Watching Birds at a Straw-Stack
One of the most interesting ways of watching birds at very close
quarters is to conceal oneself in one of the corn-stacks or wheat-ricks
that in the autumn begin to spring up like mushrooms all over the
country-side. This is a winter pastime, and the harder the weather the
greater will be the results yielded. To have chaffinches, greenfinches,
bramblings, tree-sparrows, buntings, yellow-hammers, blue-tits,
starlings, perhaps a blackbird or two, pheasants and partridges, all
about one and quite near, one should choose a bitterly cold day with
a biting wind driving the snowflakes before it, and the snow itself
whitening the landscape, but not so deeply as to cover things beyond a
bird's power of scratching. Rising early, one gets to the stack whilst
it is still dark. At one side there is always a great heap of refuse
material of the stack, threshed ears of corn, chopped and winnowed
straw, as well as--at least where picturesque farming prevails (and
may it long prevail)--a vast quantity of thistle-heads, poppy-pods,
campion, columbine, and all sorts of other plants and flowers that have
been garnered in with the harvest. Small birds come down on this in
flocks, and where the slope of the heap on one side joins the stack,
one should make in the latter, by a process of pulling out and pressing
in, a nice cosy cavern just big enough to squeeze into. On the floor
of this one should lay a shawl or plaid, and then, enveloping oneself
in another, enter it backwards, and, kicking one's legs farther into
the body of the stack so as to be out of the way, pull down the straw
over the aperture, arranging it thinly just in front of one's face so
as to have a good outlook. Even on the coldest morning one is warm and
comfortable under such circumstances, and the snow without and frosted
stalks that one's near breath is thawing, make one feel all the warmer.
It is for warmth, indeed, that such an ensconcement is principally
needed, for on days like this small birds, at any rate, will come
within a few paces of one, if only one sits still. Even when one walks
up to the stack in broad daylight, they only fly round to another
side of it, and one has scarcely settled oneself before they begin to
come again. But hidden thus before "black night" has ceased to "steal
the colours from things," one may have stragglers from the main crowd
within the length of one's arm, and I have even tried catching one--for
the bizarrerie of the thing--by gliding my hand stealthily through the
loose straw underneath it. The attempt failed, but I believe such a
feat would be quite possible.
As the light begins to creep upon the darkness and the world to
grow more and more white, the arrivals commence. First a few
greenfinches--principally hens--fly down upon the heap, then
chaffinches, both cocks and hens, but hens predominating, with a few
yellow-hammers, mostly of immature plumage, and a hedge-sparrow or two.
These birds come and go independently for some little time, and it is
not till the morning has grown lighter that they begin to form a band,
in the sense not of their numbers only, but also of their actions.
It is only gradually, for instance, that their habit of all flying
away together into the neighbouring trees and returning quickly again
in the same way becomes at all marked. They are at first independent
units, but as the day brightens and the numbers increase they become
more and more interdependent. Now, too, there is more equality in the
numbers of the sexes. The females still predominate, but one would
not always think that this was the case, for as they all whirr into
a large oak tree that is beginning now to be gilded by the beams of
the tardily-rising sun, its bare boughs and twigs, as well as the
surrounding bushes, are made suddenly lovely with bright, soft green
and mauvy-purplish red. A glorious winter foliage this, that might make
an old tree feel young again!
All the time the birds are down on the heap they are busily feeding,
seeming to put their whole soul into each peck (like the single jest
at the Mermaid) and all in a kind of sociable, yet but half friendly,
competition with each other. Gradually they spread out a little from
the heap, half-a-dozen greenfinches are amongst the straw that one
has oneself pulled out from the stack, and one of them is feeding
positively within three feet. To see them so near, and to think
that they think you anywhere rather than where you are! It is like
eavesdropping, it hardly seems right. Now the nearest greenfinch picks
out an ear of the corn and, as if to show you just how he does it,
comes even a thought nearer. He turns it till it is crosswise in his
beak, snips off the stalk, rapidly divests it of what remains of the
outer huskiness--in doing which you see him work his mandibles in a
delicate, tactile manner--and swallows the inner essence. Throughout
he does not help himself with his claws at all. It is pleasant to see
this, but still more so to have so many little dicky birds just within
a pace or two, all free and unconstrained and knowing nothing whatever
about it. It is as if you had somehow got into a bird-cage without
alarming the inmates, but even as this occurs to you you recognise the
poverty of the simile, and rejoice to be in nature's aviary--at least
one may say this of the birds if not of the straw-stack.
