THE HOME-FIELD--HAZEL CORNER--THE DIVINING-ROD--RABBITS' HOLES--THE
CORNCRAKE--VENTRILOQUISM OF BIRDS--HEDGE FRUIT.
A wicket-gate affords a private entrance from the orchard into the
home-field, opening on the meadow close to the great hedge, the
favourite highway of the birds. Tracing this hedge away from the
homestead, in somewhat more than two hundred yards it is joined by
another hedge crossing the top of the field, thus forming a sheltered
nook or angle, which has been alluded to as the haunt of squirrels.
Here the highway hedge is almost all of hazel, though one large hawthorn
tree stands on the `shore' of the ditch. Hazel grows tall, straight,
and is not so bushy as some underwood; the lesser boughs do not
interlace or make convenient platforms on which to build nests, and
birds do not use it much.
The ancient divination by the hazel wand, or, rather, the method of
searching for subterranean springs, is not yet forgotten; some of the
old folk believe in it still. I have seen it tried myself, half in
joke, half in earnest. A slender rod is cut, and so trimmed as to have
a small fork at one end; this fork is placed under the little finger in
such a way that the rod itself comes over the back of the other fingers;
it is then lightly balanced, and vibrates easily. The magician walks
slowly over the ground selected, watching the tip of the wand; and
should it bend downwards without volition on his part, it is a sign that
water is concealed beneath the spot.
The nuts upon the bushes do not all ripen at the same time: one or two
bushes are first, and offer ripe nuts before the rest have hardened
sufficiently. The leaves on these also drop earlier, turning a light
yellow. The size and even the shape of the nuts vary too, some being
nearly round and others roughly resembling the almond. Their flavour
when taken from the bush is sweet, juicy, `nutty.' When they will `slip
udd' is the proper time to gather them--i.e. when the hood or outer
green covering slips off at a touch, leaving the light-brown nut in the
palm: it is a delicately shaded brown. Cut off just the tip of the
nut--the pointed keystone of its Gothic arch--with a penknife; insert
the blade ever so slightly, and a gentle turn splits the shell and shows
two onyx-white hemispheres of kernel.
With a little care the tallest boughs may be pulled down uninjured; if
dragged down rudely the bough will be `sprung' where it joins the stole
below, and will then wither and die. The plan is simply to apply force
by degrees, pulling the main bough only so far forward as to enable the
hand to reach air upper branch, seizing the upper branch, and by its aid
reaching a still higher one, and gradually bending the central stem till
it forms a bow. If done gradually and the bow not too acute, the
tallest bush will spring up when released without the least injury.
With a crook to seize the bush as high up as possible--where it bends
more easily--not a twig need be broken, and nutting may be enjoyed
without doing the least damage.
Under a tall ash tree rising out of the hazel bushes, and near the great
hawthorn on the edge or shore of the ditch, the grass grows rank and is
of the deepest green. The dove that could be heard cooing from the
orchard built her nest in the hawthorn, which, where it overhangs the
grass like a canopy, is bare of boughs for six or seven feet up the
gnarled stem. The cattle, who love to shelter under it from the heat of
the sun, browsed on the young shoots, so that no branch could form; but
on the side towards the ditch there are immense spiny thorns, long
enough and strong enough to make a savage's arrow-head or awl. The
doves do not seem nearly so numerous as the wood-pigeons (doves too, in
strict language); they are much smaller, rather duller in colour--that
is, when flying past--and are rarely seen more than two together. When
the summer thunder is booming yonder over the hills, and the thin edge
of the dark cloud showers its sweet refreshing rain, with the sunshine
gleaming through on the hedge and grass here, between the rolling echoes
the dove may be heard in the bush coo-cooing still more softly and
lovingly to her mate.
Just in the very angle formed by the meeting hedges the ditch becomes
almost a fosse, so broad and deep; the sandy banks have slipped, and the
rabbits have excavated more, and over all the brambles have arched
thickly with a background of brake fern. The flower of the bramble is
very beautiful--a delicate pink bloom, succeeded by green berries, to
ripen red, and later black, under the sun. A larger kind are found here
and there--the children call them dew-berries or jew-berries
indifferently. Some of the bramble leaves linger on a dull green all
through the winter.
