doors whithersoever I bent my steps, from the masses of deep green
foliage, sounded the perpetual airy prattle of these delightful birds.
One had the idea that the concealed vocalists were continually meeting
each other at little social gatherings, where they exchanged pretty
loving greetings, and indulged in a leafy gossip, interspersed with
occasional fragments of music, vocal and instrumental; now a long
trill--a trilling, a tinkling, a sweeping of one minute finger-tip over
metal strings as fine as gossamer threads--describe it how you will, you
cannot describe it; then the long, low, inflected scream, like a lark's
throat-note drawn out and inflected; little chirps and chirruping
exclamations and remarks, and a soft warbled note three or four or more
times repeated, and sometimes, the singer fluttering up out of the
foliage and hovering in the air, displaying his green and yellow plumage
while emitting these lovely notes; and again the trill, trill answering
trill in different keys; and again the music scream, as if some
unsubstantial being, fairy or woodnymph had screamed somewhere in her
green hiding-place. In London one frequently hears, especially in the
spring, half-a-dozen sparrows just met together in a garden tree, or
among the ivy or creeper on a wall, burst out suddenly into a confused
rapturous chorus of chirruping sounds, mingled with others of a finer
quality, liquid and ringing. At such times one is vexed to think that
there are writers on birds who invariably speak of the sparrow as a
tuneless creature, a harsh chirper, and nothing more. It strikes one
that such writers either wilfully abuse or are ignorant of the right
meaning of words, so wild and glad in character are these concerts of
town sparrows, and so refreshing to the tired and noise-vexed brain! But
now when I listened to the greenfinches in the village elms and
hedgerows, if by chance a few sparrows burst out in loud gratulatory
notes, the sounds they emitted appeared coarse, and I wished the
chirrupers away. But with the true and brilliant songsters it seemed to
me that the rippling greenfinch music was always in harmony, forming as
it were a kind of airy, subdued accompaniment to their loud and ringing
tones.
I had had my nightingale days, my cuckoo and blackbird and tree-pipit
days, with others too numerous to mention, and now I was having my
greenfinch days; and these were the last.
One morning in July I was in my sitting-room, when in the hedge on the
other side of the lane, just opposite my window, a small brown bird
warbled a few rich notes, the prelude to his song. I went and stood by
the open window, intently listening, when it sang again, but only a
phrase or two. But I listened still, confidently expecting more; for
although it was now long past its singing season, that splendid sunshine
would compel it to express its gladness. Then, just when a fresh burst
of music came, it was disturbed by another sound close by--a human
voice, also singing. On the other side of the hedge in which the bird
sat concealed was a cottage garden, and there on a swing fastened to a
pair of apple trees, a girl about eleven years old sat lazily swinging
herself. Once or twice after she began singing the nightingale broke out
again, and then at last he became silent altogether, his voice
overpowered by hers. Girl and bird were not five yards apart. It
greatly surprised me to hear her singing, for it was eleven o'clock,
when all the village children were away at the National School, a time
of day when, so far as human sounds were concerned, there reigned an
almost unbroken silence. But very soon I recalled the fact that this was
a very lazy child, and concluded that she had coaxed her mother into
sending an excuse for keeping her at home, and so had kept her liberty
on this beautiful morning. About two minutes' walk from the cottage, at
the side of the crooked road running through the village, there was a
group of ancient pollarded elm trees with huge, hollow trunks, and
behind them an open space, a pleasant green slope, where some of the
village children used to go every day to play on the grass. Here I used
to see this girl lying in the sun, her dark chestnut hair loosed and
scattered on the sward, her arms stretched out, her eyes nearly closed,
basking in the sun, as happy as some heat-loving wild animal. No, it was
not strange that she had not gone to school with the others when her
disposition was remembered, but most strange to hear a voice of such
quality in a spot where nature was rich and lovely, and only man was, if
not vile, at all events singularly wanting in the finer human qualities.
