CHAPTER VII._A Year with the Birds Third Edition, Enlarged

THE BIRDS OF VIRGIL.

It might naturally be supposed, that an Oxford tutor, who finds his

vocation in the classics and his amusement in the birds, would be in the

way of noticing what ancient authors have to say about their feathered

friends and enemies. One Christmas vacation, when there was

comparatively little to observe out-of-doors, I made a tour through the

poems of Virgil, keeping a sharp look-out for all mention of birds, and

compiled a complete collection of his ornithological passages. I chose a

Latin poet because in Latin it happens to be easier to identify a genus

or species than it is in Greek; and I chose Virgil partly because the

ability to read and understand him is to me one of the things which make

life most worth living, and partly because I know that there is no other

Latin poet who felt in the same degree the beauty and the mystery of

animals.

I believe there are still people who think of Virgil as a court-poet,

writing to order, and drawing conventional ideas of nature from Greek

authors of an earlier age. This is, of course, absolutely untrue.

Virgil’s connection with Augustus was accidental, and was probably no

more to the poet’s taste than any other result of an education and an

occasional residence in the huge city of Rome. If we compare what is

known of his life with the general character of his poetry, we get a

very different result.

The first sixteen years of his life were spent in his native country of

Cisalpine Gaul, almost under the shadow of the Alps, three hundred miles

away from Rome. His parents were ‘rustic,’ and he himself was brought up

among the woods and rushy meads of Mantua and Cremona. “Doubtless there

is many a reminiscence of his early years in the _Georgics_, where his

love of the woods, in which he must have wandered as a boy, meets us in

every page.”[49] In that day it is probable enough that the great plain

of the Po was still largely occupied by those dense forests, the

destruction of which is said to be the chief cause of the floods to

which the river is liable. Much land must also have been still undrained

and marshy: and we can still trace in the neighbourhood of Mantua the

remains of those ancient lake-dwellings which an ancient people had

built there long before the Gauls, from whom our poet was perhaps

descended, had taken possession of the plain. These woods and marshes,

as well as the land which Roman settlers had tilled for vine or olive,

must have been alive with birds in Virgil’s day. There would be all the

birds of the woods, the pigeons and their enemies the owls and hawks;

there would be cranes and storks in their yearly migrations, and all

manner of water-fowl from the two rivers Po and Mincio, and from the

Lacus Benacus (Lago di Garda) which is only about twenty miles distant.

It would be strange indeed, if, even when following the tracks of a

Greek poet, Virgil had not in his mind some of the familiar sights on

the banks of Mincius.

But later in life he was at least as much in Southern as in Northern

Italy. That the first three Georgics were written, or at least thought

out, on the lovely bay of Naples, is certain from the lines at the end

of the fourth Georgic:—

Illo Virgilium me tempore dulcis alebat

Parthenope, studiis florentem ignobilis oti.[50]

Here were all the sea-birds, and the wild-fowl that haunt the sea; here,

as we shall see, the summer visitors might land on their way from

Africa. Here, from the sea and all its varying life, the poet’s mind

would enrich itself with sights unknown to him in the flat-lands of the

Padus, and grow to understand more fully day by day the

impressions—often dull ones—which Nature had made on the poets who had

sung before him. Rome he never loved, though he had a house there:

perhaps he had seen enough of the huge city during the years given to

the dreary rhetorical education of the day, after first leaving his

home. He loved Campania, and he loved Sicily[51]; at Tarentum also he is

found, probably visiting the friendly and jovial Horace. The

hill-country of the peninsula, and of the island that belongs to it,

became a part of his poetical soul; and as he probably spent much of his

time at his own Cisalpine farm, after he was restored to it by his

patron’s kindly influence, he must have been constantly moving among all

the phases of Italian landscape—in the plain, on the hills, by the sea.

Everything, then, in Virgil’s history, shows him a genuine poet of the

country, and at the same time no one who really knows his poems can deny

that they fully bear out the evidence of his life. It is true that he

drew very largely on other poets, and could not “disengage himself from

the antecedents of his art.” From Homer, Hesiod, Aratus, or Theocritus,

for example, come nearly all the passages in his works in which birds

are mentioned. But though they descend from these poets, and bear the

features of their ancestors, they are yet a new and living generation,

not lifeless copies modelled by a mere imitator; and their beauty and

their truth is not that of Greek, but of Italian poetry. Let any one

compare the translations of Aratus by other Roman hands, by Cicero,

Festus, and Germanicus, with Virgil’s first Georgic, and he will not

fail to mark the difference between the mere translator and the poet who

breathes into the work of his predecessors a new life and an immortal

one. There is hardly to be found, in the whole of Virgil’s poems, a

single allusion to the habits of birds or any other animals which is

untrue to fact as we know it from Italian naturalists. Here and there,

of course, there are delusions which were the common property of the

age. If, for example, he tells us in the fourth Georgic that bees

oft weigh up tiny stones

As light craft ballast in the tossing tide,

Wherewith they poise them through the cloudy vast:

let us remember that the true history of bees has been matter of quite

recent discovery. And we may note at the same time that Pliny, a

professed naturalist, living at least a generation after Virgil, has

actually asserted that cranes, when flying against the wind, will take

up stones with their feet, and stuff their long throats full of gravel,

which they discharge when they alight safely on the ground![52]

Virgil mentions about twenty kinds of birds, most of them several times.

These twenty kinds do not correspond so much to our species as to our

genera; for the Greeks and Romans, I need hardly say, had only very

rough-and-ready methods of classification, just as is the case with

uneducated people at the present day. When they found birds tolerably

like each other, they readily put them down as of the same _kind_,

rarely marking minor differences. Thus _corvus_ appears to stand for

both crow and rook; _picus_ stands for all the woodpeckers inhabiting

Italy; by _accipiter_ may be understood any kind of hawk. But in spite

of this difficulty, it is sometimes possible to make out the particular

species which is alluded to, partly by getting information as to those

which are found in Italy at the present day, partly by comparing Virgil

with Pliny and other Roman writers, and where Virgil is using a Greek

original, by trying to discover, chiefly through Aristotle’s admirable

book on natural history, what bird is indicated by the Greek word

translated, and whether that bird is an Italian bird as well as Greek,

and therefore likely to be known to Virgil at first hand.

I am not going to trouble my readers with much of the uninteresting

detail of an inquiry like this (in which indeed the game might seem to

be hardly worth the candle), but merely to give them some idea of the

bird-knowledge on which this greatest of Roman poets drew, whether at

first or second-hand, for description or illustration; and in so doing

to make clear to them, so far as I can, the particular kinds of birds

which he had in his mind. I shall quote him in the original, but shall

add translations in footnotes: in the _Georgics_, his poem of husbandry,

I take advantage of a poet’s translation, that of my friend Mr. James

Rhoades, which cannot easily be outdone either in exactness of

scholarship or in beauty of diction; and in the _Aeneid_ I make use of

Mr. Mackail’s prose translation, which I prefer on the whole to any

poetical version I know. One passage from the _Eclogues_ I have

translated myself.

The first birds we find mentioned in the poems are the Pigeons, and we

may as well begin with them as with any other. Meliboeus tells Tityrus

that the farm to which he is returned after a long exile—the same farm

which the poet himself lost and found again—shall yield him much true

comfort and delight, even though he find it overgrown with reeds, and

spoilt with the stones and mud of overflowing Mincius:—

Nec tamen interea raucae, tua cura, _palumbes_,

Nec gemere aeria cessabit _turtur_ ab ulmo.[53]

Here two distinct species are clearly meant by the words _palumbes_ and

_turtur_. About the latter of these there is no difficulty; from all

that is told us of it we gather that it is the same bird which the

French still call _tourterelle_ and the Italians _tortorella_, and which

we know as the Turtle-dove; it is still found in small numbers passing

the summer and breeding in Italy, and is most frequent in the sub-alpine

region of which Virgil is here writing. But what bird is here meant by

_palumbes_? Both this word and its near relative _columba_ must be

translated by _pigeon_, but can we distinguish them as different

species? Here the commentaries and dictionaries give us no substantial

help, and I may be pardoned for pausing a moment to consider a question

of some interest to historical ornithologists.

There are at the present day three kinds of pigeons beside the

turtle-dove just mentioned, which are found in Italy; they are the same

three which we know in England as the Wood-pigeon or Ring-dove, the

Stock-dove, and the Rock-dove or Blue-rock. Of these the last, which

with us is the rarest, only found on certain parts of our coast, is by

far the most abundant in Italy, and is the only one which habitually

breeds there. The other two species pass over Italy in spring and autumn

regularly, but seldom or never stay there; they go northwards in the

spring from Africa and the East, and return again in the autumn after

breeding in cooler climes. But it is fairly certain that in ancient

times _two_ species of pigeons bred in Italy: (1) the bird meant by

_palumbes_, of which Virgil makes the shepherd Damoetas say in the third

Eclogue that he has “marked the place where they have gathered materials

for nesting,”[54] and of which Pliny tells his readers that when they

see this bird upon her nest they may know that midsummer is past (Pliny,

_Nat. Hist._ xviii. 267); (2) the bird named _columba_, which word,

though etymologically the same as _palumbes_, is used by Pliny, and also

by the Roman agricultural writers, to represent a bird which is

certainly to be distinguished from _palumbes_.[55] The _columba_ was in

fact the tame pigeon of the Romans: it was also their carrier-pigeon;

for in the siege of Mutina, B.C. 43, the besieged general communicated

with the relieving force by means of _columbae_, to the feet of which

letters were attached (Plin. x. 110). The words may here and there be

used loosely, and it is possible that attempts may have been made to

domesticate the _palumbes_ as well as the _columba_; but in the vast

majority of passages the _columba_ is certainly either the domestic bird

or a wild bird of the same species, while _palumbes_ is some other kind

of pigeon.

