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BIRDS AND MAN
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| _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_ |
| |
| Birds in a Village |
| |
| Adventures among Birds |
| |
| Nature in Downland |
| |
| Hampshire Days |
| |
| The Land's End |
| |
| A Shepherd's Life |
| |
| Afoot in England |
| |
| The Purple Land |
| |
| Green Mansions |
| |
| A Crystal Age |
| |
| South American Sketches |
| |
| The Naturalist in La Plata |
| |
| A Little Boy Lost |
| |
+----------------------------+
[Illustration]
BIRDS AND MAN
BY
W. H. HUDSON
LONDON
DUCKWORTH & CO.
3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, W.C.
_New Edition published by Duckworth & Co. 1915_
Re-issued 1920
This book has been out of print for several years and has been somewhat
altered for this new edition. The order in which the chapters originally
appeared is changed. One chapter dealing mainly with bird life in the
Metropolis, a subject treated fully in another work, has been omitted;
two new chapters are added, and some fresh matter introduced throughout
the work.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I. Birds at their Best 1
II. Birds and Man 37
III. Daws in the West Country 58
IV. Early Spring in Savernake Forest 79
V. A Wood Wren at Wells 101
VI. The Secret of the Willow Wren 117
VII. Secret of the Charm of Flowers 133
VIII. Ravens in Somerset 159
IX. Owls in a Village 173
X. The Strange and Beautiful Sheldrake 187
XI. Geese: an Appreciation and a Memory 199
XII. The Dartford Warbler 222
XIII. Vert--Vert; or Parrot Gossip 249
XIV. Something Pretty in a Glass Case 269
XV. Selborne 283
Index 303
BIRDS AND MAN
CHAPTER I
BIRDS AT THEIR BEST
_By Way of Introduction_
Years ago, in a chapter concerning eyes in a book of Patagonian
memories, I spoke of the unpleasant sensations produced in me by the
sight of stuffed birds. Not bird skins in the drawers of a cabinet, it
will be understood, these being indispensable to the ornithologist, and
very useful to the larger class of persons who without being
ornithologists yet take an intelligent interest in birds. The
unpleasantness was at the sight of skins stuffed with wool and set up on
their legs in imitation of the living bird, sometimes (oh, mockery!) in
their "natural surroundings." These "surroundings" are as a rule
constructed or composed of a few handfuls of earth to form the floor of
the glass case--sand, rock, clay, chalk, or gravel; whatever the
material may be it invariably has, like all "matter out of place," a
grimy and depressing appearance. On the floor are planted grasses,
sedges, and miniature bushes, made of tin or zinc and then dipped in a
bucket of green paint. In the chapter referred to it was said, "When the
eye closes in death, the bird, except to the naturalist, becomes a mere
bundle of dead feathers; crystal globes may be put into the empty
sockets, and a bold life-imitating attitude given to the stuffed
specimen, but the vitreous orbs shoot forth no life-like glances: the
'passion and the life whose fountains are within' have vanished, and the
best work of the taxidermist, who has given a life to his bastard art,
produces in the mind only sensations of irritation and disgust."
That, in the last clause, was wrongly writ. It should have been _my_
mind, and the minds of those who, knowing living birds intimately as I
do, have the same feeling about them.
This, then, being my feeling about stuffed birds, set up in their
"natural surroundings," I very naturally avoid the places where they are
exhibited. At Brighton, for instance, on many occasions when I have
visited and stayed in that town, there was no inclination to see the
Booth Collection, which is supposed to be an ideal collection of British
birds; and we know it was the life-work of a zealous ornithologist who
was also a wealthy man, and who spared no pains to make it perfect of
its kind. About eighteen months ago I passed a night in the house of a
friend close to the Dyke Road, and next morning, having a couple of
hours to get rid of, I strolled into the museum. It was painfully
disappointing, for though no actual pleasure had been expected, the
distress experienced was more than I had bargained for. It happened that
a short time before, I had been watching the living Dartford warbler, at
a time when the sight of this small elusive creature is loveliest, for
not only was the bird in his brightest feathers, but his surroundings
were then most perfect--
The whin was frankincense and flame.
His appearance, as I saw him then and on many other occasions in
the furze-flowering season, is fully described in a chapter in
this book; but on this particular occasion while watching my bird
I saw it in a new and unexpected aspect, and in my surprise and
delight I exclaimed mentally, "Now I have seen the furze wren at
his very best!"
It was perhaps a very rare thing--one of those effects of light on
plumage which we are accustomed to see in birds that have glossed
metallic feathers, and, more rarely, in other kinds. Thus the
turtle-dove when flying from the spectator with a strong
sunlight on its upper plumage, sometimes at a distance of two to
three hundred yards, appears of a shining whiteness.
