'water-hen,' but I can't find its derivation; and in the second place,
these little birds are neither water-hens nor moor-hens, nor
water-cocks nor moor-cocks; neither can I find, either in Gould,
Yarrell, or Bewick, the slightest notice of their voices!--though it is
only in implied depreciation of their quality, that we have any
business to call them 'Crakes,' 'Croaks,' or 'Creaks.' In the third
place, 'Olivaceous' is not a translation of 'Minuta,' nor 'Baillon's'
of 'Pygmæa,' nor 'spotted' of 'Maruetta'; which last is another of the
words that mean nothing in any language that I know of, though the
French have adopted it as 'Marouette.' And in the fourth place, I can't
make out any difference, either in text or picture, between Mr.
Baillon's Crake, and the 'minute' one, except that the minute one is
the bigger, and has fewer white marks in the center of the back.
95. For our purposes, therefore, I mean to call all the three
varieties neither Crake nor Porzan, but 'Allegretta,' which will at
once remind us of their motion; the larger one, nine inches long, I
find called always Spotted Crake, so that shall be 'Allegretta
Maculata,' Spotty Allegret; and the two little ones shall be, one, the
Tiny Allegret, and the other the Starry Allegret (Allegretta Minuta,
and Allegretta Stellaris); all the three varieties being generally
thought of by the plain English name I have given at the head of this
section, 'Lily-Ouzel' (see, in § 7, page 5, the explanation of my
system of dual epithet, and its limitations. I note, briefly, what may
be properly considered distinctive in the three kinds.)
II.A.
ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA, MACULATA. SPOTTED ALLEGRET.
96. Water-Crake or 'Skitty' of Bewick,--French, 'Poule d'eau
Marouette,' (we may perhaps take Marouette as euphonious for Maculata,
but I wish I knew what it meant);--though so light of foot, flies
heavily; and, when compelled to take wing, merely passes over the tops
of the reeds to some place of security a short distance off. (Gould.)
The body is "in all these Rails _compressed_" (Yarrell,--he means
laterally thin), which enables them to make their way through dense
herbage with facility. I can't find anything clear about its country,
except that it 'occasionally visits' Sweden in summer, and Smyrna in
winter, and that it has been found in Corfu, Sicily, Crete,--Whittlesea
Mere,--and Yarley Fen;--in marshes always, wherever it is; (nothing
said of its behavior on ice,) and not generally found farther north
than Cumberland. Its food is rather nasty--water-slugs and the
like,--but it is itself as fat as an ortolan, "almost melts in the
_hand_." (Gould.) Its own color, brown spotted with white; "the spots
on the wing coverts surrounded with black, which gives them a studded
or pearly appearance." (Bewick,--he means by 'pearly,' rounded or
projecting.) Hence my specific epithet. Its young are of the liveliest
black, "little balls of black glistening down," beautifully put by Mr.
Gould among the white water Crowfoot (Ranunculus Aquatilis), looking
like little ducklings in mourning. "Its nest is made of rushes and
other buoyant materials matted together, so as to float on, and rise or
fall with, the ebbing or flowing of the water like a boat; and to
prevent its being carried away, it is moored or fastened to a reed."
(Bewick.)
II.B.
ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA, STELLARIS. STARRY ALLEGRET.
97. Called 'Stellaris' by Temminck.--I do not find why, but it is by
much the brightest in color of the three, and may be thought of as the
star of them. Gould says it is the least, also, and calls it the
'Pigmy'; but we can't keep that name without confusing it with the
'Minuta.' 'Baillon's Crake' seems the most commonly accepted title,--as
the worst possible. Both this, and the more quietly toned Tiny, in Mr.
Gould's delightful plates of them, have softly brown backs, exquisitely
ermined by black markings at the root of each feather, following into
series of small waves, like little breakers on sand. They have lovely
gray chemisettes, striped gray bodices, and green bills and feet; a
little orange stain at the root of the green bill, and the bright red
iris of the eye have wonderful effect in warming the color of the whole
bird: and with beautiful fancy Mr. Gould has put the Stellaris among
yellow water-lilies to set off its gray; and a yellow butterfly with
blue and red spots, and black-speckled wings (Papilio Machaon), to
harmonize both. It is just as if the flower were gradually turning into
the bird. Examples of the Starry Allegret _have_ been 'obtained'--in
the British Islands. It is said to be numerous, unobtained, in India,
China, Japan, Persia, Greece, North Africa, Italy, and France. I have
never heard of anybody's seeing it, however.