Even in Virgil the distinction is maintained; for while _palumbes_

breeds in the elm in the first Eclogue, already quoted (which poem, it

should be noted, is genuinely north-Italian, and independent of a Greek

original), _columba_ on the other hand has her nest in a rock, as the

following well-known and beautiful passage will plainly show—

Qualis spelunca subito commota columba,

Cui domus et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,

Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis

Dat tecto ingentem, mox aere lapsa quieto

Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas.

And in the same fifth Aeneid, the bird which served as a target in the

archery contest—a domestic bird, we may suppose—was a _columba_, not a

_palumbes_.

Now it is a fact almost universally recognized by modern ornithologists

that our domestic pigeon is in all its varieties descended from the wild

Rock-dove; and thus when we find that the Romans used _columba_ to

denote _their_ domestic bird, and also a wild bird which made its nest

in rocks, the conclusion is almost certain that by that word we are to

understand our Blue-rock pigeon (_Columba livia_); and if this is so, by

_palumbes_ must be meant one of the other two Italian pigeons, the

Wood-pigeon (_Columba palumbus_, Linn.) or the Stock-dove (_Columba

aenas_, Linn.). Both species, as I have said, are now birds of passage

in Italy, while the Blue-rock is resident; and Pliny tells us of the

_palumbes_ that it arrived every year in great numbers from the sea—he

does not say at what season. Perhaps the Stock-dove[56] is the more

likely of the two to have been the bird generally meant by _palumbes_;

but it is quite possible that, like the unskilled of the present day,

the Romans confounded the two species, and wrote of them as one.

But there is still a difficulty. The _palumbes_ in the time of Virgil

and Pliny seems to have bred in Italy; Pliny knew all about their

breeding (x. 147 and 153), and Virgil makes Damoetas mark the place

where their nesting is going on. But it is now very rarely, if we may

trust Italian naturalists, that either Ring-dove or Stock-dove passes a

summer in Italy. Birds seek a _cool_ climate for their breeding-places;

probably because in very hot countries the food suitable to their

nestlings will not be found in the breeding-season. Has the climate of

Italy become hotter in the last two thousand years, discouraging these

birds from lingering south of the Alps?

This is an old question which has been well thrashed out by the learned,

and the general conclusion seems to be in the affirmative. The last

eminent writer on the subject takes this view,[57] and his argument

would receive a decided clinch if it could be proved that certain kinds

of birds, which formerly bred in the country, do so no longer, and that

this is not due to other causes, such as the well-known passion of the

Italians for killing and eating all the birds on which they can lay

their hands.

If we now turn to the first Georgic, in which, following the Greek poet

Aratus with freedom and discretion, Virgil has told us more of animal

life than in all the rest of his poems, we find frequent mention of the

long-legged and long-billed birds with which he must have been very

familiar in his boyhood at Mantua. The first of these we meet with is

the Crane (Latin _grus_). About the meaning of the word _grus_ there can

be no doubt; it would seem that the Crane was a bird accurately

distinguished by the forefathers of our modern Aryan peoples even before

they separated from each other. The Greek word γέρανος, the Latin

_grus_, the German _Kranich_, and the Welsh _garan_ are all identical,

and point to a period when the bird was known by the same name to the

whole race. Probably it was much more abundant both in Europe and Asia,

at a time when the face of the country was covered by vast tracts of

swamp and forest. Even now, at the period of migration, they swarm in

the East; “the whooping and trumpeting of the crane,” says a great

authority (Canon Tristram), “rings through the night air in spring, and

the vast flocks we noticed passing north near Beersheba were a wonderful

sight.”

Virgil mentions the Crane in two passages as doing damage to the crops:

and this is fully borne out by modern accounts from Asia Minor and

Scinde, quoted by Mr. Dresser in his _Birds of Europe_. The poet says of

them (_Georgic_ i. 118)—

Nec tamen haec cum sint hominumque boumque labores

Versando terram experti, nihil improbus anser

Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intuba fibris

Officiunt aut umbra nocet.[58]

And in line 307 of the same book he tells the husbandman that the winter

is the time to catch them:—

Tum gruibus pedicas, et retia ponere cervis

Auritosque sequi lepores;[59]

a passage from which it might appear as if the Crane were snared as an

article of food, not only as an enemy to the agriculturist. And indeed

in Pliny’s time the epicure’s taste was all in favour of cranes against

storks; but when Virgil wrote, the reverse was the case. This little

fact, so characteristic of the sway of fashion over the gourmand of that

luxurious age, was recorded by Cornelius Nepos, and is quoted from him

by Pliny (_Nat. Hist._ x. 60).

The Crane is now a bird of passage in Italy, and the Stork also; they

appear in spring on their way to northern breeding-places, and in autumn

reappear with their numbers reinforced by the young broods of the year.

These habits seem to have been the same in Virgil’s day. In the passage

just quoted (_Georgic_ i. 120) it is evidently in the _spring_ that the

bird was hurtful to the crops, as the seed was to be sown in the spring

(line 43, etc.).

On the other hand, in line 307, the Crane is to be snared in the

_winter_; yet I can hardly believe that any number could have stayed in

Italy during winter, if the climate was then colder than it is now.

Moreover, Pliny speaks of the Crane as ‘aestatis advena,’ that is, a

_summer_ visitor, as opposed to the Stork, who was a winter visitor. But

these Latin words ‘aestas’ and ‘hiems’ are to be understood loosely for

the whole warm season, and the whole cold or stormy season; and if

cranes came on their passage northwards, when warm weather began, they

must also have appeared, on their return journey, when cold weather was

beginning; so that both crane and stork might equally be styled

‘aestatis advena,’ or ‘hiemis advena.’ Pliny was surely making one of

his many blunders when he _distinguished_ the two birds by these two

expressions.

The migration of such great birds as these, unlike those of our tiny

visitors to England, could hardly escape the notice even of men who knew

nothing of scientific observation. Virgil has given us a momentary

glimpse of the Crane’s migration in spring; he is following in the

tracks of Homer, but as a Mantuan he must have seen the phenomenon

himself also.

Clamorem ad sidera tollunt

Dardanidae e muris; spes addita suscitat iras;

Tela manu jaciunt; quales sub nubibus atris

Strymoniae dant signa grues, atque aethera tranant

Cum sonitu, fugiuntque Notos clamore secundo.[60]

Here, as they fly before a southern wind, they are on their way to the

north in the spring. But in another passage he seems rather to be

thinking of autumn; it is where he is telling the husbandman how to

presage an approaching storm, such a storm as descends in autumn from

the Alps upon the plains of Lombardy:—

Nunquam imprudentibus imber

Obfuit; aut illum surgentem _vallibus imis_

Aeriae fugere grues, aut bucula coelum

Suspiciens patulis captavit naribus auras,

Aut arguta lacus circumvolitavit hirundo.[61]

The general tenor of the whole passage of which these lines are a

fragment, as well as their original in the _Diosemeia_ of Aratus, points

to the approach of ‘hiems,’ the stormy season, as the event indicated;

the falling leaves dance in air, the feathers of the moulting birds

float on the water, but the swallow is not yet gone. The deep Alpine

valleys seethe with swirling mist, which rises into gathering cloud, and

soon becomes stormy rain beating upon the plains, as we may see it in

any ‘Loamshire’ of our own, that lies below the stony hills of a wilder

and wetter country-side. In this striking and truthful passage, Virgil

has not followed his model too closely, but was evidently thinking of

what he must often have witnessed himself.

The Stork is only mentioned by Virgil in a single passage—

Cum vere rubenti

Candida venit avis longis invisa colubris.[62]

Doubtless the bird arrived in great numbers in spring on the Mantuan

marshes, and found abundance of food there in the way of frogs and

snakes. Its snake-eating propensity was considered so valuable in

Thessaly, that the bird was preserved there by law, says Aristotle.[63]

But did it remain to breed in Italy? It is remarkable that both

Aristotle and Pliny have very little to say of its habits, and hardly

anything as to its breeding; and if the Stork had been a bird familiar

to them, they could hardly have failed to give it a prominent place in

their books. At the present time it seems to pass over Italy and Greece

on its passage northwards, never staying to breed in the former country

and rarely in the latter; yet this can hardly be owing to temperature,

as it breeds freely in the parallel latitudes of Spain and Asia Minor.

As regards ancient Italy, however, the question seems to be set at rest

by a very curious passage from the _Satyricon_ of Petronius, which has

been kindly pointed out to me by Mr. Robinson Ellis. It is remarkable

not only for its Latin, but for its concise and admirable description of

the characteristic ways of the Stork:—

Ciconia etiam grata, peregrina, hospita,

Pietaticultrix, gracilipes, crotalistria,

Avis exsul hiemis, titulus tepidi temporis,

Nequitiae nidum in cacabo fecit meo.[64]

“A Stork too, that welcome guest from foreign lands, that devotee of

filial duty, with its long thin legs and rattling bill, the bird that is

banished by the winter and announces the coming of the warm season, has

made his accursed nest in my boiler.” I am reminded also of a story,

which has the authority both of Jornandes and Procopius, that at the

siege of Aquileia in A.D. 452, Attila was encouraged to persist by the

sight of a Stork and her young leaving the beleaguered city. “Such a

domestic bird would never have abandoned her ancient seats unless those

towers had been devoted to impending ruin and solitude.”[65] Here then

we seem to have another example of a bird abandoning its ancient

practice of breeding, occasionally at least, in Italy. If this is due to

persecution, the persecutors have made a great mistake. The Stork does

no harm to man, but rather rids his fields of vermin; the Crane, which

belongs to a different order of birds, may do serious damage, as we have

seen, to cultivated land, like the ‘improbus anser,’ and other birds

which Virgil in the first Georgic instructs the husbandman to catch with

lime or net, or to frighten away from the fields.[66]

Let us now turn to the big black birds of the race of the Crows, which

are always so difficult to distinguish from one another: for the Roman

savant not less difficult than for our own unlearned. There are to be

found in Italy at the present day the Raven, the Crow, the Rook, the

Jackdaw, the Chough, and the Alpine Chough; all of these seem to be

fairly common and resident in one or other part of the country, except

our familiar friends the Crow and the Rook, the former of which is very

rare, and the latter hardly more than a bird of passage. We cannot of

course expect to find these accurately distinguished by the ancient

Italians; and there is in fact still some uncertainty as to the

identification of certain birds of this kind mentioned by Virgil.

