WORKERS ON THE GROUND.
THE BARN OWL: WHITE OR CHURCH OWL.
(_Strix Flammea._)
The Barn Owl builds no regular nest, but lays its eggs in the walls of
ruined castles, on the inner sills of towers, or in the dust and
sweepings that collect in the corners of granaries. The clutch consists
of five, occasionally seven, longish white eggs.
This bird likes always to be close to the abode of man; she likes to
make her nest among the rafters of some warm barn and in other farm
buildings, or in church tower or belfry; in hollow trees, a cleft in
wall or cliff; semi-obscure corners, those even in broad daylight. There
she sits, putting herself now and again in grotesque positions, and when
that facial disk is stirred she appears to be, as the children say,
“pulling faces” at you. One of the most industrious of hunters, she
catches far more mice than she can devour. It is true she takes the bat,
who has his own insect-destroying work to do; and when she has the
chance she will cause havoc in the nest of a small bird. But this is
only an occasional outbreak, and it must not weigh against the general
good record of this most useful species. She takes living prey, and will
only touch carrion under extreme stress of hunger.
The Barn or White Owl is generally distributed throughout Great Britain.
It suffered at one time most undeservedly from the ignorant prejudices
of many gamekeepers, and of late years from the senseless fashion of
women wearing the wings and head in their headgear--a crowning folly
only perpetrated through that ignorant vanity which knows neither love
nor pity.
Colonel Irby said that this Owl, which is most useful to man, can be
preserved and increased by fixing an 18-gallon cask in a tree. The
barrel should be placed on its side and have a hole cut in the upper
part of the head for the Owls to enter; care must, however, be taken
that Jackdaws do not take possession of the cask.
Our gamekeepers are beginning now to be convinced of the usefulness of
the Owl, especially in view of the fact that so many young birds are
taken by the Brown Rat, a favourite quarry with the Owl--not to speak of
the Voles and Mice the bird devours. The late Lord Lilford told me that
he had watched a nest of young Owls being fed by their parents in an old
cedar tree in the rectory garden of a relative, and that on one occasion
the old birds came bringing food to these seventeen times in half an
hour by the clock, on that evening. There was a rickyard not far from
the nest which was the Owls’ favourite hunting-ground. Mice were not
plentiful there, but rats swarmed, and the pellets found under the nest
were here composed almost entirely of the remains of the latter. In the
South of France and in Spain this Owl is accused of drinking oil from
lamps in the peasants’ houses and in the churches and chapels. The name
given to it in the former country by the peasant of the _Midi is Béou
l’oli_--bird that drinks oil. Attracted by the light of the lamps, the
poor Owl perhaps has entered, once in a way, and in its fright has
upset a lamp. Superstition grows on very meagre fare. This ally of the
agriculturalist has been ill-repaid for his services.
Butler writes:--
“An Owl that in a barn
Sees a mouse creeping in the corn,
Sits still and shuts his round blue eyes
As if he slept, until he spies
The little beast within his reach,
Then starts, and seizes on the wretch.”
“Not a bird of the forest e’er mates with him,
All mock him outright by day,
But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,
The boldest will shrink away.”
But why this is so who can tell? If the Barn Owl shows himself by day,
Rooks and Starlings, Blackbirds, both species of Thrush, Chaffinches,
Tits and Wrens will mob him; and he flies awkwardly from tree to tree,
with dazed eyes and apparently “mazed,” as the country folks says,
altogether, till he can find a hole in a tree where he can hide himself.
He may well like hollows in trees--for, as the poet says, “the Owl, with
all his feathers, is a-cold.” This is not hard to understand, for the
breast feathers are so light and fluffy that the wind easily parts them,
laying bare the shivering skin.
His frequent choice of an old dovecote as a home was misunderstood. The
ignorant countryman thought it was in order to prey on the young pigeons
that he selected a corner there, whereas--and Waterton was the first to
record the bird’s reason, after watching the doings of a pair of Barn
Owls in his dovecote--the Owls were there to prey on the pigeons’
enemies, and Owls and Pigeons lived amicably together in the same home.
Lord Cathcart, in a paper contributed to the Royal Agricultural Society,
said: “Our ancestors, wiser than we, always made in their great barns
ingress for Owls--an owl-hole, with often a stone perch.” And the Rev.
F. O. Morris tells of a pair of this species which lived in a barn near
Norwich, and were so fearless that they would stay there whilst the men
were threshing; they waited on the flails as rooks do on the plough, and
if a mouse were dislodged by the removal of a sheaf they would pounce
upon it without minding the men’s presence. They hunt mice amongst the
stacks, too, in the farmyard, staying there all night often, if mice
abound. As E. Newman says, “The farmer pays the price of a sack of grain
for every Owl nailed to his barn door, because that Owl would have
destroyed mice every night, and these mice, being relieved of their
oppressive enemy, would, in a very short time, consume a sack of wheat,
peas, or beans.”
Owing to its very deep plumage, the Barn Owl looks larger than it is.
Its eye is dark-coloured, almost black: its glance is directed forwards.
The facial disk is very prominent; at rest, it is heart-shaped, and it
is edged with white and rust-colour. The bill is yellowish in colour,
and is slightly hooked. The legs are scantily feathered, and the toes
almost bare: the claw of the middle toe is serrated along its inner
edge. The body-plumage is soft as silk, and yielding, and thickly
pearled with white and dark markings on the beautiful ash-grey back. The
flanks are pale with a reddish tinge, in places very bright, and
sprinkled with tiny pearl-like spots of light and dark colour.
THE TAWNY OR WOOD-OWL.
(_Syrnium alúco._)
The Wood Owl, known also as the Brown or Tawny Owl, has the admirable
trait of constancy, for it is said he mates for life and the pair return
year after year to the same tree to nest. In the month of September you
will hear him hooting in the woods more than at any other time of the
year. He is not so constant in his choice of locality, but like many
other birds he and his kind will disappear from a district without any
apparent reason, to return to it again after a time. No doubt they
follow their food supply; the small creatures they feed on--mice, rats,
shrews, and squirrels--all disappear in the same fashion to re-appear
elsewhere; the movements of these being no doubt ruled by the same
conditions of suitable food, its scarcity or its plenty.
* * * * *
In spite of persecution the Tawny Owl is still fairly common in our own
country wherever there are woods or crags suitable for its habitat. In
the South of Scotland it is common, as well as in England and Wales. It
is strange that it seems to be absent from Ireland. Here, in Ealing,
where the present writer lives, its whoo-hoo, or, as Shakespeare has it,
_tu-whit_ and _to-who_, are heard regularly in one little spinney at the
south-east corner of our suburb; and last summer--1908--a pair took up
their abode in a garden, right in amongst the shady roads not very far
from the Broadway.
The Tawny Owl breeds early; strong-flying young ones may be seen in
April. A hollow oak tree or an elm is a favorite nesting site with it.
The young are
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE WOOD OR TAWNY OWL.]
very easy to rear and to tame. The late Lord Lilford, who was perhaps
our best authority on owls, stated that he had examined many pellets of
the Tawny Owl, and although he more than once found the remains of young
rabbits he could not accuse the bird of any serious poaching.
Living more in the woods the Brown Owl is less often observed than is
the White Owl; also its plumage is darker, and this makes it often less
visible, especially in the shade of the trees. When flying, his legs are
stretched out behind, “as a balance to his heavy head,” White of
Selborne remarked. The young ones, funny little balls of grey down,
resemble, some one has said, “a pair of Shetland worsted stockings
rolled up, such as might have belonged to Tam o’ Shanter.”
And this reminds us of Burns, who, when he bids the birds mourn for him,
“Wha lies in clay, Wham we deplore,” sings:
“Ye howlets, frae your ivy bow’r,
In some old tree or eldritch tow’r,
What time the moon wi silent glow’r,
Sets up her horn.
Wail through the dreary midnight hour
Till waukrife morn.”
But Shakespeare said of the Wood-Owl:
“Tu-whit! tu-whoo, a merry note
hile greasy Joan doth keel the pot!”
It was in 210 pellets of this species that Dr. Altum found the remains
of 6 rats, 42 mice, 296 voles, 33 shrews, 48 moles, 18 birds, and 48
beetles, besides countless numbers of cockchafers.
Brown Owls make very amusing pets and they are not hard to tame. They
are less suspicious than other owls and become very companionable. R.
Bosworth Smith, whose recent death was so much lamented by all
bird-lovers, and who said: “Birds have been to me the solace, the
recreation and the passion of a life-time,” told of one young brown owl
which he brought up from the nest, which was very fond of music. It
would make its way, through an open window on the ground floor, into the
room in which a piano was being played and would even press closely
against the case of the instrument. Dr. J. Cooper, Professor of Greek
Language and Literature at Rutger’s College, New Brunswick, also told
the same author that one morning in November of 1899 he found, on going
to his lecture room, that a brown owl had somehow made its way into it,
and had selected as a perch a huge framed photograph of Athens. It was,
he remarks, an unlooked for illustration to both teacher and taught, of
the proverbial expression “Owls to Athens.” And there she was, just over
the Areopagus, the High Court of Athens, and she sat perched there four
whole hours, that “bird of wisdom,” whilst the Professor gave as many
lectures to successive classes of his pupils, quite undisturbed by the
noise they made, coming and going. Before she disappeared, one of the
lecturer’s brother-Professors had time to take a photograph of “the Bird
of Pallas on her chosen throne.”
Description: In the adult male the upper parts are of variable shades of
ash-grey, mottled with brown; there are large white spots on the outer
webs of the wing-coverts; the tail is barred with brown and tipped with
white; the under-parts are a buffish-white, mottled with pale and
streaked with dark brown. The disk about the face is greyish, having a
dark brown border; the legs are feathered to the claws. The length of
the bird is about 16 inches. The female is larger than the male and its
plumage is a more rufous brown; but there are two varieties in this
species, a red and a grey, the colour being independent of sex; the
rufous form is more common in Great Britain. After the first greyish
down of the nestlings they put on a more reddish brown than the adult
birds have.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE LONG-EARED OWL.]
THE LONG-EARED OWL.