There is now, besides chaffinches and greenfinches, which form the
great bulk of the numbers, quite a little crowd of bramblings--twenty
or more--their beautiful gold-russet plumage gleaming out in an
easy pre-eminence of colour; for they are, indeed, much handsomer
than the handsomest cock chaffinch or greenfinch, and as both the
sexes are alike, nothing of them is lost, there are no dead-weights.
Even the yellow-hammers when at their yellowest cannot compete with
these chestnut beauties, and the pretty little blue-tits who feed
softly--two or three together--on the poppy seeds are beaten, whether
they confess it or not. A hedge-sparrow or two hopping very quietly
and unobtrusively about on the outskirts of the great central crowd
have, of course, no pretensions to anything like distinguished beauty,
but there is one bird--one, unfortunately, not only as a species but
individually--that may, perhaps, stand up in rivalry even with the
brambling.
This is a solitary male goldfinch who, as though knowing the sad and
waning state of his clan, feeds all by himself and--as one seems
to fancy--in a melancholy manner. Be this as it may, his mode of
feeding is quite different to that of the other birds. Whilst all,
or nearly all, of these are pecking odds and ends from amongst the
straw and draff of the heap, using their beaks only and seeming to
swallow something at each little peck, like chickens with grain, he
makes successive little excursions to the stack itself, from which
he extracts a blade of corn, a campion, or a thistle-head, and then,
standing with the claws of both his feet grasping it (like a crow with
a piece of carrion), picks it to pieces and devours it, or the seeds
it contains, in a leisurely, almost a phlegmatic, way. This is quite
different from the greenfinch, which--as just seen--in extracting the
grain from an ear of corn, uses only its bill, standing the while in an
ordinary upright attitude, and not pick-axeing down upon it as it lies
along the ground. Perhaps the goldfinch can do this too, but as this
particular one did not on any morning employ a different method to that
which I have described, it must, I should think, be the usual one; nor
did I ever see it pecking up anything from the ground in a careless
haphazard fashion, like the other birds.
One can feed the birds with bread if one likes, and, when found and
tasted, this is appreciated. But the pieces that one throws are not
noticed, as they lie amongst the straw, so readily as one would have
supposed, and often birds will pass quite near to, or even almost touch
them, without seeing them or, at least, discovering what they are. A
whole Osborne biscuit, upon one occasion, was an object of suspicion.
Several chaffinches came up as though to peck at it, but their courage
failed them at the last moment, and it was never touched the whole time
I was there. Of course, when larger and more wary birds come to the
stack, one must keep quite still and not play any tricks like these,
if one wishes them to stay. A hen blackbird is now feeding on the
outskirts of the heap. She will not permit any small birds to be near
her, but drives them all off if they come within a certain distance, so
that she is soon in the centre of a little space which she has all to
herself. Into this a starling flies down and seems at first inclined to
meet the blackbird on equal terms, for, of course, the two instantly
recognise each other as rivals, and cross swords as by mutual desire.
But even in the first encounter the starling has to give way, and then
beats a series of retreats before the other's sprightly little rushes,
till at length, being left no peace, he has to fly away. Later, some
half-dozen starlings come down together almost on the top of the heap,
and feed in just the same way as the small birds they alight amongst.
Soon there is a combat between two of these. Both keep springing from
the ground, going up again the instant they alight, and each trying,
as it seems, to jump above the other, whether to avoid pecks delivered
or the better to deliver them. They never jump quite at the same time,
but always one goes up as the other comes down, which has a funny
effect. They never close or grapple, they do not even _seem_ to do much
pecking, and when it is all over, neither of them "seems one penny
the worse." The great thing, evidently, is to jump, and as long as a
bird can do it he has no cause to be dissatisfied. It is delightful to
watch them from so close. One can see the gleam of each feather, catch
their very expressions, and sympathise with every spring. They look
very thin and elegant, and their plumage is all gloss and sheen. All
the while they keep uttering a sort of squealing note which it is quite
enchanting to hear.