The two commonest of these are the _corvus_ and the _cornix_—words which

undoubtedly represent two different species. The Roman augurs, who were

always busily engaged in observing birds (and it were to be wished that

they had observed them to some better purpose), clearly distinguished

_corvus_ and _cornix_.[67] So also did Pliny,[68] in the following

curious passage: “The _corvus_ lays its eggs before midsummer, and is

then in bad condition for sixty days, up to the ripening of the figs in

autumn: but the _cornix_ begins to be disordered _after_ that time.”

Virgil also uses the words for two distinct species; his _cornix_ is

solitary—

Tum cornix plena pluviam vocat improba voce

Et sola in sicca secum spatiatur arena;[69]

while _corvus_ is gregarious, as is shown in the following memorable

description of Nature and of the birds taking heart after the storm has

passed:—

Tum liquidas corvi presso ter gutture voces

Aut quater ingeminant, et saepe cubilibus altis,

Nescio qua praeter solitum dulcedine laeti,

Inter se in foliis strepitant; juvat imbribus actis,

Progeniem parvam dulcesque revisere natos.[70]

That in these last beautiful lines _corvus_ means a Rook, no Englishman

is likely to deny; yet there are two difficulties to be put aside before

we can make the assertion with entire confidence. The first is, that

Virgil, here following Aratus, translated by _corvus_ the Greek word

κόραξ, which is not generally accepted as meaning a Rook. This is the

word which the Greek historian Polybius uses for those naval machines

invented by the Romans, in the first war with Carthage, for grappling

with a hooked projecting beak the galleys of the enemy; and the rook’s

bill is hardly so well suited to give a name to such an engine as that

of the crow or raven,[71] which has the tip of the upper mandible

sharply bent downwards, like that of most flesh-eating birds. Still I

must hold it probable that Aratus here used the word for the rook, as he

makes it gregarious, and so, I think, did the Alexandrian scholar Theon,

who wrote a commentary on his poem. The only other possibility is that

he was thinking of the Alpine Chough, a bird which he might possibly

have known, and one of thoroughly social habits. But that Virgil, though

he too probably knew this bird, was not thinking of it when he wrote the

lines just quoted, I feel tolerably sure; he would most likely have used

the word _graculus_ rather than _corvus_, which would seem never to have

been applied, like _monedula_ and _graculus_, to the smaller birds of

the group, such as the Alpine Chough and the Jackdaw.

The second difficulty lies in the fact that the Rook is now only a bird

of passage in Italy, never stopping to breed in the southern part of the

peninsula, and very rarely in the northern; while Virgil speaks of the

_corvi_ in the last-quoted passage as _loving to revisit their nests_.

But this difficulty has been overcome by the delightful discovery that

the Rooks still stay and breed in the sub-alpine neighbourhood where

Virgil passed his early life.[72] As I have remarked about the pigeons

and the stork, the climate may have been such as would induce some birds

to stop south of the great Alpine barrier, which now find there no

climate cool enough for breeding; and the Rook was perhaps a more

regular resident and breeder then than he is now.

We may conclude then that Virgil’s _corvus_ is our old friend the Rook,

even if some Latin authors use the word equally for Rook, Crow, and

Raven. Pliny for example tells us (_N. H._ x. 124) that the _corvus_ can

be taught to speak (fancy a bird talking Latin, that stiff and solemn

speech!), that he eats flesh for the most part, and that he sometimes

makes his nest in elevated buildings; feats which we are not used to

associate with Rooks. In fact it is plain that Pliny, who was more of a

learned book-reader than a careful observer of the minutiæ of nature,

was not quite clear in his notions about the big black birds. But if we

can be pretty sure about _corvus_, what is Virgil’s _cornix_, stalking

on the shore in solitary state, and uttering admonitory croaks from the

hollow holm-oak? If we consult dictionaries we shall learn that _cornix_

is the _Crow_ or _Rook_, “a smaller bird than _corvus_.” Where did the

dictionaries get this authority for making confusion worse confounded?

If Virgil distinguished _corvus_ and _cornix_, and if _corvus_ is the

rook, then _cornix_ must be the crow or the raven, and in fact the word

probably stands for both. I should incline on the whole to the raven,

seeing that at the present day it is much the commoner bird of the two

in Italy. Alpine choughs and jackdaws are not wont to stalk about alone;

and though the larger chough (our Cornish chough) might do so, and is to

be found in the mountain districts of Italy, he cannot well be the bird

generally understood by _cornix_. Could a chough learn to talk with his

long thin red bill? But Pliny knew of a talking _cornix_; “while I was

engaged upon this book,” he says, “there was in Rome a _cornix_ from the

south-west of Spain, belonging to a Roman knight, which was of an

amazingly pure black, and could say certain strings of words, to which

it frequently added new ones.”

Swans are frequently mentioned by Virgil, as by other Latin and Greek

poets. This splendid bird must have been much commoner then throughout

Europe than it is now, and accordingly attracted much attention. It

doubtless abounded in the swampy localities of the north of Italy, and

at the mouths of the great rivers of Thrace and Asia Minor, as well as

in the north of Europe, where it came to be woven into many a Teutonic

fable. Homer has frequent and beautiful allusions to it; and the town of

Clazomenae, at the mouth of the river Hermus, has a swan stamped upon

its coins.

This Swan of the old poets is without any doubt the whooper (_Cycnus

musicus_), whose voice and presence are still well known in Italy and

Greece. Virgil had seen it at Mantua, on the watery plain of the

Mincius:

Pascentem niveos herboso flumine cycnos.[73]

And in an admirable simile in the eleventh book of the _Aeneid_, he

likens the stir and dissension in the camp of Turnus, when the news

suddenly arrives that Aeneas is marching upon them, to the loud calls of

this bird:

Hic undique clamor

Dissensu vario magnus se tollit ad auras:

Haud secus atque alto in luco cum forte catervae

Consedere avium, piscosove amne Padusae

Dant sonitum rauci per stagna loquacia cycni.[74]

We now come to two birds mentioned in the same line of the third

Georgic. The poet is telling the farmer to water his flocks in the cool

evening of a hot day:

Cum frigidus aera vesper

Temperat, et saltus reficit jam roscida luna,

Litoraque alcyonen resonant, acalanthida dumi.[75]

The first of these birds is also mentioned in a line of the first

Georgic, which is mainly taken from Aratus; but it is significant that

Aratus does not mention the ‘alcyon’ either here or anywhere else.

Non tepidum ad solem pennas in littore pandunt

Dilectae Thetidi alcyones.[76]

That the ‘alcyon’ of these two passages is to be identified with our

Kingfisher, which is still an Italian bird, and the only one of its

kind, I can have no reasonable doubt; for Pliny’s description of the

bird is too exact to be mistaken. “It is,” he says, “a little larger

than a sparrow, of a blue-green colour (_colore cyaneo_), red in the

under parts, having some white feathers close to its neck, and a long

thin bill.” This description, it is true, is copied almost word for word

from Aristotle, the only exception being the allusion to the white

feathers on the side of the neck, which are a well-known feature in the

Kingfisher.[77] Whether both were thinking of the same bird it is

impossible to decide; but that Pliny was describing our Kingfisher, and

believed Aristotle to have done so in the passage he copied, it is

almost unreasonable to doubt.

It is, however, an open question whether the bird ordinarily known to

the Greeks as ἀλκυὼν is to be identified with the Kingfisher. The

greatest living authority on the birds of the Levant, Canon Tristram of

Durham, tells me that he has convinced himself that it is not the

Kingfisher, but the Tern or Sea-swallow: a rare coin of Eretria led him

to this conclusion, on which a Tern is figured, sitting on the back of a

cow.[78] And it must be allowed that the Greeks seem to have thought of

their ἀλκυὼν as a sea bird no less than as a river bird. Aristotle

remarks that it goes up rivers, but he seems to have thought of it

mainly as a sea bird, and a well-known passage in the seventh Idyll of

Theocritus appears to bear him out. But I am not here specially

concerned with Greek ornithology, and what Virgil says of the _alcyon_

piping and pluming himself on the shore is perfectly consistent with the

habits of the bird. I have myself seen it on the coast of Dorset,

“pennas in littore pandens,” and taking flight over a bay full half a

mile in width. A greater difficulty lies in the alleged vocal powers of

the bird; they sing, Pliny tells us, in the reeds, and Virgil’s _alcyon_

makes the shore echo with his voice. The Kingfisher, so far as I know,

is a silent bird except when disturbed; he will then utter a shrill pipe

as he flies away. But I am quite at a loss to explain his _singing_,

except by supposing that this was one of several curious delusions that

had gathered round a curious bird.[79]

The other bird mentioned in the lines last quoted is, and perhaps will

remain, a puzzle. Mr. Rhoades makes it the Goldfinch, following the

commentators, who themselves follow an old tradition which will not bear

criticism, and in favour of which I can find nothing more convincing

than the argument that _acantha_[80] means in Greek a thorny or prickly

tree, while the Goldfinch’s favourite food is the seed of the thistle.

