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SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

La BKAU<n< i- AiA-iJN

Frontispiece

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

An Introduction to the Study of British Bird Life

'-\ - t

j c.

BY

H. KNIGHT HORSFIELD

Member of the British Ornithologists' Union

Natural History Editor of the " Yorkshire^

Weekly Post " Author of "English Bird Life "

"In the Gun-Room" etc etc

WITH A FOREWORD BY
W. EAGIvE CLARKE, I.S.O., IvL.D.

Late President of the British Ornithologists' Union

ILLUSTRATED BY PLATES AFTER
J. WOLF AND A. THORBURN
AND PHOTOGRAPHS FROM NATURE

HEATH CRANTON UMITED
6 FLEET LANE LONDON E.G. 4

TO

A. H.

IN MEMORY OF DEBTS THAT
CAN NEVER BE REPAID

Printed in Great Britain for Heath Cranion Limited hy
Allison dk Bowen Limited 19 Greengate Street Stafford

CONTENTS

PAGE

Foreword by Dr. W. Eagle Clarke lo

Introduction H

PART I.

CHAPTER I.
Structure of Birds. — Skeleton — ^Feathers — Wings

Wing Expanses — Beaks 13

CHAPTER 11.
Birds' Nests. — Original Nest Builders — Swallow's change

of habit — Decorative Sense in Birds 26

CHAPTER III.
Birds' Eggs. — Painting of the egg — ^Diversity in shape —
Music of the Moon — Size of eggs in relation to
that of parents — ^Erythrism in eggs 37

CHAPTER IV.

Movement in Birds. — ^How birds walk and fly — Move-
ments pecuHar to pairing season — ^Evolution of
Movement — Movements of birds under water —
Sub -aquatic movements of dipper — Birds as
himters — Starlings as flycatchers — Birds as
anglers — ^Different methods — Gaimets, auks,
skuas, herons, kingfishers — Gulls dropping
mussels from a height 43

CHAPTER V.
Altitude and Speed of Flight. — ^The condor — Gatke's
views — Evidence of astronomers — Col. Meinertz-
hagen's opinions — Relative rates of speed — Dis-
credited estimates — ^Notes by Professor Ne\^i;on
and Mr. Tegetmeier — Dr. Eagle Clarke's dictum
— Col. Meinertzhagen's estimates made by means
of theodolites, with table of velocities of normal
migratory flight 58

CHAPTER VI. PAGE

Migration. — ^Dr. Eagle Clarke's ' ' Studies in Bird Migra-
tion"— ^Ancient beliefs — The "hibernation"
theory — ^Transmutation — ^Willughby and Ed-
wards— Modem views — Fly lines — Long distance
flights — ^Whence and whither — Motives that lead
to migration — How are migrants guided ?
Memory and parental guidance — ^Magnetism of
earth — ^The ancient Wisdom 66

CHAPTER VII.
Occult Senses in Birds. — ^Man's Five Senses — Probabi-
lities of additional senses in Birds. — ^Failure of
the known senses to account for actions of Birds
and Insects — A way-finding sense — ^Mr. J. H.
Gumey's \'iews on occult senses in Birds — ^Flock
of Birds moving in unison. 79

CHAPTER VIII.
Property in Bird Life. — Sparrows and Moorhens de-
fending property — Rooks as tree-owners — ^Mr.
Eliot Howard's " Territory' in Bird Life" ... 83

CHAPTER IX.
Language of Birds. — ^Expression of ideas — Birds' song —
Specific differences in notes — Distinguishing birds
by their note — Birds' voices at night — Human
quality in birds' song — Musician and bird — Why
birds sing — ^Mimicry— ^Dialect — ^Abnormal song 88

CHAPTER X.
Marriage. — ^Esthetic side of love-making — Conjugal
responsibihty in birds — ^IVIonogamy v. polygamy
— Affinities in birds apart from sex — Nesting
ages 108

CHAPTER XI.
Childhood. — General references to infancy of animals —
Animals with no childhood — Infants that are
essentially different from their parents — Children
that never grow up — Birds that avoid a callow
infancy — Parental guidance — Instinctive know-
ledge— Inborn fear — Specific notes inherited —
Woodcock and snipe carrying young — ^Adoption
of orphans — Maternal instinct in very yoimg
birds n6

CHAPTER XII. PAGE

The Bird and the Tree — ^Tree-lovers — ^Unusual perchers
— Swallows and pigeons in relation to trees —
Evolution of perching habit — Partridges and
snipe perching 128

CHAPTER XIII.
The Artist and the Bird — ^Neglect in the past — ^Modern
artists. The work of Mr. A. Thorbtim — Colotir
and form in bird Ufe — Japanese bird portraiture
— ^The artistry of Nature — Reproduction of
colours in Nature 135

CHAPTER XIV
Birds of the Poets. — Birds of Shakespeare, Byron,
Keats, Shelley and Bums. — Pre-eminence of
Dante, Wordsworth and Teimyson as ornitholo-
gists— ^The animism of Walt WTiitman. Francis
Thompson and John Masefield in relation to 144
birds

CHAPTER XV.
Birds of the Bible. — ^Habits of birds as described in the
Old Testament. Domesticated birds — Cage
birds and bird-catching — Canon Tristram on
Birds of the Holy I^and — Swift, swallow and
cuckoo. Seers and prophets on ' ' IVIigration " —
Birds as sacred emblems 157

CHAPTER XVI.
Fabulous Birds — Gr^'phon — Roc — Phoenix — ^Liver —

Harpy 164

PART II.

Some Celebrated Haunts

CHAPTER XVII
Birds of Shetland. — Cliffs and Moorland — Golden Plover
— Curlew and Whimbrel — Snipe — ^Ravens —
Carrion and Grey Crows — ^Divers — Red-necked
Phalarope — Mergansers — Foula — Varieties of
cUff and shore birds — Guillemots and Puffins,
Great Skuas and Terns — Cormorants and Shags
—The Tysti^-Great Black-backed GuUs, Oyster-
catchers, and Ringed Dotterel l66

CHAPTER XVIII PAGE

Outer Hebrides. — Some little known islands — ^Rockall —
Benbecula — ^Fair Island — Vee Skerries — Seven
Hunters 178

CHAPTER XIX
Norwegian Bird Notes. — British Birds in a new setting
— Birds in the open sea — Stavanger — Bergen —
White wagtails — Homellen — ^IVIuldoen — U biquit-
ous starlings — How absence of darkness affects
birds- Young fieldfares — ^The Nordfjord — ^The
Stryn Valley — Concentration of birds near home-
steads— Fieldfare colonies — Precarious nesting
of spotted flycatcher — Pied flycatchers — ^Wheat-
ears — Familiar bird figures missing — ^The Joster-
dal Glacier — Common Gulls nesting — Sandene
and Skei — ^Tame magpies — Pied flycatchers in the
homes — Sandpipers and redshanks — A dipper's
nest — ^The Brambhng — ^Nedre Vasenden — Roof
gardens — Ryper 185

CHAPTER XX
Birds on a Swiss Glacier. — ^A vaUey of butterflies — ^The
Nutcracker — ^The Buzzard — ^A glimpse of Snow
Buntings — ^The Alpine Accentor — Choughs ... 207

CHAPTER XXI
Some Canadian Birds. — ^The WHiip-poor-will — Canadian
singing birds — ^The Phoebe bird — ^American
Robin — Blue Jay — Red - winged Blackbird
Titmice — Woodpeckers — Humming - birds —
Purple Grackle — Baltimore Oriole — Belted
Kingfisher ... 215

Index 222

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

I — Labrador Falcon by J. Wolf

Frontispiece

2 — ^Long-eared Owl and Fieldmouse . . .

... To face page 13

3 — Chaffinch and Nest

26

4 — ^Nest of Great Crested Grebe

37

5— Blue Tit

43

6— Kestrel

... ., 58

7 — Woodcock's Nest

66

8 — Starling at Nesting Hole

79

9 — Bullfinch

88

10 — Greenfinches

108

II — ^Young Red-backed Shrikes

116

12 — Peregrine Falcon by A, Thorbum . . .

135

13 — ^Merlin's Nesting Site

146

14 — Swift on Nest

157

15 — Guillemots

171

16 — Puffins

178

17 — Pied Flycatcher

... ., 185

18 — ^Bramblings

204

19— Kite

208

FOREWORD

Ornithology, perhaps in as great a degree as most branches
of zoology, is rapidly progressing.

New facts are constantly being discovered, and within the
last decade numbers of observers have arisen who have followed
varied lines and methods of research : these have thrown new
light on many problems that baffled our forefathers.

Students are aware that to keep reasonably abreast of the
literature relating to bird life, access to a large number of works
in various languages is indispensable.

At the same time by reason of nature teaching in schools, the
formation of numerous local Natural History Societies and other
causes, the number of yoimg students taking a scientific rather
than a merely casual interest in birds have immensely increased.
Therefore a work that aims at discussing some of the problems
which have arisen as the result of our latter-day knowledge,
especially on the philosophic rather than the technical side is a
thing to be desired. " Side lyights on Birds," is designed to
fulfil this need, and should serve as a useful guide, especially to
those of the younger generation,

Mr. Knight Horsfield is my oldest bird friend. We com-
menced to study birds together as school boys in the year 1869,
and have been companions on many delightful rambles in search
of bird-lore, down to recent times. Thus I have much
pleasure in writing a Foreword to these Side Lights.

I consider Mr. Knight Horsfield to be eminently suited to be
their Author, by reason of his wide knowledge of birds in life
and in literature, and because he brings to bear upon the various
problems discussed, a philosophical and impartial mind.

W. EAGI.E CI.ARKE.

INTRODUCTION

Birds, like men, may be looked at from many points of view.
Admirable text-books exist that tell us of the material side.
But there are many aspects of bird life that he outside the text-
books.

The idea of this book is to try to show something of the
animating principle of the bird, how it lives, moves, and has its
being, how it reacts to the varying conditions of its environ-
ment ; how its wonderful life expresses itself in its equally
wonderful and beautiful form. Not that there is anything
new in this, but the scope for new treatment is illimitable,
especially in view of the new facts constantly coming to light.

For the most part, the deeper questions relating to bird life
• — 'migration and so on — have been dealt with by specialists in
spacious volumes not readily accessible to the amiy of young
ornithologists who are growing up arormd us. In these cases
I have endeavoured to smimiarise the work of the leading
authorities : to show so far as my limitations pemait, how our
knowledge stands to-day : to give younger readers especially a
general view of the subject before they come to grips with the
severer technical side.

As Natural History editor of the " Yorkshire Weekly Post,"
it has come within my province for the past twelve years to
watch week by week the progress of bird-lore. Notes, som,e-
times from unexpected quarters, have reached me throwing light
on various questions. These I have incorporated in the text
in their proper places, together with the conmients held to be
appropriate.

Sometimes the beUef is expressed that the bird as a subject
for study is being pla3^ed out. This can never be until the
whole problem of life itself is solved. The anatomist and the
physiologist may possibly see a nearing end to their task, but for
the psychologist and philosopher, for the artist and the poet,
the lowliest bird is still a part of the all-surrounding mystery
of things against which the human mind is destined ceaselessly
to beat.

INTRODUCTION

If then, on,e can throw any side-Hght, small as it may be, on
the marvellous activities of Nature, the work is well worth doing.

I am indebted to Dr. Eagle Clarke for advice and help, and
for his revision of some of the sections, and to Mr. Archibald
Thorburn, for most kindly permitting me to use one of his
sketches. Also to Messrs. Wheldon and Wesley, lyimited, for
their kind pennission in allowing me to use the frontispiece.
This is from a picture by J. Wolf, given to me by the late
Mr. H. E. Dresser, author of " The Birds of Europe."

LoxG-EARED Owl and Field Mouse

To face p. 13

PART I
STRUCTURE OF BIRDS

CHAPTER I

Skeleton, Feathers, Wings, Wing Expanses, Beaks

This subject has been worked out by anatomists
in the utmost detail, and we have no desire to
follow the scientists in their deeper researches.
Our aim is merely to give a concise view of the
general aspects for the use of those who have
neither time nor opportunity for a wider study.

To take the skeleton first : — This is seen at
once to be constructed on lines which differ
essentially from those of an animal destined for a
terrestrial life ; it is formed for two supreme ends,
lightness and strength. The shape is that of a
ship ; the sternum or breast bone, forming the keel,
runs to a thin edge in front, and serves to cut the
air exactly as the prow of a boat cleaves the
water. The bones, powerful as they are, are for
the most part hollow, and their lightness may be
estimated when it is stated that a pelican five
feet in length, and weighing 251b. in the flesh,
possessed a skeleton of barely 23 ounces. Again,
the pectoral muscles which control the wings are
of enormous power ; these facts taken in con-
junction with the great lung capacity and the
disposal of air-sacs in various parts of the body,

13

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

as well as the construction of the feathers, all
serve to render the bird-form especially suitable
to journey through the air.

Another peculiarity admirably adapted to assist
flight is the formation of the bird's neck. This
differs from that of mammals in both length and
flexibility, for whereas the terrestrial forms have
only seven cervical vertebrae, most birds have
fourteen, and the swan twenty -three. The ad-
vantage of this is obvious. It enables the bird
in flying to bring the head so far forward that the
centre of gravity is fixed at the point directly
below where the wings join the body, thus giving
a perfect balance. Further, the lower muscles
of the bird's neck bend most easily backwards,
while the upper muscles bend naturally forward.
Thus, when at rest the neck takes the shape of
the letter S as seen most plainly in the graceful
form of the swan. This is the position assumed
for walking, as it alters the centre of gravity back
again to a point above the base of the toes.
One striking example of the flexibility of the neck
is seen in the wryneck, which is able to turn its
head completely round. A further remarkable
provision of nature is in the formation of the legs
and feet of birds. A stork is able to stand on
one leg for whole days without fatigue, the reason
being that the legs are kept out-stretched without
any exertion of the muscles. If the legs of a
dead fowl are bent downwards it will be observed
that the claws close of their own accord and re-
main locked. This enables birds to go to sleep
at night with claws clasped automatically on the
branches, and the hold is retained until the
percher, by a voluntary effort, releases it.

The feather is composed of three parts : the
quill, the shaft, and the vane ; the quill firmly

14

STRUCTURE OF BIRDS

inserted in the skin, is hollow ; higher it becomes
the shaft, which is solid, with a groove down the
centre, from both sides of which the vane, the fine
filaments, which can be expanded or contracted,
spring. At one time it was believed that these
filaments contained " natural oil," which in the
case of water-fowl, served to keep the feathers
dry ; now it is known that the filaments can be
brought together so tightly that all moisture is
excluded. This is done by the muscular action
of the living bird ; if the dead body of any water
fowl be placed in water, the feathers at once
become soaked and sodden.

The growth of feathers is a process entirely
different from the growth of hair in mammals.
The embryo feather, with quiU, shaft, and vane
complete, is moulded in a minute capsule, which
appears above the skin ; the feather then appears,
and slowly develops to its full size. This process
is repeated more or less completely at every moult
the new feather forcing out the old. Light,
strong, and elastic, the material of which a feather
is composed, is not to be found elsewhere in nature.
It is neither bone nor flesh, membrane nor tendon ;
it has definite work to perform, and possesses
a constitution peculiarly its own.

The miracle of the growth of a feather — so
simple yet so complex, and destined to fulfil
so many pre-conceived ends — was one of the
marvels in nature that led Alfred Russell Wallace
to declare his fixed belief in a Higher Intelligence
that works apart from the mentality of the
organism itself.

In a letter on this subject to the author he
wrote : — " How all the infinitely complex and
wonderfully regular processes of growth and
development of living things actually occur, how

15

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

the mass of cells, ever being formed anew, yet
carried to all parts of the organism, and then
successively moulded into such complex and
diverse forms as bone and skin, nerve and muscle,
hairs, horns, and feathers — to say nothing of the
infinite variety of vegetable structures and pro-
ducts— is relatively unthinkable, but how they
can be so formed by the agency of the mind of the
organism itself : that is, that the organism builds
itself through forces, laws, and directing will
that inhere in itself, and have no other and more
fundamental source than its own chance aggre-
gation of atoms — is to me absolutely unthink-
able. Such theories are far more difficult to con-
ceive than any amount of action and influence
of Spiritual Beings to escape which they .were
formulated."

It may here be noted that the limbs and the
part of the plumage first to be developed are those
first needed by the chick on leaving the egg. For
example, the first act a young partridge is called
on to perform is to scratch in the earth, and pick
up insects. For this it needs strong legs, bill
and neck, as well as a protective covering of
down. These parts are, therefore, the first to be
developed, the wings coming later. A young
thrush, on the other hands, has its wings fairly
developed, when only a few tufts of down appear
on the body.

Wings.

The basis of the wing is an osseous framework,
roughly corresponding with the human arm —
whichf consists of the true aim, fore-arm, and
hand. In the bird the true arm is a cylindrical
hollow bone, the fore-arm two parallel bones,
and the hand, not flexible as in the human, but
forming a rigid support for stiff, elastic feathers.

i6

STRUCTURE OF BIRDS

These feathers (the primaries) vary greatly in
different species. By their length, rigidity, and
flexibility, and their shape, they decide the speed
and characteristics of the bird's flight. They
are long and pointed in birds of the hawk type ;
shorter and rounded in species like the partridge.
The feathers growing from the fore-arm are termed
secondaries, while from the base of the hand
springs the winglet or bastard wing, as it is often
called. The study of the conformation of wings
is most interesting. Birds of no two species, or,
at any rate, of no two genera, fly exactly alike,
and the wing formation in each case differs in
order to meet the different requirements.

The flight of the night-feeding birds is perhaps
the most remarkable of any. How is the airy
buoyancy attained which enables them, the owls
especially, to waft themselves, soundless as
shadows, along the dark hedge-rows and across
the gloom-hidden fields ? In the owls the number
of quill feathers is equal to that of birds of the
most powerful wing, giving them the greatest
facilities for sustained and rapid flight. Their
noiseless movements are not attained by any
diminution of force. But the texture of the
feathers differs essentially from that of the falcon
and of most other birds. It is of the downiest
softness, and the fibres of the wing- webs, being of
unequal length, allow a free passage to the air,
and are so pliable that they yield to the hghtest
pressure. This is the secret of the night-bird's
flight. ' ' The way of the bird in the air " is one
of those marvels that have puzzled many thinkers
besides Solomon. The same wondering train of
thought that arose in the mind of the upv^^ard
gazing patriarch in the far-off past, springs up in
the mind of the naturaHst to-day, as his eye

17

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

follows the rapidly ascending form of the lark,
as it dwindles in size, rising higher and higher, or,
as he traces the course of the herring gull return-
ing seawards in the evening, its long, wide-spread
wings bearing it steadily onward with hardly a
perceptible beat : or, as he watches a company
of dunlin wheeling and turning in perfect unison,
their white underparts flashing in a momentary
burst of sunshine, only to sink once more into in-
visibility, swallowed up in a grey cloud back-
ground.

Although all wings were originally made to fly
with, though a few have become diverted from
their original purpose, they are by no means all
made to one pattern. In form, colour, texture
and structure how many variations we see. Their
number alone remains constant : in vertebrates it
is invariably two ; in insects it is always either
two or four. Thus we may liken birds to mono-
planes, and butterflies to biplanes. The power
of flight is practically confined to the two classes,
birds and insects, and within these two orders,
it is a well-nigh universal accomplishment.
Still there are exceptions to this as to most rules.
For instance, bats fly, and ostriches can't; and
among the insects, grasshoppers, worker-ants, and
certain female moths are among those which, for
some reason or other, would seem to have been
unjustly deprived of their birth-right. Still the
great majority of insects have acquired mastery
of the air, and it is certain that no invertebrate
out of the insect class may ever aspire to do more
than crawl, swim, or wriggle through life. The
two great winged classes are for ever pitted against
one another in the struggle for existence,
and this, says Professor Arthur Thomson is
" practically the most important conflict of
classes the world knows."

i8

STRUCTURE OF BIRDS

Early vertebrates turned their hands to flying,
to such good purpose that ultimately the hand
became transformed into a wing, and in the bird
three fingers were sacrificed. It is imperative
that the texture of the wings be smooth and
yielding. The " leather wings " of the bat and
the rainbow-like pinions of the dragon-fly are
formed of membrane, transparent and gauzy in
the latter, brown and opaque in the former.
The butterfly and the bird protect their wings
with a covering of scales and feathers, both
arranged on the over-lapping principle, like the
tiles on a roof, being attached at their bases to
the wing, but having the extremities free. This
feather covering gives the bird's wing an immense
superiority over the bat's for if a feather or two
be injured it can be replaced, whereas an injury
to a bat's wing involves total disablement. The
difference is akin to that between a window formed
of many small panes and one consisting of a single
sheet of glass. The fragility of the dragon-
fly's wing may be the reason why it is equipped
with four. We recently released a home-bred
dragon-fly in the garden. A few days later it
was re-caught, one of the wings having been torn
right ofl from the base. Still, the insect was able
to fly, and to maintain a tolerably straight course
for a short distance.

Winged creatures differ considerably in their
manner of disposing their pinions when at rest.
In butterflies, the wings are closed over the back,
making them inconspicuous from above. They
usually adopt a slightly sideways attitude in
order — it has been tentatively suggested — to re-
duce the shadow. It may be readily seen that
if the butterfly leant over sufficiently towards
the sun, the shadow would disappear altogether.
Such a habit could not fail to be a great pro-

19

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

tection as a strong shadow will sometimes give a
creature away completely, as in the case of
minnows, which will themselves be almost in-
visible, while their shadow is reflected in the sandy
river bottom with startling distinctness. Dragon-
flies rest with wings out-spread, but they are so
transparent that the grass shows through them
undimmed. The lady-bird skims past on wide-
spread pinions with wing-cases motionless and a
little raised to give play to the true wings.

Then it comes to rest on a grass blade and
proceeds to furl its sails and it takes an appre-
ciable time before the long gauzy wings are safely
bestowed within the seemingly inadequate cover
provided by the black-spotted tightly fitting
elytra. Finally, however, the last projecting
little brown corner of wing, which has been left
hanging loosely out like a little tail, is drawn in
and packed up. The wing-cases shut down like
a tiny lid, and the lady-bird runs down the grass-
stem, as if it had never known the exhilaration
of a dash through space, and no one would ever
guess the precious possessions it carries folded
so neatly on its back. The beautiful wings of
the earwig, when not in use, fall into a multitude
of complicated folds, so that they no longer inter-
fere with the little creature's movements amid the
petals of the dahlia and between the cracks of
boards.

The jointed structure of the bird's and the bat's
wings enables them to be folded close to the sides
like a foot-rule when not in use, though here again
the bird has the advantage, for its wings fit
closer to the figure than do the more cumbersome
appendages of the bat. The form of the wing
determines the nature of the bird's flight. In
the best fliers — the swifts and falcons, for ex-
ample— the wing is sharply pointed and the

20

STRUCTURE OF BIRDS

outer feathers are the longer. In birds such
as the partridge and grouse the wings are
rounded. Wings may be also used in some
instances for the purpose of a weapon, for pro-
tection for the young, and as a flipper under
water. Nearly all birds proceed by beating
both wings together as a boat is propelled by a
pair of oars. But there are exceptions to this
rule. Both the swift and the house-martin at
times progress by beating each wing alternately.
Mr. E. P. Butterfield has observed that this
peculiarity may also be seen in the greenfinch,
in the love season but at no other time.

An interesting observation is made by Mr. F.
W.Frohawk in regard to the aerial movements of
lapwings during the nesting season. He points
out that it is the male bird alone that carries out
the performance, the power being due to the re-
markably large, rounded wings, the primaries
when expanded forming a paddle-shaped outline,
while in the expanded wing of the female the
primaries form a continuous line with the second-
aries. Mr. Frohawk states that the difference is
so marked that the sexes can be distinguished
when flying.

In a paper in " Country Life," Mr. Frohawk
gave the following table showing the wing-spread
of the various birds, in relation to their weight.

Expanse. Weight. Expanse. Weight.

Inches fb. oz. Inches. lb. oz.

Barn Owl 36 o 8 Mallard 35 J 3 o^

Pheasant 31 J 2 12^ Teal 23^ o io|

Partridge 2o| o 15 Common tern ..31 o 4

Moorhen 20 o 11 Storm petrel .... 13I o i

Lapwing 29 o loi Guillemot 25I i 12^

Curlew 37 I II Little grebe .... 15 o 6|

Golden plover 22i o 6J Puffin 2i| o 14I

Snipe 17 o 4 Manx shearwater 3212

Jack snipe 13 o 2 Turnstone 18 o 4^

Heron 6S| 3 6 Razorbill 25 i 6

Gannet 70 4 4 Bean Goose .... 58J 7 3

Gt. black-backed gull 63 214 Redshank 20^ o 4 J

Mute swan 86 18 14 Bullfinch 9I o i

Golden-crested wren 6 81 grains Bar-tailed godwit 26 o 6i

21

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

This table affords the means of making some
remarkable comparisons. Thus the pheasant
and the great black-backed gull have approxi-
mately the same weight to carry, yet the latter
has a wing-spread more than double that of
the former. The guillemot, singular also in the
respect that it lays the largest egg in relation to
its size, has lib. 12^ ozs. to bear on a wing-spread
of 25 i inches, whereas the tern has only 4 oz.
to sustain on an expanse of 31 inches.

It might be imagined that the birds with the
widest wing area in proportion to their weight
were those of the swiftest flight, but this is by no
means the case. Both the guillemots and the
pheasants, by reason of their powerful pectoral
muscles, and their rapid wing beats, contrive
to reach a speed greater than that of the gulls
and terns, but, on the other hand, there is no
doubt that the wider wing-spread combined
with lightness of body, gives the bird an in-
finitely greater mastery of the air, and that all
the species noted for their graceful evolutions
possess these features in a marked degree.

Beaks.
" Practice makes perfect" is a motto which
applies not only to the worker but to the organs
of his body, the tools with which he works.
Organs that are put habitually to the same use
tend to change, slowly, imperceptibly, until they
become more and more in harmony with the work
they have to do. The bird's bill illustrates the
principle perfectly, and by merely looking at the
bill alone we are able to form some clear con-
jecture as to the life, habits, and environment
of the bird to which it belongs.

22

STRUCTURE OF BIRDS

The bill in itself is simply a horny sheath
enveloping the jaws. Its primary use would
appear to be that of a pair of forceps in order
to recompense the bird for the absence of hands.
It is an indispensable adjimct in all the affairs
of life, though its chief use is to pick up food.

Birds obtain their food in many diverse ways.
The eagle carries its prey to its eyrie, and then
tears it limb from Hmb. For this purpose a
strong, hooked, sharply-pointed beak is necessary.
The shrike, too, is a bird of prey on a smaller scale,
and its beak may be Hkened to that of a miniature
eagle. The feathers do not reach to the base of
the vulture's beak — the neck indeed, is partly
bare — otherwise the plumage would become soiled
with blood when the fierce bird thrusts its man-
dibles deep into the carrion. FHes caught on
the wing form the staple diet of the nightjar,
hence in this bird length of bill is sacrificed for
great width; and flies find it difiicult to escape
the gaping jaws, guarded by their array of bristles.
We see the same principle at work in the bills of the
swifts and swallows. Insect-eating birds, such as
the robin and hedge-sparrow, may be distinguished
from grain-eaters by their soft, slender beaks,
which though excellent for intercepting the darting
insect, would be useless for breaking and tearing
apart hard shells or husks. For this purpose,
sharp, powerful beaks, like those of the finches,
are requisite. For the bird nourished on the
seeds to be found in pine cones a peculiar and
special instrument has been provided. The
bent and seemingly misfitting mandibles of the
crossbill will be seen to be admirably adapted for
the work they have to do. In the woods we may
sometimes hear the tap -tap-tap of the wood-
pecker, as it sounds the trees, in search of grubs :

23

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

its strong beak may be described as a kind of
living adze, combined with a pair of pincers.

Wherever the luckless worm or insect may seek
refuge, it is pursued by some relentless beak,
which seems to have been expressly designed for
its destruction. The first creatures to take up
their abode in the underworld must have con-
gratulated themselves on having at last found
a safe hiding-place from their hereditary foes.
But their satisfaction would be short-lived. Soon
the snipe came along, probing the soft ground
with its long beak, so delicately sensitive as to
detect at once the presence of any concealed
victim. The oddly-shaped bills of the spoonbill
and flamingo are both useful tools for their pur-
pose. The latter has its lower jaw in the shape
of a pipe, in which lies the tongue, and the upper
mandible forms a Ud. Water is sucked into the
pipe, then the entrance to the pipe is blocked
with the tongue, so that only the water can be
squirted through, while solid food is retained.
The long sharp beak of the heron forms an ad-
mirable spear for the harpooning of fish, but the
peHcan prefers to " net " its victims in the large
pouch provided for the purpose. Pelicans work
in concert " rounding-up " the fish into a corner,
and then scooping them up. As a rule, the
beak is an organ more useful than ornamental.
We have an exception in the case of the puffin,
however, which in order to enhance its charms
during the breeding season ornaments this rather
prominent organ with crude stripes of blue and
orange. Many of the gulls have really very
beautiful bills, the blending tints on that of the
herring-gull are like a sunset sky, with a vivid
orange spot on the lower mandible to represent
the sun. The cumbersome structure which the

24

STRUCTURE OF BIRDS

hornbill manages to balance on its head, with a
deceptive appearance of great weight, is somewhat
of a problem to naturalists, though we have seen
it suggested that it may serve as a resonator to
increase the power of the voice, the characteristic
note of these birds being between the bray of an
ass and the shriek of an engine whistle. How far
the form of the bill affects the voice is an interest-
ing question ; and it is stated that some birds, the
cuckoo for example, will sing without opening
the beak at all.

In other cases sounds are made by the beak
alone, notably in the stork, which clatters its two
mandibles together like a pair of castanets.

25

BIRDS' NESTS

CHAPTER II

Original Nest Builders. Swallow's Change of Habit.
Decorative Sense in Birds.

Few things in bird-life are more interesting than
the manner of nest-building. The views of the
feathered architects of what constitutes a suitable
residence, the choice of a site, and the nature of the
material used, are curiously diverse. In Great
Britain we have nothing sensational in the way of
nests. We have nothing quite to compare with
the AustraHan mound-builders, for example, whose
habitation is built up of earth and stones, 14 feet
high and 150 feet in circumference ; nor of the
Afiican sociable grosbeak, whose nest — or rather
aggregation of nests — is a huge circular erection
surrounding the entire stem of a great tree, and
containing as many as 300 nest-cells, each occupied
by a pair of birds ; nor have we an esculent swallow
as the Chinese have, whose glutinous secretions are
worked into an edible nest with a market value of
45 dollars a pound.

But apart from these abnormal examples of
avian craftsmanship, our nest-builders, none the
less, show a variety of design and skill in dealing
with local difficulties which are truly marvellous
when the weakness of the workers and the inade-
quacy of their tools come to be considered.

26

Chaffinch and Nest.

To face p. 26

BIRDS' NESTS

The tunnel of the sand-mattin, for instance,
driven for two feet or more into the hard bank, or
the nest of the house-martin, built up of tmy pellets,
each adhering to the one below, the whole swelling
gracefully outwards and gauged to an inch to meet
the overhanging eave — these, when onty frail beaks
and tiny claws are available, are, without question,
remarkable feats of engineering.

It would be mteresting to know why certain
birds have decided to build nests with a roof when
the majority conclude that no cover is necessary.
Strangely enough, the birds which lay in the most
exposed situations — on rocks and barren moors —
the guillemot, razorbill, and curlew, for example —
are those which take the least trouble to provide
any shelter for their coming families. The wren,
wood-wren, willow-wren, long-tailed tit, and others,
which are dome-builders, almost invariably select
sites which are well protected by trees and under-
wood from the inclemency of the weather.

Mud is a material which many birds use in the
process of nest construction, some employing it
exclusively for the outer structure, whilst others
combine it with sticks, straws, etc. The magpie
introduces a large quantity of mud into the thorny
edifice which it erects in the tree-tops, and the
song thrush adopts it, m conjunction with decayed
wood, for a lining. The house-martin and the
swallow, however, are the true mud-builders. Their
method is to collect tiny pellets from the margins
of ponds and from road-side puddles, and to build
up the nest, brick by brick. The swallow has
added an improvement which certainly tends to
security. It first selects a short stick or fibre, and
this it rolls in the mud. As the ends project the
pellets thus formed are " tied m " one with another
and thus the nest-walls are held together with

27

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

greater firmness. The house-martin, which btiilds
in situations where strength is more needed, curiously
does not appear to avail itself of this simple yet
effective device.

It is noteworthy that, needing security and
shelter as they do, and often toiling so laboriously
to attain these advantages, so few birds com-
paratively avail themselves of natural recesses where
the greater part of the work is done for them. The
sensible hole-builders include the wryneck, nut-
hatch, puffin, kingfisher, and many others ; and it
may be noted here that most birds nesting in
darkened recesses lay eggs of the purest white.
Whether the phenomenon of protective coloration
has any bearing on this point remains to be de-
cided. It is dear, however, that if birds which
nest in open places, the curlew, ringed plover, or
the lapwing, for instance, laid white eggs they would
readily be detected.

One of the most remarkable examples of pro-
tective colouring in eggs is to be found in those of
the Sandwich tern. This bird makes no nest
whatever. The eggs are simply dropped upon the
bare shingle, without even a depression to keep
them together. From a distance the birds are
seen clearly sitting, and as we approach the spot
they rise quietly. But where are the eggs ? Al-
though we search every inch of ground no sign of
an egg can be made out. After a prolonged

scrutiny a man might be forgiven for leaving the
spot quite convinced that the bird had not laid.
But we happen to know that the eggs are here,
and we remain with our eyes fixed upon the ground.
The shingle is perfectly smooth. It is composed
of rounded pebbles, mostly white, but variegated
with many which are black or of a reddish hue.
As we are analysing a given inch we suddenly dis-

28

BIRDS' NESTS

cover that we are looking at an egg. We avert
our eye for a moment. When we look again the
egg has gone ; nothing remains but the white shingle,
diversified by the black and reddish spots. But we
know now how we have been deceived, and in a Uttle
while the eggs seem to grow all around us, each
exactly counterparting the area upon which it
rests. Many birds, including the ringed plover,
lay on this shingle, and in each case the deception is
perfectly contrived.

The use of sticks in nest-building is, of course,
common. Such nests vary from the slight platform
of the wood pigeon, through which the eggs may be
seen, and which often appear too frail to support
the sitting bird, to the vast eyrie of the golden eagle —
the accumulation of years — which easily bears the
weight of a man. The stick-builders, indeed,
generally seem to be fond of accumulating material,
which they heap upon the old year's nest ; the
collection of a pair of jackdaws, for instance, having
been known to completely block the stairway of the
old castle which they had chosen as a nesting site.
The rooks, too, frequently build on to the old
homestead in preference to constructing a new
domain, and in the older rookeries great platforms
are often foimd which contain several hay-Hned
hollows, in which the eggs are laid.

Amongst British birds the great crested and the
little grebe are essentially the water builders. The
coot and the waterhen build nests so close to the
water that their nests are often immdated ; but it
is reserved to the grebes to build upon rafts which
actually float upon the surface.

The statement may still be found in some of the
older natural histories that the grebes thrust their
legs through the nests when sitting, and so
paddle them from place to place. One very ancient

29

SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS

tradition of a supposed water-builder is that of the
kingfisher — ^the halcyon, which was said to nest
on the waves of the sea — the gods vouchsafing
perfectly calm weather during nidification ; hence
the expression " halcyon days."

Original Builders,
In selecting a site for a nest most birds appear to
follow a more or less fixed rule. Year by year the
rooks assemble on the summits of their ancestral
elms and the guillemots on the ledges of the sea
cliffs. With equal fidelity we find the lapwings
returnmg m the spring to the same rough pastures,
the terns to their rocky islets, the landrails to the
growing grass, and the woodpeckers to their holes
in the decayed trees. Yet instances are constantly
occurring which go to prove that even nest-building
IS m a state of evolution, and that, from time to
time, original thinkers arise to set aside conven-
tionality and to make a bold departure from the
traditional plan. It is interesting to note that
the species which exhibit the greatest tendency to
innovation in the direction of nest-building are
those most nearly associated with man. The
house-sparrow, starling, robin, wren, spotted fly-
catcher, blackbird and the two most familiar of the
titmice — the great and the blue— and, in a lesser
degiee, the pied wagtail and the redstart, are all birds
of the homestead, and it is to these that one looks for
original thinking when the annual question of the
selection of a nesting site arises. The house-
sparrow is a most daring innovator. There is
every reason to believe that the house-sparrow, like
the tree-sparrow, was originally a builder in trees
exclusively. Now, although still at times piling up
a coarse, domed structure of straw in the leafy
summits of beech or elm, he will boldly seize upon

30

BIRDS' NESTS

any coign of vantage which offers itself, varying
from the hole in the roof to the nest which the
Httle martin has toilfuUy erected beneath the eaves.
In this connection it may be said that the tree-
sparrow would appear to be slowly adopting some
of its near congener's trouble-saving devices. Al-
though in England it still nests in the hole of some
remote tree, in France it appears to have taken
on the house-sparrow's habit of frequenting human
domiciles and of building in suitable recesses. We
have a note of a colony of tree-sparrows that have
taken up their residence in a row of cabins in Ireland.

The starHng, too, is curiously broad-minded in
its choice of a nesting-place. In our younger days
we looked for the starling in a hole in a tree or be-
neath the eaves of a building. Now, it will nest
almost anywhere — in the under-sticks of a rook's
nest ; in a vertical pipe down which it has to dive
head foremost ; in a heap of stones by the road-
side. It is probably this quality of adapting itself
so readily to new circumstances that its rapid rise
in this country is due.

The robin, again, not content with the hack-
neyed bank or mossy wall in the orchard, appears
to be always on the look out to better its con-
dition. As in the case of the spotted flycatcher,
its efforts in this direction are often remarkable
for their ingenuity rather than for their grasp
of the exigencies of the case. Still, the shelf of a
bookcase in an empty room, the interior of a broken
lamp, the recess of an old hat fixed in the garden
for a scarecrow, the pocket of a disused coat hanging
in the outhouse — all these selections mark the spirit
of the pioneer.

In the wagtail family it is in the pied alone —
the species which may be fairly said to be most
clearly closely in touch with humanity — ^that the

31

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

desire to experiment becomes apparent. The
yellow and the grey cling with little or no deviation
to the localities chosen by their remote ancestry.
The pied wagtail, on the other hand, makes definite
attempts to discover an altogether new nesting site,
and then adapts itself to new conditions with a
zeal worthy of greater success than is usually at-
tained. It might well be thought that our railways
with their constant noise and disturbances would
be instinctively shunned by all peace-loving birds.
What then shall be said of the pied wagtails, which
built their nests on a ledge beneath a railway wagon
in a siding near Crewe, and when the wagon subse-
quently made long journeys to different parts of the
kingdom still faithfully attended their charge and
eventually reared their brood ? Or, again, of the
blackbirds which nested between the points on the
North Eastern line near Filey, and continued to sit
bravely notwithstanding the thundering trains over-
head ? Or of the oyster-catchers that scooped a
hollow on the railway track near Blair Atholl and
reared their young notwithstanding the constant
traffic ?