A few partridges now come down over the thin snow towards the stack,
at first fast, with a pause between each run, during which they draw
themselves up and throw the head and neck a little back. Then they
seem to waver in their intention; and, whilst one pecks at the body of
a frosted swede, another bends above it and sips with a delicate bill
a little of the rime upon its leaves. Then they come on again, but,
as they near the stack, with slower and more hesitating steps, and no
longer uttering their curious, grating cry "ker-wee, ker-wee." Instead,
one hears now--for now they are in close proximity--all sorts of
pretty, little, soft, croodling sounds, seeming to express contentment
and happiness with a quiet under-current of affection. Then they feed
quietly on the frontiers of their winter oasis.
All at once something gorgeous and burnished steals and then flashes
into sight. It is a pheasant. He has come invisibly from another
direction, and ascending the opposite slope of the great chaff-heap,
rises over it like a second sun. Surely such splendour should come
striding in majesty, but he is very nervous, full of apprehension, open
to the very smallest ground of fear or suspicion. Often he stops and
looks anxiously about, half crouches, then makes a little start forward
with the body as though on the point of running, but checks himself
each time and begins to peck instead. Sometimes he draws himself up
to his full height, and looks all round as from a watch-tower, but
after each fit of fear he decides that all is well and goes on feeding
again. And now another sun rises and immediately afterwards three--no,
four ("dazzle my eyes, or do I see _four_ suns?") advance together
over the crest of the hill which, though of straw and all inflammable
materials, does not--a miracle!--take fire and burn. But the snow and
the dampness must be taken into consideration. All of them are now
feeding quietly, but not all together or in view. Two have set again,
but three and the tail of another, in partial eclipse from behind,
is a sight of sufficient magnificence. Looking at them, at their
splendid body-plumage of burnished orange gold, gleaming even in the
dull morning without any sun but themselves--for the great one is now
"over-canopied"--at their glossy blue heads, rich scarlet wattles, and
long graceful tails, one cannot help wondering _how_ beautiful a bird
would have to be before compunction would be felt in killing it. Would
the golden or Amherst pheasant produce the sensation? Idle thought!
Peacocks are shot in India, trogons in Mexico, humming-birds both there
and in the Brazils, and birds of paradise in the islands of the east.
Of paradise----. Then are there birds in heaven, and do our sainted
women wear _their_ feathers? But such speculations are beyond the
province of this work.
Now the feeding goes on apace. All the splendid birds keep scratching
backwards in the chaff-heap as do fowls, sending up clouds of it into
the air. Like the partridges, too, they utter, from time to time, a
variety of curious, low notes, which, unless one were quite near, one
would never hear, and once they make a quick little piping sound, all
together, standing and lifting up their heads to do it, as though
filled with mutual satisfaction and a friendly feeling. The low sounds
are of a croodling or clucking character. They are not quite so soft
as those of the partridges, and, low as they are, one still catches in
them that quality of tone whereof the loud, trumpety notes are made.
I have spoken of the extreme nervousness of the first pheasant. The
later arrivals, just as would be the case with men, were not nearly
so nervous, though all were wary and circumspect. But now it is most
interesting to watch them, and to remark how, in these cautious birds,
timidity--or say, rather, a proper and most necessary prudence--is
tempered with judgment, and modified by individual character or
temperament. They are capable of withstanding the first sudden impulse
to flight, and of subjecting it to reason and a more prolonged
observation. Thus, when the small birds fly, suddenly, off in a cloud,
as they do every few minutes, and with a great whirr of wings, the
pheasants all stop feeding, look about, pause a little, seeming to
consider, and then recommence, as though they had decided that such
panic fear was uncalled for, and that there was no rational ground for
alarm. An hour or two later three out of the four birds--for two have
got gradually to the other side of the stack--see enough of me in the
straw to make them suspicious, and go off at half pace. The fourth bird
notes their retreat, looks all about, can see nothing to account for
it, and instead of following them, as might have been expected, goes
on feeding. This, though it may seem to show a defect in the reasoning
power (the power itself it certainly does show), at least argues
strength of character and independence of judgment. A certain line of
conduct is suggested by the action of a bird's three companions, but
this suggestion--this powerful stimulus, one would think--is resisted
by the one bird, put to the test of its own powers of observation, and
the line of conduct dictated by it, rejected. This self-reliant quality
and power of not being swayed by others, I have constantly observed in
birds.
