THE LONDON DAW
Rarity of the daw in London--Pigeons and daws compared--Æsthetic
value of the daw as a cathedral bird--Kensington Palace daws;
their disposition and habits--Friendship with rooks--Wandering
daws at Clissold Park--Solitary daws--Mr. Mark Melford's
birds--Rescue of a hundred daws--The strange history of an
egg-stealing daw--White daws--White ravens--Willughby's
speculations--A suggestion.
It is somewhat curious to find that the jackdaw is an extremely rare
bird in London--that, in fact, with the exception of a small colony at
one spot, he is almost non-existent. At Richmond Park, where pheasants
(and the gamekeeper's traditions) are preserved, he was sometimes shot
in the breeding season; but in the metropolis, so far as I know, he has
never been persecuted. Yet there are few birds, certainly no member of
the crow family, seemingly so well adapted to a London life as this
species. Throughout the kingdom he is a familiar town bird; in one
English cathedral over a hundred pairs have their nests; and in that
city and in many other towns the birds are accustomed to come to the
gardens and window-sills, to be fed on scraps by their human neighbours
and friends.
[Illustration: PIGEONS AT THE LAW COURTS]
While the daw has diminished with us, and is near to vanishing, the
common pigeon--the domestic variety of the blue rock--has increased
excessively in recent years. Large colonies of these birds inhabit the
Temple Gardens, the Law Courts, St. Paul's, the Museum, and Westminster
Palace, and many smaller settlements exist all over the metropolis. Now,
a flock or cloud of parti-coloured pigeons rushing up and wheeling about
the roofs or fronts of these imposing structures forms a very pretty
sight; but the daw toying with the wind, that lifts and blows him hither
and thither, is a much more engaging spectacle, and in London we miss
him greatly.
I have often thought that it was due to the presence of the daw that I
was ever able to get an adequate or satisfactory idea of the beauty
and grandeur of some of our finest buildings. Watching the bird in his
aërial evolutions, now suspended motionless, or rising and falling, then
with half-closed wings precipitating himself downwards, as if demented,
through vast distances, only to mount again with an exulting cry, to
soar beyond the highest tower or pinnacle, and seem at that vast height
no bigger than a swift in size--watching him thus, an image of the
structure over and around which he disported himself so gloriously has
been formed--its vastness, stability, and perfect proportions--and has
remained thereafter a vivid picture in my mind. How much would be lost
to the sculptured west front of Wells Cathedral, the soaring spire of
Salisbury, the noble roof and towers of York Minster and of Canterbury,
if the jackdaws were not there! I know that, compared with the images
I retain of many daw-haunted cathedrals and castles in the provinces,
those of the cathedrals and other great buildings in London have in my
mind a somewhat dim and blurred appearance. It is a pity that, before
consenting to rebuild St. Paul's Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren did not
make the perpetual maintenance of a colony of jackdaws a condition.
And if he had bargained with posterity for a pair or two of peregrine
falcons and kestrels, his glory at the present time would have been
greater.
There are, I believe, about sixteen hundred churches in London; probably
not more than three are now tenanted by the 'ecclesiastical daw.'
On the borders of London--at Hampstead, Greenwich, Dulwich, Richmond,
and other points--daws in limited numbers are to be met with; in London
proper, or inner London, there are no resident or breeding daws except
the small colony of about twenty-four birds at Kensington Palace. Most
of these breed in the hollow elms in Kensington Gardens; others in trees
in Holland Park. There is something curious about this small isolated
colony: the birds are far less loquacious and more sedate in manner than
daws are wont to be. At almost any hour of the day they may be seen
sitting quietly on the higher branches of the tall trees, silent and
spiritless. The wind blows, and they rise not to play with it; the
graceful spire of St. Mary Abbott's springs high above the garden trees
and palace and neighbouring buildings, but it does not attract them.
Occasionally, in winter, when the morning sun shines bright and melts
the mist, they experience a sudden return of the old frolicsome mood,
and at such moments are capable of a very fine display, rushing over
and among the tall elms in a black train, yelping like a pack of aërial
hounds in hot pursuit of some invisible quarry.