Many examples are recorded of birds departing
from the normal choice of a nesting site. We have
instances of herons and rooks nesting on the ground.
Mr. Sydney Smith recorded a case of a greenfinch
nesting in the grass of an open field. Mr. Riley
Fortune gave a photograph of a dipper's nest in a
tree, and both pheasants, waterhens, and domestic
fowls have been found nesting at a considerable
height from the earth.

The habits of certain birds-of-prey, especially the
buzzard, of bringing freshly-torn branches with
green leaves to the nest as though to afford shade
to the nestlings, has also been noticed. In relation
to the sparrow-hawk Mr. J. H. Owen wrote in

32

BIRDS' NESTS

" British Birds":" This bird also brought fresh
leaves to the nest occasionally and dropped them
in the cup of the nest. The curious thing was that
she always brought elm leaves, and there was no
elm tree within a hundred yards, the nest being in an
oakwood and actually built in an oak. Young
ash, poplar, lime and horn-beam lay between the
nearest elm. The wood is more than 60 acres in
extent, and I do not think there are half a dozen
elms in it. The selection of elm leaves is the
more curious as the hawk usually builds the greater
part of the nest of the same wood as the tree in
which the nest is placed."

At times birds will use substances in nest-building
not generally adopted by their kind, mainly, it may
be, because a supply of the material chances to be
at hand. We remember a brambling's nest in
Norway largely composed of chips made by the
wood-cutters working close at hand and Mr. Jaspei
Atkinson describes a willow-wren's nest built in
the midst of a hen-run, when the birds had woven
in so many feathers of the poultry as to render it
practically m visible.

Swallow's Change of Habit.

The swallow appears to be a bird that has changed
its habit of nesting. It is clear that in Gilbert
White's day — namely about 1770 — the chimney-
stack was the usual situation of the swallow's nest,
and that from this habit the familiar name chimney-
swallow was derived.

White is circumstantial in his account comparing
the custom of the swallow in Great Britain with its
congeners in other countries. In Sweden, he
writes, she builds in barns and is called the " Cada
Swala " the barn-swallow.

He writes fuither ' ' Here and there a bird may
affect some odd peculiar place, as we have known a

33

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

swallow build down the shaft of an old well, but in
general with us this hirundo breeds in chimneys
and loves to haunt those stacks where there is a
constant fire, no doubt for the sake of warmth, not
that it can subsist in the immediate shaft where
there is a fire, but prefers one adjoining to that of the
kitchen and disregards the perpetual smoke of that
funnel, as I have often observed with some degree of
wonder. Five or six, or more feet down the chim-
ney does the little bird begin to form her nest.
Wonderful is the address which it shows all day
long in ascending and descending with security
through so narrow a pass. When hovering over the
mouth of the funnel the vibration of the wings
acting on the confined air occasions a rumbling like
thunder."

It certainly cannot be said that the chimney is
the normal site of the swallow to-day. Personally
we have never seen an instance, though of course
they may still exist.

Mr. A. H. Patterson, in ' ' Notes of an East Coast
Naturalist" published in 1904 writes : " For some
years there has been noticed here, as in many other
localities, a steady falling off in the number of
swallows frequenting Great Yarmouth, certain old
chimneys peopled by successive generations even
having been deserted.

The facts seem to point to the slow and gradual
discontinuance of an ancestral habit, and it is quite
possible in the coming time, the present decade may
be pointed to as the period when this ancient custom
finally disappeared.

Decorative Sense in Birds
Is it true that animals, especially birds, have a
sense of artistic value, and that when they build
their homes they are moved, not alone by the idea

34

BIRDS' NESTS

of utility, but by decorative motives as well ? This
suggestion is generally scoffed at by naturalists of
the sterner sort, but when one considers the de-
licately-woven nest of the chaffinch or goldcrest,
where the vari-coloured mosses and lichen appear
to be arranged in prettily chosen patterns, it is hard
to avoid the conclusion that a definite decoiative
sense has been brought into play.

In 1915, the Rev. S. Cornish Watkins found the
nest of a mistle-thrush in a pear tree just outside
Staunton-in-Arrow churchyard, that was adorned
with artificial flowers taken from a wreath on a
grave. He stated in the Selbourne Magazine that
the wires were intei woven with the fabric of the
nest in a manner that satisfied him they had been
X introduced during the actual process of construction.
In a succeeding year the birds returned and again
appropriated flowers for the nest.

In the case of the long-tailed field-mouse, too,
something of the same quality may be seen. One
of these little creatures that we had in confinement
built a rounded nest of moss like an inverted cup.
The moss supplied gave little scope for artistic
arrangement, but directly pieces of red wool and
variously coloured scraps of paper were added they
were at once woven into the outer surface of the nest
in a fashion that certainly suggested the idea of
intentional ornamentation.

But the most striking instance in animated
nature of creatures deliberately seeking to beautify
their homes by adding brightly coloured objects
that are obviously of no practical utility is afforded
by the various species of bower-bird.

Quite apart from their actual nests,, these birds
build bowers and arbours that are veritable pleasure
grounds, and the spaces in and around these are
strewn with various incongruous objects that have

35

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

every appearance of being carefully selected with
the single purpose of adornment. The satin bower-
bird is cathoUc in its taste, and uses bones, feathers,
shells, and pebbles without much discrimination ;
the spotted on the other hand is said to specialise
largely in bones, but also has a distinct liking for
bits of bright meta^ and has been known to invade
houses in search of them.

Newton's bower-bird of Queensland, has a pretty
taste in flowers for decorations, which are replaced
as they become faded, and the gardener-bird, of
New Guinea, that builds a curious conical hut round
the stem of a sapling, varies its colour scheme of
buds and blossoms by the introduction of gaudy
insects. The disposition of another of the allied
species tends in a sombre direction : its ornaments
consisting entirely of dark objects, mainly black
beetles.

It will be remembered that our crow family —
related to the bower-birds — have the habit of col-
lectmg odd trifles, especially of bright metal, but
these they merely stow out of sight in miserly fashion.
Mr. F. Finn suggests that this seemingly senseless
habit may be the starved remainder of an instinct
for collecting and displaying bric-a-brac, once
possessed by their primitive ancestors.

36

BIRDS* EGGS

CHAPTER III

Painting of the Egg. Diversity in Shape. Music of the
Moon. Size of Eggs in Relation to that of Parents.
Erythrism in Eggs.

The ancient Eastern occultists in endeavouring
to develop their psychic powers — powers which they
held to be latent in every human spirit — placed
before themselves a seed as an object of prolonged
contemplation. They first learned every line, dint
and mark, on the outward contour ; then, we are
told, their spirit slowly blended with the living
spirit in the seed until they came to see clairvoyantly
the forces at work which build up the green, rounded
stem, shape the various leaves, and finally, deck the
flower in all its lovely and delicately arranged hues.

In the practical West, where time is money, we
are hardly likely to devote the months or years
necessary for this kind of development, even if we
are willing to admit, in the words of the man-in-the
street, that " there may be something in it ; " but
it is open for all to take a seed or an egg, and by
holding the mind firmly upon it, to learn something
of what it has to tell on its simple, material side.

In the first place, look at the vaiied colours of
eggs — the golden eagle's or the sparrow-hawk's,
with their bold, irregulai blotches, the tit's, with
their delicate round red spots, the oyster-catcher's
or yellow-hammer's, with their remarkable tracery

37

SIDE IvlGHTS ON BIRDS

of inter-mingled lines. How have these manifold
markings been brought about? The leply is not
altogether clear even m the present day. That
there existed some pigment within the birds' or-
ganisation was obvious at once, and this was crudely
ascribed to secretions of blood and bile, but what
the nature of this colouring matter might be and
how it came to be laid on in the manner we see, these
questions were left for long undecided. Much of
our present knowledge is derived from the re-
searches of the late Professor Sorby. By means of
spectrum-analysis he discovered seven well-marked
substances m the colouring matter of eggs which he
distinguished by seven formidable names. One of
these is a peculiar red-brown, another a fine blue,
and so on.

In regard to what may be described as the
painting of the egg, Professor Newton writes : —

" In the progress of the egg through that part
of the oviduct, in which the pigment is laid on, many
of them become smeared, blotched, or protracted
in some particular direction. The circular spots
thus betoken the deposition of the colouring matter
while the egg is at rest, the blurred markings show
its deposition while the egg is in motion, and this
motion would seem often to be at once onward and
rotatory, as indicated by the spiral mai kings not
uncommonly observable in the eggs of some bixds
of prey and others."

Newton further remarks that this colouring
matter appears to be less profuse in young birds,
growing richer and more abundant as the bird
attains full vigour and declining again with age.
He illustrates this by a series of golden eagles' eggs
in his own collection, laid by the same bird duiing
a period of twelve years, which show all the grada-
tions described.

38

BIRDS' EGGS

All collectors must have been struck by the
diversity in the shape of eggs, ranging from the
almost globular form (no egg is perfectly round) of
the owls and kingfishers to the pear-shaped forma-
tions of the snipe and plover. Many speculations
have arisen on this point. Pear-shaped eggs are
usually found, four in a nest — and are normally
arranged with the pomts inwards, forming a compact
circle which the bird can conveniently cover. The
non-rolling quality of the guillemot's egg, adapting
it to narrow ledges, has often been pointed out.
Then, again, it has been suggested that the shape of
the egg bears a relation to the form of the bird to be
produced — ^that long-legged and long-billed birds
come from peai -shaped eggs — snipe and plovers —
and roimd-headed birds — owls, for example, from
round eggs. This principle, for what it may be
worth, however, does not woik out in the case of
the kingfisher and many other species. Again,
has the colouring of an egg any relation to the
plumage or other qualities possessed by the parents ?
Many resemblances may, of coiurse, be traced ;
the blacks and olive-browns of some of the waders,
the rich, red-browns of the grouse, seem to be re-
peated to some extent on the eggs. But the ex-
ceptions here are too numerous for any rule to be
laid down. Still, looked at merely as a theme for
speculation, many interesting considerations arise
on this pomt. Before the embryo shows any sign
of development, it is clear that every egg contains,
as a latent principle, every characteristic feature —
shape, habits, sex, pliunage of the bird soon to be
developed. When Tennyson said that : —

The music of the moon

Is hidden in the plain eggs of the nightingale,

he used no mere figure of speech ; he stated an
actual fact in science. Now we reach a singular

39

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

coincidence — if, indeed, it be merely a coincidence.
The eggs of all the great singers, with few exceptions
(the song- thrush, for example) bear a strong resem-
blance to each other in colour. In the nightingale,
skylark, blackcap, garden-warbler, and many others
the same olive brown hue is repeated in lighter or
darker tones. It may also be noted that no bird
in our country which may be fairly classed as a
songster is produced from a white egg. Ducks
and geese, owls, wood-peckers, pigeons, swifts,
martins, kingfishers, wrynecks, in all these the notes
are either harsh or inconspicuous. Thus, it will
be seen that, although no definite theory can be
based on these facts, it would be rash to say that no
relation whatever exists between the coming chick
and the egg-shell in which it is enclosed.

Another interesting fact that was remarked upon
by Hewitson as long ago as 1838, is that nearly
all birds which breed m holes, or m other places
from which light is excluded, lay imiformly white
eggs. This has given lise to many ingenious
theories. One hypothesis set forth by Dr.
M'Aldowie is that all eggs were originally coloured ;
that the pigments, unstable and variable, were
intended to assist in concealment and in protection
from solar rays, and that as the ages went by, in
the case of eggs laid in caves, holes, and other gloomy
recesses, these safeguards were useless, and so the
colouring disappeared. Newton, however, points
out one fatal objection to these and kindred specu-
lations. He shows that all these hypotheses are
based on a study of the eggs of British birds only,
and he remarks that as the most instructive forms
of each class do not belong to our own limited fauna,
allowance must be made for the imperfect informa-
tion whence the results a^e diawn. Still we think
the fact lemams that if the white, conspicuous eggs

40

BIRDS' EGGS

now only found m deep seclusion, were laid m the
open after the manner of the lapwing's, cuilew's,
or golden plover's, the destruction of the species
would speedily follow, and we may therefore con-
clude that some protective agency has been at
work.

The size of eggs in relation to that of the parent
has also furnished a theme for the consideration of
the curious. Here the most striking irregularities
occur. The guillemot and the raven are themselves
of about equal size ; their eggs vsxy as ten to one.
There is a vast difference in the relative sizes of the
snipe and partridge ; their eggs are approximately
of equal bulk. Hewitson long ago wrote : —

" The reason of this great disparity is, ho we vex,
obvious ; the eggs of all those birds which quit the
nest soon after they are hatched, and are conse-
quently moxe fully developed at their birth, are
very large."

How so distinguished an ornithologist with the
facts before him could have reached so untrue a
conclusion it is difficult to say. In some of the
most obvious cases of disparity, take those of the
pheasant and the partridge on the one hand, and of
the guillemot on the othei ; the young of the two
former come forth plumed and ready at once for the
battle of life ; in the latter the chick rests for weeks,
a mere callow nestling, on the ledge of the rocks.
Yet the guillemot's egg is many times larger than
that of the pheasant.

A curious departure from type is sometimes
shown in certain eggs. The eggs of the guillemot,
tree-pipit and the cuckoo, for example, are re-
markable for their wide range of colouring, the
difference in given specimens being often so ex-
treme that they might well be taken to represent
different species. The tendency to redness in eggs

41

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

that are normally green or blue, is denoted by the
term er3rthrism. In some species the red eggs
are so nrmierous that they constitute a type : in
others they exist but are of extremely rare occur-
ence.

In the tree-pipit and red-backed-shrike the
tendency to lay " red eggs" is marked: in the
sedge-warbler, common tern, guillemot and lapwing
it occurs less frequently, and instances are recorded
in the case of the raven, hooded crow, rook and
magpie. The Rev. F. C. R. Jourdain has stated
that in the Cape rook, the red type is foimd to the
exclusion of the blue usually associated with the
race.

Among the many departures from type that are
recorded are the eggs of house-martins, hedge
sparrows, and starlings, freckled more or less thickly
with red spots.

42

BHcair

Blue Titmouse

To face p. 43

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS

CHAPTER IV

How Birds Fly and Walk. Movemekts Peculiar to
Pairing Season. Evolution of Movement. Movements
OF Birds ltnder Water. Sub- Aquatic Movements of
Dipper. Birds as Hunters. Starlings as Fly-catchers.
Birds as Anglers. Different Methods. Gannets, Auks,
Skuas, Herons, Kingfishers. Gulls Dropping Mussels
from a Height.

No form of life can compare with birds in
the matter of variety of movement. It is hardly
too much to say that every species, certainly
every genus, has a manner peculiar to itself.
Gilbert White has the following observations here-
upon : —

" Kites and buzzards sail round in circles with
wings expanded and motionless. Kestrels have a
mode of hanging in the air in one place. Hen
harriers fly low over heaths and fields of corn, and
beat the ground regularly like a pointer or setter.
Owls move in a buoyant manner, as if lighter than
air ; they seem to lack ballast. Ravens strike and
cuff each other on the wing, and frequently when
flying turn on their backs, and appear to be falling
to the ground. Rooks often dive and tiunble
in a frolicsome manner. Woodpeckers fly opening
and closing the wings at every stroke, and so are
always rising and falling in curves. All the Gallinae

43

SIDE lylGHTS ON BIRDS

fly with an impetuous whirring, and in a straight
line. Magpies and jays flutter with powerless wing,
and make little dispatch ; herons seem encumbered
with too much sail for their light bodies, but their
vast hollow wings are necessary for carrying burdens
such as large fishes and the Hke ; pigeons, and par-
ticularly the kind called smiters, have a way of
clashing their wings, the one against the other,
over their backs with a loud snap ; tmnblers turn
themselves over in the air. Kingfishers dart
straight along like arrows ; fern-owls glance over
the tops of the trees at dusk like meteors ; starlings
as it were, swim along, while mistle-thrushes have
a wild and desultory flight ; swallows sweep over the
surface of the ground and water, and distinguish
themselves by rapid and quick evolutions ; swifts
dash round in circles ; the sand-martin and jack
snipe move with frequent vacillations like a butter-
fly. Whitethroats use odd jerks and gesticulations
over the tops of hedges and bushes. Dabchicks,
moorhens, and coots fly erect, with legs hanging
down, and hardly make any dispatch. (Gulls, it
may also be said, descend from the upper air to
snatch their prey from the surface of the water.
Terns and Solan geese drop into the sea, and dis-
appear like falling stones). Geese, cranes, and
most wild fowl move in figured flights, often changing
their position. Skylarks rise and fall perpen-
dicularly in the air ; woodlarks hang poised ; tit-
larks rise and fall in large curves, singing in their
descent."

Here it may be noted that White probably re-
ferred to the tree-pipit. Somewhat curiously for
so close an observer, he uses the word titlark to
designate the tree-pipit and meadow-pipit indis-
criminately. It is true of the tree-pipit that it
rises and falls in large curves, singing in its descent.

44

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS

The ascent of the meadow-pipit is a somewhat
sorry exhibition of soaring by comparison. It
rises in hesitating fashion, uttering its twittering
notes the while, and soon faUs back to rock or
herbage as though surprised at its own audacity.
The tree-pipit makes a bolder and more sustained
effort, but both smk into insignificance before the
true slcy-bird, which boldly cuts itself adrift from
a material world and abandons itself altogether to
a higher environment.

Many birds, again, have movements peculiar
to the pairing season, which are seen at no
other time. Ringdoves hang on the wing in a
toying and playful fashion ; the snipe fans the aii
like a windhover, and it is usually during the time
of incubation that it drops abruptly through the
air on oblique wing, bringing about the curious
sound known as bleating ; the greenfinch exhibits
languishing and faltering gestures as to appear like
a wounded or dying bird. Pigeons inflate their
crops and walk in circles, a manner of wooing which
is followed in some degree by the long-eared owls.
Blackcock perform extraordinary antics, and even
the stolid rook indulges in grotesque nods, bows,
and caws, jerking its tail feathers apart with a
ratthng soimd.

In their movements on foot birds show marked
peculiarities. All the Gallinse parade and walk
gracefully, and run nimbly. Parrots, crossbills
and the like walk awkwardly, and make use of the
bill as a third foot. Most of the smaller birds hop,
the wagtails and pipits bemg the least of the
feathered race that adopt the expedient of putting
one foot before the other. All the duck tribe
waddle ; divers and auks stand nearly erect, and
move as if fettered by hobble skirts. Guillemots
and puffins literally fly under water ; cormorants

45

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

are propelled by the backward sweep of the webbed
feet alone. The storm petrel, the smallest of web-
footed birds, said to derive its name from the
Apostle Peter, runs up and down the billows of the
Atlantic as nimbly as the ringed dotterel trips over
its native sand-dunes. Most birds that seek their
living in water are web-footed, but sandpipers,
pheasants, and other non-web-footed birds swim
well on occasion.

When one watches the infinite variety in the
movements of birds, and how readily their forms
respond to the eager impulses from within, it is not
difficult to see how, as circumstances and environ-
ment change through the ages, new impulses may
arise, and in turn create new movements. For
example, the dipper has long been regarded as
something of an anomaly in bird life. It would
appear that this member of the strictly terrestrial
thrush family took on a habit in the dim past
of searching for food on the margins and partly
submerged stones of rivers. Deeper and deeper
it thrust its head into the water seeking for
aquatic beetles, and other insects. At length it
came to disappear altogether, and became a diver.
Still it has not acquired even yet any of the char-
acteristics of the true diving birds. It is still a
thrush. " The acutest observer," — said Darwin,
' ' by examining the dead body of a dipper would never
have suspected its sub-aquatic habits." Its feet
are unwebbed, without even the slight fringing
membrane of the grebes and coots. Its way of
going under water, too, resembles more nearly that
of a thrush taking a header than the manner of a
true diving fowl sliding into its native element."

In many ways the evolution of movement may
be inferred by noting the manners of ceitain birds.
Any one who watches the turns and twists of a

46

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS

raven as it gambols in the air may see
the first natural departure from a normal line of
flight which, if developed, might in time become
definite "tumbling" as seen in the pigeon.
The tendency to eccentricity when on the wing
would probably be found to belong to one par-
ticular bird. If a like peculiarity were noted
later in another of the same species and the two
were paired, a race might be founded differing
in mode of flight from the original stock to an
extent which in time might point to a new species.
The difficulties of applying any system of
artificial selection to wild birds are of course
insuperable. But the principle — as Darwin has
so conclusively shown — may be seen clearly at
work in the case of the pigeon. For the pigeon
differs from every other bird in one most im-
portant respect. It retains every characteristic
and privilege of a true wild bird, yet by reason
of its " homing " habit man is able to regulate
its pairing instinct and imperceptibly, to sur-
round it by conditions of life which he himself
determines. This he has succeeded in doing
without impairing its natural sense of freedom,
and thus, unlike the domestic fowl or duck, it
loses nothing of its wing-power.

To produce a tumbler which will perform a
series of even revolutions in mid-air falling many
feet in each descent has been the work of ages.
But in this case it can be shown beyond doubt
that man has had ages to work in. Professor
Lepsius has stated that there are definite records
of pigeons being kept in the fifth Egyptian dynasty
about 3,000 B.C. That pigeon-fancying is no
new pastime may be gathered from the statement
of Pliny, that in the time of the Romans immense
prices were given for high-class birds — " nay,

I

47

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

they have come to this pass that they can reckon
up their pedigree and race."

In many quadrupeds, too, the evolution of
movement may be traced. The common rat is
not normally aquatic ; the presumption is that it
shares with other thin-skinned and sensitive
creatures of its type a distaste for water as a
bathing medium. Yet when the pressure of
circumstances forces it to live in a sewer it becomes
an expert swimmer and diver.

Perhaps the most striking example of natural
movement changed by new conditions is seen in
the pointer and setter. Something of a rudi-
mentary " point " may be noted in the fox and
other animals which approach their prey by
stealth. In the fox it is a mere instinctive pause
in order that the exact position of the crouching
rabbit may be determined before the fatal pounce
is made. In the pointer and setter this pause is
prolonged by training ; the momentary check is
extended indefinitely. To watch a highly-
trained dog strike a hot scent is a curious and
instructive sight. It is seen to be the subject of
two opposing currents of emotion ; the one
urging it forward to leap upon and tear its prey,
the other holding it back as with an iron hand.
The raised foot and the spasmodic working of the
jaw mark the strong internal conflict.

Movements of Birds under Water.

The movements of different species of birds
when pursuing their prey under water are, of
necessity, not always easy to trace. Some idea
of their relative methods may be gathered from
an examination of the structure of the birds
themselves.

To take the cormorants first, the black and the
green, we note at once that the legs and webbed

48

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS

feet are enormously powerful, and well set back
on the body. With a singularly graceful curve
of head and neck, the cormorant dives without a
splash, appearing to slide into the deeps without
an effort. Beneath the water it moves with
marvellous celerity. It might well be thought
that a fish, in its native element, would readily
escape from the onslaught of a mere bird. But
if, by fortunate chance, a cormorant be seen in
the cr>^stal depths of the rock-pool, this belief
is dispelled for ever. The long, narrow, black
form appears sharpened to the finest point.
Propelled only by the backward sweep of the
webbed feet, turning like lightning to right and
left, around the angle of the rocks or about
the weeds, the black water-wolf pursues its quiver-
ing prey. In point of speed, the swiftest fish
appears to be hopelessly outmatched. In a few
seconds, the relentless bill overtakes it, and it
instantly disappears.

The divers (Colymbidae) constitute a small
family of four species and one sub-species. Three
of these^the great northern, the red-throated,
and black-throated divers — are British. An
examination of the structural peculiarities of these
birds shows them to be wonderfully adapted for
sub-aquatic movement. Divers they are es-
sentially, every line of their graceful yet powerful
forms being drawn with the view of swift pro-
gression beneath the water. The legs set far
back, are broad, yet perfectly flat, and when the
webbed feet are drawn up preparatory to the
stroke, the narrow edge alone of leg and foot is
opposed to the element. As the foot descends
these broad surfaces are brought to bear upon the
water, and the bird shoots forward like an arrow
driven from a bow.

49

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

The British auk family includes the httle auk, the
guillemots, common and black, the puffin, and
the razorbill. These birds are built on different
lines from the true divers. Their feet are small
and comparatively feeble. But, to counter-
balance this, the wings are set well forward, and
beneath the water act like the flippers of a seal.
Thus these birds may be seen to be literally flying
under water, the beating of the wings having more
to do with the propulsion than the strokes of the
webbed feet. The auk's manner of diving

difiers from that of both cormorant and diver.
In place of the graceful curve of the one, and the
almost magical disappearance of the other, the
guillemot, or razorbill, dips its head deep in the
water, and then with a quick little flick of wing
and twist of body, drives itself down to the lower
levels. A stream of bubbles rises in its wake, and
it either bolts the fish it catches as it flies beneath
the water, or rises to the surface to discuss it
at its leisure. The auks remain submerged for a
much shorter time than either the cormorants
or the divers. Twenty-three seconds has been
given as an average, but many birds which we
recently timed were not longer than fifteen.

The waterhen cannot be legarded as one of
the true diving birds, inasmuch as it appears to go
under the water rather for the purpose of conceal-
ment than in the regular pursuit of food. It
will remain hidden in sedges or overhanging
vegetation with merely its bill projecting from
the surface. When swimming under water it
uses its wings after the manner of the auks.
The grebes, on the other hand, keep the wings
tightly compressed to the sides, and glide through
the water like fishes.

50

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS

The sub-aquatic movements of the dipper are
a matter upon which many diverse views have
been expressed. Macgillivray writes : —

"I have seen it moving under water in situa-
tions where I could observe it with certainty,
and I readily perceived that its actions were
precisely similar to those of the divers, mergansers,
and cormorants (with respect, we must differ
here, for neither the divers nor cormorants use
their wings, and the dipper certainly does), which
I have often watched from an eminence as they
pursued the shoals of sand-eels along the sandy
shores of the Hebrides. It, in fact, flew — not
merely using the wing from the carpal joint but
extending it considerably and employing its whole
extent, just as if moving in the air. The general
direction of the body in these circumstances is
obliquely downwards, and great force is evid-
ently used to counteract the effect of gravity,
the bird finding it difficult to keep itself at the
bottom."
Montagu writes : —

" The assertion of the dipper walking below
the water which some persons have ventured is
not made good by observation nor countenanced
by reason. The dipper is by no means a walking
bird ; even on land I have never seen it move
more than a few steps, which is accomplished by
a kind of leaping motion. Its short legs and
long curved claws are very ill-adapted for running,
but admirably calculated for securing a steady
footing on slippery stones, whether above or
beneath the surface of the water."

Opportunities of observing the dipper to full
advantage, as it moves on the bed of a stream, are
of rare occurrence. Such an occasion presented
itself on the River Garry in Perthshire. For one

51

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

standing on the wooden biidge and looking up-
stream, the crystal-clear water is spread out in a
succession of rippling flats, dotted here and
there with isolated boulders and many smaller
partly submerged stones. Here, every morning
one or more dippers were to be seen. One, in
particular, would flit through the arches, and
take up its position on a little promontory of
shingle directly beneath the bridge. Soon it
would indulge in little gambols and evolutions,
walking far into the shallow water with its head
submerged, until its dark back alone could be
seen above the surface. Then, with a quick little
run, the back would go under altogether, and the
dusky shadow would then be seen continuing its
course under water for a yard or so, re-appearing
unobtrusively on the opposite bank of pebbles
and nodding its head. Certainly it appeared
to run on the bed of the stream when completely
submerged, exactly as it did when the water was
too shallow altogether to conceal it. It appeared
to be carried on by its own impetus and at this
point no extension of the wmgs, beyond a slight
upward flip, could be observed. A little later it
would flit to a large stone a few yards away, when
it would enter a little pool bending to wash itself
with ruffled feathers as a thrush might, ever and
again giving odd little runs in the water, turning
abruptly to right or left, as a duckling does when
catching flies, sometimes above water and some-
times below. At the end of each whimsical little
gambol it would always turn up most sedately
upon some adjacent stone, as though rather
ashamed of its escapade.

These evolutions were seen only in the early
morning. Once, when startled by a noisy
passenger crossing the bridge, the bird flew

52

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS

to the side of the river, and, under the shadow
of the trees, remained quite motionless for fully
ten mmutes, a very different figure from the
merry little water-sprite which had just been
flitting and frisking in the waters beneath the
bridge.

In deeper water the dipper unquestionably
uses its wings to keep itself down, and even the
young may be seen fl3dng beneath the surface.

Birds as Hunters.

With all animals as with man the predominant
question is how to get a living. Nature appears
to have made matter easy for the vegetarians :
their life-problem arises only when it comes to
getting out of the way of their less fortimately
placed neighbours for whom the fruits of the
earth are insufficient.

For the strictly carnivorous birds the most
constant activity and resource are demanded if
they are to keep body and soul together. By
the nature of the case they can take little or no
thought for to-morrow. They must kill or die.

Hunting is the most primitive form of food-
getting, the straight running down of the quarry
as seen in the greyhound — on earth and under
the earth, in air, river and sea the hunters are
always at work. Just as the hound overtakes
the hare, the swallow runs down the fly, the hawk
the sparrow, the otter the trout, the guillemot
the young herring.

Diurnal birds-of-prey, unlike many carnivorous
mammals, have little use for strategy ; they rely
on speed. The golden eagle and the peregrine
falcon strike their quarry in the air after a straight
run, the sparrow-hawk may grip a finch from a
bough or even from the ground, but he too,

53

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

is an aerial hunter. The kestrel, it may be,
brings some patient wood-craft into play, but
when he hovers aloft, the tiny mouse creeping
in the tangled grasses far below leaves him no
alternative.

The owls, again, have little need of the cunning
of the fox, or the patience of the heron. Nature
has formed them on a plan that gives them an
immeasurable advantage over their victims.
Their eyes are so constructed that they gather
in the faintest and fewest rays of light, and the
feet and claws are finely formed for the sudden
seizure of prey. In the owl we see a carefully per-
fected and delicately balanced engine of death,
framed to survey the intricacies of the herbage in
the darkness, to ghde swiftly and silently through
the air, and to bring down the relentless mechanism
of foot and talon upon the quarry. From such
a foe there is no safety for even the wariest
mouse as it steals along, sheltered as it may be-
lieve, in the double security of dense cover and
of night.

Although owls move through the air with the
buoyancy of thistledown they are birds of ex-
traordinary power. We once placed a pair of
tawny owls in an out-house that had become
infested with rats and mice. At intervals
through the night one could hear the thud of
the pouncing birds on the wooden floor and the
terror-stricken squeaks of the victims. The
birds themselves were probably disconcerted by
the contact with a hard surface in place of the
grassy hollows where the descent is usually made,
but it became clear that their airily-light forms
are capable of a most fierce and forcible on-
slaught.

54

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS.

The swifts, swallows, and nightjars bear down
upon the fl3^ng insect, taking it up in their wide
bills, without checking their course — the swift
especially will arrest the mayfly hundreds of feet
below without deviating by ahair's-breadth, from
the line of its exquisite curve. The fly-catchers
made sudden sallies from a vantage point of
branch or railing, bringing back their prey to the
perch, there to devour it. It would appear that
the fly-catching habit is in a state of evolution.
Many birds now, including the robin, chaffinch
and sparrow, take up their stations on the sides
of a stream when the mayfly is up, and work
precisely on the lines which, we believe, were
once peculiar to the fly-catcher. Yet they still
lack the art of the true fly -catcher : they fre-
quently miss their aim, and flutter awkwardly to
correct their course.

It is certain that the starling has adopted new
methods within recent times. It may now be
seen on a still, sunny day, hawking for flies in
mid-air exactly as the swallow does, although
of course its aerial movements are wanting in the
ease and grace of the true masters of the craft that
have a racial experience of hundreds of centuries
behind them.

Birds as Anglers.

The movements of aquatic birds when seeking
food differ in accordance with their conformation
and habits.

Some ducks dive : others feed only on the
surface. Around the Bass Rock the calm sea
may be seen thrashed into foam by the thou-
sands of gannets dropping as though turned into
marble, to the deeps below. These become
submerged and remain for an appreciable time
under water.

55

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

Terns drop in the same direct way, but recover
themselves almost instantly. Gulls for the
most part snatch their prey from the surface, but
cases have been given when they dive. Mi. J.
M. Campbell, who lived for many years on the
Bass Rock, states that the razorbills and puffins col-
lect supplies m a mannei peculiar to themselves.

' ' They dive from the surface and each capture
is pinched agamst the roof of the mouth, and
held there by the barbed tongue, leaving the
mandibles fiee for the next capture, till the bill
is strung from base to tip with the silvery spoil.

"The straight pointed bill of the guillemot,
however, appears to admit of only one fish being
carried at a time : consequently each capture
unless required for immediate consumption neces-
sitates a journey to the hungiy youngster on the
nesting ledge. These single fish are always
carried lengthways in the bill, the head inside
and the tail protruding and are generally seveial
times larger than those carried by the razorbills
and puffins."

It is surprising how easily a guillemot can
move in a limited space. We recently placed
one in a tank in a greenhouse where its out-
stretched wings touched either side. Yet it
glided without apparent effort round the corners
and its cramped quarters caused no diminution
of speed.

The skuas make no attempt to catch fish
themselves : their habit is to circle round and
round gulls and terns and force them to drop
their captures. A predatory practice of this
kind has been noted by a correspondent in the
" Scotsman " in regard to the black-headed gull.

He states that he saw a number of these birds
hovering round the place where a party of scoters

56

MOVEMENT IN BIRDS

were fishing. When one of the ducks rose to the
surface with a fish in its bill, the gulls descended
upon it and forced it to give up its prey. Al-
though not strictly angling, the habit of gulls and
crows of ascending in the air and dropping mussels
from a height to the rocks beneath with the
deliberate intention of breaking the otherwise
impenetrable shells, may be touched upon here.

Superintendent Jenkins, of the Lancashire and
Western Sea Fisheries Committee, recently stated
that he saw certain gulls of the walls of the
Ribble estuary, collecting mussels on the walls.
If the shell broke the gulls at once descended and
devoured the mollusc, but if the wind carried the
mussel over into the water they made no attempt
to follow.

Roughly the avian anglers may be divided into
two classes : the surface fishers, and those which
follow their prey in their native deeps. The
heron is a typical fisher of the first school, he
exhibits the patience of the true Waltonian, em-
ploying craft rather than violence, and striking
only when his quarry comes voluntarily within
reach of his bill.

The method of the kingfisher is not altogether
dissimilar. He too, watches quietly from an
elevated vantage point, and using the whole of
his short body as a missile, hurls it down upon the
unsuspecting fish beneath.

On some rare occasions a kingfisher may be
seen resting on the shingle at the river-side,
striking at minnows when they come to the edge.

57

ALTITUDE AND SPEED OF FLIGHT

CHAPTER V

The Condor. Gatke's Views. Evidence of Astronomers.
Colonel Meinertzhagen's Opinions. Relative Rates op
Speed. Discredited Estimates. Notes by Professor
Newton and Mr. Tegetivieier. Dr. Eagle Clarke's Dictum.
Colonel Meinertzhagen's Estimate made by Means of
Theodolites, with a Table of Velocities of Normal
Migratory Flight.

On the question of height, there is little doubt
that certain of the larger soaring birds attain
to elevations which appear to be vi^ell-nigh in-
credible. The condor is believed to be the species
which mounts highest in the atmosphere. Hum-
bolt described the flight of this bird in the Andes
to be at least 20,000 feet above the level of the
sea. From the cave of Antisana, elevated 12,958
feet above the level of the Pacific Ocean, he states
that he saw the condor soaring at a perpendicular
height of 6,876 feet. He notes as a remarkable
fact that this bird, which continues to fly in
regions where the air is so rarified, descends all
at once to the edge of the sea, and thus, in a very
brief time, passes through all the variations of
climate. At a height of 20,000 feet, he remarks,
the air-cells of the condor, which are filled in the
lowest regions, must be inflated in an extraor-
dinary manner.

58

Kestrel

To face p. 58

ALTITUDE AND SPEED OF FLIGHT

The late Herr Gatke, the venerable bird-
watcher of Heligoland, had many remarks to
ofier on this question. His conviction was that
birds on migration travel normally at far greater
heights than was usually supposed. He be-
lieved that the flocks which come withm our ken,
skimmmg the surface of the sea, and stnkmg
against our lighthouses, vast as they may be,
were none the less merely the contingents which
had been checked in their course, and that their
travel must be regarded as more or less unsuccess-
ful and abortive attempts at migration, the more
fortunate voyagers taking a line at a far greater
elevation.

Corroboration of this view is furnished by
Mr. F. M. Chapman, the ornithologist at the
American Museum, New York. He states
that in New Jersey, on the 3rd of Sep-
tember, 1887, when making certain observations,
he carefully noted 262 birds crossing the moon's
face. Of these 233 were computed to be at a
height of from 1,500 to 15,000 feet. The re-
markable thing in this case was that the lowest
birds were seen to be " flymg upward," as if they
had risen from the immediate neighbourhood, and

were seeking the proper elevation at which to
continue their flight." Mr. W. E. D. Scott has
recorded that on the night of the 19th October,
1880, he saw through an astronomical telescope
at Princeton, great numbers of birds passing
across the face of the moon. Computations
showed that these migrants, among which were
recognised warblers, finches, woodpeckers, and
blackbirds, were travelling at heights varying
from one to two miles. A second astronomer,
Mr. J. Tennant, has stated that he has seen birds,
apparently kites, frequently pass over the sim's
face, some of which were in focus with the sun

59

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

itself, and must, therefore, have been several
miles high, while the nearest must have been quite
a mile above the earth's surface.

Gatke's belief that the height of normal mi-
gration is at least 20,000 feet has not been found
to hold good. It has been estimated by the
most competent observers that wagtails fly about
150 feet from the sea, swallows between 40 and
100 ft. and meadow pipits as low as 20 feet, whilst
sandpipers, plovers, ducks and other high-flying
birds rarely exceed 8,000 feet.

In order to secure further data Col. Meinertz-
hagen advertised in the " Times," requesting
pilots in the Royal Air Force who have special
means of registering elevation to provide him
with their estimates. One of the replies was as
follows : —

" On April ist., I was surprised to meet 40
cock ostriches at 17,000 feet. I attacked them
at once and broke up their formation. One nose-
dived on to the General's tent, whilst another
crashed into our cook-house."

