would not certainly have the effect of hastening the decline of our
native species; but indirectly it might bring about a contrary result--a
subject to be touched on at the end of this paper. Practical naturalists
may say that kingfishers would be far more difficult to procure than
other birds, and that it would be almost impossible to convey them to
England. That is a question it would be premature to discuss now; but if
the attempt should ever be made, the difficulties would not perhaps be
found insuperable. In all countries one hears of certain species of
birds that they invariably die in captivity; but when the matter is
closely looked into, one usually finds that improper treatment and not
loss of liberty is the cause of death. Unquestionably it would be much
more difficult to keep a kingfisher alive and healthy during a long
sea-voyage than a common seed-eating bird; but the same may be said of
woodpeckers, cuckoos, warblers, and, in fact, of any species that
subsists in a state of nature on a particular kind of animal food.
Still, when we find that even the excessively volatile humming-bird,
which subsists on the minutest insects and the nectar of flowers, and
seems to require unlimited space for the exercise of its energies, can
be successfully kept confined for long periods and conveyed to distant
countries, one would imagine that it would be hard to set a limit to
what might be done in this direction. We do not want hard-billed birds
only. We require, in the first place, variety; and, secondly, that every
species introduced, when not of type unlike any native kind, as in the
case of the pheasant, shall be superior in beauty, melody, or some other
quality, to its British representative, or to the species which comes
nearest to it in structure and habits. Thus, suppose that the
introduction of a pigeon should be desired. We know that in all
temperate regions, these birds vary as little in colour and markings as
they do in form; but in the vocal powers of different species there is
great diversity; and the main objects would therefore be to secure a
bird which would be an improvement in this respect on the native kinds.
There are doves belonging to the same genus as stock-dove and
wood-pigeon, that have exceedingly good voices, in which the peculiar
mournful dove-melody has reached its highest perfection--weird and
passionate strains, surging and ebbing, and startling the hearer with
their mysterious resemblance to human tones. Or a Zenaida might be
preferred for its tender lament, so wild and exquisitely modulated, like
sobs etherealized and set to music, and passing away in sigh-like sounds
that seem to mimic the aerial voices of the wind.
When considering the character of our bird population with a view to its
improvement, one cannot but think much, and with a feeling almost of
dismay, of the excessive abundance of the sparrow. A systematic
persecution of this bird would probably only serve to make matters
worse, since its continued increase is not the cause but an effect of a
corresponding decrease in other more useful and attractive species; and
if Nature is to have her way at all there must be birds; and besides, no
bird-lover has any wish at see such a thing attempted. The sparrow has
his good points, if we are to judge him as we find him, without allowing
what the Australians and Americans say of him to prejudice our minds.
Possibly in those distant countries he may be altogether bad,
resembling, in this respect, some of the emigrants of our species, who,
when they go abroad, leave their whole stock of morality at home. Even
with us Miss Ormerod is exceedingly bitter against him, and desires
nothing less than his complete extirpation; but it is possible that this
lady's zeal may not be according to knowledge, that she may not know a
sparrow quite so well as she knows a fly. At all events, the
ornithologist finds it hard to believe that so bad an insect-catcher is
really causing the extinction of any exclusively insectivorous species.
On her own very high authority we know that the insect supply is not
diminishing, that the injurious kinds alone are able to inflict an
annual loss equal to £10,000,000 on the British farmer. To put aside
this controversial matter, the sparrow with all his faults is a pleasant
merry little fellow; in many towns he is the sole representative of wild
bird life, and is therefore a great deal to us--especially in the
metropolis, in which he most abounds, and where at every quiet interval
his blithe chirruping comes to us like a sound of subdued and happy
laughter. In London itself this merriment of Nature never irritates; it
is so much finer and more aerial in character than the gross jarring
noises of the street, that it is a relief to listen to it, and it is
like melody. In the quiet suburbs it sounds much louder and without
intermission. And going further afield, in woods, gardens, hedges,
hamlets, towns--everywhere there is the same running, rippling sound
of the omnipresent sparrow, and it becomes monotonous at last. We have
too much of the sparrow. But we are to blame for that. He is the
unskilled worker that Nature has called in to do the work of skilled
hands, which we have foolishly turned away. He is willing enough to take
it all on himself; his energy is great; he bungles away without ceasing;
and being one of a joyous temperament, he whistles and sings in his
tuneless fashion at his work, until, like the grasshopper of
Ecclesiastes, he becomes a burden. For how tiring are the sight and
sound of grasshoppers when one journeys many miles and sees them
incessantly rising like a sounding cloud before his horse, and hears
their shrill notes all day from the wayside! Yet how pleasant to listen
to their minstrelsy in the green summer foliage, where they are not too
abundant! We can have too much of anything, however charming it may be
in itself. Those who live where scores of humming-birds are perpetually
dancing about the garden flowers find that the eye grows weary of seeing
the daintiest forms and brightest colours and liveliest motions that
birds exhibit. We are told that Edward the Confessor grew so sick of the
incessant singing of nightingales in the forest of Havering-at-Bower
that he prayed to Heaven to silence their music; whereupon the birds
promptly took their departure, and returned no more to that forest until
after the king's death. The sparrow is not so sensitive as the legendary
nightingales, and is not to be got rid of in this easy manner. He is
amenable only to a rougher kind of persuasion; and it would be
impossible to devise a more effectual method of lessening his
predominance than that which Nature teaches--namely to subject him to
the competition of other and better species. He is well equipped for the
struggle--hardy, pugnacious, numerous, and in possession. He would not
be in possession and so predominant if he had not these qualities, and
great pliability of instinct and readiness to seize on vacant places.
