food or warmth is not overthrown by modern observations. That appears
to be the primary impulse, though others may be traced or reasonably
imagined. To suppose, as has been put forward, that birds are endowed
with a migratory instinct for the express purpose of keeping down their
numbers, in order, that is, that they may perish in crossing the sea,
is really too absurd for serious consideration. If that were the end in
view, it would be most easily obtained by keeping them at home, where
snow would speedily starve them. On the contrary, it will appear to any
one who walks about woods and fields that migration is essential to the
preservation of these creatures. By migration, in fact, the species is
kept in existence, and room is found for life. Apart from the necessity
of food, movement and change is one of the most powerful agencies in
renewing health. This we see in our own experience; the condition of
the air is especially important, and it is well within reasonable
supposition that some birds and animals may wish to avoid certain
states of atmosphere. There is, too, the question of moulting and
change of plumage, and the possibility that this physiological event
may influence the removal to a different climate. Birds migrate
principally for food and warmth; secondly, on account of the pressure
of numbers (for in good seasons they increase very fast); thirdly, for
the sake of health; fourthly, for sexual reasons; fifthly, from the
operation of a kind of prehistoric memory; sixthly, from choice. One or
other of these causes will explain almost every case of migration.
Birds are lively and intellectual, imaginative and affectionate
creatures, and all their movements are not dictated by mere necessity.
They love the hedge and bush where they were born, they return to the
same tree, or the same spot under the eave. On the other hand, they
like to roam about the fields and woods, and some of them travel long
distances during the day. When the pleasurable cares of the nest are
concluded, it is possible that they may in some cases cross the sea
solely for the solace of change. Variety of food is itself a great
pleasure. By prehistoric memory is meant the unconscious influence of
ancient habit impressed upon the race in times when the conformation of
land and sea and the conditions of life were different. No space is
left for a mysterious agency; migration is purely natural, and acts for
the general preservation. Try to put yourself in a bird's place, and
you will see that migration is very natural indeed. If at some future
period of the world's history men should acquire the art of flying,
there can be no doubt that migration would become the custom, and whole
nations would change their localities. Man has, indeed, been always a
migratory animal. History is little beyond the record of migrations,
how one race moved on and overcame the race in front of it. In ancient
days lots were cast as to who should migrate, and those chosen by this
conscription left their homes that the rest remaining might have room
and food. Checking the attempted migration of the Helvetii was the
beginning of Caesar's exploits. What men do only at intervals birds do
frequently, having greater freedom of movement.
Who can doubt that the wild fowl come south because the north is frozen
over? The Laplander and the reindeer migrate together; the Tartars
migrate all the year through, crossing the steppes in winding and
devious but fixed paths, paths settled for each family, and kept
without a map, though invisible to strangers. It is only necessary to
watch the common sparrow. In spring his merry chirp and his few notes
of song are heard on the roof or in the garden; here he spends his time
till the broods are reared and the corn is ripe. Immediately he
migrates into the fields. By degrees he is joined by those left behind
to rear second broods, and at last the stubble is crowded with
sparrows, such flocks no one would believe possible unless they had
seen them. He has migrated for food, for his food changes with the
season, being mainly insects in spring, and grain and seeds in autumn.
Something may, I venture to think, in some cases of migration, be
fairly attributed to the influence of a desire for change, a desire
springing from physiological promptings for the preservation of health.
I am personally subject twice a year to the migratory impulse. I feel
it in spring and autumn, say about March, when the leaves begin to
appear, and again as the corn is carried, and most strongly as the
fields are left in stubble. I have felt it every year since boyhood,
often so powerfully as to be quite unable to resist it. Go I must, and
go I do, somewhere; if I do not I am soon unwell. The general idea of
direction is southerly, both spring and autumn; no doubt the reason is
because this is a northern country.
Some little green stays on the mounds where the rabbits creep and
nibble the grasses. Cinquefoil remains green though faded, and wild
parsley the freshest looking of all; plantain leaves are found under
shelter of brambles, and the dumb nettles, though the old stalks are
dead, have living leaves at the ground. Grey-veined ivy trails along,
here and there is a frond of hart's-tongue fern, though withered at the
tip, and greenish grey lichen grows on the exposed stumps of trees.
