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BIRDS
IN THE CALENDAR
BY F. G. AFLALO
[Decoration]
LONDON: MARTIN SECKER
NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI
_First Published 1914_
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Common
bird names remain as originally printed. Inconsistent hyphenation
has been standardised. The oe ligature is represented by [oe].
CONTENTS
PAGE
January: The Pheasant 11
February: The Woodcock 21
March: The Woodpigeon 33
April: Birds in the High Hall Garden 45
May: The Cuckoo 55
June: Voices of the Night 67
July: Swifts, Swallows and Martins 79
August: The Seagull 91
September: Birds in the Corn 103
October: The Moping Owl 113
November: Waterfowl 125
December: The Robin Redbreast 137
NOTE
These sketches of birds, each appropriate to one month of the twelve,
originally appeared in _The Outlook_, to the Editor and Proprietors of
which review I am indebted for permission to reprint them in book form.
F. G. A.
EASTER, 1914.
JANUARY
THE PHEASANT
THE PHEASANT
As birds are to be considered throughout these pages from any standpoint
but that of sport, much that is of interest in connection with a bird
essentially the sportsman's must necessarily be omitted. At the same
time, although this gorgeous creature, the chief attraction of social
gatherings throughout the winter months, appeals chiefly to the men who
shoot and eat it, it is not uninteresting to the naturalist with
opportunities for studying its habits under conditions more favourable
than those encountered when in pursuit of it with a gun.
In the first place, with the probable exception of the swan, of which
something is said on a later page, the pheasant stands alone among the
birds of our woodlands in its personal interest for the historian. It is
not, in fact, a British bird, save by acclimatisation, at all, and is
generally regarded as a legacy of the Romans. The time and manner of its
introduction into Britain are, it is true, veiled in obscurity. What we
know, on authentic evidence, is that the bird was officially recognised
in the reign of Harold, and that it had already come under the aegis of
the game laws in that of Henry I, during the first year of which the
Abbot of Amesbury held a licence to kill it, though how he contrived
this without a gun is not set forth in detail. Probably it was first
treed with the aid of dogs and then shot with bow and arrow. The
original pheasant brought over by the Romans, or by whomsoever may have
been responsible for its naturalisation on English soil, was a
dark-coloured bird and not the type more familiar nowadays since its
frequent crosses with other species from the Far East, as well as with
several ornamental types of yet more recent introduction.
In tabooing the standpoint of sport, wherever possible, from these
chapters, occasional reference, where it overlaps the interests of the
field-naturalist, is inevitable. Thus there are two matters in which
both classes are equally concerned when considering the pheasant. The
first is the real or alleged incompatibility of pheasants and foxes in
the same wood. The question of rivalry between pheasant and fox, or (as
I rather suspect) between those who shoot the one and hunt the other,
admits of only one answer. The fox eats the pheasant; the pheasant is
eaten by the fox. This not very complex proposition may read like an
excerpt from a French grammar, but it is the epitome of the whole
argument. It is just possible--we have no actual evidence to go on--that
under such wholly natural conditions as survive nowhere in rural England
the two might flourish side by side, the fox taking occasional toll of
its agreeably flavoured neighbours, and the latter, we may suppose,
their wits sharpened by adversity, gradually devising means of keeping
out of the robber's reach. In the artificial environment of a hunting or
shooting country, however, the fox will always prove too much for a bird
dulled by much protection, and the only possible _modus vivendi_ between
those concerned must rest on a policy of give and take that deliberately
ignores the facts of the case.
More interesting, on academic grounds at any rate, is the process of
education noticeable in pheasants in parts of the country where they
are regularly shot. Sport is a great educator. Foxes certainly, and
hares probably, run the faster for being hunted. Indeed the fox appears
to have acquired its pace solely as the result of the chase, since it
does not figure in the Bible as a swift creature. The genuine wild
pheasant in its native region, a little beyond the Caucasus, is in all
probability a very different bird from its half-domesticated kinsman in
Britain. I have been close to its birthplace, but never even saw a
pheasant there. We are told, on what ground I have been unable to trace,
that the polygamous habit in these birds is a product of artificial
environment; but what is even more likely is that the true wild pheasant
of Western Asia (and not the acclimatised bird so-called in this
country) trusts much less to its legs than our birds, which have long
since learnt that there is safety in running. Moreover, though it
probably takes wing more readily, it is doubtful whether it flies as
fast as the pace, something a little short of forty miles an hour, that
has been estimated as a common performance in driven birds at home.
The pheasant is in many respects a very curious bird. At the threshold
of life, it exhibits, in common with some of its near relations, a
precocity very unusual in its class; and the readiness with which
pheasant chicks, only just out of the egg, run about and forage for
themselves, is astonishing to those unused to it. Another interesting
feature about pheasants is the extraordinary difference in plumage
between the sexes, a gap equalled only between the blackcock and greyhen
and quite unknown in the partridge, quail and grouse. Yet every now and
again, as if resentful of this inequality of wardrobe, an old hen
pheasant will assume male plumage, and this epicene raiment indicates
barrenness. Ungallant feminists have been known to cite the case of the
"mule" pheasant as pointing a moral for the females of a more highly
organised animal.
