weir has given us a lovely picture of it at home in a cleft of
+the rock, with fleshy-leaved lichens above, and green springing fronds
+of the great fern, which will presently overshadow it. Around are the
+solemn mountains, and the never silent water is foaming and rushing
+below.
+
+This bird has many names besides his Latin one of Motacilla. In Surrey
+he is called washer, or dish-washer, by the common people, from his
+peculiar motions in walking, which are thought to resemble those of a
+washer-woman at her tub. The colours of the pied wagtail are simply
+black and white, but so boldly and clearly marked as to produce a very
+pleasing and elegant effect.
+
+We have, every year, several wagtails in our garden, to which they add
+a very cheerful feature, walking about, nodding their heads and tails
+as if perfectly at home, afraid neither of dog nor cat, much less of
+any human being about the place. A little running brook as one boundary
+of the garden is, no doubt, one of the attractions; but here they are
+seen less frequently than on the smoothly-mown lawn, where they pick up
+tiny insects, gliding along with a smooth motion, accompanied by the
+quick movement of head and tail.
+
+It is bitterly cold wintry weather as I write this, and they now visit
+the kitchen door, where, no doubt, little delicacies of various kinds
+attract them. They are more fearless and familiar than either sparrows,
+robins, or blackbirds; yet all of these are our daily pensioners,
+having their breakfast of crumbs as regularly before the parlour window
+as we have our own meal. Yet they fly away at the slightest sound,
+and the appearance of the cat disperses them altogether. They have,
+evidently, the old ancestral fear of man, stamped, as powerfully as
+life itself, upon their being. They are suspicious, and always in
+a flutter: nothing equals the calm self-possession of the wagtail,
+excepting it be the state of mind into which the robin gets when the
+gardener is turning up the fresh soil, just on purpose, as he supposes,
+to find worms for him.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WAGTAIL AND NEST.      [Page 76.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Quest for Food._]
+
+And now let me give you a wagtail picture, drawn by a faithful hand.[A]
+It is the end of July, the young wagtails are abroad with their
+parents, like human families, a month or two later, gone out or abroad
+to take their holiday. “Often,” he says, “one may see them wading in
+shallow places, in quest of insects and worms, carefully holding up
+their tails to prevent them being draggled. If you watch the motions
+of an individual just coming up to join the party, you see it alight
+abruptly, twittering its shrill notes, and, perching on a small stone,
+incessantly vibrate its body, and jerk out its tail.” This of course
+is the polite way in which a stranger wagtail introduces itself
+amongst its friends. There they are; now walking out into the water,
+and looking round for food. Now they are on the shore again, running
+rapidly along, picking up, now and then, a dainty morsel, and every
+moment spreading out the ever-vibrating tail. Now they are in the
+adjoining meadow, each one in pursuit of a fly, which it has no sooner
+caught, than it spies another. The lazy geese, which have nibbled
+the grass bare, allow the wagtail to pass in their midst without
+molestation. When the cows are grazing in the midst of a swarm of
+gnats and other insects, as Gilbert White says, as they tread amongst
+the bush herbage they rouse up multitudes of insects which settle on
+their legs, their stomachs, and even their noses, and the wagtails are
+welcomed by the cows as benefactors. Watch them, for they are worth the
+trouble; see, one comes forward and catches a small fly, bends to one
+side to seize another, darts to the right after a third, and springs
+some feet in the air before it secures a fourth, and all this time
+others are running about after other flies, passing close to the cows’
+noses or amongst their feet. With all this running to and fro, and
+hither and thither, they every now and then run in each other’s way;
+but they do not quarrel, aware, no doubt, that there is room enough for
+them in the world, nay, even in the meadow, though it now seems to be
+full of wagtails, all busily occupied, some walking, others running, a
+few flying off and many arriving. You may walk in amongst them; they
+are not very shy, for they will allow you to come within a few yards of
+them. They may always be met with on the shore when the tide is out, as
+well as in the meadow; you will meet with them by the river-side, or by
+the mill-dam. Occasionally you may see them perched on a roof, a wall,
+or a large stone, but very rarely on a tree or bush.
+
+[Footnote A: “British Birds.”]
+
+[Sidenote: _The Taunton Pair._]
+
+They pair about the middle of April, and build by the side of rivers
+in crevices of rock—as in our picture, on a heap of stones, in faggot
+or wood stacks, or in a hole in a wall, but always near water and
+carefully hidden from sight. The nest is made of dry grass, moss, and
+small roots, thickly lined with wool and hair. The eggs are five or six
+in number, of a greyish white, spotted all over with grey and brown.
+As a proof of the confiding nature of this bird, I must mention that
+occasionally it builds in most unimaginable places, directly under the
+human eye—as, for instance, “a pair of them last summer,” says Mr.
+Jesse, “built their nest in a hollow under a sleeper of the Brighton
+Railway, near the terminus at that place. Trains at all times of the
+day were passing close to the nest, but in this situation the young
+were hatched and reared.” Mr. Macgillivray also mentions that a pair
+of these birds built their nest in an old wall near a quarry, within a
+few yards of four men who worked most part of the day in getting the
+stone, which they occasionally blasted. The hen-bird laid four eggs,
+and reared her brood, she and her mate becoming so familiar with the
+quarry-men as to fly in and out without showing the least sign of fear;
+but if a stranger approached they would immediately fly off, nor return
+till they saw him clear off from the place. Another nest was built
+beneath a wooden platform at a coal-pit, where the noisy business of
+unloading the hutches brought up from the pit, was continually going
+forward. But soon the wagtails were quite at home, becoming familiar
+with the colliers and other people connected with the work, and flew
+in and out of their nest without showing the slightest sign of fear.
+Again, another pair built close to the wheel of a lathe in a workshop
+at a brass manufactory at Taunton amid the incessant din of the
+braziers; yet here the young were hatched, and the mother-bird became
+perfectly familiar with the faces of the workmen; but if a stranger
+entered, or any one belonging to the factory, though not to what might
+be called her shop, she quitted her nest instantly, nor would return
+till they were gone. The male, however, had much less confidence, and
+would not come into the room, but brought the usual supplies of food to
+a certain spot on the roof whence she fetched it. All these anecdotes
+prove how interesting would be the relationship between the animal
+creation and man, if man ceased to be their tyrant or destroyer.
+
+As regards this particular bird, it is not only elegant in its
+appearance, but amiable and attractive in all its ways. “They are,”
+says Bewick, “very attentive to their young, and continue to feed and
+train them for three or four weeks after they can fly; they defend them
+with great courage when in danger, or endeavour to draw aside the enemy
+by various little arts. They are very attentive also to the cleanliness
+of their nests, and so orderly as to have been known to remove light
+substances, such as paper or straw, which have been placed to mark the
+spot.” As regards this proof of their love of order, however, I would
+rather suggest that it may be a proof of their sagacity and sense of
+danger: they suspected that some human visitor, of whose friendly
+character they were not convinced, was intending to look in upon them,
+and they thought it best, therefore, to decline the honour of his
+visit.
+
+The ordinary note of this bird, uttered rapidly if alarmed, is a sort
+of _cheep, cheep_. In the summer morning, however, it may be heard
+singing a pleasant, mellow and modulated little song. Like the swallow,
+for which it is a match in elegance, it lives entirely on insects. If
+you would only stand silently for a few minutes by a water-side, where
+it haunts, you would be delighted with the grace and activity of its
+movements. “There it stands,” says one of its friends, “on the top of
+a stone, gently vibrating its tail, as if balancing itself. An insect
+flies near; it darts off, flutters a moment in the air, seizes its
+prey, and settles on another stone, spreading and vibrating its tail.
+Presently it makes another sally, flutters around for a while, seizes
+two or three insects, glides over the ground, swerving to either side,
+then again takes its stand on a pinnacle.” Not unfrequently too it
+may be seen on the roof of a house, or in a village street, still in
+pursuit of insects.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+THE JACKDAW.
+
+
+We have called the Rook and Jackdaw first cousins. They are so, and
+are greatly attached to each other. There is a difference, however, in
+their character; the rook is grave and dignified, the jackdaw is active
+and full of fun. But they are fond of each other’s society, and agree
+to associate for nine months in the year: during the other three they
+are both occupied with their respective family cares.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  JACKDAWS AND NESTLINGS.      [Page 82.
+]
+
+Rooks build in trees in the open air, the nests of the young being
+exposed to all the influences of wind and weather. The jackdaw does not
+approve of this mode. He likes to live under cover, and, therefore,
+makes his nest in holes and crannies, amongst rocks, as in our picture;
+in old and tall buildings, as church towers and steeples, old ruinous
+castles, or old hollow trees. The traditional structure of the family
+nest is certainly that of the rook; a strong frame-work of sticks upon
+which the eggs can be laid, and the clamorous young jackdaws be brought
+up. This our friend Mr. Weir has shown us plainly. But, after all, it
+does not appear that the jackdaw, with all his sharpness, has much
+scientific knowledge, the getting the sticks into the hole being often
+a very difficult piece of work. Mr. Waterton amused himself by watching
+the endless labour and pains which the jackdaw takes in trying to do
+impossibilities. Thinking it absolutely necessary that a frame-work
+of sticks should be laid in the hole or cavity as the foundation of
+the nest, he brings to the opening just such sticks as the rook would
+use in open spaces, and may be seen trying for a quarter of an hour
+together to get a stick into a hole, holding it by the middle all the
+time, so that the ends prop against each side, and make the endeavour
+impossible. He cannot understand how it is; he knows that sticks ought
+to go into holes, but here is one that will not; and, tired out at
+length, and thinking perhaps that it is in the nature of some sticks
+not to be got into a hole by any means, he drops it down and fetches
+another, probably to have no better result, and this may happen several
+times. But jackdaws have perseverance, and so, with trying and trying
+again, he meets with sticks that are not so self-willed, and that can
+be put into holes, either by being short enough or held the right way,
+and so the foundation is laid, and the easier part of the work goes on
+merrily; for the jackdaw is at no loss for sheets and blankets for his
+children’s bed, though we cannot see them in our picture, the clamorous
+children lying at the very edge of their bed. But if we could examine
+it, we should most likely be amused by what we should find. The jackdaw
+takes for this purpose anything soft that comes readily—we cannot say
+to _hand_—but to _bill_. In this respect he resembles the sparrow,
+and being, like him, fond of human society, gleans up out of his
+neighbourhood all that he needs for the comfort of his nestlings. Thus
+we hear of a nest, built in the ruins of Holyrood Chapel, in which,
+on its being looked into for a piece of lace which was supposed to be
+there, it was found also to be lined with part of a worsted stocking,
+a silk handkerchief, a child’s cap, a muslin frill, and several
+other things which the busy jackdaw had picked up in various ways; for
+it must be borne in mind that he is own cousin to the magpie, whose
+thievish propensities are well known.
+
+The call of the jackdaw is much quicker and more lively than the rook,
+somewhat resembling the syllable _yak_, variously modulated, and
+repeated somewhat leisurely, but at the same time cheerfully. Its food
+is similar to that of the rook, and going forth at early dawn it may be
+seen in pastures or ploughed fields, busily searching for larvæ, worms,
+and insects. They walk gracefully, with none of the solemn gravity
+either of the rook or raven, and may occasionally be seen running along
+and sometimes quarrelling amongst themselves.
+
+Like the rook, the jackdaw stows away food in its mouth or throat-bag
+to feed its young. Its plumage is black, with shining silvery grey
+behind the head. Occasionally they are found with streaks or patches of
+white, as are also rooks, but these are mere sports of nature.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Waterton’s Opinion._]
+
+Mr. Waterton was of opinion that jackdaws lived in pairs all the year
+round, as he had seen them sitting in November on the leafless branches
+of a sycamore, side by side, pruning each other’s heads, and apparently
+full of mutual affection; and as they mostly left the trees in pairs,
+and so returned, he was inclined to think that it was their custom
+always to remain paired.
+
+I will now give you his _carte de visite_ from Macgillivray’s “British
+Birds.” “He is a remarkably active, pert, and talkative little fellow,
+ever cheerful, always on the alert, and ready either for business or
+frolic. If not so respectable as the grave and sagacious raven, he
+is, at least, the most agreeable of the family, and withal extremely
+fond of society, for, not content with having a flock of his own folk
+about him, he often thrusts himself into a gang of rooks, and in winter
+sometimes takes up his abode entirely with them.”
+
+As to _thrusting_ himself into a gang of rooks, I am, however, of
+opinion that the rooks make him heartily welcome. How do we know what
+amusement they, with their stolid gravity and solemn dignity, find in
+him with all his fun and loquacity? That rooks are really fond of the
+society of jackdaws is proved by an observation of Mr. Mudie. He says
+that “in the latter part of the season, when the rooks from one of the
+most extensive rookeries in Britain made daily excursions of about six
+miles to the warm grounds by the sea-side, and in their flight passed
+over a deep ravine, in the sunny side of which were many jackdaws, he
+observed that when the cawing of the rooks in their morning flight was
+heard at the ravine, the jackdaws, who had previously been still and
+quiet, instantly raised their shriller notes, and flew up to join the
+rooks, both parties clamouring loudly as if welcoming each other; and
+that on the return, the daws accompanied the rooks a little past the
+ravine as if for good fellowship; then both cawed their farewell: the
+daws returned to their home and the rooks proceeded on their way.”
+
+Jackdaws, like rooks, are said to be excellent weather-prophets.
+If they fly back to their roost in the forenoon, or early in the
+afternoon, a storm may be expected that evening, or early in the
+morning.
+
+[Sidenote: _The Rev. J. G. Wood’s Anecdote._]
+
+The anecdotes of tame jackdaws are numerous. The Rev. J. G. Wood
+speaks of one which had learnt the art of kindling lucifer matches,
+and thus became a very dangerous inmate, busying himself in this way
+when the family was in bed, though, fortunately, he seems to have done
+nothing worse than light the kitchen fire which had been laid ready
+for kindling over night. Clever as he was, however, he could not learn
+to distinguish the proper ignitable end of the match, and so rubbed
+on till he happened to get it right. He frightened himself terribly
+at first by the explosion and the sulphur fumes, and burned himself
+into the bargain. But I do not find that, like the burnt child, he
+afterwards feared the fire and so discontinued the dangerous trick.
+
+The jackdaw is easily domesticated, and makes himself very happy in
+captivity, learns to articulate words and sentences, and is most
+amusing by his mimicry and comic humour.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER.
+
+
+This pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird from the
+position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly in gardens,
+it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of a beam or piece
+of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or gateway, the nest being,
+however, generally screened, and often made a perfect little bit
+of picturesque beauty, by the leaves of some lovely creeping rose,
+woodbine, or passionflower, which grows there.
+
+This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, though
+always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond of human
+society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Virginian creeper, at
+the back of our house.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST.      [Page 86.
+]
+
+According to her peculiar fancy she built exactly in the doorway,
+though there were some yards of verandah on either hand; but here was
+the convenient ledge, forming an angle with the upright support; and
+here was placed, as in our picture, the small, somewhat flat nest,
+beautifully, though slightly, put together, of dried grass and moss,
+lined with wool and hair. Here the mother-bird laid her four or five
+greyish-white eggs, with their spots of rusty red, and here she reared
+her young. She had, however, it seemed to us, an uncomfortable time of
+it, for, though we carefully avoided giving her needless disturbance
+that we almost ceased to use the door, yet there was an unavoidable
+passing to and fro to which she never seemed to get accustomed,
+starting off her nest with a little flutter whenever we came in sight;
+nor—although before she had finished sitting the quick-growing shoots
+of the Virginian creeper, with its broadly-expanding leaves, hid her
+nest so completely that, had it not been for her own timidity, we need
+not have known of her presence—she never lost this peculiar trait of
+character.
+
+The nest which Mr. Harrison Weir has drawn is, doubtless, taken from
+life. I wish, however, he could have seen ours, only about ten feet
+from the ground, a little dome of love, embowered amongst young shoots,
+vine-like leaves and tendrils—a perfectly ideal nest, in which our
+friend, who has as keen a sense of natural beauty as any artist living,
+would have delighted himself.
+
+The colours of this bird are very unobtrusive: the upper parts
+brownish-grey, the head spotted with brown, the neck and breast
+streaked or spotted with greyish-brown. It is a migratory bird, and
+arrives in this country about the middle or end of May, remaining with
+us till about the middle of October, by which time the flies on which
+it lives have generally disappeared.
+
+[Sidenote: _How it takes its Prey._]
+
+Its mode of taking its winged prey is curious. Seated, stock-still,
+in a twig, it darts or glides off at the sight of an insect, like the
+bird of our picture, and seizes it with a little snapping noise; then
+returns to its perch ready for more, and so on; incessantly darting out
+and returning to the same spot, till it has satisfied its hunger, or
+moves off to another twig to commence the same pursuit.
+
+When they have young, the number of flies consumed only by one little
+family must be amazing. It is recorded[B] in one instance that a pair
+of fly-catchers, beginning to feed their nestlings at five-and-twenty
+minutes before seven in the morning, and continuing their labour till
+ten minutes before nine at night, supplied them with food, that is to
+say with flies, no less than five hundred and thirty-seven times. The
+gentleman who made these observations says:—“Before they fed their
+young they alighted upon a tree for a few seconds, and looked round
+about them. By short jerks they usually caught the winged insects.
+Sometimes they ascended into the air and dropped like an arrow; at
+other times they hovered like a hawk when set on its prey. They drove
+off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approached their
+nest, as if bidding them to go and hunt in their own grounds, where
+there were plenty of flies for them. Sometimes they brought only one
+fly in their bills, sometimes several, and flies of various sizes.”
+
+[Footnote B: See Macgillivray’s “_British Birds_.”]
+
+This bird seems to become attached to particular localities, where
+he finds himself conveniently situated and undisturbed. Mr. Mudie
+mentions, in his “Feathered Tribes,” “that a pair of these birds had
+nested in his garden for twelve successive years.” What is the length
+of life of a fly-catcher I cannot say; but probably if they were
+not the same birds, they would be their descendants—birds hatched
+there, and consequently at home. The Rev. J. G. Wood also speaks of
+the same locality having been used by this bird for twenty successive
+years; and he supposes that the young had succeeded to their ancestral
+home. He gives also an interesting account of the commencement of a
+nest-building by this bird. He says that the female, who seems to be
+generally the active builder, placed, in the first instance, a bundle
+of fine grass in some conveniently-forked branches, and after having
+picked it about for some time, as if regularly shaking it up, she
+seated herself in the middle of it, and there, spinning herself round
+and round, gave it its cup-like form. She then fetched more grasses,
+and after arranging them partly round the edge, and partly on the
+bottom, repeated the spinning process. A few hairs and some moss were
+then stuck about the nest and neatly woven in, the hair and slender
+vegetable fibres being the thread, so to speak, with which the moss was
+fastened to the nest.
+
+[Sidenote: _Mr. Mudie on Nest-building._]
+
+Mr. Mudie, also speaking of their nest-building, says that, in one
+instance which came under his notice, “the bird began at seven o’clock
+on a Tuesday morning, and the nest was finished in good time on Friday
+afternoon.” This was certainly rapid work. Mr. Yarrell says that the
+he-bird brings the materials to the hen, who makes use of them—which
+is stated as a general fact by Michelet—and that in constructing her
+nest the little fly-catcher, after she had rounded it into its first
+form, moves backwards as she weaves into it long hairs and grasses with
+her bill, continually walking round and round her nest. This, however,
+can only be when the situation of the nest will allow of her passing
+round it. Our fly-catcher’s nest, and the nest of our picture, are
+placed as a little bed close to the wall, and in such situations the
+nest has sometimes no back, but simply the lining. A very favourite
+place with the fly-catcher for her nest is the hole in a wall, the
+size of a half brick, in which the builder fixed the spar of his
+scaffolding, and omitted to fill up when he had finished. In these
+convenient little nooks the fly-catcher’s nest fills the whole front
+of the opening, but has seldom any back to it. From all this, I think
+it is clear that the fly-catcher is, in her arrangements, guided by
+circumstances: only, in every case, her little home is as snug as it
+can be.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE WOOD-PIGEON.
+
+
+The wood-pigeon, ring-dove, or cushat is one of the most familiar and
+poetical of our birds. Its low, plaintive coo-goo-roo-o-o is one of the
+pleasantest sounds of our summer woods.
+
+    “Tell me, tell me, cushat, why thou moanest ever,
+    Thrilling all the greenwood with thy secret woe?
+    ‘I moan not,’ says the cushat, ‘I praise life’s gracious Giver
+    By murmuring out my love in the best way that I know.’”
+
+The wood-pigeon belongs to a large family of birds—_columbinæ_ or
+doves. The earliest mention of them in the world is in Genesis,
+when Noah, wearied with the confinement of the ark, and seeing
+that the mountain tops were visible, selected from the imprisoned
+creatures—first the raven, then the dove, to go forth and report to
+him of the state of the earth. The raven, however, came not back, no
+doubt finding food which tempted him to stay; whilst the dove, finding
+no rest for the sole of her foot, returned, and Noah, putting forth his
+hand, took her in. Again he sent her forth, and she came back in the
+evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. A third
+time she was sent forth, but now she returned no more. So Noah looked
+out, and behold the face of the earth was dry. And he and his family,
+and all the creatures, again went forth and possessed all things.
+
+This dove might probably be of the carrier-pigeon tribe, which is more
+nearly related to the rock-pigeon, also a native of this country,
+or rather, of the northern parts of Scotland. These carrier-pigeons
+were, in the old times, long enough before the invention of electric
+telegraphs, or even before post-offices were established, used instead
+of both. Anacreon, the Greek poet, speaks of them as being used to
+convey letters; the pigeon, having, as it were, two homes, being fed in
+each; thus, a letter from a friend in one home was tied to the wing,
+and the bird turned into the air, probably without his breakfast, when
+he immediately flew off to his distant home, where the letter was
+joyfully received, and he fed for his pains. Whilst the answer was
+prepared he would rest, and it, perhaps, taking some little time, he
+grew hungry again; but they gave him nothing more, and, again securing
+the letter on his little person, he was sent back, making good speed,
+because he would now be thinking of his supper. Thus, the answer flew
+through the air.
+
+      “Come hither, my dove,
+        And I’ll write to my love,
+    And I’ll send him a letter by thee!”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST.      [Page 92.
+]
+
+So says the old song. And we are told that a young man named
+Taurosthenes, one of the victors in the great Olympian games of Greece,
+sent to his father, who resided at a considerable distance, the tidings
+of his success, on the same day, by one of these birds. Pliny, the
+Roman historian, speaks of them being used in case of siege; when the
+besieged sent out these winged messengers, who, cleaving the air at
+a secure height above the surrounding army, conveyed the important
+intelligence of their need to their friends afar off. The crusaders
+are said to have made use of them at the siege of Jerusalem, and the
+old traveller, Sir John Maundeville—“knight, warrior, and pilgrim,” as
+he is styled—who, in the reign of our second and third Edwards, made
+a journey as far as the borders of China, relates that, “in that and
+other countries beyond, pigeons were sent out from one to another to
+ask succour in time of need, and these letters were tied to the neck of
+the bird.”
+
+But enough of carrier-pigeons. Let us come back to our ring-dove or
+cushat, brooding on her eggs in the sweet summer woods, as Mr. Harrison
+Weir has so truthfully represented her. She is not much of a nest-maker.
+
+          “A few sticks across,
+          Without a bit of moss,
+    Laid in the fork of an old oak-tree;
+          Coo-goo-roo-o-o,
+          She says it will do,
+    And there she’s as happy as a bird can be.”
+
+The nest, however, is not at all insufficient for her needs. You see
+her sitting brooding over her two white eggs in every possible bird
+comfort; and whether her mate help her in the building of the nest
+or not, I cannot say, but he is certainly a very good domesticated
+husband, and sits upon the eggs alternately with her, so that the
+hatching, whatever the building may be, is an equally divided labour.
+
+[Sidenote: _Wordsworth’s Tribute of Praise._]
+
+Wordsworth sees in this bird an example of unobtrusive home affection.
+He says:—
+
+        “I heard a stock-dove sing or say
+        His homely tale this very day:
+        His voice was buried among the trees,
+        Yet to be come at by the breeze;
+
+        He did not cease, but cooed and cooed,
+        And somewhat pensively he wooed;
+        He sung of love with quiet blending,
+        Slow to begin, and never ending;
+        Of serious faith and inward glee;
+        That was the song—the song for me.”
+
+Wood-pigeons have immense appetites, and, being fond of all kinds of
+grain, as well as peas and beans, are looked upon by the farmer with
+great disfavour. They are, however, fond of some of those very weeds
+which are his greatest annoyance—for instance, charlock and wild
+mustard; so that they do him some good in return for the tribute which
+they take of his crops. They are fond, also, both of young clover and
+the young green leaves of the turnip, as well as of the turnip itself.
+Either by instinct or experience, they have learned that, feeding
+thus in cultivated fields, they are doing that which will bring down
+upon them the displeasure of man. “They keep,” says the intelligent
+author of “Wild Sports in the Highlands,” “when feeding in the fields,
+in the most open and exposed places, so as to allow no enemy to come
+near them. It is amusing to watch a large flock of these birds whilst
+searching the ground for grain. They walk in a compact body; and in
+order that all may fare alike—which is certainly a good trait in their
+character—the hindermost rank, every now and then, fly over the heads
+of their companions to the front, where they keep the best place for
+a minute or two, till those now in the rear take their place. They
+keep up this kind of fair play during the whole time of feeding. They
+feed, also, on wild fruit and all kinds of wild berries, such as the
+mountain-ash, and ivy; and where acorns abound, seem to prefer them to
+anything else. At the same time, I must confess that they are great
+enemies to my cherry-trees, and swallow as many cherries as they can
+hold. Nor are strawberries safe from them, and the quantity of food
+they manage to stow away in their crops is perfectly astonishing.”
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Necessary Watchfulness._]
+
+Besides man, the wood-pigeon has its own bird-enemies. “In districts
+where the hooded crow abounds,” says the author whom I have just
+quoted, “he is always on the look-out for its eggs, which, shining out
+white from the shallow, unsubstantial nest, are easily seen by him.
+The sparrow-hawk seizes the young when they are half-grown and plump;
+he having been carefully noticed watching the nest day by day as if
+waiting for the time when they should be fit for his eating. The larger
+hawks, however, prey upon the poor wood-pigeon himself.”
+
+With all his pleasant cooings in the wood, therefore, and all
+his complacent strutting about with elevated head and protruded
+breast—with all his gambols and graces, his striking the points of
+his wings together as he rises into the air, to express a pleasure to
+his mate beyond his cooing, he has not such a care free life of it. He
+is always kept on the alert, therefore, and, being always on the watch
+against danger, is not at all a sound sleeper. The least disturbance at
+night rouses him. “I have frequently,” continues our author, “attempted
+to approach the trees when the wood-pigeons were roosting, but even
+on the darkest nights they would take alarm. The poor wood-pigeon
+has no other defence against its enemies than its ever watchful and
+never sleeping timidity; not being able to do battle against even the
+smallest of its many persecutors.”
+
+Gilbert White says that the wood-pigeons were greatly decreasing, in
+his time, in Hampshire, and there were then only about a hundred in the
+woods at Selborne, but in former times the flocks had been so vast, not
+only there, but in the surrounding districts, that they had traversed
+the air morning and evening like rooks, reaching for a mile together,
+and that, when they thus came to rendezvous there by thousands, the
+sound of their wings, suddenly roused from their roosting-trees in an
+evening, rising all at once into the air, was like a sudden rolling of
+distant thunder.
+
+Although the wood-pigeon is considered to be the original parent of
+the tame pigeon, yet it does not seem possible to tame the young of
+this bird, though taken from the nest quite young. It is a bird which
+appears to hate confinement, and, as soon as it has the opportunity,
+spite of all kindness and attention, it flies away to the freedom of
+the woods.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+THE WHITE-THROAT.
+
+
+With none of our migratory birds, our spring visitants from southern
+lands, is the lover of the country more familiar than with the
+White-throat, which, with its nest, is here so beautifully and livingly
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir.
+
+This bird, with its many names—White-throat, Peggy-white-throat,
+Peggy-chaw, Charlie-mufty, Nettle-creeper, Whishey-whey-beard or
+Pettichaps—comes to us in April, about the same time as the cuckoo and
+the swallow; the male bird, like his cousin the nightingale, coming
+before the female, but he does not make himself very conspicuous till
+the hedges and bushes are well covered with leaves; then he may be
+found in almost every lane and hedge the whole country over.
+
+As soon as the female is here, and the birds have paired, the business
+of nest-building begins, and they may then be seen flying in and out
+of the bushes with great alertness, the he-bird carolling his light
+and airy song, and often hurling himself, as it were, up into the air,
+some twenty or thirty feet, in a wild, tipsy sort of way, as if he
+were fuller of life than he could hold, and coming down again with a
+warble into the hedge, where the little hen-wife is already arranging
+her dwelling in the very spot probably where she was herself hatched,
+and her ancestors before her, for ages. For I must here remark that
+one of the most remarkable properties of birds is, that facility by
+which they so regularly disperse themselves over the whole country on
+their arrival after their far migration, each one, in all probability,
+attracted by some attachment of the past, stopping short at, or
+proceeding onward to, the exact spot where he himself first came into
+the consciousness of life. This is one of the wonderful arrangements of
+nature, otherwise of God, by which the great balance is so beautifully
+kept in creation. If the migratory bird arrives ever so weary at Dover,
+and its true home be some sweet low-lying lane of Devonshire, a thick
+hedgerow of the midland counties, or a thickety glen of Westmoreland,
+it will not delay its flight nor be tempted to tarry short of that
+glen, hedgerow, or lane with which the experience of its own life and
+affection is united.