In the angle a narrow opening runs through between the two banks, which
do not quite meet: it is so overgrown with bramble and fern, convolvulus
and thorn, that unless the bushes were parted to look in no one would
suspect the existence of this green tunnel, which on the other side
opens on the ash copse, where a shallow furrow (dry) joins it. This
tunnel is the favourite way and passage of the rabbits from the copse
out into the tempting pasturage of the meadow; through it too, now and
then, a fox creeps quietly. Rabbit-holes drill the bank everywhere, but
one near this green bye-way is noticeable because of its immense size.
It must measure eighteen inches or nearly in diameter at the mouth; nor
does it diminish abruptly, but continues almost as large a yard or more
inside the bank. Spaniels will get right into such a `bury,' till
nothing but the tail can be seen, and, if permitted, stay there and dig
and scratch frantically. They would sometimes, perhaps, succeed in
reaching the prey were it not for the roots of thorn bushes or trees
which cross the holes here and there like bars; these they cannot
scratch through, but will bite and tear with their teeth--coming out now
and then to breathe and shake the sand from their muzzles, then back
again with a whine of eager excitement, till presently, in sheer
exhaustion, they lie down at the mouth of the cave and pant. This is
not allowed if it is known; but spaniels now and then steal away
privately, and so frequently make for a hole like this that when their
absence is discovered it is the first place visited in search of them.
The mingled patience and excitement, the vast labour they will undergo,
the quantity of sand they will throw out, the whine--it is not a bark--
expressing intense desire, prove how deep is the hunting instinct in the
dog.
Even if the burrows be ferreted, in a few weeks this great hole shows
signs of fresh inhabitants; and such a specially enlarged entrance may
be found somewhere in most of the banks frequented by rabbits. Why do
they make an aperture so many times larger than they can possibly
require? It may be a kind of ancestral hall, the favourite cave of the
first settlers here, clung to by their descendants. Within, perhaps
three, or even more, tunnels branch off from it. So busy are they, and
so occupied when excavating a fresh passage, that sometimes when waiting
quietly on a bank you may see the miner at work. The sand pours out as
he casts it behind him with his hinder paws; his back is turned, so that
he does not notice anyone.
Along the banks evidence maybe found of attempts at boring holes,
abandoned after a few inches of progress had been made: sometimes a
root, or a stone perhaps, interferes; sometimes, and apparently more
often, caprice seems the only cause why the tunnel was discontinued.
The grass in this corner is sweeter to their taste than elsewhere: their
runs are everywhere--crossing and winding about.
In the evening, as the shadows deepen and a hush falls upon the meads,
they come out and chase and romp with each other. When a couple are at
play one will rush ten or a dozen yards away and begin to nibble as if
totally unconscious of the other. The second meanwhile nibbles too, but
all the while stealthily moves forward, not direct, but sideways,
towards the first, demurely feeding. Suddenly the second makes a
spring; the first, who has been watching out of the corners of his eye
all the time, is off like the wind. Or sometimes he will turn and face
the other, and jump clean over, a foot high. Sometimes both leap up
together in the exuberance of their mirth.
By the trunk of a mighty oak, growing out of the hedge that runs along
the top of the field, the brambles and underwood are thinner, as is
generally the case close under a tree; and it is easy to push through
just there. On the other side, a huge root covered with deep green moss
affords a pleasant seat, leaning back against the trunk. Upon the
right, close by, is the ash copse, with its border of thick fir trees;
on the left oaks at intervals stand along the hedge; in front stretches
the undulating surface of an immense pasture field called The Warren.
Like a prairie it rolls gently away, dotted with hawthorn bushes, here
and there a crab tree, and two rows of noble elms, in both of which the
rooks are busy in spring. Beyond, the ground rises, and the small
upland meadows are so thickly timbered as to look like distant glades of
a forest; still farther are the downs.
Under this great oak in the stillness is a place to dream--in summer,
looking upward into the vast expanse of green boughs, is an intricate
architecture, an inimitable roof, whose lattice-windows are set with
translucent _lapis lazuli_, for the deep blue of the sky seems to come
down and rest upon it. The acorns are already there, as yet all cup,
and little of the acorn proper showing; there is a tiny black speck on
the top, and the young acorn faintly resembles some of the ancient cups
with covers, the black speck being the knob by which the cover is
lifted. After the first frosts, when the acorns are browned and come
out of their cups from their own weight as they fall and strike the
ground, the lads select the darkest or ripest, and eat one now and then;
they half-roast them, too, like chestnuts.