The question of the pheasant's natural diet, more particularly where
this is not liberally supplemented from artificial sources, brings the
sportsman in conflict with the farmer, and a demagogue whose zeal
occasionally outruns his discretion has even endeavoured to cite the
mangold as its staple food. This, however, is political, and not natural
history. Although, however, like all grain-eating birds, the pheasant is
no doubt capable of inflicting appreciable damage on cultivated land, it
seems to be established beyond all question that it also feeds greedily
on the even more destructive larva of the crane-fly, in which case it
may more than pay its footing in the fields. The foodstuff most fatal to
itself is the yew leaf, for which, often with fatal results, it seems to
have an unconquerable craving. The worst disease, however, from which
the pheasant suffers is "gapes," caused by an accumulation of small red
worms in the windpipe that all but suffocate the victim.
Reference has been made to the bird's great speed in the air, as well as
to its efficiency as a runner. It remains only to add that it is also a
creditable swimmer and has been seen to take to water when escaping from
its enemies.
The polygamous habit has been mentioned. Ten or twelve eggs, or more,
are laid in the simple nest of leaves, and this is generally placed on
the ground, but occasionally in a low tree or hedge, or even in the
disused nest of some other bird.
Comparatively few of the birds referred to in the following pages appeal
strongly to the epicure, but the pheasant, if not, perhaps, the most
esteemed of them, is at least a wholesome table bird. It should,
however, always be eaten with chip potatoes and bread sauce, and not in
the company of cold lettuce. Those who insist on the English method of
serving it should quote the learned Freeman, who, when confronted with
the Continental alternative, complained bitterly that he was not a
silkworm!
FEBRUARY
THE WOODCOCK
THE WOODCOCK
There are many reasons why the woodcock should be prized by the winter
sportsman more than any other bird in the bag. In the first place, there
is its scarcity. Half a dozen to every hundred pheasants would in most
parts of the country be considered a proportion at which none could
grumble, and there are many days on which not one is either seen or
shot. Again, there is the bird's twisting flight, which, particularly
inside the covert, makes it anything but an easy target. Third and last,
it is better to eat than any other of our wild birds, with the possible
exception of the golden plover. Taking one consideration with another,
then, it is not surprising that the first warning cry of "Woodcock
over!" from the beaters should be the signal for a sharp and somewhat
erratic fusillade along the line, a salvo which the beaters themselves
usually honour by crouching out of harm's way, since they know from
experience that even ordinarily cool and collected shots are sometimes
apt to be fired with a sudden zeal to shoot the little bird, which may
cost one of them his eyesight. According to the poet,
"Lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade;"
and so no doubt they do at meal-time after sunset, but we are more used
to flushing them amid dry bracken or in the course of some frozen ditch.
Quite apart, however, from its exhilarating effect on the sportsman, the
bird has quieter interests for the naturalist, since in its food, its
breeding habits, its travels, and its appearance it combines more
peculiarities than perhaps any other bird, certainly than any other of
the sportsman's birds, in these islands. It is not, legally speaking, a
game bird and was not included in the Act of 1824, but a game licence is
required for shooting it, and it enjoys since 1880 the protection
accorded to other wild birds. This is excellent, so far as it goes, but
it ought to be protected during the same period as the pheasant,
particularly now that it is once more established as a resident species
all over Britain and Ireland.
This new epoch in the history of its adventures in these islands is the
work of the Wild Birds' Protection Acts. In olden times, when half of
Britain was under forest, and when guns were not yet invented that could
"shoot flying," woodcocks must have been much more plentiful than they
are to-day. In those times the bird was taken on the ground in springes
or, when "roding" in the mating season, in nets, known as "shots," that
were hung between the trees. When the forest area receded, the resident
birds must have dwindled to the verge of extinction, for on more than
one occasion we find even a seasoned sportsman like Colonel Hawker
worked up to a rare pitch of excitement after shooting woodcock in a
part of Hampshire where in our day these birds breed regularly. Thanks,
however, to the protection afforded by the law, there is once again
probably no county in England in which woodcocks do not nest.
At the same time, it is as an autumn visitor that, with the first of the
east wind in October or November, we look for this untiring little
traveller from the Continent. Some people are of opinion that since it
has extended its residential range fewer come oversea to swell the
numbers, but the arrivals are in some years considerable, and if a
stricter watch were kept on unlicensed gunners along the foreshore of
East Anglia, very much larger numbers would find their way westwards
instead of to Leadenhall. As it is, the wanderers arrive, not
necessarily, as has been freely asserted, in poor condition, but always
tired out by their journey, and numbers are secured before they have
time to recover their strength. Yet those which do recover fly right
across England, some continuing the journey to Ireland, and stragglers
even, with help no doubt from easterly gales, having been known to reach
America.