As will have been gathered, these six pheasants that came and fed
together at the stack were all males, and this has been my usual
experience. Under such circumstances I have always found them agree
together perfectly well, but there is generally some fighting to be
seen amongst the small birds, though, perhaps, not much, if one takes
their numbers into consideration. Chaffinches are the most pugnacious,
though, here again, a similar allowance must be made, for they largely
predominate, even over greenfinches, whilst, compared to these two, the
others--excepting sometimes bramblings--are only scantily represented.
Chaffinches fight by springing up from the ground against each other,
breast to breast (as do so many birds), and they may rise thus to a
considerable height, each trying to get above the other, and claw or
peck down upon it--at least, it would seem so. Their position in the
air is thus perpendicular, and as they mutually impede each other, they
are more fluttering than flying. Sometimes, however--generally after
they have got to a little height--they will disengage, and then there
will be between them a series of alternate little flights up and above,
and swoops down upon each other, very inspiriting to see. Sometimes
they will commence the fight with these swoopings, but it is more
common for them to flutter perpendicularly up as described, and then
down again. Often, too, they will rise beak to beak only, the position
being then between perpendicular and horizontal, but more the latter,
the tail part of them giving constant little flirts upwards--as when
a volatile Italian in an umbrella shop leans his whole weight on the
stick of one of the umbrellas and leaps, or, rather, swings himself
from the ground, kicking his heels into the air, to demonstrate its
strength. Imagine two volatile Italians thus testing two umbrellas
whose handles touch, continually throwing up their heels, rising a
little as they do so, never coming quite down again, and so getting a
little higher each time, and you have the two chaffinches. Or there
will be a series of alternate flying jumps from the ground like the
starling's, but more aerial. These are the more usual ways, but if one
bird can, whilst on the ground, suddenly seize another by the nape of
the neck, and then, getting on his back, twist his beak about in the
skin and feathers, it is all the better--for that one. Such fights as
these are usually between two male birds, but hen chaffinches sometimes
fight, whilst scuffles between a cock and a hen over food may also be
witnessed.
Greenfinches fight in much the same manner, but they are more stoutly
built, and their motions are not quite so brisk and airy, though
chaffinches themselves are but clumsy birds in this respect compared to
many others--larks, for example. They, too, fight tenaciously. After a
brisk _partie_ in the air, I have seen one, on their falling together,
seize the other by the nape and be dragged about by it over the snow.
But what has interested me more than anything else in my frequent
watchings of small birds congregated together at the stacks, is the way
in which every few minutes or so--sometimes at longer, and sometimes
at shorter intervals--they take instant and simultaneous flight,
rising all together[15] with a sudden whirr of wings, and flurrying
away to some near tree or trees, or into the hedgerow, to return in
a much more scattered and gradual manner very soon--sometimes almost
directly afterwards. These sudden spontaneous flights, where one and
the same thought seems suddenly to take possession of a whole assembly
of beings, I had before, and have often afterwards, observed in rooks,
starlings, wood-pigeons, etc., and I have been equally puzzled to
account for it in all of them. I do not remember that this habit,
which is, indeed, common in a greater or less degree to a very great
number of birds, has ever been brought forward as something difficult
of explanation, and many, perhaps, will doubt there being any such
difficulty in regard to a thing so ordinary and commonplace. As to
this, I can only say that I have arrived at a different conclusion.
[15] This is the effect produced, but for greater accuracy see p. 245.
What would be the ordinary way of accounting for such sudden and
simultaneous taking to flight of a number of birds? One may suppose, in
the first place, that a particular note is uttered by one or more of
them on the espial of danger, and that this acts as a _sauve-qui-peut_
to the rest. This seems a satisfactory explanation, but as against it,
no such note is, as a rule, uttered, and even if it were, it would not
account for all the facts as I have often observed them.
Day after day, and for hours at a time, I have watched these crowds of
little birds under the circumstances described, and only on one single
occasion was the sudden rising into the air in flight preceded by any
note at all, nor did I observe anything--I do not believe there was
anything to be observed--which could have frightened them.
