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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds in Town and Village, by W. H. Hudson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: Birds in Town and Village
+
+Author: W. H. Hudson
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7353]
+Last Updated: August 24, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN TOWN & VILLAGE
+
+BY
+
+
+W. H. HUDSON,
+
+F.Z.S.
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE PURPLE LAND," "IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA," "FAR AWAY AND
+LONG AGO," ETC.
+
+
+1920
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+This book is more than a mere reprint of _Birds in a Village_ first
+published in 1893. That was my first book about bird life, with some
+impressions of rural scenes, in England; and, as is often the case with
+a first book, its author has continued to cherish a certain affection
+for it. On this account it pleased me when its turn came to be reissued,
+since this gave me the opportunity of mending some faults in the
+portions retained and of throwing out a good deal of matter which
+appeared to me not worth keeping.
+
+The first portion, "Birds in a Village," has been mostly rewritten with
+some fresh matter added, mainly later observations and incidents
+introduced in illustration of the various subjects discussed. For the
+concluding portion of the old book, which has been discarded, I have
+substituted entirely new matter-the part entitled "Birds in a Cornish
+Village."
+
+Between these two long parts there are five shorter essays which I have
+retained with little alteration, and these in one or two instances are
+consequently out of date, especially in what was said with bitterness in
+the essay on "Exotic Birds for Britain" anent the feather-wearing
+fashion and of the London trade in dead birds and the refusal of women
+at that time to help us in trying to save the beautiful wild bird life
+of this country and of the world generally from extermination. Happily,
+the last twenty years of the life and work of the Royal Society for the
+Protection of Birds have changed all that, and it would not now be too
+much to say that all right-thinking persons in this country, men and
+women, are anxious to see the end of this iniquitous traffic.
+
+W. H. H.
+
+September, 1919.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PAGE
+
+BIRDS IN A VILLAGE:
+
+I
+
+II
+
+III
+
+IV
+
+V
+
+VI
+
+VII
+
+VIII
+
+IX
+
+X
+
+XI
+
+EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
+
+MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
+
+THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY
+
+CHANTICLEER
+
+IN AN OLD GARDEN
+
+BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE:
+
+I. TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS
+
+II. DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?
+
+III. VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER
+
+IV. INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
+
+V. THE DAW SENTIMENT
+
+VI. STORY OF A JACKDAW
+
+
+
+
+    BIRDS IN TOWN & VILLAGE
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN A VILLAGE I
+
+About the middle of last May, after a rough and cold period, there came
+a spell of brilliant weather, reviving in me the old spring feeling, the
+passion for wild nature, the desire for the companionship of birds; and
+I betook myself to St. James's Park for the sake of such satisfaction as
+may be had from watching and feeding the fowls, wild and semi-wild,
+found gathered at that favored spot.
+
+I was glad to observe a couple of those new colonists of the ornamental
+water, the dabchicks, and to renew my acquaintance with the familiar,
+long-established moorhens. One of them was engaged in building its nest
+in an elm-tree growing at the water's edge. I saw it make two journeys
+with large wisps of dry grass in its beak, running up the rough,
+slanting trunk to a height of sixteen to seventeen feet, and
+disappearing within the "brushwood sheaf" that springs from the bole at
+that distance from the roots. The wood-pigeons were much more numerous,
+also more eager to be fed.  They seemed to understand very quickly that
+my bread and grain was for them and not the sparrows; but although they
+stationed themselves close to me, the little robbers we were jointly
+trying to outwit managed to get some pieces of bread by flying up and
+catching them before they touched the sward. This little comedy over, I
+visited the water-fowl, ducks of many kinds, sheldrakes, geese from many
+lands, swans black, and swans white. To see birds in prison during the
+spring mood of which I have spoken is not only no satisfaction but a
+positive pain; here--albeit without that large liberty that nature
+gives, they are free in a measure; and swimming and diving or dozing in
+the sunshine, with the blue sky above them, they are perhaps unconscious
+of any restraint.  Walking along the margin I noticed three children
+some yards ahead of me; two were quite small, but the third, in whose
+charge the others were, was a robust-looking girl, aged about ten or
+eleven years. From their dress and appearance I took them to be the
+children of a respectable artisan or small tradesman; but what chiefly
+attracted my attention was the very great pleasure the elder girl
+appeared to take in the birds. She had come well provided with stale
+bread to feed them, and after giving moderately of her store to the
+wood-pigeons and sparrows, she went on to the others, native and exotic,
+that were disporting themselves in the water, or sunning themselves on
+the green bank. She did not cast her bread on the water in the manner
+usual with visitors, but was anxious to feed all the different species,
+or as many as she could attract to her, and appeared satisfied when any
+one individual of a particular kind got a fragment of her bread.
+Meanwhile she talked eagerly to the little ones, calling their attention
+to the different birds. Drawing near, I also became an interested
+listener; and then, in answer to my questions, she began telling me what
+all these strange fowls were. "This," she said, glad to give
+information, "is the Canadian goose, and there is the Egyptian goose;
+and here is the king-duck coming towards us; and do you see that large,
+beautiful bird standing by itself, that will not come to be fed? That is
+the golden duck. But that is not its real name; I don't know them all,
+and so I name some for myself. I call that one the golden duck because
+in the sun its feathers sometimes shine like gold." It was a rare
+pleasure to listen to her, and seeing what sort of a girl she was, and
+how much in love with her subject, I in my turn told her a great deal
+about the birds before us, also of other birds she had never seen nor
+heard of, in other and distant lands that have a nobler bird life than
+ours; and after she had listened eagerly for some minutes, and had then
+been silent a little while, she all at once pressed her two hands
+together, and exclaimed rapturously, "Oh, I do so love the birds!"
+
+I replied that that was not strange, since it is impossible for us not
+to love whatever is lovely, and of all living things birds were made
+most beautiful.
+
+Then I walked away, but could not forget the words she had exclaimed,
+her whole appearance, the face flushed with color, the eloquent brown
+eyes sparkling, the pressed palms, the sudden spontaneous passion of
+delight and desire in her tone. The picture was in my mind all that day,
+and lived through the next, and so wrought on me that I could not longer
+keep away from the birds, which I, too, loved; for now all at once it
+seemed to me that life was not life without them; that I was grown sick,
+and all my senses dim; that only the wished sight of wild birds could
+medicine my vision; that only by drenching it in their wild melody could
+my tired brain recover its lost vigour.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+After wandering somewhat aimlessly about the country for a couple of
+days, I stumbled by chance on just such a spot as I had been wishing to
+find--a rustic village not too far away. It was not more than
+twenty-five minutes' walk from a small station, less than one hour by
+rail from London.
+
+The way to the village was through cornfields, bordered by hedges and
+rows of majestic elms. Beyond it, but quite near, there was a wood,
+principally of beech, over a mile in length, with a public path running
+through it. On the right hand, ten minutes' walk from the village, there
+was a long green hill, the ascent to which was gentle; but on the
+further side it sloped abruptly down to the Thames.
+
+On the left hand there was another hill, with cottages and orchards,
+with small fields interspersed on the slope and summit, so that the
+middle part, where I lodged, was in a pretty deep hollow. There was no
+sound of traffic there, and few farmers' carts came that way, as it was
+well away from the roads, and the deep, narrow, winding lanes were
+exceedingly rough, like the stony beds of dried-up streams.
+
+In the deepest part of the coombe, in the middle of the village, there
+was a well where the cottagers drew their water; and in the summer
+evenings the youths and maidens came there, with or without jugs and
+buckets, to indulge in conversation, which was mostly of the rustic,
+bantering kind, mixed with a good deal of loud laughter. Close by was
+the inn, where the men sat on benches in the tap-room in grave discourse
+over their pipes and beer.
+
+Wishing to make their acquaintance, I went in and sat down among them,
+and found them a little shy--not to say stand-offish, at first. Rustics
+are often suspicious of the stranger within their gates; but after
+paying for beer all round, the frost melted and we were soon deep in
+talk about the wild life of the place; always a safe and pleasant
+subject in a village. One rough-looking, brown-faced man, with iron-grey
+hair, became a sort of spokesman for the company, and replied to most of
+my questions.
+
+"And what about badgers?" I asked. "In such a rough-looking spot with
+woods and all, it strikes me as just the sort of place where one would
+find that animal."
+
+A long dead silence followed. I caught the eye of the man nearest me and
+repeated the question, "Are there no badgers here?" His eyes fell, then
+he exchanged glances with some of the others, all very serious; and at
+length my man, addressing the person who had acted as spokesman before,
+said, "Perhaps you'll tell the gentleman if there are any badgers here."
+
+At that the rough man looked at me very sharply, and answered stiffly,
+"Not as I know of."
+
+A few weeks later, at a small town in the neighbourhood, I got into
+conversation with a hotel keeper, an intelligent man, who gave me a good
+deal of information about the country. He asked me where I was staying,
+and, on my telling him, said "Ah, I know it well--that village in a
+hole; and a very nasty hole to get in, too--at any rate it was so,
+formerly. They are getting a bit civilized now, but I remember the time
+when a stranger couldn't show himself in the place without being jeered
+at and insulted. Yes, they were a rough lot down in that hole--the
+Badgers, they were called, and that's what they are called still."
+
+The pity of it was that I didn't know this before I went among them! But
+it was not remembered against me that I had wounded their
+susceptibilities; they soon found that I was nothing but a harmless
+field naturalist, and I had friendly relations with many of them.
+
+At the extremity of the straggling village was the beginning of an
+extensive common, where it was always possible to spend an hour or two
+without seeing a human creature. A few sheep grazed and browsed there,
+roaming about in twos and threes and half-dozens, tearing their fleeces
+for the benefit of nest-building birds, in the great tangled masses of
+mingled furze and bramble and briar. Birds were abundant there--all
+those kinds that love the common's openness, and the rough, thorny
+vegetation that flourishes on it. But the village--or rather, the large
+open space occupied by it, formed the headquarters and centre of a
+paradise of birds (as I soon began to think it), for the cottages and
+houses were widely separated, the meanest having a garden and some
+trees, and in most cases there was an old orchard of apple, cherry, and
+walnut trees to each habitation, and out of this mass of greenery, which
+hid the houses and made the place look more like a wood than a village,
+towered the great elms in rows, and in groups.
+
+On first approaching the place I heard, mingled with many other voices,
+that of the nightingale; and as it was for the medicine of its pure,
+fresh melody that I particularly craved, I was glad to find a lodging in
+one of the cottages, and to remain there for several weeks.
+
+The small care which the nightingale took to live up to his reputation
+in this place surprised me a little. Here he could always be heard in
+the daytime--not one bird, but a dozen--in different parts of the
+village; but he sang not at night. This I set down to the fact that the
+nights were dark and the weather unsettled. But later, when the weather
+grew warmer, and there were brilliant moonlight nights, he was still a
+silent bird except by day.
+
+I was also a little surprised at his tameness.
+
+On first coming to the village, when I ran after every nightingale I
+heard, to get as near him as possible, I was occasionally led by the
+sound to a cottage, and in some instances I found the singer perched
+within three or four yards of an open window or door. At my own cottage,
+when the woman who waited on me shook the breakfast cloth at the front
+door, the bird that came to pick up the crumbs was the nightingale--not
+the robin. When by chance he met a sparrow there, he attacked and chased
+it away. It was a feast of nightingales. An elderly woman of the village
+explained to me that the nightingales and other small birds were common
+and tame in the village, because no person disturbed them. I smile now
+when recording the good old dame's words.
+
+On my second day at the village it happened to be raining--a warm,
+mizzling rain without wind--ind the nightingales were as vocal as in
+fine bright weather. I heard one in a narrow lane, and went towards it,
+treading softly, in order not to scare it away, until I got within eight
+or ten yards of it, as it sat on a dead projecting twig. This was a twig
+of a low thorn tree growing up from the hedge, projecting through the
+foliage, and the bird, perched near its end, sat only about five feet
+above the bare ground of the lane. Now, I owe my best thanks to this
+individual nightingale, for sharply calling to my mind a common
+pestilent delusion, which I have always hated, but had never yet raised
+my voice against--namely, that all wild creatures exist in constant fear
+of an attack from the numberless subtle or powerful enemies that are
+always waiting and watching for an opportunity to spring upon and
+destroy them.  The truth is, that although their enemies be legion, and
+that every day, and even several times on each day, they may be
+threatened with destruction, they are absolutely free from apprehension,
+except when in the immediate presence of danger. Suspicious they may be
+at times, and the suspicion may cause them to remove themselves to a
+greater distance from the object that excites it; but the emotion is so
+slight, the action so almost automatic, that the singing bird will fly
+to another bush a dozen yards away, and at once resume his interrupted
+song. Again, a bird will see the deadliest enemy of its kind, and unless
+it be so close as to actually threaten his life, he will regard it with
+the greatest indifference or will only be moved to anger at its
+presence.  Here was this nightingale singing in the rain, seeing but not
+heeding me; while beneath the hedge, almost directly under the twig it
+sat on, a black cat was watching it with luminous yellow eyes. I did not
+see the cat at first, but have no doubt that the nightingale had seen
+and knew that it was there. High up on the tops of the thorn, a couple
+of sparrows were silently perched. Perhaps, like myself, they had come
+there to listen. After I had been standing motionless, drinking in that
+dulcet music for at least five minutes, one of the two sparrows dropped
+from the perch straight down, and alighting on the bare wet ground
+directly under the nightingale, began busily pecking at something
+eatable it had discovered. No sooner had he begun pecking than out
+leaped the concealed cat on to him. The sparrow fluttered wildly up from
+beneath or between the claws, and escaped, as if by a miracle. The cat
+raised itself up, glared round, and, catching sight of me close by,
+sprang back into the hedge and was gone. But all this time the exposed
+nightingale, perched only five feet above the spot where the attack had
+been made and the sparrow had so nearly lost his life, had continued
+singing; and he sang on for some minutes after. I suppose that he had
+seen the cat before, and knew instinctively that he was beyond its
+reach; that it was a terrestrial, not an aerial enemy, and so feared it
+not at all; and he would, perhaps, have continued singing if the sparrow
+had been caught and instantly killed.
+
+Quite early in June I began to feel just a little cross with the
+nightingales, for they almost ceased singing; and considering that the
+spring had been a backward one, it seemed to me that their silence was
+coming too soon. I was not sufficiently regardful of the fact that their
+lays are solitary, as the poet has said; that they ask for no witness of
+their song, nor thirst for human praise. They were all nesting now. But
+if I heard them less, I saw much more of them, especially of one
+individual, the male bird of a couple that had made their nest in a
+hedge a stone's throw from the cottage. A favourite morning perch of
+this bird was on a small wooden gate four or five yards away from my
+window. It was an open, sunny spot, where his restless, bright eyes
+could sweep the lane, up and down; and he could there also give vent to
+his superfluous energy by lording it over a few sparrows and other small
+birds that visited the spot. I greatly admired the fine, alert figure of
+the pugnacious little creature, as he perched there so close to me, and
+so fearless. His striking resemblance to the robin in form, size, and in
+his motions, made his extreme familiarity seem only natural. The robin
+is greatly distinguished in a sober-plumaged company by the vivid tint
+on his breast. He is like the autumn leaf that catches a ray of sunlight
+on its surface, and shines conspicuously among russet leaves. But the
+clear brown of the nightingale is beautiful, too.
+
+This same nightingale was keeping a little surprise in store for me.
+Although he took no notice of me sitting at the open window, whenever I
+went thirty or forty yards from the gate along the narrow lane that
+faced it, my presence troubled him and his mate only too much. They
+would flit round my head, emitting the two strongly contrasted sounds
+with which they express solicitude--the clear, thin, plaintive, or
+wailing note, and the low, jarring sound--an alternate lamenting and
+girding. One day when I approached the nest, they displayed more anxiety
+than usual, fluttering close to me, wailing and croaking more vehemently
+than ever, when all at once the male, at the height of his excitement,
+burst into singing. Half a dozen notes were uttered rapidly, with great
+strength, then a small complaining cry again, and at intervals, a fresh
+burst of melody. I have remarked the same thing in other singing birds,
+species in which the harsh grating or piercing sounds that properly
+express violent emotions of a painful kind, have been nearly or quite
+lost. In the nightingale, this part of the bird's language has lost its
+original character, and has dwindled to something very small.
+Solicitude, fear, anger, are expressed with sounds that are mere
+lispings compared with those emitted by the bird when singing. It is
+worthy of remark that some of the most highly developed melodists--and I
+am now thinking of the mocking-birds--never, in-moments of extreme
+agitation, fall into this confusion and use singing notes that express
+agreeable emotions, to express such as are painful. But in the
+mocking-bird the primitive harsh and grating cries have not been lost
+nor softened to sounds hardly to be distinguished from those that are
+emitted by way of song.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+By this time all the birds were breeding, some already breeding a second
+time. And now I began to suspect that they were not quite so undisturbed
+as the old dame had led me to believe; that they had not found a
+paradise in the village after all. One morning, as I moved softly along
+the hedge in my nightingale's lane, all at once I heard, in the old
+grassy orchard, to which it formed a boundary, swishing sounds of
+scuttling feet and half-suppressed exclamations of alarm; then a
+crushing through the hedge, and out, almost at my feet, rushed and
+leaped and tumbled half-a-dozen urchins, who had suddenly been
+frightened from a bird-nesting raid. Clothes torn, hands and faces
+scratched with thorns, hat-less, their tow-coloured hair all disordered
+or standing up like a white crest above their brown faces, rounded eyes
+staring--what an extraordinarily wild appearance they had! I was back
+in very old times, in the Britain of a thousand years before the coming
+of the Romans, and these were her young barbarians, learning their
+life's business in little things.
+
+No, the birds of the village were not undisturbed while breeding; but
+happily the young savages never found my nightingale's nest. One day the
+bird came to the gate as usual, and was more alert and pugnacious than
+ever; and no wonder, for his mate came too, and with them four young
+birds. For a week they were about the cottage every day, when they
+dispersed, and one beautiful bright morning the male bird, in his old
+place near my window, attempted to sing, beginning with that rich,
+melodious throbbing, which is usually called "_jugging_," and following
+with half-a-dozen beautiful notes. That was all. It was July, and I
+heard no more music from him or from any other of his kind.
+
+* * *
+
+I have perhaps written at too great length of this bird. The nightingale
+was after all only one of the fifty-nine species I succeeded in
+identifying during my sojourn at the village. There were more. I heard
+the calls and cries of others in the wood and various places, but
+refused, except in the case of the too elusive crake, to set down any in
+my list that I did not see. It was not my ambition to make a long list.
+My greatest desire was to see well those that interested me most. But
+those who go forth, as I did, to look for birds that are a sight for
+sore eyes, must meet with many a disappointment. In all those fruit and
+shade trees that covered the village with a cloud of verdure, and in the
+neighbouring woods, not once did I catch a glimpse of the green
+woodpecker, a beautiful conspicuous bird, supposed to be increasing in
+many places in England. Its absence from so promising a locality seemed
+strange.  Another species, also said to be increasing in the
+country--the turtledove, was extremely abundant. In the tall beech woods
+its low, monotonous crooning note was heard all day long from all sides.
+In shady places, where the loud, shrill bird-voices are few, one prefers
+this sound to the set song of the woodpigeon, being more continuous and
+soothing, and of the nature of a lullaby. It sometimes reminded me of
+the low monotone I have heard from a Patagonian mother when singing her
+"swart papoose" to sleep. Still, I would gladly have spared many of
+these woodland crooners for the sake of one magpie--that bird of fine
+feathers and a bright mind, which I had not looked on for a whole year,
+and now hoped to see again. But he was not there; and after I had looked
+for myself, some of the natives assured me that no magpie had been seen
+for years in that wood.
+
+For a time I feared that I was to be just as unlucky with regard to the
+jay, seeing that the owner of the extensive beech woods adjoining the
+village permitted his keeper to kill the most interesting birds in
+it--kestrels and sparrowhawks, owls, jays, and magpies. He was a new
+man, comparatively, in the place, and wanted to increase his preserves,
+but to do this it was necessary first to exclude the villagers--the
+Badgers, who were no doubt partial to pheasants' eggs. Now, to close an
+ancient right-of-way is a ticklish business, and this was an important
+one, seeing that the village women did their Saturday marketing in the
+town beyond the wood and river, and with the path closed they would have
+two miles further to walk. The new lord wisely took this into
+consideration, and set himself to win the goodwill of the people before
+attempting any strong measures. He walked in the lanes and was affable
+to the cottage women and nice to the children, and by and bye he
+exclaimed, "What! No institute! no hall, or any place where you can meet
+and spend the long winter evenings? Well, I'll soon see to that." And
+soon, to their delight, they had a nice building reared on a piece of
+land which he bought for the purpose, furnished with tables, chairs,
+bagatelle boards, and all accessories; and he also supplied them with
+newspapers and magazines. He was immensely popular, but appeared to
+think little of what he had done. When they expressed their gratitude to
+him he would move his hand, and answer, "Oh, I'm going to do a great
+deal more than that for you!"
+
+A few months went by, then he caused a notice to be put up about the
+neighbourhood that the path through the wood was going to be closed "by
+order." No one took any notice, and a few weeks later his workmen
+appeared on the scene and erected a huge oakwood barrier across the
+path; also a notice on a board that the wood was strictly private and
+trespassers would be prosecuted. The villagers met in force at the
+institute and the inn that evening, and after discussing the matter over
+their ale, they armed themselves with axes and went in a body and
+demolished the barrier.
+
+The owner was disgusted, but took no action. "This," he said, "is their
+gratitude"; and from that day he ceased to subscribe to the local
+charities or take his walks in the village. He had given the institute,
+and so could not pull it down nor prevent them from using it.
+
+It was refreshing to hear that the Badgers had shown a proper spirit in
+the matter, and I was grateful to them for having kept the right-of-way,
+as on most days I spent several hours in the beautiful woods.
+
+To return to the jay. In spite of the keeper's persecution, I knew that
+he was there; every morning when I got up to look out of the window
+between four and five o'clock, I heard from some quarter of the village
+that curious subdued, but far-reaching, scolding note he is accustomed
+to utter when his suspicions have been aroused.
+
+That was the jay's custom--to come from the woods before even the
+earliest risers were up, and forage in the village. By and bye I
+discovered that, by lying motionless for an hour or so on the dry moss
+in the wood, he would at length grow so bold as to allow himself to be
+seen, but high up among the topmost branches. Then, by means of my
+binocular, I had the wild thing on my thumb, so to speak, exhibiting
+himself to me, inquisitive, perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns, as
+he flirted wings and tail, lifted and lowered his crest, glancing down
+with bright, wild eyes. What a beautiful hypocrisy and delightful power
+this is which enables us, sitting or lying motionless, feigning sleep
+perhaps, thus to fool this wild, elusive creature, and bring all its
+cunning to naught! He is so much smaller and keener-sighted, able to
+fly, to perch far up above me, to shift his position every minute or
+two, masking his small figure with this or that tuft of leaves, while
+still keeping his eyes on me--in spite of it all to have him so close,
+and without moving or taking any trouble, to see him so much better than
+he can see me! But this is a legitimate trickery of science, so innocent
+that we can laugh at our dupe when we practise it; nor do we afterwards
+despise our superior cunning and feel ashamed, as when we slaughter wild
+birds with far-reaching shot, which they cannot escape.
+
+* * *
+
+All these corvine birds, which the gamekeeper pursues so relentlessly,
+albeit they were before him, killing when they killed to better purpose;
+and, let us hope, will exist after him--all these must greatly surpass
+other kinds in sagacity to have escaped extermination. In the present
+condition of things, the jay is perhaps the best off, on account of his
+smaller size and less conspicuous colouring; but whether more cunning
+than the crow or magpie or not, in perpetual alertness and restless
+energy or intensity of life, he is without an equal among British birds.
+And this quality forms his chief attraction; it is more to the mind than
+his lifted crest and bright eyes, his fine vinaceous brown and the patch
+of sky-blue on his wings. One would miss him greatly from the woods;
+some of the melody may well be spared for the sake of the sudden,
+brain-piercing, rasping, rending scream with which he startles us in our
+solitary forest walks.
+
+It is this extreme liveliness of the jay which makes it more distressing
+to the mind to see it pent in a cage than other birds of its family,
+such as the magpie; just as it is more distressing to see a skylark than
+a finch in prison, because the lark has an irresistible impulse to rise
+when his singing fit is on. Sing he must, in or out of prison, yet there
+can be little joy in the performance when the bird is incessantly teased
+with the unsatisfied desire to mount and pour out his music at heaven's
+gate.
+
+Out of the cages, jays make charming and beautiful pets, and some who
+have kept them have assured me that they are not mischievous birds. The
+late Mark Melford one time when I visited him, had two jays, handsome
+birds, in bright, glossy plumage, always free to roam where they liked,
+indoors or out. We were sitting talking in his garden when one of the
+jays came flying to us and perched on a wooden ledge a few feet from and
+above our heads, and after sitting quietly for a little while he
+suddenly made a dash at my head, just brushing it with his wings, then
+returned to his perch.  At intervals of a few moments he repeated this
+action, and when I remarked that he probably resented the presence of a
+stranger, Melford exclaimed, "Oh, no, he wants to play with you--that's
+all."
+
+His manner of playing was rather startling. So long as I kept my eyes on
+him he remained motionless, but the instant my attention wandered, or
+when in speaking I looked at my companion, the sudden violent dash at my
+head would be made.
+
+I was assured by Melford that his birds never carried off and concealed
+bright objects, a habit which it has been said the jay, as well as the
+magpie, possesses.
+
+"What would he do with this shilling if I tossed it to him?" I asked.
+
+"Catch it," he returned. "It would simply be play to him, but he
+wouldn't carry it off."
+
+I tossed up the shilling, and the bird had perhaps expected me to do so,
+as he deftly caught it just as a dog catches a biscuit when you toss one
+to him. After keeping it a few moments in his beak, he put it down at
+his side. I took out four more shilling pieces and tossed them quickly
+one by one, and he caught them without a miss and placed them one by one
+with the other, not scattered about, but in a neat pile. Then, seeing
+that I had no more shillings he flew off.
+
+After these few playful passages with one of his birds, I could
+understand Melford's feeling about his free pet jays, magpies and
+jackdaws; they were not merely birds to him, but rather like so many
+delightful little children in the beautiful shape of birds.
+
+* * *
+
+There was no rookery in or near the village, but a large flock of rooks
+were always to be seen feeding and sunning themselves in some level
+meadows near the river. It struck me one day as a very fine sight, when
+an old bird, who looked larger and blacker and greyer-faced than the
+others, and might have been the father and leader of them all, got up on
+a low post, and with wide-open beak poured forth a long series of most
+impressive caws. One always wonders at the meaning of such displays. Is
+the old bird addressing the others in the rook language on some matter
+of great moment; or is he only expressing some feeling in the only
+language he has--those long, hoarse, uninflected sounds; and if so, what
+feeling? Probably a very common one. The rooks appeared happy and
+prosperous, feeding in the meadow grass in that June weather, with the
+hot sun shining on their glossy coats. Their days of want were long past
+and forgotten; the anxious breeding period was over; the tempest in the
+tall trees; the annual slaughter of the young birds--all past and
+forgotten. The old rook was simply expressing the old truth, that life
+was worth living.
+
+These rooks were usually accompanied by two or three or more crows--a
+bird of so ill-repute that the most out-and-out enthusiast for
+protection must find it hard to say a word in its favour. At any rate,
+the rooks must think, if they think at all, that this frequent visitor
+and attendant of theirs is more kin than kind. I have related in a
+former work that I once saw a peregrine strike down and kill an owl--a
+sight that made me gasp with astonishment. But I am inclined to think of
+this act as only a slip, a slight aberration, on the part of the falcon,
+so universal is the sense of relationship among the kinds that have the
+rapacious habit; or, at the worst, it was merely an isolated act of
+deviltry and daring of the sharp-winged pirate of the sky, a sudden
+assertion of over-mastering energy and power, and a very slight offence
+compared with that of the crow when he carries off and devours his
+callow little cousins of the rookery.
+
+* * *
+
+One of the first birds I went out to seek--perhaps the most medicinal of
+all birds to see--was the kingfisher; but he was not anywhere on the
+river margin, although suitable places were plentiful enough, and
+myriads of small fishes were visible in the shallow water, seen at rest
+like dim-pointed stripes beneath the surface, and darting away and
+scattering outwards, like a flight of arrows, at any person's approach.
+Walking along the river bank one day, when the place was still new to
+me, I discovered a stream, and following it up arrived at a spot where a
+clump of trees overhung the water, casting on it a deep shade. On the
+other side of the stream buttercups grew so thickly that the glazed
+petals of the flowers were touching; the meadow was one broad expanse of
+brilliant yellow. I had not been standing half a minute in the shade
+before the bird I had been seeking darted out from the margin, almost
+beneath my feet, and then, instead of flying up or down stream, sped
+like an arrow across the field of buttercups. It was a very bright day,
+and the bird going from me with the sunshine full on it, appeared
+entirely of a shining, splendid green.  Never had I seen the kingfisher
+in such favourable circumstances; flying so low above the flowery level
+that the swiftly vibrating wings must have touched the yellow petals; he
+was like a waif from some far tropical land. The bird was tropical, but
+I doubt if there exists within the tropics anything to compare with a
+field of buttercups--such large and unbroken surfaces of the most
+brilliant colour in nature. The first bird's mate appeared a minute
+later, flying in the same direction, and producing the same splendid
+effect, and also green. These two alone were seen, and only on this
+occasion, although I often revisited the spot, hoping to find them
+again.
+
+Now, the kingfisher is blue, and I am puzzled to know why, on this one
+occasion, it appeared green. I have, in a former work, _Argentine
+Ornithology_, described a contrary effect in a small and beautiful
+tyrant-bird, _Cyanotis azarae_, variously called, in the vernacular,
+"All-colored or Many-colored Kinglet." It has a little blue on its head,
+but its entire back, from the nape to the tail, is deep green. It lives
+in beds of bulrushes, and when seen flying from the spectator in a very
+strong light, at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, its colour in
+appearance is bright cerulean blue. It is a sunlight effect, but how
+produced is a mystery to me. In the case of the two green kingfishers, I
+am inclined to think that the yellow of that shining field of buttercups
+in some way produced the illusion.
+
+Why are these exquisite birds so rare, even in situations so favourable
+to them as the one I have described? Are they killed by severe frosts?
+An ornithological friend from Oxfordshire assures me that it will take
+several favourable seasons to make good the losses of the late terrible
+winter of 1891-92. But this, as every ornithologist knows, is only a
+part of the truth. The large number of stuffed kingfishers under glass
+shades that one sees in houses of all descriptions, in town and country,
+but most frequently in the parlours of country cottages and inns, tell a
+melancholy story. Some time ago a young man showed me three stuffed
+kingfishers in a case, and informed me that he had shot them at a place
+(which he named) quite close to London. He said that these three birds
+were the last of their kind ever seen there; that he had gone, week
+after week and watched and waited, until one by one, at long intervals,
+he had secured them all; and that two years had passed since the last
+one was killed, and no other kingfisher had been seen at the place. He
+added that the waterside which these birds had frequented was resorted
+to by crowds of London working people on Saturday afternoons, Sundays
+and other holidays; the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pairs
+of tired eyes would have been freshened and gladdened by the sight of
+their rare gem-like beauty only made him prouder of his achievement.
+This young man was a cockney of the small shop-keeping class--a
+Philistine of the Philistines--hence there was no call to feel surprise
+at his self-glorification over such a matter. But what shall we say of
+that writer whose masterly works on English rural life are familiar to
+everyone, who is regarded as first among "lovers of nature," when he
+relates that he invariably carried a gun when out of doors, mainly with
+the object of shooting any kingfisher he might chance to see, as the
+dead bird always formed an acceptable present to the cottager's wife,
+who would get it stuffed and keep it as an ornament on her parlour
+mantelshelf!
+
+Happily for the kingfisher, and for human beings who love nature, the
+old idea that beautiful birds were meant to be destroyed for fun by
+anyone and everyone, from the small-brained, detestable cockney
+sportsman I have mentioned, to the gentlemen who write books about the
+beauties of nature, is now gradually giving place to this new one--that
+it would be better to preserve the beautiful things we possess. Half a
+century before the author of "Wild Life in a Southern Country" amused
+himself by carrying a gun to shoot kingfishers, the inhabitants of that
+same county of Wiltshire were bathed in tears--so I read in an old
+Salisbury newspaper--at the tragic death of a young gentleman of great
+distinction, great social charm, great promise. He was out shooting
+swallows with a friend who, firing at a passing swallow, had the
+misfortune to shoot and kill _him._
+
+At the present time when gentlemen practise a little at flying birds, to
+get their hand in before the first of September, they shoot sparrows as
+a rule, or if they shoot swallows, which afford them better practice,
+they do not say anything about it.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Where the stream broadened and mixed with the river, there existed a
+dense and extensive rush-bed--an island of rushes separated by a deep
+channel, some twelve or fourteen yards in width from the bank. This was
+a favourite nesting-place of the sedge-warblers; occasionally as many as
+a dozen birds could be heard singing at the same time, although in no
+sense together, and the effect was indeed curious. This is not a song
+that spurts and gushes up fountain-like in the manner of the robin's,
+and of some other kinds, sprinkling the listener, so to speak, with a
+sparkling vocal spray; but it keeps low down, a song that flows along
+the surface gurgling and prattling like musical running water, in its
+shallow pebbly channel. Listening again, the similitude that seemed
+appropriate at first was cast aside for another, and then another still.
+The hidden singers scattered all about their rushy island were small,
+fantastic, human minstrels, performing on a variety of instruments, some
+unknown, others recognizable--bones and castanets, tiny hurdy-gurdies,
+piccolos, banjos, tabours, and Pandean pipes--a strange medley!
+
+Interesting as this concert was, it held me less than the solitary
+singing of a sedge-warbler that lived by himself, or with only his mate,
+higher up where the stream was narrow, so that I could get near him; for
+he not only tickled my ears with his rapid, reedy music, but amused my
+mind as well with a pretty little problem in bird psychology. I could
+sit within a few yards of his tangled haunt without hearing a note; but
+if I jumped up and made a noise, or struck the branches with my stick,
+he would incontinently burst into song. It is a very well-known habit of
+the bird, and on account of it and of the very peculiar character of the
+sounds emitted, his song is frequently described by ornithologists as
+"mocking, defiant, scolding, angry," etc. It seems clear that at
+different times the bird sings from different exciting causes. When,
+undisturbed by a strange presence, he bursts spontaneously into singing,
+the music, as in other species, is simply an expression of overflowing
+gladness; at other times, the bird expressed such feelings as alarm,
+suspicion, solicitude, perhaps anger, by singing the same song. How does
+this come about?
+
+I have stated, when speaking of the nightingale, that birds in which the
+singing faculty is highly developed, sometimes make the mistake of
+bursting into song when anxious or distressed or in pain, but that this
+is not the case with the mocking-birds. Some species of these brilliant
+songsters of the New World, in their passion for variety (to put it that
+way), import every harsh and grating cry and sound they know into their
+song; but, on the other hand, when anxious for the safety of their
+young, or otherwise distressed, they emit only the harsh and grating
+sounds--never a musical note. In the sedge-warbler, the harsh, scolding
+sounds that express alarm, solicitude, and other painful emotions, have
+also been made a part of the musical performance; but this differs from
+the songs of most species, the mocking birds included, in the
+extraordinary rapidity with which it is enunciated; once the song begins
+it goes on swiftly to the finish, harsh and melodious notes seeming to
+overlap and mingle, the sound forming, to speak in metaphor, a close
+intricate pattern of strongly-contrasted colours. Now the song
+invariably begins with the harsh notes--the sounds which, at other
+times, express alarm and other more or less painful emotions--and it
+strikes me as a probable explanation that when the bird in the singing
+season has been startled into uttering these harsh and grating sounds,
+as when a stone is flung into the rushes, he is incapable of uttering
+them only, but the singing notes they suggest and which he is in the
+habit of uttering, follow automatically.
+
+The spot where I observed this wee feathered fantasy, the tantalizing
+sprite of the rushes, and where I soon ceased to see, hear, or think
+about him, calls for a fuller description. On one side the wooded hill
+sloped downward to the stream; on the other side spread the meadows
+where the rooks came every day to feed, or to sit and stand about
+motionless, looking like birds cut out of jet, scattered over about half
+an acre of the grassy, level ground. Stout old pollard willows grew here
+and there along the banks and were pleasant to see, this being the one
+man-mutilated thing in nature which, to my mind, not infrequently gains
+in beauty by the mutilation, so admirably does it fit into and harmonize
+with the landscape. At one point there was a deep, nearly stagnant pool,
+separated from the stream by a strip of wet, rushy ground, its still
+dark surface covered with water-lilies, not yet in bloom. They were just
+beginning to show their polished buds, shaped like snake's heads, above
+the broad, oily leaves floating like islands on the surface. The stream
+itself was, on my side, fringed with bulrushes and other aquatic plants;
+on the opposite bank there were some large alders lifting their branches
+above great masses of bramble and rose-briar, all together forming as
+rich and beautiful a tangle as one could find even in the most luxuriant
+of the wild, unkept hedges round the village. The briars especially
+flourished wonderfully at this spot, climbing high and dropping their
+long, slim branches quite down to the surface of the water, and in some
+places forming an arch above the stream. A short distance from this
+tangle, so abundantly sprinkled with its pale delicate roses, the water
+was spanned by a small wooden bridge, which no person appeared to use,
+but which had a use. It formed the one dry clear spot in the midst of
+all that moist vegetation, and the birds that came from the wood to
+drink and search for worms and small caterpillars first alighted on the
+bridge. There they would rest a few moments, take a look round, then fly
+to some favourite spot where succulent morsels had been picked up on
+previous visits. Thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, reed-buntings,
+chaffinches, tits, wrens, with many other species, succeeded each other
+all day long; for now they mostly had young to provide for, and it was
+their busiest time.
+
+The unsullied beauty and solitariness of this spot made me wish at first
+that I was a boy once more, to climb and to swim, to revel in the
+sunshine and flowers, to be nearer in spirit to the birds and dragon
+flies and water-rats; then, that I could build a cabin and live there
+all the summer long, forgetful of the world and its affairs, with no
+human creature to keep me company, and no book to read, or with only one
+slim volume, some Spanish poet, let me say Melendez, for
+preference--only a small selection from his too voluminous writings; for
+he, albeit an eighteenth-century singer, was perhaps the last of that
+long, illustrious line of poets who sang as no others have sung of the
+pure delight-fulness of a life with nature. Something of this charm is
+undoubtedly due to the beauty of the language they wrote in and to the
+free, airy grace of assonants. What a hard, artificial sound the rhyme
+too often has: the clink that falls at regular intervals as of a
+stone-breaker's hammer! In the freer kinds of Spanish poetry there are
+numberless verses that make the smoothest lines and lyrics of our
+sweetest and most facile singers, from Herrick to Swinburne, seem hard
+and mechanical by comparison. But there is something more. I doubt, for
+one thing, if we are justified in the boast we sometimes make that the
+feeling for Nature is stronger in our poets than in those of other
+countries. The most scientific critic may be unable to pick a hole in
+Tennyson's botany and zoology; but the passion for, and feeling of
+oneness with Nature may exist without this modern minute accuracy. Be
+this as it may, it was not Tennyson, nor any other of our poets, that I
+would have taken to my dreamed-of solitary cabin for companionship:
+Melendez came first to my mind. I think of his lines to a butterfly:
+
+  De donde alegre vienes
+  Tan suelta y tan festiva,
+  Las valles alegrando
+  Veloz mariposilla?*
+
+* May be roughly rendered thus:
+
+  Whence, blithe one, comest thou
+  With that airy, happy flight--
+  To make the valleys glad,
+  O swift-winged butterfly?
+
+and can imagine him--the poet himself--coming to see me through the
+woods and down the hill with the careless ease and lightness of heart of
+his own purple-winged child of earth and air--_tan suelta y tan
+festiva_. Here in these four or five words one may read the whole secret
+of his charm--the exquisite delicacy and seeming artlessness in the
+form, and the spirit that is in him--the old, simple, healthy, natural
+gladness in nature, and feeling of kinship with all the children of
+life. But I do not wish to disturb anyone in his prepossessions. It
+would greatly trouble me to think that my reader should, for the space
+of a page, or even of a single line, find himself in opposition to and
+not with me; and I am free to admit that with regard to poetry one's
+preferences change according to the mood one happens to be in and to the
+conditions generally. At home in murky London on most days I should
+probably seek pleasure and forgetfulness in Browning; but in such
+surroundings as I have been describing the lighter-hearted, elf-like
+Melendez accords best with my spirit, one whose finest songs are without
+human interest; who is irresponsible as the wind, and as unstained with
+earthly care as the limpid running water he delights in: who is brother
+to bird and bee and butterfly, and worships only liberty and sunshine,
+and is in love with nothing but a flower.
+
+Nearly midway between the useful little bridge and the rose-blossoming
+tangle I have spoken of there were three elm-trees growing in the open
+grassy space near the brook; they were not lofty, but had very
+wide-spreading horizontal branches, which made them look like oaks. This
+was an ideal spot in which to spend the sultry hours, and I had no
+sooner cast myself on the short grass in the shade than I noticed that
+the end of a projecting branch above my head, and about twenty feet from
+the ground, was a favourite perch of a tree-pipit. He sang in the air
+and, circling gracefully down, would alight on the branch, where,
+sitting near me and plainly visible, he would finish his song and renew
+it at intervals; then, leaving the loved perch, he would drop, singing,
+to the ground, just a few yards beyond the tree's shadow; thence,
+singing again, he would mount up and up above the tree, only to slide
+down once more with set, unfluttering wings, with a beautiful swaying
+motion to the same old resting-place on the branch, there to sing and
+sing and sing.
+
+If Melendez himself had come to me with flushed face and laughing eyes,
+and sat down on the grass at my side to recite one of his most
+enchanting poems, I should, with finger on lip, have enjoined silence;
+for in the mood I was then in at that sequestered spot, with the
+landscape outside my shady green pavilion bathed and quivering in the
+brilliant sunshine, this small bird had suddenly become to me more than
+any other singer, feathered or human. And yet the tree-pipit is not very
+highly regarded among British melodists, on account of the little
+variety there is in its song. Nevertheless, it is most sweet--perhaps the
+sweetest of all. It is true that there are thousands, nay, millions of
+things--sights and sounds and perfumes--which are or may be described as
+sweet, so common is the metaphor, and this too common use has perhaps
+somewhat degraded it; but in this case there is no other word so well
+suited to describe the sensation produced.
+
+The tree-pipit has a comparatively short song, repeated, with some
+variation in the number and length of the notes, at brief intervals. The
+opening notes are thick and throaty, and similar in character to the
+throat-notes of many other species in this group, a softer sound than
+the throat-notes of the skylark and woodlark, which they somewhat
+resemble. The canary-like trills and thin piping notes, long drawn out,
+which follow vary greatly in different individuals, and in many cases
+the trills are omitted. But the concluding notes of the song I am
+considering--which is only one note repeated again and again--are clear
+and beautifully inflected, and have that quality of sweetness, of
+lusciousness, I have mentioned. The note is uttered with a downward
+fall, more slowly and expressively at each repetition, as if the singer
+felt overcome at the sweetness of life and of his own expression, and
+languished somewhat at the close; its effect is like that of the perfume
+of the honeysuckle, infecting the mind with a soft, delicious languor, a
+wish to lie perfectly still and drink of the same sweetness again and
+again in larger measure.
+
+To some who are familiar with this by no means uncommon little bird, it
+may seem that I am overstating the charm of its melody. I can only say
+that the mood I was then in made me very keenly appreciative; also that
+I have never heard any other individual of this species able to produce
+precisely the same effect. We know that there are quite remarkable
+differences in the songs of birds of the same species, that among
+several that appear to be perfect and to sing alike one will possess a
+charm above the other. The truth is they are not alike; they affect us
+differently, but the sense is not fine enough or not sufficiently
+trained to detect the cause. The poet's words may be used of this
+natural melody as well as of the works of art:
+
+  "O the little more and how much it is!"
+
+There were about the village, within a few minutes' walk of the cottage,
+not fewer than half-a-dozen tree-pipits, each inhabiting a favourite
+spot where I could always count on finding and hearing him at almost any
+hour of the day from sunrise to sunset. Yet I cared not for these. To
+the one chosen bird I returned daily to spend the hot hours, lying in
+the shade and listening to his strain. Finally, I allowed two or three
+days to slip by, and when I revisited the old spot the secret charm had
+vanished. The bird was there, and rose and fell as formerly, pouring out
+his melody; but it was not the same: something was missing from those
+last sweet, languishing notes. Perhaps in the interval there had been
+some disturbing accident in his little wild life, though I could hardly
+believe it, since his mate was still sitting about thirty yards from the
+tree on the five little mottled eggs in her nest. Or perhaps his
+midsummer's music had reached its highest point, and was now in its
+declension. And perhaps the fault was in me. The virtue that draws and
+holds us does not hold us always, nor very long; it departs from all
+things, and we wonder why. The loss is in ourselves, although we do not
+know it. Nature, the chosen mistress of our heart, does not change
+towards us, yet she is now, even to-day--
+
+  "Less full of purple colour and hid spice,"
+
+and smiles and sparkles in vain to allure us, and when she touches us
+with her warm, caressing touch, there is, compared with yesterday, only
+a faint response.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Coming back from the waterside through the wood, after the hottest hours
+of the day were over, the crooning of the turtle-doves would be heard
+again on every side--that summer beech-wood lullaby that seemed never to
+end. The other bird voices were of the willow-wren, the wood-wren, the
+coal-tit, and the now somewhat tiresome chiffchaff; from the distance
+would come the prolonged rich strain of the blackbird, and occasionally
+the lyric of the chaffinch. The song of this bird gains greatly when
+heard from a tall tree in the woodland silence; it has then a resonance
+and wildness which it appears to lack in the garden and orchard. In the
+village I had been glad to find that the chaffinch was not too common,
+that in the tangle of minstrelsy one could enjoy there his vigorous
+voice was not predominant.
+
+Of all these woodland songsters the wood-wren impressed me the most. He
+could always be heard, no matter where I entered the wood, since all
+this world of tall beeches was a favoured haunt of the wood-wren, each
+pair keeping to its own territory of half-an-acre of trees or so, and
+somewhere among those trees the male was always singing, far up,
+invisible to eyes beneath, in the topmost sunlit foliage of the tall
+trees. On entering the wood I would, stand still for a few minutes to
+listen to the various sounds until that one fascinating sound would come
+to my ears from some distance away, and to that spot I would go to find
+a bed of last year's leaves to sit upon and listen. It was an enchanting
+experience to be there in that woodland twilight with the green cloud of
+leaves so far above me; to listen to the silence, to the faint whisper
+of the wind-touched leaves, then to little prelusive drops of musical
+sound, growing louder and falling faster until they ran into one
+prolonged trill. And there I would sit listening for half-an-hour or a
+whole hour; but the end would not come; the bird is indefatigable and
+with his mysterious talk in the leaves would tire the sun himself and send
+him down the sky: for not until the sun has set and the wood has grown
+dark does the singing cease.
+
+On emerging from the deep shade of the beeches into the wide grassy road
+that separated the wood from the orchards and plantations of fruit
+trees, and pausing for a minute to look down on the more than
+half-hidden village, invariably the first loud sounds that reached my
+ear were those of the cuckoo, thrush, and blackbird. At all hours in the
+village, from early morning to evening twilight, these three voices
+sounded far and near above the others. I considered myself fortunate
+that no large tree near the cottage had been made choice of by a
+song-thrush as a singing-stand during the early hours. The nearest tree
+so favoured was on the further side of a field, so that when I woke at
+half-past three or four o'clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in
+at the open window, softened by distance and washed by the dewy
+atmosphere to greater purity. Throstle and skylark to be admired must be
+heard at a distance. But at that early hour when I sat by the open
+window, the cuckoo's call was the commonest sound; the birds were
+everywhere, bird answering bird far and near, so persistently repeating
+their double note that this sound, which is in character unlike any
+other sound in nature, which one so listens and longs to hear in spring,
+lost its old mystery and charm, and became of no more account than the
+cackle of the poultry-yard. It was the cuckoo's village; sometimes three
+or four birds in hot pursuit of each other would dash through the trees
+that lined the further side of the lane and alight on that small tree at
+the gate which the nightingale was accustomed to visit later in the day.
+
+Other birds that kept themselves very much out of sight during most of
+the time also came to the same small tree at that early hour. It was
+regularly visited, and its thin bole industriously examined, by the
+nuthatch and the quaint little mouse-like creeper. Doubtless they
+imagined that five o'clock was too early for heavy human creatures to be
+awake, and were either ignorant of my presence or thought proper to
+ignore it.
+
+But where, during the days when the vociferous cuckoo, with hoarse
+chuckle and dissyllabic call and wild bubbling cry was so much with
+us--where, in this period of many pleasant noises was the cuckoo's mate,
+or maid, or messenger, the quaint and beautiful wryneck? There are few
+British birds, perhaps not one--not even the crafty black and white
+magpie, or mysterious moth-like goatsucker, or tropical kingfisher--more
+interesting to watch. At twilight I had lingered at the woodside, also
+in other likely places, and the goatsucker had failed to appear, gliding
+and zig-zagging hither and thither on his dusky-mottled noiseless wings,
+and now this still heavier disappointment was mine. I could not find the
+wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, shut in by straggling hedges,
+should have had him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper and nuthatch,
+and starling and gem-like blue tit, found holes enough in the old trunks
+to breed in. And yet I knew that, albeit not common, he was there; I
+could not exactly say where, but somewhere on the other side of the next
+hedge or field or orchard; for I heard his unmistakable cry, now on this
+hand, now on that. Day after day I followed the voice, sometimes in my
+eagerness forcing my way through a brambly hedge to emerge with
+scratched hands and clothes torn, like one that had been set upon and
+mauled by some savage animal of the cat kind; and still the quaint
+figure eluded my vision.
+
+At last I began to have doubts about the creature that emitted that
+strange, penetrating call. First heard as a bird-call, and nothing more,
+by degrees it grew more and more laugh-like--a long, far-reaching,
+ringing laugh; not the laugh I should like to hear from any person I
+take an interest in, but a laugh with all the gladness, unction, and
+humanity gone out of it--a dry mechanical sound, as if a soulless,
+lifeless, wind-instrument had laughed. It was very curious. Listening to
+it day by day, something of the strange history of the being once but no
+longer human, that uttered it grew up and took shape in my mind; for we
+all have in us something of this mysterious faculty. It was no bird, no
+wryneck, but a being that once, long, long, long ago, in that same
+beautiful place, had been a village boy--a free, careless, glad-hearted
+boy, like many another. But to this boy life was more than to others,
+since nature appeared immeasurably more vivid on account of his brighter
+senses; therefore his love of life and happiness in life greatly
+surpassed theirs. Annually the trees shed their leaves, the flowers
+perished, the birds flew away to some distant country beyond the
+horizon, and the sun grew pale and cold in the sky; but the bright
+impression all things made on him gave him a joy that was perennial. The
+briony, woodbine, and honeysuckle he had looked on withered in the
+hedges, but their presentments flourished untouched by frost, as if his
+warmth sustained and gave them perpetual life; in that inner magical
+world of memory the birds still twittered and warbled, each after its
+kind, and the sun shone everlastingly. But he was living in a fool's
+paradise, as he discovered by-and-by, when a boy who had been his
+playmate began to grow thin and pale, and at last fell sick and died. He
+crept near and watched his dead companion lying motionless, unbreathing,
+with a face that was like white clay; and then, more horrible still, he
+saw him taken out and put into a grave, and the heavy, cold soil cast
+over him.
+
+What did this strange and terrible thing mean? Now for the first time he
+was told that life is ours only for a season; that we also, like the
+leaves and flowers, flourish for a while then fade and perish, and
+mingle with the dust. The sad knowledge had come too suddenly and in too
+vivid and dreadful a manner.  He could not endure it. Only for a
+season!--only for a season! The earth would be green, and the sky blue,
+and the sun shine bright for ever, and he would not see, not know it!
+Struck with anguish at the thought, he stole away out of sight of the
+others to hide himself in woods and thickets, to brood alone on such a
+hateful destiny, and torture himself with vain longings, until he, too,
+grew pale and thin and large-eyed, like the boy that had died, and those
+who saw him shook their heads and whispered to one another that he was
+not long for this world. He knew what they were saying, and it only
+served to increase his misery and fear, and made him hate them because
+they were insensible to the awful fact that death awaited them, or so
+little concerned that they had never taken the trouble to inform him of
+it. To eat and drink and sleep was all they cared for, and they regarded
+death with indifference, because their dull sight did not recognize the
+beauty and glory of the earth, nor their dull hearts respond to Nature's
+everlasting gladness. The sight of the villagers, with their solemn
+head-shakings and whisperings, even of his nearest kindred, grew
+insupportable, and he at length disappeared from among them, and was
+seen no more with his white, terror-stricken face. From that time he hid
+himself in the close thickets, supporting his miserable existence on
+wild fruits and leaves, and spending many hours each day lying in some
+sheltered spot, gazing up into that blue sunny sky, which was his to
+gaze on only for a season, while the large tears gathered in his eyes
+and rolled unheeded down his wasted cheeks.
+
+At length during this period there occurred an event which is the
+obscurest part of his history; for I know not who or what it was--my
+mind being in a mist about it--that came to or accidentally found him
+lying on a bed of grass and dried leaves in his thorny hiding-place. It
+may have been a gipsy or a witch--there were witches in those days--who,
+suddenly looking on his upturned face and seeing the hunger in his
+unfathomable eyes, loved him, in spite of her malignant nature; or a
+spirit out of the earth; or only a very wise man, an ancient,
+white-haired solitary, whose life had been spent in finding out the
+secrets of nature. This being, becoming acquainted with the cause of the
+boy's grief and of his solitary, miserable condition, began to comfort
+him by telling him that no grief was incurable, no desire that heart
+could conceive unattainable. He discoursed of the hidden potent
+properties of nature, unknown only to those who seek not to know them;
+of the splendid virtue inherent in all things, like the green and violet
+flames in the clear colourless raindrops which are seen only on rare
+occasions. Of life and death, he said that life was of the spirit which
+never dies, that death meant only a passage, a change of abode of the
+spirit, and the left body crumbled to dust when the spirit went out of
+it to continue its existence elsewhere, but that those who hated the
+thought of such change could, by taking thought, prolong life and live
+for a thousand years, like the adder and tortoise or for ever. But no,
+he would not leave the poor boy to grope alone and blindly after that
+hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied him too much. The
+means were simple and near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue
+that would save him from the dissolution which so appalled him. He would
+be startled to hear in how small a thing and in how insignificant a
+creature resided the principle that could make his body, like his
+spirit, immortal. But exceeding great power often existed in small
+compass: witness the adder's tooth, which was to our sight no more than
+the point of the smallest thorn. Now, in the small ant there exists a
+principle of a greater potency than any other in nature; so strong and
+penetrating was it that even the dull and brutish kind of men who
+enquire not into hidden things know something of its power. But the
+greatest of all the many qualities of this acid was unknown to them. The
+ants were a small people, but exceedingly wise and powerful. If a little
+human child had the strength of an ant he would surpass in power the
+mightiest giant that ever lived. In the same way ants surpassed men in
+wisdom; and this strength and wisdom was the result of that acid
+principle in them. Now, if any person should be able to overcome his
+repugnance to so strange a food as to sustain himself on ants and
+nothing else, the effect of the acid on him would be to change and
+harden his flesh and make it impervious to decay or change of any kind.
+He would, so long as he confined himself to this kind of food, be
+immortal.
+
+Not a moment did the wretched boy hesitate to make use of this new and
+wonderful knowledge. When he had found and broken open an ant-hill, so
+eager was he that, shutting his eyes, he snatched up the maddened
+insects by handfuls and swallowed them, dust and ants together, and was
+then tortured for hours, feeling and thinking that they were still alive
+within him, running about in search of an outlet and frantically biting.
+The strange food sickened him, so that he grew thinner and paler, until
+at last he could barely crawl on hands and feet, and was like a skeleton
+except for the great sad eyes that could still see the green earth and
+blue sky, and still reflected in their depths one fear and one desire.
+And slowly, day by day, as his system accustomed itself to the new diet,
+his strength returned, and he was able once more to walk erect and run,
+and to climb a tree, where he could sit concealed among the thick
+foliage and survey the village where he had first seen the light and had
+passed the careless, happy years of boyhood. But he cherished no tender
+memories and regrets; his sole thought was of the ants, and where to
+find a sufficiency of them to stay the cravings of hunger; for, after
+the first sensations of disgust had been overcome, he had begun to grow
+fond of this kind of food, and now consumed it with avidity. And as his
+strength increased so did his dexterity in catching the small, active
+insect prey. He no longer gathered the ants up in his palm and swallowed
+them along with dust and grit, but picked them up deftly, and conveyed
+them one by one to his mouth with lightning rapidity. Meanwhile that
+"acid principle," about which he had heard such wonderful things, was
+having its effect on his system. His skin changed its colour; he grew
+shrunken and small, until at length, after very many years, he dwindled
+to the grey little manikin of the present time. His mind, too, changed;
+he has no thought nor remembrance of his former life and condition and
+of his long-dead relations; but he still haunts the village where he
+knows so well where to find the small ants, to pick them from off the
+ant-hill and from the trunks of trees with his quick little claw-like
+hands. Language and song are likewise forgotten with all human things,
+all except his laugh; for when hunger is satisfied, and the sun shines
+pleasantly as he reposes on the dry leaves on the ground or sits aloft
+on a branch, at times a sudden feeling of gladness possesses him, and he
+expresses it in that one way--the long, wild, ringing peal of laughter.
+Listening to that strange sound, although I could not see I could yet
+picture him, as, aware of my cautious approach, he moved shyly behind
+the mossy trunk of some tree and waited silently for me to pass. A lean,
+grey little man, clad in a quaintly barred and mottled mantle, woven by
+his own hands from some soft silky material, and a close-fitting brown
+peaked cap on his head with one barred feather in it for ornament, and a
+small wizened grey face with a thin sharp nose, puckered lips, and a
+pair of round, brilliant, startled eyes.
+
+So distinct was this image to my mind's eye that it became unnecessary
+for me to see the creature, and I ceased to look for him; then all at
+once came disillusion, when one day, hearing the familiar high-pitched
+laugh with its penetrating and somewhat nasal tone, I looked and beheld
+the thing that had laughed just leaving its perch on a branch near the
+ground and winging its way across the field. It was only a bird after
+all--only the wryneck; and that mysterious faculty I spoke of, saying
+that we all of us possessed something of it (meaning only some of us)
+was nothing after all but the old common faculty of imagination.
+
+Later on I saw it again on half-a-dozen occasions, but never succeeded
+in getting what I call a satisfying sight of it, perched woodpecker-wise
+on a mossy trunk, busy at its old fascinating occupation of deftly
+picking off the running ants.
+
+It is melancholy to think that this quaint and beautiful bird of a
+unique type has been growing less and less common in our country during
+the last half a century, or for a longer period. In the last fifteen or
+twenty years the falling-off has been very marked. The declension is not
+attributable to persecution in this case, since the bird is not on the
+gamekeeper's black list, nor has it yet become so rare as to cause the
+amateur collectors of dead birds throughout the country systematically
+to set about its extermination. Doubtless that will come later on when
+it will be in the same category with the golden oriole, hoopoe,
+furze-wren, and other species that are regarded as always worth killing;
+that is to say, it will come--the scramble for the wryneck's
+carcass--if nothing is done in the meantime to restrain the enthusiasm
+of those who value a bird only when the spirit of life that gave it
+flight and grace and beauty has been crushed out of it--when it is no
+longer a bird. The cause of its decline up till now cannot be known to
+us; we can only say in our ignorance that this type, like innumerable
+others that have ceased to exist, has probably run its course and is
+dying out. Or it might be imagined that its system is undergoing some
+slow change, which tells on the migratory instinct, that it is becoming
+more a resident species in its winter home in Africa. But all
+conjectures are idle in such a case. It is melancholy, at all events for
+the ornithologist, to think of an England without a wryneck; but before
+that still distant day arrives let us hope that the love of birds will
+have become a common feeling in the mass of the population, and that the
+variety of our bird life will have been increased by the addition of
+some chance colonists and of many new species introduced from distant
+regions.
+
+I have lingered long over the wryneck, but have still a story to relate
+of this bird--not a fairy tale this time, but true.
+
+On the border of the village adjoining the wood--the side where birds
+were more abundant, and which consequently had the greatest attraction
+for me--there stands an old picturesque cottage nearly concealed from
+sight by the hedge in front and closely planted trees clustering round
+it. On one side was a grass field, on the other an orchard of old
+cherry, apple, and plum trees, all the property of the old man living in
+the cottage, who was a character in his way; at all events, he had not
+been fashioned in quite the same mould as the majority of the cottagers
+about him. They mostly, when past middle life, wore a heavy, dull and
+somewhat depressed look. This man had a twinkle in his dark-grey eyes,
+an expression of intelligent curiosity and fellowship; and his full
+face, bronzed with sixty or sixty-five years' exposure to the weather,
+was genial, as if the sunshine that had so long beaten on it had not
+been all used up in painting his skin that rich old-furniture colour,
+but had, some of it, filtered through the epidermis into the heart to
+make his existence pleasant and sweet. But it was a very rough-cast
+face, with shapeless nose and thick lips. He was short and
+broad-shouldered, always in the warm weather in his shirt-sleeves, a
+shirt of some very coarse material and of an earthen colour, his brown
+thick arms bare to the elbows. Waistcoat and trousers looked as if he
+had worn them for half his life, and had a marbled or mottled appearance
+as if they had taken the various tints of all the objects and materials
+he had handled or rubbed against in his life's work--wood, mossy trees,
+grass, clay, bricks, stone, rusty iron, and dozens more. He wore the
+field-labourer's thick boots; his ancient rusty felt hat had long lost
+its original shape; and finally, to complete the portrait, a short black
+clay pipe was never out of his lips--never, at all events, when I saw
+him, which was often; for every day as I strolled past his domain he
+would be on the outside of his hedge, or just coming out of his gate,
+invariably with something in his hand--a spade, a fork, or stick of
+wood, or an old empty fruit-basket. Although thus having the appearance
+of being very much occupied, he would always stop for a few minutes'
+talk with me; and by-and-by I began to suspect that he was a very social
+sort of person, and that it pleased him to have a little chat, but that
+he liked to have me think that he met me by accident while going about
+his work.
+
+One sunny morning as I came past his field he came out bearing a huge
+bundle of green grass on his head. "What!" he exclaimed, coming to a
+stand, "you here to-day? I thought you'd be away to the regatta."
+
+I said that I knew little about regattas and cared less, that a day
+spent in watching and listening to the birds gave me more pleasure than
+all the regattas in the country. "I suppose you can't understand that?"
+I added.
+
+He took the big green bundle from his head and set it down, pulled off
+his old hat to flap the dust out of it, then sucked at his short clay.
+"Well," he said at length, "some fancies one thing and some another, but
+we most of us like a regatta."
+
+During the talk that followed I asked him if he knew the wryneck, and if
+it ever nested in his orchard. He did not know the bird; had never heard
+its name nor the other names of snake-bird and cuckoo's mate; and when I
+had minutely described its appearance, he said that no such bird was
+known in the village.
+
+I assured him that he was mistaken, that I had heard the cry of the bird
+many times, and had even heard it once at a distance since our
+conversation began. Hearing that distant cry had caused me to ask the
+question.
+
+All at once he remembered that he knew, or had known formerly, the
+wryneck very well, but he had never learnt its name. About twenty or
+five-and-twenty years ago, he said, he saw the bird I had just described
+in his orchard, and as it appeared day after day and had a strange
+appearance as it moved up the tree trunks, he began to be interested in
+it. One day he saw it fly into a hole close to the ground in an old
+apple tree. "Now I've got you!" he exclaimed, and running to the spot
+thrust his hand in as far as he could, but was unable to reach the bird.
+Then he conceived the idea of starving it out, and stopped up the hole
+with clay. The following day at the same hour he again put in his hand,
+and this time succeeded in taking the bird. So strange was it to him
+that after showing it to his own family he took it round to exhibit it
+to his neighbours, and although some of them were old men, not one among
+them had ever seen its like before. They concluded that it was a kind of
+nuthatch, but unlike the common nuthatch which they knew. After they had
+all seen and handled it and had finished the discussions about it, he
+released it and saw it fly away; but, to his astonishment, it was back
+in his orchard a few hours later. In a few weeks it brought out its five
+or six young from the hole he had caught it in, and for several years it
+returned each season to breed in the same hole until the tree was blown
+down, after which the bird was seen no more.
+
+What an experience the poor bird had suffered! First plastered up and
+left to starve or suffocate in its hollow tree; then captured and passed
+round from rough, horny hand to hand, while the villagers were
+discussing it in their slow, ponderous fashion--how wildly its little
+wild heart must have palpitated!--and, finally, after being released, to
+go back at once to its eggs in that dangerous tree. I do not know which
+surprised me most, the bird's action in returning to its nest after such
+inhospitable treatment, or the ignorance of the villagers concerning it.
+The incident seemed to show that the wryneck had been scarce at this
+place for a very long period.
+
+The villager, as a rule, is not a good observer, which is not strange,
+since no person is, or ever can be, a good observer of the things in
+which he is not specially interested; consequently the countryman only
+knows the most common and the most conspicuous species. He plods through
+life with downcast eyes and a vision somewhat dimmed by indifference;
+forgetting, as he progresses, the small scraps of knowledge he acquired
+by looking sharply during the period of boyhood, when every living
+creature excited his attention. In Italy, notwithstanding the paucity of
+bird life, I believe that the peasants know their birds better. The
+reason of this is not far to seek; every bird, not excepting even the
+"temple-haunting martlet" and nightingale and minute golden-crested
+wren, is regarded only as a possible morsel to give a savour to a dish
+of polenta, if the shy, little flitting thing can only be enticed within
+touching distance of the limed twigs. Thus they take a very strong
+interest in, and, in a sense, "love" birds. It is their passion for this
+kind of flavouring which has drained rural Italy of its songsters, and
+will in time have the same effect on Argentina, the country in which the
+withering stream of Italian emigration empties itself.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+From the date of my arrival at the village in May, until I left it early
+in July, the great annual business of pairing, nest-building, and
+rearing the young was going on uninterruptedly. The young of some of the
+earliest breeders were already strong on the wing when I took my first
+walks along the hedgerows, still in their early, vivid green, frequently
+observing my bird through a white and rose-tinted cloud of
+apple-blossoms; and when I left some species that breed more than once
+in the season were rearing second broods or engaged in making new nests.
+On my very first day I discovered a nest full of fully fledged blue tits
+in a hole in an apple tree; this struck me as a dangerous place for the
+young birds; as the tree leaned over towards the lane, and the hole
+could almost be reached by a person standing on the ground. On the next
+day I went to look at them, and approaching noiselessly along the lane,
+spied two small boys with bright clean faces--it was on a
+Sunday--standing within three or four yards of the tree, watching the
+tits with intense interest. The parent birds were darting up and down,
+careless of their presence, finding food so quickly in the gooseberry
+bushes growing near the roots of the tree that they visited the hole
+every few moments; while the young birds, ever screaming for more, were
+gathered in a dense little cluster at the entrance, their yellow breasts
+showing very brightly against the rain-wet wood and the dark interior of
+the hole. The instant the two little watchers caught sight of me the
+excited look vanished from their faces, and they began to move off,
+gazing straight ahead in a somewhat vacant manner. This instantaneous
+and instinctive display of hypocrisy was highly entertaining, and would
+have made me laugh if it had not been for the serious purpose I had in
+my mind. "Now, look here," I said, "I know what you are after, so it's
+no use pretending that you are walking about and seeing nothing in
+particular. You've been watching the young tits. Well, I've been
+watching them, too, and waiting to see them fly. I dare say they will
+be out by to-morrow or the next day, and I hope you little fellows won't
+try to drag them out before then."
+
+They at once protested that they had no such intention. They said that
+they never robbed birds' nests; that there were several nests at home in
+the garden and orchard, one of a nightingale with three eggs in it, but
+that they never took an egg. But some of the boys they knew, they said,
+took all the eggs they found; and there was one boy who got into every
+orchard and garden in the place, who was so sharp that few nests escaped
+him, and every nest he found he destroyed, breaking the eggs if there
+were any, and if there were young birds killing them.
+
+Not, perhaps, without first mutilating them, I thought; for I know
+something of this kind of young "human devil," to use the phrase which
+Canon Wilberforce has made so famous in another connexion. Later on I
+heard much more about the exploits of this champion bird-destroyer of
+the village from (strange to say) a bird-catcher by trade, a man of a
+rather low type of countenance, and who lived, when at home, in a London
+slum. On the common where he spread his nets he had found, he told me,
+about thirty nests containing eggs or fledglings; but this boy had gone
+over the ground after him, and not many of the nests had escaped his
+sharp eyes.
+
+I was satisfied that the young tits were quite safe, so far as these
+youngsters were concerned, and only regretted that they were such small
+Boys, and that the great nest-destroyer, whose evil deeds they spoke of
+with an angry colour in their cheeks, was a very strong boy, otherwise I
+should have advised them to "go" for him.
+
+Oddly enough I heard of another boy who exercised the same kind of
+cruelty and destructiveness over another common a few miles distant.
+Walking across it I spied two boys among the furze bushes, and at the
+same moment they saw me, whereupon one ran away and the other remained
+standing. A nice little fellow of about eight, he looked as if he had
+been crying. I asked him what it was all about, and he then told me that
+the bigger boy who had just run away was always on the common searching
+for nests, just to destroy them and kill the young birds; that he, my
+informant, had come there where he came every day just to have a peep at
+a linnet's nest with four eggs in it on which the bird was sitting; that
+the other boy, concealed among the bushes had watched him go to the nest
+and had then rushed up and pulled the nest out of the bush.
+
+"Why didn't you knock him down?" I asked.
+
+"That's what I tried to do before he pulled the nest out," he said; and
+then he added sorrowfully: "He knocked me down."
+
+I am reminded here of a tale of ancient Greece about a boy of this
+description--the boy to be found in pretty well every parish in the
+land. This was a shepherd boy who followed or led his sheep to a
+distance from the village and amused his idle hours by snaring small
+birds to put their eyes out with a sharp thorn, then to toss them up
+just to see how, and how far, they would fly in the dark. He was seen
+doing it and the matter reported to the heads or fathers of the village,
+and he was brought before them and, after due consideration of the case,
+condemned to death. Such a decision must seem shocking to us and worthy
+of a semi-barbarous people. But if cruelty is the worst of all
+offences--and this was cruelty in its most horrid form--the offence
+which puts men down on a level with the worst of the mythical demons, it
+was surely a righteous deed to blot such an existence out lest other
+young minds should be contaminated, or even that it should be known that
+such a crime was possible.
+
+* * *
+
+All those birds that had finished rearing their young by the sixteenth
+of June were fortunate, for on the morning of that day a great and
+continuous shouting, with gun-firing, banging on old brass and iron
+utensils, with various other loud, unusual noises, were heard at one
+extremity of the village, and continued with occasional quiet intervals
+until evening. This tempest of rude sounds spread from day to day, until
+the entire area of the village and the surrounding orchards was
+involved, and the poor birds that were tied to the spots where their
+treasures were, must have existed in a state of constant trepidation.
+For now the cherries were fast ripening, and the fruit-eating birds,
+especially the thrushes and black-birds, were inflamed at the gleam of
+crimson colour among the leaves. In the very large orchards men and boys
+were stationed all day long yelling and firing off guns to frighten the
+marauders. In the smaller orchards the trees were decorated with
+whirligigs of coloured paper; ancient hats, among which were some of the
+quaintly-shaped chimney-pots of a past generation; old coats and
+waistcoats and trousers, and rags of all colours to flutter in the wind;
+and these objects were usually considered a sufficient protection. Some
+of the birds, wiser than their fellows, were not to be kept back by such
+simple means; but so long as they came not in battalions, but singly,
+they could have their fill, and no notice was taken of them.
+
+I was surprised to hear that on the large plantations the men employed
+were not allowed to use shot, the aim of the fruit grower being only to
+scare the birds away. I had a talk with my old friend of the wryneck on
+the subject, and told him that I had seen one of the bird-scarers going
+home to his cottage very early in the morning, carrying a bunch of about
+a dozen blackbirds and thrushes he had just shot.
+
+Yes, he replied, some of the men would buy shot and use it early in the
+morning before their master was about; but if the man I had seen had
+been detected in the act, he would have been discharged on the spot. It
+was not only because the trees would be injured by shot, but this
+fruitgrower was friendly to birds.
+
+Most fruit-growers, I said, were dead against the birds, and anxious
+only to kill as many of them as possible.
+
+It might be so in some places, he answered, but not in the village. He
+himself and most of the villagers depended, in a great measure, on the
+fruit they produced for a living, and their belief was that, taking one
+bird with another all the year round, the birds did them more good than
+harm.
+
+I then imparted to him the views on this bird subject of a well-known
+fruit-grower in the north of England, Mr. Joseph Witherspoon, of
+Chester-le-Street. He began by persecuting the birds, as he had been
+taught to do by his father, a market-gardener; but after years of
+careful observation he completely changed his views, and is now so
+convinced of the advantage that birds are to the fruit-grower, that he
+does all in his power to attract them, and to tempt them to breed in his
+grounds. His main idea is that birds that are fed on the premises, that
+live and feed among the trees, search for and attack the gardeners'
+enemies at every stage of their existence. At the same time he believes
+that it is very bad to grow fruit near woods, as in such a case the
+birds that live in the woods and are of no advantage to the garden,
+swarm into it as the fruit ripens, and that it is only by liberal use of
+nets that any reasonable portion of the fruit can be saved.
+
+He answered that with regard to the last point he did not quite agree
+with Mr. Witherspoon. All the gardens and orchards in the village were
+raided by the birds from the wood, yet he reckoned they got as much
+fruit from their trees as others who had no woods near them. Then there
+was the big cherry plantation, one of the biggest in England, so that
+people came from all parts in the blossoming time just to look at it,
+and a wonderful sight it was. For a quarter of a mile this particular
+orchard ran parallel with the wood; with nothing but the green road
+between, and when the first fruit was ripening you could see all the big
+trees on the edge of the wood swarming with birds--jays, thrushes,
+blackbirds, doves, and all sorts of tits and little birds, just waiting
+for a chance to pounce down and devour the cherries. The noise kept them
+off, but many would dodge in, and even if a gun was fired close to them
+the blackbirds would snatch a cherry and carry it off to the wood. That
+didn't matter--a few cherries here and there didn't count. The starlings
+were the worst robbers: if you didn't scare them they would strip a tree
+and even an orchard in a few hours. But they were the easiest birds to
+deal with: they went in flocks, and a shout or rattle or report of a gun
+sent the lot of them away together.  His way of looking at it was this.
+In the fruit season, which lasts only a few weeks, you are bound to
+suffer from the attacks of birds, whether they are your own birds only
+or your own combined with others from outside, unless you keep them off;
+that those who do not keep them off are foolish or indolent, and deserve
+to suffer. The fruit season was, he said, always an anxious time.
+
+In conclusion, I remarked that the means used for protecting the fruit,
+whether they served their purpose well or not, struck me as being very
+unworthy of the times we lived in, and seemed to show that the British
+fruit-growers, who were ahead of the world in all other matters
+connected with their vocation, had quite neglected this one point. A
+thousand years ago cultivators of the soil were scaring the birds from
+their crops just as we are doing, with methods no better and no worse,
+putting up scarecrows and old ragged garments and fluttering rags,
+hanging a dead crow to a stick to warn the others off, shouting and
+yelling and throwing stones. There appeared to be an opening here for
+experiment and invention. Mere noise was not terrifying to birds, and
+they soon discovered that an old hat on a stick had no injurious brains
+in or under it. But certain sounds and colours and odours had a strong
+effect on some animals. Sounds made to stimulate the screams of some
+hawks would perhaps prove very terrifying to thrushes and other small
+birds, and the effect of scarlet in large masses or long strips might be
+tried. It would also be worth while to try the effect of artificial
+sparrow-hawks and other birds of prey, perched conspicuously, moving and
+perking their tails at intervals by clockwork. In fact, a hundred things
+might be tried until something valuable was found, and when it lost its
+value, for the birds would in time discover the deception, some new plan
+adopted.
+
+To this dissertation on what might be done, he answered that if any one
+could find out or invent any new effective means to keep the birds from
+the fruit, the fruit-growers would be very thankful for it; but that no
+such invention could be looked for from those who are engaged on the
+soil; that it must come from those who do not dig and sweat, but sit
+still and work with their brains at new ideas.
+
+This ended our conversation, and I left him more than satisfied at the
+information he had given me, and with a higher opinion than ever of his
+geniality and good practical sense.
+
+It was a relief when the noisy, bird-scaring business was done with, and
+the last market baskets of ripe cherries were carried away to the
+station. Very splendid they looked in such large masses of crimson, as
+the baskets were brought out and set down in the grassy road; but I
+could not help thinking a little sadly that the thrushes and blackbirds
+which had been surreptitiously shot, when fallen and fluttering in the
+wet grass in the early morning, had shed life-drops of that same
+beautiful colour.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+After the middle of June the common began to attract me more and more.
+It was so extensive that, standing on its border, just beyond the last
+straggling cottages and orchards, the further side was seen only as a
+line of blue trees, indistinct in the distance. As I grew to know it
+better, adding each day to my list from its varied bird life, the woods
+and waterside were visited less and less frequently, and after the
+bird-scaring noises began in the village, its wildness and quiet became
+increasingly grateful. The silence of nature was broken only by bird
+sounds, and the most frequent sound was that of the yellow bunting, as,
+perched motionless on the summit of a gorse bush, his yellow head
+conspicuous at a considerable distance, he emitted his thin monotonous
+chant at regular intervals, like a painted toy-bird that sings by
+machinery. There, too, sedentary as an owl in the daytime, the corn
+bunting was common, discharging his brief song at intervals--a sound as
+of shattering glass. The whinchat was rarely seen, but I constantly met
+the small, prettily coloured stonechat flitting from bush to bush,
+following me, and never ceasing his low, querulous tacking chirp,
+anxious for the safety of his nest. Nightingales, blackcaps and
+white-throats also nested there, and were louder and more emphatic in
+their protests when approached. There were several grasshopper-warblers
+on the common, all, very curiously as it seemed to me, clustered at one
+spot, so that one could ramble over miles of ground without hearing
+their singular note; but on approaching the place they inhabited one
+gradually became conscious of a mysterious trilling buzz or whirr, low
+at first and growing louder and more stridulous, until the hidden
+singers were left behind, when by degrees it sank lower and lower again,
+and ceased to be audible at a distance of about one hundred yards from
+the points where it had sounded loudest. The birds hid in clumps of
+furze and bramble so near together that the area covered by the buzzing
+sound measured about two hundred yards across. This most singular sound
+(for a warbler to make) is certainly not ventriloquial, although if one
+comes to it with the sense of hearing disorganized by town noises or
+unpractised, one is at a loss to determine the exact spot it comes from,
+or even to know from which side it comes. While emitting its prolonged
+sound the bird is so absorbed in its own performance that it is not
+easily alarmed, and will sometimes continue singing with a human
+listener standing within four or five yards of it. When one is near the
+bird, and listens, standing motionless, the effect on the nerves of
+hearing is very remarkable, considering the smallness of the sound,
+which, without being unpleasant, is somewhat similar to that produced by
+the vibration of the brake of a train; it is not powerful enough to jar
+the nerves, but appears to pervade the entire system. Lying still, with
+eyes closed, and three or four of these birds singing near, so that
+their strains overlap and leave no silent intervals, the listener can
+imagine that the sound originates within himself; that the numberless
+fine cords of his nervous network tremble responsively to it.
+
+There are a number of natural sounds that resemble more or less closely
+the most unbirdlike note of this warbler--cicada, rattlesnake, and some
+batrachians.  Some grasshoppers perhaps come nearest to it; but the most
+sustained current of sound emitted by the insect is short compared to
+the warbler's strain, also the vibrations are very much more rapid, and
+not heard as vibrations, and the same effect is not produced.
+
+The grasshopper warblers gave me so much pleasure that I was often at
+the spot where they had their little colony of about half-a-dozen pairs,
+and where I discovered they bred every year. At first I used to go to
+any bush where I had caught sight of a bird and sit down within a few
+yards of it and wait until the little hideling's shyness wore off, and
+he would come out and start reeling. Afterwards I always went straight
+to the same bush, because I thought the bird that used it as his
+singing-place appeared less shy than the others. One day I spent a long
+time listening to this favourite; delightedly watching him, perched on a
+low twig on a level with my sight, and not more than five yards from me;
+his body perfectly motionless, but the head and wide-open beak jerked
+from side to side in a measured, mechanical way. I had a side view of
+the bird, but every three seconds the head would be jerked towards me,
+showing the bright yellow colour of the open mouth. The reeling would
+last about three minutes, then the bird would unbend or unstiffen and
+take a few hops about the bush, then stiffen and begin again. While thus
+gazing and listening I, by chance, met with an experience of that rare
+kind which invariably strikes the observer of birds as strange and
+almost incredible--an example of the most perfect mimicry in a species
+which has its own distinctive song and is not a mimic except once in a
+while, and as it were by chance. The marsh warbler is our perfect
+mocking-bird, our one professional mimic; while the starling in
+comparison is but an amateur. We all know the starling's ever varying
+performance in which he attempts a hundred things and occasionally
+succeeds; but even the starling sometimes affects us with a mild
+astonishment, and I will here give one instance.
+
+I was staying at a village in the Wiltshire downs, and at intervals,
+while sitting at work in my room on the ground floor, I heard the
+cackling of a fowl at the cottage opposite. I heard, but paid no
+attention to that familiar sound; but after three days it all at once
+struck me that no fowl could lay an egg about every ten or twelve
+minutes, and go on at this rate day after day, and, getting up, I went
+out to look for the cackler. A few hens were moving quietly about the
+open ground surrounding the cottage where the sound came from, but I
+heard nothing. By and by, when I was back in my room, the cackling
+sounded again, but when I got out the sound had ceased and the fowls, as
+before, appeared quite unexcited. The only way to solve the mystery was
+to stand there, out of doors, for ten minutes, and before that time was
+over a starling with a white grub in his beak, flew down and perched on
+the low garden wall of the cottage, then, with some difficulty, squeezed
+himself through a small opening into a cavity under a strip of zinc
+which covered the bricks of the wall. It was a queer place for a
+starling's nest, on a wall three feet high and within two yards of the
+cottage door which stood open all day. Having delivered the grub, the
+starling came out again and, hopping on to the zinc, opened his beak and
+cackled like a hen, then flew away for more grubs.
+
+I observed the starling a good deal after this, and found that
+invariably on leaving the nest, he uttered his imitation of a fowl
+cackling, and no other note or sound of any kind. It was as if he was
+not merely imitating a sound, but had seen a fowl leaving the nest and
+then cackling, and mimicked the whole proceeding, and had kept up the
+habit after the young were hatched.
+
+To return to my experience on the common. About fifty yards from the
+spot where I was there was a dense thicket of furze and thorn, with a
+huge mound in the middle composed of a tangle of whitethorn and bramble
+bushes mixed with ivy and clematis. From this spot, at intervals of half
+a minute or so, there issued the call of a duck--the prolonged, hoarse
+call of a drake, two or three times repeated, evidently emitted in
+distress. I conjectured that it came from one of a small flock of ducks
+belonging to a cottage near the edge of the common on that side. The
+flock, as I had seen, was accustomed to go some distance from home, and
+I supposed that one of them, a drake, had got into that brambly thicket
+and could not make his way out. For half an hour I heard the calls
+without paying much attention, absorbed in watching the quaint little
+songster close to me and his curious gestures when emitting his
+sustained reeling sounds. In the end the persistent distressed calling
+of the drake lost in a brambly labyrinth got a little on my nerves, and
+I felt it as a relief when it finally ceased. Then, after a short
+silence, another sound came from the same spot--a blackbird sound, known
+to everyone, but curiously interesting when uttered in the way I now
+heard it. It was the familiar loud chuckle, not emitted in alarm and
+soon ended, but the chuckle uttered occasionally by the bird when he is
+not disturbed, or when, after uttering it once for some real cause, he
+continues repeating it for no reason at all, producing the idea that he
+has just made the discovery that it is quite a musical sound and that he
+is repeating it, as if singing, just for pleasure. At such times the
+long series of notes do not come forth with a rush; he begins
+deliberately with a series of musical chirps uttered in a measured
+manner, like those of a wood wren, the prelude to its song, the notes
+coming faster and faster and swelling and running into the loud
+chuckling performance. This performance, like the lost drake's call, was
+repeated in the same deliberate or leisurely manner at intervals again
+and again, until my curiosity was aroused and I went to the spot to get
+a look at the bird who had turned his alarm sound into a song and
+appeared to be very much taken with it.  But there was no blackbird at
+the spot, and no lost drake, and no bird, except a throstle sitting
+motionless on the bush mound. This was the bird I had been listening to,
+uttering not his own thrush melody, which he perhaps did not know at
+all, but the sounds he had borrowed from two species so wide apart in
+their character and language.
+
+The astonishing thing in this case was that the bird never uttered a
+note of his own original and exceedingly copious song; and I could only
+suppose that he had never learned the thrush melody; that he had,
+perhaps, been picked up as a fledgling and put in a cage, where he had
+imitated the sounds he heard and liked best, and made them his song, and
+that he had finally escaped or had been liberated.
+
+The wild thrush, we know, does introduce certain imitations into his own
+song, but the borrowed notes, or even phrases, are, as a rule, few, and
+not always to be distinguished from his own.
+
+Sometimes one can pick them out; thus, on the borders of a marsh where
+redshanks bred, I have heard the call of that bird distinctly given by
+the thrush. And again, where the ring-ouzel is common, the thrush will
+get its brief song exactly. When thrushes taken from the nest are reared
+in towns, where they never hear the thrush or any other bird sing, they
+are often exceedingly vocal, and utter a medley of sounds which are
+sometimes distressing to the ear. I have heard many caged thrushes of
+this kind in London, but the most remarkable instance I have met with
+was at the little seaside town of Seaford. Here, in the main shopping
+street, a caged thrush lived for years in a butcher's shop, and poured
+out its song continuously, the most distressing throstle performance I
+ever heard, composed of a medley of loud, shrill and harsh
+sounds--imitations of screams and shouts, boy whistlers, saw filing,
+knives sharpened on steels, and numerous other unclassifiable noises;
+but all, more or less, painful. The whole street was filled with the
+noise, and the owner used to boast that his caged thrush was the most
+persistent as well as the loudest singer that had ever been heard. He
+had no nerves, and was proud of it! On a recent visit to Seaford I
+failed to hear the bird when walking about the town, and after two or
+three days went into the shop to enquire about it. They told me it was
+dead--that it had been dead over a year; also that many visitors to
+Seaford had missed its song and had called at the shop to ask about the
+bird. The strangest thing about its end, they said, was its suddenness.
+The bird was singing its loudest one morning, and had been at it for
+some time, filling the whole place with its noise, when suddenly, in the
+middle of its song, it dropped down dead from its perch.
+
+To drop dead while singing is not an unheard of, nor a very rare
+occurrence in caged birds, and it probably happens, too, in birds living
+their natural life. Listening to a nightingale, pouring out its powerful
+music continuously, as the lark sings, one sometimes wonders that
+something does not give way to end the vocalist's performance and life
+at the same instant. Some such incident was probably the origin of the
+old legend of the minstrel and the nightingale on which Strada based his
+famous poem, known in many languages. In England Crawshaw's version was
+by far the best, and is perhaps the finest bird poem in our literature.
+
+The blackbird, like the thrush, sometimes borrows a note or a phrase,
+and, like the thrush again, if reared by hand he may become a nuisance
+by mimicking some disagreeable sound, and using it by way of song. I
+heard of such a case a short time ago at Sidmouth. The ground floor of
+the house where I lodged was occupied by a gentleman who had a fondness
+for bird music, and being an invalid confined to his rooms, he kept a
+number of birds in cages. He had, besides canaries, the thrush,
+chaffinch, linnet, goldfinch and cirl bunting. I remarked that he did
+not have the best singer of all--the blackbird. He said that he had
+procured one, or that some friend had sent him one, a very beautiful
+ouel cock in the blackest plumage and with the orange-tawniest bill,
+and he had anticipated great pleasure from hearing its fluting melody.
+But alas! no blackbird song did this unnatural blackbird sing. He had
+learnt to bark like a dog, and whenever the singing spirit took him he
+would bark once or twice or three times, and then, after an interval of
+silence of the proper length, about fifteen seconds, he would bark
+again, and so on until he had had his fill of music for the time. The
+barking got on the invalid's nerves, and he sent the bird away. "It was
+either that," he said, "or losing my senses altogether."
+
+* * *
+
+As all or most singing birds learn their songs from the adults of the
+same species, it is not strange that there should be a good deal of what
+we call mimicry in their performances: we may say, in fact, that pretty
+well all the true singers are mimics, but that some mimic more than
+others. Thus, the starling is more ready to borrow other birds' notes
+than the thrush, while the marsh-warbler borrows so much that his
+singing is mainly composed of borrowings. The nightingale is, perhaps,
+an exception. His voice excels in power and purity of sound, and what we
+may call his artistry is exceptionally perfect; this may account for the
+fact that he does not borrow from other birds' songs. I should say, from
+my own observation, that all songsters are interested in the singing of
+other species, or at all events, in certain notes, especially the most
+striking in power, beauty, and strangeness. Thus, when the cuckoo starts
+calling, you will see other small birds fly straight to the tree and
+perch near him, apparently to listen. And among the listeners you will
+find the sparrow and tits of various species--birds which are never
+victimized by the cuckoo, and do not take him for a hawk since they take
+no notice of him until the calling begins. The reason that the double
+fluting call of the cuckoo is not mimicked by other birds is that they
+can't; because that peculiar sound is not in their register. The
+bubbling cry is reproduced by both the marsh warbler and the starling.
+Again, it is my experience that when a nightingale starts singing, the
+small birds near immediately become attentive, often suspending their
+own songs and some flying to perch near him, and listen, just as they
+listen to the cuckoo. Birds imitate the note or phrase that strikes them
+most, and is easiest to imitate, as when the thrush copies the piping
+and trilling of the redshank and the easy song of the ring-ouzel, which,
+when incorporated into his own music, harmonizes with it perfectly. But
+he cannot flute, and so never mimics the blackbird's song, although he
+can and does, as we have seen, imitate its chuckling cry.
+
+There is another thing to be considered. I believe that the bird, like
+creatures in other classes, has his receptive period, his time to learn,
+and that, like some mammals, he learns everything he needs to know in
+his first year or two; and that, having acquired his proper song, he
+adds little or nothing to it thereafter, although the song may increase
+in power and brilliance when the bird comes to full maturity. This, I
+think, holds true of all birds, like the nightingale, which have a
+singing period of two or three months and are songless for the rest of
+the year. That long, silent period cannot, so far as sounds go, be a
+receptive one; the song early in life has become crystallized in the
+form it will keep through life, and is like an intuitive act. This is
+not the case with birds like the starling, that sing all the year
+round--birds that are naturally loquacious and sing instead of screaming
+and chirping like others. They are always borrowing new sounds and
+always forgetting.
+
+The most curious example of mimicry I have yet met with is that of a
+true mocking-bird, Mimus patachonicus, a common resident species in
+northern Patagonia, on the Atlantic side, very abundant in places. He is
+a true mocking-bird because he belongs to the genus Mimus, a branch of
+the thrush family, and not because he mocks or mimics the songs of other
+species, like others of his kindred. He does not, in fact, mimic the set
+songs of others, although he often introduces notes and phrases borrowed
+from other species into his own performance. He sings in a sketchy way
+all the year round, but in spring has a fuller unbroken song, emitted
+with more power and passion. For the rest of the time he sings to amuse
+himself, as it seems, in a peculiarly leisurely, and one may say,
+indolent manner, perched on a bush, from time to time emitting a note or
+two, then a phrase which, if it pleases him, he will repeat two or
+three, or half a dozen times. Then, after a pause, other notes and
+phrases, and so on, pretty well all day long. This manner of singing is
+irritating, like the staccato song of our throstle, to a listener who
+wants a continuous stream of song; but it becomes exceedingly
+interesting when one discovers that the bird is thinking very much about
+his own music, if one can use such an expression about a bird; that he
+is all the time experimenting, trying to get a new phrase, a new
+combination of the notes he knows and new notes. Also, that when sitting
+on his bush and uttering these careless chance sounds, he is, at the
+same time, intently listening to the others, all engaged in the same
+way, singing and listening. You will see them all about the place, each
+bird sitting motionless, like a grey and white image of a bird, on the
+summit of his own bush. For, although he is not gregarious as a rule, a
+number of pairs live near each other, and form a sort of loose
+community. The bond that unites them is their music, for not only do
+they sit within hearing distance, but they are perpetually mimicking
+each other. One may say that they are accomplished mimics but prefer
+mimicking their own to other species. But they only imitate the notes
+that take their fancy, so to speak. Thus, occasionally, one strikes out
+a phrase, a new expression, which appears to please him, and after a few
+moments he repeats it again, then again, and so on and on, and if you
+remain an hour within hearing he will perhaps be still repeating it at
+short intervals. Now, if by chance there is something in the new phrase
+which pleases the listeners too, you will note that they instantly
+suspend their own singing, and for some little time they do nothing but
+listen. By and by the new note or phrase will be exactly reproduced from
+a bird on another bush; and he, too, will begin repeating it at short
+intervals. Then a second one will get it, then a third, and eventually
+all the birds in that thicket will have it. The constant repeating of
+the new note may then go on for hours, and it may last longer. You may
+return to the spot on the second day and sit for an hour or longer,
+listening, and still hear that same note constantly repeated until you
+are sick and tired of it, or it may even get on your nerves. I remember
+that on one occasion I avoided a certain thicket, one of my favourite
+daily haunts for three whole days, not to hear that one everlasting
+sound; then I returned and to my great relief the birds were all at
+their old game of composing, and not one uttered--perhaps he didn't
+dare--the too hackneyed phrase. I was sharply reminded one day by an
+incident in the village of this old Patagonian experience, and of the
+strange human-like weakness or passion for something new and arresting
+in music or song, something "tuney" or "catchy."
+
+It chanced that when I left London a new popular song had come out and
+was "all the rage," a tune and words invented or first produced in the
+music-halls by a woman named Lottie Collins, with a chorus to
+it--_Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay_, repeated several times. First caught up in
+the music-halls it spread to the streets, and in ever-widening circles
+over all London, and over all the land. In London people were getting
+tired of hearing it, but when I arrived at my village "in a hole," and
+settled down among the Badgers, I heard it on every hand--in cottages,
+in the streets, in the fields, men, women and children were singing,
+whistling, and humming it, and in the evening at the inn roaring it out
+with as much zest as if they had been singing _Rule Britannia._
+
+This state of things lasted from May to the middle of June; then, one
+very hot, still day, about three o'clock, I was sitting at my cottage
+window when I caught the sound of a rumbling cart and a man singing. As
+the noise grew louder my interest in the approaching man and cart was
+excited to an extraordinary degree; never had I heard such a noise! And
+no wonder, since the man was driving a heavy, springless farm cart in
+the most reckless manner, urging his two huge horses to a fast trot,
+then a gallop, up and down hill along those rough gully-like roads, he
+standing up in his cart and roaring out "Auld Lang Syne," at the top of
+a voice of tremendous power. He was probably tipsy, but it was not a bad
+voice, and the old familiar tune and words had an extraordinary effect
+in that still atmosphere. He passed my cottage, standing up, his legs
+wide apart, his cap on the back of his head, a big broad-chested young
+man, lashing his horses, and then for about two minutes or longer the
+thunder of the cart and the roaring song came back fainter, until it
+faded away in the distance. At that still hour of the day the children
+were all at school on the further side of the village; the men away in
+the fields; the women shut up in their cottages, perhaps sleeping. It
+seemed to me that I was the only person in the village who had witnessed
+and heard the passing of the big-voiced man and cart. But it was not so.
+At all events, next day, the whole village, men, women and children,
+were singing, humming and whistling "Auld Lang Syne," and "Auld Lang
+Syne" lasted for several days, and from that day "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"
+was heard no more. It had lost its charm.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Just out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized
+pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now
+overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common,
+lived in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so
+many kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a
+favourite spot with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered
+near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and
+fluttered, as if wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve
+yards before flying away. Not many minutes after seeing the wagtail, a
+reed-bunting--a bird which I had not previously observed on the
+common--flew down and alighted on a bush a few yards from me, holding a
+white crescent-shaped grub in its beak. I stood still to watch it,
+certainly not expecting to see its nest and young; for, as a rule, a
+bird with food in its beak will sit quietly until the watcher loses
+patience and moves away; but on this occasion I had not been standing
+more than ten seconds before the bunting flew down to a small tuft of
+furze and was there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its young.
+I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had seen,
+but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat the
+turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on
+a little further, until at last it rose up and flew to a bush.
+
+After admiring the reed-bunting's action, I turned to the dwarf bush
+near my feet, and saw, perched on a twig in its centre, a solitary young
+bird, fully fledged but not yet capable of sustained flight. He did not
+recognise an enemy in me; on the contrary, when I approached my hand to
+him, he opened his yellow mouth wide, in expectation of being fed,
+although his throat was crammed with caterpillars, and the white
+crescent-shaped larva I had seen in the parent's bill was still lying in
+his mouth unswallowed. The wonder is that when a young bird had been
+stuffed with food to such an extent just before sleeping time, he can
+still find it in him to open his mouth and call for more.
+
+* * *
+
+How wonderful it is that this parental instinct, so beautiful in its
+perfect simulation of the action of the bird that has lost the power of
+flight, should be found in so large a number of species! But when we
+find that it is not universal; that in two closely-allied species one
+will possess it and the other not; and that it is common in such
+widely-separated orders as gallinaceous and passerine birds, in pigeons,
+ducks, and waders, it becomes plain that it is not assignable to
+community of descent, but has originated independently all over the
+globe, in a vast number of species. Something of the beginnings and
+progressive development of this instinct may be learnt, I think, by
+noticing the behaviour of various passerine birds in the presence of
+danger, to their nests and young. Their actions and cries show that they
+are greatly agitated, and in a majority of species the parent bird flits
+and flutters round the intruder, uttering sounds of distress. Frequently
+the bird exhibits its agitation, not only by these cries and restless
+motions, but by the drooping of the wings and tail--the action observed
+in a bird when hurt or sick, or oppressed with heat. These languishing
+signs are common to a great many species after the young have been
+hatched; the period when the parental solicitude is most intense. In
+several species which I have observed in South America, the languishing
+is more marked. There are no sorrowful cries and restless movements; the
+bird sits with hanging wings and tail, gasping for breath with open bill
+--in appearance a greatly suffering bird. In some cases of this
+description, the bird, if it moves at all, hops or flutters from a
+higher to a lower branch, and, as if sick or wounded, seems about to
+sink to the ground. In still others, the bird actually does drop to the
+ground, then, feebly flapping its wings, rises again with great effort.
+From this last form it is but a step to the more highly developed
+complex instinct of the bird that sinks to the earth and flutters
+painfully away, gasping, and seemingly incapable of flight.
+
+It would be a great mistake to suppose that the bird when fluttering on
+the ground to lead an enemy from the neighbourhood of its nest is in
+full possession of all its faculties, acting consciously, and itself in
+as little danger of capture as when on its perch or flying through the
+air. We have seen that the action has its root in the bird's passion for
+its young, and intense solicitude in the presence of any danger
+threatening them, which is so universal in this class of creatures, and
+which expresses itself so variously in different kinds. This must be in
+all cases a painful and debilitating emotion, and when the bird drops
+down to the earth its pain has caused it to fall as surely as if it had
+received a wound or had been suddenly attacked by some grievous malady;
+and when it flutters on the ground it is for the moment incapable of
+flight, and its efforts to recover flight and safety cause it to beat
+its wings, and tremble, and gasp with open mouth. The object of the
+action is to deceive an enemy, or, to speak more correctly, the result
+is to deceive, and there is nothing that will more inflame and carry
+away any rapacious mammal than the sight of a fluttering bird. But in
+thus drawing upon itself the attention of an enemy threatening the
+safety of its eggs or young, to what a terrible danger does the parent
+expose itself, and how often, in those moments of agitation and
+debility, must its own life fall a sacrifice! The sudden spring and rush
+of a feline enemy must have proved fatal in myriads of instances. From
+its inception to its most perfect stage, in the various species that
+possess it, this perilous instinct has been washed in blood and made
+bright.
+
+What I have just said, that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action
+we have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in
+blood, applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of
+life, both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that,
+for one thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in order
+to meet cases which commonly occur in the life of a species. The
+instinct is not prophetic and does not meet rare or extraordinary
+situations. Unless intelligence or some higher faculty comes in to
+supplement or to take the place of instinctive action then the creature
+must perish on account of the limitation of instinct. Again, the higher
+and more complete the instinct the more perilous it is, seeing that its
+efficiency depends on the absolutely perfect health and balance of all
+the faculties and the entire organism. Thus, the higher instinctive
+faculty and action of birds for the preservation of the species, that of
+migration, is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all. It is so perfect
+that by means of this faculty millions and myriads of birds of an
+immense variety of species from cranes, swans, and geese down to minute
+goldcrests and firecrests and the smallest feeble-winged-leaf warblers,
+are able to inhabit and to distribute themselves evenly over all the
+temperate and cold regions of the earth, and even nearer the pole: and
+in all these regions they rear their young and spend several months each
+year, where they would inevitably perish from cold and lack of food if
+they stayed on to meet the winter. We can best realize the perfection of
+this instinct when we consider that all these migrants, including the
+young which have never hitherto strayed beyond the small area of their
+home where every tree and bush and spring and rock is familiar to them,
+rush suddenly away as if blown by a wind to unknown lands and continents
+beyond the seas to a distance of from a thousand to six or seven
+thousand miles; that after long months spent in those distant places,
+which in turn have grown familiar to them, they return again to their
+natal place, not in a direct but ofttimes by a devious route, now north,
+now north-east, now east or west, keeping to the least perilous lines
+and crossing the seas where they are narrowest. Thus, when the returning
+multitude recrosses the Channel into England, coming by way of France
+and Spain from north or south or mid-Africa and from Asia, they at once
+proceed to disperse over the entire country from Land's End to Thurso
+and the northernmost islands of Scotland, until every wood and hill and
+moor and thicket and stream and every village and field and hedgerow and
+farmhouse has its own feathered people back in their old places. But
+they do not return in their old force. They had increased to twice or
+three times their original numbers when they left us, and as a result of
+that great adventure a half or two-thirds of the vast army has perished.
+
+The instinct which in character comes nearest to that of the parent
+simulating the action of a wounded and terrified bird struggling to
+escape in order to safeguard its young, is that one, very strong in all
+ground-breeding species, of sitting close on the nest in the presence of
+danger. Here, too, the instinct is of prime importance to the species,
+since the bird by quitting the nest reveals its existence to the
+prowling, nest-seeking enemy--dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England;
+and in the country where I first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo,
+opossum, snake, wild cat, and animals of the weasel family. By leaving
+its nest a minute or half a minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs
+or young; by staying a moment too long it is in imminent danger of being
+destroyed itself.  How often the bird stays too long on the nest is seen
+in the corn-crake, a species continually decreasing in this country
+owing to the destruction caused by the mowing-machine. The parent birds
+that escape may breed again in a safer place, but in many cases the bird
+clings too long to its nest and is decapitated or fatally injured by the
+cutters.  Larks, too, often perish in the same way. To go back to the
+ailing or wounded bird simulating action: this is perhaps most perfect
+in the gallinaceous birds, all ground-breeders whose nests are most
+diligently hunted for by all egg-eating creatures, beast or bird, and
+whose tender chicks are a favourite food for all rapacious animals. In
+the fowl, pheasants, partridges, quail, and grouse, the instinct is
+singularly powerful, the bird making such violent efforts to escape,
+with such an outcry, such beating of its wings and struggles on the
+ground, that no rapacious beast, however often he may have been deceived
+before, can fail to be carried away with the prospect of an immediate
+capture. The instinct and action has appeared to me more highly
+developed in these birds because, in the first place, the demonstrations
+are more violent than in other families, consequently more effective;
+and secondly, because the danger once over, the bird's recovery to its
+normal quiet, watchful state is quicker. By way of experiment, I have at
+various times thrown myself on pheasants, partridges and grouse, when I
+have found them with a family of recently-hatched chicks; then on giving
+up the chase and turning away from the bird its instantaneous recovery
+has seemed like a miracle. It was like a miracle because the creature
+did actually suffer from all those violent, debilitating emotions
+expressed in its disordered cries and action, and it is the miracle of
+Nature's marvellous health. If we, for example, were thrown into these
+violent extremes of passion, we should not escape the after-effects. Our
+whole system would suffer, a doctor would perhaps have to be called in
+and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the development of toxins
+in the muscles, and give us a bottle of medicine.
+
+I will conclude this digression and dissertation on a bird's instinct by
+relating the action of a hen-pheasant I once witnessed, partly because
+it is the most striking one I have met with of that instantaneous
+recovery of a bird from an extremity of distress and terror, and partly
+for another reason which will appear at the end.
+
+The hen-pheasant was a solitary bird, having strayed away from the
+pheasant copses near the Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away,
+on the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses and sedges on its
+border. I was the bird's only human neighbour, as I was staying in a
+fishing-cottage near the spot where the bird had its nest. Eventually,
+it brought off eight chicks and remained with them at the same spot on the
+edge of the valley, living like a rail among the sedges and tall valley
+herbage. I never went near the bird, but from the cottage caught sight of
+it from time to time, and sometimes watched it with my binocular. There
+was, I thought, a good chance of its being able to rear its young, unless
+the damp proved injurious, as there was no dog or cat at the cottage, and
+there were no carrion crows or sparrow-hawks at that spot. One morning
+about five o'clock on going out I spied a fox-terrier, a poaching dog
+from the neighbouring village, rushing about in an excited state a
+hundred yards or so below the cottage. He had scented the birds, and
+presently up rose the hen from the tall grass with a mighty noise, then
+flopping down she began beating her wings and struggling over the grass,
+uttering the most agonizing screams, the dog after her, frantically
+grabbing at her tail. I feared that he would catch her, and seizing a
+stick flew down to the rescue, yelling at the dog, but he was too excited
+to obey or even hear me. At length, thanks to the devious course taken by
+the bird, I got near enough to get in a good blow on the dog's back. He
+winced and went on as furiously as ever, and then I got in another blow
+so well delivered that the rascal yelled, and turning fled back to the
+village. Hot and panting from my exertions, I stood still, but sooner
+still the pheasant had pulled herself up and stood there, about three
+yards from my feet, as if nothing had happened--as if not a ripple had
+troubled the quiet surface of her life! The serenity of the bird, just
+out of that storm of violence and danger, and her perfect indifference to
+my presence, was astonishing to me. For a minute or two I stood still
+watching her; then turned to walk back to the cottage, and no sooner did
+I start than after me she came at a gentle trot, following me like a dog.
+On my way back I came to the very spot where the fox-terrier had found
+and attacked the bird, and at once on reaching it she came to a stop and
+uttered a call, and instantly from eight different places among the tall
+grasses the eight fluffy little chicks popped up and started running to
+her. And there she stood, gathering them about her with gentle
+chucklings, taking no notice of me, though I was standing still within
+two yards of her!
+
+Up to the moment when the dog got his smart blow and fled from her she
+had been under the domination of a powerful instinct, and could have
+acted in no other way; but what guided her so infallibly in her
+subsequent actions? Certainly not instinct, and not reason, which
+hesitates between different courses and is slow to arrive at a decision.
+One can only say that it was, or was like, intuition, which is as much
+as to say that we don't know.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Among the rarer fringilline birds on the common were the cirl bunting,
+bullfinch and goldfinch, the last two rarely seen. Linnets, however,
+were abundant, now gathered in small flocks composed mainly of young
+birds in plain plumage, with here and there an individual showing the
+carmine-tinted breast of the adult male. Unhappily, a dreary fate was in
+store for many of these blithe twitterers.
+
+On June 24, when walking towards the pool, I spied two recumbent human
+figures on a stretch of level turf near its banks, and near them a
+something dark on the grass--a pair of clap-nets! "Still another serpent
+in my birds' paradise!" said I to myself, and, walking on, I skirted the
+nets and sat down on the grass beside the men. One was a rough
+brown-faced country lad; the other, who held the strings and wore the
+usual cap and comforter, was a man of about five-and-twenty, with pale
+blue eyes and yellowish hair, close-cropped, and the unmistakable London
+mark in his chalky complexion. He regarded me with cold, suspicious
+looks, and, when I talked and questioned, answered briefly and somewhat
+surlily. I treated him to tobacco, and he smoked; but it wasn't shag,
+and didn't soften him. On mentioning casually that I had seen a stoat an
+hour before, he exhibited a sudden interest. It was as if one had said
+"rats!" to a terrier. I succeeded after a while in getting him to tell
+me the name of the man to whom he sent his captives, and when I told him
+that I knew the man well--a bird-seller in a low part of London--he
+thawed visibly. Finally I asked him to look at a red-backed shrike,
+perched on a bush about fifteen yards from his nets, through my
+field-glasses, and from that moment he became as friendly as possible,
+and conversed freely about his mystery. "How near it brings him!" he
+exclaimed, with a grin of delight, after looking at the bird.  The
+shrike had greatly annoyed him; it had been hanging about for some time,
+he told me, dashing at the linnets and driving them off when they flew
+down to the nets. Two or three times he might have caught it, but would
+not draw the nets and have the trouble of resetting them for so
+worthless a bird. "But I'll take him the next time," he said
+vindictively. "I didn't know he was such a handsome bird."
+Unfortunately, the shrike soon flew away, and passing linnets dropped
+down, drawn to the spot by the twitterings of their caged fellows, and
+were caught; and so it went on for a couple of hours, we conversing
+amicably during the waiting intervals. For now he regarded me as a
+friend of the bird-catcher. Linnets only were caught, most of them young
+birds, which pleased him; for the young linnet after a month or two of
+cage life will sing; but the adult males would be silent until the next
+spring, consequently they were not worth so much, although the carmine
+stain in their breast made them for the time so much more beautiful.
+
+I remarked incidentally that there were some who looked with unfriendly
+eyes on his occupation, and that, sooner or later, these people would
+try to get an Act of Parliament to make bird-catching in lanes, on
+commons and waste lands illegal. "They can't do it!" he exclaimed
+excitedly. "And if they can do it, and if they do do it, it will be the
+ruination of England. For what would there be, then, to stop the birds
+increasing? It stands to reason that the whole country would be eaten
+up."
+
+Doubtless the man really believed that but for the laborious days that
+bird-catchers spend lying on the grass, the human race would be very
+badly off.
+
+Just after he had finished his protest, three or four linnets flew down
+and were caught. Taking them from the nets, he showed them to me,
+remarking, with a short laugh, that they were all young males. Then he
+thrust them down the stocking-leg which served as an entrance to the
+covered box he kept his birds in--the black hole in which their captive
+life begins, where they were now all vainly fluttering to get out. Going
+back to the previous subject, he said that he knew very well that many
+persons disliked a bird-catcher, but there was one thing that nobody
+could say against him--he wasn't cruel; he caught, but didn't kill. He
+only killed when he caught a great number of female linnets, which were
+not worth sending up; he pulled their heads off, and took them home to
+make a linnet pie. Then, by way of contrast to his own merciful temper,
+he told me of the young nest-destroyer I have writ-ten about. It made
+him mad to see such things! Something ought to be done, he said, to stop
+a boy like that; for by destroying so many nestlings he was taking the
+bread out of the bird-catcher's mouth. Passing to other subjects, he
+said that so far he had caught nothing but linnets on the common--you
+couldn't expect to catch other kinds in June. Later on, in August and
+September, there would be a variety. But he had small hopes of catching
+goldfinches, they were too scarce now. Greenfinches, yellow-hammers,
+common buntings, reed sparrows--all such birds were worth only tuppence
+apiece. Oh, yes, he caught them just the same, and sent them up to
+London, but that was all they were worth to him. For young male linnets
+he got eightpence, sometimes tenpence; for hen birds fourpence, or less.
+I dare say that eightpence was what he hoped to get, seeing that young
+male linnets are not unfrequently sold by London dealers for sixpence
+and even fourpence.  Goldfinches ran to eighteenpence, sometimes as much
+as two shillings.  Starlings he had made a lot out of, but that was all
+past and over. Why?
+
+Because they were not wanted--because people were such fools that they
+now preferred to shoot at pigeons. He hated pigeons! Gentlemen used to
+shoot starlings at matches; and if you had the making of a bird to shoot
+at, you couldn't get a better than the starling--such a neat bird! He
+had caught hundreds--thousands--and had sold them well. But now nothing
+but pigeons would they have. Pigeons! Always pigeons! He caught
+starlings still, but what was the good of that? The dealers would only
+take a few, and they were worth nothing--no more than greenfinches and
+yellow-hammers.
+
+My colloquy with my enemy on the common tempts me to a fresh digression
+in this place--to have my say on a question about which much has already
+been said during the last three or four decades, especially during the
+'sixties, when the first practical efforts to save our wild-bird life
+from destruction were made.
+
+There is a feeling in the great mass of people that the pursuit of any
+wild animal, whether fit for food or not, for pleasure or gain, is a
+form of sport, and that sport ought not to be interfered with. So strong
+and well-nigh universal is this feeling, which is like a superstition,
+that the pursuit is not interfered with, however unsportsmanlike it may
+be, and when illegal, and when practised by only a very few persons in
+any district, where to others it may be secretly distasteful or even
+prejudicial.
+
+Even bird-catching on a common is regarded as a form of sport and the
+bird-catcher as a sportsman--and a brother.
+
+A striking instance of this tameness and stupidly acquiescent spirit in
+people generally was witnessed during the intensely severe frosts of the
+early part of the late winter (1882-3), when incalculable numbers of
+sea-birds were driven by hunger and cold into bays and inland waters. At
+this time thousands of gulls made their appearance in the Thames, but no
+sooner did they arrive than those who possessed guns and licences to
+shoot began to shoot them. The police interfered and some of these
+sportsmen were brought before the magistrates and fined for the offence
+of discharging guns to the public danger. For upwards of a fortnight
+after the shooting had been put a stop to, the gulls continued to
+frequent the river in large numbers, and were perhaps most numerous from
+London Bridge to Battersea, and during this time they were watched every
+day by thousands of Londoners with keen interest and pleasure. The river
+here, flowing through the very centre and heart of the greatest city of
+the world, forms at all hours and at all seasons of the year a noble and
+magnificent sight; to my eyes it never looked more beautiful and
+wonderful than during those intensely cold days of January, when there
+was nothing that one could call a mist in a chilly, motionless
+atmosphere, but only a faint haze, a pallor as of impalpable frost,
+which made the heavens seem more white than blue, and gave a hoariness
+and cloud-like remoteness to the arches spanning the water, and the vast
+buildings on either side, ending with the sublime dome of the city
+cathedral; and when out of the pale motionless haze, singly, in twos and
+threes, in dozens and scores, floated the mysterious white bird-figures,
+first seen like vague shadows in the sky, then quickly taking shape and
+whiteness, and floating serenely past, to be succeeded by others and yet
+others.
+
+It was not merely the ornithologist in me that made the sight so
+fascinating, since it was found that others--all others, it might almost
+be said,--experienced the same kind of delight.  Crowds of people came
+down to the river to watch the birds; workmen when released from their
+work at mid-day hurried down to the embankment so as to enjoy seeing the
+gulls while eating their dinners, and, strangest thing of all, to feed
+them with the fragments!
+
+And yet these very men who found so great a pleasure in observing and
+feeding their white visitors from the sea, and were exhilarated with the
+novel experiences of seeing wild nature face to face at their own
+doors--these thousands would have stood by silent and consenting if the
+half-a-dozen scoundrels with guns and fish-hooks on lines had been
+allowed to have their will and had slaughtered and driven the birds from
+the river! And this, in fact, is precisely what happened at a distance
+from London, where guns could be discharged without danger to the
+public, in numberless bays and rivers in which the birds sought refuge.
+They were simply slaughtered wholesale in the most wanton manner; in
+Morecambe Bay a hundred and twelve gulls were killed at one discharge,
+and no hand and no voice was raised to interfere with the hideous sport.
+Not because it was not shocking to the spectators, but because it was
+"Sport."
+
+Doubtless it will be said that this wholesale wanton destruction of bird
+life, however painful it may be to lovers of nature, however
+reprehensible from a moral point of view, is sanctioned by law, and
+cannot therefore be prevented. This is not quite so. We see that the
+Wild Birds Protection Act is continually being broken with impunity, and
+where public opinion is unfavourable to it the guardians of the law
+themselves, the police and the magistrates, are found encouraging the
+people to break the law. Again, we find that where commons are enclosed,
+and the law says nothing, the people are accustomed to assemble together
+unlawfully to tear the fences down, and are not punished. For, after
+all, if laws do not express or square with public will or opinion, they
+have little force; and if, in any locality, the people thought proper to
+do so--if they were not restrained by that dull, tame spirit I have
+spoken of--they would, lawfully or unlawfully, protect their sea-fowl
+from the cockney sportsmen, and sweep the bird-catchers out of their
+lanes and waste lands.
+
+One day I paid a visit to Maidenhead, a pleasant town on the Thames,
+where the Thames is most beautiful, set in the midst of a rich and
+diversified country which should be a bird's paradise. In my walks in
+the town, I saw a great many stuffed kingfishers, and, in the shops of
+the local taxidermists, some rare and beautiful birds, with others that
+are fast becoming rare. But outside of the town I saw no kingfishers and
+no rare species at all, and comparatively few birds of any kind. It
+might have been a town of Philistine cockneys who at no very distant
+period had emigrated thither from the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.
+I came home with the local guide-book in my pocket. It is now before me,
+and this is what its writer says of the Thicket, the extensive and
+beautiful common two miles from the town, which belongs to Maidenhead,
+or, in other words, to its inhabitants: "The Thicket was formerly much
+infested by robbers and highwaymen. The only remains of them to be found
+now are the snarers of the little feathered songsters, who imprison them
+in tiny cages and carry them off in large numbers to brighten by their
+sweet, sad sighs for liberty the dwellers in our smoky cities."
+
+On this point I consulted a bird-catcher, who had spread his nets on the
+common for many years, and he complained bitterly of the increasing
+scarcity of its bird life. There was no better place than the Thicket
+formerly, he said; but now he could hardly make his bread there. I
+presume that a dozen men of his trade would be well able to drain the
+country in the neighbourhood of the Thicket of the greater portion of
+its bird life each year so as to keep the songsters scarce. Will any
+person maintain for a moment that the eight or nine thousand inhabitants
+of Maidenhead, and the hundreds or thousands inhabiting the surrounding
+country could not protect their songbirds from these few men, most of
+them out of London slums, if they wished or had the spirit to do so?
+
+It is true that the local authorities in some country towns have made
+by-laws to protect the birds in their open spaces. Thus, at Tunbridge
+Wells, since 1890, bird-trapping and bird's-nesting have been prohibited
+on the large and beautiful common there; but, so far as I know, such
+measures have only been taken in boroughs after the birds have been
+almost exterminated.
+
+Doubtless the day will come when, law or no law, the bird-catcher will
+find it necessary to go warily, lest the people of any place where he
+may be tempted to spread his nets should have formed the custom of
+treating those of his calling somewhat roughly. That it will come soon
+is earnestly to be wished. Nevertheless, it would be irrational to
+cherish feelings of animosity and hatred against the bird-catcher
+himself, the "man and brother," ready and anxious as we may be to take
+the bread out of his mouth. He certainly does not regard himself as an
+injurious or disreputable person; on the contrary he looks on himself as
+a useful member of the community, and in some cases even more. If anyone
+is to be hated or blamed, it is the person who sends the bird-catcher
+into the fields; not the dealer, but he who buys trapped birds and keeps
+them in cages to be amused by their twitterings. This is not a question
+of morality, nor of sentimentality, as some may imagine; but rather of
+taste, of the sense of fitness, of that something vaguely described as
+the feeling for nature, which is not universal. Thus, one man will dine
+with zest on a pheasant, partridge, or quail, but would be choked by a
+lark; while another man will eat pheasant and lark with equal pleasure.
+Both may be good, honest, moral men; only one has that something which
+the other lacks. In one the soul responds to the skylark's music
+"singing at heaven's gate," in the other not; to one the roasted lark is
+merely a savoury morsel; the other, be he never so hungry, cannot
+dissociate the bird on the dish from that heavenly melody which
+registered a sensation in his brain, to be thereafter reproduced at
+will, together with the revived emotion. It is a curious question, and
+is no nearer to a settlement when one of these two I have described
+turns round and calls his neighbour a gross feeder, a worshipper of his
+belly, a soulless and brutish man; and when the other answers
+"pooh-pooh" and goes on complacently devouring larks with great gusto,
+until he is himself devoured of death.
+
+To those with whom I am in sympathy in this matter, who love to listen
+to and are yearly invigorated by the skylark's music, and whose souls
+are yearly sickened at the slaughter of their loved songsters, I would
+humbly suggest that there is a simpler, more practical means of ending
+this dispute, which has surely lasted long enough. It goes without
+saying that this bird's music is eminently pleasing to most persons,
+that even as the sunshine is sweet and pleasant to behold, its silvery
+aerial sounds rained down so abundantly from heaven are delightful and
+exhilarating to all of us, or at all events, to so large a majority that
+the minority are not entitled to consideration. One person in five
+thousand, or perhaps in ten thousand, might be found to say that the
+lark singing in blue heaven affords him no pleasure. This being so, and
+ours being a democratic country in which the will or desire of the many
+is or may be made the law of the land, it is surely only right and
+reasonable that lovers of lark's flesh should be prevented from
+gratifying their taste at the cost of the destruction of so loved a
+bird, that they should be made to content themselves with woodcock, and
+snipe on toast, and golden plover, and grouse and blackcock, and any
+other bird of delicate flavor which does not, living, appeal so strongly
+to the aesthetic feelings in us and is not so universal a favourite.
+
+This, too, will doubtless come in time. Speaking for myself, and going
+back to the former subject, little as I like to see men feeding on
+larks, rather would I see larks killed and eaten than thrust into cages.
+For in captivity they do not "sweeten" my life, as the Maidenhead
+guidebook writer would say, with their shrill, piercing cries for
+liberty, but they "sing me mad." Just as in some minds this bird's
+music--a sound which above all others typifies the exuberant life and
+joy of nature to the soul--cannot be separated from the cooked and
+dished-up melodist, so that they turn with horror from such meat, so I
+cannot separate this bird, nor any bird, from the bird's wild life of
+liberty, and the marvellous faculty of flight which is the bird's
+attribute. To see so wild and aerial a creature in a cage jars my whole
+system, and is a sight hateful and unnatural, an outrage on our
+universal mother.
+
+This feeling about birds in captivity, which I have attempted to
+describe, and which, I repeat, is not sentimentality, as that word is
+ordinarily understood, has been so vividly rendered in an ode to "The
+Skylarks" by Sir Rennell Rodd, that the reader will probably feel
+grateful to me for quoting a portion of it in this place, especially as
+the volume in which it appears--_Feda, with Other Poems_--is, I imagine,
+not very widely known:
+
+    "Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky,
+    For the home of a song-bird's heart!
+    And why, and why, and for ever why,
+    Do they stifle here in the mart:
+    Cages of agony, rows on rows,
+    Torture that only a wild thing knows:
+    Is it nothing to you to see
+    That head thrust out through the hopeless wire,
+    And the tiny life, and the mad desire
+    To be free, to be free, to be free?
+    Oh, the sky, the sky, the blue, wide sky,
+    For the beat of a song-bird's wings!
+
+    * * *
+
+    Straight and close are the cramping bars
+    From the dawn of mist to the chill of stars,
+    And yet it must sing or die!
+    Will its marred harsh voice in the city street
+    Make any heart of you glad?
+    It will only beat with its wings and beat,
+    It will only sing you mad.
+
+    * * *
+
+    If it does not go to your heart to see
+    The helpless pity of those bruised wings,
+    The tireless effort to which it clings
+    To the strain and the will to be free,
+    I know not how I shall set in words
+    The meaning of God in this,
+    For the loveliest thing in this world of His
+    Are the ways and the songs of birds.
+    But the sky, the sky, the wide, free sky,
+    For the home of the song-bird's heart!"
+
+
+How falsely does that man see Nature, how grossly ignorant must he be of
+its most elemental truths, who looks upon it as a chamber of torture, a
+physiological laboratory on a very vast scale, a scene of endless strife
+and trepidation, of hunger and cold, and every form of pain and
+misery--and who, holding this doctrine of
+
+  "Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky is the home of a song-bird's heart,"
+
+Nature's cruelty, keeps a few captive birds in cages, and is accustomed
+to say of them, "These, at any rate, are safe, rescued from subjection
+to ruthless conditions, sheltered from the inclement weather and from
+enemies, and all their small wants abundantly satisfied;" who once or
+twice every day looks at his little captives, presents them with a lump
+of sugar, whistles and chuckles to provoke them to sing, then goes about
+his business, flattering himself that he is a lover of birds, a being of
+a sweet and kindly nature. It is all a delusion--a distortion and
+inversion of the truth--so absurd that it would be laughable were it
+not so sad, and the cause of so much unconscious cruelty. The truth is,
+that if birds be capable of misery, it is only in the unnatural
+conditions of a caged life that they experience it; and that if they are
+capable of happiness in a cage, such happiness or contentment is but a
+poor, pale emotion compared with the wild exuberant gladness they have
+in freedom, where all their instincts have full play, and where the
+perils that surround them do but brighten their many splendid faculties.
+The little bird twitters and sings in its cage, and among ourselves the
+blind man and the cripple whistle and sing, too, feeling at times a
+lower kind of contentment and cheerfulness. The chaffinch in East
+London, with its eyeballs seared by red-hot needles, sings, too, in its
+prison, when it has grown accustomed to its darkened existence, and is
+in health, and the agreeable sensations that accompany health prompt it
+at intervals to melody, but no person, not even the dullest ruffian
+among the baser sort of bird-fanciers would maintain for a moment that
+the happiness of the little sightless captive, whether vocal or silent,
+is at all comparable in degree to that of the chaffinch singing in April
+"on the orchard bough," vividly seeing the wide sunlit world, blue above
+and green below, possessing the will and the power, when its lyric ends,
+to transport itself swiftly through the crystal fields of air to other
+trees and other woods.
+
+I take it that in the lower animals misery can result from two causes
+only--restraint and disease; consequently, that animals in a state of
+nature are not miserable. They are not hindered nor held back. Whether
+the animal is migrating, or burying himself in his hibernating nest or
+den; or flying from some rapacious enemy, which he may, or may not, be
+able to escape; or feeding, or sleeping, or fighting, or courting, or
+incubating, however many days or weeks this process may last--in all
+things he is obeying the impulse that is strongest in him at the
+time--he is doing what he wants to do--the one thing that makes him
+happy.
+
+As to disease, it is so rare in wild animals, or in a large majority of
+cases so quickly proves fatal, that, compared with what we call disease
+in our own species it is practically non-existent. The "struggle for
+existence," in so far as animals in a state of nature are concerned, is
+a metaphorical struggle; and the strife, short and sharp, which is so
+common in nature, is not misery, although it results in pain, since it
+is pain that kills or is soon outlived. Fear there is, just as in fine
+weather there are clouds in the sky; and just as the shadow of the cloud
+passes, so does fear pass from the wild creature when the object that
+excited it has vanished from sight. And when death comes, it comes
+unexpectedly, and is not the death that we know, even before we taste of
+it, thinking of it with apprehension all our lives long, but a sudden
+blow that takes away consciousness--the touch of something that numbs
+the nerves--merely the prick of a needle.  In whatever way the animal
+perishes, whether by violence, or excessive cold, or decay, his death is
+a comparatively easy one. So long as he is fighting with or struggling
+to escape from an enemy, wounds are not felt as wounds, and scarcely
+hurt him--as we know from our own experience; and when overcome, if
+death be not practically instantaneous, as in the case of a small bird
+seized by a cat, the disabling grip or blow is itself a kind of anodyne,
+producing insensibility to pain. This, too, is a matter of human
+experience. To say nothing of those who fall in battle, men have often
+been struck down and fearfully lacerated by lions, tigers, jaguars, and
+other savage beasts; and after having been rescued by their companions,
+have recounted this strange thing. Even when there was no loss of
+consciousness, when they saw and knew that the animal was rending their
+flesh, they seemed not to feel it, and were, at the time, indifferent to
+the fate that had overtaken them.
+
+It is the same in death from cold. The strong, well-nourished man,
+overtaken by a snowstorm on some pathless, uninhabited waste, may
+experience some exceedingly bitter moments, or even hours, before he
+gives up the struggle. The physical pain is simply nothing: the whole
+bitterness is in the thought that he must die. The horror at the thought
+of annihilation, the remembrance of all the happiness he is now about to
+lose, of dear friends, of those whose lives will be dimmed with grief
+for his loss, of all his cherished dreams of the future--the sting of
+all this is so sharp that, compared with it, the creeping coldness in
+his blood is nothing more than a slight discomfort, and is scarcely
+felt. By and by he is overcome by drowsiness, and ceases to struggle;
+the torturing visions fade from his mind, and his only thought is to lie
+down and sleep. And when he sleeps he passes away; very easily, very
+painlessly, for the pain was of the mind, and was over long before death
+ensued.
+
+The bird, however hard the frost may be, flies briskly to its customary
+roosting-place, and with beak tucked into its wing, falls asleep. It has
+no apprehensions; only the hot blood grows colder and colder, the pulse
+feebler as it sleeps, and at midnight, or in the early morning, it drops
+from its perch--dead.
+
+Yesterday he lived and moved, responsible to a thousand external
+influences, reflecting earth and sky in his small brilliant brain as in
+a looking-glass; also he had a various language, the inherited knowledge
+of his race, and the faculty of flight, by means of which he could
+shoot, meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from place to
+place, and with it such perfect control over all his organs, such
+marvellous certitude in all his motions, as to be able to drop himself
+plumb down from the tallest tree-top or out of the void air, on to a
+slender spray, and scarcely cause its leaves to tremble. Now, on this
+morning, he lies stiff and motionless; if you were to take him up and
+drop him from your hand, he would fall to the ground like a stone or a
+lump of clay--so easy and swift is the passage from life to death in
+wild nature! But he was never miserable.
+
+Those of my readers who have seen much of animals in a state of nature,
+will agree that death from decay, or old age, is very rare among them.
+In that state the fullest vigour, with brightness of all the faculties,
+is so important that probably in ninety-nine cases in a hundred any
+falling-off in strength, or decay of any sense, results in some fatal
+accident. Death by misadventure, as we call it, is Nature's ordinance,
+the end designed for a very large majority of her children.
+Nevertheless, animals do sometimes live on without accident to the very
+end of their term, to fade peacefully away at the last. I have myself
+witnessed such cases in mammals and birds; and one such case, which
+profoundly impressed me, and is vividly remembered, I will describe.
+
+One morning in the late summer, while walking in the fields at my home
+in South America, I noticed a few purple martins, large, beautiful
+swallows common in that region, engaged, at a considerable height, in
+the aerial exercises in which they pass so much of their time each day.
+By and by, one of the birds separated itself from the others, and,
+circling slowly downward, finally alighted on the ground not far from
+me. I walked on: but the action of the bird had struck me as unusual and
+strange, and before going far, I turned and walked back to the spot
+where it continued sitting on the ground, quite motionless. It made no
+movement when I approached to within four yards of it; and after I had
+stood still at that distance for a minute or so, attentively regarding
+it, I saw it put out one wing and turn over on its side. I at once took
+it up in my hand, and found that it was already quite dead. It was a
+large example of its species, and its size, together with a something of
+dimness in the glossy purple colour of the upper plumage, seemed to show
+that it was an old bird. But it was uninjured, and when I dissected it
+no trace of disease was discernible. I concluded that it was an old bird
+that had died solely from natural failure of the life-energy.
+
+But how wonderful, how almost incredible, that the healthy vigour and
+joy of life should have continued in this individual bird down to within
+so short a period of the end; that it should have been not only strong
+enough to find its food, but to rush and wheel about for long intervals
+in purely sportive exercises, when the brief twilight of decline and
+final extinction were so near! It becomes credible--we can even believe
+that most of the individuals that cease to exist only when the vital
+fire has burnt itself out, fall on death in this swift, easy
+manner--when we recall the fact that even in the life-history of men
+such a thing is not unknown. Probably there is not one among my readers
+who will not be able to recall some such incident in his own circle--the
+case of someone who lived, perhaps, long past the term usually allotted
+to man, and who finally passed away without a struggle, without a pang,
+so that those who were with him found it hard to believe that the spirit
+had indeed gone. In such cases, the subject has invariably been healthy,
+although it is hard to believe that, in the conditions we exist in, any
+man can have the perfect health that all wild creatures enjoy.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+After my long talk with the bird-catcher on June 24, and two more talks
+equally long on the two following days, I found that something of the
+charm the common had had for me was gone. It was not quite the same as
+formerly; even the sunshine had a something of conscious sadness in it
+which was like a shadow. Those merry little brown twitterers that
+frequently shot across the sky, looking small as insects in the wide
+blue expanse, and ever and anon dropped swiftly down like showers of
+aerolites, to lose themselves in the grass and herbage, or perch singing
+on the topmost dead twigs of a bush, now existed in constant imminent
+danger--not of that quick merciful destruction which Nature has for her
+weaklings, and for all that fail to reach her high standard; but of a
+worse fate, the prison life which is not Nature's ordinance, but one of
+the cunning larger Ape's abhorred inventions. Instead of taking my usual
+long strolls about the common I loitered once more in the village lanes
+and had my reward.
+
+On the morning of June 27 I was out sauntering very indolently, thinking
+of nothing at all; for it was a surpassingly brilliant day, and the
+sunshine produced the effect of a warm, lucent, buoyant fluid, in which
+I seemed to float rather than walk--a celestial water, which, like the
+more ponderable and common sort, may sometimes be both felt and seen.
+The sensation of feeling it is somewhat similar to that experienced by a
+bather standing breast-deep in a dear, green, warm tropical sea, so
+charged with salt that it lifts him up; but to distinguish it with the
+eye, you must look away to a distance of some yards in an open unshaded
+place, when it will become visible as fine glinting lines, quivering and
+serpentining upwards, fountain-wise, from the surface. All at once I was
+startled by hearing the loud importunate hunger-call of a young cuckoo
+quite close to me. Moving softly up to the low hedge and peering over, I
+saw the bird perched on a long cross-stick, which had been put up in a
+cottage garden to hang clothes on; he was not more than three to four
+yards from me, a fine young cuckoo in perfect plumage, his barred
+under-surface facing me. Although seeing me as plainly as I saw him, he
+exhibited no fear, and did not stir. Why should he, since I had not come
+there to feed him, and, to his inexperienced avian mind, was only one of
+the huge terrestrial creatures of various forms, with horns and manes on
+their heads, that move heavily about in roads and pastures, and are
+nothing to birds? But his foster parent, a hedge-sparrow, was
+suspicious, and kept at some distance with food in her bill; then
+excited by his imperative note, she flitted shyly to him, and deposited
+a minute caterpillar in his great gaping yellow mouth. It was like
+dropping a bun into the monstrous mouth of the hippopotamus of the
+Zoological Gardens. But the hedge-sparrow was off and back again with a
+second morsel in a very few moments; and again and again she darted away
+in quest of food and returned successful, while the lazy, beautiful
+giant sat sunning himself on his cross-stick and hungrily cried for
+more.
+
+This is one of those exceptional sights in nature which, however often
+seen, never become altogether familiar, never fail to re-excite the old
+feelings of wonder and admiration which were experienced on first
+witnessing them. I can safely say, I think, that no man has observed so
+many parasitical young birds (individuals) being fed by their
+foster-parents as myself, yet the interest such a sight inspired in me
+is just as fresh now as in boyhood.  And probably in no parasitical
+species does the strangeness of the spectacle strike the mind so sharply
+as in this British bird, since the differences in size and colouring
+between the foster-parent and its false offspring are so much greater in
+its case. Here nature's unnaturalness in such an instinct--a close union
+of the beautiful and the monstrous--is seen in its extreme form. The
+hawk-like figure and markings of the cuckoo serve only to accentuate the
+disparity, which is perhaps greatest when the parent is the
+hedge-sparrow--so plainly-coloured a bird, so shy and secretive in its
+habits. One never ceases to be amazed at the blindness of the parental
+instinct in so intelligent a creature as a bird in a case of this kind.
+Some idea of how blind it is may be formed by imagining a case in widely
+separated types of our own species, which would be a parallel to that of
+the cuckoo and hedge-sparrow. Let us imagine that some malicious Arabian
+Night's genius had snatched up the infant male child of a Scandinavian
+couple--the largest of their nation; and flying away to Africa with it,
+to the heart of the great Aruwhimi forest had laid it on the breast of a
+little coffee-coloured, woolly-headed, spindle-shanked, pot-bellied,
+pigmy mother, taking away at the same time her own newly-born babe; that
+she had tenderly nursed the substituted child, and reared and protected
+it, ministering, according to her lights, to all its huge wants, until
+he had come to the fullness of his stature, yet never suspected, that
+the magnificent, ivory-limbed giant, with flowing yellow locks and
+cerulean eyes, was not the child of her own womb.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Bright and genial were all the last days of June, when I loitered in the
+lanes before the unwished day of my return to London. During this quiet,
+pleasant time the greenfinch was perhaps more to me than any other
+songster. In the village itself, with the adjacent lanes and orchards,
+this pretty, seldom-silent bird was the most common species. The village
+was his metropolis, just as London is ours--and the sparrow's; its lanes
+were his streets, its hedges and elm trees his cottage rows and tall
+stately mansions and public buildings. . We frequently find the
+predominance of one species somewhat wearisome. Speaking for myself,
+there are songsters that are best appreciated when they are limited in
+numbers and keep their distance, but of the familiar, unambitious
+strains of swallow, robin, and wren I never tire, nor, during these
+days, could I have too much of the greenfinch, low as he ranks among
+British melodists. Tastes differ; that is a point on which we are all
+agreed, and every one of us, even the humblest, is permitted to have his
+own preferences. Still, after re-reading Wordsworth's lines to "The
+Green Linnet," it is curious, to say the least of it, to turn to some
+prosewriter--an authority on birds, perhaps--to find that this species,
+whose music so charmed the poet, has for its song a monotonous croak,
+which it repeats at short intervals for hours without the slightest
+variation--a dismal sound which harmonizes with no other sound in
+nature, and suggests nothing but heat and weariness, and is of all
+natural sounds the most irritating. To this writer, then--and there are
+others to keep him in countenance--the greenfinch as a vocalist ranks
+lower than the lowest. One can only wonder (and smile) at such extreme
+divergences. To my mind all natural sounds have, in some measure an
+exhilarating effect, and I cannot get rid of the notion that so it
+should be with every one of us; and when some particular sound, or
+series of sounds, that has more than this common character, and is
+distinctly pleasing, is spoken of as nothing but disagreeable,
+irritating, and the rest of it, I am inclined to think that there is
+something wrong with the person who thus describes it; that he is not
+exactly as nature would have had him, but that either during his
+independent life, or before it at some period of his prenatal existence,
+something must have happened to distune him. All this, I freely confess,
+may be nothing but fancy. In any case, the subject need not keep us
+longer from the greenfinch--that is to say, _my_ greenfinch not another
+man's.
+
+From morning until evening all around and about the cottage, and out of
+doors whithersoever I bent my steps, from the masses of deep green
+foliage, sounded the perpetual airy prattle of these delightful birds.
+One had the idea that the concealed vocalists were continually meeting
+each other at little social gatherings, where they exchanged pretty
+loving greetings, and indulged in a leafy gossip, interspersed with
+occasional fragments of music, vocal and instrumental; now a long
+trill--a trilling, a tinkling, a sweeping of one minute finger-tip over
+metal strings as fine as gossamer threads--describe it how you will, you
+cannot describe it; then the long, low, inflected scream, like a lark's
+throat-note drawn out and inflected; little chirps and chirruping
+exclamations and remarks, and a soft warbled note three or four or more
+times repeated, and sometimes, the singer fluttering up out of the
+foliage and hovering in the air, displaying his green and yellow plumage
+while emitting these lovely notes; and again the trill, trill answering
+trill in different keys; and again the music scream, as if some
+unsubstantial being, fairy or woodnymph had screamed somewhere in her
+green hiding-place. In London one frequently hears, especially in the
+spring, half-a-dozen sparrows just met together in a garden tree, or
+among the ivy or creeper on a wall, burst out suddenly into a confused
+rapturous chorus of chirruping sounds, mingled with others of a finer
+quality, liquid and ringing. At such times one is vexed to think that
+there are writers on birds who invariably speak of the sparrow as a
+tuneless creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing more. It strikes one
+that such writers either wilfully abuse or are ignorant of the right
+meaning of words, so wild and glad in character are these concerts of
+town sparrows, and so refreshing to the tired and noise-vexed brain! But
+now when I listened to the greenfinches in the village elms and
+hedgerows, if by chance a few sparrows burst out in loud gratulatory
+notes, the sounds they emitted appeared coarse, and I wished the
+chirrupers away. But with the true and brilliant songsters it seemed to
+me that the rippling greenfinch music was always in harmony, forming as
+it were a kind of airy, subdued accompaniment to their loud and ringing
+tones.
+
+I had had my nightingale days, my cuckoo and blackbird and tree-pipit
+days, with others too numerous to mention, and now I was having my
+greenfinch days; and these were the last.
+
+One morning in July I was in my sitting-room, when in the hedge on the
+other side of the lane, just opposite my window, a small brown bird
+warbled a few rich notes, the prelude to his song. I went and stood by
+the open window, intently listening, when it sang again, but only a
+phrase or two. But I listened still, confidently expecting more; for
+although it was now long past its singing season, that splendid sunshine
+would compel it to express its gladness. Then, just when a fresh burst
+of music came, it was disturbed by another sound close by--a human
+voice, also singing. On the other side of the hedge in which the bird
+sat concealed was a cottage garden, and there on a swing fastened to a
+pair of apple trees, a girl about eleven years old sat lazily swinging
+herself. Once or twice after she began singing the nightingale broke out
+again, and then at last he became silent altogether, his voice
+overpowered by hers.  Girl and bird were not five yards apart. It
+greatly surprised me to hear her singing, for it was eleven o'clock,
+when all the village children were away at the National School, a time
+of day when, so far as human sounds were concerned, there reigned an
+almost unbroken silence. But very soon I recalled the fact that this was
+a very lazy child, and concluded that she had coaxed her mother into
+sending an excuse for keeping her at home, and so had kept her liberty
+on this beautiful morning. About two minutes' walk from the cottage, at
+the side of the crooked road running through the village, there was a
+group of ancient pollarded elm trees with huge, hollow trunks, and
+behind them an open space, a pleasant green slope, where some of the
+village children used to go every day to play on the grass. Here I used
+to see this girl lying in the sun, her dark chestnut hair loosed and
+scattered on the sward, her arms stretched out, her eyes nearly closed,
+basking in the sun, as happy as some heat-loving wild animal. No, it was
+not strange that she had not gone to school with the others when her
+disposition was remembered, but most strange to hear a voice of such
+quality in a spot where nature was rich and lovely, and only man was, if
+not vile, at all events singularly wanting in the finer human qualities.
+
+Looking out from the open window across the low hedge-top, I could see
+her as she alternately rose and fell with slow, indolent motion, now
+waist-high above the green dividing wall, then only her brown head
+visible resting against the rope just where her hand had grasped it. And
+as she swayed herself to and fro she sang that simple melody--probably
+some child's hymn which she had been taught at the Sunday-school; but it
+was a very long hymn, or else she repeated the same few stanzas many
+times, and after each there was a brief pause, and then the voice that
+seemed to fall and rise with the motion went on as before. I could have
+stood there for an hour--nay, for hours--listening to it, so fresh and
+so pure was the clear young voice, which had no earthly trouble in it,
+and no passion, and was in this like the melody of the birds of which I
+had lately heard so much; and with it all that tenderness and depth
+which is not theirs, but is human only and of the soul.
+
+It struck me as a singular coincidence--and to a mind of so primitive a
+type as the writer's there is more in the fact that the word
+implies--that, just as I had quitted London, to seek for just such a
+spot as I so speedily found, with the passionately exclaimed words of a
+young London girl ringing in my ears, so now I went back with this
+village girl's melody sounding and following me no less clearly and
+insistently. For it was not merely remembered, as we remember most
+things, but vividly and often reproduced, together with the various
+melodies of the birds I had listened to; a greater and principal voice
+in that choir, yet in no wise lessening their first value, nor ever out
+of harmony with them.
+
+
+
+
+EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
+
+
+There are countries with a less fertile soil and a worse climate than
+ours, yet richer in bird life. Nevertheless, England is not poor; the
+species are not few in number, and some are extremely abundant.
+Unfortunately many of the finer kinds have been too much sought after;
+persecuted first for their beauty, then for their rarity, until now we
+are threatened with their total destruction. As these kinds become
+unobtainable, those which stand next in the order of beauty and rarity
+are persecuted in their turn; and in a country as densely populated as
+ours, where birds cannot hide themselves from human eyes, such
+persecution must eventually cause their extinction. Meanwhile the bird
+population does not decrease. Every place in nature, like every property in
+Chancery, has more than one claimant to it--sometimes the claimants are
+many--and so long as the dispute lasts all live out of the estate. For
+there are always two or more species subsisting on the same kind of
+food, possessing similar habits, and frequenting the same localities. It
+is consequently impossible for man to exterminate any one species
+without indirectly benefiting some other species, which attracts him in
+a less degree, or not at all. This is unfortunate, for as the bright
+kinds, or those we esteem most, diminish in numbers the less interesting
+kinds multiply, and we lose much of the pleasure which bird life is
+fitted to give us. When we visit woods, or other places to which birds
+chiefly resort, in districts uninhabited by man, or where he pays little
+or no attention to the feathered creatures, the variety of the bird life
+encountered affords a new and peculiar delight. There is a constant
+succession of new forms and new voices; in a single day as many species
+may be met with as one would find in England by searching diligently for
+a whole year.
+
+And yet this may happen in a district possessing no more species than
+England boasts; and the actual number of individuals may be even less
+than with us. In sparrows, for instance, of the one common species, we
+are exceedingly rich; but in bird life generally, in variety of birds,
+especially in those of graceful forms and beautiful plumage, we have
+been growing poorer for the last fifty years, and have now come to so
+low a state that it becomes us to inquire whether it is not in our power
+to better ourselves. It is an old familiar truth--a truism--that it is
+easier to destroy than to restore or build up; nevertheless, some
+comfort is to be got from the reflection that in this matter we have up
+till now been working against Nature. She loves not to bring forth food
+where there are none to thrive on it; and when our unconsidered action
+had made these gaps, when, despising her gifts or abusing them, we had
+destroyed or driven out her finer kinds, she fell back on her lowlier
+kinds--her reserve of coarser, more generalized species--and gave them
+increase, and bestowed the vacant places which we had created on them.
+What she has done she will undo, or assist us in undoing; for we should
+be going back to her methods, and should have her with and not against
+us. Much might yet be done to restore the balance among our native
+species. Not by legislation, albeit all laws restraining the wholesale
+destruction of bird life are welcome. On this subject the Honourable
+Auberon Herbert has said, and his words are golden: "For myself,
+legislation or no legislation, I would turn to the friends of animals in
+this country, and say, 'If you wish that the friendship between man and
+animals should become a better and truer thing than it is at present,
+you must make it so by countless individual efforts, by making thousands
+of centres of personal influence.'"
+
+The subject is a large one. In this paper the question of the
+introduction of exotic birds will be chiefly considered. Birds have been
+blown by the winds of chance over the whole globe, and have found rest
+for their feet. That a large number of species, suited to the conditions
+of this country, exist scattered about the world is not to be doubted,
+and by introducing a few of these we might accelerate the change so
+greatly to be desired. At present a very considerable amount of energy
+is spent in hunting down the small contingents of rare species that once
+inhabited our islands, and still resort annually to its shores,
+persistently endeavouring to re-establish their colonies. A less amount
+of labour and expense would serve to introduce a few foreign species
+each year, and the reward would be greater, and would not make us
+ashamed. We have generously given our own wild animals to other
+countries; and from time to time we receive cheering reports of an
+abundant increase in at least two of our exportations--to wit, the
+rabbit and the sparrow. We are surely entitled to some return. Dead
+animals, however rich their pelt or bright their plumage may be, are not
+a fair equivalent. Dead things are too much with us. London has become a
+mart for this kind of merchandise for the whole of Europe, and the
+traffic is not without a reflex effect on us; for life in the inferior
+animals has come or is coming to be merely a thing to be lightly taken
+by human hands, in order that its dropped garment may be sold for filthy
+lucre. There are warehouses in this city where it is possible for a
+person to walk ankle-deep--literally to wade--in bright-plumaged
+bird-skins, and see them piled shoulder-high on either side of him--a
+sight to make the angels weep!