The woodcock is interesting as a parent because it is one of the very
few birds that carry their young from place to place, and the only
British bird that transports them clasped between her legs. A few
others, like the swans and grebes, bear the young ones on the back, but
the woodcock's method is unique. Scopoli first drew attention to his own
version of the habit in the words "_pullos rostro portat_," and it was
old Gilbert White who, with his usual eye to the practical, doubted
whether so long and slender a bill could be turned to such a purpose.
More recent observation has confirmed White's objection and has
established the fact of the woodcock holding the young one between her
thighs, the beak being apparently used to steady her burden. Whether the
little ones are habitually carried about in this fashion, or merely on
occasion of danger, is not known, and indeed the bird's preference for
activity in the dusk has invested accurate observation of its habits
with some difficulty. Among well-known sportsmen who were actually so
fortunate as to have witnessed this interesting performance, passing
mention may be made of the late Duke of Beaufort, the Hon. Grantley
Berkeley, and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey.
Reference has already been made to the now obsolete use of nets for the
capture of these birds when "roding." The cock-shuts, as they were
called, were spread so as to do their work after sundown, and this is
the meaning of Shakespeare's allusion to "cock-shut time." This "roding"
is a curious performance on the part of the males only, and it bears
some analogy to the "drumming" of snipe. It is accompanied indeed by the
same vibrating noise, which may be produced from the throat as well,
but is more probably made only by the beating of the wings. There
appears to be some divergence of opinion as to its origin in both birds,
though in that of the snipe such sound authorities as Messrs. Abel
Chapman and Harting are convinced that it proceeds from the quivering of
the primaries, as the large quill-feathers of the wings are called.
Other naturalists, however, have preferred to associate it with the
spreading tail-feathers. Whether these eccentric gymnastics are
performed as displays, with a view to impressing admiring females, or
whether they are merely the result of excitement at the pairing season
cannot be determined. It is safe to assume that they aim at one or other
of these objects, and further no one can go with any certainty. The word
"roding" is spelt "roading" by Newton, who thus gives the preference to
the Anglo-Saxon description of the aerial tracks followed by the bird,
over the alternative derivation from the French "roder," which means to
wander. The flight is at any rate wholly different from that to which
the sportsman is accustomed when one of these birds is flushed in
covert. In the latter case, either instinct or experience seems to have
taught it extraordinary tricks of zigzag man[oe]uvring that not seldom
save its life from a long line of over-anxious guns; though out in the
open, where it generally flies in a straight line for the nearest
covert, few birds of its size are easier to bring down. Fortunately, we
do not in England shoot the bird in springtime, the season of "roding,"
but the practice is in vogue in the evening twilight in every
Continental country, and large bags are made in this fashion.
In its hungry moments the woodcock, like the snipe, has at once the
advantages and handicap of so long a beak. On hard ground, in a long
spell of either drought or frost, it must come within measurable
distance of starvation, for its only manner of procuring its food in
normal surroundings is to thrust its bill deep into the soft mud in
search of earthworms. The bird does not, it is true, as was once
commonly believed, live by suction, or, as the Irish peasants say in
some parts, on water, but such a mistake might well be excused in anyone
who had watched the bird's manner of digging for its food in the ooze.
The long bill is exceedingly sensitive at the tip, and in all
probability, by the aid of a tactile sense more highly developed than
any other in our acquaintance, this organ conveys to its owner the
whereabouts of worms wriggling silently down out of harm's way. On first
reaching Britain, the woodcock remains for a few days on the seashore to
recover from its crossing, and at this time of rest it trips over the
wet sand, generally in the gloaming, and picks up shrimps and such other
soft food as is uncovered between tidal marks. It is not among the
easiest of birds to keep for any length of time in captivity, but if due
attention be paid to its somewhat difficult requirements in the way of
suitable food, success is not unattainable. On the whole, bread and milk
has been found the best artificial substitute for its natural diet. With
the _kiwi_ of New Zealand, a bird not even distantly related to the
woodcock, and a cousin rather of the ostrich, but equipped with much the
same kind of bill as the subject of these remarks, an even closer
imitation of the natural food has been found possible in menageries.
The bill of the _kiwi_, which has the nostrils close to the tip, is even
more sensitive than that of the woodcock and is employed in very similar
fashion. At Regent's Park the keeper supplies the bird with fresh worms
so long as the ground is soft enough for spade-work. They are left in a
pan, and the _kiwi_ eats them during the night. In winter, however, when
worms are not only hard to come by in sufficient quantity but also
frost-bitten and in poor condition, an efficient substitute is found in
shredded fillet steak, which, whether it accepts it for worms or not,
the New Zealander devours with the same relish.
When a woodcock lies motionless among dead leaves, it is one of the most
striking illustrations of protective colouring to be found anywhere.
Time and again the sportsman all but treads on one, which is betrayed
only by its large bright eye. There are men who, in their eagerness to
add it to the bag, do not hesitate in such circumstances to shoot a
woodcock on the ground, but a man so fond of ground game should
certainly be refused a game licence and should be allowed to shoot
nothing but rabbits.
