and comparing the tails of the male and female swallow, and this ere
any young broods appeared; so that there was no danger of confounding
the dams with their pulli: and besides, as they were then always in
pairs, and busied in the employ of nidification, there could be no room
for mistaking the sexes, nor the individuals of different chimneys the
one for the other. From all my observations, it constantly appeared
that each sex has the long feathers in its tail that give it that
forked shape; with this difference, that they are longer in the tail of
the male than in that of the female.
Nightingales, when their young first come abroad, and are helpless,
make a plaintive and a jarring noise: and also a snapping or cracking,
pursuing people along the hedges as they walk: these last sounds seem
intended for menace and defiance.
The grasshopper-lark chirps all night in the height of summer.
Swans turn white the second year, and breed the third.
Weasels prey on moles, as appears by their being sometimes caught in
mole-traps.
Sparrow-hawks sometimes breed in old crows’ nests, and the kestrel in
churches and ruins.
There are supposed to be two sorts of eels in the island of Ely. The
threads sometimes discovered in eels are perhaps their young: the
generation of eels is very dark and mysterious.
Hen-harriers breed on the ground, and seem never to settle on trees.
When red-starts shake their tails they move them horizontally, as dogs
do when they fawn: the tail of a wagtail, when in motion, bobs up and
down like that of a jaded horse.
Hedge-sparrows have a remarkable flirt with their wings in
breeding-time; as soon as frosty mornings come they make a very piping
plaintive noise.
Many birds which become silent about Midsummer reassume their notes
again in September; as the thrush, blackbird, woodlark, willow-wren,
etc.; hence August is by much the most mute month, the spring, summer,
and autumn through. Are birds induced to sing again because the
temperament of autumn resembles that of spring ?
Linnaeus ranges plants geographically; palms inhabit the tropics,
grasses the temperate zones, and mosses and lichens the polar circles;
no doubt animals may be classed in the same manner with propriety.
House-sparrows build under eaves in the spring; as the weather becomes
hotter they get out for coolness, and nest in plum-trees and
apple-trees. These birds have been known sometimes to build in rooks’
nests, and sometimes in the forks of boughs under rooks’ nests.
As my neighbour was housing a rick he observed that his dogs devoured
all the little red mice that they could catch, but rejected the common
mice: and that his cats ate the common mice, refusing the red.
Red-breasts sing all through the spring, summer, and autumn. The reason
that they are called autumn songsters is, because in the two first
seasons their voices are drowned and lost in the general chorus; in the
latter their song becomes distinguishable. Many songsters of the autumn
seem to be the young cock red-breasts of that year: notwithstanding the
prejudices in their favour, they do much mischief in gardens to the
summer-fruits.*
* They eat also the berries of the ivy, the honeysuckle, and the
euonymus europaeus, or spindle-tree.
The titmouse, which early in February begins to make two quaint notes,
like the whetting of a saw, is the marsh titmouse: the great titmouse
sings with three cheerful joyous notes, and begins about the same time.
Wrens sing all the winter through, frost excepted.
House-martins came remarkably late this year both in Hampshire and
Devonshire: is this circumstance for or against either hiding or
migration ?
Most birds drink sipping at intervals; but pigeons take a long
continued draught, like quadrupeds.
Notwithstanding what I have said in a former letter, no grey crows were
ever known to breed on Dartmoor: it was my mistake.
The appearance and flying of the scarabaeus solstitialis, or
fern-chafer, commence with the month of July, and cease about the end
of it. These scarabs are the constant food of caprimulgi, or fern-owls,
through that period. They abound on the chalky downs and in some sandy
districts, but not in the clays.
In the garden of the Black-bear inn in the town of Reading is a stream
or canal running under the stables and out into the fields on the other
side of the road; in this water are many carps, which lie rolling about
in sight, being fed by travellers, who amuse themselves by tossing them
bread: but as soon as the weather grows at all severe these fishes are
no longer seen, because they retire under the stables, where they
remain till the return of spring. Do they lie in a torpid state? if
they do not, how are they supported?
The note of the white-throat, which is continually repeated, and often
attended with odd gesticulations on the wing, is harsh and displeasing.