+
+At this charming time of the year none of the various performers in
+nature’s great concert bring back to those who have passed their youth
+in the country a more delicious recollection of vernal fields and lanes
+than this bird of ours, the little white-throat.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  WHITE-THROAT AND NEST.      [Page 98.
+]
+
+Yes, along those hedges, fresh and fragrant with their young leaves,
+along those banks studded with primroses, campions, blue-bells and
+white starwort, and through the thick growth of the wild rose bushes,
+all of which have a beauty especially their own, the white-throat
+salutes you as you pass, as if to recognise an old acquaintance. He
+is brimful of fun; out he starts and performs his series of eccentric
+frolics in the air, accompanied by his mad-cap sort of warble; or,
+almost as if laughing at you, he repeats from the interior of the
+bushes his deep grave note, _chaw! chaw!_ whence comes the name
+of peggy-chaw. This, however, is to tell you—and to those who
+understand bird-language it is intelligible enough—that he has now a
+family to attend to, and he begs, very respectfully, that you will not
+trouble yourself about it.
+
+[Sidenote: _Description of the Bird._]
+
+A Scotch naturalist says that “the peasant boys in East Lothian imagine
+that the bird is mocking or laughing at them, as it tumbles over the
+hedge and bushes in the lane, and, therefore, they persecute it at all
+times, even more mercilessly than they do sparrows.”
+
+The white-throat is an excitable little bird, rapid in all its
+movements; and though it will apparently allow a person to come near,
+it incessantly flits on, gets to the other side of the hedge, warbles
+its quaint little song, flies to a short distance, sings again, and so
+on, for a long time, returning in the same way. It erects the feathers
+of its head when excited, and swells its throat so much when singing,
+that the feathers stand out like a ruff, whence it has obtained the
+name of _Muffety_, or Charlie-mufty, in Scotland.
+
+Its colour, on the upper parts of the body, is reddish-brown,
+brownish-white below, with a purely white throat. Its food is
+principally insects and larvæ of various kinds, for which it is always
+on the search amongst the thick undergrowth of the plants and bushes
+where it builds. One of its many names is Nettle-creeper, from this
+plant growing so generally in the localities which it haunts.
+
+Its nest—one of the most light and elegant of these little abodes—may
+truly be called “gauze-like,” for being constructed wholly of fine
+grasses, and very much of the brittle stems of the Galnim aparine, or
+cleavers, which, though slender, are not pliant, and bend only with an
+angle; they prevent the whole fabric from being closely woven, so that
+it maintains a gauzy texture; the inside, however, is put together more
+closely of finer and more pliant materials, delicate root-filaments,
+and various kinds of hair. The eggs, four or five in number, are of a
+greenish-gray colour, often with a tawny hue, blotched and spotted over
+with dark tints of the same colour.
+
+A correspondent of the author of “British Birds” says that, one morning
+in June, when walking in his shrubbery within about eighty yards of a
+White-throat’s nest, which he was taking great interest in, he found a
+portion of the shell of one of the eggs of this bird, and, fearing that
+a magpie had been plundering it, hastened to the spot, but found to his
+satisfaction that the nest was then full of newly-hatched birds. “The
+shell had,” he says, “been instinctively taken away by the mother in
+order to prevent the discovery of the place of her retreat.” He adds
+that the mother-bird was very shy, and usually dropped from her nest
+with the most astonishing rapidity, and, treading her way through the
+grasses and other entanglements, disappeared in a moment. The young,
+too, seemed greatly to dislike observation, and on his taking one into
+his hand to examine it, it uttered a cry, no doubt of alarm, on which
+all the other little things leapt out of their abode, although not more
+than half-fledged, and hopped amongst the grass. It is a singular fact
+that almost every kind of young bird, if they be caused to leave their
+nest through alarm, or by being handled, can never be induced to stay
+in the nest again, though they may be put back into it time after time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+THE BULL-FINCH.
+
+
+This bird, which is common to all parts of the country, is very shy,
+and for the greater part of the year haunts the woods and thickets.
+In spring, however, its fondness for tender fruit-buds tempts it into
+gardens and orchards, where, being considered an enemy, it is destroyed
+without mercy. It is a question, however, whether it devours these
+young buds as favourite food, or whether it may not be the equally
+distinctive grub or insect which is the temptation; and thus, that
+it ought rather to be regarded as the friend than the enemy of the
+gardener and fruit-grower. At all events, the general opinion is
+against the poor bull-finch. He is declared to be a devourer of the
+embryo fruit, and no mercy is shown to him. The Rev. J. G. Wood, always
+a merciful judge where birds are concerned, thinks that public opinion
+is unfairly against him. He says that a gooseberry tree, from which it
+was supposed that the bull-finches had picked away every blossom-bud,
+yet bore the same year an abundant crop of fruit, which certainly
+proved that they had picked away only the already infected buds, and so
+left the tree in an additionally healthy state, doubly able to mature
+and perfect its fruit.
+
+Bull-finches seldom associate with other birds, but keep together in
+small flocks as of single families. Its flight, though quick, is
+somewhat undulating or wavering; and in the winter it may sometimes
+be seen in large numbers flitting along the roadsides and hedges,
+being probably forced out of some of its shyness by the stress of
+hunger. Its ordinary note is a soft and plaintive whistle; its song,
+short and mellow. It is, in its native state, no way distinguished as
+a singing-bird, but at the same time it is possessed of a remarkable
+faculty for learning tunes artificially, of which I may have more to
+say presently.
+
+The bull-finch begins to build about the beginning of May. She places
+her nest, as we see in our illustration, in a bush, frequently a
+hawthorn, at no great distance from the ground. The nest is not very
+solidly put together; the foundation, so to speak, being composed of
+small dry twigs, then finished off with fibrous roots and moss, which
+also form the lining. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a dull
+bluish-white, marked at the larger end with dark spots.
+
+Although there is so little to say about the bull-finch in his natural
+state—excepting that he is a handsome bird, with bright black eyes,
+a sort of rich black hood on his head; his back, ash-grey; his breast
+and underparts, red; wings and tail, black, with the upper tail-coverts
+white—yet when he has gone through his musical education, he is not
+only one of the most accomplished of song-birds, but one of the most
+loving and faithfully attached little creatures that can come under
+human care. These trained birds are known as piping bull-finches.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS.      [Page 102.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _How it is taught to pipe._]
+
+Bishop Stanley, in his “History of Birds,” thus describes the method by
+which they are taught:—
+
+“In the month of June, the young ones, which are taken from the nest
+for that purpose, are brought up by a person, who, by care and
+attention, so completely tames them that they become perfectly docile
+and obedient. At the expiration of about a couple of months, they first
+begin to whistle, from which time their education begins, and no school
+can be more diligently superintended by its master, and no scholars
+more effectually trained to their own calling, than a seminary of
+bull-finches. They are formed first into classes of about six in each,
+and, after having been kept a longer time than usual without food, and
+confined to a dark room, the tune they are to learn is played over
+and over again, on a little instrument called a bird-organ, the notes
+of which resemble, as nearly as possible, those of the bull-finch;
+sometimes, also, a flageolet is used for this purpose, and birds so
+taught are said to have the finer notes. For awhile the little moping
+creatures will sit in silence, not knowing what all this can mean; but
+after awhile one by one will begin to imitate the notes they hear, for
+they have great power of imitation as well as remarkably good memories.
+As soon as they have said their lesson all round, light is admitted
+into the room, and they are fed.
+
+“By degrees the sound of the musical instrument—be it flageolet or
+bird-organ—and the circumstance of being fed, become so associated in
+the mind of the hungry bird, that it is sure to begin piping the tune
+as soon as it hears it begin to play. When the little scholars have
+advanced so far they are put into a higher class, that is to say, are
+turned over each to his private tutor; in other words, each bird is put
+under the care of a boy who must carry on its education, and who plays
+on the little instrument from morning to night, or as long as the bird
+can pay attention, during which time the head-master or feeder goes
+his regular rounds, scolding or rewarding the little feathered scholars
+by signs and modes of making them understand, till they have learned
+their lessons so perfectly, and the tune is so impressed on their
+memories, that they will pipe it to the end of their days; and let us
+hope, as I believe is the fact, that they find in it a never-ending
+delight.
+
+“Just as in human schools and colleges, it is only the few out of the
+great number who take the highest honours or degrees, or become senior
+wranglers, so it is not above five birds in every hundred who can
+attain to the highest perfection in their art! but all such are valued
+at a very high price.”
+
+It is allowable to hope that the poor bull-finch, which has thus
+industriously applied himself to learn, and has thus become
+artificially gifted with the power of pleasing, takes great
+satisfaction in his accomplishment. Perhaps also the association with
+his human teacher calls forth his affection as well as his power of
+song, for it is a fact that the piping bull-finch is, of all birds,
+given to attach itself to some one individual of the family where it
+is kept, expressing, at their approach, the most vehement delight,
+greeting them with its piping melody, hopping towards them, and
+practising all its little winning ways to show its love, and to court a
+return of caresses.
+
+“An interesting story,” says the bishop, “was told by Sir William
+Parsons, who was himself a great musician, and who, when a young man,
+possessed a piping bull-finch, which he had taught to sing, ‘God save
+the king.’ On his once going abroad, he gave his favourite in charge
+to his sister, with a strict injunction to take the greatest care of
+it. On his return, one of his first visits was to her, when she told
+him that the poor little bird had been long in declining health, and
+was, at that moment, very ill. Sir William, full of sorrow, went into
+the room where the cage was, and, opening the door, put in his hand,
+and spoke to the bird. The poor little creature recognised his voice,
+opened his eyes, shook his feathers, staggered on to his finger, piped
+‘God save the king,’ and fell down dead.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Devoted Affection of Birds._]
+
+We see in the piping bull-finch—a bird which in its education is
+closely associated with man—the deep and devoted affection of which
+it is capable; and if we could only live with the animal creation as
+their friends and benefactors, we should no longer be surprised by such
+instances of their intelligence and love.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+THE MISSEL-THRUSH.
+
+
+This is the largest of our British song birds. It remains with us
+through the whole year, not being migratory, excepting in so far as it
+moves off in considerable flocks into Herefordshire and Monmouthshire
+for the sake of the mistletoe which abounds in the orchards there,
+on the viscous berries of which it delights to feed, and whence it
+has obtained its familiar name of missel, or mistletoe thrush. It is
+generally believed that this curious parasitic plant was propagated or
+planted upon the branches of trees, by this bird rubbing its bill upon
+the rough bark to clean it from the sticky substance of the berry, and
+thus introducing the seeds into the interstices of the bark.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST.      [Page 106.
+]
+
+The Missel-thrush is a handsome bird; the head, back, and upper coverts
+of the wings olive-brown, the latter tipped with brownish-white,
+spotted with brown; the breasts and under parts pale yellow, covered
+with black spots; the legs are yellow and the claws black.
+
+It is a welcome bird, being the earliest harbinger of spring, the first
+singer of the year. Long before the swallow is thought of, before even
+the hardy familiar robin has begun his song, its clear rich voice
+may be heard on Christmas or New Year’s day, often amidst wild winds
+and winterly storms, whence its also familiar name, the storm-cock.
+It is known by different names in different parts of the country.
+The origin of its more general appellation—the missel-thrush—I have
+already mentioned. In the midland counties it is called the thrice
+cock, but why I know not. In Wales it is known as _Pen-y-llwyn_, which
+means the head or master of the coppice. Why it is so called I will
+mention presently.
+
+[Sidenote: _A Description of the Nest._]
+
+The nest of the missel-thrush is large and well constructed, being
+made of almost every material ordinarily used for nest-making
+purposes—moss, and hay, and straw, and dry leaves, and little twigs,
+and locks of wool, with occasional odds and ends of every possible
+kind. All these are woven and wrought together very compactly; not,
+however, without loose straws and little tangles of wool hanging about.
+Within is a smooth casing of mud, as in the nest of the throstle, and
+within that a second coating of dry grass. Our picture represents all
+as being now complete. The busy labours of the year are now over; the
+eggs, four or five in number, of a greenish-blue, marked with reddish
+spots, are laid, and the mother-bird has taken her patient seat upon
+them, whilst her mate, from the branch above, sings as if he never
+meant to leave off again.
+
+The song of this bird is loud, clear, and melodious—a cheering,
+hopeful song; and when heard amidst the yet prevailing winter-storms,
+as if in anticipation of better times, it well deserves our admiration.
+It resembles, to a certain degree, the song of the blackbird and the
+thrush, and is often mistaken for them; but it has not the short,
+quick, and varied notes of the one, nor the sober, prolonged, and
+eloquent melody of the other. On the contrary it is of an eager,
+hurrying character, as if it could not sufficiently express its
+emotion, and yet was trying to do so.
+
+The missel-thrush is a bird of very marked character, and is both bold
+and chivalrous. Its harsh, jarring note of anger and defiance is the
+first to be heard when a bird-enemy is at hand. If a cuckoo or hawk is
+anywhere near meditating mischief, the missel-thrush is vehement in his
+expression of displeasure. In our own neighbourhood, where the jays in
+summer come from the wood to carry the young of the sparrows from their
+nests in the ivied boles of the trees round our garden, the outcry of
+the parent sparrows instantly arouses the sympathetic missel-thrushes,
+who, with a scolding defiance, rush to the rescue. Of course these
+birds, which are of so militant a character, and so loud in protesting
+against a wrong done to another, will be equally alive to their own
+rights, and active in defending their own nests and young. Some
+naturalists have suggested that this combatant temper and extraordinary
+courage are but the natural consequence of the bird finding its nest
+open to common attack; for, being of a large size, and built early in
+the year whilst the trees are yet leafless, it is visible to every
+enemy and depredator.
+
+Mr. Thompson says: “Often have I seen a pair of these birds driving off
+magpies, and occasionally fighting against four of them. One pair which
+I knew attacked a kestrel which appeared in their neighbourhood when
+the young were out. One of them struck the hawk several times, and made
+as many more fruitless attempts, as the enemy, by suddenly rising in
+the air, escaped the cunning blow. They then followed the kestrel for a
+long way, until they were lost to our sight in the distance.”
+
+The old Welsh name of “master, or head of the coppice,” refers to the
+same warlike spirit. “The missel-thrush,” says Gilbert White, “suffers
+no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and
+is, for the time, a good guardian of the new-sown crops. In general, he
+is very successful in defence of his family. Once, however, I observed
+in my garden that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of
+the missel-thrush. The parent-birds defended their mansion with great
+vigour, and fought resolutely. But numbers at last prevailed, and the
+poor missel-thrushes had the pain of seeing their nest torn to pieces,
+and their young carried off.”
+
+[Sidenote: _The Gardeners’ Enemy._]
+
+The missel-thrushes, however, as the year goes on, make for themselves
+enemies even more formidable than hawks or magpies; these are the
+gardeners. Towards the end of summer, when the young have flown,
+and they and the parent-birds congregate in large flocks, having
+then nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, like human families when
+children are all home for the holidays, they too go abroad on their
+excursions of pleasure; not, however, to sea-side watering places, but
+into gardens where the cherries and raspberries are ripe. Poor birds!
+Little aware of their danger, or if they be so, defiant of it in the
+greatness of the temptation, they make sad havoc amongst the fruit,
+and many unfortunates are shot or snared, and then hung up amidst the
+cherry-boughs or the raspberry-canes as a terror to their associates.
+It is a pity we cannot make them welcome to some and yet have enough
+left for ourselves.
+
+The berries of the mountain-ash and the arbutus, and later on in the
+year those of the holly and ivy, supply them with food, as do also
+in the spring and summer insects of various kinds—caterpillars and
+spiders—so that in this respect they are good friends to the gardener,
+and might, one thinks, be made welcome to a little fruit in return.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+THE YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD.
+
+
+This, though an extremely pretty bird, is so common that very
+little notice is taken of it. Its colours are varied and beautiful:
+the back and wings, bright red; the central part of each feather,
+brownish-black; the head and throat, bright yellow; the feathers of the
+upper part tipped with black; the breast, brownish-red. The colours of
+the female are much duller.
+
+The yellow-hammer resembles linnets, finches, and sparrows in character
+and habits, and often associates with them, resorting to the fields in
+open weather, and often perching in hedges and bushes as well as in
+trees. In the winter, when the weather is severe, it congregates, with
+other birds, about houses, farm-buildings, and stack-yards.
+
+One of the most pleasing features of autumn is, to my mind, these
+flocks of kindred birds, which are at that time all abroad and yet
+together, circling in their flight, all rising as you approach, and
+wheeling away into the stubble-field, or into the distant hedges, now
+rich with their wild fruits—the blackberry, the wild rose hip, and the
+bunches of black-privet berries—and then away again, as you approach,
+with their variously modulated notes, through the clear air into the
+yet more distant stubble or bean-field.
+
+The flight of the yellow-hammer is wavy and graceful, and, alighting
+abruptly, he has a curious way of jerking out his tail feathers like
+a little fan. All at once a whole flock of them will descend from a
+considerable height and settle on the twigs of a tree, clothing it as
+with living leaves. Whatever number the flock may consist of, there
+is no impatient hurry or jostling among them to get the best perch,
+every individual settling as if on its own appointed place. As I have
+already observed, nothing is more charming at this season than these
+congregated companies of small birds. All the cares of life are now
+over, their young broods are around them, and now, with nothing to
+do but to enjoy themselves in the freedom of nature, where—on every
+hand, on every bush and tree, and in every outlying field—though the
+crops are now carried, all except, perhaps, here and there a solitary
+field in which the bean-shocks stand up black in the golden autumnal
+sunshine; but here, and there, and everywhere, a full table is spread,
+and they are welcome to enjoy.
+
+In spring and summer, the yellow-hammer sings a peculiar but
+mournful sort of little ditty, composed of a few short, sonorous
+notes, concluding with one long drawn out. In the midland
+counties, where stocking-weaving is the business of the people,
+the note of the bird is said to resemble the working of the
+machine—ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-e-e-chay—the prolonged latter syllable being
+what the stockinger calls, in the machine movement, “pressing over the
+arch.” In other parts of the country this bird’s song is interpreted as
+“A little bit of bread, and—no-cheese!” which may just as well be “A
+little bird am I, and—no thief!”
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  YELLOW-HAMMER AND NEST.      [Page 112.
+]
+
+The food of this bird consists of the seeds of all kinds of grasses,
+chickweeds, polygonums, and other such weeds; also, in summer, when
+food is needed for the young, insects and larvæ.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Picturesque Nest._]
+
+The winter congregations break up in April, and then the yellow-hammer
+begins to think of family joys and cares. But, unlike their relations
+the sparrows and finches, the he-birds take everything quietly, without
+having their little skirmishes to show their spirit and prowess, like
+the knights of old, at the tournament, before the admiring ladies. The
+yellow-hammer does everything quietly, choosing his mate in an orderly
+way; and now that the buds are swelling on the trees, the primroses
+gemming the hedge-banks, and the golden catkins hanging on the willows
+by the watersides, hither come the little yellow-hammers, and, having
+selected some sweet, hidden spot, under a bush, or on the fieldy banks
+amongst the thick herbage—we see it a month later in our picture,
+when the buds have expanded into leaves, in a wild growth of beautiful
+grasses and herbage—begin to make their nest. How picturesque it is!
+William Hunt never painted anything more beautiful. The nest itself
+is somewhat large, and of simple construction, woven externally of
+coarse bents and small pliant twigs, and lined with hair and wool. Here
+the hen lays four or five eggs of a purplish white, marked with dark,
+irregular streaks, often resembling musical notes.
+
+These poor little birds are extremely attached to their home and their
+young, so much so, that if these be taken by the pitiless bird-nester,
+they will continue for some days about the place uttering the most
+melancholy plaint, which, though still to the same old tune as the song
+of their spring rejoicing, has now the expression of the deepest woe.
+
+The author of “British Birds” thus sums up their various characteristic
+actions:—“When perched on a tree, especially in windy weather, they
+crouch close to the twigs, draw in their necks, and keep their tails
+declined. After pairing, the male is generally seen on a bush or tree,
+raising his tail by sudden jerks, and slightly expanding it. His notes
+are then usually two chirps, followed by a harsher note—cit, chit,
+chirr—with considerable intervals. When feeding in the stubble-fields,
+they advance by very short leaps, with their breasts nearly touching
+the ground; when apprehensive of danger they crouch motionless, and
+when alarmed give information to each other by means of their ordinary
+short note.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+THE MAGPIE.
+
+
+You have here a living portrait of the Magpie, sitting, so to speak, on
+his own door-sill, and contemplating it with rather a sentimental air,
+perhaps rather with tender admiration; and as to his dwelling, it is,
+we must confess, a wonderful structure—a half-timbered edifice, so to
+speak, walled-round and roofed-in, with its front-door and all complete.
+
+The magpie is one of our most beautiful as well as most amusing and
+characteristic birds. He is cousin to the jackdaw, and has, like him,
+odd ways of his own. In all countries where he is found, he is just the
+same. An old Greek poet, who lived two thousand years ago, speaks of
+him as a great mimic, and such an inordinate talker, that, in his own
+satirical humour, he pretends to believe that magpies were originally a
+family of young ladies, in Macedonia, who were noted for the volubility
+of their tongues. Handsome he is, as well as talkative, and very droll
+and mischievous.
+
+Being such, we need not wonder that his nest is very original. He likes
+to place it in a secure angle of branches, on some lofty tree, as we
+see it here, fifty feet or so from the ground; and prefers to have it
+on a tree bare of branches to a considerable height, knowing that it
+is then more inaccessible. He is wise in all this, for its bulk being
+so large it is discernible to a great distance. As magpies, however,
+are found almost everywhere, and in some parts of the country, the
+north of Scotland for instance, where there are no trees, the poor
+magpie is then obliged to build in a bush, and do the best he can. In
+such a case, in Norway, he was known to barricade his nest with thorny
+branches, brought thither by himself for that purpose, till it was next
+to impossible for the domicile to be invaded. A cat could not get to
+it, and a man only with hedging-mittens on his hands, and by help of a
+bill-hook.
+
+Like the rook, the magpie inhabits the same nest for several years,
+perhaps for the whole of his life, putting it into repair every year
+before he again needs it for family use—like a wealthy country family
+taking possession of their ancestral mansion in the spring.
+
+And now, turning to our picture, we find our magpie in excellent
+circumstances. Every thing has gone well with him. Here he is, and I
+will have the pleasure of giving you a bit of every-day magpie life,
+as sketched by that true pen-and-ink artist, the author of “British
+Birds.” Our scene opens a few minutes before the time indicated in our
+picture:—
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  MAGPIE AND NEST.      [Page 116.
+]
+
+[Sidenote: _A Search for Food._]
+
+“There, on the old ash-tree, you may see a pair, one perched on the
+topmost twig, the other hopping on the branches below, keeping up an
+incessant chatter. How gracefully she, on the topmost twig, swings in
+the breeze! Off she starts, and directs her flight to the fir-woods
+opposite, chattering all the way, seemingly to call her mate after her.
+But he prefers remaining behind. He is in a brown study, or something
+of that kind, as we can plainly see. Now, having spied something
+below, he hops downwards from twig to branch, and descends to the
+ground. His ash-tree, you must understand, grows close to, and in part
+overshadows, a farmyard; so now he is on ground which, as is customary
+in such places, is not over clean; therefore, lifting up his tail to
+prevent it being soiled or wet, as the farmer’s wife might hold up her
+Sunday gown, and raising his body as high as possible, he walks a few
+paces, and, spying an earth-worm half out of his hole, drags it forth
+by a sudden jerk, breaks it in pieces, and swallows it. Now, under the
+hedge, he has found a snail, which he will presently pick out of its
+shell, as an old woman would a periwinkle. But now something among the
+bushes has startled him, and he springs lightly upwards, chattering
+the while, to regain his favourite tree. It is a cat, which, not less
+frightened than himself, for both are intent on mischief, runs off
+towards the barn. The magpie again descends, steps slowly over the
+grassy margin of the yard, looking from side to side, stops, listens,
+advances rapidly by a succession of leaps, and encounters a whole brood
+of chickens, with their mother at their heels. If she had not been
+there he would have had a delicious feast of one of those chickens;
+but he dare not think of such a thing now, for, with fury in her eye,
+bristled plumage, and loud clamour, the hen rushes forward at him,
+overturning two of her younglings, and the enemy, suddenly wheeling
+round to avoid the encounter, flies off to his mate.
+
+“There again you perceive them in the meadow, as they walk about with
+their elevated tails, looking for something eatable. By the hedge, afar
+off, are two boys, with a gun, endeavouring to creep up to a flock of
+plovers on the other side. But the magpies see them, for there are not
+many things which escape their sharp eyes, and presently rising, they
+fly directly over the field, chattering vehemently, and the flock of
+plovers on this take wing, and the disappointed young sportsmen sheer
+off in another direction.”
+
+Magpies always make a great chattering when they are disturbed, or
+when they apprehend that danger is near. Waterton says that they
+are vociferous at the approach of night, and that they are in truth
+valuable watchmen on that account. “Whoever enters the wood,” he
+says, “is sure to attract their notice, and then their challenge is
+incessant. When I hear them during the night, or even during the
+day, I know that mischief is on the stir. Three years ago, at eleven
+o’clock in the day, I was at the capture of one of the most expert
+and desperate poachers, to whose hiding-place we were directed by the
+chatter of the magpies.”
+
+The poor magpie has many enemies, and, knowing this, is always on the
+watch, and easily alarmed.
+
+Its mode of walking is like that of the rook, but not having any
+dignity to maintain, it every now and then leaps in a sidelong
+direction. When alarmed itself, or wishing to announce danger to other
+birds, it utters a sort of chuckling cry or chatter. If a fox or cat,
+or any other unfriendly animal, approaches, it hovers about it, and
+alarms the whole neighbourhood by its cries till the enemy is out of
+sight.
+
+Like the jackdaw, it generally keeps in pairs the whole year round;
+and, indeed, when birds continue to inhabit the same nest, season after
+season, it is quite natural that they should do so. It is a curious
+fact, however, that if by any accident the hen-magpie is killed, whilst
+sitting on her eggs, her mate sets off at once and brings home another
+wife, who takes to the nest and eggs, just as if she had laid them; and
+if by another mischance she too should come to an untimely end, the
+widower again goes off, and, without any loss of time, brings back a
+third wife, and she takes to her duties quite as naturally and lovingly
+as the other did; but where all these surplus mothers come from is a
+question which no naturalist has yet answered, and the magpie, with all
+his chattering, is not clever enough to explain the wonder.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Beautiful Plumage._]
+
+The beauty of this bird’s plumage is familiar to all; and although it
+is simply black and white, yet the exquisitely-coloured gloss of green,
+blue, and purple, with their varying and intermingling tints, produce
+such a charming effect that one cannot sufficiently admire them.
+
+With the external structure of the magpie’s nest we are acquainted: the
+lower part, inside, is neatly plastered with mud, “and is furnished,”
+says Bewick, “with a sort of mattress, formed of wool or fibrous roots,
+on which from three to six eggs are laid.” The eggs frequently vary,
+both in size and colour; sometimes they are of a pale green, freckled
+over with amber-brown and light purple; sometimes pale blue, with
+smaller spots of the same dark colours.
+
+The nest is, so to speak, a sort of little domed chamber, of a good
+size for its purpose; but then comes the question—What does the magpie
+do with her long tail as she sits on her eggs? It would certainly
+poke a hole through the wall if left to its full extent; she must,
+therefore, lift it up, as she does when walking amongst the wet grass,
+and sit with it laid flat against the wall, which probably is not
+inconvenient to her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+THE NUTHATCH.
+
+
+This bird is almost an entire stranger to most people. It belongs to
+the rather large family of creepers; birds which, like the woodpecker
+and the little golden-crested wren, run up the holes and branches of
+trees in search of food. The nuthatch, however, has an advantage over
+all its other creeping relatives, by being gifted with the power of
+coming down the tree head foremost, which none of them have. It can
+also sleep with its head downwards; neither in its rapid ascent has it
+occasion to press its tail against the tree for help; so that it is the
+most accomplished little acrobat of the whole race of creepers.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+  NUTHATCH AND NEST.      [Page 120.
+]
+
+The nuthatch cannot be called a rare bird, and yet it is not often
+seen, being of a shy and retiring disposition, though naturally lively
+and active. The plumage is very pleasing in colour; the upper parts
+of the body are bluish-grey; a black line passes from the corners of
+the mouth to the back of the neck; the breast and under parts light
+reddish-yellow, and the sides reddish-brown.
+
+It delights in woods and trees; nor need it be looked for elsewhere,
+as it derives its food entirely amongst them, either of insects and
+larvæ, hidden in the bark, or of fruits and nuts, as kernels of
+fir-cones, beech, and other nuts, the shells of which it breaks in
+a very ingenious manner, as I shall presently describe. Now and then
+it alights on the ground, and then advances by short leaps. It has no
+song; but in winter, when living in small companies, perhaps the whole
+summer-family associating together, it has a little piping note, which,
+however, is supposed to be simply the call to each other. It is said to
+be sensitive to the cold, and always feeds on the side of the wood or
+of the tree which is defended from the wind. In spring, however, when
+all nature is renovated with a quicker pulse of life—for, as Tennyson
+says:—
+
+    In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;
+    In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
+    In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove—
+
+then, also, the silent nuthatch sends forth through the awakening
+solitude of the woods his two little notes, one short and twittering,
+the other a low, mellow, flute-like whistle, which is so clear that it
+may be heard to a considerable distance.