Let us notice, however, first, that it is not the way of the Goldfinch

to sit in a thicket and sing, as Virgil describes the _Acalanthis_; it

is a restless, lively, aërial bird, fond of singing on the wing, and by

no means disposed to lurk under cover; and secondly, that the word

ἄκανθα does not necessarily mean a thistle, but is equally applied to

all kinds of thorny trees and shrubs,[81] such as the _dumi_ in which

Virgil makes the voice of the bird resound.

Where did Virgil get this Greek word _acanthis_[82] or _acalanthis_,

which he thus appropriated to express some bird familiar to himself?

Probably from a very beautiful passage in Theocritus’ seventh Idyll,

where, lying on the vine-leaves, Damoetas and Daphnis hear the birds

singing, and the murmur of the bees:—

Ἄειδον κορυδοὶ καὶ ἀκανθίδες, ἔστενε τρυγών,

“the larks and the _acanthides_ were singing, and the turtle-dove was

moaning.” But what kind of bird was Theocritus himself thinking of? Here

we must have recourse to Aristotle, who in his book on birds describes

the bird known to the Greeks as _acanthis_ as being “of poor colouring

and habits, but having a clear shrill voice.”[83] This cannot possibly

be the Goldfinch, the happiest and most brightly coloured of our smaller

English birds; one too whose song would hardly be picked out to be

described as λιγυρά, which word denotes a sustained high and shrill

sound, and would not well express a twitter or a quiet warble.

Sundevall, the Swedish scholar-naturalist, has pronounced this

_acanthis_ of Aristotle to be the linnet; a conclusion with which no one

would be likely to agree who is fresh from a sight of that lively bird

in its splendid summer plumage, or who knows its gentle _twittering_

song. Let us remember that Aristotle is of all naturalists, down to the

time of Willoughby and Ray, the most exact and trustworthy, and that

when he uses an adjective to describe a bird or its voice, he means

something exact and definite, and is not talking loosely.

Before we try to come to a conclusion about the ἀκανθίς, let us note

that Aristotle mentions another small bird, the ἀκανθυλλίς, which, from

the name, we may guess to have been one of the same kind as the

_acanthis_. This bird builds a nest which is round and made of flax, and

has a small hole by way of entrance. Now let us observe that Italy and

Greece are swarming for the greater part of the year with a variety of

those small brown or dusky-coloured birds which naturalists roughly call

‘warblers’—birds for the most part apt to creep and lurk about in

thickets or small trees, and having voices more or less shrill, which

may very well indeed be called λιγυραί. In England we have some species

of this order which are abundant in the summer; _e.g._ in Oxford, the

chiff-chaff, willow-wren, sedge-warbler, and reed-warbler—the two former

of which build spherical nests on the ground with a small entrance-hole.

These birds correspond with both of Aristotle’s birds in being

κακόβιοι—_i.e._ leading a poor lurking life; κακόχροοι, as being all

very sober-coloured and difficult to distinguish from one another, even

by a modern expert; in having a clear, sustained, or sibilant song,[84]

and lastly in building—some of them, that is—round nests with small

holes for ingress and egress.

Now in Italy and Greece the number of species of these little birds is

much larger than in England, and it is hardly possible that they could

have escaped the notice of either poet or naturalist. It is with these

that I think we are to identify the _acanthis_ and _acanthyllis_ of

Aristotle, the _acanthis_ of Theocritus, and the _acalanthis_ of Virgil,

with which we started this too lengthy discussion. Towards the evening

of a hot summer day, when the flocks have to be watered, as he enjoins

the shepherd, these little warblers would begin their song afresh, and

sing, as does our own Sedge-warbler, far on into the night. Neither

Goldfinch nor Linnet would be likely to sing at that time in a thicket

of thorn-bushes: those fairy creatures would be playing in the cool air,

or seeking the water for a refreshing bath or draught.

There are several other passages in Virgil which invite both translation

and discussion; but I must be content with giving one or two, and must

dispense with lengthy remarks on them. Every Latin scholar knows the

description, in the first Georgic, of the birds flying shorewards before

the storm:—

Continuo, ventis surgentibus, aut freta ponti

Incipiunt agitata tumescere et aridus altis

Montibus audiri fragor, aut resonantia longe

Litora misceri et nemorum increbrescere murmur.

Jam sibi tum curvis male temperat unda carinis,

Cum medio celeres revolant ex aequore mergi

Clamoremque ferunt ad litora, cumque marinae

In sicco ludunt fulicae, notasque paludes

Deserit atque altam supra volat ardea nubem.[85]

The words _mergi_ and _fulicae_ in these lines have been the subject of

much discussion among commentators. That Virgil meant by _mergus_ some

particular bird known to himself, there can be little doubt; for he has

transferred to the _mergus_ what Aratus (here his original) says of the

Heron (ἐρωδιός). And rightly so; for the Heron never goes out to sea to

fish, as it needs standing ground and is no swimmer. This _mergus_

stands probably for the Gull in a generic sense; Virgil had doubtless

seen them flying to the Campanian coast before a coming storm, and

altered Aratus accordingly. The _fulica marina_ is translated by Mr.

Blackmore ‘sea-coot,’ which is correct but meaningless, and by Mr.

Rhoades[86] ‘cormorant’; but in this case we have no means of

determining the species of which the poet was thinking. He used the word

_fulica_, a coot, to help him out in naming a bird which was something

like a coot, but a bird of the sea, and one for which he had no word

ready, or none that would suit his metre.

Another beautiful passage is to be found in the twelfth book of the

_Aeneid_; it is one in which our poet is evidently describing an

everyday sight of an Italian spring and summer, and writing

independently of an original:—

Nigra velut magnas domini cum divitis aedes

Pervolat et pennis alta atria lustrat hirundo,

Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus escas;

Et nunc porticibus vacuis, nunc humida circum

Stagna sonat: similis medios Juturna per hostes

Fertur equis, rapidoque volans obit omnia curru.[87]

Though it seems odd to compare to a swallow the fierce female warrior

careering in her chariot, it should be noted that Juturna’s object is

not to fight, but by constant rapidity of movement to keep Turnus and

Aeneas from meeting each other. This simile is, I think, the most

perfect passage about the Swallow that I have ever met with in poetry.

The _hirundo_ of the Romans had of course a _generic_ sense, and

included all the different species of Martin and Swallow. When Virgil

writes (_Georg._ iv. 107) of the chattering _hirundo_ which hangs its

nest from the beams, he clearly means the House-martin; for the Swallow

places his _upon_ the rafters, while the Martin does exactly what Virgil

describes. Both Aristotle and Pliny distinguish three or more species of

these birds,—the Swallow, Sand-martin, Swift, and possibly the

Crag-martin; and their habits seem to have been the same as at the

present day.

I shall not trouble my readers with any of Virgil’s passages[88] about

the Hawks and Eagles, in all of which he follows Homer more or less

closely. Nor need we pause to dwell on the single passage in which he

has mentioned the Nightingale; for, beautiful as it is, it is not only

based on Homer, but is inferior in truth to Homer’s lines. The older

poet sings truthfully of the Nightingale “sitting in the thick foliage

of the trees,” and “pouring a many-toned music with many a varied turn;”

but Virgil has neither of these touches. Still his lines have a beauty

of their own:—

Qualis populea moerens philomela sub umbra

Amissos queritur foetus, quos durus arator

Observans nido implumes detraxit; at illa

Flet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen

Integrat, et moestis late loca questibus implet.[89]

I will finish this chapter by quoting one more passage; in which I think

we may see Virgil’s own observation of the habits of birds. It is a

famous passage in the sixth Aeneid, where Aeneas has embarked with

Charon to cross the Styx, and the ghosts collect upon the bank to beg

for passage to the other side; they gather in numbers.

Quam multa in silvis autumni frigore primo

Lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terrain gurgite ab alto

Quam multae glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus,

Trans pontum fugat, et terris immittit apricis.[90]

This passage is a very embarrassing one, and is not sufficiently cleared

up by the commentators. The well-known lines which they quote from Homer

(_Iliad_, iii. 3 foll.), though they may have suggested, are very far

from explaining it. The ghosts are praying piteously for passage, and

hold out their hands in entreaty, “with strong desire for the further

shore:” and they are compared to birds driven on by cold weather, and

seeking entrance to warmer lands. Ghosts and birds are alike uneasy;

they long for relief in a home that is now their natural one. So far so

good. But the birds are arriving from the sea (_gurgite ab alto_) in the

autumn, and this must be a _northern_ sea, and the coast on which they

collect must be the threshold of a more genial climate. Where could

Virgil have seen birds collecting on the shore from the _North_, on

their way to the South?

Either we must have recourse to the impossible hypothesis that the poet

was writing of what he did not understand, or we must recall the fact,

which is told us in his life by Suetonius, that he spent a great part of

his time in Campania and Sicily, where in an autumn walk by the sea he

might have seen what he here refers to. The multitude of migrants from

France, Holland, and England take a south-easterly course in their

autumn migration, and alight on any resting-place they can find,—ships,

islands, or wider sea-coasts like those of South Italy and Sicily. Here

Virgil, we may be fairly sure, had seen them, and the longing of their

hearts had entered into his, and borne fruit in a noble simile that is

his, and not another’s. Their journey, when he saw them, was not ended;

like the pale and longing ghosts, they had yet another sea to cross,

before they could find a winter’s home in the secure sunshine of the

south.

[Illustration: Willow-Warbler’s nest.—See p. 26.]

NOTES.

Note A. (p. 14.)

