temporary departure from general character. This bird is always
extremely timid and cautious, when its own interest or safety is solely
concerned; but no sooner does its hungry brood clamor for supply, than
it loses all this wary character, and becomes a bold and impudent thief.
At this period it will visit our gardens which it rarely approaches at
other times, plunder them of every raspberry, cherry, or bean, that it
can obtain; and will not cease from rapine as long as any of the brood
or the crop remains. We see all the nestlings approach, and, settling
near some meditated scene of plunder, quietly await a summons to
commence. A parent bird from some tree surveys the ground, then descends
upon the cherry, or into the rows, immediately announces a discovery by
a low but particular call, and all the family flock in to the banquet,
which having finished by repeated visits, the old birds return to the
woods, with all their chattering children, and become the same wild,
cautious creatures they were before. Some of our birds separate from
their broods, as soon as they are able to provide for themselves; but
the jay and its family associate during all the autumn and winter
months, taking great delight in each other’s company, and only separate
to become founders of new establishments. We see them in winter under
the shelter of tall hedges, or on the sunny sides of woods and copses,
seeking amid the dry leaves for acorns, or the crab, to pick out the
seeds, or for the worms and grubs hidden under cowdung; feeding in
perfect silence, yet so timid and watchful, that they seldom permit the
sportsman to approach them. When disturbed, they take shelter in the
depth of the thicket, calling to each other with a harsh and loud voice,
that resounds through the covert. The Welsh call this creature “_screch
y coed_,” the screamer of the wood. The jay is a very heavy, inelegant
bird. Its general plumage is sober and plain, though its fine browns
harmoniously blend with each other: but the beautiful blue-barred
feathers, that form the greater coverts of the wings, distinguish it
from every other bird, and, in the days when featherwork was in favor
with our fair countrywomen, were in such request, that every gamekeeper,
and schoolboy brother with his Christmas gun, persecuted the poor jay
through all his retirements, to obtain his wings.
The great shrike, or butcher-bird (lanius excubitor), is not uncommon
with us, and breeds annually near my dwelling. It is one of our late
birds of passage, but its arrival is soon made known to us by its
croaking, unmusical voice from the summit of some tree. Its nest is
large and ill-concealed; and during the season of incubation the male
bird is particularly vigilant and uneasy at any approach towards his
sitting mate, though often by his clamorous anxiety he betrays it and
her to every bird-nesting boy. The female, when the eggs are hatched,
unites her vociferations with those of the male, and facilitates the
detection of the brood. Both parents are very assiduous in their
attentions to their offspring, feeding them long after they have left
the nest; for the young appear to be heavy, inactive birds, and little
able to capture the winged insects, that constitute their principal
food. I could never observe that this bird destroyed others smaller than
itself, or even fed upon flesh. I have hung up dead young birds, and
even parts of them, near their nests; but never found that they were
touched by the shrike. Yet it appears that it must be a butcher too; and
that the name “_lanius_,” bestowed on it by Gesner two hundred and fifty
years ago, was not lightly given. My neighbor’s gamekeeper kills it as a
bird of prey; and tells me he has known it draw the weak young pheasants
through the bars of the breeding coops; and others have assured me that
they have killed them when banqueting on the carcass of some little bird
they had captured. All small birds have an antipathy to the shrike,
betray anger, and utter the moan of danger, when it approaches their
nest. I have often heard this signal of distress, and, cautiously
approaching to learn the cause, have frequently found that this butcher-
bird occasioned it. They will mob, attack, and drive it away, as they do
the owl, as if fully acquainted with its plundering propensities.
Linnæus attached to it the trivial epithet “_excubitor_,” a sentinel; a
very apposite appellation, as this bird seldom conceals itself in a
bush, but sits perched upon some upper spray, or in an open situation,
heedful of danger, or watching for its prey. This shrike must be most
mischievously inclined, if not a predatory bird.—May 23d:—A pair of
robins have young ones in a bank near my dwelling: the anxiety and
vociferation of the poor things have three times this day called my
attention to the cause of their distress, and each time have I seen this
bird watching near the place, or stealing away upon my approach; and
then the tumult of the parents subsided; but had they not experienced
injury, or been aware that it was meditated, all this terror and outcry
would not have been excited.