These birds seem of a pugnacious disposition; for they sing with an
erected crest and attitudes of rivalry and defiance; are shy and wild
in breeding-time, avoiding neighbourhoods, and haunting lonely lanes
and commons; nay even the very tops of the Sussex-downs, where there
are bushes and covert; but in July and August they bring their broods
into gardens and orchards, and make great havoc among the
summer-fruits.
The black-cap has in common a full, sweet, deep, loud and wild pipe;
yet that strain is of short continuance, and his motions are desultory;
but when that bird sits calmly and engages in song in earnest, he pours
forth very sweet, but inward melody, and expresses great variety of
soft and gentle modulations, superior perhaps to those of any of our
warblers, the nightingale excepted.
Black-caps mostly haunt orchards and gardens; while they warble their
throats are wonderfully distended.
The song of the red-start is superior, though somewhat like that of the
white-throat: some birds have a few more notes than others. Sitting
very placidly on the top of a tree in a village, the cock sings from
morning to night: he affects neighbourhoods, and avoids solitude, and
loves to build in orchards and about houses; with us he perches on the
vane of a tall maypole.
The fly-catcher is of all our summer birds the most mute and the most
familiar: it also appears the last of any. It builds in a vine, or a
sweetbriar, against the wall of an house, or in the hole of a wall, or
on the end of a beam or plate, and often close to the post of a door
where people are going in and out all day long. This bird does not make
the least pretension to song, but uses a little inward wailing note
when it thinks its young in danger from cats or other annoyances: it
breeds but once, and retires early.
Selborne parish alone can and has exhibited at times more than half the
birds that are ever seen in all Sweden; the former has produced more
than one hundred and twenty species, the latter only two hundred and
twenty-one. Let me add also that it has shown near half the species
that were ever known in Great Britain.*
* Sweden, 221; Great Britain, 252 species.
On a retrospect, I observe that my long letter carries with it a quaint
and magisterial air, and is very sententious: but, when I recollect
that you requested stricture and anecdote, I hope you will pardon the
didactic manner for the sake of the information it may happen to
contain.
Letter XLI
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
It is matter of curious inquiry to trace out how those species of
soft-billed birds, that continue with us the winter through, subsist
during the dead months. The imbecility of birds seems not to be the
only reason why they shun the rigour of our winters; for the robust
wryneck (so much resembling the hardy race of wood-peckers) migrates,
while the feeble little golden-crowned wren, that shadow of a bird,
braves our severest frosts without availing himself of houses or
villages, to which most of our winter birds crowd in distressful
seasons, while this keeps aloof in fields and woods; but perhaps this
may be the reason why they may often perish, and why they are almost as
rare as any bird we know.
I have no reason to doubt but that the soft-billed birds, which winter
with us, subsist chiefly on insects in their aurelia state. All the
species of wagtails in severe weather haunt shallow streams near their
spring-heads, where they never freeze; and, by wading, pick out the
aurelias of the genus of Phryganeae,* etc.
* See Derham’s Physico-theology, p. 235.
Hedge-sparrows frequent sinks and gutters in hard weather, where they
pick up crumbs and other sweepings: and in mild weather they procure
worms, which are stirring every month in the year, as any one may see
that will only be at the trouble of taking a candle to a grass-plot on
any mild winter’s night. Red-breasts and wrens in the winter haunt
out-houses, stables, and barns, where they find spiders and flies that
have laid themselves up during the cold season. But the grand support
of the soft-billed birds in winter is that infinite profusion of
aureliae of the lepidoptera ordo, which is fastened to the twigs of
trees and their trunks; to the pales and walls of gardens and
buildings; and is found in every cranny and cleft of rock or rubbish,
and even in the ground itself.
Every species of titmouse winters with us; they have what I call a kind
of intermediate bill between the hard and the soft, between the
Linnaean genera of fringilla and motacilla. One species alone spends
its whole time in the woods and fields, never retreating for succour in
the severest seasons to houses and neighbourhoods; and that is the
delicate long-tailed titmouse, which is almost as minute as the
golden-crowned wren: but the blue titmouse, or nun (parus caeruleus),
the cole-mouse (parus ater), the great black-headed titmouse
(fringillago), and the marsh titmouse (parus palustris), all resort, at
times, to buildings; and in hard weather particularly. The great
titmouse, driven by stress of weather, much frequents houses, and, in
deep snows, I have seen this bird, while it hung with its back
downwards (to my no small delight and admiration), draw straw
lengthwise from out the eaves of thatched houses, in order to pull out
the flies that were concealed between them, and that in such numbers
that they quite defaced the thatch, and gave it a ragged appearance.