But apart from the inevitable hmnorist many
useful details were supplied by saner corres-
pondents. Rooks were noted at 11,000 ft ;
ducks at 7,500, lapwings at 6,500, golden plover
at 6,000, and geese at 700. Although it does
not strictly fall within this section, the question
as to how far sight assists in finding a true course,
may be touched upon here.

It has been stated on an authority that we
have unfortunately not been able to verify that
birds have an acuity of vision 100 times greater
than that of human beings. This, by the way,
would account for the marvellous power birds
like the swift exhibit of distinguishing tiny in-
sects on the water himdreds of feet beneath them.

60

ALTITUDE AND SPEED OF FLIGHT

But mere keenness of vision fails to account for
the facts of migration, although, of course, it
plays a more or less important part in the matter
of way-finding.

As Col. Meinertzhagen remarks : ' ' How can
sight guide birds on night journeys, when on dark
nights birds fly but a few feet above the surface
of the earth or sea?"

Amongst the main conclusions reached by him
are the following : — Birds need not, for the pur-
pose of migration ascend much beyond 5,000 feet
above the level of the earth, nor indeed do they.
Birds met with above this level are the exceptions
and not the rule. In normal conditions, different
species travel at different altitudes, some very
low and some invariably high, but during
abnormal weather-storm and fog all birds are
apt to fly low. The oft- voiced belief that greater
altitude makes flight easier for a bird is not borne
out by fact. The experience of the Royal Air
Force is that as altitude increases the machine
has greater difficulty in maintaining height and
speed. There is no reason to think that this
does not apply equally to birds. The velocity
and direction of wind have little effect on altitude.

Speed.
In regard to the relative rates of speed at which
birds travel great differences of opinion have
existed. In Gatke's estimate the speed
attained is far greater than subsequent au-
thorities are prepared to admit. Gatke believed
that a grey crow, travelling across Heligoland,
would pass the coast-line of the island at 8 a.m.
and arrive on the Lincolnshire coast about 11 a.m.,
thus covering the 360 miles at the rate of 120
miles per hour. A further estimate satisfied

61

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

him that curlews, godwits, and plovers crossed
from Heligoland to certain oyster-beds lying to
the eastward, at a known distance of rather
more than four English miles in one minute, or
at the well-nigh incredible rate of over 240 miles
an hour.

Herr Gatke's views appeared to some extent
to be sustained by a second observer, Mr. Oswald
Crawfurd, who made certain calculations in
regard to the speed of turtle-doves on migration.
His conclusions were that, if the flight were
continuous, turtle-doves leaving ' ' Kent or Surrey
at dawn, might easily be the very birds that a
few hours later were skimming over the Portu-
guese pine-forests on their way to Central Africa."

Against these estimates, which, although made
in perfect good faith, must, from the nature of
the case, be based on imperfect data we have the
carefully reasoned views of the late Professor
Newton. Ne^vton found that the speed attri-
buted to the grey crow, for example, 120 miles
an hour, was such that, prima facie, none of the
crow tribe could attain, and that there is no
definite evidence that the crows leaving Heligo-
land at 8 a.m., were the identical birds which
arrived in England at 11. Newton continues : —

" If I might cite my own experience (in regard
to the general rates of flight), it is to the effect
that the swallow does not ordinarily fly so fast
as the express train from which one may view it,
and a train going at no great speed completely
outstrips the partridges which rise in front of it
and fly tor a few hundred yards alongside of it,
as I have observed again and again."

Further, Mr. Tegetmeier has stated that the
average speed of homing pigeons in 18 matches
is 36 English miles an hour, though in two of

62

ALTITUDE AND SPEED OF FLIGHT

them a rapidity of about 55 miles was maintained
for four hours in succession. This view is largely
borne out by an investigation of the figures given
week by week in ' ' The Racing Pigeon " and other
journals of this character. As a first-class
homing Antwerp flies at an unquestionably greater
rate than any of the crow family, we can but
conclude that Gatke's figures are considerably
wide of the mark.

Earlier observations thus may be taken to be
more or less guess-work, opinions being derived
from the relation of flying birds to trains travelling
at express speed and so forth. Again, birds, like
all living creatures, have different rates of speed
at different times — a sparrow, for instance, en-
deavourmg to escape from a hawk will accelerate
its speed far beyond the normal — and it is of course
the normal, unhurried rate of progress that one
desires to ascertain.

Dr. Eagle Clarke, in his recent work " Studies
in Bird Migration," has pointed out that the
data on which the estimates were based were
of the flimsiest nature and has expressed his
belief that no species on migration (when the
speed may be taken as normal) exceeds 100 miles
an hour and that few reach anything like it, an
opinion now fully confirmed.

In the " Ibis" (April, 1921) Colonel Meinertz-
hagen publishes some estimates of the velocities
of flight based on the latest principles of scientific
observation. As an expert on the use of anti-
aircraft appliances during the war he has been
able to bring exact science to bear on the question
in a manner that hitherto has been impossible.
The observations made near Montreuil in north-
east France were by means of theodolites on a
1,420 base with small balloons to ascertain the

63

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

velocity of the wind at the altitude of flight. He
found that testing the speed of birds was ex-
cellent practice for the men and assures us that
the results may be taken as accurate for all
practical purposes. He discounts at once Gatke's
assertion that birds attain a largely increased
velocity by travelling in the more elevated layers
of the atmosphere. He shows that greater
height tends to lesser speed as the atmosphere
is rarer and therefore offers a less suitable mixture
on which wings can beat. Birds at a great
height, he observes, experience the same diffi-
culty as a man trying to swim in froth.

The following summary, giving the miles per
hour travelled by certain birds observed, will
make the main facts plain.

Corvidae 31 — 45

Smaller Passeres 20 — 37

Geese 42 — 55

Tame Pigeons 3° — 36

Starlings 38 — 49

Falcons 4° — 4^

Ducks 44 — 59

Sand-grouse 43 — 47

Waders 34 — 5i

but mostly from 40 — 51

The figures, which may be termed official, give
the swift 68 miles per hour and the swallow,
rather curiously only 34 — 37I. The writer asserts
that swallows are most deceptive as regards
their flight. They are, he says, neither strong
nor rapid flyers, and he refuses to place any
reliance on the data of the Roubaix swallow
which the " Zoologist" recorded as having been
released in Paris, and as returning to Roubaix,
a distance of 160 miles in 90 minutes, giving a
rate of 106 miles per hour. Still, we take it,
that although leisurely on migration, the swallow
is capable of very much greater speed than the

64

ALTITUDE AND SPEED OF FLIGHT

figures indicate, and Colonel Meinertzhagen, him-
self, states that he hesitates even to guess at the
rate to which a swift can attain when the necessity
arises. ' ' This — the fastest of birds," he remarks,
* ' can increase its ' feeding ' speed of say 70
miles per hour to a velocity that must exceed 100
miles per hour."

It may be added that Colonel Meinertzhagen's
observations were made in several countries, in-
cluding East Africa and Palestine, as well as in
France, and we hope that his scientifically de-
rived statistics will do much to put an end to the
wild assertions that have been made in regard
to the flight of birds — as, for example, that oft-
quoted one ol Crawfurd's in ' ' Round the Calendar
in Portugal " to the effect that turtle-doves leaving
Kent at dawn reach Portugal in a' few^hours.

65

MIGRATION

CHAPTER VI

Dr. Eagle Clarke's " Studies in Bird Migration."
Ancient Beliefs. The "Hibernation" Theory. Trans-
mutation. WiLLUGHBY AND EdWARDS. MODERN ViEWS.

Fly lines. Long Distance Flights. Whence antd

Whither ? Motives that Lead to Migration. How

are Migrants Guided ? Memory and Parental Guidance.

Magnetism of the Earth. The Ancient Wisdom.

From the earliest recorded days the minds of
deep thinkers, poets, and philosophers alike,
have been attracted to the subject of migration.
Job, Jeremiah, Homer, Anacreon, Aristotle, Pliny,
all paused, either to draw from this fact in
nature some illustration of the power of the
unseen, or to seek scientifically for the conditions
of the fact itself.

The problem presented itself in the following
forms : Yesterday the land was deserted : to-day
the trees are filled with strange singing birds,
and the swifts and swallows overspread the sky.
Whence do they come ? Why do they come ?
How have they learnt so accurately the right
time to arrive ? Steering without chart or com-
pass, how do they find their way ?

So far as the Scriptural writers are concerned,
latter-day science would appear to have little to

66

Nesting Site ue the Woodcock

To face p. 66

MIGRATION

correct. From lighthouse and lightship we must
still ask the old question " Doth the hawk fly
by Thy wisdom and stretch her wings towards
the south ? " and we must still make the old
affirmation — " Yea, the stork in the heavens
knoweth her appointed time, and the turtle and
the crane and the swallow observe the time of
their coming."

Dr. Eagle Clarke's " Studies in Bird Migra-
tion " may be taken as the latest and most ex-
haustive pronouncement that has been made
on this fascinating and baffling subject, and in
his opening chapters he states with precision not
alone the wide deductions of the seers and poets,
but the varied and often contradictory theories
of different philosophers, and it is in the nature
of the case that his work is mainly concerned with
the scientific side of the great mystery. With
perfect fairness, and without a touch of the cheap
superiority with which many modern scientific
writers regard the great fore-runners who worked
in the long past and darker times, he records the
view of each philosopher in his turn, and enables
us to see how " knowledge grows from more to
more " as the slow ages roll by. These chapters,
we take it, will stand as a clear and impartial
account of the thinking and of the evolution of
thought on the subject of bird migration for all
future time. Strange and varied ; some shrewd
guesses at the truth, others sufficiently absurd;
were the earliest replies given to the questions
with which we opened this chapter. As Dr.
Eagle Clarke shows, it was reserved to the illus-
trious Greek, Aristotle (B.C. 384 — 322), in the
eighth book of his " Historia Animalium," to
deal for the first time in living history with the
migration of birds and other animals as subjects
for scientific inquiry. Here it is stated that : —

67

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

" Some creatures can make provision against
change of season, without stirring from their
ordinary haunts : some migrate, quitting Pontus
and other cold countries after the Autumnal
equinox, migrating from warm lands to cool lands
to avoid the coming heat. In some cases they
migrate from places near at hand : in others they
may be said to come from the ends of the world.
Pelicans . . . depart in flocks, and the birds
in front wait for those in the rear, owing to the
fact that when the flock is passing over inter-
vening mountains, the birds in the rear lose sight
of their companions in the van ....
' ' Quails when they migrate have no leaders, but
when they leave, the glottis flits along with them,
as does also the landrail and the eared owl."

An important statement is made by Aristotle,
a statement based plainly on what were taken to
be general probabilities but which unfortunately
is put forward dogmatically, and as though it
were the out-come of direct observation : —

' ' A great number of birds go into hiding. . .
Swallows have been found m holes : the kite on
its first emergence from torpidity has been seen
to fly from out some such hiding place. In
these cases of ' periodic torpor ' there is no dis-
tinction observed, whether the talons of a bird be
crooked or straight : for mstance, the stork, the
ouzel, the turtle-dove, and the lark all go into
hiding."

Thus, as Dr. Eagle Clarke states, Aristotle must
be taken to be the originator of the tmhappy
"hibernation" theory — an unfounded dogma
which has been put forward by countless subse-
quent writers as though the phenomenon had
been actually seen by them, in place of being a
mere parrot-like repetition of a generally-held

68

MIGRATION

tradition. Other observations made super-

ficially led the great Greek thinker astray, with
far reaching results. Many birds changing from
their summer to their winter plumage came to
resemble one another, and often as one species
vanished on migration, another bearing some-
thing of its likeness, appeared in its place. On
this shadowy foundation Aristotle erected his
strange theory of " transmutation." Thus the
robin, and the redstart, the garden-warbler and
the blackcap, were said to change, the one into
the other, and doubtless, the belief that the
cuckoo becomes a hawk in winter sprang from
the same source.

These grave errors, embodied in a mass of true
erudition and logical deduction, wonderful enough
in view of the times in which they appeared, were
let loose upon the world with most bewildering
results. The Roman naturalist Pliny, nearly
400 years later, repeated the fallacies of Aristotle
with certain modifications and additions. Thus

the wheatear has its stated day for retirement :
at the rising of Sirius it conceals itself, and at the
setting of that star comes forth from that retreat :
this it does, most singular to relate, exactly on
both these days." Further Pliny repeats
Aristotle's statements regarding the " trans-
mutations of birds." " With the writing of
Pliny" — Dr. Eagle Clarke remarks — "the an-
cient view of migration comes to an end. The
Middle Ages in this, as in many other cases,
appear to have been a period of intellectual
stagnation, and it was not until the latter half
of the sixteenth century that the interest in the
subject seems to have revived." In 1555 Olaus
Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, in Sweden, steps
forward. With cheerful dogmatism, he states

69

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

as a fact within his own knowledge that
" swallows are often drawn out (of the water)
in a kind of rolled-up lump, which, when about to
descend into the reeds after the beginning of
Autumn, have bound themselves together —
mouth to mouth, wing to wing, foot to foot."
Dr. Eagle Clarke reproduces a picture taken
direct from the Archbishop's work, which re-
presents two fishermen standing on the edge of
the ice, and drawing towards them a net contain-
ing a mixed catch of swallows and fishes. The
efiect of these unqualified affirmations, for other
writers came forward " to reckon themselves
among the eye-witnesses of this ' paradoxon '
of natural history " may be traced in succeeding
literature. Men of the deepest learning and
most acute observation, including Linnaeus and
Cuvier, fell victims to the idea merely because it
was generally received. Later, the strong dog-
matic attitude of the Hon. Daines Barrington
caused even patient watchers, among whom
Gilbert White may be counted the first, to waver
and to well-nigh turn aside, although White
never gave his own authority to the commonly
held belief. It is to the credit of Francis
Willughby and George Edwards that they so
robustly endeavoured to stem the tide of super-
stition.

Writing in 1678 Willughby says : — "To
us it seems more probable that they (the
swallows) fly away into hot countries. . . .
than that they lurk in hollow trees and holes in
rocks ... or lie in water under ice m
Northern countries."

Nearly a century later Edwards is still more
emphatic, although the "immersion" theory
had, as yet, lost little of its hold. "It is

70

MIGRATION

enough," he wrote, " to raise one's indignation
to see so many vouchers from so many assertors
of this foolish and erroneous conjecture, which is
not only repugnant to reason, but to all the known
laws of nature."

Some Modern Views.

In looking further into this wide question, we
may fitly re-state the terms of the problems to be
solved. Where do the migrants come from ?
Whither do they go ? What are the motives which
lead them, season by season to leave their birth-
places, and to undertake arduous and constantly
fatal journeys to other lands ? And, finally
what is the nature of the mysterious power which
enables them to steer a true course across un-
known seas ?

It is evident that the last question is immeasur-
ably the most important and fascinating of the
whole, for it leads at once to new realms of
thought, and with its solution might come the
discovery of a distinctly new sense to be added
to the familiar group by which human action is
commonly guided and controlled.

In following Dr. Eagle Clarke's tracery of the
various lines of speculation on this question, we
come clearly to see how eagerly the world's thinkers
have at once attacked what may be described as
the chief of a set of phenomena, leaving the sub-
sidiary factors undefined, and, in many cases
unknown. If we may say so, it will stand per-
manently to Dr. Eagle Clarke's account that he
clearly recognised, on first undertaking his in-
quiry at the instance of John Cordeaux in 1880,
the existence of the vast mass of facts still to
be classified, and the mass perhaps greater still
as yet awaiting discovery.

71

SIDE lylGHTS ON BIRDS

It was to this double task, first, of collecting
and arranging systematically the facts already
known ; and secondly, the discovery of new links
which should eventually make the chain com-
plete; that Dr. Eagle Clarke addressed himself,
with the result that the labours of 32 years are
now embodied in the two volumes, ' ' Studies in
Bird Migration." It would be clearly impossible,
even in the most cursory fashion, to follow the
author as he tracks with infinite patience, bird
after bird from its birth-place to the land of its
winter sojourn, marking its line of flight, and
showing the well-nigh innumerable deviations
caused by varying climatic and other conditions.
To do this, indeed would be to recapitulate a
work, which is already in itself a most concise
summary of the information achieved. The
utmost, indeed, that space allows, is a setting
forth of the more prominent of the conclusions.

In the first place, it is shown that birds when
journeying between their more or less widely
separated homes, do not, as it is generally sup-
posed, move indiscriminately southwards in the
autumn, and m like manner northwards in the
spring. Each individual migrant of mature
age has its accustomed summer and winter
quarters, and follows particular and more or less
devious routes to reach them.

There appear, indeed to be highway roads
through the air, with certain spots beneath which
are known to the main body of travellers as
stations for rest and recovery, but there are also
innumerable by-ways, which for many reasons,
some of which are still obscure, are constantly
resorted to.

" The journeys of many" (Dr. Eagle Clarke
writes) " are marvellous performances. Some

72

MIGRATION

of them entail flights across wide stretches of
open ocean, as in the case of one beautiful little
cuckoo (Chalcococcyx lucidus), which summers
in New Zealand and Norfolk Island, and winters
in Eastern Australia. The distance between
New Zealand and Australia direct is about 1,200
miles, and there are no resting places en route.
The journey may be accomplished via Norfolk
and Ivord Howe's Islands by three flights, two
of 550 miles and one of 600 miles. Another
remarkable feat is that performed by warblers,
pipits, shrikes, and sandpipers across the Hima-
layas, when travelling to and from Siberian and
Central Asiatic summer quarters to Indian winter
retreats. These birds traverse a belt of absolute
desert of more than a hundred miles in width,
having an elevation of over 15,000 feet and inter-
sected by numerous snow-capped ridges, the
lowest passes of which are, 18,000 feet above sea
level."

Many examples are subsequently given of
birds which may be said to deviate from the
generally accepted track, and to overcome in
their own way the obstacles which are incident
to the course chosen.

Whence and Whither ?
In dealing with what may be described as the
" whence and whither " aspect of migration, the
choice of stations for the purpose of observation
is of the first importance. Hitherto much of our
knowledge in regard to the bi-annual movements
of British birds has been derived from Heligoland —
a point in the ocean where many converging fly-
lines may be said to meet and cross. In Fair
Island Dr. Eagle Clarke may fairly claim to have
discovered a second Heligoland, and his seven

73

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

years' investigations from this station have made
it the most famous bird-observatory in our own
island group. The records from Fair Island
already throw light on many obscure questions,
and it is safe to say that a steady crop of new
and interesting facts will be gleaned by the bird
watchers now appointed to look out from this
isolated rock set far in our Northern Seas.

Motives that lead to Migration.

That vast numbers leave their summer haunts
because the food supply fails is obvious. But
what motive leads them to quit their winter
quarters just when the conditions of life appear
to be growing more favourable day by day ?
Why, having braved a perilous flight from Nor-
way, and when the temperate shores of England
are gained, should the fieldfare and redwing, for
an example, face a return journey to a land which
would appear to offer them no better provisions
than our own ? Dr. Eagle Clarke replies : —

' ' There are several excellent reasons. Fore-
most among these is the well-known passionate
attachment shown by birds for their native lands
— their true home — in which the most fascinating
period of their lives is spent. This in itself affords
the stimulus to seek, at the appointed time, the
hallowed scenes where the all engrossing domestic
duties of the year await them, and have for ages
been performed."

' ' Why homeward turn thy joyful wing ?

In a far-ofE land I hear the voice of Spring :

I found myself that mom.ent on the way :

My wings, my wings, they had not power to stay."

— Montgomery .

In this respect their patriotism, as Dr. Eagle
Clarke points out, is curiously constant, the very
fields and woods which constitute home for them

74

MIGRATION

being re-sought. On the obscure point of the
origin of the migratory habit Dr. Eagle Clarke
finds the views of Russell Wallace and Weismann
largely confirmed. This opens out, however,
so wide a question, in which the survival of the
fittest is involved, that we cannot now enter upon
it.

How ARE THE Migrants Guided ?
In dealing with this question, which he trul}'
describes as one of the greatest mysteries to be
found in the animal kingdom, Dr. Eagle Clarke
still proceeds on strictly scientific lines. One
by one he takes the various theories which have
been advanced, and tests each by the facts which
he has already ranged in ordered rows.

Sight.

The first in order is sight. It has been stated
that birds may possess some telescopic power of
vision, which goes far beyond anything man knows
of seeing. This, coupled with the admitted fact
that the main bodies of migrants attain to great
heights when travelling, and thus, with con-
tinents lying like a map, far below, landmarks
might be descried at what would at first appear
to be inconceivable distances, is held to account
for the true line achieved in steering.

Against this explanation Dr. Eagle Clarke
sets the fact that most of the great migratory
movements take place at night, and it may be
said that, apart from the true nocturnal fowl,
there is not the faintest evidence that birds have
any specialised organs suited for night-vision :
indeed, all experience points to the contrary.

If a finch or warbler, for example, be liberated
in a dark room, it will blunder helplessly to the
floor, unable to avail itself of the most obvious
perch : whereas experiment has shown that a bat

75

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

will avoid threads stretched across the dark area
with absolute precision.

But, in order to place the sight theory entirely
out of court, Dr. Eagle Clarke cites Sir J. C.
Ross in regard to the extensive migrations per-
formed by the flightless penguins. Penguins
were observed by him in great abundance going
eastwards, proceeding to their far-distant breeding
quarters, and Ross writes : — ' ' It is wonderful
instinct far beyond the powers of untutored reason,
which enables these creatures to find their way,
chiefly imder water, several hundred miles to
their place of usual resort, as each succeeding
spring season of the year arrives." On another
occasion Ross observed two penguins when more
than a thousand miles from the nearest land.

Memory and Parentai. Guidance
It may be remembered in the " Cat's Pil-
grimage " Froude pictured the owl in the hollow
tree pondering the problem as to which first came
into the world — the owl or the egg. I^eaving
the initial difiiculty, certain writers have assumed
that the first bird-parents in some manner acquired
a knowledge of the route, and that in each suc-
ceeding generation the young birds are piloted
across the sea by their progenitors, who thus
bring memory and practical experience to bear
upon the choice of ways. Here, however, as
Dr. Eagle Clarke shows, a strong array of facts
bars the way. Numbers of examples are given
in which the young birds migrate apart from
their parents, and the author holds that this is
especially the case with species which are double-
brooded, when the first families are early cut
adrift and are left to shift foi themselves. In
further support of this contention Dr. Eagle
Clarke gives the instance of the cuckoo : —

76

MIGRATION

" It is well known to naturalists " (he writes)
" that the young cuckoo does not leave our
islands, and its summer haunts elsewhere, until
some weeks after the adult birds have left for
their winter home : hence parental guidance in
their case is not conceivable. . . . The parent
cuckoo deposits its eggs in the nests of other
birds, and the young are reared by foster parents
at the expense of their own offspring, which the
infant cuckoo soon ejects from the nest. Now,
these foster parents mainly belong to species
which do not quit our islands, or if so, do not
journey far : others certainly do perform consider-
able migrations. It matters not, however,
whether these foster parents are eminently mi-
gratory or not, for they do not accompany the
emigrant cuckoos on their journey to their winter
retreats, which lie in the equatorial regions or to
the south of them."

Magnetism of the Earth.

A somewhat ingenious suggestion — a mere sug-
gestion, it may be said, for there has been no
reasoned effort to bring it to bear on the general
facts of migration — is that birds may be, in some
way, susceptible to the magnetism of the earth,
and thus when crossing the sea, they are drawn
by some principle ot gravitation to the nearest
land. It has been said that Herbert Spencer's
only conception of a tragedy was the sight of a
lovely theory killed by a vicious little fact. Here
we have the magnetic theory done to death by one
of Dr. Eagle Clarke's inexorable observations. It
is clear that if any principle of magnetism or
gravitation existed, as for example, the force
which draws pieces of cork scattered on the sur-
face of water, first the smaller to the larger, and
eventually the whole to the sides of the vessel,

77

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

this attraction would bring birds at once to the
largest and nearest masses of land. But Dr. Eagle
Clarke has shown that this is by no means the
case. Space does not admit of illustrations, but
we may say that the conclusion is firmly reached
that birds do not, of necessity, make for the
nearest points of land, but are found, even in the
darkness and in fog, persistently following par-
ticular lines of flight.

Thus, by a process of elimination, modern
thought is driven back to the ancient wisdom.
Professor Newton's phrase, " Inherited but un-
conscious experience :" Di. Eagle Clarke's own
words, "Unconscious guidance:" Russell Wal-
lace's statement ' ' that there is ' mind ' as an
acting cause of all the basic phenomena of life:"
all bring us back to the fact that life may be
directed in ways to which our own five senses
give no clue.'

78

Starling at Nesting Hole

To face p. 79

OCCULT SENSES IN BIRDS

CHAPTER VII

]\1\n's Five Senses. Probabilities of Additional Senses
IN Birds. Failure of the Known Senses to Account
FOR Actions of Birds and Insects. A Way-finding Sense.
Mr. J. H. Gurney's Views on Occult Senses in Birds.
Flocks of Birds Moving in Unison.

Man is in possession of five senses on which he
rehes for his impressions of external affairs.
Why five ? an arbitrary number surely ! May
there not be other instruments capable of re-
cording vibrations which man has either lost or
has never possessed ? We know already
that our own familiar senses are limited : that
notes and colours actually exist that our own
ears and eyes are not sensitive enough to take
cognizance of. Is it then unreasonable to suggest
that birds, beasts and insects may own additional
faculties, and by bringing them into play, may
be able to perform feats that seem altogether
unaccountable to us ? If we examine our own
senses we find that one may corroborate another
in some particular. A blind man may know
that an object is round, and sight would confirm this
impression. But othei senses stand entirely
alone. No inkling ot sound can reach us through
the channel of the eye. The most exquisite
touch fails to reveal the fragrance of the rose.
Imagine then a sixth sense — any number of
additional senses — why chain ourselves down to
the purely arbitrary five ! We cannot. To

79

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

think of a new sense and of what it might reveal —
a sense as distinct from the known five as hearing
— let us say — is from seeing is an impossible feat.
But if we cannot imagine a sixth sense we can
at least picture the condition of mankind if they
had been deprived of any one of the familiar five.
We will cheat the human race of hearing, for
example, leaving this channel open to the lower
animals. You, to whom the fact of sound has
never been vouchsafed, are out with your dog,
and suddenly you see that the animal's attention
is arrested. His ears prick, his whole attitude
is strained. " That dog sees or smells some-
thing," you exclaim. Yet your own eyes survey
the long stretch of road that is clearly void.
Soon a wagon turns the distant corner. Now
you ask yourself, " how came that dull brute
thus to peer into the future : to foreknow this
coming event? " Then, it may be, you forthwith
endow him with an acuity of vision that can
look through stone walls, or with powers of scent
that can catch odoriferous particles blowing dead
against the wind. Yet one additional sense
makes the matter clear. The dog merely heard
the rumbling of the distant wheels.

In dealing with the manner in which certain
insects find their mates, and in which vultures
discover hidden carcasses at incredible distances,
as well as with the facts of migration, we often
reason exactly as men would to whom"' an im-
portant sense had been denied. We see wonders
enacted before our eyes, and we strain the idea of
our own five senses to breaking point in order to
account for them.

The oak-eggar moths travelling from the
heathery districts where they resort, will cover
distances of several miles, and facing adverse
winds, will discover females of their own species

80

OCCULT SENSES IN BIRDS

hatched in a chip box in some entomologist's
chamber in the heart of a manufacturing town.
Nothing that we know of scent wih account for
this. In this case some Hght is thrown on the
question by the fact that numbers of butterflies
have been known to assemble around ships on
the coast where low power wireless messages
were being dispatched, at once dispersing on their
cessation. Thus it may possibly be inferred
that they are able to pick up certain vibrations.
Again, when some stricken beast falls in the
desert, vultures will appear as tiny specks in the
sky, and bear down upon their prey. Innumer-
able instances of this kind could be quoted, but
one may suffice. The body of a dog was hidden
in a cave and quite invisible from above, yet it
was speedily found by a pair of buzzards although
none of the birds existed in the neighbourhood
for many miles.

In the case of migration all the known senses
fail to explain the strange way-finding power
shown by birds. All the familiar explanations —
parental guidance, powers of ^^ision that enable
landmarks to be seen at incredible distances,
favouring winds and so on — break down in face
of the facts. Young birds are known to migrate
before their parents, and penguins travel to a
definite destination for hundreds of miles under
water.

It is a sign of the times that many naturalists
are now abandoning the hard and fast five senses
theory in regard to the less obvious movements
of what are known as the lower orders of Nature.
Writing in the " Ibis " on " The Sense of Smell
in Birds " Mr. J. H. Gurney points out that this,
even when it exists, cannot be held to explain
the manner in which birds find hidden food. He
writes : — ' ' There is a novel theory which has
been propounded more than once and which, I

8i

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

believe is gaining ground. It is that there exists
in birds an occult power which may be denomi-
nated a food-finding sense, separate from and
additional to, the five senses commonly recognised.
If the principle of this theory be accepted the
necessity for any employment of either scent or
sight is almost done away with. . . It is
quite reasonable to think that birds may have
kept in a most efficient form something which
human beings either never had or which is now
lost to them. It is undeniable that a food-finding
sense exists in many insects (may it not be added
— a mate-finding sense in a much more lemarkable
degree?); this maybe taken as established, so why
not in birds, or at any rate, in some birds ? "

The theory of an additional sense or senses
would also account for the extraordinary way in
which flocks of birds wheel in perfect unison
as though animated by a common spirit. Com-
mon action is ceitainly helped by gregarious
habit, but that every individual in a vast gathering
should be able to see and appreciate a source of
alarm at the same instant, and act with lightning-
like swiftness upon it is contrary to what we
know of the movements of any large bodies.

We are inclined to believe that the ancient
occultists got near to the truth when they spoke
of a single spirit permeating the whole^a group-
soul, as it were, in action which causes the flock
for the time being to move as a single organiza-
tion, rather than as a mass of individual atoms,
each guided by its own will.

What the precise nature of any additional sense
may be, it is of course impossible to say, although
experiments m telepathy and other occult matters
m.ay be of help, but by abandoning the theories
of sight, hearing, scent and so on when they can
reasonably be shown to be untenable, we may be
clearing the ground for newer observation.

82

PROPERTY IN BIRD LIFE

CHAPTER VIII

Sparrows and Moorhens Defending Property. Rooks
AS Tree-owners. Mr. Eliot Howard's "Territory in

Bird IvIFE."

Many instances may be brought forward to
show that certain birds, at any rate, have a
distinct sense of the rights of property. These
rights are constantly attacked in the jungle just
as they are amongst civilised men, but the primary
fact is that the marauder usually shows signs of
an uneasy conscience, and the defender of the
home or other legal possession draws power from
the founts of justice that gives him strength to
overcome a much larger adversary. ' ' Thrice
is he armed who has his quarrel just," is true in
bird, even as in human life. With birds, indeed,
the idea of piotecting their home and especially
their young, is so strong that it changes the
merest feathered atom into a veritable dragon,
ready to defy even the colossal mass of iniquity
represented by a boy or a cat.

On one occasion we noted a pair of sparrows in
a spout beneath the window, plainly prospecting
for a nesting site, or possibly returning to the one
occupied the previous year. A stranger came
along, sidled along the spout, and began to take a
suspicious interest in the pair's domestic arrange-
ments. He was at once attacked with relentless
fury. The original owner held him down and
tore at him as a hawk might. We interfered
at last by opening the window, and separating

83

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

the belligerents. One bird flew away but the
invader remained in the spout. When we re-
turned to the window a few moments later the
first cock had come back and was again rending
his adversary. We drove him ofi, and his victim
at length raised himself wearily to the edge of
the spout : then he fell into the garden, where he
was instantly pounced upon by his watchful
rival, who then administered the coup-de-grace.
This is the first time we have seen a duel to the
death between sparrows, and as the hen watched
the conflict with the utmost complacency, we
have reason to think that in this case might
coincided with light.

Miss Frances Pitt has given a somewhat similar
instance in the case of a pair of moorhens that
took possession of a certain area of marshland.

'* All day and every day," she wrote, " they
kept a keen look-out : at the slightest sign of a
stranger their battle cries were heard, the clarion
calls ringing over the swamp, and they rushed to
the attack. Right is might even on the bog, and
they were strong in their indignation. The
invaders were in the wrong and they knew it,
they were troubled with guilty consciences :
they came sneaking down the streamlet, wading
along its muddy margins as if fearful of every
ripple in the water : they stole guiltily from rush
tuft to rush tuft, treading delicately across the
moss, and peeping from the shelter of a small
alder bush with such a furtive air as plainly told
that they knew well they had no business to be
there."

In the fight that followed cock fought with
cock and hen with hen and in every case the in-
vaders were defeated.

With rooks it is clear that a given belt of trees
is marked out as the property of a particular

84

PROPERTY IN BIRD I^IFE

colony. Even when they leave their ancestral
home, as they do for months at a time, they never
forget the fact of possession, and throughout the
whole year they pay periodical visits to their
tree-castles in order to satisfy themselves that all
is well.

As a rule the movements of the birds in regard
to their own rookery are pretty much as follows:—
In early May the young are clamorous in the
nests, and the black forms of the parents, clearly
defined against the green leaves, may be seen
from morning to night busily engaged in supplying
the ever-increasing needs of their offspring. This
is the season of the most abounding activity in
the rookery.

In June the young are well on the wing, and are
able to visit even distant pastures. They are
now learning how to earn their own living, al-
though they still make querulous appeals to their
elders for the food which is gradually being with-
held. As summer advances the whole colony
may suddenly disappear, and m the case of one
rookery we have m mind, not a single bird was
to be seen until nearly the end of October, when
the great family as suddenly returned to remain
for two or three days only. During the winter
they came back no more in mass, but in early
January two oi three birds arrived at the tiees,
held a short consultation and left again. Week
by week the visit was repeated, the numbers on
each occasion being larger, and in February the
full colony were back, and were soon at work at
the business of nest-repairing and building.

During the winter several colonies will amal-
gamate, but the sense of possession is never lost,
and at the call of spring each party draws apart,
and returns to its own place, the younger members
of the community being often forced, by lack of

85

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

accommodation, to betake themselves to a nearby-
wood, and so, in a double sense, to form a branch
colony of their own .

In Mr. Eliot Howard's " Territory in Bird
L/ife," the idea is worked out at considerable
length, that most birds map out definite areas
that they claim as their own, and that the instinct
for separate domains has a wide bearing on the
facts of migration, and on the behaviour of the
different species as the breeding time draws near.

It is argued that, in the case of immigrants,
the male birds often reach this country in ad-
vance of the females, just at a time when the
sexes might naturally be expected to remain to-
gether, and that they do this to peg out their
claims to the area they regard as their own.
Further, that when the domain has become es-
tablished, the female is just as ready to defend
it as the male is, and that many of the bird-
battles to be seen in spring, are not, as is sup-
posed, so much matters of sex rivalry, as of
guarding the rights of property.

Although we cannot follow the author in all his
inferences, the numerous observations he has
made bearing on the matter have a distinct
value of their own. There is no doubt that the
red-grouse, although this case is not cited, claims
a definite tract of heather as its nesting site,
driving away all encroachers, a habit becoming
more marked as it grows older and more formid-
able. Thus the moor-keeper is aware he can get
a large number of nests in close proximity when
the old cocks are killed off by driving.

Again, we can fairly de-limit a robin's domain
by putting down a decoy, for if the area has been
appropriated, the owner will almost instantly
appear to assert his rights. Personally, we al-
ways attributed this to the inborn pugnacity of

86

PROPERTY IN BIRD I,IFE

a comparatively few species, but we observe
that Mr. Howard extends it to the buntings,
willow-wren, chifi-chaff, and other peace-loving
races.

We have never been impressed by any sense
of property in these birds, and, indeed, their
nests may often be found a few yards apart. Our
belief has always been that a great disparity in
the matter of toleiance of neighbours exists m
different species even nearly allied. The chaff-
finch is always resentful : the linnet and lesser
redpole fairly companionable. In our opinion
only a comparatively few species claim a definite
area as their own.

87

LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

CHAPTER IX

Expression of Ideas. Birds' Song. Specific Differences
IN Notes. Distinguishing Birds by their Note. Birds'
Voices at Night. Hu]yL\N Quality in Birds' Song.
Musician AND Bird. Why Birds Sing. Mijshcry. Dialect.
Abnormal Song.

To what extent birds may be said to possess a
definite language is a question which has often
been discussed. The first point to be taken is
how the word language may be defined. I^an-
guage is a recognised code of sounds expressing
in its earlier stages the strongest and crudest
emotions only. As it becomes developed, fainter
and less obvious feelings are set forth, until at its
highest in the hands of a master it touches the
most subtle and evanescent thoughts and fancies
of the mind. It is not easy to define the place
of music in the scale of language, but it cannot be
denied that, inadequate as music may be for the
common purposes of life, it is constantly used to
express shades and phases of feeling and thought
which lie outside the reach of words altogether.

Now, in considering the matter of birds, it
becomes clear at once that their code of sound
has two at least of the qualities of an organised
language ; the stronger and more obvious emotions
are expressed with a certainty about which there
can be no mistake, and each sound is at once
recognised by other members of the species as

88

IvANGUAGE OF BIRDS

conveying one particular idea. Fear and anger
are the two dominant emotions in all wild life.
Pure gladness of heart probably comes next ;
then come the ideas of love, of welcome, of warning,
and of numberless finer feelings, all of which are
set forth in a minor key. Something of the
evolution of language may be seen when we
consider the lower orders of Nature. Fishes
are practically dumb ; reptiles express little be-
yond anger and fear, and these only by a not
largely modulated hiss, to which their fellows
accord little, if any, sign of recognition. The
only animals outside the avian class that may be
said to attempt any sort of song are frogs and
certain eccentric house-mice. In mammals, the
use of sound is comparatively limited, although
dogs can set forth plainly anger, fear, pain, and
welcome by modifying the intonations of their
bark. In birds, on the other hand, we can
follow with ease a wide range of ideas expressed
with certainty and force. The fierce scream of
eagle or hawk, the hissing of geese, the indignant
cry of tern or skua gull when their haunts are
invaded, all express anger. The sound indicating
fear, although often blended with that of anger,
may still be clearly distinguished. Let one
listen attentively to a horde of sparrows fighting,
and he may readily detect the clear ringing note
of rage and victory as compared with the weaker
and more tremulous twitter of fear and defeat.
The note of warning, too, has a peculiar intona-
tion of its own which is plainly known and ac-
knowledged by all the members of the species.
The sharp, rapid cries of swallow and martin when
a hawk swoops down upon them can bear one
interpretation only, " Look out, the enemy is
upon us." But all these are expressive of the
cruder emotions merely : as in human speech,

89

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

the finer grades of feeling are set forth less ob-
trusively but none the less clearly. Listen to
the hen partridge with her young family about
her before the idea of danger has entered her
mind. In a series of soft, inward notes she
gently prattles to her little ones— a sort of baby-
talk known to mothers the world over : now her
tone hardens as she chides and recalls a small
wanderer who strays too far from the maternal
eye. Later, when the covey is broken in the
wide turnip field, she remains silent for a time,
but directly peace is restored, one hears a re-
strained, gently reiterated note, differing essen-
tially from the cry of alarm with which she rises
calling her circle together again. Compare this
note for the re-assembling of the chicks with the
one she uses in spring to signal to her mate, and it
will be seen that, although the notes are the same,
she marks the differences in the circumstances by
a change in the intonation. Take the case of the
hen grouse, too. In the early morning, usually
just about daybreak, a faint metallic cry, utterly
un-grouse-like in quality, may be heard from the
dark expanses of heather. It is an invitation
low and unobtrusive, yet it will awaken a response
half-a-league away, and with a loud, masterful
guer-r-r-go-bac go-bac, the dark form of the cock
may be marked as he hurtles against the sky.