MARCH
THE WOODPIGEON
THE WOODPIGEON
The woodpigeon is many things to many men. To the farmer, who has some
claim to priority of verdict, it is a curse, even as the rabbit in
Australia, the lemming in Norway, or the locust in Algeria. The tiller
of the soil, whose business brings him in open competition with the
natural appetites of such voracious birds, beasts, or insects, regards
his rivals from a standpoint which has no room for sentiment; and the
woodpigeons are to our farmers, particularly in the well-wooded
districts of the West Country, even as Carthage was to Cato the Censor,
something to be destroyed.
It is this attitude of the farmer which makes the woodpigeon
pre-eminently the bird of February. All through the shooting season just
ended, a high pigeon has proved an irresistible temptation to the guns,
whether cleaving the sky above the tree-tops, doubling behind a broad
elm, or suddenly swinging out of a gaunt fir. Yet it is in February,
when other shooting is at an end and the coverts no longer echo the
fusillade of the past four months, that the farmers, furious at the
sight of green root-crops grazed as close as by sheep and of young
clover dug up over every acre of their tilling, welcome the co-operation
of sportsmen glad to use up the balance of their cartridges in organised
pigeon battues. These gatherings have, during the past five years,
become an annual function in parts of Devonshire and the neighbouring
counties, and if the bag is somewhat small in proportion to the guns
engaged, a wholesome spirit of sport informs those who take part, and
there is a curiously utilitarian atmosphere about the proceedings.
Everyone seems conscious that, in place of the usual idle pleasure of
the covert-side or among the turnips, he is out for a purpose, not
merely killing birds that have been reared to make his holiday, but
actually helping the farmers in their fight against Nature. As,
moreover, recent scares of an epidemic not unlike diphtheria have
precluded the use of the birds for table purposes, the powder is burnt
with no thought of the pot.
The usual plan is to divide the guns in small parties and to post these
in neighbouring plantations or lining hedges overlooking these spinneys.
At a given signal the firing commences and is kept up for several hours,
a number of the marauders being killed and the rest so harried that many
of them must leave the neighbourhood, only to find a similar warm
welcome across the border. Some such concerted attack has of late years
been rendered necessary by the great increase in the winter invasion
from overseas. It is probable that, as most writers on the subject
insist, the wanderings of these birds are for the most part restricted
to these islands and are mere food forays, like those which cause
locusts to desert a district that they have stripped bare for pastures
new. At the same time, it seems to be beyond all doubt the fact that
huge flocks of woodpigeons reach our shores annually from Scandinavia,
and their inroads have had such serious results that it is only by joint
action that their numbers can be kept under. For such work February is
obviously the month, not only because most of their damage to the
growing crops and seeds is accomplished at this season, but also
because large numbers of gunners, no longer able to shoot game, are thus
at the disposal of the farmers and only too glad to prolong their
shooting for a few weeks to such good purpose.
Many birds are greedy. The cormorant has a higher reputation of the sort
to live up to than even the hog, and some of the hornbills, though less
familiar, are endowed with Gargantuan appetites. Yet the ringdove could
probably vie with any of them. Mr. Harting mentions having found in the
crop of one of these birds thirty-three acorns and forty-four
beech-nuts, while no fewer than 139 of the latter were taken, together
with other food remains, from another. It is no uncommon experience to
see the crop of a woodpigeon that is brought down from a great height
burst, on reaching the earth, with a report like that of a pistol, and
scatter its undigested contents broadcast. Little wonder then, that the
farmers welcome the slaughter of so formidable a competitor! It is one
of their biggest customers, and pays nothing for their produce. One told
me, not long ago, that the woodpigeons had got at a little patch of
young rape, only a few acres in all, which had been uncovered by the
drifting snow, and had laid it as bare as if the earth had never been
planted. Seeing what hearty meals the woodpigeon makes, it is not
surprising that it should sometimes throw up pellets of undigested
material. This is not, however, a regular habit, as in the case of hawks
and owls, and is rather, perhaps, the result of some abnormally
irritating food.
Pigeons digest their food with the aid of a secretion in the crop, and
it is on this soft material, popularly known as "pigeons' milk," that
they feed their nestlings. This method suggests analogy to that of the
petrels, which rear their young on fish-oil partly digested after the
same fashion. Indeed, all the pigeons are devoted parents. Though the
majority build only a very pretentious platform of sticks for the two
eggs, they sit very close and feed the young ones untiringly. Some of
the pigeons of Australia, indeed, go even further. Not only do they
build a much more substantial nest of leafy twigs, but the male bird
actually sits throughout the day, such paternal sense of duty being all
the more remarkable from the fact that these pigeons of the Antipodes
usually lay but a single egg. Australia, with the neighbouring islands,
must be a perfect paradise for pigeons, since about half of the species
known to science occur in that region only. The wonga-wonga and
bronze-wing and great fruit-pigeons are, like the "bald-pates" of
Jamaica, all favourite birds with sportsmen, and some of the birds are
far more brightly coloured than ours. It is, however, noticeable that
even the gayest Queensland species, with wings shot with every prismatic
hue, are dull-looking birds seen from above, and the late Dr. A. R.