The blue titmouse, or nun, is a great frequenter of houses, and a
general devourer. Beside insects, it is very fond of flesh; for it
frequently picks bones on dung-hills: it is a vast admirer of suet, and
haunts butchers’ shops. When a boy, I have known twenty in a morning
caught with snap mousetraps, baited with tallow or suet. It will also
pick holes in apples left on the ground, and be well entertained with
the seeds on the head of a sunflower. The blue, marsh, and great
titmice will, in very severe weather, carry away barley and oat straws
from the sides of ricks.
How the wheat-ear and whin-chat support themselves in winter cannot be
so easily ascertained, since they spend their time on wild heaths and
warrens; the former especially, where there are stone quarries: most
probably it is that their maintenance arises from the aureliae of the
lepidoptera ordo, which furnish them with a plentiful table in the
wilderness.
I am, etc.
Letter XLII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, March 9, 1775.
Dear Sir,
Some future faunist, a man of fortune, will, I hope, extend his visits
to the kingdom of Ireland; a new field, and a country little known to
the naturalist. He will not, it is to be wished, undertake that tour
unaccompanied by a botanist, because the mountains have scarcely been
sufficiently examined; and the southerly counties of so mild an island
may possibly afford some plants little to be expected within the
British dominions. A person of a thinking turn of mind will draw many
just remarks from the modern improvements of that country, both in arts
and agriculture, where premiums obtained long before they were heard of
with us. The manners of the wild natives, their superstitions, their
prejudices, their sordid way of life, will extort from him many useful
reflections. He should also take with him an able draughtsman: for he
must by no means pass over the noble castles and seats, the extensive
and picturesque lakes and water-falls, and the lofty stupendous
mountains, so little known, and so engaging to the imagination when
described and exhibited in a lively manner: such a work would be well
received.
As I have seen no modern map of Scotland, I cannot pretend to say how
accurate or particular any such may be; but this I know, that the best
old maps of that kingdom are very defective.
The great obvious defect that I have remarked in all maps of Scotland
that have fallen in my way is, a want of a coloured line, or stroke,
that shall exactly define the just limits of that district called the
Highlands. Moreover, all the great avenues to that mountainous and
romantic country want to be well distinguished. The military roads
formed by General Wade are so great and Roman-like an undertaking that
they well merit attention. My old map, Moll’s Map, takes notice of Fort
William; but could not mention the other forts that have been erected
long since: therefore a good representation of the chain of forts
should not be omitted.
The celebrated zigzag up the Coryarich must not be passed over. Mall
takes notice of Hamilton and Drumlanrig, and such capital houses; but a
new survey, no doubt, should represent every seat and castle remarkable
for any great event, or celebrated for its paintings, etc. Lord
Breadalbane’s seat and beautiful policy are too curious and
extraordinary to be omitted.
The seat of the Earl of Eglintoun, near Glasgow, is worthy of notice.
The pine plantations of that nobleman are very grand and extensive
indeed.
I am, etc.
Letter XLIII
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Dear Sir,
A pair of honey-buzzards, buteo opivorus, sive vespivorus Raii, built
them a large shallow nest, composed of twigs and lined with dead
beechen leaves, upon a tall slender beech near the middle of
Selborne-hanger, in the summer of 1780. In the middle of the month of
June a bold boy climbed this tree, though standing on so steep and
dizzy a situation, and brought down an egg, the only one in the nest,
which had been sat on for some time, and contained the embrio of a
young bird. The egg was smaller, and not so round as those of the
common buzzard; was dotted at each end with small red spots, and
surrounded in the middle with a broad bloody zone.
The hen-bird was shot, and answered exactly to Mr. Ray’s description of
that species; had a black cere, short thick legs, and a long tail. When
on the wing this species may be easily distinguished from the common
buzzard by its hawk-like appearance, small head, wings not so blunt,
and longer tail. This specimen contained in its craw some limbs of
frogs, and many grey snails without shells. The irides of the eyes of
this bird were of a beautiful bright yellow colour.
