Another bird, very characteristic, whilst it stays, of the steppes of
Icklingham, is the wheat-ear. A blithe day it is when the first pair
arrive, in splendid plumage always--the male quite magnificent, the
female, with her softer shades, like a tender afterglow to his fine
sunset. Both are equally pleasing to look at, but the cock bird is by
much the more amusing to watch.
Who shall describe him and all his nice little ways--his delicate
little hops; his still more delicate little pauses, when he stands
upright like a sentinel; his little just-one-flirt of the wings,
without going up; his little, sudden fly over the ground, with his
coming down, soon, and standing as though surprised at what he had
done; or, lastly and chiefly, his strange, mad rompings--one may almost
call them--wherein he tosses himself a few yards into the air, and
comes pitching, tumultuously, down, as though he would tumble all of a
heap, yet never fails to alight, cleanly, on his dainty little black
legs? This last is “Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein”: and yet he has
higher flights, bolder efforts. In display, for instance, before the
female, he will fly round in circles, at a moderate height, with his
tail fanned out, making, all the while, a sharp little snappy sort of
twittering, and clapping his wings from time to time. He does this
at irregular, but somewhat long intervals, but sometimes, instead of
a roundabout, he will mount right up, and then, at once, descend, in
that same tumultuous, disorderly sort of way, as though he were thrown,
several times, by some unseen hand, in the same general direction--it
looks much more like that than flying. But there is variation here,
too, and the bird’s ruffling, tousled descent, may be exchanged for a
drop, plumb down, till, when almost touching the ground, it slants off,
and flits over it, for a little, before finally settling. The ascent
is by little spasms of flight, divided from one another by a momentary
cessation of effort, during which the wings are pressed to the sides.
Larks will mount something in this way, too, and, after descending
for some time, parachute-wise, and singing, one will often fold his
wings to his sides, and shoot down, head first--a little “jubilee
plunger”--for his song is a jubilee. Another way to come down is at
a tangent, and sideways, the tip of one wing pointing the way, like
the bowsprit of a little ship. Yet another is by terraces, as I call
it; that is to say, after the first dive down from where it has hung
singing, the bird sweeps along, for a little, at one level--which is a
terrace--then dives, again, to another one, a little below it, sweeps
along on that, descends to a third, and so on, down to the ground.
There is, indeed, a good deal of individual variety in the way in
which larks fly--at least between any two or more that one may see
doing the same thing at the same time--soaring, descending, and so on.
The flight itself is of many kinds--as the ordinary, the mount up to
the watch-tower (“from his watch-tower in the skies”), the hanging,
motionless, on extended wings, the descent, the serene on-sailing,
without a stroke, as of the eagle; and, again, the suspension, with
wings lightly quivering, as the kestrel hovers. But how different
is the character impressed upon these last! What the eagle does in
majesty, and the hawk in rapine, that the lark does in beauty only, in
music of motion and song.
All this, of course, is in the spring and summer only. In the winter,
when they flock, larks fly low over the land, and this they all do in
much the same way. Though most of their poetry is now gone, or lies
slumbering, yet they are still interesting little birds to watch. They
walk or run briskly along the ground, and continually peck down upon
it, with a quick little motion of the head. They appear to direct
each peck with precision, and to get something each time, but what I
cannot say. It may be anything, as long as it is minute; that seems to
be the principle--so that, as one sees nothing, it is like watching a
barmecide feast. Larks never hop, I believe, when thus feeding, though
sometimes the inequalities of the ground give them the appearance of
doing so. They look and move like little quails, crowd not, but keep
together in a scattered togetherness, and fly, all together, over the
hard earth, often seeming to be on the point of alighting, but changing
their minds and going on, so that no man--“no, nor woman either”--can
say whether, or when, they will settle. Creeping thus--for, however
fast they go, they seem to creep--over the brown fields in winter,
the very shape of these little birds seems different to what one has
known it. They look flatter, less elongated; their body is like a small
globe, flattened at the poles, and the short little tail projects from
it, clearly and sharply. A staid tail it is in winter. I have never
seen it either wagged or flirted; for between the wagging and flirting
of a bird’s tail, there is, as Chaucer says about two quite different
things, “a long and largé difference.” Much charm in these little
birdies, even when winter reigns and
“Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind.”