Wallace regarded this as affording protection against keen-eyed hawks on
the forage. His ingenious theory receives support from the well-known
fact that in many of the islands, where pigeons are even more plentiful,
but where also hawks are few, the former wear bright clothes on their
back as well.
The woodpigeon has many names in rural England. That by which it is
referred to in the foregoing notes is not, perhaps, the most
satisfactory, since, with the possible exception of the smaller
stock-dove, which lays its eggs in rabbit burrows, and the rock-dove,
which nests in the cliffs, all the members of the family need trees, if
only to roost and nest in. A more descriptive name is that of ringdove,
easily explained by the white collar, but the bird is also known as
cushat, queest, or even culver. The last-named, however, which will be
familiar to readers of Tennyson, probably alludes specifically to the
rock-dove, as it undoubtedly gave its name to Culver Cliff, a prominent
landmark in the Isle of Wight, where these birds have at all times been
sparingly in evidence.
The ringdove occasionally rears a nestling in captivity, but it does not
seem, at any time of life, to prove a very attractive pet. White found
it strangely ferocious, and another writer describes it as listless and
uninteresting. The only notable success on record is that scored by St.
John, who set some of the eggs under a tame pigeon and secured one
survivor that appears to have grown quite tame, but was, unfortunately,
eaten by a hawk. At any rate, it did its kind good service by enlisting
on their side the pen of the most ardent apologist they have ever had.
Indeed, St. John did not hesitate to rate the farmers soundly for
persecuting the bird in wilful ignorance of its unpaid services in
clearing their ground of noxious weeds. Yet, however true his eloquent
plea may have been in respect of his native Lothian, there would be some
difficulty in persuading South Country agriculturists of the
woodpigeon's hidden virtues. To those, however, who do not sow that they
may reap, the subject of these remarks has irresistible charm. There is
doubtless monotony in its cooing, yet, heard in a still plantation of
firs, with no other sound than perhaps the distant call of a shepherd or
barking of a farm dog, it is a music singularly in harmony with the
peaceful scene. The arrowy flight of these birds when they come in from
the fields at sundown and fall like rushing waters on the tree-tops is
an even more memorable sound. To the sportsman, above all, the
woodpigeon shows itself a splendid bird of freedom, more cunning than
any hand-reared game bird, swifter on the wing than any other purely
wild bird, a welcome addition to the bag because it is hard to shoot in
the open, and because in life it was a sore trial to a class already
harassed with their share of this life's troubles.
APRIL
BIRDS IN THE HIGH HALL GARDEN
BIRDS IN THE HIGH HALL GARDEN
All March the rooks were busy in the swaying elms, but it is these
softer evenings of April, when the first young leaves are beginning to
frame the finished nests, and the boisterous winds of last month no
longer drown the babble of the tree-top parliament at the still hour
when farm labourers are homing from the fields, that the rooks
peculiarly strike their own note in the country scene. There is no good
reason to confuse these curious and interesting fowl with any other of
the crow family. Collectively they may be recognised by their love of
fellowship, for none are more sociable than they. Individually the rook
is stamped unmistakably by the bald patch on the face, where the
feathers have come away round the base of the beak. The most generally
accepted explanation of this disfigurement is the rook's habit of
thrusting its bill deep in the earth in search of its daily food. This,
on the face of it, looks like a reasonable explanation, but it should be
borne in mind that not only do some individual rooks retain through
life the feathers normally missing, but that several of the rook's
cousins dip into Nature's larder in the same fashion without suffering
any such loss. However, the featherless patch on the rook's cheeks
suffices, whatever its cause, as a mark by which to recognise the bird
living or dead.
Unlike its cousin the jackdaw, which commonly nests in the cliffs, the
rook is not, perhaps, commonly associated with the immediate
neighbourhood of the sea, but a colony close to my own home in
Devonshire displays sufficiently interesting adaptation to estuarine
conditions to be worth passing mention. Just in the same way that gulls
make free of the wireworms on windswept ploughlands, so in early summer
do the old rooks come sweeping down from the elms on the hill that
overlooks my fishing ground and take their share of cockles and other
muddy fare in the bank uncovered by the falling tide. Here, in company
with gulls, turnstones, and other fowl of the foreshore, the rooks strut
importantly up and down, digging their powerful bills deep in the ooze
and occasionally bullying weaker neighbours out of their hard-earned
spoils. The rook is a villain, yet there is something irresistible in
the effrontery with which one will hop sidelong on a gorging gull, which
beats a hasty retreat before its sable rival, leaving some half-prized
shellfish to be swallowed at sight or carried to the greedy little beaks
in the tree-tops. While rooks are far more sociable than crows, the two
are often seen in company, not always on the best of terms, but usually
in a condition suggestive of armed neutrality. An occasional crow visits
my estuary at low tide, but, though the bird would be a match for any
single rook, I never saw any fighting between them. Possibly the crow
feels its loneliness and realises that in case of trouble none of its
brothers are there to see fair play. Yet carrion crows, like herons, are
among the rook's most determined enemies, and cases of rookeries being
destroyed by both birds are on record. On the other hand, though the
heron is the far more powerful bird of the two, heronries have likewise
been scattered, and their trees appropriated, by rooks, probably in
overwhelming numbers. Of the two the heron is, particularly in the
vicinity of a preserved trout stream, the more costly neighbour. Indeed
it is the only other bird which nests in colonies of such extent, but
there is this marked difference between herons and rooks, that the
former are sociable only in the colony. When away on its own business,
the heron is among the most solitary of birds, having no doubt, like
many other fishermen, learnt the advantage of its own company.
