THE SWALLOW AND THE SPARROW
The Pelopæus sets us a second problem. She frequents our homes, seeks
the warmth of our fireplaces. A nest like hers, built of soft mud,
which lets in the water, which would be dismantled by a shower and
utterly destroyed by prolonged damp, must have a dry shelter; and this
can be nowhere better found than in our dwelling-houses. Her
susceptibility to cold makes warmth a necessity. Perhaps she is a
foreigner not yet fully acclimatized, an emigrant from the shores of
Africa, who, after coming from the land of dates to the land of olives,
finds the sunshine in the latter insufficient and substitutes for the
climate beloved of her race the artificial climate of the fireside.
This would explain her habits, so unlike those of the other Wasps, all
of whom shun the too-close proximity of man.
But through what stages did she pass before becoming our guest? Where
did she lodge before quarters built by human industry existed, where
did she shelter her brood of grubs before chimneys were thought of?
When, on the hills near by, abounding in traces of their sojourn, the
aborigines of Sérignan were hewing weapons out of flint, scraping
Goat-skins into raiment and building huts of mud and branches, did the
Pelopæus already frequent their cabins? Did she build in some bulging
pot, shaped with the thumb out of half-baked black clay, and by this
choice teach her latter-day descendants to seek out the peasant’s gourd
on the chimneypiece? Did she think of building in the folds of the
garments, the spoils of the Wolf and the Bear, hanging from some set of
antlers, the hat-rack of the period, thus trying her hand at a kind of
annexation that was to take her at a later date to window-curtains and
the labourer’s smock? Did she prefer to fix her nest on the rough wall
of branches and clay, near the conical orifice which let out the smoke
from the primitive fire laid between four stones in the centre of the
hut? Though not equal to our present chimneys, it will have served at a
pinch.
What progress she has made, this Pelopæus, what a contrast between that
miserable beginning and her modern premises, if she is really, in my
district, a contemporary of the aborigines! She too must have profited
greatly by civilization: she has managed to turn man’s increasing
comfort into her own. When the dwelling with a roof, rafters and
ceiling was planned and the chimney with side-walls and a flue
invented, the chilly creature said to herself:
“How pleasant this is! Let us pitch our tent here.”
And, notwithstanding the novelty of her surroundings, she hastened to
take possession.
Let us go back farther still. Before huts existed, before the niche in
the rock, before man himself, the last to make his entrance on the
world’s stage, where did the Pelopæus build? The question is not devoid
of interest, as we shall shortly see. Besides, it does not stand alone.
Where did the Window-swallow and the Chimney-swallow make their nests
before there were windows and chimneys to build in? What retreat did
the Sparrow select for his family before there were roofs with tiles
and walls with holes to them?
“As a sparrow all alone on the house-top,” said the Psalmist in his
day.
In King David’s time, the Sparrow squawked mournfully under the eaves
in the summer heat, as he does to this day. The buildings of that
period differed but little from ours, at least so far as the Sparrow’s
convenience was concerned; and the shelter under the tile had been
adopted long before. But, when Palestine had nothing more than the
camel-hair tent, where did the Sparrow then elect to make his home?
When Virgil sings to us of good Evander, who, preceded by his watch,
two Sheep-dogs, visits Æneas, his guest, he shows him to us awakened at
dawn by the singing of the birds:
Evandrum ex humili tecto lux alma
Et matutini volucrum sub culmine cantus. [49]
What could those birds be which, at break of day, twittered under the
roof of the old King of Latium? I see only two: the Swallow and the
Sparrow, both of them chanticleers of my hermitage and as punctual as
in the Saturnian days. There was nothing princely about Evander’s
palace. The poet does not conceal the fact, it was a lowly roof: humili
tecto, he says. Besides, the furniture enlightens us as to the edifice.
The illustrious guest is given a Bear-skin and a heap of leaves for a
bed:
... stratisque locavit
Effultum foliis et pelle Libystidis ursæ. [50]
Evander’s Louvre therefore was a cabin a little larger than the others,
made perhaps of tree-trunks laid one on top of the other, perhaps of
unhewn stone employed as found, perhaps of reeds and clay. This rustic
palace would have a thatched roof, of course. However primitive the
habitation was, the Swallow and Sparrow were there, at least the poet
says so. But where did they stay before they found a lodging in man’s
abode?