(_Asio ótus._)
In the wooded districts of Great Britain this handsome Owl is always to
be found; the numbers bred here are augmented also by a considerable
number which come to us in autumn from the Continent. It is a larger
bird than the Short-eared species and it lives much in the same way as
the Brown Owl. These two are not so fastidious in their way of feeding
as the White Owl. It lives on small birds, rodents, bats, fish, reptiles
and large insects. Some have accused it of taking birds up to the size
of a Plover, but the late Lord Lilford stated that he had never heard
any complaint of its destruction of game in those districts where it was
comparatively common; the castings of this species which he examined
were mainly composed of the remains of greenfinches, sparrows and field
mice. It is often seen flying about by daylight and it _has_ been known
to pick up and carry off wounded birds. It is said to be much disliked
by other birds--possibly the last mentioned habit may be at the bottom
of this strong feeling on their part, also its appropriation of other
birds’ nests. The note of the hungry young birds of this species is a
loud mewing.
The prophet Isaiah had not very pleasant associations with Owls, it
would seem. When speaking of desolated places, he says, “Owls shall
dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there ... the screech owl also shall
rest there ... the great owl make her nest....”
Alluding to the death of Julius Cæsar--or rather to the omens that
preceded it--Shakespeare wrote:
“And yesterday the bird of night did sit
Even at noonday, in the market-place,
Hooting and shrieking.”
Of crook-backed Richard of Gloucester, too, he says:
“The Owl shrieked at thy birth, an evil sign,
The night-crow cried.”
Different parts of the White Owl’s body were supposed to possess
different magical powers, and they have been used by many a rural
imposter to breed awe in the credulous.
Happily all this is changed now excepting amongst a small ignorant
minority. Of late years women who affected the fashion of wearing owls
heads and wings on toques seemed likely to become the poor Owls’ worst
enemy. Mr. Ward Fowler saw, not long ago, in a public house, this
advertisement: “Wanted at once by a London firm, 1,000 owls.”
The late R. Bosworth Smith wrote: “The number of owls has been terribly
diminished. Let them be encouraged and protected in every possible way.
Let the gamekeeper be rewarded, as I have rewarded him myself, not for
the owls he destroys, but for the owls he preserves.... Let the owl be
regarded and protected in England as the stork is regarded and protected
in Holland!”
The Long-eared Owl is 15 inches in length. The upper parts are a warm
buff, mottled and pearled with brown and grey and streaked with dark
brown, bill black, dark markings about the eyes, facial disk buff with
greyish black margin and outer rim. The long erectile tufts are streaked
with dark brown. The eyes are a rich yellow. Under parts warm buff and
grey with broad blackish streaks and small transverse bars. Legs covered
to the toes with fawn coloured feathers. The eggs, four to six in
number, are laid with us in an old squirrel’s drey or on the old nest of
a Ringdove, a Magpie, Rook, Crow, or Heron’s nest; in Hungary often in
that of a Buzzard or a Kite, with a few slight sticks and rabbits’ fur
added. They are white, the surface smooth but not glossy. As a rule this
species does not hoot like the Tawny Owl, but is rather silent.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE SHORT-EARED OWL.]
THE SHORT-EARED OWL. (_Asio accipitrinus._)
In Hungary Short-eared Owls appear in numbers with the Buzzards where
field mice get the upper hand, and work with these grander birds. A
peculiarity of the species is to crouch down to the earth like a hen
when in danger. So confiding in nature is it that it falls an easy prey
to the guns of those whom we call the “Sunday sportsmen,” to the great
loss of the agriculturist. Large numbers of the Short-eared Owl arrive
regularly in Great Britain from the Continent, to remain with us during
the winter. This species is often termed the Woodcock Owl here, partly
on account of its twisting flight it is supposed, and also because both
birds make their appearance about the same time--some years in larger,
some years in lesser numbers. A few pairs still breed in the eastern
counties, but it nests more often in the north, in widely scattered
parts of our moorland districts. In Scotland the species is common; but
in Ireland it has not yet been recorded as breeding, although it is very
common there in winter. I remember a relative telling me of a
Short-eared Owl hovering much over a terrier he had out walking with
him, one evening late, on Congleton Edge. Probably the bird had its
young on some tuft of heather near them and was anxious as to the safety
of these, and it would not have hesitated to attack the terrier had it
been alone.
Mr. Ogilvie-Grant, in Lyddeker’s “R. Natural History,” says: “It is a
curious circumstance that, although the number of eggs laid by this
bird (the Short-eared Owl) is generally four, yet, when food is
unusually abundant, as during a lemming-migration, the number in a
clutch will rise to seven or eight, and during the recent vole plague in
Scotland larger numbers were recorded, reaching as many as thirteen.”
As many as ten and twelve eggs were often found on some hill farms where
these Owls remained feeding all the winter and commenced nesting in
March, the birds in many cases nearing a second brood.
Mr. Colles, of Higher Broughton, Manchester, speaking of the Short-eared
Owl, said in a letter to his friend (R. Bosworth Smith): “You will
remember that a few years ago certain parts of the country (Scotland)
were infested with voles to such an extent that the sheep would not eat
grass over thousands of acres of moorland. It was some two years after
they had been at their worst that my son and I were fishing in St.
Mary’s Loch; and one day, about noon, while I was crouching down between
the high banks of the Meggett, to keep out of sight of the fish, a
Short-eared Owl skimmed over the top of the bank directly to the place
where I was; and I can assure you that no exaggerated comic picture of
an Owl I had ever seen affected me as did this one. Its eyes looked to
me as large as saucers, and the bird seemed a perfect ogre. A few days
later we were fishing one of the tributaries of the Tweed near its
source, and had to walk a mile or so, on almost flat moorland, where
there was hardly a bush, much less a tree, to be seen. Wherever there
was rise enough in the ground to form a little bank the soil was
perfectly honeycombed with what appeared miniature colonnades or rather
cloisters, and we caught frequent glimpses of the voles within, as they
flitted along their galleries. When we were well into this dreary place
a couple of Short-eared Owls positively mobbed us, and as we walked
along, with our fishing-rods over our shoulders they followed us till we
reached a dry gully, where they became even more demonstrative, coming
well within point of our rods. On both occasions the hour was between
eleven and twelve o’clock and the sun was shining brilliantly.”
The Short-eared Owl is fierce and bold in defence of her young. She will
attack larger animals than herself. In the Hawaiian Islands she has
always been much admired because of her fine qualities, and was indeed
one of the old tutelary deities of the natives.
This Owl is from 14 to 15 inches in length. The ear-feathers are short,
the irides yellow, bill black, black about the eyes, and the facial disk
is browner than in the last-named species; the plumage of the upper
parts is more blotched than streaked; the buff tint is more decided. The
ear-tufts, though erectile, are short, and not seen except when the bird
is excited. Under-parts streaked lengthwise with blackish-brown, but
have no transverse bars. The young are browner and darker and more
boldly marked, and tawny on the under parts, iris paler than in the
adult.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE LITTLE OWL.]
THE LITTLE OWL.
(_Athéne noctua._)
The Little Owl makes its nest where it has its ordinary dwelling-place;
that is to say, in hollows, behind beams, sometimes even under bridges.
The clutch of eggs is four to five, and they are almost perfectly round.
The young are covered with white down.
This is a friendly little species; it likes to get under the house-roof,
into barns and towers; retires also into the hollow of a tree and clefts
in old masonry. A capital mouse-hunter, it feeds also largely on
insects, and haunts the lawns to get out the earthworms. In winter it
catches birds at roost, getting numbers of Thrushes, also mice and other
small mammals. When the chase is prolonged till daylight the small birds
mob the Little Owl, surrounding him in numbers. They dare not meddle
with him because of his sharp claws, but they scold and chatter at him
as a shameless thief. Bird-catchers profit by this, and they fasten him
to a bough to act as a lure. There is in Hungary a superstition that no
one dies where this Little Owl appears and utters his cry of _Kooweek,
kooweek!_ which comes down from the gables or the attic windows of the
house.
* * * * *
The numbers of the Little Owl have been increasing in England of late.
Mr. Meade-Waldo informed me that in the neighbourhood of Penshurst, near
his own home, in Kent, he had seen as many as sixteen Little Owls
perched on the telegraph wires on the line between two stations. This
gentleman has always been known to be a lover and a protector of this
species.
In Leadenhall Market there are often cages full of them which have been
brought over from Holland. They make delightful house pets and good
mousers indoors. “I have one of my own,” says A Son of the Marshes, “and
I set him down as a bird of priceless value, for he has the power to
make me laugh when I should be least in the mood for it.... Jan Steen
and Teniers introduced him into their pictures. In that of ‘The Jealous
Wife,’ for instance, there is the Little Owl perched on the window
shutter contemplating an aged man holding sweet converse with a young
woman, presumably his niece. The old woman, his wife, has also her head
in the opening, taking in the scene wrathfully. My own bird is at
liberty. This he uses to the best of his ability, making the third
member of our small household.”
* * * * *
The Little Owl is about eight inches long, but seems bigger than it is
because of its large head and soft plumage: its body is compressed in
form. Bill and iris are yellow, legs clad with hair-like feathers, toes
almost bare. The short tail is hardly visible beneath the points of the
wings. The back is greyish-brown, spotted with white; the belly whitish,
with long brown markings.
THE ROOK.
(_Corvus frúgilegus._)
The Rook lives in flocks and breeds in great colonies. Its nest is
smaller and looser than that of the Hooded Crow. Five or six nests one
above another, are often found in one tree--sometimes as many as
eighteen. It pairs somewhat late, in Hungary, but already in April may
be found three to five eggs of a pale green colour spotted with grey and
blue. These are smaller than those of the Hooded Crow.
The Rook spends the greater part of its life in its native home, often
in huge crowds, numbering many thousands, which divide up during the day
to seek food in different parts of the neighbourhood. During the
breeding time they are divided according to the breeding places. This
bird is the most zealous follower of the ploughman, and by its great
number destroys an enormous quantity of noxious creatures--the
cockchafer being its most coveted delicacy. It covers, with its flocks,
the freshly ploughed field, and if they are sown, picks up the grains
that are lying about. It bores into the soft earth of the meadows and
cornfields, for destructive grubs, and pulls up the withered plants in
order to secure the caterpillar or wireworm which has destroyed the
roots. This has caused the Rook to be suspected of plundering the
fields, but the question has not yet been settled, and the general
inclination is in the bird’s favour. The fact is that even in Hungary,
where the Rook exists in millions, the people generally are indifferent
about it. Early sowing, while there is
[Illustration: CHIEFLY USEFUL.