I originally intended to have added a short chapter to the book upon the

Wild Birds Act and the results obtainable from it; but as other chapters

have grown to greater length than I expected, I confine myself to giving

in this note, for the convenience of those who are kindly disposed

towards the birds, the substance of the Act of 1880, with a few words of

explanation. Those who wish for more complete information should send

for ‘The Wild Birds Protection Acts 1880 and 1881, with Explanatory

Notes’ (published by Horace Cox, _The Field_ Office, 346 Strand, W.C.,

price 1_s._).

The Act in question, which was the result of most careful consideration

by experts outside as well as inside Parliament, and was seen through

the House of Commons by L. L. Dillwyn, Esq., M.P., one of a family of

naturalists, repealed the then existing Acts relating to Wild Birds,

which had been passed in the previous years without sufficient care for

all interests. Its main provisions were as follows—

1. To protect _all wild birds of every description_ from being caught or

killed between the 1st of March and the 1st of August.

2. To except from the above plain rule birds caught or killed by the

owner or occupier of land _on his own land_, or by some person

authorized by him.

3. To affix as penalties for offences against the above, for first

offence, reprimand and discharge on payment of costs; for subsequent

offences, a fine not exceeding five shillings.

4. To schedule a number of birds which may not be caught or killed even

on his own land, by owner or occupier, during the close time, and for

the catching or killing of which the penalty is a sum _not exceeding one

pound_. These are chiefly rare birds, and a certain number of sea-birds;

but among them are Cuckoo, Curlew, Dotterel, Fern-owl or Goat-sucker,

Goldfinch, Kingfisher, Lark, Nightingale, Plover, Sandpiper, and

Woodpecker.

It will be observed that this Act only protects the living bird of all

ages, but not the eggs: so that bird-nesting may still go on with

impunity. But the framers of the Act had very good reasons for omitting

this, wanton cruelty as it often is; for as the offenders are usually of

tender age, they must be appealed to rather by education and moral

suasion than by the terrors of the law. It lies with the clergyman and

the schoolmaster to see that gross cruelty meets with its proper

punishment—cruelty such as that which once occurred in my village, where

some boys stopped up with clay the hole of a tree in which a Tit had

laid her eggs, because it was too small to allow the entrance of the

thieving hands.

The worst kind of bird-nesting is carried on by boys _after_ they leave

the village school, when they make this the employment of idle Sundays

and holidays. The best remedy for this, and other habits that are worse,

is to find other and rational employment for them. Reading-rooms, games,

music, etc., I may remark, are usually out of their reach on Sundays,

when most of the mischief is done.

Note B. On the Songs of Birds. (pp. 48 and 149.)

As I have some musical knowledge, and have given some attention to the

music of birds’ songs, it may be worth while to add one or two remarks

on a subject which is as difficult as it is pleasing. I need hardly say

that birds do not sing in our musical scale. Attempts to represent their

song by our notation, as is done, for example, in Mr. Harting’s _Birds

of Middlesex_, are almost always misleading. Birds are guided in their

song by no regular succession of intervals; in other words, they use no

scale at all. Their music is of a totally different kind to ours. Listen

to a Robin in full song; he, like most other birds, hardly ever dwells

for a moment on a single note, but modifies it by slightly raising or

lowering the pitch, and slides insensibly into another note, which is

perhaps instantly forsaken for a subdued chuckle or trill. The same

quality of song may also be well observed in the Black-cap and in the

Willow Warbler: the song of the latter descends in an almost

imperceptible manner through fractions of a tone, as I have already

observed on page 48. Strange as it may seem, the songs of birds may

perhaps be more justly compared with the human voice when _speaking_,

than with a musical instrument, or with the human voice when singing;

and we can no more represent a bird’s song in musical notation, than the

inflections of Mr. Gladstone’s voice when delivering one of his great

speeches. The human voice when speaking is musically much freer than

when singing; it is not tied down to tones and semitones.

If we remember that there are in our scale only twelve notes to the

octave, and that between each of these an infinite number of sounds are

possible, we shall get an idea of the endless variety which is open to

the birds, and also, but in a less degree, to the human speaking voice.

Some birds, however, occasionally touch notes of our scale, and

sometimes, though rarely, two in succession. The Cuckoo, as has often

been noticed, sings a major or a minor third when it first arrives; not

that the interval is always exact. The Thrush may now and then repeat

two or three notes many times over, which almost, if not quite, answer

to notes in our scale, usually from C to F of our treble scale. The

Nightingale’s _crescendo_ is a good instance of a single definite note;

the song of the Chiff-chaff is perfectly plain and unvaried, but its two

notes have never corresponded, when I have tested them, to an interval

of our scale. Mr. A. H. Macpherson writes to me (Aug. 1886) that he has

heard on the Brünig Pass, in Switzerland, three Chiff-chaffs singing at

once, all in a _different_ pitch. No. 1 was about a semitone above No.

2; No. 2 about a quarter of a tone above No. 3: the interval being the

same in all cases. As my correspondent is a violin-player as well as an

ornithologist, his observation may be taken as accurate. The

Yellow-hammer’s curious song, which I examined carefully, may certainly

be given in musical notation as keeping to a single note (often C or C

sharp), but the concluding note of the song it is almost impossible to

represent, for the pitch of the original note is raised or lowered by an

interval varying from a minor third to less than a semitone. It is to be

noted that in this species different individuals (according to my

observation) have different modifications of the song; the

Yellow-hammers in South Dorset (1886) struck me as singing in a

different manner from our Kingham birds, though it would be almost

impossible to describe the difference. I think I have noticed the same

in the case of the Chaffinch. I have a note, made while travelling in

Belgium, to the effect that the Chaffinches there did not seem to sing

precisely the same song as ours in England. On the other hand, some

observations which I made last year on the Chiff-chaff’s two notes in

different localities led me to believe that the various birds were all

singing at about the same pitch and in much the same manner.

There are many other interesting points connected with birds’ songs,

_e.g._ the mechanism of the music; the song as a _language_; the entire

absence of song in many birds, some of which, as the Crow, are among the

most highly developed and intelligent; and the causes which operate in

inducing song. It would be well if some well-qualified naturalist would

investigate some of these points with greater attention than they have

yet received. It would be hardly possible to find a subject of greater

interest to the public, as well as to the _savant_.

Note C. Fables of the Kingfisher. (p. 242.)

It may be worth while to suggest a possible explanation of the origin of

the two curious and beautiful fables about this bird mentioned by

Aristotle and Pliny, and current in antiquity. The first of these was,

that for seven days before and seven days after the shortest winter day,

the sea remained calm; during the first seven (says Aristotle) the bird

builds her nest, and in the latter seven occupies herself with eggs and

young. The second myth concerned the nest itself: “it is in shape like a

cucumber, and larger than the largest sponge; the mouth is small—so

small that the sea, as it rises, does not get inside it. It has,

however, a great variety of holes, like a sponge, and appears to be made

of the bones of a fish!” This last particular is curious, as we know it

to be true of the Kingfisher’s nest; and it has led Prof. Sundevall to

believe that Aristotle must have received some authentic report of the

real nest, and have mixed it up with the mythical account. But his whole

account shows plainly that he imagined the nest to be built on the rocks

by the seashore, and perhaps even within reach of the waves.

Both these fables may, I think, have been built up on a slender basis of

fact—the only fact which the Greeks seem to have known about the bird.

Aristotle (_Hist. Anim._ v. 8. 4) tells us that the ἀλκύων was very

seldom seen. “It is the rarest of all birds, for it is only seen at the

setting of the Pleiades (about Nov. 9) and at the winter solstice; and

it appears at seaports flying as much as round a ship, and then

vanishing away.” Whether the bird is still seen in Greece only in late

autumn and winter I cannot say; but Mr. Seebohm tells us (_Brit. Birds_,

ii. 345) that in Eastern Europe it is compelled by the cold to migrate,

some finding their way to Egypt, and therefore necessarily crossing the

Ægean, or passing over Greece or the western coast of Asia Minor. I

think it is a fair guess that those known to Aristotle were on their way

from Thrace and Scythia to a warmer climate; and this hypothesis would

explain not only their short stay, but their connection with the sea and

harbours, and their mysterious character. Even supposing that a few

haunted the Greek rivers at other times of the year, they would not be

often seen there by a people not given either to sporting or to

exploring out-of-the-way places; the one fact which would impress itself

on the unscientific mind would be the sudden apparition in winter, and

especially in mid-winter, of this little blue-green spirit about the

harbours, and its as rapid disappearance.

If this be so, I think we have not far to seek for the origin of the two

fables. Nothing being known of its nesting, it was assumed that it

nested at or about the time when it appeared; and the not unfrequent

calm and fine weather of mid-December would confirm the fancy, and give

it a new mythical colouring. (The matter-of-fact philosopher does not of

course allow that these fine days always occurred in his own experience;

they are not always met, he says (v. 8. 3), in this country at the time

of the solstice, “but they always occur in the Sicilian Sea.”) When this

fable of the nesting-time had once established itself, it would be not

very difficult to find a nest among the curiosities of the sea. So the

little blue bird came to suffer “a sea-change, into something rich and

strange,” through the careless fancy of the imaginative Greek.

Note D. Redpolls in the Alps. (p. 195.)

On page 49 of the first edition of this book there was a paragraph which

described the shooting by Anderegg of a Lesser Redpoll (_Linota

rufescens_) on the Engstlen Alp. The date was June 30 (1884), and I had

little doubt that the bird (which was a female) was one of a pair which

had been breeding there. And this idea was confirmed by the discovery of

a nest in the same place by Anderegg in May of the present year (1886),

which Mr. Scott Wilson, who was with him at the time, considered to

belong to the Lesser Redpoll.

The form, however, of the Redpoll which is usually found in the Alps is

that which is usually called ‘Mealy’ (_Linota linaria_); this has been

reported by Mr. Seebohm as pretty frequent in the Engadine, and by Prof.