I had been watching the birds for a couple of hours, sitting quite
still on a tuft of heather among the furze-bushes, and at
intervals they came to me, impelled by curiosity and solicitude,
their nests being near, but, ever restless, they would never
remain more than a few seconds at a time in sight. The prettiest
and the boldest was a male, and it was this bird that in the end
flew to a bush within twelve yards of where I sat, and perching on
a spray about on a level with my eyes exhibited himself to me in
his characteristic manner, the long tail raised, crest erect,
crimson eye sparkling, and throat puffed out with his little
scolding notes. But his colour was no longer that of the furze
wren: seen at a distance the upper plumage always appears
slaty-black; near at hand it is of a deep slaty-brown; now it was
dark, sprinkled or frosted over with a delicate greyish-white, the
white of oxidised silver; and this rare and beautiful appearance
continued for a space of about twenty seconds; but no sooner did
he flit to another spray than it vanished, and he was once
more the slaty-brown little bird with a chestnut-red breast.
It is unlikely that I shall ever again see the furze wren in this
aspect, with a curious splendour wrought by the sunlight in the
dark but semi-translucent delicate feathers of his mantle; but its
image is in the mind, and, with a thousand others equally
beautiful, remains to me a permanent possession.
As I went in to see the famous Booth Collection, a thought of the
bird I have just described came into my mind; and glancing round
the big long room with shelves crowded with stuffed birds, like
the crowded shelves of a shop, to see where the Dartford warblers
were, I went straight to the case and saw a group of them fastened
to a furze-bush, the specimens twisted by the stuffer into a
variety of attitudes--ancient, dusty, dead little birds, painful to
look at--a libel on nature and an insult to a man's intelligence.
It was a relief to go from this case to the others, which were not
of the same degree of badness, but all, like the furze wrens, were
in their natural surroundings--the pebbles, bit of turf, painted
leaves, and what not, and, finally, a view of the wide world
beyond, the green earth and the blue sky, all painted on
the little square of deal or canvas which formed the back of the
glass case.
Listening to the talk of other visitors who were making the round
of the room, I heard many sincere expressions of admiration: they
were really pleased and thought it all very wonderful. That is, in
fact, the common feeling which most persons express in such
places, and, assuming that it is sincere, the obvious explanation
is that they know no better. They have never properly seen
anything in nature, but have looked always with mind and the inner
vision preoccupied with other and familiar things--indoor scenes
and objects, and scenes described in books. If they had ever
looked at wild birds properly--that is to say, emotionally--the
images of such sights would have remained in their minds; and,
with such a standard for comparison, these dreary remnants of dead
things set before them as restorations and as semblances of life
would have only produced a profoundly depressing effect.
We hear of the educational value of such exhibitions, and it may be
conceded that they might be made useful to young students of zoology,
by distributing the specimens over a large area, arranged in scattered
groups so as to give a rough idea of the relationship existing among
its members, and of all together to other neighbouring groups, and to
others still further removed. The one advantage of such a plan to the
young student would be, that it would help him to get rid of the false
notion, which classification studied in books invariably produces,
that nature marshals her species in a line or row, or her genera in a
chain. But no such plan is ever attempted, probably because it would
only be for the benefit of about one person in five hundred visitors,
and the expense would be too great.
As things are, these collections help no one, and their effect is
confusing and in many ways injurious to the mind, especially to
the young. A multitude of specimens are brought before the sight,
each and every one a falsification and degradation of nature, and
the impression left is of an assemblage, or mob, of incongruous
forms, and of a confusion of colours. The one comfort is that
nature, wiser than our masters, sets herself against this rude
system of overloading the brain. She is kind to her wild children
in their intemperance, and is able to relieve the congested mind,
too, from this burden. These objects in a museum are not and
cannot be viewed emotionally, as we view living forms and all
nature; hence they do not, and we being what we are, cannot,
register lasting impressions.
It needed a long walk on the downs to get myself once more
in tune with the outdoor world after that distuning experience;
but just before quitting the house in the Dyke Road an old memory
came to me and gave me some relief, inasmuch as it caused me to
smile. It was a memory of a tale of the Age of Fools, which I
heard long years ago in the days of my youth.
