other passerine bird, and is the most monotonous in its life; yet
it never fails to interest, doubtless because in its appearance and
actions it differs so much from other species. A small bird--one of
the very smallest--with striped and mottled brown upper, and silvery
white under, plumage; long and slim in figure, with a slender curved
bill and stiff, pointed tail-feathers, it spends its life on the boles
and branches of trees, exploring the rough bark with microscopic sight
for the minute insects and their eggs and larvæ it subsists on, moving
invariably upwards in a spiral from the roots to the branches by a
series of rapid jerks; its appearance as it travels over the surface,
against which it presses so closely, is that of a mammal rather than
a bird--a small mottled brown mouse with an elongated body. It is
more of a parasite on the trees that furnish it with food than any
other bird of similar habits. Nuthatches and woodpeckers are not so
dependent on their trade; their habits and diet vary to some extent
with the seasons and the conditions they exist in. The creeper is a
creeper on trees all the year round, and extracts all his sustenance
from the bark. His procedure is always the same: no sooner has he got
to the higher and smoother part of the hole up which he has travelled
than he detaches himself from it, and drops slantingly through the
air to the roots of another tree, to begin as before. The action is
always accompanied with a little querulous note, which falls like an
exclamation, and seems to express disgust at the miserable harvest he
has gathered, or else satisfaction that yet another tree in the long
weary tale of trees has been examined and left behind. The fanciful
idea is formed that the creeper has not found happiness in his way of
life: it is so laborious a way; he must live so close to the dull-hued
and always shaded bark, and examine it so narrowly! The contrast of
such a method with that of other small birds--warblers and wagtails,
and swallows and finches--is very great. Feeding-time with them is
song-time and play-time; their blithe voices and lively antics and
motions show how happy they are in their lives. The creeper is a rather
silent bird, but he utters in the pairing season a shrill, high-pitched
call-note, and the same sound is emitted when the nest is in danger.
The song, which is occasionally heard in spring, is composed of three
or four shrill notes resembling the call-notes in sound.
The nest is a neat and pretty structure, and is often placed against
the trunk of a tree, behind a piece of bark that has become partly
detached. A hole in the trunk, or in a large branch, or in a cavity
where a portion of the wood has rotted away, is often selected as a
site. When the nest is made behind a piece of loose bark, the cavity
is filled up with a quantity of fine twigs. Inside, the nest is formed
of roots, moss, and sometimes feathers, and lined with fine strips of
inside bark. Six to nine eggs are laid, pure white, with red spots. Two
broods are reared in a season.
Goldfinch.
Carduelis elegans.
Back of the head, nape, and feathers round the base of the bill black;
forehead and throat blood-red; cheeks, fore part of the neck, and under
parts white; back and scapulars dark brown; wings variegated with
black, white and yellow; tail black, tipped with white. Length, five
inches.
* * * * *
We are rich in finches. No fewer than eighteen members of that family,
including the snow-bunting, may be truly described as British. Among
our passerine birds they excel in beauty of plumage, and by most
persons the goldfinch, in his pretty coat of many colours--crimson,
black, and white, and brown, and brilliant yellow--is regarded as the
most beautiful of all. Certainly he is the most elegant in shape, the
most graceful and engaging in his motions. It is charming to watch a
small flock of these finches in the late summer, busy feeding on the
roadside, or on some patch of waste land where the seeds, they best
love are abundant, when they are seen clinging in various attitudes to
the stalks, deftly picking off the thistle seed, and scattering the
silvery down on the air. They are then pretty birds prettily occupied;
and as they pass with easy, undulating flight from weed to weed, with
musical call-notes and lively twitterings, bird following bird, they
appear as gay and volatile as they are pretty.
They are found in suitable localities throughout England, and also
inhabit Scotland and Ireland, but their distribution in the last two
countries is much more local. During late summer and autumn they lead
a gipsy life, incessantly wandering about the open country in search
of their favourite seeds. They are also seen in winter, but few remain
with us throughout the year, the majority passing over the Channel,
to winter in a warmer climate. On their return in spring they come to
the neighbourhood of houses, and build by preference in an apple or
cherry tree in an orchard. The nest is well made, and composed of a
great variety of materials--fine twigs, roots, grass, leaves, moss, and
wool--and lined with hairs, feathers, and vegetable down. The four or
five eggs are white, thinly spotted with reddish brown and pale purple.
