It was on a 13th of April, that, having spent some hours in the woods,
to no purpose, I at length climbed the hill, up which they ran, and
came out upon a smooth slope of turf, from which I had a good view down
amongst the trees, which did not grow very thickly. As I emerged, I saw
a woodpecker feeding on the grass, and shortly afterwards two, pursuing
each other, flew down upon it, from the wood, but, seeing me, flew back
again. It instantly struck me that here was an ideal spot to study the
habits of these birds. A penetrable wood which was evidently haunted
by them, to look down into, an open down right against it, and good
cover, from which I had an equally good view of both. I, therefore,
ensconced myself, and soon had the pleasure of making some observations
new to myself, and, as far as I know, to ornithology. These two same
birds that I had startled pursued each other about amidst the trees,
for some time, uttering not only their usual cry--unusually loud as I
thought--but another, of one note, quickly repeated, like “too, too,
too, too, too,” changing, at the end, or becoming modulated, into
“too-i, too-i, too-i, too-i, too-i.” All at once two other ones flew
out from the enclosure, and, alighting together upon the greensward,
a curious play, which I took to be of a nuptial character, commenced
between them. They both half extended the wings, at the same time
drooping them on to the ground, and standing thus, fronting each other,
they swung not only their heads, but the upper part of their bodies,
strenuously from side to side, in a very excited manner. If there was
any upshot to this, I did not see it, as the birds shifted a little so
as to become hidden by a ridge, and the next I saw of them was when
they flew away. A little while after this, I saw either the same or
another pair of green woodpeckers, pursuing each other from tree to
tree, and, all at once, they closed together, in the air, as though in
combat; almost immediately, however, separating again and flying to
different trees. Soon they came down on to the turf, and were probing
it for ants, when one of them, desisting from this occupation, went
close up to the other--they had been near before--and, again, went
through the action which I have just described. Now, I saw that it was
a hostile demonstration, but the bird against whom it was directed
seemed in no hurry to respond to it, and merely went on feeding. At
length, however, he turned, and went through with it also, and the two
then fought, jumping and pecking at one another. It was not, however,
a very bloody combat. It seemed, I thought, rather half-hearted, and I
particularly noted that the bird which had been challenged soon left
off, and began to feed again, on which his opponent desisted also,
making no attempt to take him at a disadvantage, which, it seemed, he
could easily have done, any more than he had in the first instance.
This chasing and coming down on to the grass, to feed and skirmish,
continued during the afternoon, but there were two fights which were
of a fiercer and more interesting character. I have spoken, before,
of these woodpeckers’ upright attitude, when they fronted each other,
swinging their heads from side to side. This, however, was not at all
the case here. Instead of standing upright, they sat crouched--almost
lay--on the ground, with their wings half-spread out upon it, and
in this position--beak to beak--they jerked their heads in the most
vivacious manner, each one seeming to meditate a deadly spear-thrust.
Then there were some quick mutual darts, of a very light and graceful
nature, and, at last, each seizing hold of the other’s beak, they
pulled, tugged, jumped, and dragged one another about, with the
greatest violence. One might suppose that each bird sought to use his
own beak as a weapon of offence, in the usual manner, and seized his
adversary’s, as it were, to disarm him, and that, then, each tried to
disengage, but was held by the other. In the second and still more
violent encounter, however, I noticed a very curious feature. After the
first light fencing, the birds seemed to lock beaks gently, as though
by a mutual intention to do so, and, indeed, so markedly was this the
case that, for a moment, I thought I must have been mistaken, and that,
instead of two males, they were male and female. Then, the instant they
had interlocked them, they set to pulling, with a sudden violence,
as though the real serious business had now commenced. They pulled,
tugged, and struggled most mightily, and each bird was, several times,
half pulled and half thrown over the other’s back, springing up into
the air, at the same time, but neither letting go, nor being let go of.
There was a good bout of this before they became separated, after which
some fierce pecks were delivered.