About the tenth of July in the same summer a pair of sparrow-hawks bred
in an old crow’s nest on a low beech in the same hanger; and as their
brood, which was numerous, began to grow up, became so daring and
ravenous, that they were a terror to all the dames in the village that
had chickens or ducklings under their care. A boy climbed the tree, and
found the young so fledged that they all escaped from him: but
discovered that a good house had been kept: the larder was well-stored
with provisions; for he brought down a young blackbird, jay, and house
martin, all clean picked, and some half devoured. The old birds had
been observed to make sad havoc for some days among the new-flown
swallows and martins, which, being but lately out of their nests, had
not acquired those powers and command of wing that enable them, when
more mature, to set such enemies at defiance.
Letter XLIV
To Thomas Pennant, Esquire
Selborne, Nov. 30, 1780.
Dear Sir,
Every incident that occasions a renewal of our correspondence will ever
be pleasing and agreeable to me.
As to the wild wood-pigeon, the oenas, or vinago, of Ray, I am much of
your mind; and see no reason for making it the origin of the common
house-dove: but suppose those that have advanced that opinion may have
been misled by another appellation, often given to the oenas, is that
of stock-dove.
Unless the stock-dove in the winter varies greatly in manners from
itself in summer, no species seems more unlikely to be domesticated,
and to make an house-dove. We very rarely see the latter settle on
trees at all, nor does it ever haunt the woods; but the former, as long
as it stays with us, from November perhaps to February, lives the same
wild life with the ring-dove, palumbus torquatus; frequents coppices
and groves, supports itself chiefly by mast, and delights to roost in
the tallest beeches. Could it be known in what manner stock-doves
build, the doubt would be settled with me at once, provided they
construct their nests on trees, like the ring-dove, as I much suspect
they do.
You received, you say, last spring a stock-dove from Sussex; and are
informed that they sometimes breed in that county. But why did not your
correspondent determine the place of its nidification, whether on
rocks, cliffs, or trees ? If he was not an adroit ornithologist I
should doubt the fact, because people with us perpetually confound the
stock-dove with the ring-dove.
For my own part, I readily concur with you in supposing that
house-doves are derived from the small blue rock-pigeon, for many
reasons. In the first place, the wild stock-dove is manifestly larger
than the common house-dove, against the usual rule of domestication,
which generally enlarges the breed. Again, these two remarkable black
spots on the remiges of each wing of the stock-dove, which are so
characteristic of the species, would not, one should think, be totally
lost by its being reclaimed; but would often break out among its
descendants. But what is worth an hundred arguments is, the instance
you give in Sir Roger Mostyn’s house-doves, in Caernarvonshire; which,
though tempted by plenty of food and gentle treatment, can never be
prevailed on to inhabit their cote for any time; but as soon as they
begin to breed, betake themselves to the fastnesses of Ormshead, and
deposit their young in safety amidst the inaccessible caverns and
precipices of that stupendous promontory.
Naturam expellas furcâ, tamen usque recurret.
I have consulted a sportsman, now in his seventy-eighth year, who tells
me that fifty or sixty years back, when the beechen woods were much
more extensive than at present, the number of wood-pigeons was
astonishing; that he has often killed near twenty in a day; and that
with a long wildfowl piece he has shot seven or eight at a time on the
wing as they came wheeling over his head: he moreover adds, which I was
not aware of, that often there were among them little parties of small
blue doves, which he calls rockiers. The food of these numberless
emigrants was beech-mast and some acorns; and particularly barley,
which they collected in the stubbles. But of late years, since the vast
increase of turnips, that vegetable has furnished a great part of their
support in hard weather; and the holes they pick in these roots greatly
damage the crop. From this food their flesh has contracted a rancidness
which occasions them to be rejected by nicer judges of eating, who
thought them before a delicate dish. They were shot not only as they
were feeding in the fields, and especially in snowy weather, but also
at the close of the evening, by men who lay in ambush among the woods
and groves to kill them as they came in to roost.* These are the
principal circumstances relating to this wonderful internal migration,
which with us takes place towards the end of November, and ceases early
in the spring. Last winter we had in Selborne high wood about an
hundred of these doves; but in former times the flocks were so vast not
only with us but all the district round, that on mornings and evenings
they traversed the air, like rooks, in strings, reaching for a mile
together. When they thus rendezvoused here by thousands, if they
happened to be suddenly roused from their roost-trees on an evening,
Their rising all at once was like the sound
Of thunder heard remote….