In the one case referred to, which was different, "the flight was
certainly preceded by a note--a very peculiar one, single, long, and
remarkably loud, taking the size of the birds into consideration. It
suggested somewhat the sudden blowing of a horn--though, of course, a
small one. I could not tell which bird uttered it, but feel sure, from
the quality of the tone, that it was a greenfinch. To the best of my
observation, the note was uttered before the flight commenced, and the
flight followed before it had ceased. Almost immediately afterwards I
heard, for the first time, the caw of rooks, and my theory is (or was)
that one of these, appearing suddenly in the air from the back of the
hay-stack, had been mistaken for a hawk, and that the bird so mistaking
it had immediately uttered the appropriate warning note. Unfortunately
for my little mouse" ("theories," says Voltaire, "are like mice;
they run through nineteen holes, but are stopped by the twentieth"),
"only the other day, when I was at the same place and equally near, a
genuine hawk (a sparrow one) had flown by, when, instead of a warning
note, there had been a sudden hush and silence, followed by a flight
which, as it seemed to me, was not so close and compact as usual.
Difficulties of this sort are always occurring in observation--at least
in my observation--and show how cautious one should be in translating
the particular into the general. For instance, with moor-hens, I have
noted that in one or two of their many timorous flights to the river a
peculiar cry was uttered by a single bird, which had all the appearance
and seemed to have all the probability of being a warning note; but
this was not the case on other occasions." Even here, then, there is
some difficulty in accepting the theory of a danger-signal uttered
by one bird, and causing the simultaneous flight of all, whilst in
all other instances (I am speaking now of small birds at the stacks)
either no note at all or none distinguishable from a general chirping
was uttered. Manifestly,[16] then, this explanation will not serve. But
it may be said, either that there is a leader whose movements all the
birds follow, or that when one bird flies, for whatever reason, the
rest take alarm and fly also. But where different species of birds are
all banded together, it seems very unlikely that there should be a
leader, and both this and the other explanation, which at first sight
seems satisfactory, are destroyed by the salient fact that in hardly
any case do _all_ the birds rise and fly away together, but only the
great majority. Almost invariably a certain number of them, though
sometimes only half-a-dozen or so, or even less, remain, nor has this
anything to do with the particular species of bird. Moreover, the
flying up of any bird from the crowd does not, of itself, communicate
alarm to the others, for first one and then another and often several
at a time may constantly be doing so, whilst the rest feed quietly and
take no notice. It may be said that it is only when a bird flies off
in alarm that its flight communicates alarm to its companions. That it
does so necessarily, even in such a case, I, from general observation,
very much doubt, and also, if the facts as I have given them be a
little considered, it will be seen that the difficulties are not met by
this view of the case.
[16] My very close proximity must be taken into account.
The theory of a leader seems more applicable to birds like rooks,
which are gregarious, and may be constantly watched in large numbers
together, without the intermixture of any other species. The same
difficulties, however, apply here, and even to a greater extent, for
the movements of rooks are more complicated, whilst alarm or any such
primary impulse as the origin (I do not say the explanation) of them,
is in most cases quite out of the question. An instance or two of these
sudden and quite simultaneous movements of bodies of rooks I have noted
down directly after observing them. They would be much in place here,
but as I have two chapters devoted to these birds, and, moreover,
as they but make a part in general scenes and pictures, I will not
separate them from their context nor any bird from its companions.
Starlings, again, furnish striking examples of the same phenomenon.
Their aerial evolutions before roosting are sufficiently remarkable,
but, perhaps, still more so from this point of view is the manner in
which they leave the roosting-place in the morning. This is not in one
great body, as might have been expected, but in successive flights at
intervals of some three or four to ten or twelve minutes, each flight
comprising, sometimes, hundreds of thousands of birds--the numbers,
of course, will vary in different localities--and the whole exodus
occupying about half-an-hour. Each of these great flights or uprushes
from the dense brake of bush and undergrowth where the birds are
congregated, takes place with startling suddenness, and it seems as
though every individual bird composing it were linked to every other
by some invisible material, as are knots on the meshes of a net by
the visible twine connecting them. There is no preliminary,[17] nor
does it seem as though a certain number of more restless individuals
gradually affected others, but at once a huge mass roars up from the
still more immense multitude, as does a wave from the sea, or as a
sudden cloud of dust is puffed by the wind from a dust-heap. I am
speaking here of the great main flights, which are, in most cases, of
this character. The fact that quite small bands of birds will sometimes
fly off between the intervals of these, does not detract from the
more striking phenomenon or lessen the difficulty of explaining it.