Newton, on the authority of Colonel Ward, as having been abundant in

Canton Vaud in the winter of 1874-5. All the Redpolls I saw last

September were, to judge from size and colouring, of this form: so also

were all that I have seen in Swiss museums marked as having been shot in

the Alps. Believing therefore, on these grounds, and in deference to the

arguments of the Rev. H. A. Macpherson, that both Mr. Scott Wilson and

myself had made a mistake, I struck out the paragraph in question from

my second edition.

Since doing so, however, I have paid a visit to Cambridge, where Prof.

Newton pointed out to me a passage in Prof. Giglioli’s recently

published catalogue of Italian birds bearing on the point. He writes

without hesitation of _Linota rufescens_ as occasionally breeding in the

Italian Alps. This induces me to add this note to the present edition;

for if it could be distinctly proved that _L. rufescens_ is found

breeding in the Alpine region, new light would be thrown, not only on

the curious geographical distribution of this form, but on the abnormal

character of the ornithology of the Alps. Prof. Giglioli may be himself

mistaken, and as Anderegg and I failed to skin our bird, we cannot

produce it as evidence; but my notes made while examining it point

decidedly to _L. rufescens_ rather than _L. linaria_, the length, for

example, appearing as only four inches.

Footnotes

[1]The name is sometimes said to be a corruption of _bud-finch_. But

Prof. Skeat (_Etym. Dict._, s. v. _Bull_) compares it with

_bull-dog_, the prefix in each case suggesting the stout build of

the animal.

[2]See Mr. Seebohm’s _British Birds_, vol. ii. p. 345.

[3]Mr. O. V. Aplin, of Banbury, tells me that he has heard it stated

that if you shoot a Kingfisher, and it falls on the snow, _you

cannot see it_.

[4]In 1885 Gray Wagtails were much less common in the south than in

1884; at the present time (Oct. 1886) they are again in their

favourite places (_see_ Frontispiece).

[5]The scientific name is Motacilla sulphurea (in Dresser’s List, M.

melanope).

[6]At this same south-east corner, in May 1889, I have several times

found the trees above me alive with these bold little birds. I have

also seen an egg taken from a nest in the Botanic Garden. We may

now, I think, reckon these as residents both in summer and winter.

[7]A Jack-snipe picked up under the telegraph wires at Banbury in July,

1885, was (Mr. Aplin tells me) in an emaciated condition; possibly

an injured bird unable to migrate.

[8]In May, 1886, I saw one in a pollard willow at the northern edge of

the Parks, near the new boathouse.

[9]At Lulworth, in Dorset, when the berry-season begins, I have noticed

that the blackbirds will congregate on the hedgerows in considerable

numbers, and abandon for a time their skulking habits. This makes it

often difficult to distinguish them at a distance from the

Ring-ousels, which are there about the same time.

[10]_I.e._ for the _Rasores_, in _Love’s Meinie_; where are some of the

most delightfully wilful thoughts about birds ever yet published.

[11]What this sense is may be guessed from Milton, _Paradise Lost_, Bk.

v. 195—

‘Fountains, and ye that _warble as ye flow_

Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.’

The word seems to express a kind of singing which is soft,

continuous, and ‘legato.’

[12]Published by its author at 6 Tenterden Street, Hanover Square.

[13]The three species were the Wood-warbler, _Phylloscopus sibilatrix_

(Bechst.), Willow-warbler, _Ph. trochilus_ (Linn.), and Chiff-chaff,

_Ph. collybita_ (Viell.). Markwick declares that he could not

distinguish the first of these from the other two.

[14]The song ceases about mid-June, and is not renewed till August: it

is then usually so wanting in force as to be hardly recognizable.

See Note B. at end of Volume.

[15]The spring of 1886 saw this hedge deserted by both species; the

result of an outbreak of lawn-tennis in the adjoining field. They

were lucky enough to find new quarters not far off.

[16]The scientific name is appropriate, viz. _Sylvia rufa_.

[17]_Our Summer Migrants_, p. 82.

[18]Mr. Courthope’s _Paradise of Birds_. No one who loves birds or

poetry should fail to read Mr. Ruskin’s commentary on the chorus

from which these lines are taken, in _Love’s Meinie_, p. 139 and

foll.

[19]Unless it be in the westernmost branch, which runs at the foot of

the Berkshire hills. Near Godstow the nest is to be found, as Mr. W.

T. Arnold, of University Col., has kindly informed me: for obvious

reasons I will not describe the spot.

[20]In the summer of 1886 this interesting bird was quite abundant in

and round Oxford. If I am not mistaken a nest was built in the reeds

of the fountain at the south end of the Botanic Garden, a perfectly

secure spot. I heard the song there as late as the end of July.

[21]This bird cannot really be wholly missing in summer, but it is

strange how seldom I have seen or heard it. It is wanting also from

a list sent me by Mr. A. H. Macpherson, of birds noticed by him in

Switzerland last summer (1886). But Anderegg tells me that its song

is often heard near his house at Meiringen. The Missel-thrush is

certainly more abundant.

[22]This name (Alpenlerche) seems to be applied by the peasantry both to

this species and to the Alpine Accentor. Mr. Seebohm, in his

_British Birds_, calls the former, very appropriately, the Alpine

Pipit.

[23]_E.g._ on the rocks about the Devil’s Bridge near Andermatt, or on

these of the Gemmi-pass.

[24]In common with other Woodpeckers, as Mr. H. Wharton has reminded me

in the _Academy_. It is indeed very doubtful whether this striking

bird was known either to Aristotle or Pliny; it is now an uncommon

bird in Italy, and is properly an inhabitant of northern Europe. But

when Italy was covered with forest (cp. Theophrastus, Hist. Plant,

v. 8. 2) it must have been known to the country people.

[25]The closer acquaintance has been made, and I have learnt the song of

this bird, which is not unlike that of the Lesser White-throat

described in Chapter II. Of all the warblers I know, this is the

most restless and difficult to observe when once the leaves are

fully out. It is the only bird, I think, which has completely

baffled me during a whole morning spent in pursuing the song without

once getting a fair look at the singer. (June, 1889.)

[26]Mr. Seebohm’s _British Birds_ is a remarkable exception to this

tendency.

[27]This kindly patron of birds is E. D. Lockwood, Esq., late of the

Bengal Civil Service, and author of _Natural History, Sport, and

Travel in India_.

[28]They came, but found the hole occupied by the ubiquitous Starling.

He again gave way to a pair of bold Blue-tits, who brought up their

young here, flitting about the garden like large blue butterflies.

[29]For exactly four years I saw no other Black Redstart in Oxfordshire.

But on November 5, 1888, another caught my eye within half a mile of

the spot described in the text. This time it was another new and

ugly wall that he patronized, transferring his attention now and

then to the cabbages in a cottage garden hard by.

[30]The discovery in Germany (see the _Ibis_ for April, 1889) of a

Cuckoo hatching its own egg should put all English observers on the

look-out. We have taken it too much for granted that such a thing

could not happen.

[31]Col. Barrow tells me that now (August, 1886) they have come to

prefer bread to nuts, and will leave the latter so long as they can

get the former.

[32]When does he leave us? On Aug. 23, 1886, I saw an astonishing number

of Flycatchers all on the same side of an orchard, and felt sure,

from their restlessness, that they had assembled, as swallows do, in

view of migration. On the 24th I went to S. Wales, where, during a

whole week, I only saw one, though they were abundant up to that

time. Letters from ornithological friends led me to believe that the

birds have almost entirely disappeared from South and East England

by about Sept. 12; and Mr. Seebohm is probably right in giving the

first week of September as the usual date of their departure. How

much less we know of the departure than of the arrival of birds, so

quietly do they slip away!

[33]Mr. Seebohm (_Brit. Birds_, i. 325) tells us of a quiet little

warble, so low as to be scarcely heard at a few yards’ distance; but

this I have never yet succeeded in catching.

[34]This year (1886) I took all the sparrows’ nests on my house, and

examined the young birds. Only one or two young peas and grains had

been given them: they had been fed largely on insects.

[35]Mr. Aplin tells me, however, that the upper parts, in summer at

least, “have a decided wash or gloss of green”: Mr. Seebohm calls it

“dull olive-brown.”

[36]Stone-chats have been observed busy in this way near Oxford.—A. H.

[37]The chat of the Whin-chat is a dissyllable, ‘u-tic’; that of the

Stone-chat a monosyllable, ‘chat.’ (O. V. A.)

[38]The Meadow Bunting (_Emberiza cia_) seemed to me, when I met with it

in Switzerland this summer, to be more lively and restless than

other Buntings.

[39]See Note B at the end of the volume.

[40]Or like a delicate electric bell, heard at some distance, while the

door of your room is slowly opened and again closed.

[41]Another cause is doubtless the _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ which

the bird uses: see a valuable note in _The Birds of Cumberland_, by

the Rev. H. A. Macpherson and W. Duckworth.

[42]In May this year (1886) I nearly trod upon a pair of these birds,

near the same wood: yet they showed no fear, allowed me to approach

them within six paces, and continued to reel close at hand.

[43]As in Milton’s “most musical, most melancholy.” But as Coleridge

remarks in a note to his own poem of the Nightingale, in _Sibylline

Leaves_, these words of Milton are spoken in the character of the

melancholy man, and have therefore a dramatic rather than a

descriptive propriety. Coleridge’s own conception of the song is the

true one and most happily expressed.

[44]A Woodpecker on a railway bridge is a curiosity. But a Lesser

Spotted bird was once seen on the stonework of the bridge which

spans the Chipping Norton branch line, by the Rev. S. D. Lockwood,

Rector of my parish, who knows the bird well.

