BIRDS: PEACOCKS--A WHITE PHEASANT--ROOKS' ARITHMETIC.
"Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
Bird thou never wert,
That from heaven or near it,
Pourest thy full heart."
--SHELLEY: _To a Skylark_.
We read of the peacocks which Solomon's navy of Tarshish brought once
in three years with other rare and precious commodities to contribute
to the splendour of his court; and doubtless their magnificence added
a distinct feature even where so much that was beautiful was to be
seen; but, to show itself off to the best advantage, one cannot
imagine a better place for a peacock than a grey old English home,
round whose mellow stone walls time is lingering lovingly. The touch
of brilliant life beside the appeal of the venerable past adds
perfection to the picture. I have always had an immense admiration for
peacocks, and soon after I came to Aldington I bought a pair. The cock
we named Gabriel Junks, after the famous bird in one of Scrutator's
books; he was a grand presence, and loved to display the huge fan of
his gorgeously-eyed tail, quivering his rattling quills in all the
glory of its greens and blues, and cinnamon-coloured wing feathers, on
the little piece of lawn under the chestnut trees in front of the
Manor.
He learned to come to the window every morning at breakfast-time for a
piece of bread-and-butter, and if the window was closed he would rap
impatiently upon it with his beak. He roosted in the orchard just
across the road on the trunk of an ancient leaning apple-tree. One
night Bell heard a terrible fluttering, and looking out saw a fox
making off with the peacock; he shouted and the fox dropped the
peacock and bolted. Gabriel was not hurt, but sadly ruffled inwardly
and outwardly, though, next day, he was quite happy and apparently
unconscious of his narrow escape. But alas! some months later Reynard
paid another visit, and poor Gabriel was never seen again. Some years
after we bought another pair, not nearly so tame as the first, and
sometimes flying on to the cottage roofs and scraping holes in the
thatch in which to bask in the sun. The villagers complained that the
birds sat under their black currant bushes, and devoured the currants
as fast as they ripened! We could not keep them within bounds, and
later sold them to St. John's College, Oxford, where we saw them soon
afterwards in good plumage, and exactly in keeping with their
beautiful surroundings.
One of my neighbours appeared to find these birds a special
infliction, and complained of the invasion of his premises by "them
paycocks." The word "pea" is always rendered "pay" in Worcestershire,
and, like "tay" for "tea," is probably the old correct pronunciation.
I lately saw a notice on some tumble-down premises near Southampton,
"Pay and bane stiks for sale." Another notice, not too happily
composed, is to be seen at a Forest village; after the owner's name,
"Carpenter, builder and undertaker--_repairs neatly executed_."
The neighbour referred to was exercised in his mind as to my position
in various unwelcome parochial offices, but I was completely mystified
when he told me that he had read in history of a King Alfred, but had
never heard of a King Arthur. I did not grasp the force of his remark,
possibly because King Arthur was a familiar character to me, until I
was nearly at my own door, when it dawned upon me to my intense
enjoyment. If the reader fails, like me, to see the point, let him
turn to the title-page of this book, and read the name of the writer.
The only real objection to peacocks, under ordinary conditions, is the
discordance of their cries, especially in thundery weather, when they
scream in answer to every thunder-clap. Cock pheasants, relatives of
the peacock, crow loudly at any unusual noise; and I have known them
expostulate at the report of a gun; they took flight, after running to
a safe distance, and their crow appeared to be in the nature of a
challenge or defiance, just as a barn-door cock will exult if you give
him the idea that he has driven you away.
When the vessel which carried the coffin of Queen Victoria was
crossing the Solent, in 1901, some very heavy salutes were fired from
the battleships, and, the day being still and the air clear, the
detonations carried to an immense distance. They were distinctly heard
at Moreton-in-the-Marsh, only fourteen miles from Aldington and a
distance of nearly one hundred miles from the guns, in a direct line.
The reports were so loud at Woodstock, near Oxford, that the pheasants
began crowing in the Blenheim preserves.
At Alton there were some extensive woods and coppices on the farm,
which were favourite breeding-places for pheasants, being dry and
sunny. Some months before October 1, when pheasant shooting begins, a
white pheasant was seen, and although he disappeared for a time, he
fell eventually to the gun of the tenant. He was a beautiful bird, and
was considered worth stuffing as a rarity. Albinism is not uncommon in
the blackbird; I have seen two partial instances lately; one was
constantly visible in my garden and meadows, with head nearly all
white, and the other I saw in the public garden at Bournemouth, with
the peculiarity still more developed. A white martin, or swallow, came
into the house of a friend near Aldington, and was regarded as an
unfavourable omen. Melanism, the opposite of albinism, is rarer, and
the only instance I have seen was that of a black bullfinch at
Aldington; it had evidently been mobbed as a stranger by other birds
of its kind, as it was injured and nearly dead when captured. I had
the specimen stuffed as a curiosity, though I am not fond of stuffed
birds. It is said that hemp-seed, if given in undue quantities to cage
bullfinches, will produce the black colour, even upon a bird of quite
natural plumage originally, and a case of the kind is mentioned by
Gilbert White.