II.C.
ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA, MINUTA. TINY ALLEGRET.
98. 'Tiny Allegret,'--Yarrell's 'Little Crake,' (but see names in
Appendix). It is a little more rosy than 'Stellaris' in the gray of its
neck, passing into brown; and Mr. Gould has put it with a pink water
plant, which harmonizes with it to the bird's advantage; while the tiny
creature stands on the bent leaf of a reed, and scarcely bends it more!
"It runs with rapidity over broken reeds, and moves gracefully, raising
and displaying its tail at every step." It has so very small a tail to
display, however, that I should hardly think the display was worth
while. "It is very cunning, and especially noticeable for the subtlety
with which it wearies the dog of the sportsman by executing a thousand
evolutions with surprising celerity; whence comes the trivial name of
'kill-dog' bestowed upon it in some localities. Pursued to extremity,
it casts itself into the water, swims with ease, and dives at the
moment its enemy is about to seize it; or it conceals itself in a tuft
of reeds or a bush, and by this means often escapes with impunity. It
loves to breed among the reeds, and in long and thick grass, frequently
in small companies of its own species, or of the Stellaris. The female
lays her eggs on an inartificially constructed platform of decayed
leaves or stalks of marsh plants, slightly elevated above the water."
How elevated, I cannot find proper account,--that is to say, whether it
is hung to the stems of growing reeds, or built on hillocks of soil,
but the bird is always liable to have its nest overflowed by floods.
The full-grown bird is dressed in an exquisite perfection of barred
bodice, spotted chemisette, and waved feathers edged with gray on the
back.
99. The reader will please recollect these three Allegrets as the
second group of the dab- or dabble-chicks; and, while the water-ouzel
is a mountain and torrent bird, these inhabit exclusively flat lands
and calm water, belonging properly to temperate, inclining to warm,
climates, and able to gladden for us--as their name now given
implies--many scenes and places otherwise little enlivened; and to make
the very gnats of them profitable to us, were we wise enough. Dainty
and delightful creatures in all their ways,--voice only dubitable, but
I hope not a shriek or a squeak;--and there seems to be no reason
whatever why half our fen lands should not be turned into beds of white
water lilies and golden ducks, with jetty ducklings, to the great
comfort of English souls.[22]
[22] Compare Bishop Stanley's account of the larger tropical
'Jacana,' p. 311. "One species is often tamed, and from its being
a resolute enemy to birds of prey, the inhabitants of the
countries where it is found" (which be they?) "rear it as a
protector for their fowls, as it not only feeds with them, but
accompanies them into the fields, and brings them back in the
evening!"
III.
TREPIDA STAGNARUM. LITTLE GREBE.
100. The two birds--Torrent-ouzel, and Lily-ouzel,--which we have been
just describing, agree, you will observe, in delicate and singular use
of their feet in the water; the torrent-ouzel holding itself
mysteriously at the bottom; and the lily-ouzel, less mysteriously, but
as skillfully, on the top (for I forgot to note, respecting this
raft-walking, that the bird, however light, must be always careful not
to tread on the edges of leaves, but in the middle, or, rather, as
nearly as may be where they are set on the stalk; it would go in at
once if it trod on the edges). But both the birds have the foot which
is really characteristic of land, not water-birds; and especially of
those land species that run well. Of the real action of the toes,
either in running, or hopping, nothing is told us by the
anatomists--(compare lecture on Robin, § 26); but I hope before long to
get at some of the facts respecting the greater flexibility of the
gripping and climbing feet, and elasticity of running ones; and to draw
up something like a properly graduated scale of the length of the toes
in proportion to that of the body.
