Wild Birds' Nests in early April--Rook stealing Eggs frightened
and almost captured--The Domestic Cock--What he was, and what he
is--Sadly demoralised by intermixture with "Cochin-Chinas" and
"Bramahpootras."
After a month's cold, clear weather, with dry, parching, northerly
winds--the finest heather-burning season that ever was seen--a
considerable rainfall during the past week has been welcomed as a boon
rather than otherwise, and the country around is all the greener and
gladder because of it [April 1872.] During an afternoon's ramble on
Saturday we found a redbreast's nest, a blackbird's, and a chaffinch's,
all with their full complement of eggs in them; while the nests of
several other species, some completed and some still abuilding, were
to be found by diligent searching in almost every likely locality. For
many years past there has been no such favourable season for wild
birds. An amusing scene a day or two ago was the following:--One of
our hens, disregarding the companionship of the rest, and desirous of
more freedom of action, in a matter so important, than the hen-house
could supply, took to laying her eggs in a hole she had scratched
out under an old hazel root in a neighbouring copse. Complaints were
by-and-by brought into the house that although this hen regularly
dropped her quotidian egg in the spot selected, it was found that,
unless immediately taken away from her, the egg was sure to be sucked
by some sly thief who doubtless enjoyed such a delicacy at this season
amazingly, and all the more so, we daresay, that his pilferings had
hitherto passed undetected, despite the strictest vigilance on the
part of those more immediately interested. It was very annoying, as
you may believe, morning after morning to find the fresh and pearly
shell at the nest's side, its contents abstracted through a gaping
hole in its bulge, instead of the snowy treasure, totus, teres atque
rotundus, as it should be. Appealed to for such assistance as we could
render in detecting and punishing the culprit, whoever he might be,
we began by setting a trap for ground vermin, properly baited, and as
cunningly as possible placed, but without result. Determined, however,
to discover the petty larcenist, if possible, we took advantage of
an idle forenoon last week to sit and watch the nest from a distance,
our object in the first instance being to find out who the depredator
really was; we could afterwards and at our leisure take such steps as
we might deem advisable for his capture. Selecting a convenient spot
whence we could see without being seen, and provided with a powerful
binocular, we watched and waited with the most exemplary diligence
and patience, and were rewarded, after some time, by discovering the
culprit to be neither rat, stoat, nor weasel, nor other quadrupedal
marauder, but a common crow, or rook rather--Corvus frugilegus, Linnæus
calls him, though Corvus omnivorus would be nearer the mark--a large
old male bird, as he afterwards proved to be, who had doubtless in
his day sucked many an egg and sacked many a homestead of its callow
fledglings. We first observed him alighting on the branch of a large
ash tree, whence he had a full view of the nest, and there he sat with
much patience, preening his feathers, and uttering an occasional craa,
as if to encourage the hen in her labours. No sooner did the latter,
having deposited her egg, leave the nest with the usual cackle of
self-congratulation, than Monsieur Corvus glided from his perch,
and in a twinkling, by the dexterous use of head and bill, had the
egg rolled out on the grass by the nest's side. Turning it round and
round, and rolling it over and over, stepping back at times as if the
better to contemplate its pearly whiteness and handsome proportions,
and already in imagination rolling the sweet morsel under his tongue,
he finally stepped forward, and with his pick-axe-like bill delivered
a stroke at the egg's bigger end, which made a sufficiently large
hole for him to suck away at comfortably. And how he did seem to enjoy
it! Removing his bill now and again as if to draw breath, and looking
up and around with an air of innocence and self-satisfaction that was
exceedingly comical. Meanwhile, so intent was Corvus on his egg-flip,
that we managed to creep quite close to the scene unperceived by
him, resolved to give him a good fright at least, if we could do no
more. We took advantage of a moment when he had his head buried in
the egg up to the eyes to start to our feet, uttering at the instant
a favourite shout of ours in such circumstances--a sort of war-whoop,
a legacy, we suppose, from our Fingalian ancestors--and the happiness
of Corvus, sucking his egg in such fancied security, vanished like
a dream. With a prolonged cra-a-a he made a sudden dig into the egg
in his fright, his bill passing clean through it, and spreading his
wings he fluttered upwards, the egg sticking over his bill and eyes
like a mask, and preventing him from seeing anything, and causing him
to perform the most ridiculous evolutions ever exhibited perhaps by a
bird on wing. Fluttering along obliquely, with many a dolorous cra-a,
he came to the ground like a collapsed balloon in a neighbouring field,
where we hoped to capture him, but just as we ran up to him he managed
to shake the egg from his head, and in an instant was up and away and
out of sight at a rate that must have brought him to Culloden Moor
within the hour if he stopped not by the way. A bird rarely fails to
profit by experience, least of all a crow, and we have no hesitation
in saying that the particular rook in question will remember his
egg-shell mask and our unearthly war whoop till his dying hour.