Occasionally one hears, from amongst them, a little, short, musical,
piping, note--musical, but
“Oh tamquam mutatus ab illo.”
By February, however, larks are soaring and singing, though, at
this time, they do not mount very high. The song, too, is not fully
developed, and is, often, no more than a pleasant, musical twittering,
especially when two or more chase one another through the air. It is
curious how often just three birds together do this, a thing I have
many times noticed--not with larks only--and which I believe to lie at
the base of any antic--such, for instance, as that of the spur-winged
lapwing of La Plata--in which three, and no more, take a part. These
trios look like a pair in love, and an interloper, but it may be two
wanting, and one not caring; or again, as it has often seemed to me,
none of the three may be very much in earnest. Be it as it may, with
the larks, at this time, there are some delightful chasings, delightful
skimmings and flutterings, and then all three mount into the air, and
sing delightfully--a little _Lobegesang_. Nature--wild nature--has two
voices, a song of joy and a shriek of agony. Eternally they mingle and
sound through one another, but, on the whole, joy largely predominates.
But when we come to man we get the intermediates; the proportions
change, the shadows lengthen, the sky becomes clouded, one knows not
what to think.
In winter the larks, here, as one might expect, keep entirely to
the agricultural part of the country that encircles or intersects
the numerous barren stretches. As the spring comes on, they spread
over these, too, but here they are much outnumbered by their poor
relations, the titlarks, to whom such wildernesses are a paradise.
Indeed, by his pleasing ways, and, especially, by the beauty of his
flight, this sober-suited, yet elegant little bird helps to make them
so. With his little “too-i, too-i” note, he soars to a height which,
compared, indeed, to the skylark’s “pride of place,” is as mediocrity
to genius; but having attained it, he comes down very prettily--more
prettily, perhaps, than does his gifted relative. The delicate little
wings are extended, but raised, especially when nearing the ground,
to some height above the back, and the fragile body, suspended between
them like the car of a tiny balloon, seems to swing and sway with the
air. The tail, though downward-borne with the rest of the bird, feels
still some “skyey influences,” for it is “tip-tilted,” and as “like
the petal of a flower,” I fancy, as any nose on any face. As the bird
nears the heather from which he started--for he especially loves the
moorlands--he, too (perhaps all birds have), has a way of gliding a
little onwards above it, poised in this manner, which adds much to the
grace of his descent. Then, softly sinking amidst it, he sits elastic
on a springy spray, or walks with dainty, picked steps over the sandy
shoals that lie amidst its tufty sea. This, indeed, is one of his
show descents. Not all of them are so pretty. In some the wings are
not quite so raised, so that their lighter-coloured under-surface--an
especial point of beauty--is not seen. Sometimes, too, the titlark
plunges and sweeps earthwards almost perpendicularly, his tail trailing
after him like a little brown comet. But, whatever he does, he is a
dainty little bird with a beauty all his own, and which is none the
less for being of that kind which is not showy, but “sober, steadfast,
and demure.”
Now does this flight, which I have described--the mounting and return
to earth again--more resemble that of a lark or a wagtail? It is the
new way to class the pipits with the latter birds, instead of with the
former, which, now, they “only superficially resemble.” Had they been
classed, hitherto, with the wagtails, it would, probably, have been
discovered that they only superficially resembled _them_, and were
really larks--and so it goes on, in that never-ending change-about,
called classification. If the pipits are not larks, why, first, do
they fly like them, and then, again, why do they sing like them? There
is a certain resemblance of tone, even in the poor, weak notes of the
meadow-pipit, and no one can listen to the rich and beautiful melody of
the tree-pipit, as it descends to earth, in a very lark-like manner,
singing all the time, without recognising its affinity with that of
the skylark, to which--in Germany, at any rate--it is hardly inferior.
