Increased activity on the housetop marks the approach of spring and
summer exactly as in the woods and hedges, for the roof has its
migrants, its semi-migrants, and its residents. When the first
dandelion is opening on a sheltered bank, and the pale-blue field
veronica flowers in the waste corner, the whistle of the starling comes
from his favourite ledge. Day by day it is heard more and more, till,
when the first green spray appears on the hawthorn, he visits the roof
continually. Besides the roof-tree and the chimney-pot, he has his own
special place, sometimes under an eave, sometimes between two gables;
and as I sit writing, I can see a pair who have a ledge which slightly
projects from the wall between the eaves and the highest window. This
was made by the builder for an ornament; but my two starlings consider
it their own particular possession. They alight with a sort of
half-scream half-whistle just over the window, flap their wings, and
whistle again, run along the ledge to a spot where there is a gable,
and with another note, rise up and enter an aperture between the slates
and the wall. There their nest will be in a little time, and busy
indeed they will be when the young require to be fed, to and fro the
fields and the gable the whole day through; the busiest and the most
useful of birds, for they destroy thousands upon thousands of insects,
and if farmers were wise they would never have one shot, no matter how
the thatch was pulled about.
My pair of starlings were frequently at this ledge last autumn, very
late in autumn, and I suspect they had a winter brood there. The
starling does rear a brood sometimes in the midst of the winter,
contrary as that may seem to our general ideas of natural history. They
may be called roof-residents, as they visit it all the year round; they
nest in the roof, rearing two and sometimes three broods; and use it as
their club and place of meeting. Towards July the young starlings and
those that have for the time at least finished nesting, flock together,
and pass the day in the fields, returning now and then to their old
home. These flocks gradually increase; the starling is so prolific that
the flocks become immense, till in the latter part of the autumn in
southern fields it is common to see a great elm-tree black with them,
from the highest bough downwards, and the noise of their chattering can
be heard a long distance. They roost in firs or in osier-beds. But in
the blackest days of winter, when frost binds the ground hard as iron,
the starlings return to the roof almost every day; they do not whistle
much, but have a peculiar chuckling whistle at the instant of
alighting. In very hard weather, especially snow, the starlings find it
difficult to obtain a living, and at such times will come to the
premises at the rear, and at farmhouses where cattle are in the yards,
search about among them for insects.
The whole history of the starling is interesting, but I must here only
mention it as a roof-bird. They are very handsome in their full
plumage, which gleams bronze and green among the darker shades; quick
in their motions, and full of spirit; loaded to the muzzle with energy,
and never still. I hope none of those who are so good as to read what I
have written will ever keep a starling in a cage; the cruelty is
extreme. As for shooting pigeons at a trap, it is mercy in comparison.
Even before the starling whistles much, the sparrows begin to chirp: in
the dead of winter they are silent; but so soon as the warmer winds
blow, if only for a day, they begin to chirp. In January this year I
used to listen to the sparrows chirping, the starlings whistling, and
the chaffinches' "chink, chink" about eight o'clock, or earlier, in the
morning: the first two on the roof; the latter, which is not a
roof-bird, in some garden shrubs. As the spring advances, the sparrows
sing--it is a short song, it is true, but still it is singing--perched
at the edge of a sunny wall. There is not a place about the house where
they will not build--under the eaves, on the roof, anywhere where there
is a projection or shelter, deep in the thatch, under the tiles, in old
eave-swallows' nest. The last place I noticed as a favourite one in
towns is on the half-bricks left projecting in perpendicular rows at
the sides of unfinished houses, Half a dozen nests may be counted at
the side of a house on these bricks; and like the starlings, they rear
several broods, and some are nesting late in the autumn. By degrees as
the summer advances they leave the houses for the corn, and gather in
vast flocks, rivalling those of the starlings. At this time they desert
the roofs, except those who still have nesting duties. In winter and in
the beginning of the new year, they gradually return; migration thus
goes on under the eyes of those who care to notice it. In London, some
who fed sparrows on the roof found that rooks also came for the crumbs
placed out. I sometimes see a sparrow chasing a rook, as if angry, and
trying to drive it away over the roofs where I live, the thief does not
retaliate, but, like a thief, flees from the scene of his guilt. This
is not only in the breeding season, when the rook steals eggs, but in
winter. Town residents are apt to despise the sparrow, seeing him
always black; but in the country the sparrows are as clean as a pink;
and in themselves they are the most animated, clever little creatures.