THE ROOK. AN OLD AND A YOUNG BIRD.]
sufficient insect food for the birds, is the best protection from its
mischief, and this is good for the services it performs.
A knowledge of the habits of the Rook is important, because the bird is
closely associated with husbandry, and with its well organised work
deeply affects the interests of the husbandman. While the Hooded Crow
roams about the district with the Jackdaw, thousands of Rooks cover the
corn-fields; they settle also on fallow ground, on the freshly ploughed
field, on the sprouting crops, and on the turnip-field. It is this
appearance in vast numbers which mainly distinguishes the Rook from the
Hooded Crow, which otherwise its habits closely resemble.
In regard to this bird also, different views are held. Whilst the
scientific agriculturist considers it useful, the old-fashioned
husbandman is convinced that it is harmful. Here again, therefore, must
a just verdict be given, between two opposing parties--but this verdict
must be impartial. Various things are said of the Rook--but it is not
true that it picks the seed out of the earth, so that the spoiled seed
has to be ploughed in again. It only takes the seed which has been
imperfectly covered by the harrow,--and the reploughing is only an empty
complaint, for no one ever heard tell of a particular village, or farm,
where reploughing had to be performed on account of the Rooks. The
farmer who keeps his eyes open before he gives an opinion knows that the
Rook digs his beak into the ground because he hopes to find worms there.
Sometimes it is shot, in order to be set up as a scarecrow, but they say
nothing of what may be found in its crop, should it be opened; this,
however, is just what is necessary in order to ascertain the
truth--although the other conditions of its life must also be taken into
account.
It is easy to observe the behaviour of Rooks, because they always move
and act in flocks. These flocks are dissolved only in cold snowy
winters, when the birds, tired of the cold and lack of food, come into
the villages. When the early spring ploughing begins, part of them
follow the plough; the flock spreads itself over the freshly ploughed
land and they snap up the grubs of the destructive insects which escape
from the newly-turned clods. This then is useful work. They also settle
on the sown land and pick up the seeds which the harrow has left on the
surface, but at the same time devour the insects which the harrow has
turned up. There is no harm in this. In a short time the full spring has
come and the immature insects have developed into other forms--then the
Rook begins to think of building its nest. Its young are not fed on
seeds, for at that time there are none to be had, but exclusively on
insects--which again is a great and useful work. Then the flock spreads
over the neighbourhood, leaving their sleeping-place in the morning in a
body, and betaking themselves to different parts of the district; and it
may be remembered that separate flocks repeatedly visit the same spot,
and work there; as, for instance, one point in a great stretch of
cornland, where in the track of the birds lie many uprooted plants,
which the farmer generally looks upon as due to the mischief of the
Rooks. When insect life has become stronger, they settle on the meadows,
where they eagerly hunt for crickets and grasshoppers; then they return
to the ploughed fields and destroy the insects that have been
disturbed--and this is useful work. It is true that later on they visit
any heaps of cut corn that may lie in their way, and in this way do
harm, but the greater number of the flock pick up the fallen grains in
the stubble field, and a few follow the carts which carry the corn, and
pick up any that is dropped. There is no harm in this, as these ears
would in any case be lost to the farmer. At the time of the hay harvest
they settle on the ridges of cut grass and hunt for crickets and
grasshoppers, for these creatures have then no cover, and easily fall a
prey to the birds. The Rook also attacks the young maize and fruit, but
it has not skill in this respect and cannot do much harm. The harm done
is outweighed a thousandfold by the good which it does in the
destruction of insects. The black army of birds lights also upon the
turnip crops just at the time when these valuable plants are covered
with masses of the “turnip caterpillar.” By the destruction of this pest
they do the farmer invaluable service.
This sanitary work continues into the late autumn as long as the
caterpillars, the Rook’s favourite food, remain. The Rook may do serious
damage during the autumn sowing, especially if it is thin, and sown and
harrowed so late that the caterpillars have disappeared, not so much,
however, that the field must be ploughed up; at the worst there would
remain only one or two unproductive spots, and we know that corn grows
in tufts, and if it is not thinned by the Rooks it must be done by the
farmer, so that the corn is not choked by its own abundance.
When the hard part of winter comes, the flocks of Rooks seek towns and
villages, where they spend the nights on the roofs of houses in order to
shelter themselves from the icy wind; during the day they steal from
the barns and granaries, or, if the opportunity offers, they get at the
bundles of straw which they pull about to try and find a stray ear of
corn.
This much is certain that the principal food of the Rook consists of
insects and grubs, which it gets not only from the surface of the earth,
but also from beneath it, when the bird sees from the colour of the
fading plant that a grub is gnawing at its root. This is the meaning of
the uprooted plants; and why one flock after another so often visits the
same cornfields. It is a sure sign that the wireworm or some similar
pest is busy with its depredations. Here again the work of the Rook is a
blessing.
There are neighbourhoods where the farmer makes a great fuss about a
grain or two of wheat or maize, as if he must be ruined by the damage. I
repeat that the bird has earned its few grains by its other work;
indeed, without its useful services these grains would probably never
have grown.
The lesson we learn then is as follows:--The Rook lives principally and
preferably on insects, grubs and worms, and so long as these are
procurable, it does not look for grain--therefore, the spring sowing
should be performed as late as possible, when the insects have
developed, and the Rook can find its natural food; in autumn the sowing
should be done as early as possible while there are still some insects
to be found. The further actions of this bird are protective, for it
attacks the gnawing maggots that live in the ground. These facts can be
verified by dissection of the bird, when the stomach is often found to
be full of wire-worms.
None the less researches into the habits of the rook require to be more
thoroughly worked out, and this must not be lost sight of.
* * * * *
I asked a tenant farmer in our own Midlands his views on the subject of
Rooks and the following, with some slight editing of my own, was what he
sent me. I give it in full as although there may be some repetition of
the foregoing statements, it has special interest as coming from one of
our English farmers.
A recent writer from the sportsman’s point of view speaks of the Rook as
“this black robber,” and he says that there is no practical difference
of opinion as to the question whether his benefits outweigh his
depredations. Now, as a farmer, I confidently affirm that he does much
more good than harm. He will sometimes uproot vegetables in getting at
the worms round their roots. It is true also that he often robs the
nests of the pheasant and the partridge; but, as I could easily show, he
does far more good to the general community by furthering the labours of
agriculturists, on whom so much depends, than harm to the sport of our
leisured classes.
A more social bird even than the gregarious starling, he flies in
flocks, feeds in flocks, and builds in flocks. His everyday life may
appear to be an uneventful one to the outside world, and most
commonplace; yet it is full of adventure and of joy tempered with
sorrows. Apparently a grave bird, he is brimful of humour and, at times,
as full of play as a titmouse. Like all other links in the seemingly
endless chain of nature, he is the victim of circumstances: without much
ado he could count up his sincere friends, but his enemies are beyond
his conception of numbers.
From his winter homing quarters he comes with his company during
February to inspect the colony of breeding nests which he regards as his
peculiar domain, going back as night approaches to his sleeping-place
until all is ready for the family life to begin. Rookeries vary, of
course, greatly in size; one may be as a city or large town, again there
will be a village, and here and there a small hamlet. There are in my
own fields one of about a hundred and thirty nests, one of sixty, one of
eight, and another of four nests. Of these latter I have some views of
my own. I believe them to be those of odd and outlawed individuals who
follow the other companies hither, but are socially considered as
pariahs. My nearest neighbours are those of the sixty-two-nest village,
and my last census-taking records about sixty-two married couples and
thirty-six or more odd or unmated birds. These are all, of course, adult
birds, their numbers reckoned before the young were hatched out.
The odd birds may some of them be outlaws, as I said before, but the
majority of them are not vagabonds by any means. They only happen to
belong to that numerous enough class amongst humans--those who have been
forced by some just cause or impediment into a life of celibacy. As the
rook does not mate until it is nearly two years old, a number of the
single birds are, therefore, simply lusty young bachelors. The few
individuals whom I sum up as ne’er-do-weels or unfortunates--I know
personally three of these at the present moment--are to be recognised by
the shabby, neglected, and generally unkempt appearance of their
plumage, and some other of the many outward signs of a past henpecked
existence. I am ignorant of the life history of these; perhaps if we
knew all about them we should look upon them as objects of pity rather
than of reproach. Now and again I notice that a few old birds in our
colony appear to be dissatisfied with everybody and everything; and
imaginary grievances, political and social, often lead to a segregation
scheme. This is how I have accounted for my hamlet of four nests. The
general run of our odd, or celibate, birds is, however, good in
character; they help in the building of the nests and even in feeding
the sitting birds. For the wedded pairs April is a most trying time: if
the season be a dry one, or frost sets in, food is scarce. Insects and
worms are deep in the earth; the farmer is engaged in sowing his spring
corn, oats, and barley. The rooks prefer a diet of insects, worms and
grubs, but these are hard to get at times; the spring beans are just
peeping through, and the sitting hen asks for food. The cock bird
ventures too long in the beanfield, and as he skims over the hedge with
a bean or two in his pouch a shot is heard; the faithful mate of the
sitting bird is brought down to mother earth, and the farmer feels that
he has one enemy the less. Personally I would not shoot a bird if you
gave me a sovereign for it. The old bird may, and does, grieve, but the
news of her loss is soon at the rookery, and her food is brought to her
by a new mate. Thus there is a place taken in the rookery by one of our
odd birds, and there is a bachelor less in the community. I have known
many a bird die about this time through over-zeal--a slave to love and
duty. If April prove seasonable and mild with showers, worms are
plentiful, and the farmer’s gun remains in its place over the kitchen
chimneypiece.