As with some other actions, performed by various birds, when fighting,
so, here, with these woodpeckers, I believe that the locking of the
bills has been such a constant result of the necessities of the case,
that it has now passed, or is passing, into a formal thing, without
which the duel could hardly be fought. The birds lock them--so it
seems to me--almost as we put on boxing-gloves, or take the foils,
and, after this, tug and pull, not so much with the object of getting
free, as because this has become their idea of fighting. The fight,
in fact, must proceed in a formal routine, and without this, either
combatant is at a loss. How else is it that neither bird seems able to
begin the fight unless the other fronts him, nor to take--as I have
noticed in other cases--an advantage of his adversary, by springing
upon him, unawares? In the first combat, for instance, the one bird fed
quietly, whilst the other moved his head in the orthodox manner, just
beside him, and it was not till the feeding one responded, by doing the
same, that hostilities went further. Equally apparent was it that the
challenged bird felt himself quite safe, as long as he did not take the
matter up, by going through the established form. Again, this throwing
of the head from side to side, which seems to represent the attempt of
either combatant to avoid the beak of his adversary, has, likewise,
become more or less stereotyped, for not only may the one bird act in
this way, whilst the other is feeding, as we have just seen, but even
when both do, as we shall see directly, they may be at such a distance
from one another as to make the action a quite useless one. On the
other hand, when the two stand beak to beak, and commence a spirited
fight, in this manner, the object and rationale of the movement seems
as obvious as it can be. We see, here, the swords actually crossed,
whilst, in the other cases, the birds fence at a distance, or the
one without the other, and this is so obviously formal, that, for
myself, I doubt the motive of the same movement, even where it seems
most apparent. What I last saw will, still further, illustrate these
points. A woodpecker that had been quietly feeding by itself, at some
distance from any other one, began, all at once, to move its head about
in this way, in a very excited manner, and to utter a little, sharp,
twittering cry, being one note several times repeated. I then saw that
another woodpecker was advancing towards him, with precisely similar
gestures, though, as yet, he was a good way off. As he came nearer,
the threatened bird first retreated, and then, again, returned, until
the two stood fronting one another, some two or three feet apart,
continuing, all the while, to swing and jerk--for it is a combination
of the two--their heads and bodies to this side and that, as in every
other instance. Thus they continued, for some little time, neither
increasing nor decreasing the distance between them, after which there
were several half retreats, whereby the one bird, passing the other
obliquely, exposed itself to a flank attack, its beak being turned
away. This, however, was never taken advantage of by the other, and,
finally, the more timid of the two made a low flight over the grass, to
some distance, thus declining the combat. Some other odd motions and
contortions were exhibited by these birds, but they were occasional,
and, I think, unimportant, whereas the main one was constant, and the
keynote of all. In this last instance, as at the first, both birds held
themselves upright, with their heads thrown up, which gave them a half
absurd, and wholly indescribable appearance.
We see, in these cases, a certain fighting action, which can only
be of use when the birds are at the closest quarters--in actual
contact, that is to say--performed, either by both of them, when at
a considerable distance one from another, or by one only, when the
other is paying no attention to, or does not even see him. How shall
we define such an action, performed in such a way? To me it appears to
be a formal one--so much a necessity, that is to say, under a certain
mental stimulus, that its original end and object is becoming merged
in the satisfaction felt by the bird in going through with it. It is
on the way to becoming an ultimate end, instead of only a proximate
one. Intelligence would lapse in such a process, but it might revive
again, as I believe, under the influence of natural selection. I should
record, however, in connection with the above remarks, that at the end
of the most violent fight the bills of the birds became disengaged. It
then became more of a rough and tumble--a παγκρατιον--between them,
and I noticed that one did, then, dart upon and peck the other, from
behind. In other cases, too, I have remarked that when fighting birds
once close and grapple, formality is at an end. What has struck me as
peculiar, is the way in which they will _not_ close, but seem content
to make, over and over again, certain movements that have an oddly
stereotyped and formal appearance. Here, as it appears to me, we see
the hardening of the surface of the lava-stream, above the molten fluid
beneath. Through this cooled crust the latter must be reached; but
the lava-stream may become all crust, and the battle lose itself in
formality.
The time during which I watched from my bush, and in which all these
doings were included, was about four hours--from 3, or thereabouts,
to 7 namely--and during the whole of it, woodpeckers, when not thus
fighting, fed quietly upon the greensward, probing and hammering
it with their bills for the ants. What a terrible calamity to fall
upon thousands of such little intellectual entities! Fancy the
same sort of thing happening to ourselves--a monster, of landscape
proportions, trundling down London, say, or Pekin, and englutting
everybody--philosophers and cricketers, honest men and thieves, quiet
peaceable people and Cabinet Ministers--dozens at a time! Would that
change our ideas, at all, I wonder? Would it modify popular conceptions
of the Deity? Would it make optimists less assured, pessimists less
“shallow”? Or would it do nothing? Would Tennyson, till he was gobbled,
still go on “trusting”? and would the very thing itself, that appeared
so all wrong, be taken as evidence that it was, really, all right?
