THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

PRESENTED BY

PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND
MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID

THE

BRITISH NATURALIST.

SPRING— SUMMER.

(Summer.

LONDON :
WHITTAKER, TREACHER, AND ARNOT,

AVE-MARIA LANE.

MDCCCXXX.

BRITISH NATURALIST;

OR,

SKETCHES OF THE MORE INTERESTING

PRODUCTIONS OF BRITAIN

AND THE SURROUNDING SEA,

IN THE SCENES WHICH THEY INHABIT ;

AND WITH RELATION TO

THE GENERAL ECONOMY OF NATURE, AND THE WISDOM
AND POWER OF ITS AUTHOR.

VOLUME SECOND.

THE YEAR-SPRING, SUMMER.

Nature speaks

A parent's language, and, intones as mild
As e'er hush'd infant on its mother's breast,
Wins us to learn her lore !

Professor Wilson's Poems,

LONDON :
PRINTED FOR WHITTAKER, TREACHER, AND Co.

AVE-MARIA LANE.
MDCCCXXX.

BRADBURY AND EVANS, PRINTERS, 1, DOUVERIE STREET.

PREFACE.

THE favourable reception of the first volume of
" the British Naturalist," has convinced the author
that the plan, which he has attempted, of repre-
senting the works of creation in their natural
groupes, is far from the least interesting ; and it is
certainly the best and, perhaps, the only way of
making the pages of a written book have some
resemblance to those of the book of nature, and
thus rendering the transition from the closet to
the field, a transition in degree only, and not one
in kind, as it necessarily is when the plant or
the animal, of which the written account has been
studied, is found surrounded with other subjects,
all of which are unknown, and, as novelties, really
have the most attraction.

M34S974

IV PREFACE.

But in a climate so variable as that of Britain,
changes of season are attended with as much
difference in the appearances and habits of natural
objects as changes of scene ; and, therefore, in-
stead of introducing the subject in detached parts,
it has been thought better to give, in this volume,
a very slight general glance at the natural history
of the year, as affected by the motions of the earth
and the changing actions of the sun and moon.
That part of the subject is not very easily treated,
without more technicality than is consistent with
the plan of a work, the express objects of which
are plainness and simplicity. But it is hoped
that, with the assistance of the plate and the
explanation, the subject will not be wholly un-
intelligible to those who are not conversant with
descriptive and physical astronomy ; and those who
are so conversant, will readily find an excuse for
the imperfection of a little sketch of that, which
they themselves must have learned through the
study of many profound and elaborate volumes.

From their greater powers of locomotion, the
birds are the best animated indexes to the seasons,
and, therefore, more space has been given to them

PREFACE.

than to any of the other productions; though
some hints respecting other subjects will be found,
wherever it was judged that they could be in-
troduced to advantage. On a few points, too,
there is a departure from the opinions of some
of the authorities ; but there the author would be
understood not to assert, but respectfully to recom-
mend further observation — as of matters that are
but imperfectly understood.

Although the abilities of the author were in ac-
cordance with his wish, he is well aware that no
writing can do more than operate as an excite-
ment to the study of Nature itself; and if what
the author of "The British Naturalist" has written,
or may write, shall have that effect, he will feel
that he has accomplished all that he can accom-
plish in kind; and it is for the public to judge of
the accomplishment in degree.

Bank of the Thames,
June, 1830.

EXPLANATION TO THE PLATE
OF THE SEASONS AND TIDES.

Fig. l. Is a representation of the earth's orbit, as it would appear to a
spectator, at an infinite distance perpendicularly over the centre. The
horizontal line across the centre is the solstitial diameter, the winter sol-
stice to the northern hemisphere being at the left hand, and the summer
solstice at the right. Of course the vernal equinox is at the bottom, and
the autumnal at the top. The vertical line passing through S, (the
place of the sun), is the equinoctial diameter of the orbit, f is the other
focus of the ellipse ; the small space, from S to f, is the focal distance, or
twice the eccentricity ; and the longest diameter that could be drawn per-
pendicularly to the solstitial one would be half way between S and f.

Upon the supposition that the sun is at rest, the form of the orbit will
be very nearly that of the figure j but as we do not know anything about
rest or motion in absolute space, and as the sun may have a motion of
many hundred millions of miles in a year, or even in a day, or an hour,
we know not the form of the orbit in any other way than with reference
to the sun. The head of a nail in a coach wheel performs a motion in a
circular orbit round the axle ; but, as the coach rolls on, sometimes on a
level, sometimes up hill, and sometimes down, sometimes straight forward,
sometimes curving to the right, and sometimes to the left, the path of the
nail, with regard to the earth, is very different, and could not possibly be
represented on a flat surface. If the road were straight forward, the path
of the nail would be a series of cycloids, having their terminations at the
points where the nail came in contact with the road, and the path would
be something like this—

there being as many loops or cycloids upward as revolutions of the wheel.

Mil EXPLANATION.

When we speak about the celestial bodies as revolving in ellipses, we
must always bear in mind that this applies only to the revolving body,
and the centre round which it revolves, just as we speak of the nail in the
coach wheel revolving in a circle round the axle ; for any motion of the
centre will give a new form to the path of the revolving body, in absolute
space. We have an instance of that in the moon, which, in the course of
the year, will describe as many loops as there are lunations; and, as the
paths of the earth and moon, with regard to their respective centres
of revolution, are both ellipses, those loops will constantly vary in form.

The globes upon which the meridians and parallels are drawn, represent
the earth,— out of all proportion to the orbit of course, for as the diameter
of the earth is only about one twenty-five thousandth part of that of the
orbit, an orbit, in proportion to the earth in the figure, would have re-
quired a diameter of a thousand feet j and an earth in proportion to the
orbit, would have had only a diameter of the twelve thousandth part of an
inch, and would not have been visible.

The earth in the four positions is placed with the axes parallel, but
making an angle of 23£° with the plane of the orbit, inclined from the
sun at the left hand, to the sun at the rightj and inclined to the left hand,
but not either to the sun or from the sun, at the top and bottom. The
half next the sun is left unshaded to show the light, and the opposite half
is shaded to show the darkness at all the positions.

The point where the meridians meet, is the north pole. The small circle
round it is the Arctic polar circle ; the next one the northern tropic $ and
the circle of which only a part is seen is the equator. Thus the figure, in
each of the positions, represents the same half of the earth's surface, —
namely, the whole of the northern polar zone, the whole of the northern
temperate zone, three-fourths of the northern half of the torrid zone, and
one-fourth of the southern.

The meridians on the globes are hours asunder j twelve mid-day being
always nearest the sun, the six o'clocks equally distant, and twelve mid-
night the most remote. The number of hours of sunshine or darkness, at
any latitude and any season, may be estimated by noticing how many of
hour lines are light and how many dark j for instance, ten hours of the
northern tropic are illuminated at the winter solstice, and fourteen at the
summer, and twelve of every latitude of the equinoxes.

The dotted circle outside the earth's orbit, is merely a mark in space, to
represent the plane of the orbit as produced to the regions of the stars.
The globes are at the commencement of the signs for the beginning of the
quarters ; the other commencements are at the small lines across the
dotted circle ; and the usual marks are put for the signs themselves. But

EXPLANATION. IX

as, in common language, we associate the signs with the months in a re-
verse order, they are reversed) ^should really be where <YI is, aud the
others follow in regular order.

The small circles round the globes represent the orbit of the moon with
regard to the earth, with the moon in each at the beginning of every
quarter. Half the moon is shewn by the little circle, and half of that is
left unshaded to shew the portion illuminated by the sun. At the new
moons, or points nearest the sun, that is wholly turned from the earth.
Seen from the earth, the half appears at the end of the first and third
quarters, the round side being toward the right hand at the first, and the
left at the third. At the end of the second quarter, or full moon, the whole
of the enlightened part is turned to the earth. At one view, however, only
half the moon can be represented, and therefore as much must be ima-
gined on the under side as is seen on the upper. A lunar eclipse, by the
moon's passing through the earth's shadow, is seen in the figure toward
the left hand ; and a solar eclipse by the moon coming between a part of
the earth and the sun, in the figure toward the right. In the other points,
the moon is supposed to be so far above or below the plane of the orbit,
that the shadows do not interpose. The shadows are represented as being
parallel, which from the magnitude and distance of the sun, is nearly their
position. Owing to the reflection of light by the atmosphere, the shadows,
even where the eclipses are total, are not absolutely dark.

The motions of those bodies cannot be accurately represented by figures,
even if confined to two of them,— as then it is not round the centre of one of
the bodies, but round the centre of gravity of the two, and that varies
with their distances from each other. The centre of gravity of any num-
ber of bodies is that point, through which if a plane or level section were
supposed to pass, in any or every direction, it would always divide the
quantity of matter into two equal parts.

The remaining six figures on the plate are intended to illustrate the
variations of tide in the ocean and atmosphere, as depending on the posi-
tions of the sun and the moon. They are sections, in which the inside
circle represents the solid nucleus of the earth, the shaded oval, the tide
of the sea, and dotted oval that of the atmosphere. As the general prin-
ciple can only be shown in a figure, the solid earth is represented as
covered uniformly with water, and no regard is paid to the proportions.

In those figures the horizontal lines are the axis of the earth, and the
vertical ones the equator, tropics, and polar circles; the lines of low water
have the name at length. They coincide with the axis when both lumina-
ries are over the equator, in every other case they form an angle with the

X EXPLANATION.

Fig. 2. Represents high water at an equinox, either at new moon or at
full. If new moon, both luminaries would be in the direction of the upper
H, and if full, one would be in the direction of the upper and the other in
that of the lower ; but the height of the tides would be the same. The
low water would, in that case, revolve round the polar circles, and con-
sequently it would be continual low water at one of these j while the high
waters would revolve round the tropics.

Fig. 3. Represents the action of the luminaries at the quarters, when the
high water of the sun coincides with the low water of the moon, and the
difference between high and low water is the least possible.

Fig. 4. Represents high water at full or change at an equinox, and
when the sun and moon have the same declination. In that case both
tides of high water revolve round the equator, and the constant low water
is at each pole.

Fig. 5. Represents the high water at full or change at the equinox,
where the moon has its greatest distance in declination from the sun ;
in which case the high water is at the dotted line, HH, between the
luminaries.

Fig. 6. Represents the high water at the tropic, with the moon at its
greatest declination more than the sun ; and

Fig. 7. Represents the same, with the moon at its greatest declination,
less than the sun. In figure 6 the high water is thrown without the tropic,
and in figure 7 it is thrown within.

The tides in the atmosphere are affected in the same manner as those in
the ocean.

These figures will afford some illustration in the extreme cases, and the
intermediate ones can be imagined from them.

ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Page.

Natural history of seasons — two classes of naturalists —instinct
and reason— their radical distinctions— necessity of studying
the seasons 1—15

PART FIRST.— THE YEAR.

The year a natural period, and its changes marked by all nature
— mass and motion of the earth — orbit and axis, their effects —
unmeasurable extent of creation— changes of the distances of
the two poles from the sun— the beautiful results— charm even
of winter— variable rate of change, and the results— annual
motion of the point of greatest solar action— dependence of all
nature upon the sun— difference of the seasons in the two
hemispheres— height of the curve of congelation— that regulates
the productions, but partly depends on the nature of the surface
—annual solar action— sunbeams— moonbeams— the tides of the
ocean— their modifications— tides and currents of the atmos-
phere— influence of heat — freezing and thawing— evaporation —
vapour— combustion— odours and colours— winds— signs and
formation of rain — false interpretation of signs — advantages of
the study of nature . 16 — 89

PART SECOND.- -SPRING.

Characters of its first coming— momentary revival— leafless trees
—their stability— life of buds— life sheltered by plants— winter
wind — the wind of spring — its effects — the melting of the snows
—freshness of the new soil— the first flower— the field— the
matin song of the year — the skylark — compared with the night-
ingale— habits and nest of skylark— song and silence of the
lark— the woodlark— loves of birds— nest and habits of the
woodlark— the pipits— the sea pipit— the tree pipit— the titling
— the cuckoo — danger of mere authority in natural history —
exemplified in the swallows— probably in the cuckoo— some
things alleged of that bird want proof— description of the
cuckoo — difficulties of studying the habits of the cuckoo — reci-

Ml ANALYSIS OF THE CONTESTS.

Page.

procal actions of different surfaces— value of fences— natural
ones— evergreens— why do leaves fall ?— stores prepared for the
birds — injuries done by grubs — the enemies of grubs — rooks —
rookeries— habits of rooks— their councils — their administration
of justice— pugnacity of animals— they attack the weaker party-
situation of rookeries — injuries done by rooks — the raven — its
imaginary character— its description, and real one— raven's nest
— its habits — the raven in the wilderness — utility of ravens — the
natural voice— the adaptation of fecundity to waste— vegetable
life and action— the limits within which art may modify them
—structure and functions of plants— component parts of stems
— is there any circulation in plants ? — no proof of it — formation
of wood and bark— living part of a tree— facts irreconcileable
with a circulation — formation of buds — uses of plants, and
advantages of the study of them— the magpie— its appearance
and habits — virtft of the magpie — inventory of its cabinet — its
disposition — nest — distribution of the crow tribe — the jay — its
habits— difficulty of studying it in a state of nature— its nest-
its mimic powers — the jackdaw — the schoolboy and jackdaw's
nest — royal protection of jackdaws — chough — peculiarity of its
distribution— superiority of nature to art— the AUTHOR of na-
ture— migratory and resident birds — eagles and hawks — owls
—seasonal prognostics, their use and abuse— active and passive
energy both inversely as mass and magnitude, but the ratio not
determined — there are improvements, but no second creation
of species— all are of THE ONE Creator— Concluding reflections 92—255

PART THIRD.— SUMMER.

Beauty of the summer— its effect in the high latitudes— its
coming in Britain— it is THE museum— summer morning-
morning insects— reveillie on the hill— the green plover —
the dottrell — another note — the bittern — habits — where and
how it booms — the summer dew — sunrise on a mountain— the
effects on sea and land — looming and mirage— heat — cascade
in the woods— woodpeckers— the green— its habits— wood-
peckers and ants— spotted woodpecker— small woodpecker —
wryneck — titmice — the great — the cole — the bluecap, and
others— summer birds— the warblers— kinds of warblers-
blackcap— whitethroat— change of birds in districts— the
petty chaps— summer evening walk— lesser petty chaps— the
nightingale— wagtails — their habits— chats— the wheatear—
other chats— cause of incubation— the crake— its singular
habits— the goatsucker— swallows and wasps— hint at what
remains— concluding sentence 257—383

THE BRITISH NATURALIST.

THE FOUR SEASONS.

INTRODUCTION.

ONE of the principal charms of the study of nature
consists in the fact of its extending over time as well
as over space, — imparting wisdom and pleasure from
seasons as well as from scenes. Taken singly, each
object delights him whom we may call " the artist" in
the study of nature ; taken in their connexion and
succession, they delight and enlighten the natural
philosopher. It would be wrong to undervalue either
of these for the sake of the other. The man who
spends his whole life in dissecting flies, or writing the
biography of beetles, is as assuredly at work upon the
corner stone of philosophy, as he who is weighing the
earth, or measuring the heavens ; and universal ob-
servation is the line and the plummet, by which alone
the fabric of universal science can be builded erect
and stable.

INTRODUCTION.

Still, however, these are but professional men, na-
turalists by trade, and like other tradesmen, perfecting
their work in consequence of the division of labour.
But the use to the public is of another kind : it lies
in the contemplation of the entife fabric, — in finding
out that wherever knowledge can go, from the widest
sweep of the telescope, to the microscope's minutest
atom, there is a connexion, a unity of purpose, one
creation, and by necessary consequence, ONE CREATOR.
The lamb that wantons on the lawn, the rill that
trickles down the rock, the brook that winds through
the meadows, the tree that overshadows its course,
the insect that curls the leaves, the bird that sings
and nestles in the spray, the dew-drop that gems,
and the breeze that fans the whole, — these, and all
that the largest catalogue of things living or moving
can add to them, are all in some degree connected
with, and attendant upon yonder sun, which beams
life and beauty upon the whole, athwart a space of
about one hundred millions of miles ; and unless we
extend our contemplations to the same distance, and
take in the great phenomena as well as the small, the
season as well as the seasonal plant or animal, we
must err in our opinions, and be cheated out of our
enjoyment.

It was for the want of this greater information, —
those golden cords that really do bind together the
heavens and the earth, that the human race wandered
so long in error, wasting upon fancied schemes of their
own creation as much ingenuity as would have enabled
them to understand the true nature and working of
the system. Though they wanted our artificial means

SOURCE OF ERROR.

of scanning the magnificent, and scrutinizing the mi-
nute, they were as perfect in the range of the eye as
we are ; and the fragments of records of what they
did, that have come down to us, show that their single
observations were accurate ; but they had not the
proper, method of so combining facts as that the one
might throw light upon the other, and for that reason
they formed those imperfect and contradictory theories,
of the origin of things and the succession of events,
which give an unphilosophic air even to the most
acute of their conjectures.

There is no way of avoiding fancies of that kind
but by looking at the whole. No part of nature is
detached ; and though, when we find the ultimate fact
displayed by or in one of nature's productions, — as
when we find an acorn passing through stem, bud,
and flower to an acorn again, a bee building a cell,
or a bird changing its clime or its colour with the season,
— we hunt for an instinct in the individual to explain
the whole, we do not take into consideration that in
the production of any of these, or any other pheno-
mena more simple than these, there may be a count-
less number of the energies of nature at work. Change
of heat, change of light, change of humidity, change
in the place of matter by the mere mechanical action
of the wind and the rain, change of the composition
according to those chemical laws which we know, or
to many others of which we are ignorant, with many
other circumstances, may enter into an ultimate fact
so simple as the germination of a seed, or the appear-
ance of the larva of an insect in a particular time ;

INTRODUCTION.

and because we look merely at the result, and disre-
gard the connexion, the knowledge which our ob-
servation gives us, however accurate it may be, stands
alone, and produces nothing: it is a chip, and not a
germ ; and therefore it will not vegetate.

In a former volume we mentioned that one promi-
nent cause of error and failure in the study of nature,
has been an overweening tendency to have recourse to
man, and his modes of acting, for analogies whereby
to explain the operations of nature ; and here we may
just hint at one fatal instance of it. What is called
the instinct of animals, has proved a stumbling-block
to all, or almost all, who have written about it. The
shades of opinion are various ; but the extremes may
be stated as mere mechanism for those who have rated
the animal powers the lowest, and mind or reason, the
same in kind with that of man, for those who have
rated them the highest. And these misconceptions
(for they seem all to* be misconceptions) are, unfortu-
nately, not mere verbal blunders ; their tendency is to
measure the Almighty by the standard of man, and to
sink man to the level of the beasts that perish;
thereby reducing nature to a collection of loose and
disjointed fragments, and man's hope of immortality
to a mere faith, for which he not only can give no
reason, but against which the subjects that most na-
turally and powerfully call forth his thoughts, are
always suggesting objections.

In the mineral and vegetable kingdoms there are
not the same facilities for error, though there have
been implied hints that there is a sort of shadowy

INSTINCT AND REASON. 5

volition in the downward motion of a falling stone,
and the upward motion of a growing plant. But
the disposition has been very general to regard the
Avhole conduct and phenomena of an animal as the
result of a power implanted in itself, without any
consideration of the rest of nature, or of the circum-
stances in which the animal is placed.

They do, indeed, call that power INSTINCT, until
they find in its working some faint or fancied re-
semblance to that of man ; and then they begin to
wonder at the wisdom of the creature, and, turning
round, endow it with " an inferior sort of reason/'
Now, if that which is composed of nothing but mere
matter, however finely it may be organized, and
which at the close of its day, its season, or its century,
however .ingeniously that may be spent, utterly pe-
rishes as an individual, and renders up all the sub-
stances of which it is composed to the common store
of matter, there to enter into new compounds, obey
new laws, and exhibit new phenomena : if a creature,
of which that is the acknowledged nature and destiny,
is yet endowed with any sort of reason, however in-
ferior, how can any argument for the immortality of
man be grounded upon his possession of reason, if it
differs from that of the mortal and perishing animal
only in degree ? *Were that the case, we should have
as many shades of immortality, even among men, as
there are differences of ingenuity, talent, and in-
dustry, in the individuals; and, in many instances,
man would have to rank far below some of his fellow
tenants of the earth.

b INTRODUCTION.

A New Hollander is not by half so good a builder
as the white ant in his woods, or the little coral worm
in the sea that surrounds him ; and the European must
yield the palm to a snail or an oyster ! The tree that
adorns the forest, the flower that enamels the par-
terre, the very rankest weed that grows, the particles
of earth that arrange themselves into an agate or a
crystal ; nay, the very moisture in the air of a room on
a winter's night, which does not appear, till coming in
contact with the cold glass of the window, it shoots
into beautiful feathers of ice ; these, nay, any thing
else of nature's forming, are all much greater adepts
in the arts of form and construction than man is. Of
his painting we need not speak ; and as for his che-
mistry, why, in the practice of it, he is outdone by a
vine, a mountain berry, or even a sunbeam.

If, therefore, we were to take the mere arrangement
of matter as the evidence of mind, man would be
placed far down in the scale, and his immortality
would stand upon no better foundation than that of
an insect, a stone, or even a drop of dew. But that
is not the philosophic view of the matter. The most
ingenious performances of the animals, those which
have been described as the results of an inferior sort
of reason, have really nothing more to do with reason,
viewed as an attribute of mind, than has the motion
of a planet, or the falling of a stone, or the congelation
of water by cold and the thawing of it again by heat.
The whole of the phenomena of matter, whether it be
organized or not, and whether the organization of it
be animated or not, are the results of the law of mat-

LAW OF NATURE.

ter, the mere consequents of events immediately ante-
cedent, and have not the least connexion with a
previous purpose, or mental judgment, in the beings
or things in which they are displayed. The rose-bud
of this year takes no copy from the rose-bud of the
last : the bee is not schooled in wax-making, or cell-
building by its parents, for the one parent is a queen,
and, as such, exempted from labour, and the other is
an idler or drone. Even in the case of those animals
which man domesticates, and which he has contrived
to make obedient to his command, and which he is
consequently the most disposed to endow with memory
and reflection similar to his own, there is really no well
authenticated proof that they are actuated by any mo*
tive beyond the mere circumstances of the moment.
On this part of Natural History it has been the prac-
tice to appeal to the elephant, as treasuring up affection
or revenge for long periods of time ; and the tales of
the credulous nations of the East have been repeated
as established truths by the writers of the West. The
runners by the side of an elephant in India, do indeed
continually keep telling him how arid where he is to
step, and they believe that he understands and obeys
them. The very same people, however, believe that
the smearing of a stone or block of wood with red
paint invests it with divine power ; and therefore their
belief is not of very much value. If an elephant were
endowed with a reasoning memory, there is no case in
which that memory would be more likely to be had
recourse to, than in avoiding the trap in which it had
formerly been deprived of its freedom. The process is

8 INTRODUCTION .

far from a short one, as five or six weeks are required
before the animal is tamed, and the different steps of
the process are of a kind which, if the animal had a
reasoning memory, he would be very unlikely to forget ;
but the following anecdote, given by Mr. J. C. Scott,
in the " Philosophical Transactions, for 1799," will
show what memory the elephant actually has on this
most important subject :

" In June, 1787," says Mr. C. S., " Jattra Mungul,
a male elephant, taken the year before, was travelling
in company with some other elephants, towards Chitta-
gong, laden with a tent and some baggage for our
accommodation in the journey. Having come upon a
tiger's track, which elephants discover readily by the
smell, he took fright, and ran off to the woods, in spite
of the efforts of his driver. On entering the wood, the
driver saved himself by springing from the elephant,
and clinging to a branch of a tree, under which he was
passing. When the elephant got rid of his driver, he
soon contrived to shake off his load. As soon as he
ran away, a trained female was dispatched after him,
but could not get up in time to prevent his escape ;
she, however, brought back his driver, and the load
which he "had thrown off, and we proceeded without
any hope of ever seeing him again. Eighteen months
after this, when a herd of elephants had been taken,
and had remained several days in the enclosure, till
they were enticed into the outlet, and tied and led out
in the usual manner, one of the drivers viewing a male
elephant, declared he resembled the one that had run
away. This excited the curiosity of every one to go

THE ELEPHANT.

and look at him ; but when any person came near, the
animal struck at them with his trunk, and, in every
respect, appeared as wild and outrageous as any of
the other elephants. At length, an old hunter coming
and examining him narrowly, declared he was the very
elephant that had made his escape eighteen months
before. Confident of this, he boldly rode up to him
on a tame elephant, and ordered him to lie down,
pulling him by the ear at the same time. The animal
seemed quite taken by surprise, and instantly obeyed
the word of command, with as much quickness as the
ropes with which he was tied permitted ; uttering, at
the same time, a peculiar shrill squeak through his
trunk, as he had formerly been known to do, by which
he was immediately known by every person who had
ever been acquainted with this peculiarity. Thus we
see that this elephant, for the space of eight or ten
days, during which he was in the enclosure, and even
while he was tied in the outlet, appeared equally
wild and fierce as the boldest elephant then taken,
till he was conducted from the outlet. The moment,
however, that he was addressed in a commanding tone,
the recollection of his former obedience seemed tf) rush
upon him at once, and he permitted a driver to be
seated on his neck, who, in a few days, made him as
tractable as ever."

Such is the account, given by one who was an eye
witness and very competent judge, of the reasoning
memory of that quadruped, which has been vulgarly
regarded, not merely as the paragon of animal saga-
city, but as making a near approach to man in the

10 INTRODUCTION.

possession of reason; and yet there is not in it the
slightest trace of reasoning, or the effect of any thing
but the circumstances of the moment. The escape,
was not the result of any desire to escape from slavery,
but a momentary aversion to the tiger's track. When
the forest was entered, the driver and the master were
forgotten, and the elephant was again a denizen of the
wild. The entrance of the keddah never suggested
the idea that the keddah had formerly been the gate to
bondage ; and even the passage, the bars, the nooses,
the tying, the drawing out, and the picketting, did
not awaken one particle of memory. But when the
word of command was given, down knelt the animal,
and was docile. There is, therefore, no trace of con-
nexion between its acts ; and the obedience to the old
hunter had no more approximation to reason in it than
the terror and flight at the smell of the tiger. An oak
that has expanded its buds about the same day of the
spring, and shaken off its leaves about the same period
of the winter, regularly, year after year, for a century,
has much stronger claims to reason, that is to be
governed in its present actions by the experience of
the past, than can be advanced by almost any animal ;
and yet we never heard of an oak keeping a calendar
of the months, or trying the temperature by a ther-
mometer of its own construction and contrivance.
But the oak obeys the simple law of vegetable life:
when the season and the temperature are in a state fit
for stimulating its fibres and juices, the sap circulates,
and the leaves expand; and when the circumstances
that are required for the action of the tree cease, the

LAW OF NATURE. .1 1

action ceases along with them. Nor do we ever hear
of a plant's learning wisdom, and delaying the expan-
sion of its blossoms any one season, however those of a
former year had been blighted by an early frost. As
little would we hear of reason among the animals, if
the ascription of it were not a sort of tribute that
man pays to his own vanity, by considering the
other creatures in so far his imitators, — although by
so doing, he saps the foundation of his own best
hope.

By these observations it is by no means intended to
lessen the excitement to the study of nature, or to dimi-
nish the pleasure which that study is so well calculated
to afford ; but rather to free the subject from error and
danger, and thereby render the pleasure and the profit
more complete ; to impress upon those who have not
thought much upon such subjects, that we must not
judge of God after the manner of man; that we must
not limit his working to that which would be our
mode ; that we must not, because we cannot accom-
plish our small triumphs over matter without the accu-
mulated experience of ages, dare to suppose that He
needs any such help in his working. Wonderful as are
the properties and powers with which we find organic,
and even inorganic matter, endowed, we must not sup-
pose that He could not have formed them all, and
formed them (were that to our comprehension possible)
ten thousand times more wonderful than they are, with-
out the necessity of any subordinate mind to guide
them. The mere fact of their existence is far more
astonishing than any thing that they can do ; the germ

12 INTRODUCTION.

expanding into the plant, and the egg vivifying into the
animal, are much more wonderful than any thing that
the one or the other can do, even in those species that
we admire the most, and are the most'disposed to en-
dow with reason and reflection ; and yet the requisite
heat and moisture fail not to cause the seed to germinate ;
and the egg which the parent commits to the elements,
and dies the while, comes as certainly to maturity as
that which is cherised in the matrix, or warmed by the
maternal breast. There is, therefore, no need of blend-
ing mind with matter, — of gratuitously forcing instru-
ments upon the Almighty, which assuredly he does not
need ; thereby breaking the history of material nature
into disjointed sections ; and blending mind with these,
till the simplicity, the unchangeableness, the freedom
from the limitations of space and time, and the conse-
quent immortality, of that which thinks, be confounded
with the mutability of material things.

Among the ignorant (and those who are very labo-
rious may yet be very ignorant) we may naturally ex-
pect to meet mere marvel-hunters, persons who, because
a certain animal is found to perform operations which
they did not expect, or of which they fancy that they,
more than others, are the finders, will needs attribute
powers which do not properly belong to animals, to
the performers of these operations, just in the same
manner and for the same reason that other ignorant
persons have attributed to human beings, powers which
were not human. Reason in mere matter is not a
more violent assumption than magic and witchcraft in
man ; but they who look at the whole system with the

STUDY OF NATURE. 13

eye of sound philosophy, find that the whole is alike
magic and wonder ; and that instead of having to theo-
rise here, and to marvel there, the pleasure and the
interest of man equally combine in finding out the
uses of the parts, and admiring the harmony and
beauty of the whole. If we are to make a wonder
of any part of nature, we ought to make it wonder
all over, because as compared with what man can
do, it is all equally wonderful, or if there be any
thing about it more wonderful than another, it is the
fact of its existence, rather than the mode, — not so
much how it appears, as why : the creative energy, that
which caused it to be there at all, that is the proper
subject of wonder, because it is the one which finite
comprehension never can reach. The forms under
which the Creator has seen meet that matter should
exist, are given to man for instruction and for use:
their coming into existence, and the imparting of their
qualities to them, are for adoration and for love. When.
we speak of the works of men, it is all very well to
praise one thing as well fitted for the intended purpose,
and to blame another as not ; but when men attempt
to apply this criticism to the works of God, it is some-
thing more than presumption. All the instruments
and means by which He effects a purpose, must be
equally well adapted, for they must all be the very
best ; and though we be apt to admire the most that
which costs us the greatest labour, and though that
be of great value to us in stimulating us on to the
acquisition of knowledge, yet we ought to bear in mind,
that it is our weakness and not our wisdom ; and that

14 1VIUODUCTION.

that which meets us every hour, and is quite unheeded
because it so meets us, is as wonderful, considered as a
portion of the economy of nature, as that of which we fetch
knowledge from afar by the telescope, or reveal out of
apparent nothing by the microscope. If we except that
mental capacity in ourselves, by which we know, and
can reason, and conclude, there is nothing to which the
longest and most laborious life of study and observation
can conduct us, that has any more wonder about it,
than the tendency which water has to flow down a
steep, or which the atmosphere has to lift that water
again from the sea, and scatter it over the land in
fertilizing showers, without the aid of any, even the
most trifling, apparatus. And if we think only of
practical usefulness, the study of a boiling kettle has
brought more of it than any other subject about which
the thoughts of men have, in modern times, been
engaged, — for thence came the steam engine.

We are aware that these are observations that may
occur to any body, that they may, on that account, be
stigmatized as common place, and an infliction upon
the reader, of that which every body knows. That any
body might know all that has been said, we readily
allow : our object is not to reveal wonders, or bring-
forward novelty; these things we leave to the more
ambitious and pretending, and confine ourselves to the
more humble task of endeavouring to show, that there
is both pleasure and usefulness in that which any
body may know, without the smallest pretensions to
superior endowment, and without almost any inter-
ruption of the busiest profession ; and if we can but

STUDY OF NATURE. 15

accomplish that, we shall be satisfied. We write not
for professed naturalists, but in so far to show, that
no technicality can so hedge in the glorious field of
creation, as that plain people, in the exercise of their
ordinary understandings, shall not be able to enter
upon and explore it, if those plain people will but
make use of their own judgment, and take a general
view of that which, philosophically considered, is not
a number of particulars, but one whole, no part of
which can be understood without some knowledge of
the rest and the connection. For this reason, it is just
as necessary to contemplate the season as the scene or
the inhabitant ; and he who confines his researches to
any one corner or department of nature, how much
soever he may contribute to the wisdom of others, is
not himself in the highway that leads to it ; and it is
just because some, whose industry has merited praise,
when they have merely detailed what they saw, have
not taken all the elements into account, that they have
laid themselves open to censure when they have begun
to theorize. It is not very easy, perhaps not altogether
possible, to find a plan which shall connect the natural
history of the elements with that of those productions
of the earth upon which the elements have so much
known influence, and probably so much more that is
not known ; but the one that most naturally suggests
itself, and perhaps, on that account, the most simple, is
the year.

THE BRITISH NATURALIST.

PART FIRST.

THE YEAR.

THOUGH there are many of the organized and ani-
mated inhabitants of the earth, to which the revolutions
of all years are not alike, and some upon which the
effects of the changing seasons are not very strongly
marked, yet there is no organic production, especially
of the temperate or cold climates, upon which it has
not some effect. So marked, indeed, is the period
of the earth's revolution round the sun, that, even
in those parts of the world where the alternations
are more of drought and moisture than of heat and
cold, finding the times of its changes has probably
always been the very first branch of science or philo-
sophy to which the people turned their attention. It
must be admitted, that the changes of the year in those
places, though very different in character from those
that happen in our latitudes, are not less destitute of
interest ; and when we bear in mind that many of the
phenomena that tend to vary our year, and bring us so
great a succession of plants and animals, have their
causes in those regions, we are forced to admit that,
before we can understand the nature and economy

Fut.l. ,.V

IT§ ATTUD TIMES.

MASS AND MOTION. 17

of any one production of the globe, we must under-
stand something about the general economy of the
whole. The growth and habits, nay, the very exist-
ence of plants and of animals, depend so much upon
soil and atmosphere, and upon the distribution and
degree of humidity and of solar heat, that the natural
history of the earth, as part of the solar system, is one
of the first and most essential elements of natural
history. Fortunately, too, it is one of the most inter-
esting, as well as the most easily understood.

The mass of the earth, the velocity with which it
rolls onward in its orbit and turns upon its axis, the
simplicity of the laws by which those motions are sus-
tained, the varied phenomena and the highly important
results which thence are produced, are perfectly as-
tonishing, and offer a demonstration of Almighty power
which no man that understands will dare to question.
Some idea of the power with which the earth moves may
be formed, when it is considered that the following
expression for the tons of matter that it contains
is under the truth, — 245 trillions, 612,754 billions,
894,281 millions, 574,281 tons; that its motion is
nearly two millions of miles every day ; and that
were it to meet with an obstruction of its own bulk
and weight, the shock would dash them both to
atoms. Yet notwithstanding all this rapidity and
force, no inconvenience is sustained by the smallest
and feeblest creature upon its surface ; but that the
motions arising from other causes are never in the least
disturbed, and the whole moves on with the same
tranquillity as if the globe were immovable ; and that
c 2

18 THE YEAR.

this and the other globes which compose the system,
require no second touch of the hand that formed them ;
but have in their original law means of correcting all
their apparent irregularities.

When we think of that, and consider that the mere
fact of the earth's weighing so many tons, being at so
many miles distant from the luminary, and wheeling
round it at so many miles in an hour, are all the laws
that are necessary to sustain the mighty machine, the
simplicity with which a result so tremendous is brought
about, is tenfold more sublime than any complication
of causes that we can imagine. When we further con-
sider, that by revolving round its own central line or
axis once in twenty-four hours, the equatorial portions
of the earth's surface have a further motion of about
one thousand miles an hour ; and that this second mo-
tion is not only performed with as little disturbance to
the economy of the surface, as the annual one round the
sun, but that it ensures stability to its general form,
and diffuses those fluids upon which life and comfort so
universally depend, more uniformly over the surface than
they otherwise would be ; and that this again is a
result of the same simple facts of so much matter and
so much motion: — we must admit that, even if the
matter rested here, it would be worthy of our most
careful study and our especial admiration.

These, however, are but the bare foundations ; the
mere beginnings of a series of wonders which the revo-
lution of every year presents for the contemplation and
the comfort of man ; and the means are so simple, and
the results so many and so beautiful, that while no

EFFECT OF LIGHT. ]9

language can do justice to them, life itself is all too
short for expressing the admiration which they force
from a mind capable of even a very small portion of
reflection. A very simple arrangement of the two mo-
tions of the earth not only produces these variations in
the duration and position of the sun's daily appear-
ance, which make the year ever new with the change
of seasons ; but, taken in combination with the form
and composition of the different parts of the earth's
surface, brings about all the alternations of sunshine
and shower, of calm and tempest, of sultriness and
of snow.

Every one must be aware, that if an opaque globular
body were placed opposite to a light, in the same way
that this earth is placed with regard to the sun, that
the light would irradiate one half of it ; and if both
remained stationary, the enlightened half would be
always the same ; that the centre would be the most
strongly illuminated in consequence of the light falling
perpendicularly upon the surface there ; and that the
light would diminish from thence gradually to the
boundary, around which it would be comparatively
weak and faint. Also that, if the opaque body were
made to revolve round the luminous one, always pre-
senting the same side to it, the distribution of light
would still be the same, only if the distance were va-
ried during the revolution, the light would be more
intense when nearer, and more faint when more remote.

If, however, the opaque body were made to turn
upon an axis, it would constantly shift the side pre-
sented to the light, unless one extremity of the axis of

20 THE YEAR.

rotation pointed directly to the centre of the luminous
body ; and in that case the only difference from a state
of rest would be, that, to an observer situated any where
upon the illuminated side of the opaque body, except
on the middle of that side, the luminous body would
appear to move round in a circle in the same time
that the opaque one turned round upon its axis, and
the circle would seem the larger, the farther that the
observer were from the middle of the illuminated side.

If, again, both extremities of the axis of the revolv-
ing body were equally distant from the centre of the
luminous one, is is evident that the whole surface of
the opaque body would be illuminated in the course
of every rotation that it made upon its axis ; and that
if the motion were uniform, any one point on its sur-
face would be for exactly one half of the time of the
revolution exposed to the light, and for the other half
deprived of it ; the only difference would be, that a
point situated just midway between the extremities of
the axis of rotation, would be the most strongly illumi-
nated, and that other positions would be less and less
so according as they were nearer to the extremities of
that axis.

Further, if one extremity of the axis of rotation were
nearer the centre of the luminous body than the other,
the whole surface of the opaque body would not be
illuminated during one rotation ; for there would be a
portion round the nearest extremity of the axis con-
stantly in the light, and an equal portion round the
remotest one, which the light would not reach ; and
those portions would be equal to the angular difference

THE EARTH'S ORBIT. 21

of their distances, measured upon the circumference of
the opaque body, The point of greatest illumination,
in that case, would not be equally distant between the
extremities of the axis, but nearer the continually illu-
minated extremity, by a portion of the circumference,
equal to half the angular difference already mentioned.
An alternation of the two last mentioned positions of
the earth's axis with regard to the centre of the sun, is
all that is necessary for producing the succession of
seasons, — the whole varied phenomena of the year ;
and the contrivance by which it is brought about is the
most simple that can be imagined. The orbit of the
earth, or the path that it annually describes round the
sun, is an ellipse or oval, not very different from a
circle, but still an oval, and the sun is situated in the
longest diameter, in one of the foci, — that is, one
of the centres from which the ellipse would be drawn,
or, as geometricians say, described. It is hardly
necessary to mention, that an ellipse differs from
a circle merely by being drawn round two centres
instead of one ; and that, as the one li e drawn from
the centre of the circle to the circumference or boun-
dary is always of the same length, ad is always equal
to half the diameter, so the two lines drawn from the
two centres of an ellipse to any point in the circumfe-
rence are always, taken together, of the same length,
and their sum always equal to the longest diameter.
Such is the form of the orbit along which the earth
moves every year ; and it lies in the same plane, — that
is, if a perfectly flat surface were applied to it, it would
touch it in every point.

22 THE YEAR.

The position of the axis round which the earth per-
forms its daily rotation, makes with the plane of this
orbit, taken in the direction of the largest diameter, an
angle of 66° 32', or rather less than three-fourths of^a
right angle ; and this position it always retains, or, as
the astronomers say, its successive positions are all
parallel to each other. The axis thus always remains
steady, except a very trifling vibration, called the nut-
ation, and that has little or no effect upon the pheno-
mena of the seasons. On account of this permanence
of the position of the axis with reference to the plane
of the orbit, the two extremities are called the poles ;
and in the course of a year each pole points in succes-
sion to the circumference of an ellipse in absolute space,
having a diameter of about two hundred millions of
miles. Thus, by the way, one gets a glimpse of the
vast magnitude of the universe, — of the mere nothing
that the earth, and even the earth's orbit is, compared
with the inhabited space which surrounds it. If the two
hundred millions of miles formed any measurable part
of the distance of the pole star, that star would appear
to describe a little ellipse in the heavens annually ; but
it does not, and therefore the distance of the pole star
must be so great that two hundred millions of miles is
not a measurable portion of it. Nor have we any
reason to conclude that any one star is nearer to
another than the pole star is to the earth. The stars
seen by the eye are very many ; and as the powers of
the telescope are increased they multiply almost to
infinitude, — many thousands in an extent which, to the
naked eye, is but a mere point. Those myriads and

EARTH'S AXIS AND MOTIONS. 23

the distances are wonderful ; almost as wonderful as
the eye that can see them, and the mind that can mea-
sure the distance beyond which the nearest of them
must be situated.

As the position of the earth's axis has its own posi-
tion parallel in all points, and forms, with the largest
diameter of the orbit, an angle different from a right
angle, the position of the axis with regard to the line
joining the sun and earth, which line, from centre to
centre of course, is the middle of the illuminated half
of the earth, must be continually changing. When it
is in any extremity of the larger diameter, the one
pole must be 23° 28' (say 23£° less than a right
angle from the line joining the centres of the earth
and sun, and the other pole must be 23^° more
than a right angle), therefore the angular difference
will be 47°. Consequently 47° round the one pole,
that is a segment measuring 47° across, and hav-
ing the one pole in the centre, must be illuminated
during the whole revolution ; an equal portion round
the other pole must be without illumination ; and the
parallel of greatest illumination must be 23° nearer the
illuminated pole than the parallel midway between the
poles.

But, as the earth rolls on, the angular difference of
its two poles, with reference to the line joining the
centres, must gradually diminish; along with it the
illuminated portion round the one pole, and the dark
one round the other, must diminish also ; and the pa-
rallel of greatest illumination must gradually approach
the parallel midway between the poles. When one

24 THE YEAR.

quadrant or quarter of the orbit is passed over, the
angular difference will be reduced to nothing, and there
will be an equal continuance of solar light throughout
the whole globe, only its intensity will diminish toward
the poles till at both it be merely the illumination of a
sun in the horizon, as when that luminary is rising or
setting.

After this the angular distance will again begin, but
its influence upon the poles will be reversed, that which
was formerly illuminated will be dark, and that which
was dark, illuminated. This reversed angular difference
will go on increasing during the time that the earth is
passing over another quarter, or quadrant ; and when
the other extremity of the largest diameter is arrived at,
it will be at its maximum ; and the distribution of solar
light will be the same as at the beginning, only it will
be on the opposite hemisphere, or half, of the earth.
For a third quarter, the angular difference will dimi-
nish ; at the end of that quarter it will vanish; and
through the fourth quarter, which completes the revo-
lution of the year, the opposite difference will increase,
till at the end of the revolution it will be the same as at
the beginning.

Thus are the light and heat of the sun distributed in
the course of the year, in such a manner as to give to
each hemisphere alternately the repose of winter and
the activity of summer, — to prevent any very great
length of day in those tropical regions, where a succes-
sion of the shade of night is required at short intervals
to preserve plants and animals from being destroyed
by excessive heat, — to accumulate the warmth of the

THE SPRING. 25

the year into one summer, at those places to which
low and slanting suns give an average temperature
which would not suffice for maturing and ripening the
more valuable grains and fruits, — and to concentrate
into one little season of almost continual day the still
feebler warmth of those climes yet nearer the poles,
where, were there a uniformity in the lengths of the
days, all would necessarily be desolation and sterility.
We can form some idea of what a very large portion
of the earth would have been but for this simple
arrangement, when we look at the temperature of
England about the beginning of April. At that time
we find the buds expanding, some of the blossoms out,
the lambs on the pasture, the birds beginning their
love songs, and some few insects upon the wing. We
hail the spring of life, and the dawn of beauty ; but
refreshing as is the breath of spring, we must not
attribute the whole, or nearly the whole, to the young
year. Nature took her own way of preserving each of
them during the inclemency of the winter ; — they emi-
grated, they had their clothing augmented, they were
cased up in wax or in silk, or they -buried themselves
in the earth, or under the bark of trees ; but they are
all the children of the sun, and had it not been for the
warmth of the preceding summer and autumn, we
should have looked for them in vain.

Well, but however they come, they are here: how
would they fare, if the temperature of the beginning of
April were to continue ? The warmth of the mid-day
sun would tempt the bud to put out its leaf a little,
though, from its cold drought, it would drink up the
D

26 THE YEAR.

moisture, and the leaf would be soft and languid. As
evening closed, the cold and condensed air would
let fall a treacherous dew-drop ; night would congeal
that dew-drop into hoar frost. Up rises the sun,
without cloud or fog to intercept his earliest ray ; the
hoar frost is instantly converted into thin vapour ; the
cold thereby produced chills the leaf, the sun scorches
it up, and, ere night comes, it is a black and lifeless
thing, and crumbles to dust between your fingers.
Next day would be the same ; indeed, every day would
be worse than has been stated, inasmuch as with a
continual succession of frosty nights the bud would
not expand at all. Thus there would be no food for
any living creature, and the country could not be
inhabited by man.

Nor is there any apparent contrivance by which the
greater part of a globe such as that which we inhabit
could be made the abode of life, and a rational being,
such as man, enabled to range over it, than the one of
which we have given a short account, simple as it is.
And then, the countless round of novelties, all exciting,
all instructive, and all gratifying, that rise out of it.
The dead repose of the winter forest and the winter
fields ; the wind scattering the accumulations of im-
purity here ; the frost breaking the clods and molli-
fying the soil there ; the rain saturating the earth in
one place, and filling the cavities and reservoirs of the
springs in another ; the snow throwing its protecting
mantle over the roots of the perennial, and the seeds of
the annual herbage, or accumulating upon the moun-
tains in order to irrigate and refresh the valleys at a time

THE WINTER. 27

\vhen the safety of the tender bloom forbids that enough
of rain should fall for the nourishment of the roots ;
the hybernation of some animals, the diminished
action and circulation of all ; the singular fact that
the greater part of the wild ones wax fat and vigorous
at the very time when food for them appears to be
most scanty ; the winter enjoyments of man ; the
frame, hardened to brass, and sinewed with steel, by
the bracing astringency of the keen air, — the absence
of lassitude, — the increased powers of thought and
action, — the cheerful fire, — the gleesome companion, —
the assemblage for wisdom or for wassail, — the glorious
canopy of the winter's night, wheeling round with its
myriad of luminous orbs, each of them the wonder of
man, the centre and life of a system of worlds, the de-
monstration of a God, the revelation of an infinitude
and an eternity — a field for our contemplation which
is all centre without circumference, where there is no
feebleness of infancy, no age, no decay, and no death,
but where the beginning and the end are alike
wrapped up in Him who is ' All in All.' Nor will he
who brings to the contemplation of nature, a feeling of
that better faith which, while, more than any thing
else, it has led on the career of science and improve-
ment, has sown all the glories of this world with seeds
of hope in a better, forget that at this season, when
the wonders of the heavens tune the mind to celestial
meditations, ' The Babe of Bethlehem' was born, — He
by whom the errors of the moral world were corrected,
and the sins blotted out, and who left as the proper
badge of man, the sentiment of universal benevolence.

28 THE YEAH.

So striking, indeed, is the winter, that very many
nations have began their year about the winter solstice,
and have then performed those religious rites which,
according to the degree of his enlightenment, are
among the first acts of man, when the very rudiments
of civilization break in upon him. The other seasons
have their varied feelings ; but winter is the season of
intellect, the proper time for the study of that which
is not perishable. Destruction has then done its ut-
most ; and there is the hope that all which is left will
revive again, and that the coming changes will each
bring more beauty than its precursor. The other sea-
sons have their charms, but they are more in detail;
and therefore they can be hinted at with more perspi-
cuity in another place.

But there is one other consideration that deserves
notice before we come to the great instruments with
which the solar influence works in producing the
phenomena of the year ; and that is the unequal rate
at which the angular difference changes at different
seasons. Those who are not conversant with the
geometry of the solar system, can easily understand
this by taking two hoops and crossing them one within
the other, so that the crossings be equally distant both
ways, and the angle that they make with each other
where they cross, about one-fourth of a right angle.
Then if one examine the halves of the hoops (which in
that case will be the same on both sides of the crossings)
it will be found that the angle which they make with
each other will be greatest just at the points where
they cross, that it will diminish gradually both ways

VARYING DECLINATION. 29

from those points, and that for a considerable space
at the middle between the crossings, the two hoops
will be nearly parallel to each other. One of the
hoops in this arrangement will nearly represent the
direction of the motion of the whole mass of the
earth, in its annual progress round the sun in its
orbit; and the other the direction of the motion of
the surface, produced by the daily revolution. The
points where the hoops cross will represent the two
equinoxes, and the positions where the tioops are pa-
rallel, will each represent a portion of the middle
of summer in the one hemisphere, and the middle
of winter in the other. The circumstance of the
hoops already mentioned, will point out that the
angular difference of the directions of those two mo-
tions must both be greatest and vary most near the
equinoxes, and that for some time in the middle
of the summers and the winters, the angular differ-
ence must be small, and subject to little variation.
Those results follow as necessarily from the axis of
the earth being at all times in parallel positions,
and forming the same acute angle with the plane
of the orbit, as do the different portions of il-
lumination, or length of the day; the position of
the axis could not, in fact, be what it is without
their both following as necessary consequences. Yet
we shall see that this difference of angle and angu-
lar changes, has some influence upon the phenomena
of the year, which are not unworthy of our notice.

Upon the solid mass of the earth, it has not,
indeed, much direct influence; neither has any ce-
D 2

30 THE YEAR.

lestial body or motion much influence there, unless
through the medium of what may be termed ter-
restrial agents ; but it has some direct effect upon
those agents, and some secondary effect upon the
solid earth, or at all events upon the surface, the
question in which we are chiefly interested, and to
which we must in a great measure confine our na-
tural history.

The terrestrial agents alluded to are the atmos-
pheric air and the water of the ocean; the former
of which every where surrounds the earth, to the
height of about fifty miles above the mean surface,
or forty-five miles above the very highest mountain ;
and the latter covers a great part of the surface. Those
two fluids have less extension and weight than the
solid parts of the earth, — these being bulk for bulk
more than four and a half times the weight of water,
and not much less than four thousand times the
weight of air, at the mean level of the earth's sur-
face, and about that degree of heat which we call
temperate. But the air has such a tendency to ex-
pand when not restrained by pressure, that it be-
comes wonderfully rare or thin in the upper parts
of the atmosphere, so that the whole 50 miles in
height is only equal to about 30 feet of water ;
and consequently the whole mass of it, taking bulk
for bulk, is only a very small fraction of that of the
earth. The air is perfectly restless, too, and with
the least difference of heat or pressure it is instantly
set in motion. When it is put powerfully in motion,
we know what effects it can produce, not only upon

COMMUNICATED MOTION. 3J

the waters of the sea, but upon more solid bodies,
such as trees and buildings.

When a body has been in motion for some time,
even a loose thing upon it has no tendency to fall
off, unless there be a jolt which causes a change either
in the rate or the direction of the motion. As when
a boat is gliding uniformly and smoothly along, a
vessel of water on board may be as still as a lake ;
but if the boat pitch in one way, the water is apt
to splash over the other side of the vessel. So also
if it get suddenly into rapid motion, a careless per-
son standing on the stern will be very apt to tumble
into the water behind ; and if, when in rapid motion,
it suddenly stop, a careless person standing in the
bow will be apt to fall forward into the water. In
like manner, when a horse turns or starts to a side
unexpectedly, an inexperienced rider is very apt to
be jerked off the other way; these and many other
results of a similar kind, take place, because some
time is required to communicate the change of mo-
tion or direction from the one body to the other.
Just for the same reason, if the earth were to get
a velocity in its orbit much greater than it has at
present, the solid part of it would roll on, and leave
the atmosphere, the water, and the loose substances
behind ; and if it were to be suddenly stopt, those
matters would be projected forward. In like man-
ner, if the rotatory motion eastward were to be greatly
augmented, the air and water would dash in hurri-
cane and flood against the east sides of the continents
and islands ; and if the motion were to be suddenly

32 THE YEAH.

diminished or stopt, the same catastrophe would assail
the western sides.

No such occurrence is to be apprehended, but
still there is a seasonal action, which, though mild,
arises from these causes. The sea and the atmos-
phere, especially the latter, have one motion from
the annual revolution, and another from the daily
rotation. If these were in the same direction, or
if there were little or no variation in the angular
difference, one uniform motion, compounded of the
two, would be the result ; but as the angular differ-
ence is greatest and also most variable about the
time of the equinoxes, there is more agitation, es-
pecially of the atmosphere, then, than at any other
times of the year ; and as the angular difference
is comparatively small and uniform, at the mid-
summers and mid-winters, these are the periods when
the atmosphere is the most tranquil, unless in small
countries with irregular surfaces, where local causes
have more effect than general ones.

The point at which the sun appears to be vertical,
or right over one's head, is of course the centre of
the action of the sun; and therefore, all the natural
action in the atmosphere, or on the sea and the
land, that depends upon the sun (and it is difficult
to think of any that does not, to some extent or
other, depend upon that luminary) must be most
conspicuous there, or rather, as the sun, like all
other material events, takes some time to produce
its effect, the point of greatest influence will be in
the same track with the point where the sun is

SEASONAL VARIATIONS. 33

over head, but a little in the rear of it; and the
distance between the two points will be greater in
proportion as the apparent motion of the sun is
more rapid. For the same reason, the point of
greatest solar influence will approach nearer to the
point where the sun is vertical, when the appa-
rent motion of that luminary is diminishing, and
recede farther from it, when the apparent motion
is increasing. At all seasons and places, there-
fore, when not counteracted by local or temporary
causer,, the daily time of greatest heat must be
after noon, and the time of sunset always warmer
than that of sunrise. One very obvious beneficial
effect results from the latter circumstance ; the plants
get time to cool more gradually in the evening, and
to warm more gradually in the morning. Though,
as has been noticed already, plants, in the early
stages of their growth, suffer severely when a night,
cold enough for converting the dew into hoar frost,
is followed by a warm sun, and a dry atmosphere.

But there is a seasonal as well as a daily effect
occasioned, by time being required before the sun can
produce its full influence. The seasons are thereby
retarded, so that before the most valuable trees be in
blossom, and the more valuable species of grain too far
advanced for shooting again, even if they are nipt by
the frost, the days have become considerably longer
than the nights, and thus the cold of the latter is
diminished more in proportion than the duration is
shortened. That it is so, may be seen either from the
fact or from the principle. Unless there has been an

:; } THE YEAR.

atmospherical change produced by some other cause
than the state of the local surface, the cold increases
during the night, and is greatest immediately before
sun-rise. The principle corresponds with this fact,
without being founded on it; and though, reasoning
from the analogy of the day, the vulgar belief be that
the cold is most intense at midnight, or a very little
after. But the heat of the day depends on two causes,
— the continued and momentary action of the sun,
the former of which increases during the whole time
that the sun is above the horizon, while the latter
increases to the time of the greatest heat, and then
diminishes. The cold of the night, on the other hand,
has but one cause, — the absence of the sun, and that
goes on increasing.

This seasonal advantage is further increased by the
greater increase of the angular variation, and the
consequent greater lengthening of the day and shorten-
ing of the night at the vernal seasons, (we may say
the vernal seasons, for though the equinox in September
be a harvest time to us, it is spring to the inhabitants
of the southern hemisphere). The time approaches
when the plants and the animals are to be called into
action : the sun, as it were, hurries to the scene,
where his presence is wanted, and away from that
where, by his agency, the purposes of the year have
been accomplished. It is impossible to avoid admiring
the beauty of these contrivances, and admiring them
the more that they are the result of causes so wonder-
fully simple. There needs no new agents, no new
apparatus for effecting this care, with which the sun

INDIVIDUALS AND SYSTEMS. 35

hastens to foster and protect his terrestrial children ;
the simple motions of the earth in its orbit, and upon
its axis, bring about the whole with the most unerring
certainty.

The pernicious effects of that small and illiberal
system, by which man seems prone to admire only that
which he fancies he can imitate, or rather, perhaps,
that which he would fain fancy is an imitation of him,
never appears so unwise and unworthy of a rational
being, as when one thinks of the greater machinery of
nature, by which seasons and all their wonderful and
varied productions are brought about. Levers, hinges,
pullies, cords, springs, saws, pincers, trephines, and all
other apparatus with which animals are furnished,
bearing any resemblance to the tools of human art;
threads, webs, excavations, cells and structures, and
all other matters that have any resemblance to those
objects, in the formation of which man employs his hand
and his tool : these are always matter of especial wonder.
The structure of the most trifling production of the
season is examined, and painted, and described, while
the season itself is unheeded ; and the most tiny insect
which the sunbeam warms into life, secures more atten-
tion than the sun itself, upon which all the organized
creatures of all the seasons of the world's history have
depended, and must depend. The plant or the animal
may be curious among its race, and each one is well
enough worthy of being studied according to its rela-
tive importance ; even the mere fact, that a grain of
sand — an atom of the most etherial fluid — a pencil of
light — a pulse of electricity — the polarity of a magnet,

36 THE YFAH.

matters which no art can submit either to the mea-
suring line or the scale — exists, is far more marvellous
than the mightiest of man's doings, and is a part, though
a small part, of the book of general knowledge. But
view it in which way soever one will, the economy of a
planet must be far more instructive than the economy
of a beetle, and a beautiful world much more ennobling
to the mind than a beautiful leaf or a beautiful but-
terfly. It is true that the one is at the door, in our
reach, but shut up in its silken cocoon ; and the other
is in a great book, shut up in the more tough and
tangled casing of technical language and diagram.
Assuredly, however, it is not in itself nearly so difficult.
Difficulty in the acquisition of knowledge is not diffi-
culty of performance, it is difficulty of will, — that is,
the absence of stimulus ; and so far from there being
any -want of stimulus to the study of the grand of nature,
it is that which first forces itself upon man's attention.
Astronomy, as a matter of wonder, or a means of in-
struction, is the elder born of the sciences ; and that
the celestial bodies exert an influence upon the earth,
is a matter so plain and striking, that if there be not the
information of truth respecting it, there is sure to be
the error of superstition and credulity. Now, though
the whole range of natural history should be studied,
it must be conceded, that the first attention is due to
that about which, if there be not truth, there must be
error ; the more so when, as in the case of the natural
history of the year, superstition will take possession, if
knowledge be not beforehand to keep it out.

But the subject is the one that comes most im-

SUN AND AIR. 37

mediately home to practical utility. The sun and the
atmosphere, for the changes of which and their influence,
the seasons are but other names, are really and im-
mediately the sources of all that we enjoy, — the very
first elements of life, and of ten fold, nay ten thousand
fold, more value than all else that we can possess.
Deprive man of the sun, and as soon as the store
which the bounty of that luminary left him is ex-
hausted, he must pine to death : deprive him of the
atmosphere, and there is an end of him in an instant.
When we ramble amid the vernal blossoms and the
summer sweets, where the eye turns delighted from
beauty to beauty, and perfume vies with perfume
which shall refresh and delight us the most, we ought
never to forget that the sun is the sole painter, — that
the beam of light is both the form and the colours ;
that the same sun elaborates the perfume; and that the
air, at the same time that it sustains life, is the mes-
senger that wafts it to the sense. So also, for all that
is dainty to the palate we are indebted to the same
agents. Not only for the more delicious fruits, which
we find, by many years' experience, to be racy in pro-
portion as the sun has warmed and the air fanned
them, but for every thing that we can use as food, we
are still indebted to the sun and the air. We could
have no land plant or animal without them ; we could
not have so much as a sea weed or an oyster from the
bed of the ocean ; nay, we could not obtain a draught
of water itself : for without the sun it would be ice, and
without air it would be tasteless and insipid. It need
not be said that there is heat in the earth, that water
drawn from a depth not only never freezes, but never

38 THE YEAR.

so much as changes its temperature ; for the sun has
been bestowing its influence upon the globe since the
first day of its creation, and though rational philo-
sophy has not yet sufficiently investigated the subject,
and it is probably above human investigation, we are
not warranted in saying that so much energy shall or
must perish, after performing the work of a season.
Small wits in modem times, have sought the appro-
bation of the thoughtless, by bringing forward the
conservation and storing of sun beams, as a matter
wherewithal to turn the labours of philosophy into
ridicule, in the same manner as similar triflers of an
earlier date ridiculed the notion of weighing the earth
or the air. But when men ceased from merely con-
sidering the particular fact, and followed out the con-
nexion of which it formed a part, the weighing of these
became operations within the reach of the most ordinary
capacity. In the case of air, it was a noble triumph
over ignorance, and over the stubbornness of a phi-
losophy of names and dogmas. " Magister dixit,
' Natura fugit vacuum /." and instantly " the making
of nothing" was believed to be a twin work with " the
making of all things" Magister himself, no doubt,
meant the actual destruction or annihilation of matter
once existing, and not the moving of one piece of it
to a distance from another ; but he was not so under-
stood : and the water rose in pumps, and smooth sur-
faces, from between which the air was excluded, stuck
together, just because nature " had a horror at an empty
space." But the water would not rise above thirty-
two feet in the Grand Duke of Tuscany's long pump;
and Galileo was consulted. That excellent and ami-

GRAVITATION. 39

able man had talent enough for seeing how matters
stood, but he had too much timidity for speaking it
boldly. " Nature did abhor a void, but her abhor-
rence extended only to thirty-two feet." Torricelli,
equally gifted and more daring, took a glass tube four
feet long, sealed it hermetically at one end, filled it
with mercury, placed his finger on the end, inverted it
in a basin of mercury, and down sunk the column in
the tube to the height of about thirty inches above the
surface of that in the basin. Here was nature's ab-
horrence lessened in the case of mercury to about one
twelfth of what it had proved to be in the case of
water ; and that was nearly inversely as their specific
gravities ; or the thirty-two feet of water and the thirty
inches of mercury, were, upon equal bases, nearly of
the same weight. Thus Nature's abhorrence was, in fact,
reduced to that of a smaller weight in the same cir-
cumstances weighing down a greater : in other words,
an abhorrence of the less being the greater and the
greater the less, — a very natural abhorrence for the
good old lady. Torricelli filled up his basin with
water, raised the tube so that the open or lower end of
it was above the mercury, but v not above the water ;
out ran the mercury ; and the water entered, and
filled the tube to the top. Thus the atmosphere was
weighed, and the barometer invented, not only to tell
the weight of the whole, but of any fraction of the
height, and to indicate the changes. If this was done,
and done with such apparent ease, that it almost did
itself, we are not entitled dogmatically to maintain
that the beams of light themselves shall not yet be
weighed, or that the influence of the sun shall not be

40 'jiii: YI;AK.

proved to be the source of all the caloric and all the
light, that is any where to be met with in the solar
system, — wherever these may have become latent, or
by whatever means they may again be elicited.

