Linnæus, in the Fauna Suecica, p. 64, calls it 'Tringa Lobata,' but
afterwards 'Northern Tringa'; and his editor, Gmelin, 'Dark Tringa.'
Other people agree to call it a 'phalarope,' but some of them
'northern' phalarope, some, the 'dark' phalarope; some, the 'ashy'
phalarope, some, the 'disposed to be ashy' phalarope; some, the
'red-necked' phalarope; and some, 'Mr. Williams's' phalarope; finally,
Cuvier calls it a 'Lobipes,' and Mr. Gould, in English, 'red-necked
phalarope.' Few people are likely to know what 'Phalarope' means,[24]
and I believe nobody knows what 'Tringa' means; and as, also, nobody
ever sees it, the little bird being obliged to live in Orkney,
Greenland, Norway, and Lapland, out of human creatures' way, I shall
myself call it the Arctic Fairy. It would come south if we would let
it, but of course Mr. Bond says, "The first specimen I ever had was
shot by a friend of mine in September, 1842, near Southend, Essex,
where he saw the phalarope swimming on the water, like a little duck,
about a mile from land; not knowing what it was, he shot it, and kindly
brought it to me." Another was shot while running between the metals of
the Great Eastern Railway, near the Stratford station, early in June,
1852; and on the Norfolk coast, four others have been killed during the
last fifteen years; and the birds' visits, thus, satisfactorily, put a
stop to. I can therefore study it only in Mr. Gould's drawing, on
consulting which, I find the bird to be simply a sea dabchick,--brown
stripes on the back, and all; but the webs of the feet a little finer,
and in its habits it is more like the Lily-ouzel, according to the
following report of Mr. St. John: "The red-necked phalarope is
certainly the most beautiful little wader of my acquaintance. There
were a pair of them, male and female, feeding near the loch, in a
little pool which was covered with weeds of different kinds. Nothing
could be more graceful than the movements of these two little birds, as
they swam about in search of insects, etc. Sometimes _they ran lightly
on the broad leaves of the water-lily which served them for a raft_,
and entirely kept them out of the water. Though not exactly web-footed,
the phalarope swims with the greatest ease. The attachment of these two
birds to each other seemed very great: whenever in their search for
food they wandered so far apart as to be hidden by the intervening
weeds, the male bird stopped feeding suddenly, and, looking round,
uttered a low and musical call of inquiry, which was immediately
answered by the female in a different note, but perfectly expressive of
her answer, which one might suppose to be to the purport that she was
at hand and quite safe; on hearing her, the male immediately
recommenced feeding, but at the same time making his way towards her;
she also flew to meet him; they then joined company for a moment or
two, and, after a few little notes of endearment, turned off again in
different directions. This scene was repeated a dozen times while I was
watching them. They seemed to have not the slightest fear of me, for
frequently they came to within a yard of where I was sitting, and after
looking up they continued catching the small water-insects, etc., on
the weeds, without minding my presence in the least." What reward the
birds got for this gentle behavior, we learn from the sentence
following after the next two lines, containing the extremely valuable
contribution to their natural history, that "on dissecting the female
we found two eggs in her."
[24] The terminal 'pe' is short for pus, (pous!) and 'phalero,'
from phalera, fringes--"Fringe-foot" (Morris).
112. All other accounts concur in expressing (with as much admiration
as is possible to naturalists) the kindly and frank disposition of this
bird; which for the rest is almost a central type of all bird power
with elf gifts added: it flies like a lark, trips on water-lily leaves
like a fairy, swims like a duck, and roves like a sea-gull, having been
seen sixty miles from land: and, finally, though living chiefly in
Lapland and Iceland, and other such northern countries, it has been
seen serenely swimming and catching flies in the hot water of the
geysers, in which a man could not bear his hand.
And no less harmoniously than in report of the extreme tameness, grace,
and affectionateness of this bird do sportsmen agree also in the
treatment and appreciation of these qualities. Thus says Mr. Salmon:
"Although we shot two pairs, those that were swimming about did not
take the least notice of the report of the gun, and they seemed to be
much attached to each other; for when one of them flew to a short
distance, the other directly followed; and while I held a wounded
female in my hand, its mate came and fluttered before my face."
(Compare the scene between Irene and Hector, at page 393 of the May
number of _Aunt Judy's Magazine_.) And, again, says Mr. Wolley: "The
bird is extremely tame, swimming about my india-rubber boat so near
that I could almost catch it in my hand; I have seen it even, when far
from its nest, struck at many times with an oar before it flew away."
