One evening she brought into the tent a beautifully plumaged
cock-sparrow.
Now I am very fond of sparrows. They are historical birds, and birds of
Bible times, so I relieved Mysie of her poor prisoner, and let it
flutter away.
We then had some talk about sparrows, and I embody my ideas of them in
the following sketch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The British Sparrow: a study in ornithology.
The sparrow, although it undoubtedly belongs to the great natural family
_Fringillidae_, which includes among its members the weavers and whydah
birds, the linnet, the goldfinch, and bullfinch, to say nothing of the
canary itself, can hardly be said to rank with the aristocracy of the
bird world. Quite the reverse; in fact, the _Passer domesticus_ is a
bird of low life. He is by no means a humble bird, however. There is
nothing at all of the Uriah Heep about my little friend; he has quite as
good an opinion of himself as any feathered biped need to have. Yet if
it be possible for some classes of birds to look with disdain on the
behaviour and doings of others, sparrows are surely so treated by their
betters. And no wonder, for they are neither elegant in shape nor
appearance; they do not dress well either in winter or in summer; it is
not their lot to be arrayed in scarlet or in gold, but in humble brown
and russet grey. So much for the appearance of the bird.
In manners and in deportment sparrows are far beneath _bon ton_; their
knowledge of music is exceedingly limited, their appreciation of sweet
sounds conspicuous only by its absence--why, they think nothing of
interrupting even the nightingale in his song--and if any bird can be
said to talk Billingsgate, those birds are sparrows. Should any one
doubt the truth of my last statement, let him go and listen for one
minute to the wrangling linguamachy that goes on of an evening after
sunset, as they are retiring to roost in a tree.
Yet, for all this, many of the tricks and manners of these plebeian
birds are well worth watching, and often highly amusing.
It is not, however, merely to amuse the reader that I now write, but
quite as much in behalf of the bird itself. For of late years the
character of the British sparrow has been aspersed in this country, but
more particularly abroad; and I think he ought to have a fair and
impartial trial. I therefore stand forward, not, mind you, as the
champion, but the counsel both for and against the prisoner at the bar--
the said _Passer domesticus_, who, on this occasion, is not arraigned
for the murder of cock-robin, but for a far more heinous offence,
namely, that of constituting himself a common nuisance, and doing more
harm than good in the world.
For some years back I have had many--nay, but constant--opportunities
for studying the habits of sparrows and many other kinds of birds, and I
am not unobservant. I live in one of the prettiest and leafiest nooks
of tree-clad Berkshire. The village that adjoins me nestles among
trees; the gardens all about the houses are masses of shrubbery and
flowers; stone fences are utterly unknown; there are hedges everywhere.
Our trees are wide-spreading oaks and planes, drooping acacias, leafy
lindens, elm, ash, willow, poplar, and what not.
Up the lordly line of splendid poplar-trees that bound my cosy little
paddock the green ivy grows, and here sparrows dwell in hundreds. I do
not shoot my wild birds, nor do my children chase and frighten them.
Linnets build every year in the laurels close by the dog-kennel: robins
feed with the dogs, and some older sparrows know names that we have
given them, and come to be fed. No need to hang up boxes for them to
build in--we live in the bush; but in summer-time they have a bath on
the back lawn, and it is a sight to see them in the early morning.
Thrushes, blackbirds, finches, sparrows, starlings--they all agree as
well as if they had learned Watts' hymns, and laid them all to heart.
More about my birds another day--perhaps. One starling, however, I must
mention here; he comes down every sunny morning, with his wife; he sends
her in to bathe and splash; _he_ sits on the edge of the bath and
receives the drops--that is all the bath he takes. She is a dutiful
wife.
The plumage of the domestic sparrow is almost too well known to need
description. In one of the very excellent publications of Messrs.
Cassell and Co.--viz, "Familiar Wild Birds"--the following remarks
occur:--
"The difference in the appearance of the plumage of a country sparrow,
as compared with his town-bred cousin, would be hardly imagined, the
fresh bright plumage of the one displaying the prettily marked black,
white, and brown, whilst smoke and dirt hide the beauty of the town
sparrow, so that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the sex at a
glance. The male, however, has a brilliant black throat, and is
otherwise more determined in colour, the hen being especially deficient
in the bright brown of the wings and the chocolate mark over the eyes."