There is yet another sense to' be gratified — another
inlet through which instruction and pleasure may
come to the mind. The volleying of the thunder, the
booming of the wind, the roar of the waters, the buz-
zing of the fields, the music of the groves, the moan of
pity, the song of joy, the word of consolation, the
voice of instruction, the witchery of music, the power
of command, the crowd-commanding periods of the
orator, the hymn of gratitude and of praise, — sound in
all its variety, the voice of man in all its charms and
all its wisdom, — where would these be, were it not for
that wonderful fluid which is now the song of the night-
ingale, and anon the voice of the thunder and the de-
struction of the hurricane, — which is now the din of
battle, and anon the proclamation of peace, — which is
insult or information, grief or joy, applause or, doom,
according as it is differently put in motion ! But there
is no end of the uses of the atmosphere and the sun ;
for we can mention very few natural substances into
which the one or other of its component parts does not
enter, and very few natural phenomena in which the
agency of both is not either directly or indirectly pre-
sent. Our business, however, is not, at present, with
the recondite part of the subject ; we are to follow the
apparent annual path of the sun, and point out how
that influences the appearances of the seasons.

The most simple and convenient way of getting a
clear view of that is to begin at one of the midsummer,

ANNUAL MOTIONS. 41

that is, the tropical, or solstitial points. [They get the
name tropical, because at them the sun appears to turn
back, and shorten the days that were till then lengthen-
ing ; and the name solstitial, because, in consequence of
what has been already mentioned, a number of days at
those seasons are nearly of equal length.] Those points
are at 23° 28' north latitude, and the same south. Those
points are not fixed ; they have a trifling variation in
latitude ; and because the year contains nearly a frac-
tional fourth of a day, the actual point will apparently
be nearly one fourth of the circumference in longitude
further west every year than in the preceding one.
There is a beauty and advantage even in that, as it
secures an annual distribution of solar heat always
over a new succession of lines. None of the motions
in the solar system are, indeed, free of fractions when
measured in terms of the others; and those fractions,
which, to one that considers only the particular case,
would be very apt to appear as imperfections, are pro-
ductive of the most beautiful and important results.
Even in the two portions into which the year is divided,
there is an inequality necessarily arising from the
elliptic form of the earth's orbit. The line which divides
it into those two portions passes through the centre of
the sun, at right angles to the larger diameter, and
therefore the portion through which the earth passes, in
the summer half of the year to the northern hemisphere,
is about three days longer in absolute time than the
opposite portion. This throws the parallel of the great-
est annual action of the sun a little to the north of the
equator; and as the northern hemisphere has, in
consequence, more summer and less winter than the
K 2

42

THE YEAR.

southern, it is upon the whole warmer. Another effect
is produced, which, though the data for following it out
are far from perfect, certainly is of no inconsiderable
importance in the natural history of the earth and its
productions, and also in the domestic comfort and
labours of man.

We have no means of ascertaining how those portions
of the earth's surface that form the land were elevated
above the remaining and larger part, which forms the bed
of the ocean, or why they should have one position, form,
or elevation, rather than another; but, as there is no
detached fact or event in nature, — nothing but what
comes as the consequent of anterior causes, and the
antecedent of future events,— we may rest assured that
all of these, however anomalous they may appear to
our ignorance, are parts of the system ; and that if we
could but make ourselves wise enough for the inquiry,
we should find that the shape of a continent, and the
figure of a mountain, however anomalous they may
* appear, are as regular, and as proportionate to their
causes, as the motions of a planet, or the structure of
an animal. It may be long, however, before that part
of the subject can be made matter of philosophy, as
there is at present no key either to the mode of going
about it, or to the advantage that would result, other
than the gratification of mere curiosity, even though it
were found. But the case is different with the actual
position of the land, and the greater solar heat which
the northern hemisphere annually receives. By much
the greatest part of the land is in the northern hemis-
phere; and as the chief heat, and also seasonal action,
as relates to the surface of the earth, is between the

THE HEMISPHERES. 43

land and the sea, there is much more local action in
the northern hemisphere than in the southern, and also
much more seasonal action between the two, than if
the land had borne the same proportion to the sea in
both. One result of this excess of sea in the southern
hemisphere would naturally be expected, namely, that at
certain seasons the southern lands should be drenched
with rain. But there is another, which at first sight
we would not so readily expect, and that is, that the
same lands should, at other seasons, be burnt up by
excessive drought, and be more arid in their character,
and more bare of useful vegetation than those of the
other hemisphere* Such, however, is the fact ; and ex-
treme aridity, a surface worn almost to desolation by
the extremes of weather, and the paucity of that vege-
tation which civilised man finds the most valuable, are
the characteristics of New Holland, Southern Africa,
and South America — the principal lands on the south
side of the equator — though they are less striking in
some parts of South America than in the other coun-
tries, because the mountains there are of sufficient
altitude for preserving a perennial supply of snow.

But before we can perfectly see how the varied ac-
tion of the sun upon the different surfaces which the
earth presents, occasions those modifications of seasons
and their productions, that are the basis of so much
of the commercial intercourse of mankind, it will be
necessary to glance at the annual motion of the point
of greatest heat, or where the sun appears to be ver-
tical.

Some time, then, on the 22d of December, the sun,
which has, from the 21st of June, been descending

44 1HE YEAR.

lower and lower to the south at mid-day, is vertical at
a point in latitude 23° 28' south. Of course it is then
noon of the longest day at that point ; but, because of
the fraction already mentioned, it does not happen
twice in succession at the same point, but is nearly six
hours in time, or 90° in longitude further to the west
every year than in the year immediately preceding.
From this point the apparent motion of the sun is west-
ward, tending a very little to the north, so that, though
it be again mid-day at the place where the observation
commenced, in twenty-four hours, the sun is not over
head, but to the north, only the difference in one day
is so small that it cannot be observed without very fine
instruments.

Every succeeding diurnal rotation of the earth upon
its axis will procure another apparent revolution round
the earth of the point where the sun is vertical, only
each time that the sun comes to the first meridian —
that in which the tropic or turning point is situated — he
will be farther and farther to the north of that point,
and as the revolutions become more numerous, the
daily northing will become greater. After about ninety
revolutions, the sun will be over head at some point of
the equator; it will be the vernal equinox in the
northern hemisphere; a quarter of the year will have
elapsed; and it will be at some time on the 21st of
March, reckoning the time as in England. Some
notion of the difference of rate at which the northing
changes through this quarter, may be formed, when it
is mentioned that the seventy miles nearest the tropic
requires about sixteen revolutions, or days, while the
seventy miles nearest the equinox requires only four ;

POINT OF SOLAR ACTION. 45

and that while the daily change just at the equinox is
about twenty- three miles in a day, that just at the
tropic is not one-tenth of a mile.

Thus the motion of the point of greatest solar influ-
ence through the quarter that extends from our winter
tropic, or solstice, to our vernal equinox, might be re-
presented by a line or thread wound about ninety times
round the globe from east to west, having its beginning
in the parallel of 23° 28' south latitude, and the termina-
tion at about the ninetieth round somewhere in the
equator. Toward the tropic the rounds will be very
near to each other ; and their distance will gradually
increase, till at the equator, or just before the equinox,
it will be more than three hundred times as much as
at the tropic.

Crossing the equator some time on the 2 1st of March,
the point will continue its daily revolutions into the
northern hemisphere, the spaces between the daily
rounds becoming less and less as they extend toward
the north ; and when about ninety-two rounds have been
completed, the sun will appear to be vertical at some
point on the northern tropic or parallel of about 23° 28'
north. By this time, another quarter of the year will
have thus passed away, and it will be midsummer in
the northern hemisphere. It is not necessary to trace
the motion through tUe remaining half of the year,
because the only difference is a daily deviation south-
ward, which is small at the beginning, increases toward
the middle, and again diminishes toward the end, till,
after the revolution of a whole year, marked out by
about 365jf: spiral traces, winding from east to west,
one half of them inclining north and the other half

46 THE YEAR.

south, and about three or four more on the north side
of the equator than on the south, the point of greatest
solar action will again arrive at a point in the southern
tropic, or latitude 23° 28', about six hours in time, or
ninety degrees in longitude westward of that at which
the year commenced.

That the motion of this point of greatest solar action
is produced not by the motion of the sun, but by the
compound motion of the earth, — the annual motion in
the orbit, and the daily one upon the axis, — has not the
smallest difference in effect. A person who is cold and
wet will be warmed and dried as effectually, and just in
the same manner by turning round before the fire as if
he stood immoveable and the fire were carried round
him ; and, indeed, if there were no fixed object to
which he could refer, he would not be able to deter-
mine whether himself or the fire were moved, but would
remain in the same ignorance of his own motion as
many people do of the motions of the earth. The sen-
sible perception of a body in motion, is nothing more
than the application of different surfaces to the pap-
pillse of the fingers, or the shifting of a figure to diffe-
rent parts of the retina of the eye ; and when the visible
motion is uniform and rapid, we come to very erroneous
conclusions respecting the form of the moving body : —
as a firebrand whirled round in the dark, exhibits lu-
minous curves, a falling rain-drop seems a beam or
pencil of water, a coach-wheel in rapid motion seems
a semi-transparent circle, in which the spokes merely
occasion a uniform cloudiness, and if a person wheel
rapidly round for some time, the motion is apparently
communicated to the surrounding objects, the centre

APPARENT AND REAL MOTIONS. 4y

of gravity lost command of, and the person tumbles to
the ground.

Although, therefore, a knowledge of the real motions
of the earth be absolutely necessary, in order to under-
stand the solar system, — to form anything like an ade-
quate notion of the stupendous universe of which that
system forms a part — but, in reference to the whole of
it, it is but a mere spot, less in comparison than the
most tiny moth, that the microscope can discover, is,
compared with the mass of the earth ; and although the
laws that were revealed by the discovery of their real
motions, are found to be the laws of all matter down
to its smallest fragment ; yet, as the influence which
the sun has upon the earth, as a source of light and
heat, and of all the seasonal changes and their pro-
ductions that thence result, is not an action of ponder-
able matter, but in fact an action counteractive of gra-
vitation, it is of very little consequence, in considering
the seasonal influence of the sun, whether we refer the
motion, to that of the earth as real, or to that of the
sun as apparent.

The sun is in succession over all the points in the
365J curves, that have been noticed as extending from
tropic to tropic, in the course of the year; and as one
half of these are made from south declining to north,
and the other from north declining to south, it follows
that to all places within or between the tropics, the sun
will be twice vertical in the course of the year ; that, at
the equator, those days of the vertical sun will be the
winter and the summer half year distant from each
other, or that the interval between them from March
to September will be three or four days longer than

48 THE YEAR.

that from September to March ; that, in each hemi-
sphere, they will take place in the summer half year ;
will be nearer to each other the nearer that the place
is to the tropic ; and that just at the tropic they will
meet in one single day.

From this there follows a very considerable modifi-
cation of the solar influence, and consequently of the
seasons. The times at which the sun is vertical are,
allowing time for the effect to be produced in the
manner already mentioned, the times of the greatest
heat. They are nearly half a year asunder at the
equator, and as the latitude increases, and the average
annual heat becomes less, they are nearer to each other,
they have more than twelve hours of sunshine each
day, and the shortest interval between them con-
sists of days on which the sun shines still longer.
Thus, in proportion as the equator is receded from,
and the whole annual heat becomes less, the very
same causes that lessen it, accumulate a greater pro-
portion of it into the summer; and thus give to the
growing and ripening season a temperature consider-
ably above the average.

At whatever point between the tropics the sun is
vertical at any moment of time, that point is always
the centre of the illuminated hemisphere, which, with-
out taking into the account an effect of the atmos-
phere which will be noticed afterwards, is an entire
half of the earth's surface, or extends 90° from the
centre in every direction. Though the earth be not
quite a sphere, and thus the portion of it that is
shone upon by the sun be not exactly the same at
all times, and though the distance from the sun be

DISTURBING CAUSES. 49

continually varying, both on account of the orbit
being an ellipse, on account of the different positions
of the moon, and other causes, yet these variations
are so small that, unless in so far as the atmosphere
and surface have temporary or local differences, the
general action of the sun may be regarded as at all
times the same, and the difference of seasons as re-
sulting entirely from the varying position of the illu-
minated hemisphere upon the globe.

If the atmosphere and the surface were also uniform,
the heat and even the moisture and motion of the
atmosphere would be matters of easy calculation, and
the changes of the weather could be set down in the
almanac with as much certainty as the lengths of the
days, or the phases of the moon. The causes of va-
riation are, however, so many, some of them are so
difficult to be understood, and the result of the whole
is for very short periods so uncertain, that the natural
history of the weather, though one of the subjects
in which man is most deeply interested, is one in
which science has made comparatively little progress,
and upon which there still is consequently a great
deal of that superstitious credulity which is but too
apt to occupy those departments of nature where true
knowledge is deficient. Indeed, so hazardous is it
for even the best informed and the most cautious to
reason beyond the facts actually observed, with regard
to the temperature and succession of the weather,
that when trees were stated to come into leaf, roses
to blow, and the more hardy grains to ripen, in the
passes of the Himalaya mountains at a height of
more than 1600 feet above that which, from the exami-

50 THE YEAR.

nation of the mountains in Europe and America, had
been assigned as the limit of congelation, or above
which water could exist only as ice, at the equator,
the observed heights of those passes were pronounced
to be incredible. Subsequent observations showed,
however, not only that the measurements were tolerably
accurate, but that vegetation extended to a greater
height on the north or shady side of those mountains
than upon that turned to the sun ; and that a for-
mula which had been deduced partly from theory, and
partly from the facts as observed upon the Andes in
America, was faulty by at least a mile, or one third of the
whole height, when applied to Asia, in the parallel of
about 30° north. The occurrence of an error of such
magnitude, and that in the conclusions of the most
eminent men of very recent times, shows that the
greatest possible caution is required, before any thing
like a positive conclusion respecting the climate of a
country can be drawn.

And yet the very magnitude of the discrepancy
which has been alluded to, is a source of encourage-
ment to study the natural history of the globe, not only
with a view of ascertaining what the facts naturally are,
but of finding out what ameliorations of climate may
be brought about by artificial means. Theory said
that at the place alluded to there should be frost
throughout the year at the height of about 1 1 ,400
feet above the mean level of the sea ; and experience
found flocks pasturing and crops ripening at the height
of about 16,800 feet; the cause of the difference
must be sought for in the surface, and if the range of
nature's variation be so very great, we may rest assured

LOCAL VARIATIONS. 51

thai that of art may be much more considerable than
those who have not studied the subject can be aware of.
In our own country there are many instances of im-
provement and also of deterioration arising from small
operations; and there is no question that were the
operations extended, the result would extend in a
much greater proportion. The practical use should
be the grand object in view in the whole investigation
of nature; and the man who can point out how a
season or a district is to be ameliorated, performs a
far more important service than he who points out
how any number of plants or animals may be screened
from the one, or how the kinds of the one or the other
may be made better. That, however, must be the con-
tinued labour of many inquirers ; and all that we can
do, is entering a caveat in favour of the local and tem-
porary causes, (some of which we shall notice after-
wards,) to cast a rapid glance on the whole.

The momentary action of the sun may, then, be
represented by a dome extending over that half of the
earth's surface, of which the point where the sun is
right over head is the centre, elevated there to a certain
height, (say 15,000 or 16,000 feet,) and descending by
a regular curve till it touch the surface all round the
circumference of the hemisphere. §o far as the mo-
mentary action is concerned, the whole of the atmos-
phere below this imaginary dome will be above the
temperature of 32°, or that at which water becomes
ice ; and the space above the dome, at or below 32°.
The measures, from the upper surface of the dome to
the several points upon the earth's surface, estimated
upon lines drawn to the earth's centre, will represent

THE YEAR.

the relative heat above 32° at those points, greatest in
the centre of the dome, and diminishing toward the
sides, at which it will become nothing. If the effect
of the sun were momentary, the successive portions of
this dome, which would follow the motion of the central
point, would be a perfect index to the temperatures at
all places.

But time is necessary both for acquiring and for losing
the full effect, even though there were no local differ-
ence of surface, and therefore the portions that are en-
tering under the dome are always colder, and those that
are passing from under it warmer, than if it were sta-
tionary, or than if the heating and cooling were instan-
taneous. Now it will be recollected that the central
point has two motions, one westward from the rotation
which is nearly uniform, and another and smaller one
from the declination, which varies northward or south-
ward, and fast or slow according to that.

The changes of the seasons, and some of the pecu-
liarities of those changes are the immediate arid neces-
sary results of those motions. The distance of the
place from the equator, and the declination of the
point where the sun is vertical, determine the length of
the day ; that and the latitude, determine the degree of
temperature; and the rate at which the declination
changes, determines the rapidity of change in the
season.

At the natural beginning of the year, the declination
is 23° 28' south, therefore the whole circumference of
the parallel of 66° 32' south (the Antarctic polar circle)
and all within it, is constantly within the illuminated
part; and the illumination just touches, but does not

ANNUAL SOLAR ACTIOX. 53

pass within the parallel of 66° 32' north (the Arctic
polar circle). The days, or daily portions of sun, between
those parallels, are of all varieties of length, from 24
hours to 0 ; gradually less and less from south to north,
more than 12 hours south of the equator, just 12
there, and less than 12 in every place farther to
the north. There is remarkably little change in the
daily influence of the sun at this season, though the
heat produced by its continued presence augments ra-
pidly in the south, and the cold that results from its
absence, in the north. At all seasons the daily change
is greater, the farther that the place is from the equator ;
but still, the change in the length of the day is so little,
that for twelve days before and twelve after the solstice,
the whole alteration is only eight minutes in the latitude
of London, while during an equal period before and after
the equinox, it is more than an hour and a half. This
continued uniformity in the length of the day is the
cause of the remarkably steady weather which takes
place at, or rather a little after, the midsummer and mid-
winter in high latitudes ; and it is also the cause why
the winter is so much more unpleasant in lower latitudes
where the temperature keeps vacillating near the freez-
ing point.

As the year advances, and the daily change in declina-
tion becomes more rapid, the daily changes of tempera-
ture are greater ; and the weather in the low latitudes is
irregular and broken. In very high latitudes, the
change, especially that from winter, is not so felt, because
the coating of snow with which the earth is covered,
reflects off part of the heat of the sun, and consumes
part by evaporation. When the equinox is past, the

54 THE YEAR.

declination again gradually diminishes; and there is
the same uniformity of solar action as there was at
the commencement of the year, the same increased
action at the other equinox, and the same return of
tranquillity at the close. Thus if there were a uniform
surface, and no medium between that surface and the
sun, the philosophy of the seasons on the. globe would
be very simple.

But independently altogether of the varied forms and
textures of the solid surface of the land, all of which have
their influence in proportion to their extent, and which
form the differences of the natural history of the year as
it is found in different countries, there are others which
have an action extending over the whole surface, or, at
least, the greater part of it; and without some attention
to these, the phenomena of the year at no one place
can be fully understood. Some of those actions are
merely mechanical, some are chemical, and in some
these are blended together, so that a field is opened to
human ingenuity which seems almost inexhaustible.
The fluids on or around the earth are the chief agents
that are concerned in them. Water, which in the
greater masses is put into motion by the attractive in-
fluence of the sun and moon, which is dissolved into
vapour by the action of the atmosphere, which is de-
composed by many natural operations, which is con-
gealed in the absence and thawed by the presence of
heat, which is drank up by the air at one time, and
poured down in rain or scattered in snow, at another ;
and which is continually flowing in brooks and rivers
by its own weight, is in itself a wonderful agent ; and
some notion may be formed of the extent of the uses to

ANNUAL SOLAIl ACTION.

which it may be applied in the economy of nature, from
the consideration that while its decomposition into the
oxygen and hydrogen of which it is composed is the
most rapid, and its change into vapour is the most
general means of absorbing heat, or making it cease to
be discovered either by the senses or the thermometer ;
the production of it by the union of its constituent parts,
is the most ardent species of combustion that is known.
The atmosphere, too, is in change of temperature, and
also in electric and other changes the nature of which is
not so accurately known the most delicate of substances,
and is constantly varying its position, even at those
times when, to our perceptions, all seems calm and
tranquil. There cannot be the least variation of
local gravity or local heat, or the least breathing of
a plant or animal, or decomposition of any one sub-
stance, organic or inorganic, without a change in the
atmosphere ; and the changes are often so considerable
that they are wafted over the whole globe, and the
winter at the one pole helps to modify the summer
at the other.

In order that the motions of the ocean and the air
may be more certain, more extensive, and more varied,
those fluids are acted upon by two distinct causes,
difference of heat and difference of gravitation toward
the celestial bodies. The general influence of the for-
mer follows the apparent course of the sun, in its spiral
progress from tropic to tropic ; the latter depends partly
upon the sun, but much more upon the moon. That
the pale, but beautiful light, which the moon lets fall, in
variations far more agreeable than if it were as regular
in its quantity and duration as that of the sun, performs

56 THE YEAR.

some important functions in the economy of the world,
we cannot have the least doubt. Its influence in ripen-
ing grain and fruits, and in the whitening of linen, are
matter of common observation by those who do not
usually give themselves much trouble about the causes of
phenomena. We are not so much acquainted with the
whole composition and powers of the sunbeam, as to
be able to say distinctly what alterations it receives, upon
being reflected from such a body as the moon. We
know, however, that the heating power is chiefly in the
red rays, or at any rate that, if the heating energy has
nothing to do with the colouring, its refrangibility and
reflectability are more in accordance with those of the
red, than of any other colour in the spectrum. This
is unquestionably the cause why the light of the moon
has so very little heating effect, compared with the
direct light of the sun. But there is a chemical power
in the violet, or most refrangible part of the spectrum,
and even beyond it, which has peculiar effects ; and it
is not a little singular that the discovery of that power,
and of the nicest results of chemical experiment, should,
in as far as the moon-beams are concerned, justify the
application of the epithet " watery," to the luminary,
their tendency being to impart hydrogen, or to effect
its combination with other substances. There is some-
thing very curious in this. The moon-beams fall upon
the earth at those times of the day when the herbage is
most covered with moisture, and therefore it may be
that a considerable portion of the vegetable economy,
and among the rest the production of the fine fresh
green, may be more dependent upon the influence of
the moon than we are now aware of; but the subject

TIDES. 57

is rather nice for being admitted into a short popular
sketch of the year.

The effect of gravitation toward the luminaries, al-
though a very complicated matter in its details, is far
more simple in principle. Whenever the sun or moon
is vertical, it acts as a power pulling up the atmosphere
and the ocean from the earth, and depressing them at
the circumference of the hemisphere of which the ele-
vated point is the centre ; and as the fluid parts of the
two hemispheres balance each other, there is a similar
elevation at the point directly opposite to the luminary.
One of these follows the sun in his annual apparent
path ; and the other, which is the greater one, follows
the moon in its monthly ^changes. Every one must
have observed that the moon has a motion eastward, by
which it passes from the sun round the whole heavens
to the sun again, in between 29 and 30 days; and that,
when on the same point of the compass with regard
to the sun, it is sometimes nearer the horizon, and some-
times farther from it; or, as we say in common lan-
guage, sometimes on " a low course," and, at other
times, on a " high." It is evident that whatever part
of the apparent circumference of the heavens is between
the places of the sun and moon, there will be the same
part of the circumference of the earth between the
points at which they cause the elevations or tides, in
the ocean and the atmosphere; and that, whatever
may be the position of this distance with regard to
north or south in the heavens, the distance of the two
tides will be the same on the earth. It is further evi-
dent that, as each of the luminaries produces two tides,
the one diametrically opposite to the other, a tide pro-

58 THE YEAR.

duced by the one can never be farther from one pro-
duced by the other than a quarter or quadrant of the
earth's circumference ; because, when the upper tides,
or those that are produced at the points where the lu-
minaries are vertical, separate to a greater distance
than that, the under tide of each will approach just as
much nearer to the upper tide of the other. They will
therefore be at the same meridian, or directly north and
south of each other, at new moon when the moon is in
conjunction with the sun, and at full moon when it is
in opposition ; and they will be at the greatest distance,
at the end of the first and third quarters of the moon.
When they are at the same place they will act jointly,
and when at separate places they will act against each
other, the more, the further flhat they are separate. The
action of the moon in producing this disturbance is,
however, so much greater than that of the sun, because
the moon is so very much nearer to the earth that half
the diameter produces a much greater variation in its
action, that the general tide follows the moon, and the
sun only modifies it by augmenting it to a spring tide
at full and change, and depressing it to a neap tide
at the quarters.

Those actions of the sun and moon occasion two
motions of the ocean and the atmosphere in the general
directions of from east to west, the one following the
sun and apparently passing round the earth in twenty-
four hours, and the other following the slower course
of the moon, and taking about fifty minutes more to
encompass the earth. It must not be supposed, how-
ever, that those motions are attended by an actual
transfer of the water of the ocean or the atmospheric

TIDES. 59

fluid at any thing like the rapidity of the apparent mo-
tion of the sun and moon. If that were the case, both
the ocean and the atmosphere would go to those lumi-
naries; the gravitation, or difference of gravitation of
different parts of the surface to them, is but a very
small portion of that toward the earth, and therefore
the actual motion of the water or air is really very small,
and though upon level and uniform surfaces it be
perceptible, the tide or elevation, both of the air and
the water, may be produced while there is an actual
transfer the other way : there may be tides in the atmos-
phere from the east, while the wind, or general motion
of the fluid, is strong from the west; and there may be
a tide of high water along the course of a river, while
the motion of the water in that river is actually down-
ward to the sea. The tidal motions of both fluids only
tend to put them into circulation, and the interruptions
of the land, the different effects of heat, and the varying
pressure of the atmosphere upon the surface of the wa-
ter, tend to propagate the circulation over the whole
surface ; and are, upon the great scale, the means and
ministers of life to the whole productions of the globe,
in the same manner as the breathing of air and the cir-
culation of the proper fluids are to the various species
and individuals of which the countless family of all-
prolific nature is made up.

We have mentioned that those causes of circulation
have a monthly variation as well as daily motions ; and
the reader must have anticipated that they must also
have seasonal changes. They would have these, al-
though the plane of the orbit in which the moon moves
round the earth were the same as that of the earth's

60 THE YEAR.

orbit round the sun. The new moon would, in that
case, have the same declination with the sun, and the
full moon as much, but on the other side of the equa-
tor ; so that if the upper tide at new moon revolved
round any parallel, the under one would revolve round
one as far distant from the equator on the other side.
Thus, the two high waters in the course of the day
would be twice the declination asunder in northing
and southing, which at the midsummer would be
more than 3,000 miles asunder ; or, taking them in
the Atlantic, the one tide would be as far south as Rio
de Janeiro in Brazil, and the other as far north as
the Havannah in Cuba. If, therefore, it should be new
moon near midsummer, in either hemisphere, the tide
in the evening would be much higher than that in the
morning ; but if full moon, the morning tide would be
the higher ; and at midwinter the circumstances would
be reversed. As there is a fractional number of luna-
tions, or revolutions of the moon, in the course of the
year, sometimes the new moon happens nearest the
solstice, sometimes the full, and sometimes they are
equally distant ; and every variation in their occurrence
tends to produce a difference in the weather, and con-
sequently in the season ; but the separation of the local
from the general causes is so very difficult, that no par-
ticular conclusion can be drawn.

It is obvious, however, that the tides in the ocean
and the atmosphere cannot but be less when the
morning and evening ones are three thousand miles
asunder, which is fully half the distance that occa-
sions the neap tide, than when they are on the same
parallel. The change of declination is at the same

TIDES. 61

time slow, and therefore, in as far as tides are con-
cerned, the solstices must be seasons of tranquillity,
except where there are powerful local causes, and these
of course will be the more violent in their action, in
proportion as that of the general ones is diminished.

As the equinoxes are approached, the parallels of the
two tides will approach each other with a velocity pro-
portionate to the change of declination ; and that will
both augment the tides, and produce a motion in the
ocean, and especially in the atmosphere, toward the
hemisphere which the luminaries are approaching ; and
the latter will be augmented by causes that are to be
noticed afterwards.

But there is a further source of variation in the po-
sition of the moon's orbit, and also in the changing dis-
tance of the moon both from the earth and the sun ;
and there are slight variations produced by the earth's
not being a perfect globe, but flattened at the poles.
Observation has not, indeed, been hitherto able to con-
nect these minor variations with any seasonal results ;
and indeed the variations themselves would not be very
easily rendered intelligible in the language of ordinary
conversation. We shall, therefore, only remark, that
the moon, revolving round the earth, differs nothing in
principle from a single atom floating in the atmosphere
or on the ocean ; and therefore as its relative distances
from the sun and the earth vary, the moon will be
affected by what we may call tides in it ; and must
produce a higher tide in the ocean and the atmosphere
when it is nearer to the earth, than when it is farther
distant.

The source of variation that is the most easily un-
G

62 THE YEAR.

derstood is the obliquity of the moon's orbit. That
intersects the orbit of the earth in two points called
the nodes ; and extends to about 5° on each side of it.
The orbit has a motion, in consequence of which the
new and full moons happen in all parts of it with re-
ference to the nodes. If the new moon be sufficiently
near the node, it comes between the sun and earth,
and eclipses the sun, and if the full moon happen near
enough to the node, it passes through the shadow of
the earth and is eclipsed. The nearer the node the
moon is at those times, the more nearly will the
two luminaries be to acting upon the same point ; and
therefore, though an eclipse has no more to do with
the fortunes of individuals or the fate of nations, than
the rising or setting of the sun, it may, if the other
disposing circumstances occur along with it, be a prog-
nostic of a high tide, or a change of the weather, — as
from every material cause requiring some time to pro-
duce its effect, the greatest height of tide, and the
maximum of atmospheric disturbance take place some
time after the conjunction or the opposition of the sun
and moon.

But besides being near the node at the new or full
moon, the moon may, at those times, be at the greatest
distance from it; and therefore, at the solstices, when
the two tides are at the greatest distance north and
south of each other, they may be removed ten degrees
more asunder; or may be upon the parallel of 28° 28'
in both hemispheres. When that is the case, there is
only one tide in the twenty-four hours in the high
latitudes, the evening one if it is new moon, and the
morning one if full. When the declination of the

TIDES. (33

moon is greater than that of the sun, the effect is
always to separate the two daily tides, if the luminaries
are upon the same side of the equator; but if they be
upon different sides, or if the declination of the moon
be less than that of the sun, the tendency is to bring
the two tides nearer to the same parallel, and thereby
to increase the general effect. Such are the operations
of gravitation, without reference to the action of heat
upon the atmosphere, or the surface of the earth, which
affect the seasons, and are on that account necessary
to be known before the natural history of the year can
be fully understood. Indeed, the details of them are
so complicated and so difficult to be understood, that,
in the present state of our knowledge, they rather
point out where the difficulties lie, than how they are
to be got rid of. Still, however, the knowledge of
them is valuable in so far as it points out where our
observation and inquiry should be directed, and as
showing that, for all the labourers that have done good
and even harm in it, the field of nature instead of
being exhausted, is yet unknown in very many of
those every-day matters, the full understanding of
which would be fraught with the most important
practical effects.

But the most important of all the seasonal actions is
the distribution of heat, immediately from the sun, but
wonderfully modified, by the atmosphere through which
it passes and the nature of the substance or surface
upon which it falls. Heat may be in part regarded as
the active principle of nature ; not only as that which
counteracts gravitation, but as that upon which the
bulk and consistency, as well as the formation and

64 THE YEAH.

growth, of every thing material depends. Upon the
abstract nature of heat, it is but a waste of time to
speculate; as it would be in vain to hope to discover
by weight or solidity, or any other of the tangible
attributes of matter, that of which the uniform effect is
to destroy those attributes. We have no reason to
suppose that there is any one substance in nature
which the application of a sufficient heat would not
convert into a vapour, or aerial fluid so rare that no
test which could be applied would be delicate enough
for detecting its presence ; and therefore we need not
wonder that a substance (for either heat is a substance
or it is nothing) which can separate a dense body like
gold into particles so small and distant from each
other that we cannot weigh or even detect them,
should be without the range of our very nicest instru-
ments. In the history and philosophy of nature, we
have to do only with phenomena or results ; and
therefore it matters not whether heat be a separate
substance, or merely a motion, or a repulsion among
the atoms of bodies, by which when they are excited,
their cohesion or their gravitation is destroyed. We
know from experience that it is something that can be
communicated and again taken away. The absence of
heat, for instance, converts water into ice, from a per-
fectly limpid fluidity to nearly the texture of glass,
from that which diffused itself uniformly over the sur-
face of the sea, to that which can rear itself into a
pyramid, hundreds of fathoms or feet above the surface.
We know, also, that if this icy pyramid be exposed for
a sufficient length of time to warin air, it will be con-
verted into liquid water, while the air will be cooled

HEAT. 65

by the operation ; and we know farther that if the air
which melted a bit of ice can be sufficiently ratified or
attenuated, and the water that is converted into vapour
removed, the remainder of the water will become ice.
On the other hand, we know that if air be forced into
a smaller space, or made heavier, bulk for bulk, it will
become warmer ; and if the condensation be rapid and
extensive enough, the heat will kindle a match. We
know, in fact, that all substances increase in bulk by
the communication of heat to them, and diminish in
bulk when it is abstracted ; and that those results take
place even in cases where appearances are against
them. Water, which 'is heaviest at about the tempe-
rature of 39 J°, expands as it is cooled towards freezing
as well as when it is heated above freezing ; and hence
one would at first be led to suppose that it both ex-
panded and contracted by heat, — contracted from 32°
to 39 1°, and expanded afterwards. But the expan-
sion which goes on very slowly till it be within a single
degree of the freezing point, arises from the incipient
formation of the crystals of ice ; and the increase in
volume by cold is occasioned merely by the pores or
empty spaces between them. In the case of other
substances that become less in volume by the applica-
tion of heat, some part of them is separated, as the
juice of a fruit when it is dried in the sun. Each sub-
stance has generally a different degree of heat, at
which its component parts are separated, and its state
changed from solid to liquid, or from liquid to vapour
or gas ; but to understand the general principles that
enter into the natural history of the year, it is not
necessary to attend minutely to these: — atmospheric
G 2

66 THE YEAR.

air, and water being the principal agents in the dis-
tribution ; and the former, unless when decomposed
by the action of an animal, a plant, or some other
substance, is an air or gas at all natural temperatures ;
while the latter exists solid in ice and snow, liquid in
water, and also in the state of invisible vapour, though
then it is only mechanically mixed with the atmo-
sphere, and held in suspension by the evaporative
power of that, a power which does not wholly depend
upon temperature, and the nature of which is not
perfectly understood.

The way in which water is affected by heat, has some
important effects in the economy of the year, and tends
to render some changes gentle and gradual, which, but
for its peculiarities, would have been so instantaneous
as to prove destructive. The mean temperature of
running water in lakes and rivers, is considerably higher
than 39^°, the temperature at which water is heaviest,
and that again is 7£° above the freezing point. Both
those circumstances are of considerable importance in
the higher latitudes.

If water did not become heavier when cooled to some
degree below the average temperature in these coun-
tries, the very first night of autumnal frost would cover
all the lakes and pools with ice ; and as the thawing of
ice consumes far more heat than the altering of the
temperature of liquid water, the transition from heat to
cold would be so rapid that the produce of the earth
would be destroyed. But in consequence of the pro-
perty under consideration, and of the ease with which
the atoms of wafer move through the mass, the water
acts as a regulator, until the fruits have been ripened,

FREEZING AND THAWING. 67

the buds set, and all vegetable nature prepared for the
winter. This, like all the operations of nature, is
simple, and therefore it is unheeded by those who walk
the world in quest of wonders, but it is not, on that
account, the less beautiful or the less worthy of a place
in the description of that wonderful creation, among
the parts of which the connexions are so many and so
intimate, that is not easy to say which is most to be
admired in itself, or most conducive to practical wis-
dom. As soon as the thinnest pellicle of the water is
touched by the cold air, it sinks to the bottom, very
slowly, and probably regaining a little heat as it de-
scends ; and this process goes on till the whole mass,
however deep, be cooled down to 39^°. This process
is exceedingly slow, because of the thin pellicle of the
water that sinks ; and it is interrupted during the days
(the weather at the time of the first frosts being serene
in the high latitudes) as when the sun-beams fall on
the surface they diminish the density, and thereby pre-
vent the process of descending, until the sun be set,
and the atmosphere again cool. Even the small angle
at which those beams fall upon the surface of the water,
tranquil as it is at that time, becomes a source of heat ;
they do not penetrate the water, but are reflected into
the air which, thus heated, is dispersed over the sur-
rounding land.

Where the lake or other portion of water is very deep,
this process of cooling the whole down to 39|° is not
completed till the year has revolved, and the warmth
again returns with the sun ; and even when the depth
is not sufficient for that purpose, there* is another ad-
vantage in the expansion of the water when it cook

68 THE YEAH.

below 39^°; the instant that it gets colder than that, it
becomes lighter, and has of course no tendency to sink ;
and thus the heat of all which is below the surface is
retained ; and the ice, when once formed, as it freezes
slowly downward, actually warms the unfrozen water
below, by the quantity of heat that it gives out during
the process of congelation. Those who have not re-
flected upon the subject are apt to look upon this as a
paradox ; but it is a very simple, and far from an un-
important truth. When the state of a body is changed
from liquid to solid there is a much greater change of
heat than the thermometer indicates from the body
itself. Water at 32°, and ice, have the same tempe-
rature, and yet 140° of temperature are required to
thaw the ice into water ; and that must be given out
before the water can become ice. If water be kept
shaded and steady, it may be cooled in a liquid state,
considerably below the freezing point; but the moment
that it is agitated or otherwise placed in circumstances
that would dispose it to freeze, it gets warmer without
the abstraction of heat from any thing else, by the
separation of a part of the heat that kept it in the
liquid state, and which was latent, or had no effect
upon the thermometer. Rather it had a negative effect;
for water that shows 22° by the thermometer when
liquid, will mount up to 32° as it begins to freeze, and
thus actually produce 1 0° of heat ; while in the conge-
lation, it will give out just as much as is required to
melt the ice into water at 32°. Now, when the process
of freezing and giving out heat, takes place downwards
under water, the heat given out must be communicated
to the water, because the ice itself is an imperfect con-

FREEZING AKD THAWING. 69

ductor of heat ; and thus, while a portion of water re-
mains unfrozen, the ice has laid up in that a store of
heat which partly helps to dissolve it in the spring ; and
thus, except in very high latitudes, there is never more
ice accumulated in the average of years than can be
again dissolved in the summer.

The advantages of these properties of water in rela-
tion to heat are very great, as is sometimes felt by the
drifting and grounding of icebergs upon the shores of
northern countries. When one of these masses visits
Iceland, or the Shetland isles, its absorption of atmos-
pherical heat is so great, that it destroys the summer
and spreads disease for a considerable distance around ;
and were it not for the power that there is in water to
resist the downward progress of congelation, lakes,
and even the polar seas, would freeze to the bot-
tom, and great part of the earth would be desolate.
As matters are constituted, however, there does not
appear to be any tendency, at least any rapid tendency,
in any latitude to become colder ; and though there be
changes in the quantity of the polar ice, and also in
the snows and glaciers of those alpine regions, where
elevation produces the general effect of high latitude,
there is no reason for concluding that, taking a range of
several years, there is any change of the general
quantity.

The thawing of the polar ice conspires, with the
motion which the water receives from the action of the
celestial bodies, to keep up a general circulation of the
waters. That motion is northward in the great oceans
in summer, and southward in them in winter ; and in
both seasons it is augmented by the wind, which,

70 'HIE YLAll.

depending upon the same general causes, takes the
same direction, unless where that is modified by the
action of different surfaces. Now, the ice which ac-
cumulates in the polar seas during the winter is super-
ficially lighter than the water, and accordingly floats
above it: when it is forming, therefore, it does not
occasion a current from the regions of the pole, but
rather a current to them, of warmer water of course
than that which is there before. But when the ice
melts, and the snow upon the polar lands and fields
and bergs of ice at the same time, a surplus of water is
produced ; and there is a tendency toward the equator,
at the same time that there is in the regions of the
equator a tendency toward the pole. Thus the form
of the earth, and the way in which its motions expose
different surfaces of it to the action of the sun, give to
the great mass of waters a constant tendency to the
place where the action of the sun is most intense ; and
the very ice which the winter collects in the chilling
regions, is an annual store of drink laid up for the
plants and the animals of regions which are warmer,
and which, but for some such action as this, would be
tenantless and bare. In this we see how beautifully
the system of nature works, and how one single prin-
ciple, which we are very apt to pass unheeded, can
produce results that to us are innumerable, and which,
the more we contemplate them, shew up to us the wider
a field of utility and of gratification. And it is in this
greater philosophy that the chief value of the study of
nature consists, and not in the consideration of those
objects that address themselves singly to the senses,
however beautiful they may be in their forms, or how-

FREEZING AND THAWING. 71

ever useful in their individual properties. The mere
production, the plant or the animal, however humble
and however common, is something wonderful compared
with what we can accomplish ; but when we look upon
it in its connection, and follow out the wonderful chain
of causes that lie between the projecting of the sun-
beam through the air, and the awakening into life of
the little insect which dances in that beam, we discover
a unity of operation and a diversity of effect, in which
Almighty power and infinite wisdom stand clearly dis-
played, thence too we learn science, and from that
how to act; and man is raised an hundred fold
in the scale of intellect and enjoyment. The single
matters are the museum, but this is the workshop : in
the former we may and must wonder, but it is in the
latter only that we can know ; although at the com-
mencement of our career we probably need the sensai
enticements of the one to allure us on to the other.

The extreme slowness with which ice melts, in con-
sequence of the great heat required in the change of
form, and which passes latent into the water without
having any effect upon the thermometer, is just as
beneficent in the economy of nature, as the slowness of
the opposite change. If equal weights of liquid water
at different temperatures be mixed together, the tem-
perature of the mixture is half the sum of the two ; as
water at 32° and water at 172°, would give a mixture
at 102°. But with ice it is very different. If a pound
of that at 32° and in powder, so that the water may
act instantly upon it, be mixed with a pound of water
at 172°, the temperature of the mixture would be only
32°, or precisely that of the ice. If by the addition of

72 THE YEAR.

any substance we can assist in dissolving1 the ice into
water, or changing the water into vapour after it has
been formed, we may very much increase the degree
of cold. The substances so used are the frigorific or
freezing mixture of the chemists, and one of the ingre-
dients at least, must always be a solid in crystals, and
the real absorption of heat is required for the changing
of those crystals into a liquid. In ordinary cases there
is no other means employed by nature in the melting
of ice and snow, than the applying to them of a warmer
atmosphere, the action of the direct rays of the sun, or
the tumbling of them into water of a higher tempera-
ture. But the great quantity of heat that is required
for a solution in either of those ways, renders the opera-
tion a slow one, and thereby both prevents evil and
produces good.

If, indeed, the change of ice to water had been in-
stantaneous at any temperature which is natural on the
surface of the globe, the effects of the spring would
have been tenfold more terrific than any phenomenon
of which one can think, other than that of the collision
of two planets in their annual career. The instant
congelation of every drop of humidity by the first
nipping of the autumnal frost, would not have been half
so fatal or so dreadful as the opposite change. On
every plain where snow could lie, the roots of all use-
ful vegetables would have been rotted, and the smaller
land animals killed, before the heat could have con-
verted the water into vapour. For a long time, indeed,
the difference of the night and the day would have
been intolerable ; the one all ice, and the other all
sludge ; and the incessant freezing and thawing, would

THAW. 73

have not only rent the vegetables to pieces, but
resolved the rocks themselves into dust. Then in the
high latitudes, where the temperature is below 32° for
some months, and the snow of the uplands and moun-
tains many fathoms in depth, the first rise of tempera-
ture would have brought down the whole in one
overwhelming flood, to which the most violent that
now happens would not have been more than a summer
dew in comparison. A fall of rain, equal to a depth
of five or six inches, happening in the course of an
entire day, instead of instantaneously, is found suffi-
cient to sweep the produce and soil from the surface
of those countries that have the misfortune to be visited
by it ; but there are places where the snow would, if
immediately melted, produce nearly, as many feet
of water, and were that to be set loose at once, every
substance under some tons in weight would be washed
to the sea, and the ruin would be complete and with-
out remedy. Such are the evils which are prevented
by the great heat necessary to melt ice, and the conse-
quent slowness with which it is converted into a liquid.
That ice should melt with a few degrees less or more
of heat, would appear to those who are not in the habit
of looking beyond the mere surface of things, as a
matter of very little consequence, and it did so appear
for the greater part of the past history of the world,
both to the unlearned and the learned ; and yet were
it not for that apparently trivial circumstance, a large
portion of the earth's surface would be useless.

But there is the production of good, as well as the
prevention of evil, arising out of this accumulation of
energy (so to speak) that is necessary for changing the

74 THE YEAR.

state of water. In high latitudes, the store of moisture
is always, like the store of most other things, laid up
in the autumn. Perhaps, indeed, there does not fall
as much then as in the 'summer, at least in countries
not very near the polar regions ; but in summer the
humidity is kept in motion, as the quantity evaporated
is, in the average of years, fully more than that which
falls. As the days shorten, however, and the vegeta-
tion become less active, from the hardening of the leaves
and stems, the evaporation diminishes ; and the water
sinks into and saturates the soil, in the warmer places,
before the frost takes effect ; while, in places that are
colder, the snow and the frost come nearly at the same
time, so that the earth is not acted upon by an atmos-
phere much under 32°. In both cases there is a pre-
servation of humidity against the next season of vege-
tation ; and, in both, that humidity performs an im-
portant service during the winter. The soil in the
warm places, which has been indurated, during the
dry season, to a consistency in which the fibres of
vegetables could not make their way, is penetrated
in all directions by the water, to which the champs
and fissures, that are formed in very strong soils, con-
tribute. As the water that is thus mixed with the soil,
freezes, the mass expands, with a force greater than
any measurable resistance. The soil is thus rent
asunder, and when the thaw comes it is reduced to a
mould, or paste, according to its nature and the quan-
tity of moisture. This has many advantages in the
spring. The soil is loose, vegetables can take root in
it ; and while the mere surface is converted into dust
at a very early period of the season, that very dust both

EVAPORATION. 75

retains the rain which then falls, and prevents the
soil below from drying so rapidly as it otherwise
would. The stores in the mountains are also exten-
sively and gradually distributed. A portion is taken
up by the evaporative power of the atmosphere, and
spread over the surrounding country ; while that which
is converted into water irrigates the surface, penetrates
into every fissure, and feeds the springs.

But, though water has those singular properties that
fit it for seasonal distribution, so as to trace a maxi-
mum of beneficial effect upon all the productions of
nature ; and though, from the motions of the earth and
the varying action of heat upon the water, there be
a means of circulating that fluid over the whole range
of the ocean, the agency by which it is drawn up from
the earth's surface at one time, and poured down at
another, is probably more curious in itself, and cer-
tainly more influential in producing the changes of the
seasons. The subject is a very nice one, and we are
not, and probably never shall be, in possession of all
the elements that are required for the full explanation
of it ; but enough is known to warrant us in saying,
that the same two agencies which give the earth its
form and its distribution of light, raise this substance
from the sea and pour it again over the land; for
though we are not able to estimate the other causes
that may combine with heat in producing evaporation,
or with the gravitation or weight of water that brings
it down in rain, we know that other causes do operate,
and that their effect varies with their intensity, though
probably not, in either case, in the same ratio. We
know, too, that the atmosphere is the medium through

76 THE YEAR.

which both agencies are carried on ; though we are
not certain that the action may not depend upon some
component part of the atmosphere, unknown to our
observation or our instruments, and therefore without
a name in any vocabulary of rational philosophy.

In so far, we know the chemical nature and the pro-
perties of the atmosphere ; we know that the greater
part of its mass is composed of two substances, in the
state of air or gas, which enter largely into the compo-
sition of natural bodies, both animate and inanimate ;
and we can eliminate them from their natural combi-
nations, and place them in artificial ones.

The substances of which the ingenuity of modern
analysis has been able to detect the presence and de-
termine the proportions in the atmosphere, are nitrogen
and oxygen ; three fourths of the former to one fourth
of the latter by weight, and four fifths of the former to
one fifth of the latter by measure. There is also a
trace of carbonic acid, probably less than one part in a
thousand, upon the average. But we are not more
warranted in concluding that these substances form the
whole of that atmosphere which is the breath of life to
plants and animals, than we are in saying that a living
animal or vegetable is nothing more than the members
into which we can anatomise, or the substances into
which we can decompose a dead one. We know what
we discover in the analysis of the atmosphere, but we
do not know what we may lose in the process, or how
much of the active properties of the compound may
depend upon what we do lose. The energies of nature
have nothing to do with mass and magnitude ; one little
acorn will do more if you bury it in the earth than

VAPOUH. 77

if you bury an oak, or even the whole British navy ;
and add but the temperature of 32°, and a little point
of ice to a thimbleful of water, and it will cleave a
mountain. Although we can detect nothing, we must
not say dogmatically that there is nothing to be de-
tected ; and though we should find that the nitrogen
and the oxygen, together with, the carbonic acid, the
vapour of water, and the other ingredients, make up
the entire weight of the air, we may not yet be in posses-
sion of the whole. When the addition of 140° of heat
has converted a pound of ice into water, it weighs no
more, and it measures less ; and yet it has been changed
from a comparatively useless to a useful substance. If
the same pound of water be converted into steam at
the temperature of 2 12°, it will not become a single
grain heavier ; nay, instead of pressing upon the scale at
all, it will have a tendency to rise in the atmosphere, or
to diffuse itself equally upon all sides with a force which,
if the vapour were in a cubical vessel, would sustain
a weight of about forty-eight tons, — the volume being
augmented nearly 1700 times, and the heat absorbed
about 972°. Here we have not only a change of state,
but a conversion of that which, formerly, merely pressed
to wards the earth's centre, with a force of a single pound,
into an active power, pressing upward, against gravita-
tion, with a force of more than one hundred thousand
pounds; and that, too, without any degree of heat
above 212°, that can be detected by the thermometer.
If this mighty change were to take place instanta-
neously, the consequences would be dreadful : for the
moment that a cauldron boiled, there would be an ex-
plosion greater than the discharge of our most powerful

H 2

78 THE YEAR.

artillery. It would be easy to multiply instances in
which the effect would be much greater than in the
one that has been stated ; but that which is at once
the most familiar and the most useful in practice, will
show that the most powerful agents in nature have
really nothing at all to do with weight, or with pon-
derable matter.

Thus, although we speak about the constituent parts
of the atmosphere as being known, we are so far from
being warranted to conclude that the ponderable parts
— the oxygen, the nitrogen, the carbonic acid, and
the vapour of water, — make up the whole of it, that,
for aught that we yet know to the contrary, they may
be the mere media through which more active prin-
ciples are brought into operation. Respecting matters
that defy all our instruments to obtain them in a sepa-
rate state, we must speak with the greatest caution,
because we cannot, in such cases, distinguish between
substance and action ; cannot tell, for instance, whether
the heat, which produces so many, so wonderful, and
so important effects, be an actual part of the sun-
beam, or whatever else it appears in, or merely an
appearance attendant upon certain states of action.
When we find that a warm body heats a cold, or that
a cold cools a warm, we are very apt to suppose
that it can be nothing but the tranfusion of some sub-
stance from the one to the other. But, on the other
hand, when we hammer a piece of iron till it becomes
of a red heat, the heat is not abstracted from the anvil
and the hammer, for they also become hot. Sub-
stances also become cold or warm with very different
degrees of rapidity ; so that a difference in the effect

COMBUSTION. 79

appears always to be connected with a different action
of the substances ; therefore, in combustion, and every
other case of change of temperature, the action of the
substances employed, and not the transfer of any one
substance, is that to which it is safest to refer. It has
sometimes been said that the production of sensible
heat is always attended by condensation, or a diminu-
tion in the bulk of substances, and that the con-
densation is the cause of the heat. That they do
often accompany each other is true, for the rapid
condensation of air by a syringe will ignite a piece of
German tinder, placed over a small aperture at the
bottom. But it is not the mere condensation that pro-
duces the heat, or, at all events, the ignition, in this
case ; for air forced into a close vessel containing a
piece of the same match, will not set fire to it, though
the condensation be ten times greater than in the
former case. It is the violent action of the air in
escaping by the small aperture that produces the effect.
Expansion often accompanies ignition ; as in the very
familiar case of the firing of gunpowder ; and it must
not be said that the heat there is occasioned by the
condensation of the atmosphere, arising from the con-
version of part of the powder into gas, because that
follows, instead of accompanying the ignition. We
are not so well acquainted with the rationale of light-
ning, but probably that, too, is accompanied by ex-
pansion. These remarks are necessary in order to
caution us against that dogmatical imputation of
causes by which the history of nature has been so
much clouded and confused ; and but for which the
laws of the year, as dependent upon atmospheric and

80 THE YEAR.

terrestrial action, might probably, ere now, have been
as well understood as those by which the lengths of
the days are regulated. At present, however, this is
the untrodden field of natural history, and, unfortu-
nately, it seems to be one which there is a reluctance
to explore, though why there should be (other than its
difficulty, and where the true spirit of inquiry is, that
should be a stimulus) it is not easy to discover. No-
thing comes without a cause ; and the cause of every
phenomenon in nature is nothing but the phenomenon
immediately antecedent. We find that certain cir-
cumstances in the soil and the weather as uniformly
produce, — or, if the expression is liked better, — foster
certain organized beings, as that certain positions of
the earth, with regard to the sun, produce a certain
length or time of the day ; and if we could get hold
of all the elements, and study their modes of working,
there would really be nothing more miraculous in pre-
dicting a good or a bad season, than there is in pre-
dicting a long or a short day ; or in calculating a
thunder-storm, than there is in calculating an eclipse.
Mere expansion by heat, and condensation by cold,
and mere oxygenation and deoxygenation of plants
and animals, have been too much regarded as the sole
functions of the atmosphere, and that is one of the
chief reasons why so little progress has been made in
the natural history of that wonderful and all pervading
fluid. Our own senses tell us that it is the vehicle of
far more subtile energies than these. A single grain
of assafoedita or of musk, will give out its scent to the
changing air of a room for a dozen of years, without
one being able, by the nicest balance, to detect the

COLOURS. 81

smallest loss of weight ; and if a leaf of woodruff (as-
perula odorata) be worn for some time in the case of
a watch, the watch will retain the scent for years, even
though it has been again and again brushed and cleaned
by the watchmaker. There is a something, too, that guides
the vulture to its prey, the bee outwards to the honied
nectary and homewards to the nest, and the insect
to the proper nidus for its young, although for itself,
personally, that nidus has no attraction. The common
process of the dispersion of the substance in the same
way that water is evaporated, or the moisture of a
pulled leaf dried up by the sun, will not account for
these changes. In the case of the insects, it cannot
be a sense of smell, in our meaning of the term ; be-
cause that would be as acute to danger as to pleasure ;
and we have placed a little basin with chips of wood
and sulphur in a state of ignition, where bees were
busy around, and unless they came into absolute
contact with the fumes, not a bee of them was
disturbed ; yet those same bees found their way to
the honey in the nectary of a scentless flower.

The colouring, too, the motion, and the life itself,
though in so far dependent upon light and heat, must
depend upon other action. So far from colours being
the more brilliant, the more they are exposed to the
sun, the direct sun blanches the red rose; and the
fanciers of auriculas, tulips, and other gaily coloured
flowers, carefully shade them from the solar action. It
is true that the colours are in the light, because it can
be decomposed into them, and without light there is no
colour at all ; but still the tints appear not without de-
composition, and the hues of the flowers are even more

82 THE YEAR.

brilliant in those states of the atmosphere when it is
difficult to decompose the light by a prism. The progress
of growth too is greater when there are gentle showers
with the sky clouded, than when the sun is in all its
strength ; and the days of greatest drought are those
on which the upper atmosphere is overcast.

Thus when we speak of the phenomena of the year
as depending upon the action of the sun, we speak
only of part of the explanation ; and daily observation is '
required to find out the circumstances by which that
general action is modified. With these precautions,
however, the changes which the influence of the sun
produces upon the mechanical constitution of the at-
mosphere, are the best general index that we have to
the natural history of the seasons. From the perfect
ease with which its parts move, the air has a constant
tendency to preserve its equilibrium, or to restore it
when deranged ; and from the facility with which its
volume is changed, by heat and by other causes, it is
kept perpetually in motion. At the point of greatest
solar action, which is about three hours on the average
behind the point where the sun is vertical, its motion
is upward, because the heat makes it lighter ; and thus
there is upon the surface a general motion toward that
point, and in the upper regions a general motion from
it, or rather from the opposite point of the same parallel
of latitude. The apparent motion of this point west-
ward prevents the motion of the air from being ap-
parent on the parallel where the sun is vertical, or for a
degree or two on each side of it : on land it is inter-
rupted by the action of different surfaces, and without
the tropics, the action is too weak to overcome the

ATMOSPHERIC MOTION. 83

local causes ; but on the tropical seas there is a wind
constantly blowing between east and north-east on the
north, and east and south-east on the south, of the
parallel of greatest heat, while in the upper regions of
the air there is a wind in the opposite directions. The
cause of the first is the immediate action of the sun,
and, therefore, it is most powerful within the tropics ;
the cause of the latter is in the high latitudes from
which the air is drawn by the former, and, therefore,
it is felt the most in the temperate regions. These
winds are most felt in the southern hemisphere in our
winter, and in the northern in our summer. They are
sufficient to make the south-west wind the most prevail-
ing one in Britain at all times, and it is probable that, at
a certain height in the atmosphere, the south-west wind
is constant with us. While the wind was at east and
dry, and continued so for some days before and after,
we have found a south-west wind with showers on the
top of Ben Nevis. Indeed we never met with any but
a south-west wind on the top of our very high moun-
tains. We do not mean to say that it is constant
there, but it is so much more so than in the vallies or
on the plains, as to leave not the least doubt that there
is an elevation at which it is constant, and quite unin-
fluenced by the varying winds, the storms and the calms,
that arise from the action of the varied surfaces below ;
as from the action of causes in the atmosphere itself
which, for the sake of having a verbal explanation,
where the real one had not been found, it has been cus-
tomary to refer to electricity, as if electricity — at least
the sensal appearance of it (and beyond sensal ap-
pearances we know nothing, except our own mental

84 THE YEAR.

feelings)— were a primary cause ; and not, as it really is,
one in the chain of effects, and immediately depending
upon some antecedent action, in the same manner as
rain, or flame, or any other natural phenomenon.

This upper current and the under one, which, as it
is the only one that we feel, we call the wind, are
seldom of the same temperature ; and it has been
found by experiment, that the compound that arises
from mixing together two quantities of air at different
temperatures, cannot retain so much moisture in a
state of invisible vapour, as the two can do separately ;
therefore the tendency of the adverse currents is to
form a cloud, even though the lower one should not be
saturated with moisture. With us, the upper or south-
west current, originating as it does within the tropics,
where evaporation is a maximum, and coming across
the Atlantic, may be supposed to be always fully
charged with humidity ; but it often happens that the
under current is so far from being saturated, that it
re-dissolves the cloud, or the lower part of it, as fast
as it descends ; and it does this of course the more
rapidly that it is in motion, because a new portion of
dry air is constantly brought in contact with the cloud.
Hence the common saying, that " wind keeps off rain;"
hence, also, clouds continue to roll, volume after
volume, from one point of the horizon, and the rain,
after a time, returns in torrents from the other. Those
who live near high mountains are well acquainted
with the fact of the rain coming from the upper stra-
tum and current of the atmosphere, by the "mantle"
or " hat ''of cloud that first envelopes the summit of
the mountain. On the east coast, where the east

SIGNS OF RAIN. 85

wind is, generally speaking, the driest by the hygro-
meter, unless at that particular season when the evapo-
ration on the sandy plains of Germany has become a
maximum from the action of the summer heat, a
mantle of cloud upon a high mountain, as far to the
westward as it can be seen, is a much more certain
prognostic of rain than any barometer. We have often
had occasion to notice the progress of this change :
after weeks of drought, the sky began to be overcast,
but along with that the drought became more keen and
constant, so that there was no dew ; the channels of
the rills were dry and champed, and the small trick-
lings and oozing in those places which yield a little
water, but cannot be called springs, wholly disap-
peared ; so did the frogs, the slugs, and all other
creatures that suffer much from excessive evaporation.
Gradually the atmospheric haze became thicker and
thicker, and for a time the east wind appeared to
strengthen with it. That, however, only increased the
collision and condensation, and the consequent satura-
tion of the current from the east. At last the wind
from that point fell nearly to a calm, the trickling
water again began to show itself, and the frogs to leap
about in the evening. The old people (for they were
naturalists in their way) knew the sign, and rejoiced
that their crops were not to be parched up. " It is
the earth," said they, in their homely phrase, " coming
out to meet the rain." Next day the mantle was on
the mountain, at nightfall it began to patter, and ere
morning the earth was refreshed by a copious flood.

It is only in the months of April, May, and June,
when the evaporative power of the air, at least on the

86 THE YEAR.

east side of Great Britain, is a maximum, and where,
taking the average of the year, it is equal to the ab-
sorption of twice, or at least once and a half, the
quantity of moisture that falls during the same period,
and only upon plains of some extent between the
mountains and the sea, that those general observations
can be made : for at other seasons, and where the
surface is very varied, there are so many temporary
and local circumstances that come into action, that
each place must depend upon separate observations ;
and, in the present state of our knowledge, he who is
most " weather wise,'* for one, is probably most at
fault for another. We shall, therefore, defer any
further hints that we have to offer until we can blend
them with notices of some of the characteristic produc-
tions of the seasons, and close this part, which, for
all its length, we fear will be found very imperfect, by
one short precautionary paragraph.

There is nothing more common than to predict the
future state of the season from some single appearance
in the early part of it ; and yet there is nothing more
unphilosophical or fallacious. An early blossom, an
early bee, or an early swallow, or the early appear-
ance of any other production of nature, is no evidence
whatever of the kind of weather that is to come,
though the belief that it is so is both very general and
very obstinate. The appearance of these things is
the effect of the weather, not the cause ; and it is
what we may call an external effect, — that is, it does
not enter into the chain of causation. The weather
of to-day must always have some influence upon the
weather of to-morrow ; but its effect will not be altered

CAUSES OF ERROR. 87

in the smallest tittle, whether it does or does not call
out of the cranny in which it has been hybernated,
some wasp, or some swallow that was too weak for the
autumnal migration. Birds, blossoms, and butterflies
do not come in expectation of fine weather ; if they
did, the early ones would show that they see not far
into futurity, for they generally come forth only to be
destroyed. They come in consequence of the good
weather which precedes their appearance, and they
know no more of the future than a stone does. Man
knows of to-morrow only as a rational being ; and
were it not that he reasons from experience and
analogy, he would have no ground for saying that the
sun of to-day is to set. The early leaf and the early
blossom of this spring may be a consequence of the
fine weather of last autumn, which ripened the wood
or forwarded the bud, and the early insect may be
evidence that the winter has been mild ; but not one
of these, or any thing connected with plants or ani-
mals, taken in itself, throws light upon one moment
of the future ; and for once to suppose that it does,
is to reverse the order of cause and effect, and put an
end to all philosophy — to all common sense.

And are we to draw no conclusions from the pheno-
mena of plants and animals, which have been popular
prognostics of the weather from time immemorial, — not
from the face-washing of the cat, or the late-roosting
of the rook, which have been signs infallible time out
of mind ? No, not a jot from the conduct of the animals
themselves, — unless we admit that cats and crows have
got the keeping and command of the weather. These
actions of theirs, and very many (perhaps all) pheno-

88 THE YEAR.

mena of plants and animals are produced by certain
existing states of the weather ; and it is for man to
apply his observation and find out by what other states
these are followed. The cat does not wash her face
because it is to rain to-morrow ; that, in the first place,
would be " throwing philosophy to the cats ;" and in
the next place, it would be doing so to marvellously
little purpose, inasmuch as, if puss were thus informed
of the future, she would only have to wait a day in
order to get a complete washing without any labour or
trouble. When the cat performs the operation alluded
to, it is a proof that the present state of the atmosphere
affects her skin in a way that is disagreeable, and the
washing is her mode of relief; and, in as far as the cat
is concerned, that is an end of the matter. Man, how-
ever, may take it up, and if he finds that in all cases, or
in the great majority of cases, this happens only before
rain, he is warranted in concluding that the state of
the atmosphere which impresses this action upon the
cat, is also the state which precedes rain ; and that in
the cases where the rain does not follow, there has been
a subsequent atmospheric change which is also worthy
of his study.