+
+Not the angel called woman. It is not that she is naturally more cruel
+than man; bleeding wounds and suffering in all its forms, even the sigh
+of a burdened heart, appeal to her quick sympathies, and draw the ready
+tears; but her imagination helps her less. The appeal must in most cases
+be direct and through the medium of her senses, else it is not seen and
+not heard. If she loves the ornament of a gay-winged bird, and is able
+to wear it with a light heart, it is because it calls up no mournful
+image to her mind; no little tragedy enacted in some far-off wilderness,
+of the swift child of the air fallen and bleeding out its bright life,
+and its callow nestlings, orphaned of the breast that warmed them, dying
+of hunger in the tree. We know, at all events, that out of a female
+population of many millions in this country, so far only ten women,
+possibly fifteen, have been found to raise their voices--raised so often
+and so loudly on other questions--to protest against the barbarous and
+abhorrent fashion of wearing slain birds as ornaments. The degrading
+business of supplying the demand for this kind of feminine adornment
+must doubtless continue to flourish in our midst, commerce not being
+compatible with morality, but the material comes from other lands,
+unblessed as yet with Wild Bird Protection Acts, and "individual
+efforts, and thousands of centres of personal influence"; it comes
+mainly from the tropics, where men have brutish minds and birds a
+brilliant plumage. This trade, therefore, does not greatly affect the
+question of our native bird life, and the consideration of the means,
+which may be within our reach, of making it more to us than it now is.
+Some species from warm and even hot climates have been found to thrive
+well in England, breeding in the open air; as, for instance, the black
+and the black-necked swans, the Egyptian goose, the mandarin and summer
+ducks, and others too numerous to mention. But these birds are
+semi-domestic, and are usually kept in enclosures, and that they can
+stand the climate and propagate when thus protected from competition is
+not strange; for we know that several of our hardy domestic birds--the
+fowl, pea-fowl, Guinea-fowl, and Muscovy duck--are tropical in their
+origin. Furthermore, they are all comparatively large, and if they ever
+become feral in England, it will not be for many years to come.
+
+That these large kinds thrive so well with us is an encouraging fact;
+but the question that concerns us at present is the feasibility of
+importing birds of the grove, chiefly of the passerine order, and
+sending them forth to give a greater variety and richness to our bird
+life. To go with such an object to tropical countries would only be to
+court failure. Nature's highest types, surpassing all others in
+exquisite beauty of form, brilliant colouring, and perfect melody, can
+never be known to our woods and groves. These rarest avian gems may not
+be removed from their setting, and to those who desire to know them in
+their unimaginable lustre, it will always be necessary to cross oceans
+and penetrate into remote wildernesses. We must go rather to regions
+where the conditions of life are hard, where winters are long and often
+severe, where Nature is not generous in the matter of food, and the
+mouths are many, and the competition great. Nor even from such regions
+could we take any strictly migratory species with any prospect of
+success. Still, limiting ourselves to the resident, and consequently to
+the hardiest kinds, and to those possessing only a partial migration, it
+is surprising to find how many there are to choose from, how many are
+charming melodists, and how many have the bright tints in which our
+native species are so sadly lacking. The field from which the supply can
+be drawn is very extensive, and includes the continent of Europe, the
+countries of North Asia, a large portion of North America and Antarctic
+America, or South Chili and Patagonia. It would not be going too far to
+say that for every English species, inhabiting the garden, wood, field,
+stream, or waste, at least half a dozen resident species, with similar
+habits, might be obtained from the countries mentioned which would be
+superior to our own in melody (the nightingale and lark excepted),
+bright plumage, grace of form, or some other attractive quality. The
+question then arises; What reason is there for believing that these
+exotics, imported necessarily in small numbers, would succeed in winning
+a footing in our country, and become a permanent addition to its
+avifauna? For it has been admitted that our species are not few, in
+spite of the losses that have been suffered, and that the bird
+population does not diminish, however much its character may have
+altered and deteriorated from the aesthetic point of view, and probably
+also from the utilitarian. There are no vacant places. Thus, the streams
+are fished by herons, grebes, and kingfishers, while the rushy margins
+are worked by coots and gallinules, and, above the surface, reed and
+sedge-warblers, with other kinds, inhabit the reed-beds. The decaying
+forest tree is the province of the woodpecker, of which there are three
+kinds; and the trunks and branches of all trees, healthy or decaying,
+are quartered by the small creeper, that leaves no crevice unexplored in
+its search for minute insects and their eggs. He is assisted by the
+nuthatch; and in summer the wryneck comes (if he still lives), and
+deftly picks up the little active ants that are always wildly careering
+over the boles. The foliage is gleaned by warblers and others; and not
+even the highest terminal twigs are left unexamined by tits and their
+fellow-seekers after little things. Thrushes seek for worms in moist
+grounds about the woods; starlings and rooks go to the pasture lands;
+the lark and his relations keep to the cultivated fields; and there also
+dwells the larger partridge. Waste and stony grounds are occupied by the
+chats, and even on the barren mountain summits the ptarmigan gets his
+living. Wagtails run on the clean margins of streams; and littoral birds
+of many kinds are in possession of the entire sea-coast. Thus, the whole
+ground appears to be already sufficiently occupied, the habitats of
+distinct species overlapping each other like the scales on a fish. And
+when we have enumerated all these, we find that scores of others have
+been left out.  The important fly-catcher; the wren, Nature's diligent
+little housekeeper, that leaves no dusty corner uncleaned; and the
+pigeons, that have a purely vegetable diet. The woods and thickets are
+also ranged by jays, cuckoos, owls, hawks, magpies, butcher-birds--
+Nature's gamekeepers, with a licence to kill, which, after the manner of
+game-keepers, they exercise somewhat indiscriminately. Above the earth,
+the air is peopled by swifts and swallows in the daytime, and by
+goatsuckers at night. And, as if all these were not enough, the finches
+are found scattered everywhere, from the most secluded spot in nature to
+the noisy public thoroughfare, and are eaters of most things, from
+flinty seed to softest caterpillar. This being the state of things, one
+might imagine that experience and observation are scarcely needed to
+prove to us that the exotic, strange to the conditions, and where its
+finest instincts would perhaps be at fault, would have no chance of
+surviving. Nevertheless, odd as it may seem, the small stock of facts
+bearing on the subject which we possess point to a contrary conclusion.
+It might have been assumed, for instance, that the red-legged partridge
+would never have established itself with us, where the ground was
+already fully occupied by a native species, which possessed the
+additional advantage of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in
+spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has conquered a place, and
+has spread throughout the greater part of England. Even more remarkable
+is the case of the pheasant, with its rich plumage, a native of a hot
+region; yet our cold, wet climate and its unmodified bright colours have
+not been fatal to it, and practically it is one of our wild birds. The
+large capercailzie has also been successfully introduced from Norway.
+Small birds would probably become naturalized much more readily than
+large ones; they are volatile, and can more quickly find suitable
+feeding-ground, and safe roosting and nesting places; their food is also
+more abundant and easily found; their small size, which renders them
+inconspicuous, gives them safety; and, finally, they are very much more
+adaptive than large birds.
+
+It is not at all probable that the red-legged partridge will ever drive
+out our own bird, a contingency which some have feared. That would be a
+misfortune, for we do not wish to change one bird for another, or to
+lose any species we now possess, but to have a greater variety. We are
+better off with two partridges than we were with one, even if the
+invader does not afford such good sport nor such delicate eating. They
+exist side by side, and compete with each other; but such competition is
+not necessarily destructive to either. On the contrary, it acts and
+re-acts healthily and to the improvement of both. It is a fact that in
+small islands, very far removed from the mainland, where the animals
+have been exempt from all foreign competition--that is, from the
+competition of casual colonists--when it does come it proves, in many
+cases, fatal to them. Fortunately, this country's large size and
+nearness to the mainland has prevented any such fatal crystallization of
+its organisms as we see in islands like St.  Helena. That any English
+species would be exterminated by foreign competition is extremely
+unlikely; whether we introduce exotic birds or not, the only losses we
+shall have to deplore in the future will, like those of the past, be
+directly due to our own insensate action in slaying every rare and
+beautiful thing with powder and shot. From the introduction of exotic
+species nothing is to be feared, but much to be hoped.
+
+There is another point which should not be overlooked. It has after all
+become a mere fiction to say that _all_ places are occupied. Nature's
+nice order has been destroyed, and her kingdom thrown into the utmost
+confusion; our action tends to maintain the disorderly condition, while
+she is perpetually working against us to re-establish order. When she
+multiplies some common, little-regarded species to occupy a space left
+vacant by an artificially exterminated kind, the species called in as a
+mere stop-gap, as it were, is one not specially adapted in structure and
+instincts to a particular mode of life, and consequently cannot fully
+and effectually occupy the ground into which it has been permitted to
+enter. To speak in metaphor, it enters merely as a caretaker or ignorant
+and improvident steward in the absence of the rightful owner. Again,
+some of our ornamental species, which are fast diminishing, are fitted
+from their peculiar structure and life habits to occupy places in nature
+which no other kinds, however plastic they may be, can even partially
+fill. The wryneck and the woodpecker may be mentioned; and a still
+better instance is afforded by the small, gem-like kingfisher--the
+only British bird which can properly be described as gem-like.
+When the goldfinch goes--and we know that he is going rapidly--other
+coarser fringilline birds, without the melody, brightness, and charm of
+the goldfinch--sparrow and bunting--come in, and in some rough fashion
+supply its place; but when the kingfisher disappears an important place
+is left absolutely vacant, for in this case there is no coarser bird of
+homely plumage with the fishing instinct to seize upon it. Here, then,
+is an excellent opportunity for an experiment. In the temperate regions
+of the earth there are many fine kingfishers to select from; some are
+resident in countries colder than England, and are consequently very
+hardy; and in some cases the rivers and streams they frequent are
+exceedingly poor in fish. Some of them are very beautiful, and they vary
+in size from birds no larger than a sparrow to others as large as a
+pigeon.
+
+Anglers might raise the cry that they require all the finny inhabitants
+of our waters for their own sport. It is scarcely necessary to go as
+deeply into the subject as mathematical-minded Mudie did to show that
+Nature's lavishness in the production of life would make such a
+contention unreasonable. He demonstrated that if all the fishes hatched
+were to live their full term, in twenty-four years their production
+power would convert into fish (two hundred to the solid foot) as much
+matter as there is contained in the whole solar system--sun, planets,
+and satellites! An "abundantly startling" result, as he says. To be well
+within the mark, ninety-nine out of every hundred fishes hatched must
+somehow perish during that stage when they are nothing but suitable
+morsels for the kingfisher, to be swallowed entire; and a portion of all
+this wasted food might very well go to sustain a few species, which
+would be beautiful ornaments of the waterside, and a perpetual delight
+to all lovers of rural nature, including anglers. It may be remarked in
+passing, that the waste of food, in the present disorganized state of
+nature, is not only in our streams.
+
+The introduction of one or more of these lovely foreign kingfishers
+would not certainly have the effect of hastening the decline of our
+native species; but indirectly it might bring about a contrary result--a
+subject to be touched on at the end of this paper. Practical naturalists
+may say that kingfishers would be far more difficult to procure than
+other birds, and that it would be almost impossible to convey them to
+England. That is a question it would be premature to discuss now; but if
+the attempt should ever be made, the difficulties would not perhaps be
+found insuperable. In all countries one hears of certain species of
+birds that they invariably die in captivity; but when the matter is
+closely looked into, one usually finds that improper treatment and not
+loss of liberty is the cause of death. Unquestionably it would be much
+more difficult to keep a kingfisher alive and healthy during a long
+sea-voyage than a common seed-eating bird; but the same may be said of
+woodpeckers, cuckoos, warblers, and, in fact, of any species that
+subsists in a state of nature on a particular kind of animal food.
+Still, when we find that even the excessively volatile humming-bird,
+which subsists on the minutest insects and the nectar of flowers, and
+seems to require unlimited space for the exercise of its energies, can
+be successfully kept confined for long periods and conveyed to distant
+countries, one would imagine that it would be hard to set a limit to
+what might be done in this direction. We do not want hard-billed birds
+only. We require, in the first place, variety; and, secondly, that every
+species introduced, when not of type unlike any native kind, as in the
+case of the pheasant, shall be superior in beauty, melody, or some other
+quality, to its British representative, or to the species which comes
+nearest to it in structure and habits. Thus, suppose that the
+introduction of a pigeon should be desired. We know that in all
+temperate regions, these birds vary as little in colour and markings as
+they do in form; but in the vocal powers of different species there is
+great diversity; and the main objects would therefore be to secure a
+bird which would be an improvement in this respect on the native kinds.
+There are doves belonging to the same genus as stock-dove and
+wood-pigeon, that have exceedingly good voices, in which the peculiar
+mournful dove-melody has reached its highest perfection--weird and
+passionate strains, surging and ebbing, and startling the hearer with
+their mysterious resemblance to human tones. Or a Zenaida might be
+preferred for its tender lament, so wild and exquisitely modulated, like
+sobs etherealized and set to music, and passing away in sigh-like sounds
+that seem to mimic the aerial voices of the wind.
+
+When considering the character of our bird population with a view to its
+improvement, one cannot but think much, and with a feeling almost of
+dismay, of the excessive abundance of the sparrow. A systematic
+persecution of this bird would probably only serve to make matters
+worse, since its continued increase is not the cause but an effect of a
+corresponding decrease in other more useful and attractive species; and
+if Nature is to have her way at all there must be birds; and besides, no
+bird-lover has any wish at see such a thing attempted. The sparrow has
+his good points, if we are to judge him as we find him, without allowing
+what the Australians and Americans say of him to prejudice our minds.
+Possibly in those distant countries he may be altogether bad,
+resembling, in this respect, some of the emigrants of our species, who,
+when they go abroad, leave their whole stock of morality at home. Even
+with us Miss Ormerod is exceedingly bitter against him, and desires
+nothing less than his complete extirpation; but it is possible that this
+lady's zeal may not be according to knowledge, that she may not know a
+sparrow quite so well as she knows a fly. At all events, the
+ornithologist finds it hard to believe that so bad an insect-catcher is
+really causing the extinction of any exclusively insectivorous species.
+On her own very high authority we know that the insect supply is not
+diminishing, that the injurious kinds alone are able to inflict an
+annual loss equal to £10,000,000 on the British farmer. To put aside
+this controversial matter, the sparrow with all his faults is a pleasant
+merry little fellow; in many towns he is the sole representative of wild
+bird life, and is therefore a great deal to us--especially in the
+metropolis, in which he most abounds, and where at every quiet interval
+his blithe chirruping comes to us like a sound of subdued and happy
+laughter. In London itself this merriment of Nature never irritates; it
+is so much finer and more aerial in character than the gross jarring
+noises of the street, that it is a relief to listen to it, and it is
+like melody. In the quiet suburbs it sounds much louder and without
+intermission. And going further afield, in woods, gardens, hedges,
+hamlets, towns--everywhere there is the same running, rippling sound
+of the omnipresent sparrow, and it becomes monotonous at last. We have
+too much of the sparrow. But we are to blame for that. He is the
+unskilled worker that Nature has called in to do the work of skilled
+hands, which we have foolishly turned away. He is willing enough to take
+it all on himself; his energy is great; he bungles away without ceasing;
+and being one of a joyous temperament, he whistles and sings in his
+tuneless fashion at his work, until, like the grasshopper of
+Ecclesiastes, he becomes a burden. For how tiring are the sight and
+sound of grasshoppers when one journeys many miles and sees them
+incessantly rising like a sounding cloud before his horse, and hears
+their shrill notes all day from the wayside! Yet how pleasant to listen
+to their minstrelsy in the green summer foliage, where they are not too
+abundant! We can have too much of anything, however charming it may be
+in itself. Those who live where scores of humming-birds are perpetually
+dancing about the garden flowers find that the eye grows weary of seeing
+the daintiest forms and brightest colours and liveliest motions that
+birds exhibit. We are told that Edward the Confessor grew so sick of the
+incessant singing of nightingales in the forest of Havering-at-Bower
+that he prayed to Heaven to silence their music; whereupon the birds
+promptly took their departure, and returned no more to that forest until
+after the king's death. The sparrow is not so sensitive as the legendary
+nightingales, and is not to be got rid of in this easy manner. He is
+amenable only to a rougher kind of persuasion; and it would be
+impossible to devise a more effectual method of lessening his
+predominance than that which Nature teaches--namely to subject him to
+the competition of other and better species. He is well equipped for the
+struggle--hardy, pugnacious, numerous, and in possession. He would not
+be in possession and so predominant if he had not these qualities, and
+great pliability of instinct and readiness to seize on vacant places.
+Nevertheless, even with the sturdy sparrow a very small thing might turn
+the scale, particularly if we were standing by and putting a little
+artificial pressure on one side of the balance; for it must be borne in
+mind that the very extent and diversity of the ground he occupies is a
+proof that he does not occupy it effectually, and that his position is
+not too strong to be shaken. It is not probable that our action in
+assisting one side against the other would go far in its results; still,
+a little might be done. There are gardens and grounds in the suburbs of
+London where sparrows are not abundant, and are shyer than the birds of
+other species, and this result has been brought about by means of a
+little judicious persecution. Shooting is a bad plan, even with an
+air-gun; its effects are seen by all the birds, for they see more from
+their green hiding-places than we imagine, and it creates a general
+alarm among them. Those who wish to give the other birds a chance will
+only defeat their own object by shooting the sparrows. A much better
+plan for those who are able to practise it prudently is to take their
+nests, which are more exposed to sight than those of other birds; but
+they should be taken after the full complement of eggs have been laid,
+and only at night, so that other birds shall not witness the robbery and
+fear for their own treasures. Mr. Henry George, in that book of his
+which has been the delight of so many millions of rational souls,
+advocates the destruction of all sharks and other large rapacious
+fishes, after which, he says, the ocean can be stocked with salmon,
+which would secure an unlimited supply of good wholesome food for the
+human race. No such high-handed measures are advocated here with regard
+to the sparrow. Knowledge of nature makes us conservative. It is so very
+easy to say, "Kill the sparrow, or shark, or magpie, or whatever it is,
+and then everything will be right." But there are more things in nature
+than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the class of reformers
+represented by the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper's master, and Miss
+Ormerod, and Mr. Henry George. Let him by all means kill the sharks, but
+he will not conquer Nature in that way: she will make more sharks out of
+something else--possibly out of the very salmon on which he proposes to
+regale his hungry disciples. To go into details is not the present
+writer's purpose; and to finish with this part of the subject, it is
+sufficient to add that in the very wide and varied field occupied by the
+sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible to a species having
+no special and highly perfected feeding instincts, there is room for the
+introduction of scores of competitors, every one of which should be
+better adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at that point or
+that particular part of the field where the two would come into rivalry;
+and every species introduced should also possess some quality which
+would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, a valuable addition to
+our bird life. This would be no war of violence, and no contravention of
+Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, a return to her safe,
+healthy, and far-reaching methods.
+
+There is one objection some may make to the scheme suggested here which
+must be noticed. It may be said that even if exotic species able to
+thrive in our country were introduced there would be no result; for
+these strangers to our groves would all eventually meet with the same
+fate as our rarer species and casual visitors--that is to say, they
+would be shot. There is no doubt that the amateur naturalist has been a
+curse to this country for the last half century, that it is owing to the
+"cupidity of the cabinet" as old Robert Mudie has it--that many of our
+finer species are exceedingly rare, while others are disappearing
+altogether. But it is surely not too soon to look for a change for the
+better in this direction. Half a century ago, when the few remaining
+great bustards in this country were being done to death, it was suddenly
+remembered by naturalists that in their eagerness to possess examples of
+the bird (in the skin) they had neglected to make themselves acquainted
+with its customs when alive. Its habits were hardly better known than
+those of the dodo and solitaire. The reflection came too late, in so far
+as the habits of the bird in this country are concerned; but unhappily
+the lesson was not then taken to heart, and other fine species have
+since gone the way of the great bustard. But now that we have so clearly
+seen the disastrous effects of this method of "studying ornithology,"
+which is not in harmony with our humane civilization, it is to be hoped
+that a better method will be adopted--that "finer way" which Thoreau
+found and put aside his fowling-piece to practise. There can be no doubt
+that the desire for such an improvement is now becoming very general,
+that a kindlier feeling for animal, and especially bird life is growing
+up among us, and there are signs that it is even beginning to have some
+appreciable effect. The fashion of wearing birds is regarded by most men
+with pain and reprobation; and it is possible that before long it will
+be thought that there is not much difference between the action of the
+woman who buys tanagers and humming-birds to adorn her person, and that
+of the man who kills the bittern, hoopoe, waxwing, golden oriole, and
+Dartford-warbler to enrich his private collection.
+
+A few words on the latest attempt which has been made to naturalize an
+exotic bird in England will not seem out of place here. About eight
+years ago a gentleman in Essex introduced the rufous tinamou--a handsome
+game bird, nearly as large as a fowl--into his estate. Up till the
+present time, or till quite recently these birds have bred every year,
+and at one time they had increased considerably and scattered about the
+neighbourhood. When it began to increase, the neighbouring proprietors
+and sportsmen generally were asked not to shoot it, but to give it a
+chance, and there is reason to believe that they have helped to protect
+it, and have taken a great interest in the experiment. Whatever the
+ultimate result may be, the partial success attained during these few
+years is decidedly encouraging, and that for more reasons than one. In
+the first place, the bird was badly chosen for such an experiment. It
+belongs to the pampas of La Plata, to which it is restricted, and where
+it enjoys a dry, bright climate, and lives concealed in the tall
+close-growing indigenous grasses. The conditions of its habitat are
+therefore widely different from those of Essex, or of any part of
+England; and, besides, it has a peculiar organisation, for it happens to
+be one of those animals of ancient types of which a few species still
+survive in South America. That so unpromising a subject as this large
+archaic tinamou should be able to maintain its existence in this
+country, even for a very few years, encourages one to believe that with
+better-chosen species, more highly organized, and with more pliant
+habits, such as the hazel hen of Europe for a game bird, success would
+be almost certain.
+
+Another circumstance connected with the attempted introduction of this
+unsuitable bird, even of more promise than the mere fact of the partial
+success achieved, is the greatest interest the experiment has excited,
+not only among naturalists throughout the country, but also among
+landlords and sportsmen down in Essex, where the bird was not regarded
+merely as fair game to be bagged, or as a curiosity to be shot for the
+collector's cabinet, but was allowed to fight its own fight without
+counting man among its enemies. And it is to be expected that the same
+self-restraint and spirit of fairness and intelligent desire to see a
+favourable result would be shown everywhere if exotic species were to be
+largely introduced, and breeding centres established in suitable places
+throughout the country. When it once became known that individuals were
+doing this thing, giving their time and best efforts and at considerable
+expense not for their own selfish gratification, but for the general
+good, and to make the country more delightful to all lovers of rural
+sights and sounds, there would be no opposition, but on the contrary
+every assistance, since all would wish success to such an enterprise.
+Even the most enthusiastic collector would refrain from lifting a weapon
+against the new feathered guests from distant lands; and if by any
+chance an example of one should get into his hands he would be ashamed
+to exhibit it.
+
+The addition of new beautiful species to our avifauna would probably not
+be the only, nor even the principal benefit we should derive from the
+carrying out of the scheme here suggested. The indirect effect of the
+knowledge all would possess that such an experiment was being conducted,
+and that its chief object was to repair the damage that has been done,
+would be wholly beneficial since it would enhance the value in our eyes
+of our remaining native rare and beautiful species. A large number of
+our finer birds are annually shot by those who know that they are doing
+a great wrong--that if their transgression is not punishable by law it
+is really not less grave than that of the person who maliciously barks a
+shade tree in a park or public garden--but who excuse their action by
+saying that such birds must eventually get shot, and that those who
+first see them might as well have the benefit. The presence of even a
+small number of exotic species in our woods and groves would no doubt
+give rise to a better condition of things; it would attract public
+attention to the subject; for the birds that delight us with their
+beauty and melody should be for the public, and not for the few
+barbarians engaged in exterminating them; and the "collector" would find
+it best to abandon his evil practices when it once began to be generally
+asked, if we can spare the rare, lovely birds brought hither at great
+expense from China or Patagonia, can we not also spare our own
+kingfisher, and the golden oriole, and the hoopoe, that comes to us
+annually from Africa to breed, but is not permitted to breed, and many
+other equally beautiful and interesting species?
+
+
+
+
+MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
+
+
+The sparrow, like the poor, we have always with us, and on windy days
+even the large-sized rook is blown about the murkiness which does duty
+for sky over London; and on such occasions its coarse, corvine dronings
+seem not unmusical, nor without something of a tonic effect on our
+jarred nerves. And here the ordinary Londoner has got to the end of his
+ornithological list--that is to say, his winter list. He knows nothing
+about those wind-worn waifs, the "occasional visitors" to the
+metropolis--the pilgrims to distant Meccas and Medinas that have fallen,
+overcome by weariness, at the wayside; or have encountered storms in the
+great aerial sea, and lost compass and reckoning, and have been lured by
+false lights to perish miserably at the hands of their cruel enemies. It
+may be true that gulls are seen on the Serpentine, that woodcocks are
+flushed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but the citizen who goes to his office
+in the morning and returns after the lamps have been lighted, does not
+see them, and they are nothing in his life. Those who concern themselves
+to chronicle such incidents might just as well, for all that it matters
+to him, mistake their species, like that bird-loving but
+unornithological correspondent of the Times who wrote that he had seen
+a flock of golden orioles in Kensington Gardens. It turned out that what
+he had seen were wheatears, or they might draw a little on their
+imaginations, and tell of sunward-sailing cranes encamped on the dome of
+St. Paul's Cathedral, flamingoes in the Round Pond, great snowy owls in
+Westminster Abbey, and an ibis--scarlet, glossy, or sacred, according to
+fancy--perched on Peabody's statue, at the Royal Exchange.
+
+But his winter does not last for ever. When the bitter months are past,
+with March that mocks us with its crown of daffodils; when the sun
+shines, and the rain is soon over; and elms and limes in park and
+avenue, and unsightly smoke-blackened brushwood in the squares, are
+dressed once more in tenderest heart-refreshing green, even in London we
+know that the birds have returned from beyond the sea. Why should they
+come to us here, when it would seem so much more to their advantage, and
+more natural for them to keep aloof from our dimmed atmosphere, and the
+rude sounds of traffic, and the sight of many people going to and fro?
+Are there no silent green retreats left where the conditions are better
+suited to their shy and delicate natures? Yet no sooner is the spring
+come again than the birds are with us. Not always apparent to the eye,
+but everywhere their irrepressible gladness betrays their proximity; and
+all London is ringed round with a mist of melody, which presses on us,
+ambitious of winning its way even to the central heart of our citadel,
+creeping in, mist-like, along gardens and tree-planted roads, clinging
+to the greenery of parks and squares, and floating above the dull noises
+of the town as clouds fleecy and ethereal float above the earth.
+
+Among our spring visitors there is one which is neither aerial in
+habits, nor a melodist, yet is eminently attractive on account of its
+graceful form, pretty plumage, and amusing manners; nor must it be
+omitted as a point in its favour that it is not afraid to make itself
+very much at home with us in London.  [Footnote: Note that when this was
+written in 1893, the moor-hen was never known to winter in London; his
+habits have changed in this respect during the last two decades: he is
+now a permanent resident.] This is the little moor-hen, a bird
+possessing some strange customs, for which those who are curious about
+such matters may consult its numerous biographies. Every spring a few
+individuals of this species make their appearance in Hyde Park, and
+settle there for the season, in full sight of the fashionable world; for
+their breeding-place happens to be that minute transcript of nature
+midway between the Dell and Rotten Row, where a small bed of rushes and
+aquatic grasses flourishes in the stagnant pool forming the end of the
+Serpentine. Where they pass the winter--in what Mentone or Madeira of
+the ralline race--is not known. There is a pretty story, which
+circulated throughout Europe a little over fifty years ago, of a Polish
+gentleman, capturing a stork that built its nest on his roof every
+summer, and putting an iron collar on its neck with the inscription,
+"Haec Ciconia ex Polonia." The following summer it reappeared with
+something which shone very brightly on its neck, and when the stork was
+taken again this was found to be a collar of gold, with which the iron
+collar had been replaced, and on it were graven the words, "India cum
+donis remittit ciconian Polonis." No person has yet put an iron collar
+on the moor-hen to receive gifts in return, or followed its feeble
+fluttering flight to discover the limits of its migration which is
+probably no further away than the Kentish marshes and other wet
+sheltered spots in the south of England; that it leaves the country when
+it quits the park is not to be believed. Still, it goes with the wave,
+and with the wave returns; and, like the migratory birds that observe
+times and seasons, it comes back to its own home--that circumscribed
+spot of earth and water which forms its little world, and is more to it
+than all other reedy and willow-shaded pools and streams in England. It
+is said to be shy in disposition, yet all may see it here, within a few
+feet of the Row, with so many people continually passing, and so many
+pausing to watch the pretty birds as they trip about their little plot
+of green turf, deftly picking minute insects from the grass and not
+disdaining crumbs thrown by the children. A dainty thing to look at is
+that smooth, olive-brown little moor-hen, going about with such freedom
+and ease in its small dominion, lifting its green legs deliberately,
+turning its yellow beak and shield this way and that, and displaying the
+snow-white undertail at every step, as it moves with that quaint,
+graceful, jetting gait peculiar to the gallinules.
+
+Such a fact as this--and numberless facts just as significant all
+pointing to the same conclusion, might be adduced--shows at once how
+utterly erroneous is that often-quoted dictum of Darwin's that birds
+possess an instinctive or inherited fear of man. These moor-hens fear
+him not at all; simply because in Hyde Park they are not shot at, and
+robbed of their eggs or young, nor in any way molested by him. They fear
+no living thing, except the irrepressible small dog that occasionally
+bursts into the enclosure, and hunts them with furious barkings to their
+reedy little refuge. And as with these moor-hens, so it is with all wild
+birds; they fear and fly from, and suspiciously watch from a safe
+distance, whatever molests them, and wherever man suspends his hostility
+towards them they quickly outgrow the suspicion which experience has
+taught them, or which is traditional among them; for the young and
+inexperienced imitate the action of the adults they associate with, and
+learn the suspicious habit from them.
+
+It is also interesting and curious to note that a bird which inhabits
+two countries, in summer and winter, regulates his habits in accordance
+with the degree of friendliness or hostility exhibited towards him by
+the human inhabitants of the respective areas. The bird has in fact two
+traditions with regard to man's attitude towards him--one for each
+country. Thus, the field-fare is an exceedingly shy bird in England, but
+when he returns to the north if his breeding place is in some inhabited
+district in northern Sweden or Norway he loses all his wildness and
+builds his nest quite close to the houses. My friend Trevor Battye saw a
+pair busy making their nest in a small birch within a few yards of the
+front door of a house he was staying at. "How strange," said he to the
+man of the house, "to see field-fares making a nest in such a place!"
+
+"Why strange?" said the man in surprise. "Why strange? Because of the
+boys, always throwing stones at a bird. The nest is so low down, that
+any boy could put his hand in and take the eggs." "Take the eggs!" cried
+the man, more astonished than ever. "And throwing stones at a bird! Who
+ever heard of a boy doing such things!"
+
+Closely related to this error is another error, which is that noise in
+itself is distressing to birds, and has the effect of driving them away.
+To all sounds and noises which are not associated with danger to them,
+birds are absolutely indifferent. The rumbling of vehicles, puffing and
+shrieking of engines, and braying of brass bands, alarm them less than
+the slight popping of an air gun, where that modest weapon of
+destruction is frequently used against them. They have no "nerves" for
+noise, but the apparition of a small boy silently creeping along the
+hedge-side, in search of nests or throwing stones, is very terrifying to
+them. They fear not cattle and horses, however loud the bellowing may
+be; and if we were to transport and set loose herds of long-necked
+camelopards, trumpeting elephants, and rhinoceroses of horrible aspect,
+the little birds would soon fear them as little as they do the familiar
+cow. But they greatly fear the small-sized, quiet, unobtrusive, and
+meek-looking cat.  Sparrows and starlings that fly wildly at the shout
+of a small boy or the bark of a fox-terrier, build their nests under
+every railway arch; and the incubating bird sits unalarmed amid the iron
+plates and girders when the express train rushes overhead, so close to
+her that one would imagine that the thunderous jarring noise would cause
+the poor thing to drop down dead with terror. To this indifference to
+the mere harmless racket of civilization we owe it that birds are so
+numerous around, and even in, London; and that in Kew Gardens, which, on
+account of its position on the water side, and the numerous railroads
+surrounding it, is almost as much tortured with noise as Willesden or
+Clapham Junction, birds are concentrated in thousands. Food is not more
+abundant there than in other places; yet it would be difficult to find a
+piece of ground of the same extent in the country proper, where all is
+silent and there are no human crowds, with so large a bird population.
+They are more numerous in Kew than elsewhere, in spite of the noise and
+the people, because they are partially protected there from their human
+persecutors. It is a joy to visit the gardens in spring, as much to hear
+the melody of the birds as to look at the strange and lovely vegetable
+forms. On a June evening with a pure sunny sky, when the air is elastic
+after rain, how it rings and palpitates with the fine sounds that people
+it, and which seem infinite in variety! Has England, burdened with care
+and long estranged from Nature, so many sweet voices left? What aerial
+chimes are those wafted from the leafy turret of every tree? What
+clear, choral songs--so wild, so glad? What strange instruments, not
+made with hands, so deftly touched and soulfully breathed upon? What
+faint melodious murmurings that float around us, mysterious and tender
+as the lisping of leaves? Who could be so dull and exact as to ask the
+names of such choristers at such a time! Earthly names they have, the
+names we give them, when they visit us, and when we write about them in
+our dreary books; but, doubtless, in their brighter home in cloudland
+they are called by other more suitable appellatives. Kew is
+exceptionally favoured for the reason mentioned, but birds are also
+abundant where there are no hired men with red waistcoats and brass
+buttons to watch over their safety. Why do they press so persistently
+around us; and not in London only, but in every town and village, every
+house and cottage in this country? Why are they always waiting,
+congregating as far from us as the depth of garden, lawn, or orchard
+will allow, yet always near as they dare to come? It is not sentiment,
+and to be translated into such words as these: "Oh man, why are you
+unfriendly towards us, or else so indifferent to our existence that you
+do not note that your children, dependants, and neighbours cruelly
+persecute us? For we are for peace, and knowing you for the lord of
+creation, we humbly worship you at a distance, and wish for a share in
+your affection." No; the small, bright soul which is in a bird is
+incapable of such a motive, and has only the lesser light of instinct
+for its guide, and to the birds' instinct we are only one of the
+wingless mammalians inhabiting the earth, and with the cat and weasel
+are labelled "dangerous," but the ox and horse and sheep have no such
+label. Even our larger, dimmer eyes can easily discover the
+attraction. Let any one, possessing a garden in the suburbs of London,
+minutely examine the foliage at a point furthest removed from the house,
+and he will find the plants clean from insects; and as he moves back he
+will find them increasingly abundant until he reaches the door. Insect
+life is gathered thickly about us, for that birdless space which we have
+made is ever its refuge and safe camping ground. And the birds know. One
+came before we were up, when cat and dog were also sleeping, and a
+report is current among them. Like ants when a forager who has found a
+honey pot returns to the nest, they are all eager to go and see and
+taste for themselves. Their country is poor, for they have gathered its
+spoils, and now this virgin territory sorely tempts them. To those who
+know a bird's spirit it is plain that a mere suspension of hostile
+action on our part would have the effect of altering their shy habits,
+and bringing them in crowds about us. Not only in the orchard and grove
+and garden walks would they be with us, but even in our house. The
+robin, the little bird "with the red stomacher," would be there for the
+customary crumbs at meal-time, and many dainty fringilline pensioners
+would keep him company. And the wren would be there, searching
+diligently in the dusty angles of cornices for a savoury morsel; for it
+knows, this wise little Kitty Wren, that "the spider taketh hold with
+her hands, and is in king's palaces"; and wandering from room to room it
+would pour forth many a gushing lyric--a sound of wildness and joy in
+our still interiors, eternal Nature's message to our hearts.
+
+Who delights not in a bird? Yet how few among us find any pleasure in
+reading of them in natural history books! The living bird, viewed
+closely and fearless of our presence, is so much more to the mind than
+all that is written--so infinitely more engaging in its spontaneous
+gladness, its brilliant vivacity, and its motions so swift and true and
+yet so graceful! Even leaving out the melody, what a charm it would add
+to our homes if birds were permitted to take the part there for which
+Nature designed them--if they were the "winged wardens" of our gardens
+and houses as well as of our fields. Bird-biographies are always in our
+bookcases; and the bird-form meets our sight everywhere in decorative
+art Eastern and Western; for its aerial beauty is without parallel in
+nature; but the living birds, with the exception of the unfortunate
+captives in cages, are not with us.
+
+    A robin redbreast in a cage
+    Puts all heaven in a rage,
+
+sings Blake prophet and poet; and for "robin redbreast" I read every
+feathered creature endowed with the marvellous faculty of flight. Wild,
+and loving their safety and liberty, they keep at a distance, at the end
+of the garden or in the nearest grove, where from their perches they
+suspiciously watch our movements, always waiting to be encouraged,
+waiting to feed on the crumbs that fall from our table and are wasted,
+and on the blighting insects that ring us round with their living
+multitudes.
+
+
+
+
+THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY
+
+
+One week-day morning, following a crowd of well-dressed people, I
+presently found myself in a large church or chapel, where I spent an
+hour very pleasantly, listening to a great man's pulpit eloquence. He
+preached about genius. The subject was not suggested by the text, nor
+did it have any close relation with the other parts, of his discourse;
+it was simply a digression, and, to my mind, a very delightful one. He
+began about the restrictions to which we are all more or less subject,
+the aspirations that are never destined to be fulfilled, but are mocked
+by life's brevity. And it was at this point that--probably thinking of
+his own case--he branched off into the subject of genius; and proceeded
+to show that a man possessing that divine quality finds existence a
+much sadder affair than the ordinary man; the reason being that his
+aspirations are so much loftier than those of other minds, the
+difference between his ideal and reality must be correspondingly greater
+in his case. This was obvious--almost a truism; but the illustration by
+means of which he brought it home to his hearers was certainly born of
+poetic imagination. The life of the ordinary person he likened to that
+of the canary in its cage. And here, dropping his lofty didactic manner,
+and--if I may coin a word--smalling his deep, sonorous voice, to a thin
+reedy treble, in imitation of the tenuous fringilline pipe, he went on
+with lively language, rapid utterance, and suitable brisk movements and
+gestures, to describe the little lemon-coloured housekeeper in her
+gilded cage. Oh, he cried, what a bright, busy bustling life is hers,
+with so many things to occupy her time! how briskly she hops from perch
+to perch, then to the floor, and back from floor to perch again! how
+often she drops down to taste the seed in her box, or scatter it about
+her in a little shower! how curiously, and turning her bright eyes
+critically this way and that, she listens to every new sound and regards
+every object of sight! She must chirp and sing, and hop from place to
+place, and eat and drink, and preen her wings, and do at least a dozen
+different things every minute; and her time is so fully taken up that
+the narrow limits confining her are almost forgotten--the wires that
+separate her from the great world of wind-tossed woods, and of blue
+fields of air, and the free, buoyant life for which her instincts and
+faculties fit her, and which, alas! can never more be hers.
+
+All this sounded very pretty, as well as true, and there was a pleased
+smile on every face in the audience.
+
+Then the rapid movements and gestures ceased, and the speaker was
+silent. A cloud came over his rough-hewn majestic visage; he drew
+himself up, and swayed his body from side to side, and shook his black
+gown, and lifted his arms, as their plumed homologues are lifted by some
+great bird, and let them fall again two or three times; and then said,
+in deep measured tones, which seemed to express rage and despair, "But
+did you ever see the eagle in his cage?"
+
+The effect of the contrast was grand. He shook himself again, and lifted
+and dropped his arms again, assuming, for the nonce, the peculiar
+aquiline slouch; and there before us stood the mighty bird of Jove, as
+we are accustomed to see it in the Zoological Gardens; its deep-set,
+desolate eyes looking through and beyond us; ruffling its dark plumage,
+and lifting its heavy wings as if about to scorn the earth, only to drop
+them again, and to utter one of those long dreary cries which seem to
+protest so eloquently against a barbarous destiny. Then he proceeded to
+tell us of the great raptor in its life of hopeless captivity; his
+stern, rugged countenance, deep bass voice, and grand mouth-filling
+polysllables suiting his subject well, and making his description seem
+to our minds a sombre magnificent picture never to be forgotten--at all
+events, never by an ornithologist.
+
+Doubtless this part of his discourse proved eminently pleasing to the
+majority of his hearers, who, looking downwards into the depths of their
+own natures, would be able to discern there a glimmer, or possibly more
+than a glimmer of that divine quality he had spoken of, and which was,
+unhappily for them, not recognized by the world at large; so that, for
+the moment, he was addressing a congregation of captive eagles, all
+mentally ruffling their plumage and flapping their pinions, and uttering
+indignant screams of protest against the injustice of their lot.
+
+The illustration pleased me for a different reason, namely, because,
+being a student of bird-life, his contrasted picture of the two widely
+different kinds, when deprived of liberty, struck me as being singularly
+true to nature, and certainly it could not have been more forcibly and
+picturesquely put. For it is unquestionably the fact that the misery we
+inflict by tyrannously using the power we possess over God's creatures,
+is great in proportion to the violence of the changes of condition to
+which we subject our prisoners; and while canary and eagle are both more
+or less aerial in their mode of life, and possessed of boundless energy,
+the divorce from nature is immeasurably greater in one case than in the
+other. The small bird, in relation to its free natural life, is less
+confined in its cage than the large one. Its smallness, perching
+structure, and restless habits, fit it for continual activity, and its
+flitting, active life within the bars bears some resemblance except in
+the great matter of flight, to its life in a state of nature. Again, its
+lively, curious, and extremely impressible character, is in many ways an
+advantage in captivity; every new sound and sight, and every motion,
+however slight, in any object or body near it, affording it, so to
+speak, something to think about. It has the further advantage of a
+varied and highly musical language; the frequent exercise of the faculty
+of singing, in birds, with largely developed vocal organs, no doubt
+reacts on the system, and contributes not a little to keep the prisoner
+healthy and cheerful.
+
+On the other hand, the eagle, on account of its structure and large
+size, is a prisoner indeed, and must languish with all its splendid
+faculties and importunate impulses unexercised. You may gorge it with
+gobbets of flesh until its stomach cries, "Enough"; but what of all the
+other organs fed by the stomach, and their correlated faculties? Every
+bone and muscle and fibre, every feather and scale, is instinct with an
+energy which you cannot satisfy, and which is like an eternal hunger.
+Chain it by the feet, or place it in a cage fifty feet wide--in either
+case it is just as miserable. The illimitable fields of thin cold air,
+where it outrides the winds and soars exulting beyond the clouds, alone
+can give free space for the display of its powers and scope to its
+boundless energies. Nor to the power of flight alone, but also to a
+vision formed for sweeping wide horizons, and perceiving objects at
+distances which to short-sighted man seem almost miraculous.  Doubtless,
+eagles, like men, possess some adaptiveness, else they would perish in
+their enforced inactivity, swallowing without hunger and assimilating
+without pleasure the cold coarse flesh we give them. A human being can
+exist, and even be tolerably cheerful, with limbs paralyzed and hearing
+gone; and that, to my mind, would be a parallel case to that of the
+eagle deprived of its liberty and of the power to exercise its flight,
+vision, and predatory instincts.
+
+As I sit writing these thoughts, with a cage containing four canaries on
+the table before me, I cannot help congratulating these little prisoners
+on their comparatively happy fate in having been born, or hatched,
+finches and not eagles. And yet albeit I am not responsible for the
+restraint which has been put upon them, and am not their owner, being
+only a visitor in the house, I am troubled with some uncomfortable
+feelings concerning their condition--feelings which have an admixture of
+something like a sense of shame or guilt, as if an injustice had been
+done, and I had stood by consenting. I did not do it, but we did it. I
+remember Matthew Arnold's feeling lines on his dead canary, "Poor
+Matthias," and quote:
+
+    Yet, poor bird, thy tiny corse
+    Moves me, somehow, to remorse;
+    Something haunts my conscience, brings
+    Sad, compunctious visitings.
+    Other favourites, dwelling here,
+    Open lived with us, and near;
+    Well we knew when they were glad
+    Plain we saw if they were sad;
+    Sympathy could feel and show
+    Both in weal of theirs and woe.
+
+    Birds, companions more unknown,
+    Live beside us, but alone;
+    Finding not, do all they can,
+    Passage from their souls to man.
+    Kindness we bestow and praise,
+    Laud their plumage, greet their lays;
+    Still, beneath their feathered breast
+    Stirs a history unexpressed.
+    Wishes there, and feeling strong,
+    Incommunicably throng;
+    What they want we cannot guess.
+
+
+This, as poetry, is good, but it does not precisely fit my case; my
+"compunctious visitings" being distinctly different in origin and
+character from the poet's. He--Matthew Arnold--is a poet, and the author
+of much good verse, which I appreciate and hold dear. But he was not a
+naturalist--all men cannot be everything. And I, a naturalist, hold that
+the wishes, thronging the restless little feathered breast are not
+altogether so incommunicable as the melodious mourner of "Poor Matthias"
+imagines. The days--ay, and years--which I have spent in the society of
+my feathered friends have not, I flatter myself, been so wasted that I
+cannot small my soul, just as the preacher smalled his voice, to bring
+it within reach of them, and establish some sort of passage.
+
+And so, thinking that a little more knowledge of birds than most people
+possess, and consideration for them--for I will not be so harsh to speak
+of justice--and time and attention given to their wants, might remove
+this reproach, and silence these vague suggestions of a too fastidious
+conscience, I have taken the trouble to add something to the seed with
+which these little prisoners had been supplied. For we give sweetmeats
+to the child that cries for the moon--an alternative which often acts
+beneficially--and there is nothing more to be done. Any one of us, even
+a philosopher, would think it hard to be restricted to dry bread only,
+yet such a punishment would be small compared with that which we, in our
+ignorance or want of consideration, inflict on our caged animals--our
+pets on compulsion. Small, because an almost infinite variety of
+flavours drawn from the whole vegetable kingdom--a hundred flavours for
+every one in the dietary which satisfies our heavier mammalian
+natures--is a condition of the little wild bird's existence and
+essential to its well-being and perfect happiness. And so, to remedy
+this defect, I went out into the garden, and with seeding grasses and
+pungent buds, and leaves of a dozen different kinds, I decorated the
+cage until it looked less like a prison than a bower. And now for an
+hour the little creatures have been busy with their varied green
+fare, each one tasting half a dozen different leaves every minute,
+hopping here and there and changing places with his fellows, glancing
+their bright little eyes this way and that, and all the time uttering
+gratulatory notes in the canary's conversational tone. And their
+language is not altogether untranslatable. I listen to one, a pretty
+pure yellow bird, but slightly tyrannical in his treatment of the
+others, and he says, or seems to say: "This is good, I like it, only the
+old leaf is tough; the buds would be better. . . . These are certainly
+not so good. _I tasted them out of compliment to nature, though they
+were scarcely palatable. . . ._" No, that was not my own expression; it
+was said by Thoreau, perhaps the only human a little bird can quote with
+approval. "This is decidedly bitter--and yet--yes, it does leave a
+pleasant flavour on the palate. Make room for me there--or I shall make
+you and let me taste it again. Yes, I fancy I can remember eating
+something like this in a former state of existence, ages and ages ago."
+And so on, and so on, until I began to imagine that the whole thing had
+been put right, and that the uncomfortable feeling would return to
+trouble me no more. But at the rate they are devouring their green stuff
+there will not be a leat, scarcely a stem left in another hour; and
+then? Why, then they will have the naked wires of their cage all round
+them to protect them from the cat and for hunger there will be seed in
+the box.
+
+After all, then, what a little I have been able to do! But I flatter
+myself that if they were mine I should do more. I never keep captive
+birds, but if they were given to me, and I could not refuse, I should do
+a great deal more for them. All my knowledge of their ways and their
+requirements would teach me how to make their caged existence less
+unlike the old natural life, than it now is. To begin the ameliorating
+process, I should place them in a large cage, large enough to allow
+space for flight, so that they might fly to and fro, a few feet each
+way, and rest their little feet from continual perching. That would
+enable them to exercise their most important muscles and experience once
+more, although in a very limited degree, the old delicious sensation of
+gliding at will through the void air. The wires of their new cage would
+be of brass or of some bright metal, and the wooden parts and perches
+green enamelled, or green variegated with brown and grey, and the roof
+would be hung with glass lustres, to quiver and sparkle into drops of
+violet, red, and yellow light, gladdening these little lovers of bright
+colours; for so we deem them. I should also add gay flowers and berries,
+crocus and buttercup and dandelion, hips and haws and mountain ash and
+yellow and scarlet leaves--all seasonable jewellery from woods and
+hedges and from the orchard and garden. Then would come the heaviest
+part of my task, which would be to satisfy their continual craving for
+new tastes in food, their delight in an endless variety. I should go to
+the great seed-merchants of London and buy samples of all the cultivated
+seeds of the earth, and not feed them in a trough, or manger, like heavy
+domestic brutes, but give it to them mixed and scattered in small
+quantities, to be searched for and gladly found in the sand and gravel
+and turf on the wide floor of the cage. And, higher up, the wires of
+their dwelling would be hung with an endless variety of seeded grasses,
+and sprays of all trees and plants, good, bad, and indifferent. For if
+the volatile bird dines on no more than twenty dishes every day he
+loves to taste of a hundred and to have at least a thousand on the table
+to choose from.
+
+Feeding the birds and keeping the cage always sweet and clean would
+occupy most, if not the whole of my time. But would that be too much to
+give if it made me tranquil in my own mind? For it must be noted that I
+have done all this, mentally and on paper, for my own satisfaction
+rather than that of the canaries. Birds are not worth much--_to us_. Are
+not five sparrows sold for three farthings? I have even shot many birds
+and have felt no compunction. True, they perished before their time, but
+they did not languish, and being dead there was an end of them; but the
+caged canaries continuing with us, cannot be dismissed from the mind
+with the same convenient ease. After all, I begin to think that my
+imaginary reforms, if carried out, would not quite content me. The
+"compunctious visitings" would continue still. I look out of the window
+and see a sparrow on a neighbouring tree, loudly chirruping. And as I
+listen, trying to find comfort by thinking of the perils which do
+environ him, his careless unconventional sparrow-music resolves itself
+into articulate speech, interspersed with occasional bursts of derisive
+laughter. He knows, this fabulous sparrow, what I have been thinking
+about and have written. "How would you like it," I hear him saying, "O
+wise man that knows so much about the ways of birds, if you were shut up
+in a big cage--in Windsor Castle, let us say--with scores of menials to
+wait on you and anticipate your every want? That is, I must explain,
+every want compatible with--ahem!--the captive condition. Would you be
+happy in your confinement, practising with the dumb-bells, riding up and
+down the floors on a bicycle and gazing at pictures and filigree caskets
+and big malachite vases and eating dinners of many, many courses? Or
+would you begin to wish that you might be allowed to live on sixpence a
+day--_and earn it_; and even envy the ragged tramp who dines on a
+handful of half-rotten apples and sleeps in a hay-stack, but is free to
+come and go, and range the world at will? You have been playing at
+nature; but Nature mocks you, for your captives thank you not. They
+would rather go to her without an intermediary, and take a scantier
+measure of food from her hand, but flavoured as she only can flavour it.
+Widen your cage, naturalist; replace the little twinkling lustres with
+sun and moon and milky way; plant forests on the floor, and let there be
+hills and valleys, rivers and wide spaces; and let the blue pillars of
+heaven be the wires of your cage, with free entrance to wind and rain;
+then your little captives will be happy, even happy as I am, in spite of
+all the perils which do environ me--guns and cats and snares, with wet
+and fog and hard frosts to come."
+
+And, seeing my error, I should open the cage and let them fly away. Even
+to death, I should let them fly, for there would be a taste of liberty
+first, and life without that sweet savour, whether of aerial bird or
+earth-bound man, is not worth living.
+
+
+
+
+CHANTICLEER
+
+
+During the month of September I spent several days at a house standing
+on high ground in one of the pleasantest suburbs of London, commanding a
+fine view at the back of the breezy, wooded, and not very far-off Surrey
+hills; and all round, from every window, front and back, such a mass of
+greenery met the eye, almost concealing the neighbouring houses, that I
+could easily imagine myself far out in the country. In the garden the
+omnipresent sparrow, and that always pleasant companion the starling,
+associated with the thrush, blackbird, green linnet, chaffinch,
+redstart, wren, and two species of tits; and, better than all these, not
+fewer than half a dozen robins warbled their autumn notes from early
+morning until late in the evening. Domestic bird-life was also
+represented by fifteen fowls, and the wise laxity existing in the
+establishment made these also free of the grounds; for of eyesores and
+painful skeletons in London cupboards, one of the worst, to my mind, is
+that unwholesome coop at the back where a dozen unhappy birds are
+usually to be found immured for life. These, more fortunate, had ample
+room to run about in, and countless broad shady leaves from which to
+pick the green caterpillar, and red tortoise-shaped lady-bird, and
+parti-coloured fly, and soft warm soil in which to bathe in their own
+gallinaceous fashion, and to lie with outstretched wings luxuriating by
+the hour in the genial sunshine. And having seen their free wholesome
+life, I did not regard the new-laid egg on the breakfast-table with a
+feeling of repugnance, but ate it with a relish.
+
+I have said that the fowls numbered fifteen; five were old birds, and
+ten were chickens, closely alike in size, colour and general appearance.
+They were not the true offspring of the hen that reared them, but
+hatched from eggs bought from a local poultry-breeder. As they advanced
+in age to their teens, or the period in chicken-life corresponding to
+that in which, in the human species, boy and girl begin to diverge,
+their tails grew long, and they developed very fine red combs; but the
+lady of the house, who had been promised good layers when she bought the
+eggs clung tenaciously to the belief that long arching tails and stately
+crests were ornaments common to both sexes in this particular breed. By
+and by they commenced to crow, first one, then two, then all, and stood
+confessed cockerels. Incidents like this, which are of frequent
+occurrence, serve to keep alive the exceedingly ancient notion that the
+sex of the future chick can be foretold from the shape of the egg. As I
+had no personal interest in the question of the future egg-supply of the
+establishment, I was not sorry to see the chickens develop into cocks;
+what did interest me were their first attempts at crowing--those grating
+sounds which the young bird does not seem to emit, but to wrench out
+with painful effort, as a plant is wrenched out of the soil, and not
+without bringing away portions of the lungs clinging to its roots. The
+bird appears to know what is coming, like an amateur dentist about to
+extract one of his own double-pronged teeth, and setting his feet
+firmly on the ground, and throwing himself well back before an imaginary
+looking-glass, and with arched-neck, wide-open beak, and rolling eyes,
+courageously performs the horrible operation. One cannot help thinking
+that a cockerel brought up without any companions of his own sex and age
+would not often crow, but in this instance there were no fewer than ten
+of them to encourage each other in the laborious process of tuning their
+harsh throats. Heard subsequently in the quiet of the early morning,
+these first tuning efforts suggested some reflections to my mind, which
+may not prove entirely without interest to fanciers who aim at something
+beyond a mere increase in our food-supply in their selecting and
+refining processes.
+
+To continue my narration. I woke in the morning at my usual time,
+between three and four o'clock, which is not my getting-up time, for, as
+a rule, after half an hour or so I sleep again. The waking is not
+voluntary as far as I know; for although it may seem a contradiction in
+terms to speak of coming at will out of a state of unconsciousness, we
+do, in cases innumerable, wake voluntarily, or at the desired time, not
+perhaps being altogether unconscious when sleeping. If, however, this
+early waking were voluntary, I should probably say that it was for the
+pleasure of listening to the crowing of the cocks at that silent hour
+when the night, so near its end, is darkest, and the mysterious tide of
+life, prescient of coming dawn, has already turned, and is sending the
+red current more and more swiftly through the sleeper's veins. I have
+spent many a night in the desert, and when waking on the wide silent
+grassy plain, the first whiteness in the eastern sky, and the fluting
+call of the tinamou, and the perfume of the wild evening primrose, have
+seemed to me like a resurrection in which I had a part; and something of
+this feeling is always associated in my mind with the first far-heard
+notes of Chanticleer.
+
+It was very dark and quiet when I woke; my window was open, with only a
+lace curtain before it to separate me from the open air. Presently the
+profound silence was broken. From a distance of fifty or sixty yards
+away on the left hand came the crow of a cock, soon answered by another
+further away on the same side, and then, further away still, by a third.
+Other voices took up the challenge on the right, some near, some far,
+until it seemed that there was scarcely a house in the neighbourhood at
+which Chanticleer was not a dweller. There was no other sound. Not for
+another hour would the sparrows burst out in a chorus of chirruping
+notes, lengthened or shortened at will, variously inflected, and with a
+ringing musical sound in some of them, which makes one wonder why this
+bird, so high in the scale of nature, has never acquired a set song for
+itself. For there is music in him, and when confined with a singing
+finch he will sometimes learn its song. Then the robins, then the tits,
+then the starlings, gurgling, jarring, clicking, whistling, chattering.
+Then the pigeons cooing soothingly on the roof and window-ledges, taking
+flight from time to time with sudden, sharp flap, flap, followed by a
+long, silken sound made by the wings in gliding. At four the cocks had
+it all to themselves; and, without counting the cockerels (not yet out
+of school), I could distinctly hear a dozen birds; that is to say, they
+were near enough for me to listen to their music critically. The variety
+of sounds they emitted was very great, and, if cocks were selected for
+their vocal qualities, would have shown an astonishing difference in the
+musical tastes of their owners. A dozen dogs of as many different
+breeds, ranging from the boar-hound to the toy terrier, would not have
+shown greater dissimilarity in their forms than did these cocks in their
+voices. For the fowl, like the dog, has become an extremely variable
+creature in the domestic state, in voice no less than in size, form,
+colour, and other particulars. At one end of the scale there was the
+raucous bronchial strain produced by the unwieldy Cochin. What a bird is
+that! Nature, in obedience to man's behests, and smiling with secret
+satire over her work, has made it ponderous and ungraceful as any clumsy
+mammalian, wombat, ardvaark, manatee, or hippopotamus. The burnished red
+hackles, worn like a light mantle over the black doublet of the breast,
+the metallic dark green sickle-plumes arching over the tail, all the
+beautiful lines and rich colouring, have been absorbed into flesh and
+fat for gross feeders; and with these have gone its liveliness and
+vigour, its clarion voice and hostile spirit and brilliant courage; it
+is Gallus bankiva degenerate, with dulled brains and blunted spurs, and
+its hoarse crow is a barbarous chant.
+
+And far away at the other end, startling in its suddenness and
+impetuosity, was a trisyllabic crow, so brief, piercing, and emphatic,
+that it could only have proceeded from that peppery uppish little bird,
+the bantam. And of the three syllables, the last, which should be the
+longest, was the shortest, "short and sharp like the shrill swallow's
+cry," or perhaps even more like the shrieky bark of an enraged little
+cur; not a _reveille_ and silvern morning song in one, as a crow should
+be, but a challenge and a defiance, wounding the sense like a spur, and
+suggesting the bustle and fury of the cockpit.
+
+If this style of crowing was known to Milton, it is perhaps accountable
+for the one bad couplet in the "Allegro":
+
+  While the cock with lively din
+  Scatters the rear of darkness thin.
+
+Someone has said that every line in that incomparable poem brings at
+least one distinct picture vividly before the mind's eye. The picture
+the first line of the couplet I have quoted suggests to ray mind is not
+of crowing Chanticleer at all, but of a stalwart, bare-armed,
+blowsy-faced woman, vigorously beating on a tin pan with a stick; but
+for what purpose--whether to call down a passing swarm of bees, or to
+summon the chickens to be fed--I never know. It is only my mental
+picture of a "lively din." As to the second line, all attempts to see
+the thing described only bring before me clouds and shadows, confusedly
+rushing about in an impossible way; a chaos utterly unlike the serenity
+and imperceptible growth of morning, and not a picture at all.
+
+By and by I found myself paying special attention to one cock, about a
+hundred yards away, or a little more perhaps, for by contrast all the
+other songs within hearing seemed strangely inferior. Its voice was
+singularly clear and pure, the last note greatly prolonged and with a
+slightly falling inflection, yet not collapsing at the finish as such
+long notes frequently do, ending with a little internal sound or croak,
+as if the singer had exhausted his breath; but it was perfect in its
+way, a finished performance, artistic, and, by comparison, brilliant.
+After once hearing this bird I paid little attention to the others, but
+after each resounding call I counted the seconds until its repetition.
+It was this bird's note, on this morning, and not the others, which
+seemed to bring round me that atmosphere of dreams and fancies I exist
+in at early cockcrow--dreams and memories, sweet or sorrowful, of old
+scenes and faces, and many eloquent passages in verse and prose, written
+by men in other and better days, who lived more with nature than we do
+now. Such a note as this was, perhaps, in Thoreau's mind when he
+regretted that there were no cocks to cheer him in the solitude of
+Walden. "I thought," he says, "that it might be worth while keeping a
+cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once
+wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and
+if they could be naturalized without being domesticated it would soon
+become the most famous sound in our woods. . . . To walk in a winter
+morning in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods, and
+hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill for miles
+over the surrounding country--think of it! It would put nations on the
+alert. Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier on
+each successive morning of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy,
+wealthy, and wise?"
+
+Soon I fell into thinking of one in some ways greater than Thoreau, so
+unlike the skyey-minded New England prophet and solitary, so much more
+genial and tolerant, more mundane and lovable; and yet like Thoreau in
+his nearness to nature. Not only a lover of generous wines--"That mark
+upon his lip is wine"--and books "clothed in black and red," all natural
+sights and sounds also "filled his herte with pleasure and solass," and
+the early crowing of the cock was a part of the minstrelsy he loved.
+Perhaps when lying awake during the dark quiet hours, and listening to
+just such a note as this, he conceived and composed that wonderful tale
+of the "Nun's Priest," in which the whole character of Chanticleer, his
+glory and his foibles, together with the homely virtues of Dame
+Partlett, are so admirably set forth.
+
+And longer ago it was perhaps such a note as this, heard in imagination
+by the cock-loving Athenians, which all at once made them feel so
+unutterably weary of endless fighting with the Lacedaemonians, and
+inspired their hearts with such a passionate desire for the long
+untasted sweets of security and repose. Is it one of my morning fancies
+merely--for fact and fancy mingle strangely at this still, mysterious
+hour, and are scarcely distinguishable--or is it related in history that
+this strange thing happened when all the people of the violet-crowned
+city were gathered to witness a solemn tragedy, in which certain verses
+were spoken that had a strange meaning to their war-weary souls? "Those
+who sleep in the morning in the arms of peace do not start from them at
+the sound of the trumpet, and nothing interrupts their slumbers but the
+peaceful crowing of the cock." And at these words the whole concourse
+was electrified, and rose up like one man, and from thousands of lips
+went forth a great cry of "Peace! Peace! Let us make peace with Sparta!"
+
+Hark! once more that long clarion call: it is the last time--the very
+last; for all the others have sung a dozen times apiece and have gone to
+sleep again. So would this one have done, but cocks, like minstrels
+among men, are vain creatures, and some kind officious fairy whispered
+in his ear that there was an appreciative listener hard by, and so to
+please me he sang, just one stave more.
+
+Lying and listening in the dark, it seemed to me that there were two
+opposite qualities commingled in the sound, with an effect analogous to
+that of shadow mingling with and chastening light at eventide. First, it
+was strong and clear, full of assurance and freedom, qualities admirably
+suited to the song of a bird of Chanticleer's disposition; a lusty,
+ringing strain, not sung in the clouds or from a lofty perch midway
+between earth and heaven, but with feet firmly planted on the soil, and
+earthly; and compared with the notes of the grove like a versified
+utterance of Walt Whitman compared with the poems of the true inspired
+children of song--Blake, Shelley, Poe. Earthly, but not hostile and
+eager; on the contrary, leisurely, _peaceful_ even dreamy, with a touch
+of tenderness which brings it into relationship with the more aerial
+tones of the true singers; and this is the second quality I spoke of,
+which gave a charm to this note and made it seem better than the others.
+This is partly the effect of distance, which clarifies and softens
+sound, just as distance gives indistinctness of outline and ethereal
+blueness to things that meet the sight. To objects beautiful in
+themselves, in graceful lines and harmonious proportions and colouring,
+the haziness imparts an additional grace; but it does not make beautiful
+the objects which are ugly in themselves, as, for instance, an ugly
+square house. So in the etherealizing effect of distance on sound, when
+so loud a sound as the crowing of a strong-lunged cock becomes dreamy
+and tender at a distance of one hundred yards, there must be good
+musical elements in it to begin with.  I do not remark this dreaminess
+in the notes of other birds, some crowing at an equal distance, others
+still further away. All natural music is heard best at a distance; like
+the chiming of bells, and the music of the flute, and the wild confused
+strains of the bagpipes, for among artificial sounds these come the
+nearest to those made by nature.  The "shrill sharps" of the thrush must
+be softened by distance to charm; and the skylark, when close at hand,
+has both shrill and harsh sounds scarcely pleasing. He must mount
+high before you can appreciate his merit. I do not recommend any one to
+keep a caged cock in his study for the sake of its music, crow it never
+so well.
+
+To return to the ten cockerels; they did not crow very much, and at
+first I paid little attention to them. After a few days I remarked that
+one individual among them was rapidly acquiring the clear vigorous
+strain of the adult bird. Compared with that fine note which I have
+described, it was still weak and shaky, but in shape it was similar, and
+the change had come while its brethren were still uttering brief and
+harsh screeches as at the beginning. Probably, where there is a great
+mixture of varieties, it is the same with the fowl as with man in the
+diversity of the young, different ancestral characters appearing in
+different members of the same family. This cockerel was apparently the
+musical member, and promised in a short time to rival his neighbour.
+Having heard that it was intended to keep one of the cockerels to be the
+parent of future broods, I began to wonder whether the prize in the
+lottery--to wit, life and a modest harem--would fall to this fine
+singer or not. The odds were that his musical career would be cut short
+by an early death, since the ten birds were very much alike in other
+respects, and I felt perfectly sure that his superior note would weigh
+nothing in the balance. For when has the character of the voice
+influenced a fancier in selecting? Never I believe, odd as it seems. I
+have read a very big book on the various breeds of the fowl, but the
+crowing of the cock was not mentioned in it.  This would not seem so
+strange if fanciers had invariably looked solely to utility, and their
+highest ambition had ended at size, weight and quality of flesh, early
+maturity, hardihood, and the greatest number of eggs. This has not been
+the case. They possess, like others, the love of the beautiful,
+artificial as their standards sometimes appear; and there are breeds in
+which beauty seems to have been the principal object, as, for instance,
+in several of the gold and silver spangled and pencilled varieties. But,
+besides beauty of plumage, there are other things in the fowl worthy of
+being improved by selection. One of these has been cultivated by man for
+thousands of years, namely, the combative spirit and splendid courage of
+the male bird. But there is a spirit abroad now which condemns
+cock-fighting, and to continue selecting and breeding cocks solely for
+their game-points seems a mere futility. The energy and enthusiasm
+expended in this direction would be much better employed in improving
+the bird's vocal powers.
+
+The morning song of the cock is a sound unique in nature, and of all
+natural sounds it is the most universal. "All climates agree with brave
+Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than the natives. His health is
+ever good; his lungs are sound; his spirits never flag." He is a pet
+bird among tribes that have never seen the peacock, goose, and turkey.
+In tropical countries where the dog becomes dumb, or degenerates into a
+mere growler, his trumpet never rusts. It is true that he was cradled in
+the torrid zone, yet in all Western lands, where he "shakes off the
+powdery snow," with vigorous wings, his voice sounds as loud and
+inspiriting as in the hot jungle. Pale-faced Londoners, and blacks, and
+bronzed or painted barbarians, all men all the world over, wake at morn
+to the "peaceful crowing of the cock," just as the Athenians woke of
+old, and the nations older still. It is not, therefore, strange that
+this song has more associations for man than any other sound in nature.
+But, apart from any adventitious claims to our attention, the sound
+possesses intrinsic merits and pleases for its own sake. In our other
+domestic birds we have, with regard to this point, been unfortunate. We
+have the gobbling of turkeys, and the hoarse, monotonous come back of
+the guinea-fowl, screaming of peacocks and geese, and quacking, hissing,
+and rasping of mallard and mus-covy. Above all these sounds the ringing,
+lusty, triumphant call of Chanticleer, as the far-reaching toll of the
+bell-bird sounds above the screaming and chattering of parrots and
+toucans in the Brazilian forest. A fine sound, which in spite of many
+changes of climate and long centuries of domestication still preserves
+that forest-born character of wildness, which gives so great a charm to
+the language of many woodland gallinaceous birds. As we have seen, it is
+variable, and in some artificial varieties has been suffered to
+degenerate into sounds harsh and disagreeable; yet it is plain that an
+improved voice in a beautiful breed would double the bird's value from
+an aesthetic point of view. As things now are, the fine voices are in a
+very small minority. Some bad voices in artificial breeds, i.e., those
+which, like the Brahma and Cochin, diverge most widely from the original
+type--are perhaps incurable, like the carrion crow's voice; for that
+bird will probably always caw harshly in spite of the musical throat
+which anatomists find in it. We can only listen to our birds, and begin
+experimenting with those already possessed of shapely notes and voices
+of good quality.
+
+I am not going to be so ill-mannered as to conclude without an apology
+to those among us who under no circumstances can tolerate the crowing of
+the cock. It is true that I have not been altogether unmindful of their
+prepossessions, and have freely acknowledged in divers places that
+Chanticleer does not always please, and that there is abundant room for
+improvement; but if they go further than that, if for them there exists
+not on this round globe a cock whose voice would fail to irritate, then
+I have not shown consideration enough, and something is still owing to
+their feelings, which are very acute. It is possible that one of these
+sensitive persons may take up my book, and, attracted by its title, dip
+into this paper, hoping to find in it a practical suggestion for the
+effectual muzzling of the obnoxious bird. The only improvement which
+would fall in with such a one's ideas on the subject of cock-crowing
+would be to improve this kind of natural music out of existence.
+Naturally the paper would disappoint him; he would be grieved at the
+writer's erroneous views. I hope that his feelings would take no acuter
+form. I have listened to a person, usually mild-mannered, denouncing a
+neighbour in the most unmeasured terms for the crime of keeping a
+crowing cock. If the cock had been a non-crower, a silent member, it
+would have been different: he would hardly have known that he had a
+neighbour. There is a very serious, even a sad, side to this question.
+Mr. Sully maintains that as civilization progresses, and as we grow more
+intellectual, all noise, which is pleasing to children and savages, and
+only exhilarates their coarse and juvenile brains, becomes increasingly
+intolerable to us. What unfortunate creatures we then are! We have got
+our pretty rattle and are now afraid that the noise it makes is going to
+be the death of us. But what is noise? Will any two highly intellectual
+beings agree as to the particular sound which produces the effect of
+rusty nails thrust in among the convolutions of the brain? Physicians
+are continually discovering new forms of nervous maladies, caused by the
+perpetual hurry and worry and excitement of our modern life; and perhaps
+there is one form in which natural sounds, which being natural should be
+agreeable, or at any rate innocent, become more and more abhorrent. This
+is a question which concerns the medical journals; also, to some extent,
+those who labour to forecast the future. Happily, all our maladies are
+thrown off, sooner or later, if they do not kill us; and we can
+cheerfully look forward to a time when the delicate chords in us shall
+no longer be made to vibrate "like sweet bells jangled out of tune and
+harsh" to any sound in nature, and when the peaceful crowing of the cock
+shall cease to madden the early waker. For, whatever may be the fate
+awaiting our city civilization, brave Chanticleer, improved as to his
+voice or not, will undoubtedly still be with us.
+
+
+
+
+IN AN OLD GARDEN
+
+
+A sunny morning in June--a golden day among days that have mostly a
+neutral tint; a large garden, with no visible houses beyond, but green
+fields and unkept hedges and great silent trees, oak and ash and
+elm--could I wish, just now, for a more congenial resting-place, or even
+imagine one that comes nearer to my conception of an earthly paradise?
+It is true that once I could not drink deeply enough from the sweet and
+bitter cup of wild nature, and loved nature best, and sought it gladly
+where it was most savage and solitary. But that was long ago. Now, after
+years of London life, during which I have laboured like many another "to
+get a wan pale face," with perhaps a wan pale mind to match, that past
+wildness would prove too potent and sharp a tonic; unadulterated nature
+would startle and oppress me with its rude desolate aspect, no longer
+familiar. This softness of a well-cultivated earth, and unbroken verdure
+of foliage in many shades, and harmonious grouping and blending of
+floral hues, best suit my present enervated condition. I had, I imagine,
+a swarter skin and firmer flesh when I could ride all day over great
+summer-parched plains, where there was not a bush that would have
+afforded shelter to a mannikin, and think that I was having a pleasant
+journey. The cloudless sky and vertical sun--how intolerable they would
+now seem, and scorch my brain and fill my shut eyes with dancing flames!
+At present even this mild June sun is strong enough to make the old
+mulberry tree on the lawn appear grateful. It is an ancient,
+rough-barked tree, with wide branches, that droop downwards all round,
+and rest their terminal leaves on the sward; underneath it is a natural
+tent, or pavilion, with plenty of space to move about and sling a
+hammock in. Here, then, I have elected to spend the hottest hours of my
+one golden day, reading, dreaming, listening at intervals to the fine
+bird-sounds that have a medicinal and restorative effect on the jarred
+and wounded sense.
+
+From the elms hard by comes a subdued, airy prattle of a few sparrows.
+It is rather pleasant, something like a low accompaniment to the notes
+of the more tuneful birds; the murmurous music of a many-stringed
+instrument, forming the indistinct ground over which runs the bright
+embroidery of clear melodious singing.
+
+This morning, while lying awake from four to five o'clock, I almost
+hated the sparrows, they were there in such multitudes, and so loud and
+persistent sounded their jangling through the open window. It set me
+thinking of the England of the future--of a time a hundred years hence,
+let us say--when there will remain with us only two representatives of
+feral life--the sparrow and the house-fly. Doubtless it will come,
+unless something happens; but, doubtless, it will not continue. It will
+still be necessary for a man to kill something in order to be happy; and
+the sportsmen of that time, like great Gambetta, in the past, will sit
+in the balconies, popping with pea-rifles at the sparrows until not one
+is left to twitter. Then will come the turn of the untamed and untamable
+fly; and he will afford good sport if hunted a la Domitain, with fine,
+needle-tipped paper javelins, thrown to impale him on the wall.
+
+One of our savants has lately prophesied that the time will come when
+only the microscopic organisms will exist to satisfy the hunting
+instinct in man. How these small creatures will be taken he does not
+tell us. Perhaps the hunters will station themselves round a table with
+a drop of preserved water on its centre, made large and luminous by
+means of a ray of magnifying light. When that time comes the
+amoeba--that "wandering Jew," as an irreverent Quarterly Reviewer has
+called it--will lose its immortality, and the spry rotifer will fall a
+victim to the infinitesimal fine bright arrows of the chase. A strange
+quarry for men whose paeliolithic progenitors hunted the woolly mastodon
+and many-horned rhinoceros and sabre-toothed tiger!
+
+That sad day of very small things for the sportsman is, however, not
+near, nor within measurable distance; or, so it seemed to me when, an
+hour ago, I strolled round the garden, curiously peering into every
+shrub, to find the visible and comparatively noble insect-life in great
+abundance. Beetles were there--hard, round, polished, and of various
+colours, like sea-worn pebbles on the beach; and some, called lady-birds
+in the vernacular, were bound like the books that Chaucer loved in black
+and red. And the small gilded fly, not less an insect light-headed, a
+votary of vain delights, than in the prehistoric days when a
+white-headed old king, discrowned and crazed, railed against sweet
+Nature's liberty. And ever waiting to welcome this inconstant lover
+(with falces) there sits the solitary geometric spider, an image and
+embodiment of patience, not on a monument, but a suspended wheel of
+which he is himself the hub; and so delicately fashioned are the silver
+spokes thereof, radiating from his round and gem-like body, and the
+rings, concentric tire within tire, that its exceeding fineness, like
+swift revolving motion, renders it almost invisible. Caterpillars, too,
+in great plenty--miniature porcupines with fretful quills on end, and
+some naked even as they came into the world. This one, called the
+earth-measurer, has drunk himself green with chlorophyll so as to escape
+detection. Vain precaution! since eccentric motion betrays him to keen
+avian eyes, when, like the traveller's snake, he erects himself on the
+tip of his tail and sways about in empty space, vaguely feeling for
+something, he knows not what. And the mechanical tortrix that rolls up a
+leaf for garment and food, and preys on his own case and shelter until
+he has literally eaten himself stark naked; after which he rolls up a
+second leaf, and so on progressively. Thus in his larval life does he
+symbolize some restless nation that makes itself many successive
+constitutions and forms of government, in none of which it abides long;
+but afterwards some higher thing, when he rests motionless, in form like
+a sarcophagus, whence the infolded life emerges to haunt the twilight--a
+grey ghost moth. There is no end to rolled-up leaves, and to the variety
+of creatures that are housed in them; for, just as the "insect tribes of
+human kind" in all places and in all ages, while seeking to improve
+their condition, independently hit on the same means and inventions, so
+it is with these small six-legged people; and many species in many
+places have found out the comfort and security of the green cylinder.
+
+So many did I open that I at last grew tired of the process, like a man
+to whom the post has brought too many letters; but there was one--the
+last I opened--the living active contents of which served to remind me
+that some insects are unable to make a cylinder for themselves, having
+neither gum nor web to fasten it with, and yet they will always find one
+made by others to shelter themselves in. Here were no fewer than six
+unbeautiful creatures, brothers and sisters, hatched from eggs on which
+their parent earwig sat incubating just like an eagle or dove or
+swallow, or, better still, like a pelican; for in the end did she not
+give of her own life-fluid to nourish her children? Unbeautiful, yet not
+without a glory superior to that of the Purple Emperor, and the angelic
+blue Morpho, and the broad-winged Ornithoptera, that caused an
+illustrious traveller to swoon with joy at the sight of its supreme
+loveliness. Du Maurier has a drawing of a little girl in a garden gazing
+at two earwigs racing along a stem. "I suppose," she remarks
+interrogatively to her mamma, "that these are Mr. and Mrs. Earwig?" and
+on being answered affirmatively, exclaims, "What could they have seen in
+each other?" What they saw was blue blood, or something in insectology
+corresponding to it. The earwig's lustre is that of antiquity. He
+existed on earth before colour came in; and colour is old, although not
+so old as Nature's unconscious aestheticism which, in the organic world,
+is first expressed in beauty of form. It is long since the great May
+flies, large as swifts, had their aerial cloudy dances over the vast
+everglades and ancient forests of ferns; and when, on some dark night, a
+brilliant Will-o'-the-wisp rose and floated above the feathery foliage,
+drawn in myriads to its light, they revolved about it in an immense
+mystical wheel, misty-white, glistening, and touched with prismatic
+colour. Floating fire and wheel were visible only to the stars, and the
+wakeful eyes of giant scaly monsters lying quiescent in the black waters
+below; but they were very beautiful nevertheless. The modest earwig was
+old on the earth even then; he dates back to the time, immeasurably
+remote, when scorpions possessed the earth, and taught him to frighten
+his enemies with a stingless tail--that curious antique little tail
+which has not yet forgot its cunning.
+
+Greater than all these inhabitants of the garden, ancient or modern by
+reason of their numbers, which is the sign of predominance, are the
+small wingless people that have colonies on every green stem and under
+every green leaf.
+
+These are the true generators of that heavenly sweat, or saliva of the
+stars, concerning which Pliny the Younger wrote so learnedly. And they
+are many tribes--green, purple, brown, isabel-line; but all are one
+nation, and sacred to that fair god whom the Carian water-nymph loved
+not wisely but too well. For, albeit the children of an ancient union,
+they marry not, nor are given in marriage, yet withal multiply
+exceedingly, so that one (not two) may in a single season produce a
+billion. And at last when autumn comes, won back from the cold god to
+his hot mother, they know love and wedlock, and die like all married
+things. These are the Aphides--sometimes unprettily called plant-lice,
+and vaguely spoken of by the uninformed as "blight"--and they nourish
+themselves on vegetable juices, that thin green blood which is the
+plant's life.
+
+This, then, is the fruit which the birds have, come to gather. In June
+is their richest harvest; it is more bountiful than September, when
+apples redden, and grapes in distant southern lands are gathered for the
+wine-press. In yon grey wall at the end of the lawn, just above the
+climbing rose-bush, there are now seven hungry infants in one small
+cradle, each one, some one says, able to consume its own weight of
+insect food every day. I am inclined to believe that it must be so,
+while trying to count the visits paid to the nest in one hour by the
+parent tits--those small tits that do the gardener so much harm! We
+know, on good authority, that the spider has a "nutty flavour"; and most
+insects in the larval stage afford succulent and toothsome, or at all
+events beaksome, morsels. These are, just now, the crimson cherries,
+purple and yellow plums, currants, red, white, and black--and
+sun-painted peaches, asking in their luscious ripeness for a mouth to
+melt in, that fascinate finch and flycatcher alike, and make the
+starlings smack their horny lips with a sound like a loving kiss.
+
+Not that I care, or esteem birds for what they eat or do not eat. With
+all these creatures that are at strife among themselves, and that birds
+prey upon, I am at peace, even to the smallest that are visible--the red
+spider which is no spider; and the minute gossamer spider clinging to
+the fine silvery hairs of the flying summer; and the coccus that fall
+from the fruit trees to float on their buoyant cottony down--a summer
+snow. Fils de la Vierge are these, and sacred. The man who can
+needlessly set his foot on a worm is as strange to my soul as De
+Quincey's imaginary Malay, or even his "damned crocodile." The worm that
+one sees lying bruised and incapable on the gravel walk has fallen among
+thieves. These little lives do me good and not harm. I smell the acid
+ants to strengthen my memory. I know that if I set an overturned
+cockchafer on his legs three sins shall be forgiven me; that if I am
+kindly tolerant of the spider that drops accidentally on my hand or
+face, my purse shall be mysteriously replenished. At the same time, one
+has to remember that such sentiments, as a rule, are not understood by
+those who have charge over groves and gardens, whose minds are ignorant
+and earthy, or, as they would say, practical. Of the balance of nature
+they know and care naught, nor can they regard life as sacred; it is
+enough to know that it is or may be injurious to their interests for
+them to sweep it away. The small thing that has been flying about and
+uttering musical sounds since April may, when July comes, devour a
+certain number of cherries. Nor is even this plea needed. If it is
+innocent for the lower creatures to prey upon one another, it cannot be
+less innocent for man to destroy them indiscriminately, if it gives him
+any pleasure to do so. It is idle to go into such subtle questions with
+those who have the power to destroy; if their hands are to be restrained
+it is not by appealing to feelings which they do not possess, but to
+their lower natures--to their greed and their cunning. For the rest of
+us, for all who have conquered or outgrown the killing instinct, the
+impartiality that pets nothing and persecutes nothing is doubtless man's
+proper attitude towards the inferior animals; a godlike benevolent
+neutrality; a keen and kindly interest in every form of life, with
+indifference as to its ultimate destiny; the softness which does no
+wrong with the hardness that sees no wrong done.
+
+To return to the birds. The starlings have kissed like lovers, and
+fluttered up vertically on their short wings, trying to stream like
+eagles, only to return to the trees once more and sit there chattering
+pleasant nothings; at intervals throwing out those soft, round,
+modulated whistled notes, just as an idle cigarette-smoker blows rings
+of blue smoke from his lips; and now they have flown away to the fields
+so that I can listen to the others.
+
+A thrush is making music on a tall tree beyond the garden hedge, and I
+am more grateful for the distance that divides us than for the song;
+for, just now, he does not sing so well as sometimes of an evening, when
+he is most fluent, and a listener, deceived by his sweetness and melody,
+writes to the papers to say that he has heard the nightingale. Just now
+his song is scrappy, composed of phrases that follow no order and do not
+fit or harmonize, and is like a poor imitation of an inferior
+mocking-bird's song.
+
+Between the scraps of loud thrush-music I listen to catch the thin,
+somewhat reedy sound of a yellow-hammer singing in the middle of the
+adjoining grassy field. It comes well from the open expanse of purpling
+grass, and reminds me of a favourite grasshopper in a distant sunny
+land. O happy grasshopper! singing all day in the trees and tall
+herbage, in a country where every village urchin is not sent afield to
+"study natural history" with green net and a good store of pins, shall I
+ever again hear thy breezy music, and see thee among the green leaves,
+beautiful with steel-blue and creamy-white body, and dim purple over and
+vivid red underwings?
+
+The bird of the pasture-land is singing still, perhaps, but all at once
+I have ceased to hear him, for something has come to lift me above his
+low grassy level, something faint and at first only the suspicion of a
+sound; then a silvery lisping, far off and aerial, touching the sense as
+lightly as the wind-borne down of dandelion.
+
+If any place for any soul there be Disrobed and disentrammelled,
+doubtless it is from such a place and such a soul that this sublimated
+music falls. The singer, one can imagine, has never known or has
+forgotten earth; and if it is visible to him, how small it must seem
+from that altitude, "spinning like a fretful midge" beneath him in the
+vast void!
+
+It is the lark singing in the blue infinite heaven, at this distance
+with something ethereal and heavenly in his voice; but now the wide
+circling wings that brought him for a few moments within hearing, have
+borne him beyond it again; and missing it, the sunshine looks less
+brilliant than before, and all other bird-voices seem by comparison dull
+and of the earth.
+
+Certainly there is nothing spiritual in the song of the chaffinch. There
+he sits within sight, motionless, a little bird-shaped automaton, made
+to go off at intervals of twelve or thirteen seconds; but unfortunately
+one hears with the song the whirr and buzz of the internal machinery. It
+is not now as in April, when it is sufficient in a song that it shall be
+joyous; in the leafy month, when roses are in bloom, one grows critical,
+and asks for sweetness and expression, and a better art than this
+vigorous garden singer displays in that little double flourish with
+which he concludes his little hurry-scurry lyric. He has practised that
+same flourish for five thousand years--to be quite within the mark--and
+it is still far from perfect, still little better than a kind of musical
+sneeze. So long is art!
+
+Perhaps in some subtle way, beyond the psychologist's power to trace, he
+has become aware of my opinion of his performance--the unspoken
+detraction which yet affects its object; and, feeling hurt in his
+fringilline _amour propre_, he has all at once taken himself off. Never
+mind; a better singer has succeeded him. I have heard and seen the
+little wren a dozen times to-day; now he has come to the upper part of
+the tree I am lying under, and although so near his voice sounds
+scarcely louder than before. This is also a lyric, but of another kind.
+It is not plaintive, nor passionate; nor is it so spontaneous as the
+warbling of the robin--that most perfect feathered impressionist; nor is
+it endeared to me by early associations since I listened in boyhood to
+the songs of other wrens. In what, then, does its charm consist? I do
+not know. Certainly it is delicate, and may even be described as
+brilliant, in its limited way perfect, and to other greater songs like
+the small pimpernel to a poppy or a hollyhock. Unambitious, yet
+finished, it has the charm of distinction. The wren is the least
+self-conscious of our singers. Somewhere among the higher green
+translucent leaves the little brown barred thing is quietly sitting,
+busy for the nonce about nothing, dreaming his summer dream, and
+unknowingly telling it aloud. When shall we have symbols to express as
+perfectly our summer-feeling--our dream?
+
+That small song has served to remind me of two small books I brought
+into the garden to read--the works of two modern minor poets whose
+"wren-like warblings," I imagined, would suit my mood and the genial
+morning better than the stirring or subtle thoughts of greater singers.
+Possibly in that I was mistaken; for there until now lie the books
+neglected on a lawn chair within reach of my hand. The chair was dragged
+hither half-an-hour ago by a maiden all in white, who appeared half
+inclined to share the mulberry shade with me. She did not continue long
+in that mind. In a lively manner, she began speaking of some trivial
+thing; but after a very few moments all interest in the subject
+evaporated, and she sat humming some idle air, tapping the turf with her
+fantastic shoe. Presently she picked up one of my books, opened it at
+random and read a line or two, her vermilion under-lip curling slightly;
+then threw it down again, and glanced at me out of the corners of her
+eyes; then hummed again, and finally became silent, and sat bending
+forward a little, her dark lustrous eyes gazing with strange intentness
+through the slight screen of foliage into the vacant space beyond. What
+to see? The poet has omitted to tell us to what the maiden's fancy
+lightly turns in spring. Doubtless it turns to thoughts of something
+real. Life is real; so is passion--the quickening of the blood, the wild
+pulsation. But the pleasures and pains of the printed book are not real,
+and are to reality like Japanese flowers made of coloured bits of tissue
+paper to the living fragrant flowers that bloom to-day and perish
+to-morrow; they are a simulacrum, a mockery, and present to us a pale
+phantasmagoric world, peopled with bloodless men and women that chatter
+meaningless things and laugh without joy. The feeling of unreality
+affects us all at times, but in very different degrees. And perhaps I
+was too long a doer, herding too much with narrow foreheads, drinking
+too deeply of the sweet and bitter cup, to experience that pure
+unfailing delight in literature which some have.  Its charm, I fancy, is
+greatest to those in whom the natural man, deprived in early life of his
+proper aliment, grows sickly and pale, and perishes at last of
+inanition. There is ample room then for the latter higher growth--the
+unnatural cultivated man. Lovers of literature are accustomed to say
+that they find certain works "helpful" to them; and doubtless, being all
+intellect, they are right. But we, the less highly developed, are
+compounded of two natures, and while this spiritual pabulum sustains
+one, the other and larger nature is starved; for the larger nature is
+earthly, and draws its sustenance from the earth. I must look at a leaf,
+or smell the sod, or touch a rough pebble, or hear some natural sound,
+if only the chirp of a cricket, or feel the sun or wind or rain on my
+face. The book itself may spoil the pleasure it was designed to give me,
+and instead of satisfying my hunger, increase it until the craving and
+sensation of emptiness becomes intolerable. Not any day spent in a
+library would I live again, but rather some lurid day of labour and
+anxiety, of strife, or peril, or passion.
+
+Occupied with this profound question, I scarcely noticed when my
+shade-sharer, with whom I sympathised only too keenly in her restless
+mood, rose and, lifting the light green curtain, passed out into the
+sunshine and was gone. Nor did I notice when the little wren ceased
+singing overhead. At length recalled to myself I began to wonder at the
+unusual silence in the garden, until, casting my eyes on the lawn, I
+discovered the reason; for there, moving about in their various ways,
+most of the birds were collected in a loose miscellaneous flock, a kind
+of happy family. There were the starlings, returned from the fields, and
+looking like little speckled rooks; some sparrows, and a couple of
+robins hopping about in their wild startled manner; in strange contrast
+to these last appeared that little feathered clodhopper, the chaffinch,
+plodding over the turf as if he had hobnailed boots on his feet; last,
+but not least, came statuesque blackbirds and thrushes, moving, when
+they moved, like automata. They all appear to be finding something to
+eat; but I Watch the thrushes principally, for these are more at home on
+the moist earth than the others, and have keener senses, and seek for
+nobler game. I see one suddenly thrust his beak into the turf and draw
+from it a huge earthworm, a wriggling serpent, so long that although he
+holds his head high, a third of the pink cylindrical body still rests in
+its run. What will he do with it? We know how wandering Waterton treated
+the boa which he courageously grasped by the tail as it retreated into
+the bushes. Naturally, it turned on him, and, lifting high its head,
+came swiftly towards his face with wide-open jaws; and at this supreme
+moment, without releasing his hold on its tail, with his free hand he
+snatched off his large felt hat and thrust it down the monster's throat,
+and so saved himself.
+
+Just as I am intently watching to see how my hatless little Waterton
+will deal with _his_ serpent, a startling bark, following by a canine
+shriek, then a yell, resound through the silent garden; and over the
+lawn rush those three demoniacal fox-terriers, Snap, Puzzy, and Babs,
+all determined to catch something. Away fly the birds, and though now
+high overhead, the baffled brutes continue wildly careering about the
+grounds, vexing the air with their frantic barkings. No more birds
+to-day! But now the peace-breakers have discovered me, and come tearing
+across the lawn, and on to the half-way chair, then to the hammock,
+scrambling over each other to inflict their unwelcome caresses on my
+hands and face.
+
+Ah well, let them have their way and do their worst, since the birds are
+gone, and I shall go soon. It is a consolation to think that they are
+not my pets; that I shall not grieve, like their mistress, when their
+brief barking period is over; that I care just so much and no more for
+them than for any other living creature, not excepting the
+_fer-de-lance_, "quoiled in the path like rope in a ship," or the
+broad-winged vulture "scaling the heavens by invisible stairs." None are
+out of place where Nature placed them, nor unbeautiful; none are
+unlovable, since their various qualities--the rage of the one and the
+gentleness of the other--are but harmonious lights and shades in the
+ever-changing living picture that is so perfect.
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE
+
+I
+
+TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS
+
+
+Having begun, or first written, this book in one village, which was near
+London, I am now finishing, or re-writing, it in another in "the westest
+part of all the land," over three hundred miles from the first. Here I
+had to go over this ancient work of twenty-three years ago, which was
+also my first English bird book, to prepare it for a new edition; and
+after all necessary corrections, omissions and additions of fresh matter
+made in the foregoing parts, it seemed best to throw out the whole of
+the concluding portion, which dealt mainly with the question of
+bird-preservation as it presented itself at that time and is now out of
+date, thanks to the legislation of recent years and to the growth in
+this country of the feeling or desire for birds during the last two or
+three decades. In place of this discarded matter I propose to give here
+the results of recent observations on the bird life of a Cornish
+village.
+
+My residence in the Cornish Village (or villages) was during May and
+June, 1915, and again from October of the same year to June, 1916. These
+were months of ill-health, so that I was prevented from pursuing my
+customary outdoor rambling life; but, like that poor creature the
+barnyard fowl that can't use its wings, instinctively, or from old
+habit, I used my eyes in keeping a watch on the feathered (and flying)
+people about me.
+
+The village, Lelant, is on the Hayle estuary, and to see the Atlantic
+one has but to walk past the grey old church at the end of the street,
+where the ground rises, to find oneself in a wilderness of towans, as
+the sand-hills are there called, clothed in their rough, grey-green
+marram grass and spreading on either hand round the bay of St. Ives. A
+beautiful sight, for the sea on a sunny day is of that marvellous blue
+colour seen only in Cornwall; far out on a rock on the right hand stands
+the shining white Godrevy lighthouse, and on the left, on the opposite
+side of the bay, the little ancient fishing-town of St. Ives.
+
+The river or estuary, in sight of the doors and windows of the village,
+was haunted every day by numbers of gulls and curlews. These last
+numbered about one hundred and fifty birds, and were always there except
+at full tide, when they would fly away to the fields and moors. Of all
+my bird neighbours I think that these gave me most pleasure, especially
+at night, when lying awake I would listen by the hour to the perpetual
+curlew conversation going on in the dark--an endless series of clear
+modulated notes and trills, with a beautiful expression of wildness and
+freedom, a reminder of lonely seashores and mountains and moorlands in
+the north country. What wonder that Stevenson, sick in his tropical
+island--sick for his cold grey home so many thousands of miles away,
+wished once more to hear the whaup crying over the graves of his
+forefathers, and to hear no more at all!
+
+Of bird music by day there was little; you would hear more of it in one
+morning in that small rustic village in Berkshire where the first part
+of this book was written than in a whole summer in one of these West
+Cornwall villages, so few comparatively are the songsters. Nor was this
+scarcity in the village only; it was everywhere, as I found when able to
+get out for a few hours during my two spring seasons in the place. Close
+by were the extensive woods of Trevalloe, where I was struck by the
+extraordinary silence and where I listened in vain for a single note
+from blackcap, garden-warbler, willow-wren, wood-wren, or redstart. The
+thrushes, chaffinch, chiff-chaff, and greenfinch were occasionally
+heard; outside the wood the buntings, chats, and the skylark were few
+and far between.
+
+This scarcity of small birds is, I think, due in the first place to the
+extraordinary abundance of the jackdaw, the diligent seeker after small
+birds' nests, and to the autumn and winter pastime of bush-beating to
+which men and boys are given in these parts, and which the Cornish
+authorities refuse to suppress.
+
+After a time, when, owing to increasing debility, I was confined more
+and more to the village, I began to concentrate my attention on a few
+common species that were always present, particularly on the three
+commonest--rook, daw, and starling; the first two residents, the
+starling, a winter visitor from September to April.
+
+In October, I started feeding the birds at the house where I was staying
+as a guest, throwing the scraps on a lawn at the back which sloped down
+towards the estuary. First came all the small birds in the immediate
+neighbourhood--robin, dunnock, wagtail, chaffinch, throstle, blackbird,
+and blue and ox-eye tits. Then followed troops of starlings, and soon
+all the rooks and daws in the village began to see what was going on and
+come too, and this attracted the gulls from the estuary--I wished that
+it had drawn the curlews; and all these big ones were so greedy and
+bold, so noisy and formidable-looking that the small birds were quite
+driven out; all except the starlings that came in hungry crowds and were
+determined to get their share.
+
+At the beginning of December I had to move to a nursing-home at the
+Convent of the Sisters of the Cross at the adjacent village of Hayle,
+just across the estuary. The Convent buildings and grounds and gardens
+are fortunately outside the ugly village, and my room had an
+exceptionally big window occupying almost the whole wall on one side,
+with an outlook to the south over the green fields and moors towards
+Helston. An ideal sick-room for a man who can't be happy without the
+company of birds, and here, even when lying on my bed before I was able
+to sit or stand by the window, a large portion of the sky, rainy or
+blue, was visible, and rooks and daws and gulls and troops of starlings,
+and the curlews from the river, were seen coming and going all day long.
+
+But it was much better when I was able to go to the window, since now,
+by feeding them, I could draw the birds to me. I fed them on a green
+field beneath my window, where the Convent milch-cows were accustomed to
+graze for some hours each day. All through the winter there was grass
+for them, and I was glad to have them there, as the cow is my favourite
+beast, and it was also pleasant to see the wintering starlings
+consorting with them, clustering about their noses, just as they do in
+the pasture lands in summer time. But I found it best to feed the birds
+when the cows were not there, on account of the behaviour of one of
+them, a young animal who had not yet been sobered by having a calf of
+her own.  She was a frivolous young thing and when tired of feeding, she
+would start teasing the old cows, pushing them with her horns, then
+flinging up her hind legs to challenge them to a romp. The sight of a
+crowd of birds under my window would bring her at a gallop to the spot
+to find out what all the fuss was about, and the birds would be driven
+off.
+
+One morning I was at my window when the field was empty of bird and
+beast life with the exception of a solitary old rook, a big bird who was
+a constant attendant and so much bigger than most of the rooks that I
+had come to know it well. By and by the young cow walked into the field
+by herself and, after gazing all round as if surprised at finding the
+place so lifeless, she caught sight of and fixed her eyes on the old
+rook working at the turf some fifty or sixty yards away. Presently she
+began walking towards it, and when within about twenty yards put her
+head down and charged it. The rook paid no attention until she was
+almost on it, then rose up, emitting its angriest, most raucous screams
+while hovering just over her head, and having thus relieved its
+indignant feelings it flew heavily away to the far end of the field, and
+settling down began prodding away at the soil. The cow, standing still,
+gazed after it, and one could almost imagine her saying: "So you won't
+get out of the field! Well!  I'll soon make you. I'm going to have it
+all to myself this morning." And at once she began rapidly walking
+towards the bird. But half-way to it was the post set up in the middle
+of the field for the cows to rub their hides, and on coming abreast of
+it the sight of it and its proximity suggested the delight of a rub, and
+turning off at right angles she walked straight to the post and began
+rubbing herself against it. The rook went on with its business, and
+after that there was no more quarrelling.
+
+Another morning this same old rook came with his mate to the field:
+separating, they came down a distance of a hundred yards or more apart
+and began searching for grubs. By and by the old cock discovered
+something particularly good and after vigorously prodding the turf for a
+few moments he sprang up and flew excitedly to his mate, who instantly
+knew what this action meant and began fluttering her wings and crying
+for the dainty morsel which he proceeded to deliver into her wide-open
+mouth. Having fed her, he flew back to the same spot and began working
+again.
+
+This is a common action of the rooks, and I saw this same bird feed his
+mate on other occasions during the winter months, when I have no doubt
+that he, poor wretch, could hardly find food enough to keep himself
+alive during the dark season of everlasting wind and rain when the dim
+daylight lasted for about six hours. But I never saw a daw or starling
+feed his mate, or feed another daw or starling, although I watched
+closely every day and often for an hour at a stretch, and though I am
+convinced that the starling, like the rook and crow and daw, and in fact
+all the Corvidae, pairs for life. To this point I will return presently;
+let me first relate another incident about our frivolous and
+irresponsible young cow.
+
+One morning when the cows were in the field, some herring-gulls drifted
+by and a few of them remained circling about above the field. I threw
+out a piece of bread, and a troop of starlings rushed to it, and one of
+the gulls dropped down and took possession of it, but had scarcely began
+tearing at it when two more gulls dropped down and the first bird,
+lifting his wings began screaming "Hands off!" at the others, and the
+others, also raising their wings, screamed their wailing screams in
+reply. The young cow, attracted by the noise, gazed at them for a few
+moments, then all at once putting her head down furiously charged them.
+The three gulls rose up simultaneously and floated over her and then
+away, leaving her standing on the spot, shaking her head in anger and
+disgust at their escape. A rhinoceros charging a ball of thistledown or
+a soap-bubble, and causing it to float away with the wind it created,
+would not have been a more ludicrous spectacle.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?
+
+
+From my boyhood, when I first began to observe birds, I started with the
+imbibed notion that those which paired for life were the rare
+exceptions--the dove that rhymed with love, the eagle, and perhaps half
+a dozen more. Who, for instance, would imagine that the sexes could be
+faithful in parasitical species like the cuckoo of Europe and the
+cow-birds of America? Yet even as a boy I made the discovery that an
+Argentine cow-bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other species,
+does actually pair for life; and so effectually mated is it, that on no
+day and no season of the year will you see a male without his female: if
+he flies she flies with him and feeds and drinks with him, and when he
+perches she perches at his side, and he never utters a sound but a
+responsive sound immediately falls from her devoted beak.
+
+Again, it may seem unlikely that there can be pairing for life in
+species, like the chaffinch of northern Europe and, with us, of
+Scotland, in which the sexes separate and migrate separately. Also of
+non-gregarious species like the nightingale in which the males arrive in
+this country several days before the females. Yet I am confident that if
+we could catch and mark a considerable number of pairs it would be found
+that the same male and female found one another and re-mated every year.
+
+It comes to this, that birds may pair for life, yet not be all the time
+or all the year together, as in the case of hawks, crows, owls, herons,
+and many others. In numberless species which undoubtedly pair for life
+the sexes keep apart during several hours each day, and there is some
+evidence that those that separate for a part of the year remain faithful.
+
+An incident, related by Miss Ethel Williams, of Winchester, in her
+natural history notes contributed to a journal in that city, bears on
+this point. She had among the bird pensioners in the garden of her house
+adjoining the Cathedral green, a female thrush that grew tame enough to
+fly into the house and feed on the dining-room table. Her thrush paired
+and bred for several seasons in the garden, and the young, too, were
+tame and would follow their mother into the house to be fed. The male
+was wild and too shy ever to venture in. She noticed the first year that
+it had a wing-feather which stuck out, owing probably to a malformation
+of the socket. Each year after the breeding season the male vanished,
+the female remaining alone through the winter months, but in spring the
+male came back--the same bird with the unmistakable projecting
+wing-feather. Yet it was certain that this bird had gone quite away,
+otherwise he would have returned to the garden, where there was food in
+abundance during the spells of frosty weather. As he did not appear it
+is probable that he migrated each autumn to some warmer climate beyond
+the sea.
+
+I have noticed that wagtails, thrushes, blackbirds, and some other
+species when the young are out of the nest, divide the brood between
+male and female and go different ways and spend the daylight hours at a
+distance apart, each attending to the one or two young birds in its charge.
+
+One winter, a few years ago, I was staying for a few days at a cottage
+facing Silchester Common, and on going out after breakfast to feed the
+birds I particularly noticed a male grey wagtail among those that came
+to me, on account of its beauty and tameness. Every morning I fed it,
+and on my speaking to my landlady about it she said, "Oh, we know that
+bird well; this is the fourth winter it has spent with us, but it always
+came before with its mate. The poor little thing had only one leg, but
+managed to hop about and feed very well; this year the poor thing didn't
+turn up with its mate, so we suppose it had met its death somewhere
+during the summer."
+
+I have often watched the gatherings of pied wagtails (always with a
+certain number of the grey species among them) in places where they
+spend the winter in our southern counties, at some spot where they are
+accustomed to congregate each evening to hold a sort of frolic before
+going to roost, and it has always appeared to me that the birds, both
+pied and grey, were in pairs. So too, in watching the starlings day
+after day in the field in front of my window. Well able with my
+binocular to observe them closely, I saw much to convince me that the
+starling, too, lives all the year with his mate.
+
+Each morning the birds that had made our village their daily
+feeding-ground, would, on arrival from the roosting-place in one body,
+break up into numerous small parties of half a dozen to twenty or more
+birds. All day long these little flocks were hurrying about from field
+to field, spending but a short time at one spot, so hungry were they and
+anxious to find a more productive one, and in every field they would
+meet and mix with other small groups, and presently all would fly, and
+breaking up into small parties again go off in different directions.
+Thus one had a constant succession of little flocks in the field from
+morning till night, and I found from counting the birds in each small
+group that in three cases in four they were in even numbers. Again, I
+have often seen a group of three, five, seven or nine birds on the
+field, and after a while a solitary starling from a neighbouring field
+or from some treetop near by has flown down to join the group and make
+the numbers even.
+
+The birds when feeding, I have said, are always in a desperate hurry,
+and little wonder, since after a night, usually wet and cold, of from
+sixteen to eighteen hours and only about six to feed in, they must be in
+a half-starved state and frantic to find something to swallow. No sooner
+do they alight than they begin running about, prodding with their beaks,
+and all the time advancing, the birds keeping pretty well abreast. Now,
+from time to time you will notice that a bird finds something to delay
+him and is left behind by the others. On they go--prod, prod, then a
+little run, then prod, prod again and run again--while he, excited over
+his find, and vigorously digging at the roots of the grass, lets them go
+on without him until he is yards behind. Whenever this happens you will
+see one of the advancing birds pause in its prodding to look back from
+time to time as if anxious about the one left behind; and by and by this
+same bird, its anxiety increasing, will suddenly spring into the air and
+fly back to place itself at the side of the other, to wait quietly until
+it has finished its task; and no sooner does the busy one put up its
+head to signal that he is ready than up they spring and fly together on
+to the flock. No one witnessing this action can doubt for a moment that
+these two are mates, and that wherever they paired and bred
+originally--in Lincoln or York or Thurso or perhaps in one of the
+western islands--they paired for life and will stick together, summer
+and winter and in all their wanderings, as long as they live.
+
+Until one observes starlings in this close way, even to their minutest
+actions--I had indeed little else to do during my three winter months in
+this nursing-home--it is only natural to believe that among gregarious
+species the starling is one of those least likely to pair for life,
+seeing that in it the gregarious instinct is intensified and more highly
+developed than in most others. One would suppose that the flock, which
+is like an organism--that is to say, the attachment to the flock--would,
+out of the breeding season, take the place of the close relation or
+companionship between bird and bird seen in species known to pair for
+life. Only the pairing passion, one would suppose, could serve to
+dissolve the company of birds and this only for a brief season of about
+a couple of months' duration. There is but one brood raised in the
+season, and the whole business of reproduction is well over before the
+end of June. Later breeders are those that have lost their first eggs or
+broods. And no sooner are the young brought off and instructed in the
+starling's sole vocation (except his fruit-eating) of extracting the
+grubs it subsists on from the roots of the grass--a business which
+detains them for a week or two--than the married life is apparently over
+and the communal life resumed. The whole life of the bird is then
+changed; the sole tie appears to be that of the flock; home and young
+are forgotten: the birds range hither and thither about the land, and by
+and by migrate to distant places, some passing oversea, while others
+from the northern counties and from Scotland and the islands come down
+to the south of England, where they winter in millions and myriads.
+There they form the winter habit of congregating in immense numbers in
+the evening at their favourite roosting-places, and hundreds and
+thousands of small flocks, which during the daylight hours exist
+distributed over an area of hundreds of square miles all make to one
+point and combine into one flock. At such times they actually appear to
+rejoice in their own incalculable numbers and gather earlier than they
+need at the roosting-place, so that the whole vast gathering may spend
+an hour or so in their beloved aerial exercises.
+
+To anyone who witnesses these gatherings and sees the birds rising from
+time to time from the wood, and appearing like a big black cloud in the
+sky, growing lighter and darker alternately as the birds scatter wide or
+mass themselves in a closer formation, until after wheeling about for
+some minutes they pour back into the trees; and who listens to the noise
+they make, as of a high wind in the wood, composed, as it is, of an
+infinity of individual voices, it must seem incredible that all these
+birds can keep in pairs. For how could any couple hold together in such
+circumstances, or when separated ever meet again in such a multitude,
+or, should they ever meet by chance, how recognize one another when all
+are exactly alike in size, shape, colour and voice?
+
+They can, and certainly do, keep together, and when forced apart as,
+when pursued by a hawk, they scatter in all directions, they can quickly
+find one another again. They can do it because of their perfect
+discipline, or instinct, or the perfection of the system they follow
+during their autumn and winter wanderings and migrations.
+
+The breeding season over, the birds in each locality unite in a small
+flock composed of twenty or thirty to fifty or more pairs and start
+their wandering life. Those in the north migrate or drift south, and
+vast numbers, as we see, spend the winter in the southern counties. And
+here they have their favourite roosting-places and are accustomed to
+assemble in tens and hundreds of thousands. But the original small flock
+composed of a few pairs, is never broken up--never absorbed by the
+multitude. Each morning when it is light enough, the birds quit the
+roosting-wood, but not all together; they quit it in flocks, flock
+following flock so closely as to appear like a continuous stream of
+birds, and the streams flow out in different directions over the
+surrounding country. Each stream of birds is composed of scores and
+hundreds of units, and each unit drops out of the stream and slopes away
+to this or that side, to drop down on its own chosen feeding-ground, to
+which it returns morning after morning through the winter. When all the
+units have dropped out and settled on their feeding areas for the day,
+it may be seen that the whole country within a circuit of ten or twelve
+or more miles from the roosting-place has been occupied, that each flock
+has its own territory, where it splits up into some groups and spends
+its short hours flying about and exploring every green field, and one
+might almost say "every grass." One can only explain this perfect
+distribution by assuming that each unit instinctively looks for
+unoccupied ground in its winter habitat, and that consequently there is
+very little overlapping. It must also be assumed that at the place of
+assembly in the evening each flock has its own roosting-place--its own
+trees and bushes where the members of the flock can still keep together
+and to which after each aerial performance they can return. The flock
+comes back to sleep on its own tree, and no doubt every couple roosts
+side by side on its own twig.
+
+On the return of Spring the birds do not migrate in a body, but slip
+away, flock by flock, to reappear about the end of April in their old
+breeding-place in the North Country, with, perhaps, the loss of a few
+members--the one that was old and died in the season of scarcity; and
+one that was taken at the roost by a brown owl, and one that had its
+feet frozen to the perch; and was killed by a jackdaw when struggling to
+free itself; and one that was struck down by a sparrow-hawk on his
+homeward journey.
+
+What I have so far been unable to trace is the career of the young after
+August. We see that once they are able to fend for themselves they club
+together in small flocks and continue together during their "brown
+thrush" stage, but by and by they get the adult plumage and language and
+are no longer distinguishable as young. Do they, then, join the old
+birds before the wandering and migrating south begins? And do they pair
+or not before the winter?
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER
+
+
+Throughout the winter of 1915-16, and more particularly during my three
+months in the hospital at Hayle, from the beginning of December to
+March, I was greatly impressed at the perpetual state of hunger in which
+the birds exist, especially the three commonest species in our
+village--rook, daw, and starling. Little wonder that the sight of a
+piece of bread thrown out on the green field below my window would bring
+all these three and many others with a rush from all sides, every one
+eager to get a morsel! But the birds that live most in a groove, as it
+were, like the rook and starling, and have but one kind of food and one
+way of finding it, are always the worst off in winter. These subsist on
+the grubs and other minute organisms they are able to pick out of the
+grass roots, and are life workers paid by the piece who must labour hard
+and incessantly to make enough to keep themselves alive; their winter
+life is accordingly in startling contrast to that of the daw--one that
+lives on his wits and fares better and altogether has an easier and more
+amusing time.
+
+It was the habit of the three species named to quit the wood where they
+roosted as soon as it was light enough for them to feed, the time
+varying according to the state of the weather from half-past eight to
+ten o'clock, the mornings being usually wet and dark. The rooks that had
+their rookery in the village numbered forty or fifty birds, and these
+would remain at the village, getting their food in the surrounding
+fields for the rest of the day. The daws would appear in a body of two
+or three hundred birds, but after a little while many of them would go
+on to their own villages further away, leaving about sixty to eighty
+birds belonging to the village. Last of all the starlings would appear
+in flocks and continuous streams of birds often fighting their way
+against wind and rain, leaving about a couple of hundred or more behind,
+these being the birds that had settled in the village for the season,
+and worked in the grass fields in and surrounding it. Rooks and
+starlings would immediately fall to work, while the daws, the flock
+breaking up into small parties of three or four, would distribute
+themselves about the village and perch on the chimney-pots. They would
+perch and then fly, and for all the rest of the day would be incessantly
+shifting about from place to place, on the look-out for something to
+eat, dropping from time to time to snatch up a crust of bread or the
+core of an apple thrown away by a child in the road, or into a back
+garden or on to a dust-heap where potato-parings and the head of a
+mackerel or other refuse had been thrown. They were very bold, but not
+as courageous as the old-time British kite that often swooped to snatch
+the bread from a child's hand.
+
+From time to time one, or a pair, of a small party of these daws would
+drop down on the field before my window when the rooks and starlings
+were there prodding busily at the turf, but though I watched them a
+thousand times I never detected them trying to find something for
+themselves. They simply stood or walked about among the working birds,
+watching them intently. Grub-finding was an art they had not acquired,
+or were too indolent or proud to practise; but they were not too proud
+to beg or steal; they simply watched the other birds in the hope of
+being able to snatch up a big unearthed grub and run away with it. As a
+rule after a minute or two they would get tired of waiting and rush off
+with a lively shout. Back they would go to the chimney-pots and to their
+flying up and down, suspending their flight over this or that yard or
+garden, and by and by one would succeed in picking up something big, and
+at once all the other daws in sight would give chase to take it from
+him; for these village daws are not only parasites and cadgers, but
+worse--they are thieves without honour among themselves.
+
+In spite of all the time and energy wasted in their perpetual races and
+chases going on all over the village, every bird exerting himself to the
+utmost to rob all he can from his pals, they get enough to eat; for when
+the day is over and other daws from other villages drop in to visit
+them, all unite in a big crowd and wheel about, making the place ring
+with their merry yelping cries, before sailing away to the wood. One
+might say after witnessing and listening to this evening performance
+that they have great joy in their rascally lives.
+
+But for the poor starling there is little joy in these brief, dark, wet
+winter days, even if there is little frost in this West Cornwall
+climate. A frost of a few days' duration would be fatal to incalculable
+numbers, especially if, as in the great frosts of the winters of 1894-5
+and 1896-7, severest in the south and west of England, it should come
+late in winter, I think it can be taken as a fact that a long or
+overseas migration takes place before midwinter or not at all. In
+January and February, when birds are driven to the limits of the land by
+a great cold they do not cross the sea, either because they are too weak
+to attempt such an adventure or for some other reason unknown to us. We
+see that on these occasions they come to the seashore and follow it
+south and west even to the western extremity of Cornwall, and then
+either turn back inland or wait where they are for open weather, many
+perishing in the meantime.
+
+During those three winter months, when I watched the starlings at work
+on the field before my hospital window, they appeared to be in a
+perpetual state of extreme hunger and were always running over the
+ground, rapidly prodding as they moved, and apparently finding their
+food almost exclusively on the surface--that is to say, on the surface
+of the soil but under the grass, at its surface roots. At other seasons
+they go deep when they know from the appearance of every blade of grass
+whether or not there is a grub feeding on its roots beneath the surface.
+Without shooting and examining the stomachs of a large number of
+starlings it was not possible to know just what the food consisted of;
+but with my strong binocular on them I could make out that at almost
+every dig of the beak something was picked up, and could actually see it
+when the beak was held up with the minute morsel at its tip--a small,
+thread-like, semi-transparent worm or grub in most instances. Two or
+three of these atomies would hardly have made a square meal for a
+ladybird, and I should think that a starling after swallowing a thousand
+would fed very hungry. And on many days this scanty, watery food had to
+be searched for in very painful conditions, as it rained heavily on most
+days and often all day long. At such times the birds in their sodden
+plumage looked like drowned starlings fished out of a pool and
+galvanized into activity. Nor were they even seen to shake the wet
+off--a common action in swallows and other birds that feed in the rain;
+they were too hungry, too anxious to find something to eat to keep the
+starling soul and body together before the long night of eighteen or
+twenty hours would overtake them.
+
+No doubt the winter of 1915-16 was exceptionally wet and cold, although
+without any severe frosts; a long frost in February, when the birds were
+most reduced, would probably have proved fatal to at least half their
+number. But though it continued wet and cold, things began to mend for
+the starlings towards the end of February, and in March the improvement
+was very marked; they were not in such a perpetual hurry; their time was
+longer now, and by the end of the month their working day had increased
+from five or six to twelve or fourteen hours, and the light had
+increased and grubs were easier to find. By April, the starlings no
+longer appeared to be the same species as the poor, rusty, bedraggled
+wretches we had been accustomed to see; they are now lively, happy birds
+with a splendid gloss on their feathers and beaks as bright a yellow as
+the blackbird's. Finally, in April they left us, not going in a body,
+but flock by flock, day after day, until by the end of the month all
+were gone back to their homes in the north--all but the two or three to
+half a dozen pairs in each village. And these few that stay behind are
+new colonists in West Cornwall.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
+
+
+About the daw, or Jackie, or Dorrie or Jackie-Dorrie, as he is variously
+and familiarly called, and his village habits, there will be more to say
+presently; just now my concern is with another matter--a veritable daw
+problem.
+
+For the last twenty years or longer it has seemed to me that the daw is
+an increasing species in Britain; at all events I am quite sure that it
+is so in the southern half of England, particularly along the coast of
+Somerset, Devon, Dorset, and in Cornwall, more than in any other county.
+And why is it? He is certainly not a respectable bird, like the
+starling, for example--if we do not go to the cherry-grower for the
+starling's character. He is and always has been on the keeper's and
+farmer's black list, and scarcely a week passes but you will find him
+described in some gamekeeper's or farmer's journal as "even worse than
+the rook." Even the ornithologists who are interested in birds as birds
+haven't a good word to say of the daw. According to them he alone is
+responsible for the disappearance of his distinguished relation, the
+chough. (The vulgar daw is of course devoid of any distinction at all,
+unless it be his grey pate and wicked little grey eyes.)
+
+The ornithologists were wrong about the chough, just as they had been
+wrong about the goldfinch, during the late years of the nineteenth
+century, and as they were wrong about the swallows and martins in later
+years. Of the goldfinch, they said, and solemnly put it down in their
+books, that owing to improved methods of agriculture the thistle had
+been extirpated and the bird, deprived of his natural food, had forsaken
+this country. But no sooner did our County Councils begin to avail
+themselves of the powers given them by the Bird Act of twenty years ago
+to protect the goldfinch from the bird-catcher, than it began to
+increase again and is still increasing, year by year, all over the country.
+
+Of the decrease of swallows and martins, they said it resulted from the
+action of the sparrows in ousting them from their nests and
+nesting-sites. But we know the true cause of the decline of these two
+species, the best loved and best protected of all birds in Britain, not
+even excepting robin redbreast. The French Government, in response to
+representations on this matter from our Foreign Office, have caused
+enquiries to be made and have found that our swallows are being
+destroyed wholesale in France during the autumn migration, and have
+promised to put a stop to this deplorable business. They do not appear
+to have done so, since the promise was made three years ago, and I can
+say from my own observation in the south and west countries that the
+decline has continued and that we have never had so few swallows come to
+us as in the present summer of 1916.
+
+The daw--to return to that subject--has always been regarded as an
+injurious species, and down to a quarter of a century ago every farm lad
+in possession of a gun shot it in the interests of the henwife, even as
+he had formerly shot the kite, a common British species and a familiar
+feature in the landscape down to the early years of last century.
+Doubtless it was a great thing to bring down this great bird "that soars
+sublime" and nail it to the barn-door. By the middle of the last century
+it had become a rarity, and the ensuing rush for specimens and eggs for
+private collectors quickly brought about its virtual extinction. The
+kite is but one of several species--six of them hawks--extirpated within
+the last forty years. Why, then, does the daw, more injurious to the
+game-preserver and henwife than any one of these lost hawks, continue to
+flourish and increase in numbers? It is, I imagine, because of the
+growth of a sentiment which favours its preservation. But it is not the
+same as that which has served to preserve the rook and made it so
+common. That is a sentiment confined to the landowning class--to those
+who inherit great houses where the ancient rookery with its crowd of
+big, black, contentious birds caw-cawing on the windy elms, has come to
+be an essential part of the establishment, like the gardens and park and
+stables and home-farm and, one might add, the church and village. This
+sentiment differs, too, from the heron-sentiment, which serves to keep
+that bird with us in spite of the annual wail, rising occasionally in
+South Devon to a howl, of human trout-fishers. It is a traditional
+feeling coming down from the far past in England--from the time of
+William the Conqueror to that of William of Orange and the decay of
+falconry. That a species without any sentiment to favour it and without
+special protection by law may increase is to be seen in the case of the
+starling. This increase has come about automatically after we had
+destroyed the starling's natural enemies and then ceased to persecute it
+ourselves. Of all birds it was the most preyed on by certain raptorial
+species, especially by the sparrowhawk, which is now becoming so rare,
+assisted by the hobby (rarer still) and the merlin. It was more exposed
+than other birds to these enemies owing to its gregarious and feeding
+habits in grasslands and the open country, also to its slower flight.
+The greatest drain on the species, came, however, from man. The starling
+was a favourite bird for shooting-matches up till about thirty years
+ago, and was taken annually in large numbers by the bird-catchers for
+the purpose. It is probable that this use of the bird for sport caused
+people to eat it, and so common did the habit become that at the end of
+summer, or before the end, shooting starlings for the pot was practised
+everywhere. Old men in the country have told me that forty or fifty
+years ago it was common to hear people on the farms say that of all
+birds the starling was the best to eat.
+
+When starling and sparrow shooting-matches declined, the starling went
+out of favour as a table-bird, and from that time the species has been
+increasing. At present the rate of increase grows from year to year, and
+during the last decade the birds have colonized every portion of the
+north of Scotland and the islands, where the starling had previously
+been a rare visitor--a bird unknown to the people. Here in West Cornwall
+where I am writing this chapter the starling was only a winter visitor
+until recently. Eight years ago I could only find two pairs breeding in
+the villages--about twenty-five in number--in which I looked for them;
+in the summer of 1915 I found them breeding in every town and village I
+visited. At present, June, 1916, there are six pairs in the village I am
+staying at. It may be the case, and from conversations I have had with
+farmers about the bird I am inclined to believe it is so, that a strong
+feeling in favour of the starling (in the pastoral districts) is growing
+up at the present time, a feeling which in the end is more powerful to
+protect than any law; but such a feeling has not become general as yet,
+and consequently has had nothing to do with the extraordinary increase
+of the bird.
+
+The wood-pigeon is another species which, like the starling, has
+increased greatly in recent years, without special protection and with
+no sentiment in its favour. . . . The sentiment is all confined to the
+nature-lovers, whose words have no effect on the people generally, least
+of all on the farmers. I am reminded here of the experience of a young
+man, an ardent bird-lover, on his visit to a Yorkshire farm. His host,
+who was also a young man, took him a walk across his fields. It was a
+spring day of brilliant sunshine, and the air was full of the music of
+scores of soaring skylarks. The visitor long in cities pent, was
+exhilarated by the strains and kept on making exclamations of rapturous
+delight, "Just listen to the larks! Did you ever hear anything like it!"
+and so on.
+
+His host, his eyes cast down, trudged on in glum silence. Finally the
+young man, carried away by his enthusiasm, stopped and turning to his
+companion shouted, "Listen! Listen! Do you hear the larks?"
+
+"Oh, yes," drawled the other, looking more glum than ever, "I hear them
+fast enough. And I wish they were all dead!"
+
+So with the other charming species. The moan of doves in immemorial elms
+is a pleasing sound to the poets, but it does not prevent the farmers
+throughout the land from wishing them all dead; and every person who
+possesses a gun is glad to help in their massacre. For the bird is a
+pest and he who shoots it is doing something for England; furthermore,
+shooting it is first-rate sport, not like slaughtering wretched little
+sparrows or innocent young rooks just out of their windy cradles. And
+when shot it is a good table-bird, with as much tasty flesh on it as a
+woodcock or partridge.
+
+How, then can we account for the increase of such a species? One cause
+is undoubtedly to be found in the removal by gamekeepers of its three
+chief enemies--the carrion crow, magpie, and jay--all these three being
+great devourers of pigeon's eggs, which of all eggs are most conspicuous
+and open to attack. Then again the winter immigration of wood-pigeons
+from northern Europe appears to be on the increase, and it may be
+conjectured that a considerable number of these visitors remain annually
+to breed with us. There has also been an increase in the stockdove and
+turtle-dove in recent years, and the former species is extending its
+range in the north. The cause or causes of the increase of the
+turtledove are not far to seek. Its chief feathered enemies, the egg and
+fledgling robbers, are the same as the wood-pigeon's; moreover, the
+turtledove is least persecuted by man of our four pigeons, and being
+strictly migratory it quits the country before shooting-time begins; add
+to this that the turtle-dove has been specially protected under Sir
+Herbert Maxwell's Act of 1894 in a good number of English counties, from
+Surrey to Yorkshire.
+
+Of the stock-dove we can only say that, like the ring-dove, it has
+increased in spite of the persecution it is subject to, since no person
+out after pigeons would spare it because it is without a white collar.
+With the exception of the county of Buckinghamshire it is not on the
+schedule anywhere in the country. One can only suppose that this species
+has been indirectly benefited by the bird legislation and all that has
+been done to promote a feeling favourable to bird-preservation during
+the last thirty years.
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE DAW SENTIMENT
+
+
+I have spoken of the wood adjacent to the villages of Hayle and Lelant
+where the rooks, daws, and starlings of the neighbourhood have their
+winter roosting-place. This is at Trevelloe, the ancient estate of the
+Praeds, who now call themselves Tyringham. Here the daws congregate each
+evening in such numbers that a stranger to the district and to the local
+habits of the bird might imagine that all the cliff-breeding jackdaws in
+West Cornwall had come to roost at that spot. Yet the cliff-breeders,
+albeit abundant enough, are but a minority of the daw population of this
+district. The majority of these birds live and breed in the neighbouring
+villages and hamlets--St. Ives, Carbis Bay, Towadneck, Lelant, Phillack,
+Hayle, and others further away. It is a jackdaw metropolis and, as we
+have seen, every village receives its own quota of birds each morning, and
+there they spend the daylight hours and subsist on the waste food and on
+what they can steal, just as the semi-domestic raven and the kite did in
+former ages, from Roman times down to the seventeenth century.
+
+Early in May the winter congregation breaks up, the cliff-breeders going
+back to the rocks and the village birds to their chimneys, where they
+presently set about relining their old nests. There are plenty of places
+for all, since there are chimneys in almost every cottage where fires
+are never lighted, and as ventilation is not wanted in bedrooms the
+birds are allowed to bring in more materials each year, until the whole
+flue is filled up. Year by year the materials brought in, sink lower and
+lower until they rest on the closed iron register and change in time to
+a solid brown mould. Thus, however long-lived a daw may be--and there
+are probably more centenarians among the daws than among the human
+inhabitants of the villages--it is a rare thing for one to be disturbed
+in his tenancy.
+
+In the cottage opposite the one I was staying in, its owner, an old
+woman who had lived in it all her life, had recently died, aged
+eighty-seven.
+
+She was very feeble at the last, and one cold day when she could not
+leave her bed, the extraordinary idea occurred to some one of her people
+that it might be a good thing to light a fire in her room. The fireplace
+was examined and was found to have no flue, or that the flue had been
+filled with earth or cement. The village builder was called in, and with
+the aid of a man on the roof and poles and various implements he
+succeeded in extracting two or three barrow-loads of hard earth which
+had no doubt once been sticks, centuries ago, as the building was very
+ancient. No one had remembered that the daws had always occupied the
+same chimney; the old dame herself had seen them going in and out of it
+from her childhood, and her end was probably hastened by the disturbance
+made in cleaning it. Now she is gone the daws here are in possession of
+it once more.
+
+All through the month of May daws were to be seen about the village,
+dropping from time to time upon the chimney-pots where they had their
+nests and occasionally bringing some slight materials to form a new
+lining, but it was very rare to see one with a stick in his beak. The
+flues were already full of old sticks and no more were wanted. It was
+amusing to see a bird flying about, suddenly tumble out of the air on to
+a chimneypot, then with tail tipped up and wings closed, dive into the
+cavity below. One wondered how the young birds would be got out!
+
+Talking with the rector of the neighbouring parish of Phillack one day
+on this subject, he said, "Don't imagine that the daws restrict
+themselves to the chimneys where fires are not lighted. At all events it
+isn't so at Phillack. Perhaps we have too many daws in our village, but
+every year before lighting fires in the drawing and dining-rooms we have
+to call in a man with a pole to clear the flues out." He told me that a
+few years ago, one cold June day, a fire was lighted in the
+drawing-room, and as the smoke all poured out into the room a man was
+sent up to the roof with a pole to clear the obstruction out. Presently
+a mess of sticks came down and with them two fully-fledged young
+jackdaws, one dead, killed with the pole, the other sound and lively.
+This one they kept and it soon became quite tame; when able to fly it
+would go off and associate with the wild birds, but refused to leave
+the house until the following summer, when it found a mate and went away.
+
+The head keeper at Trevelloe, a remarkably vigorous and intelligent
+octogenarian who has been in his place over half a century, gave me some
+interesting information about the daws. He says they have greatly
+increased in recent years in this part of Cornwall because they are no
+longer molested; no person, he says, not even a game-keeper anxious
+about his pheasants, would think of shooting a jackdaw. But this is not
+because the bird has changed its habits. He is as great a pest as ever
+he was, and as an example of how bad jackdaws can be, he related the
+following incident told him by a friend of his, a head keeper on an
+estate adjoining a shooting his master took one year on the northwest
+coast of England. It happened that a big colony of daws existed within a
+mile or two of the preserves, and one day the keeper was called' away in
+a hurry and left the coops unattended for the best part of a day; it was
+the biggest mistake he had ever made and the chief disaster of his life.
+On his return he found that the daws had been before him and that all
+his precious chicks had been carried off. For several hours of that day
+there was a steady coming and going of birds between the cliffs and the
+coops, every daw going back with a chick in his beak for his hungry
+young in the nest.
+
+Yet my informant, this ancient and singularly intelligent old man, a
+gamekeeper all his life, who knows his jackdaw, could not tell me why
+gamekeepers no longer persecute so injurious a bird I He will not allow
+a sparrow-hawk to exist in his woods, yet all he could say when I
+repeated my question was, "No keeper ever thinks of hurting a jack now,
+but I can't say why."
+
+The reason of it I fancy is plain enough; it is simply the sentiment I
+have spoken of. In a small way it has always existed in certain places,
+in towns, where the jackdaw is associated in our minds with cathedrals
+and church towers--where he is the "ecclesiastical daw"; but the modern
+wider toleration is due to the character, the personality, of the bird
+itself, which is more or less like that of all the members of the
+corvine family, with the exception of the rook, who always tries his
+best to be an honest, useful citizen; but it is not precisely the same.
+They may be regarded as bad hats generally In the bird community, and on
+this very account--"I'm sorry to say," to quote Mr. Pecksniff--they
+touch a chord in us; and the daw being the genial rascal in feathers par
+excellence is naturally the best loved.
+
+It has thus come about that of all the Corvidae the daw is now the
+favourite as a pet bird, and in the domestic condition he is accorded
+more liberty than is given to other species. We think he makes better
+use of his freedom, that he does not lose touch with his human friends
+when allowed to fly about, and appears more capable of affection.
+
+Formerly, the raven and magpie came first as pets. The raven vanished as
+a pet, because like the goshawk, kite, and buzzard, he was extirpated in
+the interests of the game-preserver and hen-wife. The magpie was then
+first, and has only been recently ousted from that ancient, honourable
+position. The pie was a superior bird as a feathered pet in a cage; he
+is beautiful in shape and colour in his snow-white and metallic
+dark-green and purple-glossed plumage, and his long graduated tail.
+Moreover, he is a clever bird. To my mind there is no more fascinating
+species when I can find it in numbers, in places where it is not
+persecuted, and is accustomed to congregate at intervals, not as rooks
+and starlings do merely because they are gregarious, but purely for
+social purposes--to play and converse with one another. Its language at
+such times is so various as to be a surprise and delight to the
+listener; while its ways of amusing itself, its clowning and the little
+tricks and practical jokes the birds are continually playing on each
+other, are a delight to witness. All this is lost in a caged bird. He is
+handsome to look at and remarkably intelligent, but he distinguishes
+between magpies and men; he doesn't reveal himself; his accomplishments,
+vocal and mental, are for his own tribe. In this he differs from the
+daw; for the daw is less specialized; he is an undersized common crow,
+livelier, more impish than that bird, also more plastic, more adaptive,
+and takes more kindly to the domestic or parasitic life. Human beings to
+him are simply larger daws, and unlike the pie he can play his tricks
+and be himself among them as freely as when with his feathered comrades.
+We like him best because he makes himself one of us.
+
+Undoubtedly the chough comes nearest to the daw mentally, and as it is a
+far more beautiful bird--the poor daw having little of that quality--it
+would probably have been our prime favourite among the crows but for its
+rarity. Formerly it was a common pet bird, caged or free, in all the
+coast districts where it inhabited, and it may be that the desire for a
+pet chough was the cause of its decline and final disappearance all
+round the south and west coasts of England, except at one spot near
+Tintagel where half a dozen pairs still exist only because watchers
+appointed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are always on
+the spot to warn off the nest-robbers during the breeding season. But of
+the chough in captivity or as a domesticated bird we know little now, as
+no records have been preserved. I have only known one bird, taken from a
+North Devon cliff about forty years ago, at a house near the coast; a
+very beautiful pet bird with charming, affectionate ways, always free to
+range about the country and the cliffs, where it associated with the
+daws. It was the last of its kind at that place, and I do not know if it
+still lives.
+
+Next to the chough the jay comes nearest to the daw mentally of all our
+crows, and as he excels most of our wild birds in beauty he would
+naturally have been a first favourite as a pet but for the fact that it
+is only in a state of nature in which he is like the daw--lively,
+clever, impish; in captivity he is more like the magpie and affiliates
+even less than that bird with his human associates. In confinement he is
+a quiet, almost sedate, certainly a silent bird: He is essentially a
+woodland species; all his graces, his various, often musical, language,
+with many imitations of bird and animal sounds, and his spectacular
+games and pretty wing displays, are for his own people exclusively. He
+must have his liberty in the woods and a company of his fellow-jays to
+exhibit his full lustre.
+
+The difference between jay and daw is similar to that between fox and
+dog; or rather let us say, between one of the small desert foxes of
+Syria and Egypt--the fennec, for instance--and the jackal, the domestic
+dog's progenitor; the first gifted with exquisite grace and beauty, was
+too highly specialized to suit the domestic condition; hence the
+generalized un-beautiful beast was chosen to be man's servant and
+companion. In the same way it looks as if we were taking to the daw in
+preference to the more beautiful bird because he is more like us, or
+understands us better, or adapts himself more readily to our way of
+life.
+
+I believe that about nine out of every ten interesting and amusing
+stories about charming pet birds I have heard in England during the last
+quarter of a century relate to the daw, and this, I think, goes to show
+that he is a prime favourite as a feathered pet, at all events in the
+southern and western counties.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+STORY OF A JACKDAW
+
+
+When I laid my pen down after concluding Part V it pleased me to think
+that I had written the last word, that, my task finished, I was free to
+go on to something else. But I was not yet wholly free of the jackdaws;
+their yelping cries were still ringing in my mental ears, and their
+remembered shapes were still all about me in their black dress, or
+cassock, grey hood, and malicious little grey eyes. The persistent
+images suggested that my task was not properly finished after all, that
+it would be better to conclude with one of those anecdotes or stories of
+the domesticated bird which I have said are so common; also that this
+should be a typical story, which would serve to illustrate the peculiar
+daw sentiment--the affectionate interest we take in him, not only in
+spite of his impudence and impishness and naughtiness, but also to some
+extent because of these same qualities, which find an echo in us.
+Accordingly I set myself to recall some of the latest anecdotes of this
+kind which I had heard, and selected the one which follows, not because
+it was more interesting as a daw story than the others, but mainly on
+account of the shrewd and humorous and dramatic way in which it was
+related to me by a little boy of the working class.
+
+I met him on a bright Sunday morning at the end of June in the park-like
+grounds of Walmer Castle. I had not long been seated on a garden bench
+when a daw came flying to a tree close by and began craning her neck and
+eyeing me with one eye, then the other, with an intense, almost painful
+curiosity; and these nervous movements and gestures immediately revealed
+to me that she had a nestful of young birds somewhere close by. After
+changing her position several times to view me from other points and
+find out what I was there for, she came to the conclusion that I was not
+to be got rid of, and making a sudden dash to a tree standing just
+before me, disappeared in a small hole or cleft in the trunk about
+forty-five feet above the ground, and in a few seconds came out again
+and flew swiftly away. In four or five minutes she returned, and after
+eyeing me suspiciously a short time flew again to the tree and,
+vanishing from sight in the hole, remained there.  I was intently
+watching that small black spot in the bark to see her emerge, when a
+little boy came slowly sauntering past my bench, and glancing at him I
+found that his shrewd brown eyes were watching my face and that he had a
+knowing half-smile on his lips.
+
+"Hullo, my boy!" I said. "I can see plainly enough what is in _your_
+mind. You know I'm watching a hole in the tree where a jackdaw has just
+gone in, and your intention is, when no one is about, to swarm up the
+tree and get the young birds."
+
+"Oh, no," he returned. "I'm not going to climb the tree and don't want
+any young jackdaws. I always come to look because the birds breed in
+that hole every year. Two years ago I had a bird from the nest, but I
+don't want another."
+
+Then at my invitation he sat down to tell me about it. One morning when
+he came the young had just come off, and he found one squatting on the
+ground under the trees, looking stupefied. No doubt when it flew out it
+had struck against a trunk or branch and come down bruised and stunned.
+
+He wrapped it up in a handkerchief and took it home to Deal and put it
+in a box; then mother got some flannel and made a sort of bed for it,
+and warmed some milk and they opened its beak and fed it with a
+teaspoon. Next day it was all right and opened its beak to be fed
+whenever they came near it, and in two or three days it began flying
+about the room and perching on their shoulders. Then he brought it back
+to Walmer and let it go and saw it fly off into the trees, but when he
+got home mother scolded him for having let it go when its parents were
+not about; she said it would die of starvation, and was going on at him
+when in flew the jackdaw and came flop on her shoulder! After that
+mother and father said they'd keep the daw a little longer, and then he
+could let it go at a distance where there were other daws about. By and
+by they said they'd let it stay where it was. Father liked a bloater for
+his tea, and there was nothing the jackdaw was fonder of, so he was
+always on the table at tea-time, eating out of father's plate. Then he
+got to be troublesome. He was always watching for a door or window of
+the parlour to be opened to let the air in, and that was the room mother
+was so careful about, and every time he got in he'd fly straight to the
+mantelpiece, which was covered with photographs and ornaments. They were
+mostly those little things--pigs and dogs and parrots and all sorts of
+animals made of glass and china, and the jackdaw would begin to pick
+them up and throw them down on to the fender, and of course he broke a
+lot of them. That made mother mad, and she scolded him and told him to
+get rid of the bird. So he wrapped it up so as it shouldn't know where
+it was going and went off two or three miles along the coast, and let it
+go where there were other daws.  It flew off and joined them, and he
+came home. That afternoon Jackie came back, and they wondered how he had
+found his way. Father said 'twas plain enough, that the bird had just
+followed the coast till he got back to Deal, and there he was at home.
+He said the only way to lose it was to take it somewhere away from the
+sea; so he wrapped it up again and took it to his Aunt Ellen's at
+Northbourne, about five miles from Deal.  His aunt told him to carry
+it to the park, where he'd find other daws and settle down. And that's
+what he did, but Jackie came back to Deal again that same day; the
+strangest thing was that mother and father made a great fuss over it and
+fed it just as if they were glad to have it back. Next day it got into
+the parlour and broke some more things, and mother scolded him for not
+getting rid of the bird, and father said he knew how it could be done.
+One of his pals was going to Dover, and he would ask him to take the
+bird and let it go up by the castle where it would mix with the jackdaws
+there, and that would be too far away for it to come back. But it did
+come back, and after that he sent it to Ashford, and then to Canterbury,
+and I don't know how many other places, but it always came back, and
+they always seemed very glad to see it back. All the same, mother was
+always scolding him about the bird and complaining to father about the
+damage it did in the house. Then one day Aunt Ellen came to see mother,
+and told her the best way to get rid of the daw would be to send it
+abroad; she said her husband's cousin, Mr. Sturge, was going out to his
+relations in Canada to work on their farm, and she would get
+her husband to ask him to take the jackdaw. It would never come back
+from such a distant place. A week afterwards Mr. Sturge sent word that
+he would take the bird, as he thought his relations would like to have a
+real old English jackdaw to remind them of home. So one day Aunt Ellen
+came and took Jackie away in a small covered basket. The funniest thing
+was the way father went on when he came home to tea. "A bloater with a
+soft roe," he says; "just what Jackie likes! Where's the bird got to?
+Come to your tea, Jackie!"
+
+"He's gone," says mother, "gone to Canada, and a good riddance, too!"
+
+"Oh, gone, has he?" says father. "Then we're a happy family and going to
+lead a quiet life. No more screams and tears over broken chiny dolls!
+And if ever Billy brings another jackdaw into the house we'll dust his
+coat for him."
+
+Here Billy interposed to say that if he ever made such a mistake again
+they could thrash him as much as they liked.
+
+"Oh, yes," said father, "we'll thrash you fast enough; mother'll do it
+for the sake of her chiny toys and dolls."
+
+That put mother up. "You're in a nasty temper," she says, "but you know
+I miss the bird as much as you do!"
+
+"Then," said father, "why the devil didn't you tell that sister of yours
+to mind her own business when she came interfering about my jackdaw! And
+that Sturge, he'll soon get tired of the bird and give it away for a
+pint of beer before he gets to Liverpool."
+
+"So much the better," says mother. "If Jackie can get free before they
+take him aboard you may be sure he'll find his way back to Deal."
+
+And that's what they went on hoping for days and days; but Jackie never
+came back, so I s'pose Mr. Sturge took him out all right and that he's
+in Canada now.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Birds in Town and Village, by W. H. Hudson
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+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds in Town and Village, by W. H. Hudson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: Birds in Town and Village
+
+Author: W. H. Hudson
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7353]
+Last Updated: November 17, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+    <p>
+      <a name="linkgold" id="linkgold"></a> <img src="images/hudson-birds-1.jpg"
+      alt="hudson-birds-1.jpg" width="472" height="744" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      GOLDFINCH AND BLUE TIT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "The desire for the companionship of birds."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h1>
+      BIRDS IN TOWN &amp; VILLAGE
+    </h1>
+    <h3>
+      BY
+    </h3>
+    <h2>
+      W. H. HUDSON,
+    </h2>
+    <h4>
+      F.Z.S.
+    </h4>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        AUTHOR OF "THE PURPLE LAND," "IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA," "FAR AWAY AND
+        LONG AGO," ETC.
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-2.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-2.jpg" width="126"
+      height="105" />
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        WITH PICTURES IN COLOUR
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        BY
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        E. J. DETMOLD
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        NEW YORK
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        COPYRIGHT, 1920 By E. P. DUTTON &amp; COMPANY
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      PREFACE
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      THIS book is more than a mere reprint of <i>Birds in a Village</i> first
+      published in 1893. That was my first book about bird life, with some
+      impressions of rural scenes, in England; and, as is often the case with a
+      first book, its author has continued to cherish a certain affection for
+      it. On this account it pleased me when its turn came to be reissued, since
+      this gave me the opportunity of mending some faults in the portions
+      retained and of throwing out a good deal of matter which appeared to me
+      not worth keeping.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The first portion, "Birds in a Village," has been mostly rewritten with
+      some fresh matter added, mainly later observations and incidents
+      introduced in illustration of the various subjects discussed. For the
+      concluding portion of the old book, which has been discarded, I have
+      substituted entirely new matter-the part entitled "Birds in a Cornish
+      Village."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      vi P R E F A C E
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between these two long parts there are five shorter essays which I have
+      retained with little alteration, and these in one or two instances are
+      consequently out of date, especially in what was said with bitterness in
+      the essay on "Exotic Birds for Britain" anent the feather-wearing fashion
+      and of the London trade in dead birds and the refusal of women at that
+      time to help us in trying to save the beautiful wild bird life of this
+      country and of the world generally from extermination. Happily, the last
+      twenty years of the life and work of the Royal Society for the Protection
+      of Birds have changed all that, and it would not now be too much to say
+      that all right-thinking persons in this country, men and women, are
+      anxious to see the end of this iniquitous traffic.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      W. H. H.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      September, 1919.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      CONTENTS
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <b>BIRDS IN A VILLAGE:&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;PAGE</b>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkI">I. .......... 1</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkII">II. .......... 6</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkIII">III. .......... 18</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkIV">IV. .......... 36</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkV">V. .......... 50</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkVI">VI. .......... 73</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkVII">VII. .......... 86</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkVIII">VIII. .......... 107</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkIX">IX.. .......... 121</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkX">X. .......... 148</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkXI">XI. .......... 153</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link161">EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN ...... 161</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link192">MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK . . . . . .192</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link206">THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY ..... 206</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link222">CHANTICLEER . . . . . . . . .222</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link243">IN AN OLD GARDEN ........ 243</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkcornish">BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE:</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link265">I. TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS . . . 265</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link275">II. DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE? . . 275</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link287">III. VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER . . . 287</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link295">IV. INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN . . 295</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link305">V. THE DAW SENTIMENT ..... 305</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link316">VI. STORY OF A JACKDAW ..... 316</a>
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <b>LIST OF COLORED ILLUSTRATIONS</b>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#linkgold">Goldfinch and Blue Tit . . . Frontispiece</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link10">Nightingale ..........10</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link24">Jay ............ 24.</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link40">Wren ........... 40</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link60">Song Thrush and Long-Tailed Tit . . . . .60</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link138">Skylark ........... 138</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link174">Heron ........... 174</a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <a href="#link196">Moorhen ........... 196</a>
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h2>
+      BIRDS IN TOWN &amp; VILLAGE
+    </h2>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkI" id="linkI"></a> <img src="images/hudson-birds-3.jpg"
+      alt="hudson-birds-3.jpg" width="399" height="170" />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE I
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      ABOUT the middle of last May, after a rough and cold period, there came a
+      spell of brilliant weather, reviving in me the old spring feeling, the
+      passion for wild nature, the desire for the companionship of birds; and I
+      betook myself to St. James's Park for the sake of such satisfaction as may
+      be had from watching and feeding the fowls, wild and semi-wild, found
+      gathered at that favored spot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was glad to observe a couple of those new colonists of the ornamental
+      water, the dabchicks, and to renew my acquaintance with the familiar,
+      long-established moorhens. One of them was engaged in building its nest in
+      an elm-tree grow-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      2 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ing at the water's edge. I saw it make two journeys with large wisps of
+      dry grass in its beak, running up the rough, slanting trunk to a height of
+      sixteen to seventeen feet, and disappearing within the "brushwood sheaf"
+      that springs from the bole at that distance from the roots. The
+      wood-pigeons were much more numerous, also more eager to be fed. They
+      seemed to understand very quickly that my bread and grain was for them and
+      not the sparrows; but although they stationed themselves close to me, the
+      little robbers we were jointly trying to outwit managed to get some pieces
+      of bread by flying up and catching them before they touched the sward.