This is quite true. The author might have added, however, that the
black bib which the male sparrow wears is seldom perfect until June, and
the birds pair and build long before they have acquired their summer
dresses. They are in such a hurry that they do not wait for their
wedding-garments.
Now, this is just the place to mention a fact that I have proved again
and again, to my own satisfaction at all events. It is this: sparrows
are polygamous; house-sparrows are undoubtedly so, and I believe also so
are their first cousins, who build in trees. I myself was reared in the
woods and wilds of Scotland, and, like most boys, was fond of
bird-nesting. It often used to strike us lads as strange that
differently marked eggs were found in the same sparrow's nest. We did
not suspect then that these were laid by different birds. Last week a
family quarrel arose among some sparrows in the large wistaria that
covers the front of my cottage, and during the row an immense hammock of
a double nest was knocked down. When I say a double nest I mean two
nests joined in one--a kind of a "butt and a ben," only with separate
doors. One nest was empty--only clean, well-lined, and ready for use.
The other contained four eggs--two pairs. They have the distinctive
colouring and markings of ordinary sparrow's eggs, but each pair is
different, and the gentleman sparrow who owned that semi-detached
cottage has two wives; they have built another and private residence
some yards from the old site, and it is to be hoped will live happy ever
afterwards.
I have a sparrow who answers to the name of "Weekie," and who comes to
call. This sparrow has _three_ wives.
In many ways he is a remarkable bird. For several winters he has slept
on the same rose-twig close under the verandah, with his wives--at first
he had but two--not far from him. I used to watch Weekie from a top
window sending his wives to roost just at sunset and before he retired
himself. He would perch himself on the top of a tall cypress-tree and
call them, turning his head this way and that as he hailed them,
evidently not knowing from what direction they would come. But they
always _did_ come, and after some friendly remonstrance went to roost.
About ten minutes after Weekie would give himself a little grateful
shake, and hop in under the verandah to his favourite twig.
It was Weekie who first taught me that sparrows build for themselves
little shelter-nests--any person in the country who takes the trouble to
study these birds can prove to his own satisfaction that such is the
case. It is only, however, in frosty weather that the sparrows take the
trouble to erect these nests of convenience.
Some two or three years ago we had a very severe frost. During the
first day or two I observed straws lying about the verandah; then I
noticed that Weekie brought a straw with him at night, and on taking the
lamp out to look at him--Weekie meanwhile looking down with one
wondering bead of an eye--I noticed that he had his straw over his
shoulder. Well, there couldn't have been much comfort in this, but it
was a hint to his two wives, and sure enough they took it, and I saw
them building a nest of moss and straw, not larger than half a goose's
egg, _around_ and _under_ Weekie's twig--not above, because there the
verandah sheltered him. Weekie was happy now, I suppose, and warm as to
his toes. Weekie's wives are dutiful wives, but mark this: they
themselves had no shelter-nests, and all through the terrible
frost-spell they cowered by night within a foot or two of their lord and
master--but on bare twigs.
I notice now that these shelter-nests are quite common. A cock-sparrow
slept in one last winter in the great _Gloire de Dijon_ rose-tree that
covers the northern wall of my stable; but this was built above the
perching-twig--it was, in fact, a little arbour.
When they don't build shelter-nests, sparrows crouch at night under
eaves, in ivy thickets, in old nests, and in the holes of trees, which
they sometimes line.
The great work of the year--building and bringing forth their young--
among sparrows commences early in March, or much sooner, if the weather
be fine. But long before this married sparrows who have determined upon
a change of residence, and bachelor sparrows who intend to set up for
themselves when summer comes, go prospecting around, popping into holes,
examining eaves, and chimneys, and ivied trees.
The former take their wives with them, whom they seem to consult and try
their best to please, often in vain, for the female sparrow appears to
derive a genuine pleasure from house-hunting, and keeps it up as long as
possible--till probably the warm weather comes upon them all at once,
and they are fain to settle down anywhere.
In the early part of the season the nests are not built very rapidly:
about June or July they are often run up in three or even in two days.
The birds seem to have a dreamy kind of happiness in building the first
nest, and want their sweetness long drawn out. In fact, it is the
honeymoon.