Many birds are arranged in our British ornithology not known as
permanent inhabitants, but which have occasionally visited our shores
during inclement seasons, or been driven from their general stations by
tempestuous weather. An event like this, the violent gale of All-hallows
eve, in 1824, brought to us the stormy petrel[49] (procellaria
pelagica); a bird that resides far in the depths of the ocean, does not
approach our shores, it is believed, except for the purposes of
incubation, and we know only one place, the Isle of Sky, that it haunts
even for this short period. It is a creature
——“that roams on her sea-wing,
Unfatigued, and ever sleeps,
Calm, upon the toiling deeps.”
It is a pretty good manifestation of the strength and extent of that
hurricane, which could catch up a bird with a wing so powerful as to
enable it to riot in the whirlwind and enjoy the storm, and bear it away
irresistibly, perhaps, from the Atlantic waves, over such a space of
land and ocean, and then dash it down on a rather elevated common in
this parish, whence it was brought to me in a very perfect state. This
little creature, scarcely as big again as a swallow, and the smallest of
all our web-footed birds, has, like all the others of its genus, that
extraordinary tube on its upper mandible, through which it spirts out an
oily matter when irritated; but the real object of this singular
provision seems unknown. Our seamen amuse themselves during the monotony
of a voyage with the vagaries of “mother Carey’s chickens,” as they have
from very early times called this bird. The petrels seem to repose in a
common breeze, but upon the approach, or during the continuation, of a
gale, they surround a ship, and catch up the small animals which the
agitated ocean brings near the surface, or any food that may be dropped
from the vessel. Whisking with the celerity of an arrow through the deep
valleys of the abyss, and darting away over the foaming crest of some
mountain wave, they attend the laboring bark in all her perilous course.
When the storm subsides they retire to rest, and are no more seen. The
presence of this petrel was thought in times past to predict a storm,
and it was consequently looked upon as an unwelcome visitant.
The wryneck (jynx torquilla) visits us annually, but in very uncertain
numbers, and, from some unknown cause, or local changes, in yearly
diminishing quantities. In one short season after its arrival we hear
its singular monotonous note at intervals through half the day. This
ceases, and we think no more about it, as it continues perfectly mute;
not a twit or a chirp escapes to remind us of its presence during all
the remainder of its sojourn with us, except the maternal note or hush
of danger, which is a faint, low, protracted hissing, as the female sits
clinging by the side or on the stump of a tree. Shy and unusually timid,
as if all its life were spent in the deepest retirement away from man,
it remains through the day on some ditch-bank, or basks with seeming
enjoyment, in any sunny hour, on the ant-hills nearest to its retreat;
and these it depopulates for food, by means of its long glutinous
tongue, which with the insects collects much of the soil of the heaps,
as we find a much larger portion of grit in its stomach than is usually
met with in that of other birds. When disturbed it escapes by a flight
precipitate and awkward, hides itself from our sight, and, were not its
haunts and habits known, we should never conjecture that this bustling
fugitive was our long-forgotten spring visitant the wryneck. The winter
or spring of 1818 was, from some unknown cause, singularly unfavorable
for this bird. It generally arrives before the middle of April; and its
vernal note, so unlike that of any of its companions, announces its
presence throughout all the mild mornings of this month, and part of the
following; but during the spring of that year it was perfectly silent,
or absent from us. The season, it is true, was unusually cheerless and
ungenial.
