bower-birds build their gallery every spring, and decorate it with such
“articles of vertu” as visitors are kind enough to place at their
disposal. The bower-birds live in the compartments of the western Aviary
nearest to and on the left of the main entrance. Apart from the claims
to sympathy which their æsthetic tastes suggest, the birds themselves
are singularly handsome, courageous, and active, and thoroughly enjoy
the excitement and change of scene which is so distasteful to many
creatures confined in a public menagerie. They are strongly-built,
compact-looking birds, almost as large as a rook, but in general shape
something between a thrush and the Indian mynah. The male in his adult
plumage is a splendid purple, while the hen-bird is green and olive,
almost as brilliant as the colours of the ground parakeets. They hop
from perch to perch with wonderful agility, and whether on the ground or
in the branches, are seldom still, but always active, inquisitive, and
alert.
In the first warm days of early spring they begin to collect materials
for the bower. The twigs of a birch-broom are usually given them for the
raw material, and these are soon arranged with astonishing skill into
two short incurved hedges, the tops being pulled over to make the bower
as nearly like a tunnel as the material admits. If they had a larger
allowance of brooms no doubt the tunnel would be made longer. As it is,
it is only a section of a gallery. When this is complete nothing makes
the birds so happy as presents of bright-coloured objects to arrange
round the sides of the playground. Unfortunately for the birds, the
mice, which have no æsthetic perceptions, but are of a practical turn of
mind, steal everything soft which is put in the bower, to make nests for
their own young. All pieces of coloured paper, rags, and tinsel are
carried off in the night, or even in the day, so that the birds can only
rely for permanent ornament on things not only bright but hard. But
their taste for colour may easily be tested by giving them shreds of
paper of different hues. If it be merely a question of colour, not of
texture, they usually prefer red, picking out the red strips first and
trying the effect in different parts of the gallery. That their power of
selection is highly developed may be judged from the following example.
The writer was looking at the birds early in January, when they showed
signs of a wish to build, and happened to have in his pocket some
specimens of silk, which had been sent in order to make a selection of a
pattern for neckties. The utmost variation from black allowed by the
severe taste of London costume being some slight pattern of white, or
grey spots, the difference in the “colouring” of these little bits of
silk was so slight, as to be hardly appreciable by any but the highly
specialized sense of adornment in the masculine mind, consisting as it
did of more or less frequent repetitions of little groups of spots or
other insignificant pattern. Eight or nine of these were thrown on the
floor of the aviary, and the cock-bird at once flew out from the recess
at the back, and proceeded to pick them up and scrutinize them one by
one. Finally, after much consideration, it took to the bower, which was
just begun, the piece of silk on which the pattern was closest and most
obvious. Their liking for what is bright and shining in texture is even
stronger than that for colour. Some ingenious friend, finding that the
mice robbed the birds of their papers and silks, presented them with a
number of small glass phials filled with coloured shreds, or with tin
and brass filings. These were a source of great delight, and when the
supply was further increased by a dozen pretty glass _solitaire_ balls,
they spent a week in arranging and re-arranging their treasures.
It is obvious that the bower-birds are highly intelligent creatures, but
these tastes appear in birds which are quite low in the scale of mental
development, even among the hawks, which are among the least keen-witted
of the birds. The kite, for instance, has a great liking for pretty
things, or what it considers such. In two of the rare instances in which
the kite’s nest has been recently found in this country, the cock-bird
had carried home a long, trailing spray of woodbine in flower, and left
it by the side of its mate. When kites were common in England, their
habit of carrying off to their nests any strange objects which took
their fancy was well known. “The white sheet bleaching on the hedge” has
as great attractions for them as it had for Autolycus. Shakespeare makes
the pedlar refer to this habit. “My traffic is sheets,” he says; “when
the kite builds, look to lesser linen.” But the bird, though as much a
“snapper-up of unconsidered trifles” as Autolycus himself, is only a
fine-art and _bric-à-brac_ collector in its way, and is perhaps not more
unscrupulous in annexing the specimens that take its fancy. In a kite’s
nest found not long ago in this country, the “collection” was enriched
by pieces of newspaper and leaves of “Bradshaw’s Railway Guide!”—and on
the few estates in England where these birds are still protected, the
keepers are said to be quite aware of their mania for collecting linen
when laid out to dry, and carrying off socks and bright cotton
handkerchiefs to the nest.