Example: A half-built nest in the wistaria-tree just under a huge
cluster of sweet-scented blossom. It is noon, a bright March sun is
shining, and up in the tree it is almost as warm as summer. The
particular sparrow who owns that half-built nest has only one wife; it
is _his_ first season, and _hers_. They are both young and innocent,
not to say ignorant. The foundation of the nest is terribly untidy,
exceptionally so. The hen sits about a yard from the nest, with her
consequential morsel of a bill in the air, giving her body a little jerk
every now and then as if she had the hiccup, and saying "po-eete." The
cock is closer to the nest, busy preening his feathers in the sunshine.
Presently he hops into the nest, and has a turn or two round by way of
seeing how things are going on. This is a hint to the hen, and excites
her to a little more activity, and away she goes to look for a mouthful
of building material. She stops on the garden-path to pick up a tiny
beetle or two, then hops on to the vegetable beds, shakes up a few
bunches of dry couch-grass roots, but finally abandons them for a
terribly long and terribly strong wheaten straw. Back to the
wistaria-tree she flies with this, half frightened at her own temerity
in carrying anything so large. She sticks it up at the side of the
nest--it hangs a long way down the tree--and retires to look at it. The
cock looks at it too. They both study it.
"It is very hard, isn't it, my dear?" says the cock at last.
"It is a very fine piece of straw though," replies the hen, slightly
piqued.
"Yes," says the cock, "_as_ a straw it is certainly a very grand
specimen. I admit that. The puzzle is how to work it in."
So they both sit down with their wise wee heads together, and look at
that strong straw, and think and wonder in what possible way or shape it
can be made use of. They sit there for quite two hours giving vent only
to an occasional suggestive "cheep," and a jerk of their little bodies
as if they both had the hiccup. But at last they suddenly awaken to a
sense of their folly. Two whole hours of sunshine lost, and all for a
straw! That straw is at once cast loose, and both fly off and soon
return with something far more useful, if less ornamental. And so the
work goes on.
My sparrows build the main portion of their nests principally with hay,
straw, and withered weed roots, but this is mixed and mingled with a
variety of other material, rags, pieces of old rope or twine; but paper
above all things, especially, it appears to me, tracts and bills
relating to cheap sales, because the paper on which these are printed is
soft. A long string of white or coloured cloth may often be seen
fluttering pennant-fashion from a sparrow's nest. Some believe this is
so placed in order to frighten cats and hawks. More likely it is mere
slovenliness. Well, a sparrow's nest outside does look a most untidy
wisp. But there is an art in its very untidiness, and the thickness of
the nest renders it cool in summer and warm for a shelter-nest during
winter. The amount of feathers crammed into a single nest, particularly
that of a tree-sparrow, is often quite astounding.
An old nest is sometimes made to do duty over and over again during the
season, but it is always overhauled and re-lined.
Sparrows are not invariably wise in the selection of their building
sites. Instance: Two sparrows built this summer in the rose-covered
spout of my verandah. A terrible storm of rain came, and the young were
drowned in the torrent of water that came from the roof. But I daresay
these silly birds think such a thing will not occur again--in their
time. At all events, they have thrown the dead birds out to the cat,
renovated and re-lined the nest, and there are eggs in it now. I was
staying last summer for a week or two with a friend not far from here.
There were plenty of martens about, and three nests under the eaves
right over my bedroom window. For several mornings I had noticed grains
of wheat on my window-ledge, and on looking up towards the nest I
noticed feathers protruding. Now, had I been Samuel Pickwick, I should
have at once taken out my note-book and made the following entry:--"N.B.
The house-martens in Hampshire line their nests with feathers and feed
their young on wheat and barley."
I laughingly told honest Joseph G--, my friend's gardener, of my
discovery in natural history. He was too old a sparrow to be caught
with chaff, however.
"It's the sparrows, beggar 'em," he said, shutting his fist; "they're at
their games agin. I'll shoot 'em, I will. They waits till the swallers
builds their nests, then they goes and turns 'em out and finishes up wi'
feathers."
"Don't shoot them," I said, "they have young."
"Indeed, sir, but I will," cried Joseph G--. "What right has they to
turn the swallers out, eh? Fair play, I says, fair play and no favour."