In the early spring, when the night is bright and clear, it is a place
to stand a moment and muse awhile. For the copse is dark and gloomy,
the bare oaks are dark behind; the eye cannot see across the prairie,
whose breadth is doubled by the night. But yonder lies a great grey
sarsen boulder, like an uncouth beast of ancient days crouching in the
hollow. Hush! there was a slight rustling in the grass there, as of a
frightened thing; it was a startled hare hastening away. The brightest
constellations of our latitude pour down their rays and influence on the
birth of bud and leaf in spring; and at no other season is the sky so
gorgeous with stars.
The grass in the meadow or home-field as it begins to grow tall in
spring is soon visited by the corncrakes, who take up their residence
there. In this district (though called the corncrake) these birds seem
to frequent the mowing grass more than the arable fields, and they
generally arrive about the time when it has grown sufficiently high and
thick to hide their motions. This desire of concealment--to be out of
sight--is apparently more strongly marked in them than in any other
bird; yet they utter their loud call of `Crake, crake, crake!' not
unlike the turning of a wooden rattle, continuously though only at a
short distance.
It is difficult to tell from what place the cry proceeds: at one moment
it sounds almost close at hand, the next fifty yards off; then, after a
brief silence, a long way to one side or the other. The attempt to mark
the spot is in vain; you think you have it, and rush there, but nothing
is to be seen, and a minute afterwards `Crake, crake!' comes behind you.
For the first two or three such attempts the crake seems to move but a
little way, dodging to and fro in a zigzag, so that his call is never
very far off; but if repeated again and again he gets alarmed, there is
a silence, and presently you hear him in a corner of the mead a hundred
yards distant. Perhaps once, if you steal up very, very quietly, and
suddenly dart forward, or if you have been waiting till he has come
unawares close to you, you may possibly see the grass move as if
something passed through it; but in a moment he is gone, without a
glimpse of his body having been seen. His speed must be very great to
slip like this from one side of the field to the other in so few
seconds.
The fact that the call apparently issues from the grass in one place,
and yet upon reaching it the bird is not to be found, has given rise to
the belief that the crake is a ventriloquist. It may be so; but even
without special powers of that kind, ventriloquial effects would, I
think, be produced by the peculiar habits of the bird. When that which
causes a sound is out of sight it must always be difficult to fix upon
the exact spot whence the sound comes. When the sound is made now here,
now yonder, as the bird travels swiftly--still out of sight--it must be
still more difficult. The crake doubtless often cries from a furrow,
which would act something like a trough, tending to draw the sound along
it. Finally the incessant repetition of the same note, harsh and loud,
confuses the ear.
Some say in like manner that the starling ventriloquises. He has,
indeed, one peculiar long-drawn hollow whistle which goes echoing round
the chimneypots and to and fro among the gables; but it never deceives
you as to his position on the roof unless you are indoors and cannot see
him. It is the same with the finches in the trees, when the foliage is
thick. Their notes seem to come from this side among the branches, but
on peering carefully up there is no bird visible; then it sounds higher
up, and even in the next tree; all the while the finch is but just
overhead, and the moment he moves he is seen. Other birds equally
deceive the ear: the yellowhammer does sometimes, and the chattering
brook-sparrow; so will the blackbird when singing--always provided that
they are temporarily invisible.
When the crake remains a long time in one place, uttering the call
continuously, the illusion disappears, and there is no more difficulty
in approximately fixing its position than that of any other bird. One
summer a crake chose a spot on the `shore' of the ditch of the highway
hedge, not forty yards from the orchard ha-ha. There was a thick growth
of tall grass, clogweed, and other plants just there, and some of the
bushes pushed out over the sward. The nest was placed close to the
ditch (not in it), and the noise the crakes made was something
astonishing. `Crake, crake; crake!' resounded the moment it was light--
and it is light early at that season: `Crake, crake, crake!' all the
morning; the sound now and then, if the bird moved a few yards nearer,
echoing back from some of the buildings. There was, or seemed to be, a
slight cessation in the middle of the day, but towards evening it
recommenced, and continued without cessation till quite dark. This
lasted for some weeks: it chanced that the meadow was mown late, so that
the birds were undisturbed. Why so apparently timid a bird should
choose a spot near a dwelling is not easy to understand.
