The Hedgehog an Egg and Bird Eater?--Bird-catching--"Old
Cowie"--Mackenzie--Lanius Excubitor--The Butcher-Bird or
Shrike--Tea drinking and Sobriety.
Audi alteram partem is a sensible maxim, so reasonable in itself,
and mild and deprecatory of tone, that it rarely fails to commend
itself to our sense of right and candour; for if we would arrive
at a right conclusion on any matter in dispute, we must learn to
listen without prejudice to both sides of a question. We can only
hold our own convictions wisely and well, by knowing all that can
be said in antagonism and per contra. The following letter from a
correspondent in London, who writes under the pseudonym of "Observer,"
tells rather in favour of those who entertain grave suspicions as to
the morality and harmlessness of our prickly friend the hedgehog,
and, of course, against Mr. Frank Buckland and ourselves. We are
honest enough, however, to give "Observer's" communication in full,
meanwhile merely remarking that, obliged as we are to our correspondent
for his attention, and really interesting note, we are by no means
convinced that the hedgehog is either oviphagous or a bird-killer and
bird-eater. At this date [February 1876], and with all our knowledge
of the animal, we fear that nothing less than the catching of him
in the very act would convince us, any number of uncompromising
and hard-hearted gamekeepers, with "Observer" to back them, to the
contrary notwithstanding.
"While perusing your interesting article on the hedgehog, some
slight personal experiences of this animal recurred to my mind, and
I therefore thought it might be as well to communicate them to you,
to show that, according to my limited experience, the hedgehog is not
quite such a harmless and innocent creature as you endeavour to make
him, and further, that your practical experiments with the hungry
animals and the eggs are not sufficiently satisfactory to establish
and set at rest once and for ever the hedgehog's innocency. To be
brief: two or three summers ago, while living in the Highlands of
Scotland, and within one hundred and fifty miles of the Highland
capital, about ten o'clock on a beautiful Sunday evening in the
month of June, and shortly after a most genial shower of rain had
fallen to refreshen the young crops, my attention was attracted by
the most alarming and violent cackling of a hen that had just begun
to incubate on two or three addled eggs, or 'nest eggs' as they are
called. Wondering what would be the cause of this noisy demonstration
on the part of the hen, and thinking that probably a thief might be
at hand, I at once repaired to where the hen was. I could see no one
about, but there the hen was, as noisy as ever, looking towards her
nest, advancing apparently to charge some unseen enemy, and then
suddenly making a retrograde movement in the most frantic manner,
without attacking her enemy. On stooping down and peeping into the
corner where the nest was (for by this time it was almost dark), I
observed a round dark object in comfortable possession of the nest;
this was a hedgehog. If I remember well, one of the eggs was broken,
and there was very little of the contents left. This, I am almost
sure, was the case, though I would hardly go so far as to swear to
it at this distance of time. Probably in these circumstances you
will say, 'Then, if you can't actually swear to it, your information
deserves no attention.' However, bear with me a little longer. On
another occasion, on a similar fine evening, about the same hour,
and about four weeks after the above, I heard another hen, which,
with a brood of some eight or ten fine young chickens, had taken up
its night quarters quite near the scene of the first row, making a like
noise. Thinking a cat might be about, and therefore must be the enemy
now, I went up to see what was doing. There the hen was, standing a
short distance from the nest, with only two chickens by her side; the
others could not be seen. On going nearer the nest, there was another
hedgehog in quiet possession. Below him in the nest were one or two
dead chickens; their little heads were crushed quite flat and wet,
as if some animal had been trying to chew the heads. Outside the nest
were two more dead chickens, their heads being in the same flat and
wet condition. The chickens were about a week old, and, so far as I
can recollect, there was no other disfigurement. In the morning two
more live chickens turned up, and the poor hen had to be content with
a reduced brood of four or five instead of eight or ten. The hedgehog
had been sentenced to a violent death, but, fortunately for himself,
made his escape while search was being made for any of the surviving
chickens. During the next summer a duck had laid a number of eggs--more
than a dozen--in a quiet secluded spot at the root of a birch tree,
and which were not discovered by human eye until they were rather
far on in a state of incubation to be fit for use; so the duck was
allowed to keep her eggs in order to hatch them. One night, about 11
