My birds in freedom & captivity

MY BIRDS

IN

FREEDOM & CAPTIVITY
x

Quam magnificata sunt opera tua, Domine ;
Nimis profunda facia sunt cogltationes tua.

MY BIRDS

IN

FREEDOM & CAPTIVITY

BY THE

REV. HUBERT D. ASTLEY

0

MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION, ETC.

LONDON
J. M. DENT & CO., ALDINE HOUSE

29 & 30 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
1900

All rights reserved

A

BIOLOGY

LIBRARY

G

Printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

TO

£MY WIFE

WHOSE KEEN INTBREST IN

MY BIRDS

HAS GREATLY ENCOURAGED ME TO PRODUCE

THIS WORK

PREFACE

I DO not know which gives me the greatest pleasure of
two things, namely ', the keeping of birds as pets, or
the representation of them in sketches. In attempting
to be author and artist in one, both these pleasures have been
mine ; for in writing about my birds I have kept them over
again, especially as far as those are concerned which are
but memories ; and in drawing them, I have been able to
understand them better, and to provide myself with some-
thing in the way of a lasting souvenir. And having done
so, a desire has come to me to invite others to share the
delights of this experience.

Nowadays one is happy to believe that a growing
interest- is spreading in England for the love and protection
of such a very beautiful portion of the Creator s work as

x Preface

are the birds — a love which cannot but bring 'with it more
knowledge and further enlightenment, a protection which
one trusts may in due time blot out that iniquitous habit
prevailing among a certain class of men, of shooting down
and destroying every rare bird they may happen to come
across.

The contents of this volume are not intended to treat
of birds scientifically ', but rather chattily, with a hope that
many who would not read a learned book on ornithology
will perhaps dip into what is simply a homely account of
some of the birds that I have kept. People grow a little
weary of discovering the same quotation time after time in
so many books on birds ; of what is said by Gould, and
Morris, and other eminent ornithologists ; weary, too, of the
long lists of Latin names and elaborate descriptions of
plumage, which are indeed necessary and instructive in
the deeper study of the science, but are not food for all
minds.

As to the rough sketches which form the headings of
the chapters, there may appear to be a lack of appropriate-
ness when, for instance, a tufted duck is found as an
introduction to an account of such a totally different family
of birds as are the Indian shama and the magpie robin of
the East ; but these chapter headings must be looked upon —
like wild storks in England — as merely accidental visitors,
having something in common with their surroundings, or not,
as the case may be.

The true subject of each chapter is to be found for-

Preface xi

trayed on the full page illustrations, the smaller line
drawings being introduced more or less promiscuously ', as
any bird I have kept seemed to occur to me as one that
would go towards representing the all sorts and conditions
amongst my pets.

To Mr. Dent I hope I may express my thanks for
the pains he has taken in causing my humble attempts
at bird-drawing to be reproduced in such a manner, as
to almost succeed in making silk purses out of sows ears.

I could not resist introducing as a frontispiece my
beautiful old home in Buckinghamshire, of which my
mother was heiress [now belonging to my brother, Mr.
Frankland-Russell-Astley], a house restored in the reign
of £>ueen Elizabeth — who there for a time incarcerated
Lady Mary, the sister of Lady Jane Grey — and where
once Lady Russell, one of the daughters of Oliver
Cromwell, presided as mistress. On its chimneys many
a stork has, of late years, rested ; and in its grounds
many another of my birds has walked and flown.

HUBERT DELAVAL ASTLET.

Benham Park, Ncwbury,
October,

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

PAGE

BIRDS THAT COME TO OUR HOUSES AND GARDENS I

CHAPTER II
WILD AND TAME HOOPOES .... 24

CHAPTER III

BLUE THRUSHES ...... 42

CHAPTER IV
ROCK THRUSHES . . . . 56

CHAPTER V
NIGHTINGALES ...... 73

CHAPTER VI
THE INDIAN SHAMA AND THE DHYAL BIRD . 90

CHAPTER VII

VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALES ..... 99

xiii

xiv Contents

CHAPTER VIII

PAGE

RING OUZELS AND WATER OUZELS . . .109

CHAPTER IX
GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND TITMICE . . 119

CHAPTER X
SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN FREEDOM . . .128

CHAPTER XI
SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN CAPTIVITY . . . 148

CHAPTER XII
PARROTS AND PARAKEETS . . . 163

CHAPTER XIII
MANAGEMENT OF CAGES AND AVIARIES . 1 87

CHAPTER XIV
CRUELTY TO BIRDS ...... 206

CHAPTER XV
STORKS AND CRANES ..... 22y

INDEX ...... 251

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PHOTOGRAVURES

CHEKERS COURT, BUCKS, MY OLD HOME . . . Frontispiece

(Storks, Herons, and Gulls in the garden)

PIED WAGTAIL . . . . . . . Facing page 8

TURTLE-DOVE . „ „ 1 6

THE HOOPOE . . . ... „ „ 32

BLUE ROCK THRUSH . . . . * „ ,,48

PIED ROCK THRUSH . . , „ ,,68

NIGHTINGALE . . . . " . ., . „ „ 78

JAPANESE ROBINS (Leiothrix) . . . . . „ „ 88

INDIAN SHAMA . . . . . „ „ 92

DHYAL BIRDS (MALE AND FEMALE) . . . „ ,,96

VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALE . . . . . „ ,,104

RING OUZEL . . „ „ no

GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS . . . . . „ ,,120

SEA- PIE (OR OYSTER-CATCHER) . . . . „ „ 130

PUFFINS . . . . ..... V . „ „ 136

RAZOR-BILL „ „ 144

GREATER BLACK-BACKED GULL . . . . „ ,,158

GREY PLOVER . . . . . . . „ ,,162

PIGMY DOVES 188

xvi List of Illustrations

REDSTART ..... • Facing page 220

WHITE STORK ... . „ „ 230

AUSTRALIAN CRANE . . . „ „ 244

CHAPTER HEADINGS

PAGE

MANDARIN DUCK

PIED FLYCATCHER l

LITTLE CRAKE . . . • 24

WHEATEAR • 42

ORANGE-CHEEKED WAXBILLS . • 5^

LONG-TAILED FINCHES (AUSTRALIAN) . -73

TUFTED DUCK . • .90

POPE CARDINAL . .... . . 99

PECTORAL FINCHES (AUSTRALIAN) . .109

ST. HELENA WAXBILL .... .119

SHELDRAKE . • .128

SPUR-WINGED PLOVER H^

RED RUMP PARAKEETS -163

ZEBRA FINCHES (AUSTRALIAN) .... .187

AT CAPRI . .206

EGRET • .227

FLYING STORKS « - . 237

PIED FLYCATCHER

CHAPTER I

BIRDS THAT COME TO OUR HOUSES
AND GARDENS

" If you are not inclined to look at the wings of birds, which
God has given you to handle and see, much less are you to con-
template or draw imaginations of the wings of angels, which you
can't see " — RUSKIN.

BIRDS are such confiding things. They do not
mind any noise and turmoil, so long as they
feel that they themselves are unmolested.
There they are, not only on the broad stretches of
emerald lawns that lie secluded in the grounds of
some " ancestral home," but even the row of villas

with their humble patch of garden front can claim

A

,2/. Birds that come to our

its birds. Where the asphalt pavement with its
passers-by approaches the country towns, where the
highroad which it borders is noisy with the sounds
of wheels and hoofs of horses ; there, close by in
the hedges on the one side, and the small patches
of lilac and syringa on the other, are the birds.

" II vit un oiseau voletant,
Hochant la queue et becquetant

Mouches sur 1'herbette ;
Un bel oiseau gris argente,
De petits points blancs mouchete,

Brun de collerette . . .
Ce bel oiseau qui voletait
En faisant 'quit,' 'quit,' 'quit,' c'etait

La bergeronnette."

Of all the birds that are most confiding, and of
the many that are a delight to our eyes, none seems
to be so more than the water-wagtail, of which
Gustave Mathieu so charmingly writes. True,
there is the robin, our dear old English friend,
who in English hearts has found a tender spot, which
will flit about within a yard of you as you are
gardening, and perch upon your wheelbarrow in
which the weeds are fast accumulating, or on the «
handle of your spade, left for a moment upstand- I
ing in the border ; and the jaunty blackbird with
his golden bill, flirting his broad tail as he pauses
after a quick run on the turf.

And the thrush too ! (T. Musicus, which is the
Latin for the common or garden one), he is there,
his big brown eye watching for any slight movement
which will tell him that the worm is within his

Houses £sP Gardens

reach. There he is, quite close to you as you sit
under the yew-trees at the bottom of the garden.
Nor is he afraid to stand on his tail and indulge in
a tug of war with that worm, although he has had
a good look at you, and his nest of young is a few
paces behind you, in the unkempt growth of honey-
suckle and wild roses which border the pond
where the moorhens flirt their white tails, and
wend their way amongst the Aponogeton and water-
lilies, whose leaves are clustering upon the water's
surface.

And you may think the spotted flycatcher, which
has taken up its position on a croquet-hoop hard by,
is more confiding still, for there is much to be said
for him, in spite of his lack of song and dulness
of plumage. His shape is so graceful, his flight still
more so ; and he is such an old, old friend. Why,
it seems as if he has been there all my life, ever since
I began to roam the garden on legs of not two years'
standing. That little lithe brown bird with the
finely speckled breast, every May finds him home
again. He has come so silently, without a moment's
warning. Yesterday he wasn't there, and to-day there
he is, sitting on the railings that divide the lawn
from the rougher grass of the park, just as if he had
never gone away at all, darting to catch a passing
fly and back again. Let us put out the croquet
hoops and sticks, if only to see our little flycatcher
alight upon them during one more summer, a summer
that is glorious and beautiful with scents of roses and
sweet verbena, lilies, mignonette, and carnations, as

4 Birds that come to our

well as sweet peas in gay successive lines from June
to October — a summer bright and lovely with all
its depth of foliage, its skies of unclouded blueness
and cloudland too, its fiery sunsets, its refreshing rains
— a summer which is not altogether perfect without
the wondrous procession of flowers and birds. In
the borders the oriental poppies, the snapdragons,
penstemons, daisies, hollyhocks, dahlias, and many
another to swell the host of beauties. In the shrub-
beries and creepers the young of birds that flutter
with stumpy tails and clamouring voices out of the
nests, to swell the chorus of a future spring.

It is not very long before the flycatcher has been
joined by his mate ; neither does it seem but a week
(so quickly do the days pass by) when one of the small
brown fellows is seen to dart out from among the
wistaria stems, that have twisted and twined over the
porch of the front door. Very confiding of them to
have built that lovely nest so close to one of the hall
windows, but very unconfiding of the builder to feel
that every time one passes in and out she is constrained
to flit silently away, darting downwards across the
gravelled terrace so closely that she surely fans the
ground which is baking in the sunshine. But she
will gain confidence, or at any rate courage, as she
feels that those chestnut-spotted eggs are near to chip-
ping. I have looked into the nest to-day, pushing
aside the leaves as I leant out of the window. Lazy
little flycatchers ! The wall against which you have]
partly built it all but does duty for one side, so frail
is the gathering of moss just there. But you wisely

Houses & Gardens

discerned that, in spite of the winter storms that blew
and beat whilst you were in Africa, or no one knows
where, the wall has remained firm ; and, with a natural
desire for the old home, you said, u We'll prop up our
nest in the arms of our lovely wistaria, and the red
wall shall be our buttress." And now the wistaria is
blossoming, such showers of mauve depending, en-
hanced by stars of the small white clematis, which
supports itself by clambering the stem of its neigh-
bour.

I push aside the leaves and the blossoms to look at
that flycatcher's nest. Only a foot below me, and five
eggs tucked inside. She was on, and stayed long
enough to turn up her head when she saw mine, her
bright eye filled with a glance of timidity, and then
she was gone ! I heard her sharp " Chuck, Chuck,"
when she settled on some bough of a tree on the lawn,
and her mate joined in with sympathy. Curious mix-
tures of boldness and fear !

Later on the nest is pressed out of all its symmetry
by the young birds when they are ready to fly. Pretty
little fellows in plumage of dull dusty brown, flecked
all over with whitish spots. Young flycatchers are
not nearly so noisy in the nest as most birds. If only
that lovely cousin of theirs, the pied flycatcher, would
dwell in our English gardens as a summer visitor as
generally as the commoner species. They are so local
in their range, and betake themselves to wilder dis-
tricts, such as Wales and Yorkshire, where wooded
valleys and hill streams are to be found. Beautiful
little birds, the male all white and black in conspicu-

6 Birds that come to our

ous distinctness. Birds that are unknov/n to the majo-
rity of English people. Any one having the privilege
to possess Lord Lilford's splendid work on " The Birds
of the British Islands," will know very well what a
pied flycatcher is like on looking at Mr. Thorburn's
lovely plate.

This spring I have nailed up small boxes, with a
hole in one side and a ledge at the opening.

The boxes are painted green, and are placed here,
there, and everywhere, some on the face of the house
amongst the creepers, and others on the trunks of
trees, at a height of perhaps eight to ten feet. There
are several species of birds that will select them as
houses. They are " to let — rent free," for the summer
months, with the proviso that the landlord may inspect
his property from time to time. The tenants will
agree to this, if the visits are not too frequent, nor
made in too much of a spirit of interference and tire-
some curiosity.

Redstarts, flycatchers, robins, titmice, and a few
others will build in these little detached villas, or
shall we say rustic cottages ? Gardeners and children,
especially boys on mischief bent, must be warned
against touching or peering. In our garden a pair of
robins have tenanted a box which is hung on a nail
to the trunk of a large lime-tree in the shrubbery.
The box is just low enough for a tall person to see the
shining eye of the hen peering over the edge of the
mossy nest, and just for once it won't hurt to lift down
the box to see its contents. How wonderfully it has
been arranged, the moss and leaf foundation compactly

Houses £sP Gardens 7

pressed within, and the eggs, a clutch of four, lying in
the small cup of horse-hair.

Not long ago I heard of a country rector who,,
having placed thirty-six bird-houses in his garden, was
rewarded by all but two of them being tenanted in one
season. Talking of redstarts, can any bird be lovelier
than the male with his black throat, the shining spot
of white on the forehead, the russet breast, and the
quivering tail of brightest orange-red ?

A very conspicuous bird in the earlier spring, that
is to say, after the first week of April, at which time
he arrives from the great African continent. Very
conspicuous, too, when the young are hatched and
freshly flown ; but after 'that, showing only now and
then, retiring apparently into the thicker foliage of the
shrubberies and woods, until he leaves us for his winter
quarters in August and September.

Robins are bold indeed in choosing certain spots in
which to build. For instance, a small potting-house,,
approached from beneath a covered way, in which
gardeners are constantly working, was a birthplace
for five robins in our kitchen-garden precincts last
summer.

In the farthest corner of this house a brick had
been dislodged from the white-washed wall. In the
cavity thus formed was the robin's nest, and the birds>
for the space is curtailed, had to fly past the gardeners
to reach it, the nest being on a level with, and within
two feet of the men's faces as they stood to their work
at the potting ledge. The birds had to enter at the door,
the only window being a closed skylight in the roof.

8 Birds that come to our

This brings me back to the subject of water-
wagtails. Motacilla lugubris, our familiar pied wagtail
— " lugubris " in point of comparative colouring only
— is, as I have said, one of the most confiding of Eng-
lish garden-birds. There are two pairs in our kitchen-
garden this year. In the fern-house, or rather in a
greenhouse, where the back wall is tapestried with
moss and maidenhair fern, one pair of these birds has
reared two broods. Entering through the half-opened
lights in the front or by the skylights of the roof, the
wagtails built their nest amongst the moss, where the
maidenhair depended and hid it from one's view.
When the gardeners syringed the ferns on a cloudless
day, the phenomenon of a sharp shower around the
nest must, could the birds have reasoned, have been a
remarkable one. But syringing and plucking the ferns
disturbed them in no way.

The other pair of kitchen-garden wagtails were
still bolder. In a row of open low frames in which
plants are stored, the nest was built in the centre of
four miniature cross-roads where four flower-pots met.
Here the gardeners were constantly working, and the
wagtail on her nest was very evident to all to whom
she might be pointed out. And yet, in spite of such
an exposed site, one or two visitors had to look twice
before they discerned the bird, so beautifully did her
plumage assimilate itself with the groundwork of
scattered leaves and earth, amongst which she had
built. The bright, cheerful twittering song of the
pied wagtail is one of the first sounds that herald
in the early spring, and in March one watches the

Houses & Gardens

assumption of the more definite black, white, and grey
plumage of the summer months, as these fairy-like
birds trip nimbly along the gravelled terrace, or over
the lawns in pursuit of insects. A quick run for three
or four yards, and as quick a halt, with the wagging of
the long slender tail. Then the graceful undulating
flight, as the bird wends his way to settle on the stone
balustrade or the gable of the house.

" Polly Dishwasher " is one of the names bestowed
upon him by some of our peasants. For some suc-
cessive years a pair of these cheery little birds built in
a hollow formed within a centre-piece of a garden
fountain in the shape of three stucco dolphins, which
stood on their heads with their tails intertwined, sup-
porting a giant shell, in which sat a cupid holding a
water-jet. This group was erected upon a pedestal of
stone in the centre of the fountain, and that in its turn
was in the middle of a Dutch garden before the south
front of the house. The entrance to the wagtail's
nest was by no means spacious, just where the dol-
phins' heads were separated from one another at the
base of the group ; but for all that, a wily cuckoo
deposited her egg for three or four years in succession,
I should say by means of her bill, in the nest.

One summer the young cuckoo was extracted and
placed in a large wicker cage whose bars were separ-
ated somewhat broadly, through which we used to
watch the foster-parents passing in order to feed their
clamorous charge.

How individual species of a genus differ in their
habits ! If only the lovely and still more gracefully-

io Birds that come to our

formed grey wagtail would take up its abode in our
gardens, as does its pied cousin. " Grey wagtail " he
is called, in spite of his brilliant yellow breast, his
black throat, and his olive-green wings and tail with
white edgings. It is a name which would be much
more applicable to what is usually called the " white
wagtail " (Motacilla Alba].

The Latin title of the " grey " bird is more appro-
priate, i.e., Motacilla sulphurea. The late Lord Lilford
suggested "the long-tailed wagtail."

To find him, you must frequent mountain torrents
and quiet rivers, where he builds in banks and under
boulders.

So too with the yellow wagtail (Ray's). In the
water-meadows amongst the coarse grasses and the
golden kingcups (the marsh marigolds), with which
its breast vies in hue, this bright little fellow is seen,
but never on our lawns.

The swallows, on the contrary, may be looked upon
as amongst the tamest of birds. I mean with regard
to the sites they select for nesting. Year after year it
is evident that particular pairs of birds return in April
to their home of the previous summer.

I believe that they would build in the rooms of the
house, if they had the opportunity.

They come to the porch, and will feed their young
above your head as you stand upon the steps, and will
often attempt again and again to build after the former
efforts have been removed, through your careful con-
sideration of the desirable cleanliness of the chief
entrance to your home. And when you have driven

Houses & Gardens i r

them from one corner, the sparrows, about whom we
will refrain from writing much, will treat them equally
badly in another.

Of course sparrows are a plague and a nuisance,
but I cannot help being attached to their homely
chirping.

If sparrows could become hoopoes, or anything
else in the way of a bird that is insectivorously useful,
what a much more preferable arrangement it would be !

Why should the commonest be the plainest, and
the most songless ? And what difficult birds to put
out of the way ! I remember, after catching a cock
sparrow in a basket trap, and knocking him violently
on the back of his poor head, how I flung him down
as a corpse, only to see him jump up in about ten
minutes and flutter away.

I beheaded the next one !

It is one of the chiefest joys of life to hear the
warbling of swallows for the first time in the year,
upon some bright sunny day in capricious April, after
three or four weeks of March winds. The swallows
are back once more, and spring is coming with the
scent of hyacinths and the glory of flashing tulips. A
thousand blooms of many-tinted narcissi are pushing
themselves through the turf in the orchard and the
"rookery"; the cuckoo's notes will soon ring out.

When the house-martins select a house for their
summer haunt, no birds give a more cheerful appear-
ance to a place, be it a farm isolated in dewy meadows,
or in a quiet sleepy country town, in which on a hot
day the graceful flight of the little white-footed martins

12 Birds that come to our

goes far towards enlivening the dulness of the High
Street. They wheel backwards and forwards. They
settle on the road to collect the mud for their wonder-
ful nests after a thunder-shower has pelted down.
Their snowy tail coverts really glisten as they shoot
rapidly away.

And there in long rows, under the broad eaves of
some quaint red-brick house, with its tiled roof and its
white-edged windows, they plaster their mud huts and
line them with feathers. In building their nests they
use straggling stems of hay or straw, which sometimes
depend from between the layers of encrusted and
hardened mud.

When the young are hatched the parents flit to and
fro from early morn till sunset, incessantly bringing the
flies without which they would perish.

Sites that one would think they would choose they
pass by, and if the martins do not honour my house
with their presence, I envy an aged lady down in the
village, under the thatched eaves of whose white-
washed cottage there are ten or a dozen nests. As she
sits in her doorway with her lace pillow on her knees,
her broad-brimmed spectacles perched on her nose, and
her cat snoozing in the rays of the western sun, the
bobbins clicking swiftly under horny but deft fingers,
she is the centre-piece of so peaceful a scene, that one's
feelings of envy seem to creep beyond the coveted
martins. For the old lady looks happy. The deep
furrows of age upon her face have formed themselves
in wrinkles, significant of a peaceful heart and of
troubles lived down. There are no stern lines to draw

Houses £&P Gardens 13

down the mouth with a sulk and a snapping-to ; nor
is the brow, furrowed though it be, repellent with a
hard-set frown. Her little garden is aglow with white
lilies, sweet williams, pansies, and snapdragons ; and
the porch under which the owner is sitting is made
beauteous in a tangle of honeysuckle and sweet jessa-
mine. Old " Fanny " is a spinster. Yet there are
letters of faded ink within the brass-bound chest that
would show how, long, long ago, her "young man"
had courted her. But sailors marry the sea, and the
sea will not always relinquish her claim to hold those
betrothed to her. And so Old Fanny sits making her
lace, and the martins return every year, but her sailor
never comes with them, and never will till the sea
gives up her dead.

Perhaps she loves the house-martins more than one
thinks for. Old friends they are to her. They have
built under her eaves as long as she can remember, and
who can tell what they have seen, as they winged
their flight above the ocean at the season of autumn
gales ?

Dear little birds they certainly are, with their
twittering calls and their glossy coats of burnished
steel picked out with snowy white.

Neither must we forget the more modest denizen
of our gardens. I mean the misnamed hedge-accentor.
He isn't a sparrow at all, yet " hedge-sparrow " he is
invariably styled. A quiet little brown bird who is
resident all the year through, with a bright melodious
song of no great compass, which he pours out when
winter days are mild and few rivals are about to drown

14 Birds that come to our

his music. A "hedge-sparrow's" mossy nest, hidden
low down in some evergreen shrub or ivy stump, is a
real joy to find, with its complement of brilliant tur-
quoise eggs. One wonders at so sombre and retiring
a bird being able to thus decorate its nest with such
vividly coloured shells. The hedge-sparrows do not
hop about the lawns with the boldness of thrushes,
blackbirds, and robins ; but generally keeping nearer
to the bushes, seem to apologise for their presence, and
quickly disappear.

Chaffinches are very bold, half walking and half
hopping with nodding heads in front of the windows,
even in summer time, and then flitting off with white-
banded wings, uttering their call note of " Pink,
Pink."

The cock bird is very handsome with his blue-
grey head, his breast of dull pink, his greenish back,
and white conspicuously marked wings and tail.

Could anything in bird architecture be more lovely
than a chaffinch's nest. A perfect lichen-covered cup
of moss, bound tightly to the twigs of some over-
hanging branch ; the eggs within, thickly spangled
with chocolate spots and specks, upon a creamy
ground.

There are many other birds less conspicuous and
more timid, usually to be seen or heard in our English
gardens.

Late in March, if the spring has entered with
mild still days, and the month is going out like a
lamb, the monotonous but pleasing notes of the chiff-
chaff are heard everywhere. It is one of the several

Houses £sp Gardens 15

small migratory warblers whose presence, except for
his call, is unnoticed by the majority of people. A
little slender billed greenish-yellow bird with pale
underparts, which flits noiselessly from tree to tree,
peering industriously for its insect food. How such
frail little fellows such as the chifFchafF, the willow
.and garden warblers, the sedge and reed warblers,
are able to make their long spring and autumn aerial
journeys, is all but a mystery. When settled in their
summer quarters, they seem to cling to the shelter of
woods, meadows, and shrubberied gardens, as if they
would not trust themselves in places where a flight
of any great length were necessary.

In the case of the minute and beautiful golden-
crested wrens, a migration across the waves of the
sea is still more a matter of marvel ; but that they do
so is only true, and at times pass over certain well-
known landmarks, such as the island of Heligoland,
in countless thousands. The jolly little nut-brown
cock-tailed "Jenny" wren, seems to be a resident all
the year round. He cheers one's ear with his bright
hurried song, even in the depth of winter, if the
weather is not too severe and the sun sends forth his
rays, however feebly. In winter time, too, wrens will
visit the house, tripping nimbly, but with due caution,
along the window sills ; sometimes venturing into a
room, and often into a conservatory.

A dish of meal-worms, from which the worms
cannot escape, may attract them and provide them
with a good dinner, when other insect food may be
scarce.

1 6 Birds that come to our

In their building arrangements, wrens vary indi-
vidually. Occasionally one finds a nest which is
discovered at first glance, it may be in some crevice
of the seamed trunk of an ancient yew, tightly wedged.
Another is so completely concealed under the ivy that
has clasped a wall or a tree trunk, that only the flight
of the little brown wren from her nest, as you happen
to brush up against it, betrays its whereabouts. Even
then an inexperienced eye would not detect it. There
is nothing to attract attention. True, there is a
collection of last year's leaves, but no nest. Look
again where the leaves are closely gathered. Stoop
a bit. Now don't you see that neatly framed entrance,
with the threshold of moss so marvellously compacted ?
May you feel inside ? Well, if you own a fairly long
finger ; only one at a time, mind ! You can't get
the eggs out ? No ! and a good job too. Seven you
can count ? I daresay so. But come away now, or
our dear wrens will desert. In another three weeks
the young ones will be fairly sitting on the top of one
another, and if you put your finger in then, out they
all will flutter, for they will be just ready to fly.
They will hide away in the long grass or the bushes,
or squeeze themselves into the minutest holes and
crannies of the rockery, close by the tree under
whose shadow they saw the light.

Another bird that so brightens our gardens with

his song is the blackcap. About the second week of

April you will hear his loud warbling notes. Often

he will commence sotto voce, to break out into

forte and fortissimo. Before the leaves have grown,

Houses £5? Gardens 17

when for the most part nothing but buds, purple
or green, are glistening in the sunshine after a sharp
thunder -shower, the male blackcap can easily be
seen, hopping about amongst the sycamores, thorn
bushes, and laburnums of the garden shrubbery.
Don't mistake for him an ox-eye or a coal-titmouse,
both of which have black heads. The blackcap is
a true " warbler," with upper parts of olive-grey, and
under parts of delicate pearl colour. His lady's head
has a cap of bright brown, in the place of his glossy
black one. Where the mock-orange bushes grow in
the wild garden, or the foxgloves and tall campanulas
spring up in a tangle of flowering grasses and perhaps
nettles, there the blackcap's nest is concealed ; nor is
it easily found, for if the bird flies from it when you
are quite close by, she will flit away so silently and un-
observantly, that you may never notice her departure ;
a frail nest of dried grasses, compacted with spider's
webbing and lined sparingly with a little horsehair,
built, as a rule, within three or four feet of the ground.
Blackcaps never venture away from the thick recesses
of the wild garden ; yet even if those hiding-places are
bounded by walls and buildings, such as are many of
the gardens of the Oxford Colleges, they will take up
their abode there spring after spring.

Then, too, the garden warbler, a gracefully formed
little bird, with unpretentious grey-brown plumage
and a very sweet though not particularly noticeable
song, is fairly abundant, as is also the willow wren,
a small person which builds a semi-domed nest of
grass lined with feathers on the ground amongst ivy

1 8 Birds that come to our

or tangles of herbage. In appearance he is much of
a muchness with the chiffchaff, delicately made.

The ubiquitous greenfinch, to my mind a plebeian
bird, with his stout bill and his sparrow-like form,
builds here, there, and everywhere, generally on a
level with one's head, or a foot or two above it.

Young greenfinches are very clamorous and rowdy.
But the plumage of the adult male is certainly hand-
some, the bright yellow in the wings and tail showing
up well against the general dull green of the body.

For real beauty amongst the finches, nothing beats
our old and intimate friend the bullfinch, beloved as a
cage-bird, but detested by gardeners.

I remember how my grandmother, on entering
the potting shed of the kitchen-garden, beheld to
her chagrin a row of slaughtered " bullies " lying on a
shelf, and how, on remonstrating with the head-gardener
— an old character from Norfolk — she was placed on
the horns of a dilemma by being asked, " Which dew
your ladyship want, them there birds or gooseberries ?
for yeou can't have both on 'em, that's sartin sure."

After all, gooseberries are not a joy for ever ; indeed
my recollections of boyish raids amongst their bushes,
with the consequences thereof, are vivid of anything
but joy ; and yet what fun it was, especially enhanced
by the fact that the old gardener looked upon one as
an enemy to his fruit, and as great a thief, as he did
upon the bullfinches. It was a high-walled garden,
and one day when the old jailor seemed less vigilant
than usual, so that we boys had managed to have our
fill, we found to our consternation that all the doors

Houses £sP Gardens 19

were firmly locked and our egress barred. Once bit,
twice shy ! The old fellow had often tried chasing
us ofF, only to see us disappearing round the corner, to
pelt him with plum-stones if he attempted to round
it in our pursuit.

This time his tactics of war were changed. Ex-
perience had made him crafty. As we stood within
the prison walls, steps were heard, and voices too !
The voices of those in highest authority !

He had locked us in, and hastened to the house to
fetch the " Missus." Since we had been forbidden
to eat the fruit according to our own judgment and
responsibility, we felt proportionately guilty. Like
our first parents, we hid, but we were unearthed.

I believe I took refuge in the stoke-hole, only to
increase my punishment by reason of my brown hoi-
lands, clean on that morning, being somewhat sweep-
like !

# -# # # * #

Lying in a deck-chair under a splendid group of
primeval yew-trees, whose giant stems vie with the
cedars, I look up through the sombre tracery of the
overhanging branches to the stars above, which are
twinkling and shining with the brilliancy and lustre
of a night in the tropics ; yet it is the sky of cloudy,
misty England, but one of those somewhat rare nights
in August when the air is soft and warm after a day
of 78° in the shade. The garden is redolent with the
delicious scent of the Nicotiana affinis^ which is grouped
in the long herbaceous border on the outskirts of the
lawn, their snowy blossoms gleaming in the darkness.

20 Birds that come to our

The birds of the garden and parks are still to the fore,
although it is just upon 10 P.M., when the owls have
begun to send forth sonorous and mellow notes. Quite
close by in the avenue of elms, an old female tawny
owl has commenced to call to her family with a shrill
plover-like scream (or is it a young bird ?), and is
immediately answered by her mate with his Hob ! —
Hdb, Ho^, Hob, Hob ! Apparently a rival has in-
truded upon his beat, for quite a chorus ensues ; there
are certainly three or four all in close proximity.
Perhaps they are early-hatched birds of the year, for
some of the hoots are hoarser than others and not so
perfect in intonation, like young cocks learning to crow.

But nothing can better that splendid mellow bari-
tone of the old owl as it rings out through the still-
ness of the beautiful starry night. And there ! yes !
I can hear a brood of barn-owls snoring in an old elm-
tree in the park, where they have been hatched in a
hollow caused by one of last winter's storms, which be-
headed the old tree and left it splintered and decrepid.

I believe the owls would be attracted to build near
one's house if, in the event of natural nesting-places
being scarce, large boxes were nailed up in certain
trees. They must be covered in, with a hole in one
side near the top, and a platform at the entrance for
the birds to settle on. Short-eared owls, which it
must be remembered are not garden birds — for they
frequent wild moorland — can be delightful as pets, if
taken from the nest and reared by hand. An old
Oxford acquaintance — an eminent ornithologist — once
most kindly sent me one from Cumberland. They

Houses & Gardens 21

have beautiful yellow eyes, and can see quite comfort-
ably in the daylight, so that one had not to turn night
into day in order to enjoy his company. My owl
would sit on the hearth-rug, playing with one corner
like a puppy with a slipper ; or he would take up his
position on the back of a chair, from which he would
fly so noiselessly across the room to some other perch,
that one would be unaware that he had moved unless
one happened to be watching.

He would let me stroke his downy head and back,
and always uttered a soft chattering noise when I did so.

Those miniature owls, to be seen from time to
time in Leadenhall Market, have been turned loose by
bird-lovers, such as the late Lord Lilford and Mr.
Walter Rothschild. Dear little fellows are these
pigmy owls, and worthy of a snug home in an old
garden or park tree, rather than a stuffy and cramped
captivity in the heart of the City ! Moths form a
large proportion of their diet, I am told, and mice
also, I imagine. As to the larger owls, no small
amount of the abuse heaped on their round heads is
unnecessary and mischievous. Individual birds may
be guilty of a partiality for baby pheasants, but that
the rats and the mice disappear by the dozen in the
owl's talons there can be no doubt. Those horrible,
sneaking, grab-all rats have worked into your aviary
and slaughtered half your birds. There is no getting
rid of them. But go first to the gamekeeper and ask
him what happens to the owls ; tell him you will have
a percentage spared, and then see whether the rats are
as numerous. I expect not !

22 Birds that come to our

They are the best ratters in the world ; and rats
are, without exception, the biggest pests.

But I don't want to write about them ! They are
too ugly and destructive, and have well-nigh extermi-
nated their smaller black cousins, who are (or were) so
far superior.

If you have a pond or a lake on the verge of the
lawn, so much the better, for then you can enjoy the com-
panionship of birds that are aquatic or semi-aquatic.

Sprightly moorhens — which I have already men-
tioned en passant — uttering their musical croak, will
trip about on the grass, or push their way amongst the
water-lily leaves, followed by an active family of black
puffballs with scarlet-sheafed bills. Most fascinating
little nigger boys, now scrambling over the broad
leaves on abnormally large feet, now sheltering be-
neath them, or searching there for insects.

And if no gun is ever fired near by, if the pond
or the lake is kept as a sanctuary, the moorhens, dab-
chicks, and kingfishers will soon take advantage of the
protection afforded them by becoming familiar deni-
zens of a spot that without them would be lacking in
life.

There, too, the sedge and reed warblers may take up
their summer residence, chattering musically amongst
the reeds and border plants of the water.

When once a place has been peopled with bird
life, the blank that its absence causes is markedly
noticeable. When I had to shift to another home,
despatching a small colony of gulls, storks, cranes,
and herons beforehand, the lawn of the old home

Houses £jr Gardens 23

became a howling wilderness ; it was like one's pet
room with all the furniture gone, and only the carpet
left behind : so much so, that even neighbours not
exactly keen upon birds at once noticed the differ-
ence, and said that the lawn looked quite deserted.
The absence of my birds to me was as severe a trial
as empty bookshelves to a bookworm, almost as great
a one as empty chairs vacated by friends one has loved
to welcome and deplored to part with.

LITTLE CRAKE

CHAPTER II
WILD AND TAME HOOPOES

" Now Holbein paints men gloriously, but never looks
at birds."

HOOPOES seem to be tamer in a wild state
in Eastern countries than in Western. In
Africa, India, and China they are in certain
parts familiar and fearless birds, but those that migrate
for the spring and summer months to Europe prefer
more secluded meadow lands and woods ; yet, if this
most lovely bird were suffered to remain at peace as an
English migrant, there is little doubt that in time we
should look for hoopoes in our gardens in the spring,
as we do for cuckoos and nightingales, and the rest.
Not a year goes by without specimens of these birds
being shot, so that it is impossible for them to make a
start in establishing themselves as regular visitors. In

Wild £5? Tame Hoopoes 25

the Scilly Isles, every April brings with it three or four
hoopoes, but passing whither, no one knows ; for they
arrive only to spend a week or two and are gone again,
yet their passage in the vernal migration is an annual
event.

In the water-meadows and rich low-lying pastures
of some parts of England, hoopoes would undoubtedly
find an abundance of insect food, and would also be
extremely useful in digging out with their long slender
bills certain grubs destructive to farming and garden-
ing, which many birds with shorter bills may be unable
to reach beneath the surface of the earth.

Any one who has voyaged up the Nile, has not left
Cairo far behind before the hoopoes are evident to the
most unnoticing persons.

He is a bird of such striking appearance, with his
wonderful coronet uplifted on his head, the long,
slender, and slightly curved bill, and the beautiful broad
butterfly-like wings, banded conspicuously with black
and white.

Walking through the Egyptian villages, it is an
ordinary thing to see one or two hoopoes running
quickly over the dried Nile mud, either on the edge
of some canal or pool, or else prodding with their bills
amongst the refuse that lingers lovingly but unsweetly
about the mud hovels of the Arabs. In Egypt there
is an abundance of beetles, which probably make up
a considerable portion of the hoopoe's menu^ but to
judge by the appalling effluvia that surrounds the nest
and young birds, they cannot be altogether nice feeders.
Like some people, their sense of taste must be either

26 Wild & Tame Hoopoes

absent or else somewhat depraved. They remind me
in this respect of a luncheon party I was once at. It
was extremely hot summer weather and in London.
There was dressed crab, amongst other delectable
dishes ! One lady guest seemed to be enjoying it
so much, that when it came to my turn, I too helped
myself. One mouthful was not only quite enough, but
too much. I looked round the table ; three other
guests appeared aghast, portions of the crab untouched
upon their plates.

" Isn't the crab good ? " said the hostess. As no
one else spoke, I ventured to say, " Well, I think crabs
are very difficult to keep quite fresh in this sort of
weather, and fishmongers are not always to be depended
upon." My hostess at once turned to the lady whose
appreciation of decaying crab had beguiled me into
tasting it, and said, " Pray don't eat it." But she was
too late, for, like the walrus and the carpenter with the
oysters, she'd eaten every bit, and (perhaps with due
consistence) stuck to it that her helping was quite good ;
yet it was all part of the same old crab !