+      This little comedy over, I visited the water-fowl, ducks of many kinds,
+      sheldrakes, geese from many lands, swans black, and swans white. To see
+      birds in prison during the spring mood of which I have spoken is not only
+      no satisfaction but a positive pain; here--albeit without that large
+      liberty that nature gives, they are free in a measure; and swimming and
+      diving or dozing in the sunshine, with the blue sky above them, they are
+      perhaps unconscious of any restraint. Walking along the margin I noticed
+      three children some yards ahead
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 3
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      of me; two were quite small, but the third, in whose charge the others
+      were, was a robust-looking girl, aged about ten or eleven years. From
+      their dress and appearance I took them to be the children of a respectable
+      artisan or small tradesman; but what chiefly attracted my attention was
+      the very great pleasure the elder girl appeared to take in the birds. She
+      had come well provided with stale bread to feed them, and after giving
+      moderately of her store to the wood-pigeons and sparrows, she went on to
+      the others, native and exotic, that were disporting themselves in the
+      water, or sunning themselves on the green bank. She did not cast her bread
+      on the water in the manner usual with visitors, but was anxious to feed
+      all the different species, or as many as she could attract to her, and
+      appeared satisfied when any one individual of a particular kind got a
+      fragment of her bread. Meanwhile she talked eagerly to the little ones,
+      calling their attention to the different birds. Drawing near, I also
+      became an interested listener; and then, in answer to my questions, she
+      began telling me what all these strange fowls were. "This," she said, glad
+      to give information, "is the Canadian goose, and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      4 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      there is the Egyptian goose; and here is the king-duck coming towards us;
+      and do you see that large, beautiful bird standing by itself, that will
+      not come to be fed? That is the golden duck. But that is not its real
+      name; I don't know them all, and so I name some for myself. I call that
+      one the golden duck because in the sun its feathers sometimes shine like
+      gold." It was a rare pleasure to listen to her, and seeing what sort of a
+      girl she was, and how much in love with her subject, I in my turn told her
+      a great deal about the birds before us, also of other birds she had never
+      seen nor heard of, in other and distant lands that have a nobler bird life
+      than ours; and after she had listened eagerly for some minutes, and had
+      then been silent a little while, she all at once pressed her two hands
+      together, and exclaimed rapturously, "Oh, I do so love the birds!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I replied that that was not strange, since it is impossible for us not to
+      love whatever is lovely, and of all living things birds were made most
+      beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then I walked away, but could not forget the words she had exclaimed, her
+      whole appearance,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 5
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the face flushed with color, the eloquent brown eyes sparkling, the
+      pressed palms, the sudden spontaneous passion of delight and desire in her
+      tone. The picture was in my mind all that day, and lived through the next,
+      and so wrought on me that I could not longer keep away from the birds,
+      which I, too, loved; for now all at once it seemed to me that life was not
+      life without them; that I was grown sick, and all my senses dim; that only
+      the wished sight of wild birds could medicine my vision; that only by
+      drenching it in their wild melody could my tired brain recover its lost
+      vigour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-4.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-4.jpg" width="90"
+      height="99" /> <a name="linkII" id="linkII"></a>
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      II
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      AFTER wandering somewhat aimlessly about the country for a couple of days,
+      I stumbled by chance on just such a spot as I had been wishing to find--a
+      rustic village not too far away. It was not more than twenty-five minutes'
+      walk from a small station, less than one hour by rail from London.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The way to the village was through cornfields, bordered by hedges and rows
+      of majestic elms. Beyond it, but quite near, there was a wood, principally
+      of beech, over a mile in length, with a public path running through it. On
+      the right hand, ten minutes' walk from the village, there was a long green
+      hill, the ascent to which was gentle; but on the further side it sloped
+      abruptly down to the Thames.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the left hand there was another hill, with cottages and orchards, with
+      small fields interspersed on the slope and summit, so that the
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      6
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 7
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      middle part, where I lodged, was in a pretty deep hollow. There was no
+      sound of traffic there, and few farmers' carts came that way, as it was
+      well away from the roads, and the deep, narrow, winding lanes were
+      exceedingly rough, like the stony beds of dried-up streams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the deepest part of the coombe, in the middle of the village, there was
+      a well where the cottagers drew their water; and in the summer evenings
+      the youths and maidens came there, with or without jugs and buckets, to
+      indulge in conversation, which was mostly of the rustic, bantering kind,
+      mixed with a good deal of loud laughter. Close by was the inn, where the
+      men sat on benches in the tap-room in grave discourse over their pipes and
+      beer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Wishing to make their acquaintance, I went in and sat down among them, and
+      found them a little shy--not to say stand-offish, at first. Rustics are
+      often suspicious of the stranger within their gates; but after paying for
+      beer all round, the frost melted and we were soon deep in talk about the
+      wild life of the place; always a safe and pleasant subject in a village.
+      One rough-looking, brown-faced man, with iron-grey hair,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      8 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      became a sort of spokesman for the company, and replied to most of my
+      questions.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "And what about badgers?" I asked. "In such a rough-looking spot with
+      woods and all, it strikes me as just the sort of place where one would
+      find that animal."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A long dead silence followed. I caught the eye of the man nearest me and
+      repeated the question, "Are there no badgers here?" His eyes fell, then he
+      exchanged glances with some of the others, all very serious; and at length
+      my man, addressing the person who had acted as spokesman before, said,
+      "Perhaps you'll tell the gentleman if there are any badgers here."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At that the rough man looked at me very sharply, and answered stiffly,
+      "Not as I know of."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few weeks later, at a small town in the neighbourhood, I got into
+      conversation with a hotel keeper, an intelligent man, who gave me a good
+      deal of information about the country. He asked me where I was staying,
+      and, on my telling him, said "Ah, I know it well--that village in a hole;
+      and a very nasty hole to get in, too--at any rate it was so, formerly.
+      They are getting a bit civilized now, but I remember the, time
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 9
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      when a stranger couldn't show himself in the place without being jeered at
+      and insulted. Yes, they were a rough lot down in that hole--the Badgers,
+      they were called, and that's what they are called still."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The pity of it was that I didn't know this before I went among them! But
+      it was not remembered against me that I had wounded their
+      susceptibilities; they soon found that I was nothing but a harmless field
+      naturalist, and I had friendly relations with many of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the extremity of the straggling village was the beginning of an
+      extensive common, where it was always possible to spend an hour or two
+      without seeing a human creature. A few sheep grazed and browsed there,
+      roaming about in twos and threes and half-dozens, tearing their fleeces
+      for the benefit of nest-building birds, in the great tangled masses of
+      mingled furze and bramble and briar. Birds were abundant there--all those
+      kinds that love the common's openness, and the rough, thorny vegetation
+      that flourishes on it. But the village--or rather, the large open space
+      occupied by it, formed the headquarters and centre of a paradise of birds
+      (as I soon began to think
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      10 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      it), for the cottages and houses were widely separated, the meanest having
+      a garden and some trees, and in most cases there was an old orchard of
+      apple, cherry, and walnut trees to each habitation, and out of this mass
+      of greenery, which hid the houses and made the place look more like a wood
+      than a village, towered the great elms in rows, and in groups.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On first approaching the place I heard, mingled with many other voices,
+      that of the nightingale; and as it was for the medicine of its pure, fresh
+      melody that I particularly craved, I was glad to find a lodging in one of
+      the cottages, and to remain there for several weeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The small care which the nightingale took to live up to his reputation in
+      this place surprised me a little. Here he could always be heard in the
+      daytime--not one bird, but a dozen--in different parts of the village; but
+      he sang not at night. This I set down to the fact that the nights were
+      dark and the weather unsettled. But later, when the weather grew warmer,
+      and there were brilliant moonlight nights, he was still a silent bird
+      except by day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was also a little surprised at his tameness.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link10" id="link10"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-5.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-5.jpg" width="407"
+      height="671" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      NIGHTINGALE.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "the medicine of its pure, fresh melody"
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 11
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On first coming to the village, when I ran after every nightingale I
+      heard, to get as near him as possible, I was occasionally led by the sound
+      to a cottage, and in some instances I found the singer perched within
+      three or four yards of an open window or door. At my own cottage, when the
+      woman who waited on me shook the breakfast cloth at the front door, the
+      bird that came to pick up the crumbs was the nightingale--not the robin.
+      When by chance he met a sparrow there, he attacked and chased it away. It
+      was a feast of nightingales. An elderly woman of the village explained to
+      me that the nightingales and other small birds were common and tame in the
+      village, because no person disturbed them. I smile now when recording the
+      good old dame's words.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On my second day at the village it happened to be raining--a warm,
+      mizzling rain without wind--ind the nightingales were as vocal as in fine
+      bright weather. I heard one in a narrow lane, and went towards it,
+      treading softly, in order not to scare it away, until I got within eight
+      or ten yards of it, as it sat on a dead projecting twig. This was a twig
+      of a low thorn
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      12 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      tree growing up from the hedge, projecting through the foliage, and the
+      bird, perched near its end, sat only about five feet above the bare ground
+      of the lane. Now, I owe my best thanks to this individual nightingale, for
+      sharply calling to my mind a common pestilent delusion, which I have
+      always hated, but had never yet raised my voice against--namely, that all
+      wild creatures exist in constant fear of an attack from the numberless
+      subtle or powerful enemies that are always waiting and watching for an
+      opportunity to spring upon and destroy them. The truth is, that although
+      their enemies be legion, and that every day, and even several times on
+      each day, they may be threatened with destruction, they are absolutely
+      free from apprehension, except when in the immediate presence of danger.
+      Suspicious they may be at times, and the suspicion may cause them to
+      remove themselves to a greater distance from the object that excites it;
+      but the emotion is so slight, the action so almost automatic, that the
+      singing bird will fly to another bush a dozen yards away, and at once
+      resume his interrupted song. Again, a bird will see the deadliest enemy of
+      its kind, and unless it be so
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 13
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      close as to actually threaten his life, he will regard it with the
+      greatest indifference or will only be moved to anger at its presence. Here
+      was this nightingale singing in the rain, seeing but not heeding me; while
+      beneath the hedge, almost directly under the twig it sat on, a black cat
+      was watching it with luminous yellow eyes. I did not see the cat at first,
+      but have no doubt that the nightingale had seen and knew that it was
+      there. High up on the tops of the thorn, a couple of sparrows were
+      silently perched. Perhaps, like myself, they had come there to listen.
+      After I had been standing motionless, drinking in that dulcet music for at
+      least five minutes, one of the two sparrows dropped from the perch
+      straight down, and alighting on the bare wet ground directly under the
+      nightingale, began busily pecking at something eatable it had discovered.
+      No sooner had he begun pecking than out leaped the concealed cat on to
+      him. The sparrow fluttered wildly up from beneath or between the claws,
+      and escaped, as if by a miracle. The cat raised itself up, glared round,
+      and, catching sight of me close by, sprang back into the hedge and was
+      gone. But all this time
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      14 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the exposed nightingale, perched only five feet above the spot where the
+      attack had been made and the sparrow had so nearly lost his life, had
+      continued singing; and he sang on for some minutes after. I suppose that
+      he had seen the cat before, and knew instinctively that he was beyond its
+      reach; that it was a terrestrial, not an aerial enemy, and so feared it
+      not at all; and he would, perhaps, have continued singing if the sparrow
+      had been caught and instantly killed.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Quite early in June I began to feel just a little cross with the
+      nightingales, for they almost ceased singing; and considering that the
+      spring had been a backward one, it seemed to me that their silence was
+      coming too soon. I was not sufficiently regardful of the fact that their
+      lays are solitary, as the poet has said; that they ask for no witness of
+      their song, nor thirst for human praise. They were all nesting now. But if
+      I heard them less, I saw much more of them, especially of one individual,
+      the male bird of a couple that had made their nest in a hedge a stone's
+      throw from the cottage. A favourite morning perch of this bird was on a
+      small wooden gate four or five yards away from my window. It was an open,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 15
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      sunny spot, where his restless, bright eyes could sweep the lane, up and
+      down; and he could there also give vent to his superfluous energy by
+      lording it over a few sparrows and other small birds that visited the
+      spot. I greatly admired the fine, alert figure of the pugnacious little
+      creature, as he perched there so close to me, and so fearless. His
+      striking resemblance to the robin in form, size, and in his motions, made
+      his extreme familiarity seem only natural. The robin is greatly
+      distinguished in a sober-plumaged company by the vivid tint on his breast.
+      He is like the autumn leaf that catches a ray of sunlight on its surface,
+      and shines conspicuously among russet leaves. But the clear brown of the
+      nightingale is beautiful, too.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This same nightingale was keeping a little surprise in store for me.
+      Although he took no notice of me sitting at the open window, whenever I
+      went thirty or forty yards from the gate along the narrow lane that faced
+      it, my presence troubled him and his mate only too much. They would flit
+      round my head, emitting the two strongly contrasted sounds with which they
+      express solicitude--the clear, thin, plaintive, or
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      16 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      wailing note, and the low, jarring sound--an alternate lamenting and
+      girding. One day when I approached the nest, they displayed more anxiety
+      than usual, fluttering close to me, wailing and croaking more vehemently
+      than ever, when all at once the male, at the height of his excitement,
+      burst into singing. Half a dozen notes were uttered rapidly, with great
+      strength, then a small complaining cry again, and at intervals, a fresh
+      burst of melody. I have remarked the same thing in other singing birds,
+      species in which the harsh grating or piercing sounds that properly
+      express violent emotions of a painful kind, have been nearly or quite
+      lost. In the nightingale, this part of the bird's language has lost its
+      original character, and has dwindled to something very small. Solicitude,
+      fear, anger, are expressed with sounds that are mere lispings compared
+      with those emitted by the bird when singing. It is worthy of remark that
+      some of the most highly developed melodists--and I am now thinking of the
+      mocking-birds--never, in -moments of extreme agitation, fall into this
+      confusion and use singing notes that express agreeable emotions, to
+      express such as are painful. But in the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 17
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      mocking-bird the primitive harsh and grating cries have not been lost nor
+      softened to sounds hardly to be distinguished from those that are emitted
+      by way of song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-6.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-6.jpg" width="143"
+      height="102" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkIII" id="linkIII"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      BY this time all the birds were breeding, some already breeding a second
+      time. And now I began to suspect that they were not quite so undisturbed
+      as the old dame had led me to believe; that they had not found a paradise
+      in the village after all. One morning, as I moved softly along the hedge
+      in my nightingale's lane, all at once I heard, in the old grassy orchard,
+      to which it formed a boundary, swishing sounds of scuttling feet and
+      half-suppressed exclamations of alarm; then a crushing through the hedge,
+      and out, almost at my feet, rushed and leaped and tumbled half-a-dozen
+      urchins, who had suddenly been frightened from a bird-nesting raid.
+      Clothes torn, hands and faces scratched with thorns, hat-less, their
+      tow-coloured hair all disordered or standing up like a white crest above
+      their brown faces, rounded eyes staring--what an extraordinarily wild
+      appearance they had! I was back
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      18
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 19
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      in very old times, in the Britain of a thousand years before the coming of
+      the Romans, and these were her young barbarians, learning their life's
+      business in little things.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No, the birds of the village were not undisturbed while breeding; but
+      happily the young savages never found my nightingale's nest. One day the
+      bird came to the gate as usual, and was more alert and pugnacious than
+      ever; and no wonder, for his mate came too, and with them four young
+      birds. For a week they were about the cottage every day, when they
+      dispersed, and one beautiful bright morning the male bird, in his old
+      place near my window, attempted to sing, beginning with that rich,
+      melodious throbbing, which is usually called "<i>jugging</i>," and
+      following with half-a-dozen beautiful notes. That was all. It was July,
+      and I heard no more music from him or from any other of his kind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have perhaps written at too great length of this bird. The nightingale
+      was after all only one of the fifty-nine species I succeeded in identify-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      20 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ing during my sojourn at the village. There were more. I heard the calls
+      and cries of others in the wood and various places, but refused, except in
+      the case of the too elusive crake, to set down any in my list that I did
+      not see. It was not my ambition to make a long list. My greatest desire
+      was to see well those that interested me most. But those who go forth, as
+      I did, to look for birds that are a sight for sore eyes, must meet with
+      many a disappointment. In all those fruit and shade trees that covered the
+      village with a cloud of verdure, and in the neighbouring woods, not once
+      did I catch a glimpse of the green woodpecker, a beautiful conspicuous
+      bird, supposed to be increasing in many places in England. Its absence
+      from so promising a locality seemed strange. Another species, also said to
+      be increasing in the country--the turtledove, was extremely abundant. In
+      the tall beech woods its low, monotonous crooning note was heard all day
+      long from all sides. In shady places, where the loud, shrill bird-voices
+      are few, one prefers this sound to the set song of the woodpigeon, being
+      more continuous and soothing, and of the nature of a lullaby. It sometimes
+      reminded me of the low monotone I
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 21
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      have heard from a Patagonian mother when singing her "swart papoose" to
+      sleep. Still, I would gladly have spared many of these woodland crooners
+      for the sake of one magpie--that bird of fine feathers and a bright mind,
+      which I had not looked on for a whole year, and now hoped to see again.
+      But he was not there; and after I had looked for myself, some of the
+      natives assured me that no magpie had been seen for years in that wood.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For a time I feared that I was to be just as unlucky with regard to the
+      jay, seeing that the owner of the extensive beech woods adjoining the
+      village permitted his keeper to kill the most interesting birds in
+      it--kestrels and sparrowhawks, owls, jays, and magpies. He was a new man,
+      comparatively, in the place, and wanted to increase his preserves, but to
+      do this it was necessary first to exclude the villagers--the Badgers, who
+      were no doubt partial to pheasants' eggs. Now, to close an ancient
+      right-of-way is a ticklish business, and this was an important one, seeing
+      that the village women did their Saturday marketing in the town beyond the
+      wood and river, and with the path closed they would have two miles
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      22 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      further to walk. The new lord wisely took this into consideration, and set
+      himself to win the goodwill of the people before attempting any strong
+      measures. He walked in the lanes and was affable to the cottage women and
+      nice to the children, and by and bye he exclaimed, "What! No institute! no
+      hall, or any place where you can meet and spend the long winter evenings?
+      Well, I'll soon see to that." And soon, to their delight, they had a nice
+      building reared on a piece of land which he bought for the purpose,
+      furnished with tables, chairs, bagatelle boards, and all accessories; and
+      he also supplied them with newspapers and magazines. He was immensely
+      popular, but appeared to think little of what he had done. When they
+      expressed their gratitude to him he would move his hand, and answer, "Oh,
+      I'm going to do a great deal more than that for you!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few months went by, then he caused a notice to be put up about the
+      neighbourhood that the path through the wood was going to be closed "by
+      order." No one took any notice, and a few weeks later his workmen appeared
+      on the scene and erected a huge oakwood barrier across the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 23
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      path; also a notice on a board that the wood was strictly private and
+      trespassers would be prosecuted. The villagers met in force at the
+      institute and the inn that evening, and after discussing the matter over
+      their ale, they armed themselves with axes and went in a body and
+      demolished the barrier.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The owner was disgusted, but took no action. "This," he said, "is their
+      gratitude"; and from that day he ceased to subscribe to the local
+      charities or take his walks in the village. He had given the institute,
+      and so could not pull it down nor prevent them from using it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was refreshing to hear that the Badgers had shown a proper spirit in
+      the matter, and I was grateful to them for having kept the right-of-way,
+      as on most days I spent several hours in the beautiful woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To return to the jay. In spite of the keeper's persecution, I knew that he
+      was there; every morning when I got up to look out of the window between
+      four and five o'clock, I heard from some quarter of the village that
+      curious subdued, but far-reaching, scolding note he is accustomed to utter
+      when his suspicions have been aroused.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      24 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That was the jay's custom--to come from the woods before even the earliest
+      risers were up, and forage in the village. By and bye I discovered that,
+      by lying motionless for an hour or so on the dry moss in the wood, he
+      would at length grow so bold as to allow himself to be seen, but high up
+      among the topmost branches. Then, by means of my binocular, I had the wild
+      thing on my thumb, so to speak, exhibiting himself to me, inquisitive,
+      perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns, as he flirted wings and tail,
+      lifted and lowered his crest, glancing down with bright, wild eyes. What a
+      beautiful hypocrisy and delightful power this is which enables us, sitting
+      or lying motionless, feigning sleep perhaps, thus to fool this wild,
+      elusive creature, and bring all its cunning to naught! He is so much
+      smaller and keener-sighted, able to fly, to perch far up above me, to
+      shift his position every minute or two, masking his small figure with this
+      or that tuft of leaves, while still keeping his eyes on me--in spite of it
+      all to have him so close, and without moving or taking any trouble, to see
+      him so much better than he can see me! But this is a legitimate trickery
+      of science, so innocent that we
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link24" id="link24"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-7.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-7.jpg" width="421"
+      height="679" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      JAY.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      . inquisitive, perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 25
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      can laugh at our dupe when we practise it; nor do we afterwards despise
+      our superior cunning and feel ashamed, as when we slaughter wild birds
+      with far-reaching shot, which they cannot escape.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All these corvine birds, which the gamekeeper pursues so relentlessly,
+      albeit they were before him, killing when they killed to better purpose;
+      and, let us hope, will exist after him--all these must greatly surpass
+      other kinds in sagacity to have escaped extermination. In the present
+      condition of things, the jay is perhaps the best off, on account of his
+      smaller size and less conspicuous colouring; but whether more cunning than
+      the crow or magpie or not, in perpetual alertness and restless energy or
+      intensity of life, he is without an equal among British birds. And this
+      quality forms his chief attraction; it is more to the mind than his lifted
+      crest and bright eyes, his fine vinaceous brown and the patch of sky-blue
+      on his wings. One would miss him greatly from the woods; some of the
+      melody may well
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      26 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      be spared for the sake of the sudden, brain-piercing, rasping, rending
+      scream with which he startles us in our solitary forest walks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is this extreme liveliness of the jay which makes it more distressing
+      to the mind to see it pent in a cage than other birds of its family, such
+      as the magpie; just as it is more distressing to see a skylark than a
+      finch in prison, because the lark has an irresistible impulse to rise when
+      his singing fit is on. Sing he must, in or out of prison, yet there can be
+      little joy in the performance when the bird is incessantly teased with the
+      unsatisfied desire to mount and pour out his music at heaven's gate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Out of the cages, jays make charming and beautiful pets, and some who have
+      kept them have assured me that they are not mischievous birds. The late
+      Mark Melford one time when I visited him, had two jays, handsome birds, in
+      bright, glossy plumage, always free to roam where they liked, indoors or
+      out. We were sitting talking in his garden when one of the jays came
+      flying to us and perched on a wooden ledge a few feet from and above our
+      heads, and after sitting quietly for a little while he suddenly made a
+      dash
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 27
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      at my head, just brushing it with his wings, then returned to his perch.
+      At intervals of a few moments he repeated this action, and when I remarked
+      that he probably resented the presence of a stranger, Melford exclaimed,
+      "Oh, no, he wants to play with you--that's all."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His manner of playing was rather startling. So long as I kept my eyes on
+      him he remained motionless, but the instant my attention wandered, or when
+      in speaking I looked at my companion, the sudden violent dash at my head
+      would be made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was assured by Melford that his birds never carried off and concealed
+      bright objects, a habit which it has been said the jay, as well as the
+      magpie, possesses.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "What would he do with this shilling if I tossed it to him?" I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Catch it," he returned. "It would simply be play to him, but he wouldn't
+      carry it off."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I tossed up the shilling, and the bird had perhaps expected me to do so,
+      as he deftly caught it just as a dog catches a biscuit when you toss one
+      to him. After keeping it a few moments in his beak, he put it down at his
+      side. I took out four
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      28 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      more shilling pieces and tossed them quickly one by one, and he caught
+      them without a miss and placed them one by one with the other, not
+      scattered about, but in a neat pile. Then, seeing that I had no more
+      shillings he flew off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After these few playful passages with one of his birds, I could understand
+      Melford's feeling about his free pet jays, magpies and jackdaws; they were
+      not merely birds to him, but rather like so many delightful little
+      children in the beautiful shape of birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There was no rookery in or near the village, but a large flock of rooks
+      were always to be seen feeding and sunning themselves in some level
+      meadows near the river. It struck me one day as a very fine sight, when an
+      old bird, who looked larger and blacker and greyer-faced than the others,
+      and might have been the father and leader of them all, got up on a low
+      post, and with wide-open beak poured forth a long series of most
+      impressive caws. One always wonders at the meaning of such displays. Is
+      the old bird ad-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 29
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      dressing the others in the rook language on some matter of great moment;
+      or is he only expressing some feeling in the only language he has--those
+      long, hoarse, uninflected sounds; and if so, what feeling? Probably a very
+      common one. The rooks appeared happy and prosperous, feeding in the meadow
+      grass in that June weather, with the hot sun shining on their glossy
+      coats. Their days of want were long past and forgotten; the anxious
+      breeding period was over; the tempest in the tall trees; the annual
+      slaughter of the young birds--all past and forgotten. The old rook was
+      simply expressing the old truth, that life was worth living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These rooks were usually accompanied by two or three or more crows--a bird
+      of so ill-repute that the most out-and-out enthusiast for protection must
+      find it hard to say a word in its favour. At any rate, the rooks must
+      think, if they think at all, that this frequent visitor and attendant of
+      theirs is more kin than kind. I have related in a former work that I once
+      saw a peregrine strike down and kill an owl--a sight that made me gasp
+      with astonishment. But I am inclined to think of this act as only a slip,
+      a slight aberration,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      30 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      on the part of the falcon, so universal is the sense of relationship among
+      the kinds that have the rapacious habit; or, at the worst, it was merely
+      an isolated act of deviltry and daring of the sharp-winged pirate of the
+      sky, a sudden assertion of over-mastering energy and power, and a very
+      slight offence compared with that of the crow when he carries off and
+      devours his callow little cousins of the rookery.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of the first birds I went out to seek--perhaps the most medicinal of
+      all birds to see--was the kingfisher; but he was not anywhere on the river
+      margin, although suitable places were plentiful enough, and myriads of
+      small fishes were visible in the shallow water, seen at rest like
+      dim-pointed stripes beneath the surface, and darting away and scattering
+      outwards, like a flight of arrows, at any person's approach. Walking along
+      the river bank one day, when the place was still new to me, I discovered a
+      stream, and following it up arrived at a spot where a clump of trees
+      overhung the water, casting on it a deep shade. On the other side of the
+      stream butter-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 31
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      cups grew so thickly that the glazed petals of the flowers were touching;
+      the meadow was one broad expanse of brilliant yellow. I had not been
+      standing half a minute in the shade before the bird I had been seeking
+      darted out from the margin, almost beneath my feet, and then, instead of
+      flying up or down stream, sped like an arrow across the field of
+      buttercups. It was a very bright day, and the bird going from me with the
+      sunshine full on it, appeared entirely of a shining, splendid green. Never
+      had I seen the kingfisher in such favourable circumstances; flying so low
+      above the flowery level that the swiftly vibrating wings must have touched
+      the yellow petals; he was like a waif from some far tropical land. The
+      bird was tropical, but I doubt if there exists within the tropics anything
+      to compare with a field of buttercups--such large and unbroken surfaces of
+      the most brilliant colour in nature. The first bird's mate appeared a
+      minute later, flying in the same direction, and producing the same
+      splendid effect, and also green. These two alone were seen, and only on
+      this occasion, although I often revisited the spot, hoping to find them
+      again.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      32 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Now, the kingfisher is blue, and I am puzzled to know why, on this one
+      occasion, it appeared green. I have, in a former work, <i>Argentine
+      Ornithology</i>, described a contrary effect in a small and beautiful
+      tyrant-bird, <i>Cyanotis azarae</i>, variously called, in the vernacular,
+      "All-colored or Many-colored Kinglet." It has a little blue on its head,
+      but its entire back, from the nape to the tail, is deep green. It lives in
+      beds of bulrushes, and when seen flying from the spectator in a very
+      strong light, at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, its colour in
+      appearance is bright cerulean blue. It is a sunlight effect, but how
+      produced is a mystery to me. In the case of the two green kingfishers, I
+      am inclined to think that the yellow of that shining field of buttercups
+      in some way produced the illusion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Why are these exquisite birds so rare, even in situations so favourable to
+      them as the one I have described? Are they killed by severe frosts? An
+      ornithological friend from Oxfordshire assures me that it will take
+      several favourable seasons to make good the losses of the late terrible
+      winter of 1891-92. But this, as every ornithologist knows, is only a part
+      of the truth. The large
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 33
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      number of stuffed kingfishers under glass shades that one sees in houses
+      of all descriptions, in town and country, but most frequently in the
+      parlours of country cottages and inns, tell a melancholy story. Some time
+      ago a young man showed me three stuffed kingfishers in a case, and
+      informed me that he had shot them at a place (which he named) quite close
+      to London. He said that these three birds were the last of their kind ever
+      seen there; that he had gone, week after week and watched and waited,
+      until one by one, at long intervals, he had secured them all; and that two
+      years had passed since the last one was killed, and no other kingfisher
+      had been seen at the place. He added that the waterside which these birds
+      had frequented was resorted to by crowds of London working people on
+      Saturday afternoons, Sundays and other holidays; the fact that hundreds,
+      perhaps thousands, of pairs of tired eyes would have been freshened and
+      gladdened by the sight of their rare gem-like beauty only made him prouder
+      of his achievement. This young man was a cockney of the small shop-keeping
+      class--a Philistine of the Philistines--hence there was no call to feel
+      surprise at his self-glori-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      34 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fication over such a matter. But what shall we say of that writer whose
+      masterly works on English rural life are familiar to everyone, who is
+      regarded as first among "lovers of nature," when he relates that he
+      invariably carried a gun when out of doors, mainly with the object of
+      shooting any kingfisher he might chance to see, as the dead bird always
+      formed an acceptable present to the cottager's wife, who would get it
+      stuffed and keep it as an ornament on her parlour mantelshelf!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Happily for the kingfisher, and for human beings who love nature, the old
+      idea that beautiful birds were meant to be destroyed for fun by anyone and
+      everyone, from the small-brained, detestable cockney sportsman I have
+      mentioned, to the gentlemen who write books about the beauties of nature,
+      is now gradually giving place to this new one--that it would be better to
+      preserve the beautiful things we possess. Half a century before the author
+      of "Wild Life in a Southern Country" amused himself by carrying a gun to
+      shoot kingfishers, the inhabitants of that same county of Wiltshire were
+      bathed in tears--so I read in an old Salisbury newspaper--at the tragic
+      death of a young gentleman of great distinction,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      35
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      great social charm, great promise. He was out shooting swallows with a
+      friend who, firing at a passing swallow, had the misfortune to shoot and
+      kill <i>him.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the present time when gentlemen practise a little at flying birds, to
+      get their hand in before the first of September, they shoot sparrows as a
+      rule, or if they shoot swallows, which afford them better practice, they
+      do not say anything about it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-8.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-8.jpg" width="132"
+      height="82" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkIV" id="linkIV"></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IV
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WHERE the stream broadened and mixed with the river, there existed a dense
+      and extensive rush-bed--an island of rushes separated by a deep channel,
+      some twelve or fourteen yards in width from the bank. This was a favourite
+      nesting-place of the sedge-warblers; occasionally as many as a dozen birds
+      could be heard singing at the same time, although in no sense together,
+      and the effect was indeed curious. This is not a song that spurts and
+      gushes up fountain-like in the manner of the robin's, and of some other
+      kinds, sprinkling the listener, so to speak, with a sparkling vocal spray;
+      but it keeps low down, a song that flows along the surface gurgling and
+      prattling like musical running water, in its shallow pebbly channel.
+      Listening again, the similitude that seemed appropriate at first was cast
+      aside for another, and then another still. The hidden
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      36
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 37
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      singers scattered all about their rushy island were small, fantastic,
+      human minstrels, performing on a variety of instruments, some unknown,
+      others recognizable--bones and castanets, tiny hurdy-gurdies, piccolos,
+      banjos, tabours, and Pandean pipes--a strange medley!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Interesting as this concert was, it held me less than the solitary singing
+      of a sedge-warbler that lived by himself, or with only his mate, higher up
+      where the stream was narrow, so that I could get near him; for he not only
+      tickled my ears with his rapid, reedy music, but amused my mind as well
+      with a pretty little problem in bird psychology. I could sit within a few
+      yards of his tangled haunt without hearing a note; but if I jumped up and
+      made a noise, or struck the branches with my stick, he would incontinently
+      burst into song. It is a very well-known habit of the bird, and on account
+      of it and of the very peculiar character of the sounds emitted, his song
+      is frequently described by ornithologists as "mocking, defiant, scolding,
+      angry," etc. It seems clear that at different times the bird sings from
+      different exciting causes. When, undisturbed by a strange presence, he
+      bursts spontaneously into singing, the
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      N
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      38 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      music, as in other species, is simply an expression of overflowing
+      gladness; at other times, the bird expressed such feelings as alarm,
+      suspicion, solicitude, perhaps anger, by singing the same song. How does
+      this come about?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have stated, when speaking of the nightingale, that birds in which the
+      singing faculty is highly developed, sometimes make the mistake of
+      bursting into song when anxious or distressed or in pain, but that this is
+      not the case with the mocking-birds. Some species of these brilliant
+      songsters of the New World, in their passion for variety (to put it that
+      way), import every harsh and grating cry and sound they know into their
+      song; but, on the other hand, when anxious for the safety of their young,
+      or otherwise distressed, they emit only the harsh and grating
+      sounds--never a musical note. In the sedge-warbler, the harsh, scolding
+      sounds that express alarm, solicitude, and other painful emotions, have
+      also been made a part of the musical performance; but this differs from
+      the songs of most species, the mocking birds included, in the
+      extraordinary rapidity with which it is enunciated; once the song begins
+      it goes on swiftly to the finish, harsh and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 39
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      melodious notes seeming to overlap and mingle, the sound forming, to speak
+      in metaphor, a close intricate pattern of strongly-contrasted colours. Now
+      the song invariably begins with the harsh notes--the sounds which, at
+      other times, express alarm and other more or less painful emotions--and it
+      strikes me as a probable explanation that when the bird in the singing
+      season has been startled into uttering these harsh and grating sounds, as
+      when a stone is flung into the rushes, he is incapable of uttering them
+      only, but the singing notes they suggest and which he is in the habit of
+      uttering, follow automatically.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The spot where I observed this wee feathered fantasy, the tantalizing
+      sprite of the rushes, and where I soon ceased to see, hear, or think about
+      him, calls for a fuller description. On one side the wooded hill sloped
+      downward to the stream; on the other side spread the meadows where the
+      rooks came every day to feed, or to sit and stand about motionless,
+      looking like birds cut out of jet, scattered over about half an acre of
+      the grassy, level ground. Stout old pollard willows grew here and there
+      along the banks and were pleasant to see, this being the one man-mutilated
+      thing in
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      40 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      nature which, to my mind, not infrequently gains in beauty by the
+      mutilation, so admirably does it fit into and harmonize with the
+      landscape. At one point there was a deep, nearly stagnant pool, separated
+      from the stream by a strip of wet, rushy ground, its still dark surface
+      covered with water-lilies, not yet in bloom. They were just beginning to
+      show their polished buds, shaped like snake's heads, above the broad, oily
+      leaves floating like islands on the surface. The stream itself was, on my
+      side, fringed with bulrushes and other aquatic plants; on the opposite
+      bank there were some large alders lifting their branches above great
+      masses of bramble and rose-briar, all together forming as rich and
+      beautiful a tangle as one could find even in the most luxuriant of the
+      wild, unkept hedges round the village. The briars especially flourished
+      wonderfully at this spot, climbing high and dropping their long, slim
+      branches quite down to the surface of the water, and in some places
+      forming an arch above the stream. A short distance from this tangle, so
+      abundantly sprinkled with its pale delicate roses, the water was spanned
+      by a small wooden bridge, which no person appeared to use, but which had
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link40" id="link40"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-9.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-9.jpg" width="416"
+      height="773" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      WREN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "... mysterious talk in the leaves,"
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 41
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      a use. It formed the one dry clear spot in the midst of all that moist
+      vegetation, and the birds that came from the wood to drink and search for
+      worms and small caterpillars first alighted on the bridge. There they
+      would rest a few moments, take a look round, then fly to some favourite
+      spot where succulent morsels had been picked up on previous visits.
+      Thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, reed-buntings, chaffinches, tits, wrens,
+      with many other species, succeeded each other all day long; for now they
+      mostly had young to provide for, and it was their busiest time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The unsullied beauty and solitariness of this spot made me wish at first
+      that I was a boy once more, to climb and to swim, to revel in the sunshine
+      and flowers, to be nearer in spirit to the birds and dragon flies and
+      water-rats; then, that I could build a cabin and live there all the summer
+      long, forgetful of the world and its affairs, with no human creature to
+      keep me company, and no book to read, or with only one slim volume, some
+      Spanish poet, let me say Melendez, for preference--only a small selection
+      from his too voluminous writings; for he, albeit an eighteenth-century
+      singer, was perhaps
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      42 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the last of that long, illustrious line of poets who sang as no others
+      have sung of the pure delight-fulness of a life with nature. Something of
+      this charm is undoubtedly due to the beauty of the language they wrote in
+      and to the free, airy grace of assonants. What a hard, artificial sound
+      the rhyme too often has: the clink that falls at regular intervals as of a
+      stone-breaker's hammer! In the freer kinds of Spanish poetry there are
+      numberless verses that make the smoothest lines and lyrics of our sweetest
+      and most facile singers, from Herrick to Swinburne, seem hard and
+      mechanical by comparison. But there is something more. I doubt, for one
+      thing, if we are justified in the boast we sometimes make that the feeling
+      for Nature is stronger in our poets than in those of other countries. The
+      most scientific critic may be unable to pick a hole in Tennyson's botany
+      and zoology; but the passion for, and feeling of oneness with Nature may
+      exist without this modern minute accuracy. Be this as it may, it was not
+      Tennyson, nor any other of our poets, that I would have taken to my
+      dreamed-of solitary cabin for companionship: Melendez came first to my
+      mind. I think of his lines to a butterfly:
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 43
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      De donde alegre vienes Tan suelta y tan festiva, Las valles alegrando
+      Veloz mariposilla?*
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and can imagine him--the poet himself--coming to see me through the woods
+      and down the hill with the careless ease and lightness of heart of his own
+      purple-winged child of earth and air--<i>tan suelta y tan festiva</i>.
+      Here in these four or five words one may read the whole secret of his
+      charm--the exquisite delicacy and seeming artlessness in the form, and the
+      spirit that is in him--the old, simple, healthy, natural gladness in
+      nature, and feeling of kinship with all the children of life. But I do not
+      wish to disturb anyone in his prepossessions. It would greatly trouble me
+      to think that my reader should, for the space of a page, or even of a
+      single line, find himself in opposition to and not with me; and I am free
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * May be roughly rendered thus:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Whence, blithe one, comest thou With that airy, happy flight--To make the
+      valleys glad, O swift-winged butterfly?
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      44 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      to admit that with regard to poetry one's preferences change according to
+      the mood one happens to be in and to the conditions generally. At home in
+      murky London on most days I should probably seek pleasure and
+      forgetfulness in Browning; but in such surroundings as I have been
+      describing the lighter-hearted, elf-like Melendez accords best with my
+      spirit, one whose finest songs are without human interest; who is
+      irresponsible as the wind, and as unstained with earthly care as the
+      limpid running water he delights in: who is brother to bird and bee and
+      butterfly, and worships only liberty and sunshine, and is in love with
+      nothing but a flower.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nearly midway between the useful little bridge and the rose-blossoming
+      tangle I have spoken of there were three elm-trees growing in the open
+      grassy space near the brook; they were not lofty, but had very
+      wide-spreading horizontal branches, which made them look like oaks. This
+      was an ideal spot in which to spend the sultry hours, and I had no sooner
+      cast myself on the short grass in the shade than I noticed that the end of
+      a projecting branch above my head, and about twenty feet from the ground,
+      was a favourite perch of
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 45
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      a tree-pipit. He sang in the air and, circling gracefully down, would
+      alight on the branch, where, sitting near me and plainly visible, he would
+      finish his song and renew it at intervals; then, leaving the loved perch,
+      he would drop, singing, to the ground, just a few yards beyond the tree's
+      shadow; thence, singing again, he would mount up and up above the tree,
+      only to slide down once more with set, unfluttering wings, with a
+      beautiful swaying motion to the same old resting-place on the branch,
+      there to sing and sing and sing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If Melendez himself had come to me with flushed face and laughing eyes,
+      and sat down on the grass at my side to recite one of his most enchanting
+      poems, I should, with finger on lip, have enjoined silence; for in the
+      mood I was then in at that sequestered spot, with the landscape outside my
+      shady green pavilion bathed and quivering in the brilliant sunshine, this
+      small bird had suddenly become to me more than any other singer, feathered
+      or human. And yet the tree-pipit is not very highly regarded among British
+      melodists, on account of the little variety there is in its song.
+      Nevertheless, it is most sweet--perhaps the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      46 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      sweetest of all. It is true that there are thousands, nay, millions of
+      things--sights and sounds and perfumes--which are or may be described as
+      sweet, so common is the metaphor, and this too common use has perhaps
+      somewhat degraded it; but in this case there is no other word so well
+      suited to describe the sensation produced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The tree-pipit has a comparatively short song, repeated, with some
+      variation in the number and length of the notes, at brief intervals. The
+      opening notes are thick and throaty, and similar in character to the
+      throat-notes of many other species in this group, a softer sound than the
+      throat-notes of the skylark and woodlark, which they somewhat resemble.
+      The canary-like trills and thin piping notes, long drawn out, which follow
+      vary greatly in different individuals, and in many cases the trills are
+      omitted. But the concluding notes of the song I am considering--which is
+      only one note repeated again and again--are clear and beautifully
+      inflected, and have that quality of sweetness, of lusciousness, I have
+      mentioned. The note is uttered with a downward fall, more slowly and
+      expressively at each repetition, as if the singer felt overcome at the
+      sweet-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 47
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ness of life and of his own expression, and languished somewhat at the
+      close; its effect is like that of the perfume of the honeysuckle,
+      infecting the mind with a soft, delicious languor, a wish to lie perfectly
+      still and drink of the same sweetness again and again in larger measure.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To some who are familiar with this by no means uncommon little bird, it
+      may seem that I am overstating the charm of its melody. I can only say
+      that the mood I was then in made me very keenly appreciative; also that I
+      have never heard any other individual of this species able to produce
+      precisely the same effect. We know that there are quite remarkable
+      differences in the songs of birds of the same species, that among several
+      that appear to be perfect and to sing alike one will possess a charm above
+      the other. The truth is they are not alike; they affect us differently,
+      but the sense is not fine enough or not sufficiently trained to detect the
+      cause. The poet's words may be used of this natural melody as well as of
+      the works of art:
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "O the little more and how much it is!"
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      48 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      TEere were about the village, within a few minutes' walk of the cottage,
+      not fewer than half-a-dozen tree-pipits, each inhabiting a favourite spot
+      where I could always count on finding and hearing him at almost any hour
+      of the day from sunrise to sunset. Yet I cared not for these. To the one
+      chosen bird I returned daily to spend the hot hours, lying in the shade
+      and listening to his strain. Finally, I allowed two or three days to slip
+      by, and when I revisited the old spot the secret charm had vanished. The
+      bird was there, and rose and fell as formerly, pouring out his melody; but
+      it was not the same: something was missing from those last sweet,
+      languishing notes. Perhaps in the interval there had been some disturbing
+      accident in his little wild life, though I could hardly believe it, since
+      his mate was still sitting about thirty yards from the tree on the five
+      little mottled eggs in her nest. Or perhaps his midsummer's music had
+      reached its highest point, and was now in its declension. And perhaps the
+      fault was in me. The virtue that draws and holds us does not hold us
+      always, nor very long; it departs from all things, and we wonder why. The
+      loss is in ourselves, although
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 49
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      we do not know it. Nature, the chosen mistress of our heart, does not
+      change towards us, yet she is now, even to-day--
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Less full of purple colour and hid spice,"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and smiles and sparkles in vain to allure us, and when she touches us with
+      her warm, caressing touch, there is, compared with yesterday, only a faint
+      response.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-10.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-10.jpg" width="117"
+      height="64" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkV" id="linkV"></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      V
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      COMING back from the waterside through the wood, after the hottest hours
+      of the day were over, the crooning of the turtle-doves would be heard
+      again on every side--that summer beech-wood lullaby that seemed never to
+      end. The other bird voices were of the willow-wren, the wood-wren, the
+      coal-tit, and the now somewhat tiresome chiffchaff; from the distance
+      would come the prolonged rich strain of the blackbird, and occasionally
+      the lyric of the chaffinch. The song of this bird gains greatly when heard
+      from a tall tree in the woodland silence; it has then a resonance and
+      wildness which it appears to lack in the garden and orchard. In the
+      village I had been glad to find that the chaffinch was not too common,
+      that in the tangle of minstrelsy one could enjoy there his vigorous voice
+      was not predominant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      so
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 51
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of all these woodland songsters the wood-wren impressed me the most. He
+      could always be heard, no matter where I entered the wood, since all this
+      world of tall beeches was a favoured haunt of the wood-wren, each pair
+      keeping to its own territory of half-an-acre of trees or so, and somewhere
+      among those trees the male was always singing, far up, invisible to eyes
+      beneath, in the topmost sunlit foliage of the tall trees. On entering the
+      wood I would, stand still for a few minutes to listen to the various
+      sounds until that one fascinating sound would come to my ears from some
+      distance away, and to that spot I would go to find a bed of last year's
+      leaves to sit upon and listen. It was an enchanting experience to be there
+      in that woodland twilight with the green cloud of leaves so far above me;
+      to listen to the silence, to the faint whisper of the wind-touched leaves,
+      then to little prelusive drops of musical sound, growing louder and
+      falling faster until they ran into one prolonged trill. And there I would
+      sit listening for half-an-hour or a whole hour; but the end would not
+      come; the bird is indefatigable and with his mysterious talk in the leaves
+      would tire the sun himself and send
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      52 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      him down the sky: for not until the sun has set and the wood has grown
+      dark does the singing cease.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On emerging from the deep shade of the beeches into the wide grassy road
+      that separated the wood from the orchards and plantations of fruit trees,
+      and pausing for a minute to look down on the more than half-hidden
+      village, invariably the first loud sounds that reached my ear were those
+      of the cuckoo, thrush, and blackbird. At all hours in the village, from
+      early morning to evening twilight, these three voices sounded far and near
+      above the others. I considered myself fortunate that no large tree near
+      the cottage had been made choice of by a song-thrush as a singing-stand
+      during the early hours. The nearest tree so favoured was on the further
+      side of a field, so that when I woke at half-past three or four o'clock,
+      the shrill indefatigable voice came in at the open window, softened by
+      distance and washed by the dewy atmosphere to greater purity. Throstle and
+      skylark to be admired must be heard at a distance. But at that early hour
+      when I sat by the open window, the cuckoo's call was the commonest sound;
+      the birds were everywhere,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 53
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      bird answering bird far and near, so persistently repeating their double
+      note that this sound, which is in character unlike any other sound in
+      nature, which one so listens and longs to hear in spring, lost its old
+      mystery and charm, and became of no more account than the cackle of the
+      poultry-yard. It was the cuckoo's village; sometimes three or four birds
+      in hot pursuit of each other would dash through the trees that lined the
+      further side of the lane and alight on that small tree at the gate which
+      the nightingale was accustomed to visit later in the day.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Other birds that kept themselves very much out of sight during most of the
+      time also came to the same small tree at that early hour. It was regularly
+      visited, and its thin bole industriously examined, by the nuthatch and the
+      quaint little mouse-like creeper. Doubtless they imagined that five
+      o'clock was too early for heavy human creatures to be awake, and were
+      either ignorant of my presence or thought proper to ignore it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But where, during the days when the vociferous cuckoo, with hoarse chuckle
+      and dissyllabic call and wild bubbling cry was so much with us--where, in
+      this period of many pleasant noises was
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      54 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the cuckoo's mate, or maid, or messenger, the quaint and beautiful
+      wryneck? There are few British birds, perhaps not one--not even the crafty
+      black and white magpie, or mysterious moth-like goatsucker, or tropical
+      kingfisher--more interesting to watch. At twilight I had lingered at the
+      woodside, also in other likely places, and the goatsucker had failed to
+      appear, gliding and zig-zagging hither and thither on his dusky-mottled
+      noiseless wings, and now this still heavier disappointment was mine. I
+      could not find the wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, shut in by
+      straggling hedges, should have had him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper
+      and nuthatch, and starling and gem-like blue tit, found holes enough in
+      the old trunks to breed in. And yet I knew that, albeit not common, he was
+      there; I could not exactly say where, but somewhere on the other side of
+      the next hedge or field or orchard; for I heard his unmistakable cry, now
+      on this hand, now on that. Day after day I followed the voice, sometimes
+      in my eagerness forcing my way through a brambly hedge to emerge with
+      scratched hands and clothes torn, like one that had been set upon and
+      mauled by some
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 55
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      savage animal of the cat kind; and still the quaint figure eluded my
+      vision.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At last I began to have doubts about the creature that emitted that
+      strange, penetrating call. First heard as a bird-call, and nothing more,
+      by degrees it grew more and more laugh-like--a long, far-reaching, ringing
+      laugh; not the laugh I should like to hear from any person I take an
+      interest in, but a laugh with all the gladness, unction, and humanity gone
+      out of it--a dry mechanical sound, as if a soulless, lifeless,
+      wind-instrument had laughed. It was very curious. Listening to it day by
+      day, something of the strange history of the being once but no longer
+      human, that uttered it grew up and took shape in my mind; for we all have
+      in us something of this mysterious faculty. It was no bird, no wryneck,
+      but a being that once, long, long, long ago, in that same beautiful place,
+      had been a village boy--a free, careless, glad-hearted boy, like many
+      another. But to this boy life was more than to others, since nature
+      appeared immeasurably more vivid on account of his brighter senses;
+      therefore his love of life and happiness in life greatly surpassed theirs.
+      Annually the trees shed their
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      56 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      leaves, the flowers perished, the birds flew away to some distant country
+      beyond the horizon, and the sun grew pale and cold in the sky; but the
+      bright impression all things made on him gave him a joy that was
+      perennial. The briony, woodbine, and honeysuckle he had looked on withered
+      in the hedges, but their presentments flourished untouched by frost, as if
+      his warmth sustained and gave them perpetual life; in that inner magical
+      world of memory the birds still twittered and warbled, each after its
+      kind, and the sun shone everlastingly. But he was living in a fool's
+      paradise, as he discovered by-and-by, when a boy who had been his playmate
+      began to grow thin and pale, and at last fell sick and died. He crept near
+      and watched his dead companion lying motionless, unbreathing, with a face
+      that was like white clay; and then, more horrible still, he saw him taken
+      out and put into a grave, and the heavy, cold soil cast over him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What did this strange and terrible thing mean? Now for the first time he
+      was told that life is ours only for a season; that we also, like the
+      leaves and flowers, flourish for a while then fade and perish, and mingle
+      with the dust. The sad
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 57,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      knowledge had come too suddenly and in too vivid and dreadful a manner. He
+      could not endure it. Only for a season!--only for a season! The earth
+      would be green, and the sky blue, and the sun shine bright for ever, and
+      he would not see, not know it! Struck with anguish at the thought, he
+      stole away out of sight of the others to hide himself in woods and
+      thickets, to brood alone on such a hateful destiny, and torture himself
+      with vain longings, until he, too, grew pale and thin and large-eyed, like
+      the boy that had died, and those who saw him shook their heads and
+      whispered to one another that he was not long for this world. He knew what
+      they were saying, and it only served to increase his misery and fear, and
+      made him hate them because they were insensible to the awful fact that
+      death awaited them, or so little concerned that they had never taken the
+      trouble to inform him of it. To eat and drink and sleep was all they cared
+      for, and they regarded death with indifference, because their dull sight
+      did not recognize the beauty and glory of the earth, nor their dull hearts
+      respond to Nature's everlasting gladness. The sight of the villagers, with
+      their solemn head-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      58 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      shakings and whisperings, even of his nearest kindred, grew insupportable,
+      and he at length disappeared from among them, and was seen no more with
+      his white, terror-stricken face. From that time he hid himself in the
+      close thickets, supporting his miserable existence on wild fruits and
+      leaves, and spending many hours each day lying in some sheltered spot,
+      gazing up into that blue sunny sky, which was his to gaze on only for a
+      season, while the large tears gathered in his eyes and rolled unheeded
+      down his wasted cheeks.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At length during this period there occurred an event which is the
+      obscurest part of his history; for I know not who or what it was--my mind
+      being in a mist about it--that came to or accidentally found him lying on
+      a bed of grass and dried leaves in his thorny hiding-place. It may have
+      been a gipsy or a witch--there were witches in those days--who, suddenly
+      looking on his upturned face and seeing the hunger in his unfathomable
+      eyes, loved him, in spite of her malignant nature; or a spirit out of the
+      earth; or only a very wise man, an ancient, white-haired solitary, whose
+      life had been spent in finding out the secrets of nature. This being,
+      becoming ac-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 59
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      quainted with the cause of the boy's grief and of his solitary, miserable
+      condition, began to comfort him by telling him that no grief was
+      incurable, no desire that heart could conceive unattainable. He discoursed
+      of the hidden potent properties of nature, unknown only to those who seek
+      not to know them; of the splendid virtue inherent in all things, like the
+      green and violet flames in the clear colourless raindrops which are seen
+      only on rare occasions. Of life and death, he said that life was of the
+      spirit which never dies, that death meant only a passage, a change of
+      abode of the spirit, and the left body crumbled to dust when the spirit
+      went out of it to continue its existence elsewhere, but that those who
+      hated the thought of such change could, by taking thought, prolong life
+      and live for a thousand years, like the adder and tortoise or for ever.
+      But no, he would not leave the poor boy to grope alone and blindly after
+      that hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied him too much.
+      The means were simple and near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue
+      that would save him from the dissolution which so appalled him. He would
+      be startled to hear in
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      60 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      how small a thing and in how insignificant a creature resided the
+      principle that could make his body, like his spirit, immortal. But
+      exceeding great power often existed in small compass: witness the adder's
+      tooth, which was to our sight no more than the point of the smallest
+      thorn. Now, in the small ant there exists a principle of a greater potency
+      than any other in nature; so strong and penetrating was it that even the
+      dull and brutish kind of men who enquire not into hidden things know
+      something of its power. But the greatest of all the many qualities of this
+      acid was unknown to them. The ants were a small people, but exceedingly
+      wise and powerful. If a little human child had the strength of an ant he
+      would surpass in power the mightiest giant that ever lived. In the same
+      way ants surpassed men in wisdom; and this strength and wisdom was the
+      result of that acid principle in them. Now, if any person should be able
+      to overcome his repugnance to so strange a food as to sustain himself on
+      ants and nothing else, the effect of the acid on him would be to change
+      and harden his flesh and make it impervious to decay or change of any
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link60" id="link60"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-11.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-11.jpg" width="419"
+      height="670" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SONG THRUSH AND LONG-TAILED TIT.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      " . . . a tree made choice of by a song-thrush as a singing-sland"
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 61
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      kind. He would, so long as he confined himself to this kind of food, be
+      immortal.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not a moment did the wretched boy hesitate to make use of this new and
+      wonderful knowledge. When he had found and broken open an ant-hill, so
+      eager was he that, shutting his eyes, he snatched up the maddened insects
+      by handfuls and swallowed them, dust and ants together, and was then
+      tortured for hours, feeling and thinking that they were still alive within
+      him, running about in search of an outlet and frantically biting. The
+      strange food sickened him, so that he grew thinner and paler, until at
+      last he could barely crawl on hands and feet, and was like a skeleton
+      except for the great sad eyes that could still see the green earth and
+      blue sky, and still reflected in their depths one fear and one desire. And
+      slowly, day by day, as his system accustomed itself to the new diet, his
+      strength returned, and he was able once more to walk erect and run, and to
+      climb a tree, where he could sit concealed among the thick foliage and
+      survey the village where he had first seen the light and had passed the
+      careless, happy years of boyhood. But he cherished no tender memories and
+      regrets; his sole thought
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      62 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      was of the ants, and where to find a sufficiency of them to stay the
+      cravings of hunger; for, after the first sensations of disgust had been
+      overcome, he had begun to grow fond of this kind of food, and now consumed
+      it with avidity. And as his strength increased so did his dexterity in
+      catching the small, active insect prey. He no longer gathered the ants up
+      in his palm and swallowed them along with dust and grit, but picked them
+      up deftly, and conveyed them one by one to his mouth with lightning
+      rapidity. Meanwhile that "acid principle," about which he had heard such
+      wonderful things, was having its effect on his system. His skin changed
+      its colour; he grew shrunken and small, until at length, after very many
+      years, he dwindled to the grey little manikin of the present time. His
+      mind, too, changed; he has no thought nor remembrance of his former life
+      and condition and of his long-dead relations; but he still haunts the
+      village where he knows so well where to find the small ants, to pick them
+      from off the ant-hill and from the trunks of trees with his quick little
+      claw-like hands. Language and song are likewise forgotten with all human
+      things, all except his laugh; for
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 63
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      when hunger is satisfied, and the sun shines pleasantly as he reposes on
+      the dry leaves on the ground or sits aloft on a branch, at times a sudden
+      feeling of gladness possesses him, and he expresses it in that one
+      way--the long, wild, ringing peal of laughter. Listening to that strange
+      sound, although I could not see I could yet picture him, as, aware of my
+      cautious approach, he moved shyly behind the mossy trunk of some tree and
+      waited silently for me to pass. A lean, grey little man, clad in a
+      quaintly barred and mottled mantle, woven by his own hands from some soft
+      silky material, and a close-fitting brown peaked cap on his head with one
+      barred feather in it for ornament, and a small wizened grey face with a
+      thin sharp nose, puckered lips, and a pair of round, brilliant, startled
+      eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So distinct was this image to my mind's eye that it became unnecessary for
+      me to see the creature, and I ceased to look for him; then all at once
+      came disillusion, when one day, hearing the familiar high-pitched laugh
+      with its penetrating and somewhat nasal tone, I looked and beheld the
+      thing that had laughed just leaving its perch on a branch near the ground
+      and winging
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      64 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      its way across the field. It was only a bird after all--only the wryneck;
+      and that mysterious faculty I spoke of, saying that we all of us possessed
+      something of it (meaning only some of us) was nothing after all but the
+      old common faculty of imagination.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Later on I saw it again on half-a-dozen occasions, but never succeeded in
+      getting what I call a satisfying sight of it, perched woodpecker-wise on a
+      mossy trunk, busy at its old fascinating occupation of deftly picking off
+      the running ants.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is melancholy to think that this quaint and beautiful bird of a unique
+      type has been growing less and less common in our country during the last
+      half a century, or for a longer period. In the last fifteen or twenty
+      years the falling-off has been very marked. The declension is not
+      attributable to persecution in this case, since the bird is not on the
+      gamekeeper's black list, nor has it yet become so rare as to cause the
+      amateur collectors of dead birds throughout the country systematically to
+      set about its extermination. Doubtless that will come later on when it
+      will be in the same category with the golden oriole, hoopoe, furze-wren,
+      and other species that are regarded as
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 65
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      always worth killing; that is to say, it will come--the scramble for the
+      wryneck's carcass--if nothing is done in the meantime to restrain the
+      enthusiasm of those who value a bird only when the spirit of life that
+      gave it flight and grace and beauty has been crushed out of it--when it is
+      no longer a bird. The cause of its decline up till now cannot be known to
+      us; we can only say in our ignorance that this type, like innumerable
+      others that have ceased to exist, has probably run its course and is dying
+      out. Or it might be imagined that its system is undergoing some slow
+      change, which tells on the migratory instinct, that it is becoming more a
+      resident species in its winter home in Africa. But all conjectures are
+      idle in such a case. It is melancholy, at all events for the
+      ornithologist, to think of an England without a wryneck; but before that
+      still distant day arrives let us hope that the love of birds will have
+      become a common feeling in the mass of the population, and that the
+      variety of our bird life will have been increased by the addition of some
+      chance colonists and of many new species introduced from distant regions.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      66 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have lingered long over the wryneck, but have still a story to relate of
+      this bird--not a fairy tale this time, but true.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the border of the village adjoining the wood--the side where birds were
+      more abundant, and which consequently had the greatest attraction for
+      me--there stands an old picturesque cottage nearly concealed from sight by
+      the hedge in front and closely planted trees clustering round it. On one
+      side was a grass field, on the other an orchard of old cherry, apple, and
+      plum trees, all the property of the old man living in the cottage, who was
+      a character in his way; at all events, he had not been fashioned in quite
+      the same mould as the majority of the cottagers about him. They mostly,
+      when past middle life, wore a heavy, dull and somewhat depressed look.
+      This man had a twinkle in his dark-grey eyes, an expression of intelligent
+      curiosity and fellowship; and his full face, bronzed with sixty or
+      sixty-five years' exposure to the weather, was genial, as if the sunshine
+      that had so long beaten on it had not been all used up in painting his
+      skin that rich old-furniture colour, but had, some of it, filtered through
+      the epidermis into the heart to make his
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 67
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      existence pleasant and sweet. But it was a very rough-cast face, with
+      shapeless nose and thick lips. He was short and broad-shouldered, always
+      in the warm weather in his shirt-sleeves, a shirt of some very coarse
+      material and of an earthen colour, his brown thick arms bare to the
+      elbows. Waistcoat and trousers looked as if he had worn them for half his
+      life, and had a marbled or mottled appearance as if they had taken the
+      various tints of all the objects and materials he had handled or rubbed
+      against in his life's work--wood, mossy trees, grass, clay, bricks, stone,
+      rusty iron, and dozens more. He wore the field-labourer's thick boots; his
+      ancient rusty felt hat had long lost its original shape; and finally, to
+      complete the portrait, a short black clay pipe was never out of his
+      lips--never, at all events, when I saw him, which was often; for every day
+      as I strolled past his domain he would be on the outside of his hedge, or
+      just coming out of his gate, invariably with something in his hand--a
+      spade, a fork, or stick of wood, or an old empty fruit-basket. Although
+      thus having the appearance of being very much occupied, he would always
+      stop for a few minutes' talk with me; and by-and-by
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      68 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I began to suspect that he was a very social sort of person, and that it
+      pleased him to have a little chat, but that he liked to have me think that
+      he met me by accident while going about his work.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One sunny morning as I came past his field he came out bearing a huge
+      bundle of green grass on his head. "What!" he exclaimed, coming to a
+      stand, "you here to-day? I thought you'd be away to the regatta."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I said that I knew little about regattas and cared less, that a day spent
+      in watching and listening to the birds gave me more pleasure than all the
+      regattas in the country. "I suppose you can't understand that?" I added.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He took the big green bundle from his head and set it down, pulled off his
+      old hat to flap the dust out of it, then sucked at his short clay. "Well,"
+      he said at length, "some fancies one thing and some another, but we most
+      of us like a regatta."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During the talk that followed I asked him if he knew the wryneck, and if
+      it ever nested in his orchard. He did not know the bird; had never heard
+      its name nor the other names of snake-bird and cuckoo's mate; and when I
+      had min-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 69
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      utely described its appearance, he said that no such bird was known in the
+      village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I assured him that he was mistaken, that I had heard the cry of the bird
+      many times, and had even heard it once at a distance since our
+      conversation began. Hearing that distant cry had caused me to ask the
+      question.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All at once he remembered that he knew, or had known formerly, the wryneck
+      very well, but he had never learnt its name. About twenty or
+      five-and-twenty years ago, he said, he saw the bird I had just described
+      in his orchard, and as it appeared day after day and had a strange
+      appearance as it moved up the tree trunks, he began to be interested in
+      it. One day he saw it fly into a hole close to the ground in an old apple
+      tree. "Now I've got you!" he exclaimed, and running to the spot thrust his
+      hand in as far as he could, but was unable to reach the bird. Then he
+      conceived the idea of starving it out, and stopped up the hole with clay.
+      The following day at the same hour he again put in his hand, and this time
+      succeeded in taking the bird. So strange was it to him that after showing
+      it to his own family he took it round to exhibit it to his neighbours,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      70 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and although some of them were old men, not one among them had ever seen
+      its like before. They concluded that it was a kind of nuthatch, but unlike
+      the common nuthatch which they knew. After they had all seen and handled
+      it and had finished the discussions about it, he released it and saw it
+      fly away; but, to his astonishment, it was back in his orchard a few hours
+      later. In a few weeks it brought out its five or six young from the hole
+      he had caught it in, and for several years it returned each season to
+      breed in the same hole until the tree was blown down, after which the bird
+      was seen no more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What an experience the poor bird had suffered! First plastered up and left
+      to starve or suffocate in its hollow tree; then captured and passed round
+      from rough, horny hand to hand, while the villagers were discussing it in
+      their slow, ponderous fashion--how wildly its little wild heart must have
+      palpitated!--and, finally, after being released, to go back at once to its
+      eggs in that dangerous tree. I do not know which surprised me most, the
+      bird's action in returning to its nest after such inhospitable treatment,
+      or the ignorance of the villagers concerning it. The incident
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 71
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      seemed to show that the wryneck had been scarce at this place for a very
+      long period.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The villager, as a rule, is not a good observer, which is not strange,
+      since no person is, or ever can be, a good observer of the things in which
+      he is not specially interested; consequently the countryman only knows the
+      most common and the most conspicuous species. He plods through life with
+      downcast eyes and a vision somewhat dimmed by indifference; forgetting, as
+      he progresses, the small scraps of knowledge he acquired by looking
+      sharply during the period of boyhood, when every living creature excited
+      his attention. In Italy, notwithstanding the paucity of bird life, I
+      believe that the peasants know their birds better. The reason of this is
+      not far to seek; every bird, not excepting even the "temple-haunting
+      martlet" and nightingale and minute golden-crested wren, is regarded only
+      as a possible morsel to give a savour to a dish of polenta, if the shy,
+      little flitting thing can only be enticed within touching distance of the
+      limed twigs. Thus they take a very strong interest in, and, in a sense,
+      "love" birds. It is their passion for this kind of flavouring which has
+      drained rural Italy
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      72 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      of its songsters, and will in time have the same effect on Argentina, the
+      country in which the withering stream of Italian emigration empties
+      itself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-12.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-12.jpg" width="130"
+      height="97" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkVI" id="linkVI"></a>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      VI
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      FROM the date of my arrival at the village in May, until I left it early
+      in July, the great annual business of pairing, nest-building, and rearing
+      the young was going on uninterruptedly. The young of some of the earliest
+      breeders were already strong on the wing when I took my first walks along
+      the hedgerows, still in their early, vivid green, frequently observing my
+      bird through a white and rose-tinted cloud of apple-blossoms; and when I
+      left some species that breed more than once in the season were rearing
+      second broods or engaged in making new nests. On my very first day I
+      discovered a nest full of fully fledged blue tits in a hole in an apple
+      tree; this struck me as a dangerous place for the young birds; as the tree
+      leaned over towards the lane, and the hole could almost be reached by a
+      person standing on the ground. On the next day I went to look at them, and
+      approaching noiselessly
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      73
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      74 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      along the lane, spied two small boys with bright clean faces--it was on a
+      Sunday--standing within three or four yards of the tree, watching the tits
+      with intense interest. The parent birds were darting up and down, careless
+      of their presence, finding food so quickly in the gooseberry bushes
+      growing near the roots of the tree that they visited the hole every few
+      moments; while the young birds, ever screaming for more, were gathered in
+      a dense little cluster at the entrance, their yellow breasts showing very
+      brightly against the rain-wet wood and the dark interior of the hole. The
+      instant the two little watchers caught sight of me the excited look
+      vanished from their faces, and they began to move off, gazing straight
+      ahead in a somewhat vacant manner. This instantaneous and instinctive
+      display of hypocrisy was highly entertaining, and would have made me laugh
+      if it had not been for the serious purpose I had in my mind. "Now, look
+      here," I said, "I know what you are after, so it's no use pretending that
+      you are walking about and seeing nothing in particular. You've been
+      watching the young tits. Well, I've been watching them, too, and waiting
+      to see them fly. I dare say they will
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 75
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      be out by to-morrow or the next day, and I hope you little fellows won't
+      try to drag them out before then."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They at once protested that they had no such intention. They said that
+      they never robbed birds' nests; that there were several nests at home in
+      the garden and orchard, one of a nightingale with three eggs in it, but
+      that they never took an egg. But some of the boys they knew, they said,
+      took all the eggs they found; and there was one boy who got into every
+      orchard and garden in the place, who was so sharp that few nests escaped
+      him, and every nest he found he destroyed, breaking the eggs if there were
+      any, and if there were young birds killing them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not, perhaps, without first mutilating them, I thought; for I know
+      something of this kind of young "human devil," to use the phrase which
+      Canon Wilberforce has made so famous in another connexion. Later on I
+      heard much more about the exploits of this champion bird-destroyer of the
+      village from (strange to say) a bird-catcher by trade, a man of a rather
+      low type of countenance, and who lived, when at home, in a London slum. On
+      the common where he spread his nets
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      76 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      he had found, he told me, about thirty nests containing eggs or
+      fledglings; but this boy had gone over the ground after him, and not many
+      of the nests had escaped his sharp eyes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was satisfied that the young tits were quite safe, so far as these
+      youngsters were concerned, and only regretted that they were such small
+      Boys, and that the great nest-destroyer, whose evil deeds they spoke of
+      with an angry colour in their cheeks, was a very strong boy, otherwise I
+      should have advised them to "go" for him.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Oddly enough I heard of another boy who exercised the same kind of cruelty
+      and destructiveness over another common a few miles distant. Walking
+      across it I spied two boys among the furze bushes, and at the same moment
+      they saw me, whereupon one ran away and the other remained standing. A
+      nice little fellow of about eight, he looked as if he had been crying. I
+      asked him what it was all about, and he then told me that the bigger boy
+      who had just run away was always on the common searching for nests, just
+      to destroy them and kill the young birds; that he, my informant, had come
+      there
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 77
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      where he came every day just to have a peep at a linnet's nest with four
+      eggs in it on which the bird was sitting; that the other boy, concealed
+      among the bushes had watched him go to the nest and had then rushed up and
+      pulled the nest out of the bush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why didn't you knock him down?" I asked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "That's what I tried to do before he pulled the nest out," he said; and
+      then he added sorrowfully: "He knocked me down."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am reminded here of a tale of ancient Greece about a boy of this
+      description--the boy to be found in pretty well every parish in the land.
+      This was a shepherd boy who followed or led his sheep to a distance from
+      the village and amused his idle hours by snaring small birds to put their
+      eyes out with a sharp thorn, then to toss them up just to see how, and how
+      far, they would fly in the dark. He was seen doing it and the matter
+      reported to the heads or fathers of the village, and he was brought before
+      them and, after due consideration of the case, condemned to death. Such a
+      decision must seem shocking to us and worthy of a semi-barbarous people.
+      But if cruelty is the worst of all offences--and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      78 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      this was cruelty in its most horrid form--the offence which puts men down
+      on a level with the worst of the mythical demons, it was surely a
+      righteous deed to blot such an existence out lest other young minds should
+      be contaminated, or even that it should be known that such a crime was
+      possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All those birds that had finished rearing their young by the sixteenth of
+      June were fortunate, for on the morning of that day a great and continuous
+      shouting, with gun-firing, banging on old brass and iron utensils, with
+      various other loud, unusual noises, were heard at one extremity of the
+      village, and continued with occasional quiet intervals until evening. This
+      tempest of rude sounds spread from day to day, until the entire area of
+      the village and the surrounding orchards was involved, and the poor birds
+      that were tied to the spots where their treasures were, must have existed
+      in a state of constant trepidation. For now the cherries were fast
+      ripening, and the fruit-eating birds, especially the thrushes and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 79
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      black-birds, were inflamed at the gleam of crimson colour among the
+      leaves. In the very large orchards men and boys were stationed all day
+      long yelling and firing off guns to frighten the marauders. In the smaller
+      orchards the trees were decorated with whirligigs of coloured paper;
+      ancient hats, among which were some of the quaintly-shaped chimney-pots of
+      a past generation; old coats and waistcoats and trousers, and rags of all
+      colours to flutter in the wind; and these objects were usually considered
+      a sufficient protection. Some of the birds, wiser than their fellows, were
+      not to be kept back by such simple means; but so long as they came not in
+      battalions, but singly, they could have their fill, and no notice was
+      taken of them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was surprised to hear that on the large plantations the men employed
+      were not allowed to use shot, the aim of the fruit grower being only to
+      scare the birds away. I had a talk with my old friend of the wryneck on
+      the subject, and told him that I had seen one of the bird-scarers going
+      home to his cottage very early in the morning, carrying a bunch of about a
+      dozen blackbirds and thrushes he had just shot.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      8o BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yes, he replied, some of the men would buy shot and use it early in the
+      morning before their master was about; but if the man I had seen had been
+      detected in the act, he would have been discharged on the spot. It was not
+      only because the trees would be injured by shot, but this fruitgrower was
+      friendly to birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Most fruit-growers, I said, were dead against the birds, and anxious only
+      to kill as many of them as possible.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It might be so in some places, he answered, but not in the village. He
+      himself and most of the villagers depended, in a great measure, on the
+      fruit they produced for a living, and their belief was that, taking one
+      bird with another all the year round, the birds did them more good than
+      harm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I then imparted to him the views on this bird subject of a well-known
+      fruit-grower in the north of England, Mr. Joseph Witherspoon, of
+      Chester-le-Street. He began by persecuting the birds, as he had been
+      taught to do by his father, a market-gardener; but after years of careful
+      observation he completely changed his views, and is now so convinced of
+      the advantage that birds are
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 81
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      to the fruit-grower, that he does all in his power to attract them, and to
+      tempt them to breed in his grounds. His main idea is that birds that are
+      fed on the premises, that live and feed among the trees, search for and
+      attack the gardeners' enemies at every stage of their existence. At the
+      same time he believes that it is very bad to grow fruit near woods, as in
+      such a case the birds that live in the woods and are of no advantage to
+      the garden, swarm into it as the fruit ripens, and that it is only by
+      liberal use of nets that any reasonable portion of the fruit can be saved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He answered that with regard to the last point he did not quite agree with
+      Mr. Witherspoon. All the gardens and orchards in the village were raided
+      by the birds from the wood, yet he reckoned they got as much fruit from
+      their trees as others who had no woods near them. Then there was the big
+      cherry plantation, one of the biggest in England, so that people came from
+      all parts in the blossoming time just to look at it, and a wonderful sight
+      it was. For a quarter of a mile this particular orchard ran parallel with
+      the wood; with nothing but the green road between, and when the first
+      fruit was ripening you could see
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      82 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      all the big trees on the edge of the wood swarming with birds--jays,
+      thrushes, blackbirds, doves, and all sorts of tits and little birds, just
+      waiting for a chance to pounce down and devour the cherries. The noise
+      kept them off, but many would dodge in, and even if a gun was fired close
+      to them the blackbirds would snatch a cherry and carry it off to the wood.
+      That didn't matter--a few cherries here and there didn't count. The
+      starlings were the worst robbers: if you didn't scare them they would
+      strip a tree and even an orchard in a few hours. But they were the easiest
+      birds to deal with: they went in flocks, and a shout or rattle or report
+      of a gun sent the lot of them away together. His way of looking at it was
+      this. In the fruit season, which lasts only a few weeks, you are bound to
+      suffer from the attacks of birds, whether they are your own birds only or
+      your own combined with others from outside, unless you keep them off; that
+      those who do not keep them off are foolish or indolent, and deserve to
+      suffer. The fruit season was, he said, always an anxious time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In conclusion, I remarked that the means used for protecting the fruit,
+      whether they served their
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 83
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      purpose well or not, struck me as being very unworthy of the times we
+      lived in, and seemed to show that the British fruit-growers, who were
+      ahead of the world in all other matters connected with their vocation, had
+      quite neglected this one point. A thousand years ago cultivators of the
+      soil were scaring the birds from their crops just as we are doing, with
+      methods no better and no worse, putting up scarecrows and old ragged
+      garments and fluttering rags, hanging a dead crow to a stick to warn the
+      others off, shouting and yelling and throwing stones. There appeared to be
+      an opening here for experiment and invention. Mere noise was not
+      terrifying to birds, and they soon discovered that an old hat on a stick
+      had no injurious brains in or under it. But certain sounds and colours and
+      odours had a strong effect on some animals. Sounds made to stimulate the
+      screams of some hawks would perhaps prove very terrifying to thrushes and
+      other small birds, and the effect of scarlet in large masses or long
+      strips might be tried. It would also be worth while to try the effect of
+      artificial sparrow-hawks and other birds of prey, perched conspicuously,
+      moving and perking their tails at intervals by
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      84 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      clockwork. In fact, a hundred things might be tried until something
+      valuable was found, and when it lost its value, for the birds would in
+      time discover the deception, some new plan adopted.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To this dissertation on what might be done, he answered that if any one
+      could find out or invent any new effective means to keep the birds from
+      the fruit, the fruit-growers would be very thankful for it; but that no
+      such invention could be looked for from those who are engaged on the soil;
+      that it must come from those who do not dig and sweat, but sit still and
+      work with their brains at new ideas.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This ended our conversation, and I left him more than satisfied at the
+      information he had given me, and with a higher opinion than ever of his
+      geniality and good practical sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was a relief when the noisy, bird-scaring business was done with, and
+      the last market baskets of ripe cherries were carried away to the station.
+      Very splendid they looked in such large masses of crimson, as the baskets
+      were brought out and set down in the grassy road; but I could not help
+      thinking a little sadly that the thrushes and blackbirds which had been
+      surreptitiously
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 85
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      shot, when fallen and fluttering in the wet grass in the early morning,
+      had shed life-drops of that same beautiful colour.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-13.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-13.jpg" width="123"
+      height="72" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+<p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkVII" id="linkVII"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      AFTER the middle of June the common began to attract me more and more. It
+      was so extensive that, standing on its border, just beyond the last
+      straggling cottages and orchards, the further side was seen only as a line
+      of blue trees, indistinct in the distance. As I grew to know it better,
+      adding each day to my list from its varied bird life, the woods and
+      waterside were visited less and less frequently, and after the
+      bird-scaring noises began in the village, its wildness and quiet became
+      increasingly grateful. The silence of nature was broken only by bird
+      sounds, and the most frequent sound was that of the yellow bunting, as,
+      perched motionless on the summit of a gorse bush, his yellow head
+      conspicuous at a considerable distance, he emitted his thin monotonous
+      chant at regular intervals, like a painted toy-bird that sings by
+      machinery. There, too, sedentary as an owl in the daytime, the corn
+      bunting was
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      86
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 87
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      common, discharging his brief song at intervals--a sound as of shattering
+      glass. The whinchat was rarely seen, but I constantly met the small,
+      prettily coloured stonechat flitting from bush to bush, following me, and
+      never ceasing his low, querulous tacking chirp, anxious for the safety of
+      his nest. Nightingales, blackcaps and white-throats also nested there, and
+      were louder and more emphatic in their protests when approached. There
+      were several grasshopper-warblers on the common, all, very curiously as it
+      seemed to me, clustered at one spot, so that one could ramble over miles
+      of ground without hearing their singular note; but on approaching the
+      place they inhabited one gradually became conscious of a mysterious
+      trilling buzz or whirr, low at first and growing louder and more
+      stridulous, until the hidden singers were left behind, when by degrees it
+      sank lower and lower again, and ceased to be audible at a distance of
+      about one hundred yards from the points where it had sounded loudest. The
+      birds hid in clumps of furze and bramble so near together that the area
+      covered by the buzzing sound measured about two hundred yards across. This
+      most singular sound (for a warbler
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      88 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      to make) is certainly not ventriloquial, although if one comes to it with
+      the sense of hearing disorganized by town noises or unpractised, one is at
+      a loss to determine the exact spot it comes from, or even to know from
+      which side it comes. While emitting its prolonged sound the bird is so
+      absorbed in its own performance that it is not easily alarmed, and will
+      sometimes continue singing with a human listener standing within four or
+      five yards of it. When one is near the bird, and listens, standing
+      motionless, the effect on the nerves of hearing is very remarkable,
+      considering the smallness of the sound, which, without being unpleasant,
+      is somewhat similar to that produced by the vibration of the brake of a
+      train; it is not powerful enough to jar the nerves, but appears to pervade
+      the entire system. Lying still, with eyes closed, and three or four of
+      these birds singing near, so that their strains overlap and leave no
+      silent intervals, the listener can imagine that the sound originates
+      within himself; that the numberless fine cords of his nervous network
+      tremble responsively to it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There are a number of natural sounds that resemble more or less closely
+      the most unbird-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 89
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      like note of this warbler--cicada, rattlesnake, and some batrachians. Some
+      grasshoppers perhaps come nearest to it; but the most sustained current of
+      sound emitted by the insect is short compared to the warbler's strain,
+      also the vibrations are very much more rapid, and not heard as vibrations,
+      and the same effect is not produced.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The grasshopper warblers gave me so much pleasure that I was often at the
+      spot where they had their little colony of about half-a-dozen pairs, and
+      where I discovered they bred every year. At first I used to go to any bush
+      where I had caught sight of a bird and sit down within a few yards of it
+      and wait until the little hideling's shyness wore off, and he would come
+      out and start reeling. Afterwards I always went straight to the same bush,
+      because I thought the bird that used it as his singing-place appeared less
+      shy than the others. One day I spent a long time listening to this
+      favourite; delightedly watching him, perched on a low twig on a level with
+      my sight, and not more than five yards from me; his body perfectly
+      motionless, but the head and wide-open beak jerked from side to side in a
+      measured, mechanical way. I had a side view of the bird,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      90 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      but every three seconds the head would be jerked towards me, showing the
+      bright yellow colour of the open mouth. The reeling would last about three
+      minutes, then the bird would unbend or unstiffen and take a few hops about
+      the bush, then stiffen and begin again. While thus gazing and listening I,
+      by chance, met with an experience of that rare kind which invariably
+      strikes the observer of birds as strange and almost incredible--an example
+      of the most perfect mimicry in a species which has its own distinctive
+      song and is not a mimic except once in a while, and as it were by chance.
+      The marsh warbler is our perfect mocking-bird, our one professional mimic;
+      while the starling in comparison is but an amateur. We all know the
+      starling's ever varying performance in which he attempts a hundred things
+      and occasionally succeeds; but even the starling sometimes affects us with
+      a mild astonishment, and I will here give one instance.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I was staying at a village in the Wiltshire downs, and at intervals, while
+      sitting at work in my room on the ground floor, I heard the cackling of a
+      fowl at the cottage opposite. I heard, but paid no attention to that
+      familiar sound; but
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 91
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      after three days it all at once struck me that no fowl could lay an egg
+      about every ten or twelve minutes, and go on at this rate day after day,
+      and, getting up, I went out to look for the cackler. A few hens were
+      moving quietly about the open ground surrounding the cottage where the
+      sound came from, but I heard nothing. By and by, when I was back in my
+      room, the cackling sounded again, but when I got out the sound had ceased
+      and the fowls, as before, appeared quite unexcited. The only way to solve
+      the mystery was to stand there, out of doors, for ten minutes, and before
+      that time was over a starling with a white grub in his beak, flew down and
+      perched on the low garden wall of the cottage, then, with some difficulty,
+      squeezed himself through a small opening into a cavity under a strip of
+      zinc which covered the bricks of the wall. It was a queer place for a
+      starling's nest, on a wall three feet high and within two yards of the
+      cottage door which stood open all day. Having delivered the grub, the
+      starling came out again and, hopping on to the zinc, opened his beak and
+      cackled like a hen, then flew away for more grubs.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I observed the starling a good deal after this,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      92 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and found that invariably on leaving the nest, he uttered his imitation of
+      a fowl cackling, and no other note or sound of any kind. It was as if he
+      was not merely imitating a sound, but had seen a fowl leaving the nest and
+      then cackling, and mimicked the whole proceeding, and had kept up the
+      habit after the young were hatched.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To return to my experience on the common. About fifty yards from the spot
+      where I was there was a dense thicket of furze and thorn, with a huge
+      mound in the middle composed of a tangle of whitethorn and bramble bushes
+      mixed with ivy and clematis. From this spot, at intervals of half a minute
+      or so, there issued the call of a duck--the prolonged, hoarse call of a
+      drake, two or three times repeated, evidently emitted in distress. I
+      conjectured that it came from one of a small flock of ducks belonging to a
+      cottage near the edge of the common on that side. The flock, as I had
+      seen, was accustomed to go some distance from home, and I supposed that
+      one of them, a drake, had got into that brambly thicket and could not make
+      his way out. For half an hour I heard the calls without paying much
+      attention, absorbed in watching the quaint little
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 93
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      songster close to me and his curious gestures when emitting his sustained
+      reeling sounds. In the end the persistent distressed calling of the drake
+      lost in a brambly labyrinth got a little on my nerves, and I felt it as a
+      relief when it finally ceased. Then, after a short silence, another sound
+      came from the same spot--a blackbird sound, known to everyone, but
+      curiously interesting when uttered in the way I now heard it. It was the
+      familiar loud chuckle, not emitted in alarm and soon ended, but the
+      chuckle uttered occasionally by the bird when he is not disturbed, or
+      when, after uttering it once for some real cause, he continues repeating
+      it for no reason at all, producing the idea that he has just made the
+      discovery that it is quite a musical sound and that he is repeating it, as
+      if singing, just for pleasure. At such times the long series of notes do
+      not come forth with a rush; he begins deliberately with a series of
+      musical chirps uttered in a measured manner, like those of a wood wren,
+      the prelude to its song, the notes coming faster and faster and swelling
+      and running into the loud chuckling performance. This performance, like
+      the lost drake's call, was repeated in the same deliberate
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      94 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      or leisurely manner at intervals again and again, until my curiosity was
+      aroused and I went to the spot to get a look at the bird who had turned
+      his alarm sound into a song and appeared to be very much taken with it.
+      But there was no blackbird at the spot, and no lost drake, and no bird,
+      except a throstle sitting motionless on the bush mound. This was the bird
+      I had been listening to, uttering not his own thrush melody, which he
+      perhaps did not know at all, but the sounds he had borrowed from two
+      species so wide apart in their character and language.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The astonishing thing in this case was that the bird never uttered a note
+      of his own original and exceedingly copious song; and I could only suppose
+      that he had never learned the thrush melody; that he had, perhaps, been
+      picked up as a fledgling and put in a cage, where he had imitated the
+      sounds he heard and liked best, and made them his song, and that he had
+      finally escaped or had been liberated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wild thrush, we know, does introduce certain imitations into his own
+      song, but the borrowed notes, or even phrases, are, as a rule, few, and
+      not always to be distinguished from his own.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 95
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Sometimes one can pick them out; thus, on the borders of a marsh where
+      redshanks bred, I have heard the call of that bird distinctly given by the
+      thrush. And again, where the ring-ouzel is common, the thrush will get its
+      brief song exactly. When thrushes taken from the nest are reared in towns,
+      where they never hear the thrush or any other bird sing, they are often
+      exceedingly vocal, and utter a medley of sounds which are sometimes
+      distressing to the ear. I have heard many caged thrushes of this kind in
+      London, but the most remarkable instance I have met with was at the little
+      seaside town of Seaford. Here, in the main shopping street, a caged thrush
+      lived for years in a butcher's shop, and poured out its song continuously,
+      the most distressing throstle performance I ever heard, composed of a
+      medley of loud, shrill and harsh sounds--imitations of screams and shouts,
+      boy whistlers, saw filing, knives sharpened on steels, and numerous other
+      unclassifiable noises; but all, more or less, painful. The whole street
+      was filled with the noise, and the owner used to boast that his caged
+      thrush was the most persistent as well as the loudest singer that had ever
+      been heard. He had no
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      96 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      nerves, and was proud of it! On a recent visit to Seaford I failed to hear
+      the bird when walking about the town, and after two or three days went
+      into the shop to enquire about it. They told me it was dead--that it had
+      been dead over a year; also that many visitors to Seaford had missed its
+      song and had called at the shop to ask about the bird. The strangest thing
+      about its end, they said, was its suddenness. The bird was singing its
+      loudest one morning, and had been at it for some time, filling the whole
+      place with its noise, when suddenly, in the middle of its song, it dropped
+      down dead from its perch.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To drop dead while singing is not an unheard of, nor a very rare
+      occurrence in caged birds, and it probably happens, too, in birds living
+      their natural life. Listening to a nightingale, pouring out its powerful
+      music continuously, as the lark sings, one sometimes wonders that
+      something does not give way to end the vocalist's performance and life at
+      the same instant. Some such incident was probably the origin of the old
+      legend of the minstrel and the nightingale on which Strada based his
+      famous poem, known in many languages. In England Crawshaw's version was by
+      far
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 97
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the best, and is perhaps the finest bird poem in our literature.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The blackbird, like the thrush, sometimes borrows a note or a phrase, and,
+      like the thrush again, if reared by hand he may become a nuisance by
+      mimicking some disagreeable sound, and using it by way of song. I heard of
+      such a case a short time ago at Sidmouth. The ground floor of the house
+      where I lodged was occupied by a gentleman who had a fondness for bird
+      music, and being an invalid confined to his rooms, he kept a number of
+      birds in cages. He had, besides canaries, the thrush, chaffinch, linnet,
+      goldfinch and cirl bunting. I remarked that he did not have the best
+      singer of all--the blackbird. He said that he had procured one, or that
+      some friend had sent him one, a very beautiful ouel cock in the blackest
+      plumage and with the orange-tawniest bill, and he had anticipated great
+      pleasure from hearing its fluting melody. But alas! no blackbird song did
+      this unnatural blackbird sing. He had learnt to bark like a dog, and
+      whenever the singing spirit took him he would bark once or twice or three
+      times, and then, after an interval of silence of the proper length, about
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      98 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fifteen seconds, he would bark again, and so on until he had had his fill
+      of music for the time. The barking got on the invalid's nerves, and he
+      sent the bird away. "It was either that," he said, "or losing my senses
+      altogether."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As all or most singing birds learn their songs from the adults of the same
+      species, it is not strange that there should be a good deal of what we
+      call mimicry in their performances: we may say, in fact, that pretty well
+      all the true singers are mimics, but that some mimic more than others.
+      Thus, the starling is more ready to borrow other birds' notes than the
+      thrush, while the marsh-warbler borrows so much that his singing is mainly
+      composed of borrowings. The nightingale is, perhaps, an exception. His
+      voice excels in power and purity of sound, and what we may call his
+      artistry is exceptionally perfect; this may account for the fact that he
+      does not borrow from other birds' songs. I should say, from my own
+      observation, that all songsters are interested in the singing of other
+      species, or at all events,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 99
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      in certain notes, especially the most striking in power, beauty, and
+      strangeness. Thus, when the cuckoo starts calling, you will see other
+      small birds fly straight to the tree and perch near him, apparently to
+      listen. And among the listeners you will find the sparrow and tits of
+      various species--birds which are never victimized by the cuckoo, and do
+      not take him for a hawk since they take no notice of him until the calling
+      begins. The reason that the double fluting call of the cuckoo is not
+      mimicked by other birds is that they can't; because that peculiar sound is
+      not in their register. The bubbling cry is reproduced by both the marsh
+      warbler and the starling. Again, it is my experience that when a
+      nightingale starts singing, the small birds near immediately become
+      attentive, often suspending their own songs and some flying to perch near
+      him, and listen, just as they listen to the cuckoo. Birds imitate the note
+      or phrase that strikes them most, and is easiest to imitate, as when the
+      thrush copies the piping and trilling of the redshank and the easy song of
+      the ring-ouzel, which, when incorporated into his own music, harmonizes
+      with it perfectly. But he cannot flute, and so never mimics the black-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      100 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      bird's song, although he can and does, as we have seen, imitate its
+      chuckling cry.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is another thing to be considered. I believe that the bird, like
+      creatures in other classes, has his receptive period, his time to learn,
+      and that, like some mammals, he learns everything he needs to know in his
+      first year or two; and that, having acquired his proper song, he adds
+      little or nothing to it thereafter, although the song may increase in
+      power and brilliance when the bird comes to full maturity. This, I think,
+      holds true of all birds, like the nightingale, which have a singing period
+      of two or three months and are songless for the rest of the year. That
+      long, silent period cannot, so far as sounds go, be a receptive one; the
+      song early in life has become crystallized in the form it will keep
+      through life, and is like an intuitive act. This is not the case with
+      birds like the starling, that sing all the year round--birds that are
+      naturally loquacious and sing instead of screaming and chirping like
+      others. They are always borrowing new sounds and always forgetting.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The most curious example of mimicry I have yet met with is that of a true
+      mocking-bird,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 101
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Mimus patachonicus, a common resident species in northern Patagonia, on
+      the Atlantic side, very abundant in places. He is a true mocking-bird
+      because he belongs to the genus Mimus, a branch of the thrush family, and
+      not because he mocks or mimics the songs of other species, like others of
+      his kindred. He does not, in fact, mimic the set songs of others, although
+      he often introduces notes and phrases borrowed from other species into his
+      own performance. He sings in a sketchy way all the year round, but in
+      spring has a fuller unbroken song, emitted with more power and passion.
+      For the rest of the time he sings to amuse himself, as it seems, in a
+      peculiarly leisurely, and one may say, indolent manner, perched on a bush,
+      from time to time emitting a note or two, then a phrase which, if it
+      pleases him, he will repeat two or three, or half a dozen times. Then,
+      after a pause, other notes and phrases, and so on, pretty well all day
+      long. This manner of singing is irritating, like the staccato song of our
+      throstle, to a listener who wants a continuous stream of song; but it
+      becomes exceedingly interesting when one discovers that the bird is
+      thinking very much about his own music,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      102 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      if one can use such an expression about a bird; that he is all the time
+      experimenting, trying to get a new phrase, a new combination of the notes
+      he knows and new notes. Also, that when sitting on his bush and uttering
+      these careless chance sounds, he is, at the same time, intently listening
+      to the others, all engaged in the same way, singing and listening. You
+      will see them all about the place, each bird sitting motionless, like a
+      grey and white image of a bird, on the summit of his own bush. For,
+      although he is not gregarious as a rule, a number of pairs live near each
+      other, and form a sort of loose community. The bond that unites them is
+      their music, for not only do they sit within hearing distance, but they
+      are perpetually mimicking each other. One may say that they are
+      accomplished mimics but prefer mimicking their own to other species. But
+      they only imitate the notes that take their fancy, so to speak. Thus,
+      occasionally, one strikes out a phrase, a new expression, which appears to
+      please him, and after a few moments he repeats it again, then again, and
+      so on and on, and if you remain an hour within hearing he will perhaps be
+      still repeating it at short intervals. Now, if
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 103
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      by chance there is something in the new phrase which pleases the listeners
+      too, you will note that they instantly suspend their own singing, and for
+      some little time they do nothing but listen. By and by the new note or
+      phrase will be exactly reproduced from a bird on another bush; and he,
+      too, will begin repeating it at short intervals. Then a second one will
+      get it, then a third, and eventually all the birds in that thicket will
+      have it. The constant repeating of the new note may then go on for hours,
+      and it may last longer. You may return to the spot on the second day and
+      sit for an hour or longer, listening, and still hear that same note
+      constantly repeated until you are sick and tired of it, or it may even get
+      on your nerves. I remember that on one occasion I avoided a certain
+      thicket, one of my favourite daily haunts for three whole days, not to
+      hear that one everlasting sound; then I returned and to my great relief
+      the birds were all at their old game of composing, and not one
+      uttered--perhaps he didn't dare--the too hackneyed phrase. I was sharply
+      reminded one day by an incident in the village of this old Patagonian
+      experience, and of the strange human-like weakness or pas-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      104 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      sion for something new and arresting in music or song, something "tuney"
+      or "catchy."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It chanced that when I left London a new popular song had come out and was
+      "all the rage," a tune and words invented or first produced in the
+      music-halls by a woman named Lottie Collins, with a chorus to it--<i>Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay</i>,
+      repeated several times. First caught up in the music-halls it spread to
+      the streets, and in ever-widening circles over all London, and over all
+      the land. In London people were getting tired of hearing it, but when I
+      arrived at my village "in a hole," and settled down among the Badgers, I
+      heard it on every hand--in cottages, in the streets, in the fields, men,
+      women and children were singing, whistling, and humming it, and in the
+      evening at the inn roaring it out with as much zest as if they had been
+      singing <i>Rule Britannia.</i>
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This state of things lasted from May to the middle of June; then, one very
+      hot, still day, about three o'clock, I was sitting at my cottage window
+      when I caught the sound of a rumbling cart and a man singing. As the noise
+      grew louder my interest in the approaching man and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 105
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      cart was excited to an extraordinary degree; never had I heard such a
+      noise! And no wonder, since the man was driving a heavy, springless farm
+      cart in the most reckless manner, urging his two huge horses to a fast
+      trot, then a gallop, up and down hill along those rough gully-like roads,
+      he standing up in his cart and roaring out "Auld Lang Syne," at the top of
+      a voice of tremendous power. He was probably tipsy, but it was not a bad
+      voice, and the old familiar tune and words had an extraordinary effect in
+      that still atmosphere. He passed my cottage, standing up, his legs wide
+      apart, his cap on the back of his head, a big broad-chested young man,
+      lashing his horses, and then for about two minutes or longer the thunder
+      of the cart and the roaring song came back fainter, until it faded away in
+      the distance. At that still hour of the day the children were all at
+      school on the further side of the village; the men away in the fields; the
+      women shut up in their cottages, perhaps sleeping. It seemed to me that I
+      was the only person in the village who had witnessed and heard the passing
+      of the big-voiced man and cart. But it was not so. At all events, next
+      day, the whole village, men, women
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      106 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and children, were singing, humming and whistling "Auld Lang Syne," and
+      "Auld Lang Syne" lasted for several days, and from that day
+      "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay" was heard no more. It had lost its charm.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-14.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-14.jpg" width="103"
+      height="122" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkVIII" id="linkVIII"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      VIII
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      JUST out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized
+      pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now
+      overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common, lived
+      in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so many
+      kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a favourite spot
+      with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered near it, a pied
+      wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and fluttered, as if
+      wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve yards before flying
+      away. Not many minutes after seeing the wagtail, a reed-bunting--a bird
+      which I had not previously observed on the common--flew down and alighted
+      on a bush a few yards from me, holding a white crescent-shaped grub in its
+      beak. I stood still to watch it, certainly not expecting to see its nest
+      and young; for, as
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      107
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      108 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      a rule, a bird with food in its beak will sit quietly until the watcher
+      loses patience and moves away; but on this occasion I had not been
+      standing more than ten seconds before the bunting flew down to a small
+      tuft of furze and was there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its
+      young. I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had
+      seen, but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat
+      the turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter
+      on a little further, until at last it rose up and flew to a bush.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After admiring the reed-bunting's action, I turned to the dwarf bush near
+      my feet, and saw, perched on a twig in its centre, a solitary young bird,
+      fully fledged but not yet capable of sustained flight. He did not
+      recognise an enemy in me; on the contrary, when I approached my hand to
+      him, he opened his yellow mouth wide, in expectation of being fed,
+      although his throat was crammed with caterpillars, and the white
+      crescent-shaped larva I had seen in the parent's bill was still lying in
+      his mouth unswallowed. The wonder is that when a young bird had been
+      stuffed with food to such an extent just before sleeping time,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 109
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      he can still find it in him to open his mouth and call for more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      * * *
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How wonderful it is that this parental instinct, so beautiful in its
+      perfect simulation of the action of the bird that has lost the power of
+      flight, should be found in so large a number of species! But when we find
+      that it is not universal; that in two closely-allied species one will
+      possess it and the other not; and that it is common in such
+      widely-separated orders as gallinaceous and passerine birds, in pigeons,
+      ducks, and waders, it becomes plain that it is not assignable to community
+      of descent, but has originated independently all over the globe, in a vast
+      number of species. Something of the beginnings and progressive development
+      of this instinct may be learnt, I think, by noticing the behaviour of
+      various passerine birds in the presence of danger, to their nests and
+      young. Their actions and cries show that they are greatly agitated, and in
+      a majority of species the parent bird flits and flutters round the
+      intruder, uttering sounds of dis-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      110 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      tress. Frequently the bird exhibits its agitation, not only by these cries
+      and restless motions, but by the drooping of the wings and tail--the
+      action observed in a bird when hurt or sick, or oppressed with heat. These
+      languishing signs are common to a great many species after the young have
+      been hatched; the period when the parental solicitude is most intense. In
+      several species which I have observed in South America, the languishing is
+      more marked. There are no sorrowful cries and restless movements; the bird
+      sits with hanging wings and tail, gasping for breath with open bill--in
+      appearance a greatly suffering bird. In some cases of this description,
+      the bird, if it moves at all, hops or flutters from a higher to a lower
+      branch, and, as if sick or wounded, seems about to sink to the ground. In
+      still others, the bird actually does drop to the ground, then, feebly
+      flapping its wings, rises again with great effort. From this last form it
+      is but a step to the more highly developed complex instinct of the bird
+      that sinks to the earth and flutters painfully away, gasping, and
+      seemingly incapable of flight.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It would be a great mistake to suppose that the bird when fluttering on
+      the ground to lead an
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 111
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      enemy from the neighbourhood of its nest is in full possession of all its
+      faculties, acting consciously, and itself in as little danger of capture
+      as when on its perch or flying through the air. We have seen that the
+      action has its root in the bird's passion for its young, and intense
+      solicitude in the presence of any danger threatening them, which is so
+      universal in this class of creatures, and which expresses itself so
+      variously in different kinds. This must be in all cases a painful and
+      debilitating emotion, and when the bird drops down to the earth its pain
+      has caused it to fall as surely as if it had received a wound or had been
+      suddenly attacked by some grievous malady; and when it flutters on the
+      ground it is for the moment incapable of flight, and its efforts to
+      recover flight and safety cause it to beat its wings, and tremble, and
+      gasp with open mouth. The object of the action is to deceive an enemy, or,
+      to speak more correctly, the result is to deceive, and there is nothing
+      that will more inflame and carry away any rapacious mammal than the sight
+      of a fluttering bird. But in thus drawing upon itself the attention of an
+      enemy threatening the safety of its eggs or young, to what a terrible
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      112 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      danger does the parent expose itself, and how often, in those moments of
+      agitation and debility, must its own life fall a sacrifice! The sudden
+      spring and rush of a feline enemy must have proved fatal in myriads of
+      instances. From its inception to its most perfect stage, in the various
+      species that possess it, this perilous instinct has been washed in blood
+      and made bright.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What I have just said, that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action we
+      have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in blood,
+      applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of life,
+      both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that, for one
+      thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in order to meet
+      cases which commonly occur in the life of a species. The instinct is not
+      prophetic and does not meet rare or extraordinary situations. Unless
+      intelligence or some higher faculty comes in to supplement or to take the
+      place of instinctive action then the creature must perish on account of
+      the limitation of instinct. Again, the higher and more complete the
+      instinct the more perilous it is, seeing that its efficiency depends on
+      the absolutely perfect health and balance of all
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 113
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the faculties and the entire organism. Thus, the higher instinctive
+      faculty and action of birds for the preservation of the species, that of
+      migration, is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all. It is so perfect that
+      by means of this faculty millions and myriads of birds of an immense
+      variety of species from cranes, swans, and geese down to minute goldcrests
+      and firecrests and the smallest feeble-winged-leaf warblers, are able to
+      inhabit and to distribute themselves evenly over all the temperate and
+      cold regions of the earth, and even nearer the pole: and in all these
+      regions they rear their young and spend several months each year, where
+      they would inevitably perish from cold and lack of food if they stayed on
+      to meet the winter. We can best realize the perfection of this instinct
+      when we consider that all these migrants, including the young which have
+      never hitherto strayed beyond the small area of their home where every
+      tree and bush and spring and rock is familiar to them, rush suddenly away
+      as if blown by a wind to unknown lands and continents beyond the seas to a
+      distance of from a thousand to six or seven thousand miles; that after
+      long months spent in those distant places, which in turn have grown
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      114 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      familiar to them, they return again to their natal place, not in a direct
+      but ofttimes by a devious route, now north, now north-east, now east or
+      west, keeping to the least perilous lines and crossing the seas where they
+      are narrowest. Thus, when the returning multitude recrosses the Channel
+      into England, coming by way of France and Spain from north or south or
+      mid-Africa and from Asia, they at once proceed to disperse over the entire
+      country from Land's End to Thurso and the northernmost islands of
+      Scotland, until every wood and hill and moor and thicket and stream and
+      every village and field and hedgerow and farmhouse has its own feathered
+      people back in their old places. But they do not return in their old
+      force. They had increased to twice or three times their original numbers
+      when they left us, and as a result of that great adventure a half or
+      two-thirds of the vast army has perished.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The instinct which in character comes nearest to that of the parent
+      simulating the action of a wounded and terrified bird struggling to escape
+      in order to safeguard its young, is that one, very strong in all
+      ground-breeding species, of sitting close on the nest in the presence of
+      danger. Here,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 115
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      too, the instinct is of prime importance to the species, since the bird by
+      quitting the nest reveals its existence to the prowling, nest-seeking
+      enemy--dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England; and in the country where I
+      first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo, opossum, snake, wild cat,
+      and animals of the weasel family. By leaving its nest a minute or half a
+      minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs or young; by staying a moment
+      too long it is in imminent danger of being destroyed itself. How often the
+      bird stays too long on the nest is seen in the corn-crake, a species
+      continually decreasing in this country owing to the destruction caused by
+      the mowing-machine. The parent birds that escape may breed again in a
+      safer place, but in many cases the bird clings too long to its nest and is
+      decapitated or fatally injured by the cutters. Larks, too, often perish in
+      the same way. To go back to the ailing or wounded bird simulating action:
+      this is perhaps most perfect in the gallinaceous birds, all
+      ground-breeders whose nests are most diligently hunted for by all
+      egg-eating creatures, beast or bird, and whose tender chicks are a
+      favourite food for all rapacious animals. In the fowl, pheasants,
+      partridges, quail,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      116 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and grouse, the instinct is singularly powerful, the bird making such
+      violent efforts to escape, with such an outcry, such beating of its wings
+      and struggles on the ground, that no rapacious beast, however often he may
+      have been deceived before, can fail to be carried away with the prospect
+      of an immediate capture. The instinct and action has appeared to me more
+      highly developed in these birds because, in the first place, the
+      demonstrations are more violent than in other families, consequently more
+      effective; and secondly, because the danger once over, the bird's recovery
+      to its normal quiet, watchful state is quicker. By way of experiment, I
+      have at various times thrown myself on pheasants, partridges and grouse,
+      when I have found them with a family of recently-hatched chicks; then on
+      giving up the chase and turning away from the bird its instantaneous
+      recovery has seemed like a miracle. It was like a miracle because the
+      creature did actually suffer from all those violent, debilitating emotions
+      expressed in its disordered cries and action, and it is the miracle of
+      Nature's marvellous health. If we, for example, were thrown into these
+      violent extremes of passion, we should not escape the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 117
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      after-effects. Our whole system would suffer, a doctor would perhaps have
+      to be called in and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the
+      development of toxins in the muscles, and give us a bottle of medicine.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I will conclude this digression and dissertation on a bird's instinct by
+      relating the action of a hen-pheasant I once witnessed, partly because it
+      is the most striking one I have met with of that instantaneous recovery of
+      a bird from an extremity of distress and terror, and partly for another
+      reason which will appear at the end.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The hen-pheasant was a solitary bird, having strayed away from the
+      pheasant copses near the Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away, on
+      the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses and sedges on its
+      border. I was the bird's only human neighbour, as I was staying in a
+      fishing-cottage near the spot where the bird had its nest. Eventually, it
+      brought off eight chicks and remained with them at the same spot on the
+      edge of the valley, living like a rail among the sedges and tall valley
+      herbage. I never went near the bird, but from the cottage caught sight of
+      it from time to time, and sometimes watched it with my
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      118 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      binocular. There was, I thought, a good chance of its being able to rear
+      its young, unless the damp proved injurious, as there was no dog or cat at
+      the cottage, and there were no carrion crows or sparrow-hawks at that
+      spot. One morning about five o'clock on going out I spied a fox-terrier, a
+      poaching dog from the neighbouring village, rushing about in an excited
+      state a hundred yards or so below the cottage. He had scented the birds,
+      and presently up rose the hen from the tall grass with a mighty noise,
+      then flopping down she began beating her wings and struggling over the
+      grass, uttering the most agonizing screams, the dog after her, frantically
+      grabbing at her tail. I feared that he would catch her, and seizing a
+      stick flew down to the rescue, yelling at the dog, but he was too excited
+      to obey or even hear me. At length, thanks to the devious course taken by
+      the bird, I got near enough to get in a good blow on the dog's back. He
+      winced and went on as furiously as ever, and then I got in another blow so
+      well delivered that the rascal yelled, and turning fled back to the
+      village. Hot and panting from my exertions, I stood still, but sooner
+      still the pheasant had pulled herself up and stood
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 119
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      there, about three yards from my feet, as if nothing had happened--as if
+      not a ripple had troubled the quiet surface of her life! The serenity of
+      the bird, just out of that storm of violence and danger, and her perfect
+      indifference to my presence, was astonishing to me. For a minute or two I
+      stood still watching her; then turned to walk back to the cottage, and no
+      sooner did I start than after me she came at a gentle trot, following me
+      like a dog. On my way back I came to the very spot where the fox-terrier
+      had found and attacked the bird, and at once on reaching it she came to a
+      stop and uttered a call, and instantly from eight different places among
+      the tall grasses the eight fluffy little chicks popped up and started
+      running to her. And there she stood, gathering them about her with gentle
+      chucklings, taking no notice of me, though I was standing still within two
+      yards of her!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Up to the moment when the dog got his smart blow and fled from her she had
+      been under the domination of a powerful instinct, and could have acted in
+      no other way; but what guided her so infallibly in her subsequent actions?
+      Certainly not instinct, and not reason, which hesitates between
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      120 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      different courses and is slow to arrive at a decision. One can only say
+      that it was, or was like, intuition, which is as much as to say that we
+      don't know.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-15.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-15.jpg" width="160"
+      height="122" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkIX" id="linkIX"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IX
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      AMONG the rarer fringilline birds on the common were the cirl bunting,
+      bullfinch and goldfinch, the last two rarely seen. Linnets, however, were
+      abundant, now gathered in small flocks composed mainly of young birds in
+      plain plumage, with here and there an individual showing the
+      carmine-tinted breast of the adult male. Unhappily, a dreary fate was in
+      store for many of these blithe twitterers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On June 24, when walking towards the pool, I spied two recumbent human
+      figures on a stretch of level turf near its banks, and near them a
+      something dark on the grass--a pair of clap-nets! "Still another serpent
+      in my birds' paradise!" said I to myself, and, walking on, I skirted the
+      nets and sat down on the grass beside the men. One was a rough brown-faced
+      country lad; the other, who held the strings and wore the usual cap and
+      comforter, was a man of about five-and-twenty,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      122 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      with pale blue eyes and yellowish hair, close-cropped, and the
+      unmistakable London mark in his chalky complexion. He regarded me with
+      cold, suspicious looks, and, when I talked and questioned, answered
+      briefly and somewhat surlily. I treated him to tobacco, and he smoked; but
+      it wasn't shag, and didn't soften him. On mentioning casually that I had
+      seen a stoat an hour before, he exhibited a sudden interest. It was as if
+      one had said "rats!" to a terrier. I succeeded after a while in getting
+      him to tell me the name of the man to whom he sent his captives, and when
+      I told him that I knew the man well--a bird-seller in a low part of
+      London--he thawed visibly. Finally I asked him to look at a red-backed
+      shrike, perched on a bush about fifteen yards from his nets, through my
+      field-glasses, and from that moment he became as friendly as possible, and
+      conversed freely about his mystery. "How near it brings him!" he
+      exclaimed, with a grin of delight, after looking at the bird. The shrike
+      had greatly annoyed him; it had been hanging about for some time, he told
+      me, dashing at the linnets and driving them off when they flew down to the
+      nets. Two or three times he might
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 123
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      have caught it, but would not draw the nets and have the trouble of
+      resetting them for so worthless a bird. "But I'll take him the next time,"
+      he said vindictively. "I didn't know he was such a handsome bird."
+      Unfortunately, the shrike soon flew away, and passing linnets dropped
+      down, drawn to the spot by the twitterings of their caged fellows, and
+      were caught; and so it went on for a couple of hours, we conversing
+      amicably during the waiting intervals. For now he regarded me as a friend
+      of the bird-catcher. Linnets only were caught, most of them young birds,
+      which pleased him; for the young linnet after a month or two of cage life
+      will sing; but the adult males would be silent until the next spring,
+      consequently they were not worth so much, although the carmine stain in
+      their breast made them for the time so much more beautiful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I remarked incidentally that there were some who looked with unfriendly
+      eyes on his occupation, and that, sooner or later, these people would try
+      to get an Act of Parliament to make bird-catching in lanes, on commons and
+      waste lands illegal. "They can't do it!" he exclaimed excitedly. "And if
+      they can do it, and if they do
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      124 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      do it, it will be the ruination of England. For what would there be, then,
+      to stop the birds increasing? It stands to reason that the whole country
+      would be eaten up."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless the man really believed that but for the laborious days that
+      bird-catchers spend lying on the grass, the human race would be very badly
+      off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just after he had finished his protest, three or four linnets flew down
+      and were caught. Taking them from the nets, he showed them to me,
+      remarking, with a short laugh, that they were all young males. Then he
+      thrust them down the stocking-leg which served as an entrance to the
+      covered box he kept his birds in--the black hole in which their captive
+      life begins, where they were now all vainly fluttering to get out. Going
+      back to the previous subject, he said that he knew very well that many
+      persons disliked a bird-catcher, but there was one thing that nobody could
+      say against him--he wasn't cruel; he caught, but didn't kill. He only
+      killed when he caught a great number of female linnets, which were not
+      worth sending up; he pulled their heads off, and took them home to make a
+      linnet pie. Then, by
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 125
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      way of contrast to his own merciful temper, he told me of the young
+      nest-destroyer I have writ-ten about. It made him mad to see such things!
+      Something ought to be done, he said, to stop a boy like that; for by
+      destroying so many nestlings he was taking the bread out of the
+      bird-catcher's mouth. Passing to other subjects, he said that so far he
+      had caught nothing but linnets on the common--you couldn't expect to catch
+      other kinds in June. Later on, in August and September, there would be a
+      variety. But he had small hopes of catching goldfinches, they were too
+      scarce now. Greenfinches, yellow-hammers, common buntings, reed
+      sparrows--all such birds were worth only tuppence apiece. Oh, yes, he
+      caught them just the same, and sent them up to London, but that was all
+      they were worth to him. For young male linnets he got eightpence,
+      sometimes tenpence; for hen birds fourpence, or less. I dare say that
+      eightpence was what he hoped to get, seeing that young male linnets are
+      not unfrequently sold by London dealers for sixpence and even fourpence.
+      Goldfinches ran to eighteenpence, sometimes as much as two shillings.
+      Starlings he had made a lot out of, but that was all past and over. Why?
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      126 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Because they were not wanted--because people were such fools that they now
+      preferred to shoot at pigeons. He hated pigeons! Gentlemen used to shoot
+      starlings at matches; and if you had the making of a bird to shoot at, you
+      couldn't get a better than the starling--such a neat bird! He had caught
+      hundreds--thousands--and had sold them well. But now nothing but pigeons
+      would they have. Pigeons! Always pigeons! He caught starlings still, but
+      what was the good of that? The dealers would only take a few, and they
+      were worth nothing--no more than greenfinches and yellow-hammers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My colloquy with my enemy on the common tempts me to a fresh digression in
+      this place--to have my say on a question about which much has already been
+      said during the last three or four decades, especially during the
+      'sixties, when the first practical efforts to save our wild-bird life from
+      destruction were made.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is a feeling in the great mass of people that the pursuit of any
+      wild animal, whether fit for food or not, for pleasure or gain, is a form
+      of sport, and that sport ought not to be inter-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 127
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fered with. So strong and well-nigh universal is this feeling, which is
+      like a superstition, that the pursuit is not interfered with, however
+      unsportsmanlike it may be, and when illegal, and when practised by only a
+      very few persons in any district, where to others it may be secretly
+      distasteful or even prejudicial.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Even bird-catching on a common is regarded as a form of sport and the
+      bird-catcher as a sportsman--and a brother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A striking instance of this tameness and stupidly acquiescent spirit in
+      people generally was witnessed during the intensely severe frosts of the
+      early part of the late winter (1882-3), when incalculable numbers of
+      sea-birds were driven by hunger and cold into bays and inland waters. At
+      this time thousands of gulls made their appearance in the Thames, but no
+      sooner did they arrive than those who possessed guns and licences to shoot
+      began to shoot them. The police interfered and some of these sportsmen
+      were brought before the magistrates and fined for the offence of
+      discharging guns to the public danger. For upwards of a fortnight after
+      the shooting had been put a stop to, the gulls continued to frequent the
+      river
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      128 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      in large numbers, and were perhaps most numerous from London Bridge to
+      Battersea, and during this time they were watched every day by thousands
+      of Londoners with keen interest and pleasure. The river here, flowing
+      through the very centre and heart of the greatest city of the world, forms
+      at all hours and at all seasons of the year a noble and magnificent sight;
+      to my eyes it never looked more beautiful and wonderful than during those
+      intensely cold days of January, when there was nothing that one could call
+      a mist in a chilly, motionless atmosphere, but only a faint haze, a pallor
+      as of impalpable frost, which made the heavens seem more white than blue,
+      and gave a hoariness and cloud-like remoteness to the arches spanning the
+      water, and the vast buildings on either side, ending with the sublime dome
+      of the city cathedral; and when out of the pale motionless haze, singly,
+      in twos and threes, in dozens and scores, floated the mysterious white
+      bird-figures, first seen like vague shadows in the sky, then quickly
+      taking shape and whiteness, and floating serenely past, to be succeeded by
+      others and yet others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was not merely the ornithologist in me that
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 129
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      made the sight so fascinating, since it was found that others--all others,
+      it might almost be said,--experienced the same kind of delight. Crowds of
+      people came down to the river to watch the birds; workmen when released
+      from their work at mid-day hurried down to the embankment so as to enjoy
+      seeing the gulls while eating their dinners, and, strangest thing of all,
+      to feed them with the fragments!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet these very men who found so great a pleasure in observing and
+      feeding their white visitors from the sea, and were exhilarated with the
+      novel experiences of seeing wild nature face to face at their own
+      doors--these thousands would have stood by silent and consenting if the
+      half-a-dozen scoundrels with guns and fish-hooks on lines had been allowed
+      to have their will and had slaughtered and driven the birds from the
+      river! And this, in fact, is precisely what happened at a distance from
+      London, where guns could be discharged without danger to the public, in
+      numberless bays and rivers in which the birds sought refuge. They were
+      simply slaughtered wholesale in the most wanton manner; in More-cambe Bay
+      a hundred and twelve gulls were killed
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      130 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      at one discharge, and no hand and no voice was raised to interfere with
+      the hideous sport. Not because it was not shocking to the spectators, but
+      because it was "Sport."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless it will be said that this wholesale wanton destruction of bird
+      life, however painful it may be to lovers of nature, however reprehensible
+      from a moral point of view, is sanctioned by law, and cannot therefore be
+      prevented. This is not quite so. We see that the Wild Birds Protection Act
+      is continually being broken with impunity, and where public opinion is
+      unfavourable to it the guardians of the law themselves, the police and the
+      magistrates, are found encouraging the people to break the law. Again, we
+      find that where commons are enclosed, and the law says nothing, the people
+      are accustomed to assemble together unlawfully to tear the fences down,
+      and are not punished. For, after all, if laws do not express or square
+      with public will or opinion, they have little force; and if, in any
+      locality, the people thought proper to do so--if they were not restrained
+      by that dull, tame spirit I have spoken of--they would, lawfully or
+      unlawfully, protect their sea-fowl from the cockney
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 131
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      sportsmen, and sweep the bird-catchers out of their lanes and waste lands.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One day I paid a visit to Maidenhead, a pleasant town on the Thames, where
+      the Thames is most beautiful, set in the midst of a rich and diversified
+      country which should be a bird's paradise. In my walks in the town, I saw
+      a great many stuffed kingfishers, and, in the shops of the local
+      taxidermists, some rare and beautiful birds, with others that are fast
+      becoming rare. But outside of the town I saw no kingfishers and no rare
+      species at all, and comparatively few birds of any kind. It might have
+      been a town of Philistine cockneys who at no very distant period had
+      emigrated thither from the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields. I came home
+      with the local guide-book in my pocket. It is now before me, and this is
+      what its writer says of the Thicket, the extensive and beautiful common
+      two miles from the town, which belongs to Maidenhead, or, in other words,
+      to its inhabitants: "The Thicket was formerly much infested by robbers and
+      highwaymen. The only remains of them to be found now are the snarers of
+      the little feathered songsters, who im-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      132 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      prison them in tiny cages and carry them off in large numbers to brighten
+      by their sweet, sad sighs for liberty the dwellers in our smoky cities."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On this point I consulted a bird-catcher, who had spread his nets on the
+      common for many years, and he complained bitterly of the increasing
+      scarcity of its bird life. There was no better place than the Thicket
+      formerly, he said; but now he could hardly make his bread there. I presume
+      that a dozen men of his trade would be well able to drain the country in
+      the neighbourhood of the Thicket of the greater portion of its bird life
+      each year so as to keep the songsters scarce. Will any person maintain for
+      a moment that the eight or nine thousand inhabitants of Maidenhead, and
+      the hundreds or thousands inhabiting the surrounding country could not
+      protect their songbirds from these few men, most of them out of London
+      slums, if they wished or had the spirit to do so?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is true that the local authorities in some country towns have made
+      by-laws to protect the birds in their open spaces. Thus, at Tunbridge
+      Wells, since 1890, bird-trapping and bird's-nesting have been prohibited
+      on the large and beau-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 133
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      tiful common there; but, so far as I know, such measures have only been
+      taken in boroughs after the birds have been almost exterminated.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless the day will come when, law or no law, the bird-catcher will
+      find it necessary to go warily, lest the people of any place where he may
+      be tempted to spread his nets should have formed the custom of treating
+      those of his calling somewhat roughly. That it will come soon is earnestly
+      to be wished. Nevertheless, it would be irrational to cherish feelings of
+      animosity and hatred against the bird-catcher himself, the "man and
+      brother," ready and anxious as we may be to take the bread out of his
+      mouth. He certainly does not regard himself as an injurious or
+      disreputable person; on the contrary he looks on himself as a useful
+      member of the community, and in some cases even more. If anyone is to be
+      hated or blamed, it is the person who sends the bird-catcher into the
+      fields; not the dealer, but he who buys trapped birds and keeps them in
+      cages to be amused by their twitterings. This is not a question of
+      morality, nor of sentimentality, as some may imagine; but rather of taste,
+      of the sense of fitness, of that something vaguely
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      134 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      described as the feeling for nature, which is not universal. Thus, one man
+      will dine with zest on a pheasant, partridge, or quail, but would be
+      choked by a lark; while another man will eat pheasant and lark with equal
+      pleasure. Both may be good, honest, moral men; only one has that something
+      which the other lacks. In one the soul responds to the skylark's music
+      "singing at heaven's gate," in the other not; to one the roasted lark is
+      merely a savoury morsel; the other, be he never so hungry, cannot
+      dissociate the bird on the dish from that heavenly melody which registered
+      a sensation in his brain, to be thereafter reproduced at will, together
+      with the revived emotion. It is a curious question, and is no nearer to a
+      settlement when one of these two I have described turns round and calls
+      his neighbour a gross feeder, a worshipper of his belly, a soulless and
+      brutish man; and when the other answers "pooh-pooh" and goes on
+      complacently devouring larks with great gusto, until he is himself
+      devoured of death.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To those with whom I am in sympathy in this matter, who love to listen to
+      and are yearly invigorated by the skylark's music, and whose souls
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 135
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      are yearly sickened at the slaughter of their loved songsters, I would
+      humbly suggest that there is a simpler, more practical means of ending
+      this dispute, which has surely lasted long enough. It goes without saying
+      that this bird's music is eminently pleasing to most persons, that even as
+      the sunshine is sweet and pleasant to behold, its silvery aerial sounds
+      rained down so abundantly from heaven are delightful and exhilarating to
+      all of us, or at all events, to so large a majority that the minority are
+      not entitled to consideration. One person in five thousand, or perhaps in
+      ten thousand, might be found to say that the lark singing in blue heaven
+      affords him no pleasure. This being so, and ours being a democratic
+      country in which the will or desire of the many is or may be made the law
+      of the land, it is surely only right and reasonable that lovers of lark's
+      flesh should be prevented from gratifying their taste at the cost of the
+      destruction of so loved a bird, that they should be made to content
+      themselves with woodcock, and snipe on toast, and golden plover, and
+      grouse and blackcock, and any other bird of delicate flavor which does
+      not,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      136 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      living, appeal so strongly to the aesthetic feelings in us and is not so
+      universal a favourite.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, too, will doubtless come in time. Speaking for myself, and going
+      back to the former subject, little as I like to see men feeding on larks,
+      rather would I see larks killed and eaten than thrust into cages. For in
+      captivity they do not "sweeten" my life, as the Maidenhead guidebook
+      writer would say, with their shrill, piercing cries for liberty, but they
+      "sing me mad." Just as in some minds this bird's music--a sound which
+      above all others typifies the exuberant life and joy of nature to the
+      soul--cannot be separated from the cooked and dished-up melodist, so that
+      they turn with horror from such meat, so I cannot separate this bird, nor
+      any bird, from the bird's wild life of liberty, and the marvellous faculty
+      of flight which is the bird's attribute. To see so wild and aerial a
+      creature in a cage jars my whole system, and is a sight hateful and
+      unnatural, an outrage on our universal mother.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This feeling about birds in captivity, which I have attempted to describe,
+      and which, I repeat, is not sentimentality, as that word is ordinarily
+      understood, has been so vividly rendered in an
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 137
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ode to "The Skylarks" by Sir Rennell Rodd, that the reader will probably
+      feel grateful to me for quoting a portion of it in this place, especially
+      as the volume in which it appears--<i>Feda, with Other Poems</i>--is, I
+      imagine, not very widely known:
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        "Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky,<br /> For the home of a song-bird's
+        heart!<br /> And why, and why, and for ever why,<br /> Do they stifle here
+        in the mart:<br /> Cages of agony, rows on rows,<br /> Torture that only a
+        wild thing knows:<br /> Is it nothing to you to see<br /> That head thrust
+        out through the hopeless wire, <br /> And the tiny life, and the mad
+        desire<br /> To be free, to be free, to be free?<br /> Oh, the sky, the
+        sky, the blue, wide sky,<br /> For the beat of a song-bird's wings!
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        * * *
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        Straight and close are the cramping bars<br /> From the dawn of mist to
+        the chill of stars,<br /> And yet it must sing or die!<br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      138 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        Will its marred harsh voice in the city street<br /> Make any heart of
+        you glad? <br /> It will only beat with its wings and beat,<br /> It will
+        only sing you mad.<br />
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        * * *
+      </p>
+      <p>
+        If it does not go to your heart to see<br /> The helpless pity of those
+        bruised wings,<br /> The tireless effort to which it clings<br /> To the
+        strain and the will to be free, <br /> I know not how I shall set in
+        words<br /> The meaning of God in this,<br /> For the loveliest thing in
+        this world of His<br /> Are the ways and the songs of birds. <br /> But
+        the sky, the sky, the wide, free sky,<br /> For the home of the
+        song-bird's heart!"<br />
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      &nbsp;
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How falsely does that man see Nature, how grossly ignorant must he be of
+      its most elemental truths, who looks upon it as a chamber of torture, a
+      physiological laboratory on a very vast scale, a scene of endless strife
+      and trepidation, of hunger and cold, and every form of pain and
+      misery--and who, holding this doctrine of
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link138" id="link138"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-16.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-16.jpg" width="416"
+      height="686" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      SKYLARK.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "; Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky is the home of a song-bird's heart,"
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 139
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Nature's cruelty, keeps a few captive birds in cages, and is accustomed to
+      say of them, "These, at any rate, are safe, rescued from subjection to
+      ruthless conditions, sheltered from the inclement weather and from
+      enemies, and all their small wants abundantly satisfied;" who once or
+      twice every day looks at his little captives, presents them with a lump of
+      sugar, whistles and chuckles to provoke them to sing, then goes about his
+      business, flattering himself that he is a lover of birds, a being of a
+      sweet and kindly nature. It is all a delusion--a distortion and inversion
+      of the truth--so absurd that it would be laughable were it not so sad, and
+      the cause of so much unconscious cruelty. The truth is, that if birds be
+      capable of misery, it is only in the unnatural conditions of a caged life
+      that they experience it; and that if they are capable of happiness in a
+      cage, such happiness or contentment is but a poor, pale emotion compared
+      with the wild exuberant gladness they have in freedom, where all their
+      instincts have full play, and where the perils that surround them do but
+      brighten their many splendid faculties. The little bird twitters and sings
+      in its cage, and among ourselves the blind man and the cripple
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      140 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      whistle and sing, too, feeling at times a lower kind of contentment and
+      cheerfulness. The chaffinch in East London, with its eyeballs seared by
+      red-hot needles, sings, too, in its prison, when it has grown accustomed
+      to its darkened existence, and is in health, and the agreeable sensations
+      that accompany health prompt it at intervals to melody, but no person, not
+      even the dullest ruffian among the baser sort of bird-fanciers would
+      maintain for a moment that the happiness of the little sightless captive,
+      whether vocal or silent, is at all comparable in degree to that of the
+      chaffinch singing in April "on the orchard bough," vividly seeing the wide
+      sunlit world, blue above and green below, possessing the will and the
+      power, when its lyric ends, to transport itself swiftly through the
+      crystal fields of air to other trees and other woods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I take it that in the lower animals misery can result from two causes
+      only--restraint and disease; consequently, that animals in a state of
+      nature are not miserable. They are not hindered nor held back. Whether the
+      animal is migrating, or burying himself in his hibernating nest or den; or
+      flying from some rapacious enemy, which he
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 141
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      may, or may not, be able to escape; or feeding, or sleeping, or fighting,
+      or courting, or incubating, however many days or weeks this process may
+      last--in all things he is obeying the impulse that is strongest in him at
+      the time--he is doing what he wants to do--the one thing that makes him
+      happy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As to disease, it is so rare in wild animals, or in a large majority of
+      cases so quickly proves fatal, that, compared with what we call disease in
+      our own species it is practically non-existent. The "struggle for
+      existence," in so far as animals in a state of nature are concerned, is a
+      metaphorical struggle; and the strife, short and sharp, which is so common
+      in nature, is not misery, although it results in pain, since it is pain
+      that kills or is soon outlived. Fear there is, just as in fine weather
+      there are clouds in the sky; and just as the shadow of the cloud passes,
+      so does fear pass from the wild creature when the object that excited it
+      has vanished from sight. And when death comes, it comes unexpectedly, and
+      is not the death that we know, even before we taste of it, thinking of it
+      with apprehension all our lives long, but a sudden blow that takes away
+      consciousness--the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      142 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      touch of something that numbs the nerves--merely the prick of a needle. In
+      whatever way the animal perishes, whether by violence, or excessive cold,
+      or decay, his death is a comparatively easy one. So long as he is fighting
+      with or struggling to escape from an enemy, wounds are not felt as wounds,
+      and scarcely hurt him--as we know from our own experience; and when
+      overcome, if death be not practically instantaneous, as in the case of a
+      small bird seized by a cat, the disabling grip or blow is itself a kind of
+      anodyne, producing insensibility to pain. This, too, is a matter of human
+      experience. To say nothing of those who fall in battle, men have often
+      been struck down and fearfully lacerated by lions, tigers, jaguars, and
+      other savage beasts; and after having been rescued by their companions,
+      have recounted this strange thing. Even when there was no loss of
+      consciousness, when they saw and knew that the animal was rending their
+      flesh, they seemed not to feel it, and were, at the time, indifferent to
+      the fate that had overtaken them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the same in death from cold. The strong, well-nourished man,
+      overtaken by a snowstorm on some pathless, uninhabited waste, may expe-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 143
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      rience some exceedingly bitter moments, or even hours, before he gives up
+      the struggle. The physical pain is simply nothing: the whole bitterness is
+      in the thought that he must die. The horror at the thought of
+      annihilation, the remembrance of all the happiness he is now about to
+      lose, of dear friends, of those whose lives will be dimmed with grief for
+      his loss, of all his cherished dreams of the future--the sting of all this
+      is so sharp that, compared with it, the creeping coldness in his blood is
+      nothing more than a slight discomfort, and is scarcely felt. By and by he
+      is overcome by drowsiness, and ceases to struggle; the torturing visions
+      fade from his mind, and his only thought is to lie down and sleep. And
+      when he sleeps he passes away; very easily, very painlessly, for the pain
+      was of the mind, and was over long before death ensued.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bird, however hard the frost may be, flies briskly to its customary
+      roosting-place, and with beak tucked into its wing, falls asleep. It has
+      no apprehensions; only the hot blood grows colder and colder, the pulse
+      feebler as it sleeps, and at midnight, or in the early morning, it drops
+      from its perch--dead.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      144 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yesterday he lived and moved, responsible to a thousand external
+      influences, reflecting earth and sky in his small brilliant brain as in a
+      looking-glass; also he had a various language, the inherited knowledge of
+      his race, and the faculty of flight, by means of which he could shoot,
+      meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from place to place, and
+      with it such perfect control over all his organs, such marvellous
+      certitude in all his motions, as to be able to drop himself plumb down
+      from the tallest tree-top or out of the void air, on to a slender spray,
+      and scarcely cause its leaves to tremble. Now, on this morning, he lies
+      stiff and motionless; if you were to take him up and drop him from your
+      hand, he would fall to the ground like a stone or a lump of clay--so easy
+      and swift is the passage from life to death in wild nature! But he was
+      never miserable.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Those of my readers who have seen much of animals in a state of nature,
+      will agree that death from decay, or old age, is very rare among them. In
+      that state the fullest vigour, with brightness of all the faculties, is so
+      important that probably in ninety-nine cases in a hundred any falling-off
+      in
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 145
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      strength, or decay of any sense, results in some fatal accident. Death by
+      misadventure, as we call it, is Nature's ordinance, the end designed for a
+      very large majority of her children. Nevertheless, animals do sometimes
+      live on without accident to the very end of their term, to fade peacefully
+      away at the last. I have myself witnessed such cases in mammals and birds;
+      and one such case, which profoundly impressed me, and is vividly
+      remembered, I will describe.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning in the late summer, while walking in the fields at my home in
+      South America, I noticed a few purple martins, large, beautiful swallows
+      common in that region, engaged, at a considerable height, in the aerial
+      exercises in which they pass so much of their time each day. By and by,
+      one of the birds separated itself from the others, and, circling slowly
+      downward, finally alighted on the ground not far from me. I walked on: but
+      the action of the bird had struck me as unusual and strange, and before
+      going far, I turned and walked back to the spot where it continued sitting
+      on the ground, quite motionless. It made no movement when I approached to
+      within four yards of it; and after I had stood still
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      146 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      at that distance for a minute or so, attentively regarding it, I saw it
+      put out one wing and turn over on its side. I at once took it up in my
+      hand, and found that it was already quite dead. It was a large example of
+      its species, and its size, together with a something of dimness in the
+      glossy purple colour of the upper plumage, seemed to show that it was an
+      old bird. But it was uninjured, and when I dissected it no trace of
+      disease was discernible. I concluded that it was an old bird that had died
+      solely from natural failure of the life-energy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But how wonderful, how almost incredible, that the healthy vigour and joy
+      of life should have continued in this individual bird down to within so
+      short a period of the end; that it should have been not only strong enough
+      to find its food, but to rush and wheel about for long intervals in purely
+      sportive exercises, when the brief twilight of decline and final
+      extinction were so near! It becomes credible--we can even believe that
+      most of the individuals that cease to exist only when the vital fire has
+      burnt itself out, fall on death in this swift, easy manner--when we recall
+      the fact that even in the life-history of men such a thing
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 147
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      is not unknown. Probably there is not one among my readers who will not be
+      able to recall some such incident in his own circle--the case of someone
+      who lived, perhaps, long past the term usually allotted to man, and who
+      finally passed away without a struggle, without a pang, so that those who
+      were with him found it hard to believe that the spirit had indeed gone. In
+      such cases, the subject has invariably been healthy, although it is hard
+      to believe that, in the conditions we exist in, any man can have the
+      perfect health that all wild creatures enjoy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-17.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-17.jpg" width="117"
+      height="59" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+     <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkX" id="linkX"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      X
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      AFTER my long talk with the bird-catcher on June 24, and two more talks
+      equally long on the two following days, I found that something of the
+      charm the common had had for me was gone. It was not quite the same as
+      formerly; even the sunshine had a something of conscious sadness in it
+      which was like a shadow. Those merry little brown twitterers that
+      frequently shot across the sky, looking small as insects in the wide blue
+      expanse, and ever and anon dropped swiftly down like showers of aerolites,
+      to lose themselves in the grass and herbage, or perch singing on the
+      topmost dead twigs of a bush, now existed in constant imminent danger--not
+      of that quick merciful destruction which Nature has for her weaklings, and
+      for all that fail to reach her high standard; but of a worse fate, the
+      prison life which is not Nature's ordinance, but one of the cunning larger
+      Ape's abhorred inventions. In-
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      148
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 149
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      stead of taking my usual long strolls about the common I loitered once
+      more in the village lanes and had my reward.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the morning of June 27 I was out sauntering very indolently, thinking
+      of nothing at all; for it was a surpassingly brilliant day, and the
+      sunshine produced the effect of a warm, lucent, buoyant fluid, in which I
+      seemed to float rather than walk--a celestial water, which, like the more
+      ponderable and common sort, may sometimes be both felt and seen. The
+      sensation of feeling it is somewhat similar to that experienced by a
+      bather standing breast-deep in a dear, green, warm tropical sea, so
+      charged with salt that it lifts him up; but to distinguish it with the
+      eye, you must look away to a distance of some yards in an open unshaded
+      place, when it will become visible as fine glinting lines, quivering and
+      serpentining upwards, fountain-wise, from the surface. All at once I was
+      startled by hearing the loud importunate hunger-call of a young cuckoo
+      quite close to me. Moving softly up to the low hedge and peering over, I
+      saw the bird perched on a long cross-stick, which had been put up in a
+      cottage garden to hang clothes on; he was not
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      150 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      more than three to four yards from me, a fine young cuckoo in perfect
+      plumage, his barred under-surface facing me. Although seeing me as plainly
+      as I saw him, he exhibited no fear, and did not stir. Why should he, since
+      I had not come there to feed him, and, to his inexperienced avian mind,
+      was only one of the huge terrestrial creatures of various forms, with
+      horns and manes on their heads, that move heavily about in roads and
+      pastures, and are nothing to birds? But his foster parent, a
+      hedge-sparrow, was suspicious, and kept at some distance with food in her
+      bill; then excited by his imperative note, she flitted shyly to him, and
+      deposited a minute caterpillar in his great gaping yellow mouth. It was
+      like dropping a bun into the monstrous mouth of the hippopotamus of the
+      Zoological Gardens. But the hedge-sparrow was off and back again with a
+      second morsel in a very few moments; and again and again she darted away
+      in quest of food and returned successful, while the lazy, beautiful giant
+      sat sunning himself on his cross-stick and hungrily cried for more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is one of those exceptional sights in nature which, however often
+      seen, never become alto-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 151
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      gether familiar, never fail to re-excite the old feelings of wonder and
+      admiration which were experienced on first witnessing them. I can safely
+      say, I think, that no man has observed so many parasitical young birds
+      (individuals) being fed by their foster-parents as myself, yet the
+      interest such a sight inspired in me is just as fresh now as in boyhood.
+      And probably in no parasitical species does the strangeness of the
+      spectacle strike the mind so sharply as in this British bird, since the
+      differences in size and colouring between the foster-parent and its false
+      offspring are so much greater in its case. Here nature's unnaturalness in
+      such an instinct--a close union of the beautiful and the monstrous--is
+      seen in its extreme form. The hawk-like figure and markings of the cuckoo
+      serve only to accentuate the disparity, which is perhaps greatest when the
+      parent is the hedge-sparrow--so plainly-coloured a bird, so shy and
+      secretive in its habits. One never ceases to be amazed at the blindness of
+      the parental instinct in so intelligent a creature as a bird in a case of
+      this kind. Some idea of how blind it is may be formed by imagining a case
+      in widely separated types of our own species, which would be a
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      152 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      parallel to that of the cuckoo and hedge-sparrow. Let us imagine that some
+      malicious Arabian Night's genius had snatched up the infant male child of
+      a Scandinavian couple--the largest of their nation; and flying away to
+      Africa with it, to the heart of the great Aruwhimi forest had laid it on
+      the breast of a little coffee-coloured, woolly-headed, spindle-shanked,
+      pot-bellied, pigmy mother, taking away at the same time her own newly-born
+      babe; that she had tenderly nursed the substituted child, and reared and
+      protected it, ministering, according to her lights, to all its huge wants,
+      until he had come to the fullness of his stature, yet never suspected,
+      that the magnificent, ivory-limbed giant, with flowing yellow locks and
+      cerulean eyes, was not the child of her own womb.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-18.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-18.jpg" width="133"
+      height="100" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkXI" id="linkXI"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      XI
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      BRIGHT and genial were all the last days of June, when I loitered in the
+      lanes before the unwished day of my return to London. During this quiet,
+      pleasant time the greenfinch was perhaps more to me than any other
+      songster. In the village itself, with the adjacent lanes and orchards,
+      this pretty, seldom-silent bird was the most common species. The village
+      was his metropolis, just as London is ours--and the sparrow's; its lanes
+      were his streets, its hedges and elm trees his cottage rows and tall
+      stately mansions and public buildings. . We frequently find the
+      predominance of one species somewhat wearisome. Speaking for myself, there
+      are songsters that are best appreciated when they are limited in numbers
+      and keep their distance, but of the familiar, unambitious strains of
+      swallow, robin, and wren I never tire, nor, during these days, could I
+      have too much of the greenfinch, low as he ranks among British
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      153
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      154 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      melodists. Tastes differ; that is a point on which we are all agreed, and
+      every one of us, even the humblest, is permitted to have his own
+      preferences. Still, after re-reading Wordsworth's lines to "The Green
+      Linnet," it is curious, to say the least of it, to turn to some
+      prosewriter--an authority on birds, perhaps--to find that this species,
+      whose music so charmed the poet, has for its song a monotonous croak,
+      which it repeats at short intervals for hours without the slightest
+      variation--a dismal sound which harmonizes with no other sound in nature,
+      and suggests nothing but heat and weariness, and is of all natural sounds
+      the most irritating. To this writer, then--and there are others to keep
+      him in countenance--the greenfinch as a vocalist ranks lower than the
+      lowest. One can only wonder (and smile) at such extreme divergences. To my
+      mind all natural sounds have, in some measure an exhilarating effect, and
+      I cannot get rid of the notion that so it should be with every one of us;
+      and when some particular sound, or series of sounds, that has more than
+      this common character, and is distinctly pleasing, is spoken of as nothing
+      but disagreeable, irritating, and the rest
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 155
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      of it, I am inclined to think that there is something wrong with the
+      person who thus describes it; that he is not exactly as nature would have
+      had him, but that either during his independent life, or before it at some
+      period of his prenatal existence, something must have happened to distune
+      him. All this, I freely confess, may be nothing but fancy. In any case,
+      the subject need not keep us longer from the greenfinch--that is to say,
+      <i>my</i> greenfinch not another man's.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From morning until evening all around and about the cottage, and out of
+      doors whithersoever I bent my steps, from the masses of deep green
+      foliage, sounded the perpetual airy prattle of these delightful birds. One
+      had the idea that the concealed vocalists were continually meeting each
+      other at little social gatherings, where they exchanged pretty loving
+      greetings, and indulged in a leafy gossip, interspersed with occasional
+      fragments of music, vocal and instrumental; now a long trill--a trilling,
+      a tinkling, a sweeping of one minute finger-tip over metal strings as fine
+      as gossamer threads--describe it how you will, you cannot describe it;
+      then the long, low, inflected scream, like a lark's throat-note drawn out
+      and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      156 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      inflected; little chirps and chirruping exclamations and remarks, and a
+      soft warbled note three or four or more times repeated, and sometimes, the
+      singer fluttering up out of the foliage and hovering in the air,
+      displaying his green and yellow plumage while emitting these lovely notes;
+      and again the trill, trill answering trill in different keys; and again
+      the music scream, as if some unsubstantial being, fairy or woodnymph had
+      screamed somewhere in her green hiding-place. In London one frequently
+      hears, especially in the spring, half-a-dozen sparrows just met together
+      in a garden tree, or among the ivy or creeper on a wall, burst out
+      suddenly into a confused rapturous chorus of chirruping sounds, mingled
+      with others of a finer quality, liquid and ringing. At such times one is
+      vexed to think that there are writers on birds who invariably speak of the
+      sparrow as a tuneless creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing more. It
+      strikes one that such writers either wilfully abuse or are ignorant of the
+      right meaning of words, so wild and glad in character are these concerts
+      of town sparrows, and so refreshing to the tired and noise-vexed brain!
+      But now when I listened to
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 157
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the greenfinches in the village elms and hedgerows, if by chance a few
+      sparrows burst out in loud gratulatory notes, the sounds they emitted
+      appeared coarse, and I wished the chirrupers away. But with the true and
+      brilliant songsters it seemed to me that the rippling greenfinch music was
+      always in harmony, forming as it were a kind of airy, subdued
+      accompaniment to their loud and ringing tones.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I had had my nightingale days, my cuckoo and blackbird and tree-pipit
+      days, with others too numerous to mention, and now I was having my
+      greenfinch days; and these were the last.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning in July I was in my sitting-room, when in the hedge on the
+      other side of the lane, just opposite my window, a small brown bird
+      warbled a few rich notes, the prelude to his song. I went and stood by the
+      open window, intently listening, when it sang again, but only a phrase or
+      two. But I listened still, confidently expecting more; for although it was
+      now long past its singing season, that splendid sunshine would compel it
+      to express its gladness. Then, just when a fresh burst of music came, it
+      was disturbed by another sound close by--a human voice, also sing-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      158 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ing. On the other side of the hedge in which the bird sat concealed was a
+      cottage garden, and there on a swing fastened to a pair of apple trees, a
+      girl about eleven years old sat lazily swinging herself. Once or twice
+      after she began singing the nightingale broke out again, and then at last
+      he became silent altogether, his voice overpowered by hers. Girl and bird
+      were not five yards apart. It greatly surprised me to hear her singing,
+      for it was eleven o'clock, when all the village children were away at the
+      National School, a time of day when, so far as human sounds were
+      concerned, there reigned an almost unbroken silence. But very soon I
+      recalled the fact that this was a very lazy child, and concluded that she
+      had coaxed her mother into sending an excuse for keeping her at home, and
+      so had kept her liberty on this beautiful morning. About two minutes' walk
+      from the cottage, at the side of the crooked road running through the
+      village, there was a group of ancient pollarded elm trees with huge,
+      hollow trunks, and behind them an open space, a pleasant green slope,
+      where some of the village children used to go every day to play on the
+      grass. Here I used to see this girl lying in the sun, her dark
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 159
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      chestnut hair loosed and scattered on the sward, her arms stretched out,
+      her eyes nearly closed, basking in the sun, as happy as some heat-loving
+      wild animal. No, it was not strange that she had not gone to school with
+      the others when her disposition was remembered, but most strange to hear a
+      voice of such quality in a spot where nature was rich and lovely, and only
+      man was, if not vile, at all events singularly wanting in the finer human
+      qualities.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Looking out from the open window across the low hedge-top, I could see her
+      as she alternately rose and fell with slow, indolent motion, now
+      waist-high above the green dividing wall, then only her brown head visible
+      resting against the rope just where her hand had grasped it. And as she
+      swayed herself to and fro she sang that simple melody--probably some
+      child's hymn which she had been taught at the Sunday-school; but it was a
+      very long hymn, or else she repeated the same few stanzas many times, and
+      after each there was a brief pause, and then the voice that seemed to fall
+      and rise with the motion went on as before. I could have stood there for
+      an hour--nay, for hours--listening to it, so fresh and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      160 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      so pure was the clear young voice, which had no earthly trouble in it, and
+      no passion, and was in this like the melody of the birds of which I had
+      lately heard so much; and with it all that tenderness and depth which is
+      not theirs, but is human only and of the soul.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It struck me as a singular coincidence--and to a mind of so primitive a
+      type as the writer's there is more in the fact that the word
+      implies--that, just as I had quitted London, to seek for just such a spot
+      as I so speedily found, with the passionately exclaimed words of a young
+      London girl ringing in my ears, so now I went back with this village
+      girl's melody sounding and following me no less clearly and insistently.