In its domestic habits also the creature seems as exemplary as, in its
social habits, it is frank; for on the approach of danger to her
nestlings, the hen uses all the careful subtleties of the most cunning
land birds, "spreading her wings, and counterfeiting lameness, for the
purpose of deluding the intruder; and after leading the enemy from her
young, she takes wing and flies to a great height, at the same time
displaying a peculiar action of the wings; then descending with great
velocity, and making simultaneously a noise with her wings. On her
return to her young, she uses a particular cry for the purpose of
gathering them together. As soon as she has collected them, she covers
them with her wings, like the domestic hen."
113. I cannot quite make out the limits of the fairy's migrations; but
it is said by Morris to 'occur' in France, Holland, Germany, Italy, and
Switzerland. I find that one was what sportsmen call 'procured' near
York, in full summer dress; and another killed at Rottingdean, swimming
in a pond in the middle of the village, in the company of some ducks.
At Scarborough, Louth, and Shoreham, it has also been captured or shot,
and has been 'found' building nests in Sutherland: and, on the whole,
it seems that here is a sort of petrel-partridge, and duckling-dove,
and diving-lark, with every possible grace and faculty that bird can
have, in body and soul; ready, at least in summer, to swim on our
village ponds, or, wait at our railway stations, and make the wild
north-eastern coasts of Scotland gay with its dancing flocks upon the
foam; were it not that the idle cockneys, and pot-headed squires fresh
out of Parliament, stand as it were on guard all round the island,
spluttering small-shot at it, striking at it with oars, cutting it open
to find how many eggs there are inside, and, in fine, sending it for
refuge into the hot water of Hecla, and any manner of stormy solitude
that it can still find for itself and its amber nestlings. I have never
seen one, nor I suppose ever shall see, but hear of some of my friends
sunning themselves at midnight about the North Cape, of whom, if any
one will bring me a couple of Arctic fairies in a basket, I think I can
pledge our own Squire's and Squire's lady's faith, for the pair's
getting some peace, if they choose to take it, and as many water-lily
leaves as they can trip upon, on the tarns of Monk-Coniston.
IV.B.
TITANIA INCONSTANS. CHANGEFUL FAIRY.
_Phalaropus Fulicarius._ (_Coot-like Phalarope--Gould._)
114. I think the epithet 'changeful' prettier, and, until we know what
a coot _is_ like, more descriptive, than 'coot-like'; the bird having
red plumage in summer, and gray in winter, while the coot is always
black. It is a little less pretty and less amiable than its sister
fairy; otherwise scarcely to be thought of but as a variety, both of
them being distinguished from the coot, not only by color, but by their
smaller size;--(they eight inches long, it sixteen)--and by the slender
beaks, the coot having a thick one, half-way to a puffin's.
And here, once for all,--for I see I have taken no note yet of the
beaks or bills of my dabchicks,--I will at once arrange a formula of
the order of questions which it will be proper to ask, and get
answered, concerning any bird, in the same order always, so that we
shall never miss anything that we ought to think of. And I find these
questions will naturally and easily fall into the following twelve:
1. Country, and scope of migration.
2. Food.
3. Form and flight.
4. Foot.
5. Beak and eye.
6. Voice and ear.
7. Temper.
8. Nest.
9. Eggs.
10. Brood.
11. Feathers.
12. Uses in the world.
It may be thought that I have forced--and not fallen into--my number
12, by packing the faculties of sight and hearing into by-corners. But
the expression of a bird's head depends on the relation of eye to beak,
as the getting of its food depends on their practical alliance of
power; and the question, for instance, whether peacocks and parrots
have musical ears, seems to me not properly debatable unless with due
respect to the quality of their voices. It is curious, considering how
much, one way or another, we are amused or pleased by the chatter and
song of birds, that you will scarcely find in any ornithic manual more
than a sentence, if so much, about their hearing; and I have not
myself, at this moment, the least idea where a nightingale's ears are!
But see Appendix, p. 122.
I retain, therefore, my dodecahedric form of catechism as sufficiently
clear; and without binding myself to follow the order of it in
strictness, if there be motive for discursory remark, it will certainly
prevent my leaving any bird insufficiently distinguished, and enable me
to arrange the collected statements about it in the most easily
compared order.