[45]Vol. ii. pp. 461-463. _Hickwall_ seems to be the recognized

orthography; but I spell the word as it was pronounced.

[46]They will often build their nests in holes in the timber of the

houses. Anderegg tells me that this was the case in his own house

two years ago. Nor is this the only instance of the habits of birds

being affected by the nature of the house-architecture in these

parts; for the House-martins, being unable (I suppose) to make their

nests adhere securely against timber, or disliking the large

projecting eaves, build in the Haslithal under ledges of rock, and

are known there as the Rock-martin, as distinct from the

Rock-swallow (Felsenschwalbe), which is the name there given to the

Crag-martin. It is well-known that there are places even in England

where this bird prefers rocks to houses.

[47]I afterwards saw three of the same species about some stunted

thistles on the Furka-pass, at a height of 8000 feet, and on a

bitter cold day. See Note D. at end of Volume.

[48]It is worth noting that Knox observed that the progress of the Pied

Wagtail is chiefly observable between daybreak and 10 a.m. All the

movements I noticed in the Alps were observed during the earlier

morning hours.

[49]_Ancient Lives of Virgil_ (Prof. Nettleship), p. 33.

[50]

I Virgil then, of sweet Parthenope

The nursling, woo’d the flowery walks of peace

Inglorious, &c.

[51]“Habuit domum Romae Esquiliis juxta hortos Maecenatianos, quamquam

secessu Campaniae Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur.” (_Life by

Suetonius_, ch. 13.)

[52]Plin., _N. H._ x. 60. Aristotle refutes the fable, which is alluded

to by Aristophanes in the _Birds_ (1137). See Arist., _H. N._ viii.

14. 5.

[53]

And all the while, with hollow voice, thine own

Loved wood-pigeon shall soothe thee, nor alone,

For from the lofty elm the dove shall ever moan.

[54]Eclogue iii. 68.

[55]Columella viii. 8. Cato de Re Rustica, 90.

[56]Philemon Holland so translates _palumbes_ in his version of Pliny.

[57]Nissen, _Italische Landeskunde_, p. 374.

[58]

But no whit the more

For all expedients tried and travail borne

By man and beast in turning oft the soil,

Do greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes

And succory’s bitter fibres not molest

Or shade not injure—

[59]

Time it is to set

Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag,

And hunt the long-eared hares.

[60]

The Dardanians on the walls raise a shout to the sky.

Hope comes to kindle wrath; they hurl their missiles strongly;

even as under black clouds cranes from the Strymon utter

their signal notes and sail clamouring across the sky, and

noisily stream down the gale.

—_Aen._ x. 262 foll.

[61]

Never at unawares did showers annoy:

Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes

Flee to the hills before it, or, with face

Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale

Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres

Shrill-twittering flits the swallow.

—_Georgic_ i. 373.

[62]

In blushing spring

Comes the white bird long-bodied snakes abhor.

—_Georg._ ii. 320.

[63]_Mirabilia_ 23.

[64]See Petronius, _Satyr._ 55. Cp. also _Juv. Sat._ 1, line 116, and

Mayor’s note. In the London Zoological Gardens, in March 1889, a

pair of Storks were illustrating Petronius’ lines admirably—except

in that they were captives.

[65]Gibbon, vol. iv. p. 240, ed. Milman.

[66]_Georg._ i. 120, 139, 156, 271.

[67]_Cic. de Div._ i. 29.

[68]_N. II._ x. 32.

[69]

Then the crow

With full voice, good-for-nought, inviting rain,

Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone.

—_Georg._ i. 388.

[70]

Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat

Thrice, four times, o’er repeated, and full oft

On their high cradles, by some hidden joy

Gladdened beyond their wont, in bustling throngs

Among the leaves they riot; so sweet it is

When showers are spent, their own loved nests again

And tender brood to visit.

—_Georg._ i. 410.

[71]Sundevall (_Thierarten des Aristoteles_, p. 123) pronounces κόραξ to

have been our Raven.

[72]See Newton’s _Yarrell_, ii. 290.

[73]

Whose weedy water feeds the snow-white swan.

—_Georg._ ii. 199.

[74]With that a great noise rises aloft in diverse contention, even as

when flocks of birds haply settle on a lofty grove, and swans utter

their hoarse cry among the vocal pools in the fish-filled river of

Padusa.

—_Aen._ xi. 456; cp. vii. 700.

[75]

When cool eve

Allays the air, and dewy moonbeams slake

The forest glades, with halcyon’s voice the shore

And every thicket with the goldfinch rings.

—_Georg._ iii. 338.

[76]

Not to the Sun’s warmth there upon the shore

Do halcyons dear to Thetis ope their wings.

—_Georg._ i. 398.

[77]This exception is singular, as Pliny seems to depend on Aristotle

for everything else which he tells about the bird. I am inclined to

think that in this case Pliny must have supplemented his master’s

account from his own observation. He had a villa on the bay of

Naples, which bay was probably the ‘littus’ referred to by Virgil;

and both may here have seen the bird on the shore.

[78]I have seen a photograph of this coin, and satisfied myself that the

bird was meant for a Tern. But I have so far been unable to discover

any connection between Eretria and the ἀλκυὼν. Sundevall is

confident that Aristotle’s bird is the Kingfisher.

[79]_E.g._ Aristotle gives, and Pliny copies from him, an extraordinary

account of the nest and eggs. _N. H._ ix. 14. See Note C, at end of

volume.

[80]For the connection between ἄκανθα and ἀκαλανθίς see Conington’s note

on _Georg._ iii. 338.

[81]Theophrastus, for example, applies it to the Egyptian mimosa, the

thorns of which lately proved so damaging to our troops in the

Soudan. (Lenz, _Botanik der Griechen_, p. 735.)

[82]There is another reading, ‘et acanthida.’

[83]Κακόβιοι καὶ κακόχροοι, φωνὴν µέντοι λιγυρὰν ἔχουσιν.—_Hist. Anim._

ix. 17.

[84]A sibilant trill is probably what is meant in a passage of the Greek

Anthology (i. 175), λιγυρὸν βοµβεῦσιν ἀκανθίδες; suggesting the

Grasshopper Warbler (see p. 154), or the Sedge-warbler.

[85]_Georg._ i. 356 foll. I quote this time Mr. R. D. Blackmore’s

admirable rhyming version.

Ere yet the lowering storm breaks o’er the land

A sullen groundswell heaves along the strand,

On mountain heights dry snapping sounds are heard,

The booming shores bedrizzled are and blurred,

And soughs of wind sigh through the forest stirred.

The wave already scarce foregoes the hull

When homeward from the offing flies the gull,

With screams borne inland by the blast; and when

Sea-coots play round the margin of the fen;

The heron quits the marsh where she was bred

And soars upon a cloud far overhead.

[86]Following Keightley’s Commentary, which is the best we possess on

_Georg._ i. 351-423.

[87]_Aen._ xii. 473. Mr. Mackail translates: “As when a black swallow

flits through some rich lord’s spacious house, and circles in flight

in the lofty halls, gathering her tiny food for sustenance to her

twittering nestlings, and now swoops down the spacious colonnades,

now round the wet ponds,” &c.

[88]_Aen._ ix. 564; xi. 721, 751; xii. 247.

[89]

As in the poplar-shade a nightingale

Mourns her lost young, which some relentless swain,

Spying, from the nest has torn unfledged, but she

Wails the long night, and perched upon a spray

With sad insistence pipes her dolorous strain,

Till all the region with her wrongs o’erflows.

—_Georg._ iv. 511.

[90]_Aen._ vi. 309. “Multitudinous as leaves fall dropping in the

forests at autumn’s earliest frost, or birds swarm landward from the

deep gulf, when the chill of the year routs them over seas and

drives them to sunny lands.”

INDEX OF BIRDS MENTIONED IN THE VOLUME.

(_The scientific names are those used in Dresser’s List of European

Birds._)

Accentor, Alpine. Accentor collaris (_Scop._), 95, 196.

Accentor, Hedge. Accentor modularis (_Linn._), 95.

Aquatic Warbler. Acrocephalus aquaticus (_Gmel._), 86.

Bittern. Botaurus stellaris (_Linn._), 85.

Blackbird. Turdus merula (_Linn._), 31, 60, 82, 88.

Blackcap. Sylvia atricapilla (_Linn._), 51 foll., 119, 164.

Bonelli’s Warbler. Phylloscopus Bonellii (_Vieill._), 109.

Brambling. Frangilla montifringilla (_Linn._), 172.

Bullfinch. Pyrrhula europaea (_Vieill._), 12, 120.

Bunting, Corn. Emberiza miliaria (_Linn._), 139, 149.

Bunting, Reed. Emberiza schoeniclus (_Linn._), 149.

Buzzard. Buteo vulgaris (_Leach_), 88.

Chiff-chaff. Phylloscopus collybita (_Vieill._), 38, 42 foll., 83,

92. Note B.

Chough, Alpine. Pyrrhocorax alpinus (_Koch._), 82, 93, 194, 235.

Chough, Cornish. Pyrrhocorax graculus (_Linn._), 93.

Citril Finch. Chrysomitris citrinella (_Linn._), 80, 97.

Corncrake. Crex pratensis (_Bechst._), 65.

Crane. Grus communis (_Bechst._), 224 foll.

Creeper. Certhia familiaris (_Linn._), 25, 190.

Crossbill. Loscia curvirostra (_Linn._), 188.

Crow. Corvus corone (_Linn._), 153, 187, 236, 237.

Cuckoo. Cuculus canorus (_Linn._), 125-128.

Curlew. Numenius arquata (_Linn._), 143.

Dipper. Cinclus aquaticus (_Bechst._), 98.