Looking out from the open window across the low hedge-top, I could see
her as she alternately rose and fell with slow, indolent motion, now
waist-high above the green dividing wall, then only her brown head
visible resting against the rope just where her hand had grasped it. And
as she swayed herself to and fro she sang that simple melody--probably
some child's hymn which she had been taught at the Sunday-school; but it
was a very long hymn, or else she repeated the same few stanzas many
times, and after each there was a brief pause, and then the voice that
seemed to fall and rise with the motion went on as before. I could have
stood there for an hour--nay, for hours--listening to it, so fresh and
so pure was the clear young voice, which had no earthly trouble in it,
and no passion, and was in this like the melody of the birds of which I
had lately heard so much; and with it all that tenderness and depth
which is not theirs, but is human only and of the soul.
It struck me as a singular coincidence--and to a mind of so primitive a
type as the writer's there is more in the fact that the word
implies--that, just as I had quitted London, to seek for just such a
spot as I so speedily found, with the passionately exclaimed words of a
young London girl ringing in my ears, so now I went back with this
village girl's melody sounding and following me no less clearly and
insistently. For it was not merely remembered, as we remember most
things, but vividly and often reproduced, together with the various
melodies of the birds I had listened to; a greater and principal voice
in that choir, yet in no wise lessening their first value, nor ever out
of harmony with them.
EXOTIC BIRDS FOR BRITAIN
There are countries with a less fertile soil and a worse climate than
ours, yet richer in bird life. Nevertheless, England is not poor; the
species are not few in number, and some are extremely abundant.
Unfortunately many of the finer kinds have been too much sought after;
persecuted first for their beauty, then for their rarity, until now we
are threatened with their total destruction. As these kinds become
unobtainable, those which stand next in the order of beauty and rarity
are persecuted in their turn; and in a country as densely populated as
ours, where birds cannot hide themselves from human eyes, such
persecution must eventually cause their extinction. Meanwhile the bird
population does not decrease. Every place in nature, like every property in
Chancery, has more than one claimant to it--sometimes the claimants are
many--and so long as the dispute lasts all live out of the estate. For
there are always two or more species subsisting on the same kind of
food, possessing similar habits, and frequenting the same localities. It
is consequently impossible for man to exterminate any one species
without indirectly benefiting some other species, which attracts him in
a less degree, or not at all. This is unfortunate, for as the bright
kinds, or those we esteem most, diminish in numbers the less interesting
kinds multiply, and we lose much of the pleasure which bird life is
fitted to give us. When we visit woods, or other places to which birds
chiefly resort, in districts uninhabited by man, or where he pays little
or no attention to the feathered creatures, the variety of the bird life
encountered affords a new and peculiar delight. There is a constant
succession of new forms and new voices; in a single day as many species
may be met with as one would find in England by searching diligently for
a whole year.
And yet this may happen in a district possessing no more species than
England boasts; and the actual number of individuals may be even less
than with us. In sparrows, for instance, of the one common species, we
are exceedingly rich; but in bird life generally, in variety of birds,
especially in those of graceful forms and beautiful plumage, we have
been growing poorer for the last fifty years, and have now come to so
low a state that it becomes us to inquire whether it is not in our power
to better ourselves. It is an old familiar truth--a truism--that it is
easier to destroy than to restore or build up; nevertheless, some
comfort is to be got from the reflection that in this matter we have up
till now been working against Nature. She loves not to bring forth food
where there are none to thrive on it; and when our unconsidered action
had made these gaps, when, despising her gifts or abusing them, we had
destroyed or driven out her finer kinds, she fell back on her lowlier
kinds--her reserve of coarser, more generalized species--and gave them
increase, and bestowed the vacant places which we had created on them.
What she has done she will undo, or assist us in undoing; for we should
be going back to her methods, and should have her with and not against
us. Much might yet be done to restore the balance among our native
species. Not by legislation, albeit all laws restraining the wholesale
destruction of bird life are welcome. On this subject the Honourable
Auberon Herbert has said, and his words are golden: "For myself,
legislation or no legislation, I would turn to the friends of animals in
this country, and say, 'If you wish that the friendship between man and
animals should become a better and truer thing than it is at present,
you must make it so by countless individual efforts, by making thousands
of centres of personal influence.'"