The sense of beauty naturally appears, in the rudest and most elementary
form, in such uncouth robbers as the kites. In the far cleverer crows,
ravens, magpies, and jays, it is a marked and hereditary passion. From
the Jackdaw of Rheims to the old raven at the Tower of London, who
amassed a unique and valuable collection at the bottom of one of the
venerable cannon inside the Barbican, there can hardly have existed a
tame member of the tribe which has not at times asserted its own right
to a share in the enjoyment of what we remember to have seen described
in the pompous advertisement of a modern art furnisher, as “those
products of the minor arts which contribute to the dignity and
refinement of domestic life.” They have a wide and catholic sense of
feeling for what may contribute to their happiness in this way, and do
not always distinguish between what is beautiful and what is merely
curious. At the same time, they do often distinguish and keep apart what
they collect or steal for _food_, and their art collections, which are
hidden separately, and far more carefully concealed. The writer has seen
this in the case of tame jays and jackdaws, and has known it practised
by a raven and a magpie. The latter always hid the crusts, and
especially the small squares of toast made ready for soup, which he
stole or had given him in the kitchen, between the layers of household
linen in the drying-room of a large house in Northumberland. But his
“collections” were buried in the straw in a disused outhouse. The loss
of several small cups and saucers out of a bright-coloured set belonging
to the children led to the discovery of this hoard, as the bird was seen
to enter the shed, and was there found pulling away the straw which
covered the china.
So far, we have traced the development of this sense of beauty from the
kites, which merely pick up and carry to their nests what they consider
to be pretty and interesting, to the crow tribe, which have a separate
hiding-place for keeping and enjoying their treasures. The conscious
search for and application of ornament to the decoration of the fabric
of the nest, even at the risk of its danger and discovery through the
gratification of their feeling for beauty, is a further and most
remarkable evidence of the pleasure which they derive from that sense;
for one of the strongest impulses of the nesting bird is to subordinate
the colour and texture of the outside of the nest to the tint of its
natural surroundings, and none but a strong and tempting bias to the
indulgence of a contrary instinct could compete with their natural
solicitude for the safety of their young. Yet two undoubted instances of
the addition of ornament by English birds to the _outside_ of a nest
have come under the writer’s notice, where its use clearly entailed some
danger from the enemy. The first was the nest of a chiff-chaff, found in
a plantation near Rosamond’s Bower, on the Isis, near Godstow. It was a
domed nest of the usual kind, made of dry, colourless grass, with an
entrance in the side. But on the _outside_, and round the entrance to
the chamber, were stuck several of the brilliant blue feathers of the
kingfisher. The position of these bright patches of colour on the
outside of the nest is strong evidence that beauty, not utility, was the
object of their insertion. The other case was the nest of a goldfinch,
which was built on a high branch of a sycamore, near the window of a
house at Sidmouth in Devonshire. When the fabric of the nest was
completed, the birds, or rather one bird, for the other was constantly
employed in building, brought long pieces of the blue forget-me-not from
the next garden, and so adjusted the sprays that the flowers hung all
round the top of the nest. The sacrifice of safety to beauty did not
cause any risk from below, as the nest was at a considerable height from
the ground. Unfortunately it attracted the notice of a jackdaw passing
overhead, and the black robber plundered the nest of the eggs on which
the bird had been sitting for some days. It may be noticed that in both
these cases, in each of which there was a large choice of flowers or
feathers—for the feathers which lined the chiff-chaff’s nest were
brought from a farmyard near—the irresistible colour was light-blue.
This decorative instinct finds its final and complete expression in the
bower-birds, and the still more interesting gardener-bird of New Guinea,
both of which construct an “art gallery” for the reception of their
treasures, and the better enjoyment of their sense of the beautiful.
These bowers are in no sense nests, but “palaces of art” for the days of
their honeymoon, and are quite apart from the later cares of the nest or
nursery. The best of all are the galleries of the gardener-birds, which
Count Rosenberg recently found in New Guinea.
“It was a piece of workmanship more lovely than the ingenuity of any
animal has been known to construct,” writes the discoverer. “It was a
temple in miniature, in the midst of a meadow studded with flowers.” The
bird, which is not much larger than a thrush, chooses a level place
round some shrub which has a straight stem about the thickness of a
walking-stick. To this central pilaster it fastens the stems of a kind
of orchid, and draws them outwards to the ground, like the cords of a
bell-tent; but the leaves are left on the stems, and remain fresh for
some time. The upper part is then fitted together, and the leaves and
moss make a beautiful umbrella-shaped roof. In front of the central
building, the birds clear a space about a yard in diameter, which they
cover with moss, after removing all stones and weeds. On this moss
carpet they arrange flowers and brilliant fruits in great variety, and
of the brightest colours to be found. Showy fungi and elegantly coloured
insects are distributed about the garden, and inside the tent, and when
these lose their freshness, they are thrown away and replaced by others.