+      For it was not merely remembered, as we remember most things, but vividly
+      and often reproduced, together with the various melodies of the birds I
+      had listened to; a greater and principal voice in that choir, yet in no
+      wise lessening their first value, nor ever out of harmony with them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-19.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-19.jpg" width="143"
+      height="98" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link161" id="link161"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-20.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-20.jpg" width="401"
+      height="174" />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      THERE are countries with a less fertile soil and a worse climate than
+      ours, yet richer in bird life. Nevertheless, England is not poor; the
+      species are not few in number, and some are extremely abundant.
+      Unfortunately many of the finer kinds have been too much sought after;
+      persecuted first for their beauty, then for their rarity, until now we are
+      threatened with their total destruction. As these kinds become
+      unobtainable, those which stand next in the order of beauty and rarity are
+      persecuted in their turn; and in a country as densely populated as ours,
+      where birds cannot hide themselves from human eyes, such persecution must
+      eventually cause their extinction. Meanwhile the bird population does not
+      decrease. Every place in nature, like every property in
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      161
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      162 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Chancery, has more than one claimant to it--sometimes the claimants are
+      many--and so long as the dispute lasts all live out of the estate. For
+      there are always two or more species subsisting on the same kind of food,
+      possessing similar habits, and frequenting the same localities. It is
+      consequently impossible for man to exterminate any one species without
+      indirectly benefiting some other species, which attracts him in a less
+      degree, or not at all. This is unfortunate, for as the bright kinds, or
+      those we esteem most, diminish in numbers the less interesting kinds
+      multiply, and we lose much of the pleasure which bird life is fitted to
+      give us. When we visit woods, or other places to which birds chiefly
+      resort, in districts uninhabited by man, or where he pays little or no
+      attention to the feathered creatures, the variety of the bird life
+      encountered affords a new and peculiar delight. There is a constant
+      succession of new forms and new voices; in a single day as many species
+      may be met with as one would find in England by searching diligently for a
+      whole year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And yet this may happen in a district possessing no more species than
+      England boasts; and the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 163
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      actual number of individuals may be even less than with us. In sparrows,
+      for instance, of the one common species, we are exceedingly rich; but in
+      bird life generally, in variety of birds, especially in those of graceful
+      forms and beautiful plumage, we have been growing poorer for the last
+      fifty years, and have now come to so low a state that it becomes us to
+      inquire whether it is not in our power to better ourselves. It is an old
+      familiar truth--a truism--that it is easier to destroy than to restore or
+      build up; nevertheless, some comfort is to be got from the reflection that
+      in this matter we have up till now been working against Nature. She loves
+      not to bring forth food where there are none to thrive on it; and when our
+      unconsidered action had made these gaps, when, despising her gifts or
+      abusing them, we had destroyed or driven out her finer kinds, she fell
+      back on her lowlier kinds--her reserve of coarser, more generalized
+      species--and gave them increase, and bestowed the vacant places which we
+      had created on them. What she has done she will undo, or assist us in
+      undoing; for we should be going back to her methods, and should have her
+      with and not against us. Much might yet be
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      164 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      done to restore the balance among our native species. Not by legislation,
+      albeit all laws restraining the wholesale destruction of bird life are
+      welcome. On this subject the Honourable Auberon Herbert has said, and his
+      words are golden: "For myself, legislation or no legislation, I would turn
+      to the friends of animals in this country, and say, 'If you wish that the
+      friendship between man and animals should become a better and truer thing
+      than it is at present, you must make it so by countless individual
+      efforts, by making thousands of centres of personal influence.'"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The subject is a large one. In this paper the question of the introduction
+      of exotic birds will be chiefly considered. Birds have been blown by the
+      winds of chance over the whole globe, and have found rest for their feet.
+      That a large number of species, suited to the conditions of this country,
+      exist scattered about the world is not to be doubted, and by introducing a
+      few of these we might accelerate the change so greatly to be desired. At
+      present a very considerable amount of energy is spent in hunting down the
+      small contingents of rare species that once inhabited our
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 165
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      islands, and still resort annually to its shores, persistently
+      endeavouring to re-establish their colonies. A less amount of labour and
+      expense would serve to introduce a few foreign species each year, and the
+      reward would be greater, and would not make us ashamed. We have generously
+      given our own wild animals to other countries; and from time to time we
+      receive cheering reports of an abundant increase in at least two of our
+      exportations--to wit, the rabbit and the sparrow. We are surely entitled
+      to some return. Dead animals, however rich their pelt or bright their
+      plumage may be, are not a fair equivalent. Dead things are too much with
+      us. London has become a mart for this kind of merchandise for the whole of
+      Europe, and the traffic is not without a reflex effect on us; for life in
+      the inferior animals has come or is coming to be merely a thing to be
+      lightly taken by human hands, in order that its dropped garment may be
+      sold for filthy lucre. There are warehouses in this city where it is
+      possible for a person to walk ankle-deep--literally to wade--in
+      bright-plumaged bird-skins, and see them piled shoulder-high on either
+      side of him--a sight to make the angels weep I
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      166 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not the angel called woman. It is not that she is naturally more cruel
+      than man; bleeding wounds and suffering in all its forms, even the sigh of
+      a burdened heart, appeal to her quick sympathies, and draw the ready
+      tears; but her imagination helps her less. The appeal must in most cases
+      be direct and through the medium of her senses, else it is not seen and
+      not heard. If she loves the ornament of a gay-winged bird, and is able to
+      wear it with a light heart, it is because it calls up no mournful image to
+      her mind; no little tragedy enacted in some far-off wilderness, of the
+      swift child of the air fallen and bleeding out its bright life, and its
+      callow nestlings, orphaned of the breast that warmed them, dying of hunger
+      in the tree. We know, at all events, that out of a female population of
+      many millions in this country, so far only ten women, possibly fifteen,
+      have been found to raise their voices--raised so often and so loudly on
+      other questions--to protest against the barbarous and abhorrent fashion of
+      wearing slain birds as ornaments. The degrading business of supplying the
+      demand for this kind of feminine adornment must doubtless continue to
+      flourish in our midst, commerce not
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 167
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      being compatible with morality, but the material comes from other lands,
+      unblessed as yet with Wild Bird Protection Acts, and "individual efforts,
+      and thousands of centres of personal influence"; it comes mainly from the
+      tropics, where men have brutish minds and birds a brilliant plumage. This
+      trade, therefore, does not greatly affect the question of our native bird
+      life, and the consideration of the means, which may be within our reach,
+      of making it more to us than it now is. Some species from warm and even
+      hot climates have been found to thrive well in England, breeding in the
+      open air; as, for instance, the black and the black-necked swans, the
+      Egyptian goose, the mandarin and summer ducks, and others too numerous to
+      mention. But these birds are semi-domestic, and are usually kept in
+      enclosures, and that they can stand the climate and propagate when thus
+      protected from competition is not strange; for we know that several of our
+      hardy domestic birds--the fowl, pea-fowl, Guinea-fowl, and Muscovy
+      duck--are tropical in their origin. Furthermore, they are all
+      comparatively large, and if they ever become feral in England, it will not
+      be for many years to come.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      168 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That these large kinds thrive so well with us is an encouraging fact; but
+      the question that concerns us at present is the feasibility of importing
+      birds of the grove, chiefly of the passerine order, and sending them forth
+      to give a greater variety and richness to our bird life. To go with such
+      an object to tropical countries would only be to court failure. Nature's
+      highest types, surpassing all others in exquisite beauty of form,
+      brilliant colouring, and perfect melody, can never be known to our woods
+      and groves. These rarest avian gems may not be removed from their setting,
+      and to those who desire to know them in their unimaginable lustre, it will
+      always be necessary to cross oceans and penetrate into remote
+      wildernesses. We must go rather to regions where the conditions of life
+      are hard, where winters are long and often severe, where Nature is not
+      generous in the matter of food, and the mouths are many, and the
+      competition great. Nor even from such regions could we take any strictly
+      migratory species with any prospect of success. Still, limiting ourselves
+      to the resident, and consequently to the hardiest kinds, and to those
+      possessing only a partial migration, it is surprising to find how
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 169
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      many there are to choose from, how many are charming melodists, and how
+      many have the bright tints in which our native species are so sadly
+      lacking. The field from which the supply can be drawn is very extensive,
+      and includes the continent of Europe, the countries of North Asia, a large
+      portion of North America and Antarctic America, or South Chili and
+      Patagonia. It would not be going too far to say that for every English
+      species, inhabiting the garden, wood, field, stream, or waste, at least
+      half a dozen resident species, with similar habits, might be obtained from
+      the countries mentioned which would be superior to our own in melody (the
+      nightingale and lark excepted), bright plumage, grace of form, or some
+      other attractive quality. The question then arises; What reason is there
+      for believing that these exotics, imported necessarily in small numbers,
+      would succeed in winning a footing in our country, and become a permanent
+      addition to its avifauna? For it has been admitted that our species are
+      not few, in spite of the losses that have been suffered, and that the bird
+      population does not diminish, however much its character may have altered
+      and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      170 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      deteriorated from the aesthetic point of view, and probably also from the
+      utilitarian. There are no vacant places. Thus, the streams are fished by
+      herons, grebes, and kingfishers, while the rushy margins are worked by
+      coots and gallinules, and, above the surface, reed and sedge-warblers,
+      with other kinds, inhabit the reed-beds. The decaying forest tree is the
+      province of the woodpecker, of which there are three kinds; and the trunks
+      and branches of all trees, healthy or decaying, are quartered by the small
+      creeper, that leaves no crevice unexplored in its search for minute
+      insects and their eggs. He is assisted by the nuthatch; and in summer the
+      wryneck comes (if he still lives), and deftly picks up the little active
+      ants that are always wildly careering over the boles. The foliage is
+      gleaned by warblers and others; and not even the highest terminal twigs
+      are left unexamined by tits and their fellow-seekers after little things.
+      Thrushes seek for worms in moist grounds about the woods; starlings and
+      rooks go to the pasture lands; the lark and his relations keep to the
+      cultivated fields; and there also dwells the larger partridge. Waste and
+      stony grounds are occupied by the chats, and even on the barren
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 171
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      mountain summits the ptarmigan gets his living. Wagtails run on the clean
+      margins of streams; and littoral birds of many kinds are in possession of
+      the entire sea-coast. Thus, the whole ground appears to be already
+      sufficiently occupied, the habitats of distinct species overlapping each
+      other like the scales on a fish. And when we have enumerated all these, we
+      find that scores of others have been left out. The important fly-catcher;
+      the wren, Nature's diligent little housekeeper, that leaves no dusty
+      corner uncleaned; and the pigeons, that have a purely vegetable diet. The
+      woods and thickets are also ranged by jays, cuckoos, owls, hawks, magpies,
+      butcher-birds--Nature's gamekeepers, with a licence to kill, which, after
+      the manner of game-keepers, they exercise somewhat indiscriminately. Above
+      the earth, the air is peopled by swifts and swallows in the daytime, and
+      by goatsuckers at night. And, as if all these were not enough, the finches
+      are found scattered everywhere, from the most secluded spot in nature to
+      the noisy public thoroughfare, and are eaters of most things, from flinty
+      seed to softest caterpillar. This being the state of things, one might
+      imagine that experience and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      172 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      observation are scarcely needed to prove to us that the exotic, strange to
+      the conditions, and where its finest instincts would perhaps be at fault,
+      would have no chance of surviving. Nevertheless, odd as it may seem, the
+      small stock of facts bearing on the subject which we possess point to a
+      contrary conclusion. It might have been assumed, for instance, that the
+      red-legged partridge would never have established itself with us, where
+      the ground was already fully occupied by a native species, which possessed
+      the additional advantage of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in
+      spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has conquered a place, and
+      has spread throughout the greater part of England. Even more remarkable is
+      the case of the pheasant, with its rich plumage, a native of a hot region;
+      yet our cold, wet climate and its unmodified bright colours have not been
+      fatal to it, and practically it is one of our wild birds. The large
+      capercailzie has also been successfully introduced from Norway. Small
+      birds would probably become naturalized much more readily than large ones;
+      they are volatile, and can more quickly find suitable feeding-ground, and
+      safe
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 173
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      roosting and nesting places; their food is also more abundant and easily
+      found; their small size, which renders them inconspicuous, gives them
+      safety; and, finally, they are very much more adaptive than large birds.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is not at all probable that the red-legged partridge will ever drive
+      out our own bird, a contingency which some have feared. That would be a
+      misfortune, for we do not wish to change one bird for another, or to lose
+      any species we now possess, but to have a greater variety. We are better
+      off with two partridges than we were with one, even if the invader does
+      not afford such good sport nor such delicate eating. They exist side by
+      side, and compete with each other; but such competition is not necessarily
+      destructive to either. On the contrary, it acts and re-acts healthily and
+      to the improvement of both. It is a fact that in small islands, very far
+      removed from the mainland, where the animals have been exempt from all
+      foreign competition--that is, from the competition of casual
+      colonists--when it does come it proves, in many cases, fatal to them.
+      Fortunately, this country's large size and nearness to the mainland has
+      prevented any such
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      174 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fatal crystallization of its organisms as we see in islands like St.
+      Helena. That any English species would be exterminated by foreign
+      competition is extremely unlikely; whether we introduce exotic birds or
+      not, the only losses we shall have to deplore in the future will, like
+      those of the past, be directly due to our own insensate action in slaying
+      every rare and beautiful thing with powder and shot. From the introduction
+      of exotic species nothing is to be feared, but much to be hoped.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is another point which should not be overlooked. It has after all
+      become a mere fiction to say that <i>all</i> places are occupied. Nature's
+      nice order has been destroyed, and her kingdom thrown into the utmost
+      confusion; our action tends to maintain the disorderly condition, while
+      she is perpetually working against us to re-establish order. When she
+      multiplies some common, little-regarded species to occupy a space left
+      vacant by an artificially exterminated kind, the species called in as a
+      mere stop-gap, as it were, is one not specially adapted in structure and
+      instincts to a particular mode of life, and consequently cannot fully and
+      effectually occupy the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link174" id="link174"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-21.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-21.jpg" width="418"
+      height="664" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      HERON.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      . . . the streams are fished by herons.'
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 175
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ground into which it has been permitted to enter. To speak in metaphor, it
+      enters merely as a caretaker or ignorant and improvident steward in the
+      absence of the rightful owner. Again, some of our ornamental species,
+      which are fast diminishing, are fitted from their peculiar structure and
+      life habits to occupy places in nature which no other kinds, however
+      plastic they may be, can even partially fill. The wryneck and the
+      woodpecker may be mentioned; and a still better instance is afforded by
+      the small, gem-like kingfisher
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      --the only British bird which can properly be described as gem-like. When
+      the goldfinch goes
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      --and we know that he is going rapidly--other coarser fringilline birds,
+      without the melody, brightness, and charm of the goldfinch--sparrow and
+      bunting--come in, and in some rough fashion supply its place; but when the
+      kingfisher disappears an important place is left absolutely vacant, for in
+      this case there is no coarser bird of homely plumage with the fishing
+      instinct to seize upon it. Here, then, is an excellent opportunity for an
+      experiment. In the temperate regions of the earth there are many fine
+      kingfishers to select from; some are resident in countries colder than
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      176 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      England, and are consequently very hardy; and in some cases the rivers and
+      streams they frequent are exceedingly poor in fish. Some of them are very
+      beautiful, and they vary in size from birds no larger than a sparrow to
+      others as large as a pigeon.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Anglers might raise the cry that they require all the finny inhabitants of
+      our waters for their own sport. It is scarcely necessary to go as deeply
+      into the subject as mathematical-minded Mudie did to show that Nature's
+      lavishness in the production of life would make such a contention
+      unreasonable. He demonstrated that if all the fishes hatched were to live
+      their full term, in twenty-four years their production power would convert
+      into fish (two hundred to the solid foot) as much matter as there is
+      contained in the whole solar system--sun, planets, and satellites! An
+      "abundantly startling" result, as he says. To be well within the mark,
+      ninety-nine out of every hundred fishes hatched must somehow perish during
+      that stage when they are nothing but suitable morsels for the kingfisher,
+      to be swallowed entire; and a portion of all this wasted food might very
+      well go to sustain a few species, which would be
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 177
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      beautiful ornaments of the waterside, and a perpetual delight to all
+      lovers of rural nature, including anglers. It may be remarked in passing,
+      that the waste of food, in the present disorganized state of nature, is
+      not only in our streams.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The introduction of one or more of these lovely foreign kingfishers would
+      not certainly have the effect of hastening the decline of our native
+      species; but indirectly it might bring about a contrary result--a subject
+      to be touched on at the end of this paper. Practical naturalists may say
+      that kingfishers would be far more difficult to procure than other birds,
+      and that it would be almost impossible to convey them to England. That is
+      a question it would be premature to discuss now; but if the attempt should
+      ever be made, the difficulties would not perhaps be found insuperable. In
+      all countries one hears of certain species of birds that they invariably
+      die in captivity; but when the matter is closely looked into, one usually
+      finds that improper treatment and not loss of liberty is the cause of
+      death. Unquestionably it would be much more difficult to keep a kingfisher
+      alive and healthy during a long sea-voyage than a common seed-eating bird;
+      but the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      178 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      same may be said of woodpeckers, cuckoos, warblers, and, in fact, of any
+      species that subsists in a state of nature on a particular kind of animal
+      food. Still, when we find that even the excessively volatile humming-bird,
+      which subsists on the minutest insects and the nectar of flowers, and
+      seems to require unlimited space for the exercise of its energies, can be
+      successfully kept confined for long periods and conveyed to distant
+      countries, one would imagine that it would be hard to set a limit to what
+      might be done in this direction. We do not want hard-billed birds only. We
+      require, in the first place, variety; and, secondly, that every species
+      introduced, when not of type unlike any native kind, as in the case of the
+      pheasant, shall be superior in beauty, melody, or some other quality, to
+      its British representative, or to the species which comes nearest to it in
+      structure and habits. Thus, suppose that the introduction of a pigeon
+      should be desired. We know that in all temperate regions, these birds vary
+      as little in colour and markings as they do in form; but in the vocal
+      powers of different species there is great diversity; and the main objects
+      would therefore be to secure a bird which
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 179
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      would be an improvement in this respect on the native kinds. There are
+      doves belonging to the same genus as stock-dove and wood-pigeon, that have
+      exceedingly good voices, in which the peculiar mournful dove-melody has
+      reached its highest perfection--weird and passionate strains, surging and
+      ebbing, and startling the hearer with their mysterious resemblance to
+      human tones. Or a Zenaida might be preferred for its tender lament, so
+      wild and exquisitely modulated, like sobs etherealized and set to music,
+      and passing away in sigh-like sounds that seem to mimic the aerial voices
+      of the wind.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When considering the character of our bird population with a view to its
+      improvement, one cannot but think much, and with a feeling almost of
+      dismay, of the excessive abundance of the sparrow. A systematic
+      persecution of this bird would probably only serve to make matters worse,
+      since its continued increase is not the cause but an effect of a
+      corresponding decrease in other more useful and attractive species; and if
+      Nature is to have her way at all there must be birds; and besides, no
+      bird-lover has any wish at see such a thing attempted. The sparrow has
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      180 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      his good points, if we are to judge him as we find him, without allowing
+      what the Australians and Americans say of him to prejudice our minds.
+      Possibly in those distant countries he may be altogether bad, resembling,
+      in this respect, some of the emigrants of our species, who, when they go
+      abroad, leave their whole stock of morality at home. Even with us Miss
+      Ormerod is exceedingly bitter against him, and desires nothing less than
+      his complete extirpation; but it is possible that this lady's zeal may not
+      be according to knowledge, that she may not know a sparrow quite so well
+      as she knows a fly. At all events, the ornithologist finds it hard to
+      believe that so bad an insect-catcher is really causing the extinction of
+      any exclusively insectivorous species. On her own very high authority we
+      know that the insect supply is not diminishing, that the injurious kinds
+      alone are able to inflict an annual loss equal to &pound;10,000,000 on the
+      British farmer. To put aside this controversial matter, the sparrow with
+      all his faults is a pleasant merry little fellow; in many towns he is the
+      sole representative of wild bird life, and is therefore a great deal to
+      us--especially in the metropolis, in which he most
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 181
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      abounds, and where at every quiet interval his blithe chirruping comes to
+      us like a sound of subdued and happy laughter. In London itself this
+      merriment of Nature never irritates; it is so much finer and more aerial
+      in character than the gross jarring noises of the street, that it is a
+      relief to listen to it, and it is like melody. In the quiet suburbs it
+      sounds much louder and without intermission. And going further afield, in
+      woods, gardens, hedges, hamlets, towns--everywhere there is the same
+      running, rippling sound of the omnipresent sparrow, and it becomes
+      monotonous at last. We have too much of the sparrow. But we are to blame
+      for that. He is the unskilled worker that Nature has called in to do the
+      work of skilled hands, which we have foolishly turned away. He is willing
+      enough to take it all on himself; his energy is great; he bungles away
+      without ceasing; and being one of a joyous temperament, he whistles and
+      sings in his tuneless fashion at his work, until, like the grasshopper of
+      Ecclesiastes, he becomes a burden. For how tiring are the sight and sound
+      of grasshoppers when one journeys many miles and sees them incessantly
+      rising like a sounding cloud before his
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      182 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      horse, and hears their shrill notes all day from the wayside! Yet how
+      pleasant to listen to their minstrelsy in the green summer foliage, where
+      they are not too abundant! We can have too much of anything, however
+      charming it may be in itself. Those who live where scores of humming-birds
+      are perpetually dancing about the garden flowers find that the eye grows
+      weary of seeing the daintiest forms and brightest colours and liveliest
+      motions that birds exhibit. We are told that Edward the Confessor grew so
+      sick of the incessant singing of nightingales in the forest of
+      Havering-at-Bower that he prayed to Heaven to silence their music;
+      whereupon the birds promptly took their departure, and returned no more to
+      that forest until after the king's death. The sparrow is not so sensitive
+      as the legendary nightingales, and is not to be got rid of in this easy
+      manner. He is amenable only to a rougher kind of persuasion; and it would
+      be impossible to devise a more effectual method of lessening his
+      predominance than that which Nature teaches--namely to subject him to the
+      competition of other and better species. He is well equipped for the
+      struggle--hardy, pugnacious, numerous, and in
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 183
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      possession. He would not be in possession and so predominant if he had not
+      these qualities, and great pliability of instinct and readiness to seize
+      on vacant places. Nevertheless, even with the sturdy sparrow a very small
+      thing might turn the scale, particularly if we were standing by and
+      putting a little artificial pressure on one side of the balance; for it
+      must be borne in mind that the very extent and diversity of the ground he
+      occupies is a proof that he does not occupy it effectually, and that his
+      position is not too strong to be shaken. It is not probable that our
+      action in assisting one side against the other would go far in its
+      results; still, a little might be done. There are gardens and grounds in
+      the suburbs of London where sparrows are not abundant, and are shyer than
+      the birds of other species, and this result has been brought about by
+      means of a little judicious persecution. Shooting is a bad plan, even with
+      an air-gun; its effects are seen by all the birds, for they see more from
+      their green hiding-places than we imagine, and it creates a general alarm
+      among them. Those who wish to give the other birds a chance will only
+      defeat their own object by shooting the sparrows. A
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      184 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      much better plan for those who are able to practise it prudently is to
+      take their nests, which are more exposed to sight than those of other
+      birds; but they should be taken after the full complement of eggs have
+      been laid, and only at night, so that other birds shall not witness the
+      robbery and fear for their own treasures. Mr. Henry George, in that book
+      of his which has been the delight of so many millions of rational souls,
+      advocates the destruction of all sharks and other large rapacious fishes,
+      after which, he says, the ocean can be stocked with salmon, which would
+      secure an unlimited supply of good wholesome food for the human race. No
+      such high-handed measures are advocated here with regard to the sparrow.
+      Knowledge of nature makes us conservative. It is so very easy to say,
+      "Kill the sparrow, or shark, or magpie, or whatever it is, and then
+      everything will be right." But there are more things in nature than are
+      dreamt of in the philosophy of the class of reformers represented by the
+      gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper's master, and Miss Ormerod, and Mr. Henry
+      George. Let him by all means kill the sharks, but he will not conquer
+      Nature in that way: she
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 185
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      will make more sharks out of something else--possibly out of the very
+      salmon on which he proposes to regale his hungry disciples. To go into
+      details is not the present writer's purpose; and to finish with this part
+      of the subject, it is sufficient to add that in the very wide and varied
+      field occupied by the sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible
+      to a species having no special and highly perfected feeding instincts,
+      there is room for the introduction of scores of competitors, every one of
+      which should be better adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at
+      that point or that particular part of the field where the two would come
+      into rivalry; and every species introduced should also possess some
+      quality which would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, a valuable
+      addition to our bird life. This would be no war of violence, and no
+      contravention of Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, a return to
+      her safe, healthy, and far-reaching methods.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      There is one objection some may make to the scheme suggested here which
+      must be noticed. It may be said that even if exotic species able to thrive
+      in our country were introduced there
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      186 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      would be no result; for these strangers to our groves would all eventually
+      meet with the same fate as our rarer species and casual visitors--that is
+      to say, they would be shot. There is no doubt that the amateur naturalist
+      has been a curse to this country for the last half century, that it is
+      owing to the "cupidity of the cabinet" as old Robert Mudie has it--that
+      many of our finer species are exceedingly rare, while others are
+      disappearing altogether. But it is surely not too soon to look for a
+      change for the better in this direction. Half a century ago, when the few
+      remaining great bustards in this country were being done to death, it was
+      suddenly remembered by naturalists that in their eagerness to possess
+      examples of the bird (in the skin) they had neglected to make themselves
+      acquainted with its customs when alive. Its habits were hardly better
+      known than those of the dodo and solitaire. The reflection came too late,
+      in so far as the habits of the bird in this country are concerned; but
+      unhappily the lesson was not then taken to heart, and other fine species
+      have since gone the way of the great bustard. But now that we have so
+      clearly seen the disastrous effects of this method
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 187
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      of "studying ornithology," which is not in harmony with our humane
+      civilization, it is to be hoped that a better method will be adopted--that
+      "finer way" which Thoreau found and put aside his fowling-piece to
+      practise. There can be no doubt that the desire for such an improvement is
+      now becoming very general, that a kindlier feeling for animal, and
+      especially bird life is growing up among us, and there are signs that it
+      is even beginning to have some appreciable effect. The fashion of wearing
+      birds is regarded by most men with pain and reprobation; and it is
+      possible that before long it will be thought that there is not much
+      difference between the action of the woman who buys tanagers and
+      humming-birds to adorn her person, and that of the man who kills the
+      bittern, hoopoe, waxwing, golden oriole, and Dartford-warbler to enrich
+      his private collection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A few words on the latest attempt which has been made to naturalize an
+      exotic bird in England will not seem out of place here. About eight years
+      ago a gentleman in Essex introduced the rufous tinamou--a handsome game
+      bird, nearly as large as a fowl--into his estate. Up till the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      188 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      present time, or till quite recently these birds have bred every year, and
+      at one time they had increased considerably and scattered about the
+      neighbourhood. When it began to increase, the neighbouring proprietors and
+      sportsmen generally were asked not to shoot it, but to give it a chance,
+      and there is reason to believe that they have helped to protect it, and
+      have taken a great interest in the experiment. Whatever the ultimate
+      result may be, the partial success attained during these few years is
+      decidedly encouraging, and that for more reasons than one. In the first
+      place, the bird was badly chosen for such an experiment. It belongs to the
+      pampas of La Plata, to which it is restricted, and where it enjoys a dry,
+      bright climate, and lives concealed in the tall close-growing indigenous
+      grasses. The conditions of its habitat are therefore widely different from
+      those of Essex, or of any part of England; and, besides, it has a peculiar
+      organisation, for it happens to be one of those animals of ancient types
+      of which a few species still survive in South America. That so unpromising
+      a subject as this large archaic tinamou should be able to maintain its
+      existence in this country, even for a very few
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 189
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      years, encourages one to believe that with better-chosen species, more
+      highly organized, and with more pliant habits, such as the hazel hen of
+      Europe for a game bird, success would be almost certain.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another circumstance connected with the attempted introduction of this
+      unsuitable bird, even of more promise than the mere fact of the partial
+      success achieved, is the greatest interest the experiment has excited, not
+      only among naturalists throughout the country, but also among landlords
+      and sportsmen down in Essex, where the bird was not regarded merely as
+      fair game to be bagged, or as a curiosity to be shot for the collector's
+      cabinet, but was allowed to fight its own fight without counting man among
+      its enemies. And it is to be expected that the same self-restraint and
+      spirit of fairness and intelligent desire to see a favourable result would
+      be shown everywhere if exotic species were to be largely introduced, and
+      breeding centres established in suitable places throughout the country.
+      When it once became known that individuals were doing this thing, giving
+      their time and best efforts and at considerable expense not for their own
+      selfish gratification, but for the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      190 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      general good, and to make the country more delightful to all lovers of
+      rural sights and sounds, there would be no opposition, but on the contrary
+      every assistance, since all would wish success to such an enterprise. Even
+      the most enthusiastic collector would refrain from lifting a weapon
+      against the new feathered guests from distant lands; and if by any chance
+      an example of one should get into his hands he would be ashamed to exhibit
+      it.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The addition of new beautiful species to our avifauna would probably not
+      be the only, nor even the principal benefit we should derive from the
+      carrying out of the scheme here suggested. The indirect effect of the
+      knowledge all would possess that such an experiment was being conducted,
+      and that its chief object was to repair the damage that has been done,
+      would be wholly beneficial since it would enhance the value in our eyes of
+      our remaining native rare and beautiful species. A large number of our
+      finer birds are annually shot by those who know that they are doing a
+      great wrong--that if their transgression is not punishable by law it is
+      really not less grave than that of the person who maliciously barks a
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN 191
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      shade tree in a park or public garden--but who excuse their action by
+      saying that such birds must eventually get shot, and that those who first
+      see them might as well have the benefit. The presence of even a small
+      number of exotic species in our woods and groves would no doubt give rise
+      to a better condition of things; it would attract public attention to the
+      subject; for the birds that delight us with their beauty and melody should
+      be for the public, and not for the few barbarians engaged in exterminating
+      them; and the "collector" would find it best to abandon his evil practices
+      when it once began to be generally asked, if we can spare the rare, lovely
+      birds brought hither at great expense from China or Patagonia, can we not
+      also spare our own kingfisher, and the golden oriole, and the hoopoe, that
+      comes to us annually from Africa to breed, but is not permitted to breed,
+      and many other equally beautiful and interesting species?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-22.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-22.jpg" width="159"
+      height="120" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /><a name="link192" id="link192"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-23.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-23.jpg" width="400"
+      height="170" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE sparrow, like the poor, we have always with us, and on windy days even
+      the large-sized rook is blown about the murkiness which does duty for sky
+      over London; and on such occasions its coarse, corvine dronings seem not
+      unmusical, nor without something of a tonic effect on our jarred nerves.
+      And here the ordinary Londoner has got to the end of his ornithological
+      list--that is to say, his winter list. He knows nothing about those
+      wind-worn waifs, the "occasional visitors" to the metropolis--the pilgrims
+      to distant Meccas and Medinas that have fallen, overcome by weariness, at
+      the wayside; or have encountered storms in the great aerial sea, and lost
+      compass and reckoning, and have been lured by false lights to perish
+      miserably at the hands of their cruel
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      192
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 193
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      enemies. It may be true that gulls are seen on the Serpentine, that
+      woodcocks are flushed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but the citizen who goes to
+      his office in the morning and returns after the lamps have been lighted,
+      does not see them, and they are nothing in his life. Those who concern
+      themselves to chronicle such incidents might just as well, for all that it
+      matters to him, mistake their species, like that bird-loving but
+      unornitho-logical correspondent of the Times who wrote that he had seen a
+      flock of golden orioles in Kensington Gardens. It turned out that what he
+      had seen were wheatears, or they might draw a little on their
+      imaginations, and tell of sunward-sailing cranes encamped on the dome of
+      St. Paul's Cathedral, flamingoes in the Round Pond, great snowy owls in
+      Westminster Abbey, and an ibis--scarlet, glossy, or sacred, according to
+      fancy--perched on Peabody's statue, at the Royal Exchange.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But his winter does not last for ever. When the bitter months are past,
+      with March that mocks us with its crown of daffodils; when the sun shines,
+      and the rain is soon over; and elms and limes in park and avenue, and
+      unsightly smoke-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      194 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      blackened brushwood in the squares, are dressed once more in tenderest
+      heart-refreshing green, even in London we know that the birds have
+      returned from beyond the sea. Why should they come to us here, when it
+      would seem so much more to their advantage, and more natural for them to
+      keep aloof from our dimmed atmosphere, and the rude sounds of traffic, and
+      the sight of many people going to and fro? Are there no silent green
+      retreats left where the conditions are better suited to their shy and
+      delicate natures? Yet no sooner is the spring come again than the birds
+      are with us. Not always apparent to the eye, but everywhere their
+      irrepressible gladness betrays their proximity; and all London is ringed
+      round with a mist of melody, which presses on us, ambitious of winning its
+      way even to the central heart of our citadel, creeping in, mist-like,
+      along gardens and tree-planted roads, clinging to the greenery of parks
+      and squares, and floating above the dull noises of the town as clouds
+      fleecy and ethereal float above the earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Among our spring visitors there is one which is neither aerial in habits,
+      nor a melodist, yet is eminently attractive on account of its graceful
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 195
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      form, pretty plumage, and amusing manners; nor must it be omitted as a
+      point in its favour that it is not afraid to make itself very much at home
+      with us in London.* This is the little moor-hen, a bird possessing some
+      strange customs, for which those who are curious about such matters may
+      consult its numerous biographies. Every spring a few individuals of this
+      species make their appearance in Hyde Park, and settle there for the
+      season, in full sight of the fashionable world; for their breeding-place
+      happens to be that minute transcript of nature midway between the Dell and
+      Rotten Row, where a small bed of rushes and aquatic grasses flourishes in
+      the stagnant pool forming the end of the Serpentine. Where they pass the
+      winter--in what Mentone or Madeira of the ralline race--is not known.
+      There is a pretty story, which circulated throughout Europe a little over
+      fifty years ago, of a Polish gentleman, capturing a stork that built its
+      nest on his roof every summer, and putting an iron collar on its neck
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      *Note that when this was written in 1893, the moor-hen was never known to
+      winter in London; his habits have changed in this respect during the last
+      two decades: he is now a permanent resident.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      196 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      with the inscription, "Haec Ciconia ex Polonia." The following summer it
+      reappeared with something which shone very brightly on its neck, and when
+      the stork was taken again this was found to be a collar of gold, with
+      which the iron collar had been replaced, and on it were graven the words,
+      "India cum donis remittit ciconian Polonis." No person has yet put an iron
+      collar on the moor-hen to receive gifts in return, or followed its feeble
+      fluttering flight to discover the limits of its migration which is
+      probably no further away than the Kentish marshes and other wet sheltered
+      spots in the south of England; that it leaves the country when it quits
+      the park is not to be believed. Still, it goes with the wave, and with the
+      wave returns; and, like the migratory birds that observe times and
+      seasons, it comes back to its own home--that circumscribed spot of earth
+      and water which forms its little world, and is more to it than all other
+      reedy and willow-shaded pools and streams in England. It is said to be shy
+      in disposition, yet all may see it here, within a few feet of the Row,
+      with so many people continually passing, and so many pausing to watch the
+      pretty birds as they trip about their little plot
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link196" id="link196"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-24.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-24.jpg" width="626"
+      height="471" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOORHEN.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      " . . . that quaint, graceful, jetting gait."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 197
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      of green turf, deftly picking minute insects from the grass and not
+      disdaining crumbs thrown by the children. A dainty thing to look at is
+      that smooth, olive-brown little moor-hen, going about with such freedom
+      and ease in its small dominion, lifting its green legs deliberately,
+      turning its yellow beak and shield this way and that, and displaying the
+      snow-white undertail at every step, as it moves with that quaint,
+      graceful, jetting gait peculiar to the gallinules.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Such a fact as this--and numberless facts just as significant all pointing
+      to the same conclusion, might be adduced--shows at once how utterly
+      erroneous is that often-quoted dictum of Darwin's that birds possess an
+      instinctive or inherited fear of man. These moor-hens fear him not at all;
+      simply because in Hyde Park they are not shot at, and robbed of their eggs
+      or young, nor in any way molested by him. They fear no living thing,
+      except the irrepressible small dog that occasionally bursts into the
+      enclosure, and hunts them with furious barkings to their reedy little
+      refuge. And as with these moor-hens, so it is with all wild birds; they
+      fear and fly from, and suspiciously watch from a safe distance, whatever
+      molests
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      198 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      them, and wherever man suspends his hostility towards them they quickly
+      outgrow the suspicion which experience has taught them, or which is
+      traditional among them; for the young and inexperienced imitate the action
+      of the adults they associate with, and learn the suspicious habit from
+      them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is also interesting and curious to note that a bird which inhabits two
+      countries, in summer and winter, regulates his habits in accordance with
+      the degree of friendliness or hostility exhibited towards him by the human
+      inhabitants of the respective areas. The bird has in fact two traditions
+      with regard to man's attitude towards him--one for each country. Thus, the
+      field-fare is an exceedingly shy bird in England, but when he returns to
+      the north if his breeding place is in some inhabited district in northern
+      Sweden or Norway he loses all his wildness and builds his nest quite close
+      to the houses. My friend Trevor Battye saw a pair busy making their nest
+      in a small birch within a few yards of the front door of a house he was
+      staying at. "How strange," said he to the man of the house, "to see
+      field-fares making a nest in such a place!"
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 199
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Why strange?" said the man in surprise. "Why strange? Because of the
+      boys, always throwing stones at a bird. The nest is so low down, that any
+      boy could put his hand in and take the eggs." "Take the eggs!" cried the
+      man, more astonished than ever. "And throwing stones at a bird! Who ever
+      heard of a boy doing such things!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Closely related to this error is another error, which is that noise in
+      itself is distressing to birds, and has the effect of driving them away.
+      To all sounds and noises which are not associated with danger to them,
+      birds are absolutely indifferent. The rumbling of vehicles, puffing and
+      shrieking of engines, and braying of brass bands, alarm them less than the
+      slight popping of an air gun, where that modest weapon of destruction is
+      frequently used against them. They have no "nerves" for noise, but the
+      apparition of a small boy silently creeping along the hedge-side, in
+      search of nests or throwing stones, is very terrifying to them. They fear
+      not cattle and horses, however loud the bellowing may be; and if we were
+      to transport and set loose herds of long-necked camelopards, trumpeting
+      elephants, and rhinoceroses of horrible aspect, the little birds
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      200 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      would soon fear them as little as they do the familiar cow. But they
+      greatly fear the small-sized, quiet, unobtrusive, and meek-looking cat.
+      Sparrows and starlings that fly wildly at the shout of a small boy or the
+      bark of a fox-terrier, build their nests under every railway arch; and the
+      incubating bird sits unalarmed amid the iron plates and girders when the
+      express train rushes overhead, so close to her that one would imagine that
+      the thunderous jarring noise would cause the poor thing to drop down dead
+      with terror. To this indifference to the mere harmless racket of
+      civilization we owe it that birds are so numerous around, and even in,
+      London; and that in Kew Gardens, which, on account of its position on the
+      water side, and the numerous railroads surrounding it, is almost as much
+      tortured with noise as Willesden or Clapham Junction, birds are
+      concentrated in thousands. Food is not more abundant there than in other
+      places; yet it would be difficult to find a piece of ground of the same
+      extent in the country proper, where all is silent and there are no human
+      crowds, with so large a bird population. They are more numerous in Kew
+      than elsewhere, in spite of the noise and the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 201
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      people, because they are partially protected there from their human
+      persecutors. It is a joy to visit the gardens in spring, as much to hear
+      the melody of the birds as to look at the strange and lovely vegetable
+      forms. On a June evening with a pure sunny sky, when the air is elastic
+      after rain, how it rings and palpitates with the fine sounds that people
+      it, and which seem infinite in variety! Has England, burdened with care
+      and long estranged from Nature, so many sweet voices left? What aerial
+      chimes are those wafted from the leafy turret of every tree? What clear,
+      choral songs--so wild, so glad? What strange instruments, not made with
+      hands, so deftly touched and soulfully breathed upon? What faint melodious
+      murmurings that float around us, mysterious and tender as the lisping of
+      leaves? Who could be so dull and exact as to ask the names of such
+      choristers at such a time! Earthly names they have, the names we give
+      them, when they visit us, and when we write about them in our dreary
+      books; but, doubtless, in their brighter home in cloudland they are called
+      by other more suitable appellatives. Kew is exceptionally favoured for the
+      reason
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      202 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      mentioned, but birds are also abundant where there are no hired men with
+      red waistcoats and brass buttons to watch over their safety. Why do they
+      press so persistently around us; and not in London only, but in every town
+      and village, every house and cottage in this country? Why are they always
+      waiting, congregating as far from us as the depth of garden, lawn, or
+      orchard will allow, yet always near as they dare to come? It is not
+      sentiment, and to be translated into such words as these: "Oh man, why are
+      you unfriendly towards us, or else so indifferent to our existence that
+      you do not note that your children, dependants, and neighbours cruelly
+      persecute us? For we are for peace, and knowing you for the lord of
+      creation, we humbly worship you at a distance, and wish for a share in
+      your affection." No; the small, bright soul which is in a bird is
+      incapable of such a motive, and has only the lesser light of instinct for
+      its guide, and to the birds' instinct we are only one of the wingless
+      mammalians inhabiting the earth, and with the cat and weasel are labelled
+      "dangerous," but the ox and horse and sheep have no such label. Even our
+      larger, dimmer eyes can easily discover the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 203
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      attraction. Let any one, possessing a garden in the suburbs of London,
+      minutely examine the foliage at a point furthest removed from the house,
+      and he will find the plants clean from insects; and as he moves back he
+      will find them increasingly abundant until he reaches the door. Insect
+      life is gathered thickly about us, for that birdless space which we have
+      made is ever its refuge and safe camping ground. And the birds know. One
+      came before we were up, when cat and dog were also sleeping, and a report
+      is current among them. Like ants when a forager who has found a honey pot
+      returns to the nest, they are all eager to go and see and taste for
+      themselves. Their country is poor, for they have gathered its spoils, and
+      now this virgin territory sorely tempts them. To those who know a bird's
+      spirit it is plain that a mere suspension of hostile action on our part
+      would have the effect of altering their shy habits, and bringing them in
+      crowds about us. Not only in the orchard and grove and garden walks would
+      they be with us, but even in our house. The robin, the little bird "with
+      the red stomacher," would be there for the customary crumbs at meal-time,
+      and many dainty
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      204 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fringilline pensioners would keep him company. And the wren would be
+      there, searching diligently in the dusty angles of cornices for a savoury
+      morsel; for it knows, this wise little Kitty Wren, that "the spider taketh
+      hold with her hands, and is in king's palaces"; and wandering from room to
+      room it would pour forth many a gushing lyric--a sound of wildness and joy
+      in our still interiors, eternal Nature's message to our hearts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Who delights not in a bird? Yet how few among us find any pleasure in
+      reading of them in natural history books! The living bird, viewed closely
+      and fearless of our presence, is so much more to the mind than all that is
+      written--so infinitely more engaging in its spontaneous gladness, its
+      brilliant vivacity, and its motions so swift and true and yet so graceful!
+      Even leaving out the melody, what a charm it would add to our homes if
+      birds were permitted to take the part there for which Nature designed
+      them--if they were the "winged wardens" of our gardens and houses as well
+      as of our fields. Bird-biographies are always in our bookcases; and the
+      bird-form meets our sight everywhere in decorative art Eastern and
+      Western; for its aerial beauty is without
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK 205
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      parallel in nature; but the living birds, with the exception of the
+      unfortunate captives in cages, are not with us.
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        A robin redbreast in a cage<br /> Puts all heaven in a rage,
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      sings Blake prophet and poet; and for "robin redbreast" I read every
+      feathered creature endowed with the marvellous faculty of flight. Wild,
+      and loving their safety and liberty, they keep at a distance, at the end
+      of the garden or in the nearest grove, where from their perches they
+      suspiciously watch our movements, always waiting to be encouraged, waiting
+      to feed on the crumbs that fall from our table and are wasted, and on the
+      blighting insects that ring us round with their living multitudes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-25.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-25.jpg" width="117"
+      height="65" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link206" id="link206"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-26.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-26.jpg" width="405"
+      height="166" />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      ONE week-day morning, following a crowd of well-dressed people, I
+      presently found myself in a large church or chapel, where I spent an hour
+      very pleasantly, listening to a great man's pulpit eloquence. He preached
+      about genius. The subject was not suggested by the text, nor did it have
+      any close relation with the other parts, of his discourse; it was simply a
+      digression, and, to my mind, a very delightful one. He began about the
+      restrictions to which we are all more or less subject, the aspirations
+      that are never destined to be fulfilled, but are mocked by life's brevity.
+      And it was at this point that--probably thinking of his own case--he
+      branched off into the subject of genius; and proceeded to show that a man
+      possessing that divine quality finds existence a
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      206
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 207
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      much sadder affair than the ordinary man; the reason being that his
+      aspirations are so much loftier than those of other minds, the difference
+      between his ideal and reality must be correspondingly greater in his case.
+      This was obvious--almost a truism; but the illustration by means of which
+      he brought it home to his hearers was certainly born of poetic
+      imagination. The life of the ordinary person he likened to that of the
+      canary in its cage. And here, dropping his lofty didactic manner, and--if
+      I may coin a word--smalling his deep, sonorous voice, to a thin reedy
+      treble, in imitation of the tenuous fringilline pipe, he went on with
+      lively language, rapid utterance, and suitable brisk movements and
+      gestures, to describe the little lemon-coloured housekeeper in her gilded
+      cage. Oh, he cried, what a bright, busy bustling life is hers, with so
+      many things to occupy her time! how briskly she hops from perch to perch,
+      then to the floor, and back from floor to perch again! how often she drops
+      down to taste the seed in her box, or scatter it about her in a little
+      shower! how curiously, and turning her bright eyes critically this way and
+      that, she listens to every new sound and regards every ob-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      208 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ject of sight! She must chirp and sing, and hop from place to place, and
+      eat and drink, and preen her wings, and do at least a dozen different
+      things every minute; and her time is so fully taken up that the narrow
+      limits confining her are almost forgotten--the wires that separate her
+      from the great world of wind-tossed woods, and of blue fields of air, and
+      the free, buoyant life for which her instincts and faculties fit her, and
+      which, alas! can never more be hers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All this sounded very pretty, as well as true, and there was a pleased
+      smile on every face in the audience.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then the rapid movements and gestures ceased, and the speaker was silent.
+      A cloud came over his rough-hewn majestic visage; he drew himself up, and
+      swayed his body from side to side, and shook his black gown, and lifted
+      his arms, as their plumed homologues are lifted by some great bird, and
+      let them fall again two or three times; and then said, in deep measured
+      tones, which seemed to express rage and despair, "But did you ever see the
+      eagle in his cage?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The effect of the contrast was grand. He shook himself again, and lifted
+      and dropped his
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 209
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      arms again, assuming, for the nonce, the peculiar aquiline slouch; and
+      there before us stood the mighty bird of Jove, as we are accustomed to see
+      it in the Zoological Gardens; its deep-set, desolate eyes looking through
+      and beyond us; ruffling its dark plumage, and lifting its heavy wings as
+      if about to scorn the earth, only to drop them again, and to utter one of
+      those long dreary cries which seem to protest so eloquently against a
+      barbarous destiny. Then he proceeded to tell us of the great raptor in its
+      life of hopeless captivity; his stern, rugged countenance, deep bass
+      voice, and grand mouth-filling polysllables suiting his subject well, and
+      making his description seem to our minds a sombre magnificent picture
+      never to be forgotten--at all events, never by an ornithologist.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Doubtless this part of his discourse proved eminently pleasing to the
+      majority of his hearers, who, looking downwards into the depths of their
+      own natures, would be able to discern there a glimmer, or possibly more
+      than a glimmer of that divine quality he had spoken of, and which was,
+      unhappily for them, not recognized by the world at large; so that, for the
+      moment, he was ad-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      210 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      dressing a congregation of captive eagles, all mentally ruffling their
+      plumage and flapping their pinions, and uttering indignant screams of
+      protest against the injustice of their lot.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The illustration pleased me for a different reason, namely, because, being
+      a student of bird-life, his contrasted picture of the two widely different
+      kinds, when deprived of liberty, struck me as being singularly true to
+      nature, and certainly it could not have been more forcibly and
+      picturesquely put. For it is unquestionably the fact that the misery we
+      inflict by tyrannously using the power we possess over God's creatures, is
+      great in proportion to the violence of the changes of condition to which
+      we subject our prisoners; and while canary and eagle are both more or less
+      aerial in their mode of life, and possessed of boundless energy, the
+      divorce from nature is immeasurably greater in one case than in the other.
+      The small bird, in relation to its free natural life, is less confined in
+      its cage than the large one. Its smallness, perching structure, and
+      restless habits, fit it for continual activity, and its flitting, active
+      life within the bars bears some resemblance except in the great matter of
+      flight, to its life in a
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 211
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      state of nature. Again, its lively, curious, and extremely impressible
+      character, is in many ways an advantage in captivity; every new sound and
+      sight, and every motion, however slight, in any object or body near it,
+      affording it, so to speak, something to think about. It has the further
+      advantage of a varied and highly musical language; the frequent exercise
+      of the faculty of singing, in birds, with largely developed vocal organs,
+      no doubt reacts on the system, and contributes not a little to keep the
+      prisoner healthy and cheerful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the other hand, the eagle, on account of its structure and large size,
+      is a prisoner indeed, and must languish with all its splendid faculties
+      and importunate impulses unexercised. You may gorge it with gobbets of
+      flesh until its stomach cries, "Enough"; but what of all the other organs
+      fed by the stomach, and their correlated faculties? Every bone and muscle
+      and fibre, every feather and scale, is instinct with an energy which you
+      cannot satisfy, and which is like an eternal hunger. Chain it by the feet,
+      or place it in a cage fifty feet wide--in either case it is just as
+      miserable. The illimitable fields of thin cold air, where it outrides the
+      winds and soars exulting be-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      212 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      yond the clouds, alone can give free space for the display of its powers
+      and scope to its boundless energies. Nor to the power of flight alone, but
+      also to a vision formed for sweeping wide horizons, and perceiving objects
+      at distances which to short-sighted man seem almost miraculous. Doubtless,
+      eagles, like men, possess some adaptiveness, else they would perish in
+      their enforced inactivity, swallowing without hunger and assimilating
+      without pleasure the cold coarse flesh we give them. A human being can
+      exist, and even be tolerably cheerful, with limbs paralyzed and hearing
+      gone; and that, to my mind, would be a parallel case to that of the eagle
+      deprived of its liberty and of the power to exercise its flight, vision,
+      and predatory instincts.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      As I sit writing these thoughts, with a cage containing four canaries on
+      the table before me, I cannot help congratulating these little prisoners
+      on their comparatively happy fate in having been born, or hatched, finches
+      and not eagles. And yet albeit I am not responsible for the restraint
+      which has been put upon them, and am not their owner, being only a visitor
+      in the house, I am troubled with some uncomfortable feelings concerning
+      their
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      .THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 213
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      condition--feelings which have an admixture of something like a sense of
+      shame or guilt, as if an injustice had been done, and I had stood by
+      consenting. I did not do it, but we did it. I remember Matthew Arnold's
+      feeling lines on his dead canary, "Poor Matthias," and quote:
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        Yet, poor bird, thy tiny corse<br /> Moves me, somehow, to remorse;<br />
+        Something haunts my conscience, brings<br /> Sad, compunctious visitings.<br />
+        Other favourites, dwelling here,<br /> Open lived with us, and near;<br />
+        Well we knew when they were glad<br /> Plain we saw if they were sad;<br />
+        Sympathy could feel and show<br /> Both in weal of theirs and woe.<br />
+        &nbsp;<br /> Birds, companions more unknown,<br /> Live beside us, but
+        alone;<br /> Finding not, do all they can,<br /> Passage from their souls
+        to man.<br /> Kindness we bestow and praise,<br /> Laud their plumage,
+        greet their lays;<br /> Still, beneath their feathered breast
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      214 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <blockquote>
+      <p>
+        Stirs a history unexpressed.<br /> Wishes there, and feeling strong,<br />
+        Incommunicably throng;<br /> What they want we cannot guess.
+      </p>
+    </blockquote>
+    <p>
+      This, as poetry, is good, but it does not precisely fit my case; my
+      "compunctious visitings" being distinctly different in origin and
+      character from the poet's. He--Matthew Arnold--is a poet, and the author
+      of much good verse, which I appreciate and hold dear. But he was not a
+      naturalist--all men cannot be everything. And I, a naturalist, hold that
+      the wishes, thronging the restless little feathered breast are not
+      altogether so incommunicable as the melodious mourner of "Poor Matthias"
+      imagines. The days--ay, and years--which I have spent in the society of my
+      feathered friends have not, I flatter myself, been so wasted that I cannot
+      small my soul, just as the preacher smalled his voice, to bring it within
+      reach of them, and establish some sort of passage.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And so, thinking that a little more knowledge of birds than most people
+      possess, and consideration for them--for I will not be so harsh to speak
+      of justice--and time and attention given to their
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 215
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      wants, might remove this reproach, and silence these vague suggestions of
+      a too fastidious conscience, I have taken the trouble to add something to
+      the seed with which these little prisoners had been supplied. For we give
+      sweetmeats to the child that cries for the moon--an alternative which
+      often acts beneficially--and there is nothing more to be done. Any one of
+      us, even a philosopher, would think it hard to be restricted to dry bread
+      only, yet such a punishment would be small compared with that which we, in
+      our ignorance or want of consideration, inflict on our caged animals--our
+      pets on compulsion. Small, because an almost infinite variety of flavours
+      drawn from the whole vegetable kingdom--a hundred flavours for every one
+      in the dietary which satisfies our heavier mammalian natures--is a
+      condition of the little wild bird's existence and essential to its
+      well-being and perfect happiness. And so, to remedy this defect, I went
+      out into the garden, and with seeding grasses and pungent buds, and leaves
+      of a dozen different kinds, I decorated the cage until it looked less like
+      a prison than a bower. And now for an hour the little creatures have been
+      busy with their varied green
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      216 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fare, each one tasting half a dozen different leaves every minute, hopping
+      here and there and changing places with his fellows, glancing their bright
+      little eyes this way and that, and all the time uttering gratulatory notes
+      in the canary's conversational tone. And their language is not altogether
+      untranslatable. I listen to one, a pretty pure yellow bird, but slightly
+      tyrannical in his treatment of the others, and he says, or seems to say:
+      "This is good, I like it, only the old leaf is tough; the buds would be
+      better. . . . These are certainly not so good. <i>I tasted them out of
+      compliment to nature, though they were scarcely palatable. . . .</i>" No,
+      that was not my own expression; it was said by Thoreau, perhaps the only
+      human a little bird can quote with approval. "This is decidedly
+      bitter--and yet--yes, it does leave a pleasant flavour on the palate. Make
+      room for me there--or I shall make you and let me taste it again. Yes, I
+      fancy I can remember eating something like this in a former state of
+      existence, ages and ages ago." And so on, and so on, until I began to
+      imagine that the whole thing had been put right, and that the
+      uncomfortable feeling would return to trouble me no
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 217
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      more. But at the rate they are devouring their green stuff there will not
+      be a leat, scarcely a stem left in another hour; and then? Why, then they
+      will have the naked wires of their cage all round them to protect them
+      from the cat and for hunger there will be seed in the box.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After all, then, what a little I have been able to do! But I flatter
+      myself that if they were mine I should do more. I never keep captive
+      birds, but if they were given to me, and I could not refuse, I should do a
+      great deal more for them. All my knowledge of their ways and their
+      requirements would teach me how to make their caged existence less unlike
+      the old natural life, than it now is. To begin the ameliorating process, I
+      should place them in a large cage, large enough to allow space for flight,
+      so that they might fly to and fro, a few feet each way, and rest their
+      little feet from continual perching. That would enable them to exercise
+      their most important muscles and experience once more, although in a very
+      limited degree, the old delicious sensation of gliding at will through the
+      void air. The wires of their new cage would be of brass or of some bright
+      metal, and the wooden parts
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      218 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and perches green enamelled, or green variegated with brown and grey, and
+      the roof would be hung with glass lustres, to quiver and sparkle into
+      drops of violet, red, and yellow light, gladdening these little lovers of
+      bright colours; for so we deem them. I should also add gay flowers and
+      berries, crocus and buttercup and dandelion, hips and haws and mountain
+      ash and yellow and scarlet leaves--all seasonable jewellery from woods and
+      hedges and from the orchard and garden. Then would come the heaviest part
+      of my task, which would be to satisfy their continual craving for new
+      tastes in food, their delight in an endless variety. I should go to the
+      great seed-merchants of London and buy samples of all the cultivated seeds
+      of the earth, and not feed them in a trough, or manger, like heavy
+      domestic brutes, but give it to them mixed and scattered in small
+      quantities, to be searched for and gladly found in the sand and gravel and
+      turf on the wide floor of the cage. And, higher up, the wires of their
+      dwelling would be hung with an endless variety of seeded grasses, and
+      sprays of all trees and plants, good, bad, and indifferent. For if the
+      volatile bird dines on no more than twenty dishes every day he
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 219
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      loves to taste of a hundred and to have at least a thousand on the table
+      to choose from.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Feeding the birds and keeping the cage always sweet and clean would occupy
+      most, if not the whole of my time. But would that be too much to give if
+      it made me tranquil in my own mind? For it must be noted that I have done
+      all this, mentally and on paper, for my own satisfaction rather than that
+      of the canaries. Birds are not worth much--<i>to us</i>. Are not five
+      sparrows sold for three farthings? I have even shot many birds and have
+      felt no compunction. True, they perished before their time, but they did
+      not languish, and being dead there was an end of them; but the caged
+      canaries continuing with us, cannot be dismissed from the mind with the
+      same convenient ease. After all, I begin to think that my imaginary
+      reforms, if carried out, would not quite content me. The "compunctious
+      visitings" would continue still. I look out of the window and see a
+      sparrow on a neighbouring tree, loudly chirruping. And as I listen, trying
+      to find comfort by thinking of the perils which do environ him, his
+      careless unconventional sparrow-music resolves itself into articulate
+      speech, interspersed
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      320 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      with occasional bursts of derisive laughter. He knows, this fabulous
+      sparrow, what I have been thinking about and have written. "How would you
+      like it," I hear him saying, "O wise man that knows so much about the ways
+      of birds, if you were shut up in a big cage--in Windsor Castle, let us
+      say--with scores of menials to wait on you and anticipate your every want?
+      That is, I must explain, every want compatible with--ahem!--the captive
+      condition. Would you be happy in your confinement, practising with the
+      dumb-bells, riding up and down the floors on a bicycle and gazing at
+      pictures and filigree caskets and big malachite vases and eating dinners
+      of many, many courses? Or would you begin to wish that you might be
+      allowed to live on sixpence a day--<i>and earn it</i>; and even envy the
+      ragged tramp who dines on a handful of half-rotten apples and sleeps in a
+      hay-stack, but is free to come and go, and range the world at will? You
+      have been playing at nature; but Nature mocks you, for your captives thank
+      you not. They would rather go to her without an intermediary, and take a
+      scantier measure of food from her hand, but flavoured as she only can
+      flavour it. Widen your cage,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY 221
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      naturalist; replace the little twinkling lustres with sun and moon and
+      milky way; plant forests on the floor, and let there be hills and valleys,
+      rivers and wide spaces; and let the blue pillars of heaven be the wires of
+      your cage, with free entrance to wind and rain; then your little captives
+      will be happy, even happy as I am, in spite of all the perils which do
+      environ me--guns and cats and snares, with wet and fog and hard frosts to
+      come."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And, seeing my error, I should open the cage and let them fly away. Even
+      to death, I should let them fly, for there would be a taste of liberty
+      first, and life without that sweet savour, whether of aerial bird or
+      earth-bound man, is not worth living.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-27.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-27.jpg" width="247"
+      height="163" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link222" id="link222"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-28.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-28.jpg" width="392"
+      height="151" />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      DURING the month of September I spent several days at a house standing on
+      high ground in one of the pleasantest suburbs of London, commanding a fine
+      view at the back of the breezy, wooded, and not very far-off Surrey hills;
+      and all round, from every window, front and back, such a mass of greenery
+      met the eye, almost concealing the neighbouring houses, that I could
+      easily imagine myself far out in the country. In the garden the
+      omnipresent sparrow, and that always pleasant companion the starling,
+      associated with the thrush, blackbird, green linnet, chaffinch, redstart,
+      wren, and two species of tits; and, better than all these, not fewer than
+      half a dozen robins warbled their autumn notes from early morning until
+      late in the evening. Domestic
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      222
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 223
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      bird-life was also represented by fifteen fowls, and the wise laxity
+      existing in the establishment made these also free of the grounds; for of
+      eyesores and painful skeletons in London cupboards, one of the worst, to
+      my mind, is that unwholesome coop at the back where a dozen unhappy birds
+      are usually to be found immured for life. These, more fortunate, had ample
+      room to run about in, and countless broad shady leaves from which to pick
+      the green caterpillar, and red tortoise-shaped lady-bird, and
+      parti-coloured fly, and soft warm soil in which to bathe in their own
+      gallinaceous fashion, and to lie with outstretched wings luxuriating by
+      the hour in the genial sunshine. And having seen their free wholesome
+      life, I did not regard the new-laid egg on the breakfast-table with a
+      feeling of repugnance, but ate it with a relish.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have said that the fowls numbered fifteen; five were old birds, and ten
+      were chickens, closely alike in size, colour and general appearance. They
+      were not the true offspring of the hen that reared them, but hatched from
+      eggs bought from a local poultry-breeder. As they advanced in age to their
+      teens, or the period in chicken-life corre-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      224 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      sponding to that in which, in the human species, boy and girl begin to
+      diverge, their tails grew long, and they developed very fine red combs;
+      but the lady of the house, who had been promised good layers when she
+      bought the eggs clung tenaciously to the belief that long arching tails
+      and stately crests were ornaments common to both sexes in this particular
+      breed. By and by they commenced to crow, first one, then two, then all,
+      and stood confessed cockerels. Incidents like this, which are of frequent
+      occurrence, serve to keep alive the exceedingly ancient notion that the
+      sex of the future chick can be foretold from the shape of the egg. As I
+      had no personal interest in the question of the future egg-supply of the
+      establishment, I was not sorry to see the chickens develop into cocks;
+      what did interest me were their first attempts at crowing--those grating
+      sounds which the young bird does not seem to emit, but to wrench out with
+      painful effort, as a plant is wrenched out of the soil, and not without
+      bringing away portions of the lungs clinging to its roots. The bird
+      appears to know what is coming, like an amateur dentist about to extract
+      one of his own double-pronged teeth, and setting his feet
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 335
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      firmly on the ground, and throwing himself well back before an imaginary
+      looking-glass, and with arched-neck, wide-open beak, and rolling eyes,
+      courageously performs the horrible operation. One cannot help thinking
+      that a cockerel brought up without any companions of his own sex and age
+      would not often crow, but in this instance there were no fewer than ten of
+      them to encourage each other in the laborious process of tuning their
+      harsh throats. Heard subsequently in the quiet of the early morning, these
+      first tuning efforts suggested some reflections to my mind, which may not
+      prove entirely without interest to fanciers who aim at something beyond a
+      mere increase in our food-supply in their selecting and refining
+      processes.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To continue my narration. I woke in the morning at my usual time, between
+      three and four o'clock, which is not my getting-up time, for, as a rule,
+      after half an hour or so I sleep again. The waking is not voluntary as far
+      as I know; for although it may seem a contradiction in terms to speak of
+      coming at will out of a state of unconsciousness, we do, in cases
+      innumerable, wake voluntarily, or at the desired time, not perhaps
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      226 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      being altogether unconscious when sleeping. If, however, this early waking
+      were voluntary, I should probably say that it was for the pleasure of
+      listening to the crowing of the cocks at that silent hour when the night,
+      so near its end, is darkest, and the mysterious tide of life, prescient of
+      coming dawn, has already turned, and is sending the red current more and
+      more swiftly through the sleeper's veins. I have spent many a night in the
+      desert, and when waking on the wide silent grassy plain, the first
+      whiteness in the eastern sky, and the fluting call of the tinamou, and the
+      perfume of the wild evening primrose, have seemed to me like a
+      resurrection in which I had a part; and something of this feeling is
+      always associated in my mind with the first far-heard notes of
+      Chanticleer.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was very dark and quiet when I woke; my window was open, with only a
+      lace curtain before it to separate me from the open air. Presently the
+      profound silence was broken. From a distance of fifty or sixty yards away
+      on the left hand came the crow of a cock, soon answered by another further
+      away on the same side, and then, further away still, by a third. Other
+      voices took
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 227
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      up the challenge on the right, some near, some far, until it seemed that
+      there was scarcely a house in the neighbourhood at which Chanticleer was
+      not a dweller. There was no other sound. Not for another hour would the
+      sparrows burst out in a chorus of chirruping notes, lengthened or
+      shortened at will, variously inflected, and with a ringing musical sound
+      in some of them, which makes one wonder why this bird, so high in the
+      scale of nature, has never acquired a set song for itself. For there is
+      music in him, and when confined with a singing finch he will sometimes
+      learn its song. Then the robins, then the tits, then the starlings,
+      gurgling, jarring, clicking, whistling, chattering. Then the pigeons
+      cooing soothingly on the roof and window-ledges, taking flight from time
+      to time with sudden, sharp flap, flap, followed by a long, silken sound
+      made by the wings in gliding. At four the cocks had it all to themselves;
+      and, without counting the cockerels (not yet out of school), I could
+      distinctly hear a dozen birds; that is to say, they were near enough for
+      me to listen to their music critically. The variety of sounds they emitted
+      was very great, and, if cocks were selected for their vocal qualities,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      228 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      would have shown an astonishing difference in the musical tastes of their
+      owners. A dozen dogs of as many different breeds, ranging from the
+      boar-hound to the toy terrier, would not have shown greater dissimilarity
+      in their forms than did these cocks in their voices. For the fowl, like
+      the dog, has become an extremely variable creature in the domestic state,
+      in voice no less than in size, form, colour, and other particulars. At one
+      end of the scale there was the raucous bronchial strain produced by the
+      unwieldy Cochin. What a bird is that! Nature, in obedience to man's
+      behests, and smiling with secret satire over her work, has made it
+      ponderous and ungraceful as any clumsy mammalian, wombat, ardvaark,
+      manatee, or hippopotamus. The burnished red hackles, worn like a light
+      mantle over the black doublet of the breast, the metallic dark green
+      sickle-plumes arching over the tail, all the beautiful lines and rich
+      colouring, have been absorbed into flesh and fat for gross feeders; and
+      with these have gone its liveliness and vigour, its clarion voice and
+      hostile spirit and brilliant courage; it is Gallus bankiva degenerate,
+      with dulled brains
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 229
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and blunted spurs, and its hoarse crow is a barbarous chant.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And far away at the other end, startling in its suddenness and
+      impetuosity, was a trisyllabic crow, so brief, piercing, and emphatic,
+      that it could only have proceeded from that peppery uppish little bird,
+      the bantam. And of the three syllables, the last, which should be the
+      longest, was the shortest, "short and sharp like the shrill swallow's
+      cry," or perhaps even more like the shrieky bark of an enraged little cur;
+      not a <i>reveille</i> and silvern morning song in one, as a crow should
+      be, but a challenge and a defiance, wounding the sense like a spur, and
+      suggesting the bustle and fury of the cockpit.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If this style of crowing was known to Milton, it is perhaps accountable
+      for the one bad couplet in the "Allegro":
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      While the cock with lively din Scatters the rear of darkness thin.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Someone has said that every line in that incomparable poem brings at least
+      one distinct picture vividly before the mind's eye. The picture
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      230 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the first line of the couplet I have quoted suggests to ray mind is not of
+      crowing Chanticleer at all, but of a stalwart, bare-armed, blowsy-faced
+      woman, vigorously beating on a tin pan with a stick; but for what
+      purpose--whether to call down a passing swarm of bees, or to summon the
+      chickens to be fed--I never know. It is only my mental picture of a
+      "lively din." As to the second line, all attempts to see the thing
+      described only bring before me clouds and shadows, confusedly rushing
+      about in an impossible way; a chaos utterly unlike the serenity and
+      imperceptible growth of morning, and not a picture at all.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      By and by I found myself paying special attention to one cock, about a
+      hundred yards away, or a little more perhaps, for by contrast all the
+      other songs within hearing seemed strangely inferior. Its voice was
+      singularly clear and pure, the last note greatly prolonged and with a
+      slightly falling inflection, yet not collapsing at the finish as such long
+      notes frequently do, ending with a little internal sound or croak, as if
+      the singer had exhausted his breath; but it was perfect in its way, a
+      finished performance, artistic,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 231
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and, by comparison, brilliant. After once hearing this bird I paid little
+      attention to the others, but after each resounding call I counted the
+      seconds until its repetition. It was this bird's note, on this morning,
+      and not the others, which seemed to bring round me that atmosphere of
+      dreams and fancies I exist in at early cockcrow--dreams and memories,
+      sweet or sorrowful, of old scenes and faces, and many eloquent passages in
+      verse and prose, written by men in other and better days, who lived more
+      with nature than we do now. Such a note as this was, perhaps, in Thoreau's
+      mind when he regretted that there were no cocks to cheer him in the
+      solitude of Walden. "I thought," he says, "that it might be worth while
+      keeping a cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of
+      this once wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any
+      bird's, and if they could be naturalized without being domesticated it
+      would soon become the most famous sound in our woods. . . . To walk in a
+      winter morning in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods,
+      and hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill for miles
+      over the surrounding coun-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      232 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      try--think of it! It would put nations on the alert. Who would not be
+      early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier on each successive morning of
+      his life, till he became unspeakably healthy, wealthy, and wise?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Soon I fell into thinking of one in some ways greater than Thoreau, so
+      unlike the skyey-minded New England prophet and solitary, so much more
+      genial and tolerant, more mundane and lovable; and yet like Thoreau in his
+      nearness to nature. Not only a lover of generous wines--"That mark upon
+      his lip is wine"--and books "clothed in black and red," all natural sights
+      and sounds also "filled his herte with pleasure and solass," and the early
+      crowing of the cock was a part of the minstrelsy he loved. Perhaps when
+      lying awake during the dark quiet hours, and listening to just such a note
+      as this, he conceived and composed that wonderful tale of the "Nun's
+      Priest," in which the whole character of Chanticleer, his glory and his
+      foibles, together with the homely virtues of Dame Partlett, are so
+      admirably set forth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And longer ago it was perhaps such a note as this, heard in imagination by
+      the cock-loving
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 233
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Athenians, which all at once made them feel so unutterably weary of
+      endless fighting with the Lacedaemonians, and inspired their hearts with
+      such a passionate desire for the long untasted sweets of security and
+      repose. Is it one of my morning fancies merely--for fact and fancy mingle
+      strangely at this still, mysterious hour, and are scarcely
+      distinguishable--or is it related in history that this strange thing
+      happened when all the people of the violet-crowned city were gathered to
+      witness a solemn tragedy, in which certain verses were spoken that had a
+      strange meaning to their war-weary souls? "Those who sleep in the morning
+      in the arms of peace do not start from them at the sound of the trumpet,
+      and nothing interrupts their slumbers but the peaceful crowing of the
+      cock." And at these words the whole concourse was electrified, and rose up
+      like one man, and from thousands of lips went forth a great cry of "Peace!
+      Peace! Let us make peace with Sparta!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Hark! once more that long clarion call: it is the last time--the very
+      last; for all the others have sung a dozen times apiece and have gone to
+      sleep again. So would this one have done,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      234 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      but cocks, like minstrels among men, are vain creatures, and some kind
+      officious fairy whispered in his ear that there was an appreciative
+      listener hard by, and so to please me he sang, just one stave more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Lying and listening in the dark, it seemed to me that there were two
+      opposite qualities commingled in the sound, with an effect analogous to
+      that of shadow mingling with and chastening light at eventide. First, it
+      was strong and clear, full of assurance and freedom, qualities admirably
+      suited to the song of a bird of Chanticleer's disposition; a lusty,
+      ringing strain, not sung in the clouds or from a lofty perch midway
+      between earth and heaven, but with feet firmly planted on the soil, and
+      earthly; and compared with the notes of the grove like a versified
+      utterance of Walt Whitman compared with the poems of the true inspired
+      children of song--Blake, Shelley, Poe. Earthly, but not hostile and eager;
+      on the contrary, leisurely, <i>peaceful</i> even dreamy, with a touch of
+      tenderness which brings it into relationship with the more aerial tones of
+      the true singers; and this is the second quality I spoke of, which gave a
+      charm to this note and made it
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 235
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      seem better than the others. This is partly the effect of distance, which
+      clarifies and softens sound, just as distance gives indistinctness of
+      outline and ethereal blueness to things that meet the sight. To objects
+      beautiful in themselves, in graceful lines and harmonious proportions and
+      colouring, the haziness imparts an additional grace; but it does not make
+      beautiful the objects which are ugly in themselves, as, for instance, an
+      ugly square house. So in the etherealizing effect of distance on sound,
+      when so loud a sound as the crowing of a strong-lunged cock becomes dreamy
+      and tender at a distance of one hundred yards, there must be good musical
+      elements in it to begin with. I do not remark this dreaminess in the notes
+      of other birds, some crowing at an equal distance, others still further
+      away. All natural music is heard best at a distance; like the chiming of
+      bells, and the music of the flute, and the wild confused strains of the
+      bagpipes, for among artificial sounds these come the nearest to those made
+      by nature. The "shrill sharps" of the thrush must be softened by distance
+      to charm; and the skylark, when close at hand, has both shrill and harsh
+      sounds scarcely pleasing. He must mount
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      336 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      high before you can appreciate his merit. I do not recommend any one to
+      keep a caged cock in his study for the sake of its music, crow it never so
+      well.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To return to the ten cockerels; they did not crow very much, and at first
+      I paid little attention to them. After a few days I remarked that one
+      individual among them was rapidly acquiring the clear vigorous strain of
+      the adult bird. Compared with that fine note which I have described, it
+      was still weak and shaky, but in shape it was similar, and the change had
+      come while its brethren were still uttering brief and harsh screeches as
+      at the beginning. Probably, where there is a great mixture of varieties,
+      it is the same with the fowl as with man in the diversity of the young,
+      different ancestral characters appearing in different members of the same
+      family. This cockerel was apparently the musical member, and promised in a
+      short time to rival his neighbour. Having heard that it was intended to
+      keep one of the cockerels to be the parent of future broods, I began to
+      wonder whether the prize in the lottery--to wit, life and a modest
+      harem--would fall to this fine singer or not. The odds were that
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 237
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      his musical career would be cut short by an early death, since the ten
+      birds were very much alike in other respects, and I felt perfectly sure
+      that his superior note would weigh nothing in the balance. For when has
+      the character of the voice influenced a fancier in selecting? Never I
+      believe, odd as it seems. I have read a very big book on the various
+      breeds of the fowl, but the crowing of the cock was not mentioned in it.
+      This would not seem so strange if fanciers had invariably looked solely to
+      utility, and their highest ambition had ended at size, weight and quality
+      of flesh, early maturity, hardihood, and the greatest number of eggs. This
+      has not been the case. They possess, like others, the love of the
+      beautiful, artificial as their standards sometimes appear; and there are
+      breeds in which beauty seems to have been the principal object, as, for
+      instance, in several of the gold and silver spangled and pencilled
+      varieties. But, besides beauty of plumage, there are other things in the
+      fowl worthy of being improved by selection. One of these has been
+      cultivated by man for thousands of years, namely, the combative spirit and
+      splendid courage of the male bird. But there is a spirit
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      238 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      abroad now which condemns cock-fighting, and to continue selecting and
+      breeding cocks solely for their game-points seems a mere futility. The
+      energy and enthusiasm expended in this direction would be much better
+      employed in improving the bird's vocal powers.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The morning song of the cock is a sound unique in nature, and of all
+      natural sounds it is the most universal. "All climates agree with brave
+      Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than the natives. His health is
+      ever good; his lungs are sound; his spirits never flag." He is a pet bird
+      among tribes that have never seen the peacock, goose, and turkey. In
+      tropical countries where the dog becomes dumb, or degenerates into a mere
+      growler, his trumpet never rusts. It is true that he was cradled in the
+      torrid zone, yet in all Western lands, where he "shakes off the powdery
+      snow," with vigorous wings, his voice sounds as loud and inspiriting as in
+      the hot jungle. Pale-faced Londoners, and blacks, and bronzed or painted
+      barbarians, all men all the world over, wake at morn to the "peaceful
+      crowing of the cock," just as the Athenians woke of old, and the nations
+      older still. It is not, therefore,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 239
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      strange that this song has more associations for man than any other sound
+      in nature. But, apart from any adventitious claims to our attention, the
+      sound possesses intrinsic merits and pleases for its own sake. In our
+      other domestic birds we have, with regard to this point, been unfortunate.
+      We have the gobbling of turkeys, and the hoarse, monotonous come back of
+      the guinea-fowl, screaming of peacocks and geese, and quacking, hissing,
+      and rasping of mallard and mus-covy. Above all these sounds the ringing,
+      lusty, triumphant call of Chanticleer, as the far-reaching toll of the
+      bell-bird sounds above the screaming and chattering of parrots and toucans
+      in the Brazilian forest. A fine sound, which in spite of many changes of
+      climate and long centuries of domestication still preserves that
+      forest-born character of wildness, which gives so great a charm to the
+      language of many woodland gallinaceous birds. As we have seen, it is
+      variable, and in some artificial varieties has been suffered to degenerate
+      into sounds harsh and disagreeable; yet it is plain that an improved voice
+      in a beautiful breed would double the bird's value from an aesthetic point
+      of view. As things now are, the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      240 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fine voices are in a very small minority. Some bad voices in artificial
+      breeds, i.e., those which, like the Brahma and Cochin, diverge most widely
+      from the original type--are perhaps incurable, like the carrion crow's
+      voice; for that bird will probably always caw harshly in spite of the
+      musical throat which anatomists find in it. We can only listen to our
+      birds, and begin experimenting with those already possessed of shapely
+      notes and voices of good quality.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I am not going to be so ill-mannered as to conclude without an apology to
+      those among us who under no circumstances can tolerate the crowing of the
+      cock. It is true that I have not been altogether unmindful of their
+      prepossessions, and have freely acknowledged in divers places that
+      Chanticleer does not always please, and that there is abundant room for
+      improvement; but if they go further than that, if for them there exists
+      not on this round globe a cock whose voice would fail to irritate, then I
+      have not shown consideration enough, and something is still owing to their
+      feelings, which are very acute. It is possible that one of these sensitive
+      persons may take up my book, and, attracted by its title, dip into this
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      CHANTICLEER 241
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      paper, hoping to find in it a practical suggestion for the effectual
+      muzzling of the obnoxious bird. The only improvement which would fall in
+      with such a one's ideas on the subject of cock-crowing would be to improve
+      this kind of natural music out of existence. Naturally the paper would
+      disappoint him; he would be grieved at the writer's erroneous views. I
+      hope that his feelings would take no acuter form. I have listened to a
+      person, usually mild-mannered, denouncing a neighbour in the most
+      unmeasured terms for the crime of keeping a crowing cock. If the cock had
+      been a non-crower, a silent member, it would have been different: he would
+      hardly have known that he had a neighbour. There is a very serious, even a
+      sad, side to this question. Mr. Sully maintains that as civilization
+      progresses, and as we grow more intellectual, all noise, which is pleasing
+      to children and savages, and only exhilarates their coarse and juvenile
+      brains, becomes increasingly intolerable to us. What unfortunate creatures
+      we then are! We have got our pretty rattle and are now afraid that the
+      noise it makes is going to be the death of us. But what is noise? Will any
+      two highly intellectual beings agree as
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      242 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      to the particular sound which produces the effect of rusty nails thrust in
+      among the convolutions of the brain? Physicians are continually
+      discovering new forms of nervous maladies, caused by the perpetual hurry
+      and worry and excitement of our modern life; and perhaps there is one form
+      in which natural sounds, which being natural should be agreeable, or at
+      any rate innocent, become more and more abhorrent. This is a question
+      which concerns the medical journals; also, to some extent, those who
+      labour to forecast the future. Happily, all our maladies are thrown off,
+      sooner or later, if they do not kill us; and we can cheerfully look
+      forward to a time when the delicate chords in us shall no longer be made
+      to vibrate "like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh" to any sound
+      in nature, and when the peaceful crowing of the cock shall cease to madden
+      the early waker. For, whatever may be the fate awaiting our city
+      civilization, brave Chanticleer, improved as to his voice or not, will
+      undoubtedly still be with us.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-29.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-29.jpg" width="90"
+      height="99" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link243" id="link243"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-30.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-30.jpg" width="404"
+      height="169" />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      A SUNNY morning in June--a golden day among days that have mostly a
+      neutral tint; a large garden, with no visible houses beyond, but green
+      fields and unkept hedges and great silent trees, oak and ash and
+      elm--could I wish, just now, for a more congenial resting-place, or even
+      imagine one that comes nearer to my conception of an earthly paradise? It
+      is true that once I could not drink deeply enough from the sweet and
+      bitter cup of wild nature, and loved nature best, and sought it gladly
+      where it was most savage and solitary. But that was long ago. Now, after
+      years of London life, during which I have laboured like many another "to
+      get a wan pale face," with perhaps a wan pale mind to match, that past
+      wildness would prove too potent and
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      243
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      244 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      sharp a tonic; unadulterated nature would startle and oppress me with its
+      rude desolate aspect, no longer familiar. This softness of a
+      well-cultivated earth, and unbroken verdure of foliage in many shades, and
+      harmonious grouping and blending of floral hues, best suit my present
+      enervated condition. I had, I imagine, a swarter skin and firmer flesh
+      when I could ride all day over great summer-parched plains, where there
+      was not a bush that would have afforded shelter to a mannikin, and think
+      that I was having a pleasant journey. The cloudless sky and vertical
+      sun--how intolerable they would now seem, and scorch my brain and fill my
+      shut eyes with dancing flames! At present even this mild June sun is
+      strong enough to make the old mulberry tree on the lawn appear grateful.
+      It is an ancient, rough-barked tree, with wide branches, that droop
+      downwards all round, and rest their terminal leaves on the sward;
+      underneath it is a natural tent, or pavilion, with plenty of space to move
+      about and sling a hammock in. Here, then, I have elected to spend the
+      hottest hours of my one golden day, reading, dreaming, listening at
+      intervals to the fine bird-sounds that have a.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 345
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      medicinal and restorative effect on the jarred and wounded sense.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From the elms hard by comes a subdued, airy prattle of a few sparrows. It
+      is rather pleasant, something like a low accompaniment to the notes of the
+      more tuneful birds; the murmurous music of a many-stringed instrument,
+      forming the indistinct ground over which runs the bright embroidery of
+      clear melodious singing.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This morning, while lying awake from four to five o'clock, I almost hated
+      the sparrows, they were there in such multitudes, and so loud and
+      persistent sounded their jangling through the open window. It set me
+      thinking of the England of the future--of a time a hundred years hence,
+      let us say--when there will remain with us only two representatives of
+      feral life--the sparrow and the house-fly. Doubtless it will come, unless
+      something happens; but, doubtless, it will not continue. It will still be
+      necessary for a man to kill something in order to be happy; and the
+      sportsmen of that time, like great Gambetta, in the past, will sit in the
+      balconies, popping with pea-rifles at the sparrows until not one is left
+      to twitter. Then will come the turn of the untamed
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      246 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and untamable fly; and he will afford good sport if hunted a la Domitain,
+      with fine, needle-tipped paper javelins, thrown to impale him on the wall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One of our savants has lately prophesied that the time will come when only
+      the microscopic organisms will exist to satisfy the hunting instinct in
+      man. How these small creatures will be taken he does not tell us. Perhaps
+      the hunters will station themselves round a table with a drop of preserved
+      water on its centre, made large and luminous by means of a ray of
+      magnifying light. When that time comes the amoeba--that "wandering Jew,"
+      as an irreverent Quarterly Reviewer has called it--will lose its
+      immortality, and the spry rotifer will fall a victim to the infinitesimal
+      fine bright arrows of the chase. A strange quarry for men whose
+      paeliolithic progenitors hunted the woolly mastodon and many-horned
+      rhinoceros and sabre-toothed tiger!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That sad day of very small things for the sportsman is, however, not near,
+      nor within measurable distance; or, so it seemed to me when, an hour ago,
+      I strolled round the garden, curiously peering into every shrub, to find
+      the visible and comparatively noble insect-life in great
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 247
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      abundance. Beetles were there--hard, round, polished, and of various
+      colours, like sea-worn pebbles on the beach; and some, called lady-birds
+      in the vernacular, were bound like the books that Chaucer loved in black
+      and red. And the small gilded fly, not less an insect light-headed, a
+      votary of vain delights, than in the prehistoric days when a white-headed
+      old king, discrowned and crazed, railed against sweet Nature's liberty.
+      And ever waiting to welcome this inconstant lover (with falces) there sits
+      the solitary geometric spider, an image and embodiment of patience, not on
+      a monument, but a suspended wheel of which he is himself the hub; and so
+      delicately fashioned are the silver spokes thereof, radiating from his
+      round and gem-like body, and the rings, concentric tire within tire, that
+      its exceeding fineness, like swift revolving motion, renders it almost
+      invisible. Caterpillars, too, in great plenty--miniature porcupines with
+      fretful quills on end, and some naked even as they came into the world.
+      This one, called the earth-measurer, has drunk himself green with
+      chlorophyll so as to escape detection. Vain precaution! since eccentric
+      motion betrays him to keen avian eyes, when, like
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      248 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the traveller's snake, he erects himself on the tip of his tail and sways
+      about in empty space, vaguely feeling for something, he knows not what.
+      And the mechanical tortrix that rolls up a leaf for garment and food, and
+      preys on his own case and shelter until he has literally eaten himself
+      stark naked; after which he rolls up a second leaf, and so on
+      progressively. Thus in his larval life does he symbolize some restless
+      nation that makes itself many successive constitutions and forms of
+      government, in none of which it abides long; but afterwards some higher
+      thing, when he rests motionless, in form like a sarcophagus, whence the
+      infolded life emerges to haunt the twilight--a grey ghost moth. There is
+      no end to rolled-up leaves, and to the variety of creatures that are
+      housed in them; for, just as the "insect tribes of human kind" in all
+      places and in all ages, while seeking to improve their condition,
+      independently hit on the same means and inventions, so it is with these
+      small six-legged people; and many species in many places have found out
+      the comfort and security of the green cylinder.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So many did I open that I at last grew tired
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 249
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      of the process, like a man to whom the post has brought too many letters;
+      but there was one--the last I opened--the living active contents of which
+      served to remind me that some insects are unable to make a cylinder for
+      themselves, having neither gum nor web to fasten it with, and yet they
+      will always find one made by others to shelter themselves in. Here were no
+      fewer than six unbeautiful creatures, brothers and sisters, hatched from
+      eggs on which their parent earwig sat incubating just like an eagle or
+      dove or swallow, or, better still, like a pelican; for in the end did she
+      not give of her own life-fluid to nourish her children? Unbeautiful, yet
+      not without a glory superior to that of the Purple Emperor, and the
+      angelic blue Morpho, and the broad-winged Ornithoptera, that caused an
+      illustrious traveller to swoon with joy at the sight of its supreme
+      loveliness. Du Maurier has a drawing of a little girl in a garden gazing
+      at two earwigs racing along a stem. "I suppose," she remarks
+      interrogatively to her mamma, "that these are Mr. and Mrs. Earwig?" and on
+      being answered affirmatively, exclaims, "What could they have seen in each
+      other?" What they saw was blue
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      250 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      blood, or something in insectology corresponding to it. The earwig's
+      lustre is that of antiquity. He existed on earth before colour came in;
+      and colour is old, although not so old as Nature's unconscious
+      aestheticism which, in the organic world, is first expressed in beauty of
+      form. It is long since the great May flies, large as swifts, had their
+      aerial cloudy dances over the vast everglades and ancient forests of
+      ferns; and when, on some dark night, a brilliant Will-o'-the-wisp rose and
+      floated above the feathery foliage, drawn in myriads to its light, they
+      revolved about it in an immense mystical wheel, misty-white, glistening,
+      and touched with prismatic colour. Floating fire and wheel were visible
+      only to the stars, and the wakeful eyes of giant scaly monsters lying
+      quiescent in the black waters below; but they were very beautiful
+      nevertheless. The modest earwig was old on the earth even then; he dates
+      back to the time, immeasurably remote, when scorpions possessed the earth,
+      and taught him to frighten his enemies with a stingless tail--that curious
+      antique little tail which has not yet forgot its cunning.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Greater than all these inhabitants of the garden, ancient or modern by
+      reason of their
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 251
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      numbers, which is the sign of predominance, are the small wingless people
+      that have colonies on every green stem and under every green leaf.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      These are the true generators of that heavenly sweat, or saliva of the
+      stars, concerning which Pliny the Younger wrote so learnedly. And they are
+      many tribes--green, purple, brown, isabel-line; but all are one nation,
+      and sacred to that fair god whom the Carian water-nymph loved not wisely
+      but too well. For, albeit the children of an ancient union, they marry
+      not, nor are given in marriage, yet withal multiply exceedingly, so that
+      one (not two) may in a single season produce a billion. And at last when
+      autumn comes, won back from the cold god to his hot mother, they know love
+      and wedlock, and die like all married things. These are the
+      Aphides--sometimes unprettily called plant-lice, and vaguely spoken of by
+      the uninformed as "blight"--and they nourish themselves on vegetable
+      juices, that thin green blood which is the plant's life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This, then, is the fruit which the birds have, come to gather. In June is
+      their richest harvest; it is more bountiful than September, when apples
+      redden, and grapes in distant southern lands are
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      252 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      gathered for the wine-press. In yon grey wall at the end of the lawn, just
+      above the climbing rose-bush, there are now seven hungry infants in one
+      small cradle, each one, some one says, able to consume its own weight of
+      insect food every day. I am inclined to believe that it must be so, while
+      trying to count the visits paid to the nest in one hour by the parent
+      tits--those small tits that do the gardener so much harm! We know, on good
+      authority, that the spider has a "nutty flavour"; and most insects in the
+      larval stage afford succulent and toothsome, or at all events beaksome,
+      morsels. These are, just now, the crimson cherries, purple and yellow
+      plums, currants, red, white, and black--and sun-painted peaches, asking in
+      their luscious ripeness for a mouth to melt in, that fascinate finch and
+      flycatcher alike, and make the starlings smack their horny lips with a
+      sound like a loving kiss.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Not that I care, or esteem birds for what they eat or do not eat. With all
+      these creatures that are at strife among themselves, and that birds prey
+      upon, I am at peace, even to the smallest that are visible--the red spider
+      which is no spider; and the minute gossamer spider clinging to
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 253
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the fine silvery hairs of the flying summer; and the coccus that fall from
+      the fruit trees to float on their buoyant cottony down--a summer snow.
+      Fils de la Vierge are these, and sacred. The man who can needlessly set
+      his foot on a worm is as strange to my soul as De Quincey's imaginary
+      Malay, or even his "damned crocodile." The worm that one sees lying
+      bruised and incapable on the gravel walk has fallen among thieves. These
+      little lives do me good and not harm. I smell the acid ants to strengthen
+      my memory. I know that if I set an overturned cockchafer on his legs three
+      sins shall be forgiven me; that if I am kindly tolerant of the spider that
+      drops accidentally on my hand or face, my purse shall be mysteriously
+      replenished. At the same time, one has to remember that such sentiments,
+      as a rule, are not understood by those who have charge over groves and
+      gardens, whose minds are ignorant and earthy, or, as they would say,
+      practical. Of the balance of nature they know and care naught, nor can
+      they regard life as sacred; it is enough to know that it is or may be
+      injurious to their interests for them to sweep it away. The small thing
+      that has been flying about and uttering
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      254 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      musical sounds since April may, when July comes, devour a certain number
+      of cherries. Nor is even this plea needed. If it is innocent for the lower
+      creatures to prey upon one another, it cannot be less innocent for man to
+      destroy them indiscriminately, if it gives him any pleasure to do so. It
+      is idle to go into such subtle questions with those who have the power to
+      destroy; if their hands are to be restrained it is not by appealing to
+      feelings which they do not possess, but to their lower natures--to their
+      greed and their cunning. For the rest of us, for all who have conquered or
+      outgrown the killing instinct, the impartiality that pets nothing and
+      persecutes nothing is doubtless man's proper attitude towards the inferior
+      animals; a godlike benevolent neutrality; a keen and kindly interest in
+      every form of life, with indifference as to its ultimate destiny; the
+      softness which does no wrong with the hardness that sees no wrong done.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To return to the birds. The starlings have kissed like lovers, and
+      fluttered up vertically on their short wings, trying to stream like
+      eagles, only to return to the trees once more and sit there chattering
+      pleasant nothings; at intervals
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 255
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      throwing out those soft, round, modulated whistled notes, just as an idle
+      cigarette-smoker blows rings of blue smoke from his lips; and now they
+      have flown away to the fields so that I can listen to the others.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      A thrush is making music on a tall tree beyond the garden hedge, and I am
+      more grateful for the distance that divides us than for the song; for,
+      just now, he does not sing so well as sometimes of an evening, when he is
+      most fluent, and a listener, deceived by his sweetness and melody, writes
+      to the papers to say that he has heard the nightingale. Just now his song
+      is scrappy, composed of phrases that follow no order and do not fit or
+      harmonize, and is like a poor imitation of an inferior mocking-bird's
+      song.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Between the scraps of loud thrush-music I listen to catch the thin,
+      somewhat reedy sound of a yellow-hammer singing in the middle of the
+      adjoining grassy field. It comes well from the open expanse of purpling
+      grass, and reminds me of a favourite grasshopper in a distant sunny land.
+      O happy grasshopper! singing all day in the trees and tall herbage, in a
+      country where every village urchin is not sent afield to "study natural
+      his-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      256 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      tory" with green net and a good store of pins, shall I ever again hear thy
+      breezy music, and see thee among the green leaves, beautiful with
+      steel-blue and creamy-white body, and dim purple over and vivid red
+      underwings?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The bird of the pasture-land is singing still, perhaps, but all at once I
+      have ceased to hear him, for something has come to lift me above his low
+      grassy level, something faint and at first only the suspicion of a sound;
+      then a silvery lisping, far off and aerial, touching the sense as lightly
+      as the wind-borne down of dandelion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      If any place for any soul there be Disrobed and disentrammelled,
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      doubtless it is from such a place and such a soul that this sublimated
+      music falls. The singer, one can imagine, has never known or has forgotten
+      earth; and if it is visible to him, how small it must seem from that
+      altitude, "spinning like a fretful midge" beneath him in the vast void I
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It is the lark singing in the blue infinite heaven, at this distance with
+      something ethereal and heavenly in his voice; but now the wide circling
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 257
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      wings that brought him for a few moments within hearing, have borne him
+      beyond it again; and missing it, the sunshine looks less brilliant than
+      before, and all other bird-voices seem by comparison dull and of the
+      earth.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Certainly there is nothing spiritual in the song of the chaffinch. There
+      he sits within sight, motionless, a little bird-shaped automaton, made to
+      go off at intervals of twelve or thirteen seconds; but unfortunately one
+      hears with the song the whirr and buzz of the internal machinery. It is
+      not now as in April, when it is sufficient in a song that it shall be
+      joyous; in the leafy month, when roses are in bloom, one grows critical,
+      and asks for sweetness and expression, and a better art than this vigorous
+      garden singer displays in that little double flourish with which he
+      concludes his little hurry-scurry lyric. He has practised that same
+      flourish for five thousand years--to be quite within the mark--and it is
+      still far from perfect, still little better than a kind of musical sneeze.
+      So long is art!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Perhaps in some subtle way, beyond the psychologist's power to trace, he
+      has become aware of my opinion of his performance--the unspoken
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      258 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      detraction which yet affects its object; and, feeling hurt in his
+      fringilline <i>amour propre</i>, he has all at once taken himself off.
+      Never mind; a better singer has succeeded him. I have heard and seen the
+      little wren a dozen times to-day; now he has come to the upper part of the
+      tree I am lying under, and although so near his voice sounds scarcely
+      louder than before. This is also a lyric, but of another kind. It is not
+      plaintive, nor passionate; nor is it so spontaneous as the warbling of the
+      robin--that most perfect feathered impressionist; nor is it endeared to me
+      by early associations since I listened in boyhood to the songs of other
+      wrens. In what, then, does its charm consist? I do not know. Certainly it
+      is delicate, and may even be described as brilliant, in its limited way
+      perfect, and to other greater songs like the small pimpernel to a poppy or
+      a hollyhock. Unambitious, yet finished, it has the charm of distinction.
+      The wren is the least self-conscious of our singers. Somewhere among the
+      higher green translucent leaves the little brown barred thing is quietly
+      sitting, busy for the nonce about nothing, dreaming his summer dream, and
+      unknowingly telling it aloud. When shall
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 259
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      we have symbols to express as perfectly our summer-feeling--our dream ?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That small song has served to remind me of two small books I brought into
+      the garden to read--the works of two modern minor poets whose "wren-like
+      warblings," I imagined, would suit my mood and the genial morning better
+      than the stirring or subtle thoughts of greater singers. Possibly in that
+      I was mistaken; for there until now lie the books neglected on a lawn
+      chair within reach of my hand. The chair was dragged hither half-an-hour
+      ago by a maiden all in white, who appeared half inclined to share the
+      mulberry shade with me. She did not continue long in that mind. In a
+      lively manner, she began speaking of some trivial thing; but after a very
+      few moments all interest in the subject evaporated, and she sat humming
+      some idle air, tapping the turf with her fantastic shoe. Presently she
+      picked up one of my books, opened it at random and read a line or two, her
+      vermilion under-lip curling slightly; then threw it down again, and
+      glanced at me out of the corners of her eyes; then hummed again, and
+      finally became silent, and sat bending forward a little, her dark lustrous
+      eyes gazing with
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      260 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      strange intentness through the slight screen of foliage into the vacant
+      space beyond. What to see? The poet has omitted to tell us to what the
+      maiden's fancy lightly turns in spring. Doubtless it turns to thoughts of
+      something real. Life is real; so is passion--the quickening of the blood,
+      the wild pulsation. But the pleasures and pains of the printed book are
+      not real, and are to reality like Japanese flowers made of coloured bits
+      of tissue paper to the living fragrant flowers that bloom to-day and
+      perish to-morrow; they are a simulacrum, a mockery, and present to us a
+      pale phantasmagoric world, peopled with bloodless men and women that
+      chatter meaningless things and laugh without joy. The feeling of unreality
+      affects us all at times, but in very different degrees. And perhaps I was
+      too long a doer, herding too much with narrow foreheads, drinking too
+      deeply of the sweet and bitter cup, to experience that pure unfailing
+      delight in literature which some have. Its charm, I fancy, is greatest to
+      those in whom the natural man, deprived in early life of his proper
+      aliment, grows sickly and pale, and perishes at last of inanition. There
+      is ample room then for the latter higher growth--
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 261
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the unnatural cultivated man. Lovers of literature are accustomed to say
+      that they find certain works "helpful" to them; and doubtless, being all
+      intellect, they are right. But we, the less highly developed, are
+      compounded of two natures, and while this spiritual pabulum sustains one,
+      the other and larger nature is starved; for the larger nature is earthly,
+      and draws its sustenance from the earth. I must look at a leaf, or smell
+      the sod, or touch a rough pebble, or hear some natural sound, if only the
+      chirp of a cricket, or feel the sun or wind or rain on my face. The book
+      itself may spoil the pleasure it was designed to give me, and instead of
+      satisfying my hunger, increase it until the craving and sensation of emptiness
+      becomes intolerable. Not any day spent in a library would I live again,
+      but rather some lurid day of labour and anxiety, of strife, or peril, or
+      passion.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Occupied with this profound question, I scarcely noticed when my
+      shade-sharer, with whom I sympathised only too keenly in her restless
+      mood, rose and, lifting the light green curtain, passed out into the
+      sunshine and was gone. Nor did I notice when the little wren ceased
+      singing over-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      262 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      head. At length recalled to myself I began to wonder at the unusual
+      silence in the garden, until, casting my eyes on the lawn, I discovered
+      the reason; for there, moving about in their various ways, most of the
+      birds were collected in a loose miscellaneous flock, a kind of happy
+      family. There were the starlings, returned from the fields, and looking
+      like little speckled rooks; some sparrows, and a couple of robins hopping
+      about in their wild startled manner; in strange contrast to these last
+      appeared that little feathered clodhopper, the chaffinch, plodding over
+      the turf as if he had hobnailed boots on his feet; last, but not least,
+      came statuesque blackbirds and thrushes, moving, when they moved, like
+      automata. They all appear to be finding something to eat; but I Watch the
+      thrushes principally, for these are more at home on the moist earth than
+      the others, and have keener senses, and seek for nobler game. I see one
+      suddenly thrust his beak into the turf and draw from it a huge earthworm,
+      a wriggling serpent, so long that although he holds his head high, a third
+      of the pink cylindrical body still rests in its run. What will he do with
+      it? We know how wandering Waterton treated the boa
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      IN AN OLD GARDEN 263
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      which he courageously grasped by the tail as it retreated into the bushes.
+      Naturally, it turned on him, and, lifting high its head, came swiftly
+      towards his face with wide-open jaws; and at this supreme moment, without
+      releasing his hold on its tail, with his free hand he snatched off his
+      large felt hat and thrust it down the monster's throat, and so saved
+      himself.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Just as I am intently watching to see how my hatless little Waterton will
+      deal with <i>his</i> serpent, a startling bark, following by a canine
+      shriek, then a yell, resound through the silent garden; and over the lawn
+      rush those three demoniacal fox-terriers, Snap, Puzzy, and Babs, all
+      determined to catch something. Away fly the birds, and though now high
+      overhead, the baffled brutes continue wildly careering about the grounds,
+      vexing the air with their frantic barkings. No more birds to-day! But now
+      the peace-breakers have discovered me, and come tearing across the lawn,
+      and on to the half-way chair, then to the hammock, scrambling over each
+      other to inflict their unwelcome caresses on my hands and face.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Ah well, let them have their way and do their worst, since the birds are
+      gone, and I shall go
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      264 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      soon. It is a consolation to think that they are not my pets; that I shall
+      not grieve, like their mistress, when their brief barking period is over;
+      that I care just so much and no more for them than for any other living
+      creature, not excepting the <i>fer-de-lance</i>, "quoiled in the path like
+      rope in a ship," or the broad-winged vulture "scaling the heavens by
+      invisible stairs." None are out of place where Nature placed them, nor
+      unbeautiful; none are unlovable, since their various qualities--the rage
+      of the one and the gentleness of the other--are but harmonious lights and
+      shades in the ever-changing living picture that is so perfect.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-31.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-31.jpg" width="103"
+      height="122" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="linkcornish" id="linkcornish"></a> <img
+      src="images/hudson-birds-32.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-32.jpg" width="404"
+      height="170" />
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE
+    </h3>
+    <p>
+      <a name="link265" id="link265"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      I
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      HAVING begun, or first written, this book in one village, which was near
+      London, I am now finishing, or re-writing, it in another in "the westest
+      part of all the land," over three hundred miles from the first. Here I had
+      to go over this ancient work of twenty-three years ago, which was also my
+      first English bird book, to prepare it for a new edition; and after all
+      necessary corrections, omissions and additions of fresh matter made in the
+      foregoing parts, it seemed best to throw out the whole of the concluding
+      portion, which dealt mainly with the question of bird-preservation as
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      265
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      266 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      it presented itself at that time and is now out of date, thanks to the
+      legislation of recent years and to the growth in this country of the
+      feeling or desire for birds during the last two or three decades. In place
+      of this discarded matter I propose to give here the results of recent
+      observations on the bird life of a Cornish village.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      My residence in the Cornish Village (or villages) was during May and June,
+      1915, and again from October of the same year to June, 1916. These were
+      months of ill-health, so that I was prevented from pursuing my customary
+      outdoor rambling life; but, like that poor creature the barnyard fowl that
+      can't use its wings, instinctively, or from old habit, I used my eyes in
+      keeping a watch on the feathered (and flying) people about me.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The village, Lelant, is on the Hayle estuary, and to see the Atlantic one
+      has but to walk past the grey old church at the end of the street, where
+      the ground rises, to find oneself in a wilderness of towans, as the
+      sand-hills are there called, clothed in their rough, grey-green marram
+      grass and spreading on either hand round the bay of St. Ives. A beautiful
+      sight, for the sea on a
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 267
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      sunny day is of that marvellous blue colour seen only in Cornwall; far out
+      on a rock on the right hand stands the shining white Godrevy lighthouse,
+      and on the left, on the opposite side of the bay, the little ancient
+      fishing-town of St. Ives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The river or estuary, in sight of the doors and windows of the village,
+      was haunted every day by numbers of gulls and curlews. These last numbered
+      about one hundred and fifty birds, and were always there except at full
+      tide, when they would fly away to the fields and moors. Of all my bird
+      neighbours I think that these gave me most pleasure, especially at night,
+      when lying awake I would listen by the hour to the perpetual curlew
+      conversation going on in the dark--an endless series of clear modulated
+      notes and trills, with a beautiful expression of wildness and freedom, a
+      reminder of lonely seashores and mountains and moorlands in the north
+      country. What wonder that Stevenson, sick in his tropical island--sick for
+      his cold grey home so many thousands of miles away, wished once more to
+      hear the whaup crying over the graves of his forefathers, and to hear no
+      more at all!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of bird music by day there was little; you would
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      268 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      hear more of it in one morning in that small rustic village in Berkshire
+      where the first part of this book was written than in a whole summer in
+      one of these West Cornwall villages, so few comparatively are the
+      songsters. Nor was this scarcity in the village only; it was everywhere,
+      as I found when able to get out for a few hours during my two spring
+      seasons in the place. Close by were the extensive woods of Trevalloe,
+      where I was struck by the extraordinary silence and where I listened in
+      vain for a single note from blackcap, garden-warbler, willow-wren,
+      wood-wren, or redstart. The thrushes, chaffinch, chiff-chaff, and
+      greenfinch were occasionally heard; outside the wood the buntings, chats,
+      and the skylark were few and far between.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This scarcity of small birds is, I think, due in the first place to the
+      extraordinary abundance of the jackdaw, the diligent seeker after small
+      birds' nests, and to the autumn and winter pastime of bush-beating to
+      which men and boys are given in these parts, and which the Cornish
+      authorities refuse to suppress.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      After a time, when, owing to increasing debility, I was confined more and
+      more to the
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 269
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      village, I began to concentrate my attention on a few common species that
+      were always present, particularly on the three commonest--rook, daw, and
+      starling; the first two residents, the starling, a winter visitor from
+      September to April.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In October, I started feeding the birds at the house where I was staying
+      as a guest, throwing the scraps on a lawn at the back which sloped down
+      towards the estuary. First came all the small birds in the immediate
+      neighbourhood--robin, dunnock, wagtail, chaffinch, throstle, blackbird,
+      and blue and ox-eye tits. Then followed troops of starlings, and soon all
+      the rooks and daws in the village began to see what was going on and come
+      too, and this attracted the gulls from the estuary--I wished that it had
+      drawn the curlews; and all these big ones were so greedy and bold, so
+      noisy and formidable-looking that the small birds were quite driven out;
+      all except the starlings that came in hungry crowds and were determined to
+      get their share.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      At the beginning of December I had to move to a nursing-home at the
+      Convent of the Sisters of the Cross at the adjacent village of Hayle, just
+      across the estuary. The Convent buildings and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      270 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      grounds and gardens are fortunately outside the ugly village, and my room
+      had an exceptionally big window occupying almost the whole wall on one
+      side, with an outlook to the south over the green fields and moors towards
+      Helston. An ideal sick-room for a man who can't be happy without the
+      company of birds, and here, even when lying on my bed before I was able to
+      sit or stand by the window, a large portion of the sky, rainy or blue, was
+      visible, and rooks and daws and gulls and troops of starlings, and the
+      curlews from the river, were seen coming and going all day long.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But it was much better when I was able to go to the window, since now, by
+      feeding them, I could draw the birds to me. I fed them on a green field
+      beneath my window, where the Convent milch-cows were accustomed to graze
+      for some hours each day. All through the winter there was grass for them,
+      and I was glad to have them there, as the cow is my favourite beast, and
+      it was also pleasant to see the wintering starlings consorting with them,
+      clustering about their noses, just as they do in the pasture lands in
+      summer time. But I found it best to feed the birds when
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 271
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the cows were not there, on account of the behaviour of one of them, a
+      young animal who had not yet been sobered by having a calf of her own. She
+      was a frivolous young thing and when tired of feeding, she would start
+      teasing the old cows, pushing them with her horns, then flinging up her
+      hind legs to challenge them to a romp. The sight of a crowd of birds under
+      my window would bring her at a gallop to the spot to find out what all the
+      fuss was about, and the birds would be driven off.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning I was at my window when the field was empty of bird and beast
+      life with the exception of a solitary old rook, a big bird who was a
+      constant attendant and so much bigger than most of the rooks that I had
+      come to know it well. By and by the young cow walked into the field by
+      herself and, after gazing all round as if surprised at finding the place
+      so lifeless, she caught sight of and fixed her eyes on the old rook
+      working at the turf some fifty or sixty yards away. Presently she began
+      walking towards it, and when within about twenty yards put her head down
+      and charged it. The rook paid no attention until she was almost on it,
+      then rose up,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      272 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      emitting its angriest, most raucous screams while hovering just over her
+      head, and having thus relieved its indignant feelings it flew heavily away
+      to the far end of the field, and settling down began prodding away at the
+      soil. The cow, standing still, gazed after it, and one could almost
+      imagine her saying: "So you won't get out of the field! Well! I'll soon
+      make you. I'm going to have it all to myself this morning." And at once
+      she began rapidly walking towards the bird. But half-way to it was the
+      post set up in the middle of the field for the cows to rub their hides,
+      and on coming abreast of it the sight of it and its proximity suggested
+      the delight of a rub, and turning off at right angles she walked straight
+      to the post and began rubbing herself against it. The rook went on with
+      its business, and after that there was no more quarrelling.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Another morning this same old rook came with his mate to the field:
+      separating, they came down a distance of a hundred yards or more apart and
+      began searching for grubs. By and by the old cock discovered something
+      particularly good and after vigorously prodding the turf for a few moments
+      he sprang up and flew excitedly to his
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 273
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      mate, who instantly knew what this action meant and began fluttering her
+      wings and crying for the dainty morsel which he proceeded to deliver into
+      her wide-open mouth. Having fed her, he flew back to the same spot and
+      began working again.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      This is a common action of the rooks, and I saw this same bird feed his
+      mate on other occasions during the winter months, when I have no doubt
+      that he, poor wretch, could hardly find food enough to keep himself alive
+      during the dark season of everlasting wind and rain when the dim daylight
+      lasted for about six hours. But I never saw a daw or starling feed his
+      mate, or feed another daw or starling, although I watched closely every
+      day and often for an hour at a stretch, and though I am convinced that the
+      starling, like the rook and crow and daw, and in fact all the Corvidae,
+      pairs for life. To this point I will return presently; let me first relate
+      another incident about our frivolous and irresponsible young cow.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One morning when the cows were in the field, some herring-gulls drifted by
+      and a few of them remained circling about above the field. I threw
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      274 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      out a piece of bread, and a troop of starlings rushed to it, and one of
+      the gulls dropped down and took possession of it, but had scarcely began
+      tearing at it when two more gulls dropped down and the first bird, lifting
+      his wings began screaming "Hands off!" at the others, and the others, also
+      raising their wings, screamed their wailing screams in reply. The young
+      cow, attracted by the noise, gazed at them for a few moments, then all at
+      once putting her head down furiously charged them. The three gulls rose up
+      simultaneously and floated over her and then away, leaving her standing on
+      the spot, shaking her head in anger and disgust at their escape. A
+      rhinoceros charging a ball of thistledown or a soap-bubble, and causing it
+      to float away with the wind it created, would not have been a more
+      ludicrous spectacle.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-33.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-33.jpg" width="131"
+      height="96" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link275" id="link275"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      II
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      FROM my boyhood, when I first began to observe birds, I started with the
+      imbibed notion that those which paired for life were the rare
+      exceptions--the dove that rhymed with love, the eagle, and perhaps half a
+      dozen more. Who, for instance, would imagine that the sexes could be
+      faithful in parasitical species like the cuckoo of Europe and the
+      cow-birds of America? Yet even as a boy I made the discovery that an
+      Argentine cow-bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other species, does
+      actually pair for life; and so effectually mated is it, that on no day and
+      no season of the year will you see a male without his female: if he flies
+      she flies with him and feeds and drinks with him, and when he perches she
+      perches at his side, and he never utters a sound but a responsive sound
+      immediately falls from her devoted beak.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      275
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      276 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Again, it may seem unlikely that there can be pairing for life in species,
+      like the chaffinch of northern Europe and, with us, of Scotland, in which
+      the sexes separate and migrate separately. Also of non-gregarious species
+      like the nightingale in which the males arrive in this country several
+      days before the females. Yet I am confident that if we could catch and
+      mark a considerable number of pairs it would be found that the same male
+      and female found one another and re-mated every year.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It comes to this, that birds may pair for life, yet not be all the time or
+      all the year together, as in the case of hawks, crows, owls, herons, and
+      many others. In numberless species which undoubtedly pair for life the
+      sexes keep apart during several hours each day, and there is some evidence
+      that those that separate for a part of the year remain faithful.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      An incident, related by Miss Ethel Williams, of Winchester, in her natural
+      history notes contributed to a journal in that city, bears on this point.
+      She had among the bird pensioners in the garden of her house adjoining the
+      Cathedral green, a female thrush that grew tame enough to
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 277
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      fly into the house and feed on the dining-room table. Her thrush paired
+      and bred for several seasons in the garden, and the young, too, were tame
+      and would follow their mother into the house to be fed. The male was wild
+      and too shy ever to venture in. She noticed the first year that it had a
+      wing-feather which stuck out, owing probably to a malformation of the
+      socket. Each year after the breeding season the male vanished, the female
+      remaining alone through the winter months, but in spring the male came
+      back--the same bird with the unmistakable projecting wing-feather. Yet it
+      was certain that this bird had gone quite away, otherwise he would have
+      returned to the garden, where there was food in abundance during the
+      spells of frosty weather. As he did not appear it is probable that he
+      migrated each autumn to some warmer climate beyond the sea.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have noticed that wagtails, thrushes, blackbirds, and some other species
+      when the young are out of the nest, divide the brood between male and
+      female and go different ways and spend the daylight hours at a distance
+      apart, each attending to the one or two young birds in its charge.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      278 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      One winter, a few years ago, I was staying for a few days at a cottage
+      facing Silchester Common, and on going out after breakfast to feed the
+      birds I particularly noticed a male grey wagtail among those that came to
+      me, on account of its beauty and tameness. Every morning I fed it, and on
+      my speaking to my landlady about it she said, "Oh, we know that bird well;
+      this is the fourth winter it has spent with us, but it always came before
+      with its mate. The poor little thing had only one leg, but managed to hop
+      about and feed very well; this year the poor thing didn't turn up with its
+      mate, so we suppose it had met its death somewhere during the summer."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I have often watched the gatherings of pied wagtails (always with a
+      certain number of the grey species among them) in places where they spend
+      the winter in our southern counties, at some spot where they are
+      accustomed to congregate each evening to hold a sort of frolic before
+      going to roost, and it has always appeared to me that the birds, both pied
+      and grey, were in pairs. So too, in watching the starlings day after day
+      in the field in front of my window. Well able with my binocular to observe
+      them closely, I saw much
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 279
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      to convince me that the starling, too, lives all the year with his mate.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Each morning the birds that had made our village their daily
+      feeding-ground, would, on arrival from the roosting-place in one body,
+      break up into numerous small parties of half a dozen to twenty or more
+      birds. All day long these little flocks were hurrying about from field to
+      field, spending but a short time at one spot, so hungry were they and
+      anxious to find a more productive one, and in every field they would meet
+      and mix with other small groups, and presently all would fly, and breaking
+      up into small parties again go off in different directions. Thus one had a
+      constant succession of little flocks in the field from morning till night,
+      and I found from counting the birds in each small group that in three
+      cases in four they were in even numbers. Again, I have often seen a group
+      of three, five, seven or nine birds on the field, and after a while a
+      solitary starling from a neighbouring field or from some treetop near by
+      has flown down to join the group and make the numbers even.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The birds when feeding, I have said, are always in a desperate hurry, and
+      little wonder, since
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      280 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      after a night, usually wet and cold, of from sixteen to eighteen hours and
+      only about six to feed in, they must be in a half-starved state and
+      frantic to find something to swallow. No sooner do they alight than they
+      begin running about, prodding with their beaks, and all the time
+      advancing, the birds keeping pretty well abreast. Now, from time to time
+      you will notice that a bird finds something to delay him and is left
+      behind by the others. On they go--prod, prod, then a little run, then
+      prod, prod again and run again--while he, excited over his find, and
+      vigorously digging at the roots of the grass, lets them go on without him
+      until he is yards behind. Whenever this happens you will see one of the
+      advancing birds pause in its prodding to look back from time to time as if
+      anxious about the one left behind; and by and by this same bird, its
+      anxiety increasing, will suddenly spring into the air and fly back to
+      place itself at the side of the other, to wait quietly until it has
+      finished its task; and no sooner does the busy one put up its head to
+      signal that he is ready than up they spring and fly together on to the
+      flock. No one witnessing this action can doubt for a moment that these two
+      are mates,
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 281
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      and that wherever they paired and bred originally
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      --in Lincoln or York or Thurso or perhaps in one of the western
+      islands--they paired for life and will stick together, summer and winter
+      and in all their wanderings, as long as they live.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Until one observes starlings in this close way, even to their minutest
+      actions--I had indeed little else to do during my three winter months in
+      this nursing-home--it is only natural to believe that among gregarious
+      species the starling is one of those least likely to pair for life, seeing
+      that in it the gregarious instinct is intensified and more highly
+      developed than in most others. One would suppose that the flock, which is
+      like an organism
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      --that is to say, the attachment to the flock
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      --would, out of the breeding season, take the place of the close relation
+      or companionship between bird and bird seen in species known to pair for
+      life. Only the pairing passion, one would suppose, could serve to dissolve
+      the company of birds and this only for a brief season of about a couple of
+      months' duration. There is but one brood raised in the season, and the
+      whole business of reproduction is well over before the end of June. Later
+      breeders are those that have lost
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      282 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      their first eggs or broods. And no sooner are the young brought off and
+      instructed in the starling's sole vocation (except his fruit-eating) of
+      extracting the grubs it subsists on from the roots of the grass--a
+      business which detains them for a week or two--than the married life is
+      apparently over and the communal life resumed. The whole life of the bird
+      is then changed; the sole tie appears to be that of the flock; home and
+      young are forgotten: the birds range hither and thither about the land,
+      and by and by migrate to distant places, some passing oversea, while
+      others from the northern counties and from Scotland and the islands come
+      down to the south of England, where they winter in millions and myriads.
+      There they form the winter habit of congregating in immense numbers in the
+      evening at their favourite roosting-places, and hundreds and thousands of
+      small flocks, which during the daylight hours exist distributed over an
+      area of hundreds of square miles all make to one point and combine into
+      one flock. At such times they actually appear to rejoice in their own
+      incalculable numbers and gather earlier than they need at the
+      roosting-place, so that the whole vast gathering
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 283
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      may spend an hour or so in their beloved aerial exercises.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      To anyone who witnesses these gatherings and sees the birds rising from
+      time to time from the wood, and appearing like a big black cloud in the
+      sky, growing lighter and darker alternately as the birds scatter wide or
+      mass themselves in a closer formation, until after wheeling about for some
+      minutes they pour back into the trees; and who listens to the noise they
+      make, as of a high wind in the wood, composed, as it is, of an infinity of
+      individual voices, it must seem incredible that all these birds can keep
+      in pairs. For how could any couple hold together in such circumstances, or
+      when separated ever meet again in such a multitude, or, should they ever
+      meet by chance, how recognize one another when all are exactly alike in
+      size, shape, colour and voice?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      They can, and certainly do, keep together, and when forced apart as, when
+      pursued by a hawk, they scatter in all directions, they can quickly find
+      one another again. They can do it because of their perfect discipline, or
+      instinct, or the perfection of the system they follow during their autumn
+      and winter wanderings and migrations.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      284 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The breeding season over, the birds in each locality unite in a small
+      flock composed of twenty or thirty to fifty or more pairs and start their
+      wandering life. Those in the north migrate or drift south, and vast
+      numbers, as we see, spend the winter in the southern counties. And here
+      they have their favourite roosting-places and are accustomed to assemble
+      in tens and hundreds of thousands. But the original small flock composed
+      of a few pairs, is never broken up--never absorbed by the multitude. Each
+      morning when it is light enough, the birds quit the roosting-wood, but not
+      all together; they quit it in flocks, flock following flock so closely as
+      to appear like a continuous stream of birds, and the streams flow out in
+      different directions over the surrounding country. Each stream of birds is
+      composed of scores and hundreds of units, and each unit drops out of the
+      stream and slopes away to this or that side, to drop down on its own
+      chosen feeding-ground, to which it returns morning after morning through
+      the winter. When all the units have dropped out and settled on their
+      feeding areas for the day, it may be seen that the whole country within a
+      circuit of ten or twelve or more miles from the roosting-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 285
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      place has been occupied, that each flock has its own territory, where it
+      splits up into some groups and spends its short hours flying about and
+      exploring every green field, and one might almost say "every grass." One
+      can only explain this perfect distribution by assuming that each unit
+      instinctively looks for unoccupied ground in its winter habitat, and that
+      consequently there is very little overlapping. It must also be assumed
+      that at the place of assembly in the evening each flock has its own
+      roosting-place--its own trees and bushes where the members of the flock
+      can still keep together and to which after each aerial performance they
+      can return. The flock comes back to sleep on its own tree, and no doubt
+      every couple roosts side by side on its own twig.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      On the return of Spring the birds do not migrate in a body, but slip away,
+      flock by flock, to reappear about the end of April in their old
+      breeding-place in the North Country, with, perhaps, the loss of a few
+      members--the one that was old and died in the season of scarcity; and one
+      that was taken at the roost by a brown owl, and one that had its feet
+      frozen to the perch; and was killed by a jackdaw when struggling to free
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      286 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      itself; and one that was struck down by a sparrow-hawk on his homeward
+      journey.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      What I have so far been unable to trace is the career of the young after
+      August. We see that once they are able to fend for themselves they club
+      together in small flocks and continue together during their "brown thrush"
+      stage, but by and by they get the adult plumage and language and are no
+      longer distinguishable as young. Do they, then, join the old birds before
+      the wandering and migrating south begins? And do they pair or not before
+      the winter?
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-34.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-34.jpg" width="160"
+      height="123" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link287" id="link287"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h3>
+      III
+    </h3>
+    <h4>
+      VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      THROUGHOUT the winter of 1915-16, and more particularly during my three
+      months in the hospital at Hayle, from the beginning of December to March,
+      I was greatly impressed at the perpetual state of hunger in which the
+      birds exist, especially the three commonest species in our village--rook,
+      daw, and starling. Little wonder that the sight of a piece of bread thrown
+      out on the green field below my window would bring all these three and
+      many others with a rush from all sides, every one eager to get a morsel!
+      But the birds that live most in a groove, as it were, like the rook and
+      starling, and have but one kind of food and one way of finding it, are
+      always the worst off in winter. These subsist on the grubs and other
+      minute organisms they are able to pick out of the grass roots, and are
+      life workers paid by the
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      287
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      288 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      piece who must labour hard and incessantly to make enough to keep
+      themselves alive; their winter life is accordingly in startling contrast
+      to that of the daw--one that lives on his wits and fares better and
+      altogether has an easier and more amusing time.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It was the habit of the three species named to quit the wood where they
+      roosted as soon as it was light enough for them to feed, the time varying
+      according to the state of the weather from half-past eight to ten o'clock,
+      the mornings being usually wet and dark. The rooks that had their rookery
+      in the village numbered forty or fifty birds, and these would remain at
+      the village, getting their food in the surrounding fields for the rest of
+      the day. The daws would appear in a body of two or three hundred birds,
+      but after a little while many of them would go on to their own villages
+      further away, leaving about sixty to eighty birds belonging to the
+      village. Last of all the starlings would appear in flocks and continuous
+      streams of birds often fighting their way against wind and rain, leaving
+      about a couple of hundred or more behind, these being the birds that had
+      settled in the village for the season, and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 289
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      worked in the grass fields in and surrounding it. Rooks and starlings
+      would immediately fall to work, while the daws, the flock breaking up into
+      small parties of three or four, would distribute themselves about the
+      village and perch on the chimney-pots. They would perch and then fly, and
+      for all the rest of the day would be incessantly shifting about from place
+      to place, on the look-out for something to eat, dropping from time to time
+      to snatch up a crust of bread or the core of an apple thrown away by a
+      child in the road, or into a back garden or on to a dust-heap where
+      potato-parings and the head of a mackerel or other refuse had been thrown.
+      They were very bold, but not as courageous as the old-time British kite
+      that often swooped to snatch the bread from a child's hand.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      From time to time one, or a pair, of a small party of these daws would
+      drop down on the field before my window when the rooks and starlings were
+      there prodding busily at the turf, but though I watched them a thousand
+      times I never detected them trying to find something for themselves. They
+      simply stood or walked about among the working birds, watching them
+      intently. Grub-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      290 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      finding was an art they had not acquired, or were too indolent or proud to
+      practise; but they were not too proud to beg or steal; they simply watched
+      the other birds in the hope of being able to snatch up a big unearthed
+      grub and run away with it. As a rule after a minute or two they would get
+      tired of waiting and rush off with a lively shout. Back they would go to
+      the chimney-pots and to their flying up and down, suspending their flight
+      over this or that yard or garden, and by and by one would succeed in
+      picking up something big, and at once all the other daws in sight would
+      give chase to take it from him; for these village daws are not only
+      parasites and cadgers, but worse--they are thieves without honour among
+      themselves.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In spite of all the time and energy wasted in their perpetual races and
+      chases going on all over the village, every bird exerting himself to the
+      utmost to rob all he can from his pals, they get enough to eat; for when
+      the day is over and other daws from other villages drop in to visit them,
+      all unite in a big crowd and wheel about, making the place ring with their
+      merry yelping cries, before sailing away to the wood. One
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 291
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      might say after witnessing and listening to this evening performance that
+      they have great joy in their rascally lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      But for the poor starling there is little joy in these brief, dark, wet
+      winter days, even if there is little frost in this West Cornwall climate.
+      A frost of a few days' duration would be fatal to incalculable numbers,
+      especially if, as in the great frosts of the winters of 1894-5 and 1896-7,
+      severest in the south and west of England, it should come late in winter,
+      I think it can be taken as a fact that a long or overseas migration takes
+      place before midwinter or not at all. In January and February, when birds
+      are driven to the limits of the land by a great cold they do not cross the
+      sea, either because they are too weak to attempt such an adventure or for
+      some other reason unknown to us. We see that on these occasions they come
+      to the seashore and follow it south and west even to the western extremity
+      of Cornwall, and then either turn back inland or wait where they are for
+      open weather, many perishing in the meantime.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      During those three winter months, when I watched the starlings at work on
+      the field before
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      292 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      my hospital window, they appeared to be in a perpetual state of extreme
+      hunger and were always running over the ground, rapidly prodding as they
+      moved, and apparently finding their food almost exclusively on the
+      surface--that is to say, on the surface of the soil but under the grass,
+      at its surface roots. At other seasons they go deep when they know from
+      the appearance of every blade of grass whether or not there is a grub
+      feeding on its roots beneath the surface. Without shooting and examining
+      the stomachs of a large number of starlings it was not possible to know
+      just what the food consisted of; but with my strong binocular on them I
+      could make out that at almost every dig of the beak something was picked
+      up, and could actually see it when the beak was held up with the minute
+      morsel at its tip--a small, thread-like, semi-transparent worm or grub in
+      most instances. Two or three of these atomies would hardly have made a
+      square meal for a ladybird, and I should think that a starling after
+      swallowing a thousand would fed very hungry. And on many days this scanty,
+      watery food had to be searched for in very painful conditions, as it
+      rained heavily on most days and
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 293
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      often all day long. At such times the birds in their sodden plumage looked
+      like drowned starlings fished out of a pool and galvanized into activity.
+      Nor were they even seen to shake the wet off--a common action in swallows
+      and other birds that feed in the rain; they were too hungry, too anxious
+      to find something to eat to keep the starling soul and body together
+      before the long night of eighteen or twenty hours would overtake them.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      No doubt the winter of 1915-16 was exceptionally wet and cold, although
+      without any severe frosts; a long frost in February, when the birds were
+      most reduced, would probably have proved fatal to at least half their
+      number. But though it continued wet and cold, things began to mend for the
+      starlings towards the end of February, and in March the improvement was
+      very marked; they were not in such a perpetual hurry; their time was
+      longer now, and by the end of the month their working day had increased
+      from five or six to twelve or fourteen hours, and the light had increased
+      and grubs were easier to find. By April, the starlings no longer appeared
+      to be the same species as the poor, rusty, be-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      294 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      draggled wretches we had been accustomed to see; they are now lively,
+      happy birds with a splendid gloss on their feathers and beaks as bright a
+      yellow as the blackbird's. Finally, in April they left us, not going in a
+      body, but flock by flock, day after day, until by the end of the month all
+      were gone back to their homes in the north--all but the two or three to
+      half a dozen pairs in each village. And these few that stay behind are new
+      colonists in West Cornwall.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-35.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-35.jpg" width="143"
+      height="130" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link295" id="link295"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      IV INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      ABOUT the daw, or Jackie, or Dorrie or Jackie-Dorrie, as he is variously
+      and familiarly called, and his village habits, there will be more to say
+      presently; just now my concern is with another matter--a veritable daw
+      problem.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      For the last twenty years or longer it has seemed to me that the daw is an
+      increasing species in Britain; at all events I am quite sure that it is so
+      in the southern half of England, particularly along the coast of Somerset,
+      Devon, Dorset, and in Cornwall, more than in any other county. And why is
+      it? He is certainly not a respectable bird, like the starling, for
+      example--if we do not go to the cherry-grower for the starling's
+      character. He is and always has been on the keeper's and farmer's black
+      list, and scarcely a week passes but you will find him described in some
+      gamekeeper's
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      295
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      296 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      or farmer's journal as "even worse than the rook." Even the ornithologists
+      who are interested in birds as birds haven't a good word to say of the
+      daw. According to them he alone is responsible for the disappearance of
+      his distinguished relation, the chough. (The vulgar daw is of course
+      devoid of any distinction at all, unless it be his grey pate and wicked
+      little grey eyes.)
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The ornithologists were wrong about the chough, just as they had been
+      wrong about the goldfinch, during the late years of the nineteenth
+      century, and as they were wrong about the swallows and martins in later
+      years. Of the goldfinch, they said, and solemnly put it down in their
+      books, that owing to improved methods of agriculture the thistle had been
+      extirpated and the bird, deprived of his natural food, had forsaken this
+      country. But no sooner did our County Councils begin to avail themselves
+      of the powers given them by the Bird Act of twenty years ago to protect
+      the goldfinch from the bird-catcher, than it began to increase again and
+      is still increasing, year by year, all over the country.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the decrease of swallows and martins, they
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 297
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      said it resulted from the action of the sparrows in ousting them from
+      their nests and nesting-sites. But we know the true cause of the decline
+      of these two species, the best loved and best protected of all birds in
+      Britain, not even excepting robin redbreast. The French Government, in
+      response to representations on this matter from our Foreign Office, have
+      caused enquiries to be made and have found that our swallows are being
+      destroyed wholesale in France during the autumn migration, and have
+      promised to put a stop to this deplorable business. They do not appear to
+      have done so, since the promise was made three years ago, and I can say
+      from my own observation in the south and west countries that the decline
+      has continued and that we have never had so few swallows come to us as in
+      the present summer of 1916.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The daw--to return to that subject--has always been regarded as an
+      injurious species, and down to a quarter of a century ago every farm lad
+      in possession of a gun shot it in the interests of the henwife, even as he
+      had formerly shot the kite, a common British species and a familiar
+      feature in the landscape down to the early years
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      298 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      of last century. Doubtless it was a great thing to bring down this great
+      bird "that soars sublime" and nail it to the barn-door. By the middle of
+      the last century it had become a rarity, and the ensuing rush for
+      specimens and eggs for private collectors quickly brought about its
+      virtual extinction. The kite is but one of several species--six of them
+      hawks--extirpated within the last forty years. Why, then, does the daw,
+      more injurious to the game-preserver and henwife than any one of these
+      lost hawks, continue to flourish and increase in numbers? It is, I
+      imagine, because of the growth of a sentiment which favours its
+      preservation. But it is not the same as that which has served to preserve
+      the rook and made it so common. That is a sentiment confined to the
+      landowning class--to those who inherit great houses where the ancient
+      rookery with its crowd of big, black, contentious birds caw-cawing on the
+      windy elms, has come to be an essential part of the establishment, like
+      the gardens and park and stables and home-farm and, one might add, the
+      church and village. This sentiment differs, too, from the heron-sentiment,
+      which serves to keep that bird with us in spite of the annual wail, ris-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 299
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ing occasionally in South Devon to a howl, of human trout-fishers. It is a
+      traditional feeling coming down from the far past in England--from the
+      time of William the Conqueror to that of William of Orange and the decay
+      of falconry. That a species without any sentiment to favour it and without
+      special protection by law may increase is to be seen in the case of the
+      starling. This increase has come about automatically after we had
+      destroyed the starling's natural enemies and then ceased to persecute it
+      ourselves. Of all birds it was the most preyed on by certain raptorial
+      species, especially by the sparrowhawk, which is now becoming so rare,
+      assisted by the hobby (rarer still) and the merlin. It was more exposed
+      than other birds to these enemies owing to its gregarious and feeding
+      habits in grasslands and the open country, also to its slower flight. The
+      greatest drain on the species, came, however, from man. The starling was a
+      favourite bird for shooting-matches up till about thirty years ago, and
+      was taken annually in large numbers by the bird-catchers for the purpose.
+      It is probable that this use of the bird for sport caused people to eat
+      it, and so common did the habit become that
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      300 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      at the end of summer, or before the end, shooting starlings for the pot
+      was practised everywhere. Old men in the country have told me that forty
+      or fifty years ago it was common to hear people on the farms say that of
+      all birds the starling was the best to eat.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      When starling and sparrow shooting-matches declined, the starling went out
+      of favour as a table-bird, and from that time the species has been
+      increasing. At present the rate of increase grows from year to year, and
+      during the last decade the birds have colonized every portion of the north
+      of Scotland and the islands, where the starling had previously been a rare
+      visitor--a bird unknown to the people. Here in West Cornwall where I am
+      writing this chapter the starling was only a winter visitor until
+      recently. Eight years ago I could only find two pairs breeding in the
+      villages--about twenty-five in number--in which I looked for them; in the
+      summer of 1915 I found them breeding in every town and village I visited.
+      At present, June, 1916, there are six pairs in the village I am staying
+      at. It may be the case, and from conversations I have had with farmers
+      about the bird I am inclined to believe
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 301
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      it is so, that a strong feeling in favour of the starling (in the pastoral
+      districts) is growing up at the present time, a feeling which in the end
+      is more powerful to protect than any law; but such a feeling has not
+      become general as yet, and consequently has had nothing to do with the
+      extraordinary increase of the bird.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The wood-pigeon is another species which, like the starling, has increased
+      greatly in recent years, without special protection and with no sentiment
+      in its favour. . . . The sentiment is all confined to the nature-lovers,
+      whose words have no effect on the people generally, least of all on the
+      farmers. I am reminded here of the experience of a young man, an ardent
+      bird-lover, on his visit to a Yorkshire farm. His host, who was also a
+      young man, took him a walk across his fields. It was a spring day of
+      brilliant sunshine, and the air was full of the music of scores of soaring
+      skylarks. The visitor long in cities pent, was exhilarated by the strains
+      and kept on making exclamations of rapturous delight, "Just listen to the
+      larks! Did you ever hear anything like it!" and so on.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      His host, his eyes cast down, trudged on in
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      302 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      glum silence. Finally the young man, carried away by his enthusiasm,
+      stopped and turning to his companion shouted, "Listen! Listen! Do you hear
+      the larks?"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, yes," drawled the other, looking more glum than ever, "I hear them
+      fast enough. And I wish they were all dead!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      So with the other charming species. The moan of doves in immemorial elms
+      is a pleasing sound to the poets, but it does not prevent the farmers
+      throughout the land from wishing them all dead; and every person who
+      possesses a gun is glad to help in their massacre. For the bird is a pest
+      and he who shoots it is doing something for England; furthermore, shooting
+      it is first-rate sport, not like slaughtering wretched little sparrows or
+      innocent young rooks just out of their windy cradles. And when shot it is
+      a good table-bird, with as much tasty flesh on it as a woodcock or
+      partridge.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      How, then can we account for the increase of such a species? One cause is
+      undoubtedly to be found in the removal by gamekeepers of its three chief
+      enemies--the carrion crow, magpie, and jay--all these three being great
+      devourers of pigeon's eggs, which of all eggs are most con-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 303
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      spicuous and open to attack. Then again the winter immigration of
+      wood-pigeons from northern Europe appears to be on the increase, and it
+      may be conjectured that a considerable number of these visitors remain
+      annually to breed with us. There has also been an increase in the
+      stockdove and turtle-dove in recent years, and the former species is
+      extending its range in the north. The cause or causes of the increase of
+      the turtledove are not far to seek. Its chief feathered enemies, the egg
+      and fledgling robbers, are the same as the wood-pigeon's; moreover, the
+      turtledove is least persecuted by man of our four pigeons, and being
+      strictly migratory it quits the country before shooting-time begins; add
+      to this that the turtle-dove has been specially protected under Sir
+      Herbert Maxwell's Act of 1894 in a good number of English counties, from
+      Surrey to Yorkshire.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Of the stock-dove we can only say that, like the ring-dove, it has
+      increased in spite of the persecution it is subject to, since no person
+      out after pigeons would spare it because it is without a white collar.
+      With the exception of the county of Buckinghamshire it is not on the
+      schedule any-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      304 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      where in the country. One can only suppose that this species has been
+      indirectly benefited by the bird legislation and all that has been done to
+      promote a feeling favourable to bird-preservation during the last thirty
+      years.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-36.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-36.jpg" width="133"
+      height="82" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link305" id="link305"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      V
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      THE DAW SENTIMENT
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      I HAVE spoken of the wood adjacent to the villages of Hayle and Lelant
+      where the rooks, daws, and starlings of the neighbourhood have their
+      winter roosting-place. This is at Trevelloe, the ancient estate of the
+      Praeds, who now call themselves Tyringham. Here the daws congregate each
+      evening in such numbers that a stranger to the district and to the local
+      habits of the bird might imagine that all the cliff-breeding jackdaws in
+      West Cornwall had come to roost at that spot. Yet the cliff-breeders,
+      albeit abundant enough, are but a minority of the daw population of this
+      district. The majority of these birds live and breed in the neighbouring
+      villages and hamlets--St. Ives, Carbis Bay, Towadneck, Lelant, Phillack,
+      Hayle, and others further away. It is a jackdaw metropolis and, as we have
+      seen, every village receives its own quota of birds each morning, and
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      305
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      306 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      there they spend the daylight hours and subsist on the waste food and on
+      what they can steal, just as the semi-domestic raven and the kite did in
+      former ages, from Roman times down to the seventeenth century.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Early in May the winter congregation breaks up, the cliff-breeders going
+      back to the rocks and the village birds to their chimneys, where they
+      presently set about relining their old nests. There are plenty of places
+      for all, since there are chimneys in almost every cottage where fires are
+      never lighted, and as ventilation is not wanted in bedrooms the birds are
+      allowed to bring in more materials each year, until the whole flue is
+      filled up. Year by year the materials brought in, sink lower and lower
+      until they rest on the closed iron register and change in time to a solid
+      brown mould. Thus, however long-lived a daw may be--and there are probably
+      more centenarians among the daws than among the human inhabitants of the
+      villages--it is a rare thing for one to be disturbed in his tenancy.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      In the cottage opposite the one I was staying in, its owner, an old woman
+      who had lived in it all her life, had recently died, aged eighty-seven.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 307
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      She was very feeble at the last, and one cold day when she could not leave
+      her bed, the extraordinary idea occurred to some one of her people that it
+      might be a good thing to light a fire in her room. The fireplace was
+      examined and was found to have no flue, or that the flue had been filled
+      with earth or cement. The village builder was called in, and with the aid
+      of a man on the roof and poles and various implements he succeeded in
+      extracting two or three barrow-loads of hard earth which had no doubt once
+      been sticks, centuries ago, as the building was very ancient. No one had
+      remembered that the daws had always occupied the same chimney; the old
+      dame herself had seen them going in and out of it from her childhood, and
+      her end was probably hastened by the disturbance made in cleaning it. Now
+      she is gone the daws here are in possession of it once more.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      All through the month of May daws were to be seen about the village,
+      dropping from time to time upon the chimney-pots where they had their
+      nests and occasionally bringing some slight materials to form a new
+      lining, but it was very rare to see one with a stick in his beak. The
+      flues
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      308 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      were already full of old sticks and no more were wanted. It was amusing to
+      see a bird flying about, suddenly tumble out of the air on to a
+      chimneypot, then with tail tipped up and wings closed, dive into the
+      cavity below. One wondered how the young birds would be got out!
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Talking with the rector of the neighbouring parish of Phillack one day on
+      this subject, he said, "Don't imagine that the daws restrict themselves to
+      the chimneys where fires are not lighted. At all events it isn't so at
+      Phillack. Perhaps we have too many daws in our village, but every year
+      before lighting fires in the drawing and dining-rooms we have to call in a
+      man with a pole to clear the flues out." He told me that a few years ago,
+      one cold June day, a fire was lighted in the drawing-room, and as the
+      smoke all poured out into the room a man was sent up to the roof with a
+      pole to clear the obstruction out. Presently a mess of sticks came down
+      and with them two fully-fledged young jackdaws, one dead, killed with the
+      pole, the other sound and lively. This one they kept and it soon became
+      quite tame; when able to fly it would go off and associate with the wild
+      birds, but refused to leave
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 309
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the house until the following summer, when it found a mate and went away.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The head keeper at Trevelloe, a remarkably vigorous and intelligent
+      octogenarian who has been in his place over half a century, gave me some
+      interesting information about the daws. He says they have greatly
+      increased in recent years in this part of Cornwall because they are no
+      longer molested; no person, he says, not even a game-keeper anxious about
+      his pheasants, would think of shooting a jackdaw. But this is not because
+      the bird has changed its habits. He is as great a pest as ever he was, and
+      as an example of how bad jackdaws can be, he related the following
+      incident told him by a friend of his, a head keeper on an estate adjoining
+      a shooting his master took one year on the northwest coast of England. It
+      happened that a big colony of daws existed within a mile or two of the
+      preserves, and one day the keeper was called' away in a hurry and left the
+      coops unattended for the best part of a day; it was the biggest mistake he
+      had ever made and the chief disaster of his life. On his return he found
+      that the daws had been before him and that all his precious chicks had
+      been car-
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      310 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      ried off. For several hours of that day there was a steady coming and
+      going of birds between the cliffs and the coops, every daw going back with
+      a chick in his beak for his hungry young in the nest.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Yet my informant, this ancient and singularly intelligent old man, a
+      gamekeeper all his life, who knows his jackdaw, could not tell me why
+      gamekeepers no longer persecute so injurious a bird I He will not allow a
+      sparrow-hawk to exist in his woods, yet all he could say when I repeated
+      my question was, "No keeper ever thinks of hurting a jack now, but I can't
+      say why."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The reason of it I fancy is plain enough; it is simply the sentiment I
+      have spoken of. In a small way it has always existed in certain places, in
+      towns, where the jackdaw is associated in our minds with cathedrals and
+      church towers--where he is the "ecclesiastical daw"; but the modern wider
+      toleration is due to the character, the personality, of the bird itself,
+      which is more or less like that of all the members of the corvine family,
+      with the exception of the rook, who always tries his best to be an honest,
+      useful citizen; but it is not precisely the same. They may be regarded
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 311
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      as bad hats generally In the bird community, and on this very
+      account--"I'm sorry to say," to quote Mr. Pecksniff--they touch a chord in
+      us; and the daw being the genial rascal in feathers par excellence is
+      naturally the best loved.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      It has thus come about that of all the Corvidae the daw is now the
+      favourite as a pet bird, and in the domestic condition he is accorded more
+      liberty than is given to other species. We think he makes better use of
+      his freedom, that he does not lose touch with his human friends when
+      allowed to fly about, and appears more capable of affection.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Formerly, the raven and magpie came first as pets. The raven vanished as a
+      pet, because like the goshawk, kite, and buzzard, he was extirpated in the
+      interests of the game-preserver and hen-wife. The magpie was then first,
+      and has only been recently ousted from that ancient, honourable position.
+      The pie was a superior bird as a feathered pet in a cage; he is beautiful
+      in shape and colour in his snow-white and metallic dark-green and
+      purple-glossed plumage, and his long graduated tail. Moreover, he is a
+      clever bird. To my mind there is no more fascinating species
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      312 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      when I can find it in numbers, in places where it is not persecuted, and
+      is accustomed to congregate at intervals, not as rooks and starlings do
+      merely because they are gregarious, but purely for social purposes--to
+      play and converse with one another. Its language at such times is so
+      various as to be a surprise and delight to the listener; while its ways of
+      amusing itself, its clowning and the little tricks and practical jokes the
+      birds are continually playing on each other, are a delight to witness. All
+      this is lost in a caged bird. He is handsome to look at and remarkably
+      intelligent, but he distinguishes between magpies and men; he doesn't
+      reveal himself; his accomplishments, vocal and mental, are for his own
+      tribe. In this he differs from the daw; for the daw is less specialized;
+      he is an undersized common crow, livelier, more impish than that bird,
+      also more plastic, more adaptive, and takes more kindly to the domestic or
+      parasitic life. Human beings to him are simply larger daws, and unlike the
+      pie he can play his tricks and be himself among them as freely as when
+      with his feathered comrades. We like him best because he makes himself one
+      of us.