Diver, Great northern. Colymbus glacialis (_Linn._), 33.

Eagle, Golden. Aquila chrysaetus (_Linn._), 92.

Fieldfare. Turdus pilaris (_Linn._), 35, 143.

Flycatcher, Pied. Muscicapa atricapilla (_Linn._), 92, 133.

Flycatcher, Spotted. Muscicapa grisola (_Linn._), 65, 130-134.

Garden-warbler. Sylvia salicari (_Linn._), 51 foll., 88.

Goldfinch. Carduelis elegans (_Steph._), 138, 171, 242.

Grasshopper-warbler. Locustella naevia (_Bodd._), 154 foll.

Greenfinch. Ligurinus chloris (_Linn._), 65, 119.

Gull, Common. Larus canus (_Linn._), 141.

Hawfinch. Coccothraustes vulgaris (_Pall._), 120.

Heron. Ardea cinerea (_Linn._), 248.

Jackdaw. Corvus monedula (_Linn._), 232.

Jay. Garrulus glandarius (_Linn._), 153.

Kestrel. Falco tinnunculus (_Linn._), 32, 141, 154.

Kingfisher. Alcedo ispida (_Linn._), 13, 14, 187, 240, 241, 260.

Lark, Sky. Alauda arvensis (_Linn._), 88.

Linnet. Linota cannabina (_Linn._), 171, 172, 244.

Magpie. Pica rustica (_Scop._), 153.

Marsh Warbler. Acrocephalus palustris (_Bechst._), 86.

Martin, Crag. Chelidon rupestris (_Scop._), 91, 190.

Martin, House. Chelidon urbica (_Linn._), 7, 190, 250.

Missel-thrush. Turdus viscivorus (_Linn._), 98, 119.

Moorhen. Gallinula chloropus (_Linn._), 13.

Nightingale. Daulias luscinia (_Linn._), 66, 161 foll., 250.

Nightjar. Caprimulgus europaeus (_Linn._), 134.

Nuthatch. Sitta caesia (_Wolf_), 25, 128.

Petrel, Stormy. Procellaria pelagica (_Linn._), 33.

Pipit, Tree. Anthus trivialis (_Linn._), 153.

Pipit, Water (or Alpine). Anthus spinoletta (_Linn._), 94, 194,

196.

Plover, Common. Vanellus vulgaris (_Bechst._), 101, 143.

Ptarmigan. Lagopus mutus (_Leach_), 82, 100.

Raven. Corvus corax (_Linn._), 232, 234.

Redpoll, Lesser. Linota rufescens (_Vieill._), 21, 193, 262.

Redstart. Ruticilla phoenicurus (_Linn._), 62, 63, 88, 121.

Redstart, Black. Ruticylla tithys (_Scop._), 80, 89, 123 foll.,

193.

Redwing. Turdus iliacus (_Linn._), 30, 142.

Reed-warbler. Acrocephalus streperus (_Vieill._), 41, 56, 57, 86.

Ring-dove. Columba palumbus (_Linn._), 219 foll.

Ring-Ousel. Turdus torquatus (_Linn._), 82, 98, 151.

Robin. Erithacus rubecula (_Linn._), 9, 88, 119, 125-127, 140,

206.

Rock-dove. Columba livia (_Bonnat_), 219, 221.

Rook. Corvus frugilegus (_Linn._), 134, 141, 142.

Sandpiper, Common. Totanus hypoleucus (_Linn._), 137.

Sandpiper, Green. Totanus ochropus (_Linn._), 136, 137.

Sedge-warbler. Acrocephalus schoenobaenus (_Linn._), 41, 42, 57.

Serin Finch. Serinus hortulanus (_Koch._), 97.

Siskin. Chrysomitris spinus (_Linn._), 120.

Snipe, Jack. Gallinago gallinula (_Linn._), 24.

Snow-Finch. Montifringilla nivalis (_Linn._), 82, 100, 101.

Sparrow. Passer domesticus (_Linn._), 64, 88.

Stonechat. Pratincola rubicola (_Linn._), 147.

Swallow. Hirundo rustica (_Linn._), 7, 90, 201, 250.

Swan. Cygnus musicus (_Linn._), 237, 238.

Swift. Cypselus apus (_Linn._), 65, 90.

Swift, Alpine. Cypselus melba (_Linn._), 91.

Teal. Querquedula crecca (_Linn._), 241.

Tern. Sterna fluviatilis (_Naum._), 33.

Thrush, Song. Turdus musicus (_Linn._), 30.

Tit, Blue. Parus caeruleus (_Linn._), 29, 105, 151.

Tit, Cole. Parus ater (_Linn._), 52, 105.

Tit, Crested. Lophophanes cristatus (_Linn._), 106, 184.

Tit, Great. Parus major (_Linn._), 29, 105, 151.

Tit, Long-tailed. Acredula caudata (_Linn._), 29, 105, 142.

Tit, Marsh. Parus palustris (_Linn._), 29, 105.

Turtle-dove. Turtur communis (_Selby_), 133, 143, 219.

Wagtail, Gray. Motacilla melanope (_Pall._), 17, 98, 186.

Wagtail, Pied. Motacilla lugubris (_Temm._), 87, 148, 186.

Wagtail, White. Motacilla alba (_Linn._), 87, 98.

Wagtail, Yellow. Motacilla raii (_Bp._), 64, 138.

Wall Creeper. Tichodroma muraria (_Linn._), 82, 101.

Wheatear. Saxicola oenanthe (_Linn._), 98, 172, 204.

Whinchat. Pratincola rubetra (_Linn._), 88, 145, 146.

Whitethroat. Sylvia rufa (_Bodd._), 41, 54 foll.

Whitethroat, Lesser. Sylvia curruca (_Linn._), 40, 53 foll.

Willow-warbler. Phylloscopus trochilus (_Linn._), 40-42, 47, 88.

Wood-pecker, Great Black. Dryocopus martius (_Linn._), 104, 184,

185.

Wood-pecker, Green. Gecinus Viridis (_Linn._), 26, 165.

Wood-pecker, Lesser-Spotted. Dendrocopus minor (_Linn._), 26, 166.

Wood-pecker, Greater-Spotted. Dendrocopus major (_Linn._), 181.

Wood-pecker, Three-toed. Picoides tridactylus (_Linn._), 104, 191.

Wryneck. Yunx torquilla (_Linn._), 167.

Yellow-hammer. Emberiza citrinella (_Linn._), 88.

THE END.

Richard Clay and Sons, Limited,

LONDON AND BUNGAY.

MESSRS. MACMILLAN & CO.’S PUBLICATIONS.

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR._

TALES OF THE BIRDS. With Illustrations by BRYAN HOOK. New and Cheaper

Edition, with an Additional Tale. Crown 8vo, 3_s._ 6_d._

Contents:—“A Winter’s Tale”—“Out of Tune”—“A Jubilee Sparrow”—“The

Falcon’s Nest”—“A Debate in an Orchard”—“A Tragedy in Rook-life”—“A

Question beginning with ‘Why’”—“The Lighthouse”—and “The Owls’ Revenge,”

which was not included in the first edition.

_SATURDAY REVIEW_:—“It is one of the most delightful books about birds

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_GUARDIAN_:—“Mr. Fowler has produced a charming book, which none are too

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_LITERARY WORLD_:—“Those who want to choose a book for holiday reading

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_ST. JAMES’S GAZETTE_:—“We scarcely know which we like best of these

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_BY DR. ATKINSON._

Fourth Thousand. Extra Crown 8vo. 8_s._ 6_d._ net.

FORTY YEARS IN A MOORLAND PARISH. Reminiscences and Researches in

Danby-in-Cleveland. By the Rev. J. C. Atkinson, D.C.L., Incumbent of the

Parish and Canon of York; Author of “A History of Cleveland,” “A

Glossary of the Cleveland Dialect.”

_NATION_:—“Is nothing less than an almost exhaustive monograph upon a

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Mr. Atkinson has left no side of his parish uninvestigated.”

_FIELD_:—“We have rarely come across a more delightful and instructive

volume of local parochial history. Whether we regard it from its

antiquarian, geological, historical, or descriptive point of view, we

can accord it nothing but praise. It has not a dull page in it. The

manners and customs of the people and their traditions when the author

first took possession of his parish are delightful reading.... It is a

model of what a local county history should be.”

_BRITISH WEEKLY_:—“I have not found a more interesting book this year

than Dr. Atkinson’s; his careful, faithful chapters on Folk-lore,

Antiquities, Manners, and Customs, and the rest, would keep you up far

into the night, and the personality they reveal—shy, learned, kind, and

wise—is greatly attractive.”

_PALL MALL GAZETTE_:—“This is an admirable piece of work. Dr. Atkinson

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of ‘Danby-in-Cleveland’—for that is the name of the parish which is

happy enough to own him for its Rector,—and not only every corner, but

the ways and thoughts of its people. Of course there are many parsons,

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man of the study as well as of the field. He has studied history in its

initial sources, in records, registers, chartularies, muniments, all the

lore which is so invaluable as material for history, because it was

never intended for that purpose. Thus he illustrates and interprets the

present by the past. What is, is explained for him by what has been, as

it never can be to the unlearned. What has been, is vivified by what is,

in a way that is impossible to the mere student. The active clergyman is

a valuable person; valuable also is the learned antiquarian. Combine the

two, and you have indeed _temperamentum egregium_.... Certainly this is

one of the best books of the year.”

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Transcriber’s Notes

--Retained the copyright notice from the printed edition (although this

book is in the public domain.)

--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

--In the text versions only, delimited italicized text in _underscores_.

--In the Latin-1 version only, transliterated Greek words, delimited in

{brackets}.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Year with the Birds, by W. Warde Fowler