In the poultry yards sounds clearly expressive
of a variety of ideas may be made out with ease.
The crow of the cock has greeting and recognition
in it ; the loud announcement of the laying hen
conveys the suggestion of triumph and rejoicing
in which the other birds sympathetically join ;
the complacent twittering of a chicken in the
presence of a fly changes to a note of fear and
anger when a wasp is introduced. Parrots are
said to repeat human words without any apprecia-

90

IvANGUAGE OF BIRDS

tion of their meaning, but this is only partly true.
A parrot will say ' ' Go away " to a person it
dislikes, and its ruffled plumes and menacing bill
will emphasise its words. Compare this with
the soft, almost pleading intonation " Come to
Polly," addressed to a member of the family who
stands in favour.

To a great number of the varying sounds in
Nature, to the invitation of the grouse, the warn-
ing note of the swallow, the indignant cry of tern
and lapwing, to name a few examples, words might
be fitted without difficulty, when the rudiments
of an intelligible language would be seen to exist.

But hitherto we have been dealing with what
may be taken to be the common-places of avian
speech. It is when we come to the song of birds
— to the glorious outburst of the lark, the deep,
low, purposeful notes of the nightingale — that a
wider question arises. Here are the expressions
of an intenser feeling, of a more subtle intuition,
it may be, than any words that man has yet de-
vised are capable of conveying. Rest in a
meadow at daybreak, when the first sun-shafts
lighten a new world of emerald green and cloud-
less blue. Picture yourself steadily rising, without
effort or fear, nearer and nearer to the very gates
of gold. Realise the thoughts and feelings which
would surge through your whole being as you
seemed to shake off the atmosphere of earth at
every beat of your tireless wings, and you may get
some inkling of the source of inspiration and of
the meaning of the lark's song. In his "Ode to
the Nightingale," Keats may be accused of being
fanciful. The bird may not be lamenting a
world —

" Where youth grows pale and spectre-thin, and dies
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes."

But plainly something — some deep, strange

91

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

emotion, thought, feeling, idea, call it what you
will — is actually at work in the bird's conscious-
ness as it sings, of which the notes and intona-
tions are a definite form of expression, however
inadequately we may be able to interpret them.

The nightingale in the thicket, the lark in the
sky, the mistle-thrush addressing the storm,
the wild swan crying as it passes overhead in the
night, all these are speaking, and it is a fact of
some significance that the men whom the world
agrees to acclaim as great — Tennyson, Words-
worth, Shelley, Keats — have found a definite
meaning in their speech. Those of us who see
little in these things may be merely the victims
of our own dulness.

Specific Differences in Notes.

One of the readiest means of identifying birds
— often the only one — is to listen attentively to
their respective cries. Every species has a note
of its own that sets it apart even from its nearest
congener. One may readily detect the call of
the lesser redpoll, chaffinch or greenfinch, in a
flock of linnets, or the cry of the long-tailed tit
or tree-creeper when the bird is invisible.

The most highly-skilled ornithologist could
never be absolutely certain of the identity of the
wood-wren, the chiff-chaff, and the willow-wren
if he merely saw them moving in the tree : it is
the characteristic note of each that makes its
presence clear. But, as the season advances,
this means of identification becomes more and
more difficult. The familiar voices die down and
in their place come faint chirpings and subdued
notes. The young birds are now making their
presence known, and their voices have not yet
attained the distinguishing quality of their race.
In the sun-steeped village in early June, the utter-

92

LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

ances of young starlings in the crevices of the wall
and beneath the eaves resemble an escape of steam
rather than the parental cry. In July the
monotonous chant of the young greenfinches
goes on for hours as the birds sit together on a
single branch waiting to be fed, and the repeated
cadence has no connection with the notes of their
elders. Another complication arises to confuse
the tyro in bird-lore. Adult birds not only

abandon their spring song, but they often so
modulate their call-notes that they can be
hardly recognised. For instance, in August the
willow-wren utters a soft, warning cry that is
never heard in May. It resembles one of
the call-notes of the chaffinch rather than
that of the warbler, and in our experience, it is
never used before the young are on the wing. The
change in the cuckoo's cry as summer advances is
also well marked.

Distinguishing Birds by Their Note.
If one were blind it might easily be thought that
the book of nature would be practically sealed.
That this is not so is shown by the existence of
blind botanists who have been known to become
extraordinarily proficient in their study, and are
able to identify rare plants which have baffled
experts to whom vision is vouchsafed. Man,
the knower is so subtly constructed that, when
one avenue of perception is closed, other senses
grow keener to make up the deficiency, and both
hearing and touch may reach a point of per-
fection and a power of discrimination of which
the normally endowed being has no conception.
When one reflects upon this matter, one begins to
realise, how many of the activities of nature are
conveyed to us by sound rather than by sight.
As we wander through the woods and fields, we

93

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

note that the corncrakes have returned to their
old haunts : the cuckoo is back in the plantation
on the hill, and the wood-wren and chiff-chaff
in the great beeches by the river. By the grassy
pathway the shrews are busy as of old, and the
grasshopper warblers are safely back home in the
tussocks of the willow-garth.

As night draws on we observe with pleasure
that the owls are still at their old station, and yet,
it is only on reflection that we remember that we
have not caught even the faintest glimpse of
any one of these creatures. Indeed, if it were not
that they constantly proclaim their presence by
their various cries, it is conceivable that we
might have lived here for years and been utterly
unaware of their existence.

Our knowledge of the presence of the grass-
hopper warbler, for instance, is almost always due
to sound, for it is a singularly reticent little
creature, and its insect-like note is usually the
only clue one has to its identity. " Nothing,"
Gilbert White wrote long ago, " can be more
amusing than the whisper of this Httle bird, which
seems to be close by, though at a hundred yards
distance, and when close to your ear is scarce
any louder than when a great way off. Had I
not been a little acquainted with insects, and
known that the grasshopper kind is not yet
hatched, I should have hardly believed but that
it had been a Locusta whispering in the bushes.
The country people laugh when you tell them
that it is the note of a bird." This certainly also
applies to the wood- wren. It is noteworthy
how many people — woodmen and others — when
questioned, have no knowledge whatever of the
size and appearance of this bird, whose notes
they have heard in the trees above their heads,
summer by summer, from their earliest childhood.

94

LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

Many people indeed, deeply interested in bird
life, tell us that they have the greatest difficulty
in disentangling the notes heard in the spring
chorus. In this case, their knowledge of the
birds that may be in their immediate neighbour-
hood must be seriously curtailed.

An observer to whom every note brings instant
recognition, tends to rely upon the ear rather
than the eye. Few birds are silent, but many
are invisible, or are indistinguishable, in the
distance.

As one rests in some grassy hollow by the river
side, it is quite easy to become aware of the
presence of well-nigh every bird in the locality
without opening the eyes. At first, certain
obvious notes — the cuckoo's and the corncrake's
pre-eminently — detach themselves from the
silence. Then we are aware of a fainter back-
ground of sound. From the upper air comes
the recurrent twitter of the swallow and house-
martin, overborne by the shriller scream of the
swift. A little party of grey linnets go by, and
quite distinct from their harp-like notes, comes
the delicate tinkle of the lesser redpoll. In the
far distance, we mark the cawing of rooks, the
faint singing of larks, the hissing of a nesting
starling, and the intermingling notes of a thrush
and blackbird. The smaller warblers are never
far away : the churring song of the sedge-warbler
in the willows, and the melody of the willow- wren,
dying dreamily away, are close at hand, and are
backed by the more sonorous voice of the black-
cap, in the recesses of the wood beyond. From
the bend of the stream comes the pipe of the sand-
piper, and the gurgling notes of the dipper blend
with the rippling of the water over the stones.
For a moment the startling " karuch-karuch "
of the waterhen overbears all the other sounds,

95

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

and it seems as if silence followed, and a space of
time is left before we can again take up the various
unobtrusive cadences around us.

The dominant sense of sight forces impressions
upon us so insistently that it may well be, we lose
many of the fainter and less accentuated, but
not the less valuable, messages from the world
around us. The blind nature-lover, with ear
ever attuned to catch whispers from " the
mighty sum of things for ever speaking," may
learn secrets that we with open eyes may easily
miss. If we, with our careless observation, can
check off, one by one, the more distinct voices
of the birds, and can distinguish between the
wing-beats of the wood-pigeon, the partridge,
and the woodcock, how much more may he whose
ear is trained to listen to " the voice of the
silence " glean tidings from the murmuring of
the never resting life around.

Birds' Voices at Night.
The nightingale is the true minstrel of the dark-
ness, but other birds, not content with singing
during the day, frequently break the silent gloom
of the woods and fields by an outburst of song.
The sedge-warbler and the cuckoo are the most
persistent of these, but many instances have been
given of both the thrush and blackbird singing at
midnight. If the corncrake's reiterated cry
can be called a song, it also must be included with
the night singers. The cries uttered by birds at
night are often baffling and difficult to locate.
The curious burr-rr-ing or whirring sound
made by the nightjar, for example, has a most
deceptive quality. At one moment one hears
it from the left, then from the right : now it is in
front and now behind, so that one seems to be
surrounded by voices long before a glimpse of

96

LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

the moving form can be caught. It appears at
first to the Hstener that the sound proceeds from
the bird as it slowly wheels to and fro in the gloom,
but more careful observation shows that the
nightjar is constantly alighting, and that the cry
comes only or chiefly when with head depressed,
it crouches lengthwise on a bough.

At the season of the year when the migrants are
moving from the far North there is always a sense
of romance in the air when one rests on the cliifs
facing the open sea, listening to the birds that pass
in the night.

For a while no sound is heard save the sigh of
the breeze and the distant lapping of the sea on
the beach. Then you may hear a faint beating
of wings, the sound growing more insistent for a
brief second, and then falling again into
silence. Some birds fly without uttering a note
and one may speculate in vain as to the race of
these travellers in the darkness that have come
from afar and still press through the night seek-
ing, with undeviating purpose, a destination that
in some mysterious way is know4 to them alone.

But even when no cry is made, the beat of the
wings may give a clue. The swish of the wild
duck's pinion has a note of its own, and it may
well be, if our ears were better attuned, we could
distinguish the larger birds simply by their wing-
sounds.

In many cases, however, the night-wanderers
cry as they pass, and even then our sense of hear-
ing is not always sufficiently acute to make certain
of the species. This rarely happens in the day-
time, but at night, faint whistles, familiar, yet
having some strange quality, fall from the sky,
and we pause to ask : ' ' What was that ? "
It has been said that birds vary their note when
flying at night, but it is quite possible that our

97

SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS

senses of hearing and of sight are in subtle
alliance, and that the sounds that come to us with
clear significance in broad daylight lose something
of their character when they reach us from the
gloom.

But fortunately most of the night-flyers an-
nounce their presence in no uncertain way. We
can never mistake the low, sibilant call-note of
the redwing, nor the sharp " chack-chack " of
the passing fieldfare. The peewit cries out its
own name in the darkness, and the plaintive
cadences of the golden plover, and the softly
repeated whistle of the redshank, have an in-
dividuality that makes confusion impossible.
When seen flying in the distance it is not always
easy to tell the curlew from the whimbrel, for the
difference in size is the only guide. But when
the wild " curl-ee-ee " or more properly " url-
ee-ee," for birds seem to be unable to pronounce
consonants, speaking of desolate moors and
marshes, comes, however faintly, through the
darkness, you can never mistake the larger bird
for its whistling relative — indeed, in view of the
similarity of the appearance of the curlew and the
whimbrel, one sometimes feels surprised at the
entirely different quality of their cries.

Perhaps the most significant cries in the night
arise when the great flocks of wild geese go by
overhead, an incident, of course, common on the
East Coast in winter. Very often the great birds
move silently, but on occasion the ringing clamour
falls from the heights, suggesting an aerial pack
of hounds in full cry. Many superstitions have
gathered around these flocks of wild geese —
Gabriel Hoimds — as they were called — and as
they pass over the sleeping hamlet, the old wife
will stop her ears lest the devil's pack hunting
in the air should bring tidings of death.

98

IvANGUAGE OF BIRDS

Human Quai^ity in Birds' Song.

Mr. Warde Fowler once wrote : — ' ' Strange as
it may seem, the song of birds may be more justly
compared with the human voice when speaking
than with a musical instrument or the human
voice when singing." Certain critics deny this.
Dr. Walter Collinge, for instance, tells us that he
has listened to the rapturous torrent of the sky-
lark, the beautiful modulations of the willow-
wren and blackcap, and the song of the nightingale,
and has failed altogether to catch any human
note.

Of course, it is true that the tone of birds'
songs differs materially from that of the
human voice, but can it be truly said that
birds' songs and call-notes are less like the
human voice than other sounds in nature ?
In the sounds that proceed from inanimate things
— the falling of a stone, the breaking of a branch,
the sigh of the wind, and the beating of the sea —
we find no expression of the thing itself, no clue
to any inner feeling trying to make itself known.
The wing-beats of the insect are mechanical ;
they tell us nothing of love or hate. The voices
of mammals are devoid of range, they are for the
most part incapable of indicating any but the
crudest sensations.

Where, then, in the whole realm of nature,
shall we find anything more nearly akin to the
human than the voices of the birds ? Here we
have clearly life speaking to life — living things
" a little apart from us truly," yet with love, anger,
fear, maternal solicitudes, warnings against danger
and a hundred other subtle things in their hearts,
which they desire to express, and which we are
able to interpret because they are so closely akin
to our own.

99

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

In saying that the songs of birds may be more
justly compared with the human voice when
speaking rather than when singing we think that
Mr. Warde Fowler made an important distinction.
For the human singer is not really expressing
himself : he may be merely repeating words
that have no part or lot in his actual experience.
But song is the way a bird converses about its
ordinary every-day affairs : the actual things in
its mind, rising from the squabbling twitters
of the sparrows in the gutter, suggesting angry
fish-wives, to the loftiest ideas of the nightingale
in the gloaming or the lark in the sky, to which
a Keats or a Shelley humbly tries to fit words.

It is a little difficult to understand Dr. CoUinge's
position for he, himself, quotes the late Mr. Rees
with approval. Rees wrote : — ' ' It were vain to
attempt an interpretation of the skylark's carol
for it cannot be compared with the outcome of
any emotion felt in the human heart. But it
is nevertheless akin to something that strives
within us for existence."

Surely there must be something strangely human
in a message that touches a secret spring deeply
hidden within us, but that we ourselves have not
the capacity to formulate and express. Is not
this precisely what the great composers of music
have done ? And although the exalted strains
of lark and nightingale may elude us, we can
nevertheless listen to the birds in their less ele-
vated moods, and know exactly what they are
thinking about.

The actual tones of a bird's voice may differ
from our own because the mechanism of sound
production differs, but allowing for this difference
and taking sound merely as a method of ex-
pressing ideas and emotions, we can think of
nothing that comes nearer to the human voice

100

LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

than the notes of a bird. It is often said that the
vioHn is the most human-Hke of instruments.
But the mere wood and catgut could tell us noth-
ing. It is the musician who cries aloud of glad-
ness or despair, and although the mechanism he
uses differs from our own vocal chords, we can
listen and understand.

The Musician and the Bird.
It cannot be doubted that many composers
have been indebted to birds for ideas in rhythm
and melody. A musical correspondent writes
that the lark's song always suggests to him the
rhythm of a Highland reel. " The Scottish
' snap ' or ' catch ' too that may be defined as a
peculiarity in Scottish music : the first two notes
played in the same beat being the shorter (the
song, ' Roy's Wife,' supplies examples) was in all
probability caught from a bird. The perform-
ances of my brown linnet," he adds, " are full of
snap.' " This musical device that waited
centuries for recognition, and that was at length
appropriated by some Highland artist who had
the ear fine enough to catch the snap, and the
skill to introduce it into his compositions, was con-
sidered so effective that Handel introduced it into
his Organ Concerto in G minor (1739). My
linnet never sings an unmusical note. Most of
his phrases are attractive. Many are both
rhythmical and melodious, and I can without
difficulty, write them down and divide them into
bars. He is the heir of hundreds of generations
of linnets that have worked at the phrases he
sings : and his song is an expression of that sim-
plicity and beauty in music which many people
long for who have listened to the eccentric com-
positions of the last decades. You have only
to compare the brilliant song of a thrush on a
summer evening or the mellow fluting of a black-

lOI

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

bird with the song of, say, a North American
Indian as reproduced by a phonograph, to see the
high standard of the bird's performance. Bird
music, hke human music, must have been develop-
ing for centuries. The first musical efforts of
birds undoubtedly consisted of single sounds,
like the cheep of the sparrow; and possibly by
conscious effort combined with the sheer love of
singing, the nightingale, the blackbird and the
thrush have become the artists they are now.
Why has the sparrow lagged behind ? Who can
tell ? Macgillivray, after careful anatomical re-
search, said : — ' ' The peculiar song of different
species of birds depends on circumstances beyond
our cognition." Music and the bird are both
mysteries : and in the course of centuries, our
cheery chum, the sparrow, may yet develop his
phrases.

Why Birds Sing.

A writer in a medical journal once advanced a
luminous explanation of the reason of the song
in birds. He modestly disclaimed the actual
discovery and remained content to announce it
to the world.

" Those inveterate anthropomorphists, the
poets," he wrote," with Shelley at their head sup-
pose birds to sing for sufficiently human reasons.
They mostly imagine them to have arrived at
the idea of a Creator — an idea really only attained
quite late in the course of man's evolution — and
they suppose the songs to be mainly expressive
of praise and thanksgiving." It would be in-
teresting to know what authority exists as to
the date when the " idea of a Creator" first
dawned on the minds of any of the living things
created. So far as we can learn it is an idea of
the hoariest antiquity, and we know no evidence
whatever, that the idea of a Creator was, in fact,

102

LANGUAGE OF BIRDS

invented by comparatively modern anthropo-
morphists. Not the poets alone, but all the
greatest thinkers throughout the ages when
dealing with the song of birds — the glorious
outburst of the lark, the deep, soul-stirring notes
of the nightingale — appear to have been struck
by the fact that here was an expression of
intense feeHng.

What precisely this feeling may be, untaught,
wildly rapturous, what the objects may be which
are : —

" the fountains
Of thy happy strain;
What fields, or waves or mountains.
What shapes of sky or plain,"

are, by no means, easy to guess. Still, knowing
that every soimd that proceeds from a living
creature — ^the moan of pain, the cry of fright,
the chuckle of content — enables us to enter to
some extent into the state of consciousness of
which it is the expression, we are inclined to
follow Tennyson, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats
when they read into the song of lark or
nightingale, not only praise and thanksgiving,
but many more subtle intuitions as well.

' ' Teach us, sprite or bird,

What sweet thoughts are thine.

I have never heard

Praise of love or wine

That panted forth a strain of rapture so divine."

But all this is the mere frivolity of fancy when
regarded by the cold, clear, scientific eye.
This then, is the final word " entirely new" " of
true originality " given to humanity with the
imprimatur of our medical journal :

" Singers need plenty of drink, whether they
are birds or human beings. This is evidenced
by the merry noise in our gardens immediately
after the rains in July. Birds sing because
their throats have been lubricated by drink."

103

SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS

It is added that the writer persuaded birds to
sing, right into the middle of winter, by supplying
them with the small quantity of water contained
in soaked bread.

But setting the poets and other " inveterate
anthropomorphists " aside, and meeting the
modern scribe on liis own firm ground of fact we
should like to observe (i) That birds largely
cease to sing in July, however wet it may be :
(2) that they sing most profusely and enthusias-
tically in the fine weather of April and May. And
we would further ask why, if the writer has pur-
suaded birds to sing right into the middle of
winter by supplying them with a small quantity
of water, nature herself should be less successful
when she provides them with her own more
abundant floods during the same period ?

Mimicry.

One interesting use to which certain species
put their vocal powers is that of mimicry — a
practice, we believe, never attempted by mammal
(man of course accepted) reptile, or insect. The
most striking instance of this mimicry is seen in
the parrot, and is clearly the result of education.
But the desire to reproduce sounds that may be
heard around them is implanted in the breasts of
many most dissimilar types, even in the wild
state.

The trick of reproducing the notes of other
birds, may be found, as Mr. B. P. Butterfield
recently pointed out, even in the whinchat.
Our raven, jackdaw, magpie, jay and starling,
are all adepts at imitation, and, in America, the
mocking-bird is notorious. A correspondent has
stated that she taught a wild blackbird that fre-
quented her garden to sing the notes of " Weel
may the keel row ** and Mr. Frank Finn has re-

104

IvANGUAGK OI^ BIRDS

corded a case of a blackbird that used to utter the
words " Pretty Polly" quite distinctly from a
tall tree near his bed-room window in Regent's
Park. He believed that unless the utterance of
those words were a mere fluke the bird may have
picked them up from a neighbouring parrot, for,
he adds, the blackbird is at times imitative, though
not nearly so much so as the starling, the sedge-
warbler, or even the song-thrush.

Those who are fond of endeavouring to trace
the " utility " of any unusual trait exhibited by
wild creatures may be interested in dealing with
this curious trick of mimicry. Although for the
most part, we may take it, it comes merely from
a natural delight in repeating sounds that are
impressive, there are cases where it seems to be
adopted with an ulterior motive. Audubon, the
great American ornithologist, states that the
Northern shrike imitates the cries of a bird in
distress in order that it may lure others of the
same species within striking distance, and the
same habit has been attributed to our own great
grey shrike. Mr. Frank Finn, in his valuable
work " Bird Behaviour" calls attention to the
fact that an Indian shrike, that preys on frogs,
has a way of incorporating the screams of the
hapless batrachians in its song, and he argues that
other shrikes might easily begin imitating the
cries of distressed birds merely for amusement,
and then develop the habit for profit as well as
pastime.

D1A1.ECT IN Birds' Song.

Most observers are aware that the songs of
birds of the same species differ considerably even
in a single locality. Thus a thrush or a skylark
may often be noted that exceeds all other in the
neighbourhood in the power and variety of its
notes. In the Hartz mountains where the

105

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

chaffinch is especially prized, any singer of ex-
ceptional sweetness is carefully marked down by
bird-catchers who will make long expeditions in
order to secure it. But these differences are
those of one artist as compared with another.
The dialect note is a thing apart. There is
reason to think that a south-country bird, whilst
preserving the phrases typical of its kind, develops
an accent of its own that differs from that of a
member of the same species in the north. The
songs and call-notes of birds in Norway have
often seemed to us to have a quality of their own
that sets them a little apart from their kin in
England. We have at times listened to a chaf-
finch in Norway, and although the phrases were
quite familiar the intonation at first led us to
doubt its identity. Mr. E. P. Butterfield, a
very careful observer, confirms this opinion.
" Many birds, he wrote, have what may be termed
dialect notes in their song. This I have often
noticed in the song of the chaffinch in various
parts of Britain." Perhaps the peculiarity may
apply especially to the chaffinch.

Abnormal Song.

In some exceptional cases birds depart from the
song of their race altogether. We have noted
several cases of the kind, and Mr. Butterfield
supplies the following instance. A game-keeper
reported to him that he had heard a very re-
markable song of a bird he could not identify.
When the bird was located it turned out to be a
mistle-t brush. Its song consisted of merely
two or three notes that it kept repeating in a
sepulchral strain, which we may conclude gave
little or no clue to its identity.

A correspondent writing from Campden Hill
Square, gave a somewhat similar account : —
" Throughout February," he wrote, " a chaffinch

io6

LAl^GUAGE OF BIRDS

and two blackbirds sang constantly in the Square.
We got very tired of hearing one of the latter :
his song was quite abnormal and very mono-
tonous. He struck up soon after five o'clock
each morning, and his song, which was often
uttered when standing on the ground, was com-
posed of an inconsequent idiotic phrase in which
the second and fourth notes were the highest.
This was repeated over and over again, and was
most irritating. Many of the inhabitants of the
Square complained bitterly of the bird and asked
me if he was mad or love-sick. We had to put
up with the performance up to the middle of May
when it ceased, and I thought the bird had pro-
bably been killed by a cat. But early in the
morning of May 27th I was in Lady Holland's
Walk when I discovered that the " Mad Black-
bird," as he had come to be called, had merely
migrated to the grounds of Holland House. My
own impression is that he was an old and feeble
bird."

A Scotch correspondent gave another instance.
In this case the bird was a thrush. Its peculiar
obsession was to utter one loud piping note re-
peated tens of thousands of times in the first half
of the year. Even when it attempted a normal
song every interval was filled up with the exas-
perating pipe.

One usually thinks of the song of birds as a sign
of joy, but there is no doubt that a succession of
musical notes may at times express a very different
emotion. Musical notes, indeed, as we have
endeavoured to make clear, are used for the ex-
pression of the whole range of feeling that the
bird actually experiences. Mr. W. H. Hudson
tells us of a bird that he shot when singing. It
fell wounded into a stream but still continued its
song in the water. Even when retrieved it
remained singing in the hand.

107

MARRIAGE

CHAPTER X

Esthetic Side of Love-making. Conjugal Responsibility
IN Birds. Monogamy v. Polygaiiy. Affinities in Birds

APART FROM SEX. NESTING AGES.

In all matters relating to domesticity, birds
would appear to stand far higher than mammals
in the scheme of nature. The male quadruped
has little or no sense of parental duty, and even
when he refrains from devouring his offspring, he
throws all the labour of home-building and of
rearing upon his heavily-tasked mate. In de-
fence of the young, it is almost invariably the
mother who offers her life to the enemy ; the lord
and master being usually engaged elsewhere on
matters of purely personal interest. Compare
this with the remarkable devotion of many of the
smaller birds — the willow-wren or long-tailed tit,
for example. For weeks the pair labour side by
side, providing every accommodation and com-
fort for the coming nestlings that forethought
can devise. Some idea of the extent of the
task resting upon the long-tailed tits, for example,
may be inferred from the fact that one nest alone
contained 2,379 separate feathers. The marital
and parental instinct of the male bird is a far
higher and more responsible feeling than that
seen to exist in the male mammal. In many
cases the cock takes an equal part in the duty
of incubation, and in almost all species, with the

108

Young Greenfinches To face p. io8

MARRIAGE

exception of those which are polygamous, the
work of providing food and the general care of
the family is divided equally between the sexes.

In the matter of courtship, too, birds stand far
higher in the scheme of evolution than the mere
mammal. Here the aesthetic side of love-making
comes into view, almost for the first time, in our
study of wild nature. The male, forgetting the
bare utilitarian aspects of life, begins to develop
graces of appearance and of manner, calculated to
appeal to the more romantic sense of the lady-
love. In the spring not only does the lapwing
" get himself another crest" after the manner
of the swain who dons a more effective necktie,
but in addition he places himself in attitudes and
adopts an altogether novel deportment, which
we may safely assume has a generally winning
effect upon the assembled fair ones who are coyly
observing him.

That some of these attitudes, as, for example,
that of the love-sick shag, do not seem suitable,
from a merely human standpoint, to compel
admiration, is beside the question. The eternal
feminine is notoriously erratic in her likes and
dislikes, and it may well be that this is one of the
things which the feminine shag happens to like.
Indeed, in bird life a whole range of personal
fascinations are exhibited, grading down from
the most graceful and beautiful to the wholly
grotesque.

The peacock suddenly extends the starry wonder
of his tail with a really radiant and impressive
effect ; the pigeon turns in studied circles, and
with swelling throat coos a burning appeal ; a
manner of wooing which, curiously enough, is
followed after a fashion by an altogether dis-
similar bird, the long-eared owl ; even the stolid
rook with contorted form and reiterated caws

109

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

seeks the attention of the hens, ascends to a lotty
bough, and, suddenly distending his tail feathers
with a rattling sound, he actually endeavours to
sing.

Song, indeed, is a most remarkable manifes-
tation of the love-instinct, for, as in the human
race, it is pressed into action in the case of the
most highly qualified and of the least qualified
alike. Just as this vast motive may inspire the
deathless lines of a Dante, a Tennyson, or a
Shelley, so it may force into verse the retired
auctioneer, the elderly farmer, or the hair-dresser's
assistant, whose isolated eft'orts must sometimes
startle their very producers when seen in cold
print in the records of the breach-of -promise case.
And, in like manner, the very bakers and candle-
stick-makers of bird-life are rushed into com-
petition with the heaven-born musicians directly
their blood is touched by the fire of love and
spring. Not alone does the lark ' ' crowd the vast
arches of the sky with living notes," and the
nightingale " satiate the hungry dusk with
melody," but the cormorant on the rock tries his
'prentice hand, and the " corbie black" croons
something which he plainly takes for a song as he
sits on the withered stump.

Perhaps the one departure from our Western
idea of morality to be seen in avian life occurs
in the birds that practice polygamy. For al-
though the raven and some birds of prey, if their
mate be killed, find another with extraordinary
quickness, even within a few hours — they cer-
tainly stick to her when she is alive. The poly-
gamous system appears to work satisfactorily
in the fowl tribe, as represented by domestic
poultry, black grouse, capercaillie and others, but
there is strong reason to think that if it were
generally adopted it would lead to disaster.

no

MARRIAGE

Mr. Ernest Thompson Seton, in a lecture on
" The Natural History of the Ten Command-
ments " held that whenever the species that was
monogamist confronted the species that adopted
polygamy, in defence of its kind it won every
time. One reason for this is that the mono-
gamist young have two strong and wise parents
to protect them whereas the polygamist young
have only one protector and she, the weaker of the
two. The reason, he added, why there is no
more successful group of birds than the pigeons
on the face of the earth, is because they maintain
the highest monogamous standard.

Of the birds that pair for life, many instances
are given of the strong bond of affection between
certain elderly couples which had survived long
years of domesticity.

A pair of pigeons of our own mated in their
first year, reared a numerous family, and grew
old side by side. The hen, at this time, became
affected with a trouble which fanciers in those
days described as " dead-wing" — i.e., the bird
appeared to remain strong and healthy, but the
wings became lax and feeble, and the victim was
condemned to a life on the ground.

In these circumstances, she was placed in a
little wire enclosure, open at the top, in a corner
of the stable-yard, and here also the cock at once
took up his abode. As a high-flying tumbler,
he would occasionally take a few turns with the

kit " in the blue sky far above, but almost the
whole of his time was spent in the dingy little
nook in the angle of the stable wall, where, with
many little caresses, he solaced the declining days
of his life-long partner.

It is stated of an American wild goose that if
its mate is killed it never seeks another. Mr. W.
H. Hudson gives an example of a wild goose in

III

SIDE lylGHTS ON BIRDS

South America that injured her wing and so was
unable to join the others on the annual migration.
When observed, she had set out on foot on her
journey of thousands of miles, a destination she
could never hope to reach — still closely attended
by her mate, strong- winged himself but faithful
to the end.

In this connection a word may be said in regard
to the comradeship of birds, apart from the tie of
sex. There is a certain difference in the affini-
ties or links of affection that bind birds together.
In many species these bonds appear to be non-
existent : in others, they are stronger than death.
Most species show some distress when their nest-
lings are in danger, and many will risk life in their
defence, but it is not the parental instinct, so
wonderfully and almost universally exhibited in
wild life, that we have at the moment in mind.
It is rather what may be described as a spirit of
comradeship. It is somewhat singular that
waterfowl, or at any rate birds most closely as-
sociated with water, seem to possess this spirit,
and that it has been denied altogether to so many
land birds.

Curiously enough it is more marked in birds
that appear to meet together in chance gatherings
and soon separate, as kittiwakes and terns may be
seen to do, than in coveys of partridges and packs
of grouse where the communal idea is most strongly
in evidence.

Partridges, devoted as they are to their little
ones, and leading a close communal life, lose all
thought of their fellows in the moment of panic.
You may shoot partridges, grouse, or pheasants
all day, but no uninjured member of the pack or
covey hesitates for a moment in its direct flight
to safety, to turn to see how its fallen brother is
faring.

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MARRIAGE

If, on the other hand, a kittiwake or a tern be
shot at sea, its companions, careless of danger,
will hover around with loud cries, descending
upon the floating body, as though clearly aware
that some dire mishap has befallen their friend,
and that their help might be needed.

We remember once, on a sea-loch in Argyle-
shire seeing a remarkable instance of affection
between birds. An oyster-catcher, generally a
wary fowl, crossed the bay at a considerable dis-
tance from the boat. A long shot was fired,
and the bird held on its course, apparently un-
touched, until it reached the shingle, where it
fell dead. Soon a second bird appeared, flying
straight to the spot, and alighted beside its dead
comrade. It remained there running round the
prostrate form until the boat grated on the stones
a few yards away. Even then it only flew
for a little distance, and soon came running back.
Charles St. John, in his " Wild Sports of the
Highlands," gives similar instances in relation to
wild swans. He writes : — ' * I fired right and
left at two of the largest as they rose from the
loch. The cartridge told well on one which
fell dead on the water. The other flew off after
the rest of the flock, but presently turned back,
and after making two or three graceful sweeps
over the body of his companion, fell headlong
perfectly dead, almost upon her body."

Yarrell, again, records a like incident in regard
to Bewick's swan.

" I was informed that when the wild swans
were shot near Middleton, one of them was so
reluctant to abandon a bird which was wounded,
that it continued to fly about the spot for several
hours after the rest of the flock had departed and
that during the whole of this period its mournful
cry was heard incessantly."

113

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

In these two cases the birds were shot from
flocks, and there is no reason to suppose they were
mated.

A writer in the " Scotsman" some years ago
gave another instance. * ' On the upper reaches of
the river Annan," he wrote, " I was standing one
afternoon on a bridge, watching the movements
of a group of gulls floating downstream clustered
together in a bunch. Closer examination showed
that they were busily engaged assisting a wounded
comrade which had met with some accident and
was sitting low in the water. Progress was slow,
but never once did the band of good Samaritans
cease their efforts. Eventually the group of
gulls turned at right angles and made for terra
firma. On reaching the shallows the injured
bird dragged itself on to the bank. Then I
noticed that one of its wings had been badly
hurt. Perched on a fence close to the waters
edge were a couple of crows evidently waiting for
a chance to attack the gull. Their patience
was rewarded as a minute or two later an unusual
noise caused the body guard to take to flight.
lyike a flash the crows swooped down on the
wounded bird and with a few powerful strokes
from their axe-like beaks finished the career of
the gull. Immediately the dastardly work was
over the black murderers cleared off. A little
later the victim's friends returned, but on finding
their comrade dead, flew off, uttering loud
screeches.

Certainly in the case of both gulls and terns
the fidelity is exhibited by the whole community,
and sexual ties are not involved.

The ages at which wild birds usually mate are
not easy to determine. As a general rule it may
be said that the smaller races — the finches and
warblers — nest in the first spring after they are

114

MARRIAGE

hatched. Peregrine-falcons, ravens, guillemots,
razorbills, partridges, pheasants, red grouse, and
others, are held on good authority to wait the
second spring. The different kind of gulls are
seldom or never known to breed until the juvenile
dress is laid aside. This is not done until the
third spring or even the fourth. The rule,
however, that birds assume their full mature
plumage before they nest, is not always borne
out. Kestrels and sparrow-hawks rear young
families in their second season although they
have not got rid of their immature feathers.

The age at which a bird nests would not appear
to bear a definite relation to the average length
of life of the species. Thus the life of the raven
may extend to fifty years, or according to many
records, veiy much longer : still it nests in its
second season. The herring gull whose average
life has been estimated at from 15 to 20 years,
remains unmated until its third or fourth.

We have, from time to time, noted down
records, from various sources, of the longevity of
individual birds, but as these usually apply to
birds living a sheltered life in aviaries or cages,
they cannot be taken as representing the average
or even the extreme duration of the life existence
of the species in a wild state. Thrush 10 years,
Robin 12, Canary 24, Lark 13, Goldfinch 15,
Ivinnet 12, Pigeon 20, Partridge 15, Pheasant 15
Peacock 30, Goose 50, Parrot 60.

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CHILDHOOD

CHAPTER XI

Generai. Reference to Infancy of Animate. Animals

WITH no ChIIvDHOOD. iNTi'ANTS THAT ARE ESSENTIALLY

Different from their Parents. Children that never
Grow Up. Birds that Avoid a Callow Infancy. Parental

GUID.\NCE. lNSTINCTI\rE KnO\\XEDGE. InBORN FeAR.

Specific Notes Inherited. Woodcock akd Snipe carrying

Young. Adoption of Orphans. Maternal Instinct in

VERY Young Birds.

Taking man as the head of the animal kingdom,
we find many interesting facts awaiting con-
sideration when we come to compare his child-
hood with that of living creatures standing on the
various lower rungs of the great ladder of evolu-
tion. The rule of existence would appear to be
the longer the life the longer the childhood, al-
though to this rule there are some singular ex-
ceptions. Thus, when man appears on the
physical plane he is not only the most helpless of
created beings, but he remains so for a much
longer period than any other mammal in the
scheme of nature.

The lion, the horse, and the deer, to take
examples at random, have attained to the full
development of their powers ; they can contend
with the strongest of their own species, bear
heavy burdens, and perform feats of endurance
on a level with the highest of their race at a
period when man has barely acquired the power

ii6

YorxG Red- Backed Shrikec

To face p. ii6

CHIIvDHOOD

to walk alone. Lower in the scale, in the case
of some birds, and especially of insects, we find
creatures traversing the whole of their life-cycle,
reaching their full measure of intelligence, develop-
ing their charm of song, and their marvellous
powers of flight, reproducing their species, and
passing through all the natural processes of
maturity, decline, and death, while man is still
lying well-nigh helpless, and giving, as yet, only
intermittent signs of the existence of his slowly
dawning mind. It thus becomes evident that,
when very lofty mental and physical heights
are to be built up, Nature, as an experienced
architect, goes slow with her foundations, fixing
each stone carefully, and for a long time has little
to show in the way of progress.

In the case of her lesser structures, although
the most wonderful care is still bestowed, this
care is clearly based on the consideration of the
various and less important life-purposes for which
the structure itself is intended.