One of the most remarkable habits in the rook is that of visiting the
old nests in mid-winter. Now and again, it is true, a case of actually
nesting at that season has been noticed, but the fancy for sporting
round the deserted nests is something quite different from this. I have
watched the birds at the nests on short winter days year after year, but
never yet saw any confirmation of the widely accepted view that their
object is the putting in order of their battered homes for the next
season. It seems a likely reason, but in that case the birds would
surely be seen carrying twigs for the purpose, and I never saw them do
so before January. What other attraction the empty nurseries can have
for them is a mystery, unless indeed they are sentimental enough to like
revisiting old scenes and cawing over old memories.
The proximity of a rookery does not affect all people alike. Some who,
ordinarily dwelling in cities, suffer from lack of bird neighbours,
would regard the deliberate destruction of a rookery as an act of
vandalism. A few, as a matter of fact, actually set about establishing
such a colony where none previously existed, an ambition that may
generally be accomplished without extreme difficulty. All that is needed
is to transplant a nest or two of young rooks and lodge them in suitable
trees. The parent birds usually follow, rear the broods, and forthwith
found a settlement for future generations to return to. Even artificial
nests, with suitable supplies of food, have succeeded, and it seems that
the rook is nowhere a very difficult neighbour to attract and establish.
Why are rooks more sociable than ravens, and what do they gain from such
communalism? These are favourite questions with persons informed with an
intelligent passion for acquiring information, and the best answer,
without any thought of irreverence, is "God knows!" It is most certain
that we, at any rate, do not. So far from explaining how it was that
rooks came to build their nests in company, we cannot even guess how the
majority of birds came to build nests at all, instead of remaining
satisfied with the simpler plan of laying their eggs in the ground that
is still good enough for the petrels, penguins, kingfishers, and many
other kinds. Protection of the eggs from rain, frost, and natural
enemies suggests itself as the object of the nest, but the last only
would to some extent be furthered by the gregarious habit, and even so
we have no clue as to why it should be any more necessary for rooks than
for crows. To quote, as some writers do, the numerical superiority of
rooks over ravens as evidence of the benefits of communal nesting is to
ignore the long hostility of shepherds towards the latter birds on which
centuries of persecution have told irreparably. Rooks, on the other
hand, though also regarded in some parts of these islands as suspects,
have never been harassed to the same extent; and if anything in the
nature of general warfare were to be inaugurated against them, the
gregarious habit, so far from being a protection, would speedily and
disastrously facilitate their extermination. Another curious habit
noticed in these birds is that of flying on fine evenings to a
considerable height and then swooping suddenly to earth, often on their
backs. These antics, comparable to the drumming of snipe and roding of
woodcock, are probably to be explained on the same basis of sexual
emotion.
The so-called parliament of the rooks probably owes much of its detail
to the florid imagination of enthusiasts, always ready to exaggerate the
wonders of Nature; but it also seems to have some existence in fact, and
privileged observers have actually described the trial and punishment of
individuals that have broken the laws of the commune. I never saw this
procedure among rooks, but once watched something very similar among the
famous dogs of Constantinople, which no longer exist.
The most important problem however in connection with the rook is the
precise extent to which the bird is the farmer's enemy or his friend. On
the solution hangs the rook's fate in an increasingly practical age,
which may at any moment put sentiment on one side and decree for it the
fate that is already overtaking its big cousin the raven. Scotch farmers
have long turned their thumbs down and regarded rooks as food for the
gun, but in South Britain the bird's apologists have hitherto been able
to hold their own and avert catastrophe from their favourite. The
evidence is conflicting. On the one hand, it seems undeniable that the
rook eats grain and potato shoots. It also snaps young twigs off the
trees and may, like the jay and magpie, destroy the eggs of game birds.
On the other hand, particularly during the weeks when it is feeding its
nestlings, it admittedly devours quantities of wireworms, leathergrubs,
and weevils, as well as of couch grass and other noxious weeds, while
some of its favourite dainties, such as thistles, walnuts, and acorns,
will hardly be grudged at any time. It is not an easy matter to decide;
and, if the rook is to be spared, economy must be tempered with
sentiment, in which case the evidence will perhaps be found to justify a
verdict of guilty, with a strong recommendation to mercy.