+
+[Sidenote: _Its Favourite Food._]
+
+The graphic author of the “British Birds” says, “It is, at all times,
+a busy and cheerful bird, particularly at nesting-time. Its favourite
+food is nuts of any kind. It builds and roosts in hollow trees, and
+is seldom seen in the open fields, unless when in quest of the stones
+of the white-thorn or sloe. It may, therefore, be properly called a
+forester. Its dexterity in opening nuts and the stones of fruit is
+curious. It fixes the nut in a crack, on the top of a post, or in the
+bark of a tree, and, placing itself above it, head downwards, striking
+with great force and rapidity, with its strong, wedge-shaped bill on
+the edge of the shell, splits it open. When their food is plentiful,
+they have a favourite crack for unshelling the kernels, as sometimes a
+peck of broken shells may be seen under this crack.”
+
+The Rev. W. T. Bree tells us that “the tapping of the bird on the hard
+shell may be heard at a considerable distance, and that during the
+operation it sometimes happens that the nut swerves from its fixture
+and falls towards the ground. It has not descended, however, for the
+space of more than a few yards, when the nuthatch, with admirable
+adroitness, recovers it in the fall, and, replacing it in its former
+position, commences the attack afresh. The fall of the nut in the air,
+and the recovery by the bird on the wing, I have seen repeated several
+times in the space of a few minutes.”
+
+This is a little act of skill in the bird which it would be charming to
+observe; and here again I would remark, as I have so often done before,
+that this is but a single instance of what many of us, living in the
+country, might witness in some woodland nook near at hand, if we would
+only be lovingly still and patient, and interest ourselves in the ways
+and means of the innocent animal-life around us.
+
+The nest of the bird also deserves our notice; and let me here call
+your attention to the beautiful and living little portrait of the bird
+at home, given us by Mr. Harrison Weir, than which we have nothing more
+truthful from his pencil. The home of the nuthatch is nothing more, to
+begin with, than the hole in an old tree, which, probably, has been
+deserted by the woodpecker. As, however, the woodpecker either requires
+a more enlarged entrance to her nursery, or considers it more seemly,
+the nuthatch, who merely likes a snug little hole to creep in at, and
+nothing more, walls up the opening with a plastering of clay or mud,
+leaving only just room enough for herself to enter. Perhaps she may be
+afraid of the old tenants returning and again taking possession, so
+builds up a little defence in front; but of that I cannot say; certain
+it is she makes herself comfortably at home in rather an untidy nest,
+composed mostly of dead oak-leaves, and here she lays six or seven
+white eggs, with ruddy spots on them.
+
+[Sidenote: _Her Defence of her Young._]
+
+If the plaster wall be by any chance removed, the poor bird loses not
+a moment in replacing it; and though she has apparently great dread
+of any enemy—the woodpecker, snake, man, or whatever else he may be,
+disturbing her—yet so faithfully devoted is she to her duties, that
+scarcely anything will induce her to leave the eggs or young. She
+fights vigorously in defence of her home and its treasures, striking
+out with her bill and wings, and making a hissing, angry noise. Nay,
+timid and shy as she naturally is, she will suffer herself to be
+carried off captive rather than desert her charge.
+
+Let me conclude with one of Bechstein’s anecdotes of the nuthatch:—
+
+“A lady amused herself in the winter by throwing seeds on the terrace,
+below the window, to feed the birds in the neighbourhood. She put some
+hemp-seed and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, for
+her particular favourites, the blue-tits. Two nuthatches came one day
+to have their share of this repast, and were so well pleased that they
+became quite familiar, and did not even go away in the following spring
+to get their natural food and to build their nest in the wood. They
+settled themselves in the hollow of an old tree near the house.
+
+“As soon as the two young ones which were reared here were ready to
+fly, they brought them to the hospitable window, where they were to be
+nourished, and soon after disappeared entirely. It was amusing to see
+these two new visitors hang or climb on the walls or blinds, whilst
+their benefactress put their food on the board. These pretty creatures
+as well as the tits, knew her so well, that when she drove away the
+sparrows, which came to steal what was not intended for them, they did
+not fly away also, but seemed to know what was done was only to protect
+and defend them. They remained near the house for the whole summer,
+rarely wandering, till one fatal day, at the beginning of the sporting
+season, in autumn, on hearing the report of a gun, they disappeared and
+were never seen again.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+Watson & Hazell, Printers, 28, Charles Street, Hatton Garden.
+
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+<p style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Birds and their nests, by Mary Howitt</p>
+<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
+at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you
+are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the
+country where you are located before using this eBook.
+</div>
+
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Birds and their nests</p>
+<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Mary Howitt</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: June 28, 2022 [eBook #68416]</p>
+<p style='display:block; text-indent:0; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</p>
+  <p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em; text-align:left'>Produced by: Fiona Holmes and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)</p>
+<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS ***</div>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+<h2>Transcriber’s Notes</h2>
+
+<p>Hyphenation has been standardised.</p>
+
+<p>For the CONTENTS on <a href="#Page_v" title="">Page v</a>, Chapter IX—Peewits  51 was missed from print
+in the original, and has been added.</p>
+
+<p>The layout of the Contents continuation page on <a href="#Page_vi" title="">Page vi</a>, has been
+changed to replicate the layout of the previous Contents page.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href="#Page_41" title="">Page 41</a>&#8212;changed cemetries to <b>cemeteries</b>.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent"><a href="#Page_55" title="">Page 55</a>&#8212;changed artifical to <b>artificial</b>.</p>
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_cover"><img src="images/cover.jpg" alt="" width="1986" height="2560" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p class="space-above4"></p>
+
+<h1>BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS.</h1>
+
+<p class="space-above4"></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_frontis"><img src="images/i-frontis.jpg" alt="" width="486" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">ROBIN AND NEST.</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="space-above4"></p>
+
+<div class="title-page">
+<p class="p140">    BIRDS AND THEIR NESTS,</p>
+
+<p class="center">    BY</p>
+
+<p class="center">    MARY HOWITT.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_title"><img src="images/i-title.jpg" alt="" width="327" height="300" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">    <em>With Twenty-three Full-page Illustrations by Harrison Weir.</em></p>
+
+<p class="space-above2"></p>
+
+<p class="p80">NEW YORK:</p>
+<p class="p80">GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, 416, BROOME STREET.</p>
+<p class="p80"><span class="smcap">London: S. W. Partridge &amp; Co., 9, Paternoster Row.</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">    <em>All rights reserved.</em></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="space-above2"></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_004"><img src="images/i-004.jpg" alt="" width="366" height="200" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">WATSON AND HAZELL,<br />
+<em>Printers</em>,<br />
+
+<span class="smcap">London and Aylesbury</span>.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">[v]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_005"><img src="images/i-005.jpg" alt="" width="405" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS.</h2>
+</div>
+<table>
+<tr>
+    <td>&#160;</td>
+    <td>&#160;</td>
+    <td>&#160;</td>
+    <td class="right"><span class="smcap">PAGE</span></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="cont1" colspan="2">Introductory Chapter</td>
+  <td class="cont3">&#160;</td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#INTRODUCTORY_CHAPTER" title="Page 1">1</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="cont1a"><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span></td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="1">I.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE WREN</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_8" title="Page 8">8</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="2">II.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE GOLDFINCH</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_15" title="Page 15">15</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="3">III.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE SONG THRUSH</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_20" title="Page 20">20</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="4">IV.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE BLACKBIRD</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_26" title="Page 26">26</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="5">V.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_33" title="Page 33">33</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+    <td class="chn">” </td>
+    <td class="cont2"><abbr title="6">VI.</abbr> </td>
+    <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE NIGHTINGALE</span></td>
+    <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_37">37</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="7">VII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE SKYLARK</span> </td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_42" title="Page 42">42</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="8">VIII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE LINNET</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_47" title="Page 47">47</a><span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">[vi]</span></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="9">IX.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">THE PEEWIT</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_51" title="Page 51">51</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="10">X.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">HOUSE-MARTINS, OR WINDOW-SWALLOWS, AND NESTS</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_56" title="Page 56">56</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="11">XI.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">CHIFF-CHAFFS, OR OVEN-BUILDERS, AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_66" title="Page 66">66</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="12">XII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_70" title="Page 70">70</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="13">XIII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WAGTAIL AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_75" title="Page 75">76</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="14">XIV.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">JACKDAW AND NESTLINGS</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_81" title="Page 81">82</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="15">XV.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_86" title="Page 86">86</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="16">XVI.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_91" title="Page 91">92</a></td>
+</tr>
+<tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="17">XVII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">WHITE-THROAT AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_97" title="Page 97">98</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="18">XVIII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_101" title="Page 101">102</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="19">XIX.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_106" title="Page106">106</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="206">XX.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD, AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_111" title="Page 111">112</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="21">XXI.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">MAGPIE AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_115" title="Page 115">116</a></td>
+</tr><tr>
+  <td class="chn">”</td>
+  <td class="cont2"><abbr title="22">XXII.</abbr></td>
+  <td class="cont3">—<span class="allsmcap">NUTHATCH AND NEST</span></td>
+  <td class="tdr"><a href="#Page_120" title="Page120">120</a></td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_006"><img src="images/i-006.jpg" alt="four eggs in a nest" width="458" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[1]</span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_007"><img src="images/i-007.jpg" alt="two birds on tree branch" width="796" height="650" /></a>
+</div>
+
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Birds_and_their_Nests"><em>Birds and their Nests.</em></h2>
+  </div>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="INTRODUCTORY_CHAPTER">INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.</h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> birds in these pictures of ours have all nests, which is as it
+should be; for how could the bird rear its young without its little
+home and soft little bed, any more than children could be comfortably
+brought up without either a bed to lie upon, or a home in which to be
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>Birds-nests, though you may find them in every bush, are<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[2]</span> wonderful
+things. Let us talk about them. They are all alike in the purpose for
+which they are intended, but no two families of birds build exactly
+alike; all the wrens, for instance, have their kind of nest; the
+thrushes have theirs; so has the swallow tribe; so has the sparrow,
+or the rook. They do not imitate one another, but each adheres to its
+own plan, as God, the great builder and artist, as well as Creator,
+taught them from the very beginning. The first nightingale, that sang
+its hymn of joyful thanksgiving in the Garden of Paradise, built
+its nest just the same as the bird you listened to last year in the
+coppice. The materials were there, and the bird knew how to make use
+of them; and that is perhaps the most wonderful part of it, for she
+has no implements to work with: no needle and thread, no scissors, no
+hammer and nails; nothing but her own little feet and bill, and her
+round little breast, upon which to mould it; for it is generally the
+mother-bird which is the chief builder.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner is the nest wanted for the eggs which she is about to lay,
+than the hitherto slumbering faculty of constructiveness is awakened,
+and she selects the angle of the branch, or the hollow in the bank or
+in the wall, or the tangle of reeds, or the platform of twigs on the
+tree-top, exactly the right place for her, the selection being always
+the same according to her tribe, and true to the instinct which was
+implanted in her at the first.</p>
+
+<p>So the building begins: dry grass or leaves, little twigs and
+root-fibres, hair or down, whether of feather or winged seed, spangled
+outside with silvery lichen, or embroidered with green mosses, less
+for beauty, perhaps—though it is so beautiful—than for the birds’
+safety, because it so exactly imitates the bank or the tree-trunk in
+which it is built. Or it may be that her tenement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[3]</span> is clay-built, like
+that of the swallow; or lath and plaster, so to speak, like an old
+country house, as is the fashion of the magpie; or a platform of rude
+sticks, like the first rudiment of a basket up in the tree-branches, as
+that of the wood-pigeon: she may be a carpenter like the woodpecker,
+a tunneller like the sand-martin; or she may knead and glue together
+the materials of her nest, till they resemble thick felt; but in all
+this she is exactly what the great Creator made her at first, equally
+perfect in skill, and equally undeviating year after year. This is very
+wonderful, so that we may be quite sure that the sparrow’s nest, which
+David remarked in the house of God, was exactly the same as the sparrow
+built in the days of the blessed Saviour, when He, pointing to that
+bird, made it a proof to man that God’s Providence ever watches over
+him.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Jules Michelet on Birds.</em></div>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, with this unaltered and unalterable working after one
+pattern, in every species of bird, there is a choice or an adaptation
+of material allowed: thus the bird will, within certain limits, select
+that which is fittest for its purpose, producing, however, in the end,
+precisely the same effect. I will tell you what Jules Michelet, a
+French writer, who loves birds as we do, writes on this subject:—“The
+bird in building its nest,” he says, “makes it of that beautiful
+cup-like or cradle form by pressing it down, kneading it and shaping
+it upon her own breast.” He says, as I have just told you, that the
+mother-bird builds, and that the he-bird is her purveyor. He fetches in
+the materials: grasses, mosses, roots, or twigs, singing many a song
+between whiles; and she arranges all with loving reference; first,
+to the delicate egg which must be bedded in soft material; then to
+the little one which, coming from the egg naked, must<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[4]</span> not only be
+cradled in soft comfort, but kept alive by her warmth. So the he-bird,
+supposing it to be a linnet, brings her some horse-hair: it is stiff
+and hard; nevertheless, it is proper for the purpose, and serves as a
+lower stratum of the nest—a sort of elastic mattress: he brings her
+hemp; it is cold, but it serves for the same purpose. Then comes the
+covering and the lining; and for this nothing but the soft silky fibre
+of certain plants, wool or cotton, or, better still, the down from her
+own breast, will satisfy her. It is interesting, he says, to watch the
+he-bird’s skilful and furtive search for materials; he is afraid if he
+see you watching, that you may discover the track to his nest; and, in
+order to mislead you, he takes a different road back to it. You may see
+him following the sheep to get a little lock of wool, or alighting in
+the poultry yard on the search for dropped feathers. If the farmer’s
+wife chance to leave her wheel, whilst spinning in the porch, he steals
+in for a morsel of flax from the distaff. He knows what is the right
+kind of thing; and let him be in whatever country he may, he selects
+that which answers the purpose; and the nest which is built is that of
+the linnet all the world over.</p>
+
+<p>Again he tells us, that there are other birds which, instead of
+building, bring up their young underground, in little earth cradles
+which they have prepared for them. Of building-birds, he thinks the
+queerest must be the flamingo, which lays her eggs on a pile of mud
+which she has raised above the flooded earth, and, standing erect all
+the time, hatches them under her long legs. It does seem a queer,
+uncomfortable way; but if it answer its end, we need not object to it.
+Of carpenter-birds, he thinks the thrush is the most remarkable; other
+writers say the woodpecker. The shore-birds plait their nests, not very
+skilfully it is true, but<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[5]</span> sufficiently well for their purpose. They
+are clothed by nature with such an oily, impermeable coat of plumage,
+that they have little need to care about climate; they have enough to
+do to look after their fishing, and to feed themselves and their young;
+for all these sea-side families have immense appetites.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How various Birds Build.</em></div>
+
+<p>Herons and storks build in a sort of basket-making fashion; so do the
+jays and the mocking birds, only in a much better way; but as they
+have all large families they are obliged to do so. They lay down, in
+the first place, a sort of rude platform, upon which they erect a
+basket-like nest of more or less elegant design, a web of roots and dry
+twigs strongly woven together. The little golden-crested wren hangs her
+purse-like nest to a bough, and, as in the nursery song, “When the wind
+blows the cradle rocks.” An Australian bird, a kind of fly-catcher,
+called there the razor-grinder, from its note resembling the sound of
+a razor-grinder at work, builds her nest on the slightest twig hanging
+over the water, in order to protect it from snakes which climb after
+them. She chooses for her purpose a twig so slender that it would not
+bear the weight of the snake, and thus she is perfectly safe from her
+enemy. The same, probably, is the cause why in tropical countries,
+where snakes and monkeys, and such bird-enemies abound, nests are so
+frequently suspended by threads or little cords from slender boughs.</p>
+
+<p>The canary, the goldfinch, and chaffinch, are skilful cloth-weavers
+or felt makers; the latter, restless and suspicious, speckles the
+outside of her nest with a quantity of white lichen, so that it
+exactly imitates the tree branch on which it is placed, and can hardly
+be detected by the most accustomed eye. Glueing and felting play an
+important part in the work of the bird-weavers.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[6]</span> The humming-bird, for
+instance, consolidates her little house with the gum of trees. The
+American starling sews the leaves together with her bill; other birds
+use not only their bills, but their feet. Having woven a cord, they fix
+it as a web with their feet, and insert the weft, as the weaver would
+throw his shuttle, with their bill. These are genuine weavers. In fine,
+their skill never fails them. The truth is, that the great Creator
+never gives any creature work to do without giving him at the same time
+an inclination to do it—which, in the animal, is instinct—and tools
+sufficient for the work, though they may be only the delicate feet and
+bill of the bird.</p>
+
+<p>And now, in conclusion, let me describe to you the nest of the little
+English long-tailed titmouse as I saw it many years ago, and which I
+give from “Sketches of Natural History”:—</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Titmouse’s Nest.</em></div>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">There, where those boughs of blackthorn cross,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Behold that oval ball of moss;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Observe it near, all knit together,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Moss, willow-down, and many a feather,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And filled within, as you may see,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">As full of feathers as can be;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Whence it is called by country folk,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">A fitting name, the feather-poke;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">But learned people, I have heard,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4"><em>Parus caudatus</em> call the bird.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Yes, here’s a nest! a nest indeed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That doth all other nests exceed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Propped with the blackthorn twigs beneath,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And festooned with a woodbine wreath!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Look at it close, all knit together,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Moss, willow-down, and many a feather;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">So soft, so light, so wrought with grace,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">So suited to this green-wood place,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And spangled o’er, as with the intent</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[7]</span></p>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Of giving fitting ornament,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">With silvery flakes of lichen bright,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That shine like opals, dazzling white.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Think only of the creature small,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That wrought this soft and silvery ball,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Without a tool to aid her skill,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Nought but her little feet and bill—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Without a pattern whence to trace</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">This little roofed-in dwelling place—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And does not in your bosom spring</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Love for this skilful little thing?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">See, there’s a window in the wall;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Peep in, the house is not so small,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">But snug and cosy you shall see</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">A very numerous family!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Now count them: one, two, three, four, five—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Nay, <em>sixteen</em> merry things alive—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Sixteen young, chirping things all sit,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Where you, your wee hand, could not get!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">I’m glad you’ve seen it, for you never</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Saw ought before so soft and clever.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_013"><img src="images/i-013.jpg" alt="bird on branch" width="497" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[8]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WREN.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Truly</span> the little Wren, so beautifully depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir,
+with her tiny body, her pretty, lively, and conceited ways, her short,
+little turned-up tail, and delicate plumage, is worthy of our tender
+regard and love.</p>
+
+<p>The colouring of the wren is soft and subdued—a reddish-brown colour;
+the breast of a light greyish-brown; and all the hinder parts, both
+above and below, marked with wavy lines of dusky-brown, with two bands
+of white dots across the wings.</p>
+
+<p>Its habits are remarkably lively and attractive. “I know no pleasanter
+object,” says the agreeable author of “British Birds,” “than the wren;
+it is always so smart and cheerful. In gloomy weather other birds
+often seem melancholy, and in rain the sparrows and finches stand
+silent on the twigs, with drooping wings and disarranged plumage; but
+to the merry little wren all weathers are alike. The big drops of the
+thunder-shower no more wet it than the drizzle of a Scotch mist; and as
+it peeps from beneath the bramble, or glances from a hole in the wall,
+it seems as snug as a kitten frisking on the parlour rug.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_015"><img src="images/i-015.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WRENS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_8" title="Page 8">Page 8.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Builder of Many Nests.</em></div>
+
+<p>“It is amusing,” he continues, “to watch the motions of a young family
+of wrens just come abroad. Walking among furze, broom, or juniper, you
+are attracted to some bush by <span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[9]</span>hearing issue from it the frequent
+repetition of a sound resembling the syllable <em>chit</em>. On going
+up you perceive an old wren flitting about the twigs, and presently
+a young one flies off, uttering a stifled <em>chirr</em>, to conceal
+itself among the bushes. Several follow, whilst the parents continue to
+flutter about in great alarm, uttering their <em>chit, chit</em>, with
+various degrees of excitement.”</p>
+
+<p>The nest of the wren is a wonderful structure, of which I shall have a
+good deal to say. It begins building in April, and is not by any means
+particular in situation. Sometimes it builds in the hole of a wall
+or tree; sometimes, as in this lovely little picture of ours, in the
+mossy hollow of a primrose-covered bank; and because it was formerly
+supposed to live only in holes or little caves, it received the name of
+<em>Troglodytes</em>, or cave-dweller. But it builds equally willingly in
+the thatch of out-buildings, in barn-lofts, or tree-branches, either
+when growing apart or nailed against a wall, amongst ivy or other
+climbing plants; in fact, it seems to be of such a happy disposition as
+to adapt itself to a great variety of situations. It is a singular fact
+that it will often build several nests in one season—not that it needs
+so many separate dwellings, or that it finishes them when built; but it
+builds as if for the very pleasure of the work. Our naturalist says,
+speaking of this odd propensity, “that, whilst the hen is sitting, the
+he-bird, as if from a desire to be doing something, will construct as
+many as half-a-dozen nests near the first, none of which, however,
+are lined with feathers; and that whilst the true nest, on which the
+mother-bird is sitting, will be carefully concealed, these sham nests
+are open to view. Some say that as the wrens, during the cold weather,
+sleep in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[10]</span> some snug, warm hole, they frequently occupy these extra
+nests as winter-bedchambers, four or five, or even more, huddling
+together, to keep one another warm.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Weir, a friend of the author I have just quoted, says this was the
+case in his own garden; and that, during the winter, when the ground
+was covered with snow, two of the extra nests were occupied at night by
+a little family of seven, which had hatched in the garden. He was very
+observant of their ways, and says it was amusing to see one of the old
+wrens, coming a little before sunset and standing a few inches from the
+nest, utter his little cry till the whole number of them had arrived.
+Nor were they long about it; they very soon answered the call, flying
+from all quarters—the seven young ones and the other parent-bird—and
+then at once nestled into their snug little dormitory. It was also
+remarkable that when the wind blew from the east they occupied a nest
+which had its opening to the west, and when it blew from the west, then
+one that opened to the east, so that it was evident they knew how to
+make themselves comfortable.</p>
+
+<p>And now as regards the building of these little homes. I will, as far
+as I am able, give you the details of the whole business from the diary
+of the same gentleman, which is as accurate as if the little wren had
+kept it himself, and which will just as well refer to the little nest
+in the primrose bank as to the nest in the Spanish juniper-tree, where,
+in fact, it was built.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How a Nest was built.</em></div>
+
+<p>“On the 30th of May, therefore, you must imagine a little pair of
+wrens, having, after a great deal of consultation, made up their minds
+to build themselves a home in the branches of a Spanish juniper. The
+female, at about seven o’clock in the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[11]</span> morning, laid the foundation
+with the decayed leaf of a lime-tree. Some men were at work cutting
+a drain not far off, but she took no notice of them, and worked away
+industriously, carrying to her work bundles of dead leaves as big
+as herself, her mate, seeming the while to be delighted with her
+industry, seated not far off in a Portugal laurel, where he watched
+her, singing to her, and so doing, making her labour, no doubt, light
+and pleasant. From eight o’clock to nine she worked like a little
+slave, carrying in leaves, and then selecting from them such as suited
+her purpose and putting aside the rest. This was the foundation of the
+nest, which she rendered compact by pressing it down with her breast,
+and turning herself round in it: then she began to rear the sides.
+And now the delicate and difficult part of the work began, and she
+was often away for eight or ten minutes together. From the inside she
+built the underpart of the aperture with the stalks of leaves, which
+she fitted together very ingeniously with moss. The upper part of it
+was constructed solely with the last-mentioned material. To round it
+and give it the requisite solidity, she pressed it with her breast and
+wings, turning the body round in various directions. Most wonderful to
+tell, about seven o’clock in the evening the whole outside workmanship
+of this snug little erection was almost complete.</p>
+
+<p>“Being very anxious to examine the interior of it, I went out for that
+purpose at half-past two the next morning. I introduced my finger,
+the birds not being there, and found its structure so close, that
+though it had rained in the night, yet that it was quite dry. The
+birds at this early hour were singing as if in ecstasy, and at about
+three o’clock the little he-wren came<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[12]</span> and surveyed his domicile with
+evident satisfaction; then, flying to the top of a tree, began singing
+most merrily. In half-an-hour’s time the hen-bird made her appearance,
+and, going into the nest, remained there about five minutes, rounding
+the entrance by pressing it with her breast and the shoulders of her
+wings. For the next hour she went out and came back five times with
+fine moss in her bill, with which she adjusted a small depression in
+the fore-part of it; then, after twenty minutes’ absence, returned
+with a bundle of leaves to fill up a vacancy which she had discovered
+in the back of the structure. Although it was a cold morning, with
+wind and rain, the male bird sang delightfully; but between seven and
+eight o’clock, either having received a reproof from his wife for his
+indolence, or being himself seized with an impulse to work, he began
+to help her, and for the next ten minutes brought in moss, and worked
+at the inside of the nest. At eleven o’clock both of them flew off,
+either for a little recreation, or for their dinners, and were away
+till a little after one. From this time till four o’clock both worked
+industriously, bringing in fine moss; then, during another hour, the
+hen-bird brought in a feather three times. So that day came to an end.</p>
+
+<p>“The next morning, June 1st, they did not begin their work early, as
+was evident to Mr. Weir, because having placed a slender leaf-stalk
+at the entrance, there it remained till half-past eight o’clock, when
+the two began to work as the day before with fine moss, the he-bird
+leaving off, however, every now and then to express his satisfaction on
+a near tree-top. Again, this day, they went off either for dinner or
+amusement; then came back and worked for another hour, bringing in fine
+moss and feathers.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[13]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Patient Industry of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>“The next morning the little he-wren seemed in a regular ecstasy,
+and sang incessantly till half-past nine, when they both brought in
+moss and feathers, working on for about two hours, and again they
+went off, remaining away an hour later than usual. Their work was now
+nearly over, and they seemed to be taking their leisure, when all at
+once the hen-bird, who was sitting in her nest and looking out at her
+door, espied a man half-hidden by an arbor vitæ. It was no other than
+her good friend, but that she did not know; all men were terrible,
+as enemies to her race, and at once she set up her cry of alarm. The
+he-bird, on hearing this, appeared in a great state of agitation, and
+though the frightful monster immediately ran off, the little creatures
+pursued him, scolding vehemently.</p>
+
+<p>“The next day they worked again with feathers and fine moss, and again
+went off after having brought in a few more feathers. So they did for
+the next five days; working leisurely, and latterly only with feathers.
+On the tenth day the nest was finished, and the little mother-bird laid
+her first egg in it.”</p>
+
+<p>Where is the boy, let him be as ruthless a bird-nester as he may, who
+could have the heart to take a wren’s nest, only to tear it to pieces,
+after reading the history of this patient labour of love?</p>
+
+<p>The wren, like various other small birds, cannot bear that their nests
+or eggs should be touched; they are always disturbed and distressed by
+it, and sometimes even will desert their nest and eggs in consequence.
+On one occasion, therefore, this good, kind-hearted friend of every
+bird that builds, carefully put his finger into a wren’s nest, during
+the mother’s absence, to ascertain whether the young were hatched; on
+her return,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">[14]</span> perceiving that the entrance had been touched, she set up
+a doleful lamentation, carefully rounded it again with her breast and
+wings, so as to bring everything into proper order, after which she and
+her mate attended to their young. These particular young ones, only six
+in number, were fed by their parents 278 times in the course of a day.