115. We will try it at once on this second variety of the Titania, of
which I find nothing of much interest in my books, and have nothing
discursive myself to say.
1. Country. Arctic mostly; seen off Greenland, in lat. 68°, swimming
among icebergs three or four miles from shore. Abundant in Siberia, and
as far south as the Caspian. Migratory in Europe as far as Italy, yet
always rare. (Do a few only, more intelligently curious than the rest,
or for the sake of their health, travel?)
2. Food. Small thin-skinned crustacea, and aquatic surface-insects.
3. Form and flight. Stout, for a sea-bird; and they don't care to fly,
preferring to _swim_ out of danger. Body 7 to 8 inches long; wings,
from carpal joint to end, 4-3/4,--say 5. These quarters of inches, are
absurd pretenses to generalize what varies in every bird. 8 inches
long, by 10 across the wings open, is near enough. In future, the
brief notification 8 × 10, 5 × 7, or the like, will enough express a
bird's inches, unless it possess decorative appendage of tail, which
must be noted separately.
4. Foot. Chestnut-leaved in front toes, the lobes slightly serrated
on the edges. Hind toe without membrane. Color of foot, always black.
5. Beak. Long, slender, straight. (How long? Drawn as about a fifth
of the bird's length--say an inch, or a little over.) Upper mandible
slightly curved down at the point. In Titania arctica, the beak is
longer and more slender.
6. Voice. A sharp, short cry, not conceived by me enough to spell any
likeness of it.
7. Temper. Gentle, passing into stupid, (it seems to me); one, in
meditative travel, lets itself be knocked down by a gardener with his
spade.
8. Nest. Little said of it, the bird breeding chiefly in the North.
Among marshes, it is of weeds and grass; but among icebergs, of what?
9. Eggs. Pear-shape; narrow ends together in nest; never more than
four.
10. Brood. No account of.
11. Feathers. Mostly gray, passing into brown in summer, varied with
white on margin. Reddish chestnut or bay bodice--well oiled or
varnished.
12. Uses. Fortunately, at present, unknown.
V.
RALLUS AQUATICUS. WATER-RAIL.
116. Thus far, we have got for representatives of our dabchick group,
eight species of little birds--namely, two Torrent-ouzels, three
Lily-ouzels, one Grebe, and two Titanias. And these we associate,
observe, not for any specialty of feature in them, but for common
character, habit, and size; so that, if perchance a child playing by
any stream, or on the sea-sands, perceives a companionable bird
dabbling in an equally childish and pleasant manner, he may not have to
look through half a dozen volumes of ornithology to find it; but may be
pretty sure it has been one of these eight. And having once fastened
the characters of these well in his mind, he may with ease remember
that the little grebe is the least of a family of chestnut-leaf-footed,
and sharp-billed creatures, which yet in size, color, and diving power,
go necessarily among Ducks, and cannot be classed with Dabblers; though
it must be always as distinctly kept in mind that a duck _proper_ has a
flat beak, and a fully webbed foot.
Again, he may recollect that with these leaf-footed ducks of the calm
and fresh waters, must be associated the leaf-footed or fringe-footed
ducks of the sea;--'phalaropes,' which by their short wings connect
themselves with many clumsy marine creatures, on their way to become
seals instead of birds; and that I have kept the two little Titanias
out of this class, not merely for their niceness, but because they are
not short-winged in any vulgar degree, but seem to have wings about as
long as a sandpiper's;--and indeed I had put the purple sandpiper,
Arquatella maritima, with them, in my own folio; only as the
Arquatella's feet are not chestnutty, she had better go with her own
kind in our notes on them.
117. But there are yet two birds, which I think well to put with our
eight dabchicks, though they are much larger than any of them,--partly
because of their disposition, and partly because of their plumage,--the
water-rail, and water-hen. Modern science, with instinctive horror of
all that is pretty to see, or easy to remember, entirely rejects the
plumage, as any element or noticeable condition of bird-kinds; nor have
I ever yet tried to make it one myself; yet there are certain qualities
of downiness in ducks, fluffiness in owls, spottiness in thrushes,
patchiness in pies, bronzed or rusty luster in cocks, and pearly
iridescence in doves, which I believe may be aptly brought into
connection with other defining characters; and when we find an entirely
similar disposition of plumage, and nearly the same form, in two birds,
I do not think that _mere_ difference in size should far separate them.
