FOR THE PEOPLE

FOR EDVCATION

FOPv SCIENCE

LIBRARY

OF

THE AMERICAN MUSEUM

OF

NATURAL HISTORY

BIRDS
THROUGH THE YEAR

THE NIGHTINGALE.
By A. W. Seaby.

BIRDS THROUGH
THE YEAR

BY W. BEACH THOMAS
AND A. K. COLLETT

BULLFINCH IN BOX-TREE

ILLUSTRATED IN COLOUR

BY Q. E. LODGE, A. W. 8EA8Y.

Q. E. COLLINS, AND

WINIFRED AUSTEN

LONDON : T. C. & E. C. JACK, Ltd.

35 PATERNOSTER ROW, E.C.

AND EDINBURGH

The Text and Text Illustrations
are Reprinted from
The English Year

CONTENTS

First Comers i

March 9

Early Nests 10

Birds of Prey 18

The Great Migration 29

The Builders 45

April 58

Moorland Birds 59

Nights on the Water 75

The Cuckoo 81

The Full Chorus 91

'Procreant Cradles' . . . . . .104

The Heart of the Copse 118

Sea-cliffs in Nesting Time . . . . -130

May 146

Swallows and Swifts ...... 147

The Lonelier Hours 158

June . . 171

Dancers of the Ground 172

Songs and Music 179

Along the River 187

Learning to Fly 199

July 215

Dying Music 216

vi CONTENTS

The Ended Truce 221

August 230

A Change of Diet 231

Summer Liveries 239

Family Parties 247

Birds in Flocks 258

September 267

October 267

The Southward Flight 268

December 276

January 276

Winter Birds of Passage 277

Feeding Birds ' . . . 293

Winter Dress 301

The Struggle with Cold 307

Birds in London 324

By the Side of the Waters 340

February 351

Pairing and Early Song 352

LIST OF THE COLOURED PLATES

The Nightingale Frontispiece

Pied Wagtails, cock (lower figure), hen and young . . . .16

Fieldfares 32

Wren feeding her young . ........ 48

Cock Wheatear (upper bird) courting hen 64

Magpie Inquisitive .......... 80

Cock Linnet in summer plumage (upper bird) and hen ... 96
Green Woodpeckers, male (left) and female, the latter protruding

her tongue to catch ants . . . . . . .112

Sedge-warbler . . . . . . . . . . .128

Lesser Black-backed Gulls and Herring Gulls (right) and Iceland

Gull (left) 144

Swallow about to feed young . . . . . . . .160

Stonechats, cock singing, and hen with a small lizard in her beak . 176

Kingfisher feeding its young . 192

Reed-warbler at its nest ......... 200

Spotted Flycatcher enticing its young to fly 208

Blue Tit about to feed its nestlings . 224

Right : Grey Plover, adult and immature. Left : Whimbrel . . 240
Curlew chasing a raven from its breeding-place .... 256

Cuckoo uttering its note . . . . . . . . .272

Tawny Owl mobbed by small birds 288

Snow-buntings in winter plumage ....... 304

Skylarks, cock (upper bird), hen and nestlings .... 320

Sparrow-hawks (the bird on the nest is the female) . . . 336

Cock Yellowhammer .......... 360

CHIFFCHAFF

FIRST COMERS

To every bird-lover the day when he sees or hears the first
summer visitor makes a great landmark in the year. On
some soft morning of late March, when the south-west wind
seems to suck a new smell of growth from the plastic clods,
the chiming cry of the chiffchaff comes once more from the
thorn-brake or the hazel-wood, or the wheatear is seen
flicking over the banks on the common ; and then a newer
and gladder era seems once more to open, and we cast off
the old thoughts and mental habits of the winter season.
' Behold, the winter is past, the rains are over and gone.'
Now is the time of the singing of birds ; and the cry of the
first chiffchaff from overseas is the true voice of spring
returning to our northern islands. The voice of the turtle,
which stands as the type of spring in Solomon's Song, is
heard later with us than in Palestine ; in England it is a
murmur of later May, and of the elder-groves in midsummer
blossom.

The two earliest summer visitors haunt very different
ground, and each brings the signal of spring to spots which
the other passes by. Chiffchaffs like well-grown gardens,
woods with high timber and rich foliage, and a measure of
shelter and softness. They are less hardy in the choice of a
nesting-site than the willow-wren, and cling more habitually

2 SPRING

to the lowlands and the milder counties. Wheatears are
thorough birds of the open country, haunting downs, warrens,
seaside cliffs and dunes, and the smoother stretches of turf
on moors and mountains. Their song, which is curious and
cheerful, is seldom heard in March, when the greater number
of the birds observed are still journeying by stages to their
nesting-places ; and thus we are chiefly dependent on the eye
for our earliest knowledge of the wheatear. But no small

bird is more conspicuous than
a wheatear on an open down ;
it is perpetually taking short
flights from one exposed perch
to another, in the course of
which its white patch on the
rump is strikingly displayed.
As soon as it chooses a spot
where it means to nest, it has
an anxious and obtrusive way
of flitting from perch to perch
with a clacking cry, and rest-
lessly twitching its tail. It has the same habit to a less
extent even when disturbed at a casual halting-place ; and it
is only a very weary and wayworn wheatear, or one very
eagerly bent on migration, that will flit straight away from
its haunt without this little exhibition of anxious proprietor-
ship. Wheatears generally travel in small parties, and this
also makes them more easily observed. The earliest arrivals
occur very early in March, and by the twentieth of the
month they are beginning to be common in the bird's
favourite haunts by the sea and on bold, turfy hills with
outcropping stones. The wheatear builds and takes shelter
in holes, and therefore likes dry, broken ground. Rabbit-
warrens are much to its liking, and on high-lying ground

FIRST COMERS 3

which rabbits avoid it chooses places where split rocks and
scattered stone-heaps give it harbourage. Such screes and
stony labyrinths are also favourite refuges of the stoat ; much
can be seen of both bird and animal in and under the rocks
if we lie and watch for a while on the airy hillsides ; and no
doubt the hunting stoat is the wheatear's chief enemy during
the nesting season.

Chiffchaffs arrive, on the whole, a little later than wheat-
ears, although a few stray specimens are sometimes reported
from the south-western counties very early in the year. By
the end of the third week in March they begin to appear in
their usual haunts, and in most parts of the south and west
of England they are regularly present in small numbers
before the end of the month. When the weather, as often
happens, is cold and wintry, they do not sing ; but although
they may be overlooked for a few days longer than when
they announce their presence, it is by no means difficult to
catch sight of them at this time of year. After the leaves
come out in April, and the chiffchaffs are joined by willow-
wrens and many other birds of similar habits, it is by no
means always easy to identify them, except by their song.
In March it is very different. We can see even a small bird
plainly among the naked boughs, for chiffchaffs prefer
deciduous trees, and do not often take shelter among Scotch
firs or other evergreens, like tits or goldcrests. When the
winds are cold and blustering and loaded with hail, chiff-
chaffs take refuge from the blasts and their pattering bolts
in snug lanes and the warmest corners of the copses. Such
spots are marked out by the earliest primroses and robins'
nests, and various other forms of early spring life ; and here
it is not difficult to find the delicate chiffchaff hunting singly,
or with a mate or rival, among the lower branches, and full
of the restlessness of spring. The slenderness and grace of

4 SPRING

this little visitor distinguishes it at a glance from all the
winter company of tits and other small birds, not excepting
even the golden-crested wren. The goldcrest is smaller
than the chiffchaff, but is more thickset and hardy looking
for its size ; and the common wren is still more stalwart.
The chiffchaff is the very type of all the slender insect-eating
birds which haunt the green summer foliage, and leave us
before it decays. All its motions and gestures are more

refined and delicate than those
of our small birds which brave
the winter ; and its slender bill
marks it out from the tribe of the
tits. It is greyish-olive above,
with a slight pale buff strip above
the eye, and greyish-white be-
neath. Later on, it is difficult
to distinguish by sight from the
willow-wren ; but the willow-
wren's upper plumage is dis-
tinctly greener. The wood-wren is greener still, and is
strongly tinged with yellow about the rump and throat.
Young willow-wrens are the yellowest birds of the whole
family, as the chiffchaff is the ashiest ; but they do not
make their appearance until the end of May. As the chiff-
chaff hops and flits among the clattering March boughs in
the north wind, it sometimes gives a mere whisper of song,
like the occasional low prelude to its full notes ; but the
promise is checked and stifled. The song of the chiffchaff
is unmistakable, once it is known. Monotonous, but always
soft and welcome, it has a see-saw alternation of a higher
and a lower note, which rings like a cry of 'chiff chaff —
chiff chaff' almost ad infinitum through the trees. Occa-
sionally the sequence is slightly altered, and the song takes

GOLDCREST

FIRST COMERS 5

a threefold shape as ' chiff, chaff, chiff,' before returning to
the old pendulum swing.

The chief winter home of the chiffchaff is in Morocco,
Spain, and other countries in the Mediterranean basin ; and
as this is comparatively near at hand for one of our summer
visitors, it is not surprising that the bird returns to its
English haunts very early in the season. Occasionally it
lingers through the winter in our own country, especially in
the extreme south-west of England and in Ireland ; and the
chiffchaffs, which are reported at the end of February or early
in March, may in many cases be birds which did not leave
our shores in autumn, but have sheltered in some warm
corner throughout the winter months. The wheatear's
winter home is further to the south, in tropical Africa, and
there is little or no trustworthy evidence of stragglers of this
species remaining in Britain during the winter. Wheatears
are sometimes met with late in autumn, when the majority
of their species have already fled ; but in many cases these
are specimens of the large northern race or variety known
as the Greenland wheatear, which is a bird of passage in
these islands, traversing them in a leisurely manner in spring
and autumn on its way to and from its breeding-places in
Greenland and other parts of the Arctic regions. Besides
this northern race, a number of the common wheatears seen
in spring and autumn are also birds of passage, migrating to
summer quarters in Norway ; and they too, as well as our
own birds from the north of Scotland, are likely to turn up
as belated wanderers in various parts of the kingdom on
their southward course. Many birds appear to be much
more leisurely about their autumn migration than when
they are driven onwards by the restlessness of spring.

A less qommon summer visitor which often appears
before the end of March is the stone-curlew or Norfolk

SPRING

plover. Most of its remaining breeding-places are on the
chalk hills of the southern and eastern counties, where it is
found in company with the wheatear. Later in the season
it is often a noisy bird by night ; but by day it is always
silent, and usually attracts notice by shyly skimming over a
heave of the down out of sight of the intruder on its solitudes.
Occasionally it can be seen swiftly running with outstretched
neck along the slopes strewn with flints, or the chalky upland
cornfields ; and sometimes it stands erect and on the watch,
when its large head and eye make it easily distinguish-
able. This large eye is
a mark of its nocturnal
habits, as in the case of
the owls. Like the chiff-
chaff, it usually winters in
the Spanish Peninsula,
Morocco, and other Medi-
terranean lands, but occa-
sionally remains in Britain.
The landrail and the
blackcap are also met with now and then in winter, and
it is rather remarkable that they do not appear now and then
in March like the stone-curlew. Both pass the winter in
North Africa and the Mediterranean basin, but do not
return to Britain until about the middle of April, the black-
cap being a little the earlier. The way in which these
normally migratory species are able now and then to sustain
life through part or all of the winter in England is one of
the most striking signs of the mildness of our climate.
Swallows and martins sometimes attempt to do the same ;
they take up their quarters in some sunny and sheltered
nook of the south coast, and may be seen flying on bright
days far into the winter. But sooner or later the damp, or

STONE-CURLEW

FIRST COMERS

cold, or the diminution of the supply of insects overcomes
them, and there is no good evidence that these lingering
birds have ever survived till spring. House-martins are
usually the last of their family to depart, but swallows are
the earliest to arrive ; and it is not a very rare experience to
see a March swallow in the southern and western counties.
Small parties — usually from two to ten birds — appear here
and there in the last week of
the month, and are usually
seen on fine days skimming
easily at some distance over-
head, bent on making good
speed to their summer quar-
ters further inland. The flight
of the migrating swallow is
much like that of the clouded
yellow butterfly, which is also
a migrant ; it looks desultory
and unhurried, and yet covers
a great distance in a very short
time.

March cuckoos are much
scarcer than March swallows,
and yet undoubtedly occur. There is no event of spring,
however, over which the unwary observer is so likely to be
deceived. It is the immemorial practice of British school
children to begin imitating the cry of the cuckoo on any fine
spring morning when primroses and violets suggest other
associations of spring ; and the imitation is often quite
good enough to delude the uncritical. Sparrow-hawks and
kestrels are also apt to be mistaken for cuckoos when there
is a hot spring feeling in the air, and the mind outstrips the
calendar. But some of the records are too well authenti-

STONE-CURLEW

8

SPRING

cated to be doubted ; and with the March cuckoo, or some-
times even a few days before it, comes sometimes the
cuckoo's mate, or wryneck. By the latter half of March the
trees harbour enough reviving insects to provide the wry-
neck with a fair living if the weather is bright and mild ; but
one can only conjecture how exceptionally early cuckoos
pick up a living, before the first of their favourite hairy
caterpillars— the woolly bears and drinkers — emerge from
hibernation and creep among the April grass.

•^^g^^^s^'

MARCH

' — neath the ruin of the withered brake
Primroses now awake

From nursing shades :
The crumpled carpet of the dry leaves brown
Avails not to keep down
The hyacinth blades.

The hazel hath put forth his tassels ruffed ;
The willow's flossy tuft

Hath slipped him free :
The rose amid her ransacked orange hips
Braggeth the tender tips
Of bowers to be.

A black rook stirs the branches here and there,
Foraging to repair

His broken home :
And hark, on the ash boughs ! Never thrush did sing
Louder in praise of spring,
When spring is come.'

Robert Bridges.

'Leaf -woven homes, where twitter-words
Will grow to songs and eggs to birds ;
Ambitious buds shall swell to flowers
And April smile to sunny hours.
Bright days shall be and gentle nights
Full of soft breath and echo-lights,
As if the God of sun-time kept
His eyes half-open while he slept.
Roses shall be where roses were,
Not shadows but reality ;
As if they never perished there
But slept in immortality.

Tom Hood, Spring Premise.

ROBIN'S NEST

EARLY NESTS

Even in the coldest spring, many of our winter resident
birds are nesting before the end of March. The earliest
birds to build are those which have a settled home, and as it
were a fixed and seasonal routine, and when their regular
spring nesting-place also provides them with shelter and
plentiful diet throughout the year, they are even earlier
than birds which have a fixed building-place, but desert it
during the winter. Rooks return annually to the same
rookery, and waste little time in determining where to build ;
but thrushes and robins which have spent the whole winter
in the garden begin building even earlier than the rooks.
Robins, hedge-sparrows, and some song-thrushes and black-
birds are so constant to their winter haunts in the garden
that we often know beforehand where they will nest, and
may be sure that they will begin several weeks before birds
of the same species in the open country. Colonies of rooks
in bare outlying clumps nest a fortnight or three weeks later
than those in sheltered situations ; and the occasional pairs
which take up new quarters in outlying positions are usually
latest of all. Robins are conspicuous in the garden all the

EARLY NESTS n

winter through, with their red breasts and bold ways ; but it
needs a little more observation to see how faithfully the
dusky little hedge-sparrow clings to his own modest round.
Both birds are among the earliest nesting species, the robin
being a little the earlier of the two. The robin's nest is a
nightingale's nest clipped at the edges to make it fit into a
hole. The two birds are closely related, and the plumage
of their spotted young shows their cousinhood very clearly.
The robin's nest is packed together from loose leaves, and
lined with hair, just like the nightingale's ; but the leafy
foundation is cut short where the nest fits close to the bank
or wall, and spreads down the slope in a sort of smooth stair-
case or ramp. By the time that the young are growing big it
is often worn smooth by the old birds alighting at the nest ;
and from an early stage of building it is easy for a practised
eye to pick out robins' nests in walking along a lane by this
characteristic apron of leaves. Hedge-sparrows usually
build among bushes and brambles, and need a nest warmly
framed on all sides. It is often built within a few yards of
the previous season's nest, now sunk into a discoloured
lump, and is built of a new crop of the same materials —
vivid green moss of the bygone winter's growth, and last
autumn's garden rubbish and gale-strewn elm twigs.

The difference in the date of the first thrushes' and
blackbirds' nests in the fields and in the garden is often
surprising. In an average season few nests in the lanes and
hedgerows have eggs by the end of March, though there
are many in various stages of preparation ; but in a shel-
tered garden it is not at all uncommon for young song-
thrushes to leave the nest before the end of the month. As
they remain in the nest about a fortnight, and the eggs take
twelve or thirteen days to hatch, this means that the first
egg was laid about the last day of February. Blackbirds

12 SPRING

are rather more leisurely, and it is exceptional to find such
early broods ; but many sets of their eggs are hatched by
the beginning of April in sheltered box-bushes or the ivy
on a warm corner of the garden wall. Blackbirds are
earlier than thrushes only in a very hard season. Owing to
their way of finding food among the leaves in sheltered
ditches, they suffer much less from hard frost ; and the end
of a bitter spell of winter weather finds
them far less reduced in strength and
numbers, and ready to begin nesting
at almost the usual time. At the end
of the famous frost which broke up
gradually in March 1895, the blackbirds
Kittili'JfT'^r-'. "£fF,aM* m a Gloucestershire garden abounding
tt%^ '-.N with birds were almost as numerous as
V^'-k usual, and had several nests with eggs
T/^.3 by the end of the month. Far worse
was the plight of the song-thrushes.
Only one pair of survivors mustered spirit to attempt to
nest before the last week of March ; and they built no new
nest, but laid a scanty set of three eggs in an old one.

A difficulty which often besets song-thrushes building
in a dry or frosty March is the scarcity of mud for their
plastered lining. Rotten wood is often used as an alternative
to mud, and is found specially serviceable in arid springs.
But even a decayed stump needs a certain amount of
moisture to make it easily workable, and thrushes are
sometimes driven to curious devices. In the same March
of 1895, a nest was found in a Berkshire wood with a
large triple bramble leaf almost covering the inner hollow
above a scanty smear of mud. In dry stony thickets the
mud lining is sometimes abandoned altogether, and the nest
is lined with long stringy moss wound round and round,

EARLY NESTS 13

much as the missel -thrush and blackbird line their nests with
dry grass. The muddiness of English weather must cer-
tainly prove attractive to our song-thrushes, and is perhaps
one reason of their abundance. Thrushes and blackbirds,
like crows and magpies, also require a considerable amount
of mud for the foundation of their nests ; and where mud is
scarce the fabric is considerably lightened, and framed with
a larger proportion of sticks or moss.

The magpie's elaborate nest takes a long time to finish,
and is usually begun before the end of March, except in the
bleaker districts. The nest consists of a deep cup and a
large dome of sticks ; and although only the lower part of it
has a mud wall, the amount of mud collected and moulded
into its fabric is remarkable, considering that it has all to be
carried in the magpie's bill. As March gives place to April,
the bushy roof of the nest begins to rise, impudently con-
spicuous in the still naked boughs. Magpies seldom nest in
pines or other evergreens ; their deep cunning does not
extend to the adoption of any methods of hiding their brood
from man. But against all other enemies the nest is a safe
stronghold. One small hole in the side of the dome is the
only means of access ; and this the magpie is well able to
protect. Occasionally the fort may be seized in her
absence, and then the tables are turned. A moorhen
migrating in spring has been seen holding a magpie's nest
against its builder, which seemed extremely puzzled at this
unusual interloper. It is a mistake to suppose that the
magpie habitually roofs in its nest with thorns, so as to make
it a doubly formidable fortification. Where a quick hedge
has lately been clipped, they will weave the thorny shoots
into the prickliest of walls ; but if they happen to build
among ash-trees or elders, they do not trouble to hunt for
hawthorn shoots, but use the smooth dead branchlets. It is

i4 SPRING

purely a question of what kind of twig comes handiest.
The clay cup of the nest is extremely solid and durable, and
lasts for many years, long after the wattle-work of the roof
and outer walls has decayed.

Crows also fix their nests to the bough with a firm
foundation of mud ; and this firm mud and wattle architec-
ture is well devised against the gales of early spring. Rooks
differ from crows both in using no mud for the foundation,
and in lining the nest with leaves and grass instead of wool.
Rooks' nests are less strongly and comfortably built than
crows', and more often get blown down by the March gales ;
yet it is wonderful to see the bulky nest so often swinging
unharmed among the small branches at the top of a tall elm.
When massed on stronger boughs, the nests of an old
rookery accumulate in a dense floor on which one can safely
stand. The decaying sticks and grass-tufts make a sort of
leaf-mould, in which grass seeds and grains dropped by the
rooks shoot green in the moist spring weather. Among
these old deserted homes are interspersed the newer nests,
with sets of eggs or young. Again unlike crows and
magpies, which seldom use the same nursery in a second
season, rooks often patch up and reline their nests ; but
eventually the sticks grow too rotten to hold securely to the
branches, and the old nest is allowed to sink into a flat
platform, adorned with its springing herbs. The young birds
find these old nests useful perches when they are fledged
and flap abroad in May.

Heronries are peopled as early in the year as rookeries,
and in mild seasons the full set of pale blue eggs is some-
times laid before the end of February. Unlike many other
birds, herons are most gregarious in the nesting season.
After they leave the heronries in late summer they are most
often seen about the marshes and stream-sides singly; we

EARLY NESTS 15

come on them standing silently in the woodland brooks in
the August heats, or scattered far apart over the mud-banks
of the estuary at low water. At most, they hunt together in
small parties. But a heronry in March and April is a
wonderful scene of noisy animation, as the gaunt birds
straddle and trumpet about the nests in the oak or fir tops,
and sail to and fro from the marsh. Herons with their long
legs seem singularly awkward and out of place among the
small boughs in a tree-top ; and they have probably adopted
this site for greater safety as marshes were drained, and they
gave up nesting in low bushes or among the reeds like
the bitterns. In Scotland and Ireland, where there are no
tall trees in otherwise suitable haunts, they will build on
rock-ledges or steep hillsides, like buzzards and hooded crows
in similar districts. When floods fill the landscape under a
grey March sky, and spring seems still far away, there is a
great fascination in the noisy life of the heronry, and the nests
full of large blue eggs. Herons' eggs soon lose their
delicate blue when blown, and become a dull sea-green ; and
this colour is reproduced in many illustrated works, though
it is not true to nature.

Wandering pairs of herons occasionally settle down in
some wood near a stream or lake, and begin to build as late
as mid- April. The contrast with the normal habits of their
mind shows the advantage of a settled nesting-place. It is
the same with several other birds which build by pools and
streams. Moorhens which remain all the winter on a
sheltered pool often have eggs in early April, and sometimes
before the end of March ; but many of them are still
straggling from hedge to hedge across the country in
search of fit quarters in mid-April, and do not lay until
May. Moorhens are such an abundant species that there is
always an overflow from the favourite nesting-places ; and

i6

SPRING

little lonely pools in the woods are colonised by wandering
pairs of moorhens right up to mid-summer. It is otherwise
with the dippers and grey wagtails of the hill streams, which
haunt the same spots in constant numbers from year to year.
Each pair has its own chosen nesting-place, never very near
another nest of the same kind, though occasionally a pair of
each species will share the same bridge girder or mill wall.
This exclusion of their own species and tolerance of the
other suggests that the dipper and wagtail have separate food

supplies. Grey wagtails seem unmistakably to be spreading
as a building species in parts of the Thames valley, where
until lately they were only known as winter visitors. They
haunt weirs and sluices, and spray-cooled splashing places
most like their favourite haunts on the hill streams. But on
their older streams the same spot is peopled by a pair of
grey wagtails year after year, and a fresh pair very seldom
settles in any other site, for the whole stream is divided out
into fishing-beats by the proprietary pairs. It is just the
same with the dippers, or water ouzels, or water colleys, as
they are called in different parts. Colley is a country word
for soot, and a water colley means a water blackbird, just as
a colley dog meant originally a black sheep dog, or possibly
a dog kept to look after the blackfaced mountain sheep.

PIED WAGTAILS, COCK (LOWER FIGURE), HEN AND YOUNG.
Bv G. E. Coi i.ixs.

EARLY NESTS

17

They range over half a mile or a mile of water when hunting
water-beetles and fly larvae for their young ; and within that
limit no other pair of colleys can be tolerated. Knowing
their haunts so well, both kinds of birds return to it very
early in the spring. Both dippers and grey wagtails have
often eggs by the end of March, while the upbuilding of the
mossy mass of the dipper's nest is one of the most delightful
signs of spring's oncoming. Wagtails feed more above the
water than dippers ; they wade a little, but do not swim or
dive. Hence they are forced to leave in winter all but a
few exceptionally sheltered corners of the upland streams.
Dippers hunt out larvae, and sometimes fish spawn, below
the surface ; and they can thus hold their place at all times
of year, except in the hardest frosts.

(1,922)

GOLDEN EAGLE

BIRDS OF PREY

Sad though the decline has been from the naturalist's point
of view in the numbers of the birds of prey, it is probable
that the number of hawks and eagles formerly inhabiting
British landscapes has often been exaggerated. From their
domineering ways and the destructiveness of their habits, it
is impossible that many pairs of hawks could ever have been
thickly crowded together at nesting-time, in the manner of
sparrows or greenfinches. In the heart of spring, when all
birds are settled in their nesting-places, it is easier than at
other times of year to estimate how much ground each pair of
each species needs for the bringing up of its young ; and birds
of prey are seen to need a great deal. In parts of the cliffs
and inland mountains where buzzards and ravens are still
protected by policy or neglect, it does not take many pairs —
only three or four at most of each kind — to occupy the
whole of a territory of several square miles, without leaving
any spare room for newcomers. The intrusion of other birds
of the same kind is resented, and it is evident that a pair of
buzzards or ravens consider about a square mile of country
by no means too much for their own needs. Golden eagles
on the Scotch moors require a much ampler hunting-ground ;
and even kestrels, which are the poor relations of the lordlier

BIRDS OF PREY 19

buzzard and peregrine, divide up the land between them-
selves with definite beats of considerable extent, and object
to trespassers of their own species or any other that by the
rules of the wild they consider their inferiors. Probably the
surviving species are still as thickly distributed in some of
the wilder mountain and sea-coast districts as they were
many centuries ago. But although birds resent trespassers
of their own species on their special territory at the breeding
season, the prohibition does not extend in many cases to
pairs of other kinds. Partly this tolerance may be due to
the absence in such instances of conjugal jealousy. But it is
largely due to the fact that birds of different species prefer
different prey, even when they are of the same general
habit ; and thus there is room for a pair of buzzards and a
pair of sparrow-hawks and a pair of kestrels on the same
stretch of moorland and wooded dingles, though any single
pair of the three species would require the whole or almost
the whole territory for itself, if its rivals were of its own
kind.

There was probably never a time when the sky over a
Scotch deer forest or English woodland in summer was
thickly peopled with eagles, hawks, and buzzards, as is
sometimes represented in fanciful pictures of the past. The
only occasion when birds of prey periodically appear in
anything that can be called a flock is at the migration
seasons in spring and autumn, when considerable numbers
are going northward or southward at the same time, and
they feed on the smaller birds, which are also massed in
unusual crowds on the same errand. Exceptional abundance
of some form of prey — as, for example, the field voles in the
famous years when they swarmed in the south of Scotland —
will also attract large numbers of birds of prey. But this is
precisely an exception that proves the rule ; the birds of

20 SPRING

prey are distributed in proportion to the abundance of their
diet, and when the prey shows an abnormal increase, the
birds increase too. But although birds of prey can never
have swarmed in ordinary seasons, from the very nature of
their habits, yet there can hardly have been a single district
in the whole of our islands where some kind of eagle or
hawk was not a familiar dweller, and as well known as the
swallow or the wood-pig«on. It is sadly different to-day.
In many parts of the country even the appearance of a
kestrel is a treat not to be seen every day, and a whole year
may pass without seeing a hawk of any other kind. Even
in the select districts where buzzards as well as kestrels are
still plentiful, and peregrines not rare, the eye probably will
look long before it sees the merlin, and may look as long as
it likes before it falls on the sea-eagle or the osprey. The
larger stars have fallen out of the firmament, and the lesser
lights do not increase to fill their places.

A sort of private census of the rare birds of prey nesting
each year in Britain is kept by many naturalists who do
not publish information of the results, for fear of indicating
some of the last refuges; and with a few exceptions, the
annual story is still one of decline. Protection has set the
golden eagle in Scotland well beyond the risk of extinction
for the present, and it still lingers in one or two counties in
Ireland. It is a bird which likes mountain scenery and a
moorland diet, including grouse and hares, and probably
never inhabited the lowland parts of England, though it was
a regular dweller in the north. Sleepless protection in the
nesting season has also saved the last kites in central Wales,
and enabled them to increase their numbers to between two
and three dozen birds. Eight or nine years ago these came
within an ace of extinction, though only a century back they
were still common in most parts of England. Montagu's

BIRDS OF PREY

21

harrier has succeeded in nesting a few times in recent seasons
in parts of southern England, where for a long while it was
itself harried out of existence ; but here the last of increasing
species comes to an end. The hen-harrier now only occa-
sionally nests in England, though it still holds its own in
small numbers in Ireland and the Hebrides. The marsh-
harrier lingers on some of the Irish bogs; but Ireland has
lost the last of its sea-eagles, though they still maintain one
or two eyries in Scotland. The osprey seems to have aban-
doned its last Scottish haunts ; the law as administered has

MONTAGU'S HARRIER

been impotent to protect the migrating birds from gunners
as they pass through England. Some of the smaller wood-
land hawks have suffered equally with the great fishers.
The honey-buzzard now only nests in England very rarely
and casually ; it has been extirpated by the collector in its
last regular home in the New Forest. Even the sparrow-
hawk is unfamiliar to many people who watch birds con-
stantly in their own districts ; though a little bird, as hawks
go, it is one of the few undeniably mischievous and destruc-
tive species, and its misdeeds prevail against it, so that too
few people show it a measure of mercy for its attractive
and dashing ways. The balance has swung too far since
sparrow-hawks and harriers were the daily robbers of the
farm-wife's chickens and ducklings and the kite systematically

22 SPRING

purloined the family wash. We want to see more of our
wild birds again ; and their worst foe is not the gamekeeper
or the hill shepherd, but the collector of British rarities.

By birds of prey we mean birds which spill red blood ;
we do not call the robin a bird of prey for eating worms, or
the flycatcher for ridding us of midges. A great part of the
attraction of this group of birds comes from the savagery of
their diet ; it gives a thrill to find the young peregrines lying
amid 'bones and blood,' and this is distantly but undeniably
akin to the hereditary fear of man for a man-eater. But this

rather gruesome element in the habits of birds of prey is
balanced by the grace and prowess with which they go about
their predatory business. There are two main groups of
hawks, which may be called the dashers and the soarers.
Soarers include eagles, and vultures in countries which have
them, buzzards, kestrels, and kites. These are the birds
which wind a spiral up the wind, or ride on motionless vans
by the same cunning opposition of their living planes to its
current, or hover in the beautiful way of our own kestrel.
Most of them belong to the broad-winged group ; but the
kestrel, which is no mean soarer, is a long-winged hawk.
Partly the soarers ride aloft to spy for food as from a watch-
tower; the soaring eagle or vulture commands 'a radius of

BIRDS OF PREY 23

many miles in its bird's-eye view. But the habit seems to
have passed on into an exercise of sheer pleasure ; the
buzzard spinning its slow rings over the cliff or the sea of
tree-tops on a sunny day does so because it does it well, and
enjoys it.

The hawks we have called the dashers are the most
active if not the most buoyant fliers, and pursue their quarry
by sheer speed of wing. The peregrine is the noblest of our
hawks, except perhaps the almost extinct osprey, and in
many respects is a finer bird than the golden eagle. The
reputed king of birds is in actual truth a glorified buzzard
and no true falcon. He has the buzzard's heaviness, except
when fairly upon the wing, and the buzzard's weakness for
carrion, which is no monarch's diet. The peregrine feeds
exclusively on living game, and its skill, speed, and daring
in chasing its prey made it the most prized of our native
hawks for falconry. It sometimes seizes its victim in its
claws and makes off with it, but its finest method of capture
is to cut down the bird it pursues — grouse, pigeon, or what-
ever it may be — by a stroke of its talons. It then collects
the disabled bird at its leisure. As with the kestrel and
other hawks, the female or falcon proper is much larger than
the male or tiercel. A recent observer of the peregrine's
life states that this inversion of the usual proportions is
accompanied by a partial exchange of the parental duties.
According to his observations, after the young birds are a
few days old the male stays at home and broods them, while
the female hunts for prey. She is clearly the best fitted to
play the part of hunter for a very hungry family ; but it is
difficult to find any original reason for the female being the
stouter bird as for the assumption of the usual brightness of
male plumage and the active functions of courtship by the
females of certain species of Australian quail, and our own

24 SPRING

phalaropes. Nature is ingenious in utilising her own pecu-
liarities, but little primary purpose can often be detected in
her variations.

Sparrow-hawks have almost as much spirit as peregrines
in proportion to their size, though they hunt their prey of
little birds in a more skulking manner. They flicker round
thickets and along hedgerows on their sharp wings, and often
snap up unwary birds in the first flash when they suddenly

\

'SPARROW-HAWKS

FLICKER ROUND THICKETS'

turn a corner upon them, or find them perched. When they
are not too shy to haunt the neighbourhood of farmyards,
they have a knack of slipping round the corner of the barn,
and making off with a chicken or duckling before the wariest
rooster has time to give the alarm. But they do not wholly
depend on tactics of surprise, and can often overhaul even
so large, swift, and wary a bird as the wood-pigeon in fair
chase. Here again the hen bird is much larger and more
powerful than the cock, and can make a match with a stronger

BIRDS OF PREY 25

quarry. While kestrels feed chiefly on mice, and have
developed their characteristic hovering flight in hunting for
them over the open field, sparrow-hawks are primarily
hunters of other birds, and pursue them among bushes and
branches. They are typical hawks of wooded and enclosed
country, and would be much commoner under modern condi-
tions if they did not excite the enmity of every gamekeeper
and farmer by their predatory habits, and give frequent
opportunity for its gratification by their characteristic hawk-
like habit of building their nests in daringly conspicuous
situations. They build for choice in conspicuous trees at the
edge of woods or on the flanks of open rides, and with diffi-
culty learn safer habits of stowing their nests in the shelter
of spruce firs and other evergreens.

The nesting habits of hawks and eagles are in many
respects peculiar. They are more varied than the habits of
most other groups of birds, for while the eagles, the osprey,
the buzzards, and other species make large and strong if not
very neat or delicate nests, the harriers lay their eggs on the
ground, and kestrels lay them either in other birds' old nests
or in holes in rocks or buildings. The larger and more per-
manent nests of the tribe are called eyries ; but as the word
merely means 'eggery,' there seems no reason why it should
not be applied to the nests of the other species as well. If
an osprey builds an eyrie, it seems invidious to credit the
buzzard with a mere nest. The more solid eyries may last
for many years ; and several species have a curious habit of
having two or three in rotation. If their nesting goes
favourably, eagles and buzzards may use only one of
their homes each season ; but it often happens that they are
disturbed, and temporarily forsake the nest in which they
intended to bring up their young, making their next attempt
for the year in one of their other residences. They visit the

O.K3) 4

26 SPRING

unused nests at times for purposes of rest or feeding. These
fierce birds show frequent traces of artistic feeling — that is
to say, they have pleasure in bright colour and in shapes
that happen to take their fancy. When kites were common,
they were notorious for stealing linen to prank their nests
with ; the kite took much the same pleasure in adorning its
nest with dish-clothes as the chaffinch in systematic em-
broidery with bits of lichen. Newspapers and other con-
spicuous odds and ends are commonly found in kites' nests on
the Continent. The honey-buzzard used to line its nest with
green leaves and twigs ; and these, too, were apparently
chosen for their bright colour rather than for purposes of
comfort. The golden eagle occasionally fixes a green spray
into the walls of its eyrie in much the same way. In an old
crow's nest in which a kestrel was sitting on six eggs, we
have found a quantity of small grains of white and yellow
quartz, which had also apparently been collected for their
bright appearance. It would be hard to prove that hawks
have an eye for the beauty of their own eggs ; but many of
them are among the most beautiful laid by any bird, with
their bold deep red markings.

The nearest relations of hawks and eagles are the owls,
which take their place as birds of prey after sunset, while
the little owl and short-eared owl hunt by day as well. The
harriers are the most owl-like of the hawks in the shape of
head and eye ; and they form an individual group, with
nesting habits and eggs unlike those of the rest of the tribe,
and much nearer to the owl's pattern. They lay their eggs
hidden among rough grass and heather and sedges as the
short-eared owl does, and their eggs are unspotted and
nearly white, without the bold blood-stains which mark all
the other hawks' eggs more or less conspicuously. The
general rule that spotted eggs are laid in open situations

BIRDS OF PREY 27

suggests that the kestrel's original habit was to build a nest
for itself, like the sparrow-hawk, and that it first took
to using old crows' nests and then, in rocky situations, to
laying in holes in the rocks. Possibly the connecting link
between the nest in the tree-top and the hole was found in
the covered nest of the magpie, which is one of the kestrel's
favourite homes. It very seldom nests in holes in trees,
but when the country is wooded, looks out for the nest of
another large bird. So far as its nesting habits are con-
cerned, it is to be feared that the kestrel is rather a degen-
erate hawk. The energy of the species seems to have been
concentrated on the perfection of its beautiful habit of hunt-
ing, which has given it the name of wind-hover. Most birds
which are good soarers can hang almost motionless in the air
at times, when the air current is light and of even strength ;
but the kestrel can moor itself, as it were, at a fixed point by
rapid beatings, and maintain its position against a strong
breeze. The amount of effort required to hold its own in
this way is indicated by the sudden freedom of the movement,
as of a spring released, with which it glances sideways into
the wind at the end of one of these periods of hovering. It
comes round on its curve like a skater on his edge, and takes
up a fresh position over another part of the field. It is
equally attractive to watch it catch sight of its prey in the
midst of its hovering, and sink swiftly to the ground beneath
it for the strike. Often the game eludes it, and it returns
again to its work of hovering and wavering ; at other times
we see it rise again with its prey in its hanging claws, and
make off to a secure spot to devour it. Kestrels, like
buzzards and most of the larger hawks, have often some con-
spicuous knoll or rock where they make their meals with a
clear view over the country round. The fragments of the
feast, and the castings thrown up by the bird as they sit and

28

SPRING

digest, are often thickly strewn about such a spot, and indi-
cate the species of the hawk that uses it. The shining
wing-cases of beetles usually distinguish the dining-place of
the kestrel, for it lives largely on this kind of small game.
Sparrow-hawks, with their more secret woodland method of
hunting, have less formal table manners ; they pluck their
prey under any quiet hedge, and little heaps of feathers
mark where the blackbird or chaffinch or wood-pigeon has
made their meal. Feathers are seldom found at the kestrel's
feeding-place, either strewn loose or felled in the castings, for
the kestrel only occasionally feeds on small birds. It is only
exceptional for it to attack young pheasants on the rearing-
ground, though individual birds are occasionally guilty of
this form of poaching. Most of the kestrels seen near
pheasant-coops probably come in pursuit of the rats and
mice which are drawn by the young birds and by their
food.

^gfiprr***

FIELDFARES

THE GREAT MIGRATION

April sees the departure of all the winter birds but a few
stragglers, and the incoming of the great mass of the summer
breeding species. Many of the birds of passage are also
passing through the country on their northward way. The
green sandpiper and the whimbrel are some of the best
known of these spring travellers ; the green sandpiper often
haunts sheltered streams with oozy banks for many days
together, and the loud call of the whimbrel falls from the sky
in the spring nights. Many other birds of passage belong to
species which also nest in ordinary English neighbourhoods ;
and these can only be guessed at, not certainly identified, by
their restless movements and their departure soon after they
appear. Even in the case of summer visitors, such as the
tree-pipit or whinchat, there is often an interval of a week or
more between the passing of the first parties, bound for more
distant haunts, and the arrival of the nesting pairs.

The departure of the birds of winter is far less noticeable
than the arrival of long-looked-for visitors like the cuckoo
and swallow ; and it is apt to be entirely overlooked. Most
of the winter visitors depart unobtrusively and early ; but
fieldfares on the eve of departure are often more conspicuous
than at any other time. They gradually collect into large

30 SPRING

flocks and work their way to the north-east coast, from
which they take flight across the North Sea. They grow
very restless and noisy, especially in the afternoons towards
roosting-time. They will fill a wood with the same kind of
abusive tumult that jays and blackbirds raise round a stray
brown owl ; but there is no owl or wandering cat startling
the inhabitants of the wood ; it is merely the fieldfares' spring
fever. On their north-eastward way large numbers of field-
fares often follow the line of the Chiltern hills, which leads
them out at last to the Wash ; and sometimes in April huge
flocks can be met with in the thick beech-woods that cover those
hills, flying in loose skeins from hill-top to hill-top, or chatter-
ing in dark flocks in the boughs. The snow is thawing in the
Norwegian spruce forest, and the impulse is on them to depart.
The fieldfare has a sweet song in his own home ; but it is
heard extremely rarely before his departure from England.
As we usually see and hear him on the eve of his home-
going, he seems but a rough and noisy harbinger of summer,
even for the snow-torn Baltic forests. On the same spring
walk, when we see the fieldfares' departing flocks, we are
very likely to hear the notes of the first willow-wrens. All
the contrast of winter and summer seems expressed in the
willow-wren's soft cadence heard amidst the fieldfares' jar
and chatter. The little bird's voice seems like a zephyr
driving them home. Willow-wrens, or warblers, come very
early in April, not long after their close relations the chiff-
chaffs ; they seem inherent in the green moisture of the open-
ing larch-woods, which in the south of England should break
forth in the second week of the month. Where the exquisite
aroma of the young larch-sprays breathes on the April air,
we shall generally hear the soft dropping chime of the bird
which the American naturalist Burroughs thought the best
of all our English singers. He thought most English song-

THE GREAT MIGRATION

3i

birds too bold and noisy, and rather censured us for our
garish taste for the lark. An Englishman may reply that
American song-birds sing too little to create a healthy taste ;
but every lover of birds in the greenwood will be glad of this
praise for the willow- wren.

Next to a budding larch-wood, the favourite haunt of the
willow-wren on first arrival is an oak copse on a ridge facing

WILLOW-WREN

the south. It is fond of nesting in such copses later on,
when the carpet of moss deepens on the bare earth, and it
can half bury its nest in a sort of cell. But in April the
attraction of the spot is equally strong for passing visitors ;
and it is due to their sunny aspect and the shelter provided
by the dead leaves clinging to the oak boughs. Such wooded
ridges are sometimes thronged with migrating willow-wrens
for a day or two in April. Willow-wrens are an extremely
abundant species, and are particularly plentiful in the moor-
land valleys of the north. To reach these haunts they must
pass through the more southern counties ; and the northern

32

SPRING

birds of passage and southern residents together fill the copse
with willow-wren's music till it is hardly silent for a single
moment of the day. Their notes are almost equally persis-
tent on any fine day in late April and May by the northern
streams, wherever there are woods and bushes.

Except for a few prematurely daring swallows, which are
detected by comparatively few eyes, the earliest visitor of

the swallow tribe is in
most places the sand-
martin. Like the other
swallows on their first
arrival, they haunt rivers
and sheltered water-
meadows, where the

still scanty supply of
swallow . . ,

insects is most plenti-
ful ; and where the river bank is bored with their holes, they
can be seen slipping sluggishly in and out in cold weather
and flying low over the wind-beaten stream. A few swallows
soon join them ; but it is often some little time before the
house- martins make
the family party com-
plete. As they fly low
over the stream sand-
martins can be easily
recognised by their
grey-brown backs and
wings and feeble, flut-
tering flight, house-martins by their back being half-white,
and swallows by their dark, steely blue. When the swifts
come later they are unmistakable from their large size and
superior power on the wing, and the sooty dulness of their
black plumage. As they sweep low about us by the stream-

HOUSE-MARTIN

THE GREAT MIGRATION 33

side, we can see the whitish patch on the throat which is
missed in their airier circles. Swifts and swallows are so
similar in appearance and habits that it was long thought
they were true fellow members of one clan. Anatomy shows
that the swift belongs to a different group, and is most nearly
related to the nightjar. But they are constant companions
of the swallow-tribe during their short summer season in
England, which lasts little more than three months to the
swallows' six.

Swifts have led us on nearly a month in advance ; many
new voices will be heard for the first time before the swift's
screech on a May morning.
About the middle of April
there is a marked increase
of summer migrants, in-
cluding several new kinds.
Ring -ouzels return from
abroad to their moorland
haunts in the north and U^
west, and are occasionally
seen lingering on ranges of hills in more southerly quarters,
as if tempted to remain and breed. Yellow wagtails appear
in small parties in the water-meadows and by the river banks,
where they replace the equally brightly coloured grey wag-
tails which haunted them during the winter months. On
some soft morning the brilliant cock redstart is seen quivering
his ruddy tail on the yew hedge by the lawn, or the rough
stone wall of the cow-yard, and sallying into the air or dipping
to the ground in quest of insects, much like the flycatchers.
The hen redstart is a duller bird than the cock, but has the
same way of posting herself on little watch-towers and
quivering her conspicuous tail. Redstarts are curiously fitful
in their visits to many districts, especially in the south and

(l.ttO 5

34 SPRING

east of England, and are sometimes not seen for a whole
summer except when passing inland in April or early May.
Redstarts haunt the same damp or shady places as wagtails
and robins ; but whinchats, though closely allied to them, are
birds of rough wastes and open commons, like stonechats.
Both species leave the more exposed commons before the
autumn gales and frosts ; but the whinchat is purely

a summer visitor to this
country, while the stone-
chat is only a partial
migrant, and usually re-
turns to his breezy furze-
brakes by the end of March,
before the whinchat reap-
pears from its winter home
in Africa. Many stone-
chats go no further for the
winter than the sheltered
valleys or the seashore.
Both cock birds are gay of
plumage and conspicuous
in their ways ; but the whinchat's slenderer build makes
it the more attractive of the two to watch, as it flits from
spray to spray of yellow furze, or clings sideways to a stem
of dead knapweed or fennel, that bloomed when it was last
in England.

The same warm April days that bring the whinchat to
the yellowing commons fill the lanes and overgrown hollows
with the summer babble of the whitethroats. The common
whitethroat or nettle-creeper is one of the most abundant
summer birds in most English districts, as can be well judged
even in winter from the number of the straw- twined nests
revealed among the thorns and nettles by the falling leaves.

THE GREAT MIGRATION 35

It is the colonist of hedgerows and roadsides, and the special
song-bird of the wayfarer. Just when the nettles are shooting
tall, and all the undergrowth springing among the bleached
grass stems, the whitethroat returns to find his home made
ready for him. Usually he waits a fortnight or so to nest, by
which time the cover is thick and plentiful ; but in very early
Aprils there are sometimes white-
throats' nests with eggs by the end
of the month. Whether he is in
a hurry to nest or not, from the
first morning of his coming there
is no mistaking his passion for con-
versation. His notes are a kind
of pleasant springlike small-talk
rather than the passionate utterance
of the lark or nightingale, or even
the serious monologue of the chiff-
chaff or corn-bunting. At times
he is even a little ribald, with his guttural objur-
gations flung from the lee side of the thorns. His
characteristic way of singing is to begin on one side
of the hedge, toss above it in a broken song-flight,
and vanish, still in casual song, among the leaves in
the shelter beyond. The yellowhammer outlasts him
as the song-bird of the highways in later summer; but he
comes with a wonderful discourse of music to the hedges of
April and May.

The song-flight of the tree-pipit is less familiar but more
marked. In some of the Welsh valleys from the middle of
April onwards the tree-pipits sing as perpetually as the
willow-wrens ; but in most English districts they are more
thinly distributed. They come to us about the middle of
April, and sometimes sing above the late spring snow, that

36

SPRING

makes the fleece of the new-born lambs look dark already.
In southern England they prefer park-land and well-grown
groves, or fields with high timber and deep grass. Their
song-flight is a very beautiful performance. They spring
into the air from the top of a tree, flutter upwards a few
moments in song, and then float downward on motionless
outspread wings till the song ends, after an emphatic
repetition of four or five high notes as they reach the tree
again. Sometimes they sing without rising from the bough ;

WHITKTHROAT

but flight and song together is their rule. The ear soon
learns the emphatic notes towards the end of the song, and
the singing pipit can then be singled out. Both the meadow-
and rock-pipits have a song-flight of similar kind; but the
tree-pipit's is far the neatest and most fascinating, as neither
of the others start and finish their flight with the same pre-
cision or from the top of a tree.

Spring comes slowly to the cold, wet soil of pools and
marshes and river banks ; and there is still little sign of the
luxuriant aquatic vegetation of later spring, when the first
chiffchaffs call in March. By mid-April the willows are
tasselled with vivid sprays, the flags and sedges and brook-
lime are strongly shooting, and the smell of the mint is

THE GREAT MIGRATION

37

faintly caught in the south wind and sun. Then comes the
welcome morning when the sedge-warbler's tireless babble
is heard again from the screen of russet flags, recalling more
memories of the past summer than the notes of almost any

SNOWFLAKE

other bird. For the sedge-warbler sings by night as well as
by day, far into the dog-days when almost all birds are still,
and the nightingale's music seems a dream of bygone spring.
It is the most faithful of all the summer singers except the
chiffchaff, which it far excels in the variety and surprises of
its song. This is an extraordinary medley of sweet and harsh
notes, poured forth with no discrimination, but with inex

38 SPRING

haustible vigour and zest. It recalls the guttural inconse-
quence of the whitethroat's strains by the highway, but is
far more powerful and sustained. Later in the year the
sedge-warbler imitates the songs and cries of many other
birds ; but on its first arrival it does not seem to be much of
a mocking-bird, unless indeed its own song may be partly
a rdsumi of notes caught in its winter home. Apparently it
has not the long memory of the starling, which will imitate

in November the peewit's
spring cry, not heard since
May. From the time
when the sedge-warbler
comes to the watersides,
they lose their earlier
desolation, and spring
flows onward rapidly.

Sedge-warblers do not
sing much after dusk in
the early part of the sea-
son ; the time when they
are so often mistaken for
nightingales is from mid-
May onwards to August,
during most of which period the nightingale does not sing.
Nightingales first arrive on the south-east coast about the
middle of April, and by the end of the third week the earlier
parties settle down in most of their haunts. Like other
migrants, they sing very little on arrival if the weather is cold
and windy ; but the first hot morning or soft night brings out
the music from the accustomed corner of the garden shrub-
bery, or copse or osier-bed. Nightingales are very constant
to the same haunt year after year, if they are not disturbed
and the undergrowth does not grow too rank and shady.

NIGHTINGALE

THE GREAT MIGRATION 39

Two or three pairs will haunt the same garden shrubberies
for many seasons, dividing up the territory into well-marked
properties or spheres of influence, which each bird respects.
But they are very fond of nesting in copses which change
their whole aspect in half a dozen seasons, as they grow
from one cutting to another ; and when the copse grows too
dark and tall, or when it has just been cut and gives scanty
shelter, the nightingales move away. This is the chief
reason of the great difference in the numbers of nightingales
in the same place in different seasons. But the lost night-
ingales generally come back, unless the whole character of
the district changes, as when old 'Nightingale Lanes'
become absorbed in populous suburbs and industrial towns.
They are one of the species which have greatly profited by
the increase of pheasant-preserving, with the vermin-killing
and exclusion of trespassers which it involves. One result
of their increase of numbers is the gradual extension of their
range into districts of Yorkshire, Cheshire, Devonshire, and
the Welsh border where they used to be very rare or wholly
absent. Taking the whole year round, our finest song-
bird is the song-thrush. All country lovers owe much to
this brilliant and indefatigable singer, which is in good
voice from October or November to July, and is heard in
every month. The nightingale's passion burns itself out
in less than two months ; but its voice is supreme while it
lasts. The first soft April night when it is heard is one of
the great landmarks of the year ; through scents of growth
and the dark air shimmering with new-born moths' wings
it resounds with the fervour of summer life. The throbbing
passion of the song is hardly less conspicuous when it is
heard next morning in the midst of the general chorus.

Nightingales are one of the species which enter England
across the narrower part of the Channel, landing between

4o SPRING

Dover and the Isle of Wight ; and from this region they seem
to distribute themselves northward and westward until the
whole stock is provided with a home, and they push on no
further. As they become more plentiful owing to game-
preserving, or are displaced by building in such favourite
regions as the fringes of Epping Forest, there is a gradual
impulse to move forward, and they spread further into the
north and west. The same extension of range is far more
marked in the case of the turtle-dove. Turtle-doves also
enter England chiefly in the south-east and spread north-

*@%

TURTLE-DOVE

wards and westwards throughout May. Except the starling
and the wood-pigeon, no inland bird has shown a more
striking colonising power in the last twenty years. Turtle-
doves are now common in many districts where they were
formerly hardly known, and are steadily pushing further.
Game-preserving has doubtless had much to do with it ; they
are a natural prey of the sparrow-hawk, and they are
specially fond of the belts of pheasant covert, which in the
southern counties are often seen fringing the wide stretches
of arable land where they feed. Farmers are apt to class
them with wood-pigeons as one of their curses ; but a
careful Hampshire observer states that the contents of
their crops show that they haunt ripening wheat-fields

THE GREAT MIGRATION

4i

for the seeds of the charlock, and not, like the wood-pigeons,
for the wheat. But neither game-preserving nor the in-
crease in some districts of young plantations is enough
to explain the turtle-dove's recent prosperity. There are
tides in the affairs of birds which observation still cannot
fathom ; no one really knows why the starling or the ring-
dove or the turtle-dove have been sweeping forward like
the tide of settlement in the Canadian West, while the
quail and the landrail decline. There has been a slight
revival of the landrail during the last two or three years
in some of the southern and eastern counties where it

COCK BUTCHER-BIRD

used to herald the April grass-growth so persistently with
its monotonous ' crake, crake,' fifteen or twenty years ago ;
possibly this was due, as has been suggested, to the wet
summer of 1909, which delayed the cutting of the seed and
clover crops, and consequently enabled the corncrakes to
bring off their broods in safety. But the pleasant monotony
of the corncrake's time-keeping note is still far less heard
in the southern fields than one could wish, though it is
commoner in many parts of the north and west.

When the double murmur of the turtle-dove is heard
in the May elder-brakes and hawthorn-clumps, the season
of migration is already far advanced, and the majority of
the summer visitors are already settling down in their

42

nesting-places.

SPRING

Swifts sail high round the church towers,

suddenly appearing as if they had always been there, and
the interval since last August had been an illusion. Night-
jars purr on the sides of the woods at dusk, or flit off like
shadows, with their owl-like cry, ' Ke-wick, ke-wick.' Wood-
wrens, with their curious shivering trill, become plentiful in
the woods chosen by them for the season. Sometimes they
will leave a haunt of many years' standing and form a new
settlement elsewhere. The tall woods which wood-wrens

frequent do not alter
like the nightingales'
copses ; their move-
ments seem purely arbi-
trary. Lesser white-
throats slip through the
thorn-bushes, showing
their slaty backs and
pale bellies, and crying,
Mil, 111. lil, 111," with
none of the common
whitethroat's noisy con-
tumaciousness. Cock
butcher-birds flit con-
spicuously along the quick hedges in search of their mates,
spreading their tails wide, and displaying the white patches on
their outer webs. In the valleys of Wales and the north the
beautiful pied flycatcher flits restlessly in the oak-woods and
shady gardens, passing on to his summer home not far away.
Almost last of all our summer visitors, the spotted flycatcher
comes back to the garden palings and the trellis by the porch
where last year's nest still clings. He is a sad-looking little
bird, far duller and quieter than his piebald brother of the
Welsh valleys ; but his delicate and faithful ways make him

PIED FLYCATCHER

THE GREAT MIGRATION

43

a favourite wild pet of English gardens. He is a song-bird
who hardly ever sings ; his few quiet song notes are more
rarely heard than even the song of the butcher-bird. They
are glad days when the summer birds return, and sing in
soft spring weather ; the birds busy themselves in their
old garden haunts with a desultory activity that is still
relief from the long journey, and pure recreation compared
with the hard work of feeding the young a month or two

SPOTTED FLYCATCHER

later. The thought of their wonderful journeys enhances
the pleasure of their return. The flycatcher long ago knew
the sources of the Nile; and the swallow that seems glad
to see our home again is fresh from lands of wonder that few
of us are likely ever to see.

The following list of the summer visitors gives approxi-
mately the order in which they arrive in England : —

Wheatear.
Chiffchaff.
Ring-Ouzel.

Garden-Warbler.

Nightingale.

Sedge-Warbler.

44

I

Stone-Curlew.

Blackcap.

Willow-Wren.

Whinchat.

Sand-Martin.

Swallow.

House-Martin.

Sandpiper.

Tree- Pipit.

Redstart.

Wryneck.

Cuckoo.

Whitethroat.

Lesser Whitethroat.

SPRING

Grasshopper- Warbler.

Wood-Wren.

Yellow Wagtail.

Landrail.

Swift.

Red-backed Shrike.

Common and Lesser Terns.

Pied Flycatcher.

Turtle-Dove.

Spotted Flycatcher.

Reed-Warbler.

Nightjar.

Hobby.

Marsh-Warbler.

THE BUILDERS

Spring advances like the tides, by the general onward move-
ment of many rising and falling waves ; and long before the
later migrant birds of summer have reached England, the
earliest nesters have already sent their young broods into the
world. Only the raven and crossbill and a few herons have
entirely done with the upbringing of young birds for the year
by the time that the swallow comes ; other early-nesting birds
have second broods to follow, and will be still busy in May.
None the less, the complexity in nature's broad movements
is strikingly brought home on some pleasant April morning in
the garden, when we hear the first indubitable cuckoo shouting
at us where he flirts his tail among the elms, and see next
minute the anxious mother thrush shepherding her round and
fluffy young in the shelter of the laurels. Very few of the
hen cuckoo's dupes have yet begun to build ; probably a third
of them have not yet arrived in the country ; and yet for our
own garden thrushes the season is already far advanced. They
will bring up another brood of young among the light green
leaves of the hornbeam hedge in May ; but they have already
borne the brunt of the breeding season in the warm garden
evergreens, among the winds and snowflakes of March.