For, surely, there _is_ a difficulty in explaining how the example of
one vast body of birds, soaring forth on the morning flight, should
not affect every individual of the still vaster body of which they
form a part--the whole occupying, it must be remembered, a small
and densely packed area--and why the impulse of the flying birds to
fly should, apparently, become uncontrollable in each individual of
them at the same instant of time. If we saw soldiers issuing in this
manner from an encampment, or performing all sorts of collective
movements and evolutions before entering it in the evening (as do the
starlings before descending on their roosting place), and yet satisfied
ourselves that there were neither captains nor officers, signals nor
words of command amongst them, we should probably wonder, and might
think the phenomenon sufficiently curious to make it worth study and
investigation.
[17] As far, at least, as observable from just outside the plantation,
and to judge from the sound. But previous movements within the
plantation--unless we assume a quite human organisation--would not
explain what is here assumed to require explanation.
I will take one more example from my notes on wood-pigeons before
returning to the flocks of small birds at the stacks.
"A number of wood-pigeons" (this was early on a very cold winter's
morning) "have now settled on the elms near me. I am quite still, and
they have sat there quietly for some little time. All at once the
whole band fly out, to all appearance at one and the same moment, and
in a peculiar way, with sudden sweeps and rushes through the air in a
downward direction, shooting and zig-zagging across each other with
a whizzing whirr of the wings, in much the same manner as do rooks.
On account of this peculiar flight, which seems to be joyous and
sportive, I do not believe they have seen me. But whether they have or
not, the absolutely simultaneous flight of the whole body is, to me,
equally hard to account for. Supposing--what would be most likely--that
only one bird has seen me, how has this knowledge been communicated,
instantaneously, to all the rest? There was no note uttered of any
kind. I must have heard it, I think, if it had been, so near as I was,
nor are pigeons supposed to have an alarm-note. It may be said that the
sudden abrupt flight of one alarmed the rest, but all cannot have been
looking at this one at the same time, and it is difficult to suppose
that there was anything to discriminate in the actual sound of the
wings--for one or more than one bird may, at any time, fly eagerly off
without affecting the others. Moreover, if this were the explanation,
there would have been an appreciable interval of time between the
flight of the alarmed bird and the others, which, to my sense, there
was not. But, as I say, I do not believe that the birds saw me, and, if
not, the collective, instantaneous impulse of flight seems still harder
to account for on ordinary known principles. It is, of course, easy to
give a plausible explanation of a thing and take for granted that all
the facts are in accordance. But the facts, when one watches them, are
apt to discredit the theory. Observation and difficulties begin, often,
at the same time."
Returning now to the little winter collections of chaffinches,
greenfinches, bramblings, etc., which come and feed at the corn-stacks
during the winter, in general they whirr up every three or four
minutes, but the intervals vary, and may be much longer. Sometimes
only about half the flock flies off, the rest not appearing to care
much about it; usually a much greater number does, and this often
appears to be the whole number, but almost always--unless, of course,
on the approach of a man or some other such alarming occurrence--some
few, at least, remain. As with the starlings, these flights seem often
to be absolutely instantaneous, the birds all rising together in a
solid block, but this is not always the case, and the cloud may be
preceded by a little half-hopping, half-chasséeing about of three or
four individuals, whilst sometimes there is, for a second or two, a
very quick following of one another. If this were always so, and if
one bird could not fly off without others following it, there would be
little or nothing to explain, but, as we have seen, this is very far
from being the case. In nine cases out of ten the birds begin to come
back almost as soon as they are gone; but, in spite of this, I came to
the conclusion that the cause of flight was almost always a nervous
apprehension, such as actuates schoolboys when they are doing something
of a forbidden nature and half expect to see the master appear at any
moment round the corner. Though there might be no discernible ground
for apprehension, yet after some three or four minutes it seemed to
strike the assembly that it _could_ not be quite safe to remain any
longer, and presto! they were gone. Afterwards it was recognised that
there had been no real reason for alarm, and they came back, but this
seemed to strike them individually rather than collectively. Now it
was by stacks in the open fields under no more cover, as a rule, than
the neighbouring hedgerow, that I had noticed these phenomena, and,
coming one day upon such a heap of chaff or draff--though without any
stack--in the centre of a small plantation of fir and pine trees, I
determined to watch here, a number of small birds having flown up
as I approached. I was able to conceal myself very well amidst some
bushes that grew quite near, and very shortly the birds--chaffinches,
bramblings, hedge and tree-sparrows, etc., but not greenfinches--were
down again. I stayed a considerable while, but, except once or twice
when I moved a little so as to alarm them, they remained feeding all
or most of the time. Sometimes, indeed, some or other of them would
fly into the surrounding trees or bushes, but this they did at their
leisure, without alarm or hurry, and only as desiring a change. The
simultaneousness was wanting--there were none of those nervous flights
at short intervals that I had observed when watching at the open
corn-stacks. Here, amongst the pines, and protected on every side, the
birds felt, apparently, quite secure, though whether it was altogether
a rational security may be questioned. This observation strengthened
me in my conclusion as to these flights being caused by a feeling of
nervous apprehension or alarm, but I am bound to add (another case of
the mouse) that I subsequently watched by stacks in the open, where,
also, a considerable sense of security seemed to prevail. Temperature
may perhaps have something to do with the explanation, but I have as
yet taken no steps to test this theory.