This last, I feel sure, would be the case. How many a song has been
sung to that old, old tune, and what a mass of such “evidence” there
is! Historians are never tired of it--the Hunnish invasion, the end of
the Peloponnesian war, the conquest of everybody by Rome, and then,
again, the conquest of Rome by everybody: all right, all for the best,
if you start with being an optimist, that is to say, with a cheerful
constitution--a good thing, certainly, but mistaken by many for a good
argument. True it is that disasters, almost, or even quite, as great
as the above, do sometimes overtake humanity, upon this earth of ours;
but they are, both, less frequent, as I suppose, than with the ants,
and the great difference is, that, with us, there is no woodpecker, its
part being taken by inanimate nature, or by ourselves, to whom we are
partial. Yet I know not why a scheme that is well for one, or for a few
only, should be thought a good scheme, all through, and the reason why
we, as a species, are not as ants to woodpeckers, is not that nature
is too pitiful, but that we are too strong, and woodpeckers not strong
enough--which is not a satisfactory reason.
An eminent naturalist and spiritualist thinks that immortality (of
one species only, apparently) with eternal progress, would justify
all, and turn seeming wrong into right. For myself, I cannot see how
one single pang, upon this earth, can ever be justified, seeing that,
on any adequate conception of a deity, it both never need, and never
ought to have been felt. This very progress, too, with which we are to
comfort ourselves, must be accompanied with--indeed is made dependent
upon--great, almost infinite, suffering, lasting through enormous
periods of time. The sin-seared soul does, indeed, rise, at last, and
become purified--but through what? Through the horrible tortures of
remorse. That, no doubt, is better than another view. It is the best,
perhaps, that can be conceived of, things being as we know them to
be. It makes the best of a bad job--but there is still the bad job.
The eternal stumbling-block of evil and misery remains. If these
need not have been, where is all-goodness, seeing that they are? If
they need, where, then, is infinite power, and where, without it, is
justice? I do not say that these questions cannot be satisfactorily
answered (though I think they never will be by us, here), but I say
that the spiritualistic doctrine does not answer them. Numbers of other
difficulties, more graspable by our reason, appear to me to attend
the conception of spiritual progress, and especially of spiritual
suffering, in a future state, as taught by many spiritualists--say by
the late Stainton-Moses; but perhaps a discussion of these does not,
strictly speaking, fall within the province of field natural history.
_Revenons à nos moutons_, therefore. The green woodpecker, we have
now seen, both fights and has a marked manner of doing so, which
seems better adapted to the ground than to trees, where one would,
_primâ facie_, have expected its combats to take place. The birds
stand directly fronting one another, but to do this upon a tree-trunk,
or a branch that sloped at all steeply, they would have to stand,
or rather cling, sideways, since they never--that is to say, I have
never seen them--descend head downwards, though they do backwards,
or backward-sideways, with ease. Such duels, therefore, as I have
here described, would have to be fought upon a horizontal branch,
but neither would this, perhaps, be very convenient, or much in
accordance with the bird’s habits. The ground alone--especially the
greensward--would seem quite suitable for such tourneys, and since they
are sometimes held there, the probability, to my mind, is that they
always, or nearly always, are. Nor is this all, for the nuptial rite
itself is performed by these woodpeckers upon the ground--a strange
thing, surely, in a bird belonging to so arboreal a family. Here,
again, I will describe what I have seen, for, the next day, I came to
watch in the same place, getting there about 7 in the morning, from
before which time--for they were there when I came--up to 8.30, when
I left, three or four birds--the same ones doubtless--fed quietly on
the green. In the afternoon I came again, and whilst watching one that
was still feeding busily, another flew down, some way off it, and
after considering the ways of the ant, for a little, and being wise in
regard to them, came up in a series of rapid hops and short pauses,
till just in front of the feeding bird--a male--when she crouched down,
and pairing took place. It was accompanied--at least I think so--by a
peculiar guttural note, uttered either by one or both the birds. Some
time afterwards I again saw this. I am not sure whether it was the same
pair of birds as before, but the actions and relative parts played by
the male and female were the same. In either case the male was the more
indifferent of the two, and had to be courted, or rather solicited, by
the female--a fact which I have noted in various birds, and which does
not appear to me to accord very well with that universal law of nature,
as laid down by Hunter and endorsed by Darwin, that the male is more
eager, and has stronger passions than, the female. No doubt this is the
rule, but the exceptions or qualifications of it do not seem to me to
have received sufficient attention. These woodpeckers could not have
been long mated--except that in my opinion they mate for life--since
the males were fighting desperately only the day before.
Let the fighting of male birds be ever so strong evidence of their
sexual desires, yet the actual solicitation of either sex by the other
must, surely, be a stronger one, and this, as we have just seen, is
not always on the side of the male. Darwin gives several instances
of female birds courting the male, contrary to the general rule in
the species to which they belonged, and many more might be collected.