I was at a small riverine port of the Plata river, called Ensenada
de Barragan, assisting a friend to ship a number of sheep which he
had purchased in Buenos Ayres and was sending to the Banda
Oriental--the little republic on the east side of the great
sea-like river. The sheep, numbering about six thousand, were
penned at the side of the creek where the small sailing ships were
lying close to the bank, and a gang of eight men were engaged in
carrying the animals on board, taking them one by one on their
backs over a narrow plank, while I stood by keeping count. The men
were gauchos, all but one--a short, rather grotesque-looking
Portuguese with one eye. This fellow was the life and soul of the
gang, and with his jokes and antics kept the others in a merry
humour. It was an excessively hot day, and at intervals of about
an hour the men would knock off work, and, squatting on the muddy
bank, rest and smoke their cigarettes; and on each occasion
the funny one-eyed Portuguese would relate some entertaining
history. One of these histories was about the Age of Fools, and
amused me so much that I remember it to this day. It was the
history of a man of that remote age, who was born out of his time,
and who grew tired of the monotony of his life, even of the
society of his wife, who was no whit wiser than the other
inhabitants of the village they lived in. And at last he resolved
to go forth and see the world, and bidding his wife and friends
farewell he set out on his travels. He travelled far and met with
many strange and entertaining adventures, which I must be pardoned
for not relating, as this is not a story-book. In the end he
returned safe and sound to his home, a much richer man than when
he started; and opening his pack he spread out before his wife an
immense number of gold coins, with scores of precious stones, and
trinkets of the greatest value. At the sight of this glittering
treasure she uttered a great scream of joy and jumping up rushed
from the room. Seeing that she did not return, he went to look for
her, and after some searching discovered that she had rushed down
to the wine-cellar and knocking open a large cask of wine had
jumped into it and drowned herself for pure joy.
"Thus happily ended his adventures," concluded the
one-eyed cynic, and they all got up and resumed their work of
carrying sheep to the boat.
It was one of the adventures met with by the man of the tale in
his travels that came into my mind when I was in the Booth Museum,
and caused me to smile. In his wanderings in a thinly settled
district, he arrived at a village where, passing by the church,
his attention was attracted by a curious spectacle. The church was
a big building with a rounded roof, and great blank windowless
walls, and the only door he could see was no larger than the door
of a cottage. From this door as he looked a small old man came out
with a large empty sack in his hands. He was very old, bowed and
bent with infirmities, and his long hair and beard were white as
snow. Toddling out to the middle of the churchyard he stood still,
and grasping the empty sack by its top, held it open between his
outstretched arms for a space of about five minutes; then with a
sudden movement of his hands he closed the sack's mouth, and still
grasping it tightly, hurried back to the church as fast as his
stiff joints would let him, and disappeared within the door. By
and by he came forth again and repeated the performance, and then
again, until the traveller approached and asked him what
he was doing. "I am lighting the church," said the old man; and he
then went on to explain that it was a large and a fine church,
full of rich ornaments, but very dark inside--so dark that when
people came to service the greatest confusion prevailed, and they
could not see each other or the priest, nor the priest them. It
had always been so, he continued, and it was a great mystery; he
had been engaged by the fathers of the village a long time back,
when he was a young man, to carry sunlight in to light the
interior; but though he had grown old at his task, and had carried
in many, many thousands of sackfuls of sunlight every year, it
still remained dark, and no one could say why it was so.
It is not necessary to relate the sequel: the reader knows by now
that in the end the dark church was filled with light, that the
traveller was feasted and honoured by all the people of the
village, and that he left them loaded with gifts.
Parables of this kind as a rule can have no moral or hidden
meaning in an age so enlightened as this; yet oddly enough we do
find among us a delusion resembling that of the villagers who
thought they could convey sunshine in a sack to light their dark
church. It is one of a group or family of indoor delusions
and illusions, which Mr Sully has not mentioned in his book on
that fascinating subject. One example of the particular delusion I
have been speaking of, in which it is seen in its crudest form,
may be given here.
A man walking by the water-side sees by chance a kingfisher fly
past, its colour a wonderful blue, far surpassing in beauty and
brilliancy any blue he has ever seen in sky or water, or in flower
or stone, or any other thing. No sooner has he seen than he wishes
to become the possessor of that rare loveliness, that shining
object which, he fondly imagines, will be a continual delight to
him and to all in his house,--an ornament comparable to that
splendid stone which the poor fisherman found in a fish's belly,
which was his children's plaything by day and his candle by night.
Forthwith he gets his gun and shoots it, and has it stuffed and
put in a glass case. But it is no longer the same thing: the image
of the living sunlit bird flashing past him is in his mind and
creates a kind of illusion when he looks at his feathered mummy,
but the lustre is not visible to others.
It is because of the commonness of this delusion that stuffed
kingfishers, and other brilliant species, are to be seen in the
parlours of tens of thousands of cottages all over the land. Nor is it
only those who live in cottages that make this mistake; those who care
to look for it will find that it exists in some degree in most
minds--the curious delusion that the lustre which we see and admire is
in the case, the coil, the substance which may be grasped, and not in
the spirit of life which is within and the atmosphere and
miracle-working sunlight which are without.