What it is in this case, and whether connected with
the little action in the fur of the animal by which elec-
tricity can be excited, we shall not enquire ; but in the
late roosting of the crows the cause is apparent : they
feed upon larvae and earth-worms ; these, especially the
latter, come most abroad in the evenings before rain ;
and as most animals gorge themselves, where food is
easily found, there is no reason why rooks should not
follow the general law.

STUDY OF NATURE. 89

These familiar instances have been noticed in order
to point out how apt we are to miss the lesson that
nature would give, and break down the fabric of phi-
losophy, by giving a purpose and a prescience of the
future to that which cannot reason. Vapour, liquid or
solid, organized or unorganized, plant or animal, of a
day's duration or of a century's, there is but one law
for matter, and that is to be modified to the circum-
stances in which it is placed : it is the province of
man to come in with the higher attribute his Maker
has given him, and by a careful observation of the cir-
cumstances and the modification that are found toge-
ther, he may infer the one from the other ; or, by an
imitation of the circumstances, copy the result in as far
as art can imitate nature, or transfer the workings of
nature from place to place, by artificial soil, artificial
warmth, and artificial culture.

That is the proper end and object of the philosophy
and the history of nature, — we say the philosophy and
the history, for each is imperfect and unavailing without
the other ; and when we heajr of wisdom and forethought
imputed to the material being, it is only a new species
of idolatry, a robbing of the Almighty for the sake of
a dumb animal instead of a dumb idol, — an exaltation
of a part, and a very little part, of His works, to a
participation of the glory of Him who sitteth upon the
zone of the universe, and in whose sight, worlds and
their myriads of productions are but as " the small dust
of the balance."

SPRING.

Sweet is thy coming, Spring ! and as I pass

Thy hedge rows, where from the half-naked spray

Peeps the sweet bud, and 'midst the dewy grass

The tufted primrose opens to the day,

My spirits light and pure confess thy pow'r

Of balmiest influence : there is not a tree

That whispers to the warm noon- breeze ; nor flow'r

Whose bell the dew-drop holds, but yields to me

Predestiniugs of joy : —

How beautiful the pastime of the Spring !
Lo ! newly waking from her wintry dream,
She, like a smiling infant, timid plays
On the green margin of this sunny lake,
Fearing, by starts, the little breaking waves
(If riplings rather known by sound than sight
May haply so be named) that in the grass,
Soon fade in murmuring mirth.

PROFESSOR WILSON.

THE BRITISH NATURALIST.

PART SECOND.

ROOKS RETRIBUTION.

SPRING is the season at which every man that can
get abroad into the fields (and who would live and not
inhale the vernal air ?) is a naturalist. It is the dawn
of life, the emblem of creation. The creatures rejoice.
Those which man has domesticated and protected
during the inclement months, are affected by their first

92 SPRING.

visit to the fields as if by magic. The horse, even
though worn by labour and pinched by dry and scanty
food, canters around and around the field, with arching
neck and nostrils distended, as if he would inhale the
whole atmosphere at a breath, snorting aloud and
shaking from his lungs all the impurities of his confine-
ment. Even the steer is a wanton ; and the cow, at
other seasons the dullest creature that lives, gambols
and gallops with all the sportiveness of the kid. Long,
indeed, before there is any thing that can please their
appetites or satisfy their hunger, there comes upon
them a balm in the gale, a breathing of freshness and
vigour, which proves that, even with the lower crea-
tures, life is preferable to the means of living ; and
that, to all the productions of nature, the first and best
of blessings is the air in which " they have their being,"
tempered by those restless breezes, which make it, at
all places, ever new.

And when the proper temperature does come, — how-
ever transitory it may be, and how much some men
may fear that the early making of the sunny day will
be marred, by those dense masses of stachen-cloud
which, rearing their castellated volumes in the horizon,
with the semblance of a ridge of massy mountains,
portend that the young year shall yet be swathed in
snow, — how rapidly the energies of nature come out to
meet it. In January, in February, or March, as it
may be, according to the latitude and the elevation
above the level of the sea, when the air begins to
relent, by the snow's throwing back the whole heat of
the sun into the lower stratum of the air, when the
water begins to trickle from the cottage thatch, and

THE FIRST BREATH. 93

drip from the loaded pine; when the sunny slopes
begin to reek with the earliest evaporation, and little
pools to cream and mantle in the hollows of the trodden
snow, how jocund the most tiny things in nature come
forth to enjoy themselves, as if even the deceptive sun-
beam of a January noon were too precious to be lost to
a world dependent on the sun. Under the shelter of
the dark wall, or the leafless bush, where direct, re-
flected, and radiated heat combine, and mimic rainbows
sport in the rising vapour, the little tipulidce, and cu-
lices, bring out their mazy phalanx, and as they flit,
now up, now down, now right, now left, their wings are
little points of prismatic hues, as if the rising rainbows
were consolidated ; and there they wanton, till a cloud
passes over the sun, or a gust of wind passes over the
place of their sporting, and then they go, no one knows
where. Sometimes an insect, of a little more volume,
will try its solitary path, — the winter moth (geometria
brumaria), or the earliest moth of the spring (geometria
primaria) ; but if these shall escape the birds, of which
even some granivorous kinds hawk for insects at this
season, they are soon laid lifeless upon the snow.
Even a solitary wasp or bee, which had taken up its
hybernating retreat in a southern chink or crevice, ex-
posed to the ready action of the heat, will buzz abroad
in fond expectation of the expanded calyx, and the
luscious nectary. In situations where the cold air does
not settle down till the night be well advanced, — and
where there is no diurnal transfer of air from land to
land, this is apt to be the case, especially after the middle
of January, — the common bat (vesper tillio murinus)
leaves its winter retreat, and twitters about night-fall.

94 SPRING-

What may become of these premature children of the
year it is not easy to say. The gnats are but beings of
an hour at any season ; and, so that they have sun
during that hour, then the enjoyment may be the same
in January as in June. As for the bee and the bat
again, the returning cold may send them back to the
retreats which they have left. The only part of the
economy of its being, which the early gnat may not
accomplish, is the preparation of a new brood, but that
can make no more blank in nature than the barrenness
of some of the very early flowers. The water, too, and,
in all probability, the ice and snow, are filled with
countless myriads of the tiny race, all ready to come
forth, when the temperature of the places where they
are, shall become such as so waken them out of their
nidus.

If the fine weather continue for a day or two, other
creatures begin to feel that it is the spring. The red-
breast leaves the cottage window and the crumbs, an d
hops from spray to spray, examining if there be any
larva of insects yet stirring in the buds. The little
kitty wren (troglodytes europaus), which the poetic
fancy of the rustics has given to " robin" as an help-
mate, follows the same course ; and though the smaller
golden-crested wren (regulus auricapillus) does not
venture so near our habitations, yet they may be seen
hopping on the twigs in the pine forests, or darting in
a hunting excursion among the tipulidce that are sport-
ing on the sunny side. The house sp'arrow, too, ceases
to contend with the domestic poultry for its crumb,
drops its shrilly twitter to a softer call, snatches up a bit
of straw in its bill, and mounting the cottage thatch,

STABILITY OF TREES. 95

bends its head first to the right and then to the left, as
if about to enter upon an important office, in which a
partner will be wanted.

As yet, however, the vegetable creation is still and
dead ; and were it not that we have the remembrance
of a former year, and the belief that like seasons will
bring like productions, we could not anticipate a flower
or even a leaf. There is a beauty in the leafless trees
as they are pencilled out against the winter sky to the
most minute ramification. The firm curve by which the
bole embraces the earth, is that after which our engineers
have modelled those light-houses on the dangerous reefs
of Eddystone and the Bell Rock, that stand secure on
their bases amid the utmost fury of the sea, and save
many a cargo from destruction, and many a hardy tar
from an untimely grave. If too, the sea wall of a har-
bour be modelled to the same curve, it is wonderful
how much the swell of the sea is broken, how much
more tranquil the vessels lie, and how much longer the
wall lasts. In the thickness of a forest or grove, this
is not so much needed, and, therefore, it is not so con-
spicuous; in trees of minor growth and more limited
duration also, we do not find it ; but when an oak stands
alone on a plain or mountain side, in a soil adapted for
its growth, we uniformly find that it tempers itself to a
most complete resistance of the winds by swelling out
into that curve in which, as has been said, engineers
have found the greatest stability. And it is easy to
see how the curve which is thus formed acts in break-
ing the force, whether of the wind or of the waters.
The current impinges first on the spreading part of
the base which is close by the ground, and upon which,

96 SPRING.

consequently, there is little or no lever power, and
thence it is deflected upwards, so that it cuts the cur-
rents farther up. Then the firm setting of the greater
arms, fortified by an additional mass of timber, and
the tapering away branch after branch, so that while
the root is unmoved, and the base unshaken by the
winds, the twigs that immediately carry the foliage,
tremble to the lightest breeze, and give to the leaves a
sort of locomotion, by which they are, in all probability,
better fitted for performing their important functions in
the atmosphere.

Thus a tree, even when stripped of its leaves, and to
all appearance lifeless, is far from being uninteresting
even as a sight ; but when we come to reflect on the great
quantity and variety of life of which it is the depository,
its importance increases, and we find it a complete ma-
gazine of natural history, of which we may watch all
the progress and proceedings. Each of the little buds
that appear in or under the places from which the
hardening of the intermediate pellicle of wax has re-
moved the leaves, or that bore with a point, or accu-
mulate in a woody ganglion upon the trunk, is, though
yet its size does not equal that of a pin's head, or even
of a pin's point, — each of them is a perfect tree, and
would, if placed in a situation properly fitted for it, pro-
duce the same tree as its parent, and indeed is the only
means by which we can make sure that one tree shall
be of exactly the same variety as another. The seat
of vitality is a point with which naturalists have long
puzzled themselves, and well they may, for a gangrene
in the toe, or a ragged wound in the finger, will often
occasion certain death, while in other cases health will

LIFE OF BUDS. 97

be restored by the amputation of a limb, and the fa-
culties remain uninjured after a portion of the brain has
been removed. The one set of cases would lead us to
suppose that the body is life all over, the other that
parts which we are accustomed to look upon as the most
vital, are not absolutely essential to vitality. In the
case of the bud we know that the life is there, and that
it acts downwards to the stem, as well as upwards in
the flower and fruit or the leaves and branch of which
it may be the origin ; and by availing themselves of that
well known property, beautiful flowers and choice fruits,
the stems of which are either difficult to raise or not
sufficiently durable, can be multiplied at pleasure.
Every tree is thus a nursery of plants in its buds, and
by those we can multiply those species that do not
perfect their seeds in our climate, and so bring to
perfection in a few years that which otherwise would
require an age. Of the flowers and fructification we
need hardly speak, as they do not fail to attract every
body's attention, and yet it is a wonderful thing that
of these black twigs which seem all so much alike,
one should be clothed in the purest white, another in
the brightest scarlet, and that another should be tinted
with every hue, of which the very minuest speck, con-
trary to the colours than man lays by his art, appears
the better defined the more it is magnified. All those,
too, come from their proper trees with the most unerr-
ing certainty, and, could we find them out, depend on
laws which must be as simple and as uniform in their
operation, as those that bring about the changes of the
seasons.

Nor is the life which is in the plant itself any more
K

98

than a very small portion of what it shelters. If there
is the slightest furrow in the surface, and moisture can
lodge there, some little moss or lichen finds it out
and grows, even while the powers of the tree are still
vigorous. Then there is an insect in every bud, which,
as that awakens in the spring, will awaken too in
order to feed upon it. The little twigs are enclosed
with the eggs of the lacquay moth (lasiocampa neustria)
in a most perfect spiral, united by a cement that not
only defies the weather, but which, while the insects
continue there, can with difficulty be divided with a
knife, but when the purpose of nature is effected, and
the insects have come out, the cement dissolves, and
the little cells mingle with the general store of matter.
Every chink in the bark too, has its inhabitant, and
not a few are lodged in the wood in artificial cells.
This is remarkably the case wherever there is decay ;
for the soft heart of a hollow tree may be seen drilled
through and through by the larva of beetles, while the
wood that is vigorous is untouched. When, indeed,
we perceive that those insect productions, whether they
take place in an animal or a vegetable, are always at-
tended with, if not preceded by, decay or putrefaction of
some kind or other, we may cease to wonder that men,
before they had begun to find natural causes by con-
tinued observation, attributed the origin of those animals
to putridity ; for so intent is nature in preventing any
thing from lying idle, that no sooner does any particle
of matter cease to be useful in one compound than the
most active energies are at work changing it into
another. It is only while the glebe is bound 'up in ice
that there is a suspension of these energies ; and even

WINTER WIND. 99

then it is confined within narrow limits ; for though the
plants that grow in the sea have their budding time
and their fall of the leaf, as may be seen in the delicate
shoots of the sweet sea-weed (fucus saccharinus) which
form so wholesome a sail ad in May and June, and the
masses of large leaves that are rolled toward the shores
by the action of the autumnal gales, yet the range of
the season there is very much limited ; and as the action
of the ocean, both in the vapour of water, and the
more active ingredients which it gives out to the at-
mosphere, is too important for being suspended, that
action like the respiration and circulation of animals,
goes on while the other faculties are asleep, whether
that sleep be for the night or the winter.

But though reflection can find abundant scope in
nature under any circumstances, the stillness of crea-
tion in the winter months has less of fascination to the
senses ; and that fascination is, after all, the charm by
which we are enticed to the "study of nature. There is
a calmness, but a melancholy calmness, in the serene
winter's day, and there is a great deal of sublimity in
the winter's storm, It is not, however, the kind that
is most pleasing. The very sound of the wind is harsh,
and " howling" is not at any other period so expressive
of the voice of the storm. It is harsh and grating,
and the sound of a winter tempest in a naked forest is
more like the rattle of innumerable pebbles than of a
sweeping flood. Ground, mountains, every where that
it alights, it has the same harsh rattle, and amid the
frost and snow the wind will not sing : those who have
heard winds in upland countries, where the seasons are
marked and the winters severe, know full well, as they
hear the sound of the wind at night, whether that wind

100 SPRING.

be the harbinger of the spring, or the bringer of an ac-
cession of winter. At such places, all winds come in
gusts ; but the wind of winter wails alone, as it were.
There is no resonance, and every gust comes with a
grating thump, as if a tree were uprooted, or a hillock
overturned. The windows rattle and shake, but they
have no sympathy with the under tones of the gale.
But the gale of spring is very different ; and nothing
is more delightful than to hear it before daylight, on a
morning early in the year. There are generally some
signs of its coming, though they often pass unheeded.
The clouds that surround the setting sun are higher,
more fantastically shaded, and tinted with richer colors ;
and the heavy lump of clouds which is seen in the
east when there is to be a snow storm, is not found :
in its place there are light streaks of the same cloud
by which the sun is surrounded, and which fade from
golden orange, through all the tints, to the russet and
the grey, as they recede from that luminary ; and one
may often trace a sort of polarity in streaks of light
cirrhi, higher up. Just about sunset, there are light
gusts from the east and the west, as if the wind were
" trying for a point," and such is the fact ; the cur-
rents from the north and south, or from the mountain
and the plain, or sea, as it happens, have come in con-
tact in the great mass of the atmosphere, and thus
loosed the little winds that play upon the surface of
the earth. Momentary as is their duration, and feeble
as are their gusts, those little winds are well worthy the
attention of every one who aspires to be a naturalist.
They are, perhaps, the most certain indications that
we know, of changes of weather, either in respect to
moisture or temperature. The more completely that

CHAKGE OF WEATHER. 101

the one atmospheric current is opposed to the other,
the more complete must be the stagnation, the quies-
cence, as it were, throughout the whole mass ; and
when that is the case, the different temperature of a
wood and a lawn, or a farm-yard and a field, will be
quite enough to occasion a little local wind. When
the surface is free from snow, and the bare places,
such as roads, and commons, and little sand banks by
the sides of rivers, greatly heated, these natural ba-
rometers are always in action ; and when the season is
advancing, and the fields and trees covered with vege-
tation, they whisk about in all directions, cross each
other's paths, and mix dust and straws in whirlwinds
upon the land, or the water in columnar clouds, called
water spouts, upon the sea. That opposition or colli-
sion of different currents of air which lets loose those
little winds, is also one of the causes of rain : and,
in summer, they are almost certain indications of a
shower; though, in the early spring, that, though
not an unfrequent, is by no means a necessary re-
sult. If both currents of air are saturated, or nearly
saturated, with humidity, some of that is deposited
when they unite : but the one current is always rather
above the other ; and the lower one is often able to
dissolve the moisture as soon as it collects. Indeed,
the experiments that have been made with rain gauges,
would lead to the conclusion, that the air, near the
earth, always redissolves a part of the rain that falls
through it.

When the sun sets, and the cold air settles down, the
clouds which were gathered round the setting sun are
carried into a stratum that dissolves them ; and the

K2

102 SPRING.

atmosphere is left without a cloud. But if it be
moonlight, there is a gummy haze around that lu-
minary, often with a breach or opening in that part of
it which is directed toward the point whence the new
current of air is coming, — that is, in most parts of
Britain, towards the south. There are often auroras,
beams of light, and shooting meteors, though the con-
nexion of these with the weather be not so well made
out on account of the obscurity of their nature and
causes. Whether the sign may be general we pretend
not to say, but in elevated and woody tracts, we have
often found " the break of the storm" preceded by
little sheets of lightning in the lower atmosphere,
without any thunder or any cloud. Ignes fatui they
cannot be, for the gases of which those are composed
are quite shut up when there is snow upon the ground.
The beautiful azure reflection, in the bottoms of hoof
prints and other holes in the snow, has sometimes
been mentioned as one of the signs of thaw ; but it is
a sign after, — a sign that the heat has been at work for
some time, and that the snow is, in consequence, soft-
ened in its mass, and become partially transparent.
This is not the only instance of the effect of a natural
event being put for a cause, — of the sign that a change
has already come, being mistaken for a sign that it is
coming ; a species of mistake, against which those who
wish to inform themselves of the true causes, should
be constantly upon their guard.

As the spring air gets the mastery, which is aided
by the condensation that takes place during the night,
it rises to a wind, the sound of which cannot be mis-
taken. The rigidity of trees, window frames, and

MELTING OF SNOW. 103

other wooden fabrics, through which it passes, is re-
laxed ; the withered grass and reeds where these are
exposed, moisten, and the rattling and thumping are
succeeded by murmuring and harmony, in which,
compared with the others, there is a good deal of
music; and as the morning advances, and the animals
come abroad and man begins to be active, the hard
metallic sound is gone, and there is a softness about
nature. There is also a delightful transparency in the
atmosphere, because the little spiculce. of ice are gone ;
and the heat of the air is too much occupied in con-
verting the snow and ice into water for changing much
of that into vapour. When the change is accompanied
by rain, it is far from pleasant at the time, and there
is a danger, almost a certain one, that the spring will
be treacherous ; and that in consequence of the great
waste of heat required for the melting of the snow and
the evaporation of the rain together, frosts will return
long before the process of thawing, so comparatively
slow, is completed. The slow melting of snow by rain,
compared with that by a warm atmosphere, which is
constantly shifting by the wind, can be easily under-
stood, when it is remembered that the water which falls,
even if it had the temperature of the greatest summer
heat, would be cooled down to the freezing point in
melting half its weight in snow. But as the tempera-
ture can only be a little above freezing, the water will
have the temperature of 32° before it has cooled per-
haps one tenth-of its weight ; and as the water is a bad
conductor of heat, and great part of the action of the
oblique rays of the sun reflected away from its surface,
a rainy breaking of a storm is almost sure to be fol-

104 SPRING.

lowed by frost, if it do not happen when the season is
far advanced. The dry thaw is the one that ushers in
the spring most pleasantly and most certainly, and it
is so far fortunate that it is the most common in those
regions where, from the length of the winter, vegeta-
tion requires to be called soonest into action. Those
who have observed how very rapidly a few sunny days,
with a warm wind, clear away the four or five months'
snows in the northern parts of Europe, and even in
some of the glens towards the north of Scotland, and
how very soon the earth is gay with vegetation, the
woods resounding with song, and the air filled with in-
sects, will not envy the inhabitants of countries a little
warmer, the conflict which they must witness between
a doubtful winter and a doubtful spring, during the
months of January, February, and often the greater
part of March. When the snow has nearly disap-
peared, and a little remains only in the shade of woods,
hedges, and rocks, it is delightful to walk abroad.
The birds have now withdrawn from the farm-yards, as
well as from the shelter of the woods. The thrush
and blackbird are scouring the hedge bottoms in
quest of slugs and snail shells, which have then made
retreats there, and where they are numerous, are very
destructive to the young crops. But the birds al-
luded to make terrible havoc among them, and in the
neighbourhood of a coppice which affords them nesting
places, the hedge sides may be found so covered with
empty and broken shells, as to have some resemblance
to a beach where the sea casts up similar exuviae.
It is difficult, indeed, to say which of the birds is
at this early season the most useful to man; they

INSECTS AND BIRDS. 105

often nip off the buds of trees, but in most instances
they thereby cut off in each bud a whole colony of
caterpillars. Buds are never a favourite food with
birds, though some of the species that remain with us,
or visit us in the winter months, have recourse to them
after all other kinds of food are exhausted. Generally
speaking, they are all, however, in quest of insects in
some stage or other of their existence, in the spring
months ; and as they carry on their hunting with great
vigour, until their broods be able to provide for them-
selves, they annually cut off as many destroyers as, but
for them, would produce famine in the most fertile
country.

The insects which the birds thus consume for their
own food and that of their callow young, by so many
myriads, have no doubt their use in the economy of
nature, as well as the others. We know that the
insects and the parasitical fungi consume substances,
of which the decomposition in the air would be dis-
agreeable, because we find that they resort to those
substances. It may be, too, that there is some good in
the havoc which they commit among the vegetable
tribes, however much it may interfere with our opera-
tions. The germs of life are so thick every where that
there is really no room for them in the world, if the one
were not so constituted as to put down the other ; one
single plant might be made to clothe a whole country
to the prevention of all other vegetation, in the course
of a few years. Were it not for the goldfinches, thistles
and ragweed would soon become intolerable ; and, in
spite of all the means by which they are destroyed,
there is really no place free from the winged seeds of

106 SPRING.

the syngenesis of Linnseus. Also, as all the buds and
leaves upon a living tree are in a state fit for growing,
the pruning by the insect, when not carried to excess,
may be healthful to it. Before, however, we can make
any remarks upon the usefulness of natural objects or
events, farther than as they are useful to ourselves, we
must know the whole ; and how far we may yet be
from that, is not a measurable quantity.

Still the little that we do know about it is very de-
lightful, and never more so than when the breath of
spring first wiles us into the field, wondering at every
thing around us. There is a richer tone of colour in
the sky, and certainly in the clouds ; the air, as it fans
the newly loosened earth, is all perfume, without any
of the heaviness of that which comes from particular
substances. The turned sod shows us that we have
not in all our chemical apparatus an alembic like the
earth. The perfumes that the finest of our art can
distil, have always something sickly about them, and
though they please the sense for a little, they pall upon
it in the end. It is thus with the rich perfumes of the
summer, in the production of which, as well as in some
of the glowing tints of colour that then make nature
so gay, there may be more of the action of prnssine
than has been detected ; and that may be at least one
of the reasons why there is a trace of sickliness in
them. That principle has been found abundantly in
some seeds, such as the kernels of peaches and bitter
almonds, and there is a trace of it in many others.
From the energy with which it acts upon the carbonates,
it is obviously well fitted for being an efficient agent in
the vegetable economy ; as we know that the separa-

EARLY FLOWERS. 107

tion of carbon from the compounds in which it exists,
is the principal action of vegetables, and whether that
is taken in by the roots or the leaves, it must be in
a state of exceedingly minute division, as the pores in
the roots of plants are remarkably small, smaller than
the orifices of the absorbents in an animal; and though
carbon in the finest powder that art can produce has
been applied directly to the roots, and a copious sup-
ply of water given, the most microscopic particle of it in
substance has never been detected in the plant. When
plants begin to decay, we have abundance of chemical
decompositions that we can understand, imitate, and
apply to many useful purposes in the arts, though
many of them are neither very pleasant nor very
healthful, and the action of the mature plant is, as we
have said, of a very doubtful character ; but the air
that comes from the infancy of vegetation is always
healthy and invigorating.

And then there are so many associations connected
with it : we are to have architecture, and music, and a
number of arts, with many displays of affection, from
which it might not be amiss to take lessons. We catch
the first flower of the season, too, the little snow-drop
(galanthus nivalis), haply rearing its tiny bell through
the lingering snow, under some hedge or bank, and as
that has now become soft and covered with the fine
mould, which it is to have as a return to the spot upon
which it has lingered the longest, the flower has the
advantage in whiteness. Though the snow-drop has
got the credit, on account of its extreme beauty, and
the delightful little glades and grassy banks in which
it delights, it is not the earliest even of those wild

108 SPRING.

flowers which are independent of culture. The ever-
lasting groundsel (senecio vulgaris), which dogs man
over every field that he can cultivate, and sows when
he sows, be the season when it may, is as diligent in
the winter as in the summer, so that, if the goldfinch
can but scrape down to it, it is sure of a meal, even in
the time of the deepest snow. That little plant, how-
ever, has no beauty, and it keeps us employed, so that
we have no need to admire it, and yet these very
weeds have their uses to us; they compel us to hoe
the soil and keep it loose, which, were it not for them,
we would be apt to neglect. By hedge sides, too,
where the soil is of too light a nature for the snow-
drop, we are sure to meet with the henbit dead nettle
(lamium amplexicaule), with its thick heart-shaped
leaves hiding the stem, and its little rose coloured
flowers scarcely peeping out of their calices, and
perishing before they come to maturity. The common
furze also (ulex europceus) will sometimes put on
part of its golden livery, for the adorning of the heath
or the common, at the early dawning of the year ; but
{Jie season must be more than usually mild, as after
severe winters there are few plants that show a more
mingled character than furze bushes. When April
comes, however, they make amends: they are exceeded
by few plants in beauty, and there is a wonderful
healthiness in the breeze that wafts their odour.

The common, or indeed the very wild of nature, in
any part of our climate, is not the place for the na-
turalist to make the very earliest of his observations :
the cultivated field, where man has mixed active
substances with the soil, comes sooner into life. The

THE COLTS-FOOT. JQ9

surface is more opened, too, and therefore the insects that
came late in the autumn, and have survived the winter
in their perfect state, as well as the early larva, are
more abundant there. There is an early plant there,
too, and one which has got credit for many virtues,
and actually possesses some of them, the common
colt's foot (tussilago vulgaris). On stubble lands,
especially where the soil is decomposed clay slate, [it
has been said that, it always accompanies coal, and
that may be true, but coal does not always accompany
it, and therefore its rhabdomantic virtue goes for
nothing], the flowers of that plant spot the surface
with their delicate yellow tufts, when the snow is just
disappearing, and there is not a leaf. In the matter of
leaves, indeed, it makes ample amends afterwards ; for
where the soil is strong and moist, they attain the size
of umbrellas by harvest, and have a fine cotton upon
their under sides, which may be separated in quantity,
and makes an excellent tinder when impregnated with
nitrate of potass ; and the dried leaves have many of
the stimulant qualities of tobacco, without any of the
narcotic. We might infer, indeed, from the economy
of the plant, that there is some use in the leaves inde-
pendent of the plant itself, as these continue to grow
vigorously and increase in size long after the flower is
over and the seed ripened, though they die down in
the winter. Coltsfoot enters pretty largely into the
pharmacopoeias of the country notables ; and it is pro-
bable that it may be quite as efficacious as some of
those nostriims which the other notables cry up for a
time, and then abandon. The medicines of the fields
are, however, like the air of the fields, held in little
L

110 SPRING.

estimation, as they do not depend on human art, the
grand object of which, even when curative, is as often to
exalt the doctor as to heal the patient.

.Upon such a field one has the best chance of hearing
the matin song of the year. While the morning is yet
cold, there are but a few complaining chirps, and the
birds chiefly appear in short flights, which have much the
appearance of leaps, under the hedges. As the morn-
ing gets warm, however, a few are found running
along the furrows, and one brown fellow, perched on
a clod, partially erecting a crest of feathers, and look-
ing around him with a mingled air of complacency and
confidence, utters a " churr-ee" in an under tone, as if
he were trying the lowest and the highest notes of an
instrument. The 'notes are restrained, but they have
enough of music in them to cause you to wish for a repe-
tition. That, however, does not in general come ; but
instead of it there is a single " churr" murmured from
a little distance, and so soft as hardly to be audible ;
and the bird that was stationed upon the clod has
vanished, nor can you for some time find out what has
become of him. His flight is at first upward, and bears
some resemblance to the smoke of a fire on a calm
day, gradually expanding into a spiral as it rises above
the surface. But no sooner has he gained the proper
elevation, than down showers his song, filling the whole
air with the most cheerful melody; and you feel more
gay, more glee and lifting up of the heart, than when
any other music meets your ear. The opening of the
day and of the year come fresh to your faacy, as you
instinctively repeat —

" Hark, the lark at heaven's gate sings."

We have many songsters, and the spring is the

THE LARK.

Ill

season when they make all the country one orchestra ;
but the countryman's bird, the bird that is most na-
turally associated with the freshness of the vernal day
and the labours of the field, is

THE LARK.

There are several birds to which the name of lark is
given, but the skylark, or field lark (alauda arvensis) is
the lark, par excellence, of this country; and wherever
man cultivates the soil, from Devon to the Shetland
Isles, the lark is there to " beguile his labour with a
cheerful song." The lark, indeed, is the signal both
for the season and the day. The very first sun of the
young year calls up the lark to pour his song from the
sky ; and among the rustics the singing of the lark is
as definite a point in the twenty-four hours as the rising
and setting of the sun. But the lark is not only one
of the most generally diffused of our songsters, it is the
one that continues the longest. As far north as

112 SPRING.

Caithness and Orkney, it begins to sing by the middle
of February, or even by the beginning of that month if
the weather be warm ; and as the birds are numerous,
generally have two broods in the year, and often a very
late one in the event of any casualty happening to the
more early ones, it is seldom that they are wholly si-
lent before September. As they always sing on the
wing too, and elevate their song with their position,
their music is heard farther than that of louder birds.

The time when the lark is first in song, and the general
appearance and habits of the bird, render it a favourite ;
and even the boys, in their nesting excursions, hold the
humble couch of the lark in a sort of veneration. In
regions warmer than England, where vegetation is apt
to suffer from locusts, the lark is very useful, as it
feeds its young with their eggs ; and as snails and
worms are the food of the young birds in all countries,
and the principal food of the parents in the breeding
season, it is a most useful bird every where.

Those who have amused themselves in making ima-
ginary scales of the notes of birds, have hardly done
justice to the lark, in giving even the nightingale the
preference to it. The matter is, of course, one of mere
taste, in which no two persons can be of exactly the
same opinion ; and the different times at which the birds
are heard make them not easily compared. The night-
ingale is also a local and temporary bird, and thus it is
something of which the inhabitants of those places to
which it is confined can boast as being exclusively
theirs. The nightingale, too, sings against silence, and
the lark against the hum of all nature, and the advan-
tage of that contrast is very great. To a person un-
accustomed to it, the serenade of Christmas " waites,"

DAY AND MGHT MUSIC. 113

with their " hoarse pipe and broken tabor," is wonder-
fully musical ; while if it were heard during the day, it
would not come up even to Dr. Johnson's definition of
music, and be " of all noises the most tolerable ;" the
sound of a bag-pipe, the lowing of oxen, nay, even the
cackling of geese and the braying of asses, have some-
thing of melody in them when heard at a distance at
night. The whole earth is then, for reasons analagous
to those that act when the wind sings, a musical instru-
ment, and wonderfully fills and mellows every sound
that passes over it. Labour is suspended, too, and
people have begun to enjoy themselves by the time
that the nightingale sings ; the evening, also, is pecu-
liarly delightful at that season, as the drought and heat
of the day to which it succeeds are often oppressive.
The poetry of the evening too, with its soft shades, its
sighing leaves, and all the fables about the nightingale
itself, as if the song were the lamentation of a hapless
female, instead of amerry-making by the other sex, -
these have conspired with the natural advantages above
mentioned, to unsettle this part of natural history.

By these observations it is not intended in the least
to disparage the nightingale, (which has been singing
while they were made) ; but it has too often been the
custom to seek the elevation of one part of nature by
depreciating other parts, just as some people imagine
that, if they can take away the merit or character of
others, they will have the more to themselves, instead
of following the wise course of enjoying the whole.
The conduct, as to man, is wicked ; and, as to nature,
it is not wise : whether its time be the night or the
day, and whether it come in silence or in song, there
L 2

114 SPRING.

is always abundance both to admire and to learn in
her productions. Nor can any thing be more in har-
mony with the situation in which we find it, than the
song of the lark. The bird is the very emblem of
freedom : floating in the thin air, with spreading tail
and outstretched wings, and moving its little head, de-
lightedly, first to one side and then to the other, as ff
it would communicate its joy around, it at last soars to
such an elevation that, if visible at all, it is a mere
dark speck in the blue vault of heaven; and, carrolling
over the young year, or the young day, while all is
bustle and activity, the airy wildness of the song makes
its whole character more peculiar and striking. But
its joy is sometimes checked by the terror-striking ap-
proach of a bird of prey, when the descent of the soar-
ing songster is instant and rapid ; and it is fortunate
that the little trembler often thus escapes the ravenous
beak of its enemy.

The bird is remarkable for its gracefulness, whether
on the ground or on the wing. Though, when singing,
the lark generally, if not always, moves its wings, — pro-
bably to assist in the music as well as to give buoyancy, —
there is much ease and grace in its flight. In the ease
with which it sails along, and bends its course into
any curve, whether vertical or lateral, it proves a re-
markable contrast with many of the other birds,
which get through the air with a succession of leaps,
as if they were not in their proper element. Of these,
the greatest contrast is found by the pipits, birds which
have been considered as larks, though they have nei-
ther the air nor the manners of the skylark. The
structure of the lark, as has been said, adapts it for a
smooth and graceful flight, and the peculiar formation

THE SKYLARK. 115

of the feet, give it a great facility in running along a
rough surface. The legs are long and strong, and the
toes are detached from each other throughout their
whole length ; the outer and middle ones not being
united as far as the first joint, as is the case with the
pipits, thus the lark can walk among much ranker
herbage. The dignity and firmness of its slow march,
and the velocity of its running, in situations where it is
like a man running among reeds or short osiers, and
the ease with which it takes the wing from a surface
apparently so ill adapted for mounting, are all worthy
of observation. When in confinement, the lark does
not feel at home if placed on a hard or smooth surface,
and it cannot perch, so that it will not sing till its cage
be carpetted with a bit of turf. The lark is digitigrade,
or walks on the toes, and the grass, which has the
effect of a snare to some birds, is to it a continual suc-
cession of elastic cushions. When we look at the
long and straight claws with which the toes, more es-
pecially the hind toes, of the lark are armed, and con-
sider them with reference to walking, with the freedom
of which we are always apt to associate a smooth sur-
face, we are apt to think that the bird is but awkwardly
adapted for locomotion ; but when we examine the
action of the bird (and it is one that allows a near ap-
proach) we find that no organization could be better :
the three front toes and claws are spread wide, and the
posterior one projects far in the rear, so that the ex-
tent of the foot ranges over a number of blades of grass,
and the bird can run upon that without ever touching
the soil ; and, as the weight is thrown alternately upon
each foot, the elasticity of the grass aids, not only in
the lifting of the other foot, but in the progressive

motion. The same formation assists it very much in
vaulting perpendicularly into the air ; and it can spring
clear of the grass, though tall enough for concealing it
when running, without touching a blade with its wings.
To do that, it first contracts the tibia and tarsus, and
extends the toes over the largest possible surface ; then
it stretches the whole joints of the leg, and compresses
the toes, so that the elasticity of the muscles of its
body^ and that of the grass together, project it into the
air like an arrow, the head being erected, and the tail
depressed, in order to lessen the upward surface as
much as possible. In this way we have often observed
it to vault a foot and a half clear of the ground, even
of the tops of grass, before the wings began to flutter.
This peculiarity in the feet of the lark, and the man-
ner of its rising from the ground, is very serviceable to
it in concealing its nest. The bird, and indeed the
eggs, resemble a good deal, in colour, the clods among
which they are placed ; and, as the sitting time for the
second brood, which is July, and even for the first,
which is May, happens when the herbage is long, the
nest is not discovered by the rising of the old bird, as
the grass is very little agitated. There would need to
be some means of preservation, for the situation of the
nest exposes it to many casualties. It is on the earth,
without any concealment, not being found in a tuft
like the nests of some other birds that build on the
earth. The nest, though simple, and exhibiting the
bird above the surface, is constructed with a good deal
of care. The outside is small twigs, bits of creeping
roots, and coarse grass; and the interior, softer grasses,
sometimes, but not very often, mixed with long hair.
Short hair, wool, and feathers, are never used by the

LARK'S NEST. 1 17

lark. The eggs are seldom more in one brood than
four or five ; their colour is greenish white, spotted
with olive brown. There is something ingenious in the
structure, simple as it is ; and man cannot examine
any production of nature without finding something
that may be a lesson to him. That birds should form
their nests of dry vegetables rather than of green leaves ,
which would be more easily cut, and more pliable,
shows that nature attends to the ultimate purpose, as
these dry substances are much worse conductors of
heat than moist leaves : nests, too, that are shaded,
constructed in the holes of rocks, or in thick tufts of
foliage, are always formed of worse conductors than
those which are exposed, and have the advantage of
the sun's heat in the absence of the bird. When the
nest is exposed, too, and on the ground, there is a
drainage to prevent the water from lodging in it. For
this purpose, the lark selects her ground with care, avoid-
ing clayey places, unless she can find two clods so placed,
as that no part of a nest between them would be below
the surface. In more friable soils, she scrapes till she
has not only formed a little cavity, but loosened the bot-
tom of it to some depth. Over this the first layers are
placed very loosely, so that, if any rain should get in at
the top, it may sink to the bottom, and there be ab-
sorbed by the soil. The edges of the nest are also
raised a little above the surface, have a slope outwards,
and are, as it were, thatched. The position in which
the bird sits is a further security ; the head is always
turned to the weather ; the feathers of the breast and
throat completely prevent the rain from entering the
nest at that side, while the wings and tail act as pent-
houses in the other parts ; and, if the weather is violent,

118 SPRING.

and the rain at a small angle with the horizon, the
fore part of the bird, upon which the plumage is
thickest, receives the whole of it.

The propensity which many animals have to present
a point or angle to the weather, when their body affords
one, is very remarkable ; and it is not less remarkable
that they should give it up when they are feeble and
sickly. Every one who has noticed the habits of ani-
mals that winter in the moors, where there is nothing
artificial to influence their habits, must have observed
how invariably they point a horn, or the division
of the hair in those that are without horns, to the
weather. Black cattle and sheep, when healthy, may
be seen in this manner upon the most exposed places,
with the snow driving around them, having their muzzles
so placed as that the line of their breathing is at right
angles to the motion of the air; and when they turn
their backs to the blast, or " cower" in the lee of the
hill, it is always a sign that they are sickly. In qua-
drupeds this facing of the storm is more remarkable in
snow than in rain ; but in birds, it holds in all wea-
thers, although in snow they always seek shelter. When
a violent whirlwind passes over the nest of a lark, it
occasions the bird a great deal of annoyance, and in-
stances have been mentioned where their wings have
been crippled in their attempts to resist its fury.

It would be superfluous to describe minutely the ap-
pearance of a bird so common and so well known as
the lark. Its length is about seven inches, and the
stretch of the wings about thirteen. Its general colour
is brown, mottled with darker brown, and edged in
some places with brownish yellow, which, however, is
more marked in the nest feathers than after the bird

THE SKYLARK. 119

has moulted. The bill, legs, and claws are light brown,
the claws and point of the bill darker than the rest.
The eyes are full and bright, and a yellowish streak
above each has something the appearance of an eye-
brow. The principal difference in the sexes is, that the
female is rather smaller and paler in the colour than
the male, that the posterior claw is not so long in pro-
portion, and that the white on the tip and exterior
edge of the outer tail feathers is not so conspicuous.

As the lark does not hop, the young remain a
considerable time in the nest ; and consume a great
deal of food, which is chiefly earth-worms and in-
sects arid their larvae. Their double or triple broods,
the great attention that they pay to them, and the
number of hours which the male devotes daily for
so many months to singing, make the life of the
lark one of great activity, till about the beginning
of September, when, if no casualty has befallen them,
its family cares for the season are at an end. For
the remaining months of the year it has nothing to
attend to but its own feeding, and, as provisions are
abundant, it gets very fat, is caught in great numbers
in some of the midland counties of England, and
sells in the London markets for from three to four
shillings a pound ; thus, though it may be an epi-
curean, it is any thing but an economical food. It
then subsists chiefly upon seeds, which, however, it
does not prowl for about farm-yards, like many other
birds, but seeks chiefly in the open fields, and is
thereby very beneficial in the destruction of weeds.

The lark is, indeed, peculiarly the bird of open
cultivated districts, avoiding equally the lonely wilds,

120 SPRING.

and the immediate vicinity of houses, woods, and
coppices. The small annual weeds that ripen their
seeds upon stubble after the crops are removed, are
its favourite food. It runs along and picks them
from the husks, and 'sometimes scrapes for them
with its claws ; and then in winter it shifts its
quarters. From .September to February, the time
that they are mute, they collect in vast masses ; and
have a partial migration. The extent of that migra-
tion is not very well understood ; because the wide
dispersion of the birds in single pairs during the
breeding season, and the great accumulation in one
place for the remainder of the year, give it an ap-
pearance of being greater than it really is. Their
habits, which are always those of free range, whe-
ther in the air or upon the ground, necessarily make
them shift their quarters when the snow is so deep
as to cover the tops of the herbaceous plants ; but
even in winter they are not partial to sea side places.
The safety of the lark from birds of prey consists
in the closeness with which it can lie, and the simi-
larity of its colour to that of the clods. It is said
to assume the surface and tint of a heap of wet mud
by ruffling its plumage. When in the air it is ge-
nerally above those birds that beat the bushes ; and
if they attempt to approach it, it does not come down
in the parabola, which is its usual form of path for
alighting, but drops perpendicularly, like a stone, and
sometimes stuns itself by the fall. On these occasions,
too, it will fly toward any open door, or dash itself
against the glass of a window. It has less fear of
man than many of the little birds ; and, from the glee

THE WOODLARK. 121

%

with which it sings over the field when farm-work is
going on, and the frequency with which it alights to
pick up larvae, crysalids, and worms, as these are dis-
closed by the operations of the plough or the harrow, one
would almost be tempted to suppose that they actually
enjoy the society of man, and labouring in his com-
pany; while their early and joyous songs call him
up in the morning. The natural history of the lark,
taken with all its times and associations, would how-
ever embrace the greater part of rustic nature through-
out the year ; as for eight months it is in song, and
for the rest of the year it is captured and sold for
food. Abundant as they are, however, in Hertford
and Northampton, and some of the other open cul-
tivated counties of England, they are not near so
numerous as on some parts of the Continent. The
plains of Germany swarm with them; and they are
so highly prized as an article of food, that the tax
upon them at the city of Leipzig, produces nearly a
thousand pounds yearly to the revenue.

Though this most cheerful of all the feathered
songsters shuns alike the wood and the wild, there
is a songster attached to each of those situations,
which has been called a lark.

THE WOODLARK,

(Alauda arbored), has a considerable resemblance to
the skylark in its appearance, and in some of its
habits; but it is not above two-thirds of the weight,
the tail is much shorter, the body rather longer, but
more slender, the wings having about the same stretch,
and the crest larger and more capable of being erected.

122 SPRING.

The principal difference in the markings are, that the
feet are yellow, the male has a general yellowish tinge
underneath, and a white band on the head ; and the
exterior feathers of the tail, instead of being edged
with white, as in the skylark, are black. In the form,
materials, and situation of their nests, and also in their
food, they resemble the skylark. The hind claw in
the woodlark is as long as that of the skylark, and
straighter ; but still the woodlark can perch, and its
song is often poured from the summit of a lofty tree,
though its more general mode of singing be when it is
upon the wing. Even then, however, it has no re-
semblance to the skylark, as that pours forth its notes
when hovering over a single point with the wings in
rapid motion, while the woodlark wheels in circles and
has a progressive motion when singing.

Though called the woodlark, and though it some-
times sings from a tree, especially in the evening,
the bird is not, strictly speaking, an inhabitant of the
forest. We have never either seen or heard it in an
extensive wood, or even in the depth of a grove, nor
have we seen it on the top of a tree till the leaves
had begun to expand. It always nestles, and probably
feeds in open places, and possibly seats itself upon a
tree when singing, in consequence of the greater ex-
ertion that it makes than the skylark when singing on
the wing.

Its notes have not the variety or the wild transitions
of those of the skylark, but their modulation is sweeter,
and they are heard for a greater part both of the year
and the day. The only months of the year when the
woodlarks are altogether silent, are June and July,

THE WOODLARK. ] 23

though the precise time varies with the latitude and
the season. When the male ceases his song, it is not
that he may devote to the fattening of himself the
time that he spent in wooing his mate withal, and
cheering her while sitting. He does it in order that
he may unite his labours to hers in finding food for
the progeny, which they require in great quantity, and
of the same kind as the brood of the skylark. The
brood are of the same number, and not unlike, only
the mandibles are not so yellow at the edge. The
eggs, too, are pale brown, and the blotches grey and
brown. The eggs are sometimes laid as early as April ;
the incubation and nursing occupy about a fortnight
each ; and when the first brood are able to shift for
themselves, a second is immediately set about. The
times of both are, however, a little irregular ; and it is
doubtful whether the male is always in song during
the second incubation, unless when he loses his mate.

We know not the effects which those songs of the
birds, which make the country so delightful, have upon
the songsters themselves. The pairing of all animals
that have voice, and of some that produce sound by the
mechanical action of external parts of the body, with-
out any connexion with the breathing, which is always
the vehicle of voice properly so called, is attended
with a peculiar modulation of sound, generally softer
and often more modulated than the cries that are
expressive of their other passions ; but in what way the
song, or the chirp, or the tick, affects the party to
which it is addressed, we want much and careful ob-
servation before we can find out. Naturalists have
been so much disposed to refer to man, who has, or

124 SPRING.

should have, a mixture of reason even in those ope-
rations which most nearly resemble those of the other
animals, as a model and an explanation of these, that
little can be deduced from any thing that they have
said upon the subject. It has never been clearly made
out that there is a principle of election. In those ani-
mals where a single pair conjoin their fortunes for the
season, and, like the larks, ^rear more than one brood,
we know nothing about the quantity of speculation that
may precede their union, and whether the feathered
belles are, like romantic maidens, won by glossy
plumes and glozing songs, or, like the daughters of
thrift, look out for a male who will be industrious, and
take his full share of the cares of the family. If we re-
member rightly, it is Hannah More who attributes the
greater part of human match-making to " juxta-po-
sition," and if she had taken time as well as place into
the account, she would not, perhaps, have been wide of
the truth ; and the same circumstances may operate
more completely among the animals ; but still the song
has an effect, though what effect has not yet been
ascertained. Still, though we have not been able to
speculate about the effect of the song, we know some-
thing of its cause, when the animals are in a perfectly
natural state, and none are more so than the birds.
It is a particular temperature and feeling of the air,
and when the air is in the proper state, the time of the
year is of inferior moment. The woodlark will sing on
the very shortest day, even though the ground is
frozen, if the sun shine out with the requisite warmth
at mid- day; and it has been ascertained that the males
of some of those birds that visit us early in the breed-

SONGS OF BIRDS. 125

ing season, and which generally arrive some days be-
fore the females, begin their songs before there is a
single mate to hear them. Solitary birds, too, sing in
their cages, though they have been taken young from
the nest and never have seen an individual of their
species. So that the song of the bird is as immediately
the result of the circumstances in which it is placed, as
any of the changes that we see in organic or even in
inorganic matter. But being one in a succession of
phenomena, it must be followed by some event, and
that event must also be modified by circumstances.
It is by the careful observation of those that we are to
find out the next event in the succession, though in the
present state of our knowledge, the pleasure that the
songs of birds afford us, are almost all that we possess
upon this very curious subject.

And few birds are more delightful than the woodlark.
Though far from being a scarce bird, or so local in its
range as has sometimes been said, it is not quite so
abundant as the skylark ; but we have often seen and
heard it by wood sides far north in Scotland, though
we have never heard it very far north in the winter. In
summer its song is often continued in the evening ;
and that has caused it to be occasionally mistaken
for the nightingale, to which, however, its note has
little similarity. As the food is the same as that of the
skylark, we might infer the same partial migration.
Perhaps, indeed, its tendency to migrate is greater
than that of the other ; and on the continent it is said
to leave entirely, in the winter months, the countries to
the north of the Baltic. Many birds have a greater
seasonal range there than in Britain, of course because
M 2

126 SPRING.

the winter is colder in the same latitude. The greater
cold prevents the birds that leave us in the autumn
from pursuing an eastward course, though they often
send a few stray continental birds to the south-east of
England.

Woodlarks generally congregate in the cold months,
though pairs are found showing an attachment to each
other, and a comparative disregard for the flock, even
then. Grounds in which there are clods and stones are
the favourite haunts of the woodlarks when they as-
semble ; their assemblies are small compared with those
of the skylarks ; and when raised, they wheel about in
low circles, and alight again in the same place. They
very seldom mix with other birds ; but it has been
noticed that after they alight, if the day is very warm
and sunny, one will leave the flock, whirl upward and
sing for a few minutes, and then rejoin his companions.
At other seasons, it will remain upon the wing and
sing for more than an hour at a time.

The other lark, which " pitches its tent in the wil-
derness," is, in reality, no lark at all. It is one of

THE PIPITS,

though which one, or whether in all situations the same
one, is not even yet very clearly made out.

The pipits were for a long time classed with the
larks, though except in building their nests upon the
ground, and in the great elongation of the hind claw
in some of the species, they have little affinity with the
larks. In general they are smaller, their colours incline
to grten, their notes, though sweet, are few, and by no
means powerful, and their food at all times is insects

THE PIPIT. 127

and worms, and never seeds, as is the case with the
larks.

At least three species of pipit are found in Britain.
The meadow pipit, tit, or titling, (anthus pratensis),.o£
which it appears that some of the elder naturalists
made two distinct species, in consequence of a little
seasonal variation in its colour, it being the pipit-lark in
the one dress, and the tit-lark in the other. This sea-
sonal difference in the colours and note of birds that re-
side with us during the whole year, often proves a stum-
bling-block not only to young naturalists, but to those
who observe in the fields and study in the closet at
intervals. The songs of the birds in spring, their dis-
persion at that time, in order that each pair may find
food for their broods, the varied and curious architec-
ture of the nests, the instances of paternal attachment
they display, and the hard battles that even very small
birds will fight in defence of their young ; all tend to
call the ornithologist to the fields. In autumn, again —
when the birds are free from care, except for their own
subsistence, which, as long as the ground is free from
snow, is abundant and easily found, congregate into
flocks, and whirl round in their dense clouds along the
stubble — they are objects of interest. But in the inter-
mediate period when they are " dressing for company/'
they are weak and unfit for flight, and, therefore, seldom
seen, so that unless to very careful observers, its iden-
tity is at that time apt to be lost. Implicit confidence
is not to be placed in the observations made upon birds
in a state of confinement, whether in a solitary cage or
an aviary. If any animal be taken out of its natural
state, there is no trusting to its colour, or even its dis-

128 SPRING.

position, more especially if it be bred there. We do
not know, and perhaps we shall never learn by what the
different markings and manners of animals are produced,
but we do know that the circumstances, the tempera-
ture, the humidity, the degree of light, and probably a
thousand other actions of the atmosphere, which the
observation of the chemist has not yet been able to de-
tect, may have the chief influence in the production of
these; and, therefore, they afford at least a hope, that
the men of a future age shall know somewhat more of
the working of nature, than we of the present, and that
they will do so by a more careful examination of the
preceding and contemporary phenonema.

When we look at what has been done in plants (though
there the philosophy has not always kept pace with
art) we have something more than hope of impovement
if our masters in the mysteries of nature would
but abate a little of their proneness to wonder, and
tell marvellous stories, and " pull the world to pieces"
in order to see how it is made, just as a clever child
does a rattle. There is knowledge obtained by the
child in this operation, though not quite the kind or
the degree that is sought for, the rattle is gone, and the
discovery is — a bit of tin-plate and two or three chips
of flint. There is no objection to the pulling in pieces;
the result of it has done much, but it has been too
exclusive ; and it is impossible to understand fully even
the mechanical action of an organized body from the
dissection of it. That system is complete only when we
can put together again after we have taken to pieces ;
and nature refuses us that privilege with any of her
works. We may make experiments with matter, and

THE PIPIT. 129

in so far with animals and plants ; but these do not
let us know any more about them as they exist in nature.
If we would know that, we must examine the object,
the circumstances, and the succession of phenomena
around it, taking care that we admit no conclusion, if
it violates a law of nature which has been established
upon indubitable evidence.

The other two species are the rack or sea pipit
(anthus aquaticus) which, like the former, is a constant
inhabitant of the country. It frequents the bold shores,
feeding upon marine insects when the tide ebbs, and
building its nest in the cliffs ; as, however, the meadow
pipit comes down to the sea shores, when it can find
no insect food upon the land, there is some danger of
confounding the species at that time. But the sea
pipit is considerably larger than the common one, being
seven inches long, while the other is very rarely six,
and altogether a lighter and more agile bird. The
sea pipit, too, is never found inland, and the outer
layers of its nest are often formed of seaweed, which is
never the case with the common pipit. The species
regarding which the confusion has probably taken
place, is the tree pipit (anthus arbor ea) which visits
Britain only during the summer, and is partial even
then, not being met with in Scotland. In their songs,
the pipits are quite the reverse of the larks, and they
are very unlike them in their flight. Instead of vault-
ing at once into the air, and soaring and singing, the
pipits hop first to a branch, the top of a bank, or a
stone of rock. There they take their flight by a suc-
cession of hops, uttering a single note at each exertion
of the wings ; their song is reserved for the descent,

130 SPRING.

during which, though feeble, it is pleasant : it is made
with a smooth motion of the wings, and continues
after the bird has perched.

The common pipit, or titling, (anthus pratensis) is
very generally diffused, and it is found in those bleak
and lonely mountain wastes where there are few other
birds to cheer the casual wanderer with a song. In
that season and time of the day, when all else are still
and quiet, the plaintive " tweet, tweet," of the pipit, as
it is scared from its little nest, under a bunch of heath,
or a tuft of grass, which has survived the winter, and
stands brown and rugged over their little home, has
often been as musical to our ear as the song of the
nightingale, upon richer but less bracing and healthful
places.

When the cuckoo flies about, the pipit generally flies
along with it ; and has been for that reason accounted
a sort of lacquey or attendant upon it, providing it food
even when full grown, and waiting upon it,

" As dwarfs upon knights errant do."

So remarkable has been this following, that the
people of the north not only associate the cuckoo and
the pipit, or " the gowk and the titling," as they term
them, as inseparable, but make their apparently un-
natural union the source of sarcasm, when a small
man is following at the heels of a vain great one ; and
the word " gowk," which is with them another name
for folly, gives additional point to the moral sarcasm,
and glances a little at those naturalists who are, perhaps,
rather prone to give implicit credit to such tales, as
that of the unnatural attachment between those two

PIPIT AND CUCKOO. 131

birds. Now little birds, and especially this same
titling, are very apt to fly in the train of hawks and
magpies, in all probability to take off the attention of
those birds from the females and eggs ; and such a
purpose, in the case of following the cuckoo, would be
at least as consistent with the usual plans of nature, as
that which is alleged of the cuckoo and the pipit.
We have no wish to offer any decided opinion on the
singular propensity alleged of the cuckoo, that the
female generally deposits her eggs, one by one, in the
nests of small birds, where they are hatched by their
foster mothers, and fed by them till they thus are
fledged ; in the course of which time, they most un-
gratefully eject their foster brothers and sisters from
the nest. In the face of the many grave and learned
authorities by which this is stated, it would not become
us to give an opinion ; all that we can positively say is,
that, although we have seen very many young cuckoos
in nests, sometimes two, but never more in any one
nest, and generally only one ; and although we have
seen them in nests disproportionally small, and of the
same structure as the nests of smaller birds, we have
never met with the egg of the cuckoo along with that
of any other bird, have never scared a little bird from
the act of incubation in a cuckoo's nest, and never
have detected one little bird in the act of feeding a
cuckoo, either in the nest or out of it. We do not
say that these matters cannot, or even that they do not
happen, we merely say that we have never seen them.
When we enter upon a study where there are facts to
appeal to, we must really be on our guard against
names, however eminent, or however deservedly they

132 SPRING.

may be so. There was a time when the saying of
Linneeus was a sort of ille dixit in natural history,
which it would have been the greatest of all heresies to
deny ; and yet he not only believed that the swallows
plunge to the bottom of the water to preserve them-
selves from the rigour of the winter air, in spite of their
levity, as compared with the fluid in which they thus
take up their abode ; that they remain thus, contrary
to the whole economy and practice of warm blooded
animals, for between eight and nine months of the year,
without once inhaling that atmosphere, the want of
which would be almost instantly fatal to them during
the other three ; and that their feathers are not only
preserved, but must actually be revived by a moult,
while the birds are under the water " caked in the mud,"
as the authorities have it, and yet not a single feather
of the cast ones should be found floating on the sur-
face. This was believed by the great naturalist, by the
Honourable Daines Barrington, who tried the songs of
English birds by the gamut, and would have noted
them all in sol, fa, if the intervals had been even the
tithe of a semitone. Persons of great probity, too,
made asseverations and affidavits to the facts, and the
friends of the laborious and accurate Reaumur pro-
mised that they would send him the identical birds
that had taken their nine months' bath under the ice,
but somehow or other not one of them ever kept their
word with him ; and when they were pressed, it turned
out that, like the beholders of ghosts, they had not
actually seen them themselves, but had been assured
of the fact by other eye witnesses, who were every way
as worthy of credit. Even the Scottish parson (see

THE CUCKOO. 133

Statistical Account, Rescobie) who saw them coming
to the surface of the lake on the morning of the llth
of May, and would have seen the ebullition caused by
their ascent, had it not been for the ripple of the water,
and who had not the least doubt that they went back
to their old quarters at the bottom for eight days more,
from some error in the subaqueous thermometer, by
which they of course found out when summer came,
edges off the responsibility upon " the observer/' All
those matters in which there is a violation of the com-
mon laws of nature in the fact alleged, and an avoiding
of the direct proof, put us always in mind of the re-
mark of the old Malmsbury philosopher, — " He that
really sees a spirit in a dream, only dreams that he
sees a spirit."

That the cuckoo does take possession of the nests
of other birds we do not question, and that he eats
the eggs of other birds, as well as worms and insects,
we also know, because, though it is a very wary as
well as a shy bird, we have caught it in the fact ; we
also admit that, after the young cuckoo is hatched, it
will throw the eggs of other birds, and even the egg of
a cuckoo, out of the nest, without any peculiar anato-
mical construction, adapted for that purpose and
ceasing when it is accomplished. All nestling birds,
after they have acquired a little strength, eject ex-
traneous substances out of the nest, and we have no
doubt that if the gentlemen who made the experi-
ments, had used nutshells instead of the eggs of the
hedge sparrow, the result would have been the same.
Nursling birds show the same attention to the cleanness
of their nests that a Dutch skipper does, in one respect,

134 SPRING.

to that of his vessel, and much in the same manner.
We are not denying the common theory of the cuckoo,
but we repeat, that in the course of a great deal of
observation, we have not met with a single fact which
could not be fully and perfectly explained, upon the
hypothesis which the anatomy of the cuckoo and the
analogy of all the rest of the feathered tribes suggests,
— namely, that the cuckoo often takes possession of
the nests of other birds, either after these had quitted
them, or after it had made a meal of the eggs, and
then performs all the incubation and nursing itself.
In the flockings of the little birds after the cuckoo that
we have witnessed, that bird did not seem to offer any
annoyance. There is another circumstance which gives
at least a colour of probability to the fact, that the
cuckoo does not use the nests until they have answered
the original purpose of the builders, and that is, that
the hatching time of the titling, whether that titling be
the common pipit, as is most common in the north and
east of the island, or the hedge sparrow (accentor modu-
laris), which is said to be the foster bird of the cuckoo
in the south of England, is earlier than that of the
cuckoo. The hedge sparrow begins its song as early
as February, and in warm situations the pipit is not
much later ; and where it is later, the cuckoo does not
arrive till May. The nest of the hedge sparrow is
usually completed in March, and though the interval
between the completion of birds' nests, and the depo-
siting of the eggs, be not so well ascertained as one
could wish, there is no reason to suppose that it is
very long. The nests of the small birds that we have
mentioned are, — in as far as our observation has ex-

THE CUCKOO. 135

tended, and also according to the very authorities
which make those birds hatch the cuckoo, — finished at
least two weeks before the cuckoo begins to be heard,
and that interval would just about suffice for the period
of incubation. But, according to the general law of
migratory birds, the male cuckoos should arrive before
the females, and the pairing should take place in this
country, as we are not aware of any instance in which
birds pair, before they arrive in the country where they
are to rear their broods. According to the general law
of all the feathered tribes, too, whether migratory or
not, the song of the male precedes, though we do not
know that it absolutely causes, the pairing. Therefore,
unless there is something as anomalous in the pairing
and fecundation of the cuckoos, as in the fostering of
their young, the females will not be in a condition for de-
positing their eggs before the beginning, or rather the
middle, or toward the end of May ; and that would
bring down the time of the fledging of their brood to
the middle or end of June, when the song of the male
ceases. As those who mention the particulars about
the cuckoo are not very full in the matter of dates,
which are of the utmost importance in natural history,
we can only speak from our own observation. Where
that was chiefly made, the birds began to sing rather
late, never before the first of May, and seldom till near
the middle ; and we never met with a young cuckoo till
June, nor then did we ever meet with a broken egg or
killed bird of any other kind that it had ejected from
the nest ; nor when there were two nestling cuckoos, did
we ever see any symptoms of that deadly feud by which
they are said to be actuated, till one of the birds be

136 SPRING.

destroyed. They are voracious eaters ; and when any
noise is made near the nest, especially when the dull
harsh chatter of the female is imitated, they gape most
lustily for food, raising their feathers at the same time,
and nibbling at any substance; but eating and not
fighting is obviously their cue ; and if they get abun-
dance of caterpillers and soft worms, we do not think
that they would heed though there were a whole aviary
in the nest.

We must again say, that we do not deny the hatch-
ing of cuckoos by small birds, or the depositing of its
eggs, one by one, in the nests of as many different
birds as there are eggs, without any reference to the
species. We do not absolutely deny the story re-
peated upon hearsay by Vieillot, that the female cuckoo
swallows her own egg, or at least carries it in the
gullet, in order that she may place it through her bill
in the small-domed nest of the wren. Denying, with-
out proof in natural histor/, is just as bad as asserting
without proof; and were it not that we are familiar
with the whole history of the barnacle (lepas anatifercey
and the barnacle goose (anas (eucopsis), from the germ
and the egg to the full grown animal, we would not

deny that

i{ Barnacles turn solan geese,
I' the islands of the Orcades ;"

though we would say that, like what is alleged of the
cuckoo, it were very unlike the usual mode of na-
ture's proceeding. Incubation is so much a law of
the nature of birds, that instead of deserting their own
eggs, the females show considerable dispositions to sit
upon the nests of others ; as we have observed in snpr.