Bewick, accordingly, calls the water-rail the 'Brook-ouzel,' and puts
it between the little crake and the water-ouzel; but he does not say a
word of its living by brooks,--only 'in low wet places.' Buffon,
however, takes it with the land-rail; Gould and Yarrell put it between
the little crake and water-hen. Gould's description of it is by no
means clear to me:--he first says it is, in action, as much "like a rat
as a bird;" then that it "bounds like a ball," (before the nose of the
spaniel); and lastly, in the next sentence, speaks of it as "this
_lath_-like bird"! It is as large as a bantam, but can run, like the
Allegretta, on floating leaves; itself, weighing about four ounces and
a half (Bewick), and rarely uses the wing, flying very slowly. I
imagine the 'lath-like' must mean, like the more frequent epithet
'compressed,' that the bird's body is vertically thin, so as to go
easily between close reeds.
118. We will try our twelve questions again.
1. Country. Equally numerous in every part of Europe, in Africa,
India, China, and Japan; yet hardly anybody seems to have seen it.
Living, however, "near the perennial fountains" (wherever those may
be;--it sounds like the garden of Eden!) "during the greater part of
the winter, the birds pass Malta in spring and autumn, and have been
seen fifty leagues at sea off the coast of Portugal" (Buffon); but
where coming from, or going to, is not told. Tunis is the most
southerly place named by Yarrell.
2. Food. Anything small enough to be swallowed, that lives in mud or
water.
3. Form and flight. I am puzzled, as aforesaid, between its likeness
to a ball, and a lath. Flies heavily and unwillingly, hanging its legs
down.
4. Foot. Long-toed and flexible.
5. Beak. Sharp and strong, some inch and a half long, showing
distinctly the cimeter-curve of a gull's, near the point.
6. Voice. No account of.
7. Temper. Quite easily tamable, though naturally shy. Feeds out of
the hand in a day or two, if fed regularly in confinement.
8. Nest. "Slight, of leaves and strips of flags" (Gould); "of sedge
and grass, rarely found," (Yarrell). Size not told.
9. Eggs. Eight or nine! cream-white, with rosy yolk!! rather larger
than a blackbird's!!!
10. Brood. Velvet black, with white bills; hunting with the utmost
activity from the minute they are hatched.
11. Feathers. Brown on the back, a beautiful warm ash gray on the
breast, and under the wings transverse stripes of very dark gray and
white. The disposition of pattern is almost exactly the same as in the
Allegretta.
12. Uses. By many thought delicious eating. (Bewick.) The fact is, or
seems to me, that this entire group of marsh birds is meant to become
to us the domestic poultry of marshy land; and I imagine that by
proper irrigation and care, many districts of otherwise useless bog
and sand, might be made more profitable to us than many fishing-grounds.
VI.
PULLA AQUATICA. WATER-HEN.
(_Gallinula Chloropus.--Pennant, Bewick, Gould, and Yarrell._)
119. 'Green-footed little cock, or hen,' that is to say, in English;
only observe, if you call the Fringe-foot a Phalarope, you ought in
consistency to call the Green-foot a Chlorope. Their feet are not only
notable for greenness, but for size: they are very ugly, having the
awkward and ill-used look of the feet of Scratchers, while a trace of
beginning membrane connects them with the fringe-foots.
Their proper name would be Marsh-cock, which would enough distinguish
them from the true Moor-cock or Black-cock. 'Moat-cock' would be
prettier, and characteristic; for in the old English days they used to
live much in the moats of manor-houses; mine is the name nearest to the
familiar one; only note there is no proper feminine of 'pullus,' and I
use the adjective 'pulla' to express the dark color.
It is a dark-_brown_ bird, according to the colored pictures--iron
_gray_, Buffon says, with white stripes of little order on the bodice,
clumsy feet and bill, but makes up for all ungainliness by its gentle
and intelligent mind; and seems meant for a useful possession to
mankind all over the world, for it lives in Siberia and New Zealand; in
Senegal and Jamaica; in Scotland, Switzerland, and Prussia; in Corfu,
Crete, and Trebizond; in Canada, and at the Cape. I find no account of
its migrations, and one would think that a bird which usually flies
"dip, dip, dipping with its toes, and leaving a track along the water
like that of a stone at 'ducks and drakes'" (Yarrell), would not
willingly adventure itself on the Atlantic. It must have a kind of
human facility in adapting itself to climate, as it has human
domesticity of temper, with curious fineness of sagacity and sympathies
in taste. A family of them, petted by a clergyman's wife, were
constantly adding materials to their nest, and "made real havoc in the
flower-garden,--for though straw and leaves are their chief ingredients,
they seem to have an eye for beauty, and the old hen has been seen
surrounded with a brilliant wreath of scarlet anemones." Thus Bishop
Stanley, whose account of the bird is full of interesting particulars.