Nevertheless, even with the sturdy sparrow a very small thing might turn
the scale, particularly if we were standing by and putting a little
artificial pressure on one side of the balance; for it must be borne in
mind that the very extent and diversity of the ground he occupies is a
proof that he does not occupy it effectually, and that his position is
not too strong to be shaken. It is not probable that our action in
assisting one side against the other would go far in its results; still,
a little might be done. There are gardens and grounds in the suburbs of
London where sparrows are not abundant, and are shyer than the birds of
other species, and this result has been brought about by means of a
little judicious persecution. Shooting is a bad plan, even with an
air-gun; its effects are seen by all the birds, for they see more from
their green hiding-places than we imagine, and it creates a general
alarm among them. Those who wish to give the other birds a chance will
only defeat their own object by shooting the sparrows. A much better
plan for those who are able to practise it prudently is to take their
nests, which are more exposed to sight than those of other birds; but
they should be taken after the full complement of eggs have been laid,
and only at night, so that other birds shall not witness the robbery and
fear for their own treasures. Mr. Henry George, in that book of his
which has been the delight of so many millions of rational souls,
advocates the destruction of all sharks and other large rapacious
fishes, after which, he says, the ocean can be stocked with salmon,
which would secure an unlimited supply of good wholesome food for the
human race. No such high-handed measures are advocated here with regard
to the sparrow. Knowledge of nature makes us conservative. It is so very
easy to say, "Kill the sparrow, or shark, or magpie, or whatever it is,
and then everything will be right." But there are more things in nature
than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the class of reformers
represented by the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper's master, and Miss
Ormerod, and Mr. Henry George. Let him by all means kill the sharks, but
he will not conquer Nature in that way: she will make more sharks out of
something else--possibly out of the very salmon on which he proposes to
regale his hungry disciples. To go into details is not the present
writer's purpose; and to finish with this part of the subject, it is
sufficient to add that in the very wide and varied field occupied by the
sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible to a species having
no special and highly perfected feeding instincts, there is room for the
introduction of scores of competitors, every one of which should be
better adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at that point or
that particular part of the field where the two would come into rivalry;
and every species introduced should also possess some quality which
would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, a valuable addition to
our bird life. This would be no war of violence, and no contravention of
Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, a return to her safe,
healthy, and far-reaching methods.
There is one objection some may make to the scheme suggested here which
must be noticed. It may be said that even if exotic species able to
thrive in our country were introduced there would be no result; for
these strangers to our groves would all eventually meet with the same
fate as our rarer species and casual visitors--that is to say, they
would be shot. There is no doubt that the amateur naturalist has been a
curse to this country for the last half century, that it is owing to the
"cupidity of the cabinet" as old Robert Mudie has it--that many of our
finer species are exceedingly rare, while others are disappearing
altogether. But it is surely not too soon to look for a change for the
better in this direction. Half a century ago, when the few remaining
great bustards in this country were being done to death, it was suddenly
remembered by naturalists that in their eagerness to possess examples of
the bird (in the skin) they had neglected to make themselves acquainted
with its customs when alive. Its habits were hardly better known than
those of the dodo and solitaire. The reflection came too late, in so far
as the habits of the bird in this country are concerned; but unhappily
the lesson was not then taken to heart, and other fine species have
since gone the way of the great bustard. But now that we have so clearly
seen the disastrous effects of this method of "studying ornithology,"
which is not in harmony with our humane civilization, it is to be hoped
that a better method will be adopted--that "finer way" which Thoreau
found and put aside his fowling-piece to practise. There can be no doubt
that the desire for such an improvement is now becoming very general,
that a kindlier feeling for animal, and especially bird life is growing
up among us, and there are signs that it is even beginning to have some
appreciable effect. The fashion of wearing birds is regarded by most men
with pain and reprobation; and it is possible that before long it will
be thought that there is not much difference between the action of the
woman who buys tanagers and humming-birds to adorn her person, and that
of the man who kills the bittern, hoopoe, waxwing, golden oriole, and
Dartford-warbler to enrich his private collection.