Often during the building season the rookery is disturbed by discordant
notes, accompanied by a great fluttering of wings; there is a big row in
the township; not a duel over a “squaw”: the rook is a philosopher, and
the ritual of love-making and matrimony are of the simplest. The bother
will be over divergent interests or a disputed claim, for there is a
recognised right of property--not ground-rent to pay, but a specified
limit for nest-room has been accorded. The trouble occurs mostly with
young birds wishing to place their nests too near to an old nest. A
parish council is called, with the result that the disputants’ nests are
soon scattered to the winds, and the claimant and the defendant may both
have to begin a new foundation. Sometimes there is a disturbance on a
more limited scale: one between very near neighbours or
blood-relations--a family jar, in fact. One pair of birds do their very
best to pull the sticks from the nest of another pair: each of the
contending parties will do all they can to prevent the other from
building.
As to the nests, we all know how busily the rooks set to work to repair
these after a gale of wind has wrought some havoc in their colonies; but
I do not think it is equally well known that they are curiously
weather-wise, and they scent the coming storm and set to work to repair
and strengthen before the imminent gale has been evident to the farmer.
I have noticed that fact; the Rook’s powers of sight and hearing are
remarkable.
At the end of the breeding-season comes the farmers’ rook-shooting,
which I, for one, never take part in: I have too much regard for the
labours of both the adult and the young birds. About the roots of each
of the turnip-plants there may gather scores of wireworms, which eat the
turnips; in the crops of young birds which have been shot are found
myriads of these wireworms, or it may be that they are filled with grubs
of various sorts, the larvæ of cockchafers, etc. In fact, in my
opinion--that of a tenant farmer who is forced to make things pay--all
the Rook’s acts of depredation ought to be forgotten if we carefully
consider the great services he renders to the agriculturist. Beetles,
tipula (Daddy Longlegs grubs), warble grubs, oak-leaf roller
caterpillars, and the caterpillars of the diamond-backed moth he
devours. The game-preserver may grudge the birds their plundering of his
nests, but the farmer is in gratitude bound to spare them. A lot of
young birds at the rook-shooting time are still unable to take a flight
of any distance, but others are, happily for themselves, able to fly
well. I am persuaded that the old parent birds often--foreseeing a
shooting raid--get these out of the way, and so they secure life for a
number of their young who might have been sacrificed. They betake
themselves in parties to their rootings about the elms upon outlying
pastures. Daily they grow stronger on the wing, and learn the ways and
means of living.
Like all long-lived creatures, the Rook is temperate in eating, and he
is capable of going a long time without food--a faculty which stands him
in good stead during hard winters. In a long frost or a prolonged
drought he is a most determined robber, and when he is on what he knows
to be forbidden ground, he posts a sentinel to give warning of the
approaching farmer or watcher. He is known to take the eggs of such
favourite birds as the thrush and the blackbird, whose nests are open,
and therefore soon discovered and plundered. But this is no doubt where
his proper food is scarce; and if man had not been so eager in the
destruction of some of our birds of prey, who are the natural enemies of
him and his, Rooks would be less plentiful in some districts. Still, I
for one have no desire to see their numbers decrease, so certain am I of
their value; and I believe this bird will become even more valuable as
time goes on.
The Rook is somewhat smaller than the Hooded Crow; the beak more
slender, rather straighter; the base of it in mature age bare, and
covered with a kind of white scurf. The entire bird is black with a
steely-blue and purple gloss. The feet black and thick, the claws
strong, the sole rough; it walks better than the Hooded Crow. The beak
of the young bird is not bare, the nostrils being covered with bristly
feathers. The bareness first appears when the bird begins to dig in the
ground for its food.
[Illustration: The open nest tempts the Rook.]
THE HOODED-CROW.
(_Corvus cornix._)
The Hooded Crow walks well, with head erect, moving its tail right and
left as it goes. Its flight is easy, using comparatively little movement
of the wings. This Crow usually makes its nest in the tops of high
trees, preferably in one standing alone in a field; but sometimes on
rocks. It does not build in colonies but usually settles alone, though
occasionally two or three pairs will build on the edge of a wood or in a
small plantation. The nest consists of twigs, roots, and grass; the
hollow of the nest being safely lined; in the spring it contains four to
six eggs of a light green colour speckled with grey and brown marks.
In mild seasons this bird has been known to pair, as early as the end of
February, but the usual time is March. Then the construction and
arrangements of the nest begins. The female bird, only, sits on the
eggs; the male guards the nest and provides the food. When near the
nest, he is a courageous, even daring bird, able to keep off such
enemies as the Hawk or the Eagle. His cry is “_kár, kár_.”
The Hooded Crow is a clever intelligent bird. It easily adapts itself to
circumstances; the wave-lashed rock, or the icy peak, are as acceptable
to it as green meadows, or the palms and sycamores of Egypt; the woods,
as welcome as the heart of the snug village, as the tiny garden round a
peasant’s hut. It is omnivorous; so long as it can find food in forest
or field, on the sea shore or river bank, it avoids the proximity of
man; but when winter comes, it settles near inhabited districts and
[Illustration: CHIEFLY USEFUL.
THE HOODED OR ROYSTON CROW.]
highroads, in order to seize upon anything eatable, however bad its
condition.
And now let us investigate its actions, which divide men into two camps,
one of which states that the Hooded Crow is harmful, the other that it
is serviceable. First, as to the harm. It is true that this bird
considers a young chicken a great delicacy, and so, takes one when it
has a chance. But this happens very rarely, for the good mother-hen
flies at the marauder, and raises a cry that brings out the people of
the house to see what is the matter, and the Crow has to beat a retreat,
without having secured its prey--or run the risk of having a wing broken
by a stone, a rolling-pin, or other missile. Should it succeed in
securing a chicken, then indeed it has done harm, but this happens so
rarely, that the housekeeper does not make much account of it. It is
also true that it attacks the timid little hares in the fields, and if
the mother is absent, the young ones are quickly destroyed, and torn to
pieces by two or three blows of the strong beak. In this case it is the
sportsman who is most annoyed, for the farmer is no friend of the hare,
which does great harm in the winter by gnawing the fruit trees. It is a
known fact also that the Crow robs the nests of birds which are built on
the ground in the fields, when it finds them. This also is harm, but the
little birds exhibit wonderful instinct in hiding their nests, so that
even the sharp-eyed Crow can rarely find one, especially when we
consider that its attention is constantly being diverted from the search
by a fat cricket or grasshopper, or a mouse slipping hurriedly by.
Neither can it be denied that when the ears of maize are young and soft
the Crows opens the husk with its beak and regales itself with the milky
juice. This is indeed mischievous, but the harm is only local. A few
farmers track it down, others do not, for about this time the bird
begins to mend his ways. It cannot be denied either that it pecks young
fruit of all kinds, and later pulls it off the trees, and if not driven
away, considerable damage is done, especially if the orchard lies within
a district where Crows abound. It is evident then that the gamekeeper
must be allowed a little license, for where game is bred and preserved,
especially in such places as Pheasant runs, the Crow may do much damage
among the young birds; but why is the gamekeeper there, if not to scare
away the feathered thieves with his gun? Once having experienced such a
fright the Crow does not often return to the same place.
And now let us consider the bird’s good deeds.
The ploughman would be indeed unwise were he to scare away the Crow,
that, following in the furrow of the plough, picks out from the freshly
turned clods, the worms, grubs, and maggots, which are the farmer’s
worst enemies; nor do the evicted tenants of overturned mouse-nests
escape the strong beak of the bird;--and how busy it is when a plague of
mice occurs, as it does in some seasons! Then occurs a wholesale
massacre, and if this visitation happens in winter, the snow bears
evident traces of the Crow’s sanguinary work.
It is also useful among the sheep and cattle, settling on their backs,
and destroying the parasites that attack them. The beasts leave it
undisturbed knowing that it is doing them good service. Neither must we
forget that in villages, near human habitations it does excellent
scavengering work. It knows the precise time at which the remnants of
food are usually thrown out from the cottage on the rubbish heap, and
waits on the roof, till the moment arrives when it can pounce on the
promising morsels, which it carries away; thus removing what would
otherwise soon have become putrid. In winter when pigs are killed, the
Crows wait, among the neighbouring trees, for their share.
The only remaining question, then, is, in which part of the year this
bird is harmful, and in which serviceable, and how long does each of
these periods last. The destructive period is really of short duration,
for the chickens soon grow into hens, the leverets become hares, the
young birds leave the nests, the maize hardens, and ripe fruit lasts but
a little while. That is to say, the destructive period lasts but a few
weeks. And what does the Hooded Crow do for the rest of the year? It
destroys insect pests, cleanses and purifies, and by its continuous
activity, does a service to man, which no other creature could do.
Wherever and whenever this bird does harm it must be driven off, but not
destroyed. The hens must be kept from roving, and the orchard must be
watched. If it will not be scared away then it must be shot. But when
busy in the furrow, the field, or the dunghill, let it be left in peace,
for it is doing a beneficent work. Neither nature nor man can do without
the Hooded Crow, and for this reason it must be treated indulgently.
* * * * *
The head, wings, tail, feet and throat of this bird are black, but not
glossy; the lower breast, under-parts, and back ashen grey; the grey
colour of the back forms a kind of mantle,--hence the name Mantle--or
Hooded Crow. The strong curved beak is black, the nostrils covered by
bristly feathers; the eyes dark brown; the feet strong and armed with
thick scales, the soles rough.
To England and Wales the Hooded, often called the Grey or Royston Crow,
is a regular and in many districts far too numerous a visitor, from
October on during the winter. A few birds have remained to breed, and
some cases of hybridism with the Carrion Crow occur in the North. In
Ireland it has become a perfect scourge. In the Isle of Man it is said
to nest each year. On the Scottish Mainland again they are far too many
of this species. So greedy is he that Howard Saunders tells of having
seen him eagerly devouring the carcase of a recently shot member of the
same brood as himself. To some extent hybrids with the Carrion Crow are
said to be fertile.