The industry of the Sparrow, the Swallow, the Pelopæus and many others
cannot be subordinate to mankind’s: each of them must possess a
primordial art of building, one which makes the best use of the site
within reach. If better conditions present themselves, they profit
thereby; if these conditions are lacking, they go back to their ancient
customs, whose practice, though sometimes exacting more labour, is at
least always possible.
The Sparrow shall tell us first how his nest-building art stood in the
days when there were no lodgings in walls and roofs. A hollow in a
tree, high enough to shelter him from prying eyes, with a narrow mouth
to keep out the rain and a fairly generous cavity, gives him an
excellent dwelling, of which he readily avails himself even when there
are plenty of old walls and roofs in the neighbourhood. The youngest
bird’s-nester in my village knows all about it and abuses his
knowledge. The hollow tree then is one lodging which the Sparrow
employed, long before using Evander’s cabin and David’s stronghold on
the rock of Zion.
His architectural resources go even further. His shapeless mattress, an
incoherent jumble of feathers, down, flock, straw and other incongruous
materials, seems to demand a broad and stable support. The Sparrow
laughs at the difficulty and, from time to time, for reasons that
remain hidden from me, he conceives a bold plan: he decides to build a
nest having no support but that of three or four tiny branches at the
top of a tree. The clumsy maker of mattresses tries to obtain aerial
suspension, a swinging house, the prerogative of weavers and
basket-makers well-versed in the art of plaiting. And he succeeds.
In the fork of a few branches he accumulates everything suitable for
his work that he can pick up near a house: rags, scraps of paper, ends
of thread, flocks of wool, bits of hay and straw, dry blades of grass,
flax dropped from the distaff, strips of bark retted by lying long in
the open; and of his various gleanings, clumsily matted together, he
contrives to make a large, hollow ball with a narrow opening in the
side. It is bulky to a degree, the thickness of the dome having to be
as good a defence against the rain as the shelter of a tile would be;
it is very roughly constructed, without any attempt at artistry; but,
when all is said, it is stout enough to last for a season. This is how
the Sparrow must have worked in the beginning, when there was no hollow
tree at hand. Nowadays, that primitive art, too costly in time and
materials, is seldom practised.
My house is shaded by two great plane-trees; their branches reach the
roof, on which generations of Sparrows, too many for the welfare of my
cherries and my peas, succeed one another throughout the warm weather.
This vast mass of greenery is the first stopping-place after the exodus
from the nest begins. Here the young birds assemble and for hours
chatter and scream before flying off on their pilfering-expeditions;
here the well-filled squads take their stand on returning from the
fields. The adults meet here to keep an eye on their
recently-emancipated offspring, to caution the imprudent and encourage
the timid; family-quarrels are fought out here and the events of the
day discussed. From morning till evening there is a continual going to
and fro between the roof and the plane-trees. Well, in spite of these
constant visits, I have only once, in the past twelve years, seen the
Sparrow build his nest in the branches. The couple that decided in
favour of a mid-air nest on one of the plane-trees were not
particularly satisfied, it seems, with the results obtained, for they
did not repeat the experiment next year. Since then, none has placed
before my eyes for the second time a big ball of a nest swaying in the
wind at the end of a branch. The steadier and less costly shelter of
the tile is preferred.
We now know enough about the early art of the Sparrow. What will the
Swallows tell us in their turn? Two species frequent our dwellings: the
Window-swallow (Hirundo urbica) [51] and the Chimney-swallow (H.
rustica), both of whom are very badly named, both in the scientific and
the everyday language. Those epithets of urbica and rustica, which make
a town-dweller of the first and a villager of the second, can be
applied indifferently to either, since they both take up their abode at
one time in the town, at another in the village. The terms window and
chimney possess a precise meaning which is rarely confirmed and very
often contradicted by the facts. For the sake of clearness, the supreme
condition of all tolerable prose, and to confine myself to the habits
peculiar to the two species in my part of the world, I will call the
first the Wall-swallow and the second the Domestic Swallow. The shape
of the nest constitutes the most striking difference. The Wall-swallow
gives his the form of a ball, with a round aperture just large enough
to admit the bird. The Domestic Swallow fashions his into a cup with a
wide opening.