+This was a small wren-family; and if there had been twelve, or even
+sixteen, as is often the case, what an amount of labour and care the
+birds must have had! But they would have been equal to it, and merry
+all the time.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">For all these little creatures, which so lightly we regard,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">They love to do their duty, and they never think it hard.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_022"><img src="images/i-022.jpg" alt="a bee flying around a nest" width="441" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">[15]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE GOLDFINCH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Goldfinch, which is cousin to the Linnet, is wonderfully clever and
+docile, as I shall show you presently. In the first place, however,
+let me say a word or two about bird cleverness in general, which I
+copy from Jules Michelet’s interesting work, “The Bird.” Speaking of
+the great, cruel, and rapacious family of the <em>Raptores</em>, or
+Birds of Prey, he expresses satisfaction in the idea that this race of
+destroyers is decreasing, and that there may come a time when they no
+longer exist on the earth. He has no admiration for them, though they
+may be the swiftest of the swift, and the strongest of the strong,
+because they put forth none of the higher qualities of courage,
+address, or patient endurance in taking their prey, which are all weak
+and powerless in comparison with themselves; their poor unoffending
+victims. “All these cruel tyrants of the air,” he says, “like the
+serpents, have flattened skulls, which show the want of intellect and
+intelligence. These birds of prey, with their small brains, offer a
+striking contrast to the amiable and intelligent species which we find
+amongst the smaller birds. The head of the former is only a beak, that
+of the latter is a face.” Afterwards, to prove this more strongly, he
+gives a table to show the proportion of brain to the size of the body
+in these different species of birds. Thus the chaffinch, the sparrow,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[16]</span>
+and the goldfinch, have more than six times as much brain as the eagle
+in proportion to the size of the body. We may look, therefore, for no
+less than six times his intelligence and docile ability. Whilst in the
+case of the little tomtit it is thirteen times as much.</p>
+
+<p>But now for the goldfinch, of which our cut—which is both faithful
+and beautiful—shows us a pair, evidently contemplating with much
+satisfaction the nest which they have just finished on one of the
+topmost boughs of a blossomy apple-tree. This nest is a wonderful
+little fabric, built of moss, dry grass, and slender roots, lined with
+hair, wool, and thistle-down; but the true wonder of the nest is the
+exact manner in which the outside is made to imitate the bough upon
+which it is placed. All its little ruggednesses and lichen growths
+are represented, whilst the colouring is so exactly that of the old
+apple-tree that it is almost impossible to know it from the branch
+itself. Wonderful ingenuity of instinct, which human skill would find
+it almost impossible to imitate!</p>
+
+<p>The bird lays mostly five eggs, which are of a bluish-grey, spotted
+with greyish-purple or brown, and sometimes with a dark streak or two.</p>
+
+<p>The goldfinch is one of the most beautiful of our English birds, with
+its scarlet forehead, and quaint little black velvet-like cap brought
+down over its white cheeks; its back is cinnamon brown, and its breast
+white; its wings are beautifully varied in black and white, as are also
+its tail feathers. In the midland counties it is known as “The Proud
+Tailor,” probably because its attire looks so bright and fresh, and it
+has a lively air as if conscious of being well dressed.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_025"><img src="images/i-025.jpg" alt="" width="494" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">GOLDFINCHES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_16" title="Page 16">Page 16.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[17]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Daily Life of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>Like its relation, the linnet, it congregates in flocks as soon as
+its young can take wing, when they may be seen wheeling round in
+the pleasant late summer and autumn fields, full of life, and in
+the enjoyment of the plenty that surrounds them, in the ripened
+thistle-down, and all such winged seeds as are then floating in the air.</p>
+
+<p>How often have I said it is worth while to go out into the woods and
+fields, and, bringing yourself into a state of quietness, watch the
+little birds in their life’s employment, building their nests, feeding
+their young, or pursuing their innocent diversions! So now, on this
+pleasant, still autumn afternoon, if you will go into the old pasture
+fields where the thistles have not been stubbed up for generations, or
+on the margin of the old lane where ragwort, and groundsel, and burdock
+flourish abundantly, “let us,” as the author of “British Birds” says,
+“stand still to observe a flock of goldfinches. They flutter over the
+plants, cling to the stalks, bend in various attitudes, disperse the
+down, already dry and winged, like themselves, for flight, pick them
+out one by one and swallow them. Then comes a stray cow followed by a
+herd boy. At once the birds cease their labour, pause for a moment,
+and fly off in succession. You observe how lightly and buoyantly
+they cleave the air, each fluttering its little wings, descending in
+a curved line, mounting again, and speeding along. Anon they alight
+in a little thicket of dried weeds, and, in settling, display to the
+delighted eye the beautiful tints of their plumage, as with fluttering
+wings and expanded tail, they hover for a moment to select a landing
+place amid the prickly points of the stout thistles whose heads are now
+bursting with downy-winged seeds.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[18]</span></p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Goldfinch.</em></div>
+
+<p>The song of the goldfinch, which begins about the end of March, is
+very sweet, unassuming, and low—similar to that of the linnet, but
+singularly varied and pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>Now, however, we must give a few instances of this bird’s teachable
+sagacity, which, indeed, are so numerous that it is difficult to make a
+selection.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Syme, in his “British Song Birds,” says, “The goldfinch is easily
+tamed and taught, and its capacity for learning the notes of other
+birds is well known. A few years ago the Sieur Roman exhibited a number
+of trained birds: they were goldfinches, linnets, and canaries. One
+appeared dead, and was held up by the tail or claw without exhibiting
+any signs of life; a second stood on its head with its claws in the
+air; a third imitated a Dutch milkmaid going to market with pails on
+its shoulders; a fourth mimicked a Venetian girl looking out at a
+window; a fifth appeared as a soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel;
+whilst a sixth acted as a cannonier, with a cap on its head, a firelock
+on its shoulder, and a match in its claw, and discharged a small
+cannon. The same bird also acted as if it had been wounded. It was
+wheeled in a barrow as if to convey it to the hospital, after which
+it flew away before the whole company. The seventh turned a kind of
+windmill; and the last bird stood in the midst of some fireworks which
+were discharged all round it, and this without showing the least sign
+of fear.”</p>
+
+<p>Others, as I have said, may be taught to draw up their food and water,
+as from a well, in little buckets. All this is very wonderful, and
+shows great docility in the bird; but I cannot greatly admire it, from
+the secret fear that cruelty or harshness<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[19]</span> may have been used to teach
+them these arts so contrary to their nature. At all events it proves
+what teachable and clever little creatures they are, how readily they
+may be made to understand the will of their master, and how obediently
+and faithfully they act according to it.</p>
+
+<p>Man, however, should always stand as a human Providence to the
+animal world. In him the creatures should ever find their friend and
+protector; and were it so we should then see many an astonishing
+faculty displayed; and birds would then, instead of being the most
+timid of animals, gladden and beautify our daily life by their sweet
+songs, their affectionate regard, and their amusing and imitative
+little arts.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Introduced into Pictures.</em></div>
+
+<p>The early Italian and German painters introduce a goldfinch into their
+beautiful sacred pictures—generally on the ground—hopping at the feet
+of some martyred saint or love-commissioned angel, perhaps from an old
+legend of the bird’s sympathy with the suffering Saviour, or from an
+intuitive sense that the divine spirit of Christianity extends to bird
+and beast as well as to man.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_029"><img src="images/i-029.jpg" alt="bird's nest" width="190" height="200" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[20]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE SONG THRUSH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have here a charming picture of one of the finest and noblest of
+our song-birds—the thrush, throstle, or mavis. The trees are yet
+leafless, but the bird is in the act of building, whilst her mate, on
+the tree-top, pours forth his exquisite melody. The almost completed
+nest, like a richly ornamented bowl, is before us.</p>
+
+<p>This bird belongs to a grandly musical family, being own cousin to the
+missel-thrush and the blackbird, each one having a kindred song, but
+all, at the same time, distinctly characteristic.</p>
+
+<p>The colouring of the thrush is soft and very pleasing; the upper parts
+of a yellowish-brown; the chin, white; the under part of the body,
+grayish white; the throat, breast, and sides of the neck, yellowish,
+thickly spotted with dark brown.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_031"><img src="images/i-031.jpg" alt="" width="478" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">SONG THRUSH AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_20" title="Page 20">Page 20.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The thrush remains with us the whole year, and may occasionally be
+heard singing even in the winter, though April, May, and June are the
+months when he is in fullest song. They pair in March, and by the end
+of that month, or early in April, begin to build. They have several
+broods in the year. The nest, which, as we see, is commodious, is
+placed at no great height from the ground, in a thick bush or hedge,
+and sometimes, also, in a rough bank, amongst bushes and undergrowth.
+They are particularly fond of spruce-fir plantations, building on
+one of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[21]</span>the low, spreading branches, close to the stem. Though the
+structure is so solid and substantial, yet it is built very rapidly;
+indeed, the thrush seems to be wide awake in all its movements; he
+is no loiterer, and does his work well. As a proof of his expedition
+I will mention that a pair of these birds began to build a second,
+perhaps, indeed, it might be a third nest, on a Thursday, June 15; on
+Friday afternoon the nest was finished, and on Saturday morning the
+first egg was laid, though the interior plastering was not then dry. On
+the 21st the hen began to sit, and on the 17th of July the young birds
+were hatched.</p>
+
+<p>The frame-work, so to speak, of the nest is composed of twigs, roots,
+grasses, and moss, the two latter being brought to the outside. Inside
+it is lined with a thin plastering of mud, cow-dung, and rotten wood,
+which is laid on quite smoothly, almost like the glaze on earthenware;
+nor is there an internal covering between this and the eggs. The
+circular form of the nest is as perfect as a bowl shaped upon a
+lathe, and often contracts inwards at the top. The eggs, which are
+generally five in number, are of a bright blue-green, spotted over with
+brownish-black, these spots being more numerous at the larger end.</p>
+
+<p>The food of the thrush is mostly of an animal character, as worms,
+slugs, and snails; and, by seasides, small molluscs, as whelks and
+periwinkles. On all such as are enclosed in shells he exercises his
+ingenuity in a remarkable way. We ourselves lived at one time in an
+old house standing in an old garden where were many ancient trees and
+out-buildings, in the old ivied roots and walls of which congregated
+great quantities of shell-snails. One portion of this garden, which
+enclosed an old,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[22]</span> disused dairy, was a great resort of thrushes, where
+they had, so to speak, their stones of sacrifice, around which lay
+heaps of the broken shells of snails, their victims. I have repeatedly
+watched them at work: hither they brought their snails, and, taking
+their stand by the stone with the snail in their beak, struck it
+repeatedly against the stone, till, the shell being smashed, they
+picked it out as easily as the oyster is taken from its opened shell.
+This may seem easy work with the slender-shelled snail, but the labour
+is considerably greater with hard shell-fish. On this subject the
+intelligent author of “British Birds” says, that many years ago, when
+in the Isle of Harris, he frequently heard a sharp sound as of one
+small stone being struck upon another, the cause of which he, for a
+considerable time, sought for in vain. At length, one day, being in
+search of birds when the tide was out, he heard the well-known click,
+and saw a bird standing between two flat stones, moving its head and
+body alternately up and down, each downward motion being accompanied
+by the sound which had hitherto been so mysterious. Running up to the
+spot, he found a thrush, which, flying off, left a whelk, newly-broken,
+lying amongst fragments of shells lying around the stone.</p>
+
+<p>Thrushes are remarkably clean and neat with regard to their nests,
+suffering no litter or impurity to lie about, and in this way are a
+great example to many untidy people. Their domestic character, too,
+is excellent, the he-bird now and then taking the place of the hen on
+the eggs, and, when not doing so, feeding her as she sits. When the
+young are hatched, the parents may be seen, by those who will watch
+them silently and patiently, frequently stretching out the wings of
+the young as if to<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[23]</span> exercise them, and pruning and trimming their
+feathers. To put their love of cleanliness to the proof, a gentleman,
+a great friend of all birds, had some sticky mud rubbed upon the backs
+of two of the young ones whilst the parents were absent. On their
+return, either by their own keen sense of propriety, or, perhaps, the
+complaint of the young ones, they saw what had happened, and were not
+only greatly disconcerted, but very angry, and instantly set to work to
+clean the little unfortunates, which, strange to say, they managed to
+do by making use of dry earth, which they brought to the nest for that
+purpose. Human intellect could not have suggested a better mode.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How a Day was spent.</em></div>
+
+<p>This same gentleman determined to spend a whole day in discovering how
+the thrushes spent it. Hiding himself, therefore, in a little hut of
+fir boughs, he began his observations in the early morning of the 8th
+of June. At half-past two o’clock, the birds began to feed their brood,
+and in two hours had fed them thirty-six times. It was now half-past
+five, the little birds were all wide awake, and one of them, whilst
+pruning its feathers, lost its balance and fell out of the nest to the
+ground. On this the old ones set up the most doleful lamentations, and
+the gentleman, coming out of his retreat, put the little one back into
+the nest. This kind action, however, wholly disconcerted the parents,
+nor did they again venture to feed their young till an artifice
+of the gentleman led them to suppose that he was gone from their
+neighbourhood. No other event happened to them through the day, and by
+half-past nine o’clock at night, when all went to rest, the young ones
+had been fed two hundred and six times.</p>
+
+<p>Thrushes, however, become occasionally so extremely tame that the
+female will remain upon her eggs and feed her young,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[24]</span> without any
+symptom of alarm, in the close neighbourhood of man. Of this I will
+give an instance from Bishop Stanley’s “History of Birds”—</p>
+
+<p>“A short time ago, in Scotland, some carpenters working in a shed
+adjacent to the house observed a thrush flying in and out, which
+induced them to direct their attention to the cause, when, to their
+surprise, they found a nest commenced amongst the teeth of a harrow,
+which, with other farming tools and implements, was placed upon the
+joists of the shed, just over their heads. The carpenters had arrived
+soon after six o’clock, and at seven, when they found the nest, it was
+in a great state of forwardness, and had evidently been the morning’s
+work of a pair of these indefatigable birds. Their activity throughout
+the day was incessant; and, when the workmen came the next morning,
+they found the female seated in her half-finished mansion, and, when
+she flew off for a short time, it was found that she had laid an egg.
+When all was finished, the he-bird took his share of the labour, and,
+in thirteen days, the young birds were out of their shells, the refuse
+of which the old ones carried away from the spot. All this seems to
+have been carefully observed by the workmen; and it is much to their
+credit that they were so quiet and friendly as to win the confidence of
+the birds.”</p>
+
+<p>The song of the thrush is remarkable for its rich, mellow intonation,
+and for the great variety of its notes.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Wordsworth’s Verses on the Thrush.</em></div>
+
+<p>Unfortunately for the thrush, its exquisite power as a songster makes
+it by no means an unusual prisoner. You are often startled by hearing,
+from the doleful upper window of some dreary court or alley of London,
+or some other large town, an outpouring of joyous, full-souled melody
+from an imprisoned<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">[25]</span> thrush, which, perfect as it is, saddens you, as
+being so wholly out of place. Yet who can say how the song of that bird
+may speak to the soul of many a town-imprisoned passer-by? Wordsworth
+thus touchingly describes an incident of this kind:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Hangs a thrush that sings loud; it has sung for three years:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Poor Susan has passed by the spot, and has heard,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the silence of morning, the song of the bird.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Down which she so often has tripped with her pail,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove’s,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The one only dwelling on earth which she loves.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? she sees</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">She looks, and her heart is in heaven: but they fade—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The mist and the river, the hill, sun, and shade;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And the colours have all passed away from her eyes.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_037"><img src="images/i-037.jpg" alt="" width="480" height="137" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">[26]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE BLACKBIRD.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Blackbird is familiar to us all. It is a thoroughly English bird,
+and, with its cousin the thrush, is not only one of the pleasantest
+features in our English spring and summer landscape, but both figure
+in our old poetry and ballads, as the “merle and the mavis,” “the
+blackbird and the throstle-cock;” for those old poets loved the
+country, and could not speak of the greenwood without the bird.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">When shaws are sheen and fields are fair,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And leaves both large and long,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis merry walk’ng in the green forest</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">To hear the wild birds’ song;</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">The wood merle sings, and will not cease,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Sitting upon a spray;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">The merle and the mavis shout their fill,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">From morn till the set of day.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_039"><img src="images/i-039.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">BLACKBIRD AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_26" title="Page 26">Page 26.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The blackbird takes its name from a very intelligible cause—its
+perfectly black plumage, which, however, is agreeably relieved by the
+bright orange of its bill, the orange circles round its eyes, and its
+yellow feet; though this is peculiar only to the male, nor does he
+assume this distinguishing colour till his second year. The female is
+of a dusky-brown colour.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Notes of the Blackbird.</em></div>
+
+<p>Sometimes the singular variety of a <em>white</em> blackbird occurs,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">[27]</span>which seems to astonish even its fellow birds; the same phenomenon
+also occurs amongst sparrows; a fatal distinction to the poor birds,
+who are in consequence very soon shot.</p>
+
+<p>This bird is one of our finest singers. His notes are solemn and
+flowing, unlike those of the thrush, which are short, quick, and
+extremely varied. The one bird is more lyrical, the other sings in
+a grand epic strain. A friend of ours, deeply versed in bird-lore,
+maintains that the blackbird is oratorical, and sings as if delivering
+an eloquent rhythmical oration.</p>
+
+<p>This bird begins to sing early in the year, and continues his song
+during the whole time that the hen is sitting. Like his relatives, the
+thrush and the missel-thrush, he takes his post on the highest branch
+of a tree, near his nest, so that his song is heard far and wide; and
+in fact, through the whole pleasant spring you hear the voices of these
+three feathered kings of English song constantly filling the woods and
+fields with their melody. The blackbird sings deliciously in rain, even
+during a thunderstorm, with the lightning flashing round him. Indeed,
+both he and the thrush seem to take great delight in summer showers.</p>
+
+<p>The blackbird has a peculiar call, to give notice to his brood of the
+approach of danger; probably, however, it belongs both to male and
+female. Again, there is a third note, very peculiar also, heard only
+in the dusk of evening, and which seems pleasingly in harmony with the
+approaching shadows of night. By this note they call each other to
+roost, in the same way as partridges call each other to assemble at
+night, however far they may be asunder.</p>
+
+<p>The nest of the blackbird is situated variously; most frequently<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[28]</span> in
+the thicker parts of hedges; sometimes in the hollow of a stump or
+amongst the curled and twisted roots of old trees, which, projecting
+from the banks of woods or woodland lanes, wreathed with their trails
+of ivy, afford the most picturesque little hollows for the purpose.
+Again, it may be found under the roof of out-houses or cart-sheds,
+laid on the wall-plate; and very frequently in copses, in the stumps
+of pollard trees, partly concealed by their branches; and is often
+begun before the leaves are on the trees. The nest is composed of dry
+bents, and lined with fine dry grass. The hen generally lays five eggs,
+which are of a dusky bluish-green, thickly covered with black spots;
+altogether very much resembling those of crows, rooks, magpies, and
+that class of birds.</p>
+
+<p>Universal favourite as the blackbird deservedly is, yet, in common with
+the thrush, all gardeners are their enemies from the great liking they
+have for his fruit, especially currants, raspberries, and cherries.
+There is, however, something very amusing, though, at the same time,
+annoying, in the sly way by which they approach these fruits, quite
+aware that they are on a mischievous errand. They steal along, flying
+low and silently, and, if observed, will hide themselves in the nearest
+growth of garden plants, scarlet runners, or Jerusalem artichokes,
+where they remain as still as mice, till they think the human enemy has
+moved off. If, however, instead of letting them skulk quietly in their
+hiding-place, he drives them away, they fly off with a curious note,
+very like a little chuckling laugh of defiance, as if they would say,
+“Ha! ha! we shall soon be back again!” which they very soon are.</p>
+
+<p>But we must not begrudge them their share, though they<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[29]</span> neither have
+dug the ground nor sowed the seed, for very dull and joyless indeed
+would be the garden and the gardener’s toil, and the whole country in
+short, if there were no birds—no blackbirds and thrushes—to gladden
+our hearts, and make the gardens, as well as the woods and fields,
+joyous with their melody. Like all good singers, these birds expect,
+and deserve, good payment.</p>
+
+<p>The blackbird, though naturally unsocial and keeping much to itself,
+is very bold in defence of its young, should they be in danger, or
+attacked by any of the numerous bird-enemies, which abound everywhere,
+especially to those which are in immediate association with man. The
+Rev. J. G. Wood tells us, for instance, that on one occasion a prowling
+cat was forced to make an ignominious retreat before the united onset
+of a pair of blackbirds, on whose young she was about to make an attack.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><cite>Macgillivray’s Account.</cite></div>
+
+<p>Let me now, in conclusion, give a day with a family of blackbirds,
+which I somewhat curtail from Macgillivray.</p>
+
+<p>“On Saturday morning, June 10th, I went into a little hut made of green
+branches, at half-past two in the morning, to see how the blackbirds
+spend the day at home. They lived close by, in a hole in an old wall,
+which one or other of them had occupied for a number of years.</p>
+
+<p>“At a quarter-past three they began to feed their young, which were
+four in number. She was the most industrious in doing so; and when he
+was not feeding, he was singing most deliciously. Towards seven o’clock
+the father-bird induced one of the young ones to fly out after him.
+But this was a little mistake, and, the bird falling, I was obliged to
+help it into its nest again, which made a little family commotion. They
+were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[30]</span> exceedingly tidy about their nest, and when a little rubbish fell
+out they instantly carried it away. At ten o’clock the feeding began
+again vigorously, and continued till two, both parent-birds supplying
+their young almost equally.</p>
+
+<p>“The hut in which I sat was very closely covered; but a little wren
+having alighted on the ground in pursuit of a fly, and seeing one of
+my legs moving, set up a cry of alarm, on which, in the course of a
+few seconds, all the birds in the neighbourhood collected to know what
+was the matter. The blackbird hopped round the hut again and again,
+making every effort to peep in, even alighting on the top within a few
+inches of my head, but not being able to make any discovery, the tumult
+subsided. It was probably considered a false alarm, and the blackbirds
+went on feeding their young till almost four o’clock: and now came the
+great event of the day.</p>
+
+<p>“At about half-past three the mother brought a large worm, four inches
+in length probably, which she gave to one of the young ones, and flew
+away. Shortly afterwards returning, she had the horror of perceiving
+that the worm, instead of being swallowed was sticking in its throat;
+on this she uttered a perfect moan of distress, which immediately
+brought the he-bird, who also saw at a glance what a terrible
+catastrophe was to be feared. Both parents made several efforts to push
+the worm down the throat, but to no purpose, when, strange to say, the
+father discovered the cause of the accident. The outer end of the worm
+had got entangled in the feathers of the breast, and, being held fast,
+could not be swallowed. He carefully disengaged it, and, holding it up
+with his beak, the poor little thing, with a great effort, managed to
+get it down, but was by<span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[31]</span> this time so exhausted that it lay with its
+eyes shut and without moving for the next three hours. The male bird in
+the meantime took his stand upon a tree, a few yards from the nest, and
+poured forth some of his most enchanting notes—a song of rejoicing no
+doubt for the narrow escape from death of one of his family.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Macgillivray’s Day with this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>“From four till seven o’clock both birds again fed their young, after
+which the male bird left these family duties to his mate, and gave
+himself up to incessant singing. At twenty minutes to nine their
+labours ceased, they having then fed their young one hundred and
+thirteen times during the day.</p>
+
+<p>“I observed that before feeding their young they always alighted upon
+a tree and looked round them for a few seconds. Sometimes they brought
+in a quantity of worms and fed their brood alternately; at other times
+they brought one which they gave to only one of them.</p>
+
+<p>“The young birds often trimmed their feathers, and stretched out their
+wings; they also appeared to sleep now and then.</p>
+
+<p>“With the note of alarm which the feathered tribes set up on the
+discovery of their enemies all the different species of the little
+birds seem to be intimately acquainted; for no sooner did a beast or
+bird of prey make its appearance, than they seemed to be anxiously
+concerned about the safety of their families. They would hop from tree
+to tree uttering their doleful lamentations. At one time the blackbirds
+were in an unusual state of excitement and terror, and were attended
+by crowds of their woodland friends. A man and boy, who were working
+in my garden, having heard the noise, ran to see what was the cause of
+it, and on looking into some branches which were lying on<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[32]</span> the ground,
+observed a large weasel stealing slyly along in pursuit of its prey. It
+was, however, driven effectually from the place without doing any harm.
+It is astonishing how soon the young know this intimation of danger;
+for I observed that no sooner did the old ones utter the alarm-cry,
+than they cowered in their nest, and appeared to be in a state of great
+uneasiness.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image_046"><img src="images/i-046.jpg" alt="bird singing" width="408" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[33]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE DIPPER, OR WATER-OUSEL.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Dipper, or Water-ousel, of which Mr. Weir has given us a charming
+and faithful portrait, is very like a wren in form and action, with
+its round body and lively little tail. Its mode of flight, however,
+so nearly resembles the kingfisher that, in some places, the country
+people mistake it for the female of that bird. But it is neither wren
+nor kingfisher, nor yet related to either of them. It is the nice
+little water-ousel, with ways of its own, and a cheerful life of its
+own, and the power of giving pleasure to all lovers of the free country
+which is enriched with an infinite variety of happy, innocent creatures.</p>
+
+<p>The upper part of the head and neck, and the whole back and wings of
+this bird, are of a rusty-brown; but, as each individual feather is
+edged with gray, there is no deadness of colouring. The throat and
+breast are snowy white, which, contrasting so strongly with the rest of
+the body, makes it seem to flash about like a point of light through
+the dark shadows of the scenes it loves to haunt.</p>
+
+<p>I said above that this bird gave pleasure to all lovers of nature. So
+it does, for it is only met with in scenes which are especially beloved
+by poets and painters. Like them, it delights in mountain regions,
+where rocky streams rush along with an unceasing murmur, leaping over
+huge stones, slumbering in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[34]</span> deep, shadowy pools, or lying low between
+rocky walls, in the moist crevices and on the edges of which the wild
+rose flings out its pale green branches, gemmed with flowers, or the
+hardy polypody nods, like a feathery plume. On these streams, with
+their foamy waters and graceful vegetation, you may look for the
+cheerful little water-ousel. He is perfectly in character with the
+scenes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-049"><img src="images/i-049.jpg" alt="" width="473" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">DIPPERS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_34" title="Page 34">Page 34.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Home of the Dipper.</em></div>
+
+<p>And now, supposing that you are happily located for a few weeks in
+summer, either in Scotland or Wales, let me repeat my constant advice
+as regards the study and truest enjoyment of country life and things.
+Go out for several hours; do not be in a hurry; take your book, or
+your sketching, or whatever your favourite occupation may be, if it be
+only a quiet one, and seat yourself by some rocky stream amongst the
+mountains; choose the pleasantest place you know, where the sun can
+reach you, if you need his warmth, and if you do not, where you can yet
+witness the beautiful effects of light and shade. There seat yourself
+quite at your ease, silent and still as though you were a piece of
+rock itself, half screened by that lovely wild rose bush, or tangle of
+bramble, and before long you will most likely see this merry, lively
+little dipper come with his quick, jerking flight, now alighting on
+this stone, now on that, peeping here, and peeping there, as quick as
+light, and snapping up, now a water-beetle, now a tiny fish, and now
+diving down into the stream for a worm that he espies below, or walking
+into the shallows, and there flapping his wings, more for the sheer
+delight of doing so than for anything else. Now he is off and away,
+and, in a moment or two, he is on yonder gray mass of stone, which
+rises up in that dark chasm of waters like a rock in <span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[35]</span>a stormy sea,
+with the rush and roar of the water full above him. Yet there he is
+quite at home, flirting his little tail like a jenny wren, and hopping
+about on his rocky point, as if he could not for the life of him be
+still for a moment. Now listen! That is his song, and a merry little
+song it is, just such a one as you would fancy coming out of his jocund
+little heart; and, see now, he begins his antics. He must be a queer
+little soul! If we could be little dippers like him, and understand
+what his song and all his grimaces are about, we should not so often
+find the time tedious for want of something to do.</p>
+
+<p>We may be sure he is happy, and that he has, in the round of his small
+experience, all that his heart desires. He has this lonely mountain
+stream to hunt in, these leaping, chattering, laughing waters to bear
+him company, all these fantastically heaped-up stones, brought hither
+by furious winter torrents of long ago—that dashing, ever roaring,
+ever foaming waterfall, in the spray of which the summer sunshine
+weaves rainbows. All these wild roses and honeysuckles, all this maiden
+hair, and this broad polypody, which grows golden in autumn, make up
+his little kingdom, in the very heart of which, under a ledge of rock,
+and within sound, almost within the spray of the waterfall, is built
+the curious little nest, very like that of a wren, in which sits the
+hen-bird, the little wife of the dipper, brooding with most unwearied
+love on four or five white eggs, lightly touched with red.</p>
+
+<p>This nest is extremely soft and elastic, sometimes of large size, the
+reason for which one cannot understand. It is generally near to the
+water, and, being kept damp by its situation, is always so fresh,
+looking so like the mass of its immediate surroundings<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[36]</span> as scarcely to
+be discoverable by the quickest eye. When the young are hatched they
+soon go abroad with the parents, and then, instead of the one solitary
+bird, you may see them in little parties of from five to seven going on
+in the same sort of way, only all the merrier because there are more of
+them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-052"><img src="images/i-052.jpg" alt="bird's nest on the ground" width="468" height="400" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[37]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE NIGHTINGALE.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Philomela</span>, or the Nightingale, is the head of the somewhat large
+bird-family of Warblers, and is the most renowned of all feathered
+songsters, though some judges think the garden-ousel exceeds it in
+mellowness, and the thrush in compass of voice, but that, in every
+other respect, it excels them all. For my part, however, I think no
+singing-bird is equal to it; and listening to it when in full song, in
+the stillness of a summer’s night, am ready to say with good old Izaak
+Walton:—</p>
+
+<p>“The nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet
+music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind
+to think that miracles had not ceased. He that at midnight, when the
+weary labourer sleeps securely, should hear, as I have very often
+heard, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural rising and
+falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might well be lifted
+above earth and say, ‘Lord, what music hast Thou provided for the
+saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!’”</p>
+
+<p>In colour, the upper parts of the nightingale are of a rich brown;
+the tail of a reddish tint; the throat and underparts of the body,
+greyish-white; the neck and breast, grey; the bill and legs, light
+brown. Its size is about that of the garden warblers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[38]</span> which it
+resembles in form—being, in fact, one of that family. Thus, the most
+admired of all singers—the subject of poets’ songs and eulogies, the
+bird that people walk far and wide to listen to, of which they talk for
+weeks before it comes, noting down the day of its arrival as if it were
+the Queen or the Queen’s son—is yet nothing but a little insignificant
+brown bird, not to be named with the parrot for plumage, nor with
+our little goldfinch, who always looks as if he had his Sunday suit
+on. But this is a good lesson for us. The little brown nightingale,
+with his little brown wife in the thickety copse, with their simple
+unpretending nest, not built up aloft on the tree branch, but humbly
+at the tree’s root, or even on the very ground itself, may teach us
+that the world’s external show or costliness is not true greatness. The
+world’s best bird-singer might have been as big as an eagle, attired
+in colours of blue and scarlet and orange like the grandest macaw. But
+the great Creator willed that it should not be so—his strength, and
+his furiousness, and his cruel capacity were sufficient for the eagle,
+and his shining vestments for the macaw; whilst the bird to which was
+given the divinest gift of song must be humble and unobtrusive, small
+of size, with no surpassing beauty of plumage, and loving best to hide
+itself in the thick seclusion of the copse in which broods the little
+mother-bird, the very counterpart of himself, upon her olive-coloured
+eggs.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Philomela of Surrey.</em></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a sweet little picture of the
+nightingale at home. Somewhere, not far off, runs the highroad, or it
+may be a pleasant woodland lane leading from one village to another,
+and probably known as “Nightingale-lane,” and traversed night after
+night by rich and poor, learned and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[39]</span> unlearned, to listen to the
+bird. In our own neighbourhood we have a “Nightingale-lane,” with its
+thickety copses on either hand, its young oaks and Spanish chestnuts
+shooting upwards, and tangles of wild roses and thick masses of
+brambles throwing their long sprays over old, mossy, and ivied stumps
+of trees, cut or blown down in the last generation—little pools
+and water courses here and there, with their many-coloured mosses
+and springing rushes—a very paradise for birds. This is in Surrey,
+and Surrey nightingales, it is said, are the finest that sing. With
+this comes the saddest part of the story. Bird-catchers follow the
+nightingale, and, once in his hands, farewell to the pleasant copse
+with the young oaks and Spanish chestnuts, the wild rose tangles, the
+little bosky hollow at the old tree root, in one of which the little
+nest is built and the little wife broods on her eggs!</p>
+
+<p>Generally, however, the unhappy bird, if he be caught, is taken soon
+after his arrival in this country; for nightingales are migratory, and
+arrive with us about the middle of April. The male bird comes about
+a fortnight before the female, and begins to sing in his loneliness
+a song of salutation—a sweet song, which expresses, with a tender
+yearning, his desire for her companionship. Birds taken at this time,
+before the mate has arrived, and whilst he is only singing to call and
+welcome her, are said still to sing on through the summer in the hope,
+long-deferred, that she may yet come. He will not give her up though
+he is no longer in the freedom of the wood, so he sings and sings, and
+if he live over the winter, he will sing the same song the following
+spring, for the want is again in his heart. He cannot believe but that
+she will still come. The cruel bird-catchers,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[40]</span> therefore, try all their
+arts to take him in this early stage of his visit to us. Should he be
+taken later, when he is mated, and, as we see him in our picture, with
+all the wealth of his little life around him, he cannot sing long. How
+should he—in a narrow cage and dingy street of London or some other
+great town—perhaps with his eyes put out—for his cruel captor fancies
+he sings best if blind? He may sing, perhaps, for a while, thinking
+that he can wake himself out of this dreadful dream of captivity,
+darkness, and solitude. But it is no dream; the terrible reality at
+length comes upon him, and before the summer is over he dies of a
+broken heart.</p>
+
+<p>It is a curious fact that the nightingale confines itself, without
+apparent reason, to certain countries and to certain parts of England.