They are easily tamed. The Parisians are fond of taming them. At a
certain hour in the Tuilleries Gardens, you may see a man perfectly
surrounded with a crowd of sparrows--some perching on his shoulder;
some fluttering in the air immediately before his face; some on the
ground like a tribe of followers; and others on the marble seats. He
jerks a crumb of bread into the air--a sparrow dexterously seizes it as
he would a flying insect; he puts a crumb between his lips--a sparrow
takes it out and feeds from his mouth. Meantime they keep up a constant
chirping; those that are satisfied still stay by and adjust their
feathers. He walks on, giving a little chirp with his mouth, and they
follow him along the path--a cloud about his shoulders, and the rest
flying from shrub to shrub, perching, and then following again. They
are all perfectly clean--a contrast to the London Sparrow. I came
across one of these sparrow-tamers by chance, and was much amused at
the scene, which, to any one not acquainted with birds, appears
marvellous; but it is really as simple as possible, and you can repeat
it for yourself if you have patience, for they are so sharp they soon
understand you. They seem to play at nest-making before they really
begin; taking up straws in their beaks, and carrying them half-way to
the roof, then letting the straws float away; and the same with stray
feathers, Neither of these, starlings nor sparrows, seem to like the
dark. Under the roof, between it and the first ceiling, there is a
large open space; if the slates or tiles are kept in good order, very
little light enters, and this space is nearly dark in daylight. Even if
chinks admit a beam of light, it is not enough; they seldom enter or
fly about there, though quite accessible to them. But if the roof is in
bad order, and this space light, they enter freely. Though nesting in
holes, yet they like light. The swallows could easily go in and make
nests upon the beams, but they will not, unless the place is well lit.
They do not like darkness in the daytime.
The swallows bring us the sunbeams on their wings from Africa to fill
the fields with flowers. From the time of the arrival of the first
swallow the flowers take heart; the few and scanty plants that had
braved the earlier cold are succeeded by a constantly enlarging list,
till the banks and lanes are full of them. The chimney-swallow is
usually the forerunner of the three house-swallows; and perhaps no fact
in natural history has been so much studied as the migration of these
tender birds. The commonest things are always the most interesting. In
summer there is no bird so common everywhere as the swallow, and for
that reason many overlook it, though they rush to see a "white
elephant." But the deepest thinkers have spent hours and hours in
considering the problem of the swallow--its migrations, its flight, its
habits; great poets have loved it; great artists and art-writers have
curiously studied it. The idea that it is necessary to seek the
wilderness or the thickest woods for nature is a total mistake; nature
it, at home, on the roof, close to every one. Eave-swallows, or
house-martins (easily distinguished by the white bar across the tail),
build sometimes in the shelter of the porches of old houses.
As you go in or out, the swallows visiting or leaving their nests fly
so closely as almost to brush the face. Swallow means porch-bird, and
for centuries and centuries their nests have been placed in the closest
proximity to man. They might be called man's birds, so attached are
they to the human race. I think the greatest ornament a house can have
is the nest of an eave-swallow under the eaves--far superior to the
most elaborate carving, colouring, or arrangement the architect can
devise. There is no ornament like the swallow's nest; the home of a
messenger between man and the blue heavens, between us and the
sunlight, and all the promise of the sky. The joy of life, the highest
and tenderest feelings, thoughts that soar on the swallow's wings, come
to the round nest under the roof. Not only to-day, not only the hopes
of future years, but all the past dwells there. Year after year the
generations and descent of the swallow have been associated with our
homes, and all the events of successive lives have taken place under
their guardianship. The swallow is the genius of good to a house. Let
its nest, then, stay; to me it seems the extremity of barbarism, or
rather stupidity, to knock it down. I wish I could induce them to build
under the eaves of this house; I would if I could discover some means
of communicating with them.