To return to my own taste and feelings, since in the present chapter I
must be allowed to write on Man (myself to wit) and Birds, the other
chapters being occupied with the subject of Birds and Man. It has
always, or since I can remember, been my ambition and principal
delight to see and hear every bird at its best. This is here a
comparative term, and simply means an unusually attractive aspect of
the bird, or a very much better than the ordinary one. This may result
from a fortunate conjunction of circumstances, or may be due to a
peculiar harmony between the creature and its surroundings; or in some
instances, as in that given above of the Dartford warbler, to a rare
effect of the sun. In still other cases, motions and antics, rarely
seen, singularly graceful, or even grotesque, may give the best
impression. After one such impression has been received, another
equally excellent may follow at a later date: in that case the second
impression does not obliterate, or is not superimposed upon the former
one; both remain as permanent possessions of the mind, and we may thus
have several mental pictures of the same species.
It is the same with all minds with regard to the objects and scenes
which happen to be of special interest. The following illustration
will serve to make the matter clearer to readers who are not
accustomed to pay attention to their own mental processes. When any
common object, such as a chair, or spade, or apple, is thought of or
spoken of, an image of a picture of it instantly comes before the
mind's eye; not of a particular spade or apple, but of a type
representing the object which exists in the mind ready for use on all
occasions. With the question of the origin of this type, this spade or
apple of the mind, we need not concern ourselves here. If the object
thought or spoken of be an animal--a horse let us say, the image seen
in the mind will in most cases be as in the foregoing case a type
existing in the mind and not of an individual. But if a person is
keenly interested in horses generally, and is a rider and has owned
and loved many horses, the image of some particular one which he has
known or has looked at with appreciative eyes will come to mind; and
he will also be able to call up the images of dozens or of scores of
horses he has known or seen in the same way. If on the other hand we
think of a rat, we see not any individual but a type, because we have
no interest in or no special feeling with regard to such a creature,
and all the successive images we receive of it become merged in
one--the type which already existed in the mind and was probably
formed very early in life. With the dog for subject the case is
different: dogs are more with us--we know them intimately and have
perhaps regarded many individuals with affection; hence the image that
rises in the mind is as a rule of some dog we have known.
The important point to be noted is, that while each and everything we
see registers an impression in the brain, and may be recalled several
minutes, or hours, or even days afterwards, the only permanent
impressions are of the sights which we have viewed emotionally. We may
remember that we have seen a thousand things in which at some later
period an interest has been born in the mind, when it would be greatly
to our pleasure and even profit to recover their images, and we strive
and ransack our brains to do so, but all in vain: they have been lost
for ever because we happened not to be interested in the originals,
but viewed them with indifference, or unemotionally.
With regard to birds, I see them mentally in two ways: each species
which I have known and observed in its wild state has its type in the
mind--an image which I invariably see when I think of the species;
and, in addition, one or two or several, in some cases as many as
fifty, images of the same species of bird as it appeared at some
exceptionally favourable moment and was viewed with peculiar interest
and pleasure.
Of hundreds of such enduring images of our commonest species I will
here describe one before concluding with this part of the subject.
The long-tailed or bottle-tit is one of the most delicately pretty of
our small woodland birds, and among my treasures, in my invisible and
intangible album, there were several pictures of him which I had
thought unsurpassable, until on a day two years ago when a new and
better one was garnered. I was walking a few miles from Bath by the
Avon where it is not more than thirty or forty yards wide, on a cold,
windy, very bright day in February. The opposite bank was lined with
bushes growing close to the water, the roots and lower trunks of many
of them being submerged, as the river was very full; and behind this
low growth the ground rose abruptly, forming a long green hill crowned
with tall beeches. I stopped to admire one of the bushes across the
stream, and I wish I could now say what its species was: it was low
with widespread branches close to the surface of the water, and its
leafless twigs were adorned with catkins resembling those of the black
poplar, as long as a man's little finger, of a rich dark-red or maroon
colour. A party of about a dozen long-tailed tits were travelling, or
drifting, in their usual desultory way, through the line of bushes
towards this point, and in due time they arrived, one by one, at the
bush I was watching, and finding it sheltered from the wind they
elected to remain at that spot. For a space of fifteen minutes I
looked on with delight, rejoicing at the rare chance which had brought
that exquisite bird- and plant-scene before me. The long deep-red
pendent catkins and the little pale birdlings among them in their grey
and rose-coloured plumage, with long graceful tails and minute round,
parroty heads; some quietly perched just above the water, others
moving about here and there, occasionally suspending themselves back
downwards from the slender terminal twigs--the whole mirrored below.
That magical effect of water and sunlight gave to the scene a somewhat
fairy-like, an almost illusory, character.