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
And, for one question, relative to this--the balance of a bird
_standing_, not gripping--is to be thought of. Taking a typical profile
of bird-form in its abstract, with beak, belly, and foot, horizontal
(Fig. 12), the security of the standing, (supposing atomic weight equal
through the bird's body, and the _will_, in the ankle, of iron,) is the
same as of an inverted cone, between the dotted lines from the
extremities of the foot to those of the body; and, of course, with a
little grip of the foot or hind claw, the bird can be safe in almost
any position it likes. Nevertheless, when the feet are as small in
proportion as the Torrent-ouzel's, I greatly doubt the possibility of
such a balance as Bewick has given it (Fig. 13 _a_). Gould's of the
black-bodiced Ouzel (Fig. 13 _b_) is, I imagine, right. Bewick was
infallible in plume texture, and expression either of the features of
animals, or of any action that had meaning in it; but he was singularly
careless of indifferent points in geometry or perspective; and even
loses character in his water-birds, by making them always swim on the
top of the water.
[Illustration: FIG. 13_a_.]
101. But, whatever their balance of body, or use of foot, the two birds
just examined are, as I said, essentially connected with the running
land birds, or broadly, the Plovers; and with the Sand-runners, or
(from their cry) Sandpipers, which Mr. Gould evidently associates
mentally with the Plovers, in his description of the plumage of the
Dunlin; while he gives to them in his plates of that bird--the little
Stint, and common Sandpiper--most subtle action with their fine
feet,--thread-fine, almost, in the toes; requiring us, it seems to me,
to consider them as entirely land-birds, however fond of the wave
margins. But the next real water-ouzel we come to, belongs to a group
with feet like little horse-chestnut leaves; each toe having its
separate lobes of web. Why separated, I cannot yet make out, but the
bird swims, or even dives, on occasion, with dexterity and force. These
lobe-footed birds consist first of the Grebes, which are connected with
fresh-water ducks; and, secondly, of the Phalaropes, which are a sort
of sea-gulls. No bird which is not properly web-footed has any business
to think itself either true duck or true gull; but as, both in size and
habit of life, the larger grebes and phalaropes are entirely aquatic
and marine, I shall take out of them into my class of dabchicks, only
those which are literally dabblers in habit, and chickens in size. And
of the Grebes, therefore, only the one commonly known as the Dabchick,
the 'Little Grebe,' 'Colymbus Minutus' (Minute Diver), of Linnæus. A
summary word or two, first, respecting the Grebe family, will be
useful.
[Illustration: FIG. 13_b_.]
102. Grebe, properly, I suppose, Grèbe, from the French, is not in
Johnson, nor do any of my books tell me what it means. I retain it,
however, as being short, not ugly, and well established in two
languages. We may think of it as formed from gré, and meaning 'a nice
bird.' The specialities of the whole class, easily remembered, are,
first, that they have chestnut-leaf feet; secondly, that their legs are
serrated behind with a double row of notches--(why?); thirdly, that
they have no tails; fourthly, that they have, most of them, very fine
and very comic crests, tufts, tippets, and other variously applied
appendages to their heads and chins, so that some are called 'crested,'
some 'eared,' some 'tippeted,' and so on; but the least of them, our
proper Dabchick, displays no absurdity of this sort, and I have the
less scruple in distinguishing it from others. I find, further, in
Stanley's classes, the Grebes placed among the short-winged birds, and
made to include all the divers; but he does not say how short their
wings are; and his grouping them with guillemots and puffins is
entirely absurd, all their ways and looks, and abodes, being those of
ducks. We can say no more of them as a family, accordingly, until we
know what a duck is;--and I go on to the little pet of them, whose ways
are more entirely its own.