+For instance, though it visits Sweden, and even the temperate parts
+of Russia, it is not met with in Scotland, North Wales, nor Ireland,
+neither is it found in any of our northern counties excepting
+Yorkshire, and there only in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. Neither
+is it known in the south-western counties, as Cornwall and Devonshire.
+It is supposed to migrate during the winter into Egypt and Syria. It
+has been seen amongst the willows of Jordan and the olive trees of
+Judea, but we have not, to our knowledge, any direct mention of it in
+the Scriptures, though Solomon no doubt had it in his thoughts, in his
+sweet description of the spring—“Lo, the winter is past, the rain is
+over and gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing
+of birds is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.” A
+recent traveller in Syria tells me that she heard nightingales singing
+at four o’clock one morning in April of last year in the lofty regions
+of the Lebanon.</p>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-057"><img src="images/i-057.jpg" alt="" width="503" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">NIGHTINGALES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_40" title="Page 40">Page 40.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">[41]</span></p>
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Sir John Sinclair’s Attempt.</em></div>
+
+<p>There have been various attempts to introduce the nightingale into such
+parts of this country as it has not yet frequented; for instance, a
+gentleman of Gower, a sea-side district of Glamorganshire, the climate
+of which is remarkably mild, procured a number of young birds from
+Norfolk and Surrey, hoping that they would find themselves so much at
+home in the beautiful woods there as to return the following year. But
+none came. Again, as regards Scotland, Sir John Sinclair purchased a
+large number of nightingales’ eggs, at a shilling each, and employed
+several men to place them carefully in robins’ nests to be hatched. So
+far all succeeded well. The foster-mothers reared the nightingales,
+which, when full-fledged, flew about as if quite at home. But when
+September came, the usual month for the migration of the nightingale,
+the mysterious impulse awoke in the hearts of the young strangers, and,
+obeying it, they suddenly disappeared and never after returned.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Harrison Weir has given us a very accurate drawing of the
+nightingale’s nest, which is slight and somewhat fragile in
+construction, made of withered leaves—mostly of oak—and lined
+with dry grass. The author of “British Birds” describes one in his
+possession as composed of slips of the inner bark of willow, mixed with
+the leaves of the lime and the elm, lined with fibrous roots, grass,
+and a few hairs; but whatever the materials used may be, the effect
+produced is exactly the same.</p>
+
+<p>In concluding our little chapter on this bird, I would mention that
+in the Turkish cemeteries, which, from the old custom of planting a
+cypress at the head and foot of every grave, have now become cypress
+woods, nightingales abound, it having been also an old custom of love
+to keep these birds on every grave.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">[42]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE SKYLARK.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Skylark, that beautiful singer, which carries its joy up to the
+very gates of heaven, as it were, has inspired more poets to sing about
+it than any other bird living.</p>
+
+<p>Wordsworth says, as in an ecstasy of delight:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Up with me! up with me into the clouds!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">For thy song, lark, is strong;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Up with me! up with me into the clouds!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">Singing, singing.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">With clouds and sky about me ringing,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Lift me, guide me till I find</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">That spot that seems so to my mind.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Shelley, in an ode which expresses the bird’s ecstasy of song, also
+thus addresses it, in a strain of sadness peculiar to himself:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Hail to thee, blithe spirit!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">Bird, thou never wert—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">That from heaven, or near it,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">Pourest thy full heart</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">In profuse strains of unpremeditated art!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Higher, still, and higher</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">From the earth thou springest,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Like a cloud of fire;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">The deep blue thou wingest,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And singing still doth soar, and soaring ever singest!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">
+
+<hr class="tb" /></div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">[43]</span></p>  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Better than all measures</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">Of delightful sound,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Better than all treasures</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">That in books are found,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Teach me half the gladness</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">That thy brain must know,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Such harmonious madness</div>
+    <div class="verse indent10">From my lips should flow;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">The world should listen then, as I am listening now.</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>James Hogg’s Verses.</em></div>
+
+<p>James Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, who had listened to the bird with
+delight on the Scottish hills, thus sings of it:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Bird of the wilderness,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Blithesome and cumberless,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sweet is thy matin o’er moorland and lea!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Emblem of happiness,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Blest is thy dwelling-place—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Wild is thy lay, and loud;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Far in the downy cloud</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Love gives it energy, love gave it birth.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Where on thy dewy wing,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Where art thou journeying?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">O’er fell and fountain sheen,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">O’er moor and mountain green,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">O’er the red streamer that heralds the day;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Over the cloudlet dim,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Over the rainbow’s rim,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Musical cherub, soar, singing away!</div>
+  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent8">Then when the gloaming comes,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Low in the heather blooms,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Emblem of happiness,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Blest is thy dwelling-place—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent8">Oh, to abide in the desert with thee!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[44]</span></p>
+<p>But we must not forget the earthly life of the bird in all these sweet
+songs about him.</p>
+
+<p>The plumage of the skylark is brown, in various shades; the fore-part
+of the neck, reddish-white, spotted with brown; the breast and under
+part of the body, yellowish-white. Its feet are peculiar, being
+furnished with an extraordinarily long hind claw, the purpose of which
+has puzzled many naturalists. But whatever nature intended it for, the
+bird has been known to make use of it for a purpose which cannot fail
+to interest us and call forth our admiration. This shall be presently
+explained. The nest is built on the ground, either between two clods
+of earth, in the deep foot-print of cattle, or some other small hollow
+suitable for the purpose, and is composed of dry grass, hair, and
+leaves; the hair is mostly used for the lining. Here the mother-bird
+lays four or five eggs of pale sepia colour, with spots and markings
+of darker hue. She has generally two broods in the year, and commences
+sitting in May. The he-lark begins to sing early in the spring.
+Bewick says, “He rises from the neighbourhood of the nest almost
+perpendicularly in the air, by successive springs, and hovers at a
+vast height. His descent, on the contrary, is in an oblique direction,
+unless he is threatened by birds of prey, or attracted by his mate, and
+on these occasions he drops like a stone.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-063"><img src="images/i-063.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">SKYLARKS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_44" title="Page 44">Page 44.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>With regard to his ascent, I must, however, add that it is in a spiral
+direction, and that what Bewick represents as springs are his sudden
+spiral flights after pausing to sing. Another peculiarity must be
+mentioned: all his bones are hollow, and he can inflate them with air
+from his lungs, so that he becomes, as it were, a little balloon, which
+accounts for the buoyancy <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[45]</span>with which he ascends, and the length of
+time he can support himself in the air: often for an hour at a time.
+Still more extraordinary is the wonderful power and reach of his voice,
+for while, probably, the seven hundred or a thousand voices of the
+grand chorus of an oratorio would fail to fill the vast spaces of the
+atmosphere, it can be done by this glorious little songster, which,
+mounting upwards, makes itself heard, without effort, when it can be
+seen no longer.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Solicitude for its Young.</em></div>
+
+<p>The attachment of the parents to their young is very great, and has
+been seen to exhibit itself in a remarkable manner.</p>
+
+<p>The nest being placed on the open-ground—often pasture, or in a field
+of mowing grass—it is very liable to be disturbed; many, therefore,
+are the instances of the bird’s tender solicitude either for the young
+or for its eggs, one of which I will give from Mr. Jesse. “In case of
+alarm,” he says, “either by cattle grazing near the nest, or by the
+approach of the mower, the parent-birds remove their eggs, by means
+of their long claws, to a place of greater security, and this I have
+observed to be affected in a very short space of time.” He says that
+when one of his mowers first told him of this fact he could scarcely
+believe it, but that he afterwards saw it himself, and that he regarded
+it only as another proof of the affection which these birds show their
+offspring. Instances are also on record of larks removing their young
+by carrying them on their backs: in one case the young were thus
+removed from a place of danger into a field of standing corn. But
+however successful the poor birds may be in removing their eggs, they
+are not always so with regard to their young, as Mr. Yarrell relates.
+An instance came under his notice, in which the little fledgeling
+proved too<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[46]</span> heavy for the parent to carry, and, being dropped from an
+height of about thirty feet, was killed in the fall.</p>
+
+<p>Of all captive birds, none grieves me more than the skylark. Its
+impulse is to soar, which is impossible in the narrow spaces of a cage;
+and in this unhappy condition, when seized by the impulse of song, he
+flings himself upwards, and is dashed down again by its cruel barriers.
+For this reason the top of the lark’s cage is always bedded with green
+baize to prevent his injuring himself. In the freedom of nature he is
+the joyous minstrel of liberty and love, carrying upwards, and sending
+down from above, his buoyant song, which seems to fall down through the
+golden sunshine like a flood of sparkling melody.</p>
+
+<p>I am not aware of the height to which the lark soars, but it must be
+very great, as he becomes diminished to a mere speck, almost invisible
+in the blaze of light. Yet, high as he may soar, he never loses the
+consciousness of the little mate and the nestlings below: but their
+first cry of danger or anxiety, though the cry may be scarce audible
+to the human ear, thrills up aloft to the singer, and he comes down
+with a direct arrow-like flight, whilst otherwise his descent is more
+leisurely, and said by some to be in the direct spiral line of his
+ascent.</p>
+
+<p>Larks, unfortunately for themselves, are considered very fine eating.
+Immense numbers of them are killed for the table, not only on the
+continent, but in England. People cry shame on the Roman epicure,
+Lucullus, dining on a stew of nightingales’ tongue, nearly two thousand
+years ago, and no more can I reconcile to myself the daily feasting on
+these lovely little songsters, which may be delicate eating, but are no
+less God’s gifts to gladden and beautify the earth.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[47]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE LINNET.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">Linnets</span> are a branch of a larger family of finches, all very familiar
+to us. They are cousins, also, to the dear, impudent sparrows, and the
+pretty siskin or aberdevines.</p>
+
+<p>The linnets are all compactly and stoutly built, with short necks and
+good sized heads, with short, strong, pointed bills, made for the ready
+picking up of seed and grain, on which they live. Most of them have two
+broods in the season, and they build a bulky, deep, and compact nest,
+just in accordance with their character and figure; but, though all
+linnet-nests have a general resemblance of form, they vary more or less
+in the material used.</p>
+
+<p>Linnets change their plumage once a year, and have a much more spruce
+and brilliant appearance when they have their new summer suits on. They
+are numerous in all parts of the country, and, excepting in the season
+when they have young, congregate in flocks, and in winter are attracted
+to the neighbourhood of man, finding much of their food in farm-yards,
+and amongst stacks.</p>
+
+<p>The linnet of our picture is the greater red-pole—one of four brothers
+of the linnet family—and is the largest of the four; the others
+are the twit or mountain-linnet, the mealy-linnet, and the lesser
+red-pole—the smallest of the four—all<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[48]</span> very much alike, and easily
+mistaken for each other. The name red-pole is given from the bright
+crimson spot on their heads—<em>pole</em> or <em>poll</em> being the old
+Saxon word for head. The back of our linnet’s head and the sides of his
+neck are of dingy ash-colour, his back of a warm brown tint, his wings
+black, his throat of a dull white, spotted with brown, his breast a
+brilliant red, and the under part of his body a dingy white.</p>
+
+<p>The linnet, amongst singing birds, is what a song writer is amongst
+poets. He is not a grand singer, like the blackbird or the thrush,
+the missel-thrush or the wood-lark, all of which seem to have an epic
+story in their songs, nor, of course, like the skylark, singing up to
+the gates of heaven, or the nightingale, that chief psalmist of all
+bird singers. But, though much humbler than any of these, he is a sweet
+and pleasant melodist; a singer of charming little songs, full of the
+delight of summer, the freshness of open heaths, with their fragrant
+gorse, or of the Scottish brae, with its “bonnie broom,” also in golden
+blossom. His are unpretending little songs of intense enjoyment, simple
+thanksgivings for the pleasures of life, for the little brown hen-bird,
+who has not a bit of scarlet in her plumage, and who sits in her snug
+nest on her fine little white eggs, with their circle of freckles and
+brown spots at the thicker end, always alike, a sweet, patient mother,
+waiting for the time when the young ones will come into life from that
+delicate shell-covering, blind at first, though slightly clothed in
+greyish-brown—five little linnets gaping for food.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-069"><img src="images/i-069.jpg" alt="" width="479" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">LINNETS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_48" title="Page 48">Page 48.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The linnet mostly builds its nest in low bushes, the furze being its
+favourite resort; it is constructed outside of dry grass, roots, and
+moss, and lined with hair and wool. We have it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[49]</span>here in our picture;
+for our friend, Mr. Harrison Weir, always faithful in his transcripts
+of nature, has an eye, also, for beauty.</p>
+
+<p>Round the nest, as you see, blossoms the yellow furze, and round it too
+rises a <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chevaux de frise</i> of furze spines, green and tender to
+look at, but sharp as needles. Yes, here on this furzy common, and on
+hundreds of others all over this happy land, and on hill sides, with
+the snowy hawthorn and the pink-blossomed crab-tree above them, and,
+below, the mossy banks gemmed with pale-yellow primroses, are thousands
+of linnet nests and father-linnets, singing for very joy of life and
+spring, and for the summer which is before them. And as they sing, the
+man ploughing in the fields hard-by, and the little lad leading the
+horses, hear the song, and though he may say nothing about it, the man
+thinks, and wonders that the birds sing just as sweetly now as when
+he was young; and the lad thinks how pleasant it is, forgetting the
+while that he is tired, and, whistling something like a linnet-tune,
+impresses it on his memory, to be recalled with a tender sentiment
+years hence when he is a man, toiling perhaps in Australia or Canada;
+or, it may be, to speak to him like a guardian angel in some time of
+trial or temptation, and bring him back to the innocence of boyhood and
+to his God.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Bishop Huntley’s Anecdote.</em></div>
+
+<p>Our picture shows us the fledgeling brood of the linnet, and the
+parent-bird feeding them. The attachment of this bird to its young is
+very great. Bishop Huntley, in his “History of Birds,” gives us the
+following anecdote in proof of it:—</p>
+
+<p>“A linnet’s nest, containing four young ones, was found by some
+children, and carried home with the intention of rearing and taming
+them. The old ones, attracted by their chirping,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[50]</span> fluttered round the
+children till they reached home, when the nest was carried up stairs
+and placed in the nursery-window. The old birds soon approached the
+nest and fed the young. This being observed, the nest was afterwards
+placed on a table in the middle of the room, the window being left
+open, when the parents came in and fed their young as before. Still
+farther to try their attachment, the nest was then placed in a cage,
+but still the old birds returned with food, and towards evening
+actually perched on the cage, regardless of the noise made by several
+children. So it went on for several days, when, unfortunately, the
+cage, having been set outside the window, was exposed to a violent
+shower of rain, and the little brood was drowned in the nest. The poor
+parent-birds continued hovering round the house, and looking wistfully
+in at the window for several days, and then disappeared altogether.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-072"><img src="images/i-072.jpg" alt="A Linnet on a branch" width="233" height="200" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[51]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE PEEWIT.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Peewit, lapwing, or plover, belongs to the naturalist family of
+<em>Gallatores</em> or Waders, all of which are furnished with strong
+legs and feet for walking, whilst all which inhabit watery places, or
+feed their young amongst the waves, have legs sufficiently long to
+enable them to wade; whence comes the family name.</p>
+
+<p>The peewit, or lapwing, is a very interesting bird, from its peculiar
+character and habits. Its plumage is handsome; the upper part of the
+body of a rich green, with metallic reflections; the sides of the neck
+and base of the tail of a pure white; the tail is black; so is the
+top of the head, which is furnished with a long, painted crest, lying
+backwards, but which can be raised at pleasure. In length the bird is
+about a foot.</p>
+
+<p>The peewit lives in all parts of this country, and furnishes one of
+the pleasantly peculiar features of open sea-shores and wide moorland
+wastes, in the solitudes of which, its incessant, plaintive cry has an
+especially befitting sound, like the very spirit of the scene, moaning
+in unison with the waves, and wailing over the wide melancholy of the
+waste. Nevertheless, the peewit is not in itself mournful, for it is
+a particularly lively and active bird, sporting and frolicking in the
+air with its fellows, now whirling round and round, and now ascending
+to a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">[52]</span> height on untiring wing; then down again, running along the
+ground, and leaping about from spot to spot as if for very amusement.</p>
+
+<p>It is, however, with all its agility, a very untidy nest-maker; in
+fact it makes no better nest than a few dry bents scraped together in
+a shallow hole, like a rude saucer or dish, in which she can lay her
+eggs—always four in number. But though taking so little trouble about
+her nest, she is always careful to lay the narrow ends of her eggs in
+the centre, as is shown in the picture, though as yet there are but
+three. A fourth, however, will soon come to complete the cross-like
+figure, after which she will begin to sit.</p>
+
+<p>These eggs, under the name of plovers’ eggs, are in great request as
+luxuries for the breakfast-table, and it may be thought that laid thus
+openly on the bare earth they are very easily found. It is not so,
+however, for they look so much like the ground itself, so like little
+bits of moorland earth or old sea-side stone, that it is difficult to
+distinguish them. But in proportion as the bird makes so insufficient
+and unguarded a nest, so all the greater is the anxiety, both of
+herself and her mate, about the eggs. Hence, whilst she is sitting, he
+exercises all kinds of little arts to entice away every intruder from
+the nest, wheeling round and round in the air near him, so as to fix
+his attention, screaming mournfully his incessant <em>peewit</em> till he
+has drawn him ever further and further from the point of his anxiety
+and love.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-075"><img src="images/i-075.jpg" alt="" width="481" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">PEEWITS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_52" title="Page 52">Page 52.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Stratagems of the Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>The little quartette brood, which are covered with down when hatched,
+begin to run almost as soon as they leave the shell, and then the poor
+mother-bird has to exercise all her little <span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">[53]</span>arts also—and indeed the
+care and solicitude of both parents is wonderful. Suppose, now, the
+little helpless group is out running here and there as merry as life
+can make them, and a man, a boy, or a dog, or perhaps all three, are
+seen approaching. At once the little birds squat close to the earth,
+so that they become almost invisible, and the parent-birds are on the
+alert, whirling round and round the disturber, angry and troubled,
+wailing and crying their doleful <em>peewit</em> cry, drawing them ever
+further and further away from the brood. Should, however, the artifice
+not succeed, and the terrible intruder still obstinately advance in
+the direction of the young, they try a new artifice; drop to the
+ground, and, running along in the opposite course, pretend lameness,
+tumbling feebly along in the most artful manner, thus apparently
+offering the easiest and most tempting prey, till, having safely lured
+away the enemy, they rise at once into the air, screaming again their
+<em>peewit</em>, but now as if laughing over their accomplished scheme.</p>
+
+<p>The young, which are hatched in April, are in full plumage by the end
+of July, when the birds assemble in flocks, and, leaving the sea-shore,
+or the marshy moorland, betake themselves to downs and sheep-walks,
+where they soon become fat, and are said to be excellent eating.
+Happily, however, for them, they are not in as much request for the
+table as they were in former times. Thus we find in an ancient book of
+housekeeping expenses, called “The Northumberland Household-book,” that
+they are entered under the name of <em>Wypes</em>, and charged one penny
+each; and that they were then considered a first-rate dish is proved
+by their being entered as forming a part of “his lordship’s own mess,”
+or portion of food; <em>mess</em><span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[54]</span> being so used in those days—about
+the time, probably, when the Bible was translated into English. Thus
+we find in the beautiful history of Joseph and his brethren, “He sent
+messes to them, but Benjamin’s mess was five times as much as any of
+theirs.”</p>
+
+<p>Here I would remark, on the old name of <em>Wypes</em> for this
+bird, that country-people in the midland counties still call them
+<em>pie-wypes</em>.</p>
+
+<p>But now again to our birds. The peewit, like the gull, may easily be
+tamed to live in gardens, where it is not only useful by ridding them
+of worms, slugs, and other troublesome creatures, but is very amusing,
+from its quaint, odd ways. Bewick tells us of one so kept by the Rev.
+J. Carlisle, Vicar of Newcastle, which I am sure will interest my
+readers.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Winter Visitor.</em></div>
+
+<p>He says two of these birds were given to Mr. Carlisle, and placed
+in his garden, where one soon died; the other continued to pick up
+such food as the place afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual
+supply. Necessity then compelled it to come nearer the house, by which
+it gradually became accustomed to what went forward, as well as to
+the various members of the family. At length a servant, when she had
+occasion to go into the back-kitchen with a light, observed that the
+lapwing always uttered his cry of <em>peewit</em> to gain admittance.
+He soon grew familiar; as the winter advanced, he approached as far
+as the kitchen, but with much caution, as that part of the house was
+generally inhabited by a dog and a cat, whose friendship the lapwing
+at length gained so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort
+to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and
+night with his two associates, sitting<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[55]</span> close to them, and partaking
+of the comforts of a warm fireside. As soon as spring appeared he
+betook himself to the garden, but again, at the approach of winter,
+had recourse to his old shelter and his old friends, who received him
+very cordially. But his being favoured by them did not prevent his
+taking great liberties with them; he would frequently amuse himself
+with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of, and
+whilst he was thus employed he showed marks of the greatest indignation
+if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died, poor
+fellow, in the asylum he had chosen, by being choked with something
+which he had picked up from the floor. During his confinement he
+acquired an artificial taste as regarded his food, and preferred crumbs
+of bread to anything else.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-079"><img src="images/i-079.jpg" alt="Peewit standing on a rock." width="565" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[56]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE HOUSE-MARTIN, OR WINDOW-SWALLOW.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">During</span> our winter, swallows inhabit warm tropical countries, migrating
+northwards with the first approaches of summer. They are usually seen
+with us from the 13th to the 20th of April, and are useful from the
+first day of their arrival, by clearing the air of insects, which they
+take on the wing; indeed, they may be said to live almost wholly on the
+wing, and, except when collecting mud for their nests, are seldom seen
+to alight, and, in drinking, dip down to the water as they skim over it
+on rapid wing.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-081"><img src="images/i-081.jpg" alt="" width="485" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">HOUSE-MARTINS AND NESTS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_56" title="Page 56">Page 56.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>We have three kinds of swallows in England: the chimney-swallow, the
+house-martin, and the sand-martin, of which I shall have something to
+say in due course. The chimney-swallow and house-martin are especially
+worthy of the affectionate regard of man; for they love his society,
+build around his dwelling, destroy nothing that he values, have no
+appetite for his fruits; they live harmoniously amongst themselves,
+and have no other disposition than that of cheerfulness, unwearying
+industry and perseverance, and the most devoted parental affection.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Weir has given us a lively picture of swallow-life—four nests
+grouped together on a house-side: more there probably are; but there
+are as many as we can manage with; indeed we <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[57]</span>will presently confine
+our attention to one single nest, and, by so doing, I flatter myself
+that I shall win your admiration for these birds, and that you will
+agree with me in thinking that if we all, men and women, boys and
+girls, had only their persevering spirit, and their courage under
+adversity, there would not be so much unsuccess, either at school or in
+life, as is now, too often, the case.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Nests on Traquair House.</em></div>
+
+<p>Some people are very fond of having martins about their houses, under
+their eaves, and even in the corners of their windows. The Earl of
+Traquair was one of these; he was, indeed, a great lover of all kinds
+of birds, and all were protected on his premises. In the autumn of
+1839, there were no less than one hundred and three martins’ nests on
+Traquair House—which is a very fine old place—besides several which
+had been deserted, injured, or taken possession of by sparrows, which
+is a very unwarrantable liberty taken by these birds.</p>
+
+<p>From six to twenty days are required to build a martin’s nest. If all
+goes on well it may be finished in the shorter time.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now see how the birds set about building. Here are several
+nests in our picture; and turning to the pages of Macgillivray’s
+“British Birds,” I shall find exactly the information we need. I will,
+therefore, extract freely from this interesting writer, that my young
+readers may be as grateful to him as I am myself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Domestic Life of a Pair.</em></div>
+
+<p>Again turning to our picture, we find four nests. “A party of eight
+martins arrived here on the 1st of May. As this was quite a new
+location, they spent the whole day in examining the eaves of the house,
+the corners of the windows, and the out-buildings. By the following
+morning the question was settled, and they had, as you see, fixed
+upon a high wall with a slate<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[58]</span> coping, and an eastern aspect, and at
+once commenced making a general foundation for their nests. Suitable
+materials are procured from the banks of an adjoining pond, or a puddle
+in the lane. Let us go down and see them. Here they come, sailing
+placidly over the tree-tops; now they descend so as almost to sweep the
+surface of the pond; some of them alight at once, others skim round, as
+if borne away by a brisk wind. Those that have alighted walk about with
+short steps, looking round for materials. Some seem not to find the mud
+suitable, but seize on a piece of straw, or grass, which, tempering
+in the mud, they then fly off with. Returning now to the building, we
+see one using its tail planted against the wall, or against the nest,
+if sufficiently advanced, as a support, deposit the material it has
+brought by giving its head a wriggling motion, so that the mud slides
+gently into the crevices of yesterday’s work; then he retouches the
+whole. See, one has now arrived with his supply before the other has
+finished: he is impatient to disburden himself, and wants to drive
+off the worker, who rather snappishly retorts, and he, poor fellow,
+goes off for a while with the mud sticking to his bill. Now she has
+finished; there is room for him, and he goes back again and works hard
+in his turn. They never alight on the nest without twittering. At noon,
+if the weather be hot, they betake themselves to the fields, or, after
+a dip in the pond, sun themselves on the house-top for half-an-hour or
+so. Then they will hawk about for food, and after awhile one of them
+may, perhaps, return and give another touch or two to the work, or seat
+herself in the nest to consolidate the materials. But if cold, wet, or
+windy, they keep away. What they do with themselves I know not; but
+as soon as it clears<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[59]</span> up, they are at work again. At the beginning of
+their building, they seem to have no objection to leave it for a whole
+day; but as it advances, they become more interested or anxious, and
+one or both will sit in it all night, even though the weather be bad.”</p>
+
+<p>So much for the building of these four nests of our picture; and now
+I will bespeak your attention to a little narrative of the joys and
+sorrows of the domestic life of a pair of martins, which, we will
+suppose, belong also to our group.</p>
+
+<p>“The building began on the 1st of May, at daybreak. But the weather was
+very much against them, being cold and stormy, and it was the 18th of
+the month before it was finished.</p>
+
+<p>“Seeing their labours thus brought to a close, one could not help
+wishing, considering how much it had cost, that the nest might last
+them for many years. But on the 23rd of June, during a heavy fall of
+thunder rain, almost the entire nest was washed to the ground, together
+with the young birds which it contained. A short time before the
+catastrophe, the old birds were observed hovering about, and expressing
+great uneasiness. Almost immediately after it happened they left the
+place, but returned the following day, and spent it in flying about and
+examining the angle of the wall.</p>
+
+<p>“Next morning they commenced repairing the nest. In three days they had
+made great progress; but again rain fell, and their work was stayed.