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 313
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Undoubtedly the chough comes nearest to the daw mentally, and as it is a
+      far more beautiful bird--the poor daw having little of that quality--it
+      would probably have been our prime favourite among the crows but for its
+      rarity. Formerly it was a common pet bird, caged or free, in all the coast
+      districts where it inhabited, and it may be that the desire for a pet
+      chough was the cause of its decline and final disappearance all round the
+      south and west coasts of England, except at one spot near Tintagel where
+      half a dozen pairs still exist only because watchers appointed by the
+      Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are always on the spot to warn
+      off the nest-robbers during the breeding season. But of the chough in
+      captivity or as a domesticated bird we know little now, as no records have
+      been preserved. I have only known one bird, taken from a North Devon cliff
+      about forty years ago, at a house near the coast; a very beautiful pet
+      bird with charming, affectionate ways, always free to range about the
+      country and the cliffs, where it associated with the daws. It was the last
+      of its kind at that place, and I do not know if it still lives.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Next to the chough the jay comes nearest to
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      314 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the daw mentally of all our crows, and as he excels most of our wild birds
+      in beauty he would naturally have been a first favourite as a pet but for
+      the fact that it is only in a state of nature in which he is like the
+      daw--lively, clever, impish; in captivity he is more like the magpie and
+      affiliates even less than that bird with his human associates. In
+      confinement he is a quiet, almost sedate, certainly a silent bird: He is
+      essentially a woodland species; all his graces, his various, often
+      musical, language, with many imitations of bird and animal sounds, and his
+      spectacular games and pretty wing displays, are for his own people
+      exclusively. He must have his liberty in the woods and a company of his
+      fellow-jays to exhibit his full lustre.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      The difference between jay and daw is similar to that between fox and dog;
+      or rather let us say, between one of the small desert foxes of Syria and
+      Egypt--the fennec, for instance--and the jackal, the domestic dog's
+      progenitor; the first gifted with exquisite grace and beauty, was too
+      highly specialized to suit the domestic condition; hence the generalized
+      un-beautiful beast was chosen to be man's servant and companion. In
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 315
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      the same way it looks as if we were taking to the daw in preference to the
+      more beautiful bird because he is more like us, or understands us better,
+      or adapts himself more readily to our way of life.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I believe that about nine out of every ten interesting and amusing stories
+      about charming pet birds I have heard in England during the last quarter
+      of a century relate to the daw, and this, I think, goes to show that he is
+      a prime favourite as a feathered pet, at all events in the southern and
+      western counties.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-37.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-37.jpg" width="123"
+      height="80" />
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br /> <a name="link316" id="link316"></a>
+    </p>
+    <h4>
+      VI
+    </h4>
+    <h4>
+      STORY OF A JACKDAW
+    </h4>
+    <p>
+      WHEN I laid my pen down after concluding Part V it pleased me to think
+      that I had written the last word, that, my task finished, I was free to go
+      on to something else. But I was not yet wholly free of the jackdaws; their
+      yelping cries were still ringing in my mental ears, and their remembered
+      shapes were still all about me in their black dress, or cassock, grey
+      hood, and malicious little grey eyes. The persistent images suggested that
+      my task was not properly finished after all, that it would be better to
+      conclude with one of those anecdotes or stories of the domesticated bird
+      which I have said are so common; also that this should be a typical story,
+      which would serve to illustrate the peculiar daw sentiment--the
+      affectionate interest we take in him, not only in spite of his impudence
+      and impishness and naughtiness, but also to some extent because of these
+      same
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      316
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 317
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      qualities, which find an echo in us. Accordingly I set myself to recall
+      some of the latest anecdotes of this kind which I had heard, and selected
+      the one which follows, not because it was more interesting as a daw story
+      than the others, but mainly on account of the shrewd and humorous and
+      dramatic way in which it was related to me by a little boy of the working
+      class.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      I met him on a bright Sunday morning at the end of June in the park-like
+      grounds of Walmer Castle. I had not long been seated on a garden bench
+      when a daw came flying to a tree close by and began craning her neck and
+      eyeing me with one eye, then the other, with an intense, almost painful
+      curiosity; and these nervous movements and gestures immediately revealed
+      to me that she had a nestful of young birds somewhere close by. After
+      changing her position several times to view me from other points and find
+      out what I was there for, she came to the conclusion that I was not to be
+      got rid of, and making a sudden dash to a tree standing just before me,
+      disappeared in a small hole or cleft in the trunk about forty-five feet
+      above the ground, and in a few seconds came out again and flew swiftly
+      away. In four or five
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      318 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      minutes she returned, and after eyeing me suspiciously a short time flew
+      again to the tree and, vanishing from sight in the hole, remained there. I
+      was intently watching that small black spot in the bark to see her emerge,
+      when a little boy came slowly sauntering past my bench, and glancing at
+      him I found that his shrewd brown eyes were watching my face and that he
+      had a knowing half-smile on his lips.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Hullo, my boy!" I said. "I can see plainly enough what is in <i>your</i>
+      mind. You know I'm watching a hole in the tree where a jackdaw has just
+      gone in, and your intention is, when no one is about, to swarm up the tree
+      and get the young birds."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, no," he returned. "I'm not going to climb the tree and don't want any
+      young jackdaws. I always come to look because the birds breed in that hole
+      every year. Two years ago I had a bird from the nest, but I don't want
+      another."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Then at my invitation he sat down to tell me about it. One morning when he
+      came the young had just come off, and he found one squatting on the ground
+      under the trees, looking stupefied. No doubt when it flew out it had
+      struck against
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 319
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      a trunk or branch and come down bruised and stunned.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      He wrapped it up in a handkerchief and took it home to Deal and put it in
+      a box; then mother got some flannel and made a sort of bed for it, and
+      warmed some milk and they opened its beak and fed it with a teaspoon. Next
+      day it was all right and opened its beak to be fed whenever they came near
+      it, and in two or three days it began flying about the room and perching
+      on their shoulders. Then he brought it back to Walmer and let it go and
+      saw it fly off into the trees, but when he got home mother scolded him for
+      having let it go when its parents were not about; she said it would die of
+      starvation, and was going on at him when in flew the jackdaw and came flop
+      on her shoulder! After that mother and father said they'd keep the daw a
+      little longer, and then he could let it go at a distance where there were
+      other daws about. By and by they said they'd let it stay where it was.
+      Father liked a bloater for his tea, and there was nothing the jackdaw was
+      fonder of, so he was always on the table at tea-time, eating out of
+      father's plate. Then he got to be troublesome. He was always
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      320 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      watching for a door or window of the parlour to be opened to let the air
+      in, and that was the room mother was so careful about, and every time he
+      got in he'd fly straight to the mantelpiece, which was covered with
+      photographs and ornaments. They were mostly those little things--pigs and
+      dogs and parrots and all sorts of animals made of glass and china, and the
+      jackdaw would begin to pick them up and throw them down on to the fender,
+      and of course he broke a lot of them. That made mother mad, and she
+      scolded him and told him to get rid of the bird. So he wrapped it up so as
+      it shouldn't know where it was going and went off two or three miles along
+      the coast, and let it go where there were other daws. It flew off and
+      joined them, and he came home. That afternoon Jackie came back, and they
+      wondered how he had found his way. Father said 'twas plain enough, that
+      the bird had just followed the coast till he got back to Deal, and there
+      he was at home. He said the only way to lose it was to take it somewhere
+      away from the sea; so he wrapped it up again and took it to his Aunt
+      Ellen's at Northbourne, about five miles from Deal. His aunt told him to
+      carry
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 321
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      it to the park, where he'd find other daws and settle down. And that's
+      what he did, but Jackie came back to Deal again that same day; the
+      strangest thing was that mother and father made a great fuss over it and
+      fed it just as if they were glad to have it back. Next day it got into the
+      parlour and broke some more things, and mother scolded him for not getting
+      rid of the bird, and father said he knew how it could be done. One of his
+      pals was going to Dover, and he would ask him to take the bird and let it
+      go up by the castle where it would mix with the jackdaws there, and that
+      would be too far away for it to come back. But it did come back, and after
+      that he sent it to Ashford, and then to Canterbury, and I don't know how
+      many other places, but it always came back, and they always seemed very
+      glad to see it back. All the same, mother was always scolding him about
+      the bird and complaining to father about the damage it did in the house.
+      Then one day Aunt Ellen came to see mother, and told her the best way to
+      get rid of the daw would be to send it abroad; she said her husband's
+      cousin, Mr. Sturge, was going out to his relations in Canada to work on
+      their farm, and she would get
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      322 BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      her husband to ask him to take the jackdaw. It would never come back from
+      such a distant place. A week afterwards Mr. Sturge sent word that he would
+      take the bird, as he thought his relations would like to have a real old
+      English jackdaw to remind them of home. So one day Aunt Ellen came and
+      took Jackie away in a small covered basket. The funniest thing was the way
+      father went on when he came home to tea. "A bloater with a soft roe," he
+      says; "just what Jackie likes! Where's the bird got to? Come to your tea,
+      Jackie!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "He's gone," says mother, "gone to Canada, and a good riddance, too!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, gone, has he?" says father. "Then we're a happy family and going to
+      lead a quiet life. No more screams and tears over broken chiny dolls! And
+      if ever Billy brings another jackdaw into the house we'll dust his coat
+      for him."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      Here Billy interposed to say that if he ever made such a mistake again
+      they could thrash him as much as they liked.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Oh, yes," said father, "we'll thrash you fast enough; mother'll do it for
+      the sake of her chiny toys and dolls."
+    </p>
+    <hr />
+    <p>
+      <br />
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      BIRDS IN CORNISH VILLAGE 323
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      That put mother up. "You're in a nasty temper," she says, "but you know I
+      miss the bird as much as you do!"
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "Then," said father, "why the devil didn't you tell that sister of yours
+      to mind her own business when she came interfering about my jackdaw! And
+      that Sturge, he'll soon get tired of the bird and give it away for a pint
+      of beer before he gets to Liverpool."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      "So much the better," says mother. "If Jackie can get free before they
+      take him aboard you may be sure he'll find his way back to Deal."
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      And that's what they went on hoping for days and days; but Jackie never
+      came back, so I s'pose Mr. Sturge took him out all right and that he's in
+      Canada now.
+    </p>
+    <p>
+      <img src="images/hudson-birds-38.jpg" alt="hudson-birds-38.jpg" width="282"
+      height="170" />
+    </p>
+<pre xml:space="preserve">
+
+
+
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,6224 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds in Town and Village, by W. H. Hudson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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
+
+
+Title: Birds in Town and Village
+
+Author: W. H. Hudson
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7353]
+Last Updated: August 24, 2012
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred
+
+
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN TOWN & VILLAGE
+
+BY
+
+
+W. H. HUDSON,
+
+F.Z.S.
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE PURPLE LAND," "IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA," "FAR AWAY AND
+LONG AGO," ETC.
+
+
+1920
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+This book is more than a mere reprint of _Birds in a Village_ first
+published in 1893. That was my first book about bird life, with some
+impressions of rural scenes, in England; and, as is often the case with
+a first book, its author has continued to cherish a certain affection
+for it. On this account it pleased me when its turn came to be reissued,
+since this gave me the opportunity of mending some faults in the
+portions retained and of throwing out a good deal of matter which
+appeared to me not worth keeping.
+
+The first portion, "Birds in a Village," has been mostly rewritten with
+some fresh matter added, mainly later observations and incidents
+introduced in illustration of the various subjects discussed. For the
+concluding portion of the old book, which has been discarded, I have
+substituted entirely new matter-the part entitled "Birds in a Cornish
+Village."
+
+Between these two long parts there are five shorter essays which I have
+retained with little alteration, and these in one or two instances are
+consequently out of date, especially in what was said with bitterness in
+the essay on "Exotic Birds for Britain" anent the feather-wearing
+fashion and of the London trade in dead birds and the refusal of women
+at that time to help us in trying to save the beautiful wild bird life
+of this country and of the world generally from extermination. Happily,
+the last twenty years of the life and work of the Royal Society for the
+Protection of Birds have changed all that, and it would not now be too
+much to say that all right-thinking persons in this country, men and
+women, are anxious to see the end of this iniquitous traffic.
+
+W. H. H.
+
+September, 1919.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PAGE
+
+BIRDS IN A VILLAGE:
+
+I
+
+II
+
+III
+
+IV
+
+V
+
+VI
+
+VII
+
+VIII
+
+IX
+
+X
+
+XI
+
+EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
+
+MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
+
+THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY
+
+CHANTICLEER
+
+IN AN OLD GARDEN
+
+BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE:
+
+I. TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS
+
+II. DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?
+
+III. VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER
+
+IV. INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
+
+V. THE DAW SENTIMENT
+
+VI. STORY OF A JACKDAW
+
+
+
+
+    BIRDS IN TOWN & VILLAGE
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN A VILLAGE I
+
+About the middle of last May, after a rough and cold period, there came
+a spell of brilliant weather, reviving in me the old spring feeling, the
+passion for wild nature, the desire for the companionship of birds; and
+I betook myself to St. James's Park for the sake of such satisfaction as
+may be had from watching and feeding the fowls, wild and semi-wild,
+found gathered at that favored spot.
+
+I was glad to observe a couple of those new colonists of the ornamental
+water, the dabchicks, and to renew my acquaintance with the familiar,
+long-established moorhens. One of them was engaged in building its nest
+in an elm-tree growing at the water's edge. I saw it make two journeys
+with large wisps of dry grass in its beak, running up the rough,
+slanting trunk to a height of sixteen to seventeen feet, and
+disappearing within the "brushwood sheaf" that springs from the bole at
+that distance from the roots. The wood-pigeons were much more numerous,
+also more eager to be fed.  They seemed to understand very quickly that
+my bread and grain was for them and not the sparrows; but although they
+stationed themselves close to me, the little robbers we were jointly
+trying to outwit managed to get some pieces of bread by flying up and
+catching them before they touched the sward. This little comedy over, I
+visited the water-fowl, ducks of many kinds, sheldrakes, geese from many
+lands, swans black, and swans white. To see birds in prison during the
+spring mood of which I have spoken is not only no satisfaction but a
+positive pain; here--albeit without that large liberty that nature
+gives, they are free in a measure; and swimming and diving or dozing in
+the sunshine, with the blue sky above them, they are perhaps unconscious
+of any restraint.  Walking along the margin I noticed three children
+some yards ahead of me; two were quite small, but the third, in whose
+charge the others were, was a robust-looking girl, aged about ten or
+eleven years. From their dress and appearance I took them to be the
+children of a respectable artisan or small tradesman; but what chiefly
+attracted my attention was the very great pleasure the elder girl
+appeared to take in the birds. She had come well provided with stale
+bread to feed them, and after giving moderately of her store to the
+wood-pigeons and sparrows, she went on to the others, native and exotic,
+that were disporting themselves in the water, or sunning themselves on
+the green bank. She did not cast her bread on the water in the manner
+usual with visitors, but was anxious to feed all the different species,
+or as many as she could attract to her, and appeared satisfied when any
+one individual of a particular kind got a fragment of her bread.
+Meanwhile she talked eagerly to the little ones, calling their attention
+to the different birds. Drawing near, I also became an interested
+listener; and then, in answer to my questions, she began telling me what
+all these strange fowls were. "This," she said, glad to give
+information, "is the Canadian goose, and there is the Egyptian goose;
+and here is the king-duck coming towards us; and do you see that large,
+beautiful bird standing by itself, that will not come to be fed? That is
+the golden duck. But that is not its real name; I don't know them all,
+and so I name some for myself. I call that one the golden duck because
+in the sun its feathers sometimes shine like gold." It was a rare
+pleasure to listen to her, and seeing what sort of a girl she was, and
+how much in love with her subject, I in my turn told her a great deal
+about the birds before us, also of other birds she had never seen nor
+heard of, in other and distant lands that have a nobler bird life than
+ours; and after she had listened eagerly for some minutes, and had then
+been silent a little while, she all at once pressed her two hands
+together, and exclaimed rapturously, "Oh, I do so love the birds!"
+
+I replied that that was not strange, since it is impossible for us not
+to love whatever is lovely, and of all living things birds were made
+most beautiful.
+
+Then I walked away, but could not forget the words she had exclaimed,
+her whole appearance, the face flushed with color, the eloquent brown
+eyes sparkling, the pressed palms, the sudden spontaneous passion of
+delight and desire in her tone. The picture was in my mind all that day,
+and lived through the next, and so wrought on me that I could not longer
+keep away from the birds, which I, too, loved; for now all at once it
+seemed to me that life was not life without them; that I was grown sick,
+and all my senses dim; that only the wished sight of wild birds could
+medicine my vision; that only by drenching it in their wild melody could
+my tired brain recover its lost vigour.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+After wandering somewhat aimlessly about the country for a couple of
+days, I stumbled by chance on just such a spot as I had been wishing to
+find--a rustic village not too far away. It was not more than
+twenty-five minutes' walk from a small station, less than one hour by
+rail from London.
+
+The way to the village was through cornfields, bordered by hedges and
+rows of majestic elms. Beyond it, but quite near, there was a wood,
+principally of beech, over a mile in length, with a public path running
+through it. On the right hand, ten minutes' walk from the village, there
+was a long green hill, the ascent to which was gentle; but on the
+further side it sloped abruptly down to the Thames.
+
+On the left hand there was another hill, with cottages and orchards,
+with small fields interspersed on the slope and summit, so that the
+middle part, where I lodged, was in a pretty deep hollow. There was no
+sound of traffic there, and few farmers' carts came that way, as it was
+well away from the roads, and the deep, narrow, winding lanes were
+exceedingly rough, like the stony beds of dried-up streams.
+
+In the deepest part of the coombe, in the middle of the village, there
+was a well where the cottagers drew their water; and in the summer
+evenings the youths and maidens came there, with or without jugs and
+buckets, to indulge in conversation, which was mostly of the rustic,
+bantering kind, mixed with a good deal of loud laughter. Close by was
+the inn, where the men sat on benches in the tap-room in grave discourse
+over their pipes and beer.
+
+Wishing to make their acquaintance, I went in and sat down among them,
+and found them a little shy--not to say stand-offish, at first. Rustics
+are often suspicious of the stranger within their gates; but after
+paying for beer all round, the frost melted and we were soon deep in
+talk about the wild life of the place; always a safe and pleasant
+subject in a village. One rough-looking, brown-faced man, with iron-grey
+hair, became a sort of spokesman for the company, and replied to most of
+my questions.
+
+"And what about badgers?" I asked. "In such a rough-looking spot with
+woods and all, it strikes me as just the sort of place where one would
+find that animal."
+
+A long dead silence followed. I caught the eye of the man nearest me and
+repeated the question, "Are there no badgers here?" His eyes fell, then
+he exchanged glances with some of the others, all very serious; and at
+length my man, addressing the person who had acted as spokesman before,
+said, "Perhaps you'll tell the gentleman if there are any badgers here."
+
+At that the rough man looked at me very sharply, and answered stiffly,
+"Not as I know of."
+
+A few weeks later, at a small town in the neighbourhood, I got into
+conversation with a hotel keeper, an intelligent man, who gave me a good
+deal of information about the country. He asked me where I was staying,
+and, on my telling him, said "Ah, I know it well--that village in a
+hole; and a very nasty hole to get in, too--at any rate it was so,
+formerly. They are getting a bit civilized now, but I remember the time
+when a stranger couldn't show himself in the place without being jeered
+at and insulted. Yes, they were a rough lot down in that hole--the
+Badgers, they were called, and that's what they are called still."
+
+The pity of it was that I didn't know this before I went among them! But
+it was not remembered against me that I had wounded their
+susceptibilities; they soon found that I was nothing but a harmless
+field naturalist, and I had friendly relations with many of them.
+
+At the extremity of the straggling village was the beginning of an
+extensive common, where it was always possible to spend an hour or two
+without seeing a human creature. A few sheep grazed and browsed there,
+roaming about in twos and threes and half-dozens, tearing their fleeces
+for the benefit of nest-building birds, in the great tangled masses of
+mingled furze and bramble and briar. Birds were abundant there--all
+those kinds that love the common's openness, and the rough, thorny
+vegetation that flourishes on it. But the village--or rather, the large
+open space occupied by it, formed the headquarters and centre of a
+paradise of birds (as I soon began to think it), for the cottages and
+houses were widely separated, the meanest having a garden and some
+trees, and in most cases there was an old orchard of apple, cherry, and
+walnut trees to each habitation, and out of this mass of greenery, which
+hid the houses and made the place look more like a wood than a village,
+towered the great elms in rows, and in groups.
+
+On first approaching the place I heard, mingled with many other voices,
+that of the nightingale; and as it was for the medicine of its pure,
+fresh melody that I particularly craved, I was glad to find a lodging in
+one of the cottages, and to remain there for several weeks.
+
+The small care which the nightingale took to live up to his reputation
+in this place surprised me a little. Here he could always be heard in
+the daytime--not one bird, but a dozen--in different parts of the
+village; but he sang not at night. This I set down to the fact that the
+nights were dark and the weather unsettled. But later, when the weather
+grew warmer, and there were brilliant moonlight nights, he was still a
+silent bird except by day.
+
+I was also a little surprised at his tameness.
+
+On first coming to the village, when I ran after every nightingale I
+heard, to get as near him as possible, I was occasionally led by the
+sound to a cottage, and in some instances I found the singer perched
+within three or four yards of an open window or door. At my own cottage,
+when the woman who waited on me shook the breakfast cloth at the front
+door, the bird that came to pick up the crumbs was the nightingale--not
+the robin. When by chance he met a sparrow there, he attacked and chased
+it away. It was a feast of nightingales. An elderly woman of the village
+explained to me that the nightingales and other small birds were common
+and tame in the village, because no person disturbed them. I smile now
+when recording the good old dame's words.
+
+On my second day at the village it happened to be raining--a warm,
+mizzling rain without wind--ind the nightingales were as vocal as in
+fine bright weather. I heard one in a narrow lane, and went towards it,
+treading softly, in order not to scare it away, until I got within eight
+or ten yards of it, as it sat on a dead projecting twig. This was a twig
+of a low thorn tree growing up from the hedge, projecting through the
+foliage, and the bird, perched near its end, sat only about five feet
+above the bare ground of the lane. Now, I owe my best thanks to this
+individual nightingale, for sharply calling to my mind a common
+pestilent delusion, which I have always hated, but had never yet raised
+my voice against--namely, that all wild creatures exist in constant fear
+of an attack from the numberless subtle or powerful enemies that are
+always waiting and watching for an opportunity to spring upon and
+destroy them.  The truth is, that although their enemies be legion, and
+that every day, and even several times on each day, they may be
+threatened with destruction, they are absolutely free from apprehension,
+except when in the immediate presence of danger. Suspicious they may be
+at times, and the suspicion may cause them to remove themselves to a
+greater distance from the object that excites it; but the emotion is so
+slight, the action so almost automatic, that the singing bird will fly
+to another bush a dozen yards away, and at once resume his interrupted
+song. Again, a bird will see the deadliest enemy of its kind, and unless
+it be so close as to actually threaten his life, he will regard it with
+the greatest indifference or will only be moved to anger at its
+presence.  Here was this nightingale singing in the rain, seeing but not
+heeding me; while beneath the hedge, almost directly under the twig it
+sat on, a black cat was watching it with luminous yellow eyes. I did not
+see the cat at first, but have no doubt that the nightingale had seen
+and knew that it was there. High up on the tops of the thorn, a couple
+of sparrows were silently perched. Perhaps, like myself, they had come
+there to listen. After I had been standing motionless, drinking in that
+dulcet music for at least five minutes, one of the two sparrows dropped
+from the perch straight down, and alighting on the bare wet ground
+directly under the nightingale, began busily pecking at something
+eatable it had discovered. No sooner had he begun pecking than out
+leaped the concealed cat on to him. The sparrow fluttered wildly up from
+beneath or between the claws, and escaped, as if by a miracle. The cat
+raised itself up, glared round, and, catching sight of me close by,
+sprang back into the hedge and was gone. But all this time the exposed
+nightingale, perched only five feet above the spot where the attack had
+been made and the sparrow had so nearly lost his life, had continued
+singing; and he sang on for some minutes after. I suppose that he had
+seen the cat before, and knew instinctively that he was beyond its
+reach; that it was a terrestrial, not an aerial enemy, and so feared it
+not at all; and he would, perhaps, have continued singing if the sparrow
+had been caught and instantly killed.
+
+Quite early in June I began to feel just a little cross with the
+nightingales, for they almost ceased singing; and considering that the
+spring had been a backward one, it seemed to me that their silence was
+coming too soon. I was not sufficiently regardful of the fact that their
+lays are solitary, as the poet has said; that they ask for no witness of
+their song, nor thirst for human praise. They were all nesting now. But
+if I heard them less, I saw much more of them, especially of one
+individual, the male bird of a couple that had made their nest in a
+hedge a stone's throw from the cottage. A favourite morning perch of
+this bird was on a small wooden gate four or five yards away from my
+window. It was an open, sunny spot, where his restless, bright eyes
+could sweep the lane, up and down; and he could there also give vent to
+his superfluous energy by lording it over a few sparrows and other small
+birds that visited the spot. I greatly admired the fine, alert figure of
+the pugnacious little creature, as he perched there so close to me, and
+so fearless. His striking resemblance to the robin in form, size, and in
+his motions, made his extreme familiarity seem only natural. The robin
+is greatly distinguished in a sober-plumaged company by the vivid tint
+on his breast. He is like the autumn leaf that catches a ray of sunlight
+on its surface, and shines conspicuously among russet leaves. But the
+clear brown of the nightingale is beautiful, too.
+
+This same nightingale was keeping a little surprise in store for me.
+Although he took no notice of me sitting at the open window, whenever I
+went thirty or forty yards from the gate along the narrow lane that
+faced it, my presence troubled him and his mate only too much. They
+would flit round my head, emitting the two strongly contrasted sounds
+with which they express solicitude--the clear, thin, plaintive, or
+wailing note, and the low, jarring sound--an alternate lamenting and
+girding. One day when I approached the nest, they displayed more anxiety
+than usual, fluttering close to me, wailing and croaking more vehemently
+than ever, when all at once the male, at the height of his excitement,
+burst into singing. Half a dozen notes were uttered rapidly, with great
+strength, then a small complaining cry again, and at intervals, a fresh
+burst of melody. I have remarked the same thing in other singing birds,
+species in which the harsh grating or piercing sounds that properly
+express violent emotions of a painful kind, have been nearly or quite
+lost. In the nightingale, this part of the bird's language has lost its
+original character, and has dwindled to something very small.
+Solicitude, fear, anger, are expressed with sounds that are mere
+lispings compared with those emitted by the bird when singing. It is
+worthy of remark that some of the most highly developed melodists--and I
+am now thinking of the mocking-birds--never, in-moments of extreme
+agitation, fall into this confusion and use singing notes that express
+agreeable emotions, to express such as are painful. But in the
+mocking-bird the primitive harsh and grating cries have not been lost
+nor softened to sounds hardly to be distinguished from those that are
+emitted by way of song.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+By this time all the birds were breeding, some already breeding a second
+time. And now I began to suspect that they were not quite so undisturbed
+as the old dame had led me to believe; that they had not found a
+paradise in the village after all. One morning, as I moved softly along
+the hedge in my nightingale's lane, all at once I heard, in the old
+grassy orchard, to which it formed a boundary, swishing sounds of
+scuttling feet and half-suppressed exclamations of alarm; then a
+crushing through the hedge, and out, almost at my feet, rushed and
+leaped and tumbled half-a-dozen urchins, who had suddenly been
+frightened from a bird-nesting raid. Clothes torn, hands and faces
+scratched with thorns, hat-less, their tow-coloured hair all disordered
+or standing up like a white crest above their brown faces, rounded eyes
+staring--what an extraordinarily wild appearance they had! I was back
+in very old times, in the Britain of a thousand years before the coming
+of the Romans, and these were her young barbarians, learning their
+life's business in little things.
+
+No, the birds of the village were not undisturbed while breeding; but
+happily the young savages never found my nightingale's nest. One day the
+bird came to the gate as usual, and was more alert and pugnacious than
+ever; and no wonder, for his mate came too, and with them four young
+birds. For a week they were about the cottage every day, when they
+dispersed, and one beautiful bright morning the male bird, in his old
+place near my window, attempted to sing, beginning with that rich,
+melodious throbbing, which is usually called "_jugging_," and following
+with half-a-dozen beautiful notes. That was all. It was July, and I
+heard no more music from him or from any other of his kind.
+
+* * *
+
+I have perhaps written at too great length of this bird. The nightingale
+was after all only one of the fifty-nine species I succeeded in
+identifying during my sojourn at the village. There were more. I heard
+the calls and cries of others in the wood and various places, but
+refused, except in the case of the too elusive crake, to set down any in
+my list that I did not see. It was not my ambition to make a long list.
+My greatest desire was to see well those that interested me most. But
+those who go forth, as I did, to look for birds that are a sight for
+sore eyes, must meet with many a disappointment. In all those fruit and
+shade trees that covered the village with a cloud of verdure, and in the
+neighbouring woods, not once did I catch a glimpse of the green
+woodpecker, a beautiful conspicuous bird, supposed to be increasing in
+many places in England. Its absence from so promising a locality seemed
+strange.  Another species, also said to be increasing in the
+country--the turtledove, was extremely abundant. In the tall beech woods
+its low, monotonous crooning note was heard all day long from all sides.
+In shady places, where the loud, shrill bird-voices are few, one prefers
+this sound to the set song of the woodpigeon, being more continuous and
+soothing, and of the nature of a lullaby. It sometimes reminded me of
+the low monotone I have heard from a Patagonian mother when singing her
+"swart papoose" to sleep. Still, I would gladly have spared many of
+these woodland crooners for the sake of one magpie--that bird of fine
+feathers and a bright mind, which I had not looked on for a whole year,
+and now hoped to see again. But he was not there; and after I had looked
+for myself, some of the natives assured me that no magpie had been seen
+for years in that wood.
+
+For a time I feared that I was to be just as unlucky with regard to the
+jay, seeing that the owner of the extensive beech woods adjoining the
+village permitted his keeper to kill the most interesting birds in
+it--kestrels and sparrowhawks, owls, jays, and magpies. He was a new
+man, comparatively, in the place, and wanted to increase his preserves,
+but to do this it was necessary first to exclude the villagers--the
+Badgers, who were no doubt partial to pheasants' eggs. Now, to close an
+ancient right-of-way is a ticklish business, and this was an important
+one, seeing that the village women did their Saturday marketing in the
+town beyond the wood and river, and with the path closed they would have
+two miles further to walk. The new lord wisely took this into
+consideration, and set himself to win the goodwill of the people before
+attempting any strong measures. He walked in the lanes and was affable
+to the cottage women and nice to the children, and by and bye he
+exclaimed, "What! No institute! no hall, or any place where you can meet
+and spend the long winter evenings? Well, I'll soon see to that." And
+soon, to their delight, they had a nice building reared on a piece of
+land which he bought for the purpose, furnished with tables, chairs,
+bagatelle boards, and all accessories; and he also supplied them with
+newspapers and magazines. He was immensely popular, but appeared to
+think little of what he had done. When they expressed their gratitude to
+him he would move his hand, and answer, "Oh, I'm going to do a great
+deal more than that for you!"
+
+A few months went by, then he caused a notice to be put up about the
+neighbourhood that the path through the wood was going to be closed "by
+order." No one took any notice, and a few weeks later his workmen
+appeared on the scene and erected a huge oakwood barrier across the
+path; also a notice on a board that the wood was strictly private and
+trespassers would be prosecuted. The villagers met in force at the
+institute and the inn that evening, and after discussing the matter over
+their ale, they armed themselves with axes and went in a body and
+demolished the barrier.
+
+The owner was disgusted, but took no action. "This," he said, "is their
+gratitude"; and from that day he ceased to subscribe to the local
+charities or take his walks in the village. He had given the institute,
+and so could not pull it down nor prevent them from using it.
+
+It was refreshing to hear that the Badgers had shown a proper spirit in
+the matter, and I was grateful to them for having kept the right-of-way,
+as on most days I spent several hours in the beautiful woods.
+
+To return to the jay. In spite of the keeper's persecution, I knew that
+he was there; every morning when I got up to look out of the window
+between four and five o'clock, I heard from some quarter of the village
+that curious subdued, but far-reaching, scolding note he is accustomed
+to utter when his suspicions have been aroused.
+
+That was the jay's custom--to come from the woods before even the
+earliest risers were up, and forage in the village. By and bye I
+discovered that, by lying motionless for an hour or so on the dry moss
+in the wood, he would at length grow so bold as to allow himself to be
+seen, but high up among the topmost branches. Then, by means of my
+binocular, I had the wild thing on my thumb, so to speak, exhibiting
+himself to me, inquisitive, perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns, as
+he flirted wings and tail, lifted and lowered his crest, glancing down
+with bright, wild eyes. What a beautiful hypocrisy and delightful power
+this is which enables us, sitting or lying motionless, feigning sleep
+perhaps, thus to fool this wild, elusive creature, and bring all its
+cunning to naught! He is so much smaller and keener-sighted, able to
+fly, to perch far up above me, to shift his position every minute or
+two, masking his small figure with this or that tuft of leaves, while
+still keeping his eyes on me--in spite of it all to have him so close,
+and without moving or taking any trouble, to see him so much better than
+he can see me! But this is a legitimate trickery of science, so innocent
+that we can laugh at our dupe when we practise it; nor do we afterwards
+despise our superior cunning and feel ashamed, as when we slaughter wild
+birds with far-reaching shot, which they cannot escape.
+
+* * *
+
+All these corvine birds, which the gamekeeper pursues so relentlessly,
+albeit they were before him, killing when they killed to better purpose;
+and, let us hope, will exist after him--all these must greatly surpass
+other kinds in sagacity to have escaped extermination. In the present
+condition of things, the jay is perhaps the best off, on account of his
+smaller size and less conspicuous colouring; but whether more cunning
+than the crow or magpie or not, in perpetual alertness and restless
+energy or intensity of life, he is without an equal among British birds.
+And this quality forms his chief attraction; it is more to the mind than
+his lifted crest and bright eyes, his fine vinaceous brown and the patch
+of sky-blue on his wings. One would miss him greatly from the woods;
+some of the melody may well be spared for the sake of the sudden,
+brain-piercing, rasping, rending scream with which he startles us in our
+solitary forest walks.
+
+It is this extreme liveliness of the jay which makes it more distressing
+to the mind to see it pent in a cage than other birds of its family,
+such as the magpie; just as it is more distressing to see a skylark than
+a finch in prison, because the lark has an irresistible impulse to rise
+when his singing fit is on. Sing he must, in or out of prison, yet there
+can be little joy in the performance when the bird is incessantly teased
+with the unsatisfied desire to mount and pour out his music at heaven's
+gate.
+
+Out of the cages, jays make charming and beautiful pets, and some who
+have kept them have assured me that they are not mischievous birds. The
+late Mark Melford one time when I visited him, had two jays, handsome
+birds, in bright, glossy plumage, always free to roam where they liked,
+indoors or out. We were sitting talking in his garden when one of the
+jays came flying to us and perched on a wooden ledge a few feet from and
+above our heads, and after sitting quietly for a little while he
+suddenly made a dash at my head, just brushing it with his wings, then
+returned to his perch.  At intervals of a few moments he repeated this
+action, and when I remarked that he probably resented the presence of a
+stranger, Melford exclaimed, "Oh, no, he wants to play with you--that's
+all."
+
+His manner of playing was rather startling. So long as I kept my eyes on
+him he remained motionless, but the instant my attention wandered, or
+when in speaking I looked at my companion, the sudden violent dash at my
+head would be made.
+
+I was assured by Melford that his birds never carried off and concealed
+bright objects, a habit which it has been said the jay, as well as the
+magpie, possesses.
+
+"What would he do with this shilling if I tossed it to him?" I asked.
+
+"Catch it," he returned. "It would simply be play to him, but he
+wouldn't carry it off."
+
+I tossed up the shilling, and the bird had perhaps expected me to do so,
+as he deftly caught it just as a dog catches a biscuit when you toss one
+to him. After keeping it a few moments in his beak, he put it down at
+his side. I took out four more shilling pieces and tossed them quickly
+one by one, and he caught them without a miss and placed them one by one
+with the other, not scattered about, but in a neat pile. Then, seeing
+that I had no more shillings he flew off.
+
+After these few playful passages with one of his birds, I could
+understand Melford's feeling about his free pet jays, magpies and
+jackdaws; they were not merely birds to him, but rather like so many
+delightful little children in the beautiful shape of birds.
+
+* * *
+
+There was no rookery in or near the village, but a large flock of rooks
+were always to be seen feeding and sunning themselves in some level
+meadows near the river. It struck me one day as a very fine sight, when
+an old bird, who looked larger and blacker and greyer-faced than the
+others, and might have been the father and leader of them all, got up on
+a low post, and with wide-open beak poured forth a long series of most
+impressive caws. One always wonders at the meaning of such displays. Is
+the old bird addressing the others in the rook language on some matter
+of great moment; or is he only expressing some feeling in the only
+language he has--those long, hoarse, uninflected sounds; and if so, what
+feeling? Probably a very common one. The rooks appeared happy and
+prosperous, feeding in the meadow grass in that June weather, with the
+hot sun shining on their glossy coats. Their days of want were long past
+and forgotten; the anxious breeding period was over; the tempest in the
+tall trees; the annual slaughter of the young birds--all past and
+forgotten. The old rook was simply expressing the old truth, that life
+was worth living.
+
+These rooks were usually accompanied by two or three or more crows--a
+bird of so ill-repute that the most out-and-out enthusiast for
+protection must find it hard to say a word in its favour. At any rate,
+the rooks must think, if they think at all, that this frequent visitor
+and attendant of theirs is more kin than kind. I have related in a
+former work that I once saw a peregrine strike down and kill an owl--a
+sight that made me gasp with astonishment. But I am inclined to think of
+this act as only a slip, a slight aberration, on the part of the falcon,
+so universal is the sense of relationship among the kinds that have the
+rapacious habit; or, at the worst, it was merely an isolated act of
+deviltry and daring of the sharp-winged pirate of the sky, a sudden
+assertion of over-mastering energy and power, and a very slight offence
+compared with that of the crow when he carries off and devours his
+callow little cousins of the rookery.
+
+* * *
+
+One of the first birds I went out to seek--perhaps the most medicinal of
+all birds to see--was the kingfisher; but he was not anywhere on the
+river margin, although suitable places were plentiful enough, and
+myriads of small fishes were visible in the shallow water, seen at rest
+like dim-pointed stripes beneath the surface, and darting away and
+scattering outwards, like a flight of arrows, at any person's approach.
+Walking along the river bank one day, when the place was still new to
+me, I discovered a stream, and following it up arrived at a spot where a
+clump of trees overhung the water, casting on it a deep shade. On the
+other side of the stream buttercups grew so thickly that the glazed
+petals of the flowers were touching; the meadow was one broad expanse of
+brilliant yellow. I had not been standing half a minute in the shade
+before the bird I had been seeking darted out from the margin, almost
+beneath my feet, and then, instead of flying up or down stream, sped
+like an arrow across the field of buttercups. It was a very bright day,
+and the bird going from me with the sunshine full on it, appeared
+entirely of a shining, splendid green.  Never had I seen the kingfisher
+in such favourable circumstances; flying so low above the flowery level
+that the swiftly vibrating wings must have touched the yellow petals; he
+was like a waif from some far tropical land. The bird was tropical, but
+I doubt if there exists within the tropics anything to compare with a
+field of buttercups--such large and unbroken surfaces of the most
+brilliant colour in nature. The first bird's mate appeared a minute
+later, flying in the same direction, and producing the same splendid
+effect, and also green. These two alone were seen, and only on this
+occasion, although I often revisited the spot, hoping to find them
+again.
+
+Now, the kingfisher is blue, and I am puzzled to know why, on this one
+occasion, it appeared green. I have, in a former work, _Argentine
+Ornithology_, described a contrary effect in a small and beautiful
+tyrant-bird, _Cyanotis azarae_, variously called, in the vernacular,
+"All-colored or Many-colored Kinglet." It has a little blue on its head,
+but its entire back, from the nape to the tail, is deep green. It lives
+in beds of bulrushes, and when seen flying from the spectator in a very
+strong light, at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, its colour in
+appearance is bright cerulean blue. It is a sunlight effect, but how
+produced is a mystery to me. In the case of the two green kingfishers, I
+am inclined to think that the yellow of that shining field of buttercups
+in some way produced the illusion.
+
+Why are these exquisite birds so rare, even in situations so favourable
+to them as the one I have described? Are they killed by severe frosts?
+An ornithological friend from Oxfordshire assures me that it will take
+several favourable seasons to make good the losses of the late terrible
+winter of 1891-92. But this, as every ornithologist knows, is only a
+part of the truth. The large number of stuffed kingfishers under glass
+shades that one sees in houses of all descriptions, in town and country,
+but most frequently in the parlours of country cottages and inns, tell a
+melancholy story. Some time ago a young man showed me three stuffed
+kingfishers in a case, and informed me that he had shot them at a place
+(which he named) quite close to London. He said that these three birds
+were the last of their kind ever seen there; that he had gone, week
+after week and watched and waited, until one by one, at long intervals,
+he had secured them all; and that two years had passed since the last
+one was killed, and no other kingfisher had been seen at the place. He
+added that the waterside which these birds had frequented was resorted
+to by crowds of London working people on Saturday afternoons, Sundays
+and other holidays; the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pairs
+of tired eyes would have been freshened and gladdened by the sight of
+their rare gem-like beauty only made him prouder of his achievement.
+This young man was a cockney of the small shop-keeping class--a
+Philistine of the Philistines--hence there was no call to feel surprise
+at his self-glorification over such a matter. But what shall we say of
+that writer whose masterly works on English rural life are familiar to
+everyone, who is regarded as first among "lovers of nature," when he
+relates that he invariably carried a gun when out of doors, mainly with
+the object of shooting any kingfisher he might chance to see, as the
+dead bird always formed an acceptable present to the cottager's wife,
+who would get it stuffed and keep it as an ornament on her parlour
+mantelshelf!
+
+Happily for the kingfisher, and for human beings who love nature, the
+old idea that beautiful birds were meant to be destroyed for fun by
+anyone and everyone, from the small-brained, detestable cockney
+sportsman I have mentioned, to the gentlemen who write books about the
+beauties of nature, is now gradually giving place to this new one--that
+it would be better to preserve the beautiful things we possess. Half a
+century before the author of "Wild Life in a Southern Country" amused
+himself by carrying a gun to shoot kingfishers, the inhabitants of that
+same county of Wiltshire were bathed in tears--so I read in an old
+Salisbury newspaper--at the tragic death of a young gentleman of great
+distinction, great social charm, great promise. He was out shooting
+swallows with a friend who, firing at a passing swallow, had the
+misfortune to shoot and kill _him._
+
+At the present time when gentlemen practise a little at flying birds, to
+get their hand in before the first of September, they shoot sparrows as
+a rule, or if they shoot swallows, which afford them better practice,
+they do not say anything about it.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Where the stream broadened and mixed with the river, there existed a
+dense and extensive rush-bed--an island of rushes separated by a deep
+channel, some twelve or fourteen yards in width from the bank. This was
+a favourite nesting-place of the sedge-warblers; occasionally as many as
+a dozen birds could be heard singing at the same time, although in no
+sense together, and the effect was indeed curious. This is not a song
+that spurts and gushes up fountain-like in the manner of the robin's,
+and of some other kinds, sprinkling the listener, so to speak, with a
+sparkling vocal spray; but it keeps low down, a song that flows along
+the surface gurgling and prattling like musical running water, in its
+shallow pebbly channel. Listening again, the similitude that seemed
+appropriate at first was cast aside for another, and then another still.
+The hidden singers scattered all about their rushy island were small,
+fantastic, human minstrels, performing on a variety of instruments, some
+unknown, others recognizable--bones and castanets, tiny hurdy-gurdies,
+piccolos, banjos, tabours, and Pandean pipes--a strange medley!
+
+Interesting as this concert was, it held me less than the solitary
+singing of a sedge-warbler that lived by himself, or with only his mate,
+higher up where the stream was narrow, so that I could get near him; for
+he not only tickled my ears with his rapid, reedy music, but amused my
+mind as well with a pretty little problem in bird psychology. I could
+sit within a few yards of his tangled haunt without hearing a note; but
+if I jumped up and made a noise, or struck the branches with my stick,
+he would incontinently burst into song. It is a very well-known habit of
+the bird, and on account of it and of the very peculiar character of the
+sounds emitted, his song is frequently described by ornithologists as
+"mocking, defiant, scolding, angry," etc. It seems clear that at
+different times the bird sings from different exciting causes. When,
+undisturbed by a strange presence, he bursts spontaneously into singing,
+the music, as in other species, is simply an expression of overflowing
+gladness; at other times, the bird expressed such feelings as alarm,
+suspicion, solicitude, perhaps anger, by singing the same song. How does
+this come about?
+
+I have stated, when speaking of the nightingale, that birds in which the
+singing faculty is highly developed, sometimes make the mistake of
+bursting into song when anxious or distressed or in pain, but that this
+is not the case with the mocking-birds. Some species of these brilliant
+songsters of the New World, in their passion for variety (to put it that
+way), import every harsh and grating cry and sound they know into their
+song; but, on the other hand, when anxious for the safety of their
+young, or otherwise distressed, they emit only the harsh and grating
+sounds--never a musical note. In the sedge-warbler, the harsh, scolding
+sounds that express alarm, solicitude, and other painful emotions, have
+also been made a part of the musical performance; but this differs from
+the songs of most species, the mocking birds included, in the
+extraordinary rapidity with which it is enunciated; once the song begins
+it goes on swiftly to the finish, harsh and melodious notes seeming to
+overlap and mingle, the sound forming, to speak in metaphor, a close
+intricate pattern of strongly-contrasted colours. Now the song
+invariably begins with the harsh notes--the sounds which, at other
+times, express alarm and other more or less painful emotions--and it
+strikes me as a probable explanation that when the bird in the singing
+season has been startled into uttering these harsh and grating sounds,
+as when a stone is flung into the rushes, he is incapable of uttering
+them only, but the singing notes they suggest and which he is in the
+habit of uttering, follow automatically.
+
+The spot where I observed this wee feathered fantasy, the tantalizing
+sprite of the rushes, and where I soon ceased to see, hear, or think
+about him, calls for a fuller description. On one side the wooded hill
+sloped downward to the stream; on the other side spread the meadows
+where the rooks came every day to feed, or to sit and stand about
+motionless, looking like birds cut out of jet, scattered over about half
+an acre of the grassy, level ground. Stout old pollard willows grew here
+and there along the banks and were pleasant to see, this being the one
+man-mutilated thing in nature which, to my mind, not infrequently gains
+in beauty by the mutilation, so admirably does it fit into and harmonize
+with the landscape. At one point there was a deep, nearly stagnant pool,
+separated from the stream by a strip of wet, rushy ground, its still
+dark surface covered with water-lilies, not yet in bloom. They were just
+beginning to show their polished buds, shaped like snake's heads, above
+the broad, oily leaves floating like islands on the surface. The stream
+itself was, on my side, fringed with bulrushes and other aquatic plants;
+on the opposite bank there were some large alders lifting their branches
+above great masses of bramble and rose-briar, all together forming as
+rich and beautiful a tangle as one could find even in the most luxuriant
+of the wild, unkept hedges round the village. The briars especially
+flourished wonderfully at this spot, climbing high and dropping their
+long, slim branches quite down to the surface of the water, and in some
+places forming an arch above the stream. A short distance from this
+tangle, so abundantly sprinkled with its pale delicate roses, the water
+was spanned by a small wooden bridge, which no person appeared to use,
+but which had a use. It formed the one dry clear spot in the midst of
+all that moist vegetation, and the birds that came from the wood to
+drink and search for worms and small caterpillars first alighted on the
+bridge. There they would rest a few moments, take a look round, then fly
+to some favourite spot where succulent morsels had been picked up on
+previous visits. Thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, reed-buntings,
+chaffinches, tits, wrens, with many other species, succeeded each other
+all day long; for now they mostly had young to provide for, and it was
+their busiest time.
+
+The unsullied beauty and solitariness of this spot made me wish at first
+that I was a boy once more, to climb and to swim, to revel in the
+sunshine and flowers, to be nearer in spirit to the birds and dragon
+flies and water-rats; then, that I could build a cabin and live there
+all the summer long, forgetful of the world and its affairs, with no
+human creature to keep me company, and no book to read, or with only one
+slim volume, some Spanish poet, let me say Melendez, for
+preference--only a small selection from his too voluminous writings; for
+he, albeit an eighteenth-century singer, was perhaps the last of that
+long, illustrious line of poets who sang as no others have sung of the
+pure delight-fulness of a life with nature. Something of this charm is
+undoubtedly due to the beauty of the language they wrote in and to the
+free, airy grace of assonants. What a hard, artificial sound the rhyme
+too often has: the clink that falls at regular intervals as of a
+stone-breaker's hammer! In the freer kinds of Spanish poetry there are
+numberless verses that make the smoothest lines and lyrics of our
+sweetest and most facile singers, from Herrick to Swinburne, seem hard
+and mechanical by comparison. But there is something more. I doubt, for
+one thing, if we are justified in the boast we sometimes make that the
+feeling for Nature is stronger in our poets than in those of other
+countries. The most scientific critic may be unable to pick a hole in
+Tennyson's botany and zoology; but the passion for, and feeling of
+oneness with Nature may exist without this modern minute accuracy. Be
+this as it may, it was not Tennyson, nor any other of our poets, that I
+would have taken to my dreamed-of solitary cabin for companionship:
+Melendez came first to my mind. I think of his lines to a butterfly:
+
+  De donde alegre vienes
+  Tan suelta y tan festiva,
+  Las valles alegrando
+  Veloz mariposilla?*
+
+* May be roughly rendered thus:
+
+  Whence, blithe one, comest thou
+  With that airy, happy flight--
+  To make the valleys glad,
+  O swift-winged butterfly?
+
+and can imagine him--the poet himself--coming to see me through the
+woods and down the hill with the careless ease and lightness of heart of
+his own purple-winged child of earth and air--_tan suelta y tan
+festiva_. Here in these four or five words one may read the whole secret
+of his charm--the exquisite delicacy and seeming artlessness in the
+form, and the spirit that is in him--the old, simple, healthy, natural
+gladness in nature, and feeling of kinship with all the children of
+life. But I do not wish to disturb anyone in his prepossessions. It
+would greatly trouble me to think that my reader should, for the space
+of a page, or even of a single line, find himself in opposition to and
+not with me; and I am free to admit that with regard to poetry one's
+preferences change according to the mood one happens to be in and to the
+conditions generally. At home in murky London on most days I should
+probably seek pleasure and forgetfulness in Browning; but in such
+surroundings as I have been describing the lighter-hearted, elf-like
+Melendez accords best with my spirit, one whose finest songs are without
+human interest; who is irresponsible as the wind, and as unstained with
+earthly care as the limpid running water he delights in: who is brother
+to bird and bee and butterfly, and worships only liberty and sunshine,
+and is in love with nothing but a flower.
+
+Nearly midway between the useful little bridge and the rose-blossoming
+tangle I have spoken of there were three elm-trees growing in the open
+grassy space near the brook; they were not lofty, but had very
+wide-spreading horizontal branches, which made them look like oaks. This
+was an ideal spot in which to spend the sultry hours, and I had no
+sooner cast myself on the short grass in the shade than I noticed that
+the end of a projecting branch above my head, and about twenty feet from
+the ground, was a favourite perch of a tree-pipit. He sang in the air
+and, circling gracefully down, would alight on the branch, where,
+sitting near me and plainly visible, he would finish his song and renew
+it at intervals; then, leaving the loved perch, he would drop, singing,
+to the ground, just a few yards beyond the tree's shadow; thence,
+singing again, he would mount up and up above the tree, only to slide
+down once more with set, unfluttering wings, with a beautiful swaying
+motion to the same old resting-place on the branch, there to sing and
+sing and sing.
+
+If Melendez himself had come to me with flushed face and laughing eyes,
+and sat down on the grass at my side to recite one of his most
+enchanting poems, I should, with finger on lip, have enjoined silence;
+for in the mood I was then in at that sequestered spot, with the
+landscape outside my shady green pavilion bathed and quivering in the
+brilliant sunshine, this small bird had suddenly become to me more than
+any other singer, feathered or human. And yet the tree-pipit is not very
+highly regarded among British melodists, on account of the little
+variety there is in its song. Nevertheless, it is most sweet--perhaps the
+sweetest of all. It is true that there are thousands, nay, millions of
+things--sights and sounds and perfumes--which are or may be described as
+sweet, so common is the metaphor, and this too common use has perhaps
+somewhat degraded it; but in this case there is no other word so well
+suited to describe the sensation produced.
+
+The tree-pipit has a comparatively short song, repeated, with some
+variation in the number and length of the notes, at brief intervals. The
+opening notes are thick and throaty, and similar in character to the
+throat-notes of many other species in this group, a softer sound than
+the throat-notes of the skylark and woodlark, which they somewhat
+resemble. The canary-like trills and thin piping notes, long drawn out,
+which follow vary greatly in different individuals, and in many cases
+the trills are omitted. But the concluding notes of the song I am
+considering--which is only one note repeated again and again--are clear
+and beautifully inflected, and have that quality of sweetness, of
+lusciousness, I have mentioned. The note is uttered with a downward
+fall, more slowly and expressively at each repetition, as if the singer
+felt overcome at the sweetness of life and of his own expression, and
+languished somewhat at the close; its effect is like that of the perfume
+of the honeysuckle, infecting the mind with a soft, delicious languor, a
+wish to lie perfectly still and drink of the same sweetness again and
+again in larger measure.
+
+To some who are familiar with this by no means uncommon little bird, it
+may seem that I am overstating the charm of its melody. I can only say
+that the mood I was then in made me very keenly appreciative; also that
+I have never heard any other individual of this species able to produce
+precisely the same effect. We know that there are quite remarkable
+differences in the songs of birds of the same species, that among
+several that appear to be perfect and to sing alike one will possess a
+charm above the other. The truth is they are not alike; they affect us
+differently, but the sense is not fine enough or not sufficiently
+trained to detect the cause. The poet's words may be used of this
+natural melody as well as of the works of art:
+
+  "O the little more and how much it is!"
+
+There were about the village, within a few minutes' walk of the cottage,
+not fewer than half-a-dozen tree-pipits, each inhabiting a favourite
+spot where I could always count on finding and hearing him at almost any
+hour of the day from sunrise to sunset. Yet I cared not for these. To
+the one chosen bird I returned daily to spend the hot hours, lying in
+the shade and listening to his strain. Finally, I allowed two or three
+days to slip by, and when I revisited the old spot the secret charm had
+vanished. The bird was there, and rose and fell as formerly, pouring out
+his melody; but it was not the same: something was missing from those
+last sweet, languishing notes. Perhaps in the interval there had been
+some disturbing accident in his little wild life, though I could hardly
+believe it, since his mate was still sitting about thirty yards from the
+tree on the five little mottled eggs in her nest. Or perhaps his
+midsummer's music had reached its highest point, and was now in its
+declension. And perhaps the fault was in me. The virtue that draws and
+holds us does not hold us always, nor very long; it departs from all
+things, and we wonder why. The loss is in ourselves, although we do not
+know it. Nature, the chosen mistress of our heart, does not change
+towards us, yet she is now, even to-day--
+
+  "Less full of purple colour and hid spice,"
+
+and smiles and sparkles in vain to allure us, and when she touches us
+with her warm, caressing touch, there is, compared with yesterday, only
+a faint response.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Coming back from the waterside through the wood, after the hottest hours
+of the day were over, the crooning of the turtle-doves would be heard
+again on every side--that summer beech-wood lullaby that seemed never to
+end. The other bird voices were of the willow-wren, the wood-wren, the
+coal-tit, and the now somewhat tiresome chiffchaff; from the distance
+would come the prolonged rich strain of the blackbird, and occasionally
+the lyric of the chaffinch. The song of this bird gains greatly when
+heard from a tall tree in the woodland silence; it has then a resonance
+and wildness which it appears to lack in the garden and orchard. In the
+village I had been glad to find that the chaffinch was not too common,
+that in the tangle of minstrelsy one could enjoy there his vigorous
+voice was not predominant.
+
+Of all these woodland songsters the wood-wren impressed me the most. He
+could always be heard, no matter where I entered the wood, since all
+this world of tall beeches was a favoured haunt of the wood-wren, each
+pair keeping to its own territory of half-an-acre of trees or so, and
+somewhere among those trees the male was always singing, far up,
+invisible to eyes beneath, in the topmost sunlit foliage of the tall
+trees. On entering the wood I would, stand still for a few minutes to
+listen to the various sounds until that one fascinating sound would come
+to my ears from some distance away, and to that spot I would go to find
+a bed of last year's leaves to sit upon and listen. It was an enchanting
+experience to be there in that woodland twilight with the green cloud of
+leaves so far above me; to listen to the silence, to the faint whisper
+of the wind-touched leaves, then to little prelusive drops of musical
+sound, growing louder and falling faster until they ran into one
+prolonged trill. And there I would sit listening for half-an-hour or a
+whole hour; but the end would not come; the bird is indefatigable and
+with his mysterious talk in the leaves would tire the sun himself and send
+him down the sky: for not until the sun has set and the wood has grown
+dark does the singing cease.
+
+On emerging from the deep shade of the beeches into the wide grassy road
+that separated the wood from the orchards and plantations of fruit
+trees, and pausing for a minute to look down on the more than
+half-hidden village, invariably the first loud sounds that reached my
+ear were those of the cuckoo, thrush, and blackbird. At all hours in the
+village, from early morning to evening twilight, these three voices
+sounded far and near above the others. I considered myself fortunate
+that no large tree near the cottage had been made choice of by a
+song-thrush as a singing-stand during the early hours. The nearest tree
+so favoured was on the further side of a field, so that when I woke at
+half-past three or four o'clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in
+at the open window, softened by distance and washed by the dewy
+atmosphere to greater purity. Throstle and skylark to be admired must be
+heard at a distance. But at that early hour when I sat by the open
+window, the cuckoo's call was the commonest sound; the birds were
+everywhere, bird answering bird far and near, so persistently repeating
+their double note that this sound, which is in character unlike any
+other sound in nature, which one so listens and longs to hear in spring,
+lost its old mystery and charm, and became of no more account than the
+cackle of the poultry-yard. It was the cuckoo's village; sometimes three
+or four birds in hot pursuit of each other would dash through the trees
+that lined the further side of the lane and alight on that small tree at
+the gate which the nightingale was accustomed to visit later in the day.
+
+Other birds that kept themselves very much out of sight during most of
+the time also came to the same small tree at that early hour. It was
+regularly visited, and its thin bole industriously examined, by the
+nuthatch and the quaint little mouse-like creeper. Doubtless they
+imagined that five o'clock was too early for heavy human creatures to be
+awake, and were either ignorant of my presence or thought proper to
+ignore it.
+
+But where, during the days when the vociferous cuckoo, with hoarse
+chuckle and dissyllabic call and wild bubbling cry was so much with
+us--where, in this period of many pleasant noises was the cuckoo's mate,
+or maid, or messenger, the quaint and beautiful wryneck? There are few
+British birds, perhaps not one--not even the crafty black and white
+magpie, or mysterious moth-like goatsucker, or tropical kingfisher--more
+interesting to watch. At twilight I had lingered at the woodside, also
+in other likely places, and the goatsucker had failed to appear, gliding
+and zig-zagging hither and thither on his dusky-mottled noiseless wings,
+and now this still heavier disappointment was mine. I could not find the
+wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, shut in by straggling hedges,
+should have had him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper and nuthatch,
+and starling and gem-like blue tit, found holes enough in the old trunks
+to breed in. And yet I knew that, albeit not common, he was there; I
+could not exactly say where, but somewhere on the other side of the next
+hedge or field or orchard; for I heard his unmistakable cry, now on this
+hand, now on that. Day after day I followed the voice, sometimes in my
+eagerness forcing my way through a brambly hedge to emerge with
+scratched hands and clothes torn, like one that had been set upon and
+mauled by some savage animal of the cat kind; and still the quaint
+figure eluded my vision.
+
+At last I began to have doubts about the creature that emitted that
+strange, penetrating call. First heard as a bird-call, and nothing more,
+by degrees it grew more and more laugh-like--a long, far-reaching,
+ringing laugh; not the laugh I should like to hear from any person I
+take an interest in, but a laugh with all the gladness, unction, and
+humanity gone out of it--a dry mechanical sound, as if a soulless,
+lifeless, wind-instrument had laughed. It was very curious. Listening to
+it day by day, something of the strange history of the being once but no
+longer human, that uttered it grew up and took shape in my mind; for we
+all have in us something of this mysterious faculty. It was no bird, no
+wryneck, but a being that once, long, long, long ago, in that same
+beautiful place, had been a village boy--a free, careless, glad-hearted
+boy, like many another. But to this boy life was more than to others,
+since nature appeared immeasurably more vivid on account of his brighter
+senses; therefore his love of life and happiness in life greatly
+surpassed theirs. Annually the trees shed their leaves, the flowers
+perished, the birds flew away to some distant country beyond the
+horizon, and the sun grew pale and cold in the sky; but the bright
+impression all things made on him gave him a joy that was perennial. The
+briony, woodbine, and honeysuckle he had looked on withered in the
+hedges, but their presentments flourished untouched by frost, as if his
+warmth sustained and gave them perpetual life; in that inner magical
+world of memory the birds still twittered and warbled, each after its
+kind, and the sun shone everlastingly. But he was living in a fool's
+paradise, as he discovered by-and-by, when a boy who had been his
+playmate began to grow thin and pale, and at last fell sick and died. He
+crept near and watched his dead companion lying motionless, unbreathing,
+with a face that was like white clay; and then, more horrible still, he
+saw him taken out and put into a grave, and the heavy, cold soil cast
+over him.
+
+What did this strange and terrible thing mean? Now for the first time he
+was told that life is ours only for a season; that we also, like the
+leaves and flowers, flourish for a while then fade and perish, and
+mingle with the dust. The sad knowledge had come too suddenly and in too
+vivid and dreadful a manner.  He could not endure it. Only for a
+season!--only for a season! The earth would be green, and the sky blue,
+and the sun shine bright for ever, and he would not see, not know it!
+Struck with anguish at the thought, he stole away out of sight of the
+others to hide himself in woods and thickets, to brood alone on such a
+hateful destiny, and torture himself with vain longings, until he, too,
+grew pale and thin and large-eyed, like the boy that had died, and those
+who saw him shook their heads and whispered to one another that he was
+not long for this world. He knew what they were saying, and it only
+served to increase his misery and fear, and made him hate them because
+they were insensible to the awful fact that death awaited them, or so
+little concerned that they had never taken the trouble to inform him of
+it. To eat and drink and sleep was all they cared for, and they regarded
+death with indifference, because their dull sight did not recognize the
+beauty and glory of the earth, nor their dull hearts respond to Nature's
+everlasting gladness. The sight of the villagers, with their solemn
+head-shakings and whisperings, even of his nearest kindred, grew
+insupportable, and he at length disappeared from among them, and was
+seen no more with his white, terror-stricken face. From that time he hid
+himself in the close thickets, supporting his miserable existence on
+wild fruits and leaves, and spending many hours each day lying in some
+sheltered spot, gazing up into that blue sunny sky, which was his to
+gaze on only for a season, while the large tears gathered in his eyes
+and rolled unheeded down his wasted cheeks.
+
+At length during this period there occurred an event which is the
+obscurest part of his history; for I know not who or what it was--my
+mind being in a mist about it--that came to or accidentally found him
+lying on a bed of grass and dried leaves in his thorny hiding-place. It
+may have been a gipsy or a witch--there were witches in those days--who,
+suddenly looking on his upturned face and seeing the hunger in his
+unfathomable eyes, loved him, in spite of her malignant nature; or a
+spirit out of the earth; or only a very wise man, an ancient,
+white-haired solitary, whose life had been spent in finding out the
+secrets of nature. This being, becoming acquainted with the cause of the
+boy's grief and of his solitary, miserable condition, began to comfort
+him by telling him that no grief was incurable, no desire that heart
+could conceive unattainable. He discoursed of the hidden potent
+properties of nature, unknown only to those who seek not to know them;
+of the splendid virtue inherent in all things, like the green and violet
+flames in the clear colourless raindrops which are seen only on rare
+occasions. Of life and death, he said that life was of the spirit which
+never dies, that death meant only a passage, a change of abode of the
+spirit, and the left body crumbled to dust when the spirit went out of
+it to continue its existence elsewhere, but that those who hated the
+thought of such change could, by taking thought, prolong life and live
+for a thousand years, like the adder and tortoise or for ever. But no,
+he would not leave the poor boy to grope alone and blindly after that
+hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied him too much. The
+means were simple and near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue
+that would save him from the dissolution which so appalled him. He would
+be startled to hear in how small a thing and in how insignificant a
+creature resided the principle that could make his body, like his
+spirit, immortal. But exceeding great power often existed in small
+compass: witness the adder's tooth, which was to our sight no more than
+the point of the smallest thorn. Now, in the small ant there exists a
+principle of a greater potency than any other in nature; so strong and
+penetrating was it that even the dull and brutish kind of men who
+enquire not into hidden things know something of its power. But the
+greatest of all the many qualities of this acid was unknown to them. The
+ants were a small people, but exceedingly wise and powerful. If a little
+human child had the strength of an ant he would surpass in power the
+mightiest giant that ever lived. In the same way ants surpassed men in
+wisdom; and this strength and wisdom was the result of that acid
+principle in them. Now, if any person should be able to overcome his
+repugnance to so strange a food as to sustain himself on ants and
+nothing else, the effect of the acid on him would be to change and
+harden his flesh and make it impervious to decay or change of any kind.
+He would, so long as he confined himself to this kind of food, be
+immortal.
+
+Not a moment did the wretched boy hesitate to make use of this new and
+wonderful knowledge. When he had found and broken open an ant-hill, so
+eager was he that, shutting his eyes, he snatched up the maddened
+insects by handfuls and swallowed them, dust and ants together, and was
+then tortured for hours, feeling and thinking that they were still alive
+within him, running about in search of an outlet and frantically biting.
+The strange food sickened him, so that he grew thinner and paler, until
+at last he could barely crawl on hands and feet, and was like a skeleton
+except for the great sad eyes that could still see the green earth and
+blue sky, and still reflected in their depths one fear and one desire.
+And slowly, day by day, as his system accustomed itself to the new diet,
+his strength returned, and he was able once more to walk erect and run,
+and to climb a tree, where he could sit concealed among the thick
+foliage and survey the village where he had first seen the light and had
+passed the careless, happy years of boyhood. But he cherished no tender
+memories and regrets; his sole thought was of the ants, and where to
+find a sufficiency of them to stay the cravings of hunger; for, after
+the first sensations of disgust had been overcome, he had begun to grow
+fond of this kind of food, and now consumed it with avidity. And as his
+strength increased so did his dexterity in catching the small, active
+insect prey. He no longer gathered the ants up in his palm and swallowed
+them along with dust and grit, but picked them up deftly, and conveyed
+them one by one to his mouth with lightning rapidity. Meanwhile that
+"acid principle," about which he had heard such wonderful things, was
+having its effect on his system. His skin changed its colour; he grew
+shrunken and small, until at length, after very many years, he dwindled
+to the grey little manikin of the present time. His mind, too, changed;
+he has no thought nor remembrance of his former life and condition and
+of his long-dead relations; but he still haunts the village where he
+knows so well where to find the small ants, to pick them from off the
+ant-hill and from the trunks of trees with his quick little claw-like
+hands. Language and song are likewise forgotten with all human things,
+all except his laugh; for when hunger is satisfied, and the sun shines
+pleasantly as he reposes on the dry leaves on the ground or sits aloft
+on a branch, at times a sudden feeling of gladness possesses him, and he
+expresses it in that one way--the long, wild, ringing peal of laughter.
+Listening to that strange sound, although I could not see I could yet
+picture him, as, aware of my cautious approach, he moved shyly behind
+the mossy trunk of some tree and waited silently for me to pass. A lean,
+grey little man, clad in a quaintly barred and mottled mantle, woven by
+his own hands from some soft silky material, and a close-fitting brown
+peaked cap on his head with one barred feather in it for ornament, and a
+small wizened grey face with a thin sharp nose, puckered lips, and a
+pair of round, brilliant, startled eyes.
+
+So distinct was this image to my mind's eye that it became unnecessary
+for me to see the creature, and I ceased to look for him; then all at
+once came disillusion, when one day, hearing the familiar high-pitched
+laugh with its penetrating and somewhat nasal tone, I looked and beheld
+the thing that had laughed just leaving its perch on a branch near the
+ground and winging its way across the field. It was only a bird after
+all--only the wryneck; and that mysterious faculty I spoke of, saying
+that we all of us possessed something of it (meaning only some of us)
+was nothing after all but the old common faculty of imagination.
+
+Later on I saw it again on half-a-dozen occasions, but never succeeded
+in getting what I call a satisfying sight of it, perched woodpecker-wise
+on a mossy trunk, busy at its old fascinating occupation of deftly
+picking off the running ants.
+
+It is melancholy to think that this quaint and beautiful bird of a
+unique type has been growing less and less common in our country during
+the last half a century, or for a longer period. In the last fifteen or
+twenty years the falling-off has been very marked. The declension is not
+attributable to persecution in this case, since the bird is not on the
+gamekeeper's black list, nor has it yet become so rare as to cause the
+amateur collectors of dead birds throughout the country systematically
+to set about its extermination. Doubtless that will come later on when
+it will be in the same category with the golden oriole, hoopoe,
+furze-wren, and other species that are regarded as always worth killing;
+that is to say, it will come--the scramble for the wryneck's
+carcass--if nothing is done in the meantime to restrain the enthusiasm
+of those who value a bird only when the spirit of life that gave it
+flight and grace and beauty has been crushed out of it--when it is no
+longer a bird. The cause of its decline up till now cannot be known to
+us; we can only say in our ignorance that this type, like innumerable
+others that have ceased to exist, has probably run its course and is
+dying out. Or it might be imagined that its system is undergoing some
+slow change, which tells on the migratory instinct, that it is becoming
+more a resident species in its winter home in Africa. But all
+conjectures are idle in such a case. It is melancholy, at all events for
+the ornithologist, to think of an England without a wryneck; but before
+that still distant day arrives let us hope that the love of birds will
+have become a common feeling in the mass of the population, and that the
+variety of our bird life will have been increased by the addition of
+some chance colonists and of many new species introduced from distant
+regions.
+
+I have lingered long over the wryneck, but have still a story to relate
+of this bird--not a fairy tale this time, but true.
+
+On the border of the village adjoining the wood--the side where birds
+were more abundant, and which consequently had the greatest attraction
+for me--there stands an old picturesque cottage nearly concealed from
+sight by the hedge in front and closely planted trees clustering round
+it. On one side was a grass field, on the other an orchard of old
+cherry, apple, and plum trees, all the property of the old man living in
+the cottage, who was a character in his way; at all events, he had not
+been fashioned in quite the same mould as the majority of the cottagers
+about him. They mostly, when past middle life, wore a heavy, dull and
+somewhat depressed look. This man had a twinkle in his dark-grey eyes,
+an expression of intelligent curiosity and fellowship; and his full
+face, bronzed with sixty or sixty-five years' exposure to the weather,
+was genial, as if the sunshine that had so long beaten on it had not
+been all used up in painting his skin that rich old-furniture colour,
+but had, some of it, filtered through the epidermis into the heart to
+make his existence pleasant and sweet. But it was a very rough-cast
+face, with shapeless nose and thick lips. He was short and
+broad-shouldered, always in the warm weather in his shirt-sleeves, a
+shirt of some very coarse material and of an earthen colour, his brown
+thick arms bare to the elbows. Waistcoat and trousers looked as if he
+had worn them for half his life, and had a marbled or mottled appearance
+as if they had taken the various tints of all the objects and materials
+he had handled or rubbed against in his life's work--wood, mossy trees,
+grass, clay, bricks, stone, rusty iron, and dozens more. He wore the
+field-labourer's thick boots; his ancient rusty felt hat had long lost
+its original shape; and finally, to complete the portrait, a short black
+clay pipe was never out of his lips--never, at all events, when I saw
+him, which was often; for every day as I strolled past his domain he
+would be on the outside of his hedge, or just coming out of his gate,
+invariably with something in his hand--a spade, a fork, or stick of
+wood, or an old empty fruit-basket. Although thus having the appearance
+of being very much occupied, he would always stop for a few minutes'
+talk with me; and by-and-by I began to suspect that he was a very social
+sort of person, and that it pleased him to have a little chat, but that
+he liked to have me think that he met me by accident while going about
+his work.
+
+One sunny morning as I came past his field he came out bearing a huge
+bundle of green grass on his head. "What!" he exclaimed, coming to a
+stand, "you here to-day? I thought you'd be away to the regatta."
+
+I said that I knew little about regattas and cared less, that a day
+spent in watching and listening to the birds gave me more pleasure than
+all the regattas in the country. "I suppose you can't understand that?"
+I added.
+
+He took the big green bundle from his head and set it down, pulled off
+his old hat to flap the dust out of it, then sucked at his short clay.
+"Well," he said at length, "some fancies one thing and some another, but
+we most of us like a regatta."
+
+During the talk that followed I asked him if he knew the wryneck, and if
+it ever nested in his orchard. He did not know the bird; had never heard
+its name nor the other names of snake-bird and cuckoo's mate; and when I
+had minutely described its appearance, he said that no such bird was
+known in the village.
+
+I assured him that he was mistaken, that I had heard the cry of the bird
+many times, and had even heard it once at a distance since our
+conversation began. Hearing that distant cry had caused me to ask the
+question.
+
+All at once he remembered that he knew, or had known formerly, the
+wryneck very well, but he had never learnt its name. About twenty or
+five-and-twenty years ago, he said, he saw the bird I had just described
+in his orchard, and as it appeared day after day and had a strange
+appearance as it moved up the tree trunks, he began to be interested in
+it. One day he saw it fly into a hole close to the ground in an old
+apple tree. "Now I've got you!" he exclaimed, and running to the spot
+thrust his hand in as far as he could, but was unable to reach the bird.
+Then he conceived the idea of starving it out, and stopped up the hole
+with clay. The following day at the same hour he again put in his hand,
+and this time succeeded in taking the bird. So strange was it to him
+that after showing it to his own family he took it round to exhibit it
+to his neighbours, and although some of them were old men, not one among
+them had ever seen its like before. They concluded that it was a kind of
+nuthatch, but unlike the common nuthatch which they knew. After they had
+all seen and handled it and had finished the discussions about it, he
+released it and saw it fly away; but, to his astonishment, it was back
+in his orchard a few hours later. In a few weeks it brought out its five
+or six young from the hole he had caught it in, and for several years it
+returned each season to breed in the same hole until the tree was blown
+down, after which the bird was seen no more.
+
+What an experience the poor bird had suffered! First plastered up and
+left to starve or suffocate in its hollow tree; then captured and passed
+round from rough, horny hand to hand, while the villagers were
+discussing it in their slow, ponderous fashion--how wildly its little
+wild heart must have palpitated!--and, finally, after being released, to
+go back at once to its eggs in that dangerous tree. I do not know which
+surprised me most, the bird's action in returning to its nest after such
+inhospitable treatment, or the ignorance of the villagers concerning it.
+The incident seemed to show that the wryneck had been scarce at this
+place for a very long period.
+
+The villager, as a rule, is not a good observer, which is not strange,
+since no person is, or ever can be, a good observer of the things in
+which he is not specially interested; consequently the countryman only
+knows the most common and the most conspicuous species. He plods through
+life with downcast eyes and a vision somewhat dimmed by indifference;
+forgetting, as he progresses, the small scraps of knowledge he acquired
+by looking sharply during the period of boyhood, when every living
+creature excited his attention. In Italy, notwithstanding the paucity of
+bird life, I believe that the peasants know their birds better. The
+reason of this is not far to seek; every bird, not excepting even the
+"temple-haunting martlet" and nightingale and minute golden-crested
+wren, is regarded only as a possible morsel to give a savour to a dish
+of polenta, if the shy, little flitting thing can only be enticed within
+touching distance of the limed twigs. Thus they take a very strong
+interest in, and, in a sense, "love" birds. It is their passion for this
+kind of flavouring which has drained rural Italy of its songsters, and
+will in time have the same effect on Argentina, the country in which the
+withering stream of Italian emigration empties itself.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+From the date of my arrival at the village in May, until I left it early
+in July, the great annual business of pairing, nest-building, and
+rearing the young was going on uninterruptedly. The young of some of the
+earliest breeders were already strong on the wing when I took my first
+walks along the hedgerows, still in their early, vivid green, frequently
+observing my bird through a white and rose-tinted cloud of
+apple-blossoms; and when I left some species that breed more than once
+in the season were rearing second broods or engaged in making new nests.
+On my very first day I discovered a nest full of fully fledged blue tits
+in a hole in an apple tree; this struck me as a dangerous place for the
+young birds; as the tree leaned over towards the lane, and the hole
+could almost be reached by a person standing on the ground. On the next
+day I went to look at them, and approaching noiselessly along the lane,
+spied two small boys with bright clean faces--it was on a
+Sunday--standing within three or four yards of the tree, watching the
+tits with intense interest. The parent birds were darting up and down,
+careless of their presence, finding food so quickly in the gooseberry
+bushes growing near the roots of the tree that they visited the hole
+every few moments; while the young birds, ever screaming for more, were
+gathered in a dense little cluster at the entrance, their yellow breasts
+showing very brightly against the rain-wet wood and the dark interior of
+the hole. The instant the two little watchers caught sight of me the
+excited look vanished from their faces, and they began to move off,
+gazing straight ahead in a somewhat vacant manner. This instantaneous
+and instinctive display of hypocrisy was highly entertaining, and would
+have made me laugh if it had not been for the serious purpose I had in
+my mind. "Now, look here," I said, "I know what you are after, so it's
+no use pretending that you are walking about and seeing nothing in
+particular. You've been watching the young tits. Well, I've been
+watching them, too, and waiting to see them fly. I dare say they will
+be out by to-morrow or the next day, and I hope you little fellows won't
+try to drag them out before then."
+
+They at once protested that they had no such intention. They said that
+they never robbed birds' nests; that there were several nests at home in
+the garden and orchard, one of a nightingale with three eggs in it, but
+that they never took an egg. But some of the boys they knew, they said,
+took all the eggs they found; and there was one boy who got into every
+orchard and garden in the place, who was so sharp that few nests escaped
+him, and every nest he found he destroyed, breaking the eggs if there
+were any, and if there were young birds killing them.
+
+Not, perhaps, without first mutilating them, I thought; for I know
+something of this kind of young "human devil," to use the phrase which
+Canon Wilberforce has made so famous in another connexion. Later on I
+heard much more about the exploits of this champion bird-destroyer of
+the village from (strange to say) a bird-catcher by trade, a man of a
+rather low type of countenance, and who lived, when at home, in a London
+slum. On the common where he spread his nets he had found, he told me,
+about thirty nests containing eggs or fledglings; but this boy had gone
+over the ground after him, and not many of the nests had escaped his
+sharp eyes.
+
+I was satisfied that the young tits were quite safe, so far as these
+youngsters were concerned, and only regretted that they were such small
+Boys, and that the great nest-destroyer, whose evil deeds they spoke of
+with an angry colour in their cheeks, was a very strong boy, otherwise I
+should have advised them to "go" for him.
+
+Oddly enough I heard of another boy who exercised the same kind of
+cruelty and destructiveness over another common a few miles distant.
+Walking across it I spied two boys among the furze bushes, and at the
+same moment they saw me, whereupon one ran away and the other remained
+standing. A nice little fellow of about eight, he looked as if he had
+been crying. I asked him what it was all about, and he then told me that
+the bigger boy who had just run away was always on the common searching
+for nests, just to destroy them and kill the young birds; that he, my
+informant, had come there where he came every day just to have a peep at
+a linnet's nest with four eggs in it on which the bird was sitting; that
+the other boy, concealed among the bushes had watched him go to the nest
+and had then rushed up and pulled the nest out of the bush.
+
+"Why didn't you knock him down?" I asked.
+
+"That's what I tried to do before he pulled the nest out," he said; and
+then he added sorrowfully: "He knocked me down."
+
+I am reminded here of a tale of ancient Greece about a boy of this
+description--the boy to be found in pretty well every parish in the
+land. This was a shepherd boy who followed or led his sheep to a
+distance from the village and amused his idle hours by snaring small
+birds to put their eyes out with a sharp thorn, then to toss them up
+just to see how, and how far, they would fly in the dark. He was seen
+doing it and the matter reported to the heads or fathers of the village,
+and he was brought before them and, after due consideration of the case,
+condemned to death. Such a decision must seem shocking to us and worthy
+of a semi-barbarous people. But if cruelty is the worst of all
+offences--and this was cruelty in its most horrid form--the offence
+which puts men down on a level with the worst of the mythical demons, it
+was surely a righteous deed to blot such an existence out lest other
+young minds should be contaminated, or even that it should be known that
+such a crime was possible.
+
+* * *
+
+All those birds that had finished rearing their young by the sixteenth
+of June were fortunate, for on the morning of that day a great and
+continuous shouting, with gun-firing, banging on old brass and iron
+utensils, with various other loud, unusual noises, were heard at one
+extremity of the village, and continued with occasional quiet intervals
+until evening. This tempest of rude sounds spread from day to day, until
+the entire area of the village and the surrounding orchards was
+involved, and the poor birds that were tied to the spots where their
+treasures were, must have existed in a state of constant trepidation.
+For now the cherries were fast ripening, and the fruit-eating birds,
+especially the thrushes and black-birds, were inflamed at the gleam of
+crimson colour among the leaves. In the very large orchards men and boys
+were stationed all day long yelling and firing off guns to frighten the
+marauders. In the smaller orchards the trees were decorated with
+whirligigs of coloured paper; ancient hats, among which were some of the
+quaintly-shaped chimney-pots of a past generation; old coats and
+waistcoats and trousers, and rags of all colours to flutter in the wind;
+and these objects were usually considered a sufficient protection. Some
+of the birds, wiser than their fellows, were not to be kept back by such
+simple means; but so long as they came not in battalions, but singly,
+they could have their fill, and no notice was taken of them.
+
+I was surprised to hear that on the large plantations the men employed
+were not allowed to use shot, the aim of the fruit grower being only to
+scare the birds away. I had a talk with my old friend of the wryneck on
+the subject, and told him that I had seen one of the bird-scarers going
+home to his cottage very early in the morning, carrying a bunch of about
+a dozen blackbirds and thrushes he had just shot.
+
+Yes, he replied, some of the men would buy shot and use it early in the
+morning before their master was about; but if the man I had seen had
+been detected in the act, he would have been discharged on the spot. It
+was not only because the trees would be injured by shot, but this
+fruitgrower was friendly to birds.
+
+Most fruit-growers, I said, were dead against the birds, and anxious
+only to kill as many of them as possible.
+
+It might be so in some places, he answered, but not in the village. He
+himself and most of the villagers depended, in a great measure, on the
+fruit they produced for a living, and their belief was that, taking one
+bird with another all the year round, the birds did them more good than
+harm.
+
+I then imparted to him the views on this bird subject of a well-known
+fruit-grower in the north of England, Mr. Joseph Witherspoon, of
+Chester-le-Street. He began by persecuting the birds, as he had been
+taught to do by his father, a market-gardener; but after years of
+careful observation he completely changed his views, and is now so
+convinced of the advantage that birds are to the fruit-grower, that he
+does all in his power to attract them, and to tempt them to breed in his
+grounds. His main idea is that birds that are fed on the premises, that
+live and feed among the trees, search for and attack the gardeners'
+enemies at every stage of their existence. At the same time he believes
+that it is very bad to grow fruit near woods, as in such a case the
+birds that live in the woods and are of no advantage to the garden,
+swarm into it as the fruit ripens, and that it is only by liberal use of
+nets that any reasonable portion of the fruit can be saved.
+
+He answered that with regard to the last point he did not quite agree
+with Mr. Witherspoon. All the gardens and orchards in the village were
+raided by the birds from the wood, yet he reckoned they got as much
+fruit from their trees as others who had no woods near them. Then there
+was the big cherry plantation, one of the biggest in England, so that
+people came from all parts in the blossoming time just to look at it,
+and a wonderful sight it was. For a quarter of a mile this particular
+orchard ran parallel with the wood; with nothing but the green road
+between, and when the first fruit was ripening you could see all the big
+trees on the edge of the wood swarming with birds--jays, thrushes,
+blackbirds, doves, and all sorts of tits and little birds, just waiting
+for a chance to pounce down and devour the cherries. The noise kept them
+off, but many would dodge in, and even if a gun was fired close to them
+the blackbirds would snatch a cherry and carry it off to the wood. That
+didn't matter--a few cherries here and there didn't count. The starlings
+were the worst robbers: if you didn't scare them they would strip a tree
+and even an orchard in a few hours. But they were the easiest birds to
+deal with: they went in flocks, and a shout or rattle or report of a gun
+sent the lot of them away together.  His way of looking at it was this.
+In the fruit season, which lasts only a few weeks, you are bound to
+suffer from the attacks of birds, whether they are your own birds only
+or your own combined with others from outside, unless you keep them off;
+that those who do not keep them off are foolish or indolent, and deserve
+to suffer. The fruit season was, he said, always an anxious time.
+
+In conclusion, I remarked that the means used for protecting the fruit,
+whether they served their purpose well or not, struck me as being very
+unworthy of the times we lived in, and seemed to show that the British
+fruit-growers, who were ahead of the world in all other matters
+connected with their vocation, had quite neglected this one point. A
+thousand years ago cultivators of the soil were scaring the birds from
+their crops just as we are doing, with methods no better and no worse,
+putting up scarecrows and old ragged garments and fluttering rags,
+hanging a dead crow to a stick to warn the others off, shouting and
+yelling and throwing stones. There appeared to be an opening here for
+experiment and invention. Mere noise was not terrifying to birds, and
+they soon discovered that an old hat on a stick had no injurious brains
+in or under it. But certain sounds and colours and odours had a strong
+effect on some animals. Sounds made to stimulate the screams of some
+hawks would perhaps prove very terrifying to thrushes and other small
+birds, and the effect of scarlet in large masses or long strips might be
+tried. It would also be worth while to try the effect of artificial
+sparrow-hawks and other birds of prey, perched conspicuously, moving and
+perking their tails at intervals by clockwork. In fact, a hundred things
+might be tried until something valuable was found, and when it lost its
+value, for the birds would in time discover the deception, some new plan
+adopted.
+
+To this dissertation on what might be done, he answered that if any one
+could find out or invent any new effective means to keep the birds from
+the fruit, the fruit-growers would be very thankful for it; but that no
+such invention could be looked for from those who are engaged on the
+soil; that it must come from those who do not dig and sweat, but sit
+still and work with their brains at new ideas.
+
+This ended our conversation, and I left him more than satisfied at the
+information he had given me, and with a higher opinion than ever of his
+geniality and good practical sense.
+
+It was a relief when the noisy, bird-scaring business was done with, and
+the last market baskets of ripe cherries were carried away to the
+station. Very splendid they looked in such large masses of crimson, as
+the baskets were brought out and set down in the grassy road; but I
+could not help thinking a little sadly that the thrushes and blackbirds
+which had been surreptitiously shot, when fallen and fluttering in the
+wet grass in the early morning, had shed life-drops of that same
+beautiful colour.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+After the middle of June the common began to attract me more and more.
+It was so extensive that, standing on its border, just beyond the last
+straggling cottages and orchards, the further side was seen only as a
+line of blue trees, indistinct in the distance. As I grew to know it
+better, adding each day to my list from its varied bird life, the woods
+and waterside were visited less and less frequently, and after the
+bird-scaring noises began in the village, its wildness and quiet became
+increasingly grateful. The silence of nature was broken only by bird
+sounds, and the most frequent sound was that of the yellow bunting, as,
+perched motionless on the summit of a gorse bush, his yellow head
+conspicuous at a considerable distance, he emitted his thin monotonous
+chant at regular intervals, like a painted toy-bird that sings by
+machinery. There, too, sedentary as an owl in the daytime, the corn
+bunting was common, discharging his brief song at intervals--a sound as
+of shattering glass. The whinchat was rarely seen, but I constantly met
+the small, prettily coloured stonechat flitting from bush to bush,
+following me, and never ceasing his low, querulous tacking chirp,
+anxious for the safety of his nest. Nightingales, blackcaps and
+white-throats also nested there, and were louder and more emphatic in
+their protests when approached. There were several grasshopper-warblers
+on the common, all, very curiously as it seemed to me, clustered at one
+spot, so that one could ramble over miles of ground without hearing
+their singular note; but on approaching the place they inhabited one
+gradually became conscious of a mysterious trilling buzz or whirr, low
+at first and growing louder and more stridulous, until the hidden
+singers were left behind, when by degrees it sank lower and lower again,
+and ceased to be audible at a distance of about one hundred yards from
+the points where it had sounded loudest. The birds hid in clumps of
+furze and bramble so near together that the area covered by the buzzing
+sound measured about two hundred yards across. This most singular sound
+(for a warbler to make) is certainly not ventriloquial, although if one
+comes to it with the sense of hearing disorganized by town noises or
+unpractised, one is at a loss to determine the exact spot it comes from,
+or even to know from which side it comes. While emitting its prolonged
+sound the bird is so absorbed in its own performance that it is not
+easily alarmed, and will sometimes continue singing with a human
+listener standing within four or five yards of it. When one is near the
+bird, and listens, standing motionless, the effect on the nerves of
+hearing is very remarkable, considering the smallness of the sound,
+which, without being unpleasant, is somewhat similar to that produced by
+the vibration of the brake of a train; it is not powerful enough to jar
+the nerves, but appears to pervade the entire system. Lying still, with
+eyes closed, and three or four of these birds singing near, so that
+their strains overlap and leave no silent intervals, the listener can
+imagine that the sound originates within himself; that the numberless
+fine cords of his nervous network tremble responsively to it.
+
+There are a number of natural sounds that resemble more or less closely
+the most unbirdlike note of this warbler--cicada, rattlesnake, and some
+batrachians.  Some grasshoppers perhaps come nearest to it; but the most
+sustained current of sound emitted by the insect is short compared to
+the warbler's strain, also the vibrations are very much more rapid, and
+not heard as vibrations, and the same effect is not produced.
+
+The grasshopper warblers gave me so much pleasure that I was often at
+the spot where they had their little colony of about half-a-dozen pairs,
+and where I discovered they bred every year. At first I used to go to
+any bush where I had caught sight of a bird and sit down within a few
+yards of it and wait until the little hideling's shyness wore off, and
+he would come out and start reeling. Afterwards I always went straight
+to the same bush, because I thought the bird that used it as his
+singing-place appeared less shy than the others. One day I spent a long
+time listening to this favourite; delightedly watching him, perched on a
+low twig on a level with my sight, and not more than five yards from me;
+his body perfectly motionless, but the head and wide-open beak jerked
+from side to side in a measured, mechanical way. I had a side view of
+the bird, but every three seconds the head would be jerked towards me,
+showing the bright yellow colour of the open mouth. The reeling would
+last about three minutes, then the bird would unbend or unstiffen and
+take a few hops about the bush, then stiffen and begin again. While thus
+gazing and listening I, by chance, met with an experience of that rare
+kind which invariably strikes the observer of birds as strange and
+almost incredible--an example of the most perfect mimicry in a species
+which has its own distinctive song and is not a mimic except once in a
+while, and as it were by chance. The marsh warbler is our perfect
+mocking-bird, our one professional mimic; while the starling in
+comparison is but an amateur. We all know the starling's ever varying
+performance in which he attempts a hundred things and occasionally
+succeeds; but even the starling sometimes affects us with a mild
+astonishment, and I will here give one instance.
+
+I was staying at a village in the Wiltshire downs, and at intervals,
+while sitting at work in my room on the ground floor, I heard the
+cackling of a fowl at the cottage opposite. I heard, but paid no
+attention to that familiar sound; but after three days it all at once
+struck me that no fowl could lay an egg about every ten or twelve
+minutes, and go on at this rate day after day, and, getting up, I went
+out to look for the cackler. A few hens were moving quietly about the
+open ground surrounding the cottage where the sound came from, but I
+heard nothing. By and by, when I was back in my room, the cackling
+sounded again, but when I got out the sound had ceased and the fowls, as
+before, appeared quite unexcited. The only way to solve the mystery was
+to stand there, out of doors, for ten minutes, and before that time was
+over a starling with a white grub in his beak, flew down and perched on
+the low garden wall of the cottage, then, with some difficulty, squeezed
+himself through a small opening into a cavity under a strip of zinc
+which covered the bricks of the wall. It was a queer place for a
+starling's nest, on a wall three feet high and within two yards of the
+cottage door which stood open all day. Having delivered the grub, the
+starling came out again and, hopping on to the zinc, opened his beak and
+cackled like a hen, then flew away for more grubs.
+
+I observed the starling a good deal after this, and found that
+invariably on leaving the nest, he uttered his imitation of a fowl
+cackling, and no other note or sound of any kind. It was as if he was
+not merely imitating a sound, but had seen a fowl leaving the nest and
+then cackling, and mimicked the whole proceeding, and had kept up the
+habit after the young were hatched.
+
+To return to my experience on the common. About fifty yards from the
+spot where I was there was a dense thicket of furze and thorn, with a
+huge mound in the middle composed of a tangle of whitethorn and bramble
+bushes mixed with ivy and clematis. From this spot, at intervals of half
+a minute or so, there issued the call of a duck--the prolonged, hoarse
+call of a drake, two or three times repeated, evidently emitted in
+distress. I conjectured that it came from one of a small flock of ducks
+belonging to a cottage near the edge of the common on that side. The
+flock, as I had seen, was accustomed to go some distance from home, and
+I supposed that one of them, a drake, had got into that brambly thicket
+and could not make his way out. For half an hour I heard the calls
+without paying much attention, absorbed in watching the quaint little
+songster close to me and his curious gestures when emitting his
+sustained reeling sounds. In the end the persistent distressed calling
+of the drake lost in a brambly labyrinth got a little on my nerves, and
+I felt it as a relief when it finally ceased. Then, after a short
+silence, another sound came from the same spot--a blackbird sound, known
+to everyone, but curiously interesting when uttered in the way I now
+heard it. It was the familiar loud chuckle, not emitted in alarm and
+soon ended, but the chuckle uttered occasionally by the bird when he is
+not disturbed, or when, after uttering it once for some real cause, he
+continues repeating it for no reason at all, producing the idea that he
+has just made the discovery that it is quite a musical sound and that he
+is repeating it, as if singing, just for pleasure. At such times the
+long series of notes do not come forth with a rush; he begins
+deliberately with a series of musical chirps uttered in a measured
+manner, like those of a wood wren, the prelude to its song, the notes
+coming faster and faster and swelling and running into the loud
+chuckling performance. This performance, like the lost drake's call, was
+repeated in the same deliberate or leisurely manner at intervals again
+and again, until my curiosity was aroused and I went to the spot to get
+a look at the bird who had turned his alarm sound into a song and
+appeared to be very much taken with it.  But there was no blackbird at
+the spot, and no lost drake, and no bird, except a throstle sitting
+motionless on the bush mound. This was the bird I had been listening to,
+uttering not his own thrush melody, which he perhaps did not know at
+all, but the sounds he had borrowed from two species so wide apart in
+their character and language.
+
+The astonishing thing in this case was that the bird never uttered a
+note of his own original and exceedingly copious song; and I could only
+suppose that he had never learned the thrush melody; that he had,
+perhaps, been picked up as a fledgling and put in a cage, where he had
+imitated the sounds he heard and liked best, and made them his song, and
+that he had finally escaped or had been liberated.
+
+The wild thrush, we know, does introduce certain imitations into his own
+song, but the borrowed notes, or even phrases, are, as a rule, few, and
+not always to be distinguished from his own.
+
+Sometimes one can pick them out; thus, on the borders of a marsh where
+redshanks bred, I have heard the call of that bird distinctly given by
+the thrush. And again, where the ring-ouzel is common, the thrush will
+get its brief song exactly. When thrushes taken from the nest are reared
+in towns, where they never hear the thrush or any other bird sing, they
+are often exceedingly vocal, and utter a medley of sounds which are
+sometimes distressing to the ear. I have heard many caged thrushes of
+this kind in London, but the most remarkable instance I have met with
+was at the little seaside town of Seaford. Here, in the main shopping
+street, a caged thrush lived for years in a butcher's shop, and poured
+out its song continuously, the most distressing throstle performance I
+ever heard, composed of a medley of loud, shrill and harsh
+sounds--imitations of screams and shouts, boy whistlers, saw filing,
+knives sharpened on steels, and numerous other unclassifiable noises;
+but all, more or less, painful. The whole street was filled with the
+noise, and the owner used to boast that his caged thrush was the most
+persistent as well as the loudest singer that had ever been heard. He
+had no nerves, and was proud of it! On a recent visit to Seaford I
+failed to hear the bird when walking about the town, and after two or
+three days went into the shop to enquire about it. They told me it was
+dead--that it had been dead over a year; also that many visitors to
+Seaford had missed its song and had called at the shop to ask about the
+bird. The strangest thing about its end, they said, was its suddenness.
+The bird was singing its loudest one morning, and had been at it for
+some time, filling the whole place with its noise, when suddenly, in the
+middle of its song, it dropped down dead from its perch.
+
+To drop dead while singing is not an unheard of, nor a very rare
+occurrence in caged birds, and it probably happens, too, in birds living
+their natural life. Listening to a nightingale, pouring out its powerful
+music continuously, as the lark sings, one sometimes wonders that
+something does not give way to end the vocalist's performance and life
+at the same instant. Some such incident was probably the origin of the
+old legend of the minstrel and the nightingale on which Strada based his
+famous poem, known in many languages. In England Crawshaw's version was
+by far the best, and is perhaps the finest bird poem in our literature.
+
+The blackbird, like the thrush, sometimes borrows a note or a phrase,
+and, like the thrush again, if reared by hand he may become a nuisance
+by mimicking some disagreeable sound, and using it by way of song. I
+heard of such a case a short time ago at Sidmouth. The ground floor of
+the house where I lodged was occupied by a gentleman who had a fondness
+for bird music, and being an invalid confined to his rooms, he kept a
+number of birds in cages. He had, besides canaries, the thrush,
+chaffinch, linnet, goldfinch and cirl bunting. I remarked that he did
+not have the best singer of all--the blackbird. He said that he had
+procured one, or that some friend had sent him one, a very beautiful
+ouel cock in the blackest plumage and with the orange-tawniest bill,
+and he had anticipated great pleasure from hearing its fluting melody.
+But alas! no blackbird song did this unnatural blackbird sing. He had
+learnt to bark like a dog, and whenever the singing spirit took him he
+would bark once or twice or three times, and then, after an interval of
+silence of the proper length, about fifteen seconds, he would bark
+again, and so on until he had had his fill of music for the time. The
+barking got on the invalid's nerves, and he sent the bird away. "It was
+either that," he said, "or losing my senses altogether."
+
+* * *
+
+As all or most singing birds learn their songs from the adults of the
+same species, it is not strange that there should be a good deal of what
+we call mimicry in their performances: we may say, in fact, that pretty
+well all the true singers are mimics, but that some mimic more than
+others. Thus, the starling is more ready to borrow other birds' notes
+than the thrush, while the marsh-warbler borrows so much that his
+singing is mainly composed of borrowings. The nightingale is, perhaps,
+an exception. His voice excels in power and purity of sound, and what we
+may call his artistry is exceptionally perfect; this may account for the
+fact that he does not borrow from other birds' songs. I should say, from
+my own observation, that all songsters are interested in the singing of
+other species, or at all events, in certain notes, especially the most
+striking in power, beauty, and strangeness. Thus, when the cuckoo starts
+calling, you will see other small birds fly straight to the tree and
+perch near him, apparently to listen. And among the listeners you will
+find the sparrow and tits of various species--birds which are never
+victimized by the cuckoo, and do not take him for a hawk since they take
+no notice of him until the calling begins. The reason that the double
+fluting call of the cuckoo is not mimicked by other birds is that they
+can't; because that peculiar sound is not in their register. The
+bubbling cry is reproduced by both the marsh warbler and the starling.
+Again, it is my experience that when a nightingale starts singing, the
+small birds near immediately become attentive, often suspending their
+own songs and some flying to perch near him, and listen, just as they
+listen to the cuckoo. Birds imitate the note or phrase that strikes them
+most, and is easiest to imitate, as when the thrush copies the piping
+and trilling of the redshank and the easy song of the ring-ouzel, which,
+when incorporated into his own music, harmonizes with it perfectly. But
+he cannot flute, and so never mimics the blackbird's song, although he
+can and does, as we have seen, imitate its chuckling cry.
+
+There is another thing to be considered. I believe that the bird, like
+creatures in other classes, has his receptive period, his time to learn,
+and that, like some mammals, he learns everything he needs to know in
+his first year or two; and that, having acquired his proper song, he
+adds little or nothing to it thereafter, although the song may increase
+in power and brilliance when the bird comes to full maturity. This, I
+think, holds true of all birds, like the nightingale, which have a
+singing period of two or three months and are songless for the rest of
+the year. That long, silent period cannot, so far as sounds go, be a
+receptive one; the song early in life has become crystallized in the
+form it will keep through life, and is like an intuitive act. This is
+not the case with birds like the starling, that sing all the year
+round--birds that are naturally loquacious and sing instead of screaming
+and chirping like others. They are always borrowing new sounds and
+always forgetting.
+
+The most curious example of mimicry I have yet met with is that of a
+true mocking-bird, Mimus patachonicus, a common resident species in
+northern Patagonia, on the Atlantic side, very abundant in places. He is
+a true mocking-bird because he belongs to the genus Mimus, a branch of
+the thrush family, and not because he mocks or mimics the songs of other
+species, like others of his kindred. He does not, in fact, mimic the set
+songs of others, although he often introduces notes and phrases borrowed
+from other species into his own performance. He sings in a sketchy way
+all the year round, but in spring has a fuller unbroken song, emitted
+with more power and passion. For the rest of the time he sings to amuse
+himself, as it seems, in a peculiarly leisurely, and one may say,
+indolent manner, perched on a bush, from time to time emitting a note or
+two, then a phrase which, if it pleases him, he will repeat two or
+three, or half a dozen times. Then, after a pause, other notes and
+phrases, and so on, pretty well all day long. This manner of singing is
+irritating, like the staccato song of our throstle, to a listener who
+wants a continuous stream of song; but it becomes exceedingly
+interesting when one discovers that the bird is thinking very much about
+his own music, if one can use such an expression about a bird; that he
+is all the time experimenting, trying to get a new phrase, a new
+combination of the notes he knows and new notes. Also, that when sitting
+on his bush and uttering these careless chance sounds, he is, at the
+same time, intently listening to the others, all engaged in the same
+way, singing and listening. You will see them all about the place, each
+bird sitting motionless, like a grey and white image of a bird, on the
+summit of his own bush. For, although he is not gregarious as a rule, a
+number of pairs live near each other, and form a sort of loose
+community. The bond that unites them is their music, for not only do
+they sit within hearing distance, but they are perpetually mimicking
+each other. One may say that they are accomplished mimics but prefer
+mimicking their own to other species. But they only imitate the notes
+that take their fancy, so to speak. Thus, occasionally, one strikes out
+a phrase, a new expression, which appears to please him, and after a few
+moments he repeats it again, then again, and so on and on, and if you
+remain an hour within hearing he will perhaps be still repeating it at
+short intervals. Now, if by chance there is something in the new phrase
+which pleases the listeners too, you will note that they instantly
+suspend their own singing, and for some little time they do nothing but
+listen. By and by the new note or phrase will be exactly reproduced from
+a bird on another bush; and he, too, will begin repeating it at short
+intervals. Then a second one will get it, then a third, and eventually
+all the birds in that thicket will have it. The constant repeating of
+the new note may then go on for hours, and it may last longer. You may
+return to the spot on the second day and sit for an hour or longer,
+listening, and still hear that same note constantly repeated until you
+are sick and tired of it, or it may even get on your nerves. I remember
+that on one occasion I avoided a certain thicket, one of my favourite
+daily haunts for three whole days, not to hear that one everlasting
+sound; then I returned and to my great relief the birds were all at
+their old game of composing, and not one uttered--perhaps he didn't
+dare--the too hackneyed phrase. I was sharply reminded one day by an
+incident in the village of this old Patagonian experience, and of the
+strange human-like weakness or passion for something new and arresting
+in music or song, something "tuney" or "catchy."
+
+It chanced that when I left London a new popular song had come out and
+was "all the rage," a tune and words invented or first produced in the
+music-halls by a woman named Lottie Collins, with a chorus to
+it--_Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay_, repeated several times. First caught up in
+the music-halls it spread to the streets, and in ever-widening circles
+over all London, and over all the land. In London people were getting
+tired of hearing it, but when I arrived at my village "in a hole," and
+settled down among the Badgers, I heard it on every hand--in cottages,
+in the streets, in the fields, men, women and children were singing,
+whistling, and humming it, and in the evening at the inn roaring it out
+with as much zest as if they had been singing _Rule Britannia._
+
+This state of things lasted from May to the middle of June; then, one
+very hot, still day, about three o'clock, I was sitting at my cottage
+window when I caught the sound of a rumbling cart and a man singing. As
+the noise grew louder my interest in the approaching man and cart was
+excited to an extraordinary degree; never had I heard such a noise! And
+no wonder, since the man was driving a heavy, springless farm cart in
+the most reckless manner, urging his two huge horses to a fast trot,
+then a gallop, up and down hill along those rough gully-like roads, he
+standing up in his cart and roaring out "Auld Lang Syne," at the top of
+a voice of tremendous power. He was probably tipsy, but it was not a bad
+voice, and the old familiar tune and words had an extraordinary effect
+in that still atmosphere. He passed my cottage, standing up, his legs
+wide apart, his cap on the back of his head, a big broad-chested young
+man, lashing his horses, and then for about two minutes or longer the
+thunder of the cart and the roaring song came back fainter, until it
+faded away in the distance. At that still hour of the day the children
+were all at school on the further side of the village; the men away in
+the fields; the women shut up in their cottages, perhaps sleeping. It
+seemed to me that I was the only person in the village who had witnessed
+and heard the passing of the big-voiced man and cart. But it was not so.
+At all events, next day, the whole village, men, women and children,
+were singing, humming and whistling "Auld Lang Syne," and "Auld Lang
+Syne" lasted for several days, and from that day "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"
+was heard no more. It had lost its charm.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Just out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized
+pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now
+overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common,
+lived in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so
+many kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a
+favourite spot with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered
+near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and
+fluttered, as if wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve
+yards before flying away. Not many minutes after seeing the wagtail, a
+reed-bunting--a bird which I had not previously observed on the
+common--flew down and alighted on a bush a few yards from me, holding a
+white crescent-shaped grub in its beak. I stood still to watch it,
+certainly not expecting to see its nest and young; for, as a rule, a
+bird with food in its beak will sit quietly until the watcher loses
+patience and moves away; but on this occasion I had not been standing
+more than ten seconds before the bunting flew down to a small tuft of
+furze and was there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its young.
+I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had seen,
+but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat the
+turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on
+a little further, until at last it rose up and flew to a bush.
+
+After admiring the reed-bunting's action, I turned to the dwarf bush
+near my feet, and saw, perched on a twig in its centre, a solitary young
+bird, fully fledged but not yet capable of sustained flight. He did not
+recognise an enemy in me; on the contrary, when I approached my hand to
+him, he opened his yellow mouth wide, in expectation of being fed,
+although his throat was crammed with caterpillars, and the white
+crescent-shaped larva I had seen in the parent's bill was still lying in
+his mouth unswallowed. The wonder is that when a young bird had been
+stuffed with food to such an extent just before sleeping time, he can
+still find it in him to open his mouth and call for more.
+
+* * *
+
+How wonderful it is that this parental instinct, so beautiful in its
+perfect simulation of the action of the bird that has lost the power of
+flight, should be found in so large a number of species! But when we
+find that it is not universal; that in two closely-allied species one
+will possess it and the other not; and that it is common in such
+widely-separated orders as gallinaceous and passerine birds, in pigeons,
+ducks, and waders, it becomes plain that it is not assignable to
+community of descent, but has originated independently all over the
+globe, in a vast number of species. Something of the beginnings and
+progressive development of this instinct may be learnt, I think, by
+noticing the behaviour of various passerine birds in the presence of
+danger, to their nests and young. Their actions and cries show that they
+are greatly agitated, and in a majority of species the parent bird flits
+and flutters round the intruder, uttering sounds of distress. Frequently
+the bird exhibits its agitation, not only by these cries and restless
+motions, but by the drooping of the wings and tail--the action observed
+in a bird when hurt or sick, or oppressed with heat. These languishing
+signs are common to a great many species after the young have been
+hatched; the period when the parental solicitude is most intense. In
+several species which I have observed in South America, the languishing
+is more marked. There are no sorrowful cries and restless movements; the
+bird sits with hanging wings and tail, gasping for breath with open bill
+--in appearance a greatly suffering bird. In some cases of this
+description, the bird, if it moves at all, hops or flutters from a
+higher to a lower branch, and, as if sick or wounded, seems about to
+sink to the ground. In still others, the bird actually does drop to the
+ground, then, feebly flapping its wings, rises again with great effort.
+From this last form it is but a step to the more highly developed
+complex instinct of the bird that sinks to the earth and flutters
+painfully away, gasping, and seemingly incapable of flight.
+
+It would be a great mistake to suppose that the bird when fluttering on
+the ground to lead an enemy from the neighbourhood of its nest is in
+full possession of all its faculties, acting consciously, and itself in
+as little danger of capture as when on its perch or flying through the
+air. We have seen that the action has its root in the bird's passion for
+its young, and intense solicitude in the presence of any danger
+threatening them, which is so universal in this class of creatures, and
+which expresses itself so variously in different kinds. This must be in
+all cases a painful and debilitating emotion, and when the bird drops
+down to the earth its pain has caused it to fall as surely as if it had
+received a wound or had been suddenly attacked by some grievous malady;
+and when it flutters on the ground it is for the moment incapable of
+flight, and its efforts to recover flight and safety cause it to beat
+its wings, and tremble, and gasp with open mouth. The object of the
+action is to deceive an enemy, or, to speak more correctly, the result
+is to deceive, and there is nothing that will more inflame and carry
+away any rapacious mammal than the sight of a fluttering bird. But in
+thus drawing upon itself the attention of an enemy threatening the
+safety of its eggs or young, to what a terrible danger does the parent
+expose itself, and how often, in those moments of agitation and
+debility, must its own life fall a sacrifice! The sudden spring and rush
+of a feline enemy must have proved fatal in myriads of instances. From
+its inception to its most perfect stage, in the various species that
+possess it, this perilous instinct has been washed in blood and made
+bright.
+
+What I have just said, that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action
+we have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in
+blood, applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of
+life, both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that,
+for one thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in order
+to meet cases which commonly occur in the life of a species. The
+instinct is not prophetic and does not meet rare or extraordinary
+situations. Unless intelligence or some higher faculty comes in to
+supplement or to take the place of instinctive action then the creature
+must perish on account of the limitation of instinct. Again, the higher
+and more complete the instinct the more perilous it is, seeing that its
+efficiency depends on the absolutely perfect health and balance of all
+the faculties and the entire organism. Thus, the higher instinctive
+faculty and action of birds for the preservation of the species, that of
+migration, is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all. It is so perfect
+that by means of this faculty millions and myriads of birds of an
+immense variety of species from cranes, swans, and geese down to minute
+goldcrests and firecrests and the smallest feeble-winged-leaf warblers,
+are able to inhabit and to distribute themselves evenly over all the
+temperate and cold regions of the earth, and even nearer the pole: and
+in all these regions they rear their young and spend several months each
+year, where they would inevitably perish from cold and lack of food if
+they stayed on to meet the winter. We can best realize the perfection of
+this instinct when we consider that all these migrants, including the
+young which have never hitherto strayed beyond the small area of their
+home where every tree and bush and spring and rock is familiar to them,
+rush suddenly away as if blown by a wind to unknown lands and continents
+beyond the seas to a distance of from a thousand to six or seven
+thousand miles; that after long months spent in those distant places,
+which in turn have grown familiar to them, they return again to their
+natal place, not in a direct but ofttimes by a devious route, now north,
+now north-east, now east or west, keeping to the least perilous lines
+and crossing the seas where they are narrowest. Thus, when the returning
+multitude recrosses the Channel into England, coming by way of France
+and Spain from north or south or mid-Africa and from Asia, they at once
+proceed to disperse over the entire country from Land's End to Thurso
+and the northernmost islands of Scotland, until every wood and hill and
+moor and thicket and stream and every village and field and hedgerow and
+farmhouse has its own feathered people back in their old places. But
+they do not return in their old force. They had increased to twice or
+three times their original numbers when they left us, and as a result of
+that great adventure a half or two-thirds of the vast army has perished.
+
+The instinct which in character comes nearest to that of the parent
+simulating the action of a wounded and terrified bird struggling to
+escape in order to safeguard its young, is that one, very strong in all
+ground-breeding species, of sitting close on the nest in the presence of
+danger. Here, too, the instinct is of prime importance to the species,
+since the bird by quitting the nest reveals its existence to the
+prowling, nest-seeking enemy--dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England;
+and in the country where I first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo,
+opossum, snake, wild cat, and animals of the weasel family. By leaving
+its nest a minute or half a minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs
+or young; by staying a moment too long it is in imminent danger of being
+destroyed itself.  How often the bird stays too long on the nest is seen
+in the corn-crake, a species continually decreasing in this country
+owing to the destruction caused by the mowing-machine. The parent birds
+that escape may breed again in a safer place, but in many cases the bird
+clings too long to its nest and is decapitated or fatally injured by the
+cutters.  Larks, too, often perish in the same way. To go back to the
+ailing or wounded bird simulating action: this is perhaps most perfect
+in the gallinaceous birds, all ground-breeders whose nests are most
+diligently hunted for by all egg-eating creatures, beast or bird, and
+whose tender chicks are a favourite food for all rapacious animals. In
+the fowl, pheasants, partridges, quail, and grouse, the instinct is
+singularly powerful, the bird making such violent efforts to escape,
+with such an outcry, such beating of its wings and struggles on the
+ground, that no rapacious beast, however often he may have been deceived
+before, can fail to be carried away with the prospect of an immediate
+capture. The instinct and action has appeared to me more highly
+developed in these birds because, in the first place, the demonstrations
+are more violent than in other families, consequently more effective;
+and secondly, because the danger once over, the bird's recovery to its
+normal quiet, watchful state is quicker. By way of experiment, I have at
+various times thrown myself on pheasants, partridges and grouse, when I
+have found them with a family of recently-hatched chicks; then on giving
+up the chase and turning away from the bird its instantaneous recovery
+has seemed like a miracle. It was like a miracle because the creature
+did actually suffer from all those violent, debilitating emotions
+expressed in its disordered cries and action, and it is the miracle of
+Nature's marvellous health. If we, for example, were thrown into these
+violent extremes of passion, we should not escape the after-effects. Our
+whole system would suffer, a doctor would perhaps have to be called in
+and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the development of toxins
+in the muscles, and give us a bottle of medicine.
+
+I will conclude this digression and dissertation on a bird's instinct by
+relating the action of a hen-pheasant I once witnessed, partly because
+it is the most striking one I have met with of that instantaneous
+recovery of a bird from an extremity of distress and terror, and partly
+for another reason which will appear at the end.
+
+The hen-pheasant was a solitary bird, having strayed away from the
+pheasant copses near the Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away,
+on the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses and sedges on its
+border. I was the bird's only human neighbour, as I was staying in a
+fishing-cottage near the spot where the bird had its nest. Eventually,
+it brought off eight chicks and remained with them at the same spot on the
+edge of the valley, living like a rail among the sedges and tall valley
+herbage. I never went near the bird, but from the cottage caught sight of
+it from time to time, and sometimes watched it with my binocular. There
+was, I thought, a good chance of its being able to rear its young, unless
+the damp proved injurious, as there was no dog or cat at the cottage, and
+there were no carrion crows or sparrow-hawks at that spot. One morning
+about five o'clock on going out I spied a fox-terrier, a poaching dog
+from the neighbouring village, rushing about in an excited state a
+hundred yards or so below the cottage. He had scented the birds, and
+presently up rose the hen from the tall grass with a mighty noise, then
+flopping down she began beating her wings and struggling over the grass,
+uttering the most agonizing screams, the dog after her, frantically
+grabbing at her tail. I feared that he would catch her, and seizing a
+stick flew down to the rescue, yelling at the dog, but he was too excited
+to obey or even hear me. At length, thanks to the devious course taken by
+the bird, I got near enough to get in a good blow on the dog's back. He
+winced and went on as furiously as ever, and then I got in another blow
+so well delivered that the rascal yelled, and turning fled back to the
+village. Hot and panting from my exertions, I stood still, but sooner
+still the pheasant had pulled herself up and stood there, about three
+yards from my feet, as if nothing had happened--as if not a ripple had
+troubled the quiet surface of her life! The serenity of the bird, just
+out of that storm of violence and danger, and her perfect indifference to
+my presence, was astonishing to me. For a minute or two I stood still
+watching her; then turned to walk back to the cottage, and no sooner did
+I start than after me she came at a gentle trot, following me like a dog.
+On my way back I came to the very spot where the fox-terrier had found
+and attacked the bird, and at once on reaching it she came to a stop and
+uttered a call, and instantly from eight different places among the tall
+grasses the eight fluffy little chicks popped up and started running to
+her. And there she stood, gathering them about her with gentle
+chucklings, taking no notice of me, though I was standing still within
+two yards of her!
+
+Up to the moment when the dog got his smart blow and fled from her she
+had been under the domination of a powerful instinct, and could have
+acted in no other way; but what guided her so infallibly in her
+subsequent actions? Certainly not instinct, and not reason, which
+hesitates between different courses and is slow to arrive at a decision.
+One can only say that it was, or was like, intuition, which is as much
+as to say that we don't know.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Among the rarer fringilline birds on the common were the cirl bunting,
+bullfinch and goldfinch, the last two rarely seen. Linnets, however,
+were abundant, now gathered in small flocks composed mainly of young
+birds in plain plumage, with here and there an individual showing the
+carmine-tinted breast of the adult male. Unhappily, a dreary fate was in
+store for many of these blithe twitterers.
+
+On June 24, when walking towards the pool, I spied two recumbent human
+figures on a stretch of level turf near its banks, and near them a
+something dark on the grass--a pair of clap-nets! "Still another serpent
+in my birds' paradise!" said I to myself, and, walking on, I skirted the
+nets and sat down on the grass beside the men. One was a rough
+brown-faced country lad; the other, who held the strings and wore the
+usual cap and comforter, was a man of about five-and-twenty, with pale
+blue eyes and yellowish hair, close-cropped, and the unmistakable London
+mark in his chalky complexion. He regarded me with cold, suspicious
+looks, and, when I talked and questioned, answered briefly and somewhat
+surlily. I treated him to tobacco, and he smoked; but it wasn't shag,
+and didn't soften him. On mentioning casually that I had seen a stoat an
+hour before, he exhibited a sudden interest. It was as if one had said
+"rats!" to a terrier. I succeeded after a while in getting him to tell
+me the name of the man to whom he sent his captives, and when I told him
+that I knew the man well--a bird-seller in a low part of London--he
+thawed visibly. Finally I asked him to look at a red-backed shrike,
+perched on a bush about fifteen yards from his nets, through my
+field-glasses, and from that moment he became as friendly as possible,
+and conversed freely about his mystery. "How near it brings him!" he
+exclaimed, with a grin of delight, after looking at the bird.  The
+shrike had greatly annoyed him; it had been hanging about for some time,
+he told me, dashing at the linnets and driving them off when they flew
+down to the nets. Two or three times he might have caught it, but would
+not draw the nets and have the trouble of resetting them for so
+worthless a bird. "But I'll take him the next time," he said
+vindictively. "I didn't know he was such a handsome bird."
+Unfortunately, the shrike soon flew away, and passing linnets dropped
+down, drawn to the spot by the twitterings of their caged fellows, and
+were caught; and so it went on for a couple of hours, we conversing
+amicably during the waiting intervals. For now he regarded me as a
+friend of the bird-catcher. Linnets only were caught, most of them young
+birds, which pleased him; for the young linnet after a month or two of
+cage life will sing; but the adult males would be silent until the next
+spring, consequently they were not worth so much, although the carmine
+stain in their breast made them for the time so much more beautiful.
+
+I remarked incidentally that there were some who looked with unfriendly
+eyes on his occupation, and that, sooner or later, these people would
+try to get an Act of Parliament to make bird-catching in lanes, on
+commons and waste lands illegal. "They can't do it!" he exclaimed
+excitedly. "And if they can do it, and if they do do it, it will be the
+ruination of England. For what would there be, then, to stop the birds
+increasing? It stands to reason that the whole country would be eaten
+up."
+
+Doubtless the man really believed that but for the laborious days that
+bird-catchers spend lying on the grass, the human race would be very
+badly off.
+
+Just after he had finished his protest, three or four linnets flew down
+and were caught. Taking them from the nets, he showed them to me,
+remarking, with a short laugh, that they were all young males. Then he
+thrust them down the stocking-leg which served as an entrance to the
+covered box he kept his birds in--the black hole in which their captive
+life begins, where they were now all vainly fluttering to get out. Going
+back to the previous subject, he said that he knew very well that many
+persons disliked a bird-catcher, but there was one thing that nobody
+could say against him--he wasn't cruel; he caught, but didn't kill. He
+only killed when he caught a great number of female linnets, which were
+not worth sending up; he pulled their heads off, and took them home to
+make a linnet pie. Then, by way of contrast to his own merciful temper,
+he told me of the young nest-destroyer I have writ-ten about. It made
+him mad to see such things! Something ought to be done, he said, to stop
+a boy like that; for by destroying so many nestlings he was taking the
+bread out of the bird-catcher's mouth. Passing to other subjects, he
+said that so far he had caught nothing but linnets on the common--you
+couldn't expect to catch other kinds in June. Later on, in August and
+September, there would be a variety. But he had small hopes of catching
+goldfinches, they were too scarce now. Greenfinches, yellow-hammers,
+common buntings, reed sparrows--all such birds were worth only tuppence
+apiece. Oh, yes, he caught them just the same, and sent them up to
+London, but that was all they were worth to him. For young male linnets
+he got eightpence, sometimes tenpence; for hen birds fourpence, or less.
+I dare say that eightpence was what he hoped to get, seeing that young
+male linnets are not unfrequently sold by London dealers for sixpence
+and even fourpence.  Goldfinches ran to eighteenpence, sometimes as much
+as two shillings.  Starlings he had made a lot out of, but that was all
+past and over. Why?
+
+Because they were not wanted--because people were such fools that they
+now preferred to shoot at pigeons. He hated pigeons! Gentlemen used to
+shoot starlings at matches; and if you had the making of a bird to shoot
+at, you couldn't get a better than the starling--such a neat bird! He
+had caught hundreds--thousands--and had sold them well. But now nothing
+but pigeons would they have. Pigeons! Always pigeons! He caught
+starlings still, but what was the good of that? The dealers would only
+take a few, and they were worth nothing--no more than greenfinches and
+yellow-hammers.
+
+My colloquy with my enemy on the common tempts me to a fresh digression
+in this place--to have my say on a question about which much has already
+been said during the last three or four decades, especially during the
+'sixties, when the first practical efforts to save our wild-bird life
+from destruction were made.
+
+There is a feeling in the great mass of people that the pursuit of any
+wild animal, whether fit for food or not, for pleasure or gain, is a
+form of sport, and that sport ought not to be interfered with. So strong
+and well-nigh universal is this feeling, which is like a superstition,
+that the pursuit is not interfered with, however unsportsmanlike it may
+be, and when illegal, and when practised by only a very few persons in
+any district, where to others it may be secretly distasteful or even
+prejudicial.
+
+Even bird-catching on a common is regarded as a form of sport and the
+bird-catcher as a sportsman--and a brother.
+
+A striking instance of this tameness and stupidly acquiescent spirit in
+people generally was witnessed during the intensely severe frosts of the
+early part of the late winter (1882-3), when incalculable numbers of
+sea-birds were driven by hunger and cold into bays and inland waters. At
+this time thousands of gulls made their appearance in the Thames, but no
+sooner did they arrive than those who possessed guns and licences to
+shoot began to shoot them. The police interfered and some of these
+sportsmen were brought before the magistrates and fined for the offence
+of discharging guns to the public danger. For upwards of a fortnight
+after the shooting had been put a stop to, the gulls continued to
+frequent the river in large numbers, and were perhaps most numerous from
+London Bridge to Battersea, and during this time they were watched every
+day by thousands of Londoners with keen interest and pleasure. The river
+here, flowing through the very centre and heart of the greatest city of
+the world, forms at all hours and at all seasons of the year a noble and
+magnificent sight; to my eyes it never looked more beautiful and
+wonderful than during those intensely cold days of January, when there
+was nothing that one could call a mist in a chilly, motionless
+atmosphere, but only a faint haze, a pallor as of impalpable frost,
+which made the heavens seem more white than blue, and gave a hoariness
+and cloud-like remoteness to the arches spanning the water, and the vast
+buildings on either side, ending with the sublime dome of the city
+cathedral; and when out of the pale motionless haze, singly, in twos and
+threes, in dozens and scores, floated the mysterious white bird-figures,
+first seen like vague shadows in the sky, then quickly taking shape and
+whiteness, and floating serenely past, to be succeeded by others and yet
+others.
+
+It was not merely the ornithologist in me that made the sight so
+fascinating, since it was found that others--all others, it might almost
+be said,--experienced the same kind of delight.  Crowds of people came
+down to the river to watch the birds; workmen when released from their
+work at mid-day hurried down to the embankment so as to enjoy seeing the
+gulls while eating their dinners, and, strangest thing of all, to feed
+them with the fragments!
+
+And yet these very men who found so great a pleasure in observing and
+feeding their white visitors from the sea, and were exhilarated with the
+novel experiences of seeing wild nature face to face at their own
+doors--these thousands would have stood by silent and consenting if the
+half-a-dozen scoundrels with guns and fish-hooks on lines had been
+allowed to have their will and had slaughtered and driven the birds from
+the river! And this, in fact, is precisely what happened at a distance
+from London, where guns could be discharged without danger to the
+public, in numberless bays and rivers in which the birds sought refuge.
+They were simply slaughtered wholesale in the most wanton manner; in
+Morecambe Bay a hundred and twelve gulls were killed at one discharge,
+and no hand and no voice was raised to interfere with the hideous sport.
+Not because it was not shocking to the spectators, but because it was
+"Sport."
+
+Doubtless it will be said that this wholesale wanton destruction of bird
+life, however painful it may be to lovers of nature, however
+reprehensible from a moral point of view, is sanctioned by law, and
+cannot therefore be prevented. This is not quite so. We see that the
+Wild Birds Protection Act is continually being broken with impunity, and
+where public opinion is unfavourable to it the guardians of the law
+themselves, the police and the magistrates, are found encouraging the
+people to break the law. Again, we find that where commons are enclosed,
+and the law says nothing, the people are accustomed to assemble together
+unlawfully to tear the fences down, and are not punished. For, after
+all, if laws do not express or square with public will or opinion, they
+have little force; and if, in any locality, the people thought proper to
+do so--if they were not restrained by that dull, tame spirit I have
+spoken of--they would, lawfully or unlawfully, protect their sea-fowl
+from the cockney sportsmen, and sweep the bird-catchers out of their
+lanes and waste lands.
+
+One day I paid a visit to Maidenhead, a pleasant town on the Thames,
+where the Thames is most beautiful, set in the midst of a rich and
+diversified country which should be a bird's paradise. In my walks in
+the town, I saw a great many stuffed kingfishers, and, in the shops of
+the local taxidermists, some rare and beautiful birds, with others that
+are fast becoming rare. But outside of the town I saw no kingfishers and
+no rare species at all, and comparatively few birds of any kind. It
+might have been a town of Philistine cockneys who at no very distant
+period had emigrated thither from the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.
+I came home with the local guide-book in my pocket. It is now before me,
+and this is what its writer says of the Thicket, the extensive and
+beautiful common two miles from the town, which belongs to Maidenhead,
+or, in other words, to its inhabitants: "The Thicket was formerly much
+infested by robbers and highwaymen. The only remains of them to be found
+now are the snarers of the little feathered songsters, who imprison them
+in tiny cages and carry them off in large numbers to brighten by their
+sweet, sad sighs for liberty the dwellers in our smoky cities."
+
+On this point I consulted a bird-catcher, who had spread his nets on the
+common for many years, and he complained bitterly of the increasing
+scarcity of its bird life. There was no better place than the Thicket
+formerly, he said; but now he could hardly make his bread there. I
+presume that a dozen men of his trade would be well able to drain the
+country in the neighbourhood of the Thicket of the greater portion of
+its bird life each year so as to keep the songsters scarce. Will any
+person maintain for a moment that the eight or nine thousand inhabitants
+of Maidenhead, and the hundreds or thousands inhabiting the surrounding
+country could not protect their songbirds from these few men, most of
+them out of London slums, if they wished or had the spirit to do so?
+
+It is true that the local authorities in some country towns have made
+by-laws to protect the birds in their open spaces. Thus, at Tunbridge
+Wells, since 1890, bird-trapping and bird's-nesting have been prohibited
+on the large and beautiful common there; but, so far as I know, such
+measures have only been taken in boroughs after the birds have been
+almost exterminated.
+
+Doubtless the day will come when, law or no law, the bird-catcher will
+find it necessary to go warily, lest the people of any place where he
+may be tempted to spread his nets should have formed the custom of
+treating those of his calling somewhat roughly. That it will come soon
+is earnestly to be wished. Nevertheless, it would be irrational to
+cherish feelings of animosity and hatred against the bird-catcher
+himself, the "man and brother," ready and anxious as we may be to take
+the bread out of his mouth. He certainly does not regard himself as an
+injurious or disreputable person; on the contrary he looks on himself as
+a useful member of the community, and in some cases even more. If anyone
+is to be hated or blamed, it is the person who sends the bird-catcher
+into the fields; not the dealer, but he who buys trapped birds and keeps
+them in cages to be amused by their twitterings. This is not a question
+of morality, nor of sentimentality, as some may imagine; but rather of
+taste, of the sense of fitness, of that something vaguely described as
+the feeling for nature, which is not universal. Thus, one man will dine
+with zest on a pheasant, partridge, or quail, but would be choked by a
+lark; while another man will eat pheasant and lark with equal pleasure.
+Both may be good, honest, moral men; only one has that something which
+the other lacks. In one the soul responds to the skylark's music
+"singing at heaven's gate," in the other not; to one the roasted lark is
+merely a savoury morsel; the other, be he never so hungry, cannot
+dissociate the bird on the dish from that heavenly melody which
+registered a sensation in his brain, to be thereafter reproduced at
+will, together with the revived emotion. It is a curious question, and
+is no nearer to a settlement when one of these two I have described
+turns round and calls his neighbour a gross feeder, a worshipper of his
+belly, a soulless and brutish man; and when the other answers
+"pooh-pooh" and goes on complacently devouring larks with great gusto,
+until he is himself devoured of death.
+
+To those with whom I am in sympathy in this matter, who love to listen
+to and are yearly invigorated by the skylark's music, and whose souls
+are yearly sickened at the slaughter of their loved songsters, I would
+humbly suggest that there is a simpler, more practical means of ending
+this dispute, which has surely lasted long enough. It goes without
+saying that this bird's music is eminently pleasing to most persons,
+that even as the sunshine is sweet and pleasant to behold, its silvery
+aerial sounds rained down so abundantly from heaven are delightful and
+exhilarating to all of us, or at all events, to so large a majority that
+the minority are not entitled to consideration. One person in five
+thousand, or perhaps in ten thousand, might be found to say that the
+lark singing in blue heaven affords him no pleasure. This being so, and
+ours being a democratic country in which the will or desire of the many
+is or may be made the law of the land, it is surely only right and
+reasonable that lovers of lark's flesh should be prevented from
+gratifying their taste at the cost of the destruction of so loved a
+bird, that they should be made to content themselves with woodcock, and
+snipe on toast, and golden plover, and grouse and blackcock, and any
+other bird of delicate flavor which does not, living, appeal so strongly
+to the aesthetic feelings in us and is not so universal a favourite.
+
+This, too, will doubtless come in time. Speaking for myself, and going
+back to the former subject, little as I like to see men feeding on
+larks, rather would I see larks killed and eaten than thrust into cages.
+For in captivity they do not "sweeten" my life, as the Maidenhead
+guidebook writer would say, with their shrill, piercing cries for
+liberty, but they "sing me mad." Just as in some minds this bird's
+music--a sound which above all others typifies the exuberant life and
+joy of nature to the soul--cannot be separated from the cooked and
+dished-up melodist, so that they turn with horror from such meat, so I
+cannot separate this bird, nor any bird, from the bird's wild life of
+liberty, and the marvellous faculty of flight which is the bird's
+attribute. To see so wild and aerial a creature in a cage jars my whole
+system, and is a sight hateful and unnatural, an outrage on our
+universal mother.
+
+This feeling about birds in captivity, which I have attempted to
+describe, and which, I repeat, is not sentimentality, as that word is
+ordinarily understood, has been so vividly rendered in an ode to "The
+Skylarks" by Sir Rennell Rodd, that the reader will probably feel
+grateful to me for quoting a portion of it in this place, especially as
+the volume in which it appears--_Feda, with Other Poems_--is, I imagine,
+not very widely known:
+
+    "Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky,
+    For the home of a song-bird's heart!
+    And why, and why, and for ever why,
+    Do they stifle here in the mart:
+    Cages of agony, rows on rows,
+    Torture that only a wild thing knows:
+    Is it nothing to you to see
+    That head thrust out through the hopeless wire,
+    And the tiny life, and the mad desire
+    To be free, to be free, to be free?
+    Oh, the sky, the sky, the blue, wide sky,
+    For the beat of a song-bird's wings!
+
+    * * *
+
+    Straight and close are the cramping bars
+    From the dawn of mist to the chill of stars,
+    And yet it must sing or die!
+    Will its marred harsh voice in the city street
+    Make any heart of you glad?
+    It will only beat with its wings and beat,
+    It will only sing you mad.
+
+    * * *
+
+    If it does not go to your heart to see
+    The helpless pity of those bruised wings,
+    The tireless effort to which it clings
+    To the strain and the will to be free,
+    I know not how I shall set in words
+    The meaning of God in this,
+    For the loveliest thing in this world of His
+    Are the ways and the songs of birds.
+    But the sky, the sky, the wide, free sky,
+    For the home of the song-bird's heart!"
+
+
+How falsely does that man see Nature, how grossly ignorant must he be of
+its most elemental truths, who looks upon it as a chamber of torture, a
+physiological laboratory on a very vast scale, a scene of endless strife
+and trepidation, of hunger and cold, and every form of pain and
+misery--and who, holding this doctrine of
+
+  "Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky is the home of a song-bird's heart,"
+
+Nature's cruelty, keeps a few captive birds in cages, and is accustomed
+to say of them, "These, at any rate, are safe, rescued from subjection
+to ruthless conditions, sheltered from the inclement weather and from
+enemies, and all their small wants abundantly satisfied;" who once or
+twice every day looks at his little captives, presents them with a lump
+of sugar, whistles and chuckles to provoke them to sing, then goes about
+his business, flattering himself that he is a lover of birds, a being of
+a sweet and kindly nature. It is all a delusion--a distortion and
+inversion of the truth--so absurd that it would be laughable were it
+not so sad, and the cause of so much unconscious cruelty. The truth is,
+that if birds be capable of misery, it is only in the unnatural
+conditions of a caged life that they experience it; and that if they are
+capable of happiness in a cage, such happiness or contentment is but a
+poor, pale emotion compared with the wild exuberant gladness they have
+in freedom, where all their instincts have full play, and where the
+perils that surround them do but brighten their many splendid faculties.
+The little bird twitters and sings in its cage, and among ourselves the
+blind man and the cripple whistle and sing, too, feeling at times a
+lower kind of contentment and cheerfulness. The chaffinch in East
+London, with its eyeballs seared by red-hot needles, sings, too, in its
+prison, when it has grown accustomed to its darkened existence, and is
+in health, and the agreeable sensations that accompany health prompt it
+at intervals to melody, but no person, not even the dullest ruffian
+among the baser sort of bird-fanciers would maintain for a moment that
+the happiness of the little sightless captive, whether vocal or silent,
+is at all comparable in degree to that of the chaffinch singing in April
+"on the orchard bough," vividly seeing the wide sunlit world, blue above
+and green below, possessing the will and the power, when its lyric ends,
+to transport itself swiftly through the crystal fields of air to other
+trees and other woods.
+
+I take it that in the lower animals misery can result from two causes
+only--restraint and disease; consequently, that animals in a state of
+nature are not miserable. They are not hindered nor held back. Whether
+the animal is migrating, or burying himself in his hibernating nest or
+den; or flying from some rapacious enemy, which he may, or may not, be
+able to escape; or feeding, or sleeping, or fighting, or courting, or
+incubating, however many days or weeks this process may last--in all
+things he is obeying the impulse that is strongest in him at the
+time--he is doing what he wants to do--the one thing that makes him
+happy.
+
+As to disease, it is so rare in wild animals, or in a large majority of
+cases so quickly proves fatal, that, compared with what we call disease
+in our own species it is practically non-existent. The "struggle for
+existence," in so far as animals in a state of nature are concerned, is
+a metaphorical struggle; and the strife, short and sharp, which is so
+common in nature, is not misery, although it results in pain, since it
+is pain that kills or is soon outlived. Fear there is, just as in fine
+weather there are clouds in the sky; and just as the shadow of the cloud
+passes, so does fear pass from the wild creature when the object that
+excited it has vanished from sight. And when death comes, it comes
+unexpectedly, and is not the death that we know, even before we taste of
+it, thinking of it with apprehension all our lives long, but a sudden
+blow that takes away consciousness--the touch of something that numbs
+the nerves--merely the prick of a needle.  In whatever way the animal
+perishes, whether by violence, or excessive cold, or decay, his death is
+a comparatively easy one. So long as he is fighting with or struggling
+to escape from an enemy, wounds are not felt as wounds, and scarcely
+hurt him--as we know from our own experience; and when overcome, if
+death be not practically instantaneous, as in the case of a small bird
+seized by a cat, the disabling grip or blow is itself a kind of anodyne,
+producing insensibility to pain. This, too, is a matter of human
+experience. To say nothing of those who fall in battle, men have often
+been struck down and fearfully lacerated by lions, tigers, jaguars, and
+other savage beasts; and after having been rescued by their companions,
+have recounted this strange thing. Even when there was no loss of
+consciousness, when they saw and knew that the animal was rending their
+flesh, they seemed not to feel it, and were, at the time, indifferent to
+the fate that had overtaken them.
+
+It is the same in death from cold. The strong, well-nourished man,
+overtaken by a snowstorm on some pathless, uninhabited waste, may
+experience some exceedingly bitter moments, or even hours, before he
+gives up the struggle. The physical pain is simply nothing: the whole
+bitterness is in the thought that he must die. The horror at the thought
+of annihilation, the remembrance of all the happiness he is now about to
+lose, of dear friends, of those whose lives will be dimmed with grief
+for his loss, of all his cherished dreams of the future--the sting of
+all this is so sharp that, compared with it, the creeping coldness in
+his blood is nothing more than a slight discomfort, and is scarcely
+felt. By and by he is overcome by drowsiness, and ceases to struggle;
+the torturing visions fade from his mind, and his only thought is to lie
+down and sleep. And when he sleeps he passes away; very easily, very
+painlessly, for the pain was of the mind, and was over long before death
+ensued.
+
+The bird, however hard the frost may be, flies briskly to its customary
+roosting-place, and with beak tucked into its wing, falls asleep. It has
+no apprehensions; only the hot blood grows colder and colder, the pulse
+feebler as it sleeps, and at midnight, or in the early morning, it drops
+from its perch--dead.
+
+Yesterday he lived and moved, responsible to a thousand external
+influences, reflecting earth and sky in his small brilliant brain as in
+a looking-glass; also he had a various language, the inherited knowledge
+of his race, and the faculty of flight, by means of which he could
+shoot, meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from place to
+place, and with it such perfect control over all his organs, such
+marvellous certitude in all his motions, as to be able to drop himself
+plumb down from the tallest tree-top or out of the void air, on to a
+slender spray, and scarcely cause its leaves to tremble. Now, on this
+morning, he lies stiff and motionless; if you were to take him up and
+drop him from your hand, he would fall to the ground like a stone or a
+lump of clay--so easy and swift is the passage from life to death in
+wild nature! But he was never miserable.
+
+Those of my readers who have seen much of animals in a state of nature,
+will agree that death from decay, or old age, is very rare among them.
+In that state the fullest vigour, with brightness of all the faculties,
+is so important that probably in ninety-nine cases in a hundred any
+falling-off in strength, or decay of any sense, results in some fatal
+accident. Death by misadventure, as we call it, is Nature's ordinance,
+the end designed for a very large majority of her children.
+Nevertheless, animals do sometimes live on without accident to the very
+end of their term, to fade peacefully away at the last. I have myself
+witnessed such cases in mammals and birds; and one such case, which
+profoundly impressed me, and is vividly remembered, I will describe.
+
+One morning in the late summer, while walking in the fields at my home
+in South America, I noticed a few purple martins, large, beautiful
+swallows common in that region, engaged, at a considerable height, in
+the aerial exercises in which they pass so much of their time each day.
+By and by, one of the birds separated itself from the others, and,
+circling slowly downward, finally alighted on the ground not far from
+me. I walked on: but the action of the bird had struck me as unusual and
+strange, and before going far, I turned and walked back to the spot
+where it continued sitting on the ground, quite motionless. It made no
+movement when I approached to within four yards of it; and after I had
+stood still at that distance for a minute or so, attentively regarding
+it, I saw it put out one wing and turn over on its side. I at once took
+it up in my hand, and found that it was already quite dead. It was a
+large example of its species, and its size, together with a something of
+dimness in the glossy purple colour of the upper plumage, seemed to show
+that it was an old bird. But it was uninjured, and when I dissected it
+no trace of disease was discernible. I concluded that it was an old bird
+that had died solely from natural failure of the life-energy.
+
+But how wonderful, how almost incredible, that the healthy vigour and
+joy of life should have continued in this individual bird down to within
+so short a period of the end; that it should have been not only strong
+enough to find its food, but to rush and wheel about for long intervals
+in purely sportive exercises, when the brief twilight of decline and
+final extinction were so near! It becomes credible--we can even believe
+that most of the individuals that cease to exist only when the vital
+fire has burnt itself out, fall on death in this swift, easy
+manner--when we recall the fact that even in the life-history of men
+such a thing is not unknown. Probably there is not one among my readers
+who will not be able to recall some such incident in his own circle--the
+case of someone who lived, perhaps, long past the term usually allotted
+to man, and who finally passed away without a struggle, without a pang,
+so that those who were with him found it hard to believe that the spirit
+had indeed gone. In such cases, the subject has invariably been healthy,
+although it is hard to believe that, in the conditions we exist in, any
+man can have the perfect health that all wild creatures enjoy.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+After my long talk with the bird-catcher on June 24, and two more talks
+equally long on the two following days, I found that something of the
+charm the common had had for me was gone. It was not quite the same as
+formerly; even the sunshine had a something of conscious sadness in it
+which was like a shadow. Those merry little brown twitterers that
+frequently shot across the sky, looking small as insects in the wide
+blue expanse, and ever and anon dropped swiftly down like showers of
+aerolites, to lose themselves in the grass and herbage, or perch singing
+on the topmost dead twigs of a bush, now existed in constant imminent
+danger--not of that quick merciful destruction which Nature has for her
+weaklings, and for all that fail to reach her high standard; but of a
+worse fate, the prison life which is not Nature's ordinance, but one of
+the cunning larger Ape's abhorred inventions. Instead of taking my usual
+long strolls about the common I loitered once more in the village lanes
+and had my reward.
+
+On the morning of June 27 I was out sauntering very indolently, thinking
+of nothing at all; for it was a surpassingly brilliant day, and the
+sunshine produced the effect of a warm, lucent, buoyant fluid, in which
+I seemed to float rather than walk--a celestial water, which, like the
+more ponderable and common sort, may sometimes be both felt and seen.
+The sensation of feeling it is somewhat similar to that experienced by a
+bather standing breast-deep in a dear, green, warm tropical sea, so
+charged with salt that it lifts him up; but to distinguish it with the
+eye, you must look away to a distance of some yards in an open unshaded
+place, when it will become visible as fine glinting lines, quivering and
+serpentining upwards, fountain-wise, from the surface. All at once I was
+startled by hearing the loud importunate hunger-call of a young cuckoo
+quite close to me. Moving softly up to the low hedge and peering over, I
+saw the bird perched on a long cross-stick, which had been put up in a
+cottage garden to hang clothes on; he was not more than three to four
+yards from me, a fine young cuckoo in perfect plumage, his barred
+under-surface facing me. Although seeing me as plainly as I saw him, he
+exhibited no fear, and did not stir. Why should he, since I had not come
+there to feed him, and, to his inexperienced avian mind, was only one of
+the huge terrestrial creatures of various forms, with horns and manes on
+their heads, that move heavily about in roads and pastures, and are
+nothing to birds? But his foster parent, a hedge-sparrow, was
+suspicious, and kept at some distance with food in her bill; then
+excited by his imperative note, she flitted shyly to him, and deposited
+a minute caterpillar in his great gaping yellow mouth. It was like
+dropping a bun into the monstrous mouth of the hippopotamus of the
+Zoological Gardens. But the hedge-sparrow was off and back again with a
+second morsel in a very few moments; and again and again she darted away
+in quest of food and returned successful, while the lazy, beautiful
+giant sat sunning himself on his cross-stick and hungrily cried for
+more.
+
+This is one of those exceptional sights in nature which, however often
+seen, never become altogether familiar, never fail to re-excite the old
+feelings of wonder and admiration which were experienced on first
+witnessing them. I can safely say, I think, that no man has observed so
+many parasitical young birds (individuals) being fed by their
+foster-parents as myself, yet the interest such a sight inspired in me
+is just as fresh now as in boyhood.  And probably in no parasitical
+species does the strangeness of the spectacle strike the mind so sharply
+as in this British bird, since the differences in size and colouring
+between the foster-parent and its false offspring are so much greater in
+its case. Here nature's unnaturalness in such an instinct--a close union
+of the beautiful and the monstrous--is seen in its extreme form. The
+hawk-like figure and markings of the cuckoo serve only to accentuate the
+disparity, which is perhaps greatest when the parent is the
+hedge-sparrow--so plainly-coloured a bird, so shy and secretive in its
+habits. One never ceases to be amazed at the blindness of the parental
+instinct in so intelligent a creature as a bird in a case of this kind.
+Some idea of how blind it is may be formed by imagining a case in widely
+separated types of our own species, which would be a parallel to that of
+the cuckoo and hedge-sparrow. Let us imagine that some malicious Arabian
+Night's genius had snatched up the infant male child of a Scandinavian
+couple--the largest of their nation; and flying away to Africa with it,
+to the heart of the great Aruwhimi forest had laid it on the breast of a
+little coffee-coloured, woolly-headed, spindle-shanked, pot-bellied,
+pigmy mother, taking away at the same time her own newly-born babe; that
+she had tenderly nursed the substituted child, and reared and protected
+it, ministering, according to her lights, to all its huge wants, until
+he had come to the fullness of his stature, yet never suspected, that
+the magnificent, ivory-limbed giant, with flowing yellow locks and
+cerulean eyes, was not the child of her own womb.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Bright and genial were all the last days of June, when I loitered in the
+lanes before the unwished day of my return to London. During this quiet,
+pleasant time the greenfinch was perhaps more to me than any other
+songster. In the village itself, with the adjacent lanes and orchards,
+this pretty, seldom-silent bird was the most common species. The village
+was his metropolis, just as London is ours--and the sparrow's; its lanes
+were his streets, its hedges and elm trees his cottage rows and tall
+stately mansions and public buildings. . We frequently find the
+predominance of one species somewhat wearisome. Speaking for myself,
+there are songsters that are best appreciated when they are limited in
+numbers and keep their distance, but of the familiar, unambitious
+strains of swallow, robin, and wren I never tire, nor, during these
+days, could I have too much of the greenfinch, low as he ranks among
+British melodists. Tastes differ; that is a point on which we are all
+agreed, and every one of us, even the humblest, is permitted to have his
+own preferences. Still, after re-reading Wordsworth's lines to "The
+Green Linnet," it is curious, to say the least of it, to turn to some
+prosewriter--an authority on birds, perhaps--to find that this species,
+whose music so charmed the poet, has for its song a monotonous croak,
+which it repeats at short intervals for hours without the slightest
+variation--a dismal sound which harmonizes with no other sound in
+nature, and suggests nothing but heat and weariness, and is of all
+natural sounds the most irritating. To this writer, then--and there are
+others to keep him in countenance--the greenfinch as a vocalist ranks
+lower than the lowest. One can only wonder (and smile) at such extreme
+divergences. To my mind all natural sounds have, in some measure an
+exhilarating effect, and I cannot get rid of the notion that so it
+should be with every one of us; and when some particular sound, or
+series of sounds, that has more than this common character, and is
+distinctly pleasing, is spoken of as nothing but disagreeable,
+irritating, and the rest of it, I am inclined to think that there is
+something wrong with the person who thus describes it; that he is not
+exactly as nature would have had him, but that either during his
+independent life, or before it at some period of his prenatal existence,
+something must have happened to distune him. All this, I freely confess,
+may be nothing but fancy. In any case, the subject need not keep us
+longer from the greenfinch--that is to say, _my_ greenfinch not another
+man's.
+
+From morning until evening all around and about the cottage, and out of
+doors whithersoever I bent my steps, from the masses of deep green
+foliage, sounded the perpetual airy prattle of these delightful birds.