The crakes, however, when thus localised deceived no one by their
supposed ventriloquial powers; therefore it seems clear that the
deception is caused by their rapid changes of position. The mouse in
like manner often gives an impression that it must be in one spot when
it is really a yard away, the shrill squeak, as it were, left behind it.
It is not easy sometimes to fix the position of the death-tick in
woodwork. The home-field or meadow here is a favourite haunt of the
crakes, for like all other birds they have their special places of
resort. Another meadow, at some distance on the same farm, is equally
favoured by them. This meadow adjoins that second line of bird-travel,
following a brook previously alluded to. But as the crakes, though they
will take refuge in a hedge, do not travel along it habitually, this
circumstance may be accidental. Crakes, notwithstanding they run so
swiftly, do not seem to move far when once they have arrived; they
appear to restrict themselves to the field they have chosen, or, at the
furthest, make an excursion into the next and return again, so that you
may always know where to go to hear one.
The mowers cutting these meadows find the eggs--the nest being on the
ground--and bring them to the farmstead, both as a curiosity and to be
eaten, some thinking them equal to plover's eggs. Though you may follow
the sound `Crake, crake!' in the grass for hours at a time, and
sometimes get so near as to throw your walking-stick at a bunch of
grass, you will never see the bird; and nothing, neither stick nor
stone, will make it rise. Yet it is easy to shoot, as I found, in one
particular way. The trick is to drive it into a hedge. Two persons and
a spaniel well in hand walk towards the `Crake, crake!' keeping some
distance apart. The bird at first runs straight away; then, finding
himself still pursued, tries to dodge back, but finds the line extended.
He then takes refuge in silence, and endeavours to slip past unseen and
unheard; but the spaniel's power of scent baffles that. At last he
makes for the hedge, when one person immediately goes on the other side,
and the spaniel beats up it. The bird is now surrounded and cannot
escape, and, as the dog comes close upon him, is compelled to rise and
fly. As he rises his flight at first somewhat resembles the
partridge's, but it is slower and heavier, and he can be shot with the
greatest ease. But if not fired at, after he has got well on the wing
the flight becomes much stronger, and it is evident that he is capable
of a long voyage.
Sometimes, by patience and skilfully anticipating his zigzag motions in
the grass, the crake may be driven to the hedge without a dog. He will
then, after a short time, if still hunted, `quat' in the thickest bunch
of grass or weeds he can find in the ditch, and will stay till all but
stepped on, when he can be knocked down with a walking-stick. After the
grass is mown, the crakes leave the meadows and go to the arable fields,
where the crops afford them shelter. This district seems a very
favourite resort of these birds.
The mowing grass while standing does not appear to attract other birds
much; but immediately the scythe has passed over they flock to the
swathes from the hedges, and come, too, to the hay itself when quite
dry. In hay there are many plants whose stems are hollow. Now, as soon
as a stalk is dry, if there be any crevice at all, insects will creep
in; so that these tiny tubes are frequently full of inhabitants, which
probably attract the birds.
Sometimes a bird will perch for a moment on a haymaker's hat as he walks
slowly down a lane with hedges each side; the fibres of hay have adhered
to it, and the keen eyes above have detected some moving creature on
them. Birds that are otherwise timid will remain on the footpath to the
very last moment, almost till within reach, if they chance to be
dissecting a choice morsel, some exquisite beetle or moth--pecking at it
in eager haste and running what to them must seem a terrible risk for
the sake of gratifying their taste.
The wood-pigeons are fond of acorns, and come for them to the oaks
growing in an irregular row along the hedge at the top of the
home-field. They are most voracious birds and literally cram their
crops with this hard fruit. Squirrels and mice enjoy the nuts in Hazel
Corner, and the thrushes and pigeons feed on the peggles which cover the
great hawthorn bush there so thickly as to give it a reddish tint.
There is a difference even in this fruit: on some bushes the peggles
consist mainly of the internal stone, the edible coating being of the
thinnest. On others the stone is embedded in, a thick mellow covering
affording twice as much food. Like other products of the hedge, they
are supposed to be improved by frost.
Farther down the highway hedge, by the gateway, a large elder bush, or
rather tree, bears a profusion of berries. Blue-black sloes adhere to--
they do not hang on--the blackthorn bushes: in places the boughs are
loaded with them. Here and there crabs cling to the tough crab tree,
whose bark has a dull gloss on it something like dark polished leather.