+On the 30th, they advanced rapidly, and both remained sitting on the
+nest all night. The next day it was finished; and now they began to
+rejoice: they twittered all the evening till it was dark, now and then
+pruning each other’s heads, as, seated side by side, they prepared to
+spend the dark hours in the nest. Eggs were soon laid again, but,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[60]</span>
+sad to say, on the morning of the 18th of July, again, during a great
+storm of wind and rain, the upper wall fell, carrying with it one
+of the eggs. The old birds again fluttered about, uttering the most
+plaintive cries, and early the next morning began to repair the damage,
+though it rained heavily all day. Part of the lining hanging over the
+side was incorporated with the new layers of mud. The urgency of the
+case was such, that they were obliged to work during the bad weather.
+Throughout the day one bird sat on the nest, whilst the other laboured
+assiduously. Kindly was he welcomed by his mate, who sometimes, during
+his absence, nibbled and retouched the materials which he had just
+deposited. In a few days it was finished, the weather became settled,
+the young were hatched, and all went well with them.</p>
+
+<p>“Sometimes when the nests are destroyed, the birds, instead of
+attempting to repair the damage, forsake the neighbourhood, as if
+wholly disheartened. Nothing can be more distressing to them than to
+lose their young. In the storm of which I have just spoken, another
+martin’s nest was washed down with unfledged young in it. These were
+placed on some cotton wool in a basket, covered with a sheet of
+brown paper, in an open window, facing the wall. During that day and
+the following, the parents took no notice of them, and their kind
+human protector fed them with house-flies. That evening he tried an
+experiment. He gently placed the young ones in a nest of that same
+window, where were other young. It was then about eight o’clock in the
+evening; the rain was falling heavily, and no sound was heard save the
+<em>cheep, cheep</em>, of the young birds, and the dashing of the storm
+against the window-glass. A minute elapsed,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[61]</span> when forth rushed the
+parents shrieking their alarm notes, and, again and again wheeled up to
+the nest, until at last they drifted away in the storm. He watched them
+till they disappeared about half-past-nine. During all this time they
+only twice summoned courage to look into the nest. Next morning I was
+rejoiced to see them attending assiduously to the young ones.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Feeding of the Young.</em></div>
+
+<p>And now, turning again to our group of four nests on the walls,
+supposing it be the month of July, every one of them with its
+fledgeling brood sitting with gaping mouths, ever ready for food, you
+may, perhaps, like to know how many meals are carried up to them in the
+course of the day. If, then, the parents began to feed them at about
+five in the morning, and left a little before eight at night, they
+would feed them, at the lowest calculation, about a thousand times.</p>
+
+<p>With all this feeding and care-taking, the young ones, as the summer
+goes on, are full-fledged, and have grown so plump and large that the
+nest is quite too small for them; therefore, they must turn out into
+the world, and begin life for themselves.</p>
+
+<p>It is now a fine, brisk, August morning, and at about eight o’clock,
+you can see, if you look up at the nests, how the old birds come
+dashing up to them quite in an excited way, making short curves in the
+air, and repeating a note which says, as plain as a bird can speak,</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">This is the day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">You must away!</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">What are wings made for, if not to fly?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Cheep, cheep,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Now for a leap!—</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Father and mother and neighbours are by!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[62]</span></p>
+<p>This flying away from the nest is a great event in swallow-life, as you
+may well believe. Let us therefore now direct our attention to one nest
+in particular, in which are only two young ones—a very small family;
+but what happens here is occurring all round us.</p>
+
+<p>One of these little ones balances itself at the entrance, looking
+timidly into the void, and, having considered the risk for awhile,
+allows its fellow to take its place.</p>
+
+<p>During all this time, the parents keep driving about, within a few feet
+of the entrance, and endeavour, by many winning gestures, to induce
+their charge to follow them. The second bird also, after sitting for
+some time, as if distrustful of its powers, retires, and the first
+again appears. Opening and shutting his wings, and often half inclined
+again to retire, he, at length, summons up all his resolution, springs
+from the nest, and, with his self-taught pinions, cleaves the air. He
+and his parents, who are in ecstasies, return to the nest, and the
+second young one presently musters courage and joins them. And now
+begins a day of real enjoyment; they sport chiefly about the tree-tops
+till seven in the evening, when all re-enter the nest.</p>
+
+<p>In several instances I have seen the neighbours add their inducements
+to those of the parents, when the young were too timid to leave their
+home. If the happy day prove fine, they seldom return to the nest
+till sunset; if otherwise, they will come back two or three times. On
+one occasion, when the young were ready to fly, but unwilling to take
+the first leap, the parents had recourse to a little stratagem, both
+ingenious and natural. The he-bird held out a fly at about four inches
+from the entrance<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[63]</span> to the nest. In attempting to take hold of it, they
+again and again nearly lost their balance. On another occasion, the
+mother bird, trying this plan to no purpose, seemed to lose patience,
+and seizing one of them by the lower mandible, with the claw of her
+right foot, whilst it was gaping for food, tried to pull it out of the
+nest, to which, however, it clung like a squirrel. But the young, every
+one of them, fly in time, and a right joyous holiday they all have
+together.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Autumn Migration.</em></div>
+
+<p>So the summer comes to an end; and towards the middle of September,
+the great family cares being over, and the young having attained
+to an age capable of undertaking the fatigues of migration, that
+mysterious impulse, strong as life itself, and probably affecting
+them like some sickness—the necessity to exchange one country and
+climate for another—comes upon them. Under this influence, they
+congregate together in immense numbers, every neighbourhood seeming
+to have its place of assembly—the roofs of lofty buildings, or the
+leafless boughs of old trees: here they meet, not only to discuss the
+great undertaking, but to have a right merry time together—a time
+of luxurious idleness, lively chatterings, singing in chorus their
+everlasting and musical <em>cheep, cheep</em>, eating and drinking, and
+making ready for the journey before them.</p>
+
+<p>At length the moment of departure is come, and at a given signal the
+whole party rises. Twittering and singing, and bidding a long farewell
+to the scenes of their summer life, they fly off in a body, perhaps, if
+coming from Scotland, or the north of England, to rest yet a few weeks
+in the warmer southern counties; after which, a general departure takes
+place to the sunny lands of Africa.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[64]</span></p>
+
+<p>Though gifted with wings wonderfully constructed for prolonged flight,
+and though having passed every day of so many successive months almost
+wholly on the wing, the swallow frequently suffers great fatigue and
+exhaustion in its long migration. Sometimes, probably driven out of
+its course by adverse winds, it is known to alight by hundreds on the
+rigging of vessels, when worn out by hunger and fatigue it is too
+often shot or cruelly treated. Nevertheless the swallow, protected
+by Him who cares for the sparrow, generally braves the hardships of
+migration, and the following spring, guided by the same mysterious
+instinct, finds his way across continents and seas to his old home,
+where, identified by some little mark which has been put upon him—a
+silken thread as a garter, or a light silver ring—he is recognised as
+the old familiar friend, and appears to be no less happy to be once
+more with them than are they to welcome him. Sometimes swallows coming
+back as ordinary strangers, prove their identity, even though the scene
+of their last year’s home may have been pulled down, together with the
+human habitation. In this case, he has been known to fly about in a
+distracted way, lamenting the change that had taken place, and seeming
+as if nothing would comfort him.</p>
+
+<p>Though the fact of swallows coming back to their old haunts does not
+need proving, yet I will close my chapter with an incident which
+occurred in our own family. During a summer storm, a martin’s nest,
+with young, was washed from the eaves of my husband’s paternal
+home. His mother, a great friend to all birds, placed the nest with
+the young, which happily were uninjured, in a window, which, being
+generally open, allowed<span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">[65]</span> the parent-birds access to their young. They
+very soon began to feed them, making no attempt to build any other
+nest; so that the young were successfully reared, and took their flight
+full-fledged from the window-sill.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Welcomed Return to Old Haunts.</em></div>
+
+<p>The next spring, when the time for the arrival of the swallows came,
+great was the surprise and pleasure of their kind hostess, to see,
+one day, a number of swallows twittering about the window, as if
+impatient for entrance. On its being opened, in they flew, and,
+twittering joyfully and circling round the room, as if recognising the
+old hospitable asylum of the former year, flew out and soon settled
+themselves under the eaves with the greatest satisfaction. There could
+be no doubt but that these were the birds that had been reared there.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-091"><img src="images/i-091.jpg" alt="" width="530" height="427" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">[66]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE CHIFF-CHAFF, OR OVEN-BUILDER.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> Chiff-chaff, chill-chall, lesser pettichaps, or oven-builder, is
+one of the great bird-family of warblers, and the smallest of them in
+size; indeed, it is not much larger than the little willow-wren. Like
+all its family it is a bird of passage, and makes its appearance here,
+in favourable seasons, as early as the 12th of March—earlier than
+the warblers in general—and also remains later, having been known to
+remain here to the middle of October.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-093"><img src="images/i-093.jpg" alt="" width="462" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">CHIFF-CHAFFS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_66" title="Page 66">Page 66.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>It is a remarkably cheerful little bird, and is warmly welcomed by all
+lovers of the country as being one of the first visitants of spring,
+sending its pleasant little voice, with an incessant “chiff-chaff,”
+“chery-charry,” through the yet leafless trees.</p>
+
+<p>Its plumage is dark olive-green; the breast and under part of the body,
+white, with a slight tinge of yellow; the tail, brown, edged with pale
+green; legs, yellowish-brown.</p>
+
+<p>The nest is not unlike that of a wren, built in a low bush, and,
+sometimes, even on the ground. The one so beautifully and faithfully
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir, seems to be amongst the tallest grasses
+and picturesque growths of some delicious woodland lane. It is a
+lovely little structure; a hollow ball wonderfully put together, of
+dry leaves and stems of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">[67]</span>grass, and a circular hole for entrance at
+the side; lined with soft feathers—a little downy bed of comfort. The
+mother-bird, as we now see her, sits here in delicious ease on five or
+six white eggs, beautifully spotted with rich red-brown.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Howitt’s Account of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>This dainty little bird, which seems made alone for pleasure, is
+very useful to man, and should be made kindly welcome everywhere,
+living entirely on caterpillars and other troublesome and destructive
+creatures. The Rev. J. G. Wood says that it saves many a good oak from
+destruction by devouring, on its first arrival, the caterpillars of
+the well-known green oak-moth, which roll up the leaves in so curious
+a manner, and come tumbling out of their green houses at the slightest
+alarm.</p>
+
+<p>He says, also, that a little chiff-chaff, which had been caught and
+tamed, was accustomed to dash to the ceiling of the room in which it
+was kept, and to snatch thence the flies which settled on the white
+surface.</p>
+
+<p>My husband, writing of this bird, says:—</p>
+
+<p>“Gilbert White gave, I believe, the name of chiff-chaff to this
+little bird from its note. In the midland counties it is called the
+chill-chall from the same cause; and, indeed, this name is, to my ear,
+more accordant with its continuous ditty. Its cheery little voice is
+one of the pleasantest recognitions of returning spring. It is sure to
+be heard, just as in former years, in the copse, the dell, the belt
+of trees bordering a wayside; we catch its simple note with pleasure,
+for it brings with it many a memory of happy scenes and days gone
+by. We see the little creature hopping along the boughs of the yet
+only budding oak, and know that it is as usefully employed for man
+as agreeably for itself. It tells us, in effect, that sunny days,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[68]</span>
+flowers, and sweet airs, and the music of a thousand other birds, are
+coming. We revert to the time when, tracing the wood-side or the bosky
+dingle in boyhood, we caught sight of its rounded nest amongst the
+screening twigs of the low bush, and the bleached bents of last year’s
+grapes. We remember the pleasure with which we examined its little
+circular entrance, and discovered, in its downy interior, its store
+of delicate eggs, or the living mass of feathery inmates, with their
+heads ranged side by side and one behind another, with their twinkling
+eyes and yellow-edged mouths. Many a time, as we have heard the ever
+blithe note of chill-chall, as it stuck to its unambitious part of the
+obscure woodland glade, we have wished that we could maintain the same
+buoyant humour, the same thorough acceptance of the order of Providence
+for us. As Luther, in a moment of despondency, when enemies were rife
+around him, and calumny and wrong pursued him, heard the glad song of a
+bird that came and sang on a bough before his window, we have thanked
+God for the lesson of the never-drooping chill-chall. The great world
+around never damps its joy with a sense of its own insignificance; the
+active and often showy life of man, the active and varied existence of
+even birds, which sweep through the air in gay companies, never disturb
+its pleasure in its little accustomed nook. It seems to express, in its
+two or three simple notes, all the sentiment of indestructible content,
+like the old woman’s bird in the German story by Ludwig Tieck—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alone in wood so gay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">’Tis good to stay,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Morrow like to-day</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">For ever and aye;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Oh, I do love to stay</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Alone in wood so gay!</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[69]</span></p>
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Bird’s Ditty.</em></div>
+
+<p>“This little bird appears to feel all that strength of heart, and to
+put it into its little ditty, which seems to me to say—</p>
+
+<p>“Here I continue ‘cheery cheery, and still shall, and still shall!’”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-097"><img src="images/i-097.jpg" alt="" width="435" height="500" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[70]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have here the Golden-crested Wren—the <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Regulus cristatus</i>
+of naturalists—the tiniest of our British birds, “the pleasing
+fairy-bird,” as Bewick calls it, one of the large family of warblers,
+and a near relation to Jenny Wren. It is a very charming little bird,
+with a sweet melodious song of its own, and so many curious little ways
+that it is well worth everybody’s notice and everybody’s love.</p>
+
+<p>It is very active and lively, always in motion, fluttering from branch
+to branch, and running up and down the trunks and limbs of trees, in
+search of insects on which it lives. It may as often be seen on the
+under as on the upper side of a branch, with its back downwards, like
+a fly on a ceiling, and so running along, all alert, as merry and busy
+as possible. In size it is about three inches, that is with all its
+feathers on, but its little body alone is not above an inch long; yet
+in this little body, and in this little brain, lives an amazing amount
+of character, as I shall show you, as well as a great deal of amusing
+conceit and pertness which you would hardly believe unless you were
+told.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-099"><img src="images/i-099.jpg" alt="Golden-crested wrens" width="480" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_70" title="Page 70">Page 70.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The colour of the bird is a sort of yellowish olive-green, the under
+part of pale, reddish-white, tinged with green on the sides; the quill
+feathers of the wing are dusky, edged with pale <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[71]</span>green, as are also
+the tail feathers. Thus attired by nature, that is, by the great
+Creator who cares for all His creatures, this little bird, creeping
+and fluttering about the branches and bole of the leafy summer tree,
+can scarcely be distinguished from the tree itself: hence it is that
+the bird is so unfamiliar to most people. The he-bird, however, has
+a little distinguishing glory of his own—a crest of golden-coloured
+feathers, bordered on each side with black, like a sort of eye-brow to
+his bright hazel eyes. This crest, which gives him his distinguished
+name, can be erected at pleasure, when he is full of life and
+enjoyment, or when he chooses to lord it over birds ten times as big as
+himself.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Lively Gambols of this Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>It is worth anybody’s while, who has a love for the innocent denizens
+of nature, and no desire to do them harm, to go into a wood on a
+summer’s day on purpose to watch the doings of this lively little bird
+amongst the tree-branches. Fir-woods are the best for this purpose, as
+this bird has an especial liking for these trees, and ten to one, if
+you will only be patient and quite still, you may soon see him at work
+busily looking after his dinner, running along the branches, up one and
+down another, then like a little arrow off to the next tree, scudding
+along its branches, then back again, up and down, round and round
+the bole, going like a little fire, so rapid are his movements; now
+running up aloft, now hanging head downward, now off again in another
+direction. What a wonderful activity there is in that little body! He
+must devour hundreds of insects, as well as their eggs, which he thus
+seeks for under the scaly roughnesses of the bark, and finding, devours.</p>
+
+<p>Pretty as he is, his nest, of which Mr. Harrison Weir has<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[72]</span> given a most
+accurate drawing, is quite worthy of him. It is always the same, swung
+like a little hammock from a branch, and always hidden, it may be by
+leaves or a bunch of fir-cones. The cordage by which it is suspended
+is of his own weaving, and is made of the same materials as the nest,
+which are moss and slender thread-like roots. In form it is oval, as
+you see, with a hole for entrance at the side, and is lined with the
+softest down and fibrous roots. It is a lovely little structure, like
+a soft ball of moss, within which the mother-bird lays from six to a
+dozen tiny eggs, scarcely bigger than peas, the delicate shell of which
+will hardly bear handling. The colour of the egg is white, sprinkled
+over with the smallest of dull-coloured spots.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Jesse describes one of these lovely nests which was taken from the
+slender branches of a fir-tree where it had been suspended, as usual,
+by means of delicate cordage, secured to the branch by being twisted
+round and round, and then fastened to the edge or rim of the nest,
+so that one may be sure that the making and securing of these tiny
+ropes must be the first work of the clever little artizan. The nest
+thus suspended sways lightly to and fro with the movement of the bird.
+We cannot see in our cut the slender ropes that suspend it; they are
+concealed under the thick foliage; but we can easily see what a dainty
+little structure it is.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Jackdaw and Mischievous Wrens.</em></div>
+
+<p>Delicate and lovely as is this bird, and pleasing and harmless as is
+his life, he yet possesses some curious traits of character, as I
+said. For instance, though so small, with a body only an inch long,
+he has, apparently, a wonderful conceit of himself, and loves to be
+lord and master of creatures that will not dispute with him, as not
+worth their while, or perhaps because there<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[73]</span> really is some inherent
+mastership in him by which he contrives, under certain circumstances,
+to rule over them. In proof of this, I will tell you what the Rev. J.
+G. Wood relates from the experience of a lady, a friend of his. One
+severe winter, when she had housed and fed a number of birds, amongst
+which were a jackdaw, a magpie, two skylarks, a goldfinch, and a robin,
+in a warm aviary, feeding them regularly and abundantly, other birds
+came, of course, to partake of the plentiful feast, and amongst them
+two golden-crested wrens. These little things made themselves not
+only quite at home, but lorded it over the other birds in the most
+extraordinary way possible. For instance, if the jackdaw had possessed
+himself of a nice morsel which he was holding down with his foot to
+eat comfortably, and the golden-crested wren had also set his mind on
+it, he hopped on the jackdaw’s head and pecked in his eye, on the side
+where his foot held the delicacy. On this the poor jackdaw instantly
+lifted his foot to his head where he thought something was amiss, and
+the mischievous little fellow snatched up the treasure and was off. At
+first the jackdaw would pursue him in great wrath, but he soon learned
+that it was no use, for the creature would only jump upon his back
+where he could not reach him, and so was safe from punishment. “Before
+the winter was over,” continues the lady, “the little gold-crests were
+masters of all the birds, and even roosted at night on their backs;
+finding, no doubt, that in this way they could keep their little feet
+much warmer than on a perch.”</p>
+
+<p>Conceited and dominant, however, as these little birds may be, they are
+yet either extremely timid, or their nervous system is so delicately
+constituted, that a sudden fright kills them.<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[74]</span> Thus if, when they are
+all alert and busy on the tree-branch, seeking for insects and fearing
+no evil, the branch be suddenly struck with a stick, the poor bird
+falls dead to the ground. The shock has killed it. It has received no
+apparent injury—not a feather is ruffled—but its joyous, innocent
+life is gone for ever. This fact is asserted by Gilbert White, and was
+proved by my husband, who brought me home the bird which had thus died.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-104"><img src="images/i-104.jpg" alt="bird's nest with eggs" width="461" height="491" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[75]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WAGTAIL.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> elegant little bird belongs to the Motacilla, or Wagtail family.
+There are three brothers of them in this country—the pied, the grey,
+and the yellow. The pied is the most familiar, and our friend Mr.
+Harrison Weir has given us a lovely picture of it at home in a cleft of
+the rock, with fleshy-leaved lichens above, and green springing fronds
+of the great fern, which will presently overshadow it. Around are the
+solemn mountains, and the never silent water is foaming and rushing
+below.</p>
+
+<p>This bird has many names besides his Latin one of Motacilla. In Surrey
+he is called washer, or dish-washer, by the common people, from his
+peculiar motions in walking, which are thought to resemble those of a
+washer-woman at her tub. The colours of the pied wagtail are simply
+black and white, but so boldly and clearly marked as to produce a very
+pleasing and elegant effect.</p>
+
+<p>We have, every year, several wagtails in our garden, to which they add
+a very cheerful feature, walking about, nodding their heads and tails
+as if perfectly at home, afraid neither of dog nor cat, much less of
+any human being about the place. A little running brook as one boundary
+of the garden is, no doubt, one of the attractions; but here they are
+seen less frequently than on the smoothly-mown lawn, where they pick up
+tiny<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[76]</span> insects, gliding along with a smooth motion, accompanied by the
+quick movement of head and tail.</p>
+
+<p>It is bitterly cold wintry weather as I write this, and they now visit
+the kitchen door, where, no doubt, little delicacies of various kinds
+attract them. They are more fearless and familiar than either sparrows,
+robins, or blackbirds; yet all of these are our daily pensioners,
+having their breakfast of crumbs as regularly before the parlour window
+as we have our own meal. Yet they fly away at the slightest sound,
+and the appearance of the cat disperses them altogether. They have,
+evidently, the old ancestral fear of man, stamped, as powerfully as
+life itself, upon their being. They are suspicious, and always in
+a flutter: nothing equals the calm self-possession of the wagtail,
+excepting it be the state of mind into which the robin gets when the
+gardener is turning up the fresh soil, just on purpose, as he supposes,
+to find worms for him.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-107"><img src="images/i-107.jpg" alt="" width="474" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WAGTAIL AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_76" title="Page 76">Page 76.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Quest for Food.</em></div>
+
+<p>And now let me give you a wagtail picture, drawn by a faithful hand.<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>
+It is the end of July, the young wagtails are abroad with their
+parents, like human families, a month or two later, gone out or abroad
+to take their holiday. “Often,” he says, “one may see them wading in
+shallow places, in quest of insects and worms, carefully holding up
+their tails to prevent them being draggled. If you watch the motions
+of an individual just coming up to join the party, you see it alight
+abruptly, twittering its shrill notes, and, perching on a small stone,
+incessantly vibrate its body, and jerk out its tail.” This of course
+is the polite way in which a stranger wagtail introduces itself
+amongst its friends. There they are; now walking out into the water,
+and looking round for food. Now they are on the shore again, running
+rapidly along, picking up, now and then, a dainty morsel, and every
+moment spreading out the ever-vibrating tail. Now they are in the
+adjoining meadow, each one in pursuit of a fly, which it has no sooner
+caught, than it spies another. The lazy geese, which have nibbled
+the grass bare, allow the wagtail to pass in their midst without
+molestation. When the cows are grazing in the midst of a swarm of
+gnats and other insects, as Gilbert White says, as they tread amongst
+the bush herbage they rouse up multitudes of insects which settle on
+their legs, their stomachs, and even their noses, and the wagtails are
+welcomed by the cows as benefactors. Watch them, for they are worth the
+trouble; see, one comes forward and catches a small fly, bends to one
+side to seize another, darts to the right after a third, and springs
+some feet in the air before it secures a fourth, and all this time
+others are running about after other flies, passing close to the cows’
+noses or amongst their feet. With all this running to and fro, and
+hither and thither, they every now and then run in each other’s way;
+but they do not quarrel, aware, no doubt, that there is room enough for
+them in the world, nay, even in the meadow, though it now seems to be
+full of wagtails, all busily occupied, some walking, others running, a
+few flying off and many arriving. You may walk in amongst them; they
+are not very shy, for they will allow you to come within a few yards of
+them. They may always be met with on the shore when the tide is out, as
+well as in the meadow; you will meet with them by the river-side, or by
+the mill-dam. Occasionally you may see<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[78]</span> them perched on a roof, a wall,
+or a large stone, but very rarely on a tree or bush.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[A]</a> “British Birds.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Taunton Pair.</em></div>
+
+<p>They pair about the middle of April, and build by the side of rivers
+in crevices of rock—as in our picture, on a heap of stones, in faggot
+or wood stacks, or in a hole in a wall, but always near water and
+carefully hidden from sight. The nest is made of dry grass, moss, and
+small roots, thickly lined with wool and hair. The eggs are five or six
+in number, of a greyish white, spotted all over with grey and brown.
+As a proof of the confiding nature of this bird, I must mention that
+occasionally it builds in most unimaginable places, directly under the
+human eye—as, for instance, “a pair of them last summer,” says Mr.
+Jesse, “built their nest in a hollow under a sleeper of the Brighton
+Railway, near the terminus at that place. Trains at all times of the
+day were passing close to the nest, but in this situation the young
+were hatched and reared.” Mr. Macgillivray also mentions that a pair
+of these birds built their nest in an old wall near a quarry, within a
+few yards of four men who worked most part of the day in getting the
+stone, which they occasionally blasted. The hen-bird laid four eggs,
+and reared her brood, she and her mate becoming so familiar with the
+quarry-men as to fly in and out without showing the least sign of fear;
+but if a stranger approached they would immediately fly off, nor return
+till they saw him clear off from the place. Another nest was built
+beneath a wooden platform at a coal-pit, where the noisy business of
+unloading the hutches brought up from the pit, was continually going
+forward. But soon the wagtails were quite at home, becoming familiar
+with the colliers and other people connected with the work, and flew
+in<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[79]</span> and out of their nest without showing the slightest sign of fear.
+Again, another pair built close to the wheel of a lathe in a workshop
+at a brass manufactory at Taunton amid the incessant din of the
+braziers; yet here the young were hatched, and the mother-bird became
+perfectly familiar with the faces of the workmen; but if a stranger
+entered, or any one belonging to the factory, though not to what might
+be called her shop, she quitted her nest instantly, nor would return
+till they were gone. The male, however, had much less confidence, and
+would not come into the room, but brought the usual supplies of food to
+a certain spot on the roof whence she fetched it. All these anecdotes
+prove how interesting would be the relationship between the animal
+creation and man, if man ceased to be their tyrant or destroyer.</p>
+
+<p>As regards this particular bird, it is not only elegant in its
+appearance, but amiable and attractive in all its ways. “They are,”
+says Bewick, “very attentive to their young, and continue to feed and
+train them for three or four weeks after they can fly; they defend them
+with great courage when in danger, or endeavour to draw aside the enemy
+by various little arts. They are very attentive also to the cleanliness
+of their nests, and so orderly as to have been known to remove light
+substances, such as paper or straw, which have been placed to mark the
+spot.” As regards this proof of their love of order, however, I would
+rather suggest that it may be a proof of their sagacity and sense of
+danger: they suspected that some human visitor, of whose friendly
+character they were not convinced, was intending to look in upon them,
+and they thought it best, therefore, to decline the honour of his
+visit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[80]</span></p>
+
+<p>The ordinary note of this bird, uttered rapidly if alarmed, is a sort
+of <em>cheep, cheep</em>. In the summer morning, however, it may be heard
+singing a pleasant, mellow and modulated little song. Like the swallow,
+for which it is a match in elegance, it lives entirely on insects. If
+you would only stand silently for a few minutes by a water-side, where
+it haunts, you would be delighted with the grace and activity of its
+movements. “There it stands,” says one of its friends, “on the top of
+a stone, gently vibrating its tail, as if balancing itself. An insect
+flies near; it darts off, flutters a moment in the air, seizes its
+prey, and settles on another stone, spreading and vibrating its tail.