These together give a green tint to the mound, which is not so utterly
devoid of colour as the season of the year might indicate. Where they
fail, brown brake fern fills the spaces between the brambles; and in a
moist spot the bunches of rushes are composed half of dry stalks, and
half of green. Stems of willow-herb, four feet high, still stand, and
tiny long-tailed tits perch sideways on them. Above, on the bank,
another species of willow-herb has died down to a short stalk, from
which springs a living branch, and at its end is one pink flower. A
dandelion is opening on the same sheltered bank; farther on the gorse
is sprinkled with golden spots of bloom. A flock of greenfinches starts
from the bushes, and their colour shows against the ruddy wands of the
osier-bed over which they fly. The path winds round the edge of the
wood, where a waggon track goes up the hill; it is deeply grooved at
the foot of the hill. These tracks wear deeply into the chalk just
where the ascent begins. The chalk adheres to the shoes like mortar,
and for some time after one has left it each footstep leaves a white
mark on the turf. On the ridge the low trees and bushes have an outline
like the flame of a candle in a draught--the wind has blown them till
they have grown fixed in that shape. In an oak across the ploughed
field a flock of wood-pigeons have settled; on the furrows there are
chaffinches, and larks rise and float a few yards farther away. The
snow has ceased, and though there is no wind on the surface, the clouds
high above have opened somewhat, not sufficient for the sun to shine,
but to prolong the already closing afternoon a few minutes. If the sun
shines to-morrow morning the lark will soar and sing, though it is
January, and the quick note of the chaffinch will be heard as he
perches on the little branches projecting from the trunks of trees
below the great boughs. Thrushes sing every mild day in December and
January, entirely irrespective of the season, also before rain.
A curious instance of a starling having a young brood at this time of
the year, recently recorded, seems to suggest that birds are not really
deceived by the passing mildness of a few days, but are obliged to
prepare nests, finding themselves in a condition to require them. The
cause, in short, is physiological, and not the folly of the bird. This
starling had had two previous broods, one in October, and now again in
December-January. The starling was not, therefore, deceived by the
chance of mild weather; her own bodily condition led her to the nest,
and had she been a robin or thrush she would have built one instead of
resorting to a cranny. It is certain that individuals among birds and
animals do occasionally breed at later periods than is usual for the
generality of their species. Exceptionally prolific individuals among
birds continue to breed into the winter. They are not egregiously
deceived any more than we are by a mild interval; the nesting is caused
by their individual temperament.
The daylight has lingered on longer than expected, but now the gloom of
the short January evening is settling down fast in the wood. The silent
and motionless trees rise out of a mysterious shadow, which fills up
the spaces between their trunks. Only above, where their delicate outer
branches are shown against the dark sky, is there any separation
between them. Somewhere in the deep shadow of the underwood a blackbird
calls "ching, ching" before he finally settles himself to roost. In the
yew the lesser birds are already quiet, sheltered by the evergreen
spray; they have also sought the ivy-grown trunks. "Twit, twit," sounds
high overhead as one or two belated little creatures, scarcely visible,
pass quickly for the cover of the furze on the hill. The short January
evening is of but a few minutes' duration; just now it was only dusky,
and already the interior of the wood is impenetrable to the glance.
There rises a loud though distant clamour of rooks and daws, who have
restlessly moved in their roost-trees. Darkness is almost on them, yet
they cannot quite settle. The cawing and dawing rises to a pitch, and
then declines; the wood is silent, and it is suddenly night.