Amongst pigeons it is not an unknown thing for married happiness to be
disturbed by the machinations of a wanton hen: the male gull is often
quite pestered by the affectionate behaviour of the female: and at
the very same time that the male eider-ducks are constantly fighting,
and often quite mob the females, one may see one of these females go
through quite frantic actions, on the water, first before one male,
and then another, which actions, though they seem to point all in one
direction, yet meet with no response. Yet the eider-duck is one of
those birds the male of which is highly adorned, and the female quite
plain. There is, I think, a strong tendency to ignore or forget things
which are not in harmony with what seems a plain, straightforward law,
that one has never thought of doubting. But every fact ought to be
noted and its proper value accorded it. The sexual relations of birds
are, I think, full of interest, and it is, particularly, in regard to
those species, the sexes of which are alike, or nearly so, that these
ought to be studied. There is a distinct reason, as it appears to me,
why, in the contrary case, the males should be the more eager, which
reason does not exist in the other, and it is just in this other, where
one cannot, as a rule, in field observation, tell the male from the
female, that it is most difficult to know what really goes on. Fighting
amongst male birds, in whatever fact--physical or psychological--it may
have originated, is, in itself, distinct from the sexual passion, and
in it, moreover, a large amount of energy is expended. It seems just
possible, therefore, that some male birds, as they have become more and
more habitual fighters, have, owing to that very cause, lost, rather
than gained, in the strength of the primary sexual impulse, whereas the
female, having nothing to divert her from this, may be, really, more
amorous, and more the wooer, sometimes, than one thinks. No doubt this
would, in time, lead to fighting amongst the females too, and I have
seen two hen blackbirds fight most desperately, on account of a cock
that stood by. Rival women, however, do not fight, and the same general
principle might show itself amongst birds, the hens contending, rather,
with enticements, allurings, and general assiduity, which, again, need
not pass into a formal display. Eagerness, in fact, might show itself
in a way more consonant with the feminine constitution, and therefore
less easy to observe.
Be all this as it may, the female woodpecker, in the above two
instances, was certainly the _agente provocatrice_. I saw no more
fighting, either on this day, or afterwards. It seemed as though I had
been just in time to see the birds’ mating arrangements settled. But
since these woodpeckers go in pairs, during the winter, and build, each
year, in the same tree, they must, I think, be assumed to mate for
life. Why, therefore, should the males fight, each spring?--and the
same question may be asked in regard to hundreds of other birds. Does
not this, in itself, go to show that such fighting may not always stand
in such direct relation to the sexual passions as one is accustomed
to think that it does? But to leave questions and come to facts, the
habits of our green woodpecker are, already, very different, in several
by no means unimportant respects, from those of the family to which it
belongs. Its general--and in some parts of the country, as I believe,
its almost exclusive--diet is, now, ants, which it procures on the
ground, by digging into their nests. As the ants are too small for
it to hold in its bill, it is obliged to swallow them, and this has
led to its feeding the young by a process of regurgitation, as does
the nightjar, owing, I believe, to a similar reason. In the breeding
season the males become pugnacious, and fight in a specialised manner,
also on the ground, and here, too, the marriage rite is consummated.
From this to laying the eggs in a hole, or depression, of the earth--a
rabbit-burrow, for instance, as does the stockdove, though still
sometimes building in trees, as it, no doubt, once always did--does not
appear to me to be a very far cry, and I believe that, if trees were to
disappear in our island, the green woodpecker, instead of disappearing
with them, would stay on, as a ground-living species, entirely. On
one point of the bird’s habits I have not yet satisfied myself. Does
it pass the entire night, clinging, perpendicularly, to the trunk of
a tree--sleeping like this? From what I have seen, I believe it does,
and this, sometimes, without the support of its tail. But I am not
sure, and should like to make sure. How I should love to watch a pair
of green woodpeckers, settled, for the night, on their two trees--as
I have seen them resting--till darkness made it no longer possible to
do so, and then to creep silently away, and come as silently again,
before daylight, on the following morning! How sweet to steal, thus
innocently, upon their “secure hour”: to see them commence the day: to
watch their first movements: to hear their first cries to each other:
to sit and see the darkness slowly leave them, till a grey something
grew into a bird, and then another, both clinging there in the very
same place and position you had left them in overnight! Then to watch
them off; and returning, once more, on the same afternoon, well in
time, to see if they came back to the same trees, or not! To be able to
do this--and a few other things of this sort--without a world of cares
to distract one--
“Ah, what a life were this! how sweet! how lovely!”
[Illustration: MARTINS BUILDING NEST]