Such scenes live in their loveliness only for him who has seen and
harvested them: they cannot be pictured forth to another by words, nor
with the painter's brush, though it be charged with _tintas
orientales_; least of all by photography, which brings all things down
to one flat, monotonous, colourless shadow of things, weary to look
at.
From sights we pass to the consideration of sounds, and it is
unfortunate that the two subjects have to be treated consecutively
instead of together, since with birds they are more intimately joined
than in any other order of beings; and in images of bird life at its
best they sometimes cannot be dissociated;--the aerial form of the
creature, its harmonious, delicate tints, and its grace of motion; and
the voice, which, loud or low, is aerial too, in harmony with the
form.
We know that as with sights so it is with sounds: those to which we
listen attentively, appreciatively, or in any way emotionally, live in
the mind, to be recalled and reheard at will. There is no doubt that
in a large majority of persons this retentive power is far less strong
with regard to sounds than sights, but we are all supposed to have it
in some degree. So far, I have met with but one person, a lady, who is
without it: sounds, in her case, do not register an impression in the
brain, so that with regard to this sense she is in the condition of
civilised man generally with regard to smells. I say of civilised man,
being convinced that this power has become obsolete in us, although it
appears to exist in savages and in the lower animals. The most common
sounds, natural or artificial, the most familiar bird-notes, the
lowing of a cow, the voices of her nearest and dearest friends, and
simplest melodies sung or played, cannot be reproduced in her brain:
she remembers them as agreeable sounds, just as we all remember that
certain flowers and herbs have agreeable odours; but she does not
_hear_ them. Probably there are not many persons in the same case; but
in such matters it is hard to know what the real condition of
another's mind may be. Our acquaintances refuse to analyse or turn
themselves inside out merely to gratify a curiosity which they may
think idle. In some cases they perhaps have a kind of superstition
about such things: the secret processes of _their_ mind are their
secret, or "business," and, like the secret and _real_ name of a
person among some savage tribes, not to be revealed but at the risk of
giving to another a mysterious power over their lives and fortunes.
Even worse than the reticent, the superstitious, and the simply
unintelligent, is the highly imaginative person who is only too ready
to answer all inquiries, who catches at what you say in explanation,
divines what you want, and instantly (and unconsciously) invents
something to tell you.
But we may, I think, take it for granted that the faculty of retaining
sounds is as universal as that of retaining sights, although, speaking
generally, the impressions of sounds are less perfect and lasting than
those which relate to the higher, more intellectual sense of vision;
also that this power varies greatly in different persons. Furthermore,
we see in the case of musical composers, and probably of most
musicians who are devoted to their art, that this faculty is capable
of being trained and developed to an extraordinary degree of
efficiency. The composer sitting pen in hand to write his score in his
silent room hears the voices and the various instruments, the solos
and orchestral sounds, which are in his thoughts. It is true that he
is a creator, and listens mentally to compositions that have never
been previously heard; but he cannot imagine, or cannot _hear_
mentally, any note or combination of notes which he has never heard
with his physical sense. In creating he selects from the infinite
variety of sounds whose images exist in his mind, and, rearranging
them, produces new effects.
The difference in the brains, with regard to their sound-storing
power, of the accomplished musician and the ordinary person who does
not know one tune from another and has but fleeting impressions of
sounds in general, is no doubt enormous; probably it is as great as
that which exists in the logical faculty between a professor of that
science in one of the Universities and a native of the Andaman Islands
or of Tierra del Fuego. It is, we see, a question of training: any
person with a normal brain who is accustomed to listen appreciatively
to certain sounds, natural or artificial, must store his mind with the
images of such sounds. And the open-air naturalist, who is keenly
interested in the language of birds, and has listened with delight to
a great variety of species, should be as rich in such impressions as
the musician is with regard to musical sounds. Unconsciously he has
all his life been training the faculty.
With regard to the durability of the images, it may be thought by some
that, speaking of birds, only those which are revived and restored, so
to speak, from time to time by fresh sense-impressions remain
permanently distinct. That would naturally be the first conclusion
most persons would arrive at, considering that the sound-images which
exist in their minds are of the species found in their own country,
which they are able to hear occasionally, even if at very long
intervals in some cases. My own experience proves that it is not so;
that a man may cut himself off from the bird life he knows, to make
his home in another region of the globe thousands of miles away, and
after a period exceeding a quarter of a century, during which he has
become intimate with a wholly different bird life, to find that the
old sound-images, which have never been refreshed with new
sense-impressions, are as distinct as they ever were, and seem indeed
imperishable.