BY THE EXE
The whortleberry bushes are almost as thick as the heather in places on
the steep, rocky hills that overlook the Exe. Feeding on these berries
when half ripe is said to make the heath poults thin (they are acid),
so that a good crop of whortleberries is not advantageous to the black
game. Deep in the hollow the Exe winds and bends, finding a crooked way
among the ruddy rocks. Sometimes an almost inaccessible precipice rises
on one shore, covered with firs and ferns, which no one can gather;
while on the other is a narrow but verdant strip of mead. Coming down
in flood from the moors the Exe will not wait to run round its curves,
but rushes across the intervening corner, and leaves behind, as it
subsides, a mass of stones, flat as slates or scales, destroying the
grass. But the fly-fisherman seeks the spot because the water is swift
at the angle of the stream and broken by a ledge of rock. He can throw
up stream--the line falls soft as silk on the slow eddy below the rock,
and the fly is drawn gently towards him across the current. When a
natural fly approaches the surface of running water, and flutters along
just above it, it encounters a light air, which flows in the same
direction as the stream. Facing this surface breeze, the fly cannot
progress straight up the river, but is carried sideways across it. This
motion the artificial fly imitates; a trout takes it, and is landed on
the stones. He is not half a pound, yet in the sunshine has all the
beauty of a larger fish. Spots of cochineal and gold dust, finely mixed
together, dot his sides; they are not red nor yellow exactly, as if
gold dust were mixed with some bright red. A line is drawn along his
glistening greenish side, and across this there are faintly marked
lozenges of darker colour, so that in swimming past he would appear
barred. There are dark spots on the head between the eyes, the tail at
its lower and upper edges is pinkish; his gills are bright scarlet.
Proportioned and exquisitely shaped, he looks like a living arrow,
formed to shoot through the water. The delicate little creature is
finished in every detail, painted to the utmost minutiae, and carries a
wonderful store of force, enabling him to easily surmount the rapids.
Exe and Earle are twin streams, parted only by a ridge of heather-grown
moor. The Earle rises near a place called Simons' Bath, about which
there is a legend recalling the fate of Captain Webb. There is a pool
at Simons' Bath, in which is a small whirlpool. The stream running in
does not seem of much strength; but the eddy is sufficient to carry a
dog down. By report the eddy is said to be unfathomable. A long time
since a man named Simons thought he could swim through the whirlpool,
much as Captain Webb thought he could float down the rapids of Niagara;
only in this case Simons relied on the insignificant character of the
eddy. He made the attempt, was sucked down and drowned, and hence the
spot has been since known as Simons' Bath. So runs the tradition in the
neighbourhood, varied in details by different narrators, but not so
apocryphal, perhaps, as the story of the two giants, or demons, who
amused themselves one day throwing stones, to see which could throw
farthest. Their stones were huge boulders; the first pitched his pebble
across the Bristol Channel into Wales; the second's foot slipped, and
his boulder dropped on Exmoor, where it is known as White Stones to
this day. The antiquarians refer Simons' Bath to one Sigmund, but the
country-side tradition declares it was named from a man who was
drowned. Exe and Earle presently mingle their streams by pleasant oak
woods.
At the edge of one of these woods the trench, in the early summer, was
filled with ferns, so that, instead of thorns and brambles, the wood
was fenced with their green fronds. Among these ferns were some
buttercups, at least so they looked in passing; but a slight difference
of appearance induced me to stop, and on getting across the trench the
buttercups were found to be yellow Welsh poppies. The petals are larger
than those of the buttercup, and a paler yellow, without the metallic
burnish of the ranunculus. In the centre is the seed vessel, somewhat
like an urn; indeed, the yellow poppy resembles the scarlet field
poppy, though smaller in width of petal and much more local in habitat.
So concealed were the stalks by the ferns that the flowers appeared to
grow on their fronds. On the mounds grew corn marigolds, so brilliantly
yellow that they seemed to shine in the sunlight, and on a wall
moth-mullein flowered high above the foxgloves.
It was curious to hear the labouring people say, "There's the guckoo,"
when the cuckoo cried. They said he called "guckoo"; so cuckoo sounded
to their ears. There are numbers of birds of prey in the oak woods
which everywhere grow on the slopes of the Exmoor hills. The keeper who
wishes to destroy a whole brood of jays (which take the eggs of game)
waits till the young birds are fledged. He then catches one, or wounds
it, and, hiding himself in the bushes, pinches it till the bird cries
"scaac, scaac." At the sound the old birds come, and are shot as they
approach. The fledglings could, of course, be easily destroyed; the
object is to get at the wary old jays, and prevent their returning next
year. Now and then a buzzard is shot, and if it be only wounded the
gunner conceals himself and pinches it till it calls, when the bird's
partner presently appears, and is also killed. Stoats are plentiful.