A Son of the Marshes says that the Cob--the Great Black-backed Gull,
which is called the Carrion Gull, is a noble and open minded bird
compared with the Dun Crow--the Hooded Crow of the foreshores. “His
general conduct would lead you to think he was only looking about for
amusement, up and down and over the water, just far enough to see if any
prey, such as a dead fish or fowl, is washing in. He does not mean the
gulls to share the spoil if he can help it. He flaps to the beach and
out again just to make sure that it is coming all right, and gorbles to
himself a little. This wave must beach it, he thinks; but no, with the
receding of the wave the fish--a large dead skate--goes also. The next
long roller may have more force in it, so he hopes, with half open wings
and throat feathers puffed out, down to the very edge of the watery
beach. Perching next on a large stone, with keen eye and outstretched
neck, the bird sees it gather, a mile out. On it comes, gathering in
force as it begins to crest up, until with a crash it breaks, and
Hoody’s dead fish is flung high and dry almost at his feet. Hardly,
however, has he had time to give one or two vicious digs at the now
tender skin in order to get at his highly flavoured meat, when from all
points of the compass other crows come shooting along like so many hawks
to join in the banquet. We could have knocked them over well”, concludes
our Marshman, “but on no account would we have done so for they were
doing their appointed work, that of clearing up the refuse brought in by
the tide, honestly and well. “Hoody” is one of the scavengers of the
foreshores.”
[Illustration: THE CARRION CROW.]
THE CARRION CROW (_Corvus coróne_.)
The principal colour is black, shining, with a steely blue lustre on the
neck and back. The beak strong, distinctly curved, and black, as are
also the feet; the eyes are dark brown. The Carrion Crow makes its nest
in woods and is for the most part solitary; when with others, each one
nests alone on a separate tree. The nest consists of twigs, roots,
leaves, etc. The hollow of the nest is softly lined, and in the spring,
four to six eggs may be found in it, of a pale green colour, speckled
with brown and grey.
The Carrion Crow is sly and cunning; courageous, but at the same time,
cautious, and extraordinarily clever; it discriminates exactly between
the farmer and the hunter, and allows the former to come quite close to
him. Its sense of smell is very delicate; it scents carrion a mile away,
under snow and earth. This bird is to the West what the Hooded Crow is
to the East--from Austria onward through the whole of Germany and in
Great Britain. It croaks hoarsely “_Caw, caw, caw_.”
The Carrion Crow follows the plough, and devours grubs and mice; it eats
the insects in large quantities, and lies in wait for the mice about
their holes. On the sea shore, it will seize a large muscle with its
beak, fly up to a considerable height in the air, then drop the muscle
on to a rock, so that the shell is broken to pieces, and the contents
emptied out. The Carrion Crow steals and plunders the nests of the
useful birds, spoils fruit and crops; but the great naturalist Naumann
advises that these birds should not be too hastily destroyed, for they
do mischief only for a short time, while during the rest of the year
they make war on the numerous pests, and are of great service to the
husbandman.
* * * * *
Since so much bird protection has been inculcated, these Crows are
enjoying much more immunity from harm than heretofore. The result is
that in some of our London suburbs the bold but handsome creature comes
to feed with the small birds at our very doors in cold weather. I have
often watched the ungainly yet cautious manœuvres of a Crow which has
frequented my little lawn at Ealing. The letting of his heavy body down
from over the ends of the outstretching bough of a great elm, which has
its trunk on the other side of my fence, so as to quietly drop on to the
grass on the feeding side of the fence--is very comical. He evidently
wishes to do it as slyly and as quietly as possible. Caution and cunning
are inherited traits with the once persecuted crow. I confess to a
liking for him, but then I am not interested in the preservation of
game. He pairs for life too, and is therefore a respectable character so
far. And he too is useful as a scavenger, and takes also plenty of rats
as well as insects and grubs. When the pair are on the hunt together,
one watches whilst the other feeds. He greatly resembles his greater
relative the Raven, in shape and plumage, and gamekeepers hate him even
more than they do the latter bird, which country folks generally regard
as the more ill-omened of the two.
Speaking of my own pet Crow, a new maid I had came to my bedside early
the morning after her arrival, to inform me that she could not possibly
stay in my house as a Crow had croaked about her bedroom window
“something dreadful.”
In Thibet, we read, there is an evil city of Crows, and Hiawatha is said
to have known of a land of dead crowmen. The Crow, according to the old
Vedas, fell from Paradise, and in Norway there is “the Hill of Bad
Spirits,” where the souls of the wicked fly about in the guise of crows.
Happy the present generation who are taught more toleration for “all
things both great and small.”
The Carrion Crow has always done good work as a scavenger, for which he
has had small thanks. The poets have all combined in holding him up to
execration.
“My roost is the creaking gibbet’s beam
Where the murderer’s bones swing bleaching;
Where the clattering chain rings back again
To the night-wind’s desolate screeching.”
It is good to believe that “sweetness and light” are gradually getting
the upper hand; and the gibbet with its ghastly burden, and most of the
cruel superstitions concerning some of the most useful of God’s
feathered creatures are alike a thing of the past.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: HARMFUL.
THE RAVEN.]
THE RAVEN.
(_Corvus córax._)
The Raven is fully one third larger than the crow. Its plumage is black,
with a blue or green lustre. Tail wedge-shaped; beak large and slightly
curved; the breast feathers pointed. It builds its nest in woods, on the
tops of high trees; selecting most cunningly such trees as cannot be
climbed. The clutch consists of four to six light green eggs with dark
speckles.
It flies well, and can hover in circles, and is a cunning, shy bird,
always ready for plunder--but a splendid creature. It is really sad that
it should allow itself to be led away to the paths of dishonesty by the
sight of shining objects. It attacks everything from earth-worms to
hares, plunders and steals nests, takes eggs and fledgelings, and also
feeds on carrion. According to popular superstition, it first pecks out
the eyes of its prey. The proverb says:--One crow does not peck out the
eyes of another.
Another proverb allegorically expresses the fact that the young brood
are black:--It may be freely translated as follows:--
“That ravens bear not doves ’tis known,
And grapes on thorn-trees ne’er have grown.”
The Raven lives to a great age; it becomes tame in confinement, and can
be easily taught. It even learns to speak, and can pronounce words
clearly. It is the jester among the animals in the farm-yard. It
sometimes happens that the black colouring matter is wanting in the
plumage of the raven, and the bird is then white. This, however, occurs
very rarely--so that when people wish to explain that a certain thing is
quite exceptional, they speak of it as a white raven.
The coat-of-arms of the renowned Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus, bears
a raven with a golden ring in its beak. There were more Ravens in those
old troublous days, of long, wild trains of warriors and robbers, when
slaughtered men and fallen cattle remained unburied by the wayside, and
when the gallows stood in the open field, as a sign and a warning to
men,--than there are now, in our days of milder methods.
The Raven is not altogether common with us.
* * * * *
Don Quixote says that King Arthur did not die but was changed by
witchcraft into a raven, and that some day he will put on his own shape
again and claim his old rights. And so no Englishman--he says--has ever
been known to kill a raven, for fear he should kill King Arthur. The
Raven, it seems, has continued to build every year since 1856 either at
Badbury Rings--Mount Badon, where King Arthur defeated the West Saxons,
or else, so the late Mr. Bosworth Smith told us, “in the adjoining park
of Kingston Lacy, where they are safe under the protection of Mr. Ralph
Bankes.”
The necromancers of old are said to detect sixty-five intonations of the
Raven’s voice; he certainly croaks and barks and chuckles, but it has
some pleasanter, more musical notes early in the year in the courting
season, and the great solemn looking bird becomes quite playful and even
graceful in his movements when his mate and he are about to make their
nest. He performs evolutions in the air and turns somersaults most
gleefully. The pair play together and tumble down as if shot, and turn
over on their backs. Then whilst his mate is sitting he keeps careful
watch over her and utters savage croaks if any footstep approaches. He
will fight any large bird of prey that dares to approach his nesting
place. A faithful creature, he pairs for life and, says one of his
lovers “you will hear him utter a low gurgling note of conjugal
endearment which will sometimes lure his mate from her charge; and then
after a little coze and talk together, you will see him, unlike many
husbands, relieve her for the time of her responsibilities, and take his
own turn on the nest.”
The Raven is in danger of extinction in our country unless better
protection can be procured for him. Sheep farmers have a special grudge
against him. Its numbers are kept down in the South of England by the
prices paid for the young birds. Still they continue to breed all along
the south coast and from North Devon to Wales, wherever there is a
suitable headland. The so-called Raven-trees are much fewer than they
used to be. The Raven is rare in the eastern counties and in the
Midlands. In Scotland it is not uncommon wherever it finds suitable
cliffs to build in. In Ireland its numbers are fast decreasing. Its
fondness for weakly ewes, lambs and game make him an object of hatred in
many districts.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE JACKDAW.]
THE JACKDAW.
(_Corvus monedula._)
The Jackdaw is considerably smaller than the Crow. The crown of its head
is black, the nape and throat grey at the sides; the back and the tail
also black; the underpart slatey-grey and black. The plumage and eyes of
the Jackdaw become whitish in old age. It builds its nest in hollow
trees, in the clefts of banks and of old masonry, and in towns between
the ornamental parts of buildings. The eggs, which usually are five in
number, are of a light bluish-green speckled with dark grey and olive
brown.
The movements of this bird are quick and active, it is light on the
wing, busy in flight and call. Its cry sounds like “_Cáee, Caee_.” Heard
from a height it attracts attention to the approaching birds. Jackdaws
usually fly in small flocks; they mix with other Crows and roam about
the fields and meadows with them. It is a confiding bird, that not only
visits large towns, but actually dwells in them. It is true that it does
not despise a brood of young birds, if fortunate enough to secure one;
but its principal food consists of the numerous insects, maggots, worms,
caterpillars, and other creatures which the plough discovers with the
upturned clod in field and meadow. It is pleasant to observe the bird
following the ploughman at a distance of five or six paces, watching
with its sharp, bright eyes for what the ploughshare may turn up--and
descrying, instantly, even the very tiniest grub or maggot. The slight
harm which it may do among the young birds or the fruit, or
occasionally in the young maize ears, is outweighed a thousand times by
the services performed for men by this lively, busy bird, as a destroyer
of insect pests.
The Jackdaw becomes very tame if caught young; it accustoms itself to
life indoors, and becomes attached to members of the household--and can
be taught many funny tricks and games. It is a great thief, taking away
and hiding any shiny object it can carry. It loves a bath, and
immediately paddles about in any little piece of water it can find.