To begin with, certain animals there are which
have literally no childhood whatever. These
are, of necessity, the lowest forms of animal life.
When they appear as separate existences it is
impossible to say which is the parent and which
is the child. Thus one of these unicellular in-
dividuals may be observed swimming about,
feeding after its own peculiar manner, and ap-
parently deriving reasonable satisfaction from
life. Then, finding itself growing old and obese
at the age of, say sixty minutes, it grows very
thin in the middle, splits in two, and a couple of
comely and able personalities may be observed
in the place of one. Occasionally, by way of
variety, two individuals incorporate themselves
and multiplication proceeds by splitting as before.
One advantage that these animalculse possess,

117

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

which may compensate them for the loss of child-
hood, is that they are the only living animals
which can logically lay claim to physical im-
mortality. The individual, in fact, never dies.

A second class exists in which the new arrivals
on this material plane have a prolonged period
of childhood, but they are born in a state alto-
gether different from that of their parents, and
gradually rise to a higher stage, reaching at last
the parental development. Insects provide the
most numerous examples of this class, and here
we find the exceptions to the rule, " the longer
the life, the longer the childhood," a rule which
governs all the more highly placed species. In
certain of the cicada, we have the extraordinary
fact that no less than 17 years is spent in a state
of immaturity in order to qualify the insect for a
brief 15 days' existence in the upper air, which is
roughly as though a man destined to live 70
years were obliged to devote 68 or 69 of them to
helpless babyhood, in order that he might enjoy
a manhood of the few remaining months.

In the instance of butterflies, again, we have
a striking example of this second class. Judged
by ordinary scientific definitions, the caterpillar
is a creature of altogether different species from
the butterfly. In structure, in habit, and, in-
deed, in every particular which goes to con-
stitute a species, the caterpillar stands as far from
the wonderful winged creature it is destined to
become, as a man stands from one of Gustave
Dore's Angels. True it is that in both cater-
pillar and man there are certain peculiarities,
even in the physical structure, which are cal-
culated to give rise to what Wordsworth de-
scribed as " forward-reaching thoughts." A
naturalist, who had no knowledge of the exist-
ence of a butterfly, and who was perforce obliged

118

CHILDHOOD

to content himself with a study of the caterpillar,
might well ask himself what this strange being
was intended eventually to develop into. For
he would observe that the caterpillar (like the
butterfly, if our naturalist only knew it), is made
of a series of flattened rings, or rather of a double
series of half-rings, connected along the sides by
an elastic membrane, so as to permit the creature
to breathe and eat. These rings are so devised
that, as the caterpillar grows inside, room for ex-
pansion is made, and when at last the over-
strained skin bursts, the larvae emerges clad in a
new skin, which has been forming under the old
one. As this process is repeated, the fact would
be brought home to the observer that he was
examining a creature in a constant state of be-
coming something else, and if he pondered deeply
as to what these things meant, it is quite con-
ceivable that finally something remotely resem-
bling a butterfly might arise before the eye of
faith.

In man, again, in addition to his psychical
development, which raises him far aloft beyond
the merely animal kingdom, there are still dis-
tinct signs, on the purely physical side, that he
is also a creature in the act of " becoming." In
the brain of man there exists a tiny gland, known
as the pineal gland, the meaning of which has
long baflled the anatomist. It has been sug-
gested that this is an organ in a state of atrophy
but science fails altogether in suggesting any
purpose which such a device could at any time
have served. Certain modern thinkers hold that
the pineal gland is nothing less than a rudimentary
eye, which later ages may bring to perfection.
Then, indeed, will Hamlet's words, " In my
mind's eye, Horatio," be no mere figure of speech.

In frogs and toads, again, we have examples of
the type which starts on their earthly pilgrimage,

119

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

essentially diSerent creatures from their pro-
genitors. The frog begins life as a fish. In
place of lungs, it breathes through external gills ;
its body is limbless, ending in a long fish-like tail,
with fin-like membranes with which the little
animal propels itself through the water. I^ater,
this strange being is built up before one's very
eye into a quadruped. It develops lungs con-
structed on the latest principles ; it throws aside
its fishy tail, projects from its person four useful
legs, and in its neW character proceeds to take full
advantage of the meadow, the sun, and the sky.

There is one batrachian known as the axolotl
that holds a unique place in the animal kingdom.
It may be described as a child that refuses to
grow up. It begins in an egg, becomes a tadpole,
and at last, reaches the axolotl stac^e. Here
it goes through its Hfe-cycle : living, breeding
and dying. But it would appear that Nature
never intended it to remain an axolotl : this was
merely an intermediate stage : it was really de-
signed to grow into an amblystome, a creature
of higher development. Professor Dumeril, Mr.
Tegetmeier, and other naturalists, by reducing
its supply of water, forced it to abandon its youth
to adopt lungs for breathing and to take its proper
place as an amblystome.

In the third class — ^the animals which are born
on the same plane as their parents, and merely
increase in size and power until full development
is attained, — ^the whole of the higher creations,
with man at their head, are included. ^ Yet,
even here, we find singular differences in the
relative length of childhood. For example, the
young of rabbits, like the young of men, are born
in a state of perfectly helpless babyhood, de-
manding at every instant maternal warmth and
sustenance, if they are to survive at all. The

120

CHIIvDHOOD

young hare, on the other hand, although, in fact,
it lacks something of the precocity of the animal
described by the late Baron Munchausen, still
finds itself at once wide awake, protected from
the weather by a suitable garb of fur, and ready
at very brief notice to take a hand at the game
of life.

We give these examples in order to make the
complicated matter of the childhood of animals
a little clearer.

Arriving somewhat tardily at our own subject
we find that this rapid rise to maturity is seen in
certain birds. The majority are born callow
nestlings, and many days and even weeks must
elapse before they begin even to " take notice,"
as the mothers say. But with a few species, of
which the waterhen is a type, the young, like
small aquatic Minervas, appear from the eggs
fully armed, and may even be seen swimming
with bits of shell still attached to their downy
coats.

Birds of the Order Gallinse again, which includes
pheasants, partridges and grouse, are all active
and in full possession of their faculties directly
they are hatched; and it is noteworthy that in
such cases the nests are made on the ground,
although even to this rule certain exceptions exist.
Although the nestlings are able to run freely
at this earliest stage a considerable time passes
before they attain their flight feathers, and it is
clear that if they fir.st saw light from the summit
of a tree or from a lofty ledge in a cliff their dis-
position and ability to roam would be attended
by serious consequences.

How far young birds and mammals depend
upon the teaching of their elders, or to what
extent the knowledge is inborn, are points upon
which it is by no means easy to discriminate.

121

SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS

Lord Grey of Falloden who, forgetting awhile the
cares of State, brings his wide experience and
keen intelHgence to bear on many moot points
in Natural History, has stated in an address, that
wild things when young, until warned by their
parents, have in many cases, no fear of man.
Professor Thomson, too, remarks that experiments
have shown that young birds are not usually
rich in inborn knowledge and that a chick hatched
in an incubator away from its kind has no inborn
knowledge of the meaning of its unseen mother's
cluck.

That parental guidance begins very early, even
before the chick is actually hatched, is proved by
many observations. Mr. E. Kay Robinson has
stated that he once saw a young water-hen en-
gaged in chipping the egg in which it was en-
closed, and uttering from time to time, the low
" peep " of its kind. At a warning cluck from
its mother it instantly became silent, and ceased
its efforts to free itself. But the view that young
wild animals, both birds and beasts, have little
or no inborn knowledge of the dangers of this
strange material plane on which they find them-
selves placed, and of the best means of escaping
them, is one that, to our mind, cannot be upheld.
In the matter of instinctive fear it is useful to
compare the behaviour of a young creature de-
rived from a tame, domesticated stock, and one
that owes its parentage to wild and naturally
very shy forebears. A young canary born in a
cage shows the utmost placidity in regard to its
surroundings : a young grey linnet hatched
from a " wild" egg, in the same circumstances,
gives evidence of the wild blood running in its
veins at a very early stage. The young of a tame
rabbit or of a domestic cat, are contented little
bundles of fur ; but at the same age, the progeny

122

CHIIvDHOOD

of the wild rabbit and the wild cat are quivering,
shrinking things that seem to feel in their bones
that man's hand is that of an enemy.

The young plover barely free from the shell
will squeeze itself flat on the earth in abject terror
at the approach of the disturber, whilst the chick
of the barn-door fowl will stroll casually over
your boot in its search for stray morsels.

Possibly it might be argued that the young
plover had already had the advantage of parental
tuition, for we have seen that the mother's in-
fluence may extend to the chick even when in the
egg.

In this case, the evidence of Miss E. L. Turner
a lady ornithologist of high scientific attainment,
may be quoted. She describes how certain shel-
duck's eggs were hatched out under a bantam.
Directly the young were clear of the shell, they,
one after another, ran for their lives and were
lost. Now it seems plain that if the bantam had
imparted any preliminary advice to the young
that she was vicariously bringing into the world,
it would have been to the effect that man was
quite a decent food-supplying animal, and there
was no necessity at all to steer clear of him.

From these and many other instances that
might be cited we feel bound to infer, that when-
ever the fear of man is deeply implanted in the
parental heart, the quality is directly transferred
to the offspring, without the intervention of
anything that can be called education. In regard
to Professor Thomson's view that a chick hatched
in an incubator has no inborn knowledge of the
call note of its race, we think further experiments
may be made with advantage.

We have reared many birds from ' ' wild "
eggs under canaries ; and the harp-Uke note of the
grey linnet, the pipe of the bullfinch, and the

123

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

sharp " pink-pink" of the chaffinch, so character-
istic of each species, have always been produced
by the young birds respectively, although they
had never had an opportunity of hearing the
ancient slogans of their respective races.

Again, we have brought up thrushes, black-
birds and larks from the nest, some of which be-
came excellent singers, using of course their
native notes, although they had never known
parental care. Still it must be admitted that
such birds often improve immensely as musicians
if they are taken into the open to hear a wild note.
This fact is well know^n to bird-fanciers, w^ho will
wander in the fields to discover a lark with ex-
ceptional powers of song : when they will bring
their own young larks to the spot in order that
they may take lessons from the master.

Thus we take leave to think that Nature has
endow^ed her smaller children with an extra-
ordinary stock of ready-made ideas, and that
parental teaching plays a necessary, but com-
paratively a small part, in fitting the offspring
for the ordinary conditions of wild Ufe.

The care of the mother-bird for her young
differs materially in different species. Most
birds show some anxiety when their little ones are
threatened, but in certain species parental
sohcitude rises to extraordinary heights, and is
displayed in many diverse ways. Skuas, terns,
mistle-thrushes, fieldfares and others will fiercely
attack the invader — man or dog — sometimes
actually striking. The partridge and snipe em-
ploy ingenious devices ; luring the trespasser
away by feigned lameness.

When young birds are taken from the nest the
parents will frequently follow them for long
distances and feed them in a cage. We have a
record of a tawny owl which night by night brought

124

CHILDHOOD

mice to the wired enclosure where its nestlings
were confined.

Certain birds will carry their young bodily
from what they conceive to be the danger zone.
This has been proved conclusively in regard to
the woodcock, and there is reason to believe that
it also, on occasion, applies to the snipe. Two
writers in the " Field" have stated that they
have witnessed such an occurrence, and we have
received the following corroboration from a lady
in Suffolk. " I should like to state" — she writes,
"that when I was down on the marshes near
Bungay I saw, at close quarters, a snipe pick up
one of her brood and fly away with it. She held
it apparently between her beak and her breast
and made three attempts to pick it up before
rising in the air and successfully flying off with it."

The description of the way of bearing the
burden coincides with the m.anner of the wood-
cock : an incident, we believe, that the writer had
never witnessed.

It has been stated that guillemots and razor-
bills carry their young on their backs from the
lofty ledges of the cliff to the sea below. We have
never found reliable evidence of this, nor do we
believe it to be necessary. The fully -fledged
young stand for days on the ledges, extending
from time to time, their wings. A slight impetus
given by the parents would launch them into the
air when with fully spread pinions they would
easily make the descent with safety.

That most birds have the parental instinct
strongly developed may be seen in many ways.
It is often, indeed, brought to bear vicariously
in the case of the nestlings of other birds.

If a pair of house-martins when rearing, suffer
from some fatality, it is no uncommon thing to
see the neighbours adopting the orphans, and

125

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

bringing food to the motherless nest alternately
with their own. A hungry young cuckoo appears
to demand sustenance from the universe, aod its
impatient cries are often responded to by passing
birds other than its foster parents.

A skylark captured with her young will continue
to feed them in a cage, and if other nestlings are
introduced before her own have become inde-
pendent she will add the little aliens cheerfully
to her family, and proceed to rear relay and
relay, through the whole season.

Bird-catchers avail themselves of this altruistic
trait in her character in order to save themselves
the trouble of hand-feeding, reducing her labours
to a minimum by a constant and plentiful supply
of food close at hand.

In this connection it is interesting to observe
that the nestlings themselves, at a very early age,
begin to show a disposition to help the mother in
the care of the babies. A noteworthy instance
of this was recently sent to us by Mrs. S. W.
Richardson from Acton, Middlesex.

" Wishing to have a hand-reared blackbird/*
she wrote, "I took a young one out of the nest
in my garden and fed it by hand on worms, in-
sects, etc. When it was between three and four
weeks old I took two young starlings also to
rear by hand. The latter birds as every one
knows require unceasing attention as they are
always hungry and cry vociferously until a worm
or other delicacy is put into their mouths. At
this time the blackbird was beginning to fly about
but still gaped for food. At first he was fright-
ened at the loud-voiced and energetic starlings
though he would sit by the nest and watch me
feeding them, turning his head first on one side
and then on the other as though in wonderment
and occasionally gaping for part of the good fare

126

CHILDHOOD

to be given him. What was my surprise and
delight when one day he collected two or three
woodlice I had given him in his beak and hopping
to the edge of the nest very nimbly poked it down
the throat of one of the babies, and from that day
to this he has continued to feed them untiringly,
so much so that in order to insure him. getting
enough to eat himself I have had to shut him up
alone out of hearing of the persistent voices of
his adopted children until he swallowed a little
food which then he did very reluctantly.

*' It was very interesting to note that never
once so far as I saw did he himself eat what he
considered the daintiest morsels which he had been
specially fond of before he started feeding the
starlings, but mealworms, small garden worms,
woodlice, flies, etc., which he always carefully
killed by squeezing in his beak and hammering
on the table first, he gave to the babies. If a
worm was specially tough, or I gave him a hard-
cased beetle, then he would eat it himself evidently
considering it too indigestible for his young
charges.

I have never heard or seen a similar case where
a young bird in captivity, and still gaping for
food himself, has taken over the duties of a parent,
and it appears to me especially curious when the
adopted ones are of a different kind of bird
from himself."

127

THE BIRD AND THE TREE

CHAPTER XII

Tree-lovers. Unusual Perchers. Swallows and

Pigeons in Relation to Trees. Evolution of Perching

Habit. Partridges and Snipe Perching.

Trees would appear to be the natural habitation
of birds, and it is interesting to note how few
species, even of those not recognised as perching
races, refuse altogether to avail themselves of the
shelter and security of wide-spreading branches.
All the smaller birds — warblers, finches, tits,
buntings, not to name the crows and most birds-
of-prey — rest on boughs and in the vast majority
of cases use the tree as a rearing place for their
young.

The skylark may be cited as a species which
divides its time between heaven and earth, and
leaves the tree out of account altogether. But
this, though largely true, is not altogether so.
Taking the tree in a wide sense, to include shrub,
bush, and hedge, we have many instances of the
skylark using this form of lodgment. It is no
uncommon thing to hear a lark singing on the top
of a closely-cut hedge, although we are not aware
of any well-authenticated record of this bird
deliberately alighting and remaining perched upon
a single bough. Of the pipits, the tree-pipit
alone habitually frequents the branches, but the
meadow-pipit, and even the rock-pipit, will use
the tree on occasions, more or less rare. In the

128

THE BIRD AND THE TREE

case of the wagtails, the yellow may be described
as a tree-perching bird ; it can be observed, es-
pecially when its young are hidden in the herbage
of a neighbouring field, alighting on the topmost
boughs of the tall hedge-row very much after the
manner of the yellow-hammer. Both the pied
and the grey wagtails regularly perch on trees,
but they would seem normally to prefer a flat
surface, as of a rock or wall, to rest upon. Their
feet, indeed, being of lark-like character, are
formed to enable them to trip lightly and swiftly
upon the level, but plainly lack something of the
grasping power by which the tit or finch clings to
a slender spray, no matter how rudely it may be
swept to and fro by the strongest winds.

This statement also applies to the wheatear,
for although its congeners, the whinchat and the
stonechat, will rest securely on the slender support
of the telegraph wire, we, personally, have only
seen the wheatear take to even the stouter branch
of a tree on one or two isolated occasions. It
is clear that lark, wheatear, and many other
species choose instinctively a surface sufficiently
broad to permit the foot and claws to rest flatly
upon it, and that any resting place that in-
volves a curved grasp is more or less irksome or
inconvenient. This is conspicuously true of all
the wader clan, and of all birds with webbed feet.
Yet numbers even of these unlikely subjects will,
on occasion, betake themselves to trees, and it
must be noted that some birds — the herons, for
example — which seem singularly unfitted by
Nature for arboreal life, none the less habitually
both perch and nest in branches.

Of birds of the type of the mallard, the water-
hen, and the dipper, although they can hardly
be described as even occasional perching birds,
still all three, at times, use the tree as a nesting

129

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

place. The mallard's eggs are frequently found
in pollard willows, at a considerable elevation
from the ground, and a photograph by Mr.
Riley Fortune in Nelson's " Birds of Yorkshire "
shows a dipper's nest perched high upon a bough,
overhanging a stream. It is by no means un-
common to find the waterhen's nest in fairly
high bushes, and the bird herself may sometimes
be seen resting, awkwardly enough, it must be
confessed, on some of the upper branches.

In the case of the true sea-fowl few indeed can,
by any stretch of reasoning, be regarded as tree-
lovers. Milton writes how

' ' Upon a tree.
The middle tree, and highest there that grew,"

sat Satan disguised as a cormorant, and the
cormorants certainly are a race which take readily
to perching and on occasion, as in the case of a
colony on a fresh-water lake in Ireland, described
by Mr. Jourdain, to nesting in trees. We have
it on record that a cormorant was not long ago
seen perched on the cross of a church steeple in
the centre of England. A pair of gannets, too,
upset certain seemingly well-established theories
by alighting on the North British Hotel in Edin-
burgh, but this is rather beside the question.

The fact remains, however, that for the host of
ocean dwellers — gulls, terns, guillemots and auks
— the tree may be said to have little or no at-
traction. Still many gulls, the kittiwake es-
pecially, alight readily on houses, sheds, railings
and upright posts, so it is probable that their
natural habit is being modified by environment.

In the matter of short-eared owls discussions
have from time to time arisen as to whether these
birds are ever known to rest upon trees. Certain
dogmatists have afiirmed that they are not.
Further observation has shown, however, that

130

THE BIRD AND THE TREE

although these owls differ from their congeners
in the choice of a nesting site, and that their
habit is not normally arboreal, they are none the
less quite ready to take a perch on a suitable
bough whenever occasion offers.

Two classes of birds, most dissimilar in habits,
may now be considered in relation to trees — ^the
swallows and the pigeons. The swallows, with
which for our present purpose we include the
swift (it is always difficult, indeed, mentally to
divorce the swift from the swallows, remembering
the number of strongly marked characteristics
that the birds have in common) cannot be re-
garded as birds possessing a true and natural
affinity for tree-life. Although the swallow itself,
the house-martin, and, more rarely, the sand-
martin, all alight upon boughs, they appear to do
so merely to rest, selecting for the most part a
dead and conspicuous branch. They never move
freely in dense foliage, as though delighting in the
play of light and shadow in the leaves, as the
willow-wren, whitethroat, and others of the
smaller races may be seen to do. For them the
tree is merely a fixed station, to be deserted
directly the tired wing is sufficiently restored to
permit the wanderer to return to its native
element. In the case of the swift, so truly is he
a creature of the air that if it were not for the
exigencies of nesting it would seem he would
spurn earth altogether.

There is strong reason to think that swifts, at
times, ascend to a great height, and spend the
whole night in the air. Mr. W. H. Hudson
assumes this to be so, and he records certain in-
teresting observations in support of his belief.

We have never heard of a swift attempting to
alight upon a tree, nor even upon a roof. His
feet, constructed with two toes in front and two

131

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

behind, enable him to cHng to vertical masonry,
but do not appear to permit him to perch, or even
to walk. If a swift be observed approaching
the hole where the nest is placed, where access
is gained by first alighting on a broad slab of stone
in front, he will be seen to fall upon this with
wings outspread, and then, using his wings like
the flappers of a seal, will shuffle across the inter-
vening space to the nesting hole.

Turning to the pigeons, the ring-dove and the
stock-dove are both tree-lovers, but the rock-
dove, true to the cliffs, rarely, if ever, so far as
our experience goes, alights upon branches. It
is interesting to note that the domesticated
descendants of the rock-dove — the true blue rocks
which the pigeon-shooters of Monte Carlo demand
because of their exceptional power of flight,
retain the ancestral distaste for perching upon
boughs— although many varieties of tame pigeons,
less pure in strain, fantails, for example, take
quite kindly to the trees in the neighbourhood of
their lofts.

Of the game-birds, the capercaillie, the black
grouse, pheasant, red grouse, and partridge, the
three first-named are distinctly birds of the tree.
The partridge and the red grouse, however, rarely
desert their native earth ; indeed, no bird is so
true to the special environment it has chosen as
the red grouse is to the heather. Yet occasion
may arise when even the red grouse takes ad-
vantage of the tree. In hard winters the spec-
tacle may be sometimes witnessed of a pack
of grouse perched upon the branches of a mountain
ash greedily devouring the berries.

Although it is uncommon for the partridge to
leave terra firma for an3rthing more ambitious
than the top of a gate, a haystack or the roof of
a barn such cases at times occur. Lord Cran-

132

THE BIRD AND THE TREE

brooke in a letter to the " Field " in November,
1921, wrote that when shooting near Saxmund-
ham, he saw a covey of partridges get up from the
top of a tree. The tree was standing by itself
in a park, and the birds came from the branches at
the top some 40 feet high. The editor remarked
that only one or two cases of the kind had been
placed on record.

Birds of the wader tribe cannot be deemed
arboreal, but here again exceptions occur. The
common sandpiper frequently alights on posts
and railings, and will occasionally take to the
exposed branch of a tree. On many occasions,
especially in Norway, we have seen redshanks
alight on the summits of trees, and remain there
piping disconsolately until we withdrew from the
scene. In the case of these the young birds were
hidden in the vicinity, and the parents plainly
seized upon any point of vantage, however in-
convenient, in order to watch our movements.

It may also be said the redshank appeared to
squat on the massed foliage rather than to grasp
firmly any individual branch. The only case of
a snipe alighting that has come under our own
notice was when a bird drooped down on the
broad, feathery plume of a fir tree, and balanced
itself awkwardly with its wings, soon to take
flight from a position that it plainly found em-
barrassing. Mr. Boyes of Beverley, however,
records a much more striking instance. In the
" Field" (July 1915) he writes: —

" I have on several occasions recently had the
pleasure of seeing and hearing snipe drumming
over a marshy spot not far from Beverley, and I
have seen five drumming at the same time, near
to each other, and each one uttering its breeding
notes. On every visit I have noticed a snipe
after drumming alight on the dead branch of a

133

SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS

tree-top always exactly in the same place, and all
the time it was sitting there it was uttering the
usual cries of " ka-ka-ka-ka," so well known to
ornithologists in the breeding season : then it
would suddenly leave the branch and commence
shooting downwards through the air, producing
the peculiar sound known as drumming or bleating.
On its again performing it would often be
joined by another, perhaps its mate. They would
drum for some time and then, closing their wings
over their backs in the manner of tame pigeons,
would suddenly drop into the sedges : when about
to do this they would give a special sort of squeak,
then both drop near each other. After a time
one would rise and begin the performance over
again, and again light on the branch of the tree :
it would allow me to walk quite near to it and I
noticed it when singing its love song of " ka-ka-
ka-ka," it did not seem to open its beak. This
snipe might be seen in the tree at any time of the
day. I have often seen snipe on rails and posts
but not before on a tree-top. A pair of redshanks
nesting in the same marsh may occasionally be
seen on another tree, but this is not so unusual
in the breeding season."

134^

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Peregrine Falcon

To face p. 135

THE ARTIST AND THE BIRD

CHAPTER XIII

Negi^ect in the Past. Modern Artists. The Work of
Mr. a. Thorburn. Colour and Form in Bird Life Japan-
ese Bird Portraiture. The Artistry of Nature. Re-
production OF Colours in Nature.

Of all the subjects of art the bird seems to have
been one of the most neglected. The human
figure, a variety of types from the mammalian
world, mountains, trees, and flowers have all
attracted the artist from time immemorial.
But the bird, often exquisite alike in colour and
form, instinct with life, and capable of the most
varied and charming expression, has constantly
been left out in the cold. It has been said that
the English artist, at any rate, attempted only
the heron and wild duck, and these he merely
threw in as accessories to his landscape, and
rarely troubled to draw or colour accurately.

In all the older works of Art, the different
mammalian types may be distinguished with
certainty. But we may look in vain for draw-
ings that depict the characteristic differences
between the grey linnet and the greenfinch,
or between the nightingale and the robin.

So it may fairly be said that although the value
of the bird for the more formal purpose of decora-
tion has always been recognised, it is only within
comparatively recent years that our avifauna
has been considered worthy of being made the
main theme of a picture. Now-a-days, however,

135

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

bird figures taken by the medium of the camera
have become generally popular, and not a few
eminent artists, of whom Mr. Archibald Thorburn
and Mr. Lodge are representative, devote them-
selves almost solely to avian portrayal.

In Mr. Thorburn' s work one has often wondered
how the more delicate effects — the frown of the
eagle, the depressed head of the sleeping wader,
the lazy abandonment of the dusting partridge,
the easy swing of the tit on the frailest spray, and
the hundred other subtle suggestions of rest and
movement, faint discomfort in wind and glad
activity in sunshine — have been so cunningly
seized upon and set down in mere line and colour.
In " A Naturalist's Sketch-Book" the artist
shows us how from faintly traced beginnings the
very spirit and idea of movement in the living
thing are slowly built up, and, as he truly writes,
these may be more readily suggested in sketches
than in elaborate and finished pictures. All bird
lovers, we imagine, can recall some little scene
from Nature that has impressed them : the stolid
greenfinches on the apple bough : the little party
of goldfinches that on yellow-lined wings flit
across the waste to alight with sweet call-notes
on the seed-plumes that sink beneath their
weight. In the artist's pages every light poise
and casual gesture has been reproduced with a
fidelity that brings about instant recognition.

In order adequately to depict birds a man must
be both a naturalist and an artist, and this com-
bination is, of necessity, rare. The naturalist
knows full well the charm and pictorial value of
his little bird-friends, but to him the medium of
brush and pencil is often denied. By the use of
the camera, however, he has been able to represent
something of the vast range of expression seen in
the dwellers in our fields and woods, on moorland,
rocks and sea.

136

THE ARTIST AND THK BIRD

For the man who has the patience and love of
Nature to wait and watch, birds will be found to
provide a series of constant surprises. If he has
the executive power of the artist as well, a vast
field of interesting labour is throw^n open to him.
If he is attracted by colour mainly, although it
may be true that the tropics supply a more
dazzling variety, none the less he will find hues
in every home-land wood and glade which will
test his skill to the utmost. Leaving the pheasant
and kingfisher aside, there are refinements and
harmonies of colouring on every hand that the
gaudiest species often lack. The black-blue
gleam on the wing of the swallow as it darts past
in the sunshine, the delicate pencilling of the
sandpiper, or the mottling of the golden plover,
are examples of what may be described as the
beauty of the unobtrusive ; and the feathers of
the snipe or of the grey wagtail (to take two
species at haphazard) are colour schemes exquisite
alike in tone, variety, and arrangement.

On the side of form, it has been claimed that
England possesses one of the most graceful birds
in existence in the heron. The flamingo, although
a large flock rising with dazzling white and
scarlet plumes glancing in the sun has been de-
scribed as one of the most striking sights in the
whole range of bird life, is in itself badly pro-
portioned. The stork, again, is too thickly-set
to be an emblem of grace ; but the heron, with its
peculiar lithe slenderness of form, charms the
artistic sense to an extent only equalled, it may
be, by the exquisitely curving lines of the swan.

Another interesting point about birds is the
way in which they seem to harmonise with and
become a part of their surroundings. No sea
picture w^ould be complete without the gulls
describing their sweeping curves over the waves ;

137

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

the curlew moving in the misty distance over the
wild and lonely moor, seems nothing less than
the embodied spirit of the place ; and a subtle
relation will be seen at once to exist between
the stern gaunt form of the eagle and the dark
rocky fastnesses over which it presides.

So, as the bird-artist roams over the country
side, he finds every bird in its own proper setting
and he cannot fail to recognise the sympathetic
bond that links every living form with its natural
environment.

But what is even of more importance to the
artist than anatomy, colour, or surroundings, is
the soul of the creature itself. The ancient
Eastern occultists taught that birds and mammals
had not yet attained to the highly specialised
individual soul found in the human ; that every
man had become a species in himself, and had
acquired characteristics, habits, tricks of manner
which none but he possessed. On the other
hand, the bird belonging to each marked group
shared the soul common to the group, and thus
all of a given species had the same little peculiari-
ties, and acted in a like manner in any given
circumstances.

Thus, if one robin be observed in a South-
country garden and another in a wayside hedge
in Scotland, all the instinctive movements, the
mode of alighting, the turn of head and flick of
tail will be seen to be identical in each, and it is
to this robin-soul that the artist must direct his
attention if he would depict the bird as it lives and
moves. So he will study the animating principle
which leads the blue tit to hang head downwards,
the creeper to move spirally around the tree-
trunk, and the kestrel to hang suspended in the
air. It is here, perhaps, that the Japanese
artist excels in the matter of bird portraiture.

138

THE ARTIST AND THE BIRD

Seen through Western eye, his work may lack
perspective and a knowledge of light and shade,
but, none the less, the Japanese has a mar-
vellous power of grasping the spirit behind the
physical manifestation, and he fearlessly employs
any means which may enable him to express it.
It may fairly be said that the Japanese artist
draws his inspiration to a very large extent from
birds and flowers. In no country in the world
does bird life take so prominent a place. Mr.
Ken Hoshino, the well-known Japanese art ex-
pert, has kindly written at our request the fol-
lowing comments on the more recent work of his
countrymen, and we feel certain our readers will
be interested to learn how the subject of the de-
lineation of wild nature is regarded from the
stand-point of the East. Mr. Hoshino writes : —
That Hokusai was one of the greatest artists
of the world cannot be disputed. All his pictures
exhibit life and movement most marvellously.
Next to Hokusai' s pictures I place two pic-
tures by Zeshin, * Flight of Ravens in Sunset
Sky ' and ' Seven Gods of Luck in the Treasure
Boat.' I think his pictures are always very
original. In ' Flight of Ravens in the Sunset
Sky,' I see only a couple of ravens, and the
orange-colour background in the extreme top of
the picture, leaving the nine-tenths of the paper
in blank — ^yet the balance of the picture is not
violated in the least. I seem to see hundreds
of ravens flying in the sunset sky. Next to
Zeshin' s pictures I place the pictures by Gekko.
Many bird studies of Gekko, Seiko, and Kogio
are most exquisite. It seems to me that Japanese
artists cannot compete with European artists in
landscape or portrait painting : but in the study
of birds and flowers they exhibit most wonderful
knowledge and skill. Most of the greatest artists

139

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

in Japan, from the tenth century to the present
time, have been artists of ' Kacho ' (birds and
flowers). I beheve that it is not too much to
say that Japanese art would be of but a neghgible
quaUty, were it not for the school of birds and
flowers.

Yet Japanese studies of birds and flowers are
not satisfactory to some who look upon them with
scientific bias, for there is very little feeling of
far and near, light and shade. To them Japanese
studies are merely conventional designs for screens
— and as such they admire them : but to me their
pictures are true conceptions of nature. In their
pictures I see the love of nature that moved the
artists' brushes. The lack of perspective does
not make their pictures less true to nature. In
their own language they express the beauty of
nature faithfully. They are not hampered
by the laws of perspective and light and shade.
The brush of an artist moves freely as he sets to
work : therefore there is life in his bird and growth
in his plant. Those who are familiar with
Japanese literature will surely find there is a great
deal of similarity between Japanese paintings
and their poetry. As a Japanese poem expresses
the wonderful beauty of heaven and earth in its
seventeen phonetic sounds, so a Japanese picture
unfolds the beauty of nature in a few lines and
dots. There is a picture before me called
Cuckoo and Moon ' by Gekko. The picture is
extremely simple yet it suggests the loneliness of
the quiet night and the pathos of the mid-autumn
night. Immediately I recalled a verse by
Sanesada : —

' ' None but the waning moon of morn
Heard the hototogiau (cuckoo) cry
In anguish for her heart's blood torn.
Thrill upwards to the paling sky."

140

THE ARTIST AND THE BIRD

No artist is so daring in the blending and con-
trasting of colour as Nature constantly shows
herself to be. In the Natural History Museum
at South Kensington, a large case is set apart
simply to illustrate the richness, delicacy, and
subtle gradations of colouring as it appears
among birds and butterflies. Many of the com-
binations would appear to be almost reckless, yet
they are invariably effective. A colour scheme
in the gaudiest yellow, red and blue might well
appal the modern decadent in Art, yet it is fully
justified in certain of the parrots; and the blue,
black and brown of one of the rollers, unpromising
as they may sound, blend together to form a
most dainty array. Extraordinary results are
also attained by the use of iridescent colouring
seen to the greatest advantage in the plumage of
the sun-birds and humming-birds. It is some-
what curious to note that in our own sombre
clime, the only bird with the courage to assume
the rainbow hues common to the tropics is the
kingfisher. The pheasant brought his native
plumes with him from the East.

The Artistry of Nature
It was a fancy of Richard Jeft'eries — perhaps
more than mere fancy — ^that the colours of wild
creatures were selected from their surroundings,
as if they had been gathered and skilfully mingled
together : that they can be traced and paralleled
in the trees, bushes, grasses and flowers as if
extracted from them by some secret alchemy.
It is certainly true that if we study carefully the
environment of many living things we shall find
not only the hues and shades, but at times, the
actual patterns themselves which afterwards
appear in the feather of the bird, or the wing of
the butterfly that haunts that particular spot.
One might imagine that Nature, the great Artist,

141

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

after painting on her canvas the vast spaces of
sky, sea, forest and field, paused in her work to
consider her colour schemes for the living creatures
which she had designed to give animation to her
pictures. In the paints still wet upon her palette
she found, ready to her hand, the exact hues
needed for her purpose.

Thus when the sea had been completed, with its
greys and blues and foamy whites, she merely
touched again with a finer brush her unexhausted
colours, and lo : here a herring-gull or a kittiwake
appears, repeating with perfect fidelity each
delicate tint of blue and grey and the curving
whiteness of the foam beneath. In this con-
nection Mr. Thorburn writes, ' ' I have often been
struck with the repetition of the colours in a bird's
surroundings, in the colour of the bird itself,
when it can have nothing whatever to do with
protective colouring. In the eider drake, for
instance, a very showy bird, the tint of a sea-
green wave is curiously reproduced in the neck."

Again Nature paints a breezy common. Masses
of yellow-flowered gorse, in irregular lines, extend
to the far background. Nearer at hand the tall
green bracken grows, and in the moister recesses,
the figwort, with its velvety topknot of flowers.
The general colour scheme is green, with vivid
touches of gold and red. Now a goldfinch
alights on a spray, and we see the velvety red
of the flower repeated on his cap, and the golden
glint of the gorse on his wing : or a greenfinch
hovers near, clad in the green hues of the bracken
with the tender yellow tint of the young shoots
on the primary feathers at his side. In all her
minuter and less obvious work, too. Nature uses
her familiar combinations of colour over and over
again. Examine carefully the little nook at the
fence side — the leaves from the taller trees have
drifted here, and they have mingled with the

142

THE ARTIST AND THE BIRD

smaller leaves of the hedge. Autumn after
autumn, the discarded foliage has fallen, slowly-
blending with the damp mould : and save for the
moss on the old stone, and the touch of red of the
sorrel, there is no hint of bright colours— a study
in drabs, browns and greys alone is given, most
unobtrusive, yet so skilfully mingled and con-
trasted that it possesses a beauty entirely its
own. And now if we scrutinize the plumage of
the partridge, for whom this recess is the inner-
most home, we find every combination in the
shades of the dead and dying leaves presented
to us again, even down to the touch of red sorrel
on the tail.

To the wanderer in the open a thousand hints
will come of this reproduction of colour. The
dipper in the stream suggests a black pebble
flecked with foam from the waterfall : the willow
wren in hue, and even in form, finds its counter-
part in the young, greenish-yellow leaves of the
poplar amidst which it so gracefully moves. Of
the wonderful analogies between flowers and
butterflies much might be said. One remarkable
instance, however, must suffice. Look inside
the bell of a foxglove and note the delicate pattern
formed by the brown and black spots. Then
examine the underside of the wing of the common
blue butterfly, and see how accurately this charm-
ing little device has been copied. In most of
these cases there is no question of protective
arrangement involved : the idea seems to be the
mere reproduction of something beautiful in
itself.

The Great Artist Nature, indeed, must have had
an abundance of colour — blue, for instance — when
she painted the skies : she might well spare a
little to touch the wings of the butterfly, the
petals of the bluebell, and the eggs of the hedge-
sparrow.

BIRDS OF THE POETS

CHAPTER XIV

Birds of Shakespeare, Byron, Keats, Sheeley and Burns.

Pre-eminence of Dante, Wordsworth and Tennyson as

Ornithoeogists. The Aneviism of Waet Whitman. Francis

Thompson and John Masefield in Relation to Birds.

The attitude of our poets to the birds of their
native land is always a matter of interest. We
take it rather for granted that all poets must
needs love birds as an aspect of nature which they
could not well afford to neglect. This, however,
is not strictly the case. Of course no one of our
greatest writers has failed to use avian figures
from which to draw an illustration or to make
graphic a line. But it is somewhat striking to
note how few of the immortals appear to have
studied a given species in order to show us some-
thing of the inner mystery of its being, of necessity
invisible to the common eye. Indeed, in this
respect, birds have fared far worse than trees and
flowers.

Milton for example, gives us little, and Browning
even less, the latter confining himself largely to
dogs so far as animated nature goes. Shakes-
peare, of course, who has taken all knowledge
to be his province, provides, from time to time,
some exquisite little vignette drawn obviously
on the spot : —

" This guest of siimmer.
The temple-haunting martlet does approve
By his loved mansioury that the heaven's breath
Smells wooingly here : no jetty, frieze
Buttress, nor coigne of vantage, but this bird
Hath made his pendent bed."