Some years ago I read that the sparrows in Australia had constituted
themselves a kind of plague, and in rather a strange way they stole
_all_ the hay to build their nests, and every plan, such as smoking
them, and turning the garden hose on the nests, etc, had been tried in
vain. We must not believe all colonists tell us. They are noted
perverters of the truth. Why didn't they retaliate and turn the
sparrows into pies--a sparrow pie, they say, is a dainty dish. I do not
care to eat my sparrows. I believe that killing sparrows is like
killing house-flies--others come to fill up the death vacancies.
Now there are some things about sparrows that I confess I cannot quite
understand. Knowing that they are often bigamists, sometimes
polygamists, I am never surprised to see two or three hens helping a
cock to build the family nest; but when I notice, as I have frequently
done, a sparrow who has only one wife being assisted in the construction
of his domicile by another gentleman sparrow, what am I to think? Who,
I want to know, is the other fellow who drops round of a forenoon in a
friendly kind of way with a weed in his mouth, and even gets inside and
"chins" the nest. Is he a brother-in-law, or a father-in-law, or the
son by a former marriage, or what? I give it up, but there is the fact,
and "Facts are chiels that winna ding."
It may not be generally known that there are bachelor sparrows, who
remain bachelors all the summer from choice, and old-maid sparrows who
are obliged to be so, and who sometimes build nests and sit by them
looking disconsolate enough, sighing and singing "po-eete" for the poet
who never comes.
Here is an anecdote with a little mystery about it that the reader may
possibly be able to unravel, for I can't. It is a little tragedy in one
act, and must have been a very painful one to the principals. My
splendid Newfoundland, Hurricane Bob, came down to my garden wigwam one
forenoon last spring. He was whining and apparently in great distress
of mind.
"Come on up here with me, master," he said, "there are some strange
goings on at the front lawn."
I followed him, and could soon hear the pitiful cries of a sparrow, up
near a spout that comes out from under the wooden eave of the tallest
gable of the cottage. The dog pointed up there, continuing to whine as
he did so, and evidently in grief because he couldn't fly.
It was not long before I mastered the whole facts of the case. They
were as follows:--Close by the funnel-shaped mouth of the descending
spout, and supported by some branches of the wistaria, a pair of
sparrows had built in the previous spring and raised several broods. It
was February now, and they had come round prospecting--impressed
doubtless by old associations--to see if the same nest could not be
refitted, and thus do duty again. Full of excitement, the cock bird had
hopped down between the woodwork of the eave and the spout, and seeing a
crack about half an inch wide beneath, had attempted to come out there.
He got his head through and one wing, but there he had stuck.
It was quite affecting to witness the agony and perturbation displayed
by the hen bird--the poor imprisoned cock did nothing but struggle and
flutter--her cries were pitiful, and every now and then she would seize
her spouse by head or by wing and try to pull him through.
Meanwhile, on a twig of wistaria not a yard away sat another
cock-sparrow, an interested but inactive spectator. He simply looked
on, and never volunteered either assistance or a suggestion.
As soon as I could procure a ladder long enough to get up, I went to the
rescue, but the poor bird's head had drooped--he was dead; and so firmly
fixed in the crack that I could neither drag him through nor push him
back. The hen sparrow and the strange cock sat looking at me some
little way off, but the former after this made no further attempt to
relieve the cock bird. He was no more, and she must have known it. But
who the mystery was the strange cock--the impassive spectator? Was he
father, brother, or, dear me! was he a former lover--a rival? Did he
sit there mocking the dying agony of the other bird? Did he address him
thus:--"You're booked, old man. You may kick and flutter as much as you
please. I tell you you are as good as dead already. When you are gone
I'll hop into your place. This nest will suit us nicely. _Us_, I say,
d'ye hear? It will suit _us_, and we will soon forget you. Good-by,
old man, keep up your pecker."
I would have torn down the old nest, but I really was curious to know if
the dead sparrow's widow would wed again, and take up house there.
Surely she would never bear to pop out and in at the doorway of that
nest, with the skeleton of her late lamented husband hanging out through
the crack. I left the nest for a month or two, then tore it down, but
no birds have ever built there since.
There are more hen than cock-sparrows, and this may account for the
prevalence of polygamism in the community. As to old-maid sparrows, I
have assuredly often known nests built by hens alone, but am willing to
admit that these hens may be relicts, some accident may have happened to
the husband. However, it is a fact that there are plenty of bachelor
sparrows, who live a free and easy life all the summer, and never dream
of becoming Benedicts; you see them in the gardens, and you meet them
out in the fields, and they are always in company with other male
sparrows of their own way of thinking.