[Illustration: _PLATE V._ GOLDFINCH. ⅔ NAT. SIZE.]
As a vocalist the goldfinch does not rank high; but his lively,
twittering song, uttered both on the perch and when passing through
the air, and his musical call-notes, have a very pleasing effect,
especially when the birds are seen in the open country in bright, sunny
weather. Unhappily, it is not now very easy to see them, except in a
few favoured localities, owing to their increasing rarity. For the
goldfinch is a favourite cage-bird, and so long as bird-catching is
permitted to flourish without restriction, this charming species will
continue to decrease, as it has been decreasing for the last fifty
years and upwards.
Siskin.
Chrysometris spinus.
Crown black; a broad yellow streak behind the eye; the plumage
variegated with grey, dusky, and various shades of green; wings dusky,
with a transverse greenish yellow bar, and a black one above, and a
second black bar across the middle of the tertiaries; tail dusky, the
base and edge of the inner web greenish yellow. _Female_: colours
less bright, and no black on the head. Length, four and a half inches.
* * * * *
The siskin, or aberdevine, as it is also called, is known to us as a
winter visitant, but it is better known as a cage than a free bird. In
the British Islands it breeds in various places in Scotland, in pine
and fir woods; it has also been found breeding in various localities
in England and Wales. In Ireland it is not so common as in England.
The siskin is a pretty, active, musical little bird, somewhat tit-like
in its manner of seeking its food, its sociability, and the various
positions it assumes in its search for small insects and seeds in the
higher branches of a tree, or when clinging to the terminal twigs. As a
caged bird his song is a small musical twittering; but in a wild state,
in the pairing season, the male has a more charming performance, for
he then soars about the tree, and, with fluttering wings and outspread
tail, floats down singing to his perch.
The nest is built in a pine or fir tree at a considerable height from
the ground, and so hidden as to make it very hard to find. There is a
legend in some districts on the continent of Europe that the siskin
places a small stone among its eggs, which renders the nest invisible.
This legend reminds me of a belief of the peasants of southern South
America, that the rail-like, spotted tinamou--a bird that easily
eludes one’s sight among the grey and yellow herbage--has the faculty
of making itself invisible. The primitive mind is much given to
explanations of this kind.
The nest, placed as a rule in the fork of a horizontal branch, is
composed of rootlets and moss, on a foundation of bents and twigs of
heather, and is lined with fine dry grass and a little vegetable down,
sometimes with a few feathers. Five or six eggs are laid, pale bluish
green in ground-colour, and spotted with dark reddish brown and pinkish
grey under-markings.
In autumn siskins unite in small flocks and migrate southward; and
during winter they are found widely distributed over the country, but
are most numerous in the northern counties of England. At this season
they may be seen associating on trees and bushes with goldcrests,
redpolls, and titmice of different species.
* * * * *
Closely allied to the siskin and goldfinch, and in its colouring
intermediate between them, but differing in having the crown, nape,
and chin black, is the serin (_Serinus hortulanus_). It breeds in
North and Central Europe, and is only known in this country as a rare
straggler.
Greenfinch.
Ligurinus chloris.
Yellowish green variegated with yellow and ash-grey. Length, six inches.
