“Perhaps, if we take a short view of our common birds, beginning with
the missel thrush, the largest British songster and coming down to the
golden-crested wren, it may repay our trouble. Within these limits we
shall find about seventy birds, varying in size, form, habits,
structure, and notes: most of which are seen, at one or other time of
the year, in the fields and woods which surround our dwellings, and many
of them are constantly with us. They may be divided into hard-billed
birds, feeding on grain, seeds, and fruits; and soft-billed birds, on
insects and worms. Some feed on both; and many grain-eaters devour
insects, though few of the soft-billed eat seeds. These are again
divided into families, from some peculiarity in their formation (chiefly
the beak): as the finches, buntings, warblers, &c.
“In considering the birds to which we have confined our view, we find
they divide themselves into three sets--winter visiters, summer
visiters, and sojourners.
“The smaller winter visiters, about five in number, come to our
hospitable shores in autumn, and leave us in the spring. They all come
from colder climates; and as the frost locks up their sources of
subsistence in the north, (where, in summer, they have built their nests
and reared their young,) led by that wonderful instinct which their
Maker has implanted, they direct their airy flight across the mountain
and the flood.
“The summer visiters, on the other hand, coming to us in the spring, and
leaving us in the autumn, all come from the south; and depart again to
the regions of the sun as winter approaches.
“The winter visiters are all (except the grey wag-tail), hard-billed
birds, fitted to feed on seeds, berries, and fruits found during our
winters. They are chiefly gregarious, and seem by their numbers to band
themselves together against the piercing season!”
The Fieldfare, the Redwing, the Starling, are the commonest of these
winter visitors.
“Let us turn to our summer visiters. They come to us in the spring, as
the weather becomes warmer, the earth clothed with vegetation, and the
air and surface of the ground begin to teem with insect life; when the
chrysalis bursts its case, the worm, and slug, and caterpillar, ‘and
every creeping thing after his kind,’ come forth; then appear, led by an
unseen hand, myriads of soft-billed warblers from distant lands, formed
to thin the insect race, and whose services warmly deserve our gratitude
and protection.
“From March till May ten thousand busy pinions ply the air, by day and
night, and bring those melodious visiters from all the southern
countries, where the parching heat at this season renders their food
difficult to procure. As they arrive, they disperse throughout the
country,--
‘They to their grassy couch, these to their nests.’
Each grove and shrubbery, each ‘bosky dell from side to side,’ each
heath and upland common, each hedge and garden and petty rural
homestead, receives some of these wandering minstrels. It is probable
they return year after year, if undisturbed, to the same haunts; and
perhaps revisit with as much pleasure as ourselves the well-known scenes
of their youth--
‘When Nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart pictured what the fancy drew.’
“We may smile at the idea of fancy or feeling in a bird; yet those who
have closely watched those beautiful beings will readily believe as much
difference in their dispositions as Cowper found in the temper of his
hares. The ‘mellow lark who at Heaven’s gate sings’ must be endowed with
instincts--superior to those of the ‘poor beetle that we tread upon.’
Memory birds possess in a considerable degree. Swallows will choose out
the same nook for their nest year after year. That elegant little bird,
the common fly-catcher, is attached to the same spot. A pair built for
three summers successively in the same place, close to the writer’s
study window; and their chase for gnats and other insects was under his
view, as he sat reading: and for a considerable period the parent birds,
‘from early dawn till latest eve,’ might be observed catching
assiduously our English muskitoes.”
Among the most interesting of these summer visitors are the nightingale,
the whitethroat, the redstart, the fly-catcher, the swallow, and the
cuckoo.
The third division, viz., sojourners or resident birds, are then
considered. Of these only five belong to the soft-billed birds, namely,
the robin and the wren, the hedge-sparrow, and the black and white water
wagtail. In the classes of hard-billed birds always with us, are the
nuthatch, the blackbird, the thrush, the greenfinch, the bullfinch, the
goldfinch, the chaffinch, the sparrow, the lark, and others too numerous
to mention here, but which will be found classified, and very ably
described in Mr. Slaney’s volume.
“About twenty song birds of passage come to us, and rear their young in
our island. Of these some are local species, and some but partially and
thinly scattered. These guests of summer remain to enjoy our finest
weather, when the warmth of the climate, and the richness of vegetation,
and the harmony of nature, invite us abroad. We think that our fair
readers might double the pleasure of their walks if they knew each note
of their tiny visitant, and distinguished the form and plumage of every
feathered songster.--p. 12.
“The nightingale is celebrated in all countries: its sober plumage of
tawny brown would never attract our attention, though its light and
elegant form might excite admiration. This delightful songster is not
found north of Shrewsbury in the west, or Doncaster in the east; and is
seldom seen in Devonshire or Cornwall. ‘It has been observed that it is
not seen but where cowslips grow plentifully,’ indicating a damp, cool
soil, and probably yielding those insects it delights in. All writers
praise the song of this bird. We will only quote the eloquent
expressions of a naturalist (Wilson) called forth by a songster of the
new world:--
“‘When every object around conveys the sensation of joy, and heaven’s
abundance is, as it were, showering around us the grateful heart beats
in unison with the varying elevated strains of this bird. We listen to
its notes in a kind of ecstasy as a hymn to the great and most adorable
Creator of all. Abject must that heart be, and callous those feelings,
and depraved that taste, which neither the charms of nature, nor the
melody of innocence, nor the voice of gratitude or devotion, can
reach.’”--p 16.
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