wigeon and gaggles of geese with an ice-bound landscape, though in
exceptional years, even where they no longer stay to breed, these
night-flying northerners linger to the coming of spring, and Hawker
noticed the curious apparition of grey geese and swallows in company on
the first day of April, 1839. This wedge formation of flight over land
and sea is not only peculiar to these waterfowl, but is not apparently
adopted by any other long distance migrants. No satisfactory explanation
of their preference for flying in this order has been found, but it is
thought to lessen the air resistance, which must be a consideration for
these short-pinioned fowl that weigh heavy in proportion to their
displacement and at the same time lack the tremendous spread of wing
that enables the wandering albatross to soar for days together over the
illimitable ocean. With one noticeable exception, these waterfowl
exhibit a more extraordinary range of size and weight than any other
family of birds, from the whooper swan, five feet long and twenty-five
pounds on the scales, down to the little teal, with an overall
measurement of only fourteen inches and a weight that does not exceed as
many ounces. The only other family of birds running to such extremes is
that of the birds of prey, which include at once the stately condor of
the Andes with its wing-spread of fifteen feet, and the miniature
red-legged falconet of India and adjoining countries, in which the same
measurement would scarcely reach as many inches.
Since even game birds are derisively referred to as "tame" only by those
ignorant of the facts, the birds now under notice differ in this respect
from all those previously dealt with; and they are geographically apart,
again, from our other domesticated animals, since they are not, like the
barndoor fowl and most of the rest, of Asiatic origin, but must often,
in the grey of a winter morning, be conscious of their near relations
flying at liberty across the sky. The geese and ducks have been
remarkably transformed by the process of domestication, and a comparison
between those of the farmyard and their kindred in the marshes should
illustrate not only the relative value of most virtues, but also the
all-importance of Aristotle's how, when and where. Strictly speaking, no
doubt, the tame birds have degenerated, both mentally and physically, as
surely as the tame ass. They have lost the acute perceptions and swift
flight of their wild relations. Economically, on the other hand, they
are immeasurably improved, since the farmer, indifferent to the more
inspiring personality of the grey goose and the mallard, merely wants
his poultry to be greedy and stupid, fattening themselves incessantly
for Leadenhall and easily captured when required.
Between swans, geese and ducks there is little anatomical difference,
save in the matter of size. The swans are the giants of the race, and
the swans of three continents are white. It was left for Australia, land
of topsy-turveydom, to produce a black swan (I spare the reader the
obvious classical tag), and this remarkable bird, first observed by
Europeans in the early days of 1697, was quickly brought to Europe and
figures in the earliest list of animals shown in the London Zoological
Gardens. All these birds have a curious trick of hissing when angry, and
this habit, perhaps because it is usually accompanied by a deliberate
stretching of the neck to its full length, is seriously regarded by some
as conscious mimicry of snakes, a proposition that must be left to
individual taste, but that strikes me as somewhat far-fetched. At any
rate, it gives to these birds a formidable air, and, though the current
belief in its power of breaking a man's arm with a blow from its wing is
probably unwarranted, an angry swan, disturbed on its nest, is an
awesome apparition of which I have twice taken hurried leave. On the
first occasion, I had nothing but a valuable camera with me, and it was,
in fact, after a futile attempt to photograph the bird on the nest that
I was moved to seek the boat and push off from the little island in the
Upper Thames on which it had its home. The other encounter was on a
Devonshire trout stream, and my only weapon was a fragile trout rod. The
certainty that discretion is, under these circumstances, the better part
of valour is emphasised by the knowledge that any violence to the bird
would probably lead to a prosecution. Even the smaller geese can inspire
fear when they dash hissing at intruders; hence, no doubt, the
nursemaid's favourite reproach of children too frightened to "say bo to
a goose," an expression made classical by Swift.
The majority of these waterfowl are insectivorous in the nursery stage
and vegetarian when full grown. Fish forms an inappreciable portion of
their food, with the two notorious exceptions of the goosander and
merganser, though anglers are much exercised over the damage, real or
alleged, done by these birds to their favourite roach and dace in the
Thames. These swans belong for the most part to either the Crown or the
Dyers' and Vintners' Companies, and the practice of "uppings," which
consists in marking the beaks of adult birds and pinioning the cygnets,
is still, though shorn of some of its former ceremonial, observed some
time during the month of June.
Swans, like both of the other groups, are distinguished by a separate
name for either sex: pen and cob for the swan, gander and goose, drake
and duck, and the figurative use of some of these terms in such popular
sayings as "making ducks and drakes of money," "sauce for the goose,"
etc., is too familiar to call for more than passing mention.
Nearly all these waterfowl, though seen on dry land to much the same
disadvantage as fish out of water, are exceedingly graceful in either
air or water, though not all ducks are as capable of diving as the name
would imply. The proverbial futility of a wild goose chase recognises
the pace of these birds on the wing, which, though, in common with that
of some other birds, popularly exaggerated, is considerably faster than,
owing to their short wings and heavy build, might appear to the careless
observer.