Is song, then, so superficial? To me it seems a very important
consideration in settling a bird’s family relationship. How strange it
would be to find a dove, duck, crow, gull, eagle, parrot, &c., whose
voice did not, to some extent, remind one of the group to which it
belonged! Is there anything more distinctive amongst ourselves? The
members of a family will often more resemble one another in the tone
of their voice than in any other particular, even though there may be
a strong family likeness, as well. Structure is _quelque chose_, no
doubt; especially as, dissection not being a popular pastime, one has
to submit to any statement that one reads, till the professor on whose
authority it rests is contradicted by some other professor--as, in due
time, he will be, but, meanwhile, one has to wait. Classification,
however, should take account of everything, and, for my part, having
heard the tree-pipit sing, and seen both it and the titlark fly, I
mistrust any system which declares such birds to be wagtails and not
larks.
I think our caution in accepting merely adaptive resemblances as tests
of relationship may be pushed a little too far. A bat flies in the same
general way as a bird, but we do not find it practising little tricks
and ways--with an intimate style of flight, so to speak--resembling
that of some particular group of birds. All men walk; yet a man, by his
walk, may proclaim the family to which he belongs. A thousand points of
similarity may meet to make any such resemblance, but it is not likely
that they should unless they were founded on a similarity of structure.
Surely, too, the resemblances of notes and tones must rest upon
corresponding ones in the vocal organs, though these may be too minute
to be made out. To some extent, indeed, these principles may be applied
to get the titlarks into either family. It is a question of balance.
That there is something in common between them and the wagtails I do
not deny, and the fact that when the two meet on the Icklingham steppes
neither seems to know the other, proves nothing in regard to the
nearness or otherwise of the relationship.
The male of the pied- or water-wagtail may often be seen courting
the female here, and a pretty sight it is to see. He ruffles out his
feathers so that his breast looks like a little ball, and runs to her
in a warm, possession-taking way, with his wings drooped, and his tail
expanded and sweeping the ground. She, quite unmoved, makes a little
peck at him, as though saying, “Be off with you!” whereat he, obeying,
runs briskly off, but turning when hardly more than a foot away, comes
down upon her, again, even more warmly than before. She may relent,
then, or she may not, but, at this point, another male generally
interferes, when all three fly away together. There is a good deal
of similarity between the courtship of the wagtail and that of the
pheasant, for, having run up to the hen, the little bird, if not too
brusquely repulsed, will run about her in a semicircle, drooping his
wing upon that side, more especially, which is turned towards her, so
as to show all that she can see--and this I have seen the pheasant do,
time after time, with the greatest deliberation.
Having noticed this method in the wagtail, I have looked for it in the
wheat-ear, also--the two may often be studied together--but I have not
yet seen him act in quite the same way. His chief efforts, no doubt,
are those aerial ones of which I have spoken, but having exhausted
these, or after sitting for some time on the top twig of an elder,
singing quite a pretty little song, he will often pursue the object of
his adoration over the sunny sand, with ruffled plumage, and head held
down. He is reduced to it, I suppose, but it seems quite absurd that he
should be. He _ought_ to be irresistible, dressed as he is, for what
more can be wanted? Nothing can be purer, or more delicately picked
out, than his colouring--his back cream-grey, his breast greyey-cream.