But whatever may be the motive (which, of course, may vary) of such
sudden flights--and here I am thinking of all the examples which I have
brought forward, as well as others, in fact, the whole range of the
phenomena--how are we to account for their simultaneousness, and the
other special features belonging to them?
It would seem as though either one and the same idea were flashed
suddenly into the minds of a number of birds in close proximity to each
other at one and the same instant of time, or that this same idea,
having originated or attained a certain degree of vehemence, at some
one point or points--representing some individual bird or birds--spread
from thence, as from one or more centres, with inconceivable rapidity,
so as to embrace either the whole group or a portion of it, according
to the strength of the original outleap. In other words, I suppose
(or, at least, I suggest it) that birds when gathered together in
large numbers think and act, not individually, but collectively; or,
rather, that they do both the one and the other, for that individual
birds are capable of withstanding the collective influence of the
flock of which they form a part, I have ample evidence. The old
Athenians--though slave-holders, wherein they may be compared to the
Americans at one period--were a very democratic people, and lived a
more public life than any other civilised community either before or
after them, of which we have any record. They were also of a very
emotional temperament, and it is curious to find amongst them the
idea (at any rate) of the φημη--a sudden wave or current of thought
which swept through an assembly, causing it to think and act as one
man.[18] When watching numbers of birds together, this φημη idea has
constantly been brought to my mind, nor do I see how the whole of the
facts are to be explained except upon some such hypothesis. If we
suppose that the sudden flurryings away of a band of small birds from
the chaff-heap where they have been quietly feeding, are caused by
the apprehension of danger, we may well credit the birds with having
sharper senses than our own, though that they are often mistaken is
shown by their almost immediate return, and also by as many of them
(sometimes) remaining as fly away. But it is impossible to imagine that
every individual bird of a large number, crowded together and busily
feeding, can at the same instant of time see the same object, or even
hear the same sound of alarm, unless very loud or conspicuous, nor can
it be supposed that the same thought, producing the same action, can
flash independently into all their minds at once, by mere chance. But
if we suppose thought to be like a wind, sweeping amongst them and
producing, each time that it rises to a certain degree of strength, its
appropriate act, then we can understand fifty, seventy, or a hundred
birds rising in this thought-wind, like leaves or straws blown up in a
sudden gust, and, in the same way as when a blizzard or tornado bursts
on a town, some frail objects in a room through which it has torn may
be left standing, whilst everything else is strewed about in ruin,
so may the thought-wave (to use the more familiar term) moving with
inconceivable rapidity amidst the flock, miss out some individuals,
though right in the midst of those that are affected, in a manner which
is hard to account for. Again, if we suppose two centres from which two
opposite thought-waves or impulses spread, we can understand two groups
of birds, which, together, have made one band, acting in different
ways or going in different directions (as one may constantly see with
rooks and starlings), whilst, by supposing that the wave, or energy,
tends to exhaust itself after spreading to a certain distance around
any point or centre where it may have originated or become focussed,
we account for such facts as many thousands of starlings, say, rising
from, perhaps, a million without the others being affected. But, no
doubt, even in an Athenian assembly there were some men capable of
withstanding the force of the φημη, and if we give to birds, even when
thus assembled together, a power of individual as well as collective
action, varying in each unit so that the one power is now more and
now less under the control of the other--but with, on the whole, a
preponderance in favour of the latter--we then, as it appears to me,
come near to explaining what I must regard as the often very puzzling
problem of the movements of such assembled bodies.