A still greater excitement is exhibited by these somewhat depressed and
sedentary Kensington birds on the appearance of a flight of rooks; for
rooks, sometimes in considerable numbers, do occasionally visit or pass
over London, and keep, when travelling east or west, to the wide green
way of the central parks. Now there are few more impressive spectacles
in bird life in this country than the approach of a large company of
rooks; their black forms, that loom so large as they successively
appear, follow each other with slow deliberate motion at long intervals,
moving as in a funeral procession, with appropriate solemn noises, which
may be heard when they are still at a great distance. They are chanting
something that corresponds in the corvine world to our Dead March
in 'Saul.' The coming sound has a magical effect on the daws; their
answering cries ring out loud and sharp, and hurriedly mounting to a
considerable height in the air, they go out to meet the processionists,
to mix with and accompany them a distance on the journey. It is to me a
wonderful sight--more wonderful here in Kensington Gardens, which have
long been rookless, than in any country place, and has reminded me of
the meeting of two savage tribes or families, living far apart but
cherishing an ancient tradition of kinship and amity, who, after a long
interval, perhaps of years, when at last they come in sight of each
other's faces rush together, bursting into loud shouts of greeting and
welcome. And one is really inclined to believe at times that some such
traditional alliance and feeling of friendship exists between these two
most social and human-like of the crow family.
Besides this small remnant of birds native to London, flocks of jackdaws
from outside occasionally appear when migrating or in search of new
quarters. One morning, not long ago, a flock of fifteen came down at
Clissold Park. They settled on the dovecote, and amused themselves in
a characteristic way by hunting the pigeons out of their boxes; then,
having cleared the place, they remained contentedly for an hour or
two, dozing, preening their feathers, and conversing together in low
tones. The bird-loving superintendent's heart was filled with joy
at the acquisition of so interesting a colony; but his rejoicing
was premature, the loud call and invitation to fly was at last
sounded, and hastily responded to--_We have not come to stay--we
are off--good-bye--so-long--farewell_--and forthwith they rose up and
flew away, probably in search of fresher woods and less trodden
pastures than those of Clissold Park.
There are also to be met with in London a few solitary vagrant daws
which in most cases are probably birds escaped from captivity. Close to
my home a daw of this description appears every morning at the house of
a friend and demands his breakfast with loud taps on the window-pane.
The generous treatment he has received has caused him to abandon his
first suspicious attitude; he now flies boldly into the house and
explores the rooms, and is specially interested in the objects on the
dressing-table. Articles of jewellery are carefully put out of sight
when he makes a call.
My friends, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Melford, of Fulham, are probably
responsible for the existence in London of a good number of wandering
solitary jackdaws. They cherish a wonderful admiration and affection
towards all the members of the crow family, and have had numberless
daws, jays, and pies as pets, or rather as guests, since their birds
are always free to fly about the house and go and come at pleasure.
But their special favourite is the daw, which they regard as far more
intelligent, interesting, and companionable than any other animal, not
excepting the dog. On one occasion Mr. Melford saw an advertisement of
a hundred daws to be sold for trap-shooting, and to save them from so
miserable a fate he at once purchased the lot and took them home. They
were in a miserable half-starved condition, and to give them a better
chance of survival, before freeing them he placed them in an outhouse in
his garden with a wire-netting across the doorway, and there he fed and
tended them until they were well and strong, and then gave them their
liberty. But they did not at once take advantage of it; grown used to
the place and the kindly faces of their protectors, they remained and
were like tame birds about the house; but later, a few at a time, at
long intervals, they went away and back to their wild independent life.
Of the many stories of their pet daws which they have told me, I will
give one of a bird which was a particular favourite of Mrs. Melford's.
His invariable habit was, on returning from an expedition abroad, to fly
straight into the house in search of her, and, sitting on her head, to
express his affection and delight at rejoining her by passing his beak
through her hair.
[Illustration: THE LADY AND THE DAW]
Unfortunately, this bird had a weakness for eggs, which led him into
many scrapes, and in the end very nearly proved his undoing. He was
constantly hanging about and prying into the fowl-house, and whenever
he felt sure that he was not observed he would slip in to purloin an
egg. His cunning reacted on the fowls and made them cunning too. When he
appeared they looked the other way, or walked off pretending not to see
him; but no sooner would he be inside exploring the obscure corners for
an egg than the battle-cry would sound, and then poor Jackie would find
it hard indeed to escape from their fury with nothing worse than a sound
drubbing. In a day or two, before his many sores and bruises had had
time to heal, the cackling of a hen and the thought of a new-laid egg
would tempt him again, and at length one day he could not escape; the
loud cries of rage and of vengeance gratified attracted some person
to the fowl-house, where Jackie was found lying on the ground in the
midst of a crowd of fowls engaged in pounding and pecking his life out,
scattering his hated black feathers in all directions. He was rescued
more dead than alive, and subsequently tended by his mistress with
loving care. He lived, but failed to recover his old gay spirits; day
after day he moped in silence, a picture of abject misery, recalling in
his half-naked, bruised, and bedraggled appearance the famous bird of
Rheims, the stealer of the turquoise ring, after the awful malediction
of the Lord Cardinal Archbishop had taken effect:
On crumpled claw,
Came limping a poor little lame jackdaw,
No longer gay
As on yesterday;
His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way;
His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand,
His head was as bald as the palm of your hand;
His eye so dim,
So wasted each limb,
That, heedless of grammar, they all cried 'That's him!'