46 SPRING

By the beginning of April the first broods of song-thrushes
are usually the only young birds of the year already fledged
and abroad. In a few days the first missel-thrushes, black-
birds and robins follow them ; we find their nests already
empty, and coated with the grey scales of skin detached by
the sprouting quills. Soon we find nests with young broods of
hedge-sparrows, blind and fuzzy and black ; for in the warm
haunts where they have lived comfortably all the winter these
unobtrusive birds also build very early among the thorns and
evergreens. About the same time we see the first rooks
bringing food to the tree-tops in the village ; they will be a
fortnight or three weeks later in the outlying hedges and
woods. In hollow trees the brown wood-owl and the stock-
dove are sitting on their white eggs, now opaque and dis-
coloured with incubation. Brown owls begin to lay almost
as early as song-thrushes, but they sit for nearly twice as long
before the first young hatch. Now and then we find ring-
doves' as well as stock-doves' eggs before the end of March,
and their young early in April ; but this is an exception,
and a mark of the general prolificacy of this rapidly multiply-
ing species. Stock-doves nest in warm holes, and therefore
can afford to begin early ; but ring-doves build slight, un-
covered nests in the open boughs, and do not normally lay
their eggs until the second half of April, or even May, when
the weather is milder. The same home-keeping habit
which enables the resident thrushes and robins and hedge-
sparrows of the garden to fall to building in March is also
seen among a few of the moorhens on the pools. When they
have spent the winter in peace and comfort, undisturbed by
the necessity of migration, they too will be sitting on their
large brown-spotted eggs very early in April. The earliest
moorhens nest when the reeds are huddled and dead, the
hawthorn-twigs above the sheltering stumps are still bare,

THE BUILDERS

47

and only the evergreen fern-fronds curving from the soft
touchwood yet wear the colour of spring.

Once April is fairly begun, the nests of the resident species
— not only of the resident individuals of those species —
begin to multiply very quickly. Faster than the expanding
leaves, green wisps of moss appear among the thorn and
hazel boughs, and hint where a bird's home may soon be

MOORHEN'S NEST

established. These are hints, and not sure indications ; for
most birds are easily deterred by disturbance, or bad weather,
or sometimes apparently by mere waywardness, and may
abandon the nest in the early stages of building. Some
kinds of bird, such as the wren and chaffinch and plover, and
the blackcap a few weeks later, seem to delight in tracing
half a dozen houses in outline before completing one. In
the case of the plover and wren, there is a peculiarity about
these unfinished nests which cannot be explained by any of
the causes just mentioned. The shallow scrapes of the
plover and the unfinished mossy shells of wrens' nests are

48 SPRING

both called cocks' nests, and observations confirm the belief
that in both cases they are made exclusively by the cocks.
The cock plover forms scrapes in the ground while writhing
and posturing in courtship before the hen ; and there is some
reason to believe that the plover's rough nest-hollow may
have originated in this way, and that the hen only later learnt
to use it as a receptacle for her eggs. The hollow scooped
by the cock plover appears to be a rude form of the highly
decorated playground prepared by the Australasian bower-

LAPWING ON NEST

birds ; and the cock wren seems to carry the same process
some stages further. He is not an earth-haunting bird, like
the plover, and so he builds his bower among walls and roofs
and trees ; and he makes a very neat and compact little
arbour, though it is only the shell of a regular nest. Here,
too, it seems that the hen bird turned the cock's taste for
rude nest-building to her own purposes and made nurseries
of his bowers. Most 'cocks' nests' never get any further,
and most true nests do not begin as 'cocks' nests,' but are
built with every appearance of being meant to hold eggs from
the start. But we have known a case in which a typical
'cock's nest' of the wren after remaining empty for more

o

D

O

w
a

o
g

p

w
w

z
w

THE BUILDERS 49

than three weeks was finally completed by a lining of
feathers, and was apparently ready for eggs when we left the
neighbourhood. Probably there is no absolute distinction
between the two kinds of nest, but the growth of the nursery
out of the bower or playground is still recalled by occasional
combinations of the two purposes.

All the first nests of the year either dispense with con-
cealment as ostentatiously as the rook's or magpie's, or attain
it by being built inside holes or thick cover. The stock-dove
and wood-owl hide their white eggs in holes, and most black-
birds and thrushes secure fair protection in an evergreen bush
or in the fork of thick boughs. Others seem absolutely care-
less, and their eggs and young are usually destroyed by bird-
nesting boys or animals, or by the fear of the bird itself to
incubate in the publicity which it seemed to court when
building. But soon nests appear which display an exquisite
harmony with their surroundings, so as to elude all but the
sharpest or luckiest eyes, and to delight them when they know
the secret. Many wrens' nests are wonderfully elusive in
situation and structure. Sometimes they are hung among
dead bracken supported by brambles, with the nest half
shrouded by dried fronds, and built externally of similar frag-
ments of fern. Sometimes a few large growing leaves of the
bramble are used to hide the nest in the same way. When
the nest is hung among ivy, a few dead ivy leaves may be
worked into the shell of moss, so as to assimilate its fabric
to the surroundings ; and when it is built in a crevice in a
mossy stump, it is almost sure to be built of moss. In such
cases as these, the protective resemblance is so close that it is
hard to avoid the conclusion that the birds make their nests
resemble their surroundings by pursuance of strong instinct,
if not by conscious art. If such an instinct of mimicry existed,
it would be due to natural selection having vigorously de-

(1,821) ~

5o SPRING

stroyed the wrens that did not acquire this advantageous habit.
But further observation shows that if this is the lesson which
nature means the wrens to learn, they have not yet fully learnt
it. Nests of moss can be found fitted into the crevices of a
grey stone wall, where they are distinctly conspicuous ; and
by no means all the nests hung among creepers or brushwood
are built of materials resembling their surroundings. It seems,
after all, that the cases of close resemblance simply arise from
the bird using the material which comes nearest. Thus nests
among fern are often built of fern leaves, and nests among
mossy stumps of moss.

As April advances, the beautiful nests of the chaffinch and
long-tailed titmouse face us with the same problem in a rather
different form. The large oval nest of the long-tailed tit is
always brightly spangled with white lichens ; and the hardly
less beautiful cup of the chaffinch's nest has the same decora-
tion, though not invariably. When either of these nests is
built in the fork of a lichened bough, or against a hoary
trunk, the protective resemblance is very close and effective.
But we generally find long-tailed tits' nests hanging among
the bare April thorns and chaffinches' among twigs not
covered with lichen, or in the green branches of gorse or fir ;
and in such situations the coating of lichen makes them
additionally conspicuous. Here, too, there seems to be no
originally protective purpose in the birds' habit ; the chaffinch
and long-tailed tit appear to ornament their nests with silver
lichens for the sake of their beauty, just as the bower-birds
collect blossoms and shells to decorate their courting-places,
and kites prank their nest with rags.

The long-tailed tit is the earliest nester of its tribe, and
sometimes begins to build before the end of March. Other
tits wait until the unmistakable week of spring which
usually occurs about the middle of the month, when grass

THE BUILDERS 51

and other green things suddenly make a great rush forward,
and the summer birds flood in from the south. But occasion-
ally a pair of great, or blue, or cole tits is reported building
even as early as February, especially in town gardens ; like
sparrows and starlings and wood-pigeons they are among
the birds which thrive remarkably in modern civilised con-
ditions, and tend to change their habits in many respects.
House-sparrows do not begin to build until the second half
of April in secluded country places where their numbers
remain within reasonable bounds. They join in the second
great wave of building, which comes distinctly later than the
nests of such early species as the robin or thrush or black-
bird. But among the gardens of growing towns, and over
wide tracts near London and other great cities which are
strongholds of their kind, sparrows seem to observe no such
rules, and begin nesting in a straggling way from Christ-
mas onwards, if the weather is fairly mild. Exactly the
same relaxation of habit is seen in the case of the starling,
which is another fast multiplying species. Twenty years ago
starlings' eggs were not to be expected until the middle or
latter part of April, when all the starlings attached to a
house and garden used to set to work simultaneously. Since
the westward immigration of hordes of starlings from
abroad upset the old distribution and feeding habits of the
species, they nest almost as early and indiscriminately as the
sparrows. The main body begin to build about a fortnight
earlier than formerly ; it is hard to say when one may not
expect premature sets of the pale blue eggs.

So even within the cycle of a score of seasons we can see
change plainly at work in nature, under the stimulus of the
artificial conditions introduced by man. The civilisation of
the tramcar and picture palace infects certain birds and
animals as well as humanity. The swallow, which was

52 SPRING

man's primaeval companion in holes and caverns, deserts his
modern cities ; and the sparrow and starling and wood-
pigeon replace it as his companions amid industrial grime.

But when the new verdure breaks in April, it drives back
the town for miles round its shabby fringe, and the new
grass and young elm-leaves make faded suburbs seem the
true country again. In fields once more green, the missel-
thrush calls to the wind, and tries to nest ; and though the
glare by night and the noise by day banish him before he
can settle down, the tamer song-thrush and blackbird rear a
few weakly young, among many disasters. In the heart of
the country, where the nightingales have not yet fled from
the stir of new buildings and the multiplication of domestic
cats and dogs, the birds returning to the thickening copses
and hedgerows complete the renascence of the year.
Chaffinches are so abundant in every part of the country
that the stir of spring life is greatly increased at one stroke
when most of them begin building together, about the
second week in April. Many of the early nests are de-
stroyed by the wind ; for the birds knit them to twigs
springing from separate boughs, which tear the mossy cup
when they whip apart. Linnets' nests appear among the
furze-bushes and in thick thorn hedges by the side of arable
fields ; in the latter situation the favourite material for the
outside of the nest is the roots of couch-grass thrown aside
from the spring harrowing. Their earthiness gives a dingy
appearance to the linnets' solid little nests ; but the eggs are
bedded on a thick cushion of wool that forms one of the best
of all protections against the winds and cold April rain.
Away from the wide plough-lands, among the furzy sheep-
walks and commons, the place of couch-roots is taken by
stained bent-grass and fragments of dead bracken. The
greenfinch nests about a fortnight later than the linnet ; and

THE BUILDERS

53

the difference corresponds to the nature of the site chosen.
The greenfinch does not show the same taste for snug
shelter as the linnet, but builds higher in the windy shrubs
and hedgerows ; and it has the wisdom to wait till they
become more habitable with advancing spring.

At the beginning of April the outlines of the earliest
magpies' nests grow larger and denser, and others begin to
appear in the naked tree-tops against the sky. It is easy to
tell a new magpie's nest from an old one, even if it is
unfinished and rather shapeless, by its light structure of fresh

unbattered stems. Rooks and jackdaws often tear off live
branches for weaving into their nests ; but magpies with
their less powerful beaks and frames do not seem to attempt
this. Their thorniest and most formidable nests are built
of clippings from a quickset hedge ; with an abundance of
straight, pliant shoots thickly set with spines, they weave a
nest as prickly as a folded hedgehog. Their nests are
shaped like wrens' nests, but with the roof lightly built of
sticks, and the lower part a cup firmly compacted of clay.
Most carrion crows begin to build in early April; but in
London and its suburbs the effect of easy living displays
itself as in the case of wood-pigeons and sparrows. In
parks and suburban fields the crow is often seen building in

54 SPRING

March. Its nest is a very warm and solid one, plentifully
lined with locks of wool, instead of the grass-tufts and
dry leaves used by the rook. Jackdaws nest about the same
time as crows, in the middle of April, though their choice of
holes instead of open trees might seem to warrant them in
beginning earlier. The general rule that the darkest eggs
are laid in the most exposed sites is well illustrated in
this family of birds. Rooks and crows build open nests in
the tree-tops, and their eggs are the darkest of the group,
though pale varieties are not uncommon. The magpie's
nest has a light roof of sticks, and the average colour of its
eggs is considerably paler. Jackdaws nest in holes in rocks,
buildings and trees, and their eggs are paler still. They
betray, however, their connection with a family which chiefly
haunts trees by being heavily spotted, instead of being pure
white like those of owls and kingfishers and other typical
hole-nesting birds. This seems to show that their habit of
nesting in holes is a comparatively recent one ; their eggs
have not yet lost completely the dappled markings which
were developed in open nests. A similar example is that of
the puffin's eggs, which are laid in crevices and burrows, but
retain faint spots or faded serpentine lines denoting their
kinship with the razorbill and guillemot family, the other
members of which lay their eggs on open ledges. Just
as hawks' eggs are usually ruddy, and gulls' eggs olive or
brown, all the members of the crow family lay eggs of some
tint of green. A nestful of deep green crow's eggs forms a
beautiful harmony of colour with the overhanging needles in
the crown of a fir ; and the theory of protective assimilation
is on the whole borne out by the distinctly brownish shade
of most rooks' eggs, which lie on a cushion of dead grass or
withered leaves.

The pale olive-brown of the pheasant's eggs shows no

THE BUILDERS

55

mere vague approximation to the bed of dry leaves which
forms the nest ; the likeness is very close, and the protective
effect cannot be doubted. Protective mimicry in birds' eggs
reaches its highest development when the eggs are laid on
the open ground ; and the scanty shoots or branches which
usually overhang a pheasant's nest are almost a negligible
screen. Pheasants begin to lay about the third week in
April, two or three weeks earlier than partridges. The

'A nestful of

crow's eggs'

various strains of wild pheasant now naturalised in England
are natives of different Asiatic regions, in which winter and
early spring are more severe than in England. This perhaps
is one reason for their prompter response to the mild influences
of the English seasons, just as the larch introduced from
Norway and the Alps comes earlier into leaf than most of our
native forest trees. But acclimatised birds after a few years
usually acquire habits in conformity with our climate, unless
there are definite reasons for maintaining their old ways ;
and another and probably a stronger reason for the later lay-
ing of the partridge is that it makes its nest among the grass
and grain crops rather than in thickets and woods. It there-
fore waits until the springing herbage has provided ample
cover, as the whitethroat does, which so often shares with
it some strip of grass and nettles by the roadside.

56

SPRING

By the crowded third week in April, when so many new
birds and new nests meet us on every fresh walk, the cold
stream bank and edges of the pools are definitely beginning
to shoot green. Moorhens begin to nest abundantly, coots
build larger copies of the moorhens' nests, and the earliest
dabchicks pull together their heaps of sodden water-weed.
Where the dropping boughs of the willows are veiled with

DABCHICKS

young shoots of green, the pied wagtails take to the air in
pursuit of the insects hatched by the warmth, instead of
searching in their winter way along the waterside. Now
they build their flat, well-cushioned nests in the crannied
willows and in holes in the cowyard walls ; they lay their first
eggs about the time that the yellow wagtails or cowbirds
arrive among the yellow kingcups in the wet meadows.
Though pied wagtails often nest year after year close to the
same spot, they are less constant to one site than the so-called
grey wagtails, which build in late March or early April in
their favourite haunts by some bridge or cascade on the
western or northern streams. They leave the lower parts of

THE BUILDERS

57

England before the yellow wagtails arrive, and they return in
August or early in September, a little before their tenderer
relations go south. They are larger and handsomer birds than
the yellow wagtails, and no less conspicuously yellow, when
they shake the bright patch beneath their tails in their gay
and restless flights. Yellow wagtails are a species which
flit about the cows in the summer meadows, in search of the
insects which they dis-
turb as they graze or lie
at rest ; and then they
allow us to come near
enough easily to distin-
guish the olive-green of
their upper plumage from
the grey mantle of the
species which we see by
the watersides, in the
same pastures from Au-
gust to February. Yellow
wagtails winter in West
Africa, and it is late May
or June before they nest
in their English haunts.
Pied wagtails are only

partial migrants, and the home-staying pairs build in mid-
April, though the majority arrive about that time, and nest
about the end of the month. But most of our British grey
wagtails go no further south in winter than our own southern
counties ; and their hardier habits enable them to return
very early in spring to their upland streams, so that they
are busy about their nests all through April. No group of
British birds illustrates the nice gradations of the migratory

habit more clearly than these three beautiful wagtails.

CUttg) o

YELLOW WACTAIL

APRIL

'Wanton with long delay the gay spring leaping cometh ;
The blackthorn starreth now his bough on the eve of May :
All day in the sweet box-tree the bee for pleasure hummeth :
The cuckoo sends afloat his note on the air all day.

Now dewy nights again and rain in gentle shower
At root of tree and flower have quenched the winter's drouth.
On high the hot sun smiles, and banks of cloud uptower
In bulging heads that crowd for miles the dazzling south.'

Robert Bridges, April 1883.

'Hark!
"Tis the early April lark,
Or the rooks with busy caw,
Foraging for sticks and straw.
Thou shalt, at one glance, behold
The daisy and the marigold ;
White plumed lilies and the first
Hedgegrown primrose that hath burst

Thou shalt see the field-mouse peep
Meagre from its celled sleep ;
And the snake all winter-thin
Cast on sunny bank its skin ;
Freckled nest-eggs thou shalt see
Hatching in the hawthorn tree,
When the hen-bird's wing doth rest
Quiet on her silvery nest.'

Keats.

GOLDEN PLOVER

MOORLAND BIRDS

High moorlands covered with grass or heather are peculiarly
characteristic of the wilder parts of the British Islands, and
their bird life is particularly interesting. The heather moors
are the home of our one exclusively British bird ; for the red-
grouse is sufficiently distinct from the Norwegian willow-
grouse to deserve a separate status without question, whereas
the St. Kilda wren and all the numerous offspring of the
latest scientific authorities are insular sub-species. Where
the moorlands rise into rocky mountains, they are the home
of certain Arctic species which have probably inhabited them
since the glacial epoch, and of some of our rarest and finest
birds of prey. The golden eagle has again become so
abundant in certain parts of Scotland after some years of
protection as to be removed from the protected list, though
it has been extinct for many years in other parts of the
kingdom. On the bare summits of the highest Scotch
mountains, the ptarmigan and snow-bunting breed under the
chill June sunshine in their subarctic plumage of splashed
white. From these stony and lichen-covered summits right
down to the tree-line in the dingles, and away to the enclosed
fields lower still, moors where preservation is not too strict
maintain a wonderfully fine and varied list of species, though
the total numbers are not very large. Wide, windy wastes of
grass and heather offer a too limited food-supply to attract a

6o

SPRING

very large number of birds. Almost all birds — even some of
the hawks and falcons — depend more or less on a free supply
of insect life in the nesting season ; and at that time there is
a far scantier choice of winged and creeping insects on the
open moors than in the lower woods and the enclosed
valleys. Insects become more abundant on the moors in
August; but by that time the birds have done nesting, and
many of them have already left the hills. This comparative
scarcity of insect life is one reason why many of the most
conspicuous moorland species are birds of prey, which feed
their young on other birds or young animals, and not on the

WHITETHROAT

insects or creeping things which fatten most other nestlings.
But another cause of the peculiar interest of the modern bird
life of the moors is the scarcity of the larger and wilder
species in cultivated and thickly peopled lowlands. Ravens,
buzzards and other birds of prey which once nested freely in
woods and groves have now been banished to the sanctuary
of the rocks, either on the moorlands and mountains or on
the shore ; and even such peaceable birds as peewits and
wheatears find a more congenial haunt on the untilled slopes
of the moors than on commons or rough fields in the
plains.

Fascinating as it is to watch the bird life of the lower
valleys in the May days when the cuckoo is calling every-

MOORLAND BIRDS 61

where, and the whitethroats are busy in the thorns and
roadside nettles, there is a sense of freedom and a kind of
natural adventure about a moorland expedition which makes
it even more attractive. The best way to approach the birds
of the moor is by following up one of the small streams
that come tumbling from the hills. In the shelter of the
slopes by such a stream, birches and alders and other wild
trees and bushes mount considerably higher than on the
bare slopes above. They thus tempt the birds of the low-
lands to push up into the heart of the moor ; and we pass in
gradual transition from the group of birds which we see

'the dipper whizzes along the stream'

among the fields and gardens of the village to the denizens
of the naked hills. The dipper whizzes along the stream,
following its windings or occasionally cutting across some
low-lying spit of land, and carrying mouthfuls of water-
insects to its young in the great mossy nest under some
overhanging cornice of rock. Dippers are sedentary birds,
and therefore early nesters ; and their first broods of young
are usually hatched by the third week in April, before most
of the birds of the open moor have done much more than
choose their nesting-place. But a sprinkling of dippers'
nests may be found still building in May ; and even in the
warm May weather when sycamores by the hill streams are
throwing off the scales from their bursting leaves, we can

62

SPRING

watch the extreme ingenuity with which the growing circle
of the domed nest clings almost with the adhesiveness of a
house-martin's cradle of clay in some water-worn rock.

Grey wagtails flash their yellow tails by some con-
spicuous cascade ; these birds seem drawn by the sound
of falling water, and nest year after
year, as many dippers do, by the same
spray-dashed fall. Wrens search with
their peculiar concentration and self-
absorption among the mosses and
along the waterline of the torrent's
bank ; and as far as the belt of rowans
and birches and hollies climbs among
the banks of bracken, the charming
cadence of the willow-wren is heard
from early April all day long. Willow-
wrens abound in these upland haunts,
as high as the trees extend ; thousands
upon thousands must be born each
spring in the cool shaws and dingles
of British moorlands, to penetrate a
few months later to inner Africa.
Stock-doves nest in increasing num-
bers in holes in trees and rocky banks
in their woodland valleys ; with them
go the heavier ring-doves or wood-
pigeons, lodging their open platforms
in hanging ivy bushes, or among the thick horizontal boughs in
plantations of spruce and larch. As the trees grow thin, and
we come to the bare rock-ledges and slopes of heather, the
pipe of the ring-ouzel may be heard from some lonely bend
of the stream, and the cock bird with its white crescent on
the throat may flit from one stone to another on the hill.

GREY WAGTAIL

MOORLAND BIRDS 63

Ring-ouzels are rather unevenly distributed among the
broken borders of the moors ; they are abundant in some
parts of the northern and western counties, but in others are
quite rare. They nest on or near the ground, among the
stones and heather, or in a chink in a dry-stone wall. After
they return from the south in April, they fill their chosen
haunts with a sweet if rather monotonous music much like
that of the missel-thrush, which does not penetrate beyond
the last sparse thickets of thorn. Blackbirds follow up the
sheltered streams higher than one would expect from their
fondness for warm hedges and gardens, and higher, as a rule,
than the song-thrushes. They seem able to turn up some
form of insect life from any sheltered corner among fallen
leaves ; but song-thrushes require in spring a steady supply
of the larger kind of snails, and these they can only find in
gardens, or among the low-lying hedges and copses. In
mid-winter they abandon altogether the central valleys of
the English lake district ; mildly as the west winds blow up
from Morecambe Bay, their song is not heard about the
head of Windermere or under Skiddaw till well on in
February. The titlark or meadow- pipit also leaves the
higher and barer moors in winter ; it is then that we often
see the wanderers from the hill counties picking along the
flooded margin of lowland rivers, or even on the banks of
suburban reservoirs. But by May the little dusky piping
birds are settled almost everywhere on the moors, inhabiting
the dim wastes of greyish grass and black peat where no
other bird will dwell. They nest under the rain-beaten tufts
of grass, or in pockets in the cushions of dark green hair-
moss ; and the cup of dry grass keeps the dark mottled eggs
dry and warm all through the long grey days of mist and
rain on the uplands.

Titlarks haunt heather, or slopes of rough and shaggy

64 SPRING

grass, but wheatears prefer the stretches of smooth turf
cropped close by sheep and rabbits. The moorland is
parcelled out between them, with the titlarks' share much
larger than the wheatears'. Although the first travelling
wheatears may often be seen before the end of March, it is
well into May before the full summer population is settled
on the shorn grass slopes, and busy with nesting. The
wheatear nests in underground crevices or burrows ; and its
favourite place in the moors is where a heap of stones has
half sunk into the turf, and connects a maze of winding

passages, or where

(.

or where a
frost - split rock has
shifted, forming a deep,
snug crack. Since
wheatears like smooth
turf, they are apt to be
found in sheltered hol-
lows where the sheep
gather and graze year
after year, by the streams
and the upland folds ; and often where a lonely shepherd's cot-
tage has tumbled into ruin, the only sign of life is the wheatear
flitting with its conspicuous patch of white from the fallen
wall, and perhaps a black magpie's nest stuck high in an old
apple-tree by the gateway In her narrow labyrinth among
the stones, the wheatear can nest without fear of the wicked
magpie, which otherwise might prove a too dangerous
neighbour for her eggs and young. Magpies are fond of
nesting in the clumps of thorns which nestle in the high
hollows of the moors ; they return to them in March, or even
February, and by the time that the old hawthorns break into
white blossom late in May, the nest is usually crammed full
with a mass of pied fledgelings. The gravelly spits and

WHEATEAR

COCK WHEATEAR (UPPER BIRD) COURTING HEN.
By A. W. Si w.v.

MOORLAND BIRDS

65

bays of the stream in the level hollows where the old sheep-
folds are often found are the highest nesting- places of the
sandpipers. A May flood tearing down from the peat-hags
will often wash away the four or five biscuit-coloured eggs
laid on the gravel below high-water mark ; and all through
the month, and into June, first the cock bird will flit from
spit to spit with shivering flight and shrill anxious chatter,
while presently the hen will appear as if from nowhere and
join him in tremulous alarm. Like most birds that nest in

COMMON SANDPIPER

the open, sandpipers are very cunning in leaving the nest ;
and since the colour of the back and closed wings is very
like that of the grey-green pebbles of most hill streams, it is
easy for the sitting bird to run invisibly for some distance,
and then attract attention to a safe and unobjectionable
quarter by a sudden display in flight of the white feathers of
the wings and tail.

Lapwings and curlews are both well practised at the
game of pretending that the nest is where it is not, or at any
rate that it is not where it is ; and hours of interest may be
spent in the attempt to outwit them by the resources of scout-
craft. The first requisite is a knowledge of the kind of

(1.982) q

66

SPRING

ground that each prefers. Lapwings are fondest of wet tracts
of short green grass, generally interspersed with clumps
of rushes. Curlews seek out on grass-moors the concave
bights or ' slacks ' which lie between the head and the
shoulder of the hill, and are full of the pale tangled grass
which botanists call flying bent-grass, and which makes what
the keepers call 'white ground.' They also haunt gentle
slopes of the same kind of grass towards the bottom of the
hills — often within the walls of the lowest fields. If they see

a human figure come gradually into view at a distance, the
hen birds of both species will slip quickly from the nest and
run to a considerable distance before taking to flight, as
though from the nest itself. Meanwhile the cock birds are
wheeling and crying overhead ; they endeavour to distract
the intruder's attention from the nest by drawing him in a
different direction. Sometimes the sitting birds can be spied
at a distance with a field-glass, after approaching within a
few hundred yards, under cover of rising ground, or in the
shelter of some deep ravine. Without the aid of a glass
nests of both species can be found by approaching some
likely spot under cover, as just described, and suddenly
appearing within a hundred and fifty yards or less of the

MOORLAND BIRDS 67

sitting birds. Taken thus by surprise, they will rise directly
from the nest ; and at least one nest can usually be marked
down infallibly, while a sufficiently good notion can often be
secured of one or two more, especially in the case of plovers
mating in colonies, to make it not difficult to find them. If
the hunter approaches over a gradually rising skyline, the
sitting bird is almost certain to see him gradually looming
into view long before he can see the small form crouched on
the wide waste. Sometimes we may catch sight of the bird
in the act of running from its nest ; it will be distinguishable
from other birds running on the moor by its stealthy haste
and directness. Then the nest may sometimes be found by
disregarding the bird further, noting the path by which it
came, and following it backwards in a straight line. A year
or two ago, in Wales, we saw a curlew run more than eighty
yards from left to right across the line of our advance, before
taking to flight exactly in the opposite direction from the
nest ; the nest, still empty, was thirty-six yards back from the
point at which the bird was first seen running.

The curlew's nest is a shallow depression, as large as
the largest dinner-plate ; on many moors it is fairly thickly
lined with the grass which makes the 'white ground,' and the
four large olive-green eggs, with their darker spots, make a
fine appearance in the nest. It is the rule with this whole
tribe of waders and marsh-birds to lay their four eggs point
to point, like a four-leaved shamrock. They pack neatly
together, owing to their pointed shape ; and as the young
birds are hatched well grown and active, and the eggs are
consequently very large for the size of the bird, it is possible
that this symmetrical arrangement helps a small bird to brood
and cover amply a large set of eggs. Yet the rule is not
invariable ; we have seen a plover's nest in which one of the
four eggs was lying quite unsymmetrically, and had been

68

SPRING

incubated long enough in that position to have pressed a deep
print in the soil. When a second set of only three eggs is
laid, they seem more often to lie just as they come than in
the trefoil pattern, which is the nearest approach to the
typical arrangement of the full set. Like farmyard chicks,
which also leave the eggshell in the full possession of their
infant senses, young plovers can often be heard piping within
the shell if we lift the eggs to our ears when they are nearly
hatching in May. The dull, opaque shell of the hardest egg
is smeared with the dried mud carried
by the bird's feet in the April storms.
It looks like dullest tortoiseshell, and
has lost almost all the beauty that it
had when freshly laid ; but half-born
within it stirs the note of coming life
under the May sky.

Golden plovers are later nesters
than the green plover, peewit, or lap-
wing, and are often only settling down
v t .'.III in their nesting-places in the first half
" of May, when the young lapwings are

quickly hatching even on the high
moors. Lapwings are, above all things,
quaint and delightful, with their antics on their crooked
wings, their perpetual sham attacks above their nesting-
places, and their wild spring hallooing. Golden plover are
very different and far shyer. They haunt in spring only
the higher or lonelier moors ; a single pair can sometimes
be found settled alone on some grassy summit overlooking
half a dozen counties. Their pointed wings and clean flight
are very unlike the broad vans and circling orbits of the
peewit ; and their most frequent notes in spring is not the
liquid whistle which falls from their autumn flocks, but a

LAPWING CHICK

MOORLAND BIRDS

69

low anxious note like the mew of a small kitten. This plain-
tive sound is distinctive of the freest landscapes and the
purest air in spring ; it seems distilled from the living quick-
silver of the spring wind and light. It sounds like the mew
of a buzzard heard from a great height in air ; and while we
are looking far into the sky, it is often surprising to see the
golden plover standing only a few yards away, conspicuous
with his black spring breast, and uttering this subtle and
almost puny cry.

Like the keener peregrine falcon and the sinewy raven

'WW

'the broad-winged buzzard sails in wide circles'

the buzzard now only haunts moors where crags and preci-
pices provide a refuge from disturbance ; but ravens and
buzzards still occasionally nest in trees growing among the
rocks. Neither ravens nor buzzards are at all rare in most
moorland or mountain tracks ; they are not positively
numerous, for each pair requires at least a square mile or two
of country to itself, but they are well distributed, and make
themselves attractively conspicuous. The broad-winged
buzzard sails in wide circles above the hillsides, flinging down
its querulous wail ; and the raven often floats and glides on high

7o SPRING

in very much the same way, though its curves are less pro-
longed, its wings are more often reset to the changing wind,
and their comparative narrowness makes them distinguish-
able from those of the broad-winged hawk. Peregrines are
true falcons, with pointed wings and dashing flight ; they are
far rarer in most woodland districts than the buzzards, and
have to contend against greater prejudice owing to their skill
in dispatching a grouse. Buzzards are content with dead
sheep, and even beetles ; and they have not the raven's
merciless habit of attacking weak lambs and sickly ewes in
the lambing season. The golden eagle is half a buzzard in
form and habits, for all his lordly size. He, too, has a vul-
turine taste for carrion, though he also carries off grouse and
mountain hares. It is very doubtful whether any golden
eagle can carry any larger animal than a good-sized hare ;
and the various dramatic stories of sleeping babies being
borne to the distant eyrie must be regarded with per-
manent suspicion, for none of them can now be verified.
In England and Wales the golden eagle is only a very rare
wanderer — rarer than the white-tailed or sea eagle, immature
specimens of which visit the east coast and other parts of the
country not very infrequently. But the golden eagle has
grown fairly common in parts of the north of Scotland,
after a period of protection under the law ; and it is also
said to survive in two Irish counties.

Of all British hawks, the most characteristic of the moor-
lands is the merlin, which is the smallest species, and one of
the most truly hawk-like. The cock bird is often called the
Blue Hawk, from the slaty-grey of its upper parts; and the
name is vaguely applied to both sexes, though the hen is
rather brown than blue. Where an outcrop of rain-beaten
rock caps some summit of the Welsh or northern moors, the
merlin chooses a perch, and sits there for a long while to-

MOORLAND BIRDS

7i

gether, half watching for the movement of small birds, on
which it preys, and half in mere enjoyment of life. From
this habit it is also called the Stone Hawk. But not every
hawk that is seen pefched on a rock on the moors is likely to
be a merlin. Buzzards have a similar habit of choosing a
lofty perch for the digestion of their meals ; and where
merlins and buzzards are both scarce, the kestrel has the
same picturesque habit. Merlins lay their eggs in May in a
bare hollow among the grass or heather. More rarely they

choose an old crow's nest, which is a common practice of the
kestrel's. Buzzards and ravens both build a large nest of
sticks or heather stems ; young buzzards are hatched in
May, but the raven is an earlier nester, and its young are
then beginning to stray from their nest among the neigh-
bouring rocks. Hawks as a tribe have rather vague and
casual habits of nesting ; and the kestrel lays its eggs indif-
ferently in a hole in some rock-face, like a jackdaw or stock-
dove, or in an old nest in a tree — generally a crow's. In
some lonely ravine among the moors, there may be only two
trees clinging to the bare slopes for two or three miles ; a
bulky carrion crow's nest may fill the top of one stunted
rowan or pine, and where its half-ruined predecessor of last

72

SPRING

spring hangs in the top of the other, the ringing cry of the
kestrel from some neighbouring rock tells us that it, too, is
tenanted. The extreme conspicuousness of such nesting-
places illustrates only too clearly one reason for the diminu-
tion of the birds of prey.

The wheatear in its bur-
row and the wary curlew
on the wide waste bring
up their young in safe
concealment ; but the
black nest of the crow
or magpie is often the
most conspicuous object
on the whole of the May
moors. The rowans and
ashes leaf late, and the
nesting marauders do
not wait for them ; the
shepherd's boys pocket
the kestrel's red eggs
and the crow's green
ones, or the game-
keeper destroys the
whole brood by a charge
of shot from the hillside
close at hand. The
grey or hooded crow
takes the place of the carrion crow in the north and west of
Scotland, as well as in Ireland; and where trees are absent,
it builds its nest on some slope of rock, or even among the
flat heather on some little islet in the lonely Hebridean lochs,
where the thin song of the omnipresent titlark contrasts with
the harsh cries of goosanders and herons.

MOORLAND BIRDS 73

Partridges haunt the grass-moors to a considerable
height, and old cock pheasants of wild and wary habits dwell
in the wooded dingles that mount between the bare shoulders
of the hills. Their cry blows over the open crests with a
distant association of oak leaves and mossy shadows. Where
a mantle of alders and birches clings loosely to the sides
of the hills, just above the highest oat and barley fields,
black game harbour on the edge of the desert and the sown.
They are distinctly birds of the rough moorland scrub, and are
midway in habit between the capercailzie, which haunts the
pine-woods, and the red-grouse of the open moors of heather.
The nearest relative of the red-grouse is the Norwegian riper
or willow-grouse, which in summer has its grouselike plumage
conspicuously splashed with white, and in winter turns white
almost completely, and is then common in the poulterers'
shops under the guise of 'ptarmigan.' Heather is scarce in
Norway, and the chief haunt of the willow-grouse is among
the dwarf willows and little dark green creeping birches
which clothe miles of the mountain slopes. Our grouse is
the willow-grouse adapted to a milder climate, where snow
is only intermittent on the slopes which it haunts, and the
white has accordingly almost vanished from its plumage. It
survives only in the white spots on the birds from certain
localities. Grouse pick up part of their living from many
moorland plants, and a few insects ; but the staple of their
diet consists of shoots of heather — not the bell heather,
which is included among the mere pickings, but the paler
starry ling. It is curious that there is apparently no trace
of its ever having existed in a natural state on the great
heaths which cover wide tracts of north-west Germany,
especially as it now appears to be doing well in several
places where it has been introduced into both Germany and
Belgium. Not even the little dark heather linnets, or twites,

C1,»M> IO

74 SPRING

are so thoroughly characteristic of the heather-clad moor-
lands as the grouse. The twite is hardly ever found in
spring or summer in the south or west of England, and is
scarce even in the north ; it does not become common until
we reach the Scotch highlands and islands. But the grouse
are the true ' moorfowl,' as they call them in the north ; and
the cock grouse has all the habits of proprietorship. His
peremptory cry of ' Go back ! Go back ! ' sounds a challenge
like the bark of the raven, as he mounts to some heathy
knoll to face the intruder ; and it rings as pleasantly in the
ear from the heave of the moor close at hand, as the bub-
bling spring cry of the curlew, scouting round the distant
crests.

RED-GROUSE

NIGHTS ON THE WATER

Night hours in woods or stackyards discover much life that
is obscure in the daylight ; but it is by mere and river that
the evening and night are most prolific of strange sights and
sounds. It is a common practice of Norfolk naturalists to
spend nights on the broads ; and there are few experiences
more full. Soon after sunset the great noctule bats, looking
strangely large to those only accustomed to the commoner
pipistrelle, are usually to be seen in the early days of May.
They come out to feed and flitter in the twilight, screech
shrilly, as they wage war on the night-flying beetle, often
dropping sharply with half-folded wing. When some great
coleopterous creature has been caught, you can distinctly
hear the scrunch of its shelly covering as the animal's long
sharp teeth break into it. By blowing into a small key you
may produce a whistle sharp enough to bring a response
from the bat, which may flutter so close to your head that
the puff of a wing-beat may be felt as it passes.

The redshanks nesting on the marshes have ended their
piping. In the day they broke the silent task of incubation
by a foray after ditch prawns and other ' shrimps ' and crea-
tures on the muddy margins of the river : or if the tide was
high, by a hunt along the ditchsides where the little shrimps
and side-swimming gammarus swarm, and where a host of
species of water-beetles circle and dance.

76 SPRING

The lapwings, whose mates are still sitting in their
'scrabs' on some low-lying marsh, or in some rut of a clover
meadow, flit down to the lower marshes at nightfall. The so-
called sportsmen, now happily debarred of free access to the
marshes, used to call these movements ' flighting,' and these
well-marked lines of flight ' leads.' The strange squeal heard
on a dark night or across the beauty of the moonlight, leaves
one with a sense not only of the loneliness of the wide
plateau, but with a certain feeling of companionableness
also.

The kine lie lazily around at night-time, and the sound of
their cud-chewing makes the strangeness familiar. Where a
few scrappy clumps of reeds spring up in the 'cut,' saving an
utter rigidity of margin, a sedge-warbler chatters out his love
tale. In the clump on the ' low,' a stone's throw off, he has
a little nest fixed like a New Guinea nigger's hut, upon a
scaffolding : as the reeds grow upwards that nest will go up
with them, and by the time the baby birds have made their
way into the world, they will be swinging in a bed-cradle to
the lullaby of the night winds. The swallows that flitted
around in the daytime at night roost in the old pump-mill, on
a projecting nail, or rough oaken beam edge, or on a cog-
wheel. In niches in the wall where soft bricks crumbled,
their nests are stuck as half-circles or less, or even as saucers
in shape, as caprice prompted. When the little ones come
to be feathered, and make their first essays at flight, one now
and then errs in approaching the oily cogwheels, which
enshroud them with misfortune as with bird lime. In the
daytime they flitted around the reed-patches, whipped up
insects struggling on the stream, and toyed merrily high
aloft. The sand-martins dropped in on a friendly call, for
a share in the common prey of moths and flies and other
abundant species, that danced around the rank thistles and

NIGHTS ON THE WATER 77

chenopodiums and reeds and sedges. The duckweed-
thickened ditches teem with life. Even small roach, many
a fat eel, and here and there a stunted pike flash among the
crowded horsetails, water-plantains, hornwort, and other
ditch plants : all of them enjoying life the more for taking
it. Frog and stickleback are engulfed in the trap-jaws
of hungry pike ; mayflies and many another May insect
emerging from their pupae-cases are food for little roach or
passing swallow, martin, and wagtail, whom the chirping
meadow-pipit joins to help in the general slaughter.

At nightfall the cuckoo, who even finds out the swinging
cradle of the sedge-warbler, has retired to a tree branch to
rest ; the goatsuckers come to the old willow on the other
side of the 'wall.' Ghost moths do not heed his churning
warning, and with many another night-loving insect go down
his wide jaws.

There creep out from their burrows in the ' wall ' the
furry little water-voles. These plunge into the shallows,
thick with watercress, and undoubtedly sample any small
insect, floating moth, and struggling dragon-fly, busily pulling
itself out of its glove of a pupae-case, just as the water-shrews
'plumped' in and seized others by daylight. But here the
water-voles take by choice the long, thick grass stalks, cutting
them off with gardener-like deftness with their large yellow
incisors. Then sitting up, ' waist deep ' on the margin, they
nibble them up to the merest remnant, passing the succulent
blades through their handlike fore paws as might their
relatives, the squirrels.

Such sights and sounds may any observer enjoy who
loafs through the long warm day, and continues his vigil
through the silent night hours, until the marsh mists vanish
in a new day's sunbeams, when the sky in the east turns
from deepest blue to palest green, when the stars grow dim,

78

SPRING

and streaks of golden break above the horizon and change
from fiery red to paler yellow, even until the full glory of the
day appears. The least shuffle of the feet sets all the little
sedge-warblers off singing their rough ditties, whilst moor-
hen croak notes of astonishment, and the grebes hard by
cluck their annoyance at the disturbance. There are other
cries — there is the crake of a water-rail, the screech of an owl
in the wood yonder, the call of a night-prowling heron that
breaks harshly on the ear like the wail of a ghostly wanderer.

OYSTERCATCHERS

Those who have attempted sleep during a night on the broads
will certainly be awakened by such strange night noises.

Otters are much more likely to be heard than seen, though
their traces are evident. You might see now and then the
tail end of a big tench, or a bit of an eel, — they are fond
of big eels — you might even observe the sedges trampled
where they landed, but so wary are they, that even the
marshmen can seldom catch sight of one landing. In one
place where a pair had three or four young at a litter it
became a standing marvel how they managed to bring them
up in secret ; and the anglers who grumbled about the
number of fish killed in the neighbourhood never penetrated
the secret. When day first comes how many birds are seen

NIGHTS ON THE WATER 79

here which are seldom seen elsewhere. A clamber through
the gap in the sandhills brings the watcher to the beach,
where he will find the ringed plover mournfully piping to his
fellows, the sanderling with his freckled gorget round his
chest and the gay turnstone almost tumbling over the stones
in search of the sandhoppers on which he feeds.

The oystercatcher drops in and hunts for a stranded
mussel, on his way to join his comrades on the muddy shores

'grey plover, with vest of black'

of the Wash, where mollusca are much more in evidence.
The gulls are not so numerous as in other days, for the larger
species have gone south to breed ; and only stray blackheads,
holidaying an hour or so from their duties further inland,
break the dull sea level with dots of white. In spring there
are many birds occasionally to be met with — the grey plover,
with vest of black, the grey godwit in suit of red, the dunlin
with shirt front of deepest black, and the tern with pearly
mantle, on its way north to nest. On the sandy slopes and
marram-tufted knolls the wheatear flecks his tail, and the

80 SPRING

stonechat and whinchat make themselves at home among
the furzy clumps and the prickly sea-buckthorn that breaks
the wild and otherwise bare broken sand-dunes. Below in
the hollows behind these dunes the restharrow touches the
slopes with pink, and the cranesbill with yellow. Other
touches of colour are dotted here and there where bustling
winds dropped in the seeds of foreign plants that took root
and made the best of the untoward circumstances.

MAGPIE INQUISITIVE.

Bv G. E. Collins.

; . v ■-■ > — ,^^r — ~z —

THE CUCKOO

Cuckoos' cries are so deeply associated with the first warm
spring days that the earliest reported occurrences of the bird
always need to be treated with considerable caution. Rustics,
especially children, have an ingrained instinct for crying
cuckoo to signalise the first soft, bright weather which feels
like the genuine cuckoo-time ; and their imitations are often
so accurate as to deceive even practised ears at a little
distance. Nor are many of the statements that a cuckoo has
been seen in March, or even February, any more trustworthy
than reports of its being heard. Even birds seem to be
deceived by the likeness of the cuckoo to a hawk ; and it is
perhaps not wonderful that human observers are apt in spring
to mistake a sparrow-hawk sneaking along the hedges, or
even a kestrel, for the bird they expect to appear. Both eye
and ear being so fallible, the only certain proof of the arrival
in England of a cuckoo before its normal date in April is for
it to be both seen and heard cuckooing by a thoroughly trust-
worthy observer, or for its body to be produced, freshly shot.
This latter test may no one satisfy ; and though there seems
no definite reason why cuckoos should not occasionally
arrive in February or March in years when the weather
over western Europe is exceptionally mild, there is little

82

SPRING

evidence that one has ever reached us before April. March
cuckoos are so far ' not proven,' while February cuckoos are
still more open to suspicion. Cuckoos feed chiefly, if not
entirely, on the hairy caterpillars, such as drinkers and woolly
bears, which first appear on emerging from hibernation in
mid-April. If they come before these caterpillars are about
they are likely to starve ; and though some migrant birds —
for example, swallows and martins —
do starve when they reach England in
cold springs before their natural food
is forthcoming in sufficient quantities,
nature generally avoids such a fiasco.
Moreover, a starving bird is very un-
likely to have vigour to shout in spring
song, which is the expression of over-
flowing vitality ; and a February or
March cuckoo is very unlikely to be
heard cuckooing. Cuckoos are reported
as having been heard before their usual
time much more often than as having
been seen ; and the improbability of
these aural records makes the remaining
body of evidence very unsubstantial.
Cuckoos arrive in England along the eastern half of the
south coast — from Hampshire to Dover ; but unlike the
nightingale, which chooses the same point of entry, they
spread over the entire country, even to the Outer Hebrides
and the Shetlands. They do not reach their remotest haunts
until the end of May, or even early June. When they
arrive they have always the perfect double note, which they
usually keep until June; and this is another reason for doubt-
ing the authenticity of very early records. It would be more
in accordance with the gradualstages by whichmost birdsbuild

WOOLLY BEAR

THE CUCKOO 83

up their spring song for cuckoos very early in the year to
utter rough and broken notes, like their cries towards the end
of the season. We hear in England the gradual decay of the
male cuckoo's song, but nothing of its growth. It first calls to
us in the clear and lusty notes which vary in musical interval
in the case of different birds, but not in the completeness of
delivery. As the season goes on, we hear the cuckoo resolve
its clear call of April noons and May dawns into its primitive
elements. ' In June it changes its tune,' says the country
rhyme ; and this is true in the main, though sometimes the
double note becomes threefold even in May, while in other
seasons we may hear a perfect double call as late as we hear
the bird crying at all. Usually the ' cuck-cuck-00 ' of early
June rapidly deteriorates into a hoarse guttural gabble, and
that into habitual silence. When greatly excited, even in the
heyday of its song in April and May, the cock cuckoo will
sometimes utter the hurried threefold notes, and inarticulate
guttural cries. These cries are to be heard when two or more
cocks are agitatedly obeying the call of a hen; and then, amid
an extraordinary storm and volley of mixed cuckoo cries, we
have the opportunity of distinguishing the hen's peculiar note.
This is a loudly repeated bubbling noise, of the same curious
kind as one of the spring cries of the curlew ; it also recalls
the spring cry of the dabchick. Perhaps no three birds
ever make a more confused noise and excited din than is
produced by a hen cuckoo calling up two jealous cocks, which
alternately approach and retire from her tree-tops, and shout
till the meadows ring.

As such a scene suggests, the hen cuckoo is polyandrous,
and this not only fits in with the general looseness of her
parental habits, but suggests a clue to the curious pattern of
her eggs. From the evidence of dissected specimens in the
laying season, each female cuckoo is believed to lay from five

84

SPRING

to eight eggs. She lays an egg on the ground, and then
carries it in her beak to the nest, which is often placed in such
a situation that she could not deposit the egg in the ordinary
way. The egg is very small for her size, though usually
rather larger than those of the foster-parents. The nests most
often chosen in this country are those of the hedge-sparrow,
meadow-pipit, pied wagtail, sedge-warbler, and reed-warbler ;
but three or four times as many species are occasionally vic-

/ _ , timised. The cuckoo's
egg does not as a rule
present an extremely
close likeness to the
eggs among which it
is laid ; in some cases
there is practically
no resemblance. Blue
cuckoos' eggs seldom
if ever occur in this
country, though they
are said to be met with
on the Continent ; and
cuckoos' eggs placed
among the blue eggs of the hedge-sparrow are of a freckled
green. There is no reason to believe that the cuckoo
inspects her egg and then chooses a set of other eggs to
correspond, as is sometimes said. But although the cuckoo's
eggs could not often be mistaken for those of the bird among
which they occur, the eggs found in the nests of each species
which frequently act as host do approximate to a definite type
of colour, and there is a very rough approximation between
this typical colour and that of the eggs of the host. Cuckoos'
eggs from reed-warblers' nests, for example, have usually
a deep bronze-green ground, with the freckled markings

cuckoo's egg in hedge-sparrow's nest

THE CUCKOO

85

darker than usual ; and this does conform in a very imperfect
way to the pale green eggs of the reed-warbler, with their
dense, dark green spots. It is most probable, though it is
not yet proved, that the hen cuckoo puts her eggs in nests of
the same kind in which she herself was brought up. The
same principles of natural selection which control the colours
of the lawful eggs in the nest therefore influence to some
extent those of the intruding cuckoo,
never become very like those of the host,
because when two cuckoos mate there is
often an admixture of blood from a different
class of cuckoos, contributed by the cock.
Though the hen cuckoos of the reed-warbler
cuckoo clan are faithful to the nests of the
reed-warbler, the approximation of their
eggs to the reed-warbler's eggs is perpetu-
ally hindered by their mating with the
hedge-sparrow or meadow-pipit or pied
wagtail clan, which perpetually introduce
the blood of a different stock. It is worth
noting that the indecisive colour and mark-
ings of cuckoos' eggs are just the result which
we should expect from a confusion of many types. Cuckoos'
eggs are found so rarely in certain nests — as, for example, the
swallow's and chaffinch's, and even the dabchick's — that it
seems clear that the right instinct of the mother sometimes
breaks down, and that she puts her egg in the first nest she
can find. If the attachment to the nest of a certain species
were absolute, it would also be difficult to explain the occur-
rence of cuckoos' eggs in nests of the marsh-warbler, which
is so scarce and local in this country as to provide a very
uncertain foster family for cuckoos depending on it. Yet
cuckoos' eggs do turn up in marsh-warblers' nests, and it

86 SPRING

seems most probable that they are strays dropped by hen
cuckoos which usually frequent the nests of sedge-warblers or
other birds nesting in the same thicket.

When two cuckoo's eggs are found in the same nest,
they have probably not been laid by the same bird. There
is plenty of room for two cuckoo's eggs and four or five
other eggs in a nest, but none for more than one young
cuckoo. Being so small when hatched, it has to grow very
rapidly, and therefore needs much food ; it can afford to
tolerate no rivals, and has a very short way with them. When
still blind and naked, and usually before it is forty-eight
hours old, it works itself under the other young birds, one
by one, scrambles up the side of the nest with its stumps
of wings raised to keep the victim in place, and empties it
over the edge. Its back is unusually flat and hollow, which
appears to be a special adaptation for this bloodthirsty
performance. It does not always accomplish its blindfold
task the first time. The other little bird sometimes falls
down inside the nest ; then the cuckoo rests a little, and sets
itself savagely to work again. It is not long before it
reigns alone, and before it is fledged it fills the whole nest,
and pecks savagely at the hand which attempts to touch it.

Unnatural as the acquiescence of the foster-parents may
appear, they are only acting according to their lights.
Their instinct bids them find young birds hatched in their
nest ; and they obey their nursing instinct implicitly, indif-
ferent to the fact that there is only one young bird left, and that
a completely naked and copper-coloured little creature un-
like any chick of their own. This active co-operation of the
foster-parents in a process which can only lead to the reduction
of the numbers of their species is an illustration of the fact
that not every acquired habit in nature is necessarily
beneficial, as some extreme supporters of the theory of

THE CUCKOO 87

natural selection hold. There is a certain margin of freedom,
and a disadvantageous habit may be outbalanced by other
beneficial ones. Birds will usually brood an inserted egg of
about the same size as their own ; it is quite easy to get a
nestful of young song-thrushes hatched and reared in a
blackbird's nest, though the eggs are very distinct in colour.
Sometimes the owner of the nest does resent the arrival of
the cuckoo's egg, and covers it up with a little more lining.
Though the parasitic habit is clearly a disadvantage to the
foster-parents, it is
harder to decide
whether it is an ad-
vantage to the cuc-
koo. Obviously it
saves parents an im-
mensity of trouble ;
but the avoidance of
trouble is usually not
a good principle in the
long-run either for
men or birds. The
highest birds — judged
by standards of intelligence — are not only monogamous
for the nesting season, but for life. By all the moral
rules, cuckoos ought to be a declining species ; but it
must honestly be said that they are not. They are numer-
ous in every type of landscape, only avoiding towns. We
are left to presume that they exist in spite of their peculiar
habits rather than because of them, as is certainly true of
the foster-parents' share in the story. Not all cuckoos
are parasitic, and we find certain American members of the
tribe building nests of their own, though very poor ones. It
would throw much light on the question of the help or harm-

88 SPRING

fulness of the cuckoo's parasitism if we could be sure that
these rude platforms represented a struggle towards a decent
family life on the part of former polyandrists and infanticides.
But it may be just the other way round. These American
cuckoos may be losing the habit of building nests, and the
next stage may be to put their eggs in the nests of other
birds, as our cuckoo does. Starlings sometimes lay an egg
among those of jackdaws ; and pheasants will also lay in
other pheasants' nests. But we have never heard of a
young starling being hatched and brought up among a
brood of jackdaws, and the strangest acquisition of all is
the young cuckoo's innate impulse to throw out its foster-
brothers.

Undetained by family cares, old cuckoos migrate early in
August, when the hairy caterpillars on which they live are
getting scarcer. The young remain a month or six weeks
later ; and in their case, at any rate, there can be no question
of the migratory habit being due to the example of their
parents. Though in late August and September there is no
such profusion of hairy caterpillars as in the copses of June,
the large caterpillars of the buff-tip moth are in the boughs
until September is far gone. Earlier in their history the
young cuckoos live on more diversified fare. They are
naturally fed on the food which their foster-parents give their
own young, and since they are brought to the light in the
nests of seed-eating as well as insect-eating birds, it might be
thought that in such cases they would be given very unsuit-
able food. This is avoided by the provision of nature, which
arranges that even the seed-eating birds are fed in the
earliest weeks of their life on caterpillars and other insect food.
The diet proper to a young chaffinch thus suits the young
cuckoo as well as that of a young hedge-sparrow ; the only
difference is that he requires four or five times as much. For

THE CUCKOO

89

some time after they leave the nest the young of all birds are
attended with almost undiminished care by one or both
parents; but this solicitude of the old birds for their fledged
offspring is doubly conspicuous in the case of a young cuckoo
owing to its large size. The strangeness of the whole
situation is emphasised afresh when we see a pair of diminu-

'a pair of diminutive meadow-pipits'

tive meadow-pipits, worn and shabby with the labour they
have already gone through, busily ministering to a full-grown
but clumsy and dependent young cuckoo on the July moors.
The young bird is now many times their own size, but still
keeps a thin nestling cry, which recalls in its disproportionate
shrillness the notes of young gulls at the same time of year.
The extreme hunger and helplessness of the young giant seem
to keep the nursing instincts of the parents active beyond
their normal time, so that the devotion of the foster-parents
of a young cuckoo appears greater than they display towards
their own brood in more fortunate seasons. Next year they

(L 922) » ?

90

SPRING

may be mobbing the same bird with an antipathy as fierce as
their present affection for it.

The idea that cuckoos become hawks in winter is a
fallacy of rustic natural history which dies hard. It proves
how easily the cuckoo and the smaller hawks can be mistaken
for each other, when the familiar cry is not available as a
means of distinction. A half-convinced believer in the old
fable will ask if the cuckoo is ever seen in foreign countries,
still clinging to the notion that it dwells all the year in Britain,
and merely goes through a peculiar metamorphosis in spring.
Devoid of the knowledge accumulated in books, which
guides and stimulates accurate observation, few countrymen
take the trouble to test their traditional beliefs about wild
life. And until the story of its life was pieced together by
careful observers, the metamorphosis of the adult cuckoo into
a sparrow-hawk would certainly seem no more incredible
than the actual process by which the new-born bird gets rid
of its legitimate rivals.

»' t, "v

-V / #5^

" I ^Jmr' ^%zm0^\\.

NIGHTINGALE

THE FULL CHORUS

May is the great time of the singing of birds ; every one of
our song-birds sings during this month, and most of them
sing so well, or so long, in no other. The nightingale sings
all through May, as compared with ten days or a fortnight in
April and rather less in June. The latest group of spring
migrants, such as the turtle-dove and nightjar, are not often
heard before May comes in ; and although neither has a song
in the full sense of a thrush or a skylark, their contrasted
murmurs lend much of their beauty of sound to the May days
and nights. The reed-warbler and rarer marsh-warbler
are fluent and brilliant singers which do not arrive in their
wet haunts till well on in the month. These later visitors
are all as vocal in early and middle June as in May ; but by
that time there is a great diminution in the total volume of
song. Even in the last few days of May the hatching of
innumerable broods silences a very large proportion of singing
birds ; and the second and third weeks are the time when the
daily chorus is at once most varied and fullest. A few early
or rather half-hearted singers, such as the missel-thrush and
wheatear and stonechat, often cease singing for the season
very early in the month ; and for them we must listen, if by
any chance we have not noticed them earlier, in the days when

-

92

SPRING

we first hear the turtle-dove and before the marsh marigold
petals drop from their beaked seeds.