THE CUCKOO. 137

rows and house martins, that have been deprived of
their own eggs. The anatomical incapacity for sitting
upon its eggs, with which the older naturalists fur-
nished the cuckoo, vanished the moment that John
Hunter brought science to bear on the structure of the
bird ; and it is possible that the only interference of
the cuckoo with other birds may be taking possession
of their deserted nests or sometimes eating their eggs.

The manners of the bird are not very easily observed,
as, though it frequents hedges and cultivated fields,
and even the close neighbourhood of houses and vil-
lages, it is both retired and restless, and two cuckoos
are not often seen in company, until near the time of
their departure from this country, at which time they
are silent and not much heeded, though they fly in
small flocks.

The Cuckoo is a bird of considerable size, the spread
of the wings being more than two feet, the length about
fourteen inches, and the weight from four and a half

N 2

138 SPRING.

to five and a quarter ounces. The plumage on the
upper part is bluish grey ; the colour below is white,
barred with black, and the feathers of the tail have
white spots; the legs, the root of the bill, and the
irides are yellow ; and the gape, which is very large,
is of a bright orange yellow, and makes the young
birds look very formidable when in the nest. The legs,
which are small and weak in the adult bird, are very
feeble in the young, whose locomotion, before they take
to the wing, is performed with great difficulty and
partly by the aid of the beak. Caterpillars are the
principal food of the cuckoo, and it is a frequent and
voracious feeder ; for though it often sings from the
tops of trees, as well as when on the wing, it is con-
stantly shifting its place, and diving into the thick
foliage in quest of its prey. It is said that the old ones
show considerable dexterity in dressing the hairy cater-
pillars, though some say that" castings" of the hairs by
the young ones have been found, similar to the castings
by the rapacious birds. Though their migration shows
that they can take long flights, the cuckoos are very
chary of their energy, and though there are few birds
more easy to move than the cuckoo, there is hardly
any that is with more difficulty driven from a copse,
as it will take shelter a number of times in the same
tree. That is one of the reasons why their manners are
so imperfectly known, and their nests found with so
much difficulty. They enter a tree or escape from it
with great neatness ; and they have, in common with
many birds that feed and nidify in trees, a habit of
jerking a twig of a neighbouring tree, while of that
which they hover on or enter not a leaf stirs.

The eggs of the cuckoo are small for the size of the

THE CUCKOO. 139

bird ; they are very round in shape, have a very weak
and delicate shell of a dirty white colour, marked with
reddish spots and brown streaks ; and it is as ques-
tionable whether some of the little birds that have been
represented as hatching them, could perform that office
without breaking them, as it is that the yellow-hammer
should feed the young cuckoo with caterpillars only,
and its own young indiscriminately with insects and
seeds. We do not say that that is impossible, because
we are inclined to think that the yellow-hammers and
the kindred tribes, feed their young indiscriminately
with insects and seeds, according as they are most
easily obtained ; the adult cuckoo also has no objec-
tion to the pulp of soft fruits and berries, though
insects, more especially in their caterpillar state, are
its favourite food ; and it is so far fortunate that the
time of the cuckoo is also that at which there is the
greatest danger of trees being stripped of their leaves
by caterpillars. Thus though the bird may purloin a
few cherries before it takes its departure, there is no
knowing how far it may contribute to the preservation
of those fruits which do not ripen until it has taken its
departure to other lands. The cuckoo ceases to sing
early in July, and as the old ones immediately retire
into the covers for the summer moults, they are very
seldom seen on the wing, or indeed at all. The young
which then make their appearance are of a different
colour, the prevailing tint of which is liver brown, and
on that account they have sometimes been considered
as another species that did not arrive till the others
were gone. We need hardly mention that the old
story of the cuckoos lying dormant in holes and hedges

140 SPRING.

for the winter months, has as little foundation in it as
the submerging of the swallows, or the " three drops of
the devil's blood," which the vulgar in some places
believe that the yellow-hammer gets on the morning of
every May-day, and on account of which it is held
" accursed in the Kalendar," and the boys are not
suffered merely, but encouraged, to destroy it without
mercy.

From the retired habits of the cuckoo, its retreat
for the purpose of moulting, and its silence, the time
of its departure from the country is not known,
though the probability is that it is the beginning of
September. The place to which they retire during the
winter months is also but imperfectly known ; though
from continental Europe it appears that they pass into
Africa, as they visit Malta and the other islands in
the Mediterranean, upon both their excursions. The
cuckoo is a singular as well as an interesting bird ;
and much has been written, and a great deal more
said about its peculiarities ; and there is still room for
a good deal of observation.

The song of the lark has led us somewhat dis-
cursively from the opening of the spring to the heats
of summer and autumn; but as, in the study of
nature we are mere spectators, it is very difficult to
get out of the train of association. We must return,
however, to the leafless grove and the almost flower-
less field; and though these have not so many at-
tractions in themselves as when the year is farther
advanced, they afford information upon some points
in the history of nature, respecting which the more
gay seasons leave us in the dark. The winter is, as

MOUNTAIN AND PLAIN. 141

it were, a general dissection of the country upon a
great scale, and it has the advantage in being a living
dissection. We can then see how one set of pheno-
mena, as it were, helps another : how field communi-
cates with field, and district with district. Between
the cultivated plain and the barren mountain, or upon
the nether slopes of the latter, is the favourite locality
for the evergreens of this country, furze, broom, ju-
niper, or pine, according to the climate and the soil :
thus they naturally lie across those currents by which
the air is changed from the one of them to the other,,
and prevent the light and valuable soil from being
scattered where it would be lost. At that time, too,
we see one of those remarkable compensations, of
which there are so many beautiful instances in nature,
and which show that there are even cases, in which
the absence of something which we, in our mode
of estimating value, are apt to consider as quite
indispensable, actually brings with it a compensa-
tion. So very dangerous is it for us to apply the
common notions of good and evil to the works of
nature.

Those who have been in the habit of simply looking
about them, whether with any ulterior purpose or not,
must often have observed how much better the soil is
upon surfaces turned to the north than upon those
which are turned to the south. If this has not been
observed, it will not readily be believed ; because, as
the south sloping bank is, for the greater part of the
year, the more agreeable to our feelings, we conclude,
very naturally, that it must be the best for all the pur-
poses of nature*

142 SPRING.

The sunny slopes are those upon which the decom-
positions of the year are carried on, the burnings up in
the summer, and the pulverizations by alternate freezing
and thawing in the winter; and when the winds of
spring come, the finer soil from these is transferred to
the opposite sides of the vales, and thus the absence
of sun is more than compensated to them by the accu-
mulation of soil of the most fertile description. These
places are not quite so early as the others, but they
produce the largest trees, the most kindly grasses, and
the most abundant crops ; and they who have lands
on the southern verge of a valley borrow something
yearly from all the rest of it ; and the more, the wider
that valley is, and the higher state of cultivation
that it is in. This transfer of soil southward, is never
more clearly seen than upon the shores of an estuary ;
and, unless there be something very peculiar in the
form of the ground, that will satisfactorily explain the
individual case, we invariably find soft mud gradually
invading the water on the north side, and a steep bank
on the south, if the water is of sufficient breadth to in-
tercept the spring dust. This is the gentle way that
nature has of forming new land. Reeds, flags, aquatic
grasses, and the other tall growing annuals that have
tough and strong stems, and remain in their withered state
in the spring, serve as a kind of net to catch the dust and
also the mud that is driven back by the flowing of the
tide ; answering the same purpose on our comparatively
mild shores, as the mangroves do upon those where the
action of the seasons is much more violent ; and when
the soil has gained a little consistency, man comes with
his osier bed and the new land is secured.

DIFFERENT SURFACES. 143

It is quite plain that this action of the spring gales
must be the greatest where the country is in the highest
cultivation, because the soil there is better, and because
the naked surface that the fields present, is much more
affected by the changes of temperature. In summer,
the meadow or the grass field feels cool, while the
ploughed, but naked one, has a heat that is almost
insupportable ; and in winter, though the whole effect
be not so great, the difference between the two kinds
of surface is as great in proportion. Hence the great
advantage of having fields alternately with grassy and
naked surfaces ; and hence, too, the value of hedges
and trees. When the farmer lays down a field in grass,
he often talks about " resting" it ; but it is fattened as
well as rested, in as much as it gets a portion of new
mould from all the fields around it. The ground occu-
pied by the hedges, the coppice, and the wood, too, is
not lost ; and unless a district be very small, and shel-
tered in a very peculiar manner, the removal of these
things is one more step towards making it bleak and
barren. No doubt there is a limit, beyond which, if
these be accumulated, the agricultural value will be di-
minished ; and that limit must vary with the elemental
action to which the district is exposed ; but there are
few districts in Britain in which there is much danger
that that limit shall be approached ; and when we find
nature herself fencing in certain portions and kinds of
surface ; drawing, as it were, a cordon sanitaire, around
the mountain, the moor, or the marsh, we may safely
follow her with our imitations. We find that she is
universal in this : if the soil of the wild be not capable
of supporting a rough crop, such as tall heath, or

144 SPRING.

broom, or furze, there is always a brake between it
and the better ground ; and if it be elevated, the water
that falls upon the top, and fails in being useful there,
in consequence of the soil, the temperature, or both,
percolates into the soil, comes out again just at the
place where it can fertilize the protecting brake, and
springs out there with a temperature far above that of
freezing rain in winter, so that the bushes that compose
the brake are always vigorous, and the grass between
and under them is always green. In this way they are
a resource to many animals, at the same time that they
perform this important part in the general economy.
The frogs resort to them, are there only partially
dormant, and very early in the spring resort to the
rearing of their numerous and singular families. The
birds resort to them; as they find there the latest
berry, the latest seed, and the earliest insect; and
while any portion remains unfrozen, they always find
insects there in some state or other, more especially the
little shell snails that are always found in such places.
We are inclined also to think, from the innumerable
prints of little claws and feet that we have seen about
such places, that the white fibres of the water cress,
and the gems and young shoots of the conferva find
the little twitterers in many a meal, at times when little
else is accessable. The larger animals resort so much
to such places, that they are valuable appendages to a
mountain pasture; and we may add that they are
always spots at which, if man would but take the
hints that nature gives him, he would plant a little
more. In this way people begin to school themselves
a little, and in addition to the mere fact of having a

NATURAL FENCES. 145

wood, on the very ridge of the heath, take some time to
think whether it will grow there or not. We know,
however, of some pine plantations, which have stood
more than fifty years, that have not yet attained the
height of six feet, and have, to all appearance, been
getting smaller for the last twenty years ; yet these,
though wholly without value as timber, have had some
effect in breaking the fury of the wind.

The enclosures of tall plants that generally surround
marshes, have a similar use ; and they afford shelter
and nesting places for many of the aquatic birds, and
furnish cover for the little spoilers that hawk and fish
there. But those screens, whether natural or artificial,
have, when they separate surfaces of a different nature,
a double utility. It must not be supposed that all the
matters which are wafted from place to place by the
winds of the season, are of a fertilizing or beneficial
nature. The transfer is general ; and while the good
soils give out a part to ameliorate the bad, the bad repay
them by sending substances that are pernicious. Pasture
lands that are situated near bogs and quagmires, receive
in abundance from those places the light seeds of
mosses and lichens; and heath will very soon overrun a
portion of upland that has been cleared, not from the
sprouting of the old roots, for it will happen although
those have been cleared away with the greatest care,
but from the carrying of the seeds of heath by winds
that blow from the heath to the cultivated field, as
soon as the surface of the latter becomes so much
heated as to cause the air over it to ascend, and the
air from colder places comes in to supplyjts place.
Want of attention to this sowing by the winds of plants
o

146 SPRING.

that are not wanted, often makes the labour of the
farmer vain ; for while he is occupied for the great part
of the summer in breaking the clods of his fallow, and
burning the roots of the creeping grasses that he has
accumulated, his dry and exposed surface, and his fires
together, bring winds from all points of the compass,
each loaded with the seeds of weeds from those fields
that he has neglected, and from the thistles, the rag-
weed, the dock, the marigold, and all the other host
of winged plagues that keep flowering and ripening all
the summer, and which are sown in myriads by every
wind that stirs. It is thus essential to see that the
whole of the cultivated land is clear, and if there be a
waste in the neighbourhood, that should be shut out by
a plantation. Against the summer weeds all trees are
equally good, and probably the deciduous ones are the
best; but if the winds of winter are also wished to be
guarded against, pine, or some other evergreen, is the best.
We have known instances where, before planting, a field
could not lie two summers in pasture, without the grass
almost wholly giving place to a thick sod of moss,
elastic under the foot, and beginning to form peat at
its lower extremities; and even the whole interval
between the roots of corn in the stubble field were
green with the rudiments of the same plants. As
soon, however, as a belt of trees had been planted
and had run to a sufficient height for intercepting the
germs from the moor and the marsh, the progress of
the mosses Was arrested; and though they and the
lichens, and all the other natives of the wilderness that
are unfavourable to the growth of more valuable plants,
were much accumulated in the exposed part of the

EVERGREENS. 147

belt, and rendered the trees stunted there, the trees
arrested their progress, and rendered much service to the
cultivated ground.

This subject is universally deserving of a great deal
more attention than it yet has met with, both as a
part of natural history and of rural economy ; and, as
indeed should be the case with every part of nature, it
should be watched for a long time in the field before
there is much speculation about it in the closet.

Evergreens are altogether a very curious part of the
economy of nature, and they somewhat perplex those
physiologists that make plants the mere creatures of a
given temperature. The surface from which the leaf
of a laurel, or the spine of a fir, falls in May or June,
when the young shoots and tender leaves have come
into vigour and the plant is in the state of greatest
activity, is no more a wound than that from which the
leaf of the mulberry is separated by the very first frost
of the season, or the leaf of the apple and the peach
is dropped at a more advanced stage of the cold. The
leaf of the deciduous tree falls when the annual action
of the tree ceases, and that of the evergreen when the
plant is in the full height of vegetation ; and each of
them equally cicatrizes the wound by a coating of na-
tural varnish. From the differences in the circum-
stances under which those two analogous operations
are performed, we must infer that there is a difference
in the mode of operation ; and that, though a certain
state of the air and the matter with which the air is
loaded, be necessary to bring about the fall of the leaf,
whether in the cold season or in the warm, it is always
accompanied by some particular action in the plant,

, 14S SPRING.

the nature of which is not well understood. Some say
that the cold reduces the little stratum of gluten which
lies between the deciduous leaf and the plant to a solid
consistency, by which means the vessels of the leaf
are strangulated, and the circulation ceases. But that,
like many other things that have been said in natural
history, may be only putting the effect forward as the
cause ; and, at all events, it does not explain why the
leaves of evergreens fall only in the warm months,
when the plants are active. There is another difficulty
about the matter. There are some leaves that do not
fall, though they certainly die, until they are, as we
commonly say, of the leaves of the evergreens, forced
off by the young ones of the next season. The beech
is a familiar instance of this ; and it is only so while it
is young and deserves the name of a bush, rather than
that of a tree. Though the leaves turn to that russet,
which with the untorn form of the leaves, and their
firm texture, makes the young beech a sheltering and
far from an unhandsome tree in the inclement season,
they resist the wind and are as difficult to pull as if
they were alive. There is, however, no vegetable
action in them, nothing that can be killed, as is the
case with the leaves of the evergreens, many of which
are in whole, or in part, withered by the frost ; so
that, in the case of the leaves of the beech, we have
the suspension of the action and circulation, without any
of that tendency to separate, which is said to be ante-
rior to the suspending of the circulation, and the cause
of it. The safest way, therefore, is to conclude that the
fall of the leaf in any particular plant, is not the parti-
cular action of any single external cause, such as a

FALL OF THE LEAF. 149

particular temperature upon the junction, but an
action of the whole plant. Yet in the whole plant it
may be modified by other circumstances. The beech
that wears the russet livery of winter, and that through
the bare twigs of which the wind howls, are not diffe-
rent varieties ; for any one who has the opportunity of
examining beech woods may find the aged tree quite
bare, and the sucklings around the root clad in their
hard and lifeless foliage. And even those lateral
branches that form upon the trunk of the beech by the
accumulation of a ganglion in a cell of the bark, at
the termination of one of the radiating plates or fila-
ments that extend from the centre of the tree, may be
seen with its leaves on, after the greater part of the
head has been denuded. The formation of those
woody ganglions is, in itself, a curious matter. They
are peculiar to trees that have well defined radiations,
though they are not found upon all of these ; and they
are never found upon trees the wood of which has only
concentric rings, such as the pine. There is a medullary
thread from the pith of the tree to the ganglion ; and
the latter, even when not the size of a small pea, is
hard and fibrous, the fibres being wound round centres
from which the future branches are to issue. Though
covered by the epidermis and external bark of the tree,
those little knobs are surrounded by a liber of their
own, at every point, except that by which they are
attached to the medullary thread. Wood of this kind is
always much more easily split upon a radius than in
any other direction, and that which wants the rays is
always most easily split in the lines of the concentric
rays. By dexterous management, a portion of young
o 2

150 SPRING.

pine may be divided into a series of tubes like those of
a pocket telescope, and there are always some parts in
which the division can be made with the greatest faci-
lity ; but whether those be the production of warm sum-
mers or protracted winters, has not been determined.
That the rings in pines do register the qualities of the
seasons, there is not the least doubt; and some very
useful conclusions might be drawn from a careful com-
parison of them with observations made at the places
where they grow.

That, however, is a work of time, and so are
many of the desiderata that have to be supplied before
we can settle the curious question as to why of two
plants, that are in many respects like each other, the one
should shed its leaves and the other be an evergreen.
The fruit, as well as the leaves, of the evergreens, at
least the greater part of them, appear to have the same
power of resisting the cold as the leaves ; and the boles
of them are also less liable to be covered with parasi-
tical plants. All vegetable substances, indeed, when
they are in a state of decay, are apt to become covered
with other vegetable substances, and the dead bark of
pines, when exposed to damp, is encrusted with lichens;
but they are by no means so common as on deciduous
trees. There is very rarely moss upon a yew or a
juniper, in those situations where the latter plant will
thrive.

Though we cannot completely understand the phy-
siology of that part of the vegetable kingdom, we can
see some important uses of evergreens in the general
economy of nature. As has been said, they lessen the
violence of the winds which, when the herbaceous

SPRING SJORES. 151

plants have died down, would sweep the most valuable
parts of the soil into the beds of the streams ; and they
afford both shelter and food to the birds. The berries
of the holly, and, after they are gone, those of the ivy,
preserve a very great number of the feathered tribes,
in those early times of the year when the eggs of
insects are not hatched, and the slugs and shell snails
have not come out of their hiding places ; and even in
the deepest storms, the little tenants of the woods
may be seen under the pine branches that are loaded
with snow, hopping from twig to twig, and dexterously
raising the scales of the cones so as to get at the seeds.

The breaking up of the storm is indeed a sort of
harvest to the birds ; and it is a valuable one almost
in proportion as the snow has been deep. At that
season they want both provisions and furniture, and
these are not only found in abundance, but the re-
moval of them is an advantage. There is always a
great quantity of withered twigs and grass and the
fibres of roots, by which the earth is rendered un-
sightly ; and as the season advances, there is a great
deal of animal exuvice in the cast fur and hair of
animals, the moulting of birds, and even the cocoons
out of which the warmth of the year has already called
forth the inhabitants in a new state of being. These
are all, as one might say, lumber ; they have answered
their purpose in their present form as portions of
organic life, they are now dead matter, and some of
them are not dead matter in the state in which its
parts most easily separate and enter into new organic
forms. But the birds want thousands of fabrics in
which to rear their young, and they are ready cus-

152 SPRING.

tomers for the lumber. The very scattered manner in
which those materials are placed, enables the birds to
find their food at the same time that they are per-
forming their labour. The earth, too, is full of the
eggs and larvae of insects ; so that there is hardly
perhaps a root in the ground, even though it has yet
showed no stem above the surface, that has not its
worm that would attack the young shoot at the
moment of its commencement, and thus destroy the
whole of the vegetation. There are others, again,
that carry on their operations concealed below the
surface, and literally mow the fibrous roots of the
grasses over the whole extent of a field.

The grub of the May-chaffer, (Scarabaus melo-
lonthd) is one of the most common and most destruc-
tive of this class; it appears in numbers that are
incredible, and as the same race carry on their de-
predations for three or four seasons, it is one of the
most destructive of insects. The crown of the root is
not the part which this grub attacks, but rather the
new fibres which the roots of the perennial grasses
put out when the plants begin to stool upon the sur-
face, and the appearance of a crop is very promising.
As their progress cannot be seen through the course
of their operations, one cannot be absolutely certain
as to the way in which they go to work ; but as they
plunge deeper into the earth in the winter than in the
summer, the probability is, that they begin at the
lower extremities of the fibres, and eat upwards, and
thus work round each root in all directions, till the
earth, for the depth of from an inch to two inches, is
reduced to the consistence of loose powder, while the

CHAFFERS. J53

surface is unbroken, and, in a great measure, unaltered,
unless that the grass begins to be of a sickly yellow.
Should drought continue, the destruction is complete,
at least in as far as the pasturage is concerned ; but if
copious rains fall, the grubs are driven downwards, and
the roots put out fresh fibres. Spring is generally
over by the Kalendar, and pretty far advanced, before
the winged insects of this genus make their appear-
ance ; and therefore as an insect in the air, infesting
trees, and sometimes stripping them of their leaves,
it belongs more to the summer than to the spring. In
its then state, however, it is much more abundant some
years than others, and suffers by rain as well as wind,
a smart breeze o'f the latter shaking it in great numbers
to the earth, where it is eagerly sought after by many
birds. In each of those years that it remains under
the ground, it is understood to have at least one
sloughing, or change of the skin, for which it prepares
by a sort of hybernation during the cold months. On
the last autumn, when it is to be for some time in-
capable of motion, and thus might be exposed to the
frost, if only at its common depth below the surface,
it bores downwards, to a greater or less depth accor-
ding to the nature of the soil, but sometimes as much
as six feet. There it lines its hole or cell with silk,
and changes to the winged form, after which it finds
its way to the surface. At first it is soft and weak,
and the wing covers are nearly white, nor does it get
its colour or the elytra their horny consistency till it
has been exposed to the air. Whether those beetles
may attack the roots of plants in the perfect state
before they come to the surface, is not known with

154 SPHIKG.

perfect certainty, but it is exceedingly probable, as the
white ones are turned up by the plough as early as
the middle of January, while they are not found in
the air till May, or the end of April, a little sooner or
later, according to the season.

It is inconsistent with the general practice of
nature that an insect which has thus always a store
of at least four generations in the earth, should be
without a number of destroyers, because its numbers
would otherwise accumulate, not only in an undue
proportion, but in such a manner as to destroy the
succession of its own means of subsistence. When
in the air it has many enemies, and when in the
earth it has none more general or more efficient than

THE ROOK.

The whole of the CROW tribe (the COR v us of Lin-
naeus), are of great service in the destruction of
noxious insects and disagreeable substances ; and
though they often commit depredations of a different
and even of a serious kind, probably the good that is
done by the whole race more than counterbalances
the evil ; and experience has shown that with the
rook this is really the case. There is no need of a
minute description of the personal appearance, or even
of the more remarkable habits, of the animal; for,
unless in those desolate and upland parts which they
do not frequent, there is hardly any body that has
not seen a rook, and their nests are often met with
in cities, if there happen to be a few tall trees ; and in
those places of Britain which the rook does not fre-
quent, the carrion crow or the hooded crow (if these be

CROWS. 155

in truth different species and not accidental varieties,
depending in some measure upon climate and food, or
upon age) is, in its general appearance, so much alike,
that any body that has seen the one cannot be at a
loss to know the other. There are also enough of
differences for distinguishing the one from the other.
The bill of the rook is a ploughshare ; that of the
others a sword, or a butcher's knife. The rook has it
longer and not so dark in the colour, or so thick and
curved in the upper mandible. The carrion and
hooded crows, if they be different species, have some-
thing much more repulsive in their appearance than
the rook; and in the Lowlands of Scotland where
they (or it) and the rook are familiarly known, the
difference of manners and of the colours of the beaks
have together made one of the names of the " hoody,"
which is " black nib,1' a cant phrase for a person not
to be trusted. The bill of the rook is rendered more
apparently white by the abrasion of the feathers at the
base, in digging up the earth in quest of its favourite
food. The difference of the notes, also, is very ob-
vious; and leads those who visit the highlands and
do not attend to the 'difference of the species, to say
that the crows in that part of the country speak
Gaelic as well as the people. The note of the rook,
though a little harsh in solo, is clear ; while that of the
crow, though it has none of the sepulchral tone of the
raven's croak, would lead one to suppose that the
bird is always in a state of disease, — that it is hoarse,
and feels pain when attempting to give utterance.

Rooks are sprightly birds, and while they appear
to be fond of the society of each other, they have

156 SPRING.

rather a predilection for the neighbourhood, if not for
the society of man ; and no sooner does he set to
work in turning up the soil in spring, or in clearing
the ground of the crop in autumn, than the rook
comes to clear it of those insects that would be so
destructive to him. When to this usefulness is added
the sociability of the birds, and their enlivening caw
at those times when they flock and breed, and how
knowingly they eye one in the fields, as well as with
what apparent quickness they find out whether there
be any hostile intention on the part of the passenger,
— it is difficult to avoid feeling an attachment for the
rook, or forgiving it frankly for the little depreda-
tions that it commits upon the property of man at
times when those stores to which it is more partial,
and the destruction of which is of so much use, fail.
In long continued storms, the rooks are often reduced
to the greatest extremities, and may be seen hovering
about where piles of wood, heaps of rubbish, or any
other matters under which there is a chance of earth-
worms, have to be lifted. At those times they enter
the farm-yard, turn the litter over and over, search
old heaps of manure for the larvee that are in them,
and readily eat the grains that have passed through
the horses. A potatoe, too, even though frozen, is
readily eaten, and they will scratch down to and dig
into turnips in the fields. Sometimes those inclement
times are employed in carting out the manure, and
on such occasions all the rooks in the neighbourhood
come to the feast, as if an intimation had been sent
round all the coppices and forests where they lodge.
As long as the brooks and banks keep open they

ROOKS. 157

resort to these, and dig in the mud for lame; nor
have they any objection to draw from a crevice of a
spring, that comes from a great depth and is com-
paratively warm, a frog which may be sometimes met
with, huddled into a corner, near such places.

On some parts of the Continent rooks are migra-
tory ; as in France they are found most abundant
immediately before the winter, and in countries farther
to the north, in the spring. As is the case in this
island, they do not however approach the extreme
north, or the very wild and lonely places ; and the
fact of their migration shows that even rooks " manage
the matter differently in France," from the way in
which they manage it in England. We are not sure
whether sufficient allowance has been made in those
reports of migration for the flocking of the crows in
the autumn, and again in the early spring, before they
commence the building and repairing of their nests.
At those times the inmates of a large rookery appear
in clouds that absolutely darken the air, and other
birds mingle with them, probably to share in the pro-
duce of the digging ; but according to the observations
that we had the opportunity of making upon a very
large rookery for a number of years consecutively, we
have no reason to think that they were ever more than
the light of one day absent from their native forest.
When they fly out in these dense masses, — and we have
seen a flight half a mile and more in length, and of
considerable breadth and depth, as closely convened as
they could be, so as to fly without inconvenience, — -they
seldom fly two days in the very same direction, or at
least to the same fields. One would be almost tempted
p

158 SPRING.

to believe that they settle on the preceding evening
where their morning route is to be, — or rather the state
of the atmosphere has the same effect upon them all,
for they come out at very different times and rather in
a straggling manner, in the morning, while in the
evening they are more dense. When they arrive at
the ground for the day, which they often fly to for
several miles without stopping, they disperse, unless
when there is a newly turned up field, and then they
absolutely blacken' that all over.

In the neighbourhood of the rookery to which we
allude, — that is within five or six miles of it, — there
were smaller ones, some of which were reported to be
colonists from the great one, and some had remained in
these localities beyond the memory of the country
people. These surrounded a considerable space, or
rather were spotted upon points in the circumference
of a considerable space, in which there was no rookery;
and it was no uncommon thing to see the different
flocks moving toward their respective points of the
horizon at the same moment. We have seen a
straggler join himself to the wrong flock, follow it for
a little, find out his mistake, and then wheel round,
and post after his nation with all the wing that he
could.

What may be the operating principle in animal
associations we have no means of knowing; and
therefore, after all the philosophic poetry, or poetic
philosophy, that has been expended upon the subject,
the theory of the matter is still very like a theory of
the tides which the Rev. Thomas Clement, curate of
Brendon, in the county of Devon, fancied he "might

THEORIES. 159

be particularly gifted and peculiarly designed'7 for
promulgating " with a view to enlighten the world,'r
and which accordingly he did procure to be printed
and published just forty years ago. To be sure that
theory was incidental and preliminary to another not
quite so simple and satisfactory, although as much a
certainty as some of the theories of animals that have
been promulgated by men of more lofty name than
the curate of Brendon. But the preliminary theory is
worth quoting. " The flux and reflux of the sea,"
says he, " is to be attributed, in a great measure at
least, to its settled natural course of so doing;" and
really we fear that in very many points of the animal!
economy, our real information goes no further, — inas-
much as the supplemental explanations of the ration-
ale of their conduct, upon the principles of human
action, are in fact no part of animal history at all ; but
are, in reality, nothing more than the old superstitions
and credulities, decked out in the fustian of false
philosophy.

And yet there are some curious practices about
rooks, the causes of which one would like to know,
if they were knowable matters. They go back to the
same wood, though not to the nesting place of it,
every night : we cannot know the fact accurately, but
from the analogy of other birds, we have no reason to
doubt that the very same pair, after being perfectly
indifferent to each other for more than half the year,
go back to the same nest to rear a new brood, when-
ever the warmth of the season, the stimulus of fresh
food, or " their settled natural course of so doing"
impels them so to do. They hold a sort of council ; two

160 SPRING.

or three will be labouring hard at a half frozen field ;
a stranger will alight, and a good deal of huddling to-
gether, and flapping of wings and cawing, will ensue,
which, if they were men, would be very good signs of
a messenger having arrived and a consultation held
thereupon. We have often watched those " crows'
councils," and the result has been that sometimes the
stranger has remained with those whom he visited;
sometimes the whole have flown off we know not
whither; and sometimes they have settled in our
sight upon a place where food was more easily
procured.

Now if one were to be fond of making theories,
each and all of these circumstances might be cited as
a proof of the existence of memory, judgment, and a
reasonable portion of intellect ; but then there are
some anomalies in the case which stagger our belief,
and force us to confine ourselves to what we actually
see. We have known the same nest for several suc-
cessive years ; have seen the old birds in the act of
repairing it ; we have seen it during the time that
it was unten anted, and we have known the broods,
whenever they were what those who love such a nox-
ious dish as a rook pie, or rather, perhaps, who love
to kill birds merely from " a settled natural course of
so doing," call " branched," that is, able to quit the
nest, but not to trust themselves out of the nursing
tree, all shot successively by the sportsman : and yet
with all their wisdom and memory, the birds continued
to build on year after year, as if their family had been
all fortunate in the world. That single fact made us
doubt the whole theory of the memory and judgment;

ROOKS* JUSTICE. 161

and come to the simple belief that we have not made
a single step toward the discovery of the causes of
animal action ; and therefore that our surest plan will
be to observe for a long time yet, before we come to
any positive conclusion.

There is another matter upon which a great deal has
been said, and that is the sense not only of wrong, but
of retributive justice, that exists in the assemblage of
rooks. There are well authenticated instances in which
pairs have been expelled from the community by the
force of numbers, and compelled to form their nests at
a distance, even out of the wood that they had been
produced in ; and some of the colonies that we have
alluded to were begun in this manner. This is a sort
of banishment or expatriation; and it is so analagous to
the forcible colonization of a New England or a New
Holland, that it is very natural to suppose that the
transported rooks, had offended against the laws, as
well as the transported Britons. There are other
instances in which emigration has been prohibited;
and a pair who had attempted to build a nest on a
separate tree, have had their nests pulled to pieces, and
themselves forced back to the old locality. This again
bears some analogy to those laws among mankind
w hereby an artificer is prevented from leaving the
country, or a labourer from seeking employment out of
the parish ; and, as such, is very naturally explained
upon the same principle, by those who regard all the
creatures as humble imitators of man. But farther,
the rooks in the construction of their nests, are not very
punctilious in the regard to the law of meum and tuum ;
and will not fail to purloin a stick from the fabric of
p2

162 SPRING.

their neighbours, provided that they can accomplish it.
The nests of those pairs that have been destroyed by
the casualties of the year, are very quickly pulled to
pieces in this way, — as it does not appear that there is
any law of heritage, or rule of succession among the
black population of the trees. Some of them, too, are
said to remain at home, and pilfer the whole materials
of their nests ; and for the preventing of those depre-
dations, it is said that one rook of the pair remains to
guard the nest from theft, while the other goes abroad
for materials. It would be at least as rational a solu-
tion of the matter to suppose that the one which has
been out has got fatigued and wants rest ; and we have
often seen nests remaining undisturbed in the absence
of the owners, when all around was in a state of the
greatest activity. We do not, however, deny the pur-
loining ; for we have seen contentions on the wing for
a stick, and while it dropt from the contending parties,
one that had taken no part in the quarrel got hold of it
and bore it off in triumph ; but we have never been
able to settle the rationale of the matter to our own sa-
tisfaction, and therefore we dare not attempt to settle it
to that of the reader. It has farther been stated that
those pilfering rooks are often visited with rather a severe
retribution. That when a pair had notoriously formed
their nest of stolen goods, the others have waited till
it was completed, and the eggs in whole or in part
deposited, and then they have assembled, pulled the
nest to pieces, and cast it stick by stick to the ground,
in the course of which the eggs were of course de-
stroyed. We cannot say that we have seen any thing
that could enable us to connect the demolition with a

ANIMAL PUGNACITY. 163

felonious building, but we have witnessed the demoli-
tion of a nest by rooks, which were obviously in a state
of strong excitement, and we have seen one taking no
share in the business, crawling upon a twig, and cawing
most dolorously as if it had been suffering wrong ; but
there is such a" family likeness among rooks that we
could never say positively that that was the bona fide
owner of the spoiled nest.

If we were to take any analogy from other animals, —
and between animal and animal the analogy of animals
is certainly better than the analogy of man, — we should
feel inclined to think that their retributive justice would
with us get the very opposite name. When animals,
in a state of nature and without any training from
man, fight with their own species at all, the fight, unless
it be for their females or their young, in which animals
that are otherwise timid become valiant, is always the
fight for conquest and not for justice, and, when a third
strikes in, it almost universally falls upon the van-
quished or the weaker. Dogs that come to a dog-fight
always begin to worry the dog that is down; stags chace
the beaten stag, and drive him from the herd; and we
remember no case in which the conqueror, however
much he may have been the aggressor, thereby roused
the indignation of any of the rest. There seems in all
those cases a propensity to triumph, and if the triumph
has been in part won by one, it is eagerly caught at by
others. We have met with nothing in the conduct of
rooks by which we could infer a deviation from this
apparently general law of animals; and, therefore, it
may be that the rook which suffers, does so, just because
it is not so strong or so skilful a warrior as the rest.

164 SPIIIKG.

Rooks begin to build early when the weather is
favourable ; but should very severe weather come after-
wards, they will suspend their operations. The country
people say that having chosen a part of a tree which is
adapted for its purpose, the rook lays one stick by way of
taking possession ; and then begins the actual building
only when the weather is favourable; and to those who
do not remark that the weather is fine when the stick is
laid, and changes always when the labour of building is
suspended, there is perhaps as much foundation for
this as for any of the other functions of society with
which this bird has been endowed.

It does not seem that the rook gives any preference
to one species of tree more than another ; but that its
choice is regulated by the height of the trees and their
vicinity to situations in which it may find an abundant
supply of food ; and when once a colony have settled on
any particular trees, they are very unwilling to leave
them. In the event of the trees being felled, they do
not always change to those that are in the immediate
neighbourhood. The great rookery to which so fre-
quent allusion has been made, was wholly in an ex-
tended wood of Scotch fir, (pinus sylvestris), though at
one part of the forest there were beeches of much
larger dimensions ; but the beeches, were, at least the
tallest ones, in a dell of considerable depth and very
narrow. It is very easy to see how a heavy bird like
the rook should select a situation as elevated as
that at which it generally flies, for the place of its
nest; because the air cells are thereby on the average
trimmed to its flight. In the situation alluded to,
there was, however, another inducement ; that part of

ROOKERY. 165

the forest in which the rookery was situated, was
covered with bilberries, (vaccinium myrtillus), and as
those berries come in at the time when the summer food
of the rook is getting scarce, when the covering of the
fields diminishes its range, and before the crop can be
any assistance to it, they are very much caught at by
the rooks ; in like manner as the heath berries are, at
about the same season, the chief food of the mountain
crows, which, however, as they are not quite so choice
either as to the kind or the condition of their food, as
the rooks, have a wider range. Though the nest of
the crow be pretty closely settled, it is a rude structure,
and it is in general placed so high that it vibrates in
high winds ; but it appears as if chosen so as that all
the twigs with which it is connected may bend equally.
This is a general position in those nests that are placed
so high in trees, as to vibrate when they are shaken by
the winds. One never finds such nests placed between
a very slender and a very stiff branch, so as to be de-
ranged or crushed by the unequal yielding of the two
to the storm. If that were the case, a gale coming in
direction of the stiffer one would blow the other apart
from it, and the nest would be torn asunder, and a gale
from the opposite direction would blow the slender
branch against the stiff one, and thereby bruise the
nest. Birds that place their nests in an unequal fork
of a tree, always place it so far down that there shall
not be danger from these causes. The rooks generally
choose a situation which is safe in ordinary weather and
in brisk gales ; and though they necessarily prefer an
aged forest, they are said to evince some tact in avoid-
ing decayed branches. As the old ones sit higher in

166 SPRING.

the tree than the nest, too, .they have a sort of practi-
cal demonstration that that shall not be broken down
by its own weight. We never, indeed, knew of the
fall of a rook's nest in calm weather, nor have we ever
seen the twigs to which it was attached very much
bent by its pressure. When, however, a violent gale
arises, great havoc is sometimes committed ; nests, eggs,
callow young, and even old ones, are cast to the earth
in one general ruin. The females of all the crow tribe
are very close sitters, and they are very formidable
against any intruders. The ramified twigs over the nest
prevent any descent upon the rook from above ; and as
birds of prey are less accustomed to wing their way
among branches, the crow sits secure from all but the
casualties of the atmosphere and the attacks of man.
The nest of the crow never, to our observation, falls to
the ground entire, unless when the part of the tree in
which it is placed is torn off; and when that happens
during the period of incubation, the dam is very often
killed by the fall, which verifies in the case of the
rook, the instance stated by White of the raven being
killed by the falling of the tree on which she had
built for years.

Those cawings with which a rookery resounds, and
which have the singular quality of producing music
that is by no means disagreeable, from a confusion of
sounds, are the blended notes of complaint, and affec-
tion, and gratitude, without any admixture of mere
love-song. The courtships take place in the fields,
when the nest is beginning to be built, or rather before
it has been begun; and, before the eggs begin to be
deposited, the female becomes domestic, and perches

PAIRING. J57

beside or upon the edge of the nest. That may have
been one of the reasons why the one bird was said to
watch by the nest, while the other went to forage for
twigs. No female bird sits on the nest until the whole
of the eggs that are for one brood have been laid : at
least, if there be any sitting before then, it is partial,
and intended only to protect them from inclement wea-
ther. A good deal of the cawing is the noise of these
females. They are fed by the males from the time
that they begin to perch, and continually till the young
can live without the heat of their mother. They have
several calls which, by being blended together by the
different individuals in the rookery, produce the har-
mony. In cases where the male has to go to a greater
distance, or is less successful in rinding a supply, his
mate becomes clamorous for his return ; and though
she does not leave the tree, or even the close vicinity
of the nest, she hops restlessly about, and utters an
impatient cry. When the male comes with the supply
of food, the cry alters a little, the caw is shorter and
not so loud, but it is more expressive of eagerness. At
that time there can, of course, be no cawing on the
part of the male, which glides towards the nest with all
the haste that he can, and is received by his mate with
raised wings and open bill. The feeding is accompa-
nied only by a few short calls ; but when it is over,
the male gets a song of thanks from the female, bearing
some proportion, in length, to the abundance that he
has brought, and he rests and listens ; and the same
song cheers his departure when he again takes wing.
When the males are for some time about the nest, they
add to the clamour, which is carried on during the

168 SPRING.

whole time of the incubation ; and after the brood is
hatched, one of the parents generally waits by the nest,
and is even more watchful as the young approach that
stage when they take to the branches. This is the
time, indeed, when they are exposed to the greatest
danger, as, before their wings can act as balancers,
they get upon the edge of the nest, lose their poise
and fall over; then — if they are not killed by the fall
which, on account of the height from which they drop,
is generally the case, unless their descent be broken by
elastic limbs — they are preyed upon by carrion crows
and ravens, as well as by weasels and other small qua-
drupeds. At that time the old ones may be seen keep-
ing the brood in the nest by force ; and sometimes
when two nests are confluent, which, in a crowded
rookery, is often the case, these corrections of the
young lead to altercations between the neighbouring
parents.

From the situation of the nests, the young must be
fully fledged and able to take the wing before they can
do any thing in the way of finding their own food, and
thus the labour of the parents is more protracted than
that of many other birds. The broods consist of four
or five ; the eggs being of a bluish green, mottled with
large dark coloured blotches, which are more nume-
rous toward the thick end. These sometimes, though
rarely, drop through the nest. When the young crows
make their first appearance in the fields, they are still
caressed and partially fed by the old ones. They may
be easily known from their smaller size, and the want
of the naked arid scaly portion of white at the base of
the bill ; their plumage is also more entire than that

HABITS OF ROOKS. 159

of the old ones, especially that of the males, whose
wings and tails often begin to show blanks, about the
close of their annual labours. When the young have
become quite independent of their parents, the colony
break up for a season, and each seeks a place for itself;
the old being more retired as the season of the moult
approaches, and the young more frequently seen.
Numbers of them return to the nursing wood, to
perch during the season, but they pay no attention
to the nests, and as their departure is at early dawn,
and then return from all points of the compass, they are
not much noticed. The return at that season is not,
however, general or necessary, for they roost in any
convenient tree near the place where they have been
feeding last in the evening.

October may be considered as the average time at
which they again assemble ; but the time varies with
the season. If the cold begin sooner they are earlier ;
but they are proofs and not prognostics of the change.
Rooks are great frequenters of the sea shore, when
their rookeries are advantageously situated for it.
They find a great deal of food there, though probably
not so much as the other crows. When the tide is
back, they may be seen working for insects among the
sea-weed, and picking up cockles, whelks, and limpets.
The cockle they can easily open ; and if they can de-
tach the limpet from the rock, it needs no opening, but
it is said to be sometimes too much for them, and to
embrace the rock with so much force, that the point of
their bill under the shell cannot be withdrawn ; and so
they are retained and drowned by the tide, and after-
wards feed those upon whom they had been previously

Q

170 SPRING.

feeding. We have never seen the carcass of a crow
fastened by the bill under the shell of a limpet, and
therefore we cannot positively assert that this is ever
the fate either of ravens or of rooks ; neither had we
ever the means of examining the lever power that a
crow can exert with its bill against the adhesive power
of the limpet ; and therefore we cannot absolutely deny
the fact. The limpet (patella vulgaris) adheres to the
rock by the foot ; and the adhesive power is only the
pressure of the atmosphere upon that, which, on a
pretty large one, may be about fifteen pounds; and
possibly that may be more than a crow can, under
some circumstances, raise with the bill ; — though it may
often be seen tugging from side to side, arid ultimately
drawing from the ground roots that, by us, would need
a greater force. As to the lifting of whelks into the
air, and letting them fall upon the rocks, that is a very
common operation ; we have seen the rocks thick with
the broken shells, so recent that it must have been
done during the tide when the crows were at work ;
and we have actually seen the shells drop and be dashed
to pieces, though the birds that were then fishing were
not rooks but crows. It is by no means improbable
that some of the tribe, the carrion crow and the raven
for instance, may dig in the sand for the crabs and
other shell fish that bury themselves there : we have
often corns upon them at work within flood mark, where
there was nothing upon the surface, for many miles,
but sand ; and therefore their object must have been
to find out something that burrowed.

Although, as has been said, the rook be generally
the friend and fellow labourer with man in clearing the

HARM BY ROOKS. 171

earth of those insects that would destroy vegetation,
such as the grubs of the chafers, and the young of
GafFerlonglegs, which are very destructive to many
roots, especially turnips and clover, yet there are cases
in which they do a great deal of harm. It has been
noticed that they dig up potatoes ; and they sometimes
do it so early in the season as that the plants are en-
tirely destroyed, because the fibres of the root have
then no connection with the stem, save through the
planted seed. That seed, when the young plant is just
above the surface, has lost its farinaceous quality, and
is pulpy and sweet ; in that state the crows eat it with
great eagerness, and probably prefer it to their usual
food, as they detach it from the ground and gorge it
with much apparent satisfaction. When wheat and
barley are in the same state — sprouted, but the seed
malty and abounding with saccharine matter — they are
almost equally fond of these, and sometimes render the
crop nearly a failure, though for one field that they
waste in this way, they probably save a dozen by the
destruction of larvse.

It is also pretty generally understood that rooks eat
the eggs of other birds ; and from the range of their
appetites, there is not the least doubt that they do so,
if the eggs come in their way. Larks, pipits, and other
birds that build upon the ground, are most liable to its
depredations ; but the rook is not such a nest-spoiler as
some of the tribe, and it is not probable that it ever at- .
tacks those nests that are in trees, and certain that it does
not so in the wood which contains the rookery. The
little birds do not build so high as the rook, and in
day time that bird confines itself to the nest and the

172

SPRING.

space above it, so that birds sometimes take advantage
of the hollow of its nest as a canopy from the weather,
and also for protection from the rook, which keeps
guard for its unknown neighbour.

The whole of the crow tribe are interesting in the
spring ; and though the interest be of a different cha-
racter, there is none more so tha.n

THE RAVEN.

Every body has heard of the raven : that dark and
gloomy spoiler, which ranges from " Indus to the frozen
pole," has his food as universal as his habitation, and
kills by almost the prolonged torture of eating to death
whatever he can master. And yet for all the darkness
of his colour and his character, and the sound of his
voice as if it came from the thick sepulchre of an Egyp-
tian pyramid, there is a sort of regal gloom, a melan-
choly majesty about the raven. He is a sort of bird

THE RAVEN. 173

of death, and wherever that awful association mingles,
there is sure to be sublimity. Like the vulture, he
" scents the battle from afar ;" and when the prolonged
work of death prevents sepulture in that sultry state of
the atmosphere in which heaps of slain are the most
sickening to look upon, the raven comes to his foul
banquet, and scoops out the eyes of the dead and
the dying, while the last and effortless moan of the
latter, together with the gloomy croak of the spoiler as
he gloats on his prey, are drowned amid the volleyings
and clangour that still continue to monopolize all the
atmosphere that can be worked into lofty sound.

It is one of the most natural and pardonable of all
superstitions, that that which hastens first to the place
of death should have the greatest foreknowledge, or the
nearest approximation to foreknowledge, of the event.
Even now, when nobody believes in it, we feel that
there is something, if not true in philosophy, at least in
accordance with appearances, in the name of the ' ' bod-
ing" raven; and Shakespeare could not have given to the
general apprehension of mankind a more unequivocal
hint that there was murder to be committed, or given
a more accurate touch of the bird, than when he makes
Lady Macbeth, in the full resolve and anxious expec-
tation of the tragedy which she had then made sure,
begin her dreadful soliloquy with

" The raven himself is hoarse,
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements."

Then, again, we have —

"Th* enchanted banner of the bloody Dane, — "

174 SPRING.

the raven upon which was often but too certain a pre-
sage of suffering to the inhabitants of the British
shores, and of the descent and discomfiture of which,
there are still traces upon some of those ancient
chiselled stones, which have stood so long that they
have become merely their own monuments for any
accurate or useful purpose. On some of these stones
there are armed men, with the raven flying over them,
killing an unarmed people ; then bowmen and spear-
men meet them in hostile array ; and lastly, they and
the raven are stretched upon the ground.

These and many others that might be mentioned,
give the raven a traditional fame — or a traditional in-
famy, that does not belong even to the golden eagle ;
and then as the bird is much more abundant, and on
that account much more destructive, it is more seen
and mentioned. When in favourable circumstances
for an abundant supply of food, which it -gorges in great
quantity at all times and more especially when young,
the raven is a large and powerful bird. Females, which
as in the birds of prey properly so called are larger
than the male, have been found measuring twenty-six
inches in length, and nearly fifty inches in the stretch
of the wings, and weighing about two pounds and a
quarter; the male is about three inches shorter, and
four narrower, and five or six ounces lighter. The
wings are particularly broad and strong ; and one is
often surprised at finding a bird which hops about, as if
it were not only unable to fly, but crippled in the legs,
vault up into the air, and, in brief space, vanish from a
pretty extensive horizon with the fleetness of an arrow.
The general colour of the raven is black, and the

THE RAVELS. 175

colour extends to the bill and feet ; but the feathers
above are edged with blue, which makes the whole
have that intermediate tint to which dyers give the
name of corbeau or raven grey. The edges in the first
plumage upon the young bird are whitish, and the
whole appearance at that age is lighter. The feathers
on the throat are pointed something like those upon
the eagle, and on the neck behind they are long and
silky, and can be made to form a sort of ruff. The
claws of the raven are long and strong, but they are
not so much hooked as those of the smaller crows.
The feet are firm, strong, and well adapted for walk-
ing, and they are mailed with strong plates. The bill
of the raven is very formidable ; it is long, strong, a
good deal curved, and fortified by a ridge in the upper
mandible ; the mandibles are very hard and sharp at
the points ; and though it be not so well adapted for
laying hold and tearing as the beaks of the birds of
prey, it is a most efficient weapon for inflicting a wound ;
and the habits of the bird are suited for giving it the
full effect. The attack for prey, and the defence
against quadrupeds (no bird will attack the raven on
the ground), is always made upon the ground, and
comes when the animal is not upon its guard. It is
generally aimed at the eyes, but wherever it takes
effect, it is severely felt, and even a reasonably bold
dog is not over fond of facing a raven. It does not
strike out with the neck like the heron, indeed the
shortness of its neck disqualifies it for that mode of
action ; but it darts from the legs, and increases its
velocity by striking the v^ngs obliquely backward
against the air. The distance to which it projects

176

itself is not very great, but the motion is rapid ; and if
it succeed in stunning the animal, it instantly digs out
and devours the eyes, and often goes in quest of fresh
prey, leaving the carcass till it can be found again by
the scent. When birds of prey assail it on the wing,
or approach its nest, in the guarding of which it is both
vigilant and bold, it soars in order to get above them ;
and if it succeeds, it shoots downwards and aims at
them with its bill, the stroke of which, under those
circumstances, suffices to break the wing or even to
dislocate the neck of the most powerful hawks. But
as both can act effectually only downwards, the struggle
is very generally as to who shall rise highest above the
surface. The kite is common in many parts frequented
by the raven, and as the kite is also a powerful flyer,
the two often rise almost beyond the reach of vision,
and continue the contest till one or both drop down
from mere exhaustion.

Like the birds of prey, the ravens pair for life, and
hunt, as well as rear their young, in company ; at least
when one is met with, the other, whether it makes its
appearance or not, is seldom far distant. Notwith-
standing their rapacity, they are not difficult to tame ;
and though its native voice be one of the most un-
couth in nature, it can be made to articulate sounds
with a great deal of ease. It may be taught many
tricks too ; and, like the magpie and some others of
the tribe, it is very much addicted to thieving, not
food, as it is natural enough for any animal to steal,
and for animals that are subjected to long fasts to
horde, but things that are showy, as metals, and bits
of potter's ware. Even in the wild state, they evince

RAVEN'S NEST. 1?7

this love of play, by rising to a considerable height,
and whirling and gamboling in the air, apparently for
no purpose but amusement. They do that only when
the weather is very fine, and while doing it, they have
a note which is music compared with what they utter
when they are hopping and prowling about upon the
ground.

Ravens are astir betimes, and usually begin their
nests in February, or in the colder districts, in March ;
but there are of course great differences in different
parts of the country. Rocks are their favourite places ;
but they also build in trees, though never so high as
that their nests will, like those of the rook, be subject
to vibration. They always choose a firm place, and
one which is not accessible by quadrupeds, or easily by
man. It is not so remote or so elevated as the eyrie
of the eagle, but nearer the cultivated grounds ; and
if there is good cover for game or a rabbit warren in
the neighbourhood, that is an inducement. The num-
ber of eggs varies, but five or six is about the average ;
they are considerably larger than those of the rook ;
the green is not so blue in the tinge, and the dark
blotches are smaller. While the female sits, the male
generally supplies her with food, but occasionally the
female flies out for exercise, the male taking her place
upon the eggs while she is thus occupied. When the
young are hatched, both parents are very assiduous in
feeding them, and appear to feel for them consider-
able attention. Once in passing near the bottom of a
bold cliff, which rises in most places from a brake, and
has an altitude of from 60 to 80 feet, we heard a great
deal of hoarse lamentation among the bushes. A friend

178

who was with us knew that ravens nested there, and
we began to beat the bushes for the nest or nestling,
the situation of the sound rendering it almost impossible
that the nest could be there. After a little search, we
found a nestling that had dropped from the cliff rather
prematurely, and was quite unable to fly, but was
huddled together close by the rock, with one of the
parents watching and croaking over it. The old one
made some demonstrations of hostility, or rather,
perhaps, of reluctance to quit the charge ; our friend,
who wished to have a raven in his stable yard, made
prize of the young one, which he took in a handkerchief
in his hand, with the head out ; and the old one fol-
lowed almost to his house, which was more than two
miles distant. The bird had received no injury, ate readily
as soon as it was out of the handkerchief, grew up very
tame, and is, we suppose, still alive.

Notwithstanding the attention which the ravens pay
to their offspring, as long as they are in a helpless
state, they are driven from the nest and the neighbour-
hood the moment they are able to shift for themselves,
and never again permitted to revisit it. The great age
to which ravens live, the food that they require, and
the succession of broods that they rear, render this
distribution of them necessary. The vast attention
that they pay to the nest in close time, necessarily
confines them to a limited range then, and they do
not appear at any time to make very long excursions.
It is the same with eagles, and all the other birds in
which the attachment of the pair continues throughout
the year, and for life. The attachment to home
appears always to be an accompaniment of that ; and

THE RAVEN IN THE WILDS. 179

as they all have the same attachment to the places of
their residence, there is little or no invasion of territory,
or war upon the confines. The nest is not necessarily
the retreat for the night at all times ; for when they
meet with a prize more than usually rich, they gorge
themselves till they are obliged to spend the night in
the neighbourhood of the discovery : but in general their
resting place is near home.

It is not exactly in those places, however, that the
raven is seen to the greatest advantage, at least most
in accordance with the" character that he usually gets,
His real feasting time is during the trouble and weak'
ness of other creatures, and his table is found in the
wilderness. In the seventy of winter, he is driven to
the neighbourhood of houses, and even cities, where
he prowls in quest of offal, and, not unfrequently, he
resorts to the shores of the sea. Upon cliffy coasts, in-
deed, especially in those isles on the coast of Scotland,
where the snow seldom lies long unless upon the
mountains and in the interior, the shores are the
regular habitations of the ravens, and they are found
there in considerable numbers ; we do not mean num-
bers in flocks, but pairs within short distances of each
other.

From those places, and, indeed, from all those
retreats, when these are in situations where the winter
is severe, the same winds of the spring which tempt the
lark to soar and sing over the furrowed land, draw
forth the raven to the wild ; and let the wind blow
ever so strong, so that it blows but a certain thaw,
the dark bird may be seen buffeting it with lusty
pinions, as if his pleasure were in the strife of the

180 SPRING.

elements. And the dissolving snow, which shows the
green earth to man, shows to the raven an abundance
of food. Notwithstanding the healthful and ferti-
lizing effects of the snow, it fills the earth with car-
casses. Even in the low grounds, the number of
small quadrupeds and birds that die of hunger, of
cold, or of suffocation, is considerable ; and as the
mountains are approached, the numbers augment.
Hares, grous, alpine hares, ptarmigans, all partially
yield to the winter ; there are also a few deer that
perish in the high forests, and a few sheep on the hill
pastures ; and the ravens hasten, along with the carrion
crows, to clear the surface of their remains : occasionally
too, an adventurous shepherd, hunter, or traveller, may
have missed his way upon the hill, or been overtaken
by the dark hurricane of the snow storm ; and benumbed
and unable to proceed, have sunk into that fatal sleep
of cold, from which man never awakens. Fortunately
such occurrences are now rare in this country, and
probably they never were numerous ; but those who
tempt the passes of the Andes in the snowy season,
often leave their flesh to the condor, in consequence of
the " temporales" there ; and there have been instances
at times not very remote, of similar catastrophes upon
the Grampians. The date is a matter of little moment ;
but we were once shown, in a lonely dell of the Mo-
nachleagh, between Athol and Badenoch, a little
cairn of stones, marking the place where the bones of
two brothers had been found, late in the spring, or
early in the summer, deprived of the greater part of
their covering by the crow and the raven, and bleach-
ing in the wilderness ; and the finders were led to the

THE RAVLN. 181

discovery by the sullen note of the raven, as it hopped
sidelong toward the skeletons to tug at the last tendon.
Among these remains of the winter, the ravens find
that abundant supply of exciting food which, along
with the augmenting warmth and fresh air of the
season, stimulates and strengthens them for the great la-
bour that they must undergo, in the preparation of their
nests, and the rearing of their broods. If they did no
more they would be entitled to our thanks, as in that
part of their economy they injure nothing, and consume
substances which, in the situations from which they
remove them, are both useless and offensive. They
perform a sort of double labour of usefulness in
the removal of those substances ; for if these were
left to putrify upon the ground, they would soon be
filled by the eggs, and after that by the young of in-
sects, the numbers of which would thereby be so much
increased, that the air of summer would be intolerable;
and as the generations of those insects increase rapidly
in numbers as the season advances, the whole organic
matter on the face of the earth would be changed to
them, and even they would become extinct. We can
form no idea of the extreme usefulness of those birds
that resemble the raven in their habits, from what we
see in the comparatively cold climate of this country,
in which a few such birds as the raven and the carrion
crow, are adequate to the purpose ; but in those sultry
climes where the progress of putridity is greater, and
where the vulture and other birds, far exceeding our
raven in power and voracity, are prepared by nature
for the purpose, the want of these would soon be se-
verely felt.

1$2 SPRING.

But that great digestive power, and constant vora-
city of appetite, which constitute the chief value of
those birds as scavengers, operate at those times when
there is no such supply as the winter leaves when the
breath of spring has dissolved and dissipated the snow ;
and at those times they become spoilers.

On those gloomy days, when a mass of hail cloud
loads the mountain atmosphere, but which is yet too
unbroken for being precipitated, — when a livid streak of
light along the southern margin of the mountain ho-
rizon, shows that the cold air of the high ground is fast
invading the plain, — when fitful gusts begin to wail
around the stones, and to " sough" (luctus intermittens,
there is not an English name for it) through the withered
grass and the dry rushes, — when the shepherd wraps
him in his blanket, and huddles under the shelter
stone, with his trusty collie crouched and trembling at
his feet, but still with his eye so intent upon his master
that it seems to anticipate a command, — when the
wethers run to the eminence, and turn their heads si-
multaneously with the gust, as if they felt that they
would be buried up were they to remain in the hollow : —
on those gloomy days the raven is gloomily alive ; and
amid the muttered voices of the coming storm, his
•"cdrrcq! citrrcq!" approaches nearer and nearer.
The dog springs to his feet, recovers his energy, and
makes those signs that indicate^ suis prtt. There lags
one of the flock far from the rest, and it is making no
effort to join them. It is sickly, exhausted, or has
stuck in the mire between the hassocky tufts of grass.
Towards that the raven bends his course, by alternate
hop and flight, increasing his note as he comes nearer,

IN THE UPLAND. 133

in order to ascertain whether the creature be really
disabled, and the feast sure. The shepherd looks out
from his retreat the while : the dog gets his order ; off he
scours, ere yet an eye of the sick or bemired sheep has
been transpierced by that bill which the spoiler has
been whetting against the mail of his legs, and exer-
cising, in order that he might therewith clear out the
sockets, and quarry through the sutures of the skull.
As the dog approaches, the raven hops as if he were
going in another direction ; but he wheels, and though
he avoids contact, there is a good deal of manoeuvring.
The shepherd comes, — the sheep, if not past relief, is
relieved, and the disappointed raven rises and flies ofY
to be more successful elsewhere. If he had found the
sheep, or even if he had found an ox, or a mountain
pony, sticking in the mud and unguarded, he would
have delved out its eyes, left it to linger and die in the
greatest agony, and 'returned to the carcass when he
had reduced all the animals that he could to the same
state.

About the same season the hare often falls a sacrifice
as she sits on her form ; and the rabbit as it comes out
of its burrow. The harriers and other birds of prey
that beat about the bushes, often aid the raven in the
capture of hares. When these birds are on the wing,
the hares lie close and are alarmed, and the raven,
whose eye is as acute over a short distance as his sense
of smell is over a long one, hops in, pounces upon one
eye, and repeats it upon the other before the hare has
time to escape. Indeed one poke is often all that is
required, as a well-aimed thrust not only demolishes
the eye, but will penetrate the thin part of the skull

184 SPRING.

behind ; and in the case of leverets and young rabbits,
(and the raven always prefer young or weakly animals
to those that are in vigour and health), one stab upon
any part of the head is mortal. It is the same with
chickens, dab-chicks, and goslings, to which, when he
finds them unguarded, the raven shows no mercy.

At the season when ewes drop their lambs — when
the perfect helplessness of the little creatures, the
piteous tones of their cries, the fond bleatings of the
mothers, and the wonderful powers and flexions in the
voice of nature, by which (and though in a flock
of hundreds, we can trace no difference of sound, or
only have one which we arrive at by philosophizing
backwards from the effect — as we are apt to do in so
many instances) the knowledge of offspring and dam
is reciprocal and perfect, almost from the instant they
are dropped ; — at that season, more especially if the
weather be severe and the flock weakly, the raven is
sure to be there, and if he find the young too far from
the protection of their mothers, or the mothers too
weak or lame for affording them protection, his attack
is certain destruction.