The subject is a large one. In this paper the question of the
introduction of exotic birds will be chiefly considered. Birds have been
blown by the winds of chance over the whole globe, and have found rest
for their feet. That a large number of species, suited to the conditions
of this country, exist scattered about the world is not to be doubted,
and by introducing a few of these we might accelerate the change so
greatly to be desired. At present a very considerable amount of energy
is spent in hunting down the small contingents of rare species that once
inhabited our islands, and still resort annually to its shores,
persistently endeavouring to re-establish their colonies. A less amount
of labour and expense would serve to introduce a few foreign species
each year, and the reward would be greater, and would not make us
ashamed. We have generously given our own wild animals to other
countries; and from time to time we receive cheering reports of an
abundant increase in at least two of our exportations--to wit, the
rabbit and the sparrow. We are surely entitled to some return. Dead
animals, however rich their pelt or bright their plumage may be, are not
a fair equivalent. Dead things are too much with us. London has become a
mart for this kind of merchandise for the whole of Europe, and the
traffic is not without a reflex effect on us; for life in the inferior
animals has come or is coming to be merely a thing to be lightly taken
by human hands, in order that its dropped garment may be sold for filthy
lucre. There are warehouses in this city where it is possible for a
person to walk ankle-deep--literally to wade--in bright-plumaged
bird-skins, and see them piled shoulder-high on either side of him--a
sight to make the angels weep!
Not the angel called woman. It is not that she is naturally more cruel
than man; bleeding wounds and suffering in all its forms, even the sigh
of a burdened heart, appeal to her quick sympathies, and draw the ready
tears; but her imagination helps her less. The appeal must in most cases
be direct and through the medium of her senses, else it is not seen and
not heard. If she loves the ornament of a gay-winged bird, and is able
to wear it with a light heart, it is because it calls up no mournful
image to her mind; no little tragedy enacted in some far-off wilderness,
of the swift child of the air fallen and bleeding out its bright life,
and its callow nestlings, orphaned of the breast that warmed them, dying
of hunger in the tree. We know, at all events, that out of a female
population of many millions in this country, so far only ten women,
possibly fifteen, have been found to raise their voices--raised so often
and so loudly on other questions--to protest against the barbarous and
abhorrent fashion of wearing slain birds as ornaments. The degrading
business of supplying the demand for this kind of feminine adornment
must doubtless continue to flourish in our midst, commerce not being
compatible with morality, but the material comes from other lands,
unblessed as yet with Wild Bird Protection Acts, and "individual
efforts, and thousands of centres of personal influence"; it comes
mainly from the tropics, where men have brutish minds and birds a
brilliant plumage. This trade, therefore, does not greatly affect the
question of our native bird life, and the consideration of the means,
which may be within our reach, of making it more to us than it now is.
Some species from warm and even hot climates have been found to thrive
well in England, breeding in the open air; as, for instance, the black
and the black-necked swans, the Egyptian goose, the mandarin and summer
ducks, and others too numerous to mention. But these birds are
semi-domestic, and are usually kept in enclosures, and that they can
stand the climate and propagate when thus protected from competition is
not strange; for we know that several of our hardy domestic birds--the
fowl, pea-fowl, Guinea-fowl, and Muscovy duck--are tropical in their
origin. Furthermore, they are all comparatively large, and if they ever
become feral in England, it will not be for many years to come.