A few words on the latest attempt which has been made to naturalize an
exotic bird in England will not seem out of place here. About eight
years ago a gentleman in Essex introduced the rufous tinamou--a handsome
game bird, nearly as large as a fowl--into his estate. Up till the
present time, or till quite recently these birds have bred every year,
and at one time they had increased considerably and scattered about the
neighbourhood. When it began to increase, the neighbouring proprietors
and sportsmen generally were asked not to shoot it, but to give it a
chance, and there is reason to believe that they have helped to protect
it, and have taken a great interest in the experiment. Whatever the
ultimate result may be, the partial success attained during these few
years is decidedly encouraging, and that for more reasons than one. In
the first place, the bird was badly chosen for such an experiment. It
belongs to the pampas of La Plata, to which it is restricted, and where
it enjoys a dry, bright climate, and lives concealed in the tall
close-growing indigenous grasses. The conditions of its habitat are
therefore widely different from those of Essex, or of any part of
England; and, besides, it has a peculiar organisation, for it happens to
be one of those animals of ancient types of which a few species still
survive in South America. That so unpromising a subject as this large
archaic tinamou should be able to maintain its existence in this
country, even for a very few years, encourages one to believe that with
better-chosen species, more highly organized, and with more pliant
habits, such as the hazel hen of Europe for a game bird, success would
be almost certain.
Another circumstance connected with the attempted introduction of this
unsuitable bird, even of more promise than the mere fact of the partial
success achieved, is the greatest interest the experiment has excited,
not only among naturalists throughout the country, but also among
landlords and sportsmen down in Essex, where the bird was not regarded
merely as fair game to be bagged, or as a curiosity to be shot for the
collector's cabinet, but was allowed to fight its own fight without
counting man among its enemies. And it is to be expected that the same
self-restraint and spirit of fairness and intelligent desire to see a
favourable result would be shown everywhere if exotic species were to be
largely introduced, and breeding centres established in suitable places
throughout the country. When it once became known that individuals were
doing this thing, giving their time and best efforts and at considerable
expense not for their own selfish gratification, but for the general
good, and to make the country more delightful to all lovers of rural
sights and sounds, there would be no opposition, but on the contrary
every assistance, since all would wish success to such an enterprise.
Even the most enthusiastic collector would refrain from lifting a weapon
against the new feathered guests from distant lands; and if by any
chance an example of one should get into his hands he would be ashamed
to exhibit it.
The addition of new beautiful species to our avifauna would probably not
be the only, nor even the principal benefit we should derive from the
carrying out of the scheme here suggested. The indirect effect of the
knowledge all would possess that such an experiment was being conducted,
and that its chief object was to repair the damage that has been done,
would be wholly beneficial since it would enhance the value in our eyes
of our remaining native rare and beautiful species. A large number of
our finer birds are annually shot by those who know that they are doing
a great wrong--that if their transgression is not punishable by law it
is really not less grave than that of the person who maliciously barks a
shade tree in a park or public garden--but who excuse their action by
saying that such birds must eventually get shot, and that those who
first see them might as well have the benefit. The presence of even a
small number of exotic species in our woods and groves would no doubt
give rise to a better condition of things; it would attract public
attention to the subject; for the birds that delight us with their
beauty and melody should be for the public, and not for the few
barbarians engaged in exterminating them; and the "collector" would find
it best to abandon his evil practices when it once began to be generally
asked, if we can spare the rare, lovely birds brought hither at great
expense from China or Patagonia, can we not also spare our own
kingfisher, and the golden oriole, and the hoopoe, that comes to us
annually from Africa to breed, but is not permitted to breed, and many
other equally beautiful and interesting species?
MOOR-HENS IN HYDE PARK
The sparrow, like the poor, we have always with us, and on windy days
even the large-sized rook is blown about the murkiness which does duty
for sky over London; and on such occasions its coarse, corvine dronings
seem not unmusical, nor without something of a tonic effect on our
jarred nerves. And here the ordinary Londoner has got to the end of his
ornithological list--that is to say, his winter list. He knows nothing
about those wind-worn waifs, the "occasional visitors" to the
metropolis--the pilgrims to distant Meccas and Medinas that have fallen,
overcome by weariness, at the wayside; or have encountered storms in the
great aerial sea, and lost compass and reckoning, and have been lured by
false lights to perish miserably at the hands of their cruel enemies. It
may be true that gulls are seen on the Serpentine, that woodcocks are
flushed in Lincoln's Inn Fields, but the citizen who goes to his office
in the morning and returns after the lamps have been lighted, does not
see them, and they are nothing in his life. Those who concern themselves
to chronicle such incidents might just as well, for all that it matters
to him, mistake their species, like that bird-loving but
unornithological correspondent of the Times who wrote that he had seen
a flock of golden orioles in Kensington Gardens. It turned out that what
he had seen were wheatears, or they might draw a little on their
imaginations, and tell of sunward-sailing cranes encamped on the dome of
St. Paul's Cathedral, flamingoes in the Round Pond, great snowy owls in
Westminster Abbey, and an ibis--scarlet, glossy, or sacred, according to
fancy--perched on Peabody's statue, at the Royal Exchange.