+One had the idea that the concealed vocalists were continually meeting
+each other at little social gatherings, where they exchanged pretty
+loving greetings, and indulged in a leafy gossip, interspersed with
+occasional fragments of music, vocal and instrumental; now a long
+trill--a trilling, a tinkling, a sweeping of one minute finger-tip over
+metal strings as fine as gossamer threads--describe it how you will, you
+cannot describe it; then the long, low, inflected scream, like a lark's
+throat-note drawn out and inflected; little chirps and chirruping
+exclamations and remarks, and a soft warbled note three or four or more
+times repeated, and sometimes, the singer fluttering up out of the
+foliage and hovering in the air, displaying his green and yellow plumage
+while emitting these lovely notes; and again the trill, trill answering
+trill in different keys; and again the music scream, as if some
+unsubstantial being, fairy or woodnymph had screamed somewhere in her
+green hiding-place. In London one frequently hears, especially in the
+spring, half-a-dozen sparrows just met together in a garden tree, or
+among the ivy or creeper on a wall, burst out suddenly into a confused
+rapturous chorus of chirruping sounds, mingled with others of a finer
+quality, liquid and ringing. At such times one is vexed to think that
+there are writers on birds who invariably speak of the sparrow as a
+tuneless creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing more. It strikes one
+that such writers either wilfully abuse or are ignorant of the right
+meaning of words, so wild and glad in character are these concerts of
+town sparrows, and so refreshing to the tired and noise-vexed brain! But
+now when I listened to the greenfinches in the village elms and
+hedgerows, if by chance a few sparrows burst out in loud gratulatory
+notes, the sounds they emitted appeared coarse, and I wished the
+chirrupers away. But with the true and brilliant songsters it seemed to
+me that the rippling greenfinch music was always in harmony, forming as
+it were a kind of airy, subdued accompaniment to their loud and ringing
+tones.
+
+I had had my nightingale days, my cuckoo and blackbird and tree-pipit
+days, with others too numerous to mention, and now I was having my
+greenfinch days; and these were the last.
+
+One morning in July I was in my sitting-room, when in the hedge on the
+other side of the lane, just opposite my window, a small brown bird
+warbled a few rich notes, the prelude to his song. I went and stood by
+the open window, intently listening, when it sang again, but only a
+phrase or two. But I listened still, confidently expecting more; for
+although it was now long past its singing season, that splendid sunshine
+would compel it to express its gladness. Then, just when a fresh burst
+of music came, it was disturbed by another sound close by--a human
+voice, also singing. On the other side of the hedge in which the bird
+sat concealed was a cottage garden, and there on a swing fastened to a
+pair of apple trees, a girl about eleven years old sat lazily swinging
+herself. Once or twice after she began singing the nightingale broke out
+again, and then at last he became silent altogether, his voice
+overpowered by hers.  Girl and bird were not five yards apart. It
+greatly surprised me to hear her singing, for it was eleven o'clock,
+when all the village children were away at the National School, a time
+of day when, so far as human sounds were concerned, there reigned an
+almost unbroken silence. But very soon I recalled the fact that this was
+a very lazy child, and concluded that she had coaxed her mother into
+sending an excuse for keeping her at home, and so had kept her liberty
+on this beautiful morning. About two minutes' walk from the cottage, at
+the side of the crooked road running through the village, there was a
+group of ancient pollarded elm trees with huge, hollow trunks, and
+behind them an open space, a pleasant green slope, where some of the
+village children used to go every day to play on the grass. Here I used
+to see this girl lying in the sun, her dark chestnut hair loosed and
+scattered on the sward, her arms stretched out, her eyes nearly closed,
+basking in the sun, as happy as some heat-loving wild animal. No, it was
+not strange that she had not gone to school with the others when her
+disposition was remembered, but most strange to hear a voice of such
+quality in a spot where nature was rich and lovely, and only man was, if
+not vile, at all events singularly wanting in the finer human qualities.
+
+Looking out from the open window across the low hedge-top, I could see
+her as she alternately rose and fell with slow, indolent motion, now
+waist-high above the green dividing wall, then only her brown head
+visible resting against the rope just where her hand had grasped it. And
+as she swayed herself to and fro she sang that simple melody--probably
+some child's hymn which she had been taught at the Sunday-school; but it
+was a very long hymn, or else she repeated the same few stanzas many
+times, and after each there was a brief pause, and then the voice that
+seemed to fall and rise with the motion went on as before. I could have
+stood there for an hour--nay, for hours--listening to it, so fresh and
+so pure was the clear young voice, which had no earthly trouble in it,
+and no passion, and was in this like the melody of the birds of which I
+had lately heard so much; and with it all that tenderness and depth
+which is not theirs, but is human only and of the soul.
+
+It struck me as a singular coincidence--and to a mind of so primitive a
+type as the writer's there is more in the fact that the word
+implies--that, just as I had quitted London, to seek for just such a
+spot as I so speedily found, with the passionately exclaimed words of a
+young London girl ringing in my ears, so now I went back with this
+village girl's melody sounding and following me no less clearly and
+insistently. For it was not merely remembered, as we remember most
+things, but vividly and often reproduced, together with the various
+melodies of the birds I had listened to; a greater and principal voice
+in that choir, yet in no wise lessening their first value, nor ever out
+of harmony with them.
+
+
+
+
+EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
+
+
+There are countries with a less fertile soil and a worse climate than
+ours, yet richer in bird life. Nevertheless, England is not poor; the
+species are not few in number, and some are extremely abundant.
+Unfortunately many of the finer kinds have been too much sought after;
+persecuted first for their beauty, then for their rarity, until now we
+are threatened with their total destruction. As these kinds become
+unobtainable, those which stand next in the order of beauty and rarity
+are persecuted in their turn; and in a country as densely populated as
+ours, where birds cannot hide themselves from human eyes, such
+persecution must eventually cause their extinction. Meanwhile the bird
+population does not decrease. Every place in nature, like every property in
+Chancery, has more than one claimant to it--sometimes the claimants are
+many--and so long as the dispute lasts all live out of the estate. For
+there are always two or more species subsisting on the same kind of
+food, possessing similar habits, and frequenting the same localities. It
+is consequently impossible for man to exterminate any one species
+without indirectly benefiting some other species, which attracts him in
+a less degree, or not at all. This is unfortunate, for as the bright
+kinds, or those we esteem most, diminish in numbers the less interesting
+kinds multiply, and we lose much of the pleasure which bird life is
+fitted to give us. When we visit woods, or other places to which birds
+chiefly resort, in districts uninhabited by man, or where he pays little
+or no attention to the feathered creatures, the variety of the bird life
+encountered affords a new and peculiar delight. There is a constant
+succession of new forms and new voices; in a single day as many species
+may be met with as one would find in England by searching diligently for
+a whole year.
+
+And yet this may happen in a district possessing no more species than
+England boasts; and the actual number of individuals may be even less
+than with us. In sparrows, for instance, of the one common species, we
+are exceedingly rich; but in bird life generally, in variety of birds,
+especially in those of graceful forms and beautiful plumage, we have
+been growing poorer for the last fifty years, and have now come to so
+low a state that it becomes us to inquire whether it is not in our power
+to better ourselves. It is an old familiar truth--a truism--that it is
+easier to destroy than to restore or build up; nevertheless, some
+comfort is to be got from the reflection that in this matter we have up
+till now been working against Nature. She loves not to bring forth food
+where there are none to thrive on it; and when our unconsidered action
+had made these gaps, when, despising her gifts or abusing them, we had
+destroyed or driven out her finer kinds, she fell back on her lowlier
+kinds--her reserve of coarser, more generalized species--and gave them
+increase, and bestowed the vacant places which we had created on them.
+What she has done she will undo, or assist us in undoing; for we should
+be going back to her methods, and should have her with and not against
+us. Much might yet be done to restore the balance among our native
+species. Not by legislation, albeit all laws restraining the wholesale
+destruction of bird life are welcome. On this subject the Honourable
+Auberon Herbert has said, and his words are golden: "For myself,
+legislation or no legislation, I would turn to the friends of animals in
+this country, and say, 'If you wish that the friendship between man and
+animals should become a better and truer thing than it is at present,
+you must make it so by countless individual efforts, by making thousands
+of centres of personal influence.'"
+
+The subject is a large one. In this paper the question of the
+introduction of exotic birds will be chiefly considered. Birds have been
+blown by the winds of chance over the whole globe, and have found rest
+for their feet. That a large number of species, suited to the conditions
+of this country, exist scattered about the world is not to be doubted,
+and by introducing a few of these we might accelerate the change so
+greatly to be desired. At present a very considerable amount of energy
+is spent in hunting down the small contingents of rare species that once
+inhabited our islands, and still resort annually to its shores,
+persistently endeavouring to re-establish their colonies. A less amount
+of labour and expense would serve to introduce a few foreign species
+each year, and the reward would be greater, and would not make us
+ashamed. We have generously given our own wild animals to other
+countries; and from time to time we receive cheering reports of an
+abundant increase in at least two of our exportations--to wit, the
+rabbit and the sparrow. We are surely entitled to some return. Dead
+animals, however rich their pelt or bright their plumage may be, are not
+a fair equivalent. Dead things are too much with us. London has become a
+mart for this kind of merchandise for the whole of Europe, and the
+traffic is not without a reflex effect on us; for life in the inferior
+animals has come or is coming to be merely a thing to be lightly taken
+by human hands, in order that its dropped garment may be sold for filthy
+lucre. There are warehouses in this city where it is possible for a
+person to walk ankle-deep--literally to wade--in bright-plumaged
+bird-skins, and see them piled shoulder-high on either side of him--a
+sight to make the angels weep!
+
+Not the angel called woman. It is not that she is naturally more cruel
+than man; bleeding wounds and suffering in all its forms, even the sigh
+of a burdened heart, appeal to her quick sympathies, and draw the ready
+tears; but her imagination helps her less. The appeal must in most cases
+be direct and through the medium of her senses, else it is not seen and
+not heard. If she loves the ornament of a gay-winged bird, and is able
+to wear it with a light heart, it is because it calls up no mournful
+image to her mind; no little tragedy enacted in some far-off wilderness,
+of the swift child of the air fallen and bleeding out its bright life,
+and its callow nestlings, orphaned of the breast that warmed them, dying
+of hunger in the tree. We know, at all events, that out of a female
+population of many millions in this country, so far only ten women,
+possibly fifteen, have been found to raise their voices--raised so often
+and so loudly on other questions--to protest against the barbarous and
+abhorrent fashion of wearing slain birds as ornaments. The degrading
+business of supplying the demand for this kind of feminine adornment
+must doubtless continue to flourish in our midst, commerce not being
+compatible with morality, but the material comes from other lands,
+unblessed as yet with Wild Bird Protection Acts, and "individual
+efforts, and thousands of centres of personal influence"; it comes
+mainly from the tropics, where men have brutish minds and birds a
+brilliant plumage. This trade, therefore, does not greatly affect the
+question of our native bird life, and the consideration of the means,
+which may be within our reach, of making it more to us than it now is.
+Some species from warm and even hot climates have been found to thrive
+well in England, breeding in the open air; as, for instance, the black
+and the black-necked swans, the Egyptian goose, the mandarin and summer
+ducks, and others too numerous to mention. But these birds are
+semi-domestic, and are usually kept in enclosures, and that they can
+stand the climate and propagate when thus protected from competition is
+not strange; for we know that several of our hardy domestic birds--the
+fowl, pea-fowl, Guinea-fowl, and Muscovy duck--are tropical in their
+origin. Furthermore, they are all comparatively large, and if they ever
+become feral in England, it will not be for many years to come.
+
+That these large kinds thrive so well with us is an encouraging fact;
+but the question that concerns us at present is the feasibility of
+importing birds of the grove, chiefly of the passerine order, and
+sending them forth to give a greater variety and richness to our bird
+life. To go with such an object to tropical countries would only be to
+court failure. Nature's highest types, surpassing all others in
+exquisite beauty of form, brilliant colouring, and perfect melody, can
+never be known to our woods and groves. These rarest avian gems may not
+be removed from their setting, and to those who desire to know them in
+their unimaginable lustre, it will always be necessary to cross oceans
+and penetrate into remote wildernesses. We must go rather to regions
+where the conditions of life are hard, where winters are long and often
+severe, where Nature is not generous in the matter of food, and the
+mouths are many, and the competition great. Nor even from such regions
+could we take any strictly migratory species with any prospect of
+success. Still, limiting ourselves to the resident, and consequently to
+the hardiest kinds, and to those possessing only a partial migration, it
+is surprising to find how many there are to choose from, how many are
+charming melodists, and how many have the bright tints in which our
+native species are so sadly lacking. The field from which the supply can
+be drawn is very extensive, and includes the continent of Europe, the
+countries of North Asia, a large portion of North America and Antarctic
+America, or South Chili and Patagonia. It would not be going too far to
+say that for every English species, inhabiting the garden, wood, field,
+stream, or waste, at least half a dozen resident species, with similar
+habits, might be obtained from the countries mentioned which would be
+superior to our own in melody (the nightingale and lark excepted),
+bright plumage, grace of form, or some other attractive quality. The
+question then arises; What reason is there for believing that these
+exotics, imported necessarily in small numbers, would succeed in winning
+a footing in our country, and become a permanent addition to its
+avifauna? For it has been admitted that our species are not few, in
+spite of the losses that have been suffered, and that the bird
+population does not diminish, however much its character may have
+altered and deteriorated from the aesthetic point of view, and probably
+also from the utilitarian. There are no vacant places. Thus, the streams
+are fished by herons, grebes, and kingfishers, while the rushy margins
+are worked by coots and gallinules, and, above the surface, reed and
+sedge-warblers, with other kinds, inhabit the reed-beds. The decaying
+forest tree is the province of the woodpecker, of which there are three
+kinds; and the trunks and branches of all trees, healthy or decaying,
+are quartered by the small creeper, that leaves no crevice unexplored in
+its search for minute insects and their eggs. He is assisted by the
+nuthatch; and in summer the wryneck comes (if he still lives), and
+deftly picks up the little active ants that are always wildly careering
+over the boles. The foliage is gleaned by warblers and others; and not
+even the highest terminal twigs are left unexamined by tits and their
+fellow-seekers after little things. Thrushes seek for worms in moist
+grounds about the woods; starlings and rooks go to the pasture lands;
+the lark and his relations keep to the cultivated fields; and there also
+dwells the larger partridge. Waste and stony grounds are occupied by the
+chats, and even on the barren mountain summits the ptarmigan gets his
+living. Wagtails run on the clean margins of streams; and littoral birds
+of many kinds are in possession of the entire sea-coast. Thus, the whole
+ground appears to be already sufficiently occupied, the habitats of
+distinct species overlapping each other like the scales on a fish. And
+when we have enumerated all these, we find that scores of others have
+been left out.  The important fly-catcher; the wren, Nature's diligent
+little housekeeper, that leaves no dusty corner uncleaned; and the
+pigeons, that have a purely vegetable diet. The woods and thickets are
+also ranged by jays, cuckoos, owls, hawks, magpies, butcher-birds--
+Nature's gamekeepers, with a licence to kill, which, after the manner of
+game-keepers, they exercise somewhat indiscriminately. Above the earth,
+the air is peopled by swifts and swallows in the daytime, and by
+goatsuckers at night. And, as if all these were not enough, the finches
+are found scattered everywhere, from the most secluded spot in nature to
+the noisy public thoroughfare, and are eaters of most things, from
+flinty seed to softest caterpillar. This being the state of things, one
+might imagine that experience and observation are scarcely needed to
+prove to us that the exotic, strange to the conditions, and where its
+finest instincts would perhaps be at fault, would have no chance of
+surviving. Nevertheless, odd as it may seem, the small stock of facts
+bearing on the subject which we possess point to a contrary conclusion.
+It might have been assumed, for instance, that the red-legged partridge
+would never have established itself with us, where the ground was
+already fully occupied by a native species, which possessed the
+additional advantage of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in
+spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has conquered a place, and
+has spread throughout the greater part of England. Even more remarkable
+is the case of the pheasant, with its rich plumage, a native of a hot
+region; yet our cold, wet climate and its unmodified bright colours have
+not been fatal to it, and practically it is one of our wild birds. The
+large capercailzie has also been successfully introduced from Norway.
+Small birds would probably become naturalized much more readily than
+large ones; they are volatile, and can more quickly find suitable
+feeding-ground, and safe roosting and nesting places; their food is also
+more abundant and easily found; their small size, which renders them
+inconspicuous, gives them safety; and, finally, they are very much more
+adaptive than large birds.
+
+It is not at all probable that the red-legged partridge will ever drive
+out our own bird, a contingency which some have feared. That would be a
+misfortune, for we do not wish to change one bird for another, or to
+lose any species we now possess, but to have a greater variety. We are
+better off with two partridges than we were with one, even if the
+invader does not afford such good sport nor such delicate eating. They
+exist side by side, and compete with each other; but such competition is
+not necessarily destructive to either. On the contrary, it acts and
+re-acts healthily and to the improvement of both. It is a fact that in
+small islands, very far removed from the mainland, where the animals
+have been exempt from all foreign competition--that is, from the
+competition of casual colonists--when it does come it proves, in many
+cases, fatal to them. Fortunately, this country's large size and
+nearness to the mainland has prevented any such fatal crystallization of
+its organisms as we see in islands like St.  Helena. That any English
+species would be exterminated by foreign competition is extremely
+unlikely; whether we introduce exotic birds or not, the only losses we
+shall have to deplore in the future will, like those of the past, be
+directly due to our own insensate action in slaying every rare and
+beautiful thing with powder and shot. From the introduction of exotic
+species nothing is to be feared, but much to be hoped.
+
+There is another point which should not be overlooked. It has after all
+become a mere fiction to say that _all_ places are occupied. Nature's
+nice order has been destroyed, and her kingdom thrown into the utmost
+confusion; our action tends to maintain the disorderly condition, while
+she is perpetually working against us to re-establish order. When she
+multiplies some common, little-regarded species to occupy a space left
+vacant by an artificially exterminated kind, the species called in as a
+mere stop-gap, as it were, is one not specially adapted in structure and
+instincts to a particular mode of life, and consequently cannot fully
+and effectually occupy the ground into which it has been permitted to
+enter. To speak in metaphor, it enters merely as a caretaker or ignorant
+and improvident steward in the absence of the rightful owner. Again,
+some of our ornamental species, which are fast diminishing, are fitted
+from their peculiar structure and life habits to occupy places in nature
+which no other kinds, however plastic they may be, can even partially
+fill. The wryneck and the woodpecker may be mentioned; and a still
+better instance is afforded by the small, gem-like kingfisher--the
+only British bird which can properly be described as gem-like.
+When the goldfinch goes--and we know that he is going rapidly--other
+coarser fringilline birds, without the melody, brightness, and charm of
+the goldfinch--sparrow and bunting--come in, and in some rough fashion
+supply its place; but when the kingfisher disappears an important place
+is left absolutely vacant, for in this case there is no coarser bird of
+homely plumage with the fishing instinct to seize upon it. Here, then,
+is an excellent opportunity for an experiment. In the temperate regions
+of the earth there are many fine kingfishers to select from; some are
+resident in countries colder than England, and are consequently very
+hardy; and in some cases the rivers and streams they frequent are
+exceedingly poor in fish. Some of them are very beautiful, and they vary
+in size from birds no larger than a sparrow to others as large as a
+pigeon.
+
+Anglers might raise the cry that they require all the finny inhabitants
+of our waters for their own sport. It is scarcely necessary to go as
+deeply into the subject as mathematical-minded Mudie did to show that
+Nature's lavishness in the production of life would make such a
+contention unreasonable. He demonstrated that if all the fishes hatched
+were to live their full term, in twenty-four years their production
+power would convert into fish (two hundred to the solid foot) as much
+matter as there is contained in the whole solar system--sun, planets,
+and satellites! An "abundantly startling" result, as he says. To be well
+within the mark, ninety-nine out of every hundred fishes hatched must
+somehow perish during that stage when they are nothing but suitable
+morsels for the kingfisher, to be swallowed entire; and a portion of all
+this wasted food might very well go to sustain a few species, which
+would be beautiful ornaments of the waterside, and a perpetual delight
+to all lovers of rural nature, including anglers. It may be remarked in
+passing, that the waste of food, in the present disorganized state of
+nature, is not only in our streams.
+
+The introduction of one or more of these lovely foreign kingfishers
+would not certainly have the effect of hastening the decline of our
+native species; but indirectly it might bring about a contrary result--a
+subject to be touched on at the end of this paper. Practical naturalists
+may say that kingfishers would be far more difficult to procure than
+other birds, and that it would be almost impossible to convey them to
+England. That is a question it would be premature to discuss now; but if
+the attempt should ever be made, the difficulties would not perhaps be
+found insuperable. In all countries one hears of certain species of
+birds that they invariably die in captivity; but when the matter is
+closely looked into, one usually finds that improper treatment and not
+loss of liberty is the cause of death. Unquestionably it would be much
+more difficult to keep a kingfisher alive and healthy during a long
+sea-voyage than a common seed-eating bird; but the same may be said of
+woodpeckers, cuckoos, warblers, and, in fact, of any species that
+subsists in a state of nature on a particular kind of animal food.
+Still, when we find that even the excessively volatile humming-bird,
+which subsists on the minutest insects and the nectar of flowers, and
+seems to require unlimited space for the exercise of its energies, can
+be successfully kept confined for long periods and conveyed to distant
+countries, one would imagine that it would be hard to set a limit to
+what might be done in this direction. We do not want hard-billed birds
+only. We require, in the first place, variety; and, secondly, that every
+species introduced, when not of type unlike any native kind, as in the
+case of the pheasant, shall be superior in beauty, melody, or some other
+quality, to its British representative, or to the species which comes
+nearest to it in structure and habits. Thus, suppose that the
+introduction of a pigeon should be desired. We know that in all
+temperate regions, these birds vary as little in colour and markings as
+they do in form; but in the vocal powers of different species there is
+great diversity; and the main objects would therefore be to secure a
+bird which would be an improvement in this respect on the native kinds.
+There are doves belonging to the same genus as stock-dove and
+wood-pigeon, that have exceedingly good voices, in which the peculiar
+mournful dove-melody has reached its highest perfection--weird and
+passionate strains, surging and ebbing, and startling the hearer with
+their mysterious resemblance to human tones. Or a Zenaida might be
+preferred for its tender lament, so wild and exquisitely modulated, like
+sobs etherealized and set to music, and passing away in sigh-like sounds
+that seem to mimic the aerial voices of the wind.
+
+When considering the character of our bird population with a view to its
+improvement, one cannot but think much, and with a feeling almost of
+dismay, of the excessive abundance of the sparrow. A systematic
+persecution of this bird would probably only serve to make matters
+worse, since its continued increase is not the cause but an effect of a
+corresponding decrease in other more useful and attractive species; and
+if Nature is to have her way at all there must be birds; and besides, no
+bird-lover has any wish at see such a thing attempted. The sparrow has
+his good points, if we are to judge him as we find him, without allowing
+what the Australians and Americans say of him to prejudice our minds.
+Possibly in those distant countries he may be altogether bad,
+resembling, in this respect, some of the emigrants of our species, who,
+when they go abroad, leave their whole stock of morality at home. Even
+with us Miss Ormerod is exceedingly bitter against him, and desires
+nothing less than his complete extirpation; but it is possible that this
+lady's zeal may not be according to knowledge, that she may not know a
+sparrow quite so well as she knows a fly. At all events, the
+ornithologist finds it hard to believe that so bad an insect-catcher is
+really causing the extinction of any exclusively insectivorous species.
+On her own very high authority we know that the insect supply is not
+diminishing, that the injurious kinds alone are able to inflict an
+annual loss equal to L10,000,000 on the British farmer. To put aside
+this controversial matter, the sparrow with all his faults is a pleasant
+merry little fellow; in many towns he is the sole representative of wild
+bird life, and is therefore a great deal to us--especially in the
+metropolis, in which he most abounds, and where at every quiet interval
+his blithe chirruping comes to us like a sound of subdued and happy
+laughter. In London itself this merriment of Nature never irritates; it
+is so much finer and more aerial in character than the gross jarring
+noises of the street, that it is a relief to listen to it, and it is
+like melody. In the quiet suburbs it sounds much louder and without
+intermission. And going further afield, in woods, gardens, hedges,
+hamlets, towns--everywhere there is the same running, rippling sound
+of the omnipresent sparrow, and it becomes monotonous at last. We have
+too much of the sparrow. But we are to blame for that. He is the
+unskilled worker that Nature has called in to do the work of skilled
+hands, which we have foolishly turned away. He is willing enough to take
+it all on himself; his energy is great; he bungles away without ceasing;
+and being one of a joyous temperament, he whistles and sings in his
+tuneless fashion at his work, until, like the grasshopper of
+Ecclesiastes, he becomes a burden. For how tiring are the sight and
+sound of grasshoppers when one journeys many miles and sees them
+incessantly rising like a sounding cloud before his horse, and hears
+their shrill notes all day from the wayside! Yet how pleasant to listen
+to their minstrelsy in the green summer foliage, where they are not too
+abundant! We can have too much of anything, however charming it may be
+in itself. Those who live where scores of humming-birds are perpetually
+dancing about the garden flowers find that the eye grows weary of seeing
+the daintiest forms and brightest colours and liveliest motions that
+birds exhibit. We are told that Edward the Confessor grew so sick of the
+incessant singing of nightingales in the forest of Havering-at-Bower
+that he prayed to Heaven to silence their music; whereupon the birds
+promptly took their departure, and returned no more to that forest until
+after the king's death. The sparrow is not so sensitive as the legendary
+nightingales, and is not to be got rid of in this easy manner. He is
+amenable only to a rougher kind of persuasion; and it would be
+impossible to devise a more effectual method of lessening his
+predominance than that which Nature teaches--namely to subject him to
+the competition of other and better species. He is well equipped for the
+struggle--hardy, pugnacious, numerous, and in possession. He would not
+be in possession and so predominant if he had not these qualities, and
+great pliability of instinct and readiness to seize on vacant places.
+Nevertheless, even with the sturdy sparrow a very small thing might turn
+the scale, particularly if we were standing by and putting a little
+artificial pressure on one side of the balance; for it must be borne in
+mind that the very extent and diversity of the ground he occupies is a
+proof that he does not occupy it effectually, and that his position is
+not too strong to be shaken. It is not probable that our action in
+assisting one side against the other would go far in its results; still,
+a little might be done. There are gardens and grounds in the suburbs of
+London where sparrows are not abundant, and are shyer than the birds of
+other species, and this result has been brought about by means of a
+little judicious persecution. Shooting is a bad plan, even with an
+air-gun; its effects are seen by all the birds, for they see more from
+their green hiding-places than we imagine, and it creates a general
+alarm among them. Those who wish to give the other birds a chance will
+only defeat their own object by shooting the sparrows. A much better
+plan for those who are able to practise it prudently is to take their
+nests, which are more exposed to sight than those of other birds; but
+they should be taken after the full complement of eggs have been laid,
+and only at night, so that other birds shall not witness the robbery and
+fear for their own treasures. Mr. Henry George, in that book of his
+which has been the delight of so many millions of rational souls,
+advocates the destruction of all sharks and other large rapacious
+fishes, after which, he says, the ocean can be stocked with salmon,
+which would secure an unlimited supply of good wholesome food for the
+human race. No such high-handed measures are advocated here with regard
+to the sparrow. Knowledge of nature makes us conservative. It is so very
+easy to say, "Kill the sparrow, or shark, or magpie, or whatever it is,
+and then everything will be right." But there are more things in nature
+than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the class of reformers
+represented by the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper's master, and Miss
+Ormerod, and Mr. Henry George. Let him by all means kill the sharks, but
+he will not conquer Nature in that way: she will make more sharks out of
+something else--possibly out of the very salmon on which he proposes to
+regale his hungry disciples. To go into details is not the present
+writer's purpose; and to finish with this part of the subject, it is
+sufficient to add that in the very wide and varied field occupied by the
+sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible to a species having
+no special and highly perfected feeding instincts, there is room for the
+introduction of scores of competitors, every one of which should be
+better adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at that point or
+that particular part of the field where the two would come into rivalry;
+and every species introduced should also possess some quality which
+would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, a valuable addition to
+our bird life. This would be no war of violence, and no contravention of
+Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, a return to her safe,
+healthy, and far-reaching methods.
+
+There is one objection some may make to the scheme suggested here which
+must be noticed. It may be said that even if exotic species able to
+thrive in our country were introduced there would be no result; for
+these strangers to our groves would all eventually meet with the same
+fate as our rarer species and casual visitors--that is to say, they
+would be shot. There is no doubt that the amateur naturalist has been a
+curse to this country for the last half century, that it is owing to the
+"cupidity of the cabinet" as old Robert Mudie has it--that many of our
+finer species are exceedingly rare, while others are disappearing
+altogether. But it is surely not too soon to look for a change for the
+better in this direction. Half a century ago, when the few remaining
+great bustards in this country were being done to death, it was suddenly
+remembered by naturalists that in their eagerness to possess examples of
+the bird (in the skin) they had neglected to make themselves acquainted
+with its customs when alive. Its habits were hardly better known than
+those of the dodo and solitaire. The reflection came too late, in so far
+as the habits of the bird in this country are concerned; but unhappily
+the lesson was not then taken to heart, and other fine species have
+since gone the way of the great bustard. But now that we have so clearly
+seen the disastrous effects of this method of "studying ornithology,"
+which is not in harmony with our humane civilization, it is to be hoped
+that a better method will be adopted--that "finer way" which Thoreau
+found and put aside his fowling-piece to practise. There can be no doubt
+that the desire for such an improvement is now becoming very general,
+that a kindlier feeling for animal, and especially bird life is growing
+up among us, and there are signs that it is even beginning to have some
+appreciable effect. The fashion of wearing birds is regarded by most men
+with pain and reprobation; and it is possible that before long it will
+be thought that there is not much difference between the action of the
+woman who buys tanagers and humming-birds to adorn her person, and that
+of the man who kills the bittern, hoopoe, waxwing, golden oriole, and
+Dartford-warbler to enrich his private collection.
+
+A few words on the latest attempt which has been made to naturalize an
+exotic bird in England will not seem out of place here. About eight
+years ago a gentleman in Essex introduced the rufous tinamou--a handsome
+game bird, nearly as large as a fowl--into his estate. Up till the
+present time, or till quite recently these birds have bred every year,
+and at one time they had increased considerably and scattered about the
+neighbourhood. When it began to increase, the neighbouring proprietors
+and sportsmen generally were asked not to shoot it, but to give it a
+chance, and there is reason to believe that they have helped to protect
+it, and have taken a great interest in the experiment. Whatever the
+ultimate result may be, the partial success attained during these few
+years is decidedly encouraging, and that for more reasons than one. In
+the first place, the bird was badly chosen for such an experiment. It
+belongs to the pampas of La Plata, to which it is restricted, and where
+it enjoys a dry, bright climate, and lives concealed in the tall
+close-growing indigenous grasses. The conditions of its habitat are
+therefore widely different from those of Essex, or of any part of
+England; and, besides, it has a peculiar organisation, for it happens to
+be one of those animals of ancient types of which a few species still
+survive in South America. That so unpromising a subject as this large
+archaic tinamou should be able to maintain its existence in this
+country, even for a very few years, encourages one to believe that with
+better-chosen species, more highly organized, and with more pliant
+habits, such as the hazel hen of Europe for a game bird, success would
+be almost certain.
+
+Another circumstance connected with the attempted introduction of this
+unsuitable bird, even of more promise than the mere fact of the partial
+success achieved, is the greatest interest the experiment has excited,
+not only among naturalists throughout the country, but also among
+landlords and sportsmen down in Essex, where the bird was not regarded
+merely as fair game to be bagged, or as a curiosity to be shot for the
+collector's cabinet, but was allowed to fight its own fight without
+counting man among its enemies. And it is to be expected that the same
+self-restraint and spirit of fairness and intelligent desire to see a
+favourable result would be shown everywhere if exotic species were to be
+largely introduced, and breeding centres established in suitable places
+throughout the country. When it once became known that individuals were
+doing this thing, giving their time and best efforts and at considerable
+expense not for their own selfish gratification, but for the general
+good, and to make the country more delightful to all lovers of rural
+sights and sounds, there would be no opposition, but on the contrary
+every assistance, since all would wish success to such an enterprise.
+Even the most enthusiastic collector would refrain from lifting a weapon
+against the new feathered guests from distant lands; and if by any
+chance an example of one should get into his hands he would be ashamed
+to exhibit it.
+
+The addition of new beautiful species to our avifauna would probably not
+be the only, nor even the principal benefit we should derive from the
+carrying out of the scheme here suggested. The indirect effect of the
+knowledge all would possess that such an experiment was being conducted,
+and that its chief object was to repair the damage that has been done,
+would be wholly beneficial since it would enhance the value in our eyes
+of our remaining native rare and beautiful species. A large number of
+our finer birds are annually shot by those who know that they are doing
+a great wrong--that if their transgression is not punishable by law it
+is really not less grave than that of the person who maliciously barks a
+shade tree in a park or public garden--but who excuse their action by
+saying that such birds must eventually get shot, and that those who
+first see them might as well have the benefit. The presence of even a
+small number of exotic species in our woods and groves would no doubt
+give rise to a better condition of things; it would attract public
+attention to the subject; for the birds that delight us with their
+beauty and melody should be for the public, and not for the few
+barbarians engaged in exterminating them; and the "collector" would find
+it best to abandon his evil practices when it once began to be generally
+asked, if we can spare the rare, lovely birds brought hither at great
+expense from China or Patagonia, can we not also spare our own
+kingfisher, and the golden oriole, and the hoopoe, that comes to us
+annually from Africa to breed, but is not permitted to breed, and many
+other equally beautiful and interesting species?
+
+
+
+
+MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
+
+
+The sparrow, like the poor, we have always with us, and on windy days
+even the large-sized rook is blown about the murkiness which does duty
+for sky over London; and on such occasions its coarse, corvine dronings
+seem not unmusical, nor without something of a tonic effect on our
+jarred nerves. And here the ordinary Londoner has got to the end of his
+ornithological list--that is to say, his winter list. He knows nothing
+about those wind-worn waifs, the "occasional visitors" to the
+metropolis--the pilgrims to distant Meccas and Medinas that have fallen,
+overcome by weariness, at the wayside; or have encountered storms in the
+great aerial sea, and lost compass and reckoning, and have been lured by
+false lights to perish miserably at the hands of their cruel enemies. It
+may be true that gulls are seen on the Serpentine, that woodcocks are
+flushed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but the citizen who goes to his office
+in the morning and returns after the lamps have been lighted, does not
+see them, and they are nothing in his life. Those who concern themselves
+to chronicle such incidents might just as well, for all that it matters
+to him, mistake their species, like that bird-loving but
+unornithological correspondent of the Times who wrote that he had seen
+a flock of golden orioles in Kensington Gardens. It turned out that what
+he had seen were wheatears, or they might draw a little on their
+imaginations, and tell of sunward-sailing cranes encamped on the dome of
+St. Paul's Cathedral, flamingoes in the Round Pond, great snowy owls in
+Westminster Abbey, and an ibis--scarlet, glossy, or sacred, according to
+fancy--perched on Peabody's statue, at the Royal Exchange.
+
+But his winter does not last for ever. When the bitter months are past,
+with March that mocks us with its crown of daffodils; when the sun
+shines, and the rain is soon over; and elms and limes in park and
+avenue, and unsightly smoke-blackened brushwood in the squares, are
+dressed once more in tenderest heart-refreshing green, even in London we
+know that the birds have returned from beyond the sea. Why should they
+come to us here, when it would seem so much more to their advantage, and
+more natural for them to keep aloof from our dimmed atmosphere, and the
+rude sounds of traffic, and the sight of many people going to and fro?
+Are there no silent green retreats left where the conditions are better
+suited to their shy and delicate natures? Yet no sooner is the spring
+come again than the birds are with us. Not always apparent to the eye,
+but everywhere their irrepressible gladness betrays their proximity; and
+all London is ringed round with a mist of melody, which presses on us,
+ambitious of winning its way even to the central heart of our citadel,
+creeping in, mist-like, along gardens and tree-planted roads, clinging
+to the greenery of parks and squares, and floating above the dull noises
+of the town as clouds fleecy and ethereal float above the earth.
+
+Among our spring visitors there is one which is neither aerial in
+habits, nor a melodist, yet is eminently attractive on account of its
+graceful form, pretty plumage, and amusing manners; nor must it be
+omitted as a point in its favour that it is not afraid to make itself
+very much at home with us in London.  [Footnote: Note that when this was
+written in 1893, the moor-hen was never known to winter in London; his
+habits have changed in this respect during the last two decades: he is
+now a permanent resident.] This is the little moor-hen, a bird
+possessing some strange customs, for which those who are curious about
+such matters may consult its numerous biographies. Every spring a few
+individuals of this species make their appearance in Hyde Park, and
+settle there for the season, in full sight of the fashionable world; for
+their breeding-place happens to be that minute transcript of nature
+midway between the Dell and Rotten Row, where a small bed of rushes and
+aquatic grasses flourishes in the stagnant pool forming the end of the
+Serpentine. Where they pass the winter--in what Mentone or Madeira of
+the ralline race--is not known. There is a pretty story, which
+circulated throughout Europe a little over fifty years ago, of a Polish
+gentleman, capturing a stork that built its nest on his roof every
+summer, and putting an iron collar on its neck with the inscription,
+"Haec Ciconia ex Polonia." The following summer it reappeared with
+something which shone very brightly on its neck, and when the stork was
+taken again this was found to be a collar of gold, with which the iron
+collar had been replaced, and on it were graven the words, "India cum
+donis remittit ciconian Polonis." No person has yet put an iron collar
+on the moor-hen to receive gifts in return, or followed its feeble
+fluttering flight to discover the limits of its migration which is
+probably no further away than the Kentish marshes and other wet
+sheltered spots in the south of England; that it leaves the country when
+it quits the park is not to be believed. Still, it goes with the wave,
+and with the wave returns; and, like the migratory birds that observe
+times and seasons, it comes back to its own home--that circumscribed
+spot of earth and water which forms its little world, and is more to it
+than all other reedy and willow-shaded pools and streams in England. It
+is said to be shy in disposition, yet all may see it here, within a few
+feet of the Row, with so many people continually passing, and so many
+pausing to watch the pretty birds as they trip about their little plot
+of green turf, deftly picking minute insects from the grass and not
+disdaining crumbs thrown by the children. A dainty thing to look at is
+that smooth, olive-brown little moor-hen, going about with such freedom
+and ease in its small dominion, lifting its green legs deliberately,
+turning its yellow beak and shield this way and that, and displaying the
+snow-white undertail at every step, as it moves with that quaint,
+graceful, jetting gait peculiar to the gallinules.
+
+Such a fact as this--and numberless facts just as significant all
+pointing to the same conclusion, might be adduced--shows at once how
+utterly erroneous is that often-quoted dictum of Darwin's that birds
+possess an instinctive or inherited fear of man. These moor-hens fear
+him not at all; simply because in Hyde Park they are not shot at, and
+robbed of their eggs or young, nor in any way molested by him. They fear
+no living thing, except the irrepressible small dog that occasionally
+bursts into the enclosure, and hunts them with furious barkings to their
+reedy little refuge. And as with these moor-hens, so it is with all wild
+birds; they fear and fly from, and suspiciously watch from a safe
+distance, whatever molests them, and wherever man suspends his hostility
+towards them they quickly outgrow the suspicion which experience has
+taught them, or which is traditional among them; for the young and
+inexperienced imitate the action of the adults they associate with, and
+learn the suspicious habit from them.
+
+It is also interesting and curious to note that a bird which inhabits
+two countries, in summer and winter, regulates his habits in accordance
+with the degree of friendliness or hostility exhibited towards him by
+the human inhabitants of the respective areas. The bird has in fact two
+traditions with regard to man's attitude towards him--one for each
+country. Thus, the field-fare is an exceedingly shy bird in England, but
+when he returns to the north if his breeding place is in some inhabited
+district in northern Sweden or Norway he loses all his wildness and
+builds his nest quite close to the houses. My friend Trevor Battye saw a
+pair busy making their nest in a small birch within a few yards of the
+front door of a house he was staying at. "How strange," said he to the
+man of the house, "to see field-fares making a nest in such a place!"
+
+"Why strange?" said the man in surprise. "Why strange? Because of the
+boys, always throwing stones at a bird. The nest is so low down, that
+any boy could put his hand in and take the eggs." "Take the eggs!" cried
+the man, more astonished than ever. "And throwing stones at a bird! Who
+ever heard of a boy doing such things!"
+
+Closely related to this error is another error, which is that noise in
+itself is distressing to birds, and has the effect of driving them away.
+To all sounds and noises which are not associated with danger to them,
+birds are absolutely indifferent. The rumbling of vehicles, puffing and
+shrieking of engines, and braying of brass bands, alarm them less than
+the slight popping of an air gun, where that modest weapon of
+destruction is frequently used against them. They have no "nerves" for
+noise, but the apparition of a small boy silently creeping along the
+hedge-side, in search of nests or throwing stones, is very terrifying to
+them. They fear not cattle and horses, however loud the bellowing may
+be; and if we were to transport and set loose herds of long-necked
+camelopards, trumpeting elephants, and rhinoceroses of horrible aspect,
+the little birds would soon fear them as little as they do the familiar
+cow. But they greatly fear the small-sized, quiet, unobtrusive, and
+meek-looking cat.  Sparrows and starlings that fly wildly at the shout
+of a small boy or the bark of a fox-terrier, build their nests under
+every railway arch; and the incubating bird sits unalarmed amid the iron
+plates and girders when the express train rushes overhead, so close to
+her that one would imagine that the thunderous jarring noise would cause
+the poor thing to drop down dead with terror. To this indifference to
+the mere harmless racket of civilization we owe it that birds are so
+numerous around, and even in, London; and that in Kew Gardens, which, on
+account of its position on the water side, and the numerous railroads
+surrounding it, is almost as much tortured with noise as Willesden or
+Clapham Junction, birds are concentrated in thousands. Food is not more
+abundant there than in other places; yet it would be difficult to find a
+piece of ground of the same extent in the country proper, where all is
+silent and there are no human crowds, with so large a bird population.
+They are more numerous in Kew than elsewhere, in spite of the noise and
+the people, because they are partially protected there from their human
+persecutors. It is a joy to visit the gardens in spring, as much to hear
+the melody of the birds as to look at the strange and lovely vegetable
+forms. On a June evening with a pure sunny sky, when the air is elastic
+after rain, how it rings and palpitates with the fine sounds that people
+it, and which seem infinite in variety! Has England, burdened with care
+and long estranged from Nature, so many sweet voices left? What aerial
+chimes are those wafted from the leafy turret of every tree? What
+clear, choral songs--so wild, so glad? What strange instruments, not
+made with hands, so deftly touched and soulfully breathed upon? What
+faint melodious murmurings that float around us, mysterious and tender
+as the lisping of leaves? Who could be so dull and exact as to ask the
+names of such choristers at such a time! Earthly names they have, the
+names we give them, when they visit us, and when we write about them in
+our dreary books; but, doubtless, in their brighter home in cloudland
+they are called by other more suitable appellatives. Kew is
+exceptionally favoured for the reason mentioned, but birds are also
+abundant where there are no hired men with red waistcoats and brass
+buttons to watch over their safety. Why do they press so persistently
+around us; and not in London only, but in every town and village, every
+house and cottage in this country? Why are they always waiting,
+congregating as far from us as the depth of garden, lawn, or orchard
+will allow, yet always near as they dare to come? It is not sentiment,
+and to be translated into such words as these: "Oh man, why are you
+unfriendly towards us, or else so indifferent to our existence that you
+do not note that your children, dependants, and neighbours cruelly
+persecute us? For we are for peace, and knowing you for the lord of
+creation, we humbly worship you at a distance, and wish for a share in
+your affection." No; the small, bright soul which is in a bird is
+incapable of such a motive, and has only the lesser light of instinct
+for its guide, and to the birds' instinct we are only one of the
+wingless mammalians inhabiting the earth, and with the cat and weasel
+are labelled "dangerous," but the ox and horse and sheep have no such
+label. Even our larger, dimmer eyes can easily discover the
+attraction. Let any one, possessing a garden in the suburbs of London,
+minutely examine the foliage at a point furthest removed from the house,
+and he will find the plants clean from insects; and as he moves back he
+will find them increasingly abundant until he reaches the door. Insect
+life is gathered thickly about us, for that birdless space which we have
+made is ever its refuge and safe camping ground. And the birds know. One
+came before we were up, when cat and dog were also sleeping, and a
+report is current among them. Like ants when a forager who has found a
+honey pot returns to the nest, they are all eager to go and see and
+taste for themselves. Their country is poor, for they have gathered its
+spoils, and now this virgin territory sorely tempts them. To those who
+know a bird's spirit it is plain that a mere suspension of hostile
+action on our part would have the effect of altering their shy habits,
+and bringing them in crowds about us. Not only in the orchard and grove
+and garden walks would they be with us, but even in our house. The
+robin, the little bird "with the red stomacher," would be there for the
+customary crumbs at meal-time, and many dainty fringilline pensioners
+would keep him company. And the wren would be there, searching
+diligently in the dusty angles of cornices for a savoury morsel; for it
+knows, this wise little Kitty Wren, that "the spider taketh hold with
+her hands, and is in king's palaces"; and wandering from room to room it
+would pour forth many a gushing lyric--a sound of wildness and joy in
+our still interiors, eternal Nature's message to our hearts.
+
+Who delights not in a bird? Yet how few among us find any pleasure in
+reading of them in natural history books! The living bird, viewed
+closely and fearless of our presence, is so much more to the mind than
+all that is written--so infinitely more engaging in its spontaneous
+gladness, its brilliant vivacity, and its motions so swift and true and
+yet so graceful! Even leaving out the melody, what a charm it would add
+to our homes if birds were permitted to take the part there for which
+Nature designed them--if they were the "winged wardens" of our gardens
+and houses as well as of our fields. Bird-biographies are always in our
+bookcases; and the bird-form meets our sight everywhere in decorative
+art Eastern and Western; for its aerial beauty is without parallel in
+nature; but the living birds, with the exception of the unfortunate
+captives in cages, are not with us.
+
+    A robin redbreast in a cage
+    Puts all heaven in a rage,
+
+sings Blake prophet and poet; and for "robin redbreast" I read every
+feathered creature endowed with the marvellous faculty of flight. Wild,
+and loving their safety and liberty, they keep at a distance, at the end
+of the garden or in the nearest grove, where from their perches they
+suspiciously watch our movements, always waiting to be encouraged,
+waiting to feed on the crumbs that fall from our table and are wasted,
+and on the blighting insects that ring us round with their living
+multitudes.
+
+
+
+
+THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY
+
+
+One week-day morning, following a crowd of well-dressed people, I
+presently found myself in a large church or chapel, where I spent an
+hour very pleasantly, listening to a great man's pulpit eloquence. He
+preached about genius. The subject was not suggested by the text, nor
+did it have any close relation with the other parts, of his discourse;
+it was simply a digression, and, to my mind, a very delightful one. He
+began about the restrictions to which we are all more or less subject,
+the aspirations that are never destined to be fulfilled, but are mocked
+by life's brevity. And it was at this point that--probably thinking of
+his own case--he branched off into the subject of genius; and proceeded
+to show that a man possessing that divine quality finds existence a
+much sadder affair than the ordinary man; the reason being that his
+aspirations are so much loftier than those of other minds, the
+difference between his ideal and reality must be correspondingly greater
+in his case. This was obvious--almost a truism; but the illustration by
+means of which he brought it home to his hearers was certainly born of
+poetic imagination. The life of the ordinary person he likened to that
+of the canary in its cage. And here, dropping his lofty didactic manner,
+and--if I may coin a word--smalling his deep, sonorous voice, to a thin
+reedy treble, in imitation of the tenuous fringilline pipe, he went on
+with lively language, rapid utterance, and suitable brisk movements and
+gestures, to describe the little lemon-coloured housekeeper in her
+gilded cage. Oh, he cried, what a bright, busy bustling life is hers,
+with so many things to occupy her time! how briskly she hops from perch
+to perch, then to the floor, and back from floor to perch again! how
+often she drops down to taste the seed in her box, or scatter it about
+her in a little shower! how curiously, and turning her bright eyes
+critically this way and that, she listens to every new sound and regards
+every object of sight! She must chirp and sing, and hop from place to
+place, and eat and drink, and preen her wings, and do at least a dozen
+different things every minute; and her time is so fully taken up that
+the narrow limits confining her are almost forgotten--the wires that
+separate her from the great world of wind-tossed woods, and of blue
+fields of air, and the free, buoyant life for which her instincts and
+faculties fit her, and which, alas! can never more be hers.
+
+All this sounded very pretty, as well as true, and there was a pleased
+smile on every face in the audience.
+
+Then the rapid movements and gestures ceased, and the speaker was
+silent. A cloud came over his rough-hewn majestic visage; he drew
+himself up, and swayed his body from side to side, and shook his black
+gown, and lifted his arms, as their plumed homologues are lifted by some
+great bird, and let them fall again two or three times; and then said,
+in deep measured tones, which seemed to express rage and despair, "But
+did you ever see the eagle in his cage?"
+
+The effect of the contrast was grand. He shook himself again, and lifted
+and dropped his arms again, assuming, for the nonce, the peculiar
+aquiline slouch; and there before us stood the mighty bird of Jove, as
+we are accustomed to see it in the Zoological Gardens; its deep-set,
+desolate eyes looking through and beyond us; ruffling its dark plumage,
+and lifting its heavy wings as if about to scorn the earth, only to drop
+them again, and to utter one of those long dreary cries which seem to
+protest so eloquently against a barbarous destiny. Then he proceeded to
+tell us of the great raptor in its life of hopeless captivity; his
+stern, rugged countenance, deep bass voice, and grand mouth-filling
+polysllables suiting his subject well, and making his description seem
+to our minds a sombre magnificent picture never to be forgotten--at all
+events, never by an ornithologist.
+
+Doubtless this part of his discourse proved eminently pleasing to the
+majority of his hearers, who, looking downwards into the depths of their
+own natures, would be able to discern there a glimmer, or possibly more
+than a glimmer of that divine quality he had spoken of, and which was,
+unhappily for them, not recognized by the world at large; so that, for
+the moment, he was addressing a congregation of captive eagles, all
+mentally ruffling their plumage and flapping their pinions, and uttering
+indignant screams of protest against the injustice of their lot.
+
+The illustration pleased me for a different reason, namely, because,
+being a student of bird-life, his contrasted picture of the two widely
+different kinds, when deprived of liberty, struck me as being singularly
+true to nature, and certainly it could not have been more forcibly and
+picturesquely put. For it is unquestionably the fact that the misery we
+inflict by tyrannously using the power we possess over God's creatures,
+is great in proportion to the violence of the changes of condition to
+which we subject our prisoners; and while canary and eagle are both more
+or less aerial in their mode of life, and possessed of boundless energy,
+the divorce from nature is immeasurably greater in one case than in the
+other. The small bird, in relation to its free natural life, is less
+confined in its cage than the large one. Its smallness, perching
+structure, and restless habits, fit it for continual activity, and its
+flitting, active life within the bars bears some resemblance except in
+the great matter of flight, to its life in a state of nature. Again, its
+lively, curious, and extremely impressible character, is in many ways an
+advantage in captivity; every new sound and sight, and every motion,
+however slight, in any object or body near it, affording it, so to
+speak, something to think about. It has the further advantage of a
+varied and highly musical language; the frequent exercise of the faculty
+of singing, in birds, with largely developed vocal organs, no doubt
+reacts on the system, and contributes not a little to keep the prisoner
+healthy and cheerful.
+
+On the other hand, the eagle, on account of its structure and large
+size, is a prisoner indeed, and must languish with all its splendid
+faculties and importunate impulses unexercised. You may gorge it with
+gobbets of flesh until its stomach cries, "Enough"; but what of all the
+other organs fed by the stomach, and their correlated faculties? Every
+bone and muscle and fibre, every feather and scale, is instinct with an
+energy which you cannot satisfy, and which is like an eternal hunger.
+Chain it by the feet, or place it in a cage fifty feet wide--in either
+case it is just as miserable. The illimitable fields of thin cold air,
+where it outrides the winds and soars exulting beyond the clouds, alone
+can give free space for the display of its powers and scope to its
+boundless energies. Nor to the power of flight alone, but also to a
+vision formed for sweeping wide horizons, and perceiving objects at
+distances which to short-sighted man seem almost miraculous.  Doubtless,
+eagles, like men, possess some adaptiveness, else they would perish in
+their enforced inactivity, swallowing without hunger and assimilating
+without pleasure the cold coarse flesh we give them. A human being can
+exist, and even be tolerably cheerful, with limbs paralyzed and hearing
+gone; and that, to my mind, would be a parallel case to that of the
+eagle deprived of its liberty and of the power to exercise its flight,
+vision, and predatory instincts.
+
+As I sit writing these thoughts, with a cage containing four canaries on
+the table before me, I cannot help congratulating these little prisoners
+on their comparatively happy fate in having been born, or hatched,
+finches and not eagles. And yet albeit I am not responsible for the
+restraint which has been put upon them, and am not their owner, being
+only a visitor in the house, I am troubled with some uncomfortable
+feelings concerning their condition--feelings which have an admixture of
+something like a sense of shame or guilt, as if an injustice had been
+done, and I had stood by consenting. I did not do it, but we did it. I
+remember Matthew Arnold's feeling lines on his dead canary, "Poor
+Matthias," and quote:
+
+    Yet, poor bird, thy tiny corse
+    Moves me, somehow, to remorse;
+    Something haunts my conscience, brings
+    Sad, compunctious visitings.
+    Other favourites, dwelling here,
+    Open lived with us, and near;
+    Well we knew when they were glad
+    Plain we saw if they were sad;
+    Sympathy could feel and show
+    Both in weal of theirs and woe.
+
+    Birds, companions more unknown,
+    Live beside us, but alone;
+    Finding not, do all they can,
+    Passage from their souls to man.
+    Kindness we bestow and praise,
+    Laud their plumage, greet their lays;
+    Still, beneath their feathered breast
+    Stirs a history unexpressed.
+    Wishes there, and feeling strong,
+    Incommunicably throng;
+    What they want we cannot guess.
+
+
+This, as poetry, is good, but it does not precisely fit my case; my
+"compunctious visitings" being distinctly different in origin and
+character from the poet's. He--Matthew Arnold--is a poet, and the author
+of much good verse, which I appreciate and hold dear. But he was not a
+naturalist--all men cannot be everything. And I, a naturalist, hold that
+the wishes, thronging the restless little feathered breast are not
+altogether so incommunicable as the melodious mourner of "Poor Matthias"
+imagines. The days--ay, and years--which I have spent in the society of
+my feathered friends have not, I flatter myself, been so wasted that I
+cannot small my soul, just as the preacher smalled his voice, to bring
+it within reach of them, and establish some sort of passage.
+
+And so, thinking that a little more knowledge of birds than most people
+possess, and consideration for them--for I will not be so harsh to speak
+of justice--and time and attention given to their wants, might remove
+this reproach, and silence these vague suggestions of a too fastidious
+conscience, I have taken the trouble to add something to the seed with
+which these little prisoners had been supplied. For we give sweetmeats
+to the child that cries for the moon--an alternative which often acts
+beneficially--and there is nothing more to be done. Any one of us, even
+a philosopher, would think it hard to be restricted to dry bread only,
+yet such a punishment would be small compared with that which we, in our
+ignorance or want of consideration, inflict on our caged animals--our
+pets on compulsion. Small, because an almost infinite variety of
+flavours drawn from the whole vegetable kingdom--a hundred flavours for
+every one in the dietary which satisfies our heavier mammalian
+natures--is a condition of the little wild bird's existence and
+essential to its well-being and perfect happiness. And so, to remedy
+this defect, I went out into the garden, and with seeding grasses and
+pungent buds, and leaves of a dozen different kinds, I decorated the
+cage until it looked less like a prison than a bower. And now for an
+hour the little creatures have been busy with their varied green
+fare, each one tasting half a dozen different leaves every minute,
+hopping here and there and changing places with his fellows, glancing
+their bright little eyes this way and that, and all the time uttering
+gratulatory notes in the canary's conversational tone. And their
+language is not altogether untranslatable. I listen to one, a pretty
+pure yellow bird, but slightly tyrannical in his treatment of the
+others, and he says, or seems to say: "This is good, I like it, only the
+old leaf is tough; the buds would be better. . . . These are certainly
+not so good. _I tasted them out of compliment to nature, though they
+were scarcely palatable. . . ._" No, that was not my own expression; it
+was said by Thoreau, perhaps the only human a little bird can quote with
+approval. "This is decidedly bitter--and yet--yes, it does leave a
+pleasant flavour on the palate. Make room for me there--or I shall make
+you and let me taste it again. Yes, I fancy I can remember eating
+something like this in a former state of existence, ages and ages ago."
+And so on, and so on, until I began to imagine that the whole thing had
+been put right, and that the uncomfortable feeling would return to
+trouble me no more. But at the rate they are devouring their green stuff
+there will not be a leat, scarcely a stem left in another hour; and
+then? Why, then they will have the naked wires of their cage all round
+them to protect them from the cat and for hunger there will be seed in
+the box.
+
+After all, then, what a little I have been able to do! But I flatter
+myself that if they were mine I should do more. I never keep captive
+birds, but if they were given to me, and I could not refuse, I should do
+a great deal more for them. All my knowledge of their ways and their
+requirements would teach me how to make their caged existence less
+unlike the old natural life, than it now is. To begin the ameliorating
+process, I should place them in a large cage, large enough to allow
+space for flight, so that they might fly to and fro, a few feet each
+way, and rest their little feet from continual perching. That would
+enable them to exercise their most important muscles and experience once
+more, although in a very limited degree, the old delicious sensation of
+gliding at will through the void air. The wires of their new cage would
+be of brass or of some bright metal, and the wooden parts and perches
+green enamelled, or green variegated with brown and grey, and the roof
+would be hung with glass lustres, to quiver and sparkle into drops of
+violet, red, and yellow light, gladdening these little lovers of bright
+colours; for so we deem them. I should also add gay flowers and berries,
+crocus and buttercup and dandelion, hips and haws and mountain ash and
+yellow and scarlet leaves--all seasonable jewellery from woods and
+hedges and from the orchard and garden. Then would come the heaviest
+part of my task, which would be to satisfy their continual craving for
+new tastes in food, their delight in an endless variety. I should go to
+the great seed-merchants of London and buy samples of all the cultivated
+seeds of the earth, and not feed them in a trough, or manger, like heavy
+domestic brutes, but give it to them mixed and scattered in small
+quantities, to be searched for and gladly found in the sand and gravel
+and turf on the wide floor of the cage. And, higher up, the wires of
+their dwelling would be hung with an endless variety of seeded grasses,
+and sprays of all trees and plants, good, bad, and indifferent. For if
+the volatile bird dines on no more than twenty dishes every day he
+loves to taste of a hundred and to have at least a thousand on the table
+to choose from.
+
+Feeding the birds and keeping the cage always sweet and clean would
+occupy most, if not the whole of my time. But would that be too much to
+give if it made me tranquil in my own mind? For it must be noted that I
+have done all this, mentally and on paper, for my own satisfaction
+rather than that of the canaries. Birds are not worth much--_to us_. Are
+not five sparrows sold for three farthings? I have even shot many birds
+and have felt no compunction. True, they perished before their time, but
+they did not languish, and being dead there was an end of them; but the
+caged canaries continuing with us, cannot be dismissed from the mind
+with the same convenient ease. After all, I begin to think that my
+imaginary reforms, if carried out, would not quite content me. The
+"compunctious visitings" would continue still. I look out of the window
+and see a sparrow on a neighbouring tree, loudly chirruping. And as I
+listen, trying to find comfort by thinking of the perils which do
+environ him, his careless unconventional sparrow-music resolves itself
+into articulate speech, interspersed with occasional bursts of derisive
+laughter. He knows, this fabulous sparrow, what I have been thinking
+about and have written. "How would you like it," I hear him saying, "O
+wise man that knows so much about the ways of birds, if you were shut up
+in a big cage--in Windsor Castle, let us say--with scores of menials to
+wait on you and anticipate your every want? That is, I must explain,
+every want compatible with--ahem!--the captive condition. Would you be
+happy in your confinement, practising with the dumb-bells, riding up and
+down the floors on a bicycle and gazing at pictures and filigree caskets
+and big malachite vases and eating dinners of many, many courses? Or
+would you begin to wish that you might be allowed to live on sixpence a
+day--_and earn it_; and even envy the ragged tramp who dines on a
+handful of half-rotten apples and sleeps in a hay-stack, but is free to
+come and go, and range the world at will? You have been playing at
+nature; but Nature mocks you, for your captives thank you not. They
+would rather go to her without an intermediary, and take a scantier
+measure of food from her hand, but flavoured as she only can flavour it.
+Widen your cage, naturalist; replace the little twinkling lustres with
+sun and moon and milky way; plant forests on the floor, and let there be
+hills and valleys, rivers and wide spaces; and let the blue pillars of
+heaven be the wires of your cage, with free entrance to wind and rain;
+then your little captives will be happy, even happy as I am, in spite of
+all the perils which do environ me--guns and cats and snares, with wet
+and fog and hard frosts to come."
+
+And, seeing my error, I should open the cage and let them fly away. Even
+to death, I should let them fly, for there would be a taste of liberty
+first, and life without that sweet savour, whether of aerial bird or
+earth-bound man, is not worth living.
+
+
+
+
+CHANTICLEER
+
+
+During the month of September I spent several days at a house standing
+on high ground in one of the pleasantest suburbs of London, commanding a
+fine view at the back of the breezy, wooded, and not very far-off Surrey
+hills; and all round, from every window, front and back, such a mass of
+greenery met the eye, almost concealing the neighbouring houses, that I
+could easily imagine myself far out in the country. In the garden the
+omnipresent sparrow, and that always pleasant companion the starling,
+associated with the thrush, blackbird, green linnet, chaffinch,
+redstart, wren, and two species of tits; and, better than all these, not
+fewer than half a dozen robins warbled their autumn notes from early
+morning until late in the evening. Domestic bird-life was also
+represented by fifteen fowls, and the wise laxity existing in the
+establishment made these also free of the grounds; for of eyesores and
+painful skeletons in London cupboards, one of the worst, to my mind, is
+that unwholesome coop at the back where a dozen unhappy birds are
+usually to be found immured for life. These, more fortunate, had ample
+room to run about in, and countless broad shady leaves from which to
+pick the green caterpillar, and red tortoise-shaped lady-bird, and
+parti-coloured fly, and soft warm soil in which to bathe in their own
+gallinaceous fashion, and to lie with outstretched wings luxuriating by
+the hour in the genial sunshine. And having seen their free wholesome
+life, I did not regard the new-laid egg on the breakfast-table with a
+feeling of repugnance, but ate it with a relish.
+
+I have said that the fowls numbered fifteen; five were old birds, and
+ten were chickens, closely alike in size, colour and general appearance.
+They were not the true offspring of the hen that reared them, but
+hatched from eggs bought from a local poultry-breeder. As they advanced
+in age to their teens, or the period in chicken-life corresponding to
+that in which, in the human species, boy and girl begin to diverge,
+their tails grew long, and they developed very fine red combs; but the
+lady of the house, who had been promised good layers when she bought the
+eggs clung tenaciously to the belief that long arching tails and stately
+crests were ornaments common to both sexes in this particular breed. By
+and by they commenced to crow, first one, then two, then all, and stood
+confessed cockerels. Incidents like this, which are of frequent
+occurrence, serve to keep alive the exceedingly ancient notion that the
+sex of the future chick can be foretold from the shape of the egg. As I
+had no personal interest in the question of the future egg-supply of the
+establishment, I was not sorry to see the chickens develop into cocks;
+what did interest me were their first attempts at crowing--those grating
+sounds which the young bird does not seem to emit, but to wrench out
+with painful effort, as a plant is wrenched out of the soil, and not
+without bringing away portions of the lungs clinging to its roots. The
+bird appears to know what is coming, like an amateur dentist about to
+extract one of his own double-pronged teeth, and setting his feet
+firmly on the ground, and throwing himself well back before an imaginary
+looking-glass, and with arched-neck, wide-open beak, and rolling eyes,
+courageously performs the horrible operation. One cannot help thinking
+that a cockerel brought up without any companions of his own sex and age
+would not often crow, but in this instance there were no fewer than ten
+of them to encourage each other in the laborious process of tuning their
+harsh throats. Heard subsequently in the quiet of the early morning,
+these first tuning efforts suggested some reflections to my mind, which
+may not prove entirely without interest to fanciers who aim at something
+beyond a mere increase in our food-supply in their selecting and
+refining processes.
+
+To continue my narration. I woke in the morning at my usual time,
+between three and four o'clock, which is not my getting-up time, for, as
+a rule, after half an hour or so I sleep again. The waking is not
+voluntary as far as I know; for although it may seem a contradiction in
+terms to speak of coming at will out of a state of unconsciousness, we
+do, in cases innumerable, wake voluntarily, or at the desired time, not
+perhaps being altogether unconscious when sleeping. If, however, this
+early waking were voluntary, I should probably say that it was for the
+pleasure of listening to the crowing of the cocks at that silent hour
+when the night, so near its end, is darkest, and the mysterious tide of
+life, prescient of coming dawn, has already turned, and is sending the
+red current more and more swiftly through the sleeper's veins. I have
+spent many a night in the desert, and when waking on the wide silent
+grassy plain, the first whiteness in the eastern sky, and the fluting
+call of the tinamou, and the perfume of the wild evening primrose, have
+seemed to me like a resurrection in which I had a part; and something of
+this feeling is always associated in my mind with the first far-heard
+notes of Chanticleer.
+
+It was very dark and quiet when I woke; my window was open, with only a
+lace curtain before it to separate me from the open air. Presently the
+profound silence was broken. From a distance of fifty or sixty yards
+away on the left hand came the crow of a cock, soon answered by another
+further away on the same side, and then, further away still, by a third.
+Other voices took up the challenge on the right, some near, some far,
+until it seemed that there was scarcely a house in the neighbourhood at
+which Chanticleer was not a dweller. There was no other sound. Not for
+another hour would the sparrows burst out in a chorus of chirruping
+notes, lengthened or shortened at will, variously inflected, and with a
+ringing musical sound in some of them, which makes one wonder why this
+bird, so high in the scale of nature, has never acquired a set song for
+itself. For there is music in him, and when confined with a singing
+finch he will sometimes learn its song. Then the robins, then the tits,
+then the starlings, gurgling, jarring, clicking, whistling, chattering.
+Then the pigeons cooing soothingly on the roof and window-ledges, taking
+flight from time to time with sudden, sharp flap, flap, followed by a
+long, silken sound made by the wings in gliding. At four the cocks had
+it all to themselves; and, without counting the cockerels (not yet out
+of school), I could distinctly hear a dozen birds; that is to say, they
+were near enough for me to listen to their music critically. The variety
+of sounds they emitted was very great, and, if cocks were selected for
+their vocal qualities, would have shown an astonishing difference in the
+musical tastes of their owners. A dozen dogs of as many different
+breeds, ranging from the boar-hound to the toy terrier, would not have
+shown greater dissimilarity in their forms than did these cocks in their
+voices. For the fowl, like the dog, has become an extremely variable
+creature in the domestic state, in voice no less than in size, form,
+colour, and other particulars. At one end of the scale there was the
+raucous bronchial strain produced by the unwieldy Cochin. What a bird is
+that! Nature, in obedience to man's behests, and smiling with secret
+satire over her work, has made it ponderous and ungraceful as any clumsy
+mammalian, wombat, ardvaark, manatee, or hippopotamus. The burnished red
+hackles, worn like a light mantle over the black doublet of the breast,
+the metallic dark green sickle-plumes arching over the tail, all the
+beautiful lines and rich colouring, have been absorbed into flesh and
+fat for gross feeders; and with these have gone its liveliness and
+vigour, its clarion voice and hostile spirit and brilliant courage; it
+is Gallus bankiva degenerate, with dulled brains and blunted spurs, and
+its hoarse crow is a barbarous chant.
+
+And far away at the other end, startling in its suddenness and
+impetuosity, was a trisyllabic crow, so brief, piercing, and emphatic,
+that it could only have proceeded from that peppery uppish little bird,
+the bantam. And of the three syllables, the last, which should be the
+longest, was the shortest, "short and sharp like the shrill swallow's
+cry," or perhaps even more like the shrieky bark of an enraged little
+cur; not a _reveille_ and silvern morning song in one, as a crow should
+be, but a challenge and a defiance, wounding the sense like a spur, and
+suggesting the bustle and fury of the cockpit.
+
+If this style of crowing was known to Milton, it is perhaps accountable
+for the one bad couplet in the "Allegro":
+
+  While the cock with lively din
+  Scatters the rear of darkness thin.
+
+Someone has said that every line in that incomparable poem brings at
+least one distinct picture vividly before the mind's eye. The picture
+the first line of the couplet I have quoted suggests to ray mind is not
+of crowing Chanticleer at all, but of a stalwart, bare-armed,
+blowsy-faced woman, vigorously beating on a tin pan with a stick; but
+for what purpose--whether to call down a passing swarm of bees, or to
+summon the chickens to be fed--I never know. It is only my mental
+picture of a "lively din." As to the second line, all attempts to see
+the thing described only bring before me clouds and shadows, confusedly
+rushing about in an impossible way; a chaos utterly unlike the serenity
+and imperceptible growth of morning, and not a picture at all.
+
+By and by I found myself paying special attention to one cock, about a
+hundred yards away, or a little more perhaps, for by contrast all the
+other songs within hearing seemed strangely inferior. Its voice was
+singularly clear and pure, the last note greatly prolonged and with a
+slightly falling inflection, yet not collapsing at the finish as such
+long notes frequently do, ending with a little internal sound or croak,
+as if the singer had exhausted his breath; but it was perfect in its
+way, a finished performance, artistic, and, by comparison, brilliant.
+After once hearing this bird I paid little attention to the others, but
+after each resounding call I counted the seconds until its repetition.
+It was this bird's note, on this morning, and not the others, which
+seemed to bring round me that atmosphere of dreams and fancies I exist
+in at early cockcrow--dreams and memories, sweet or sorrowful, of old
+scenes and faces, and many eloquent passages in verse and prose, written
+by men in other and better days, who lived more with nature than we do
+now. Such a note as this was, perhaps, in Thoreau's mind when he
+regretted that there were no cocks to cheer him in the solitude of
+Walden. "I thought," he says, "that it might be worth while keeping a
+cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once
+wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and
+if they could be naturalized without being domesticated it would soon
+become the most famous sound in our woods. . . . To walk in a winter
+morning in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods, and
+hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill for miles
+over the surrounding country--think of it! It would put nations on the
+alert. Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier on
+each successive morning of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy,
+wealthy, and wise?"
+
+Soon I fell into thinking of one in some ways greater than Thoreau, so
+unlike the skyey-minded New England prophet and solitary, so much more
+genial and tolerant, more mundane and lovable; and yet like Thoreau in
+his nearness to nature. Not only a lover of generous wines--"That mark
+upon his lip is wine"--and books "clothed in black and red," all natural
+sights and sounds also "filled his herte with pleasure and solass," and
+the early crowing of the cock was a part of the minstrelsy he loved.
+Perhaps when lying awake during the dark quiet hours, and listening to
+just such a note as this, he conceived and composed that wonderful tale
+of the "Nun's Priest," in which the whole character of Chanticleer, his
+glory and his foibles, together with the homely virtues of Dame
+Partlett, are so admirably set forth.
+
+And longer ago it was perhaps such a note as this, heard in imagination
+by the cock-loving Athenians, which all at once made them feel so
+unutterably weary of endless fighting with the Lacedaemonians, and
+inspired their hearts with such a passionate desire for the long
+untasted sweets of security and repose. Is it one of my morning fancies
+merely--for fact and fancy mingle strangely at this still, mysterious
+hour, and are scarcely distinguishable--or is it related in history that
+this strange thing happened when all the people of the violet-crowned
+city were gathered to witness a solemn tragedy, in which certain verses
+were spoken that had a strange meaning to their war-weary souls? "Those
+who sleep in the morning in the arms of peace do not start from them at
+the sound of the trumpet, and nothing interrupts their slumbers but the
+peaceful crowing of the cock." And at these words the whole concourse
+was electrified, and rose up like one man, and from thousands of lips
+went forth a great cry of "Peace! Peace! Let us make peace with Sparta!"
+
+Hark! once more that long clarion call: it is the last time--the very
+last; for all the others have sung a dozen times apiece and have gone to
+sleep again. So would this one have done, but cocks, like minstrels
+among men, are vain creatures, and some kind officious fairy whispered
+in his ear that there was an appreciative listener hard by, and so to
+please me he sang, just one stave more.
+
+Lying and listening in the dark, it seemed to me that there were two
+opposite qualities commingled in the sound, with an effect analogous to
+that of shadow mingling with and chastening light at eventide. First, it
+was strong and clear, full of assurance and freedom, qualities admirably
+suited to the song of a bird of Chanticleer's disposition; a lusty,
+ringing strain, not sung in the clouds or from a lofty perch midway
+between earth and heaven, but with feet firmly planted on the soil, and
+earthly; and compared with the notes of the grove like a versified
+utterance of Walt Whitman compared with the poems of the true inspired
+children of song--Blake, Shelley, Poe. Earthly, but not hostile and
+eager; on the contrary, leisurely, _peaceful_ even dreamy, with a touch
+of tenderness which brings it into relationship with the more aerial
+tones of the true singers; and this is the second quality I spoke of,
+which gave a charm to this note and made it seem better than the others.
+This is partly the effect of distance, which clarifies and softens
+sound, just as distance gives indistinctness of outline and ethereal
+blueness to things that meet the sight. To objects beautiful in
+themselves, in graceful lines and harmonious proportions and colouring,
+the haziness imparts an additional grace; but it does not make beautiful
+the objects which are ugly in themselves, as, for instance, an ugly
+square house. So in the etherealizing effect of distance on sound, when
+so loud a sound as the crowing of a strong-lunged cock becomes dreamy
+and tender at a distance of one hundred yards, there must be good
+musical elements in it to begin with.  I do not remark this dreaminess
+in the notes of other birds, some crowing at an equal distance, others
+still further away. All natural music is heard best at a distance; like
+the chiming of bells, and the music of the flute, and the wild confused
+strains of the bagpipes, for among artificial sounds these come the
+nearest to those made by nature.  The "shrill sharps" of the thrush must
+be softened by distance to charm; and the skylark, when close at hand,
+has both shrill and harsh sounds scarcely pleasing. He must mount
+high before you can appreciate his merit. I do not recommend any one to
+keep a caged cock in his study for the sake of its music, crow it never
+so well.
+
+To return to the ten cockerels; they did not crow very much, and at
+first I paid little attention to them. After a few days I remarked that
+one individual among them was rapidly acquiring the clear vigorous
+strain of the adult bird. Compared with that fine note which I have
+described, it was still weak and shaky, but in shape it was similar, and
+the change had come while its brethren were still uttering brief and
+harsh screeches as at the beginning. Probably, where there is a great
+mixture of varieties, it is the same with the fowl as with man in the
+diversity of the young, different ancestral characters appearing in
+different members of the same family. This cockerel was apparently the
+musical member, and promised in a short time to rival his neighbour.
+Having heard that it was intended to keep one of the cockerels to be the
+parent of future broods, I began to wonder whether the prize in the
+lottery--to wit, life and a modest harem--would fall to this fine
+singer or not. The odds were that his musical career would be cut short
+by an early death, since the ten birds were very much alike in other
+respects, and I felt perfectly sure that his superior note would weigh
+nothing in the balance. For when has the character of the voice
+influenced a fancier in selecting? Never I believe, odd as it seems. I
+have read a very big book on the various breeds of the fowl, but the
+crowing of the cock was not mentioned in it.  This would not seem so
+strange if fanciers had invariably looked solely to utility, and their
+highest ambition had ended at size, weight and quality of flesh, early
+maturity, hardihood, and the greatest number of eggs. This has not been
+the case. They possess, like others, the love of the beautiful,
+artificial as their standards sometimes appear; and there are breeds in
+which beauty seems to have been the principal object, as, for instance,
+in several of the gold and silver spangled and pencilled varieties. But,
+besides beauty of plumage, there are other things in the fowl worthy of
+being improved by selection. One of these has been cultivated by man for
+thousands of years, namely, the combative spirit and splendid courage of
+the male bird. But there is a spirit abroad now which condemns
+cock-fighting, and to continue selecting and breeding cocks solely for
+their game-points seems a mere futility. The energy and enthusiasm
+expended in this direction would be much better employed in improving
+the bird's vocal powers.
+
+The morning song of the cock is a sound unique in nature, and of all
+natural sounds it is the most universal. "All climates agree with brave
+Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than the natives. His health is
+ever good; his lungs are sound; his spirits never flag." He is a pet
+bird among tribes that have never seen the peacock, goose, and turkey.
+In tropical countries where the dog becomes dumb, or degenerates into a
+mere growler, his trumpet never rusts. It is true that he was cradled in
+the torrid zone, yet in all Western lands, where he "shakes off the
+powdery snow," with vigorous wings, his voice sounds as loud and
+inspiriting as in the hot jungle. Pale-faced Londoners, and blacks, and
+bronzed or painted barbarians, all men all the world over, wake at morn
+to the "peaceful crowing of the cock," just as the Athenians woke of
+old, and the nations older still. It is not, therefore, strange that
+this song has more associations for man than any other sound in nature.
+But, apart from any adventitious claims to our attention, the sound
+possesses intrinsic merits and pleases for its own sake. In our other
+domestic birds we have, with regard to this point, been unfortunate. We
+have the gobbling of turkeys, and the hoarse, monotonous come back of
+the guinea-fowl, screaming of peacocks and geese, and quacking, hissing,
+and rasping of mallard and mus-covy. Above all these sounds the ringing,
+lusty, triumphant call of Chanticleer, as the far-reaching toll of the
+bell-bird sounds above the screaming and chattering of parrots and
+toucans in the Brazilian forest. A fine sound, which in spite of many
+changes of climate and long centuries of domestication still preserves
+that forest-born character of wildness, which gives so great a charm to
+the language of many woodland gallinaceous birds. As we have seen, it is
+variable, and in some artificial varieties has been suffered to
+degenerate into sounds harsh and disagreeable; yet it is plain that an
+improved voice in a beautiful breed would double the bird's value from
+an aesthetic point of view. As things now are, the fine voices are in a
+very small minority. Some bad voices in artificial breeds, i.e., those
+which, like the Brahma and Cochin, diverge most widely from the original
+type--are perhaps incurable, like the carrion crow's voice; for that
+bird will probably always caw harshly in spite of the musical throat
+which anatomists find in it. We can only listen to our birds, and begin
+experimenting with those already possessed of shapely notes and voices
+of good quality.
+
+I am not going to be so ill-mannered as to conclude without an apology
+to those among us who under no circumstances can tolerate the crowing of
+the cock. It is true that I have not been altogether unmindful of their
+prepossessions, and have freely acknowledged in divers places that
+Chanticleer does not always please, and that there is abundant room for
+improvement; but if they go further than that, if for them there exists
+not on this round globe a cock whose voice would fail to irritate, then
+I have not shown consideration enough, and something is still owing to
+their feelings, which are very acute. It is possible that one of these
+sensitive persons may take up my book, and, attracted by its title, dip
+into this paper, hoping to find in it a practical suggestion for the
+effectual muzzling of the obnoxious bird. The only improvement which
+would fall in with such a one's ideas on the subject of cock-crowing
+would be to improve this kind of natural music out of existence.
+Naturally the paper would disappoint him; he would be grieved at the
+writer's erroneous views. I hope that his feelings would take no acuter
+form. I have listened to a person, usually mild-mannered, denouncing a
+neighbour in the most unmeasured terms for the crime of keeping a
+crowing cock. If the cock had been a non-crower, a silent member, it
+would have been different: he would hardly have known that he had a
+neighbour. There is a very serious, even a sad, side to this question.
+Mr. Sully maintains that as civilization progresses, and as we grow more
+intellectual, all noise, which is pleasing to children and savages, and
+only exhilarates their coarse and juvenile brains, becomes increasingly
+intolerable to us. What unfortunate creatures we then are! We have got
+our pretty rattle and are now afraid that the noise it makes is going to
+be the death of us. But what is noise? Will any two highly intellectual
+beings agree as to the particular sound which produces the effect of
+rusty nails thrust in among the convolutions of the brain? Physicians
+are continually discovering new forms of nervous maladies, caused by the
+perpetual hurry and worry and excitement of our modern life; and perhaps
+there is one form in which natural sounds, which being natural should be
+agreeable, or at any rate innocent, become more and more abhorrent. This
+is a question which concerns the medical journals; also, to some extent,
+those who labour to forecast the future. Happily, all our maladies are
+thrown off, sooner or later, if they do not kill us; and we can
+cheerfully look forward to a time when the delicate chords in us shall
+no longer be made to vibrate "like sweet bells jangled out of tune and
+harsh" to any sound in nature, and when the peaceful crowing of the cock
+shall cease to madden the early waker. For, whatever may be the fate
+awaiting our city civilization, brave Chanticleer, improved as to his
+voice or not, will undoubtedly still be with us.
+
+
+
+
+IN AN OLD GARDEN
+
+
+A sunny morning in June--a golden day among days that have mostly a
+neutral tint; a large garden, with no visible houses beyond, but green
+fields and unkept hedges and great silent trees, oak and ash and
+elm--could I wish, just now, for a more congenial resting-place, or even
+imagine one that comes nearer to my conception of an earthly paradise?
+It is true that once I could not drink deeply enough from the sweet and
+bitter cup of wild nature, and loved nature best, and sought it gladly
+where it was most savage and solitary. But that was long ago. Now, after
+years of London life, during which I have laboured like many another "to
+get a wan pale face," with perhaps a wan pale mind to match, that past
+wildness would prove too potent and sharp a tonic; unadulterated nature
+would startle and oppress me with its rude desolate aspect, no longer
+familiar. This softness of a well-cultivated earth, and unbroken verdure
+of foliage in many shades, and harmonious grouping and blending of
+floral hues, best suit my present enervated condition. I had, I imagine,
+a swarter skin and firmer flesh when I could ride all day over great
+summer-parched plains, where there was not a bush that would have
+afforded shelter to a mannikin, and think that I was having a pleasant
+journey. The cloudless sky and vertical sun--how intolerable they would
+now seem, and scorch my brain and fill my shut eyes with dancing flames!
+At present even this mild June sun is strong enough to make the old
+mulberry tree on the lawn appear grateful. It is an ancient,
+rough-barked tree, with wide branches, that droop downwards all round,
+and rest their terminal leaves on the sward; underneath it is a natural
+tent, or pavilion, with plenty of space to move about and sling a
+hammock in. Here, then, I have elected to spend the hottest hours of my
+one golden day, reading, dreaming, listening at intervals to the fine
+bird-sounds that have a medicinal and restorative effect on the jarred
+and wounded sense.
+
+From the elms hard by comes a subdued, airy prattle of a few sparrows.
+It is rather pleasant, something like a low accompaniment to the notes
+of the more tuneful birds; the murmurous music of a many-stringed
+instrument, forming the indistinct ground over which runs the bright
+embroidery of clear melodious singing.
+
+This morning, while lying awake from four to five o'clock, I almost
+hated the sparrows, they were there in such multitudes, and so loud and
+persistent sounded their jangling through the open window. It set me
+thinking of the England of the future--of a time a hundred years hence,
+let us say--when there will remain with us only two representatives of
+feral life--the sparrow and the house-fly. Doubtless it will come,
+unless something happens; but, doubtless, it will not continue. It will
+still be necessary for a man to kill something in order to be happy; and
+the sportsmen of that time, like great Gambetta, in the past, will sit
+in the balconies, popping with pea-rifles at the sparrows until not one
+is left to twitter. Then will come the turn of the untamed and untamable
+fly; and he will afford good sport if hunted a la Domitain, with fine,
+needle-tipped paper javelins, thrown to impale him on the wall.
+
+One of our savants has lately prophesied that the time will come when
+only the microscopic organisms will exist to satisfy the hunting
+instinct in man. How these small creatures will be taken he does not
+tell us. Perhaps the hunters will station themselves round a table with
+a drop of preserved water on its centre, made large and luminous by
+means of a ray of magnifying light. When that time comes the
+amoeba--that "wandering Jew," as an irreverent Quarterly Reviewer has
+called it--will lose its immortality, and the spry rotifer will fall a
+victim to the infinitesimal fine bright arrows of the chase. A strange
+quarry for men whose paeliolithic progenitors hunted the woolly mastodon
+and many-horned rhinoceros and sabre-toothed tiger!
+
+That sad day of very small things for the sportsman is, however, not
+near, nor within measurable distance; or, so it seemed to me when, an
+hour ago, I strolled round the garden, curiously peering into every
+shrub, to find the visible and comparatively noble insect-life in great
+abundance. Beetles were there--hard, round, polished, and of various
+colours, like sea-worn pebbles on the beach; and some, called lady-birds
+in the vernacular, were bound like the books that Chaucer loved in black
+and red. And the small gilded fly, not less an insect light-headed, a
+votary of vain delights, than in the prehistoric days when a
+white-headed old king, discrowned and crazed, railed against sweet
+Nature's liberty. And ever waiting to welcome this inconstant lover
+(with falces) there sits the solitary geometric spider, an image and
+embodiment of patience, not on a monument, but a suspended wheel of
+which he is himself the hub; and so delicately fashioned are the silver
+spokes thereof, radiating from his round and gem-like body, and the
+rings, concentric tire within tire, that its exceeding fineness, like
+swift revolving motion, renders it almost invisible. Caterpillars, too,
+in great plenty--miniature porcupines with fretful quills on end, and
+some naked even as they came into the world. This one, called the
+earth-measurer, has drunk himself green with chlorophyll so as to escape
+detection. Vain precaution! since eccentric motion betrays him to keen
+avian eyes, when, like the traveller's snake, he erects himself on the
+tip of his tail and sways about in empty space, vaguely feeling for
+something, he knows not what. And the mechanical tortrix that rolls up a
+leaf for garment and food, and preys on his own case and shelter until
+he has literally eaten himself stark naked; after which he rolls up a
+second leaf, and so on progressively. Thus in his larval life does he
+symbolize some restless nation that makes itself many successive
+constitutions and forms of government, in none of which it abides long;
+but afterwards some higher thing, when he rests motionless, in form like
+a sarcophagus, whence the infolded life emerges to haunt the twilight--a
+grey ghost moth. There is no end to rolled-up leaves, and to the variety
+of creatures that are housed in them; for, just as the "insect tribes of
+human kind" in all places and in all ages, while seeking to improve
+their condition, independently hit on the same means and inventions, so
+it is with these small six-legged people; and many species in many
+places have found out the comfort and security of the green cylinder.
+
+So many did I open that I at last grew tired of the process, like a man
+to whom the post has brought too many letters; but there was one--the
+last I opened--the living active contents of which served to remind me
+that some insects are unable to make a cylinder for themselves, having
+neither gum nor web to fasten it with, and yet they will always find one
+made by others to shelter themselves in. Here were no fewer than six
+unbeautiful creatures, brothers and sisters, hatched from eggs on which
+their parent earwig sat incubating just like an eagle or dove or
+swallow, or, better still, like a pelican; for in the end did she not
+give of her own life-fluid to nourish her children? Unbeautiful, yet not
+without a glory superior to that of the Purple Emperor, and the angelic
+blue Morpho, and the broad-winged Ornithoptera, that caused an
+illustrious traveller to swoon with joy at the sight of its supreme
+loveliness. Du Maurier has a drawing of a little girl in a garden gazing
+at two earwigs racing along a stem. "I suppose," she remarks
+interrogatively to her mamma, "that these are Mr. and Mrs. Earwig?" and
+on being answered affirmatively, exclaims, "What could they have seen in
+each other?" What they saw was blue blood, or something in insectology
+corresponding to it. The earwig's lustre is that of antiquity. He
+existed on earth before colour came in; and colour is old, although not
+so old as Nature's unconscious aestheticism which, in the organic world,
+is first expressed in beauty of form. It is long since the great May
+flies, large as swifts, had their aerial cloudy dances over the vast
+everglades and ancient forests of ferns; and when, on some dark night, a
+brilliant Will-o'-the-wisp rose and floated above the feathery foliage,
+drawn in myriads to its light, they revolved about it in an immense
+mystical wheel, misty-white, glistening, and touched with prismatic
+colour. Floating fire and wheel were visible only to the stars, and the
+wakeful eyes of giant scaly monsters lying quiescent in the black waters
+below; but they were very beautiful nevertheless. The modest earwig was
+old on the earth even then; he dates back to the time, immeasurably
+remote, when scorpions possessed the earth, and taught him to frighten
+his enemies with a stingless tail--that curious antique little tail
+which has not yet forgot its cunning.
+
+Greater than all these inhabitants of the garden, ancient or modern by
+reason of their numbers, which is the sign of predominance, are the
+small wingless people that have colonies on every green stem and under
+every green leaf.
+
+These are the true generators of that heavenly sweat, or saliva of the
+stars, concerning which Pliny the Younger wrote so learnedly. And they
+are many tribes--green, purple, brown, isabel-line; but all are one
+nation, and sacred to that fair god whom the Carian water-nymph loved
+not wisely but too well. For, albeit the children of an ancient union,
+they marry not, nor are given in marriage, yet withal multiply
+exceedingly, so that one (not two) may in a single season produce a
+billion. And at last when autumn comes, won back from the cold god to
+his hot mother, they know love and wedlock, and die like all married
+things. These are the Aphides--sometimes unprettily called plant-lice,
+and vaguely spoken of by the uninformed as "blight"--and they nourish
+themselves on vegetable juices, that thin green blood which is the
+plant's life.
+
+This, then, is the fruit which the birds have, come to gather. In June
+is their richest harvest; it is more bountiful than September, when
+apples redden, and grapes in distant southern lands are gathered for the
+wine-press. In yon grey wall at the end of the lawn, just above the
+climbing rose-bush, there are now seven hungry infants in one small
+cradle, each one, some one says, able to consume its own weight of
+insect food every day. I am inclined to believe that it must be so,
+while trying to count the visits paid to the nest in one hour by the
+parent tits--those small tits that do the gardener so much harm! We
+know, on good authority, that the spider has a "nutty flavour"; and most
+insects in the larval stage afford succulent and toothsome, or at all
+events beaksome, morsels. These are, just now, the crimson cherries,
+purple and yellow plums, currants, red, white, and black--and
+sun-painted peaches, asking in their luscious ripeness for a mouth to
+melt in, that fascinate finch and flycatcher alike, and make the
+starlings smack their horny lips with a sound like a loving kiss.
+
+Not that I care, or esteem birds for what they eat or do not eat. With
+all these creatures that are at strife among themselves, and that birds
+prey upon, I am at peace, even to the smallest that are visible--the red
+spider which is no spider; and the minute gossamer spider clinging to
+the fine silvery hairs of the flying summer; and the coccus that fall
+from the fruit trees to float on their buoyant cottony down--a summer
+snow. Fils de la Vierge are these, and sacred. The man who can
+needlessly set his foot on a worm is as strange to my soul as De
+Quincey's imaginary Malay, or even his "damned crocodile." The worm that
+one sees lying bruised and incapable on the gravel walk has fallen among
+thieves. These little lives do me good and not harm. I smell the acid
+ants to strengthen my memory. I know that if I set an overturned
+cockchafer on his legs three sins shall be forgiven me; that if I am
+kindly tolerant of the spider that drops accidentally on my hand or
+face, my purse shall be mysteriously replenished. At the same time, one
+has to remember that such sentiments, as a rule, are not understood by
+those who have charge over groves and gardens, whose minds are ignorant
+and earthy, or, as they would say, practical. Of the balance of nature
+they know and care naught, nor can they regard life as sacred; it is
+enough to know that it is or may be injurious to their interests for
+them to sweep it away. The small thing that has been flying about and
+uttering musical sounds since April may, when July comes, devour a
+certain number of cherries. Nor is even this plea needed. If it is
+innocent for the lower creatures to prey upon one another, it cannot be
+less innocent for man to destroy them indiscriminately, if it gives him
+any pleasure to do so. It is idle to go into such subtle questions with
+those who have the power to destroy; if their hands are to be restrained
+it is not by appealing to feelings which they do not possess, but to
+their lower natures--to their greed and their cunning. For the rest of
+us, for all who have conquered or outgrown the killing instinct, the
+impartiality that pets nothing and persecutes nothing is doubtless man's
+proper attitude towards the inferior animals; a godlike benevolent
+neutrality; a keen and kindly interest in every form of life, with
+indifference as to its ultimate destiny; the softness which does no
+wrong with the hardness that sees no wrong done.
+
+To return to the birds. The starlings have kissed like lovers, and
+fluttered up vertically on their short wings, trying to stream like
+eagles, only to return to the trees once more and sit there chattering
+pleasant nothings; at intervals throwing out those soft, round,
+modulated whistled notes, just as an idle cigarette-smoker blows rings
+of blue smoke from his lips; and now they have flown away to the fields
+so that I can listen to the others.
+
+A thrush is making music on a tall tree beyond the garden hedge, and I
+am more grateful for the distance that divides us than for the song;
+for, just now, he does not sing so well as sometimes of an evening, when
+he is most fluent, and a listener, deceived by his sweetness and melody,
+writes to the papers to say that he has heard the nightingale. Just now
+his song is scrappy, composed of phrases that follow no order and do not
+fit or harmonize, and is like a poor imitation of an inferior
+mocking-bird's song.
+
+Between the scraps of loud thrush-music I listen to catch the thin,
+somewhat reedy sound of a yellow-hammer singing in the middle of the
+adjoining grassy field. It comes well from the open expanse of purpling
+grass, and reminds me of a favourite grasshopper in a distant sunny
+land. O happy grasshopper! singing all day in the trees and tall
+herbage, in a country where every village urchin is not sent afield to
+"study natural history" with green net and a good store of pins, shall I
+ever again hear thy breezy music, and see thee among the green leaves,
+beautiful with steel-blue and creamy-white body, and dim purple over and
+vivid red underwings?
+
+The bird of the pasture-land is singing still, perhaps, but all at once
+I have ceased to hear him, for something has come to lift me above his
+low grassy level, something faint and at first only the suspicion of a
+sound; then a silvery lisping, far off and aerial, touching the sense as
+lightly as the wind-borne down of dandelion.
+
+If any place for any soul there be Disrobed and disentrammelled,
+doubtless it is from such a place and such a soul that this sublimated
+music falls. The singer, one can imagine, has never known or has
+forgotten earth; and if it is visible to him, how small it must seem
+from that altitude, "spinning like a fretful midge" beneath him in the
+vast void!
+
+It is the lark singing in the blue infinite heaven, at this distance
+with something ethereal and heavenly in his voice; but now the wide
+circling wings that brought him for a few moments within hearing, have
+borne him beyond it again; and missing it, the sunshine looks less
+brilliant than before, and all other bird-voices seem by comparison dull
+and of the earth.
+
+Certainly there is nothing spiritual in the song of the chaffinch. There
+he sits within sight, motionless, a little bird-shaped automaton, made
+to go off at intervals of twelve or thirteen seconds; but unfortunately
+one hears with the song the whirr and buzz of the internal machinery. It
+is not now as in April, when it is sufficient in a song that it shall be
+joyous; in the leafy month, when roses are in bloom, one grows critical,
+and asks for sweetness and expression, and a better art than this
+vigorous garden singer displays in that little double flourish with
+which he concludes his little hurry-scurry lyric. He has practised that
+same flourish for five thousand years--to be quite within the mark--and
+it is still far from perfect, still little better than a kind of musical
+sneeze. So long is art!
+
+Perhaps in some subtle way, beyond the psychologist's power to trace, he
+has become aware of my opinion of his performance--the unspoken
+detraction which yet affects its object; and, feeling hurt in his
+fringilline _amour propre_, he has all at once taken himself off. Never
+mind; a better singer has succeeded him. I have heard and seen the
+little wren a dozen times to-day; now he has come to the upper part of
+the tree I am lying under, and although so near his voice sounds
+scarcely louder than before. This is also a lyric, but of another kind.
+It is not plaintive, nor passionate; nor is it so spontaneous as the
+warbling of the robin--that most perfect feathered impressionist; nor is
+it endeared to me by early associations since I listened in boyhood to
+the songs of other wrens. In what, then, does its charm consist? I do
+not know. Certainly it is delicate, and may even be described as
+brilliant, in its limited way perfect, and to other greater songs like
+the small pimpernel to a poppy or a hollyhock. Unambitious, yet
+finished, it has the charm of distinction. The wren is the least
+self-conscious of our singers. Somewhere among the higher green
+translucent leaves the little brown barred thing is quietly sitting,
+busy for the nonce about nothing, dreaming his summer dream, and
+unknowingly telling it aloud. When shall we have symbols to express as
+perfectly our summer-feeling--our dream?
+
+That small song has served to remind me of two small books I brought
+into the garden to read--the works of two modern minor poets whose
+"wren-like warblings," I imagined, would suit my mood and the genial
+morning better than the stirring or subtle thoughts of greater singers.
+Possibly in that I was mistaken; for there until now lie the books
+neglected on a lawn chair within reach of my hand. The chair was dragged
+hither half-an-hour ago by a maiden all in white, who appeared half
+inclined to share the mulberry shade with me. She did not continue long
+in that mind. In a lively manner, she began speaking of some trivial
+thing; but after a very few moments all interest in the subject
+evaporated, and she sat humming some idle air, tapping the turf with her
+fantastic shoe. Presently she picked up one of my books, opened it at
+random and read a line or two, her vermilion under-lip curling slightly;
+then threw it down again, and glanced at me out of the corners of her
+eyes; then hummed again, and finally became silent, and sat bending
+forward a little, her dark lustrous eyes gazing with strange intentness
+through the slight screen of foliage into the vacant space beyond. What
+to see? The poet has omitted to tell us to what the maiden's fancy
+lightly turns in spring. Doubtless it turns to thoughts of something
+real. Life is real; so is passion--the quickening of the blood, the wild
+pulsation. But the pleasures and pains of the printed book are not real,
+and are to reality like Japanese flowers made of coloured bits of tissue
+paper to the living fragrant flowers that bloom to-day and perish
+to-morrow; they are a simulacrum, a mockery, and present to us a pale
+phantasmagoric world, peopled with bloodless men and women that chatter
+meaningless things and laugh without joy. The feeling of unreality
+affects us all at times, but in very different degrees. And perhaps I
+was too long a doer, herding too much with narrow foreheads, drinking
+too deeply of the sweet and bitter cup, to experience that pure
+unfailing delight in literature which some have.  Its charm, I fancy, is
+greatest to those in whom the natural man, deprived in early life of his
+proper aliment, grows sickly and pale, and perishes at last of
+inanition. There is ample room then for the latter higher growth--the
+unnatural cultivated man. Lovers of literature are accustomed to say
+that they find certain works "helpful" to them; and doubtless, being all
+intellect, they are right. But we, the less highly developed, are
+compounded of two natures, and while this spiritual pabulum sustains
+one, the other and larger nature is starved; for the larger nature is
+earthly, and draws its sustenance from the earth. I must look at a leaf,
+or smell the sod, or touch a rough pebble, or hear some natural sound,
+if only the chirp of a cricket, or feel the sun or wind or rain on my
+face. The book itself may spoil the pleasure it was designed to give me,
+and instead of satisfying my hunger, increase it until the craving and
+sensation of emptiness becomes intolerable. Not any day spent in a
+library would I live again, but rather some lurid day of labour and
+anxiety, of strife, or peril, or passion.
+
+Occupied with this profound question, I scarcely noticed when my
+shade-sharer, with whom I sympathised only too keenly in her restless
+mood, rose and, lifting the light green curtain, passed out into the
+sunshine and was gone. Nor did I notice when the little wren ceased
+singing overhead. At length recalled to myself I began to wonder at the
+unusual silence in the garden, until, casting my eyes on the lawn, I
+discovered the reason; for there, moving about in their various ways,
+most of the birds were collected in a loose miscellaneous flock, a kind
+of happy family. There were the starlings, returned from the fields, and
+looking like little speckled rooks; some sparrows, and a couple of
+robins hopping about in their wild startled manner; in strange contrast
+to these last appeared that little feathered clodhopper, the chaffinch,
+plodding over the turf as if he had hobnailed boots on his feet; last,
+but not least, came statuesque blackbirds and thrushes, moving, when
+they moved, like automata. They all appear to be finding something to
+eat; but I Watch the thrushes principally, for these are more at home on
+the moist earth than the others, and have keener senses, and seek for
+nobler game. I see one suddenly thrust his beak into the turf and draw
+from it a huge earthworm, a wriggling serpent, so long that although he
+holds his head high, a third of the pink cylindrical body still rests in
+its run. What will he do with it? We know how wandering Waterton treated
+the boa which he courageously grasped by the tail as it retreated into
+the bushes. Naturally, it turned on him, and, lifting high its head,
+came swiftly towards his face with wide-open jaws; and at this supreme
+moment, without releasing his hold on its tail, with his free hand he
+snatched off his large felt hat and thrust it down the monster's throat,
+and so saved himself.
+
+Just as I am intently watching to see how my hatless little Waterton
+will deal with _his_ serpent, a startling bark, following by a canine
+shriek, then a yell, resound through the silent garden; and over the
+lawn rush those three demoniacal fox-terriers, Snap, Puzzy, and Babs,
+all determined to catch something. Away fly the birds, and though now
+high overhead, the baffled brutes continue wildly careering about the
+grounds, vexing the air with their frantic barkings. No more birds
+to-day! But now the peace-breakers have discovered me, and come tearing
+across the lawn, and on to the half-way chair, then to the hammock,
+scrambling over each other to inflict their unwelcome caresses on my
+hands and face.
+
+Ah well, let them have their way and do their worst, since the birds are
+gone, and I shall go soon. It is a consolation to think that they are
+not my pets; that I shall not grieve, like their mistress, when their
+brief barking period is over; that I care just so much and no more for
+them than for any other living creature, not excepting the
+_fer-de-lance_, "quoiled in the path like rope in a ship," or the
+broad-winged vulture "scaling the heavens by invisible stairs." None are
+out of place where Nature placed them, nor unbeautiful; none are
+unlovable, since their various qualities--the rage of the one and the
+gentleness of the other--are but harmonious lights and shades in the
+ever-changing living picture that is so perfect.
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE
+
+I
+
+TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS
+
+
+Having begun, or first written, this book in one village, which was near
+London, I am now finishing, or re-writing, it in another in "the westest
+part of all the land," over three hundred miles from the first. Here I
+had to go over this ancient work of twenty-three years ago, which was
+also my first English bird book, to prepare it for a new edition; and
+after all necessary corrections, omissions and additions of fresh matter
+made in the foregoing parts, it seemed best to throw out the whole of
+the concluding portion, which dealt mainly with the question of
+bird-preservation as it presented itself at that time and is now out of
+date, thanks to the legislation of recent years and to the growth in
+this country of the feeling or desire for birds during the last two or
+three decades. In place of this discarded matter I propose to give here
+the results of recent observations on the bird life of a Cornish
+village.
+
+My residence in the Cornish Village (or villages) was during May and
+June, 1915, and again from October of the same year to June, 1916. These
+were months of ill-health, so that I was prevented from pursuing my
+customary outdoor rambling life; but, like that poor creature the
+barnyard fowl that can't use its wings, instinctively, or from old
+habit, I used my eyes in keeping a watch on the feathered (and flying)
+people about me.
+
+The village, Lelant, is on the Hayle estuary, and to see the Atlantic
+one has but to walk past the grey old church at the end of the street,
+where the ground rises, to find oneself in a wilderness of towans, as
+the sand-hills are there called, clothed in their rough, grey-green
+marram grass and spreading on either hand round the bay of St. Ives. A
+beautiful sight, for the sea on a sunny day is of that marvellous blue
+colour seen only in Cornwall; far out on a rock on the right hand stands
+the shining white Godrevy lighthouse, and on the left, on the opposite
+side of the bay, the little ancient fishing-town of St. Ives.
+
+The river or estuary, in sight of the doors and windows of the village,
+was haunted every day by numbers of gulls and curlews. These last
+numbered about one hundred and fifty birds, and were always there except
+at full tide, when they would fly away to the fields and moors. Of all
+my bird neighbours I think that these gave me most pleasure, especially
+at night, when lying awake I would listen by the hour to the perpetual
+curlew conversation going on in the dark--an endless series of clear
+modulated notes and trills, with a beautiful expression of wildness and
+freedom, a reminder of lonely seashores and mountains and moorlands in
+the north country. What wonder that Stevenson, sick in his tropical
+island--sick for his cold grey home so many thousands of miles away,
+wished once more to hear the whaup crying over the graves of his
+forefathers, and to hear no more at all!
+
+Of bird music by day there was little; you would hear more of it in one
+morning in that small rustic village in Berkshire where the first part
+of this book was written than in a whole summer in one of these West
+Cornwall villages, so few comparatively are the songsters. Nor was this
+scarcity in the village only; it was everywhere, as I found when able to
+get out for a few hours during my two spring seasons in the place. Close
+by were the extensive woods of Trevalloe, where I was struck by the
+extraordinary silence and where I listened in vain for a single note
+from blackcap, garden-warbler, willow-wren, wood-wren, or redstart. The
+thrushes, chaffinch, chiff-chaff, and greenfinch were occasionally
+heard; outside the wood the buntings, chats, and the skylark were few
+and far between.
+
+This scarcity of small birds is, I think, due in the first place to the
+extraordinary abundance of the jackdaw, the diligent seeker after small
+birds' nests, and to the autumn and winter pastime of bush-beating to
+which men and boys are given in these parts, and which the Cornish
+authorities refuse to suppress.
+
+After a time, when, owing to increasing debility, I was confined more
+and more to the village, I began to concentrate my attention on a few
+common species that were always present, particularly on the three
+commonest--rook, daw, and starling; the first two residents, the
+starling, a winter visitor from September to April.
+
+In October, I started feeding the birds at the house where I was staying
+as a guest, throwing the scraps on a lawn at the back which sloped down
+towards the estuary. First came all the small birds in the immediate
+neighbourhood--robin, dunnock, wagtail, chaffinch, throstle, blackbird,
+and blue and ox-eye tits. Then followed troops of starlings, and soon
+all the rooks and daws in the village began to see what was going on and
+come too, and this attracted the gulls from the estuary--I wished that
+it had drawn the curlews; and all these big ones were so greedy and
+bold, so noisy and formidable-looking that the small birds were quite
+driven out; all except the starlings that came in hungry crowds and were
+determined to get their share.
+
+At the beginning of December I had to move to a nursing-home at the
+Convent of the Sisters of the Cross at the adjacent village of Hayle,
+just across the estuary. The Convent buildings and grounds and gardens
+are fortunately outside the ugly village, and my room had an
+exceptionally big window occupying almost the whole wall on one side,
+with an outlook to the south over the green fields and moors towards
+Helston. An ideal sick-room for a man who can't be happy without the
+company of birds, and here, even when lying on my bed before I was able
+to sit or stand by the window, a large portion of the sky, rainy or
+blue, was visible, and rooks and daws and gulls and troops of starlings,
+and the curlews from the river, were seen coming and going all day long.
+
+But it was much better when I was able to go to the window, since now,
+by feeding them, I could draw the birds to me. I fed them on a green
+field beneath my window, where the Convent milch-cows were accustomed to
+graze for some hours each day. All through the winter there was grass
+for them, and I was glad to have them there, as the cow is my favourite
+beast, and it was also pleasant to see the wintering starlings
+consorting with them, clustering about their noses, just as they do in
+the pasture lands in summer time. But I found it best to feed the birds
+when the cows were not there, on account of the behaviour of one of
+them, a young animal who had not yet been sobered by having a calf of
+her own.  She was a frivolous young thing and when tired of feeding, she
+would start teasing the old cows, pushing them with her horns, then
+flinging up her hind legs to challenge them to a romp. The sight of a
+crowd of birds under my window would bring her at a gallop to the spot
+to find out what all the fuss was about, and the birds would be driven
+off.
+
+One morning I was at my window when the field was empty of bird and
+beast life with the exception of a solitary old rook, a big bird who was
+a constant attendant and so much bigger than most of the rooks that I
+had come to know it well. By and by the young cow walked into the field
+by herself and, after gazing all round as if surprised at finding the
+place so lifeless, she caught sight of and fixed her eyes on the old
+rook working at the turf some fifty or sixty yards away. Presently she
+began walking towards it, and when within about twenty yards put her
+head down and charged it. The rook paid no attention until she was
+almost on it, then rose up, emitting its angriest, most raucous screams
+while hovering just over her head, and having thus relieved its
+indignant feelings it flew heavily away to the far end of the field, and
+settling down began prodding away at the soil. The cow, standing still,
+gazed after it, and one could almost imagine her saying: "So you won't
+get out of the field! Well!  I'll soon make you. I'm going to have it
+all to myself this morning." And at once she began rapidly walking
+towards the bird. But half-way to it was the post set up in the middle
+of the field for the cows to rub their hides, and on coming abreast of
+it the sight of it and its proximity suggested the delight of a rub, and
+turning off at right angles she walked straight to the post and began
+rubbing herself against it. The rook went on with its business, and
+after that there was no more quarrelling.
+
+Another morning this same old rook came with his mate to the field:
+separating, they came down a distance of a hundred yards or more apart
+and began searching for grubs. By and by the old cock discovered
+something particularly good and after vigorously prodding the turf for a
+few moments he sprang up and flew excitedly to his mate, who instantly
+knew what this action meant and began fluttering her wings and crying
+for the dainty morsel which he proceeded to deliver into her wide-open
+mouth. Having fed her, he flew back to the same spot and began working
+again.
+
+This is a common action of the rooks, and I saw this same bird feed his
+mate on other occasions during the winter months, when I have no doubt
+that he, poor wretch, could hardly find food enough to keep himself
+alive during the dark season of everlasting wind and rain when the dim
+daylight lasted for about six hours. But I never saw a daw or starling
+feed his mate, or feed another daw or starling, although I watched
+closely every day and often for an hour at a stretch, and though I am
+convinced that the starling, like the rook and crow and daw, and in fact
+all the Corvidae, pairs for life. To this point I will return presently;
+let me first relate another incident about our frivolous and
+irresponsible young cow.
+
+One morning when the cows were in the field, some herring-gulls drifted
+by and a few of them remained circling about above the field. I threw
+out a piece of bread, and a troop of starlings rushed to it, and one of
+the gulls dropped down and took possession of it, but had scarcely began
+tearing at it when two more gulls dropped down and the first bird,
+lifting his wings began screaming "Hands off!" at the others, and the
+others, also raising their wings, screamed their wailing screams in
+reply. The young cow, attracted by the noise, gazed at them for a few
+moments, then all at once putting her head down furiously charged them.
+The three gulls rose up simultaneously and floated over her and then
+away, leaving her standing on the spot, shaking her head in anger and
+disgust at their escape. A rhinoceros charging a ball of thistledown or
+a soap-bubble, and causing it to float away with the wind it created,
+would not have been a more ludicrous spectacle.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?
+
+
+From my boyhood, when I first began to observe birds, I started with the
+imbibed notion that those which paired for life were the rare
+exceptions--the dove that rhymed with love, the eagle, and perhaps half
+a dozen more. Who, for instance, would imagine that the sexes could be
+faithful in parasitical species like the cuckoo of Europe and the
+cow-birds of America? Yet even as a boy I made the discovery that an
+Argentine cow-bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other species,
+does actually pair for life; and so effectually mated is it, that on no
+day and no season of the year will you see a male without his female: if
+he flies she flies with him and feeds and drinks with him, and when he
+perches she perches at his side, and he never utters a sound but a
+responsive sound immediately falls from her devoted beak.
+
+Again, it may seem unlikely that there can be pairing for life in
+species, like the chaffinch of northern Europe and, with us, of
+Scotland, in which the sexes separate and migrate separately. Also of
+non-gregarious species like the nightingale in which the males arrive in
+this country several days before the females. Yet I am confident that if
+we could catch and mark a considerable number of pairs it would be found
+that the same male and female found one another and re-mated every year.
+
+It comes to this, that birds may pair for life, yet not be all the time
+or all the year together, as in the case of hawks, crows, owls, herons,
+and many others. In numberless species which undoubtedly pair for life
+the sexes keep apart during several hours each day, and there is some
+evidence that those that separate for a part of the year remain faithful.
+
+An incident, related by Miss Ethel Williams, of Winchester, in her
+natural history notes contributed to a journal in that city, bears on
+this point. She had among the bird pensioners in the garden of her house
+adjoining the Cathedral green, a female thrush that grew tame enough to
+fly into the house and feed on the dining-room table. Her thrush paired
+and bred for several seasons in the garden, and the young, too, were
+tame and would follow their mother into the house to be fed. The male
+was wild and too shy ever to venture in. She noticed the first year that
+it had a wing-feather which stuck out, owing probably to a malformation
+of the socket. Each year after the breeding season the male vanished,
+the female remaining alone through the winter months, but in spring the
+male came back--the same bird with the unmistakable projecting
+wing-feather. Yet it was certain that this bird had gone quite away,
+otherwise he would have returned to the garden, where there was food in
+abundance during the spells of frosty weather. As he did not appear it
+is probable that he migrated each autumn to some warmer climate beyond
+the sea.
+
+I have noticed that wagtails, thrushes, blackbirds, and some other
+species when the young are out of the nest, divide the brood between
+male and female and go different ways and spend the daylight hours at a
+distance apart, each attending to the one or two young birds in its charge.
+
+One winter, a few years ago, I was staying for a few days at a cottage
+facing Silchester Common, and on going out after breakfast to feed the
+birds I particularly noticed a male grey wagtail among those that came
+to me, on account of its beauty and tameness. Every morning I fed it,
+and on my speaking to my landlady about it she said, "Oh, we know that
+bird well; this is the fourth winter it has spent with us, but it always
+came before with its mate. The poor little thing had only one leg, but
+managed to hop about and feed very well; this year the poor thing didn't
+turn up with its mate, so we suppose it had met its death somewhere
+during the summer."
+
+I have often watched the gatherings of pied wagtails (always with a
+certain number of the grey species among them) in places where they
+spend the winter in our southern counties, at some spot where they are
+accustomed to congregate each evening to hold a sort of frolic before
+going to roost, and it has always appeared to me that the birds, both
+pied and grey, were in pairs. So too, in watching the starlings day
+after day in the field in front of my window. Well able with my
+binocular to observe them closely, I saw much to convince me that the
+starling, too, lives all the year with his mate.
+
+Each morning the birds that had made our village their daily
+feeding-ground, would, on arrival from the roosting-place in one body,
+break up into numerous small parties of half a dozen to twenty or more
+birds. All day long these little flocks were hurrying about from field
+to field, spending but a short time at one spot, so hungry were they and
+anxious to find a more productive one, and in every field they would
+meet and mix with other small groups, and presently all would fly, and
+breaking up into small parties again go off in different directions.
+Thus one had a constant succession of little flocks in the field from
+morning till night, and I found from counting the birds in each small
+group that in three cases in four they were in even numbers. Again, I
+have often seen a group of three, five, seven or nine birds on the
+field, and after a while a solitary starling from a neighbouring field
+or from some treetop near by has flown down to join the group and make
+the numbers even.
+
+The birds when feeding, I have said, are always in a desperate hurry,
+and little wonder, since after a night, usually wet and cold, of from
+sixteen to eighteen hours and only about six to feed in, they must be in
+a half-starved state and frantic to find something to swallow. No sooner
+do they alight than they begin running about, prodding with their beaks,
+and all the time advancing, the birds keeping pretty well abreast. Now,
+from time to time you will notice that a bird finds something to delay
+him and is left behind by the others. On they go--prod, prod, then a
+little run, then prod, prod again and run again--while he, excited over
+his find, and vigorously digging at the roots of the grass, lets them go
+on without him until he is yards behind. Whenever this happens you will
+see one of the advancing birds pause in its prodding to look back from
+time to time as if anxious about the one left behind; and by and by this
+same bird, its anxiety increasing, will suddenly spring into the air and
+fly back to place itself at the side of the other, to wait quietly until
+it has finished its task; and no sooner does the busy one put up its
+head to signal that he is ready than up they spring and fly together on
+to the flock. No one witnessing this action can doubt for a moment that
+these two are mates, and that wherever they paired and bred
+originally--in Lincoln or York or Thurso or perhaps in one of the
+western islands--they paired for life and will stick together, summer
+and winter and in all their wanderings, as long as they live.
+
+Until one observes starlings in this close way, even to their minutest
+actions--I had indeed little else to do during my three winter months in
+this nursing-home--it is only natural to believe that among gregarious
+species the starling is one of those least likely to pair for life,
+seeing that in it the gregarious instinct is intensified and more highly
+developed than in most others. One would suppose that the flock, which
+is like an organism--that is to say, the attachment to the flock--would,
+out of the breeding season, take the place of the close relation or
+companionship between bird and bird seen in species known to pair for
+life. Only the pairing passion, one would suppose, could serve to
+dissolve the company of birds and this only for a brief season of about
+a couple of months' duration. There is but one brood raised in the
+season, and the whole business of reproduction is well over before the
+end of June. Later breeders are those that have lost their first eggs or
+broods. And no sooner are the young brought off and instructed in the
+starling's sole vocation (except his fruit-eating) of extracting the
+grubs it subsists on from the roots of the grass--a business which
+detains them for a week or two--than the married life is apparently over
+and the communal life resumed. The whole life of the bird is then
+changed; the sole tie appears to be that of the flock; home and young
+are forgotten: the birds range hither and thither about the land, and by
+and by migrate to distant places, some passing oversea, while others
+from the northern counties and from Scotland and the islands come down
+to the south of England, where they winter in millions and myriads.
+There they form the winter habit of congregating in immense numbers in
+the evening at their favourite roosting-places, and hundreds and
+thousands of small flocks, which during the daylight hours exist
+distributed over an area of hundreds of square miles all make to one
+point and combine into one flock. At such times they actually appear to
+rejoice in their own incalculable numbers and gather earlier than they
+need at the roosting-place, so that the whole vast gathering may spend
+an hour or so in their beloved aerial exercises.
+
+To anyone who witnesses these gatherings and sees the birds rising from
+time to time from the wood, and appearing like a big black cloud in the
+sky, growing lighter and darker alternately as the birds scatter wide or
+mass themselves in a closer formation, until after wheeling about for
+some minutes they pour back into the trees; and who listens to the noise
+they make, as of a high wind in the wood, composed, as it is, of an
+infinity of individual voices, it must seem incredible that all these
+birds can keep in pairs. For how could any couple hold together in such
+circumstances, or when separated ever meet again in such a multitude,
+or, should they ever meet by chance, how recognize one another when all
+are exactly alike in size, shape, colour and voice?
+
+They can, and certainly do, keep together, and when forced apart as,
+when pursued by a hawk, they scatter in all directions, they can quickly
+find one another again. They can do it because of their perfect
+discipline, or instinct, or the perfection of the system they follow
+during their autumn and winter wanderings and migrations.
+
+The breeding season over, the birds in each locality unite in a small
+flock composed of twenty or thirty to fifty or more pairs and start
+their wandering life. Those in the north migrate or drift south, and
+vast numbers, as we see, spend the winter in the southern counties. And
+here they have their favourite roosting-places and are accustomed to
+assemble in tens and hundreds of thousands. But the original small flock
+composed of a few pairs, is never broken up--never absorbed by the
+multitude. Each morning when it is light enough, the birds quit the
+roosting-wood, but not all together; they quit it in flocks, flock
+following flock so closely as to appear like a continuous stream of
+birds, and the streams flow out in different directions over the
+surrounding country. Each stream of birds is composed of scores and
+hundreds of units, and each unit drops out of the stream and slopes away
+to this or that side, to drop down on its own chosen feeding-ground, to
+which it returns morning after morning through the winter. When all the
+units have dropped out and settled on their feeding areas for the day,
+it may be seen that the whole country within a circuit of ten or twelve
+or more miles from the roosting-place has been occupied, that each flock
+has its own territory, where it splits up into some groups and spends
+its short hours flying about and exploring every green field, and one
+might almost say "every grass." One can only explain this perfect
+distribution by assuming that each unit instinctively looks for
+unoccupied ground in its winter habitat, and that consequently there is
+very little overlapping. It must also be assumed that at the place of
+assembly in the evening each flock has its own roosting-place--its own
+trees and bushes where the members of the flock can still keep together
+and to which after each aerial performance they can return. The flock
+comes back to sleep on its own tree, and no doubt every couple roosts
+side by side on its own twig.
+
+On the return of Spring the birds do not migrate in a body, but slip
+away, flock by flock, to reappear about the end of April in their old
+breeding-place in the North Country, with, perhaps, the loss of a few
+members--the one that was old and died in the season of scarcity; and
+one that was taken at the roost by a brown owl, and one that had its
+feet frozen to the perch; and was killed by a jackdaw when struggling to
+free itself; and one that was struck down by a sparrow-hawk on his
+homeward journey.
+
+What I have so far been unable to trace is the career of the young after
+August. We see that once they are able to fend for themselves they club
+together in small flocks and continue together during their "brown
+thrush" stage, but by and by they get the adult plumage and language and
+are no longer distinguishable as young. Do they, then, join the old
+birds before the wandering and migrating south begins? And do they pair
+or not before the winter?
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER
+
+
+Throughout the winter of 1915-16, and more particularly during my three
+months in the hospital at Hayle, from the beginning of December to
+March, I was greatly impressed at the perpetual state of hunger in which
+the birds exist, especially the three commonest species in our
+village--rook, daw, and starling. Little wonder that the sight of a
+piece of bread thrown out on the green field below my window would bring
+all these three and many others with a rush from all sides, every one
+eager to get a morsel! But the birds that live most in a groove, as it
+were, like the rook and starling, and have but one kind of food and one
+way of finding it, are always the worst off in winter. These subsist on
+the grubs and other minute organisms they are able to pick out of the
+grass roots, and are life workers paid by the piece who must labour hard
+and incessantly to make enough to keep themselves alive; their winter
+life is accordingly in startling contrast to that of the daw--one that
+lives on his wits and fares better and altogether has an easier and more
+amusing time.
+
+It was the habit of the three species named to quit the wood where they
+roosted as soon as it was light enough for them to feed, the time
+varying according to the state of the weather from half-past eight to
+ten o'clock, the mornings being usually wet and dark. The rooks that had
+their rookery in the village numbered forty or fifty birds, and these
+would remain at the village, getting their food in the surrounding
+fields for the rest of the day. The daws would appear in a body of two
+or three hundred birds, but after a little while many of them would go
+on to their own villages further away, leaving about sixty to eighty
+birds belonging to the village. Last of all the starlings would appear
+in flocks and continuous streams of birds often fighting their way
+against wind and rain, leaving about a couple of hundred or more behind,
+these being the birds that had settled in the village for the season,
+and worked in the grass fields in and surrounding it. Rooks and
+starlings would immediately fall to work, while the daws, the flock
+breaking up into small parties of three or four, would distribute
+themselves about the village and perch on the chimney-pots. They would
+perch and then fly, and for all the rest of the day would be incessantly
+shifting about from place to place, on the look-out for something to
+eat, dropping from time to time to snatch up a crust of bread or the
+core of an apple thrown away by a child in the road, or into a back
+garden or on to a dust-heap where potato-parings and the head of a
+mackerel or other refuse had been thrown. They were very bold, but not
+as courageous as the old-time British kite that often swooped to snatch
+the bread from a child's hand.
+
+From time to time one, or a pair, of a small party of these daws would
+drop down on the field before my window when the rooks and starlings
+were there prodding busily at the turf, but though I watched them a
+thousand times I never detected them trying to find something for
+themselves. They simply stood or walked about among the working birds,
+watching them intently. Grub-finding was an art they had not acquired,
+or were too indolent or proud to practise; but they were not too proud
+to beg or steal; they simply watched the other birds in the hope of
+being able to snatch up a big unearthed grub and run away with it. As a
+rule after a minute or two they would get tired of waiting and rush off
+with a lively shout. Back they would go to the chimney-pots and to their
+flying up and down, suspending their flight over this or that yard or
+garden, and by and by one would succeed in picking up something big, and
+at once all the other daws in sight would give chase to take it from
+him; for these village daws are not only parasites and cadgers, but
+worse--they are thieves without honour among themselves.
+
+In spite of all the time and energy wasted in their perpetual races and
+chases going on all over the village, every bird exerting himself to the
+utmost to rob all he can from his pals, they get enough to eat; for when
+the day is over and other daws from other villages drop in to visit
+them, all unite in a big crowd and wheel about, making the place ring
+with their merry yelping cries, before sailing away to the wood. One
+might say after witnessing and listening to this evening performance
+that they have great joy in their rascally lives.
+
+But for the poor starling there is little joy in these brief, dark, wet
+winter days, even if there is little frost in this West Cornwall
+climate. A frost of a few days' duration would be fatal to incalculable
+numbers, especially if, as in the great frosts of the winters of 1894-5
+and 1896-7, severest in the south and west of England, it should come
+late in winter, I think it can be taken as a fact that a long or
+overseas migration takes place before midwinter or not at all. In
+January and February, when birds are driven to the limits of the land by
+a great cold they do not cross the sea, either because they are too weak
+to attempt such an adventure or for some other reason unknown to us. We
+see that on these occasions they come to the seashore and follow it
+south and west even to the western extremity of Cornwall, and then
+either turn back inland or wait where they are for open weather, many
+perishing in the meantime.
+
+During those three winter months, when I watched the starlings at work
+on the field before my hospital window, they appeared to be in a
+perpetual state of extreme hunger and were always running over the
+ground, rapidly prodding as they moved, and apparently finding their
+food almost exclusively on the surface--that is to say, on the surface
+of the soil but under the grass, at its surface roots. At other seasons
+they go deep when they know from the appearance of every blade of grass
+whether or not there is a grub feeding on its roots beneath the surface.
+Without shooting and examining the stomachs of a large number of
+starlings it was not possible to know just what the food consisted of;
+but with my strong binocular on them I could make out that at almost
+every dig of the beak something was picked up, and could actually see it
+when the beak was held up with the minute morsel at its tip--a small,
+thread-like, semi-transparent worm or grub in most instances. Two or
+three of these atomies would hardly have made a square meal for a
+ladybird, and I should think that a starling after swallowing a thousand
+would fed very hungry. And on many days this scanty, watery food had to
+be searched for in very painful conditions, as it rained heavily on most
+days and often all day long. At such times the birds in their sodden
+plumage looked like drowned starlings fished out of a pool and
+galvanized into activity. Nor were they even seen to shake the wet
+off--a common action in swallows and other birds that feed in the rain;
+they were too hungry, too anxious to find something to eat to keep the
+starling soul and body together before the long night of eighteen or
+twenty hours would overtake them.
+
+No doubt the winter of 1915-16 was exceptionally wet and cold, although
+without any severe frosts; a long frost in February, when the birds were
+most reduced, would probably have proved fatal to at least half their
+number. But though it continued wet and cold, things began to mend for
+the starlings towards the end of February, and in March the improvement
+was very marked; they were not in such a perpetual hurry; their time was
+longer now, and by the end of the month their working day had increased
+from five or six to twelve or fourteen hours, and the light had
+increased and grubs were easier to find. By April, the starlings no
+longer appeared to be the same species as the poor, rusty, bedraggled
+wretches we had been accustomed to see; they are now lively, happy birds
+with a splendid gloss on their feathers and beaks as bright a yellow as
+the blackbird's. Finally, in April they left us, not going in a body,
+but flock by flock, day after day, until by the end of the month all
+were gone back to their homes in the north--all but the two or three to
+half a dozen pairs in each village. And these few that stay behind are
+new colonists in West Cornwall.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
+
+
+About the daw, or Jackie, or Dorrie or Jackie-Dorrie, as he is variously
+and familiarly called, and his village habits, there will be more to say
+presently; just now my concern is with another matter--a veritable daw
+problem.
+
+For the last twenty years or longer it has seemed to me that the daw is
+an increasing species in Britain; at all events I am quite sure that it
+is so in the southern half of England, particularly along the coast of
+Somerset, Devon, Dorset, and in Cornwall, more than in any other county.
+And why is it? He is certainly not a respectable bird, like the
+starling, for example--if we do not go to the cherry-grower for the
+starling's character. He is and always has been on the keeper's and
+farmer's black list, and scarcely a week passes but you will find him
+described in some gamekeeper's or farmer's journal as "even worse than
+the rook." Even the ornithologists who are interested in birds as birds
+haven't a good word to say of the daw. According to them he alone is
+responsible for the disappearance of his distinguished relation, the
+chough. (The vulgar daw is of course devoid of any distinction at all,
+unless it be his grey pate and wicked little grey eyes.)
+
+The ornithologists were wrong about the chough, just as they had been
+wrong about the goldfinch, during the late years of the nineteenth
+century, and as they were wrong about the swallows and martins in later
+years. Of the goldfinch, they said, and solemnly put it down in their
+books, that owing to improved methods of agriculture the thistle had
+been extirpated and the bird, deprived of his natural food, had forsaken
+this country. But no sooner did our County Councils begin to avail
+themselves of the powers given them by the Bird Act of twenty years ago
+to protect the goldfinch from the bird-catcher, than it began to
+increase again and is still increasing, year by year, all over the country.
+
+Of the decrease of swallows and martins, they said it resulted from the
+action of the sparrows in ousting them from their nests and
+nesting-sites. But we know the true cause of the decline of these two
+species, the best loved and best protected of all birds in Britain, not
+even excepting robin redbreast. The French Government, in response to
+representations on this matter from our Foreign Office, have caused
+enquiries to be made and have found that our swallows are being
+destroyed wholesale in France during the autumn migration, and have
+promised to put a stop to this deplorable business. They do not appear
+to have done so, since the promise was made three years ago, and I can
+say from my own observation in the south and west countries that the
+decline has continued and that we have never had so few swallows come to
+us as in the present summer of 1916.
+
+The daw--to return to that subject--has always been regarded as an
+injurious species, and down to a quarter of a century ago every farm lad
+in possession of a gun shot it in the interests of the henwife, even as
+he had formerly shot the kite, a common British species and a familiar
+feature in the landscape down to the early years of last century.
+Doubtless it was a great thing to bring down this great bird "that soars
+sublime" and nail it to the barn-door. By the middle of the last century
+it had become a rarity, and the ensuing rush for specimens and eggs for
+private collectors quickly brought about its virtual extinction. The
+kite is but one of several species--six of them hawks--extirpated within
+the last forty years. Why, then, does the daw, more injurious to the
+game-preserver and henwife than any one of these lost hawks, continue to
+flourish and increase in numbers? It is, I imagine, because of the
+growth of a sentiment which favours its preservation. But it is not the
+same as that which has served to preserve the rook and made it so
+common. That is a sentiment confined to the landowning class--to those
+who inherit great houses where the ancient rookery with its crowd of
+big, black, contentious birds caw-cawing on the windy elms, has come to
+be an essential part of the establishment, like the gardens and park and
+stables and home-farm and, one might add, the church and village. This
+sentiment differs, too, from the heron-sentiment, which serves to keep
+that bird with us in spite of the annual wail, rising occasionally in
+South Devon to a howl, of human trout-fishers. It is a traditional
+feeling coming down from the far past in England--from the time of
+William the Conqueror to that of William of Orange and the decay of
+falconry. That a species without any sentiment to favour it and without
+special protection by law may increase is to be seen in the case of the
+starling. This increase has come about automatically after we had
+destroyed the starling's natural enemies and then ceased to persecute it
+ourselves. Of all birds it was the most preyed on by certain raptorial
+species, especially by the sparrowhawk, which is now becoming so rare,
+assisted by the hobby (rarer still) and the merlin. It was more exposed
+than other birds to these enemies owing to its gregarious and feeding
+habits in grasslands and the open country, also to its slower flight.
+The greatest drain on the species, came, however, from man. The starling
+was a favourite bird for shooting-matches up till about thirty years
+ago, and was taken annually in large numbers by the bird-catchers for
+the purpose. It is probable that this use of the bird for sport caused
+people to eat it, and so common did the habit become that at the end of
+summer, or before the end, shooting starlings for the pot was practised
+everywhere. Old men in the country have told me that forty or fifty
+years ago it was common to hear people on the farms say that of all
+birds the starling was the best to eat.
+
+When starling and sparrow shooting-matches declined, the starling went
+out of favour as a table-bird, and from that time the species has been
+increasing. At present the rate of increase grows from year to year, and
+during the last decade the birds have colonized every portion of the
+north of Scotland and the islands, where the starling had previously
+been a rare visitor--a bird unknown to the people. Here in West Cornwall
+where I am writing this chapter the starling was only a winter visitor
+until recently. Eight years ago I could only find two pairs breeding in
+the villages--about twenty-five in number--in which I looked for them;
+in the summer of 1915 I found them breeding in every town and village I
+visited. At present, June, 1916, there are six pairs in the village I am
+staying at. It may be the case, and from conversations I have had with
+farmers about the bird I am inclined to believe it is so, that a strong
+feeling in favour of the starling (in the pastoral districts) is growing
+up at the present time, a feeling which in the end is more powerful to
+protect than any law; but such a feeling has not become general as yet,
+and consequently has had nothing to do with the extraordinary increase
+of the bird.
+
+The wood-pigeon is another species which, like the starling, has
+increased greatly in recent years, without special protection and with
+no sentiment in its favour. . . . The sentiment is all confined to the
+nature-lovers, whose words have no effect on the people generally, least
+of all on the farmers. I am reminded here of the experience of a young
+man, an ardent bird-lover, on his visit to a Yorkshire farm. His host,
+who was also a young man, took him a walk across his fields. It was a
+spring day of brilliant sunshine, and the air was full of the music of
+scores of soaring skylarks. The visitor long in cities pent, was
+exhilarated by the strains and kept on making exclamations of rapturous
+delight, "Just listen to the larks! Did you ever hear anything like it!"
+and so on.
+
+His host, his eyes cast down, trudged on in glum silence. Finally the
+young man, carried away by his enthusiasm, stopped and turning to his
+companion shouted, "Listen! Listen! Do you hear the larks?"
+
+"Oh, yes," drawled the other, looking more glum than ever, "I hear them
+fast enough. And I wish they were all dead!"
+
+So with the other charming species. The moan of doves in immemorial elms
+is a pleasing sound to the poets, but it does not prevent the farmers
+throughout the land from wishing them all dead; and every person who
+possesses a gun is glad to help in their massacre. For the bird is a
+pest and he who shoots it is doing something for England; furthermore,
+shooting it is first-rate sport, not like slaughtering wretched little
+sparrows or innocent young rooks just out of their windy cradles. And
+when shot it is a good table-bird, with as much tasty flesh on it as a
+woodcock or partridge.
+
+How, then can we account for the increase of such a species? One cause
+is undoubtedly to be found in the removal by gamekeepers of its three
+chief enemies--the carrion crow, magpie, and jay--all these three being
+great devourers of pigeon's eggs, which of all eggs are most conspicuous
+and open to attack. Then again the winter immigration of wood-pigeons
+from northern Europe appears to be on the increase, and it may be
+conjectured that a considerable number of these visitors remain annually
+to breed with us. There has also been an increase in the stockdove and
+turtle-dove in recent years, and the former species is extending its
+range in the north. The cause or causes of the increase of the
+turtledove are not far to seek. Its chief feathered enemies, the egg and
+fledgling robbers, are the same as the wood-pigeon's; moreover, the
+turtledove is least persecuted by man of our four pigeons, and being
+strictly migratory it quits the country before shooting-time begins; add
+to this that the turtle-dove has been specially protected under Sir
+Herbert Maxwell's Act of 1894 in a good number of English counties, from
+Surrey to Yorkshire.
+
+Of the stock-dove we can only say that, like the ring-dove, it has
+increased in spite of the persecution it is subject to, since no person
+out after pigeons would spare it because it is without a white collar.
+With the exception of the county of Buckinghamshire it is not on the
+schedule anywhere in the country. One can only suppose that this species
+has been indirectly benefited by the bird legislation and all that has
+been done to promote a feeling favourable to bird-preservation during
+the last thirty years.
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE DAW SENTIMENT
+
+
+I have spoken of the wood adjacent to the villages of Hayle and Lelant
+where the rooks, daws, and starlings of the neighbourhood have their
+winter roosting-place. This is at Trevelloe, the ancient estate of the
+Praeds, who now call themselves Tyringham. Here the daws congregate each
+evening in such numbers that a stranger to the district and to the local
+habits of the bird might imagine that all the cliff-breeding jackdaws in
+West Cornwall had come to roost at that spot. Yet the cliff-breeders,
+albeit abundant enough, are but a minority of the daw population of this
+district. The majority of these birds live and breed in the neighbouring
+villages and hamlets--St. Ives, Carbis Bay, Towadneck, Lelant, Phillack,
+Hayle, and others further away. It is a jackdaw metropolis and, as we
+have seen, every village receives its own quota of birds each morning, and
+there they spend the daylight hours and subsist on the waste food and on
+what they can steal, just as the semi-domestic raven and the kite did in
+former ages, from Roman times down to the seventeenth century.
+
+Early in May the winter congregation breaks up, the cliff-breeders going
+back to the rocks and the village birds to their chimneys, where they
+presently set about relining their old nests. There are plenty of places
+for all, since there are chimneys in almost every cottage where fires
+are never lighted, and as ventilation is not wanted in bedrooms the
+birds are allowed to bring in more materials each year, until the whole
+flue is filled up. Year by year the materials brought in, sink lower and
+lower until they rest on the closed iron register and change in time to
+a solid brown mould. Thus, however long-lived a daw may be--and there
+are probably more centenarians among the daws than among the human
+inhabitants of the villages--it is a rare thing for one to be disturbed
+in his tenancy.
+
+In the cottage opposite the one I was staying in, its owner, an old
+woman who had lived in it all her life, had recently died, aged
+eighty-seven.
+
+She was very feeble at the last, and one cold day when she could not
+leave her bed, the extraordinary idea occurred to some one of her people
+that it might be a good thing to light a fire in her room. The fireplace
+was examined and was found to have no flue, or that the flue had been
+filled with earth or cement. The village builder was called in, and with
+the aid of a man on the roof and poles and various implements he
+succeeded in extracting two or three barrow-loads of hard earth which
+had no doubt once been sticks, centuries ago, as the building was very
+ancient. No one had remembered that the daws had always occupied the
+same chimney; the old dame herself had seen them going in and out of it
+from her childhood, and her end was probably hastened by the disturbance
+made in cleaning it. Now she is gone the daws here are in possession of
+it once more.
+
+All through the month of May daws were to be seen about the village,
+dropping from time to time upon the chimney-pots where they had their
+nests and occasionally bringing some slight materials to form a new
+lining, but it was very rare to see one with a stick in his beak. The
+flues were already full of old sticks and no more were wanted. It was
+amusing to see a bird flying about, suddenly tumble out of the air on to
+a chimneypot, then with tail tipped up and wings closed, dive into the
+cavity below. One wondered how the young birds would be got out!
+
+Talking with the rector of the neighbouring parish of Phillack one day
+on this subject, he said, "Don't imagine that the daws restrict
+themselves to the chimneys where fires are not lighted. At all events it
+isn't so at Phillack. Perhaps we have too many daws in our village, but
+every year before lighting fires in the drawing and dining-rooms we have
+to call in a man with a pole to clear the flues out." He told me that a
+few years ago, one cold June day, a fire was lighted in the
+drawing-room, and as the smoke all poured out into the room a man was
+sent up to the roof with a pole to clear the obstruction out. Presently
+a mess of sticks came down and with them two fully-fledged young
+jackdaws, one dead, killed with the pole, the other sound and lively.
+This one they kept and it soon became quite tame; when able to fly it
+would go off and associate with the wild birds, but refused to leave
+the house until the following summer, when it found a mate and went away.
+
+The head keeper at Trevelloe, a remarkably vigorous and intelligent
+octogenarian who has been in his place over half a century, gave me some
+interesting information about the daws. He says they have greatly
+increased in recent years in this part of Cornwall because they are no
+longer molested; no person, he says, not even a game-keeper anxious
+about his pheasants, would think of shooting a jackdaw. But this is not
+because the bird has changed its habits. He is as great a pest as ever
+he was, and as an example of how bad jackdaws can be, he related the
+following incident told him by a friend of his, a head keeper on an
+estate adjoining a shooting his master took one year on the northwest
+coast of England. It happened that a big colony of daws existed within a
+mile or two of the preserves, and one day the keeper was called' away in
+a hurry and left the coops unattended for the best part of a day; it was
+the biggest mistake he had ever made and the chief disaster of his life.
+On his return he found that the daws had been before him and that all
+his precious chicks had been carried off. For several hours of that day
+there was a steady coming and going of birds between the cliffs and the
+coops, every daw going back with a chick in his beak for his hungry
+young in the nest.
+
+Yet my informant, this ancient and singularly intelligent old man, a
+gamekeeper all his life, who knows his jackdaw, could not tell me why
+gamekeepers no longer persecute so injurious a bird I He will not allow
+a sparrow-hawk to exist in his woods, yet all he could say when I
+repeated my question was, "No keeper ever thinks of hurting a jack now,
+but I can't say why."
+
+The reason of it I fancy is plain enough; it is simply the sentiment I
+have spoken of. In a small way it has always existed in certain places,
+in towns, where the jackdaw is associated in our minds with cathedrals
+and church towers--where he is the "ecclesiastical daw"; but the modern
+wider toleration is due to the character, the personality, of the bird
+itself, which is more or less like that of all the members of the
+corvine family, with the exception of the rook, who always tries his
+best to be an honest, useful citizen; but it is not precisely the same.
+They may be regarded as bad hats generally In the bird community, and on
+this very account--"I'm sorry to say," to quote Mr. Pecksniff--they
+touch a chord in us; and the daw being the genial rascal in feathers par
+excellence is naturally the best loved.
+
+It has thus come about that of all the Corvidae the daw is now the
+favourite as a pet bird, and in the domestic condition he is accorded
+more liberty than is given to other species. We think he makes better
+use of his freedom, that he does not lose touch with his human friends
+when allowed to fly about, and appears more capable of affection.
+
+Formerly, the raven and magpie came first as pets. The raven vanished as
+a pet, because like the goshawk, kite, and buzzard, he was extirpated in
+the interests of the game-preserver and hen-wife. The magpie was then
+first, and has only been recently ousted from that ancient, honourable
+position. The pie was a superior bird as a feathered pet in a cage; he
+is beautiful in shape and colour in his snow-white and metallic
+dark-green and purple-glossed plumage, and his long graduated tail.
+Moreover, he is a clever bird. To my mind there is no more fascinating
+species when I can find it in numbers, in places where it is not
+persecuted, and is accustomed to congregate at intervals, not as rooks
+and starlings do merely because they are gregarious, but purely for
+social purposes--to play and converse with one another. Its language at
+such times is so various as to be a surprise and delight to the
+listener; while its ways of amusing itself, its clowning and the little
+tricks and practical jokes the birds are continually playing on each
+other, are a delight to witness. All this is lost in a caged bird. He is
+handsome to look at and remarkably intelligent, but he distinguishes
+between magpies and men; he doesn't reveal himself; his accomplishments,
+vocal and mental, are for his own tribe. In this he differs from the
+daw; for the daw is less specialized; he is an undersized common crow,
+livelier, more impish than that bird, also more plastic, more adaptive,
+and takes more kindly to the domestic or parasitic life. Human beings to
+him are simply larger daws, and unlike the pie he can play his tricks
+and be himself among them as freely as when with his feathered comrades.
+We like him best because he makes himself one of us.
+
+Undoubtedly the chough comes nearest to the daw mentally, and as it is a
+far more beautiful bird--the poor daw having little of that quality--it
+would probably have been our prime favourite among the crows but for its
+rarity. Formerly it was a common pet bird, caged or free, in all the
+coast districts where it inhabited, and it may be that the desire for a
+pet chough was the cause of its decline and final disappearance all
+round the south and west coasts of England, except at one spot near
+Tintagel where half a dozen pairs still exist only because watchers
+appointed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are always on
+the spot to warn off the nest-robbers during the breeding season. But of
+the chough in captivity or as a domesticated bird we know little now, as
+no records have been preserved. I have only known one bird, taken from a
+North Devon cliff about forty years ago, at a house near the coast; a
+very beautiful pet bird with charming, affectionate ways, always free to
+range about the country and the cliffs, where it associated with the
+daws. It was the last of its kind at that place, and I do not know if it
+still lives.
+
+Next to the chough the jay comes nearest to the daw mentally of all our
+crows, and as he excels most of our wild birds in beauty he would
+naturally have been a first favourite as a pet but for the fact that it
+is only in a state of nature in which he is like the daw--lively,
+clever, impish; in captivity he is more like the magpie and affiliates
+even less than that bird with his human associates. In confinement he is
+a quiet, almost sedate, certainly a silent bird: He is essentially a
+woodland species; all his graces, his various, often musical, language,
+with many imitations of bird and animal sounds, and his spectacular
+games and pretty wing displays, are for his own people exclusively. He
+must have his liberty in the woods and a company of his fellow-jays to
+exhibit his full lustre.
+
+The difference between jay and daw is similar to that between fox and
+dog; or rather let us say, between one of the small desert foxes of
+Syria and Egypt--the fennec, for instance--and the jackal, the domestic
+dog's progenitor; the first gifted with exquisite grace and beauty, was
+too highly specialized to suit the domestic condition; hence the
+generalized un-beautiful beast was chosen to be man's servant and
+companion. In the same way it looks as if we were taking to the daw in
+preference to the more beautiful bird because he is more like us, or
+understands us better, or adapts himself more readily to our way of
+life.
+
+I believe that about nine out of every ten interesting and amusing
+stories about charming pet birds I have heard in England during the last
+quarter of a century relate to the daw, and this, I think, goes to show
+that he is a prime favourite as a feathered pet, at all events in the
+southern and western counties.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+STORY OF A JACKDAW
+
+
+When I laid my pen down after concluding Part V it pleased me to think
+that I had written the last word, that, my task finished, I was free to
+go on to something else. But I was not yet wholly free of the jackdaws;
+their yelping cries were still ringing in my mental ears, and their
+remembered shapes were still all about me in their black dress, or
+cassock, grey hood, and malicious little grey eyes. The persistent
+images suggested that my task was not properly finished after all, that
+it would be better to conclude with one of those anecdotes or stories of
+the domesticated bird which I have said are so common; also that this
+should be a typical story, which would serve to illustrate the peculiar
+daw sentiment--the affectionate interest we take in him, not only in
+spite of his impudence and impishness and naughtiness, but also to some
+extent because of these same qualities, which find an echo in us.
+Accordingly I set myself to recall some of the latest anecdotes of this
+kind which I had heard, and selected the one which follows, not because
+it was more interesting as a daw story than the others, but mainly on
+account of the shrewd and humorous and dramatic way in which it was
+related to me by a little boy of the working class.
+
+I met him on a bright Sunday morning at the end of June in the park-like
+grounds of Walmer Castle. I had not long been seated on a garden bench
+when a daw came flying to a tree close by and began craning her neck and
+eyeing me with one eye, then the other, with an intense, almost painful
+curiosity; and these nervous movements and gestures immediately revealed
+to me that she had a nestful of young birds somewhere close by. After
+changing her position several times to view me from other points and
+find out what I was there for, she came to the conclusion that I was not
+to be got rid of, and making a sudden dash to a tree standing just
+before me, disappeared in a small hole or cleft in the trunk about
+forty-five feet above the ground, and in a few seconds came out again
+and flew swiftly away. In four or five minutes she returned, and after
+eyeing me suspiciously a short time flew again to the tree and,
+vanishing from sight in the hole, remained there.  I was intently
+watching that small black spot in the bark to see her emerge, when a
+little boy came slowly sauntering past my bench, and glancing at him I
+found that his shrewd brown eyes were watching my face and that he had a
+knowing half-smile on his lips.
+
+"Hullo, my boy!" I said. "I can see plainly enough what is in _your_
+mind. You know I'm watching a hole in the tree where a jackdaw has just
+gone in, and your intention is, when no one is about, to swarm up the
+tree and get the young birds."
+
+"Oh, no," he returned. "I'm not going to climb the tree and don't want
+any young jackdaws. I always come to look because the birds breed in
+that hole every year. Two years ago I had a bird from the nest, but I
+don't want another."
+
+Then at my invitation he sat down to tell me about it. One morning when
+he came the young had just come off, and he found one squatting on the
+ground under the trees, looking stupefied. No doubt when it flew out it
+had struck against a trunk or branch and come down bruised and stunned.
+
+He wrapped it up in a handkerchief and took it home to Deal and put it
+in a box; then mother got some flannel and made a sort of bed for it,
+and warmed some milk and they opened its beak and fed it with a
+teaspoon. Next day it was all right and opened its beak to be fed
+whenever they came near it, and in two or three days it began flying
+about the room and perching on their shoulders. Then he brought it back
+to Walmer and let it go and saw it fly off into the trees, but when he
+got home mother scolded him for having let it go when its parents were
+not about; she said it would die of starvation, and was going on at him
+when in flew the jackdaw and came flop on her shoulder! After that
+mother and father said they'd keep the daw a little longer, and then he
+could let it go at a distance where there were other daws about. By and
+by they said they'd let it stay where it was. Father liked a bloater for
+his tea, and there was nothing the jackdaw was fonder of, so he was
+always on the table at tea-time, eating out of father's plate. Then he
+got to be troublesome. He was always watching for a door or window of
+the parlour to be opened to let the air in, and that was the room mother
+was so careful about, and every time he got in he'd fly straight to the
+mantelpiece, which was covered with photographs and ornaments. They were
+mostly those little things--pigs and dogs and parrots and all sorts of
+animals made of glass and china, and the jackdaw would begin to pick
+them up and throw them down on to the fender, and of course he broke a
+lot of them. That made mother mad, and she scolded him and told him to
+get rid of the bird. So he wrapped it up so as it shouldn't know where
+it was going and went off two or three miles along the coast, and let it
+go where there were other daws.  It flew off and joined them, and he
+came home. That afternoon Jackie came back, and they wondered how he had
+found his way. Father said 'twas plain enough, that the bird had just
+followed the coast till he got back to Deal, and there he was at home.