MAY
THE CUCKOO
THE CUCKOO
With the single exception of the nightingale, bird of lovers, no other
has been more written of in prose or verse than the so-called "harbinger
of spring." This is a foolish name for a visitor that does not reach our
shores before, at any rate, the middle of April. Even _Whitaker_ allows
us to recognise the coming of spring nearly a month earlier; and for
myself, impatient if only for the illusion of Nature's awakening, I date
my spring from the ending of the shortest day. Once the days begin to
lengthen, it is time to glance at the elms for the return of the rooks
and to get out one's fishing-tackle again. Yet the cuckoo comes rarely
before the third week of April, save in the fervent imagination of
premature heralds, who, giving rein to a fancy winged by desire, or
honestly deceived by some village cuckoo clock heard on their country
rambles, solemnly write to the papers announcing the inevitable March
cuckoo. They know better in the Channel Islands, for in the second week
of April, and not before, there are cuckoos in every bush--hundreds of
exhausted travellers pausing for strength to complete the rest of their
journey to Britain. Not on the return migration in August do the
wanderers assemble in the islands, since, having but lately set out,
they are not yet weary enough to need the rest. The only district of
England in which I have heard of similar gatherings of cuckoos is East
Anglia, where, about the time of their arrival, they regularly collect
in the bushes and indulge in preliminary gambols before flying north and
west.
Cuckoos, then, reach these islands about the third week of April, and
they leave us again at the end of the summer, the old birds flying south
in July, the younger generation following three or four weeks later.
Goodness knows by what extraordinary instinct these young ones know the
way. But the young cuckoo is a marvel altogether in the manner of its
education, since, when one comes to think of it, it has no upbringing by
its own parents and cannot even learn how to cry "Cuckoo!" by example or
instruction. Its foster-parents speak another language, and its own
folk have ceased from singing by the time it is out of the nest. A good
deal has been written about the way in which the note varies, chiefly in
the direction of greater harshness and a more staccato and less
sustained note, towards the end of the cuckoo's stay. According to the
rustic rhyme, it changes its tune in June, which is probably poetic
licence rather than the fruits of actual observation. It is, however,
commonly agreed that the cuckoo is less often heard as the time of its
departure draws near, and the easiest explanation of its silence, once
the breeding season is ended, is that the note, being the love-call of a
polygamous bird, is no longer needed.
In Australia the female cuckoo is handsomely barred with white, whereas
the male is uniformly black; but with our bird it is exceedingly
difficult to distinguish one sex from the other on the wing, and, were
it not for occasional evidence of females having been shot when actually
calling, we might still believe that it is the male only that makes this
sound. The note is joyous only in the poet's fancy, just as he has also
read sadness into the "sobbing" of the nightingale. There is, indeed,
when we consider its life, something fantastic in the hypothesis that
the cuckoo can know no trouble in life, merely because it escapes the
rigours of our winter. Eternal summer must be a delight, but the cuckoo
has to work hard for the privilege, and it must at times be harried to
the verge of desperation by the small birds that continually mob it in
broad daylight. This behaviour on the part of its pertinacious little
neighbours has been the occasion of much futile speculation; but the one
certain result of such persecution is to make the cuckoo, along with its
fellow-sufferer, the owls, preferably active in the sweet peace of the
gloaming, when its puny tyrants are gone to roost. Much heated argument
has raged round the real or supposed sentiment that inspires such
demonstrations on the part of linnets, sparrows, chaffinches, and other
determined hunters of the cuckoo. It seems impossible, when we observe
the larger bird's unmistakable desire to win free of them, to attribute
friendly feelings to its pursuers. Yet some writers have held the
curious belief that, with lingering memories of the days when, a year
ago, they devoted themselves to the ugly foster-child, the little birds
still regard the stranger with affection. If so, then they have an
eccentric way of showing it, and the cuckoo, driven by the chattering
little termagants from pillar to post, may well pray to be saved from
its friends. On the other hand, even though convinced of their
hostility, it is not easy to believe, as some folks tell us, that they
mistake the cuckoo for a hawk. Even the human eye, though slower to take
note of such differences, can distinguish between the two, and the
cuckoo's note would still further undeceive them. The most satisfactory
explanation of all perhaps is that the nest memories do in truth
survive, not, however, investing the cuckoo with a halo of romance, but
rather branding it as an object of suspicion, an interloper, to be
driven out of the neighbourhood at all costs ere it has time to billet
its offspring on the hard-working residents. All of which is, needless
to say, the merest guesswork, since any attempt to interpret the
simplest actions of birds is likely to lead us into erroneous
conclusions. Yet, of the two, it certainly seems more reasonable to
regard the smaller birds as resenting the parasitic habit in the cuckoo
than to admit that they can actually welcome the murder of their own
offspring to make room in the nest for the ugly changeling foisted on
them by this fly-by-night.