or 11.30 P.M., some of the inmates of the house were disturbed by the
duck coming to one of the doors, making a great noise, and would not
leave. So, to save further annoyance, the servant rose and locked
up poor duck with the other ducks. In the morning the prisoner was
released, and allowed to go to resume possession of the nest, which,
on examination, was found undisturbed, except that two or three of the
eggs were amissing; but this was thought nothing of, and allowed to
pass unnoticed. However, a few nights after this occurrence, the duck
repeated her visit to the house, was in a greatly disturbed state,
and would on no account whatever be pacified; so, as the night was
dark, a light was procured, and the writer, along with a friend,
went to the nest, and found a hedgehog sitting on the eggs. Some of
them were broken, and the nest in a great mess. Outside there was
an empty shell, and a large round hole in it. On this occasion the
hedgehog had to pay the extreme penalty. Mentioning these things
to the people about, the writer was informed that it was understood
generally that hedgehogs destroyed eggs, but it had never been known
to them that they attacked young chickens. However, they had never
given the matter any attention. Perhaps these facts I have related
may be of some use to you in making further inquiries about the
hedgehog. At any rate, you may rely on the truth of my statements,
as they are no hearsay stories, but facts that took place before my
own eyes. Query--Granted that the hedgehog does not eat eggs, then
what was he doing in possession of these three different nests? How
were the eggs broken? What animal killed the chickens, if it was not
the hedgehog? Perhaps a weasel would have done it, but in that case,
would the weasel not have inflicted some serious wound about the
throat, and which would have left some bloody marks?"
Of some half-dozen bird-catchers, or bird-fanciers, as they prefer
calling themselves, that visit the West Highlands professionally
from time to time, our favourite is Mackenzie, a north countryman,
we believe, as one indeed might readily guess from his surname,
and well enough known, we daresay, in and about Inverness, where
during our last visit we noticed with pleasure--for it is a good
sign of a people--that birds in cages were exceedingly common. "Old
Cowie," another of the fraternity, is a respectable man, with
more knowledge, perhaps, of things in general than any of his
brethren that have chanced to come our way; but for a knowledge
of our native wild-birds, their favourite haunts, food, song, and
individual habits--idiosyncrasies--for a knowledge, we say, precise
and accurate to the most astonishing degree on all those matters, you
may trust Mackenzie, for he is far and away at the head of his class,
positively unrivalled by any one else that we ever met with. Of the
ornithology of books, of ornithology as a science, with its systems,
classifications, genera, and species, he knows nothing, of course, but
he knows every bird you can refer to under some favourite provincial
cognomen, and he knows it so thoroughly that no one could possibly
know it better. It is true that he knows little or nothing but birds,
but he knows them so well (the birds of Scotland), so intimately, from
constant intercourse with them in their native haunts and homes, that
a "crack" with him about them, when once you get him fairly started,
is no ordinary treat to any one so interested in all that concerns
our wild-birds as we are, and have been for well-nigh a quarter of
a century. Remembering that bird-catching is a sort of profession or
trade, by which a livelihood, however precarious, is encompassed, an
affair of demand and supply, with the usual prosaic result of pounds,
shillings, and pence--or rather of shillings and pence without the
pounds, these last seldom tickling the palms or troubling the purses
of the order--one would expect to find the bird-catcher a dull,
mechanical rogue, a mere bird-trapper and bird-seller in the dearest
market, with no more of poetry or sentiment about him than about a
white-aproned poulterer. This, however, is far from being the case,
at least not always nor even frequently, for Mackenzie, "Old Cowie,"
and others that we could name, really and truly love birds for their
own sakes, without a thought frequently of their market value, and you
can gather as you converse with them from their frequent references
to the delights as well as the désagréments of their profession,
that they are by no means either unconscious of or indifferent to the
poetry of birds and bird life in their native haunts, whether on moor
or mountain side, by solitary tarn or stream, in copse and wildwood,
amid the wildernesses of inland mountains or by the margin of the
sea. We never knew any one so correctly and minutely conversant with
the language of birds as Mackenzie is. By the language of birds, we
do not mean their song, for song is no more the ordinary speech of
birds, though most people think it is, than it is the ordinary speech