Bunches of red berries shine on the woodbine: fruit growing in bunches
usually depends, but these are often on the upper side of the stalk; and
the latter bloom shows by them--flower and fruit at the same time. The
berry has a viscous feel.
Larger berries--some red, some green, on the same bunch--cluster on the
vines of the bryony. The white bryony, whose leaf is not unlike that of
the grape, has a magical reputation, and the cottage folk believe its
root to be a powerful ingredient in love potions, and also poisonous.
They identify it with the mandrake. If growing in or close to a
churchyard its virtues are increased, for, though becoming fainter as
they lengthen, the shadows of the old superstitions linger still. Red
nightshade berries--not the deadly nightshade, but the `bitter-sweet'--
hang sullenly among the bushes where this creeping plant has trailed
over them. Here and there upon the bank wild gooseberry and currant
bushes may be found, planted by birds carrying off ripe fruit from the
garden. A wild gooseberry may sometimes be seen growing out of the
decayed `touchwood' on the top of a hollow withy-pollard. Wild apple
trees, too, are not uncommon in the hedges.
The beautiful rich colour of the horse-chestnut, when quite ripe and
fresh from its prickly green shell, can hardly be surpassed; underneath
the tree the grass is strewn with the shells, where they have fallen and
burst. Close to the trunk the grass is worn away by the restless
trampling of horses, who love the shade its foliage gives in summer.
The oak-apples which appear on the oaks in spring--generally near the
trunk--fall off in the summer, and lie shrivelled on the ground not
unlike rotten cork, or black as if burned. But the oak-galls show thick
on some of the trees, light green, and round as a ball; they will remain
on the branches after the leaves have fallen, turning brown and hard,
and hanging there till the spring comes again.
One of the cottagers in the adjacent hamlet collects these brown balls
and strings them upon wire, making flower-stands and ornamental baskets
for sale. They seem to appear in numbers upon those oak bushes rather
than trees which spring up when an oak has been cut down but the stump
has not been grubbed up. These shoots at first often bear leaves of
great size, many times larger than the ordinary oak leaf; some are
really immense, measuring occasionally fourteen or fifteen inches in
length. As the shoots grow into a bush the leaves diminish in size and
become like those of the tree.
In the ditch the tall teazle lifts its prickly head. The large leaves
of this plant grow in pairs, one on each side of the stem, and while the
plant is young are connected in a curious manner by a green membrane, or
continuation of the lower part of the leaf round the stem, so as to form
a cup. The stalk rises in the centre of the cup, and of these vessels
there are three or four above each other in storeys. When it rains, the
drops, instead of falling off as from other leaves, run down these and
are collected in the cups, which thus form so many natural rain-gauges.
If it is a large plant, the cup nearest the ground--the biggest--will
hold as much as two or three wine-glasses. This water remains there for
a considerable time, for several days after a shower, and is fatal to
numbers of insects which climb up the stalk or alight on the leaves and
fall in. While the grass and the earth of the bank are quite dry,
therefore, the teazle often has a supply of water; and when it dries up,
the drowned insects remain at the bottom like the dregs of a draught the
plant has drained. Round the prickly dome-shaped head, as the summer
advances, two circles of violet-hued flowers push out from cells
defended by the spines, so that, seen protruding above the hedge, it
resembles a tiara--a green circle at the bottom of the dome, and two
circles of gems above.
Some of the grasses growing by the hedge are not to be handled
carelessly, the edge of the long blade cutting like a lancet: the
awn-like seeds of others, if they should chance to get into the mouth,
as happens occasionally to the haymakers, work down towards the throat,
the attempt to get rid of them causing a creeping motion the opposite
way. This is owing to the awns all slanting in one direction.
On the sultry afternoons of the latter part of the summer the hedge is
all but silent. Waiting in the gateway there is no sound for half an
hour at a time, no call or merry song in the branches, nothing but the
buzz of flies. The birds are quiet, or nearly so: they slip about so
noiselessly that it is difficult to observe them, so that many perhaps
migrate before it is suspected, and others stay on when thought to be
gone. In the grass the grasshoppers make their hiss, and towards
evening the yellowhammers utter a few notes; but while the corn is being
reaped the meadows are all but still.