I confess that, when I think of it, I am astonished myself at such an
experience, and to some it must seem almost incredible. It will be
said, perhaps, that in the infinite variety of bird-sounds heard
anywhere there must be innumerable notes which closely resemble, or
are similar to, those of other species in other lands, and, although
heard in a different order, the old images of cries and calls and
songs are thus indirectly refreshed and kept alive. I do not think
that has been any real help to me. Thus, I think of some species which
has not been thought of for years, and its language comes back at call
to my mind. I listen mentally to its various notes, and there is not
one in the least like the notes of any British species. These images
have therefore never received refreshment. Again, where there is a
resemblance, as in the trisyllabic cry of the common sandpiper and
another species, I listen mentally to one, then to the other, heard so
long ago, and hear both distinctly, and comparing the two, find a
considerable difference, one being a thinner, shriller, and less
musical sound than the other. Still again, in the case of the
blackbird, which has a considerable variety in its language, there is
one little chirp familiar to every one--a small round drop of sound of
a musical, bell-like character. Now it happens that one of the true
thrushes of South America, a bird resembling our song-thrush, has an
almost identical bell-like chirp, and so far as that small drop of
sound is concerned the old image may be refreshed by new
sense-impressions. Or I might even say that the original image has
been covered by the later one, as in the case of the laughter-like
cries of the Dominican and the black-backed gulls. But with regard to
the thrushes, excepting that small drop of sound, the language of the
two species is utterly different. Each has a melody perfect of its
kind: the song of the foreign bird is not fluty nor mellow nor placid
like that of the blackbird, but has in a high degree that quality of
plaintiveness and gladness commingled which we admire in some fresh
and very beautiful human voices, like that described in Lowell's lines
"To Perdita Singing":--
It hath caught a touch of sadness,
Yet it is not sad;
It hath tones of clearest gladness,
Yet it is not glad.
Again, that foreign song is composed of many notes, and is poured out
in a stream, as a skylark sings; and it is also singular on account of
the contrast between these notes which suggest human feeling and a
purely metallic, bell-like sound, which, coming in at intervals, has
the effect of the triangle in a band of wind instruments. The image of
this beautiful song is as distinct in my mind as that of the blackbird
which I heard every day last summer from every green place.
Doubtless there are some and perhaps a good many ornithologists among
us who have been abroad to observe the bird life of distant countries,
and who when at home find that the sound-impressions they have
received are not persistent, or, if not wholly lost, that they grow
faint and indistinct, and become increasingly difficult to recall.
They can no longer _listen_ to those over-sea notes and songs as they
can, mentally, to the cuckoo's call in spring, the wood-owl's hoot, to
the song of the skylark and of the tree-pipit, the reeling of the
night-jar and the startling scream of the woodland jay, the deep
human-like tones of the raven, the inflected wild cry of the curlew,
and the beautiful wild whistle of the widgeon, heard in the silence of
the night on some lonely mere.
The reason is that these, and numberless more, are the sounds of the
bird life of their own home and country; the living voices to which
they listened when they were young and the senses keener than now, and
their enthusiasm greater; they were in fact heard with an emotion
which the foreign species never inspired in them, and thus heard, the
images of the sounds were made imperishable.
In my case the foreign were the home birds, and on that account alone
more to me than all others; yet I escaped that prejudice which the
British naturalist is never wholly without--the notion that the home
bird is, intrinsically, better worth listening to than the bird
abroad. Finally, on coming to this country, I could not listen to the
birds coldly, as an English naturalist would to those of, let us say,
Queensland, or Burma, or Canada, or Patagonia, but with an intense
interest; for these were the birds which my forbears had known and
listened to all their lives long; and my imagination was fired by all
that had been said of their charm, not indeed by frigid
ornithologists, but by a long succession of great poets, from Chaucer
down to those of our own time. Hearing them thus emotionally their
notes became permanently impressed on my mind, and I found myself the
happy possessor of a large number of sound-images representing the
bird language of two widely separated regions.
To return to the main point--the durability of the impressions both of
sight and sound.
In order to get a more satisfactory idea of the number and comparative
strength or vividness of the images of twenty-six years ago remaining
to me after so long a time than I could by merely thinking about the
subject, I drew up a list of the species of birds observed by me in
the two adjoining districts of La Plata and Patagonia. Against the
name of each species the surviving sight- and sound-impressions were
set down; but on going over this first list and analysis, fresh
details came to mind, and some images which had become dimmed all at
once grew bright again, and to bring these in, the work had to be
redone; then it was put away and the subject left for a few days to
the "subliminal consciousness," after which I took it up once more and
rewrote it all--list and analysis; and I think it now gives a fairly
accurate account of the state of these old impressions as they exist
in memory.
This has not been done solely for my own gratification. I confess to a
very strong feeling of curiosity as to the mental experience on this
point of other field naturalists; and as these, or some of them, may
have the same wish to look into their neighbours' minds that I have,
it may be that the example given here will be followed.