They have their young in burrows, or in holes and crevices among the
stones, which are found in quantities in the woods. As any one passes
such a heap of stones the young stoats peep from the crevices and cry
"yac, yac," like barking, and so betray their presence. Three or four
traps are set in a circle round the spot, baited with pieces of rabbit,
in which the old stoats are soon caught. The young stoats in a day or
two, not being fed, come out of the stones, and are shot, or knocked on
the head. The woods are always on the sheltered slopes of the hills,
the moors on the summits are bare of trees; yet it would seem that
trees once grew there, trunks of oak being occasionally dug up from the
peat. Both the peaty turf and the heather are used for fuel; the
heather is pulled up, the turf cut with a particular kind of spade,
heart-shaped and pointed, not unlike the traditional spade used by the
gravedigger in "Hamlet," but with a very long curved handle.
Vipers are sometimes encountered among the heather where it is sandy. A
viper will sometimes wind itself round the stem of a thorn bush, and
thus, turning its head in every direction, defy a dog. Whichever side
the dog approaches, the viper turns its venomous head. Dogs frequently
kill them, and are sometimes bitten, generally in the face, when the
dog's head swells in a few minutes to twice its natural size. Salad oil
is the remedy relied on, and seldom known to fail. The effect of anger
on the common snake is marked. The skin, if the creature is annoyed,
becomes bristly and colder; sometimes there is a strong snake-like
smell emitted. It is singular that the goat-sucker, or fern owl, often
stuffed when shot and preserved in glass cases, does not keep; the bird
looks draggled and falling to pieces. So many of them are like this.
Some of the labouring people who work by the numerous streamlets say
that the wagtail dives, goes right under water like a diver now and
then--a circumstance I have not noticed myself. There is a custom of
serving up water-cress with roast fowl; it is also sometimes boiled
like a garden vegetable. Sometimes a man will take cider with his
tea--a cup of tea one side and a mug of cider on the other. The German
bands, who wander even into these extreme parts of the country, always
ask for cider, which they say reminds them of their own wines at
home--like hock, or Rhenish. Though the junction of Earle and Exe is a
long way from the sea (as the Exe winds), salmon come far up above that
to the moors. Salmon-fishing is preserved, but poachers take them at
night with gaffs. There are water-bailiffs, who keep a good look-out,
or think they do, but occasionally find heads of salmon nailed to their
doors in derision. The missel-thrush is called the "holm-screech." The
missel-thrushes, I know, have a difficulty to defend their young
against crows; but last spring I found a jackdaw endeavouring to get at
a missel-thrush's nest. The old birds were screeching loudly, and
trying to drive the jackdaw away. The chaffinch appears to be called
"woodfinch," at least the chaffinch answered nearest to the bird
described to me as a "woodfinch." In another county it is called the
piefinch.
One summer evening I was under a wood by the Exe. The sun had set, and
from over the wooded hill above bars of golden and rosy cloud stretched
out across the sky. The rooks came slowly home to roost, disappearing
over the wood, and at the same time the herons approached in exactly
the opposite direction, flying from Devon into Somerset, and starting
out to feed as the rooks returned home. The first heron sailed on
steadily at a great height, uttering a loud "caak, caak" at intervals.