Where are we to draw the line between song and a mere
cry? It must be a rather arbitrary one, unless it is false to
nature. To speak of a rook's song would seem absurd ; yet
no one can watch the rooks tossing in airy column with varied
utterance on a soft October day, or solemnly chorusing in the
April elm-tops, without feeling that their cawing notes are
song, almost if not quite as much as the thrush's music at

the same opposing seasons.
The name of song can only
be denied to the very
harshest cries with which
birds express their intense
inner vitality, such as the
yelp of the sea-gull or the
squawk of the moorhen on
the pond. Even the scream
of the jay — perhaps the
only absolutely discordant
cry of any British bird — is
full of that joy of life which is half of nature's music. The
jay has a faint and seldom-heard song as well ; but most of
its high spirits in spring seem to run to screeches. Nor is
there any absolute distinction between the song of birds and
their so-called alarm-notes and call-notes. They will some-
times burst into song at moments of anxiety or pain, as when
they flutter round the disturber of their nest, or have been
injured by a stone-throwing boy. Keen emotion of any kind
may produce song ; but usually it is due to their vitality and
high spirits. Their blood is much hotter than that of most
other quadrupeds and bipeds ; their normal temperature is
that of high fever in man. Their song is a sort of soul

JAY

THE FULL CHORUS 93

delirium. Very often their high spirits lead to combative-
ness ; the vitality of thrushes or robins leads them to sing
against one another in rivalry, much as schoolboys tumbling
out of school will snatch off one another's caps or flog one
another with their satchels. The common statement that the
cock bird sings to win the affections of the hen mistakes the
consequence for the cause. The hen does not listen and com-
pare the songs like a judge at a musical contest, and proceed
to award herself as the prize, but is captivated by the vitality
which causes the cock to sing and enables him to beat off a
rival by force of beak and wing.

Yet, although there is no definite point at which the utter-
ance of birds becomes musical, or their cries may be said to
develop into song, the most marked difference in the songs of
our English birds is between those which consist of a single
set phrase or ditty, and those which consist of along, flowing
strain. The chaffinch and blue-tit are two of the most con-
spicuous singers of set ditties ; the skylark and blackcap have
two of the most perfect songs of the freer kind. The missel-
thrush, with its three wild notes endlessly repeated, is a
phrase-singer of a more rudimentary type than the chaffinch ;
the chiffchaff or cuckoo, with only two notes, is cruder still.
The two notes of the corncrake are indistinguishable, and so
grating that the bird can be deceived by stroking the teeth
of a comb ; yet its cries are as pleasant as music in the peace-
ful May nights, and the bird itself seems to take endless
satisfaction in them and to be singing in its own mind like
any dove. The churring and whirring monologues of the
nightjar and grasshopper-warbler have a very slight change
of pitch from time to time, but otherwise are as monotonous
as is possible for any sound produced by vocal chords ; yet
these, too, are the characteristic expression of the birds'
vitality, as much as the chattering music of the sedge-warbler

94 SPRING

that vies with the grasshopper-warbler in the evening sun-
shine, or the nightingale's music that overrides the corncrake
and nightjar when dusk has fallen.

Besides the chaffinch and blue-tit, the yellowhammer,
willow-wren, hedge-sparrow, and all the pipits have well-
marked formal songs. Between them, they carry this type
of music from the heart of the copses and gardens to the bare
moors and mountains and spray-dashed ocean crags, where
the meadow-pipits and rock-pipits nest. The chaffinch's song
makes up a great part of the whole May chorus, and when
we analyse the volume of sound on some warm May morning,
and credit each strain to its singer, we realise how abundant
a bird the chaffinch is. Even among all the babel of May,
their voices are constantly dominant, and they add much to
its gaiety. For sheer sunny cheerfulness, the song of the
chaffinch cannot be excelled. Cheerfulness is supreme in the
skylark's music, pouring from the sky ; but there is some-
thing curiously vague and indistinctive about it, and the
chaffinch's song seems to be far more expressive of earthly
spring. The stream of skylark music suits best the vast
spaces of bare down or moor, when it falls around us, as all-
pervading and impersonal as the sunshine ; but chaffinches
are attached to special trees in the garden, and have a sense
of home, like man, that gives a more human quality to their
music. The blue-tit's is one of the quieter springvoices, like the
willow-wren's ; and as the blue-tit is a good deal less abundant
once May has begun, it is apt to be regarded as exclusively a
singer of early spring. The hedge-sparrow sings on persis-
tently over his second nest ; his ditty is cheerful enough, but
does not run with the easy sweetness of the chaffinch's. Its
formal pattern is sometimes almost disguised, and the song
then seems as freely flowing as that of the wren, though always
of a fixed length. The yellowhammer's song is distinctly

WSl

THE FULL CHORUS 95

plaintive. Part of the charm of the pipits' songs comes from
their habit of uttering them while rising and falling in the
air, as if borne on an invisible fountain. The titlark or
meadow - pipit rises
from earth and re-
turns to its tussocks of
grass again, the rock-
pipit wavers from
crag to crag on the
cliffs, and the notes of
both sound plaintive
in their vast sur-
roundings. The tree-
pipit haunts clumps
and avenues of tim-
ber and well-grown
hedgerows, tossing
into the air from their
boughs, or sometimes
singing on a high
perch ; and perhaps
it is only the more
cheerful environment
of green pastures and
budding May boughs
that gives a gayer
note than that of its
kindred to its rapid ditty ending with an emphatic ' See,
see, see.'

The free and flowing songs make a great contrast with the
set ditties, and the difference between the two types provides
one of the best means of learning to distinguish our different
song-birds. As we pause at the edge of the beech-wood on

^'

^&V//,

x kZW-' //f//////'//r.y<& y

TKJSE-PIPIT

96 SPRING

a May morning, and listen to the varied web of music, the
repeated ditties of the chaffinch or tree-pipit seem to be weav-
ing a standard pattern on the underlying fabric of more flow-
ing melody. We distinguish gradually the low, long rippling
melody of the garden-warbler, the harsher mixture of the
whitethroat's music, and the clear and varied warble of the
blackcap, with its ampler compass and pure, high notes
that the garden-warbler cannot reach. Garden-warblers and
blackcaps are often said not to haunt the same copses ;
but this is by no means always true. Whitethroats are very
abundant in the thorny undergrowth that the garden-warbler
loves, and also along most thick
hedgerows. All these species are
closely allied, and their song betrays
^^ ' , i / ** tne relationship. The garden-

iL&yW'' 'v//W'> warbler's is sweeter than the white-

/^0£^' ',/^W throat's, and the blackcap's more

"' {V)//I varied than either; but a good

blackcap whitethroat's song may easily be

mistaken for a poor garden-warb-
ler's, and a poor blackcap's for a good garden-warbler's.
Careful watching for the singer may result in a surprise for
the naturalist who is most confident of his ability to dis-
tinguish the three songs. Typical songs are easily identified,
but there are deceptive variations.

Goldfinches often haunt the same high boughs which the
blackcap likes, but they are also fond of quiet gardens. Linnets
are less domestic, loving above all a wild furzy common ; but
they also haunt hedges and garden shrubberies. There is a
family likeness in the songs of both these dainty little finches,
and the goldfinch, by its greater vivacity, is the more popu-
lar. But there is a sibilant harshness in its song which is
less pleasing to many ears than the softer and more plaintive

COCK LINNET IN SUMMER PLUMAGE (UPPER BIRD) AND HEN.
By A. W. Seaby.

THE FULL CHORUS 97

music of the brown linnet. It is gay, but lacking in sweet-
ness. Both songs are unmistakably of the flowing type ;
they run on indefinitely, whereas we know exactly when and
how the chaffinch's will end. Out in the open fields the
skylark's reeling and unbroken song makes an even more
striking contrast with the notes of the tree or meadow pipit,
which it closely resembles in plumage. A skylark's full song
usually lasts between two and three minutes ; but there is
nothing in its structure to show when it is coming to an end.
In this it is like the bagpipes ; both lark and piper know the
right time to stop, but it is not apparent to the hearer.

As the freest and most flowing songs are the furthest
removed from such elementary repetitions as the notes of the
corncrake or chiffchaff, it might seem logical to regard them
as the most perfect kind of bird music. But this would by
no means be true. Many of the finest singers, such as the
nightingale and song-thrush, largely make up their song of
set phrases much like those of the chaffinch or pipits, but
they have a far more varied repertory, and they mingle them
with flowing passages. A song-thrush in full music will
repeat some phrase of two or three notes five or six
times, and a nightingale as many as twelve or fifteen. Most
birds of either species have many phrases in common. The
' Ju&> Ju&> jug ' °f tne nightingale and ' Is it ? Is it ? ' of the
song-thrush are characteristic of almost every singer; and
they have many other phrases hardly less characteristic.
Where one thrush or nightingale varies from another is in
the number of the phrases at its command, and in its own indi-
vidual variations. With these will also go a greater fulness
and richness of execution. One spring, a thrush that sang
in a Berkshire churchyard had a clear, hard whistle like the
cry of a marmot ; it sang on for the season, but was not heard

again. A rare, though well-known accomplishment of some
CMOS 13

98

SPRING

nightingales is a long, deep note lasting for several seconds
— it sounds like half a minute — and steadily crescendo. It
has a positively startling effect, interrupting, as it seems,
the previous flow of song ; and we know of no other bird
except the woodlark which has this power of dwelling
on a long note with increasing
s/l^MiZtZr. emphasis.

The blackbird's song is strictly
intermediate between the flowing
and formal types. There is a
most characteristic run of six
notes, four rising and then two
falling, which is almost as fixed
as many phrases of the song-
thrush and nightingale ; but the
lazy ouzel does not always care to
sing them, or plays all kinds of
golden tricks with them, so that
they become something different,
or blend into a free run of song.
Blackbirds in May have an effort-
less mastery of music which
makes the goldfinch seem fussy,
the skylark tiresome, and the
song-thrush peevishly anxious. Such comparisons are felt to
be ungrateful, when we remember how bravely and sweetly
the lark and thrush sang in February or November, when the
blackbird would not try, and how busily the goldfinch will
cry on among the swart August leaves in the heavy silence.
But if fruition is better than hope, then the blackbird's enjoy-
ment of spring is better than the thrush's prediction of it. In
May nature lives for the time, and the blackbird knows the
maxim carpe diem too well to labour it in his song.

NIGHTINGALE

THE FULL CHORUS 99

Some birds have a way of picking up phrases from the
song of other species, and weaving them more or less com-
pletely into their own music. When the junction is smoothly
effected, and the tone and rhythm a little changed, it is often
hard to be sure how much of the song is original and how
much imitative. The most intelligent English mocking-bird
is undoubtedly the starling. A starling has not much song
of his own ; subtract the obvious imitations of thrushes and
blackbirds and other species from the cheerful noises which
he utters on a chimney-top or elm-branch on a May morning,
and there is nothing left but a few disjointed pipings inter-
spersed with curious hissing and simmering sounds, and the
sharp clattering of his beak. But most starlings add imita-
tions of the songs and cries of the commonest birds in their
neighbourhood, and the whole mixture is lively and spring-
like enough. The imitations are delivered in a casual and
indifferent way, and usually in a lower tone than the original,
but are often so close as to deceive. They sound like the
genuine cries at a little distance, when their real author is
performing just above our heads. Some starlings pick up
the three characteristic notes of the missel-thrush to perfec-
tion, and deliver them for a long while together with the
missel-thrush's own persistence. The song-thrush and black-
bird are the commonest models, as they are the most con-
spicuous singers in most of the places which starlings haunt.
But in moorland regions starlings pick up the cry of the
curlew and peewit, and in London squares they imitate the
long-drawn squeal of the cab whistle. In repeating their
cries they often show a long memory, which is the foundation
of intelligence in birds and animals ; they will repeat in
autumn notes which their models only utter in spring. They
thus display their kinship with the crow tribe, which is the
keenest- witted group in the whole kingdom of birds.

SPRING

In marked contrast with the starling's disjointed utterances
is the fluent and almost interminate song of the sedge-
warbler, which reaches its height in May, though it is heard
from mid-April till far on in July, or even August. The
sedge-warbler's personal contribution to its song consists of
a hurried insistent babble of sweet and harsh notes con-
fusedly mixed. We hear
it poured out among the
sedges and willows of the
waterside with an intensity
and volume which make it
conspicuous in any com-
pany. When the sedge-
warbler first arrives there is
little trace of an imitative
admixture in its song ; in
April and early May we
have its own bitter-sweet
mixture unadulterated. But
as the season goes on it
picks up the commonest
cries of the waterside, and
when the nights grow warm
it pours out the characteris-
tic notes of day in the dark-
ness. The ' Pink, pink' of the chaffinch is one of the most
usual foreign elements in the sedge-warbler's song, and it
seems to have a natural sympathy for the scurrilous bicker-
ing and chirping of the sparrows that haunt the streamside
willows near towns and villages. A less familiar mocking-
bird is the wheatear. In April or early May on the downs
it is a fascinating sight to see a cock wheatear flitting from
one tussock or juniper stem to another, with wings half

SEDGE-WARBLER

THE FULL CHORUS

IOI

expanded so as to display the conspicuous white patch
beneath their tips, and pouring forth a curious medley of
repeated phrases with a voice like a weak and imperfect
song-thrush's. The cries of the chaffinch and partridge
and the low twitter of the lark are among the notes which
can be heard in their song ; and there are many other
resemblances, some of which are probably imitations, though
others may be merely due to accident or kinship. The
wheatear is a near relative of the thrush, and its general
method of song is much like that of the song-thrush. Both
birds have a varied repertory, but
like to repeat a passage several times
before passing on to another. The
wheatear knows the greater number
of phrases, though the thrush is a
stronger and more brilliant singer.

In fine May weather very few
hours of the day and night are
quite songless. The last nightingale
usually falls silent a little after

midnight ; the corncrake has been quiet a little time
before. Then there is a little interval of peace, before
the earliest stirring of the new day. In open places the
skylark is the first bird to sing ; it rises and pours down its
song from a sky scarcely grey with dawn. In gardens the
blackbird sings one slow, clear strain, and is quiet again.
Then, just before sunrise, when there is light enough to
see the dew on the leaves, all the birds break out in one
tremendous chorus, so that in a bird-haunted place one voice
can hardly be distinguished from another. The intense
cooing of the wood-pigeon and turtle-dove throb through the
din of higher notes with a curious distinctness. This great
outburst lasts for less than half an hour, and is succeeded by

102 SPRING

almost as striking a silence. The birds are now busy at their
morning meal, and dispersed about their feeding grounds
with a boldness which they lose later in the day. Then, if it
is still early in the month, and there is nest-building to be
done, they fall to work and finish the greater part of their
day's task before the sun is high. Soon the first thrushes
and blackbirds are singing again ; and by eight or nine
o'clock the nightingale and the whole army of birds are in
full tide of song, which dies down but little until the late
afternoon. From about five o'clock to sunset there is com-
parative quiet, though the blackbird's and a few other voices
strike sweetly through the mellowing light. Now the birds
are busy feeding before going to roost ; and since the finches
and sparrows, with their lively songs and cries, keep earlier
hours than most other birds, the voices of the birds at even-
ing are more restful than those of noon or the early day. As
the last rays of the sun slope down, the nightjar takes heart
to increase his rare and occasional soliloquy of midday for
his full evening murmur. Now, too, the nightingales throb
forth in the thicket, as the air begins to smell of cool grass and
gathering dews ; their passion outlasts the sunset and the
evening song of the thrushes, and they answer one another far
and near in the renewed silence of night.

CORNCRAKE

SONG-THRUSH

;a»

vv

-•'/

LONG-TAILED TITS

'PROCREANT CRADLES'

In spite of the great skill and precision which many birds
show in nest-building, none of them has any natural tool
specially framed for this purpose. Their bills are their chief
instruments in shaping their nests, and these are developed
exclusively for seeking food in the bird's own way. Nest-
building is a by-product of the bird's activity, and seems in
many of the highest instances to be an expression of over-
flowing vitality, and an indulgence of the sense of order and
beauty, rather than a habit shaped by a direct practical
advantage. The rough and clumsy nests of the wood-pigeon
and turtle-dove nurse as large a proportion of young to
maturity as the carefully plastered nests of the song-thrush
and the wren's feathery globes. The tits with their soft
nests built in sheltered crevices are rather notable for pro-
ducing addled eggs ; and the slight benty structures of the
blackcap and whitethroat, though they allow many eggs to
perish in wet seasons, are none the less woven with extreme
delicacy and skill, and take a high place in the scale of
workmanship.

The best nests are not always built by the birds with the
most suitable bills. The fine curved beak of the tree-creeper
would seem to be a far more suitable instrument for weaving

PROCREANT CRADLES'

i°5

a nest than the short, thick bills of the chaffinch and gold-
finch ; and yet the nests of these two finches are almost the
most perfect of those built by any British bird, while the
creeper's felty couch is by no means of a high order of archi-
tecture, though comfortable enough, no doubt, when sheltered
by the walls of the deep crevice in which it is usually placed.
Some birds, such as the petrel and guillemot, dispense with a
nest altogether. They simply drop their eggs in a hole in
the rocks, or on a ledge. In the most primitive forms of

nest-building the breast plays as important a part as the bill.
A hole is pressed in soft earth or gravel by the bird's breast,
and rounded by the pressure of its muscle and down. Then
the beak may be used by the bird resting in the hollow to
pull tufts of grass or other litter lying within reach and to
pack them round its body. So the heap of material grows
larger and warmer as the period of incubation goes on.
Plovers add grass stems to the original bare hollow of their
nests, and by the time that the eggs are hard set they
usually rest on a fairly substantial mat. Gulls on their sunny
ledges can be seen drawing seaweed and dry mallow- leaves
and tufts of sea-pink up to their white breasts with yellow

(1,928) 14

106 SPRING

beaks on the warm May mornings. Some shaping of the
material with the breast is almost inevitable, if the bird is to
lie comfortably upon it and keep the eggs safe during three
weeks or more of incubation ; and from mere uneasy shiftings
and rollings it is an easy growth to deliberate brushing and
shaping with the softly rounded breast, which plays so large
a part in the construction of nests of the higher types.

The first strong impulse to improvement in nest-building
arose when birds found it convenient to put their nurseries
in the branches of trees. The wood-pigeon's and turtle-dove's
nests are only scanty platforms of dry sticks and bents, lined
with a few roots ; but they mark a considerable advance in
structural skill on the mere mat of the stock-dove's and rock-
dove's nests, which are placed in holes, and perpetuate the
original family pattern. Slight as it looks, the wood-pigeon's
nest is firmly braced among the twigs, and is seldom forced
out by wind or the whipping of the boughs. Even the clumsy
wood-pigeon has learnt something of the art of wattling or
basket-making, which is employed by all birds that build
among boughs and form their nests of twigs and branches.
Nests of this kind are analogous to the wattled huts sup-
ported among the trunks of trees which are built by some
savage tribes. The strength of some of these wattled nests
is remarkable. A raven's nest built of old burnt heather
stems will cling together for many weeks even when torn
from its place and thrown among the waves on the strand of
a loch. A man of average weight can safely stand on a
crow's nest in the top of a tree ; and an old rook's or heron's
nest will often last for years in boughs exposed to every
storm.

At some lucky moment it occurred to a bird wattling its
nest in the boughs to fix it by the use of mud. This was a
great convenience, and considerably increased the available

'PROCREANT CRADLES 107

nesting-sites. The support of lateral boughs could be
largely dispensed with, and the nest firmly clamped to the
foundation of one or two large branches, with few or no sup-
ports at the sides. Song-thrushes' and missel-thrushes' and
blackbirds' nests often grip the branch with a divided clay
foundation like the fangs of a double tooth, and the clay will
stick to its place till all the twigs and grassy material have
vanished with the wear and tear of the seasons, and all that
is left is one hard clod. Besides the three birds just named,
only the ring-ouzel and the magpie habitually use mud in
this particular way. The nests of crows and rooks and
ravens are built without it, though after a few months the
dead wood and earth on the grass-tufts which they employ
decays into a clay-like mass. The use of mud is a convenience
rather than a necessity. In the wattle-and-daub cottages
built by men clay is used to stop the interstices in the
woodwork. But birds do not need it for this purpose, as
they keep out wind and rain from the sides by a warm lining
of grass or leaves or wool, and rely on their own bodies to
keep the eggs and young warm and dry above.

Weaving is only a finer form of basket-making, and the
delicate nests of the finches and warblers differ in detail and
not in principle from the solid cradles of the crow and heron.
Felting rather than weaving is the human process nearest to
that of the smaller birds ; for they do not spin material into
strands, and then intertwine it with a regular warp and weft,
but twist fibres with their bills and pack them with their
breasts into a close mass. Most of them build on a frame-
work ; and a lady naturalist has recorded that the first out-
line of a golden-crested wren's nest was laid in cobweb. But
sometimes a chaffinch's or a long-tailed tit's nest resting on a
single bough is built up without other support, and grows
like some delicate fungus or chalice of madrepore. The

io8

SPRING

growth of such a nest is very beautiful to watch. The edge
is almost as smooth and rounded through the whole process
of building as when it is finished, so that the nest seems to
grow from beneath, rather than to be increased from above.
In nests of this type there is no preliminary framework, and

they are entirely felted. Cob-
webs, and the cocoons spun by
spiders for their eggs, very
^!*ri fine moss, rabbit's fur, and the
down ot ripe willow and poplar
catkins are the chief materials
used in all the finer and softer
^//Sys^es-- l^Lj^i nests. Even sheep's wool is

too coarse, except in very
small quantities. Externally
lichens and occasionally little
scraps of paper are added, for
adornment rather than for pro-
tective effect, or for any struc-
tural purpose.

Chaffinches and goldfinches
and long-tailed tits build the
highest type of the woven or
felted nests which can dispense
with any lateral support, and
are furthest from wattling or basket-making. The reed-
warbler's nest is the most perfect and regular example
of dependence on a living scaffold. This bird spends
most of its time straddling on a reed stem above the
water, and it builds its nest in the same situation, string-
ing it to a group of reeds — generally from three to five
— which pass through the sides of the nest when it is
finished. These nests have no support at the base, all their

GOLDCREST*S NEST

PROCREANT CRADLES'

109

strength coming from the reeds at the sides ; and they are
therefore twisted or woven to the reeds, just as the chaf-
finches' nests are felted from a solid foundation. Long
threads from the reeds' own plumes of the previous year are
the usual materials used by the reed-warblers for knitting the
stems together ; but they
are very glad to use
threads of cotton when
they can find them, and ^^
it would evidently be a
great advantage to them
to be able to spin threads
for themselves. This,
however, no bird can do ;
the preparation of material
in this way involves more
far-sightedness than they
are capable of, even if they
could find any method of
twisting thread without
the human opposable
thumb. The even growth
and elastic substance of
the reeds allows the wind
to swing them all together
without tearing the nest apart, as is sometimes the fate of a
chaffinch's nest when it is attached to stems of varying
degrees of resistance. Deep and almost tubular in shape,
the reed-warbler's nest never spills its eggs as it leans to the
pressure of the wind. Sedge-warblers' nests are sometimes
attached in a similar though rougher manner to blades of
sedge and flag ; and marsh-warblers hang their nests in
much the reed-warbler's way to stems of osier and meadow-

REED-WARBLER AND NEST

no SPRING

sweet, though the whole style of building is less compact
and precise.

A ruder but more laborious type of nest is built of mud
by the swallow and house-martin. Neither the swallow's
open saucer nor the house-martin's enclosed hemisphere has
the delicate workmanship of the goldfinch's or long-tailed tit's
nest, but both need as careful labour. The collection of the
mud, little by little, from the ponds and puddles is not more
troublesome than the similar task of the magpie or blackbird ;
the critical part of the task is working the pellets into a tough
mud crust, which will cling to a wall or beam, and support
the brooding bird and the young. To add to the nest too
rapidly would destroy it by making it top-heavy before the
foundation was dry ; and the birds seem to know this well
since they are dilatory builders. A few fine straws are mixed
with the clay, like cow-hair in old-fashioned mortar, but the
strength of the fabric is chiefly due to the slow building and
the way in which each pellet is moulded with the beak, and
the line kept true by the pressure of the bird's breast. The
nests of these two species are the most highly developed
examples of mud-building among British birds, though
neither of them approaches in ingenuity the wasps' nests built
in a somewhat similar way out of wood gnawed and chewed
into a pulp. Zealous use is made of mud in a different way
by the nuthatch. Alone among our birds, the nuthatch has
the habit of blocking up the mouth of a hole to a convenient
size for its own exits and entrances. It is the same safeguard
for the eggs and sitting bird which is developed to an extra-
ordinary extent in the case of the African hornbills. The
cock hornbill walls up the hen on the eggs, only leaving a
small hole through which he feeds her. The hen nuthatch
is left free to come and go ; but the entrance is made too
small to admit larger enemies. Nuthatches choose a bright

PROCREANT CRADLES'

in

sandy loam for their own plaster work, of different quality
from the viscid brown mud preferred by swallows and martins.
The instinct for stopping holes sometimes runs to extra-
vagant lengths ; on occasion they will not only fill up the
actual opening of their nest-hole to the desired size, but
plaster every superficial crevice and chink in the trunk or
bough. Like the swallows, they sometimes work a few hairs
or feathers into the mass. This plaster work is the most
peculiar and important part of their nest-building; but it
is distinct from
the actual nest
This is a heap
of soft material
packed at the
bottom of the
hole, like a rather
roughly com-
pacted tit's nest.
Several birds

, . NUTHATCH

show a curious

individuality in their choice of nesting material ; and the
special fancy of the nuthatch is for scraps and strips of the
soft inner bark of the birch. On this couch inside their queer
clay stopper the little nuthatches are nursed in much comfort
and safety.

To some extent the nuthatch is a wood-borer in its
nesting operations, but vicariously. Like tits and starlings,
and also bats, it often adopts the holes scooped out for their
own nest in the previous season by green woodpeckers.
For their disregard of opposition, the nesting of the three
woodpeckers deserves the prize among British birds. Some-
times they dig their hole in decayed trunks, when a nice
skill is required rather than strength and endurance ; but

(l^r^

SPRING

the green woodpecker, at any rate, sometimes bores his
nesting-shaft in a perfectly sound oak. In a typical nest,
there is a horizontal tunnel about three inches wide and
five long, which then turns downwards for about eighteen
inches, and widens into an oval hollow. The excavation

of this gallery is achieved
by the power of a beak and
body framed for similar
though less exacting feats
of wood -hewing in the
pursuit of beetles and
grubs. The bill of the
woodpecker is shaped like
the sharp end of an anvil,
and is set in a head and
neck of strength well suf-
ficient to wield it. The
bird grasps the bough with
its ' zygodactyle ' feet, in
which one pair of toes
turns forward and one
backward, and props itself
with the stout quills of its
tail. It lifts its bill like a
mattock, dashes it into the wood, and repeats the blow with
the whole force of muscle working on a fulcrum until the
white shreds drift one after another down the wind. The
opening of the hole is beautifully circular, and the perpen-
dicular shaft expands evenly into the bottle-shaped chamber
where the eggs lie on a few fragments of wood. The wood-
peckers are hole-hewers pure and simple, and make no nest.
The two smaller spotted species work in the same way, on
a smaller scale. They more often drive their galleries in a

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'PROCREANT CRADLES' 113

dead bough ; and the great spotted woodpecker, which is
about the size of a starling, sometimes chooses so small a
branch that great precision must be needed to keep the
tunnel straight in the wood, and prevent it bursting through
the thin surrounding wall. The opening of the lesser
spotted woodpecker's nest is a small neat orifice looking
as if a field-mouse had burrowed into a tree.

Both the kingfisher and the sand-martin are familiar
examples of birds which excavate burrows for nesting in
banks of sand and loam ; but they perform the work with
implements of very different type. The bill of the king-
fisher is sharp, strong, and straight, resembling on a small
scale the beak of the heron, and is used for catching fish in
much the same way. It looks an effective pick, if an
indifferent shovel, and the kingfisher has probably no great
difficulty in boring its nesting chamber in a bank of loam or
marl by the riverside, which is the situation usually chosen.
The soft wide bill of the sand-martin, on the other hand,
appears a very weak tool for burrowing a hole two or three
feet long in sand which must always be compact and firm,
or the tunnel would cave in and imprison the worker. Yet
the sand-martin accomplishes it with great nicety and con-
siderable rapidity ; and it is surprising what firm and gritty
beds it often penetrates. Both birds as a rule bore a fresh
chamber every year ; the sand-martin uses an old nest-hole
rather more often than the kingfisher. Two more beaks of
burrowing birds of very different types are those of the puffin
and the burrow-duck or sheldrake. Both are fond of choos-
ing a burrow ready prepared by a rabbit, if they can find
one, as is also the habit of the stock-dove on sandy shores ;
but, unlike the stock-dove, they are able to burrow holes
for themselves. The broad bill of the sheldrake is very
different from the beaks of both the kingfisher and the

(1,821) J5

SHELDRAKE

114 SPRING

sand-martin, for the feeding habits of the three birds are
absolutely dissimilar ; and yet they are all successfully turned
to the work of delving in its season. The puffin has the
strangest beak of the whole party, and indeed of all British
birds. It is a liberal organ at all seasons ; but the male bird
adds in the spring an exaggerated horny sheath like the false
noses sold to children in toyshops. The Scottish fishermen
■ • '•■' r|| call the bird the ' coulter-

v\ ....mBSfk^j^. neb,' and it might be

supposed at first sight
that the additional beak
is designed by nature as
a positive aid to the bird
in digging his nuptial
chamber and nursery. It
is much more probable, however, that it is purely an adorn-
ment, acquired at the breeding season, like the crest of the
green cormorant, or the ornaments of many other birds at
the same season. The puffin also assumes at breeding-time
a tag of coloured skin on the eyes, which is certainly of no
help to it in digging its burrow ; and this is an additional
indication that the enlarged bill has no practical purpose of
this kind.

One of the cleverest feats of nesting birds is to fix a
foundation in unlikely places and of unpromising material.
When they laboriously pile up their nests under the eaves or
on the rafters of the cowshed, the martin and swallow at
least use a naturally adhesive substance. But the dipper
will make its nest cling to the slightest hollow in the face
of a rock by a stream, though it builds the foundation of no
more cohesive a substance than wet moss. The nest when
perfect seems partly to depend for its security on the prin-

'PROCREANT CRADLES' 115

ciple of the arch, each part of the curve supporting the rest,
and all propped on the rock. But when the growing nest
consists of a mere ring on the upright and almost smooth
rock, it is impossible to get much support from the thrust of
any part of it on the rocky surface, and all depends on the
skill with which the dipper packs the wet moss firmly into
place. The growth of a dipper's nest in such a place is a
remarkable sight. Wrens, which build a globed nest much
like the dipper's, also have great skill in hanging it to a
slight foundation. They can twine the foundation to a
support not very much less smooth and forbidding than the
dipper's rock, such as a shallow hollow in the trunk of an
oak-tree, or the side of an earthy bank. Even the blackbird
sometimes displays a successful persistence in lodging a nest
on a sloping surface where the force of gravity is very
unfriendly to the enterprise. Such a position is provided by
a horizontal rafter with a surface sloping outward at just
such an angle that a few straws will rest upon it, but a mass
of them fall off by their own weight. When this happens,
the blackbird tries again ; and with a glimmer of mistaken
intelligence, it usually tries not in the same position — ' That
was a bad place ' it seems to say — but a foot or two further
along. Sometimes there are half a dozen half-built nests
collapsed in a row before the blackbird succeeds in getting
one to stick — not as it fondly seems to imagine, by the
superior retentiveness of the site, but because chance or
skill led it to bring more suitable materials or place them
more wisely. If the blackbird used mud for the foundations
of its nest, instead of for its central stiffening, the task of
fixing it to a beam might be as simple at the beginning as
the swallow's. But blackbirds and thrushes lay the founda-
tions with twigs, bents, and locks of wool or moss, adding

n6 SPRING

the mud a little later ; and the unsuccessful blackbirds' nests
collapse before the stage of adding mud is reached.

Houses built against cliffs so that they are really only
the halves of houses are curiosities sometimes seen in

mountainous countries and
by the sea. Birds often
accommodate their building
in this manner ; it is one
of the ways in which they
display an adaptable intel-
ligence. Robins habitually
leave out the back wall of
their nests, fitting them into
holes, where the outer layers
are not required on the
sheltered side. The inner
cup is shaped perfectly,
though the lining is often
very thin at the back.
Blackbirds adopt the same
design when they build, as
they often do, against a
bank or tree-trunk or wall.
The mud nests of swallows
and house - martins show
another application of the same plan. The little felted
cradle of the spotted flycatcher is often hardly more than
a crescent of cobweb and moss, when it is lifted out of the
garden trellis or off the ivy bough after the birds are gone.
But the irreducible minimum is perhaps reached by the
tree-creeper, when it nests, as it occasionally does for
some years in succession, under the tiles or slates of an
old roof. The nest which it builds in such a situation is

NEST OF SPOTTED FLYCATCHER

PROCREANT CRADLES'

117

a little curved fence or dam, to prevent the eggs running
down the slope of the tile and getting lost. They lie against
the wall of moss and down on a few straggling threads, and
hatch in a warmth radiated by day from the tiles, as if they
lay in an incubator.

TREE-CREEPER

THE HEART OF THE COPSE

Nature runs riot in the copses of May with a peculiar pro-
fusion and beauty. Copses occupy large tracts in most of
the southern counties, and are a peculiar modification of the
original wild growths of the spot. Their strict designation
in forestry is ' coppice with standards,' and the meaning of the
term becomes obvious when we examine a wood of this kind.
Coppice or copsewood means wood that is cut, from the French
couper; and the ash and hazel rods and the other young
stems in the copses should be cut under a proper system of
management at regular periods, varying with the productive-
ness of the soil, on an average five or six years. Among the
lower copsewood stand dotted at intervals a number of sturdy
young oaks. These are the standards, and oaks were chosen
for cultivation in this way because they gave the most valu-
able timber when mature. Other trees were most profitable
when encouraged to send up a bunch of saplings every few
years from the old stools. This small copsewood was for-
merly in demand for many different purposes. It supplied
wattles for farm hurdles, ties for thatching, hoops for tubs,
casks and grocers' boxes, and fuel for bakers' ovens and
cottagers' hearths. Nowadays the demand for all this copse-
ware has greatly declined. The decline in corn-growing,
the use of Dutch barns, and the scarcity of thatchers, have

THE HEART OF THE COPSE ng

made thatching scarcer and less elaborate, so that we seldom
see now a row of corn stacks, cris-crossed with a pattern of
hazel ties like an open jam tart. Sugar and other groceries
are imported in vessels of smaller bulk, so as to save re-
packing ; and the bonds for the repacked parcels are wanted
no more. Cottagers use coal more, and wood less, and the
rural exodus has made skilful copse-cutters scarce, and their
labour dear. As the upshot of all these changes, copses are
in many places an unprofitable form of culture, and would
be turned to other uses if it were not for the great labour
and expense of grubbing them up. In the meantime many
of them are not cut in the proper season, and are let run
wild. It might be thought that a copse which had run wild
would be richer in natural life than one which was regularly
tended ; but this is not so. Properly managed copses are
fuller of wild life than the woods out of which they were
formed, and into which they relapse. The regular removal
of the young wood when it gets tall and shadowy, makes a
copse a perpetual garden of all the flowers, birds, animals, and
butterflies which love an open and sunny thicket. Luxuriant
in all the late spring and early summer months, such copses
are fullest of life in May.

Bluebells, apple-blossom, and nightingales are the three
most beautiful features of the May copses and spinneys, and
turn their thick solitudes into an exquisite garden of delight.
Beautiful as bluebells and crab-blossom are severally, they
intensify each other's beauty when the rosy boughs lean
down to the blue carpet beneath them, and the wind sets the
petals falling in the May sunshine. The earth seems set
free of time and its punctual cares; the random breezes in
the boughs mark the passing of the hours at their own will.
The scents of both masses of blossom mingle as freshly
sweet as their two colours. Through all this exquisite

SPRING

garden rings the voice of the nightingale in his heyday.
Nightingales abound in these copses, and there are few
hours of day and night in May when they do not sing. They
delight in the chequered shade of the copsewood from about
its third to its sixth season ; then they nest on or close to the
ground among the flowers, and sing
on the tops of the saplings or on the
lower branches of the standard oaks.

Nightingales' nests are almost in-
variably built of dry oak leaves pressed
together, and are rather scantily lined
with horse hairs and a few fibres of
root. Sometimes the mass of leaves
is as large as a blackbird's nest, but
usually about the size of a hedge-
sparrow's. When it is built on the
ground among the thick stems of blue-
bell and red robin and woodspurge and
stitchwort, it is often very closely con-
cealed ; it is easier to find when it is
raised a foot or eighteen inches above
the ground in a thick patch of brambles,
or sheltered in the midst of the green
shoots springing from an old bole.
When the birds are anxious for their
nest or young, they jerk nervously
from bough to bough uttering the low croak which they
retain after the end of the singing season, and also a low,
plaintive pipe. Sometimes the hen bird goes through the
palsied motions of ineffectual flight which have been taken
to be a deliberate attempt to draw off the intruder from the
nest or young ; but in the case of the smaller birds which
practise it, it appears to be chiefly involuntary. When the

BLUEBELLS

THE HEART OF THE COPSE I2i

young nightingales leave the nest they are spotted with
dull yellow, like young robins ; and the close relationship of
the nightingale and robin is shown in the figure and the large
intelligent eye of the adult bird, and also in the nest and
eggs. The outside of the robin's nest is packed together out
of dry leaves in much the same way as the nightingale's, and
it is also lined with hair ; it is a nightingale's nest cut down

'YOUNG NIGHTINGALES . . . ARE SPOTTED WITH DULL YELLOW'

on three sides to fit a hole. Most nightingales' eggs are
uniform olive-green or olive-brown, and vary little in shade;
but some show traces of a buff ground under dense and
almost confluent markings of yellowish brown. These re-
semble the darkest type of the robin's egg. Occasionally
nightingales' eggs occur of a pale sea-green ; but this colour
is merely an indication of weakness or disease in the bird
which laid them, like the pale green or blue eggs sometimes
laid by blackbirds, chaffinches, linnets, and several other

11.0281 1 6

122 SPRING

birds. Bluish green seems to be the normal colour of an
atrophied egg-shell in the case of most species ; such eggs
are usually very thin shelled, and often yolkless or infertile.

When the copse has just been cut, and is too low to give
the nightingale shelter, it is the great flowering time of the
primroses, woodspurge, red robin, and all the plants which

delight in plenty
of spring sun-
shine. These
plants lie half
dormant during the dark
and shady years of the copse's
cycle, and spring in fresh vigour
first spring after the cutting,
floor of the copse grows as bright as
a gay mosaic from the middle of April
until June ; and among the flowers the
leaves on the young stems of copse-
wood shoot vividly green. Bugle raises
its blue spires by the turfy ruts, drawing

the rare bee-hawk moths to hover at the blossoms ; herb-paris
spreads in some copses its four large equal leaves, with one
fringed purple blossom sitting in their midst. Commoner
than the herb-paris, but local, is Solomon's seal, with its
drooping arch hung with a long row of little greenish white
bells. Blue speedwells abound in the grass, and here and
there broad beds of wild garlic or ramsons exhale a rank
breath when the wind stirs the white blossoms and glossy

SOLOMON'S SEAL

THE HEART OF THE COPSE 123

leaves. A garlic bed, when the flowers have withered, has a
deceptive resemblance in all but smell to a patch of lilies of
the valley. Yellow pimpernel opens its golden blossoms at
the edge of the grassy rides, and the larger moneywort creeps
with its blossoms like rock-roses over the damper and barer
soil in the denser shadows. In sunshine and shadow alike,
bluebells are sprinkled among the vivid blossoms and herbage ;
when the copse grows dark, and most of the other flowers
die down, they spread their misty carpet far and wide, as in

NEST OF TURTLE-DOVE

the perennial woods. Partly owing to the colour of the
blossoms and partly from their being hung loosely on tall
stems', a sheet of bluebells is more unsubstantial and aerial
in appearance than any other carpet of blossom. It has the
lightness of the vapour rising from a lawn on an autumn
morning, and the colour of the spring sky ; the oak trunks
seem to wade in a blue mirage. In the latest years of the
copse's cycle, when even the bluebells grow sparse and lank
in the shadows, the cloistered depths become the sanctuary
of the brooding turtle-doves. Their slight black nests are
lodged at a height of five or six feet in the hazels and alders,

124 SPRING-

and the eggs shine with the paleness of ivory in the gloom.
A gflint of white shell often shows through the twigs of the
nest from below. The hen birds sit brooding through the
late May days, with their russet backs crouched low along
the platform of twigs. The silence is filled with the murmur
of the cock's double coo ; it is less lively than the spring
chant of the ring-dove, but sweeter than the musical groaning
of the stock-dove, which we hear in spring among old hollow
oaks. When a turtle-dove is disturbed from the nest, a

TURTLE-DOVES

couple of others will often spring up from neighbouring nests
in the same clump of copsewood ; then the white fans of their
tails gleam in the twilight of the underwood. But these
shy birds easily desert the nest, and it is best to move slowly
past the watching mother without frightening her away by
pausing, or by any sharp movement. Once the eggs are
hatched, there is no longer any fear of her forsaking; then
there is no risk in examining the pair of squabs, which have
the curious ugliness of all young pigeons.

By May the female catkins of the sallow and poplars are
shedding showers of down- wrapped seeds. Some of the
later birds catch up this drifting material from the leaves
when it falls, and weave it into their nests. The later

THE HEART OF THE COPSE 125

broods of chaffinches are often reared in a nest largely built
of poplar or sallow down, and redpoles sometimes build
almost exclusively of this soft fluff. These showers of down
in late spring are a regular feature in the copses on wet soil,
where aspens and poplars often replace to a great extent the
oaks grown as standards on drier land. They come when the
last marsh marigold blossoms are fading in the overshadowed
ditches. In drier copses the female sallow sheds a denser
down, which falls closer to its lowly boughs than the wefts
from the tall white poplars. Since most copses are merely
old woods modified by culture, there is a considerable variety
in the trees that compose them on different soils. Wet
copses largely consist of alder, of which the stems are allowed
to grow to a considerable thickness, and are then used chiefly
for rails. Aspens and white poplars rise singly or in clumps
above, while a part of the copse is often set aside as an osier
bed. Sandy and gravelly copses chiefly grow chestnut and
birch and scrubby oak, while alder buckthorn also occurs
most frequently on this kind of soil. As usual, a chalk soil
is the richest in various species. Besides the staple growths
of hazel and ash, which make the most useful form of under-
growth wherever they will grow, the copses are brightened
in May by many wild flowering shrubs. The common
guelder-rose or wayfaring tree and the water-guelder spread
their large disks of flower on slender stems, and the white-
beam blossom opens on more substantial boughs. Wild
cherry blooms on tall trees and shrubby bushes ; the two
varieties are often regarded as different species. Crab-trees
are commoner on a chalk soil than elsewhere, though they
are less restricted to it than several other flowering shrubs.
Common buckthorn blooms in thick clusters of yellowish
green blossoms, and spindle-wood in duller green stars.
Elder is weeded out of well-tended copses, as its spreading

126 SPRING

boughs take up much room, and its pithy wood is useless ;
but it often clusters thickly in the hedges bordering the
copse, and blossoms abundantly in early June. Honey-
suckle is another beautiful weed of the copses ; its winding
stems grip the stems of oak and beech saplings so tightly
that they often constrict them into the pattern of a twisted
balustrade. Sometimes the climber bites so deeply into the
stem that it is hidden, but lives on encased in the wood, and
throws out a flowering head in the sunshine above. A
beautiful shrub confined to the woods and copses of the
north and west is the bird-cherry ; this is quite distinct from
the common varieties of wild cherry, which have given us
our cultivated fruit. Bird-cherry forms a small rounded
tree with leaves of vivid green and pyramidal clusters of
white blossom, which often droop like the pink flowers of the
garden ribes or flowering currant. The bruised foliage gives
out a strong odour of prussic acid, like the laurel ; and the
blossoms have an aromatic smell, unlike the sweet scent of
the more familiar cherry blossom.

Next to the nightingale, the most characteristic song-bird
of luxuriant copses on loamy soil is the garden-warbler.
Blackcaps are also common in such spots, but they are fonder
of tall timber than either the nightingale or the garden-
warbler, and prefer on the whole the mixed trees of an open
wood to the copse with its undergrowth and standard oaks.
Blackcaps and garden-warblers are very closely related species
in every detail ; both build among the thick thorn-beds and
verdant undergrowth, and their nests and eggs are somewhat
difficult to distinguish without a clear view of the parent bird.
Then there can be no doubt, for the cock blackcap has a
sharply defined black cap, and the hen a russet-brown one,
while the crowns of both garden-warblers are of the same
brownish grey as their backs. Garden-warblers build a

THE HEART OF THE COPSE 127

rather larger and looser nest than the blackcap's neat cup of
bents, and usually place it lower and in thicker undergrowth.
In nest and life they approximate more closely to the habits
of the common whitethroat. The lesser whitethroat builds a
slighter nest higher in the bushes, like the blackcap. All
these four birds may be found nesting in one part or another
of a copse on a good loamy soil. Such a soil is more produc-
tive than sand and gravel, and fosters
the rich verdure and varied timber
which suits their slightly varying tastes.
But the garden-warbler is the true copse-
bird of the family, and on a warm day
in May its sweet and fluent warble is
seldom silent among the young green
leaves. It often sings hidden in the
thicket, but sometimes mounts to the
boughs of the oaks as the nightingale
does. Blackcaps wander more freely
among the upper boughs as they sing ;
and the common whitethroat winds rest-
lessly among the thorns and herbage.
Lesser whitethroats are equally restless

little birds, but wander higher in the bushes. Blackcaps
winter less far south than garden-warblers — some, indeed,
spend the winter annually in the south-west of England — and
we hear them regularly on the first warm days of May, while
the garden-warbler is often a few days later. But the nests
of both are common by the middle of the month, when the
nesting season is at its height, and the apple-blossom shines
pink against the sky.

In dry gravelly copses the number of nesting birds is
more limited, and the species rather different. Flowers and
green undergrowth are scarcer ; the ground is covered with

LESSER WHITETHROAT

128

SPRING

a thick felt of dry mosses, and occasional patches of heather.
Among the oak-scrub which forms a large part of the copse-
wood there are many old hollow stumps ; and the holes in
them are tenanted by three or four kinds of tits, which can
find very little accommodation in the more luxuriant copses,
where almost all the wood is too small and too sound for
their purposes. Great, blue and coal tits' nests are fairly
common in the old oak stumps, and the marsh-tit sometimes
builds in them also. The marsh-tit
often prefers to bore its own hole
for itself in crumbling wood, or
sometimes in the dry earth round
the roots, like a mouse, though the
other three species occupy existing
crevices. Willow-wrens are also
very fond of these dry copses ; they
form cell-like nests in the carpet of
moss, or build them among the tufts
of heather. About the middle of
May the foliage of the trees in the

MARSH-TIT ' _ &

copses begins to abound with the
caterpillars of several common geometer moths, and other
varied species ; and from this time until midsummer we see
the tits turning nimbly with their hard seed-eating beaks to
the work of caterpillar catching. Caterpillars are the chief
food of their numerous young ; but the thousands of larvae
thus destroyed make no visible impression on the multitudes
still thronging the leaves. The tits and other foraging birds
preserve the balance of nature, and that is enough. But some-
times the pest outstrips all their efforts. The minute grubs of
the little green oak moth sometimes strip the crowns of the
standard oaks in dry seasons, so that by the beginning of June
they look as if they had been scorched with fire. With this

SEDGE- WARBLER.

By A. W. Seaby

THE HEART OF THE COPSE 129

pest no birds seem to deal effectually ; the only real check is
a few sharp showers in May, which drown the little caterpillars
in their tents of rolled leaves. Tits, chaffinches, chiffchaffs,
willow-wrens and many other birds are prompter in dealing
with plagues of geometer caterpillars, which sometimes attack
trees in much the same way. The game is larger, and pre-
sumably better worth catching ; and an infested copse is
often alive with a diverse throng of birds picking off the cater-
pillars from the leaves, and diving through the air at them as
they hang on their oscillating threads. On a breezy day the
air below the trees is full of small caterpillars dangling in the
wind. They have the power of returning on their own
threads, packing them up between their forefeet as they
climb. But the ascent is very long and laborious, and when
once the tits and chaffinches have been spurred on to cater-
pillar hunting by the sight of plenty, there are very few which
ever regain the boughs.

•7

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME

Its wealth in sea-birds is the most distinctive feature of
British bird life, and the cliffs of the British archipelago
are one of the chief nesting-places of the sea-fowl of the
northern hemisphere. Birds of several distinct families
are included in the great company of birds which visit our
rocky coasts and islands during the breeding season. The
largest family is that of the gulls, of which six different
species nest in Britain, on almost all portions of our coasts.
Then comes the family of the auks, now represented by
the guillemots and razorbill and puffin ; for the great auk
is of course extinct in Britain and everywhere else, and the
little auk is only an irregular winter visitor to this country.
This family corresponds in the northern hemisphere to the
penguins in the southern seas. They are perfectly distinct
in origin and relationship, but have acquired a curious
similarity of appearance and habit by dint of fishing under
water. Distinct, again, from the guillemot group are the
family of cormorants and gannets, which are allied to the
pelicans. Another independent and well-defined family is
that of the shearwaters and petrels, which are among the
most interesting species on some of the wilder and remoter
sea-birds' haunts. Terns and skuas are not strictly birds

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 131

of the sea-cliffs, since they prefer to nest on more level
ground ; but they are usually found in close company with
various species of gulls, to which family they are closely
related. These varied species give a wonderful wealth of
interest to the bird life of our rockier coasts in spring ;
and in certain favourite haunts their numbers are almost
incredible.

Broadly speaking, it is the west and north that have
most of these sea-birds, and the east and south that are
poorest in them. This naturally follows from the com-

SKUA AND GULL

parative flatness of the south-eastern coasts of this kingdom,
and from the greater density of their population. On flat
and marshy shorelines the place of guillemots and cormo-
rants and most kinds of gulls is taken during the breeding
season by shore-birds such as the ringed plover, and by
the terns. But the black-headed gull is an exception to
the general habits of its family, and prefers the more level
parts of our coasts, as well as similar sites on inland lakes
and marshes. In this respect it approximates to the habits
of the terns. Of the true cliff-breeders the most persistent
in clinging to the south and south-east coasts is the herring
gull. It still nests in considerable numbers on the chalk
cliffs of Kent and Sussex, and at various points westward

132 SPRING

along the south coast. On the steep face of the South
Foreland, near Dover, these large and beautiful gulls may
be seen sitting and preening their feathers among the grass
and rock plants from a very early date in spring, though
they do not actually nest until the end of April or beginning
of May. As the weeks go on, they separate more ex-
clusively into pairs, and haunt the particular shelf where
presently they will begin to pull together grass and the
dry leaves of the plants about them for their large rough
nests. Adult herring gulls are easy to distinguish in any
assemblage of their kind by their large size and light grey
backs. The same general pattern of clear grey and white
is worn by several smaller species ; but the only other
common species of gull of anything near the herring gull's
size are the greater and lesser black-backed gulls, which
are easily distinguishable by their much darker plumage.
The lesser black-backed gull has bred once or twice in
recent years on the beaches of Dungeness, but this is quite
exceptional. Under the protection of the Acts, most kinds
of sea-birds are increasing very rapidly, and in many cases
forming fresh colonies ; and it seems that the lesser black-
back is pushing eastwards. Even in Devon and Cornwall
it was until lately a scarce and local species compared with
the herring gull ; but for some time it has steadily been
growing commoner, though it is still far outnumbered.

The lesser black-backed gull is actually rather smaller
than the herring gull, and the great black-backed gull con-
siderably larger. When seen singly it is often hard to
estimate the sizes of birds, especially at an uncertain
distance ; and frequently it is easier to identify the two
black - backed gulls by the colour of their dark cloak.
Neither is absolutely black ; but the great black-back is
very nearly so, at any rate as seen from some little distance,

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 133

while the smaller bird is a dark slaty grey. All gulls are
keen and voracious birds ; but the greater black-back, or
' cobs ' as they are often called locally, are almost if not
quite as fierce a foe to young birds and even young lambs
as the raven. Like most cliff-breeding species, it is much
commoner in Scotland than in England ; and there it is
bitterly hated by the farmers and shepherds of the coasts
and islands where it nests. Its range runs from Dorset
and Cornwall, where a few pairs breed among the colonies
of herring gulls, right round the west coasts of Britain and
Ireland as far as the Forth. It also breeds by a few inland
lochs, generally on secure islets, in solitary districts near
the sea. With its fierce eye, dark mantle, and hooked
yellow beak, the male black-back is one of the boldest in
appearance of all our birds, and is a true bird of prey. It
has the same fine habit as most hawks of choosing a
commanding situation for its nest, and drives other birds
away from it with the vigilant fierceness of the raven.

Of the two remaining species of gulls nesting in these
islands, the kittiwake breeds on comparatively few cliffs
south of the Scottish border, and the common gull only very
occasionally in that wonderful preserve, the Fame Islands.
During a week on the Fames the writer saw no common
gull amongst the hundreds of herring and lesser black-
backs all sitting. The common gull's name is rather mis-
leading, so far as concerns its distribution at the breeding
season, and its numbers at any time ; but in winter it
is widely distributed in small numbers along all our coasts.
Guillemots, razorbills, and puffins are generally less widely
distributed than the gulls, but are amazingly abundant in
many of their favourite summer haunts. Between the chalk
cliffs of Flamborough Head and those of Kent there are
no suitable breeding-places for these crag-loving species,

i34 SPRING

and they probably never nested along this part of the coast.
The guillemot nested until recently on the South Foreland,
but it is doubtful whether it still does so ; and the razorbill
and puffin have both vanished from their last Kentish
haunts. But all three species still breed in the Isle of
Wight, and as one goes westwards and northwards they
become more and more abundant. In some of their Scottish
haunts the numbers of the common guillemot and puffin
are astonishing. The black guillemot is a much smaller
and considerably scarcer species which is now found south
of the Border only on the cliffs of the Isle of Man.
Besides these two well-defined guillemots, in most breeding-
places of the common species there are a considerable
number of a variety which has sometimes been ranked
as a distinct species under the name of the ringed guillemot.
In these birds the eye is encircled by a white line, which
is prolonged backwards into a stripe. The collection of
guillemots' eggs forms a regular industry at Bempton on
the chalk cliffs near Flamborough Head, where the climbers,
or ' dimmers,' are lowered by ropes to hunt the ledges.
The eggs are chiefly used in confectionery, as are many
black-headed gulls' eggs. The only other spot where the
colonies of sea-birds are now regularly utilised for human
food is on the remote island of St. Kilda. This is the
chief, though not now the only nesting-place of the fulmar ;
and several thousand young birds are now caught and salted
for winter consumption.

Gannets are now confined at the breeding season to
six or eight large colonies on rocky islands off various parts
of our coasts, but all on the western side except the famous
station on the Bass Rock. Lundy Island was long in-
habited by them, but they have deserted it since disturbance
became more frequent, and they have now no English

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME

i3S

station, and only one in Wales. The common cormorant
is found in greater or smaller numbers on all suitable parts
of our coasts, and the green cormorant, or shag, becomes
commoner as one goes westwards. The shag does not
breed on the south coast east of the Isle of Wight, while
on the west coast of Ireland it is considerably the commoner
species of the two. It is a little smaller than the common
cormorant ; and the two birds can be distinguished when
in full plumage in the early spring by its crest, which is
large, and points forwards. The cormorant in early spring

has less conspicuous crestlike plumes, which point back-
wards in the usual way. The metallic gloss of the cormo-
rant's plumage is partly green, but in the shag it is a good
deal greener.

The two cormorants and the gannet are birds singularly
full of a wild individuality, and add greatly to the attraction
of any tract of sea-cliff where they occur. Their appearance
and manner of fishing are very different. Gannets appear
snowy-white at a distance, but for the black tips to their
wings ; and old cormorants look coal-black, though there is
a greenish gloss in their plumage which is more pronounced
in the case of the shag. Cormorants fly low and heavily
close above the water, and spend much time in swimming

136 SPRING

with bodies half immersed, or in long dives in chase of
their prey. There is something sinister and uncanny about
their whole appearance ; with their long snaky necks and
lean bodies, they seem very close to the primaeval flying
lizards out of which our modern birds developed. Milton's
simile of Satan sitting 'like a cormorant' on the Tree of
Life, 'devising death to them who lived,' is as illuminative

CORMORANT

of the bird as of the fiend. Cormorants love to spend long
hours sitting upright on a reef with their wings spread out
to dry in the sun. Their wings in this attitude look like
a cloth waved as a signal ; and a crew of fishermen have
before now launched a boat at sunrise, and crossed a bay
to rescue a supposed castaway, only to find themselves
confronted with the familiar and detested bird. There is
not even the slightest possibility that the cormorant would
enjoy the joke ; no creature alive is obviously so incapable

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 137

of a wholesome smile. The voracity of the cormorant
makes it hated by fishermen ; and in estuaries where the
supply offish is restricted, it may become a serious nuisance,
and does not deserve unqualified protection. Voracious
birds need to be kept within reasonable limits, though their
voracity is not an excuse for their extermination. Gannets
are larger and shyer birds than cormorants, and seldom
haunt waters where their daily diet can make any difference
to the available fish supply. Their method of fishing is far

more attractive to watch. They float and soar in air,

while the cormorants hunt beneath the water ; then they

plunge headlong to the sea, striking the surface with a

resounding smack. Occasionally they feed on dead fish

afloat, with gulls ; and then it is curious to see how in spite

of their large size and great pointed bills, the gulls will

drive them away from the most attractive tit-bits.

Guillemots and other members of the auk family are

even more thorough sea-birds than gannets and cormorants,

and in some ways more so than the petrels. Gannets spend

most of their time soaring and floating in air ; and the

cormorant loves to bask and rest upon its favourite rocky
(1,922) ' *8

138 SPRING

seat. Petrels and shearwaters are also very buoyant fliers,
and spend most of their time upon the wing. But the
auk family not only avoid the land, except at nesting-time,
as do the gannets and petrels, but spend by far the greater
part of their time either rocked on the waves or diving
beneath them. Their wings are small in proportion to
their size, and are as useful for paddles in swimming as
for flying. In the great auk the atrophy of the wings
had gone so far that the bird could not fly at all ; and
then it paid the penalty by extermination at the hands
of its human enemies. The other members of the family
fly swiftly enough, with the straight whizzing flight of the
dipper or kingfisher on inland brooks ; but they have none
of the gull's power of circling or easy floating, and are,
in fact, poor performers upon the wing. Their real home
is the water, and they only repair to land because they
cannot nest upon the face of the waters, as the halcyon
was fabled to do in the old Greek stories. As soon as the
young can swim, and before they can fly, the troops of
birds begin to leave the coasts, and they are not seen at
their nesting-places between late summer and the time
of their reappearance in spring. They keep clear of the
immediate neighbourhood of the shore, and wander far out
at sea, except when stormy weather occasionally drives
them inland.