The Jackdaw is found throughout the greater part of Europe; South of
Germany it is somewhat rare. Nowhere is it so numerous as in Russia.
* * * * *
Mr. Herman’s mention of the Jackdaw’s nesting place being in towns among
the ornamental parts of buildings reminds me of an act of great apparent
cruelty on that bird’s part which a friend witnessed and reported to me.
He was passing by Apsley House at Hyde Park corner one Spring morning
when he noticed a Jackdaw pounce on a Pigeon which was about one of the
ornamental parts of that mansion. The Jackdaw literally tore the poor
bird to pieces. Whether the Pigeon was invading ground the Jackdaw
looked upon as its own domain he could not say; but the sight was cruel
enough. That this species is intolerant in nature is shown by the fact
that he would hardly ever nest in the same neighbourhood as the Chough
when this bird was more plentiful than it is now. The Chough has ousted
it--or at any rate taken its place in Kerry and Donegal, and other wild
parts of the Irish coast, though it is numerous in other districts.
Large numbers of Jackdaws come to our eastern coast in autumn.
I have referred more than once to the late Rev. R. Bosworth Smith, but I
feel that I must give one other fact here which came to me through a
friend of his own who attended his funeral. It has not, I believe, been
recorded before. He had a special affection for the bird now under
notice. After a very serious operation in London this gentleman--and how
truly gentle he was, many a one knows--declared that he wished “to be
back amongst his dear birds again” at Bingham’s Melcombe old Manor
House. In his delightful book “Bird Life and Bird Lore” he has told us
of the falling of the big tree in which eleven pairs of Jackdaws had
their ancestral home. It fell, crushing an unlucky cow that happened to
be taking an afternoon nap beneath it. After its fall, the whole colony
of daws sat on the stump and held a conference. Other Jackdaws who had
lately been shut out by wirework from the Manor House chimneys, and more
whom the churchwardens had banished from the church belfry were also
hard put to, at the same time, to find proper lodgings. Their numbers
did not, however, diminish, in the grounds, and when their friend came
home to die in the midst of his feathered friends, strangely enough a
Jackdaw circled round about the church whilst the last service was held
for him, followed the coffin to the grave, and hovered about this, and
near the friends who were there, until the last sad rites were over. If
space allowed one could tell other stories of the strange sympathy
between birds and their human friends.
Many a sheep farmer can speak to the services Jackey renders to his
sheep in ridding them of their tormentors in the shape of ticks, not to
speak of the friend he is to the grazier in ridding his beasts of the
flies that harass and nearly madden them at times. This goes far beyond
making up for the eggs of small birds, pheasants and partridges. It is
on record that 400 maggots, each an inch in length, have been taken from
one wretched beast, and of the Ox Bot-fly we read that the eggs having
been laid in the hair on the skin of cattle and the maggots being
hatched out, these eat their way through the skin, and, taking a lodging
beneath it, they form large tumours known as warbles. The grub can
enlarge this at will through a breathing hole left in the skin. After
staying in these horrible quarters for ten or eleven months, feeding on
the nastiness there, it creeps out, drops to the ground, and buries
itself to pass through the pupa stage, whence it emerges a winged fly.
Then there is the Sheep Bot-fly which is worse still, laying its eggs in
the nostrils of sheep. The maggots force their way upwards as far as the
bones of the forehead where they abide for about nine months, causing
vertigo and staggers, and sometimes death. Finally they descend by the
nostrils and are got rid of by the poor sheep’s sneezing. They get so to
ground and bury themselves. From the pupa they pass to the winged stage
so as to lay eggs in summer.
Who that has seen our bird on the back of one of these tormented
creatures could ever complain of “that wicked Jackdaw.”
The gardener also may welcome it with justice. Earwigs and spiders, with
their white bags of eggs or young, Jackey makes short work of, also
snails. It is true he takes ripe fruit, peas, etc., but we may not
grudge one of the very best of our bird lovers a tithe of the produce
which his own good services have increased immeasurably to our benefit.
That ancient poet who wrote of the cave where
“Birds obscene,
Of ominous note, resorted, choughs and daws.”
was not so good an agriculturist as one might have expected him to be.
Cowper appreciated the character of the Jackdaw to the full. He says
“There is a bird who, by his coat
And by the hoarseness of his note,
Might be supposed a crow.
A great frequenter of the church,
Where, bishop-like, he finds a perch,
And dormitory too.
* * * * *
Thrice happy bird, I too have seen
Much of the vanities of men,
And, sick of having seen ’em,
Would cheerfully these limbs resign
For such a pair of wings as thine,
And such a head between ’em.”
[Illustration: DOUBTFUL.
THE MAGPIE.]
THE MAGPIE.
(_Píca rústica._)
This is an extraordinarily clever, sly, and calculating bird, which,
although living mostly in the neighbourhood of man, never becomes
confiding, though bold enough to steal a young bird off the nest, and
make away with it. When a pig is killed, it lurks around for hours with
other birds of the crow species, near the spot where the pig is singed
and cut open; and at an opportune moment darts down, siezes something,
and is instantly back on the roof or the hay rick.
In a hard winter it will come into the farmyard or the village, and
filch whenever and whatever it can. It builds its nest, preferably, on a
road where rows of acacia trees border the cornfields; a spot which
offers a wide field for its activity: doing mischief by decimating the
young birds; but on the other hand it destroys grubs and beetles, and in
this way is useful. It does, however, considerable harm, and therefore
its numbers should be lessened in my opinion.
It is well known that the Magpie steals any shining object it can find.
Its call sounds like “Shakerack.” There is a saying in Hungary, where it
is very numerous, that when the Magpie cries on the roof there are
visitors coming.
* * * * *
Game-preservers have managed to destroy more Magpies than Jays in Great
Britain, but the Magpie is still fairly numerous and the species is
distributed widely throughout our country. In Ireland it is even
increasing in numbers. The Magpie confers immense benefits by devouring
slugs, snails, worms, rats and mice, and these ought surely to weigh
against its depredations in the poultry yard, and where eggs and game
are concerned.
A number of Magpies together have, under stress of hunger, been known to
attack weakly animals, and the late Lord Lilford recorded an instance of
fourteen or fifteen of these birds fastening on to a sore-backed donkey
in very severe snowy weather, and after the death of this animal, from
natural causes, several of the birds were shot as they fed on its body.
But what will starving creatures not do if they can fill their empty
stomachs? Their keen eyes also see when a fox is growing exhausted, and
they will hover and swoop over it in a most suggestive manner.
In point of fact the Magpie robs poultry yards, taking eggs, chicks and
young ducks, during the months of May and June especially; but these
might be protected. Some fruit too he will steal; but let us consider
that all the year round he feeds on the very worst enemies to
agriculture, and that it feeds its young, generally six of these in each
nest, on insects chiefly and later on rats, mice, etc. The short-tailed
Vole or field mouse of which from time to time our country has a perfect
plague “overwhelming the whole earth, in the marshes,” said one old
chronicler, is especially sought for by the Magpie and these Field Voles
have three or four litters in the year, litters of from four to eight
young. One writer states his belief that the destruction of Kestrels and
Magpies is the cause of the increase of Field Voles. The Rev. J. G. Wood
considered that it more than compensated for the harm it did to game and
poultry by its good offices in ridding the gardens and cultivated
grounds of their varied foes, and Macgillivray gave the bird a good
character on the whole. Our cattle are grateful for its services; like
the Jackdaw it frees them often of the vermin which annoy them so
persistently. The large White--or cabbage butterflies, it devours
largely, and these feed on other crops beside cabbage, both the leaves
and seed-pods of turnips for instance, horse-radish too and watercress.
Enormous flights of these insects come to us from abroad from time to
time.
It is of course a noisy chattering creature, and, as a child, I remember
I had a perfect terror of a tame Magpie that ran after me, pecking at my
heels. Its “tricks and manners” leave much to be desired, it must be
owned, yet it is an ornament to the country side, and to meet more than
one Magpie is considered to be a very lucky omen, that is, I believe, up
to six. In Scandinavia it is the bird of good luck, par excellence, and
its presence is much desired about the homestead.
* * * * *
Montgomery wrote:
“Magpie, thou too hast learned by rote to speak
Words without meaning through thy uncouth beak.”
but the Magpie retorts:
“Words have I learned, and without meaning too,
Mark well, my masters taught me all they knew.”
Head, neck, throat, mantle, rump, and thighs black; breast, underparts,
shoulder and the inside of the wing feathers pure white. This gives the
bird a very pied appearance. The tail is long, arrow-shaped, and like
the wings have a beautiful metallic lustre. Its nest, which is a work
of art, is built in trees. Dry twigs and thorns form the foundation, and
on this lies the cup made of earth or clay and lined with fine roots,
leaves and hair. Over this is a domed roof of thorns and twigs: the
opening of the nest is at the side. The clutch consists of four to seven
eggs of greenish grey speckled with brown.
[Illustration: Out in the Cold.]
THE JAY.
(_Gárrulus glandárius._)
Wherever this bird is found woods and gardens ring with the sound of its
voice. Its usual cry sounds like “Matyash” (Hungarian for the name
Matthias) by which name it is consequently often called in that country.
It is an active, restless visitor to the bushes and gardens, when they
are near a wood. It is not dainty and its voracity is great. Nuts,
filberts, acorns, beechnuts, fruits, berries, but also insects from
grubs upwards, grasshoppers, beetles,--everything finds its way into its
crop. Such things as nuts and filberts, which have a hard shell, it
collects in crevices and holes. All this is not so bad, but another of
its habits is evil--it is a nest plunderer. Eggs, naked fledglings,
half-fledged young, sitting on the edge of the nest awaiting the
mother’s return--all become its prey. In order to reach them it squeezes
through the thick growth of the whitethorn. In fact it is a shameful
bird that deserves no consideration.