As with people, so with birds ; there are some who
prefer freshly killed food ; there are others who don't
object to its being decidedly tainted, and hoopoes are
perhaps to be numbered among the latter.

I hold to this because, when a brood of young
hoopoes was brought to me by an Arab boy at Assouan,
that brood nearly knocked me backwards. But in
three days' time, after they had been fed on clean
and fresh food, this disgusting smell had all but
faded away, and all young hoopoes that I have ever

Wild £sP Tame Hoopoes 2,7

come across have equally affected the olfactory
nerves.

When our dahabeah was moored opposite Assouan,
below the first cataract of the Nile, to a sandbank in
close proximity to the island of Elephantina, I had
ample opportunity for observing the hoopoes.

In the early morning, before one was properly
awake, two of these birds used to settle on the
dahabeah just above one's cabin window, where they
would utter continually their love-song — Hdt>, Hot),
Houo — H6t>, Hot), Hot) ; partly dove and partly
cuckoo-like in sound.

To see the male birds sparring at each other is
extremely pretty, dancing in the air one over the
other, like two large butterflies.

After I had managed to pick up a smattering of
Arabic, I used to endeavour to make known to various
Egyptian boys the fact that I was very anxious to
obtain a brood of young hoopoes, having been able to
utter with what I thought extreme glibness the words
" Katakit hidadid," which, being interpreted, means
a brood of hoopoes ; but whether these youths mis-
took my meaning, or else considered that a brood of
any birds would suit me equally well, I know not ;
at any rate, for a week I was brought nothing but
young sparrows, varying in age from three days to ten.
It was not in vain, however, that I used to shake my
head and say, " La ! la ! Hidhid, mafish baksheesh,"
by which I meant, " No, no, not that, but hoopoes ;
you shall have no present." Consequently the very
next morning — it was early in March — as I was sitting

28 Wild £sP Tame Hoopoes

on the upper deck of the dahabeah under the awning,
there came to my ears the sound of much splashing
and yelling from the neighbouring island. Through
the shallow water that divided it from our sandbank,
three of my copper-skinned Arab boys were racing,
one of them holding his white robe above his knees
out of the water's reach in one hand, whilst in the
other were three struggling ungainly-looking bird
forms, which even at some little distance I saw were
at any rate not sparrows.

"Shoof! shoof! hidadid!" (" Look ! look! hoo-
poes !") cried all the boys simultaneously, and I thought
the poor little birds would have been then and there
torn to pieces, for each boy tried his best to be the
one to hand them over to me, with the usual Arab-
like clamour, impetuosity, and excitement. Yes ! sure
enough, they were unmistakably hoopoes, easily
recognisable even at the age of perhaps a week old.
Their crests were already well developed, and the
quills that covered their odoriferous bodies showed
the black and white bars of the wings and the russet-
brown of the general plumage.

After having duly rewarded the young Arabs, I
placed my hoopoes in a covered basket lined with hay,
where at first they huddled into .the farthest corner,
nearly turning head over heels in their endeavours to
escape from my sight, their hind-quarters up in the
air, and their heads, with the double row of crest
quills widely separated, nearly doubled beneath them.

And their smell ! Well, smell isn't the word !
At that age hoopoes' bills are of course not nearly so

Wild (£p Tame Hoopoes 29

long as in the adult bird, and the gape of mouth,
with the large yellow edging, is enormous. The only
sound at first emitted was a frightened hiss ; but after
a few hours, first one and then another began to feed,
when they uttered a jarring note, which lasted as long
as they stretched up their necks and opened their
mouths, with the lovely interior colour of orange-red.
They were fed on small pieces of fresh raw meat,
mixed with an insectivorous food, brought for the
purpose in tins from England.

Hoopoes nest very early in Egypt, as early as
blackbirds do in England. The first nest I came
across was at the end of February, when we were
voyaging between the first and second cataract of the
Nile, at Kalabsheh, famous for the remains of what
must have been one of the most magnificent temples
of Egypt, but now in ruins from the ravages of some
great earthquake, aided by Time.

Landing at Kalabsheh, and surrounded by the
natives of the place, I at once pursued my search for
young hoopoes, for I had not yet received the brood
just described. It was fast growing dark, and we
should be leaving at early dawn on the following
morning, so that it was a case of " now or never." On
hearing my inquiries in broken Arabic, a good-look-
ing young man stepped out of the crowd and said,
" Aiwra, henna ! " (" Yes, here ! ") pointing with a grace-
ful wave of a brown arm and hand towards some rocks
at the back of the village. As usually happened, the
whole assembly of some thirty or forty men and boys
immediately commenced to gesticulate and shout at

30 Wild £*P Tame Hoopoes

me and each other, until I was forced to put my fingers
in my ears and run.

This seemed to improve matters ; for the original
announcer of the whereabouts of a hoopoe's nest came
after me, and plucking my sleeve, said, " Taala maaya.
Henna ! henna ! " (" Come with me. Here ! here ! ")
as he walked ahead through a grove of date-palms,
which towered up above us, and through whose grace-
ful branches the stars were beginning to gleam with
the brilliancy peculiar to an Eastern sky. Then it
suddenly struck him that it was already too dark to
find the nest without artificial light ; so making me
by expressive gestures understand that I was to wait
whilst he fetched something, he ran off to the daha-
beah, returning in a few minutes with a candle and
some matches. Then he led me, followed in the near
distance by several boys — to whom I vainly shouted
"Emshi ruhh" ("Go away") — towards the rocks that
skirted the mud houses of the village.

Clambering up to a narrow fissure formed by one
huge boulder on another, he lighted the candle and
peered in, his black eyes glittering near the flame ;
whilst I followed, a boy on either side supporting
either arm, under the impression that I couldn't pos-
sibly manage the rocky ground without such aid.

It was evident that my original guide knew what
he was about, for he at once turned to me and pointed
into the fissure. With much difficulty, and after
nearly frizzling off the tip of my nose, I at last dis-
cerned, about four feet in — a hoopoe. The fissure was
so narrow that even she could not stand upright.

Wild £jP Tame Hoopoes 31

There was such a flooring of sand and small stones
within that it was impossible by the light of one
candle, which cast shadows of every shape and form,
to see whether there were any eggs or young ones; but
when I attempted to state my disbelief in their exist-
ence, I was met by a hurricane of denials. " Young
ones! young ones! " At first I thought that, with the
usual ignorance of the Egyptian (or Nubian) country-
man about birds, he was under the impression that
the undoubted adult bird was a young one, and conse-
quently I vehemently denied his assertion. But no !
again he said " Young ones ! young ones ! " whilst the
other boys caught the refrain in chorus. And he was
right, for cutting a long and slender palm branch,
which he inserted into the inmost depths of the
fissure, just in front of the poor frightened hoopoe, he
gradually, and with much difficulty, scooped towards
the opening a poor wretched little bird of a few hours
old, which was rolled over and over on the rocky floor-
ing, until it was within reach of his arm. It seemed
futile to attempt to rear it by hand, and equally so to
push it back into the depths of the rocky nest ; so I
took it, and kept it alive for twenty-four hours, during
which time it fed well, and really collapsed, I believe,
from suffocation, having wriggled its poor small pink
body into a deep fold of the flannel in which it had
been wrapped, so that its wobbly head was bent under
its breast. It would have been a triumph to have
reared it. At that early age the fluff on the head was
largely developed in the form of a crest, but the bill
was quite short, as with any other young bird.

32 Wild £sP Tame Hoopoes

I succeeded in bringing to Cairo seven well-grown
hoopoes, and, much as I loved them, could I ever go
through such a business again ? I think never ! They
had to be fed constantly, and each bird had to be taken
out of the cage in turn, so that the food could be
placed in its mouth ; for otherwise it was thrown
about inside the cage, and the birds would have ended
in being half starved.

As I was staying for two days in Cairo before
leaving for England, I used to allow two of the
hoopoes, which were particularly tame, to fly about
upon the spacious balcony which opened from my
sitting-room, and very pretty it was to see them sun-
ning themselves on the balustrade, lying down and
spreading out their wings, crests, and tails to catch
the full heat, until they looked, with their black and
white bands and bars, like some puzzle or kaleido-
scope. The cage in which they lived was an Egyptian
one, made of cane, with a sliding door. With constant
opening and shutting, this door slid back extremely
easily, so that perhaps my horror may be imagined
when, on returning from the bazaars one morning,
I found the door pushed back, and all seven hoopoes
flitting about in the trees which grew opposite the
hotel.

Kites and wicked grey crows (the wretches !) were
gathering round, eyeing my poor innocent hoopoes,
some of which, highly delighted at finding themselves
at liberty, were preening their feathers and erecting
their crests, and looking generally perky.

That I should ever recover them all again, I

'

Wild £^P Tame Hoopoes 33

doubted, especially as at that moment the finest of
the lot took flight upwards, apparently out of sheer
gaiety of spirits, only to be immediately attacked from
above by a kite, which swooped at it in a most abomin-
ably business-like manner, but the hoopoe gave a
twist and a turn, and dodged that evil-minded kite,
when to my consternation, and still more, I should
imagine, to the hoopoe's, a grey crow dashed up from
below. This was a mean manoeuvre, for he thought,
" That bird shall be made mince-meat between me and
the kite ; we'll sandwich him between us."

That hoopoe deserved to live, for, with another
twist, he fled into an acacia tree close by, and put up
his crest at his enemies, in much the same manner as
a London street Arab would put up his hand to his
nose on escaping from the claws of two policemen.

It was warm work for a minute or two.

As to those grey crows, they are real villains, for
the next day they did their utmost to work their
revenge, actually daring to hop with a great sidelong
awkward hop on to the balcony, where, whilst one
worried those poor hoopoes on one side of the cage,
the other seized a wing and a tail that for a moment
showed themselves between the bars, and, with a
savage tug, tweaked out a large beakful from both.

This attack I witnessed from my bedroom window,
and those crows, although they saw me, knew perfectly
well that they would have time to carry out their
wicked designs before I could dash on to the balcony.
It was fortunate for them that I couldn't get at them !
By the time that the hoopoes were thoroughly hungry,

34 Wild & Tame Hoopoes

one after the other flitted across the street and returned
to safe quarters.

There were two that were especially tame, and
these were let out every day, but even they sometimes
played the truant.

One morning they had sat for a long time in one
of the acacia trees that grew in the street just in front
of the hotel, and immediately under the big balcony,
where the cage always stood.

I whistled and whistled, and must to passers-by,
who couldn't see the hoopoes in the tree, have looked
most idiotic, hanging over the balustrade. I was
wishing to get the birds back, as I wanted to visit the
bazaars, and the morning hours were flying. At last
one of my birds left his branch and flitted up towards
me, but instead of coming to his cage, took up a
position on a narrow ledge just above a window that
overlooked the large awning of the balcony.

In order to let the bird see me, I had to get on a
chair, and peep over the outer edge of the awning.

As I did so, I whistled again, and said, " Come
along, you bad thing ; " when to my consternation I
found myself apparently addressing a rather stout and
severe-looking English lady, who of course couldn't see
the hoopoe above her head, and who was seated at her
open window immediately facing me !

I had bobbed up serenely from below, and before
disappearing in confusion, had time to catch an indig-
nant glance, and to see her rise up hurriedly and back
into the recesses of her room, away from such a forward
man.

Wild £sP Tame Hoopoes 35

How I looked tremblingly round the dining-room
at table-cthote ! But I fancy she either changed her
hotel immediately, or else fled to Alexandria, probably
going home to England with the idea that Englishmen
in Cairo are by no means to be trusted, " and a clergy-
man too ! "

Another day, one of my hoopoes sat so long in the
sunshine on a lower branch of one of the trees already
described, that I thought he would be more likely to
come to me if I descended to the large public balcony
that opened out from the flight of steps leading into
the street, where I should find myself nearly on a level
with my bird.

Directly he saw me, he flitted on to my shoulder
with upraised crest, much to the astonishment of a
party of visitors to the hotel, who had just dismounted
from a carriage and were ascending the steps. They
evidently were puzzled, for apparently a wild hoopoe
had suddenly been " willed " by my whistle to come
to me.

The hardest part of all came when 1 returned to
England. I had to take my passage from Alexandria
on board a " Messagerie " boat, because at Cook's office
at Cairo I was told that the English boats would not
allow birds to be numbered among the passengers.

Moreover, I had two young Dorcas gazelles with me
— " Quaiss " and " Shamadana " — as well as a pair of
young Egyptian turtle-doves and two little spotted crakes,
which were brought to me at Phila? by some Arab boys.

In a cage made with partitions, I managed to stow
away all my birds, and to smuggle them as quickly as

36 Wild £gP Tame Hoopoes

possible into my cabin, which on account of the birds,
I had secured to myself; for I had a suspicion that
although birds were allowed on board, they might not
be permitted in the cabins. My suspicions were veri-
fied after we had been steaming towards Marseilles for
two days.

The captain, a jolly-looking old Frenchman, stopped
me in a promenade on the upper deck, and, with a
somewhat severe tone and scarcely a bow, said, " On
dit que Monsieur a des oiseaux dans sa cabine, il faut
les mettre avec les quailles."

I tried to smile sweetly, and, in what I hoped was
a wheedling tone, explained that they were in a cage
" tout petit, tout petit ; " that I had paid double for
my cabin ; that they were in no one's way ; that I
had brought them all the way from Assouan, and
had to feed them every two hours. The only answer
I received was a thoroughly French shrug of round
shoulders, and, with a by no means benign expression,
the captain turned on his heel.

But my hoopoes remained in my cabin for all that !
I felt exactly like what Lord Salisbury must have felt
after retaining Fashoda !

And this feeling was enhanced when I again won
the day over the gazelles.

At first I had managed to have their crate put in a
snug corner on the lower deck, near the furnaces ; for
they felt the increasing chilliness of the sea-air con-
siderably after the heat of Assouan and the warmth of
Cairo; and poor little "Shamadana" — a baby-boy of
a gazelle — was especially humpy.

Wild £sP Tame Hoopoes 37

I was most anxious about him from the fact that
he did not belong to me, but to my sister-in-law,
who was to travel home by a more circuitous route.
But alas ! that tiresome old captain discovered the
whereabouts of the gazelles, and promptly ordered
them to be put in a filthy cage on the deck of the
third-class passengers, where everything was smelly,
dirty, wet, generally nasty, and un-English, as far as
a passenger boat was concerned.

To get to them, I had to step over the reclining
bodies of quantities of Greek peasants, who lay and
sat there day and night, men, women, and children,
all muddled together, continually playing cards, with
packs as dirty as themselves.

Here too were the quails, which the captain
thought might be companions to my hoopoes.

They were interesting in more ways than one, but
especially so because they were the last consignment
that were to be allowed to be imported to France
from Egypt, and would be landed a day before the
new law was to take effect.

Thousands of these poor little birds, which are
caught on the north coast of Africa when migrating
to Europe in April, would, if not intercepted, duly land
in France, and France would benefit accordingly ;
hence the new law that Egyptian quails are for the
future forbidden.

There were — so they said — 60,000 on board the
boat I was on ; and 60,000 quails, closely huddled
together by fifties in low canvas-roofed cages, which
are not cleaned out, can smell rather strong, with a

38 Wild & Tame Hoopoes

nasty, sickly, mawkish odour, which used to be wafted
all over the vessel at times.

The new regulation with regard to their importa-
tion from Egypt may possibly make some difference
in an increase of wild quail in England during the
summer months ; for thousands that would be caught
round Alexandria and other places will now be -allowed
to continue their migration to France and Italy ; some
of which, escaping capture in the latter countries, may
perhaps find their way to England.

How birds that are caught by thousands and thou-
sands every year, on their way to their breeding quarters,
manage to keep up their numbers, is a mystery.

It would be very pleasant to hear the musical note
of quails in our English pastures and cornfields, as
one hears them in Egypt amongst the fields bordering
the Nile, where they are often within a few feet of
one, hidden amongst the rich green of the young
wheat and barley.

To catch such a sporting little game bird as a quail
in nets by night, when the poor little chaps are
wearied out by their long flights, seems a mean kind
of a trick, just for the sake of putting some money
into people's pockets, and for gratifying the palate of
the Upper Ten, for the most part.

I shall mention these little fellows again in another
chapter, when writing on cruelty to birds.

I do not know whether the English Government
has forbidden the importation of quails from Egypt,
but it would be a very merciful action to take, for
they are terribly cramped and crowded in the voyage.

Wild (fc? Tame Hoopoes 39

All this is a digression from the immediate subject
of the chapter.

For all that, let me once more make mention of
the gazelles, for they are so intimately connected with
my hoopoes in their travelling adventures.

His Highness Prince Mahomet Ali, the Khe-
dive's brother, was on board the steamer, and he, as
well as Mdlle. de Lesseps, having caught sight of
the baby-gazelles, at once felt pity for them in their
draughty and cold position.

" Why were they put in such a spot ? They
would infallibly succumb."

Hearing that it was by the immediate orders of
the captain, and much against my wishes, Mdlle.
Helene de Lesseps, to whom I am ever grateful, at
once interceded on their behalf; the consequence of
which was that the captain had to give in, and allow
them to be placed in their crate on the upper deck,
in a cosy corner near the engines, where there was a
warm atmosphere.

He looked rather grumpy when he met me after
having given the order, and I felt " Fashodaish " once
more ! An Egyptian Prince and a De Lesseps had
proved too much for him, and the " gauche Anglais "
won the day.

Not, however, without cost ; for poor little " Sha-
madana" had contracted a cold in his third-class quar-
ters, and died about a week after his arrival in England;
partly, however, perhaps, because he and " Quaiss " —
who has flourished — were delayed at Calais until leave
had been granted by the authorities of the English

40 Wild £jp Tame Hoopoes

Board of Agriculture to land the gazelles — cloven-
footed animals — at Dover.

My hoopoes, after much trouble in feeding them,
were brought safely home, and, as soon as the weather
became warmer, were placed in a small outdoor aviary.
After a week or so, I ventured to open the door and
let them fly loose in the garden, and it was the pret-
tiest and most uncommon sight to see seven hoopoes
flitting along the terrace towards me when they spied
the tin of meal-worms in my hand. Gradually they
found their way all round the garden immediately
surrounding the house, but, curiously enough, never
seemed to trust themselves out of its sight.

Very quickly their natural instinct taught them to
prod with their long bills — which had lengthened to
almost full growth at two months old — in the turf of
the lawn ; and it was very interesting to notice their
movements when a grub was felt an inch or more
beneath the surface of the ground, showing that the
tip of the bill must be extremely sensitive for this
purpose and furnished with nerves.

When once a hoopoe commenced to dig with
quick hammering movements, a large brown grub
was almost sure to be pulled out, ,to be knocked about
for a few seconds and then swallowed ; the bird
throwing his head back, opening his bill, and chuck-
ing the insect deftly down his throat.

People's astonishment was great when I walked
them round the garden. If the hoopoes were out of
sight, I used to whistle, and almost immediately they
would come flitting to within a few yards of me, erect-

Wild £gP Tame Hoopoes 41

ing their crests as they settled, and then running
quickly along with their short little legs, their heads
nodding as they ran. They were most charming
pets (I say "were," for alas! they are all dead), for
they seemed to have no fear, and, with the full liberty
of wild birds, were absolutely tame.

The housekeeper used to feed them from the
window of her room, and they would go in and out
there at all times of the day, sometimes, if the lattice
was closed, tapping at the panes with their bills.
Why they died is a mystery to me; for they all col-
lapsed before September was out, and had in the
meanwhile had every privilege. Magnificent weather,
full exercise, natural food, as well as ants' eggs, meal-
worms, and raw meat when they needed it ; and yet,
as each one moulted, their skin seemed to be at-
tacked by a sort of scurvy, and the new feathers
dropped out when about half grown, and when still to
a great extent in the quill stage.

One or two of them had fits into the bargain, and
all seven died. It was most sad, but, in spite of their
loss, the gain had been great. Whilst they lived, they
were most beautiful and interesting. Yet, if I ever had
the pleasure of another trip up the Nile, I don't think
I would ever try to bring home any more, and I don't
know that I would advise others to do so.

Yet there is a beautiful hoopoe (unless lately dead)
in the western aviary of the Zoological Gardens in
Regent's Park, which had moulted successfully, and
which, when I saw it in October 1899, l°°ked ex-
tremely healthy.

WHEATEAR

CHAPTER III
BLUE THRUSHES

•' Even as it were a sparrow, that sitteth alone on the
housetop."

SOUTHERN Europe is the home of what the
Italians call the Passera Solitaria, the bird that
is credited with the honour of being the sparrow
of the Psalmist, that sitteth alone upon the house-
top, and his Italian name seems to bear this out.
Europe is his nesting-home, where, in Italy and Switzer-
land more especially, the mountains tower up with the
snow glistening on their summits against an azure

Blue Thrushes 43

sky, where the precipices are capped with green table-
lands, and pastures bejewelled by anemones, gentians,
ranunculus, and all the other beautiful alpine plants ;
where cascades falling over giant boulders cool the
air, scattering their rainbowed spray around, now on
one side and now on another, as the wind selects to
blow it. In the faces of the precipices and entrances
to caverns, as well as in rock hollows, these birds
build their nests, arriving from their winter quarters
in Africa to do so, April being the month of their
return.

A lovely bird is the blue thrush, the male being
a soft dark grey-blue throughout his plumage, the
whole of his head having a tint of old blue china
frosted over ; but this brighter colouring is more appa-
rent in the breeding season than after the autumnal
moult. About the size of an English thrush, but
with chat-like manners, flirting his tail up and down.
His beak is longish, after the shape of a starling, and
his song is exceedingly sweet and wild, if you know
what I mean. Just as some music is drawing-room
music in comparison with many of the wild Hungarian
compositions, so with the song of birds, some of which
one associates with the dwelling-places of men and the
cottages of peasants, whilst others seem to require the
roar of the sea or the rush of a mountain torrent to
accompany them. The crow of a pheasant, although
essentially a sound of the woods, doesn't, through cus-
tom, sound nearly so wild as a curlew's cry. There
is a more romantic sound in the ringed plover's pipe
than in that of the bullfinch.

44 Blue Thrushes

Sometimes in the stillness of alpine mountain
gorges the whistling of the blue thrush rings out, so
that it is for ever associated with snowy peaks, and
edelweiss, and swishing hill streams. If you wander
up amongst the rocks and then sit under the shadow
of some giant boulder, you will see the Passera Soli-
taria, proving his title to the adjective of his name,
perched on the summit of the precipice above you, or
hovering upwards into the air, singing as he goes, and
fluttering downwards to his former standpoint, showing
off his voice and form to his mate amongst the rocks.
And again you find him wintering in perpetual sun-
shine (wise bird) in Egypt, for thither many of them
take their flight by September, to flit amongst the
barren hills that overhang some of the wonderful
temples of the ancient Egyptians. Curiously bold
birds they are, considering their shyness in their
summer quarters, for at the temple of Dehr el Bahari,
the beautiful structure built by the famous Queen
Hatepsu, which has been excavated only of late years,
the artist employed to copy the lovely and delicately
tinted frescoes told me that of an evening the blue
thrushes would descend from the precipitous rocks
overhanging the temple buildings, and positively mob
him from all sides.

At Assouan, amongst the rocks outside the town, I
saw a blue thrush flitting from one boulder to another,
singing as he settled afresh, his form showing up with
great clearness against the azure of the Egyptian sky.
That was in March, which goes to prove that migra-
tory birds of song have commenced their warblings

Blue Thrushes 45

before they leave for more northerly climes to breed —
their full song I mean — for in this instance the Passera
was singing loudly.

The female is altogether of a duller colouring than
her mate, being darkish brown with a blue-grey ten-
dency about the wings and tail. It is curious that a
bird inhabiting, as a rule, such wild and solitary places
should, when caged, become not only tame, but posi-
tively bold, and in many cases defiant and pugnacious.
My first acquaintance with this charming creature as
a cage bird was in one of those picturesque towns that
border on the Lake of Como in Northern Italy, that
lake which lies embedded amongst mountains like a
beautiful sapphire, where everything that meets the
eye is picturesque, lovely, and brilliant ; where in the
spring-time nightingales sing, and peach trees and
magnolias open out their delicate pink blossoms in
the one case, and their waxen white buds in the
other ; where church bells clang musically across the
water, and pergolas are shadowed over with vines and
fig-trees.

There was, and is still for all I know, a certain
little shop — a greengrocer's stall — in the principal
street of Menaggio, which street runs down hill all
the way to the shore of the lake, and this stall was
kept by a portly and imperfect ablutioner, commonly
called Pietro, a man with a head like a bullet and a
neck like a bull, whose eyes were small and bleared ;
in a word, not in personal appearance at all resembling
one's beau ideal of the handsome Italian, with the
ready stiletto and the flashing black eyes.

Blue Thrushes

In fact, " a most unattractive old thing ! "

But what did attract me, was a bird in a picturesque
cane-barred cage, which hung from the tumble-down
iron balcony, amongst bunches of golden maize,
above the stall laden with fruit and vegetables. The
bird was singing in spite of its woe-begone appearance,
for it was evident that old Pietro considered a bath
for his bird as unnecessary as for himself. I asked
him to let me see it. What did he call it ? " Passera
Solitaria, signore. Un uccello magnifico ! Canta
tutto il giorno, dalla mattina fin alia sera ! "

A blue thrush, which under such unwashen cir-
cumstances "sang all the day from morning till
night," must be a treasure of a bird ; so that after a
good deal of chattering and haggling, in the midst
of which old Pietro shrugged his fat shoulders above
his ears, and I turned abruptly away with an imitative
shrug, both of us thereby expressing our opinion of
the futility of our bargaining, an agreement was
arrived at, and the Passera became mine. Oh ! the
dirt of his cage ! no wonder the poor bird's tail was
worn to a shred, and his body coated with filth ; his
feet too, each toe firmly embedded in a hardened
lump of dirt and sand, so that each time he hopped
from perch to perch there was a sound as of three
or four peas rattling about.

It was a real joy, when I had him in my room, to
soak those poor neglected feet in a basin of warm
water, and to perform the office of a chiropodist.
A joy to see those nasty lumps soften and drop off,
like great clod-hopping, ill-fitting boots.

Blue Thrushes 47

And his feathers, after a judicious soaping, sponging,
and drying, although for the time being hopelessly
shabby, re-appeared with some of their pristine gloss
and natural colouring.

That bird plainly showed his joy, more especially
as he was put into a new and roomy cage, where for
the first time in his life he found clean and fresh sand,
pure water, and untainted food.

Having proved him to be a desirable bird for a
cage, my next aim was to procure a brood of young
blue thrushes, and rear them myself from the nest ;
but for this I had to wait until the following spring,
when I hoped to be once more on the shores of the
" Lago incantevole." In the meanwhile my Passera
successfully endured the dampness, and cold, and fogs
of an English winter, very soon becoming friendly
and familiar.

Having left Italy in the autumn days when little
green figs and large juicy brown ones abounded, when
autumn snow had whitened the extreme summits of
distant mountains and autumn tints had commenced
to reflect themselves in the mirror of water beneath,
I returned in April to find the gardens echoing with
the songs of newly-arrived nightingales and blackcaps,
and gay with the promise of spring. Seeking out a
garden-labourer, whose acquaintance I had made
during one of my previous visits, and who was a
keen observer of birds, I arranged a tramp with him
up into the hills behind Cadenabbia, where blue
thrushes and rock thrushes (of which more later
on) are fairly numerous.

Blue Thrushes

But he advised our waiting for a week or two, until
the birds had built their nests, for they would be more
stationary, and by their movements, after careful
watching, would probably betray the whereabouts
of the spot they had chosen for building in.

The time ripened, and the day came when my
Italian peasant friend and I set out, and having clam-
bered up amongst the rocks about a thousand feet
above the lake, we sat down to listen and to watch.
Presently in the stillness the warble of a blue thrush
was heard some way up on the face of the precipice
above us. The man put out his hand, saying, " Ecco !
una Passera" (that is a blue thrush) ; and scanning
the rocks, pointed to a ledge where, after a moment
or two, I could see a bird hopping about, occasionally
flitting a short distance, and settling with an upward
flirt of its tail.

He was evidently catching insects, and very soon
fluttered up to a small hole in the very face of the
precipice of San Martino, into which he disappeared.

No doubt his mate was there on her nest, but to
attempt to reach it was absolutely futile. Much as
I desired a brood, I couldn't help feeling glad that
sometimes birds manage to build their nests in im-
pregnable spots, especially perhaps in Italy, where
little or no respect is paid to their parental instincts,
young birds being ruthlessly taken from the nests, no
matter what the species, and cooked for dinner.
This fact was brought forcibly before me in the case
of the very man who was helping me to find my
young blue thrushes, for I had caught sight of a

Blue Thrushes 49

pair of grey wagtails amongst some stones in the
middle of a stream, on our way up San Martino, and
I asked him whether he knew where they built. His
answer was that he had found their nest with four
young ones, which he had taken home to vary the
menu with ! Fancy eating grey wagtails ! Those
graceful, fairy-like little fellows, with their black
throats, their sulphur-coloured breasts, and their long
slender tails dipping up and down in the familiar
wagtail style, enlivening a mountain stream with their
quick movements and sprightly call. But what can
one expect of people whose parish priests allow and
encourage them to bring strings of slaughtered robins
and other warblers to their harvest festivals, as con-
tributions to the general offerings ? Some birds may
be intended as food for mankind, but many would
seem to have been created purely for song and
ornament, for denizens of our gardens and woods,
and for members on earth of a heavenly choir.

Of actually looking into a blue thrush's nest I have
not yet had the pleasure, for my " cacciatore " (hunter)
came to me one day, to tell me that at a mill-house,
by the torrent that runs into the lake from the
mountain, I could see a brood of the birds I was
wanting, which had just been brought down from the
heights above. It seemed a shame to take them away
from the enjoyment of their natural surroundings,
where, amongst the rocks above the chestnut groves,
the large orange lilies and purple columbines brighten
the slopes with blooms of topaz and amethyst.

Yet, after a lapse of over nine years, I still have

D

50 Blue Thrushes

one of that brood, which, with his gladdening song
in every month of the year, gives no one the im-
pression that he is pining either for the Alpine heights
in summer or the warm rocks of Egypt in the winter.
It was a beautiful brood of five birds about ten days
old, their feathers quickly growing, and their eyes
becoming rounder. So delighted was I to possess
them, that without any bargaining I plumped down
a ten-franc piece, accepted by the miller with avidity,
and I walked off with my " passere."

Some fresh hay tucked into a covered basket soon
made them a cosy nest, whilst some prepared insec-
tiverous food, mixed with some finely chopped raw
beef, was carefully made ready to satisfy their hunger.
They were not difficult to rear, but of course they
required a deal of attention. Early rising was im-
perative, but who would do anything but rejoice at
having an excuse to jump out of bed at four o'clock
in the morning of a spring day's dawn at the Como
lake ? None, unless they were without souls, or
inveterate sluggards.

And then, too, when one's bedroom is perched
high up in a lovely villa, with a spacious balcony
overlooking the garden and the lake, with Bellagio
on the opposite shore reflected in the still water as
in a mirror, the inducement to leave one's bed, how-
ever sleepy one may be, is great. Below, the gardeners
are already about, raking over the paths of tiny pebbles,
and watering the heliotrope and roses.

The clang of wooden pattens rings along the road,
or down the rough path which skirts the garden wall.

Blue Thrushes 51

Over the surface of the lake the early bells of the
churches are calling the hour of the first offices of
the day, mingled with the Gregorian-like tones of
peasants chanting from some boat which is gliding
towards the shore, leaving in its wake a long silver
streak upon the opaque blueness of the water.

Nightingales, which have been singing almost
through the night, are now busy at their breakfast ;
and you catch sight of a russet tail, as one flits from
amongst the oleanders to the group of ilex which
conceal the garden entrance from the road.

But it is time to feed the young " passere," for im-
patient chirrups are issuing from their basket, and
five hungry orange gaping mouths are opened to
their widest, five long necks upstretched ere ever
the lid is lifted. The china dish has been thoroughly
cleaned and rinsed first of all, for yesterday's food,
however much there may be left, must be dis-
pensed with for fear of any smattering of sourness
therein.

Though hungry now at this early hour, yet their
hunger increases and seems to be at its height between
eight and nine o'clock.

There is a marked difference in their growth since
yesterday : less quills, and more feathering. And in
another week they are up on their feet in the hay,
doing their best to look out on the world around
them : unmistakable blue thrushes, the males espe-
cially being tinted with a warm grey on the general
grounding of greyish brown.

A few more days, and my brood begins to hop

52 Blue Thrushes

out of the basket, when they are transferred to a cage :
one of those picturesque cane cages.

It is a pretty sight to see them a little later on,
when their tails are an inch long, long enough to be
flirted up and down after the manner of the Chat
family, flying on to my shoulders and arms when the
cage door is opened, where they take up their position
with quivering wings and opened beaks, for am I
not their father and mother in one ? So much so,
that if I bring a visitor to my balcony to see them,
they will start away timidly, for they know not the
voice of strangers. " Birds are such stupid things,"
so people often say who know nothing whatever
about them. Let any one keep a tame blue thrush,
and they will soon alter their opinion, for they will
discover that he knows his master and members of
the household just as well as the most intelligent
dog, and perhaps be more faithful ; at any rate, my
blue thrush will no more think of taking a mealworm
(of which he is passionately fond) from a stranger's
fingers than he would of barking ; whereas he is
ready to snatch one from those with which he is
familiar, as soon as he sees the box containing them ;
whilst most dogs can be won through their stomachs !

Like all members of families as they grow up,
my young birds have to separate, one going to one
friend, another to another ; and I still possess a kind
and grateful letter from the late Lord Lilford, acknow-
ledging a hen bird which he had hoped to mate with
a male already in his possession, but the latter proved
to be too much of a tyrant. There is no greater

Blue Thrushes 53

tyrant than an old male " passera " who has been kept
by himself and made a pet of, for he will attack
anything that comes within his reach.

When my old friend, whose babyhood at Cade-
nabbia over nine years ago I have recounted, is let
out for a fly in my room, he will make repeated
onslaughts upon the butler when he enters, and I
have seen the latter unable to advance beyond the
door, because the blue thrush, like a flash, is down at
his feet, violently attacking each boot as it is moved.

Failing this, he goes for his face, which is pleasant
for the butler ; it helps him to keep up his dignity,
you know ! When in his youth (the passera's, not
the butler's !) I gave him mealworms, I often said
" Pretty boy " in conversing with him — for I do
converse a good deal with my birds — and this little
term of address the bird picked up, suddenly to my
astonishment saying it quite distinctly, so much so
that strangers never fail to notice it at once, and on
their part to express their astonishment. He intro-
duces it into his song, generally at the end of a stanza
largely composed of artificial whistlings. His own
natural song has a separate place in his repertoire,
being uttered more generally when he is alone, and
in the spring-time and early summer, rather than in
the other months of the year ; but his artificial song
comes in at all seasons, whether he is moulting or not.

With birds that have a real affection for any one
to whom they belong, there is no doubt that yearnings
for what people call their freedom are not existent.

It is often said, " I don't keep birds, for I think

54 Blue Thrushes

it is cruel to cage them." Would this still be said
if people could see my blue thrush when he is let
out of his cage with the window wide open, and he
sitting on the sill thereof, only to scuttle back to his
cage, as a wild passera would to his cleft in the rocks,
when a stranger appears on the scene. I am sure that
tame birds like that look upon their cages just as we
do our houses, and feel with regard to them that
there is no place like home.

In the entrance hall in summer time he used to
fly about, sitting in the open doorway, singing on the
steps, but quickly darting indoors again if any one
approached either from the house or to it. One day,
it is true, he did fly out of one of the windows, but
so certain was every one familiar with him that he
would come back, that when I asked his friend the
butler where he had gone to, I only received a quiet
and unalarmed answer, " He is somewhere in the
garden."

On my going out to whistle for him, accompanied
by two lady guests, he at once answered me from the
top of a garden wall, where he was running up and
down, piping all the time with his feathers puffed out,
evidently enjoying the escapade.

Walking towards him, he took flight on to the
stone string course of the house, on a level with the
bedroom windows ; and seemed decidedly disinclined to
come to me, singing in a defiant way at me. Then I
suggested to my guests that they were perhaps de
trop as far as he was concerned ; impressing on them
the fact that of course it did not apply in my own case !

Blue Thrushes 55

Barely had the last inch of their skirts disappeared
round the corner of the house, before that wise bird
was at my feet, and as I walked round to the front
door, he flitted after me, and hopped into his cage
when I held it to him, turning fiercely round to peck
my fingers as I shut his door.

Poor " Pretty Boy " ! It is sad to think that he is
growing old ; and that at the age of nine years and a
half he has, I fear, not many more left him in which to
enjoy his happy life, a life which in its own brightness
has brightened many an hour for those who know him,
his song serving to bring back happy days spent in
homes of bygone days, where my passera was always a
special household god.

ORANGE-CHEEKED WAXBILLS

CHAPTER IV
ROCK THRUSHES

" The bird will love you if you treat it kindly ; is as
frank and friendly as bird can be."

MY Rock Thrush is worthy of a separate
chapter, though one perhaps necessarily
curtailed in length, owing to the fact that
so much that describes his wild life and his residences
is identical with that of the blue thrush, his cousin.
You know one of our most beautiful migratory birds,
the redstart, don't you ? That bright little fellow that
arrives from Africa in April, with his sweet though not
prominent song, his quivering rufous tail, his black
throat, and his snowy white forehead. Well ! the
rock thrush is in his manners and movements un-
commonly like a big redstart ; that is to say, whilst

56

Rock Thrushes 57

the latter is the size of a robin, the former about
equals that of a starling. Picture him in his summer
plumage ; his whole head of a pale cobalt blue, that
colour extending to the throat and back of the neck,
where in front it is sharply met by the breast colour,
the whole of which, with the underparts, is a bright
yellowish chestnut ; whilst on the back there is deep
brownish grey extending to the wings, where the
brown becomes purer. The tail is truly " redstartian,"
both in colour and movement ; and the conspicuous
white spot of the redstart's forehead appears in the
middle of the rock thrush's back, just where the wings
meet together : a white spot, the size of a two-shilling
piece. And this white patch serves, as with many
other birds of conspicuous plumage, to break up the
colours ; and is especially serviceable to a bird like the
rock thrush, dwelling constantly on stony ground ; for
when the bird's back is towards one, the white,
surrounded by rufous and brown, looks exactly like a
stone of the same colour, or like a bright light upon
the point or angle of a rock.