In their nesting habits these cliff-birds vary greatly,
and the diversity of their nests and eggs increases the
interest of their contrasted plumage and movements in and
on the water. Guillemots and razorbills make no nest
whatever, but lay their eggs on the open rock-shelves,
or among broken boulders and in crevices. Common
guillemots and razorbills lay only one egg, but the smaller
black guillemot has two or sometimes three. The eggs

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 139

of all three species are very handsomely marked, while
those of the guillemot are the most variable and some of
the most beautiful laid by any British bird. Almost end-
less as is the variety of their colour and markings, they
are easily recognisable by their peculiarly long and pointed
shape. The relative smallness of the little end makes them
revolve in a circle when disturbed, instead of rolling forward
as a rounder egg does ; and this is often quoted as a specially
developed provision, by which the eggs are prevented from
rolling over the precipices when the birds take wing on

guillemot's egg

a sudden alarm. Some eggs are no doubt saved in this
way ; but it is very doubtful whether they owe their shape
to this selective process. Many of them are laid in safe
crevices ; and the same pointed shape and consequent
circular movement are found in the eggs of the snipe,
peewits, and the whole tribe of waders, which lay their eggs
safely on the flat soil.

Puffins have adopted a different plan, burrowing like
rabbits in the layer of soil that caps the cliffs and islets.
After they have departed in late summer, it is singular to see
their clustered burrows riddling the sandy shoulder of a
cragstack as thickly as a colony of sand-martins' nests, but
without a sien of life. At the end of these burrows each

i4o SPRING

puffin sits on a single white egg, clouded with a few faint
greenish stains. This atrophied marking is very interesting,
as it suggests that the puffin's burrowing habits are com-
paratively recently acquired, and that it formerly laid its
eggs in the open, like the razorbill and guillemots. The
eggs approximate to the plain whiteness which is usual
with eggs laid in holes, but have not yet quite lost their
outdoor markings. Petrels and shearwaters, which nest
in similar subterranean holes and crevices, lay pure white
eggs, and only one apiece. Cormorants and gannets also
lay white eggs, but build a bulky nest of seaweed, sticks,
or various seaside plants ; and in this case the white eggs
seem to represent the primaeval colour of those of the
lizard-like ancestors of the race. It seems probable that
all birds' eggs were white to begin with, like those of
crocodiles and snakes ; and cormorants', gannets', and grebes'
eggs have never got beyond this stage. All are covered
with a rough calcareous wash, beneath which the inner
shell is pale green. But this greenish hue is less a
definite colour than the absence of one ; many birds —
for example, chaffinches and nightingales — lay malformed
or infertile eggs with pale bluish or greenish shells, and
this seems merely to represent an imperfect stage of
development. Gannets lay only one egg, common cormo-
rants two or three, and shags three or four. Three is
also the usual number laid by gulls, though two in a set
are not infrequent, and four are now and then laid by the
smaller kinds.

There is a general tint of olive-green or light brown, or
1 stone colour,' running through the ground of gulls' and terns'
eggs, which clearly distinguishes them from those of other
sea-birds. On the other hand, they are often very hard to
distinguish from each other, except by size. When the eggs

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 141

laid by two different species are practically of the same size,
as is the case with the herring and lesser black-backed gulls,
the only way to identify them certainly is to see the sitting
bird rise straight from them. This usually demands much
careful stalking, in the course of which many beautiful little
scenes of wild life are often
witnessed. Male herring gulls
watch proudly and peaceably
by the side of the sitting hen
on a lonely ledge, girt with

shadowed

in yellow

a stone's

pink sea-thrift and
with wild cabbage
bloom ; and only
throw away from their airy ter-
race, but divided for wingless
creatures by a gulf paved by
the sea, a long hanging slope
is dappled with the pure grey
and white plumage of the
brooding and nesting birds.
Sometimes the whole colony
may be lapped in silence and
the sunshine ; but generally,
even when they are quite un-
disturbed by intruders or visible
alarms, some of the cock birds
will be stretching their throats

and uttering their loud barking cries. Scattered here and
there, and generally on the outside of the settlement, the
dark slaty back of the lesser black-back contrasts with her
snow-white head as she sits. Beyond another chasm, where
a narrow green chine runs from the cliff-top down towards
the sea another black-back catches the eye, nestling in the

~ Z?f

SEA-THRIFT

142

SPRING

lee of an upstanding pinnacle ; and presently the male great
black-back struts slowly over the curve of the ridge, and
gazes menacingly at the world on this side.

Gulls' nests are strewn about the cliffs from just beneath
the summit to the lowest ledges occasionally splashed with
the spray. They are loose beds of various kinds of vegeta-
tion, differing considerably in size and in the materials of
which they are built. The birds seldom carry material from
any great distance, but pull together the nearest stems, blades

g|f^'#fpi

GREAT BLACK-BACKS

and tufts of that they can find. At the bottom of the cliffs
the nests will be largely built of dry seaweed ; further up,
grass and rock-plants will predominate, and sea-thrift and
campion blossoms will be worked into its sides. Cormorants
and shags chiefly build in caves and crevices of steep rocks
overhanging the sea, and except on small islets, can seldom
be seen from landward. In a few spots, as on the famous
Bird Rock on the River Dysynni near Towyn in Merioneth,
they breed on rocks some miles from the sea ; and in
some parts of the west of Ireland they even build in trees.
Now and then, where a steep face of rock stands obliquely
to the sea, a cormorant or shag will build on an inaccessible

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME

143

ledge overlooking the easier slopes where the gulls breed.
Then the strange bird writhing her long neck from her nest
makes an odd contrast with the white troops of sitting
gulls.

Guillemots and puffins spin to and fro between their
breeding-places and the waters ; and the hollower indentations
of the cliff-face have often a pair or two of rock-doves, which
skim across the gulfs with the familiar flight of house-pigeons,
and nest with the shasrs in the caves. Hawks of more than

one kind add another contrast to the bird life of the seaside
crags. Kestrels nest in small caverns screened by rock-
plants and overgrowing ivy ; buzzards sail on broad wings
round the pinnacles and over the cliff-tops, mewing above
the murmur of the sea ; and the rarer and fiercer peregrines
may skim in strong flight about the rock-faces, hunting for
rabbits and young birds. Pairs of lean ravens guard their
peculiar haunt among the crags, and drive off every other
bird that comes near, in the early weeks of spring before their
young are flown. The red-billed chough still breeds on some
of the Irish cliffs, and lingers here and there in Wales and
England; but in most places its haunts are now filled by
crowds of cackling jackdaws.

i44

SPRING

Small birds seem scarce upon the cliffs, by comparison ; but
the sheltered hollows have their own little groups of settlers.
Wrens push busily among the brakes of wind-clipped black-
thorn, and climb the ivy-covered rocks ; stonechats toss from
spray to spray of the furze-thickets, and hedge-sparrows live
the same quiet searching life on the edge of the precipices as
in inland gardens. But the most characteristic small bird of
the sea-cliffs is the rock-pipit. It is larger than the common
meadow-pipit or titlark of moors and commons, but has much

ROCK-PIPIT

the same appearance and restless ways. It breeds among
the hanging rocks, hiding its nest behind some screen of
white-flowered campion, or among the cushions of pink sea-
thrift ; and it hovers with a wavering song-flight in the
blackest gulfs. In the warm climate of Cornwall and other
parts of the west, the sea-cliffs are bright in spring with a
wealth of flowers and vivid verdure. Thrift stains whole
headlands pink with its clustered heads ; sea-campion clings
in broad white masses, and bluebells cover acre after acre of
the hanging slopes. Gorse burns golden in the hollows ; and

SEA-CLIFFS IN NESTING TIME 145

may-bushes on the upper ledges gleam almost as white as
the restless surf below. The young leaves of the ivy spread
a vivid mantle over
the rocks ; and beds
of wood - sedge and
iris fill the gaps be-
tween the clipped
thorn-beds where the
rabbits breed. The
same cliffs later in
summer, when the
spring flowers and
leaves have faded and
most of the sea-birds
have gone, give a
poor idea of their
wealth and brilliance
in May. Of all the
young life of spring,
almost the only trace
is a few fledged gulls,
full grown, but wear-
ing the mottled plum-
age of immaturity, and
still uttering the thin nestling cry that seems so dispropor-
tionate to their size.

IVY-COVERED ROCKS

IMMATURE GULL'S FEATHER

I?

TURTLE-DOVES

MAY

' Flower upon flower expands :
May reigns in hawthorn lands.
Gone are the saffron daughters of the snow,
Sweet Summer tells her son
The daffodils are done :
Spring takes his mother by the hand to go.

The sedge-wren tells her note,

Dim larks in ether float,

The uprolled clouds sustain their pageant dome.

In velvet, sun-shine-fed,

Spires up the bulrush head,

Where rock the wild swans in their reedy home.

Summer eternal, born

From year to year, as morn

Is born from day to day — reviving glows :

Her breath the scented gale,

Her voice the nightingale,

Her form incarnate in the queenly rose.'

Lord de Tabley, Auguries of May.

' Oh were my love yon lilac fair,

Wi' purple blossoms in the Spring,
And I a bird to shelter there
When wearied on my little wing.

How would I mourn when it was torn
By Autumn wild and Winter rude !

But I would sing on wanton wing

When youthfu' May its bloom renewed.

Robert Burns.

SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS

Among all our smaller birds the swifts and swallows have the
finest gift of flight ; and their constant activity in the air is
in many ways more impressive than the kitelike soaring or
floating of birds of prey and of gulls. These often rest
upon the air, with no more muscular effort than is required to
adjust the planes of their wings and tails to the changing air-
current ; but swifts and swallows travel at high speed, even
when their wings are doing least work, and their muscles seem
almost tireless. Their glorious flight and constant activity
in the air make them the most birdlike of birds ; they are
doubly welcome when they appear in spring, and most missed
when they leave the autumn sky

Swifts, as we have said, are not really members of the
swallow tribe, but of a rather isolated family which have
become swallow-like through similarity of habit. They show
their different affinities by only laying two eggs, while
swallows and martins usually lay five. By continually hunt-
ing insects in the air, all these birds have acquired in common
thin wings, spare bodies, and a wonderful power of flight.
Seldom perching, their legs and feet become atrophied ; they
neither hop nor walk, but shuffle clumsily on the ground, and
always seem glad to fling themselves free into the air. The
shrews and field-mice are a familiar example among animals of

148 SPRING

two very different families which have acquired in the same way
a similarity of appearance by dint of similar habits. But the
swift has outdone the swallows in the graces which we regard
as peculiarly swallow-like — the marvellous speed and agility of
flight, and tireless joy in flying. It is more swallow-like than
some of the swallows themselves ; for the fluttering buoyancy
of the sand-martin is a rather poor imitation of the true swal-
low's dash on the wing. Swifts and swallows will always be
regarded as members of the same natural group, though they
descend from two very different stocks. In some respects
swifts differ from the whole of the large family which includes
almost all our small birds, and come closest to the nightjar.

Besides their great power of flight, this fascinating group
of birds has another special appeal to human interest in its
attachment to human dwellings. This voluntary domestica-
tion has reached its height in the case of the common
swallow, which now hardly ever nests in this country except
in or upon some edifice of men. The habit is not much less
marked in the case of the swift and house-martin ; and even
the sand-martin occasionally leaves its cliffs of sand and loam
to burrow in air or water pipes, and crevices in masonry.
The original nesting-place of both the swift and the swallow
and house-martin was on cliffs or in caves. Here swifts
collected their slight nests of a few straws or feathers com-
pacted with the saliva of which the eastern swifts' nests used
for bird's-nest soup are exclusively composed. Swallows
fixed their mud nests in cavities, and house-martins to more
exposed outer faces of the rock. So there must have grown
up a companionship between man and the birds in the
primaeval days when man lived as a hunter in caves, before
he was either shepherd or tiller of the soil. When at last he
built houses, it is possible that the swallows were partly
drawn by this habit of old companionship, and were not

SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS 149

terrified at the human figures haunting the new artificial caves.
At any rate, they took very readily to the new nesting-sites,
and in most civilised and well- populated countries have
almost abandoned the old ones, though they still faithfully
preserve traces of their old distinctive preferences. Swifts
harbour in dark holes under the eaves and narrow crevices,
which give them the same kind of shelter as their clefts
and crannies in the cliffs, where they still occasionally breed.
The house-martins' characteristic nesting-place is more
open; they cling beneath the eaves and window-frames on
the outer walls, just as the most conservative remnant of their
kind still build under jutting cornices near the top of the
Cornish cliffs. Swallows are intermediate between the two ;
they avoid wind and weather more than swifts, but less than
martins, and habitually nest inside out-buildings and cow-
sheds, which provide the closest imitation of a cave. The
nests of swallows and martins correspond to their site.
Martins' nests, built to keep out wind and weather, have only
a small hole ; in swallows' nests, the mud wall is not carried
up so high, and there is a considerable space all round.
Sometimes, indeed, a swallow's nest built in a well-sheltered
place is no more than a segment of a mud saucer, clinging to
a beam or joist ; but when it is in an unusually exposed posi-
tion, the walls may be built up till they are nearly as complete
as those of the martin's nest. And when a martin builds in
some swallow-like place, as under the glass roof of a station
platform, the nest may be so flat and widely open at the
top that it might almost be taken for a swallow's. Though
colonies of house-martins' nests are not very uncommon on
tall cliffs, both inland and by the sea, swallows' nests are very
rarely indeed found in caves, though the habit in England is not
yet quite extinct. Swallows are less gregarious than martins
in the wild state ; and this characteristic is preserved in their

*5°

SPRING

half-domesticated life. A single martin's nest is the exception
on any house, and when there is only one, this isolation can
generally be traced to persecution by sparrows, or to spring
storms which decreased the bird's numbers. But one pair of
swallows will often settle in some lonely byre ; and they
seldom or never build a cluster of two or more nests, as the
martins do. The differences of the nesting-sites are reflected,
as is generally the case, in the colour of the eggs. Swifts,
house-martins, and sand-martins lay pure white eggs, like

SAND-MARTINS

most birds which incubate in a deep and sheltered hole. The
artificial cavity of the house-martin's nest gives the same
protection as the holes burrowed by the sand-martin, and the
crevices frequented by the swift. But the eggs of the swallow
are well spotted with dusky red, and thus conform to the general
scale of density in marking which characterises eggs laid in
open nests, but not so excessively exposed as to need a
highly protective pattern. The insecurity of the swallow's
eggs as compared with those of its relations is shown in
another way. It would be quite impossible for a cuckoo to

SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS 151

place her egg in a sand-martin's nest, and very difficult for
her to get it unbroken into a house-martin's ; but it is not
very rare for a swallow's nest to harbour a cuckoo, though
the swallow is not one of the cuckoo's usual victims.

Our British swallows and swifts spend the winter in various
parts of tropical and southern Africa ; some of them also
occur in winter in India, but these are probably birds from
northern Asia. Very early in the spring the three species of
swallow and martin begin to work their way north. They
follow the wave of spring warmth which brings out the
insects on which they feed. There is thus a considerable
difference in the date of their reappearance in south-west
France and southern England, or even in the south of
England and Scotland. By early April, when the single
pioneers that proverbially do not make summer are seen in a
few scattered districts, swallows are already abundant among
the meadows and vineyards of the Loire ; and they settle
about the farms of the Thames and Severn valleys at least a
month before they reach their furthest haunts in the north of
Scotland. The house-martin and sand-martin usually arrive
a little earlier than the swallow. Since they depend entirely
for food on flying insects, and cannot pick among the boughs
for larvae or pupae like most of the summer warblers which
arrive about the same time, the swallows have a peculiarly
pitiful appearance when, as happens every few years, a bitter
spell of April frost and east wind greets them as soon as they
arrive. They are seen flying feebly and dispiritedly above
sheltered waters, and are often found dead in or beneath
their old nests. The impulse which urges them to return to
the summer home has no power of warning them of unsuit-
able weather there ; they migrate because it feels like spring
where they are, and they are always liable to be trapped by
the treacherous spring changes of the English climate. If

152 SPRING

the following summer favours their nesting, the numbers
cut off in spring may be made good by the time of the
autumn journey. All the swallows like a warm and genial
summer, profuse in insect life ; but the barn-swallow and
house-martin particularly benefit from mingled showery and
sunny weather in May and early June. This is because their
curious nests, compacted of many hundreds of beakfuls of
tempered mud, present some of the most difficult tasks
accomplished by any of our birds in the nesting season. In
cold, damp weather the pellets dry so slowly that progress
grows very tedious ; while in a spell of spring drought there
is a scarcity of mud. House-martins especially like to collect
mud from the puddles in the roads, and in dry weather
there are no puddles. Cold and droughty weather added
to the birds' rather desultory and idle method of building often
postpones the first of the two normal layings of their species
until midsummer. Then, if July is wet and stormy, there
may either be no second brood, or it may linger so late that
the young birds perish in the early autumn frosts and storms.
House-martins, again, are terribly plagued in their work by the
piratical house-sparrows, which wait till they have built part
or the whole of their nest, and then drive them out of it.
The open swallows' nests do not take their fancy so well, and
they seldom attack them. Occasionally, however, a similar
trick is played on the swallow by the wren, which fits its own
domed nest into the cuplike foundation of the swallow's nest
before the swallows arrive. We know of no instance of a
struggle between the wren and the swallow, such as often
takes place between the sparrows and house-martins, and
is always won by the sparrow. But the wren, though so
tiny, has an even more persistent character than the sparrow,
and it can well be believed that the shy and timid swallow
has to yield.

SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS 153

All these vicissitudes at nesting-time help to make the
numbers of the swallow tribe fluctuate from year to year, and
other accidents befall them on the two long migrations and
in their winter home. But if we look at the country as a
whole, it is very doubtful whether there is any such general
diminution of swallows and martins as is sometimes asserted.
The proved return of marked swallows to the same place in
successive years give a strong indication that this fidelity is
characteristic of their species, as it probably is of many of our
migrant birds. If the number of swallows and martins about

HOUSE-MARTINS

a certain group of buildings decreases in any year, it might
therefore be argued that many of them have perished. But
just as nightingales or chiffchaffs are not quite constant to the
same haunts, so it seems likely that many swallows are not
averse to shifting their quarters from year to year. If they
invariably revisited old haunts, it is clear that new outlying
buildings would never be populated by them. When it is
said that the number of swallows and martins in any spot
has declined, the comparison is often unconsciously made,
not with the general average of a series of years, but with
some year of unusual numbers in the past. And since a
considerable proportion of the birds are not wedded to one
spot, they may often increase in new haunts at the very

(1,822) 20

154 SPRING

time when their decrease is being lamented in some of their
old ones. This has undeniably been the case in some recent
seasons with nightingales ; and the diminution of favourite
birds is always likely to attract prompter attention than their
increase. Gilbert White's writings make it clear that the
attacks of sparrows on house-martins are no new act of
aggression ; sparrows persecuted the martins in Selborne
Street much more than a hundred years ago.

Swifts most plainly show their distinctness from the
swallow tribe by the much shorter time which they spend in
these northern climes. Like the nights of their own mid-
summer season, they come tardily and vanish soon. Their
season in Britain lasts for little more than three months; they
arrive in the first week in May, and leave in the second week
in August. These are the usual dates when they are first
noticed and missed ; but their main body arrives a little later
than the first detachments, and they are still pouring out of
England up to the beginning of September, while stragglers
can occasionally be seen as late as mid-October. A fort-
night after they have vanished from the towers and cottage-
eaves of their summer homes, the amassed remnants of their
hosts may still be seen veering in stormy dawns over the
southern headlands fronting the English Channel. They are
less ready than the swallows to seek food close to earth ; they
delay to come to England until the lengthening sunlight gene-
rates the swarms of insects that haunt the higher air. The
indrawing chills and darkness of late summer once more de-
populate the heights, and the swifts depart. Sweetly as the
robin sings again in August dawns, it is the signal of the
swifts' departure, and the rushing ardour of their flight is soon
lost from the summer sky. Clear summer mornings have no
more exalted note than the scream of the high-flying swifts ;
and their delight expresses itself again in the hottest hour of

SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS 155

early afternoon in June or July, when the silver in the ther-
mometer rises towards eighty degrees, and the heat grows
drowsy on the lower levels trodden by men. They scream
about our heads with a note of triumph in such sunshine, and
betray the ties with the south that call them so early away.
They have a still more characteristic flight in the serene and
windless evenings when the afterglow pervades the height of
the sky, and the glow-worms burn to their very reddest under
the hedges. Then the swifts float in troops high in air, until
the gathering darkness hides them ; often several descend
close to earth in pursuit of each other, and again shoot
upwards into the vault like scraps of charred paper in the
draught of a great fire. Since they often ride so high and
so equably in the falling night, the idea prevails that they
actually rest all night on the wing, gliding with the minimum
of effort against the light currents of summer air. But this
is merely a fancy, bred of their buoyant flight, and the fact
that they are not seen to return to their nesting-places under
the roof. There is little doubt that they slip quietly in after
it is too dark to see them descend.

If swifts slept or rested all night on the wing, we should
see them afloat above us as soon as it grows light on mid-
summer mornings. But this is not the case ; they do not begin
their noisy morning flights until the sunlight is strong, and
the veil of mist is melted. They are not nearly such early
birds of a morning as the swallow. Swallows are often astir
before sunrise, in the same dewy hour of twilight when the
industrious bumble-bee makes a buzzing on the fringe of the
scabious or the lip of the honeysuckle where he bivouacked
under the sky. Then the chuckling song of the swallow
often streams down from the ridge of the roof, or the vane
of the stable weathercock, or some bare and jutting twig of
a walnut or apple tree. Heard thus in solitude, it sounds

156 SPRING

sweeter and more skilful music than when we catch it more
brokenly among all the other voices of day. Swallows
perch more readily on trees than martins, which seldom
venture to settle on anything less rocklike than the roof or
eaves, except when they perch on the telegraph wires, which
are the favourite resting-places of this family. But even the
swallows choose branches without many leaves, which might
entangle their long folded wings, and prevent them flinging
themselves freely on the air. So they prefer dead limbs to

live ones, and are fonder still
of some bare wooden perch
like the handle of a plough, or
a hayrake leaning over a wall.
These long pointed wings
and the strongly forked tail
serve with the stronger and
more sweeping flight to dis-
tinguish swallows from either
kind of martin when seen in
the air. Not till late summer,
when the young swallows
with their shorter tails become common, does this easy
mark of distinction begin to fail. The flight of sand-martins
displays an odd mixture of the true sweeps and circles of the
swallow tribe, with a weak mothlike fluttering. Swifts are
distinguishable from swallows by their much larger size and
greater rapidity and power. When the birds can be seen
at close quarters in a favourable light, their difference of
marking is conspicuous. The little sand-martin is mouse-
coloured, like the crag- martin, which stoops and flutters
about the grass-fields in Swiss villages. Swallows can be
distinguished from house-martins by their patch of russet
on the throat as they sit on a perch, and by their dark upper

SAND-MARTIN

SWALLOWS AND SWIFTS

157

surface as they fly. House-martins are pure white between
the wings and tail. Swifts are dull sooty black all over,
except for the faint whitish patch on the throat, which
reveals itself when they sweep close past us over the surface
of the wide meadows. In the great Alpine swift, which now
and then wanders with the common species to this country,
the white patch is large and conspicuous, and the plumage
is of the colour of a coffee-bean, instead of sooty black.
Even our own swift sometimes turns paler towards the end
of summer, as its feathers grow worn with creeping into the
nest, and bleached by the sun of the dog-days. Loth as
swifts are to walk or to settle on any surface from the edge
of which they cannot dive easily into the air, they are of
course not ' footless,' as their latest scientific name declares
with threefold emphasis ; and, contrary to what is often said,
they can rise, though awkwardly, from the level ground,
unless they have been injured or partly stunned by flying
against some obstacle, such as a telegraph wire. Much like
an aeroplane, they can move just enough on earth to launch
themselves into their proper element.

THE LONELIER HOURS

The glories of summer nights are earth-born, and their lights
are warmer and nearer to us than the splendour of the winter
moon. All night at midsummer the colour of daylight
hardly fades out of the north if the sky is clear ; and on wet
or cloudy nights the dusk is full of earth's perfumes, and
obscurely lit with flowers still gleaming in the unreal dark-
ness. There is seldom a really dark night in June or the
first half of July; the sun's path still creeps so near the
horizon that light is reflected from all light objects, and
even from the upper clouds. The earth on a June night
seems plunged in a conscious rest more refreshing than
sleep ; its spirit seems etherealised rather than sunk in
torpor. Cries of half wakeful birds continually suggest how
light is the veil of unconsciousness ; most creatures hibernate
in some degree like dormice or bears, and expend in summer
wakefulness the energy they accumulate in long winter
sleep. The summer twilight of England is one of the
happiest features of its geographical position. The soft
veil of the June night is a more exquisite gift of nature
than the positive daylight prolonged by the midnight sun.

Sheer daylight prevails in the June nights even in
England ; we can watch the cool grey stain contending with
the stars of the north. In July as the nights grow a little

THE LONELIER HOURS 159

longer, this white light is often replaced in fine summers by
deeper glows still joining the sunset and dawn. Night
becomes stiller and more solemn than at midsummer, but
hardly darker ; and it is often fuller of colour. A glow of
rich orange or living cornfield gold illuminates the northern
sky and defies the darkness ; night is filled with the essence
of sunshine poured in the July day. The afterglow of
sunset is prolonged by exceptional causes, and the nights
become a festival of the sun, yet with the sense of repose
shed by its absence from the sky. The afterglow is caused
by the rays of the descended sun reflected from lofty clouds
or invisible vapours above us, but an ordinary afterglow
fades about an hour after sunset. The remarkable nocturnal
glows which last on almost till dawn may be due to an
unusual volume of floating particles in the higher atmosphere,
such as the dust-clouds expelled by a volcano or lifted by
a tornado from a desert. Sometimes they may share the
principle of the mirage, and be the afterglow of tracts to the
west transmitted round the earth's curve by refraction, as
travellers see the image of towns or ships projected in the
air overhead. The product of earth's own atmosphere,
these summer glows give a sense of the fullness of summer
unlike the alien brightness of moonlight and starlight.

On cloudy summer nights the earth is lit with its own
moons and stars. Elders and wild-rose bushes frame con-
stellations of blossom in the dusky hedges, and a little later
white heads of clover shine in the pastures like a Milky
Way. White campion flowers gleam opaquely pallid on
the grassy banks, and privet blossom stars the shadow of
the thickets. The motionless lamps of these blossoms
are mingled with other moving lights. Glow-worms set
their signals at dusk by roads and rivers, and the white
ghost swiftmoths of midsummer vibrate in their fantastic

i6o

SUMMER

dances over the grass stems where their golden mates sit
hidden.

This dance of the ghost swifts is one of the most ecstatic
of all flights. No bird and no other insect combines so
intense a movement with so marked a rhythm. While the

moth's wings whir with such
rapidity that it is a mere
nebula in the twilight, it flings
itself backwards and forwards
on a track a yard or so wide
like the weight on the pen-
dulum of a clock. A pasture
or hay-field after dusk at mid-
summer may be covered by
dozens of these large white
moths absorbed in their pas-
sionate exercise. It gives an
intense sense of the vitality
pulsing in the earth at this
midsummer season. The
dance seems intensely ex-
hausting, even for a moth
with such long and powerful
wings. After each bout of
frenzy, lasting for one or two
minutes, the dancer rests on
a grass-stem, looking a little denser a d whiter than the
surrounding clover flowers.

The analogy of the displays of birds suggests that the
exhibition of speed and glittering whiteness is designed to
win the admiration of the female moth. Certainly she is
often to be found resting in the grasses over which the male
moths dance ; but it is hard to be sure in the dusk whether

WHITE CAMPION

SWALLOW ABOl I ro FEED YOl NG
Bv G. E. Collins

THE LONELIER HOURS 161

the dancers deliberately perform before her eyes, or whether
the dance is simply an outlet for exultation in her company.
As the last glow fades the dancers rapidly desist, and the
whole display is over before midnight.

Songs of the summer nights mark audibly the change
that comes over the season between the springlike opening
of June and the autumnal ripeness and gravity that tinge
the dewy August dawns. For the first ten days of June
the nightingales are still in song before midnight, though
they are rapidly declining ; song-thrushes sing late into the
white twilight hour, and the cries of plovers and water-fowl
show how lightly they are dipped in sleep. The deep and
passionate song of the nightingale seems in accord with
the scents of evening, and the warmth of the early night.
Nightingales stop singing, as a rule, when the air begins
to grow chilly towards one o'clock ; they are not among
the earliest singers of the dawn, in the keener air of the
new day. After the nightingales have fallen silent, and
before the first larks rise, comes the wind of dawn that
runs round the world in advance of the sun, and divides
the old day from the new one. The change is palpable ;
the cooler air has lost the scents and languors of the out-
worn summer day, and has the renewed freshness of morning.
About two o'clock, before it is light enough to see the larks
rise in the sky, they can be heard in a great singing com-
pany, soaring into the grey morning vault. Sometimes the
music comes from the ground ; they seem often to utter
their first hymn to the coming day before it is clear enough
to draw them into the sky. Blackbirds sing a few brief
strains, and then fall silent again for nearly an hour. When
the light is already clear enough to see the dewdrops
hanging on the grass blades, then bursts forth a universal
pasan to the sun. In a wood or garden where birds abound,

1 62

SUMMER

this song before sunrise in early June is amazing in its
vehemence. It does not give a perfect display of the song
of any one species, for the din of music is so confused that
only the most individual voices can be followed. Blackbird
and blackcap and nightingale and a dozen other species are
mingled in a chaos which can only be likened to the buzz

of voices at a dinner-
party ; and through the
tumult we can only
distinguish clearly the
measured rhythm of
the ring-dove, and the
turtle - dove's hollow
double note. This
burst of song lasts for
about twenty minutes ;
then it suddenly ceases,
and the sun being now
well over the eastern
woods the birds fall
keenly to feeding.

There is a great
change in the night
by about the middle
of July. It is still
unmistakably summer. None of the peculiar dampness
of autumn, with its subtle sense of vegetation beginning
to decay, yet hangs in the coolness of dusk or the filmy
mist of dawn ; there is not yet apparent that first presage
of autumn's oncoming, the drenching August dew. But
the night is far more silent. The nightingale's music
is long over; except in cool upland regions and dales
of the north, the evening strain of the song-thrush is

BLACKBIRD

THE LONELIER HOURS 163

also past ; and as the deep glow fades into real darkness
only the babble of the sedge-warbler by the river recalls
the full nocturnal music of early June. The sedge-warbler
is peculiarly associated with July nights; not because it
does not sing as readily by night in earlier summer, but
because other singers are silent, and leave it to chant alone.
There is something strangely conversational in the sedge-
warbler's voluble monologues in the July night. They are
half scurrility like the bickering of the house-sparrow, and

SEDGE-WARBLER

half sheer beauty ; and the bird seems singing for itself for
company, in the loneliness of the night. The ear is struck
with notes that recall the day ; it is the sedge-warbler
mimicking the cries of the birds that haunt the streamside
under the sun. Now comes the sharp call of the chaffinch,
now the sibilant signal of the water-wagtail, and presently
the chatter of the sparrows that practise fly-catching under
the noonday willows. A veil of sleep half dulls the sedge-
warbler's vigilance ; the song becomes a softer babble in
the reeds, like the song of a swallow on the weather-cock

164 SUMMER

in the early dawn. A moorhen calls sharply in one of its
nocturnal alarms, and instantly the singer is awake again,
pouring a loud recitation into the darkness. The song dies
away after midnight, when the confines of the new day are
near ; but even as late as August a sudden disturbance by
the river at any time of night will sometimes draw a burst of
song from a sedge-warbler hidden in the reeds.

Sedge-warblers, like nightingales, are day-birds which
also sing at night ; but the nightjar is a true bird of dusk,
though it occasionally murmurs its curious music while the
sun is high. It does not begin to flit abroad till its prey of
moths appears in the darkening air ; but it will rise about
sunset to some bough in the quiet copses, and reel out its
music actively until it is time to feed. It is a strange bird
in many ways, but the reeling murmur which it pours forth
in the dusk is the feature which has most struck popular
imagination in this country. Hence comes its names of night-
jar, evejar, and evechurr ; while its other common name of
fern-owl suggests its owl-like flight and plumage and noc-
turnal habits. The nightjar's murmur is emphasised by the
growing stillness of the July nights, like the songs of the
sedge-warbler ; and it is more deeply in accordance with the
ebb of summer vitality which adds solemnity to the summer
darkness. It is a low and monotonous sound compared with
the songs of May. In May, indeed, it is apt to be overlooked
or neglected ; but now it sheds a soothing sound in the night,
and suggests the full but calmer current of the ageing year.
Unlike the cry of the corncrake to many ears, it does not
become wearisome, because its monotony is never absolute.
From time to time the jarring is slightly changed in tone,
like the distant sound of an autumn threshing-machine, which
it often recalls. In the stillness of the night the delicacy of
these modulations is emphasised ; they fascinate the ear by
their slightness and the precision of their effect.

THE LONELIER HOURS

165

In proportion to its gentle pitch the distance to which
the sound will travel is remarkable, but much energy must
go to its utterance. Close observation in the early twilight
has shown the lower mandible of the bill intensely quivering
while the sound was being produced, and there is the same
hint of force in Gilbert White's record of how the Selborne
summer-house quivered when a nightjar perched and mur-
mured on the roof. It seems clear that the song, like the
sedge-warbler's, is prolonged after the breeding season,

NIGHTJAR

though nightjars are late nesters. Depending like swifts and
flycatchers on a diet of summer insects, they do not arrive
till May, and their eggs are often to be found in the middle
of June. In the earlier weeks of their stay, when the cocks
are probably seeking their mates, a reduced half-whispered
jarring is sometimes to be heard uttered from the ground on
ferny commons and in the woods. The same tentative
murmur is sometimes heard early on a June morning a little
before sunrise, but the shades of evening and the early night
form the song-time for this nocturnal bird.

It is rarer to see the nightjar hunting than churring,
because of the increasing darkness ; but it will sometimes
reap a harvest of the little moths that buzz on warm even-

i66

SUMMER

ings round the crown of the oaks, and its flight can sometimes
then be watched against the half-lit sky. It is extremely-
rapid and skilful, and the activity of its mazy motion is
emphasised by its silence. The nightjar flies as silently as
an owl ; though moths and beetles cannot be alarmed by
noises, like rats or mice, yet a harsher flight might set up
disturbing currents of air which would be equally effective
in scaring the prey. Very owl-like, too, is its cry of
' kowick, kowick,' which it occasionally utters on the wing.

It gathers its food in its
huge mouth, guarded
with bristles to pre-
vent live insects from
escaping. The bird's
wide gape gave colour
to the widespread
legend that it sucks
the milk of goats,
which is perpetuated in
various languages by
the name of goat-sucker. There is no other explanation of
this ancient slander, except that the rough, dry goat pastures
in many parts of Europe are a favourite haunt of this lover
of warmth and dryness.

The grasshopper-warbler sheds another subtly changeful
murmur into the air of summer evenings. Though it usually
ceases in the later dusk, about sunset this creeping mouse-
like bird is almost as vocal in the river-meadows as the
nightjar a little later in the copses. Its voice is shriller and
more chirping than the nightjar's, but there is no very close
likeness between the irregular and fitful scraping of a grass-
hopper and its steady reeling cry. It is much more like the
sound of a fisherman's well-oiled reel, and as the bird haunts
the same banks as the fisherman at his favourite evening;

THE LONELIER HOURS

167

hour, one can easily be mistaken for the other. The grass-
hopper-warbler's song — for it takes the place of a more
musical ditty — possesses nearly as conspicuously as the
nightjar's the delicate change of pitch which averts mono-
tony and adds a characteristic attraction. In the case of the
nightjar the change is said to take place when the bird ceases

GRASSHOPPER-WARBLER

to draw in breath and begins to expel it ; but owing to its
habits of concealment the grasshopper-warbler is one of the
most difficult of all birds to observe, and there is no evidence
of the same cause in its case, though it is at least probable.
The corncrake's note in the June mowing grass constantly
varies in intensity, but has no change of pitch ; and the
alternating softness and loudness of its cry is simply due
to its turning its head in different directions while it calls.
In early May, when the grass is still short, it can sometimes

1 68

SUMMER

be plainly seen lifting its head above the green pile of the
meadow, and calling in different directions, apparently seek-
ing a mate. In the south of England the corncrake usually
falls silent in June; but in the valleys of the north and west,
where it remains more abundant than it has been of late
years in the south, it calls in the late-mown hay-fields far
on into July, when the bilberries are ripening on the hills.

One curious feature of the early hours of a summer
morning is the boldness of the beasts and birds. Before five
o'clock very few people are stirring, and wild creatures do

PARTRIDGES DUSTING

not take man into account. They lord it in their own
domain, as once in Eden ; and except for the trim roads and
well-tilled fields telling of daily care, the human explorer of
the June morning might almost feel himself a survivor on
a planet from which mankind had flown. The roads are
occupied by the birds for courting, preening, fighting, bath-
ing in the dust, feeding and exercising their young, and for
every purpose that a smooth and wheelless terrace natur-
ally suggests to a bird's mind. If it were not so natural
and unconscious, there would be something actively con-
temptuous in this annexation of a country highway as a
promenade of infant partridges and amorous yellowhammers.
When the explorer approaches the birds show little of the

THE LONELIER HOURS

169

timidity which they display towards mankind later in the
day. They gaze at him indifferently, and are little disposed
to give him room. The yellowhammer goes on tracing his
golden semi-circles about his hen ; thrushes stare from the
middle of the road as if they were half ready to break out in
noisy abuse, but preferred to treat the intrusion with silent
dignity ; and shyer birds appear so numerously about the
road and hedges as to give a new realisation of their
fugitive and elusive lives in the hours when man is king.
Even the shy hare on its way back from the
cottage garden looks twice and three times at
the rare apparition before deciding that it must
be a man ; and the wilder stoat, which will
sometimes attack a man in defence of its young
by broad daylight, gazes at him in the hour of
dawn with the true look of the wild animal —
half insolence and half sheer bloodthirstiness.
All this hostility and indifference on the part
of the familiar beasts and birds of an English
village gives a curious jar to man's instinctive
sense of his own predominance. We have only
to get up three or four hours before breakfast to
find a world in which we are still of small account ; and it is
positively comforting to human self-esteem to find a friendly
welcome from the old cart-horses in the pasture, pushing
their hairy faces over the palings and expecting to be led off
to work for their masters. At least we have tamed the
horse if we are flouted by the common jenny-wren.

The first note of summer verging towards harvest-time
is heard in the stillness of the June night, when the green
horse-chestnut or tassel of plane-seeds falls to earth with a
single sudden tap. Though the unripe seed falls with a
miniature sound, there is the warning of all autumn in it.

(1,922) 22

170

SUMMER

The nightingale soon breaks out singing again from his
thicket, and the dawn has its jubilant cries ; the impression
is quickly eclipsed, but returns with gradually increasing
frequency as the summer goes on. July dawns are mistier
than those of June, and far more still ; instead of the chorus
of all the birds, we hear little but the chirp of the sparrows
presaging heat, the faithful crooning of the ring-dove, or the
deep and rasping caws with which the rooks at this time of
morning post from tree to tree on their way to their feeding-
grounds. August dawns break later and mistier still ; and
now, in the weeks of deepest silence by day, the piercing
warble of the robin is lifted to the earliest stain of light. It
is his autumn song renewed ; the birds' moulting time, which
forms the only real break in the circle of the English seasons,
has intervened since he lifted his voice in the paean of the
midsummer morning, and this song already tells that it is
passing.

JUNE

'The pinks along my garden wall
Have all shot forth their summer stalks,
Thronging their buds 'mong tulips hot,

And blue forget-me-not.
Their dazzling snows forth bursting soon
Will lade the idle breath of June ;
And waken thro' the fragrant night

To steal the pale moonlight.
The nightingale at end of May
Lingers each year for their display ;
Till when he sees their blossom blown,

He knows the spring is flown.
June's birth they greet, and when their bloom
Dislustres, withering on his tomb,
Then Summer hath a shortening day ;

And steps slow to decay.'

Robert Bridges, Garden Signs.

'Where the bee sucks, there suck I ;
In a cowslip's bell I lie :
There I couch when owls do cry ;
On the bat's back I do fly
After Summer merrily.
Merrily, merrily, shall I live now,
Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.'

Shakespeare, AriePs Song.

YOUNG PARTRIDGES

DANGERS OF THE GROUND

Even in midsummer weather, perhaps chiefly in midsummer
weather, the solid earth is one of the most dangerous of
places for birds' nests, though it is quite the best place for
concealment. Probably the safest nests are the highest and
most conspicuous, but in all cases a risk is run. The rooks'
nests are thrown down by a gusty wind. In one case such a
fallen nest was found to have been twice used by other birds
than the maker. A great tit and a starling had both
hatched broods in its interstices, and both for the first time
faced a danger quite new to them. The conspicuous nest
of the colony runs also risks from neighbours. Just as
penguins spend a great part of their time in robbing one
another of stones, the rooks will from time to time, though
not often, steal from any unlucky neighbour who for some
reason has not pleased the flock. There is also another
little known danger. When at all pressed for food squirrels
will climb to the nests and carry away young birds. But
when all is known the rook in the colony is as safe as he
could well wish to be. Compared with such a bird as a
partridge his state of security is complete. For the ground
bird is never safe till the young can fly almost as well as
their parents. When the country naturalist sees descend

DANGERS OF THE GROUND 173

one of those sudden June thunder-storms that gives us
vastly more rain to the minute than any storms of the year,
one of his first thoughts is apt to be of the young partridges.
Every year, or almost every year, scores of young birds are
killed by such rains. It is not that they are drowned right
out, though this may happen. It is that they cannot dry
their fluff. The oil-glands do not work. Though there may
be bouts of sunlight sufficient to dry birds in the open, they
are caught in the corridors of the corn or the tall grasses,
which drip and rub the moisture on them long after the
storm is over. Rheumatism and all manner of pains oppress
them. They dwindle and die. Even insect food, which is
their chief diet at this date, may be hard to come by in
stormy weather. It is by way of escape from such dangers
perhaps that often the old bird takes her dapper little brood
to the roadways, which serve as warm and smooth prom-
enades, where everything is provided that a bird in search of
health could well desire. It is a little dangerous perhaps
if traffic is frequent ; but the spry chicks even when very
young manage as a rule to skedaddle into the gutter of the
roads even if the approaching motor is fast, and pedestrians
who may now and again pick up the young usually replace
them.

In fear perhaps of the dangers of wet, partridges often
prefer the bases of the hedgerows for their nests, but here
they lose the security of the open field. The hedges are
the roads of all sorts of vermin, of rats and weasels and
stoats. Foxes, moreover, accept the hedgerow as their
proper hunting - ground. They go out bird - nesting, and
their nose and eye is so keen that they will on occasion
destroy every single nest along a mile or more of hedge.
Out in the fields it is comparatively rare to find a nest
destroyed by vermin, however obvious the place ; but along

i74

SUMMER

the line of any hedge or fence the destructions are innumer-
able. In one case that the writer watched, a rat began a
strangely ingenious and secretive attack on a partridge's
nest, but quite failed for some reason to proceed with it.
The nest was a scooped hollow in some rather rough grass
alongside a line of chestnut fencing, at the bottom of which
was stretched some mesh-wire. A rat, presumably by
design, tunnelled under the fence, coming up in the very
nest, but rather to one side of the centre. Into the hole he

v^^.f,^v^v>^.'l ■ * , -^ i'

took, or there fell, three of the eggs. It was thought that
the partridge had deserted, as the remaining eggs were cold.
But two days later, when the nest was visited, the nest-end
of the hole was quite covered, indeed half blocked by some
very coarse bents of crested-dog's-tail grass. These were
also spread about the rest of the nest, which looked gener-
ally redecorated, and the eggs were half concealed by grass.
The rat made no further onset, for the very good reason —
such at least was the plausible inference — that the vermin
itself had fallen victim to other vermin. At any rate within
twenty yards of the nest a dying rat was found terribly
mauled by a stoat. Thus did the partridge, after touching
the razor-edge of danger, maintain her place.

All these ground-nesting birds suffer from the increased
thoroughness of cultivation, although some of them, par-

DANGERS OF THE GROUND 175

tridges especially, flourish most on the best-farmed lands.
They rejoice, both for nesting and for refuge, at other times
in any piece of waste ground ; and where these waste bits
have yielded to cultivation the ground-nesters have shrunk
in numbers, except under special and artificial preservation.
They do more than lose their proper haunt. Among the
standing crops, that after all resemble in some respects the
rough growths of untilled land, they suffer from the scythe
and the mower. The corncrake has quite vanished from
many old haunts. The valley of the Huntingdonshire Ouse
is one. One of the delights of warm June or July evenings,
spent in a boat along reaches that encircle a great plain
known as the Port Holm, was the strange mingling of
sounds, of which the corncrake's ventriloquial note was the
most insistent. The wind kept up a rustling whisper, a
secret sibilant mutter among the great banks of reeds. The
reed- warblers, by this date rather chattering than singing,
fluttered in and out ; and among the ranker grasses the
running corncrakes kept up a burr that recalled a frog or a
murmur of distant machinery or some vast grasshopper.
But the sound has been mute for many years, probably
owing to the greater precision and earliness with which the
grass is cut. The ground-nest, though immeasurably hard
to find if you desire it, could not compete with the blade on
the chariot wheel. So the south is in great measure robbed
of this quaint and pleasing summer visitor, though happily it
is still not less common in the far north.

All nests, being in some degree cups, are liable to flood-
ing. One wet June a nuthatch's nest was found flooded out,
and the young dying of wet. They were rescued, the nest
drained, and the birds replaced, when some of the brood
survived ; but their plight showed that even a tree-hole,
carefully selected and at some altitude, is not quite storm-

176 SUMMER

proof. But in general the builders in holes are tolerably
safe, certainly safer than other small birds which choose the
ground or a spot close to the ground. Treading feet must
always be a menace, especially in gardens and places which
men frequent. How often one has watched, with almost
daily anxiety, a nest of a garden robin or chiffchaff escape a
succession of threats ; and then, just when safety seemed at

YOUNG NUTHATCHES

hand, catastrophe has fallen. The chiffchaffs used to build
for example in the gardens of south London, especially
Dulwich. A few no doubt survived ; but some watchers,
at any rate, found not once or twice that just as the young
were nearly fit to fly they fell victims to a prowling cat. The
dog is not, as a rule, though exceptions exist, a bird-nester ;
but in its restless and inquisitive wanderings it will destroy
out of pure frolic many a robin's nest.

Yet some small birds are most singularly successful in rear-
ing their broods. Stonechats and whinchats, which are fond

STONECHATS, C0CK SINGING, AND HEN WITH A SMALL
LIZARD IN HEE BEAK. By A. W. Seaby.

DANGERS OF THE GROUND

177

of nesting just beyond the shelter of a furze-bush, will defy
the most prying eyes, though the neighbourhood of the nest
is obvious enough. Larks, which build without protection
in the open, suffer very little from weather, and are seldom
pounced upon, thanks to a subtle sense of protective
selection ; and their fondness for very dry commons is no
little protection against the rains of June. How snug the
chats sit under a diaphanous canopy, that keeps off rain but

LARK'S nest

not the sweet air. There is enjoyment as well as caution in
the round-about approach to the nest, and ecstasy in the
quick final run down the pathway passage. The common is
a safe and lovely place for all the family : for the cock who
sings lustily on the top spray, vaulting his fine colours that
all the world may see ; for the hen, quick with the thoughts
of maternity in the soft nook the two have chosen and
selected ; for the chicks when they come to growth and hear
the parent birds scuttling along the private path, secret from
all intruders' ears and eyes.

(1,922) 23

178 SUMMER

Those birds of the common, which dislike wet, suffer
very much less from summer downfalls than the water-birds
themselves. It is unexpected, but ducks which delight in
water, whose young are water-proof, as it were, at birth, and
lovers of the stream, suffer much from heavy rain and wet
weather, overwhelming the feather walls of their nests. It
is not uncommon on this account for the duck to build in the
hollows of waterside trees ; but more often they nest on the
ground, some yards from the water, and during this time suffer
as if they were land-lubberly partridges from flood. But this is
g- -<^ a spring not a summer story. The duck are flying

*'.'•. v5$k and may be shot when August begins. It is worth
notice because rare that pheasants will now and
again give up their ground-
nesting habit. In one in-
stance a pheasant's nest
was found, safe from flood
beneath or rain above, in
the upper part of a thick
spruce, her eggs laid on
the flattened deserted nest
of a squirrel.
As numbers increase, and nesting-sites become fewer,
naturalists begin to note a tendency among bush-nesting
birds to seek the ground. Thrushes are certainly more fond
of the ground than they once were. We have found their
homes well concealed in the midst of high kexes in a spinney.
It may have been no more than accident, but the nests were
in such case rather slighter, as if the bird was beginning to
come into line with the ground-nesters which naturally prefer
a hollow in the earth to a manufactured cup. Will the
weasels and rats drive back this company of earth-lovers to
the bushes they have deserted ?

SONGS AND MUSIC

Only in June may you hear all the songs and notes of birds,
young and old. There is more of the zest of spring in many
May songs ; and in the middle of June other birds than the
cuckoo change their tune for the worse before descending
into a croak or to silence. But the opening of June is the
only time perhaps when the chorus is quite full, when the
turtle-doves croon behind the leaves, and the pied flycatcher
ripples on his garden perch, and the swifts scream in the high
air, and the corn-bunting gurgles his few rough notes, and
the robin calls fussily to its young. There are at any rate
more noises, if not more song, in early June than at any other
date. This is the time when a real knowledge of song and
note tells. Earlier one has at least a chance of watching
the singer, though it is hard enough even so to mark his
identity. A silhouette against a skyline can give as little in-
formation as any object of sight, but it gives some. In June
the bulk of the songs and sounds come from mysterious
depths of green. You may spend a day in seeking the singer,
and at the end have scarcely caught the glint of his wing.
Even the nightingale, which loves a low perch and is not
very shy, is hard to watch with any distinctness. A wry-
neck is virtually invisible.

180 SUMMER

As one listens to the songs of these invisible singers with
an enjoyment that is quite inexplicable, and tries at all to
analyse the charm, one at once realises that the songs are
not in any strict sense music. What are the most notable
singers ? Probably if a competition were held for the finest
singer among birds five candidates would take the votes :
the nightingale and the blackcap from the migrants ; the
blackbird, thrush, and lark from our home birds. Perhaps a
few would maintain the cause of the missel-thrush and the
willow-warbler.

Of all these the blackbird is the only one which can be
called musical or tuneful in the sense
that one generally gives to 'music' or
' tune.' He almost, perhaps quite,
whistles an air. The notes are clear,
and succeed one another with a recog-
nisable connection. The tone is fluty;
and when this early morning singer
breaks through your sleep, you might
mistake him for a cheerful boy whistling
odd bars for sheer lightness of heart. Some people can only
admire the blackbird among birds. They can find no har-
mony to which their ears can respond in other songs. To
their sense the robins and thrushes merely make noises,
which are perhaps some addition to the sense of gaiety in
things, but not sufficiently interesting or musical to warrant
the trouble in distinguishing. ' I know the robin's song
only because it stops so suddenly,' or ' That must be a
thrush because it is saying "Pretty Dick, pretty Dick'" —
their perception of the points of the many songs does not
go further than this. At the other end of the scale we find
ears so finely tuned to the notes of birds that every song
can be remembered as well as recognised. Mr. Hudson,

SONGS AND MUSIC 181

whose ear for song amounts to genius, could recall to him-
self, after twenty years' absence from England, the song of
all our birds save three or four ; and probably the finest
passage in any book of natural history is his account of the
towering songs of the great American birds in one of his
books.

The strangest thing about the welcome given to birds'
songs is that people may be within range of a particular song
year after year and never consciously hear it. One day a
naturalist says to them, ' Listen to the golden-crested wren in
the cedar,' or ' That is a cirl bunting in the elm ' — and for the
future the songs of the two birds, previously unnoticed and
unknown, take their proper place among the pleasures
of the garden. No doubt a surprising number of people
are absolutely deaf to song. The trill of the grasshopper-
warbler — a wonderfully accurate reproduction of the noise
of a fishing - reel, though pitched higher — is wholly in-
audible to some people of moderately acute hearing. The
song of the blue tit and the lark disappears from the
list of audible sounds at the very first approach of deaf-
ness ; and hundreds of country people never seem to have
heard the pretty little whispered piece of the goldcrest.

If music proper be the test the
blackbird comes first. Those seven
or eight clear notes that he whistles
at sunrise and again after sunset also
carry farther than the song of any
bird, even than the thin, pleading
cry of the nightingale beneath the
stillness of summer stars. ' -

. NIGHTINGALE

As you loiter near a singing
nightingale the force of the guttural throat most astonishes
and thrills you. But, as the distance from the singer increases,

182 SUMMER

one part of the song after the other falls away till you can
only hear that one lone and thrilling cry. The notes of the
blackbird, very often in a sequence of seven, are describable
in music. They differ a good deal, but the consecutiveness
of the notes and the liquidness of the tone form the most
unmistakable and cheeriest of all songs. Of the strains given
in Witchell's wonderful book the following, though more
monotonous, is, so to speak, the foundation of the song,

mi

e

m

m

f=st=ft

■r

with the exception of the final note, which is the same as the
penultimate. Witchell, however, gives this as the alarm
note. But we must not judge birds' song by any of our
musical standards. Sounds in nature, whether made by
animate or inanimate things, please us because they are

consonant with the mood
and form of the world at
the moment : 'The moan
of doves in immemorial
elms and murmur of in-
numerable bees ' are har-
monious for more esoteric
reasons than — may one
say ? — the music of those
two famous lines of the
young Tennyson. The
tinkle of thin ice, the
chromatic moan of the wind, the sucking whisper of the reced-
ing surf, are not musical sounds, but each has the power to stir
Celtic sense of ' old, forgotten, far-off things ' as powerfully as
the triumphant harmonies of Teutonic masters. Birds' songs

^.-

WOOD-WREN

SONGS AND MUSIC

183

have such a quality. The most musical are not always the
most pleasing. Few can give more pleasure than the high
crescendo ripple of the tree-pipit as he makes a sharp gable
of flight above an oak, or — to give a personal preference— the
first bell of the wood-wren, to be heard year after year, much
about the same date, from a neighbouring group of beeches.
It has no music and little variety ; but yet it could ' beget the
golden time again,' as did the cuckoo's song, for Wordsworth
ringing gently like this :

i^P

m

a moving mystery of sound now from one place, now from
another, penetrating the leafage of the wood where he lay on
just one particular sunny day.

The secret of the charm of the more real singers is much
the same as of the cuckoo. In the
lark's song is contained all the sense
of surrounding things, as catalogued —
if one may say so — in Meredith's ' Lark
Ascending,' one of the great poems of

the century. Much of the nightingale's supremacy is due to
the night and quietness, and if the poets had been early
risers we should have heard as much of the blackbird.

The blackbird apart the best songs are least expressible
in music. It is quite impossible to give in musical notation
the song of the lark, which, with a very few exceptions, may
be called the one continuous singer among birds. Scots-
men have compared the song with the music of the pipes,
and the resemblance is quite perceptible. Whether this is an
argument for or against the musical nature of the song is a
question that may be left undecided. But the majority of

1 84

SUMMER

songs are little set pieces of more or less constant length and
time. They are more easily expressed and learned. The
chaffinch or the vellowhammer are good types of the set

song. The chaf-
finch in captivity
and under instruc-
tion will learn to
lengthen out his
piece by a bar and
more, but in nature
the rippling trill,
suggestive with the tinkling rise in the last two notes of a
fountain, is generally of an even length. An excellent
reproduction, so far as pause goes, of the yellow-bunting's
song is given by Witchell, thus :

A=A

W

w-

But certainly many buntings do not ascend in the first
notes of the song with this regularity. Most, we should say,
do not rise at all, in the first four notes at any rate. The
subject of birds' song and its relation to music is doubtless
worth study ; but to the field naturalist the more absorbing
pursuit is to separate the call notes, alarm notes, and songs,
and to read in them the language of birds. The more you
listen to birds at nesting-time the more clearly you discover
how wide is the range of expression, one might say, of conver-
sation. In their songs, which most arrest our attention, lies but
half their power of articulate utterance. But the learning of
birds' songs and, so to speak, words, is only easy and fruitful
in the early morning. For the rest of the day, with the ex-
ception of a period of evening ecstasy — very different from

SONGS AND MUSIC

185

the morning domesticity — the language of most birds is more
or less pedestrian. Especially do the spring migrants exult
in the morning hours. It is more necessary for the observer
to be up with the blackcap than with the lark, one of the few
midday singers.

The morning too is the best hours for hearing all those
bird conversations which are almost as attractive as the
songs. As great attention has been paid in recent years to

^

YELLOWHAMMER

the ' call notes ' and ' alarm notes ' of birds as to their songs,
but from all classifications escape a host of half-whispered
notes which are not song or call. The hen-bird does not
sing, but she undoubtedly speaks and whispers. We have
heard the hen stonechat make a singing noise ; and if you
are quite close to young and parents at feeding-time some
summer morning, you will hear eager sounds and soft endear-
ments that suggest a power to talk as well as to sing. Some
cock-birds have a sort of croon which is quite different from
song. You may, for example, hear from the cock bullfinch a

i86

SUMMER

nest-side song which is very little like the spring song ; and
the golden-crested wren sings songs which are only recog-
nisable as his because of the tone. The sequence of notes
has no set pattern at all. Perhaps in marking all the minor
songs and calls of birds it is the quality of the voice, if one
may say so, that makes recognition less difficult. The sibilant
goldcrest, the soprano robin, the rough whitethroat, the
hoarse corn-bunting, the liquid wagtail, the squeaky tits —
have all a sort of voice that is recognisable, as well as a sort
of song. Even when birds mimic to perfection, as the
starling mimics the thrush, the quality of voice bewrays them.
This quality abides even when the song is sweet and the
chirp harsh. Larks and pipits, for example, have calls that
are perhaps harsher than any song-bird's. They sound more
akin to the jackdaw than the thrush ; but it is still a lark's
note, only it needs wide skies and a place in continuous
sequence before it can achieve its charm.