This aesthetic water-hen, with her husband, lived at Cheadle, in
Staffordshire, in the rectory moat, for several seasons, "always
however leaving it in the spring," (for Scotland, supposably?): being
constantly fed, the pair became quite tame, built their nest in a
thorn-bush covered with ivy which had fallen into the water; and "when
the young are a few days old, the old ones bring them up close to the
drawing-room window, where they are regularly fed with wheat; and, as
the lady of the house pays them the greatest attention, they have
learned to look up to her as their natural protectress and friend; so
much so, that one bird in particular, which was much persecuted by the
rest, would, when attacked, fly to her for refuge; and whenever she
calls, the whole flock, as tame as barn-door fowls, quit the water, and
assemble round her, to the number of seventeen. (November, 1833.)
120. "They have also made other friends in the dogs belonging to the
family, approaching them without fear, though hurrying off with great
alarm on the appearance of a strange dog.
"The position of the water, together with the familiarity of these
birds, has afforded many interesting particulars respecting their
habits.
"They have three broods in a season--the first early in April; and they
begin to lay again when the first hatch is about a fortnight old. They
lay eight or nine eggs, and sit about three weeks,--the cock
alternately with the hen. The nest in the thorn-bush is placed usually
so high above the surface of the water, they cannot climb into it
again; but, as a substitute, within an hour after they leave the nest,
the cock bird builds a larger and more roomy nest for them, with
sedges, at the water's edge, which they can enter or retire from at
pleasure. For about a month they are fed by the old birds, but soon
become very active in taking flies and water-insects. Immediately on
the second hatch coming out, the young ones of the first hatch assist
the old ones in feeding and hovering over them, leading them out in
detached parties, and making additional nests for them, similar to
their own, on the brink of the moat.
"But it is not only in their instinctive attachments and habits that
they merit notice; the following anecdote proves that they are gifted
with a sense of observation approaching to something very like
reasoning faculties.
"At a gentleman's house in Staffordshire, the pheasants are fed out of
one of those boxes described in page 287, the lid of which rises with
the pressure of the pheasant standing on the rail in front of the box.
A water-hen observing this, went and stood upon the rail as soon as the
pheasant had quitted it; but the weight of the bird being insufficient
to raise the lid of the box, so as to enable it to get at the corn, the
water-hen kept jumping on the rail to give additional impetus to its
weight: this partially succeeded, but not to the satisfaction of the
sagacious bird. Accordingly it went off, and soon returning with a bird
of its own species, the united weight of the two had the desired
effect, and the successful pair enjoyed the benefit of their ingenuity.
"We can vouch for the truth of this singular instance of penetration,
on the authority of the owner of the place where it occurred, and who
witnessed the fact."
121. But although in these sagacities, and teachablenesses, the bird
has much in common with land poultry, it seems not a link between these
and water-fowl; but to be properly placed by the ornithologists between
the rail and the coot: this latter being the largest of the fringefoots,
singularly dark in color, and called 'fulica' (sooty), or, with
insistence, 'fulica atra' (black sooty), or even 'fulica aterrima'
(blackest sooty). 'Coot' is said by Johnson to be Dutch; and that it
became 'cotée' in French; but I cannot find cotée in my French
dictionary. In the meantime, putting the coot and water-hen aside for
future better knowledge, we may be content with the pentagonal group of
our dabchicks--passing at each angle into another tribe, thus,--(if
people must classify, they at least should also _map_). Take the Ouzel,
Allegret, Grebe, Fairy, and Rail, and, only giving the Fairy her Latin
name, write their fourpenny-worth of initial letters (groat) round a
pentagon set on its base, putting the Ouzel at the top angle,--so.
Then, the Ouzels pass up into Blackbirds, the Rails to the left into
Woodcocks, the Allegrets to the right into Plovers, the Grebes, down
left, into Ducks, and the Titanias, down right, into Gulls. And
_there's_ a bit of pentagonal Darwinism for you, if you like it, and
learn it, which will be really good for something in the end, or the
five ends.