If caught young and kept in a cage or running about the house, he is
often found to be an amusing fellow, even if not quite tame,--and proves
himself a perfect master in imitating the notes of other birds. In the
first place he learns the noises of the domestic fowls and animals. He
chirps like the little chickens, crows and cackles; then he howls like
the dog, cries like the cat, squeaks like the unoiled hinges of a door,
or a cart-wheel. He answers the Cock, like a cock, the goose, like a
goose. His usual cry is a screeching “Retch” or “Rey”--or when in fear
“Kay” or “Kray.”
[Illustration: DOUBTFUL.
THE JAY.]
It is fairly numerous with us, and is on account of its brilliant
plumage, an ornament of the woods.
* * * * *
In Great Britain the Jay finds little consideration, save from the
makers of artificial flies, after he has been shot or trapped. The
lovely blue wing-feathers are used by these men. Gamekeepers also show
him scant mercy. Still he manages to hold his own in the woodlands and
is fairly common in England and Wales. In Ireland its numbers are fast
decreasing. On the east coasts large flocks sometimes arrive from the
Continent to stay for a time; but the Jay is of course resident with us
as a species.
The Jay is perhaps now receiving a little more toleration than formerly.
It devours worms and insects, certainly, and to a considerable extent. A
Son of the Marshes puts it in a light which is worthy of consideration.
To quote from “Nature’s Raiders”--“The Jays have scant mercy shown them
as a rule. On some estates extreme measures are carried out against them
but this is not always the case. Taking their numbers into
consideration, they cannot be half so hurtful as they are represented to
be from the gamekeepers’ point of view, or they would be thinned off
more. Jays are excellent covert guards in the daytime in the same way in
which the peewits, at night, guard the fields which they frequent. Both
birds give tongue as it is termed. To the small allotment holders who
have their cultivated patches in sheltered hollows close to the woods,
this bird must be considered as a feathered benefactor, for he will, if
allowed to do so, keep within due bounds the small raiders that play
havoc with their garden produce. Recently I saw at least a dozen
watching for--and capturing also--some of the wood mice that had
ventured out on the sunny slopes of the allotment grounds. As the crops
were vegetable ones the less attention these have paid to them by the
mice, when in a young state, the better.”
The voice of the Jay is against him, however. It does not evoke
sympathy. Montgomery wrote:
“Thou hast a crested poll and ’scutcheoned wing
Fit for the herald of an eagle king,
But such a voice! I would that thou could’st sing.”
And the Jay retorts:
“My bill has rougher work, to scream with fright,
And then, when screaming will not do, to fight.”
The Jay is smaller than the Jackdaw. Its plumage is reddish grey, the
bridle wide and black; crown nearly white with dark longitudinal flecks;
rump and undertail-cover white; on the wings a white spot; tail
black,--with pale blue cross bars. Its great beauty is due to the upper
wing feathers which are striped with white, black and a beautiful blue.
It has bright shining eyes of light blue. The nest is built in trees,
sometimes high, sometimes low, and five to nine eggs are laid, which on
a pale, usually greenish, ground are thickly speckled with dark but
delicate spots.
[Illustration: The Jay as raider.]
THE BLACK-HEADED GULL.
(_Larus ridibundus._)
This Gull is a migrant in Hungary. Many, however, pass the winter with
us, leaving the frozen inland waters for the open streams of the rivers,
where they pass their time until spring returns. It has quite adapted
itself to life on land, and there is no bird which more assiduously
follows the plough in those districts where it has its nesting place on
the inland waters, or more zealously clears the cornfields, meadows, and
rush-beds of all kinds of noxious worms and grubs, than this gull. It
also feeds its young on these insects, and many of the landowners, have
to thank the Blackheaded Gull that they are free from the annoyance of
these pests. It frequents the ponds and lakes, however, in autumn, and
makes havoc among the little fishes. Its screeching call can be heard at
a great distance, “_Kreā, Kreā_,” or “_Krackackark_.”
It is an exceedingly useful bird, and ought to be protected.
* * * * *
This species is generally distributed on our shores all through the year
in Great Britain, but in spring it betakes itself to marshy places near
the coast and to inland lakes and meres. Near Poole in Dorset is a
colony of these Gulls, they ought rather to be called Brown than
Black-headed; on the coast of Essex, several in Norfolk, small ones in
Yorkshire--one large one near Brigg in Lincolnshire; and those of
Aqualate Mere in Staffordshire and Norbury have existed for some
centuries. In many other districts to the North they are even
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE BACK-HEADED GULL.]
more plentiful--right up as far as the Shetlands. In Ireland it is the
commonest species of its family.
To the farmer the services of this Gull are invaluable. Like the Rook it
follows the plough, devouring vast quantities of worms and grubs. It can
capture moths and cockchafers on the wing, and will eat indeed almost
anything, acting also like others of its congeners as a scavenger of the
foreshores. Farming in districts near the coast benefits greatly from
the services of these birds. They are partial to snails also, and as no
Gull feeds on plants, seeds or fruits, a Gull in a garden, wing-clipped,
is often kept as a useful pet.
This Gull is sixteen inches in length, that is almost as big as a crow.
The beak is not strong, the point is curved downwards; the head a
beautiful dark-brown. This colour extends to the throat. There is a
white ring round the eyes. Neck and mantle a beautiful ashen-grey,
throat, breast and underparts white, with pinkish tinge; outer primaries
dark with white stripes. The upper parts of the wings are light grey;
beak and legs carmine, also the irides and their borders; the toes are
joined together by a web. The head becomes white in winter, the beak and
feet lose their brilliant red colour and become flesh colour, and then
brownish. It nests with others in settlements consisting sometimes of
3000 to 4000 nests. The nest is placed on broken reeds, turf clods,
tufts of rushes; the bird, without much skill, makes a little heap,
scratches a hollow in it, smoothes the inside, prepares a litter of dry
rush and sedge leaves, and the nest is finished. The nests are placed
close together. The clutch consists of two or three eggs, very rarely
four, usually of a yellowish clay colour, marked, or regularly speckled
with a dark shade.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE QUAIL.]
THE QUAIL.
(_Cotúrnix commúnis._)
The Quail is about the size of a large clenched fist, and is almost as
round as a skittle ball. Its entire plumage is clay-coloured speckled
with a darker shade, and marked with light lines, like the head of oats.
The whole marking of it, especially of its back, is designed to avert
man’s attention from this crouching bird. The throat of the cock is
black, the beak and legs like those of the barn-door fowl. The bright
eye light nut-brown. The nest is placed on the ground, and is simply a
scratched-out hole, which is rather littered than lined with blades of
grass. In this the female bird lays her eggs of olive yellow,
beautifully speckled with brown, sometimes to the number of sixteen, but
usually ten. The chicks run after their mother as soon as they are
hatched and dried--which is a very pretty sight. They can make
themselves invisible by crouching on the ground, so that the colour of
their down assimilates with that of the earth.
The habits of this bird are those of the domestic fowl. From early
morning till evening twilight, the Quail is on its feet, searching the
ground for grains of seed or little beetles. It scratches like a hen,
and when it finds a sunny, dusty or sandy place, it bathes in the sand,
flinging the dust all about. The Quail is a useful bird--for it picks up
only the seed which lies on the ground, and feeds its young with the
same. It therefore deserves shelter and care. Its voice and habits are
pleasant and agreeable to man. Its familiar and homelike cry, sounds
from out of the cornfields, and the little hen answers. The mating call
of both is, “_Bue bee wee_.”
“Ah! what sweet accents fall softly around,
Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord! (Fürchte Gott!)
Murmurs the quaint little quail from the ground.”[1]
The bird’s cry of “_Bit by bit_,” and his mate’s reply, “_Wet my weet,
Wet my weet_,” as we render it, is not often heard now in our own
country. This is attributed by some to the fact that most of the Quail’s
favourite feeding-grounds have been “improved” away. Fine pasture-lands
are now where the ground was once coarse and covered with tussock, bent,
thistles, burdock, hawkweed, and such plants as flourish in uncared-for
lands, and in such surroundings the Quail delighted to remain. Now, only
very few winter with us; the majority leave in October for the South.
The Quail is an accomplished ventriloquist, and the late Lord Lilford,
in his “Notes on the Birds of Northamptonshire,” says that he often
heard a caged Quail calling when within a few feet of him, which yet
gave the impression of being many yards distant. On the western side of
Corfu he found numbers of these birds in the currant-vines on very steep
hill-sides, and vast numbers are bred in the cultivated plains around
and below Seville, where their numbers are thinned in the pairing season
by a clever method of calling the birds into a net by imitating the
call-note of the female. On the island of Capri, in the Bay of Naples,
it is on record that as many as 160,000 have been netted in a single
season.
Many of us have eaten them in the South of France during the grape
season. The birds can be caught by the hand when they have, as the
French say, intoxicated themselves by feeding on the ripe grapes.
During the winter and the early spring they feed on the seeds of the
plantain, dock, vetch, and chickweed. Slugs also and insects help to
form the bird’s diet. The Italian’s notion that it is unwholesome to eat
Quails at a given season arises, no doubt, from the fact that it is
pleasanter eating and the flesh is plumper at certain times of the year
than at others, owing largely to the varying nature of the bird’s food.
The Quail is a favourite pet in Spain; the birds are kept much in cages
there, and are valued because of their song; and that the Quails have
been taken on the Continent in vast numbers when netting them, at the
time of the vernal migration, is not to be denied. “We remember,” says
Lord Lilford, “seeing a steamer at Bressina, in the month of May, 1874,
one of whose officers assured us that he had six thousand pairs of
Quails alive on board, all destined for the London market. The unhappy
birds are carried in low flat cages on boxes, wired only in front, and
it is surprising what a very small percentage of them die on the voyage,
unless “a sea” happens to break over them. They thrive well on millet,
and soon become fat; but, in our opinion, this traffic should be
prohibited, as the unfortunate birds are caught on their way to their
breeding quarters, and some of them at all events would afford sport at
a legitimate season when naturally fit for the table.” “Chaud comme
caille,” says the French proverb, because Quails are exceedingly amorous
and pugnacious at the time of pairing. They thrive well in confinement,
and are easily “fatted up” for the table.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE STARLING.]
THE STARLING.