* * * * *
It has been a subject of mild wonder to me that the greenfinch is
not more a favourite than I find him; for he is almost more with us
than any other finch, and, in most cases, to know a bird well is to
like it. Few of our eighteen finches can be seen and heard close to
our houses. The brambling, siskin, redpoll, crossbill, and twite are
scattered about the country in the cold and songless season; in summer
we see little or nothing of them. The linnet is fairly abundant, but
must be looked for on waste lands and commons; while the goldfinch,
bullfinch, hawfinch, and tree-sparrow are either so shy or so rare
that, to most persons, they might be non-existent. Three of our five
buntings are common enough; but these, too, are birds of the open,
that come little about houses, and are without the qualities that go
to make a favourite. Of finches of the homestead that possess beauty
and melody there are only two--the chaffinch and the greenfinch; and
it is the fact that most people have a great esteem for the first, and
pay but very slight attention to the second. The greenfinch is not
formed on the graceful lines of the goldfinch and some other members
of the family; he is made more after the pattern of the hawfinch,
and is somewhat heavy in appearance. Regarding his colouring only,
he is a prettier bird than his neighbour, the chaffinch, his plumage
showing two colours that contrast beautifully--olive-green and
brilliant yellow. It is not often that we can see him in the proper
light and position. He is strangely fond of concealing himself in the
green foliage, which makes him in his green dress invisible. Seen
in the shade or against a bright light, his colour appears dull and
indeterminate; but against a background of green leaves, with the
sunlight on him, he is certainly beautiful.
The greenfinches are very sociable in disposition, and all the summer
long, even when they are engaged in breeding, they may be seen in
parties of three, or four, or half a dozen; two or three nests are
often found on the same branch, or in close proximity. The passions of
jealousy and anger, so common among birds in the pairing season, seem
not to exist in this species. As a songster he cannot compare with the
linnet, the chaffinch, and the goldfinch, but he probably produces more
pleasant sound than any other finch, unless we include the chirruping
of the sparrow. He is attached to gardens and shrubberies, to groves
and hedges, and hedgerow trees, especially elms, and among the
clustering leaves in which he loves to hide he is constantly uttering
his various notes, the commonest of which is a low and long-drawn
trill. Occasionally he gives out another long, single note, with a
very different sound, a kind of soft-toned, inflected scream, used
sometimes as a call-note and sometimes to express alarm; and this he
will often repeat again and again at short intervals. When uttering
his trill, which is his favourite expression, among the leaves, bird
answering bird with trills that vary in tone, he gives out from time
to time another sound, a series of warbled notes, soft and melodious
in character. Occasionally, in the pairing season, the male bird flies
up out of the cloud of foliage and emits these warbling notes as he
circles round, and descends into the midst of the leaves again. The
charm of this perpetual summer music of the greenfinches is its airy,
subdued character, as of wind-touched leaves that flutter musically.
The nest is placed among the close branches of a bush or low tree, and
is somewhat loosely put together, straw, roots, and moss, mixed with
wool, being used, with a lining of fibres, horsehair, and feathers.
The eggs are four to six in number, and are white, faintly spotted and
speckled with purplish red at the large end. The young are fed on seeds
of various weeds and small caterpillars; and two, and sometimes three,
broods are reared in the season. At the end of summer the greenfinches
repair to the fields, and are seen in flocks of two or three score to
a hundred or more individuals, and are also found associating with
sparrows, chaffinches, and other species.
The greenfinch is a common bird throughout the British Islands.
Hawfinch.
Coccothraustes vulgaris.
[Illustration: FIG. 47.--HAWFINCH. ⅓ natural size.]
Lore, throat, and plumage at the base of the bill black; crown and
cheeks reddish brown; nape ash-grey; back dark reddish brown; wings
black; great coverts white; under parts light purplish red. Length,
seven inches.