The way in which most brilliant coloured birds
assimilate with their surroundings is a very wonderful
and striking provision of Nature's Creator.

Now let us, without I hope running the risk of
repetition of parts of the preceding chapter, visit
another mountain of Italy : that beautiful one over-
hanging the Lugano lake, close to whose shores you
can ascend it. First of all through ravines which
overshadow villages, where steep paths and cobble-
stone by-ways lead you to higher ground until you

Rock Thrushes

presently reach the groves of chestnut, to which you
are grateful for shade and coolness ; but which must be
left behind before you reach the summit of Monte
Generoso, clothed in brushwood and trees of more
stunted growth. But here amongst the ravines, where
great boulders have tumbled down, and are heaped in
artistic tumult one on the other, where troops of
crimson pceonies bedeck the steeps of rock, tiny
streams gushing amongst them on their way to the
lake below, is a summer home of the rock thrushes,
which live, as a rule, at a somewhat lower level in the
mountains to that of the blue thrush. You may catch
an echo of his song, a song not so far-reaching perhaps
as that of his blue cousin ; but melodious and wild,
entirely fitted to his surroundings, as is always the case
in Nature's economy. Flitting from stone to stone
(the Germans call it the steinmerle}^ his white-patched
back showing conspicuously as he flies, you will see
him until he settles ; when he suddenly vanishes,
environed by rust-stained rocks with dark shadows and
whitened lights, to which his plumage bears so strong
a resemblance when at liberty amongst them.

His mate is still more difficult to distinguish, for
her feathers, except for the rufous tail, are for the most
part of an unconspicuous speckled brown, lacking the
blue head, the chestnut breast, and the white back of
the male. Here again Nature's Creator has decreed
things well in His eternal wisdom, for if the
brilliancy of male birds in many species was shared by
the female alike, how could she conceal herself and
her eggs from view ?

Rock Thrushes 59

What can be more glowing than the plumage of a
male gold pheasant, yet what more closely resembles
the fallen leaves or the ground than that of his mate ;
the lovely barred brown of whose feathers entirely
helps to conceal her, as she sits closely on her nest in
some fern-covered hollow, on which the sun glints
with beams of light, broken on the earth beneath by
shadows of overhanging fronds and leaves and
branches, so that the pheasant's dark and lighter
russet bars exactly imitate her surroundings. Had
she a flowing crest of golden floss silk, and a vivid
breast of scarlet like her husband, how quickly she
would be detected ; she, and her brood when it is
hatched out ; but those tiny bodies of golden brown,
relieved and varied by longitudinal stripes of buff,
assimilate themselves in a perfect way with the under-
growth amongst which they move.

It is just the same with all the Phasianidae, peafowl
included, except, perhaps, in the case of the Javanese
peahen, who is bold enough to wear a dress of rich
green like the male ; yet even she must dispense with
his court train. No doubt in her native wilds she lays
her eggs under recesses of green foliage, as rich in
colour as her own feathers, thus escaping detection.

The duck family also is an example of Nature's
wisdom. Many male birds, such as mandarins,
summer duck, and different kinds of teal, are quite
bejewelled with brilliant colouring ; yet almost invari-
ably their wives are clothed in browns and greys of
sober and unassuming tints. A mallard, our jolly
sporting old English " wild duck," is as bright as you

60 Rock Thrushes

can want him, his green head glistening in the March
sunshine against his maroon breast and his pearly grey
back ; but go and search over there amongst the rushes
and the osiers, staring hard perhaps at his duck on her
downy nest, her head twisted round to assist the decep-
tion of turning herself into a small heap of dead leaves ;
and / may lay odds that you don't detect where she lays
eggs, unless your eye is in practice, and your percep-
tion keen for things in bird life.

And so the rock thrush mothers her pale blue eggs,
concealed upon her nest in some rocky bank, where
the Alpine rhododendron, showered over with carmine
flower heads, makes rosy blushes on the mountain's
face ; her mate meanwhile, rising on quivering wings to
utter a song of impetuous warbling, falls back with
outspread wings to perch on the great lichen-covered
boulder that overshadows her.

The high ground of France, in Auvergne, for in-
stance, is also a summer resort of this lovely bird.

A road that winds up and away from the picturesque
town of Mont Dore, where asthmatical invalids collect
for drinking the waters and taking the baths, leads you
through pine forests which ascend steeply on the one
side to be lost sight of in the heights above, whilst on
the other they clothe the precipices which fall abruptly
from your very feet, and finally brings you to the
summit of those hills, from whence a panorama of
what seems the whole of France stretches for leagues
below you, a plain from which, in the immediate fore-
ground, gigantic castles of natural rock separated by
deep gullies from the main body of mountains, rise in

Rock Thrushes 61

splendid dignity, warmly clothed in firs and under-
shrub. Behind you the trees are there no longer; but
instead, the upland meadows decked with flowers
stretch away to the top, here and there scattered with
great rocks, as if thrown by some giant hand in boyish
play. It is July, the air fresh and life-giving, the white
clouds sailing high against an azure sky. Some little
brown pipits are flitting close at hand, and some wheat-
ears are bobbing about on some stones not far off, but
higher up amongst those scattered boulders are some
larger birds, at least a dozen and a half, which are
running over the stones, chasing each other, and
singing.

It is a colony of rock thrushes, for I can certainly
see three males in adult plumage as well as females ;
whilst here, there, and apparently everywhere in that
particular spot are the young broods, fully fledged.
The nesting season is pretty well over, and the old
birds do not mind showing themselves ; indeed, as I
walk slowly up the grassy slopes, trying to seem as if I
didn't know that there was such a bird as a rock thrush,
they allow me to come quite close, and one fine old
male bird is puffing himself out with his head feathers
compressed, tilting at another, as he runs with halting
steps upon a flat stone of gigantic proportions.

My wife, who is with me, is enchanted at the sight.
When one knows any particular bird or animal person-
ally and intimately, one is always much more inter-
ested in the particular species to which it belongs ;
and now, after several years of close friendship with my
tame rock thrush, she is keenly delighted at seeing

62 Rock Thrushes

him, as it were, in his wild state for the first time,
behaving, too, exactly as he behaves in a drawing-
room when he is out of his cage, so that we both
began to think he must have followed us to the
Auvergne hills, and be there amongst that pleasant
company.

And I whistle, as I always whistle to him, which
causes the beautiful male bird that we were especially
attracted towards, to puff himself out defiantly and
whistle in response.

But discretion to him is the better part of valour,
for as we are emboldened to a nearer approach, he
gracefully retires, not hurriedly like a clamorous black-
bird, but flitting up the slope from rock to rock, finally
disappearing, with his companions and his family, to
more solitary quarters.

' We hear him piping a little distance off, as much
as to say, "You needn't think a Frenchman is
frightened of you English ; those rocks are not
Fashoda, they are mine, and I shall return to take
possession as soon as you are gone." It was refreshing
to find these pretty mountain birds so unmolested, to
know that although they had chosen France as their
summer home, they were scarcely noticed by the
inhabitants ; actually not shot and eaten.

" Le merle de roche " they are called, I think ; and
the Italians style them " Codirossone" ; or perhaps
more usually, at any rate in peasant lingo, " Colossera."

Another day we rode off into the heart of the
mountains, behind the snow-capped peak that towers
up above Mont Dore, accompanied by a chasseur,

Rock Thrushes 63

who said he could guide us to another haunt of the
rock thrush. It was a sultry day, hung about with
ominous thunder-clouds, which threatened, before our
picnic lunch, to overwhelm us, for the thunder was
rolling and grumbling in the distance, and the light-
ning flashing every now and then. Seated amongst
masses of sweet bog myrtle, we eat our sandwiches,
which we washed down with water from a little rill at
our feet ; and continuing our ride, reached the edge of
the plateau, where a steep and stony path gave us a
descent to some peasants' cottages, built amongst the
rocks on the sloping mountainous ground below. A
few pipits and some wheatears seemed to make up the
bird life ; but as yet, no rock thrushes. At last, all
that strongly attracted our attention was the rain,
which burst upon us in torrents, causing us to seek for
shelter, almost drenched to the skin, in a long wooden
cottage, where the kindly peasants welcomed us in,
whilst our chasseur took our horses to a dark and dirty
cow-shed.

Up some slippery steps we clambered, to find our-
selves in the one room of this dwelling, which was
evidently kitchen, parlour, and bedroom.

The beds were in the form of wooden berths, con-
structed along one wall in a row of two tiers, with
little curtains to draw across the front of each.

Within the cribs small and cheap crucifixes hung,
and tawdry pictures of our Lady, bedecked with arti-
ficial flowers, except in one instance, where a little
girl's devotion — so her mother told us — had moved
her to buy a small carved bracket, on which a blue

64

Rock Thrushes

vase stood, filled with real mountain blossoms and
leaves, and constantly replenished.

The mother had a sweet face, surrounded by the
goffered edging of her white cap ; and the shrivelled
" Gran' mere," was a member of the family.

Their French was not exactly Parisian, indeed it
was such a mountain patois that we had a certain
difficulty in understanding it.

Our French, which hitherto we had thought
decidedly indifferent, shone out with a lustre we had
never hoped for, when the mother of the home asked
us what part of France we came from. Was it Paris ?
" Oh no," we answered, " we are English, not French."
" English ? " was the astonished reply, " we thought
you were French." Then a moment's pause, and a
polite stare indicative of much curiosity, followed by
rfie announcement, " We have never seen any English
before." And there were further glances of deep
curiosity, with a tone in the voice which seemed to
say, " That accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut ;
who but the mad English lady and gentleman would
be riding over the Auvergne mountains in a drench-
ing thunderstorm ? "

It is true we seemed to be taking our pleasures
sadly that day, as we sat there with the rain-water
trickling down our clothes into puddles on the floor.
But we wouldn't have missed this enforced visit for
anything, for this insight of French peasant life was
interesting, and we learnt afresh that " kind hearts are
more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman
blood." " Wouldn't madame and monsieur have some-

Rock Thrushes 65

thing to eat ? " as the best bread cake was brought to
the fore, hungrily eyed by the children. " Madame
must have her cloak dried, Madame is so wet."
" Madame and Monsieur must not think of leaving
until the storm is over," &c., &c.

Then I asked them whether their church was far
off. " Yes, a long way," was the answer.

Does the cure come to visit them ? " Oh yes,
from time to time."

And then our conversation was interrupted by the
arrival of the father of the family ; absolutely drenched,
poor man, to the skin. This was embarrassing ; since,
seeing we were in his bedroom, he must either doff his
wet clothes there, or nowhere ; and doff them he did,
after duly saluting les Strangers ; stripping himself
bare from his waist upwards, whilst his wife found
him a dry shirt in the depths of a large drawer beneath
his berth in the wall.

We thought it advisable to be blind to the rest of
his toilette ; and as the rain still descended in buckets
outside, turned our backs to our host, as far as we
were able, to take a deep interest in the misty view
through the open doorway. When we ventured to
look round once more, he was clothed again ; and I
plied him with questions about the rock thrushes.
Oh yes, he knew them ; he had known of two or three
nests a month or so ago, but it was too late now to get
young birds, and this was disappointing ; so the storm
having cleared off, we wended our homeward way,
with many thanks to our kindly peasants, and a pour-
boire with which they seemed pleased.

E

66 Rock Thrushes

Some day, when my poor old rock thrush — about
as old and as faithful as my Passera — has winged his
flight to a better land, I shall perhaps return to
Auvergne, in the merry month of May, to seek his
successor. At any rate, I know where to find one. My
old fellow — for nine years is fairly old for a cage bird of
that species ; it is certainly very middle-aged — was reared
by myself in the same way, and under very much the
same circumstances, as the blue thrush. He was one
of a brood of four, all of which were unable to feed
themselves when I brought them home from Italy,
and this meant feeding them at least every two hours
of the journey : an awkward thing to do if the
carriages of the train are full, and fellow-travellers
unappreciative. Yet the latter is not often the case ;
but, on the contrary, it is seldom or ever that I have
found them anything but keenly interested in seeing
my birds, which emboldens me to take them out
one by one to make sure that they receive plenty
under rather trying circumstances.

And so each of my young rock thrushes were
brought out, opening their bright orange mouths for
a piece of raw meat [as in turns I held them in
my left hand], as readily as they would have had the
raw meat been a fat grub, my hand their nest on the
slopes of Monte Crocione, above Lecco, and I their
very own father.

At Basle and Calais, if there was time, my first
action after a necessary inspection of luggage was
to ask for some bceuf crude at the buffet, pour
des oiseaux, and then to beg a porter to find me a

Rock Thrushes 67

handful of fresh hay for the bottom of the cage, so that
my thrushes should not arrive in England with soiled
and dirty plumage, besides the fact that it helped to
keep the cage soigne and sweet. There was no water
vessel, because the water is sure to get spilt and mess
everything to no purpose ; so my way of quenching
the little chaps' thirst, was to dip my finger in a glass
of water, letting two or three drops fall down their
open throats after their hunger was satisfied.

People often wondered how my birds looked so
fresh and clean and healthy, but they would have
wondered still more had they realised the hundred and
one little ways with which I obtained so satisfactory a
result. Four birds in so confined a space very soon
become dirty, the wings and tail soiled, the feathers
broken, and the feet clogged. To combat these eye-
sores, one must, on a journey, sponge the soiled
feathers and feet, and if some of the food has dried
round the edges of the mouth it can be washed off
carefully with a wetted finger, to the improvement of
the bird's appearance, and its manifest comfort.

We all know the joy of sponging one's face when
the dust and cinders of the train have choked up the
pores of the skin.

With insectivorous food given in a moistened and
pasty form it is very difficult to feed young birds for
long without some accumulation of it outside their
mouths, for as they swallow it voraciously down,
particles are almost bound to break off, and be worked
to either side of the bird's mouth.

And all this fussy care on my part is not without

68 Rock Thrushes

its reward. My rock thrushes were safely landed in
England ; all but one, as in the case of the blue
thrushes, being given away to friends.

There is a photograph of the late Lord Lilford,
with a rock thrush in a cage on the table by which
he is sitting, which was one of his favourite birds,
and I believe is the " Colossera " that I gave him,
picked from the brood, reared up, and brought home
in the manner just described.

How much we bird-lovers wish he was still
amongst us !

The male bird that I kept — and still have — did
not acquire a perfectly bright breeding plumage until
his third spring, inclusive of the spring in which he
was hatched ; but then his blue head, chestnut breast,
and white back, with deep brown shoulders, appeared
in all their beauty. He is an early moulter, all his
feathers, except the tail and larger wing feathers,
which are only cast in the autumnal moult, falling
out in positive showers by the middle of February,
when his speckled winter plumage, which he has worn
since the previous August, is quickly replaced by the
more gay and conspicuous costume of the breeding
season. It is as the summer costume of a fine Ascot,
compared with the more sombre ones of a foggy
winter in London.

And how my old rock thrush sings after his return
from Nature's dressmaker ! Like the Passera, already
written about in the previous chapter, he has picked
up some of my impromptu whistlings, but his wild
love song of the mountains is reserved for special

•*

Rock Thrushes 69

occasions only, and only for his master. Then he
stretches up his head, compressing the feathers of it
until it looks almost snake-like, droops his wings as
he tightens down his body, and spreads his redstart
tail into a quivering chestnut fan. Low warblings,
far down in the throat, commence ; piano — piano ; the
notes trembling in time with his body, and gradually
coming to crescendo, to die back again into a far
distant tone.

He jumps off his perch on to the sand, the music
poured forth passionately all the time, as he runs
quickly up and down, his throat uplifted, and his fan
tail tremulous with the strength of his song — a song
that sounds like rippling water.

No doubt it is the manner in which he serenades
and courts his fiancee — his promessa sposa — as he trips
round her, amongst the gentians and the roses des alpes
of his summer haunts.

Five minutes afterwards he will be himself again,
so to speak : puffing out those tightened feathers ; back
again from his dreamt-of wife ; and whistling some
artificial stanza that he has picked up from me.

It was at the finale of one of these ecstatic love
songs that he escaped through the window into the
garden of the little Suffolk rectory that was then
our home — his and mine. I opened his cage-door
as he was singing — for he constantly comes out for a
fly in the room — but he seemed for once to lose his
head.

Suddenly, without a moment's warning, even as
his rapid warblings were still uttered, he darted like

70 Rock Thrushes

lightning across the room, and through the latticed
casement.

It wasn't fright that moved him to it, it was
apparently a sudden wild impulse, begotten of instincts
hitherto unrealised.

I began to be nervous ! Nowhere could the bird
be seen. No answer came to my whistlings !

At last, across the meadow that was separated from
my garden by a moat — a pretty water-meadow
bordered by giant poplars, and at the far side by a
clear river — I saw a bird flitting from tree to tree, with
a flight that was familiar, but not that of any of our
British birds. Arming myself with a tin of meal-
worms, I set off to capture the truant. He was at the
very tip-top of a very high poplar, the sun shining
conspicuously on his orange breast ; and when he
heard me whistle, his melodious answer in the stillness
of a cloudless May day came back at once. In spite
of his independent position, I could tell by the cock of
his head and the tone of his voice, that he felt rather
like a lost child. Again I whistled ; swoop ! down
he came towards me ; but taking fright in mid-air,
inclined upwards again, to settle on another tree the
other side of the meadow, and off I went once more,
apprehensive that he might get altogether beyond my
bearings and his own also.

But again his whistle came clear and strong. Then
he caught sight of his mealworm box.

There was no missing his mark this time ; he shot
into the air off his tree top, to drop like an arrow at
my very feet, running round them with his body

Rock Thrushes 71

feathers uplifted, and warbling in a crooning con-
fidential way, which said, " It was very nice, my bird's-
eye view from the poplar tops, but I prefer you and
the mealworms, after all." After that, I had only to
place my hand on him and carry him home ; he
pecking at my fingers and piping all the time, which
makes one somehow think of " Peter Piper pecked
a peck of pepper." There were some boys standing
by the river fishing ; wondering why I was meander-
ing in the meadows, gazing up at the trees, and whist-
ling in a manner that at first must have seemed to
qualify me for an immediate entrance to the nearest
lunatic asylum. The sequel astonished them con-
siderably !

Birds, apparently wild, don't usually whistle back
to one in precisely the same key and notes as your-
self, or settle themselves at your feet to let you pick
them up !

How vividly it is all impressed on my memory ! The
stretch of water-meadows, gay with cuckoo plant and
lingering king-cups ; the glimpse of the mill through
the tree trunks across the river by the back-water ; the
train puffing along in the distance between Melton and
Wickham Market ; the pretty thatched roof of the
rectory, half hidden from the meadows by a giant
copper-beech ; the distempered walls of apricot-orange,
with the green wood shutters thrown back from the
latticed casements, over which climbed roses — William
Allen Richardson, Fortune's yellow, and a crimson
rambler — besides honeysuckles and jessamine ; the
garden aflame with huge scarlet poppies and many

72 Rock Thrushes

columbines ; the stately flint tower of the old church,
rising amongst the trees in the background.

And amidst all that, as well as, oh ! so much more,
I can still hear the piping of my rock thrush, bring-
ing back to me as he sings the memories of one of the
brightest, happiest little homes that even England
could ever rejoice in.

LONG-TAILED FINCHES (AUSTRALIA)

CHAPTER V
NIGHTINGALES

" Without further preamble, I will ask you to look to-day,
more carefully than usual, at your well-known favourite, and to
think about him with some precision."

THE very name of the nightingale brings to
one's mind the sweet visions of spring, when
the earth is awakening from her sleep, quiver-
ing into newness of life in the lengthening days of
warmer sunshine, when oak and hazel-copses are car-
peted with stretches of purple blue-bells, white ane-
mones, and, in some of the more favoured spots,
yellow daffodils. Here, where the primroses have
all but given place to their other sisters of the woods
and meadows, for their fragrant blossoms are fading
out of sight, the summer migrants have again

73

74 Nightingales

returned, to brighten the whole country with their
songs.

Before the March days are done, the little rest-
less chiff-chaff may be heard, calling incessantly as
he flits from branch to branch ; always perky, and
nothing daunted by chilly winds or leafless trees. He
is one of the first to lead the way in that countless
throng of fluttering wings, which have commenced
their long and wonderful journeys from far-off lands
of perpetual sunshine. Only a day or two ago and
that tiny chiff-chaff, who is making himself at home
in the garden shrubberies or the woods by the river,
was in Africa.

Yet he has taken his flight, filled with the strength
of that unerring instinct of the wonderful things of
God's nature, flitting — flitting — flitting — a small fairy-
like body ; passing in his course continents and
islands, ocean waves and rivers, until — " Chiff-chaff,
chiff-chaff" — he is back in the old gardens of England,
to swell the melodious song of spring. Then more
put in an appearance: redstarts, garden -warblers,
blackcaps, with their bright cheery song, wood-
warblers, and others.

Then come the warm April showers, when every
green and vinous bud is glistening with the diamonds
of the sky, and cowslips are sprinkled through the
fields and meadows, when rain-storms and bright
sunshine succeed each other, and massive glistening
clouds float like majestic icebergs' under the blue of
the heavens.

Hark ! amidst the chorus of songsters, the fluting

Nightingales 75

of blackbirds, the piping of thrushes, the warbling
of a hundred others, suddenly, as a Diva's voice above
that of some great human choir, ring out the long-
drawn notes of the nightingale, followed by a succes-
sion of trills and warbles, which perhaps only Jenny
Lind ever really represented in the human voice.
There is a peculiar strength of quality in a nightin-
gale's voice, which, even when he is singing in the
midst of a full chorus of other birds, shines out and
is separated from among them, forcibly catching the
ear of the listener. Other voices, such as the black-
birds, may be, in a sense, richer in quality, even as
a contralto or mezzo-soprano may have at times a
richer sound than a soprano ; but no bird can equal
the nightingale in that wonderful gush of quickly-
changing notes and stanzas, poured forth with such
ease and strength — strength more wonderful con-
sidering the small body from which it issues.

And this bird Diva — if one may, with poets,
endow him with a feminine title — [the hen bird does
not sing] — what is his outward appearance ?

Certainly extremely unlike the Divas of human
society, gorgeous in Parisian silks and satins.

What is he like, this sweet singing bird whose
notes are ringing out from among the thorn trees ?

The very fact that he is hidden under showers of
blossoming May rather enhances the beauty of his
song than otherwise, lending a spirit of mystery to his
presence.

Now he has paused at the end of a trill, and a
small gracefully-made bird flits to the ground amongst

j6 Nightingales

the bouquets of wild flowers which Nature has lavish-
ingly scattered at his feet.

He is only clothed in a rich but sober dress of
brown, which warms into a brighter chestnut hue
in the tail and upper coverts, and pales into lighter
shades upon the breast.

There, amongst the blue-bells, he hops on slender
legs and feet, his bright brown eye searching for some
insect. In size no larger than a robin, or not much
so ; but in shape there is more finesse^ and his move-
ments are more lithe.

As he flies off to some sheltering undergrowth,
his rufous tail shows almost as conspicuously as a red-
start's, and on settling he moves it up and down,
uttering his call note — " We-pr-r-r, we-pr-r-r."

I think it is a mistake to consider the nightingale's
song in any sense as a melancholy one ; it rather seems
to be an overflowing rush of gladness and joy.

It sounds as if he was so delighted to have reached
the sweet English woods, and gardens, and meadows
once more in safety, where he is, during the first
few days of his arrival, awaiting the return of his
little brown wife, when he will upraise his voice
from early morn till dewy eve, and all through the
moon-lit nights will challenge the bird world to
equal him.

In May, craftily concealed in some hazel stump
or tangle of undergrowth, the nest of dead leaves
and fibres of roots will be built, wherein, mothering
four or five olive - brown eggs, his mate will sit,
her brown plumage exactly assimilating with her

Nightingales 77

surroundings. You may unknowingly disturb her
from it and leave it undiscovered, for she has flitted
noiselessly away, leaving her presence undetected.

Nervous of the intruding giant she may be, but
she is too ladylike to upraise her voice in clamorous
protest ; and silently, amongst the depths of the
growth of scrubs, awaits his departure before she slips
back again.

Yet with all this timidity and caution, nightingales
are unexpectedly bold ; taking up their abode in *
suburban gardens, and building their nests in close
proximity to houses.

In the pretty little Suffolk garden of the rectory I
once lived in I have found at least three nightingales*
nests ; one, I remember, being only a few yards from the
front door, and close to the gravel drive that leads to it.

The cock bird used to sit (and may still, for
aught I know) on a branch of a Scotch fir which
grew on the little lawn close to my bedroom win-
dows ; and many a night in May have I lain in
bed with the casements thrown wide open, the moon-
light pouring in, and the song of the nightingale
ringing in my ears.

" I cannot guess what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild ;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ;
Fast fading violets covered up in leaves ;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

78 Nightingales

Darkling I listen ; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

CallM him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath ;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou are pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy !

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain —

To thy high requiem become a sod.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird !

No hungry generations tread thee down ;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and by clown :

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn ;

The same that oft-times hath

CharmM magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. ""

If I was kept awake, it was well worth it, and
I often rose from my bed before finally falling to
sleep to enjoy that beautiful song for a little while
longer, as I stood at the window and looked beyond
the garden boundary across the water-meadows, from
which the notes of rival nightingales came floating
towards me, varied by an occasional outburst of chatter
from some cheeky little sedge warbler amongst the
rushes by the river, or even the mellow tones of a
cuckoo. And in the early morning as the dawn began
to break, the nightingale, having rested for an hour
•or so, had recommenced his song, which in spite of a
united and increasing chorus of other birds, still rang
clearly out.

Nightingales 79

Under such conditions, the dawn of a May morn-
ing in England is one of the most beautiful things
that the Creator has granted to us.

For an hour or more every feathered throat is
quivering with this wonderful outburst of song, and
never a discordant note is heard, although each bird is
going his own way with varied tones, and stanzas, and
keys ; so marvellously is nature ordered and arranged.

Set a human company of picked singers to sing
their favourite songs together, each one choosing his
own melody, and time, and key ! The result would be
appalling ! in the same way that mixtures of certain
colours, which in nature, either in flowers or birds, are
beautiful, in human dress (at any rate in European
dress) would be eccentric and hideous.

I could not resist keeping a watch on one of the
nightingale's nests in my Suffolk garden, which was
built in the base of a large sheaf of reeds, placed in an
upright position by myself amongst some snow-berry
bushes and lilacs, at the back of an herbaceous border,
for some of my fancy ducks to nest under.

The bushes grew at the top and down the sides of
a bank overhanging a moat ; and the spot, although so
close to a gravel walk, was very snug, and sheltered
by a thick hedge of thorn. It was in visiting my
reed-sheaves to see whether my mandarin or summer
ducks had taken advantage of them, that I discovered
the nightingale on her nest. She had selected a small
hollow in the side of the sheaf, about a foot from the
ground, in which she had constructed her leafy nest,
using very little material at the back, where the reeds

8o Nightingales

themselves acted as a buttress, whilst in the front
it was built out, until there was quite a solid col-
lection of withered leaves hanging down, and at first
sight appearing to have been merely blown there by a
winter gale. Within this cunningly-constructed negli-
gence was the neatest of cups, containing four olive-
brown eggs, on which the pretty little brown bird sat.
So beautifully was she hidden, owing to her colouring
and the deceiving appearance of the nest, that I had
put my hand close to her in order to look under the
reed-sheaf before I discovered her ; and then I only did
so on account of her flitting away under my very nose.

After that, with great caution, I used to step through
the plants of giant poppies (Bracteatum) which grew
in the border between me and the nest, and without
appearing to notice her, take sly peeps. And she,
sweet little bird, used to sit tight, her bright eye
shining just over the edge of the nest's cup, her russet
tail pressed against the wall of reed behind her.

Whenever I did this, the male bird would at once
make himself heard in the bushes near by, with his
" Wee ! pr-r-r — Wee ! pr-r-r " of alarm and warning.
I cannot help thinking that she must have said,
" Plague take the man, I wish he'd keep quiet, and
then I shouldn't be discovered." Birds often betray
the whereabouts of their nests by the clamour they
make, and the distress of mind they display.

When the young ones were hatched and had
begun to feather, I took two out of the four to rear up
by hand, not being willing to deprive the poor birds
of all their offspring ; but hand-reared nightingales are

Nightingales 8 1

seldom or ever as robust as " branchers," that is to say,
as young birds of the year, caught after they have
flown, and before they migrate to their winter quarters.
I managed, however, to rear my two little fellows on
fresh raw beef, chopped extremely small, mixed with
fresh yolk of eggs — hard-boiled — and preserved ants'
eggs (or rather cocoons), which had been first of all
soaked. Some grated sponge cake would have been a
beneficial ingredient to this receipt. Such a mixture
is a good one for a full-grown nightingale in a cage,
with the addition of four or five mealworms a day, and
an occasional spider, ear-wig, &c., when in season.

One of my young birds collapsed in his autumn
moult ; the other lived through the winter, but never
sang. It may have been a hen. At any rate, I shall
conclude it was. So tame was she, that when the
spring came I allowed her to fly out of her cage into
the garden, where she would follow me about when I
was tending my borders, appearing unexpectedly from
beneath a group of delphinium, whose azure heads of
flower were erected above pink, and white, and crimson
Shirley poppies, to the height of eight and nine feet.
In the little parlour — whose latticed window on one
side opened into the verandah — when I was sitting at
breakfast, I often heard a slight frou-frou of small
wings, and there on the table amongst white cups and
saucers, and bunches of sweet peas in vases of green
glass, was my nightingale ; head on one side, rufous
tail moved up and down, and brown eyes with anxious
expression. " Please, I want a mealworm," she said,

quite plainly, by movement of tail and expression of eye.

F

82 Nightingales

So the box was fetched, and her breakfast was
served, all alive o' ; so good, and much the same to
birds, I should think, as oysters are to human beings, to
those at least who like them. People shudder when
they see my tin of wriggling mealworms, but they're
much cleaner feeders than oysters, and they don't jump
about more than frogs or shrimps and the like, all of
which are very good to eat.

" Yes, but then we don't eat them alive ! Ugh /"
Yes, dear lady, we do ; that is to say, in the case of
oysters, at any rate.

Whether little Miss Nightingale — I have to call
her " little " to distinguish her from the great one —
whether she managed to migrate or not, I cannot say ;
anyhow she disappeared some time in August, and I
saw her no more.

While she lasted, she was like a newly-blown
Gloire de Dijon — very sweet and very charming ; but,
like the Gloire, she was but for a time, and then she
faded out of sight.

It used to astonish men and women to see me
followed by my nightingale, along walks that were
bordered by the jewels of flowerland, where in due
succession there marched in pure array a glorious
company : a company which often to me seemed to
foreshadow and typify a greater and a still more glorious
one, when human souls and bodies, redeemed from
sin, will be gathered together, shining forth in varied
grace, yet each one so beautiful in its own fashion,
arising to newness of eternal life. In such wise can
one "consider the lilies of the field."

Nightingales 83

In such wise, too, are the flowers of a garden an
enhanced joy when one appreciates the living truth,
that whilst we are planting and watering, God is
giving the increase.

So I look back along that array of hyacinths, and
daffodils, and little blue scillas, which were succeeded
— and so gradually, too, that the pain of parting was
much softened — by columbines, blue and white, yellow
and scarlet, palest mauve and deepest purple ; gor-
geous giant poppies and gay little Icelanders ; blue
delphiniums of every shade, with white lilies of the
Madonna, and orange ones from the Italian hillsides ;
and ever so many more, about which Dean Hole and
Mrs. Earle and Mr. Robinson can tell you.

Back they came every year with freshened strength
and beauty, to help the spring, and summer, and
autumn, and even winter to be just one bit more
beautiful ; back again to greet the sun with their
varied colours and forms ; back again to say, " How
are you ? " like human friends ; like them, too, to linger
for a while, and bid good-bye with au revoir^ for " good-
bye," even with friends whose bodies, like the flowers,
are laid beneath the turf, has always au revoir.

Is it so with the little nightingale, whose lithe
brown body I still in memory see, as amid that array
of flowers she came flitting and hopping after me along
the gravel paths ?

It is very curious that nightingales should restrict
themselves to certain counties, never being seen- or
heard in some that would seem to be just as well
suited to them as those that they select.

84 Nightingales

For instance, one would have thought that Devon-
shire and Cornwall, with their wooded glens and
streams, would have attracted these birds, and also
Wales and parts of Yorkshire ; but in such districts
of England they are extremely local or scarce, whereas
in Suffolk they are abundant, sitting boldly on the
almost bare branches of the roadside hedges in the
middle of April, and singing loudly. Hampshire,
Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Surrey, and
Kent are their favourite counties, where they are
found in abundance, and are perhaps (at least one
hopes so) on the increase.

It is miserably cruel to imprison newly-arrived
nightingales, a large percentage of which succumb ;
but, thanks to the increasing love for wild birds in
England, with their consequent special protection
under the Wild Birds' Protection Act, it is probable
that the Whitechapel bird-trappers do not get so many
opportunities of catching the poor nightingales as they
formerly had.

They have worked enough wanton mischief and
destruction amongst the goldfinches, birds which do
incalculable good to farming by feeding so very much
upon thistle seeds.

As to what harm various species of birds do to
gardens and agricultural land, there is undoubtedly
much exaggeration and ignorance. People see what
they think is harm done, whilst they fail to observe
the benefit that is wrought. They are very indignant
at the loss of their fruit. The blackbirds and thrushes
have taken their strawberries and currants ; the bull-

Nightingales 85

finches have robbed them of their gooseberries ; the
titmice have spoilt their pears, &c., &c.

But how about the thousands of destructive insects
that all these birds eat ? Neither titmice, or black-
birds, or thrushes feed their young on strawberries and
pears, &c., but on insects of all sorts, hundreds of
which are taken from the midst of the fruit garden
all through the spring and summer days.

Personally I willingly surrender to these birds
their share of fruit ; nor do I blame them or feel
vindictive towards them for the tithe they exact in
return for their sweet songs, their interesting habits,
and the unseen and unknown benefits that they, in
the economy of nature, shower upon us.

Shoot down the birds and wait for the result !
There will be an enormous increase of insects and
noxious grubs ; devouring the roots, the leaves, and
the fruit of our plants, our vegetables, and our trees.
The work of the birds, as a rule, resembles that of
everything else : the best is that which is unseen and
often unknown.

To sparrows I do not refer. Black sheep they
probably are ; but every family has a member of that
colour, so they say !

Putting all that aside, the mere capture of our wild
birds, in the breeding season especially, has reduced
their numbers considerably, and those rascals who,
armed with a gun, in the hopes of being mistaken
for " sportsmen," cruelly and wantonly shoot down
the sea-birds as soon as ever the law of the land per-
mits them to do so, ought to be shot themselves.

86 Nightingales

Accounts that have been from time to time published
of the reckless slaughter of kittiwake gulls at Lundy
Island, and other spots about our coasts, make one
blush for one's countrymen.

But the law, aided by such books as those pub-
lished by Mr. Kearton and his brother, as well as
by other enthusiastic ornithologists, will no doubt
gradually bring about a reaction in favour of the
birds.

In lamenting the capture of wild nightingales
upon their return to their summer quarters, I have
wandered in my thoughts in defence of other species.

I remember taking the liberty to respond to an
invitation to address the members of a Ladies' Club,
which had its headquarters in Oxford Street.

And I chose " Birds," with their approval, as my
subject. Those poor ladies ! I believe I talked for
an hour, in the course of which I suppose I showed
my great love for birds in particular, and for the
study of ornithology in general ; mentioning the fact
that I kept pet birds in cages, and relating anecdotes
about them.

When I had finished speaking, members of the
Club were invited by the Chairman — a lady physician
— to say anything they thought fit upon the subject
of the evening. I must add that in the course of my
address I had, in a very plain manner, given to the
Creator of all good things the glory due to Him for
the beauty and wonder of design in the plumage of
birds.

I think it was this touch that pinched the shoe

Nightingales 87

of a certain German lady in the audience ; for hardly
had the fair Chairman reseated herself, when im-
mediately opposite me there jumped to her feet a
female who was positively alarming in the way in
which she screamed at me with strident German
tones, in broken English, glaring at me through a
most formidable pair of pince-nez, the state of her
biscuit-coloured hair giving one the idea that she
had quite lately been dragged through a hedge
backwards !

" I should like to ask ze lectur-r-^r, whezzer he
tink it is not vary cr-ruel to keep ze bir-rds in ze
cages. Ze lectur-r-er say he lofes ze bir-rds, and he
makes zem pr-r-isoners. It does seem as if he say
one ting, and do anozzer !

" And ze lectu-r-rer did say, dat ze Cr-reator has
been vary goot, and vary kind. Does he tink dat a
Cr-reator who makes de hawks kill ze poor leetle
bir-rds is goot and kind ? For myself, I do not
tink so."

My exact answer I forget ; but I do remember
that when I sat down again, instead of the protesting
murmurs which had greeted the German Fraulein,
there was a very hearty round of applause, during
which Fraulein " Unglaubig " glared round her in-
dignantly at her fellow-members.

At any rate, I tried to show how happy caged
birds could be under proper circumstances, and to
point out that though I had been very presumptuous
in addressing an assemblage of learned ladies — they
were all blue stockings, more or less — I hoped I was

88 Nightingales

not presumptuous enough to dictate to the Almighty
Father, or to express by any thought or word of mine
that I knew better than He.

As to caging birds, provided always that they are
well fed, kept clean, and thoroughly cared for, one
must remember that they cannot reason like human
beings, nor, I should imagine, can they look backward
or forward in actual thought.

But no one should keep a bird in a cage unless
they understand its needs, and are prepared to see that
it is really looked after.

In their wild life they have for the most part the
freshest of food and the purest of water.

Great care, therefore, must be taken that in their
tame caged life — wild and untameable birds should
not be caged — the water vessels are carefully rinsed
and purified, and the food of the freshest and the best
quality.

I remember my indignation when I was brought
by the housekeeper — an old and faithful servant who
meant so well — three large, and quite rotten pears,
which she said could not be sent in for dessert, but
which she thought would do for the Pekin robins
and other birds in the aviary !

And this from one who is devoted to birds, and to
whom I am deeply grateful for her constant and exem-
plary carefulness with two or three special favourites.
Why should dainty birds like Pekin robins, &c., be sup-
posed to appreciate rotten pears, any more than we do ?