ALONG THE RIVER

A strange and luxuriant vegetation runs riot by the margin
of lowland rivers at midsummer, and fosters abundantly the
life of insect and bird.

Most dragon-flies are graceful in form and colour as well
as fleet of wing, but the most exquisite species haunt the
watersides from early June. The larger species that rove
freely through gardens, lanes, and clearings in woodlands
in later summer are excelled by several smaller kinds that
haunt the watersides. Dragon-flies are badly off for English
names ; ' horse-stinger ' is crudely misleading, and ' demoi-
selle,' which is sometimes confined to the smaller species, is
not really English. There are scientific Latin names for use
at need, but they seem stiff and out of place while the living
insects float by the June waterside. But it is as well to
know that the two commonest varieties — one with wings
broadly splashed with metallic purple and the other with
rusty red — are the two sexes of one species, and that when

188 SUMMER

they sail together in courtship nature is not planning some
singular hybridisation, as the unlikeness of the two insects
might seem to indicate. Their lazy, flapping flight is in
harmony with the ease of the summer river ; but the little
sapphire dragon-flies that drift in shoals among the sedges
have the nimbleness of the minnows in the water-world,

where life has a crystal lightness
unrelaxed by the July heats.
Light plays in their slender
bodies as in a jewel, and almost
as jewel-like is a delicate crim-
son dragon-fly of the same size,
which is more rarely seen by
the stream. Both sexes of this
species are of the same brilliant
red, but the female of the small
sapphire dragon-fly is dull yel-
low, with darker stripes.

The kingfisher's back as it
shoots down the arcaded channel
has the same sapphire gleam
that harbours in the bodies of
the dragon-flies. Compared
with the brilliant blue of its
back, the ruddy chestnut of its
breast seems almost dusky ; and
even its back loses much of its brilliance as the bird comes
to rest upon a willow-bough, and the light ceases to play
on its metallic feathers. As it sits and eyes the stream
below, waiting for the chance to plunge upon a minnow,
the two white patches on the neck are often its most
conspicuous feature, though we seldom notice them in
flight. The kingfisher is heard three or four times by the

DEMOISELLE

ALONG THE RIVER

189

practised ear for once that it is seen ; its thin but piercing
pipe is very distinctive among the cries of the riverside,
though it occasionally suggests one of the varied notes of
the common sandpiper, which haunts the Thames and other
lowland streams for some time on passage in late spring.
Sometimes when the elfin piping is heard, we look up and
catch a glimpse of the kingfisher spinning like a nebulous
blue meteor in and out of the curves of the stream, or swerving
directly across the meadows to the shelter of the willows ;
but often it flies so low behind the sedge-screen that we only
hear it pass. Kingfishers sit motionless on their^ perches,

so as not to scare their prey ; but their plunge, when it
comes, is decisive. They strike the stream with a sounding
smack, and usually fly back to their perch at once before
tossing the minnow upright in their beak for convenience in
swallowing it. If they have young to feed, we see the fish
glittering in their bills as they spin off in the direction of the
nest. More rarely they hover over the stream before
plunging ; and this is the most beautiful of all their displays,
as the fanning wings multiply the shimmering iridescence.
Thanks to steady protection, kingfishers are now by no
means rare on the Thames water-system and many other
southern streams. They are scarcer by the rocky torrents

igo SUMMER

of the north and west, for there are fewer calm pools suitable
for their minnow-fishing ; but they are found sparingly on
many such waters, and also in rocky harbours and estuaries
by the sea. The common situation for the nest-hole is in
some vertical loamy bank of the river, or a bordering ditch
or backwater ; but occasionally they choose a bank some
hundreds of yards inland from their fishing-grounds, or even
a crevice in a quarry. The hole is much like a water-rat's,
but more evenly oval ; it leads into a gallery about two feet
long, at the end of which the round white eggs are laid.
The birds usually dig a fresh gallery each year, and the con-
dition of the kingfisher's nest at the end of the season is
certainly not attractive to any but an exceptionally dirty
bird. Since they are nursed in the security of this deep
hole, the young birds can afford to develop in their first
plumage the conspicuous family dress ; and the same in-
fluence determines that the eggs shall be white, since in
their position of safety they have no need to mimic their
surroundings.

Sand-martins also nest here and there along the little
earthy cliffs of the river, though the favourite site for one of
their colonies is in some inland sand-pit. By streams lack-
ing dry and friable banks, but otherwise attractive to them,
they have been found, nesting in narrow drain-pipes built into
a stone embankment, and even in galleries bored in the soft
wood of rotten willows. Sand-martins are as gregarious as
kingfishers are solitary, and flutter like clouds of Mayflies
above the midsummer stream. House-martins fly more
strongly, and in more sweeping curves, and swallows more
boldly still ; but the swift is the lord of the swallows by right
of swallow-like flight, though he is no real swallow. One of
the delights of the streamside meadows in summer is to
watch the swifts rushing past so close and low that we can

ALONG THE RIVER

191

see the dull white patch on their chins ; and notice, as summer
goes on, how their sooty feathers get worn by rubbing in
their roosts, and bleached in the strong sun, until they gain
the same transparent greyish look at the edges that we see
in the ruffled plumage of the black swan, or the dowdy black
moth — dressed in insects' bombazine — which is known as the
Old Lady. This large dusky creature is also common in
boat-houses and other buildings by the waterside, but not
until July or August.

By midsummer the water-wagtails and most of the small

SAND-MARTINS

singing-birds of the riverside have finished nesting, and are
in charge of dwindling troops of inexperienced young. But
moorhens and dabchicks seem never to grow tired of the
nursery, and go on nesting into August ; and midsummer is
the height of the nesting season in the scattered colonies of
reed-warblers. The reed-warblers sling their nests over
water on supporting stems, and prudently make sure that
the vegetation is ripe for its purpose before they trust to it.
Exceptionally they hang their nests to willow and lilac twigs
in withy-beds and gardens by the water ; but the traditional
prop of their house is the true reed, with canelike stem and
blue-grey flowering head, which grows in belts and beds not
too commonly by the edge of the river. Like all river-

192

SUMMER

plants the reed springs late, and the reed-warblers wait till it
has formed a dense cover to hide them building. Unlike the

sedge- warblers they usually nest
in colonies, and this is clearly due
to the scarcity of their favourite
reeds, which concentrates them
in the spots where the reeds
grow. The reed-beds ripple at
midsummer with the reed-warb-
lers' babbling song, which recalls
the sedge-warbler's, but is more
silvery. The number of singers
in one place is also apt to at-
tract attention even from those
ramblers who are not on the watch for reed-warblers or the
brakes which hold them. Then, if we watch closely, the
smooth and slender little birds
in their russet coats can be seen
slipping from reed to reed,
and resting on their vertical
stems in a characteristic atti-
tude, with the upper leg bent
and the lower one stretched
to its full reach.

Perhaps because their
colonies are easy for a wan-
dering bird to discover, reed-
warblers are very often victim-
ised by cuckoos. The surest
way to find a cuckoo's eggs or
nestlings is to search in a

colony of reed-warblers' nests. More meadow-pipits' are
utilised by cuckoos than reed-warblers' ; but it is not so easy

KINGFISHER FEEDING ITS YOUNG.
By A. W. Seaby.

ALONG THE RIVER i93

to find the same number of meadow-pipits' nests in a short
time. Cuckoos' eggs found in reed-warblers' nests are
suffused with a peculiar tint of olive green beneath the usual
vague freckles ; this rough approximation to the colour of
their brother-eggs is noticeable if we compare them with
the greyer cuckoos' eggs to be found in the pied wagtails'
nests in the willows, or the browner type which are usual in
the sedge-warblers' nests among the bushes and under-
growth. The young cuckoo is naked and copper-coloured,
and squats at the bottom of the deep conical nest like a
toad in a hole. Its task of murdering its mates is even more
remarkable when it is born in a reed-warbler's nest than
usual, for the sides of the nest are unusually steep and high.
This is of no apparent effect in discouraging the murderous
instinct of the little changeling ; its effect is to prevent the
legitimate eggs being blown out when the reed-beds dip deep
to the stroking wind. The nests are usually bound to the
reeds which support them by strands of reed-flower of the
previous year ; but reed-warblers have a sharp eye for other
and more convenient materials, and use thread for binding
their nests when they can find it.

Except for the placid swans, which seem to take pride
in their favoured position as tame birds, the water-fowl of the
river are shy and elusive. We have to keep a sharp look-
out for a glimpse of the dabchick between its dives, and
when we hear its loud bubbling laugh it comes usually from
the midst of a thicket of water-plants, where the bird is in-
visible. Its nest is as elusive as itself. It needs some little
practice to distinguish it from merely casual heaps of water-
weed drifting on the surface by a shade more of design in its
moulding. It is a round sodden pudding, out of which the
end of one of the dirty white eggs occasionally sticks like a
large almond out of batter. After the first or second egg is

(1,»22) 8j

194 SUMMER

laid, the dabchick drags the wet weed over them whenever she
leaves the nest, and this soon changes their original chalky
whiteness to a muddy brown. The eggs of coots and moor-
hens and most water-birds are exceptionally thick-shelled,
which may possibly serve to protect them from being addled
by temporary flooding of the nest. But the dabchick's nest
is always soaking wet, and the thickness of the eggs is
apparently not enough to safeguard them against chills when
the sitting bird is away. Therefore she covers them with a
blanket of weed, and the heat of this decaying vegetation

protects them, and probably helps to hatch them. It is clear
that the object of covering the eggs is not primarily to hide
them, for the first pure white egg is often not covered up ;
and later, when the eggs are covered, they are stained so
deeply as to be very inconspicuous on their bed. The dab-
chick is most easily recognised by its quick and constant
diving, in which it excels all the birds of the coot and water-
hen tribe, and also the surface ducks like the teal and mallard.
Its head and beak look impishly large for its body as it floats
low in the water, with its back almost submerged ; and its
neck in the breeding-season is ruddy, where in winter it is

ALONG THE RIVER

195

pale. Careful watching may show the young dabchicks
riding on their parents' backs, or even taking a trip beneath
the water, held beneath their wings.

Moorhens' nests abound in the reeds and rushes in June,
and change their character as the season advances. Their
nests of spring are substantial dishes of dry flags ; in the
warmer summer weather they often build for the later broods
slighter nests largely composed of green flags and sedges of
the year's growth. But these later nests built to hold eggs
must not be confused with the slighter platforms, also formed

MOORHEN CHICKS

of green blades and stems, which the old and young birds
build among the reeds simply to rest on. And all these
structures of the moorhen are distinct from the platforms
made by the water-rats, on which they sit upright like
squirrels, and nibble the soft white stems of water-plants with
incisors shivering in the rodents' familiar manner. So does a
tame rabbit munch a cabbage-stalk, though he has not the
skill to lift his food in his paws. Moorhens' and water-rats'
platforms can be easily distinguished, for the rodent gnaws
the stems into lengths, while the bird packs and twists them
into a rough circle. Besides moorhens and dabchicks and
coots on some slower and wider streams, a fourth species of
water-bird seems to make its appearance in June and July.

196

SUMMER

It runs about as large as a dabchick, and is dingy greyish-
brown above, with a paler throat and breast. These are the
hobbledehoy moorhens, children of April and May, now
mewing their youth by the waters of midsummer and the
dog-days. In August we shall see the cleaner greys and
olives of the adult plumage gradually replacing their in-
determinate shades.

Dabchicks are street-arabs in all their moods and
gestures ; but moorhens are an extremely respectable race,
with the air of being genuinely shocked at any violent or
irregular conduct by the waterside. They seldom err, and

if occasionally they
wander into gardens
and eat such strange
meat as tomatoes and
hens' eggs, this is
surely a mistake of
inexperience. Even
the dull-looking elder
brothers are said to help their parents in bringing up the
younger broods ; and it may be suspected that the greener
and slighter June nests are often of their building, since
the architecture closely resembles that of the platforms
which they make among the reeds. The sharp, shocked
cries of the moorhens break out by the side of the river all
day, and irregularly through the night. They are a fearful
race, and their underworld is full of sharklike pike. Another
harsh and persistent cry is often heard nowadays by southern
streams where it was unfamiliar twenty years ago. This is
the anxious note of the snipe with young, calling ' kek-kek-
kek-kek' endlessly from the sky above, as some intruder
wanders over the water-meadows, where the young are
hidden. The snipe's more familiar drumming is sometimes

ALONG THE RIVER

197

heard as late as June, but the note of anxiety gradually
replaces it. Like redshank, and the ruff and bittern in one
or two haunts, snipe are distinctly re-establishing them-
selves. This is largely due to increased protection ; but
in the case of snipe and redshank it is probably owing also
to the spread of sewage farms, which form for marsh-birds
a safe and congenial, if a rather unsavoury, asylum.

The touch of fen country associations suggested by the
snipe calling above the level meadows is renewed by many

YOUNG SNIPE

peeps of landscape along the larger rivers. Sometimes the
river diversifies a prosaic region of mildly undulating pastures,
and sometimes woods drape the cliffs, steeply falling to the
shore ; but often between the stream and the nearest hills
there is a mile or half a mile of green East Anglian scenery
set in alien surroundings. A group of poplars dominates the
level meadows, where a straight dike catches a stripe of
brilliant colour from the sunset sky ; or across the green
expanse, with its true fenland note of composed dignity, the
eye rests on the nodding gable of an old white wooden mill.
Only a few hundred yards away the scene may change to

198

SUMMER

steep chalk or sandstone cliffs, or hanging woods of oak and
beech ; but the strip of fenland scenery is complete in its own
narrow limits, and adds to the borders of the summer stream
a richness and variety of landscape like its wealth in flowers
and birds.

SNIPE DRUMMING

SPOTTED FLYCATCHERS

LEARNING TO FLY

As song dies down in June the abundance of bird life
increases ; and in the last three weeks in the month the
garden shrubberies and other favourite nesting-places are
more densely peopled than at any other time of year. The
wave of birth has risen to its full height, and the forces of
destruction are only beginning to make away with the
annual superfluity. In a garden where many birds build,
there may easily be twenty-five times as many birds present
at midsummer as at the beginning of the nesting season in
March and early April. The resident birds have been
reinforced by many visitors and migrants, and the parents
are outnumbered by their young. The first young thrushes
and blackbirds of the April broods are now as large and
almost as active as their fathers and mothers ; and the
stock of the young birds of the year ranges from these
lusty marauders of the fruit-beds to the last young wrens.

But owing to the inertness of most young birds even
after they have left the nest, it takes some time to realise
how thickly the bushes are peopled, and how unseen eyes
are gazing from every tree and tussock of undergrowth.
They are gazing, but not as a rule watching us ; and this
vagueness of attention is one reason why the bushes can

SUMMER

be so full of young birds without our noticing them. If
the younger fledglings had yet learnt fear of man and
domestic animals, they would fly from us, and all the copse
would be in a scurry, and the thickness of its population
be manifest. But when a young thrush or greenfinch or
water-wagtail leaves the nest without disturbance, it still
regards man without alarm ; anxiety is left to its parents,
which often do their utmost in vain to wake it to a sense
of the perils latent in gardeners and exploring house-dogs.
While they screech and flutter a few yards from the object
of alarm, the young bird sits perfectly calm within a few
feet of it. Silence is eventually restored by the departure
of the intruder, if it is dog or man, or often in a more
disastrous manner if it is the cat. Young birds seem to
have no such instinctive fear of cats as monkeys are said
to have of snakes ; they will wait quite placidly for their
doom. This is not the numbness of fascination ; it is merely
the absence of perception. When
our attention is attracted to a young
robin by a sudden cry from some
bough close to our head, it is often
evident that the little bird has a
very vague idea of what we are, and
sometimes overlooks us altogether.
The round staring eye does not focus
a moving figure, or appear to dis-
tinguish it from the surrounding
shrubbery; it sees men as trees. If the bird is half
startled by the noise of a body pushing through the bushes,
it will shift its position on its perch, or sometimes flutter to
a new one, but still without discovering the intruder by
sight. It is curious to watch the sudden dawn of conscious-
ness in the eyes of a young bird when it does first appre-

REED-WARBLEK AT ITS NEST.

B\ I i I '. < I ILLINS.

LEARNING TO FLY 201

hend us as a detached and coherent body, distinct from
the surrounding scenery. Even then it usually displays a
spectator's curiosity rather than any kind of alarm.

The sudden explosive calls which burst intermittently from
the inner shades of the garden shrubberies at midsummer
are not expressions of fear, but a blind demand for food —
the primitive germ of all language. Young thrushes and
blackbirds utter a metallic squawk ; young robins a kindred
but shriller cry. Before
they leave the nest broods
of young starlings utter a
rhythmical strident chorus
which rises as they hear
the parent bird's approach,
and dies down again as it
departs with its low note
of satisfied activity. Broods
of white owls under the
church roof raise a louder
and harsher tumult of the
same kind ; sparrows in
the ivy cheep more shrilly ;
and young martins in the
eaves make a murmuring
stir. Some of the noisiest
of all woodland birds as
they gain their feathers are

little woodpeckers. Young green woodpeckers shout from
their hole, in some rotten beech or oak bough, so loud that
they can be heard for a hundred and fifty yards. Their cry
is more like that of the adult great spotted woodpecker,
or the wryneck, than the free laughing note of their parent.
One of the brood often climbs to the mouth of the hole, and

(1.M2) . 2&

YOUNG GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKERS

202 SUMMER

peers in the entry as it calls. Young great spotted wood-
peckers make a loud but more confused din, more like the
burden of the starling's brood ; it is curious to see the boldly-
pied woodpecker cling beneath the hole, and feed the young
heads clustering in the door. Young cuckoos pursue their
puny foster-parents with a petulant cry too thin for their
burly bodies ; it seems as though they had stolen a young
hedge-sparrow's or meadow-pipit's voice, as well as its
heritage. The more we listen at midsummer, the more the
whole world simmers with the voices of callow nestlings

YOUNG CUCKOO

and fledglings ; life rises in them to hymn the longest day,
and only too quickly dies down as the light declines.

Nature quickly sets to work to select her chosen few
from the multitude of her offspring. Among nearly all
birds the worst enemy is stormy weather. In a wet, cold
May and June so many eggs and young birds perish in
the nest that their numbers are more than decimated before
the time for the general emergence upon the world ; and
then the flood of life at midsummer is greatly reduced,
and the garden shrubbery may miss that haunted week or
fortnight when every bough has eyes. Cats, rats, and owls

LEARNING TO FLY

203

destroy myriads of young birds every year ; but still more
perish through wind and weather. Hunger combines with
cold and wet to starve them, for the insect food which
predominates in the diet of most nestlings and fledglings
is scarce and hard to come by in stormy weather ; and
even the most active parents can bring them least to eat just
when they need most.

Young birds, such as partridges and moorhens, which
leave the nest almost as soon as they are hatched, are far
more alert than the vacuous little thrushes and robins, but

iV\\\^%>^'

YOUNG PARTRIDGES

they have not much more fear of man. We have seen
a little dabchick paddle straight across a river to a man
standing on the bank, much as a very young lamb will run
to a stranger, from the impression that anything alive and
moving must be friendly. Besides terrestrial enemies young
water-birds are exposed to the greed of pike. Each pair of
moorhens probably produces an average of about twenty
young in the season ; for they nest from March to August,
and in that time bring off two or three broods, and lay from
six to thirteen eggs. Yet the moorhen, though an abundant,
is not an increasing species ; and the residue over the
annual wastage of the adult birds is sacrificed annually to
cold weather and predaceous enemies. There is no percep-

204

SUMMER

tible relation between the number of eggs laid by any
species of bird and the obvious risks to which it is exposed.
Pheasants may lay a dozen eggs or more, plovers lay four,
and the nightjar only two. Yet all these eggs are laid on
the open ground, and young nightjars are born more help-
less than either young plovers or pheasants. Young birds
nursed to maturity in holes, in banks, or trees would seem
to be safeguarded against half the risks of infancy. Yet the
kingfisher lays eight eggs, the blue tit ten or a dozen, or

YOUNG NIGHTJARS

even more, against the woodpigeon's pair ; and while tits
are stationary, and kingfishers perhaps declining over the
country as a whole, woodpigeons have prodigiously multi-
plied within living memory.

The education of the midsummer fledglings goes on
apace ; they soon become worldly-wise and distrustful of
humanity. Before the mock orange-blossom has ceased to
drench the walks with its heady odour of the solstice, the
eyes have vanished from the bushes. Already thinned, the
nimbler troops of young fare forth with their parents to wider
feeding-grounds ; and so, like the faintest movement of the

LEARNING TO FLY

205

ebb-tide in a brimmed sea-channel, the autumn migration
is already distantly begun. Mixed troops of old and young
birds appear in the new-cut hay-fields, pecking at the seeds
of the fallen flowers, or feeding on the insects laid bare in
the swaths and stubble. Plumage grows hard to distinguish,
though not so hard as when the old birds are in full moult in
July ; and some of the young ones wear curious and freakish
liveries. Young willow-wrens, for example, flit among the
currant-bushes in suits almost as yellow as a tit's or wagtail's ;
and in spite of their insectivorous reputations they do not
always spare the fruit. It seems more natural to see young
blue and great tits in bright suits of yellow and green. With

YOUNG GREAT TITS

them the chief point worth notice is that they adopt their
parents' gay colours so early, whereas many other young birds
do not gain the full adult plumage for months or even years.
The first plumage of young robins is a dull brown, flecked
with tawny spots, and few of the young birds which are
brought up in open nests, whether in boughs or on the ground,
present a close likeness to the adult plumage in their first
summer. More uniformity is observable in the case of birds
which nest in holes. Even the young wagtails, which are
usually nested in open and unsheltered cavities, have a plain
family likeness to their parents. The little pied wagtail newly

206 SUMMER

strayed from the nest is fascinating in its immature parti-
coloured suit ; though it has the blurred markings and rather
impure colours which are characteristic of all young birds.
The young blue and great tits are like smudged copies of the
adult birds, though the likeness does not bear exact compari-
son ; and young woodpeckers and kingfishers also wear the
bright colours of their clans. In a broad way we seem to see
here the working of a principle of natural selection, which
weeds out bright colours among the young hatched in more
exposed situations, and allows them finer development when
the little birds are nursed in sheltered holes. The same prin-
ciple roughly holds good of the hen birds. Hen tom-tits and
kingfishers and woodpeckers are nearly as bright as their
mates, but there is a great difference between the sexes of
blackbirds and pheasants.

Young kingfishers appear from the nesting-holes at very
different dates during spring and summer, but most often
towards the end of June. They sit solemnly in a row on a
rail or outstretched bough by the waterside, and wait to be
fed with the same vacant self-absorption as the young robins
and thrushes in the shady garden shrubbery. All about
them in fine June weather the boughs and sedges of the
river teem with life. The air swarms with insects, and with
birds busily devouring them. Life and death jostle each
other with doubly concentrated fierceness at this time of
year. If happiness depended on length of days, it would be
a dark world for the majority of these young birds and
dancing flies ; but mankind is too apt to view nature by his
own standards, and to demand for all alike the fullness of
his threescore years and ten. The little kingfisher which
perishes in a rainstorm after a week of bright June weather
by the waterside is no fit object of pity because its day was
so brief. It saw the sun, and felt the stir of life, albeit per-

LEARNING TO FLY 207

haps quite unconsciously, and its existence was not in vain.
Most of the pity evoked by the natural incidence of death
among animals is really a form of egoism. Men are reluc-
tant to recognise that their personal views and tastes are not
a universal law ; and this intellectual pride is often rein-
forced by the objection to face death in nature because it
hurts our own feelings. We sometimes read letters in the
newspapers demanding the removal of tramps and beggars
from the streets, not out of any consideration for the welfare
of the vagabonds, but because it is painful to passers-by to

YOUNG KINGFISHERS

see them in their wetness and rags. This is simply selfish-
ness in a thin veil of philanthropy, and it often finds its
counterpart in the attitude of men towards nature. We can-
not huddle the forces of death out of sight, as we can the
broken men and women on the Thames Embankment ; but
we invest them with a sense of horror and injustice which is
not truly theirs.

Such thoughts rise naturally in the heart of the June
day, but do not cloud it for any one who has learnt to face
them fairly. If the best use of life is in busy activity, as we
mostly now hold, young birds, at any rate, do not long waste
their time. Day by day the sandpipers follow their parents

208 SUMMER

more nimbly, skimming by the midsummer stream, where
the water-grasses rise tall around the sand-spits ; and the
young finches, watching on the bough, grow fewer, and turn
into busy hunters in the fields. Gradually the young birds
learn to feed themselves ; usually they seem to learn readily
after the first few days, by imitating their parents, but some-
times the children are backward, and the old birds have to
coax them to peck at some insect tit-bit, instead of feeding
them from beak to beak. Birds never appear in a prettier
light than when the fledgling is itself old and clothed
enough to be pretty, and the parents still feed the spoilt child
which follows them, and begs with trembling wings and
body. The quarrelsome and vulgar cock-sparrow becomes
a tender father, chewing up the cake-crumbs that we throw
him at tea-time on the lawn, and so softening them before he
gives them to his young. It is noticeable that only one
young sparrow is as a rule tended by the old birds in this
affectionate way. This helps to explain why the young one
depends so long on its parents, since it monopolises the
parental care which would have been distributed among a
larger family, and becomes rather ' spoilt ' and helpless. But
it also illustrates the swiftness with which the forces of
destruction act upon nestling and fledgling birds. Broods of
young sparrows usually run from three to six ; and yet, by
the time that they should have been fit to fend for them-
selves in the outer world, we often see only a solitary
survivor.

Birds' flight is by some regarded as an instinctive gift,
while other naturalists have given fanciful accounts of the
care with which young birds are taught to fly by their
parents. The truth seems to lie between the two views,
and the readiness of young birds to fly seems much greater
in the case of the smaller species. Every field naturalist or

LEARNING TO FLY 209

bird-nesting boy must over and over again have startled a
fledged brood of blackbirds, or linnets, or water-wagtails
from the nest for the first time, and seen them flutter in all
directions from the bush or stump. They are ready to fly,
and fly they can and do, though not far or strongly ; and
this may be fairly called an instinctive power, though it needs
practice before it is perfect. Practice chiefly comes in the
case of these smaller birds by imitation of the parents ; as
the water-wagtails flit from stone to stone, and beach to
beach, in finding food for the young, the young ones follow
them. We seldom see small birds coaxing their young to
fly, by fluttering before them in the air, or taking flight just
ahead of them, and looking back to see if they are following.
But from time to time we do see little devices of this kind
among larger birds, which seem to know that they are
heavier, and have the same instinctive fear of a fall as men
and other flightless animals. Alpine choughs can be watched
making many cackling attempts to lure out a brood of
young from a precipice hanging above a snowfield ; and
though the adult choughs frequent the top of the Matter-
horn for scraps from the climbers' lunches, the young ones
show little readiness to take to the air. The efforts of the
old birds to make them fly may fairly be described as teach-
ing, though of a rather clumsy and helpless kind. The
larger the bird the more it seems to need the stimulus of
example, if not of deliberate parental encouragement, to
learn to use its wings. After one has watched many birds
the impression is gained that while the smaller kinds, such as
thrushes and finches, would learn to fly if they were left
entirely to themselves — if they were suddenly deported, say,
to some desert island — the larger species would not, or at
least would proceed by very slow stages, and would take
more than one generation before they reproduced their

11,922) a 7

210 SUMMER

ancestors' skill. Vultures are among the finest of all fliers ;
but an interesting account of the difficulty with which a
young adopted vulture learnt the art was contributed to a
French journal by the late Captain Ferber, who was himself
killed while flying. It is worth quoting at some length, as
one of the best of the observations on this subject, con-
ducted by men with
a personal acquaint-
ance with the pro-
blem : ' Some time
ago my friend, Cap-
tain Detroyat, wrote
tome: "My brother-
in-law, M. Sala, and
myself have just suc-
ceeded in catching a
young vulture in the
Pyrenees. He is less
than six months old,
and the spread of his
wings is already 2*2
metres. But he is
quite unable to fly,
and he is not even
come to the point of
progressing by flighty jumps. What shall we do? Shall we
tie a string round his neck, and train him on Archdeacon's
principle by towing from a motor-boat, or shall we push him
into the air from the ' pylon ' of the Aero Club ? " I
replied (says Captain Ferber) as follows : " The case is a
most interesting one, and I should imagine that what is the
matter with the bird is that he has not had an opportunity
of being taught by his parents. You be his father and

ALPINE CHOUGHS

LEARNING TO FLY 211

photograph his attempts. But don't tie him to a motor-
boat. It might be bad for his health. You might push
him off the roof, and if he flies it will show that his instinct
suffices. If he does not fly, it will be plain that he needs a
rational course of instruction."

' Captain Detroyat did as recommended, and the result of
his observations was as follows: "On the 15th of Sep-
tember the vulture, who answers to the high-sounding name
of Coco, weighed 9 kilogrammes, and measured 2*2 metres
from tip to tip of his wings, with a maximum width of *5
metre. This is approximately a square metre of surface.
According to the shepherds who brought him in, and by
plotting out a curve of the rate at which his weight
increased, it was probable that the date of his birth fell in
the previous April. He is unable to fly, and can hardly
toddle.

'"'Coco' is not altogether wild. Indeed, he is so little
wild that it is impossible to frighten him enough to make him
run. At the end of September he tried his wings several
times, very much like a recruit going through his ' extension
motions,' on the top of a pot full of flowers to the very
great damage of the latter, but without daring to fly to the
ground. One day he was sufficiently venturesome to
attempt gliding from the top of a table or seat with his
wings spread out like a parachute. After that his progress
was made by practising flying jumps. This period was very
long. In spite of the efforts of his adopted father, he could
not be induced to start and practise gliding from the top of
a 2-metre wall which surrounded a field. He was so unen-
terprising that he was finally pushed off a roof, but to
every one's great surprise it was then found that ' Coco '
really could not fly. He fell like a lump after having spread
his wings in a vague and undetermined sort of way. I was

212 SUMMER

unable to believe that this was really the case, so I tried
again. The second time he fell head down on the gravel
just about five metres from the spot vertically under the
point at which he started. Unfortunate bird ! I heartily
begged his pardon, for he was really very much afraid, and
in consequence he had a heart attack, and was very ill the
whole evening afterwards.

' " By the 4th of October he was getting on nicely, and was
practising from the top of a hen-house, where he tried his
wings for a long time, and ultimately glided down from the
eminence to a distance of 15 metres, where he landed like a
big chicken. Next he was taken out into the middle of a
big field without trees and incited to run like Santos Dumont
at Bagatelle, during which time he got gradually more
courageous.

' " He commenced by jumping on his feet and beating his
wings at the same time. These jumps became more frequent,
and increased in length and speed without greatly increasing
his height according as the speed he got up permitted, till
finally he got up sufficient speed in his last jump to leave the
ground definitely, and to continue gliding along at 1^ metres
above the surface. In this way he covered 30 metres at the
run, and then 100 to 150 metres flying, exactly like Santos
Dumont. He had come to the point at which he was pro-
ceeding from flight to flight.

' " Another series of experiments which he carried out con-
sisted of jumping into the air 3 or 4 metres. To induce him
to do this, we placed him in a small yard which was walled
in on three sides by buildings, the fourth being closed up by
a wall of 2\ metres in height. He disliked remaining in this
little courtyard, and, after two or three jumps and beating
with his wings, he succeeded in rising high enough to get on
the top of the wall, from which he glided down into the field.

LEARNING TO FLY 213

How did he get out of this narrow space when he found it so
difficult to rise from the ground in an open field ? Possibly
some current of air between the buildings assisted him, or
perhaps necessity made his efforts more violent. The point
has not been decided.

' "Finally, on the 13th of October he had become a 'master.'
He flew 200 or 300 metres through the air and returned to
his point of departure, i.e. his pen, without allowing himself
to be tempted away by his wild brothers in the mountains.
At this date he weighed 10 kilogs., while the stretch of his
wings was 2*55 metres. Gradually his absences from home
increased in length, but he always came back without
becoming in any way wilder.

' " Unfortunately, he had not the dread of mankind
possessed by his wild brothers of the mountains, and one
of those brutes with a gun, who must kill everything they can
get near, succeeded in approaching him as he was sitting on
a rock, thinking no harm of any one, and shot him dead.
The ' sportsman ' was rather astonished on approaching the
dead vulture to find a rose-coloured ribbon round his neck.'"

The comparative unreadiness of the large birds to take
to the air as compared with small ones is very interesting
when taken in connection with the fact that the biggest birds
do not fly at all. The archseopteryx, or earliest fossil bird
that can fairly be called a bird and not a reptile, is about the
size of a crow ; and we must take it that from this stem birds
increased in size, as well as diminished, until they came to a
point at which their young could not be got to fly at all. We
usually speak of the ostrich or the great auk as having ' lost '
the power of flight, but it would probably be truer to say
that they failed to acquire it. The explanation of the flight-
lessness of the largest birds is not easy. It does not seem to
be due to the mechanical difficulty of supporting a given

214 SUMMER

weight by a physically practicable wing surface ; expert
opinion holds that the problem ought theoretically to be
easier with a larger bird than with a small one, since in the
smaller bird's wing there is so much more waste margin to
the area. One plausible explanation is that since the power
of the living engine must be supplied by food, it would be
impossible for an ostrich to eat enough to make good the
waste of the extremely powerful muscles which depress the
wings of birds in flight. The failure is thus one of the
digestive processes, in spite of the fact that the ostrich's
digestion is not upset by bits of metal. But the reluctance
of the young vulture, and even of the young choughs, to
trust themselves to the air suggests that the real reason of
the Sightlessness of the largest birds may be found in the
familiar perils of the law of gravity. The danger of falling
is greater for big birds than small ones • while the newly-
hatched duckling can drop safely from a tree, such a fall kills
the young rook. Possibly there came a point in the develop-
ment of the larger species when they feared to practise flight
at all, or when all those who did try it in their unskilful youth
perished, and the remainder became hereditary pedestrians or
divers. It may be some consolation for the loss of human
life in learning to fly that it is not always a safe or simple
process even for birds. Birds, indeed, are too intelligent and
adaptive a race to possess the sort of security that comes of
living by instinct

JULY

Doves of the fir-wood walling high our red roof

Through the long noon coo, crooning through the coo.
Loose droop the leaves, and down the sleepy roadway

Sometimes pipes a chaffinch ; loose droops the blue.
Cows flap a slow tail knee-deep in the river,

Breathless, given up to sun and gnat and fly.
Nowhere is she seen ; and if I see her nowhere,

Lightning may come, straight rains and tiger sky.

George Meredith, Love in the Valley.

In early summer moonlight I have strayed
Down pass and wildway of the wooded hill,
With wonder as again the sedge-bird made
His old, old ballad new beside the mill.
And I have stolen closer to the song
That, lisped low, would swell and change to shrill,
Thick, chattered cheeps that seemed not to belong
Of right to the frail elfin throat that threw
Them on the stream, their waker. There among
The willows I have watched as over flew
A noctule making zigzag round the lone,
Dark elm whose shadow dipt grotesque the new
Green lawn below. On softest breezes blown
From some far brake, the cruising fern-owl's cry
Would stay my steps ; a beetle's nearing drone
Would steal upon my sense and pass and die.'

Ralph Hodgson, The Sed^e- Warbler.

YELLOWHAMMER

DYING MUSIC

When summer is at the full song scarcely ceases for any
hour in the twenty-four. ' The earliest pipe of half-awakened
bird ' is very early in the morning-. Which bird is the very first
to hail the morn is under some dispute, if the barn-door cock
be ruled out of the competition. But to some of us there
seems little doubt about the question. The most famous of
the singers is, at any rate in normal places and occasions, as
early as any. While darkness lives below, and dawn is no more
than a glint of hidden gold in front of fading stars, the larks
are high above the tree-tops, and at no other moment does
the sound fall so softly in so gentle a cascade. Heard from
quite close the separate notes of the lark may be called harsh
and rough. The morning notes descending from unseen
singers on the edge of dawn are liquid with the music of
another world, where no night is. Meredith must have
heard the lark at these hours, though there are some lines in

For singing till his heaven fills,
'Tis love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,

DYING MUSIC 217

And he the wine that overflows
To lift us with him as he goes :

He sings the sap, the quickened veins ;
The wedding song of sun and rains
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose banks
And eye of violets while they breathe:
All these the circling song will wreathe.

A very early bird which has much more music than he is
often given credit for is the starling. Soft whistles and
whisperings and little bouts of song, imitative of thrush and
lark, may be heard in the hollow elms well before dawn, and
in many English homes the tune is the most characteristic
of waking songs. For the starling enjoys the neighbourhood
of houses only less than the sparrow, which wakes us at any
hour when light is once indicated.

When dawn is obvious the whole choir starts ; but notice

is given, the gong is rung, by blackbirds and that most

humble persistent little singer the hedge-sparrow. But

these two early birds differ as widely as any two so far as

seasonal singing goes. You may hear the hedge-sparrow as

early as the first week of February. The blackbird is as late

to begin as any native bird, but when he does begin he is

supreme and dominant. There are houses even in the

nearer London suburbs where sleep to the deepest sleepers

is quite impossible after a certain hour in the morning.

The Jubilate of many blackbirds is much too jubilant for that.

Of course all birds are morning singers. They prefer the

dewy hours just after dawn for their activities. They build

then and feed then and sing then with the greater energy.

But singing is general till sunset. After sunset a few of

those we may call the day singers still refuse to take the

hint of twilight. The thrush is the 'longest* of our singers
0,922) 28

218 SUMMER

in most ways. It sings in November and in July. It begins
in good time in the morning and takes few rests during the
day. Often you may hear its still energetic song an hour,
sometimes two hours, after most of the rest are silent. It
sees the stars up as well as the sun down. It is in the choir
at vespers. Its rival is the robin. But the robin's song at
these late hours has become little more than a chirrup on two
notes, a song sung only to show that the singer is awake.
Between the robin's last call and the thrush's good-night
halloo there is no interval of silence. The night singers are
already at work, and their company is not limited to the
nightingale. The swallow often sings in the dark, and the
sedge-warbler and the cuckoo are as regular at night as
the owl, if song is allowed to describe the wild tu-whit of
the barn-door or the monotonous cry of the little owl.

When summer opens some birds in song may be heard
all round the circle of day and night. But the period is soon
over. It ends almost abruptly. The night songs first cease,
then the midday songs, and finally a robin's chirp, or a
short impetuous burst from the large-hearted wren, are the
only birds singing in the garden ; and you may travel
a hundred miles along the road without hearing any other
note than the depressed monotonous refrain, ' Little-bit-o'-
bread-and-no-cheese ' from the yellow-hammer, or a very
wheezy and short bar from the corn-bunting. We notice
this ending of the song-time less because another music takes
its place. As the birds drop into silence, the hum, the
murmur, the buzz of insect wings, and the grating of the
grasshoppers' legs take their place. ' The poetry of earth
is never dead,' wrote Keats, and the sound that set him to
writing that admirable sonnet was the scrape of the grass-
hopper and cricket. Almost like the insect note is the croon
and murmur that may be heard from a few of the birds. The

DYING MUSIC 219

turtle-doves in the elms seem to utter a noise that suggests
some organ very unlike a throat, if it is not quite an insect
noise. But Tennyson quite appropriately connected it with
the

•Murmur of innumerable bees.'

The insect hum is no substitute for the music that is stilled,
but it keeps at bay the silence which is one of the most
unsummer-like of attributes. Music, in the strict sense of
the word, is not to be found even in birds' songs, much less
can it be extracted from the hum of insects. Nevertheless,
we get great pleasure from the unmusical murmur, which
especially belongs to summer evenings. A summer night
would hardly be a summer night without the sound of some
great bold cockchafer dashing out on his thunderous course,
regardless of obstacles. We may call him a night-singer,
like the nightingale. He takes up the chorus dropped by
the bees. Among the bees the latest is the bumble. Long
after the hive-bees are at home, the bumble is abroad
foraging, and making, it seems, a double noise now that she is
alone. With great punctuality she waits as a rule for about
an hour after sunset, rolling about till then in her clumsy
way over the thick rose-petals or any flower she fancies.
She will sometimes tumble into a poppy-head, and roll there
with a high-pitched angry buzz, till she is covered with the
slaty pollen, against her will. Her rather slow and vagrant
course and sleepy hum at this hour is in strange contrast to
her fine intention when the hour for departure has struck,
when the condensing dew or darkening light announce the
end of day. Then she shoots off with a deep and purposeful
hum, as determined on a rapid and straight course as the
cockchafer or the migrant bird.

All these insect sounds have their distinctions, very

220 SUMMER

apparent when you listen for them. The hive-bees them-
selves have many notes. If you put your ear to the hive
you may catch the note of domestic work, low and even and
murmurous. The angry note is high and sharp and quick.
The morning murmur of the workers busy about the
flowers is like neither of these. There are day sounds and
night sounds. But in late summer the bulk of the music is
of one quality. The season's sounds are not vocal but
mechanical, if that may be considered a true contrast ; and
to some ears seem almost as if they came from another
kingdom, from things that grow with roots in the soil.
There are, of course, birds which make mechanical music
almost indistinguishably from vocal. The snipe's tail
feathers are an ALoWan harp responsive to the tempest of
the bird's descent. No one has yet fully decided how the
lesser spotted woodpecker makes his trill, but even these
sounds are different in quality from the grating of the grass-
hopper's leg, which serves him for fiddle-bow, or the vibrant
shriek of the gnat. When August comes a sort of mechanical
murmur has quite taken the place of the liquid jollity of the
first spring music. You might now almost mistake the
drawling greenfinch and the monotonous bunting for tree
and hedge insects, if not for the grating of a bough.

THE ENDED TRUCE

For six months the game-birds have had freedom to build
and breed unmolested. The sound of the gun has been
rare. It is true that even in May rifles, if not guns, are
busy here and there. It is still a common form of sport to
shoot the young rooks soon after they make their first
tentative crawl along the elm boughs ; and rabbits, which
breed at most times of the year, are shot in most seasons.
But for the most part the spring and summer make a six
months of truce, regarded more or less faithfully towards
most birds and many mammals. In summer the truce is
deeper than in spring in some regards. In the rough hill
countries a May fox will be killed now and again ; and the
harriers and beagles are so often afoot in late spring that a
protest against the hunting of heavy hares may be raised
with pardonable iteration. In mid June foxes and hares, and
some of the vermin, are tolerably safe from man. But in
August the truce is formally broken. Happily many birds
are now protected all the year. We are their permanent
friends; and in England the list of these perpetual allies is
steadily increased by the County Councils who concern them-
selves with the subject. Perhaps it would be better if in
almost all respects the truce were longer. The duck, which
are the first victims in England, and may be shot on August I,

222 SUMMER

are now protected in the United States during nine months
of the year ; and each day has its periods of truce. You
may not shoot the birds before dawn or after sunset. By
this means the sport we know as ' flighting ' is abjured.
Since sport is and will be, and perhaps ought to be, it is
difficult with logic to say much against ' flighting,' which is a
poor man's sport. It takes its votaries to wild places, and it
can only be practised with success by those who study the
habits of birds as well as the swing of the gun. It needs a
good eye and a shrewd sense of nature. But the ' flighting ' of
duck and birds of their sort is a daily migration to and from
feeding-grounds and sleeping-grounds ; and on this head is
open to the protests made by those fine naturalists and
sportsmen, Mr. Millais and Mr. Selous, against the shooting
of caribou in Newfoundland. The sportsmen, so-called,
sat on the line of migration and shot unhunted animals in
cold blood. Such killing is not of a sportsman's sort. The
evil of ' flighting ' is that it interferes with the instinct of the
bird and its scheme of life ; and because it does this, it drives
the birds from their native haunts, if frequently indulged.
Yet there are strange wild places even in England where
some sort of 'flighting' is a real sport. Even as early as
August you may feel that the real hunting time has come
if you stand some evening with a gun behind any slight
obstruction on one of the South Welsh marshy moors. The
curlew with their wild call come sailing in from the sea,
and as they pass you can see even after sunset their long
bent beaks clear against the violet sky. The heron calls.
The green sandpiper rises with a snipelike call. A shot
from the far end of the water sets a group of coot on the
wing. They fly over you with the straight directness and
impetus of a bullet before they swing on the first arc of a
circle that will take them higher and higher, till they are

THE ENDED TRUCE 223

above the reach of shot. You had not thought the slow and
sleepy coot — a sort of moorhen, after all — would make such
pace and reach such height. Here the peaceful summer is
clean forgot, and a wilder season begun, though elsewhere
August is heavy with heat and summer sleep.

But this is not the scene of which most naturalists and
sportsmen think when August comes. By what strange
calculation the 12th became the day of the grouse no man
can tell ; but it is a better day for the shooting of grouse
than the 1st of Sep-
tember for shooting
partridges. It is
very seldom that the
grouse are not strong
on the wing, and
few birds seem to
develop wing -power
quite so quickly.
Pheasants are
hatched a month be-
fore partridges, and
are not strong fliers even by October 1st when they may be
shot, though they seldom are. They are the slowest to
develop. Young partridges top the grasses in low flight at
as young an age as the young moorhens slip over the surface
of the water as if they were balls of fluff blown by the wind.
But the grouse are even quicker than the partridges to attain
real power of wing ; and, of course, the young are very
early fliers. One of those sights, not in themselves perhaps
remarkable, which make a permanent impact on the mind,
and remain ineffaceable, was a grouse's nest almost alongside
an eider-duck's on a little isle in a West Highland loch. The
young from the one crossed the water, and the young of the

YOUNG GROUSE

224 SUMMER

other took the water as if they were akin to air and water
from their birth. The shooting of grouse is one of the most
attractive of all sports beyond doubt. It is amazing at a
first experience to watch the coveys, flying as if they were in
a picture with set wings, appear over the heather ridge, grow
to a vast size in your eyes as if on a sudden, and then
vanish behind you like a streak as if they had been dissipated
into the moorland, and returned to the heather from which
they were created. As so seen you are conscious chiefly of
a shape endowed with singular momentum tearing past you
like a shell in action. You note no colour. It is very
different to flush a cock grouse as you walk across a moor
with or without dogs. Every colour on his handsome body
leaps to the eye, and you think what a splendid bird he is,
too splendid to kill, belonging like the heather indisseverably
to the hill. He does, in fact, so belong in a very real
sense. The red grouse is the one exclusively British bird.
The one food on which he flourishes is the purple heather,
and if the succulent shoots are not there at the due season
he dies, as the young wild-duck die, when hatched before
the insects have multiplied. He seems, too, to keep some-
thing of both the rich and dusky colours of the heath :
he is subdued to that he works in. The willow grouse
of other countries and the ptarmigan, that love the heights,
change their heather colours for the snow colours. But
the grouse is always constant to the tawny shades of the
moor.

No signal of the seasons is obeyed with such headlong
promptitude as the coming of August. Under the dark and
grimy canopy of glass on a North London terminus you may
infer the season with more certainty than most expert
naturalists in the country. The war with the grouse is the
occasion, but no one who has ever escaped from the stale

BLUE TIT ABOUT TO FEED [TS NESTLINGS.
By A. W. Seaby.

THE ENDED TRUCE

225

heat of a big town one August day, and awaked the next
morning within call of the grouse, will believe that sport is
the master cause of this exodus.

'What is it steels the sportsman's heart?
It is the conscious pride of art.'

No one can with honesty deny the power of sport over
English people ; and grouse-driving probably comes first in
attractiveness and reputation. But August is a period when

an elemental force drives us away from towns to the sea or
the moor, which has the scope and range of the sea. And
the pleasure of a first day in the haunts of the grouse,
whether the birds be few or many, is like no other change.
Everything is changed and the scale of things is brightened.
We may see a golden eagle ranging the slope, and happily
the eagle is becoming once again a frequent bird. You may
see the red deer, the wildest and shyest of all animals in the
world. The tiger is tame compared with him. The smell
of the bog-myrtle, where the dry moor degenerates in a hag,

(1,92a "~ 2q

226 SUMMER

sets going by its single influence a new train of thought.
The moors are the right place for the human tribe in August;
but they are perhaps even better worth a visit in July, and
without a gun. The few birds that live in coveys are
peculiarly worth observation ; and you may see such a
struggle for life and survival of the fittest as does not appear
in the south. The grouse no doubt flourishes very much
more than the partridge, which only preservation keeps
alive. But the grouse has to exert more intelligence. She
may, as we know, be forced to the device of carrying water
to her young in the sponge of her breast feathers. The
broods are hunted by the eagles as no partridge is pursued
by sparrow-hawk or owl. An eagle, and indeed any moun-
tain hawk, hunts with much method and persistence. You
may see them quartering a hillside in a pattern of flight that
would make a parallel diagram. They have the 'eagle eye,'
yet even so they will pass within a few yards of a grey hen
on her nest and not distinguish her from the inorganic stuff
in which she disappears. But the eagle is a bitter enemy.
His natural prey is the grouse, and a good many fall victims,
yet the toll is very small ; and if the year is free from
disease, and that little parasite of the heather not overmuch
encouraged by the weather, the multiplication of the coveys
is amazing. Doubtless vermin are rarer in Scotland, as in
England, than they were. In the country-houses of the
north you will often find stuffed specimens of the wild cat,
a real tiger of a cat, distinguished from its tame descendants
by the even rings of the tabby tail. But it is some while
since a real wild cat was seen in the Highlands, save for
one or two in their last retreat. The marten is as rare as
the polecat, which has disappeared in the south with
astounding completeness during the present generation.
The stoat is still busy, and when he becomes ermine, as

THE ENDED TRUCE 227

he does not in the south, he accounts for the death of
not a few mountain hares, disguised for defence as he is
disguised for attack. But the eagle is more destructive,
and perhaps harder to avoid, even than the stoat ; and
native himself, he chooses in preference the native bird
for prey.

To a naturalist, at any rate, there is no change of air so
stimulating as a change of flora and fauna ; and did the
grouse flourish in Surrey, as Lord Onslow and others hoped

they would, the 12th would not be the 12th in Surrey as it is
in Skye. One desires to be 'up to the hips in heather,' as
Christopher North says ; and to get the taste of the season
there is no better recipe than his.

' But let us off to the moor ! . . . Towards what airt
shall we turn our faces ? Over yonder cliffs shall we ascend,
and descend into Glen Creran, where the stony regions that
the ptarmigan love melt away into miles of the grousey
heather, which, ere we near the salmon-haunted Loch so
beautiful, loses itself in woods that mellow all the heights
of Glen Ure and Fasnacloigh with sylvan shades, wherein the

228 SUMMER

cushat coos, and the roe glides through the secret covert?
Or shall we away up by Kinloch-Etive, and Melnatorran,
and Mealgayre, into the solitude of streams, that from all
their lofty sources down to the far-distant Loch have never
yet brooked, nor will they ever brook, the bondage of
bridges, save of some huge stone flung across some chasm,
or trunk of a tree — none but trunks of trees there, and all
dead for centuries — that had sunk down where it grew, and
spanned the flood that eddies round it with a louder music?
Wild region ! yet not barren ; for there are cattle on a
thousand hills that, wild as the very red-deer, toss their

-2*. L—.L -.•**" ' :3k. L.-:-" ^^~ •»

'THE STONY REGIONS THAT THE PTARMIGAN LOVE '

heads as they snuff the feet of rarest stranger, and
form round him in a half-alarmed and half-threatening
crescent. . . .

' . . . All these are splendid schemes — but what say
you, Hamish, to one less ambitious, and better adapted to
Old Kit? Let us beat all the best bits down by Armaddy —
the Forge, Glenco, and Inveraw. We may do that well in
some six or seven hours — and then let us try that famous
salmon-cast nearest the mansion — (you have the rods ?) — and
if time permit, an hour's trolling in Loch Awe, below the pass
of the Brander, for one of these giants that have immortal-
ised the name of a Maule, a Goldie, and a Wilson.' How

THE ENDED TRUCE

229

much naturalist and nature-lover, how much mere sportsman,
went to inspire Christopher North to his ecstasy, who shall
say ? And "such mixed feelings drive most people on the
northern migration.

"i

AUGUST

' Yonder in the heather there 's a bed for sleeping,
Drink for one athirst, ripe blackberries to eat ;
Yonder in the sun the merry hares go leaping,
And the pool is clear for travel-wearied feet

Sorely throb my feet, a-tramping London highways,
(Ah ! the springy moss upon a northern moor !)

Through the endless streets, the gloomy squares and byways,
Homeless in the City, poor among the poor !

Oh, my heart is fain to hear the soft wind blowing,
Soughing through the fir-tops up on northern fells !

Oh, my eye's an ache to see the brown burns flowing
Through the peaty soil and tinkling heatherbells.'

Ada Smith, In City Streets.

'The red grouse is scattering

Dews from his golden wing
Gemm'd with the radiance that heralds the day ;

Peace in our Highland vales,

Health on our mountain gales —
Who would not hie to the Moorlands away !

Far from the haunts of man

Mark the gray Ptarmigan,
Seek the lone Moorcock, the pride of our dells,

Birds of the wilderness !

Here is their resting-place,
'Mid the brown heath where the mountain-roe dwells.

J. W. C, British Sport Past and Present.

A CHANGE OF DIET

One of the most novel of local migrations among birds is the
evacuation of the towns by sparrows just about the same
date that society likes to leave. Our towns are a protection,
organised on a vast scale, for certain species of birds. The
suburbs encourage starlings and carrion crows, among others,
but both town and suburb breed sparrows in almost appalling
quantity. The seven million of inhabitants in greater
London are a handful to the sparrows of greater London ;
and the comparative number of sparrows is even greater in the
Midland towns. But the town birds are not quite faithful to
the towns. They have learnt to nest in the towns in any
sort of site. They have even taken to living at this season in
fiats, like 'intensive chickens.' More than once one of those
lumps of untidy hay and straw and string and feathers in
which the sparrows' eggs are laid has been found to contain
two or more nests. Sometimes these strange erections have
fallen by their over-weight of untidiness added to the natural
burden. Occasionally mere vexation at the spectacle of the
bad art will cause such a nest to be overthrown. The cock
sparrow is either more irritable or more tidy than the hen.
On one occasion he showed such irritation at the protuber-
ance of a long straw from his nest, built on the side of a

232 SUMMER

house in Kensington, that he tugged and tugged until, amid
the laughter of a group ot observers, he pulled the whole
structure in ruin over his head, and the two fell in avalanche
together. The towns provide sufficient building sites, and
on the whole sufficient food. But when the young are well
fledged a certain desire of fresh fields comes over a consider-
able proportion of sparrows, especially those in the Midland
towns. Whether food grows scarce or whether they desire
fresher food is not clear, but when August comes and the
corn is whitening to harvest the birds flock to the country.
They go a-harvesting for a summer holiday.

This marauding expedition is on a great scale. The
birds are as thick as midges about the edges of the fields,
eating grain with a greed hardly less than that of the trout
at Mayfly time. It is one of many severe charges brought
by the country against the town that the streets breed these
birds to the destruction of the staple industry of the country.
The habit appears to be new, at any rate in its present
dimensions. It is a result of the progressive dominance,
in mind and fact, of town over country.

But apart from this particular migration of sparrows it is
remarkable, though not very much remarked, how the food of
birds alters with the progress of the seasons. This is largely,
of course, a matter of necessity. You cannot have woolly-
bear caterpillars at Christmas or ripe corn in June. But
instinct and physical needs work in co-operation with the
seasons, and our own birds are those which have the instinct
and the bodily adaptability to obey the almanac in their
dietary. Even the sparrows in spring enjoy animal food.
All young things seem to need insect food, and to grow
faster the more of it they can get. But as the young reach
their full growth in summer the desire dwindles in those we
call the grain-eating birds. Sparrows do not eat insects for

A CHANGE OF DIET 233

more than about a month. Partridges begin to prefer grain
about the same time as sparrows, but they excel the sparrow
in adaptability. When the grain is gone they take to an
exclusive diet of green stuff, so that one could tell tolerably
closely from the contents of a crop what was the date of the
year.

The country as such is not popular with sparrows. In
thinly populated grass country you may search some while
before finding a sparrow. They are, for example, singularly
scarce in the Isle of Wight at a short distance from the
towns. In any country place the numbers will be in close
proportion with the nearness to houses and stackyards. If
you walk along a hedgerow between two fields you will find
bullfinches, blackbirds, thrushes, and in summer the warblers,
a hundred times more numerous than sparrows. Indeed,
you will probably have trouble to find a single sparrow or a
sparrow's nest, old or young. In spite of its lustiness the
bird seems absolutely to depend on man. Its food is on the
road, or by the house, or in the stackyard. Fortified by the
grain and bread that it finds there in quantity, it is master of
almost all birds that are.

Within the stackyards it has one almost invariable com-
panion, the greenfinch, a bird as lusty, and if anything more
voracious. The bird is probably one of the three or four
most numerous in England. All those who have looked for
birds' nests in east and middle England will have felt from
time to time a growing irritation at the quantity of greenfinch
nests. The rather untidy basins of moss and bents, with the
rather dull eggs, are as obvious and many as blackbirds' and
thrushes' nests in an earlier month. The bird is bolder in
some ways than the sparrow. The writer has more than
once fed the old bird while sitting on the nest. They will

not dream of leaving the nest though a group of people

(u«o 30

234 SUMMER

stand talking and laughing within a foot or two, and the
nest is little hidden. But if you would see this finch in real
multitude you should watch seed-crops in East Anglia when
the ripening hour is near. One has seen them on mangold
seed as thick as starlings in winter, and those who shoot to
protect their seed find that the slaughter of several hundred,
even on a half-acre plot, makes no apparent difference to the
army. They seem to have a peculiar affection for mangold

A GREENFINCH'S NEST

seed, as captive bullfinches for hemp or sparrows for wheat.
There are growers of seed xvho would like to see the green-
finch exterminated if that were possible, as there are apple-
growers who have the worst opinion of the bullfinch. But
let these destroyers once see the greenfinches at work earlier
in the year on an oak-tree devoured by green caterpillars,
and they must grant that the one form of greed cancels the
other. The seed, which is the later form of food, is the
reward for the earlier work of scavenging.

