THE YELLOW-HAMMER, OR YELLOW-HEAD.
This, though an extremely pretty bird, is so common that very
little notice is taken of it. Its colours are varied and beautiful:
the back and wings, bright red; the central part of each feather,
brownish-black; the head and throat, bright yellow; the feathers of the
upper part tipped with black; the breast, brownish-red. The colours of
the female are much duller.
The yellow-hammer resembles linnets, finches, and sparrows in character
and habits, and often associates with them, resorting to the fields in
open weather, and often perching in hedges and bushes as well as in
trees. In the winter, when the weather is severe, it congregates, with
other birds, about houses, farm-buildings, and stack-yards.
One of the most pleasing features of autumn is, to my mind, these
flocks of kindred birds, which are at that time all abroad and yet
together, circling in their flight, all rising as you approach, and
wheeling away into the stubble-field, or into the distant hedges, now
rich with their wild fruits—the blackberry, the wild rose hip, and the
bunches of black-privet berries—and then away again, as you approach,
with their variously modulated notes, through the clear air into the
yet more distant stubble or bean-field.
The flight of the yellow-hammer is wavy and graceful, and, alighting
abruptly, he has a curious way of jerking out his tail feathers like
a little fan. All at once a whole flock of them will descend from a
considerable height and settle on the twigs of a tree, clothing it as
with living leaves. Whatever number the flock may consist of, there
is no impatient hurry or jostling among them to get the best perch,
every individual settling as if on its own appointed place. As I have
already observed, nothing is more charming at this season than these
congregated companies of small birds. All the cares of life are now
over, their young broods are around them, and now, with nothing to
do but to enjoy themselves in the freedom of nature, where—on every
hand, on every bush and tree, and in every outlying field—though the
crops are now carried, all except, perhaps, here and there a solitary
field in which the bean-shocks stand up black in the golden autumnal
sunshine; but here, and there, and everywhere, a full table is spread,
and they are welcome to enjoy.
In spring and summer, the yellow-hammer sings a peculiar but
mournful sort of little ditty, composed of a few short, sonorous
notes, concluding with one long drawn out. In the midland
counties, where stocking-weaving is the business of the people,
the note of the bird is said to resemble the working of the
machine—ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-e-e-chay—the prolonged latter syllable being
what the stockinger calls, in the machine movement, “pressing over the
arch.” In other parts of the country this bird’s song is interpreted as
“A little bit of bread, and—no-cheese!” which may just as well be “A
little bird am I, and—no thief!”
[Illustration:
YELLOW-HAMMER AND NEST. [Page 112.
]
The food of this bird consists of the seeds of all kinds of grasses,
chickweeds, polygonums, and other such weeds; also, in summer, when
food is needed for the young, insects and larvæ.
[Sidenote: _Its Picturesque Nest._]
The winter congregations break up in April, and then the yellow-hammer
begins to think of family joys and cares. But, unlike their relations
the sparrows and finches, the he-birds take everything quietly, without
having their little skirmishes to show their spirit and prowess, like
the knights of old, at the tournament, before the admiring ladies. The
yellow-hammer does everything quietly, choosing his mate in an orderly
way; and now that the buds are swelling on the trees, the primroses
gemming the hedge-banks, and the golden catkins hanging on the willows
by the watersides, hither come the little yellow-hammers, and, having
selected some sweet, hidden spot, under a bush, or on the fieldy banks
amongst the thick herbage—we see it a month later in our picture,
when the buds have expanded into leaves, in a wild growth of beautiful
grasses and herbage—begin to make their nest. How picturesque it is!
William Hunt never painted anything more beautiful. The nest itself
is somewhat large, and of simple construction, woven externally of
coarse bents and small pliant twigs, and lined with hair and wool. Here
the hen lays four or five eggs of a purplish white, marked with dark,
irregular streaks, often resembling musical notes.
These poor little birds are extremely attached to their home and their
young, so much so, that if these be taken by the pitiless bird-nester,
they will continue for some days about the place uttering the most
melancholy plaint, which, though still to the same old tune as the song
of their spring rejoicing, has now the expression of the deepest woe.
The author of “British Birds” thus sums up their various characteristic
actions:—“When perched on a tree, especially in windy weather, they
crouch close to the twigs, draw in their necks, and keep their tails
declined. After pairing, the male is generally seen on a bush or tree,
raising his tail by sudden jerks, and slightly expanding it. His notes
are then usually two chirps, followed by a harsher note—cit, chit,
chirr—with considerable intervals. When feeding in the stubble-fields,
they advance by very short leaps, with their breasts nearly touching
the ground; when apprehensive of danger they crouch motionless, and
when alarmed give information to each other by means of their ordinary
short note.”
[Illustration]