The natural voice, especially that between mother
and young, which is so remarkable in the case of the
ewe and the lamb, and which often defies the power
of human discrimination, is among the most singular
phenomena in the animal kingdom : like all other phe-
nomena which we call instinctive, it ceases with the
necessity, but while it lasts it is a law as certain as
any of those by which even the lasting phenomena of
systems are regulated. As it is anterior to all expe-
rience of example in the human subject, it must be

NATURAL VOICE. 185

anterior to the exercise of what is usually called reason,
and by consequence independent of it. We need not,
therefore, seek for any explanation of it in the other
animals upon a principle of sagacity. Though the ewe
that has just dropped her first lamb may never have seen
a raven or any other offensive creature, or never heard
another ewe call her lamb, the cry is the very same as if
she had the longest experience even in the middle of the
most numerous flock, and had had her former progeny
destroyed by the very same assailer. When, too, the
tender invitation is given, there is no experience needed
on the part of the young one to the perfect understand-
ing of it. The little thing, while it has its legs almost
as thick as its body, and can hardly stand, totters
toward the mother whenever the inviting cry is heard.
And there is something more certain in this first voice
of nature, than in any thing into which reason and
design enter, and as it works with simple machinery,
and with more unerring certainty, we must assign it
the place of the higher power. It is, indeed, the
power to which the whole of animated nature is in sub-
jection, the guardian of the races of living things,
without which they would be destroyed in their helpless
stages. In the satisfying of their hunger many animals
are what we call cruel ; and in some which are at times
doomed to long fasts, we find what we call, in them, a
thirst for blood, (at the same time that we give man
credit for wisdom when he follows the same practice) ;
but in all cases where the young are, for any time,
however short, dependent upon the parent, we mark
nothing but fondness and attachment. When there is
no danger apparent, the lioness fondles her cubs, and

186 SPUING.

the eagle caresses her young; and when there is danger,
creatures which we at other times account the most
stupid and cowardly, show no inconsiderable portion
of wisdom and valour. There is no caprice in the
exercise of this principle, and no deliberation before it
be carried into effect; it is instantaneous as the falling
of the stone when the support is taken from under it ;
and therefore, like that, we must account it a general
law of nature — not something that each creature finds
out by a sort of reflection upon consequences, but a
law and a part of its very being, which is as essential
and necessary to its existence as respiring or the circu-
lation of the fluids, but as independent of any thing
that we may call voluntary upon its part, as these are.
It is in these general laws, controlling all the parti-
cular laws of the individual and the species, that we
most clearly see that nature, amid all its varieties, is
one whole, and must have had its origin from one
cause. Whatever may be the peculiarities of the indi-
vidual, and how much soever it may appear to be op-
posed in some of its habits to others of the system,
there is always some controlling power apparent which
links it to the rest, and shows us that, with them, it is
the offspring of one common parent.

It is worthy of remark that this involuntary, or, as
we may call it, this unformed attachment, is ever the
strongest in those animals of which the broods are the
least numerous ; and that in proportion as it is want-
ing, or cannot be applied, there is an augmentation in
the numbers of the young. The tenderness of the raven,
and the other rapacious birds, is an instance of the
former ; and the fishes, which retire from the places

CARE AND FECUNDITY. 187

where their spawn is hatched long before that be in an
animated state, as well as the insects which deposit
their eggs and perish, and which in some cases, as in
that of the ephemera, appear to take the winged or
perfect state for no other purpose, that we can discover,
than that they may deposit their eggs, are instances
of the latter. The niduses which they select have no-
thing to do with their own modes of life, and when
these are chosen, the young is not an animal, but a
substance that may remain unchanged for months or
even for years, unless it shall be exposed to these ex-
ternal agents, and in those external circumstances, that
are calculated for awaking its vitality. There is, there-
fore, nothing at all in accordance with what we call
knowledge, in the matter. The being that deposits can-
not by possibility do so from experience, for experi-
ence it has none ; and the thing which is deposited is
insensible, and though it were not, cannot know what
are to be its future changes. The fly that, in the autumn,
glues her egg to the place from which a bud is to pro-
ceed, ere yet the bud be visible to the naked eye,
cannot have knowledge that a bud is to be there ; and
yet she places it in that very situation in which, when
the spring has called the being, whatever it may be,
out of the egg, it can best gnaw the blossom, mine
the leaf, roll it into a sheath, or weave two or more
together into a tent. We work with difficulty and
uncertainty, even when we have had experience — when
we know our materials and have laid a plan of what
we are to do ; but in this case, where there is no know-
ledge, there is never the least difficulty or uncertainty.
One curious matter we have often observed : if a cater-

188 SPRING.

pillar, which feeds on the leaves of plants till it attains
its full size, but which then forms its cocoon, and is
changed into a chrysalis, under a dead shelter, as a
projecting stone in the wall or the lintel of a door or
window, be placed upon the ground at different periods
of its age, its conduct will be very different. If it be
in an early stage, it will find its way to a growing
plant, and climb the stem ; but if it be full grown it
will make its way to the wall. The conduct in those
cases is as rational and perfect as if the little animal
had had the experience of a thousand years, and yet
it is clear that experience or knowledge of any sort
can have nothing to do in the matter.

In the vegetable tribes where the present race has
even less to do in the care of the future, the prepara-
tion for that future is still more abundant, so that the
care taken by the general law increases in proportion
as the power of the individual to care for its progeny
diminishes. With the animals which, in the language
of the vulgar, are called perfect, there is but one mode
of production, and the life is, as one would say, local-
ized, and demands the whole system before it can be
called into action. A wound or an injury in one part
is felt through the whole, and if any considerable por-
tion be removed, there is not any power in the animal
by which it can be reproduced. Connected with this,
there is one curious distinction : if a portion, a little
portion, be eroded by mechanical means, or by a mi-
neral or vegetable virus, it is replaced, though a scar
may be left ; but when the erosion is produced by a
diseased action of the system, by an animal virus, such
as that of scrophula or variola, the pit or vacancy is

VEGETABLE LIFE. 189

left. This is also, to a considerable extent, the case
with plants. Wounds will heal over, and when the
edges of the leaf of an evergreen, such as a laurel,
are killed by the frost in winter, they will exfoliate,
and the sound part of the leaf will retain its vitality
and cicatrise at the edges ; but if there is a canker in
the living part of the tree, the place always remains
unsightly, and the canker is apt to spread. A clean
wound in a stone-fruit tree, too, such as a cherry or a
plum, soon heals ; whereas, one that is produced by
natural disease, though much smaller than the other,
will continue to exude gum during the whole of the
warm season.

VEGETABLE LIFE

is indeed one of the most curious subjects in nature,
and as one cannot move a step in the Spring without
meeting with a new display of it, it is then a constant
object of study, and he who does not attend to it must
be dull and incurious in an extreme degree.

One of its most striking qualities is, that it is
always the more energetic, the less space that it oc-
cupies ; and that the diminution of the space over
which it is diffused, is the general means by which it
is preserved from the extremes of temperature. Most
of the herbaceous plants in those tropical regions of
the world, which have burning suns and cloudless
skies for months, die down into their bulbs, to the
very bottom of which the active principle retreats, and
remains in the radical plate protected by the mass of
fleshy matter above it; and the quantity of that matter
is always sufficient to prevent that plate from rising

190 SPRING.

to a temperature, that can decompose the gems or
germs which, when the rain comes, are to send up
the leaves and stem, and project the radical threads
downward into the soil. Our grasses, though the
roots be, in general, fibrous, die down in the same
manner ; and in long continued drought, the common
is not distinguishable from the beaten path. Yet the
principle of life, whatever it may be, is safer then
than when all is green and flourishing. When a
plant of grass is in the vigour of vegetation, it can
with difficulty be transplanted, but when it is all dead
but the root, that root may be transported any where;
and we have only to place it in the proper soil
and water it, in order to have it again in active ve-
getation.

The change in winter, though not quite so rapid, is
more general. The life of the herb betakes itself to
the root, and that of the tree collapses into a space
which, though it in all probability covers every por-
tion, from the most remote filament of the root to the
minutest ramification of the branches, is yet of such
tenuity as that, at the season of perfect rest, it would
not in all probability occupy, in the largest oak in
England, a solid space that would be visible to the
eye, — or even to the microscope. Thus, even in ve-
getable substances, we follow this mysterious principle
of life to the very verge of extension, — at which, to our
perception, both are co-evanescent. Yes, singular as
it is, when we thus follow that wonderful principle
downward towards the bourne of annihilation, so to
speak, we mark no diminution of energy ; for, on the
contrary, it is always the most powerful, both actively

VEGETABLE ACTION. 191

and passively, where it is the most minute. The un-
germinated seed may pass through many vicissitudes
which would kill the plant even in the early stages of
of its development ; and the power with which the
awakened germ can add to its bulk, when young
and small, is much greater than when it approaches
maturity.

In many of these phenomena which we can observe
because they belong to matter, or are such as can be
changed only by a change in that, we find that the
energy increases according to some fixed and definite
law, in proportion as the distance is diminished.- In
the cases of gravitation and light, as it is the section
of the body that is acted upon, and as that section is
a surface, we find that the intensity of the action
varies with the apparent extent of the surface as seen
at the different distances, that is, inversely as the
squares of these. No geometer has yet ventured to
give us a formula for the diminution of vegetable
action as the space over which it is exerted is in-
creased ; or attempted to investigate the laws according
to which the plants have their varied durations, or
their degrees of seasonal change; and yet these are
all matters of the most legitimate philosophy. Why
should we not know to what organization it is that

o

the mushroom lasts for days, the mignionette for
months, the elm for years, and the cedar for ages ?
A grain of mustard seed and a grain of turnip seed
are very like each other, and the plants are so much
allied that if they be sown promiscuously in a
field, in such a manner as to perfect their flowers at
the same time, they will so much affect each other,

192 SPRING.

that the seed of the mustard will lose much of its
pungency ; and if that of the turnip be sown, it will
be found that many of the plants will prove to be
annuals, and not bulb at all. We find as many sin-
gular things in the modes in which the different roots
of themselves propagate the plant. In fleshy roots
that have the collet, or radical plate, at the surface,
such as the turnip and the carrot, there is no part
below that plate that will produce a leaf, or any thing
else than a mere filament of root ; while those that have
the collet on the bottom of the root, such as the onion
and the hyacinth, produce from gems on the collet an
innumerable succession of bulbs. So that in those
plants we have a sort of natural division between the
part that works in the air, and that which works in the
' earth. But though there are many instances in which
that is the case, and where, if this collet be removed,
neither the part above nor the part below it would
continue to live, that is not a general law ; for all
those roots that have proper gems, or eyes, upon them,
— as the potatoe, the dahlia, and most of the tuberous
and jointed roots, produce perfect plants from these,
and in the potatoe, the fleshy part of the tuber is
merely alimentary to the gem, in the same manner as
the cotyledones of seeds. The whole action of the
plant is external of the bulb or part of a bulb planted.
The radicle and the plumule ; the future root and the
future stem both proceed from the gem, are actuated by
it ; and the connexion with the old tuber is merely a sort
of umbilical cord, which shrinks and decays when-
ever the tubers come to maturity. The precise time
at which the old tuber could be removed without

TUBEROUS ROOTS. 193

injury to the plant, has not been ascertained. We
once made some experiments on the subject, but they
were not satisfactory, as in the case of those plants
that were killed by it, we could not say how much of
the injury was done by the actual privation, and how
much by the way in which that was performed. There
is one circumstance worthy of notice, however, and
that is, that the development of the gem brings on
some sort of general action in the old tuber. When
the tuber is in a state of inaction, no wound in it is
mortal to any of the progeny that it could produce, if
it do not divide or otherwise mechanically injure some
of the gems, and that wound remains without any kind
of cicatrix, and merely dries a little by the action of
the air. When, however, the tuber is in the earth, and
the gem has began to act, the wounds skin over, not
with an epidermis like the natural surface, but with a
gummy pellicle which preserves the juices from being
wasted in any other way than by the umbilical cord,
and hinders the damp of the ground from penetrating
the surface. Like most other vegetable substances,
therefore, the tuber of the potatoe is both dead and
alive at the same instant; dead in all parts but the
gems, in which it can only be killed, and alive in them.
Those live parts are not, however, of any specific
magnitude, but are hardly visible ; and yet it is by
means of them, and of them only, that the whole can
be called into action; for if they are removed, the tuber
rots in the ground, without even cicatrizing in the
wounded part. Thus, wherever we seek the principle
of vegetable life, we chase it towards a point : it is
always the less active in the same species and circum-

194 SPRING.

stances, the more that it is diffused from that point ;
though the general law of its diminution, or even the
particular law in any individual case, has not been
so much examined, as that it can be expressed in
numbers.

In the individual too, it seems to diminish with the
lapse of time, as well as with extension in space ; and
the bringing of it within narrower limits in the one of
these cases, is often the means of giving it new vigour.
This is very obvious in the shortening of vines, the
pruning and heading down of fruit trees, topping
beans, pulling off leaves and buds in order to im-
prove flowers, and thinning fruits, to improve the
quality of those that are left. Operations of these
and analogous kinds, are familiar to every gardener ;
and though, as common operations, we do not heed
them, they are among the most philosophical as well
as the most agreeable and useful of human pursuits.
Without them England would never have produced an
apple — or a loaf of bread.

Thus, though the principle of vegetable life always
eludes us when we try to find it in a separate state,
just as gravitation or heat does, we can understand
and modify its action, just as we can the action of
these ; and therefore the practical use to us is the
same as if we could detach the principle, and tell what
it is. At its commencement we trace it to the germ
in the seed, the gem on the root, or the bud ; and in
many of the plants with which we are most familiar,
we find that the germ and the gem will produce entire
plants, which the bud will not do, unless placed in a
particular situation. The very same part of a plant

NATURE OF PLANTS. 195

that would produce leaves and twigs if left in the air,
will throw out roots if put in the earth. This is the
foundation of the art of obtaining ready grown trees
by cuttings and layers. In some instances, as in that
of the willow, it is of no consequence which end of the
cutting is set in the ground; and if both are set they
will often take root, and the buds and branches grow
up at the middle between them. The stem of an ivy also
will throw out roots as long as it is in the shelter of
a wall, although it should not be actually in contact
with it ; but as soon as it rises above the wall, and the
wind acts freely upon all sides of it, not another root
appears upon the bark.

Thus plants, if properly studied, would of themselves
make the spring a busy time for the mind ; and as the
greater part both of our property and our enjoyment
comes from plants, they claim a very large portion of
our attention ; the more so, that we could not have
an animal without them, as these are all supported
directly by plants, or at second hand by other animals
that the plants support. Of the operations that take
place upon that curious confine, where the organic and
the inorganic departments of creation are blended with
each other, we are but imperfectly informed ; and of
the specific food of plants, we know not a great deal
more, but we have reason to conclude that organic
matter, either in the living state or in the dead, is that
which is most generally and readily assimilated both by
animals and by plants. The knowledge of the struc-
ture and functions of plants is one of which we must
know something, otherwise the rest of our knowledge

196 SPRING.

of nature will neither be very extensive nor very
accurate.

And it is a matter well worthy of enquiry, in what
manner a little germ, that is absolutely microscopic, and
in its first state even less than that, and which, when
in a perfectly whole and healthy state, has not a pore in
it that will admit one grain of the finest powder into
which any substance can be reduced by art, should yet
accumulate matter to itself, quite different from all the
matter around it, and repeat itself, in individuals of
the same kind, perhaps a million of times over ; that
one little seed or slip, for instance, brought from the
opposite side of the earth, should now be the pride of
all the gardens of Britain ; or, that millions of people
should now be fed, year after year, by the labours
of a little seed, gleaned probably by accident upon the
mountains of central America.

It is impossible not to wish to know all that we can
about the operation of that which is so prolific and so
beneficial ; the more so that it is an enquiry in which
we cannot take a single step without finding something
that we can turn to advantage. We cannot get the
first link of the chain : the seed is not it, for the rudi-
ment of that is in the parent bud, ere yet the flower or
the leaf be expanded; and the forms of grown plants
are so many that, though the principal and the general
mode of action be the same in them all, it is not easy,
probably not possible, to get one description that will
apply to all the modifications of the process of vegeta-
tion. Annual, biennial, and perennial, are three forms ;
the first applying to the leaves of most plants, the

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS. 197

stems and flowers of many, and the whole of a very
considerable number, — and these last, though called
annuals, do not exist for that length of time, many of
them performing the whole of their functions in a few
weeks ; but we are in the habit of calling all flowers
annuals that die, roots and all, in the ordinary course
of nature, after they have flowered once, and that do
not take more than one revolution of the year from
the time that the seeds germinate. Many of the bulbs
are biennials in respect of the particular bulb, while
they are perennial in the whole plant, by the succes-
sive production of new bulbs, as is the case with lilies ;
others have no reproduction of the bulb, but die
wholly when the seed is ripened, as is the case with
the parsnip and carrot. But though these last exist
through a part of two years, as counted from the
winter solstice, and though the leaves of the first year
die down, in part or in whole, during the winter, they
are only annuals in duration, and in a state of nature
sow their seeds every summer, and die when that is
accomplished. Trees are the most interesting of the
perennial plants, and the general process is, perhaps,
best seen in them, as they exhibit all the stages of it.
A farther variety is produced by some plants that are
continually dying at one part of the root, and repro-
duced at another ; but even in these, the general
process is still the same.

The stem of a plant may always be considered as
made up of three parts, even in its earliest and most
simple state. These are, the pith in the centre, which
in perennials diminishes as the plant gets old, and in
annuals is often absorbed in the course of growing, or

198 SPUING.

after the full height has been attained, and the stem
is left hollow: the second part is the epidermis, by
which the plant is covered to the minutest part, and
which in the living plant is always of such a texture
as to resist the decomposing action of water, in which
some of the internal parts of many plants are in certain
stages of their growth soluble. Were it not for this
property of the epidermis, great part of many vegetables
would be melted by every shower of rain. A consider-
able quantity of silica or flint-earth is contained in the
epidermis, in some of the reeds, the grasses, and
marsh plants, such as the shave-grass (equisetum hye-
male), which is there the hardest of vegetable sub-
stances ; and being finely toothed in the equisetum, it
answers well for polishing either wood or metal. In
many trees the epidermis is destroyed after the parts
within become indurated; and these are then cracked
and champed, and easily scale off.

The particular fuctions which the pith and the
epidermis perform in the living plant, are not very well
known, and in all probability they are only temporary,
—the pith to give stiffness while the rest of the sub-
stance is a pulp, and the epidermis to form a core and
preserve the shape. In long lived plants they cease to
be useful, and often to exist. No pith can be found
in the root out of an old box tree, for instance, and
the epidermis of some trees, as the birch and some
sycamores, peels off every season. Even in young
subjects the pith can be removed without much effect
on the vegetable action.

The third part of the vegetable stem varies with the
age. If it be the production of the year, and early in

STRUCTURE OF PLANTS. 199

the season, it is a fluid, the consistency of which gra-
dually gets more and more firm as the season advances;
but it is a sort of pulp all the time, unless in those
stems that are annual, and in them it ripens into a tube
or boon, which in flax, hemp, nettles, and many other
plants, is covered with a fibrous coat, that is spun
into yarn, after undergoing the requisite dressing.
Even those annual stems are, however, up to a certain
period of their growth, soft and pulpy. The young
shoots of pine, deprived of the incipient leaves, and
the scales formed from the hybernaculum of the bud,
make a tolerable sallad.

This annual production, when in the soft state, gets
the name of cambium , because, whether the stem be
annual or perennial, it undergoes a change. In the
annuals it becomes boon and fibres, boon only, fibres
only, or various textures, according to the nature of
the plant. In trees it always separates into two sub-
stances, wood and bark; the wood toward the pith,
and the wood outward toward the epidermis. The
whole annual quantity and the particular portion that
goes to each of these formations, depends upon the
kind of tree, the circumstances in which it is placed,
and the season ; but the influence of seasons and cir-
cumstances has not been much alluded to, at least
the results have not been so noted, as that one is able
to say which kind of treatment shall produce a maxi-
mum of bark, and what a maximum of wood. But
if the bark does not scale off or exfoliate, there are just
as many concentric layers or rings of wood in the
heart of the tree, and of bark on the surface of it, as
it has grown years. Sometimes it is difficult to trace

200 SPRING.

these in the wood, and at other times it is as difficult
to trace them in the bark. In the pine they are easily
traced in both, and in the lime they are hardly dis-
tinguishable in the wood, while in the bark they can
be separated with the greatest ease.

It is the process, from the soft sap which is found
between the wood and the bark at the first vegetating
of the tree in the spring, to the separation of these two
parts of the substance just before the tree resumes its
repose, with the elongation of the twigs by pith and one
layer of cambium, that also separates into wood and
bark, which is the whole annual increase of the indivi-
dual tree ; and when the tree is all in equally vigorous
health, the action is probably simultaneous in the
whole of it. When a part is partially diseased, as when
the young shoots of a laurel have been nipped by the
winter's frost, it is longer in coming into action ; and
if the injury has been severe enough, the part does not
come into action at all, but shrivels and separates.
This often happens in blotches upon the boles and
branches of fruit trees when they are in a soil that does
not suit them, or have been injured by insects. The
vigour of the plant depends upon the unbroken state
of the surfaces at which this annual action and pro-
duction of cambium takes place. If a complete divi-
sion be made down to the wood on a branch, the
growth of the branch is lessened ; and if the same
operation be made on the bole, no more new layers,
either of bark or of wood, are formed on the portion
below the division. It is not, however, that the
power of making wood resides only in the upper parts
of the tree ; for trees, in the cambium of which germs

GROWTH OF TREES. 201

of buds form at all, throw up suckers from the roots,
not only after the bark has been divided, but after the
tree has been felled, of which we have familiar instances
in those copses that are kept in stools, for bark or
hoops, and also on osier beds.

But there are some trees that have not this property,
though the general distinction is not ascertained.
There are none of the pine tribe that have suckers, or
that produce buds on any other place than the ends
of the twigs. Of those buds, a little bunch is formed
every season, when the elongation of the twigs for that
year ceases. The central one, which is intended to
continue the stem or the branch, is longer and stronger,
but if that be injured or destroyed by any means, the
next largest assumes a central position. If the whole
buds upon the extremity of any twig be destroyed, no
further progress is made at that part of the tree ; and
fresh buds are never formed upon any other part of the
tree than the extremity. We believe it may be con-
sidered as general, that where there is no lateral con-
nection between the different rings, or yearly growths
of the wood,- -none of these anastomoses, or rays, that
that may be traced in many kinds of timber, from the
pith, or centre, all the way to the last formed layer of
wood, there are no new buds produced on the bark.
Timber of this kind is always much more easily split
than that in which there are such connections, and the
operation is always performed with the greatest ease in
the direction of the annual rings. Lath-renders avail
themselves of this property, and cleave their lath, so
that the flat sides are in that direction ; and these are
always much smoother that the narrow edges. If the

202 SPRING.

lateral twigs should be cut off, the new wood over them
heals up, and they totally disappear, so that a pine,
when it gets old, is very unlike the young tree. There
is also a strangulation of the lower branches, by means of
which they are thrown off in a dead state ; for in those
vast forests of nature's planting, to which man never
applied a pruning knife, the bark is often found without
any perforation or irregularity, for a length of forty,
fifty, or sixty feet. We cannot exactly know what
may go on in the internal part of a tree ; but there are
some circumstances that would lead us to suppose that
the wood of a tree has the power of assimilating those
parts of branches that are inclosed in it. We know
that in those trees that are under consideration, the
lengthening takes place only at the extremities ; we
know, also, that the annual additions are longest
about the middle time of the growth, and that they are
short in the infancy and old age of the tree ; but in-
stead of finding the root cut of a pine knotty, we find
that, if it has grown in a close forest, it is without any
knots at all, or any node or enlargement of the pith
that could lead to the supposition that there ever had
been any branch there. In respect of their elongation,
all branched trees are nearly alike, and this would lead
to the supposition that there is an internal power of
absorption in them all, by which the parts of the
branches that are enveloped in the wood are obliterated.
The limits as to size of branch to which this is con-
fined, are very imperfectly known ; and it is doubtful
whether it takes place in branches that are pruned
artificially.

When it was stated that the stems of branched trees

GROWTH OF TREES. 203

do not extend in length excepting at their extremities, it
was not meant that that should apply to the shoots of
the year. All the parts of a plant continue to extend
in length when they are in a state of cambium ; and
when they pass from that state, they either harden and
wither, or are consolidated into wood and bark. The
complete change for the pulpy or viscid cambium (for
it is sometimes the one and sometimes the other) to
solid wood and bark, does not wholly take place in one
season, and generally speaking it is longest in taking
place in the most durable timber. In the young and
unconsolidated state, the wood is alburnum or sapwood,
and in the bark it is liber ; and it does not appear that
the change from alburnum to hearty wood, is so gra-
dual as one would be led to suppose. In the pine, the
oak, the laburnam, and many other trees, alburnum
may be distinctly traced to a separate ring, there being
a greater or smaller number of layers of sapwood ac-
cording to the species of tree and the time it has taken
to grow. There is no doubt that the consolidation of it
is promoted by cold, and by slowness of growth. There
is less sapwood upon the pine that grows on the moun-
tains of Scandinavia, than in that which grows upon
the mountains of Scotland ; and there is less upon the
north side of a pine than the south, if the cold winds
come to it from the north. Indeed when pines are in
too warm a situation, they are altogether little better
than sapwood ; while stunted pines and small gnarled
oaks in cold and exposed situations, are hearty wood
almost to the very bark, and the annual additions are
so small that they cannot be seen without a micro-
scope. In many of the deciduous timber trees, the

204 SPRING.

wood acquires its consistency in the second year, while
six or seven are required for the oak. No definitive
period can be laid down, however, for every tree depends
so much upon the situation and the season. Nor can
we even lay it down in a general law, that warm seasons
and situations augment the quantity of wood, and cold
ones improve its quality, though in native trees the
truth be very general.

When the wood has been completely hardened, its
bulk augments no more ; and it is doubtful whether
there be in it any power by which it can heal, if
wounded. The same holds with bark that has been
completely dead. The liber and alburnum have both
a healing energy in them, though in the latter it be-
comes weaker as the hearty wood is approached. It
once was supposed that the whole vegetable action was
in the liber, and that the sap, after undergoing some pro-
cess in the leaves, formed the new wood in descending ;
and that upon that account, when there was a complete
section made down to the hard wood, as in the case of
lopping off of a large branch, the healing process — the
production of new bark and wood, by which the
wound is in time closed up, — took place chiefly at the
upper edge of the wound. But that is not the case,
as any body that chooses to look at trees that have
been pruned may see. The wound begins to granulate
always at that place where the bark is in the most
sound and vigorous state ; and thus the healing pro-
ceeds fastest sometimes from the top of the wound,
sometimes from the bottom, and sometimes from the
sides, generally indeed from these, and we have never
seen an instance of more rapid progress at 'the upper

SAP IN 'TREES. 205

part of the wound than at the under, without finding a
cause for it in the particular state of the bark, nor have
we seen any thing that we could consider as a down-
ward motion of the sap in summer, or of an upward
one in the spring.

Upon a subject where so many eminent men have
given their opinions, and where these are so much at
variance with each other (except in those instances in
which it is clearly doctor and disciple) we would not
wish to speak decidedly. There is no class of subjects
upon which one can trust so little to experiment as
growing vegetables ; they are so docile in the hand of
man, that one never can find out how much of the re-
sult depends upon the natural functions of the plant,
and how much upon what is done to it by the experi-
menter. Even in the case of an animal, we cannot
try it much without teaching it a little ; and the plant
is, from its being rooted to one place, much more liable
to be acted upon by the treatment that we give it. We
have had repeated cause to notice the fancies that
have been introduced into the natural history of ani-
mals, by reasoning upon the analogy of man, and
when we find the great discrepancy that there is between
the theory and the facts, we are very much inclined to
suspect that there have been a great many fancies in-
troduced into the natural history of vegetables, in con-
sequence of animal analogies. These fancies have pro-
duced false explanations, and, therefore, prevented the
true ones from being sought for.

We have no proof whatever that there is any circu-
lation in a plant, either upward in the spring when

206 SPRING.

it begins to act, or downward again in the summer
when the leaves and flowers are perfect, and the cam-
bium begins to consolidate ; and we have all the ap-
pearances against such a circulation. We are aware
that Dr. Hales found the force with which the sap
flowed from a cut vine, upwards, was equal to thirty-
eight ounces of mercury, or about twenty pounds on
the square inch ; but though that certainly proved
that the sap had a tendency upward to that amount,
it proved no circulation. If the vine had not been
cut, it would have pushed its twigs and tendrils to the
weight of perhaps twenty feet in the course of the
season ; but had it been left to do so, we are not war-
ranted in saying that the sap would have flowed up-
wards at the same rate. The elongation that takes
place by the new shoot, whether that be upwards or
lateral, is not any thing that comes originally from the
root. It is always the development of something that
is already there; there is always a bud, often a cluster
of buds, and there is often a little collet around the base
of the bud, containing a store of gems of buds in an
undeveloped state. We may lay it down as a general
principle, therefore, that that which is developed by
the annual action of the tree, does not come to the
place where it is developed by any circulation, but is
produced just where it is found ; and, though the spe-
cific operations of leaves and roots are not very well
known, and are most likely different in different states
of the weather or the plant, there are no proofs of a
circulation from the one to the other, either upwards or
downwards. If the energy come from the roots, it

GROWTH OF TREES. 207

should produce its effects first upon the lower parts of
the tree : whereas the twig that has the warmest si-
tuation, is always the first to come into action. In a
mulberry tree, upon which we look out while writing,
the leaves upon the upper part of the south-west side,
which is freely exposed to the sun, are nearly ex-
panded, while those upon the lower part of the same
side, which is shaded by another tree, are farther back-
ward. The experiments made upon the birch tree, by
Dr. Walker, in which sap flowed from the lower inci-
sions when the temperature was just above 46°, and
not from the cut points of the twigs, till the thermome-
ter was 1 0° higher, are not proofs of an ascent of the
sap from the roots, and an oscillation of it in the ves-
sels of the tree, according to the temperature, in the
same manner as the fluid oscillates in the tube of a
thermometer. The trunk of a tree may, from various
causes, be warmer than the twigs, and it is always less
injured by the winter; the bark and wood, of which
there is more in the bole of a tree than in the branches,
prevent it from being so much affected by the frost ;
and twigs, without having the powers of vegetation ab-
solutely destroyed, may have the expansion of their
buds very much retarded. Of three evergreens, the
one a common laurel, the other a holly, and the third
an aucuba japonica, which are of the same height and
equally exposed to the weather, the twigs of the top of
the laurel were injured, but not killed, by the cold of
last winter, and those of the others were not touched.
The leaves that were first shed, were those of the in-
jured twigs of the laurel, though the dead edges exfo-
liated before the leaves were dropped, which was a

208 SPRING.

proof that the twigs, though a good deal browned in
the bark, were not dead. When the trees began to
vegetate for the season, the young leaves and shoots
of the aucuba japonica came out first and most vigo-
rously at the top and upper parts of the tree ; those of
the holly came out equally all over ; but, on the
laurel, the young shoots were six inches long upon the
lower parts, before the buds upon the twigs that had
been injured were the size of pin's heads. Upon an-
other laurel of the same age and in the same soil, but
which had not been hurt by the winter, the action of
all the buds was simultaneous. These simple facts
are not consistent with any theory of the ascent of the
spring sap from the roots through the wood ; and as
little have we been able to find any thing but evidences
against the descent by the liber ; and therefore, what-
ever substances the plant may take in from the soil,
from the atmosphere, or from both, there is no proof of
a general circulation. There is a general action of the
tree, and an annual formation of new matter, in elong-
ated shoots, leaves, blossoms, seeds, wood, and roots ;
but the probability is, that all these, and all the parts
and substances that can be produced by a vegetable,
are developments and augmentations of substances that
are already there. It is the same with the parts of an
organic body as with the whole of it, — there must be a
germ ; and though external circumstances may modify
the development of that, much more in the case of a
plant than in that of an animal, they can do nothing
without the germ, and there is always a limit to the
modifications.

One part of the subject is a little perplexing, and

FORMATION OF BUDS. 209

that is the formation of lateral buds in the substance
of the cambium, and that the shoots from those buds
should contain pith, in the same manner as the shoots
produced by the terminal buds upon the twigs, in which
there is a connection with the pith of the former year ;
but as the terminal bud is not at all developed so long
as the year's shoot is in vigorous growth, and makes
its appearance only when that is suspended, there is
no reason why a temporary suspension of the action of
the surfaces of the liber and alburnum should not oc-
casion the development of a bud there, in those trees
which have anastomosing rays that proceed outwards
from the centre. A diminution of the resistance of the
bark will occasion the appearance of a bud upon the
stem of a tree : an accidental wound in the bark of a
pear tree, through the greater part of the cortical
layers, but not through the liber, produced, in the
course of the same season, a tubercle of wood, covered
with epidermis, and rising above the surface of the old
bark : and next year the tubercle put out three or four
buds.

Considering the beauty and the usefulness of trees
and other vegetables, it is, at first sight, rather singular
that so little should be known about their physiology.
One cause is, no doubt, the difficulty of the subject
itself ; and another is the disposition that we have to
localize the principle of life, by accounting some parts
vital and others not. There are great differences of
plants ; but in the active parts they are vital all over,
and admit of much .more division without the loss of
vitality, than even those animals that have the least
T 2

210 SPUING.

resemblance to man. Thus we have far more com-
mand over them, and can turn their energies more to
our wish. We can make them produce leaves, or
wood, or fruit, or seeds, according as we consider these
to be useful or ornamental. We can regulate their
place, and form, and magnitude ; we can so far blend
their colours and qualities ; and it is in their changes
and varieties that we find the grand characteristics of
the year. The songs of the birds, the sportings of the
quadrupeds, and all the other phenomena of animated
nature, have their attractions ; but the vegetable tribes
form the grand kalendar of nature. The green sward
with its spottings of early flowers, the orchard with its
mantle of soft pink and virgin white, the wood, the
coppice, and the hedge, all coming into leaf, — these
are the charms of the spring, — the greenness, the ver-
nality, is the very livery of life, the colour which always
pleases and never fatigues the eye. Among the ani-
mals, too, we meet with what we consider as instances
of cruelty : one race preys upon another, and many are
cannibals ; but we meet with nothing of the kind
among plants. The earth and the air, the rain and
the dew, are all that they require ; and they yield up a
portion of their substance every year for the fertilizing
of the soil, at the same time that they feed the whole
of animated nature, directly, or through the medium of
some other part of itself.

As subjects for study, we have nothing equal to
them. The animals, when in a state of nature, flee at
our approach ; we see them only by snatches, and
therefore have not the means of getting a continuous

INTEREST OF PLANTS. 21 I

history of them. But the plant stands still, and we
can examine it ; can watch it from the moment that it
is a seed, till its energy be exhausted in the production
of millions ; and though the manner in which it per-
forms its functions has hitherto defied our philosophy,
we have still enough to occupy our attention, and ex-
cite our admiration. One of the most valuable proper-
ties of vegetables is their inflammability ; and to man,
in a savage state, they are at once the fuel and the fire ;
furnish him with that which is his peculiar character-
istic, and protect him from the inclemency of the wea-
ther, and the night-attacks of those animals for which,
in. strength and swiftness, he is no match. He collects
a bundle of sticks, rubs one against another till it be
ignited, the whole are soon in a blaze, and the result is
both light and safety. Then the wonderful durability
of some of the species. We read of beams that are
undecayed, though they have been in the service of
man for more than a thousand years ; and the great
chesnut tree at Tamworth, in Staffordshire, is reported
to have stood from the year 800 to the year 1762, and
to have produced perfect fruit in 1759, — a duration,
compared to which, that of any animal is but as a span.
Vegetables have this further advantage, that they are
found every where, and at all seasons; and therefore
those who study them may have constant mental occu-
pation ; nor is there any one capable of observing at
all, that may not, by that study, add something to the
common stock of knowledge. To what an extent that
may be done, can be so far understood when it is
borne in mind that the cultivation of vegetables reaches

212 SPRIKG.

beyond the record even of the ancient nations, and that
the invention is always attributed to the gods ; but yet
while there is this remote antiquity, the field for study
must be more wide and productive than in any other
portion of human knowledge, inasmuch as the study
and culture of plants have received more improvement
in very recent times than any other branch of human
occupation ; and that within the last fifty years, more
has been added to our knowledge of plants than to any
other branch of our knowledge.

There is this farther advantage, that the love of plants
calls us into the fields, leads us to the place where every
one may study ; and then when we have wearied ourselves
with the scene, we can turn to the inhabitants ; when we
have made ourselves masters of all that can be known
about the tree — its history, its age, its uses, we are
still able, nay better prepared, for knowing what are
the living things to which it gives food and shelter ;
and there is not a plant which does not afford this
variety of nutrition ; the flower has its industrious bees,
and its fluttering butterflies ; the bud its canker worm ;
the root its grub ; aphides load the twigs, and pro-
ducing their singular races, race after race, all fe-
males, till the close of the season, absolutely cover the
tender extremities of the twigs, glaze the leaves over
with their honey dew, and by the rapidity of their in-
crease, defy the hosts of spoilers to which they are ex-
posed, and without which, small as they are, they would
destroy the whole vegetation of the year; even the solitary
bush has its bird, and the poor solitary in the remote vil-
lage, finds companionship in nature. One bird that is

THE MAGPIE. 213

in a great measure appropriated to the cottage, and
sometimes endowed with powers of witchcraft and espe-
cially of divination, is —

THE MAGPIE.

Though we need not say that there is no foundation
whatever for those powers of divination and seer-craft,
which the ignorant have, in all ages,, attributed to cer-
tain birds, yet we may rest assured that rational en-
quiry will always find something to gratify it, in those
cases where superstition finds more than nature ; for
though we do not always attend to, or improve them,
the dreams of the uninformed are the beacons that
guide us to philosophy. They are proofs that there is
something which forces itself upon the attention, and
of which the explanation is too abstruse for those who
are yet unable to resist observing the phenomena, and
endeavouring to find out their causes and connexions.

And the magpie is certainly one of the most lively

214 SPRING.

and beautiful of our native birds ; and though the
noise that it makes be anything but song, it is so restless
and playful, that there is hardly an animal that arrests
the attention more early in life. Nesting in the tall
hedge, or in the thick tree near the cottage, it acts as a
watchman, and though it has no great objection to
make prize of a chicken or a duckling itself, its chat-
tering keeps other spoilers at a distance. It is also so
exceedingly wary that it seldom ventures to attack
chickens, unless they are in a very retired or lonely
place. It is a very general and very abundant feeder,
and it frequents only those situations in which it can
be abundantly procured. The feathers of the magpie
are remarkably close and smooth, so that it can endure
any range of climate, and is found in every European
latitude. But it is no bird of the wilderness: the copse,
the cultivated field, all places where there is plenty of
provisions, are the localities selected by the magpie.
In the spring we have often found it hopping about in the
midst of ewes and lambs, probably wishing to find out
if any were so sick or weak that it could murder them,
and certainly having the look and air of a thief. When
it alights in the farm yard its conduct is the same, and
its attention seems equally divided between the getting
of something, and the getting of it unobserved.

It is a very great and successful mouser, and from
what we have seen, we could easily build a theory
about its being able to distinguish between when its
capture is theft, and when it is lawful. There were two
that had for many years built their nest in the fork of
an ash in a farm garden, and they had absolutely made
themselves denizens of the place. They appeared to

MAGPIES. 215

know all the people and all the animals. When any
one passed them, they just hopped out of the way;
they would alight on the green, almost at the nose of
the old mastiff; and when the horses went to water, or
the cows to the paddock, the magpies generally took
their march in the same direction. When the snow lay
deep they came to the farm yard and picked grains
along with the poultry ; and when corn was strewed
down for these, they hopped in for their share. When,
however, the season was so far advanced that there
were broods of chickens, the magpies made their ad-
vances with more caution, but whether from fear of the
brood hens, or what other cause, there is no knowing.
There was one operation from which they were never
absent, and that was when a stack of corn was removed
from the farm yard to the barn in cold weather. The
stacks were built on the ground without any of those
contrivances by which, in more improved husbandry,
vermin are excluded. Thus the stack had often a
whole colony of murine inhabitants, and the removal of
their domicile was a season of general slaughter ; and
though those who combined in this work were at other
times in hostility with each other, they made common
cause against the mice. Men, boys, terriers, and cats,
were all at work ; and when the scramble and squeak-
ing commenced, the magpies, which were never at any
great distance, came hopping to have their share,
without evincing the least fear, or meeting with the
least hostility. These magpies were equally free in
purveying for the softer materials with which they line,
or rather cushion, the nursery part of their nests. We
have seen them perch on the backs of the sheep and

216 SPRING.

cattle, fill their beaks with the loose wool or hair, and
flit off as if nothing had been the matter. What may
be their object in doing it, it is impossible to say, but
they accumulate, as furniture, in their nests, substances
that do not appear to be of any use to them. The
following is an inventory of goods and chattels that we
once saw taken out of a magpie's nest : " a crooked
sixpence of which some village fair one had haply been
despoiled; a tailor's thimble; two metal buttons; a
small plated buckle ; and three or four bits of broken
crockery." The greater part of the corvus tribe are,
however, very much addicted to thieving ; and not the
nest merely, but any hiding place suffices for the con-
cealment of the plunder. Provisions are the principal
things that they collect ; but as these are found out
again and consumed, the quantity hidden does not make
the same appearance as that of other things ; and thus
the natural wish of the bird to have plenty of food has
been confounded with an unnatural propensity to steal
what can be of no service to them. A looking glass
is a matter of great wonder to magpies. We once saw
one placed on the ground where the two in question
were hopping about. One of them came up to it,
stared at it in apparent wonder, hopped off to the
other, and then both returned and spent at least ten
minutes in nodding, chattering, and hopping about the
glass.

Though at a distance the colours of the magpie seem
only black and white, there is great purity in the white,
and a play of colours in the black, which, when seen in
a favourable light, is remarkably brilliant, as while the
bloom upon them is by turns green, blue, or purple,

THE MAGPIE. 217

it still retains the intense depth of the black. The birds
are, however, apt to vary in colour ; and we have met
with them marked with brown or buff; and some with
streaks and patches of white mixed with the black.
The general colour, however, is pure white on the
belly, the under sides of the wings, and the scapulars,
and black on the upper part, the beautiful irridescence
being most conspicuous on the wings and tail, the blue
and green on the former and the purple on the latter,
or rather the latter gives the greater play of colour,
though the former is more easily seen.

The magpie is a small bird, compared with the rook;
it is two inches shorter and fourteen less in the stretch
of the wings; but as the tail of the magpie is much
longer in proportion than that of the rook, the body
of the bird is much shorter. The weight is not half
as much, not more than nine ounces, while the rook
weighs nineteen or twenty. The flight of the magpie
is laborious and short, and its favotirite motion is hop-
ping about, in doing which it seems to derive Consider-
able assistance from its long tail, over which it has
considerable power, and which it keeps constantly in
motion.

In all its habits, indeed, the magpie bears a much
greater resemblance to the crows and ravens than to
the rook. It is much more a plunderer, especially of
nests ; and small birds which build in the same tree
with the rook, are rather shy of the vicinity of the
magpie. It may be found on the hedges, hopping
about, and prying into the bushes for the nests of the
hedge sparrows and linnets ; and it often searches the
thatch for those of sparrows ; but it does that very
u

218 SPRING.

warily. We have not heard of its plundering the nest
of the swallow or the swift.

What may be called the domestic manners of the
magpie are a little peculiar ; and though the birds are
rarely found in more than two at a time, as the pair
retain their attachment for the whole year, they have
occasional meetings, which the country people in some
places call " magpies' weddings/' Those meetings
are of rare occurrence, and as, when they do take
place, they last for some time, and are accompanied
with a great deal of gesticulation and chattering, they
attract the attention of the country people, and are
held as omens of events with which they, of course,
have no connexion. The odd numbers are harbingers
of woe, and the even of weal ; and as there are pretty
equal chances of these, or rather, as the two are most
frequently seen, if the observer will but wait a little,
the prognostic of the magpie rather leans towards being
an indication of gobd. Whether these associations be
or be not weddings, it is an established fact that wi-
dowed magpies find partners sooner than any other
pairing birds ; and we have heard of well authenti-
cated instances in which, when either the male or the
female had been killed in the course of the nest
building, a new one would join in the labour in the
course of a day or two.

No birds of this country are greater adepts in nest
building than the magpies. Many birds build a
cradle, but the magpie constructs a house, nay, almost
a fortification ; for the sticks are so worked and wat-
tled together, that it is difficult to pull them asunder;
and the interior is usually so capacious, that there is

MAGPIE'S NEST. 219

room for the old birds, independently of the mattrass
or cushion that is constructed for the nest. The si-
tuation is chosen where there are strong and at the
same time thick ramifications in the tree, and that
which is most bushy generally gets the preference to
that which is more lofty ; and that is the case,
although the bushy one should be nearest to the
house or the highway. The structure is begun in
February, and the labour continued till the beginning
of April, or even later. Besides the sticks, which are
firmly worked together, the outside is in whole or in
part plastered with mud; a strong dome or roof is
formed on the top, and the entrance is by a small
hole in the side ; so that no bird larger than a magpie
can enter : the birds> when these come, protected by
their fortification, repel any assailant; and if such
should come in their absence, the eggs are placed so
far from the aperture, that they can with difficulty
be reached. The interior of the nest measures at
least twenty inches in every direction, while the place
for the young, which is made of soft grass, and wool,
hair, or feathers, is not above five or six inches across.
One reason for this ample space is no doubt to give
room for the tails of the birds during their incuba-
tion, which the male and the female perform by turns.
If they are left unannoyed, the eggs are as many as
seven or eight, of a dull bluish-green, with brown
spots of different shades. If the nest be injured, a
second, and even a third brood is attempted ; but
the number in each diminishes. If the eggs are
merely removed, they continue in the same nest;

220 SPRING.

but if that be broken, they do not repair it,
though they will carry part of the materials to ano-
ther tree. In such cases they often resort to those
fragments of structures, which are known by the
name of " accidental nests," but which are, in reality,
rather the remains of nests that have been built late
in the preceding season, or of birds that have met with
casualties, or been driven from the neighbourhood.
Most likely they are the nests of other magpies, as
though, at certain times, the birds assemble without
any hostile feelings, they are not fond of near neigh-
bours in nesting time. The incubation lasts for about
two weeks, the young are blind for some days, and
the parents continue their attention to them for a long
time. In winter, magpies do not perch in the same
trees in which they have their nests ; but retire to
the depths of the coppices, where they spend the
night in considerable numbers, dispersing again in the
morning.

The crow tribe give a sort of character to the orni-
thology of Britain, by affording a bird for almost
every kind of scene ; and as they have probably a
greater range in their food than any other tribe of
animals, we find them at all seasons. The solitary
wilds have their carrion crow, with an occasional visit
of the raven ; the tall woods and cultivated fields have
the rook ; and the hedge and solitary tree the magpie.
Woods of less elevation, especially when they are
leafy and contain trees that bear mast or berries, have
the jay; and old towers, steeples, rocks, caves, and
sometimes the chimney stacks of houses, or the bur-

THE JAY. 221

rows of a rabbit-warren, the jackdaw : and as these
are playful and clamorous birds, they give an appear-
ance of life to places which are naturally gloomy.
THE JAY.

The Jay (corvus glandarius), is a handsome bird,
though its form is not quite so graceful as that of the
magpie ; but it generally gets the preference, probably
because it is not so commonly met with. And yet the
jay is far from being a rare bird ; although their ha-
bitation is in thick woods, from which they seldom
come out, even in the winter, when most of their con-
geners approach the habitations of man. It has some-
times been said, that the jay is a provident bird, and
lays up a store for the winter ; but that part of its
economy is not well authenticated. Indeed, less is
known about the jay in a state of nature, than about
several other birds that are not so abundant ; and
though we have very often heard it in the woods,
uttering its own disagreeable call, note, or cry, and
u 2

222 SPHIKG.

imitating the notes of other birds, we have seldom
been able to see the full grown ones, except for a
moment in flitting from one tree to another. We
have, however, noticed one peculiarity of its motions,
when in a part of the wood where the trees were not
very close together. It enters the thick foliage by one
side, ascends up or descends down, under the leaves,
according as its former flight was low or high ; and
always leaves the tree at a different elevation from
that at which it entered, and taking its new flight at an
angle with the old one, so that when one expects to
meet it right forward, it will be to the right or the
left.

The jay, though nearly as long in the body, is a
smaller bird than the magpie, being about fourteen
inches in length, twenty-one in the expansion of the
wings, and less than half a pound in weight. The
beak is very dark in colour, and more curved than
that of any other of the tribe with which it is usually
associated. Though the plumage varies a good deal,
it is generally rich, and the bright hues come more out
than the fine irridescent lustre of the magpie. The
head is white, with longitudinal streaks of black ; and
the feathers on the top are long and loose, and form a
moveable" crest, which the bird can erect or depress at
pleasure. There are black mustachios at the angles of
the gape, which are well defined, and point downwards
to the throat. The nape of the neck, the back, and
the shoulders are brownish red, which has a soft and
very agreeable lustre ; the breast, belly, and rump are
white ; the quills of the wings are dusky grey ; the
smaller wing covers orange, and the greater barred

THE JAY. 223

with blue and black, and remarkably glossy ; the tail
is in general black, but there are some lighter bars
across the feathers ; and the legs are dull red, marked
with orange yellow. Some specimens have been seen
of a cream colour, with the wing covers dull blue, and
others white with the same parts light azure, which,
like many other of the accidental varieties of colour
in birds, have led those who do not watch their habits
carefully, to consider them as different species.

The jay subsists more upon vegetables than most of
the family. Acorns, herbs, mast, the berries of the
service and the mountain ash, and the other small
fruits which are found in the woods being its chief sub-
sistence when they are in season. It also commits con-
siderable depredations among pease ; and eats cherries,
more especially the guigues, or wild black cherries. As
it does not frequent gardens at the time when the
cultivated cherries are in crop, unless they be in the
immediate neighbourhood of a wood, in which it can
shelter. Its young, while in the nest, are chiefly fed
upon worms, insects, and larvse, though it robs the
nests of the weaker birds both of their eggs and young,
and probably carries them to its own.

As the jay builds in more secluded places than the
magpie, its nest does not need the same solid construc-
tion and defences. Its nest is accordingly a very rude
and simple fabric, made of twigs and a little grass,
but without any dome or plastering, or, indeed, any
very soft lining. The eggs are from four to seven in
number, and have a good deal of resemblance to the
eggs of the partridge, being grey, with spots of olive,
but having a slight greenish tinge all over. The very

224 SPRING.

depths of the forests are the situations in which they
are usually found ; and they are particularly fond of
the shelter of ivy and other evergreens. The nesting
time is not so early as that of many birds, as they do
not begin to build till the middle of April. The young
shed the nest feathers about July, after which their
plumage nearly resembles that of the old ones. During
autumn the family continue together, but in the spring
they are found only in pairs. They are not so numerous
in winter, or, at least, they are not so often seen. It
has been said that they retire into the cavities of hollow
trees, and this may sometimes be the case, and pro-
bably they partially migrate. In the eastern countries
they do have a migration southward in the autumn,
and northward in the spring ; and, though they be
not calculated for a very long flight, they may go to
the woods in the warmer parts of this country.

In those woody districts where jays are numerous,
they act as a sort of watchmen or alarmists for the
other feathered tribes. Restless themselves and easily
excited, they set up a loud chattering whenever any-
thing dangerous appears. By this means, the fox,
when stealing forward at his most wary pace, the
wild cat when ready to spring, and the sportsman
when he has brought his gun to his shoulder, are all
often baulked of their prey by the warning note of the
jay, which chatters from its unseen covert, and all the
other birds are, in an instant, as invisible as itself.
Its harsh and unpleasant chatter is thus probably of
more service to the other birds than if it were the most
melodious note in the wood. The jay is remarkable
for the wideness of its gullet, and the consequent size

THE JAY. 225

of the substances that it can swallow ; though in some
cases it is said to be very particular in picking and
dressing its food, holding the seed vessel in its claw,
and picking out the seeds one by one with the greatest
neatness.

It must, however, be allowed that the natural habits
of the jay are not very well known, on account of its
shyness and the short time during which it can be
seen ; and its powers of imitation are so great, that no
certain conclusion can be drawn from its conduct in
confinement. Sounds it repeats with much ease and
accuracy; and tricks that it has been forced to do it
will repeat voluntarily. The readiness with which it
imitates the notes of other birds in its native woods
would lead one to suppose that some purpose in the
economy of its living is thereby answered ; as wild
animals are incapable of that which we call sport,
and in their most apparently idle freaks, are as much
promoting some purpose of their being as when we
deem them the most laborious. The sportive gambols
of the animals have just as much thought and foresight,
or wisdom and policy, as the seeking of their food
early or late, because in the way that we think of
those matters, there is none either in the one or the
other ; and when we find any thing that we would be
inclined to look upon as mere £port, we may rest
assured that that has a cause in the economy of the
animal, and that, if we would take the trouble of
examining, we would be able to find it out.

And in so far as the jay, and those others of our
native birds that are the most ready imitators of the

226 SPRING.

notes of other birds, without any teaching from man,
are concerned, we may trace something like a purpose
answered by the imitation. They are the greatest
plunderers that we have of the nests of other birds,
and as the jay especially builds late, the probability is
that it plunders young rather than eggs ; and that by
imitating the cry of the parent birds, that cry which is
familiar to their young ones, it may make them, by
their answering cry, discover the nest. That it should
in a state of captivity learn to imitate cries, the imita-
tion of which would be of no use to it in its natural
state, is no argument against this native reason for
the possession of it. The different tones and keys in
which the jay can make itself be heard, show that
there must be a peculiarly mobile formation of the
larynx ; and every one is aware that if there is a
capability of producing the requisite number of sounds,
there is a very great range in the modulation of them.
If a bird can utter six different notes, it may be made
to sing seven hundred and twenty songs, even although
all the notes are constantly of the same length, but
as each note may be varied in time and cadence, the
number of songs from the six notes will amount to
many thousands.

It is a remarkable fact, though we have never met
with any satisfactory explanation of it, that all those
birds which are most easily taught to articulate, have
their native airs very disagreeable, and are equally
remarkable for their incessant chattering, and mis-
chievous activity ; and the whole race of them without
exception are pilfering and destructive. The birds that

DARING ADVENTURE. 227

can be instructed only in music are of a different
description, their native notes are in general sweet, and
they have not the mischievous habits of the others.

THE JACKDAW,

Though not in itself a very interesting bird, acquires
a sort of interest from the places that it frequents ;
and the hazard to which boys will sometimes expose
themselves in order to get at its nest. We have had
pointed out to us, in a town of the North, an old man,
who in his youth performed, in jackdaw nesting, one
of the most adventurous feats that we ever heard of,
only it is not to be supposed that in the thoughtlessness
of a boy he was apprehensive of the danger ; and that may
have been, as it often has in similar cases, the means of
his escape. In the very centre of the town there was
a gothic tower, the battlements of which were about
one hundred and fifty feet above the pavement, and
the dentiles under the parapet were favorite nesting-

228 SPRING.

places for jackdaws. The playground for the school-
boys was immediately at the base of the tower, and
the more adventurous had cast many a wistful look
upon the sable and noisy nation above them, as they
busied themselves in their spring labours ; but as the
door was seldom opened, they were, for a long time,
forced to look in vain. At last the boy alluded to
contrived to secrete himself and one of his companions
behind the door, when the keeper of the clock retired
from winding up that monitor ; and, when all was safe,
the two youths mounted the stairs, and were soon upon
the battlement. The parapet was so high that they
could not see over it ; but it was pierced in quatrefoils,
through which one of them could creep, but the nests
were not within arm's length. They wore flat worsted
bonnets, the rim or ring of which is particularly strong.
The young bird-catcher laid hold of the bonnet, the
other side of which was held by his companion from
the inside, and went heels foremost out at the quatre-
foil. There, he hung at arm's length by the bonnet,
reached down with his other arm, and emptied the
nests into his pocket ; and while he hung in this
manner one hundred and fifty feet above the hard
stones, he kept calling to his companion, — " Now,
mind, if you let go the bonnet, I shall not give you
one of the < kaes.' " The threat had its effect : the
fowler and the " kaes " were pulled through the aper-
ture in safety, and both descended the stairs without
any accident ; and the adventurer, who used to take
no small pride in telling the story, was in the habit of
boasting that he had, before he was twelve years* old,
done, for four featherless " daws," more than the

JACKDAW'S HONESTY. 229

boldest man of the place would dare to do for a
kingdom.

The jackdaw is about the same size and weight as
the magpie, but it is a much more active bird upon the
wing, and its voice is more shrill than any of the rest
of the family. It is continually in motion, and making
a noise ; and, in the pairing time, it has some of those
habits of flirtation which have enabled poets to turn the
pigeon to so much account. The general colour of the
jackdaw is black, but the beak and shoulder have a
grey shade, which is more conspicuous in the male
than in the female ; and when the bird is in good
health and condition, the black is irridescent, and shows
various shades of green and purple. The bird is easily
tamed, and susceptible of some teaching, but it is very
apt to pilfer. At country churches, where it frequents
the steeple, a situation to which it is very partial, we
have heard it accused of very profane theft. At those
places, in the north, a collection is made in a salver
outside the door ; and if sixpence or a shilling finds its
way among the copper donations, the jackdaw is ac-
cused of pouncing down and purloining it ; but we
have no proof against it. As little have we observed
any case of another species of theft of which it has
been accused, — that of taking the eggs of other birds.
Indeed, it is so long about its own nesting place in that
season, that it is not in the way of many nests except
those of the sparrow, and we have not seen it annoy
them. It is not, however, very delicate in its feeding,
and often acts the scavenger in those places which it
frequents. Jackdaws have for a long time been inha-
bitants of the upper parts of the walls of Windsor

230 SPRING.

Castle; and we believe that when the repairs which
have added so much to the grandeur of that truly royal
structure were to be begun, his majesty ordered that
provision should be made for a race that had been so
long domesticated in the royal abode ; and the archi-
tect contrived to obey the royal order, and, at the
same time, to improve the effect of the finishing of the
walls, by placing in the cornice a row of grotesque
heads and figures that project a little, and each con-
ceals a hole in which several jackdaws may construct
their nests in perfect security ; at the same time, the
ornaments are the best specimen of the style that has
been executed in modern times ; and, if we are rightly
informed, they were cut by a common workman with-
out any pattern.

It is a peculiarity in the ornithology of Britain, that
there should be, along a considerable part of the west
coast, a bird which, in its habits, resembles the jackdaw,
but is not found in any part of the east coast, or the
interior, though it is found upon the opposite shore of
the continent, all the way from the Pyrenees to the
coast of Norway, at least, at most places where the
shore is bold enough for affording it the accommoda-
tion which it requires. That bird is the Cornish chough,
(Pyrrhocorax graculus), which is a good deal larger
than the jackdaw, has the bill and feet, except the
claws, orange ; is not so gray on the beak, and has
more reflection of purple. These birds are found in
the Western Isles ; and, as they wheel high in the air,
they make a very shrill and dolorous wailing if a boat,
or any object in motion, approaches the caves and cliffs
in which they have their abode. Their principal food

THE BOOK. 231

is insects and seeds ; and though they are found in
this country upon the sea coast only, it does not ap-
pear that they derive much of their subsistence from
the sea.

If, however, we were to give merely a list of the
birds of spring, without saying any thing about their
habits, we should occupy more space than we can
devote to the season. Nor is it very different when
we turn from mere records, where the particulars must
be mentioned in succession and consequently a great
deal of time consumed, to nature herself, where more
than can be dictated in a volume may be seen at one
glance ; and where the enjoyment is tripled or quadru-
pled, as compared with that which can be obtained by
merely reading, however true to nature may be the
words read.

But though that be very humiliating to those who
attempt to write, it is very cheering to those who are in
earnest to study, and proves that not all the care, all
the learning, and all the art that man can employ, can
come into competition with THE book which is written
without mortal pen. When we write of the dawn of
the year, of the new races of birds and of blossoms
that are all around us springing into life, our utmost
efforts can give but one enjoyment to the reader ; but
he who goes out to observe, has pleasure in every way
that it can come, and health along with it. The
beauty of the flowers and their fragrance ; the elegant
forms and varied tints of the birds, their bustling ac-
tivity and sprightly conduct, and the music of their
songs ; the sportive gambols of the young animals, and
the tender solicitude that is shown for them by the old ;

232 SPRING.

all that is, and all that occurs, in the earth, the waters,
and the air, is a constant creation, — a daily, nay, an
hourly springing up of new worlds ; and he who lives
one spring in the open air, may watch the whole
progress of a hundred generations. Nature is then
" voice all over," and whether she speaks to one of
the senses or to them all, she always speaks instruc-
tion.

The buds, the blossoms, and the birds are, however,
the charms of the spring ; and can then be studied
with feelings of greater satisfaction than at any other
time, as the beam and the breeze bring every day an
accession of life to that which is vegetable, and an ad-
dition of food to that which is animal. There is, there-
fore, no straining of poetry, when the epithet, " per-
petual spring," is bestowed upon a region which we
mean to describe as more lovely than other regions,
as every day fulfils a promise, and promises anew.
And when we think on the vast range to which this
power of renovation extends : that Lapland and Ice-
land have their rose and their berry ; and that love
and life answer to the call of the sun in Jan Mayen
and Spitzbergen, we cannot but admire that simple
arrangement of the earth's motions, by which the whole
is brought about; and the perfect adaptation of the
production to the climate and the season. The land
birds of those northern regions, throng southward as
the winter sets in ; and they do so to a much greater
extent upon the continents than upon the islands ; be-
cause, in the latter places, the sea resists the frost, and
food is found upon the shores throughout the winter ;
many of the mosses, too, are in their most juicy and

UNITY OF NATURE. 233

succulent state then, and thus where the ground is
not hid also under deep snow, there is something to be
procured. At that time, too, the labours of all the
animals are restricted to the finding of their own food,
and, as the animal winter is diminished, a smaller
quantity suffices. The insects of those regions also
commit their broods to the waters, or to the buds of
the hardy plants which, by their natural varnish, re-
sist the action of the frost. But deep as they may be
hidden ; far as they may be beneath that glassy surface
which the keen air congeals as a barrier against its own
destroying power, the return of the season finds them
out : the breath of spring passes over them, as the spirit
did over the dry bones in the valley of Vision, and be
the germs ever so minute, ever so much indurated, or
ever so much hidden, they are straightway " clothed
with flesh, and live." Where can we find in man's
working, — where in the deeds of that creation of a dis-
tempered fancy — that production and cloak for human
ignorance — chance, any thing to be compared with
this? Here we have the smallest insect, and most
insignificant vegetable, — that which, as a whole, seems
nothing to the eye, and turns not the scale of the most
delicate balance, and of which the parts, more nume-
rous than arithmetic can reckon, elude the keenest
scrutiny of the microscope, yet linked in one common
system with the sun : dependent upon a globe more
than eight hundred and eighty thousand miles in di-
ameter, and distant nearly one hundred millions of
miles. What fortuitous combination of atoms, — what
succession of events, which had not their beginning
with ONE who, ere then, saw the end, would come
x 2

234 SPRING.

from a distance so vast, find out the egg of a gnat in
a little pool by the Tornea, or the Tana, warm it into
life there, and bid it dance its hour, prepare its brood,
and die ? The agents that combine in the producing
of this effect, are more dissimilar in magnitude than
any of which we have experience, and the distance at
which they are from each other — the hundred millions
of miles — is an extent altogether beyond the limits of
our comprehension ; and yet their joint action is as
certain and unerring, as if their sizes were so adjusted,
and their distance so small, that we could examine
both without moving the eye. Men have often been in
the habit of viewing with admiration those instances in
which they have found there was some imitation of hu-
man art, looking, for example, at the joint formed by
the articulation of one bone with another ; and they
have very sincerely and firmly (though not without a
little of the voluntary leaven of idolatry) exclaimed,
" Mark that ! Here is divine power : a carpenter could
not have done it better !" (!) But if they would forego
their microscopic view, and behold the working of the
living system, their feelings and their faith would rise
far above " the carpenter ;" and they would see, in
those general laws and parts of the system which man
cannot imitate, proofs of a wisdom and a power wholly
different, not in degree merely, but absolutely in kind,
from that which the utmost effort of human skill can,
in the humblest manner, imitate. And even in those
matters in which there is an imitation, (not Nature imi-
tating man, but man imitating Nature), the imitation is
confined to the mere surface; and while the form is
praised, the formation, which is the wonder of the

THE AUTHOR OF NATURE. 235

whole, is unheeded. The great wonder of nature's pro-
ductions is, that they are " made without hands ;"
that, though we see the work, the workman is always
invisible ; and no other operation of nature stands
still, in order that a violet may be perfumed, a tulip
painted, or a lark taught to sing. The works of nature
have all a mysterious connexion, so that the abundance
of one conduces to the abundance of others. If plants
are multiplied, so are animals ; and if animals, so are
plants. It has been observed, that those years, when
vegetation is nearly destroyed by caterpillars, are
usually followed by years in which vegetation is lux-
uriant and those spoilers are few. The early genera-
tions consume that which would have supported the
late ; and thus the over-production is the means of re-
ducing the whole as much below. Thus there is not
only in these creations the means of their own growth
and continuance, but there is also the means of regu-
lating the numbers, so that no one permanently en-
croaches upon the rest.