My list comprises 226 species--a large number to remember when we
consider that it exceeds by about 16 or 18 the number of British
species; that is to say, those which may truly be described as
belonging to these islands, without including the waifs and strays and
rare visitants which by a fiction are described as British birds. Of
the 226, the sight-impressions of 10 have become indistinct, and one
has been completely forgotten. The sight of a specimen might perhaps
revive an image of this lost one as it was seen, a living wild bird;
but I do not know. This leaves 215, every one of which I can mentally
see as distinctly as I see in my mind the common species I am
accustomed to look at every day in England--thrush, starling, robin,
etc.
A different story has to be told with regard to the language. To begin
with, there are no fewer than 34 species of which no sound-impressions
were received. These include the habitually silent kinds--the stork,
which rattles its beak but makes no vocal sound, the painted snipe,
the wood ibis, and a few more; species which were rarely seen and
emitted no sound--condor, Muscovy duck, harpy eagle, and others;
species which were known only as winter visitants, or seen on
migration, and which at such seasons were invariably silent.
Thus, those which were heard number 192. Of these the language of 7
species has been completely forgotten, and of 31 the sound-impressions
have now become indistinct in varying degrees. Deducting those whose
notes have become silent and are not clearly heard in the mind, there
remain 154 species which are distinctly remembered. That is to say,
when I think of them and their language, the cries, calls, songs, and
other sounds are reproduced in the mind.
Studying the list, in which the species are ranged in order according
to their affinities, it is easy to see why the language of some,
although not many, has been lost or has become more or less
indistinct. In some cases it is because there was nothing distinctive
or in any way attractive in the notes; in other cases because the
images have been covered and obliterated by others--the stronger
images of closely-allied species. In the two American families of
tyrant-birds and woodhewers, neither of which are songsters, there is
in some of the closely-related species a remarkable family resemblance
in their voices. Listening to their various cries and calls, the
trained ear of the ornithologist can easily distinguish them and
identify the species; but after years the image of the more powerful
or the better voices of, say, two or three species in a group of four
or five absorb and overcome the others. I cannot find a similar case
among British species to illustrate this point, unless it be that of
the meadow- and rock-pipit. Strongly as the mind is impressed by the
measured tinkling notes of these two songs, emitted as the birds
descend to earth, it is not probable that any person who had not heard
them for a number of years would be able to distinguish or keep them
separate in his mind--to hear them in their images as two distinct
songs.
In the case of the good singers in that distant region, I find the
voices continue remarkably distinct, and as an example will give the
two melodious families of the finches and the troupials (Icteridae),
the last an American family, related to the finches, but starling-like
in appearance, many of them brilliantly coloured. Of the first I am
acquainted with 12 and of the second with 14 species.
Here then are 26 highly vocal species, of which the songs, calls,
chirps, and various other notes, are distinctly remembered in 23. Of
the other three one was silent--a small rare migratory finch
resembling the bearded-tit in its reed-loving habits, its long tail
and slender shape, and partly too in its colouring. I listened in vain
for this bird's singing notes. Of the remaining two one is a finch,
the other a troupial; the first a pretty bird, in appearance a small
hawfinch with its whole plumage a lovely glaucous blue; a poor singer
with a low rambling song: the second a bird of the size of a starling,
coloured like a golden oriole, but more brilliant; and this one has a
short impetuous song composed of mixed guttural and clear notes.
Why is this rather peculiar song, of a species which on account of its
colouring and pleasing social habits strongly impresses the mind, less
distinct in memory than the songs of other troupials? I believe it is
because it is a rare thing to hear a single song. They perch in a tree
in company, like birds of paradise, and no sooner does one open his
beak than all burst out together, and their singing strikes on the
sense in a rising and falling tempest of confused sound. But it may be
added that though these two songs are marked "indistinct" in the list,
they are not very indistinct, and become less so when I listen
mentally with closed eyes.
In conclusion, it is worthy of remark that the good voices, as to
quality, and the powerful ones, are not more enduring in their images
than those which were listened to appreciatively for other reasons.
Voices which have the quality of ventriloquism, or are in any way
mysterious, or are suggestive of human tones, are extremely
persistent; and such voices are found in owls, pigeons, snipe, rails,
grebes, night-jars, tinamous, rheas, and in some passerine birds.
Again, the swallows are not remarkable as singers compared with
thrushes, finches, and other melodists; but on account of their
intrinsic charm and beauty, their interesting habits, and the
sentiment they inspire, we listen to them emotionally; and I
accordingly find that the language of the five species of swallows I
was formerly accustomed to see and hear continues as distinct in my
mind as that of the chimney swallow, which I listen to every summer in
England.