144

BIRDS OF THE POET

A true picture of the nesting of the house martin.
But these examples are few.

Even from Keats and Shelley, notwithstanding
their abnormal sensitiveness to the finer vi-
brations from nature, we gain comparatively
little. Each is attracted by the song rather
than by the bird itself, and thus the nightingale
and the lark claim their main attention. Truly
the bird whose notes : —

"Satiate the hungry dusk with melody."

And of which it was written : —

' ' The same which oft-times hath
Charmed magic casements opening on the foam
Of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn,"

said to be the most mystically musical lines in all
literature, can hardly complain of lack of ap-
preciation : and the skylark, again — the theme
of Shelley's world-famous ode, is amply treated.
But still it may be repeated that we hardly get
from Keats and Shelley the bird-pictures which
we fancy we have a right to expect.

From Byron we look for little, and we are not
disappointed. When, in the person of Manfred,
he meets the devil on the summit of the Jungfrau,
and proceeds to bully him, he sees and presents
us with a striking picture of an eagle (probably the
golden) :

" Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister.

Thou art gone
Where the eye cannot foUow thee, but thine
Still pierces downwards, onwards, and above
With a pervading vision."

But the sombre genius is too deeply involved
with the turbulent evolution of his own somewhat
refractory soul to pay much attention to ornitho-
logy.

From Burns, again, working in the open, and
essentially a poet of country Hfe, one might
reasonably have hoped for many intimate glimpses

145

SIDE IvlGHTS ON BIRDS

of the birds, with which he must have been
familiar. But, although he touches on many
species — water fowl on lyoch Turit, owl, thrush,
woodlark, laverock, blackbird, and so on — he
usually contrives to bring them to bear on his
ever present lassies O, and there is not much
either of solid information or of picturesque
description to be gleaned from him.

To Burns, however, we are indebted for this
honest little appreciation of the grey linnet : —

" I wad na gie the Untie' s sang,

Sae merry o'er the broomy lea,
For a' the notes that ever rang

Fra a' the harps o' minstrelsy.'

Thus it comes about that we instinctively turn
to Wordsworth and to TennyvSon whenever we
would find bird pictures drawn from the life.
Here species are delineated with care and truth
from sheer love of the subject, and not from a
mere extraneous desire to point a moral or adorn
a tale.

For the field naturalist it is one of the delights
of early spring to peer through the interstices
of the boughs and see, shining below, the clear,
delicate blue of the eggs of the hedge-sparrow.
Thus the following simple sentiment comes home
to him at once : —

" Behold, within the leafy shade
Those bright blue eggs together laid ;
On me the chance discovered sight
Gleamed like a vision of deHght."

Take again, the green linnet — " a bird so like
the dancing leaves " — rejoicing in the early
summer sunshine : —

" upon yon tuft of hazel trees
That twinkle to the gusty breeze
Behold him perched in ecstacies
Yet seeming to hover
There, where the flutter of his wings
Upon his back and body flings
Shadows and sunny glimmerings
That cover him all over."

146

BIRDS OF THE POET

Here is a sight familiar to all who have sought
the eggs of the wild duck amidst the underwood
of some lonely islet.

" The o'ershadowing yew-tree bough
And dimly gleaming nest : a hollow crown
Of golden leaves inlaid with silver down
Fine as the mother's softest plumes allow."

Over and over again in Wordsworth one is
struck by some poetical snap-shot, as it were,
which gives us the bird exactly as it lives and
moves.

' ' The darkUng wren that tunes its simple lay on Dudden's side.
The cuckoo, ' ' with its twin notes inseparably paired."
The flock of mallard passing at night.

' ' I hear their wings
Faint — faint at first, and then an eager sound.
Past in a moment, and as faint again."

And SO on, well through the range of British
bird Hfe.

In Tennyson, again, the bird-lover finds in-
numerable pictures, each bearing the mark of
close observation.

' ' I^ook how they tumble the blossom, the mad little tits."
' ' In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin's breast."
" In the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another

crest.' '
" The many -wintered crow that leads the clanging rookery

home.' '

' ' As the thistle shakes

When three grey linnets wrangle for the seed."

Here is the golden eagle to the life —

" He clasps the crag with crooked hands.
Close to the sun in lonely lands.
Ringed with the aznte world he stands.
The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls,
He watches from his mountain walls.
And like a thunder bolt he falls."

Here, again, is surely the very voice and spirit
of the thrush's early song.

" Summer is coming — Summ,er is coming,
I know it — I know it — I know it ; "^

Light again — leaf again — life again — love again,
Yes ; my wild little poet."

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SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

Still, even Tennyson, notwithstanding his usual
accuracy becomes from time to time problematical.
What were the birds in the high hall-garden

' ' Crying, and calling ' Maud, Maud, Maud 1 ' "

It is said that a lady once propounded this ques-
tion to the poet, suggesting a variety of inter-
esting feathered songsters. " Nothing of the
kind, madam," was the reply. " They were
merely rooks."

It would be interesting if we could have a like
interpretation of a somewhat obscure passage
from " In Memoriam " —

" When rosy plumelets tuft the larch
And rarely pipes the moimted thrush,
Or underneath the barren bush
Flits by the sea-blue bird of March."

Now what is the ' ' sea-blue bird of March ? ' ' The
swallow has been hinted at, but although it may
be taken as the typical spring visitant, it is rather
a straining of poetical licence to describe its black-
purple colouring as sea-blue. The kingfisher,
again, has been put forward as supplying the
suggestion of sea-blue upon a summer's day.
But the objection arises that the kingfisher is not
in any special sense a bird of March.

Still, we believe the authorities agree that
Tennyson had the kingfisher in mind. Sir

Herbert Maxwell, discovered the expression
' ' sea-blue bird of March " in relation to the
halcyon in one of the classics, and it may be
assumed that the poet adopted it from this source.

It is perhaps noteworthy that Dante has never
been accounted a poet of Nature. Innumerable
quotations from Shakespeare, Tennyson, Words-
worth and other immortals are scattered broad-
cast throughout our literature, but the author
of the ' ' Divine Comedy " is rarely named as
being concerned with such mundane things as

148

BIRDS OF THE POET

birds and trees and flowers. Possibly the com-
mentators have held that the fauna and flora
of the Inferno would be, of necessity, a negligible
quantity : but, if so, they have failed to grasp
that the poet, however unearthly may be his
vision, is forced to fall back on Nature for illus-
trations to give life and vividness to his pictures.
And in this respect Dante shows a power of ob-
servation : a faculty for noting the more intimate
ways and movements of living things that a
Gilbert White might envy.

The ' ' Divine Comedy " was written more than
600 years ago yet here we find the activities and
characters of mammals, birds, reptiles, and in-
sects observed with the precision of the trained
scientist, and recorded with an accuracy that
is never for an instant sacrificed to the exig-
encies of verse.

Birds play a considerable part in the great
classic : not only the vague mystical forms that
drift hither and thither in the land of shadows,
but species clearly observed in their native
haunts, and that may be readily identified.
In Dante's day hav/king was the most widely
recognised form of sport, and the technical al-
lusions, and the subtle observation of intimate
traits, go to show that the poet was, himself, a
considerable master of the craft. To take up a
hawk after a flight is often a troublesome busi-
ness, especially when the bird is young and rest-
less, and thus Dante expresses the manner of it : —

" As falcon that has long been on the wing,
But lure nor bird has seen, while in despair.
The falconer cries : ' Ah, me,' then stoops to earth
Wearied, descends, whence nimbly he arose.
In many an airy wheel, and Hghting, sits
At distance from his lord in angry mood."

Again : —

" A falcon issuing from his hood.
That rears his head and claps him with his wings
His beauty and his eagerness bewraying. *

149

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

" E'en thus rhe waterfowl ; when she perceives
The falcon near, dives instant down, while he
Enraged and spent retires."

The true falcon, of which the peregrine is the
type, is a bird of long wings, which give it re-
markable power in the air : the goshawk has com-
paratively short wings, but commends itself
to the falconer by its exceptional strength and
ferocity that enable it to cope with quarry much
larger than itself. This fact was known to Dante.
What appears to be an unequal fray is described :

• ' But the other proved
A goshawk able to rend well its prey."

In a beautiful passage we read : —

" Know ye not
That we are worms yet made at last to form
The winged insect imp'd with angel plimies."

To " imp " is to supply missing wing feathers,
and it is interesting to find this old falconer's
term applied to the pinions of those about to
ascend to Paradise.

The stoop of a bird of prey is thus shown : —

' ' A golden feathered eagle in the sky.
With open wings and hovering for descent :
A little wheeUng in his aery tour.
Then, terrible as lightning, rushed he down."

The poet's observations of waterfowl are in-
variably true to life. The fact that wild geese
and other species fly in a single line or in V-shaped
formation is now generally remarked upon, but
the fact that they rise in a mass and afterwards
rearrange themselves has never been more clearly
expressed than in the following lines : —

' ' Like as the birds that winter near the Nile

In squared regiments direct their course.

Then stretch themselves in file for speedier flight."

BIRDS OF THE POET
Again : —

"As birds from river banks.
Arisen, now in round, now lengthened troop,
Array them in their flight, greeting as seems
Their new-found pastiire."

" As cranes
Chanting their dolorous note, traverse the sky
Stretched out in long array."

Pigeons are thus referred, to : —

" As a wild flock of pigeons to their food

Collected, blade or tares.

If aught alarm them, suddenly desert."

' ' As doves.
By fond desire invited, on wide wings
And firm, to their sweet rest returning home."

In the present day attention is often called to
the vast flocks of starlings seen : —

" In large troops.
And multitudinous, when winter reigns
The starlings on their wings are borne abroad."

The lark, of course, makes its invariable appeal
to the poet :

' ' That warbling in the air, expatiates long,
Then, trilling out its last sweet melody.
Drops, satiate with sweetness."

Birds are shown greeting a morning in spring
when "the tender may bloom flushed through
many a hue in prodigal variety" appears :

" On the tree-tops the feathered quiristers
Applied their wonted arts, and with full joy
Welcomed those hours of prime."

Leaving the birds aside for a moment we may
quote one observation that marks beyond dispute
the eye keenly watchful for the more subtle ex-
pression of feeling by living things : —

" It chances oft some animal bewrays
Through the sleek covering of his furry coat
The fondness that stirs in him and conforms
His outward seeming to the cheer within."

Watch a rat or a mouse in a trap, with its head
pressed closely in a corner and note how easily its
agitated state of mind may be read : —

' ' Through the sleek covering of its furry coat."

SIDE lylGHTS ON BIRDS

It is always interesting to note the particular
species of wild creatures that, for one reason or
another, have attracted the attention of the poets.
Walt Whitman, by reason of his America^n setting,
speaks of many living things not met with in
England. Thus he marks the croaking of the
hylas, and the bellowing of the alligator in the
swamp : at dusk he hears the hermit thrush —
* ' the wondrous singer, the unrivalled one " —
warbling its reedy song among the swamp-cedars,
and at sunrise and sunset the clear musical call
of the brown-breasted robin. The hermit thrush
is the bird that the American ornithologist,
Burroughs, regarded as equalling the best of
English singers, adding : " To me its song is the
finest sound in Nature." The robin referred to
is the American migrant resembling in size and
hue our own hen blackbird, and save for a reddish
tinge on the breast, having little in common with
our familiar redbreast. The high-hole named
by Whitman as " flashing golden wings in lilac
time " is a woodpecker, deriving its name from
the lofty situation of its nest; and the phoebe-
bird is a flycatcher not unlike our spotted fly-
catcher, which wearies one in American wood-
lands by its peculiarly mournful drawling notes.

Many poets touch upon animism — ^the living
spirit that lies behind the appearances of Nature
— with a guarded hand, fearing a recrudescence
of savagery and remembering that it is the stuff
of which m5rfchs are made. But Whitman casts
prudence to the winds. " I swear I think now,"
he exclaims, ' ' that everything without exception
has an eternal soul. The trees have, rooted in
the ground : the weeds of the sea have : the
animals." In the death-chant that the venerable
redwood tree utters we can readily imagine that
the words were to Whitman no poetic fiction : —

152

BIRDS OF THE POETS

" Now yield we mournfully, majestic brothers.
We, who have grandly filled our time
With Nature's calm content, with tacit huge delight.
We welcome what we wrought for through the past.
And leave the field for a superber race."

The sense that the explanation of the mystery
of life lies just behind a veil so near that it may
almost be grasped — the sense that haunted
Wordsworth and Jefferies — rose in Whitman to
ecstacy. He feels it with such clear certainty
that he never stops to argue about it. Thus
the world becomes a wonder-land, and the meanest
thing in it a miracle.

The fish poised in the pool, the bee feeding on
the flower, the whirr of the rattlesnake, the cry
of the night-owl, and not only these but the most
commonplace sights and sounds of town and
hamlet, all have a significance far beyond their
mere outward seeming. In such a world any-
thing may happen. The least insect or animal,
he tells us, causes him to sing " ecstatic songs."
The mystery is there not only in the peeping
violet but in the spears of the onion.

It is instructive to turn from the older writers
in order to note how the younger generation of
poets stand in relation to Natural History.
Francis Thompson has a prominent place in
modern poetry, but although he has many beau-
tiful lines on Nature generally, he is clearly no
bird specialist.

' ' So know, this I<ady Nature thou hast left.
Of whom thou fears't thee 'reft.
This Lady is God's daughter, and she lends
Her hand but to His friends."

Surely no higher encouragement to the lowly
naturalist exists in literature. Nature, the poet
considers, lives in the life of God, and it is only
in so far that man lives in that life that he comes
into true sympathy with Nature.

153

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

It is as a philosopher rather than as a field
naturalist that Thompson approaches Nature.
Although he properly claims to share her ' ' delicate
fellowship " and to have " drawn the bolt of her
secrecies " he gives us little in the way of direct
personal observation. There are a few refer-
ences to falconry, but these point rather to a
desire for an illustration than to an interest in the
ways of the birds in themselves : —

" The heavenly Falconer my heart debars.
And tames with fearful gloom
The haggard to his call."

" Firm is the man

Whose falcon soul sits fast,

And not intends her high sagacious tour

Or ere the quarry's sighted."

The rook is one of the few birds mentioned by
name : —

" Rooks in spreading gyres like broken smoke
Wheel when some sound their solitude has broke."

The dove is also referred to :

' ' Sweet as the low moan that a summer dove
Fondles in her warm throat."

But for the most part a bird is but a bird and
we can only guess at the identity of the " mad
bird bacchanals " that : —

' ' Make adventiire of sweet din
Till all the forest prosper into song."

Even the lark that

" sups its shaken music.
An dfin avalanche."

appears incognito.

Thompson's landscapes, indeed, are singularly
void of animal life and movement although
trees and flowers are often named specifically.

With John Masefield, on the other hand,
although he may neglect natural history in some

154

BIRDS 01^ THE POET

of his works, he is wide awake when he is out in
the open with " Reynard, the Fox," not only to
the most intimate details of the business in hand
but to every passing impression that the fields and
woods may suggest. True, in a poem of this
kind there can be no room for a finely-spun
philosophy of Nature, nor for an elaborately
worded description of her aspects, but in their
place we get vivid glimpses of the things them-
selves that abide in the mind even as though our
own eye had rested upon them. Never may we
forget that the writer is riding for the most part
hell-for-leather, or at best, permitting a tired
horse to draw breath at the woodside.

' ' The wood stood silent in its host

Of halted trees, all winter bare.

The boughs like veins that suck the air,

stretched tense, the last leaf scarcely stirred,

There came no song from any bird."

Now and again as the rider crashes through the
wet, tangled briars, he disturbs a lurking pheasant ;
and hares and rabbits vanish like grey shadows
from his horse's hoofs.

" The shaken brambles scattered drops,
stray pheasants kukkered out of copse,
A blue, uneasy jay was chacking,
A swearing sound Uke tearing sacking."

Once a glimpse of partridges is caught

" In a clover stubble,
Crouched in a ring for a stoat to nubble."

And again a little party of long-tailed tits call
attention to their presence by their tinkling notes :

" On the wind-bare thorn some long-tails prinking.
Cried sweet as though wind-blown glass were chinking."

And later

" A kestrel cruising o'er the meadow.
Watched the hunt gallop on his shadow."

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

Then comes a glimpse of the fox : —

' ' The lean red bolt of his body tore

Like a ripple of wind running swift on grass,

Like a shadow on wheat when a cloud blows past."

Now he dives down a sheer decHvity hoping
unavaiHngly to find an unstopped earth : —

" Like the April snake whipping back to sheath.
Like a gannet's hurtle on fish beneath."

Happily Reynard finds sanctuary at last, and
weary horses turn homewards as the wintry
evening falls. The single robin's note, the birds
wheeling in the sky as they seek their roosting
place, and the lights suddenly appearing in the
distant village, are truly observed and beau-
tifully expressed : —

' ' The robin sang from a puffed red breast.

The fox lay quiet and took his rest

A wren on a tree-stump carolled clear,

Then the starlings wheeled in a sudden sheer.

The rooks came home to the twiggy hive.

In the elm-tree tops that the winds do drive.

Then the noise of the rooks fell slowly still.

And the lights came out on the Clench Brook Hill,

Then a pheasant cocked, then an owl began

With the cry that curdles the blood of man."

April would appear to be one of the poet's
favourite months :

" April appeared, the green earth's impulse came,
Pushing the singing sap, until each bud.
Trembled with delicate life as soft as flame."

' ' It was an April morning brisk with wind
And overhead the first-come swallow darted."

We remember how Browning signalized the
" month of daffodils."

' ' When the chaflSnch sings on the orchard bough.
In England, now."

Perhaps Masefield's line may come to be equally
well remembered : —

" There was all April in the blackbird's cry."

156

BIRDS OF THE BIBLE

CHAPTER XV

Habits op Birds as Described in the Old Testament.
Domesticated Birds. Cage Birds and Bird-catching.
Canon Tristram on Birds of the Holy Land. Swift,
Swallow and Cuckoo. Seers and Prophets on

' ' Migration." Birds as Sacred Emblems.

In Genesis the creation of birds is placed after
that of fishes and reptiles, and before mammals,
a system of classification in strict accordance
with the teaching of modern palaeontology ; birds,
as Canon Tristram has pointed out, becoming
numerous in the Chalk after the reign of the
greatest monsters of the Wealden.

In the Old Testament interesting allusions are
made to the habits of birds, and many sidelights
are thrown upon the relation of man to the
feathered races at a period long anterior to the
birth of Christ. It would appear that before the
Captivity, the Jews had no domestic fowls, except
pigeons, a species which lent itself so readily to
a kind of semi-domestication that it may easily
claim to be the first of the avian races to fall
under the dominion of man. Professor Lepsius,
indeed, has stated that there are definite records
of pigeons being kept in the fifth Eg5rptian
dynasty about 3,000 B.C.

Still, apart from domestic poultry, it is clear
that even in Job's time the caging of song-birds
was a well-established custom, that birds were
recognised ladies' pets, and that in the cases of

157

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

the larger species, they were probably attached
to stands by light chains, or cords, as parrots and
cockatoos are fastened to-day.

' ' Wilt thou play with him as with a bird, and
wilt thou bind him for thy maidens ? "

That the bird-catcher's art was well known to
and regularly practised by the ancient Hebrews
is clear from many references. There are

seven Hebrew words for different kinds of bird-
snares. The throw-stick, the springe, or snickle of
wire or horse-hair — ^the clap-net — ^traps of various
kinds, and decoy birds were all habitually used.
In this connection it is interesting to note that in
the still more ancient sacred writings of India
the Upanishats — certain precepts which have
been handed down from copies taken from thin
oblong discs or plates, which were found attached
to the altars of ancient ruined and buried temples —
comparisons are made to the bird-catcher, ' ' like
a bird caught in the fowler's lime."

By reason of the variety of elevations and tem-
peratures in Palestine, the species of birds to be
found there are perhaps more widely diversified
than in any other country of the same latitude.
The most conspicuous feature is the very great
number of birds-of-prey. The eagle, so fre-
quently referred to, is believed by Canon Tristram
not to be the golden eagle, but the griffon vulture,
the type of Nistock, the eagle-headed god of the
Assyrians.

The natural history of this most majestic bird
is set forth in many graphic passages — ^the bare
neck and head of the griffon is described by Micah :
its swiftness in flight, keenness of vision, and
habit of congregating to feed on the slain, by Job.

In Exodus, its care in training its young is
depicted, and Jeremiah refers to its custom of
frequenting the dizziest cliffs for nesting.

158

BIRDS OF THE BIBIyE

The griffon has been known to live more than
a hundred years in captivity, and this remarkable
longevity is noted in the Psalms. The figure
of this bird was the emblem of Persia, as well as
of Assyria.

In other passages reference is made to the
lammergeier or bearded vulture, and to the
Egyptian vulture, the common scavenger of the
East.

Of the true eagles the osprey is named, but this
term probably includes all the smaller eagles of
which there are many species in Syria.

The sparrow-hawk, kestrel, merlin, hobby, and
others are all common in the Holy Land, but these
would appear to be named indiscriminately under
the common term hawk. The buzzard, of which
there are three species in Palestine, is believed
to be indicated by the word translated glede, and
the kites, both black and red, the former the
commonest of the scavenger birds-of-prey in the
country, and protected by the villagers, are also
named.

Of the owls, the Egyptian eagle owl is referred
to, together with the scops, the tawny, and the
little owl, the last being very common about all
villages, ruins, and wells. It was the symbol
of ancient Athens, the bird of Minerva or of
wisdom.

The habits of the raven are frequently illus-
trated— finding its food on floating carcasses
(Genesis), picking out the eyes of newly dropped
or weakly animals (Proverbs) , resorting to desolate
places (Isaiah), its glossy black plumage
(Canticles) and the distance it wanders for its
precarious meal (Job).

In like manner the bittern once well known in
Enghsh marshlands is described. It is still to
be found in the reedy swamps of the Tigris, where

159

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

its strange booming cry is said to resemble the
wail of the hyaena. Throughout the Scriptures
it is spoken of as frequenting waste and desert
places, and is constantly used as the emblem of
desolation.

In regard to domestic poultry, they would appear
to have been introduced through Persia from
India into Europe, and in our Lord's time were
generally established in Palestine.

In reference to cock-crowing, the word "twice,"
recorded by St. Mark alone, is note-worthy.
The cock crows about 2 a.m., and again at 4 a.m.
In the idioms of the South Sea Islanders the
earlier is called the " false " cock-crow, the later
the ' ' true " or more commonly the ' ' cock-crow."

The brooding of the hen and her habit of
sheltering the chickens beneath her wings are
constantly used as typical of care and tenderness.

Of partridges, two species are common in
Palestine, both different from ours, and both
resorting to hilly ground. The francolin takes
their place in the plains, and the various sand-
grouse — one species of which appears at irregular
intervals in England — are found in the deserts.
In various passages allusion is made to the chasing
of the partridge (probably with throw-sticks) on
the mountains, to the continual robbing of their
eggs by man, to the keeping of decoy partridges,
a practice common to-day in the East. The
quail, which is referred to as providing food for
the Israelites in their wanderings, is of the same
species as the birds known in Great Britain. On
migration in spring they are in the habit of
crossing the desert in countless myriads, flying
very low, and often in the morning so utterly
exhausted by their night's flight, that they are
slaughtered by thousands. They always fly
with the wind.

160

BIRDS OF THE BIBI,E

The instinct of migration in birds, was, of course,
too striking a phenomenon to have escaped the
attention of Seer and Prophet.

From this, indeed, some of the most graphic
and beautiful illustrations and figures of speech
were drawn.

The migration of the crane, once a visitor to
England, and one of the largest birds which fly,
is referred to by both Jeremiah and Isaiah.

Canon Tristram tells us how the whooping or
trumpeting of the crane rings through the night
air in spring, and that the vast flocks which he
noticed passing north near Beersheba, were a
wonderful sight.

The periodical return of the stork, again, is
noticed in Jeremiah. Its regular and sudden
return is one of the most interesting natural
sights in Palestine.

The expression — " the stork in the heavens " —
refers to the immense height at which the birds
fly during migration. The Hebrew name implies
their maternal care, for which they have been
famed for all ages. In all countries the stork is
regarded with a kind of affectionate veneration,
and is generally protected. In Western Europe
it builds mainly on houses : in the East on ruins,
and where buildings are scarce, on trees. The
black stork (Ciconia nigra) always builds on trees.
The black pinions of this stork, stretching from
its white body, have a singularly beautiful effect.
In Zechariah's vision the following passage
occurs : — ' ' Then lifted I up my eyes and looked,
and behold there came out tv/o women, and the
wind was in their wings : for they had wings
like the wings of a stork."

Some interesting reflections are suggested in
regard to the swallow. In our translations two
entirely different Hebrew words " deror " and

i6i

SIDE lylGHTS ON BIRDS

" sus " are indiscriminately rendered " swallow."

It has been pointed out that the former —
literally " bird of freedom " — alone refers to the
swallow or martin : whereas the latter is un-
questionably intended to designate the swift.

By this discrimination, apparent contradictions
disappear, and the full force of the different
passages is brought out. In Palestine the
swallow is not a regular migrant, many birds
remaining in the warmer parts of the country
throughout the winter.

Again the note of the swallow is a soft gentle
twitter, which might be taken as representing
restfulness and security. The swift, on the other
hand is conspicuous for the suddenness of its
re-appearance in spring, and by the thousands
in which in a single day it overspreads the whole
country. In addition its cry is a shrill scream,
which well might be interpreted as an expression
of pain.

Thus the swift, together with the crane, and the
turtle-dove may be regarded above other birds
as ' ' knowing the time of their coming " and the
waiHng of the sick king Hezekiah might fitly be
compared to the querulous cry of the swift :
the swallow, on the other hand, being used to
typify gentler emotions and happy pastoral
scenes.

The cuckoo is referred to on two occasions, and
is classed with the unclean birds. Although
our cuckoo is common in Palestine as a summer
migrant, it is thought that the references in
question are rather to the shearwater, which is
eaten in the East, and to the various species of the
sea-gull.

The dove is a bird which beyond all others has
been used as the emblem of many sacred mys-
teries. In addition to the pigeons, which swarm

162

BIRDS OF THE BIBI,K

in every village, coming home, as they do to-day
to their " windows" or latticed openings, there
are myriads of rock-doves — "doves of the valleys,"
' ' the dove that maketh her nest in the side of the
hole's mouth " — in all the mountain gorges of
Palestine. Their plaintive coo, and the metallic
lustre of their plumage, are alike alluded to.

But it is around the turtle-dove that greatest
interest gathers. It was the type of love. Its
dark, lustrous eyes were the emblems of the eyes
of the beloved one : its soft wings were the means
by which the earth-wearied spirit was to rise at
last to rest. Again and again this gentle and
innocent figure is used to signify truths of the
highest occult meaning.

From the prehistoric day when man first awoke
to the wonders of the recurring spring, untold
myriads of lines have been written in its cele-
bration. But no lines, we imagine, have been
written so simple, yet so perfectly descriptive, as
these :

' ' For lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.

The flowers appear on the earth, the time of the singing of

birds is come.
And the voice of the turtle is heard in the la nd."

163

FABULOUS BIRDS

CHAPTER XVI

Gryphon. Roc. Phoenix. Li\^r. Harpy.

In ancient days men were not content with
their more or less distorted observations of the
wild creatures around them : they constantly set
themselves to invent new ones. No doubt,
as Conway says in his " Demonology and Devil-
lore " the conception of many of these mythical
monsters has arisen mainly from an exaggerated
view of the forms actually in existence, but that
in other cases, the invention of nondescript
compound animals is traceable to a more artistic
and poetic idea. Thus the Chim^sera, Satyr,
Harpy, and others may be taken to be efforts
to realise types of evil, * ' the claw principle, fang
principle in the universe, the physiognomies of
venom and pain detached from the forms to which
they are accidental."

In any case it is curious to note how prominent
a place these apparently crude and barbaric
inventions have taken, not only in poetry and
sculpture, where a deeper underlying meaning
is hinted at, but also in heraldry, and even in the
signs and symbols of commercial enterprises.

Birds, of course, were naturally popular with
the fable makers. The Gryphon was supposed

164

FABUIyOUS BIRDS

to be a huge bird, with the body and limbs of the
lion, capable of carrying off a horse or an elephant.

Sinbad the Sailor's Roc was probably of this
species. The Phoenix, too, was plainly believed
to be a real bird, with the power of rising from
its own ashes when burnt, a quality which com-
mends it to insurance companies. Pliny de-
scribes it as " by report as big as an eagle, in
colour yellow, and bright as gold."
;i. !lt has been suggested that the fable of the bird
rising from its own ashes may have arisen from
the fact that vultures in the East are known to
descend upon bodies being cremated and rise
again through the dense smoke.

A mythical bird less familiar than the Phoenix
was known as the I/iver and is said to have re-
sembled the heron. It is stated that the name
of the city of lyiverpool was derived from this
bird. The Harpy was a prominent figure in
Grecian m5rthology. It was a combination of
a woman and a vulture, and the name is incor-
porated in the English language to-day as sym-
bolising rapacity, usually feminine.

165

PART II
SOME CELEBRATED HAUNTS

Birds of Shetland

CHAPTER XVII

Cuffs and Moori^and. Goi^den Plover. Curlew and
Whtmbrel. Snipe. Ravens. Carrion and Grey Crows.
Divers. Red-necked Phalarope. Mergansers. Foula.
Varieties of Cliff and Shore Birds. Guillemots and
Puffins, Great vSkuas and Terns. Cormorants and
Shags. The Tystie. Great Black-backed Gulls.
Oyster-catchers, and Ringed Dotterel.

Shetland, the most northerly part of the British
Isles, consists of a group of islands, about 30 of
which are inhabited, whilst others innumerable
are tenanted only by the ubiquitous wild fowl.
The chief islands are Mainland, equalling about
half the area of the group, Yell, Unst, Fetlar,
Whalsay, Bressay, Papa Stour, Foula, etc. In-
land, the country is mainly moorland, where the
heather grows high, broken by stony ridges, and
sloping to the numberless lochs. In the valleys
by the loch-sides are small, square, cultivated
patches, bounded by low stone walls. When
vegetables are grown on the higher ground, they
are enclosed in round watch-tower-like structures,
a few yards in diameter, to protect them from
the tearing winds.

166

BIRDS OF SHETlvAND

The aspect of the Shetlands has been described,
as bare and monotonous, but one is never far
from a sight of the sea, and the coast-line, with its
islands and splintered rocks rising from the white-
lashed waves, is infinitely beautiful and varied.
Foula, indeed, is said to possess the finest rock
scenery in Europe. Ikying 20 miles from the
mainland, and bearing the full brunt of the At-
lantic, the mighty cliff known as Kame Head
rises 1,217 ^^^'^ sheer from the sea.

Here, then, in this land of moor and loch, of
sea-cliff and sheltered harbour, the hardier and
wilder species of birds find a fitting home, the
absence of pasture, wide hedge-rows, and spread-
ing woodlands accounting for the lack of most
of the gentler races — the warblers and others —
in the nesting season.

Perhaps the most t3rpical bird of the Shetland
moorland is the golden plover. As it stands on a
heathery summit in full breeding plumage, with
its black and white breast, and with back and
wings dappled in varying shades of old gold,
and grey and black, it is seen well to deserve its
name. Its nest is usually placed amidst the
rocks and ling on the higher slopes. If it be
approached the bird runs silently away for a
considerable distance, where from some slight
eminence it surveys the intruder, uttering the
while its plaintive, piping cry. In the autumn
the birds gather together, and may be seen feeding
in numbers on the peaty islands, covered with
green moss and intersected by oozy channels.
It is one of the characteristic sights of Shetland
to mark a vast flock suddenly sweeping over some
rocky ridge, in the failing evening light, when
the air is filled with their sweet call-notes which
almost instantly become fainter and die away in
the distance. The green plover, a bird so common

167

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

on the Yorkshire moorlands, is, together with the
grey plover, much less frequently seen in the
Shetlands.

The curlew, too, of the Yorkshire moors, is in
turn largely replaced in the Shetlands by the
whimbrel— the little whaup. The whimbrel may
be constantly seen on EngHsh estuaries and mud-
flats in autumn and winter, but it returns to the
more northerly latitudes to breed. It nests not
infrequently in the Shetlands.

In the great tracts of marshy ground which
skirt so many of the lochs the common snipe is
exceptionally numerous. It is questionable even
if in Kerry, so many birds could be found in a
given area. The writer has a vivid recollection
of an isolated bog in Papa Stour, of barely half
an acre in extent, from which the startled snipe
rose literally in dozens, and instead of leaving
their haunt, were seen circling round in all direc-
tions, and constantly dropping back to the shelter
of the high-growing reeds. The great snipe is of
rare occurrence in the Shetlands, although in
Saxby's notes several are recorded as having been
shot. The jack occurs regularly on migration,
and instances of its nesting there have been given.
These, however have never been verified.

The raven is also a characteristic and abundant
species in the Shetlands. Nesting for the most
part in the sea-chfis, it raids the whole of the
moorland country around seeking for its prey.
On the writer's first visit to the islands many years
ago, an epidemic occurred among the ponies,
which are allowed to run practically wild on the
hills. It was then no uncommon sight to see
six or seven ravens feeding upon a single carcase.

The hooded or grey crow is another conspicuous
bird of the moorlands. These carrion crows
offer a problem to those engaged in the classi-

i68

BIRDS OF SHETLAND

fication of birds which is by no means easy of
solution. The hooded or grey crow at first sight
appears obviously to be of a species distinct from
the black carrion crow. In the first place, its
plumage is parti-coloured — grey and black —
and differs essentially from the total blackness of
the carrion crow known in England. Again,
the grey crow visits England on migration in
winter only, whereas the black, when not resident,
is a summer immigrant, and is known as a regular
breeding species in this country. Furthermore, the
habits of the two birds are in many ways dissimilar,
the black crow being distinctly a tree-loving bird,
whilst the grey is rather a frequenter of moors
and waste places, especially of the low hills by the
sea, and even of the shore itself. Yet to set
against this, we have the curious fact that the
two birds mate freely together, and that in the
same nest young of both the black and grey
forms are found. On these grounds, and by reason
of their structural identity, the Editor of Yarrell
concludes that no specific distinction can be main-
tained.

Perhaps the most striking species to be regularly
found in the innumerable lochs of Shetland are
the divers.. This small group, consisting of
three species, the great northern and the black
and red-throated, are well and aptly named.
Divers they are essentially, every line of their
graceful yet powerful forms being drawn with a
view to swift progression beneath the water.

The great northern diver, with the jet-black
plumage of his back and wings barred with regular
lines of pure white, is a conspicuously handsome
bird, the black-throat being only slightly less
striking. Each of the three species frequents
the sea — ^the great northern and the red-throat
occurring on the English coasts in winter — but

169

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

they mostly return in the summer to nest on the
grassy islands of the northern lochs. We have
no record of the great northern actually nesting
so far south as the Shetlands, although birds in
full breeding array are sometimes to be met with,
but on certain of the holms of the more remote
lochs the black-throat is still to be found, and
throughout the whole of the north of Scotland, as
well as in the Shetlands, the red-throat is a
regular nesting species.

In the later autumn these birds take to the
sea, and some time before the coming of bad
weather may be seen with their long necks out-
stretched, making back for the land. From this
habit the red-throat is generally known in Shet-
land as the rain-goose.

One of the most interesting birds of the loch,
still to be seen in the Shetlands, is the red-necked
phalarope. Sometimes, when one is fishing on
the more secluded, reed-fringed waters, a tiny
snipe-like bird, which may easily be mistaken for a
dunlin, darts across the boat, with rapid beats
of its sharp-pointed wings. To one's surprise,
however, it suddenly drops into the water on
nearing the reed-bed, and may be seen placidly
swimming to and fro like a miniature duck.
The nest is usually in a tuft of grass in a wet place,
and the four eggs, sharply pointed, have a green
ground colour with black markings. Unfor-
tunately for its own chances of survival, the
phalarope is of a singularly confiding disposition,
and will often swim without alarm within an oar's
length of the boat. On this account, a most
interesting and attractive species — once plentiful
in Shetland, Orkney, and outer Hebrides — is now
represented by a few pairs only.

Of the ducks which frequent the Shetland
lochs, the mallard is most frequently to be seen.

170

BIRDS OF SHETLAND

These birds nest everywhere on the islands and
in the heather, and may be watched on any
summer evening, together with the mergansers,
conducting their tiny flotillas in and out of the
reed-beds. Often as one fishes on some lonely
loch amidst the hills, the beating of the wild
duck's wings as it goes by over-head in the gloom
is the only sound which breaks the still night air.

In the Shetlands, a tree is a thing hardly known.
Many of the inhabitants have never seen one.
On one occasion, the writer was invited to inspect
a curious natural phenomenon of this order, but
after a weary journey of some miles, it turned out
to be merely a stunted willow or juniper of some
two or three feet in height. No wonder if in this
land, bare of coppice and woodland, the smaller
passerines are conspicuous by their absence.

But if Shetland has no attractions for finch and
warbler, it is a veritable paradise for the sea-bird.
The greater part of the coast-line is broken into
rocky harbours, where the sea-fowl may take
refuge from the beating surf. On every hand
splintered cliffs arise, offering innumerable ledges
for cormorants, guillemots, and kittiwakes. The
voes are well-nigh land-locked and are dotted
with innumerable islets and grassy holms, afford-
ing admirable nesting-places for great and lesser
black-backs, herring gulls and terns; and every-
where shingly beaches and sandy stretches may
be found suitable for the ringed plover, oyster-
catcher, and other shore-loving species.

F0UI.A.
This island is in many respects one of the
most noteworthy breeding stations in the world.
Shut off from the mainland by 20 miles of tur-
bulent ocean, its three irregular mountain peaks
stand clear against the sky, forming a land-mark

171

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

which can be seen from vast distances. Foula
stands in a position of even greater isolation than
the notoriously desolate St. Kilda, inasmuch as it
has no regular steamship service, and its only
means of communication with the outer world is
by casual trading vessels. So intermittent is
the means of correspondence, that a man living at
Walls, one of the nearest points on the mainland,
informed the writer that he once wrote two letters,
one to China and one to a friend in Foula, and
that he received a reply from China first. It
may be noted here that at election times the
returns from Foula are the latest in the United
Kingdom.

The houses, of the usual low, roughly con-
structed cotter type, are dotted about irregularly
in the more sheltered nooks, and the inhabitants
live mainly on their sparse crops and on the pro-
duce of the fishing ; the dried fish being called for
at intervals by the smacks of the fish curers from
Wick and Aberdeen, and tea, sugar, and other
commodities being often given in exchange. One
peculiarity of the natives is that they are nearly
all blood-relations, for the women of the main-
land can rarely be induced to take up their
abode in a spot so remote and inaccessible.