(_Sturnus vulgaris._)
The Starling is a very lively, jovial bird, very active, hunting about,
and chattering over what it snaps up. It is also very sociable. These
birds often collect in such numbers, in places, where a wood is bounded
by pastures or reed-beds that when the flock rises together, it throws a
shadow like a dark cloud. It specially seeks out flocks--cattle, horses,
sheep or pigs, and stalks about in their shadow, under the very noses of
the wallowing swine, in order to drag out of the earth the desired
worms, in company with the Blue headed Wagtail. It also perches on the
bodies of the beasts, and operates on them where there are maggots or
worms. The animal knows the bird is doing him a good turn, and remains
perfectly still.
It is true that this bird also attacks cherries, blackberries,
raspberries and grapes; and, if present in numbers, it does, indeed,
considerable harm.--Then it must be frightened off with rattles,
blank-shot, and whatever else is of use. Still, the year through, it
does a thousand times more good than harm and therefore deserves to be
protected and cherished.
It becomes very tame and trusting in captivity and can be easily taught.
It can learn to sing tunes and speak words--and becomes attached to its
owner.
* * * * *
Mrs. Edward Phillips of Croydon rescued forty starlings once from the
pockets of a working man who said he was selling them to serve as
pigeon dummies, in shooting matches amongst his friends. Needless to say
she paid for and set them at liberty. I was struck with the scarcity of
Starlings in the centre of France, and country folks there told me they
were getting scarce. Perhaps they were not much protected, for I saw in
Anjou a family of the young birds in the hands of a boy who told me he
was carrying them home to train for sale as singing and talking pets.
They are not good to eat and yet they will feed on them in that
part--birds these that, if spared, eat up tons of those grubs and larvæ
which ruin the crops in the field. Sometimes even they have been shut up
and fed on vegetable diet to make them taste better. This has only made
the bird thinner, proof positive that the enemies of “green stuff” and
not itself form their natural diet. Feeding as they do at all seasons on
our pasture lands the services they render are incalculable.
In November, or somewhat earlier, they arrive on our east coasts in
great numbers; whilst others migrate westward, deserting some localities
entirely for a time. Great numbers also visit the South of Ireland then.
They settle on the salt marshes for a while sometimes; but often they
pass on further inland in perfect silence, with a swift direct flight,
and a way altogether unlike their usual chattering fussy ways. They
begin to pair in January in some of our districts. Naturalists call them
Ambulatores, or walking birds; they are quaint creatures in all their
ways and habits. Of late years they have been accused of pecking into
apples more than is desirable. As the season advanced, and fruit was not
so varied and plentiful, I used to find that when all the leaves were
off my pear trees--in a former home--they ate the few pears that were
left hanging high up until nothing but stalk was left, but they touched
neither apples nor pears whilst the leaves were on the trees.
The best way of keeping Starlings away from _high_ cherry trees, that I
have seen, is fixing a long narrow flag to a strong top branch. Large
flocks of them resort to cowfolds, where the stock are all night, and
before these are let out the birds are there seeking for larvæ and worms
in the dried dung, perching now and anon on the backs of the cattle,
chattering low all the time. They rid trees of caterpillars, and the
turnip fields, where they have been known to clear these of “fly”; also
to visit field peas that were infected with aphides and do good work
there; and they devour great numbers of Daddy-longlegs. Waterton,--that
past-master in the art of observing and chronicling the doings of birds,
wrote: “There is not a bird in all Great Britain more harmless than the
Starling: still, it has to suffer persecution, and is often doomed to
see its numbers thinned by the hand of wantonness or error. The author
of ‘Journal of a Naturalist’ observed a pair of Starlings having young
ones for several days, and he wrote, ‘It appears probable that this
pair, in conjunction, do not travel less than 50 miles a day, visiting
and feeding their young about 140 times, which, consisting of five in
number, and admitting only one to be fed each time, every bird must
receive in this period twenty portions of food.”
In 1891 twelve farmers, replying to Miss Ormerod’s question as to which
kinds of birds were specially useful in destroying caterpillars, all
replied in favour of the Starling. Now what, after all, matters a little
fruit taken from private gardens in view of all this good work done. And
as to the professional fruit grower, it will pay him to employ a boy or
two during a short season of the year, to keep birds off his trees.
* * * * *
Sir Herbert Maxwell, who writes on the whole in favour of Starlings, and
remarks truly that all naturalists are agreed that the good they do
outweighs the evil, says that “from many a dovecote the legitimate
occupants have been expelled by the intrusion of these irrepressible
creatures.” And Waterton wrote, “The farmer complains that it sucks his
pigeons’ eggs, and when the gunner and his assembly wish, the keeper is
ordered to close the holes of entrance to the dovecot overnight, and the
next morning three or four dozen of Starlings are captured to be
shot.... Alas! these poor Starlings had merely resorted to it for
shelter and protection, and were in no way responsible for the fragments
of egg-shells which were strewed on the floor.... The rat and the weasel
were the real destroyers,” etc.
* * * * *
The Starling is as big as a thrush; it has bluish iridescent plumage,
the feathers tipped with white. Beak relatively small, brow flat; eyes
near the base of the beak, which gives it a cunning expression. The
feathers are small and tapering at the point; beak yellowish. The hen is
paler, the young ones still more so. The legs are strong, with sharp
claws. It selects for its nest holes in oak trees in the woods near
which is pasture land or water stocked with reeds and rushes. In warmer
regions it breeds twice in the summer. The first clutch consists of five
to seven eggs, the second of four or five of a pale light blue colour.
THE ROSE STARLING.
(_Pastor roseus._)
In Hungary this bird is only a summer guest, and single pairs may be met
with in various parts of the country. Its appearance in large numbers
always coincides with the time of the grasshopper plague;--a fact which
was first observed in 1814. The distinguished Hungarian ornithologist,
Petényi, described his observations in 1837. He states that, so long as
the grasshoppers are not fully developed, the bird feeds on all sorts of
insects; but as soon as the grasshopper is sufficiently matured, this
insect forms its sole food, and is pursued with great eagerness. Thus,
in the year 1907 great numbers of Rose Starlings appeared on the
well-known Puerta of Hortshágy where just at that time the grasshopper
plague was raging. There we may enjoy the spectacle which Petényi
described as follows: “To the eye of the beholder a flock of these birds
in flight has the appearance of a roseate cloud, always
moving,--backwards, forwards, sideways, in ever changing forms of
beauty--or, alighting, they give an exquisite impression of whole
bunches of wandering roses moving on the green turf.”
Although the Rose Starling also loves fruit-berries and causes such
damage to them by its great numbers, that in some parts it is called the
“devil’s bird”--the fact remains that its chief food is the grasshopper.
In Tartary, its native land, it destroys the locusts which in former
times visited Hungary. A Turkish proverb says that the Rose Starling
kills ninety-nine grasshoppers before it eats one. When a flight of
these birds descends upon a grasshopper infested district, it consumes
an enormous number of these insects, and that, in places where human
defences can do nothing; in this consists the value of its actions.
Among the grasshoppers found in Hungary at the present time are the
_Stauronatus maroccanus_ and in smaller numbers the _Colopterus
italicus_, the latter of which belongs naturally to the Hungarian fauna.
The note of the Rose Starling is a harsh and continuous babble. This
bird is protected in the Caucasus and elsewhere because locusts are the
favourite food of both the old and the young birds. In the East it is
said to be, however, very injurious to grain during the colder season;
also I believe, in Africa. This beautiful bird has occurred of late
years in most parts of Great Britain, but only, alas, to be shot and
“stuffed.” As a rule it visits us in summer and autumn, single birds,
perhaps separated somehow from flocks of their own species. In such a
case they generally join our own Starlings.
This beautiful species is the same size as its congener, the Common
Starling, and it resembles the latter in form although so much smarter
in appearance. Rump, back, shoulders, breast and underparts are a bright
rosy pink, head, neck and throat are a glossy black, wings and tail are
a metallic greenish-black. The bill is a yellowish-pink, black at the
base; legs yellowish-brown. The long crest of the adult male is composed
of fine violet-black feathers. The female is not so brightly tinted and
has a smaller crest. The nest of the Rose Starling is built in its own
native home in south-eastern Europe in some crevice in a ruin in
quarries, cliffs, or among stones in a ravine or a railway cutting. The
clutch consists of five to six eggs of a pale bluish-white colour, or
pale bluish-green.
THE WAXWING.
(_Ampelis garrulus._)
This beautiful little bird has its nesting place in the far north. It
often visits Mid-Europe in winter in great numbers, principally
frequenting juniper plantations, where it is easily snared. Its flesh
being a great delicacy, it is much sought for. Moving along the
headlands it passes also into the valleys, and even visits the gardens
and parks of great towns, especially where mistletoe is found on the old
trees. When in need it eats seeds; it also feeds on the berries of
whitethorn, mountain ash, hawthorn, and other bushes. It has a good
appetite and digests its food very quickly, but is somewhat inactive in
its movements. It lives in colonies sometimes smaller sometimes larger.
Its breeding range extends across Behring Straits to Alaska and the
Rocky Mountains.
The Waxwing visits Great Britain at irregular intervals, often in large
numbers, during the winter. Being an inhabitant of the Arctic regions,
its visits are more frequently paid to the Northern and Eastern sides of
the country, but it has been seen often in the Southern counties. In
Norfolk, on the spring migration, it is sometimes seen up to the first
week in May. It is a silent, gentle-mannered bird and its only note is a
low _cir-ir-ir-ir-re_. It is essentially a wandering species and is very
erratic as to its nesting places, belonging to the class the poet refers
to in those lines
“The birds of passage transmigrating come,
Unnumbered colonies of foreign wing,
At Nature’s summons.”
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE WAXWING.
An erratic winter visitant.]
The Waxwing has a very silky plumage. On its head is a crest, inclining
backwards, which can, however, be erected at pleasure. Throat smooth
black; back cinnamon-brown, underparts a lighter shade of the same
colour. Tail black with a golden-yellow border at the end. Wings black
with white bars. The outer half of the secondary wing feathers yellow,
with white border at the end. The shafts of these feathers are tipped
with red horny appendages like sealing-wax, which also appear on the
tail feathers of the adult male.
[Illustration: USEFUL.
THE SWALLOW.]
[Illustration]