* * * * *
I had meant in this chapter to give three or four or half a dozen
instances of birds seen at their best, instead of the one I have
given--that of the long-tailed tit; and as many more images in which a
rare, unforgettable effect was produced by melody. For as with sights
so it is with sounds: for these too there are "special moments," which
have "special grace." But this chapter is already longer than it was
ever meant to be, and something on another subject yet remains to be
said.
The question is sometimes asked, What is the charm which you find, or
say you find, in nature? Is it real, or do these words so often
repeated have a merely conventional meaning, like so many other words
and phrases which men use with regard to other things? Birds, for
instance: apart from the interest which the ornithologists must take
in his subject, what substantial happiness can be got out of these shy
creatures, mostly small and not too well seen, that fly from us when
approached, and utter sounds which at their best are so poor, so thin,
so trivial, compared with our soul-stirring human music?
That, briefly, is the indoor view of the subject--the view of those
who, to begin with, were perhaps town-born and town-bred; who have
existed amid conditions, occupied with work and pleasures, the reflex
effect of which, taken altogether and in the long-run, is to dim and
even deaden some of the brain's many faculties, and chiefly this best
faculty of preserving impressions of nature for long years or to the
end of life in all their original freshness.
Some five or six years ago I heard a speech about birds delivered by
Sir Edward Grey, in which he said that the love and appreciation and
study of birds was something fresher and brighter than the second-hand
interests and conventional amusements in which so many in this day try
to live; that the pleasure of seeing and listening to them was purer
and more lasting than any pleasures of excitement, and, in the
long-run, "happier than personal success." That was a saying to stick
in the mind, and it is probable that some who listened failed to
understand. Let us imagine that in addition to this miraculous faculty
of the brain of storing innumerable brilliant images of things seen
and heard, to be reproduced at call to the inner sense, there existed
in a few gifted persons a correlated faculty by means of which these
treasured images could be thrown at will into the mind of another; let
us further imagine that some one in the audience who had wondered at
that saying, finding it both dark and hard, had asked me to explain
it; and that in response I had shown him, as by a swift succession of
lightning flashes a score or a hundred images of birds at their
best--the unimaginable loveliness, the sunlit colour, the grace of
form and of motion, and the melody--how great the effect of even that
brief glance into a new unknown world would have been! And if I had
then said: All that you have seen--the pictures in one small room in a
house of many rooms--is not after all the main thing; _that_ it would
be idle to speak of, since you cannot know what you do not feel,
though it should be told you many times; this only can be told--the
enduring images are but an incidental result of a feeling which
existed already; they were never looked for, and are a free gift from
nature to her worshipper;--if I had said this to him, the words of the
speech which has seemed almost sheer insanity a little while before
would have acquired a meaning and an appearance of truth.
* * * * *
It has curiously happened that while writing these concluding
sentences some old long-forgotten lines which I read in my youth came
suddenly into my mind, as if some person sitting invisible at my side
and thinking them apposite to the subject had whispered them into my
ear. They are lines addressed to the Merrimac River by an American
poet--whether a major or minor I do not know, having forgotten his
name. In one stanza he mentions the fact that "young Brissot" looked
upon this stream in its bright flow--
And bore its image o'er the deep
To soothe a martyr's sadness,
And fresco in his troubled sleep
His prison walls with gladness.
Brissot is not generally looked upon as a "martyr" on this side of the
Atlantic, nor was he allowed to enjoy his "troubled sleep" too long
after his fellow-citizens (especially the great and sea-green
Incorruptible) had begun in their fraternal fashion to thirst for his
blood; but we can easily believe that during those dark days in the
Bastille the image and vision of the beautiful river thousands of
miles away was more to him than all his varied stores of knowledge,
all his schemes for the benefit of suffering humanity, and perhaps
even a better consolation than his philosophy.
It is indeed this "gladness" of old sunshine stored within us--if we
have had the habit of seeing beauty everywhere and of viewing all
beautiful things with appreciation--this incalculable wealth of images
of vanished scenes, which is one of our best and dearest possessions,
and a joy for ever.
"What asketh man to have?" cried Chaucer, and goes on to say in
bitterest words that "now with his love" he must soon lie in "the
colde grave--alone, withouten any companie."
What he asketh to have, I suppose, is a blue diamond--some
unattainable good; and in the meantime, just to go on with, certain
pleasant things which perish in the using.
These same pleasant things are not to be despised, but they leave
nothing for the mind in hungry days to feed upon, and can be of no
comfort to one who is shut up within himself by age and bodily
infirmities and the decay of the senses; on the contrary, the
recollection of them at such times, as has been said, can but serve to
make a present misery more poignantly felt.
It was the nobly expressed consolation of an American poet, now dead,
when standing in the summer sunshine amid a fine prospect of woods and
hills, to think, when he remembered the darkness of decay and the
grave, that he had beheld in nature, though but for a moment,
The brightness of the skirts of God.