It is a peculiarity of the swallow that you cannot make it afraid of
you; just the reverse of other birds. The swallow does not understand
being repulsed, but comes back again. Even knocking the nest down will
not drive it away, until the stupid process has been repeated several
years. The robin must be coaxed; the sparrow is suspicious, and though
easy to tame, quick to notice the least alarming movement. The swallow
will not be driven away. He has not the slightest fear of man; he flies
to his nest close to the window, under the low eave, or on the beams in
the out-houses, no matter if you are looking on or not. Bold as the
starlings are, they will seldom do this. But in the swallow the
instinct of suspicion is reversed, an instinct of confidence occupies
its place. In addition to the eave-swallow, to which I have chiefly
alluded, and the chimney-swallow, there is the swift, also a roof-bird,
and making its nest in the slates of houses in the midst of towns.
These three are migrants in the fullest sense, and come to our houses
over thousands of miles of land and sea.
Robins frequently visit the roof for insects, especially when it is
thatched; so do wrens; and the latter, after they have peered along,
have a habit of perching at the extreme angle of a gable, or the
extreme edge of a corner, and uttering their song. Finches occasionally
fly up to the roofs of country-houses if shrubberies are near, also in
pursuit of insects; but they are not truly roof-birds. Wagtails perch
on roofs; they often have their nests in the ivy, or creepers trained
against walls; they are quite at borne, and are frequently seen on the
ridges of farmhouses. Tits of several species, particularly the great
titmouse and the blue tit, come to thatch for insects, both in summer
and winter. In some districts where they are common, it is not unusual
to see a goatsucker or fern-owl hawk along close to the eaves in the
dusk of the evening for moths. The white owl is a roof-bird (though not
often of the house), building inside the roof, and sitting there all
day in some shaded corner. They do sometimes take up their residence in
the roofs of outhouses attached to dwellings, but not often nowadays,
though still residing in the roofs of old castles. Jackdaws, again, are
roof-birds, building in the roofs of towers. Bats live in roofs, and
hang there wrapped up in their membranous wings till the evening calls
them forth. They are residents in the full sense, remaining all the
year round, though principally seen in the warmer months; but they are
there in the colder, hidden away, and if the temperature rises, will
venture out and hawk to and fro in the midst of the winter. Tame
pigeons and doves hardly come into this paper, but still it is their
habit to use roofs as tree-tops. Rats and mice creep through the
crevices of roofs, and in old country-houses hold a sort of nightly
carnival, racing to and fro under the roof. Weasels sometimes follow
them indoors and up to their roof strongholds.
When the first warm days of spring sunshine strike against the southern
side of the chimney, sparrows perch there and enjoy it; and again in
autumn, when the general warmth of the atmosphere is declining, they
still find a little pleasant heat there. They make use of the radiation
of heat, as the gardener does who trains his fruit-trees to a wall.
Before the autumn has thinned the leaves, the swallows gather on the
highest ridge of the roof in a row and twitter to each other; they know
the time is approaching when they must depart for another climate. In
winter, many birds seek the thatched roofs to roost. Wrens, tits, and
even blackbirds roost in the holes left by sparrows or starlings.
Every crevice is the home of insects, or used by them for the deposit
of their eggs--under the tiles or slates, where mortar has dropped out
between the bricks, in the holes of thatch, and on the straws. The
number of insects that frequent a large roof must be very great--all
the robins, wrens, bats, and so on, can scarcely affect them; nor the
spiders, though these, too, are numerous. Then there are the moths, and
those creeping creatures that work out of sight, boring their way
through the rafters and beams. Sometimes a sparrow may be seen clinging
to the bare wall of the house; tits do the same thing. It is surprising
how they manage to hold on. They are taking insects from the apertures
of the mortar. Where the slates slope to the south, the sunshine soon
heats them, and passing butterflies alight on the warm surface, and
spread out their wings, as if hovering over the heat. Flies are
attracted in crowds sometimes to heated slates and tiles, and wasps
will occasionally pause there. Wasps are addicted to haunting houses,
and, in the autumn, feed on the flies. Floating germs carried by the
air must necessarily lodge in numbers against roofs; so do dust and
invisible particles; and together, these make the rain-water collected
in water-butts after a storm turbid and dark; and it soon becomes full
of living organisms.