103. Strangely, the most interesting fact (if _fact_ it be) that it
builds a floating nest, gains scarcely more than chance notice from its
historians. Here is Mr. Gould's account of it: "The materials composing
this raft or nest are weeds and aquatic plants carefully heaped
together in a rounded form; it is very large at the base, and is so
constantly added to, that a considerable portion of it becomes
submerged; at the same time it is sufficiently buoyant to admit of its
saucer-like hollow top being always above the surface. In this wet
depression five or six eggs are laid. The bird, always most alert, is
still more so now, and scarcely ever admits of a near examination of
the nest-making, or of a view of the eggs. In favorable situations,
however, and with the aid of a telescope, the process may be watched;
and it is not a little interesting to notice with what remarkable
quickness the dabchick scratches the weeds over her eggs with her feet,
when she perceives herself observed, so as not to lead even to the
suspicion that any were deposited on the ill-shapen floating mass. This
work of an instant displays as much skill in deception as can well be
imagined."
104. It is still left to question, first, what is meant by a wet
depression?--does the bird actually sit in the water, and are the eggs
under it? and, if not, how is the water kept out? Secondly, is the
floating nest anchored, and how? Looking to other ornithologists for
solution of these particulars, I find nobody else say anything about a
floating nest at all. Bewick describes it as being of a large size, and
composed of a very great quantity of grass and water plants, at least a
foot in thickness, and so placed in the water that the female hatches
her eggs amidst the continual wet in which they were first laid.
Yarrell says only that it is a large flat nest made of aquatic plants;
while Morris finally complicates the whole business by telling us that
the nest is placed often as much as twenty or thirty yards from the
water, that it is composed of short pieces of roots, reeds, rushes, and
flags, and that when dry the whole naturally becomes very brittle.[23]
[23] I hear, from a friend in whose statements I have absolute
confidence, that he has found the eggs of the water-hen laid on a
dead sycamore leaf by the side of a shallow stream, one of the
many brooks near Uxbridge.
105. While, out of my fifteen volumes of ornithology, I can obtain only
this very vague account of the prettiest bird, next to the kingfisher,
that haunts our English rivers, I have no doubt the most precise and
accurate accounts are obtainable of the shapes of her bones and the
sinuosities of her larynx; but about these I am low-minded enough not
to feel the slightest curiosity. I return to Mr. Gould, therefore, to
gather some pleasanter particulars; first, namely, that she has a
winter and summer dress,--in winter olive gray and white, but in
summer, (changing at marriage time) deep olive black, with dark
chestnut chemisette. Infant dabchicks have "delicate rose-colored
bills, harlequin-like markings, and rosy-white aprons." The
harlequin-like markings I should call, rather, agate-like, especially
on the head, where they are black and white, like an onyx. The bodies
look more like a little walnut-shell, or nutmeg with wings to it, or
things that are to be wings, some day.
106. Even when full-grown, the birds never fly much,--never more, says
Morris, "than six or ten feet above the water, and for the most part
trailing their legs in it; but either on the water or under it, every
movement is characterized by the most consummate dexterity, and facile
agility. The most expert waterman that sculls his skiff on the Thames
or Isis, is but an humble and unskillful imitator of the dabchick. In
moving straightforward (under water?), the wings are used to aid its
progress, as if in the air, and in turning it has an easy gliding
motion, feet and wings being used, as occasion requires, sometimes on
one side and sometimes on the other. It walks but indifferently, as may
readily be imagined from the position of the legs, so very far back. It
is pleasant to watch the parent bird feeding her young: down she dives
with a quick turn, and presently rises again with, five times out of
six, a minnow, or other little fish, glittering like silver in her
bill. The young rush towards the spot where the mother has come up, but
she does not drop the fish into the water for them to receive until she
has well shaken it about and killed it, so that it may not escape, when
for the last time in its own element. I have seen a young one which had
just seized, out of its turn I have no doubt, the captured prey, chased
away by her, and pursued in apparent anger, as if for punishment, the
following one being willingly given the next fish without any demur."
107. Mr. Gould seems to think that the dabchick likes insects and fish
spawn better than fish, or at least more prudently dines upon them.