Aldington, with its quiet apple orchards and the "island" and
shrubberies below my garden, was a happy refuge for birds of all
kinds, and the old pollard-willow heads a favourite nesting-place.
Worcestershire people have some very curious names for birds, and some
of these are also heard in Hampshire and Dorset. The green woodpecker
is the "stock-eagle," "ekal," or "hickle," both in Worcestershire and
Hampshire, and the word survives too in "Hickle Brook" in the Forest,
and in "Hickle Street," a part of Buckle Street in Worcestershire. As
a boy I once marked a green woodpecker into one of the round holes we
see quite newly cut by the bird in an oak; getting a butterfly net I
clapped it over the hole, caught the bird, took it home and placed it
in a wicker cage. Then, returning to the tree with a chisel and
mallet, I cut a hole about a foot below the entrance to the nest, only
to find young birds instead of the eggs for which I had hoped. I went
home to see how my captive was getting on; she was gone, and her
method of escape was plain, one or two of the wicker bars being neatly
cut through. I had forgotten the power of "stocking" of a
"stock-eagle," for that is the meaning of the prefix in the name.
The laughing cry of the green woodpecker, or "yaffle," as the bird is
by onomatopoeia called in some parts, is regarded as a sign of rain. I
doubt whether it should be always so interpreted, for I know it is
sometimes a sign of distress or call for help, having heard it from
one in full flight from a pursuing hawk. Other curious local names of
birds in Worcestershire are "Blue Isaac" for hedge sparrow,
"mumruffin" for long-tailed tit, "maggot" for magpie, and the heron is
always called "bittern" (really quite a distinct bird). There are
innumerable rhymes as to the signification of numbers where magpies
are concerned, but the most complete I have heard runs thus:
"One's joy, two's grief,
Three's marriage, four's death,
Five's heaven, six is hell,
Seven's the devil his own sel'."
Other rhymes make "one" an unlucky number, and there are many people
in Worcestershire who never see a solitary magpie without touching
their hats to avert the omen, and convert it to one of good-luck; as a
man once said to me, "It is as well not to lose a chance."
The kingfisher, I suppose the most beautiful of British birds, was,
with all my brooks, a common bird at Aldington. Its steady flight,
following the course of a stream, and its brilliant colouring make it
very conspicuous, its turquoise blue varying to dark green, and its
orange breast flashing in the sun. I found a nest in a water-rat's old
hole, with six very transparent white eggs, deriving a rosy tint from
the yolk, almost visible, within the shell. The hole had an entrance
above the bank, descended vertically, turned at a right angle where
the nest, merely a layer of small fish-bones, was placed, and ended
horizontally on the side of the bank. I once saw six young kingfishers
sitting side by side on a dead branch, close together, evidently just
out of the nest. And I was fortunate in seeing a kingfisher dart upon
the water, hover for an instant like a hawk-moth over honeysuckle,
and, having caught a small gudgeon, fly away with it in its beak.
They, like the martin, always perch on leafless wood, so that the
leaves shall not impede their flight when pouncing upon a fish, and no
doubt this is the reason they sometimes perch on the top joint of the
rod of a hidden fisherman.
The nuthatch, called here the "mud-dauber," from its habit of
narrowing the hole of a starling's old nest, with mud, for its own use
as a nesting-place, is a more common bird in the Forest than in
Worcestershire. It is a provident bird, firmly wedging hazel nuts in
the autumn into crevices of the Scots-fir, for a winter store, Bewick
mentions that it uses these crevices as vices, to hold the nut
securely, while it cracks it; but he does not recognize the fact that
they have been stored long previously. I have seen a great number of
nuts so stored and quite sound.
Bewick, by the way, who wrote his _History of British Birds_ in 1797,
presents in one of his inimitable "tailpiece" wood-cuts a prevision of
the aeroplane. The picture shows the airman seated in a winged car,
guiding with reins thirteen harnessed herons as the motive power, and
mounting upwards, apparently very near the moon. If he can see the
modern interpretation of his dream he must be pleasantly surprised.