+He said the only way to lose it was to take it somewhere away from the
+sea; so he wrapped it up again and took it to his Aunt Ellen's at
+Northbourne, about five miles from Deal.  His aunt told him to carry
+it to the park, where he'd find other daws and settle down. And that's
+what he did, but Jackie came back to Deal again that same day; the
+strangest thing was that mother and father made a great fuss over it and
+fed it just as if they were glad to have it back. Next day it got into
+the parlour and broke some more things, and mother scolded him for not
+getting rid of the bird, and father said he knew how it could be done.
+One of his pals was going to Dover, and he would ask him to take the
+bird and let it go up by the castle where it would mix with the jackdaws
+there, and that would be too far away for it to come back. But it did
+come back, and after that he sent it to Ashford, and then to Canterbury,
+and I don't know how many other places, but it always came back, and
+they always seemed very glad to see it back. All the same, mother was
+always scolding him about the bird and complaining to father about the
+damage it did in the house. Then one day Aunt Ellen came to see mother,
+and told her the best way to get rid of the daw would be to send it
+abroad; she said her husband's cousin, Mr. Sturge, was going out to his
+relations in Canada to work on their farm, and she would get
+her husband to ask him to take the jackdaw. It would never come back
+from such a distant place. A week afterwards Mr. Sturge sent word that
+he would take the bird, as he thought his relations would like to have a
+real old English jackdaw to remind them of home. So one day Aunt Ellen
+came and took Jackie away in a small covered basket. The funniest thing
+was the way father went on when he came home to tea. "A bloater with a
+soft roe," he says; "just what Jackie likes! Where's the bird got to?
+Come to your tea, Jackie!"
+
+"He's gone," says mother, "gone to Canada, and a good riddance, too!"
+
+"Oh, gone, has he?" says father. "Then we're a happy family and going to
+lead a quiet life. No more screams and tears over broken chiny dolls!
+And if ever Billy brings another jackdaw into the house we'll dust his
+coat for him."
+
+Here Billy interposed to say that if he ever made such a mistake again
+they could thrash him as much as they liked.
+
+"Oh, yes," said father, "we'll thrash you fast enough; mother'll do it
+for the sake of her chiny toys and dolls."
+
+That put mother up. "You're in a nasty temper," she says, "but you know
+I miss the bird as much as you do!"
+
+"Then," said father, "why the devil didn't you tell that sister of yours
+to mind her own business when she came interfering about my jackdaw! And
+that Sturge, he'll soon get tired of the bird and give it away for a
+pint of beer before he gets to Liverpool."
+
+"So much the better," says mother. "If Jackie can get free before they
+take him aboard you may be sure he'll find his way back to Deal."
+
+And that's what they went on hoping for days and days; but Jackie never
+came back, so I s'pose Mr. Sturge took him out all right and that he's
+in Canada now.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Birds in Town and Village, by W. H. Hudson
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds in Town and Village, by W. H. Hudson
+#6 in our series by W. H. Hudson
+
+Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the
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+*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
+
+
+Title: Birds in Town and Village
+
+Author: W. H. Hudson
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7353]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 20, 2003]
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+Edition: 10
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+Language: English
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+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BIRDS IN TOWN AND VILLAGE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Eric Eldred
+
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN TOWN & VILLAGE
+
+BY
+
+
+W. H. HUDSON,
+
+F.Z.S.
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE PURPLE LAND," "IDLE DAYS IN PATAGONIA," "FAR AWAY AND
+LONG AGO," ETC.
+
+
+1920
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+This book is more than a mere reprint of _Birds in a Village_ first
+published in 1893. That was my first book about bird life, with some
+impressions of rural scenes, in England; and, as is often the case with
+a first book, its author has continued to cherish a certain affection
+for it. On this account it pleased me when its turn came to be reissued,
+since this gave me the opportunity of mending some faults in the
+portions retained and of throwing out a good deal of matter which
+appeared to me not worth keeping.
+
+The first portion, "Birds in a Village," has been mostly rewritten with
+some fresh matter added, mainly later observations and incidents
+introduced in illustration of the various subjects discussed. For the
+concluding portion of the old book, which has been discarded, I have
+substituted entirely new matter-the part entitled "Birds in a Cornish
+Village."
+
+Between these two long parts there are five shorter essays which I have
+retained with little alteration, and these in one or two instances are
+consequently out of date, especially in what was said with bitterness in
+the essay on "Exotic Birds for Britain" anent the feather-wearing
+fashion and of the London trade in dead birds and the refusal of women
+at that time to help us in trying to save the beautiful wild bird life
+of this country and of the world generally from extermination. Happily,
+the last twenty years of the life and work of the Royal Society for the
+Protection of Birds have changed all that, and it would not now be too
+much to say that all right-thinking persons in this country, men and
+women, are anxious to see the end of this iniquitous traffic.
+
+W. H. H.
+
+September, 1919.
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+PAGE
+
+BIRDS IN A VILLAGE:
+
+I
+
+II
+
+III
+
+IV
+
+V
+
+VI
+
+VII
+
+VIII
+
+IX
+
+X
+
+XI
+
+EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
+
+MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
+
+THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY
+
+CHANTICLEER
+
+IN AN OLD GARDEN
+
+BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE:
+
+I. TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS
+
+II. DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?
+
+III. VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER
+
+IV. INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
+
+V. THE DAW SENTIMENT
+
+VI. STORY OF A JACKDAW
+
+
+
+
+    BIRDS IN TOWN & VILLAGE
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN A VILLAGE I
+
+About the middle of last May, after a rough and cold period, there came
+a spell of brilliant weather, reviving in me the old spring feeling, the
+passion for wild nature, the desire for the companionship of birds; and
+I betook myself to St. James's Park for the sake of such satisfaction as
+may be had from watching and feeding the fowls, wild and semi-wild,
+found gathered at that favored spot.
+
+I was glad to observe a couple of those new colonists of the ornamental
+water, the dabchicks, and to renew my acquaintance with the familiar,
+long-established moorhens. One of them was engaged in building its nest
+in an elm-tree growing at the water's edge. I saw it make two journeys
+with large wisps of dry grass in its beak, running up the rough,
+slanting trunk to a height of sixteen to seventeen feet, and
+disappearing within the "brushwood sheaf" that springs from the bole at
+that distance from the roots. The wood-pigeons were much more numerous,
+also more eager to be fed.  They seemed to understand very quickly that
+my bread and grain was for them and not the sparrows; but although they
+stationed themselves close to me, the little robbers we were jointly
+trying to outwit managed to get some pieces of bread by flying up and
+catching them before they touched the sward. This little comedy over, I
+visited the water-fowl, ducks of many kinds, sheldrakes, geese from many
+lands, swans black, and swans white. To see birds in prison during the
+spring mood of which I have spoken is not only no satisfaction but a
+positive pain; here--albeit without that large liberty that nature
+gives, they are free in a measure; and swimming and diving or dozing in
+the sunshine, with the blue sky above them, they are perhaps unconscious
+of any restraint.  Walking along the margin I noticed three children
+some yards ahead of me; two were quite small, but the third, in whose
+charge the others were, was a robust-looking girl, aged about ten or
+eleven years. From their dress and appearance I took them to be the
+children of a respectable artisan or small tradesman; but what chiefly
+attracted my attention was the very great pleasure the elder girl
+appeared to take in the birds. She had come well provided with stale
+bread to feed them, and after giving moderately of her store to the
+wood-pigeons and sparrows, she went on to the others, native and exotic,
+that were disporting themselves in the water, or sunning themselves on
+the green bank. She did not cast her bread on the water in the manner
+usual with visitors, but was anxious to feed all the different species,
+or as many as she could attract to her, and appeared satisfied when any
+one individual of a particular kind got a fragment of her bread.
+Meanwhile she talked eagerly to the little ones, calling their attention
+to the different birds. Drawing near, I also became an interested
+listener; and then, in answer to my questions, she began telling me what
+all these strange fowls were. "This," she said, glad to give
+information, "is the Canadian goose, and there is the Egyptian goose;
+and here is the king-duck coming towards us; and do you see that large,
+beautiful bird standing by itself, that will not come to be fed? That is
+the golden duck. But that is not its real name; I don't know them all,
+and so I name some for myself. I call that one the golden duck because
+in the sun its feathers sometimes shine like gold." It was a rare
+pleasure to listen to her, and seeing what sort of a girl she was, and
+how much in love with her subject, I in my turn told her a great deal
+about the birds before us, also of other birds she had never seen nor
+heard of, in other and distant lands that have a nobler bird life than
+ours; and after she had listened eagerly for some minutes, and had then
+been silent a little while, she all at once pressed her two hands
+together, and exclaimed rapturously, "Oh, I do so love the birds!"
+
+I replied that that was not strange, since it is impossible for us not
+to love whatever is lovely, and of all living things birds were made
+most beautiful.
+
+Then I walked away, but could not forget the words she had exclaimed,
+her whole appearance, the face flushed with color, the eloquent brown
+eyes sparkling, the pressed palms, the sudden spontaneous passion of
+delight and desire in her tone. The picture was in my mind all that day,
+and lived through the next, and so wrought on me that I could not longer
+keep away from the birds, which I, too, loved; for now all at once it
+seemed to me that life was not life without them; that I was grown sick,
+and all my senses dim; that only the wished sight of wild birds could
+medicine my vision; that only by drenching it in their wild melody could
+my tired brain recover its lost vigour.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+
+After wandering somewhat aimlessly about the country for a couple of
+days, I stumbled by chance on just such a spot as I had been wishing to
+find--a rustic village not too far away. It was not more than
+twenty-five minutes' walk from a small station, less than one hour by
+rail from London.
+
+The way to the village was through cornfields, bordered by hedges and
+rows of majestic elms. Beyond it, but quite near, there was a wood,
+principally of beech, over a mile in length, with a public path running
+through it. On the right hand, ten minutes' walk from the village, there
+was a long green hill, the ascent to which was gentle; but on the
+further side it sloped abruptly down to the Thames.
+
+On the left hand there was another hill, with cottages and orchards,
+with small fields interspersed on the slope and summit, so that the
+middle part, where I lodged, was in a pretty deep hollow. There was no
+sound of traffic there, and few farmers' carts came that way, as it was
+well away from the roads, and the deep, narrow, winding lanes were
+exceedingly rough, like the stony beds of dried-up streams.
+
+In the deepest part of the coombe, in the middle of the village, there
+was a well where the cottagers drew their water; and in the summer
+evenings the youths and maidens came there, with or without jugs and
+buckets, to indulge in conversation, which was mostly of the rustic,
+bantering kind, mixed with a good deal of loud laughter. Close by was
+the inn, where the men sat on benches in the tap-room in grave discourse
+over their pipes and beer.
+
+Wishing to make their acquaintance, I went in and sat down among them,
+and found them a little shy--not to say stand-offish, at first. Rustics
+are often suspicious of the stranger within their gates; but after
+paying for beer all round, the frost melted and we were soon deep in
+talk about the wild life of the place; always a safe and pleasant
+subject in a village. One rough-looking, brown-faced man, with iron-grey
+hair, became a sort of spokesman for the company, and replied to most of
+my questions.
+
+"And what about badgers?" I asked. "In such a rough-looking spot with
+woods and all, it strikes me as just the sort of place where one would
+find that animal."
+
+A long dead silence followed. I caught the eye of the man nearest me and
+repeated the question, "Are there no badgers here?" His eyes fell, then
+he exchanged glances with some of the others, all very serious; and at
+length my man, addressing the person who had acted as spokesman before,
+said, "Perhaps you'll tell the gentleman if there are any badgers here."
+
+At that the rough man looked at me very sharply, and answered stiffly,
+"Not as I know of."
+
+A few weeks later, at a small town in the neighbourhood, I got into
+conversation with a hotel keeper, an intelligent man, who gave me a good
+deal of information about the country. He asked me where I was staying,
+and, on my telling him, said "Ah, I know it well--that village in a
+hole; and a very nasty hole to get in, too--at any rate it was so,
+formerly. They are getting a bit civilized now, but I remember the time
+when a stranger couldn't show himself in the place without being jeered
+at and insulted. Yes, they were a rough lot down in that hole--the
+Badgers, they were called, and that's what they are called still."
+
+The pity of it was that I didn't know this before I went among them! But
+it was not remembered against me that I had wounded their
+susceptibilities; they soon found that I was nothing but a harmless
+field naturalist, and I had friendly relations with many of them.
+
+At the extremity of the straggling village was the beginning of an
+extensive common, where it was always possible to spend an hour or two
+without seeing a human creature. A few sheep grazed and browsed there,
+roaming about in twos and threes and half-dozens, tearing their fleeces
+for the benefit of nest-building birds, in the great tangled masses of
+mingled furze and bramble and briar. Birds were abundant there--all
+those kinds that love the common's openness, and the rough, thorny
+vegetation that flourishes on it. But the village--or rather, the large
+open space occupied by it, formed the headquarters and centre of a
+paradise of birds (as I soon began to think it), for the cottages and
+houses were widely separated, the meanest having a garden and some
+trees, and in most cases there was an old orchard of apple, cherry, and
+walnut trees to each habitation, and out of this mass of greenery, which
+hid the houses and made the place look more like a wood than a village,
+towered the great elms in rows, and in groups.
+
+On first approaching the place I heard, mingled with many other voices,
+that of the nightingale; and as it was for the medicine of its pure,
+fresh melody that I particularly craved, I was glad to find a lodging in
+one of the cottages, and to remain there for several weeks.
+
+The small care which the nightingale took to live up to his reputation
+in this place surprised me a little. Here he could always be heard in
+the daytime--not one bird, but a dozen--in different parts of the
+village; but he sang not at night. This I set down to the fact that the
+nights were dark and the weather unsettled. But later, when the weather
+grew warmer, and there were brilliant moonlight nights, he was still a
+silent bird except by day.
+
+I was also a little surprised at his tameness.
+
+On first coming to the village, when I ran after every nightingale I
+heard, to get as near him as possible, I was occasionally led by the
+sound to a cottage, and in some instances I found the singer perched
+within three or four yards of an open window or door. At my own cottage,
+when the woman who waited on me shook the breakfast cloth at the front
+door, the bird that came to pick up the crumbs was the nightingale--not
+the robin. When by chance he met a sparrow there, he attacked and chased
+it away. It was a feast of nightingales. An elderly woman of the village
+explained to me that the nightingales and other small birds were common
+and tame in the village, because no person disturbed them. I smile now
+when recording the good old dame's words.
+
+On my second day at the village it happened to be raining--a warm,
+mizzling rain without wind--ind the nightingales were as vocal as in
+fine bright weather. I heard one in a narrow lane, and went towards it,
+treading softly, in order not to scare it away, until I got within eight
+or ten yards of it, as it sat on a dead projecting twig. This was a twig
+of a low thorn tree growing up from the hedge, projecting through the
+foliage, and the bird, perched near its end, sat only about five feet
+above the bare ground of the lane. Now, I owe my best thanks to this
+individual nightingale, for sharply calling to my mind a common
+pestilent delusion, which I have always hated, but had never yet raised
+my voice against--namely, that all wild creatures exist in constant fear
+of an attack from the numberless subtle or powerful enemies that are
+always waiting and watching for an opportunity to spring upon and
+destroy them.  The truth is, that although their enemies be legion, and
+that every day, and even several times on each day, they may be
+threatened with destruction, they are absolutely free from apprehension,
+except when in the immediate presence of danger. Suspicious they may be
+at times, and the suspicion may cause them to remove themselves to a
+greater distance from the object that excites it; but the emotion is so
+slight, the action so almost automatic, that the singing bird will fly
+to another bush a dozen yards away, and at once resume his interrupted
+song. Again, a bird will see the deadliest enemy of its kind, and unless
+it be so close as to actually threaten his life, he will regard it with
+the greatest indifference or will only be moved to anger at its
+presence.  Here was this nightingale singing in the rain, seeing but not
+heeding me; while beneath the hedge, almost directly under the twig it
+sat on, a black cat was watching it with luminous yellow eyes. I did not
+see the cat at first, but have no doubt that the nightingale had seen
+and knew that it was there. High up on the tops of the thorn, a couple
+of sparrows were silently perched. Perhaps, like myself, they had come
+there to listen. After I had been standing motionless, drinking in that
+dulcet music for at least five minutes, one of the two sparrows dropped
+from the perch straight down, and alighting on the bare wet ground
+directly under the nightingale, began busily pecking at something
+eatable it had discovered. No sooner had he begun pecking than out
+leaped the concealed cat on to him. The sparrow fluttered wildly up from
+beneath or between the claws, and escaped, as if by a miracle. The cat
+raised itself up, glared round, and, catching sight of me close by,
+sprang back into the hedge and was gone. But all this time the exposed
+nightingale, perched only five feet above the spot where the attack had
+been made and the sparrow had so nearly lost his life, had continued
+singing; and he sang on for some minutes after. I suppose that he had
+seen the cat before, and knew instinctively that he was beyond its
+reach; that it was a terrestrial, not an aerial enemy, and so feared it
+not at all; and he would, perhaps, have continued singing if the sparrow
+had been caught and instantly killed.
+
+Quite early in June I began to feel just a little cross with the
+nightingales, for they almost ceased singing; and considering that the
+spring had been a backward one, it seemed to me that their silence was
+coming too soon. I was not sufficiently regardful of the fact that their
+lays are solitary, as the poet has said; that they ask for no witness of
+their song, nor thirst for human praise. They were all nesting now. But
+if I heard them less, I saw much more of them, especially of one
+individual, the male bird of a couple that had made their nest in a
+hedge a stone's throw from the cottage. A favourite morning perch of
+this bird was on a small wooden gate four or five yards away from my
+window. It was an open, sunny spot, where his restless, bright eyes
+could sweep the lane, up and down; and he could there also give vent to
+his superfluous energy by lording it over a few sparrows and other small
+birds that visited the spot. I greatly admired the fine, alert figure of
+the pugnacious little creature, as he perched there so close to me, and
+so fearless. His striking resemblance to the robin in form, size, and in
+his motions, made his extreme familiarity seem only natural. The robin
+is greatly distinguished in a sober-plumaged company by the vivid tint
+on his breast. He is like the autumn leaf that catches a ray of sunlight
+on its surface, and shines conspicuously among russet leaves. But the
+clear brown of the nightingale is beautiful, too.
+
+This same nightingale was keeping a little surprise in store for me.
+Although he took no notice of me sitting at the open window, whenever I
+went thirty or forty yards from the gate along the narrow lane that
+faced it, my presence troubled him and his mate only too much. They
+would flit round my head, emitting the two strongly contrasted sounds
+with which they express solicitude--the clear, thin, plaintive, or
+wailing note, and the low, jarring sound--an alternate lamenting and
+girding. One day when I approached the nest, they displayed more anxiety
+than usual, fluttering close to me, wailing and croaking more vehemently
+than ever, when all at once the male, at the height of his excitement,
+burst into singing. Half a dozen notes were uttered rapidly, with great
+strength, then a small complaining cry again, and at intervals, a fresh
+burst of melody. I have remarked the same thing in other singing birds,
+species in which the harsh grating or piercing sounds that properly
+express violent emotions of a painful kind, have been nearly or quite
+lost. In the nightingale, this part of the bird's language has lost its
+original character, and has dwindled to something very small.
+Solicitude, fear, anger, are expressed with sounds that are mere
+lispings compared with those emitted by the bird when singing. It is
+worthy of remark that some of the most highly developed melodists--and I
+am now thinking of the mocking-birds--never, in-moments of extreme
+agitation, fall into this confusion and use singing notes that express
+agreeable emotions, to express such as are painful. But in the
+mocking-bird the primitive harsh and grating cries have not been lost
+nor softened to sounds hardly to be distinguished from those that are
+emitted by way of song.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+
+By this time all the birds were breeding, some already breeding a second
+time. And now I began to suspect that they were not quite so undisturbed
+as the old dame had led me to believe; that they had not found a
+paradise in the village after all. One morning, as I moved softly along
+the hedge in my nightingale's lane, all at once I heard, in the old
+grassy orchard, to which it formed a boundary, swishing sounds of
+scuttling feet and half-suppressed exclamations of alarm; then a
+crushing through the hedge, and out, almost at my feet, rushed and
+leaped and tumbled half-a-dozen urchins, who had suddenly been
+frightened from a bird-nesting raid. Clothes torn, hands and faces
+scratched with thorns, hat-less, their tow-coloured hair all disordered
+or standing up like a white crest above their brown faces, rounded eyes
+staring--what an extraordinarily wild appearance they had! I was back
+in very old times, in the Britain of a thousand years before the coming
+of the Romans, and these were her young barbarians, learning their
+life's business in little things.
+
+No, the birds of the village were not undisturbed while breeding; but
+happily the young savages never found my nightingale's nest. One day the
+bird came to the gate as usual, and was more alert and pugnacious than
+ever; and no wonder, for his mate came too, and with them four young
+birds. For a week they were about the cottage every day, when they
+dispersed, and one beautiful bright morning the male bird, in his old
+place near my window, attempted to sing, beginning with that rich,
+melodious throbbing, which is usually called "_jugging_," and following
+with half-a-dozen beautiful notes. That was all. It was July, and I
+heard no more music from him or from any other of his kind.
+
+* * *
+
+I have perhaps written at too great length of this bird. The nightingale
+was after all only one of the fifty-nine species I succeeded in
+identifying during my sojourn at the village. There were more. I heard
+the calls and cries of others in the wood and various places, but
+refused, except in the case of the too elusive crake, to set down any in
+my list that I did not see. It was not my ambition to make a long list.
+My greatest desire was to see well those that interested me most. But
+those who go forth, as I did, to look for birds that are a sight for
+sore eyes, must meet with many a disappointment. In all those fruit and
+shade trees that covered the village with a cloud of verdure, and in the
+neighbouring woods, not once did I catch a glimpse of the green
+woodpecker, a beautiful conspicuous bird, supposed to be increasing in
+many places in England. Its absence from so promising a locality seemed
+strange.  Another species, also said to be increasing in the
+country--the turtledove, was extremely abundant. In the tall beech woods
+its low, montonous crooning note was heard all day long from all sides.
+In shady places, where the loud, shrill bird-voices are few, one prefers
+this sound to the set song of the woodpigeon, being more continuous and
+soothing, and of the nature of a lullaby. It sometimes reminded me of
+the low monotone I have heard from a Patagonian mother when singing her
+"swart papoose" to sleep. Still, I would gladly have spared many of
+these woodland crooners for the sake of one magpie--that bird of fine
+feathers and a bright mind, which I had not looked on for a whole year,
+and now hoped to see again. But he was not there; and after I had looked
+for myself, some of the natives assured me that no magpie had been seen
+for years in that wood.
+
+For a time I feared that I was to be just as unlucky with regard to the
+jay, seeing that the owner of the extensive beech woods adjoining the
+village permitted his keeper to kill the most interesting birds in
+it--kestrels and sparrowhawks, owls, jays, and magpies. He was a new
+man, comparatively, in the place, and wanted to increase his preserves,
+but to do this it was necessary first to exclude the villagers--the
+Badgers, who were no doubt partial to pheasants' eggs. Now, to close an
+ancient right-of-way is a ticklish business, and this was an important
+one, seeing that the village women did their Saturday marketing in the
+town beyond the wood and river, and with the path closed they would have
+two miles further to walk. The new lord wisely took this into
+consideration, and set himself to win the goodwill of the people before
+attempting any strong measures. He walked in the lanes and was affable
+to the cottage women and nice to the children, and by and bye he
+exclaimed, "What! No institute! no hall, or any place where you can meet
+and spend the long winter evenings? Well, I'll soon see to that." And
+soon, to their delight, they had a nice building reared on a piece of
+land which he bought for the purpose, furnished with tables, chairs,
+bagatelle boards, and all accessories; and he also supplied them with
+newspapers and magazines. He was immensely popular, but appeared to
+think little of what he had done. When they expressed their gratitude to
+him he would move his hand, and answer, "Oh, I'm going to do a great
+deal more than that for you!"
+
+A few months went by, then he caused a notice to be put up about the
+neighbourhood that the path through the wood was going to be closed "by
+order." No one took any notice, and a few weeks later his workmen
+appeared on the scene and erected a huge oakwood barrier across the
+path; also a notice on a board that the wood was strictly private and
+trespassers would be prosecuted. The villagers met in force at the
+institute and the inn that evening, and after discussing the matter over
+their ale, they armed themselves with axes and went in a body and
+demolished the barrier.
+
+The owner was disgusted, but took no action. "This," he said, "is their
+gratitude"; and from that day he ceased to subscribe to the local
+charities or take his walks in the village. He had given the institute,
+and so could not pull it down nor prevent them from using it.
+
+It was refreshing to hear that the Badgers had shown a proper spirit in
+the matter, and I was grateful to them for having kept the right-of-way,
+as on most days I spent several hours in the beautiful woods.
+
+To return to the jay. In spite of the keeper's persecution, I knew that
+he was there; every morning when I got up to look out of the window
+between four and five o'clock, I heard from some quarter of the village
+that curious subdued, but far-reaching, scolding note he is accustomed
+to utter when his suspicions have been aroused.
+
+That was the jay's custom--to come from the woods before even the
+earliest risers were up, and forage in the village. By and bye I
+discovered that, by lying motionless for an hour or so on the dry moss
+in the wood, he would at length grow so bold as to allow himself to be
+seen, but high up among the topmost branches. Then, by means of my
+binocular, I had the wild thing on my thumb, so to speak, exhibiting
+himself to me, inquisitive, perplexed, suspicious, enraged by turns, as
+he flirted wings and tail, lifted and lowered his crest, glancing down
+with bright, wild eyes. What a beautiful hypocrisy and delightful power
+this is which enables us, sitting or lying motionless, feigning sleep
+perhaps, thus to fool this wild, elusive creature, and bring all its
+cunning to naught! He is so much smaller and keener-sighted, able to
+fly, to perch far up above me, to shift his position every minute or
+two, masking his small figure with this or that tuft of leaves, while
+still keeping his eyes on me--in spite of it all to have him so close,
+and without moving or taking any trouble, to see him so much better than
+he can see me! But this is a legitimate trickery of science, so innocent
+that we can laugh at our dupe when we practise it; nor do we afterwards
+despise our superior cunning and feel ashamed, as when we slaughter wild
+birds with far-reaching shot, which they cannot escape.
+
+* * *
+
+All these corvine birds, which the gamekeeper pursues so relentlessly,
+albeit they were before him, killing when they killed to better purpose;
+and, let us hope, will exist after him--all these must greatly surpass
+other kinds in sagacity to have escaped extermination. In the present
+condition of things, the jay is perhaps the best off, on account of his
+smaller size and less conspicuous colouring; but whether more cunning
+than the crow or magpie or not, in perpetual alertness and restless
+energy or intensity of life, he is without an equal among British birds.
+And this quality forms his chief attraction; it is more to the mind than
+his lifted crest and bright eyes, his fine vinaceous brown and the patch
+of sky-blue on his wings. One would miss him greatly from the woods;
+some of the melody may well be spared for the sake of the sudden,
+brain-piercing, rasping, rending scream with which he startles us in our
+solitary forest walks.
+
+It is this extreme liveliness of the jay which makes it more distressing
+to the mind to see it pent in a cage than other birds of its family,
+such as the magpie; just as it is more distressing to see a skylark than
+a finch in prison, because the lark has an irresistible impulse to rise
+when his singing fit is on. Sing he must, in or out of prison, yet there
+can be little joy in the performance when the bird is incessantly teased
+with the unsatisfied desire to mount and pour out his music at heaven's
+gate.
+
+Out of the cages, jays make charming and beautiful pets, and some who
+have kept them have assured me that they are not mischievous birds. The
+late Mark Melford one time when I visited him, had two jays, handsome
+birds, in bright, glossy plumage, always free to roam where they liked,
+indoors or out. We were sitting talking in his garden when one of the
+jays came flying to us and perched on a wooden ledge a few feet from and
+above our heads, and after sitting quietly for a little while he
+suddenly made a dash at my head, just brushing it with his wings, then
+returned to his perch.  At intervals of a few moments he repeated this
+action, and when I remarked that he probably resented the presence of a
+stranger, Melford exclaimed, "Oh, no, he wants to play with you--that's
+all."
+
+His manner of playing was rather startling. So long as I kept my eyes on
+him he remained motionless, but the instant my attention wandered, or
+when in speaking I looked at my companion, the sudden violent dash at my
+head would be made.
+
+I was assured by Melford that his birds never carried off and concealed
+bright objects, a habit which it has been said the jay, as well as the
+magpie, possesses.
+
+"What would he do with this shilling if I tossed it to him?" I asked.
+
+"Catch it," he returned. "It would simply be play to him, but he
+wouldn't carry it off."
+
+I tossed up the shilling, and the bird had perhaps expected me to do so,
+as he deftly caught it just as a dog catches a biscuit when you toss one
+to him. After keeping it a few moments in his beak, he put it down at
+his side. I took out four more shilling pieces and tossed them quickly
+one by one, and he caught them without a miss and placed them one by one
+with the other, not scattered about, but in a neat pile. Then, seeing
+that I had no more shillings he flew off.
+
+After these few playful passages with one of his birds, I could
+understand Melford's feeling about his free pet jays, magpies and
+jackdaws; they were not merely birds to him, but rather like so many
+delightful little children in the beautiful shape of birds.
+
+* * *
+
+There was no rookery in or near the village, but a large flock of rooks
+were always to be seen feeding and sunning themselves in some level
+meadows near the river. It struck me one day as a very fine sight, when
+an old bird, who looked larger and blacker and greyer-faced than the
+others, and might have been the father and leader of them all, got up on
+a low post, and with wide-open beak poured forth a long series of most
+impressive caws. One always wonders at the meaning of such displays. Is
+the old bird addressing the others in the rook language on some matter
+of great moment; or is he only expressing some feeling in the only
+language he has--those long, hoarse, uninflected sounds; and if so, what
+feeling? Probably a very common one. The rooks appeared happy and
+prosperous, feeding in the meadow grass in that June weather, with the
+hot sun shining on their glossy coats. Their days of want were long past
+and forgotten; the anxious breeding period was over; the tempest in the
+tall trees; the annual slaughter of the young birds--all past and
+forgotten. The old rook was simply expressing the old truth, that life
+was worth living.
+
+These rooks were usually accompanied by two or three or more crows--a
+bird of so ill-repute that the most out-and-out enthusiast for
+protection must find it hard to say a word in its favour. At any rate,
+the rooks must think, if they think at all, that this frequent visitor
+and attendant of theirs is more kin than kind. I have related in a
+former work that I once saw a peregrine strike down and kill an owl--a
+sight that made me gasp with astonishment. But I am inclined to think of
+this act as only a slip, a slight aberration, on the part of the falcon,
+so universal is the sense of relationship among the kinds that have the
+rapacious habit; or, at the worst, it was merely an isolated act of
+deviltry and daring of the sharp-winged pirate of the sky, a sudden
+assertion of over-mastering energy and power, and a very slight offence
+compared with that of the crow when he carries off and devours his
+callow little cousins of the rookery.
+
+* * *
+
+One of the first birds I went out to seek--perhaps the most medicinal of
+all birds to see--was the kingfisher; but he was not anywhere on the
+river margin, although suitable places were plentiful enough, and
+myriads of small fishes were visible in the shallow water, seen at rest
+like dim-pointed stripes beneath the surface, and darting away and
+scattering outwards, like a flight of arrows, at any person's approach.
+Walking along the river bank one day, when the place was still new to
+me, I discovered a stream, and following it up arrived at a spot where a
+clump of trees overhung the water, casting on it a deep shade. On the
+other side of the stream buttercups grew so thickly that the glazed
+petals of the flowers were touching; the meadow was one broad expanse of
+brilliant yellow. I had not been standing half a minute in the shade
+before the bird I had been seeking darted out from the margin, almost
+beneath my feet, and then, instead of flying up or down stream, sped
+like an arrow across the field of buttercups. It was a very bright day,
+and the bird going from me with the sunshine full on it, appeared
+entirely of a shining, splendid green.  Never had I seen the kingfisher
+in such favourable circumstances; flying so low above the flowery level
+that the swiftly vibrating wings must have touched the yellow petals; he
+was like a waif from some far tropical land. The bird was tropical, but
+I doubt if there exists within the tropics anything to compare with a
+field of buttercups--such large and unbroken surfaces of the most
+brilliant colour in nature. The first bird's mate appeared a minute
+later, flying in the same direction, and producing the same splendid
+effect, and also green. These two alone were seen, and only on this
+occasion, although I often revisited the spot, hoping to find them
+again.
+
+Now, the kingfisher is blue, and I am puzzled to know why, on this one
+occasion, it appeared green. I have, in a former work, _Argentine
+Ornithology_, described a contrary effect in a small and beautiful
+tyrant-bird, _Cyanotis azarae_, variously called, in the vernacular,
+"All-colored or Many-colored Kinglet." It has a little blue on its head,
+but its entire back, from the nape to the tail, is deep green. It lives
+in beds of bulrushes, and when seen flying from the spectator in a very
+strong light, at a distance of twenty or thirty yards, its colour in
+appearance is bright cerulean blue. It is a sunlight effect, but how
+produced is a mystery to me. In the case of the two green kingfishers, I
+am inclined to think that the yellow of that shining field of buttercups
+in some way produced the illusion.
+
+Why are these exquisite birds so rare, even in situations so favourable
+to them as the one I have described? Are they killed by severe frosts?
+An ornithological friend from Oxfordshire assures me that it will take
+several favourable seasons to make good the losses of the late terrible
+winter of 1891-92. But this, as every ornithologist knows, is only a
+part of the truth. The large number of stuffed kingfishers under glass
+shades that one sees in houses of all descriptions, in town and country,
+but most frequently in the parlours of country cottages and inns, tell a
+melancholy story. Some time ago a young man showed me three stuffed
+kingfishers in a case, and informed me that he had shot them at a place
+(which he named) quite close to London. He said that these three birds
+were the last of their kind ever seen there; that he had gone, week
+after week and watched and waited, until one by one, at long intervals,
+he had secured them all; and that two years had passed since the last
+one was killed, and no other kingfisher had been seen at the place. He
+added that the waterside which these birds had frequented was resorted
+to by crowds of London working people on Saturday afternoons, Sundays
+and other holidays; the fact that hundreds, perhaps thousands, of pairs
+of tired eyes would have been freshened and gladdened by the sight of
+their rare gem-like beauty only made him prouder of his achievement.
+This young man was a cockney of the small shop-keeping class--a
+Philistine of the Philistines--hence there was no call to feel surprise
+at his self-glorification over such a matter. But what shall we say of
+that writer whose masterly works on English rural life are familiar to
+everyone, who is regarded as first among "lovers of nature," when he
+relates that he invariably carried a gun when out of doors, mainly with
+the object of shooting any kingfisher he might chance to see, as the
+dead bird always formed an acceptable present to the cottager's wife,
+who would get it stuffed and keep it as an ornament on her parlour
+mantelshelf!
+
+Happily for the kingfisher, and for human beings who love nature, the
+old idea that beautiful birds were meant to be destroyed for fun by
+anyone and everyone, from the small-brained, detestable cockney
+sportsman I have mentioned, to the gentlemen who write books about the
+beauties of nature, is now gradually giving place to this new one--that
+it would be better to preserve the beautiful things we possess. Half a
+century before the author of "Wild Life in a Southern Country" amused
+himself by carrying a gun to shoot kingfishers, the inhabitants of that
+same county of Wiltshire were bathed in tears--so I read in an old
+Salisbury newspaper--at the tragic death of a young gentleman of great
+distinction, great social charm, great promise. He was out shooting
+swallows with a friend who, firing at a passing swallow, had the
+misfortune to shoot and kill _him._
+
+At the present time when gentlemen practise a little at flying birds, to
+get their hand in before the first of September, they shoot sparrows as
+a rule, or if they shoot swallows, which afford them better practice,
+they do not say anything about it.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+Where the stream broadened and mixed with the river, there existed a
+dense and extensive rush-bed--an island of rushes separated by a deep
+channel, some twelve or fourteen yards in width from the bank. This was
+a favourite nesting-place of the sedge-warblers; occasionally as many as
+a dozen birds could be heard singing at the same time, although in no
+sense together, and the effect was indeed curious. This is not a song
+that spurts and gushes up fountain-like in the manner of the robin's,
+and of some other kinds, sprinkling the listener, so to speak, with a
+sparkling vocal spray; but it keeps low down, a song that flows along
+the surface gurgling and prattling like musical running water, in its
+shallow pebbly channel. Listening again, the similitude that seemed
+appropriate at first was cast aside for another, and then another still.
+The hidden singers scattered all about their rushy island were small,
+fantastic, human minstrels, performing on a variety of instruments, some
+unknown, others recognizable--bones and castanets, tiny hurdy-gurdies,
+piccolos, banjos, tabours, and Pandean pipes--a strange medley!
+
+Interesting as this concert was, it held me less than the solitary
+singing of a sedge-warbler that lived by himself, or with only his mate,
+higher up where the stream was narrow, so that I could get near him; for
+he not only tickled my ears with his rapid, reedy music, but amused my
+mind as well with a pretty little problem in bird psychology. I could
+sit within a few yards of his tangled haunt without hearing a note; but
+if I jumped up and made a noise, or struck the branches with my stick,
+he would incontinently burst into song. It is a very well-known habit of
+the bird, and on account of it and of the very peculiar character of the
+sounds emitted, his song is frequently described by ornithologists as
+"mocking, defiant, scolding, angry," etc. It seems clear that at
+different times the bird sings from different exciting causes. When,
+undisturbed by a strange presence, he bursts spontaneously into singing,
+the music, as in other species, is simply an expression of overflowing
+gladness; at other times, the bird expressed such feelings as alarm,
+suspicion, solicitude, perhaps anger, by singing the same song. How does
+this come about?
+
+I have stated, when speaking of the nightingale, that birds in which the
+singing faculty is highly developed, sometimes make the mistake of
+bursting into song when anxious or distressed or in pain, but that this
+is not the case with the mocking-birds. Some species of these brilliant
+songsters of the New World, in their passion for variety (to put it that
+way), import every harsh and grating cry and sound they know into their
+song; but, on the other hand, when anxious for the safety of their
+young, or otherwise distressed, they emit only the harsh and grating
+sounds--never a musical note. In the sedge-warbler, the harsh, scolding
+sounds that express alarm, solicitude, and other painful emotions, have
+also been made a part of the musical performance; but this differs from
+the songs of most species, the mocking birds included, in the
+extraordinary rapidity with which it is enunciated; once the song begins
+it goes on swiftly to the finish, harsh and melodious notes seeming to
+overlap and mingle, the sound forming, to speak in metaphor, a close
+intricate pattern of strongly-contrasted colours. Now the song
+invariably begins with the harsh notes--the sounds which, at other
+times, express alarm and other more or less painful emotions--and it
+strikes me as a probable explanation that when the bird in the singing
+season has been startled into uttering these harsh and grating sounds,
+as when a stone is flung into the rushes, he is incapable of uttering
+them only, but the singing notes they suggest and which he is in the
+habit of uttering, follow automatically.
+
+The spot where I observed this wee feathered fantasy, the tantalizing
+sprite of the rushes, and where I soon ceased to see, hear, or think
+about him, calls for a fuller description. On one side the wooded hill
+sloped downward to the stream; on the other side spread the meadows
+where the rooks came every day to feed, or to sit and stand about
+motionless, looking like birds cut out of jet, scattered over about half
+an acre of the grassy, level ground. Stout old pollard willows grew here
+and there along the banks and were pleasant to see, this being the one
+man-mutilated thing in nature which, to my mind, not infrequently gains
+in beauty by the mutilation, so admirably does it fit into and harmonize
+with the landscape. At one point there was a deep, nearly stagnant pool,
+separated from the stream by a strip of wet, rushy ground, its still
+dark surface covered with water-lilies, not yet in bloom. They were just
+beginning to show their polished buds, shaped like snake's heads, above
+the broad, oily leaves floating like islands on the surface. The stream
+itself was, on my side, fringed with bulrushes and other aquatic plants;
+on the opposite bank there were some large alders lifting their branches
+above great masses of bramble and rose-briar, all together forming as
+rich and beautiful a tangle as one could find even in the most luxuriant
+of the wild, unkept hedges round the village. The briars especially
+flourished wonderfully at this spot, climbing high and dropping their
+long, slim branches quite down to the surface of the water, and in some
+places forming an arch above the stream. A short distance from this
+tangle, so abundantly sprinkled with its pale delicate roses, the water
+was spanned by a small wooden bridge, which no person appeared to use,
+but which had a use. It formed the one dry clear spot in the midst of
+all that moist vegetation, and the birds that came from the wood to
+drink and search for worms and small caterpillars first alighted on the
+bridge. There they would rest a few moments, take a look round, then fly
+to some favourite spot where succulent morsels had been picked up on
+previous visits. Thrushes, blackbirds, sparrows, reed-buntings,
+chaffinches, tits, wrens, with many other species, succeeded each other
+all day long; for now they mostly had young to provide for, and it was
+their busiest time.
+
+The unsullied beauty and solitariness of this spot made me wish at first
+that I was a boy once more, to climb and to swim, to revel in the
+sunshine and flowers, to be nearer in spirit to the birds and dragon
+flies and water-rats; then, that I could build a cabin and live there
+all the summer long, forgetful of the world and its affairs, with no
+human creature to keep me company, and no book to read, or with only one
+slim volume, some Spanish poet, let me say Melendez, for
+preference--only a small selection from his too voluminous writings; for
+he, albeit an eighteenth-century singer, was perhaps the last of that
+long, illustrious line of poets who sang as no others have sung of the
+pure delight-fulness of a life with nature. Something of this charm is
+undoubtedly due to the beauty of the language they wrote in and to the
+free, airy grace of assonants. What a hard, artificial sound the rhyme
+too often has: the clink that falls at regular intervals as of a
+stone-breaker's hammer! In the freer kinds of Spanish poetry there are
+numberless verses that make the smoothest lines and lyrics of our
+sweetest and most facile singers, from Herrick to Swinburne, seem hard
+and mechanical by comparison. But there is something more. I doubt, for
+one thing, if we are justified in the boast we sometimes make that the
+feeling for Nature is stronger in our poets than in those of other
+countries. The most scientific critic may be unable to pick a hole in
+Tennyson's botany and zoology; but the passion for, and feeling of
+oneness with Nature may exist without this modern minute accuracy. Be
+this as it may, it was not Tennyson, nor any other of our poets, that I
+would have taken to my dreamed-of solitary cabin for companionship:
+Melendez came first to my mind. I think of his lines to a butterfly:
+
+  De donde alegre vienes
+  Tan suelta y tan festiva,
+  Las valles alegrando
+  Veloz mariposilla?*
+
+* May be roughly rendered thus:
+
+  Whence, blithe one, comest thou
+  With that airy, happy flight--
+  To make the valleys glad,
+  O swift-winged butterfly?
+
+and can imagine him--the poet himself--coming to see me through the
+woods and down the hill with the careless ease and lightness of heart of
+his own purple-winged child of earth and air--_tan suelta y tan
+festiva_. Here in these four or five words one may read the whole secret
+of his charm--the exquisite delicacy and seeming art-lessness in the
+form, and the spirit that is in him--the old, simple, healthy, natural
+gladness in nature, and feeling of kinship with all the children of
+life. But I do not wish to disturb anyone in his prepossessions. It
+would greatly trouble me to think that my reader should, for the space
+of a page, or even of a single line, find himself in opposition to and
+not with me; and I am free to admit that with regard to poetry one's
+preferences change according to the mood one happens to be in and to the
+conditions generally. At home in murky London on most days I should
+probably seek pleasure and forgetfulness in Browning; but in such
+surroundings as I have been describing the lighter-hearted, elf-like
+Melendez accords best with my spirit, one whose finest songs are without
+human interest; who is irresponsible as the wind, and as unstained with
+earthly care as the limpid running water he delights in: who is brother
+to bird and bee and butterfly, and worships only liberty and sunshine,
+and is in love with nothing but a flower.
+
+Nearly midway between the useful little bridge and the rose-blossoming
+tangle I have spoken of there were three elm-trees growing in the open
+grassy space near the brook; they were not lofty, but had very
+wide-spreading horizontal branches, which made them look like oaks. This
+was an ideal spot in which to spend the sultry hours, and I had no
+sooner cast myself on the short grass in the shade than I noticed that
+the end of a projecting branch above my head, and about twenty feet from
+the ground, was a favourite perch of a tree-pipit. He sang in the air
+and, circling gracefully down, would alight on the branch, where,
+sitting near me and plainly visible, he would finish his song and renew
+it at intervals; then, leaving the loved perch, he would drop, singing,
+to the ground, just a few yards beyond the tree's shadow; thence,
+singing again, he would mount up and up above the tree, only to slide
+down once more with set, unfluttering wings, with a beautiful swaying
+motion to the same old resting-place on the branch, there to sing and
+sing and sing.
+
+If Melendez himself had come to me with flushed face and laughing eyes,
+and sat down on the grass at my side to recite one of his most
+enchanting poems, I should, with finger on lip, have enjoined silence;
+for in the mood I was then in at that sequestered spot, with the
+landscape outside my shady green pavilion bathed and quivering in the
+brilliant sunshine, this small bird had suddenly become to me more than
+any other singer, feathered or human. And yet the tree-pipit is not very
+highly regarded among British melodists, on account of the little
+variety there is in its song. Nevertheless, it is most sweet--perhaps the
+sweetest of all. It is true that there are thousands, nay, millions of
+things--sights and sounds and perfumes--which are or may be described as
+sweet, so common is the metaphor, and this too common use has perhaps
+somewhat degraded it; but in this case there is no other word so well
+suited to describe the sensation produced.
+
+The tree-pipit has a comparatively short song, repeated, with some
+variation in the number and length of the notes, at brief intervals. The
+opening notes are thick and throaty, and similar in character to the
+throat-notes of many other species in this group, a softer sound than
+the throat-notes of the skylark and woodlark, which they somewhat
+resemble. The canary-like trills and thin piping notes, long drawn out,
+which follow vary greatly in different individuals, and in many cases
+the trills are omitted. But the concluding notes of the song I am
+considering--which is only one note repeated again and again--are clear
+and beautifully inflected, and have that quality of sweetness, of
+lusciousness, I have mentioned. The note is uttered with a downward
+fall, more slowly and expressively at each repetition, as if the singer
+felt overcome at the sweetness of life and of his own expression, and
+languished somewhat at the close; its effect is like that of the perfume
+of the honeysuckle, infecting the mind with a soft, delicious languor, a
+wish to lie perfectly still and drink of the same sweetness again and
+again in larger measure.
+
+To some who are familiar with this by no means uncommon little bird, it
+may seem that I am overstating the charm of its melody. I can only say
+that the mood I was then in made me very keenly appreciative; also that
+I have never heard any other individual of this species able to produce
+precisely the same effect. We know that there are quite remarkable
+differences in the songs of birds of the same species, that among
+several that appear to be perfect and to sing alike one will possess a
+charm above the other. The truth is they are not alike; they affect us
+differently, but the sense is not fine enough or not sufficiently
+trained to detect the cause. The poet's words may be used of this
+natural melody as well as of the works of art:
+
+  "O the little more and how much it is!"
+
+There were about the village, within a few minutes' walk of the cottage,
+not fewer than half-a-dozen tree-pipits, each inhabiting a favourite
+spot where I could always count on finding and hearing him at almost any
+hour of the day from sunrise to sunset. Yet I cared not for these. To
+the one chosen bird I returned daily to spend the hot hours, lying in
+the shade and listening to his strain. Finally, I allowed two or three
+days to slip by, and when I revisited the old spot the secret charm had
+vanished. The bird was there, and rose and fell as formerly, pouring out
+his melody; but it was not the same: something was missing from those
+last sweet, languishing notes. Perhaps in the interval there had been
+some disturbing accident in his little wild life, though I could hardly
+believe it, since his mate was still sitting about thirty yards from the
+tree on the five little mottled eggs in her nest. Or perhaps his
+midsummer's music had reached its highest point, and was now in its
+declension. And perhaps the fault was in me. The virtue that draws and
+holds us does not hold us always, nor very long; it departs from all
+things, and we wonder why. The loss is in ourselves, although we do not
+know it. Nature, the chosen mistress of our heart, does not change
+towards us, yet she is now, even to-day--
+
+  "Less full of purple colour and hid spice,"
+
+and smiles and sparkles in vain to allure us, and when she touches us
+with her warm, caressing touch, there is, compared with yesterday, only
+a faint response.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+
+Coming back from the waterside through the wood, after the hottest hours
+of the day were over, the crooning of the turtle-doves would be heard
+again on every side--that summer beech-wood lullaby that seemed never to
+end. The other bird voices were of the willow-wren, the wood-wren, the
+coal-tit, and the now somewhat tiresome chiffchaff; from the distance
+would come the prolonged rich strain of the blackbird, and occasionally
+the lyric of the chaffinch. The song of this bird gains greatly when
+heard from a tall tree in the woodland silence; it has then a resonance
+and wildness which it appears to lack in the garden and orchard. In the
+village I had been glad to find that the chaffinch was not too common,
+that in the tangle of minstrelsy one could enjoy there his vigorous
+voice was not predominant.
+
+Of all these woodland songsters the wood-wren impressed me the most. He
+could always be heard, no matter where I entered the wood, since all
+this world of tall beeches was a favoured haunt of the wood-wren, each
+pair keeping to its own territory of half-an-acre of trees or so, and
+somewhere among those trees the male was always singing, far up,
+invisible to eyes beneath, in the topmost sunlit foliage of the tall
+trees. On entering the wood I would, stand still for a few minutes to
+listen to the various sounds until that one fascinating sound would come
+to my ears from some distance away, and to that spot I would go to find
+a bed of last year's leaves to sit upon and listen. It was an enchanting
+experience to be there in that woodland twilight with the green cloud of
+leaves so far above me; to listen to the silence, to the faint whisper
+of the wind-touched leaves, then to little prelusive drops of musical
+sound, growing louder and falling faster until they ran into one
+prolonged trill. And there I would sit listening for half-an-hour or a
+whole hour; but the end would not come; the bird is indefatigable and
+with his mysterious talk in the leaves would tire the sun himself and send
+him down the sky: for not until the sun has set and the wood has grown
+dark does the singing cease.
+
+On emerging from the deep shade of the beeches into the wide grassy road
+that separated the wood from the orchards and plantations of fruit
+trees, and pausing for a minute to look down on the more than
+half-hidden village, invariably the first loud sounds that reached my
+ear were those of the cuckoo, thrush, and blackbird. At all hours in the
+village, from early morning to evening twilight, these three voices
+sounded far and near above the others. I considered myself fortunate
+that no large tree near the cottage had been made choice of by a
+song-thrush as a singing-stand during the early hours. The nearest tree
+so favoured was on the further side of a field, so that when I woke at
+half-past three or four o'clock, the shrill indefatigable voice came in
+at the open window, softened by distance and washed by the dewy
+atmosphere to greater purity. Throstle and skylark to be admired must be
+heard at a distance. But at that early hour when I sat by the open
+window, the cuckoo's call was the commonest sound; the birds were
+everywhere, bird answering bird far and near, so persistently repeating
+their double note that this sound, which is in character unlike any
+other sound in nature, which one so listens and longs to hear in spring,
+lost its old mystery and charm, and became of no more account than the
+cackle of the poultry-yard. It was the cuckoo's village; sometimes three
+or four birds in hot pursuit of each other would dash through the trees
+that lined the further side of the lane and alight on that small tree at
+the gate which the nightingale was accustomed to visit later in the day.
+
+Other birds that kept themselves very much out of sight during most of
+the time also came to the same small tree at that early hour. It was
+regularly visited, and its thin bole industriously examined, by the
+nuthatch and the quaint little mouse-like creeper. Doubtless they
+imagined that five o'clock was too early for heavy human creatures to be
+awake, and were either ignorant of my presence or thought proper to
+ignore it.
+
+But where, during the days when the vociferous cuckoo, with hoarse
+chuckle and dissyllabic call and wild bubbling cry was so much with
+us--where, in this period of many pleasant noises was the cuckoo's mate,
+or maid, or messenger, the quaint and beautiful wryneck? There are few
+British birds, perhaps not one--not even the crafty black and white
+magpie, or mysterious moth-like goatsucker, or tropical kingfisher--more
+interesting to watch. At twilight I had lingered at the woodside, also
+in other likely places, and the goatsucker had failed to appear, gliding
+and zig-zagging hither and thither on his dusky-mottled noiseless wings,
+and now this still heavier disappointment was mine. I could not find the
+wryneck. Those quiet grassy orchards, shut in by straggling hedges,
+should have had him as a favoured summer guest. Creeper and nuthatch,
+and starling and gem-like blue tit, found holes enough in the old trunks
+to breed in. And yet I knew that, albeit not common, he was there; I
+could not exactly say where, but somewhere on the other side of the next
+hedge or field or orchard; for I heard his unmistakable cry, now on this
+hand, now on that. Day after day I followed the voice, sometimes in my
+eagerness forcing my way through a brambly hedge to emerge with
+scratched hands and clothes torn, like one that had been set upon and
+mauled by some savage animal of the cat kind; and still the quaint
+figure eluded my vision.
+
+At last I began to have doubts about the creature that emitted that
+strange, penetrating call. First heard as a bird-call, and nothing more,
+by degrees it grew more and more laugh-like--a long, far-reaching,
+ringing laugh; not the laugh I should like to hear from any person I
+take an interest in, but a laugh with all the gladness, unction, and
+humanity gone out of it--a dry mechanical sound, as if a soulless,
+lifeless, wind-instrument had laughed. It was very curious. Listening to
+it day by day, something of the strange history of the being once but no
+longer human, that uttered it grew up and took shape in my mind; for we
+all have in us something of this mysterious faculty. It was no bird, no
+wryneck, but a being that once, long, long, long ago, in that same
+beautiful place, had been a village boy--a free, careless, glad-hearted
+boy, like many another. But to this boy life was more than to others,
+since nature appeared immeasurably more vivid on account of his brighter
+senses; therefore his love of life and happiness in life greatly
+surpassed theirs. Annually the trees shed their leaves, the flowers
+perished, the birds flew away to some distant country beyond the
+horizon, and the sun grew pale and cold in the sky; but the bright
+impression all things made on him gave him a joy that was perennial. The
+briony, woodbine, and honeysuckle he had looked on withered in the
+hedges, but their presentments flourished untouched by frost, as if his
+warmth sustained and gave them perpetual life; in that inner magical
+world of memory the birds still twittered and warbled, each after its
+kind, and the sun shone everlastingly. But he was living in a fool's
+paradise, as he discovered by-and-by, when a boy who had been his
+playmate began to grow thin and pale, and at last fell sick and died. He
+crept near and watched his dead companion lying motionless, unbreathing,
+with a face that was like white clay; and then, more horrible still, he
+saw him taken out and put into a grave, and the heavy, cold soil cast
+over him.
+
+What did this strange and terrible thing mean? Now for the first time he
+was told that life is ours only for a season; that we also, like the
+leaves and flowers, flourish for a while then fade and perish, and
+mingle with the dust. The sad knowledge had come too suddenly and in too
+vivid and dreadful a manner.  He could not endure it. Only for a
+season!--only for a season! The earth would be green, and the sky blue,
+and the sun shine bright for ever, and he would not see, not know it!
+Struck with anguish at the thought, he stole away out of sight of the
+others to hide himself in woods and thickets, to brood alone on such a
+hateful destiny, and torture himself with vain longings, until he, too,
+grew pale and thin and large-eyed, like the boy that had died, and those
+who saw him shook their heads and whispered to one another that he was
+not long for this world. He knew what they were saying, and it only
+served to increase his misery and fear, and made him hate them because
+they were insensible to the awful fact that death awaited them, or so
+little concerned that they had never taken the trouble to inform him of
+it. To eat and drink and sleep was all they cared for, and they regarded
+death with indifference, because their dull sight did not recognize the
+beauty and glory of the earth, nor their dull hearts respond to Nature's
+everlasting gladness. The sight of the villagers, with their solemn
+head-shakings and whisperings, even of his nearest kindred, grew
+insupportable, and he at length disappeared from among them, and was
+seen no more with his white, terror-stricken face. From that time he hid
+himself in the close thickets, supporting his miserable existence on
+wild fruits and leaves, and spending many hours each day lying in some
+sheltered spot, gazing up into that blue sunny sky, which was his to
+gaze on only for a season, while the large tears gathered in his eyes
+and rolled unheeded down his wasted cheeks.
+
+At length during this period there occurred an event which is the
+obscurest part of his history; for I know not who or what it was--my
+mind being in a mist about it--that came to or accidentally found him
+lying on a bed of grass and dried leaves in his thorny hiding-place. It
+may have been a gipsy or a witch--there were witches in those days--who,
+suddenly looking on his upturned face and seeing the hunger in his
+unfathomable eyes, loved him, in spite of her malignant nature; or a
+spirit out of the earth; or only a very wise man, an ancient,
+white-haired solitary, whose life had been spent in finding out the
+secrets of nature. This being, becoming acquainted with the cause of the
+boy's grief and of his solitary, miserable condition, began to comfort
+him by telling him that no grief was incurable, no desire that heart
+could conceive unattainable. He discoursed of the hidden potent
+properties of nature, unknown only to those who seek not to know them;
+of the splendid virtue inherent in all things, like the green and violet
+flames in the clear colourless raindrops which are seen only on rare
+occasions. Of life and death, he said that life was of the spirit which
+never dies, that death meant only a passage, a change of abode of the
+spirit, and the left body crumbled to dust when the spirit went out of
+it to continue its existence elsewhere, but that those who hated the
+thought of such change could, by taking thought, prolong life and live
+for a thousand years, like the adder and tortoise or for ever. But no,
+he would not leave the poor boy to grope alone and blindly after that
+hidden knowledge he was burning to possess. He pitied him too much. The
+means were simple and near to hand, the earth teemed with the virtue
+that would save him from the dissolution which so appalled him. He would
+be startled to hear in how small a thing and in how insignificant a
+creature resided the principle that could make his body, like his
+spirit, immortal. But exceeding great power often existed in small
+compass: witness the adder's tooth, which was to our sight no more than
+the point of the smallest thorn. Now, in the small ant there exists a
+principle of a greater potency than any other in nature; so strong and
+penetrating was it that even the dull and brutish kind of men who
+enquire not into hidden things know something of its power. But the
+greatest of all the many qualities of this acid was unknown to them. The
+ants were a small people, but exceedingly wise and powerful. If a little
+human child had the strength of an ant he would surpass in power the
+mightiest giant that ever lived. In the same way ants surpassed men in
+wisdom; and this strength and wisdom was the result of that acid
+principle in them. Now, if any person should be able to overcome his
+repugnance to so strange a food as to sustain himself on ants and
+nothing else, the effect of the acid on him would be to change and
+harden his flesh and make it impervious to decay or change of any kind.
+He would, so long as he confined himself to this kind of food, be
+immortal.
+
+Not a moment did the wretched boy hesitate to make use of this new and
+wonderful knowledge. When he had found and broken open an ant-hill, so
+eager was he that, shutting his eyes, he snatched up the maddened
+insects by handfuls and swallowed them, dust and ants together, and was
+then tortured for hours, feeling and thinking that they were still alive
+within him, running about in search of an outlet and frantically biting.
+The strange food sickened him, so that he grew thinner and paler, until
+at last he could barely crawl on hands and feet, and was like a skeleton
+except for the great sad eyes that could still see the green earth and
+blue sky, and still reflected in their depths one fear and one desire.
+And slowly, day by day, as his system accustomed itself to the new diet,
+his strength returned, and he was able once more to walk erect and run,
+and to climb a tree, where he could sit concealed among the thick
+foliage and survey the village where he had first seen the light and had
+passed the careless, happy years of boyhood. But he cherished no tender
+memories and regrets; his sole thought was of the ants, and where to
+find a sufficiency of them to stay the cravings of hunger; for, after
+the first sensations of disgust had been overcome, he had begun to grow
+fond of this kind of food, and now consumed it with avidity. And as his
+strength increased so did his dexterity in catching the small, active
+insect prey. He no longer gathered the ants up in his palm and swallowed
+them along with dust and grit, but picked them up deftly, and conveyed
+them one by one to his mouth with lightning rapidity. Meanwhile that
+"acid principle," about which he had heard such wonderful things, was
+having its effect on his system. His skin changed its colour; he grew
+shrunken and small, until at length, after very many years, he dwindled
+to the grey little manikin of the present time. His mind, too, changed;
+he has no thought nor remembrance of his former life and condition and
+of his long-dead relations; but he still haunts the village where he
+knows so well where to find the small ants, to pick them from off the
+ant-hill and from the trunks of trees with his quick little claw-like
+hands. Language and song are likewise forgotten with all human things,
+all except his laugh; for when hunger is satisfied, and the sun shines
+pleasantly as he reposes on the dry leaves on the ground or sits aloft
+on a branch, at times a sudden feeling of gladness possesses him, and he
+expresses it in that one way--the long, wild, ringing peal of laughter.
+Listening to that strange sound, although I could not see I could yet
+picture him, as, aware of my cautious approach, he moved shyly behind
+the mossy trunk of some tree and waited silently for me to pass. A lean,
+grey little man, clad in a quaintly barred and mottled mantle, woven by
+his own hands from some soft silky material, and a close-fitting brown
+peaked cap on his head with one barred feather in it for ornament, and a
+small wizened grey face with a thin sharp nose, puckered lips, and a
+pair of round, brilliant, startled eyes.
+
+So distinct was this image to my mind's eye that it became unnecessary
+for me to see the creature, and I ceased to look for him; then all at
+once came disillusion, when one day, hearing the familiar high-pitched
+laugh with its penetrating and somewhat nasal tone, I looked and beheld
+the thing that had laughed just leaving its perch on a branch near the
+ground and winging its way across the field. It was only a bird after
+all--only the wryneck; and that mysterious faculty I spoke of, saying
+that we all of us possessed something of it (meaning only some of us)
+was nothing after all but the old common faculty of imagination.
+
+Later on I saw it again on half-a-dozen occasions, but never succeeded
+in getting what I call a satisfying sight of it, perched woodpecker-wise
+on a mossy trunk, busy at its old fascinating occupation of deftly
+picking off the running ants.
+
+It is melancholy to think that this quaint and beautiful bird of a
+unique type has been growing less and less common in our country during
+the last half a century, or for a longer period. In the last fifteen or
+twenty years the falling-off has been very marked. The declension is not
+attributable to persecution in this case, since the bird is not on the
+gamekeeper's black list, nor has it yet become so rare as to cause the
+amateur collectors of dead birds throughout the country systematically
+to set about its extermination. Doubtless that will come later on when
+it will be in the same category with the golden oriole, hoopoe,
+furze-wren, and other species that are regarded as always worth killing;
+that is to say, it will come--the scramble for the wryneck's
+carcass--if nothing is done in the meantime to restrain the enthusiasm
+of those who value a bird only when the spirit of life that gave it
+flight and grace and beauty has been crushed out of it--when it is no
+longer a bird. The cause of its decline up till now cannot be known to
+us; we can only say in our ignorance that this type, like innumerable
+others that have ceased to exist, has probably run its course and is
+dying out. Or it might be imagined that its system is undergoing some
+slow change, which tells on the migratory instinct, that it is becoming
+more a resident species in its winter home in Africa. But all
+conjectures are idle in such a case. It is melancholy, at all events for
+the ornithologist, to think of an England without a wryneck; but before
+that still distant day arrives let us hope that the love of birds will
+have become a common feeling in the mass of the population, and that the
+variety of our bird life will have been increased by the addition of
+some chance colonists and of many new species introduced from distant
+regions.
+
+I have lingered long over the wryneck, but have still a story to relate
+of this bird--not a fairy tale this time, but true.
+
+On the border of the village adjoining the wood--the side where birds
+were more abundant, and which consequently had the greatest attraction
+for me--there stands an old picturesque cottage nearly concealed from
+sight by the hedge in front and closely planted trees clustering round
+it. On one side was a grass field, on the other an orchard of old
+cherry, apple, and plum trees, all the property of the old man living in
+the cottage, who was a character in his way; at all events, he had not
+been fashioned in quite the same mould as the majority of the cottagers
+about him. They mostly, when past middle life, wore a heavy, dull and
+somewhat depressed look. This man had a twinkle in his dark-grey eyes,
+an expression of intelligent curiosity and fellowship; and his full
+face, bronzed with sixty or sixty-five years' exposure to the weather,
+was genial, as if the sunshine that had so long beaten on it had not
+been all used up in painting his skin that rich old-furniture colour,
+but had, some of it, filtered through the epidermis into the heart to
+make his existence pleasant and sweet. But it was a very rough-cast
+face, with shapeless nose and thick lips. He was short and
+broad-shouldered, always in the warm weather in his shirt-sleeves, a
+shirt of some very coarse material and of an earthen colour, his brown
+thick arms bare to the elbows. Waistcoat and trousers looked as if he
+had worn them for half his life, and had a marbled or mottled appearance
+as if they had taken the various tints of all the objects and materials
+he had handled or rubbed against in his life's work--wood, mossy trees,
+grass, clay, bricks, stone, rusty iron, and dozens more. He wore the
+field-labourer's thick boots; his ancient rusty felt hat had long lost
+its original shape; and finally, to complete the portrait, a short black
+clay pipe was never out of his lips--never, at all events, when I saw
+him, which was often; for every day as I strolled past his domain he
+would be on the outside of his hedge, or just coming out of his gate,
+invariably with something in his hand--a spade, a fork, or stick of
+wood, or an old empty fruit-basket. Although thus having the appearance
+of being very much occupied, he would always stop for a few minutes'
+talk with me; and by-and-by I began to suspect that he was a very social
+sort of person, and that it pleased him to have a little chat, but that
+he liked to have me think that he met me by accident while going about
+his work.
+
+One sunny morning as I came past his field he came out bearing a huge
+bundle of green grass on his head. "Whatl" he exclaimed, coming to a
+stand, "you here to-day? I thought you'd be away to the regatta."
+
+I said that I knew little about regattas and cared less, that a day
+spent in watching and listening to the birds gave me more pleasure than
+all the regattas in the country. "I suppose you can't understand that?"
+I added.
+
+He took the big green bundle from his head and set it down, pulled off
+his old hat to flap the dust out of it, then sucked at his short clay.
+"Well," he said at length, "some fancies one thing and some another, but
+we most of us like a regatta."
+
+During the talk that followed I asked him if he knew the wryneck, and if
+it ever nested in his orchard. He did not know the bird; had never heard
+its name nor the other names of snake-bird and cuckoo's mate; and when I
+had minutely described its appearance, he said that no such bird was
+known in the village.
+
+I assured him that he was mistaken, that I had heard the cry of the bird
+many times, and had even heard it once at a distance since our
+conversation began. Hearing that distant cry had caused me to ask the
+question.
+
+All at once he remembered that he knew, or had known formerly, the
+wryneck very well, but he had never learnt its name. About twenty or
+five-and-twenty years ago, he said, he saw the bird I had just described
+in his orchard, and as it appeared day after day and had a strange
+appearance as it moved up the tree trunks, he began to be interested in
+it. One day he saw it fly into a hole close to the ground in an old
+apple tree. "Now I've got you!" he exclaimed, and running to the spot
+thrust his hand in as far as he could, but was unable to reach the bird.
+Then he conceived the idea of starving it out, and stopped up the hole
+with clay. The following day at the same hour he again put in his hand,
+and this time succeeded in taking the bird. So strange was it to him
+that after showing it to his own family he took it round to exhibit it
+to his neighbours, and although some of them were old men, not one among
+them had ever seen its like before. They concluded that it was a kind of
+nuthatch, but unlike the common nuthatch which they knew. After they had
+all seen and handled it and had finished the discussions about it, he
+released it and saw it fly away; but, to his astonishment, it was back
+in his orchard a few hours later. In a few weeks it brought out its five
+or six young from the hole he had caught it in, and for several years it
+returned each season to breed in the same hole until the tree was blown
+down, after which the bird was seen no more.
+
+What an experience the poor bird had suffered! First plastered up and
+left to starve or suffocate in its hollow tree; then captured and passed
+round from rough, horny hand to hand, while the villagers were
+discussing it in their slow, ponderous fashion--how wildly its little
+wild heart must have palpitated!--and, finally, after being released, to
+go back at once to its eggs in that dangerous tree. I do not know which
+surprised me most, the bird's action in returning to its nest after such
+inhospitable treatment, or the ignorance of the villagers concerning it.
+The incident seemed to show that the wryneck had been scarce at this
+place for a very long period.
+
+The villager, as a rule, is not a good observer, which is not strange,
+since no person is, or ever can be, a good observer of the things in
+which he is not specially interested; consequently the countryman only
+knows the most common and the most conspicuous species. He plods through
+life with downcast eyes and a vision somewhat dimmed by indifference;
+forgetting, as he progresses, the small scraps of knowledge he acquired
+by looking sharply during the period of boyhood, when every living
+creature excited his attention. In Italy, notwithstanding the paucity of
+bird life, I believe that the peasants know their birds better. The
+reason of this is not far to seek; every bird, not excepting even the
+"temple-haunting martlet" and nightingale and minute golden-crested
+wren, is regarded only as a possible morsel to give a savour to a dish
+of polenta, if the shy, little flitting thing can only be enticed within
+touching distance of the limed twigs. Thus they take a very strong
+interest in, and, in a sense, "love" birds. It is their passion for this
+kind of flavouring which has drained rural Italy of its songsters, and
+will in time have the same effect on Argentina, the country in which the
+withering stream of Italian emigration empties itself.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+
+From the date of my arrival at the village in May, until I left it early
+in July, the great annual business of pairing, nest-building, and
+rearing the young was going on uninterruptedly. The young of some of the
+earliest breeders were already strong on the wing when I took my first
+walks along the hedgerows, still in their early, vivid green, frequently
+observing my bird through a white and rose-tinted cloud of
+apple-blossoms; and when I left some species that breed more than once
+in the season were rearing second broods or engaged in making new nests.
+On my very first day I discovered a nest full of fully fledged blue tits
+in a hole in an apple tree; this struck me as a dangerous place for the
+young birds; as the tree leaned over towards the lane, and the hole
+could almost be reached by a person standing on the ground. On the next
+day I went to look at them, and approaching noiselessly along the lane,
+spied two small boys with bright clean faces--it was on a
+Sunday--standing within three or four yards of the tree, watching the
+tits with intense interest. The parent birds were darting up and down,
+careless of their presence, finding food so quickly in the gooseberry
+bushes growing near the roots of the tree that they visited the hole
+every few moments; while the young birds, ever screaming for more, were
+gathered in a dense little cluster at the entrance, their yellow breasts
+showing very brightly against the rain-wet wood and the dark interior of
+the hole. The instant the two little watchers caught sight of me the
+excited look vanished from their faces, and they began to move off,
+gazing straight ahead in a somewhat vacant manner. This instantaneous
+and instinctive display of hypocrisy was highly entertaining, and would
+have made me laugh if it had not been for the serious purpose I had in
+my mind. "Now, look here," I said, "I know what you are after, so it's
+no use pretending that you are walking about and seeing nothing in
+particular. You've been watching the young tits. Well, I've been
+watching them, too, and waiting to see them fly. I dare say they will
+be out by to-morrow or the next day, and I hope you little fellows won't
+try to drag them out before then."
+
+They at once protested that they had no such intention. They said that
+they never robbed birds' nests; that there were several nests at home in
+the garden and orchard, one of a nightingale with three eggs in it, but
+that they never took an egg. But some of the boys they knew, they said,
+took all the eggs they found; and there was one boy who got into every
+orchard and garden in the place, who was so sharp that few nests escaped
+him, and every nest he found he destroyed, breaking the eggs if there
+were any, and if there were young birds killing them.
+
+Not, perhaps, without first mutilating them, I thought; for I know
+something of this kind of young "human devil," to use the phrase which
+Canon Wilberforce has made so famous in another connexion. Later on I
+heard much more about the exploits of this champion bird-destroyer of
+the village from (strange to say) a bird-catcher by trade, a man of a
+rather low type of countenance, and who lived, when at home, in a London
+slum. On the common where he spread his nets he had found, he told me,
+about thirty nests containing eggs or fledglings; but this boy had gone
+over the ground after him, and not many of the nests had escaped his
+sharp eyes.
+
+I was satisfied that the young tits were quite safe, so far as these
+youngsters were concerned, and only regretted that they were such small
+Boys, and that the great nest-destroyer, whose evil deeds they spoke of
+with an angry colour in their cheeks, was a very strong boy, otherwise I
+should have advised them to "go" for him.
+
+Oddly enough I heard of another boy who exercised the same kind of
+cruelty and destructiveness over another common a few miles distant.
+Walking across it I spied two boys among the furze bushes, and at the
+same moment they saw me, whereupon one ran away and the other remained
+standing. A nice little fellow of about eight, he looked as if he had
+been crying. I asked him what it was all about, and he then told me that
+the bigger boy who had just run away was always on the common searching
+for nests, just to destroy them and kill the young birds; that he, my
+informant, had come there where he came every day just to have a peep at
+a linnet's nest with four eggs in it on which the bird was sitting; that
+the other boy, concealed among the bushes had watched him go to the nest
+and had then rushed up and pulled the nest out of the bush.
+
+"Why didn't you knock him down?" I asked.
+
+"That's what I tried to do before he pulled the nest out," he said; and
+then he added sorrowfully: "He knocked me down."
+
+I am reminded here of a tale of ancient Greece about a boy of this
+description--the boy to be found in pretty well every parish in the
+land. This was a shepherd boy who followed or led his sheep to a
+distance from the village and amused his idle hours by snaring small
+birds to put their eyes out with a sharp thorn, then to toss them up
+just to see how, and how far, they would fly in the dark. He was seen
+doing it and the matter reported to the heads or fathers of the village,
+and he was brought before them and, after due consideration of the case,
+condemned to death. Such a decision must seem shocking to us and worthy
+of a semi-barbarous people. But if cruelty is the worst of all
+offences--and this was cruelty in its most horrid form--the offence
+which puts men down on a level with the worst of the mythical demons, it
+was surely a righteous deed to blot such an existence out lest other
+young minds should be contaminated, or even that it should be known that
+such a crime was possible.
+
+* * *
+
+All those birds that had finished rearing their young by the sixteenth
+of June were fortunate, for on the morning of that day a great and
+continuous shouting, with gun-firing, banging on old brass and iron
+utensils, with various other loud, unusual noises, were heard at one
+extremity of the village, and continued with occasional quiet intervals
+until evening. This tempest of rude sounds spread from day to day, until
+the entire area of the village and the surrounding orchards was
+involved, and the poor birds that were tied to the spots where their
+treasures were, must have existed in a state of constant trepidation.
+For now the cherries were fast ripening, and the fruit-eating birds,
+especially the thrushes and black-birds, were inflamed at the gleam of
+crimson colour among the leaves. In the very large orchards men and boys
+were stationed all day long yelling and firing off guns to frighten the
+marauders. In the smaller orchards the trees were decorated with
+whirligigs of coloured paper; ancient hats, among which were some of the
+quaintly-shaped chimney-pots of a past generation; old coats and
+waistcoats and trousers, and rags of all colours to flutter in the wind;
+and these objects were usually considered a sufficient protection. Some
+of the birds, wiser than their fellows, were not to be kept back by such
+simple means; but so long as they came not in battalions, but singly,
+they could have their fill, and no notice was taken of them.
+
+I was surprised to hear that on the large plantations the men employed
+were not allowed to use shot, the aim of the fruit grower being only to
+scare the birds away. I had a talk with my old friend of the wryneck on
+the subject, and told him that I had seen one of the bird-scarers going
+home to his cottage very early in the morning, carrying a bunch of about
+a dozen blackbirds and thrushes he had just shot.
+
+Yes, he replied, some of the men would buy shot and use it early in the
+morning before their master was about; but if the man I had seen had
+been detected in the act, he would have been discharged on the spot. It
+was not only because the trees would be injured by shot, but this
+fruitgrower was friendly to birds.
+
+Most fruit-growers, I said, were dead against the birds, and anxious
+only to kill as many of them as possible.
+
+It might be so in some places, he answered, but not in the village. He
+himself and most of the villagers depended, in a great measure, on the
+fruit they produced for a living, and their belief was that, taking one
+bird with another all the year round, the birds did them more good than
+harm.
+
+I then imparted to him the views on this bird subject of a well-known
+fruit-grower in the north of England, Mr. Joseph Witherspoon, of
+Chester-le-Street. He began by persecuting the birds, as he had been
+taught to do by his father, a market-gardener; but after years of
+careful observation he completely changed his views, and is now so
+convinced of the advantage that birds are to the fruit-grower, that he
+does all in his power to attract them, and to tempt them to breed in his
+grounds. His main idea is that birds that are fed on the premises, that
+live and feed among the trees, search for and attack the gardeners'
+enemies at every stage of their existence. At the same time he believes
+that it is very bad to grow fruit near woods, as in such a case the
+birds that live in the woods and are of no advantage to the garden,
+swarm into it as the fruit ripens, and that it is only by liberal use of
+nets that any reasonable portion of the fruit can be saved.
+
+He answered that with regard to the last point he did not quite agree
+with Mr. Witherspoon. All the gardens and orchards in the village were
+raided by the birds from the wood, yet he reckoned they got as much
+fruit from their trees as others who had no woods near them. Then there
+was the big cherry plantation, one of the biggest in England, so that
+people came from all parts in the blossoming time just to look at it,
+and a wonderful sight it was. For a quarter of a mile this particular
+orchard ran parallel with the wood; with nothing but the green road
+between, and when the first fruit was ripening you could see all the big
+trees on the edge of the wood swarming with birds--jays, thrushes,
+blackbirds, doves, and all sorts of tits and little birds, just waiting
+for a chance to pounce down and devour the cherries. The noise kept them
+off, but many would dodge in, and even if a gun was fired close to them
+the blackbirds would snatch a cherry and carry it off to the wood. That
+didn't matter--a few cherries here and there didn't count. The starlings
+were the worst robbers: if you didn't scare them they would strip a tree
+and even an orchard in a few hours. But they were the easiest birds to
+deal with: they went in flocks, and a shout or rattle or report of a gun
+sent the lot of them away together.  His way of looking at it was this.
+In the fruit season, which lasts only a few weeks, you are bound to
+suffer from the attacks of birds, whether they are your own birds only
+or your own combined with others from outside, unless you keep them off;
+that those who do not keep them off are foolish or indolent, and deserve
+to suffer. The fruit season was, he said, always an anxious time.
+
+In conclusion, I remarked that the means used for protecting the fruit,
+whether they served their purpose well or not, struck me as being very
+unworthy of the times we lived in, and seemed to show that the British
+fruit-growers, who were ahead of the world in all other matters
+connected with their vocation, had quite neglected this one point. A
+thousand years ago cultivators of the soil were scaring the birds from
+their crops just as we are doing, with methods no better and no worse,
+putting up scarecrows and old ragged garments and fluttering rags,
+hanging a dead crow to a stick to warn the others off, shouting and
+yelling and throwing stones. There appeared to be an opening here for
+experiment and invention. Mere noise was not terrifying to birds, and
+they soon discovered that an old hat on a stick had no injurious brains
+in or under it. But certain sounds and colours and odours had a strong
+effect on some animals. Sounds made to stimulate the screams of some
+hawks would perhaps prove very terrifying to thrushes and other small
+birds, and the effect of scarlet in large masses or long strips might be
+tried. It would also be worth while to try the effect of artificial
+sparrow-hawks and other birds of prey, perched conspicuously, moving and
+perking their tails at intervals by clockwork. In fact, a hundred things
+might be tried until something valuable was found, and when it lost its
+value, for the birds would in time discover the deception, some new plan
+adopted.
+
+To this dissertation on what might be done, he answered that if any one
+could find out or invent any new effective means to keep the birds from
+the fruit, the fruit-growers would be very thankful for it; but that no
+such invention could be looked for from those who are engaged on the
+soil; that it must come from those who do not dig and sweat, but sit
+still and work with their brains at new ideas.
+
+This ended our conversation, and I left him more than satisfied at the
+information he had given me, and with a higher opinion than ever of his
+geniality and good practical sense.
+
+It was a relief when the noisy, bird-scaring business was done with, and
+the last market baskets of ripe cherries were carried away to the
+station. Very splendid they looked in such large masses of crimson, as
+the baskets were brought out and set down in the grassy road; but I
+could not help thinking a little sadly that the thrushes and blackbirds
+which had been surreptitiously shot, when fallen and fluttering in the
+wet grass in the early morning, had shed life-drops of that same
+beautiful colour.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+
+After the middle of June the common began to attract me more and more.
+It was so extensive that, standing on its border, just beyond the last
+straggling cottages and orchards, the further side was seen only as a
+line of blue trees, indistinct in the distance. As I grew to know it
+better, adding each day to my list from its varied bird life, the woods
+and waterside were visited less and less frequently, and after the
+bird-scaring noises began in the village, its wildness and quiet became
+increasingly grateful. The silence of nature was broken only by bird
+sounds, and the most frequent sound was that of the yellow bunting, as,
+perched motionless on the summit of a gorse bush, his yellow head
+conspicuous at a considerable distance, he emitted his thin monotonous
+chant at regular intervals, like a painted toy-bird that sings by
+machinery. There, too, sedentary as an owl in the daytime, the corn
+bunting was common, discharging his brief song at intervals--a sound as
+of shattering glass. The whinchat was rarely seen, but I constantly met
+the small, prettily coloured stonechat flitting from bush to bush,
+following me, and never ceasing his low, querulous tacking chirp,
+anxious for the safety of his nest. Nightingales, blackcaps and
+white-throats also nested there, and were louder and more emphatic in
+their protests when approached. There were several grasshopper-warblers
+on the common, all, very curiously as it seemed to me, clustered at one
+spot, so that one could ramble over miles of ground without hearing
+their singular note; but on approaching the place they inhabited one
+gradually became conscious of a mysterious trilling buzz or whirr, low
+at first and growing louder and more stridulous, until the hidden
+singers were left behind, when by degrees it sank lower and lower again,
+and ceased to be audible at a distance of about one hundred yards from
+the points where it had sounded loudest. The birds hid in clumps of
+furze and bramble so near together that the area covered by the buzzing
+sound measured about two hundred yards across. This most singular sound
+(for a warbler to make) is certainly not ventriloquial, although if one
+comes to it with the sense of hearing disorganized by town noises or
+unpractised, one is at a loss to determine the exact spot it comes from,
+or even to know from which side it comes. While emitting its prolonged
+sound the bird is so absorbed in its own performance that it is not
+easily alarmed, and will sometimes continue singing with a human
+listener standing within four or five yards of it. When one is near the
+bird, and listens, standing motionless, the effect on the nerves of
+hearing is very remarkable, considering the smallness of the sound,
+which, without being unpleasant, is somewhat similar to that produced by
+the vibration of the brake of a train; it is not powerful enough to jar
+the nerves, but appears to pervade the entire system. Lying still, with
+eyes closed, and three or four of these birds singing near, so that
+their strains overlap and leave no silent intervals, the listener can
+imagine that the sound originates within himself; that the numberless
+fine cords of his nervous network tremble responsively to it.
+
+There are a number of natural sounds that resemble more or less closely
+the most unbirdlike note of this warbler--cicada, rattlesnake, and some
+batrachians.  Some grasshoppers perhaps come nearest to it; but the most
+sustained current of sound emitted by the insect is short compared to
+the warbler's strain, also the vibrations are very much more rapid, and
+not heard as vibrations, and the same effect is not produced.
+
+The grasshopper warblers gave me so much pleasure that I was often at
+the spot where they had their little colony of about half-a-dozen pairs,
+and where I discovered they bred every year. At first I used to go to
+any bush where I had caught sight of a bird and sit down within a few
+yards of it and wait until the little hideling's shyness wore off, and
+he would come out and start reeling. Afterwards I always went straight
+to the same bush, because I thought the bird that used it as his
+singing-place appeared less shy than the others. One day I spent a long
+time listening to this favourite; delightedly watching him, perched on a
+low twig on a level with my sight, and not more than five yards from me;
+his body perfectly motionless, but the head and wide-open beak jerked
+from side to side in a measured, mechanical way. I had a side view of
+the bird, but every three seconds the head would be jerked towards me,
+showing the bright yellow colour of the open mouth. The reeling would
+last about three minutes, then the bird would unbend or unstiffen and
+take a few hops about the bush, then stiffen and begin again. While thus
+gazing and listening I, by chance, met with an experience of that rare
+kind which invariably strikes the observer of birds as strange and
+almost incredible--an example of the most perfect mimicry in a species
+which has its own distinctive song and is not a mimic except once in a
+while, and as it were by chance. The marsh warbler is our perfect
+mocking-bird, our one professional mimic; while the starling in
+comparison is but an amateur. We all know the starling's ever varying
+performance in which he attempts a hundred things and occasionally
+succeeds; but even the starling sometimes affects us with a mild
+astonishment, and I will here give one instance.
+
+I was staying at a village in the Wiltshire downs, and at intervals,
+while sitting at work in my room on the ground floor, I heard the
+cackling of a fowl at the cottage opposite. I heard, but paid no
+attention to that familiar sound; but after three days it all at once
+struck me that no fowl could lay an egg about every ten or twelve
+minutes, and go on at this rate day after day, and, getting up, I went
+out to look for the cackler. A few hens were moving quietly about the
+open ground surrounding the cottage where the sound came from, but I
+heard nothing. By and by, when I was back in my room, the cackling
+sounded again, but when I got out the sound had ceased and the fowls, as
+before, appeared quite unexcited. The only way to solve the mystery was
+to stand there, out of doors, for ten minutes, and before that time was
+over a starling with a white grub in his beak, flew down and perched on
+the low garden wall of the cottage, then, with some difficulty, squeezed
+himself through a small opening into a cavity under a strip of zinc
+which covered the bricks of the wall. It was a queer place for a
+starling's nest, on a wall three feet high and within two yards of the
+cottage door which stood open all day. Having delivered the grub, the
+starling came out again and, hopping on to the zinc, opened his beak and
+cackled like a hen, then flew away for more grubs.
+
+I observed the starling a good deal after this, and found that
+invariably on leaving the nest, he uttered his imitation of a fowl
+cackling, and no other note or sound of any kind. It was as if he was
+not merely imitating a sound, but had seen a fowl leaving the nest and
+then cackling, and mimicked the whole proceeding, and had kept up the
+habit after the young were hatched.
+
+To return to my experience on the common. About fifty yards from the
+spot where I was there was a dense thicket of furze and thorn, with a
+huge mound in the middle composed of a tangle of whitethorn and bramble
+bushes mixed with ivy and clematis. From this spot, at intervals of half
+a minute or so, there issued the call of a duck--the prolonged, hoarse
+call of a drake, two or three times repeated, evidently emitted in
+distress. I conjectured that it came from one of a small flock of ducks
+belonging to a cottage near the edge of the common on that side. The
+flock, as I had seen, was accustomed to go some distance from home, and
+I supposed that one of them, a drake, had got into that brambly thicket
+and could not make his way out. For half an hour I heard the calls
+without paying much attention, absorbed in watching the quaint little
+songster close to me and his curious gestures when emitting his
+sustained reeling sounds. In the end the persistent distressed calling
+of the drake lost in a brambly labyrinth got a little on my nerves, and
+I felt it as a relief when it finally ceased. Then, after a short
+silence, another sound came from the same spot--a blackbird sound, known
+to everyone, but curiously interesting when uttered in the way I now
+heard it. It was the familiar loud chuckle, not emitted in alarm and
+soon ended, but the chuckle uttered occasionally by the bird when he is
+not disturbed, or when, after uttering it once for some real cause, he
+continues repeating it for no reason at all, producing the idea that he
+has just made the discovery that it is quite a musical sound and that he
+is repeating it, as if singing, just for pleasure. At such times the
+long series of notes do not come forth with a rush; he begins
+deliberately with a series of musical chirps uttered in a measured
+manner, like those of a wood wren, the prelude to its song, the notes
+coming faster and faster and swelling and running into the loud
+chuckling performance. This performance, like the lost drake's call, was
+repeated in the same deliberate or leisurely manner at intervals again
+and again, until my curiosity was aroused and I went to the spot to get
+a look at the bird who had turned his alarm sound into a song and
+appeared to be very much taken with it.  But there was no blackbird at
+the spot, and no lost drake, and no bird, except a throstle sitting
+motionless on the bush mound. This was the bird I had been listening to,
+uttering not his own thrush melody, which he perhaps did not know at
+all, but the sounds he had borrowed from two species so wide apart in
+their character and language.
+
+The astonishing thing in this case was that the bird never uttered a
+note of his own original and exceedingly copious song; and I could only
+suppose that he had never learned the thrush melody; that he had,
+perhaps, been picked up as a fledgling and put in a cage, where he had
+imitated the sounds he heard and liked best, and made them his song, and
+that he had finally escaped or had been liberated.
+
+The wild thrush, we know, does introduce certain imitations into his own
+song, but the borrowed notes, or even phrases, are, as a rule, few, and
+not always to be distinguished from his own.
+
+Sometimes one can pick them out; thus, on the borders of a marsh where
+redshanks bred, I have heard the call of that bird distinctly given by
+the thrush. And again, where the ring-ouzel is common, the thrush will
+get its brief song exactly. When thrushes taken from the nest are reared
+in towns, where they never hear the thrush or any other bird sing, they
+are often exceedingly vocal, and utter a medley of sounds which are
+sometimes distressing to the ear. I have heard many caged thrushes of
+this kind in London, but the most remarkable instance I have met with
+was at the little seaside town of Seaford. Here, in the main shopping
+street, a caged thrush lived for years in a butcher's shop, and poured
+out its song continuously, the most distressing throstle performance I
+ever heard, composed of a medley of loud, shrill and harsh
+sounds--imitations of screams and shouts, boy whistlers, saw filing,
+knives sharpened on steels, and numerous other unclassifiable noises;
+but all, more or less, painful. The whole street was filled with the
+noise, and the owner used to boast that his caged thrush was the most
+persistent as well as the loudest singer that had ever been heard. He
+had no nerves, and was proud of it! On a recent visit to Seaford I
+failed to hear the bird when walking about the town, and after two or
+three days went into the shop to enquire about it. They told me it was
+dead--that it had been dead over a year; also that many visitors to
+Seaford had missed its song and had called at the shop to ask about the
+bird. The strangest thing about its end, they said, was its suddenness.
+The bird was singing its loudest one morning, and had been at it for
+some time, filling the whole place with its noise, when suddenly, in the
+middle of its song, it dropped down dead from its perch.
+
+To drop dead while singing is not an unheard of, nor a very rare
+occurrence in caged birds, and it probably happens, too, in birds living
+their natural life. Listening to a nightingale, pouring out its powerful
+music continuously, as the lark sings, one sometimes wonders that
+something does not give way to end the vocalist's performance and life
+at the same instant. Some such incident was probably the origin of the
+old legend of the minstrel and the nightingale oa which Strada based his
+famous poem, known in many languages. In England Crawshaw's version was
+by far the best, and is perhaps the finest bird poem in our literature.
+
+The blackbird, like the thrush, sometimes borrows a note or a phrase,
+and, like the thrush again, if reared by hand he may become a nuisance
+by mimicking some disagreeable sound, and using it by way of song. I
+heard of such a case a short time ago at Sidmouth. The ground floor of
+the house where I lodged was occupied by a gentleman who had a fondness
+for bird music, and being an invalid confined to his rooms, he kept a
+number of birds in cages. He had, besides canaries, the thrush,
+chaffinch, linnet, goldfinch and cirl bunting. I remarked that he did
+not have the best singer of all--the blackbird. He said that he had
+procured one, or that some friend had sent him one, a very beautiful
+ou?el cock in the blackest plumage and with the orange-tawniest bill,
+and he had anticipated great pleasure from hearing its fluting melody.
+But alas! no blackbird song did this unnatural blackbird sing. He had
+learnt to bark like a dog, and whenever the singing spirit took him he
+would bark once or twice or three times, and then, after an interval of
+silence of the proper length, about fifteen seconds, he would bark
+again, and so on until he had had his fill of music for the time. The
+barking got on the invalid's nerves, and he sent the bird away. "It was
+either that," he said, "or losing my senses altogether."
+
+* * *
+
+As all or most singing birds learn their songs from the adults of the
+same species, it is not strange that there should be a good deal of what
+we call mimicry in their performances: we may say, in fact, that pretty
+well all the true singers are mimics, but that some mimic more than
+others. Thus, the starling is more ready to borrow other birds' notes
+than the thrush, while the marsh-warbler borrows so much that his
+singing is mainly composed of borrowings. The nightingale is, perhaps,
+an exception. His voice excels in power and purity of sound, and what we
+may call his artistry is exceptionally perfect; this may account for the
+fact that he does not borrow from other birds' songs. I should say, from
+my own observation, that all songsters are interested in the singing of
+other species, or at all events, in certain notes, especially the most
+striking in power, beauty, and strangeness. Thus, when the cuckoo starts
+calling, you will see other small birds fly straight to the tree and
+perch near him, apparently to listen. And among the listeners you will
+find the sparrow and tits of various species--birds which are never
+victimized by the cuckoo, and do not take him for a hawk since they take
+no notice of him until the calling begins. The reason that the double
+fluting call of the cuckoo is not mimicked by other birds is that they
+can't; because that peculiar sound is not in their register. The
+bubbling cry is reproduced by both the marsh warbler and the starling.
+Again, it is my experience that when a nightingale starts singing, the
+small birds near immediately become attentive, often suspending their
+own songs and some flying to perch near him, and listen, just as they
+listen to the cuckoo. Birds imitate the note or phrase that strikes them
+most, and is easiest to imitate, as when the thrush copies the piping
+and trilling of the redshank and the easy song of the ring-ouzel, which,
+when incorporated into his own music, harmonizes with it perfectly. But
+he cannot flute, and so never mimics the blackbird's song, although he
+can and does, as we have seen, imitate its chuckling cry.
+
+There is another thing to be considered. I believe that the bird, like
+creatures in other classes, has his receptive period, his time to learn,
+and that, like some mammals, he learns everything he needs to know in
+his first year or two; and that, having acquired his proper song, he
+adds little or nothing to it thereafter, although the song may increase
+in power and brilliance when the bird comes to full maturity. This, I
+think, holds true of all birds, like the nightingale, which have a
+singing period of two or three months and are songless for the rest of
+the year. That long, silent period cannot, so far as sounds go, be a
+receptive one; the song early in life has become crystallized in the
+form it will keep through life, and is like an intuitive act. This is
+not the case with birds like the starling, that sing all the year
+round--birds that are naturally loquacious and sing instead of screaming
+and chirping like others. They are always borrowing new sounds and
+always forgetting.
+
+The most curious example of mimicry I have yet met with is that of a
+true mocking-bird, Mimus patachonicus, a common resident species in
+northern Patagonia, on the Atlantic side, very abundant in places. He is
+a true mocking-bird because he belongs to the genus Mimus, a branch of
+the thrush family, and not because he mocks or mimics the songs of other
+species, like others of his kindred. He does not, in fact, mimic the set
+songs of others, although he often introduces notes and phrases borrowed
+from other species into his own performance. He sings in a sketchy way
+all the year round, but in spring has a fuller unbroken song, emitted
+with more power and passion. For the rest of the time he sings to amuse
+himself, as it seems, in a peculiarly leisurely, and one may say,
+indolent manner, perched on a bush, from time to time emitting a note or
+two, then a phrase which, if it pleases him, he will repeat two or
+three, or half a dozen times. Then, after a pause, other notes and
+phrases, and so on, pretty well all day long. This manner of singing is
+irritating, like the staccato song of our throstle, to a listener who
+wants a continuous stream of song; but it becomes exceedingly
+interesting when one discovers that the bird is thinking very much about
+his own music, if one can use such an expression about a bird; that he
+is all the time experimenting, trying to get a new phrase, a new
+combination of the notes he knows and new notes. Also, that when sitting
+on his bush and uttering these careless chance sounds, he is, at the
+same time, intently listening to the others, all engaged in the same
+way, singing and listening. You will see them all about the place, each
+bird sitting motionless, like a grey and white image of a bird, on the
+summit of his own bush. For, although he is not gregarious as a rule, a
+number of pairs live near each other, and form a sort of loose
+community. The bond that unites them is their music, for not only do
+they sit within hearing distance, but they are perpetually mimicking
+each other. One may say that they are accomplished mimics but prefer
+mimicking their own to other species. But they only imitate the notes
+that take their fancy, so to speak. Thus, occasionally, one strikes out
+a phrase, a new expression, which appears to please him, and after a few
+moments he repeats it again, then again, and so on and on, and if you
+remain an hour within hearing he will perhaps be still repeating it at
+short intervals. Now, if by chance there is something in the new phrase
+which pleases the listeners too, you will note that they instantly
+suspend their own singing, and for some little time they do nothing but
+listen. By and by the new note or phrase will be exactly reproduced from
+a bird on another bush; and he, too, will begin repeating it at short
+intervals. Then a second one will get it, then a third, and eventually
+all the birds in that thicket will have it. The constant repeating of
+the new note may then go on for hours, and it may last longer. You may
+return to the spot on the second day and sit for an hour or longer,
+listening, and still hear that same note constantly repeated until you
+are sick and tired of it, or it may even get on your nerves. I remember
+that on one occasion I avoided a certain thicket, one of my favourite
+daily haunts for three whole days, not to hear that one everlasting
+sound; then I returned and to my great relief the birds were all at
+their old game of composing, and not one uttered--perhaps he didn't
+dare--the too hackneyed phrase. I was sharply reminded one day by an
+incident in the village of this old Patagonian experience, and of the
+strange human-like weakness or passion for something new and arresting
+in music or song, something "tuney" or "catchy."
+
+It chanced that when I left London a new popular song had come out and
+was "all the rage," a tune and words invented or first produced in the
+music-halls by a woman named Lottie Collins, with a chorus to
+it--_Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay_, repeated several times. First caught up in
+the music-halls it spread to the streets, and in ever-widening circles
+over all London, and over all the land. In London people were getting
+tired of hearing it, but when I arrived at my village "in a hole," and
+settled down among the Badgers, I heard it on every hand--in cottages,
+in the streets, in the fields, men, women and children were singing,
+whistling, and humming it, and in the evening at the inn roaring it out
+with as much zest as if they had been singing _Rule Britannia._
+
+This state of things lasted from May to the middle of June; then, one
+very hot, still day, about three o'clock, I was sitting at my cottage
+window when I caught the sound of a rumbling cart and a man singing. As
+the noise grew louder my interest in the approaching man and cart was
+excited to an extraordinary degree; never had I heard such a noise! And
+no wonder, since the man was driving a heavy, springless farm cart in
+the most reckless manner, urging his two huge horses to a fast trot,
+then a gallop, up and down hill along those rough gully-like roads, he
+standing up in his cart and roaring out "Auld Lang Syne," at the top of
+a voice of tremendous power. He was probably tipsy, but it was not a bad
+voice, and the old familiar tune and words had an extraordinary effect
+in that still atmosphere. He passed my cottage, standing up, his legs
+wide apart, his cap on the back of his head, a big broad-chested young
+man, lashing his horses, and then for about two minutes or longer the
+thunder of the cart and the roaring song came back fainter, until it
+faded away in the distance. At that still hour of the day the children
+were all at school on the further side of the village; the men away in
+the fields; the women shut up in their cottages, perhaps sleeping. It
+seemed to me that I was the only person in the village who had witnessed
+and heard the passing of the big-voiced man and cart. But it was not so.
+At all events, next day, the whole village, men, women and children,
+were singing, humming and whistling "Auld Lang Syne," and "Auld Lang
+Syne" lasted for several days, and from that day "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"
+was heard no more. It had lost its charm.
+
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+
+Just out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized
+pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now
+overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common,
+lived in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so
+many kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a
+favourite spot with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered
+near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and
+fluttered, as if wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve
+yards before flying away. Not many minutes after seeing the wagtail, a
+reed-bunting--a bird which I had not previously observed on the
+common--flew down and alighted on a bush a few yards from me, holding a
+white crescent-shaped grub in its beak. I stood still to watch it,
+certainly not expecting to see its nest and young; for, as a rule, a
+bird with food in its beak will sit quietly until the watcher loses
+patience and moves away; but on this occasion I had not been standing
+more than ten seconds before the bunting flew down to a small tuft of
+furze and was there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its young.
+I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had seen,
+but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat the
+turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on
+a little further, until at last it rose up and flew to a bush.
+
+After admiring the reed-bunting's action, I turned to the dwarf bush
+near my feet, and saw, perched on a twig in its centre, a solitary young
+bird, fully fledged but not yet capable of sustained flight. He did not
+recognise an enemy in me; on the contrary, when I approached my hand to
+him, he opened his yellow mouth wide, in expectation of being fed,
+although his throat was crammed with caterpillars, and the white
+crescent-shaped larva I had seen in the parent's bill was still lying in
+his mouth unswallowed. The wonder is that when a young bird had been
+stuffed with food to such an extent just before sleeping time, he can
+still find it in him to open his mouth and call for more.
+
+* * *
+
+How wonderful it is that this parental instinct, so beautiful in its
+perfect simulation of the action of the bird that has lost the power of
+flight, should be found in so large a number of species! But when we
+find that it is not universal; that in two closely-allied species one
+will possess it and the other not; and that it is common in such
+widely-separated orders as gallinaceous and passerine birds, in pigeons,
+ducks, and waders, it becomes plain that it is not assignable to
+community of descent, but has originated independently all over the
+globe, in a vast number of species. Something of the beginnings and
+progressive development of this instinct may be learnt, I think, by
+noticing the behaviour of various passerine birds in the presence of
+danger, to their nests and young. Their actions and cries show that they
+are greatly agitated, and in a majority of species the parent bird flits
+and flutters round the intruder, uttering sounds of distress. Frequently
+the bird exhibits its agitation, not only by these cries and restless
+motions, but by the drooping of the wings and tail--the action observed
+in a bird when hurt or sick, or oppressed with heat. These languishing
+signs are common to a great many species after the young have been
+hatched; the period when the parental solicitude is most intense. In
+several species which I have observed in South America, the languishing
+is more marked. There are no sorrowful cries and restless movements; the
+bird sits with hanging wings and tail, gasping for breath with open bill
+--in appearance a greatly suffering bird. In some cases of this
+description, the bird, if it moves at all, hops or flutters from a
+higher to a lower branch, and, as if sick or wounded, seems about to
+sink to the ground. In still others, the bird actually does drop to the
+ground, then, feebly flapping its wings, rises again with great effort.
+From this last form it is but a step to the more highly developed
+complex instinct of the bird that sinks to the earth and flutters
+painfully away, gasping, and seemingly incapable of flight.
+
+It would be a great mistake to suppose that the bird when fluttering on
+the ground to lead an enemy from the neighbourhood of its nest is in
+full possession of all its faculties, acting consciously, and itself in
+as little danger of capture as when on its perch or flying through the
+air. We have seen that the action has its root in the bird's passion for
+its young, and intense solicitude in the presence of any danger
+threatening them, which is so universal in this class of creatures, and
+which expresses itself so variously in different kinds. This must be in
+all cases a painful and debilitating emotion, and when the bird drops
+down to the earth its pain has caused it to fall as surely as if it had
+received a wound or had been suddenly attacked by some grievous malady;
+and when it flutters on the ground it is for the moment incapable of
+flight, and its efforts to recover flight and safety cause it to beat
+its wings, and tremble, and gasp with open mouth. The object of the
+action is to deceive an enemy, or, to speak more correctly, the result
+is to deceive, and there is nothing that will more inflame and carry
+away any rapacious mammal than the sight of a fluttering bird. But in
+thus drawing upon itself the attention of an enemy threatening the
+safety of its eggs or young, to what a terrible danger does the parent
+expose itself, and how often, in those moments of agitation and
+debility, must its own life fall a sacrifice! The sudden spring and rush
+of a feline enemy must have proved fatal in myriads of instances. From
+its inception to its most perfect stage, in the various species that
+possess it, this perilous instinct has been washed in blood and made
+bright.
+
+What I have just said, that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action
+we have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in
+blood, applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of
+life, both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that,
+for one thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in order
+to meet cases which commonly occur in the life of a species. The
+instinct is not prophetic and does not meet rare or extraordinary
+situations. Unless intelligence or some higher faculty comes in to
+supplement or to take the place of instinctive action then the creature
+must perish on account of the limitation of instinct. Again, the higher
+and more complete the instinct the more perilous it is, seeing that its
+efficiency depends on the absolutely perfect health and balance of all
+the faculties and the entire organism. Thus, the higher instinctive
+faculty and action of birds for the preservation of the species, that of
+migration, is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all. It is so perfect
+that by means of this faculty millions and myriads of birds of an
+immense variety of species from cranes, swans, and geese down to minute
+goldcrests and firecrests and the smallest feeble-winged-leaf warblers,
+are able to inhabit and to distribute themselves evenly over all the
+temperate and cold regions of the earth, and even nearer the pole: and
+in all these regions they rear their young and spend several months each
+year, where they would inevitably perish from cold and lack of food if
+they stayed on to meet the winter. We can best realize the perfection of
+this instinct when we consider that all these migrants, including the
+young which have never hitherto strayed beyond the small area of their
+home where every tree and bush and spring and rock is familiar to them,
+rush suddenly away as if blown by a wind to unknown lands and continents
+beyond the seas to a distance of from a thousand to six or seven
+thousand miles; that after long months spent in those distant places,
+which in turn have grown familiar to them, they return again to their
+natal place, not in a direct but ofttimes by a devious route, now north,
+now north-east, now east or west, keeping to the least perilous lines
+and crossing the seas where they are narrowest. Thus, when the returning
+multitude recrosses the Channel into England, coming by way of France
+and Spain from north or south or mid-Africa and from Asia, they at once
+proceed to disperse over the entire country from Land's End to Thurso
+and the northernmost islands of Scotland, until every wood and hill and
+moor and thicket and stream and every village and field and hedgerow and
+farmhouse has its own feathered people back in their old places. But
+they do not return in their old force. They had increased to twice or
+three times their original numbers when they left us, and as a result of
+that great adventure a half or two-thirds of the vast army has perished.
+
+The instinct which in character comes nearest to that of the parent
+simulating the action of a wounded and terrified bird struggling to
+escape in order to safeguard its young, is that one, very strong in all
+ground-breeding species, of sitting close on the nest in the presence of
+danger. Here, too, the instinct is of prime importance to the species,
+since the bird by quitting the nest reveals its existence to the
+prowling, nest-seeking enemy--dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England;
+and in the country where I first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo,
+opossum, snake, wild cat, and animals of the weasel family. By leaving
+its nest a minute or half a minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs
+or young; by staying a moment too long it is in imminent danger of being
+destroyed itself.  How often the bird stays too long on the nest is seen
+in the corn-crake, a species continually decreasing in this country
+owing to the destruction caused by the mowing-machine. The parent birds
+that escape may breed again in a safer place, but in many cases the bird
+clings too long to its nest and is decapitated or fatally injured by the
+cutters.  Larks, too, often perish in the same way. To go back to the
+ailing or wounded bird simulating action: this is perhaps most perfect
+in the gallinaceous birds, all ground-breeders whose nests are most
+diligently hunted for by all egg-eating creatures, beast or bird, and
+whose tender chicks are a favourite food for all rapacious animals. In
+the fowl, pheasants, partridges, quail, and grouse, the instinct is
+singularly powerful, the bird making such violent efforts to escape,
+with such an outcry, such beating of its wings and struggles on the
+ground, that no rapacious beast, however often he may have been deceived
+before, can fail to be carried away with the prospect of an immediate
+capture. The instinct and action has appeared to me more highly
+developed in these birds because, in the first place, the demonstrations
+are more violent than in other families, consequently more effective;
+and secondly, because the danger once over, the bird's recovery to its
+normal quiet, watchful state is quicker. By way of experiment, I have at
+various times thrown myself on pheasants, partridges and grouse, when I
+have found them with a family of recently-hatched chicks; then on giving
+up the chase and turning away from the bird its instantaneous recovery
+has seemed like a miracle. It was like a miracle because the creature
+did actually suffer from all those violent, debilitating emotions
+expressed in its disordered cries and action, and it is the miracle of
+Nature's marvellous health. If we, for example, were thrown into these
+violent extremes of passion, we should not escape the after-effects. Our
+whole system would suffer, a doctor would perhaps have to be called in
+and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the development of toxins
+in the muscles, and give us a bottle of medicine.
+
+I will conclude this digression and dissertation on a bird's instinct by
+relating the action of a hen-pheasant I once witnessed, partly because
+it is the most striking one I have met with of that instantaneous
+recovery of a bird from an extremity of distress and terror, and partly
+for another reason which will appear at the end.
+
+The hen-pheasant was a solitary bird, having strayed away from the
+pheasant copses near the Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away,
+on the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses and sedges on its
+border. I was the bird's only human neighbour, as I was staying in a
+fishing-cottage near the spot where the bird had its nest. Eventually,
+it brought off eight chicks and remained with them at the same spot on the
+edge of the valley, living like a rail among the sedges and tall valley
+herbage. I never went near the bird, but from the cottage caught sight of
+it from time to time, and sometimes watched it with my binocular. There
+was, I thought, a good chance of its being able to rear its young, unless
+the damp proved injurious, as there was no dog or cat at the cottage, and
+there were no carrion crows or sparrow-hawks at that spot. One morning
+about five o'clock on going out I spied a fox-terrier, a poaching dog
+from the neighbouring village, rushing about in an excited state a
+hundred yards or so below the cottage. He had scented the birds, and
+presently up rose the hen from the tall grass with a mighty noise, then
+flopping down she began beating her wings and struggling over the grass,
+uttering the most agonizing screams, the dog after her, frantically
+grabbing at her tail. I feared that he would catch her, and seizing a
+stick flew down to the rescue, yelling at the dog, but he was too excited
+to obey or even hear me. At length, thanks to the devious course taken by
+the bird, I got near enough to get in a good blow on the dog's back. He
+winced and went on as furiously as ever, and then I got in another blow
+so well delivered that the rascal yelled, and turning fled back to the
+village. Hot and panting from my exertions, I stood still, but sooner
+still the pheasant had pulled herself up and stood there, about three
+yards from my feet, as if nothing had happened--as if not a ripple had
+troubled the quiet surface of her life! The serenity of the bird, just
+out of that storm of violence and danger, and her perfect indifference to
+my presence, was astonishing to me. For a minute or two I stood still
+watching her; then turned to walk back to the cottage, and no sooner did
+I start than after me she came at a gentle trot, following me like a dog.
+On my way back I came to the very spot where the fox-terrier had found
+and attacked the bird, and at once on reaching it she came to a stop and
+uttered a call, and instantly from eight different places among the tall
+grasses the eight fluffy little chicks popped up and started running to
+her. And there she stood, gathering them about her with gentle
+chucklings, taking no notice of me, though I was standing still within
+two yards of her!
+
+Up to the moment when the dog got his smart blow and fled from her she
+had been under the domination of a powerful instinct, and could have
+acted in no other way; but what guided her so infallibly in her
+subsequent actions? Certainly not instinct, and not reason, which
+hesitates between different courses and is slow to arrive at a decision.
+One can only say that it was, or was like, intuition, which is as much
+as to say that we don't know.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+
+Among the rarer fringilline birds on the common were the cirl bunting,
+bullfinch and goldfinch, the last two rarely seen. Linnets, however,
+were abundant, now gathered in small flocks composed mainly of young
+birds in plain plumage, with here and there an individual showing the
+carmine-tinted breast of the adult male. Unhappily, a dreary fate was in
+store for many of these blithe twitterers.
+
+On June 24, when walking towards the pool, I spied two recumbent human
+figures on a stretch of level turf near its banks, and near them a
+something dark on the grass--a pair of clap-nets! "Still another serpent
+in my birds' paradise!" said I to myself, and, walking on, I skirted the
+nets and sat down on the grass beside the men. One was a rough
+brown-faced country lad; the other, who held the strings and wore the
+usual cap and comforter, was a man of about five-and-twenty, with pale
+blue eyes and yellowish hair, close-cropped, and the unmistakable London
+mark in his chalky complexion. He regarded me with cold, suspicious
+looks, and, when I talked and questioned, answered briefly and somewhat
+surlily. I treated him to tobacco, and he smoked; but it wasn't shag,
+and didn't soften him. On mentioning casually that I had seen a stoat an
+hour before, he exhibited a sudden interest. It was as if one had said
+"rats!" to a terrier. I succeeded after a while in getting him to tell
+me the name of the man to whom he sent his captives, and when I told him
+that I knew the man well--a bird-seller in a low part of London--he
+thawed visibly. Finally I asked him to look at a red-backed shrike,
+perched on a bush about fifteen yards from his nets, through my
+field-glasses, and from that moment he became as friendly as possible,
+and conversed freely about his mystery. "How near it brings him!" he
+exclaimed, with a grin of delight, after looking at the bird.  The
+shrike had greatly annoyed him; it had been hanging about for some time,
+he told me, dashing at the linnets and driving them off when they flew
+down to the nets. Two or three times he might have caught it, but would
+not draw the nets and have the trouble of resetting them for so
+worthless a bird. "But I'll take him the next time," he said
+vindictively. "I didn't know he was such a handsome bird."
+Unfortunately, the shrike soon flew away, and passing linnets dropped
+down, drawn to the spot by the twitterings of their caged fellows, and
+were caught; and so it went on for a couple of hours, we conversing
+amicably during the waiting intervals. For now he regarded me as a
+friend of the bird-catcher. Linnets only were caught, most of them young
+birds, which pleased him; for the young linnet after a month or two of
+cage life will sing; but the adult males would be silent until the next
+spring, consequently they were not worth so much, although the carmine
+stain in their breast made them for the time so much more beautiful.
+
+I remarked incidentally that there were some who looked with unfriendly
+eyes on his occupation, and that, sooner or later, these people would
+try to get an Act of Parliament to make bird-catching in lanes, on
+commons and waste lands illegal. "They can't do it!" he exclaimed
+excitedly. "And if they can do it, and if they do do it, it will be the
+ruination of England. For what would there be, then, to stop the birds
+increasing? It stands to reason that the whole country would be eaten
+up."
+
+Doubtless the man really believed that but for the laborious days that
+bird-catchers spend lying on the grass, the human race would be very
+badly off.
+
+Just after he had finished his protest, three or four linnets flew down
+and were caught. Taking them from the nets, he showed them to me,
+remarking, with a short laugh, that they were all young males. Then he
+thrust them down the stocking-leg which served as an entrance to the
+covered box he kept his birds in--the black hole in which their captive
+life begins, where they were now all vainly fluttering to get out. Going
+back to the previous subject, he said that he knew very well that many
+persons disliked a bird-catcher, but there was one thing that nobody
+could say against him--he wasn't cruel; he caught, but didn't kill. He
+only killed when he caught a great number of female linnets, which were
+not worth sending up; he pulled their heads off, and took them home to
+make a linnet pie. Then, by way of contrast to his own merciful temper,
+he told me of the young nest-destroyer I have writ-ten about. It made
+him mad to see such things! Something ought to be done, he said, to stop
+a boy like that; for by destroying so many nestlings he was taking the
+bread out of the bird-catcher's mouth. Passing to other subjects, he
+said that so far he had caught nothing but linnets on the common--you
+couldn't expect to catch other kinds in June. Later on, in August and
+September, there would be a variety. But he had small hopes of catching
+goldfinches, they were too scarce now. Greenfinches, yellow-hammers,
+common buntings, reed sparrows--all such birds were worth only tuppence
+apiece. Oh, yes, he caught them just the same, and sent them up to
+London, but that was all they were worth to him. For young male linnets
+he got eightpence, sometimes tenpence; for hen birds fourpence, or less.
+I dare say that eightpence was what he hoped to get, seeing that young
+male linnets are not unfrequently sold by London dealers for sixpence
+and even fourpence.  Goldfinches ran to eighteenpence, sometimes as much
+as two shillings.  Starlings he had made a lot out of, but that was all
+past and over. Why?
+
+Because they were not wanted--because people were such fools that they
+now preferred to shoot at pigeons. He hated pigeons! Gentlemen used to
+shoot starlings at matches; and if you had the making of a bird to shoot
+at, you couldn't get a better than the starling--such a neat bird! He
+had caught hundreds--thousands--and had sold them well. But now nothing
+but pigeons would they have. Pigeons! Always pigeons! He caught
+starlings still, but what was the good of that? The dealers would only
+take a few, and they were worth nothing--no more than greenfinches and
+yellow-hammers.
+
+My colloquy with my enemy on the common tempts me to a fresh digression
+in this place--to have my say on a question about which much has already
+been said during the last three or four decades, especially during the
+'sixties, when the first practical efforts to save our wild-bird life
+from destruction were made.
+
+There is a feeling in the great mass of people that the pursuit of any
+wild animal, whether fit for food or not, for pleasure or gain, is a
+form of sport, and that sport ought not to be interfered with. So strong
+and well-nigh universal is this feeling, which is like a superstition,
+that the pursuit is not interfered with, however unsportsmanlike it may
+be, and when illegal, and when practised by only a very few persons in
+any district, where to others it may be secretly distasteful or even
+prejudicial.
+
+Even bird-catching on a common is regarded as a form of sport and the
+bird-catcher as a sportsman--and a brother.
+
+A striking instance of this tameness and stupidly acquiescent spirit in
+people generally was witnessed during the intensely severe frosts of the
+early part of the late winter (1882-3), when incalculable numbers of
+sea-birds were driven by hunger and cold into bays and inland waters. At
+this time thousands of gulls made their appearance in the Thames, but no
+sooner did they arrive than those who possessed guns and licences to
+shoot began to shoot them. The police interfered and some of these
+sportsmen were brought before the magistrates and fined for the offence
+of discharging guns to the public danger. For upwards of a fortnight
+after the shooting had been put a stop to, the gulls continued to
+frequent the river in large numbers, and were perhaps most numerous from
+London Bridge to Battersea, and during this time they were watched every
+day by thousands of Londoners with keen interest and pleasure. The river
+here, flowing through the very centre and heart of the greatest city of
+the world, forms at all hours and at all seasons of the year a noble and
+magnificent sight; to my eyes it never looked more beautiful and
+wonderful than during those intensely cold days of January, when there
+was nothing that one could call a mist in a chilly, motionless
+atmosphere, but only a faint haze, a pallor as of impalpable frost,
+which made the heavens seem more white than blue, and gave a hoariness
+and cloud-like remoteness to the arches spanning the water, and the vast
+buildings on either side, ending with the sublime dome of the city
+cathedral; and when out of the pale motionless haze, singly, in twos and
+threes, in dozens and scores, floated the mysterious white bird-figures,
+first seen like vague shadows in the sky, then quickly taking shape and
+whiteness, and floating serenely past, to be succeeded by others and yet
+others.
+
+It was not merely the ornithologist in me that made the sight so
+fascinating, since it was found that others--all others, it might almost
+be said,--experienced the same kind of delight.  Crowds of people came
+down to the river to watch the birds; workmen when released from their
+work at mid-day hurried down to the embankment so as to enjoy seeing the
+gulls while eating their dinners, and, strangest thing of all, to feed
+them with the fragments!
+
+And yet these very men who found so great a pleasure in observing and
+feeding their white visitors from the sea, and were exhilarated with the
+novel experiences of seeing wild nature face to face at their own
+doors--these thousands would have stood by silent and consenting if the
+half-a-dozen scoundrels with guns and fish-hooks on lines had been
+allowed to have their will and had slaughtered and driven the birds from
+the river! And this, in fact, is precisely what happened at a distance
+from London, where guns could be discharged without danger to the
+public, in numberless bays and rivers in which the birds sought refuge.
+They were simply slaughtered wholesale in the most wanton manner; in
+Morecambe Bay a hundred and twelve gulls were killed at one discharge,
+and no hand and no voice was raised to interfere with the hideous sport.
+Not because it was not shocking to the spectators, but because it was
+"Sport."
+
+Doubtless it will be said that this wholesale wanton destruction of bird
+life, however painful it may be to lovers of nature, however
+reprehensible from a moral point of view, is sanctioned by law, and
+cannot therefore be prevented. This is not quite so. We see that the
+Wild Birds Protection Act is continually being broken with impunity, and
+where public opinion is unfavourable to it the guardians of the law
+themselves, the police and the magistrates, are found encouraging the
+people to break the law. Again, we find that where commons are enclosed,
+and the law says nothing, the people are accustomed to assemble together
+unlawfully to tear the fences down, and are not punished. For, after
+all, if laws do not express or square with public will or opinion, they
+have little force; and if, in any locality, the people thought proper to
+do so--if they were not restrained by that dull, tame spirit I have
+spoken of--they would, lawfully or unlawfully, protect their sea-fowl
+from the cockney sportsmen, and sweep the bird-catchers out of their
+lanes and waste lands.
+
+One day I paid a visit to Maidenhead, a pleasant town on the Thames,
+where the Thames is most beautiful, set in the midst of a rich and
+diversified country which should be a bird's paradise. In my walks in
+the town, I saw a great many stuffed kingfishers, and, in the shops of
+the local taxidermists, some rare and beautiful birds, with others that
+are fast becoming rare. But outside of the town I saw no kingfishers and
+no rare species at all, and comparatively few birds of any kind. It
+might have been a town of Philistine cockneys who at no very distant
+period had emigrated thither from the parish of St. Giles-in-the-Fields.
+I came home with the local guide-book in my pocket. It is now before me,
+and this is what its writer says of the Thicket, the extensive and
+beautiful common two miles from the town, which belongs to Maidenhead,
+or, in other words, to its inhabitants: "The Thicket was formerly much
+infested by robbers and highwaymen. The only remains of them to be found
+now are the snarers of the little feathered songsters, who imprison them
+in tiny cages and carry them off in large numbers to brighten by their
+sweet, sad sighs for liberty the dwellers in our smoky cities."
+
+On this point I consulted a bird-catcher, who had spread his nets on the
+common for many years, and he complained bitterly of the increasing
+scarcity of its bird life. There was no better place than the Thicket
+formerly, he said; but now he could hardly make his bread there. I
+presume that a dozen men of his trade would be well able to drain the
+country in the neighbourhood of the Thicket of the greater portion of
+its bird life each year so as to keep the songsters scarce. Will any
+person maintain for a moment that the eight or nine thousand inhabitants
+of Maidenhead, and the hundreds or thousands inhabiting the surrounding
+country could not protect their songbirds from these few men, most of
+them out of London slums, if they wished or had the spirit to do so?
+
+It is true that the local authorities in some country towns have made
+by-laws to protect the birds in their open spaces. Thus, at Tunbridge
+Wells, since 1890, bird-trapping and bird's-nesting have been prohibited
+on the large and beautiful common there; but, so far as I know, such
+measures have only been taken in boroughs after the birds have been
+almost exterminated.
+
+Doubtless the day will come when, law or no law, the bird-catcher will
+find it necessary to go warily, lest the people of any place where he
+may be tempted to spread his nets should have formed the custom of
+treating those of his calling somewhat roughly. That it will come soon
+is earnestly to be wished. Nevertheless, it would be irrational to
+cherish feelings of animosity and hatred against the bird-catcher
+himself, the "man and brother," ready and anxious as we may be to take
+the bread out of his mouth. He certainly does not regard himself as an
+injurious or disreputable person; on the contrary he looks on himself as
+a useful member of the community, and in some cases even more. If anyone
+is to be hated or blamed, it is the person who sends the bird-catcher
+into the fields; not the dealer, but he who buys trapped birds and keeps
+them in cages to be amused by their twitterings. This is not a question
+of morality, nor of sentimentality, as some may imagine; but rather of
+taste, of the sense of fitness, of that something vaguely described as
+the feeling for nature, which is not universal. Thus, one man will dine
+with zest on a pheasant, partridge, or quail, but would be choked by a
+lark; while another man will eat pheasant and lark with equal pleasure.
+Both may be good, honest, moral men; only one has that something which
+the other lacks. In one the soul responds to the skylark's music
+"singing at heaven's gate," in the other not; to one the roasted lark is
+merely a savoury morsel; the other, be he never so hungry, cannot
+dissociate the bird on the dish from that heavenly melody which
+registered a sensation in his brain, to be thereafter reproduced at
+will, together with the revived emotion. It is a curious question, and
+is no nearer to a settlement when one of these two I have described
+turns round and calls his neighbour a gross feeder, a worshipper of his
+belly, a soulless and brutish man; and when the other answers
+"pooh-pooh" and goes on complacently devouring larks with great gusto,
+until he is himself devoured of death.
+
+To those with whom I am in sympathy in this matter, who love to listen
+to and are yearly invigorated by the skylark's music, and whose souls
+are yearly sickened at the slaughter of their loved songsters, I would
+humbly suggest that there is a simpler, more practical means of ending
+this dispute, which has surely lasted long enough. It goes without
+saying that this bird's music is eminently pleasing to most persons,
+that even as the sunshine is sweet and pleasant to behold, its silvery
+aerial sounds rained down so abundantly from heaven are delightful and
+exhilarating to all of us, or at all events, to so large a majority that
+the minority are not entitled to consideration. One person in five
+thousand, or perhaps in ten thousand, might be found to say that the
+lark singing in blue heaven affords him no pleasure. This being so, and
+ours being a democratic country in which the will or desire of the many
+is or may be made the law of the land, it is surely only right and
+reasonable that lovers of lark's flesh should be prevented from
+gratifying their taste at the cost of the destruction of so loved a
+bird, that they should be made to content themselves with woodcock, and
+snipe on toast, and golden plover, and grouse and blackcock, and any
+other bird of delicate flavor which does not, living, appeal so strongly
+to the aesthetic feelings in us and is not so universal a favourite.
+
+This, too, will doubtless come in time. Speaking for myself, and going
+back to the former subject, little as I like to see men feeding on
+larks, rather would I see larks killed and eaten than thrust into cages.
+For in captivity they do not "sweeten" my life, as the Maidenhead
+guidebook writer would say, with their shrill, piercing cries for
+liberty, but they "sing me mad." Just as in some minds this bird's
+music--a sound which above all others typifies the exuberant life and
+joy of nature to the soul--cannot be separated from the cooked and
+dished-up melodist, so that they turn with horror from such meat, so I
+cannot separate this bird, nor any bird, from the bird's wild life of
+liberty, and the marvellous faculty of flight which is the bird's
+attribute. To see so wild and aerial a creature in a cage jars my whole
+system, and is a sight hateful and unnatural, an outrage on our
+universal mother.
+
+This feeling about birds in captivity, which I have attempted to
+describe, and which, I repeat, is not sentimentality, as that word is
+ordinarily understood, has been so vividly rendered in an ode to "The
+Skylarks" by Sir Rennell Rodd, that the reader will probably feel
+grateful to me for quoting a portion of it in this place, especially as
+the volume in which it appears--_Feda, with Other Poems_--is, I imagine,
+not very widely known:
+
+    "Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky,
+    For the home of a song-bird's heart!
+    And why, and why, and for ever why,
+    Do they stifle here in the mart:
+    Cages of agony, rows on rows,
+    Torture that only a wild thing knows:
+    Is it nothing to you to see
+    That head thrust out through the hopeless wire,
+    And the tiny life, and the mad desire
+    To be free, to be free, to be free?
+    Oh, the sky, the sky, the blue, wide sky,
+    For the beat of a song-bird's wings!
+
+    * * *
+
+    Straight and close are the cramping bars
+    From the dawn of mist to the chill of stars,
+    And yet it must sing or die!
+    Will its marred harsh voice in the city street
+    Make any heart of you glad?
+    It will only beat with its wings and beat,
+    It will only sing you mad.
+
+    * * *
+
+    If it does not go to your heart to see
+    The helpless pity of those bruised wings,
+    The tireless effort to which it clings
+    To the strain and the will to be free,
+    I know not how I shall set in words
+    The meaning of God in this,
+    For the loveliest thing in this world of His
+    Are the ways and the songs of birds.
+    But the sky, the sky, the wide, free sky,
+    For the home of the song-bird's heart!"
+
+
+How falsely does that man see Nature, how grossly ignorant must he be of
+its most elemental truths, who looks upon it as a chamber of torture, a
+physiological laboratory on a very vast scale, a scene of endless strife
+and trepidation, of hunger and cold, and every form of pain and
+misery--and who, holding this doctrine of
+
+  "Oh, the sky, the sky, the open sky is the home of a song-bird's heart,"
+
+Nature's cruelty, keeps a few captive birds in cages, and is accustomed
+to say of them, "These, at any rate, are safe, rescued from subjection
+to ruthless conditions, sheltered from the inclement weather and from
+enemies, and all their small wants abundantly satisfied;" who once or
+twice every day looks at his little captives, presents them with a lump
+of sugar, whistles and chuckles to provoke them to sing, then goes about
+his business, flattering himself that he is a lover of birds, a being of
+a sweet and kindly nature. It is all a delusion--a distortion and
+inversion of the truth--so absurd that it would be laughable were it
+not so sad, and the cause of so much unconscious cruelty. The truth is,
+that if birds be capable of misery, it is only in the unnatural
+conditions of a caged life that they experience it; and that if they are
+capable of happiness in a cage, such happiness or contentment is but a
+poor, pale emotion compared with the wild exuberant gladness they have
+in freedom, where all their instincts have full play, and where the
+perils that surround them do but brighten their many splendid faculties.
+The little bird twitters and sings in its cage, and among ourselves the
+blind man and the cripple whistle and sing, too, feeling at times a
+lower kind of contentment and cheerfulness. The chaffinch in East
+London, with its eyeballs seared by red-hot needles, sings, too, in its
+prison, when it has grown accustomed to its darkened existence, and is
+in health, and the agreeable sensations that accompany health prompt it
+at intervals to melody, but no person, not even the dullest ruffian
+among the baser sort of bird-fanciers would maintain for a moment that
+the happiness of the little sightless captive, whether vocal or silent,
+is at all comparable in degree to that of the chaffinch singing in April
+"on the orchard bough," vividly seeing the wide sunlit world, blue above
+and green below, possessing the will and the power, when its lyric ends,
+to transport itself swiftly through the crystal fields of air to other
+trees and other woods.
+
+I take it that in the lower animals misery can result from two causes
+only--restraint and disease; consequently, that animals in a state of
+nature are not miserable. They are not hindered nor held back. Whether
+the animal is migrating, or burying himself in his hibernating nest or
+den; or flying from some rapacious enemy, which he may, or may not, be
+able to escape; or feeding, or sleeping, or fighting, or courting, or
+incubating, however many days or weeks this process may last--in all
+things he is obeying the impulse that is strongest in him at the
+time--he is doing what he wants to do--the one thing that makes him
+happy.
+
+As to disease, it is so rare in wild animals, or in a large majority of
+cases so quickly proves fatal, that, compared with what we call disease
+in our own species it is practically non-existent. The "struggle for
+existence," in so far as animals in a state of nature are concerned, is
+a metaphorical struggle; and the strife, short and sharp, which is so
+common in nature, is not misery, although it results in pain, since it
+is pain that kills or is soon outlived. Fear there is, just as in fine
+weather there are clouds in the sky; and just as the shadow of the cloud
+passes, so does fear pass from the wild creature when the object that
+excited it has vanished from sight. And when death comes, it comes
+unexpectedly, and is not the death that we know, even before we taste of
+it, thinking of it with apprehension all our lives long, but a sudden
+blow that takes away consciousness--the touch of something that numbs
+the nerves--merely the prick of a needle.  In whatever way the animal
+perishes, whether by violence, or excessive cold, or decay, his death is
+a comparatively easy one. So long as he is fighting with or struggling
+to escape from an enemy, wounds are not felt as wounds, and scarcely
+hurt him--as we know from our own experience; and when overcome, if
+death be not practically instantaneous, as in the case of a small bird
+seized by a cat, the disabling grip or blow is itself a kind of anodyne,
+producing insensibility to pain. This, too, is a matter of human
+experience. To say nothing of those who fall in battle, men have often
+been struck down and fearfully lacerated by lions, tigers, jaguars, and
+other savage beasts; and after having been rescued by their companions,
+have recounted this strange thing. Even when there was no loss of
+consciousness, when they saw and knew that the animal was rending their
+flesh, they seemed not to feel it, and were, at the time, indifferent to
+the fate that had overtaken them.
+
+It is the same in death from cold. The strong, well-nourished man,
+overtaken by a snowstorm on some pathless, uninhabited waste, may
+experience some exceedingly bitter moments, or even hours, before he
+gives up the struggle. The physical pain is simply nothing: the whole
+bitterness is in the thought that he must die. The horror at the thought
+of annihilation, the remembrance of all the happiness he is now about to
+lose, of dear friends, of those whose lives will be dimmed with grief
+for his loss, of all his cherished dreams of the future--the sting of
+all this is so sharp that, compared with it, the creeping coldness in
+his blood is nothing more than a slight discomfort, and is scarcely
+felt. By and by he is overcome by drowsiness, and ceases to struggle;
+the torturing visions fade from his mind, and his only thought is to lie
+down and sleep. And when he sleeps he passes away; very easily, very
+painlessly, for the pain was of the mind, and was over long before death
+ensued.
+
+The bird, however hard the frost may be, flies briskly to its customary
+roosting-place, and with beak tucked into its wing, falls asleep. It has
+no apprehensions; only the hot blood grows colder and colder, the pulse
+feebler as it sleeps, and at midnight, or in the early morning, it drops
+from its perch--dead.
+
+Yesterday he lived and moved, responsible to a thousand external
+influences, reflecting earth and sky in his small brilliant brain as in
+a looking-glass; also he had a various language, the inherited knowledge
+of his race, and the faculty of flight, by means of which he could
+shoot, meteor-like, across the sky, and pass swiftly from place to
+place, and with it such perfect control over all his organs, such
+marvellous certitude in all his motions, as to be able to drop himself
+plumb down from the tallest tree-top or out of the void air, on to a
+slender spray, and scarcely cause its leaves to tremble. Now, on this
+morning, he lies stiff and motionless; if you were to take him up and
+drop him from your hand, he would fall to the ground like a stone or a
+lump of clay--so easy and swift is the passage from life to death in
+wild nature! But he was never miserable.
+
+Those of my readers who have seen much of animals in a state of nature,
+will agree that death from decay, or old age, is very rare among them.
+In that state the fullest vigour, with brightness of all the faculties,
+is so important that probably in ninety-nine cases in a hundred any
+falling-off in strength, or decay of any sense, results in some fatal
+accident. Death by misadventure, as we call it, is Nature's ordinance,
+the end designed for a very large majority of her children.
+Nevertheless, animals do sometimes live on without accident to the very
+end of their term, to fade peacefully away at the last. I have myself
+witnessed such cases in mammals and birds; and one such case, which
+profoundly impressed me, and is vividly remembered, I will describe.
+
+One morning in the late summer, while walking in the fields at my home
+in South America, I noticed a few purple martins, large, beautiful
+swallows common in that region, engaged, at a considerable height, in
+the aerial exercises in which they pass so much of their time each day.
+By and by, one of the birds separated itself from the others, and,
+circling slowly downward, finally alighted on the ground not far from
+me. I walked on: but the action of the bird had struck me as unusual and
+strange, and before going far, I turned and walked back to the spot
+where it continued sitting on the ground, quite motionless. It made no
+movement when I approached to within four yards of it; and after I had
+stood still at that distance for a minute or so, attentively regarding
+it, I saw it put out one wing and turn over on its side. I at once took
+it up in my hand, and found that it was already quite dead. It was a
+large example of its species, and its size, together with a something of
+dimness in the glossy purple colour of the upper plumage, seemed to show
+that it was an old bird. But it was uninjured, and when I dissected it
+no trace of disease was discernible. I concluded that it was an old bird
+that had died solely from natural failure of the life-energy.
+
+But how wonderful, how almost incredible, that the healthy vigour and
+joy of life should have continued in this individual bird down to within
+so short a period of the end; that it should have been not only strong
+enough to find its food, but to rush and wheel about for long intervals
+in purely sportive exercises, when the brief twilight of decline and
+final extinction were so near! It becomes credible--we can even believe
+that most of the individuals that cease to exist only when the vital
+fire has burnt itself out, fall on death in this swift, easy
+manner--when we recall the fact that even in the life-history of men
+such a thing is not unknown. Probably there is not one among my readers
+who will not be able to recall some such incident in his own circle--the
+case of someone who lived, perhaps, long past the term usually allotted
+to man, and who finally passed away without a struggle, without a pang,
+so that those who were with him found it hard to believe that the spirit
+had indeed gone. In such cases, the subject has invariably been healthy,
+although it is hard to believe that, in the conditions we exist in, any
+man can have the perfect health that all wild creatures enjoy.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+
+After my long talk with the bird-catcher on June 24, and two more talks
+equally long on the two following days, I found that something of the
+charm the common had had for me was gone. It was not quite the same as
+formerly; even the sunshine had a something of conscious sadness in it
+which was like a shadow. Those merry little brown twitterers that
+frequently shot across the sky, looking small as insects in the wide
+blue expanse, and ever and anon dropped swiftly down like showers of
+aerolites, to lose themselves in the grass and herbage, or perch singing
+on the topmost dead twigs of a bush, now existed in constant imminent
+danger--not of that quick merciful destruction which Nature has for her
+weaklings, and for all that fail to reach her high standard; but of a
+worse fate, the prison life which is not Nature's ordinance, but one of
+the cunning larger Ape's abhorred inventions. Instead of taking my usual
+long strolls about the common I loitered once more in the village lanes
+and had my reward.
+
+On the morning of June 27 I was out sauntering very indolently, thinking
+of nothing at all; for it was a surpassingly brilliant day, and the
+sunshine produced the effect of a warm, lucent, buoyant fluid, in which
+I seemed to float rather than walk--a celestial water, which, like the
+more ponderable and common sort, may sometimes be both felt and seen.
+The sensation of feeling it is somewhat similar to that experienced by a
+bather standing breast-deep in a dear, green, warm tropical sea, so
+charged with salt that it lifts him up; but to distinguish it with the
+eye, you must look away to a distance of some yards in an open unshaded
+place, when it will become visible as fine glinting lines, quivering and
+serpentining upwards, fountain-wise, from the surface. All at once I was
+startled by hearing the loud importunate hunger-call of a young cuckoo
+quite close to me. Moving softly up to the low hedge and peering over, I
+saw the bird perched on a long cross-stick, which had been put up in a
+cottage garden to hang clothes on; he was not more than three to four
+yards from me, a fine young cuckoo in perfect plumage, his barred
+under-surface facing me. Although seeing me as plainly as I saw him, he
+exhibited no fear, and did not stir. Why should he, since I had not come
+there to feed him, and, to his inexperienced avian mind, was only one of
+the huge terrestrial creatures of various forms, with horns and manes on
+their heads, that move heavily about in roads and pastures, and are
+nothing to birds? But his foster parent, a hedge-sparrow, was
+suspicious, and kept at some distance with food in her bill; then
+excited by his imperative note, she flitted shyly to him, and deposited
+a minute caterpillar in his great gaping yellow mouth. It was like
+dropping a bun into the monstrous mouth of the hippopotamus of the
+Zoological Gardens. But the hedge-sparrow was off and back again with a
+second morsel in a very few moments; and again and again she darted away
+in quest of food and returned successful, while the lazy, beautiful
+giant sat sunning himself on his cross-stick and hungrily cried for
+more.
+
+This is one of those exceptional sights in nature which, however often
+seen, never become altogether familiar, never fail to re-excite the old
+feelings of wonder and admiration which were experienced on first
+witnessing them. I can safely say, I think, that no man has observed so
+many parasitical young birds (individuals) being fed by their
+foster-parents as myself, yet the interest such a sight inspired in me
+is just as fresh now as in boyhood.  And probably in no parasitical
+species does the strangeness of the spectacle strike the mind so sharply
+as in this British bird, since the differences in size and colouring
+between the foster-parent and its false offspring are so much greater in
+its case. Here nature's unnaturalness in such an instinct--a close union
+of the beautiful and the monstrous--is seen in its extreme form. The
+hawk-like figure and markings of the cuckoo serve only to accentuate the
+disparity, which is perhaps greatest when the parent is the
+hedge-sparrow--so plainly-coloured a bird, so shy and secretive in its
+habits. One never ceases to be amazed at the blindness of the parental
+instinct in so intelligent a creature as a bird in a case of this kind.
+Some idea of how blind it is may be formed by imagining a case in widely
+separated types of our own species, which would be a parallel to that of
+the cuckoo and hedge-sparrow. Let us imagine that some malicious Arabian
+Night's genius had snatched up the infant male child of a Scandinavian
+couple--the largest of their nation; and flying away to Africa with it,
+to the heart of the great Aruwhimi forest had laid it on the breast of a
+little coffee-coloured, woolly-headed, spindle-shanked, pot-bellied,
+pigmy mother, taking away at the same time her own newly-born babe; that
+she had tenderly nursed the substituted child, and reared and protected
+it, ministering, according to her lights, to all its huge wants, until
+he had come to the fullness of his stature, yet never suspected, that
+the magnificent, ivory-limbed giant, with flowing yellow locks and
+cerulean eyes, was not the child of her own womb.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+
+Bright and genial were all the last days of June, when I loitered in the
+lanes before the unwished day of my return to London. During this quiet,
+pleasant time the greenfinch was perhaps more to me than any other
+songster. In the village itself, with the adjacent lanes and orchards,
+this pretty, seldom-silent bird was the most common species. The village
+was his metropolis, just as London is ours--and the sparrow's; its lanes
+were his streets, its hedges and elm trees his cottage rows and tall
+stately mansions and public buildings. . We frequently find the
+predominance of one species somewhat wearisome. Speaking for myself,
+there are songsters that are best appreciated when they are limited in
+numbers and keep their distance, but of the familiar, unambitious
+strains of swallow, robin, and wren I never tire, nor, during these
+days, could I have too much of the greenfinch, low as he ranks among
+British melodists. Tastes differ; that is a point on which we are all
+agreed, and every one of us, even the humblest, is permitted to have his
+own preferences. Still, after re-reading Wordsworth's lines to "The
+Green Linnet," it is curious, to say the least of it, to turn to some
+prosewriter--an authority on birds, perhaps--to find that this species,
+whose music so charmed the poet, has for its song a monotonous croak,
+which it repeats at short intervals for hours without the slightest
+variation--a dismal sound which harmonizes with no other sound in
+nature, and suggests nothing but heat and weariness, and is of all
+natural sounds the most irritating. To this writer, then--and there are
+others to keep him in countenance--the greenfinch as a vocalist ranks
+lower than the lowest. One can only wonder (and smile) at such extreme
+divergences. To my mind all natural sounds have, in some measure an
+exhilarating effect, and I cannot get rid of the notion that so it
+should be with every one of us; and when some particular sound, or
+series of sounds, that has more than this common character, and is
+distinctly pleasing, is spoken of as nothing but disagreeable,
+irritating, and the rest of it, I am inclined to think that there is
+something wrong with the person who thus describes it; that he is not
+exactly as nature would have had him, but that either during his
+independent life, or before it at some period of his prenatal existence,
+something must have happened to distune him. All this, I freely confess,
+may be nothing but fancy. In any case, the subject need not keep us
+longer from the greenfinch--that is to say, _my_ greenfinch not another
+man's.
+
+From morning until evening all around and about the cottage, and out of
+doors whithersoever I bent my steps, from the masses of deep green
+foliage, sounded the perpetual airy prattle of these delightful birds.
+One had the idea that the concealed vocalists were continually meeting
+each other at little social gatherings, where they exchanged pretty
+loving greetings, and indulged in a leafy gossip, interspersed with
+occasional fragments of music, vocal and instrumental; now a long
+trill--a trilling, a tinkling, a sweeping of one minute finger-tip over
+metal strings as fine as gossamer threads--describe it how you will, you
+cannot describe it; then the long, low, inflected scream, like a lark's
+throat-note drawn out and inflected; little chirps and chirruping
+exclamations and remarks, and a soft warbled note three or four or more
+times repeated, and sometimes, the singer fluttering up out of the
+foliage and hovering in the air, displaying his green and yellow plumage
+while emitting these lovely notes; and again the trill, trill answering
+trill in different keys; and again the music scream, as if some
+unsubstantial being, fairy or woodnymph had screamed somewhere in her
+green hiding-place. In London one frequently hears, especially in the
+spring, half-a-dozen sparrows just met together in a garden tree, or
+among the ivy or creeper on a wall, burst out suddenly into a confused
+rapturous chorus of chirruping sounds, mingled with others of a finer
+quality, liquid and ringing. At such times one is vexed to think that
+there are writers on birds who invariably speak of the sparrow as a
+tuneless creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing more. It strikes one
+that such writers either wilfully abuse or are ignorant of the right
+meaning of words, so wild and glad in character are these concerts of
+town sparrows, and so refreshing to the tired and noise-vexed brain! But
+now when I listened to the greenfinches in the village elms and
+hedgerows, if by chance a few sparrows burst out in loud gratulatory
+notes, the sounds they emitted appeared coarse, and I wished the
+chirrupers away. But with the true and brilliant songsters it seemed to
+me that the rippling greenfinch music was always in harmony, forming as
+it were a kind of airy, subdued accompaniment to their loud and ringing
+tones.
+
+I had had my nightingale days, my cuckoo and blackbird and tree-pipit
+days, with others too numerous to mention, and now I was having my
+greenfinch days; and these were the last.
+
+One morning in July I was in my sitting-room, when in the hedge on the
+other side of the lane, just opposite my window, a small brown bird
+warbled a few rich notes, the prelude to his song. I went and stood by
+the open window, intently listening, when it sang again, but only a
+phrase or two. But I listened still, confidently expecting more; for
+although it was now long past its singing season, that splendid sunshine
+would compel it to express its gladness. Then, just when a fresh burst
+of music came, it was disturbed by another sound close by--a human
+voice, also singing. On the other side of the hedge in which the bird
+sat concealed was a cottage garden, and there on a swing fastened to a
+pair of apple trees, a girl about eleven years old sat lazily swinging
+herself. Once or twice after she began singing the nightingale broke out
+again, and then at last he became silent altogether, his voice
+overpowered by hers.  Girl and bird were not five yards apart. It
+greatly surprised me to hear her singing, for it was eleven o'clock,
+when all the village children were away at the National School, a time
+of day when, so far as human sounds were concerned, there reigned an
+almost unbroken silence. But very soon I recalled the fact that this was
+a very lazy child, and concluded that she had coaxed her mother into
+sending an excuse for keeping her at home, and so had kept her liberty
+on this beautiful morning. About two minutes' walk from the cottage, at
+the side of the crooked road running through the village, there was a
+group of ancient pollarded elm trees with huge, hollow trunks, and
+behind them an open space, a pleasant green slope, where some of the
+village children used to go every day to play on the grass. Here I used
+to see this girl lying in the sun, her dark chestnut hair loosed and
+scattered on the sward, her arms stretched out, her eyes nearly closed,
+basking in the sun, as happy as some heat-loving wild animal. No, it was
+not strange that she had not gone to school with the others when her
+disposition was remembered, but most strange to hear a voice of such
+quality in a spot where nature was rich and lovely, and only man was, if
+not vile, at all events singularly wanting in the finer human qualities.
+
+Looking out from the open window across the low hedge-top, I could see
+her as she alternately rose and fell with slow, indolent motion, now
+waist-high above the green dividing wall, then only her brown head
+visible resting against the rope just where her hand had grasped it. And
+as she swayed herself to and fro she sang that simple melody--probably
+some child's hymn which she had been taught at the Sunday-school; but it
+was a very long hymn, or else she repeated the same few stanzas many
+times, and after each there was a brief pause, and then the voice that
+seemed to fall and rise with the motion went on as before. I could have
+stood there for an hour--nay, for hours--listening to it, so fresh and
+so pure was the clear young voice, which had no earthly trouble in it,
+and no passion, and was in this like the melody of the birds of which I
+had lately heard so much; and with it all that tenderness and depth
+which is not theirs, but is human only and of the soul.
+
+It struck me as a singular coincidence--and to a mind of so primitive a
+type as the writer's there is more in the fact that the word
+implies--that, just as I had quitted London, to seek for just such a
+spot as I so speedily found, with the passionately exclaimed words of a
+young London girl ringing in my ears, so now I went back with this
+village girl's melody sounding and following me no less clearly and
+insistently. For it was not merely remembered, as we remember most
+things, but vividly and often reproduced, together with the various
+melodies of the birds I had listened to; a greater and principal voice
+in that choir, yet in no wise lessening their first value, nor ever out
+of harmony with them.