Divided by the broad, black band of the wings, these tintings would
fain meet upon the neck and chin, but, here, a lovely little chestnut
sea, which neither can o’erpass, still keeps them apart. They cannot
cross it, to mingle warmly with each other and make, perhaps, a richer
hue. _Fas obstat_--but fate, in chestnut, is so soft and pretty that
neither of them seems to mind. Then there are pencilled lines of black
and chastened white upon the face, a softening into white upon the
chin, and a dab of pure white above the tail--but this you only see in
flight. The tail itself seems black when it disports itself staidly,
for it is the black tip, then, beyond the black of the wings, that you
see. Marry, when it flirteth itself into the air, as it doth full oft,
then it showeth itself white, cloaked in a chestnut. The pert little
bill and affirmative legs are black. This is how I catch the bird,
running over the warrens, it is not from a specimen on a table; not
so exact, therefore, and yet, perhaps, more so--“lesser than Macbeth,
yet greater.” Truly these wheat-ears, at 7 o’clock in the morning,
with the sun shining, are splendid--which is what General Buller said
his men were--but I prefer their uniform to khaki; I am not sure,
however, whether I prefer it to that of the stone-chat, which, though
less salient, is superior in warmth and richness. Both these handsome
little birds sometimes flash about together in sandy spaces over the
moorlands, or may even be seen perched on the same solitary hawthorn or
elder. Then is the time to compare their styles, and not to know which
to like best.
The stone-chat, by virtue of his little, harsh, twittering “char,”
which, as long as you are near him, never leaves off, seems always to
be an angry bird. With this assumed state of his mind, his motions,
when he chars like this, seem exactly to correspond. There is something
in his quick little flights about, from one heather-tuft to another, in
the way he leaves and the way he comes down upon them, in the little
impatient flutter of the wings, and bold assertive flirt of the tail,
supported--in spite of a constant threat of overbalancing--by a firm
attitude, that suggests a fiery temper. You get this, more especially,
through the tail. It is flirted _at you_, that tail. You feel that,
and, also, that the intention, if questioned, would be avouched,
that were you to say to the bird, sternly and firmly--in the manner
of Abraham accosting Samson--“Do you flirt your tail at me, sir?”
the answer, instead of a pitiful, shuffling evasion--a half-hearted
quibble--would be an uncompromising, “I do flirt my tail at you, sir.”
One cannot doubt this--at least I cannot. So sure, in fact, have I
always felt about it, that I have never yet asked the question. Why
should I--_knowing_ what the answer would be? But though this seems to
be the stone-chat’s mental attitude, when bob and flirt and flutter are
as the gesticulations accompanying hot utterance--the impatient “char,
char, charring”--yet, when this last is wanting--which is when he
doesn’t see you--all seems changed, and such motions, set in silence,
assume a softened character. Now, instead of to the harsh chatter, it
is to the soft purity of the bird’s colouring that they seem to respond.
Of all the birds that we have here, the peewits, for a great part of
the year, give most life to the barren lands. In the winter, as I
say, they disappear entirely, going off to the fens, though, here and
there, their voice remains, mimicked, to the life, by a starling. In
February, however, they return, and are soon sporting, and throwing
their fantastic somersaults, over their old, loved breeding-grounds.
Pleasant it is to have this breezy joy of spring-time, once again,
to have the accustomed tilts and turns and falls and rushing sweeps,
before one’s eyes, and the old calls and cries in one’s ears--the
sound of the wings, too, free as the wild air they beat, and sunlight
glints on green and white, and silver-flying snowflakes. “What a piece
of work is a _peewit_!” The glossy green of the upper surface--smooth
and shining as the shards of a beetle--glows, in places, with purple
burnishings, and, especially, on each shoulder there is an intensified
patch, the last bright twin-touch of adornment. The pure, shining white
of the neck and ventral surface--shining almost into silver as it
catches the sun--is boldly and beautifully contrasted with the black
of the throat, chin, and forehead. The neat little, corally stilt-legs
are an elegant support for so much beauty, and the crest that crowns
it is as the fringe to the scarf, or the tassel to the fez. There is,
besides, the walk, pose, poise, and easy swing of the whole body.
On the sopped meadow-land, near the river, in “February fill-dyke”
weather, it is pleasant to see peewits bathing, which they do with
mannerisms of their own. Standing upright in a little pool, one of
them bobs down, into it, several times, each time scooping up the
water with his head, and letting it run down over his neck and back.