Lichen and moss grow on the mortar wherever it has become slightly
disintegrated; and if any mould, however minute, by any means
accumulates between the slates, there, too, they spring up, and even on
the slates themselves. Tiles are often coloured yellow by such growths.
On some old roofs, which have decayed, and upon which detritus has
accumulated, wallflowers may be found; and the house-leek takes
capricious root where it fancies. The stonecrop is the finest of
roof-plants, sometimes forming a broad patch of brilliant yellow. Birds
carry up seeds and grains, and these germinate in moist thatch.
Groundsel, for instance, and stray stalks of wheat, thin and drooping
for lack of soil, are sometimes seen there, besides grasses. Ivy is
familiar as a roof-creeper. Some ferns and the pennywort will grow on
the wall close to the roof. A correspondent tells me that in Wales he
found a cottage perfectly roofed with fern--it grew so thickly as to
conceal the roof. Had a painter put this in a picture, many would have
exclaimed: "How fanciful! He must have made it up; it could never have
grown like that!" Not long after receiving my correspondent's kind
letter, I chanced to find a roof near London upon which the same fern
was growing in lines along the tiles. It grew plentifully, but was not
in so flourishing a condition as that found in Wales. Painters are
sometimes accused of calling upon their imagination when they are
really depicting fact, for the ways of nature vary very much in
different localities, and that which may seem impossible in one place
is common enough in another.
Where will not ferns grow? We saw one attached to the under-side of a
glass coal-hole cover; its green could be seen through the thick glass
on which people stepped daily.
Recently, much attention has been paid to the dust which is found on
roofs and ledges at great heights. This meteoric dust, as it is called,
consists of minute particles of iron, which are thought to fall from
the highest part of the atmosphere, or possibly to be attracted to the
earth from space. Lightning usually strikes the roof. The whole subject
of lightning-conductors has been re-opened of late years, there being
reason to think that mistakes have been made in the manner of their
erection. The reason English roofs are high-pitched is not only because
of the rain, that it may shoot off quickly, but on account of snow.
Once now and then there comes a snow-year, and those who live in houses
with flat surfaces anywhere on the roof soon discover how inconvenient
they are. The snow is sure to find its way through, damaging ceilings,
and doing other mischief. Sometimes, in fine summer weather, people
remark how pleasant it would be if the roof were flat, so that it could
be used as a terrace, as it is in warmer climates. But the fact is, the
English roof, although now merely copied and repeated without a thought
of the reason of its shape, grew up from experience of severe winters.
Of old, great care and ingenuity--what we should now call artistic
skill--were employed in contracting the roof. It was not only pleasant
to the eye with its gables, but the woodwork was wonderfully well done.
Such roofs may still be seen on ancient mansions, having endured for
centuries. They are splendid pieces of workmanship, and seen from afar
among foliage, are admired by every one who has the least taste.
Draughtsmen and painters value them highly. No matter whether
reproduced on a large canvas or in a little woodcut, their proportions
please. The roof is much neglected in modern houses; it is either
conventional, or it is full indeed of gables, but gables that do not
agree, as it were, with each other--that are obviously put there on
purpose to look artistic, and fail altogether. Now, the ancient roofs
were true works of art, consistent, and yet each varied to its
particular circumstances, and each impressed with the individuality of
the place and of the designer. The finest old roofs were built of oak
or chestnut; the beams are black with age, and, in that condition, oak
is scarcely distinguishable from chestnut.
So the roof has its natural history, its science, and art; it has its
seasons, its migrants and residents, of whom a housetop calendar might
be made. The fine old roofs which have just been mentioned are often
associated with historic events and the rise of families; and the
roof-tree, like the hearth, has a range of proverbs or sayings and
ancient lore to itself. More than one great monarch has been slain by a
tile thrown from the housetop, and numerous other incidents have
occurred in connection with it. The most interesting is the story of
the Grecian mother who, with her infant, was on the roof, when, in a
moment of inattention, the child crept to the edge, and was balanced on
the very verge. To call to it, to touch it, would have insured its
destruction; but the mother, without a second's thought, bared her
breast, and the child eagerly turning to it, was saved!