Thus we cannot look rationally at the subject, with-
out perceiving not only that there has been a Creator,
but that there is a Preserver, — One, in violation of
whose laws not even " a sparrow can fall to the
ground." It is not meant to be said that there is a
continual effort on the part of the Deity ; a sort of
special interference for the preservation of every indi-
vidual being and thing. That would be but the old
error of " making God after man's image," presented
in a new shape : — alleging that he had made the
world in so imperfect a manner as that all the parts of
it stood in need of constant repairs, which would be re-

236 SPRING.

ducing the Almighty within finite limits. We know
not what duration may be in the sight of God ; but all
that we can infer of his nature from creation, and all
that is revealed to us of his attributes in holy writ,
combine to convince us that, whether the work was
individual, or system, or universe, it required no second
effort to make it lasting as Him from whom it eman-
ated ; and that, though those properties of matter, which
we are bound to suppose are most conducive to the in-
tended purposes of the globe, make it necessary that
the sets of individuals should be dissolved, yet the re-
production is so closely connected, that we cannot
find the one without the other. And though, to us,
there seem to be evils and disasters, we cannot, unless
we shall take upon us to say that we know all the pur-
poses in nature, and all the means by which they are
accomplished, pronounce that any, even the most ca-
lamitous event, does not answer some beneficent end.

In thus examining nature, and attempting to reflect
as we proceed, it is impossible to be systematic. We
can examine only one thing at a time, whether that be
object or event, and thus, when we meet in the field
or the forest the single plant or animal that draws our
attention, it makes us forget the rest, until, in the ab-
sence of the things themselves, we think upon the fact
of their connexion with each other, with the scene,
the season, and with creation.

The migratory habits of the birds always give us a
greater share in this country than we have permanently
with us ; and, unless it be for a few weeks at those still
times of the year, the midsummer and the midwinter,
when there is little change in the length of the day or

BIRDS OF PllEY. 237

the temperature, we always have some coming and
others going, as regular visitants, while a side wind
is also now and then bringing an occasional stranger,
to show us that after we have exhausted the knowledge
of all our own, there are stores for us in other lands.
There is one circumstance that in itself would show
that the number of our birds (we speak of land birds)
is at all seasons pretty nearly the same, and that is
that the number of British birds of prey is very much
the same at all seasons. There are two species of
eagles properly so called, which, though they shift
their quarters in the extreme of the season, do not
move far from their nesting places. Including the
osprey and the honey buzzard, we have eight species
of buzzard, only two of which do not remain constantly
in the country ; and of these, the honey buzzard (falco
apivorus) is rather a rare visitant, and seen only in the
south and south-east of the island, where it comes in
the summer, and sometimes herds. Its proper locality
is the eastern parts of Europe and the north of Asia,
where, as is the case with most birds, whether preyers
or prey, it is migratory. The other, the rough-legged
buzzard (falco lagopus) is a very powerful bird. It is
found in the northern countries, and also, as it is said,
in central Africa; but it comes to Britain from the
former countries ; and, therefore, is seen in the winter ;
and then only occasionally. Of the hawks, harriers,
and kites, of which there is a considerable variety, only
two are not stationary. The hobby (falco subbateo)
comes from the south in the spring and departs in
October. While it remains in this country it is very
destructive to field birds, especially to the skylark ;

238 SPRING.

and it is favorable to the numbers of those that it
leaves the country before they congregate in flocks.
The other migratory hawk is the merlin (falco cesalon) ;
but though it shifts its quarters, it is really a native
bird, as it builds in the northern parts of the island,
and winters in the south. The whole of the crow tribe
are also stationary within the island, though some of
them have seasonal migrations from place to place ; but
as they are not generally speaking hawking birds,
though plunderers of nests, the food that they seek is
different from that of the birds of prey ; and insects,
carrion, and offal, are what they follow after in the
winter.

Of those singular thieves of the night, or rather of
the twilight, the owls, eight distinct species have been
met with in different parts of this country. A good
many more have been mentioned, but as the owls,
like some of the other birds of prey, have differently
marked plumage at different ages, some confusion has
been introduced, though it be now tolerably clear that
the number that has been mentioned comprehends the
whole. Of these eight, four are what are called horned
or eared owls, — that is, have a tuft of feathers upon
each side of the head, which they can erect in the
same manner as other birds can erect their crests.
Only one horned owl, the long eared owl (strix otus)
is a permanent inhabitant of Britain ; and it is not
very common, or often found out of its native haunts,
except when driven by the severity of winter to seek
its food nearer the habitation of man. Where it does
frequent, its moan is deep and dismal, lasting the
greater part of the night, and making the woods echo ;'

OWLS. 239

and when it commences its howling it seems as if it
were in great distress. It is not, however, very cha-
racteristically a bird of season, but rather a bird of
scene. The short-eared owl, or hawk owl (strix bra-
chyotus) is more a bird of season; but it is a winter
bird. The scops-eared owl (strix scops) is but a
summer bird in the several parts of Europe, and in
England it is exceedingly rare. Its nest never has
been met with in the island, nor is there any authentic
account of more than a single straggler at a time. The
great horned owl, or eagle owl (strix bubo) is more
frequent, and diffused, but still it is a rare bird. It is
a bird of the open wilds, and probably is wafted to this
country by storms.

The largest and most handsome of the smooth-headed
owls, the snowy owl (strix nycted) is also rare, even
in the north of England, where (we believe) it has been
met with only in winter, but it has been represented as
occasionally breeding in the Orkney islands. It is a
bird of the polar regions, and found in Lapland, Iceland,
and Greenland. We have heard accounts of its pre-
sence in Orkney and Shetland, that we could not very
well question ; but of no satisfactory case of its having
built a nest or hatched a brood even there. It is the
same with the little owl (strix passerina\ which is
a native of warmer climates, and which has been some-
times, though very rarely, met with on the south and
east coast. So that, out of the eight species of owl
that are met with in Britain, only two of the smooth-
headed ones are common. The white, or hissing owl,
and the brown, or hooting owl ; arid these, like the

240 SPRING.

long -eared owl, are characteristic of scenes rather than
of seasons.

It is the smaller birds that mark the seasons with
the greatest distinctness ; and even they are not a
general or a serviceable kalendar. The season of the
year is first indicated by a few mid-day notes, by the
red breast, the wren, and the thrushes ; and that often
happens before the summer strangers come, or the
winter ones retire. In different parts of the country
the strangers arrive at times so different, that the
noting of the days is no guide to the first seeing or
hearing of them. The appearance and first song of
birds, are, like all other seasonal phenomena, part of
the history of the year, and of value retrospectively in
telling what has been, though not of the smallest use
in telling what is to be. So little, indeed, is known of
the true philosophy of the year, that the character of
one month, or in the mountainous regions, the character
of one day, throws very little light upon that of the rest.
And yet there should be nothing in this matter itself
that should render it more difficult and uncertain than
many other matters of which our knowledge is very
accurate. Perhaps the cause may be that, with all
persons, it is still made coo much a matter of pro-
phecy;— that we draw the inference without having
consulted the series of facts that would warrant us in
drawing it. If we were on the surface of a wide plain,
with uniform regions all around us, the matter would
be easy ; but the corn-field, the moor, the forest, and
the mountain, are all so many difficulties to us ; and
even the sea, at the same time that it enriches and

SEASONAL PREDICTIONS. 241

defends us, confounds our knowledge of the weather.
A storm in the Arctic regions, of which we have no
note, may send thence a surface current of cold air,
which, opposing and mingling with the previous one
from the south-west, may drench us in rain, wither our
vegetation with frost, or even cover the earth with snow,
in the most advanced and promising season. Snow
upon the secondary mountains, after they have been
once cleared, may, by the cold that it produces, nip
the buds over an extensive district. Indeed, there is
hardly any thing that does not make, to some extent
at least, an element in the estimate of the weather;
and thus he who would be " weather wise," must know
the contemporaneous state of all places. It is there
that true knowledge lies ; but unfortunately it is not
there that it is most frequently sought. Our informa-
tion may be accurate, but it is all in scraps ; and the
average for a country that is diversified almost to infi-
nitude is taken from a very few places, and very
frequently a few places similarly situated ; whereas to
have a result of any, even the smallest, value, we
should contemporaneously observe the whole, in order
that we might be able to see how the one affects the
other. Those local registers of states and changes
are merely memorial scraps ; — they tell us, " what,"
but they never tell us, " why ;" and there is no prin-
ciple upon which we can combine them, other than the
general progress of the year ; and thus, though meteor-
ology be really the science in which we all have the
deepest interest, because the atmosphere is the substance
most immediately conducive to our health, there is no cer-
tainty in it beyond that which is founded upon astronomy.

242 SPRING.

It is by no means improbable that the chief cause
why there has been more superstition and error on the
subject of the weather than on any other subject, is
the number of illiterate persons that are deeply inte-
rested in it. Those whose object it has been to " un-
ship the rudder" with the great body of the people,
so that they might require to be " taken in tow," have
always made the changes of the atmosphere one of
their grand subjects. These and the^ aspects of the
celestial bodies are, indeed, the two, and they have
been so mixed up with the destinies of human beings,
(matters into which the untaught and unoccupied mind
is most anxious to pry), that science has always found
them much more obstinate than any other species of
folly.

Natural appearances, as has been said, are in them-
selves proofs of what has been, and not of what is to
be ; though man may, by careful and continued ob-
servation, make them such, if he does not, which we
are all but too apt to do, connect the consequent with
the wrong antecedent. This is apt to be the case both
with the thoughtless and the thinking. The thought-
less join in the order of cause and effect those events
that make the deepest impression upon themselves, in
all cases where they are not familiar with the con-
nexion ; and the thinking too often come with some
theory, which as they find, or fancy, is of great use in
what they are acquainted with, they use as a sort of
talisman for opening the unknown. Even those very
superstitions and mistakes are, as has been hinted,
however, double inducements to examine. We should
do it to get rid of the superstition, and we should do it
for a higher reason. The field where neglect produces

SEASONAL PREDICTIONS. 243

the rankest weeds, is always that from which culture
may obtain the most valuable crop. If ignorance or
cunning fix a superstition upon any thing, there must
be something attractive about it, and therefore some
professional naturalist, who had the requisite informa-
tion and leisure, could not render a greater service to
society than by drawing up a " Philosophy of Popular
Superstitions," as connected with the seasons and their
productions, and disentangling the facts from the
fables, which would be at once eradicating the evil,
and eliminating the good.

Take, as a familiar instance, the sun and the moon.
No rational person now ever thinks of inquiring when
the latter luminary is

" In the fittest mood
For cutting corns, or letting blood ;"

and no body supposes that the sign which the sun is
in, that is the particular point of the heavens, or the
cluster of stars which are seen at that point, when, at
another season, the sun is absent and they appear, has
any influence upon man, or any thing else. Yet both
the sun and the moon have an influence upon every
thing connected with the earth, and with the health,
and even the mental state of man, among the rest;
and that influence deserves to be much more carefully
studied than it is, being, in fact, the very foundation
of the philosophy of life. The spring puts one very
forcibly in mind of it. The rapid change of tempera-
ture ; the daily fluctuations, occasioned by the great
difference between the presence of the sun and its
absence ; the equal number of hours into which the

244 SPRING.

light and the darkness divide the day ; the influence of
the gravitation of the sun and moon acting upon the
greatest circumference ; the high tides that are thereby
produced, both in the ocean and the atmosphere ; the
northward currents of these, more especially of the lat-
ter, occasioned by the rapid change of the declination
northward ; the counter motion produced by the in-
creased heat on the bare surface, and even from that
reflected by the snow ; the continual transfer of air
from place to place, as the sun variously affects them ;
the alternate evaporation and condensing of humidity ;
the constant production of carbonic acid by the leaves
of those plants that were bare and actionless during the
winter ; that acid descending through the atmosphere
from lofty trees in invisible showers, running down the
slopes like water, entering the soil, (and probably
nourishing the roots of plants with a substance which
the leaves have separated from the atmosphere) ; the
differences of electric state; and the various causes
of heat and cold that are at work in the mass of the
air itself; — all this increased action must be felt by
all things acted upon, and by the human constitu-
tion as well as every thing else. The budding season,
therefore, though a delightful, is not altogether a
healthy one ; and it may be regarded as injurious to
all that is not in a state of growth. The new produc-
tions of the season, it must be borne in mind, are not
creations, not additions to the quantity of nyxtter that
exists, they are merely new states and forms of it, and
before they can come into existence they require the
destruction and decomposition of something else, — of
the decayed productions of the former year, and all

ARTIFICIAL DIFFICULTIES. 245

those mysterious somethings, which they drink up from
the water and imbibe from the air, but of which we are
unable to detect the existence, until we find that they
have assumed a new form and a new office, and are
parts of a living plant.

The reaction of the new beings which the season
produces occasions additional changes in the atmos-
phere, which, of course, have additional effects upon
the whole of the living world. The wild plants and
wild animals constantly adapt themselves to those
changes, because the law of nature is the law of their
being ; and they do nothing in the way of speculation
or experiment. They care not for to-morrow ; they re-
member not of yesterday ; and it is doubtful whether
they have any method, even in the species which we
are disposed to reckon the most intelligent, of connect-
ing the simplest or the most immediately consecutive
events. And this, instead of making them less in-
teresting, gives them ten-fold value as objects of study
— so much, that one is tempted to believe that the
whole of nature has been formed for the contemplation
of man, and so formed that it never can mislead him.
As the whole of their energies, whether organized or
not, are confined to the particular moment, their con-
duct is always true to the circumstances in which
they are placed ; and there is never any of those
hidden operations of the remembered past or the an-
ticipated future, which so much perplex us in man.
If, indeed, we had, in the case of the plants and the
animals, confined ourselves to their own phenomena,
as has been done by the moderns with the subjects
of physics and chemistry, there is not the smallest

Y2

246 SPRING.

doubt that, ere now, the philosophy of the one would
have been as perfect and satisfactory as that of, the
other ; and pleasing as the others are, and great as are
the benefits they have conferred upon society, even upon
those who are ignorant of the source of those benefits,
there is no doubt — nay, there is an absolute certainty,
that a sound and wholesome philosophy of animal
and vegetable life and economy, would bring more ad-
vantage to the arts, and promote, in a much greater
degree, the happiness of man.

One advantage is very apparent : they are the pro-
ductions of soil, season, and climate ; and, therefore,
they are a complete and perpetual register of the
nature, state, and changes of these. If the daily ap-
pearances of the whole natural productions of a dis-
trict, with all the states of the atmosphere, were con-
tinuously noted down for a sufficient length of time,
simply as they all appeared, and without any fancy or
theory, a foundation would be laid upon which it would
not be difficult to erect a most valuable system of phi-
losophy. The length of time that might be necessary
for that purpose can be determined only by the experi-
ment itself, and, probably, it would not be very easily
determinable : but, in so far as. the action of the celes-
tial bodies, and that is the grand action, is concerned,
probably the period, (between eighteen or nineteen
years,) that the moon requires to return nearly to the
same position, might be found to be also a cycle of
seasonal phenomena, in as far as the influence of the
sun and moon extends ; and if even that element were
ascertained, the difficulty would be narrowed to the
influence of the local causes.

FALSE PHILOSOPHY. 247

As long, however, as we find naturalists, of name
and character, and, in many respects, philosophical
rather than otherwise, attributing to animals something
like a " reasoning upon cause and effect," when they
find a crow lifting a periwinkle up in the air, letting
it fall upon a rock, and descending again to eat the
fish from the broken shell, so long must there be " a
great gulf fixed'7 between living nature and useful phi-
losophy ; because, there are very few of the habits of
animals, or even of plants, that do not display quite as
much " reasoning upon cause and effect." Man
reasons upon cause and effect, but he does not break
the shell of the periwinkle in that way, he lays it
down upon one stone, and gives it a blow with another;
and if the crow reasoned, it is probable she would do
the same, as by lifting up a stone, and letting it fall,
she would save a good deal of labour. By so doing,
she might, indeed, miss the periwinkle ; but that is
the very thing that is done by those who " reason upon
cause and effect;" whereas, the conduct of the animal,
in a state of nature, is never erroneous, simply because
there is no weighing of motives. The duckling that
waddles to the water, even when it has been hatched
by a hen, does not go there from any knowledge that
its webbed feet are well adapted for swimming, or that
there is food more suited for it there than upon the
land.

In every thing, in short, that we can observe or ex-
amine in nature, whether it be organized or not, we
find that all is perfect, — that nothing needs instruction
in order to adapt it for the circumstances in which it is
placed. If it be but a particle of water — if the proper

248 SPRING.

temperature come, it will freeze, and tear rocks and
mountains in pieces, in order that its primary atoms
may assume their proper order ; and yet those primary
atoms are not, to our powers and means of measuring,
extended things at all. When, also, the proper tem-
perature comes, this power of arrangement and crystal-
lization, which, when it acted, was infinite in energy, is
silently destroyed : that which was in winter too
mighty for the resistance of the firmest rock, yields to
the gentle breath of spring, as completely as if it were
gossamer. And if we have those powers and changes
displayed in one of the substances which to us is the
most common and familiar, and not displayed casually
and at long intervals, but every season, and sometimes
every day, we may be prepared for those curious ap-
pearances that we meet with in the animal and the
vegetable kingdoms. The beauty of the whole is, that
the principles — the germs, so to speak, of those phe-
nomena which we know not whether the most to ad-
mire in their succession in time, or in their arrangement
in space — cannot be lost ; for in the animal, and even
in the mineral kingdom, we uniformly find that the
power of endurance and the active force increase, as the
volume in which they are contained diminishes. Atom
cleaves to atom with much more force than mass
cleaves to mass ; and while we can split the tables of
a diamond by the stroke of a hammer, the cohesion
of the primary crystals is so great, that they will grind,
and polish the mass of another diamond ; nay, the
very papillae of the human hand, or the hair or down
of an animal will grind and polish hardened steel. In
every case too, which has been examined (and when

NATURE'S XAW OF FORCE. 249

all examined cases agree there is at least the presump-
tion of a general law), the less developed that any
germ of life is, the greater are its powers of resistance.
The eggs of insects can bear a cold of 20° or 30° below
0 of Fahrenheit, — indeed it has not been satisfactorily
proved, that any temperature that the most powerful
freezing mixture can produce will injure them; and
from analogy we should conclude, that they would be
more easily injured by increase of temperature, as that
is the means by which they are hatched ; yet we know
from but too frequent observation, that the eggs of the
common blow fly, or flesh fly (musca vomitoria), will
bear a heat considerably greater than that of boiling
water. In most we find, too, that the larva is much
more easily destroyed by change of temperature than
the egg, and the perfect animal than the larva. But
the excluded egg is the germ in a considerable state of
forwardness ; and, therefore, the analogy would lead
us to suppose that there is a state of the germ in the
ovary, in which it would be yet more difficult to injure
it than it is when in the egg, and which probably would
resist any means that we could employ for that purpose.
When we examine the active energy, the case is still
the same. An eagle could never bear the continued
and rapid motion that is apparent sport to a gnat ; an
ant will pull along a caterpillar many times its own
weight, through small gravel, pieces of earth, and
grass, which is in comparison as if a man should draw,
not upon wheels and along a road, but against the
whole friction, and through broken mountains and over-
turned forests, a large waggon, or an ordinarily sized
house. The little creature does not seem to be in the

250 SPRING.

least fatigued by this extraordinary effort (to it, it is
not extraordinary, though to us it appears so) ; for
when it meets with a resistance that it cannot easily
overcome, it careers backwards or forwards, as if its
means of rest were more accelerated motion. The
power of insects that are absolutely microscopic is
astonishing, and though the diminished quantity of
matter that they move may in part occasion the dif-
ference, it will not wholly do it. The common frog-
hopper, which during its transformation is contained
in, and protected by, those little masses of froth that
are so common on plants in the early part of summer,
can leap 100 times as far in proportion as man, and its
leaping muscles are a less fraction of its whole volume
than his are. The law is differently modified in dif-
ferent creatures, according to their organization ; but
still it is general that the durability and energy are
inversely as the size, though in what proportion it
would not be easy to see. This, again, is one of those
beautiful arrangements that wre find in the system of
nature. The powers that contend with the variable
weather of the spring are more energetic, and less liable
to injury, than those which, in a more advanced state,
meet the milder air of the summer; and these little
animals, — the impinging of a grain of dust, against
which, when the wind blows, is the same, as to motion
and mass, as if two or three tons of rock were flung at
an elephant, — are so constituted that they are no more
injured by the contact, than a human being is by the
gentle zephyr that scarcely ruffles the leaves of the
aspen.

And here comes a gleam of immortality, — a proof

MINUTE ORGANIZATION. 251

from matter that mind cannot die. Small as are those
germs to which allusion has been made, they are still
material, and they are still organized. They are not
those elementary, indivisible, and invisible atoms, of
which we must suppose that all nature is made up, and
which we must conclude to be indestructible by any
other power than that which called them into being:
they are compound bodies, each probably containing
in its microscopic, nay in its invisible state, many
thousands, or many millions of elementary, atoms.
Were this not the case, the productions of nature would
be fortuitous, and we should have in reality more
monsters than ever poet or herald imagined ; but in
those cases where nature, as we say, sports the most,
(as in vegetables), we always find a limit that cannot
be passed ; a similarity of structure and habits, in all
cases where we can obtain a fertile, or even a living
hybrid. Therefore we must assign to the most minute
and undeveloped germ a peculiar organization, — parts,
and an arrangement of those parts, that admit but of
one species of developement. Nor though we can
blend vine with vine, have we any reason to believe
that we ever possibly can " gather grapes of thorns,
or figs of thistles." However small may be the initial
form compared with the final developement, it is al-
ways true to the species, and, in many instances, to the
variety ; and, therefore, we must conclude that the
series has never been broken,— that a total disintegra-
tion of the elementary arrangement has never taken
place since the creation, — and that those theories
which have been framed, whether by the very learned
or by the very ignorant (and when confined to one

252 SPRING.

subject, these meet upon their confines), about the
production of animalculse, by fermentations and other
chemical operations, and of larger animals again by
the action of those animalculse, are very analagous to
those other theories of the earth that place it upon the
mountain, the mountain upon the cow's horn, the cow
upon the tortoise, and the tortoise upon — they know
not what. The ascending or moving particles of air in
a fluid when in a state of fermentation, have, no doubt,
often been mistaken for living things ; but if chemistry
could make an animalcula, it could also make an
elephant. The inference from the whole operation of
nature, as we may trace it in the vernal season, is, that
the living principle, whether animal or vegetable,
admits of a wonderful range of extension, as well as
variety of developement ; that that v/hich is developed
in the course of nature, whether in the ordinary pro-
gress of the season, or by those artificial means which
experience has taught man that he can apply with
success, is merely the application of circumstances
favourable to its action, to that which had existence
before ; that the more that those rudiments of life, or
life itself in any of its varied forms, is confined in space,
the more vigorous and the more indestructible it is ;
that, therefore, not one of the species could by possi-
bility arise, or have arisen, out of any combination or
operation of the others ; but that all the varied races
in nature, however countless may have been their gene-
rations, are traceable backward from offspring to parent,
until we come to the immediate act of creative power ;
which power, though no observation can find out all
that it has done, and no imagination can picture to

NO EQUIVOCAL GENERATION. 253

itself the manner of its working, is yet as clearly de-
monstrated in the smallest individual as in the countless
multitude of the whole, tt avails nothing against this
simple and satisfactory hypothesis, to point to the
successive developement of parts, and the metamor-
phoses of form and colour, which organized beings
undergo ; because, as we find that the more minute — -
the more lost to observation the germ is, the more
energetic is the life which it contains, if it be placed
in those circumstances that are calculated for calling
that life into action ; so we may infer, that the ex-
istence of the future oak, in its unmatured acorn in
the incipient bud of the autumn, has all the parts of a
perfect oak in principle, and wants only that fecundation,
which is an universal law of animal and vegetable life,
in all cases where the unhatched egg or the ungermi-
nated seed, can exist separately from its parent, and
yet retain its vital energy.

Any other view of the matter than this, involves him
who takes it in endless perplexities, — as supplemental
powers must constantly be invented to bring about the
changes which the being undergoes in the course of its
developed existence ; and before we can get a butterfly
or a moth through all its stages, we must have recourse
to a number of successive agents, each of them invested
with the power of Deity, — of giving a new law of life
and growth to the works of God.

But when we listen to the joint voices of reason
and Holy Writ, and confess that the whole of the
creatures — endowed with all the powers of action
and continuation, and having the range within which
these could operate meted out to them by Him who

254 SPRING.

formed them at the first — are the single and unre-
peated work of one Almighty Being which at once
saw all the situations in which they could be placed,
and adapted their developments and habits to those
situations, with that inimitable accuracy which we
every where observe, all embarrassment vanishes, and
we are left at a loss which most to admire, the
vastness of the power, or the perfect simplicity
of the laws according to which it works. Thus,
when we see how long, and with what uniformity, the
law implanted at the first has operated in the case of
these, which, even in their minutest states, are still
matter, and as such, subject to the general laws of
physics, we are irresistibly led to believe — to be cer-
tain— that a longer duration is the province of mind.
We have seen that matter becomes stable and durable
as we approach the atom ; but the atom is still ma-
terial ; and if, however minute it might be, it had not
all those properties that are common to all matter, no
mass, however large, could have them ; and therefore
when the material bourn is passed, and the being set
free from gravitation and all those affections by which
the changes of place and the arrangement of material
particles are brought about, we can imagine nothing
by which the existence of such a being can be affected,
but the very power that gave it origin. The globe
may change, and as we are not acquainted with any
power that can elevate earthy and metallic substances
from the sea to the mountains, or that can again bring
lakes and rivers to those regions that have become
dry, we may say that such a change is in progress;
and that the combination of matter that forms the

DURATION OF MATTER. 255

earth will have its dissolution as well as every indi-
vidual—even the shortest-lived — of its productions.
That " the elements shall melt with fervent heat ;"
that " the heavens and the earth shall flee away, and
there shall be no place found for them/' are not poet-
ical exaggerations, but perfectly in accordance with
the most sound and the calmest philosophy. The
whole earth — the whole solar system, may, by the
application of a sufficient quantity of heat become
thin, colourless air — air in which not solids or the
atmosphere, but hydrogen gas, and substances ten
thousand fold more rare than that, would sink like
lead. We are of course not acquainted with any
case of the action of heat so great as this; but
whether heat be a substance, or a mere motion, we
have no means of ascertaining what may be the stores
of it, and therefore we are not warranted to say that
as much does not exist as would dissipate the heavens
and the earth — the atmosphere and the globe, till the
nearest atoms should be a thousand miles asunder.
But the mind is safe from any such contingency. It
contains nothing upon which a physical agency can
act, nothing that can be separated or altered in its ar-
rangement by any created force, even though far greater
than that which, to the perception of man, would an-
nihilate the globe ; and therefore we cannot even
imagine its destruction, unless by an effort of the same
Being that called it into existence.

SUMMER.

" Sometimes walking, not unseen,
By hedge row elms and hillocks green,
Right against the eastern gate,
Where the sun begins his state ;
Robed in flames, and amber light,
The clouds in thousand liveries dight ;
While the ploughman, near at hand,
Whistles o'er the furrowed land, j
And the milkmaid singeth blithe,
And. the mower whets his scythe;
And every shepherd tells his tale
Under the hawthorn in the dale.**

"From branch to branch the smaller birds with songs,
Solace the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till even.'*

" Now at the close of this soft summer's day,
Reclined upon the river's flowery side,
I pause to see the sportive fishes play,
And cut with finny oars the sparkling tide.
Silent and still is all creation round ;
The rustic melodies of warblers cease,
A mantling vapour broods along the ground,
And all the elements are hushed to peace."

THE BRITISH NATURALIST.

PART THIRD.

SUMMER.

WASP S NEST.

As in the Spring, we feel the freshness of young

existence, and, while every thing is awakening into life

around us, involuntarily wonder and wish to know

what may be the nature of that singular principle

z2

258 SUMMER.

which, after having lain as still as though it had
been dead for a season, is beginning to mould crea-
tion into so many forms, and elaborate out of
the same common store, and by the agency of the
same stimulating sun, plants and animals in all their
tribes, amounting, probably, in the whole, in Britain
and the surrounding sea, to more than twenty thou-
sand species, and certainly more than twenty thousand
millions of individuals, in the course of one season ; so,
in the Summer, when the catalogue seems full, and the
earth, the air, and the waters are literally alive, —
when, before we have had time to give one object the
slightest attention, another comes in to claim the pre-
ference, we feel disposed to throw ourselves under the
shade, suspend our inquiry, and devote the whole of
our time to admiration.

And the summer is so transcendently rich in being
and in action, that, if it were to come upon one all at
once, it would be almost too much for the mind. It
comes, as we have said, more rapidly in those regions
where the winter holds its dominion for the greater
part of the year ; and those who have noted the con-
duct of the people there, have seen that the breasts of
men are thawed and warmed as well as the fields and
the floods : that the peasantry of Lapland sing in
chorus with the birds ; and that when the Esquimaux
quit their habitations of ice, and their messes of seal's
fat, and betake themselves to the cranberry swamps
and pine forests, even they feel a blitheness and hold
a jubilee. And amid all the arts, the elegancies, the
information, of the most polished and happy artificial
life, there is a feeling of restraint when the summer
comes, a wish to leave those inanimate fabrications of

COMING OF SUMMER. 259

man, which, however curious or costly they may be, the
same energies that are giving life and growth to the
whole rural world, are mouldering and consuming.
That which is a fact with the rest of living nature,
may always be in some manner found as a feeling with
man ; he wishes to hybernate in the cold months, but
to have " free range" when they are gone; but fashion
stifles the voice of nature, and rules that the first day
of partridge shooting should also be the first of the
summer.

In Britain, at least in the southern and more genial
parts of it, the progress towards summer is so gentle,
that it steals upon us before we are aware, and the first
fruit is ripe before the last blossom be gone — the early
cherry before the mulberry be completely in leaf. The
progress, though thus slow, and therefore to many im-
perceptible, is not on that account the less extensive,
or the less worthy of study. It is from the small spi-
culse of -ice which, whether they ride firm and solid
upon the mountain blast, and strike like so many
needles, or dissolving in the warm stratum of air over
the city, form a literal " paste of fog" with the floating
particles of charcoal contained in the smoke, to an
atmosphere of living rainbows that are all in motion
and in music ; from the single chirp of the little wren,
as feeling the influence of an occasional mid-day
glimmer, it hops out of the heap of withered sticks to
hop in again whenever the cloud comes, to that full
chorus of nature which swells, and rings, and reverbe-
rates from field to hedge, from hedge to coppice, from
coppice to forest, from forest to wild, and from wild to
the sea -beaten promontory — where the voice of the

260 SUMMER,

angry waves is lost in that of the ten thousand water
fowl that nestle on the rock ; and from that first effort
of the returning sun which just softens the surface of
the snow, or blackens the southern side of the furrows'
ridge, to the full beam and blaze which drinks a rain-
storm in a day, and sickens or fatigues, by the very
excess of its bounty, those creatures which it has
called into life. This wonderful progress, this produc-
tion of myriads which no man could count, and yet
the most minute or the most common of which has a
beauty of structure, and an adaptation of parts, that
no art of man can imitate, is begun and completed in
the short space of three or four months, without noise or
without effort, but what appear to be the song and
sport of the creatures themselves. We boast of our
manufactories and their productions: of our rocks
flowing in streams of iron and brass ; our aged moun-
tains ground into porcelain ; the sea-weed and the sand
of our shores becoming glass ; our dust and rubbish
being molten into stone, — we boast of these and very
many operations. And, comparing them with the
labours of other men, we may boast of them ; they are
unrivalled under the circumstances, under any circum-
stances : but when we compare these processes and
productions with those of nature, they are really no-
thing in comparison ; and the machine or implement,
to the contriver of which we erect a statue, is a mere
bungle compared with the least and simplest of these.
In the very best machines of art there is always a weak
part, one that is loaded with the rest and wears out
long before them ; but there is nothing of the kind in
nature, for every organ that we find in her productions

PERFECTION OF NATURE. 261

is, when we understand it, the very best for the accom-
plishment of the purpose that it serves: there is nothing
bungling or unskilful, and nothing defective or re-
dundant. Each comes, unseen and unbidden, in the
very form, of the very consistency, and at the very
time that it is wanted ; and when the use of it ceases, it
decays; but even in its decay it is not lost, for the
moment that it has answered its purpose as part of one
production, it is changed and decomposed by a new
power and becomes part of another. Size or shape is
no obstacle, and that which to our art would be a phy-
sical impossibility, hinders not a jot the operations
of nature. Gravitation is nothing, and within those
limits which are found in the average of natural cir-
cumstances, heat is nothing. If it be necessary that
a plant should grow upwards, or that an animal should
run with its back downwards, there is instantly an ap-
paratus by which that is accomplished. It is the same
with regard to the media in which they exist. One
walks on the surface of the earth and browzes the
herbage under it ; and where that is the case we find
the neck, head, and mouth the way best constructed
for answering these purposes. Another roams in places
where there is no vegetation upon the ground, and in
it we find as perfect an adaptation for finding its food
above it. A third courses its prey along the earth,
and we find it endowed with all the apparatus of rapid
and prolonged motion. A fourth feeds upon creatures
that can escape from it, either by flying into the air or
creeping into holes in the earth, and it is so con-
structed that it can steal softly onward till it be near
its prey, and then spring upon it with so much force

262 SUMMER.

as to cripple it by the blow. It would be easy to con-
tinue this enumeration through many volumes, for
there is not a situation or a purpose that the most
fertile or the most fantastic imagination can picture,
that has not an adaptation or an instrument in nature ;
and all art is merely imitation, and very clumsy imi-
tation, of that which nature effects as an effortless and
natural consequence of the previous states of those
substances upon or among which the phenomena take
place.

We go to museums and bazaars, and we wonder at
their contents ; and that man should be so formed as
to understand and construct those things, is the grand
marvel, the glory of natural history ; but the blade of
grass on which we tread, the worm on which we tram-
ple, or the little fly that annoys us with its buzzing
sound and its tickling proboscis, is infinitely more cu-
rious, far more fraught with information, than all the
museums of art that ever were collected. Creation is
a self-operating, a self-constructing, and, in so far as
man is concerned, a self-contemplating museum. Other
museums, however numerous, and ingenious, and rare
may be the subjects collected, have no mutual rela-
tion,— the one contributes in no degree to the
other ; but in the museum of nature, though the parts
be innumerable, the machine is but one, and, contain-
ing or contained, there is such a mutual relation and
dependence that, if one is destroyed, others must pe-
rish along with it ; and, if a new one appears, it comes
not alone. Depress but a mountain for a few yards,
and you lose some Alpine plant, possibly too small for
the microscope; turn but the course of a river, and

THE MUSEUM. 263

many nations perish in the dried channel ; empty even
a small lake, and more life is lost than in the wars of
a Gengis Khan, or a Napoleon ; root out a tree, and
you destroy myriads ; pull but a leaf, and there may be
on it the germs of ten thousand lives, all of which
would be active and on the wing before the season
were over ; touch but a bit of rotten wood or a heap of
dust, and the chance is that you disturb the habitation
of something that is alive. On the other hand, form a
pond of the most limpid water, and one annual visit of
the sun will stock it with aquatic plants and aquatic
animals ; sow but an unwonted plant and you will find
it taken possession of by an unwonted inhabitant.

Thus the grand principle to which all the glories of
the summer are owing, literally, and in its material
substance, " walketh in darkness." And how can it
be otherwise ? Those glories that are around us in all
the luxuriance of the summer beauty, are the museum
of " the living God :" extended and free as that benefi-
cence with which he breathed into man the breath of
life — of contemplation, and reflection, and sent him into
the midst of this mighty and marvellous creation, to
learn to wonder and to worship.

And who, to whom thought is given, would so con-
temn his Maker, or so injure himself, as to be amid all
this, and yet let the summer sun go down upon him in
a state of ignorance ! aye, who would not spring to it
at the grey dawn of the summer morning, while the
grass on the hedge is all in gems, and the mountain is
veiled in its fleecy mantle ! Who would not hasten to
witness an awakening world, to see all nature coming
forth from her slumber, and joying to meet the vicegerent

264 SUMMER.

of her Maker ! And just at that time — just in the wane
of that momentary repose which, in a northern country,
one cannot call night — you may witness some crea-
tures upon which the sun never shines, some tiny flies
coming out of their pupar cases, which are all destined
to die before the sun, which is now dissolving the as-
cending clouds over you, appears in the horizon. By
the pool or the brook, too, you will find the gnat, hav-
ing forgotten her song with which she wearied the night,
and her thirst for blood, which is probably given to her
as a stimulant for the last and grand effort of her life,
perched on a floating straw, or leaf, or a bit of duck-
weed, and playing the boat builder with untaught and
therefore inimitable skill, and a perseverance even to
the death. That little colony which she commits to
the waters, and which is a true life boat, as it is full of
life, and yet will neither sink nor be wetted, is at once
her legacy and her monument ; and when it is com-
pleted, she merely flutters through the air for a few
feet, drops lifeless upon the water, and unites with that
mass of matter out of which germs are to elaborate
their coming forms. It is a singular fact in the natural
history of insects, and it seems so common to them all,
and so restricted to them and those plants that we call
annual, that one sexual appulse and one reproduction
should be the whole purpose of their lives ; and that if
this be prevented, their lives may be prolonged indefi-
nitely, and greatly beyond the natural period. So
that, in the most trifling things, we see that it is an
emanation of Almighty power by which creation works ;
and that, for the accomplishment of her end, she can,
in that which, as a whole, is but as a grain of dust,

THE PLOVER. 265

contend with time as determinedly as if it were of giant
lineaments.

There is no time, however, to spare for the minutiae
of nature, interesting and wonderful though they be : the
charm of a summer's morning is in the upland, and the
extensive view ; and they who have never beheld the
rising sun from a mountain top, know not how fair the
world is. Early though it be, there is a sentinel upon
the heath ; a shrill whistle comes sharp and clear upon
the morning breeze, which makes all the echoes of the
west answer. But be not alarmed, there is no danger :
no Guerilla, not even a solitary robber, upon the Bri-
tish uplands ; and the eagle and the raven are yet in
the rocks, and reynard just leaving his earth in the
coppice below. That whistle is his reveillie, to warn
those birds that nestle among the grass in the heath,
that the enemy is coming abroad. It is the note of

THE PLOVER.

[WINTER PLUMAGE.]
2 A

266 SUMMER.

The Green Plover (charadrinispluvialis) is, perhaps,
the bird most frequently met with in those upland situ-
ations that are intermediate between mountain and
marsh ; and the name pluvialis is given to this one, and
is, indeed, made the generic name of the whole race,
from a fancy that the bird takes pleasure in rain, and
therefore sports and whistles while that is falling. That
plovers love the rain for its own sake, cannot be true,
because though their plumage is not very easily ruffled
by it, still it must annoy them a little, and therefore
they can like it only for what it brings. And it brings
them abundance : earthworms come out ; the rain
drives insects and larvse from their hiding places in the
earth, and washes others from the heath and grass ;
and, as these are the food of the plover, it naturally is
most active when that is most abundant. The cry
which it utters in the morning is a call to arouse its
mate or its neighbours, because the morning is the
period at which it can best feed in dry weather ; and,
unless during the period of incubation, it is always a
social bird, — social with its mate, — with its young, when
these are hatched, and in flocks, as soon as the brood
take to the wing.

Though a very common bird, the plover is by no
means destitute of beauty and interest. It is nearly a
foot long, and about two feet in the extent of the
wings ; and though its motions are not so rapid as
those of the lapwing, it flies well, and runs to admi-
r^ation. In summer, the prevailing colour in the upper
part of the bird is black, with a trace of dull green re-
flection, and mottled with greenish yellow spots toward
the margin. The breast is at that time of the same

THE DOTTREL. 267

colour, and the front, belly, and neck, white. The
female has the colours less bright than the male, and
even on him the black and green fade so much in the
winter, that he is called the green plover in one part of
the country, and the grey in another. The plover's nest is
a very simple structure — two or three stalks of withered
grass or rushes, laid on a bare place of small extent,
and where the herbage partially conceals the dam, and
the eggs when she is absent, but still low enough for
her to see danger across it the moment that the male,
which always watches when she sleeps, sounds his
tocsin whistle. The eggs are generally four, of a pale
olive colour, mottled with dark olive brown spots, and
remarkable for the different thickness of the ends.
They form a beautiful quatrefoil when lying in the
nest, and we never came upon a nest containing eggs
in which the points of the four were not towards the
centre nearly in contact, the axis of each pair in a
straight line, and those of the two at right angles to
each other.

The manoeuvres of the old birds render it by no
means so easy a matter as one would suppose from its
situation in the open heath, to get a sight of a plover's
nest ; and of one species of plover, the dottrel (cha-
radrius morinellus,) of which great numbers must
breed in the Scottish mountains, as they flock thither
during the greater part of April, and return during the
greater part of August, has seldom if ever been met
with. One shepherd, indeed, told us of a nest that he
had seen on the mount, or month — that part of the Gram-
pians where the water " sheds" between the sources of
the Esks and the southern branches of the Dee, which

268 SUMMER.

we conjectured must have been that of the dottrel ; as,
though the colours of birds do not always correspond
accurately in tint with those of their eggs, there is a
trace of general resemblance. Those eggs were repre-
sented as being of the same number, size, and arrange-
ment, as those of the green plover, only pale in the
colour, and with less green, both in the ground and in
the markings. The shepherd marked the place, as
shepherds usually do, by a few stones at a little dis-
tance; but, when he returned, the eggs were gone,
whether hatched and off, or destroyed by some bird of
prey, of course he could not tell.

It is rather singular, that the eggs of a bird that is
so abundant as the dottrel, should not have been met
with ; and also, that the young should not have been
seen, as we have no doubt that they breed in this
country ; though, on the continent, where they per-
form annual migrations, in flocks, not by mere flights,
but taking time to feed as they proceed both north-
wards and southwards, they take their summer pas-
sage to the extreme north. In the northern parts of
England, they are said to appear in April, and continue
coming till June ; and as they then find abundance of
food, they are in high condition. Indeed, " as fat as
a dottrel," is a common saying in some parts of the
country. Those that arrive so late as June— if they do
arrive so late and the common plovers have not been
mistaken for them — cannot proceed farther north than
this island, for the purposes of nidification. It is by
no means improbable that they may breed in some
remote places of the downs, and that as their colour
still more nearly resembles the earth than that of the

THE DOTTREL. 269

green plover, they may be unobserved, as in dry
weather, (and observers of nature are not upon the
open downs and heaths in rain so much as they should
be), their time of feeding is in the morning and evening
When we had the best opportunities of observing
them, none came before April, or after May ; they
alighted on the marshy heaths, and their flight was
toward the north, not in single birds or pairs, but in
flocks. They began their march southward in August,
at which time the flocks were more numerous than in
the spring: part of them, and those that, generally
speaking, arrived the last, had the crown of a reddish
brown instead of black, and were smaller, which leaves
little doubt that they were young birds ; as that is the
character of plovers, which the dottrels very much re-
semble. They are not quite so large as the plover,
perhaps an inch and a half shorter, and three inches
narrower in the wings, and about three-fourths of the
weight.

One cause of the alleged ignorance that naturalists
are in, with regard to the nests and young of this
plover, may arise from confounding them with those of
the other species. The nests of these are found only
by accident, and we were never able to meet with one
when in search of it. The whistle of the male bird is
given at a considerable distance from the nest; that
attracts the attention for a moment, and to one who is
not familiar with the manners of the bird, it finds occu-
pation for a considerable time. It zigzags and flutters,
now here, now there ; at one time it limps as if lame
of a leg ; and at another, it droops a wing, as if that
were broken. That is all trick and pretence; but still
2 A 2

270 SUMMER.

the hope of capturing the bird alive is very apt to
tempt one to go after it. Even if the male do not
succeed, the female has time to run from the nest, and
she practices exactly the same manreuvres. We have
seen dottrels, in pairs, playing nearly the same tricks,
and we always believed their nest was near.

The nest is quitted almost the instant that the young
are out of the shell ; for, though they be some time in
acquiring their plumage of flight, they run ; and in the
green plover, (and, we presume, in the dottrel also,)
the old birds do not feed the young, but lead them to
those places where they can feed themselves. The
feeding of both old and young is mostly done in the
mornings and evenings, and the young repose in the
heat of the day, by cowering down in places where they
are not easily seen, while the parents take, after the
manner that has been noticed, the attention of any
enemy that comes after they have left the nest. It is
probable that the young of the two species, which are
seen only by snatches, are so like each other that the
whole of the brood are given to the one that is best
known ; and as they grow fast, and have left the up-
lands before the sportsmen go there, there are not
many who attend to their habits.

The green plovers migrate as well as the dottrel,
only it is doubtful whether any of them leave the
island. Their food seems to be limited to soft worms
and larvse; and, therefore, they always move to places
where these may be obtained. Accordingly, the
country people speak about plover storms, and dottrel
storms, as well as about lapwing storms. There is no
doubt that they are more likely to rest in their migra-
tions, and, therefore, to be more seen when the ground

ANOTHER NOTE. 271

is soft with rain, than when it is not ; and the first fall
of snow drives the plovers from the uplands ; neither
do they return till the snow be melted in the spring.
A few of them frequent the shores every winter, and
when the weather is severe, they appear there in great
numbers.

There are few birds of which the ignonegenes are
more perplexing than the plover, — it is in fact almost
the British cameleon. One sees it in one light, and
it is "green;" a second takes a greater fancy to the
yellow spots, and it is " golden ;" a third comes upon
it in the winter; the green and the gold have both faded,
and lo it is "grey." We wonder why somebody did
not take a fancy to the breast of the male in summer,
and call it " black"!

As you proceed onward to the mountain, if you be
early enough, it is by no means improbable that the
whistle of the plover will procure you a salutation in
another key, — if you have to pass, as is very common in
such places, a pool of water which has been partially
dried up by the summer, and is surrounded by a morass,
or even by a marginal fence of tall grass, rushes, reeds,
and equisetums. The evening is no doubt the best
time for getting that salutation, for then it is a volun-
tary, and the late part of the spring is preferable to
the summer ; but in the grey dawn of a summer morn-
ing, as you pass the kind of place that has been alluded
to, you are very apt to be startled at " bhu-hu-hu-hu-
hn /" repeated again and again, and every time louder
than another, till you would be apt to think that the
whole wilderness is laughing at you ; and which, as
you find out at the last, proceeds from a bird that is

272 SUMMER.

wheeling toward the zenith in constantly extending
circles, as if it were carried up by a whirlwind. That
bird is

THE BITTERN.

The bittern (ardea stellaris), is, by long proscription,
the bird of desolation. In the sublime but terrible
curse which the prophet denounces in the name of
God, against Babylon, the bittern is one of the symbols
of utter ruin, " I will make it a possession for the
bittern, and pools of water ; and I will sweep it with
the broom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts."
This is one among many proofs that the authors of that
volume were by no means ignorant of natural history,
although the time when those words were spoken has
gone by more than five and twenty hundred years.
Fortunately for us, in Britain, we have had no recent

THE BITTERN. 273

instance of our country becoming" a possession for the
bittern, and pools of water," though we have a proof
as convincing of the truth of that character which
Isaiah gives the bird, in the converse of his position.
In many parts of England the cry of the bittern is not
heard for centuries ; and though it be found in some of
the more extended and lonely marshes, it is a rare bird.
In those parts of Scotland which lie upon the verge of
the mountains, or rather among the miry pools and
low heathers, that are usually found upon the second-
ary ridges, it is more frequently met with, though it be
not a very common inhabitant even there. What may
be the case with regard to Ireland we know not : a
fauna and flora of that island are sorely wanted ; and
it is almost a shame that we have them not. Half the
labour that has been wasted upon idle things respecting
Ireland might have done both, and — though not in the
same hands — certainly done them well.

The bittern flits before cultivation ; and, where it is
met with, it never approaches the habitation of man,
though in situations near its habitation it resorts in the
night, or early in the morning, to feed by the pools and
streams among the distant fields. It is not very easily
seen on those occasions ; indeed, it is not very easily
seen any where. During the day it rises very reluct-
antly ; and when it is in the air, the twilight has closed
a good deal, and it even soars beyond the limits of
vision. If it be in the neighbourhood, however, it lets
itself be heard, and, like the corn-crake, there are very
many persons quite familiar with its voice that have no
idea what the bird is like. The bittern is a much
shorter and narrower bird than its congener, the heron,
but the body is larger in proportion to the whole extent.

274 SUMMER.

When full grown it measures about two feet and a half
in length, and nearly four feet in the stretch of the
wings. The general colour of the bittern is not very
unlike that of the heron, only it is yellower, and more
marked. The cheeks and crown are black, with the
lower mandible, the margin of the upper, and a circle
round the eyes of greenish yellow ; the principal colour
of the body is a yellowish red or brown, spotted and
barred with black, and the lines of that colour upon
the quills and greater covers of the wings are regular ;
the feathers upon the neck and breasts in the male are
very long and large, those upon the female are shorter,
and that bird is not so large as the other. Withered
grass and rushes, with the dark spikes of the equisetums,
which are very frequently mixed together in the places
where the bittern nestles or takes up its abode for the
day, are by no means unlike the colour of the bird, so
that it is naturally concealed. The nest is made of
rushes and the leaves of reeds, and placed in a tuft or
hassock of the mire, or in an alder, or any other aquatic
bush ; but it is never raised far above the surface, or
at any considerable distance from the water. Both
parents are understood to assist in the construction of
the nest, and the male to assist the female in procuring
food, and also in her incubation ; but the bird is so
retired, and sits so close, that its domestic habits are
not accurately known. The eggs are generally five,
considerably smaller than those of the heron, and
having the same difference of shade as the bird. They
are yellowish olive green, while those of the heron are
more inclined to blue. The incubation lasts for about
five and twenty days ; and the young, when they come
out of the shell, are lean and scraggy, and almost

THE BITTERN. 275

entirely destitute of covering. They remain about
three weeks in the nest, during which time the parents
feed them with much assiduity. The length of time
that they remain there forms a great contrast with the
little plovers, which scamper about and feed themselves
almost the instant that they are out of the shell.

It is a general law of nature that that which is to be
subjected to the greatest labour in after life, always
receives the greatest nursing. The prey of the
plover is obtained without much more exertion than
going to the place where it is ; but the bittern has to
catch fish and frogs, and water lizards, all of which
require a good deal of effort, and could not be obtained
by a very young bird. There is, however, none of the
grace and elegance which characterize the fishing of
the heron in that of the bittern ; its captures are made
by stealth, either in the dark, or under cover of the
reeds and rushes.

Except to reptiles, snails, slugs, little fishes, and
probably leeches, the bittern is an unoffending bird ;
and does not attack even a water mouse. Indeed, its
possession is not very well adapted for those small
quadrupeds that would have no objection to divide the
prey with the bittern, as it is too soft for burrowing.
Neither is the bird in great danger from enemies. The
eagles do not beat marshes ; the day hawks which kill
on the wing, do not often meet with the bittern, as it
is generally at rest during the day ; and the moor buz-
zards, though they do beat such places, are not fond
of pouncing on the bittern unless they can do it in the
rear ; and as the bird sits with its head about as high
as the reeds in which it is concealed, and scans the
whole horizon with the vigilance of a sentinel, it is not

276 SUMMER.

easily taken by surprize. It cannot " strike out" to the
same length as the heron ; but its bill is very sharp and
powerful, and to rush upon it would terminate the
plunderings of a strong bird. It is " charge bayonets/'
the instant that a buzzard appears, and that bird, after
making a circuit or two by way of reconnoissance,
generally flies off. The bittern can strike out a little ;
and even a wounded one will " let drive" at the
nose of a dog or the legs of a fowler; and if the
former be not all the more staunch, one blow will
send him to the right about yelping. When " in-
vested " the bittern throws itself on its back, and
wheels round and round, fighting with bill and claws
with the utmost determination. So that, notwith-
standing its harsh note, and its dislike of the society of
man, there are some estimable points about the bittern.
It lives apart, the monarch of the quagmire, and inter-
feres with nothing upon which man sets a value. It
never robs a fishpond ; and we never found it on the
margin of a stream large enough for fishing. Its
hoarse cry too, and the rather softer moans which it
utters in the pairing time, sounds far from dis-
agreeable in concert with the cry of the grouse and
the other voices of the summer night. It is not
ascertained whether its softer cry is ever uttered from
the ground by the male ; but the female has a
sort of husky murmur in that situation, which is
not audible at any great distance. As for its "shaking
the quagmire," either by contact or by the concussion
of the air, that of course is merely a poetical expres-
sion. When its cry is at the loudest, it is probably
three or four hundred feet (perhaps twice as much)
above the surface ; and the discharge of a cannon

SCOTT AND BURNS. 277

there, would have very little effect upon the quagmire.
The observer, too, would need to be on the quagmire,
before he could know whether it were shaking or not ;
and thus he would have a great chance of shaking it
himself. As for the bittern thrusting its bill into the
earth, and jerking up its feet in the air, while it booms,
or for any other purpose, at any other time, — it keeps the
bill ready for any difficult uses. In the case of jarring
and shaking sounds, like that of the bittern, we are very
apt to mislead ourselves. Our ears are shaken by the
pulsations of the sound ; and when the nervous system is
shaken by one of the senses, we are very apt to shake
ourselves, and transfer the shaking to other things by
imagination. We have often been amused at this in
witnessing a man looking intently on a mower at work,
and unconsciously swinging and keeping time, just as
if he also had a scythe in his hand.

Scott and Burns are and were " men of the fields,"
and we are not to suppose that either of them, with
the eyes that they had, both physical and intellectual,
for scene, for subject, and character, could have taken
at second hand, from any holder forth upon dead
specimens, or any shutter up of nature within the four
walls of an aviary, any part of the description of a
bird, with which they must have been as familiar as
man can be in its native wilds ; and yet Scott, in
the delightful song with which Ellen Douglas serenades
the disguised monarch, has these lines : —

" But the lark's shrill fife shall come,

At the day -break from the fallow,
And the bittern sound his drum,

Booming from the sedgy shallow.'*
2 B

278 SUMMER.

Burns, again, in a less lively, but more accurately
grouped picture of rural sounds, has these lines, which
absolutely transport to the scene any one — who has
been there before and occupied as he ought to be : —

" The howlet screamed frae the castle wa',

The bittern frae the bogie,
The tod replied upon the hill :

I trembled for my hogie."

And of course the " from," in the case of the bittern,
no more meant that that bird, or any part of it, was in
the bog or quagmire, than the " from" in the other,
meant that the owl was in the wall of the ruined
fortalice, when, in fact, it hooted from the ivy with
which that wall was draperied, or the trees by which it
was shaded.

But as all the insectivorous inhabitants of the wildr
and many of those that nip or browze the herbage, are
up before the sun, inasmuch as the ardour of the mid-
day beam sends both them and their prey to the shade,
a glimpse of the summer morn, in all its glory, is in-
compatible with a full examination of them ; and,
therefore, you leave them to " a future occasion," and
onward to the height. In this first visit of the sun to
his fairest children of the year, the place to be chosen
for the purpose is not the centre of a mountain ridge —
the chine of the wilderness ; but some elevation near
the sea coast, — the eastern coast, where, from a height
of about two thousand feet, one can look down upon
the chequered beauty of the land, and the wide expanse
of the ocean ; where the morning fog is found white
and fleecy in the valleys along the courses of the

SUMMER MORN. 279

streams, and the more elevated trees, and castles, and
houses, show like islands floating in the watery waste ;
when the uplands are clear and well defined, and the
beam gilds yet higher peaks, while the streak upon the
sea is of that soft purple, which is really no colour and
every colour at the same time. The whole landscape
is so soft, so undefined, and so shadowy, that one is
left to fill up the outline by conjecture ; and it seems
to get more indefinite still as the sun comes nearer the
horizon. The dews feel the coming radiance, and they
absolutely ascend by anticipation. At length there is
one streaming pencil of golden light, which glitters and
breaks as if it were the momentary lightning of a cloud;
the dew drops at your feet are rubies, sapphires,
emeralds, and opals, for an instant ; and then it is gone.
If the horizon be perfectly clear, this " blink" of the
rising sun (and we have observed it only on such occa-
sions as that alluded to) has a very curious effect. It
comes momentarily, and when it is gone, all seems
darker than before. But the darkness is of as brief
duration as the light, and the rising grounds are soon
brought out with a power of chiar* oscuro — a grouping
of light and shade, that never can be observed when
the sun is at any height, as the shadow is from emi-
nence to eminence, filling all the hollows ; and though
deep, it is remarkably transparent, as evaporation has
not yet begun to give its fluttering indistinctness to the
outlines of objects. By the time that half of the solar
disc is above the horizon, the sea is peculiarly fine,
and it is better if the view be down an estuary. In
the distant offing it is one level sheet, more brilliant
than burnished gold, in which the boats, with their

280 SUMMER.-

dark lug sails, as they return from the deep sea fishing,
project their streaky shadows for miles, though each
seems but a speck. The lands on the opposite sides of
the estuary pay their morning salutations, in soft breezes
wafted across, as the sun touches a point of the one
here, and of the other there ; for the summer sun no
sooner beams out upon one part of the landscape than
the little Zephyr from all the others hasten thither to
worship, — so instantly does the genial beam put the
atmosphere in motion ; and as those Zephyrs come from
more moist places, there is absolutely dew upon the
parched heights at sun-rise, if they be not too extensive.
Those cross winds rippling the water this way and that
way, give an opal play to the whole; while behind
you, if the estuary stretches that way, it passes into a
deep blue, as from the small angle at which the rays
fall, they are all reflected forward ; and the very same
cause that makes the water so brilliant before you,
gives it that deep tint in your rear. By and by, the
trees and buildings in lateral positions come out, with
a line of golden light on their eastern sides ; while to
the west every pane in the windows beams and blazes
like a beacon-fire. The fogs, too, melt away, except
a few trailing fleeces, over the streams and lakes that lie
sheltered beneath steep or wooded banks ; and they
soon fade from these also, and the mingled fields,
and woods, and streams, are all arrayed in green and
gold. The cottage smokes begin to twine upward in
their blue volumes ; the sheep are unfolded ; the
cattle sent to their pastures ; and people begin the
labour of the fields. The wild bees and butterflies
also come out upon the flowers ; the birds fly to their

THE MIRAGE. 281

nestling young with the proceeds of their morning
labours : all nature is bustle and activity.

As the heat of the day increases, the land wind,
which during the night is steady near the shore, when
the weather is serene and settled, subsides to a calm ;
the surface of the water in the offing becomes as smooth
as glass, and the vessels " loom out," as if they were
lifted into the air ; masts and sails that were not before
visible, come in sight, without approaching, any nearer
in distance ; and some of the air suspended vessels
throw their whole inverted reflections upon the water,
as if two ships, the counterparts of each other, were
suspended keel to keel, or supported on the top of the
masts. Sometimes, also, a ship which is in reality
wholly hidden by the convexity of the surface of the
sea, will appear in the air, in an inverted position;
sometimes a second ship will be formed immediately
over the first, but always reversed with respect to it ;
and these will sometimes be in contact, sometimes at
some distance from each other, and sometimes the
lower ship that has the keel uppermost will seem as if
only a part of her masts and sails were above the
horizon. In particular states of the atmosphere, coasts
and castles, and even considerable portions of scenery,
which are without the range of the sea horizon, will
appear inverted in the air ; and, under peculiar circum-
stance, those images may be found vertically as well as
horizontally.

All these, though to the unreflecting they appear

prodigies, are modifications of that very simple cause

by which the moon shines, or one sees one's face in a

mirror ; and they are indications that the air where

2 B 2

282 SUMMER.

they take place is very much loaded by vapour, so
much so, that, thought not so collected into masses
as to be visible in a state of haze or fog, it is probably
as abundant in quantity within an equal space, and
thus forms an invisible mirror, from which the images
are reflected. The same thing in principle happens
every morning and evening : the refraction of the at-
mosphere (and refraction is but a minor kind of reflec-
tion) brings the sun before it actually comes to the
horizon, retains it after it is actually below, and occa-
sions the twilight which both precedes and follows the
actual presence of the sun. Those refractive powers
are always the greater the more completely that the
atmosphere is loaded with moisture, and the more free
that it is from agitation by the winds, the action of
which prevents the formation of the image, in the same
manner that a lake does not repeat the scenery on its
banks when the breeze ruffles its suface, or that one
cannot see the reflection of one's face in a piece of
black broad-cloth or velvet, in the same way as in a
smoothly varnished pannel, or a piece of polished
marble.

The formation of these curious images does not take
place when the process of evaporation is the most rapid,
because the ascent of the particles of water in a state of
vapour at such times prevents the formation of the
image, by producing a certain tremulous motion in the
air, which has much the same effect as wind. Evapo-
ration always occasions an indistinctness even in direct
vision ; and on those fine summer days when there is a
flickering play along the tops of the different elevations,
as if there were a spirit walking the earth, of which the

REFECTION AND REFRACTION. 283

motion could be seen but not the form, the outlines of
objects are much worse defined, and small and distant
ones are much less distinctly seen, than when the air
ceases to take up moisture. Thus vision becomes a
sort of weather glass ; and if in the course of fine
summer weather distant objects and the distant horizon
become more than usually distinct, if that does not
obviously depend upon some local cause, it is one of
the most unerring signs of rain.

Now that which occasions the " looming" and reflec-
tions of objects in the air over the estuary is a similar
state of the atmosphere, and indicates that the upward
motion in evaporation is suspended ; only that the
cause is local, it would be followed by rain ; sometimes
it is so ; and very often it is immediately followed by
fog, — the real mirror that gives out the images of the
ships, is in fact, a fog in the act of forming, although
it has not attained sufficient density to diminish very
much the transparency of the atmosphere. The land
begins to be heated, which puts a stop to the land
wind, and also alters its temperature ; this change
takes place first near the surface of the earth, and the
union of the cold sea wind and the warm land one,
renders the whole mass less capable of suspending hu-
midity, and fog is formed. That fog does not, how-
ever, attain the consistency of rain, neither does it
always moisten the surface of the ground, because the
means by which it is formed are confined to the spot
where the two currents of air meet, and to the time
during which the general motion is changing from
seaward to landward.

284 SUMMER.

Those appearances are soon followed by a very
agreeable breeze along the shore, but it does not
reach to any great elevation in the atmosphere ; and
upon the summit of a hill two thousand feet in ele-
vation, it is barely felt, if felt at all ; and the only
change there, is a suspension of the land wind, and a
consequent increase of temperature, which, before mid-
day, sends the herds to their repose, and renders the
shelterless upland, notwithstanding its clear and bracing
air, almost insupportable.