[18] In the wilderness of Grote's twelve volumes I cannot, now, find
the passage which I seem to remember so well, nor can anyone (including
the whole of the Psychical Research Society) help me to. My Greek word,
I am told, too, is wrong. But let it stand till someone can give me the
right one.
This, of course, is the theory of thought-transference, and if this
power does really exist in the case of any one species we might
expect it to exist also in the case of others. With the evidence of
its existence amongst ourselves I am not unacquainted, but I need
say nothing of this or of my humble opinion concerning it, here. I
have suggested it as a possible explanation of some of the actions
of birds, because I have found it difficult to account for them in
any other way. If it could be made out that animals did really, in
some degree, possess this power, it might throw a new light upon many
things, and, possibly, explain some difficulties of a larger kind
than those which I have called it in to do. To me, at least, it has
always seemed a little curious that language of a more perfect kind
than animals use has been so late in developing itself; but animals
would feel less the want of a language if thought-transference existed
amongst them to any appreciable extent.
Assuming its existence, it is amongst gregarious animals that we might
expect to find it most developed, and gregariousness has, probably,
preceded any great mental advance. Therefore, before an animal reached
a grade of intelligence such as might render the growth of a language
possible, it would have become gregarious; and, assuming it then to
have a certain power of feeling, and being influenced by the thought
of its fellows, without the aid of sound or gesture, it is obvious
that here would be a power tending to dull and weaken that struggle
to express thought by sound, which may be supposed to have slowly and
unconsciously led to the formation of a language. Here, then, would be
a retarding influence. Still, as ideas communicated in this way would
probably be of a general and simple kind, corresponding, perhaps, more
to emotions and sensations than definite ideas, the need for more
precise impartment would gradually, as mental power became more and
more developed, become more and more felt. Then would come language (as
spoken), and spoken language, once established, would tend to weaken
the old primitive power, as an improvement on which it had arisen.
Thus if thought-transference exist in man, it may, perhaps, represent
a reversion to a more primitive and generalised means of mental
intercommunion, or the older power may exist, and still occasionally
act, or even do so habitually to some extent; in fact, it may not yet
have entirely died out. Possibly, also, it might tend to survive, and
even to some extent increase, as being, in certain ways and directions,
superior to the more precise medium. But if so, it would become--unless
specially cultivated--more and more limited to these directions.
Certain it is that people seem often to approach each other mentally
much more by feeling than by words, and in a wonderfully short space of
time. We call this insight, intuitive perception, affinity, etc.,--but
such words do not explain the process.
Is it not possible that birds living habitually together, as part of
a crowd, may have acquired the faculty of thinking and acting all
together, or in masses, each one's mind being a part of the general
mind of the whole band, but each possessing, also, its individual mind
and will, by virtue of which it is enabled to suspend its general
crowd-acting, and act individually?
Perhaps a careful observation of gregarious animals in a wild state, or
even (if a more special definition be wanted) of large crowds or masses
of men, might throw some light upon this subject, and it would, at
any rate, be approaching it upon a broader basis, and by methods less
tainted with our silly prejudices, than has hitherto been done.
But when I speak of gregarious animals in a wild state, I am
forgetting that such hardly any longer exist. The great herds of
bisons, zebras, antelopes, giraffes, etc., that once roamed over places
now given over to humanity (and inhumanity) have disappeared, and what
have we learnt from them? Who has watched them--at least very carefully
or patiently--with thoughts other than of their slaughter? I know of
no careful record of their movements, taken from hour to hour and from
day to day. A few generalities, conveying some of the more obvious
and striking facts--or what seemed to be so--will alone survive their
extinction. Enlightened curiosity has been drowned in bloodthirstiness,
and the coarse pleasure of killing has over-ridden in us the higher
ones of observation and inference. We have studied animals only to
kill them, or killed them in order to study them. Our "zoologists"
have been _thanatologists_. Thus the knowledge gleaned even by the
sportsman-naturalist has been scant and bare, for--besides that the
proportions of the mixture are generally as Falstaff and Falstaff's
page--there is little to be seen between the sighting of the quarry and
the crack of the rifle. Observation has commonly left off just where it
should have begun.
Had we as often stalked animals in order to observe them, as we have in
order to kill them, how much richer might be our knowledge!
[Illustration]