This is common; but he keeps his wings all the time pressed to his
sides, so that they do not assist in scattering the water all over him,
after the manner in which birds, when they wash, usually do. Nor does
he sink upon his breast--which is also usual--but merely stoops, and
rises bolt upright, again, every time. Having tubbed in this clean,
precise, military fashion, he steps an inch or so to one side, and
then jumps into the air, giving his wings, as he goes up, a vigorous
flapping, or waving rather, for they move like two broad banners. He
descends--the motion of the wings having hardly carried him beyond
the original impulse of the spring--jumps up in the same way, again,
and does this some three or four times, after which he moves a little
farther off, and preens himself with great satisfaction. Either this is
a very original method of washing, on the part of peewits in general,
or this particular peewit is a very original bird. Apparently the
latter is the explanation, for now two other ones bathe, couched on
their breasts in the ordinary manner. Still the wings are not extended
to any great degree, and play a less part in the washing process than
is usual. Both these birds, too, having washed, which takes a very
little while, make the little spring into the air, whilst, at the same
time, shaking or waving their wings above their backs, in the way that
the other did, though not quite so briskly, so that it has a still more
graceful appearance. It is common for birds to give their wings a good
shake after a bathe, but, as a rule, they stand firm on the ground,
and this pretty aerial way of doing things is something of a novelty,
and most pleasing. It is like the graceful waving of the hands in the
air, by which the Normans--as Scott tells us--having had recourse to
the finger-bowl, at table, suffered the moisture to exhale, instead of
drying them, clumsily, on a towel, as did the inelegant Saxons. The
peewit, it is easy to see, is of gentle Norman blood.
[Illustration: A STATUESQUE FIGURE
_Snipe, with Starlings Bathing, and Peewits_]
Towards evening, a flock of starlings come down amongst the peewits,
and some of them bathe, too, in one of the little dykes that run across
the marshlands. There is a constant spraying of water into the air,
which, sparkling in the sun’s slanting rays, makes quite a pretty
sight. On the edge of the dyke, with the _jets d’eaux_ all about him,
a snipe stands sunning himself, on a huge molehill of black alluvial
earth. He stands perfectly still for a very long time, then scratches
his chin very deftly with one foot, and stands again. Were I an artist
I would sketch this scene--this solitary statuesque snipe, on his
great black molehill, against the silver fountains rising from the
dark dyke; beyond, through the water-drops, peewits and starlings,
busy or resting, all in the setting sun--“_im Abendsonnenschein_.”
The starlings are constantly moving, and often fly from one part of
the land to another. With the peewits it is different. They do not
move about, to nearly the same extent. To watch and wait seems to be
their principle, and when they do move, it is but a few steps forward,
and then stationary again. It appears as if they waited for worms to
approach the surface of the ground, for, sometimes, they will suddenly
dart forward from where they have long stood, pitching right upon their
breasts, securing a worm, and pulling it out as does a thrush--herons,
by the way, will often go down like this, in the act of spearing a
fish--or they will advance a few steps and do the same, as though their
eye commanded a certain space, in which they were content to wait.
Starlings, as I have often noticed, seem to enjoy the company of
peewits. They feed with them merely for their company, as I believe,
and, when they fly off, will often go, too. They think them “good
form,” I fancy; but the peewits do not patronise. They are indifferent,
or seem to be so. They may, however, have a complacent feeling in
being thus followed, and, as it were, fussed about, which does not
show itself in any action. I have seen, a little after sunrise, a
flock of some forty or fifty peewits go up from the marshlands, and,
with them, a single starling, which flew from one part of the flock
to another, making, or appearing to make, little dives at particular
birds. After a minute or so, it flew back to the place it had left, and
where other starlings were feeding. One of these flew to meet it, and
joining it, almost midway, made delighted swoops about it, sheering
off and again approaching, and so, as it were, brought it back. Now,
here, the general body of the starlings remained feeding when the
peewits went up. One, only, went with them, and this one must have felt
something which we may assume the others to have felt also, though they
resisted. What was this feeling of the starling towards the peewits?