We are blessed in England with an immense multitude of
birds which probably increased by thirty or forty per cent.

A CHANGE OF DIET 235

between 1895 and 1914, thanks partly to protection, partly to
a wider interest in birds, partly to a series of mild winters.
But as numbers have increased feeding habits have a
little changed. More birds certainly now turn their atten-
tion to fruit as summer merges into autumn. Sparrows
and blackbirds will peck small holes in apples, probably
for the sake of the moisture. The blackbird always has
a tendency to fruit-eating. He is as devoted to straw-
berries and raspberries and currants as the greenfinch to
vegetable seed or the goldfinch to thistle or corn-flower
seed. But this apple-eating habit is perhaps on the
increase.

As the rooks grow over numerous they become more grain-
eating than is their wont. Early in the summer a common
sight is the rooks' hunt of the daddy-longlegs emerging in
quantity from the grasses. They will hunt grubs of all sorts in
the cornfields, and eat a certain amount of seed-corn. But
when they are in overwhelming numbers they will now and
again, but more often on the Continent than in England,
deliberately fall to work on the corn, and even develop the
taste of the carrion crow for young birds. The ill effect of
excessive numbers is seen markedly in wood-pigeons, but
both species are essentially useful even in considerable num-
bers ; the rook for his destruction of larvae and the pigeon
for his happy taste in buttercup bulbs. The sparrow's taste
is permanently perverted in some places by excessive
numbers. In one particular village the sparrows have
acquired a taste for the flowers of the wistaria. In most
towns they fall upon the crocus petals in spring, and inter-
mittently snip off pieces of any sort of flower. But that
perhaps is rather an act of wanton damage, the sport of a
restless creature rather than a form of mawkish appetite.

It is sometimes not easy to find the reason for some

236 SUMMER

eccentricities of diet. Many visitors to one orchard were
shown as a marvel of growth a line of plum-trees which
had come out into fresh green leaf in August instead of in
May. Many conjectures were offered. The real one, only
known to the owner of the trees, was that every single bud,
leaf, or flower, had been quite cleared off by finches, not as
one might have expected by tits or bullfinches or haw-
finches, all of which Have at
— =~t==- --^s^S^ times a natural taste in buds,

jP=i-~r^S"\\ "£'' but chaffinches. It was feared

1~\ (^ f'-i) ~7$lt^ tnat tne trees would die, so

/tl /^l (A. : \ complete was the clearance.

iV% J In May they were as winter

/ / 5fT trees, robbed of all leafage bv

y uf the sudden unexpected onset

Am*- of these finches. Were the

f y^> birds overcome with desire

Jr for green food, or were the

V % - buds infected with some in-

\. v / sect plague ? It is a question

]/ unanswered in this case, and

'they rip up the pods' m most of the instances where

finches still attack fruit-buds.
Doubtless a garden interferes with the feeding instinct of
birds. These exotic and artificial tit-bits are a disturbance
of wild ways. In one part of the Isle of Wight the egg-
sucking, bird-killing jays descend every year upon the rows
of peas. They rip up the pods, and are so fond of what they
find inside that they can scarcely be frightened off the rows
even by sight of a gun.

A more steady unbroken instinct possesses the summer
visitors, indeed all the migrants. The warbler and swallows,
the cuckoo and flycatchers, leave us first and foremost

A CHANGE OF DIET

237

because the insect food grows scarce. With less constancy
the fieldfares and redwings and some other winter visitors
come for particular berries. Our own birds must live by
their wits, taking the foods in their seasons, and, when com-
petition is very keen or temptation strong, trying new sources.
But whatever they try, all of them perhaps do more good
than harm, if all do not confer the inestimable benefits of
the green plover, which we may take to be the prime
benefactor.

'THE MALLARD . . . MUST HIDE'

SUMMER LIVERIES

The glory of colour which fills our world in spring grows
gradually blurred as summer advances. Doubtless colour is
born at the same time that colour dies. The roses are red
when the leaves are brown, and on the common the gold of
the gorse is succeeded by the purple of the heather. Never-
theless, things do take a sober colouring under the passage
of the suns. But not only leaves so decline. It is easy to
see that feathers lose colour no less than leaves. Some
birds change out of all recognition, so drab is the later
livery and so bright the early. They become ' eclipsed,'
to use the word invented years ago by that fresh and
vigorous naturalist, the polemical Waterton.

Even a Cockney may notice this change that summer
brings to the birds within his ken. When the chestnut
leaves in the parks grow sullied and brown on the lower
boughs, and the trees look as if they were wearing skirts of
two colours and two lengths, the town birds more or less follow
suit, and take their cue from the trees. Indeed, the towns
house three species which undergo a peculiarly well-marked
change — a spring change, and consequently also a summer
change. The sparrow, the pigeon, and the starling all suffer

240 SUMMER

like the chestnuts, though in a less obvious degree. It is
common knowledge, thanks to Tennyson, even to the urban
mind, that ' in the spring a livelier iris changes on the
burnished dove,' the dove in this case being the wood-
pigeon of the variety that struts and coos in the parks.
But none of Tennyson's illustrations — not the crested lap-
wing, nor the red robin, nor the prismatic pigeon — change
more notably than the cock-sparrow. By the time he begins
carrying straws in the spring and fussing about the untidy
lumps in the trees that he uses for nest, he has changed from
a dull brown bird, scarcely more conspicuous than his sober
mate, into a gorgeously liveried creature. The washy dabs
of dark colour on his throat have grown and brightened into
a deep black, most finely and conspicuously denoting his sex.
He has not moulted in the proper sense, though there are
birds which moult twice and even three times in the year, but
has rubbed off the protective nap which hid his native colour.
By such process does the chaffinch and others, too, make
themselves glitter finely in the spring. But the livery does
not keep its salient freshness very long. As summer
advances, the cock-sparrow that had been 'peacocking' in
gorgeous superiority to his mate steadily sobers down till
the difference, though obvious, is not striking, and neither
is very much superior in looks. Such a blurring is quite
visible even to the casual eye on the cock-starling, and to a
less extent on the pigeons.

When the change begins to come over these birds they
do not conspicuously lose vitality, as birds do in the moult,
though they and all birds show a diminution of energy when
summer succeeds to spring. A more thorough and over-
whelming experience befalls a bird which also may often be
watched in towns more easily than in the wilds of nature.
The mallard, or male wild duck, is the outstanding example

SUMMER LIVERIES 241

of 'eclipse' plumage. The wedding feathers of the male
are very splendid. The green is more brilliant than the
laurel leaves, and the white flashes stand out more distinct
on wing and neck than sprays of bloom. Head and wing,
and breast and back are all burnished. Male and female
might be members of different species. With the growth of
fine feathers he is strong on the wing, and enjoys long bouts
of flight. But the duck nests early ; and when summer
comes the young are already capable movers. The mallard
then suffers a sort of collapse. He moults in thorough

fashion. His fine feathers drop, and with this loss he loses
power of wing. It may be, it is the theory, though one can-
not tell, that the loss of colour is a protection necessary to a
creature that has lost vigour. The mallard, being more or
less helpless, skulks, and must hide as best he may, in beds
of reed and rush. He must use his webbed feet instead of
his tough wings. So now he becomes almost the double of
his mate, and they remain in this likeness till the autumn is
on its way.

In all these changes are many mysteries. Volumes
have been written about the meaning of the change and
about the process; but for most of us the fact is enough.
The tide of energy rises and sinks ; till the heyday of the
year the males 'play the peacock,' as indeed do the

flowers. Nevertheless, the puzzle is attractive. For a little
u.»a) 31

242 SUMMER

while the whole family of the ducks are very much of a
pattern. The young almost exactly resemble their mother
when the close season ends, though at the end of August
you may without difficulty pick out the cocks, and by
November the full male plumage is in evidence. Is the
change just a growth and fall up to and down from that
ecstasy of energy, palpable in all the being of the birds at
spring? or is there a purpose in the particular hues of summer
and winter as well? Is the male colour a developing dis-
tinction, or a disappearing distinction ? And what can we
argue from the colouring of the young ? They are supposed
to carry in their feathers or coats the history of the race ;
and many young develop the male colours rather late.
Men with theories begin to believe that once in all species
male and female and young were similar in colour; and that
colour, appearing first in the male in spring, developed later.
In some cases — the partridge, for example — it is being
assumed by the hen as well as by the cock.

Nevertheless, the summer loss of the ' crest' and 'livelier
iris' of spring, most sudden and salient in the ruff and the
plover and the dunlin, is rather different from the mallard's
collapse into drab colour and weakness of flight. The black
grouse or blackcock, when the breeding time is over, falls
into as helpless a state as the mallard. He loses a number
of his wing feathers and several of his tail feathers simul-
taneously, so that flight is quite or nearly impossible, and
skulking is the one road of safety. Even the red grouse,
our one native game bird, at this season suffers severely
in vitality as he alters in appearance, and becomes an early
victim of disease — indeed, a much easier victim than the
hen which does not go through these abrupt changes. It
seems that all these birds which moult at what would seem
to be a rather unseasonable hour, suffer in some degree

SUMMER LIVERIES 243

from the oppression of summer coming between the twin
rigours of spring and autumn. That this summer eclipse is
something more than the first stage in a preparation for
the spring splendour is suggested by the ptarmigan, which
is one of the few birds that has a separate dress for spring,
summer, and winter. Both the summer duskiness and the
winter whiteness seem to be in some degree protective.
They help to hide both birds, which are indeed pursued by
a great number of enemies from ermines to eagles. But
how much of what is held to be protective is more or less
accidental? Is there any bird at any season more glaringly
conspicuous than the cock pheasant, which suffers no eclipse
in summer, yet now and again one sees even a pheasant
strangely disappear into the autumn hues of a wood, as if
he were especially adapted to avoid human enemies when
the sport of shooting begins ? The male and female partridge,
which one must hold in the hand to distinguish from one
another, have a constant colour, very beautiful but not
salient. They are very conspicuous in spite of their brown-
ness on the close-cut stubbles. On the light plough-lands of
Surrey they are perfectly fitted to their surroundings, but
are quite fairly distinguishable on the chalk ploughs of
Berkshire. What is one to infer?

The fact is, most hunted birds and animals consent in
colour with their surroundings. Stripes and dots are hard
to pick out. Some are said to stand in poses that help
their colours. Mr. Pycraft, one of the specialists on colour,
says that the snipe stands with head down and the bittern
with tail up, each so that he may use his particular pattern
of soft stripes of grey and brown to the best advantage.

But, as it seems to the writer, birds are not growing
better and better fitted to their surroundings, but worse and
worse. The livery of most young birds, when once they

244 SUMMER

have left the nest, is more protective than that of their
parents. Young blackbirds are a charmingly evasive
speckled brown, showing, we are told, their affinity to the
thrush from which they have separated. But to-day, at all
times and at all seasons, nothing could be better calculated
to challenge attention than the cock blackbird. That mass
of unbroken black draws the eye, almost as much as if he
could compass all the colours of a parrot. How the young
robin with its pretty speckled brown breast disappears into
the shadows of a bush where the yellow-brown back or
red breast of the parent would challenge attention. The
young cast off their baby clothes at very different dates.
In perhaps the majority of cases the male begins to put
forth his peacock colours about the time that he is growing
strong on the wing, and needs less protection of colour.
Sometimes you come upon well-grown birds, thrushes, for
example, on which the pretty down of their infancy still
clings oddly to the grown feathers, and occasional instances
have been noted of a persistent down. Those who notice
the partridges shot in September will find a fair number
still distinguished by the pointed feathers that are rounded
off in most birds by the time they are strong on the wing.
The livery is doubtless associated with maturity in other
more essential forms. Many gulls are not mature till their
third year ; and the townsman again has the chance
of observing this belated change of livery in the black-
headed gulls that crowd up the Thames and flock in the
parks and reservoirs. In summer birds of the previous
year are still spotted with odd patches of colour, appearing
quite promiscuously ; and you can sometimes often detect
the third-year bird from the second, especially the males in
spring.

In these young, at any rate, there is no suggestion of

SUMMER LIVERIES

245

protective colourings. Their livery has no obvious purpose ;
and generally the theory is extended too far. From time
to time any observer must come across examples of adapta-
tion to environment which resemble a parody on the theory
of protective mimicry. We have quoted several elsewhere ;
but the writer has always felt a certain scepticism since
he saw one summer day a barn owl roosting on an apple-
bough up into where had grown a bush spiraea. The
owl's body was a most perfect match to the blurred white
flowers, of which, till you looked close, the bird seemed a
floral extension. However, birds' feathers are very often
consonant with their surroundings, especially when they
are young, and the mother's livery is less conspicuous
than males for protective purpose or with protective effect.

BLACK-HEADED GULL

FAMILY PARTIES

' The First ' means always and everywhere in England,
September the ist, not New Year's Day; and its coming
seems to interest English people who have never shot off a
gun, hardly less than the sportsman. And indeed the First
begins a new year, heralds change as definitely as any date
that can be named. Our games alter. Cricket ceases, shoot-
ing begins. The face of the country is new, and what was
hidden is now open.

It is true that the fixing of the limits of the close season
for birds, and yet more for fish, has been rather haphazard ;
and not all the dates are the best dates. Five times out of
six September ist is too early for shooting partridges. The
corn is not all cleared ; and it ' goes against the grain '
in more than the proverbial sense, to be abroad shooting
partridges when men are sweltering and ' swinking ' — if that
fine old word may be revived — about the stooks. The seed
clover is just approaching ripeness. Half the purple heads
perhaps have been fertilised by the bees, and have fallen
limply downwards while the seed is forming, and out of the
brown mass the remaining unwedded flowers stand up sparse
and erect, like bright-headed pins in a pincushion. Every
man who walks through the field scatters a deal of seed, and
without exception it is the most valuable crop that grows
on the farm. It is among the most beautiful too. There is
no scent like the scent of a great acreage of clover in flower.

248 AUTUMN AND WINTER

There is no busier sound, out of a factory, than the hum of
bees over it. There is no pleasanter sight to a farmer than
a stack of it well got. Of all forms of cover it is the closest
and most thorough. The wildest coveys, even the barren
pairs, will lie close in it, and the temptation to follow them
is more than most sportsmen care to struggle against.

But the cardinal argument against the fixing of the First,
as the end of the close season for partridges, and almost all
other birds, is that the young are not yet mature. Never
a first goes by but a number of ' squeakers ' are shot ; and

PARTRIDGES AMONGST THE STUBBLES

though of course the good sportsman does not shoot the
small bird, the number of them generally seen on the First
may spoil the pleasure of his shooting. The Twelfth — just a
month later than the grouse — would be a more suitable date
in most years. But the First will remain the First. Our
English acres are in these days shorn so close that no cover
is left on the stubbles sufficient to hide a corn-mouse. The
reapers cut close and regular ; and there is a tendency to
reduce the size of hedges and clear up rough grass fields.
Those who would walk partridges and not drive them will
get within range of very few birds if they do not begin as
early as they may now begin. Even so the birds are wild
enough.

For the rest the First is as near to a real be<rinnin£ of the

FAMILY PARTIES 249

year as any day that could be fixed. On either side of it
are two very diverse pictures. Except for the game-birds,
the young birds of every species are strong on the wing, are
ready to fly overseas, covering a hundred miles at a stretch.
But in England, unlike France where any bird is game, we
only think of the close season as affecting game-birds ; and
it is perhaps the most noted of days because it begins a
month where a new year opens in the business of town and
country, not less than because it begins the break-up of the
coveys. The change is very marked in the appearance of
all birds as soon as the pairs congregate and the families
grow up. But among autumn families that of the partridge
is of peculiar interest. There is no bird in Britain, the
grouse excepted, which fulfils with such devotion maternal
and indeed paternal duties. The very tone of solicitous
affection is suggested by the strange ventriloquial call of the
birds, heard everywhere towards sunset over English acres.
The scattered and broken coveys are hallooing good-nights or
summoning the lost members as they collect and prepare to
sleep or 'jug ' for the night. The call rings over the fields
in the ears of sportsmen returning in the dim light most
pitifully, most plaintively. Often the birds sleep together
in a quite compact mass. One of the reasons why they have
almost disappeared from many parts of Wales is that the
fields are small, and a poacher who watches the birds may
wipe out a covey at one shot. It is indeed a boast among
some of these native hunters that not a single bird of a covey
has escaped one of these foul shots. The instinct that helps
to their preservation against other enemies proves their ruin
among men.

What may be called the ' covey system ' is very rare
among birds, rarer than one would expect. The grouse and
the partridge remain in coveys until pairing time, but only

\922) 3a

250

AUTUMN AND WINTER

one of the smaller English birds shows this family affection.
Of all the pictures of birds that one ever saw, the gambols
of a family of long-tailed tits remain most intimately on the
mind's eye of the writer. Out of a rough hedgerow rose an
old and decaying ash-tree. As one approached its hollow
trunk seemed to throw up a slight and sparkling fountain.
The drops of water were young long-tailed tits, still small
enough to be distinguished from their parents. The sun
was bright, having just conquered an autumn mist; and it

LONG-TAILED TITS

lit the colours of these light and tiny creatures into the very
tints of a great bubble escaped into the air. They danced
and flirted up and down, more in the way of gnats marking
time under a hedge than in the progressive ways of birds.
When the dance was over and the music stopped they fell
back on to the tree as the fountain drops to the bowl. So
you may see them throughout autumn and winter moving
in a family party leisurely along the hedgerows, always keep-
ing close together, often, as seen that day by the ash-tree,
playing together like children. Presumably the prime reason
of the family party, as of the great congregation of birds,
is mutual help in finding food and protection from enemies.

FAMILY PARTIES 251

But these formidable economic reasons are joined, we may
allow, with a vital joy in companionship. Birds play as
well as eat, laugh as well as fear. Perhaps their start in
life tends to comradeship. In the way of snugness and
close packing there is no nursery to compare with the in-
terior of that deep beautiful bowl of lichen, moss, and down
in which the tit houses its young, who are often a dozen
or more in number. You would say the thing were impos-
sible till you handle one of these tits. They make a very
fair show of size to the eye, but are in substance imponder-
able. They are no more than bits of down themselves ;
and when they first leave the nest, a puff of wind sends them
astray like a single feather.

Except in their family affection, no bird could be less like
the partridge, which is very heavy for its size, like most birds
which either run well or swim well. One cannot imagine the
long-tailed tit on the ground. One can imagine the partridge
never leaving it. Indeed the French or red-legged partridge
very often fails altogether to leave the ground. In districts
of heavy clay-land in the midlands, scores of partridges are
caught on the ground from inability to raise themselves with
the adherent clay that their running exercise had accumulated.
On a horse one can hunt them down if the fields are at all big
and the hedgerows not over thick, according to a recognised
form of sport practised in certain parts of India.

The parental instinct of partridges has been very closely
watched owing to the attention of keepers who have to spend
much labour in preserving the nests from foxes. It is
evidence of the quick observation — for ' love has eyes ' —
arising from this instinct that for many years it was found
impossible to design a nest egg which should deceive the
partridge. The birds will sit so close that they will face
death in very many forms. In foul weather you may find

252

AUTUMN AND WINTER

them dead on the nest from cold and wet. They have been
killed by mowing machines, and the mother bird is not
uncommonly caught on the nest by a fox.

In comparing the social habits of birds, no attribute
differs so much as the part played in the family by the cock
bird. Among some of the terns the whole care of the family
is given over to the cock. Polyandry, of a curious sort, pre-
vails. The hen bird takes a new mate and starts a new

SITTING PARTRIDGE

family — ab ovo — before the first clutch is off and away.
The father has therefore to serve for both parents. These
terns are at one extreme. At the other is the cuckoo ; and
between them are birds of every degree of family affection.
Some help to build ; some to brood ; some do nothing but
feed the mother, surrendering even this duty as early as may
be. The cock partridge takes as full a share as any in all
duties. He is astonishingly watchful of the family after it
has grown up. How often has the bird suffered from rising
first when the covey is flushed. Even in their mating there
seems to be some stronger, one might almost say more
mystic affection than with other animals. It is at any rate
certain that scientific breeders, especially in France, have

FAMILY PARTIES 253

had quite extraordinary success since they have adopted a
principle of natural selection ; and mated their captive birds
according to the birds' own sense of affinity. The difference
in productivity has been remarkable, as compared with the
older way of casual mating.

In their curious breeding establishments advantage has
also been taken of the parental zeal of the cock bird in taking
care of the covey. If a cock bird is caught up and kept in
confinement until a clutch of eggs is hatched artificially or
under a hen, he can be quite safely trusted with the youngsters.
He adopts them at once, shows every sign of parental fussi-
ness, and when released with this adopted family continues
to cherish them as attentively as would their own mother.

It is the custom on some estates, adopting what is known
as the Euston system, to put into a wild bird's nest as many

PARTRIDGE CHICKS

as thirty eggs which are on the point of hatching. The
bird has previously been supplied with boiled eggs of ancient
date to induce her to remain sitting. When this vast family
is hatched, both birds will on occasion ' mother ' the brood.
Keepers have seen the two sitting head to head — a real
tete-d-tete — to keep the thirty warm. It is an instance of the
extreme courage of the bird when the family is expected that
she will permit the keeper to push her with a stick from the
nest, and will not move off more than a yard or two.

A small personal experience will illustrate the affection of
the parents. A whole brood of partridge chicks were found

254

AUTUMN AND WINTER

by some children huddled into the gutter of a Hertfordshire
lane. The birds were brought home in a felt hat, were kept
for some hours, and then taken back to the place where they
were found and put just over the hedge. Almost in an
instant the old birds found them, and with a busy chuckle of
delight led the family down the gold corridors of the level
corn which made their palatial home.

Whether birds suffer pain or pleasure, as we use the words,
may be left to theorists. It is certain that these birds during
their hours of loss suffered alarm and anxiety as real as
reason itself could discover.

With partridges, more clearly than any other bird, you
may see from day to day how sharp is the fight with enemies.
In any county where keepers are few or incompetent, almost
every covey will lose members quite apart from the havoc of
the guns. In the quiet, almost domestic countryside of Eng-
land the enemies cannot be numerous, as they are for example
in Donegal or Scotland, where the peregrine and the golden
eagle are added to the ' vermin.' Indeed
the enemy must be on the ground, with
one or two exceptions. One new flying
enemy has been more or less recently
introduced. In a Cambridgeshire district,
where partridges were very strictly pre-
served, a full-grown partridge was caught
in the open field by a small Spanish owl,
one of that exotic tribe imported by Lord
Lilford, about which there is much to be
said. The little owl in this case, though
looking rather larger than its victim, was
In fact nothing like so heavy ; and only the hunting spirit,
abetted by that marvellous weapon, its prehensile claw, could
have accomplished such a David and Goliath feat.

LITTLE OWL

FAMILY PARTIES 255

The stoat is doubtless one of the most dangerous enemies,
though even his ravages are exaggerated. In our recent
experience a stoat, carrying a full-grown partridge as if the
weight had been nothing, almost ran into a pedestrian on
the open road, before he saw his danger and left the partridge
for his enemy's meal.

It has been feared that the partridge was gradually dis-
appearing from England, except where preservation was, if
one may use the word, intensive. The stocks were certainly
almost annihilated on some of the clay-lands, where shooting
is in the hands of the farmers, and keepers are unknown.
Probably, too, its multiplication is a little checked by the
mechanical precision of farming operations, and the want of
good cover, but one favourable season restores the numbers
even in some of the less congenial neighbourhoods.

There is one other enemy of the partridge, and indeed of
several other birds, which must be mentioned. One windy
day in 191 1, a body of sportsmen saw a covey, which had not
been shot at, fly straight into the wires along the road from
Huntingdon to Cambridge ; and four fell dead. Along one
mile of railway in this neighbourhood, Mr. Alington, one of
the greatest authorities on the partridge, calculated that some
100 birds were killed by the wires every year. There are
poachers who deliberately make use of the wires. A certain
farmer in Westmorland, in his unregenerate days, made
many a good bag out of a new line of wires running across
the moor. He would wait till dusk when the grouse were
jugging ; and then flush them from close quarters with his
dog. In their alarm and blindness, they would dash straight
into the wires, and it was a rare evening when he did not
pick up several victims.

Probably partridges, like wheat, would die out over great
areas of the country, if left to themselves, and if keepers dis-

256 AUTUMN AND WINTER

appeared. Vermin, once in considerable variety and plentiful,
have been reduced far below the natural level. In 1870
pole-cats were quite common throughout the midland
counties. Fifty years earlier than that, they were so
common on an estate within twenty miles of the Marble
Arch, that the keeper made a small fortune out of a bonus
on all he killed. In the accounts of an estate, which was
characteristic of others at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, the number of stoats killed in the year exceeded
the number of rats killed. One would infer from the lists
that stoats and weasels were the commonest of all animals
on the estate. The wild-cat survives only here and there
in the north of Scotland, though stuffed specimens are quite
common objects in the country houses.

A near relation of the partridge, with many of its qualities,
has, one may say, quite disappeared. Once quail-hunting
was quite a favourite occupation in autumn fields in England.
The quail did not usually nest in England, but it was a
common migrant, so common that the quail-call was an
article of commerce. Many sportsmen have in their career
shot quail in Britain. Several coveys were seen throughout
autumn and winter even as far west as Pembrokeshire in the
late seventies. Those who have watched the short low flight
of the quail must have wondered that a bird which appears
tired by the effort of topping a hedgerow should be one of
the world's most famous migrants. The herds cover vast
distances ; and the armies starting for the return autumn
journey over the Mediterranean, south and east, are a marvel
worth any man's journey to watch.

But the ground-nesting birds, whether or no they nest in
England, grow fewer in England. The corncrake, another
migrant that appears scarcely able to raise itself from the
ground, has almost vanished from many of its favourite

FAMILY PARTIES 257

haunts. Along the valley of the Ouse, twenty years ago,
you were seldom out of hearing of the cicala-like call of the
corncrake, mingling strangely with the chatter of the reed
bunting and the rustle of the reeds. It is now an event if
you hear it. Probably its disappearance is due to closer
agriculture. One hopes, at any rate, it is not due to the
dictum of a famous gourmet, that it is the best bird that
comes to table. And one may expect a return both of quail
and corncrake. A distinct revival of the corncrake was noticed
in Surrey, where several nests were found and protected
in 191 1. It is a stalwart hope that under proper protection
quantities of our vanished birds, from the bittern to the quail,
will adapt themselves to new conditions and flourish again
almost as they flourished in the days of Hereward the Wake.

33

GOLDFINCHES

BIRDS IN FLOCKS

One of the most characteristic signs of gathering autumn is
the congregation of many kinds of birds in roving flocks. A
gregarious existence seems natural to the majority of birds,
except in the crisis of the nesting-season, when they are
driven asunder partly in order to have sufficient territory for
the collection of food for the hungry young, but mainly to
satisfy the overmastering instinct of jealous independence
which most creatures feel with regard to their mates and
young. At any rate, with most of our familiar English birds
the season of separate households and a settled domicile lasts
for little more than a third of the year, and for nearly two-
thirds of it they roam far and wide in company with others
of their own and kindred species. As surely as we see in
September the first leaves dropping from the lime-trees, and
the first golden boughs shining in the crowns of the elms, we
hear the flocks of linnets piping in the cornfield hedgerows,
and the mixed cries of the jackdaws and rooks and starlings
as they rise in a loose cloud from the tanned and tufted
pastures. The birds' family life is merging day by day into
the communal existence of the great winter packs. Species
forgathers with species, and a different conception of

BIRDS IN FLOCKS 259

existence seems to spread among them as the vital sun
declines.

Though this change becomes unmistakably conspicuous in
September, its beginnings are visible long before. Just as
the new song of the robin and the new thrusting of the leaves
and buds of the primrose seem to reach forward from autumn
to spring, so even in June or early July the first gathering of
small flocks and parties of birds gives a sign of coming
autumn to the watchful eye. The date of the change depends
a good deal on the weather. If there is a sudden spell of
wet and cold, even as early as the second or third week of
June we may see the first party of five or ten plovers, perhaps
attended by a few starlings, or fraternising tentatively with
half a dozen jackdaws. They appear in pastures where they
have not been seen during the breeding season ; and they
seem to regard the spell of wind and rain as a sign that
autumn is already coming, and that the time for the old kind
of life is past. Once they have begun to pack, they do not
break up into family parties, or attach themselves definitely
to a single spot, even though, as often happens, the weather
soon turns fair again, and the hottest part of the summer is
still to come. The casual association of a party of plovers
with one of jackdaws or starlings may be merely the acci-
dental consequence of meeting on one feeding-ground, and
species may part company from species at a slight alarm.
But once the instinct of flocking is reawakened, it does not
slumber ; and week by week the wandering parties of rooks,
jackdaws, starlings and plovers become more frequent in the
pastures, and on the shorn hayfields, and in the green salt
marshes by the sea and tidal rivers. Early in August wood-
pigeons begin to appear in these mixed flocks ; they are later
breeders than the other species, and are busy with eggs or
young until long after midsummer. Curlews which have

260

AUTUMN AND WINTER

bred on inland moors begin to gather on the marshes outside
the sea-wall, and flights of dunlin and redshank pipe and
wheel across the ooze-beds threaded by the tide. Sparrows
form flocks in July, and migrate from towns to feed on the
ripening grain. As the berries ripen and the corn is carried,
the silent woods are quickened with the cries of wandering
titmice, and flocks of linnets begin to mass on the weed-filled
stubble. The change is least visible in the garden, where
many of the robins and thrushes are still to be seen in their

old corners, and the wood-pigeon croons on with its old
summer note among the shadows swinging wider on the
lawn. Garden birds are far more stationary than most of
their kindred in the woods and fields ; they have shelter and
a more constant food-supply, and do not need to roam. But
even through the trees of the garden the flights of wandering
titmice come flitting in autumn unrest ; and sometimes a
troop of starlings will sweep over the tree-tops, as if to settle,
but rise again and seek the wider fields.

Linnets may sometimes eat the corn spilt among the
stubble at harvest-time ; but they chiefly visit the cornfields
in search of the seeds of cornfield weeds. The presence
of these flocks in September and October is one of the most
constant and characteristic features of any corn-growing dis-
trict at this time. They range from small parties of a dozen
or twenty to great bodies of several hundreds, or sometimes

BIRDS IN FLOCKS 261

even thousands ; and their ways are very fascinating. They
are in constant movement from the hedge to the field, or
from one part of the field to another, moving with a simul-
taneous flash of wings, and a jerkier and more erratic flight
than the ordinary wheelings and long glissades of the starling
flocks. They seem responsive to a hundred thrills of im-
pulse for which we can detect no obvious reason ; but probably
it is their fine sense of hearing which gives them so many
superfluous alarms, and often prevents them from feeding
quietly for more than a few seconds together. We remember
watching a large flock of hen chaffinches feeding one winter
day in a stubble-field on a high wooded hill above some weirs
on the Thames, which were murmuring loud in flood. The
noise of the river came beating up through the woods on a
gusty breeze, and the birds were continually flying up from
the field into the shelter of the surrounding beeches. At last
a sudden tremor seized not only the chaffinches on the stubble,
but a long-tailed tit searching in a bush close by us ; and a
moment later a flaw in the wind brought up the noise of the
weir in a deep roar. It seemed that the birds had caught
the vibration of the approaching sound before it became
audible to human ears ; and most of the sudden movements
of birds feeding in flocks are probably due to subtle sounds
or cessations of sound, which are unperceived by the human
listener, but are perfectly perceptible to their acute and
watchful senses.

In the silence of the golden September afternoons in the
stubble-fields even our own heavy hearing becomes keener,
so that it is easier for us to conceive of the acute senses' of
birds and wild animals. If the field is empty for a while of
wandering flocks, the silence at first seems absolute, when
we stand still or lie down on the faintly aromatic haulm.
Gradually our ears are opened ; we can hear the far-off

262 AUTUMN AND WINTER

murmur of the threshing-machine — a sound more deeply in
harmony with autumn stillness than the throb of the old
flail, now seldom heard — or an occasional faint cry from the
distant village, or a dog barking at a farm. Then the still-
ness is invaded by the lilt of a party of linnets, or perhaps
the still sweeter call-notes of a flock of goldfinches, as they flit
into view in loose order with their springing flight. Gold-
finches seldom settle close to the earth among the stubble,
as linnets do ; while the seeds sought by linnets grow on
low weeds, or are strewn on the ground, the goldfinches are
hunting for the seeds of thistle and knapweed, and other tall
plants, which in stubble-fields are only found by the hedge-
rows, or by the side of a raised footpath. The goldfinch is
one of the birds which have unmistakably profited by the Wild
Birds' Protection Acts ; and the beautiful sight of a flock of
goldfinches flitting among the autumn thistle-heads is com-
moner in many parts of the country than it was twenty years
ago. But the flocks of linnets make the familiar autumn
music in the stubble-fields, combining single notes and brief
scraps of their true spring song into a gentle melody that
harmonises with the deep sunshine and drowsy fields. In
sunny weather linnets spend as much time softly singing in
the hedges as in feeding ; and sometimes a large flock will
burst suddenly forth into a surprising volume of half-articu-
late song.

Skylarks also begin to haunt the stubble-fields in Sep-
tember in small parties, though the larger flocks come later
in the season, and chiefly consist of foreign birds. They
now feed on the seeds of cornfield weeds, like the linnets,
and are undoubtedly beneficial ; the destruction of these
troublesome seeds must not be forgotten when they are
accused of pulling up the young corn later on. Skylarks
occasionally sing all through the autumn on fine days ; but

BIRDS IN FLOCKS 263

their most familiar note in the stubble-fields is the soft
chirrup which they utter as they flit up with their drooping
white-edged wings. While skylarks keep to the open field,
and linnets haunt both the stubble and the hedgerows, the
strings of wandering titmice are to be found in the hedge-
rows alone. It is a mistaken idea that tits never perch on
the ground, but at this time of year their booty is chiefly
to be found among the boughs of trees and shrubs, where
pupae of summer insects are numerous, and the kernels
of the seeds and berries are ripening. Mixed parties of
several species, sometimes accompanied by a goldcrest or
two, push from tree to tree through the woods with chirping
cries, searching the twigs and crevices in acrobatic attitudes,
and constantly pressing on. At the end of a wood they fol-
low the hedge leading down a field ; and at the corner of the
hedge they jerk across the open space where the larks and
linnets are trooping on the stubble, and twitch their way up
the hedge on the other side. The great contrast with the
ways of the same birds in the nesting-season is that there is
no anxious concentration about a certain point — the position
of the nest or the young — which was then so conspicuous.
The nests that held the young in May are now downbeaten
and neglected, or haunted only by nocturnal field-mice ; the
birds have no care either for them or for the wood that
held them, but wander as vaguely as the thistle-down in the
autumn air.

In the shortening September evenings the starlings begin
to form their great winter congregations. Rooks are gre-
garious at all seasons of the year ; and starlings also nest in
colonies on situations such as cliff-faces or old buildings, which
provide them with plenty of convenient holes. But from
early autumn until the following nesting-season most of them
collect to roost in hosts which far outnumber the flocks in

264 AUTUMN AND WINTER

which they feed by day, and form some of the most remark-
able spectacles in bird life. The flocks of starlings are usually
by far the largest. A little before sunset on September
evenings we often see nights of starlings, ranging from several
hundreds to parties often oradozen, collectingfrom all quarters
on some small wood or conspicuous group of trees. Every
minute fresh flocks fly in, till the trees are black with them,
and the lesser boughs nod with their weight ; and all the
while they utter a chiding murmur which becomes louder
and louder as the swarms increase. Suddenly they spring
swiftly into the air together with a roar of wings which is
sometimes as loud as the early growlings of a thunder-peal,
and vanish swiftly towards their roost. They choose for this
some dense plantation of rhododendrons or other evergreens,
or a close-grown thicket of thorns, or sometimes a large reed
or osier bed. The scene at this central meeting-place when
the contributory flocks come pouring in from all quarters is
almost indescribable. The surge of the incoming armies is
almost continuous, but it is half-drowned by the tumult of the
birds settling to rest among the boughs. High above the
thicket the starlings check their flight, and plunge headlong
downward with the wild motion of a broken kite, checking
themselves just in time to alight safely in the branches. As
twilight deepens the tumult ceases, and the host of birds falls
asleep. But it is long before they cease to stir and rumble
in the heart of the thicket at any slight alarm ; and the least
disturbance produces a murmur in the almost solid mass
which is extraordinarily impressive in its suggestion of teem-
ing life. The odour of these roosting-places indicates them
plainly by day ; and evergreen thickets are sometimes
stripped half-bare of their leaves by the pressure of the in-
numerable birds. These roosting-places are abandoned by
the great majority of their winter inmates when the flocks

BIRDS IN FLOCKS 265

break up for the nesting-season. In most years starlings
are paired and distributed in their breeding-places by early
April ; but after the heavy snowfall at the end of April
1908 huge evening flocks were still to be seen in the first
week of May, when all the spring flowers were coming out
together in the sudden warmth.

Rooks congregate in their winter roosting-places about
the same time in autumn as the starlings, but in much smaller
numbers. The dignified passage of seven or eight hundred
rooks across the sunset sky has a very different kind of in-
terest from the rallying of the starlings. There is something
overwhelming and almost appalling in the starlings' enormous
hosts ; but the rooks' flocks are large enough to be impres-
sive, without verging so uncomfortably upon infinity. After
the end of May, when the young are fully fledged, rooks
often desert their rookeries more or less completely, and for
the rest of the summer choose other quarters, where they
roost in fair-sized flocks. In September or early October
they collect for the night in larger bodies in a roost which
is often chosen in a large and sheltered wood. Hencefor-
ward, until the beginning of the nesting-season, their daily
movements have almost the regularity of the sun. Soon
after it is light they can be seen passing high overhead to
their feeding-grounds on some broad belt of cultivated land ;
and while the sunset sky is still red, they troop home again on
the same steady path. Their movements before settling to
roost are often much like those of the starlings, but are less
remarkable and defined. They collect with busy clamour in
the trees or on the grass not far from the roost, and some-
times plunge to the tree-tops in the same remarkable flight.
Starlings roost alone in their great winter congregations ;
but rooks often forgather with jackdaws and sometimes
with smaller and more stationary parties of starlings which

0.928) , 34

266 AUTUMN AND WINTER

do not frequent the great public dormitories of their
kind. It seems not unlikely that the inmates of the great
winter starlings' roosts are chiefly or wholly immigrant birds,
and that those of our home-bred starlings which remain with
us during winter keep to themselves and roost near the places
where they build. Though rooks and jackdaws and star-
lings can often be seen feeding together in the winter fields,
starlings do not join the two larger species in their home-
ward flight. They go early to roost, like sparrows and
finches ; and by the time that we watch the rooks and jack-
daws sailing home through the autumn sky, and listen for
the querulous cry of the daw among the rooks' graver voices,
they are already snug for the night.

SEPTEMBER

•Thy shield is the red harvest moon suspended

So long beneath the heaven's o'erhanging eaves ;
Thy steps are by the farmer's prayers attended.
Like flames upon the altar shine the sheaves ;
And, following thee, in thy ovation splendid,
Thine almoner, the wind, scatters the golden leaves ! '

LONGFELLOW, Sonnet on Autumn.

OCTOBER

'The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is ended : there is a harmony
In autumn, a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard and seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been.'

Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty.

YOUNG CUCKOO RESTING ON ITS JOURNEY SOUTH

THE SOUTHWARD FLIGHT

The departure of the summer birds first becomes con-
spicuous in October, though it has been in progress ever
since the flight of the parent cuckoos in July. Most of the
summer migrants live so silent and elusive a life after the
young are hatched that it is difficult to trace their move-
ments ; and when some bird has been familiar to eye or ear
for many weeks, we are apt to overlook its departure, and
only later to realise that it has been missing for an indefinite
time. Old cuckoos are able to slip away so early because
they avoid bringing up their young; but the young cuckoos
do not go until late August or September, and thus receive
no guidance from their parents on the journey. The exact
processes of migration are still so imperfectly understood
that we cannot tell whether the young cuckoos are guided to
their winter homes in Central and Southern Africa by trans-
mitted habit or 'instinct,' by the direct influence of the
changing weather in more northern climes, or by following
other migrants. Next to the parent cuckoos, the first birds
to leave the country are the swifts. Their usual time of
departure is the second week in August ; but it is not very
uncommon to see one or two stragglers as late as the
beginning of September. The swift is one of the latest
birds to come, as well as the earliest to go ; a bare three

THE SOUTHWARD FLIGHT

269

months is its whole sojourn in this country. It seems
probable that its early departure is due to the diminishing
supply of insects at the lofty levels where it prefers to feed.
By the beginning of August the nights are already growing
far longer and more dewy than they were in June ; and the
period when Britain is habitable for the swift seems to lie
within six or seven weeks on either side of Midsummer Day.

As September goes by, we gradually miss several birds
from their accustomed haunts, if we keep a careful daily watch.
Some warm day in
the garden we notice
that the spotted fly-
catcher is no longer
perched in its favour-
ite position on the
tennis - post or the
corner of the porch ;
and in the evening
twilight we miss the
nightjar flitting noise-
lessly down the clearing in the copse. Both these birds are
late-comers, and obey the same general rule as the swift in
being quick to go. For them too, with their need for an
abundant insect diet, the English climate sets an early term
of departure. But still we can hardly feel that the summer
birds are really leaving us, so long as the days are full of
sunshine, and the empty places are so few as compared with
any week in the quiet time since June.

By October there is no mistaking that the southward
migration is in full swing. It is most visible in the case of
the swallows and their kindred, which migrate by day. The
concourses of swallows and martins on roofs and telegraph
wires are not only larger than when they first began in

NIGHTJAR

27o AUTUMN AND WINTER

September, but much more restless and shifting. If we
keep close watch, we shall find that sooner or later, when
some party rises and circles in the air, it does not come back
to the perch as it did after its former sallies, but vanishes in
the southern sky. An hour or two later, the church spire or
barn roof may be once more thick with swallows or martins ;
but they are a new contingent. The same quiet coming and
going of smaller parties may be seen on an October day over
sheltered pools and rivers, or warm meadows in the lee of a
wood. The swallows sweep so regularly over the water or
past the boughs that they look like the regular summer
residents ; yet, ten minutes later, they may be gone, leaving
the surface of the pool spread empty between its orange
sedges. This quiet but constant stream of travel is even
more impressive than the great simultaneous movements of
the larger flocks. It suggests far more vividly the elusive
secrecy of the movement which has been depeopling our
copses and gardens for weeks past, till we awake to find
them almost desolate, or occupied by restless strangers. For
sheer impressiveness of numbers, the first place is easily
taken by the collection of a large flock of migrating swallows
in a roost in some reed or osier bed. They plunge down-
wards almost as wildly as roosting starlings ; and it was the
sight of the swallows plunging so quickly towards the water
on some autumn evening about the time when they were
seen no more which most helped to foster the belief that they
slept out the winter at the bottom of the rivers and ponds.
They also roost in crevices about the buildings which they
haunt by day.

The distance travelled by migrating birds in autumn
varies enormously with different species. Marked storks
from Denmark, Germany, and Hungary have been identified
in the winter months in Syria and various parts of Central

THE SOUTHWARD FLIGHT 271

and South Africa ; while a still greater distance is travelled
by several species of waders which breed in the far north of
the Russian Empire or in Greenland, and winter as far south
as Cape Colony. Some of these birds, such as the little
stint and curlew-sandpiper, occur in Britain only as
passengers for some weeks in spring and autumn, on their
way between their southern and northern homes. Other
species, such as the knot and sanderling, are also winter
visitors. Most of them haunt the sea coasts, especially the
oozy estuaries, which supply them with the most extensive
feeding-grounds. But a typical bird of double passage, often
seen along inland streams in spring and early autumn, is the
green sandpiper. It can be easily distinguished from the
common sandpiper with a fieldglass, or even with the naked
eye, by the tail being transversely barred with white, instead
of being merely edged with it. The green sandpiper nests
in the Baltic and Arctic basins, and winters in Africa and
southern Europe.

As birds which cross the equator on either passage
secure two summers in each year, and no winter, there
seems no reason why our birds should not breed twice
a year, once in either hemisphere. But all the most
trustworthy evidence at present indicates that they nest
only in the northern hemisphere ; no certain case has
yet been reported of any bird which nests in summer
in the far north of Europe or America also nesting
in South Africa or South America. Some of these birds
of double passage are believed to travel as much as
eleven thousand miles in each direction annually. From
these vast journeys the scale of distances traversed on
migration descends to the few yards which part the nesting-
quarters of a robin or pied wagtail in the shrubbery or by
the farmyard pond from its winter haunts in the sheltered

272 AUTUMN AND WINTER

part of the garden or by the back door. One great route
of migration in autumn runs from the west of England
through southern Ireland or north-western France, and
thence to the sunny coastal districts of Spain and Portugal,
where many birds from northern Europe find a winter home.
Two plovers marked in the nest near Stirling have been
found in Portugal, and five others in Ireland ; a song-thrush
from Aberdeen and a black-headed gull from Argyllshire
were also found in Portugal. But in spite of these and other
instances showing the importance of this route, other birds
of the same kinds have been found in winter not many miles
from their nesting-quarters. In the case of many of the
hardier birds, the migratory movement is plainly very
irregular, and may be regarded as almost optional. Some-
times they are even found migrating the wrong way, that
is, towards the colder quarter. A song-thrush marked in
Berkshire in April was found in November near Norwich
— having migrated in exactly the opposite direction to
thousands of thrushes, and larks, and plovers, and rooks, and
many other kinds of birds which come over from Germany to
England at that time. Even more striking was the eastward
journey of a starling marked in Berkshire in February, which
was found in Kent before the end of the month. Because
the east of Europe is colder in winter than the west, the
usual line of autumn and winter migration is south-westerly,
and sometimes even north-westerly, and not, as might be
thought, direct from north to south.

To a considerable extent — exactly how much we cannot
yet tell— migrating birds follow definite routes, such as a
river valley like that of the Thames as it leads northwards
past Oxford, or the line of the seashore. The rarity of
certain birds of double passage in spring as compared with
autumn, or vice versa, indicates that they do not all follow

THE SOUTHWARD FLIGHT 273

the same route on both journeys. At least one striking case
has been discovered in which the spring and autumn tracks
lie far apart. The American golden plover flies straight
across the sea in autumn from Nova Scotia to the coast of
South America — a distance of about 2,500 miles; but it
returns in spring by a more circuitous route to westwards,
through Mexico and up the Mississippi valley.

There seems to be an obvious reason in the failure of the
food-supply why birds of passage should depart southward
in autumn to milder climes. But it is not so easy to under-
stand why they should want to return in spring. It might
be thought that they would be well enough off where
they were, like the resident species of tropical forests,
without daring the long journey over land and sea to
reach some distant corner of the British islands, or some
haunt even further to northwards, within the Arctic circle.
The key to this movement is probably to be found in their
general habit of scattering in pairs in spring, to bring up
their young in privacy and with an ampler food-supply than
they need when there are only their own mouths to fill.
They would thus naturally tend to spread outwards from
their winter home ; and those birds would thrive best which
pressed further and further to northwards (or to the south, in
the southern hemisphere), and so gained the advantage of
longer daylight and a longer period each day in which they
could hunt for food. As they settled in a new home,
inherited habit would tend to attach them to it by a strong
bond ; and so the great double migration would grow up, at
the times of year when the seasons most sharply change.
Marvellous as the length and adventurousness of their
passage seems, it has after all to be remembered that birds
are winged creatures, constructed by nature with supreme
powers of locomotion ; and that they do sometimes perish

(1,321) 35

274 AUTUMN AND WINTER

on migration in great numbers. But the waste of life from
storm on passage or untimely and exceptional cold on arrival
is probably more than made up by the advantage of rearing
their broods in the most favourable circumstances.

Just as all existing species of birds are the result of a
continuous chain of evolution, of which many of the connect-
ing links have not been preserved, so the great movements
of the migrants between their summer and winter homes are
probably the outcome of a gradual and tentative process of
migration, which has been fixed on its present lines by the
survival of the fittest. Most birds live in flocks for the
greater part of the year, only separating for the compara-
tively short nesting-season ; so that gregariousness seems their
natural and earliest habit. As they broke up for the breed-
ing-season, and at first spread evenly outwards from their
gregarious haunts, they would come sharply into competition
with other birds expanding outwards in the same way.
Gradually the struggle for life would settle which group of
species was the strongest in each region ; those species which
were best adapted to its peculiar conditions would prevail,
and those which were less well adapted would tend to die
out within this area, but would have a better chance to the
north, where fresh lands lay open each spring. Their
migrations would further tend to be controlled by their
power to endure the winter climate of their new homes. If
they could pick up a living there in winter as well as in
summer, they became resident species ; if not, they became
what we call summer migrants. Winter visitors — a term
which is used more often than winter migrants, but precisely
corresponds to it — are the summer migrants of more northern
regions, viewed from the winter end of their journey. Such
are the redwings and fieldfares, which usually arrive with us
in November ; these are summer visitors to Norway and

THE SOUTHWARD FLIGHT 275

Sweden, like the nightingale or swallow in England. Our
birds of double passage, like the green sandpiper, are summer
and winter migrants in other parts of the world. The wood-
cock in Great Britain is chiefly a winter visitor, but to a small
(though increasing) extent a resident species. In Austria
it is a bird of double passage, though much commoner in
autumn than in spring. In central Germany the robin is
chiefly a summer migrant, and only occasionally a resident.
Such examples show how hard it is to get a true understand-
ing of the habits of birds if we only consider their habits in
our own islands, from our local point of view. We should
always think of them as essentially migratory creatures;
though there are more or less definite exceptions. The
Dartford warbler and the Cornish chough are among the
more resident British species ; and their scarcity and very
local distribution show how unprofitable it often is for a
species to become too much wedded to one locality. The
case of the extinct great auk is another famous instance in
point. Even such common resident species as thrushes and
robins would fare ill if the majority of their individual
members were really resident. Probably not one in fifty
of the song-thrushes which breed in England find safe
winter quarters within a mile of their nesting-place ; and the
rest are migrants. Often on an October morning we may
see the lawn harbour, for a short rest, one or two yellow
wagtails, or a larger party of pied wagtails, running with
equal grace and activity over the dewy grass. According
to the traditional distinction framed from a local British
standpoint, the yellow wagtail is a summer migrant, and the
pied one a resident. But most pied wagtails migrate, and
both the pied and the yellow that alight on the lawn in this
way are migrants on autumn passage from England.

DECEMBER

'Thou saw the fields laid bare an' waste,
An' weary winter comin' fast,
An' cosie here, beneath the blast,

Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash ! the cruel coulter past
Out thro' thy cell.'

Burns, To a Mouse.

JANUARY

' When biting Boreas, fell and doure,
Sharp shivers thro' the leafy bow'r ;
When Phabus gies a short-IivM glow'r,

Far south the lift,
Dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r
Or whirling drift.'

BURNS, A Winter Night.

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE

To most people in England the arrival of the winter migrants is
signalled on some cold clear November morning by the harsh
clack of the fieldfare heard overhead. The date of the field-
fare's arrival varies a good deal according to the weather;
and the weather in its summer home in Russia and Scandi-
navia has more influence on its coming than the warmth
or coldness of the season in England. But its summer
quarters are near enough to our islands to be affected by
many of the same changes of wind, and we usually see and
hear the fieldfare when the wind has been blowing keenly
for twelve or twenty-four hours from the north or north-east,
and the morning has been white with rime. Fieldfares are
gregarious even in their summer nesting-places in the northern
pine forests ; and we see them much less seldom in Eng-
land singly or in small parties than in considerable flocks.
When we hear these big thrushes clacking in the tops of the
hedgerow elms, or stringing high overhead with their careless,
dropping flight, it is one of the great turning-points of the
year. Their harsh notes and grey backs tell of winter, with
its bare boughs and bracing chills, and its sense of multi-

278 AUTUMN AND WINTER

tudinous restlessness in bird life. The nests in the garden
that were the centre of so much busy life have been deserted
and sodden for months past ; but now the regret that they
inspired is effaced by the fresh purpose of a new epoch.
The drowsy period of late summer and early autumn is past,
and the loss of the summer birds is more than half made
good by the coming of the roving winter flocks.

Redwings arrive at much the same date as fieldfares, but
are less conspicuous, and therefore less likely to attract
immediate attention. The fieldfare resembles the larger and
wilder missel-thrush, the redwing the smaller and quieter
song-thrush. Both are gregarious birds, but redwings less
frequently break up into small parties. Their flocks pass
hurriedly overhead with an occasional single piping note
and a flight only slightly undulating ; fieldfares flit with a
loose, flapping flight, rising and falling in careless motion,
and constantly uttering their characteristic note ' chak-chak-
chak.' Redwings prefer to feed on the open turf of the
pastures, where they collect a prey of insects and slugs ; but
though fieldfares also feed in the grass fields, often mingling
with starlings and jackdaws to pick a living, they are fonder
of the hawthorn and holly berries. They will descend on a
red hawthorn bush in November and keep rising and settling
in alternate appetite and alarm in much the same way as
smaller parties of missel-thrushes raid the ripe berries of a
mountain-ash or garden cotoneaster in October. They can
be distinguished from missel-thrushes by the conspicuous
slaty patch on the lower part of the back, where the missel-
thrush has a patch of pale brown, and by the dark grey
wing-feathers, which contrast sharply with the lighter patch.
The cries of the two birds are also quite distinct, though
manifestly belonging to the same family. The irregular
jarring screech or chatter of the missel- thrush is easily dis-

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE 279

tinguishable from the clearly articulated ' chak-chak ' of the
fieldfare. Redwings can be most easily distinguished from
song-thrushes by their smaller size, plumper, more robin-like
build, and by their habit of keeping in flocks. These features
are plain at a considerable distance ; at close quarters or
through a fieldglass, we can tell them by a well-marked
pale stripe over the eye, and by the reddish patch on the
flank, uncovered by the wing as they fly. They are
tenderer birds than fieldfares, nesting in lower and more
sheltered woods in Sweden and Norway, and suffering much
more severely from hard weather in English winters. In
this too they agree with song-thrushes rather than missel-
thrushes ; the song-thrush also lives chiefly on worms, slugs
and insects, which it cannot obtain from frozen soil, while
the missel-thrush's diet of berries is available in any
weather, so long as it lasts.

Bramblings or mountain-finches migrate from the same
regions as redwings and fieldfares ; but their visits are much
more irregular, and they haunt much more limited areas
during the winter. Their great resort is a beech-wood
where the ground is well strewn with fallen mast ; and
in a district where beech-woods abound their flocks can
be found in most winters when there has been a good
crop of beech-nuts. They are of much the same size
and general habits as chaffinches, which also come in
flocks to feed on the beech-mast ; but they can be dis-
tinguished by their conspicuous yellow markings upon the
wings, and a pale patch above the tail which catches the
eye when they fly. The siskin is a smaller and more beauti-
ful member of the finch tribe, which sometimes appears in
winter in parties and flocks, feeding with linnets and
chaffinches, or in the large mixed flocks of sparrows, finches
and yellowhammers which haunt the ricks and stackyards

280 AUTUMN AND WINTER

in frosty weather. It is a smaller bird than the linnet; and
the general effect of bright golden-green in its mottled
plumage makes it very noticeable in a flock of various
species. Its golden feathers are more evenly distributed
about its body than those of the yellowhammer ; and it is
also much smaller. The crossbill is yet another species of
the finch tribe which appears irregularly in Britain from the
continental pine-forests in winter. Its visits are exceedingly
irregular ; sometimes very few crossbills are seen in this
country for many winters, and then our island shares in a
great migration extending over a large part of Europe, and
probably extending to the Siberian forests beyond the Asiatic
boundary. The last great migration of this kind took place
in 1909, and was repeated to a smaller extent in the follow-
ing season. Flocks of crossbills were seen wandering in the
Alpine valleys as early as July; and a few weeks later the
arrival of these fascinating birds was reported from many
parts of Britain, as well as from most other parts of Europe.
Both crossbills and siskins breed irregularly and in small
numbers in this country, and since the 1909 migration, the
stock of breeding crossbills has been considerably increased.
But the vast majority of the crossbills which have haunted
fir and larch woods in recent winters have departed before
the spring. In old cock birds the prevailing colour of the
plumage is red ; but they are greatly outnumbered in most
flocks by the hens and young birds, which are chiefly green.
Besides this conspicuous colouring, a flock of crossbills is
likely to attract notice on the wing by their eager, jerky
movement, and a chattering note which seems to corre-
spond to their flight. Their motions are equally restless as
they search in the tops of the firs or larches for the cones,
which they dissect with their remarkable beaks. The tips
of the curved mandibles cross when the beak is closed and

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE

281

at rest ; when it is open and in action, it serves as a power-
ful forceps for wrenching open the obliquely inserted scales
of a fir-cone, and extracting the seed at their base. Some-
times crossbills feed on haws and other hard seeds like
hawfinches or greenfinches.

The arrival of hooded crows in winter is more regular
than that of the three birds last named, but is confined more

HOODED CROW

strictly to certain districts. Considering how common the
hooded crow is each winter in the eastern counties and
along a considerable stretch of the south coast, it is remark-
able that it is an almost unknown visitor to districts but a
few score miles distant. It seems to migrate on a very
definite plan which no new influence disturbs. It is scarce
in Surrey, though common along the coasts of Kent ; but in
autumn a few birds may be seen under the southern slopes
of the North Downs, apparently working their way along
from the gap of the Medway estuary ; and they reappear

(1,922) 3&

282 AUTUMN AND WINTER

on the return migration in March. In many parts of East
Anglia the grey or 'Royston' crow is as familiar in winter
as the robin by the kitchen door. But its manners, though
equally intelligent, are warier ; it haunts the open country,
and particularly the marshes, where it picks up an abundant
living on the flats bared by the tide, and along the belts of
drift cast up along high-water mark. It will eat almost
any animal substance, either dead or killed by itself; and it
prefers the marshes and estuaries because many forms of
aquatic life are found there in addition to the birds and
animals which haunt the uplands and cultivated fields. As
one lies on the edge of some great cliff, such as the South
Foreland, it is interesting to see the grey and black forms of
the hooded crows contrasted with the seagulls as they hunt
on the shore far below. On such beaches their food con-
sists chiefly of shell-fish ; and they have been seen to carry
up cockles and drop them from a height — a device which
has also been learnt by at least one species of gull.