Some of our birds are annually diminishing in numbers; others have been
entirely destroyed, or no longer visit the shores of Britain. The
increase of our population, inclosure, and clearage of rude and open
places, and the drainage of marshy lands, added to the noise of our
fire-arms, have driven them away, or rendered their former breeding and
feeding stations no longer eligible to many, especially to the waders
and aquatic birds. The great Swan Pool, near the city of Lincoln, on
which I have seen at one time forty of these majestic creatures sailing
in all their dignity, is, I am told, no longer a pool; the extensive
marshes of Glastonbury, which have afforded me the finest snipe
shooting, are now luxuriant corn farms; and multitudes of other cases of
such subversions of harbor for birds are within memory. An
ornithological list made no longer ago than the days of Elizabeth would
present the names of multitudes now aliens to our shores. The
nightingale was common with us here a few years past; the rival songs of
many were heard every evening during the season, and in most of our
shady lanes we were saluted by the harsh warning note of the parent to
its young; but from the assiduity of bird-catchers, or some local change
that we are not sensible of, a solitary vocalist or so now only delights
our evening walk. The egg of this bird is rather singularly colored, and
not commonly to be obtained. Our migrating small birds incur from
natural causes great loss in their transits; birds of prey, adverse
winds, and fatigue, probably reduce their numbers nearly as much as
want, and the severity of the winter season, does those that remain; and
in some summers the paucity of such birds is strikingly manifest. Even
the hardy rook is probably not found in such numbers as formerly, its
haunts having been destroyed or disturbed by the felling of trees, in
consequence of the increased value of timber, and the changes in our
manners and ideas. Rooks love to build near the habitation of man: but
their delight, the long avenue, to caw as it were in perspective from
end to end, is no longer the fashion; and the poor birds have been
dispersed to settle on single distant trees, or in the copse, and are
captured and persecuted.
“Old-fashioned halls, dull aunts, and croaking rooks,”
a modern Zephalinda would scarcely find now to anticipate with dread. In
many counties very few rookeries remain, where once they were considered
as a necessary appendage, and regularly pointed out the abbey, the hall,
the court-house, and the grange.
The starling (sturnus vulgaris) breeds with us, as in most villages in
England. Towards autumn the broods unite, and form large flocks; but
those prodigious flights, with which, in some particular years, we are
visited, especially in parts of those districts formerly called the “fen
counties,” are probably an accumulation from foreign countries. We have
seldom more than a pair, or two, which nestle under the tiling of an old
house, in the tower of the church, the deserted hole of the woodpecker,
or some such inaccessible place. The flights probably migrate to this
country alone, as few birds could travel long, and continue such a rapid
motion as the starling. The Royston crow, the only migrating bird with
which it forms an intimate association, is infinitely too heavy of wing
to have journeyed with the stare. The delight of these birds in society
is a predominant character; and to feed they will associate with the
rook, the pigeon, or the daw; and sometimes, but not cordially, with the
fieldfare: but they chiefly roost with their own families, preferring
some reedy, marshy situation. These social birds are rarely seen alone,
and should any accident separate an individual from the companions of
its flight, it will sit disconsolate on an eminence, piping and
plaining, till some one of its congeners join it. Even in small parties
they keep continually calling and inviting associates to them, with a
fine clear note, that, in particular states of the air, may be heard at
a considerable distance. This love of society seems to be innate; for I
remember one poor bird, that had escaped from domestication, in which it
had entirely lost, or probably never knew, the language or manners of
its race, and acquired only the name of its mistress; disliked and
avoided by its congeners, it would sit by the hour together, sunning on
some tall elm, calling in a most plaintive strain, Nānny, Nānny, but no
Nanny came; and our poor solitary either pined itself to death, or was
killed, as its note ceased. They vastly delight, in a bright autumnal
morning, to sit basking and preening themselves on the summit of a tree,
chattering all together in a low song-like note. There is something
singularly curious and mysterious in the conduct of these birds previous
to their nightly retirement, by the variety and intricacy of the
evolutions they execute at that time. They will form themselves perhaps
into a triangle, then shoot into a long, pearshaped figure, expand like
a sheet, wheel into a ball, as Pliny observes, each individual striving
to get into the centre, &c., with a promptitude more like parade
movements, than the actions of birds. As the breeding season advances,
these prodigious flights divide, and finally separate into pairs, and
form their summer settlements; but probably the vast body of them leaves
the kingdom. Travellers tell us, that starlings abound in Persia and the
regions of Caucasus.
No birds, except sparrows, congregate more densely than stares. They
seem continually to be running into clusters, if ever so little
scattered; and the stopping of one, to peck at a worm, immediately sets
all its companions hastening to partake. This habit in the winter season
brings on them death, and protracted sufferings, as every village popper
notices these flocks, and fires at the poor starlings. Their flesh is
bitter and rank, and thus useless when obtained; but the thickness of
the flights, the possibility of killing numbers, and manifesting his
skill, encourages the trial. The flight of these birds, whether from
feeding to roost, or on their return to feed, is so rapid, that none
with any impediment can keep company; and in consequence we see many,
which have received slight wing or body wounds, lingering about the
pastures long into spring, and pining after companions they cannot
associate with.