Was it sympathy--a part joyous, part fussy participation in their
affairs--or something less definable; or, again, was the attraction
physical merely, having to do, perhaps, with the scent of the latter
birds. Something there must have been, and in such obscure causes we,
perhaps, see the origin of some of those cases of commensalism in the
animal world, where a mutual benefit is, now, given and received. The
subject seems to me to be an interesting one, and I think it might
gradually add to our knowledge and enlarge the range of our ideas, were
naturalists always to note down any instance of one species seeming
to like the society of another, where a reason for the preference was
not discernible. How interesting, too, to see this glad welcoming back
of one speck in the air, by another!--for that was the construction
I placed upon it. Was there individual recognition here? Were the
two birds mated? If this were so, then--as it was September at the
time--starlings must mate for life, as most birds do, I believe. In
this case, the vast flocks, in which they fly, to roost, through the
winter, are only a mantle that masks more intimate relations, and so it
may be with other birds.
This I know, that starlings have hearts even in winter. Sitting, in
January, amidst the branches of a gnarled old walnut tree that tops a
sandy knoll overlooking the marshes, I have often seen them wave their
wings in an emotional manner, whilst uttering, at the same time, their
half-singing, all-feeling notes. They do this, especially, on the long,
whistling “whew”--the most lover-like part--and as the wings are waved,
they are, also, drooped, which gives to the bird’s whole bearing a
sort of languish. The same emotional state which inspires the note,
must inspire, also, its accompaniment, and one can judge of the one by
the other. Though of a different build--not nearly so “massive”--these
starlings might say, with Lady Jane, “I despair droopingly.” But no,
there is no despair, and no reason for it. One of them, now, enters
a hole in the hollow branch where he has been sitting, thus showing,
still more plainly, the class of feelings by which he is dominated.
But how spring-in-winteryfied is all this!--
“And on old Hiem’s thin and icy crown
An odorous chaplet of sweet summer buds
Is, as in mockery, set.”
And then, all at once, from the midst of the walnut tree, comes the
cry of a peewit, rendered to the life by one of these birds. There are
no peewits near, nor, though the wide waste around is their very own,
have they been seen there for months. The fenlands have long claimed
them, and the fenlands are seven miles distant. Most strange--and
pleasing strange--it is, to hear their absolute note, when they are all
departed. I have sat and heard a particular starling, on which my eyes
were fixed, thus mimic the unmistakable cry of the peewit, eight or
nine times in succession. It was the spring note, so that, this being
in January, also, it would have been still more remarkable had the
peewit itself uttered it.
Over the more barren parts of the Sahara, here, and even where some
thin and scanty-growing wheat crops struggle with the sandy soil, the
great plovers, or stone-curlews, may often be seen feeding, cheek by
jowl, with the peewits. Scattered amongst them both, are, generally,
some pheasants, partridges, fieldfares, thrushes, and mistle-thrushes,
and all these birds are apt, upon occasions, to come into collision
with one another--or, rather, the stone-curlews and mistle-thrushes,
being the most bellicose amongst them, are apt to fall out between
themselves, or with the rest. For the stone-curlew, he is, certainly,
a fighter. A cock pheasant that approaches too near to one is attacked,
and put to flight by it. The rush of this bird along the ground, with
neck outstretched, legs bent, and crouching gait--a sort of stealthy
speed--is a formidable affair, and seems half to frighten and half
to perplex the pheasant. But what a difference to when rival male
stone-curlews advance against each other to the attack! Then the
carriage is upright--grotesquely so, almost--and the tail fanned out
like a scallop-shell, which, now, it is not. This is interesting, I