By-and-by, when still in this broken-hearted and broken-feathered state,
a sight to make his mistress weep, he disappeared; it was conjectured
that some compassionate-minded neighbour, finding him in his garden
or grounds, and seeing his pitiable condition, had put an end to his
misery.
One day, a year later, Mrs. Melford, who was just recovering from an
illness, was lying on a sofa in a room on the ground floor, when her
husband, who was in the garden at the back, excitedly cried out that
a wild jackdaw had just flown down and alighted near him. 'A perfect
beauty!' he exclaimed; never had he seen a jackdaw in finer plumage!
The lady, equally excited, called back, begging him to use every device
to get the bird to stay. No sooner was her voice heard than the jackdaw
rose up and dashed into the house, and flying the length of three rooms
came to where she was lying, and at once alighted on her head and began
passing his beak through her hair in the old manner. In no other way
could this wild-looking and beautified bird have established his
identity. His return was a great joy; they caressed and feasted him,
and for several hours, during which he showed no desire to renew his
intercourse with the fowls, he was as lively and amusing as he had ever
been in the old days before he had got into trouble. But before night he
left them, and has never returned since; doubtless he had established
relations with some of the wild daws on the outskirts of London.
Before ending this chapter I should like to say a word about white
jackdaws. It is a mystery to me where all the albinos occasionally to
be seen in the London bird markets come from. I have seen half a dozen
in the hands of one large dealer, two at another dealer's, and several
single birds at other shops; altogether about sixteen or eighteen white
daws on sale at one time.
One often hears of and occasionally sees a white blackbird or other
species in a wild state, but these uncoloured specimens are rare; they
are also dear to the collector (nobody knows why), and as a rule are not
long permitted to enjoy existence. Besides, in nine cases out of ten the
abnormally white birds are not albinos. They are probably mere 'sports,'
like our domestic white pigeons, fowls, and ducks, and would doubtless
be more common but for the fact that their whiteness is a disadvantage
to them in their struggle for life. It is rather curious to find that
among wild birds those that have a black plumage appear more subject
to loss of colour than others. Thus we find that, of our small birds,
whiteness is more common in the blackbird than in any other species.
Within the last twelve to eighteen months I have known of the existence
of seven or eight white or partly white blackbirds in London; but during
the same period I have not seen nor heard of a white thrush, and have
only seen one white sparrow. My belief is that the species most commonly
found with white or partly white plumage are the blackbird, rook, and
daw. When carrion crows and ravens were abundant in this country it was
probably no very unusual thing to meet with white specimens. The old
ornithologist, Willughby, writing over two centuries ago, mentions two
milk-white ravens which he saw; but the fact of their whiteness is
less interesting to read at this distant date than the old author's
delightful speculations as to the cause of the phenomenon. He doubts
that white ravens were as common in this country as Aldrovandus had
affirmed that they were, and then adds: 'I rather think that they
are found in those mountainous Northern Countries, which are for the
greatest part of the year covered with snow: Where also many other
Animals change their native colours, and become white, as _Bears_,
_Foxes_, _Blackbirds_, &c., whether it proceeds from the force of
imagination, heightened by the constant intuition of Snow, or from
the cold of the Climate, occasioning such a languishing of colour; as
we see in old Age, when the natural heat decays, the hair grows grey,
and at last white.'
To return to the subject of the beautiful albino daws, and the numbers
sometimes seen in our bird markets. One can only say that the monster
London throws its nets over an exceedingly wide area, capturing all rare
and quaint and beautiful things for its own delight. Thinking of these
wonderful white daws, when I have cast up my eyes to the birdless towers
and domes of our great London buildings, it has occurred to me to ask
the following question: Is there not one among the many very wealthy men
in London, who annually throw away hundreds of thousands of pounds on
their several crazes--is there not one to give, say, fifty or sixty
pounds per annum to buy up all these beautiful albinos, at the usual
price of one or two guineas per bird, for three or four years, and
establish a colony at Westminster, or other suitable place, where
thousands of people would have great delight in looking at them every
day? For it would indeed be a strange and beautiful sight, and many
persons would come from a distance solely to see the milk-white daws
soaring in the wind, as their custom is, above the roofs and towers;
and he who made such a gift to London would be long and very pleasantly
remembered.