Birds often die in cages owing to a lack of reason-
ing forethought with regard to their food.

Nightingales 89

Let me finish this chapter with its subject.

It is only a week to Christmas Day, and my caged
nightingale, although the days are cold and gloomy, is
singing every day, and all day long, quite brightly and
fearlessly, his voice gaining in strength and compass.
He hops into his bath, the water of which is quite
cold, where he flutters and splashes quite happily.
He is two years old, and was caught as a " brancher "
— a term already explained.

His plumage is smooth and perfect, and his cage is
of Indian manufacture — long, and rather low, open on
all sides and on the top, made of split bamboo.

A nightingale should never be kept in a wire cage,
nor any other insectivorous bird either, for their
plumage is much more easily damaged, and their tail
or wing feathers broken, than bullfinches' or canaries',
&c.

In Germany, Austria, and Italy nightingales are
perhaps more frequently kept as cage birds than they
are in England. It is not an altogether uncommon
thing to find one in a cage, hung up in the verandah
of some hotel or inn.

TUFTED DUCK

CHAPTER VI
THE INDIAN SHAMA AND THE DHYAL BIRD

" It is good to read of that kindness and humbleness
of S. Francis of Assisi, who never spoke to bird or cicala,
nor even to wolf and beast of prey, but as his brother."

TWENTY years ago or more a shama, one of
the very best all-round cage birds, cost a good
deal more than he does now, and males only
were imported. £2, los. to ^4 will purchase one
now. For £6, 6s., or thereabouts, a nice pair can
occasionally be picked up.

Looking at the sketch — I do not pretend to be
a Keulemans, a Lodge, or a Thorburn ! — any one who
does not know a shama will probably be able to
understand what it is like, and perhaps even to picture
the colouring, for it is bold and simply distributed.
The whole head, upper breast, back, wing-coverts,

and the two long central tail feathers are blue-black,

90

The Indian Shama 91

richly glossed, as in the plumage of a swallow ; the
underparts are a fine chestnut ; and the upper tail
coverts, just above the tail, are snowy white. The
side feathers of the tail, that is, all those except the two
central ones, have broad endings of white ; the flight
feathers are edged with brown on the outer webs.
The whole effect of the male bird is black and chest-
nut, with a very conspicuous white patch on the back,
where the flight feathers of the wings meet. The bill
is almost black, the legs and feet pinkish, and the
eyes very full and dark.

Add to this his size, which is that of a rather
large robin, looking larger still because of the great
length of the tail.

And Kitticmcla Macrura is his Latin name ; and a
very fine name too !

As to his ordinary every-day name, people are
apt to think it is " Charmer."

Not long ago a lady said to me, " Have you ever
seen a bird called a 6 Charmer ' ? my mother has one."
I had to politely correct her mistake, and to tell her
that it is nearly twenty years ago since I first possessed
one — when they were uncommon in England — and
that I have never been without one since.

As a matter of fact, a charmer he is.

Let some one not versed in foreign cage birds
enter a dealer's shop where one or two are in stock.
"What is that bird with such a lovely voice?" is
sure to be one of the first questions asked.

May be you buy him there and then and take him
home.

92 The Indian Shama

Now, most birds want to settle themselves down in
new surroundings and amongst new faces before they
commence singing ; but the very next morning, in all
probability, your shama begins to warble and tune up,
if not the same afternoon.

If you want to keep him in good health and plum-
age, you will put him in a really roomy cage ; a wicker
dove's cage, made to order, with the canes less widely
built apart than is usual in " reach-me-downs/' would
be as good as any, with a zinc sand-drawer ; or else a
long wooden cage, also like the wicker one, made of
open bars on all sides and at the top.

The cage, if a really nice one is required, can be
made of mahogany, with neat cane or wooden bars —
not wire, at any rate ; and it must be long enough for
your shama to be able to hop on two perches, placed
half-way up the cage, so that on whichever perch he
is sitting his tail does not touch the bars at either end.

He must have a roomy bath to hang on to the
door, and he doesn't eat seed.

And although he doesn't, he is little or no more
trouble to keep than a bullfinch.

I rather mistrust people in their love for birds
when they say. " I'm so fond of birds; now do recom-
mend me a nice bird. I don't like canaries, you know;
they scream so. I can't have a bird that eats messy
food : meat and those horrid creepy-crawly things —
' mealworms' don't you call them ? — those sort of birds
are such a trouble. I want some nice bird that every-
body else doesn't keep ; I do like having something
that most other people don't have ; something that

and the Dhyal Bird 93

will sing well, and that won't fidget too much. I had
some little birds, some sort of waxbill, or something
like that, and they fidgeted so dreadfully ; but I must
get something, for I am devoted to birds."

All this time, I try to get a word in edgeways.
I omit mentioning to what sex my inquirer belongs,
trusting that no one will discover.

You laugh ! Why should any one ? When you
have to guess over two things, there is always a chance
that you may pick on the wrong one, like the merry-
thought bone of a chicken !

Well ! perhaps I suggest a crested pou-pou, or a
spotted popinjay, or some other mischievous inven-
tion of my ornithological brain. " Oh ! that sounds
very curious and rare. I've heard of a Hoopoe, but
never of a pou-pou ; what a curious name ! Do tell
me all about it. Does it eat seed, and does it sing ;
I want a small bird, you know." Then I have to
pull myself together, saying that after all perhaps the
crested pou-pou wouldn't do, as it feeds chiefly on
mice and cocoa-paste ! !

So I suggest African singing finches, or pope
cardinals, &c. But, for all that, I still maintain that
a shama would be no more trouble, and far more
pleasurable.

Nowadays dealers, such as those who are repre-
sented by the Century Bird Stores x — (no ! I don't owe
them anything, except gratitude — so there !) — As I
was saying, some dealers make most excellent food for
insectivorous birds, all ready prepared and dished up in

1 43 Bedford Hill, Balham, S.W.

94 The Indian Shama

tins ; so that all there is to be done is to put a little
of the food fresh every day for your shama, or your
Pekin robin, or your nightingale, just as you have to
do with seed if it were a seed-eating bird, with an
addition of boiled potato, or carrot, &c.

And such dealers — " naturalists," ought I to call
them ? — would probably put in any particular ingre-
dient, or omit it, according to your taste — or rather,
your bird's. Not that a shama doesn't appreciate
entrees and releves, &c., just as you do.

JST.jB. — Beware of those mixtures for insectivorous
birds, which are for the most part composed of pea-
meal and crushed hemp seed.

Therefore, feeling yourself how irksome, not to say
unwholesome, it would be were you to always be
given bread and butter day by day, and nothing else,
or roast beef and nothing else, take pity on the
shama, or any insectivorous bird you may have.
Summon up your courage to handle a mealworm ;
give him five or six a day — those would correspond
to the potted shrimps you had for luncheon ; and
occasionally some juicy raw beef, chopped fine — that
would represent your " Filets de bceuf a la something
or other; " and then, too, in the summer time, once
or twice a week, a little fresh lettuce, also chopped
fine — that would be his salad. A shama could do
on merely the prepared insectivorous food, especi-
ally if there were plenty of what are called ants'
"eggs" in it.

A delicate bird he certainly is not, but of course
he must be kept out of unnecessary draughts.

and the Dhyal Bird 95

He is easier to keep in health than a nightingale.
Teach him to come out of his cage by putting a meal-
worm outside his door, and he will soon learn to
fly about the room. The exercise will add much to
his health and strength. A mealworm thrown into
his cage will soon bring him home again ; hurrying
in as quickly as a lady in her best frock, when a
thunder shower has caught her in her garden.

Now shamas live in India — in jungle country, so
they say — and I know little or nothing about the
jungle ; but I suppose it to be a more or less big
tangle of trees and shrubs, and giant grasses and
creepers, amongst which are apes and peacocks, tigers
and elephants, leopards and cats of different kinds, not
to mention snakes, tarantulas, scorpions, centipedes,
and other poisonous and revolting creepy- era wlies.
There dwell the shamas, probably the finest songsters
of the bamboo groves, their mellow notes ringing out :
the nightingales of India.

It is a very fine voice, at one time soft sotto-voce
warblings ; at others, loud and flute-like.

His note of alarm is a sharp " tzet-tzet-tzet,"
uttered vociferously as he chucks his long tail high
over his back, and down again, showing conspicu-
ously the white tail coverts as he does so.

His flight is strong and quick.

In a cage he will burst into song at unexpected
moments, perhaps long after he has been apparently
silenced by the drawing of curtains and lighting of
lamps.

The notes, when he has the loud pedal down, are

The Indian Shama

very rapidly uttered ; there is no trilling, but rather
a flowing roulade.

The hen bird is very prettily and softly coloured ;
her mate's bold tints of black and chestnut are
" washed " into delicate mouse-brown and grey.

Her tail is not nearly so long, but long enough to
show that she is a shama.

One very favourite cock bird that I once had used
to sit on our housekeeper's lap — she was an old family
nurse in former days, so that he probably felt the
sympathy of that lap — where he would sit with one
foot tucked up in the feathers of his breast, warbling.

He was a beauty.

Shamas have nested in England in captivity, but
the great difficulty of successfully rearing insectivorous
birds in an aviary is that of being able to supply
sufficient insect food.

You can, if venturesome enough, let a tame shama
fly about in the garden, for the mealworm box will
generally bring him back again.

He will thoroughly enjoy a flight of that sort, but
of course you must be sure of your bird, and he must
first of all be well acquainted with his surroundings.

There is a bird, a very familiar one in some parts
of India and China, which is nearly related to the
shama, namely, the magpie robin — as European settlers
call it — or dhyal bird — perhaps dayal ? — a bird which,
like the shama, makes a capital cage pet, and can be
from time to time purchased in England.

and the Dhyal Bird 97

As his English name implies, he is uncommonly
like a magpie in colouring, indeed the black and white
of his plumage is distributed in almost exactly similar
markings.

Black and white it is, lacking the beautiful
iridescent purples and greens of our British magpie's
wings and tail.

In size he is a little larger than a shama ; but his
tail, although longish, is not nearly so long as the
former bird's.

Nearly every dhyal that I have come across has
possessed the same pugnacious disposition, pecking at
one's fingers, puffing out his feathers, and defiantly
warbling. But his warbling is not nearly so melodious
or so varied as the shama's.

There are much harsher notes at moments, and his
alarm note or call, expressive of anger, is also somewhat
crude.

But he is a really taking little fellow, with his dis-
tinctive plumage, his perky ways, and his cheery song.

One is not sure that the hen bird isn't prettier, for
where he is black and white, she is softest mole-skin
colour and silvery grey.

Smaller a little than her mate, and shorter in the
tail.

Between the hen shama and dhyal bird there is a
strong family resemblance.

A lady, on seeing my male dhyal bird, at once said,
" Oh ! you have a magpie robin, quite an old friend to
me ; I remember them in our garden in Penang, when

I was a child."

G

98 The Indian Shama

There, and in other gardens of the East, the dhyal
birds build their nests in holes of walls or other small
recesses in human habitations, as well as in hollows of
trees.

Feed a dhyal in the same way as a shama. I
wonder whether the latter is the hardiest in captivity,
or easier to keep ? / have found it so.

But dhyal birds will also nest in an aviary, and
have, in one instance at any rate, successfully reared
some young ones.

In China it is said that he is a favourite cage bird,
and that one may see some old pig-tailed Chang Wang
Wow — or whatever his name may happen to be —
carrying his pet dhyal in a picturesque little cage of
bamboo, in which the bird sits and sings to his
master.

POPE CARDINAL

CHAPTER VII
VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALES

" It must have a kind of human facility in adopting
itself to climate, as it has human domesticity of temper."

MOST people who have visited bird shops
know the jolly, flaring Virginian nightingale
— Cardinal Grosbeak is his other name — by
sight.

He is as conspicuous as a Life Guardsman walking
down Knightsbridge.

Bright scarlet, which colour deepens by a wash
of brown in it on the upper parts, he is not easily
hidden from view ; and his pretty crest, raised or
depressed at will, with his big hawfinch-bill of sealing-
wax red, edged round with a small black mask,
enhances the general flaring and perky appearance.
He is called a nightingale, not because he is one in

99

ioo Virginian Nightingales

any way whatever, but because in his bright and far-
sounding song he introduces a "jug-jug-jug," which
slightly resembles the same notes in a nightingale's.

Like so many male birds, he is very much more
brilliant than the female, who, keeping only the
scarlet bill of her mate, is brownish red in the larger
part of her plumage, which is paler and browner on
her breast ; so that her red beak is more conspicuous,
and gives her an intemperate appearance.

Seed eaters to a large extent, yet very gladly
devouring fruit and mealworms, Virginian nightingales
should not be kept on seed alone in cages.

Perhaps only in large outdoor aviaries do the male
birds keep the really brilliant red of the wild state ;
and those that are caged in rooms more often than not
become very dulled in their colouring after they have
moulted.

What sounds on the face of it improbable is the
fact that although I have never been to America, in
parts of which the Virginian nightingale is a native,
yet I have known these birds intimately in a wild
state — or shall we call it one of perfect freedom ?

I had put a pair of these birds into a pheasantry,
situated in a wilder part of the flower garden where
there is a rockery, and, besides the large trees in
which the rooks build, a thick sprinkling of mountain
ash, laburnums, and thorns.

The Virginians used to make attempts at nesting,
but they never seemed very much in earnest, so that it
came to my mind one day to open the door of the
wire pen where they lived and chance the rest. After

Virginian Nighting^eg ipi

an hour had passed, the cock bird 'in a flight found the
pen found his way out, immediately flitting on to a
mountain ash tree, where he began "jug jugging " in
a most sprightly voice.

It was a bright sunny spring day.

The hen bird was in a great state of mind, and flew
backwards and forwards, uttering her sharp-sounding
call note, which is rather like that of a robin. Then
it struck me that it might be advisable to allow the
male to become accustomed to this life of full freedom,
keeping his wife as an hostage, so that he would be less
tempted to wander too far, were he disposed so to do.

In the meanwhile he would be able to take his
bearings, and, if he thought his surroundings pleasant
ones, perhaps fix upon a convenient site for a nest.

So I shut the pheasantry door with his lady the
right side of it.

She, I suppose, thought it the wrong one !

In a few minutes he flew to the top of the wire
roof, where he seemed to be doing his best to get back
again. A day or two afterwards, when he still con-
tinued to keep about, singing gaily amongst the
bushes, and flitting from tree to tree, I liberated his
mate, much to his joy, which he manifested by sidling
up to her with quivering pinions, singing and
whispering in her ear.

The following morning was a typical one for the
beauties of spring in England, when it is fine and
warm.

The rooks were clamorous under a cloudless sky,
amongst their nests at the top of the elms, fighting for

id2 .^frgiitian Nightingales

•V:-:f$.«t ••«••:• » « **•

'thV' mastery ^ -o^ei: some particular site, or wheeling

round with beak-fulls of building material.

Beneath, where the fresh growth of emerald grass
was studded with yellow celandine, two or three
golden pheasants were tilting round each other, dis-
playing their gorgeous ruffs, barred in black and gold,
and their saffron backs.

Thrushes were piping loudly, and blackbirds were
fluting amongst the chestnut trees.

A hundred voices came from amongst the shrub-
beries, where all seemed life and brightness.

And there, perched on the tip top of an ancient
thorn tree, that grew in solitary grandeur upon the
lawn, was the cock Virginian, facing the sun, in the
light of which glistened his scarlet coat.

A rare sight in an English garden.

But where was his mate ?

The fact that he seemed so well at ease, and so
thoroughly at home, reassured any qualms in my mind ;
yet I could nowhere hear her call, or catch a glimpse
of her.

So I went further into the garden, where syringa
bushes and clipped yew hedges, amongst sycamores,
hollies, elms, and chestnuts, hid winding paths until
one approaches a rock garden.

Here grew so many favourites : auriculas, primulas,
lilies of the valley, ferns of many kinds, and the great
Crambe cordifolia, with, later on, its giant spray of
snowy honey-scented flowers, as well as sedums and
other rock-loving plants.

Mesembryanthemums, and crassullas, and the hand-

Virginian Nightingales 103

some arctotus grandiflora were there too — as summer
visitors. The rocks were scattered about, as on a
mountain side, so that all were not heaped upon each
other, but here and there isolated, with turf inter-
spersed, from which sprang up, as nature likes to have
them, narcissi and tulips, appearing here and there,
just as they would grow without one's aid.

So much more beautiful than in the formal beds
fronting the house.

In the pool beneath a cavernous recess goldfish
were swimming ; and a blackbird, which had been
bathing there, flew hurriedly away with clamorous
notes of alarm as I appeared.

As I pass a small yew tree — a mere sapling — what
should fly from it but the hen Virginian nightin-
gale ? Peering into the thicker part of the bush — for
it is little more — I am astonished to see a sufficient
gathering of fine roots and twigs to show that a nest
is being built ; and in such a manner, with such a
mixture of materials, that I at once feel sure it is the
work of no ordinary inhabitant of the garden.

Yet can it be the Virginian lady ?

She has only been liberated during four and twenty
hours, about seven of which have been without light.

It puzzles me, this rapid decision and quick carry-
ing out of architectural plans on her part.

Certainly she was there, and certainly the gathered
rootlets are freshly arranged.

But I must bide my time, for she is fussing about
amongst the laurels and lilacs close by, and so I walk
on to see after other things.

104 Virginian Nightingales

Controlling my desire to look again the next day,
I satisfy myself with the assurance that the Virginians
are about.

There is no doubt the cock bird is, for I hear his
loud notes poured forth from a sycamore tree in the
thickest part of the shrubbery.

But two days after my discovery, even the risk of
making the birds desert their nest will not keep me
from peeping.

There is no doubt now ; for as I approach, a flash
of scarlet shows me the male bird flitting from the
yew, and the nest is apparently almost finished.
It is not a compact structure, and decidedly frail.
The rootlets which composed the foundation are
continued for the nest, which is finally lined with
dead leaves, amongst which are twined a few black
horse hairs.

Well done, American cousins !

There is an idea that strange birds are always
mobbed by residents, but I never saw any bird attempt
to do so in this case ; yet one would have thought the
red coat of the male bird would have attracted so
much attention and enmity as red coats of British
soldiers would have amongst Boers in the Transvaal.
Perhaps owing to the Virginians having been in the
pheasantry for some time, the birds of the neighbour-
hood had come to know them.

Two days more and the first egg was laid. A
long very oval egg, pale grey, with chocolate-tinted
spots, intermixed with small darker grey blotches.

Now for self-control !

•: * '* •. • ::/,: ..

Virginian Nightingales 105

I keep the fact of that nest a profound secret, and
I determine not to go near it for a week ; at the end
of which time, walking quietly past the bush, I can
just see the scarlet bill of the hen bird, where the sun-
shine, glinting in, catches it.

If nothing more comes of it, I feel something has
been achieved.

In a Buckinghamshire garden I have seen a
Virginian nightingale seated on her nest ! Before she
hatched her eggs I found out there were four ; and
never did I feel more ornithologically uplifted than
when I saw, after a fortnight's incubation, that four
young ones were alive and well.

Neither did I ever feel more despondingly down-
hearted than when, after a week's healthy growth on
their part, I discovered that some marauding wretch
of a rat, or a cat, or a squirrel, had done away with the
whole boiling ! (as they say).

Or was it a jay ?

Whatever it was, my feelings were those of rage
and despair.

In about a week those plucky birds had com-
menced another nest, which I discovered by quiet
watching.

In a less public spot of the shrubbery, and in a
securer position, the second nest was built. It was in
a holly tree, in a depending branch, a foot or two
above one's head — they never seem to build at any
great height.

The laburnums were coming into flower after the
hen was steadily sitting, and the male bird used to

106 Virginian Nightingales

take up a prominent position in one of these trees that
overhung the rock garden, where his brilliant scarlet
breast showed in striking contrast to the shower of
golden blossoms surrounding him.

I don't think he ever assisted his wife in the work
of incubation ; but he fed her on her nest most atten-
tively, and sang roundelays to her most cheerily. Not
that she couldn't tune up also, for hen Virginians
imitate their lords in weaker tones.

Into the second nest I never looked, until it seemed
by the behaviour of the parent birds that there were
young ones, when I ventured, standing on some car-
penter's steps to get a view.

Yes ! it was all right. There were three. I made
up my mind that with marauders about, I would take
them, and try to rear them by hand. They lived for
two or three days, and they died after that. End of
Vol. ii. !

Vol. iii. was commenced in July by those inde-
fatigable Americans, in the shape of a third nest, built
in a box tree.

This time, two young ones !

" I must try and rear one ; " and success crowned
my efforts. With our trusty housekeeper's motherly
care and help, a young cock bird grew up.

His brother or sister, left to the care of its parents,
fell a prey, as had other brothers and sisters before it,
to some wretch.

So I was glad that one had been rescued.

"Joey" was a beauty, and lived happily ever after-
wards, as the story books say.

Virginian Nightingales 107

That is, he flourished for some years, and was a
most charming bird companion.

We reared him as a nestling to a very large extent
upon grapes ; skinning them first, extracting the pips,
and cutting each one into three or four pieces, which
" Joey " sucked down with avidity.

In his early youth he was rather ugly, it must be
owned ; but, like the ugly duckling, he made up for it
afterwards when in his second moult he put on most
of his scarlet coat.

An extraordinarily tame bird was poor "Jo."

Whenever I entered the room, after an absence of
an hour or two, he used to hop up and down in his cage,
depressing his crest and quivering his wings with evident
delight ; and when the door was opened, the bird began
to sing !

He would flit on to my shoulder, erect his crest,
and sidling up, would simply shout into my ear, " Jug-
jug-jug-weet-weet-weet-weet-r-r-r-r."

Though always a cage bird, yet he kept the brilliancy
of his plumage well, owing probably to the fact that he
had plenty of fruit and mealworms, as well as flights
about the room.

He would let me walk with him into the garden,
sitting on my shoulder all the time.

"Jo" was a favourite with every one who knew him.
His body was laid to rest in a tin box lined with green
moss, in a bank where every spring great bunches of
daffodils grow — nice, old-fashioned, yellow "daffadown
dillies."

It was quite fifteen years afterwards, in 1897, tnat

io8 Virginian Nightingales

I again experimented with a pair of Virginian nightin-
gales, by letting them have their freedom in the garden,
and again, as in the former case, their behaviour was
the same.

The nest which was built — which is now in the
Rothschild Museum at Tring Park, with its three
eggs — was placed in a box hedge bordering one of the
shrubbery paths.

Unfortunately a tremendous June thunderstorm, with
buckets of rain, seems to have been too much for the
poor hen bird ; and on the following morning I found
the nest deserted and soaked through, with the eggs
quite cold.

The whole structure was carefully removed, and the
eggs equally carefully blown.

In one there was a young bird, which ought to have
hatched in another two or three days. By dint of
leaving it out of doors where a colony of ants could
get to it, the egg-shell was finally cleared of its contents,
and the clutch of three safely preserved.

As far as I know, these instances are the only ones
of Virginian nightingales nesting and breeding in full
freedom in England.

Such experiments are most interesting, and might
possibly be successful with birds such as blue American
robins, and perhaps Pekin robins — the leiothrix of India
and the Himalayan mountains — green cardinals and
red-crested, as well as certain kinds of parakeets.

PECTORAL FINCHES (AUSTRALIAN)

CHAPTER VIII
RING OUZELS AND WATER OUZELS

" However dressed, and wherever born, the ouzel is essentially
a mountain- torrent bird."

HOW few people know much about one of
the handsomest British birds — the ring ouzel ;
partly because he is not a winter resident, he

is very local, and he is seldom seen as a cage bird.

109

no Ring Ouzels £&P Water Ouzels

Then, too, he lives in the very wildest part of
England and Scotland, where he arrives in April,
and is not conspicuous in his migration like swallows
and birds which are more apt to rest on their way
in our gardens, even though they may not be going
to stay. So that it is perhaps not to be wondered at
that when a lady saw my beautiful cock ring ouzel
in his cage, and asked what country he came from,
she said that she had no idea that it was an English
bird.

He is to all intents and purposes a " blackbird "
with a white bib on, but his feathers below the
striking white band which stretches across his breast
are delicately edged with white, and his bill, though
yellow, is not so brilliant as his cousin's.

All the hilly parts of Western England, where
there are boulders and streams, are favourite dwelling-
places of the ring ouzel.

And then he loves Wales, and Derbyshire, parts
of Yorkshire, Cumberland, and other northern counties,
and Scotland, where you can find him right away up
to Cape Wrath.

Derbyshire, all about the Peak, is a sure find,
and beautiful Dovedale resounds with his piping.

As you enter the valley just below the " Isaac
Walton " Hotel, where the Dove comes rippling
along between walls of rock, eddying and swirling
round and over its stony bed, one of the most lovely
views in English scenery is before you.

Above, the rocks are scattered amongst a luxuriant
growth of trees, which, overhanging the river, are

Ring Ouzels £^P Water Ouzels 1 1 1

here and there reflected on the surface of the pools,
where the trout lie hidden near mossy banks and
beneath the shelter of stones.

A rough pathway leads you, now up, now down,
where the silvered stems of birch trees shine out
against the more distant green of the wooded glen.

And above all the beautiful growth of wild wood-
land, overhang the beetling rocks, for which Derbyshire
is famous ; backed by a May-day sky.

Every stretch of the rushing stream is claimed by a
pair of dippers — the pretty bob-tailed water ouzel —
with white chemisette and back of purple-brown.
There sits one on a moss-grown boulder in mid-stream,
bobbing up and down, whilst his mate is diving be-
neath the troubled surface of the crystal water in
search of caddis worms and larvae.

Now he is off with rapid arrow-like flight, and
shrill but musical pipe.

He has settled again, but is almost invisible
amongst that strand of shining stones and washed-up
sticks, so closely does his plumage resemble his
surroundings.

There ! his mate has joined him.

She is sitting close under the opposite bank,
where the moss hangs thickly over, shaded and cooled
by sycamore and beech trees, and both birds show
signs of anxiety. Doubtless there is a nest close by ;
indeed, you may be actually looking at it, mistaking
it for an extra bunch of moss and withered leaves,
and passing it by.

I put on my wading boots, and staggering against

ii2 Ring Ouzels & Water Ouzels

the strength of the current, with a feeling that I
shall either suddenly plunge into a deep hole or be
carried off my weighted legs, search diligently along
the bank and amongst the river stones where sticks
and leaves have accumulated, but in vain.

No nest is more cunningly built than a dipper's.
We saw one — a nest of the previous year probably —
which was suspended about a foot above the stream,
amongst some overhanging branches, and which,
with its entrance out of our sight, exactly resembled
a bunch of withered grass and leaves caught by the
winter's floods, and left there ; more especially as such
accumulations were collected on several branches in
close proximity.

A clear case of an intuitive power of imitation on
the part of the water ouzels.

Wading out, I found the entrance of the domed
nest — much like a giant wren's — where a thick thatch
overhung it, so that only when one put one's fingers
in, was it discernible.

Inside this negligee exterior all was neat and com-
pact ; so much so, that I began to doubt its having yet
been used.

There is a peculiar fascination in the birds that are
only found where mountain torrents whirl impetuously
amongst grey boulders, where nature is more left to
her own devices, and beauty unadorned.

It is there that you find the nest of the grey
wagtail, the dipper, and perhaps the pretty pied fly-
catcher.

All about Dovedale the wily carrion crow builds

Ring Ouzels & Water Ouzels 113

his solitary nest in some conspicuous position in a tree
top, before even the young leaves have budded.

There he sits croaking ominously, a raven in
miniature — black, wicked, and marauding. But he has
held his own more successfully than the raven, who in
England is now an uncommon bird.

In the rocky heights of Dovedale the ring ouzels
build, and unless you see the birds as evident possessors
of their nest, the latter is very easily mistaken for a
blackbird's, both in the matter of the materials and
style of architecture, as well as the eggs.

In the distance, up a rocky cutting above us, as we
keep to the winding path, we hear the fluting of the
ouzel, somewhat resembling in voice his cousin, the
blackbird, but less melodious, yet attuning delightfully
with the wildness of the scenery, accompanied by the
swishing of running water below us.

Leaving this fairy glen, we can clamber up to the
downland above, where stone walls divide the sheep
runs and pastures.

If you look carefully along the walls, in the
hollows amongst the stones you may find a ring
ouzel's nest, and perhaps a wheatear's, to get at which
you would probably have to pull out many stones.
But happily the mere passing boy — a thing of mischief
and destruction — does not venture to do so, and the
pretty white-backed wheatears rear their brood in
safety.

A very clever bird is the wheatear at concealing
his nesting-place.

Like the black redstart in the Swiss mountains,

H

114 R*ng Ouzels & Water Ouzels

he often requires carefully watching through field-
glasses.

But the ring ouzel often betrays the whereabouts
of his nest by over-anxiety and clamorous fussiness.
With blackbird-like calls and much flirting of tails,
a pair will come round you as you trespass on their
ground.

To lie still and simply watch, is a joy that the
ordinary unobserver of birds doesn't know.

Just as we are told that eye hath not seen, nor ear
heard, the things which God has prepared for them
that love Him, in the future life; so, too, some in the
present seem to have already entered upon this inherit-
ance in part, which others as yet find no particular
delight in.

Seeing, they see not ; and hearing, they hear not ;
is such a truth.

Just as men and women with great artistic powers
evidently discern shades, tints, and colours which are
hidden to the ordinary human being, so, too, there are
some who in wild life and country walks will be more
keenly alive to birds' voices and ways, as well as to
beauties of flowers, concealed for the most part from
the tourist throng.

Can these divine joys have entered into the spirit
of those who, having devoured their sandwiches and
drunk their ginger-pop by the banks of the Dove,
or amongst the bracken and the oaks of royal
Windsor, or the Glens of Killicrankie, scatter their
grease-stained paper wrappings in vulgar confusion
around f

Ring Ouzels & Water Ouzels 115

'Arry and 'Arriet, what ''ave yer done ?

YouVe cut yer " noimes " in the turf :

YouVe flung yer bottles of ginger-beer,

To float in the river's surf ;

Why scatter your paper bags about,

Because you've finished yer 'am ?

Is that all you come to Dovedale for,

To devour yer tarts and jam ?

YouVe shocked the ouzels amongst the rocks,

YouVe made the wild rose blush,

YouVe frightened the birds in the midst of their songs,

And stilled the sweet notes of the thrush.

The hills resound with hysterical yells,

Your screams have carried a mile ;

It makes one think of the poet's words

That, " only man is vile."

*****

In the wild hills of Sutherlandshire the ring ouzel
can be seen.

Perched on the summit of a boulder, round which
stretches down the mountain side a tangled growth of
heather, bog myrtle, and ling, his showy cravatte of
white shines conspicuously against his black coat.

You may be lying hid from the deer, waiting as a
herd comes browsing, until a royal is within shot, or
hungrily devouring your frugal lunch at the edge of
a trickling stream, and the ouzel cock flits uneasily
about, warning the members of his family of the
intruder's presence. A mountain bird, giving a touch
of life where at times all is so solitary.

There is nothing finer in its own particular way
than this deer forest, barren of trees and severe in beauty,
the home of the ptarmigan amongst the rocky mist-
veiled summits, and of the merganser, which dives in
the mountain tarn to feed upon the trout that have

1 1 6 Ring Ouzels & Water Ouzels

darted up the burn from pool to pool until they have
reached this cul de sac.

Further down is the meeting of the waters —
Gobernuisgach — where, on a grassy plateau amongst
the hills, the smoke curls up from the chimneys of
the shooting-lodge.

With the clamouring notes of the startled ouzel,
you wend your way home — happy, because behind you
comes the pony, feeling his way carefully over the
rough path with its rolling stones and pebbles, bur-
dened as he is with the dead weight of your eighteen-
stone stag, now no longer the monarch of the glen.

And as you look proudly back to count his points
once more, you stop before you clamber down to an-
nounce the death of a " Royal."

Filled with exultation as you are, you still recall
the sadness of his fall, when, sinking amongst the
heather, the splendid beast seemed with glazing sight
to look wistfully after the departing herd as they dis-
appeared over the brow of the hill. Above your head
soars a golden eagle, scenting the blood maybe.

And so you trudge home, wet and footsore — leaving
the ouzel to pipe and flute where the red stag fell
down — to your well-earned dinner and your rest.

So the night falls, ushering in the frolics of otters
amongst the salmon in the burn, and the prowlings of
wild cats from their lairs in the rocks.

And the northern lights dart upwards in the sky.

*****
As a cage bird a ring ouzel is desirable, for if

Ring Ouzels & Water Ouzels 117

reared from the nest he is steady, handsome, and cheery
in song.

A large wicker cage is as good as any, and he loves
a daily bath.

He is a hearty feeder, and likes grated carrot, pre-
viously boiled, added to his insectivorous mixture.
Potato, too, and scraps of raw beef are additional
luxuries — and mealworms, of course.

The hen bird is a " washed " edition of her mate
in colouring : her white collar not being nearly so
pure in tint ; but the whole effect is soft and pretty.

She is not unlike a hen blackbird with a grey-
white chemisette, but on closer inspection her breast
feathers are seen to have pale lacings.

A pair of ring ouzels that I had in an out-door
aviary commenced nest-building one spring ; but their
efforts did not amount to very much, although the hen
bird was repeatedly carrying about beaksful of grass
and leaves. The white gorget of the male is very
much whiter in the summer than in the winter, and
his bill, which is darkish after the breeding season is
over, again grows bright saffron yellow on its return.
There is no actual spring moult, as in the case of the
pied rock thrush (Petrocincla Saxatilis), but the edges
of the feathers seem to wear away, leaving the whole
colouring purer and brighter, unless it be that there is
a flow of pigment to deepen or heighten certain tints.

The same change of plumage occurs with the blue
thrush, in whose case such a flow of colouring matter —
at least in the head feathers — would seem to take place ;
for the whole head changes from smalt blue to quite a

1 1 8 Ring Ouzels & Water Ouzels

pale "old china" blue — as I have already mentioned
in the chapter on that bird — a tint which certainly
does not exist even in the more concealed part of the
feathers after his autumnal moult.

Why, in the case of two birds so closely allied as
the blue thrush and the rock thrush, the former should
save himself the trouble of a vernal moult, whilst the
latter sheds every feather, except the flight feathers
and those of the tail, is curious.

It is, as a rule, only by keeping certain birds alive
that one is able to discover the various changes of
plumage and the manner in which they are effected.

ST. HELENA WAXBILL

CHAPTER IX
GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND TITMICE

" Dainty and delightful creatures in all their ways, — voice only
dubi table, but I hope not a shriek or a squeak."

A I" experience that I had in rearing the tiniest
of European birds was an interesting one.
Wandering one bright June day amongst
the wilder parts of a Buckinghamshire garden, where
for centuries the birds have sung, and built their nests,
and died, I found myself beneath the overhanging
boughs of an old yew tree.

Happening to look upwards, immediately above

my head I caught sight of a wee cup-nest hung on the

under side of a branch, about eight feet from the ground.

At the same moment that I saw it, there came the

sharp mouse notes of a golden-crested wren, querulously

squeaking in a nervous manner.

119

I2O Golden-Crested Wrens

In another moment the tiny bird flitted down
within a few feet of my face, peering at me with
beady eyes. She was quickly followed by her mate, in
whose beak was some small insect.

Apparently he hadn't seen me until then, for he
hurriedly disappeared, leaving his wife to defend the
position ; and his sharp notes of alarm sounded out
from amongst the thicket close at hand.

Standing perfectly still for a while, I was able to see
the pretty little hen bird as she boldly hopped about
and crept amongst the twigs.

That there were young ones was evident, nor could
I resist putting my fingers into the nest to feel them.
There was a solid lump of tiny bodies, compressed
with timidity at this strange intrusion, and by reason of
the alarm notes of the parents.

The bough under which the wee nest hung was
easily pulled downwards, but my doing so proved more
than the wrenlets could bear.

They were all but ready to fly, but now, poor little
chaps, their flight was somewhat premature; for, with a
confused fluttering of tiny wings, out they all bundled,
helter-skelter, taking refuge amongst the undergrowth
and weeds of the ground.

This tragedy and rout quite threw all timidity on
the parents' part to the winds, for they both came so
close to me in their endeavours to distract my attention
that I could have touched them had they kept still,
but golden-crested wrens, except when asleep, are
never so.

To try and find some of the little ones was my

and Titmice 121

next endeavour — a difficult task, for they had wriggled
away into nettles and grass.

But by careful search I at last found three — there
were seven or eight in all, I believe — and I was not
proof against the temptation of taking them with a
hope of rearing them.

Their age was an awkward one.

It was more than probable that they would sulk.
And they did, for a few hours !

After that, one more bold or more hungry than the
others, suddenly stretched up his neck, encouraged by
chirpings on my part, opened a tiny mouth of brightest
orange, and received therein an atom of raw beef.
This apparently pleased him so much, that down the
orange lane it went, and up went his head for more, as
he uttered a minute jarring squeak. My hopes were
raised.

His example was beneficial.

A second baby wren put up its head, with open
bill, and his hunger likewise was gratified.

The difficulty was to place such tiny pieces of food
in such tiny mouths, but much practice with other
birds no doubt made the task an easier one.

On the following morning I found the poor little
fellows were evidently suffering from cold, although
they had been tucked up in some flannel for the night.
So I fetched a hot-water bottle in its red jacket, and
placed them on it.

The effect was magical.

Their feathers, which had become puffed out, all
tightened up ; their eyes brightened ; and they stretched

122 Golden-Crested Wrens

out their small wings to catch the invigorating heat,
as a bird stretches out its wings to sun itself. Then
they sat up and began to preen themselves, fluttering
about, and seeming extremely jolly.

One was smaller and less advanced than the others,
and this poor " Dolly " died.

The other two prospered, and in a few days would
sit side by side on one of my fingers.

They were most fascinating.

I used to give them bits of mealworm, as well as
ants' eggs.

They were placed in a cage, the bars of which
were of cane, and fairly close together ; but one day
a small gold-crest popped through them without the
slightest difficulty, and, what is more,popped through the
open window as easily, and lived happily ever afterwards.

At least I hope so !

/ never saw him again ; ungrateful little bird !
His little brother survived only a year, after which
time, he turned up his little toes.

He was the jolliest little bird, without the slightest
fear, and full of curiosity, always peering through the
bars of his cage to see what was going on outside.
His gold crown appeared with his first autumnal moult ;
until then his head was a dull green along with his body.