Bewick's woodcock is one of the most beautiful portraits in the book:
the accurate detail of the feather markings of the wings and back and
the softer tone of the breast are as nearly perfection as possible. A
woodcock visited Aldington in one of the very severe winters but
managed to elude all pursuers. It has been said, and also
contradicted, that the woodcock when rising from the ground uses its
long bill as a lever to assist its starting, just as an oarsman pushes
off from the bank with a boat-hook or oar; I myself have seen one
rising from a bare and marshy place, and the position of its bill
certainly gave me the impression that the idea was well founded.
The woodcock often breeds in the south of England, but is usually a
migrating bird, arriving during the first moon in November; it is not
difficult to shoot when it first rises, but when steam is really up
and it is zig-zagging between the branches of an oak, it takes a good
shot to make sure of it. I shall never forget the first woodcock I
shot as a boy; it was a thick misty day in November, I fired, and
though I felt certain I had not missed, the smoke hung and the air was
too thick to see, and, after a long search, I left the wood and was
going home when our old spaniel, Flush, turned his head to examine
something in a deep cart rut. Following the direction of his eyes, I
saw my woodcock; it must have flown 100 yards or more after I fired. I
was still more pleased with the last shot I fired in our old Surrey
covers at a woodcock going like an express train--and faster, for they
are said to fly at the rate of 150 miles an hour--with all his tricks,
through thick branches in the adjoining cover, where he fell at least
65 yards from where I stood. A friend of mine had the good-fortune to
see an old woodcock, which had evidently bred in his woods, flying,
followed by five or six young ones; he said it was one of the
prettiest bits of natural history he had ever seen.
"If a woodcock had a partridge's breast
He'd be the best bird that ever was dressed;
If a partridge had a woodcock's thigh
He'd be the best bird that ever did fly."
is a very old description, and fairly divides the honours between the
two birds.
The hawfinch is very easily recognized by its distinct and beautiful
colouring; it is a shy bird, and though it bred regularly at
Aldington, we rarely saw it. It is commoner here, and is sometimes
very destructive, its powerful beak making havoc with the
"marrowfats"; but, though I am partial to green peas of this
description, I would sooner suffer some damage than have the
hawfinches shot.
In 1918 the cuckoos were exceedingly numerous here, and round my house
they were calling all day long. Owing to the terrible winter and early
spring months of the previous year, so many of the insectivorous birds
had been destroyed, that the caterpillars had escaped, and were more
numerous than ever in the following spring. The oaks in places were
completely stripped of their foliage by the larvae of _Tortrix
viridana_, almost as soon as the leaves were out. The cuckoos
discovered them, but were not in sufficient numbers to keep them down,
and it was midsummer before the trees recovered. I have referred to
the damage in my plum orchard at Aldington from the attack of the
larvae of the winter-moth; the damage is not confined to the actual
year of its occurrence, the crop suffers the following year owing to
the previous defoliation of the tree, which is weakened and is unable
to mature healthy fruit buds. At Aldington, in a hot summer, the
cuckoos used to call nearly all night, and I have heard them when it
was quite dark.
For some years, until 1918, goldfinches were quite common in Hampshire
and Dorsetshire. I have seen a flock of over forty together. I had
seven nests on my premises here one summer; they go on breeding very
late, and I have found their nests with young birds half-fledged while
summer-pruning apple trees in August. They come into my garden close
to the windows in May, after the ripening seeds of the myosotis
(forget-me-not) in the spring-bedding. I never remember seeing a
goldfinch at Aldington, which should show that the thistles were well
under control, for the seed is a great attraction. One often hears the
practice of allowing thistles to run to seed condemned as criminal,
for everybody knows that each thistle-down, carried by the wind,
contains a seed, and that the attachment of a light structure of
plumes is one of Nature's methods of ensuring dissemination. But, in
Worcestershire, it is always asserted that thistle seed will not
germinate--I am referring to _Cnicus arvensis_--and it is said that a
prize of £50 offered for a seedling thistle remains unclaimed to this
day. I failed, myself, in trying to obtain young plants from seeds
sown in a flower-pot, and I have never seen a seedling in all the
thousands of miles I must have walked over young cornfields when my
men were hoeing.
I have heard an interesting story about rooks which were causing a
farmer much damage in a field newly sown with peas. He erected a small
shelter of hurdles, from which to shoot them, and for a time the
shelter was sufficient to scare them, until they got used to it; but,
when he entered it with his gun, they would not come near. Thinking to
deceive their sentinel, watching from a tree, he took a companion to
the shelter, who remained for a time and then left, but still no rooks
came near. The farmer then took two companions, and presently sent
them both away. The arithmetic was too much for the rooks, and the
scheme succeeded. He concluded that their powers of enumeration were
limited to counting "two," and that "three" was beyond them.