These birds are very assiduous in their attentions to their young, and
in continual progress to collect worms and insects for them. However
strong parental affection may be in all creatures, yet the care which
birds manifest in providing for their nestlings is more obvious than
that of other animals. The young of beasts sleep much; some are hidden
in lairs and thickets nearly all the day, others take food only at
intervals or stated periods, the parent ruminating, feeding, or reposing
too: but birds, the young of which remain in their nests, as most of
them do, excepting the gallinaceous and aquatic tribes, have no
cessation of labor from early morning till the close of eve, till the
brood can provide for themselves. What unceasing toil and perseverance
are manifest in the rooks, and what distances do they travel to obtain
nourishment for their clamorous brood! It is a very amusing occupation
for a short time, to attend to the actions of a pair of swallows, or
martens, the family of which have left the nest, and settled upon some
naked spray, or low bush in the field, the parents cruising around, and
then returning with their captures to their young: the constant supply
which they bring, the celerity with which it is given and received, and
the activity and evolutions of the elder birds, present a pleasing
example of industry and affection. I have observed a pair of starlings
for several days in constant progress before me, having young ones in
the hole of a neighboring poplar tree, and they have been probably this
way in action from the opening of the morning—thus persisting in this
labor of love for twelve or thirteen hours in the day! The space they
pass over in their various transits and returns must be very great, and
the calculation vague; yet, from some rude observations it appears
probable that this pair in conjunction do not travel less than fifty
miles in the day, visiting and feeding their young about a hundred and
forty times, which consisting of five in number, and admitting only one
to be fed each time, every bird must receive in this period eight-and-
twenty portions of food or water! This excessive labor seems entailed
upon most of the land birds, except the gallinaceous tribes, and some of
the marine birds, which toil with infinite perseverance in fishing for
their broods; but the very precarious supply of food to be obtained in
dry seasons by the terrestrial birds renders theirs a labor of more
unremitting hardship than that experienced by the piscivorous tribes,
the food of which is probably little influenced by season, while our
poor land birds find theirs to be nearly annihilated in some cases. The
gallinaceous birds have nests on the ground; the young leave them as
soon as they escape from the shell, are led immediately from the hatch
to fitting situations for food and water, and all their wants are most
admirably attended to; but the constant journeyings of those parent
birds that have nestlings unable to move away, the speed with which they
accomplish their trips, the anxiety they manifest, and the long labor in
which they so gaily persevere, is most remarkable and pleasing, and a
duty consigned but to a few.
We have no bird more assiduous in attentions to their young, than the
red-start, (_steort_, Saxon, a tail,) one or other of the parents being
in perpetual action, conveying food to the nest, or retiring in search
of it; but as they are active, quick-sighted creatures, they seem to
have constant success in their transits. They are the most restless and
suspicious of birds during this season of hatching and rearing their
young; for when the female is sitting, her mate attentively watches over
her safety, giving immediate notice of the approach of any seemingly
hostile thing, by a constant repetition of one or two querulous notes,
monitory to her or menacing to the intruder: but when the young are
hatched, the very appearance of any suspicious creature sets the parents
into an agony of agitation, and perching upon some dead branch or a
post, they persevere in one unceasing clamor till the object of their
fears is removed; a magpie near their haunts, with some reason, excites
their terror greatly, which is expressed with unremitting vociferation.
All this parental anxiety, however, is no longer in operation than
during the helpless state of their offspring, which, being enabled to
provide their own requirements, gradually cease to be the objects of
solicitude and care; they retire to some distant hedge, become shy and
timid things, feeding in unobtrusive silence.