When alarmed in any way he could compress the
feathers of his crest until there was only a tiny streak
of saffron yellow edged with black.

At other times it would widen out and show very
plainly what he was.

Whole mealworms were too big for him, so I

and Titmice 123

used to scald them, and squeeze out the insides, which
come away quite easily from within the skin.

The little gold-crest used to cling to the bars of
his cage and peck out the contents as I held the skin
in my fingers.

Such an operation may sound very nasty, but
food for birds must be studied as much as food for
human beings ; and squeezing out mealworms' in-
teriors isn't half so nasty as doing something of that
sort to rabbits that are to be cooked for our dinners.
" Oh ! la, la ! " as the French say.

The structure of a golden-crested wren's nest is very
wonderful — quite as wonderful as that of another
kind of Wren, of which there was only one, and that
was Regulus Christopher os, which, though at first sight
may appear to mean a crested wren, does not. This
was Christopher Wren, who built a wonderful nest,
usually known as St. Paul's Cathedral. Well ! as I
was saying, the nest of Regulus cristatus is in its way
equally marvellous. Not so lasting, it is true, as that
of R. christopheros, but the architecture thereof is as
much to be admired and wondered at.

R. Christopher -os •, like the London sparrow, chose
to build in the great metropolis ; though, of course,
when first constructed, it was more rural in its sur-
roundings than to-day.

R. cristatus distinctly prefers the country, where
in firs, and yews, and cedars, he finds that thickly-
needled and flattened foliage, on branches beneath
which he can hide his nest — a Turkish coffee-cup of
moss, spiders' webs, and lichens.

124 Golden-Crested Wrens

And he hangs it immediately under the branch,
which spreads over it protectingly ; so that from
above the nest is quite invisible, and even from under-
neath is often difficult to find.

The edges of it are woven round the twigs ; and
between the top of the nest and the overhanging
branch there is just space enough, in some instances,
for the little wren to creep on to her eggs.

And this tiny creep-mouse of a bird is very num-
erous in the British Isles, although by hundreds of
people it is never noticed, whilst its faint squeaking
notes don't reach their ears.

It is said that the island of Heligoland, that orni-
thological magnet set in the sea, is crowded on scarce
occasions during October or November by countless
thousands of golden-crested wrens, which must have
the appearance of bushels of leaves blown across the
ocean, as their minute bodies flutter down from the
sky.

But if butterflies can cross the sea in migration,
why not gold-crests ?

Both cases are equally a subject of interest and
admiration.

I have sometimes derived much pleasure in rearing
young birds, allowing them as soon as they can fly to
have their liberty in the garden, and there feeding
them.

Of course they have come to look upon one as
their means of sustenance and protection ; and will
continue to do so, in some instances, for a length of
time.

and Titmice 125

My hoopoes are a case in point, already described.
But I tried the same kind of thing with some ox-eye
titmice, which, after rearing them from the age of
ten days in the house, were allowed, as soon as they
were strong on the wing, to fly about outside.

There were two, for I had by no means deprived
their parents of all their progeny.

One would have thought that as soon as the
young titmice had heard once more the call-notes of
the old birds, they would have returned instinctively
to them.

Yet, although the latter were close at hand, my
head and shoulders for some time continued to be
their point of vantage whenever I came into the
garden and whistled for them.

And they made use of such perches even when I
was playing at games on the lawn. A titmouse settling
on one's lawn-tennis racquet as one is on the point of
serving is embarrassing.

A pair of ox-eye tits were very fond of one of the
nesting boxes, fixed in a Portugal laurel, and one
summer, as many young ones seemed to come flutter-
ing out as letters from a post-box at Christmas time.
Strikingly handsome birds are these greater tits, with
the bold black line running down the centre of their
yellow breasts.

I recall my intense joy, when on a visit to Brighton
in my boyhood, I was given a cage full of blue tom-
tits by my Mother.

She had taken me to a bird-show, and that which
fascinated me most was this cage, open to the front

126 Golden-Crested Wrens

and in a portion of the top, and lined inside with
Virginian cork.

In the centre, at the back, the cork was brought
out in a circular form, so as to form a hollow within,
and holes were bored for the birds to enter this snug
retreat.

A small door at the back enabled one to peep in.
The cage was tenanted by four little torn-tits, whose
round heads, with their delicately-tinted caps of cobalt
blue, peeped out from the holes ; their bright beady
eyes looking inquiringly at one.

The tiny and sharp black bill of a torn-tit adds
considerably to his beauty and his perky expression.
I departed from the show with an intense longing
to possess that cage and its inmates, which desire
I expect I probably expressed quite honestly and
openly.

My joy was great when, after the show had closed,
I found the cage on a table in my bedroom.

Another time I kept a pair of the lovely little
bearded titmice, so different in many ways to other
members of a fascinating family ; if they really be-
long to it, which is doubtful.

But in a cage they are too fidgety and restless,
giving one the idea that they are not happy, so I
didn't keep them.

I have seen these birds hawked about the streets of
Milan in February.

They are most lovely, and, if it were not for
indefatigable egg stealers, would be far more common
in England than they are.

and Titmice 127

Of course they are birds which show themselves
very little in public, creeping and flitting about in the
broad stretches of reeds in Cambridgeshire fens and
Norfolk broads.

Sometimes people manage to keep in captivity the
beautiful little long-tailed titmouse, but he never under
those circumstances looks quite happy.

Nothing is more marvellous in bird architecture
than the bottle-tit's nest, as this bird is called ; and
how such tiny bills manage to construct that wonderful
oval of lichen-covered moss, with the little entrance in
the side, is a mystery.

A flock of these little people in winter, as they
follow each other in quick succession from tree to tree,
is a pretty sight ; their long slender tails showing
conspicuously.

One would imagine that their faint squeaking
notes are not far off the borderland of those sounds
which fill the world, but which are beyond the reach
of the human ear.

And a bat's squeak is shriller still.

SHELDRAKE

CHAPTER X
SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN FREEDOM

" To begin with ; of old
Man went naked and cold

Whenever it pelted and froze,
Till nve showed him how feathers
Were proof against weathers,

With that, he bethought him of hose."

THERE are spots on our coasts, and there are sea-
girt islands, which are a joy for ever, where
Atlantic billows, rolling and heaving, finally
dash -their spray with a magnificent roar on to the
rocks, and against the cliffs which intercept their course.
Thundering in, they are broken in prodigious
volumes of froth ; and repulsed, roll back, dragging
with them the pebbles and stones of the shore.

On comes another giant billow, with white and
curling crest, beneath which the water, where the sun
is shining through, gleams with translucent green.

Another thundering roar, and again a wave breaks up

128

Sea & Shore Birds 129

with a noise of swishing and rattling of stones. A
splendid fountain of spray, caused by the body of
water colliding with a boulder, showers around. On
the cliffs, where the gorse is golden against the
delicate blue of the sky, where foxgloves are nodding
pink blossoms amongst a tangle of honeysuckle and
brambles, the rosy-breasted linnets are twittering
merrily to the accompaniment of the music of the
sea, and the skylarks are soaring in the air. Amongst
the thrift, whose tufts of pink heads are massed in
sweeps of colour, pipits are flitting and building their
nests in some clump where the long coarse sand-grass
affords concealment and shelter. There go the ships
on the horizon of the troubled waters, their white
sails gleaming in the sunshine.

Along the face of the cliffs clacking jackdaws are
hopping and flying ; and perhaps, in a few favoured
spots, the handsome choughs, now so scarce. There
may also be some rock pigeons, which have founded
a colony, and have built their fragile nests in some
cavern, into the base of which at high tide the waves
boom and dash.

In a sandy cove, round which the rocks rise in
precipitous and picturesque confusion, sheltering the
little golden bay from rough winds, groups of shore
birds are tripping, and bobbing their heads.

As you stand on the edge of the cliff above, you
can see the conspicuous pied plumage of the oyster-
catchers, their scarlet bills gleaming in the sunshine,
and their shrill pipings sound clearly in the still air of
a bright May day.

130 Sea ^ Shore Birds

Now a pair of them has taken flight, skimming
with quickly beating wings over the surface of the
waters, making a circle on the wing, in order to land
once more in the sandy bay, where, after taking a few
tripping steps, they stand bobbing their heads in much
the same way as green plovers. Amongst some of the
islands that are grouped in the Atlantic Ocean, off the
western shores of the British Isles, countless thousands
of sea birds of various species take up their abode in
the spring time.

There, in many instances, no human beings dwell.

Nature in such spots left to her own devices is
absolutely lovely, whether in rough weather or fine.

But perhaps it is on those cloudless May days
towards the latter end of the month, amidst the rich
purples and blues and greens of an ocean through
which the Gulf Stream wends its course, that these
sea-girt isles have attained the perfection of beauty.

As the keel of your boat scrapes up on the shingle,
or is brought alongside some rocks affording a landing,
the water on all sides is clear as crystal, and the golden-
brown seaweed is tossing to and fro by the movement
of the tide. Crimson and wine-coloured sea-anernones
are studding the rocks like rubies ; and turquoises in
their turn encircle the mouths of these wonderful
creatures of the waves.

Others are floating on the surface amongst the
seaweed — flesh-coloured ones, with mauve-tipped ten-
tacles.

As you land, the rocks are slippery with blistered
brown weed, which pops under your feet ; whilst you

4

in Freedom 131

have to be careful lest you pop under the waves, or,
falling on the rocks, bruise yourself unpleasantly.

As on the ice, so on this glutinous and slippery sea-
weed, your feet have a most provoking way of suddenly
precipitating themselves above your head.

One doesn't laugh when it happens to oneself, but
it is certainly very difficult to refrain from merriment
when one of your companions is forced into some
undignified position of that sort.

With ladies as companions most alarming accidents
used to happen upon some of these western islands,
where during a four months' stay I have acted as
cicerone.

Some were eager to collect the lovely canary-
coloured shells and delicate pink cowries, as well as
many other sea-creatures' fairy houses tossed up by
the sea, from which the tenants had disappeared.

I remember how one poor lady, elated at having
picked up more rarities than usual, was standing on a
rock not long laid bare by the outgoing tide, and
proclaiming the invention of some especial treasure,
when in the middle of her sentence there came a
crash ! and a tableau !

The basket containing the shells flew one way ;
the shells every way !

As for the lady herself — well ! I looked the other way !

A sad wreck !

And the poor lady had to be supported home with
a sprained back.

Yet I laughed !

Why does one laugh at sad things ?

132 Sea & Shore Birds

One's nerves give way, I suppose.

It was very mean and very ungallant ; but laugh
I did.

I remember, too — and that time I laughed im-
moderately— how another lady fell over a rock into
a gorse bush ; and, although she did not spoil her
beauty (for it would take a good deal to do that),
wounded her very distinguee nose, by the fact of a
large gorse-prickle sticking exactly in the tip of it.

And she wounded my feelings by the fact that she
declared it was my fault ; and wouldn't allow me to
come to the rescue by extracting that prickle ! More-
over, I wounded hers by my laughter.

So we were all wounded together !

But this, like our luncheons amongst the rocks and
the sea-pink, is a digression.

As we sit eating as voraciously as the cormorants
which are diving for fish not far off, a pair of ringed
plover are tippeting about, crying " Tluy-tluy ; " and,
our luncheon having disappeared, I walk off along the
stony shore to find their eggs.

Sometimes one comes across them accidentally at
once ; another day one may search for a length of
time before discovering them.

Ah ! there they are on the sand, amongst the
pebbles, by some tussocks of sea-grass — four, pale buff,
very pointed at one end, and dotted over, especially on
the larger part, with brown spots and little blotches.
The pointed ends lie inwards, meeting one another.

They are evidently far on in incubation, for they
are heavy and quite warm.

in Freedom 133

The pretty little plovers watch not far off, with
their white breasts banded with black across the front,
and their pale-brown backs, assimilating in a most
beautiful manner with the stones amongst which they
are standing.

There seems to be nothing in nature which has
not its counterpart, so that, however brilliant a bird's
plumage may be, it always finds surroundings on the
ground or amongst the trees which will assist in con-
cealing it from view.

The male golden oriole, for instance, a bird of
brilliant yellow and black plumage, can become almost
invisible in an oak tree, where the sunlight strikes down
through the foliage, causing bright yellow lights on the
leaves and also deep shadows.

And birds are supplied with plumage not only to
shield them from others that prey upon them, but these
again in their turn are coloured in such a way that they
may be unobserved by birds on which they wish to prey.

The ger-falcon and the snowy owl are instances.
For they live a great deal in regions where there is
much snow, but their white plumage renders them
invisible to the ptarmigan and willow grouse on which
they feed, and whose feathers are also white in winter
to conceal them. But the raven, on whom no other
bird preys, and who is content to devour carrion,
although he may have his residence in similar regions,
needs not a protective plumage, and is satisfied with a
colouring of boldest black. Yet he, too, amongst the
clefts and shadows of the rocks, can render himself a
by no means striking object.

134 Sea & Shore Birds

So also with certain brilliantly plumaged birds in
tropical countries, there is in the trees in which they
pass so much of their time, either foliage, flowers, or
fruits of a similar colouring with themselves, which
aid in deceiving the eye, especially, of course, when
they are not moving.

It is extraordinary how indiscernible a deer-stalker
or a gillie can be amongst the boulders and heather of
the Scotch hills, when dressed in a suit to some extent
resembling the surrounding ground. A seal, also, lying
upon a rock amongst the waves, until it moves, might
well be a portion of the rock itself.

Gulls perhaps do not need to conceal themselves,
but their young require protection.

Consequently, the parent birds gradually assume a
conspicuous plumage of white and grey, or white and
black for the most part, whilst the young are so mottled
and splashed with dull greys and browns of various
shades, that they are extremely difficult to distinguish,
especially when newly hatched and in the fluffy stage.

Yet even the old gulls assimilate wonderfully with
strong lights upon cliffs and snowy crests of waves at sea.

Lights and shadows on the plumage of birds have
much to do with this power of concealment. Amongst
insects, of course, it is equally marvellous, especially in
the case of those that are distinctly an imitation of a
bird's dropping.

In this there is a quaint irony.

Let us now sail away to an island which, in the
western seas that wash against England's shores, lies
away where the Atlantic rollers often hurl themselves

in Freedom 135

angrily against the rocks. In no part do its surf-
beaten shores attain to any great height, although at
one end the land rises with giant boulders and forma-
tion of rocks, to an extent that they are not ignored by
the peregrine falcons as a nesting-place.

But for the most part the ground is not much
raised above the ocean's level, and the loamy soil is
carpeted with coarse grass, sea-pink in sheets of pale
rose-colour, and bracken. Against the brilliancy of
the really blue sea — the colour of which can vie with
that of the Mediterranean — the thrift's pink has a
marvellous and intensely lovely effect.

Here in May the amount of bird life is positively
bewildering.

Putting aside the fact that there are countless
thousands of puffins, the ground beneath your feet is
thickly populated with Manx shearwaters (a big
petrel), which are, to a great extent, nocturnal in their
wanderings, and are now busy in their burrows, each
pair incubating a snow-white egg with a beautifully
polished surface.

In places, at almost every step you take, your feet
sink with a sudden jerk into the soft dry soil, honey-
combed close under the surface by the burrowings of
the shearwaters and the puffins ; and it is very trying
for the poor birds, which often happen to be sitting
immediately under the spot into which your foot
plunges. There is a scrambling under your feet, and
amidst an avalanche of pulverised peat and loam, a
poor puffin looks indignantly out, his comical little
yellow eyes half filled with dust.

Sea & Shore Birds

136

To have the roof of one's house on one's head like
that, and a great beetle-crusher into the bargain, must
be most trying.

If you peep in amongst the crevices of the rocks
where the puffins, and perhaps some guillemots also,
are talking to each other in grunts, and guttural ex-
clamations, which sound like " aw — aw — aw," you will
see a comical "puff" with his head on one side, and
his leery eye cocked at you, as much as to say, " Who
on earth are you ? I can't say I altogether admire you."

And if you put your hand down a hole, at the end
of which a puffin is sitting, doesnt he let you know it ?

His brilliantly-decorated summer bill has un-
commonly sharp edges.

But the fun is to take a seat upon a soft tussock of
thrift and watch the puffins' habits and manners.

All around you are their burrows, out of which,
here and there, they toddle.

They are rather like little Japanese people. A big
parrot-bill appears at the entrance, followed by the
owner, in dapper black coat, white waistcoat, and
scarlet shoes, looking very much like a little fussy old
gentleman who is going out to dinner in London, and
who can't get a cab. Mr. Puff runs out, looks round,
thoroughly on the fuss, squints at you for a moment,
and toddles indoors again.

One almost hears him muttering to himself as he
goes — " I shall be late, I know I shall." Under such
circumstances he rather reminds one of the White
Rabbit in " Alice in Wonderland."

I expect Mr. and Mrs. Puff take turns in warming

\N

in Freedom 137

up that precious egg of theirs, which between them
they have managed to make in a rare mess ; so that if,
when Mrs. Puff is out on the spree (or rather, the sea)^
she does not return when she ought, it looked un-
commonly as if Mr. Puff, when he bustled out in the
way that I have just mentioned, was grumbling at her
want of punctuality.

And if you've never seen a puffin, you can't
imagine how utterly comical he looks at such times.

I remember how we watched one bird in particular,
whose burrow was quite close to where we were having
our picnic luncheon, and if that bird bundled out once,
looked round, and bundled in again, he did it at least
half-a-dozen times.

And each time we were convinced his language
grew stronger and stronger.

Poor puff ! we men can sympathise with him !
We know what these feminine delays are, when we
wait, and we wait, whilst the ladies who went upstairs
to get on their hats, saying as they go — " We'll be
down in a moment," are still apparently " titivating "
after quite half-an-hour has sped.

At last Mrs. Puff really did come back, and you
should have seen the way in which the old gentleman
bundled off.

He must have been in a rage, knowing that he
couldn't leave the egg to grow cold.

In the nesting seasons puffins are everywhere at
once — floating in companies on the waves ; diving
beneath for small fry ; squatting about on the rocks and
the bunches of thrift ; in their burrows, busy with

138 Sea ^ Shore Birds

incubation ; and in addition to all this, hundreds and
hundreds are constantly flying backwards and forwards,
or circling round with small and quickly-beating
pinions, their bright orange webbed feet straddled out
on each side of their short tails making them look like
mechanical toys.

The brightly-coloured horny sheath assumed over
the bill proper, would seem to be an ornamental
appendage for the breeding season.

The sheath is dropped with the autumnal moult,
and also the blue warty skin above and below the eye,
along with the yellow edging to the corners of the
mouth.

Young puffins are most quaint little balls of dark
grey fluff, with white underparts.

They are not unlike young chickens, such as those
of the black Minorca, &c.

After a while they will toddle to the mouth of
the burrows in which they are hatched, there to await
the arrival of their parents with sprats and sand eels.

The old birds fly up from the sea with quite a row
of small fish in their parrot-like bills — the silvery sand
eels glittering in the sunshine. If one sails through a
colony of puffins at sea, it is interesting to watch them
as they swim away, turning their heads from one side
to another to look at the approaching boat, and then
with a sudden header disappearing below the waves,
bobbing up serenely, some yards off, from below.

When the Manx shearwaters are abroad in the
daytime, it is a striking sight to sail close to an in-
numerable company of what appear to be giant swifts.

in Freedom 139

Sooty black in colour, with white breasts, they
glide with their long pointed pinions all but touching
the surface of the waves as they go. With a few
rapid strokes they then sail on with outstretched
wings, as the whole company, of perhaps some hun-
dreds, moves away towards its own particular island.

After a long May day of brilliant sunshine, when
the setting sun is tinging the sea with a golden light,
such a company of shearwaters have the effect of a
great funereal procession : so black do they appear ; so
silently do they proceed.

In their burrows they can be heard " cukarooing,"
as the male and female sit together, keeping their
white egg warm.

We came across one shearwater — an old maid,
we imagined — that was solemnly sitting on an ancient
and weather-beaten cork ! We thought it kinder to
throw it away, and to chuck her into the air, in order
that she might take wing out to sea and find a
husband.

Shearwaters are sometimes utterly helpless, in spite
of their long wings, when pulled out of their holes ;
and if put down on the ground they will struggle
off in the weakest manner, as if maimed or wounded.
The truth is, their legs are so short and weak in com-
parison with their bodies, that they find much difficulty,
when flurried, in rising on the wing ; but if thrown
by the hand, well up, they can then manage to keep
themselves going sufficiently to get up full swing.

Sitting concealed amongst the rocks one day
watching the sea-birds, a Manx shearwater fell sud-

140 Sea & Shore Birds

denly in a fluttering wounded way from the air above,
close to me.

Looking up, I saw a peregrine in the act of
following his prey, when he caught sight of me, and
swerved off.

That same day, too, I noticed in the distance a
bird with an unfamiliar undulating flight. Marking
it on a rock on which it settled, my delight was great
when, on levelling my field-glasses at it, I discovered
a hoopoe ; evidently on its migration, perhaps to the
mainland, there in all probability to be shot by some
destructive land-lubber.

On this island, bare of all shrubs and trees, the bird
was most conspicuous.

Here, too, there were wrens, meadow pipits, and
rock pipits, whose nests I found.

In the centre of the island, where the bracken
grows, was a large clamorous colony of lesser black-
backed gulls ; their pretty mottled brown eggs in twos
and threes, all over the place.

Walking through this gullery, the birds rise up
and wheel overhead, their snowy breasts, yellow bills,
and dark grey wings set off against the blue of the sky.

" Meow-meow ! Keau, keau," they cry, and settle
down again, one after the other, as you walk away
from their individual nests.

There are some herring-gulls amongst them, and
two or three pairs of marauding greater black-backs.
A few graceful little terns, lately arrived from more
southerly climes, are skimming about, with a curiously
buoyant and sculling flight.

in Freedom 141

They hover, like a kestrel, over the shallower
water, and suddenly plunge downwards with a splash
on the surface, all but disappearing, to rise again with
a small fish in their pointed crimson bills.

Walking over the accumulation of big and small
round stones at the edge of the sea, which has washed
from between them all the soil, one may hear beneath
one's feet a curious frog-like croaking.

A strong oily and aromatic odour is about.

It is the peculiar smell of the stormy petrel,
which to my mind ought to have been named the
sea swallow sooner than the terns — or perhaps the
sea martin.

Flying over the waves, much of a size with the
house martin, he is very similar in the tints and
distribution of his colouring.

As in the martin, there is a conspicuous patch of
white on the back, above the tail ; and the generally
black plumage with pointed wings enhances the
likeness.

The first time that I heard the curious chattering
croak emitted by these pretty little petrels under the
stones, I was unaware by what it was uttered, and
immediately proceeded to remove what proved to be
the roof of the stormy petrel's nesting-place. A most
unfortunate accident happened.

With me was a sister-in-law, as well as a brother
and the skipper of the little private steamer in which
we had come, and one of the boatmen.

We were all keenly interested in unearthing the
petrels, the skipper with his splendid physique and his

1 42* Sea £sP Shore Birds

height of at least six feet two, removing heavy stones
as if they were small pebbles.

Whilst he chucked some one way, the boatman
rolled some another ; and I, another.

At last, as a large stone was removed, my sister-in-
law saw a small dark-coloured bird quickly sidling
away to hide between those stones which formed the
walls of the big hollow we had made. In her eager-
ness to look at the petrel she suddenly leant her head
over the edge, and I, not seeing this, and equally
eager, at that moment threw out a largish stone in
the direction where a second before the coast was
clear.

To my horror I heard a moan of pain, and looking
quickly up, saw my poor sister-in-law sink back on the
bank of thrift close by, with a long stream of blood
trickling down her face from her forehead.

It was an awful moment !

Had I struck her temple and killed her ?

It rushed through my mind that in my excitement
I had been horribly careless in not looking to see
where I was throwing the stones to.

And careless no doubt I was.

All the joy of discovering the stormy petrels, and
the sunshine of a perfect spring day, died out.

Fortunately, with some brandy and fresh water at
hand in the luncheon-basket, she soon recovered the
faintness which had seized her, and was able to be
.-steamed home across the waters at once.

But she had a poor bandaged head for some days.
I remember with what kindliness she received a blow

in Freedom 143

which might have been a fatal one, and how she
endeavoured to make the best of a nasty job.

Another day she laughingly returned to the scene
of the disaster, nothing daunted.

A British heart is not easily cowed, even when the
body is wounded !

So we set to work again, and with due caution in
removing the stories, were rewarded by finding not
only several stormy petrels, but also eggs. The whole
of the long stretch of rocky bank was evidently full of
them.

They, like so many sea-birds, only lay one egg,
which, when the yoke is within the shell, is of a
delicate whitish pink, owing to the thinness of the
shell. When blown it is quite white.

At the rounder end of the egg there is usually a
zone of minutest spots of dull reddish brown, which
in some instances is merely a light powdering. One
is able to remove the little petrels from under the
stones, when they immediately open their bills to eject,
with a spurt, quite a quantity of rich brownish oily
matter.

When you open your hand and let the little
fellows go, they flit away with an uneven flight, jerking
first in one direction and then another, until they gain
the element on which they are most at home, when
they move away rapidly close over the surface of the
waves, their white tail-coverts showing conspicuously.

They have the slenderest little black legs, with
tiny webbed feet.

The smallest of sea-birds.

144 Sea & Shore Birds

From their habit of paddling on the surface of the
sea as they fly, giving the idea that they are walking
on the waves, they derive their name of petrel, or
little Peter.

To see the guillemots in their full glory, we must
visit a more rocky and precipitous island than the one
we have just been on.

So we steam away to effect a landing where, even
on the smoothest days, the swell of the Atlantic con-
stantly washes somewhat roughly upon the rocks on
the verge of the sea. However, one can watch one's
opportunity, and, as the swell lifts the landing-boat up
to some large flat boulder, step out, taking care not to
slip up as you do so.

It is certainly very whiffy near the top of the
island, up which you have clambered from rock to
rock ; for besides the shags, which have their nests in
some of the large crevices, there is a colony of cor-
morants. The nests, which for the most part contain
well-grown young ones, with a sprinkling of rotten
eggs, are great uncouth accumulations of seaweed.

Lying about, absolutely putrid under the hot sun,
are portions of wrasse, some of which have been pre-
viously half-digested and ejected.

There may be a fish quite freshly caught, which
the cormorants, disturbed by our arrival, have not had
time to give their children.

Walking amongst the nests, and holding our noses,
for the stench is abominable, the young birds stretch
up their ugly bodies, distending their throats and
croaking wheezily.

in Freedom 145

Some take wild headers down the face of the
rocks, floundering about and trying to flap their half-
grown pinions ; either taking refuge in some cavity
beneath the stones or gaining the sea, where they
swim away to try and join the old birds, who have
collected together on the water and are watching us.
Young cormorants are certainly extremely awkward
and ugly, with their soot-coloured bodies and huge
splayed web-feet.

But out at sea they are picturesque-looking birds,
where they are collected on some group of boulders
over which the waves are dashing.

Here they sit, extending their wings to dry in the sun.

On all sides, after our landing is effected, hundreds
of razor-bills and guillemots fly heavily off the rocks,
taking, as they go, a downward course, until they are
supplied with an impetus sufficient to carry them out to
sea, from which they sometimes return in their flight,
and circle round with their small wings quickly beating.

There is a long ledge deeply and narrowly indented
under huge stones, where a lot of guillemots have laid
their eggs.

Clambering up to this with difficulty, I find the
birds still there, as if they flattered themselves they
couldn't be got at ; and as I look over the ledge, and
into the fissure, they all begin sidling away to an
opening at one end, through which they shuffle and
scramble one after the other, leaving a long row of
great pear-shaped eggs, some of which are a beautiful
turquoise blue, blotched over with deep brown at the
thickest end.

146 Sea £&P Shore Birds

Others are creamy white, covered with Egyptian-
looking hieroglyphics, whilst others are sea-green or
pale brown, all more or less blotched and scribbled
over with black and deep brown lines and spots.

These eggs are extremely thick in the shell, as
well they may be, considering they are laid on the
bare and rough surface of the rock.

I expect that if a guillemot begins by laying a
blue egg, she continues to do so each successive year ;
and so also with eggs of other tints and colours.

Speaking of eggs, it would seem as if puffins had
not always laid theirs under the ground, for though
white to the chief extent, they are faintly blotched
with big grey spots, which, when the empty egg-
shell is held up to the light, show very clearly and
in greater quantities.

Probably, therefore, the ancestors of the puffins
originally laid their eggs, like razor-bills and guille-
mots, more or less in the open air. Now that they
do so no longer, the need of colours and spots has
departed, as protective marks. Maybe that in cen-
turies to come their eggs, if the puffins continue
their present habits in nesting, will be like the
Manx shearwaters, pure white. These sea-birds must,
1 I fancy, be very long-lived, otherwise how could they
manage to maintain the countless numbers in which
they gather year after year at their favourite nesting-
places ?

For in the case of guillemots, razor-bills, and
puffins, as instances, only one egg is laid.

They look like birds that might be any age ; in fact,

in Freedom 147

I am convinced that if one could hold a conversation
with some of these leery-eyed old puffins, that grunt
in their holes, one could hear many an interesting and
exciting tale about Trafalgar, or even the Spanish
Armada in the days of Queen Bess ! But it is time to
steam home again, carrying with us a few specimens of
eggs — by no means collected wantonly or in a spirit
of thoughtless destruction.

So we clamber aboard once more ; our giant
skipper calls to the man at the engine, " Go ahead,
Peter," and we puff away, leaving the sea-birds once
more in peace, and feeling that we have had no right
to trespass and purloin on land that seems essentially
their property. For have they not owned it, by inherit-
ance, from generation to generation ?

As we reach our destination the cry rings out,
"Stop her, Peter" — the sun is sinking like a huge
golden lamp on the horizon of the western sea, and
we, more than ready for our dinner, tramp home over
the sand and up the road which leads to the house.

With difficulty we keep awake when our dinner
is over ; but attempting to do so by means of a game
of " Piquet," find even that to be unavailing, and
whilst waiting for my partner to declare his elder
hand, hear that the only announcement he can give
vent to is a snore.

SPUR-WINGED PLOVER

CHAPTER XI
SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN CAPTIVITY

" That is the main definition of a great many birds — meant
to eat all day, chiefly grubs or grain ; not at all, unless under
wintry and calamitous conditions, meant to fast painfully, or be
in concern about their food."

ON an island, one of a group that springs up
in the Atlantic off the west of England, I
used often to sit on fine spring days and

watch the sea-gulls busy with their nests.

148

Sea ^ Shore Birds 149

It is an island that rises in the centre to a fair
height, the whole of its sides being built up with
rock, on which the boulders lie in picturesque con-
fusion from almost the summit down into the sea
itself, beneath which many are plunged, some showing
themselves at low tide and affording resting-places
for huge fawn-coloured seals.

All around, the water is so beautifully clear that
when a seal is in sight, if you climb on to some
rock whose sides cut down sheer into the sea, you
can watch its movements as it dives below.

The way in which its long heavy body cuts
through the water is splendid ; giving one an insight
into the strength of these animals and the swiftness
of their gliding movements : so different to what they
are on land, when all that velocity is changed into
laboured floppings and waddlings, reminding one of a
man attempting to move along when his arms and
legs are tied, and he flat on his face.

At a little distance a floating seal with only his
bullet head above water, has an uncanny resemblance
to a man bathing.

Talking of seals reminds me of an amusing prac-
tical joke which, when staying in the islands already
mentioned, I played upon one of my unfortunate
guests.

Being a true Englishman — and they say an Eng-
lishman is never happy unless he is killing some-
thing— he was very anxious to add to his many other
trophies in the way of stags' and chamois' heads, &c.,
one of a seal.

150 Sea & Shore Birds

At least I fancy that would have been the end
of the animal, had he succeeded in obtaining one.

Personally, I think it must be rather a nuisance
never to see a wild bird or animal without wishing
to slay it — a great nuisance for the bird or the animal,
at any rate !

One is supposed not to be a sportsman unless one
evinces an anxiety for killing ; but I am not sure that
one does not often get more sport out of watching
wild creatures in their natural haunts, and quite as
much pleasure as shooting them, if not more.

For instance, a naturalist's diary is surely a more
interesting record than a game-book, which seems a
good deal to aim at recording how many more par-
tridges or pheasants you have been able to kill than
your neighbours.

At any rate, here was a guest with a real love for
knocking shot and bullets into various creatures ; and
so his great desire to shoot a seal must be gratified.

I did give him a fair chance before conceiving so
mischievous a joke as I finally played him.

Two or three times expeditions were made, but
somehow or other the seals never would come and
take their siestas where they ought to have : it was
too idiotic of them !

For instance, on a Tuesday, when a whole party
of us were out together, chattering like magpies, in
a steam-launch, if there weren't three seals, as big as
hippopotomi, lying on a rock close by to which we
steamed.

[Of course, all this time I am supposed to be

in Captivity 151

writing about sea and shore birds in captivity ; but
I'm not !]

Then on the Wednesday away would go our
killing man, only to return at the completion of some
hours, with a distressed and rather vexed look on
his face.

" Would you believe it, the brutes weren't there."

Then on the Thursday, or perhaps that very same
afternoon, out we all went again ; of course without
a rifle, but with photographic cameras, luncheon
baskets, and plenty of puffing from our launch.

And there are the seals on the very same rock.
Obstinate, contrary animals !

However, one day we really did come across
some when the rifle was in the boat. We had left
the launch, and were rowing in the punt amongst
a lot of rocks to visit an outlying island, when sud-
denly, " Sh-h ! — keep quiet, everybody."

There, on a rock close to us, lay stretched, with
their backs our way, two huge seals — an old, fawn-
coloured one of about eight or nine feet long, and a
smaller darker one. The Slayer seized his rifle.

Some one sneezed !

I know he wished the culprit under the boat
instead of in it, rocked in the bosom of the sea !
Everybody tried to whisper different directions, and
everybody said " Sh-h ! " in turns.

How we laughed afterwards !

We lost our heads and the seal his life, and then
we lost the seal.

So, altogether, there was rather a muddle.

Sea Shore Birds

Well ! the boat was steadied as far as was possible
from being rocked by the swell, and Bang !

Everybody began yelling, and no one for a moment
listened to what the other person said.

The big seal was shot !

With the blood pouring from the poor brute's side,
he managed to roll into the sea, where he lay floating,
the waters dyed crimson around him.

" Shoot him again," said one boatman.

" No, no ! get the boat up to him," said the
other.

" Oh ! poor beast," said I, as one felt that his jolly,
free, rollicking life was over.

" Give me another bullet," yelled the Slayer.

" Sit down ; pray, sit down," shrieked the ladies.

" Quick ! he's sinking," said another voice.

The great brute gave a heave.

The boat was urged up to him, but it was too
late ; with a sad look in his dying eyes, the seal sank
under the blood-stained waters like — well ! I was
going to say "a sack of coals," but that sounds so
unpoetical ; I think I had better be more original
than that, and say — like nothing I ever saw before,
or, for the matter of that, ever want to see again.

Like Nanki-Poo in the " Mikado," I can't bear
killing ; and I never shall forget the day when I
accidentally sat on a dormouse !

That was, at any rate, better than a certain don of
a great University, who, having settled himself steadily
on the sofa upon a comfortable-looking arrangement
of cushions, arose with a horror-struck countenance,

in Captivity 153

saying guiltily to his wife, " My dear, I fear I've sat
on our child ! "

So that was the end of the baby — No ! I mean the old
fawn-coloured seal, and a very unsatisfactory end too.

Sometimes the sea gives back her dead, but she never
did in this case, though experts declared she would.

And the disappointment of the Slayer was great !
" It was something to have hit him," was his only
means of comfort.

Now, in the entrance-hall of the house in which
we were for a time staying, there were several old
seal-skins spread about on the stone flooring ; and,
walking over the largest of these a few days after this
seal hunt, it suddenly occurred to me that I would
give the Slayer a grand stalk, with plenty of excite-
ment to himself, and no harm to the seals.

So I surreptitiously removed that big skin to a
play-room in the garden, fetched a bundle of straw
from the stables, and a bodkin with a ball of string
from the house, and proceeded to stuff that seal skin.

Luckily a seal has no legs, and a shape which,
with a little punching about after the skin has been
sewn together and duly stuffed, will enable one to
make a very good imitation of a live one.

Taking the skipper of the boats into my con-
fidence, I instructed him, when we were all away from
home, to carry that seal down to the sea, and, hoisting
him into one of the punts, place him on a rock in
view of the house when the tide was ebbing.

After five o'clock tea, when we were all to be back
from one of our daily expeditions, the skipper was to

154 Sea £fcf Shore Birds

come rather excitedly, but quite solemnly, to inform
the Slayer that a fine big seal was lying on a particular
rock, and might possibly lie there until he was shot.

It was more than probable that it would continue
to do so even afterwards !

All the house party were informed of the nature of
the beast, except, of course, the Slayer.

Then came the message.

" A fine seal on a rock not far from the shore, and
— with the glasses — in view of the house."

Fearful excitement, by no means feigned on any
one's part, for all are bursting with curiosity to know
how the seal-stalking will end.

I, arch-hypocrite, standing on the terrace by the
Slayer's side, who is awaiting the coming of his rifle,
look through a telescope and say mournfully, as if
fearful of breaking such bad news, that for my part
the supposed seal only looks like a lump of seaweed.
And I can bear being told by the Slayer, somewhat
flatly and in an unvarnished kind of way, that I am an
idiot, for I think to myself that those who laugh may
win, or is it " those who win may laugh " ?

At present my laugh is up my sleeve ; it will come
out later on.

" &YZ weed ! any fool can see it's a seal."

I retort, that not being a fool, is no doubt the
reason why I haven't made that discovery !

But these compliments from the Slayer come to an
abrupt end by the fact of his rifle being handed to him ;
and, accompanied by his brother, who winks back at
the rest of us, away he goes for the shore and the punt.

in Captivity 155

As soon as we see by our glasses that they are
safely embarked, we all make for the rocks in order
to obtain a nearer view of this wonderful " stalk."

The sun is nearly setting, and its rays glint on the
old seal, who is now nothing but skin and straw, but
who once lay in just such a manner in real life. There
is something rather pathetic in that thought. Slowly
the punt is rowed towards a group of rocks about
fifty yards away from where it lies. When these
are reached there is a long pause and much mysterious
fidgeting.

The Slayer jumps overboard up to his knees in
water, and stooping down slinks to the shelter at
hand. His brother follows.