think, for in attacking birds of another species there would not be so
much, if any, idea of rivalry, calling up, by association, other sexual
feelings, with their appropriate actions. The combats of rival male
birds seem, often, encumbered, rather than anything else, by posturings
and attitudinisings, which do not add to the kind of efficiency
now wanted, but, on the other hand, show the bird off to the best
advantage--_e.g._ the beautiful spread of the tail, and the bow, as
with the stock-dove, where both are combined and make a marked feature
of the fiercest fights. All these, in my view, are, properly, displays
to the female, which have been imported, by association of ideas, into
the combats of the birds practising them. But in this attack on the
pheasant there is nothing of all this, and the action seems, at once,
less showy and more pertinent. After routing the pheasant, this same
stone-curlew runs _à plusieurs reprises_ at some mistle-thrushes, who,
each time, fly away, and come down a little farther on. _En revanche_
a mistle-thrush attacks a peewit, actually putting it to flight. It
then advances three or four times--but evidently nervous, and making
a half retreat, each time--upon a stone-curlew, who, in its turn, is
half frightened and half surprised. Another one comes up, as though
to support his friend, so that the last dash of the mistle-thrush is
at the two, after which he retreats with much honour. As he does so,
both the stone-curlews posturise, drawing themselves up, gauntly, to
their full height--an attitude of haughty reserve--then curving their
necks downwards, to a certain point, at which they stand still and
slowly relax. There is no proper sequence or proportion in all this. A
stone-curlew chases a mistle-thrush, a mistle-thrush a peewit, and then
the stone-curlew himself is half intimidated by the mistle-thrush that
he chased. Yet, just before, he routed a pheasant, whilst the other
day he ran away from a partridge. “Will you ha’ the truth on’t?” It
depends on which is most the angry bird, has most some right infringed,
some wrong done, or imagined done to him. He, for that moment, is the
prevailing party, and the others give him way.
The stone-curlew is an especial feature of the country
hereabout--indeed its most distinctive one, ornithologically speaking.
It begins to arrive in April and stays till October, by the end of
which month it has, usually, left us, all but a few stragglers which
I have, sometimes, seen flying high in February--how sadly their
cry has fallen, then, and yet how welcome it was! I am always glad
when the voice of these birds begins to be heard, again, over the
warrens. One can never tire of it--at least, I never can. With Jacques
I say, always, “More, more, I prythee, more,” and I can suck its
melancholy--for it is a sad note enough--“as a weasel does eggs.”
There are several variants of the cry, which seems to differ according
to the circumstances under which it is uttered. The “dew-leep,
dew-leep”--thin, shrill, and with a plaintive wail in it--comes
oftenest from a bird standing by itself, and it is astonishing for what
a length of time he will utter it, unencouraged by any response. He
does not embellish the remark with any appropriate action or gesture,
but just stands, or sits, and makes it. That is enough for him. “It
is his duty and he will.” But the full cry, or _clamour_, as it is
called, proceeds, usually, from several birds together, as they come
down over the warrens. That is a beautiful thing to hear--so wild and
striking--and the spread solitudes amidst which it is uttered seem
always to live in it. I have seen two birds running, and thus lifting
up their voices, almost abreast, with another one either just in front
of or just behind them, the three looking, for all the world, like
three trumpeters on the field of battle--for they carry their heads
well raised, and have a wild look of martial devotion. But it is more
the wailing sounds of the bagpipes than the blast of the trumpet.
“Pibroch of Donuil Dhu,
Pibroch of Donuil,
Wake thy wild voice anew,
Summon Clan-Conuil.”
And the wails grow and swell from one group to another, and all come
running down as though it were the gathering of the clans.