The tent itself is about thirty-nine inches in diameter and eighteen
inches high. The Papuans never disturb these bowers. They call the
builder the “Master Bird,” or “Tukan Robin,” the “Gardener,” and say
that it is wiser than mankind—and judged by the Papuan standard, this
estimate is a true one. In the gallery of one of the bower-birds half a
peck of decorations was found. Among these were a large white shell,
four hundred shells of a bright-coloured snail, flints and agates, red
seed-pods and seeds, and the bleached and shining bones of animals. If
for shells we read mother-of-pearl; for snail-shells, nautilus cups; for
flints and agates, agates and malachite; for seeds, beads; and for
bones, ivory, where does the taste for beauty in the bird differ from
our own?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO.
SCENTS AND SOUNDS.
One of the oddest tales in the “Bestiaries,” or stories of Bible animals
written by the monks, is the legend of the panther. “The panther,” so
the homily runs, “is the most beautiful of all beasts. More than this,
when it goes abroad it diffuses a marvellous sweet perfume. This odour
is so sweet that all the other beasts and birds follow the panther
wherever it goes. Wherefore the panther is a type of Virtue.” Perhaps
the old monks who borrowed and embellished this story had heard and
misunderstood the strong love of sweet scents which the panther and its
relations, the lions and leopards, often show. The old theory of animal
liking for scents denied them any share in such pleasures unless they
suggested the presence of their food or prey. But such a reason can
hardly be alleged for a lion’s liking for lavender-water! The writer,
wishing to test for himself the reported fondness of many animals for
perfumes, paid a series of visits to the Zoological Gardens, provided
with bottles of scent and a packet of cotton-wool, and there tried some
harmless experiments which apparently gave great satisfaction to many of
the inhabitants. Lavender-water was the favourite scent, and most of the
lions and leopards showed unqualified pleasure when the scent was poured
on the wool and put into their cages. The first leopard to which it was
offered stood over the ball of cotton, shut his eyes, opened his mouth,
and screwed up its nose, rather like the picture of the gentleman
inhaling “Alkaram” in the advertisement. It then lay down and held it
between its paws, rubbed its face over it, and finished by lying down
upon it. Another leopard smelt it and sneezed; then caught the wool in
its claws, played with it, then lay on its back and rubbed its head and
neck over the scent. It then fetched another leopard which was asleep in
the cage, and the two sniffed it for some time together; and the
last-comer ended by taking the ball in its teeth, curling its lips well
back, and inhaling the delightful perfume with half-shut eyes. The lion
and lioness, when their turn came, tried to roll upon it at the same
time. The lion then gave the lioness a cuff with his paw, which sent her
off to the back of the cage, and having secured it for himself, laid his
broad head on the morsel of scented cotton, and purred. These were all
old inhabitants of the Gardens, civilized. But at the end of the
building was the lovely young Sokoto lion, with the spots of “cubhood”
still showing like a pattern in damask on his skin. If he too liked the
scent, it could hardly be an acquired taste. His reception of the new
impression was different from that of the others. He lay down inhaling
the scent with a dreamy look in his eyes. Then he made faces and yawned,
turned his back on the scent, and thought. He then inhaled the perfume
again for some time, walked slowly off to his bed, and lay down to
sleep.
[Illustration:
TIGER AFTER SMELLING LAVENDER-WATER. From a
photograph by Gambier Bolton.
]
The smaller cats were in many cases as pleased with the scent as the
leopards, the ocelot in particular on one occasion, after inhaling the
perfume, _ate_ the small piece of paper on which it was poured. But the
liking for lavender-water is by no means confined to the _felidæ_. The
Cape ratels were delighted with the scent, and the racoon, when the
bottle was presented to it corked, with great good sense pulled out the
stopper; but this may have been due to curiosity, as it was at once
thrown away. Other creatures, on the contrary, either cared nothing for
the scent or found it disagreeable. An otter, in particular, gave a
snort of disgust, dived into the water, and then ran to its mate, to
whom it seemed to convey some of its impressions, for both otters
carefully avoided the perfumed wool. No doubt there lies somewhere in
our rivers, “under the glassy, cool translucent wave,” or on their
flower-bordered banks, some odorous herb or water-weed which the otter
also loves. That the pleasure felt by so many animals in the odour of
“sweet lavender” is due to pure and simple enjoyment of a perfume, made
intensely more delightful to them than to ourselves by the wonderful
development of their sense of smell, seems clear, not only from the fact
that so many species share this amiable fondness for the scent, but also
because their liking for perfumes is by no means limited to that of
lavender. A flask of rose-water will make as many friends among the
leopards and their kin as will the former scent, and they also enjoy the
sweet odour of pinks and lilac-blossom. The heavy scent of lilies and
narcissi fails to please, perhaps on account of their strong narcotic
qualities. It is not unlikely that the scent of these plants, with which
the Furies were said to stupefy their victims, an odour which is often
insupportable to men themselves, should be distasteful to their far more
sensitive nostrils.