Then the latter turns back to the boat, where
he seems to stay for an age.

It turned out afterwards that the telescope, which
had been taken, had been purposely left by him in the
punt, much to the Slayer's annoyance, who turned
indignantly to his brother with, " You're a nice sort
of fellow to come out seal-stalking, you are."

So the telescope has to be fetched, and the delay in
doing so is caused by the cunning idea of unscrewing
it, and removing an inner lens, which would effectually
prevent the seal being viewed through it, when
immediate detection of the fraud would have been the
result. With more grumblings caused by this un-
warrantable delay, the Slayer levels the glass, only to
exclaim that he can see nothing through it.

So he must take his chance, and shoot where he
thinks the animal's head, or heart, is.

Sea £sP Shore Birds

The truth was that it was a little difficult to make
out its head, seeing that it hadn't one ! and its heart
was straw !

Then from the shore we heard the report of the
rifle, followed by shrieks of laughter from us all.

Of course the trick is discovered !

Yet the Slayer still kneels cautiously in conceal-
ment behind his rock.

When to our intense satisfaction — Bang ! If he
hasn't fired again !

With a splash and a scramble he is into the punt
— head foremost, apparently ; and is at once rowed
towards what he imagines to be his dead trophy.

But when the boat is about twenty yards from the
seal, we can make out that the trick is discovered at
last.

An amusing part of the whole thing was, that,
although a very good rifle-shot, the Slayer, owing to
his intense excitement, had never hit the target at all !

Perhaps the best part of it all, was the kindly way
in which he bore all this fooling at his expense, and
laughed as heartily about it as any one.

On the following day he had to leave us, and the
report flew about that his departure was owing to the
fact that he couldn't stand the "chaff" that he was
subjected to.

Personally, I never saw any one stand such fooling

better.

* * * # *

Now we must return to our island to look at the
gulls. All along the south side there are numerous

in Captivity 157

nests by the middle of May, with their complement of
eggs, some of which are not far off hatching. Here
there is a mixed colony of lesser black-backed and
herring gulls, and on the summit of the island are
three or four isolated nests of great black-backs.

Some very noisy oyster-catchers show us that they
also have eggs, and if you go carefully along a little
above the high-tide mark, and know what sort of spot
to look in, you'll find them.

Look ! there is a nest, just amongst the big pebbles
of the sand bank ! merely a slight hollowing, and a
few bits of shell and sea-weed gathered round the
edge. So little, as not to be really noticeable.

The eggs are amongst the prettiest of the waders',
rounder in shape than the plovers', and of a pale fawn
colour, dotted about with very clear and rather small
brown spots.

How often have I revisited the oyster-catchers'
nests, and how often have I found the whole clutch of
eggs stolen.

Nest after nest was treated like this, much to my
regret.

I was anxious to rear up some young gulls, and
having found a nest or two in which the eggs were-
chipping, returned the following day.

The egg-shells were there, but no baby gulls to be
seen.

At that moment an old herring gull nearly knocked
my cap off as she swooped at me, so that I knew the
young ones were there somewhere.

Carefully scrutinising the surrounding ground,

158 Sea ^ Shore Birds

which is entirely rocky and full of little crevices, my
eyes suddenly realise that one of these newly-hatched
babies is actually close to my feet, but, with a few
greyish stones scattered about, looking so exactly like
them that I had passed it over.

Warned by the parent birds, it is crouching down,
and keeping absolutely still.

Directly I take it in my hand it begins to struggle
and cry, knowing that all further deception is useless.

A pretty little fellow, with his grey fluffy body,
relieved by darker spots and stripes about the head.
His two brothers were close by, wedged into crannies
in the rock.

Putting them into a basket, I clamber up to the
plateau, on the island's top, to try and obtain some
greater black-back babies.

Here the view is quite lovely : the panorama of
the islands all round ; the sea as smooth as glass, and
of a brilliant blue, varied with purple and green
patches of colour.

The foxgloves are in blossom, and against the deep
colour of the water below, give a glorious combination.

Not a breath of wind, and the rocks are hot under
the sun's rays.

The varied cries of the sea-birds, some close at
hand, some in the farther distance, are the only sounds,
except for the singing of the linnets in the gorse and
the swish-swish of the waves on the shore.

In such a spot dull care has gone, and exhilaration
of mind and body is all one feels.

From a neighbouring island there rings across the

I

Si

1

in Captivity 159

intervening waters the mellow notes of a cuckoo.
Once more I visit the nests of the great black-back
gulls, which are sailing overhead, uttering hoarse but
pleasing cries, for their calls fit in perfectly with the
whole scene.

In one of the nests the young ones are hatched,
and one tiny fellow is not yet dry ; so recently has
he come into the world.

And so my basket contains three more baby gulls.
As soon as I have them at home they lose all fear
when out of reach of the warning cries of the old birds,
and devour small pieces of mackerel greedily.

They have spacious maws for their size ; and they
grow apace.

Besides them I have two young cormorants, and a
couple of baby "puffs."

But the little black " puffs," although they thrive
for about a week, collapse ; which is sad.

Oyster-catchers, if you can get them on the shore
when they are half grown, but still unable to fly, are
quite easy to rear up on worms and small pieces of
meat or fish, and look extremely pretty on a lawn,
as they trip along, piping, and prodding for worms.

In a mild winter, where they have plenty of space,
they will manage to feed themselves entirely, and keep
in good health.

They like a large shallow dish to bathe and paddle
in, unless there is a stream in the garden, where they
can run into the water where not too deep.

It is interesting to watch the change of plumage
in the gulls.

160 Sea Shore Birds

At first, greater and lesser black-backs, as well as
herring gulls, are of a mottled brown, their bills dark
horn-colour, and their legs and feet grey. In the
second autumnal moult a large sprinkling of white
feathers appear on the back in the case of the herrings,
and dark grey in that of the black-backs.

In the third autumn the adult plumage is almost
entirely assumed ; and in the following spring, the
fourth, my birds seemed to have their full plumage.

Perhaps their bills do not attain the height of the
bright yellow colouring with the orange spot, until a
little later.

The length of time that these gulls take in assum-
ing their full plumage, probably is a sign that they
are very long-lived birds.

One herring gull that I had was a real tyrant ; and,
especially during the breeding season, would run at
people with outstretched wings, mewing in a weird
and defiant way.

Woe betide your legs if he pinched you on the
calf!

After several vicious pecks, he would throw his
head back, and scream " Cah, cah, cah, cah," with
widely-opened throat.

One spring he busily collected sticks and leaves,
of which he made a nest on the verge of a fountain
in the garden, where he would sit solemnly for hours
at a time.

" Snub," a very sporting black pug, was one morn-
ing sniffing about not far off, with his back to the old
gull, quite innocent of any danger.

in Captivity 161

The gull rose from his nest, took one quick run,
and to poor Snub's horror, seized him viciously by his
curly tail. There was one shriek of fright, and pain,
too, I should think, from poor Puggins, and another
of victory from the gull, who walked solemnly back
with a wicked expression in his yellow eye, which
plainly said — " Had you that time, my friend " — and
then sat down again on his nest.

He grew tired of that one, and went farther afield
into the park, where he built another at the foot of a
tree trunk, and pecked boldly at the heels of the Jersey
cows if they wandered too near him.

When he moulted he used to fly about, for unlike
my other gulls, he wasn't pinioned ; so that when the
old cut quills of his wings fell out, he was able of
course to grow new ones.

And very pretty it was to see him flying round,
much to the envy of his confreres. They had been pin-
ioned when they were quite babies, which only meant
the removal of a small piece of gristle on one wing.

A very slight operation, causing no inconvenience
iive minutes after it was performed. I can hardly
believe that the splendid great black-back gulls that
I now have in their adult plumage, were once the
small fluffy babies that I took from their nest when
a few hours old.

The poor old herring gull met his match, and his
fate too.

To my sorrow I found him one day lying dead in the
park, with a big hole prodded in his back, stiletto-like.

One of my Australian cranes was the murderer.

L

1 62 Sea & Shore Birds

If, in the grounds of a large garden, there is a
stream or a pool, a very pretty collection of the
smaller waders might be kept, by covering over some
portion of the water and part of the adjoining lawn
or rough ground, as the case may be, with wire of a
fairly large mesh, after the style of the Eastern Aviary
at the London Zoological Gardens.

Here one could have oyster-catchers, curlews,
knots, plovers, little gulls (black-headed, for instance),
and perhaps some glossy ibis. The latter are charming
birds, and under fairly favourable conditions will breed.

Poles with large shallow boxes on the top, on which
a collection of sticks could be firmly fastened with small
staples, would make nesting sites ; and ivy or honey-
suckle could be trained up the poles.

Godwits are also pretty birds, and avocets are
showy and graceful.

Then, too, there is the gorgeous scarlet ibis, a
magnificent touch of colour amongst the rest.

The call notes of the wader family have a pecu-
liarly wild and pleasing sound, bringing back memories
of Atlantic waves and thrift-covered rocks.

In a walled garden, grey and golden plover, so
long as marauding cats can be kept away, look very
pretty as they trip swiftly over a lawn, piping
" Tlwee — Tlwee " [with a whistling sound] as they run.
And they will soon come to know the time for their pan
of chopped meat or raw liver to be put out for them.

During all the months of the year, except perhaps
January and part of February in hard winters, they
will find plenty of slugs and worms.

RED RUMP PARAKEETS

CHAPTER XII
PARROTS AND PARAKEETS

"That it only clutches with its claws, and does not snatch or
strike with them ; — that it helps itself about with its beak on branches
or bars of cage . . . are by no means the most vital matters about the
bird."

IT is impossible to write in one chapter in any
real detail on the numerous members of such a
beautiful family of birds as the parrots and
parakeets, as well as of the branches of the chief
family, such as the lories.

164 Parrots & Parakeets

There are about eighty genera, containing some
five hundred species.

The lories alone can fill a large volume, as any one
who has seen or possesses Mr. Mivart's monograph
with the beautiful coloured plates by Mr. Keulemans,
very well knows.

Parrots have probably, amongst birds, been kept as
cage pets as early as any other kind, and every one is
familiar with the old grey Polly with the red tail,
from the frequenter of the gin palace to that of the
royal one.

One sees them sometimes in cottages, where some
proud mother standing over her wash-tub tells you of
her sailor son, and shows you her parrot as the present
he brought her home the last time he set foot on the
shores of old England.

Polly figures, too, in the best-parlour window of
some neatly-kept suburban villa ; her whistling and
talking issues from the inmost recesses of the landlord's
kitchen in a country village " pub " ; whilst up at the
big house on the hill she again finds a welcome and
a cage that is suitable to her surroundings, in the
spacious hall of the old manor.

Drive down the Mile End Road past the People's
Palace : still Polly is to the fore, not perhaps in such
opulent surroundings, either with regard to herself or
her owner ; but still there she is, suiting herself to
those about her, and realising that if she lives in Rome
she had better do as the Romans do !

The consequence of which is, her language is not
always of the choicest ; and if by chance she finds her

Parrots £^P Parakeets 165

way to a West End drawing-room, she more often
than not has to be hurriedly disposed of — at least, it
speaks badly for her purchasers if she isn't.

There are many anecdotes about parrots ; but one
that was once told me struck me as good, though
rather calculated to shock.

A dean's wife — why do disreputable parrots always
belong to ecclesiastics and their wives ? — complained
to the bishop's wife, who also owned a parrot, that
her bird used such shocking language ; whereupon the
bishop's lady generously offered to lend hers, in order
to assist the deanery bird to become more refined in
its conversation, and enlarged upon its charming and
correct vocabulary. The following day the dean's
wife, hearing that the episcopal parrot had arrived
on its mission to convert its heathen brother, entered
the dining-room where the cages had been placed side
by side.

" Go to the devil ! " shrieked her parrot. " We
beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord," solemnly said the
parrot of the palace !

A dear old grey parrot that I have had for twenty
years and more — she was twenty years old when I
purchased her — is one of the clearest enunciators I
ever came across.

There is no mistaking what she says, and her
sentences are appropriately strung together and intro-
duced.

Always at five o'clock tea, but never at any other
time of the day, she calls emphatically for " Bread and
butter," but she says " Br-r-read."

1 66 Parrots & Parakeets

On one occasion she fitted two separate sayings
together in a mysteriously appropriate way. She often
called "John ; " to me, an unknown person; and a
favourite exclamation was, " You ugly brute ! "

One day a new footman arrived, whose name was
John.

For the first time in his fresh situation he
brought in the tea-tray with its complement of cups,
saucers, &c.

As he steered shyly and gingerly through the
elaborate maze of chairs and small tables which
distinguishes the modern method of drawing-room
arrangement, Polly for the first time in her. life con-
nected these two sayings together. A loud and
masterful voice from behind a screen, close to which
the footman was passing, exclaimed, " John ! you ugly
br-r-rute ! " John recovered the shock, but for one
moment there was every prospect of the tea-tray and
its contents being hurriedly deposited on the floor.

For the time being he must have thought that
some inmate of the house was slightly off his head,
with a particular craze for devouring bread and butter,
for the parrot had immediately added, " Bread and
but." This bird's favourite sentence is, " How are
you off for soap, my dear ? " each word pronounced
with astonishing clearness, in a very pompous and
masculine voice.

" Do you see any green in my eye ? " was a ques-
tion he used to put to visitors ; and he frequently
placed our feelings on the rack by calling insinuatingly,
" Puff, Puff, Puff; poor old Puff'; come along ! "

Parrots & Parakeets 167

Now as Puff, a very favourite black poodle, had
been underground for about six years, it really was
rather trying, and Polly knew it ; therefore he empha-
sised the fact, with a sly and mischievous gleam in
his straw-coloured eye.

That poor dog ! He was as clever as Polly in his
way, and when he was the wrong side of the door,
instead of scratching the varnish of a good mahogany,
as a vulgar and ill-mannered dog would do, he stood
sideways and thumped on the panels with his tail.

Necessity was the mother of invention, for he had
been told so very severely, by a decidedly Spartan-
minded mistress, not to scratch.

With regards his body, this order didn't seem to
apply. I suppose he thought he might, at any rate, do
what he liked in that direction, for scratch he certainly
did. There never was such a dog for scratching ; it
was evidently irresistible.

Then, too, when one night on retiring to roost —
I can't help saying " roost," since I am supposed to be
writing on birds — he found that his rug was not spread
in the usual place in a corner of the room ; after re-
peatedly being told to lie down, but refusing to do
so, he at last jammed his woolly head under a chest
of drawers where his rug was stowed during the day,
dragged it out in his mouth, and proceeded to claw
it into bed-shape with his paws. Then, and not till
then, did he curl himself up with a contented sigh.

After that it was a nightly trick, to the amusement
of visitors, as with bedroom candle in hand they came
in to their hostess's room to see the performance.

1 68 Parrots & Parakeets

And before I end about Puff, I must just mention
Puffs end.

He was run over by a carriage, which accident
paralysed his hind-quarters, so that he had very little
control over them. The consequence was, when his
mistress was airing him in the village, much to the
astonishment of the inhabitants, Puff would suddenly
kick his hind legs high in the air, not infrequently
turning a somersault (as a little girl of my acquaint-
ance, during her Sunday questions, accused Lot's wife
of doing), and the parishioners stared at Puff, and
thought, " What a tricky dog, to be sure."

At last things grew so bad that no one quite knew
which was PufFs tail or head, he got so mixed up ;
certainly his expression of face went to show that he
didn't always know himself; so he was "planted" in
the dogs' cemetery ; and every one, including the
parrot, said "Poor old Puff," but the parrot has said
so ever since, and will insist on asking him how he
is off for soap.

Happy thought ! Surely Messrs. Pears, or Monkey
Brand, or Sunlight, would give me a small fortune for
Polly !

Hundreds of grey parrots are imported every year
from Africa, when they are almost nestlings, and
hundreds of them die in a very short time.

It is almost useless to buy one of these unac-
climatised birds ; their price sounds cheap and tempting,
when in reality it is cheap and nasty, for to find your
grey parrot on his back with his toes curled up, is very
nasty and disappointing.

Parrots £sp Parakeets 169

It is much better to give a bigger price for a
finger-tame bird, the colour of whose eyes prove him
to be more than a nestling.

Quite young grey parrots have dark grey eyes,
adult birds have pale yellow ones.

I have known people give ten shillings or twelve
shillings time after time for these newly-imported
parrots, only to lose each one, when a ^5 note, already
spent in driblets, would have been better laid down in
a lump.

Certainly, taking it all round, the grey parrot is
the most clever talker, although some of the green
Amazons, as individuals, are wonderfully talented,
especially perhaps the double-fronted Amazon, a very
large green parrot with a primrose face and forehead
and pale flesh-coloured bill. The Amazons are, in a
way, more comical than the greys, and when one does
sing and laugh well, he would make the gravest person
smile ', at any rate.

There are several different kinds of Amazons, the
commonest in England, as a cage bird, being the blue-
fronted.

He is green, with a yellow face and a small patch
of pale blue feathers on his forehead.

There are about twenty-four species of the Amazon
family, one of the finest and best known being the
golden-naped Amazon.

He is a large bird, as large as the double-fronted,
green in his general plumage, like the rest, but with
a bright yellow patch of feathers on the back of the
neck.

1 70 Parrots £jjP Parakeets

One I know is most vicious to all but two or three
people, but if any small bird or dormouse is placed in
a cage when the parrot is about in a room, he
waddles up, puts his head on one side, and makes
ridiculous little coaxings under his breath, like a fond
mother soothing a small baby.

Then there are the cockatoos of Australia ; giant
black ones as big as ravens, and the well-known snow-
white ones with yellow crests. The leadbeater cock-
atoo is the handsomest of any, with his beautiful rose-
flushed plumage, his brown eyes, and his lovely crest
barred with pale pink, orange, and red.

A pair of these birds, almost the first that were
imported, were given to my mother, and excited much
admiration — in the sixties, I think — at the Crystal
Palace bird show.

After keeping them many years, they were given
to a lady in Norfolk, who had a splendid collection of
different parrots and parakeets, and finally — as far as I
know — they found a home at Sandringham, where
they may be still.

But cockatoos are, as a rule, noisy pets, with their
harsh wild screams which, unlike grey parrots, they
never relinquish in captivity.

The smaller white cockatoos, both lemon and
sulphur-crested, are very pretty, and become extremely
tame.

But they, along with others of the parrot tribe,
have their likes and dislikes, so that I was forced to
part with a small lemon-crested cocky that used to fly
about the garden, because if he did take a dislike to

Parrots £gP Parakeets 171

people, he evinced it by swooping down on to their
shoulders, and nipping the backs of their necks in a
very harsh and painful manner.

Then, too, they are dreadfully destructive.

Amongst my numerous pets there was at one time
a large white cockatoo which, like the smaller one,
had its full liberty out of doors. The rose trees
suffered as well as lots of others ; but that was a trifle
compared with indoor damage.

One afternoon when we came in to tea, the floor of
the hall, under a large stained-glass window, was liber-
ally sprinkled with fragments of the said glass.

We looked up.

Clinging to the leading outside was the shadowy
form of a large bird, but poked through one of the
many holes made in the window between an aperture
of the lead was cocky 's head, looking down with a trium-
phant expression in his eye at his work of destruction.

He had carefully picked at each framing of lead,
and so let the glass fall out.

Exit cocky !

The roseate cockatoo, with a grey back and bright
pink breast, is a handsome bird imported in large
numbers ; preferable, as a rule, in a large aviary, where
with plenty of room and hollow logs, they might nest.

They are very hardy, as are most of their tribe,
when acclimatised.

There is a curious but rare cockatoo called the
gang-gang, the male of which species has a dark grey
mottled body, with a brilliant scarlet head and crest ;
and this curls forward as if it had been crimped.

172, Parrots & Parakeets

They are not very desirable cage birds, unless they
have been reared from the nest, when they can be
very gentle.

They rejoice in the title of Gallocephalon Galeatum^
but no one would want to ask for that in a bird shop,
so that the everyday bird fancier need not trouble to
commit it to memory.

It is a pity there are no pigmy cockatoos, for there
is something extremely attractive in miniatures, which
occur in certain tribes and families of birds.

Amongst the parrots there are the tiny hanging
ones, and the pretty little love-birds of West Africa
with their brilliant green bodies, bright orange faces,
and stumpy tails barred with blue and red.

The peach-faced love-birds, or rose-faced — which
is better — will breed in an aviary, but they are dften
spiteful to other inmates.

They are hardier than their orange-faced cousins,
and slightly larger.

Then there is the family of conures, medium-sized
parakeets with horrible shrill voices.

The golden one with green wings is very striking.
Conures are generally ill-tempered to most people, but
there are, of course, exceptions to every rule.

A family of small parrots usually noted for gentle-
ness in captivity is that of pionus, of which there are six
or seven known species, coming from South America.

The bronze-winged pionus is peculiarly coloured.
Deep brown and blue blend together, producing a
sombre yet rich effect, whilst a lovely cerise under the
tail sets off the other parts.

Parrots £&P Parakeets 173

When the wings are spread, the flight feathers are
dark blue outside and a beautiful verdigris blue under-
neath.

They are very scarce birds as cage pets, and a
specimen in full colour, such as swells the number of
my ornithological family, is a decided rarity. He is
not exactly an able-minded member of society, but he
is most amiable, and gives vent to very few sounds
that grate on the ear.

He will come on to one's hand directly it is put
into his cage, and loves to be petted and made much of.

They don't talk, these pioni, but they are beggars
to think.

I am not concerned with parrots I have never
known much about, such as the big gaudy eclecti,
the females of which family are red and the males
green. Each sex is equally gorgeous in its own style
of plumage, and no one at first sight would take them
for the same kind of bird.

They are inhabitants of the Moluccas and the
Solomon Archipelago.

It is in that quarter of the globe that all the
gorgeous lories are found.

They are distinguished from other parrots by the
peculiar brush on the tip of the tongue, which enables
them to suck the honey from flowers.

None of the lories are larger than a turtle-dove,
and some are no bigger than a sparrow ; but greater
or smaller, all vie with one another in the brilliancy
and variety of their colouring, and, for the most part,
in the ear-piercing shrieks which they utter.

174 Parrots £gP Parakeets

Unlike others of their tribe, they can hop from
one twig to another as well as climb, and when on
the ground they proceed by a series of rapid hops.

A pair of lories together, such as the Australian
blue mountain, the scaly lorikeet, Forsten's, &c., play
together like two kittens, rolling over and over each
other, puffing themselves out, fluttering their extended
wings, hanging downwards from their perch, and per-
forming a variety of entertaining gymnastics.

In spite of their extremely tropical appearance, and
their native homes in New Zealand and the islands of
the Pacific Ocean, some of the lories are extremely
hardy, and will live in an unheated outdoor aviary all
the year round, with only canary seed and a certain
amount of green food and fruit as an addition or
change in their diet. Forsten's lory is a gorgeous
bird, with a rich green back, wings, and tail, a purple
mask to his face, a yellow collar round his neck, and
a flaming blood-red chemisette.

Gorgeous, but unsafe with other birds.

I kept a pair in an aviary on the Chiltern Hills,
where the snow and the rain beat down, and no lory
could have been in more brilliant plumage or finer
condition in Sumbawa itself, the island of the South
Seas from which these birds had come.

Indeed their condition was far healthier, and their
feathers more sleek, than when they were caged with-
in the house.

Like everything else, they prospered better in fresh
air, and were not, like many human beings, afraid
of it.

Parrots £sP Parakeets 175

One kind of lory is a gorgeous azure blue, others
are for the most part brilliant scarlet with yellow,
blue, and green markings.

Flocks of the Blue Mountain lory inhabit the
eucalyptus forests of Australia and Tasmania, moving
with an arrow-like flight from tree to tree, where they
extract the honey from the flowers.

They would be delightful cage pets if only their
voices were more melodious, but their shrill cries and
constant screamings are most trying.

Then there are the big nestor parrots of New
Zealand. The kea, a fine bird with olive - green
plumage, mingled with blue and yellow in the wings
and tail, and scarlet underneath, has degenerated sadly ;
for it chases the sheep, gnaws a hole in their backs,
and eats the kidney fat ; so that it is killed down as
much as possible, and will probably in time become
extinct. A pity ! for it is a handsome bird, and a
decidedly pleasant cage pet.

But of all the parrot tribe, my favourites are the
various kinds of Australian parakeets, many species, of
which used to be imported to England much more
than they are now.

It is said that the reason for their rarity, as in the
case of the pretty little turquoisine, is the fact that
they have been driven much farther inland away from
more civilised haunts, from several reasons.

Turquoisines used to be imported quite frequently ;
now they are barely obtainable.

Such lovely little fellows, with their rich green
bodies, tails, and wings, the latter being adorned with a

176 Parrots £sP Parakeets

dark red patch about the shoulders in the males, and
their brilliant azure blue faces.

They breed readily in an aviary, and a baby
turquoisine reared from the nest becomes a most
charming pet.

One that I once had, used to sit on my shoulder,
and in winter time would perch on the fender to
spread out his wings and tail before the fire, as he
would have done in the rays of the sun.

He had been taken from the nest in a London
aviary, and brought up by hand, or rather by mouth,
for the only way to feed baby parakeets is to masticate
some biscuit — " Albert " is as good as any — and cram
your nestling with the naturally warmed and moist food.

Parrots, like pigeons, disgorge their half-digested
food from their crops into the mouths of the young
birds.

It is not altogether an operation to be performed in
public, but then I never can feed young birds in any
way with successful neatness when people are watch-
ing me.

Left to myself, I am all right.

Turquoisines are not much larger than the well-
known budgerigar, the little bright green parakeet
with the scalloped upper plumage, so often seen in
bird shops and with Italian women in the London
streets.

After all, how true it is that familiarity breeds
contempt.

If none of us had ever seen a budgerigar until
yesterday, we should go wild with enthusiastic ad-

Parrots £gp Parakeets 177

miration, but we have become so used to it, that most
people think little of it. For all that, one always
keeps a warm corner in one's bird affections for this
jolly, cheery little fellow, with his swallow-like
warblings, his brilliant colouring, and his readiness
to adapt himself to his surroundings and rear up a
numerous progeny.

And now mankind is putting his mark on the little
green bird, so that he has in some instances become
pale yellow all over — whereby he has decidedly
deteriorated — and will possibly in time be blue as
well.

Nothing, however, will excel the natural colours
and design.

The female is easily distinguishable from the male
by the brown cere over her bill, which in her mate is
blue.

When a hen bird is going to nest, this cere
becomes deeper in colour and rougher in texture.

The small black spots on the feathers of the face
are very quaint, and the whole outline of the bird is
extremely elegant.

In a large aviary their flight is extraordinarily
swift as they dart from one end to the other, screaming
shrilly as they fly.

Any amount of them will sit together in a row,
•each pair warbling to one another, and caressing.

There is another of the small grass parakeets of
Australia, which is said to be numerous in the vicinity
of the Swan River, but which is never, or very, very
seldom, sent to England — the Earl of Derby parakeet,

M

178 Parrots ^ Parakeets

a beautiful bird like a miniature roselle, which
would probably be quite as hardy as turquoisines or
budgerigars. And the " elegant," too, closely allied
to the other grass parakeets, and readily nesting in
captivity. Then there is the " splendid," a glorified
turquoisine, with all that bird's bright colouring, and
a magnificent crimson breast into the bargain.

Australia's birds are most lovely, and the flocks of
various parakeets are amongst the most fascinating.

The paradise parakeet is a joy to behold, with his
extremely graceful shape and intense beauty of plum-
age, a description of which is really worse than
useless.

Only Gould's Birds of Australia can assist one to
realise it.

I remember seeing cages full of " paradise " and
" many-coloured " parakeets some fifteen or twenty
years ago in the East London bird-dealers' shops, but
alas ! it is but a memory. A stray pair or two
occasionally arrive, and command high prices ; and
one pines for some of these beauties, as well as for
others still undiscovered in the wilds of their native
land. Bourke's parakeet is another that I have longed
for ; a bird as large as a turquoisine, with delicate blue
feathers set off by pale salmon pink.

The larger kinds are very showy in aviaries. The
king parrot, as big as a dove, but looking larger on
account of his long broadened tail.

He is a vivid scarlet on head and breast, and
richest green on the back, whilst along the shoulders
runs a line of emerald green ; the wings and tail

Parrots £sP Parakeets 179

being dark blue black. The queen, his mate, is
slightly larger than he is, when fully grown ; and
where he is scarlet she is green.

To breed king parrots successfully, as indeed is
the case with many others, it is best to give them
an aviary to themselves, with some large hollow logs
placed in various positions.

Perhaps the most showy of all the Australians is
the blood-winged parakeet — somewhat smaller than
the king — whose plumage is boldly divided in rich
contrast of colouring.

The dazzling emerald green head and breast, the
small coral red bill, the deep black-grey of the
shoulders, the magnificent cardinal of the upper wing,
and the broad green tail, with its upper coverts of
brilliant blue, go to making up as fine a combination
of colours as one could hope to see.

The hen is, for the most part, green in different
shades ; affording a pretty set off to her mate's more
gaudy feathering.

These larger parakeets are much more frequently
imported, frequenting as they do districts nearer
the coast.

There are several more, such as rose hills (rosellas),
mealy rosellas, pennants, barrabands, Port Liricolns,
fiery parakeets, redrumps, &c.

I regret that owing to a necessary curtailment in
the number of my sketches, I am unable to give any
illustrations of them ; but after all, when they are not
done in colours, it is difficult to convey any real idea
of their true beauty.

180 Parrots & Parakeets

It seems a great pity that special aviaries for the
hardy parrots and parakeets are not built at the
London Zoological Gardens ; for it is anything but
encouraging to see these graceful and active birds
cooped up in small cages in that deafening babel of
screams and close atmosphere, in the parrot-house.

A Forsten's lorikeet — which I presented to the
Society, and which with me lived in an outdoor
aviary all the year, with no artificial heat, and looked
the picture of health ; with only seed for food, and
greens in summer — I found in the vitiated air of the
parrot-house, on a mild October day, with some very
sloppy bread and milk in addition to its seed ; looking
as different in its condition as an East London child
does to a country one.

Rows of cages jammed together, which in the
winter time are dominated by an upper tier of
raucous-voiced macaws, backed by lines of cockatoos
and amazons shrieking against each other ; while here
and there a plaintive " Poor Cocky " makes itself heard,
as much as to say, " Take me out of this ; I'm not used
to such language, and my head aches fearfully."

Mingled in with all these boisterous birds are tiny
finches and delicate tanagers, as well as flashy-billed
toucans and green hunting jays.

So much money has been expended upon reptile
houses, &c., where room enough is given to some
monstrous python to strike a miserable guinea-pig or a
wretched trembling rabbit and then curl himself up in
a blanket for a fortnight ; yet these lovely birds are
still refused the model dwellings they deserve and the

Parrots & Parakeets 181

ampler space that they need. For the more delicate
ones, an aviary within a glass-house, such as the
monkey-house, with an ambulatory for visitors on
three sides, would be an object of much interest, and
flowers, palms, &c., could be grouped about. Here
the tanagers, sun-birds, tiny finches, zosterops, and
many others would be perfectly happy, and in the end
far less trouble than when confined in fifty separate
cages.

The tanagers are a large family of most brilliant
plumage for the most part, and would under such con-
ditions be exceedingly attractive.

The waders, ibises, and flamingoes enjoy the bounti-
ful space of the eastern aviaries ; whilst many different
doves, bower-birds, and what-not, move freely in the
western ; but a need is felt for greater freedom in the
case of those smaller and more delicate ones, along
with the less quarrelsome parakeets — of Australia and
New Zealand, par excellence.

There are two species from the latter country, now,
like others, seldom imported, which make charming
pets for cage and aviary. Both bear a close resemblance
to each other, in size about that of a thrush, of a bright
rich green in general colour : the one (the New Zealand
parakeet, as it is called) having a stripe of bright
cardinal red running across the eye from the bluish
bill, and the same colour in a band round the middle
of the back ; the other having a patch of that same red
upon the forehead. They are extremely active in their
movements, running very quickly about the cage, and
hopping on the ground.

1 82 Parrots && Parakeets

Arid they breed successfully in captivity.

Mi. Dutton, the Vicar of Bibury, a well-known
authority on the parrot tribe, once sent me a young
New Zealand parakeet, one of a brood of five that was
hatched in his aviaries, and a more charming pet I
never had.

It would sit on my hand and clamber with swift
movements up my arm on to my shoulder, uttering its
peculiar crowing cry.

There is another, closely allied to this species, with
a golden front to its head.

They fly exceedingly swiftly, and they are hardy
enough for an outdoor aviary in England.

Some of the macaws are well known, with their
formidable bills and gaudy feathers. One is scarlet
with yellow and blue in the wings and a blue tail.

Another is blue and yellow, and another a deep
bright blue all over (the hyacinthine macaw), inhabit-
ing Brazil.

Illiger's macaw is considerably smaller and very
pretty.

I know of two or three owners of macaws who
allow them to fly about the gardens. A fine sight
they are.

At a country house in Yorkshire there is a splendid
fellow who flies down from the trees directly the mid-
day dinner-bell is rung, and presents himself at the
door of the kitchen quite regularly.

When I went up the Nile in 1899 on a Dahabeah,
I could not resist purchasing a fine red and blue
macaw in Cairo at a native bird-dealer's.

Parrots £f Parakeets 183

He was a great attraction on our boat, his bright
colours exactly matching the blue, red, and yellow
awnings of the upper deck, where he used to sit on a
perch.

The members of our crew would supply him, " Se
Ra"1 (as we named him), with pieces of mawkisk sugar
cane, cutting alternately a piece for themselves and the
macaw, who squeezed each morsel about in his huge
beak, drinking the sap greedily and then dropping the
fragment of pith on the deck, whilst his eyes glistened
with dilating pupils at the prospects of some more.

At luncheon one day as we sailed merrily before a
favourable wind, which was by no means always the
case, a fearful commotion was heard outside the saloon
in which we were feeding, followed by a loud splash
in the river.

We all rushed to the windows, where we saw " Se
Ra " floating with outstretched wings on the turbid
waters, looking absolutely terrified as the strong
current bore him swiftly away.

Following in his wake was one of our Arab crew,
who had been the cause of the prodigious splash.
Only his head appeared above the water, and as he
passed along he gave us a look of triumphant and
virtuous assuredness, which said, Ct Is it likely ' Se Ra '
will perish when Mousri is there to save him."

Mousri was more brave than beautiful, for he was
deeply pock-marked and squinted with the one eye
that retained its sight, most excruciatingly. But he
grasped the macaw, and landed him forlorn, and

1 Pronounced " Say Rar."

184 Parrots ^ Parakeets

dripping from the tip of his beak to the end of his
tail, through the nearest window of the Dahabeah ;
Mousri as a reward receiving a nip from the bird, and
a piece of silver from me.

On another occasion the macaw was all but
drowned, but was again rescued by the undefeated
Mousri.

That time " Se Ra " was almost insensible, and
had to be held upside down for a pint of Nile water to
escape from his interior !

That macaw has seen a good many sides of life.
He and Mousri were great characters in their own
peculiar ways.

The latter ever ready to proffer his aid to the
helpless, as a sister-in-law of mine, who was with us,
discovered when, on hesitating as to how she could
clamber down the bank to the Dahabeah, after a
ramble under the light of a brilliant moon, she found
herself suddenly clasped tightly in Mousri's arms, and
caught the gleam of his straying eye within an inch of
her face.

Another moment and she was on the shore,
Mousri looking triumphant and courtier-like, happy
in feeling sure he had done absolutely the right thing
at the right moment. The bewildered lady, in her
best Arabic, murmured her thanks, but in her con-
fusion said " Quaiss ketir," which, being interpreted,
means " Very nice " ; at which Mousri was absolutely
overjoyed!

To keep the parrot family in good health either
indoors or out, cleanliness is essential, pure fresh water,

Parrots £f Parakeets 185

and for those in cages as much exercise as is possible
under the circumstances.

Big parrots delight in coming out so that they may
exercise their wings, and it is not a bad plan to train
them to come on to a stick, which can then be waved
gently up and down, so that the bird has to flap its
wings in order to keep its balance.

With the larger parrots it is best in sunny weather
to syringe them, so long as they are in robust health,
unless an individual bird is successful in taking a bath
for itself in a large pan ; for parrots are naturally
effective ablutioners, and the feathers of one that has
a regular douche are very superior in gloss and colour
to one who never knows that boon.

Baths and exercise will often prevent the rather
incurable evil of feather eating, sometimes brought on
by over-heating diet, and perhaps, too, by stuffy rooms,
for which many folk have an inordinate affection,
whereat evil microbes rejoice, and whereby they
largely flourish.

In their natural state birds breathe in extremely
cold air at nights, even in Africa, at certain times of
the year.

The best seed should be giVen, including several
sorts, and good mixtures can be bought both for the
larger and the smaller species.

Parrots are very fond of fruit in season, and bananas
and oranges can be given all through the winter as
dessert.

The Australian parakeets love large bunches of
flowering grasses — their natural food — which can be

1 86 Parrots £&P Parakeets

picked in the country from May or June until the
autumn.

If the garden is a large one, a small plot can be
set aside especially for aviary use. Chickweed and
groundsell are pounced upon by every bird, and it is
a pretty sight to see twenty or thirty brilliantly-
coloured birds scrambling about for the especial salad
that they love. The yellow of saffron finches, the
scarlet of king parrots, the vivid emerald green of
nimble budgerigars, the splendid crimson and violet
of the pennants, the blood-red patches of the crimson-
wings, the more sombre grey and white of the
cockateels with their rouged cheeks on primrose
heads, the lovely blue of the robins from America,
who have especially darted down with plaintive notes
after a mealworm, the flaring red of the Virginian
nightingales — all these, and many others in a choice
collection, form a picture of beauty which is ever a joy.

A saucer of fresh white bread, soaked in milk and
squeezed out fairly dry, is much appreciated, and
many parakeets will take mealworms with avidity.

Grey parrots, Amazons, macaws, and cockatoos are
very fond of sweetened tea ; neither does it seem to do
them any harm, to judge by the condition of my forty-
five year old grey — as I believe his age to be — who has
always had a liberal drink of this sort at five o'clock.

That birds are always dying, like everything else,
is true; but with attention to diet, with personal care
to details, and common sense upon thoughtfulness,
there is no necessity for their dying before their
appointed time.