The Wall-swallow, who is much less common than the other, never chooses
a site within our houses for his structure. It must be outside for him
and it must stand high, far removed from inquisitive eyes; but at the
same time a shelter against the rain is indispensable, for the damp is
almost as dangerous for his mud nest as for that of the Pelopæus. He
therefore settles by choice under the eaves and cornices of buildings.
He visits me every spring. My house pleases him. Just below the roof is
a cornice made up of a few courses of ordinary “half-round”
coping-tiles, corbelled out from the face of the wall in such a way as
to give a long line of round-headed niches which are sheltered from the
rain and enjoy plenty of sunshine on the south front. Among all these
nooks, so healthy, so well-protected and moreover so excellently
adapted to the shape of the nest, the bird has only to choose. There is
room for all, however numerous the colony may become one day.
Apart from sites of this kind, I see none approved by the Swallow in
the village, except the under part of a few cornices of the church,
which is the only edifice of a monumental character. In short, the
support of a wall, in the open air, with some shelter against the rain,
is all that the Swallow asks of our buildings.
But the natural wall is a perpendicular rock. If the bird here finds
overhanging projections, forming a penthouse, it must adopt them as the
equivalent of the ledge of our roofs. Ornithologists know, in fact,
that in mountainous districts, far removed from human dwellings, the
Wall-swallow builds against the vertical sides of the rocks, so long as
his ball of clay is under cover of some kind.
Near where I live are the Gigondas Mountains, the most curious
geological structure that I have ever seen. Their long chain displays
so steep a slope that it is almost impossible to stand upright near the
summit; and the ascent of the accessible part has to be made on
all-fours. You then find yourself at the foot of a perpendicular cliff,
an enormous slab of sheer rock which, like some Titanic rampart, tops
the precipitous ridge with a jagged crest. The people of the country
call this Cyclopean wall les Dentelles. I was one day botanizing at its
base, when my eyes were attracted by the evolutions of a flock of birds
in front of the rugged face of the rock. I easily recognized the
Wall-swallow: his silent flight, his white belly and his ball-shaped
nest fastened to the cliff told me all about him. I in my turn now
learnt, apart from the books, that this species fixes its nests to
perpendicular rocks when the cornices of our buildings and the ledges
of our roofs are missing. Even so must it have nested in the ages that
preceded our stone structures.
The problem becomes thornier with the second species. The Domestic
Swallow, who has much more confidence in our hospitality and is also
perhaps more susceptible to cold, establishes himself as often as
possible inside our houses. The embrasure of a window, the under
surface of a balcony will satisfy his requirements at need; but he
prefers the shed, the loft, the stable or an empty room. His
familiarity even reaches the point of cohabitation with man in the same
apartment. No more timid than the Pelopæus in taking possession of the
premises, he installs himself in the farm-kitchen and builds upon the
peasant’s smoke-blacked rafters; more venturesome even than the
pot-making insect, he appropriates the drawing-room, the study, the
bedroom or any well-kept chamber that leaves him at liberty to come and
go.
Each spring I have to defend myself against his bold usurpations. I
gladly surrender to him the shed, the cellar-porch, the Dog’s corner,
the woodshed and other outhouses. This does not suffice for his
ambitious views: he wants my study. At one time he tries to make his
home on the curtain-rod, at another on the lintel of the open window.
In vain I strive to make him understand, by destroying the foundations
of his edifice as he lays them, how dangerous to his nest is the
shifting support of a casement, which must be closed from time to time,
at the risk of crushing house and brood alike, and how disagreeable for
my curtains this dirty business is, with its mud and, later, the
excretions of the young birds: I do not succeed in convincing him; and
to put an end to his determined enterprise I am compelled to keep the
windows shut. If I open them too soon, he returns with his beakful of
clay and begins all over again.