* * * * *
The hawfinch has a somewhat curious history in this country. It was
always believed to be an accidental autumn and winter visitor until, a
little over half a century ago, the naturalist Doubleday, of Epping,
discovered that it was a resident all the year round, and not a very
rare species in that locality. Later it was found breeding in other
places, and it is now known to inhabit all the Home Counties and
various other parts of England. At present the belief is general that
the bird is increasing in numbers and extending its range. This would
seem the most natural explanation of the fact that the bird is often
seen now in places where it was not seen formerly; but it must be taken
into consideration that nobody looked to find the hawfinch when it
was not known to be a British species, and that now many sharp eyes
watch for it. As it is, we are seldom rewarded by a sight of it, even
in localities where it is known to exist, in spite of its conspicuous
colouring and the somewhat singular appearance given to it by its large
head and massive, conical beak. Its excessive wariness prevents it from
being seen even when it is not rare. No other small bird is so shy
with us, so vigilant, and quick to make its escape at the slightest
appearance of danger. When not feeding it passes the time in woods,
plantations, and copses, at a spot where the trees grow thickest and
the foliage is most dense. Its love of concealing itself in the deepest
shade is like that of a nocturnal species. When away from its obscure
place of refuge it is extremely alert, perching in the tops of trees
to survey the surrounding scene, and from which to drop silently into
any garden or orchard which may be safely visited. Naturally, it has
been assumed that this shy and watchful habit has been brought about
by persecution, gardeners and fruit-growers being deadly enemies to
hawfinches on account of their depredations; but in the forests of
North Africa, Mr. Charles Dixon found the bird just as vigilant and
quick to take alarm as in England.
Hawfinches are rather silent birds: when flying from tree to tree in
small flocks they utter a call-note with a clicking sound, and in
spring the male sometimes emits a few low notes by way of song.
The nest is placed in a tree, or bush, or hedge, a thorn being the
tree most frequently chosen for a site. The nest is rather large and
well made, outwardly of twigs, dead stalks, and lichen, inside of dry
grass, and lined with rootlets and a little hair. The eggs are four to
six in number, pale olive or bluish green in ground-colour, spotted
with black, and irregularly streaked with dark olive. In some eggs the
ground-colour is buff. The young are fed on caterpillars, and only one
brood is reared. After leaving the nest the young birds live with the
parents, and sometimes several families unite into a flock; as many as
a hundred birds, or more, may be seen together.
In autumn and winter the hawfinches feed on seeds of various
kinds--hornbeam, beech, yew, and hawthorn. The kernels only of the haws
are eaten; and, in like manner, cherries and other fruits are robbed
for the sake of the kernel, the hard stones being split open with the
powerful beak.
House-Sparrow.
Passer domesticus.
Lores black; a narrow white streak over each eye; crown, nape,
and lower back ash-grey; region of the ear-coverts chestnut; back
chestnut-brown streaked with black; wings brown, with white bar on
the middle coverts; tail dull brown; throat and breast black; cheeks
and sides of neck white; belly dull white. Length, six inches.
_Female_: without the black on the throat, and upper parts
striated dusky brown.
* * * * *
More, far more, has been written about the sparrow than about any other
bird, but as it is not advisable here to enter into the controversy
on the subject of the injury he inflicts, or is believed by many to
inflict, on the farmer and gardener, a very brief account of its
habits will suffice. They are almost better known to most persons
than the habits of the domestic fowl, owing to the universality of
this little bird, to its excessive abundance in towns as well as in
rural districts, and to its attachment to human habitations. For his
excessive predominance there are several causes. He is exceedingly
hardy, and more adaptive than other species; his adaptiveness makes it
possible for him to exist and thrive in great smoky towns like London.
He is sagacious beyond most species, and although living so constantly
with or near to man, he never loses his suspicious habit, and of all
birds is the most difficult to be trapped. He is very prolific: as soon
as the weather becomes mild, at the end of February or in March, he
begins to breed, and brood after brood is reared until September, or
even till November if the weather proves favourable. He also possesses
an advantage in his habit of breeding in holes in houses, where his
eggs and young are much safer than in trees and hedges. There is a
curious diversity in his nesting habits: he generally prefers a hole
in a wall, or some safe, convenient cavity, and will make vigorous war
on and eject other species, like the house-martin, from their nests
and nesting-holes; but when such receptacles are not sufficiently
numerous, or it appears safe to do so, he builds in trees, making a
large, conspicuous, oval, domed nest of straw, mixed with strings,
rags, and other materials, and thickly lined inside with feathers. Five
to six eggs are laid, of a pale bluish white ground-colour, spotted,
blotched, or suffused with grey and dusky brown. The young are fed on
caterpillars; and the adults also are partly insectivorous during the
summer months, but in the autumn and winter grain, seeds, and buds are
chiefly eaten.