ZEBRA FIKCHES (AUSTRALIAN)

CHAPTER XIII
MANAGEMENT OF CAGES AND AVIARIES

" Birds have not their town and country houses, — their
villas in Italy, and shooting-boxes in Scotland. The country in
which they build their nests is their proper home."

IT is often rather puzzling that even amongst people
whose eyes for neatness and cleanliness are evi-
dently keen, those qualities should apparently be

lacking with regard to the state of bird cages, where

187

Management of Cages

the owners' rooms, persons, and general surroundings
are soign/ and cared for. One sees bird cages in the
conservatories or sitting-rooms of the richer classes,
in a state lacking in smartness that would never for a
moment be permitted elsewhere in the establishment,
either in the house or garden.

It does not always seem completely important that
a cage should not be splashed with remnants of stale
food and dirt, that the perches should not be soiled,
that the water should be scrupulously clean, or the
food perfectly sweet and fresh. A bird must not be
a mere ornament in a room, an adjunct to the rest of
the surroundings. The cage must be placed where
the position will suit the inmate ; not merely where
it will be least in the way or look most picturesque.
As we study the wants of our children and dogs, so
also, in a comparative degree, our birds. Fresh air
is important for their well-being, but a draught is
hurtful, and sometimes fatal. Housemaids, unless
strictly warned, are very apt when sweeping the
rooms in the early morning to allow birds to be left
exactly between an open window and door on a cold
winter's morning, when perhaps they have no food
left from overnight — especially in the case of in-
sectivorous birds — wherewith to maintain the warmth
of the body.

I have not found that the cages, except in cases
of illness, require covering over at night ; indeed, like
the old four-posters with the curtains drawn tightly
around, they would necessarily keep out the fresher
air and shut in the stale.

and Aviaries 189

To inhale one's own exhalations all the night long
can be neither good for man, beast, or bird.

Besides which, the birds are often left with their
cages covered until perhaps nine o'clock in the morn-
ing, so that in the artificial gloom they have been
unable to break their fast.

During the long mid-winter nights I often place
a candle near my birds up to ten o'clock, in order that
they may, by feeding, strengthen themselves to better
endure the long hours of darkness ; for in the first
place it grows darker within the house sooner than
outside, and secondly, the birds that in hard weather
perish in a wild state, do so far more from lack of
food and water than on account of the intense cold,
as is proved by the fact that well-fed aviary birds will
be warbling merrily in the snow, when the wild
ones the other side of the wire are humped and
miserable.

It is food that warms the body ; and birds, with
their quickness of digestion, need a constant supply,
especially the smaller kinds. Therefore the custom
of covering over the cages with tightly-fitting green
baize is exactly the opposite one to that which I have
adopted for many years.

But common sense must be used.

Let me give an example.

A nightingale of mine — the one from whom my
sketch was taken — developed a cold in January ; ceased
to sing, sneezed and gasped for breath. The influenza
was rampant in the house at the time, and our doctor
did not jeer when I suggested that the nightingale may

1 90 Management of Cages

have caught it. On the contrary, he seemed to think
it perfectly possible.

The poor little bird shivered, his eyes sunk into his
head, and he barely ate a morsel.

As soon as he ceased his daily song I knew some-
thing was amiss, and immediately covered up all but
the front of his cage — which is one of Indian split
bamboo, open on all sides — and at night left a small
lamp burning where no harm could come of it, so that
the light fell just upon the food and water vessels.

In his drinking water I gave him a daily dose,
made from a prescription taken from a very useful
book on British birds by Wallace, in which various
bird ailments are described, along with their cures.

In this instance I selected the medicine recom-
mended for catarrh, and found it effectual.

The fact that the nightingale was able to eat and
drink at any time of the long winter night no doubt
helped his recovery considerably ; and recover he did,
regaining his health, with more vehement song than
ever, so that by March, in spite of easterly winds of
the most bitter description, he was almost too loud for
one's sitting-room, when one wished to converse with
friends and visitors.

I found another prescription from this same book
most efficacious in a case of inflammation of the
stomach in my rock thrush.

Parrish's chemical food is good to put in the water
once or twice a week in winter time. But only
experience will teach one how to treat birds, both ill
and well ; and only careful observance will show the

and Aviaries 191

attention in details that is necessary for their health
and happiness.

The state of the interior should be looked to by
the outward signs thereof, deposited on the sand ; if
there is much diarrhoea, three or four drops of castor
oil are beneficial so as to thoroughly purge out any
poison in the system.

The bird must be taken in the left hand, and the
bill opened with the fingers — handling birds is again
only learnt by experience — whilst the oil on a clean
quill pen is carefully dropped down the throat. This,
if neatly done, will in no way smear the feathers round
the beak.

Then the bird must be kept warm, and perhaps
given some bread soaked in hot milk.

Constipation can be treated in the same way. It
is most important that food should be perfectly fresh ;
yet many people feed their birds, especially those that
eat " soft " food, as if they fed themselves in this
manner.

Supposing your dinner was served up on one dirty
plate, with fragments still on it of the previous day's
meal, some of which is no longer exactly sweet, such
as fish may be in hot weather ; and supposing you
partake of the present meal, with all that refuse mixed
in ! Is it not likely that you may before long have a
decided pain in what is politely called your " tummy " ?

Or if at five o'clock tea the milk and cream jugs
were not washed out, and the fresh milk and cream
had simply been poured into that of the previous day's
supply !

1 9 2, Management of Cages

It is after this fashion that I have seen birds fed.

A certain quantity of food is left over in the
morning in the cage of a nightingale, a shama, or a
blue thrush, enough to last with a little more added,
and so the supply overlaps for some days.

It is like the butter to match the bread, and then
the bread to fit the butter !

The economy of not wasting the supply is a very
false one, for you waste your bird's constitution instead,
and then you hear the complaint : " I shall give up
keeping those insectivorous birds, they are always
dying."

Make it a rule that the cage drawer is cleaned
every morning, unless Sunday is excepted in the case
of many cages ; and that fresh sand — good gritty sand —
is liberally sprinkled on, that each vessel is thoroughly
scoured and as clean as you wish your own breakfast
plate to be, that the food shall be sweet and the water
pure. As to both of these, see that neither one nor
the other is placed under any perch where the birds
can mess into them.

It exasperates me to see people who have no eye
for that which is an immediate eyesore. These sort
of things can quite well be avoided, and when they
happen must imply that the bird keeper has not
really a love for birds. Imagine making a poor bird,
who in a wild state would always obtain the purest
water — in the case of a blue thrush the clear running
water of a mountain rill — drink that which is con-
taminated by that which when dropped on the sand
is perfectly cleanly and of no offence to the laws of

and Aviaries 193

sanitation. Yet I have seen the water in the drinking
vessels in a most filthy state, even in ladies' drawing-
rooms and conservatories, simply because the dear
ladies will not use their eyes and their brains, or con-
sider that birds are, as a rule, the very cleanliest of God's
creatures ; why, then, treat them as if they were Boers,
who prefer to have things dirty and to go unwashed ?

By-the-bye, don't forget the bath, which should
always be hung on to the cage door, and not placed
inside, because then the sand is wetted so much more,
and the cage messed about.

Perches should be kept clean and sweet, for often-
times they are to be seen soiled with dirt ; and in
placing them, care should be taken that they are not
so close to the wire that the birds' tails will rub
against the latter, especially, for instance, with a
shama, whose tail is abnormal in length. But a bird
of that species should not be kept in a wire cage at
all, nor should any softer feathered birds, which the
insectivorous ones are. Cages with cane or fine
wooden bars are much better, for they do not fray
and break the feathers like wire ones.

Give the cages, at any rate, a spring cleaning, scald
them out, repaint and revarnish, if it has already been
done in that style.

In the summer time, in fine weather, they can be
hung out of doors, but not in the full sunshine for any
undue period, since birds in their wild state are con-
stantly shaded by overhanging branches and sheltering
leaves, especially in the great heat of mid-day.

Where there is not too much draught they can be

N

194 Management of Cages

put lender the trees of the lawn and garden, so long as
cats are not about ; but as a rule birds prefer to be
hung up not lower than the level of a person's face,
for they do not care, as with human beings, to be
looked down on.

The really fresh out-of-door air will do them a
world of good, and will, when they bathe, dry their
feathers much quicker than when in a room. There
is a way of talking to one's birds, which perhaps is a
particular gift, but when possessed or acquired, makes
a large difference to the tameness and behaviour of
one's cage pets.

Just as in some gardens, plants will flourish because
their owner delights in them individually and under-
stands them, so with the birds. Nothing is done well
without trouble, simply because the command of " Six
days shalt thou labour" is divine, and therefore the
truth.

If we put birds in cages they are denied to a great
extent the privilege of obeying that law, and their
owners must in consequence carry it out for them.

For nothing labours more industriously than a
bird. The work of keeping itself clean, of finding its
food, of building its nest and rearing its young, is
continuous and unceasing, each in its own turn and
season.

The morning, mid-day, and evening hymns of
praise are never missed when the time comes for
singing ; the plan for their existence, I had almost
said their redemption, is completely and faithfully
carried out.

and Aviaries 195

Birds to those who understand them, and conse-
quently appreciate them, are a privilege which words
cannot duly express : a very wonderful and a very
beautiful part of a wonderful creation.

A gift of the Creator, not lightly to be accepted, or
carelessly looked upon.

Amongst the poorer classes there is very often a
lamentable absence of common sense about keeping
some poor little linnet, canary, goldfinch, or bullfinch
in a cleanly state.

Neither is this lack due to an insufficient supply of
^f , s. ^/., but rather to that of thought.

It is the bird that may cost a few shillings to buy,
and the seed ; but the water is at hand always, and in
the country, sand also.

I pity the poor thrushes and blackbirds, especially
in towns, that one sees imprisoned in some dirty,
filthy cage.

The poor birds are, more often than not, minus
tails, except for a few broken stumps, and their flight
feathers not much better.

The floor of the cage is a nasty, unsavoury smelling
collection of dirt and food, and the bird's whole body
is often encrusted. And that is what our splendid
blackbird with his golden bill, his glossy plumage,
and his broad tail has been brought to. A veritable
prisoner of Chillon !

In every village any one who loves birds might
offer prizes to their poorer brothers and sisters who
keep them, for those that are in the best all round
condition ; and simple little rules could be printed on

196 Management of Cages

cards, giving practical hints for helping the owners to
win such a prize.

Of course the neglect is much worse in some
counties and districts than others, for the simple
reason that the owners themselves are such imperfect
ablutioners.

On the other hand, I have seen blackbirds, jays,
magpies, &c., in cottages, or outside them, whose
condition were models of neatness and good health ;
so that it can be done ; and if it can't, people shouldn't
attempt to have any birds. I have gone so far, if
it is to be considered as going far, as to preach in
church at the children's service upon kindness to
birds, and how to keep them ; much to the children's
interest and pleasure. Certainly in that case I did
feel I was not preaching what I didn't practise, which
is not, one is afraid, always so !

But kindness to animals is part of the gospel, a
fact that the Italians do not realise ; because, at any
rate in Naples, they hold that dumb creatures are
not Christians ! Consequently they can be bullied
and maltreated to any extent.

The example of cleanliness is certainly not set by
all the larger bird and animal dealers in London and
elsewhere, for the suffocating and evil odours that
rush in on one's olfactory nerves on entering one or
two well-known shops are simply horrible. A lady that
I took one day to visit one of these establishments felt so
overcome, after five minutes, with the filth of the op-
pressive atmosphere, that she was forced to beat a hasty
retreat, whereby the proprietor lost a good customer.

and Aviaries 197

Coming from such places, is it to be wondered at
that the birds are affected with typhus fever and other
contaminating and deadly diseases ? It is cruel to
them, and dishonest to their purchasers.

I remember remarking to a dealer who does a large
trade, that his shop rather stood in need of a spring
cleaning, and received the answer : " Oh, we have no
time for that sort of thing ! "

And now a little about aviaries.

There are those that can be partly indoor ones,
when attached to and almost part of a conservatory.
The birds may be seen through the glass, or there
need be merely a wire partition, against which palms
and flowers can be arranged.

It depends upon the formation of the conservatory
itself and of the house, as to what shape the aviary will
take ; but if the former is one that runs along part of
the wall of the house the latter can be a continuation
of it, with the flight in the more conspicuous position,
and the roosting-house at the other end.

When the aviary is divided from the conservatory
by glass, the hot pipes can run through, supposing
that the aviary is also covered in, and more delicate
tropical birds, such as tanagers, are kept.

Windows can be made to open, with wire meshing
filling the openings.

The water that supplies the conservatory can be
carried through, and if a large shallow basin is con-
structed in the centre, into which and out of which
water can flow, so much the better. In such an aviary
it would be a pity to keep hardy foreigners ; but a

198 Management of Cages

collection of the little fairy-like waxbills of Africa and
Australia, lavender finches, small Brazilian and Gould's
finches, sun-birds, and other delicacies, would be de-
lightful. Sometimes people have some of the tiniest
ones at liberty in the conservatory itself, such as the
beautiful little fire finch of Africa, with his sleek little
browny-red wife ; the well-known St. Helena waxbill.
with his slender tail tippeting from side to side, his
finely-pencilled mouse-grey body, brightened by a
streak of crimson down the centre of the breast, and,
enhancing the whole effect, the small crimson beak.

I heard of a lady whose St. Helenas reared several
broods successfully, which had their liberty in this
way. At first she had great difficulty in inducing
them to content themselves with a nesting-box, but at
last contrived one which at once suited them. It was
a long box, with a division in the centre, in the middle
of which was a hole connecting the two compartments
thus formed, and a hole in either of these afforded
exit and entrance.

The consequence of this construction was, that in
one division the nest was built, and in the other the
little wee cock bird used to sit where he could see his
mate through the inner hole. When she popped out
of her compartment to feed, he popped through the
hole in the division to take his share of incubating the
tiny eggs. Thus four broods were successfully reared
in one season.

Amongst the ferns and plants of the conserva-
tory no doubt many a green bug was captured,
whereby two birds (not the St. Helenas) were killed

and Aviaries 199

with one stone, for both plants and baby waxbills
benefited.

Such minute specimens of bird life would not be
in the least harmful to flowers in any way, and flitting
amongst palms and bamboos would add greatly to the
charm of a well-arranged winter garden.

The orange-cheeked and grey waxbills are smaller
than golden-crested wrens, and beautifully neat and
compact in their plumage.

They are quite cheap and common in the bird-
dealers' shops, but none the less beautiful for that.

And the little Indian avadavats, too ; the male bird
rich red, speckled over with seed pearls, and the
female warm brown, and less liberally spotted.

Then for the outdoor aviary.

It must be built first.

If you are opulent, you will probably go to a
professional builder of such things, but don't leave
the plan to him, for it may run the risk of being
unpractical and merely showy.

Sometimes part of a garden wall is made use of,,
with the flights in front, facing the flower garden and
the roosting-houses on the other side, perhaps in the
vicinity of tool and potting sheds.

A high wall already well grown with creepers is
helpful, and doors can be constructed in it, as well as-
bolt holes as ingress and exits for the birds.

A good foundation should be laid — which advice is
not peculiar to an aviary alone — a foundation of con-
crete, which alone will keep out one of the biggest
plagues of life — the rats.

200 Management of Cages

^

The wire flights must, of course, be firmly and
closely secured to the wall by iron bolts, &c., and the
supports and framework are best in iron.

It is advisable to leave the floor perfectly clear of
encumbrances, partly because it looks better, and partly
because the mice, which are difficult to keep out, have
less chance of finding a permanent shelter.

The roosting house or houses at the back must be
well built ; and the roof should have felting between
tiles and plaster, to keep it cool in summer and warm
in winter. Perhaps it is advisable to feed the birds
inside, because the food (seed or insectivorous mixture)
keeps dry in wet weather ; besides which, the birds
are not induced to keep out too much, which, even in
the hardest weather, they are very apt to do.

And the food must not be on the ground, nor
under any perches, but on a table with legs of a build
that will puzzle mice to climb. Outside, any tit-bits
that will be eaten up during the day can be placed,
along with green food and mealworms.

For the water, if there is a handy supply, it is
much better to adopt the plan in the Western
Aviaries of the Zoological Gardens of London.
Shallow concrete basins with rims, into which the water
runs by means of a pipe, right through each pen.

A waste pipe must be constructed to draw the
water off each morning, so that the basins can be
brushed out.

But they must be shallow, at any rate towards the
rim, or birds, especially new arrivals in perhaps shabby
plumage, will be drowned.

and Aviaries 201

It is always a pleasure to see them gathering round
for their morning bath, dipping about at the edge, and
finally hopping in to flutter and splash.

Of course the aviaries must be kept scrupulously
clean, the concrete floor being swept over once a week,
and fresh sand with plenty of fine grit sprinkled evenly
about.

Not more than two people should ever be allowed
within, namely the owner and the attendant.

It is fatal for the birds' nesting arrangements if
those that are strangers to them pry about amongst
them.

Birds are particularly sensitive to their presence,
and will be quite timid and wild with those to whom
they are unused, when they are perfectly tame with
one or two whom they see every day, and whose move-
ments, voice, and clothes they are familiar with.

Clothes they notice in a moment.

In constructing an outdoor aviary it is very advan-
tageous to have the eaves of the roosting-house
broadened out to such an extent that it forms a real
shelter for the birds when they are not within ; and
these eaves, which add considerably to the artistic
appearance of the building, can be supported by posts
fixed in the concrete floor of the flights. There can
be quite a snug space immediately beneath them,
where the projecting timber supports the tiles, under
which nesting-boxes can be fixed.

The space thus formed is all part of the flights,
and gives shelter both from too hot a sun or from
wind and rain.

202 Management of Cages

The height within is 10 feet to the point from
where the roof springs ; the two outside flights are
10 feet, with a flat roof of wire meshing reaching
to the broad eaves, underneath which the height is
increased. The middle pen has a semi-circular dome,
reaching as far as these eaves, and is 14 feet at its
highest point.

In this pen are some glossy ibises, small waders,
such as knots, and also plovers.

On either side of them are, in one flight, the
parakeets, larger finches, and a few foreign pigeons ;
whilst on the other are smaller finches and insectivorous
birds, such as Pekin and blue robins, Australian
finches, &cV

The basin in the concrete floor is larger and deeper
for the ibises than it is for the smaller birds.

When broad eaves are built, the food can be placed
under their shelter instead of inside the roosting-
houses.

The birds come in and out through open windows,
which can be closed in very cold weather, and still, of
course, admit the light.

The aviaries are built upon ground that slopes to-
wards the south and west ; and by a wood, on rising
ground immediately behind them, are sheltered from
easterly and northerly winds. It is a mistake to over-
crowd, because many birds of various kinds are sure to
disturb each other, and give less satisfaction in the
end ; for one of the chief pleasures is to suddenly
come across a row of four or five plump young
parakeets of some kind or another seated on a perch

and Aviaries 203

outside a nesting-box, before you were scarcely aware
that the parents meant business ; and these successful
broods are often marred by too many inmates, who
poke about with inquisitive eyes and meddling bills,
spoiling half the fun.

There are meddlesome birds as well as people !
And there must be plenty of nesting sites, that is,
more than there are pairs of birds that are likely to
take notice of them, because what suits one bird
doesn't suit another ; just as when a married couple
are hunting for a house, one that pleases the wife
because it has a pretty garden doesn't find favour with
the husband because it isn't within anything like a
respectable distance of a decent pack of hounds, &c.,
ad lib !

So, too, with budgerigars and cockateels and other
couples who have plighted their troth.

The cock bird has evidently set his heart on one
particular cocoa-nut or hollow log, and is constantly
viewing it, popping in and popping out, and fidgeting
backwards and forwards, to which his wife pays very
little attention, and promptly goes and lays an egg in
exactly the opposite direction, perhaps down in a
corner on the floor of the roosting-house ; whereat he
says, " Really these women are beyond a joke," and she
says, " How selfish men are ! " not seeing that he was
doing his best to choose her the nicest room in the
aviary.

And the consequence was — the eggs were addled !
and the world said — but that's neither here nor there !

What is more to the point is this.

204 Management of Cages

'v

Have nesting-boxes to suit all shapes and sizes, and
scour them thoroughly out after any families have
vacated them. For the larger and smaller parakeets
logs can be hollowed out by a carpenter, and the open
end fastened up with a flat piece of wood about half an
inch or more in thickness, cut from the same piece
that forms the hollow.

I say the open end, because only one will be so ;
for the log will be scooped out to a depth of a foot in
a piece of wood fourteen inches long, leaving the
bottom bowl-shaped, so that when it is placed upright
there will be a natural receptacle for the eggs, which
will not be able to roll to any edge.

The bowl must be fairly shallow, always sloping
gradually from the wooden sides to the centre.

The piece of wood that covers the top (the roof)
will be all the better if it projects a little, forming
slight eaves, so that, if it be placed in the open,
the rain has less chance of penetrating ; and if
it is painted, there is still more security in this
respect.

It can be fastened with a nail to the log, so that it
will turn, as on a pivot, for the purpose of examining
the nest when necessary, and for cleansing.

Then a circular hole is cut in the side of the
nesting-box, according to the proportions of the birds
for which it is intended, and a perch can be fixed by
it to afford easier entrance. At the back a smaller
hole can be drilled, through which the head of the
nail on which the log hangs can intrude.

Parrots and parakeets naturally make no nest, but

and Aviaries 205

lay their eggs in some hollow of a branch or tree trunk
upon soft chips of rotten wood.

And other birds, too, such as blue robins and
small finches, will appreciate these logs, and carry
nesting materials into them.

The entrance hole must be five or six inches above
the inner base, where the eggs will be laid, or even
more.xv Foreign pigeons and doves, building frail and
open nests, require some open foundation, except stock
doves, which prefer a hollow tree trunk.

Circular basket lids can be securely fastened to
beams and eaves, and slender sticks and fir twigs, as
well as heather, will be used by the birds to construct
their nests on them. Garden brooms can be firmly
wired to the walls in the corners of the roosting-house,
with the centres hollowed out, the broom pointing
upwards.

Some hay and moss placed in these receptacles
may tempt Virginian nightingales, cardinals, &c., to
build their house on a firm foundation. But necessity,
being the mother of invention, will no doubt, as it
arises, produce many an ingenious and original idea
to each one in turn who embarks upon the sometimes
disappointing yet fascinating pursuit of breeding birds
in captivity.

AT CAPRI

CHAPTER XIV
CRUELTY TO BIRDS

" The chief interest of the leisure of mankind has been found
in the destruction of the creatures which they professed to believe
even the Most High would not see perish without pity."

I HAVE touched upon different ways in which
birds are neglected and improperly treated in cap-
tivity, but there are many things yet which human
beings have to realise more fully and more universally
with regard to cruelty.

People of some nations are much more humane
to dumb animals than those of others.

Northern nations are fonder of them, as a rule,
than southern. But even in England, the country
par excellence where birds and animals are kept in
a superior way, there is much to be corrected and
rectified.

Amongst birds in a wild state there is that

abominable and ruthless destruction of particular

206

Cruelty to Birds 207

species, chiefly because there is a demand for their
eggs ; or because they are themselves rare ; or, and
this reason is worse still, because the ladies of
Europe — and every female is a "lady" nowadays —
refuse to relinquish the fashion of wearing the plumes
of egrets, birds of paradise, and hundreds of other sorts
in their hats, whereby it is said that the males of the
great bird of paradise will before long be extinct.

It is lamentable that these lovely creatures are to
be wiped off the face of the earth merely to gratify
the passing vanity of women, who, in spite of distinct
appeals, at least in London, still continue to encourage
a really cruel slaughter. The Creator has not peopled
the world with birds of marvellous plumage in colours
and designs for us to kill them down without a
thought for anything but our own personal adornment.
" For His pleasure, they are, and were created."

Let me give a particular instance.

The following letter was published in the Ibis of
January 1900, written from Foochow by Mr. C. B.
Rickett, and dated 25th August 1899.

" I am sorry to say that the native c shooting-men '
have at last found out that there is a silver-mine in the
x plume trade/ with the result that one of the greatest
ornaments of our landscapes is apparently doomed to
destruction.

" It was a pretty sight in the spring to see a stretch
of paddy-fields with the brilliant green of the young
rice setting off the silvery white plumage of a number
of egrets, as they stalked about in search of food.
That, however, is now a thing of the past. Last year

20 8 Cruelty to Birds

the natives got an inkling that money was to be made,
and shot a good number of the birds. The prices
realised astonished them, and this spring every man
who could shoot at all was on the look-out. A terrible
slaughter began on the arrival of the wretched egrets,
and continued until from Suey Kao, seventy miles up
river, to Hing-hua, some sixty miles south of Foochow,
the country may be said to have been swept clean.

" I will give you one or two cases only, of all the
sickening details told of the massacre.

" A ' heronry ' of Herodias garzetta, which used in
summer to be a beautiful sight from the river, with
the white plumage of the birds showing out in strong
contrast to the dark green foliage of the two huge
trees in which their nests were placed, has been
entirely depopulated.

" Further down river was a ' herony ' of H. garzetta
with a sprinkling of H. eulophotes^ in a village. The
local mandarin put up notices warning people against
molesting the birds.

" The ' shooting-men/ however, found out that the
birds flew in a certain line down a narrow valley to
their feeding-grounds.

" Selecting an afternoon with a stiff breeze that
not only deadened the reports of the guns, but made
the birds fly low, a party of five or six stationed them-
selves at the end of the valley, and shot down the
whole colony.

" One of these men told me that the villagers
were very angry because of the bad smell that arose
from the decaying bodies of the nestlings.

Cruelty to Birds 209

" A native caught lurking about with a gun near a
' herony ' in the suburbs of the city was severely bam-
booed, and had his gun confiscated by the mandarins.

" I asked the man who told me, whether that
would protect the birds. He said, c No, we wait for
them outside ; ' and added, with a chuckle, ' They
must come out to feed sometimes.'

" Of course here we cannot do anything in the
matter, and it is doubtful whether the new Game
Preservation Society started in Shanghai to prevent
the export of pheasants' skins, and which I under-
stand intends to include all feathers in its field of
work, will be able to do much good.

" It is to the CIVILISED WORLD that one must look,
and I fear look in vain, for help ! "

The hoopoe I have already written a good deal
about. It raises one's ire to know that these birds
endeavour year by year to find a summer residence in
England^ and that year by year they are shot on their
arrival.

Mr. Kearton has given an account of the persistent
persecution of the red-necked phalarope, an uncommon
and very dainty little bird of the wader family, which
breeds in the far north of the British Isles.

The phalarope's eggs are taken as soon as they are
laid, to enrich the purses of the peasant inhabitants, to
whom the money is supplied by egg-collectors ; and
hundreds of sea-birds' eggs are spirited away to meet
the same demand. I don't think that boys ought to
be allowed to collect eggs merely as a passing whim
or fashion.

o

2,10 Cruelty to Birds

At Eton in my boyhood it was the fashion to do
so, and of course created rivalry, so that each boy strove
to outdo the other in both quantity and quality of
specimens. And there sat an old woman, almost
sacred in memory to all old Etonians of her reign,
which was a long one.

Old Mother Lipscombe on her camp stool, with
wrinkled face, blear eyes, and croaking voice. In
form not unlike a gigantic toad ; a much worn and
tattered bonnet on her ancient pate.

Day by day in the summer term she squatted near
the entrance to the school yard, or by the wall beneath
the trees, a pile of boxes at her side on the one hand,
and " Strarberries and cherries" for the " gentlemen "
on the other.

" Any fresh eggs to-day, Mrs. Lipscombe ? " came
the query from a group of boys ; and the old lady
would proceed with palsied fingers (that was in the
seventies) to lift the lids from off the boxes to
disclose her treasures.

A daily supply of the eggs of chaffinches, bull-
finches, goldfinches, thrushes, blackbirds, wrens, tit-
mice of different sorts, willow warblers, reed buntings,
corncrakes, cuckoos, wrynecks, and others, must have
considerably diminished the ranks of these poor birds ;
with Mother Lipscombe's myrmidons scouring the
country side for the space of several square miles.

And a very large quantity of the eggs finally
came to nothing. Now, I believe, the birds are very
much more protected in the neighbourhood of Eton
than formerly, and I trust it is the case. When a boy

Cruelty to Birds 211

4

shows a really keen interest in the matter, it is a
different thing, and a taste to be encouraged ; otherwise
let them employ their leisure hours in stamp and other
collections, which will bring no harm to economy and
beauties of nature. In any case, to buy eggs at a shop
is uninteresting and unromantic.

On looking at some boy's collection, you catch
sight of some rare eggs, and on asking how he came
by them, are told they were bought in London !

Owing to the local protection of birds, there seems
to be less taking of eggs by the village boys, for one
does not see the festoons of blue and white shells
depending on cottage walls, as one used to some thirty
years ago. There is much cruelty amongst professional
bird-catchers, who entrap hundreds of larks, goldfinches,
linnets, &c., and imprison them in miserable little cages
in which the poor birds can barely hop about.

And nightingales, too ! which are caught in April
when they first arrive, just when their small bodies
and minds were beating high with the instinct of the
propagation of their species, with the return of spring-
time and song.

In order to see the haunts of the London bird-
catchers, I penetrated one Sunday morning into the
streets of Whitechapel, where on that day the mart is
especially busy. One street was so crowded that it
was difficult to walk with any ease.

Men in Sunday suits with red cloth ties round
their necks, unrelieved by collars, jostled each other,
holding one cage or more, usually tied up in coloured
handkerchiefs.

212 Cruelty to Birds

j

Women in varied raiment stood in groups, gesticu-
lating, nodding, chattering, and at times harshly
laughing. Some were matrons of stalwart and
ponderous figures, arms akimbo, and bonnetless.

Others were factory girls, resplendent in violet or
butcher-blue gowns, and yellow or red shawls ; their
heads surmounted by magnificent broad-brimmed hats,
adorned with ribbons and shabby ostrich feathers of
painfully brilliant hues.

Children dodged about amongst their elders; some,
street arabs of the ordinary shock-headed, bare-footed
type ; others, whose parents were of the well-to-do
order, in gorgeous reach-me-downs, purchased in the
Mile End Road.

Many of the windows of the squalid houses were
framed in bird cages, and the notes of linnets, gold-
finches, chaffinches, and larks made themselves heard
through the hubbub of human tongues.

Singing matches were in progress in some of the
gin palaces, with champion chaffinches, and bets were
evidently being made over the favourites.

Indeed, the general scene was the idea of a third-
rate racecourse, where the Upper Ten was conspicuous
by its absence.

The sight of all these birds, many of whom had
but the day before been flying " o'er the downs so
free," saddened me.

The coarse language grated on one's ears.

Yet the general behaviour was perfectly orderly,
and the crowded gathering a friendly one.

Still ! there were the birds ! and one knows that

Cruelty to Birds 213

as a consequence the brilliant flitter of goldfinches'
wings, the farmer's friends who eat the thistle seeds,
have become more and more scarce, where once large
flocks flew twittering over the fields and commons.

Only the strict carrying out of the law can restore
them to their former numbers ; but at present there
is a great deal of talking and very little doing, unless
some county magnates happen to interest themselves
keenly in the matter, and bestir the county police.
In Switzerland birds are much more unmolested, and
the laws which produce this effect are, I believe,
strict.

In France and Italy the destruction of birds is
lamentable and mean ; all the more so because large
numbers of those that are trapped and eaten^ are our
English migrants, especially when on the autumnal
passage — redstarts, robins, thrushes, and other warblers.

At Marseilles I entered a bird shop, presided over
by a flaunting lady speaking an appalling French of a
cockney order, whose face I did not catch a sight of,
owing to the thick covering of paint, and whose hair
was coloured a brilliant yellow.

Some of the cages wore veils of calico, which
were violently disturbed by the flutterings of birds
within. It was mid April, the season of the vernal
migration. I lifted a covering, and expected as
much.

Freshly caught spring migrants !

Pied flycatchers, yellow and blue-headed wagtails,
and blackcaps !

I remarked that they were freshly caught, and that

214 Cruelty to Birds

I thought it very cruel to imprison them on their way
to their nesting quarters. My French was faultless !
Consequently she did not mistake my meaning, but
truth was not one of the virtues practised by her. " Oh,
mon Dieu ! Non ! they have been there for a year ; they
are very tame, only Monsieur is a stranger to them."

The frantic fluttering of the birds belied her words,
and their plumage, though frayed a little, was unmis-
takably that of birds that had not been in that small
shop for a year, or a week either.

I said, " Ce n'est pas vrai; bonjour, Madame," and
departed.

In Italy one sees most harassing sights.

In Verona, in the picturesque market-place, where
the big white umbrellas, like groups of gigantic mush-
rooms, shelter stalls of many wares and fruit, there are
in September, at the time of the autumnal migration,
trays full of all sorts of birds, freshly trapped and
killed.

I remember seeing quantities of robins and red-
starts, as well as titmice, common thrushes, and even
blue rock thrushes.

They were sold for eating ! and are caught in
decoys up in the mountains, regularly constructed for
that purpose.

It is said that the Pope [Leo XIII.] takes much
pleasure in entrapping small birds in the Vatican garden.
If the chief clergyman of Europe does this sort of
thing, what are you to expect ?

Staying at a private villa at Cadenabbia, I remem-
ber seeing in the kitchen one day a large dish, around

Cruelty to Birds 215

the edge of which were ranged about twenty little
birds plucked and trussed for cooking.

By their slender black legs and feet I knew at once
that they were not sparrows.

I asked the cook.

" Pettirossi, Signore," was the answer, " Buonis-
simi." Actually robins !

Abominable man to recommend robins to me as
excellent eating!

When I told his mistress, she, as an Englishwoman,
was horrified, and gave very decided orders that such a
dish was not to appear again in the menu.

In Florence a case of downright cruelty came
under my notice about ten years ago.

Passing a bird shop, I entered in, and after looking
about amongst the birds in the front part, penetrated
towards the back.

Some ortolans and Citril finches were sitting very
still in a cage, with their heads moving from side to
side in an unnatural manner.

I looked more closely.

They couldn't see ! Over their eyes there was a
thick blister.

In a moment I realised what it was.

By a heated needle or iron they had been blinded,,
at least for a while, to prevent their fluttering about ;
and to the uninitiated they appeared very tame.

I almost flew at the shop proprietor then and there.
Oh ! how I longed to give his eyes something which
would at the least discolour them.

Startled at my outburst of heartfelt indignation,

2i 6 Cruelty to Birds

which lent volubility to my Italian, he merely shrugged
his shoulders with a deprecatory foreign movement;
and I, hurling a final Diavolo at him, rushed from the
shop.

In Rome a man used to stand at the bottom of the
great steps leading to the Church of the Trinita dei
Monti from the Piazza di Spagna, with a slight frame-
work hung from his shoulders, on which sat, apparently
at liberty, a lot of the pretty little Serin finches, and
also goldfinches.

I had looked at 'these, en passant^ but one day
stopped to examine them more closely.

He usually had one which he used to make hop
from one finger to another of either hand. Any one
not understanding much about birds, would naturally
be attracted by their apparent tameness in the open
air.

It didn't take one long to find out two things.
First, that their flight feathers were all pulled out ;
and, secondly, that they were evidently drugged, for to
a practised eye it was easy to see that the poor little
birds were almost unaware of their surroundings.

Asking the man whether they could fly, he said,
" Oh yes, but they are very tame ; they do not wish to
go away," &c., &c.

Then I rent him.

Taking a bird in my hand, and extending its
pinion on either side, I said in Italian —

" Can birds fly without wings ? "

" Can birds fly that have been given medicine so
that they know not where they are ? "

Cruelty to Birds 217

The flash of fury that shot into that Roman's eyes
was a sight.

Whenever I passed through the Piazza on sub-
sequent days, he would make for me gesticulating and
threatening. He was the more angry because several
people had gathered round and heard my protest.

But Naples is worse still in its openly cruel treat-
ment of dumb animals, although the English, who sow
the seeds of practical Christian humanity wherever they
go, have done much to put it down, and the Queen
Dowager of Italy herself has long ago taken the matter
in hand.

By a lady, who was once one of her ladies in wait-
ing, I was told of Queen Margherita's keen distress
when, on visiting a town in her country, the people
not merely threw flowers in front of her carriage, but
also little birds with their flight feathers drawn, so
that they fell fluttering under the horses' feet !

Hundreds of migrants, arriving from Africa in
April, are caught in the " environs " of Naples.

Seeing a man by the public gardens with a very
large flat cage of cane bars, I walked up to him, and
found in it about two hundred blue-headed wagtails ;
lovely little birds with blue-grey heads, green backs
and tails, the latter edged with white, and breasts of a
brilliant saffron yellow.

One sees them in winter time in the fields border-
ing the Nile.

I asked him for how much he would sell me the
lot. " Cinque lire, Signore " (five francs), was the
answer. I handed him the money.

2i 8 Cruelty to Birds

" Now," I said, " open the cage door."

" But they will escape, Signore."

" That is what I wish them to do," I answered.

The man looked at me as much as to say, " What
fools these Inglesi are ! "

But he opened the door, and in another minute the
whole air was alive with fluttering wagtails, the large
majority of which, I believe, escaped.

One poor little bird, weak for want of food, ran
feebly over the ground, and was pounced upon by a
big tabby cat that was lurking in the neighbour-
hood.

I questioned the man as to who would have
bought them. He answered that people take them,
clip their wings, and let them run about in small
court-yards and rooms, where they catch the flies.

Perhaps if the Neapolitans were not so dirty there
would be less of these pests.

Spending a night on the island of Capri, that rises
out of the Mediterranean within the precincts of the
bay of Naples, my mind was again disturbed by sights
of cruelty.

Riding to the higher parts, I passed a party of
Italians, having the appearance of being members of
the upper class, each of whom was on a mule or
donkey.

One of these poor animals had a large and un-
sightly sore upon one of his hip bones, and his rider, a
fashionably-dressed man, was carefully belabouring the
poor beast on the actual sore itself in a really brutal
manner with a heavy stick.

Cruelty to Birds 219

Some people think that one small voice in the
world does little or no good.

At any rate, I couldn't resist raising mine in protest,
and that, too, indignantly.

He flushed up and moved on ; but I did not see the
stick used again as long as the cavalcade was in sight.

Continuing my ride on an animal that I had taken
care to assure myself had a whole skin, I was very in-
terested to see that all over the island large quantities
of redstarts had settled, and were apparently resting
before their final arrival on the mainland of Europe.
I couldn't help wondering whether any of the indi-
vidual birds I saw on Capri would in another day or
two be flying about in my own garden in England.