In a few minutes a second followed, and "caak, caak" sounded again over
the river valley. The third was flying at a less height, and as he came
into sight over the line of the wood he suddenly wheeled round, and,
holding his immense wings extended, dived as a rook will downwards
through the air. He twisted from side to side like a coin partly spun
round by the finger and thumb, as he came down, rushing through the air
head first. The sound of his great vanes pressing and dividing the air
was plainly audible. He looked unable to manage his descent; but at the
right moment he recovered his balance, and rose a little up into a tree
on the summit, drawing his long legs into the branches behind him. The
fourth heron fetched a wide circle, and so descended into the wood; two
more passed on over the valley--altogether six herons in about a
quarter of an hour. They intended, no doubt, to wait in the trees till
it was dusky, and then to go down and fish in the river. Herons are
called cranes, and heronies are craneries. A determined sportsman, who
used to eat every heron he could shoot in revenge for their ravages
among the trout, at last became suspicious, and examining one, found in
it the remains of a rat and of a toad, after which he did not eat any
more. Another sportsman found a heron in the very act of gulping down a
good-sized trout, which stuck in the gullet. He shot the heron and got
the trout, which was not at all injured, only marked on each side where
the beak had cut it. The fish was cooked and eaten.
This summer evening the bars of golden and rosy cloud gradually lost
their bright colour, but retained some purple in the vapour for a long
time. If the red sunset clouds turn black, the country people say it
will rain; if any other colour, it will be fine. The path from the
river led beside the now dusky moor, and the curlew's weird whistle
came out of the increasing darkness. Wild as the curlew is in early
summer (when there are young birds), he will fly up within a short
distance of the wayfarer, whistling, and alight on the burnt, barren
surface of the moor. There he stalks to and fro, grey and upright. He
looks a large bird so close. His head nods at each step, and every now
and then his long bill, curved like a sabre, takes something from the
ground. But he is not feeding, he is watching you. He utters his
strange, crying whistle from time to time, which draws your attention
from the young birds.
By these rivers of the west otters are still numerous, and are
regularly hunted. Besides haunting the rivers, they ascend the brooks,
and even the smallest streamlets, and are often killed a long way from
the larger waters.
There are three things to be chiefly noticed in the otter--first, the
great width of the upper nostril; secondly, the length and sharpness of
the hold-fast teeth; and, thirdly, the sturdiness and roundness of the
chest or barrel, expressive of singular strength. The upper nostril is
so broad that when the mouth is open the lower jaw appears but a third
of its width--a mere narrow streak of jaw, dotted, however, with the
sharpest teeth. This distension of the upper jaw and narrowness of the
lower gives the impression of relentless ferocity. His teeth are
somewhat cat-like, and so is his manner of biting. He forces his teeth
to meet through whatever he takes hold of, but then immediately repeats
the bite somewhere else, not holding what he has, but snapping again
and again like a cat, so that his bite is considered even worse than
that of the badger. Now and then, in the excitement of the hunt, a man
will put his hand into the hole occupied by the otter to draw him out.
If the huntsman sees this there is some hard language used, for if the
otter chance to catch the hand, he might so crush and mangle it that it
would be useless for life. Nothing annoys the huntsman more than
anything of this kind.
The otter's short legs are deceptive; it does not look as if a creature
so low down could be very serious to encounter or difficult to kill.
His short legs are, in fact, an addition to his strength, which is
perhaps greater than that of any other animal of proportionate size. He
weighs nearly as heavy as a fox, and is even as hard to kill fairly.
Unless speared, or knocked heavily on the head, the otter-hounds can
rarely kill him in the water; when driven to land at last or to a
shallow he is often rather crushed and pressed to death than anything
else, and the skin sometimes has not got a single toothmark in it. Not
a single hound has succeeded in biting through, but there is a
different story to tell on the other side. A terrier has his jaw loose
and it has to be bound up, such a crushing bite has he had. There are
torn shoulders, necks, and limbs, and specks of blood on the nostrils
and coats of the other hounds. A full-grown otter fights like a lion in
the water; if he gets in a hole under the bank where it is hollow,
called a "hover," he has to be thrust out with a pole. He dives under
the path of his enemies as they yelp in the water, and as he goes
attacks one from beneath, seizes him by the leg, and drags him down,
and almost drowns him before he will let go. The air he is compelled to
emit from his lungs as he travels across to another retreat shows his
course on the surface, and by the bubbles he is tracked as he goes deep
below.