Ducks have a curious habit of adding down to the nest after the eggs are
laid and before incubation, and this provision of warm packing is turned
to account in Iceland and other breeding places of the eider duck,
commercially the most valuable of all ducks. The nest is robbed of this
down once before the eggs hatch out, with the result that the female
plucks another store from her own breast, supplemented if necessary from
the body of the drake. The sitting bird is then left in peace till the
nest has fulfilled its purpose, when the remaining down is likewise
removed. This down, which combines warmth and lightness, gives a high
market value to the eider, which, throughout Scandinavian countries is
strictly protected by law and even more effectually by public opinion.
The majority of ornamental ducks interbreed freely in captivity. Those
who, apparently on reliable evidence, distinguish between the polygamous
habit in tame ducks and the constancy of the mallard and other wild
kinds to a single mate have hastily assumed that such hybrids are
unknown in the natural state. This, however, is incorrect, as there have
been authentic cases of crosses between mallard and teal, pochard and
scaup and other species, such hybrids having at different times been
erroneously accepted as distinct species and named accordingly.
The wild duck's nest is usually placed on the ground in some sheltered
spot close to still or running water, and the ducklings swim like corks,
soon learning the proper use of their flat little bills in gobbling up
floating insects and other waterlogged food. Occasionally ducks nest in
trees and they have been known to take possession of a deserted rook's
nest. There has been some discussion as to whether, in this case, the
mother conveys her ducklings to the water in her bill, but this has not
actually been witnessed. In cases where, as is often observed, the nest
overhangs the water, it has been suggested that the young birds may
simply be pushed over the edge and allowed to parachute down to the
surface, as they might easily do without risk.
Tame ducks are among the most sociable of birds and can even display
bravery when threatened by a common enemy. The naturalist Houssay once
learnt this as the result of a somewhat cruel experiment that he made in
order to ascertain whether ducks invariably, as alleged, fall upon a
wounded comrade and destroy it. Wishing to satisfy himself on the point,
Houssay, having come upon some ducks in a small pond, deliberately
pelted them with stones till he had wounded one of their number.
Instead, however, of behaving as he had been led to expect, the rest of
the ducks formed close order round the wounded bird and sheltered it
from further harm.
Few domestic animals--none, possibly, with the single exception of the
camel--are less suggestive of "pets" than such gross poultry, yet even a
gander, the most vicious tempered of them all, has been known to show
lasting gratitude for an act of kindness. The bird, which had long been
the terror of children in the little Devonshire village near which it
lived, managed one day to get wedged in a drain, and there it would
eventually have died unseen if a passing labourer had not seen its
plight and set it at liberty. Down to the day of its death the bird,
though nowise relinquishing its spiteful attitude towards others,
followed its rustic benefactor about the place like a dog.
DECEMBER
THE ROBIN REDBREAST
THE ROBIN REDBREAST
Of all the old proverbs that are open to argument, few offer more
material for criticism than that which has it that a good name is more
easily lost than won; and if ever a living creature served to illustrate
the converse to the proverbial dog with a bad name, that creature is the
companionable little bird that we peculiarly associate with Christmas.
Traditionally, the robin is a gentle little fellow of pious associations
and with a tender fancy for covering the unburied dead with leaves; but
in real life he is a little fire-eater, always ready to pick a quarrel
with his less pugnacious neighbours. Yet so persistently does his good
name cling, that, while ever ready to condemn the aggressive sparrow for
the same fault, all of us have a good word for the robin, and in few of
our wild birds are character and reputation so divergent.
Surely, however, the most interesting aspect of this familiar bird is
its tameness, not to say attachment to ourselves, and so marked is its
complete absence of fear that it is a wild bird in name only, and
indeed few cage birds are ever so bold as to perch on the gardener's
spade on the look-out for the worms as he turns them up from the damp
soil. The robin might, in fact, furnish the text of a lay-sermon on the
fruits of kindness to animals, and those dialectical people who ask
whether we are kind to the robin because it trusts us, or whether, on
the other hand, it trusts us because we are kind to it, ask a foolish
question that raises a wholly unnecessary confusion between cause and
effect. It is a question that those, at any rate, who have seen the bird
in countries where it is treated differently will have no difficulty
whatever in answering. Broadly speaking, the redbreast has the best time
of it in northern lands. This tolerance has not, as has been suggested,
any connection with Protestantism, for such a distinction would exclude
the greater part of Ireland, where, as it happens, the bird is as safe
from persecution as in Britain, since the superstitious peasants firmly
believe that anyone killing a "spiddog" will be punished by a lump
growing on the palm of his hand. The untoward fate of the robin in Latin
countries bordering the Mediterranean has nothing to do with religion,
but is merely the result of a pernicious habit of killing all manner of
small birds for the table. The sight of rows of dead robins laid out on
poulterers' stalls in the markets of Italy and southern France inspires
such righteous indignation in British tourists as to make them forget
for the moment that larks are exposed in the same way in Bond Street and
at Leadenhall. In Italy and Provence, taught by sad experience the robin
is as shy as any other small bird. It has learnt its lesson like the
robins in the north, but the lesson is different. The most friendly
robin I ever remember meeting with, out of England was in a garden
attached to a cafe in Trebizond, where, hopping round my chair and
picking up crumbs, it made me feel curiously at home. Similar treatment
of other wild birds would in time produce the same result, and even the
suspicious starling and stand-off rook might be taught to forget their
fear of us. The robin, feeding less on fruit and grain than on worms and
insects, has not made an enemy of the farmer or gardener. The common,
too common, sparrow, is another fearless neighbour, but its freedom
from persecution, of late somewhat threatened by Sparrow Clubs, is due
less to affection than to the futility of making any impression on such
hordes as infest our streets.