Tree-Sparrow.
Passer montanus.
Crown and back of head chestnut-brown; lore, ear-coverts, and throat
black; neck almost surrounded by a white collar; upper parts as in the
last; wing with two transverse white bars. Length, five and a half
inches.
* * * * *
By a careless observer the tree-sparrow would, in most cases, be taken
for the house-sparrow, and not looked directly at. When we know that
there is a tree-sparrow, and meet with it, we notice the chief points
in which it differs from the common species--the chestnut-coloured
head, with black and white patches at the side, and the double bar on
the wing.
The tree-sparrow is locally distributed throughout England and
Scotland, but is nowhere abundant; in Wales and Ireland it is rare.
With us it is a shy bird, being found, as a rule, at a distance from
houses, in fields, on the borders of woods, in thickets growing beside
streams, and in fir plantations. In some districts on the Continent
it is far less shy of man, and lives in villages and towns, where it
associates with the common sparrow, and is said to be just as tame. In
many parts of Asia it is still more domestic. Edward Blyth wrote of
it: ‘In the great rice-exporting station of Akyab we have seen this
species so familiarly hopping about in the public streets that it would
only just move out of the way of the passers-by; and we have also
known it breeding so numerously in dwellinghouses as to be quite a
nuisance from its shrill, incessant chirping.’ This bird is the common
house-sparrow of China and Japan, the Philippines, Burma, and more or
less over the whole Malayan region.
In its habits it is more active and lively than its more domestic
relation, and is more at home on trees, and may be seen moving about
among the lesser branches and twigs with much freedom, sometimes
seeking its food there, after the manner of the siskin and redpoll;
but it feeds principally on the ground. It can scarcely be called a
song-bird, its most song-like sounds being composed of a few chirruping
notes uttered in the pairing season. Its voice, both in its attempted
singing and in its ordinary chirp and call-notes, is much shriller than
that of the common sparrow.
Like that species, it breeds both in holes and on trees. A hole in the
rotten wood of a pollard willow by the waterside is a favourite site,
and it also nests in holes under the eaves or thatch of a barn or
other outhouse, and in holes in ruins, old walls, and rocks. The nest
is made of dry grass, loosely put together, and lined with some soft
material--wool, or feathers, or hair. Four to six eggs are laid, bluish
white in ground-colour, the whole egg thickly mottled with brown of
different shades. Two, and even three, broods are reared in the season.
In winter the tree-sparrows gather in small flocks, and are often found
associating with the common sparrow, chaffinch, brambling, and other
species. At this season they subsist principally on seeds of weeds and
grass, but in summer they are partly insectivorous.
Chaffinch.
Fringilla cœlebs.
Forehead black; crown and nape greyish blue; back and scapulars
chestnut tinged with green; rump green; breast chestnut-red, fading
into white on the belly; wings black, with two white bands; coverts
of the secondaries tipped with yellow; tail black, the two middle
feathers ash-grey, the two outer, on each side, black, with a broad,
oblique white band. _Female_: head, back, and scapulars ash-brown
tinged with olive; lower parts greyish white; the transverse bands less
distinct. Length, six inches.
* * * * *
The chaffinch is one of the most popular song-birds in Britain;
it is very much with us, being universal in its distribution in
this country, and a bird that attaches itself to the neighbourhood
of houses, an inhabitant of gardens and orchards, and a resident
throughout the year. He is a pretty bird, and, if not a brilliant
songster, is at all events a very vigorous one; his lively, ringing
lyric, being short and composed of notes invariably repeated in the
same order, is capable of being remembered longer and more vividly
reproduced in the mind than any other song. Sitting by the fireside in
January, you can mentally hear the song of the chaffinch; but the brain
is incapable of registering the more copious and varied bird-music
in the same perfect way--the music, for instance, of the skylark and
thrush and garden-warbler. It is not strange that, when Browning wished
to be back in England in April, he thought of the spring song of the
chaffinch, before that of any other species.
O to be in England
Now that April’s there;
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs of the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England now!