Now every one who lives in the country is perfectly familiar with those
little disturbances that often arise all of a sudden among sparrows,
when about half a dozen go flying into a bush together, squabbling,
bickering, and fighting with fearful ferocity. Some books gravely tell
us that these squabbles are in reality courts-martial being held on some
erring brother or sister of this genus _Passer_. I never took this for
granted, and for three or four summers I have used my best endeavours to
get at the true explanation of the matter, and I am satisfied they are
caused by differences of opinion between Benedict and bachelor sparrows,
resulting in a match "'twixt married and single," a free fight, in which
the females take part.
Female sparrows often fight most viciously together from bush to bush,
but preferably on the ground. I have often seen a stand-up battle
between the two wives of a bigamist sparrow. He himself would simply
stand about a yard off, and look on.
"It's no good interfering," the cock appears to think; "it is a sad
state of affairs to be sure, but what can a fellow do? I must try to
manage matters differently another year."
Sparrows may keep the same mates from year to year, and so they may
arrange for pairing as early as November or December the year before,
flying about with their coming queens, and roosting near them at night.
But considering the number of these birds that are killed every year--by
our bold sparrow-club men for example, by misguided gardeners, and by
bucolic louts who net them in the ivy after nightfall for the purpose of
supplying matches with the needed birds--considering the quantities of
them that cats and hawks kill, and the numbers that die from frost and
starvation, to say nothing of the young birds of last season, the mating
time is a very busy one indeed. The cocks are then as full of fight as
an Irishman on a fair day, and the hens--well they simply sit and look
on.
"None but the brave deserve the fair," they seem to say to themselves,
"and it is certainly very gratifying to one's self-esteem and respect to
know that all these sanguinary battles now raging round the rose-trees
and in under the laurel-bushes are about us."
Here are a few notes I took some months ago:--A bright spring morning in
March. Sunshine on the red brick walls of our cottage, sunshine on the
wistaria. Wistaria not in blossom yet.--N.B. Blossom comes before
leaves, though it is now covered with long soft downy buds, tipped with
a suspicion of mauve. The forenoon is quite warm, delightful to be out
of doors. Yet at seven o'clock there was hoar-frost on the ground, and
thin ice on the dogs' water. The sparrows are unusually lively, and
bickering constantly--especially the cocks. Yonder a fight has
commenced, just under the eave; it rages there a few moments, then down
tumble the belligerents from a height of twenty feet, holding viciously
on to each other's jaws all the while with the ferocity of bulldogs.
Now they struggle together on the lawn, lunging and pecking, and
wrestling with wings outspread and legs everywhere. There are beads of
blood about their eyes, and tiny drops on the grass. What a serious
matter it seems! Death or victory! they think and care for nothing
else. I believe I could steal up and put my hat over the pair of them.
"England's difficulty," says my Persian cat, creeping up, "is Ireland's
opportunity." No you won't, puss. Go away at once, or I'll call for
Collie to you.
But see, one sparrow has triumphed. _Vae Victis_! He chases the
conquered and breathless bird from bush to bush, till his own lungs give
out, and he returns open-mouthed but glorious, and flies up to the tree
where sits the cosy wee hen that all the row has been about. He is
going to say something or make a proposal of some kind, when back flies
the conquered cock, and the battle is renewed with double vigour. This
is a longer fight than last, but victory once more declares itself on
the side of the former champion, and back he flies again to the trysting
twig--to find what? Why, another fellow who has been actually taking a
mean advantage of his absence in the battle-field, and pruning his
feathers in front of _his_ hen. There is another fight there and then,
and perhaps there may be many more to come. But in the end all things
will be well, and the fittest survive.
Round the corner are a pair of birds already matched and mated; they are
at peace with all the world, and can afford to sit quietly on their
twigs and witness the fighting and the fun.
The cocks this lovely morning seem striving to do all they can to make
themselves conspicuous. The hens, on the other hand, sit quietly on
their twigs, their morsels of tails at an angle of about 45 degrees,
their little beaks in the air, and their feathers all balled out to
catch the sunshine.
To one of these independent little mites a black bib sidles up. He
addresses her in wretchedly bad grammar, but what can you expect of a
sparrow?
"It's you and me this season, ain't it?" he says.