Woodcock now breed in Britain in increasing numbers ;
but our whole stock of native birds is small in comparison
with the autumn immigration which takes place from
Scandinavia. The great rush takes place between the
middle of October and the middle of November; and it is
expected at the time of the full moon, which is believed to
be chosen by the woodcock for their passage by night. The
movements of woodcock in this country form a very interest-
ing chapter in the history of migration, and one which is still
imperfectly understood. The general body of evidence tends
to show that the migrations of this species oscillate along a
path running from Scandinavia and northern Russia on the
north-east, south-westwards through our island to western
France, Spain and Portugal. The last point at which they
rest in our islands is the south-west of Ireland ; there they

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE

283

collect in large numbers, and often provide excellent sport.
It is chiefly a matter of the weather whether they collect in
large numbers at this or any other point in their path ; cold
weather sends them on, and mild weather attracts them to
unfrozen feeding-grounds in the woods and mires. Most of
our own breeding birds seem to begin to move southwards
about the end of August. But the date and extent of their
wanderings seem very variable ; they do not appear to be
guided by strict rule any more than the other species nesting

with us which are noted in the chapter on the Departure of
Birds. Woodcock are regarded as immigrants in winter,
not emigrants, because the majority of the species nest more
to northwards, and move down at this time ; but they pro-
vide an excellent example of the way in which the same birds
may have a different classification in different parts of their
range, and the same species may be represented in any one

284 AUTUMN AND WINTER

district from month to month by birds with a very different

history.

The same is true of snipe ; they nest in many parts of the
country, but the numbers of winter visitors are far greater
than those of the nesting birds. The jack snipe is a winter
visitor pure and simple ; it breeds in Lapland and the Arctic
tundras, and departs again in March. Golden plover appear

on heaths and wide ploughed fields in hard weather, flocking
down from the Baltic and Arctic basins where they chiefly
breed. Some of them may possibly come from nesting-places
on the mountains and high moors of the northern counties
and Scotland ; but probably most of our own birds go south-
ward early, in the vanguard of the movement. On the sea-
shore and in oozy estuaries, as early as August, flocks of
dunlin are once more veering over the creeks ami channels,
showing their gleaming bellies as they turn. Curlew come
down from their high-lying inland nesting-grounds at the

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE 285

same time ; and they are joined by wandering whimbrels and
redshanks and oyster-catchers. As autumn goes on, a
greater variety of waders flocks down from the high north.
Some of them, like the ruff and the black-tailed godwit, once
nested in the English fens, and still breed not far away in
Holland and the Baltic basin. Others, like the grey plover
and sanderling and knot, are migrants from the swamps that
fringe the Arctic sea, and their nests have seldom been seen.
Most of these visitors from afar fare still further, and are
seen no more after the season of autumn migration ; but some
remain to add interest to winter walks and watchings.

With the woodcock at the end of October comes the
'woodcock owl.' The short-eared owl is widely known by
this name among sportsmen, because it not only arrives at
the same time as the woodcock, but is flushed in the same
wet woods and thickets where woodcock lie. The owl has
the same accidental connection with the woodcock that the
cuckoo's mate, or wryneck, has with the cuckoo. It is the
least nocturnal of owls in Britain, except the recently intro-
duced little owl, which is now quickly spreading ; and its
greyish-buff form is often seen flying low towards twilight
over some rushy field or tract of sedgy marsh in quest of
field-mice. The barn-owl also flies occasionally before it is
yet dark on an autumn or winter afternoon ; but it is paler
and brighter in colour, as well as being a little smaller. As
is the case with the woodcock, the short-eared owl normally
nests in Britain in numbers small in comparison with its
winter flights. But the enormous multiplication of breeding
birds in the districts of the Scottish lowlands affected by the
great vole plague of 1893 wiU l°ng be remembered. The
short-eared owls gathered in great numbers to prey on the
swarms of voles, and a great number remained to nest in
spring. Waxing fat on the unlimited diet, they began to

286 AUTUMN AND WINTER

breed very early in spring — some time before the ground
was clear of snow — and laid double the usual number of eggs.
The concentration of so many owls on this one district is an
indication of the great numbers of birds which normally
traverse any area during their winter wanderings, and depart
unnoticed. Every short-eared owl which came to this land
of plenty stayed there ; and the consequent abundance of the
species seemed unaccountable and almost miraculous.

Besides short-eared owls, the vole-ridden sheep-farms
were visited on that occasion by large numbers of rough-
legged buzzards. This fine bird of prey, with its legs
feathered right to the toes, is a regular winter visitor in small
numbers from the uplands of Norway where it breeds among
the crags. Usually it is a rare bird, and many years may
pass without its being noticed in a locality ; but the abund-
ance of voles collected the rough-legged buzzards from a wide
area — possibly from the greater part of their whole winter
range. Normally it lives a wandering life during the winter,
chiefly haunting hill ranges and open downs. It is one of the
most typical winter visitors, though not a common one.

Every rough-legged buzzard identified in Britain is easily
recognised as a visitor from abroad, because the cases of its
breeding here are so rare as to be negligible ; but there is no
such easy criterion in the case of some other birds of prey,
such as the sparrow-hawk and kestrel, or of the great flocks
of diverse species which they accompany and prey upon.
The winter visitors to Britain include vast numbers of sky-
larks, chaffinches, goldcrests, rooks, crows, plovers, wood-
pigeons and many other species which are included among
our breeding birds ; and the wanderers from one English
county are winter visitors when they appear in the next.
There can be no doubt about birds of common English
species being visitors when they are seen landing, or passing

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE 287

the lightships and lighthouses, as is often the case. Gold-
crests arrive in autumn in great numbers from the pine-
forests of Scandinavia ; the passage of this minute and
short-winged bird over the stormy breadth of the North
Sea at the roughest period of the year is one of the most
striking features of migration. Soon they spread themselves
over the country, haunting fir- woods and the shelter of ever-
greens in gardens ; they are far more abundant in many
English gardens in winter than in summer, andean constantly
be heard passing through the dark boughs of the spruce
coverts with their needle-like cry.

The visits of most of the geese and ducks which are
commonly classed as ' wild-fowl,' depend to a very great
degree on the weather in this and other lands, and are con-
sequently exceedingly irregular. Some species of geese are
regular in their appearance in their old haunts each autumn,
though variable in numbers ; but the great majority of these
water-fowl come to us when the frost of a severe winter has
gripped their oozy feeding-grounds in the Baltic basin and
along the eastern shores of the North Sea, and their coming
depends on the season. Their numbers have greatly
decreased, since reclamation of marshes and harbours has
diminished their feeding-grounds, and their chief haunts are
more closely watched by gunners. Next to the well-known
mallard — often called the wild duck to the exclusion of all the
other species in this fine group — the commonest species of
duck which visit us in winter are wigeon and teal. The
wigeon keeps chiefly to the estuaries, though it sometimes
visits inland lakes ; but the brilliant little teal distributes
itself well about the country, settling down on small wood-
land ponds as well as larger sheets of water. Pochard are
scarcer than teal and wigeon, but are seen fairly often on
inland sheets of water in hard winters. Though they belong,

288 AUTUMN AND WINTER

like the wigeon, to the group of diving ducks, their natural
haunt is on fresh water, and not in the estuaries. Tufted
duck are becoming more common as a nesting species in
many counties, and more familiar as winter visitors where they
do not yet breed. With their bold pied markings of black
and white, bright yellow eye, and hanging crest, the drakes
are very handsome birds, and catch the eye from afar as they
rest on the water or dive. The ducks have the same general

TUFTED DUCK AND POCHARD

pattern, but the black and white patches are replaced by two
shades of brown, so that they are much less conspicuous.

All these species belong either to inland waters or to
creeks and harbours ; the true sea-ducks haunt open salt
water, and scatter round the coasts in winter with the divers
and guillemots and gulls. The commonest of them is the
common scoter, or 'black duck,' which can often be seen
near the coast, as well as occasionally inland, when it has
been carried out of its course by stormy weather. Even
during the hour's crossing on the frequented route from
Dover to Calais, scoters can often be seen ; they fly low over
the water like smaller cormorants, or float low in the trough
of the waves. Gannets are also frequently seen in winter in
the straits of Dover, as well as round the rest of our coast ;
as autumn approaches, they wander from their densely packed

* 1

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE 289

breeding-places — chiefly off the Scottish coast — and live a
roving sea-life till spring. Guillemots, razorbills, and puffins
rove off the coasts through winter in the same way; and the
little auks join them from their far northern breeding-places
within the Arctic circle. True sea-birds, none of them
willingly approach the shore ; but we see them cast up dead
on the beach after long spells of stormy weather, and they
are sometimes picked up far inland, when gales and thick
weather have confused and beaten them from their course.
Divers are more often seen close inshore, as well as out at
sea ; they nest in fresh-water lakes, and sometimes take
refuge on them in winter. The great northern and black-
throated species are more often seen in winter than the red-
throated, though the last-named is the commonest breeding
species in Britain, and the great northern diver does not
breed with us at all. Most of the divers seen in winter are
immature birds, and their species is difficult to distinguish ;
but they well display the characteristic build and habits of
their tribe as they urge their large and powerful bodies along
the sea, disappear for a long dive, and rise with long neck
and bill uplifted many yards distant from the point where
they disappeared.

A peculiar view of migration is opened to observers on

the east coast of England. It is generally supposed that

a south-east wind sees the greatest movement, although

birds flitting from north-eastern Europe would appear to

prefer a slanting wind. Often there is a dreary undirected

drizzle prevailing, a condition of weather by no means to their

liking or benefit. They often tire and lag on their journey ;

many drop into the sea to perish, and others bewildered, like

mariners on an uncharted coast, drop wearily on ships, or

strike the lanterns of light-vessels, to be picked up in dozens
d,922) 37

290

AUTUMN AND WINTER

in the morning by the lightsmen, dead or maimed. Black-
birds, starlings, redwings, crows, rooks, and many others are
found by the score, and not infrequently by the hundred.
In widely extended flocks, like baffled skirmishers, they beat
jadedly in. Lapwings also almost invariably arrive abreast
of the wind, often so utterly fatigued as to drop down in
the first sandy wheel-rut that offers, or behind the nearest
stone that affords a little shelter. They are then so tame
and tired that they may be picked up. A lady one day thus
caught a way-worn linnet, placing it in the bosom of her

jacket : when the warmth had revived it, it struggled out
and took to wing.

Some of the great salt-water broads — of which Breydon
is the chief — have been known as great tidal resorts of
numerous species of wild-fowl.

In stirring autumn and in severer winter many travellers
drop in, breaking the southward journey, some driven, maybe,
against their will, by the keen frosts of winter, from Scottish
lochs and Scandinavian fjords. In the shallows, the wigeon
pulls at the long-stemmed zostera or 'grass,' and deftly breaks
in pieces the succulent stem ; the mallard and his kin bite the
greener fronds into short lengths, and between them they do

WINTER BIRDS OF PASSAGE 291

a good spell of shearing, but there always remains enough,
for ducks to-day are fewer and the zosteras range is wider.
When the broads are hard frozen there flock hither crowds
of coots, that, hungering for the roots of reed and rush,

remember that last year they found a friendly substitute in
the luscious 'wrack.' And they fly to the broad, feeding
like sheep on the grass that lies prone when the tide is out,
and wander about upon the soft ooze, all heading one way,
like grazing cattle.

ATTITUDES OF SNIPE

FEEDING BIRDS

A bird table is now becoming a necessary piece of furniture
in country gardens. But it is well to remember that January
and February (not December) are the months when the duty
of feeding birds is most insistent, and the profit greatest.
Birds can endure starvation in early winter ; indeed they
naturally then reduce their feeding ; but as the days lengthen
they grow as hungry as a cabbage caterpillar. Not seldom
the beginnings of this access of hunger will coincide with a
period when the frost cuts off all food-supplies, save the
scraps of dead creatures stuck in the resin of the fir and
larch, or in the cracks of the bark. Happily this winter
amusement and duty of feeding birds is becoming very
popular in England; and abroad the Governments are
gravely considering the economical wisdom of encouraging
the practice. Indeed every year more of our gardens — even
the little rectangles in towns and suburbs — are becoming
sanctuaries to which birds of many species resort from the
worst of all enemies, hunger, and for the best of all pleasures,
a nesting home.

During the twentieth century we have seen birds grow
perceptibly tamer and vastly more numerous. It is a
wonderful addition to life to eat with the birds, as it were, to
tempt them on to the window-sill, if not within the room.

294 AUTUMN AND WINTER

For birds are tamer than we think. The man whom we
used to watch in the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris had no
special charm by which the sparrows were drawn to settle on
his shoulders and to peck from his hands. If he possessed
the qualities of St. Francis, they were not obvious on simple
inspection. It is indeed an easy thing to get into touch with
birds ; to induce a gull on the embankment to take a sprat
from your fingers, or to tempt a robin to the breakfast-table,
or tits to a cocoa-nut within the window, or sparrows to your
feet. Any invalid has the chance of realising this and taking
profit by it. An open window and a tray of crumbs may
make all the difference between a cheery and wretched
period of illness or convalescence. More than one particular
picture comes to the mind. The first is an invalid's room in
Dorset. As a beginning the window-sill was scattered with
crumbs each morning. Then a tray was fixed so as to
extend the table. As spring began to warm the air the
window was opened as often as might be, and the tray fixed
inside instead of out. The change made no difference to the
birds. Blue-tits, great-tits, cole-tits, robins, chaffinches, and
an occasional wagtail came gaily into the room ; and it was
noticeable that the birds less tame, one would say, by nature,
and especially the chaffinches, showed even less nervousness
than the robins when they had conquered their first fears.
Another picture of this sort is set in the frames of windows
looking on a beautiful garden sanctuary in the Isle of Wight.
But we may all do the same ; the extended window-sill is the
first and best attraction. If it be put before the window
in sight of the breakfast-table it will pay ioo per cent, in
the first week.

One of the best of all tamers was that charming
naturalist, whose invalid state suggested the study of
natural history as a solace, Mrs. Brightwen. The poet

FEEDING BIRDS

295

Cowper's happy family, whose playful and affectionate ways
assuaged the melancholy of his madness, less deserve fame
than her household of birds and mammals, from which she
drew intense satisfaction to within a few minutes of her
death. Falstaff — not in Shakespeare perhaps, but in a
brilliant emendation of Shakespeare — ' babbled o' green
fields ' as he lay dying ; and there is
something Shakespearean in the last
hours of this modern naturalist. ' In
her dying moments,' wrote Mr. Gosse,
' she was attended by those wild
creatures, who had long been accus-
tomed to her presence. When I
took farewell of her, two squirrels
were gambolling and struggling on
the toilet-table, and a robin was
seated on the edge of her cup. Her
last conscious moments were glad-
dened by the sound of the cuckoo
calling from the height of the great
tulip - tree opposite her bedroom
window, and awakening one more
flash in her sympathetic eyes.' She
laid great stress on winter feeding,
which ' gave her great insight into
the habits and traits of otherwise shy birds, as then, to a
lesser extent, and at all times, a large collection of birds
were to be seen in front of the windows, in size ranging
from a pheasant to the tiny tits ; even the fussy water birds
were enticed on to the lawn and under the tulip-tree.'

If the birds are hungry and you have food, all the
'conditions precedent' to a common understanding exist
and will exert a compelling influence. There is virtue in

BLUE-TITS

296 AUTUMN AND WINTER

elaborating a little the simple art of feeding the hungry,
though the dietetic science as taught by some of the
professors has a touch of absurdity in it. However, it is to
be confessed that some very astonishing results have been
achieved in Germany by the scientific baron who has devoted
himself to the work of encouraging birds to breed and feed
and have their being in his garden and park and woods.
The baron is a sort of latter-day Winterton ; and however
formal his methods, they are not without hints for us in
England, whether we have a two-thousand acre park, like the
wonderful sanctuary at Woburn, or a rectangular rod, pole or
perch close to London or other town — indeed within the
city pale. No one could more profitably follow his example
than the public authorities who attend to the parks and the
live things in them.

The baron has made a speciality of feeding apparatus and
nesting apparatus, for birds will come first to those places
where they can find most suitable food and nesting places.

Food, however, comes first, and food is a subject that
really requires a certain amount of scientific thought, such as
Baron Burlepsch has spent on it. The most engaging of all
his devices is what has been called the Christmas tree and
plum pudding arrangement. The tree can either be a real
tree — for preference, a small spruce, such as those sold for
Christmas trees — or it can be a made-up tree, artificially put
together in the manner practised on a large scale by Mr.
Thomson Seton in his sanctuary in New York State. In a
garden the tree can be put up within sight of the window.
This tree is to play the part of a widow's cruse. It is to ooze
plum pudding, as it were, as a fir-tree oozes resin. It is a
not uncommon practice to smear boughs with the remainder
of the breakfast porridge reinforced by crumbs and scraps ;
and birds of all sort appreciate it highly. But the baron has

FEEDING BIRDS 297

played the scientific doctor in this matter. He makes a
pudding or porridge or olla podrida, which is a compound of
the sorts of food that birds most enjoy and most flourish on.
The following is his ideal recipe : —

White bread, (dried an

d ground),

4§ oz

Meat, ( „ „ „ ),

3 M

Hemp, ....

6 „

Crushed hemp,

3 >.

Maize, .

3 ..

Poppy flour,

ij „

Millet, white, .

3 ..

Oats, .

i* »

Dried elder-berries,

1] ..

Sunflower seed,

i\ „

Ants' eggs,

14 „

This elaborate mixture is incorporated into a mass of fat
or suet equal to nearly twice as much as the whole of the
previous mixture. The pudding is heated and poured over
the branches and trunk, over which it forms a film ; and to
these rich and succulent boughs the birds will flock, pecking
at the plums in the collection from every conceivable attitude
— robins on tip-toe, tits upside down, thrushes blundering
about, and warblers alighting daintily. Of course the food
need not be so elaborate as the baron's, but if it contains
some meat and some seeds, so much the better. It is a good
plan to collect the seeds of elder or sunflower at the
right season, and keep them for the birds against the hungry
hours of the year. The really important thing is to pour the
mixture on the trees when it is boiling hot, so that quite a
fine coating is spread as widely as possible.

Another idea is a 'food stick.' A succession of holes
are cut or scooped out of a narrow bough which is then
nailed across a trunk. It provides a very handy and
picturesque way of feeding tits and tree-creepers, and the

0,922) 38

298 AUTUMN AND WINTER

food can be well protected against the weather if the holes
are faced to one side. As might be expected, a quantity
of more elaborate methods are practised in the German
sanctuary. There are food bills and food hutches and
houses of many sorts designed to protect the food from the
weather and to attract the birds. Some of them would be
a great addition to the London parks, but they would not
be of less use in gardens.

These methods have been elaborated for some years,
but the economic value has only recently become apparent,
and induced the German Government to take this model
sanctuary under its wing, following an example set by
Hungary, where the Government assists the study of migra-
tion with as good results as have followed its teaching of
economic ornithology.

Every one finds it easy enough to attract the common
birds and some of the bolder. The cole-tit and march-tit
may in some neighbourhoods be regarded as more or less
uncommon or at least hard to find ; but they will at once
come to the suspended fat on the Christmas tree. Other
birds are not so bold as the tits; and to draw them more
care must be taken and their habits more closely observed.
The nuthatch is one. He seems to have as shrewd a sense
for a nut as a vulture for a carcase. You may offer any sort
of food ; and never discover that nuthatches exist ; but if
a frame be fixed with wire or wood in front to hold the nuts
without hiding them it is odds that the nuthatches arrive-
within a week. The better plan with all the shyer birds is
at first to put the food in the places where they are most
likely to be rather than where you wish them to be. When
once they have found food within your precincts the rest is
easy. They may be tempted nearer and nearer ; or out of
the obscure into the open with some ease.

FEEDING BIRDS

299

Some birds baffle all attempts ; but among the untamable
are very few of our native birds or indeed our winter
visitors. The obstinate are the summer migrants ; and the
timidest of all perhaps is the wryneck. Among the easiest
are game birds, and the partridge at any rate pays for his
food ; he is delightful to watch.

Some few birds are so persistent that they will learn to
take food in ways entirely foreign to their nature. In a
small garden in the Midlands one starling, after weeks of

endeavour, learnt to take the fat meant for the tits. His
discovery came by a sort of accident. He perched on the
end of the bar where hung the suspended fat, and after long
gazing tried to manipulate the string. In doing so he half
tumbled, so it seemed, but getting both claws on to the
string, slipped down, and found himself to his surprise safely
landed where he would be. On the following days he per-
formed this acrobatic feat with increasing skill and of
deliberate purpose. Later other starlings, observing the
success of the manoeuvre, followed the example ; and in
order to save the fat for the proper feasters the string had
to be lengthened.

3oo AUTUMN AND WINTER

In the same way robins will now and again learn to take
a precarious stand on a swinging cocoa-nut ; but they do
not often repeat the attempt. A starling is of all birds
perhaps the most deliberate imitator ; imitative in his songs
and sounds, imitative in all his ways. It is, for example, by
no means uncommon to see starlings, short though their
wings are, pick up food off the surface of the Thames. They
have learnt the art, though they remain clumsy in the
technique, from the gulls, who do not mind a wetting and
have wings suited for the purpose.

WINTER DRESS

Most birds and animals are duller in colour in winter than
in summer ; and in some the change is very marked. There
is a remarkable difference between the fantastic breeding
plumage of the ruff, or the brilliantly contrasted colours of
the dotterel, and the modest greyish dress assumed after
the summer moult. Though this change is on the whole
most conspicuous in these and other members of the wader
tribe, it is very noticeable in some of the most familiar birds.
Cock house-sparrows lose their smart black bib, which
becomes blurred and almost obliterated. The dull spotted
plumage of the starling in autumn is so different from the
metallic gloss of its spring plumage
that birds in this phase are often
not recognised by eyes that know
them when they are busy with their
young. The brilliance of the cock
chaffinch's varied colours as spring
approaches makes it a far finer bird
than in autumn ; and there is an
increase of freshness and bright-
ness in the markings even of such modestly dressed
species as the hedge-sparrow and coot. The change
extends in some cases from the feathers to the hornier
and fleshier parts ; the grotesque striped sheath which

'WJ.'r* • ^

SPARROW WITH BLACK BIB

302 AUTUMN AND WINTER

swells the puffin's beak in the breeding-season vanishes
after the moult, together with the wattle-like protuberances
round the eye, and the rough red skin of the face. In all
their typical cases, the dress in spring and early summer is
more brilliant and elaborate than the winter plumage. In
many animals there is a similar, though less marked, fading
of summer hues as winter comes in. The winter coat of
deer, hares, polecats and martens, and several kinds of mice

f«MME^

wim t er.

and voles, loses the reddish or tawny hues of summer and
becomes a duller dun or grey.

Many of the brightest colours and most elaborate orna-
ments of birds are special accompaniments of the nesting-
season, and disappear in the idle months of autumn and
winter. They are usually explained as being the results of
sexual selection, and as having been produced by perpetual
breeding from the stocks which most pleased the eyes of the
hen birds. In winter, when courtship loses its importance,
protective adaptation to some extent takes its place in con-
trolling the colours of birds' plumage and animals' pelts.

In Britain we have no Polar bears or white snow-foxes
to help make up a really representative Arctic fauna ; but
the summits of some of the highest Scottish mountains still

WINTER DRESS 303

provide a breeding-place for the ptarmigan. Formerly the
ptarmigan bred on the mountains of the Lake District, and
probably also in Wales. In its summer plumage it has
a considerable admixture of white, which blends with its
mottled browns and greys so as to be very protective among
the last snow-patches or the white bleached stones which the
thawing snow leaves bare. In winter the bird turns com-
pletely white, except for its short black tail-feathers, and a
small black eye-stripe in the cock. Its general appearance
can be well seen in the so-called ptarmigan sold at the
poulterers' ; but the great majority of these birds are actually
willow-grouse or ' rype ' in winter plumage, and are imported
from Scandinavia and northern Russia. They are larger
than true ptarmigan, and the cocks have not the black eye-
stripe. These willow-grouse are the nearest representa-
tive abroad to our own red grouse — the only bird peculiar
to Britain, unless we choose to regard the St. Kilda variety
of wren as a true species. It is another pretty illustration
of the working of the British climate that the red grouse does
not turn white in winter, though the willow-grouse does.
The common ptarmigan is also found in Norway, but haunts
higher ground, and is a good deal scarcer, just as it is out-
numbered by the red grouse here.

Last of our little group of the white Arctic birds and
beasts comes the snow-bunting. It is rather an imperfect
specimen of the group, for its winter plumage is not pure
white ; but in its haunts and habits it is a true bird of the
snow-wastes. It breeds on the bleached, stony summits of
the highest Scottish mountains with the ptarmigan, and also
in the Shetlands. Its summer haunts extend far north to
Greenland. It arrives in England at irregular intervals in
considerable autumn and winter flocks, sometimes inter-
mingled with other species, and generally seen near the

304 AUTUMN AND WINTER

north and east coasts. At this season it varies a great
deal in appearance ; some young birds have few or no white
markings, while the amount of white in older specimens
largely depends on their age and sex. The hens are less
purely marked than the cocks ; but there is enough white
on the wings, head, and breast of most of the birds in a
flock to make them very conspicuous as they flit about the
marshes or winter cornfields. There seems nothing definitely
protective about their splashed plumage when they feed on
ground clear of snow, as they often find it in their winter
haunts. Even in a snow-covered landscape the large admix-
ture of reddish and greyish-brown feathers on the back and
wings prevents them from blending as completely with their
surroundings as the ptarmigan or mountain hare. Nor is
the protection apparently more complete in summer plumage.
Then the brownish mantle turns to jet-black in the cock,
and greyish-black in the hen, by the complete or partial
wearing off of the brown tips to the feathers. A Norwegian
naturalist describes the bold black-and-white plumage of the
cock as forming a striking contrast to the snowfields and
moorlands which it haunts ; and the pattern of the hen is
almost equally distinct. Although there is an obvious
similarity between the snow-buntings' white-splashed plumage
and the snowy landscapes which they chiefly haunt, the like-
ness has stopped far short of the close imitation seen in the
case of the ptarmigan or mountain hare.

The explanation of this degree of imitation seems partly
to be found in the snow-bunting's nesting habits. It builds
in cliffs and holes among stones ; and in these comparatively
sheltered situations the hen bird does not need to imitate
her surroundings so closely as the hen pheasant or wild duck
on their open nests among dry brown leaves and herbage.
A clue to the protective nature of many strongly contrasted

* o

i

WINTER DRESS 305

markings is supplied by the small black spots or patches in
the white coats of all this group of Arctic birds and beasts.
The ermine has its black tail-tuft, the mountain hare its
black ear-tips, and the ptarmigan its black tail-feathers and
eye-stripe. In every case there is some definite mark of
contrast to the general design. Patches of this kind are
sometimes explained as recognition marks, enabling one
bird or animal of a brood to catch sight of its companion
and follow it when hastily changing ground. But if it served
to make its wearer more conspicuous, it would be more likely
to endanger it than assist it. It seems more likely that the
real effect of these contrasted markings is to conceal the
whole outline of the bird or animal by concentrating the
attention upon one particular spot. In looking at a bird
sitting in an open nest, such as a nightjar or pheasant, the
eye is often caught by some particular spot or bar in the
plumage without realising that it is part of a living creature.
It looks like a stick or shadow or dry leaf; and when the
attention is localised in this way, it is less likely to recognise
the bird's complete outline. The same effect can often be
seen in a photograph. It is the same with large and
boldly contrasted markings as with the mottled plumage of
the pheasant. A sheldrake is an extremely conspicuous
bird as one sees it on an aviary pond ; but the eye can
easily miss it a hundred and fifty yards away on the mud-
banks or the water. The white parts in its plumage blend
with the reflected light on the mud or water, and the darker
patches are dispersed and suggest nothing like a bird. The
black and white markings of the ptarmigan and its com-
panions of the snow fields probably have a similar effect.
In most cases the small black marks are situated at or near
some extremity ; when they catch an enemy's eye on the
snow they would tend to prevent it from getting a general

0,922) 39

306

AUTUMN AND WINTER

impression of the whole form. The ermine's tuft or hare's
ear-tip would appear like any dark stain or surface shadow
on the snow ; and the rest of the white form would blend
indistinguishably with its surroundings. In the case of the
snow-bunting the outline would be broken up in the same
way, though the dark patch of the bird's back might be more
noticeable. Though conspicuous when flying, its pied mark-
ings would hide it efficiently when at rest ; and no protection
pattern can do much to conceal a bird or animal when it runs
or flies.

FIELDFARES

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD

(i) By Land

It Is a pretty belief of the country people, and It is general,
that many berries mean a hard winter. Such a thing is not
impossible. It could be that weather of the sort to produce
much fruit is a cause of other weather that includes frost ;
but there is no evidence for the truth of the belief. One
year of astounding berry weather In this century was
followed by a winter of quite unusual mildness. As often
with country people, inherent teleology has been stronger
than observation. The truth is that in England the harvest
of berries is always large ; and often lasts on until every
fear is gone of the dearth that goes with heavy frost.
But however open the winter, the favourite berries are
always cleared off, and generally there comes a day when
hunger or laziness compels an attack on the more bitter fruit.
Every winter within the writer's experience a certain clump
of holly bushes has been attacked and cleared of berries by
a sudden onslaught in January. Several trees of the clump
are female hollies, and thanks to their juxtaposition to the
males they usually bear heavily. The groups of coral
berries stand out very clearly from the metallic leaves, so
clearly indeed that emissaries from Covent Garden, who now
range the country at a radius of a hundred miles from

3o8 AUTUMN AND WINTER

London collecting for the Christmas market, see them from
afar and beg leave to purchase. But the berries are not
designed for Covent Garden.

In the early winter not a single berry is touched, so far
as one can see. Perhaps now and again a blackbird picks
one off — a probability enhanced by the discovery of holly
seedlings in one of the blackbird's favourite haunts. But
the cardinal harvest remains apparently intact till a particular
day. It is then attacked furiously by the fieldfares, and the
whole cleared off in a day or two. It is difficult to determine
the reasons of the sudden attacks. No doubt the holly-berry
is bitter as compared with the hip, which is therefore
preferred before it. But whether the birds are forced by
necessity to take the less savoury food, or whether they wait
till the berries are matured is another question. All the wild
berries are softened and sweetened by frost and much
weather. At Christmas the holly-berries are hard and shiny.
After a week's good frost they mature, like celery, and the
first birds to fall upon them are the congregated fieldfares,
which travel further than our native birds in quest of food,
and are much more dependent on berries.

All the thrush tribe are great berry-eaters ; but the thrush
itself is much more carnivorous than missel-thrushes,
blackbirds and fieldfares. In fields where the May bushes
are frequent you may almost catch blackbirds with your
hands, so greedy are they for the hips. The time is a
perfect one for watching the birds ; you have only to stand
still against the trunk or series of trunks of some thorn and
watch. If it is very cold the fieldfares will crowd on the
bush over your head, now and again dropping to the ground
almost at your feet to pick up fallen fruit. Missel-thrushes
prefer above all other food the berries of the yew or one of
its varieties. Any one who plants a Japanese yew in his

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD 309

garden may make quite sure of attracting the missel-thrushes.
They make for the fruit more greedily than a tit for a cocoa-
nut. The tree is a peculiarly difficult tree to perch upon,
and in their greed they work noisily and clumsily. The
only way they can pluck the berry is by fluttering violently
opposite it, and now and again steadying themselves with
their claws, but never perching. The difficulty is almost as
great to them as to starlings which have been seen
imitating the gulls in their art of picking food from the
surface of the water. As they catch each berry they almost
tumble down to the foot of the bush in their hurry to devour
this most delicious food, as sweet to the human palate as to
the birds. It is a lesson in aeronautics to watch the extreme
difficulty experienced by the bird in flying straight upwards.
The wings move at a frantic pace, and the whole effect is
strangely laborious ; but the greed for the berry is too great
to allow the bird a thought of flying even a few yards off the
tree.

Naturalists have not very closely studied the feeding habits
of our birds, or indeed other animals in winter, except in
cases where they have some very apparent effect on cultivated
crops. The Board of Agriculture itself has come forward to
impress upon the community that the plover is the best of
the farmer's friends, and that the starling is very little less
useful. The crops of thousands of unfortunate pigeons have
been examined ; and though it has been proved against them
that they will eat their fill of clover and succulent green stuff,
they also swallow a good number of the bulbous buttercup
roots and arrest the spread of most pernicious weeds. The
Hungarian Government, through its well-equipped bird
department, has justified the rook, that valiant destroyer of
the click beetle, but confessed that when the numbers grow
excessive the birds may degenerate, just as children in our

310 AUTUMN AND WINTER

slums develop a taste for pickles. Indeed, birds very rapidly
change their feeding habits if there is pressure. They will
imitate, too, an individual who may show some morbid taste.
Little colonies of rooks, as of brown squirrels, may turn into
eaters of carrion.

It is curious that more is not known of the food of birds
since classification began on the lines of the dietary. For as
birds feed, so are their beaks shaped ; nor is there any part
of the bird which has been so affected by locality and habit.
Compare the spillikin beak of the wren with the pearl pincers
of the hawfinch, or the aquiline hawk with the rook, or the

broad-based mouth of the nightjar with the awl of the wood-
pecker. In all these, and yet more clearly in the snipe and
avocet, you could infer the feeding habits a priori. But the
knowledge lacks precision as the aviculturists or keepers of
captive birds have realised. Few field observers care to be
aviculturists, but they are inferior to the keeper of caged
birds in this department of knowledge.

We may be sure that the country would be overrun with
certain weeds if many birds did not live principally on seeds.
A type of the insect feeder is the goldfinch ; and once again,
after the lovely bird has nearly vanished, we begin to see
their flocks swarming among the thistles. They become
again part of the autumn landscape. Less conspicuously,
but as surely, the other finches, the buntings, and our one
warbler, the hedge-sparrow, are at work in thinning the

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD 311

myriad seeds that are to be found in every single square inch
of earth of open country. Other animals save their lives by
reducing vitality. But birds, though they store fat within
their bodies, and can thus bear
some temporary starvation, must
live the active life though the
ground is iron with frost or
blanketed with snow.

Among the birds that suffer
most from want of winter food
are partridges, though their case
is seldom if ever quoted. All game

preservers feed their pheasants, spending often unheard of
sums in this way ; and of course the artificial multiplication
of these wild fowl makes this quite necessary. But com-
paratively few pay this attention to the partridges, which
deserve it more since they do little if any harm, while

the pheasants do much.
The partridge is essen-
tially the bird of culti-
vated fields : the better
the farming, the more
the birds, it is said.

The stubbles are
their feeding-ground, the
grasses their sleeping-
place, the south side of
the hedgerows their
siesta couch, the dust
of the roads their bath. When the stubbles are well
gleaned and birds plentiful, partridges begin to suffer
seriously towards the end of January. The theory is a
personal one ; but the dogma may be broached that scatter-

3i2 AUTUMN AND WINTER

ing food for partridges through January, when the spring
hunger begins, would do more to multiply the stock than
many of the troublesome and expensive breeding systems.
The partridge is a very heavy bird. It does not demand
quite so much sustenance as the woodcock, which will eat
its own weight of food in twenty-four hours ; but it needs
much food and has a wonderful instinct for its discovery.
Not even a green woodpecker has a finer taste in ants and
their grubs. In a district almost denuded of partridges by
several wet Junes one field was found packed with birds,
the day after a number of ant-hills had been cut open ; and

,

GREATER SPOTTED WOOD-
PECKER

the birds remained clearing up the relics for many weeks.
It is an odd fact, established by some very thorough investiga-
tions, that partridges living on chalk land are distinctly bigger
and stronger on the wing than others.

The bird that, if one may say so, ought to suffer more
than most others, but does suffer less, is the sparrow. It is
essentially a grain eater. It does not care for fruit, and
only eats live things during one of the spring months, but it
is saved by its affection for the haunts of men and by the
stackyards, where there is always grain. In the yards it
is always associated with finches. Any one who likes to
conceal himself in loose straw can watch the finches from a
few yards or even feet ; and if there were more stackyard

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD

3i3

observations, there would be less written of the exceeding
scarcity of certain birds. In Hertfordshire, for example, the
brambling or mountain finch is usually common every winter.
Large flocks appear in the fields now and then, but there
are some specimens in the stackyards every year. Haw-
finches, too, are common. Indeed, every finch is common,

the goldfinch and especially the bullfinch ; and it goes
without saying that greenfinches swarm. But none of them

except the greenfinch have the sparrow's fondness for
human houses.

The most pleasing of all birds to watch in winter time
is the jenny wren, though many people who enjoy their tits
and robins immensely seem to forget all about it. The
little things are even fonder of houses than sparrows or
robins. With the slightest encouragement they will come
into the warm rooms whenever the weather is severe, and
they rejoice especially in a greenhouse. They creep in and
about a honeysuckle on the wall, greenhouse plants, or the

(1.922)

40

314 AUTUMN AND WINTER

base of a hedge, very much like mice, quick, quiet and busy.
At every step or two of their running about they peck at
the branches or plants, finding food quite invisible to our
eyes. The little black eyes and the beautifully fine
beak, pointed as an etching pen, discover and seize what
no other bird cares about ; and this form of food exists
even in the hardest weather. If any twig is carefully
studied with a huge magnifying glass you can find pieces
of dead insects and animalculae, disjecta membra of incom-
parable minuteness, caught in the roughness, the crevasses
of the bark, or stuck in the oozy resin of the fir twigs. The
number of dead remnants of creatures is probably much
greater in any glass-house, and the fact will account for the
wren's noted preference for this winter feeding-ground.
And the wren is prettier than any of the greenhouse plants.
The delicate browns and greys of the bird outdo in comeli-
ness the flame of the climbing geranium, through which it
threads its dainty course. The black eye has a glint
beyond the eye of the flower ; and the sudden energy of its
bouts of song in wintry weather have the impetus of a
Shelley lyric

Robins save themselves as sparrows do; but their case
is worse. Above all other birds they are flesh feeders.
Their courage and energy are the courage and energy that,
as some philosophers consider, are a consequence of a flesh
diet. Insects and grubs and worms are harder to come by
even than grain, when winter lies heavy on the land. So
it comes about that each robin absolutely demands an area
to himself. He will not permit any other robin, even his
own child or parent, within that area ; such is the stark law
of self-preservation. It is therefore quite difficult, however
thorough the supply of food, to attract to your window more
than a robin or two, while as many tits will come as you find

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD 315

supplies for. Of all the birds that fly the robin is perhaps
the most solitary.

The least solitary are the starlings, whose vast throngs,
shifting the light as they manoeuvre this way and that, are
one of the most familiar of winter sights. It is always laid
down as a maxim that birds congregate and mass for the
sake of food-supplies. It is true enough that partridges
pack most in years when food is scarcest ; but it is difficult
to understand why each bird finds it easier to discover food
when he is one of a great pack. Starlings and larks, which
cover our fields in winter, have rather changed their feeding
habits since they became so numerous. You may see fields
in Norfolk where the starlings have fairly devoured the
whole crop of wheat. They scratch at the foot of the blade
and bite it off about a quarter of an inch below the top of
the bleached part. Where birds, taken with a fancy for
this unlikely food, have descended in a harpy spirit, farmers
have been forced to sow the field over again. So here and
there, walking over the winter fields, one may find patches
scrabbled over as though a hen had been scratching, and
the wheat over the patch looking a rather melancholy
spectacle. It finally recovers to some extent, but it is not
a sight that helps the farmer to appreciate his birds. The
offender in this manner is always the lark, whose numbers
after the winter migration are portentous. But both birds,
especially the starling, are, like most other birds, notable
benefactors. What they prefer to eat are the grubs that
live at the bases of the plants. They are scavengers and
sterilisers, a potent ally, except when the numbers grow
excessive. Both the starlings and larks suffer excessively
in very hard weather ; and multiply exceedingly after a
course of open winters.

316

AUTUMN AND WINTER

(2) By the Sea

Few birds have more difficulty in getting food than the
gulls. They seem to have no proper home. The black-
headed gulls, the species chiefly frequenting London, cannot
get a living at sea, which is their proper home ; and they
do not seem particularly well fitted for life on land. They
flock to the ploughs as soon as harvest is over, tumbling
over one another in their greed, and often fluttering and
'scrabbling' within a yard or two of the ploughman's back.

'the gulls press and scramble close behind the plough'

They come yearly in greater numbers to the river-side towns,
and though one regards them by the sea as the wildest of
birds, expressing wildness in the strange cry that seems
taken from the tempest, they are grown so tame that they
will feed from the hand and can be captured — experlo crede —
by the hand. One may say that the whole tribe of gulls are
in a manner parasite. The skua gull, of course, largely lives
by stealing, by robbing other birds of the fish they have
caught, just as in America the eagle will rob the fish hawk.
The greater black-backed gull is a murderer. In the realm
of nature it is seldom if ever that a more brutal sight is
vouchsafed than this gull attacking a laggard or a wounded
duck. There is savagery in the impetus of the onset. The
beak is driven as if it were a sword into the screaming bird,

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD 317

and the feast is begun before the bird is dead. Round the
harbours every variety of gull is busy picking up any refuse ;
and perhaps after all the proper work of the gull in the
economy of things is to scavenge, to eat up scraps, even to
play the vulture. For this task they are made omnivorous.
They swallow the bread we give them on London embank-
ments as eagerly as they pick garbage on the river.

But the gulls, a various crowd of great multitude, are best
seen at their work of scavenging along the coast. It is the
great feeding-ground of winter, and its importance may best
be realised when the great shoals of fish begin to approach
the land, especially when, late in autumn, there come into east
coast waters huge shoals of silvery herrings, and sea-going
fishermen begin the harvest of the sea. It is a pleasant
sight when the day is bright to see the long processions of
sturdy steam luggers passing in and out the harbour.
Those with catches push their way vigorously towards the
port. Others just away from the wharves and quaysides,
slushed down and freshly cleared of fish scales and the
bloody drip of yesterday's catch, race each other to the
herring grounds, with nets ready to be shot for the night's
fishing.

On just such days as these the waves fling upon the strand
queer things which have dropped from the nets, besides
strange creatures churned up from the depths. Above the
waters flocks of gulls scan with keen yellow eye the flotsam
flung from wave to wave. These welcome morsels may be
broken fishes, or sea anemones ripped from weed-grown
wreckage sunk in the shallows hard by some treacherous
sandbank. Often the larger gulls snatch up from the sea
the bedraggled carcase of some small drowned migrant bird
— a skylark or a chaffinch, overcome by an adverse wind,
or starling, maimed by striking a lightship's lantern. The

318 AUTUMN AND WINTER

gulls are of many varieties : the dark mantled greater black-
backed gull, the blue-legged common gull, the smaller black-
head, distinguished now only by two dark ear spots, and by
its bill and legs of crimson, and the herring gull, with pale
blue back and pinky feet. But young birds of the year, of
the larger species, clad in freckled greys, muster up in vastly
larger numbers.

There is often much of interest to be noted at the tide-
mark. You may find the long ribbon-like streamers of the
sea-tangle, the olive-brown fronds of the serrated wrack, the
bladdered fucus and the oar weed — this last often attached
to a valve of the horse mussel ; whilst star fishes, the weed-
like corallines and zoophites, lumps of the egg-cases of the
whelk and feebly struggling pear-crabs, with rarer and even
more interesting products of the sea, go to swell this ' margin
of all things vile.' Sometimes the scouring underwash lays
bare the delicately brown shells of the radiated trough shell,
the long fingerlike razor valves, and hermit crabs robed in
discarded shells of whelk, casting them up with the rest to
the delight of the sea birds. Amongst the debris one often
finds numbers of herrings, the more or less putrid carcases of
the largest fish, whose weight caused them to drop back from
the meshes of the nets. With them dull-eyed mackerel,
victims also of the nets, and, maybe, weevers, and here and
there a whiting, and among them the picked or spiked dog-
fishes. Often we find the wicked grey eye of this little
shark still glistening. It is an interesting experiment to
dissect them. As often as not you may turn out from a
sea-dog's stomach, chestnut-shaped pieces of herring — always
of the largest and best, the fisherfolk will tell you — which
they had bitten from the dead fishes as they hung sus-
pended in the vertical nets.

That large-eyed fish, the scad, or horse mackerel, often

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD 319

as fresh as if but just dead, may be found stranded on the
shore. Neither fisherfolk nor landfolk in East Anglia seem
to care for him, though he is attractive to the eye, with
cuirass-like scales adorning his lateral line, and with his
great bright eyes. But the hooded crow does not despise
him. Planting a big black foot upon the stranded fish, he
gouges out first one eye, and then the other, and as deftly
disembowels it. A few pieces are snatched from the back,
when a fellow-bird calls to its companion. Away flies the
crow to help a comrade who has just discovered a cast up
baby porpoise, another derelict from the fishers' nets. At
times the crows find food in plenty, for nature is cruel as
well as kindly, and the bird is by no means dainty. When
the night has been boisterous, and poor little migrants have
been beaten into the sea, next morning's tide, or a tide or
two after, sees their carcases flung on the sands : larks,
blackbirds, thrushes, linnets and many others, may be among
them. Even rooks so perish. It is quite a common thing
in late autumn to find the breast bones of various birds
clean picked a few hours after some sea-storm. One has
found the gull and the gannet, and many a guillemot,
razorbill, and little auk's skeleton entirely fleshless, with
perhaps only the wings intact, and when they are hard
pressed by hunger the crows have been again at these sorry
remnants, striping off the tougher muscles of the wings that
they had rejected. At a pinch the candle ends and dead
rats and mice from the sewers are greedily devoured, nor
will the hungry tribe despise a stranded turnip or a broken
cocoanut, soft and putrid though they be by long sub-
mersion.

When the east wind long continues, and the sea-fishes
leave the shallows for deeper waters, the commoner auks,
the guillemot and razorbill, fare badly. These birds revel in

320 AUTUMN AND WINTER

the herring shoals far out at sea, and with gannets that
plunge, and cormorants and shags that dive, they share the
fishing-grounds with the fisherfolks and the gulls. The
gannets may need ten fishes a day, the cormorants as many,
and the auks can safely do with half a dozen. The gulls
by thousands harass the shoals, unable to dive, depending
more upon the fishes gilled high up in the drifting nets, to
the disgust of the rightful owners. Often these various birds
gill themselves in the nets and are drowned. But when the
herrings swim low, the guillemots especially suffer sadly ;

and, flung from wave to wave, after becoming wearied out
by constant diving, and by plunging through the rollers, by
and by the breakers cast them dead or dying on the beach.
It is no uncommon thing for the rambler on the shore to
find a guillemot bunched up as if sleeping just above the
margin of the highest wave, and, on stooping to pick it up,
to find it dead and stiffened. More rarely the razorbill
suffers with it. Life is harder for the birds of the sea, though
the sea is unfrozen, than the birds of the land. For by the
sea there is always the winter of heavy winds. But not only
sea birds come for a space to find food by the sea shore.

Among the least restful flocks are scaups, wigeon, tufted
ducks, and shelducks. The black-plumaged scoter, the
' mussel duck ' of the east coast fowler, hardy and vigorous

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD

321

of wing and foot, seems not to heed so much the fury of the
elements. Its home is on the sea, its food abundant in the
quieter deeps below : it is an excellent diver, and searches
diligently for the fat, brittle-shelled trough-shell and the
smaller mussels, nor are small crabs and kindred crustaceans
despised by them.

Running nimbly along the moistened sands various shore
birds hunt for such fragmentary or minuter forms as the
larger birds reject. Dunlins trot in zig-zag fashion up and
down the wet
sands. Here
they snap up
small crusta-
ceans : — gam-
mams, hyperia,
corophium, and
crangon, and
tiny fragments
of other animal
bodies.

Occasionally

the purple sandpiper may be met with : preferring rocky
beaches and the neighbourhood of fucus-decorated piles
and boulders, they will search the flattened stretches of
sands, and, being daring, will run down a retreating
wave-wash, thigh deep, in order to snatch up any tempt-
ing morsel. One seldom sees two together, less often
a trio of this solitary species. Knots tamely prick about
among the weeds and shingle, hoping for sand-hoppers.
Ringed plovers in scattered companies search the drier
stretches above the tide-mark, and occasionally a parcel of
grey plovers, now clad in wintry vests of white, drop in to
share the findings of the smaller birds.

11.922) 4*

THE PURPLE SANDPIPER . . . WILL RUN DOWN A
RETREATING WAVE-WASH, THIGH DEEP

322 AUTUMN AND WINTER

On the shingle patches high above the highest wave-sweep
of the spring tides flocks of snow buntings, tinkling their
bell-like note as they flit from spot to spot, explore the
brown sands. Their quest is the buried and unburied seeds
of the dune-plants that the wind and the drift sand play hide-
and-seek with, — the seeds of maram and sand-sedge and
the low-growing vegetation that bloomed and seeded last
autumn, and dispersed, leaving an earnest of vegetation for
the spring to follow. The naturalist and the bird-catcher

who lays his nets hard by the sand dunes recognise
occasionally among their flocks the hardy Lapland bunting,
the snow-bird, and the shore-lark. Happily these bird-
catchers, the greatest of all enemies of our rarer birds, are
beginning to decrease. Then there are grey linnets trooping
southwards, resting and feeding as they travel, twites and
redpoles — the lesser and the mealy — appearing in twittering,
dancing flocks, keeping to the coastline, having arrived,
perhaps but a day or two since, on the Norfolk coast. In
January 1895 a later migration sped them in astonishing
numbers before a spell of exceedingly wintry weather. It is
horrible to record that one bird-catcher netted 70, 130, 220,
330 linnets in four successive days. When bad weather set

THE STRUGGLE WITH COLD

323

in in the winter 1 900-1 another netter captured 140 siskins
one morning before breakfast on a decayed lettuce patch

GREY PLOVERS ON MIGRATION

within rifle shot of the sea. It is on this coast that we most
need the efforts of the Royal Bird Protection Society.

WOOD-PIGEONS

BIRDS IN LONDON

Bird life in towns is proportionately much richer in winter
than in summer. Few spots in towns can provide even the
bolder and hardier species of birds with the privacy which
they require at the nesting-season, or a sufficient supply of
insect food for their young. On the other hand, towns in
winter are warmer than the open country, and are better
provided with many ki,nds of food. The scraps thrown out
from houses, whether accidentally or in deliberate charity to
the birds, are naturally more abundant ; and even in days
when motor traffic is so largely ousting the horse there is still
a good deal of corn to be picked up by pigeons and hard-
billed birds of the finch tribe in mews and stableyards and
about cab-ranks.

The larger the town, the greater is the difference in the
richness of bird life at the different seasons ; and it is greatest
of all in London. There, for the last twenty years, the
winter birds have increased even more remarkably than the
summer birds have diminished. As the suburbs spread
annually wider and wider, the summer migrants seem less
and less inclined to penetrate their murky barrier into the
parks and gardens of the centre ; and for a long time past
the trees and undergrowth in their old haunts have been

BIRDS IN LONDON 325

growing sicklier and more decayed. It is doubtful, for
example, whether the spotted flycatcher has nested in Hyde
Park or Kensington Gardens for some years past, though
it did so until quite recently ; and the same process of dimin-
ution or disappearance is noticeable in the case of the summer
migrants almost everywhere in the metropolitan area. Birds
which visit London in winter, on the other hand, have grown
far more numerous ; and in some cases they are not only
winter visitors, but residents all the year round. The regular
arrival of large flocks of black-headed gulls in autumn dates
from the great frost of 1895; and the increase of wood-
pigeons, with the remarkable change in their habits which
town life produces, has been more and more noticeable
during the same period. So it comes about that in London
the ordinary contrast between the seasons is precisely
inverted. Londoners see the first gulls return to the river
in autumn with the same sense of anticipative pleasure that
countrymen feel when they see the first swallow in spring.
The gulls begin to return to London in considerable numbers
about the third week in October, though a few immature or
unmated birds may be seen as stragglers in August, or even
earlier. Their date of migration to their winter home is thus
about a week later than that of the swallow and many other
summer migrants ; but it is part of the same great movement.
By November they have fairly settled down for the winter ;
and they depart about the third week in March, or a little
earlier in a very open season, leaving a few stragglers behind
them. Their numbers vary a good deal according to the
weather ; after hard frosts or violent gales, the flocks
wheeling and screaming at the parapet of the Thames
Embankment are twice as numerous, and twice as hungry,
as in spells of calm. They feed to a great extent on what
they can find on the surface of the river and its foreshores,

326

AUTUMN AND WINTER

and on the lakes in the various parks. But their skill in
catching bread or fish thrown to them in mid-air makes them
tavourite pets with Londoners ; and a flock of gulls wheeling
with harsh screams in an endless circle past a figure on the
wet grey embankment is one of the most characteristic
pictures of outdoor London life. They will alight a moment
on the parapet with wary eyes, and carry away a crust to
consume as they float on the stream ; and sometimes they
will even feed from the hand.

Black-headed gulls make up the vast majority of the
birds of their tribe which visit London. Occasionally the

much larger herring gull is seen floating warily in mid-stream,
or a common gull flits among the barges on the river ; but
neither, so far as we have seen, is ever confident enough to
come and catch food thrown from the Embankment, far less to
take it from human hands. Herring gulls in the adult plumage
of soft grey and white are much scarcer on the Thames than
young birds in mottled suits of grey and brown. Among
the black-headed gulls there are always a large proportion
of birds in similar mottled plumage ; and it is not until the
early weeks of the new year that the old birds gradually
assume the sepia mask of their spring plumage which gives
them their commonest name. Earlier in the season they
have only two faint dark bars on the head, one across the

BIRDS IN LONDON 327

orifices of the ears, and one further forward. The dark
patch is confined to the front part of the head, and does not
extend over the crown to the nape of the neck, as is the
case with the jet-black caps of terns. Black-headed gulls
are also called laughing gulls, from the resemblance of their
repeated cries to sharp laughter when they grow violently
excited at any disturbance of their nesting colonies, or when
they are being fed on the Embankment. All the gulls are
eager and aggressive birds ; but only the black-headed gulls
have so far adapted themselves with confidence to London
life. Their aggressiveness is very conspicuously displayed
towards the ducks in St. James's Park. When food is thrown
from the bridge to the mixed flock of waterfowl beneath,
the gulls hover with threatening cries above the swimming
pochard and wigeon, and often force them to drop what they
have secured. Beneath the water the diving ducks are their
masters ; but we have seen a tufted duck bring up sprat
after sprat from the shallow bottom of the lake, only to be
robbed of them by the gulls as soon as it appeared on the
surface. The gulls play pirate with the ducks' lawful gains,
much like Arctic skuas with the earnings of other gulls. It is
surprising to see the ducks victimised so easily by smaller
and lighter birds ; but the gulls win by sheer force of courage,
though it is courage in an unamiable shape. The courage
and intelligence displayed by the black-headed gulls in
London is only one form of the vitality and adaptiveness
which characterises their whole family. Gulls are a rising
race; in many parts of the country various species are
multiplying greatly under the protection of the Acts, extend-
ing their range to districts where they were formerly unknown,
and developing new and mischievous tastes in diet.

In all these respects the wood-pigeon is the gull's counter-
part on dry land. Wood-pigeons also have enormously

328 AUTUMN AND WINTER

multiplied, have followed the spread of plantation into new
districts, have become a positive curse to the farmer, and
have added themselves as a new and delightful feature to
London life. London has had its wild house-pigeons
probably from time immemorial ; Stowe, the Elizabethan
antiquary, shows us how they were household words in his
day by his story of how the boys of St. Anthony's Hospital
used to call ' Paul's pigeons ' after the St. Paul's boys in the
street They would respond with a cry of 'Anthony pigs,'
and then both sides naturally fell to fighting. But the white-
necked, portly London wood-pigeon is a colonist of much
more modern date. London wood-pigeons are believed all
to be descended from a few pairs turned out in the grounds
of Buckingham Palace by the late King when Prince of
Wales. In the country they are among the wariest of birds ;
in London they show the same intelligence by presuming to
an almost ludicrous extent on man's friendliness. Swollen
to an enormous size by inactivity and good living, they will
scarcely step out of the way of the nursemaids' perambulators
in the parks. Yet they have not lost their cunning, when
it is needed. We have watched a half-grown Persian cat
stalking a large and placid wood-pigeon in a little garden
abutting on one of the London parks, until it seemed as if
the cat's fierce concentration must win its prize, and the
pigeon's indifference prove fatal ; yet just at the right moment,
with one more sidelong glance of the complacent eyes, the
bird flapped gently over the fence, and the cat was left
petrified and glaring.

It is remarkable how the distinction in the natural habits
of the two kinds of common London pigeons still persists
in spite of the great change in the birds' present life and
surroundings. The pigeons of St. Paul's and the Royal
Exchange and many other London buildings are descendants

BIRDS IN LONDON 329

of escaped house-pigeons, and thus ultimately of the wild
blue rock-dove, which still haunts some of the wildest cliffs
and caves on the coast and inland. They nest and roost,
accordingly, in the streets which are like deep ravines, and
on the tall buildings which recall the lofty cliffs. The roar
and flow of traffic far beneath them is curiously like the
movement and murmur of the sea, when heard and seen from
one of their lofty watch-towers. Wood-pigeons, on the other
hand, are seldom or never to be seen out of sight of a park
or garden, or at least of one of the trees which break the
line of so many London streets. House-pigeons feed more
freely in the parks and squares than wood-pigeons in the
streets ; but they never nest in trees, whereas wood-pigeons
have already so far modified their ancestral habits as to nest
now and then in a window-box on an upper floor, which is a
site more recalling a ledge on one of the rock-dove's cliffs.
Every group of London's half-wild house-pigeons recalls
Darwin's famous experiments with the many varieties of
their one species, by the diverse gradations of plumage
between the standard pattern of the fanciers and the original
wild stock with its characteristic dark wing-bars. The
perpetual tendency is to revert to the original type ; and if
it were not for perpetual new recruits of strange hues and
shapes from the pigeon-cotes, in a very few years the whole race
of London house-pigeons would become pure blue rocks again.
Grey wagtails are far less numerous than black-headed
gulls, but equally regular as winter visitors. Wagtails
are often badly named ; the name of yellow wagtail is
reserved for a summer migrant, and the name of grey
wagtail is given to a bird in which yellow is even more
conspicuous, while the common grey member of the family
is called the pied wagtail. Pied wagtails may be seen now
and then in the parks or along the river at most times of

(1.922) 1 42

330 AUTUMN AND WINTER

year, but especially at the two migration times, when they
sometimes appear in little flocks. Grey wagtails, with their
beautiful glint of sulphur yellow beneath the tail, are winter
birds in London and other parts of the south and east of
England, whither they almost all migrate in late summer
from the hill streams of the west and north, where they
breed. They may be seen along the Thames in London
from about the beginning of September to early March.