+Presently it makes another sally, flutters around for a while, seizes
+two or three insects, glides over the ground, swerving to either side,
+then again takes its stand on a pinnacle.” Not unfrequently too it
+may be seen on the roof of a house, or in a village street, still in
+pursuit of insects.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-112"><img src="images/i-112.jpg" alt="" width="402" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[81]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE JACKDAW.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">We</span> have called the Rook and Jackdaw first cousins. They are so, and
+are greatly attached to each other. There is a difference, however, in
+their character; the rook is grave and dignified, the jackdaw is active
+and full of fun. But they are fond of each other’s society, and agree
+to associate for nine months in the year: during the other three they
+are both occupied with their respective family cares.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-115"><img src="images/i-115.jpg" alt="" width="478" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">JACKDAWS AND NESTLINGS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_82" title="Page 82">Page 82.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Rooks build in trees in the open air, the nests of the young being
+exposed to all the influences of wind and weather. The jackdaw does not
+approve of this mode. He likes to live under cover, and, therefore,
+makes his nest in holes and crannies, amongst rocks, as in our picture;
+in old and tall buildings, as church towers and steeples, old ruinous
+castles, or old hollow trees. The traditional structure of the family
+nest is certainly that of the rook; a strong frame-work of sticks upon
+which the eggs can be laid, and the clamorous young jackdaws be brought
+up. This our friend Mr. Weir has shown us plainly. But, after all, it
+does not appear that the jackdaw, with all his sharpness, has much
+scientific knowledge, the getting the sticks into the hole being often
+a very difficult piece of work. Mr. Waterton amused himself by watching
+the endless labour and pains which the jackdaw takes in trying to do<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[82]</span>
+impossibilities. Thinking it absolutely necessary that a frame-work
+of sticks should be laid in the hole or cavity as the foundation of
+the nest, he brings to the opening just such sticks as the rook would
+use in open spaces, and may be seen trying for a quarter of an hour
+together to get a stick into a hole, holding it by the middle all the
+time, so that the ends prop against each side, and make the endeavour
+impossible. He cannot understand how it is; he knows that sticks ought
+to go into holes, but here is one that will not; and, tired out at
+length, and thinking perhaps that it is in the nature of some sticks
+not to be got into a hole by any means, he drops it down and fetches
+another, probably to have no better result, and this may happen several
+times. But jackdaws have perseverance, and so, with trying and trying
+again, he meets with sticks that are not so self-willed, and that can
+be put into holes, either by being short enough or held the right way,
+and so the foundation is laid, and the easier part of the work goes on
+merrily; for the jackdaw is at no loss for sheets and blankets for his
+children’s bed, though we cannot see them in our picture, the clamorous
+children lying at the very edge of their bed. But if we could examine
+it, we should most likely be amused by what we should find. The jackdaw
+takes for this purpose anything soft that comes readily—we cannot say
+to <em>hand</em>—but to <em>bill</em>. In this respect he resembles the
+sparrow, and being, like him, fond of human society, gleans up out of
+his neighbourhood all that he needs for the comfort of his nestlings.
+Thus we hear of a nest, built in the ruins of Holyrood Chapel, in
+which, on its being looked into for a piece of lace which was supposed
+to be there, it was found also to be lined with part of a worsted
+stocking, a silk <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[83]</span>handkerchief, a child’s cap, a muslin frill, and
+several other things which the busy jackdaw had picked up in various
+ways; for it must be borne in mind that he is own cousin to the magpie,
+whose thievish propensities are well known.</p>
+
+<p>The call of the jackdaw is much quicker and more lively than the rook,
+somewhat resembling the syllable <em>yak</em>, variously modulated, and
+repeated somewhat leisurely, but at the same time cheerfully. Its food
+is similar to that of the rook, and going forth at early dawn it may be
+seen in pastures or ploughed fields, busily searching for larvæ, worms,
+and insects. They walk gracefully, with none of the solemn gravity
+either of the rook or raven, and may occasionally be seen running along
+and sometimes quarrelling amongst themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Like the rook, the jackdaw stows away food in its mouth or throat-bag
+to feed its young. Its plumage is black, with shining silvery grey
+behind the head. Occasionally they are found with streaks or patches of
+white, as are also rooks, but these are mere sports of nature.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Waterton’s Opinion.</em></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Waterton was of opinion that jackdaws lived in pairs all the year
+round, as he had seen them sitting in November on the leafless branches
+of a sycamore, side by side, pruning each other’s heads, and apparently
+full of mutual affection; and as they mostly left the trees in pairs,
+and so returned, he was inclined to think that it was their custom
+always to remain paired.</p>
+
+<p>I will now give you his <em>carte de visite</em> from Macgillivray’s
+“British Birds.” “He is a remarkably active, pert, and talkative little
+fellow, ever cheerful, always on the alert, and ready either for
+business or frolic. If not so respectable as the grave and sagacious
+raven, he is, at least, the most agreeable of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[84]</span> family, and withal
+extremely fond of society, for, not content with having a flock of his
+own folk about him, he often thrusts himself into a gang of rooks, and
+in winter sometimes takes up his abode entirely with them.”</p>
+
+<p>As to <em>thrusting</em> himself into a gang of rooks, I am, however, of
+opinion that the rooks make him heartily welcome. How do we know what
+amusement they, with their stolid gravity and solemn dignity, find in
+him with all his fun and loquacity? That rooks are really fond of the
+society of jackdaws is proved by an observation of Mr. Mudie. He says
+that “in the latter part of the season, when the rooks from one of the
+most extensive rookeries in Britain made daily excursions of about six
+miles to the warm grounds by the sea-side, and in their flight passed
+over a deep ravine, in the sunny side of which were many jackdaws, he
+observed that when the cawing of the rooks in their morning flight was
+heard at the ravine, the jackdaws, who had previously been still and
+quiet, instantly raised their shriller notes, and flew up to join the
+rooks, both parties clamouring loudly as if welcoming each other; and
+that on the return, the daws accompanied the rooks a little past the
+ravine as if for good fellowship; then both cawed their farewell: the
+daws returned to their home and the rooks proceeded on their way.”</p>
+
+<p>Jackdaws, like rooks, are said to be excellent weather-prophets.
+If they fly back to their roost in the forenoon, or early in the
+afternoon, a storm may be expected that evening, or early in the
+morning.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Rev. J. G. Wood’s Anecdote.</em></div>
+
+<p>The anecdotes of tame jackdaws are numerous. The Rev. J. G. Wood
+speaks of one which had learnt the art of kindling lucifer matches,
+and thus became a very dangerous inmate,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">[85]</span> busying himself in this way
+when the family was in bed, though, fortunately, he seems to have done
+nothing worse than light the kitchen fire which had been laid ready
+for kindling over night. Clever as he was, however, he could not learn
+to distinguish the proper ignitable end of the match, and so rubbed
+on till he happened to get it right. He frightened himself terribly
+at first by the explosion and the sulphur fumes, and burned himself
+into the bargain. But I do not find that, like the burnt child, he
+afterwards feared the fire and so discontinued the dangerous trick.</p>
+
+<p>The jackdaw is easily domesticated, and makes himself very happy in
+captivity, learns to articulate words and sentences, and is most
+amusing by his mimicry and comic humour.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-119"><img src="images/i-119.jpg" alt="Castle tower" width="354" height="420" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">[86]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE SPOTTED FLY-CATCHER.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> pretty little bird is also called the Beam or Pillar-Bird from the
+position which it chooses for its nest. Building mostly in gardens,
+it selects the projecting stone of a wall, the end of a beam or piece
+of wood, under a low roof, or by a door or gateway, the nest being,
+however, generally screened, and often made a perfect little bit
+of picturesque beauty, by the leaves of some lovely creeping rose,
+woodbine, or passionflower, which grows there.</p>
+
+<p>This last summer, one of these familiar little birds, which, though
+always seeming as if in a flutter of terror, must be fond of human
+society, built in a rustic verandah, overrun with Virginian creeper, at
+the back of our house.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-121"><img src="images/i-121.jpg" alt="" width="476" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">SPOTTED FLY-CATCHERS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_86" title="Page 86">Page 86.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>According to her peculiar fancy she built exactly in the doorway,
+though there were some yards of verandah on either hand; but here was
+the convenient ledge, forming an angle with the upright support; and
+here was placed, as in our picture, the small, somewhat flat nest,
+beautifully, though slightly, put together, of dried grass and moss,
+lined with wool and hair. Here the mother-bird laid her four or five
+greyish-white eggs, with their spots of rusty red, and here she reared
+her young. She had, however, it seemed to us, an uncomfortable time of
+it, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[87]</span>for, though we carefully avoided giving her needless disturbance
+that we almost ceased to use the door, yet there was an unavoidable
+passing to and fro to which she never seemed to get accustomed,
+starting off her nest with a little flutter whenever we came in sight;
+nor—although before she had finished sitting the quick-growing shoots
+of the Virginian creeper, with its broadly-expanding leaves, hid her
+nest so completely that, had it not been for her own timidity, we need
+not have known of her presence—she never lost this peculiar trait of
+character.</p>
+
+<p>The nest which Mr. Harrison Weir has drawn is, doubtless, taken from
+life. I wish, however, he could have seen ours, only about ten feet
+from the ground, a little dome of love, embowered amongst young shoots,
+vine-like leaves and tendrils—a perfectly ideal nest, in which our
+friend, who has as keen a sense of natural beauty as any artist living,
+would have delighted himself.</p>
+
+<p>The colours of this bird are very unobtrusive: the upper parts
+brownish-grey, the head spotted with brown, the neck and breast
+streaked or spotted with greyish-brown. It is a migratory bird, and
+arrives in this country about the middle or end of May, remaining with
+us till about the middle of October, by which time the flies on which
+it lives have generally disappeared.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How it takes its Prey.</em></div>
+
+<p>Its mode of taking its winged prey is curious. Seated, stock-still,
+in a twig, it darts or glides off at the sight of an insect, like the
+bird of our picture, and seizes it with a little snapping noise; then
+returns to its perch ready for more, and so on; incessantly darting out
+and returning to the same spot, till it has satisfied its hunger, or
+moves off to another twig to commence the same pursuit.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[88]</span></p>
+
+<p>When they have young, the number of flies consumed only by one little
+family must be amazing. It is recorded<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a> in one instance that a pair
+of fly-catchers, beginning to feed their nestlings at five-and-twenty
+minutes before seven in the morning, and continuing their labour till
+ten minutes before nine at night, supplied them with food, that is to
+say with flies, no less than five hundred and thirty-seven times. The
+gentleman who made these observations says:—“Before they fed their
+young they alighted upon a tree for a few seconds, and looked round
+about them. By short jerks they usually caught the winged insects.
+Sometimes they ascended into the air and dropped like an arrow; at
+other times they hovered like a hawk when set on its prey. They drove
+off most vigorously all kinds of small birds that approached their
+nest, as if bidding them to go and hunt in their own grounds, where
+there were plenty of flies for them. Sometimes they brought only one
+fly in their bills, sometimes several, and flies of various sizes.”</p>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[B]</a> See Macgillivray’s “<cite>British Birds</cite>.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>This bird seems to become attached to particular localities, where
+he finds himself conveniently situated and undisturbed. Mr. Mudie
+mentions, in his “Feathered Tribes,” “that a pair of these birds had
+nested in his garden for twelve successive years.” What is the length
+of life of a fly-catcher I cannot say; but probably if they were
+not the same birds, they would be their descendants—birds hatched
+there, and consequently at home. The Rev. J. G. Wood also speaks of
+the same locality having been used by this bird for twenty successive
+years; and he supposes that the young had succeeded to their ancestral
+home. He gives also an interesting account of the commencement<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[89]</span> of a
+nest-building by this bird. He says that the female, who seems to be
+generally the active builder, placed, in the first instance, a bundle
+of fine grass in some conveniently-forked branches, and after having
+picked it about for some time, as if regularly shaking it up, she
+seated herself in the middle of it, and there, spinning herself round
+and round, gave it its cup-like form. She then fetched more grasses,
+and after arranging them partly round the edge, and partly on the
+bottom, repeated the spinning process. A few hairs and some moss were
+then stuck about the nest and neatly woven in, the hair and slender
+vegetable fibres being the thread, so to speak, with which the moss was
+fastened to the nest.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Mr. Mudie on Nest-building.</em></div>
+
+<p>Mr. Mudie, also speaking of their nest-building, says that, in one
+instance which came under his notice, “the bird began at seven o’clock
+on a Tuesday morning, and the nest was finished in good time on Friday
+afternoon.” This was certainly rapid work. Mr. Yarrell says that the
+he-bird brings the materials to the hen, who makes use of them—which
+is stated as a general fact by Michelet—and that in constructing her
+nest the little fly-catcher, after she had rounded it into its first
+form, moves backwards as she weaves into it long hairs and grasses with
+her bill, continually walking round and round her nest. This, however,
+can only be when the situation of the nest will allow of her passing
+round it. Our fly-catcher’s nest, and the nest of our picture, are
+placed as a little bed close to the wall, and in such situations the
+nest has sometimes no back, but simply the lining. A very favourite
+place with the fly-catcher for her nest is the hole in a wall, the
+size of a half brick, in which the builder fixed the spar of his
+scaffolding, and<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[90]</span> omitted to fill up when he had finished. In these
+convenient little nooks the fly-catcher’s nest fills the whole front
+of the opening, but has seldom any back to it. From all this, I think
+it is clear that the fly-catcher is, in her arrangements, guided by
+circumstances: only, in every case, her little home is as snug as it
+can be.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-126"><img src="images/i-126.jpg" alt="children looking out a window" width="438" height="550" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">[91]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WOOD-PIGEON.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">The</span> wood-pigeon, ring-dove, or cushat is one of the most familiar and
+poetical of our birds. Its low, plaintive coo-goo-roo-o-o is one of the
+pleasantest sounds of our summer woods.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Tell me, tell me, cushat, why thou moanest ever,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Thrilling all the greenwood with thy secret woe?</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">‘I moan not,’ says the cushat, ‘I praise life’s gracious Giver</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">By murmuring out my love in the best way that I know.’”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The wood-pigeon belongs to a large family of birds—<em>columbinæ</em>
+or doves. The earliest mention of them in the world is in Genesis,
+when Noah, wearied with the confinement of the ark, and seeing
+that the mountain tops were visible, selected from the imprisoned
+creatures—first the raven, then the dove, to go forth and report to
+him of the state of the earth. The raven, however, came not back, no
+doubt finding food which tempted him to stay; whilst the dove, finding
+no rest for the sole of her foot, returned, and Noah, putting forth his
+hand, took her in. Again he sent her forth, and she came back in the
+evening, and, lo, in her mouth was an olive leaf plucked off. A third
+time she was sent forth, but now she returned no more. So Noah looked
+out, and behold the face of the earth was dry. And he and his family,
+and all the creatures, again went forth and possessed all things.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">[92]</span></p>
+
+<p>This dove might probably be of the carrier-pigeon tribe, which is more
+nearly related to the rock-pigeon, also a native of this country,
+or rather, of the northern parts of Scotland. These carrier-pigeons
+were, in the old times, long enough before the invention of electric
+telegraphs, or even before post-offices were established, used instead
+of both. Anacreon, the Greek poet, speaks of them as being used to
+convey letters; the pigeon, having, as it were, two homes, being fed in
+each; thus, a letter from a friend in one home was tied to the wing,
+and the bird turned into the air, probably without his breakfast, when
+he immediately flew off to his distant home, where the letter was
+joyfully received, and he fed for his pains. Whilst the answer was
+prepared he would rest, and it, perhaps, taking some little time, he
+grew hungry again; but they gave him nothing more, and, again securing
+the letter on his little person, he was sent back, making good speed,
+because he would now be thinking of his supper. Thus, the answer flew
+through the air.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent2">“Come hither, my dove,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And I’ll write to my love,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And I’ll send him a letter by thee!”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-129"><img src="images/i-129.jpg" alt="" width="476" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WOOD-PIGEONS AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_92" title="Page 92">Page 92.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>So says the old song. And we are told that a young man named
+Taurosthenes, one of the victors in the great Olympian games of Greece,
+sent to his father, who resided at a considerable distance, the tidings
+of his success, on the same day, by one of these birds. Pliny, the
+Roman historian, speaks of them being used in case of siege; when the
+besieged sent out these winged messengers, who, cleaving the air at
+a secure height above the surrounding army, conveyed the important
+intelligence of their need to their friends afar off. The crusaders
+are <span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">[93]</span>said to have made use of them at the siege of Jerusalem, and the
+old traveller, Sir John Maundeville—“knight, warrior, and pilgrim,” as
+he is styled—who, in the reign of our second and third Edwards, made
+a journey as far as the borders of China, relates that, “in that and
+other countries beyond, pigeons were sent out from one to another to
+ask succour in time of need, and these letters were tied to the neck of
+the bird.”</p>
+
+<p>But enough of carrier-pigeons. Let us come back to our ring-dove or
+cushat, brooding on her eggs in the sweet summer woods, as Mr. Harrison
+Weir has so truthfully represented her. She is not much of a nest-maker.</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent6">“A few sticks across,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Without a bit of moss,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Laid in the fork of an old oak-tree;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">Coo-goo-roo-o-o,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent6">She says it will do,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">And there she’s as happy as a bird can be.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>The nest, however, is not at all insufficient for her needs. You see
+her sitting brooding over her two white eggs in every possible bird
+comfort; and whether her mate help her in the building of the nest
+or not, I cannot say, but he is certainly a very good domesticated
+husband, and sits upon the eggs alternately with her, so that the
+hatching, whatever the building may be, is an equally divided labour.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><cite>Wordsworth’s Tribute of Praise.</cite></div>
+
+<p>Wordsworth sees in this bird an example of unobtrusive home affection.
+He says:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">“I heard a stock-dove sing or say</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">His homely tale this very day:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">His voice was buried among the trees,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Yet to be come at by the breeze;</div>
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[94]</span></p>  </div>
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent4">He did not cease, but cooed and cooed,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">And somewhat pensively he wooed;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">He sung of love with quiet blending,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Slow to begin, and never ending;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">Of serious faith and inward glee;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent4">That was the song—the song for me.”</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>Wood-pigeons have immense appetites, and, being fond of all kinds of
+grain, as well as peas and beans, are looked upon by the farmer with
+great disfavour. They are, however, fond of some of those very weeds
+which are his greatest annoyance—for instance, charlock and wild
+mustard; so that they do him some good in return for the tribute which
+they take of his crops. They are fond, also, both of young clover and
+the young green leaves of the turnip, as well as of the turnip itself.
+Either by instinct or experience, they have learned that, feeding
+thus in cultivated fields, they are doing that which will bring down
+upon them the displeasure of man. “They keep,” says the intelligent
+author of “Wild Sports in the Highlands,” “when feeding in the fields,
+in the most open and exposed places, so as to allow no enemy to come
+near them. It is amusing to watch a large flock of these birds whilst
+searching the ground for grain. They walk in a compact body; and in
+order that all may fare alike—which is certainly a good trait in their
+character—the hindermost rank, every now and then, fly over the heads
+of their companions to the front, where they keep the best place for
+a minute or two, till those now in the rear take their place. They
+keep up this kind of fair play during the whole time of feeding. They
+feed, also, on wild fruit and all kinds of wild berries, such as the
+mountain-ash, and ivy; and where acorns abound, seem to prefer them to
+anything<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[95]</span> else. At the same time, I must confess that they are great
+enemies to my cherry-trees, and swallow as many cherries as they can
+hold. Nor are strawberries safe from them, and the quantity of food
+they manage to stow away in their crops is perfectly astonishing.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Necessary Watchfulness.</em></div>
+
+<p>Besides man, the wood-pigeon has its own bird-enemies. “In districts
+where the hooded crow abounds,” says the author whom I have just
+quoted, “he is always on the look-out for its eggs, which, shining out
+white from the shallow, unsubstantial nest, are easily seen by him.
+The sparrow-hawk seizes the young when they are half-grown and plump;
+he having been carefully noticed watching the nest day by day as if
+waiting for the time when they should be fit for his eating. The larger
+hawks, however, prey upon the poor wood-pigeon himself.”</p>
+
+<p>With all his pleasant cooings in the wood, therefore, and all
+his complacent strutting about with elevated head and protruded
+breast—with all his gambols and graces, his striking the points of
+his wings together as he rises into the air, to express a pleasure to
+his mate beyond his cooing, he has not such a care free life of it. He
+is always kept on the alert, therefore, and, being always on the watch
+against danger, is not at all a sound sleeper. The least disturbance at
+night rouses him. “I have frequently,” continues our author, “attempted
+to approach the trees when the wood-pigeons were roosting, but even
+on the darkest nights they would take alarm. The poor wood-pigeon
+has no other defence against its enemies than its ever watchful and
+never sleeping timidity; not being able to do battle against even the
+smallest of its many persecutors.”</p>
+
+<p>Gilbert White says that the wood-pigeons were greatly<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[96]</span> decreasing, in
+his time, in Hampshire, and there were then only about a hundred in the
+woods at Selborne, but in former times the flocks had been so vast, not
+only there, but in the surrounding districts, that they had traversed
+the air morning and evening like rooks, reaching for a mile together,
+and that, when they thus came to rendezvous there by thousands, the
+sound of their wings, suddenly roused from their roosting-trees in an
+evening, rising all at once into the air, was like a sudden rolling of
+distant thunder.</p>
+
+<p>Although the wood-pigeon is considered to be the original parent of
+the tame pigeon, yet it does not seem possible to tame the young of
+this bird, though taken from the nest quite young. It is a bird which
+appears to hate confinement, and, as soon as it has the opportunity,
+spite of all kindness and attention, it flies away to the freedom of
+the woods.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-134"><img src="images/i-134.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="404" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[97]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE WHITE-THROAT.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">With</span> none of our migratory birds, our spring visitants from southern
+lands, is the lover of the country more familiar than with the
+White-throat, which, with its nest, is here so beautifully and livingly
+depicted by Mr. Harrison Weir.</p>
+
+<p>This bird, with its many names—White-throat, Peggy-white-throat,
+Peggy-chaw, Charlie-mufty, Nettle-creeper, Whishey-whey-beard or
+Pettichaps—comes to us in April, about the same time as the cuckoo and
+the swallow; the male bird, like his cousin the nightingale, coming
+before the female, but he does not make himself very conspicuous till
+the hedges and bushes are well covered with leaves; then he may be
+found in almost every lane and hedge the whole country over.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the female is here, and the birds have paired, the business
+of nest-building begins, and they may then be seen flying in and out
+of the bushes with great alertness, the he-bird carolling his light
+and airy song, and often hurling himself, as it were, up into the air,
+some twenty or thirty feet, in a wild, tipsy sort of way, as if he
+were fuller of life than he could hold, and coming down again with a
+warble into the hedge, where the little hen-wife is already arranging
+her dwelling in the very spot probably where she was herself hatched,
+and her ancestors before her, for ages. For I must here remark that
+one of the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[98]</span> most remarkable properties of birds is, that facility by
+which they so regularly disperse themselves over the whole country on
+their arrival after their far migration, each one, in all probability,
+attracted by some attachment of the past, stopping short at, or
+proceeding onward to, the exact spot where he himself first came into
+the consciousness of life. This is one of the wonderful arrangements of
+nature, otherwise of God, by which the great balance is so beautifully
+kept in creation. If the migratory bird arrives ever so weary at Dover,
+and its true home be some sweet low-lying lane of Devonshire, a thick
+hedgerow of the midland counties, or a thickety glen of Westmoreland,
+it will not delay its flight nor be tempted to tarry short of that
+glen, hedgerow, or lane with which the experience of its own life and
+affection is united.</p>
+
+<p>At this charming time of the year none of the various performers in
+nature’s great concert bring back to those who have passed their youth
+in the country a more delicious recollection of vernal fields and lanes
+than this bird of ours, the little white-throat.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-137"><img src="images/i-137.jpg" alt="" width="470" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">WHITE-THROAT AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_98" title="Page 98">Page 98.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Yes, along those hedges, fresh and fragrant with their young leaves,
+along those banks studded with primroses, campions, blue-bells and
+white starwort, and through the thick growth of the wild rose bushes,
+all of which have a beauty especially their own, the white-throat
+salutes you as you pass, as if to recognise an old acquaintance. He
+is brimful of fun; out he starts and performs his series of eccentric
+frolics in the air, accompanied by his mad-cap sort of warble; or,
+almost as if laughing at you, he repeats from the interior of the
+bushes his deep grave note, <em>chaw! chaw!</em> whence comes the name
+of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[99]</span>peggy-chaw. This, however, is to tell you—and to those who
+understand bird-language it is intelligible enough—that he has now a
+family to attend to, and he begs, very respectfully, that you will not
+trouble yourself about it.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Description of the Bird.</em></div>
+
+<p>A Scotch naturalist says that “the peasant boys in East Lothian imagine
+that the bird is mocking or laughing at them, as it tumbles over the
+hedge and bushes in the lane, and, therefore, they persecute it at all
+times, even more mercilessly than they do sparrows.”</p>
+
+<p>The white-throat is an excitable little bird, rapid in all its
+movements; and though it will apparently allow a person to come near,
+it incessantly flits on, gets to the other side of the hedge, warbles
+its quaint little song, flies to a short distance, sings again, and so
+on, for a long time, returning in the same way. It erects the feathers
+of its head when excited, and swells its throat so much when singing,
+that the feathers stand out like a ruff, whence it has obtained the
+name of <em>Muffety</em>, or Charlie-mufty, in Scotland.</p>
+
+<p>Its colour, on the upper parts of the body, is reddish-brown,
+brownish-white below, with a purely white throat. Its food is
+principally insects and larvæ of various kinds, for which it is always
+on the search amongst the thick undergrowth of the plants and bushes
+where it builds. One of its many names is Nettle-creeper, from this
+plant growing so generally in the localities which it haunts.</p>
+
+<p>Its nest—one of the most light and elegant of these little abodes—may
+truly be called “gauze-like,” for being constructed wholly of fine
+grasses, and very much of the brittle stems of the Galnim aparine, or
+cleavers, which, though slender, are not<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">[100]</span> pliant, and bend only with an
+angle; they prevent the whole fabric from being closely woven, so that
+it maintains a gauzy texture; the inside, however, is put together more
+closely of finer and more pliant materials, delicate root-filaments,
+and various kinds of hair. The eggs, four or five in number, are of a
+greenish-gray colour, often with a tawny hue, blotched and spotted over
+with dark tints of the same colour.</p>
+
+<p>A correspondent of the author of “British Birds” says that, one morning
+in June, when walking in his shrubbery within about eighty yards of a
+White-throat’s nest, which he was taking great interest in, he found a
+portion of the shell of one of the eggs of this bird, and, fearing that
+a magpie had been plundering it, hastened to the spot, but found to his
+satisfaction that the nest was then full of newly-hatched birds. “The
+shell had,” he says, “been instinctively taken away by the mother in
+order to prevent the discovery of the place of her retreat.” He adds
+that the mother-bird was very shy, and usually dropped from her nest
+with the most astonishing rapidity, and, treading her way through the
+grasses and other entanglements, disappeared in a moment. The young,
+too, seemed greatly to dislike observation, and on his taking one into
+his hand to examine it, it uttered a cry, no doubt of alarm, on which
+all the other little things leapt out of their abode, although not more
+than half-fledged, and hopped amongst the grass. It is a singular fact
+that almost every kind of young bird, if they be caused to leave their
+nest through alarm, or by being handled, can never be induced to stay
+in the nest again, though they may be put back into it time after time.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">[101]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XVIII">CHAPTER XVIII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE BULL-FINCH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> bird, which is common to all parts of the country, is very shy,
+and for the greater part of the year haunts the woods and thickets.
+In spring, however, its fondness for tender fruit-buds tempts it into
+gardens and orchards, where, being considered an enemy, it is destroyed
+without mercy. It is a question, however, whether it devours these
+young buds as favourite food, or whether it may not be the equally
+distinctive grub or insect which is the temptation; and thus, that
+it ought rather to be regarded as the friend than the enemy of the
+gardener and fruit-grower. At all events, the general opinion is
+against the poor bull-finch. He is declared to be a devourer of the
+embryo fruit, and no mercy is shown to him. The Rev. J. G. Wood, always
+a merciful judge where birds are concerned, thinks that public opinion
+is unfairly against him. He says that a gooseberry tree, from which it
+was supposed that the bull-finches had picked away every blossom-bud,
+yet bore the same year an abundant crop of fruit, which certainly
+proved that they had picked away only the already infected buds, and so
+left the tree in an additionally healthy state, doubly able to mature
+and perfect its fruit.</p>
+
+<p>Bull-finches seldom associate with other birds, but keep together in
+small flocks as of single families. Its flight, though<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[102]</span> quick, is
+somewhat undulating or wavering; and in the winter it may sometimes
+be seen in large numbers flitting along the roadsides and hedges,
+being probably forced out of some of its shyness by the stress of
+hunger. Its ordinary note is a soft and plaintive whistle; its song,
+short and mellow. It is, in its native state, no way distinguished as
+a singing-bird, but at the same time it is possessed of a remarkable
+faculty for learning tunes artificially, of which I may have more to
+say presently.</p>
+
+<p>The bull-finch begins to build about the beginning of May. She places
+her nest, as we see in our illustration, in a bush, frequently a
+hawthorn, at no great distance from the ground. The nest is not very
+solidly put together; the foundation, so to speak, being composed of
+small dry twigs, then finished off with fibrous roots and moss, which
+also form the lining. The eggs, five or six in number, are of a dull
+bluish-white, marked at the larger end with dark spots.</p>
+
+<p>Although there is so little to say about the bull-finch in his natural
+state—excepting that he is a handsome bird, with bright black eyes,
+a sort of rich black hood on his head; his back, ash-grey; his breast
+and underparts, red; wings and tail, black, with the upper tail-coverts
+white—yet when he has gone through his musical education, he is not
+only one of the most accomplished of song-birds, but one of the most
+loving and faithfully attached little creatures that can come under
+human care. These trained birds are known as piping bull-finches.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-143"><img src="images/i-143.jpg" alt="" width="482" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">BULL-FINCH AND NESTLINGS.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_102" title="Page 102">Page 102.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>How it is taught to pipe.</em></div>
+
+<p>Bishop Stanley, in his “History of Birds,” thus describes the method by
+which they are taught:—</p>
+
+<p>“In the month of June, the young ones, which are taken from the nest
+for that purpose, are brought up by a person, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[103]</span>who, by care and
+attention, so completely tames them that they become perfectly docile
+and obedient. At the expiration of about a couple of months, they first
+begin to whistle, from which time their education begins, and no school
+can be more diligently superintended by its master, and no scholars
+more effectually trained to their own calling, than a seminary of
+bull-finches. They are formed first into classes of about six in each,
+and, after having been kept a longer time than usual without food, and
+confined to a dark room, the tune they are to learn is played over
+and over again, on a little instrument called a bird-organ, the notes
+of which resemble, as nearly as possible, those of the bull-finch;
+sometimes, also, a flageolet is used for this purpose, and birds so
+taught are said to have the finer notes. For awhile the little moping
+creatures will sit in silence, not knowing what all this can mean; but
+after awhile one by one will begin to imitate the notes they hear, for
+they have great power of imitation as well as remarkably good memories.