"That fish are taken we have positive evidence from examples having
been repeatedly picked up dead by the fishermen of the Thames, with a
bull-head or miller's thumb in their throats, and by which they had
evidently been choked in the act of swallowing them. That it is
especially fond of insects is shown by the great activity it displays,
when in captivity, in capturing house-flies and other diptera. Those
who have visited Paris will probably have seen the grebes in the window
of the restaurateur in the Rue de Rivoli. For years have a pair of
these birds been living, apparently in the greatest enjoyment, within
the glass window, attracting the admiration of all the passers-by. The
extreme agility with which they sailed round their little prison, or
scrambled over the half-submerged piece of rock for a fly, was very
remarkable. That no bird can be more easily kept in a state of
confinement is certain."
108. This question about its food is closely connected with that of
its diving. So far as I understand Mr. Morris, it dives only when
disturbed, and to escape,--remaining under water, however, if need
be, an almost incredible time, and swimming underneath it to great
distances. Here we have, if we would only think of it, the same
question as that about the water-ouzel, how it _keeps down_; and
we must now note a few general points about diving birds altogether.
It is easy to understand how the properly so-called divers can plunge
with impetus to great depths, or keep themselves at the bottom by
continued strokes of the webbed feet; but neither how the ouzel walks
at the bottom, if it be specifically lighter than the water, nor how a
bird can swim horizontally under the surface; at least it is not enough
explained that the action must be always that of oblique diving, the
bird regulating the stroke according to the upward pressure of the
water at different depths.
109. But there are many other points needing elucidation. It is said
(and beautifully insisted on, by Michelet,) that great spaces in the
bones of birds that pass most of their lives in flight are filled with
air: presumably the bones of the divers are made comparatively solid,
or it is even conceivable--if conceptions or suppositions were of any
use,--that the deep divers may take in water, to help themselves to
sink. The enormous depths at which they have been caught, according to
report, cannot be reached by any mere effort of strength, if the body
remained as buoyant as it evidently is on the surface. The strength of
the wing must, however, be enormous, for the great northern diver is
described as swimming under water "as it were with the velocity of an
arrow in the air" (Yarrell, vol. iii., page 431); or to keep to more
measured fact, Sir William Jardine says, "I have pursued this bird in a
Newhaven fishing-boat with four sturdy rowers, and notwithstanding it
was kept almost constantly under water by firing as soon as it
appeared, the boat could not succeed in making one yard upon it"
(_ibid._, p. 432).
110. But this is followed by the amazing statement of Mr. Robert Dunn,
p. 433, that in the act of diving it does not appear to make the least
exertion, but sinks gradually under the surface, without throwing
itself forward, the head being the last part that disappears. I am not
fond of the word 'impossible,' but I think I am safe in saying that
according to the laws of nature no buoyant body can sink merely by an
act of volition; and that it must pull itself down by some hitherto
unconceived action of the feet, which in this bird are immensely broad
and strong, and so flat that it cannot walk with them, any more than we
could with two flat boards a yard square tied to our feet; but, when it
is caught on land, shoves its body along upon the ground, like a seal,
by jerks. All these diving motions are executed in a more delicate but
quite as wonderful way by the dabchick,--more wonderful indeed it may
be said, because it has only the divided or chestnut-leaf-like foot, to
strike with. We shall understand it perhaps a little better after
tracing, in a future talk, the history of its relations among the
smaller sea-gulls; meantime, in quitting the little dainty creature, I
must plead for a daintier Latin name than it has now--'Podiceps.' No
one seems to have the least idea what that means; and 'Colymbus,'
diver, must be kept for the great Northern Diver and his deep-sea
relatives, far removed from our little living ripple-line of the pools.
I can't think of any one pretty enough; but for the present 'Trepida'
may serve; and perhaps be applied, not improperly, to all the Grebes,
with reference to their subtle and instant escape from any sudden
danger. (See Stanley, p. 419.) "It requires all the address of a keen
sportsman to get within shot," and when he does, the bird may still be
too shrewd for him. "I fired at the distance of thirty yards; my gun
went quick as lightning, but the grebe went quicker, and scrambling
over, out of sight, came up again in a few seconds perfectly unhurt."
I think, therefore, that unless I receive some better suggestion,
'Trepida Stagnarum' may be the sufficiently intelligible Latin renaming
of our easily startled favorite.
IV.
TITANIA ARCTICA. ARCTIC FAIRY.