of men. Mackenzie, it is true, can imitate the songs of our different
species of warblers with great taste and exactness, but when we say
that he is conversant with the language of birds, we mean not their
song, but their little notes, abrupt chirpings, and faint whisperings,
indicative to the initiated of the particular thought or motif at the
moment predominant in the feathered breast, whether love or terror,
or mere apprehension of danger, or envy, or rivalry, or combativeness,
or notes of warning, or call of invitation to its kind--all these,
and for every separate species, Mackenzie imitates with such consummate
skill, exactness, and dexterity, that he not only deceives an ordinary
listener when off his guard--he has more than once deceived us, though
familiar with birds and bird-notes all our life--but he deceives the
very birds themselves, as we have often witnessed with no little
admiration and delight. That much of this imitatory work is done
ventriloquistically renders it all the more effective, as well as
more difficult of attainment by others of the fraternity ambitious of
catching and cultivating on their own behalf so desirable a gift. This
knowledge of bird language is, of course, of great value to him as
a bird-catcher, and accounts for his success at seasons seemingly
the most inopportune, and in localities the most unlikely, that an
ordinary bird-catcher would probably search in vain for a single
specimen of goldfinch or aberdevine, linnet or redpole, or anything
else in the shape of a valuable song-bird. In passing and repassing
our place, this wonderful bird-man, as our servant girl styles him,
always calls with such bird news and rare specimens as he thinks
most likely to interest us. The other day he came in a state of great
excitement to inform us that just as he had got several siskins on his
limed twigs, a bird--not a hawk of any kind, he was certain--dashed
out of a copse at hand, pounced upon one of the siskins, and bore
it off and away before his very eyes, ere he could do anything--so
sudden and unexpected was the attack--to prevent it! Momentary as
was his glimpse of it, however, Mackenzie's quick and practised
eye enabled him to take in the marauder's predominant colouring,
its shape and size, and mode of flight; and on describing these to
us, we at once exclaimed, a butcher-bird--a shrike! The description
could apply to no other British bird-killer that we could think of;
and that we were right we have no more doubt than if we had the culprit
already in our cabinet. Mackenzie was in a rage. "You are right, sir;
it must have been a butcher-bird, for now I recollect having once seen
a specimen in Ayrshire. I'm bound, however, to lay salt on yon chap's
tail before I am done with him; and you, sir, shall have him, dead or
living. I swear it by all my illustrious ancestors, the Mackenzies of
Kintail!" he exclaimed, with a melodramatic air that was very amusing;
and shouldering his cages and other paraphernalia of his craft, he
departed with a touch of his cap and a bow that showed that amongst
birds he had learned good manners and politeness to an extent that
as a navvy or hired labourer he would probably be all his lifetime
very much a stranger. He has not returned to us as yet, so we suppose
he is still in pursuit, detective-wise, of the shrike; and it had
better look out, for Mackenzie is just the man to succeed sooner or
later in laying salt upon its tail, as threatened. The butcher-bird,
or shrike, is the Lanius excubitor of Linnæus, an exceeding rare bird
in the West Highlands--in Scotland, indeed--so rare that we never
saw a living bird of the order, only stuffed or otherwise preserved
cabinet specimens. It preys on small birds, mice, insects, &c.,
which it does not tear up from under its feet like the hawk tribe,
but fixes it on a thorn-prickle, or in the fork of a small branch,
and then tears it to pieces with its bill, which is very strong, and
toothed and hooked at the point. When Mackenzie catches the offender
he is now in search of, we shall have something more to say about
the butcher-bird, if butcher-bird it proves to be.
We have noticed, by the way, that all bird-catchers--all at least
with whom we have had any acquaintance--are prodigious tea-drinkers,
not sipping the grateful beverage from cups, observe, but literally
drinking it in bowls'-full. They have assured us that they find it
the best thing they can take, not merely as a refresher, but as a long
sustaining element in their dietary throughout their many wanderings by
flood and field. And like all large tea-drinkers, bird-catchers are a
very sober class of men; that they should be so is indeed a necessity
of their craft, for a knock-kneed, shaky-handed, blear-eyed, nerveless
bird-catcher would be as unfit for the successful prosecution of the
labours incident to his profession, as would a similar physical wreck
be for the successful manipulation of his tools in the more minute
and delicate departments of mathematical instrument making.