As one approaches the island, when still some
miles distant, small groups mainly of common
guillemots and puffins are met with, growing
steadily more numerous as the land is neared.
Soon the vast cliffs seem to tower to the sky
above one's head, and a marvellous scene is
presented. The lower part of the precipice is
cut off from view by an eternal veil of mi.st-like
spray, constantly shimmering and breaking to
give momentary glimpses of the rocks behind.
Through this mist, sometimes ascending high,
sometimes dropping to the sea, the shadowy

172

BIRDS OF SHETLAND

forms of countless myriads of sea-birds — gulls,
terns, puffins, guillemots — may be made out, their
shrill cries ringing sharply above the muffled
thunder of the surf.

On occasion here, in the clearer sky, a small
colony of Arctic terns may be seen fishing. Light
as gossamer they hover around, and when they
fly over the boat, with beaks pointed to the
waters beneath, the bright coral of their feet can
be seen against their snowy feathers. Now one
shuts its wings, and as though its form had been
turned into marble, falls sheer into the waves.
Unlike the gannet, however, it does not disappear,
but as the splash subsides, it is seen fluttering up-
wards again with a tiny fish in its bill. As it
rises to join its companions in the air, wild cries
are heard — tee-e-e rac tee-e-e rac— in every
direction, and suddenly a swift dark bird sails
into view. Round and round the little white
angler it darts until the latter drops its fish in
terror, sometimes even disgorging those already
swallowed. Before the prey can reach the water
the pirate has seized it with a sudden downward
swoop, and is soon making rapidly off. This
bird — the great skua, the bonxie of Shetland —
is one about which considerable interest gathers,
for it represents a species which a comparatively
few years ago was on the very verge of ex-
tinction as a British species. In the whole of the
United Kingdom a few pairs only were known to
exist — a small colony which nested on the slopes
of Foula, and one, still smaller, on the more
northerly land of Unst. Now, thanks to the
fostering care of the proprietors, these colonies
are becoming more firmly established, and during
the last ten years the numbers of birds nesting
have perceptibly increased.

173

SIDE IvlGHTS ON BIRDS

Sometimes a bird bearing a resemblance to a
very large house-martin flits by— the forked tail,
the disc of white, and the swallow-like flight, all
seem familiar. This is the storm petrel, which,
together with the rarer fulmar, nests in the
cliffs. The white-tailed eagle was at one time
a regular visitor, but its numbers have been
reduced almost to vanishing point.

Both the cormorants, the green and the black,
the former largely predominating, congregate at
points on the splintered crags, and their nests
may be marked, forming regular rookeries. It
is, indeed, well-nigh impossible to visit any part
of the Shetland coast-line without meeting with
the skart, as the green cormorant or shag is locally
named. Perched on prominent peaks, sometimes
with outstretched wings like an eagle on a lectern,
they deck the higher rocks. On the narrow
almost submerged skerry, where the marine
tangle rises and falls to the beat of the sea, one
may see rows of their motionless snake-like heads.
In the more sheltered bays many may be marked,
swimming to and fro, and as the boat draws
nearer, diving with a graceful curve of head and
neck, to come up far away.

Rivalling, if not exceeding, the skart in numbers,
is the black guillemot — the ' ' tystie " of Shetland.
In every tiny bay and harbour, and under the
lea of every broken and pinnacled stack of rock,
wherever, in fact, the troubled waters can find
peace, are little family parties of " tysties."
The old birds, with their deep, black plumage,
and broad bar of white across the wings, can
easily be distinguished from the white-freckled
birds of the year. Now one dives suddenly, and
at times may be seen literally flying under water,
the beating of the pinions having much more to
do with its propulsion than the strokes of its red-

174

BIRDS OF SHETLAND

webbed feet ; now it appears again at some un-
looked-for place, as though nothing had happened,
and rises erect in the water to beat the wave-
drops from its shining wings.

On the less exposed sides of the island the sheer
precipice falls away, and its place is taken by-
gentler declivities, where rank herbage grows
amidst detached boulders. Here, as well as
upon the isolated stacks and holms, the great and
lesser black-headed gulls congregate, and here
their nests of dry grass may be found. The eggs
of both are usually three in number, and are of a
drab or light-olive ground colour, blotched with
grey and dark-brown. As it soars, snowy-
breasted against the blue sky, the great black-
backed gull is a singularly majestic bird— the
largest of his race. Its power is matched by its
voracity, and not content with fish, or with the
wholesale destruction of eggs, and even of young
birds, it will fall upon the weakling lamb on the
hill-side, and rend it in pieces.

On many of the grassy holms to be found, not
only in the voes but in the lochs, colonies of
nesting terns take up their quarters. On land-
ing on one of these the air appears to be suddenly
filled with large white snow-flakes, and from every
hand come the shrill protesting cries. As one
stoops to examine the eggs, which lie on a mere
skeleton of a nest in well-nigh every depression,
one swift form after another will drop from mid-
air, missing one's head by a bare hand's breadth,
and ascending again to the heights in a single
curve. The courage of the tern, and its fidelity
to its young and fallen comrades, lead often to
wanton destruction on these tiny islands. When
a bird is shot the others cluster about it with
distressful cries, and cases have been known where
an entire colony has been pretty nearly decimated

175

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

in a single visit. Fortunately this kind of
" sport" is now keenly resented by both pro-
prietors and natives alike, and gunners of the
" 'Arry " type, even when landing from palatial
yachts, are no longer permitted to have a free
hand.

Two other characteristic Shetland birds may
be here referred to, the oyster-catcher, and the
ringed plover. There are few prettier sights in
bird-life than that presented by a large party of
oyster-catchers as they rest upon and flutter
around a stack of black, splintered rocks, with
their magpie-like plumage and long sealing-wax
bills, glancing in the sunshine, the blue sea for a
background.

The ringed plover, too — the " sandy-loo" of
Shetland — is beautifully in keeping with its sur-
roundings. On the narrow margin of shingle
and sand, which slopes to the sea, this little bird
may be seen running swiftly, and when alarmed,
rising with a soft, piping cry, alighting again at
no great distance. Against the smooth surface
of the sand the jet-black collar and white breast
are at once conspicuous. But let the little sandy-
loo but run upon a belt of shingle, and at once
the eye searches for it in vain. The pebbles,
smoothed and rounded by the sea, are of varied
colours — brown, black, and pure white — and
these match the hues of its plumage so com-
pletely that the small area upon which the bird
rests must be examined with the utmost care
before a living thing can be detected. Upon the
shingle in a slight depression without nest of any
kind, the four eggs, a pale buff streaked with
black, are laid ; and these again harmonise so truly
with their surroundings that even when found,
if the attention be averted for an instant, they

seem to sink into invisibility.

- .4

176

BIRDS OF SHETLAND

It may here be noted that the accepted names
of both these birds are singularly inappropriate.
Why a species which merely feeds, in common
with other birds of the coast, partly on molluscs
of various descriptions, should be specifically
designated oyster-catcher, is difficult to see.
Further, in its most active movements, the oyster
hardly requires " catching," and it is so locally
distributed that the vast majority of the birds
have probably never seen one. Of the ringed
plover, or dotterel, the word dotterel is entirely
misleading, and the black markings which form
a broad shield on the upper breast, and extend
in a faint line to the neck, can only be termed a
ring by a considerable straining of terms. Sea-
pie, on the other hand, is a vivid word-picture of
the one, giving in six letters its haunt and its
characteristic appearance ; whilst sandy-loo iden-
tifies the second at a glance, combining as it does
the bird's habitat with its familiar note.

177

THE OUTER HEBRIDES

CHAPTER XVIII

Some I^ittle Known Islands. Rockall. Benbecuxa.
Fair Island. Vee Skerries, Seven Hunters.

The Outer Hebrides have an unfailing charm
for the naturahst. Much has been written of
St. Kilda, with its mighty cHffs tenanted with
gannets, fulmars and cormorants innumerable —
an island made famous by its very inaccessibility
and isolation. The bare, bleak expanses of
Lewis, or the Lews, as the islanders name it, are
memorable as the home of the " Princess of
Thule,'* and are kept in the public mind by the
activities of Lord Leverhulme who is seeking
to establish new industries there. But many of
the islands in the Hebridean group are practic-
ally unknown : no foot of tourist desecrates their
lonely shores : no steamer calls : they rest ' ' for
ever fixed in the solitary sea " grimly alone save
for the sea-bird and the seal. Such an island is
Sulisgeir, where the gannets nest in numbers
that exceed those of the Bass Rock and Ailsa
Craig put together. The main surface is a con-
fused chaos of rocks, and the only trace of human
habitation consists of a few roughly-built huts
used as shelters by the men who come in due
season to take the eggs and birds. Another
is Rockall, an islet which, from its geographical
position was at one time regarded as suitable for
a meteorological station. But Rockall knows
well how to guard its own privacy. When the
weather is heavy it disappears in a mass of white

178

THE OUTEN HEBRIDES

foam : indeed, the Atlantic waves beat entirely-
over it. The investigator of Rockall gave a
rather discouraging report to the Admiralty.
" There is," he wrote, " no grass nor moss on
the island. I could not say if there is any land-
ing place, but should think not. I don't be-
lieve there is ever a day when a boat could come
near it." In 1887, Mr. Harvie-Brown hoped to
land there from his yacht, but was forced to
abandon the attempt owing to the stress of the
seas. It is said that the island has been visited
by human beings, but if so the results of their
exploration are very meagre. Major Fielden
thought that the botany would prove the most
interesting part, showing the distribution of plants
in a purely oceanic area. " It would be well
worth a visit," he added, " when every scrap of
vegetation and lichens and mosses should be
collected."

BENBECUI.A.

Another curious Hebridean island is Benbecula.
It is not difficult of access in the sense that
Sulisgeir and Rockall are, for instead of pre-
senting a sheer precipice to the visitor it is prac-
tically a dead flat. But in order to approach
it, it is necessary to acquire a clear grip of its
individual peculiarities. The steamboat from
the mainland will put you down on a certain flat
rock, and if you have average luck, your lone
figure will be noted by somebody, and a boat will
be sent down the long rocky voe to your rescue.
Or you may disembark on either of the adjacent
islands, North and South Uist, each of which has
a distinct landing stage, and at low tide you can
walk to Benbecula on the sands.

The island has been described as follows : —
" The sea is here all islands and the land all

179

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

lakes. That which is not mud is bog, and that
which is not bog is lake, and that which is not lake
is sea, and the whole is a labyrinth of islands,
peninsulas, promontories, bays, and channels."
This picture of the quaint little Hebridean spot
which is sandwiched between North and South
Uist, is not, of course, literally true : but it pro-
duces the same sort of mental confusion which
attends a sight of the place itself, and so has an
artistic value. When a man leaves the Craigorry
Inn on the southern shore and wanders forth
unattended, he finds himself in a most bewilder-
ing network of land and water. As he rounds
one heathery mound he discovers that the loch
has stretched a cunning arm right across his
path, and he is just about to retire discomfited,
when he observes that the land has retaliated by
throwing out a bridge to what a moment before
appeared to be an inaccessible island. This
trellised configuration makes walking difficult
but it has distinct advantages for the bird watcher.
The cliff species, the guillemots and gannets, are
not much in evidence, although one or two of
the latter may go over at times on their broad
white black-tipped wings, but the place is a very
paradise for the waterfowl. Wild swans, geese,
ducks of many kinds including the eider — for
many of the winding waterways are really arms
of the sea — find here a congenial home. Snipe
spring from the reedy pools, lapwings wheel in
the air, ringed plover, oyster-catchers, turnstone
and sometimes the rarer bar-tailed godwit, run
hither and thither ; on the shingly banks ; and the
interesting thing is that by reason of the sudden
turns and of land and water, you find yourself
constantly in close proximity to species that
normally keep you at a respectful distance.

i8o

THE OUTER HEBRIDES

Fair Isi^and.

Midway between the Orkney and Shetland
groups is an island known as Fair Isle, which,
although it has no less than 130 inhabitants, is
practically shut off from the world. The steam-
ships that pass by on their way to lycrwick never
call for there is no sufficient harbour, and
the rocky coast is guarded by dangerous tidal
streams. Sometimes in very calm weather, a
considerate captain will stop his ship for awhile,
when small boats from the island will come along-
side, their occupants clamouring for discarded
newspapers, or other tidings from the world of
living men.

Dr. Eagle Clarke may be said to have brought
the island into some prominence, for he discovered
in 1905 that it was an ideal spot for observing the
movements of migrant birds. Although it has
an area of only a few miles he has shown from his
investigations that it is visited by one half of the
birds that have ever been known to have occurred
in the British Isles, and he, himself, has recorded
from Fair Isle several species new to the British
list.

" The island," Dr. Clarke writes, " is hardly
known to the general public, save perhaps as the
scene of the wreck, in the autumn of 1588, of
' El Gran Grifon ' one of the ships of the Spanish
Armada, whose crew spent several months there
in a more or less starving condition, and in great
wretchedness, for the dwellings of the inhabitants
were then the filthiest hovels and the natives
poverty-stricken in the extreme. It can boast,
however, of having received some distinguished
visitors in the past, for Sir Walter Scott landed
there in August 14, 1814, and Mr. R. ly. Stevenson
paid a short visit in June 21, 1869." Some
years ago, attracted by the possibilities of

181

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

Fair Isle as an observation post, the Duchess of
Bedford, herself a keen and able ornithologist,
took up a temporary residence there. Among
the birds of extreme rarity as visitors to the
British Isles, obtained by Dr. Clarke at Fair
Island, are the Blue-throated Wheatear, Subal-
pine Warbler, Siberian ChifE-chaff, I^anceolated
Grasshopper Warbler, Red-throated Pipit, Green-
land Red-poll, Black-headed Bunting, Rustic
Bunting, Yellowshank, etc. The Pine Bunting,
Thrush-nightingale, Northern Willow-Warbler,
Blyth's Reed Warbler and the Red-rumped
Swallow, also recorded by Dr. Clarke, are new to
the British list.

Vee Skerries.

One advantage of an interest in Natural History
is that it constantly leads one to places that are
neglected by the rest of the world.

A long wave-swept reef of rocks, barren and
deserted, lying far from all recognised routes, and
involving a toilsome journey to reach, has no
charm whatever for the normally constituted
tourist, even if he chances to notice on the map
the small black dot that represents it, which is
unlikely. Away to the west of the Shetlands is
such a reef, known as the Vee Skerries. Possibly
the crew of a stray whaler may run a boat once
in the space of years into one of its weedy channels
but there seems to be no special reason why they
should do so. In any case the men who volun-
teered to conduct our little expedition from the
nearest point on the main-land, said they had
never landed there, and the idea of anybody even
wishing to seemed to strike them as being strange.

At low tide a considerable area of rock lay un-
covered, and in the deep clear pools, bright with
vari-coloured seaweeds, the remains of wreckage
might be seen that has probably rested there un-
touched for centuries.

182

THE OUTER HEBRIDES

All around, the island gave one the impression
of having been handed over to wild creatures
from the beginning of things. From the sloping
rocks seals slipped lazily into the sea, and re-
mained near at hand, their round heads bobbing
like corks, and their soft eyes turned with wonder
in the direction of the strange invaders of their
peace.

On the slightly raised plateau in the centre,
shags, oyster-catchers, and black guillemots fore-
gathered ; innumerable terns and gulls, including
the stately forms of the great black-backs hovered
around, or rested on the sea, and a colony of turn-
stones were busily engaged on the, shingle and
weedy stones.

Now our attention was attracted to some tiny
birds flitting from rock to rock. They were
clearly of warbler-like build, but in their immature
plumage were not at first easy to identify. We
knew them at last as pied flycatchers, plainly
resting there on one of their strange journeys;
but with no tree, shrub, or scrap of cover of any
kind on the island, they seemed oddly out of
place.

SEVEN HUNTERS.

Ikying some 20 miles west of lycwis, and forming
an outpost of Great Britain, is a curious group of
islands known as the Fannans, or the Seven
Hunters. These may well claim the palm for
isolation, for they are guarded by precipitous
cliffs, which slope for 200 feet or more almost
sheer to the sea, and are normally inaccessible.
One only, Eilean Mor, may be said to be in-
habited for here is a lighthouse station, ap-
proached by a perilous stairway cut in the rock.
The remaining six rest in the ocean with the raven
and the peregrine in permanent ownership. Al-
though they possess little or nothing in the way of
cover, usually associated with bird life, the

X83

SIDE IvlGHTS ON BIRDS

Fannans have the strongest interest for the
ornithologist. Vast numbers of birds break
their journey there, both on their spring and
autumn passages.

Some idea of the number of bird visitors to
these bleak outlying rocks may be gained from
the fact that 115 species have already been re-
corded, including such extremely rare and un-
expected varieties as the Short-toed L,ark, the
Two-barred Crossbill, the Siberian Skylark, and
the Pratincole. One interesting experience men-
tioned is that on a certain morning following a
high wind from the south-west, the island was
found to be swarming with jack snipe.

As one thinks of these desolate rocks in the
Hebrides the mind goes back to a very different
scene.

In one of the vast Muskoka lakes in Canada there
is a little island that is never visited, yet it is a
perfect little paradise for the naturalist. From
its soft grassy banks great maples spring, casting
their shade over a vast profusion of flowers.
Swallow-tails, black-veined browns, and many
other butterflies flit hither and thither, and
through the dark green leaves one may catch the
golden gleam of the Baltimore oriole or the
metallic sheen of the pui-ple grackle. As evening
draws near the strange cry of the whip-poor-will
rings out from the woods, and the black bass
begin to move in the rock pools.

A most charming little estate where, surely, a
philosopher might hve contentedly.

Yet it is unknown, or at any rate, the nearest
inhabitant, a man who combined the duties of
landlord of the hotel, land agent, and so on, had
never heard of it.

However we located it together on the map.
" Nice little spot, you think," he said. " Well,
I'll sell it to you — 15 dollars."

184

Pied Fly-catcher at Nesting H01.E

To face p. 185

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

CHAPTER XIX

British Birds in a new Setting. Birds in the Open Sea.
Stavanger. Bergen. White Wagtaies, Hornellen.
MuEDOEN. Ubiquitous Starlings. How Absence of
Darkness affects Birds. Young Fieldfares. The
NoRDFjoRD. The Stryn Valley. Concentration of
Birds near Homesteads. Fieldfare Colonies. Pre-
carious Nesting of Spotted Flycatcher. Pied Fly-
catchers. Wheatears. Familiar Bird Figures Missing.
The Josterd.al Glacier. Common Gulls Nesting. San-
dene AND Skei. Tame Magpies. Pied Flycatchers in
the Homes. Sandpipers and REDSiL^NTiS. A Dipper's
Nest, TheBrambling. NedreVasenden. Roof Gardens.

Ryper.

Norway is essentially a land for the bird-lover.
It may be that the English ornithologist, even he
who wanders far from the beaten tourist tracks,
may not meet with many species entirely new
to him — ^the charm lies in the fact that here he
will see birds which he has known as winter
visitors only, nesting in sunny valleys at the feet
of the eternally snow-capped hills ; that here
birds, rare in the British Isles, become of regular
occurrence ; and, finally, that the shyest species
appear to throw off their reserve in Norway,
and being unmolested by the gentle inhabitants,
become the familiar friends of man, rearing their
nestlings about his home-steads, and alighting
upon bough, verandah, or roadway almost within
reach of his hand.

In this land of mountain, pine-wood and lake,
where mighty rivers leap over rocks a thousand
feet high, and where the snows of the glacier

185

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

creep even in July, down the declivities to valleys
of the tenderest green, birds, butterflies, and
flowers even the most familiar, stand out as it
were in a new setting, and are invested with an
interest unknown before from the wildness and
wonder of their environment.

Leaving Hull on May 29 we note a few herring
gulls hawking over the murky water. These
follow the ship, and as we coast the long line of
sand-dunes with the Spurn Lighthouse at their
point, no other form of bird life comes in sight.

In the open sea, in the early morning, we mark
one or two herring gulls still following in our
wake, ready to swoop down on any debris thrown
from the ship, and now and then a casual lesser
black-back joins the group.

From time to time one or another of our attend-
ants falls away, and for long we can follow with
the glass its drifting form as it seems to wander
aimlessly over the desolate waste of water. Now
and again some refuse thrown overboard from the
cook's galley causes wild excitement in the more
persistent birds. Instantly abandoning the
poised position, where, often on motionless wing,
and with watchful heads turning from right to
left, they have followed for hours the vessel's
course, they drop with wild cries into the waves.
Now one seizes some morsel and is at once at-
tacked and pursued by his fellows ; and one notices
again how out of the vast emptiness of sea and
sky new-comers seem to spring into being, and
join the gathering, which dispute for every scrap
ere it is lost in the diminishing white line in our
ship's wake.

Bird life in the North Sea is never very con-
spicuous, but at times, during the season of
migration, some interesting incidents may be
witnessed. We recall an August morning when

186

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

from the upper deck we were able to make out a
tiny bird far away, which later we saw to be a
wheatear, barely topping the waves as it beat
its lonely way against the wind. It appeared to
be struggling to cross the ship's course, and at
length it succeeded, dropping wearily on deck
and taking refuge beneath the nearest chair.

It remained there all day, and we fear its
assisted passage availed it little, for its destination
was plainly England, and we were taking it back
to Norway. In the morning it had gone.

It is midnight when the ship reaches St av anger,
with its quaint red, blue, and yellow wooden
houses built far into the fjord. In the wan
light gulls flit over the silent harbour, and here
we note for the first time the common gull mingling
with the more familiar herring and lesser black-
backed. All through the wilderness of rocky
islands, backed by the distant ranges of snow-
capped mountains, which lie between Stavanger
and Bergen, the common gull is rarely long absent,
and later, in all the inland lakes, it comes to be
one of our most familiar companions.

At Bergen, noted for its excellent museum
and for its fish market where, from a line of tanks,
the purchaser makes his selection from living fish
of divers sorts as they swim hither and thither,
and bears it home still flapping, in basket or bass,
or on a wire attachment, there is little to remark
in the way of bird-life. Sparrows and starlings
haunt the streets, and the ubiquitous gulls move
amidst the shipping, but save for the note of a
willow- wren from some distant trees, and a white
wagtail tripping on the stones of the quay, we
find sparse material for the note-book.

An examination of this latter bird shows at
once the difference between the white wagtail
and our own familiar pied race. The bird, long

187

SIDE IvlGHTS ON BIRDS

ago set apart by Gould, and now described as
M. alba, is also pied, but the darker plumage of
back and wings lacks the clear-cut distinctness
of our own magpie-like bird, and merges from the
white into an iron-grey. Although the pied
wagtail, as we know it, occurs in Norway and
Sweden, it may be taken that the white is the
form almost universally found on the Continent,
and in parts of Norway it is almost impossible to
find a house, barn, or saeter which this graceful
little bird neglects to frequent.

On the question as to whether our pied wag-
tail should be regarded as specifically distinct
from the light-coloured bird, Professor Newton
writes in the fourth edition of Yarrell : —

" The reader may gather that the editor, by
his treatment of such cases as are afforded by
Parus ater and Acredula caudata, is not prone to
raise local races to specific rank on slight grounds,
but the present differs from those cases insomuch
as specimens intermediate in colouring seem to
be wanting, and, though each form not unfre-
quently encroaches on the other's borders, and
instances of their inter-breeding are said to be
known, each very remarkably maintains its proper
character."

On the other hand, although it has been stated
that some slight difference has been observed in
the note, it cannot be denied that the distinction
rests practically on the plumage, and that in their
life and habit the two races are identical. They
nest in the same kind of place, using a like material,
their eggs are indistinguishable, and their move-
ments in flight and on foot show no points of
difference.

In the deep, black fjords, which lie between
Bergen and the Nordfjord, although bird-life
is, of necessity, sparse, many familiar figures may

i88

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

be noted. Gulls are always in evidence, and
occasionally the form of a great black-backed
gull looms largely amidst its congeners. Now.
small groups of eider ducks move in the moie
sheltered estuaries, an oyster-catcher alights on
a rock, or a black cormorant wings its sombre way
across the fjord. Once a velvet scoter is marked
in the distance, and on several occasions the dark
form of an Arctic skua darts like a sinister shadow
through little parties of gulls and terns, spreading
instant dismay and confusion in their ranks.

Again it is midnight when the ship passes be-
neath the mighty rock of Hornellen, which rises
for more than 3,000 feet sheer from the fjord.
On a craggy island is the little hamlet of Muldoen,
where the ship's captain courteously stops his en-
gines in order to permit us to land. So in the wan
light we descend the great vessel's side to the tiny
boat on the black water beneath, and are rowed
to where a tangle of quaint wooden erections mark
the quay. The hotel — or what stands for such —
is dark and appears to be uninhabited, but we
find a supper spread, and from the many weird
comestibles we select a meal. I^ater we are dis-
covered by a sleepy hand-maiden, innocent of
English, and eventually reach our beds.

The coasting steamer which is to take us down
the Nordfjord is due at midday, so we have some
hours to inspect our environment. We are in a
black, rocky cup, the upper edges of which are
broken into serrated crests, capped with snow.
At our feet lies the fjord, and on the opposite
shore, tiny red and blue houses are perched on
apparently inaccessible crags, laced with white
waterfalls. Muldoen itself, with its single road,
irregular wooden houses, white church, and
crudely painted hotel,- clings to the side of a
precipice, and as the eye is turned upwards, it

189

SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS

is seen that every patch of earth in the crevices
of the rock is shaped into a field, and that the
main agriculture is conducted on angles which,
in some cases, approach the perilous. Bird-life
is by no means plentiful, but here, as elsewhere,
the starlings are constantly in evidence. Before
we arise the famihar cry greets us, as sternus alights
on the spout of the hotel to feed its clamouring
young, and later, at every landing stage, the
black line which Jefferies says the starling appears
to draw through the air may be seen by the eye
of imagination, as the birds press in their urgent
business to and fro, from every vantage ground in
house or shed where a nesting site has been found.
It is an interesting matter for speculation how
far the absence of darkness in the Norwegian
summer night affects the bird population. Cer-
tainly, in the case of the starling, it appears to
delude the parent birds into working overtime
to an extraordinary extent. Seeing the birds
still busily engaged at midnight and again often
as early as three in the morning one might well
wonder if they ever sleep at all. Smoking a
final pipe, however, on the balcony of the hotel,
which commands a view of a small fir-wood
directly beneath, we are able to find something
in the way of a solution of the question. At 12.10
we note a starling leave its nestlings, still noisy
and hungry, in their cleft in the roof. It flies
down and alights on a fairly conspicuous bough
near the top of a fir tree. Here it remains
motionless for half-an-hour or more, until we
retire. Looking from the balcony again at 2.45,
the dark form still faces us clearly visible in the
broadening daylight. At 3.10 the clamour of
the young stirs again the still air, and a glance
from the window shows that the parents have
resumed their daily task.

190

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

At Muldoen one of the first birds to attract our
attention is the fieldfare. There is no mis-
taking the hazel-brown and ash-grey of the
plumage as the bird flits through the trees. A
little later, from the rough tussocks and shrubs
in the church-yard, a young fieldfare flutters up
at our feet. The fieldfare nests fairly early in
May, but at this date (June 3) one hardly ex-
pected to find the young already fully fledged.
Ivater, when we come to investigate many large
colonies, we find the nestlings in all stages of
development, and out of some scores of nests
which we examine, a very small minority contain
eggs.

Now the steamer takes its way down the Nord-
fjord, that vast ravine where black precipitous
rocks tower for thousands of feet, and merge into
snowy crests, which stand pale and immaculate
against the blue sky. Through this great fissure,
which cleaves the mainland, we travel until at
length, in the small hours of the morning, the
estuary of Visnes is reached. The chief hotel,
with its carved and gaudily painted verandahs
and balconies, exists for the tourist crowd alone,
and is not yet open, so we, perforce, take up our
lodgment in the more modest hostelry which
nestles in the trees a small distance inland.

At our feet, the Stryn River, famous for the
weight of its salmon, joins the estuary, and when
later, we trace its course upwards to the lakes
from which it descends, we find it flows through
a delightful valley, well wooded and cultivated,
which turns out to be a veritable paradise of
birds. Norway is often described as a land of
desolation ; and it is true, indeed, that one may
travel for many miles through fjord, mountain,
or pine wood and catch no glimpse of living thing.
Here, as in so many places elsewhere, the larger

191

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

forms of wild life grow warier in habit and fewer
in number as the years go by. Sometimes in the
winter from the point wiiere we stand a giant moose
may be seen to emerge from the forest edge, or
the view of a herd of reindeer may be caught as
they traverse the distant snow-field. The lynx
and the bear still exist ; indeed, a fine specimen
of the latter was shot by the farmers in the moun-
tains that face us, during the present year, and
foxes of giant size are not uncommon, but the wolf
once numerous, has been exterminated, and the
colonies of the beaver grow fewer and fewer.

In the case of the birds, it becomes clear as we
journey that they are not spread broadcast over
the land as they are in garden-like England ; rather
do they seek certain places, some happy valley
with sheltered homesteads, fields and woods, and
here they concentrate, returning year after year
to rear their young.

Such a place truly is the Stryn Valley, and
one may safely say that the bird-lover may
traverse the whole continent and find no spot
richer in number and variety.

From the farmhouse at Gorvan, which lies
midway between the estuary of the lakes, a
score or more different species may be marked
during the smoking of a pipe on the little balcony
that faces the hihs. From the right, where the
green and white torrent of the river rushes through
the pines and silver birches, the piping of the
redshank and the sandpiper may be constantly
heard ; now a broad-winged heron flaps overhead,
or a pair of mergansers, their white-lined plumage
conspicuous, go by. Over the hills, coming from
the inaccessible crags where it nests, the dark
form of the raven may be made out, or the higher-
soaring hawk, but the latter, with the exception
of the kestrel, seems to be rare. At the edge of a

192

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

waterfall close to the road a dipper is building,
and we see her from time to time turn from the
broad thoroughfare of the river to follow the course
of the streamlet-byway that leads to her home.
Never for a moment are we without the white
wagtails, drooping with soft call-note from the
eaves of the barn, and tripping lightly on the
road or on the steps of the house. Among other
extremely numerous species are the yellow-
hammer, wheatear, whinchat, willow-wren, white-
throat, hooded crow, magpie, not to name the
well-nigh ubiquitous fieldfare.

In Yarrell it is stated that Hewitson was
the first Englishman to publish from his own
observation an account of the fieldfare's nidi-
fication in Norway. He describes how after a
long ramble through thick woods he was de-
lighted to discover a colony, which he at first
took to be shrikes. Whether the fieldfare was
a less common bird generally in 1833, when
Hewitson wrote, or whether in the area he visited
the species was less prolific, we cannot, of course,
say. But the fact remains that to-day, around
the Nordfjord, and in all the road-side woods
extending from Sandene to Vadheim on the
Sognefjord, the fieldfare literally abounds, and
is a far more common and conspicuous species
than the thrush is in England. The nests are
built in the most conspicuous positions, mainly in
forks, but sometimes on the outer boughs of the
various trees and bushes. The silver birch and
the hazel predominate here and are largely chosen.
Many nests can be reached without climbing, some
are almost on the ground, and none exceed a
height of some twenty or thirty feet. They are
constructed after the manner of the song thrush's,
but are deeper, and in the mud cup a lining of
dried grass, three to four inches thick, is added.

193

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

The eggs vary in colour from the blue-grey
closely speckled type of the blackbird, to those
of clearer ground colour with larger red markings,
which remind one of the mistle thrush. In one
instance we find an egg destitute of all markings ;
the ground colour a pale blue, resembling a
starling's. The colonies are easily discovered, for
as one approaches some thin belt of trees, the
familiar " clack-clack" is heard on every hand,
as the birds fly restlessly from branch to branch.
Now, as one draws near the first prominent nest
in the fork of a silver birch, others, equally pro-
minent, spring into view, looming large through
the thin veil of the leaves. The whole com-
munity is now in a state of excitement, and the
owners of the nest we are examining make re-
peated onslaughts on the intruder, descending
suddenly from a height after the manner of tern
or skua, and sometimes barely missing one's
head.

In other parts of the country we have usually
found a minority of redwings in the colony, but
here we meet with one example only.
t' In Norway one frequently sees a small cloud
of fieldfares mobbing the hooded crow, and it is
by no means uncommon to mark the arch
marauder as he bears a fledgling away in his bill.

From this little balcony in the Stryn Valley,
one is constantly attracted by some incident in
bird-life. Now a spotted flycatcher alights on
the rail, a bare hand's width away. Its de-
meanour plainly indicates a nest, but we look in
vain for ivy or creeper which might form a suitable
cover. Yet here the nest is — a small mossy cup —
built without any attempt at hiding, in the spout
which edges the roof of a lower building a few feet
away. When the rain comes the nest must, of
necessity, be inundated, but considerations of

194

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

danger appear to affect the birds in no degree
whatever. Another case of what must be de-
scribed as almost criminally negligent nest-
building comes to our notice a little later. A
perfectly bare, fully-exposed wooden building
stands near the road. Its blank exterior shows
no projection nor lodgment of any kind, except
the narrow ledge above the single window-frame.
Yet upon this a spotted flycatcher's nest is pre-
cariously fixed, conspicuously inviting the atten-
tion of every passer-by.

Nor is the pied flycatcher much less reticent.
These birds are exceptionally common, and in
the Stryn Valley it is rare to visit any of the
little clustering homesteads without catching a
glimpse of the black and white plumes as the
bird flits from roof or post. Many of the houses
and saeters are constructed from old ships'
timbers, and the holes through which the re-
taining bolts have passed form, apparently, most
attractive passages for these little birds. On no
occasion do we find a pied flycatcher nesting in
the hole of a tree as in England, although we have
no doubt that the occurrence is a common one.
But in all the cases we mark, the flycatchers have
taken advantage of these holes which conduct
them to a cosy space between the outer and
inner timbers practically within the house, and in
one instance, the hen bird is sitting within a few
inches of the family dining table, separated there-
from by the thin boarding alone, through the
clinks of which she may be perceived.

Day by day willow-wrens are singing from
well-nigh every coppice, and whinchats are hardly
less common. The wheatear, too, is one of the
more conspicuous birds, and following the habit
of all the smaller tribes in Norway, appears to be
drawn to the small areas where men mostly con-

195

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

gregate. One may wander for days in the wilder
and more desolate regions, and find woods and
mountains alike empty of bird-life, but draw near
the little cluster of saeters, rest awhile at the
road-side that runs through the village, and one
is often astonished at the number and variety
of species which may be seen. In the case of the
wheatears, the large stones which, in lieu of walls,
are set up at intervals on the road-sides to protect
the traffic are a constant attraction. From one
to another of these the wheatears flit as the
traveller proceeds, and as at each base there is
usually some cranny or crevice, here the wheatears
nest. Unlike the wagtails, which usually build at
some little elevation from the ground, the wheat-
ears prefer a hole into which they can run from
the level of the ground below, and in none of the
many nests which we examine, all containing
young, do we find an instance where flight to the
opening is necessary.

One bird enters a crevice of this kind, and on
removing with difficulty a large stone, we find an
empty nest, from which the young have plainly
flown. We replace the stone, but on returning
some hours later we still find the bird in attend-
ance. As she continues from time to time to
re-enter the deserted retreat, we remove the
obstacle again, and examine the recess more
fully. Hidden behind the soiled and bedraggled
nest is a young wheatear, fully fledged and
normally well able to take its place in the outer
world ; but around one leg some thin, strong
fibres, or hairs, have become so securely twisted
that the bird is held captive to the spot. So
tightly has the ligature become bound to the
limb, probably in the nestling's earliest infancy,
that the whole of the foot has practically dis-
appeared, and the bird remains secured by the

196

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

stump alone. After setting the captive free and
replacing the stone we are pleased to see the
mother, who from her expostulations has plainly-
mistaken our intentions, at once re-enter, and
we can only trust that the cripple, notwithstanding
its early misfortune, may prosper and live to
make some return for the maternal devotion.

We leave the little valley of Stryn with regret,
but as our aim is to explore some of the more
remote lakes in the hills with the view of testing
the trout fishing we cannot remain longer. Our
next stop is at Loen, and here, in a birch wood
on the mountain side, we catch our first glimpse
of the green woodpecker. Most of the familiar
species are to be met with here, including the
pied flycatcher and the fieldfare. In the early
morning a whitethroat sings incessantly in the
bushes beneath the window, and sandpipers and
redshanks call from the banks of the estuary.

Many birds, however, which one might well
expect to meet with are conspicuous by their
absence. House- and sand-martins are fairly
common, but we see one example only of the
swallow, and none of the swift. The twite is
constantly seen, but the grey linnet and the lesser
redpoll evade our attention, if they are present
at all. Of the tits, too, we find no trace of the
blue, although we rarely travel far without falling
in with both the great and the coal tits. The
fieldfare is, of course, the representative thrush,
but we see no single example of our own song
thrush, and but two of the English blackbird.
At Loen we find a solitary specimen of the robin,
the only bird of the kind, with one exception, that
we meet with during our tour. Chaffinches are
common, and the brambHng, in suitable places,
scarcely less so, but a single pair of bullfinches
alone reward our search, and we see nothing
whatever of the common crossbill.

197

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

One feature of Loen is that it is partly sur-
rounded by the great Josterdal glacier— the largest
glacier in Europe. At certain points the ice
precipices descend into the valleys, and as the ice
melts the outflow from these form rivers thac
take their broken course through great desert
areas of rocks borne down from the mountains.

Here a colony of common gulls is nesting, and
when we approach they at once rise and fill the
air with their protesting cries. As we rest behind
a rock, however, peace is gradually restored, and
watching through the glasses we see the gulls,
one by one, subside upon some grassy hollow in
the stones, and resume their position on the
nests. In order to reach them it is necessary to
wade through one or more of the ice rivers which
meander through the stony desert, and soon the
nests are all around us, each conspicuously placed
on some slight elevation, with the brown, mottled
eggs in full view. On most of the islands and
promontories of the lakes in the hills the common
gull is a constant nesting species, and shares
with the redshank and the sandpiper the solitudes
which are rarely invaded by man.

Leaving Loen, we take the coasting steamer
which brings us to Sandene, an important centre,
with distinct traces of a street. Here civilisation
is rife, for not only is the telephone in general
use — ^this is now a mere common-place in Norway
— ^but a commodious motor car, known as the
" 'bile," awaits us at the hotel door. Those
who remember the precipitous ravines which lie
between Sandene and Redd, when the little
stolkjserre appeared at times to be standing almost
on end, supported only by a cautious pony,
which felt its way down the smooth rocks after
the manner of a fly descending a window-pane,
might well pause to wonder how the ' ' 'bile "
was about to perform its office.

198

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

But the driver takes the road with calmness
and discretion, and although in places where the
track is hewn from the living rock, five hundred
feet above the black waters of the lake, his outer
wheels have rarely more than a few inches to spare,
he continues his course with speed scarcely abated.