On the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle, the cuckoo is chiefly
interesting as a parent. The bare fact is that our British kind builds
no nest of its own, but puts its eggs out to hatch, choosing for the
purpose the nests of numerous small birds which it knows to be suitable.
Further investigation of the habits of this not very secretive bird,
shows that she first lays her egg on the ground and then carries it in
her bill to a neighbouring nest. Whether she first chooses the nest and
then lays the egg destined to be hatched in it, or whether she lays each
egg when so moved and then hunts about for a home for it, has never been
ascertained. The former method seems the more practical of the two. On
the other hand, little nests of the right sort are so plentiful in May
that, with her mother-instinct to guide her, she could always find one
at a few moments' notice. Some people, who are never so happy as when
making the wonders of Nature seem still more wonderful than they really
are, have declared that the cuckoo lays eggs to match those among which
she deposits them, or that, at any rate, she chooses the nests of birds
whose eggs approximately resemble her own. I should have liked to
believe this, but am unfortunately debarred by the memory of about forty
cuckoo's eggs that I took, seven-and-twenty summers ago, in the woods
round Dartford Heath. The majority of these were found in hedgesparrows'
nests, and the absolute dissimilarity between the great spotted egg of
the cuckoo and the little blue egg of its so-called dupe would have
impressed even a colour-blind animal. Occasionally, I believe, a blue
cuckoo's egg has been found, but such a freak could hardly be the result
of design. As a matter of fact, there is no need for any such elaborate
deception. Up to the moment of hatching, the little foster-parents have
in all probability no suspicion of the trick that has been played on
them. Birds do not take deliberate notice of the size or colour of
their own eggs. Kearton somewhere relates how he once induced a
blackbird to sit on the eggs of a thrush, and a lapwing on those of a
redshank. So, too, farmyard hens will hatch the eggs of ducks or game
birds and wild birds can even be persuaded to sit on eggs made of
painted wood. Why then, since they are so careless of appearances,
should the cuckoo go to all manner of trouble to match the eggs of
hedgesparrow, robin or warbler? The bird would not notice the
difference, and, even if she did, she would probably sit quite as close,
if only for the sake of the other eggs of her own laying. Once the ugly
nestling is hatched, there comes swift awakening. Yet there is no
thought of reprisal or desertion. It looks rather as if the little
foster-parents are hypnotised by the uncouth guest, for they see their
own young ones elbowed out of the home and continue, with unflagging
devotion, to minister to the insatiable appetite of the greedy little
murderer. A bird so imbued as the parasitic cuckoo with the _Wanderlust_
would make a very careless parent, and we must therefore perhaps revise
our unflattering estimate of its attitude and admit that it does the
best it can by its offspring in putting them out to nurse. This habit,
unique among British birds, is practised by many others elsewhere, and
in particular by the American troupials, or cattle-starlings. One of
these indeed goes even farther, since it entrusts its eggs to the care
of a nest-building cousin. There are also American cuckoos that build
their own nest and incubate their own eggs.
On the whole, our cuckoo is a friend to the farmer, for it destroys vast
quantities of hairy caterpillars that no other bird, resident or
migratory, would touch. On the other hand, no doubt, the numbers of
other small useful birds must suffer, not alone because the cuckoo sucks
their eggs, but also because, as has been shown, the rearing of every
young cuckoo means the destruction of the legitimate occupants of the
nest. So far however as the farmer is concerned, this is probably
balanced by the reflection that a single young cuckoo is so rapacious as
to need all the insect food available.
The cuckoo, like the woodcock, is supposed to have its forerunner. Just
as the small horned owl, which reaches our shores a little in advance
of the latter, is popularly known as the "woodcock owl," so also the
wryneck, which comes to us about the same time as the first of the
cuckoos, goes by the name of "cuckoo-leader." It is never a very
conspicuous bird, and appears to be rarer nowadays than formerly.
Schoolboys know it best from its habit of hissing like a snake and
giving them a rare fright when they cautiously insert a predatory hand
in some hollow tree in search of a possible nest. It is in such
situations that, along with titmice and some other birds, the wryneck
rears its young; and it doubtless owes many an escape to this habit of
hissing, accompanied by a vigorous twisting of its neck and the
infliction of a sufficient peck, easily mistaken in a moment of panic
for the bite of an angry adder. Thus does Nature protect her weaklings.
JUNE
VOICES OF THE NIGHT
VOICES OF THE NIGHT
The majority of nocturnal animals, more particularly those bent on
spoliation, are strangely silent. True, frogs croak in the marshes, bats
shrill overhead at so high a pitch that some folks cannot hear them, and
owls hoot from their ruins in a fashion that some vote melodious and
romantic, while others associate the sound rather with midnight crime
and dislike it accordingly. The badger, on the other hand, with the
otter and fox--all of them sad thieves from our point of view--have
learnt, whatever their primeval habits, to go about their marauding in
stealthy silence; and it is only in less settled regions that one hears
the jackals barking, the hyaenas howling, and the browsing deer whistling
through the night watches.