And while on such subjects, let us ask the reader by the way if he has
noticed that cocks don't crow now-a-days as they used to do? We refer
of course to the common barndoor fowl--Gallus domesticus, the domestic
cock. He, we assert, does not now-a-days crow with the same regularity
and timeousness, nor with the clear, clarion notes with which he did
"Salutation to the morn,"
say a score of years ago. This may seem a startling assertion, but any
one who deigns to turn his attention to the subject will find that it
is true. The cock-crowing and wing-clapping of the House of Commons
when in the humour is no doubt highly creditable to that august
assembly. (It was Boswell, if we recollect well, who imitated the
lowing of a cow to admiration, and was naturally very proud of so rare
an accomplishment.) But the march of civilisation, and cross-breeding,
which you may call "internationalism" if you like, have been the ruin
of our cocks, so far as crowing is concerned. They may weigh more than
they did a score of years ago, and present a plumper form on the table,
but their crowing is gone: at the best it is but a harsh, spasmodic,
unmusical half-scream half-wheeze, altogether unlike the loud and
lusty, the clear, ringing notes of the cock-crowing of our boyhood
days. Our cocks are no longer chanticleers, but chantiqueers. If you
have occasion to sit up at night, or to start on a journey betwixt
midnight and morning, the cock no longer lends you any countenance or
aid in the matter--he sleeps on his perch in utter oblivion of the
passing hours, and as heedless of the "watches of the night" as the
brooding hen in the coop beneath him. The day may dawn, and the sun
may flood the mountain peaks with light, glad and golden, without a
note of welcome or recognition on the part of the bird that, from the
earliest ages until recent years, was known as the herald of the dawn,
and deservedly held in high honour and esteem as the vigilant sentinel
of the homestead throughout the midnight and early morning hours. Any
convivial "Willie" whom it so pleases may now brew his "peck o' maut,"
if the Inland Revenue will let him, and sit down to enjoy it with
his boon companions into all the hours of the night and morning,
unwarned of the flight of time by anything like a cock-crow. The
moon may fill her silver horn, and shine bright as aforetime, "to
wile them hame," and the day may "daw," but the cock's "crawing"
will no longer convey its notes of warning and expostulation. If the
bird crows at all, it is sometime throughout the day, generally,
we have noticed, in the afternoon, when nobody thanks him for it,
and then in notes so discordant as to make your teeth water, as if
you had suddenly bitten deep into an unripe apple, with the chance
of a headache for the rest of the evening. The last time we heard
a cock crow in the good old fashion was in an out-of-the-way corner
of Arisaig, some three years ago. Being a stranger in the place, and
having to sleep on a "shake-down" on the floor of our room, our sleep
was less sound than usual, but throughout the night we were cheered by
the companionship of a cock that was roosting in an out-house not far
from our window. Shortly after midnight he announced the first watch
of the night as ended, and afterwards at intervals, of as nearly as
possible two hours, his clear, clarion notes, repeated two or three
times, startled the stillness of the glen, until at last the rising
sun invited him to the labours of the day, and called us to boot and
saddle. Nor is the degeneracy and demoralisation of the modern domestic
cock less apparent in another direction. Surrounded by his harem, he
used to be considered the beau-ideal by common consent of all that is
gallant, and courteous, and brave. With proud step and stately bearing
he led his dames about, finding for them the sunniest spots wherein to
bask and dust themselves when the day was at its height. He diligently
searched for, and rarely failed to find, the particular corner wherein
food was most abundant, scratching with might and main that the ladies
of his court might have as little unnecessary trouble as possible,
rarely eating anything himself until they had first of all picked the
best and biggest share; and if he came across any dainty titbit that
his followers had overlooked, he took it up in his bill, and by certain
peculiar notes reserved for such occasions, called them around him,
dropping the toothsome morsel with strict impartiality at his feet,
to be picked up by the first to respond to his summons. Now all this is
changed. They may sun and dust themselves when and where they please,
or not at all, for all he cares. Instead of being the active leader
and gallant protector in feeding excursions, he is content to be no
more than as any other of the band, exhibiting the utmost selfishness
and greed in gobbling up the first grain-pickle or earthworm that
comes in the way, nor is he, proh pudor! ashamed even to cuff and
drive away his decidedly better halves, when the mean wretch has,
by accident rather than by any diligence of his own, fallen on a good
scratching-place. Neither do you find in the cock of the present day
the pugnacity and pluck, the indomitable courage and love of warfare,
once so characteristic of the genus, from the tiniest bantam to the
lordliest gamecock, that would rather die than cry quarter or show
the white feather to an opponent. We don't suppose that the reader,
any more than ourselves, has seen a cock-fight for years; not from any
elevation of morals, we submit, in Monsieur Gallus, or increase at
all of amiability, but from sheer poltroonery and want of pluck. He
will still bully about among his hens, and fight with them, and we
have seen some of them turn upon him and give him a good drubbing,
as he deserved; but a fair stand-up fight with another cock--oh no,
we never mention it!--he has still the spurs, but no longer the heart
for it. When afield at the head of his following; if the shadow of a
suspicious bird on wing, as likely to be a crow as a gled or hawk,
or other bird of prey, passes along, instead of the old warning
note to his wives, with preparation on his own part to receive the
enemy à l'outrance, be he who he may, he is the first himself, in
Yankee phrase, to skedaddle and make tracks for a place of security
and shelter, leaving his hens to their fate. Our bill of indictment
contra gallum, the reader may say, is a heavy one, but it is in the
main very true, as any one who chooses may satisfy himself when he
has the opportunity. How, then, do we account for it? Well, it is very
difficult satisfactorily to account for it in any way. We are inclined
to the belief that the demoralisation of our domestic cock is to be
traced to the introduction into our country of such splay-footed,
loutish, awkward fowls as the "Cochin China," "Bramahpootra" et hoc
omne genus, whose brains seem to have subsided into the feathers on
their feet, and whose only good quality is their size, and even that
is dearly purchased, we suspect, when the immense feeding they require
is taken into account. These fowls have spread everywhere, so that,
except in some out-of-the-way localities, a cock or hen of the old
native breed, of blood pure and uncontaminated by foreign intermixture,
is very rarely to be met with, while cross-breeds and mongrels of
every shape and size are abundant in all directions. Whatever the
good qualities of these latter in other respects, courage, gallantry,
and pluck are not of the number. Just inquire into the subject for
yourself, good reader, and you will find that, neither physically,
intellectually, nor morally is the cock of the present day to be
compared for a moment with the gallant, handsome, proud-stepping
biped of your boyhood.