At certain points on the journey, little crowds,
mainly of children, still gather to gaze on the
wondrous machine, but for the most part, curiosity
and awe have been relegated to the ponies and
cattle. Now and again, at some awkward turn,
we come suddenly on a herd of the latter, browsing
on the steep roadside. Instantly they throw
up their deer-like heads, and career down the
track, followed cautiously by the new-fangled
monster ; now, a small rift comes in the dense
edging of trees, and the slim, dun forms burst
through the coppice and make for the peaceful
heights.

In about four hours Skei is reached, a delight-
ful fishing centre, set at the head of the Jolster
Lake, and with a chain of lesser but more prolific
lakes behind. A small garden is attached to the
hotel, and here a family party of magpies have
taken up their residence, the abandoned nests
standing conspicuously in the upper branches of
a fir tree. The young birds roost night by night
in the garden, and throughout the whole day
flutter around the hotel, closely attended by their
parents. They have all the appearance of being
domesticated, and should a stray dog venture
into the enclosure, which they have come to
regard as their own, he is instantly mobbed by
the older birds. The plan of campaign is for
each parent to alight in turn on the summit of a
fir tree, then to drop suddenly, with indignant
cries, almost upon the back of the amazed dog,
and to return at once to the point of vantage to

199

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

prepare for a further attack. The persistency
and regularity of the movements of the birds
have plainly a most bewildering effect upon the
intruder, and he makes his escape from the dis-
turbed area at the earliest opportunity.

To the left of the hotel, built in irregular order,
in a setting of firs and silver birches, are a number
of small wooden houses, and here the wagtails
and pied flycatchers have formed quite a little
settlement of their own. In one case the house
is constructed around a large rock, and one ap-
proaches the doorway by climbing from one natural
ledge to another. On this stairway of Nature
an old woman, wearing the picturesque head-gear
of her country, is seated, busily knitting. At
the side of the house a tree in full green leaf
grows, barely hiding a small round hole in the
timbers at the side of the doorway. Here the
little pied flycatchers pop in and out ; now the
sober-hued hen alights on the rock at the old
dame's feet ; now the cock airs his black and
white plumes amid the green leaves within a few
inches of her long steadily moving needles. Per-
fect familiarity has removed all trace of fear on
the one part, and of curiosity on the other. The
patient knitter never raises her head to glance at
the birds ; the birds pursue their daily labours,
with little interludes of song and flirtation, without
reference to the house-mother, who watches over
the common home. With the chickens on the
rock, clustering about the doorway, and frequently
entering the room, the little family picture is
complete.

The lakes behind the hotel form a chain, linked
together by a narrow river. In one case the
channel is barely wide enough to admit the boat,
and the propelhng is done by thrusting an oar into
either bank alternately. The banks rise high

200

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

above one's head, and are covered with a dense
tangle of vegetation, the yellow fluff from the
willow-catkins forming in places a deep bed on the
surface of the water. These channels, rarely
disturbed, form delightful sanctuaries for many
living things. Here the willow-wren, yellow-
hammer, tree-pipit, chaffinch, brambling, mallard,
dabchick, and many other species may be noted.

In some places the crystal-clear water is eight
or ten feet deep, and one may see the great trout
lying like shadows amid the variegated mosses
below. Resting here to evade the glare of the
sun, one may come to learn something of the ways
of the fish, and it appears no longer strange that
for hours at a stretch the surface of the lake
should show no sign of life, although, later, for
no apparent reason, the whole glassy expanse is
broken by rising trout.

The fact is simply that for periods, more or
less long, the trout rest in the lower deeps, asleep,
or, at any rate, oblivious to all that may be passing
around them. Peering into the glassy depths, we
see one long dimly outlined form lying on the
silver sand, just clear of a dark tongue of weed
that projects from the bed. A worm dropped
cautiously from above passes him within a few inches
but he gives no sign of recognition. Save for the
movement of fins and tail as they sway, weed-like,
in the current, one might take him for a sub-
merged log of wood. For an hour or more he
lies thus ; if he moves at all it is but to drift lazily
a few feet away, and resume his position a little
lower down, turning his head again to the running
water.

But now a change comes ! The sun still^ beats
down unpityingly. There is no change in the
atmospheric conditions that we are subtle enough
to note. But a sudden awakening appears to

201

SIDE UGHTS ON BIRDS

come simultaneously to all the fish in this pool of
glass. Forms before unnoted spring into being
from the clustering weeds, and cruise hither and
thither as though bent on some urgent quest.
Our own goodly trout throws off his lethargy,
and with one vigorous sweep of his tail rises high
in the current, and is lost in the crowd of hurrying
forms. And the uprising, whatever may be its
cause, is not confined to the denizens of our little
pool. It is as if the trout in the whole water
possessed one soul in common, and that the im-
pulse that moved the one swept through the entire
community as a single vibration. Looking
through the vista of the trees to the erst-placid
lake beyond we see that the whole surface is
alive with dimpling rings.

In the channels, wherever broken masses of
stone appear through the vegetation, white wag-
tails may be noted, and sandpipers and red-
shanks constantly flit from rock to rock. The
redshanks nest about the lakes in great numbers,
and wherever one lands it is clear from the distress-
ful notes of the parent birds that they have young
hidden in the herbage in the near neighbourhood.
Over-anxiety is the bane of the redshank race.
The passer-by would constantly take his way un-
heeding, through the tussocks, were it not that the
two slim brown forms, their white plumes and
long red legs conspicuous as they fly, almost bar
his passage, alighting on every vantage point of
rock or rail, even at times on the stimted trees
themselves, in order to protest in the most
vociferous terms against his intrusion.

From the great snow-capped mountains which
partly surround the Skei lakes a mighty waterfall
descends, the broad white line on the heights
breaking into a hundred foaming channels as the
rocks crop up to divert the water's course. The

202

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

varying torrents rush into one vast black cup of
rock, the deeps of which may be seen only in
glimpses when the veil of spray is for a moment
wafted aside. Into this roaring chaos a little
dipper, bearing food in her bill, and looking
strangely small and insignificant against the
colossal wall of water, disappears at regular in-
tervals, soon to emerge and to beat her steadfast
flight down the short river which leads to the lake.
It is impossible to see the nest, but imagination
can easily picture the mossy dome perched on
the dripping ledge faced by the dense curtain of
perpetual spray. In this strange nursery the
little dippers first see the light, and here they
await the coming of the food-bearer, who punctu-
ally bursts upon them through the curtain, ir-
radiated by rainbow gleams of green, red, and gold,
which shuts them out from the unknown world
beyond.

From the foot of the waterfall the ground
falls in an easy slope, where trees are set at in-
tervals— mostly silver birches and hazels — after
the manner of trees in an orchard. Many birds
flit hither and thither — fieldfares are busily engaged
in feeding their clamorous young ; spotted fly-
catchers dart from dead, overhanging boughs, re-
turning sentinel-like to their posts ; a gleam of black
and white through the leaves marks the position of a
pied flycatcher ; and from the rocks of the tur-
bulent little river ring incessantly the cries of the
sandpiper and the redshank. Now a sound
coming from the summit of a denser cluster of
silver birches attracts the attention. It rather
resembles the deep " tween-tween " of the green-
finch, but with care it is easy to detect a differ-
ence in the quality of the present note from that
of the more familiar cry. Besides, hitherto we
have found no sign of the greenfinch in the lands

203

SIDE I.IGHTS ON BIRDS

through which we have travelled. A flutter
comes in the leaves, and a gleam of white-lined
wings is caught, that at first points to the chaf-
finch ; but in a moment more the bird hops upon
an outer spray, and the clear black and chestnut
plumes clearly disclose the brambling. In the
deeper cover the nest is at last made out. It is
placed in the outer boughs of a birch some ten feet
from the ground, and it is possible to bend down
the branches by means of the hook on the landing
net, so that the mossy cup can be inspected without
need of climbing the tree.

The nest strongly resembles that of the chaf-
finch, but is looser in construction, and is decorated
with shavings of different hues, which the bird
has borne from a saeter near at hand, where a
wood-cutter has been at work.

The eggs, too, may easily be mistaken for those
of the chaffinch, especially in the matter of the
spots, which have the slightly inflamed appear-
ance characteristic of the chaffinch's, but the
ground colour, in a general way, appears to be
slightly redder. We should imagine from the
types we have seen that the eggs of the brambling
show a greater variation than those of the chaf-
finch. Of the three nests we came across one was
placed in the slender fork of the main stem of the
tree, and all were close to the river ; one, indeed,
was upon a small island.

The Jolster Lake, i6 miles in length, lies in a
cup surrounded by more or less precipitous moun-
tains. The little steamer Skjold, plies daily be-
tween Skei or Upper Vasenden and Nedre
Vasenden — in English, the lower end of the water.
The hotel here commands a wonderful view of the
river, which rushes in a mighty flood into the
ravine beyond, tearing through a labyrinth of
huge boulders, and losing itself later in a network

204

Bramblixgs

To face p. 204

NORWEGIAN BIRD NOTES

of green islands and promontories, where the
silvery hues of the birches gleam against the
darkness of the pines. For the whole of its
course this river presents a succession of beautiful
scenes. Now its single channel is pent in to the
breadth of a few yards by black walls of rock ;
now it broadens into great lagoons, with placid
margins fringed with reeds, where the mallard
and dabchick sport ; and, again, after a headlong
plunge through a stony gorge, it finds peace again
in the recesses of the woods, where it divides into
many rippling streams, each following a devious
way through a tangle of over-hanging leaf and
bough.

From time to time most of the birds of the river
may be seen here— the redshank, sandpiper, and
dipper are never far away — and as one wanders
in waders through the leafy streams of this
angler's paradise, where the trout run to a good
pound or more, and twenty may be regarded as
an average basket, the birds treat him as a friend,
and luncheon time is enlivened by the presence
of chaffinch, brambling, flycatcher, and willow
wren in the boughs above his head, and with the
constantly attentive wagtails tripping on the
shingle at his feet.

One interesting feature in Norway is what
may be described as the roof garden. On many
of the saeters and lower buildings the thick cover-
ing of turf which forms the roof provides a soil
in which many grasses and flowers, and, on
occasion, trees of considerable size flourish ex-
ceedingly. These little patches of often quite
luxuriant vegetation, raised to a convenient
elevation above road or field, form a favoured
haunt for many varieties of birds. On the ash
tree, for example, which springs from the angle
near the chimney of one of these, a magpie alights

205

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

chattering ; pipits and wagtails thread their way
through the herbage, turning to right or left
to snap a fly ; willow-wrens flit from branch to
branch, and now and again a hooded crow alights
with down-stretched legs, coming familiarly to
the spot as though it were a home. Sometimes,
on the face of these buildings, nesting boxes are
placed, thus giving the place the appearance of a
hostelry for birds, of which they are never slow
to take advantage.

Of the trout fishing which awaits the man
who is prepared to break away from the beaten
tracks, and to accept for a few days at a time the
somewhat crude hospitality that an unmhabited
saeter affords, this is not the place to expatiate.
But for the bird-lover as well these isolated regions
have many charms. On one island, for example,
we find the reed-bunting nesting in close proximity
to the ryper. The ryper is a true grouse, and as
it rises from the heather and brags down in the
clustering willows by the edge of the lake, the
familiar " go-back, go-back," brings the mind
back at once to the moors of Ilkley or Blubber-
houses. The ryper's nest is possibly of somewhat
neater construction than that of our own red
grouse, but if it were not for the conspicuous
bands of white on the wings of the former, the most
devoted " splitter" of species might be hardly
put to it to detect a difference in the birds them-
selves.

In these casual notes we have made no attempt
to cover the Norwegian fauna which may be met
with even in the course of a holiday ramble, but
we trust we have been able to show that the land
of the Vikings is by no means the birdless desert
which certain recent writers have made it appear
to be.

206

BIRDS ON A SWISS GLACIER

CHAPTER XX

A VAI.I.EY OF Butterflies. The Nutcracker. The

Buzzard. A Glimpse of Snow Buntings. The Alpine

Accentor. Choughs.

In the depth of winter, when the rain and
sleet drive ceaselessly all day against the window,
it is always pleasant to turn the thoughts to sunny
days in lands distant from this somewhat drab
England of ours.

On the July morning that we have in our mind
the sun beats pitilessly on the little village in the
valley. The red roofs and the painted walls of
the houses are aglow. As a diligence, with its
tinkling bells, ascends the hill, the dUvSt of the
road rises in a hot white powder. One feels
little desire to leave the cool shade of the verandah
of the Kurhaus, set in green trees on the moun-
tain side.

It is pleasant to sit here and note the wonderful
variety of colour in the picture, which rests before
the eye. The village itself is radiant in many
hues — red, green, and white predominating —
while the ruder chalets of rough logs supply the
more sombre tints, brown, amber, and many
shades of grey. But even here in the meanest
house, some bright colouring is added — a cluster
of purple hydrangeas or the scarlet gleam of a
mass of geraniums peering from some little window
box glow in the sunshine.

As one looks down the valley the scene is one of
summer's prime. The peacock-blue lake

207

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

shimmers through the dark green pines : the sunny-
meadows are smooth and green : many coloured
butterflies flit amidst the tangle of tall growing
weeds and flowers just beyond the verandah.

On the blossoms crowning one isolated stem,
we mark a dozen silver-washed fritillaries, and
ever and anon, a stately swallow-tail, flying high
like a bird, droops to this tiny island of bloom.
On every hand the shrill note of cicadas comes from
the hot grass. But, if the eye be turned upward.
Nature at once takes on another aspect, and the
very season of the year seems to change at a glance.
Here the rocks towering sheer for a thousand
feet or more, are dark and threatening, and the
pines, clinging to their stern sides, have a weather-
beaten look. Beyond the jagged lines the higher
mountains rise, and, at last, ranged against the
sky, are the peaks of snow, set in an unchanging
winter.

It is to one of these higher and less frequented
Alps that we propose to take our way. It is by
no means a fashionable summit, and bears no
well-known name. It is so remote that the
chamois, which has disappeared from so many of
its old haunts in Switzerland, still finds refuge
in its crags, a circumstance which adds no little
to its attraction. To make the long ascent with
comfort, or even with safety, the weather must
be taken into account.

Fog is a dire enemy to the climber. Thunder
storms gather and break on the heights with an
intensity unknown on the lower ground. Then,
too, it is well to travel in the evening or in the
early hours of the morning, before the sun makes
the snow rotten and wearisome to tread.

So we may loaf in the shade of the pine trees,
or smoke the pipe of peace on the verandah, until
the day is well advanced.

208

^^KI^

<?^

/

J'

Kite

To face p. 208

BIRDS ON A SWISS GivAZIER

At 5 p.m. the guides are already waiting :
thick-set fellows picturesque in dress and accoutre-
ment, ruck-sacks to carry our provisions on back,
ropes coiled about the shoulders, glittering ice-
axes in hand. The heat of the day has now
spent itself. Slowly our small procession takes
its way up the gentle mountain slope. The
track is narrow, and from time to time we stand
aside to allow the hay-carts, with their long tail-
boards resting on the ground and drawn by the
slow, mild-eyed oxen, to pass by.

From the point of view of the naturalist the
country is disappointing. Once, in the lower
bushes, we catch a glimpse of the quivering tail
of a redstart, and now a familiar meadow-pipit
sits piping on a rock, which stands starkly in the
lush grass. Occasionally, a lizard streaks across
some brown patch in the herbage, but for the
most part the way is desolate of living thing.

Stay : little by little the path has grown steeper :
now it winds through the gloom of a pine belt.
From this wood a strange bird-cry proceeds.
We wait and listen. The notes are repeated :
a harsh, " crah, crah," somewhat jay-like in tone.
Through the wood the path comes to the light
again on the edge of a precipice, where, thousands
of feet below, the milky hued glacier water dashes
through the rocks. A dark bird form flies
through the trees, alights on the path far ahead,
and may be seen moving amidst the grass and
stones, seeking for food as a jackdaw might. It
is far away, and refuses to permit a nearer ap-
proach, rising at once, and alighting again at a
much greater distance. But the glass has
already brought it nearly to our feet, and, for the
first time, we see the variegated plumes of the nut-
cracker in its native haunts. Further in the
ascent, the path, partly hewn out of the face of the

209

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

cliff, gives a good footway, but with little to
spare. It tends upwards, and ever upwards ;
by slow degrees the darkness falls, and one by one
the stars appear in the velvet blackness of the sky.

We are travelling now through a chaos of huge
detached rocks, following every turn of the
shadowy guide. At length he pauses and points
to a faint patch of whiteness in the gloom above.
The first stage of our journey is nearly at an end.

The Club-Hutte — the hospice where we may
rest and sleep awhile— is at hand.

The interior of the Club-Hutte is of the simplest.
Now that the small lamp glimmers on the rude,
deal table, we may peer into the shadowy recesses.
The walls are of bare stone. At the further end
is a wooden platform which extends across the
whole breadth of the structure. Upon this is a
mattress, and, depending from a rope stretched
from wall to wall, are rugs, to serve for covering.
There is no superfluous luxury here. Our meal
is of the simplest, and we sleep on the bare mat-
tress stretched within a few feet of our dining
table. But before we turn in we have time for
a pipe. We stand for a little time on the terrace
of rock just outside the door. The stars seem
almost within reach of the hand.

For a while a great wreath of cloud beneath
our feet obscures the valley. Now it blows aside,
and for a moment we see, glittering in some im-
measurable depth, the lights of the Kurhaus.

It is still dark when we arise. Dressing is a
brief process, for we have merely divested our-
selves of our boots.

After a rinse in the little, ice-cold torrent in the
rocks, we are ready. From the terrace we can
make out the changing shapes of the mist, as it
seethes beneath our feet, like smoke from some
giant cauldron.

210

BIRDS ON A SWISS GI^AZIER

Now the path winds up the steep side of the
cliff, and for an hour or more we climb, taking
heed of each step, for the soft shale crumbles and
breaks at every footfall. At length we reach a
more level expanse, where vegetation grows
freely. The character of the ground is strange :
huge tussocks arise on every hand like grave-
mounds. The valley is still hidden in darkness
and mist, but higher, the vast range of snow peaks
stand pale against the sky. Soon a faint bar of
light rests on the horizon in the east. One by one
the distant summits are touched with rose. The
bar of light deepens and turns to ruddy gold.
Peak after peak arises in dazzling whiteness, and
the rose and azure and gold glow on a myriad
heights. For awhile these shining lines of white
hills seem like islands rising from a sea of clouds.
But soon, as the sun lifts itself clear of the horizon,
the shadows turn and flee, and great rifts are cut
sheer in the mist. Here, for a moment, we mark
a great bird-of-prey — probably a buzzard-
hanging motionless on its wings. Hemmed in
on either hand by dense, murky walls of mist, it
looks down through this shaft of light to un-
fathomable deeps where the little villages appear
set in green plains : then with a hardly perceptible
beat of its great pinions, it sails into what seems
to be the solid masonry of clouds.

On the nearer heights the plumes of the pine
trees still rooted in mist come into ken, and little
by little the whole landscape is swept clear,
and a new world of rock, and wood, and torrent,
of snow, mountain and nestling hamlet rests in the
morning sunshine.

We have now reached the foot of the jagged
line of crests at the point where the ascent may
be most easily made. Here a halt is called, and
the ropes are got ready. As we rest, the eye is

211

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

cheered by a little party of snow-buntings, a most
pleasant sight in this well-nigh birdless land.
They come forward with sweet call notes — the
white bars on their wings contrasting with the
dark rocks.

But we have little time to wait. Already we
are bound together like convicts, with a gaoler
guide at either end of the rope, and the gang is
set in motion by a slight jerk.

The great ice-field slopes upwards to the sky,
a glistening white expanse, broken to the right
by masses of dark rock. For awhile the ascent
is gradual, and there appears to be little need for
the provision of the ropes.

Still we are bidden to walk warily. Long cracks
are visible in the snow crust, and these mark the
dreaded crevasses — great fissures in the solid ice
below, which have become silted over with snow.

A false step here, and the powdery coating gives
beneath the feet, and the careless traveller dis-
appears to find a narrow grave a hundred feet or
more below in the heart of the ice. This is no
imaginary danger. Only a little while back two
men were lost at the same point, and their bodies
never recovered.

This risk accounts for the great precaution of
the experienced guides. Properly roped, a trip
on one of the smaller crevasses means a mere
stumble in the snow, the tightening ends at once
preventing a further descent. Now we are
favoured by a sight which means much to the
lover of wild nature. On a small range of crag,
rising from the snow, a dark form is seen moving.

The glasses are at once brought to bear. There
can be no mistaking the alert form, the graceful
limbs, the strangely curved horns of the chamois.

For a moment he rests as though surveying the
intruders curiously then he moves higher, leaping

212

BIRDS ON A SWISS GI.AZIER

lightly from point to point, and as we look back
from afar, he is still visible, standing sentinel-
like amidst the peaks.

For hours, one sees little save the foothold cut
in the white face of the peak, which gives room
for the next step. Nothing occurs save when
a carelessly held alpenstock falls clanging from
point to point, or when a guide pauses to mark
the woolly, starlike flower of the edelweiss, spring-
ing from a crevice.

Now we have rounded an overhanging cliff,
and a stony track lies ahead. Amidst the scat-
tered boulders peeping from the snow, a small
brown bird moves unobstrusively, picking up its
imperceptible food with the slight shuffle of wing
one knows so well. Yet who would have thought to
see a hedge-sparrow on these stern and barren
heights ? Surely its proper sphere is the moist
earth amidst the gooseberry bushes of an English
cottage garden. Unlike our former acquaintance,
the nutcracker, the bird makes no effort whatever
to evade attention. It permits us to approach
within a few feet, and, even then, it merely sidles
into a rock crevice, as a wren may be seen to enter
the crannies of the river bank, not in fear, but in
the course of its own peaceful avocations.

Impatient at its non-appearance, we throw
a large stone at its hiding place : in a moment more
it emerges at the other side of the little group of
rocks, and again it stands within full view, well
within reach of the alpenstock. Noting it now
more carefully, we see it to be slightly larger
than our native hedge-sparrow, and the redwing-
like plumes on its side are distinctly visible.
This — the Alpine Accentor — is a bird one would go
far to see. It is in no place, we believe, very
numerous, and some three or four occurences only
have been recorded for Great Britain.

213

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

At length the highest summit of the mountaiB
group is reached. At last we lie panting on this
uppermost peak, with the world at our feet. A
myriad hills are ranged around us. In the hazy-
distance the Jungfrau arises, and, peering
through a wreath of mist, stand the stern heights
of the Wetterhorn. And as we rest and smoke,
a dark cloud of birds appear around the edge of
the cliff below.

Like jackdaws, but with swifter and more varied
evolutions in their flight, they cluster and perch
about the ledges of a great rock mass near at hand.

Their red beaks and legs stand out conspicu-
ously against the background of stone.

Again we murmur inwardly that, apart from the
marvels of hill and rock and sky, the sight of this
party of choughs in their native haunts would
have well repaid all our trouble and toil.

214

SOME CANADIAN BIRDS

CHAPTER XXI.

The Whip-poor Will. Canadian Singing Birds. The
Phoebe Bird. American Robin. Blue Jay. Red-winged
Blackbird, Titmice. Woodpeckers. Humming Birds.
Purple Grackle. Baltimore Oriole. Belted Kingfisher.

From early morning all through the hot, blue
day, the little steamer wends its way through the
Lakes of Muskoka. At times, the vast expanse
of water seems to be a veritable sea with a distant,
dimly defined coast-Hne; now the land draws
closer, forest trees wave overhead, and the boat
winds through the narrow labyrinths of innumer-
able islands.

Sometimes singly, sometimes in little groups,
the scanty passengers are landed at unexpected
piers which consist of a few planks, creeping into
the water from the dense greenery, to be instantly
swallowed up by the illimitable forest, and the
wanderer whose destination is the head of Lake
Joseph finds himself alone on deck.

Night falls gently and imperceptibly, yet as it
would seem almost suddenly. A few moments
ago the sky was blue, and the wavelets were
dancing in the sunlight ; now a soft brooding
darkness steals over the scene, leaving the white
wake of the steamer alone clearly visible against
the formless shadows of the woods.

At the moment of the turn from day into
night, a sound strange to English ears rings from
the trees — " Whip-poor-will — Whip-poor-will."

215

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

The cry begins with a menace, but it dies down
in a wild lament. Now it is close at hand, now it
comes faintly from the more distant thicket, for
the whip-poor-will, like our own nightjar, to which
it is allied, utters its characteristic notes from the
least expected quarters. Following the whip-
poor-will's startling outbreak, a dull " boom-
boom," falling at measured intervals, breaks the
silence. The bull-frogs are beginning their
monotonous concert that goes on all through the
night.

In the early morning the ripples dance on the
lake, and the sky wears again the unvarying blue
of a Canadian mid-summer day.

Men speak of England as the Old Country, but
surely these primeval forests that encircle the
little wooden hotel, set back in the clearing, that
have never been meddled with since creation,
more truly deserve the name.

From the tiny pier, the eye rests on vast sheets
of water, dotted with plumed islets, and on the
woods that stretch to illimitable distances, which
have been touched by no hand save that of Nature,
through the uncounted centuries. One must
indeed go warily when one ventures from this
hotel clearing, bounded by the roughly hewn
palisades, for it is easy to lose all bearings, and one
might travel a thousand miles without striking
the semblance of a road. From the over-hanging
maple trees, from the reeds at the lake side, and
even from mid-air, come the mingled notes of
birds, and we pause for a while, seeking to detach
one reiterated sound from the chorus in order to
identify the songster from which it proceeds.

Many of the notes seem familiar, yet, when we
listen attentively, they all seem to have some
quality that renders them strange to us.

216

SOME CANADIAN BIRDS

Again, there seems to be no singer here with a
clear predominance over its neighbours : no out-
standing thrush on the tree-top : no loud rattling
chaffinch : no lark holding unquestioned mastery
of the sky.

Indeed, we listen in vain for a gentle ripple of
song even so distinctive as that of the willow-
wren. In effect, the notes seem blended into one
long musical murmur, broken now and again by
sharp twitterings, and yielding no single strain
that one can detach from the rest.

This, of course, must be taken as the first im-
pression of one listening to new bird-music in a
foreign land, and it may well be that none of the
characteristic Canadian singers chanced to be
in evidence at the moment, for Burroughs tells us
that the hermit thrush, to take a single instance,
may fairly compare with our own British throstle.

As one listens in the shade of the maple trees,
one note coming from the boughs just above our
head begins to take on a special significance of
its own.

It is a low, rather melancholy note, constantly
repeated, and we become aware that it is being
uttered by quite a number of birds in all the trees
around. We soon make out the singer if so it
may be called : a bird of dull brown hue, some-
what larger in size and heavier in build than the
spotted flycatcher of our own country.

By degrees we come without much difficulty
to separate the birds we see into groups analogous
to those of Great Britain, although of course, the
species themselves differ more or less widely.

Thus we find owls, woodpeckers, crows, swallows,
finches, warblers, and so on, yet in every case the
birds themselves stand out with marked features
of their own.

217

SIDE IvIGHTS ON BIRDS

Thus a form moves in some bushes near at hand
that we see at once is a jay, but a jay of gorgeous
blue brighter than English coppices can boast :
again, a blackbird flits across the clearing in the
old familiar way, but as it alights we see that its
shoulders are bright red, plainly the red-winged
blackbird of the text-books. And, so, in finch
and warbler, bright tints of vivid blue and glow-
ing scarlet speak of a new fauna in a new and
wonderful land.

It is an interesting experience to wander in
these primeval forests for the first time. One
looks in vain for one of the little winding tracks
that prove that human feet have worn at least one
almost imperceptible pathway through the tangle.
Here the woods offer no short cut to a village or
even to an isolated homestead, and it may be
that many years have gone by since the hand of a
man bent back the low sweeping branches in order
to force a way to the little natural glade beyond.

Now and again, what appears to be a long
rounded mound, overgrown with thick hanging
moss and studded with silvery lichen, bars the
way. In stepping on one of these the foot sinks
deeply into rotting wood, and one realises that it
is the trunk of a giant tree, brought to the earth
one windy night, it may be a hundred years ago.

In this wilderness where Nature is the only
woodman, the trees spring untended, live out their
vast span in summer's heat and winter's snow,
unnoticed, and at last crash to the ground to lie
there until earth slowly spreads her winding sheets
of moss around them and draws them gently back
to herself. It is indeed, by no means an un-
common thing, even on the stillest day, to hear
the sound of some distant fall, and then the back
woodsman in reply to your look of inquiry mur-
murs, " Ah, only a tree."

218

SOME CANADIAN BIRDS

As one rests by the mossy trunk in perfect
stillness, the true wood-dwellers, scared for a
moment by a hitherto unheard-of presence, begin
to resume their normal activities. There is a
dead stump some few yards away, the relic of a
mighty tree, broad and hollow at the base, with
a jagged and broken summit about four feet from
the ground.

We catch a glimpse of a little chipmunk peering
at us from the end of a mossy mound, now, an-
other of the squirrel-like creatures, with its grey
and white streaked coat, leaps like a flash across
the green barrier, and in a moment the two tiny
heads are together, gazing at the monstrous thing
that has invaded their sanctuary.

They are ready to dive at the smallest move-
ment, but they soon come back.

Still they are too far away for their scrutiny to
be successful, and at last one sidles through the
wood-tangle, imtil it is lost in the hollow stump :
a moment later its inquisitive head appears through
the splinters at the top : now it is joined by its
companion, and the two small faces close to-
gether, surveying the crouching stranger now near
at hand, form a little woodland picture not soon
forgotten.

In a morning's ramble (bearing the caution of
our host in mind on the danger of wandering far,
although, as a matter of fact we got lost in the
end) we find many novel sights and sounds to
attract the attention.

Identification of birds by a stranger in the land
is often a difficult matter. With some birds their
mere appearance proclaims their names. The
flash of gorgeous red and black is the scarlet
tanager, as certainly as the gleam of living blue
against the green leaves is the indigo bird.
Others again leave more to the imagination.

219

SIDE LIGHTS ON BIRDS

There is a bird, for instance, carefully examining
the decayed stumps, and again hanging back
downwards. From its characteristic movements
and tittering cry, it is plainly one of the titmice.
It has much of the colouring of our own coal-tit,
but is obviously larger.

It permits the nearest approach, and we have
now no hesitation in putting it down as the black-
capped titmouse, the chickadee of Canada.

Soon the familiar tapping from a tree marks
the presence of a woodpecker. From the distant
glimpse of black and gold that we are able to
obtain as it flits through the broad green leaves,
as well as from its large size, we take it to be the
golden-winged species, usually named the high-
hole, from the situation of its nesting site.

At this point, we find ourselves in a lovely little
glade, nearly bare of trees, but with dense walls of
forest on either hand. Wild flowers grow all
around in vast profusion. Many butterflies
flit by, and their unfamiliar hues often force us to
pause and endeavour to repolish our dull memory
of the characteristics of the New World's lepidop-
tera, Two species however, stand out beyond all
question. Drooping from the skies, a great
butterfly, with golden-brown wings sharply veined
with black (the black- veined brown), alights on a
little blossom almost at our feet, and a little
distance away, slowly opening and closing its
black and yellow wings, is a gorgeous swallow-tail.

Here too, on the high flowering bank of the little
clearing we get a glimpse of another curiously
butterfly-like, or rather moth-like form. Like
a green jewel on wings it winds swiftly through
the topmost stems, checks its course for a second
before some tempting flower as though about to
alight, goes on again, and at last stops abruptly
on wings quivering so rapidly that they seem

220

SOME CANADIAN BIRDS

motionless, before a wide-opened bloom set high
in the bank.

It stays, alas, for the briefest time in full view ;
in a moment more, its gleam is lost in the mazes
of wood, but we have at least caught a fleeting
vision of the ruby-throated humming-bird, the
wonderful little migrant that comes back faithfully
to its summer home in May.

Later in the day, we mark another bird that we
have long wished to see in its native haunts. It
is fluttering at the edge of the wood, but it rests
at last, on an outstretched branch. It bears the
unmistakable golden-orange and black uniform
of the Baltimore Oriole.

We see many other interesting forms in our
too brief stay : a purple grackle, like a long,
slender jackdaw, but iridescent like a starling :
a belted kingfisher, bright plumaged, but less
graceful than our own familiar bird.

And morning by morning, we see in the grass
the bird like a hen-blackbird with a dull red
breast — a familiar sight, indeed, on every Canadian
lawn — the American robin.

221

INDEX

Page
213

58 fE

'.7 flE
135 ff

105
50

Alpine accentor

Altitude of birds' flight

Aristotle on bird migra-
tion

Artists and birds

Audubon on the North-
em shrike

Auks, British

Axolotl, Transformation

of the 120

Benbecula ... ... 179

Bible, The, and birds 157 ff

Birds, Abnormal song of 106
as anglers ... ... 55 fi

Comradeship of ... ii2

Eggs of 37 ff

Hunting habits of ... 53 ff
Language of ... 88 ff

Marriage of ... 108 ff

Mimicry in ... ... 104

moving under water 48 ff
Notes of ... ... 92 fE

Varying food of ... 23
Voices of, at night ... 96
Walking habits of ... 45

Why they sing ... 102 ff
Blackbird, Abnormal

song of ... ... 107

talking ... ... 105

Young, feeding young

starlings ... ... 127

Bowerbirds, Nests of 35

Brambling ... ... 204

Butterfield, E. P., on

dialect in birds' song 106

Campbell, J. M. ... 56

Canadian birds ... 215 ff

Clarke, Dr. Eagle, on

Bird Migration ... 67 ff

Condor, Flight, of ... 58

Cormorant, Diving

habits of ... ... 49

nesting in trees ... 130

Courting antics of birds
Crawfurd, Oswald, on

speed of birds
Crossbill, Mandible of
Crow, Hooded
Cuckoo singing with

closed beak

Page
109

62

23
168

25

Dante's allusions to

birds 148 ff

Decorative sense in

birds ... ... ... 34 ff

Dialect in birds' song 105
Dipper, Movements of,

under water ... 46, 51

Diver, Great Northern 169

Divers, Habits of ... 49

Dome-builders ... 27

Eggs, Departure from

type in ... ... 41

Diversity in shape of 39

Size of ... ... 41

Erythrism in eggs of

birds ... ... 42

Fabulous birds ... 164
Fair Island, Observa-
tions at 73, 181
Feathers, growth of ... 15
Fieldfare ... ... 191

Field-mouse, Long-
tailed, nest of ... 35
Finn, Frank, on Bird

Behaviour ... 105

Flamingo, Feeding

method of ... 24

Flight of birds in pairing

season ... ... 45

Flycatcher, Pied ... 195

Foula, Bird life in ... 171

Gabriel Hounds ... 98

Gatke, Herr, Views of,

on migration ... 59

Index

Page

Glacier. Birds on a Swiss 207 S
Grasshopper Warbler,

Song of ... ... 94

Griffon vxolture ... 158

Grosbeak, African social 26

Guillemot, Black ... 174

Gull, Common ... 198

Great black-backed 175
Gulls assisting wounded

bird ... ... 114

dropping shells on

rocks ... ... 57

Gurney, J. H., on pow-
ers of smelling ... 81

Hawk, Sparrow, adding

to nest
Hebrides, The Outer
Heron, Graceful form of

the
Hole-builders ...
Hoshino, Mr. Ken, on

Japanese art
Howard, Eliot, on Ter

ritory in bird life
Human quality in birds'

song

33
178 ff

137

28

139 ff
86
99 ff

Immortality in Protozoa 118
Japanese bird portraits 139 ff
Lark singing on hedge 128

Mallard nesting in trees 130

Magnetism of earth af-
fecting birds ... 77

Magnus, Archbishop, on

hibernation of birds 69

Maselield, J ohn, on

Nature ... ... 154

Martin, House, Nest of 27
Sand, Nest of ... 27

Meinertzhagen, Col., on

migration flight ... 60

Moorhens fighting for

nesting site ... 84

Mound-builders, Aus-
tralian ... ... 26

Mud used in nest building 2 7

Musicians indebted to

bh-ds ... ... loi

Page

Nature, Artistry of ... 141 ff
Newton, Prof., on egg

coloration ... 38

on speed of birds ... 62

Nightjar, Whirring of 96

Norway, Birds of ... 185 ff

Occult senses in birds 79 ff

Originality in nest build-
ing 30

Owl, Flight of the ... 17
Hunting methods of

the ... ... 54

Owls of the Bible ... 159

Oyster-catchers, Friend-
ship of ... ... 113

Partridge roosting in

tree 153

Varied notes of ... 90

Patterson, A. H. ... 34

Phalarope, Red-necked 170

Pigeons, Evolution in 47

Pliny on transmutation

of birds ... ... 69

Plover, Golden ... 167

Ringed ... ... 176

Poets and birds ... 144 ff

Polygamy in birds ... no

Poultry, Domestic, in

Bible 160

Property in bird life ... 83 ff

Robin, Nesting habits

of the ... ... 31

Rockall 178

Rooks guarding rookery 84 ff

Ryper ... ... 206

Seton. Ernest Thomp-
son, on Monogamy in
Seven Hunters ... 183

Shag 174

Shetland, Birds of ... 166

Skeleton of bird ... 13
Skua, Feeding habits of

the ... 56. 173
Snipe alighting on

branch of tree ... 133

carrying young ... 125

Sorby, Prof 38

Sparrow, House, fight-
ing for nesting site 83

223

Index

Page
Sparrow, House, Nesting

habits of the ... 30
Tree, Nesting habits

of the 31

Speed of birds' flight 61 ff
Starling hawking for

flies 55

in Norway ... ... 190

Nesting habits of the 31

Stick-builders ... 29

Stryn Valley, Bird life in 194

Sulisgeir 178

Swallow changing nest-
ing habits ... 33
Esculent ... ... 26

Method of nest build-
ing ... ... 27

Swifts passing night in

the air ... ... 131

Tawny owl feeding cap-
tive young ... 125

Tegetmeier on speed of

birds 62

Tennyson as the poet of

birds ... ... 147

Tern, Nesting habits of

the 175

Sandwich ... ... 28

Page
Thompson, Francis, and

Nature ... ... 153

Thorburn, Archibald,

and bird portraits 136

Vee Skerries 182

Wagtail, Pied, Nesting

site of the ... 31

Water-builders ... 29
Waterhen, Diving

habits of the ... 50

nesting in bushes ... 130

Watkins, Rev. S. Cornish 35

Wheatear ... ... 195

Whinchat imitating

other birds ... 104

Whip-poor-will ... 215

White eggs laid in holes 40
White, Gilbert, on Flight

of birds ... 43

on Swallows' nests ... 33

Whitman, Walt, on birds 152

Wing-spread of birds ... 21

Wing, Structure of the 16
Woodcock carrying its

young ... ... 125

Wood-wren, Note of the 94
Wordsworth's descrip-
tions of birds ... 146

224