But his winter does not last for ever. When the bitter months are past,
with March that mocks us with its crown of daffodils; when the sun
shines, and the rain is soon over; and elms and limes in park and
avenue, and unsightly smoke-blackened brushwood in the squares, are
dressed once more in tenderest heart-refreshing green, even in London we
know that the birds have returned from beyond the sea. Why should they
come to us here, when it would seem so much more to their advantage, and
more natural for them to keep aloof from our dimmed atmosphere, and the
rude sounds of traffic, and the sight of many people going to and fro?
Are there no silent green retreats left where the conditions are better
suited to their shy and delicate natures? Yet no sooner is the spring
come again than the birds are with us. Not always apparent to the eye,
but everywhere their irrepressible gladness betrays their proximity; and
all London is ringed round with a mist of melody, which presses on us,
ambitious of winning its way even to the central heart of our citadel,
creeping in, mist-like, along gardens and tree-planted roads, clinging
to the greenery of parks and squares, and floating above the dull noises
of the town as clouds fleecy and ethereal float above the earth.
Among our spring visitors there is one which is neither aerial in
habits, nor a melodist, yet is eminently attractive on account of its
graceful form, pretty plumage, and amusing manners; nor must it be
omitted as a point in its favour that it is not afraid to make itself
very much at home with us in London. [Footnote: Note that when this was
written in 1893, the moor-hen was never known to winter in London; his
habits have changed in this respect during the last two decades: he is
now a permanent resident.] This is the little moor-hen, a bird
possessing some strange customs, for which those who are curious about
such matters may consult its numerous biographies. Every spring a few
individuals of this species make their appearance in Hyde Park, and
settle there for the season, in full sight of the fashionable world; for
their breeding-place happens to be that minute transcript of nature
midway between the Dell and Rotten Row, where a small bed of rushes and
aquatic grasses flourishes in the stagnant pool forming the end of the
Serpentine. Where they pass the winter--in what Mentone or Madeira of
the ralline race--is not known. There is a pretty story, which
circulated throughout Europe a little over fifty years ago, of a Polish
gentleman, capturing a stork that built its nest on his roof every
summer, and putting an iron collar on its neck with the inscription,
"Haec Ciconia ex Polonia." The following summer it reappeared with
something which shone very brightly on its neck, and when the stork was
taken again this was found to be a collar of gold, with which the iron
collar had been replaced, and on it were graven the words, "India cum
donis remittit ciconian Polonis." No person has yet put an iron collar
on the moor-hen to receive gifts in return, or followed its feeble
fluttering flight to discover the limits of its migration which is
probably no further away than the Kentish marshes and other wet
sheltered spots in the south of England; that it leaves the country when
it quits the park is not to be believed. Still, it goes with the wave,
and with the wave returns; and, like the migratory birds that observe
times and seasons, it comes back to its own home--that circumscribed
spot of earth and water which forms its little world, and is more to it
than all other reedy and willow-shaded pools and streams in England. It
is said to be shy in disposition, yet all may see it here, within a few
feet of the Row, with so many people continually passing, and so many
pausing to watch the pretty birds as they trip about their little plot
of green turf, deftly picking minute insects from the grass and not
disdaining crumbs thrown by the children. A dainty thing to look at is
that smooth, olive-brown little moor-hen, going about with such freedom
and ease in its small dominion, lifting its green legs deliberately,
turning its yellow beak and shield this way and that, and displaying the
snow-white undertail at every step, as it moves with that quaint,
graceful, jetting gait peculiar to the gallinules.
Such a fact as this--and numberless facts just as significant all
pointing to the same conclusion, might be adduced--shows at once how
utterly erroneous is that often-quoted dictum of Darwin's that birds
possess an instinctive or inherited fear of man. These moor-hens fear
him not at all; simply because in Hyde Park they are not shot at, and
robbed of their eggs or young, nor in any way molested by him. They fear
no living thing, except the irrepressible small dog that occasionally
bursts into the enclosure, and hunts them with furious barkings to their
reedy little refuge. And as with these moor-hens, so it is with all wild
birds; they fear and fly from, and suspiciously watch from a safe
distance, whatever molests them, and wherever man suspends his hostility
towards them they quickly outgrow the suspicion which experience has
taught them, or which is traditional among them; for the young and
inexperienced imitate the action of the adults they associate with, and
learn the suspicious habit from them.