That these large kinds thrive so well with us is an encouraging fact;
but the question that concerns us at present is the feasibility of
importing birds of the grove, chiefly of the passerine order, and
sending them forth to give a greater variety and richness to our bird
life. To go with such an object to tropical countries would only be to
court failure. Nature's highest types, surpassing all others in
exquisite beauty of form, brilliant colouring, and perfect melody, can
never be known to our woods and groves. These rarest avian gems may not
be removed from their setting, and to those who desire to know them in
their unimaginable lustre, it will always be necessary to cross oceans
and penetrate into remote wildernesses. We must go rather to regions
where the conditions of life are hard, where winters are long and often
severe, where Nature is not generous in the matter of food, and the
mouths are many, and the competition great. Nor even from such regions
could we take any strictly migratory species with any prospect of
success. Still, limiting ourselves to the resident, and consequently to
the hardiest kinds, and to those possessing only a partial migration, it
is surprising to find how many there are to choose from, how many are
charming melodists, and how many have the bright tints in which our
native species are so sadly lacking. The field from which the supply can
be drawn is very extensive, and includes the continent of Europe, the
countries of North Asia, a large portion of North America and Antarctic
America, or South Chili and Patagonia. It would not be going too far to
say that for every English species, inhabiting the garden, wood, field,
stream, or waste, at least half a dozen resident species, with similar
habits, might be obtained from the countries mentioned which would be
superior to our own in melody (the nightingale and lark excepted),
bright plumage, grace of form, or some other attractive quality. The
question then arises; What reason is there for believing that these
exotics, imported necessarily in small numbers, would succeed in winning
a footing in our country, and become a permanent addition to its
avifauna? For it has been admitted that our species are not few, in
spite of the losses that have been suffered, and that the bird
population does not diminish, however much its character may have
altered and deteriorated from the aesthetic point of view, and probably
also from the utilitarian. There are no vacant places. Thus, the streams
are fished by herons, grebes, and kingfishers, while the rushy margins
are worked by coots and gallinules, and, above the surface, reed and
sedge-warblers, with other kinds, inhabit the reed-beds. The decaying
forest tree is the province of the woodpecker, of which there are three
kinds; and the trunks and branches of all trees, healthy or decaying,
are quartered by the small creeper, that leaves no crevice unexplored in
its search for minute insects and their eggs. He is assisted by the
nuthatch; and in summer the wryneck comes (if he still lives), and
deftly picks up the little active ants that are always wildly careering
over the boles. The foliage is gleaned by warblers and others; and not
even the highest terminal twigs are left unexamined by tits and their
fellow-seekers after little things. Thrushes seek for worms in moist
grounds about the woods; starlings and rooks go to the pasture lands;
the lark and his relations keep to the cultivated fields; and there also
dwells the larger partridge. Waste and stony grounds are occupied by the
chats, and even on the barren mountain summits the ptarmigan gets his
living. Wagtails run on the clean margins of streams; and littoral birds
of many kinds are in possession of the entire sea-coast. Thus, the whole
ground appears to be already sufficiently occupied, the habitats of
distinct species overlapping each other like the scales on a fish. And
when we have enumerated all these, we find that scores of others have
been left out. The important fly-catcher; the wren, Nature's diligent
little housekeeper, that leaves no dusty corner uncleaned; and the
pigeons, that have a purely vegetable diet. The woods and thickets are
also ranged by jays, cuckoos, owls, hawks, magpies, butcher-birds--
Nature's gamekeepers, with a licence to kill, which, after the manner of
game-keepers, they exercise somewhat indiscriminately. Above the earth,
the air is peopled by swifts and swallows in the daytime, and by
goatsuckers at night. And, as if all these were not enough, the finches
are found scattered everywhere, from the most secluded spot in nature to
the noisy public thoroughfare, and are eaters of most things, from
flinty seed to softest caterpillar. This being the state of things, one
might imagine that experience and observation are scarcely needed to
prove to us that the exotic, strange to the conditions, and where its
finest instincts would perhaps be at fault, would have no chance of
surviving. Nevertheless, odd as it may seem, the small stock of facts
bearing on the subject which we possess point to a contrary conclusion.
It might have been assumed, for instance, that the red-legged partridge
would never have established itself with us, where the ground was
already fully occupied by a native species, which possessed the
additional advantage of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in
spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has conquered a place, and
has spread throughout the greater part of England. Even more remarkable
is the case of the pheasant, with its rich plumage, a native of a hot
region; yet our cold, wet climate and its unmodified bright colours have
not been fatal to it, and practically it is one of our wild birds. The
large capercailzie has also been successfully introduced from Norway.