Still the summer day has its scenes of pleasure and
profit in the sultry hour ; for it is then that both man
and the animals find refreshment in the grove, by the
murmuring stream, or the sounding cascade. The
latter especially, as there a hot day has all the effect of
a shower upon the surrounding vegetation. The water,
if the fall has much altitude, falls in drops and pencils,
all sides of which come in contact with the air, which
evaporates a very considerable portion of their volume;
and even though the altitude be not so great as to
occasion a cloud of vapour which can fall vertically
upon the vegetation in a perpetual shower, the air
which descends and condenses over the falling water,
hurries towards the warmer surface around in a per-
ceptible breeze, blowing outward in all directions, and
refreshing the vegetation for a space proportioned to
the height of the fall and the quantity of water. A
wind may be always felt blowing out of the chasm or
cauldron into which a stream precipitates itself; but
though that wind be constant, it produces a very dif-
ferent appearance on vegetation from that produced by

CASCADES. 285

the generality of permanent winds. The trees and
shrubs bend from these, and are dwarfed and stunted
by them ; but they extend their twigs, and are fresher
in their leaves on the side next the waterfall. In such
places their duration is also increased; and a tree,
which has the advantage of this constant watering
upon the leaves, is much less dependent upon the
roots, and therefore will continue to show vigorous
leaves after the trunk is much more hollowed and con-
sumed by age. We have mentioned that those places
that are most favourable to vegetation, are also most
favourable to animal life, though they may not be
most healthy for man, and those animals that resemble
man the most in their structure and economy. This
holds true with regard to the vicinity of cascades,
which, except too a few peculiar species, are the places
in which to seek the animals as well as the plants of an
alpine region. There are no places in this country
where waterfalls do not chronicle the lapse of a very
considerable number of years ; and sometimes the
ravine that they have worn extends miles in length ;
nay, there are many instances where the action of
the stream can be traced for several miles, quite
through a ridge, so that the cascade which had
been gradually increasing in height for the one
half of its course, and diminishing for the other,
has now worked down to the lowest part of the lake
from which it had its origin. One remarkable instance
of this, is to be found on the river Tay, in Perthshire,
at the celebrated pass of Killicrankie, where the whole
upper valley of Athol has obviously, at one time, been

286 SUMMER.

a lake many miles in surface, and had a depth of at
least three hundred feet. The strata are by no means
soft, and yet the force of the water has been such, that
the whole is cleared away to a continuous rocky chan-
nel during the whole extent. In the south of Forfar-
shire there is one still more remarkable, as not only
the principal rivulet, but some of the lateral ones that
are dry in the summer, have performed the same ope-
ration. The principal stream is a very small one, and
not sufficient on ordinary occasions for turning a com-
mon corn mill, without the water being accumulated in
a pond. The Dee, opposite to the grounds of Wynn-
stay, in Denbighshire, shows a very remarkable one
when the water has made a circuit of about a mile, to
avoid cutting not exceeding 200 or 300 feet of harder
substance; and above Llangollen, there are some other
remarkable instances. Every mountainous part of the
country, indeed, exhibits many instances of the pro-
cess ; and it is worthy of notice, that the fragments of
stone in the gravelly soil of those basins of old lakes,
and even in the beds of the streams that flow through
them, are much more angular, and have, of course,
been much less rolled about and rounded by the water,
than those where there have been no such occurrences.
From that, we may infer that the general action by
which the fragments of stone in the gravel of other
places were rounded, happened before those places
were emptied ; and that therefore, the whole of the
emptying has been brought about by the gradual
action of the water, subsequent to any thing like a
general commotion. This makes each of those places

CASCADES. 237

a chronicle, but, unfortunately, a chronicle that we
have not the means of reading ; as we do not know
how much more rain there may have fallen then
than falls now, or how much more easy the strata may
have been to cut before being hardened by exposure to
the air. Thus, though a careful examination of those
places, not with a view to ascertain how the strata of
the earth were originally made, (of which, as we have
nothing very analogous to it going on, we can have
very imperfect notions,) but, as to what part of its
present form may depend upon causes that we can
understand, can give information, it will not give us dates.
The periods must have been very remote, however ;
for there are the ruins of Roman encampments, on
the very top of the debris that have been carried
down by those operations ; while in other places,
where there has been nothing but the common seasonal
debris from the high grounds, barrows, bows, and
weapons have been found, under ten or twelve feet of
gravel.

Thus, wherever there is a cascade, we may be sure
that it is an ancient thing, and that the plants and the
animals have had time to accommodate themselves to
it ; and consequently, that where attempts have not
been made to alter it by art, it is a faithful index to
nature, at the same time that it is a collector. There
are many places where, amid the dark desolation of a
surface showing nothing but heath, and where there is
no sign of life, but the melancholy chirp of one little
bird, a cascade with its dell, its dripping rocks, and
its caverned banks, will contain a rich cabinet of bo-

288 SUMMER.

tany and zoology, where a stranger would never think
of looking for them.

In so far as animals are concerned, there are also
some peculiar advantages in the vicinity of a cascade,
especially if it be upon a grand scale. There is a
power in the ear of animals, as well as in that of man,
to accommodate itself to a permanent sound. Sailors
can converse together amid the roaring of the wind
and waves, and so can the people in a manufactory,
the booming, rattling, and thumping of which are
enough to make a stranger deaf. But still, the noise
must have some effect, and even they who have been
accustomed to it the longest cannot possibly hear so
well as if it were not there, and the difficulty must be
greater, in the case of a strange sound, than of one with
which they are familiar. There are some British in-
habitants of the wood that we have never been able to
come so near, and watch so long, as among the rugged
trees by the side of a waterfall, to which we had
escaped from the intense heat of the sun upon the hill
above. There is then nothing of the music of the
birds, because that is drowned in the thunder of the
falling flood; but that and the delightful freshness,
and the fragrance of the birches, of which there is
usually a considerable mixture among the other trees
around a highland waterfall, the more aged ones sweep-
ing and waving their long dependent twigs in the
stream, make ample recompense. One of the birds
that we have had the best sight oj there [it was at the
lower fall of Foyers, on the Feachlin near Loch Ness ;
and there is no better field for a naturalist than the

ZYGODACTYLI.

289

environs of that beautiful lake, where there are all
soils, all kinds of scenery, and almost all climates in
the course of a mile or two] was

THE GREEN WOODPECKER.

The woodpeckers are a very curious class of birds,
they belong to the class called scansores or climbers,
and they are also styled zygodactylic or yoke-footed ;
because the toes are yoked two and two, two that turn
backwards, and two that turn forwards. The whole
of the parrot tribe have feet of this description, only
they are adapted for grasping twigs, and the birds
make use of their beaks as a third organ of climbing,
while the woodpeckers climb upon the stems and
larger branches of trees, often supporting themselves
with their tails, and using the bill for very different
purposes. The cuckoo also has feet of this description ;
and so has the three-toed woodpecker, an inhabitant of
the forests of Sweden and Norway, and other cold
2c

290 SUMMER.

countries, but of which a straggler is sometimes, though
very rarely, seen in the forests in the north-east of
Scotland. In these, however, the outside toe is rever-
sible, so that it can act either as a front, or a hind
one ; and it is on that account that the feathery-footed
woodpecker is called '*' three- toed." These reversible
toes enable the birds to walk more easily upon the
ground than those which have the complete zygodactylic
feet ; at the same time that they can climb or perch
better than those birds in which the three toes act per-
manently against one.

The green woodpecker ( picus viridis ) is the one
most abundant in Britain ; and it is met with in the
woods of all parts of the island ; but as it is not found
upon the ground, except in or near the forests, where
ant-hills are very abundant, it is not met with in the
northern isles, or any of those districts that are destitute
of timber.

It is a handsome bird, and its colours are well calcu-
lated for concealing it upon the mossy trunks of the
trees which it inhabits, and in which it finds much of
its food, and uniformly constructs its nest. It is about
thirteen inches in length, and twenty one in the expan-
sion of the wings. The bill, which is not used to seize,
tear, or bruise, like the same organ in many other
birds, but to act like a pick axe or chisel, is, of course,
of the very best form for such a purpose. In colour it
is bluish black ; and it is worthy of notice, (though so far
as we know, no inference has been drawn from it,) that in
horny substances, the more intense the black, the more
firm the texture, as in the claws of eagles, and the bill
of this same woodpecker; and also in ruminating

HORN AND BONE. 291

animals, where a black hoof and a black horn are
always of firmer structure than those that are of a
light colour : the bills and claws of many young birds,
which have them dark when full grown, are light-
coloured, and so are the hoofs of newly cast calves, and
in that state they are soft. On the other hand bones
are always the more firm and compact the whiter that
they are. More than one half of the average of horny
substances is carbon, the same matter as the diamond,
though in combination with other substances ; while in
bones, nearly one-half consists of salts of lime; and as
those vegetable substances that contain the greatest
quantity of carbon, are, generally speaking, the hardest,
it may be that the strength of black horn depends on a
greater proportion of carbon, in the same manner that
white bone is more compact from containing a greater
proportion of lime.

The bill of the woodpecker is straight and angular,
as long as the head of the bird, (about two inches),
compressed at the sides, having a strong and permanent
culmen or ridge on the upper side of the upper mandible,
tapering gradually to the point which is wedge shaped.
The base of the bill, and the space round the eyes are
deep black ; and black bristles are retroflected backward
over the nostrils. The upper part of the head and
the moustachios are, in the male, of a bright blood red,
which, however, as is often the case with the bright
colours in birds, only marks the tips, the bases of the
feathers being bluish grey. The nape, the upper part
of the back, and the wing covers, are a warm but not a
very brilliant green, resembling sap green with the least
trace of brown. The lower part of the rump and the

292 SUMMER.

back are yellow, but still with a slight trace of brown.
The under parts are yellowish grey, with a shade of
purplish green ; the quills are yellow and grey with
dusky bases almost black ; and the tail is barred with
dull green and brown. The rump is very stout and
muscular ; the feathers of the tail are concave on the
under side ; they are very firm, and strong and elastic
at the points ; and as the muscular structure of the
rump enables the bird to press them downwards with
great force, they answer many of the purposes of a third
foot. The legs are short ; but both they and the toes
are very thick and strongly articulated; and the claws
are very firm and strong, compressed at the sides,
much hooked, sharp at the points, and of a deep
black. The bird is thus remarkably well adapted
for supporting itself upon the branch of a tree, even
though comparatively smooth, in a vertical position ;
though only when the head is uppermost. In that
position, the tail acts as a strut or prop, and sus-
tains the weight; whereas if the bird were to be
turned the other way, the tail would act against the
claws, and tend to project the bird from the tree.
Thus, though the mechanism of the woodpecker adapts
it better for remaining stationary upon the bark of a
tree than than that of, perhaps, any other bird ; and
though it can run upwards, or round in a direction
nearly horizontal, yet it cannot run downwards as
well as upwards, and perform those evolutions that are
displayed by the creepers and titmice. But there is a
power of remaining longer at one point, and that is
what the woodpecker requires.

The other birds that have been hinted at, find their

WOODPECKER. 293

food chiefly by seizing those insects that are upon the
bark of trees, or, at all events, those that are seen
in the chinks and crannies of the bark ; but the wood-
pecker not only quarries the insects out of their holes
under the bark, or even under the solid wood of a tree
that is decayed internally, but digs a mine there large
enough for its own nidification.

Such however is the case; and it is not a little
singular that the love note of the woodpecker should
not be a voice, like that of most other birds, but a
tapping upon the trunk of a tree. The muscles of the
neck of the bird are so constructed, that it can repeat
the strokes of its bill with a celerity of which it is
difficult to form a notion. They absolutely make one
running jar, so that it is impossible to count them.
We have often tried with a stop-watch ; but could
never ascertain the number for a minute, although we
are certain that it must be many hundreds ; and as,
from the sound, the space passed over must be at least
three inches backwards and as much forwards, at every
stroke, which, in the rude estimate that we were able
to form (and it was a very rude one) would make the
motion of its beak, one of the most rapid of animal
motions, — nearly two hundred miles in the hour, —
yet the bird will continue tapping away for some con-
siderable time.

The woodpecker has three different modes of tapping
on trees. The one that is heard earliest in the season
is the love signal, is made by the one sex, and answered
by the other; it is loud and jarring, and has some re-
semblance to a laugh. The strokes are not so rapidly
repeated as when it is actually at work in boring a tree,

294 SUMMER.

but they are more so than when it is trying for the place
best adapted for that purpose. In spring, and the
early part of summer, the birds have also a cry or
whistle, which they utter more loudly and frequently
in those softening states of the weather that usually
precede rain, than at any other times ; and this, to-
gether with the resemblance which the cry itself (pleu-i,
pleu-i) has to the Latin pluvii, (of rainy) procured them
the name of rain-birds, which they still retain. All
birds, however, that feed upon burrowing insects, whether
these burrow in the earth or in any thing else, are active
at the same times and for the same reason as the wood-
pecker. The second mode that the woodpecker has of
tapping on trees is by loud strokes repeated rather
slowly, and which might be mistaken by one not very
familiar with birds, for the strokes of a woodman, just
in the same manner as the amorous drumming might
pass for the uncouth laugh of " the wild man of the
woods ;" and there is little doubt that woods and other
places have sometimes derived their mysterious popu-
lation from those sounds and cries of animals that bear
some resemblance to sounds uttered by man. In tap-
ping thus upon the trees, the woodpecker has two ob-
jects; the first is to find out what beetles, or larvse, or
wood-lice, it may thereby alarm in their retreats in the
bark, and drive out. Accordingly, as it hammers
away, it is constantly jerking from side to side, and
sometimes quite round the trunk or bough, and pro-
jecting its tongue with great rapidity against the
crevices ; by each of which operations it, in all pro-
bability, secures an insect. The tongue is well fitted for
that purpose. It is long, cylindrical, can be projected

WOODPECKER AT WORK. 295

a considerable way beyond the bill with great celerity
and force, and the point is both a net and a bundle of
spears, being smeared over with a viscid substance, to
which small insects adhere as birds do to the limed twigs
of a bird catcher, while the sharp processes or spines
with which it is armed transpierce the larger insects,
hook them, and drag them out of their hiding places.
Those who will take the trouble of watching it upon a
decayed tree, — and after it has alighted, and began its
work, it can be approached very near, and is by no
means easily scared away, — can readily see the whole of
its operations. It begins by beating the bark, in the
manner that has been stated, darting about to seize
whatever comes out ; when it can obtain no more by
tapping, it alters its tactics, and drums for discovery
until the sound of the place struck pleases it. There
it remains fixed for a time, and as the motion of the
head is not perceptible, unless one watches it all the
more narrowly, it has the appearance of resting from its
labours and singing its own harsh and jarring lullaby.
It is hard at work, however, running into the bark, or
solid wood, as it may happen, down to the place where
from the sound there is rottenness, and its usual con-
comitant insects, and it never stops till the labour be
finished and the prize won. It does not tear or pull
any portion, but works in the same manner that a
stonemason does when dressing granite, or any other
hard or tough stone, with a pointed hammer; thus there
is no exertion but that of the bill, or rather of the head
and neck, for the bill always strikes at right angles to
the surface, and, as is the case with many perching birds,
and also with sloths, and other animals, that sleep sus-

296 SUMMER.

pended by the claws from the boughs of trees, the pos-
ture of the toes by which the woodpecker sticks to the
bark, is that of rest, not that of exertion.

When a pair of woodpeckers have contrived, by their
drumming, to let each other know that a habitation is
wanted in order that the purposes of the season may be
accomplished, they seek for one in a hollow tree, and,
if they do not meet with one to their mind, they imme-
diately begin to construct one ; and instances have
been found of their, working with so much assiduity, as
to excavate their abode in the undecayed timber of a
tree. They do not, however, in those cases, make
choice of the very hardest, nor have they recourse to
solid trees, if they can find such as are partially de-
cayed. When the nest has to be made, the two birds
take the labour by turns, work with great assiduity,
and so neatly, that the aperture is a perfect circle. The
excavation is often so very deep, that no enemy can get
at the eggs in the absence of the parent birds ; and
when these are there, there is not much danger, as a
bill that can strike so rapidly, and with so much effect,
as that of the woodpecker, acting from an aperture of
small dimensions, is a very perfect defence. The chips
of wood that are formed in excavating the nest, are
generally all that is needed as a receptacle for the eggs
and the young. The eggs are four or five in number,
of a bright greenish white, and powdered with small
black spots. When the young come out of the nest,
they can run up the stems and branches of the tree,
and tap the crevices for food before they are able to use
their wings.

The woodpeckers are of considerable service in the

USE OF WOODPECKERS. 297

forests, by clearing the trees of many of the insects
that are the most destructive to timber. The most
injurious of these, are those that mine the cambium
when it is in the soft and pulpy state ; and as they
work for a long way under the bark, without any im-
mediate external indication of their presence and con-
duct, they could not be removed by any birds that were
not gifted with rhabdomancy, like the woodpecker,
and, at the same time, more expert in running than
themselves. Those insects are destructive to almost
every kind of tree, and it is by no means improbable
that, as is the case with regard to aphides, every
species of tree may have its peculiar enemy. Even the
most austere juices are no protection against the depre-
dations of these hidden plunderers. The turpentine of
pines is, when fully matured, very offensive to the ge-
nerality of insects ; but not so the cambium and the
buds. There is a cynips (we know not the species
exactly,) that punctures the latter, especially where
the growth is stunted, and the soil too light, or the
exposure too hot for the tree ; and as its brood are
hatched, they send out the whole substance of the tree,
not only the part that is pushed forward to expand the
new shoots, but that which would form the wood and
bark, in an efflorescence, as if the trees were powdered
with lime. In consequence of that, the tree, though it
does not die, increases no more in size ; and there are
places where pines have remained in that quiescent
state for many years. That insect, however, attacks the
trees chiefly when they are young, and therefore there
is no farther loss than the few years that the trees have
stood ; and when they have shown the disease very

298 SUMMER.

generally, they should be grubbed up, trenched pits
formed, and larches planted. The insects which at-
tack the cambium are chiefly beetles. That which
commits the greatest ravages in the pine forests, is the
printer beetle, which works its mines in the form of
little lozenges, something resembling letters, extending
from the hard bark to the hard alburnum, and thus
completely destroying the tree. One cannot pass far
through a pine forest without seeing the effects of those
insects; and there have been instances in which an
entire forest has been destroyed in a season, as was-
the case with the celebrated pine forest upon the Hartz
mountains in Hanover, in the year 1783; and there
have been many partial instances in the pine districts
of Britain.

The whole merit of preserving those trees from the
destruction of cambium-eroding insects, must notr
however, be given to the woodpecker, though unques-
tionably the good that it does is very considerable.
The tree that we usually find in the act of being at-
tacked, is generally that which is sickly and more
backward in the development of its buds than the
others, and 1783 was a very cold and backward sea-
son ; and perhaps it will be found that there is always
something in the season which is the cause of all extra-
ordinary ravages by insects, and that that might be
counteracted by some artificial application to the soil.
There is no part of the connection of nature more
worthy of study than that, because there is none more
immediately productive of practical good. It unfortu-
nately happens, however, that the parties who are most
interested in, and have the best opportunities of ob-

ANTS' NESTS. 299

serving, the different parts of the connection, think of
their own parts only, — the one to measure the profits of
his art, and the other the barren glory of his science ;
and thus the practical good is lost between them.

The green woodpeckers do not find the whole of their
food upon the trees ; for they are sometimes found upon
the ground devouring their fellow labourers, the ants,
in great numbers. Those insects (the large red variety)
are exceedingly numerous in the open places of the
pine and birch woods in the north of Scotland. We
have often seen their hills eight or nine feet in diame-
ter at the base, three or four feet in height, and so old
that in places they began to be covered with moss.
We never found them directly under the trees, probably
because the drip from these would have been too much
for the roof of the structure ; but they are always in or
close by the wood ; and the highways, which for a con-
derable distance from the encampment are completely
formed and trodden, always lead to the trees. In favour-
able weather, the numbers that stir out are incredible to
those that have not seen them; and we have found the
body of a dead animal so completely buried by them,
that the mass had the appearance of a living mole hill.
They do not attack any vegetable substance in those
parts, except the gum upon a wild cherry, or berries,
and the former are not very numerous, and the bilberry,
the most abundant of the latter, are not quite to their
taste. The only use that they make of vegetable sub-
stances is in the formation of their nests, which are
wholly made of the withered leaves of pine, and bits of
heath, and other small twigs, cut into lengths of from
a fifth to the tenth of an inch. The precise way in

300 SUMMER.

which these are arranged is not easily observed, as
when a part of the structure is removed, the breach is
always in a state of ruin, or at any rate in a state of
irregularity. We have heard it alleged that the whole
is a regular combination of uprights and beams, rising,
gallery above gallery, to the very top, and all having
a gentle slope outwards, in order to carry off any humi-
dily that may penetrate the outside covers. That may
be the case, though we never could observe it ; but
there must be some arrangement by which the struc-
ture is left open in all directions, and also protected
from the rain ; for on a fine day they may be seen
passing in and out at all places, and directing their
converging bands from all parts of the side to the
high road, when they leave the city, and spreading in
all directions, from the home termination of the road
as they return. On damp weather threatening
rain, two or three blows upon the hill with a stick
brought them simultaneously to the place in great
numbers ; and if a portion was displaced, they came
out to arrange it again. On opening some of these
hills after a very heavy rain, of which there is no want
in those parts of the country, we have found that the
water had not penetrated to any great depth ; but that
if a quantity of the materials was taken from the nest
dry, and piled up in a little heap, it was soon wetted
to the centre.

The boles and branches of the trees are literally
alive with those ants ; and their manners would be
well worthy the attention of an entomologist for a
few weeks in the season ; the more so, that being
among woods and near waters, there are hundreds of

WOODPECKER AND ANTS. 30 1

other natural objects not to be met with in more sou-
thern, level, and cultivated countries ; and the scenery
and climate have in themselves many attractions.

Against those colonies the woodpeckers carry on
pretty general hostilities. No doubt they capture
many single ones upon the trees ; and possibly they
may do that, though, of course, without any intention,
partly in the way of reprisal. When a large animal of
any kind goes to prey, the small ones which live upon
the same kind of food, generally follow, in order to
have their share, or to pick up the fragments, that no-
thing may be lost. In conformity with this general
law, it is by no means improbable that when the wood-
peckers beat the trees, in order to alarm the insects in
the bark, the ants may crowd there and often pay for
their temerity with their lives. But it is not upon
trees that the birds find them the most profitable cap-
ture. Upon fine sunny days, especially fine sunny days
immediately after a shower, when the ground under the
trees is covered with small insects that have been beaten
down by the rain, the woodpecker alights on the ground,
squats down and projects its tongue across one of the
principal highways. The ants come in crowds to ex-
amine it, mount upon it, and cover it ; and the mo-
ment that that is done, the bird withdraws, with the
whole of the visitors, swallows them, and projects the
tongue anew, continuing this operation till its appetite
be satisfied. As this action is carried on with the
greatest assiduity during the nesting time, it is probable
that the woodpecker may carry part of the ants to the
nest for the unfledged young ; and this is rendered
more probable by the fact, that the ant hunting is not
2 D

302 SUMMER.

so much observed in the later part of the season. As,
however, the cambium of the trees is longer in coming
to its most saccharine state in those alpine countries
than where the winter is less protracted and severe, the
mining of the trees may be at nesting time the least
profitable. It is usually said that the woodpecker
digs with its bill, and scratches with its feet into the
ant-hills, quite down to the depositories of the larvae
and chrysalids, in those states of the weather when the
ants do not come out. That may be true, but
from the structure of the feet, we are a little sceptical
in the matter of the scratching ; and though we have
watched a good deal, where both ant-hills and wood-
peckers were numerous, we have never been able either
to see the bird in the fact, or to observe the ravages that
it had committed. So that if the practice be natural,
it is not general, at least in all situations.

The greater spotted woodpecker (picus major), is,
perhaps, even more expert upon trees than the green
one, and is thus another instance of the increase of
activity with the diminution of size. It is not half the
weight of the former, being rather less than three
ounces ; but it is of the same form, being about nine
inches in length, and fourteen in the expansion of the
wings. The beak and claws are similar in form and
colour to those of the former species ; but the mark-
ings on the rest of the bird are much more sprightly.
The forehead is whitish, the crown glassy black, and
the hind head a deep but rich red. The cheeks, ear-
covers, throat, breast, and belly are white ; the vent
and under tail-covers are brownish orange red. The
upper part is marked black and white. A black band

SPOTTED WOODPECKERS. 303

extends from the opening of the mandible round the
hind head, and a ramification of the same from the
middle of each side passes toward the upper part of
the breast. There is a white patch behind where these
diverge from the former ; the scapulars are spotted
with white, the quills are spotted with the same co-
lour, and the outer tail feathers are white with black
spots toward the tips. The back and middle feathers
of the tail are of an intense black without any play of
colour. The female wants the red on the occiput, and
the young birds have the black and red on the head
reversed, and much duller in the colour. They are
smaller in size, too, than the adult male. On these
accounts they have sometimes been described as a
different species. There is always some caution ne-
cessary when the young birds, before the first moult,
are different in their markings from the old ones after,
and at the same time resemble any foreign bird ; and
before we admit a new species, we should be sure that
we have seen the old ones in all their states, and know
the range to which their varieties may go. We once
met with a bird exactly the size of the common wood-
pecker, but of mottled straw colour and white, ham-
mering away at a tree, and would have made a dis-
covery, had it not been that, having got a prize in the
tree, it flew to one close by, out of which started a
female of the common green, leaving not the least
doubt that the gentleman in the straw colour was her
lord, and of the very same tribe.

The spotted woodpecker is, as has been said, a much
more active bird than the green ; and its very activity
is one of the reasons why it has been represented as

304 SUMMER.

much more rare in this country than it really is. It is
often not only in the wood, but jarring by its rapid
strokes upon the very tree at which one is looking, and
yet there is no way of seeing it. Less concealed by its
colours than the green one, its rapid movements are a
much better concealment, at least from the view of
man, as in any way that he can contrive to get round
to the other side of a tree, it can be before him. Its
range of motions are also greater, for although it bores
or quarries always with the head uppermost, and sup-
ports itself in the same manner as the other, it can run
with ease in any direction. It is, indeed, a more com-
plete and constant inhabitant of trees than the other,
and is very seldom seen in any other situation. It
may eat ants when it finds them on the tree, but it
does not waylay them in their paths, or attack their
encampments ; neither does it appear to eat nuts or
berries, at least, though Temminck says that it does,
we have not met with it in the hazle coppices at the
season when the green woodpecker is there, though,
perhaps, that may have been owing to its being really
less abundant, or to its greater skill in hiding. We
have seen it only in wild and sequestered places, but it
is said to approach the habitations of man in the winter
season, and assist in clearing fruit trees of the larvae of
insects, and being pretty dexterous in working hyberna-
ting ones out of their holes and crannies.

The blows with which it strikes a tree sound fully as
loud as those of the green woodpecker, and as the pair
always excavate their nest, and often form two open-
ings to it, their boring powers must be considerable.
The nest is generally at least twenty feet from the

SPOTTEP WOODPECKERS. 305

ground, and without any lining but the chips and dust
of the abraded wood. The eggs are four or five, beau-
tifully polished, and of a clear bluish white ; and the
old birds show a great deal of regard both for them
and for the young ones. The love call, that jarring
by rapid strokes upon a sonorous part of a tree, which
is not accompanied either by excavation or by hunting
for insects, is repeated by the one and answered by the
other, whenever any danger appears, nor is it left off
until the young ones are fledged and able to provide
for themselves.

The small spotted woodpecker (picus minor) is
found only in the south and west parts of Britain,
though it has been mentioned as among the birds of
Scotland, not however upon any very good authority.
It has the same habits as the others, only it is a very
little bird, not much more than half an ounce in
weight. The red is not so brilliant as in the larger
one, and though black and white are the chief colours
upon the body, they are differently marked. Like the
others of the same genus, it nestles in holes of trees,
and is said to take possession of the nests of some of the
titmice, notwithstanding their bold and pugnacious dis-
positions. The eggs are rather more numerous than
those of the former species ; like them they are beau-
tifully polished, and they have a trace of peach-blos-
som in the colour. It is rather singular that this bird,
which is abundant in Russia, should be found only in
the part of Britain most distant from Russia, and
where there is the least similarity in seasons ; but the
chough is also found upon that coast of the island
2 D 2

306 SUMMER.

which is most remote from its habitation on the con-
tinent. The local distribution of birds is a subject
worthy of attention, as it does not wholly depend
upon similarity in any of those circumstances with
which we are acquainted ; and yet as birds have so
much locomotive power, there must be something that
attracts them to the places where they are found.

There is a very beautiful bird resembling the wood-
pecker in part of its structure and habits, that visits
the south of England in the summer mont1 3 ; and
which, in those places which it visits, is as certain an
indication that the summer is come, as the cuckoo or
the swallow. It is not, however, so much a forest bird
as the woodpeckers, and though it has the same sort of
projectile tongue, it wants that form and power in the
tail by which they are enabled to support themselves
on trees. That bird is the wryneck (yunx torquilla) ;
which does not get its name from any natural crooked-
ness of the neck, but from the watchful motions of the
head, and the form that these give to a brownish black
bit which marks the upper part longitudinally from
the nape to the termination of the back. It is nearly
the size of the skylark, but the tail is longer, the body
rather more slender, and the expansion of the wings
rather less. The most remarkable thing in the wry-
neck is the delicately laboured nature of the markings,
which, though the colours are soft, are more finely
brought out than those of any other British bird,
whether seasonal or resident. The ground colours are
yellowish grey above, and yellowish white on the under
part, and having the upper part beautifully mottled

WRYNECK. 307

with brown. The breast and belly are marked with
transverse bars of black, and the upper part with the
same colour in the shape of arrows ; the wings and
tail are also barred with black ; there is a black band
down the neck and back, and there is the most ex-
quisite fineness in the outline and delicacy in the
points of their marks. It is watchful, and as it picks
up ants on the ground, or larvse from the rough bark
of an old tree, it is constantly jerking its head, first
over the one shoulder and then over the other, by
which means it is never even a moment without a
flexure of the black band.

When it first arrives, it has a sort of note or voice
not unlike that of the smaller hawks, and two are never
seen together till they have begun the labour of nesting.
The nest is indeed very simple, being nothing more
than a little hollow scraped in the accidental dust
formed in a hole of an old tree, and in that from eight
to ten beautifully white eggs are deposited. When the
female is surprised there, she crests her feathers, and
looks very formidable ; and the fledglings hiss like
young serpents. The nests are often in hedge hollows,
and the chief food of both the old and the young is
ants, which they both pick up in their journies, and
attack in their hills. As soon as the brood have left
the nest, they all separate, and betake themselves to the
fields, where they may be found usually till the mid-
dle or end of August. They then migrate, but their
migration is not much noticed, as they neither flock
before it nor take their departure together.

The day birds, in the summer forest, would, how-
ever, demand a long time before half their habits were

308 SUMMER.

mentioned, or even their names enumerated. One of
the most numerous families, in species and in indi-
viduals, and one of the most widely diffused, is that of

THE TITMICE.

THE COLE TITMOUSE.

Seven species of titmouse are enumerated as belong-
ing to the ornithology of Britain ; all of them prefer-
ring woods, or at least trees, except one, the bearded
titmouse, which is found only among reeds, and that
in very peculiar and limited situations, so that its
habits are very imperfectly known ; and we have not
heard that its nest has been met with in England,
though there is little doubt that it does build in those
extensive reedy fens in which only it has been observed,
and where both the nature of the soil, and the kind of
herbage, prevent the nest of so small a bird from being
seen.

The other titmice are much better known, and are
among the most active and courageous creatures of
their size with which we are acquainted ; and they are
also exceedingly useful to man- -useful, indeed, in

TITMICE. 309

preventing the whole of the trees from being devoured
by insects. In the spring, they are pruners, whisking
about, and cutting off opening buds with their strong
conical beaks ; and, though they be often blamed for
'that part of their economy, it is always an advantage,
as they care not for the bud itself, but only for the
worm that it contains, which worm would be certain to
destroy that bud before it underwent its transformation,
and might, in the course of the season, produce a pro-
geny that would destroy thousands more. In the
later period of the season, when the eggs of insects
cease to be hatched in leaves, and new ones are depo-
sited in the crevices of the bark, the habits of the tit-
mice change, and they become tree creepers, running
along the stems and branches, in all directions, with
the greatest ease and rapidity, and clearing the crevices
of every living thing that they can discover. There is
no bird that it is more amusing to watch than a
titmouse, when it is thus occupied, their motions are
so lively, and they can run back undermost with the
greatest ease. Except one species, they do not, in
general, weigh much more than a quarter of an ounce,
and yet the smallest of them do not hesitate to attack
birds of double their size. They are often seen in
numbers coursing the cuckoo ; and when the owl is
forced out of his hiding place in bright light, a situa-
tion for which the peculiar structure of his eyes but ill
adapt him, the titmice are sure to find him out, flock
round him, aim at his eyes with their sharp beaks,
and drive him hissing to the nearest cover that he can
find. They are also apt to attack other little birds,
and generally kill by repeated stabs in the head such
as are too young and too sickly for escaping by flight.

310 SUMMER.

They are remarkably voracious, and will devour any
animal substance, even though close to a house ; and
often, when cats are lying in wait to spring upon other
birds, a titmouse will whisk across with so much
rapidity as to cause puss to lose her prey. The noise
that they make is far from melodious, being similar to
that produced by the rubbing of a file against the edge
of a thin piece of iron, and not very unlike the slow
breaking of the branch of a tree, when the fibres give
way with snaps, the one after the other.

The largest is the great titmouse, or ox-eye (parus
major.) It weighs about an ounce and a quarter, is
half a foot in length, and about nine inches in the
stretch of the wings. Its colours are not so firmly
marked as those of some other birds; but the male has
a fine gloss. The bill, vent, lower part of the back,
and throat, are black, and from the latter there is
a black line along the middle of the breast, the cheeks
are white, and there is a white spot on the nape ; the
upper part is greenish grey, which passes into an olive
green on the back. The wings and tail are tipped
with pale blue, and the latter is edged with white.
The under part is sulphur yellow. The female is
nearly of the same tints as the male, only the lustre is
inferior. ,

The great titmouse builds in holes of trees, which it
sometimes excavates for itself, if the trees are in a
decayed state. It also nestles in holes of ruined
buildings, and in the forks of pine trees, while they
are so young as to be thickly branched to the ground.
This bird, and, indeed, all the genus, are remarkable
for the neatness of their nests. They are deep, and
well covered, completely proof against the rain, and

GREAT TITMOUSE. 31 1

lined with heather, woven into the rest of the fabric in
such a manner as that only the soft parts come in con-
tact with the eggs or the young. Both birds labour at
the formation of the nest, and they take the fatigue of
incubation by turns. The number of eggs varies more
than that of many birds ; sometimes there are not more
than six, and at other times there are as many as four-
teen— the average may be about nine or ten. The
eggs are of a yellowish white, with ferruginous spots,
which are most numerous at the thick end. When
the young quit the shell, they are blind and very
feeble, but they grow rapidly. From the rapacious
appetites of the old birds, it is natural to suppose that
the young will require a great deal of food ; and that,
with the number of the young, and also the great com-
petition of the number of families, keeps the old birds
very much on the alert during the two weeks that the
young are in the nest before they come out. At that
time, the birds hawk for insects upon the wing; they
catch bees in that way, and also hover about, and pick
them up when they are busy in the nectaries of flowers,
so that where there are apiaries titmice are very des-
tructive. Still the harm that they do as bee eaters is
much more than compensated by the good that they
do as scavengers ; and in a fruit country, the destruc-
tion of the great titmice would be about as wise and
profitable as the extirpation of rooks has proved to be
to those grain farmers, and even grass farmers, that
have attempted it. There is no great danger of the
extirpation of the race, however, even though it were
attempted. The birds are active in their motions, and

312 SUMMER.

though they will, when they are hawking for larvae in
a tree, allow one to come very near them, they are not
easily caught or shot.

When the supply of insect food fails, they have no
objection to take seeds, nuts, beech mast, or, according
to the common saying, "any thing that they can get/'
They do not much frequent the vicinity of houses in
winter, but content themselves with what they can
pick up in the fields ; and it is amusing enough to see
with what neatness they take a nut, or the thick husked
seed, in their little claws, and hammer away at it with
their beak till they make an opening, through which
they can extract the kernel. Although they do not
court man, or covet the shelter of his dwelling, they
do resort to the neighbourhood of houses when the
weather is more than ordinarily severe, and beat about
the eaves and other sheltered places where insects are
apt to hybernate. They often pull out straws from
the thatch of cottages, for the sake of the insects that
are about them, and sometims draw corn from a stack
and pick the ears. We have seen them tearing open
the pods of pease in a stack yard, and keeping the
contents, pea by pea, in their claws, till the whole was
eaten.

When they are captured old, they h'ght and peck
with a great deal of determination and spirit ; but
if taken young, they are easily tamed, and may be
taught a number of tricks. Native birds are, however,
seldom sought for, but on account of their song ;
and as the titmice have not much to boast of in that
way, they are generally allowed to exercise their ac-

COLE TITMOUSE. 313

•

tivity and courage in their native freedom. The male
has a sort of note during the breeding time, but there
is very little music in it.

Though the great titmouse is a bird of the woods, it
is not found in the northern and colder situations ;
but there is a bird very abundant there, which is a
very good miniature of it, and which often gets the
same common name of ox-eye in those places where
the larger one is not found. That is the cole titmouse
(par us ater). It is a very little bird, about four inches
and a half in length, and between six and seven in the
wings ; but it is a very neatly formed and lively little
creature. The colours are not unlike those of the
great titmouse, only there is not the tinge of blue.
Scotland and the mountainous parts of the north of
England and Wales, are the localities of this little
bird ; and, unless where they are near woods, it does
not approach houses, but continues in its woods (the
pine forests are its favourites) all the year round.
Though very abundant, they are not very easily seen
in the summer, as they skip about upon the trees with
great activity ; but in the cold weather they come lower
down, and probably find their food in the earth,
through those openings of the snow that are often left
at the roots of trees. At least they may be found
escaping from those places when there is snow upon
the ground. A hole in the snow is the warmest place
that an alpine bird can find, even in a forest, on
a very cold night ; and, accordingly, the little birds
roost there, and do not leave it except when the sun
is out, or when they are driven from it by hunger or
alarm.

2 E

314 SUMMER.

In summer there are few birds in the alpine forests
more active than the little colemouse ; and when one
walks through a forest of tall pines at that season, it is
so diminished by the height at which it is seen, and
seems to meet with so little resistance from the air,
that it looks a bee there, and a beetle when it is on
the trees. In the autumn, when insects are few, it has
recourse to vegetable food, and it shows a good deal
both of vigour and dexterity in picking the seeds of
the pines from under the hard scales of the cone. Its
little nest is very neat, and carefully concealed in a
thick bush, or in the hole of a tree, but we have not
met with it at any great height above the ground.
The eggs are very small, generally about eight in num-
ber, but sometimes as many as twelve. They are very
white, and mottled with rusty red. The rearing of so
numerous a brood keeps the little things in great
activity during the season ; and minute as they are,
they show a great deal of courage in defence of their
young. These are not, indeed, very much exposed to
danger, as they are generally seated deep among the
bushes, through which a bird larger than a colemouse
cannot easily find its way. The colemouse is not
found in any part of the country that is destitute of
timber, and it is much less frequent in the coppices
among cultivated fields, than in the woods on the
slopes and among the dells of the mountains. The
accurate Low does not enumerate it among the birds of
Orkney, and we never met with it in the Hebrides.

The marsh titmouse, which, though it is nowhere
found in the same localities with the colemouse, has
sometimes been confounded with it, is by no means

MARSH TITMOUSE. 315

uncommon in the coppices and among the pollards in
England. Its general colours are not unlike those of
the other, only it wants the white spot on the nape,
and the two white bars on the wings ; it is also a little
larger, the wings have about an inch more of stretch,
and the tail is a little longer. It is never met with
except in moist situations, and it confines itself to
brushwood and the lower parts of thick trees in
hedges, or by the sides of water. It forms its nest in
a hole of a tree, and when a natural one to its fancy is
not to be found, it excavates, always conveying the
chips to some distance. Thus nidification is often a
very laborious matter with it ; but in the situation of
which it makes choice, it finds abundance of insect
food for the greater part of the year ; and when that
fails it has recourse to seeds, and has no objection to
feed upon animal substances in a state of decay. The
evolutions of this titmouse are not so curious as those
of the others, because the stems of the trees upon
which it takes its excursions are generally hidden by
foliage in summer, and partially concealed by sprays in
winter; still the rapidity with which the little birds
start about through thick leaves, reeds, and other ob-
stacles, is abundantly attractive.

There are two other titmice in the island, the one
found only in the south and the other only in the
north, and it is rarely to be seen there. The nest of the
last is so carefully concealed that it is rarely to be
met with. The species alluded to is the crested tit-
mouse. It is a lighter bird than the marsh one, but
more extended in the wings, and flies more rapidly.
Indeed it is so very quick, that unless one has been

316 SUMMER.

accustomed to look for it, all that is observed is the
rustle of a light wing, and the shaking of the twigs.
The upper part is greenish brown, the green shade
most conspicuous in the middle of the back ; the under
part is white and pale yellow ; the throat and claws
are black, which is much more conspicuous in the male
than in the female. The cheeks are yellowish white,
with a marked line of black passing backwards under
the eyes ; below that there is a collar of white, which
is again separated from the colour of the back by a
band of black. The most distinguishing feature of the
bird, however, is the crest, which is of a conical shape,
the greater part of it black, as also are the ear-covers,
but the feathers edged with white.

The crested titmouse is found upon the very margin
of the living world, as it were, — upon those sides of the
remote forest that are toward the most wild and lonely
mountains, and where the principal cover for it is
straggling shrubs and thickets of juniper. The
latter are understood to be its winter retreats, and in-
deed they are the favourite perches with it in the sum-
mer ; and the closeness of their evergreen leaves forms
a constant hiding place for it, and is one cause of its
being so seldom seen, Another is, the small induce-
ment there is to visit its locality. It is probable that,
in Scotland, it forms its nest in the thick junipers,
though upon the continent it is said to build in the
holes of trees and rocks, and sometimes to occupy the
deserted nests of other birds. It cannot well build in
any of these places, except, indeed, the holes of rocks
on the Grampians. There are no hollow trees in those
wild places, because the winds and the snows level

TITMICE. 317

them before the trunks are so far decayed ; and few
birds nestle there except the grouse and eagle, and it
is not very likely to occupy the mere scratch in the
heath that satisfies the former, far less to invade the
eyrie of the latter. The habits of this remote bird are
of course very little known, but it is probable that,
from the places which it inhabits, it depends, more than
any other of the genus, on vegetable food, the ripe
and probably the green berries of the juniper, which
are on the bushes all the winter.

The species confined to England is the long-tailed
titmouse, which is of the same weight as the colemouse,
but has the tail about an inch longer. It is a very pretty
little bird, having a sort of rosy tint over the greater
part of it. The throat, cheeks, forehead, and crown
all white, with which the secondaries of the wings and
the outside feathers of the tail are edged. A band of
black runs backward above each eye to the nape, from
their junction at which a black mesial line extends
along the whole of the back ; and the quills of the
wings and middle feathers of the tail are also black.
The remainder of the upper part is rose colour, and the
under part grey, with a shade of the same. The nest
is found in a thick tree or bush, and where the locality
suits, an evergreen is preferred. It is constructed with
great neatness and care, made soft by abundance of
feathers, domed over, and formed with two openings,
so that the bird neither needs to turn in the nest, nor
is in any way incommoded by its long tail, which pro-
jects from the one opening of the structure. As is the
case with all the other species, the eggs are numerous.
2 E 2

318 SUMMER.

In the pairing season this titmouse has a kind of cry ;
but it is simple and faint.

But the most beautiful of all the titmice is the blue
titmouse, or blue-cap, (parus cceruleus), and it is also
one of the most widely diffused, most active in its
manners, and most numerous. It is rare, indeed, in
the wild alpine districts, but very plentiful in most of
the low and cultivated parts. The prevailing colour,
as the name implies, is blue. That of the head very
pure and brilliant, of the wings and tail clear, but of a
lighter shade, and on the throat and in a line along
the middle of the belly deep, in the male, but not of
so clear a tint. The nape and collar are of a beautiful
azure. The markings are : the cheeks and a band
above the eyes white, and the greater wing-covers tipt
with the same; the breast and sides pale yellow; a
streak of black before and behind the eyes, and the
blue on the nape, tinted with grey and green. At the
same time that it is one of the most beautiful of British
birds, it is one of the bravest and also one of the most
useful to man. Plentiful in their numbers, active in
their motions, voracious in their appetites, and bold in
the extreme, the little blue-caps are among the most
indefatigable scavengers in nature. In the spring months
they are incessantly at work in the orchards and shrub-
beries, and wherever they find a bud with an insect in
it they nip it off, fly to a twig, perch by one foot, clutch
the bud in the other, pick out the insect, drop the rest,
and off again in quest of another. Also, as the season
advances, they are just as vigilant in the destruction
of the leaf-rolling caterpillars, and appear to know,

THE BLUE CAP. 319

with the greatest certainty and from a considerable
distance, the leaf in which they can find something to
eat. When they leave these, or rather when the season
' is so far advanced that there are not any caterpillars
upon the leaves, their hunting upon the trunks and
among the branches is as incessant. Their motions are so
rapid that one of them will hunt over the whole surface
of a pretty large fruit tree, round and round every
branch, in the course of a few minutes, and so intent
are they upon their sport, that one may stand close by
and watch them all the time, without their giving them-
selves the least alarm. The chief places on the wood
of an apple tree where insects and larvse lodge, and
eggs are deposited, are in the cracks and fissures on the
undersides of the branches ; and the dexterity with
which the blue-cap supports himself at these, until he
has captured the tenants, is very extraordinary ; and
while he runs and hops about, he keeps uttering his
rasping noise, as if he were whetting an instrument
with which to cut the tree down. That sound is not a
love note, neither does it appear to be a call note, but
an ordinary noise, — a subject which has not been much
investigated ; but as many birds utter a noise when there
is no apparent excitement, it would be at least a grati-
fication of curiosity to know what purpose of their eco-
nomy is served by it.

As the blue-cap is among the trees at all seasons, the
quantity of insects which it destroys, and the number
of which it prevents the existence, must be very great ;
and therefore it and its congeners, and indeed all the
scandent birds that feed upon insects, are to be re-
garded as nature's guardians of the orchard and forest ;

320 SUMMER.

and when we take that in conjunction with the handsome
appearance and lively manners of this little bird, we
find such a union of beauty and utility as makes us
forget that those birds have no tuneful song. Neither
must we be too hasty in blaming or attempting to ex-
tirpate those birds which feed wholly or partially upon
the vegetables that we cultivate, and which increase in
the ratio of cultivation, for it may be that they are the
cheapest guardians that we could have, and they are
certainly guardians against evils which man could not
prevent, or in many cases remedy.

But numerous and active as are the titmice and the
other tribes of our insectivorous birds, and valuable as
are their services throughout the year; so prolific are
the various races of insects, that those which would find
food in the winter and early spring, would be wholly
inadequate to reduce within safe bounds, the myriads
that people the summer atmosphere. The action of
the sun upon the different latitudes is, however, such,
that when the food of other insectivori begins to fail
in climes nearer the equator, the heat also becomes too
oppressive for their natures, and they come northward,
forming our summer birds, ranging themselves into
classes, as their nature adapts them for the land or the
margin of the water, the fertile field, or the wilderness,
the wood or the open country, the habitation of man,
or the depth of retirement; and as each of those
situations has its insects varying in kind, and in the
places of their retreat, and the means by which they
may be captured, there is a sort of natural classifica-
tion of our summer birds, according to the places to
which they resort ; and this, to a considerable extent,

SUMMER BIRDS. 321

agrees with the classification of them by the more
recent and accurate ornithologists. The swallow tribe,
some of the warblers, and the wagtails, take the vicinity
of human habitations and waters for their division of
the country. The remainder of the warblers — and by
far the greater number of them, take up their abodes
in the woods, coppices, and enclosed and cultivated
countries, and the chats repair to the open downs and
wastes. With the exception of the swallow tribe,
which have merely a sound or noise, and some of them
a screech, those birds all have some sort of song or
other, and to them chiefly we are indebted for the
music of the summer. Of them all, 'the most eminent
for their vocal powers are the warblers, which have got
their name from the modulation or measure of notes
in their song. These may all be regarded as love
songs, and many of them have other sounds, — such as
call-notes and notes of alarm, that are not musical, and
that common voice of which it is not very easy to
know the purport.

Those birds, even the different species that frequent
the same parts of the country, have different localities,
according as they are adapted for places that are more
open or more sheltered ; but it is, of course, a general
law that there is the greatest variety of them in the
richest and warmest parts of the country, — a greater
variety, for instance, in England than in Scotland ;
and, as we are to suppose that they fly more by the
continent, where they can rest and feed upon their
journey, and as some of them winter there without
proceeding farther, we may presume that there is a
greater variety in the south-east parts of the country

322 SUMMER.

than in the north-west. It does not follow from that,
however, that there must upon the whole be a greater
variety of summer birds in two parts of the country,
whatever may be their difference of elevation, if there
be the same abundance of food for them in the one as
in the other. The law of nature, as observed in the
facts, is, that wherever there is, upon the average of
seasons, food for them, to that place they repair ; and
when we find, from the facts, that any thing is a law
of nature, we may save ourselves the labour of
enquiring why it should be so, until we have found
out the more general cause why a stone falls to the
ground ; because those general laws are the ultimate
facts, and of course all speculation beyond them is
mere fancy ; and being error, it cannot possibly tend
to any information. But we must not forget

THE WARBLERS.

Of the warblers (Sylvia, so called because the most
musical of them sing in the woods, or, at any rate,
upon trees or bushes) there are thirteen or fourteen
different species met with in Britain. Two of these,
the Dartford warbler, which is a very local bird, pro-
bably confined to England south of the Thames, and
by no means general even there ; and the redbreast, one
of the most common birds, and one that is far more
characteristic of the winter than of the summer, are the
only ones that are permanently resident. The others
arrive in April or May, a little sooner according to the
latitude or nature of the season ; they usually become
mute about the time of the solstice, and retire in Sep-
tember ; though that, like their arrival, depends some-
thing upon the season. They are all insectivorous,

THE WARBLERS. 323

feed their young with larvae, and the eggs of insects;
and thus greatly diminish the numbers ; as while the
young are fed with the young insects, the old prey
upon them in their perfect or imago state, and pick
them up indiscriminately upon the wing, on the leaves
of plants, or on the ground ; but none of them beat
the bark as is done by the woodpeckers and the
titmice. Their slender bills, slightly awl-shaped, and
having the top of the upper mandible a little curved
downward at the tip, does not adapt them for that
operation ; neither are their feet, though well con-
structed for perching, adapted for sustaining them
against the bark of a tree in an upright position. The
wings are, in general, short and rounded, a form which
renders them the least liable to be injured by the sprays
or the reeds, through which they have to make their
way. When the warblers are singing, there is ge-
nerally a motion of the head, as if they were " twist-
ing" out the notes ; and there is also a jerking motion
of the tail, though not so remarkable as in the wagtail.
One obvious natural division of the summer birds is
Aquatic warblers, and Sylvan warblers.

Aquatic warblers, there are only three in this country,
and they are confined to the reedy and sedgy banks
of rivers and marshes in England. We have heard it
alleged, indeed, that one has been seen among the bushes
on the estuary of the Tay in Scotland ; it may be, for
Selby met with the same species in Northumberland,
where the climate is at least not better than in the
place alluded to. These Aquatic migrants are the
Grasshopper Warbler, (sylvia locustella,) the cry of
which can hardly be distinguished from that of the

324 SUMMER.

male cricket ; the sedge warbler, (sylvia phragmitis),
which has more voice, and is, in fact, a sort of mock-
ing bird, imitating snatches of the notes of other birds,
but blending them with a peculiar note of its own ; and
the reed wren. These birds all have a considerable
resemblance to each other ; they are dull brown and
green above, and yellowish white on the under part ;
but the first has the back greener than the others ; the
second more brown ; and the third a mixture of the
two. There are many smaller differences, but they
may be distinguished from each other by these, and
also by their notes ; those of the first and second
having no resemblance whatever to the notes of any
other British birds. The locality is also not quite the
same, as the nest of the grasshopper warbler is not
among the reeds and marsh plants like those of the
others, but in the furze and other bushes near the
water. It is also a thicker bird than the others ; and,
though of the same length, (about 5^ inches,) it weighs
almost a fourth more, being half an ounce ; the eggs,
too, are an unequivocal distinction : the first has them
bluish white without any spots ; the second light brown
with dark brown spots : and the third dirty white with
olive spots. The number of eggs is much the same in
all. The nests of the sedge and reed warblers are con-
structed in those plants from which they take their
names, or in other aquatic plants ; and the construc-
tion shows a good deal of ingenuity. They are firmly
attached to a sufficient number of stalks for preventing
any accident ; the mass of dry materials is so great,
that it would not only float if detached, but float so
far out of the water, as that the eggs would not come

WARBLERS. 325

in contact with that fluid. They are also made so
deep, that any agitation to which the strongest wind
could subject the plants to which they are attached,
would be unable to shake the bird or the eggs out of
the nest. The grasshopper warbler does not require
these precautions, as it always nestles in a bush or
other cover. The warblers are indefatigable in hunt-
ing for insects and larvse in those situations which,
on account of the reeds with which they are covered,
are not beaten by the swallow ; and they also capture
the eggs of gnats and other insects that are deposited
in numbers upon the surface.

But the SYLVAN warblers are by far the most
favourite birds, and they are really more interesting
than the others, especially in regard to their music.
Among the tall grass and reeds of a morass, or on the
banks of a stagnant river, a place which has from time
immemorial been held to be the favourite home of pes-
tilence and disease, we do not expect to find any thing
much better than the chirp of a cricket ; and on a dull
piece of waste land, where furze has got completely
the better of all more useful vegetation, we do not look
for any thing very fine; and thus the hoarse, or hurried,
or unmusical notes of these birds are not out of place.
In those situations where they do build, however,
the aquatic warblers are great correctives of the
plague of flies, which, but for them, would be in-
tolerable in the neighbourhood of those places where
they frequent ; for, the dragon flies excepted, they
are the chief destroyers of insects, in the reedy places
which are neither land nor lake, and which are not so
generally frequented by wagtails and swallows, as the
more clear and open banks.

326 SUMMER.

Of the sylvan warblers, the most numerous and
widely dispersed is the blackcap (sylvici atricapilla).

BLACKCAP.

It is a very handsome bird, between five and six inches
in length, and between eight and nine in the stretch of
the wings ; and weighs rather more than half an ounce.
The head of the male is of a deep black, from which
it gets its name ; the head of the female is brown.
The general colour of the body of the bird is gray,
lighter on the under part, and tinged with dull green
above, which last is more conspicuous in the female
than in the male. The blackcap extends almost as
far north into Scotland as there are woods that suit its
habits. It prefers those that are close with under-
wood, and is very abundant in pine plantations when
young. In those places it is one of the most common
song birds, and makes the whole wood ring with its
music. With the exception of the nightingale, it
has more power and compass in its song than any of
the warblers ; and is probably the most effective of

BLACK CAP. 327

those summer visitants that sing on a perch during the
day. The birds themselves would need to be con-
sulted before we can find an alphabet ; but the follow-
ing seven notes, gradually shortening the first four,
making the fifth and sixth very short, prolonging the
oo and shortening the i in the last, half sung half whis-
tled, bears some resemblance to the song of the black-
cap: — Oui — oui — oui — out — oo — oo — odi. The notes
always the same sounds, but they admit of a con-
siderable number of modulations. The bird is by
no means sparing of its music, and will often begin
singing when its song is imitated by boys ; and when
there are several of them in the same coppice,
they frequently form a regular and prolonged con-
test which shall sing the loudest ; and they sometimes
begin in a key which they cannot sustain through
the whole compass of their notes, suddenly stop short,
and begin again after a short pause. The blackcaps
are not so wholly dependent upon insect food as some
of their congeners ; and therefore those that come
before the equinoctial storms that sometimes shut up
the earth in frost for several days, are not reduced to
the same extremity as some other migratory birds.
They can eat the berries of ivy, and the others that
form part of the food of the resident birds in the early
spring ; and when insects begin to be scarce before
the blackcaps take their departure, they become plun-
derers of gardens. This is a common habit with such
of the sylvan warblers as come near the habitations of
men ; and they levy on cherries, currants, strawberries,
and other small and early fruits, a tax for the service
which they render in destroying the insects, and the

328 SUMMER.

pleasure they afford by the songs that accompany their
labours. Those who sustain the injury are apt to com-
plain at this ; but we are very much inclined to believe
that, independently of the beauty of the birds and their
music, they are the benefactors.

As is the case with most birds of passage, the male
blackcaps arrive at least two weeks before the females ;
the period of their arrival being from the beginning to
the middle of April, and that of the females from the
middle to the end of the same month. The appear-
ance of one or two of these, or, indeed, of any other
summer birds, must not be taken as evidence that
there has been an arrival ; for there are generally a
few that remain through the winter, even in places far
to the north. Probably, indeed, there are more that
remain in such places than in places that are more
southerly, as the broods there are late, and it may be
presumed that the birds that remain are those of late
broods ; or, even if we suppose that they are birds that
have been sickly, the case is still the same, as these
would be the least capable of the longest journey.

Soon after the males arrive they begin what may be
termed their try calls, which, in their case, are a note
or two of the song, sometimes the beginning, and at
other times the end ; sometimes it is a different note,
but one who has attended to them can easily tell what
bird utters it. This call is understood to be repeated at
times, till the females answer, and then the pairing
commences, the males being in full song. The nest
is generally well concealed in thick bushes a few feet
from the ground. It is a simple structure of dry
roots, grass, and fibres, lined with wool, hair, or even

BLACK CAP. 329

feathers, according as the one or the other is the most
accessible. The male shows the greatest attachment
to the female, and the greatest solicitude about her
comfort and safety. He brings her food, takes her
place when she goes abroad for exercise, and when his
services are not required in either of those ways, he
cheers her with his lively song. Some are of opinion
that the males of singing birds sit upon the eggs at
that time when they are silent, which is during the
heat of the day ; and we rather think that that is the
case with the black cap, for we have, during those
hours of silence, often started the male from low close
bushes, which were very likely to contain nests ; and
we have seen the females entering the same places
about four or five in the evening, which is just a little
before the evening song of the male in the sitting time.
There is one point in the domestic economy of those
birds that are attached to each other in pairs, and sit
alternately, which we have taken some trouble to ascer-
tain, but have never been able to come to a satisfactory
conclusion, and that is, " In the case of any casualty
happening to the female after the sitting has been
begun, does the male continue the incubation to its

O '

completion, and rear the brood ?" We know that
some female birds rear their broods in a state of widow-
hood, because we have seen at least one unequivocal
instance in a female skylark, where the pair were the
only ones in the field, and the male was killed by a
hawk. In the case of a black-cap we once watched a
bush, out of which -a male bird used to issue at various
times of the day, but near which we never saw a
female ; and after we had observed it for about a week,
2 F 2

330 SUMMER.

we found the nest, containing four young ones quite
callow. Upon a single instance, however, it would
not be safe to found an opinion, though analogy would
lead to the same conclusion that we intended to draw
from that case. The eggs of the black-cap are usually
five, and they are of three colours, — light brown, mot-
tled with darker brown, and dotted with minute points
nearly black. When the season is favourable, the
black-caps rear a second, and sometimes even a third
brood ; and when they are deprived of their eggs, they
persist in fresh nidifications to a much later period of
the season than almost any other of our summer birds.
The white-throat (sylvia cinered) may be regarded
as the warbler which, after the black-cap, is the most
diffused ; and its proper region lies upon the confines
of that of the other, — not that there is a definite line
drawn between them, for it often happens that the
same spot is a favourite with them both. But, as the
black-cap is a bird of places in a state of demicultiva-
tion, the white-throat may be reckoned the visitant of
the cultivated lands; its nesting place being among
lanes and hedges, or in the little brakes which are
sometimes left in the corners of fields. The withered
stems of goose grass or cleavers (galium aparine) which
are among the most abundant as well as the most
manageable dry materials of the season, are chiefly
used by the white throat (and, indeed, by most of the
warblers) in forming the body of their nests. These
are loosely and carelessly put together ; and partially
lined with leaves, or with finer leaves or fibres of the
true grasses. Generally, however, the materials are
found near the nest; and, therefore, the labour of

WHITE THROAT. 331

building is not so great as that of many other birds, —
not nearly so great as the titmice, wrens, or other
residents. This is what one would expect. These
native birds begin earlier, have the choice of the
materials, and the whole season to attend to their
broods, whereas the others do not begin till May, and
are off again in September. Yet this is not universal ;
for though the swallows be very expeditious nest
builders, there are none more laborious, and those
species of them that do not burrow in banks (and the
burrowing is a wonderful labour for so small birds)
build first a house, and then a nest in it. The white-
throat lays the same number of eggs as the blackcap ;
and they have pretty much the same relation as the
colours of the birds, being of three colours — greyish
white the ground, grey the mottling, and brown the
dots.

The whitethroat is about the same size and weight
as the blackcap, only the tail is rather longer, and the
wings rather shorter. The upper part of the head is
bright gray, the throat white, the general colour on
the back yellowish brown and grey, the belly white,
and the breast tinted with rose colour. The female
inclines more to reddish brown than the male, and has
not the rose colour on the breast.

The song of the whitethroat is rather pleasing, but
it has not the compass or the melody of that of the
black cap ; and while that bird sings only when
perching, (generally on a lofty tree or the highest point
of the coppice near the nest), the whitethroat repeats
its short song upon the wing. Its singing appears to
be a considerable effort ; for the throat is very much

332 SUMMER.

distended, and the feathers on the top of the head are
erected so as to form a sort of crest. It is not impro-
bable that the singular gestures and attitudes of the
whitethroat, when it makes, what may be called, a
singing excursion, are occasioned by the two disturb-
ing actions of singing and flying ; but the bird may be
easily known by its rising from a hedge, mounting
upwards with occasional trembling motions, and
coming down slowly to the place whence it started.

During the season, when the young are unfledged,
or unable to leave the vicinity of the nest, the white-
throat is of great service in gardens and plantations ;
but when the brood are able to fly, it leads them to
the garden, where they continue to plunder the small
fruits until the time of their departure from this
country.

The whitethroat is found in all parts of Britain,
where there are trees, hedges, and gardens ; and as
it comes nearer the habitations of man when its brood
are fledged than some of the others, it is probably
reported as being more numerous in proportion than
it really is. At first thought, one would suppose that
there is no point more easily settled than the numbers
and localities of animals ; and yet in the case of them
all, and more especially in that of birds, the matter
is by no means so easy ; neither, when it has been
approximated, does the approximation hold for any
length of time ; there are natural changes, as when
man alters the soil and the vegetation, the animals
alter along with it ; and all may take place in the
course of not a great number of years. In consequence
of the improvement in agriculture and of planting,

CHANGE OF BIRDS. 333

many of the birds that are probably with accuracy
described as having been confined to the southern parts
of England, are now met with in the north, and also in
the cultivated parts of Scotland. The plover comes in
place of the grouse, the partridge in place of the
plover, and where coppices become abundant, the
pheasant, in turn, invades the dominions of the par-
tridge. The trees and plants with more succulent
leaves, that cultivation introduces, instead of the heath,
the hard grass, the furze, the broom, and all those
native vegetables of the north that have austere juices,
necessarily bring along with them a vast number of
insects. We say " necessarily ;" for wherever the
proper food for any of the productions of nature is to
be found, thither will that production come to it,
by means that no one can find out ; as for instance,
if roses or cherries are introduced, there are sure to
be aphides ; if any of the brassicas, there are sure to
be caterpillars ; and if there be even an introduction
of nettles, their beautiful butterfly s will visit them.
When they have increased to a certain amount, they
are sure to bring, not only those resident birds that
feed themselves and their young upon larvse, but also
the warblers and other summer visitants. It is not
the finer climate that causes the nightingale to cheer
only the south of England with its song in the summer ;
it is the more abundant supply of soft caterpillars, —
of food fitted for the young ; and though it is not
possible by any cultivation wholly to equalize the
temperature over even the limited extent of Britain,
yet that equalization has been very much approximated
of late years ; and a community of animals has

334 SUMMER.

followed, — has in fact, been contemporary with, — a
community of human customs ; so linked together are
all the parts of nature, that man cannot change any
without there being, to a certain extent, and that
always in the proportion of the change that art has
made, a natural and spontaneous change in the
others. That is a very obvious matter, — a matter
which any body may see, and cannot help seeing,
almost whether they look for it or not ; and yet, in a
philosophical point of view, it is one of the most im-
portant of all matters, and really lets us see farther
into the system and working of nature than many of
those things which we collect, and wonder at, and
worship, as the clues by which we are to thread the
labyrinth. It shows us that while there is a particular
law (or mode and succession of appearances, for when
we speak of nature that is all we can mean by a law)
that regulates the individual, there is a general law
that regulates the whole; that there is always a
sequence, in which the same consequent always
follows the same antecedent, and follows it always in
the same proportion, just as the same bow always
throws the same arrow to the same distance, when
placed at the same angle, in the same state of the air,
and drawn to the same length. This is universal — the
very law and constitution of existence ; and the in-
ference, though somewhat humbling to the pride of
man, as it shows him how marvellously little progress
he has yet made in the knowledge of matters that are
before him every day and all day long, is most cheer-
ing to the future student, as it shows that none of the
phenomena of nature are mysterious, but that they may

PETTY CHAPS. 335

be all understood, and that a knowledge of any one
is, to a certain extent, a knowledge of all the others
with which that one is, in any way, connected.