Instructed by experience, I know what it would cost me to grant the
hospitality demanded so persistently. If I were to leave some precious
book open on the table, some drawing of a mushroom, my morning’s work
and still quite fresh from the brush, [52] he would not fail, in
passing, to drop his muddy seal or his stercoral initials upon it.
These little annoyances have made me suspicious; and I remain obdurate
to all my visitor’s importunities.
Once only I allowed myself to be beguiled. The nest was placed in a
corner of the ceiling and the wall, on some plaster mouldings. Below it
stood a marble console-table, usually covered with books which I had to
be constantly consulting. In anticipation of events, I moved my
reference-library away. All went well until the eggs were hatched; but,
as soon as the young birds were there, things changed. With their
insatiable stomachs, into which the food had barely passed before it
was digested and dissolved, the six fledgelings became unendurable.
Every minute—flick, flack!—it rained guano on the console. If my poor
books had been there, oh dear, oh dear!
Dust and sweep as I might, my study continued redolent of ammonia. And
then what a slave the birds made of me! The room was shut up at night.
The father slept out; so did the mother, after the little ones were
beginning to grow up. Then, at early dawn, both were at the windows, in
a mighty state of distress outside the glass barrier. With eyes still
heavy with sleep, I had to get up hurriedly and let the poor things in.
No, I shall not allow myself to be persuaded again; never more shall I
permit the Swallow to settle in a room that has to be closed at night
and still less in the room where I am describing the misadventures that
befel me owing to my too-accommodating kindness.
As you see, the Swallow with the nest shaped like a half-cup well
deserves his epithet of domestic, inasmuch as he makes his home inside
our houses. In this respect, he is among birds what the Pelopæus is
among insects. Here we have once again the question of the Sparrow and
the Wall-swallow: where did he live before houses existed? Personally,
I have never seen him build his nest elsewhere than in the shelter of
our habitations; and the authors whom I consult do not appear to be any
wiser on this subject. None of them says a word of the manor occupied
by the bird apart from the refuges provided by human industry. Can it
be that his long frequentation of our society and the consequent sense
of comfort have made him forget the primitive customs of his race?
I find it difficult to believe: animals are not, to that extent,
unmindful of their ancient habits, when it is necessary to remember
them. Somewhere, in our day, the Swallow still works independently of
us and of our buildings, even as he did in the beginning. Though
observation can tell us nothing concerning the site selected, analogy
makes up for this silence with a wealth of probabilities. After all,
what do our houses represent to the Domestic Swallow? Refuges against
the weather, especially against the rain, which does so much harm to
the mud shell. Natural grottoes, caves, the irregularities of crumbling
rocks: these are all refuges, less healthy, perhaps, but still well
worth having. It was here, beyond a doubt, that the Swallow constructed
his nest when he had no human dwellings to build in. Man contemporary
with the Mammoth and the Reindeer came and shared his lodging under the
rock. Intimacy sprang up between the two. Then, step by step, the cave
was succeeded by the hut, the hut by the cabin, the cabin by the house;
and the bird, abandoning the less good for the better, followed man
into his improved abode.
We will now end this digression on the habits of birds and apply the
evidence which we have gathered to the Pelopæus. Every species
practising its industry in our dwellings must first have practised and,
we maintain, must still practise it under conditions wholly extraneous
to the work of man. The Wall-swallow and the Sparrow have given us
proofs which are all that can be desired; the Domestic Swallow, more
reticent of his secrets, gave us only probabilities, which however come
very near to certainty. The Pelopæus is almost as obstinate as the
last-named in refusing to divulge her ancient customs and long remained
to me an insoluble problem in so far as her original domicile was
concerned. Where can the enthusiastic colonist of our chimneys have
lived, when far removed from man? Thirty years and more elapsed after I
first made her acquaintance; and her history always ended in a note of
interrogation. Outside our houses, never a trace of a Pelopæus-nest.