* Some old sportsmen say that the main part of these flocks used to
withdraw as soon as the heavy Christmas frosts were over.
It will by no means be foreign to the present purpose to add, that I
had a relation in this neighbourhood who made it a practice for a time,
whenever he could procure the eggs of a ring-dove, to place them under
a pair of doves that were sitting in his own pigeon-house; hoping
thereby, if he could bring about a coalition, to enlarge his breed, and
teach his own doves to beat out into the woods and to support
themselves by mast: the plan was plausible, but something always
interrupted the success; for though the birds were usually hatched, and
sometimes grew to half their size, yet none ever arrived at maturity. I
myself have seen these foundlings in their nest displaying a strange
ferocity of nature, so as scarcely to bear to be looked at, and
snapping with their bills by way of menace. In short, they always died,
perhaps for want of proper sustenance: but the owner thought that by
their fierce and wild demeanour they frighted their foster-mothers, and
so were starved.
Virgil, as a familiar occurrence, by way of simile, describes a dove
haunting the cavern of a rock in such engaging numbers, that I cannot
refrain from quoting the passage: and John Dryden has rendered it so
happily in our language, that without farther excuse I shall add his
translation also.
Qualis speluncâ subitò commota Columba,
Cui domus, et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi,
Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis
Dat tecto ingentem—mox aere lapse quieto,
Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas.
As when a dove her rocky hold forsakes,
Rous’d, in her fright her sounding wings she shakes;
The cavern rings with clattering:—out she flies,
And leaves her callow care, and cleaves the skies:
At first she flutters:—but at length she springs
To smoother flight, and shoots upon her wings.
I am, &c.
LETTERS to DAINES BARRINGTON
Letter I
To The Honourable Daines Barrington
Selborne, June 30, 1769.
Dear Sir,
When I was in town last month I partly engaged that I would sometime do
myself the honour to write to you on the subject of natural history:
and I am the more ready to fulfil my promise, because I see you are a
gentleman of great candour, and one that will make allowances;
especially where the writer professes to be an out-door naturalist, one
that takes his observations from the subject itself, and not from the
writings of others.
The following is a List of the Summer Birds of Passage which I have
discovered in this neighbourhood, ranged somewhat in the order in which
they appear.
Usually appears about:
1. Wry-neck, Raii nomina: Jynx, sive torquilla: The middle of March:
harsh note.
2. Smallest willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: March 23: chirps till
September.
3. Swallow, Hirundo domestica: April 13.
4. Martin, Hirundo rustica: Ditto.
5. Sand-martin, Hirundo riparia: Ditto.
6. Black-cap, Atricapilla: Ditto: a sweet wild note.
7. Nightingale, Luscinia: Beginning of April.
8. Cuckoo, Cuculus: Middle of April.
9. Middle willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: Ditto, a sweet plaintive
note.
10. White-throat, Ficedulae affinis: Middle of April: mean note; sings
on till September.
11. Red-start, Ruticilla: Ditto: more agreeable song.
12. Stone curlew, OEdicnemus: End of March; loud nocturnal whistle.
13. Turtle-dove, Turtur:
14. Grasshopper-lark, Alauda minima locustae voce: Middle of April: a
small sibilous note, till the end of July.
15. Swift, Hirundo apus: About April 27.
16. Less reed-sparrow, Passer arundinaceus minor: A sweet polyglot, but
hurrying: it has the notes of many birds.
17. Land-rail, Ortygometra: A loud harsh note, crex, crex.
18. Largest willow-wren, Regulus non cristatus: Cantat voce stridula
locustae; end of April, on the tops of high beeches.
19. Goat-sucker, or fern-owl, Caprimulgus: Beginning of May; chatters
by night with a singular noise.
20. Fly-catcher, Stoparola: May 12. A very mute bird: this is the
latest summer bird of passage.
This assemblage of curious and amusing birds belongs to ten several
genera of the Linnaean system; and are all of the ordo of passeres,
save the jynx and cuculus, which are picae, and the charadrius
(oedicnemus) and rallus (ortygometra) which are grallae.