The white throat, though it does assist in clearing
the gardens of caterpillars, and returns, after it has
reared its brood, to partake of the crop in the preser-
vation of which it has been instrumental, is not the
garden warbler, — does not take up its abode there
during the greater part of the time that it is in this
country. The greater petty chaps (sylvia hortensis) is
the real bird of the garden ; or rather it comes nearer
the abode of man with its nesting than the white
throat.

The petty chaps is a shorter bird than the white
throat, but it is thicker and heavier. The whole of the
upper part is a dull green, with a shade of grey, and a
patch of ash-grey pretty far down upon each side of
the neck. The whole of the under part has a tinge of
grey ; but the predominant tints are white on the
throat, belly, and vent, and brownish yellow on the
breast and flanks ; the eyes also are surrounded with
white. The song of the petty chaps has not so many
notes as even that of the black cap ; but they are
clearer and sweeter, and some of them are almost
as soft and mellow as the note of a blackbird.
But though, at a later period of the season, the bird
be more seen than the horticulturists would wish, it
can seldom be so when singing, as, though it does not
sing so late in the evening as the nightingale, like that,
it pours forth its song when " in shadiest covert hid."

It is pretty generally diffused over the richer and
warmer parts of England, and the south of Scotland,

336 SUMMER.

though it is of less frequent, and also of more recent
appearance in the latter country. It builds its nest in
places similar to those chosen by the white throat,
and they are constructed of similar materials. The
eggs, too, are a good deal like those of the white
throat in their size and markings, but the ground is a
dirty white, and wants the greenish tinge of the others.
The nests are often made in garden hedges, among the
roots of pease, and generally in places where the vege-
tation is tall.

One of the most favourable places in England for
hearing the song of the petty chaps, and, indeed, the
songs of those birds, generally, that frequent the richer
districts, is the left bank of the Thames, from Hampton
Court to Richmond Bridge ; and it is not very easy to
imagine a finer treat to the lover of freshness, and
sound, and evening scenery, than a walk (wheels and
hoofs jar mightily in a concert of birds) between those
places on a fine night in the end of May; and if moon-
light, so much the better. Until the sun be down,
there is a great deal of noise and chirping, but not
much music ; but when the evening softens the air,
and the lime and the walnut take the lead among the
perfumes of the evening, as you pass the lee of them in
that gentle motion of the air which wafts sweetness,
but does not wave leaves, the song of the night — the
real vesper of nature begins ; and though broken in
upon at at times by the baying of a watch dog, the
bellowing of an ox, the bleating of a sheep, or the
tinkle of a sheep bell, it is none the worse ; nor do the
monitor sounds of the clock, as they come muttered
through the trees, at all diminish the interest, but

EVENING WALK. 337

rather mingle with it the melancholy memento, that,
fine as it is, you can enjoy it but for a time ; or the
more useful one, that you should seize the phenomena
of every moment for instruction, according to the mood
you may be in. The freshness, the checquered light
through the trees, the occasional glimpse of the river
dancing in the reflected moonbeam, like living silver,
put you in mind that it is not a pond that stag-
nates and mantles, and scatters miasma and infection,
but a rolling flood which wafts riches, and scatters fer-
tility and health ; the lights from palace, and villa, and
cottage, and those joyous sounds which come ever
and anon, to remind you that for all that has been
done and suffered, it is "merry England" still; the
dark shadow of some thick and stately tree that throws
you, your path, and all around, into a momentary
eclipse, or the trailing mark of some limber poplar, as
though it were the tail of a comet, lustreless and flung
dark, yet unsubstantial upon the earth : — But you are
in no humour to look even at the half-revealed beauties
of one of the richest districts in the world, rendered
doubly rich by the Rembrandt shades of the greater
masses of matter, in contrast with the " silver orb,"
seen at intervals, through the upper sprays and leaves,
or its more retiring reflection from the water, in the
openings among the thick stems and dark foliage
below ; for the nightingale is on the topmost bough in
the coppice, and small as he is, his voice is heard as
far as that of a muezzin from the top of a minaret.
There he does not sing alone, for in that thickly-wooded
and well-watered district — a district which is the land
of Goshen to the insect-discovering birds — he has a

338 SUMMER.

rival in every coppice, and, in some places, almost upon
every tree ; and as though the note of each comes to
the ear of a listener differently pitched and toned,
according to the mass of air through which its pulsa-
tions have to be propagated, the two which are in
strife which shall " win the dame," or charm her the
most after she is won, are equally loud to each other.
No combination of the letters of the alphabet can give
even a notion of the song of the nightingale— of any of
the songs, for he has not only more notes than any
other bird, but has absolutely a cabinet of music ; and
though there be a wonderful melody in them all, some
are so unlike the others, that one could with difficulty
believe that they are uttered by the same bird. It is
vain, however, to attempt describing the music of that
minstrel; those who are familiar with it, would, of
course, laugh at the most laboured delineation; and
to those who are not, description is little better than
playing an air to the deaf, or painting a rose-bud to the
blind.

Each strives with the other, and if foiled in one key
or in one expression of notes, he instantly strikes into
another, till all the trees around are in one musical
contest. The females, too, come in with their mur-
muring notes in the pauses, as if they were eulogizing
the victors ; and at this the whole take courage, and
repeat the competition. Nor do they sing alone ; the
petty chaps roosted for the night in the tree nearest to
the home of his family, catches the alarm. He, too,
won his mate by song, and may lose her in the same
way. Accordingly, he flies to a higher perch, and
contributes all that he can to the melody ; and that is

LESSER PETTY CHAPS. 339

not a little, for though his notes be few as compared
with those of the nightingale, there is a native wildness
in them which the nightingale cannot equal, and which
is exceeded by no bird but the lark. The nightingale
is an instrument of great compass, and volume, and
tone ; but in all its varied notes and cadences, it is
but one instrument. The petty chaps is but a note or
so upon each, but it is a whole band. One note
shivers in the ear with all the piercing sharpness of the
fife, and the very next, which is prolonged and drawn
out with a swelling modulation, is as soft as could be
breathed from flute or flageolet. Then there is the
expanse and richness of the orchestra, heard in the
soft hour, when the mind is tuned to meditation.

There is another migrant that comes earlier and
remains later than any of those that have been noticed,
and which, as one of its synonymes is the " less petty
chaps," has been by some considered as a warbler;
but its nest is formed not in the careless manner that
is characteristic of the warblers, but in the neat and
careful manner of the wrens ; and it has not the varied
and melodious song of the warblers, neither have the
eggs the markings in two colours upon a differently
coloured ground, which are common to those warblers
that have been noticed. It is, therefore, properly a
wren ; and as it remains from spring to late in the
autumn, it is not properly a summer bird, and there
are some doubts whether it may not remain all the
winter in some of the warmer parts of England. It is
found in both divisions of the island, but most abun-
dantly in the south. It is a very little bird, about the
same size as the colemouse ; it is greenish brown

340

SUMMER.

above, and pale yellow on the under part, with white
on the belly. As it flies it utters two querulous notes,
which have some resemblance to the words " chip
chop," which form its common name in England. A
diminutive of the white-throat has also been described;
but the evidence of its existence, as any thing else
than an accidental variety — and the variation is not
greater than is found in many birds of the same
species — is by no means conclusive.
The prince of all warblers, however, is

THE NIGHTINGALE.

It would be vain to attempt in sober prose a descrip-
tion of a bird which has been a favourite with poets
of all ages and of every calibre ; and, therefore, all
that we shall venture to say to those who have not
heard its song is "Go and hear it :" to those who
have heard it, we can convey no information. From
the great volume of its voice, all who inhabit the dis-

THE NIGHTINGALE. 341

tricts which the nightingale frequents, are familiar with
it ; but the manners of the bird, in a state of nature,
the only state in which the manners of any bird are
worth attending to, are not so well known. The
localities to which it is confined in England show that
it is a delicate bird, equally shunning the mountain
and the fen, as if the air of the one were too cold, and
that of the other too impure for it. It is strictly a bird
of the rich and well cultivated, but at the same time
well wooded champaign ; and even the valleys of
Devon, though among the sweetest as well as the
warmest in the kingdom, have no charms for the night-
ingale, nor is it heard upon the more arid parts of the
regions that it does inhabit. Lofty woods, by clear
waters, among rich meadows and fields, where there is
an exuberance of vegetation, and consequently an
ample store of spft and smooth caterpillars, are the
places for the nightingale. In these it sings its song,
rears its brood in the closest retirement, but with the
most tender and assiduous care ; and when it has
accomplished that, the grand object of its visit, it
retires with the same quietness as it came ; not flock-
ing with its kind before its departure, as some other
birds do.

What may be the cause why the nightingale is so
confined in its locality in this country, has not been
ascertained, any more than why the range of the Dart-
ford warbler, which is a resident bird, should be even
more limited. It resorts regularly to countries that are
less rich, and climates that are colder than those places
of Britain in which it is never heard. Therefore the
only way in which it would be likely to obtain a solu-
2 G 2

342 SUMMER.

tion of the problem, would be to find what there is
peculiar in the entomology of the nightingale districts.
Where the temperature and facilities for nesting and
concealment are the same, the only hypothesis that we
can rationally take up for a bird which is left to the
free range of nature, preferring one district to another,
is that of food. Caprice, in the sense in which we
apply it to man, there can be none.

It has been alleged that there are three varieties of
the nightingale, that severally select the mountain,
the champaign, and the marsh ; but the distinction
appears to be confined to the fancies of those who made
it, and the credulity of those that believe them. It
has been alleged that the nightingales of one district
are superior to those of another, and something may
possibly depend upon a difference in the quantity or
quality of food ; but no satisfactory conclusion can be
drawn from the assertion, unless the same observer
could be in the two places at the same moment. We
have no means of knowing that the birds that come to
any place are those that were reared there ; the young
birds do not sing the year that they are hatched ; and
though they should be different when kept in confine-
ment, we could not draw any conclusion from that.
The quaint observation that " Those who cannot speak
certainly, certainly speak," will apply to a great deal
of the speech about nightingales and many other pro-
ductions of nature, that has found its way into print.
The habits of the bird are retired, and difficult to study;
but it is exceedingly interesting, and therefore those
who wish to be thought wise upon the subject of birds
must say something about it.

THE NIGHTINGALE. 343

The poets are as much at variance with the senti-
ment of this summer-evening song as they are with the
sex of the bird that produces it. The full songs of all
birds are given by the males, though the female in
many, and in the nightingale, among others, has a few
notes. But the note of the female is always soft and
murmuring, and heard at a very limited distance com-
pared with that of her mate. As for a sentimental song
of woe, there is no such in nature. The cries of pain
and uneasiness in the animals are all short and harsh,
and occasioned by something that is immediate, with-
out being in any way affected by the former day or
even the former hour. The songs are always what we
would call songs of joy, even when, as in the case of
the turtle and wood pigeon, they are in the most plain-
tive key. Generally speaking, too, the birds that sing,
pair only for the season ; and though some of those
that form more permanent attachments, murmur or coo
in the season of love, they do not sing, — as in the cases
of the eagle, the raven, and magpie. Generally, too,
the birds that migrate, and those that nestle in thick
covers, are the most melodious singers, while those
that frequent open wilds have the loudest calls or
whistles. We are not acquainted with the way in
which these melodies of the male birds act upon the
females ; but it is evident that they are intended to
bring together those that are concealed from each
other by the depth of groves or the expanse of the wil-
derness. Nothing could be better adapted for the pur-
pose ; and the notes are so varied that there is no
chance of mistake. And yet there is nothing of what
we call choice or freedom of election in this curious

344 SUMMER.

call and answer. The call is as perfect, and the an-
swering as immediate, in the young pairs of the former
year, which can never before have heard the song, as
in those birds which are pairing for the last year of the
longest life. Neither is it the beauty of the song : the
common house sparrow never deserts her mate and
her humble nesting place in the cottage thatch, for
the melody of the nightingale and the majesty of the
forest ; and the chattering magpie, true to her partner
and her kind, is heedless of the song of the thrush and
the luscious whistle of the blackbird.

The full song of the nightingale is always a song of
courtship ; and if there were any meaning in being sen-
timental upon the subject, it would be easy to blame
him as a " careless husband," because he never " sings
round" after pairing, except when he loses his mate,
and seeks for another. Thus all the fancies about his
having different trees near the nest from which he utters
different songs is not quite true. One can see a mean-
ing in the song before the pairing, but not so much
after, as the song of the nightingale cannot, like that
of the day birds, take the hawks out of the way of the
female and the nest. Still a portion of the song is
retained during the incubation, as a call-note; and
when one brood has been hatched early, there may, in
favourable seasons, be a second song, as in warmer
countries there are more than one brood in the season.

After the nesting has begun, the male has other
occupations than singing. The nest itself is, indeed, a
very simple structure. It is upon the ground, under a
thick bush or hedge, or if upon a tree, it is on the
very lowest part of one that is branched down to the

THE NIGHTINGALE. 345

ground ; and thus, though safe from birds of prey, it
often falls a sacrifice to small quadrupeds, such as
weasels and polecats. The mother is said often to fall
a prey to the same ; and the male, when he finds that
she does not answer to his call-note, mounts the lofty
tree again, and pours forth his song over all the wood-
birds. We have not had the means of verifying that by
actual observation, and we doubt much whether any-
body has, but we have more than once heard the night-
ingale sing -out anew, after a week or ten days of com-
parative silence ; but as it is impossible to identify the
birds, we cannot speak with precision. The nest is
formed of dry leaves, lined with withered grass, and
thus in structure resembles that of the other warblers ; but
the eggs so far differ that they are only of one colour,
an intermediate shade, made up of brown, yellow, and
green, and not very unlike the colour of the nest. Five
is about the average number. The male brings food
for the female, and occasionally relieves her in the nest
till the young come out of the shell, and then both
parents feed them with the greatest assiduity. Smooth
caterpillars of the leaf-rolling insects, and also of some
of the saw flies, are understood to be the principal
nutriment of the young ; and the slender bills of the
old ones are well adapted for taking the former out of
their folds, or the latter out of their holes and crevices.
When food is found very near the nest, the birds carry
the caterpillars one by one in the point of their bills ;
but when they make a more distant excursion they fill
the whole mouth. This assiduous feeding lasts for
about two weeks, at the end of which the young birds,
though they cannot fly far, are said to hop from twig

346 SUMMER.

to twig, and partially procure food. When fully fledged,
the male is said to lead them out to where they can
find food for themselves.

The nightingale is the largest of the warblers, being
seven inches in length, between ten and eleven in the
extent of the wings, and weighing about three-quarters
of an ounce. Its colours are plain and simple, and
without any decided markings. The upper part is deep
brown, with a shade of yellow ; the sides of the neck,
the breast, and the flanks grey ; the throat and belly
white; and the rump and tail pale brown, with a shade
of orange. The bird, in fact, is coloured a good deal
like the nest and those shaded and grassless places in
which it is constructed, and that no doubt is one of the
means of protection.

The second class of the little birds that come to rear
their broods with us, and aid the residents in clearing
our vegetation of insects, are the wagtails. They get
that name from the constant jerking motion of their
tails ; and as very many of the singing birds have the
same habit, though in a less conspicuous degree, Lin-
nseus and his immediate followers, made it the cha-
racteristic of a genus in which they included all the
warblers, the wrens, the chats, and the hedge sparrow,
as well as the wagtails properly so called ; though the
localities and general habits of the birds form much
more important distinctions than the mere motion or
rest of their tails. The celebrity which that eminent
Swede derived from artificial system-making was,
however, of great use in natural history. The emula-
tion of others led them also to make systems ; before
they could do that they were obliged to examine and

WAGTAILS. 347

study, and thus though, like the flint and steel, the
artificial systems did not smelt the ore and obtain the
metal, yet, like them, they, by their collision, struck
the spark that lit the furnace.

Of the wagtails, properly so called, there are three ;
the pied, the grey, and the yellow. They are all of
the same size and weight as the nightingale, only a
little longer in the wings and the tail ; and though
they are all, to a certain extent, migratory, there is
only one that regularly leaves the country; yet from
their mode of feeding, the others are compelled to mi-
grate from place to place with the season, unless in
districts where the banks of the rivers are never
wholly frozen, and there they may be met with all the
year. The most widely diffused one is

THE PIED WAGTAIL.

This is sometimes called the black wagtail, and
sometimes the white. Linnseus chooses the latter
name (motadlla alba), and indeed it matters little

348 SUMMER.

which colour it is named after, as they are pretty
equally distributed. The forehead, cheeks, sides of
the neck, belly, vent, borders of the greater wing
covers, edges of the quills, and outer feathers of
the tail are white, and all the rest black, inclining
on the middle of the back to a dusky ash colour.

It is a very lively bird, runs with great rapidity for
its size, flies in short but swift jerks, and the continual
motion of the tail, spreading out laterally as it is raised,
and closing again as it is depressed, gives it more ap-
parent activity than it has in reality. We have men-
tioned that where the banks of waters are open, the
wagtails remain permanently, and in other places they
soon find out when the thaw takes place ; and return-
ing from warmer parts of the country, or from the sea
shore, they run and whisk about throughout the season,
capturing a vast number of insects and their larvse.
They are familiar little creatures, and perch upon the
tops of cottages, or alight close by the larger animals, or
by man ; and there are instances of fishers with worm,
angling for a trout and catching a wagtail. In the
fields that are near water, they join in the farm labour.
They follow the plough and the harrow, and mingle
with the rooks in picking up the insects and worms
that these unearth. When cattle come to stand in the
water, or even in a moist place where insects are
abundant, they are sure to be joined by the wagtails.
Insects always crowd about the larger animals, and it
is partly with a view to get rid of those pests, that
they betake themselves to the water. But they are
followed there by their old tormentors, and they meet
with an accumulation of new ones. Their feet also

PIED WAGTAIL. 349

alarm and send up to the surface insects that are in
the earth, and thus, while they seek their own comfort,
they contribute to the supply of the wagtail.

The note of the wagtail is but feeble, yet it is not
unpleasant ; and as we meet it in shady places and by
the banks of streams, in sultry weather, — always in mo-
tion, whether on the ground or on the wing, — it is always
associated with freshness and activity. In the con-
struction of their nests they hold a sort of intermediate
place between the carelessness of the warblers and the
careful neatness of the wrens. The structure is gene-
rally placed in some sort of concealment near the bank
of a stream, or among stones, thick bushes, or in a low
pollard ; but it is also occasionally on the margin of
lawns, and other places near the water, where the grass
is kept short. The external structure is made of moss,
grass, and fibrous roots, but it is well lined with hair,
wool, or feathers, so as to be very soft and warm. The
eggs are greyish white, speckled with brown, and they
are commonly four or five ; but it is said that, by re-
moving one always, as there are two in the nest, the
same female has been made to lay as many as thirty.
The parent birds are very much attached to their nests
and their young ; face danger very boldly in defence
of them, and if they are plundered, follow the spoiler
very closely, and with angry cries.

The summer range of the pied wagtail is very great,
extending not only to Orkney and Shetland, but to the
Faroe islands. In those places they are migratory,
and so they are in the northern parts of Britain ; and
as the numbers that are found in more favourable
places in the winter, bear but a very small proportion
2 H

350 SUMMER.

to those that are diffused over the country in the early
spring, there is little doubt that a great number of
them go to warmer climates in the autumn. Wagtails
moult both in the autumn and in the spring ; and
there are some differences in the two changes of plu-
mage. In autumn the black is wanting upon the
throat and breast, and that upon the back of the male
has a greyish tint all over, so that at that season, and
until the spring moult, the colours of the two sexes are
nearly the same.

The grey wagtail (motacilla boarula), is a still more
handsome bird than the pied wagtail. Its annual mi-
grations are within the island, it being a winter bird
in the south of England, and a summer one in the
north of that country, and in Scotland. The upper
part is bluish grey, and the under part, with the
exception of the throat, which is bluish yellow, bright
every where, but richer on the breast and belly than
the rump. The wings are black, with white margins
on the quills, and white tips on the covers. The tail is
very long for the size of the bird, and has an entirely
white feather at each side.

While the grey wagtail remains in the breeding dis-
tricts, in which alone it is a summer bird, it is exceed-
ingly active, as it generally rears two broods between
the time of its arrival in March and the month of Sep-
tember. The shelves of the rocky banks of rivers are
its favourite places for nesting. The nest is made of
moss and grass, lined with hair, wool, and sometimes
feathers ; the eggs are usually about six, of yellowish
grey colour, mottled with blotches of a deeper shade
of the same. In activity in hunting for flies and other

YELLOW WAGTAIL. 351

insects, which it captures flying, running, and some-
times wading, it is more active than the pied wagtail ;
and it is very valorous in defence of its nest, and
makes an incessant chattering when a bird of prey
appears.

When it is stated that the migration of the grey
wagtail is northward and southward within the island,
it is not meant that the migration is always in that
direction. A colder place is what it seeks in the sum-
mer, and thus it may be found in the very elevated
moors, even in the south of England. It is worthy of
remark, that several of our domestic insectivorous
birds take their departure for the wilds and moors
at the same time that the warblers come to occupy
their place in the low countries, and thus there is, as
it were, a mutual accommodation among the feathered
tribes.

The yellow wagtail (motacilla flava), is, strictly
speaking, a summer bird, arriving in March, and
leaving the country in September. It is not so much
of a water bird as the other two, being more partial
to inland farms and pastures than to the margins of
rivers, running upon the open cultivated ground and
forming its nest there, though the nest is of the same
materials and construction as that of the other wag-
tails. The feet are adapted for running upon longer
grass than those of the other two, as the hind toe and
claw are lengthened, as in the lark, or rather as in the
pipits ; the tail also is much shorter ; so that in a per-
fectly accurate system it ought, perhaps, to form a
separate genus.

The general colour of the male bird in the spring

352 SUMMER.

or breeding plumage, is yellow in various shades;
pale on the head, with a brighter streak over each
eye ; deeper on the back, with a slight tinge of
brownish green, and very bright on the under part.
The wing covers, and wing and tail feathers have their
prevailing colours dark brown ; but they are edged
with pale yellow, and the two outside feathers of the
tail are white. When the bird first arrives in this
country, it betakes itself to the fields where the hus-
bandmen are at labour, and is very active in clearing
the soil of grubs. Its appearance at a particular sea-
son, and the brightness of its colour as contrasted with
the newly turned up earth, naturally call attention to
it, and in some places it is called the " oat-seed"
bird.

In all the wagtails the colours of the females are less
brilliant, during the breeding season, than those of the
males; but after the autumnal moult they more nearly
resemble each other.

Such are the chief birds that give a summer cha-
racter to the cultivated lands, the woods, and the
banks of rivers in this country ; and though none but
those that are native, venture to the mountain tops,
yet there are little birds which sport and utter their
notes in bleak and elevated places, rear their broods
there, and depart for warmer situations, or other lands,
before the winds of late autumn and early winter begin
to beat upon the locality of their nurseries ; and it is
not a little remarkable that the summer visitants of
those open places should be almost entirely without
song, though their call notes be peculiar, and well
adapted to the places that they frequent.

THE CHATS. 353

Even in the voices of the birds, we find that perfect
system, that sufficiency without waste, which is so re-
markable in every part of nature, and which makes
nature the very best school in which to study political
economy. Birds that inhabit wide and lonely places,
such as the extended heaths and sandy tracks by the
sea shore, and, where they are to be heard, amid the
wailing of the winds and the roar of the wraters,
have loud cries, — the latter a shrill and piercing
whistle, — the sound that is best heard amid the din
of waves, and therefore is adopted on board ship.
Those which inhabit thick woods or close bushes have
songs, vocal in proportion to the depth of their habita-
tions ; and those again that resort to open places that
are not very extensive, have short and less loud calls,
but all so varied from each other, that they cannot be
mistaken. In all, however, even in the most tuneless,
there is a voice of love, a something peculiar in the
sound, which brings the pair together for the grand
purpose of the year, and which cannot be mistaken for
the common warning of danger, or the invitation to
associate; and when the necessity for this peculiar
song, or note, or cry, is at an end, the sound itself
ceases until the warm season returns, and calls it forth
anew.

The birds which, with us, take up their nesting
places in the stoney wastes, are the chats, so called
from their common note, which is not unlike the
sound produced by rubbing one pebble against ano-
ther, though in the season they have all more or less
of song. There are three species of chat (saxicola),
found in Britain : the wheatear, or fallow chat (saxi-
2 H 2

354 SUMMER.

cola cenanthe) ; the whin chat (saxicola rubetra) ; and
the stone chat (saxicola rabicola). In the distribution
of these birds there is something very peculiar, and
which shows, that though the varied temperature of
climates, and the varying weather of seasons, have
a considerable effect upon the distribution and move-
ments of birds, they do not explain the whole.

THE WHEATEAR

Is a summer visitant, and leaves this island during
the winter ; but it is very abundant in the summer,
and distributed over the whole country ; being found
in those places which are adapted for its habits, in
every latitude, from the shores of the Channel to the
Orkney Isles. The whinchat is generally also a mi-
grant, (though a few winter in the counties of Eng-
land along the shores of the Channel), and abundant
in the southern parts of the island ; but it is not met
with in the north. The stoncchat does not migrate,

THE CHATS. 355

but is resident the whole year; and yet is is more
limited in its distribution than either of the other two.
Now these three species all resemble each other in
their habits, and rear about the same broods, and yet
the one which is apparently exposed to the fewest ca-
sualties, either natural or artificial, is the least abun-
dant. While the wheatear braves the sea, in the
storms of spring and autumn, and extends its adven-
turous flight as far as Greenland itself; and while in
many countries, and in England among the rest, it is
captured in great abundance for the table, the numbers
seem never to diminish. The stonechat, on the other
hand, braves no sea, takes no long and exhausting
flight upon the land, is seldom in districts where it can
be much pushed for food, and yet its numbers do not
increase ; it does not appear to extend its range even
in proportion as cultivation ameliorates the northern
parts of the island.

This increase against circumstances, and want of
increase where these are in favour, is probably more at
variance with the present state of our theories of the
numbers of animals, than any other instance that
could be named. In one case of disparity of increase,
we have a difference in the numbers of the young.
The brood of the eagle is seldom more than two, and
often only one, while that of the partridge is as many
dozens. The whale, too, brings but one, while the
brood of the cod fish is a number of thousands. We
can, therefore, easily see why there should be more
cod fish than whales, and more partridges than eagles.
In the latter case, too, we can see how cultivation
should diminish the number of eagles, and increase

356 SUMMER.

that of partridges, as the one will not nestle except
in lonely places, or seek for its food near the haunts
of man ; while the other prefers the cornfield, and
nestles near the house. We can understand why a
change in the produce or appearance of a country
should occasion a change in the wild inhabitants ; why
drainage should send away snipes, bitterns, and all
manner of water birds ; and why plantations should
bring the warblers, the wood pigeons, and all the other
birds that love the covert. But in a genus of birds,
to whose apparent habits there has been no obvious
alteration ; where, if there has been a change for the
worse to the one, there has apparently been the same
change to the other, and where the change appears
to have been the better for them all : — that, under such
circumstances, with an equal number of young an-
nually, and no dangers or casualties that are at all to
be compared, the stonechat should yet be a limited
bird, and the wheat ear so very general, is really an
anomaly, and shows that there must be some law that
regulates the numbers of animals with which we are
not yet acquainted. The difficulty is not solved, the
discovery is not made, though we say that, in the
absence of the birds of passage, the resident ones have
to sustain all the plunder of the birds of prey; for
there are birds of prey in those countries where the
travellers go in the winter ; and they have still the
fatigue and the casualties of the two journies against
them. This is therefore a fact, in natural history, for
which, in the mean time, there is no satisfactory ex-
planation,— an indication of a law, of which there are
some traces in other parts of nature, as in the case of

THE WHEATEAR. 357

the nightingale, the Dartford warbler, and the Cornish
chough, among resident birds.

The wheatear comes rather earlier than some of the
birds, finding its way to England in March, and to the
Orkneys in April. Bare and stony places are its
favourite retreats, and its cry, which is not very unlike
the word " cherk," is often heard in places where, from
the scantiness of provisions for them, there are few
other creatures. Probably that may be one of the
reasons why the birds are so numerous. There are
few plunderers in such a place. The weasel would
starve ; no bird of prey could get at the nest, which is
generally a considerable way under a stone; and
while the bird sits chatting upon the top of the
" cairn," it slips into a crevice, and disappears the
moment that it is too closely approached. When stones
are not at hand, the wheatear can excavate or burrow
in the earth to a considerable depth ; but it chooses
for that purpose, where it can, that sterile and in-
durated mixture of clay and sand, which is often met
with in extensive beds upon the slopes of the moun-
tains, which resists the weather, and partially also the
action of the streams, and would only require to be
burnt in order to become very good brick. The nest
is more generally in stony places ; and in the wilds,
where a great stone lies upon the surface with a little
opening below, if the situation is not very elevated,
one is almost certain that there is a wheatear 's nest,
more impregnable than the fortalice of any other bird.
It is generally so contrived, or rather it generally so
happens, that the ground below is so lined, that no
large animal could scrape into it with any quantity of

358 SUMMER.

labour that could be compensated by half a dozen of
little eggs; and we are induced to think that the
rock fort of the wheatear is sometimes a self-vic-
tualling one. Such stones on a bleak upland or
hill-side collect round them the fattest of the soil,
and the grasses and plants that are around their
margins are always of finer quality, and in richer
vegetation than those upon the open and unsheltered
places, where the wind sweeps along without meeting
with any resistance. The winds of all the year con-
spire to fatten those places ; the same winds have the
burgeoned tops of viviparous poas and festucas, which
are far from the worst of the upland grasses, and the
seeds of the leguminous plants ; and thus the shelter of
a large stone is really a little garden in the waste.
Those richer plants encourage a number of insects,
slugs, and worms, which are more sheltered from the
weather, and also better supplied with food than in
any other place. There is, therefore, no doubt that
the wheatear often finds provisions within her house ;
and when the insects come out in the morning, she is
at hand to make prize of them. Thus her pasture,
though to us it appears barren, is the very best
adapted to her habits.

The constant appearance of the wheatear among
heaps of stones, the peculiarity of its note, the activity
of its running upon the ground, the peculiar jerk of its
tail, and, above all, the suddenness of its disappear-
ance into a hole when disturbed, have conspired to
make it in the Highlands a very much suspected bird,
and nearly as deeply concerned in diablerie as the
yellow hammer. And when the habits of a people
(they are somewhat changed now) that were separated

THE WHEATEAR. 359

from the rest of the world, living in a country of
natural phenomena, where a continual succession of
mists, and many shadows and sounds wafted far across
the otherwise silent wilderness — who saw without in -
structors, and reflected without any thing to guide
them but their own observations, and the traditions of
their fathers, — are considered, it will not be wondered at
that they should attempt to connect what they saw
with an ideal world, when their knowledge of the world
of realities was so limited. A cairn of stones being,
too, the ancient mode of sepulture, or at least, of pro-
tecting the remains of the fallen from the wolf and the
raven, and the wheatear choosing such places in pre-
ference to any others, helped to give a sort of super-
stitious character to the bird. Philosophy knows that
there is nothing more mysterious in a bird nestling
among the houses of the dead, than in the branches of
a laurel or a rose tree ; and that the bees that hived in
the dry skeleton of Sampson's lion were guided by no
different principle from that which would have led them
to a hollow tree, had that been in their way; but man,
in a state of nature, will always select as the cause why
animals resort to one place rather than another, the
association with that place in which he is interested
the most. That is the reason why the chlaichearan
got a suspicious character in the highlands ; and for
similar reasons other birds have been accounted of good
or evil omen, when just as innocent of either as the
wheatear. In cold northern countries, burial grounds
are among the places where insects most abound; and
there are generally some sort of monumental stones
there, however rude. Of such places the wheatear

360 SUMMER.

takes possession, and as the rude enclosure is often
formed of loose stones, she nestles there, and is, in con-
sequence, held in the utmost abhorrence, and killed by
both old and young as a meritorious act — something
grateful to the manes of those whose repose she pro-
fanes. The Gaelic name that we have given above, in-
deed, means either " stone bird " or "churchyard" bird.
Thus the poor wheatear, which is one of the most inof-
fensive birds upon the face of the earth, is wantonly
destroyed; even when it crosses the stormy ocean of
the north to give a little life to the cold desolation of
Greenland.

They think very differently in England, where the
birds flock in the end of July, previous to their final
departure. A shepherd boy in Scotland considers (at
least would have considered) himself both poisoned
and polluted if he had tasted the hated bird ; while,
when they collect upon the downs in the south of
England, they are so much in request, that instances
are recorded of a single shepherd capturing a thousand
in one day. So much are they relished, too, that
they have been sold at the rate of fifteen shillings per
dozen ; which, as the weight, feathers and all, is not
above three quarters of an ounce, and therefore not
above half an ounce of food, is at the rate of two
pounds per pound weight. Whether the English ones
only collect upon the downs of Sussex, or whether
they convene there from all parts of the country is not
known ; but they, at all events, fatten upon their
march ; and, as Pennant justly observes and explains,
by the great quantity of worms that they then find,
they are always in best condition when July is a rainy

THE WHEATEAR. 36 I

month. From their habit of running into holes, as a
means both of safety and of obtaining food, the wheat-
ears are easily taken ; as nothing more is wanted than
to set up two pieces of tile, or slate, or turf, leaning
against each other like a roof, put a noose of horse-
hair within it, and the bird is sure to be caught. Ten
or twelve thousand is said to be the number captured
in the neighbourhood of Eastbourne alone, every season.
If the flocking of wheatears in the south of England,
be an actual accumulation of them from other parts of
the country, it is different from their habits in other
places. They there both come and go without any in-
dication, and appear to have no association beyond a
single pair. They may flock there, however, for there
are many places where birds accumulate at certain
seasons without any explained cause, though seldom
more than two are seen together at any other time of
the year.

The wheatear pays as much attention to the warmth
and comfort of its nest, as to safety and abundance
of food for its progeny. An ample drainage (should
that be necessary) and an outside fabric are made of
the dried fibres of grass, and the whole is well lined
with wool and feathers ; and when there is a sheep-walk
near the place frequented by the birds, they may be
seen picking the loose parts of the fleeces from the
bushes with great assiduity. The eggs are five or six,
of a pale but beautiful blue, without any blotches or
spots. Both parents are very much attached to the
nest ; and the female, trusting probably to the strength
of her post, can hardly be roused from it, and might
often be taken with the hand. Like all other birds
2 i

362 SUMMER.

that are ardent sitters, she wears off great part of the
feathers on the under part, by friction in turning her
eggs. The increased heat which the breasts of female
birds have at that time, and the uneasiness produced
by that, which seem to be the great inducements to
sitting, no doubt help to remove the feathers. The in-
fluence of that action in the breast may be observed
in domestic birds ; pullets, for instance, will sit upon
the eggs of a duck, or upon stones, or upon the mere
earth, with all the attitudes of incubation, and perse-
vere in it for a considerable time, wearing off their
feathers by the friction, and probably also having the
juice of these partially absorbed by the heat.

This heat of the breast appears to be as general a
phenomenon in the economy of birds, as the produc-
tion of milk in the mammalia ; and the removal of
the heat in the case of the bird, seems to be attended
with the same sort of pleasurable sensation as the re-
moval of the milk. In the case of domesticated birds,
we can partially, if not wholly, prevent this affection of
the female, by turning it to account in the production
of a greater number of eggs than would be deposited
for one brood in the natural state of the bird ; and the
same may be in so far accomplished with those wild
birds that do not easily desert their nests, by the same
means — a constant removal of the eggs ; but that is no
argument against the universality of the affection.
Nor can we draw any more inference from those cases
in which we cannot prevail upon a bird to sit, than we
can from those in the mammalia, where a female some-
times cannot suckle. That is the reason why we, in
the absence of personal proof, have ventured to ques-

THE WHEATEAR. 363

tion, as a general principle, that which the authorities
have alleged with regard to the cuckoo ; and we are
very much inclined to regard it as an universal law of
the feathered tribes, that this accumulation of heat and
the disposition to get rid of it by the act of incubation,
always follows the laying of a number of fecundated
eggs, greater or less according to the species and habits
of the bird. We have seen that in the case of many
birds, it affects the male also ; for we are not to sup-
pose that he reasons about the harm that would befal
the eggs in the cooling, because the young males do it
the very first hatch ; and, if one were to suppose that
birds were all Newtons in philosophy, that is a conclu-
sion at which they could no more arrive by reasoning,
without experience, than the reader can tell whether
tzaggitichaqui be black or white, soft or hard, or whe-
ther it would or would not burn, if thrown into a
pitcher of water.

During the heat of the day, the male wheatear takes
possession of the nest, the female having come out at
his call. It is probable that he then sleeps for part of
the time ; as, about two o'clock on a warm day, he is
more easily captured on the nest than the female.
Exercise, more than food, seems to be the object that
the female needs by her relief, because in the morning
and the evening the male feeds her abundantly. No
doubt she picks up ants and catches a few flies ; but
she seems, for the greater part of the time, to return
the assiduity of her partner's watch ; and when they
" change the guard" from male to female, or from
female to male, there is a chatter of recognition, as if

364 SUMMER.

they were communicating the occurrences of the watch,
— which, of course, they are not doing.

The male bird, notwithstanding the strength of the
castle, shows a great deal of tact as well as tactics in
the removing of an enemy. He approaches, and chat-
ters, and hops, and flies this way and that way, till he
attracts attention ; and when he succeeds in that,
he practices his manoeuvres till he has wiled the
enemy to a considerable distance from the nest.
Then he starts off by a longer flight, and returns by a
circuitous route to the place whence he started. If fol-
lowed, he does not return there, but darts off laterally
to a considerable distance, but still keeping within
sight of his charge. If the locality of the nest be ap-
proached, he returns and performs his manoeuvres in a
similar manner ; and we once kept one in play in this
way for half an hour, in a situation where he could
not have had experience of many human visitors.

The wheatear is about six inches in length, and
weighs three quarters of an ounce. The bill, legs,
and claws are black, and the tarsi very long in propor-
tion to the size of the bird. In the male bird, the
upper part is grey, the wings brownish black, the two
middle feathers of the tail and the tips of the others of
the same colour. There are also two black streaks
that extend from the openings of the mandibles, across
the eyes, to the ear covers. The neck and breast are
pale reddish brown, and the under part and outside
tail feathers, except the tips, white. The female is
brownish in the backhand has the stripes on the head
brown, with less white in the tail.

THE WHINCHAT. 365

The whinchat is not above two-thirds the size of the
wheatear, and though there be some resemblance in
them, the distinction of colour is as obvious as that of
size, locality, or manners. The bill, legs, and claws
are black ; a white stripe passes over the eyes from
the bill to the nape, and another down the side of the
neck to the breast. The chin, the belly, the vent, the
under wing covers, and the bases of the quills and tail,
and outside feathers of the tail, are also white ; the
upper part, the cheeks, and ear covers, are dark brown,
the feathers margined with dull yellow ; the throat
and breast are pale yellowish brown, and the middle
feathers of the tail black. The plumage of the female
has less white in it, and the upper parts have a reddish
tinge. The note, though short and hurried, and not
deserving the name of a song, is more pleasing than
that of the wheatear.

The whinchat gets its trivial name from the par-
tiality that it has to bushes of the whin or furze ; and
the places in which it is most abundant are commons
that are overrun with those bushes. Its nest is placed
under them, or under any thick bush, or close and
matted tuft of grass, concealed with the greatest care,
both above and on every side. The entrance to it is
so contrived that there is not the least appearance of a
nest at the place from which the bird escapes ; and
when it is to enter, it alights at a little distance, and
hops round by a circuit till it can plunge into the
cover. There are often more passages than one to
the nest ; but they are all winding, so that it cannot
be seen from any of them. The nest itself is on the
ground, of the same materials, and put together with
2 i 2

366 SUMMER.

the same neatness as that of the former species. Some-
times, indeed, the nest of the whinchat is without any
lining of animal matter ; but has the portion nearest
the eggs formed of very soft and delicate leaves and
fibres of plants. The eggs are also the same in num-
ber, and without any spots or markings, but the blue
tint has a shade of green. Like the wheatear, the
whinchat picks up the chief supply of food for itself
and its young ones upon the ground, though it occa-
sionally hawks for winged insects, and even sings,
fluttering over the bushes, but never at any great
height. There is no doubt that a considerable number
of the whinchats migrate to and from the British shores ;
but more winter near the south coast than could be
accounted for from lame birds and stragglers ; though
those that remain have a migration within the island,
as they do not winter in those very elevated places in
which they nestle and pass the summer, — and which
have procured them the name of moor titlings. tn
the end of the season they become very fat, and are
much relished by epicures in small birds; but their
flesh soon begins to decay, in which state the smell of
it is very offensive.

The stonechat is a little larger than the whinchat,
but not so large as the wheatear (which, by the way,
is the one that really deserves the name of u stonechat,"
as it frequents stones and stony places much more than
either of the others), and its colours make it easily
distinguishable from either of those, though it has still
some resemblance to them. It is altogether darker in
the colours. The throat, head, ancfr beak are black,
but the feathers on the last are edged with brown.

THE STOKECHAT. 367

The breast is orange brown, and the wings dark brown,
with light edges to the feathers. The sides of the
neck, wing covers at the shoulders, and the under part,
are white, but on the belly the white has a tinge of
yellow. The female has less white, has the brown on
the upper part lighter, the head and throat dark brown
mottled with white and yellow, and the breast with
more of a yellowish tinge.

Its habits and places of residence very much resem-
ble those of the whinchat, as like that it prefers the
elevated commons, and makes its nest at the bottom
of a bush, and formed of the same materials as the
nest of the wheatear. As is the case with the others,
the nest is carefully concealed, though the approaches
to it are not made with so much art as in those of the
whinchat. Occasionally, however, it builds under
the shelter of a stone, though it does not go so deep
into concealment as the wheatear. The eggs are the
same in number as the others, and the general colour
is nearly the same, only it has a more decided tinge o^
green. Unlike those of the others, however, the eggs
of the stone chat are mottled round the thick end, with
spots of reddish brown. Some of the describers have
mistaken the eggs of one species for those of another,
and represented the eggs of the others as having mark-
ings. The eggs of birds, when properly described, are
very useful for distinguishing the species, as in the
same one they often differ less in colour than the
birds.

Though the stone chat frequents elevated and bleak
places, it is not found in the northern parts of the
country ; but in the south it is resident, and found in

368 SUMMER.

winter in more situations and greater numbers than
the whin chat. Still it is probable that a portion, and
a very considerable portion, do migrate out of the
country in the autumn, as they are less abundant in
the winter than in the spring ; and of the little birds
that are wholly resident, the majority appear in by
far the greatest numbers during winter, as both the
coldness of the weather and the failure of food drive
them from their summer retreats to the cultivated
lands and the neighbourhood of houses, where they
come in flocks, and of course attract more attention.
One habit which this bird is said to possess, would,
if verified (the means of doing which would not,
however, be very easy) be a curious fact in ornithology.
The young are said to travel in the autumn of the
first year of their lives, as if it were to see the world
before they settle in life, and take upon them the cares
of a succession of families. Whether they make the
tour of all, or every part of the continent, or merely
take a jaunt to a different part of England, is not of
course known, but Selby says that he has found the
young ones to leave the place of their birth before the
winter, and it is not very likely that he could be mis-
taken ; and yet the young have a good deal of resem-
blance to the adult females. The fact is by no means
unlikely ; for there are many of those birds that build,
year after year, the same pair in the same nest, on the
same tree, of which the young take their departure as
soon as they have attained the requisite strength, and
never return to the place of their nativity. In all birds
where that is the case, the actual increase is a minimum
in respect of the numbers reared ; and possibly the

THE CORNCRAKE.

369

casualties to which the young of this species are ex-
posed on their autumnal excursions, (long or short)
may be one of the reasons why, with the same number
in brood yearly, and fewer chances against them in
any other way, they do not multiply faster than the
wheatears.

The chats, when beating about in the places which
they inhabit, whether permanently or periodically,
never fligh high, enter the woods, or are much seen
traversing over the tall herbage of the cultivated fields.
They do not, indeed, care for frequenting tall herbage
of any kind, though they perch upon the bushes on
the commons and the more remote hedges. But still
there is a bird, which comes from other lands to put
the husbandman in mind that it is the summer; a bird,
which if not quite so melodious in its voice, is yet as
singular in its habits, as any bird of the season. That
bird is-—

THE CORN-CRAKE.

370 SUMMER.

No bird can have a name more expressive of its cry
than the crake, or daker-hen, (rallus crex ;) for its note,
which is incessant at the times and in the places
alluded to, is nothing but a repetition of the word
" crake ;" and that monotonous and harsh cry is al-
most all that even those by whom it is heard know re-
specting it, for no bird, not even the jay in the coppice,
is more difficult to be seen, — as it is always among tall
herbage, runs with great rapidity, and can be very sel-
dom made to take the wing. In Britain, it is strictly
a summer bird, arriving in the southern parts of the
island about the first of May, and in the northern
parts about the middle of that month. Unlike some
of the other birds, it gives no sign either of its coming
or its departure ; but steals into the tall corn or grass,
utters its love note there for a few days, then continues
its " crake " for a longer period, and by the time that
the fields begin to be cleared it is gone, in the same
stealthy manner as it came. While it is in the country,
it is with great difficulty that it can be either captured
or seen ; and it has a ventriloquism in its note, by
which one is a great deal deceived as to the place in
which it really is. We have followed it many a weary
and ineffectual chace ; and when it called as if only a
yard or two distant, stopped its cry as we advanced,
and thus made us sure of seeing it, as not a stalk of
the corn moved, we have heard it break out again
right in the rear, and apparently at a considerable dis-
tance. We have heard it also on one side, apparently a
good many yards off, but before we could take more
than a step or two in the direction of the sound, the
crake was apparently as far distant on the other side.

THE CORNCRAKE. 271

We are inclined to think, though we have not abso-
lutely ascertained the fact, that those misleading
sounds are not all uttered by the same bird, but that
the pair act in concert. The cry is not a love note ;
and thus the only meaning that can be assigned to it,
is that it is the note of a watchman. The evening is
the time when the smaller predatory quadrupeds prowl
about ; and the incessant noise that is then kept up by
the crake, may be for drawing them away from the
nest. When the bird has succeeded in that, it may be-
come silent, and run, which it can do rapidly without
making any rustling noise in thick herbage, till it effect
its escape, and its silence may be a signal for the other
to begin ; and thus the two may exhaust the patience
of the staunchest enemy. When closely pursued by a
dog, it squats down till the dog has vaulted over it,
then it runs off at an angle, and the cry is heard at a
distance. When there are no other means of escape,
it will rise on the wing, and that is the only time, un-
less by the merest accident, the sportsman can get a
shot at it. It rises most readily when near a hedge,
and it will often get upon that so adroitly as to make
the pursuer fancy that it is still upon the ground : at
other times it will appear to pass clean over the hedge
into the next field, when, in fact, it has descended and
doubled back into the same one ; it will perch on the
hedge unobserved ; or it will pass over when it appears
to have returned. But it leaves the field in which its
young are with very great reluctance, and never to any
considerable distance ; and though one may succeed in
driving it over the hedge into a high road, or where
there is short herbage, it doubles round, slips in

372 SUMMER.

through the nearest opening, and is in the middle of
its own field craking away as if it had met with no an-
noyance, almost before one is aware. When we con-
sider the close and heavy nature of the covers in which
they are found, we are disposed to conclude that the
means which the crake has of escape from its enemies,
are superior to those of any other running animal ; and
equal on the ground to what the evolutions of the lap-
wing are in the air.

But, notwithstanding its manoeuvres, the crake may be
decoyed by the imitation of its love note. That note is
a rolling sound not unlike what is produced by drawing
a bit of stick rapidly across the bars of a very close
railing, or the teeth of a rake, or even the finger along
the points of the teeth of a comb. The birds will ap-
proach that sound uttering one in imitation of it;
though they do so readily only in the early part of the
season, and before they have begun to utter their watch
notes.

Notwithstanding its comparative invisibility, from the
nature of the cover that it selects, and the art with
which it eludes observation and baffles pursuit, the
crake is by no means a small bird. The length is about
ten or eleven inches, the breadth eighteen or nineteen,
and the weight from six ounces and a half to seven
ounces. The colour of the bird is not unlike the half-
dried earth among the roots of the vegetation where it
takes up its abode ; the feathers on the upper part are
blackish brown with margins of dull yellow ; and those
on the under part are dull white with a reddish tinge.
The wing covers and wings are of a rust colour ; the
chin pale, and the cheeks ash gray. The bill and legs

THfc CORNCRAKE. 373

are dull red brown ; and the latter, which are long and
strong, are defended both in the front and the rear by
mailed plates. The front toes are long, divided from
each other the whole length, but marginated, so that
while the bird can run rapidly among the rough herb-
age, it does not sink deep in the soft ground. The
hind toes are smaller, and thus, though the bird can
alight on a bough, it is not adapted for perching during
the night, but lodges upon the ground. The nest is
always upon the ground, and is a very simple structure,
—merely a little hollow lined with dry grass. The
eggs vary, but they are rather numerous than otherwise,
being sometimes as many as fifteen, and generally not less
than a dozen. These birds have not a very great num-
ber of enemies, as birds of prey cannot find them out
in their covers ; and weasels, polecats, and other de-
predators in such places as those frequented by crakes,
do not range the extended fields of thick grass and
corn ; but their actual increase is not in proportion .to
the number of their broods, and therefore there is rea-
son to believe that many of the eggs are destroyed by
the June rains, more especially as the birds are most
abundant in low and flat fields, that are apt to be par-
tially flooded by the mere stagnation of the water when
those rains are heavy. When once the eggs are
hatched, the brood are comparatively safe, even from
the scythe of the mower, which often commits sad
havoc among skylarks and other birds that build in
hay-fields, and continue longer in the nest. The eggs
are of a dull white colour with rusty spots ; and the
young, in their first plumage, are spotted with white.
The crake has a strong muscular gizzard, like poultry
2 K

374 SUMMER.

and the other birds that live upon seeds ; and, there-
fore, the seeds of those plants that ripen among hay
and corn form part of the food of the old birds, as well
as of the young, after these have attained sufficient size
and strength for reaching them ; but they also consume
a vast number of snails, slugs, worms, caterpillars, and
moths ; and thus, while they are in general gone before
they can do any injury to the crops, they perform their
part in clearing of vermin the places where they take
up their abode. The only situations in which we have
heard them complained of has been where clover was
left standing for seed; and as, even then, they have
not been caught in the fact, it is by no means impro-
bable that the injury for which they are blamed may,
in reality, be done by the linnets. The crake, unmusical
as it is, is very far from being disagreeable ; as it is
heard in those open places, where there are, compara-
tively few other sounds heard in the stilly calmness of
the summer twilight, and in situations where the air of
that twilight has a most agreeable freshness.

But we can hardly imagine a place to which the
abundant supply of insect food in the summer does not
send in a bird; and, generally, when the situation is
such that the stores are great, one bird succeeds
another at a different time of the day. We have
already hinted that the warblers come to clear the
leaves, and other birds to perform the same office over
every kind of soil and surface to be found in the
island ; and when twilight sends the greater part of
them to their repose, and the few that are still wakeful,
to the groves and thickets to hymn forth their evening
songs, a bird comes buzzing along the coppices and

THE GOATSUCKER.

375

thickets, or round the trees, to prey upon those in-
sects that do not take to the wing till nightfall. That

bird is

THE GOAT-SUCKER.

Tn many parts of the world, more especially in warm
and swampy forests, such as those of America, that are
much infested with evening and nocturnal insects of
large size, the goatsuckers are abundant both in spe-
cies and in individuals; but with us, where the number
of such insects is less, and their appearance confined to
the warmer months of the summer, there is only one
species, a summer visitant, and, though pretty exten-
sively scattered over the country, by no means nu-
merous. That is the common goatsucker (caprimulgus
Europceus,) which has been accused of draining the
teats of goats and other quadrupeds, an office for which
the structure of its bill is by no means fitted, and
which, indeed, it could not by possibility perform ;
though, in warmer countries, it is often found under

376 SUMMER.

cattle, engaged in capturing the flies that annoy them.
It is found farther to the north than many of the
summer birds. It has been heard in that beauti-
fully wooded district of Ross-shire, that lies between
the lofty summit of Ben Wyvis and its ramifications,
and the northern shore of the forth of Cromarty, and
in the lower part of the woods at Braan Castle, near
the bank of the Conon, which flows into that firth.
From the sheltered situation, the warmth, the richness
of the soil, and the abundance of wood and water, that
is indeed one of the richest ornithological districts in
the northern part of the island, and some of the
summer birds are found in abundance there, that are
comparatively rare in districts much farther to the
south.

The goatsucker is among the latest of our summer
birds in its arrival, and it is one of the first to depart.
In the most southern districts of the country, it does
not arrive till the middle of May, and in the north it is
not met with till June. When they first arrive, they
utter a repetition of a querulous croaking sort of cry,
which is made when they are perched and not very
easily seen ; but that does not continue long, as they
soon become both invisible and silent in the clear light,
and fly hawking about, uttering their whirring or
buzzing sound in the evenings.

The goatsucker is remarkably well adapted for con-
tinuous flight, its extent being great in proportion to the
weight. The length is about ten inches, and the
stretch of the wings not less than twenty, and yet the
bird does not weigh three ounces. The bill is small
and peculiar, the extent of the gape being out of all

THE GOATSUCKER. 377

proportion to the size of the organ; and the sides of
the mouth are armed with fringes or bristles, arranged
something like the baleen in the mouth of a whale, and
probably for a similar purpose. Those fringes, and
also the mouth and tongue, are covered with a viscid
secretion, by which the gnats and other small insects
which swarm on the summer evenings, may be captured
as birds are with limed twigs. The sound that it makes
while flying must agitate the air in its immediate
neighbourhood, and may facilitate the capture of
insects. The sound is also something like that of the
large chaffers, and as their sound is, in part at least, a
love one, that of the bird may decoy them to their fate,
and those beetles are readily captured and eaten by the
goatsucker. Moths, especially the hawk moths, that
are abroad upon their hunting expedition in the twi-
light, are also eagerly caught by it. Those moths
usually take up their abode for the day, on the under
sides of the leaves of trees, and of the brambles, ferns,
and other tall plants in brakes, and, accordingly, it
may be found beating about those places with great
assiduity. It will whirl round and round a tall tree
for a long time, now ascending, now descending, now
pouncing inward, merely to touch a particular point,
and now widening its circle ; and over an entangled
brake, it may be seen, or rather heard, — for when it is not
projected against the sky, it is not easily seen, — flying
across and across in zigzags, and ever and anon dip-
ping down to catch the prey that starts probably by the
sound of the bird ; and the agitation which it produces
in the atmosphere, may throw the prey off their guard,
and make the capture more easy. The stiff hairs at the
2 K 2

378 SUMMER.

base of the bill may also assist in the intercepting of
the smaller insects, while the tribular form of the nos-
trils prevents the little ones from getting into those
apertures. The structure of the feet is peculiar, the
legs are short and feathered, the three front toes are
united as far as the first joint, the claw of the middle
one is serrated, and the hind one is reversible, so
that all the four can act in the same direction. In
consequence of this, the bird perches longitudinally
upon a branch, and not crosswise, as the majority of
birds do. Thus it is much better concealed during the
day than if it had the reverse position. It cannot be
seen from below, and as it crouches close to the branch,
it is not easily discovered, laterally. Whether the cur-
vated claws assist it in capturing its larger prey, as well
as in perching, has not been ascertained ; but it is by
no means improbable, as the feathering of the legs is
always accompanied by a more than ordinary action of
the toes, or as a preventative against severe cold ; and
the goatsucker does not require it for the latter pur-
pose, as it retires to warmer countries in August, or, at
the very latest, in the beginning of September. From
the times at which the goatsucker comes to this country,
and leaves it, one would be led to suppose that the
grand object of its coming is to thin the beetles, the
scarabceus melalontha, and scarabauss olstitialis, which
become inhabitants of the air in succession during the
greater part of the time that it is in the country, and
which " wheel their droning flights" at the dusky hour
when it comes abroad from its perch, and j.ars along
the air. Probably also the water beetles form part of
its food, as we have seen it in waste places near water,

THE GOATSUCKER. 379

from which numbers of them were taking their way for
their nocturnal excursions.

Tall fern brakes are very favourite places with the
goatsucker ; and on account of its being often found
hawking about them, and may occasionally be driven out
from them during the day, one of its many names is
the " fern owl/' The under sides of fern leaves are,
however, very favourite places for moths, particularly
the large species, to rest upon during the heat of the
day, and that may be, and most probably is, the reason
why they are so much resorted to by the goatsucker.
The food of the goatsucker must, one would naturally
suppose, be more limited than that of most of the other
summer birds, for its brood never consists of more than
two ; and the whole of its labour, with the exception
of its incubation, is devoted to the finding of its food,
as it makes no formal nest, but deposits its two eggs,
which are white marbled with brown, among the roots
of ferns, and other tall vegetables, by which it can be
concealed, and also shaded from the sun.

The eyes of the goatsucker have a good deal of
resemblance to those of the natural birds of prey ;
they are large, and light has the same powerful
action upon the iris, making it contract, till the
pupil be reduced to a mere point, and the vision
in consequence almost wholly prevented. All animals
have this involuntary contraction more or less ; but
it is always greatest in those constructions of eyes
that are adapted for seeing in the twilight : and
when they have to face a very bright light they
are momentarily blinded. It is this instant invo-

380 SUMMER.

luntary dazzle which enables one to catch owls at
night, by a bright torch or lantern ; and it is
the very same that makes fire in a savage country
the best defence against all the wild beasts that prey
during the night. These animals have, and can
have, no speculative alarm at fire ; but they feel
its physical action — an animal inconvenience in the
blinding that it occasions, and therefore they avoid
it. That the seasons at which night animals come
abroad, depends merely on the action of circum-
stances upon their physical structure, is proved by
the fact that owls, goatsuckers, and all the nocturnal
train, come abroad when the day is unusually dark,
either from clouds or from an extensive eclipse of
the sun ; and the fact of their doing so, though it
depends on nothing but the apparent twilight state
of the air, was, in the case of the eclipses, one of
the great means whereby the superstitiously porten-
tous nature of these phenomena was conferred, and
also why those gloomy days that bring the owl
from its hiding place, are accounted days of fate,
by those who are not acquainted with the physical
causes : and, as long as the conduct of animals are
attributed to a prescience of what is to come,
whether that be called an instinct of their own or an
impression of any thing mysterious that has no
cause in the circumstances that precede their con-
duct, so long will the delightful subject of natural
history be prostituted to the rivetting of those chains
of mental and moral delusion which the proper study
of it is so well calculated to destroy.

THE COMMON WASP. 381

The goatsucker resembles the swallow tribe, in the
proportion that the extent of its wings bears to the
weight of its body, but in every thing else, save their
hawking upon the wing, they are different; 'and
yet the swallows love a comparatively dark sky,
and that clear state of the air in which evaporation
is suspended ; as then they can see their prey better,
and seize it with more certainty. We have no space
left to enter upon their history or that of their prey ;
but we may mention that, in the lonely places their
habits vary considerably from what they are in
the neighbourhood of farms; and that by the banks
of the streams among the mountains they present
very different appearances, as their whole flights are
confined to local excursions along the stream, alter-
nately sipping the surface of the little pools, and
capturing the few insects that are found there. The
sand martin (hirundo riparia) is the species most
frequently met with in such localities, as it nestles in
holes of the steep banks, generally in colonies at
one place, whichsoever the stream hath upwards and
downwards. One subject of prey in those places is
the common wasp, (vespa vulgaris) which, wherever
there is a coppice, and consequently withered sticks
in one of those upland situations may be found
hanging, in its pendent citadel, from a bough over
the stream. As the dry wood from which she scrapes
her materials, in such a situation is bleached to a
much greater degree of whiteness than those which
are constructed in less exposed situations, the nest
is really a very handsome object, independently of
the skill with which it is constructed, both in the

382

SUMMER.

arrangement of the cells, the waterproof nature of
the cement by which the ligneous fibres are united,
and the bouyancy that is given to the whole, so that
when the torrent is swollen, it not only floats, but
has levity enough to heave up the twig to which it
is attached. Idle boys plug up the entrances with
clay, and then cut them adrift, and we have seen
one carried down a cascade of some elevation
without being broken, or even admitting a drop
of water. The martins appear to know the hours
at which the wasps are most active near their
pendent dwellings ; as they are then busy hawking
about, and capturing the members of the indus-
trious colony; but the nest is proof against them,
and is, perhaps, the most singular animal structure
which is characteristic of the British summer.

We have no space for visiting the hay-field, which
is so joyous in rustic life ; or, indeed, any of the
localities of man in this delightful season. Yet
the hay-field is one of the most delightful scenes in
England, — we say in England, for that is the chosen
land of fragrant hay ; and a freshness is diffused over
the fields, quite unknown in regions where they are
obliged to have recourse to artificial grasses. The
scented vernal grass (Anoxanthum Odoratum), at once
outdoes all the odours both of the toilette and the
garden; and like the kindred perfume of the woodruff,
it comes out when the plant begins to dry, and re-
mains till the following season. The glee of the hay-
makers, too, to whom the epithet " merry," is always
applied, and the rich brown of solstitial health which
they acquire while carrying on this delightful labour —

SUMMER. 383

the cleanest, the freshest, and the healthiest of the field
— are highly interesting. Even the sight of a hay-field
when the grasses approach maturity, and the glumes
dance upon their elastic scapes to every piping of the
wind, or even to its gentlest motion, whether it pipe or
not, is one of the most pleasant in nature; and one in
which the wonderful versatility of the wind, and the
slight causes that produce momentary changes in its
direction and velocity, can be much more clearly under-
stood than by contemplating the ripple on the most
limpid water. But the summer has so many character-
istics, in the atmosphere, on the earth, and in the waters ;
and their changes are so many with change of place, and
their succession so rapid with the lapse of time, that
no words can convey any thing like an adequate idea
of them ; and therefore all that can be attempted is
to excite in those, who " have eyes but see not,"
a desire to look around them at that which is pro-
duced without the art and labour of man, and they
will find a resource, which while, by the spring and
impulse it gives to the mind, it makes the business
and the duty of life go smoothly on, is a citadel amid
misfortune, an inheritance which none of the con-
tingencies of life can impair, — an enjoyment which
is, as it were, intermediate between that of the world
of possession, and that brighter world of hope, to
which it is so delightful to look forward.

END OF THE SECOND VOLUME.

AND EVANS, PRINTEHS, 1, EOUVEHIF. STRFFT.

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