GREY WAGTAILS

Occasionally they are found resting in some City garden or
churchyard, or on some high ledge of a building in the middle
of the most densely overbuilt areas. Sometimes they appear
in pairs, even in the autumn and early winter months, when
birds' family ties appear loosest ; but usually we see single
birds scattered here and there along favourite reaches of the
river. One of their most frequented haunts is off the Chelsea
Embankment, where they can find rest on certain floating
timbers when the shore-line is submerged at high water. At
all states of the tide they can often be seen flirting their
yellow tails, or flitting with their sharp double call-note,

BIRDS IN LONDON 331

along the riverside at Chiswick Mall or Strand-on-the-Green.
Unable to rest on the water, like the gulls, they are less at
home on the river between Westminster and St. Paul's ; the
noise of the traffic and the absence of any convenient resting-
place at high water keeps them restless and timorous, and
they flit uneasily over the plane-trees and across the river
with an anxious cry. Often this familiar call first draws
attention to their slender forms as they waver across the
wide brown channel of the river. There is a strange contrast
between these London scenes and the shores of the mountain
torrents where they are familiar in the summer half of the
year.

Brown owls are chiefly winter visitors to the more central
parts of London, though one or two pairs may possibly still
remain to breed. They are sometimes heard in spring and
summer within a mile of St. Paul's ; but these may be unmated
birds. For many years in succession a large hollow elm in
the northern part of Kensington Gardens was tenanted every
winter by a brown owl, which arrived in autumn and left
again in spring. The ground beneath the tree was littered
with numerous undigested pellets, each of which contair^d
the bones and feathers of a sparrow neatly packed up. For
the last few seasons there has been no sign of this tree being
tenanted ; but owls are still often to be heard in Kensington
Gardens and Holland Park, and are occasionally seen perched
among the branches by day. Brown owls feed chiefly on
small birds, and thus find a plentiful source of subsistence in
the London sparrow-flocks ; but white or barn owls live
chiefly on mice and young rats, caught in the open, and are
therefore seldom seen or heard in the central parts of London,
though they are not very uncommon in the suburbs. The
peril of owls in the dark may be one reason why London
sparrows are fond of roosting in trees which are lit up all

332 AUTUMN AND WINTER

night long by the full glare of the street lamps. One such
roosting-place is in a group of three plane-trees on the little
plot called Knightsbridge Green, at the eastern end of the
Brompton Road. Here they assemble every night to sleep
in a situation which would effectually banish slumber from
birds less inured to city life. For many hours the full roar
of the traffic of one of the most crowded London thorough-
fares rises just beneath them ; and in winter, when the boughs
are bare, the arc-lights dot the pavement with the shadows
of the birds' clustered forms. Large flocks of sparrows also
roost in thick clumps of trees in some of the parks. Here
they find protection from marauding owls among the dense
boughs, as well as shelter from the cold in winter. The
chorus of harsh chirping with which they settle down for the
night is a peculiar sound at twilight in the parks, where the
comparative silence makes it most conspicuous.

Often the same roosting-place is frequented by a flock of
starlings ; and then the chirping of the sparrows is almost
drowned by the starlings' more strident cries. By day the
starling is far less conspicuous than the sparrow in central
London ; it principally feeds on the turf of the parks and
suburban fields, and has not the capacity of the sparrow for
picking up a living in any gutter or alley. But certain spots
in the middle of London have been chosen by starlings for
the site of their great nocturnal gatherings ; and their
assembly a little before sunset is a most remarkable feature of
London bird life. In October and early November, before the
leaves fall, one of their chief stations is among the planes of
the Temple ; but the most interesting sight of all is to watch
them alight on the capital of the Nelson Column in Trafalgar
Square. As dusk begins to fall, every few seconds flocks
and small parties of starlings come flying in high above the
house-tops to their lofty perch beneath Nelson's statue, chiefly

BIRDS IN LONDON 333

from some northerly quarter. Hundreds of birds vanish

among the carved foliage of the capital ; but only a small

number leave this cold and windy height, and seek a shelter

more in accordance with their usual habits in the thickets on

the island in St. James's Park, which is another of their

favourite roosting-places.

By the time that the sky (

is dark, and the glare of

lights rises from the streets

beneath, the movement of

the flocks has ceased ; and

to all appearance the great

majority of the birds spend

the night in this lofty

watch-tower.

Many people who know
birds well in the country
are astonished at the com-
monness of the carrion
crow in the whole London
area. It has an air of
wildness which seems to
make it unsuitable for
London life ; but in reality
its habits are better

adapted to life in towns and suburban market-gardens
where there is no game and few lambs or poultry, than to the
modern countryside. In many rural regions the carrion crow
is now practically extinct. These are the districts where
game-preserving is strictest. There is no such intelligent
and ruthless enemy of the eggs and young of most other
species of birds as the ' corbie ' ; and his habit of attacking
young or weakly lambs makes him as well hated by the

334 AUTUMN AND WINTER

shepherd as by the gamekeeper or the poultry-farmer. Both
the bird and its nest are conspicuous, and it is not difficult
to banish the species from any well-watched region. But in
London and its suburbs the carrion crow has few enemies ;
and his boding caw and lean sinewy form are familiar from
the centre of London to its furthest outskirts. True to its
name, the carrion crow chiefly feeds in London on the garbage
of ash-heaps and rubbish-tips in suburban wastes, and on the

dead animal matter which
it finds on the shores of
the river and the large
suburban reservoirs. It
will also steal eggs or kill
A young birds when it can.
ks^ The prevalence of the
carrion crow in London is
one reason of the diminu-
**-* ^BSgjjJ/ tion 0f its more peaceable

cousin, the rook, just as
carrion crow the diminution of crows

has led to the multiplica-
tion of rookeries. Though the rook sometimes develops
the carrion crow's marauding tricks, it is no match for
the crow in a family tussle ; and crows are dangerous
pests in the neighbourhood of any rookery. Rooks are now
very scarce in central London ; besides the small rookery
in Connaught Square, on the north side of Hyde Park,
which is only irregularly occupied, their only surviving
colony is the famous rookery in Gray's Inn. A few years
ago this was nearly wiped out by the raids of carrion crows,
and the rooks were only saved by the forcible expulsion of
the robbers. But crows incur little hostility elsewhere in
London ; they occasionally breed even in Kensington Gar-

BIRDS IN LONDON 335

dens, and often in the oaks and elms of suburban fields.
They are long-lived birds, so that their numbers are not
dependent on numerous families ; and it is probable that
they are recruited from time to time by refugees from the
country. Their snarling caw is a very familiar sound in all
parts of London, especially in early spring, when they wander
about the town in quest of attractive nesting-quarters. The
jackdaws which still frequent one corner of Kensington
Gardens are manifestly afraid of them ; and they are great
pests to the waterfowl which breed on the lakes in the parks.
But they are a bold and interesting feature of wild life in
London ; and their lean forms hunched on a tree-top bring
welcome associations of the lonely marsh and mountain to
many prosaic squares and dull riverside fields.

Missel-thrushes are common now in London in the same
weeks of early spring when the crows go cawing and wander-
ing from park to square. They have a regular habit of
settling close to houses for the nesting season, apparently for
the purpose of seeking protection from the crows. In the
country crows usually avoid the near neighbourhood of man ;
and the discovery that this rule does not apply to London is
very likely the reason why missel-thrushes seem never to
nest in the central parks and gardens, though they often
appear in them for a few days in early spring. They visit
Hyde Park from time to time, and almost outsing the song-
thrushes ; and at the end of March 1 909 a missel-thrush settled
for two or three days in Lincoln's Inn Fields, and sang so
loud and sweetly at dawn that wondering sleepers put out their
heads to listen. But the singer found no mate, and departed
for fields which were wider. Song-thrushes and blackbirds
are permanent residents in all the parks and many of the
larger London gardens, and sing with as much freedom as
the birds on any country lawn. Birds attached to a single

336 AUTUMN AND WINTER

spot generally sing earlier and more vigorously than their
wandering kindred ; they are free from the hardships and
distractions of a vagabond life, and pair and breed earlier in
spring. The song of the thrushes in December fills Hyde
Park with a sense of spring in spite of its grey fogs ; and they
are unusually musical in and about the Zoological Gardens,
where they can pick comfortably among the pens and shrub-
beries, and prosper on fragments of bun. Blackbirds are
heard in London in March more often in proportion to their
numbers than in the country. The plague of cats makes it
difficult for London thrushes and blackbirds to bring up a
brood in safety, but otherwise their life is a comfortable one.
Robins are bolder birds than thrushes and blackbirds ; but
they are less numerous in London owing to the scarcity of
secure nesting-places. They naturally build in open holes
on sloping banks, within a few feet of the ground ; and such
sites in London are perpetually exposed to the attacks both
of cats and rats. Robins are birds of woodland tastes,
for all their familiarity with man, and cannot make them-
selves at home among chimney-pots and paving-stones, as
the sparrows do. Hedge-sparrows are rather commoner than
robins in the London parks ; and this seems due to their
habit of nesting in thick bushes, which protect them better
from their four-footed enemies. From early autumn until
summer, the sweetly piercing song of the robin can be heard
sparingly in the more thickly grown portions of the London
parks, and in some of the gardens and squares ; but it is less
constant, especially from January onwards, than the shriller
and more laboured ditty of the hedge-sparrow. Chaffinches
are no more than occasional visitors to central London ;
though they are not uncommonly seen or heard among the
park trees, they are unlikely to be found in the same place
next day. Since they abound in almost every country district,

BIRDS IN LONDON 337

and thrive in high-'. j 1 h even the sparrows

in London.
But they are so fre? - : plumage and the

their movements and
::."".:: ■: Lrr.dcr.

grime. 7 the great and blue tits are

common in many small ^s well as in the parks.

Their sear; a them at home in a small plot,

n small holes in trees or

also among the
Is to feed
and grow attached to many
gardens in this The

see-saw call of the gre:.: I .:
and the blue
chime, are sure signs of s
in London gardens, and may
be expected ir. [annary or
early February be: : t buh i -

the song- thrush and
: . e little grey cole tit, with fa stripe

; less common in central London
than towards the outer fringe.

Besides the : - :t common visitors,

ers can be seen from time to
time ever. ir. the more central districts. The great oppor-
for seein_ ; in the early morning in the parks,

especially during the spring and autumn migrations. King-
fishers, sandpipt- I ars. reed warblers, and many other
(airly scarce or local species are frequently reported in this
-ington G As the
morning stream of workers begins to pour along the paths,
most birds grow scared and pass on, so that they are seldom

43

338

AUTUMN AND WINTER

to be seen later in the day. The moorhens and dabchicks
and mallard on the park waters are recruited on the spring
migration by wild birds, so that it is by this time hard to say
whether the park stocks should be regarded as wild or tame.
These three species have certainly a better title as wild birds
than the city house-pigeons ; and it seems likely that some of
the tufted ducks on park waters are wild birds from some of
the lakes and reservoirs where they are yearly growing more
numerous. Sheets of water are an attraction to most birds
on migration, from the food of all kinds usually to be found

RAZORBILLS

in, beside, and above them. In bitterly cold springs, large
parties of swallows and house-martins and sand-martins are
sometimes seen circling for flies above the Round Pond and
Serpentine, though it is to be feared that they find little to
feed on. The same species, and also swifts, hunt now and
then in wet and stormy Septembers along the plane-trees on
the Chelsea Embankment. But swifts and birds of the
swallow tribe are now only visitors, though not rare visitors,
to central London. House-martins clung for a long time to
nesting-haunts in a few of the airier streets, but have left
them for many years. We do not wake in London to hear
the screaming swifts betoken a sunny morning, as one does
under the purer skies of Paris, though they can sometimes
be seen in fine summer weather. But London gains many

BIRDS IN LONDON 339

unusual visitors from its position near the mouth of a wide
tidal river. When the north-westerly gales overfill the
North Sea and drive up the high tides in the Thames, there
is always a chance of finding some unusual wanderer among
the gulls between Lambeth and Blackfriars, within sight of
the trains rumbling in to Charing Cross. Last autumn a
flock of razorbills were watched by curious Londoners strug-
gling and diving in the tide, equally frightened of the noise
of the huge double-decked tramcars on the Embankment and
of the dark arch of Blackfriars Bridge, to which the strong
ebb was sweeping them. More recently, a dark sea-duck
was seen skimming straight and low up the river under
Westminster Bridge, and settling on the water in a quiet
spot just opposite the House of Lords. As far as could be
seen from the gardens further along the river-bank, it was
a female scoter. Close by a pair of mallard were quietly
paddling and preening themselves in the shallow water at
the mouth of one of the old buried rivers, which now flow
through culverts into the Thames. Such are some of the
unexpected windfalls among the wild birds of London ; and
they add the perpetual anticipation of novelty to the constant
interest of the life of the residents and regular visitors.

A DARK SKA-DUCK . . . FEMALE SCOTER

BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS1

Winter is much more like winter on the east than the west
of England, but only the natives appreciate it. Among the
many who loiter in summer among the placid lagoons or on
the reed-margined pathways of Broadland, few care to return
there when the winds and hailstorms of mid-winter play
havoc among acres of dead reeds and rushes. No one but
the naturalist and the wild-fowler then find excuse for haunting
the Broads, though the season is in most ways the best of
all. For the wild-fowl are many. They may be watched
bobbing up and down on the troubled waters, until only
narrow ' wakes,' kept open by the swans and the punts of the
Broadmen, are left between the ice-sheets approaching from
either shore. When the waters are coated with the ice, there
are mallard and teal and wigeon and many others to be seen
restlessly flitting from one Broad to another, to make at
length for the Salter estuaries and the open sea. In their
passing, the flocks pay a too heavy toll to the local sportsman,
whose bag will often contain a surprising variety of species.

In these rare winters of severe frosts, when the Broads are
locked in ice, there would be silence as profound as that of
the pine-woods, except for the ring of many skates. The
croak of the moorhen and the click of the coot is no longer
heard — the one has gone begging around the precincts of the

1 Most of the notes on Norfolk are contributed by Mr. A. H. Patterson.

BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS 341

farm premises, and the other betaken itself to the tidal
estuary, to feast upon the zostera, or sea-wrack, growing
luxuriantly upon the mud-flats, sharing it with the wigeon,
which so delights in it as to have given it the expressive
cognomen of ' wigeon grass.'

Often there are winters that the Broadmen call 'open,'
when for the briefest possible periods the Broads are covered
by the merest 'slub,' through which the punt goes crackling
and rasping her way ; while on average days the clouds drop
sleet or disperse an uncomfortable and persistent drizzle. On
these days the fowl are wilder and more alert : the pochard
warily feeds among the towy potamogeton, with sentinels
always on the alert against danger. Even the coots, tame
enough in summer days, are vigilant and suspicious, and
make for the reeds on the least alarm, although, somehow,
they seem to discriminate between the man with the gun and
the man who angles. The persevering pike-fisher, to whom
the wintry Broads are as delectable as his summer roach-
swims, inspires them with no disquietude.

A short winter day's pottering in Broadland, to the man
who can conquer a disinclination to face a drizzly rain and a
spiteful wind, is as full of incident as a spring day at its best.
One Broad is as wintry as another,and a curious likeness marks
them all. The sea-winds hustle over the sand-cliffs, sweeping
along the water whose margins are ill defined by sedges and
reeds and marshy stubble : swampy levels and tussocky
ronds, like South Sea atolls, push their way into the view :
and land and lagoon seem akin.

The low banks of some such river as the Thurne are bare
now of iris and pink willow-herb, and sweet-scented sedges :
the Broadman has left nothing but the stubble of the
'gladden.' There are many sterner attractions. A stunted
willow here and there breaks the level of the banks, and a

342 AUTUMN AND WINTER

laden wherry now and then passes along with its red-capped
wherryman shouting a greeting, or offering a comment on the
weather. At first perhaps, as you pass up the river, there is
little bird-life observable on the waters, an unhappy moorhen
croaks discontent from a ditch behind the banks, a hungry
gull or two silently pursue the bend of the river, hoping to
find something edible in the shape of a small dead bird or the
carcase of a tiny drowned mammal. A few meadow pipits
cheep mournfully as they take to erratic flight from the
herbage, and a flock of grey linnets rise from a patch of

white goosefoot, a plant
which grows abundantly on
newly thrown marsh soil,
and assumes a creeping
habit. Odd snow buntings
are disturbed from that same
favourite weed, which even
attracts to the waterside the
covert -haunting pheasants.
Lapwings, wailing on the marsh-lands, are fairly numerous,
and an occasional bunch of golden plovers is seen. But
the merry reed and sedge warblers, so familiar from their
confidential manners and pleasant snatches of song to
yachting folk in summer days, are absent. The ' visping ' of
the snipe, the babbling voices of the wild-fowl, and the harsh
grating notes of the hooded crows, prowling around, like
camp followers, seeking to despoil the dead and wounded,
become familiar, and are, perhaps, more in keeping with the
rougher spirit of winter. The creaking of the pump-mills
and the sighing of the winds through the reed beds make
appropriate wintry music. Let any one who wishes to see a
characteristic winter scene visit such a place as the ' Sounds,'
where dark pools, reflecting the sombre cloud, nestle among

BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS 343

the acres of brown reed, and bulrush stems, where the over-
ripe ' pokers ' of the reed-mace nod and dance to the rough
hustling of the north wind. Floating on these pools, some
asleep, some preening their feathers, and others pulling at
the sodden vegetation beneath them, are scores of mallard
with glossy green heads and their more sober mates. Maybe
a shoveller or a bunch of teal come into view, or a diving
bird pops up into notice. Now and again you may see the
grebe, — the great-crested grebe, more abundant during the
summer, and the gossander. Any one living in the neigh-
bourhood, who follows up these waters from day to day, may
see — and too often shoots — even less commonplace visitors,
some vagrant buzzard or peregrine falcon keenly bent on
harrying the wild-fowl ; some wing-wearied northern diver, or
a rare gull, a Bewick's swan, or a skulking bittern. Rigor-
ously protected by the riparian owners and their gamekeepers
from the more vulgar guns of the ' irregular musketeers,' the
'outside' village gunners, most of these unfortunate rarer
birds fall to the share of these so-called protectors, and
become candidates for niches in collections.

One of these Broadland gamekeepers punting around will
discourse of sundry ' rare 'uns ' that have visited his beat
since wintry weather obtained. There were flocks of wild
swan among them, a half dozen little auks driven in, weary,
from the sea. A velvet scoter has been hobnobbing with
a parcel of ' mussel ducks ' (common scoters), and had appa-
rently been diving for small swan-mussels or ' clams ' as he
calls them ; a couple of ' sawyers ' (red-breasted mergansers)
have successfully evaded him, although a 'sawbill' (goosander)
had not been so fortunate ; a flock of pintail ducks had
joined themselves to the ' duck ' (mallard), and he had put
up a bunch of golden-eye only that morning as he came
'athort Hicklin" Broad. He had observed a 'game-hawk'

344 AUTUMN AND WINTER

(peregrine) the day before strike down a ' smee ' (wigeon),
while a small gaggle of white-faced Bernacle geese had been
using the ' Sounds ' for over a week, ' though there ha'n't bin
one kilt as yet, they was so shy,' as if that killing were the
final cause of the appearance of the bird.

The Broadland naturalist, like his kindred elsewhere,
should be apt at concealing his person and at holding his
tongue, for quietude and inconspicuity are essential to bird-
watching. These accomplishments, acquired by constant
practice, help us to-day : a parcel of bearded tits, most
characteristic of Broadland, restless and ever on the move,
keeping close to the limited habitat, flit into view, and com-
mence to climb and play the acrobat upon the tall stems of the
reed-mace, digging their tweezer-like mandibles sharply into
the brown over-ripe velvety tufts, from which downy particles
float away on the wind. Unable to find tiny mollusca upon
the moister stems below, as in summer days, this bird is
happy enough in having at hand a goodly supply of ' pokers '
and the seed of the common reed. The bearded tit is as
merry now as ever, and frequently utters its clear, metallic
'ping ping,' which can be exactly imitated by balancing
a penny on the tip of each forefinger and tapping them
smartly together. It is a jolly family party that flits to and
fro to-day, regardless of unpleasant weather, and will be
merry still when the snowflakes dance in the chill air, and
the ravenous pike unhappily dart hither and thither under the
clear ice.

Emboldened by quietude, a moorhen or two scuttle along,
lightly supported by their long clinging toes, on the matted
debris at the base of the reeds, seeking food ; and several
coots paddle about, diving at intervals and coming up again
with a juicy bit of plant root, which, after a preliminary shake
of the head, is bolted. Peering from between a tuft of rush

BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS 345

stems, the dark brown head of a crested grebe is observed.

The rich brown tippet and earlike crest has long been

moulted, and will not be replaced until the mating time.

The bird shuffles up on to a lump

of matted leaves, sits bolt upright,

standing indeed on its

flat feet, and begins to

rearrange a few ruffled

feathers. Then his

keen eye catches sight of us, and

with a quick header down into the

water he goes, leaving scarcely a

ripple behind him ; nor does he

reappear again within the area of

our pool. We are more fortunate in

watching a dun-headed goosander

which repeatedly dives, reappearing

perhaps with a small roach between

its mandibles. Fresh-water fishes

are as readily devoured by the

'sawbill ' as marine species. From

the crop of one shot in the Broads

some years since, seventeen small

roach were recovered, a goodly

meal indeed.

Now and again a long spell
of frosty weather locks up the

Broads and rivers beneath a thick coating of ice, when
the wherries are unable to leave their moorings for weeks
together. Then are the wild creatures sadly put to for their
means of subsistence, the tail-flicking moorhens sneak into
the neighbourhood of the farmsteads, the coots flock to the
tidal estuaries, where the ice breaks above the sinuous creeks

BEARDED TITS

346

AUTUMN AND WINTER

between the mud-flats, and jostles in great jagged slabs on
the ebbtide to the sea. Here with various wild-fowl they
share the food to be found in the open ' wakes ' and on the
bared mud-flats, from which the tide has dragged and drifted
the more rotten ice. To such a place as Breydon Waters,
with its vast acres of ooze, flock various waders. To
Breydon, the one great" salt-water Broad, in severe weather
crowd thousands of grey dunlins, with grey plovers, knots,
curlews, and many other waders, and where there is any

open water
there drop in

GREAT-CRESTED GREBH

'hard

fowl ' in

flocks

— poch-

ards,

tufted

ducks,

scaups,

scoters

, and

often

smews

and dabchicks,

white ■

- fronted

geese, ' Scotch brents,' shelducks, whooper swans, driven
south by the wintry snows.

But it is in the days that the ice first ' lays ' on the fresh-
water Broads, and the snow lies deep on the marshes and
fenny places, that to those waters come the greatest crowd
of fowl. It is then that the privileged native sportsman takes
heavy toll, and even the labouring gunner may earn a meal
from their flocks as they pass uneasily from one unfriendly
lagoon to another, should they pass over the ' free shooting '
corners where it is still his right to sport.

On such a day, when the heavy black squalls, pushed
along from the north by the howling wind, dissolve them-
selves in snow, like wool, and others follow on charged with
stinging hail, it is out of the question save for the hardiest

BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS 347

native sportsman to get afloat. On such a day a few
minutes' view, from one of the little one-arched bridges that
cross the small neck of water which often joins one Broad
to another, will suffice to gather a good impression of what
Broadland on the whole is like. The dense reed clumps at
the margin bend beneath their burden of snow, every leaf-
bare twig and spray has its touch of white that shoots off in
a powdery shower as some hungry bird darts. There is
a tinkling sound as the ice crystals on the reed stems chafe
in the breeze. One may perchance see a skein of fowl
circling round the Broad, or a parcel of them bathing in
an open spot in the centre, with others hunched up,
sleeping or preening their feathers on the icy margin hard
by them.

The starlings, now hard put to it, pry around for any-
thing edible. A black-headed gull disconsolately eyes the
open patches of water, eager for a morsel of food ; or its
larger relative, the grey gull, a junior of the herring gull
or the black-backed species, searches for carrion. Dead
redwings, starved to a mere bunch of skin and bones, suit
them well, or at a pinch any living dunlin or weakened bird
they can overtake or seize. The snipe, hard pressed, goes
bleating overhead and is off westward in quest of some
'spring beck,' where the snow melts as it falls on moving
water, or where, under an overhanging bank, the frost has so
far overlooked the still soft larvae-tenanted ooze. From far
overhead come the clanging voices of the bean or the pink-
footed goose as they fly in wedge form ahead of the storm ;
and it is quite likely one may discern a skein or two of wild
swans, forced to flit from their northern homes, speeding
along with outstretched necks, their white plumage made
brilliant by contrast with the leaden storm-clouds behind
them.

348 AUTUMN AND WINTER

We may still hear the tinkling- of the bearded tits, which
find it no great task to shake the snow dust from the reed
tufts in order to lay bare for their profit the ripe seed-heads.

At these times bird and beast are put to great shifts for a
bare living. Out there by the edge of a pine clump is a
gaunt heron watching hard by a water-vole's burrow ; if the
vole but show itself the bird's stiletto of a bill will pierce its
skull as by a lightning stroke. Let the frost ' give ' but
an hour or two, crows will be seen inspecting the freshly
cast mole-heaps showing black above the snow. A batch of

WILD SWANS

a few heavier feathers — the rest have been scattered by
the wind — and a red tinge of blood on the snow is all
that is left of a little tragedy of the earlier morning. A
parcel of hooded crows had found a wounded pochard lying
against this grassy tussock. It had escaped the aim of the
fowler to fall into the tender mercies of the crows. There
may have been two, or even four or five at work ; anyway,
they did their work quickly and well, for only the breastbone,
brought to view by a thrust of the foot against the snow,
remains of it. Probably the head and other parts were
snatched up by these ghouls to be discussed elsewhere.

One may now often drop across the remains of a big
bream, or a jack, or even the relics of a coot, the debris

BY THE SIDE OF THE WATERS

349

left by a prowling otter, for flesh as well as fish do not come
amiss to him when hard pressed by hunger. Nor are rooks
particular when food is scarce. A Norfolk naturalist once
came across a score of rooks busily at work on the carcase of
a dead sheep, tearing like so many vultures.

The land birds too are hard pressed. The fieldfare finds
his hawthorn berries sadly diminishing, the redwings fluff up
their feathers to keep their starved little bodies warm, and
soon perish in numbers
if the snow and frost
are slow to go ; larks
leave the buried wheat-
fields and sneak into the
market gardens to raid
the cabbage patches,
and the wood-pigeons
skulk for provender
where they are by no
means desired.

OTTER

A sudden rush of
winter may disturb and distress the whole population of
seaside birds. From Scottish lochs and Norwegian fiords
are driven great hosts along the eastern seaboard of
England. On one such occasion as many as seventy Brent
geese dashing south were counted in a solid flock. Little
auks, driven inland, wearied and hungered, fell helplessly in
the pools and meadows, numbers being picked up a little later
on dying and dead. One of the Hickling keepers reported
that on one single morning he observed no fewer than fifty
sheklucks, eleven goosanders, two black-throated divers, a
red-throated diver, two smews, one being that very rare
visitor, an adult male bird, besides golden-eyes, curlews,
dunlins, ringed plovers, and sanderlings. A flock of long-

350

AUTUMN AND WINTER

tailed ducks were noted by another observer. The men
with guns slew without much mercy or compunction. Three
bitterns, a bird that at last has begun to nest again in Eng-
land, were slain, and many wild-fowl. In the Saturday's
market in an east coast town hung from every other stall
bunches of lapwings, mallard and duck, smews, starlings,
wigeon, and here and there a goose of one sort or another.

With a continuance of the frost and winds the fowl went
farther afield, not finding a rest anywhere. Beast and bird
and fish longed for the springtime warmth. For the days
are hard when

' the snow
Looks cheerless on the fields below ;
And cheerlessly the leafless trees
Toss their dark branches in the breeze.'

FEBRUARY

•And lastly came cold February, sitting
In an old wagon, for he coud not ride,
Drawne of two fishes for the season fitting,
Which through the flood before did softly slyde
And swim away ; yet had he by his side
His plough and harnass fit to till the ground,
And tools to prune the trees, before the pride
Of hasting Prime did make them burgein round.
So past the twelve months forth, and their dew places found.'

Spenser, Mutabilitie.

'O quick praevernal power

That signalled punctual through the sleepy mould
The snowdrop's time to flower.

Oh, Baby spring,

That flutterest sudden 'neath the breast of earth

A month before the birth.'

COVENTRY PaTMORE, Saint Valentines Day.

PAIRING AND EARLY SONG

Early in February there is a rapid increase in the number
of birds in song ; and at the same time they begin to pair
and settle down in their nesting-quarters. The traditional
date for the pairing of birds is St. Valentine's Day ; and this
is as accurate as any one day that could be named for a
process which extends over many weeks, and is largely
influenced by the openness or severity of the season. By
February 1 3 in a normal year separate pairs of birds begin
to be conspicuous in lanes and sheltered gardens and in the
open fields ; and this new feature in their distribution gives
a promise that the nesting season is at hand, though for six
weeks longer the wandering winter flocks of many species
are to be seen side by side with the newly mated couples.
Not all birds choose fresh mates every spring. Many of
the larger species, such as the birds of prey and the crow
tribe, apparently mate for life ; and for them the pairing
season merely means closer companionship and a more con-
stant attachment to their nesting-place, which in many cases is
also a permanent one. It is likely, though it is still unproved,
that mating for life is the general rule among small birds
also, though there are probably many exceptions. Cock and
hen birds of migratory species may meet again in their

S

PAIRING AND EARLY SONG 353

accustomed spring haunts, and resume the partnership which
their winter wanderings have interrupted. So far as the
adult birds are concerned, the winter flocks may be an
aggregate of pairs rather than of individuals : and many
pairs may keep together through all their wanderings, and
be ready to settle down either in the old haunt or in some
new one when the weather begins to grow springlike.
Chaffinches separate in autumn into flocks composed almost
exclusively either of cocks or hens ; and in their case the
chance of the same pair meeting again might seem small.
Yet even in their case there would be little difficulty about
it, if each bird returned to its last year's home ; and the
records of marked birds of other species show that this
happens sufficiently often to make it probable as a general
rule.

The first birds to settle down in couples are naturally
those which have been most stationary during the winter.
Conspicuous among these are the hedge-sparrows, house-
sparrows, robins, song-thrushes, blackbirds, wrens, pied
wagtails, and a few other species which haunt gardens and
other sheltered spots. With most of the species just named
the resident birds are only a small minority. The most
stationary species are the house and hedge sparrows and the
wren ; but even they indulge a proportion of wanderers,
which pair and settle down a good deal later than the
regular dwellers in our gardens. By early February, and
often earlier, the usually unobtrusive hedge-sparrows are
beginning to chase each other along the hedges and
through the shrubberies with shrill pipings, and to show
watchful interest in the particular corner where they intend
to nest. Blackbirds drift apart into special clumps in the
shrubberies ; and timid hen thrushes are seen in the shelter
of the bushes where the cocks sing more and more loudly

(1,022) 45

354 AUTUMN AND WINTER

from the boughs. The wren's mate follows him as he slips,
mouselike, through the chinks in the faggot-pile or along
the eaves of the old thatched shed ; and the impetuous
scrimmaging of the cock sparrows increases as their black
throat-patch becomes more clear. Neither the song nor the
fighting of the cock birds of various species has probably so
definite a purpose of winning a new mate as is often supposed.
Both their song and their combativeness are natural ebulli-
tions of a spirit fired by spring ; they sing from increased
vitality, and fight more or less promiscuously from the same
incentive. Young birds still unmated may gain their brides
by force of arms or vigour as expressed in song ; but the
old birds sing as vigorously as the young, and if they fight,
it is less often to win a mate than to warn off an unmated
intruder.

Carrion crows are winged Ishmaelites which have often
to travel far before they can find a spot where they can nest
in safety ; and when we see how closely
they cling together on their wanderings,
habitual constancy among migratory birds
seems more probable. Before the end
of February pairs of carrion crows begin
to wander about the country in search of
suitable nesting-places, and attract atten-
tion by their loud caws — more hoarse and
/ snarling than those of the rook —

>*^,/iLw'v,w* an<^ "^ tneir way °f posting them-
selves conspicuously on some lofty

COCK PARTRIDGE CALLING i t-i i , . ,,

perch. 1 hey settle early in the
place where they intend to nest, but do not naturally begin to
build until the end of March on early in April. If they are
left in peace, they will often nest in the same wood or clump
of trees for many years in succession ; and then they are less

PAIRING AND EARLY SONG

355

conspicuous in February and March, since they are not
forced to hunt for a new home. Pairing is equally con-
spicuous in February with the partridges, which are among
the most sedentary of our birds. Instead of the packs or
shrunken coveys in which
partridges are generally
seen as the winter goes on,
early in February we see
them start up from the
grass and stubble in pairs.
The time of the first
pairs varies not only ac- ^A^jr^^
cording to the weather ^

of the season but to great tit

some extent with the

height and climate of the spot. On a ridge of hills the
partridges may still be living in packs in early February,
when they are paired in the fields lying below. From the
wheatfields in the lengthening evening twilight comes the
call of the cock partridge mounted upon a clod ; and this
note of spring mingles pleasantly with the song-thrush's
music, and the spring cry of the great tit in the apple-trees.

This 'saw-sharpening' cry of the great tit is one of the
most typical spring notes, and one of the most distinctive of
the many different notes of the titmouse tribe. It is a shrill,
rasping double note, repeated with see-saw persistence more
and more regularly as spring draws near. It is not seldom
heard in January, but begins to be common as pairing-time
in February comes on. Bright sunny mornings will draw
forth the spring cry of the great tit, as of many other birds,
even after frosty nights ; but it is likeliest to be heard in calm
mild weather. The great tit calls so boldly that it is not
difficult to trace the crude song to the singer, which is easily

356

AUTUMN AND WINTER

recognisable with its black crown, dark stripe down a vivid
yellow-green breast, and the conspicuous white cheek-
patches which have given it its name of oxeye, much as the
large moon-daisy is called the oxeye daisy. A little later

than the great tit,
the blue tit also
begins its spring
song. This is more
musical than other
notes uttered by
this tribe of birds ;
tits' notes have
generally a twang-
ing or metallic ring
which makes them
easily attributable
to one species of

GREAT TIT the tribe> ^OUgh

their variety makes
it often hard to identify them more particularly without
careful observation. The blue tit's spring song consists of
two or three plaintive calls followed by a tinkling peal —
much like a small silver bell sharply pulled and echoing
out its peal. This song is constantly uttered by the cock
bird as it hunts among the twigs in acrobatic attitudes, often
with its mate in attendance.

Missel-thrushes are sometimes heard singing as early as
December ; but their free song is usually first heard from
some lofty bough on a morning or evening in February,
when there is a noticeable increase in the light as compared
with the short dark days. It is more like the blackbird's
and ring-ousel's song than that of the song-thrush ; and it is
often mistaken for the blackbird's when heard early in the

\

PAIRING AND EARLY SONG

357

year. It consists of a phrase of three sweet notes, deeper
and richer than the song-thrush's, and repeated with little
variation often for a great length of time. On a February
or March morning, with a bright light and a strong wind
that bends the boughs, the missel-thrush will often sing
almost uninterruptedly hour after hour on some lofty perch
in a poplar or elm. It makes little
difference to the bird's spirit and \\
enjoyment if a driving north-west \\
wind brings showers of cold rain or
hail. The bird's apparent delight in
boisterous weather has given it the
common country name of storm-
cock. Blackbirds dislike such riotous
weather ; if they are heard in Feb-
ruary, it is generally on some morn-
ing of premature sunshine, when
the crocuses in the south borders are
yawning their utmost to the bees, or
at sunset on some unusually mild evening. Often they are
not heard until March. With a little practice it is not hard
to distinguish the two birds' songs. The missel-thrush's is
much more limited and monotonous ; and sweet as it is, it has
not the richness of the full notes that the blackbird seems to
turn over in its throat. Shyer and wilder than either the
song-thrush or the blackbird, its sweet but unskilled music
seems truly to fit its nature ; and the tireless song streaming
from aloft on some turbulent February morning is one of the
most satisfying of all sounds which tell of the oncoming of
spring. As missel-thrushes pair and search for nesting-
places, they very often draw closer to gardens and houses
than is their habit at other times of the year. This seems to
be due to their fear of carrion crows, which are inveterate

MISSEL-THRUSH

358 AUTUMN AND WINTER

stealers of eggs, and must often find an easy prey in the
missel-thrush's conspicuous nest when it is built in open
hedgerows and copses. Crows usually avoid the close
neighbourhood of houses, where they expect to find
enemies with guns ; and the missel-thrush's shyness of
mankind is overcome by its mistrust of the crow. It is
probably owing to the same reason that rookeries are so
often built close to man's dwellings. Crows are great
robbers of rooks' nests, though rooks are their own close
kin. As rookeries are usually in warm and sheltered places,
rooks are some of the earliest birds to pair and nest.
Ravens also nest from year to year in the same site, and are
as early breeders as the earliest rooks, though they haunt
wilder and bleaker regions. But crows do not build until
late March or early April ; and this seems to be due at least
in part to their being usually prevented from settling per-
manently in one spot, and compelled to discover a retreat
where there seems a chance of being undisturbed.

Another step forward in the year's progress towards
spring is marked by the first singing of the chaffinch. So
large a part of the whole volume of song in England is
supplied by this most plentiful and animated bird that the
chorus before its singing-time is necessarily thin. Before
the middle of February the gay and vivacious ditty begins to
ripple from the orchard fruit-trees or the hedgerow elms ;
sometimes, when an exceptionally bright and warm morning
follows a long spell of gloom and cold, the song of the
chaffinches seems to break out in a positive torrent. But
the song is not always complete at once. It consists of a
run of rapid notes ending in a kind of flourish or twirl ; and
when the chaffinch first begins to sing, he cannot always
accomplish it perfectly. The notes become slurred and
confused, and the bird stops in the middle, tripping over its

PAIRING AND EARLY SONG 359

own music ; and sometimes it seems to break off from sheer
insufficiency of vitality to attempt the difficult final passage.
It is very interesting to listen to two or three cock chaffinches
singing within earshot of one another on a warm February
morning, and gradually improving in delivery under the
stimulus of practice in competition. One bird is generally
more perfect than the others ; he may sing the song perfectly
nearly every time, while the others do it seldom. The
instinct of rivalry keeps them sedulously to their song ; and
as the day advances they are often noticeably more perfect
than a few hours before. A day or two later, they execute
their roulade so spiritedly and smoothly that one might think
they could never have felt any difficulty about it. Yet it is
impossible not to recognise that they have a force of inertia
and unfamiliarity to overcome at the beginning, though the
spirit which impels them may be an almost completely
unconscious instinct of vitality, and no such deliberate and
critical purpose as directs a human singer. Chaffinches'
songs vary a good deal ; one bird's song differs from
another's, and the general type of song seems to be different
in different districts. But its general character is the same
always ; there is the rapid preliminary run and the final
ascending flourish, which makes the difficulty for the bird
when it first begins to sing.

Only a song with a definite and rather elaborate pattern
allows us clearly to mark the stages by which the bird reaches
its full spring skill. The yellowhammer sings a song of much
the same kind, and begins it at about the same date. It is
a plaintive song, as the chaffinch's is emphatically a gay
one ; instead of a rising flourish, it ends with two lower notes.
But there is the change from the opening notes in each case,
and the consequent difficulty for the bird when it begins to
sing in February. The yellowhammer's song can be well

360 AUTUMN AND WINTER

memorised by the country version of it — ' A very, very little
bit of bread and no cheese.' The last two words represent
the two lower notes at the end ; and these at first the bird is
often unable to deliver. The February sunshine falls on the
golden bloom in the hillside furze-brake, and on the golden
feathers of the birds perched above ; and they answer one
another with the halting and incomplete notes soon to
develop into the ditty that echoes so persistently by the
sun-smitten highways late into August and September.
Perhaps one yellowhammer gets the full song about once in
three times, another delivers the first and most emphatic of
the two final notes, and a third does not get more than half-
way. Before they begin to utter even the easier early notes
of their song, yellowhammers display the rudiments of the
impulse to sing in a curious and noticeable way. About
sunset at the beginning of February they mount to the same
conspicuous perches in the hedges and gorse-brakes where
they afterwards sing, and utter a laboured chirp with an air
of emphasis and challenge. It is an exceedingly rudimentary
method of expression ; but the bird's whole demeanour indi-
cates strongly that it is meant as an effort at song, and as
a vindication of its right to that particular stretch of the
hedgerow or thicket. This stage does not last long ; ten
days or a fortnight after the yellowhammer has begun to
act in this way it usually begins to sing, and in a week or
a fortnight more the well-known ditty is complete.

There is little or no similarity of tone between the yellow-
hammer's rudimentary chirp and the notes of its song ; nor
has the chaffinch's song any noticeable likeness to its common
cries and call-notes. But the development of the green
woodpecker's full notes as spring approaches is an interesting
example of expansion from the normal winter cry. The loud
laughing note of the ' yaffle ' or ' ecle ' — as the green wood-

PAIRING AND EARLY SONG 361

pecker is often called — is very familiar in the spring woods, and

begins to be heard in a complete form in February, if the season

is early and open. It is a shout rather than a song; but it seems

clearly to be a shout of gladness, and therefore closely akin to

song in spirit and origin. Yet if we startle a woodpecker as

it feeds on the ground under the winter hedgerows, it often

utters a cry which is merely its spring laugh cut down to two

or three notes, as it shoots up and undulates across the field.

Snipe begin to drum in mild seasons in the south of

England in the second or third week in February, when they

pair and settle down in the marshy fields where they nest

early in April. Their drumming or bleating note sounds

extremely like the baa of a young lamb, and is even closer

to the bleat of a kid. It is the snipe's equivalent for song,

though it is not produced vocally, but by the vibration of

the web of the two outer feathers of the tail. This is

peculiarly stiff, and produces the bleating note whenever the

snipe drops slanting downwards in the course of its long

flights over the nesting-ground. It winds swiftly about the

sky within a space of about a quarter of a mile, and every

few moments drops obliquely downwards, when the bleating

note is almost immediately heard. It ceases as soon as the

bird reaches the bottom of its descent, and again shoots up.

The sound has been reproduced by binding the snipe's outer

tail-feathers to the shaft of an arrow, and shooting it into the

air; the sound began when it descended. It is remarkable

that while some American and African species of snipe drum

in the same way as the common snipe, great or double snipe

do not drum, but display before the hens much like the

blackcock. The jack snipe has yet another method of

nuptial expression. It makes in the air a sound described as

being like the galloping of a horse over a hard road ; and it is

thought that this is vocal though the point is still undetermined.
0.wai 46

INDEX.

Figures in black type refer to main references. Asterisk indicates an illustration.

Arch^opteryx, 213.'
Auk family, 130, 138.
Auk, Great, 130, 138, 213.

Little, 130, 2S9, 343, 349.

Avocet, 313*.

Bittern, 15, 197, 243, 343, 350*.
Blackbird, IO, II, 12, 13, 46, 49, 51, 52, 63,

98, 107, 115, 116, 161, 162*, 180*,

181-182, 199, 201, 217, 235, 244, 290,

308, 33S. 336, 353. 357-
Blackcap, 6, 47, 96*, 104, 126, 127, 134,

162, 179*, 180.
Blackcock, 242.

Brambling, or Mountain Finch, 279, 313.
Bullfinch, 185, 234.
Buntings, 310.

Corn-, 35, 179, 186, 218.

Lapland, 322.

Snow-, 59, 303, 306*, 322, 342.

Yellow. See Yellowhammer.

Burrow-duck. See Sheldrake.

Butcher-bird, 41*, 42, 43.

Buzzard, 15, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27, 60,

69*, 7°. 71. 72*. 143. 343-

Honey-, 21, 26.

Rough-legged, 286.

Capercailzie, 73.

Chaffinch, 26, 47, 50, 52, 85, 93, 94, 105,

108, 125, 129, 140, 163, 184, 201, 215,

236, 240, 261, 279, 286, 336, 3S3,

358.
Chiffchaff, 1, 3-5, 35, 36, 37, 93, 129, 153,

176.
Chough, 143, 275.

Alpine, 209, 210*.

Coot, 55, 194, 222, 291, 301, 340, 341, 344i

345'
Cormorant, 130, 131, 135, 136*, 140, 142,

320.

Cormorant, Green (or Shag), 135*, 142, 320.

Corn-bunting. Set Bunting, Corn-.

Corncrake. See Landrail.

Cowbird. See Wagtail, Yellow.

Crossbill, 45, 280.

Crows, 13, 14, 106, 107, 286, 290, 352.

Carrion, 53, 54, 71, 72, 231, 333, 334*,

354, 357-
Grey, or Hooded, 15, 72, 281*, 319,

342. 348.

Grey, or ' Royston,' 282.

Cuckoo, 7, 44*, 45, 58, 72, 77, 81-90, 93,

150, 202*, 218, 236, 268*.

American, 87.

Curlew, 65, 66*, 222, 259, 284, 346, 349.
Stone-, 5, 44.

Dabchick, 56*, 85, 191, 193, 194*, 203,

338, 346.
Dipper, 16-17,61*. 62, 114.
Diver, 3-9.

Black-throated, 289.

Great Northern, 289.

Red-throated, 289.

Dotterel, 301.

Dove, Ring-, 40, 41, 46, 51, 62, 104, 106

124, 162, 170, 204, 215, 235, 239, 286,

309, 325, 327, 349-

Rock-, 106, 143, 329.

Stock-, 46, 49, 62, 71, 106, 113,

124.
Turtle-, I, 40*, 41, 44, 91, 92, 104,

106, 123*, 124*, 162, 179, 219.
Dragonflies, 187.
Duck, Black. Set Scoter.

Long-tailed, 350.

' Mussel. ' Set Scoter.

Pintail, 343.

Tufted, 288*, 320, 338, 346.

Wild, 178, 221, 239*, 240, 241*.

Dunlin, 79, 260, 321, 346, 349.

364

INDEX.

Eagles, iS, 22, 25, 226.

Golden, 18, 20, 26, 59, 70.

White-tailed, or Sea-, 20, 21, 70.

Ecle. See Woodpecker, Green.

Falcons, 60.

Fern-owl. See Nightjar.

Fieldfares, 29-30, 237, 274, 277, 307*, 308,

349-
Finches, 208, 310.

Mountain. See Brambling.

Flycatchers, 22, 236.

Pied, 42*, 44, 179.

Spotted, 42, 43*, 44, 116*, 199*, 269,

325-
Fox, 173, 174*.
Fulmar. See Petrel, Fulmar.

Gannet, 130, 134, 135, 137*, 140, 2S8, 320.

Geese, 346, 347.

Barnacle, 344.

Brent, 346, 349.

Goatsucker. See Nightjar.

Godwit, 79.

Black-tailed, 285.

Goldcrest, 4, 107, 10S*, 181, 186, 263, 286,
287.

Golden-eye, 343, 349.

Goldfinch, 96, 98, 105, 108, 258*, 262, 310,
313-

Goosander, 343, 345, 349.

Grasshopper-warbler. See Warbler, Grass-
hopper-.

Grebe, 78, 140.

Crested, 345, 346*.

Great-crested, 343.

Greenfinch, 52, 220, 233, 234*, 313.

Grouse, 223*, 225*, 230*.

Black, 242.

Red, 59, 73, 74*, 242.

Willow-, 59, 73, 303.

Guillemots, 54, 105, 130, 131, 133, 138,
139*. 289, 319, 320.

Black, 134, 138.

Ringed, 134.

Gulls, 54, 89, 92, 105*, 130, 131*, 140, 142,

244. 3>7. 347-
Black-headed, 79, 131, 245*, 272, 316,

325.

Common, 133, 318.

Greater Black-backed, 132, 142*, 316,

3'8.
Herring, 131, 141, 318, 326.

Gulls, Kittiwake, 133.

Laughing. See Gull, Black-headed.

Lesser Black-backed, 132, 141.

Skua, 130, 131*, 316.

Harriers, 21, 25, 26.
Marsh, 21.

— Montagu's, 20-21.
Hawfinch, 313.

Hawks, 18, 21, 25, 54, 60.

Blue, or Merlin, 20, 70, 71*.

Sparrow-, 7, 19, 21, 24-25, 27, 28, 40,

81, 286.

Stone, 71.

Hedge-sparrows, 10, II, 46, 84*, S5, 94.

144. 217, 301, 3IO> 336. 353. 354-
Herons, 14-15, 45, 106, 222, 238*.
Honey-buzzard. See under Buzzard.
Hobby, 44.

Insect sounds, 219.

Jackdaw, 53, 54, 71, 143, 258, 259, 266.
Jay, 92*, 236.

Kestrels, 7, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28,

71, 72, Si, 143, 2S6, 311.
Kingfisher, 54, 113, 188, 189*, 204, 206,

207* 337-
Kites, 20, 21, 22, 26.
Knot, 271, 285, 321, 322*, 346.

Landrail, or Corncrake, 6, 41, 44, 93,

101*, 102*, 175, 256.
Lapwing. See Plover, Green.
Lark, 58*, 93, 94, 97, 101, 161, 177*, 180,

183, 216, 262, 272, 2S6, 315, 349.

Shore-, 322.

Wood-, 98.

Linnet, 52, 53*, 96, 260, 262, 263.

Grey, 322.

Heather. See Twite.

Magpie, 13, 14, 49, 53, 54, 64, 72, 107.

Mallard, 2S7, 290, 338, 339, 340, 343.

Marsh-birds, 67.

Martins, 6, 7, 114, 149, 156, 269.

House-, 7, 32, 44, no, 116, 148, 149.

150, 151, 152, 153*, 157, 190, 201, 338.
Sand-, 32, 44, 76, 113, 148, 150, 151.

156*, 157*, 190, 191*, 338.
Mergansers, 343.
Merlin, 20, 70, 71.

INDEX.

365

Montagu's Harrier, 20-21.

Moorcock, 230.

Moorfowl. See Grouse.

Moorhen, 13, 15, 46, 47*, 56, 92, 191, 194,

195*. '96*. 203, 223, 338, 340, 342,

344. 345-

Nettle-creeper, 34-35.

Nightingale, II, 38-40, 43, 52, 91*, 97, 98*,

101, 102, 119, 120, 121*, 122, 140, 153,

161, 170, 179, 180, 181*, 298.
Nightjar, or Goatsucker, 32, 42, 44, 77, 91,

93, 102, 148, 164, 165*166*, 167, 204*,

269*. 305. 312*.
Nuthatch, 110, 111*. 175, 176*.

Osprey, 20, 21, 25.

Ostrich, 213.

Otter, 349*.

Ouzels, Ring-, 33, 43, 62, 107. See also

Dipper.
Owls, 26, 54.
Barn, or Common White, 201, 218,

245. 33'-

Brown, 331.

Little, 26, 218.

Little Spanish, 254*.

Short-eared, or 'Woodcock,' 26, 285.

White. See Owl, Barn.

Wood-, 46, 49.

Oyster-catcher, 78*, 79, 285.

Partridge, 55, 73, 168*, 172*, 173-174,

203, 223, 233, 243, 244, 248*-257*,

299. 3". 355.

French, 251.

Peewit. See Plover, Green.
Peregrine, 20, 22, 23, 69, 70, 143, 343.
Petrel, 105, 130, 138, 140.

Fulmar, 134.

Pheasant, 54, 55, 73, 88, 17S, 204, 223, 243,

3°5-
Pigeon, House-, 329.

Wood-. See Dove, Ring-.

Pipit, Meadow-, 36, 63, 84, 85, 89*, 95, 342.

Rock-, 36, 144*.

Tree-, 29, 35-36, 44, 95*, 1S3.

Plovers, 47, 48*, 60, 105, 194*, 204, 286.

Golden, 59*, 68, 273, 284, 342.

Green, or Lapwing, 65, 66, 6S*, 76,

237*. 259, 272, 290, 309.

Grey, 79*, 285, 321, 323*, 342, 346.

Norfolk, 5, 6.

Plovers, Ringed, 79, 321, 349.

Pochard, 287, 288*, 341, 346, 348.

Ptarmigan, 59, 230, 303, 305.

Puffin, 54, 113, 114, 130*, 133, 139, 289, 302*.

Qoail, 41, 256.
Australian, 23.

Rats as enemies, 173, 174.

Ravens, 18, 45, 6o, 69, 71, 106, 107, 143*.

Razorbill, 54, 130, 133, 138, 289, 319, 320,

338*. 339-
Redpoll, Lesser, 322.

Mealy, 322.

Redshank, 75, 197, 260, 285.

Redstart, 33-34, 44.

Redwing, 237, 274, 277*, 278, 290, 347, 349.

Ring-dove. See under Dove.

Ring-ouzel. See Ouzel.

Robin, to, II, 22, 46, 51, 116, 170*, 179,

1S0, 1S6, 200*, 201, 205, 218, 244, 275,

299, 300, 314, 336, 353.
Rock-dove. See under Dove.
Rook, io, 14, 46, 49, 53, 54, 58, 92, 106,

170, 172, 235, 25S, 259, 265, 272, 286,

290, 309, 3"*. 334, 349, 358.
Rookery, 45*.
Ruff, 197, 285, 301.

Sanderlino, 79, 271, 285, 349.
Sandpiper, 44, 65*, 207, 337.

Common, 271.

Curlew-, 271.

Green, 29, 222, 271, 275.

Purple, 321*.

Scaup, 320, 346.
Scoter, 288, 320, 339, 343, 346.
Sedge-warbler. See under Warbler.
Shag. See Cormorant, Green.
Shearwater, 130, 138, 140.
Sheldrake, 113, 114*, 305.
Shelduck, 320, 346, 349.
Shoveller, 343.
Shrike, Red-backed, 44.
Siskin, 279.
Skua, 130, 131*, 316.
Skylark. See Lark.
Smew, 346, 349.

Snipe, 196, 197*, 198*, 220, 243, 292*, 313*,
342, 347, 361.

Great, or Double, 361.

Jack, 284*.

Snow-bird, 322.

366

INDEX.

Sparrow-hawk, 7, 19, 21, 24-25, 27, 28, 40,

81, 286.
Sparrows, 152, 154, 260, 312, 331.

' Hedge-.' See Hedge-sparrow.

House-, 51, 201, 208, 231, 235, 239,

240, 301, 353.
Starling, 38, 40, 41, 51, 88, 99, 201, 217,

231, 239> 258, 259, 263, 266, 272, 290,

299, 301, 3°9. 315, 332, 347.
Stint, Little, 271.
Stock-dove. See under Dove.
Stonechats, 34, 80, 91, 144, 176, 177, 185.
Stork, 270.

Storm-cock. See Thrush, Missel-.
Swallows, 6, 7, 32-33, 44, 76, 85, no, 114,

116, 147-157, 190, 218, 236, 269, 338.
Swan, Bewick's, 343.

Whooper, 346.

Wild, 343, 347, 348.

Swifts, 32, 33, 42, 44, 147-157. 190. 338-
Alpine, 157.

Teal, 287, 340, 343.
Terns, 252.

Common, 44, 79, 80*, 130, 140.

Lesser, 44.

Thrushes, 49, 51, 115, 169, 178, 199, 201,

217, 244.
Missel-, 46, 52, 63, 91, 93, 107, 180,

27S, 279, 30S, 335, 356, 357*.
Song-, 10, 11, 12, 13, 39, 45, 46, 52, 63,

97, 98, 101, 103*, 104, 107, 161, 162,

180, 272, 275, 308, 335. 336, 353-
Titlark. See Pipit, Meadow-.
Titmice. See Tits.
Tits, 37, 104, 128, 129, 186, 260, 263, 293*.

Bearded, 344, 345*, 348.

Blue, 51, 93, 204, 205, 206, 295*, 337,

356.

Cole, 51, 289, 337.

Great, 51, 205*, 206, 337, 355*, 356*.

Long-tailed, 50, 104*, 107, 250*.

Marsh, 128, 298.

Tree-creeper, 104, 116, 117*.
Turnstone, 79.

Turtle-dove. See under Dove.
Twite, or Heather Linnet, 74, 322.

Vulture, 210.

Waders, 67.

Wagtails, 186, 191, 205, 209.

Grey, 16-17, 33, 56, 62*, 329, 330*.

Pied, 56, 57, 84, 275, 329, 353.

Yellow, 33, 44, 56, 57*, 275, 329-

Warblers, 236.

Dartford, 275.

Garden-, 45, 96, 126.

Grasshopper-, 44, 93, 166, 167*, 168,181.

Marsh-, 44, 85, 91, 109.

Reed-, 44, 84, 85, 91, 108, 109*, 191

337, 342.
Sedge-, 37-38, 43. 76. 77. 78, 84, 93,

100*, 109, 163-164, 215, 218, 342.
'Water Colley,' 16.
Water Ouzel. See Dipper.
Weasel as enemy, 178.
Wheatear, I, 2, 5, 6, 43, 60, 64*, 72, 79, 91,

100, 337-
Whimbrel, 29, 285.
Whinchat, 29, 34, 44, 80, 176, 177.
Whitethroat, 34-35, 3$. 42. 44. 55, 6°*, 61,

96, 186.

Lesser, 42, 44, 127*.

Wigeon, 287, 290, 291*, 320, 340, 344.
Willow-wren, 1, 3, 4, 30-32, 35, 44, 62, 94,

128, 129, 205.
Woodcock, 275, 282, 283*, 312.
Woodpecker, 111, 206.

Great Spotted, 113, 201*, 202, 312*.

Green, 111, 112*, 201, 360.

Lesser Spotted, 112, 113, 220.

Wood-pigeon. See Dove, Ring-.
Wood-wren, 4, 42, 44, 182*, 183.
Wren, 4, 47, 48, 49, 104, 115, 144, 152, 218,

313, 353. 354-

Goldcresteil. See Goldcrest.

St. Kilda, 59.

'Willow.' See Willow-wren.

Wood. See Wood-wren.

Wryneck, 8, 44, 179, 299.

Yellowhammer, or Yellow Bunting, 35, 94,

168, 169, 184, 185*, 216*, 218, 359.
' Yaffle.' See Woodpecker, Green.

INTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BV THOMAS NELSON AN

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