Small birds would probably become naturalized much more readily than
large ones; they are volatile, and can more quickly find suitable
feeding-ground, and safe roosting and nesting places; their food is also
more abundant and easily found; their small size, which renders them
inconspicuous, gives them safety; and, finally, they are very much more
adaptive than large birds.
It is not at all probable that the red-legged partridge will ever drive
out our own bird, a contingency which some have feared. That would be a
misfortune, for we do not wish to change one bird for another, or to
lose any species we now possess, but to have a greater variety. We are
better off with two partridges than we were with one, even if the
invader does not afford such good sport nor such delicate eating. They
exist side by side, and compete with each other; but such competition is
not necessarily destructive to either. On the contrary, it acts and
re-acts healthily and to the improvement of both. It is a fact that in
small islands, very far removed from the mainland, where the animals
have been exempt from all foreign competition--that is, from the
competition of casual colonists--when it does come it proves, in many
cases, fatal to them. Fortunately, this country's large size and
nearness to the mainland has prevented any such fatal crystallization of
its organisms as we see in islands like St. Helena. That any English
species would be exterminated by foreign competition is extremely
unlikely; whether we introduce exotic birds or not, the only losses we
shall have to deplore in the future will, like those of the past, be
directly due to our own insensate action in slaying every rare and
beautiful thing with powder and shot. From the introduction of exotic
species nothing is to be feared, but much to be hoped.
There is another point which should not be overlooked. It has after all
become a mere fiction to say that _all_ places are occupied. Nature's
nice order has been destroyed, and her kingdom thrown into the utmost
confusion; our action tends to maintain the disorderly condition, while
she is perpetually working against us to re-establish order. When she
multiplies some common, little-regarded species to occupy a space left
vacant by an artificially exterminated kind, the species called in as a
mere stop-gap, as it were, is one not specially adapted in structure and
instincts to a particular mode of life, and consequently cannot fully
and effectually occupy the ground into which it has been permitted to
enter. To speak in metaphor, it enters merely as a caretaker or ignorant
and improvident steward in the absence of the rightful owner. Again,
some of our ornamental species, which are fast diminishing, are fitted
from their peculiar structure and life habits to occupy places in nature
which no other kinds, however plastic they may be, can even partially
fill. The wryneck and the woodpecker may be mentioned; and a still
better instance is afforded by the small, gem-like kingfisher--the
only British bird which can properly be described as gem-like.
When the goldfinch goes--and we know that he is going rapidly--other
coarser fringilline birds, without the melody, brightness, and charm of
the goldfinch--sparrow and bunting--come in, and in some rough fashion
supply its place; but when the kingfisher disappears an important place
is left absolutely vacant, for in this case there is no coarser bird of
homely plumage with the fishing instinct to seize upon it. Here, then,
is an excellent opportunity for an experiment. In the temperate regions
of the earth there are many fine kingfishers to select from; some are
resident in countries colder than England, and are consequently very
hardy; and in some cases the rivers and streams they frequent are
exceedingly poor in fish. Some of them are very beautiful, and they vary
in size from birds no larger than a sparrow to others as large as a
pigeon.
Anglers might raise the cry that they require all the finny inhabitants
of our waters for their own sport. It is scarcely necessary to go as
deeply into the subject as mathematical-minded Mudie did to show that
Nature's lavishness in the production of life would make such a
contention unreasonable. He demonstrated that if all the fishes hatched
were to live their full term, in twenty-four years their production
power would convert into fish (two hundred to the solid foot) as much
matter as there is contained in the whole solar system--sun, planets,
and satellites! An "abundantly startling" result, as he says. To be well
within the mark, ninety-nine out of every hundred fishes hatched must
somehow perish during that stage when they are nothing but suitable
morsels for the kingfisher, to be swallowed entire; and a portion of all
this wasted food might very well go to sustain a few species, which
would be beautiful ornaments of the waterside, and a perpetual delight
to all lovers of rural nature, including anglers. It may be remarked in
passing, that the waste of food, in the present disorganized state of
nature, is not only in our streams.