It could hardly be expected that, in the matter of sweet sound, animals,
any more than men, should think alike. The scent of the rose gives
pleasure from the Himalayas to the Hebrides; but the music that soothes
the Highlander is to the Japanese as the howling of cats. Still, as to
some men certain sounds are always musical, so to some animals these
same sounds give pleasure. The taste finds perhaps its highest
expression in those birds which actually learn to whistle the airs which
they have heard from men, and its lowest in the snakes and reptiles,
which seem to be fascinated by the Indian pipe. The writer has heard
more than one parrot whistle part of a tune, and then strike the octave
of the last note; and the piping crow at the Zoological Gardens, and a
Persian bulbul, which was once an inmate of the same aviary, can whistle
a tune perfectly. It is to be expected that birds which take such
pleasure in each other’s songs should be most sensitive to sweet sounds
new to them.
But the taste is not confined to birds. The old horses in the regimental
riding-schools learn the meaning of the different bugle-calls; and
though it is not possible to say whether they distinguish between
different airs, it is well known that they trot or gallop better to some
tunes than to others. This may be compared with a curious story told by
Playford in his _Introduction to Music_. “When travelling some years
since,” he writes, “I met on the road to Royston a herd of about twenty
bucks following a bagpipe and a violin: while the music played they went
forward; when it ceased they all stood still; and in this manner they
were brought out of Yorkshire to Hampton Court.” Seals have long been
known for their love of sweet sounds. Laing, in his account of a voyage
to Spitzbergen, says that when a violin was played on board the vessel,
a numerous audience of seals would often assemble and follow the vessel
for miles. Sir Walter Scott mentions this taste in the lines,—
“Rude Heiskar’s seals, through surges dark,
Would oft pursue the minstrel’s bark;”
and it is said that when the bell of the church on the island of Hoy
rang, the seals within hearing swam to the shore, and remained looking
about them as long as it was tolled. In a less prosaic age, the seals of
Hoy might have become an established myth of a successful “deep-sea
mission” to the mermaids of the North. It would be interesting to make
some musical experiments at the Zoological Gardens; but the first
occasion on which the writer attempted this, led to such strong
suspicion of his insanity among the visitors, that in the face of a
caution addressed by an elderly nurse to her charges, “Don’t go near
’im—he ain’t right in his ’ead,” he had not the courage to continue his
researches.
NOTE.—In a letter to the writer, the late Dr. John Rae, F.R.S.,
the discoverer of the fate of the Franklin Expedition, urged
that he should nevertheless make some trial of the effects of
music on the different animals at the Zoo. Dr. Rae spent the
days of his boyhood in the Orkney and Shetland Islands, and said
that both there and in the regions round the frozen rim of the
northern ocean, it was matter of common experience that the
seals would follow a boat in which music was played. The
following chapters give the interesting result of this
suggestion.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO.
THE FIRST VISIT.
IN making trial, with the aid of a skilled musician, of the effect of
sweet sounds on animal ears, we knew that there was good reason to doubt
whether Orpheus himself might not fail to charm within the precincts of
the Zoo. For if, on the one hand, the creatures so far share the
blessings of the golden age that they entertain a liking rather than a
fear of man, and have no dread of a possible enemy behind the mask of
music, many of them are no strangers to such forms of it as are produced
by the harmony of a band which plays there weekly in summer evenings. To
those creatures which have lived for years in that part of the Gardens
near the band-stand, the sound of music is no new thing; and it was
possible that they might be as indifferent to its strains as an
organ-grinder’s monkey to the music of the street. On the other hand,
there must be many to which, either from living at a distance from the
musical centre of the band-stand, or in separate buildings, such sounds
are new and unusual; and others which are but recent arrivals in the
Gardens, fresh from tropical forests, or the wastes and deserts of an
unmusical world. In any case, to listen to the distant strains of a
brass-band is a different experience from that enjoyed in a chamber
recital by your own violin-player, one who can draw from his instrument
by sympathetic skill melodious chords, sounds soft and weird, grave and
gay, strident or tremulous, harmonious or suddenly discordant, eye
watching eye, and quick to change or repeat a note as he marks the
varying expression of emotion roused by sound on animal faces, sometimes
strangely expressive, or on others in which for minutes the eye alone
gives token even of life. It was on some of these last, the snakes and
creeping things, that we proposed first to make trial of the powers of
sound,—partly because Eastern traditions of snake-charming are some of
the oldest in the world; partly because, if they proved unresponsive,
this would still leave room to hope that creatures of a higher
organization and warmer blood might be more appreciative; and lastly,
the day was dark, with thunder and rain, and Orpheus himself, in his
sylvan concerts, might have failed to charm with wetted strings.