Chi lo sa ? as the Italians say. Who knows ? In
the small straggling hamlet which climbs towards the
summit of the island there were three or four cottages,
on the walls of which cages were hung with golden
orioles, evidently by their behaviour being newly
caught.

I kept my eyes alert for some of these birds at
liberty, as well as for hoopoes, but saw none.

The view from the highest point is one of great
beauty ; the sea immediately below is of an intense
blue, which fades in tone as the eye wanders farther
towards the distance, where Naples with its white
houses fringes the shore in the heart of the bay.

Behind, the waters stretch to the African coast,
sparkling in the sunshine ; in front, the Italian shores
curve from the entrance of the bay, and are lost in
the haze of the spring afternoon. In the inn, where I

220 Cruelty to Birds

stayed my feet, two men and two girls were dancing
the " Tarantella " to the accompaniment of a guitar,
played by the Padrona.

On the following morning I explored the other
portion of the island, in the vicinity of the famous
Blue Grotto. This time I walked, and by myself.

As I was picking my way up a stony path, at my
feet there lay a beautiful male redstart, apparently
injured.

Stooping to take him in my hand, there came a
sudden resistance.

Then I saw that the poor bird was tied by a string.
Following it up, I found a man at the other end,
seated among some rocks, with a child of about four
years old by his side.

The string was tied so tightly round the bird's
shoulder and under the wing that it was cutting into
the flesh, and the poor thing was sadly mauled.

This inhuman brute was dragging the redstart over
the rocks as a plaything for his child, and the expres-
sion in the bird's eye was one of faintness and
exhaustion.

With difficulty untying the string, which was
covered with blood where it had been wound round
the shoulder, I saw at once that the bone had been
broken, and that it was much kinder to put it out of
• its misery, which I did. Behind and above the man,
stood a huge statue of the Virgin, looking pityingly
down upon the scene from a niche in the rocks ;
a very finely-carved statue, presented to the island by
an Englishman.

Cruelty to Birds 221

" If your priests," I said, with intense indignation,
" taught you kindness of heart instead of your gabbling
prayers at the foot of that image, it would be better."

The scene was positively tragic !

Neither did I speak without knowledge.

I had been present in the previous year at a
" Canistra," which is the harvest festival of the Roman
Church. At a " Canistra," every possible sort of thing
is brought to the church of the village, in kind, as an
offering for the benefit of the parish priest.

It was at Lenno, a little village touching the shores
of the beautiful lake of Como.

A hot Sunday afternoon in September, and the
people had gathered in a picturesque crowd on the
level grass of the church piazza.

A procession of maidens veiled in white, and carry-
ing lighted candles, wended their way through the
open doors, from which the wheezy organ, fitfully
played with dance-like music, made itself heard. The
congregation was swelling within, and the lights on
the altar, with its tawdry lace and artificial flowers,
were shining in the semi-gloom of the building.
Every moment men, women, and children were
arriving, each with an offering.

Some carried cakes, others live geese, tied tightly
down into roomy baskets, and ornamented with
numerous ribbons ; others bore plates of fruit, and
sweetmeats ; others, vegetables.

Presently there came by a little girl, her head half
draped in a bright-coloured shawl, her dark eyes
sparkling with excitement, and in her right hand, held

222 Cruelty to Birds

high, a branch of a tree, from the twigs of which, hung
by their necks, were perhaps a couple of dozen dead
robins ! The graceful little figure pushed her way
through the crowd, in at the church door, up the aisle
to the front of the altar, where her offering was duly
received, and where she, like the rest, kissed the glass
of a tawdry casket, immediately underneath which
grinned the skull of the village saint.

Two priests were standing close to me in the
crowd without. I asked them whether they approved
of such an offering as had just been proffered.

" Certainly," was the answer ; " why not ? "

I explained to them how unnecessary and indeed
cruel it seemed to an Englishman.

They shrugged their shoulders !

I asked them whether it seemed good for children
to be brought up with the idea that God's creatures
were intended only for killing and eating.

They answered that all these things have been
given for our use, and by their tone and manner
plainly showed that they encouraged such destruc-
tion.

It is evident that all things being given for our
use, doesn't necessarily mean for our mouth and for
destruction.

I didn't altogether relish the netting of the quails
on Capri, which was in full swing during my visit.

The poor birds, migrating at night, and exhausted
with their long flight over the sea, drop into the nets
spread all ready to catch them.

This certainly seems a mean trick to play on them,

Cruelty to Birds 223

and thousands on the island of Capri alone thus fall
a prey to the demands of London, Paris, and other
poulterers.

But it is not quails only that are caught.

It was on my return to Naples on board a steamer
that I noticed a large sack lying at the feet of a rough-
looking Neapolitan ; a sack of a most lively nature,
for the whole of it was in motion, as if it were full
of rats.

The neck was tightly secured with string.

Therefore, to gratify curiosity, I asked the owner
what was inside.

" Turtle doves," was the answer.

Yes ! it was crammed with turtle doves ; the
European species, which arrives as a bird of passage in
England in May, and whose soft coo blends so charm-
ingly with the note of the cuckoo and the songs of
other birds.

I always associate it with bright days in June,
when the great white clouds are floating lazily in the
sky, and the scythes are sharpened for the mowing of
grass in fields and meadows. Yet how many of these
pretty summer doves of ours are deprived of their lives
by being intercepted on their journey.

And swallows, too, which are killed on the French
and Italian coasts, when they are exhausted on migra-
tion ; killed in order to supply women with ornaments
for their hats and bonnets.

Amongst Eastern nations there is, at least in Egypt
and the Soudan, a curious apathy with regard to an
interest in bird life, at any rate amongst the poorer

224 Cruelty to Birds

classes, and a complete indifference to the fact that
birds and animals have any feelings.

When they are captured and handled they are
treated as if they were devoid of any possibility of
suffering. Riding through the fields one day near
Minieh, on the banks of the Nile, an Arab came up to
us with a wretched sparrow, whose wings had appar-
ently been literally torn from its body, leaving nothing
but two mangled stumps, and the poor little bird was
tightly tied up with a piece of string.

The only way to impress its captor with the cruelty
of the act was to administer some really hard whacks
across his shoulder-blades with a stick, which I very
promptly did, upon which he retreated at a consider-
ably quicker pace than he had advanced. But I
gave chase on my donkey, and didn't let him off
easily.

Had I gently conversed with him on the subject,
he would only have grinned, and have written me
down an ass !

At Luxor it was noised abroad that I was wishing
to rear up a brood of hoopoes.

Consequently other birds were brought to the
Dahabeah ; amongst them a pair of the lovely little
green bee-eaters (Merops viridis), which are so often to
be seen at that part of the Nile, and towards Assouan,
either sitting upon the telegraph wires, from which
they dart off to catch flies and other winged insects,
returning to their perch to devour them, or else amongst
the bushes and palm trees of the river's banks or gardens
of houses.

Cruelty to Birds 225

They are most gracefully shaped birds, with slender
bills and long pointed tails.

Brilliant green, with a lovely golden chestnut in the
flight feathers, which is seen when they are on the wing.

Those that were brought me were a pair, evidently
caught in their nesting-hole overhanging the river, for
their bills were encrusted with Nile mud, showing
that they were preparing a site for their eggs.

They were tied by string round their little stumpy
legs.

Knowing that it would be hopeless to keep them,
and cruel ; I quietly betook myself to the other side
of the Dahabeah, cut the strings, and liberated them
across the river.

Then I returned to the man, and informed him
they were gone.

It was fortunate, perhaps, that I only knew a little
Arabic, for I am sure that his language was appalling !

But it taught him and others standing by, a prac-
tical lesson that I did not want to deprive such birds
either of their liberty or their lives.

The Arabs catch the quails, taking a large bunch
of perhaps two dozen birds, tie their legs promiscu-
ously and tightly with string, and carry the poor little
fellows with their heads hanging downwards. If a
man stops anywhere, he throws his living bundle on
the ground, where they lie, many of them bleeding
from the rough usage.

It is declared that on some of the Dahabeahs, &c.,
scullions think nothing of plucking pigeons and fowls
alive.

226 Cruelty to Birds

Had I caught our cook-boy at such work I should
have pitched him into the river with promptitude.

But Europeans are, not unnaturally, looked upon
by the natives as people who want to kill birds, and
many make no protest at unnecessary cruelties, which
are frequently looked upon as the custom of the coun-
try, and only to be expected in those who know no
better.

But they can be taught, and are then most kind
and thoughtful to dumb creatures.

As soon as our Dahabeah crew discovered my great
love for such things, they one and all took pleasure
in attending to their wants.

If it was the macaw, he would be the first to receive
a piece of sugar-cane as soon as a fresh consignment
was brought on board ; if it was the gazelle, they
would bring anything from off the shore, such as
clover, &c., which they thought the little animal would
like to nibble at ; and by the end of our voyage they
had discovered the pleasure of tending to their needs,
and of satisfying their hunger.

Easterns have an innate faculty for taming dumb
things, and only need to be shown what kindness to
them means, to turn them from thoughtless cruelty
and ignorant treatment.

To imbue men, women, and children — especially
the latter, because it is good to begin early — with a
love for birds and animals, is undoubtedly a means of
raising the moral tone, as well as of creating an interest
in life which will give an impetus to a recreation both
refreshing and instructive.

EGRET

CHAPTER XV
STORKS AND CRANES

" To give power, we must have plumes that can strike as with
the flat of a sword-blade."

EVERYONE who has been to parts of Holland,
Sweden, and Germany, in the spring or summer
time, cannot fail to notice the white storks ; so
conspicuous in the choice of their building sites, on
the top of roofs, chimneys, and, in some instances,
poles, on which have been placed cart-wheels or plat-
forms, as foundations for their big nests of sticks.

In the end of March or the commencement of April
the storks return from their winter quarters in Egypt,

India, &c., and every one knows how fortunate the

227

2,28 Storks & Cranes

peasants of European countries consider themselves
when a pair of these birds select any particular house
as their nesting-home.

Every one, too, knows how the German parents tell
their children that the storks bring the babies.

In England, as, alas ! there are no storks, different
little harmless inventions are resorted to.

Like the hoopoe, the stork is probably another
instance of a bird which would still come regularly
to the British Isles if it were not so persistently shot
as soon as one puts in an appearance.

It may be argued that England being so much
more drained and cultivated, where formerly there was
marshy ground, is a sufficient reason for the disappear-
ance of the white stork.

Long years ago it probably was a regular summer
resident.

But about the marshes of Lincolnshire, the fens
of Cambridgeshire, and the Norfolk broads, not to
mention other localities, there is undoubtedly ground
on which the storks would find a good supply of food
in the shape of frogs, fish, mice, &c. Hardly a year
goes by without one hears of one or two storks being
shot.

In Poole Harbour — about 1880, if I remember
right — three were seen together, one of which was
shot by Mr. Hart, of Christ Church, and its skin is
still to be seen, beautifully mounted, as an addition to
one of the most splendid collections of stuffed birds in
the kingdom.

I believe it is Mr. Hart who tells an interesting

Storks SjP Cranes 229

story about a stork that was marked and also " made
in Germany," although I did not hear the anecdote
first hand.

At any rate, it may be said, that a German put a
ring upon a stork's leg, marking on the ring the place
where it was hatched, and the bird was allowed to fly.

Away he went at the migrating season, and in the
following spring returned again.

How they managed to catch him, I don't know ;
he may have been very tame and have walked into an
outhouse, or anything of that kind.

On looking at the ring, or it may have been a
second one, these additional words had been engraved :
" Friends in Bombay greet friends in Berlin " (sup-
posing Berlin to have been the place where the bird
was originally marked).

This story was, so I understood, told to Mr. Hart
by a German who was visiting his museum.

Having suffered from the way in which my tame
storks have been shot, which I have time after time
allowed to have their full liberty, I feel all the more
keenly the foolish and wanton destruction of these
birds, and other rare ones.

It is always interesting to try experiments with
birds by allowing them in semi-captivity their full
liberty ; and this I have done with white storks for
several years. Purchasing them as nestlings, or almost
so, in Leadenhall Market, generally in the beginning
of June, when they are too young to fly ; I take care to
ask beforehand that their flight feathers shall not be
clipped. Sometimes they are such babies, that for

2,30 Storks & Cranes

three or four days after their arrival they cannot even
stand up on their wobbling legs, and when they do
at last manage it, they rock about and stagger in the
weakest way.

Voracious things they are too at that age, and
gollop down raw liver to any extent, making a curious
rasping, wheezing noise as they do so.

I always put them on the open lawn so that they
may become used to the look of the place before they
can fly.

In a short time they begin to gain strength.

At this age the feet are light reddish, but the legs
are dull brown, and do not become red until the later
portion of the summer.

The bills, too, instead of being red, are almost
black, except for a promise of the future colour at the
base. And so my young storks march solemnly about,
bending down their bodies when they are hungry, and
flapping their weak wings up and down.

When there are one or two adult birds amongst
them, the babies run after them persistently, in the
hopes of receiving a frog or a locust. How should
they know that these are not their parents, and that
they have left them across the sea ?

Then comes a day when they begin to exercise
their wings a great deal ; hopping along on both
feet, flapping and pirouetting.

And then — at last they find the use of them.
Away goes the biggest and the strongest, as yet
unversed in the art of steering.

He takes a low flight out into the park ; and,

Storks & Cranes 231

evidently afraid to go too far, or unable, swings round
on his big flopping wings, and is soon down again.

The next day another gets on the wing, and
in a week all four are flying.

Perched on the chimneys of a lovely old red
brick house, that was restored in the reign of
Elizabeth, storks look extremely picturesque ; and
all the storks I have ever had, have always selected
to roost on some particular block of chimneys.

Every evening at about six o'clock, sometimes
earlier, as we sat in the garden, the storks would
come flapping round, sailing close over our heads
as we were playing croquet, until they had circled
sufficiently to enable them to reach their roosting
point.

With the rays of the setting sun glinting on
their snow-white and deep black plumage, and
their red legs and bills, they used to excite much
admiration, with their forms clearly silhouetted
against the evening sky.

And then on moonlight nights we used to go
outside and look up at them, getting a view of
them, with the moon as a background.

Hans Andersen's delightful tales about the storks
came to one's mind.

They used to sit like statues — each with one
leg up. Well ! they wouldn't have been proper
storks if they hadn't.

Their morning exercises were beautiful, especially
in the beginning of August, when they commenced
to prepare for their flight to Egypt.

232, Storks ^ Cranes

With the fine sweep of their wings, they would
mount up to a great height in a very few minutes,
and many a day did I think I had seen the last
of them.

Sometimes when there was a light breeze, they
would sail far above the house, with outstretched
and apparently unmoving pinions, looking no larger
than rooks.

And away they would go in ever widening
circles, until they were at times hidden by the
clouds. I have watched them through field-glasses,
soaring for long distances from home, yet they never
settled anywhere but on the house itself, or on the
lawn, or the part of the park immediately fronting
the house.

To a pond in the park they were very fond
of going ; but if I whistled to them at their supper
time, one after the other, they would rise up to
come flapping home.

In 1899 I bought some silver rings, on which
I had the year and the name of their English
home engraved, and slipped one on to an ankle
of each bird.

This was not easy, for the ring must not be
too large for the stork's leg, and yet large enough
to go over his foot.

Of course one might have them made with a
snap which would close for ever, when shut to ;
but it would be a more costly business.

So I managed, by putting vaseline on the birds'
feet, and thus slipped the rings over.

Storks £f Cranes 233

That year one of the young storks arrived with
a broken wing, and had to be taken to the hospital,
which was really the drying-ground of the laundry.
And a professional nurse was in attendance — she
happened to be with us at the time — who bound up
the broken wing with the tender care of one whose
heart was naturally a soft one for all wounded crea-
tures, human or dumb.

For some days the bird seemed to be a rather
refractory patient, for he constantly managed to
struggle about and peck the bandages loose.

At last the bone seemed to have joined, but
the wing for a long time drooped at the shoulder,
and the bird, unable to fly, looked yearningly up
at his brothers as they sailed over his head.

But one day he managed to get on the wing,
and although he was rather a lop-sided kind of a
boat ; still he went along fairly well, at no great
height from the ground.

When his fellows left, he, poor bird, had to
stay behind, but during September his wing seemed
to grow stronger, until at last he too soared round
at great heights ; and, by dint of perseverance, to
be imitated by many a malade imaginaire, finally
was lost to sight in the far, far distance of a clear
September sky, soaring round in ever-widening
circles, until his bearings were ascertained.

Let us hope he reached the land of pyramids
and temples in safety ; where in the marshes of
the Soudan he could join that mighty host of
comrades.

234 Storks £jP Cranes

As he winged his way out of sight, it seemed
like some mysterious departure of a spirit, seeking
a sunnier and a better clime.

Would my storks ever return in the spring-time to
the old English home ? What a triumph if they did !

That year I really believe they all four left
England's hostile shores in safety, for although I
looked carefully in the obituary column — I beg its
pardon, I mean the natural history notes of the Field
— where more than once I have seen the slaughter of
my storks recorded, there was, to my great relief, no
announcement that any white storks had been shot.

In other years, as sure as fate, about a week or a
fortnight after my storks had left for their winter
quarters, I was sure to see — " A white stork shot in
Kent," or somewhere else. And wouldn't I have
enjoyed peppering the legs of the sportsman who did
the deed !

On one occasion one of my storks was resting on a
chimney of a farmhouse in Kent, before crossing the
Channel, and the farmer came out and knocked him
over with a gun-shot.

My storks of 1899 may have met with the same
sad fate ; and any one who killed them, finding the
silver rings on their ankles, would perhaps have been
too ashamed to make the matter public. " Speriamo
di no," as the Italians say.

No doubt, if they are, on the other hand, safely
somewhere in the neighbourhood of Fashoda, the
other storks will believe them to be princes in disguise
when they see their silver anklets.

Storks & Cranes 235

A really lovely sight is the vernal migration of
battalions of storks, as they wend their way from the
Soudan along the course of the Nile from about the
end of February to the end of March.

A first vanguard passed over Assouan on the 22nd
of February 1899, composed of perhaps two or three
hundred birds.

And all through March, about every fourth or fifth
day, companies would come wheeling from the south,
on their way to their nesting-homes in Europe and
Asia.

But on the 2oth of March of the year I was up
the Nile, the whole sky over Assouan was, as far as
the eye could see,* southwards and northwards, filled
with countless hundreds of these birds.

Against the wonderful brilliancy of the Egyptian
sky, battalion after battalion, company after company,
came wheeling along, their red legs and bills against
the azure background, and their shining white plum-
age, with the broad black pinions, showing out in
strongest contrast of colours. They did not always fly
at any very great height ; indeed, many were below
the level of the surrounding hills.

Neither did they fly straight ahead, but wheeled
and sailed in magnificent curves and circles, crossing
and recrossing each other, several hundreds flying one
way ; and others, another.

The effect was enhanced by the absolute silence
that reigned amongst them, which lent dignity to an
already dignified procession.

Storks are mute vocally, and give vent to a call by

236

Storks ftp Cranes

clattering their mandibles loudly and rapidly together.
But I have never heard them do this when on the
wing.

This great procession of the aoth of March seemed
to be the finale of all that had gone before — a mag-
nificent accumulation of a full army corps. This
beautiful flight of birds must have continued for at
least an hour.

When they arrive in Europe they gradually separ-
ate into smaller companies, and finally into pairs.
They are most useful birds in devouring the locusts,
on which they feed their young, in places where those
insects are indigenous.

I remember being told by a very keen and well-
known naturalist how, when he was sitting quite close
to a stork's nest (it must have been in some part of
Asia) the old birds came near him fearlessly, constantly
bringing locusts to the young birds.

It is curious that the black stork should be so
much more unsociable in the choice of his nesting
places, as far as human beings are concerned.

But in winter one sees small companies of them
wading in the shallows of the Nile, or standing in
groups of a dozen or so upon some spit of sand in mid-
river, accompanied by spoonbills, egrets, ruddy shel-
drakes, and Egyptian geese.

It is a very great pity that the birds of the Nile
should be shot at as they are, principally, it would
seem, by Greeks and Germans.

Of course those unsightly steamers with their
obtrusive " wash " in attendance, have helped a great

sfS9** " vT

' '

Storks & Cranes 239

deal to drive away the waders and ducks of various
species, but a constant persecution at the hand of
Europeans has lamentably lessened their numbers.

I remember how anxious my Syrian dragoman was
to have a shot from our Dahabeah at a griffon vulture,
which was floating down stream on the carcase of a
dead donkey.

But I indignantly forbade such useless slaughter of
a most useful bird.

Its dead body would have floated away to be, in its
turn, the same sort of stuff as that on which it was
feeding.

Let us hope that stringent laws will be made, and
carried out, for the protection of birds and animals in
the Soudan.

People say that there are thousands of such and
such a bird.

Yes ! no doubt there are !

But there are also thousands of a kind of tourist,
who, without any real interest in collecting bird-skins
for scientific purposes, bang away at everything they
see.

There used to be thousands, to use a fafon
de parler^ of buff-backed herons all along the Nile.
In the winter of 1899, though I was constantly
spying at every bird I saw, through my glasses, I
should think that fifty was the limit of these birds'
numbers.

We came across them only very occasionally. My
dragoman told me that he remembered the fields white
with them some thirty years ago. Yet one of the

240 Storks & Cranes

most interesting touches to the scenery of the great
river of Egypt are the birds.

Birds which are alive to-day figure upon the walls
of temples built 3500 years ago.

On the walls of Dehr-el-Bahari, the way in which
the different species of birds are drawn and coloured is
most striking, and there is no mistaking ducks of
various kinds, notably the pintail ; as well as geese,
ibises, herons, and cranes.

Now, the sacred ibis is an inhabitant of Egypt no
more.

The modes in which different birds were captured
and secured is shown clearly at the temple of Queen
Hatepsu just mentioned.

Cranes, for instance, could peck as much in the
days of the ancient Egyptians as they can now.

Consequently their bills were tied down to the
front of their necks, with a cord passing round the
neck itself.

The different kinds of cranes are extremely orna-
mental in captivity, from the graceful little demoiselle,
with its pretty white ear tufts, to the great grey Sarus
crane of India, or the black and white Mantchurian,
immortalised on Japanese screens, cabinets, and porce-
lain.

Personally, my experience of cranes as pets has
been limited to the European, the Sarus, the Australian
" companions," Demoiselle, and White Siberian.

Will people wonder that I sometimes entertain
bitter feelings towards those who shoot rarce aves,
amounting in one instance to anger, hatred, and malice,

Storks £sp Cranes 241

when I record the following story about my Sarus
cranes.

They were a magnificent pair of birds, which used
to walk with stately gait about the park ; and, having
only the primaries of one wing clipped, when they
moulted and grew new feathers, soon managed to fly.

I tried to catch them, but I was placed on the
horns of a dilemma.

Either catch them, in which case the new feathers
would not be sufficiently grown to cut with any due
effect, or leave the feathers to grow long enough, in
which case one wouldn't catch them.

And the latter came to pass.

So these great birds used to take flights round the
park, their enormous pinions flapping along. As the
feathers grew, their flights became longer, and they
went farther afield.

But they always returned home ; at least they did
so until they didn't ; which seems to happen with a
good many things in this life !

When at last it came about that the cranes were
absent a whole twenty-four hours, search and inquiry
was made for them in the immediate neighbourhood.

It was reported that at a farm about three miles off
they had been shot.

What epithets are strong enough for that farmer
who did the deed ?

The report was only too true.

The cranes had settled, and were feeding with
the poultry in a field close to the farmhouse. The
dunder-headed farmer, who merely remarked that

O

242, Storks & Cranes

he thought they were " Molly Ur-rns " — by which
he meant herons — went indoors, seized his gun, and
murdered both my poor cranes then and there.
Being absent at the time, I wrote to remonstrate
with him, but never even received an answer to
my letter, much less an apology.

He lived near Princes Risborough, in Bucking-
hamshire. If any man deserved to be peppered
through his gaiters, he did ; and I honestly confess
it would have given me the keenest satisfaction to
have done it ! Exactly the same thing happened
with a pair of my white storks.

It was in May, and having kept them in with
undipped wing feathers all the winter, liberated
them when I thought the vernal migratory instincts
had died down.

Much clattering of mandibles took place, and
the male bird several times carried sticks about in
his bill.

But a big storm came on, during which, whilst
on the wing, the storks were swept along in the
teeth of the gale, and settled in a meadow only
two miles from home.

The next view I had of them was in a farm
cart, in which one was lying dead, and its mate
so wounded that it did not survive more than a
day or two.

Here again was an instance of one of that class
of farmers, who love to prowl about with a gun,
banging at everything in the shape of a wild bird
or animal that is seen.

Storks & Cranes 243

A gun, with crass ignorance behind it, is a
nasty weapon. In this instance also, it was pleaded
that they were mistaken for " urns " ; though why,
even then, they should have been slaughtered, I
fail to understand. There was no trout stream to
protect.

And to think they were herons, must have
meant that he knew more or less what those birds
are like.

Whoever saw herons with snow-white plumage,
black wings, and red legs and bills !

To the bucolic mind of that class of farmer
apparently any biggish bird that owns long legs and
bill is an " urn," and must consequently be shot.

In August (1900) five white storks, which had
remained at home during the summer, were ruth-
lessly shot by a local doctor when, on crossing out of
Berkshire to the sea for their migration, they settled
to rest on the tower of the Gosport waterworks.
Although I twice wrote to ask for an explanation
and to remonstrate, I received no answer ! !

On these occasions, insult is certainly added to
injury !

After the murder of my Sarus, I purchased a
splendid pair of Australian " native companion "
cranes, as they are called.

Closely resembling the Sarus, they are not quite
so tall, and their colouring is perhaps a grey of a
softer and more pearly tint. They have the same
bare head, covered with scarlet papillose crustations
en the skin, and black bristles.

244- Storks £&P Cranes

A dark-coloured pouch at the throat becomes
enlarged in the spring time.

The male bird is always taller than the female,
and generally walks with his head more erect.
The characteristics of the two sexes are evident
in the case of my Australian cranes.

They are very tame — indeed visitors sometimes
wish they were wilder ; and whilst the hen bird
walks along with shorter steps, her skirts hanging
downwards, in the shape of elongated feathers of
the wings, her head coquettishly on one side, he
strides round, taking a wider circle in his walk,
with long jerky steps, erect and tall, his bright
brown-red eye looking unutterable defiance.

If you remain long enough to gaze at them,
the lady will gradually sidle closer and closer, as
at the same time her mate draws nearer to you
on the other side ; when, at an apparently given
signal, they will suddenly attack you with really
hard pecks from their bills, flapping their big wings
to disconcert you.

One of my legs received a hard pinch on one
occasion.

But there was something that roused their ire
more than anything else.

That was their first sight of a lady on a bicycle !

What would they think of the ladies of Paris ?

Their bare well ! that portion of their limbs that

ought to be covered with stocking and petticoats, and
which very often is not, would afford a fine target for
the cranes' onslaughts !

Storks £sP Cranes 245

If it wasn't that I should blush to be seen walking
with them in such an unwomanly undress, I should
enjoy showing some of them round the park, in the
vicinity of my Australian cranes ! Perhaps it might
induce them to give up making a spectacle of them-
selves to the world at large. However, one is thank-
ful that our English women have naturally shrunk
from such an unwomanly garb (although they too, in
some instances, might be more clothed in the upper
portion of their persons), and in the instance I am
speaking of there really was no need for the cranes to
be so indignant.

Two English ladies, bicycling in all modesty of
dress and demeanour, were learning to find a steady
seat on their saddle, when, passing along the road,
they met my cranes.

In a moment those pugilistic birds, with a flank
movement, had attacked the first fair rider. The next
scene was — bicycle and rider flat on the road, and the
cranes dancing with outstretched wings and aggressive
bills on the top of them ! But, before any harm was
done, they were routed by another lady, who was
walking close by, and who bravely charged them and
belaboured them with her parasol !

After this every one will agree that cranes are most
charming pets.

They invariably give vent to a loud duet of reson-
ant trumpeting, especially if any one stops to look at
them and then turns to walk away. The hen bird is
always the first to throw up her head in the air, with
a loud rattling croak, which is immediately caught up

Storks &-P Cranes

246

by her mate, who, while she continues to croak, utters
his trumpet calls, which, when the wind is blowing
towards me, I have heard distinctly at a distance of
two miles, and this, too, when they have been on the
high ground of the Chiltern Hills, and I in the level
vale below. These loud notes were always preceded
by a low inward growl.

The male always lowers his wings, shaking them
up and down in time with his trumpetings, and both
birds stand close together with their beaks pointing
upwards.

When they are separated, especially at night and in
foggy weather, they call to each other with one loud
monosyllabic croak.

They are evidently extremely attached to one an-
other, and in a wild state pair for life.

The crane's cry is exceedingly wild, and one can
understand how fine it must sound on their native
plains and marshes.

A very splendid member of this magnificent family
of birds is the white crane of Asia, with the red skin
of the face, black primaries, and pink legs.

The Mantchurian, or Japanese crane, will breed in
captivity, and is a splendid ornament on the margin of
a lake.

But unless you happen to want several begonia
plants taken up, don't let cranes into the flower
garden.

If, however, you are short of labourers in the
autumn, when your bedding plants have to be taken
up for the winter, they might be useful, for they will

Storks & Cranes 247

uproot a large bed of geraniums in double-quick
time.

They are better at this kind of work than at plant-
ing anything.

When I first had my native companions, they
worked away splendidly at some begonia beds, but
unfortunately their zeal and labour was mistaken, for
it happened to be in June. They may have been like
we were in childish days : anxious to see whether the
plants were rooting nicely !

And so my cranes were politely shown the
garden gate, which was carefully closed behind
them. For the future they had to be content with
digging up bits of turf in the rougher grass of the
park.

The Stanley crane of South Africa is extremely
quaint and graceful, with its pearl-grey plumage,
its curious puffed head, and its elongated feathers
of the wing, which almost touch the ground.

Then there is the crowned crane (balearic) of
the northern region of Ethiopia, with its wonderful
buff-coloured shaving-brush on the back of its head,
and rich chestnut of the secondaries of the wings>
set off by the white of the wing coverts, and dark
grey of the other parts.

It was, I think, a crane of this species that was
taken by Colonel Smith-Dorrien from the com-
pound of the Khalifa's house in Omdurman, after
the great battle of 1898, and sent to Tresco Abbey.
The demoiselle is the smallest of the family. A
crane often seen in the beautiful Japanese drawings

248 Storks £sP Cranes

is the " tan-cho " — a very handsome bird with grey
plumage and white on the back of the neck and
throat ; the wing-quills and tail being black.

As far as food goes, cranes are more convenient
to keep than storks and herons of different kinds,
as the latter need animal , food, such as cut up rats,
liver, greaves, &c. — not always pleasant, especially
in hot weather ; whereas the cranes will do well
on large grain, pieces of bread, and soaked dog
biscuit. Flamingoes are beautiful in a collection of
the larger waders, but are more difficult to keep
in health ; for they need shrimps to a certain extent,
but boiled rice will suit them as a staple diet.

One of the most wonderful sights in wild bird
life is a flock of flamingoes, with their delicate rosy
plumage, and long spindle legs of pale pink, as
they stand in soldier-like ranks in the shallows of
some mud flat or lake. As one steams along the
Suez Canal it is an inspiring sight.

One morning the early light of an Eastern dawn
was breaking in through my open port-hole ; and,
rising from my berth, the delicious air of the desert
blew refreshingly into one's lungs.

The whole sky was of a pale golden yellow,
deepening to rose colour, where the sun was about
to rise, but of a clear transparent smalt blue towards
the wrest. A pearly grey and gold light shimmered
over the sand and the shallow waters of the great
lake, which verges on the banks of the Canal.

In the deliciously clear atmosphere a long line
of flamingoes, with their necks and legs outstretched,

Storks £gP Cranes 249

flapped over the still surface of the waters ; their
pink forms reflected in the mirror beneath them.

Their loud gaggling cries sounded weirdly in
the stillness of this beautiful dawn. Then the sun
rose, mounting rapidly above the horizon, and in a
moment flooded the scene in a glory of bright gold ;
whilst the stars, which had to the last scintillated
and shone where the sky still carried the blue
tints of night, now paled and went out in the
presence of a greater glory.

And as the rays struck over the earth's surface,
they lit up the ranks of flamingoes as they stood
like companies drawn up in battle array, in uniforms
of rosy pink. In the farther distance, what seemed
to be a row of one-storied Eastern houses made of
plaster, painted a pale saffron yellow, and built
apparently in the middle of the great stretch of
waters, was a large flock of pelicans, as it proved
to be on closer examination through my glasses.

The atmosphere caused them to look even larger
than they really were, and they were sitting com-
pactly gathered together in a great company ; pro-
ducing the effect described.

The golden light shone on their white breasts.

Once a great company flew overhead, as we sailed
up the Nile in a Dahabeah, when the sun was setting
below marvellous ruby-red clouds, flecked over a sky
of clearest sea-green. And again the sun's rays shone
on the pelicans' breasts, as backed in the east by a sky
of deep blue, which was tinged with the shades of
approaching night, the great boat-billed birds flapped

250 Storks & Cranes

high above us in wonderful riband-like lines, which
waved and undulated like some giant pennon of black
and amber.

Or else it might have been a monstrous serpent of
the air, so closely and evenly did each individual bird
keep its place behind the one immediately in front of it.

Yet the whole company waved continually as it
moved ; at one moment the black pinions darkening
the line ; at another their white breasts, amber-
coloured in the light of the setting sun, flashing out.

And so they wended their way towards the radi-
ance of the western sky, as if unwilling to allow the
shades of night to overtake them.

Such a radiancy of glory,
Shining in the west,
Telling us the welcome story
Of the final rest ;
And the rising on the morrow
Of the sun's glad light,
Promises that pain and sorrow
Pass away with night.

INDEX

AUVERGNE . . . o . . .60

„ peasants . . . . . .64

Aviary, in conservatory . . . - 197

„ in garden .. . . . . .199

BANK HOLIDAY trippers, desecration of the beautiful by .115

Bird-catchers, Whitechapel . . . . .211

„ on Continent . . . . . 213

Birds, illnesses of . ; . '• , . . ,190

„ kept dirtily . -. . ' . . .195

„ usefulness of insect-eating . ,. . . 85

„ lecture on . . ,: .. . .^ 87

„ slaughter on Nile . . . . -\ 239

Blackcap . . . . . . .16

Black Stork . . . . . . .236

Blue Tits, in cage ./ . . . . .125

Boxes, nesting . . »• . . 6, 204

Budgerigar . . . ". . . 177

Bullfinch . . . . . . ., . 1 8

CAGES, cleaning of . . . . _, 193

Canistra, offering of birds at . . .. . . 221

Capri . . . . .- V" . 21 8

Cleanliness of food, &c. .' . "... ; 88, 188, 191

Cranes, Egyptian frescoes of . . . . . 240

„ Australian ~ . .. .... 241

„ the Khalifa's . .. . v V . , 247

„ Manchurian . .. . " •• . » . 246

„ slaughter of . .' » . . . , 241

„ Stanley . . . . . . 247

251

252, Index

PAGE

Cockatoos . . . . . . . ..170

Como, Lake of . . .. . . .-45

DEHR-EL-BAHARI, temple of . . .' . 44, 240

Dove, Turtle- . . . . . . 223

Dovedale, Ouzels at . -. . . . . .no

EGG-COLLECTING . . . -. . . 209

Egrets, destruction of. . . , . . 207

FLAMINGOS, Suez Canal . . . .... 248

Flycatcher, nesting of ; . 5

GARDEN, ponds in ... . .22

Golden Oriole . . . . . 133

Guillemot . . ." , . . .144

Gulls, assumption of plumage . . . . 134, 1 60

HERONS, Buff-backed . . . . . 239

Hoopoes, in British Isles .... 25, .40, 140

„ Cairo . . . . -. . .32

House Martins, nesting of . . . , 1 1

INSECTIVOROUS FOOD COMPANY . . . • 93

LORIES . . . - . . . . 174

MACAWS . . . . . . .182

Manx Shearwater -\ . . , . . 139

NESTING-BOXES . 4, ^ . . 6, 204

Nestlings, travelling with * . . . . 66

New Zealand Parakeet as pet . . . . 181

Nightingale, nesting of .. , -\ . . . 80

„ tame in garden . , . > . 81

Index 253

PAGE

ORIOLE, Golden . . . . . ^33

Ouzels, Ring. . . . . no, 117

„ nest of Water- . . . .112

Owl, Short-eared . . . . . . .21

Owls . . . . . . .20

Oyster-Catcher . . . . i'57

„ rearing of . . . • I59

PARAKEETS, desirable for aviaries . . . .179

Parrot, Grey, as talkers . . . . . 165

„ Amazon . . . . . .169

„ House, Zoological Gardens . . . .180

Parrots, treatment of . . , . . .185

Passer a Solitaria . . . r . • 42

Pelicans . . . . . .. . . 249

Petrel, nesting of Storm- *. . . . .141

„ egg of Storm-. . - •'. ' — . .. . 143

Phalarope, Red-necked . . . . . 209

Pionus, Bronze-winged * ' . . ... . 1/2

Plumage, assimilation to surroundings . . . 59, 133

Puffin, change of beak sheath . . . . . 138

„ nesting of . . . . • J35

QUAILS, on board ship V . . . 37

„ cruelty to \ . . . • 225

ROCK THRUSH, escape of ... -7°

„ „ Lugano . ... 57

SEA- ANEMONES, beauty of . . . .130

Seal, stalking of . . . ... • J49

Shama, purchase of . . . . . • 91

„ food for . . . . -94

Stork, Black . . . . . . .236

„ White, in British Isles . . . .228

„ „ homing instinct of .... 229

„ „ spring migration from Egypt . . . 235

254 Index

THRUSH, Blue Rock . . . . „ .42

„ Pied Rock . . . / .. • 57

Tits . . . . v , . . '. 125

Turquoisine, hand-reared . . . . .176

VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALE, freedom in garden. . . 181

„ „ rearing young by hand . ; 107

WADERS, aviary for . . . . . .162

Wagtail, Blue-headed . . . . * .217

„ Grey . . • 49

„ Pied, nesting of . ' . . . .8

Waxbills . . . . . , 198

Wren, nesting of . . . . . .16

Wrens, Golden-crested, nesting of . . . .120

„ „ in Heligoland . . . . 124

„ „ rearing of . . . .121

THE END

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