+As soon as they have said their lesson all round, light is admitted
+into the room, and they are fed.</p>
+
+<p>“By degrees the sound of the musical instrument—be it flageolet or
+bird-organ—and the circumstance of being fed, become so associated in
+the mind of the hungry bird, that it is sure to begin piping the tune
+as soon as it hears it begin to play. When the little scholars have
+advanced so far they are put into a higher class, that is to say, are
+turned over each to his private tutor; in other words, each bird is put
+under the care of a boy who must carry on its education, and who plays
+on the little instrument from morning to night, or as long as the bird
+can pay attention, during which time the head-master<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[104]</span> or feeder goes
+his regular rounds, scolding or rewarding the little feathered scholars
+by signs and modes of making them understand, till they have learned
+their lessons so perfectly, and the tune is so impressed on their
+memories, that they will pipe it to the end of their days; and let us
+hope, as I believe is the fact, that they find in it a never-ending
+delight.</p>
+
+<p>“Just as in human schools and colleges, it is only the few out of the
+great number who take the highest honours or degrees, or become senior
+wranglers, so it is not above five birds in every hundred who can
+attain to the highest perfection in their art! but all such are valued
+at a very high price.”</p>
+
+<p>It is allowable to hope that the poor bull-finch, which has thus
+industriously applied himself to learn, and has thus become
+artificially gifted with the power of pleasing, takes great
+satisfaction in his accomplishment. Perhaps also the association with
+his human teacher calls forth his affection as well as his power of
+song, for it is a fact that the piping bull-finch is, of all birds,
+given to attach itself to some one individual of the family where it
+is kept, expressing, at their approach, the most vehement delight,
+greeting them with its piping melody, hopping towards them, and
+practising all its little winning ways to show its love, and to court a
+return of caresses.</p>
+
+<p>“An interesting story,” says the bishop, “was told by Sir William
+Parsons, who was himself a great musician, and who, when a young man,
+possessed a piping bull-finch, which he had taught to sing, ‘God save
+the king.’ On his once going abroad, he gave his favourite in charge
+to his sister, with a strict injunction to take the greatest care of
+it. On his return, one of his first visits was to her, when she told
+him that the<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[105]</span> poor little bird had been long in declining health, and
+was, at that moment, very ill. Sir William, full of sorrow, went into
+the room where the cage was, and, opening the door, put in his hand,
+and spoke to the bird. The poor little creature recognised his voice,
+opened his eyes, shook his feathers, staggered on to his finger, piped
+‘God save the king,’ and fell down dead.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Devoted Affection of Birds.</em></div>
+
+<p>We see in the piping bull-finch—a bird which in its education is
+closely associated with man—the deep and devoted affection of which
+it is capable; and if we could only live with the animal creation as
+their friends and benefactors, we should no longer be surprised by such
+instances of their intelligence and love.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-147"><img src="images/i-147.jpg" alt="a nest among the leaves" width="403" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[106]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XIX">CHAPTER XIX.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE MISSEL-THRUSH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> is the largest of our British song birds. It remains with us
+through the whole year, not being migratory, excepting in so far as it
+moves off in considerable flocks into Herefordshire and Monmouthshire
+for the sake of the mistletoe which abounds in the orchards there,
+on the viscous berries of which it delights to feed, and whence it
+has obtained its familiar name of missel, or mistletoe thrush. It is
+generally believed that this curious parasitic plant was propagated or
+planted upon the branches of trees, by this bird rubbing its bill upon
+the rough bark to clean it from the sticky substance of the berry, and
+thus introducing the seeds into the interstices of the bark.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-149"><img src="images/i-149.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">MISSEL-THRUSHES AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_106" title="Page 106">Page 106.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Missel-thrush is a handsome bird; the head, back, and upper coverts
+of the wings olive-brown, the latter tipped with brownish-white,
+spotted with brown; the breasts and under parts pale yellow, covered
+with black spots; the legs are yellow and the claws black.</p>
+
+<p>It is a welcome bird, being the earliest harbinger of spring, the first
+singer of the year. Long before the swallow is thought of, before even
+the hardy familiar robin has begun his song, its clear rich voice
+may be heard on Christmas or New Year’s day, often amidst wild winds
+and winterly storms, whence its also familiar name, the storm-cock.
+It is known by different names <span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[107]</span>in different parts of the country.
+The origin of its more general appellation—the missel-thrush—I have
+already mentioned. In the midland counties it is called the thrice
+cock, but why I know not. In Wales it is known as <em>Pen-y-llwyn</em>,
+which means the head or master of the coppice. Why it is so called I
+will mention presently.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Description of the Nest.</em></div>
+
+<p>The nest of the missel-thrush is large and well constructed, being
+made of almost every material ordinarily used for nest-making
+purposes—moss, and hay, and straw, and dry leaves, and little twigs,
+and locks of wool, with occasional odds and ends of every possible
+kind. All these are woven and wrought together very compactly; not,
+however, without loose straws and little tangles of wool hanging about.
+Within is a smooth casing of mud, as in the nest of the throstle, and
+within that a second coating of dry grass. Our picture represents all
+as being now complete. The busy labours of the year are now over; the
+eggs, four or five in number, of a greenish-blue, marked with reddish
+spots, are laid, and the mother-bird has taken her patient seat upon
+them, whilst her mate, from the branch above, sings as if he never
+meant to leave off again.</p>
+
+<p>The song of this bird is loud, clear, and melodious—a cheering,
+hopeful song; and when heard amidst the yet prevailing winter-storms,
+as if in anticipation of better times, it well deserves our admiration.
+It resembles, to a certain degree, the song of the blackbird and the
+thrush, and is often mistaken for them; but it has not the short,
+quick, and varied notes of the one, nor the sober, prolonged, and
+eloquent melody of the other. On the contrary it is of an eager,
+hurrying character,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[108]</span> as if it could not sufficiently express its
+emotion, and yet was trying to do so.</p>
+
+<p>The missel-thrush is a bird of very marked character, and is both bold
+and chivalrous. Its harsh, jarring note of anger and defiance is the
+first to be heard when a bird-enemy is at hand. If a cuckoo or hawk is
+anywhere near meditating mischief, the missel-thrush is vehement in his
+expression of displeasure. In our own neighbourhood, where the jays in
+summer come from the wood to carry the young of the sparrows from their
+nests in the ivied boles of the trees round our garden, the outcry of
+the parent sparrows instantly arouses the sympathetic missel-thrushes,
+who, with a scolding defiance, rush to the rescue. Of course these
+birds, which are of so militant a character, and so loud in protesting
+against a wrong done to another, will be equally alive to their own
+rights, and active in defending their own nests and young. Some
+naturalists have suggested that this combatant temper and extraordinary
+courage are but the natural consequence of the bird finding its nest
+open to common attack; for, being of a large size, and built early in
+the year whilst the trees are yet leafless, it is visible to every
+enemy and depredator.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Thompson says: “Often have I seen a pair of these birds driving off
+magpies, and occasionally fighting against four of them. One pair which
+I knew attacked a kestrel which appeared in their neighbourhood when
+the young were out. One of them struck the hawk several times, and made
+as many more fruitless attempts, as the enemy, by suddenly rising in
+the air, escaped the cunning blow. They then followed the kestrel for a
+long way, until they were lost to our sight in the distance.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">[109]</span></p>
+
+<p>The old Welsh name of “master, or head of the coppice,” refers to the
+same warlike spirit. “The missel-thrush,” says Gilbert White, “suffers
+no magpie, jay, or blackbird to enter the garden where he haunts, and
+is, for the time, a good guardian of the new-sown crops. In general, he
+is very successful in defence of his family. Once, however, I observed
+in my garden that several magpies came determined to storm the nest of
+the missel-thrush. The parent-birds defended their mansion with great
+vigour, and fought resolutely. But numbers at last prevailed, and the
+poor missel-thrushes had the pain of seeing their nest torn to pieces,
+and their young carried off.”</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>The Gardeners’ Enemy.</em></div>
+
+<p>The missel-thrushes, however, as the year goes on, make for themselves
+enemies even more formidable than hawks or magpies; these are the
+gardeners. Towards the end of summer, when the young have flown,
+and they and the parent-birds congregate in large flocks, having
+then nothing to do but to enjoy themselves, like human families when
+children are all home for the holidays, they too go abroad on their
+excursions of pleasure; not, however, to sea-side watering places, but
+into gardens where the cherries and raspberries are ripe. Poor birds!
+Little aware of their danger, or if they be so, defiant of it in the
+greatness of the temptation, they make sad havoc amongst the fruit,
+and many unfortunates are shot or snared, and then hung up amidst the
+cherry-boughs or the raspberry-canes as a terror to their associates.
+It is a pity we cannot make them welcome to some and yet have enough
+left for ourselves.</p>
+
+<p>The berries of the mountain-ash and the arbutus, and later<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">[110]</span> on in the
+year those of the holly and ivy, supply them with food, as do also
+in the spring and summer insects of various kinds—caterpillars and
+spiders—so that in this respect they are good friends to the gardener,
+and might, one thinks, be made welcome to a little fruit in return.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-154"><img src="images/i-154.jpg" alt="nest in a tree" width="389" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">[111]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XX">CHAPTER XX.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span>, though an extremely pretty bird, is so common that very
+little notice is taken of it. Its colours are varied and beautiful:
+the back and wings, bright red; the central part of each feather,
+brownish-black; the head and throat, bright yellow; the feathers of the
+upper part tipped with black; the breast, brownish-red. The colours of
+the female are much duller.</p>
+
+<p>The yellow-hammer resembles linnets, finches, and sparrows in character
+and habits, and often associates with them, resorting to the fields in
+open weather, and often perching in hedges and bushes as well as in
+trees. In the winter, when the weather is severe, it congregates, with
+other birds, about houses, farm-buildings, and stack-yards.</p>
+
+<p>One of the most pleasing features of autumn is, to my mind, these
+flocks of kindred birds, which are at that time all abroad and yet
+together, circling in their flight, all rising as you approach, and
+wheeling away into the stubble-field, or into the distant hedges, now
+rich with their wild fruits—the blackberry, the wild rose hip, and the
+bunches of black-privet berries—and then away again, as you approach,
+with their variously modulated notes, through the clear air into the
+yet more distant stubble or bean-field.</p>
+
+<p>The flight of the yellow-hammer is wavy and graceful, and,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[112]</span> alighting
+abruptly, he has a curious way of jerking out his tail feathers like
+a little fan. All at once a whole flock of them will descend from a
+considerable height and settle on the twigs of a tree, clothing it as
+with living leaves. Whatever number the flock may consist of, there
+is no impatient hurry or jostling among them to get the best perch,
+every individual settling as if on its own appointed place. As I have
+already observed, nothing is more charming at this season than these
+congregated companies of small birds. All the cares of life are now
+over, their young broods are around them, and now, with nothing to
+do but to enjoy themselves in the freedom of nature, where—on every
+hand, on every bush and tree, and in every outlying field—though the
+crops are now carried, all except, perhaps, here and there a solitary
+field in which the bean-shocks stand up black in the golden autumnal
+sunshine; but here, and there, and everywhere, a full table is spread,
+and they are welcome to enjoy.</p>
+
+<p>In spring and summer, the yellow-hammer sings a peculiar but
+mournful sort of little ditty, composed of a few short, sonorous
+notes, concluding with one long drawn out. In the midland
+counties, where stocking-weaving is the business of the people,
+the note of the bird is said to resemble the working of the
+machine—ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-e-e-chay—the prolonged latter syllable being
+what the stockinger calls, in the machine movement, “pressing over the
+arch.” In other parts of the country this bird’s song is interpreted as
+“A little bit of bread, and—no-cheese!” which may just as well be “A
+little bird am I, and—no thief!”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-157"><img src="images/i-157.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">YELLOW-HAMMER AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_112" title="Page 112">Page 112.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The food of this bird consists of the seeds of all kinds of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[113]</span>grasses,
+chickweeds, polygonums, and other such weeds; also, in summer, when
+food is needed for the young, insects and larvæ.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Picturesque Nest.</em></div>
+
+<p>The winter congregations break up in April, and then the yellow-hammer
+begins to think of family joys and cares. But, unlike their relations
+the sparrows and finches, the he-birds take everything quietly, without
+having their little skirmishes to show their spirit and prowess, like
+the knights of old, at the tournament, before the admiring ladies. The
+yellow-hammer does everything quietly, choosing his mate in an orderly
+way; and now that the buds are swelling on the trees, the primroses
+gemming the hedge-banks, and the golden catkins hanging on the willows
+by the watersides, hither come the little yellow-hammers, and, having
+selected some sweet, hidden spot, under a bush, or on the fieldy banks
+amongst the thick herbage—we see it a month later in our picture,
+when the buds have expanded into leaves, in a wild growth of beautiful
+grasses and herbage—begin to make their nest. How picturesque it is!
+William Hunt never painted anything more beautiful. The nest itself
+is somewhat large, and of simple construction, woven externally of
+coarse bents and small pliant twigs, and lined with hair and wool. Here
+the hen lays four or five eggs of a purplish white, marked with dark,
+irregular streaks, often resembling musical notes.</p>
+
+<p>These poor little birds are extremely attached to their home and their
+young, so much so, that if these be taken by the pitiless bird-nester,
+they will continue for some days about the place uttering the most
+melancholy plaint, which, though still to the same old tune as the song
+of their spring rejoicing, has now the expression of the deepest woe.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[114]</span></p>
+
+<p>The author of “British Birds” thus sums up their various characteristic
+actions:—“When perched on a tree, especially in windy weather, they
+crouch close to the twigs, draw in their necks, and keep their tails
+declined. After pairing, the male is generally seen on a bush or tree,
+raising his tail by sudden jerks, and slightly expanding it. His notes
+are then usually two chirps, followed by a harsher note—cit, chit,
+chirr—with considerable intervals. When feeding in the stubble-fields,
+they advance by very short leaps, with their breasts nearly touching
+the ground; when apprehensive of danger they crouch motionless, and
+when alarmed give information to each other by means of their ordinary
+short note.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-160"><img src="images/i-160.jpg" alt="nest of eggs" width="440" height="450" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[115]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXI">CHAPTER XXI.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE MAGPIE.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">You</span> have here a living portrait of the Magpie, sitting, so to speak, on
+his own door-sill, and contemplating it with rather a sentimental air,
+perhaps rather with tender admiration; and as to his dwelling, it is,
+we must confess, a wonderful structure—a half-timbered edifice, so to
+speak, walled-round and roofed-in, with its front-door and all complete.</p>
+
+<p>The magpie is one of our most beautiful as well as most amusing and
+characteristic birds. He is cousin to the jackdaw, and has, like him,
+odd ways of his own. In all countries where he is found, he is just the
+same. An old Greek poet, who lived two thousand years ago, speaks of
+him as a great mimic, and such an inordinate talker, that, in his own
+satirical humour, he pretends to believe that magpies were originally a
+family of young ladies, in Macedonia, who were noted for the volubility
+of their tongues. Handsome he is, as well as talkative, and very droll
+and mischievous.</p>
+
+<p>Being such, we need not wonder that his nest is very original. He likes
+to place it in a secure angle of branches, on some lofty tree, as we
+see it here, fifty feet or so from the ground; and prefers to have it
+on a tree bare of branches to a considerable height, knowing that it
+is then more inaccessible. He is wise in all this, for its bulk being
+so large it is discernible to a great<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[116]</span> distance. As magpies, however,
+are found almost everywhere, and in some parts of the country, the
+north of Scotland for instance, where there are no trees, the poor
+magpie is then obliged to build in a bush, and do the best he can. In
+such a case, in Norway, he was known to barricade his nest with thorny
+branches, brought thither by himself for that purpose, till it was next
+to impossible for the domicile to be invaded. A cat could not get to
+it, and a man only with hedging-mittens on his hands, and by help of a
+bill-hook.</p>
+
+<p>Like the rook, the magpie inhabits the same nest for several years,
+perhaps for the whole of his life, putting it into repair every year
+before he again needs it for family use—like a wealthy country family
+taking possession of their ancestral mansion in the spring.</p>
+
+<p>And now, turning to our picture, we find our magpie in excellent
+circumstances. Every thing has gone well with him. Here he is, and I
+will have the pleasure of giving you a bit of every-day magpie life,
+as sketched by that true pen-and-ink artist, the author of “British
+Birds.” Our scene opens a few minutes before the time indicated in our
+picture:—</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-163"><img src="images/i-163.jpg" alt="" width="477" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">MAGPIE AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_116" title="Page 116">Page 116.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>A Search for Food.</em></div>
+
+<p>“There, on the old ash-tree, you may see a pair, one perched on the
+topmost twig, the other hopping on the branches below, keeping up an
+incessant chatter. How gracefully she, on the topmost twig, swings in
+the breeze! Off she starts, and directs her flight to the fir-woods
+opposite, chattering all the way, seemingly to call her mate after her.
+But he prefers remaining behind. He is in a brown study, or something
+of that kind, as we can plainly see. Now, having spied something
+below, he hops downwards from twig to branch, and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">[117]</span>descends to the
+ground. His ash-tree, you must understand, grows close to, and in part
+overshadows, a farmyard; so now he is on ground which, as is customary
+in such places, is not over clean; therefore, lifting up his tail to
+prevent it being soiled or wet, as the farmer’s wife might hold up her
+Sunday gown, and raising his body as high as possible, he walks a few
+paces, and, spying an earth-worm half out of his hole, drags it forth
+by a sudden jerk, breaks it in pieces, and swallows it. Now, under the
+hedge, he has found a snail, which he will presently pick out of its
+shell, as an old woman would a periwinkle. But now something among the
+bushes has startled him, and he springs lightly upwards, chattering
+the while, to regain his favourite tree. It is a cat, which, not less
+frightened than himself, for both are intent on mischief, runs off
+towards the barn. The magpie again descends, steps slowly over the
+grassy margin of the yard, looking from side to side, stops, listens,
+advances rapidly by a succession of leaps, and encounters a whole brood
+of chickens, with their mother at their heels. If she had not been
+there he would have had a delicious feast of one of those chickens;
+but he dare not think of such a thing now, for, with fury in her eye,
+bristled plumage, and loud clamour, the hen rushes forward at him,
+overturning two of her younglings, and the enemy, suddenly wheeling
+round to avoid the encounter, flies off to his mate.</p>
+
+<p>“There again you perceive them in the meadow, as they walk about with
+their elevated tails, looking for something eatable. By the hedge, afar
+off, are two boys, with a gun, endeavouring to creep up to a flock of
+plovers on the other side. But the magpies see them, for there are not
+many things which<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">[118]</span> escape their sharp eyes, and presently rising, they
+fly directly over the field, chattering vehemently, and the flock of
+plovers on this take wing, and the disappointed young sportsmen sheer
+off in another direction.”</p>
+
+<p>Magpies always make a great chattering when they are disturbed, or
+when they apprehend that danger is near. Waterton says that they
+are vociferous at the approach of night, and that they are in truth
+valuable watchmen on that account. “Whoever enters the wood,” he
+says, “is sure to attract their notice, and then their challenge is
+incessant. When I hear them during the night, or even during the
+day, I know that mischief is on the stir. Three years ago, at eleven
+o’clock in the day, I was at the capture of one of the most expert
+and desperate poachers, to whose hiding-place we were directed by the
+chatter of the magpies.”</p>
+
+<p>The poor magpie has many enemies, and, knowing this, is always on the
+watch, and easily alarmed.</p>
+
+<p>Its mode of walking is like that of the rook, but not having any
+dignity to maintain, it every now and then leaps in a sidelong
+direction. When alarmed itself, or wishing to announce danger to other
+birds, it utters a sort of chuckling cry or chatter. If a fox or cat,
+or any other unfriendly animal, approaches, it hovers about it, and
+alarms the whole neighbourhood by its cries till the enemy is out of
+sight.</p>
+
+<p>Like the jackdaw, it generally keeps in pairs the whole year round;
+and, indeed, when birds continue to inhabit the same nest, season after
+season, it is quite natural that they should do so. It is a curious
+fact, however, that if by any accident the hen-magpie is killed, whilst
+sitting on her eggs, her mate sets<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">[119]</span> off at once and brings home another
+wife, who takes to the nest and eggs, just as if she had laid them; and
+if by another mischance she too should come to an untimely end, the
+widower again goes off, and, without any loss of time, brings back a
+third wife, and she takes to her duties quite as naturally and lovingly
+as the other did; but where all these surplus mothers come from is a
+question which no naturalist has yet answered, and the magpie, with all
+his chattering, is not clever enough to explain the wonder.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Beautiful Plumage.</em></div>
+
+<p>The beauty of this bird’s plumage is familiar to all; and although it
+is simply black and white, yet the exquisitely-coloured gloss of green,
+blue, and purple, with their varying and intermingling tints, produce
+such a charming effect that one cannot sufficiently admire them.</p>
+
+<p>With the external structure of the magpie’s nest we are acquainted: the
+lower part, inside, is neatly plastered with mud, “and is furnished,”
+says Bewick, “with a sort of mattress, formed of wool or fibrous roots,
+on which from three to six eggs are laid.” The eggs frequently vary,
+both in size and colour; sometimes they are of a pale green, freckled
+over with amber-brown and light purple; sometimes pale blue, with
+smaller spots of the same dark colours.</p>
+
+<p>The nest is, so to speak, a sort of little domed chamber, of a good
+size for its purpose; but then comes the question—What does the magpie
+do with her long tail as she sits on her eggs? It would certainly
+poke a hole through the wall if left to its full extent; she must,
+therefore, lift it up, as she does when walking amongst the wet grass,
+and sit with it laid flat against the wall, which probably is not
+inconvenient to her.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[120]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XXII">CHAPTER XXII.</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="center">THE NUTHATCH.</p>
+
+
+<p><span class="smcap">This</span> bird is almost an entire stranger to most people. It belongs to
+the rather large family of creepers; birds which, like the woodpecker
+and the little golden-crested wren, run up the holes and branches of
+trees in search of food. The nuthatch, however, has an advantage over
+all its other creeping relatives, by being gifted with the power of
+coming down the tree head foremost, which none of them have. It can
+also sleep with its head downwards; neither in its rapid ascent has it
+occasion to press its tail against the tree for help; so that it is the
+most accomplished little acrobat of the whole race of creepers.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-169"><img src="images/i-169.jpg" alt="" width="482" height="650" /></a>
+<p class="caption center">NUTHATCH AND NEST.&#160; &#160; &#160; [<a href="#Page_120" title="Page 120">Page 120.</a></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The nuthatch cannot be called a rare bird, and yet it is not often
+seen, being of a shy and retiring disposition, though naturally lively
+and active. The plumage is very pleasing in colour; the upper parts
+of the body are bluish-grey; a black line passes from the corners of
+the mouth to the back of the neck; the breast and under parts light
+reddish-yellow, and the sides reddish-brown.</p>
+
+<p>It delights in woods and trees; nor need it be looked for elsewhere,
+as it derives its food entirely amongst them, either of insects and
+larvæ, hidden in the bark, or of fruits and nuts, as kernels of
+fir-cones, beech, and other nuts, the shells of which it <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[121]</span>breaks in
+a very ingenious manner, as I shall presently describe. Now and then
+it alights on the ground, and then advances by short leaps. It has no
+song; but in winter, when living in small companies, perhaps the whole
+summer-family associating together, it has a little piping note, which,
+however, is supposed to be simply the call to each other. It is said to
+be sensitive to the cold, and always feeds on the side of the wood or
+of the tree which is defended from the wind. In spring, however, when
+all nature is renovated with a quicker pulse of life—for, as Tennyson
+says:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+  <div class="stanza">
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove—</div>
+  </div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>then, also, the silent nuthatch sends forth through the awakening
+solitude of the woods his two little notes, one short and twittering,
+the other a low, mellow, flute-like whistle, which is so clear that it
+may be heard to a considerable distance.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Its Favourite Food.</em></div>
+
+<p>The graphic author of the “British Birds” says, “It is, at all times,
+a busy and cheerful bird, particularly at nesting-time. Its favourite
+food is nuts of any kind. It builds and roosts in hollow trees, and
+is seldom seen in the open fields, unless when in quest of the stones
+of the white-thorn or sloe. It may, therefore, be properly called a
+forester. Its dexterity in opening nuts and the stones of fruit is
+curious. It fixes the nut in a crack, on the top of a post, or in the
+bark of a tree, and, placing itself above it, head downwards, striking
+with great force and rapidity, with its strong, wedge-shaped bill on
+the edge of the shell, splits it open. When their food is plentiful,<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[122]</span>
+they have a favourite crack for unshelling the kernels, as sometimes a
+peck of broken shells may be seen under this crack.”</p>
+
+<p>The Rev. W. T. Bree tells us that “the tapping of the bird on the hard
+shell may be heard at a considerable distance, and that during the
+operation it sometimes happens that the nut swerves from its fixture
+and falls towards the ground. It has not descended, however, for the
+space of more than a few yards, when the nuthatch, with admirable
+adroitness, recovers it in the fall, and, replacing it in its former
+position, commences the attack afresh. The fall of the nut in the air,
+and the recovery by the bird on the wing, I have seen repeated several
+times in the space of a few minutes.”</p>
+
+<p>This is a little act of skill in the bird which it would be charming to
+observe; and here again I would remark, as I have so often done before,
+that this is but a single instance of what many of us, living in the
+country, might witness in some woodland nook near at hand, if we would
+only be lovingly still and patient, and interest ourselves in the ways
+and means of the innocent animal-life around us.</p>
+
+<p>The nest of the bird also deserves our notice; and let me here call
+your attention to the beautiful and living little portrait of the bird
+at home, given us by Mr. Harrison Weir, than which we have nothing more
+truthful from his pencil. The home of the nuthatch is nothing more, to
+begin with, than the hole in an old tree, which, probably, has been
+deserted by the woodpecker. As, however, the woodpecker either requires
+a more enlarged entrance to her nursery, or considers it more seemly,
+the nuthatch, who merely likes a snug little hole to creep in at, and
+nothing more, walls up the opening with a plastering of<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[123]</span> clay or mud,
+leaving only just room enough for herself to enter. Perhaps she may be
+afraid of the old tenants returning and again taking possession, so
+builds up a little defence in front; but of that I cannot say; certain
+it is she makes herself comfortably at home in rather an untidy nest,
+composed mostly of dead oak-leaves, and here she lays six or seven
+white eggs, with ruddy spots on them.</p>
+
+<div class="sidenote"><em>Her Defence of her Young.</em></div>
+
+<p>If the plaster wall be by any chance removed, the poor bird loses not
+a moment in replacing it; and though she has apparently great dread
+of any enemy—the woodpecker, snake, man, or whatever else he may be,
+disturbing her—yet so faithfully devoted is she to her duties, that
+scarcely anything will induce her to leave the eggs or young. She
+fights vigorously in defence of her home and its treasures, striking
+out with her bill and wings, and making a hissing, angry noise. Nay,
+timid and shy as she naturally is, she will suffer herself to be
+carried off captive rather than desert her charge.</p>
+
+<p>Let me conclude with one of Bechstein’s anecdotes of the nuthatch:—</p>
+
+<p>“A lady amused herself in the winter by throwing seeds on the terrace,
+below the window, to feed the birds in the neighbourhood. She put some
+hemp-seed and cracked nuts even on the window-sill, and on a board, for
+her particular favourites, the blue-tits. Two nuthatches came one day
+to have their share of this repast, and were so well pleased that they
+became quite familiar, and did not even go away in the following spring
+to get their natural food and to build their nest in the wood. They
+settled themselves in the hollow of an old tree near the house.</p>
+
+<p>“As soon as the two young ones which were reared here were<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[124]</span> ready to
+fly, they brought them to the hospitable window, where they were to be
+nourished, and soon after disappeared entirely. It was amusing to see
+these two new visitors hang or climb on the walls or blinds, whilst
+their benefactress put their food on the board. These pretty creatures
+as well as the tits, knew her so well, that when she drove away the
+sparrows, which came to steal what was not intended for them, they did
+not fly away also, but seemed to know what was done was only to protect
+and defend them. They remained near the house for the whole summer,
+rarely wandering, till one fatal day, at the beginning of the sporting
+season, in autumn, on hearing the report of a gun, they disappeared and
+were never seen again.”</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<a id="image-174"><img src="images/i-174.jpg" alt="" width="313" height="350" /></a>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="full x-ebookmaker-drop" />
+
+<p class="center"><span class="smcap">Watson &amp; Hazell</span>, Printers, 28, Charles Street, Hatton Garden.</p>
+
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author	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-21 18:18:13 -0800
committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-21 18:18:13 -0800
commit	fa370b8b858f93bd2042d68d2a180cc73532c897 (patch)
tree	577a63267379cc9383f70618e993ae20257837a7
parent	807d728956ee9546514dca74c6bcedf26d1f324f (diff)