Nightingales are scarce in the Forest; they do not like the solitude
of the great woods, apparently preferring to inhabit roadsides and
places where people and traffic are constantly passing. They are
specially abundant at the foot of the Cotswolds, and it is a treat to
cycle steadily along the road between Broadway and Weston Subedge on a
summer evening, where you no sooner lose the liquid notes of one, than
you enter the territory of another, so continuous is the song for
miles together.
In severe winters wood-pigeons did much damage at Aldington to young
clover a few inches high; they roosted in "the island" adjoining my
garden. When they first descended they alighted in the wide-spreading
branches of the leafless black poplars, where they could see all
round, and reconnoitre the position; then, if all was quiet, in about
ten minutes they took to the shelter of the fir trees for the night
with much fluttering and beating of wings against the thick branches.
They devour the acorns in the Forest very greedily in the autumn, and
I have seen one with crop so full that on my approach it could only
with difficulty fly away to a short distance. I found it near a small
pond where, apparently, it had been drinking, and the acorns had
expanded to an inconvenient extent.
The golden-crested wren was a common bird here before the severe
winter of 1916-1917, but it has since become comparatively rare; it is
the smallest of British birds, and could often be seen in the hedges
exploring every twig and crevice for insects, and it was a great
pleasure to watch the nimble movements of such a sweet little fairy.
Its first cousin, the fire-crest, which is almost its exact
counterpart, except for the flame-coloured crest, is much rarer; and I
only remember seeing one specimen, to which with great circumspection
I managed to approach quite closely, in the wood near my house.
One morning, at Aldington, the gardener came in to say there was a
hawk in the greenhouse near the rickyard; we found a pane of glass
broken, where it had unintentionally entered in pursuit of a sparrow;
the hawk was uninjured, and flew away quite unconcernedly on the
opening of the door. Another hawk, here in Burley, was found dead near
my drawing-room bow-window. It had dashed itself against a pane of
thick plate-glass while in pursuit of a starling, I think; seeing the
light through the bow, it had not recognized the glass, and must have
collided with it in the act of swooping. I have several times seen
hawks descend like a flash from a tree, and select an unlucky starling
from a flock; one blow on the head settled the victim before I could
reach the spot, but sometimes the hawk had to leave its prize behind
it.
I was watching a number of young chicks feeding outside the coops
containing the mother hens, when there suddenly arose a great
disturbance, and a hawk, which had pounced upon a chick, was seen
flying away with it in its talons. Its flight was impeded by the
weight of the chicken, and we gave chase shouting. Flying very low it
carried its prey to the further side of the meadow, but, seeing that
it could not get quickly through the trees there, it dropped the
chicken and escaped; we picked up the poor frightened infant, which
was not injured, and restored it to a perturbed but joyful mother. "As
yaller as a kite's claw," is a simile one hears in the country, and it
is common to both Hampshire and Worcestershire.
I never saw the wheatear in Worcestershire, but here I notice several
pairs on the moors in summer. They were once very plentiful on the
Sussex Downs and seaside cliffs, and as a boy walking from my first
school at Rottingdean to visit my people at Brighton, from Saturday to
Sunday night, I have passed hundreds of traps consisting of
rectangular holes cut in the turf, having horsehair nooses inside, set
by the shepherds who took thousands of wheatears to the poulterers'
shops in the town. They were then considered a great delicacy. Other
professional bird-catchers operated with large clap-nets, and a string
attached in the hands of the catcher some distance away. When they
were after larks a revolving mirror, flashing in the sun, was
considered very attractive; I suppose the birds approached from
motives of curiosity.[3] Many thousands were caught for the London and
Brighton markets for lark pies and puddings, a wicked bathos, when we
remember Wordsworth's lines:
"There is madness about thee, and joy divine
In that song of thine."
One severe winter an immense flock of golden plovers haunted my land
and neighbouring farms for some weeks, but they were exceedingly shy,
and being perfect strangers, they were difficult to identify, until I
brought one down by a very long shot, and we could see what a
beautiful bird it was. We could always tell when really severe winter
weather was coming, by the flocks of wild geese that passed overhead
in V-shaped formation. They were said to be leaving the mouth of the
Humber and the East Coast for the warmer shores of the Bristol
Channel, evidently quite aware that the latter, within the influence
of the Gulf Stream, were more desirable as winter-quarters. Evesham is
in the direct line between the two places, and we often heard them
calling at night as they passed. In the early spring when the severe
weather was-over they returned by the same route.