No act of the robin's more forcibly illustrates its trust in man than
the manner in which, at a season when all animals are abnormally shy and
suspicious, it makes its nest not only near our dwellings, but actually
in many cases under the same roof as ourselves. Letterboxes, flowerpots,
old boots, and bookshelves have all done duty, and I even remember a
pair of robins, many years ago in Kent, bringing up two broods in an old
rat trap which, fortunately too rusty to act, was still set and baited
with a withered piece of bacon. Pages might be filled with the mere
enumeration of curious and eccentric nesting sites chosen by this
fearless bird, but a single proof of its indifference to the presence of
man during the time of incubation may be cited from the MS. notebooks of
the second Earl of Malmesbury, which I have read in the library at Heron
Court. It seems that, while the east wing of that pleasant mansion was
being built, a pair of robins, having successfully brought up one family
in one of the unfinished rooms, actually reared a second brood in a hole
made for a scaffold-pole, though the sitting bird, being immediately
beneath a plank on which the plasterers stood at work, was repeatedly
splashed with mortar! The egg of the robin is subject to considerable
variety of type. I think it was the late Lord Lilford who, speaking on
the subject of a Bill for the protection of wild birds' eggs, then
before the House of Lords, gave it as his belief that no ornithologist
of repute would swear to the name of a single British bird's egg without
positively seeing one or other of the parent birds fly off the nest.
This was, perhaps, a little overstating the difficulty of evidence,
since any schoolboy with a fancy for birds-nesting might without
hesitation identify such pronounced types as those of the chaffinch,
with its purple blotches, the song-thrush with its black spots on a blue
ground, or the nightingale, which resembles a miniature olive. Eggs, on
the other hand, like those of the house sparrow, redshank and some of
the smaller warblers, are so easily confused with those of allied
species that Lord Lilford's caution is by no means superfluous.
Ordinarily speaking, the robin's egg is white, with red spots at one
end, but I remember taking at Bexley, nearly thirty years ago, an
immaculate one of coffee colour. As the robin is a favourite
foster-parent with cuckoos, my first thought was that this might be an
unusually small egg of the parasitic bird, which was very plentiful
thereabouts. It so happened, however, that three days after I had
abstracted the first and only egg I took from that nest, there was a
second of the same type; and, much as I would have liked this also for
my collection, I left it in the nest so as to set all doubts at rest. My
moderation was rewarded, for no one else found the nest, and in due
course the coffee-coloured egg produced a robin like the rest.
The robin is anything but a gregarious bird. Its fighting temper
doubtless leads it to keep its own company, and we rarely see more than
one singing on the same bush, or seeking for food on the same lawn. Yet,
though it is with us all the year, it is known to perform migrations
within these islands, and possibly also overseas, chiefly connected with
commissariat difficulties, and it is probable that on such occasions
many robins may travel in company, though I have not been so fortunate
as to come across them in their pilgrimage. Equally interesting,
however, is the habit which the bird has in Devonshire of occasionally
going down to the rocks on the seashore, as I have often noticed in the
neighbourhood of Teignmouth and Torquay. What manner of food the
redbreast may find in such surroundings is a mystery, but there it
certainly spends some of its time, bobbing at the edge of the rock pools
in much the same fashion as the dipper on inland waters.
Young robins are turned adrift at an early age to look after themselves,
a result of the parent bird always rearing two families in the year, and
in many cases even three, so that they have not too much time to devote
to the upbringing of each. Another consequence of this prolific habit is
that the robin has to make its nest earlier than most of our wild birds,
and its nest has, in fact, been found near Torquay during the first week
of January.
It has long been the pardonable fancy of Englishmen exiled to new homes
under the palms or pines, in the scorching tropical sun or in the biting
northern blast, to misname all manner of conspicuous birds after
well-remembered kinds left at home in the woods and fields of the old
country. As might be expected of a bird so characteristic of English
scenes, and so closely associated with the festival that always brings
nostalgia to the emigrant, the robin has its share of these namesakes,
and several of them bear little likeness to the original. In New South
Wales, I remember being shown a "robin" which, though perhaps a little
smaller, was not unlike our own bird, but the "robin" that was pointed
out to me in the States, from Maine to Carolina, was as big as a thrush.
Yet it had the red breast, by which, particularly conspicuous against a
background of snow, this popular little bird is always recognisable, the
male as well as the female. Indeed, to all outward appearance the sexes
are absolutely alike, a striking contrast to the cock and hen pheasant,
the first bird dealt with in these notes, as this is the last.
End of Project Gutenberg's Birds in the Calendar, by Frederick G. Aflalo