+
+
+
+
+EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
+
+
+There are countries with a less fertile soil and a worse climate than
+ours, yet richer in bird life. Nevertheless, England is not poor; the
+species are not few in number, and some are extremely abundant.
+Unfortunately many of the finer kinds have been too much sought after;
+persecuted first for their beauty, then for their rarity, until now we
+are threatened with their total destruction. As these kinds become
+unobtainable, those which stand next in the order of beauty and rarity
+are persecuted in their turn; and in a country as densely populated as
+ours, where birds cannot hide themselves from human eyes, such
+persecution must eventually cause their extinction. Meanwhile the bird
+population does not decrease. Every place in nature, like every property in
+Chancery, has more than one claimant to it--sometimes the claimants are
+many--and so long as the dispute lasts all live out of the estate. For
+there are always two or more species subsisting on the same kind of
+food, possessing similar habits, and frequenting the same localities. It
+is consequently impossible for man to exterminate any one species
+without indirectly benefiting some other species, which attracts him in
+a less degree, or not at all. This is unfortunate, for as the bright
+kinds, or those we esteem most, diminish in numbers the less interesting
+kinds multiply, and we lose much of the pleasure which bird life is
+fitted to give us. When we visit woods, or other places to which birds
+chiefly resort, in districts uninhabited by man, or where he pays little
+or no attention to the feathered creatures, the variety of the bird life
+encountered affords a new and peculiar delight. There is a constant
+succession of new forms and new voices; in a single day as many species
+may be met with as one would find in England by searching diligently for
+a whole year.
+
+And yet this may happen in a district possessing no more species than
+England boasts; and the actual number of individuals may be even less
+than with us. In sparrows, for instance, of the one common species, we
+are exceedingly rich; but in bird life generally, in variety of birds,
+especially in those of graceful forms and beautiful plumage, we have
+been growing poorer for the last fifty years, and have now come to so
+low a state that it becomes us to inquire whether it is not in our power
+to better ourselves. It is an old familiar truth--a truism--that it is
+easier to destroy than to restore or build up; nevertheless, some
+comfort is to be got from the reflection that in this matter we have up
+till now been working against Nature. She loves not to bring forth food
+where there are none to thrive on it; and when our unconsidered action
+had made these gaps, when, despising her gifts or abusing them, we had
+destroyed or driven out her finer kinds, she fell back on her lowlier
+kinds--her reserve of coarser, more generalized species--and gave them
+increase, and bestowed the vacant places which we had created on them.
+What she has done she will undo, or assist us in undoing; for we should
+be going back to her methods, and should have her with and not against
+us. Much might yet be done to restore the balance among our native
+species. Not by legislation, albeit all laws restraining the wholesale
+destruction of bird life are welcome. On this subject the Honourable
+Auberon Herbert has said, and his words are golden: "For myself,
+legislation or no legislation, I would turn to the friends of animals in
+this country, and say, 'If you wish that the friendship between man and
+animals should become a better and truer thing than it is at present,
+you must make it so by countless individual efforts, by making thousands
+of centres of personal influence.'"
+
+The subject is a large one. In this paper the question of the
+introduction of exotic birds will be chiefly considered. Birds have been
+blown by the winds of chance over the whole globe, and have found rest
+for their feet. That a large number of species, suited to the conditions
+of this country, exist scattered about the world is not to be doubted,
+and by introducing a few of these we might accelerate the change so
+greatly to be desired. At present a very considerable amount of energy
+is spent in hunting down the small contingents of rare species that once
+inhabited our islands, and still resort annually to its shores,
+persistently endeavouring to re-establish their colonies. A less amount
+of labour and expense would serve to introduce a few foreign species
+each year, and the reward would be greater, and would not make us
+ashamed. We have generously given our own wild animals to other
+countries; and from time to time we receive cheering reports of an
+abundant increase in at least two of our exportations--to wit, the
+rabbit and the sparrow. We are surely entitled to some return. Dead
+animals, however rich their pelt or bright their plumage may be, are not
+a fair equivalent. Dead things are too much with us. London has become a
+mart for this kind of merchandise for the whole of Europe, and the
+traffic is not without a reflex effect on us; for life in the inferior
+animals has come or is coming to be merely a thing to be lightly taken
+by human hands, in order that its dropped garment may be sold for filthy
+lucre. There are warehouses in this city where it is possible for a
+person to walk ankle-deep--literally to wade--in bright-plumaged
+bird-skins, and see them piled shoulder-high on either side of him--a
+sight to make the angels weep!
+
+Not the angel called woman. It is not that she is naturally more cruel
+than man; bleeding wounds and suffering in all its forms, even the sigh
+of a burdened heart, appeal to her quick sympathies, and draw the ready
+tears; but her imagination helps her less. The appeal must in most cases
+be direct and through the medium of her senses, else it is not seen and
+not heard. If she loves the ornament of a gay-winged bird, and is able
+to wear it with a light heart, it is because it calls up no mournful
+image to her mind; no little tragedy enacted in some far-off wilderness,
+of the swift child of the air fallen and bleeding out its bright life,
+and its callow nestlings, orphaned of the breast that warmed them, dying
+of hunger in the tree. We know, at all events, that out of a female
+population of many millions in this country, so far only ten women,
+possibly fifteen, have been found to raise their voices--raised so often
+and so loudly on other questions--to protest against the barbarous and
+abhorrent fashion of wearing slain birds as ornaments. The degrading
+business of supplying the demand for this kind of feminine adornment
+must doubtless continue to flourish in our midst, commerce not being
+compatible with morality, but the material comes from other lands,
+unblessed as yet with Wild Bird Protection Acts, and "individual
+efforts, and thousands of centres of personal influence"; it comes
+mainly from the tropics, where men have brutish minds and birds a
+brilliant plumage. This trade, therefore, does not greatly affect the
+question of our native bird life, and the consideration of the means,
+which may be within our reach, of making it more to us than it now is.
+Some species from warm and even hot climates have been found to thrive
+well in England, breeding in the open air; as, for instance, the black
+and the black-necked swans, the Egyptian goose, the mandarin and summer
+ducks, and others too numerous to mention. But these birds are
+semi-domestic, and are usually kept in enclosures, and that they can
+stand the climate and propagate when thus protected from competition is
+not strange; for we know that several of our hardy domestic birds--the
+fowl, pea-fowl, Guinea-fowl, and Muscovy duck--are tropical in their
+origin. Furthermore, they are all comparatively large, and if they ever
+become feral in England, it will not be for many years to come.
+
+That these large kinds thrive so well with us is an encouraging fact;
+but the question that concerns us at present is the feasibility of
+importing birds of the grove, chiefly of the passerine order, and
+sending them forth to give a greater variety and richness to our bird
+life. To go with such an object to tropical countries would only be to
+court failure. Nature's highest types, surpassing all others in
+exquisite beauty of form, brilliant colouring, and perfect melody, can
+never be known to our woods and groves. These rarest avian gems may not
+be removed from their setting, and to those who desire to know them in
+their unimaginable lustre, it will always be necessary to cross oceans
+and penetrate into remote wildernesses. We must go rather to regions
+where the conditions of life are hard, where winters are long and often
+severe, where Nature is not generous in the matter of food, and the
+mouths are many, and the competition great. Nor even from such regions
+could we take any strictly migratory species with any prospect of
+success. Still, limiting ourselves to the resident, and consequently to
+the hardiest kinds, and to those possessing only a partial migration, it
+is surprising to find how many there are to choose from, how many are
+charming melodists, and how many have the bright tints in which our
+native species are so sadly lacking. The field from which the supply can
+be drawn is very extensive, and includes the continent of Europe, the
+countries of North Asia, a large portion of North America and Antarctic
+America, or South Chili and Patagonia. It would not be going too far to
+say that for every English species, inhabiting the garden, wood, field,
+stream, or waste, at least half a dozen resident species, with similar
+habits, might be obtained from the countries mentioned which would be
+superior to our own in melody (the nightingale and lark excepted),
+bright plumage, grace of form, or some other attractive quality. The
+question then arises; What reason is there for believing that these
+exotics, imported necessarily in small numbers, would succeed in winning
+a footing in our country, and become a permanent addition to its
+avifauna? For it has been admitted that our species are not few, in
+spite of the losses that have been suffered, and that the bird
+population does not diminish, however much its character may have
+altered and deteriorated from the aesthetic point of view, and probably
+also from the utilitarian. There are no vacant places. Thus, the streams
+are fished by herons, grebes, and kingfishers, while the rushy margins
+are worked by coots and gallinules, and, above the surface, reed and
+sedge-warblers, with other kinds, inhabit the reed-beds. The decaying
+forest tree is the province of the woodpecker, of which there are three
+kinds; and the trunks and branches of all trees, healthy or decaying,
+are quartered by the small creeper, that leaves no crevice unexplored in
+its search for minute insects and their eggs. He is assisted by the
+nuthatch; and in summer the wryneck comes (if he still lives), and
+deftly picks up the little active ants that are always wildly careering
+over the boles. The foliage is gleaned by warblers and others; and not
+even the highest terminal twigs are left unexamined by tits and their
+fellow-seekers after little things. Thrushes seek for worms in moist
+grounds about the woods; starlings and rooks go to the pasture lands;
+the lark and his relations keep to the cultivated fields; and there also
+dwells the larger partridge. Waste and stony grounds are occupied by the
+chats, and even on the barren mountain summits the ptarmigan gets his
+living. Wagtails run on the clean margins of streams; and littoral birds
+of many kinds are in possession of the entire sea-coast. Thus, the whole
+ground appears to be already sufficiently occupied, the habitats of
+distinct species overlapping each other like the scales on a fish. And
+when we have enumerated all these, we find that scores of others have
+been left out.  The important fly-catcher; the wren, Nature's diligent
+little housekeeper, that leaves no dusty corner uncleaned; and the
+pigeons, that have a purely vegetable diet. The woods and thickets are
+also ranged by jays, cuckoos, owls, hawks, magpies, butcher-birds--
+Nature's gamekeepers, with a licence to kill, which, after the manner of
+game-keepers, they exercise somewhat indiscriminately. Above the earth,
+the air is peopled by swifts and swallows in the daytime, and by
+goatsuckers at night. And, as if all these were not enough, the finches
+are found scattered everywhere, from the most secluded spot in nature to
+the noisy public thoroughfare, and are eaters of most things, from
+flinty seed to softest caterpillar. This being the state of things, one
+might imagine that experience and observation are scarcely needed to
+prove to us that the exotic, strange to the conditions, and where its
+finest instincts would perhaps be at fault, would have no chance of
+surviving. Nevertheless, odd as it may seem, the small stock of facts
+bearing on the subject which we possess point to a contrary conclusion.
+It might have been assumed, for instance, that the red-legged partridge
+would never have established itself with us, where the ground was
+already fully occupied by a native species, which possessed the
+additional advantage of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in
+spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has conquered a place, and
+has spread throughout the greater part of England. Even more remarkable
+is the case of the pheasant, with its rich plumage, a native of a hot
+region; yet our cold, wet climate and its unmodified bright colours have
+not been fatal to it, and practically it is one of our wild birds. The
+large capercailzie has also been successfully introduced from Norway.
+Small birds would probably become naturalized much more readily than
+large ones; they are volatile, and can more quickly find suitable
+feeding-ground, and safe roosting and nesting places; their food is also
+more abundant and easily found; their small size, which renders them
+inconspicuous, gives them safety; and, finally, they are very much more
+adaptive than large birds.
+
+It is not at all probable that the red-legged partridge will ever drive
+out our own bird, a contingency which some have feared. That would be a
+misfortune, for we do not wish to change one bird for another, or to
+lose any species we now possess, but to have a greater variety. We are
+better off with two partridges than we were with one, even if the
+invader does not afford such good sport nor such delicate eating. They
+exist side by side, and compete with each other; but such competition is
+not necessarily destructive to either. On the contrary, it acts and
+re-acts healthily and to the improvement of both. It is a fact that in
+small islands, very far removed from the mainland, where the animals
+have been exempt from all foreign competition--that is, from the
+competition of casual colonists--when it does come it proves, in many
+cases, fatal to them. Fortunately, this country's large size and
+nearness to the mainland has prevented any such fatal crystallization of
+its organisms as we see in islands like St.  Helena. That any English
+species would be exterminated by foreign competition is extremely
+unlikely; whether we introduce exotic birds or not, the only losses we
+shall have to deplore in the future will, like those of the past, be
+directly due to our own insensate action in slaying every rare and
+beautiful thing with powder and shot. From the introduction of exotic
+species nothing is to be feared, but much to be hoped.
+
+There is another point which should not be overlooked. It has after all
+become a mere fiction to say that _all_ places are occupied. Nature's
+nice order has been destroyed, and her kingdom thrown into the utmost
+confusion; our action tends to maintain the disorderly condition, while
+she is perpetually working against us to re-establish order. When she
+multiplies some common, little-regarded species to occupy a space left
+vacant by an artificially exterminated kind, the species called in as a
+mere stop-gap, as it were, is one not specially adapted in structure and
+instincts to a particular mode of life, and consequently cannot fully
+and effectually occupy the ground into which it has been permitted to
+enter. To speak in metaphor, it enters merely as a caretaker or ignorant
+and improvident steward in the absence of the rightful owner. Again,
+some of our ornamental species, which are fast diminishing, are fitted
+from their peculiar structure and life habits to occupy places in nature
+which no other kinds, however plastic they may be, can even partially
+fill. The wryneck and the woodpecker may be mentioned; and a still
+better instance is afforded by the small, gem-like kingfisher--the
+only British bird which can properly be described as gem-like.
+When the goldfinch goes--and we know that he is going rapidly--other
+coarser fringilline birds, without the melody, brightness, and charm of
+the goldfinch--sparrow and bunting--come in, and in some rough fashion
+supply its place; but when the kingfisher disappears an important place
+is left absolutely vacant, for in this case there is no coarser bird of
+homely plumage with the fishing instinct to seize upon it. Here, then,
+is an excellent opportunity for an experiment. In the temperate regions
+of the earth there are many fine kingfishers to select from; some are
+resident in countries colder than England, and are consequently very
+hardy; and in some cases the rivers and streams they frequent are
+exceedingly poor in fish. Some of them are very beautiful, and they vary
+in size from birds no larger than a sparrow to others as large as a
+pigeon.
+
+Anglers might raise the cry that they require all the finny inhabitants
+of our waters for their own sport. It is scarcely necessary to go as
+deeply into the subject as mathematical-minded Mudie did to show that
+Nature's lavishness in the production of life would make such a
+contention unreasonable. He demonstrated that if all the fishes hatched
+were to live their full term, in twenty-four years their production
+power would convert into fish (two hundred to the solid foot) as much
+matter as there is contained in the whole solar system--sun, planets,
+and satellites! An "abundantly startling" result, as he says. To be well
+within the mark, ninety-nine out of every hundred fishes hatched must
+somehow perish during that stage when they are nothing but suitable
+morsels for the kingfisher, to be swallowed entire; and a portion of all
+this wasted food might very well go to sustain a few species, which
+would be beautiful ornaments of the waterside, and a perpetual delight
+to all lovers of rural nature, including anglers. It may be remarked in
+passing, that the waste of food, in the present disorganized state of
+nature, is not only in our streams.
+
+The introduction of one or more of these lovely foreign kingfishers
+would not certainly have the effect of hastening the decline of our
+native species; but indirectly it might bring about a contrary result--a
+subject to be touched on at the end of this paper. Practical naturalists
+may say that kingfishers would be far more difficult to procure than
+other birds, and that it would be almost impossible to convey them to
+England. That is a question it would be premature to discuss now; but if
+the attempt should ever be made, the difficulties would not perhaps be
+found insuperable. In all countries one hears of certain species of
+birds that they invariably die in captivity; but when the matter is
+closely looked into, one usually finds that improper treatment and not
+loss of liberty is the cause of death. Unquestionably it would be much
+more difficult to keep a kingfisher alive and healthy during a long
+sea-voyage than a common seed-eating bird; but the same may be said of
+woodpeckers, cuckoos, warblers, and, in fact, of any species that
+subsists in a state of nature on a particular kind of animal food.
+Still, when we find that even the excessively volatile humming-bird,
+which subsists on the minutest insects and the nectar of flowers, and
+seems to require unlimited space for the exercise of its energies, can
+be successfully kept confined for long periods and conveyed to distant
+countries, one would imagine that it would be hard to set a limit to
+what might be done in this direction. We do not want hard-billed birds
+only. We require, in the first place, variety; and, secondly, that every
+species introduced, when not of type unlike any native kind, as in the
+case of the pheasant, shall be superior in beauty, melody, or some other
+quality, to its British representative, or to the species which comes
+nearest to it in structure and habits. Thus, suppose that the
+introduction of a pigeon should be desired. We know that in all
+temperate regions, these birds vary as little in colour and markings as
+they do in form; but in the vocal powers of different species there is
+great diversity; and the main objects would therefore be to secure a
+bird which would be an improvement in this respect on the native kinds.
+There are doves belonging to the same genus as stock-dove and
+wood-pigeon, that have exceedingly good voices, in which the peculiar
+mournful dove-melody has reached its highest perfection--weird and
+passionate strains, surging and ebbing, and startling the hearer with
+their mysterious resemblance to human tones. Or a Zenaida might be
+preferred for its tender lament, so wild and exquisitely modulated, like
+sobs etherealized and set to music, and passing away in sigh-like sounds
+that seem to mimic the aerial voices of the wind.
+
+When considering the character of our bird population with a view to its
+improvement, one cannot but think much, and with a feeling almost of
+dismay, of the excessive abundance of the sparrow. A systematic
+persecution of this bird would probably only serve to make matters
+worse, since its continued increase is not the cause but an effect of a
+corresponding decrease in other more useful and attractive species; and
+if Nature is to have her way at all there must be birds; and besides, no
+bird-lover has any wish at see such a thing attempted. The sparrow has
+his good points, if we are to judge him as we find him, without allowing
+what the Australians and Americans say of him to prejudice our minds.
+Possibly in those distant countries he may be altogether bad,
+resembling, in this respect, some of the emigrants of our species, who,
+when they go abroad, leave their whole stock of morality at home. Even
+with us Miss Ormerod is exceedingly bitter against him, and desires
+nothing less than his complete extirpation; but it is possible that this
+lady's zeal may not be according to knowledge, that she may not know a
+sparrow quite so well as she knows a fly. At all events, the
+ornithologist finds it hard to believe that so bad an insect-catcher is
+really causing the extinction of any exclusively insectivorous species.
+On her own very high authority we know that the insect supply is not
+diminishing, that the injurious kinds alone are able to inflict an
+annual loss equal to £10,000,000 on the British farmer. To put aside
+this controversial matter, the sparrow with all his faults is a pleasant
+merry little fellow; in many towns he is the sole representative of wild
+bird life, and is therefore a great deal to us--especially in the
+metropolis, in which he most abounds, and where at every quiet interval
+his blithe chirruping comes to us like a sound of subdued and happy
+laughter. In London itself this merriment of Nature never irritates; it
+is so much finer and more aerial in character than the gross jarring
+noises of the street, that it is a relief to listen to it, and it is
+like melody. In the quiet suburbs it sounds much louder and without
+intermission. And going further afield, in woods, gardens, hedges,
+hamlets, towns--everywhere there is the same running, rippling sound
+of the omnipresent sparrow, and it becomes monotonous at last. We have
+too much of the sparrow. But we are to blame for that. He is the
+unskilled worker that Nature has called in to do the work of skilled
+hands, which we have foolishly turned away. He is willing enough to take
+it all on himself; his energy is great; he bungles away without ceasing;
+and being one of a joyous temperament, he whistles and sings in his
+tuneless fashion at his work, until, like the grasshopper of
+Ecclesiastes, he becomes a burden. For how tiring are the sight and
+sound of grasshoppers when one journeys many miles and sees them
+incessantly rising like a sounding cloud before his horse, and hears
+their shrill notes all day from the wayside! Yet how pleasant to listen
+to their minstrelsy in the green summer foliage, where they are not too
+abundant! We can have too much of anything, however charming it may be
+in itself. Those who live where sceres of humming-birds are perpetually
+dancing about the garden flowers find that the eye grows weary of seeing
+the daintiest forms and brightest colours and liveliest motions that
+birds exhibit. We are told that Edward the Confessor grew so sick of the
+incessant singing of nightingales in the forest of Havering-at-Bower
+that he prayed to Heaven to silence their music; whereupon the birds
+promptly took their departure, and returned no more to that forest until
+after the king's death. The sparrow is not so sensitive as the legendary
+nightingales, and is not to be got rid of in this easy manner. He is
+amenable only to a rougher kind of persuasion; and it would be
+impossible to devise a more effectual method of lessening his
+predominance than that which Nature teaches--namely to subject him to
+the competition of other and better species. He is well equipped for the
+struggle--hardy, pugnacious, numerous, and in possession. He would not
+be in possession and so predominant if he had not these qualities, and
+great pliability of instinct and readiness to seize on vacant places.
+Nevertheless, even with the sturdy sparrow a very small thing might turn
+the scale, particularly if we were standing by and putting a little
+artificial pressure on one side of the balance; for it must be borne in
+mind that the very extent and diversity of the ground he occupies is a
+proof that he does not occupy it effectually, and that his position is
+not too strong to be shaken. It is not probable that our action in
+assisting one side against the other would go far in its results; still,
+a little might be done. There are gardens and grounds in the suburbs of
+London where sparrows are not abundant, and are shyer than the birds of
+other species, and this result has been brought about by means of a
+little judicious persecution. Shooting is a bad plan, even with an
+air-gun; its effects are seen by all the birds, for they see more from
+their green hiding-places than we imagine, and it creates a general
+alarm among them. Those who wish to give the other birds a chance will
+only defeat their own object by shooting the sparrows. A much better
+plan for those who are able to practise it prudently is to take their
+nests, which are more exposed to sight than those of other birds; but
+they should be taken after the full complement of eggs have been laid,
+and only at night, so that other birds shall not witness the robbery and
+fear for their own treasures. Mr. Henry George, in that book of his
+which has been the delight of so many millions of rational souls,
+advocates the destruction of all sharks and other large rapacious
+fishes, after which, he says, the ocean can be stocked with salmon,
+which would secure an unlimited supply of good wholesome food for the
+human race. No such high-handed measures are advocated here with regard
+to the sparrow. Knowledge of nature makes us conservative. It is so very
+easy to say, "Kill the sparrow, or shark, or magpie, or whatever it is,
+and then everything will be right." But there are more things in nature
+than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the class of reformers
+represented by the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper's master, and Miss
+Ormerod, and Mr. Henry George. Let him by all means kill the sharks, but
+he will not conquer Nature in that way: she will make more sharks out of
+something else--possibly out of the very salmon on which he proposes to
+regale his hungry disciples. To go into details is not the present
+writer's purpose; and to finish with this part of the subject, it is
+sufficient to add that in the very wide and varied field occupied by the
+sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible to a species having
+no special and highly perfected feeding instincts, there is room for the
+introduction of scores of competitors, every one of which should be
+better adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at that point or
+that particular part of the field where the two would come into rivalry;
+and every species introduced should also possess some quality which
+would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, a valuable addition to
+our bird life. This would be no war of violence, and no contravention of
+Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, a return to her safe,
+healthy, and far-reaching methods.
+
+There is one objection some may make to the scheme suggested here which
+must be noticed. It may be said that even if exotic species able to
+thrive in our country were introduced there would be no result; for
+these strangers to our groves would all eventually meet with the same
+fate as our rarer species and casual visitors--that is to say, they
+would be shot. There is no doubt that the amateur naturalist has been a
+curse to this country for the last half century, that it is owing to the
+"cupidity of the cabinet" as old Robert Mudie has it--that many of our
+finer species are exceedingly rare, while others are disappearing
+altogether. But it is surely not too soon to look for a change for the
+better in this direction. Half a century ago, when the few remaining
+great bustards in this country were being done to death, it was suddenly
+remembered by naturalists that in their eagerness to possess examples of
+the bird (in the skin) they had neglected to make themselves acquainted
+with its customs when alive. Its habits were hardly better known than
+those of the dodo and solitaire. The reflection came too late, in so far
+as the habits of the bird in this country are concerned; but unhappily
+the lesson was not then taken to heart, and other fine species have
+since gone the way of the great bustard. But now that we have so clearly
+seen the disastrous effects of this method of "studying ornithology,"
+which is not in harmony with our humane civilization, it is to be hoped
+that a better method will be adopted--that "finer way" which Thoreau
+found and put aside his fowling-piece to practise. There can be no doubt
+that the desire for such an improvement is now becoming very general,
+that a kindlier feeling for animal, and especially bird life is growing
+up among us, and there are signs that it is even beginning to have some
+appreciable effect. The fashion of wearing birds is regarded by most men
+with pain and reprobation; and it is possible that before long it will
+be thought that there is not much difference between the action of the
+woman who buys tanagers and humming-birds to adorn her person, and that
+of the man who kills the bittern, hoopoe, waxwing, golden oriole, and
+Dartford-warbler to enrich his private collection.
+
+A few words on the latest attempt which has been made to naturalize an
+exotic bird in England will not seem out of place here. About eight
+years ago a gentleman in Essex introduced the rufous tinamou--a handsome
+game bird, nearly as large as a fowl--into his estate. Up till the
+present time, or till quite recently these birds have bred every year,
+and at one time they had increased considerably and scattered about the
+neighbourhood. When it began to increase, the neighbouring proprietors
+and sportsmen generally were asked not to shoot it, but to give it a
+chance, and there is reason to believe that they have helped to protect
+it, and have taken a great interest in the experiment. Whatever the
+ultimate result may be, the partial success attained during these few
+years is decidedly encouraging, and that for more reasons than one. In
+the first place, the bird was badly chosen for such an experiment. It
+belongs to the pampas of La Plata, to which it is restricted, and where
+it enjoys a dry, bright climate, and lives concealed in the tall
+close-growing indigenous grasses. The conditions of its habitat are
+therefore widely different from those of Essex, or of any part of
+England; and, besides, it has a peculiar organisation, for it happens to
+be one of those animals of ancient types of which a few species still
+survive in South America. That so unpromising a subject as this large
+archaic tinamou should be able to maintain its existence in this
+country, even for a very few years, encourages one to believe that with
+better-chosen species, more highly organized, and with more pliant
+habits, such as the hazel hen of Europe for a game bird, success would
+be almost certain.
+
+Another circumstance connected with the attempted introduction of this
+unsuitable bird, even of more promise than the mere fact of the partial
+success achieved, is the greatest interest the experiment has excited,
+not only among naturalists throughout the country, but also among
+landlords and sportsmen down in Essex, where the bird was not regarded
+merely as fair game to be bagged, or as a curiosity to be shot for the
+collector's cabinet, but was allowed to fight its own fight without
+counting man among its enemies. And it is to be expected that the same
+self-restraint and spirit of fairness and intelligent desire to see a
+favourable result would be shown everywhere if exotic species were to be
+largely introduced, and breeding centres established in suitable places
+throughout the country. When it once became known that individuals were
+doing this thing, giving their time and best efforts and at considerable
+expense not for their own selfish gratification, but for the general
+good, and to make the country more delightful to all lovers of rural
+sights and sounds, there would be no opposition, but on the contrary
+every assistance, since all would wish success to such an enterprise.
+Even the most enthusiastic collector would refrain from lifting a weapon
+against the new feathered guests from distant lands; and if by any
+chance an example of one should get into his hands he would be ashamed
+to exhibit it.
+
+The addition of new beautiful species to our avifauna would probably not
+be the only, nor even the principal benefit we should derive from the
+carrying out of the scheme here suggested. The indirect effect of the
+knowledge all would possess that such an experiment was being conducted,
+and that its chief object was to repair the damage that has been done,
+would be wholly beneficial since it would enhance the value in our eyes
+of our remaining native rare and beautiful species. A large number of
+our finer birds are annually shot by those who know that they are doing
+a great wrong--that if their transgression is not punishable by law it
+is really not less grave than that of the person who maliciously barks a
+shade tree in a park or public garden--but who excuse their action by
+saying that such birds must eventually get shot, and that those who
+first see them might as well have the benefit. The presence of even a
+small number of exotic species in our woods and groves would no doubt
+give rise to a better condition of things; it would attract public
+attention to the subject; for the birds that delight us with their
+beauty and melody should be for the public, and not for the few
+barbarians engaged in exterminating them; and the "collector" would find
+it best to abandon his evil practices when it once began to be generally
+asked, if we can spare the rare, lovely birds brought hither at great
+expense from China or Patagonia, can we not also spare our own
+kingfisher, and the golden oriole, and the hoopoe, that comes to us
+annually from Africa to breed, but is not permitted to breed, and many
+other equally beautiful and interesting species?
+
+
+
+
+MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
+
+
+The sparrow, like the poor, we have always with us, and on windy days
+even the large-sized rook is blown about the murkiness which does duty
+for sky over London; and on such occasions its coarse, corvine dronings
+seem not unmusical, nor without something of a tonic effect on our
+jarred nerves. And here the ordinary Londoner has got to the end of his
+ornithological list--that is to say, his winter list. He knows nothing
+about those wind-worn waifs, the "occasional visitors" to the
+metropolis--the pilgrims to distant Meccas and Medinas that have fallen,
+overcome by weariness, at the wayside; or have encountered storms in the
+great aerial sea, and lost compass and reckoning, and have been lured by
+false lights to perish miserably at the hands of their cruel enemies. It
+may be true that gulls are seen on the Serpentine, that woodcocks are
+flushed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but the citizen who goes to his office
+in the morning and returns after the lamps have been lighted, does not
+see them, and they are nothing in his life. Those who concern themselves
+to chronicle such incidents might just as well, for all that it matters
+to him, mistake their species, like that bird-loving but
+unornithological correspondent of the Times who wrote that he had seen
+a flock of golden orioles in Kensington Gardens. It turned out that what
+he had seen were wheatears, or they might draw a little on their
+imaginations, and tell of sunward-sailing cranes encamped on the dome of
+St. Paul's Cathedral, flamingoes in the Round Pond, great snowy owls in
+Westminster Abbey, and an ibis--scarlet, glossy, or sacred, according to
+fancy--perched on Peabody's statue, at the Royal Exchange.
+
+But his winter does not last for ever. When the bitter months are past,
+with March that mocks us with its crown of daffodils; when the sun
+shines, and the rain is soon over; and elms and limes in park and
+avenue, and unsightly smoke-blackened brushwood in the squares, are
+dressed once more in tenderest heart-refreshing green, even in London we
+know that the birds have returned from beyond the sea. Why should they
+come to us here, when it would seem so much more to their advantage, and
+more natural for them to keep aloof from our dimmed atmosphere, and the
+rude sounds of traffic, and the sight of many people going to and fro?
+Are there no silent green retreats left where the conditions are better
+suited to their shy and delicate natures? Yet no sooner is the spring
+come again than the birds are with us. Not always apparent to the eye,
+but everywhere their irrepressible gladness betrays their proximity; and
+all London is ringed round with a mist of melody, which presses on us,
+ambitious of winning its way even to the central heart of our citadel,
+creeping in, mist-like, along gardens and tree-planted roads, clinging
+to the greenery of parks and squares, and floating above the dull noises
+of the town as clouds fleecy and ethereal float above the earth.
+
+Among our spring visitors there is one which is neither aerial in
+habits, nor a melodist, yet is eminently attractive on account of its
+graceful form, pretty plumage, and amusing manners; nor must it be
+omitted as a point in its favour that it is not afraid to make itself
+very much at home with us in London.  [Footnote: Note that when this was
+written in 1893, the moor-hen was never known to winter in London; his
+habits have changed in this respect during the last two decades: he is
+now a permanent resident.] This is the little moor-hen, a bird
+possessing some strange customs, for which those who are curious about
+such matters may consult its numerous biographies. Every spring a few
+individuals of this species make their appearance in Hyde Park, and
+settle there for the season, in full sight of the fashionable world; for
+their breeding-place happens to be that minute transcript of nature
+midway between the Dell and Rotten Row, where a small bed of rushes and
+aquatic grasses flourishes in the stagnant pool forming the end of the
+Serpentine. Where they pass the winter--in what Mentone or Madeira of
+the ralline race--is not known. There is a pretty story, which
+circulated throughout Europe a little over fifty years ago, of a Polish
+gentleman, capturing a stork that built its nest on his roof every
+summer, and putting an iron collar on its neck with the inscription,
+"Haec Ciconia ex Polonia." The following summer it reappeared with
+something which shone very brightly on its neck, and when the stork was
+taken again this was found to be a collar of gold, with which the iron
+collar had been replaced, and on it were graven the words, "India cum
+donis remittit ciconian Polonis." No person has yet put an iron collar
+on the moor-hen to receive gifts in return, or followed its feeble
+fluttering flight to discover the limits of its migration which is
+probably no further away than the Kentish marshes and other wet
+sheltered spots in the south of England; that it leaves the country when
+it quits the park is not to be believed. Still, it goes with the wave,
+and with the wave returns; and, like the migratory birds that observe
+times and seasons, it comes back to its own home--that circumscribed
+spot of earth and water which forms its little world, and is more to it
+than all other reedy and willow-shaded pools and streams in England. It
+is said to be shy in disposition, yet all may see it here, within a few
+feet of the Row, with so many people continually passing, and so many
+pausing to watch the pretty birds as they trip about their little plot
+of green turf, deftly picking minute insects from the grass and not
+disdaining crumbs thrown by the children. A dainty thing to look at is
+that smooth, olive-brown little moor-hen, going about with such freedom
+and ease in its small dominion, lifting its green legs deliberately,
+turning its yellow beak and shield this way and that, and displaying the
+snow-white undertail at every step, as it moves with that quaint,
+graceful, jetting gait peculiar to the gallinules.
+
+Such a fact as this--and numberless facts just as significant all
+pointing to the same conclusion, might be adduced--shows at once how
+utterly erroneous is that often-quoted dictum of Darwin's that birds
+possess an instinctive or inherited fear of man. These moor-hens fear
+him not at all; simply because in Hyde Park they are not shot at, and
+robbed of their eggs or young, nor in any way molested by him. They fear
+no living thing, except the irrepressible small dog that occasionally
+bursts into the enclosure, and hunts them with furious barkings to their
+reedy little refuge. And as with these moor-hens, so it is with all wild
+birds; they fear and fly from, and suspiciously watch from a safe
+distance, whatever molests them, and wherever man suspends his hostility
+towards them they quickly outgrow the suspicion which experience has
+taught them, or which is traditional among them; for the young and
+inexperienced imitate the action of the adults they associate with, and
+learn the suspicious habit from them.
+
+It is also interesting and curious to note that a bird which inhabits
+two countries, in summer and winter, regulates his habits in accordance
+with the degree of friendliness or hostility exhibited towards him by
+the human inhabitants of the respective areas. The bird has in fact two
+traditions with regard to man's attitude towards him--one for each
+country. Thus, the field-fare is an exceedingly shy bird in England, but
+when he returns to the north if his breeding place is in some inhabited
+district in northern Sweden or Norway he loses all his wildness and
+builds his nest quite close to the houses. My friend Trevor Battye saw a
+pair busy making their nest in a small birch within a few yards of the
+front door of a house he was staying at. "How strange," said he to the
+man of the house, "to see field-fares making a nest in such a place!"
+
+"Why strange?" said the man in surprise. "Why strange? Because of the
+boys, always throwing stones at a bird. The nest is so low down, that
+any boy could put his hand in and take the eggs." "Take the eggs!" cried
+the man, more astonished than ever. "And throwing stones at a bird! Who
+ever heard of a boy doing such things!"
+
+Closely related to this error is another error, which is that noise in
+itself is distressing to birds, and has the effect of driving them away.
+To all sounds and noises which are not associated with danger to them,
+birds are absolutely indifferent. The rumbling of vehicles, puffing and
+shrieking of engines, and braying of brass bands, alarm them less than
+the slight popping of an air gun, where that modest weapon of
+destruction is frequently used against them. They have no "nerves" for
+noise, but the apparition of a small boy silently creeping along the
+hedge-side, in search of nests or throwing stones, is very terrifying to
+them. They fear not cattle and horses, however loud the bellowing may
+be; and if we were to transport and set loose herds of long-necked
+camelopards, trumpeting elephants, and rhinoceroses of horrible aspect,
+the little birds would soon fear them as little as they do the familiar
+cow. But they greatly fear the small-sized, quiet, unobtrusive, and
+meek-looking cat.  Sparrows and starlings that fly wildly at the shout
+of a small boy or the bark of a fox-terrier, build their nests under
+every railway arch; and the incubating bird sits unalarmed amid the iron
+plates and girders when the express train rushes overhead, so close to
+her that one would imagine that the thunderous jarring noise would cause
+the poor thing to drop down dead with terror. To this indifference to
+the mere harmless racket of civilization we owe it that birds are so
+numerous around, and even in, London; and that in Kew Gardens, which, on
+account of its position on the water side, and the numerous railroads
+surrounding it, is almost as much tortured with noise as Willesden or
+Clapham Junction, birds are concentrated in thousands. Food is not more
+abundant there than in other places; yet it would be difficult to find a
+piece of ground of the same extent in the country proper, where all is
+silent and there are no human crowds, with so large a bird population.
+They are more numerous in Kew than elsewhere, in spite of the noise and
+the people, because they are partially protected there from their human
+persecutors. It is a joy to visit the gardens in spring, as much to hear
+the melody of the birds as to look at the strange and lovely vegetable
+forms. On a June evening with a pure sunny sky, when the air is elastic
+after rain, how it rings and palpitates with the fine sounds that people
+it, and which seem infinite in variety! Has England, burdened with care
+and long estranged from Nature, so many sweet voices left? What aerial
+chimes are those wafted from the leafy turret of every tree? What
+clear, choral songs--so wild, so glad? What strange instruments, not
+made with hands, so deftly touched and soulfully breathed upon? What
+faint melodious murmurings that float around us, mysterious and tender
+as the lisping of leaves? Who could be so dull and exact as to ask the
+names of such choristers at such a time! Earthly names they have, the
+names we give them, when they visit us, and when we write about them in
+our dreary books; but, doubtless, in their brighter home in cloudland
+they are called by other more suitable appellatives. Kew is
+exceptionally favoured for the reason mentioned, but birds are also
+abundant where there are no hired men with red waistcoats and brass
+buttons to watch over their safety. Why do they press so persistently
+around us; and not in London only, but in every town and village, every
+house and cottage in this country? Why are they always waiting,
+congregating as far from us as the depth of garden, lawn, or orchard
+will allow, yet always near as they dare to come? It is not sentiment,
+and to be translated into such words as these: "Oh man, why are you
+unfriendly towards us, or else so indifferent to our existence that you
+do not note that your children, dependants, and neighbours cruelly
+persecute us? For we are for peace, and knowing you for the lord of
+creation, we humbly worship you at a distance, and wish for a share in
+your affection." No; the small, bright soul which is in a bird is
+incapable of such a motive, and has only the lesser light of instinct
+for its guide, and to the birds' instinct we are only one of the
+wingless mammalians inhabiting the earth, and with the cat and weasel
+are labelled "dangerous," but the ox and horse and sheep have no such
+label. Even our larger, dimmer eyes can easily discover the
+attraction. Let any one, possessing a garden in the suburbs of London,
+minutely examine the foliage at a point furthest removed from the house,
+and he will find the plants clean from insects; and as he moves back he
+will find them increasingly abundant until he reaches the door. Insect
+life is gathered thickly about us, for that birdless space which we have
+made is ever its refuge and safe camping ground. And the birds know. One
+came before we were up, when cat and dog were also sleeping, and a
+report is current among them. Like ants when a forager who has found a
+honey pot returns to the nest, they are all eager to go and see and
+taste for themselves. Their country is poor, for they have gathered its
+spoils, and now this virgin territory sorely tempts them. To those who
+know a bird's spirit it is plain that a mere suspension of hostile
+action on our part would have the effect of altering their shy habits,
+and bringing them in crowds about us. Not only in the orchard and grove
+and garden walks would they be with us, but even in our house. The
+robin, the little bird "with the red stomacher," would be there for the
+customary crumbs at meal-time, and many dainty fringilline pensioners
+would keep him company. And the wren would be there, searching
+diligently in the dusty angles of cornices for a savoury morsel; for it
+knows, this wise little Kitty Wren, that "the spider taketh hold with
+her hands, and is in king's palaces"; and wandering from room to room it
+would pour forth many a gushing lyric--a sound of wildness and joy in
+our still interiors, eternal Nature's message to our hearts.
+
+Who delights not in a bird? Yet how few among us find any pleasure in
+reading of them in natural history books! The living bird, viewed
+closely and fearless of our presence, is so much more to the mind than
+all that is written--so infinitely more engaging in its spontaneous
+gladness, its brilliant vivacity, and its motions so swift and true and
+yet so graceful! Even leaving out the melody, what a charm it would add
+to our homes if birds were permitted to take the part there for which
+Nature designed them--if they were the "winged wardens" of our gardens
+and houses as well as of our fields. Bird-biographies are always in our
+bookcases; and the bird-form meets our sight everywhere in decorative
+art Eastern and Western; for its aerial beauty is without parallel in
+nature; but the living birds, with the exception of the unfortunate
+captives in cages, are not with us.
+
+    A robin redbreast in a cage
+    Puts all heaven in a rage,
+
+sings Blake prophet and poet; and for "robin redbreast" I read every
+feathered creature endowed with the marvellous faculty of flight. Wild,
+and loving their safety and liberty, they keep at a distance, at the end
+of the garden or in the nearest grove, where from their perches they
+suspiciously watch our movements, always waiting to be encouraged,
+waiting to feed on the crumbs that fall from our table and are wasted,
+and on the blighting insects that ring us round with their living
+multitudes.
+
+
+
+
+THE EAGLE AND THE CANARY
+
+
+One week-day morning, following a crowd of well-dressed people, I
+presently found myself in a large church or chapel, where I spent an
+hour very pleasantly, listening to a great man's pulpit eloquence. He
+preached about genius. The subject was not suggested by the text, nor
+did it have any close relation with the other parts, of his discourse;
+it was simply a digression, and, to my mind, a very delightful one. He
+began about the restrictions to which we are all more or less subject,
+the aspirations that are never destined to be fulfilled, but are mocked
+by life's brevity. And it was at this point that--probably thinking of
+his own case--he branched off into the subject of genius; and proceeded
+to show that a man possessing that divine quality finds existence a
+much sadder affair than the ordinary man; the reason being that his
+aspirations are so much loftier than those of other minds, the
+difference between his ideal and reality must be correspondingly greater
+in his case. This was obvious--almost a truism; but the illustration by
+means of which he brought it home to his hearers was certainly born of
+poetic imagination. The life of the ordinary person he likened to that
+of the canary in its cage. And here, dropping his lofty didactic manner,
+and--if I may coin a word--smalling his deep, sonorous voice, to a thin
+reedy treble, in imitation of the tenuous fringilline pipe, he went on
+with lively language, rapid utterance, and suitable brisk movements and
+gestures, to describe the little lemon-coloured housekeeper in her
+gilded cage. Oh, he cried, what a bright, busy bustling life is hers,
+with so many things to occupy her time! how briskly she hops from perch
+to perch, then to the floor, and back from floor to perch again! how
+often she drops down to taste the seed in her box, or scatter it about
+her in a little shower! how curiously, and turning her bright eyes
+critically this way and that, she listens to every new sound and regards
+every object of sight! She must chirp and sing, and hop from place to
+place, and eat and drink, and preen her wings, and do at least a dozen
+different things every minute; and her time is so fully taken up that
+the narrow limits confining her are almost forgotten--the wires that
+separate her from the great world of wind-tossed woods, and of blue
+fields of air, and the free, buoyant life for which her instincts and
+faculties fit her, and which, alas! can never more be hers.
+
+All this sounded very pretty, as well as true, and there was a pleased
+smile on every face in the audience.
+
+Then the rapid movements and gestures ceased, and the speaker was
+silent. A cloud came over his rough-hewn majestic visage; he drew
+himself up, and swayed his body from side to side, and shook his black
+gown, and lifted his arms, as their plumed homologues are lifted by some
+great bird, and let them fall again two or three times; and then said,
+in deep measured tones, which seemed to express rage and despair, "But
+did you ever see the eagle in his cage?"
+
+The effect of the contrast was grand. He shook himself again, and lifted
+and dropped his arms again, assuming, for the nonce, the peculiar
+aquiline slouch; and there before us stood the mighty bird of Jove, as
+we are accustomed to see it in the Zoological Gardens; its deep-set,
+desolate eyes looking through and beyond us; ruffling its dark plumage,
+and lifting its heavy wings as if about to scorn the earth, only to drop
+them again, and to utter one of those long dreary cries which seem to
+protest so eloquently against a barbarous destiny. Then he proceeded to
+tell us of the great raptor in its life of hopeless captivity; his
+stern, rugged countenance, deep bass voice, and grand mouth-filling
+polysllables suiting his subject well, and making his description seem
+to our minds a sombre magnificent picture never to be forgotten--at all
+events, never by an ornithologist.
+
+Doubtless this part of his discourse proved eminently pleasing to the
+majority of his hearers, who, looking downwards into the depths of their
+own natures, would be able to discern there a glimmer, or possibly more
+than a glimmer of that divine quality he had spoken of, and which was,
+unhappily for them, not recognized by the world at large; so that, for
+the moment, he was addressing a congregation of captive eagles, all
+mentally ruffling their plumage and flapping their pinions, and uttering
+indignant screams of protest against the injustice of their lot.
+
+The illustration pleased me for a different reason, namely, because,
+being a student of bird-life, his contrasted picture of the two widely
+different kinds, when deprived of liberty, struck me as being singularly
+true to nature, and certainly it could not have been more forcibly and
+picturesquely put. For it is unquestionably the fact that the misery we
+inflict by tyrannously using the power we possess over God's creatures,
+is great in proportion to the violence of the changes of condition to
+which we subject our prisoners; and while canary and eagle are both more
+or less aerial in their mode of life, and possessed of boundless energy,
+the divorce from nature is immeasurably greater in one case than in the
+other. The small bird, in relation to its free natural life, is less
+confined in its cage than the large one. Its smallness, perching
+structure, and restless habits, fit it for continual activity, and its
+flitting, active life within the bars bears some resemblance except in
+the great matter of flight, to its life in a state of nature. Again, its
+lively, curious, and extremely impressible character, is in many ways an
+advantage in captivity; every new sound and sight, and every motion,
+however slight, in any object or body near it, affording it, so to
+speak, something to think about. It has the further advantage of a
+varied and highly musical language; the frequent exercise of the faculty
+of singing, in birds, with largely developed vocal organs, no doubt
+reacts on the system, and contributes not a little to keep the prisoner
+healthy and cheerful.
+
+On the other hand, the eagle, on account of its structure and large
+size, is a prisoner indeed, and must languish with all its splendid
+faculties and importunate impulses unexercised. You may gorge it with
+gobbets of flesh until its stomach cries, "Enough"; but what of all the
+other organs fed by the stomach, and their correlated faculties? Every
+bone and muscle and fibre, every feather and scale, is instinct with an
+energy which you cannot satisfy, and which is like an eternal hunger.
+Chain it by the feet, or place it in a cage fifty feet wide--in either
+case it is just as miserable. The illimitable fields of thin cold air,
+where it outrides the winds and soars exulting beyond the clouds, alone
+can give free space for the display of its powers and scope to its
+boundless energies. Nor to the power of flight alone, but also to a
+vision formed for sweeping wide horizons, and perceiving objects at
+distances which to short-sighted man seem almost miraculous.  Doubtless,
+eagles, like men, possess some adaptiveness, else they would perish in
+their enforced inactivity, swallowing without hunger and assimilating
+without pleasure the cold coarse flesh we give them. A human being can
+exist, and even be tolerably cheerful, with limbs paralyzed and hearing
+gone; and that, to my mind, would be a parallel case to that of the
+eagle deprived of its liberty and of the power to exercise its flight,
+vision, and predatory instincts.
+
+As I sit writing these thoughts, with a cage containing four canaries on
+the table before me, I cannot help congratulating these little prisoners
+on their comparatively happy fate in having been born, or hatched,
+finches and not eagles. And yet albeit I am not responsible for the
+restraint which has been put upon them, and am not their owner, being
+only a visitor in the house, I am troubled with some uncomfortable
+feelings concerning their condition--feelings which have an admixture of
+something like a sense of shame or guilt, as if an injustice had been
+done, and I had stood by consenting. I did not do it, but we did it. I
+remember Matthew Arnold's feeling lines on his dead canary, "Poor
+Matthias," and quote:
+
+    Yet, poor bird, thy tiny corse
+    Moves me, somehow, to remorse;
+    Something haunts my conscience, brings
+    Sad, compunctious visitings.
+    Other favourites, dwelling here,
+    Open lived with us, and near;
+    Well we knew when they were glad
+    Plain we saw if they were sad;
+    Sympathy could feel and show
+    Both in weal of theirs and woe.
+
+    Birds, companions more unknown,
+    Live beside us, but alone;
+    Finding not, do all they can,
+    Passage from their souls to man.
+    Kindness we bestow and praise,
+    Laud their plumage, greet their lays;
+    Still, beneath their feathered breast
+    Stirs a history unexpressed.
+    Wishes there, and feeling strong,
+    Incommunicably throng;
+    What they want we cannot guess.
+
+
+This, as poetry, is good, but it does not precisely fit my case; my
+"compunctious visitings" being distinctly different in origin and
+character from the poet's. He--Matthew Arnold--is a poet, and the author
+of much good verse, which I appreciate and hold dear. But he was not a
+naturalist--all men cannot be everything. And I, a naturalist, hold that
+the wishes, thronging the restless little feathered breast are not
+altogether so incommunicable as the melodious mourner of "Poor Matthias"
+imagines. The days--ay, and years--which I have spent in the society of
+my feathered friends have not, I flatter myself, been so wasted that I
+cannot small my soul, just as the preacher smalled his voice, to bring
+it within reach of them, and establish some sort of passage.
+
+And so, thinking that a little more knowledge of birds than most people
+possess, and consideration for them--for I will not be so harsh to speak
+of justice--and time and attention given to their wants, might remove
+this reproach, and silence these vague suggestions of a too fastidious
+conscience, I have taken the trouble to add something to the seed with
+which these little prisoners had been supplied. For we give sweetmeats
+to the child that cries for the moon--an alternative which often acts
+beneficially--and there is nothing more to be done. Any one of us, even
+a philosopher, would think it hard to be restricted to dry bread only,
+yet such a punishment would be small compared with that which we, in our
+ignorance or want of consideration, inflict on our caged animals--our
+pets on compulsion. Small, because an almost infinite variety of
+flavours drawn from the whole vegetable kingdom--a hundred flavours for
+every one in the dietary which satisfies our heavier mammalian
+natures--is a condition of the little wild bird's existence and
+essential to its well-being and perfect happiness. And so, to remedy
+this defect, I went out into the garden, and with seeding grasses and
+pungent buds, and leaves of a dozen different kinds, I decorated the
+cage until it looked less like a prison than a bower. And now for an
+hour the little creatures have been busy with their varied green
+fare, each one tasting half a dozen different leaves every minute,
+hopping here and there and changing places with his fellows, glancing
+their bright little eyes this way and that, and all the time uttering
+gratulatory notes in the canary's conversational tone. And their
+language is not altogether untranslatable. I listen to one, a pretty
+pure yellow bird, but slightly tyrannical in his treatment of the
+others, and he says, or seems to say: "This is good, I like it, only the
+old leaf is tough; the buds would be better. . . . These are certainly
+not so good. _I tasted them out of compliment to nature, though they
+were scarcely palatable. . . ._" No, that was not my own expression; it
+was said by Thoreau, perhaps the only human a little bird can quote with
+approval. "This is decidedly bitter--and yet--yes, it does leave a
+pleasant flavour on the palate. Make room for me there--or I shall make
+you and let me taste it again. Yes, I fancy I can remember eating
+something like this in a former state of existence, ages and ages ago."
+And so on, and so on, until I began to imagine that the whole thing had
+been put right, and that the uncomfortable feeling would return to
+trouble me no more. But at the rate they are devouring their green stuff
+there will not be a leat, scarcely a stem left in another hour; and
+then? Why, then they will have the naked wires of their cage all round
+them to protect them from the cat and for hunger there will be seed in
+the box.
+
+After all, then, what a little I have been able to do! But I flatter
+myself that if they were mine I should do more. I never keep captive
+birds, but if they were given to me, and I could not refuse, I should do
+a great deal more for them. All my knowledge of their ways and their
+requirements would teach me how to make their caged existence less
+unlike the old natural life, than it now is. To begin the ameliorating
+process, I should place them in a large cage, large enough to allow
+space for flight, so that they might fly to and fro, a few feet each
+way, and rest their little feet from continual perching. That would
+enable them to exercise their most important muscles and experience once
+more, although in a very limited degree, the old delicious sensation of
+gliding at will through the void air. The wires of their new cage would
+be of brass or of some bright metal, and the wooden parts and perches
+green enamelled, or green variegated with brown and grey, and the roof
+would be hung with glass lustres, to quiver and sparkle into drops of
+violet, red, and yellow light, gladdening these little lovers of bright
+colours; for so we deem them. I should also add gay flowers and berries,
+crocus and buttercup and dandelion, hips and haws and mountain ash and
+yellow and scarlet leaves--all seasonable jewellery from woods and
+hedges and from the orchard and garden. Then would come the heaviest
+part of my task, which would be to satisfy their continual craving for
+new tastes in food, their delight in an endless variety. I should go to
+the great seed-merchants of London and buy samples of all the cultivated
+seeds of the earth, and not feed them in a trough, or manger, like heavy
+domestic brutes, but give it to them mixed and scattered in small
+quantities, to be searched for and gladly found in the sand and gravel
+and turf on the wide floor of the cage. And, higher up, the wires of
+their dwelling would be hung with an endless variety of seeded grasses,
+and sprays of all trees and plants, good, bad, and indifferent. For if
+the volatile bird dines on no more than twenty dishes every day he
+loves to taste of a hundred and to have at least a thousand on the table
+to choose from.
+
+Feeding the birds and keeping the cage always sweet and clean would
+occupy most, if not the whole of my time. But would that be too much to
+give if it made me tranquil in my own mind? For it must be noted that I
+have done all this, mentally and on paper, for my own satisfaction
+rather than that of the canaries. Birds are not worth much--_to us_. Are
+not five sparrows sold for three farthings? I have even shot many birds
+and have felt no compunction. True, they perished before their time, but
+they did not languish, and being dead there was an end of them; but the
+caged canaries continuing with us, cannot be dismissed from the mind
+with the same convenient ease. After all, I begin to think that my
+imaginary reforms, if carried out, would not quite content me. The
+"compunctious visitings" would continue still. I look out of the window
+and see a sparrow on a neighbouring tree, loudly chirruping. And as I
+listen, trying to find comfort by thinking of the perils which do
+environ him, his careless unconventional sparrow-music resolves itself
+into articulate speech, interspersed with occasional bursts of derisive
+laughter. He knows, this fabulous sparrow, what I have been thinking
+about and have written. "How would you like it," I hear him saying, "O
+wise man that knows so much about the ways of birds, if you were shut up
+in a big cage--in Windsor Castle, let us say--with scores of menials to
+wait on you and anticipate your every want? That is, I must explain,
+every want compatible with--ahem!--the captive condition. Would you be
+happy in your confinement, practising with the dumb-bells, riding up and
+down the floors on a bicycle and gazing at pictures and filigree caskets
+and big malachite vases and eating dinners of many, many courses? Or
+would you begin to wish that you might be allowed to live on sixpence a
+day--_and earn it_; and even envy the ragged tramp who dines on a
+handful of half-rotten apples and sleeps in a hay-stack, but is free to
+come and go, and range the world at will? You have been playing at
+nature; but Nature mocks you, for your captives thank you not. They
+would rather go to her without an intermediary, and take a scantier
+measure of food from her hand, but flavoured as she only can flavour it.
+Widen your cage, naturalist; replace the little twinkling lustres with
+sun and moon and milky way; plant forests on the floor, and let there be
+hills and valleys, rivers and wide spaces; and let the blue pillars of
+heaven be the wires of your cage, with free entrance to wind and rain;
+then your little captives will be happy, even happy as I am, in spite of
+all the perils which do environ me--guns and cats and snares, with wet
+and fog and hard frosts to come."
+
+And, seeing my error, I should open the cage and let them fly away. Even
+to death, I should let them fly, for there would be a taste of liberty
+first, and life without that sweet savour, whether of aerial bird or
+earth-bound man, is not worth living.
+
+
+
+
+CHANTICLEER
+
+
+During the month of September I spent several days at a house standing
+on high ground in one of the pleasantest suburbs of London, commanding a
+fine view at the back of the breezy, wooded, and not very far-off Surrey
+hills; and all round, from every window, front and back, such a mass of
+greenery met the eye, almost concealing the neighbouring houses, that I
+could easily imagine myself far out in the country. In the garden the
+omnipresent sparrow, and that always pleasant companion the starling,
+associated with the thrush, blackbird, green linnet, chaffinch,
+redstart, wren, and two species of tits; and, better than all these, not
+fewer than half a dozen robins warbled their autumn notes from early
+morning until late in the evening. Domestic bird-life was also
+represented by fifteen fowls, and the wise laxity existing in the
+establishment made these also free of the grounds; for of eyesores and
+painful skeletons in London cupboards, one of the worst, to my mind, is
+that unwholesome coop at the back where a dozen unhappy birds are
+usually to be found immured for life. These, more fortunate, had ample
+room to run about in, and countless broad shady leaves from which to
+pick the green caterpillar, and red tortoise-shaped lady-bird, and
+parti-coloured fly, and soft warm soil in which to bathe in their own
+gallinaceous fashion, and to lie with outstretched wings luxuriating by
+the hour in the genial sunshine. And having seen their free wholesome
+life, I did not regard the new-laid egg on the breakfast-table with a
+feeling of repugnance, but ate it with a relish.
+
+I have said that the fowls numbered fifteen; five were old birds, and
+ten were chickens, closely alike in size, colour and general appearance.
+They were not the true offspring of the hen that reared them, but
+hatched from eggs bought from a local poultry-breeder. As they advanced
+in age to their teens, or the period in chicken-life corresponding to
+that in which, in the human species, boy and girl begin to diverge,
+their tails grew long, and they developed very fine red combs; but the
+lady of the house, who had been promised good layers when she bought the
+eggs clung tenaciously to the belief that long arching tails and stately
+crests were ornaments common to both sexes in this particular breed. By
+and by they commenced to crow, first one, then two, then all, and stood
+confessed cockerels. Incidents like this, which are of frequent
+occurrence, serve to keep alive the exceedingly ancient notion that the
+sex of the future chick can be foretold from the shape of the egg. As I
+had no personal interest in the question of the future egg-supply of the
+establishment, I was not sorry to see the chickens develop into cocks;
+what did interest me were their first attempts at crowing--those grating
+sounds which the young bird does not seem to emit, but to wrench out
+with painful effort, as a plant is wrenched out of the soil, and not
+without bringing away portions of the lungs clinging to its roots. The
+bird appears to know what is coming, like an amateur dentist about to
+extract one of his own double-pronged teeth, and setting his feet
+firmly on the ground, and throwing himself well back before an imaginary
+looking-glass, and with arched-neck, wide-open beak, and rolling eyes,
+courageously performs the horrible operation. One cannot help thinking
+that a cockerel brought up without any companions of his own sex and age
+would not often crow, but in this instance there were no fewer than ten
+of them to encourage each other in the laborious process of tuning thejr
+harsh throats. Heard subsequently in the quiet of the early morning,
+these first tuning efforts suggested some reflections to my mind, which
+may not prove entirely without interest to fanciers who aim at something
+beyond a mere increase in our food-supply in their selecting and
+refining processes.
+
+To continue my narration. I woke in the morning at my usual time,
+between three and four o'clock, which is not my getting-up time, for, as
+a rule, after half an hour or so I sleep again. The waking is not
+voluntary as far as I know; for although it may seem a contradiction in
+terms to speak of coming at will out of a state of unconsciousness, we
+do, in cases innumerable, wake voluntarily, or at the desired time, not
+perhaps being altogether unconscious when sleeping. If, however, this
+early waking were voluntary, I should probably say that it was for the
+pleasure of listening to the crowing of the cocks at that silent hour
+when the night, so near its end, is darkest, and the mysterious tide of
+life, prescient of coming dawn, has already turned, and is sending the
+red current more and more swiftly through the sleeper's veins. I have
+spent many a night in the desert, and when waking on the wide silent
+grassy plain, the first whiteness in the eastern sky, and the fluting
+call of the tinamou, and the perfume of the wild evening primrose, have
+seemed to me like a resurrection in which I had a part; and something of
+this feeling is always associated in my mind with the first far-heard
+notes of Chanticleer.
+
+It was very dark and quiet when I woke; my window was open, with only a
+lace curtain before it to separate me from the open air. Presently the
+profound silence was broken. From a distance of fifty or sixty yards
+away on the left hand came the crow of a cock, soon answered by another
+further away on the same side, and then, further away still, by a third.
+Other voices took up the challenge on the right, some near, some far,
+until it seemed that there was scarcely a house in the neighbourhood at
+which Chanticleer was not a dweller. There was no other sound. Not for
+another hour would the sparrows burst out in a chorus of chirruping
+notes, lengthened or shortened at will, variously inflected, and with a
+ringing musical sound in some of them, which makes one wonder why this
+bird, so high in the scale of nature, has never acquired a set song for
+itself. For there is music in him, and when confined with a singing
+finch he will sometimes learn its song. Then the robins, then the tits,
+then the starlings, gurgling, jarring, clicking, whistling, chattering.
+Then the pigeons cooing soothingly on the roof and window-ledges, taking
+flight from time to time with sudden, sharp flap, flap, followed by a
+long, silken sound made by the wings in gliding. At four the cocks had
+it all to themselves; and, without counting the cockerels (not yet out
+of school), I could distinctly hear a dozen birds; that is to say, they
+were near enough for me to listen to their music critically. The variety
+of sounds they emitted was very great, and, if cocks were selected for
+their vocal qualities, would have shown an astonishing difference in the
+musical tastes of their owners. A dozen dogs of as many different
+breeds, ranging from the boar-hound to the toy terrier, would not have
+shown greater dissimilarity in their forms than did these cocks in their
+voices. For the fowl, like the dog, has become an extremely variable
+creature in the domestic state, in voice no less than in size, form,
+colour, and other particulars. At one end of the scale there was the
+raucous bronchial strain produced by the unwieldy Cochin. What a bird is
+that! Nature, in obedience to man's behests, and smiling with secret
+satire over her work, has made it ponderous and ungraceful as any clumsy
+mammalian, wombat, ardvaark, manatee, or hippopotamus. The burnished red
+hackles, worn like a light mantle over the black doublet of the breast,
+the metallic dark green sickle-plumes arching over the tail, all the
+beautiful lines and rich colouring, have been absorbed into flesh and
+fat for gross feeders; and with these have gone its liveliness and
+vigour, its clarion voice and hostile spirit and brilliant courage; it
+is Gallus bankiva degenerate, with dulled brains and blunted spurs, and
+its hoarse crow is a barbarous chant.
+
+And far away at the other end, startling in its suddenness and
+impetuosity, was a trisyllabic crow, so brief, piercing, and emphatic,
+that it could only have proceeded from that peppery uppish little bird,
+the bantam. And of the three syllables, the last, which should be the
+longest, was the shortest, "short and sharp like the shrill swallow's
+cry," or perhaps even more like the shrieky bark of an enraged little
+cur; not a _reveille_ and silvern morning song in one, as a crow should
+be, but a challenge and a defiance, wounding the sense like a spur, and
+suggesting the bustle and fury of the cockpit.
+
+If this style of crowing was known to Milton, it is perhaps accountable
+for the one bad couplet in the "Allegro":
+
+  While the cock with lively din
+  Scatters the rear of darkness thin.
+
+Someone has said that every line in that incomparable poem brings at
+least one distinct picture vividly before the mind's eye. The picture
+the first line of the couplet I have quoted suggests to ray mind is not
+of crowing Chanticleer at all, but of a stalwart, bare-armed,
+blowsy-faced woman, vigorously beating on a tin pan with a stick; but
+for what purpose--whether to call down a passing swarm of bees, or to
+summon the chickens to be fed--I never know. It is only my mental
+picture of a "lively din." As to the second line, all attempts to see
+the thing described only bring before me clouds and shadows, confusedly
+rushing about in an impossible way; a chaos utterly unlike the serenity
+and imperceptible growth of morning, and not a picture at all.
+
+By and by I found myself paying special attention to one cock, about a
+hundred yards away, or a little more perhaps, for by contrast all the
+other songs within hearing seemed strangely inferior. Its voice was
+singularly clear and pure, the last note greatly prolonged and with a
+slightly falling inflection, yet not collapsing at the finish as such
+long notes frequently do, ending with a little internal sound or croak,
+as if the singer had exhausted his breath; but it was perfect in its
+way, a finished performance, artistic, and, by comparison, brilliant.
+After once hearing this bird I paid little attention to the others, but
+after each resounding call I counted the seconds until its repetition.
+It was this bird's note, on this morning, and not the others, which
+seemed to bring round me that atmosphere of dreams and fancies I exist
+in at early cockcrow--dreams and memories, sweet or sorrowful, of old
+scenes and faces, and many eloquent passages in verse and prose, written
+by men in other and better days, who lived more with nature than we do
+now. Such a note as this was, perhaps, in Thoreau's mind when he
+regretted that there were no cocks to cheer him in the solitude of
+Walden. "I thought," he says, "that it might be worth while keeping a
+cockerel for his music merely, as a singing bird. The note of this once
+wild Indian pheasant is certainly the most remarkable of any bird's, and
+if they could be naturalized without being domesticated it would soon
+become the most famous sound in our woods. . . . To walk in a winter
+morning in a wood where these birds abounded, their native woods, and
+hear the wild cockerels crow on the trees, clear and shrill for miles
+over the surrounding country--think of it! It would put nations on the
+alert. Who would not be early to rise, and rise earlier and earlier on
+each successive morning of his life, till he became unspeakably healthy,
+wealthy, and wise?"
+
+Soon I fell into thinking of one in some ways greater than Thoreau, so
+unlike the skyey-minded New England prophet and solitary, so much more
+genial and tolerant, more mundane and lovable; and yet like Thoreau in
+his nearness to nature. Not only a lover of generous wines--"That mark
+upon his lip is wine"--and books "clothed in black and red," all natural
+sights and sounds also "filled his herte with pleasure and solass," and
+the early crowing of the cock was a part of the minstrelsy he loved.
+Perhaps when lying awake during the dark quiet hours, and listening to
+just such a note as this, he conceived and composed that wonderful tale
+of the "Nun's Priest," in which the whole character of Chanticleer, his
+glory and his foibles, together with the homely virtues of Dame
+Partlett, are so admirably set forth.
+
+And longer ago it was perhaps such a note as this, heard in imagination
+by the cock-loving Athenians, which all at once made them feel so
+unutterably weary of endless fighting with the Lacedaemonians, and
+inspired their hearts with such a passionate desire for the long
+untasted sweets of security and repose. Is it one of my morning fancies
+merely--for fact and fancy mingle strangely at this still, mysterious
+hour, and are scarcely distinguishable--or is it related in history that
+this strange thing happened when all the people of the violet-crowned
+city were gathered to witness a solemn tragedy, in which certain verses
+were spoken that had a strange meaning to their war-weary souls? "Those
+who sleep in the morning in the arms of peace do not start from them at
+the sound of the trumpet, and nothing interrupts their slumbers but the
+peaceful crowing of the cock." And at these words the whole concourse
+was electrified, and rose up like one man, and from thousands of lips
+went forth a great cry of "Peace! Peace! Let us make peace with Sparta!"
+
+Hark! once more that long clarion call: it is the last time--the very
+last; for all the others have sung a dozen times apiece and have gone to
+sleep again. So would this one have done, but cocks, like minstrels
+among men, are vain creatures, and some kind officious fairy whispered
+in his ear that there was an appreciative listener hard by, and so to
+please me he sang, just one stave more.
+
+Lying and listening in the dark, it seemed to me that there were two
+opposite qualities commingled in the sound, with an effect analogous to
+that of shadow mingling with and chastening light at eventide. First, it
+was strong and clear, full of assurance and freedom, qualities admirably
+suited to the song of a bird of Chanticleer's disposition; a lusty,
+ringing strain, not sung in the clouds or from a lofty perch midway
+between earth and heaven, but with feet firmly planted on the soil, and
+earthly; and compared with the notes of the grove like a versified
+utterance of Walt Whitman compared with the poems of the true inspired
+children of song--Blake, Shelley, Poe. Earthly, but not hostile and
+eager; on the contrary, leisurely, _peaceful_ even dreamy, with a touch
+of tenderness which brings it into relationship with the more aerial
+tones of the true singers; and this is the second quality I spoke of,
+which gave a charm to this note and made it seem better than the others.
+This is partly the effect of distance, which clarifies and softens
+sound, just as distance gives indistinctness of outline and ethereal
+blueness to things that meet the sight. To objects beautiful in
+themselves, in graceful lines and harmonious proportions and colouring,
+the haziness imparts an additional grace; but it does not make beautiful
+the objects which are ugly in themselves, as, for instance, an ugly
+square house. So in the etherealizing effect of distance on sound, when
+so loud a sound as the crowing of a strong-lunged cock becomes dreamy
+and tender at a distance of one hundred yards, there must be good
+musical elements in it to begin with.  I do not remark this dreaminess
+in the notes of other birds, some crowing at an equal distance, others
+still further away. All natural music is heard best at a distance; like
+the chiming of bells, and the music of the flute, and the wild confused
+strains of the bagpipes, for among artificial sounds these come the
+nearest to those made by nature.  The "shrill sharps" of the thrush must
+be softened by distance to charm; and the skylark, when close at hand,
+has both shrill and harsh sounds scarcely pleasing. He must mount
+high before you can appreciate his merit. I do not recommend any one to
+keep a caged cock in his study for the sake of its music, crow it never
+so well.
+
+To return to the ten cockerels; they did not crow very much, and at
+first I paid little attention to them. After a few days I remarked that
+one individual among them was rapidly acquiring the clear vigorous
+strain of the adult bird. Compared with that fine note which I have
+described, it was still weak and shaky, but in shape it was similar, and
+the change had come while its brethren were still uttering brief and
+harsh screeches as at the beginning. Probably, where there is a great
+mixture of varieties, it is the same with the fowl as with man in the
+diversity of the young, different ancestral characters appearing in
+different members of the same family. This cockerel was apparently the
+musical member, and promised in a short time to rival his neighbour.
+Having heard that it was intended to keep one of the cockerels to be the
+parent of future broods, I began to wonder whether the prize in the
+lottery--to wit, life and a modest harem--would fall to this fine
+singer or not. The odds were that his musical career would be cut short
+by an early death, since the ten birds were very much alike in other
+respects, and I felt perfectly sure that his superior note would weigh
+nothing in the balance. For when has the character of the voice
+influenced a fancier in selecting? Never I believe, odd as it seems. I
+have read a very big book on the various breeds of the fowl, but the
+crowing of the cock was not mentioned in it.  This would not seem so
+strange if fanciers had invariably looked solely to utility, and their
+highest ambition had ended at size, weight and quality of flesh, early
+maturity, hardihood, and the greatest number of eggs. This has not been
+the case. They possess, like others, the love of the beautiful,
+artificial as their standards sometimes appear; and there are breeds in
+which beauty seems to have been the principal object, as, for instance,
+in several of the gold and silver spangled and pencilled varieties. But,
+besides beauty of plumage, there are other things in the fowl worthy of
+being improved by selection. One of these has been cultivated by man for
+thousands of years, namely, the combative spirit and splendid courage of
+the male bird. But there is a spirit abroad now which condemns
+cock-fighting, and to continue selecting and breeding cocks solely for
+their game-points seems a mere futility. The energy and enthusiasm
+expended in this direction would be much better employed in improving
+the bird's vocal powers.
+
+The morning song of the cock is a sound unique in nature, and of all
+natural sounds it is the most universal. "All climates agree with brave
+Chanticleer. He is more indigenous even than the natives. His health is
+ever good; his lungs are sound; his spirits never flag." He is a pet
+bird among tribes that have never seen the peacock, goose, and turkey.
+In tropical countries where the dog becomes dumb, or degenerates into a
+mere growler, his trumpet never rusts. It is true that he was cradled in
+the torrid zone, yet in all Western lands, where he "shakes off the
+powdery snow," with vigorous wings, his voice sounds as loud and
+inspiriting as in the hot jungle. Pale-faced Londoners, and blacks, and
+bronzed or painted barbarians, all men all the world over, wake at morn
+to the "peaceful crowing of the cock," just as the Athenians woke of
+old, and the nations older still. It is not, therefore, strange that
+this song has more associations for man than any other sound in nature.
+But, apart from any adventitious claims to our attention, the sound
+possesses intrinsic merits and pleases for its own sake. In our other
+domestic birds we have, with regard to this point, been unfortunate. We
+have the gobbling of turkeys, and the hoarse, monotonous come back of
+the guinea-fowl, screaming of peacocks and geese, and quacking, hissing,
+and rasping of mallard and mus-covy. Above all these sounds the ringing,
+lusty, triumphant call of Chanticleer, as the far-reaching toll of the
+bell-bird sounds above the screaming and chattering of parrots and
+toucans in the Brazilian forest. A fine sound, which in spite of many
+changes of climate and long centuries of domestication still preserves
+that forest-born character of wildness, which gives so great a charm to
+the language of many woodland gallinaceous birds. As we have seen, it is
+variable, and in some artificial varieties has been suffered to
+degenerate into sounds harsh and disagreeable; yet it is plain that an
+improved voice in a beautiful breed would double the bird's value from
+an aesthetic point of view. As things now are, the fine voices are in a
+very small minority. Some bad voices in artificial breeds, i.e., those
+which, like the Brahma and Cochin, diverge most widely from the original
+type--are perhaps incurable, like the carrion crow's voice; for that
+bird will probably always caw harshly in spite of the musical throat
+which anatomists find in it. We can only listen to our birds, and begin
+experimenting with those already possessed of shapely notes and voices
+of good quality.
+
+I am not going to be so ill-mannered as to conclude without an apology
+to those among us who under no circumstances can tolerate the crowing of
+the cock. It is true that I have not been altogether unmindful of their
+prepossessions, and have freely acknowledged in divers places that
+Chanticleer does not always please, and that there is abundant room for
+improvement; but if they go further than that, if for them there exists
+not on this round globe a cock whose voice would fail to irritate, then
+I have not shown consideration enough, and something is still owing to
+their feelings, which are very acute. It is possible that one of these
+sensitive persons may take up my book, and, attracted by its title, dip
+into this paper, hoping to find in it a practical suggestion for the
+effectual muzzling of the obnoxious bird. The only improvement which
+would fall in with such a one's ideas on the subject of cock-crowing
+would be to improve this kind of natural music out of existence.
+Naturally the paper would disappoint him; he would be grieved at the
+writer's erroneous views. I hope that his feelings would take no acuter
+form. I have listened to a person, usually mild-mannered, denouncing a
+neighbour in the most unmeasured terms for the crime of keeping a
+crowing cock. If the cock had been a non-crower, a silent member, it
+would have been different: he would hardly have known that he had a
+neighbour. There is a very serious, even a sad, side to this question.
+Mr. Sully maintains that as civilization progresses, and as we grow more
+intellectual, all noise, which is pleasing to children and savages, and
+only exhilarates their coarse and juvenile brains, becomes increasingly
+intolerable to us. What unfortunate creatures we then are! We have got
+our pretty rattle and are now afraid that the noise it makes is going to
+be the death of us. But what is noise? Will any two highly intellectual
+beings agree as to the particular sound which produces the effect of
+rusty nails thrust in among the convolutions of the brain? Physicians
+are continually discovering new forms of nervous maladies, caused by the
+perpetual hurry and worry and excitement of our modern life; and perhaps
+there is one form in which natural sounds, which being natural should be
+agreeable, or at any rate innocent, become more and more abhorrent. This
+is a question which concerns the medical journals; also, to some extent,
+those who labour to forecast the future. Happily, all our maladies are
+thrown off, sooner or later, if they do not kill us; and we can
+cheerfully look forward to a time when the delicate chords in us shall
+no longer be made to vibrate "like sweet bells jangled out of tune and
+harsh" to any sound in nature, and when the peaceful crowing of the cock
+shall cease to madden the early waker. For, whatever may be the fate
+awaiting our city civilization, brave Chanticleer, improved as to his
+voice or not, will undoubtedly still be with us.
+
+
+
+
+IN AN OLD GARDEN
+
+
+A sunny morning in June--a golden day among days that have mostly a
+neutral tint; a large garden, with no visible houses beyond, but green
+fields and unkept hedges and great silent trees, oak and ash and
+elm--could I wish, just now, for a more congenial resting-place, or even
+imagine one that comes nearer to my conception of an earthly paradise?
+It is true that once I could not drink deeply enough from the sweet and
+bitter cup of wild nature, and loved nature best, and sought it gladly
+where it was most savage and solitary. But that was long ago. Now, after
+years of London life, during which I have laboured like many another "to
+get a wan pale face," with perhaps a wan pale mind to match, that past
+wildness would prove too potent and sharp a tonic; unadulterated nature
+would startle and oppress me with its rude desolate aspect, no longer
+familiar. This softness of a well-cultivated earth, and unbroken verdure
+of foliage in many shades, and harmonious grouping and blending of
+floral hues, best suit my present enervated condition. I had, I imagine,
+a swarter skin and firmer flesh when I could ride all day over great
+summer-parched plains, where there was not a bush that would have
+afforded shelter to a mannikin, and think that I was having a pleasant
+journey. The cloudless sky and vertical sun--how intolerable they would
+now seem, and scorch my brain and fill my shut eyes with dancing flames!
+At present even this mild June sun is strong enough to make the old
+mulberry tree on the lawn appear grateful. It is an ancient,
+rough-barked tree, with wide branches, that droop downwards all round,
+and rest their terminal leaves on the sward; underneath it is a natural
+tent, or pavilion, with plenty of space to move about and sling a
+hammock in. Here, then, I have elected to spend the hottest hours of my
+one golden day, reading, dreaming, listening at intervals to the fine
+bird-sounds that have a medicinal and restorative effect on the jarred
+and wounded sense.
+
+From the elms hard by comes a subdued, airy prattle of a few sparrows.
+It is rather pleasant, something like a low accompaniment to the notes
+of the more tuneful birds; the murmurous music of a many-stringed
+instrument, forming the indistinct ground over which runs the bright
+embroidery of clear melodious singing.
+
+This morning, while lying awake from four to five o'clock, I almost
+hated the sparrows, they were there in such multitudes, and so loud and
+persistent sounded their jangling through the open window. It set me
+thinking of the England of the future--of a time a hundred years hence,
+let us say--when there will remain with us only two representatives of
+feral life--the sparrow and the house-fly. Doubtless it will come,
+unless something happens; but, doubtless, it will not continue. It will
+still be necessary for a man to kill something in order to be happy; and
+the sportsmen of that time, like great Gambetta, in the past, will sit
+in the balconies, popping with pea-rifles at the sparrows until not one
+is left to twitter. Then will come the turn of the untamed and untamable
+fly; and he will afford good sport if hunted a la Domitain, with fine,
+needle-tipped paper javelins, thrown to impale him on the wall.
+
+One of our savants has lately prophesied that the time will come when
+only the microscopic organisms will exist to satisfy the hunting
+instinct in man. How these small creatures will be taken he does not
+tell us. Perhaps the hunters will station themselves round a table with
+a drop of preserved water on its centre, made large and luminous by
+means of a ray of magnifying light. When that time comes the
+amoeba--that "wandering Jew," as an irreverent Quarterly Reviewer has
+called it--will lose its immortality, and the spry rotifer will fall a
+victim to the infinitesimal fine bright arrows of the chase. A strange
+quarry for men whose paeliolithic progenitors hunted the woolly mastodon
+and many-horned rhinoceros and sabre-toothed tiger!
+
+That sad day of very small things for the sportsman is, however, not
+near, nor within measurable distance; or, so it seemed to me when, an
+hour ago, I strolled round the garden, curiously peering into every
+shrub, to find the visible and comparatively noble insect-life in great
+abundance. Beetles were there--hard, round, polished, and of various
+colours, like sea-worn pebbles on the beach; and some, called lady-birds
+in the vernacular, were bound like the books that Chaucer loved in black
+and red. And the small gilded fly, not less an insect light-headed, a
+votary of vain delights, than in the prehistoric days when a
+white-headed old king, discrowned and crazed, railed against sweet
+Nature's liberty. And ever waiting to welcome this inconstant lover
+(with falces) there sits the solitary geometric spider, an image and
+embodiment of patience, not on a monument, but a suspended wheel of
+which he is himself the hub; and so delicately fashioned are the silver
+spokes thereof, radiating from his round and gem-like body, and the
+rings, concentric tire within tire, that its exceeding fineness, like
+swift revolving motion, renders it almost invisible. Caterpillars, too,
+in great plenty--miniature porcupines with fretful quills on end, and
+some naked even as they came into the world. This one, called the
+earth-measurer, has drunk himself green with chlorophyll so as to escape
+detection. Vain precaution! since eccentric motion betrays him to keen
+avian eyes, when, like the traveller's snake, he erects himself on the
+tip of his tail and sways about in empty space, vaguely feeling for
+something, he knows not what. And the mechanical tortrix that rolls up a
+leaf for garment and food, and preys on his own case and shelter until
+he has literally eaten himself stark naked; after which he rolls up a
+second leaf, and so on progressively. Thus in his larval life does he
+symbolize some restless nation that makes itself many successive
+constitutions and forms of government, in none of which it abides long;
+but afterwards some higher thing, when he rests motionless, in form like
+a sarcophagus, whence the infolded life emerges to haunt the twilight--a
+grey ghost moth. There is no end to rolled-up leaves, and to the variety
+of creatures that are housed in them; for, just as the "insect tribes of
+human kind" in all places and in all ages, while seeking to improve
+their condition, independently hit on the same means and inventions, so
+it is with these small six-legged people; and many species in many
+places have found out the comfort and security of the green cylinder.
+
+So many did I open that I at last grew tired of the process, like a man
+to whom the post has brought too many letters; but there was one--the
+last I opened--the living active contents of which served to remind me
+that some insects are unable to make a cylinder for themselves, having
+neither gum nor web to fasten it with, and yet they will always find one
+made by others to shelter themselves in. Here were no fewer than six
+unbeautiful creatures, brothers and sisters, hatched from eggs on which
+their parent earwig sat incubating just like an eagle or dove or
+swallow, or, better still, like a pelican; for in the end did she not
+give of her own life-fluid to nourish her children? Unbeautiful, yet not
+without a glory superior to that of the Purple Emperor, and the angelic
+blue Morpho, and the broad-winged Ornithoptera, that caused an
+illustrious traveller to swoon with joy at the sight of its supreme
+loveliness. Du Maurier has a drawing of a little girl in a garden gazing
+at two earwigs racing along a stem. "I suppose," she remarks
+interrogatively to her mamma, "that these are Mr. and Mrs. Earwig?" and
+on being answered affirmatively, exclaims, "What could they have seen in
+each other?" What they saw was blue blood, or something in insectology
+corresponding to it. The earwig's lustre is that of antiquity. He
+existed on earth before colour came in; and colour is old, although not
+so old as Nature's unconscious aestheticism which, in the organic world,
+is first expressed in beauty of form. It is long since the great May
+flies, large as swifts, had their aerial cloudy dances over the vast
+everglades and ancient forests of ferns; and when, on some dark night, a
+brilliant Will-o'-the-wisp rose and floated above the feathery foliage,
+drawn in myriads to its light, they revolved about it in an immense
+mystical wheel, misty-white, glistening, and touched with prismatic
+colour. Floating fire and wheel were visible only to the stars, and the
+wakeful eyes of giant scaly monsters lying quiescent in the black waters
+below; but they were very beautiful nevertheless. The modest earwig was
+old on the earth even then; he dates back to the time, immeasurably
+remote, when scorpions possessed the earth, and taught him to frighten
+his enemies with a stingless tail--that curious antique little tail
+which has not yet forgot its cunning.
+
+Greater than all these inhabitants of the garden, ancient or modern by
+reason of their numbers, which is the sign of predominance, are the
+small wingless people that have colonies on every green stem and under
+every green leaf.
+
+These are the true generators of that heavenly sweat, or saliva of the
+stars, concerning which Pliny the Younger wrote so learnedly. And they
+are many tribes--green, purple, brown, isabel-line; but all are one
+nation, and sacred to that fair god whom the Carian water-nymph loved
+not wisely but too well. For, albeit the children of an ancient union,
+they marry not, nor are given in marriage, yet withal multiply
+exceedingly, so that one (not two) may in a single season produce a
+billion. And at last when autumn comes, won back from the cold god to
+his hot mother, they know love and wedlock, and die like all married
+things. These are the Aphides--sometimes unprettily called plant-lice,
+and vaguely spoken of by the uninformed as "blight"--and they nourish
+themselves on vegetable juices, that thin green blood which is the
+plant's life.
+
+This, then, is the fruit which the birds have, come to gather. In June
+is their richest harvest; it is more bountiful than September, when
+apples redden, and grapes in distant southern lands are gathered for the
+wine-press. In yon grey wall at the end of the lawn, just above the
+climbing rose-bush, there are now seven hungry infants in one small
+cradle, each one, some one says, able to consume its own weight of
+insect food every day. I am inclined to believe that it must be so,
+while trying to count the visits paid to the nest in one hour by the
+parent tits--those small tits that do the gardener so much harm! We
+know, on good authority, that the spider has a "nutty flavour"; and most
+insects in the larval stage afford succulent and toothsome, or at all
+events beaksome, morsels. These are, just now, the crimson cherries,
+purple and yellow plums, currants, red, white, and black--and
+sun-painted peaches, asking in their luscious ripeness for a mouth to
+melt in, that fascinate finch and flycatcher alike, and make the
+starlings smack their horny lips with a sound like a loving kiss.
+
+Not that I care, or esteem birds for what they eat or do not eat. With
+all these creatures that are at strife among themselves, and that birds
+prey upon, I am at peace, even to the smallest that are visible--the red
+spider which is no spider; and the minute gossamer spider clinging to
+the fine silvery hairs of the flying summer; and the coccus that fall
+from the fruit trees to float on their buoyant cottony down--a summer
+snow. Fils de la Vierge are these, and sacred. The man who can
+needlessly set his foot on a worm is as strange to my soul as De
+Quincey's imaginary Malay, or even his "damned crocodile." The worm that
+one sees lying bruised and incapable on the gravel walk has fallen among
+thieves. These little lives do me good and not harm. I smell the acid
+ants to strengthen my memory. I know that if I set an overturned
+cockchafer on his legs three sins shall be forgiven me; that if I am
+kindly tolerant of the spider that drops accidentally on my hand or
+face, my purse shall be mysteriously replenished. At the same time, one
+has to remember that such sentiments, as a rule, are not understood by
+those who have charge over groves and gardens, whose minds are ignorant
+and earthy, or, as they would say, practical. Of the balance of nature
+they know and care naught, nor can they regard life as sacred; it is
+enough to know that it is or may be injurious to their interests for
+them to sweep it away. The small thing that has been flying about and
+uttering musical sounds since April may, when July comes, devour a
+certain number of cherries. Nor is even this plea needed. If it is
+innocent for the lower creatures to prey upon one another, it cannot be
+less innocent for man to destroy them indiscriminately, if it gives him
+any pleasure to do so. It is idle to go into such subtle questions with
+those who have the power to destroy; if their hands are to be restrained
+it is not by appealing to feelings which they do not possess, but to
+their lower natures--to their greed and their cunning. For the rest of
+us, for all who have conquered or outgrown the killing instinct, the
+impartiality that pets nothing and persecutes nothing is doubtless man's
+proper attitude towards the inferior animals; a godlike benevolent
+neutrality; a keen and kindly interest in every form of life, with
+indifference as to its ultimate destiny; the softness which does no
+wrong with the hardness that sees no wrong done.
+
+To return to the birds. The starlings have kissed like lovers, and
+fluttered up vertically on their short wings, trying to stream like
+eagles, only to return to the trees once more and sit there chattering
+pleasant nothings; at intervals throwing out those soft, round,
+modulated whistled notes, just as an idle cigarette-smoker blows rings
+of blue smoke from his lips; and now they have flown away to the fields
+so that I can listen to the others,
+
+A thrush is making music on a tall tree beyond the garden hedge, and I
+am more grateful for the distance that divides us than for the song;
+for, just now, he does not sing so well as sometimes of an evening, when
+he is most fluent, and a listener, deceived by his sweetness and melody,
+writes to the papers to say that he has heard the nightingale. Just now
+his song is scrappy, composed of phrases that follow no order and do not
+fit or harmonize, and is like a poor imitation of an inferior
+mocking-bird's song.
+
+Between the scraps of loud thrush-music I listen to catch the thin,
+somewhat reedy sound of a yellow-hammer singing in the middle of the
+adjoining grassy field. It comes well from the open expanse of purpling
+grass, and reminds me of a favourite grasshopper in a distant sunny
+land. O happy grasshopper! singing all day in the trees and tall
+herbage, in a country where every village urchin is not sent afield to
+"study natural history" with green net and a good store of pins, shall I
+ever again hear thy breezy music, and see thee among the green leaves,
+beautiful with steel-blue and creamy-white body, and dim purple over and
+vivid red underwings?
+
+The bird of the pasture-land is singing still, perhaps, but all at once
+I have ceased to hear him, for something has come to lift me above his
+low grassy level, something faint and at first only the suspicion of a
+sound; then a silvery lisping, far off and aerial, touching the sense as
+lightly as the wind-borne down of dandelion.
+
+If any place for any soul there be Disrobed and disentrammelled,
+doubtless it is from such a place and such a soul that this sublimated
+music falls. The singer, one can imagine, has never known or has
+forgotten earth; and if it is visible to him, how small it must seem
+from that altitude, "spinning like a fretful midge" beneath him in the
+vast void!
+
+It is the lark singing in the blue infinite heaven, at this distance
+with something ethereal and heavenly in his voice; but now the wide
+circling wings that brought him for a few moments within hearing, have
+borne him beyond it again; and missing it, the sunshine looks less
+brilliant than before, and all other bird-voices seem by comparison dull
+and of the earth.
+
+Certainly there is nothing spiritual in the song of the chaffinch. There
+he sits within sight, motionless, a little bird-shaped automaton, made
+to go off at intervals of twelve or thirteen seconds; but unfortunately
+one hears with the song the whirr and buzz of the internal machinery. It
+is not now as in April, when it is sufficient in a song that it shall be
+joyous; in the leafy month, when roses are in bloom, one grows critical,
+and asks for sweetness and expression, and a better art than this
+vigorous garden singer displays in that little double flourish with
+which he concludes his little hurry-scurry lyric. He has practised that
+same flourish for five thousand years--to be quite within the mark--and
+it is still far from perfect, still little better than a kind of musical
+sneeze. So long is art!
+
+Perhaps in some subtle way, beyond the psychologist's power to trace, he
+has become aware of my opinion of his performance--the unspoken
+detraction which yet affects its object; and, feeling hurt in his
+fringilline _amour propre_, he has all at once taken himself off. Never
+mind; a better singer has succeeded him. I have heard and seen the
+little wren a dozen times to-day; now he has come to the upper part of
+the tree I am lying under, and although so near his voice sounds
+scarcely louder than before. This is also a lyric, but of another kind.
+It is not plaintive, nor passionate; nor is it so spontaneous as the
+warbling of the robin--that most perfect feathered impressionist; nor is
+it endeared to me by early associations since I listened in boyhood to
+the songs of other wrens. In what, then, does its charm consist? I do
+not know. Certainly it is delicate, and may even be described as
+brilliant, in its limited way perfect, and to other greater songs like
+the small pimpernel to a poppy or a hollyhock. Unambitious, yet
+finished, it has the charm of distinction. The wren is the least
+self-conscious of our singers. Somewhere among the higher green
+translucent leaves the little brown barred thing is quietly sitting,
+busy for the nonce about nothing, dreaming his summer dream, and
+unknowingly telling it aloud. When shall we have symbols to express as
+perfectly our summer-feeling--our dream?
+
+That small song has served to remind me of two small books I brought
+into the garden to read--the works of two modern minor poets whose
+"wren-like warblings," I imagined, would suit my mood and the genial
+morning better than the stirring or subtle thoughts of greater singers.
+Possibly in that I was mistaken; for there until now lie the books
+neglected on a lawn chair within reach of my hand. The chair was dragged
+hither half-an-hour ago by a maiden all in white, who appeared half
+inclined to share the mulberry shade with me. She did not continue long
+in that mind. In a lively manner, she began speaking of some trivial
+thing; but after a very few moments all interest in the subject
+evaporated, and she sat humming some idle air, tapping the turf with her
+fantastic shoe. Presently she picked up one of my books, opened it at
+random and read a line or two, her vermilion under-lip curling slightly;
+then threw it down again, and glanced at me out of the corners of her
+eyes; then hummed again, and finally became silent, and sat bending
+forward a little, her dark lustrous eyes gazing with strange intentness
+through the slight screen of foliage into the vacant space beyond. What
+to see? The poet has omitted to tell us to what the maiden's fancy
+lightly turns in spring. Doubtless it turns to thoughts of something
+real. Life is real; so is passion--the quickening of the blood, the wild
+pulsation. But the pleasures and pains of the printed book are not real,
+and are to reality like Japanese flowers made of coloured bits of tissue
+paper to the living fragrant flowers that bloom to-day and perish
+to-morrow; they are a simulacrum, a mockery, and present to us a pale
+phantasmagoric world, peopled with bloodless men and women that chatter
+meaningless things and laugh without joy. The feeling of unreality
+affects us all at times, but in very different degrees. And perhaps I
+was too long a doer, herding too much with narrow foreheads, drinking
+too deeply of the sweet and bitter cup, to experience that pure
+unfailing delight in literature which some have.  Its charm, I fancy, is
+greatest to those in whom the natural man, deprived in early life of his
+proper aliment, grows sickly and pale, and perishes at last of
+inanition. There is ample room then for the latter higher growth--the
+unnatural cultivated man. Lovers of literature are accustomed to say
+that they find certain works "helpful" to them; and doubtless, being all
+intellect, they are right. But we, the less highly developed, are
+compounded of two natures, and while this spiritual pabulum sustains
+one, the other and larger nature is starved; for the larger nature is
+earthly, and draws its sustenance from the earth. I must look at a leaf,
+or smell the sod, or touch a rough pebble, or hear some natural sound,
+if only the chirp of a cricket, or feel the sun or wind or rain on my
+face. The book itself may spoil the pleasure it was designed to give me,
+and instead of satisfying my hunger, increase it until the craving and
+sensation of emptiness becomes intolerable. Not any day spent in a
+library would I live again, but rather some lurid day of labour and
+anxiety, of strife, or peril, or passion.
+
+Occupied with this profound question, I scarcely noticed when my
+shade-sharer, with whom I sympathised only too keenly in her restless
+mood, rose and, lifting the light green curtain, passed out into the
+sunshine and was gone. Nor did I notice when the little wren ceased
+singing overhead. At length recalled to myself I began to wonder at the
+unusual silence in the garden, until, casting my eyes on the lawn, I
+discovered the reason; for there, moving about in their various ways,
+most of the birds were collected in a loose miscellaneous flock, a kind
+of happy family. There were the starlings, returned from the fields, and
+looking like little speckled rooks; some sparrows, and a couple of
+robins hopping about in their wild startled manner; in strange contrast
+to these last appeared that little feathered clodhopper, the chaffinch,
+plodding over the turf as if he had hobnailed boots on his feet; last,
+but not least, came statuesque blackbirds and thrushes, moving, when
+they moved, like automata. They all appear to be finding something to
+eat; but I Watch the thrushes principally, for these are more at home on
+the moist earth than the others, and have keener senses, and seek for
+nobler game. I see one suddenly thrust his beak into the turf and draw
+from it a huge earthworm, a wriggling serpent, so long that although he
+holds his head high, a third of the pink cylindrical body still rests in
+its run. What will he do with it? We know how wandering Waterton treated
+the boa which he courageously grasped by the tail as it retreated into
+the bushes. Naturally, it turned on him, and, lifting high its head,
+came swiftly towards his face with wide-open jaws; and at this supreme
+moment, without releasing his hold on its tail, with his free hand he
+snatched off his large felt hat and thrust it down the monster's throat,
+and so saved himself.
+
+Just as I am intently watching to see how my hatless little Waterton
+will deal with _his_ serpent, a startling bark, following by a canine
+shriek, then a yell, resound through the silent garden; and over the
+lawn rush those three demoniacal fox-terriers, Snap, Puzzy, and Babs,
+all determined to catch something. Away fly the birds, and though now
+high overhead, the baffled brutes continue wildly careering about the
+grounds, vexing the air with their frantic barkings. No more birds
+to-day! But now the peace-breakers have discovered me, and come tearing
+across the lawn, and on to the half-way chair, then to the hammock,
+scrambling over each other to inflict their unwelcome caresses on my
+hands and face.
+
+Ah well, let them have their way and do their worst, since the birds are
+gone, and I shall go soon. It is a consolation to think that they are
+not my pets; that I shall not grieve, like their mistress, when their
+brief barking period is over; that I care just so much and no more for
+them than for any other living creature, not excepting the
+_fer-de-lance_, "quoiled in the path like rope in a ship," or the
+broad-winged vulture "scaling the heavens by invisible stairs." None are
+out of place where Nature placed them, nor unbeautiful; none are
+unlovable, since their various qualities--the rage of the one and the
+gentleness of the other--are but harmonious lights and shades in the
+ever-changing living picture that is so perfect.
+
+
+
+
+BIRDS IN A CORNISH VILLAGE
+
+I
+
+TAKING STOCK OF THE BIRDS
+
+
+Having begun, or first written, this book in one village, which was near
+London, I am now finishing, or re-writing, it in another in "the westest
+part of all the land," over three hundred miles from the first. Here I
+had to go over this ancient work of twenty-three years ago, which was
+also my first English bird book, to prepare it for a new edition; and
+after all necessary corrections, omissions and additions of fresh matter
+made in the foregoing parts, it seemed best to throw out the whole of
+the concluding portion, which dealt mainly with the question of
+bird-preservation as it presented itself at that time and is now out of
+date, thanks to the legislation of recent years and to the growth in
+this country of the feeling or desire for birds during the last two or
+three decades. In place of this discarded matter I propose to give here
+the results of recent observations on the bird life of a Cornish
+village.
+
+My residence in the Cornish Village (or villages) was during May and
+June, 1915, and again from October of the same year to June, 1916. These
+were months of ill-health, so that I was prevented from pursuing my
+customary outdoor rambling life; but, like that poor creature the
+barnyard fowl that can't use its wings, instinctively, or from old
+habit, I used my eyes in keeping a watch on the feathered (and flying)
+people about me.
+
+The village, Lelant, is on the Hayle estuary, and to see the Atlantic
+one has but to walk past the grey old church at the end of the street,
+where the ground rises, to find oneself in a wilderness of towans, as
+the sand-hills are there called, clothed in their rough, grey-green
+marram grass and spreading on either hand round the bay of St. Ives. A
+beautiful sight, for the sea on a sunny day is of that marvellous blue
+colour seen only in Cornwall; far out on a rock on the right hand stands
+the shining white Godrevy lighthouse, and on the left, on the opposite
+side of the bay, the little ancient fishing-town of St. Ives.
+
+The river or estuary, in sight of the doors and windows of the village,
+was haunted every day by numbers of gulls and curlews. These last
+numbered about one hundred and fifty birds, and were always there except
+at full tide, when they would fly away to the fields and moors. Of all
+my bird neighbours I think that these gave me most pleasure, especially
+at night, when lying awake I would listen by the hour to the perpetual
+curlew conversation going on in the dark--an endless series of clear
+modulated notes and trills, with a beautiful expression of wildness and
+freedom, a reminder of lonely seashores and mountains and moorlands in
+the north country. What wonder that Stevenson, sick in his tropical
+island--sick for his cold grey home so many thousands of miles away,
+wished once more to hear the whaup crying over the graves of his
+forefathers, and to hear no more at all!
+
+Of bird music by day there was little; you would hear more of it in one
+morning in that small rustic village in Berkshire where the first part
+of this book was written than in a whole summer in one of these West
+Cornwall villages, so few comparatively are the songsters. Nor was this
+scarcity in the village only; it was everywhere, as I found when able to
+get out for a few hours during my two spring seasons in the place. Close
+by were the extensive woods of Trevalloe, where I was struck by the
+extraordinary silence and where I listened in vain for a single note
+from blackcap, garden-warbler, willow-wren, wood-wren, or redstart. The
+thrushes, chaffinch, chiff-chaff, and greenfinch were occasionally
+heard; outside the wood the buntings, chats, and the skylark were few
+and far between.
+
+This scarcity of small birds is, I think, due in the first place to the
+extraordinary abundance of the jackdaw, the diligent seeker after small
+birds' nests, and to the autumn and winter pastime of bush-beating to
+which men and boys are given in these parts, and which the Cornish
+authorities refuse to suppress.
+
+After a time, when, owing to increasing debility, I was confined more
+and more to the village, I began to concentrate my attention on a few
+common species that were always present, particularly on the three
+commonest--rook, daw, and starling; the first two residents, the
+starling, a winter visitor from September to April.
+
+In October, I started feeding the birds at the house where I was staying
+as a guest, throwing the scraps on a lawn at the back which sloped down
+towards the estuary. First came all the small birds in the immediate
+neighbourhood--robin, dunnock, wagtail, chaffinch, throstle, blackbird,
+and blue and ox-eye tits. Then followed troops of starlings, and soon
+all the rooks and daws in the village began to see what was going on and
+come too, and this attracted the gulls from the estuary--I wished that
+it had drawn the curlews; and all these big ones were so greedy and
+bold, so noisy and formidable-looking that the small birds were quite
+driven out; all except the starlings that came in hungry crowds and were
+determined to get their share.
+
+At the beginning of December I had to move to a nursing-home at the
+Convent of the Sisters of the Cross at the adjacent village of Hayle,
+just across the estuary. The Convent buildings and grounds and gardens
+are fortunately outside the ugly village, and my room had an
+exceptionally big window occupying almost the whole wall on one side,
+with an outlook to the south over the green fields and moors towards
+Helston. An ideal sick-room for a man who can't be happy without the
+company of birds, and here, even when lying on my bed before I was able
+to sit or stand by the window, a large portion of the sky, rainy or
+blue, was visible, and rooks and daws and gulls and troops of starlings,
+and the curlews from the river, were seen coming and going all day long.
+
+But it was much better when I was able to go to the window, since now,
+by feeding them, I could draw the birds to me. I fed them on a green
+field beneath my window, where the Convent milch-cows were accustomed to
+graze for some hours each day. All through the winter there was grass
+for them, and I was glad to have them there, as the cow is my favourite
+beast, and it was also pleasant to see the wintering starlings
+consorting with them, clustering about their noses, just as they do in
+the pasture lands in summer time. But I found it best to feed the birds
+when the cows were not there, on account of the behaviour of one of
+them, a young animal who had not yet been sobered by having a calf of
+her own.  She was a frivolous young thing and when tired of feeding, she
+would start teasing the old cows, pushing them with her horns, then
+flinging up her hind legs to challenge them to a romp. The sight of a
+crowd of birds under my window would bring her at a gallop to the spot
+to find out what all the fuss was about, and the birds would be driven
+off.
+
+One morning I was at my window when the field was empty of bird and
+beast life with the exception of a solitary old rook, a big bird who was
+a constant attendant and so much bigger than most of the rooks that I
+had come to know it well. By and by the young cow walked into the field
+by herself and, after gazing all round as if surprised at finding the
+place so lifeless, she caught sight of and fixed her eyes on the old
+rook working at the turf some fifty or sixty yards away. Presently she
+began walking towards it, and when within about twenty yards put her
+head down and charged it. The rook paid no attention until she was
+almost on it, then rose up, emitting its angriest, most raucous screams
+while hovering just over her head, and having thus relieved its
+indignant feelings it flew heavily away to the far end of the field, and
+settling down began prodding away at the soil. The cow, standing still,
+gazed after it, and one could almost imagine her saying: "So you won't
+get out of the field! Well!  I'll soon make you. I'm going to have it
+all to myself this morning." And at once she began rapidly walking
+towards the bird. But half-way to it was the post set up in the middle
+of the field for the cows to rub their hides, and on coming abreast of
+it the sight of it and its proximity suggested the delight of a rub, and
+turning off at right angles she walked straight to the post and began
+rubbing herself against it. The rook went on with its business, and
+after that there was no more quarrelling.
+
+Another morning this same old rook came with his mate to the field:
+separating, they came down a distance of a hundred yards or more apart
+and began searching for grubs. By and by the old cock discovered
+something particularly good and after vigorously prodding the turf for a
+few moments he sprang up and flew excitedly to his mate, who instantly
+knew what this action meant and began fluttering her wings and crying
+for the dainty morsel which he proceeded to deliver into her wide-open
+mouth. Having fed her, he flew back to the same spot and began working
+again.
+
+This is a common action of the rooks, and I saw this same bird feed his
+mate on other occasions during the winter months, when I have no doubt
+that he, poor wretch, could hardly find food enough to keep himself
+alive during the dark season of everlasting wind and rain when the dim
+daylight lasted for about six hours. But I never saw a daw or starling
+feed his mate, or feed another daw or starling, although I watched
+closely every day and often for an hour at a stretch, and though I am
+convinced that the starling, like the rook and crow and daw, and in fact
+all the Corvidae, pairs for life. To this point I will return presently;
+let me first relate another incident about our frivolous and
+irresponsible young cow.
+
+One morning when the cows were in the field, some herring-gulls drifted
+by and a few of them remained circling about above the field. I threw
+out a piece of bread, and a troop of starlings rushed to it, and one of
+the gulls dropped down and took possession of it, but had scarcely began
+tearing at it when two more gulls dropped down and the first bird,
+lifting his wings began screaming "Hands off!" at the others, and the
+others, also raising their wings, screamed their wailing screams in
+reply. The young cow, attracted by the noise, gazed at them for a few
+moments, then all at once putting her head down furiously charged them.
+The three gulls rose up simultaneously and floated over her and then
+away, leaving her standing on the spot, shaking her head in anger and
+disgust at their escape. A rhinoceros charging a ball of thistledown or
+a soap-bubble, and causing it to float away with the wind it created,
+would not have been a more Iudicrous spectacle.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+DO STARLINGS PAIR FOR LIFE?
+
+
+From my boyhood, when I first began to observe birds, I started with the
+imbibed notion that those which paired for life were the rare
+exceptions--the dove that rhymed with love, the eagle, and perhaps half
+a dozen more. Who, for instance, would imagine that the sexes could be
+faithful in parasitical species like the cuckoo of Europe and the
+cow-birds of America? Yet even as a boy I made the discovery that an
+Argentine cow-bird that lays its eggs in the nests of other species,
+does actually pair for life; and so effectually mated is it, that on no
+day and no season of the year will you see a male without his female: if
+he flies she flies with him and feeds and drinks with him, and when he
+perches she perches at his side, and he never utters a sound but a
+responsive sound immediately falls from her devoted beak.
+
+Again, it may seem unlikely that there can be pairing for life in
+species, like the chaffinch of northern Europe and, with us, of
+Scotland, in which the sexes separate and migrate separately. Also of
+non-gregarious species like the nightingale in which the males arrive in
+this country several days before the females. Yet I am confident that if
+we could catch and mark a considerable number of pairs it would be found
+that the same male and female found one another and re-mated every year.
+
+It comes to this, that birds may pair for life, yet not be all the time
+or all the year together, as in the case of hawks, crows, owls, herons,
+and many others. In numberless species which undoubtedly pair for life
+the sexes keep apart during several hours each day, and there is some
+evidence that those that separate for a part of the year remain faithful.
+
+An incident, related by Miss Ethel Williams, of Winchester, in her
+natural history notes contributed to a journal in that city, bears on
+this point. She had among the bird pensioners in the garden of her house
+adjoining the Cathedral green, a female thrush that grew tame enough to
+fly into the house and feed on the dining-room table. Her thrush paired
+and bred for several seasons in the garden, and the young, too, were
+tame and would follow their mother into the house to be fed. The male
+was wild and too shy ever to venture in. She noticed the first year that
+it had a wing-feather which stuck out, owing probably to a malformation
+of the socket. Each year after the breeding season the male vanished,
+the female remaining alone through the winter months, but in spring the
+male came back--the same bird with the unmistakable projecting
+wing-feather. Yet it was certain that this bird had gone quite away,
+otherwise he would have returned to the garden, where there was food in
+abundance during the spells of frosty weather. As he did not appear it
+is probable that he migrated each autumn to some warmer climate beyond
+the sea.
+
+I have noticed that wagtails, thrushes, blackbirds, and some other
+species when the young are out of the nest, divide the brood between
+male and female and go different ways and spend the daylight hours at a
+distance apart, each attending to the one or two young birds in its charge.
+
+One winter, a few years ago, I was staying for a few days at a cottage
+facing Silchester Common, and on going out after breakfast to feed the
+birds I particularly noticed a male grey wagtail among those that came
+to me, on account of its beauty and tameness. Every morning I fed it,
+and on my speaking to my landlady about it she said, "Oh, we know that
+bird well; this is the fourth winter it has spent with us, but it always
+came before with its mate. The poor little thing had only one leg, but
+managed to hop about and feed very well; this year the poor thing didn't
+turn up with its mate, so we suppose it had met its death somewhere
+during the summer."
+
+I have often watched the gatherings of pied wagtails (always with a
+certain number of the grey species among them) in places where they
+spend the winter in our southern counties, at some spot where they are
+accustomed to congregate each evening to hold a sort of frolic before
+going to roost, and it has always appeared to me that the birds, both
+pied and grey, were in pairs. So too, in watching the starlings day
+after day in the field in front of my window. Well able with my
+binocular to observe them closely, I saw much to convince me that the
+starling, too, lives all the year with his mate.
+
+Each morning the birds that had made our village their daily
+feeding-ground, would, on arrival from the roosting-place in one body,
+break up into numerous small parties of half a dozen to twenty or more
+birds. All day long these little flocks were hurrying about from field
+to field, spending but a short time at one spot, so hungry were they and
+anxious to find a more productive one, and in every field they would
+meet and mix with other small groups, and presently all would fly, and
+breaking up into small parties again go off in different directions.
+Thus one had a constant succession of little flocks in the field from
+morning till night, and I found from counting the birds in each small
+group that in three cases in four they were in even numbers. Again, I
+have often seen a group of three, five, seven or nine birds on the
+field, and after a while a solitary starling from a neighbouring field
+or from some treetop near by has flown down to join the group and make
+the numbers even.
+
+The birds when feeding, I have said, are always in a desperate hurry,
+and little wonder, since after a night, usually wet and cold, of from
+sixteen to eighteen hours and only about six to feed in, they must be in
+a half-starved state and frantic to find something to swallow. No sooner
+do they alight than they begin running about, prodding with their beaks,
+and all the time advancing, the birds keeping pretty well abreast. Now,
+from time to time you will notice that a bird finds something to delay
+him and is left behind by the others. On they go--prod, prod, then a
+little run, then prod, prod again and run again--while he, excited over
+his find, and vigorously digging at the roots of the grass, lets them go
+on without him until he is yards behind. Whenever this happens you will
+see one of the advancing birds pause in its prodding to look back from
+time to time as if anxious about the one left behind; and by and by this
+same bird, its anxiety increasing, will suddenly spring into the air and
+fly back to place itself at the side of the other, to wait quietly until
+it has finished its task; and no sooner does the busy one put up its
+head to signal that he is ready than up they spring and fly together on
+to the flock. No one witnessing this action can doubt for a moment that
+these two are mates, and that wherever they paired and bred
+originally--in Lincoln or York or Thurso or perhaps in one of the
+western islands--they paired for life and will stick together, summer
+and winter and in all their wanderings, as long as they live.
+
+Until one observes starlings in this close way, even to their minutest
+actions--I had indeed little else to do during my three winter months in
+this nursing-home--it is only natural to believe that among gregarious
+species the starling is one of those least likely to pair for life,
+seeing that in it the gregarious instinct is intensified and more highly
+developed than in most others. One would suppose that the flock, which
+is like an organism--that is to say, the attachment to the flock--would,
+out of the breeding season, take the place of the close relation or
+companionship between bird and bird seen in species known to pair for
+life. Only the pairing passion, one would suppose, could serve to
+dissolve the company of birds and this only for a brief season of about
+a couple of months' duration. There is but one brood raised in the
+season, and the whole business of reproduction is well over before the
+end of June. Later breeders are those that have lost their first eggs or
+broods. And no sooner are the young brought off and instructed in the
+starling's sole vocation (except his fruit-eating) of extracting the
+grubs it subsists on from the roots of the grass--a business which
+detains them for a week or two--than the married life is apparently over
+and the communal life resumed. The whole life of the bird is then
+changed; the sole tie appears to be that of the flock; home and young
+are forgotten: the birds range hither and thither about the land, and by
+and by migrate to distant places, some passing oversea, while others
+from the northern counties and from Scotland and the islands come down
+to the south of England, where they winter in millions and myriads.
+There they form the winter habit of congregating in immense numbers in
+the evening at their favourite roosting-places, and hundreds and
+thousands of small flocks, which during the daylight hours exist
+distributed over an area of hundreds of square miles all make to one
+point and combine into one flock. At such times they actually appear to
+rejoice in their own incalculable numbers and gather earlier than they
+need at the roosting-place, so that the whole vast gathering may spend
+an hour or so in their beloved aerial exercises.
+
+To anyone who witnesses these gatherings and sees the birds rising from
+time to time from the wood, and appearing like a big black cloud in the
+sky, growing lighter and darker alternately as the birds scatter wide or
+mass themselves in a closer formation, until after wheeling about for
+some minutes they pour back into the trees; and who listens to the noise
+they make, as of a high wind in the wood, composed, as it is, of an
+infinity of individual voices, it must seem incredible that all these
+birds can keep in pairs. For how could any couple hold together in such
+circumstances, or when separated ever meet again in such a multitude,
+or, should they ever meet by chance, how recognize one another when all
+are exactly alike in size, shape, colour and voice?
+
+They can, and certainly do, keep together, and when forced apart as,
+when pursued by a hawk, they scatter in all directions, they can quickly
+find one another again. They can do it because of their perfect
+discipline, or instinct, or the perfection of the system they follow
+during their autumn and winter wanderings and migrations.
+
+The breeding season over, the birds in each locality unite in a small
+flock composed of twenty or thirty to fifty or more pairs and start
+their wandering life. Those in the north migrate or drift south, and
+vast numbers, as we see, spend the winter in the southern counties. And
+here they have their favourite roosting-places and are accustomed to
+assemble in tens and hundreds of thousands. But the original small flock
+composed of a few pairs, is never broken up--never absorbed by the
+multitude. Each morning when it is light enough, the birds quit the
+roosting-wood, but not all together; they quit it in flocks, flock
+following flock so closely as to appear like a continuous stream of
+birds, and the streams flow out in different directions over the
+surrounding country. Each stream of birds is composed of scores and
+hundreds of units, and each unit drops out of the stream and slopes away
+to this or that side, to drop down on its own chosen feeding-ground, to
+which it returns morning after morning through the winter. When all the
+units have dropped out and settled on their feeding areas for the day,
+it may be seen that the whole country within a circuit of ten or twelve
+or more miles from the roosting-place has been occupied, that each flock
+has its own territory, where it splits up into some groups and spends
+its short hours flying about and exploring every green field, and one
+might almost say "every grass." One can only explain this perfect
+distribution by assuming that each unit instinctively looks for
+unoccupied ground in its winter habitat, and that consequently there is
+very little overlapping. It must also be assumed that at the place of
+assembly in the evening each flock has its own roosting-place--its own
+trees and bushes where the members of the flock can still keep together
+and to which after each aerial performance they can return. The flock
+comes back to sleep on its own tree, and no doubt every couple roosts
+side by side on its own twig.
+
+On the return of Spring the birds do not migrate in a body, but slip
+away, flock by flock, to reappear about the end of April in their old
+breeding-place in the North Country, with, perhaps, the loss of a few
+members--the one that was old and died in the season of scarcity; and
+one that was taken at the roost by a brown owl, and one that had its
+feet frozen to the perch; and was killed by a jackdaw when struggling to
+free itself; and one that was struck down by a sparrow-hawk on his
+homeward journey.
+
+What I have so far been unable to trace is the career of the young after
+August. We see that once they are able to fend for themselves they club
+together in small flocks and continue together during their "brown
+thrush" stage, but by and by they get the adult plumage and language and
+are no longer distinguishable as young. Do they, then, join the old
+birds before the wandering and migrating south begins? And do they pair
+or not before the winter?
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+VILLAGE BIRDS IN WINTER
+
+
+Throughout the winter of 1915-16, and more particularly during my three
+months in the hospital at Hayle, from the beginning of December to
+March, I was greatly impressed at the perpetual state of hunger in which
+the birds exist, especially the three commonest species in our
+village--rook, daw, and starling. Little wonder that the sight of a
+piece of bread thrown out on the green field below my window would bring
+all these three and many others with a rush from all sides, every one
+eager to get a morsel! But the birds that live most in a groove, as it
+were, like the rook and starling, and have but one kind of food and one
+way of finding it, are always the worst off in winter. These subsist on
+the grubs and other minute organisms they are able to pick out of the
+grass roots, and are life workers paid by the piece who must labour hard
+and incessantly to make enough to keep themselves alive; their winter
+life is accordingly in startling contrast to that of the daw--one that
+lives on his wits and fares better and altogether has an easier and more
+amusing time.
+
+It was the habit of the three species named to quit the wood where they
+roosted as soon as it was light enough for them to feed, the time
+varying according to the state of the weather from half-past eight to
+ten o'clock, the mornings being usually wet and dark. The rooks that had
+their rookery in the village numbered forty or fifty birds, and these
+would remain at the village, getting their food in the surrounding
+fields for the rest of the day. The daws would appear in a body of two
+or three hundred birds, but after a little while many of them would go
+on to their own villages further away, leaving about sixty to eighty
+birds belonging to the village. Last of all the starlings would appear
+in flocks and continuous streams of birds often fighting their way
+against wind and rain, leaving about a couple of hundred or more behind,
+these being the birds that had settled in the village for the season,
+and worked in the grass fields in and surrounding it. Rooks and
+starlings would immediately fall to work, while the daws, the flock
+breaking up into small parties of three or four, would distribute
+themselves about the village and perch on the chimney-pots. They would
+perch and then fly, and for all the rest of the day would be incessantly
+shifting about from place to place, on the look-out for something to
+eat, dropping from time to time to snatch up a crust of bread or the
+core of an apple thrown away by a child in the road, or into a back
+garden or on to a dust-heap where potato-parings and the head of a
+mackerel or other refuse had been thrown. They were very bold, but not
+as courageous as the old-time British kite that often swooped to snatch
+the bread from a child's hand.
+
+From time to time one, or a pair, of a small party of these daws would
+drop down on the field before my window when the rooks and starlings
+were there prodding busily at the turf, but though I watched them a
+thousand times I never detected them trying to find something for
+themselves. They simply stood or walked about among the working birds,
+watching them intently. Grub-finding was an art they had not acquired,
+or were too indolent or proud to practise; but they were not too proud
+to beg or steal; they simply watched the other birds in the hope of
+being able to snatch up a big unearthed grub and run away with it. As a
+rule after a minute or two they would get tired of waiting and rush off
+with a lively shout. Back they would go to the chimney-pots and to their
+flying up and down, suspending their flight over this or that yard or
+garden, and by and by one would succeed in picking up something big, and
+at once all the other daws in sight would give chase to take it from
+him; for these village daws are not only parasites and cadgers, but
+worse--they are thieves without honour among themselves.
+
+In spite of all the time and energy wasted in their perpetual races and
+chases going on all over the village, every bird exerting himself to the
+utmost to rob all he can from his pals, they get enough to eat; for when
+the day is over and other daws from other villages drop in to visit
+them, all unite in a big crowd and wheel about, making the place ring
+with their merry yelping cries, before sailing away to the wood. One
+might say after witnessing and listening to this evening performance
+that they have great joy in their rascally lives.
+
+But for the poor starling there is little joy in these brief, dark, wet
+winter days, even if there is little frost in this West Cornwall
+climate. A frost of a few days' duration would be fatal to incalculable
+numbers, especially if, as in the great frosts of the winters of 1894-5
+and 1896-7, severest in the south and west of England, it should come
+late in winter, I think it can be taken as a fact that a long or
+overseas migration takes place before midwinter or not at all. In
+January and February, when birds are driven to the limits of the land by
+a great cold they do not cross the sea, either because they are too weak
+to attempt such an adventure or for some other reason unknown to us. We
+see that on these occasions they come to the seashore and follow it
+south and west even to the western extremity of Cornwall, and then
+either turn back inland or wait where they are for open weather, many
+perishing in the meantime.
+
+During those three winter months, when I watched the starlings at work
+on the field before my hospital window, they appeared to be in a
+perpetual state of extreme hunger and were always running over the
+ground, rapidly prodding as they moved, and apparently finding their
+food almost exclusively on the surface--that is to say, on the surface
+of the soil but under the grass, at its surface roots. At other seasons
+they go deep when they know from the appearance of every blade of grass
+whether or not there is a grub feeding on its roots beneath the surface.
+Without shooting and examining the stomachs of a large number of
+starlings it was not possible to know just what the food consisted of;
+but with my strong binocular on them I could make out that at almost
+every dig of the beak something was picked up, and could actually see it
+when the beak was held up with the minute morsel at its tip--a small,
+thread-like, semi-transparent worm or grub in most instances. Two or
+three of these atomies would hardly have made a square meal for a
+ladybird, and I should think that a starling after swallowing a thousand
+would fed very hungry. And on many days this scanty, watery food had to
+be searched for in very painful conditions, as it rained heavily on most
+days and often all day long. At such times the birds in their sodden
+plumage looked like drowned starlings fished out of a pool and
+galvanized into activity. Nor were they even seen to shake the wet
+off--a common action in swallows and other birds that feed in the rain;
+they were too hungry, too anxious to find something to eat to keep the
+starling soul and body together before the long night of eighteen or
+twenty hours would overtake them.
+
+No doubt the winter of 1915-16 was exceptionally wet and cold, although
+without any severe frosts; a long frost in February, when the birds were
+most reduced, would probably have proved fatal to at least half their
+number. But though it continued wet and cold, things began to mend for
+the starlings towards the end of February, and in March the improvement
+was very marked; they were not in such a perpetual hurry; their time was
+longer now, and by the end of the month their working day had increased
+from five or six to twelve or fourteen hours, and the light had
+increased and grubs were easier to find. By April, the starlings no
+longer appeared to be the same species as the poor, rusty, bedraggled
+wretches we had been accustomed to see; they are now lively, happy birds
+with a splendid gloss on their feathers and beaks as bright a yellow as
+the blackbird's. Finally, in April they left us, not going in a body,
+but flock by flock, day after day, until by the end of the month all
+were gone back to their homes in the north--all but the two or three to
+half a dozen pairs in each village. And these few that stay behind are
+new colonists in West Cornwall.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+INCREASING BIRDS IN BRITAIN
+
+
+About the daw, or Jackie, or Dorrie or Jackie-Dorrie, as he is variously
+and familiarly called, and his village habits, there will be more to say
+presently; just now my concern is with another matter--a veritable daw
+problem.
+
+For the last twenty years or longer it has seemed to me that the daw is
+an increasing species in Britain; at all events I am quite sure that it
+is so in the southern half of England, particularly along the coast of
+Somerset, Devon, Dorset, and in Cornwall, more than in any other county.
+And why is it? He is certainly not a respectable bird, like the
+starling, for example--if we do not go to the cherry-grower for the
+starling's character. He is and always has been on the keeper's and
+farmer's black list, and scarcely a week passes but you will find him
+described in some gamekeeper's or farmer's journal as "even worse than
+the rook." Even the ornithologists who are interested in birds as birds
+haven't a good word to say of the daw. According to them he alone is
+responsible for the disappearance of his distinguished relation, the
+chough. (The vulgar daw is of course devoid of any distinction at all,
+unless it be his grey pate and wicked little grey eyes.)
+
+The ornithologists were wrong about the chough, just as they had been
+wrong about the goldfinch, during the late years of the nineteenth
+century, and as they were wrong about the swallows and martins in later
+years. Of the goldfinch, they said, and solemnly put it down in their
+books, that owing to improved methods of agriculture the thistle had
+been extirpated and the bird, deprived of his natural food, had forsaken
+this country. But no sooner did our County Councils begin to avail
+themselves of the powers given them by the Bird Act of twenty years ago
+to protect the goldfinch from the bird-catcher, than it began to
+increase again and is still increasing, year by year, all over the country.
+
+Of the decrease of swallows and martins, they said it resulted from the
+action of the sparrows in ousting them from their nests and
+nesting-sites. But we know the true cause of the decline of these two
+species, the best loved and best protected of all birds in Britain, not
+even excepting robin redbreast. The French Government, in response to
+representations on this matter from our Foreign Office, have caused
+enquiries to be made and have found that our swallows are being
+destroyed wholesale in France during the autumn migration, and have
+promised to put a stop to this deplorable business. They do not appear
+to have done so, since the promise was made three years ago, and I can
+say from my own observation in the south and west countries that the
+decline has continued and that we have never had so few swallows come to
+us as in the present summer of 1916.
+
+The daw--to return to that subject--has always been regarded as an
+injurious species, and down to a quarter of a century ago every farm lad
+in possession of a gun shot it in the interests of the henwife, even as
+he had formerly shot the kite, a common British species and a familiar
+feature in the landscape down to the early years of last century.
+Doubtless it was a great thing to bring down this great bird "that soars
+sublime" and nail it to the barn-door. By the middle of the last century
+it had become a rarity, and the ensuing rush for specimens and eggs for
+private collectors quickly brought about its virtual extinction. The
+kite is but one of several species--six of them hawks--extirpated within
+the last forty years. Why, then, does the daw, more injurious to the
+game-preserver and henwife than any one of these lost hawks, continue to
+flourish and increase in numbers? It is, I imagine, because of the
+growth of a sentiment which favours its preservation. But it is not the
+same as that which has served to preserve the rook and made it so
+common. That is a sentiment confined to the landowning class--to those
+who inherit great houses where the ancient rookery with its crowd of
+big, black, contentious birds caw-cawing on the windy elms, has come to
+be an essential part of the establishment, like the gardens and park and
+stables and home-farm and, one might add, the church and village. This
+sentiment differs, too, from the heron-sentiment, which serves to keep
+that bird with us in spite of the annual wail, rising occasionally in
+South Devon to a howl, of human trout-fishers. It is a traditional
+feeling coming down from the far past in England--from the time of
+William the Conqueror to that of William of Orange and the decay of
+falconry. That a species without any sentiment to favour it and without
+special protection by law may increase is to be seen in the case of the
+starling. This increase has come about automatically after we had
+destroyed the starling's natural enemies and then ceased to persecute it
+ourselves. Of all birds it was the most preyed on by certain raptorial
+species, especially by the sparrowhawk, which is now becoming so rare,
+assisted by the hobby (rarer still) and the merlin. It was more exposed
+than other birds to these enemies owing to its gregarious and feeding
+habits in grasslands and the open country, also to its slower flight.
+The greatest drain on the species, came, however, from man. The starling
+was a favourite bird for shooting-matches up till about thirty years
+ago, and was taken annually in large numbers by the bird-catchers for
+the purpose. It is probable that this use of the bird for sport caused
+people to eat it, and so common did the habit become that at the end of
+summer, or before the end, shooting starlings for the pot was practised
+everywhere. Old men in the country have told me that forty or fifty
+years ago it was common to hear people on the farms say that of all
+birds the starling was the best to eat.
+
+When starling and sparrow shooting-matches declined, the starling went
+out of favour as a table-bird, and from that time thyspecies has been
+increasing. At present the rate of increase grows from year to year, and
+during the last decade the birds have colonized every portion of the
+north of Scotland and the islands, where the starling had previously
+been a rare visitor--a bird unknown to the people. Here in West Cornwall
+where I am writing this chapter the starling was only a winter visitor
+until recently. Eight years ago I could only find two pairs breeding in
+the villages--about twenty-five in number--in which I looked for them;
+in the summer of 1915 I found them breeding in every town and village I
+visited. At present, June, 1916, there are six pairs in the village I am
+staying at. It may be the case, and from conversations I have had with
+farmers about the bird I am inclined to believe it is so, that a strong
+feeling in favour of the starling (in the pastoral districts) is growing
+up at the present time, a feeling which in the end is more powerful to
+protect than any law; but such a feeling has not become general as yet,
+and consequently has had nothing to do with the extraordinary increase
+of the bird.
+
+The wood-pigeon is another species which, like the starling, has
+increased greatly in recent years, without special protection and with
+no sentiment in its favour. . . . The sentiment is all confined to the
+nature-lovers, whose words have no effect on the people generally, least
+of all on the farmers. I am reminded here of the experience of a young
+man, an ardent bird-lover, on his visit to a Yorkshire farm. His host,
+who was also a young man, took him a walk across his fields. It was a
+spring day of brilliant sunshine, and the air was full of the music of
+scores of soaring skylarks. The visitor long in cities pent, was
+exhilarated by the strains and kept on making exclamations of rapturous
+delight, "Just listen to the larks! Did you ever hear anything like it!"
+and so on.
+
+His host, his eyes cast down, trudged on in glum silence. Finally the
+young man, carried away by his enthusiasm, stopped and turning to his
+companion shouted, "Listen! Listen! Do you hear the larks?"
+
+"Oh, yes," drawled the other, looking more glum than ever, "I hear them
+fast enough. And I wish they were all dead!"
+
+So with the other charming species. The moan of doves in immemorial elms
+is a pleasing sound to the poets, but it does not prevent the farmers
+throughout the land from wishing them all dead; and every person who
+possesses a gun is glad to help in their massacre. For the bird is a
+pest and he who shoots it is doing something for England; furthermore,
+shooting it is first-rate sport, not like slaughtering wretched little
+sparrows or innocent young rooks just out of their windy cradles. And
+when shot it is a good table-bird, with as much tasty flesh on it as a
+woodcock or partridge.
+
+How, then can we account for the increase of such a species? One cause
+is undoubtedly to be found in the removal by gamekeepers of its three
+chief enemies--the carrion crow, magpie, and jay--all these three being
+great devourers of pigeon's eggs, which of all eggs are most conspicuous
+and open to attack. Then again the winter immigration of wood-pigeons
+from northern Europe appears to be on the increase, and it may be
+conjectured that a considerable number of these visitors remain annually
+to breed with us. There has also been an increase in the stockdove and
+turtle-dove in recent years, and the former species is extending its
+range in the north. The cause or causes of the increase of the
+turtledove are not far to seek. Its chief feathered enemies, the egg and
+fledgling robbers, are the same as the wood-pigeon's; moreover, the
+turtledove is least persecuted by man of our four pigeons, and being
+strictly migratory it quits the country before shooting-time begins; add
+to this that the turtle-dove has been specially protected under Sir
+Herbert Maxwell's Act of 1894 in a good number of English counties, from
+Surrey to Yorkshire.
+
+Of the stock-dove we can only say that, like the ring-dove, it has
+increased in spite of the persecution it is subject to, since no person
+out after pigeons would spare it because it is without a white collar.
+With the exception of the county of Buckinghamshire it is not on the
+schedule anywhere in the country. One can only suppose that this species
+has been indirectly benefited by the bird legislation and all that has
+been done to promote a feeling favourable to bird-preservation during
+the last thirty years.
+
+
+
+V
+
+THE DAW SENTIMENT
+
+
+I have spoken of the wood adjacent to the villages of Hayle and Lelant
+where the rooks, daws, and starlings of the neighbourhood have their
+winter roosting-place. This is at Trevelloe, the ancient estate of the
+Praeds, who now call themselves Tyringham. Here the daws congregate each
+evening in such numbers that a stranger to the district and to the local
+habits of the bird might imagine that all the cliff-breeding jackdaws in
+West Cornwall had come to roost at that spot. Yet the cliff-breeders,
+albeit abundant enough, are but a minority of the daw population of this
+district. The majority of these birds live and breed in the neighbouring
+villages and hamlets--St. Ives, Carbis Bay, Towadneck, Lelant, Phillack,
+Hayle, and others further away. It is a jackdaw metropolis and, as we
+have seen, every village receives its own quota of birds each morning, and
+there they spend the daylight hours and subsist on the waste food and on
+what they can steal, just as the semi-domestic raven and the kite did in
+former ages, from Roman times down to the seventeenth century.
+
+Early in May the winter congregation breaks up, the cliff-breeders going
+back to the rocks and the village birds to their chimneys, where they
+presently set about relining their old nests. There are plenty of places
+for all, since there are chimneys in almost every cottage where fires
+are never lighted, and as ventilation is not wanted in bedrooms the
+birds are allowed to bring in more materials each year, until the whole
+flue is filled up. Year by year the materials brought in, sink lower and
+lower until they rest on the closed iron register and change in time to
+a solid brown mould. Thus, however long-lived a daw may be--and there
+are probably more centenarians among the daws than among the human
+inhabitants of the villages--it is a rare thing for one to be disturbed
+in his tenancy.
+
+In the cottage opposite the one I was staying in, its owner, an old
+woman who had lived in it all her life, had recently died, aged
+eighty-seven.
+
+She was very feeble at the last, and one cold day when she could not
+leave her bed, the extraordinary idea occurred to some one of her people
+that it might be a good thing to light a fire in her room. The fireplace
+was examined and was found to have no flue, or that the flue had been
+filled with earth or cement. The village builder was called in, and with
+the aid of a man on the roof and poles and various implements he
+succeeded in extracting two or three barrow-loads of hard earth which
+had no doubt once been sticks, centuries ago, as the building was very
+ancient. No one had remembered that the daws had always occupied the
+same chimney; the old dame herself had seen them going in and out of it
+from her childhood, and her end was probably hastened by the disturbance
+made in cleaning it. Now she is gone the daws here are in possession of
+it once more.
+
+All through the month of May daws were to be seen about the village,
+dropping from time to time upon the chimney-pots where they had their
+nests and occasionally bringing some slight materials to form a new
+lining, but it was very rare to see one with a stick in his beak. The
+flues were already full of old sticks and no more were wanted. It was
+amusing to see a bird flying about, suddenly tumble out of the air on to
+a chimneypot, then with tail tipped up and wings closed, dive into the
+cavity below. One wondered how the young birds would be got out!
+
+Talking with the rector of the neighbouring parish of Phillack one day
+on this subject, he said, "Don't imagine that the daws restrict
+themselves to the chimneys where fires are not lighted. At all events it
+isn't so at Phillack. Perhaps we have too many daws in our village, but
+every year before lighting fires in the drawing and dining-rooms we have
+to call in a man with a pole to clear the flues out." He told me that a
+few years ago, one cold June day, a fire was lighted in the
+drawing-room, and as the smoke all poured out into the room a man was
+sent up to the roof with a pole to clear the obstruction out. Presently
+a mess of sticks came down and with them two fully-fledged young
+jackdaws, one dead, killed with the pole, the other sound and lively.
+This one they kept and it soon became quite tame; when able to fly it
+would go off and associate with the wild birds, but refused to leave
+the house until the following summer, when it found a mate and went away.
+
+The head keeper at Trevelloe, a remarkably vigorous and intelligent
+octogenarian who has been in his place over half a century, gave me some
+interesting information about the daws. He says they have greatly
+increased in recent years in this part of Cornwall because they are no
+longer molested; no person, he says, not even a game-keeper anxious
+about his pheasants, would think of shooting a jackdaw. But this is not
+because the bird has changed its habits. He is as great a pest as ever
+he was, and as an example of how bad jackdaws can be, he related the
+following incident told him by a friend of his, a head keeper on an
+estate adjoining a shooting his master took one year on the northwest
+coast of England. It happened that a big colony of daws existed within a
+mile or two of the preserves, and one day the keeper was called' away in
+a hurry and left the coops unattended for the best part of a day; it was
+the biggest mistake he had ever made and the chief disaster of his life.
+On his return he found that the daws had been before him and that all
+his precious chicks had been carried off. For several hours of that day
+there was a steady coming and going of birds between the cliffs and the
+coops, every daw going back with a chick in his beak for his hungry
+young in the nest.
+
+Yet my informant, this ancient and singularly intelligent old man, a
+gamekeeper all his life, who knows his jackdaw, could not tell me why
+gamekeepers no longer persecute so injurious a bird I He will not allow
+a sparrow-hawk to exist in his woods, yet all he could say when I
+repeated my question was, "No keeper ever thinks of hurting a jack now,
+but I can't say why."
+
+The reason of it I fancy is plain enough; it is simply the sentiment I
+have spoken of. In a small way it has always existed in certain places,
+in towns, where the jackdaw is associated in our minds with cathedrals
+and church towers--where he is the "ecclesiastical daw"; but the modern
+wider toleration is due to the character, the personality, of the bird
+itself, which is more or less like that of all the members of the
+corvine family, with the exception of the rook, who always tries his
+best to be an honest, useful citizen; but it is not precisely the same.
+They may be regarded as bad hats generally In the bird community, and on
+this very account--"I'm sorry to say," to quote Mr. Pecksniff--they
+touch a chord in us; and the daw being the genial rascal in feathers par
+excellence is naturally the best loved.
+
+It has thus come about that of all the Corvidae the daw is now the
+favourite as a pet bird, and in the domestic condition he is accorded
+more liberty than is given to other species. We think he makes better
+use of his freedom, that he does not lose touch with his human friends
+when allowed to fly about, and appears more capable of affection.
+
+Formerly, the raven and magpie came first as pets. The raven vanished as
+a pet, because like the goshawk, kite, and buzzard, he was extirpated in
+the interests of the game-preserver and hen-wife. The magpie was then
+first, and has only been recently ousted from that ancient, honourable
+position. The pie was a superior bird as a feathered pet in a cage; he
+is beautiful in shape and colour in his snow-white and metallic
+dark-green and purple-glossed plumage, and his long graduated tail.
+Moreover, he is a clever bird. To my mind there is no more fascinating
+species when I can find it in numbers, in places where it is not
+persecuted, and is accustomed to congregate at intervals, not as rooks
+and starlings do merely because they are gregarious, but purely for
+social purposes--to play and converse with one another. Its language at
+such times is so various as to be a surprise and delight to the
+listener; while its ways of amusing itself, its clowning and the little
+tricks and practical jokes the birds are continually playing on each
+other, are a delight to witness. All this is lost in a caged bird. He is
+handsome to look at and remarkably intelligent, but he distinguishes
+between magpies and men; he doesn't reveal himself; his accomplishments,
+vocal and mental, are for his own tribe. In this he differs from the
+daw; for the daw is less specialized; he is an undersized common crow,
+livelier, more impish than that bird, also more plastic, more adaptive,
+and takes more kindly to the domestic or parasitic life. Human beings to
+him are simply larger daws, and unlike the pie he can play his tricks
+and be himself among them as freely as when with his feathered comrades.
+We like him best because he makes himself one of us.
+
+Undoubtedly the chough comes nearest to the daw mentally, and as it is a
+far more beautiful bird--the poor daw having little of that quality--it
+would probably have been our prime favourite among the crows but for its
+rarity. Formerly it was a common pet bird, caged or free, in all the
+coast districts where it inhabited, and it may be that the desire for a
+pet chough was the cause of its decline and final disappearance all
+round the south and west coasts of England, except at one spot near
+Tintagel where half a dozen pairs still exist only because watchers
+appointed by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds are always on
+the spot to warn off the nest-robbers during the breeding season. But of
+the chough in captivity or as a domesticated bird we know little now, as
+no records have been preserved. I have only known one bird, taken from a
+North Devon cliff about forty years ago, at a house near the coast; a
+very beautiful pet bird with charming, affectionate ways, always free to
+range about the country and the cliffs, where it associated with the
+daws. It was the last of its kind at that place, and I do not know if it
+still lives.
+
+Next to the chough the jay comes nearest to the daw mentally of all our
+crows, and as he excels most of our wild birds in beauty he would
+naturally have been a first favourite as a pet but for the fact that it
+is only in a state of nature in which he is like the daw--lively,
+clever, impish; in captivity he is more like the magpie and affiliates
+even less than that bird with his human associates. In confinement he is
+a quiet, almost sedate, certainly a silent bird: He is essentially a
+woodland species; all his graces, his various, often musical, language,
+with many imitations of bird and animal sounds, and his spectacular
+games and pretty wing displays, are for his own people exclusively. He
+must have his liberty in the woods and a company of his fellow-jays to
+exhibit his full lustre.
+
+The difference between jay and daw is similar to that between fox and
+dog; or rather let us say, between one of the small desert foxes of
+Syria and Egypt--the fennec, for instance--and the jackal, the domestic
+dog's progenitor; the first gifted with exquisite grace and beauty, was
+too highly specialized to suit the domestic condition; hence the
+generalized un-beautiful beast was chosen to be man's servant and
+companion. In the same way it looks as if we were taking to the daw in
+preference to the more beautiful bird because he is more like us, or
+understands us better, or adapts himself more readily to our way of
+life.
+
+I believe that about nine out of every ten interesting and amusing
+stories about charming pet birds I have heard in England during the last
+quarter of a century relate to the daw, and this, I think, goes to show
+that he is a prime favourite as a feathered pet, at all events in the
+southern and western counties.
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+STORY OF A JACKDAW
+
+
+When I laid my pen down after concluding Part V it pleased me to think
+that I had written the last word, that, my task finished, I was free to
+go on to something else. But I was not yet wholly free of the jackdaws;
+their yelping cries were still ringing in my mental ears, and their
+remembered shapes were still all about me in their black dress, or
+cassock, grey hood, and malicious little grey eyes. The persistent
+images suggested that my task was not properly finished after all, that
+it would be better to conclude with one of those anecdotes or stories of
+the domesticated bird which I have said are so common; also that this
+should be a typical story, which would serve to illustrate the peculiar
+daw sentiment--the affectionate interest we take in him, not only in
+spite of his impudence and impishness and naughtiness, but also to some
+extent because of these same qualities, which find an echo in us.
+Accordingly I set myself to recall some of the latest anecdotes of this
+kind which I had heard, and selected the one which follows, not because
+it was more interesting as a daw story than the others, but mainly on
+account of the shrewd and humorous and dramatic way in which it was
+related to me by a little boy of the working class.
+
+I met him on a bright Sunday morning at the end of June in the park-like
+grounds of Walmer Castle. I had not long been seated on a garden bench
+when a daw came flying to a tree close by and began craning her neck and
+eyeing me with one eye, then the other, with an intense, almost painful
+curiosity; and these nervous movements and gestures immediately revealed
+to me that she had a nestful of young birds somewhere close by. After
+changing her position several times to view me from other points and
+find out what I was there for, she came to the conclusion that I was not
+to be got rid of, and making a sudden dash to a tree standing just
+before me, disappeared in a small hole or cleft in the trunk about
+forty-five feet above the ground, and in a few seconds came out again
+and flew swiftly away. In four or five minutes she returned, and after
+eyeing me suspiciously a short time flew again to the tree and,
+vanishing from sight in the hole, remained there.  I was intently
+watching that small black spot in the bark to see her emerge, when a
+little boy came slowly sauntering past my bench, and glancing at him I
+found that his shrewd brown eyes were watching my face and that he had a
+knowing half-smile on his lips.
+
+"Hullo, my boy!" I said. "I can see plainly enough what is in _your_
+mind. You know I'm watching a hole in the tree where a jackdaw has just
+gone in, and your intention is, when no one is about, to swarm up the
+tree and get the young birds."
+
+"Oh, no," he returned. "I'm not going to climb the tree and don't want
+any young jackdaws. I always come to look because the birds breed in
+that hole every year. Two years ago I had a bird from the nest, but I
+don't want another."
+
+Then at my invitation he sat down to tell me about it. One morning when
+he came the young had just come off, and he found one squatting on the
+ground under the trees, looking stupefied. No doubt when it flew out it
+had struck against a trunk or branch and come down bruised and stunned.
+
+He wrapped it up in a handkerchief and took it home to Deal and put it
+in a box; then mother got some flannel and made a sort of bed for it,
+and warmed some milk and they opened its beak and fed it with a
+teaspoon. Next day it was all right and opened its beak to be fed
+whenever they came near it, and in two or three days it began flying
+about the room and perching on their shoulders. Then he brought it back
+to Walmer and let it go and saw it fly off into the trees, but when he
+got home mother scolded him for having let it go when its parents were
+not about; she said it would die of starvation, and was going on at him
+when in flew the jackdaw and came flop on her shoulder! After that
+mother and father said they'd keep the daw a little longer, and then he
+could let it go at a distance where there were other daws about. By and
+by they said they'd let it stay where it was. Father liked a bloater for
+his tea, and there was nothing the jackdaw was fonder of, so he was
+always on the table at tea-time, eating out of father's plate. Then he
+got to be troublesome. He was always watching for a door or window of
+the parlour to be opened to let the air in, and that was the room mother
+was so careful about, and every time he got in he'd fly straight to the
+mantelpiece, which was covered with photographs and ornaments. They were
+mostly those little things--pigs and dogs and parrots and all sorts of
+animals made of glass and china, and the jackdaw would begin to pick
+them up and throw them down on to the fender, and of course he broke a
+lot of them. That made mother mad, and she scolded him and told him to
+get rid of the bird. So he wrapped it up so as it shouldn't know where
+it was going and went off two or three miles along the coast, and let it
+go where there were other daws.  It flew off and joined them, and he
+came home. That afternoon Jackie came back, and they wondered how he had
+found his way. Father said 'twas plain enough, that the bird had just
+followed the coast till he got back to Deal, and there he was at home.
+He said the only way to lose it was to take it somewhere away from the
+sea; so he wrapped it up again and took it to his Aunt Ellen's at
+Northbourne, about five miles from Deal.  His aunt told him to carry
+it to the park, where he'd find other daws and settle down. And that's
+what he did, but Jackie came back to Deal again that same day; the
+strangest thing was that mother and father made a great fuss over it and
+fed it just as if they were glad to have it back. Next day it got into
+the parlour and broke some more things, and mother scolded him for not
+getting rid of the bird, and father said he knew how it could be done.
+One of his pals was going to Dover, and he would ask him to take the
+bird and let it go up by the castle where it would mix with the jackdaws
+there, and that would be too far away for it to come back. But it did
+come back, and after that he sent it to Ashford, and then to Canterbury,
+and I don't know how many other places, but it always came back, and
+they always seemed very glad to see it back. All the same, mother was
+always scolding him about the bird and complaining to father about the
+damage it did in the house. Then one day Aunt Ellen came to see mother,
+and told her the best way to get rid of the daw would be to send it
+abroad; she said her husband's cousin, Mr. Sturge, was going out to his
+relations in Canada to work on their farm, and she would get
+her husband to ask him to take the jackdaw. It would never come back
+from such a distant place. A week afterwards Mr. Sturge sent word that
+he would take the bird, as he thought his relations would like to have a
+real old English jackdaw to remind them of home. So one day Aunt Ellen
+came and took Jackie away in a small covered basket. The funniest thing
+was the way father went on when he came home to tea. "A bloater with a
+soft roe," he says; "just what Jackie likes! Where's the bird got to?
+Come to your tea, Jackie!"
+
+"He's gone," says mother, "gone to Canada, and a good riddance, too!"
+
+"Oh, gone, has he?" says father. "Then we're a happy family and going to
+lead a quiet life. No more screams and tears over broken chiny dolls!
+And if ever Billy brings another jackdaw into the house we'll dust his
+coat for him."
+
+Here Billy interposed to say that if he ever made such a mistake again
+they could thrash him as much as they liked.
+
+"Oh, yes," said father, "we'll thrash you fast enough; mother'll do it
+for the sake of her chiny toys and dolls."
+
+That put mother up. "You're in a nasty temper," she says, "but you know
+I miss the bird as much as you do!"
+
+"Then," said father, "why the devil didn't you tell that sister of yours
+to mind her own business when she came interfering about my jackdaw! And
+that Sturge, he'll soon get tired of the bird and give it away for a
+pint of beer before he gets to Liverpool."
+
+"So much the better," says mother. "If Jackie can get free before they
+take him aboard you may be sure he'll find his way back to Deal."
+
+And that's what they went on hoping for days and days; but Jackie never
+came back, so I s'pose Mr. Sturge took him out all right and that he's
+in Canada now.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Birds in Town and Village, by W. H. Hudson
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