Then there is a note like “tur-li-vee, tur-li-vee, tur-li-vee,” quickly
repeated--sometimes very quickly, when it sounds more like “ker-vic,
ker-vic, ker-vic”--and for such a length of time that it seems as
though it would never leave off. All these notes, though differing,
have the same general quality of sound, the same complaining wail in
them, but one there is which is altogether different, and which I
have only heard in the autumn, when the birds were flying in numbers,
preparatory to migration. Though plaintive, it has not that drear
character of the others; a whistling note it is, with a tremulous
rise and fall in it--“tir-whi-whi-whi-whi-whi”--very pleasant to
hear, and bringing the sea and seashore to one’s memory. It bears a
resemblance--a striking one, it has sometimes seemed to me--to the
long, piping cry of the oyster-catcher, but is very much softer. I have
heard this note uttered by a bird that a hawk was closely pursuing,
but also on other occasions, so that it is not, specially, a cry of
distress. The hawk in question, as I remember, was a sparrow-hawk, and
therefore not as big as the stone-curlew. The two were close together
when I first saw them--almost touching, in fact--the hawk spread
like a fan over the stone-curlew, following every deviation of its
flight--upwards, downwards, to one or another side--sometimes falling
a little behind, but not as much as to leave a space--the two were
always overlapping. I can hardly say why--perhaps it was the easy,
parachute-like flight of the hawk, with nothing like a swoop or pounce,
and the bright, clear sunshine diffusing a joy over everything--but
somehow the whole thing did not impress me as being in earnest, but,
rather, as a sport or play--on the part of the hawk more particularly;
and, strange as this theory may appear, it is, perhaps, somewhat in
support of it, that, a few mornings afterwards, I saw a kestrel, first
flying with a flock of peewits, and then with one alone. I could not
detect any fear of the hawk in the peewits, and it is difficult to
suppose--knowing the kestrel’s habits--that he seriously meditated
an attack on one of them. In the same way--or what seemed to be the
same way--I have seen a hooded crow flying with peewits,[14] and a
wood-pigeon with starlings: to the latter case I have already alluded.
The stone-curlew in the above instance, though separated, for a time,
by the hawk, as I suppose, was one of a great flock, amounting, in
all, to nearly three hundred, which used to fly up every morning over
the moor, where I have often waited to see them. Lying pressed amidst
heather and bracken, I once had the band fly right over me, at but a
few feet above the ground, so that, when I looked up, I seemed to raise
my head into a cloud of birds. A charming and indescribable sensation
it was, to be thus suddenly surrounded by these free, fluttering
creatures. They were all about me--and so near. The delicate “whish,
whish” of their wings was in my ears, and in my spirit too. I seemed in
flight myself, and felt how free and how glorious bird life must be.
Almost as interesting is it to see the stone-curlews fly back to their
gathering-grounds, in the very early mornings, after feeding over the
country, during the night. They come either singly or in twos and
threes--grey, wavering shadows on the first grey of the dawn. Sometimes
there will be a wail from a flying bird, and sometimes the sharper
ground-note comes thrilling out of the darkness--from which I judge
that some run home--but silence is the rule. By the very earliest
twilight of the morning, when the moon, if visible, is yet luminous,
and the stars shining brightly, the _Heimkehr_ is over, and now, till
the evening, the birds will be gathered together on their various
assembly-grounds. With the evening come the dances, which I have
elsewhere described,[15] and then off they fly, again, to feed, not now
in silence, but with wail on wail as they go. Such, at least as far as
I have been able to observe, are the autumn habits of these birds. In
the spring they are far more active during the daytime. Di-nocturnal
I would call the stone-curlew--that is to say, equally at home, as
occasion serves, either by day or night. Nothing is pleasanter than
to see them running over the sand, with their little, precise, stilty
steps. Sometimes one will crouch flat down, with its head stretched
straight in front of it, and then one has the Sahara--a desert scene.
This habit, however, does not appear to me to be so common in the grown
bird--in the young one, no doubt, it is much more strongly developed.
The migration of the stone-curlew begins early in October, but it is
not till the end of that month that all the birds are gone. About half
or two-thirds of the flock go first, in my experience, and are followed
by other battalions, at intervals of a few days. A few stay on late
into the month, but every day there are less, and with October, as a
rule, all are gone.
[Illustration: A “MURMURATION” OF STARLINGS]