The brown starling, or solitary thrush (turdus solitarius), is not an
uncommon bird with us. It breeds in the holes and hollows of old trees,
and, hatching early, forms small flocks in our pastures, which are seen
about before the arrival of the winter starling, for which bird, by its
manners and habits, it is generally mistaken. It will occasionally, in
very dry seasons, enter our gardens for food, which the common stares
never do; and this year (1826) I had one caught in a trap, unable to
resist the tempting plunder of a cherry tree, in conjunction with half
the thrushes in the neighborhood. I have seen a few, small, thrushlike
birds associate and feed with the missel-thrush in our summer pastures,
which I suspect to be solitary starlings: but, wild and wary like them,
they admit no approach to verify the species; and they appear likewise
to follow and mix with this bird, when it visits us in autumn, to gather
the berries of the yew and the mountain ash. I am not certain where it
passes its winter season, but apprehend it mingles in the large flights
of the common species. It returns to our pastures, however, for a short
period in the spring, in small parties of six or ten individuals. The
common stare, when disturbed, rises and alights again at some distance,
most generally on the ground; but the brown starling settles frequently
on some low bush, or small tree, before it returns to its food. I know
of no description that accords so well with our bird as that in Bewick’s
supplement, excepting that the legs of those which I have seen are of a
red brown color, the bill black, and the lower mandible margined with
white; but age and sex occasion many changes in tints and shades. This
species possesses none of those beauties of plumage so observable in the
common starling, and all those fine prismatic tintings that play and
wander over the feathers of the latter are wanting in the former. Its
whole appearance is like that of a thrush, but it presents even a
plainer garb; its browns are more dusky and weather-beaten; and for the
beautiful mottled breast of the throstle, it has a dirty white, and a
dirtier brown. I scarcely know any bird less conspicuous for beauty than
the solitary thrush: it seems like a bleached, wayworn traveller, even
in its youth.
It was a very ancient observation, and modern investigation seems fully
to confirm it, that many of the serpent race captured their prey by
infatuation or intimidation; and there can be no doubt of the fact, that
instinctive terror will subdue the powers of some creatures, rendering
them stupefied and motionless at the sudden approach of danger. We have
two kinds of petty hawks, the sparrow-hawk (falco nisus) and the kestrel
(falco tinunculus), that seem fully to impress upon their destined prey
this species of intimidation. A beautiful male bull-finch, that sat
harmlessly pecking the buds from a blackthorn by my side, when
overlooking the work of a laborer, suddenly uttered the instinctive moan
of danger, but made no attempt to escape into the bush, seemingly
deprived of the power of exertion. On looking round, a sparrow-hawk was
observed on motionless wing gliding rapidly along the hedge, and,
passing me, rushed on its prey with undeviating certainty. There was
fully sufficient time from the moment of perception for the bull-finch
to escape; but he sat still, waiting the approach of death, an
unresisting victim. We have frequently observed these birds, when
perched on an eminence, insidiously attentive to a flock of finches and
yellow-hammers basking in a hedge, and after due consideration
apparently single out an individual. Upon its moving for its prey, some
wary bird has given the alarm, and most of the little troop scuttle
immediately into the hedge; but the hawk holds on its course, and darts
upon a selected object. If baffled, it seldom succeeds upon another; and
so fixed are its eyes upon this one individual, that, as if unobservant
of its own danger, it snatches up its morsel at our very sides. A pigeon
on the roof of the dovecot seems selected from its fellows, the hawk
rarely snatching at more than one terror-stricken bird. The larger
species of hawks appear to employ no powers excepting those of wing, but
pursue and capture by celerity and strength.
We converse annually upon early and late seasons; and such things there
are. A mild winter, a warm February and March, will influence greatly
the growth of vegetation: not that a primrose under that bank, or a
violet under the shelter of this hedge, affords us any criterion of
earliness; but a general shading of green, an expansion of buds, an
incipient unfolding of leaves, gives notice of the spring’s advance. The
principal blossoming of plants usually takes place at nearly stated
periods; but particular mildness in the atmosphere and additional warmth
in the soil, accelerate this season; and of all the evils which threaten
the horticulturist, an early spring is most to be deprecated. An April
breathing odors, wreathed in verdure and flowers, the willow wren
sporting in the copse, the swallow skimming over the pool, lambs racing
in the daisied mead, may be a beautiful sight to contemplate,—
“Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyrs blow;”
but it is like the laugh of irony, the smile that lures to ruin,