And all the time I was applying the method of analogy, which provides a
very probable answer to the question of the Domestic Swallow; I was
pursuing my search in the caves, in the shelters under rocks facing the
sun. Not a sign. I was still continuing my useless investigations, when
at last chance, which favours the persevering, thrice compensated me,
under conditions which I did not for a moment suspect of being
auspicious.
The Sérignan quarries are rich in accumulations of broken stones,
refuse that has lain piled up there for centuries. These stone-heaps
are the refuge of the Field-mouse, who, on a mattress of dried grass,
crunches the almonds, olive-stones and acorns which he picks up all
around and varies this farinaceous diet with Snails, whose empty shells
lie packed under some flat stone. Different Bees and Wasps—Osmiæ,
Anthidia, Odyneri—pick out shells to suit them from the heap and build
their cells in the spiral. My search for these treasures makes me turn
over a few cubic yards of broken stones every year.
Three times, when engaged upon this task, I came upon the Pelopæus’
work. Two nests were placed deep down in the heap, against blocks
hardly bigger than a man’s two fists; the third was fixed to the lower
surface of a large flat stone, forming a canopy above the ground. These
three nests, though subject to all the changes of the weather,
contained nothing more than the usual structure found inside our
houses. The material was plastic mud, as always; the protection, a
covering of the same mud; and that was all. The dangers of the site had
suggested no improvement to the architect; the edifice was no different
from those built against the wall of a chimney. One point is
established, therefore: in my district, the Pelopæus nidifies
sometimes, but very rarely, in stone-heaps and under natural flagstones
which do not touch the ground. Thus must she have nidified before
becoming the inmate of our dwellings and our fireplaces.
A second point is open to discussion. The three nests found under the
stones are in a piteous state. Soaked with damp, they possess hardly
more consistency than the muddy puddle utilized for their construction.
They are softened to such a degree that they can no longer be handled.
The cells are ripped open; the cocoons, easily recognizable by their
colour and their transparency, which is that of an onion-skin, are in
pieces, without any vestige of the larvæ which I ought to find at the
time of my discovery, that is in winter. And yet the three hovels are
not old nests ruined by the weather after the emergence of the perfect
insect, for the exit-doors are still closed with their well-fitting
plugs. It is at an abnormal place, in the side, that the yawning breach
occurs. The escaping insect would never use such violence in breaking
through. They are certainly recent nests, nests of the previous summer.
Their dilapidation is due to their unprotected position. The rain
penetrates into the stone-heaps; even under the shelter of a flagstone
the air is saturated with damp. If a little snow falls, the mischief is
still worse. In this way, the wretched nests crumble and fall to
pieces, leaving the cocoons partly exposed. Unprotected by their
earthen sheath, the larvæ have become the prey of the brigandage that
mows down the weak. Some Field-mouse passing by has perhaps feasted on
those tender morsels.
At the sight of these ruins a suspicion occurs to me. Is the primitive
art of the Pelopæus really practicable in my region? When nesting in
stone-heaps, does the tiny potter find the security needed for her
family, especially during the winter? It is very doubtful. The extreme
rarity of the nests in such conditions is evidence of the mother’s
aversion for these sites; and the dilapidated state of those which I
find seems to testify to their dangerous nature. If the inclemency of
the climate makes it impossible for the Pelopæus to practise the
industry of her forebears successfully, does not this prove that the
insect is a stranger, a colonist from a hotter and drier climate, where
there is no persistent rain and above all no snow to be dreaded?
I have no difficulty in picturing the Pelopæus as of African origin.
Far back in the past she came to us, by gradual stages, through Spain
and Italy; and the olive-district is almost the limit of her extension
towards the north. She is an African, who has become a Provençal by
naturalization. In Africa, in fact, she is said often to nest under the
stones, which would not, I think, make her despise human habitations,
if she found peace and quiet there. We hear of her kinswomen in the
Malay Archipelago frequenting houses. They have the same habits as the
guest of our homes; they share her singular liking for that unstable
fabric, a muslin curtain. From one end of the world to the other, the
same taste for Spiders, for mud cells, for sheltering under man’s roof.
If I were in the Malay Archipelago, I should turn over the stone-heaps
and should most likely discover one further resemblance: the original
nest under some flat stone.