NOTES ON THE YEAR--THE TWO NATURAL ERAS--SPIDERS--THE SEASONS
REPRESENTED TOGETHER--A MURDEROUS WASP--FENG-SHUI--THE BIRDS' WHITE
ELEPHANT--HEDGE MEMORANDA.
There are few hedges so thick but that in January it is possible to see
through them, frost and wind having brought down the leaves. The
nettles, however, and coarse grasses, dry brown stems of dead plants,
rushes, and moss still in some sense cover the earth of the mound, and
among them the rabbits sit out in their forms. Looking for these with
gun and spaniel, when the damp mist of the morning has desired, one
sign--one promise--of the warm days to come may chance to be found.
Though the sky be gloomy, the hedge bare, and the trees gaunt, yet among
the bushes a solitary green leaf has already put forth. It is on the
stalk of the woodbine which climbs up the hawthorn, and is the first in
the new year--in the very darkest and blackest days--to show that life
is stirring. As it is the first to show a leaf, so, too, it is one of
the latest to yield to the advancing cold, and even then its bright red
berries leave a speck of colour; and its bloom, in beauty of form, hue,
and fragrance, is not easily surpassed.
While the hedges are so bare the rabbits are unmercifully ferreted, for
they will before long begin to breed. On the milder mornings the
thrushes are singing sweetly. Clouds of tiny gnats circle in the
sheltered places near houses or thatch. In February `fill-ditch', as
the old folk call it, on account of the rains, although nominally in the
midst of the winter quarter, there is a distinct step forward. If the
clouds break and the wind is still, the beams of the sun on the southern
side of the wall become pleasantly genial. In the third week they bring
forth the yellow butterfly, fluttering gaily over the furze; while the
larks on a sunny day, chasing each other over the ploughed fields, make
even the brown clods of earth seem instinct with awakening life. The
pairing off of the birds is now apparent in every hedge, and at the same
time on the mounds, and under sheltering bushes and trees a deeper green
begins to show as the plants push up.
The blackthorn is perhaps the first conspicuous flower; but in date it
seems to vary much. On the 22nd of February, 1877, there were boughs of
blackthorn in full bloom in Surrey, and elder trees in leaf; nearly
three weeks before that, at the beginning of the month, there were
hawthorn branches in full leaf in a sheltered nook in Kent. A degree
further west, on the contrary, the hawthorn did not show a leaf for some
time after the blackthorn had bloomed in Surrey. The farmers say that
the grass which comes on rapidly in the latter days of February and
early days of March, `many weathers' (in their phrase), often `goes
back' later in the season, and loses its former progress.
Lady-day (old style) forms with Michaelmas the two eras, as it were, of
the year. The first marks the departure of the winter birds and the
coming of the spring visitors; the second, in reverse order, marks the
departure of the summer birds and the appearance of the vanguard of the
winter ones. In the ten days or fortnight succeeding Lady-day (old
style)--say from the 6th of April to the 20th--great changes take place
in the fauna and flora; or, rather, those changes which have long been
slowly maturing become visible. The nightingales arrive and sing, and
with them the white butterfly appears. The swallow comes, and the
wind-anemone blooms in the copse. Finally the cuckoo cries, and at the
same time the pale lilac cuckoo-flower shows in the moist places of the
mead.
The exact dates, of course, vary with the character of the season and
the locality; but, speaking generally, you should begin to keep a keen
lookout for these signs of spring about old Lady-day. In the spring of
last year, in a warm district, the nightingale sang on the 12th of
April, a swallow appeared on the 13th, and the note of the cuckoo was
heard on the 15th. No great reliance should be put upon precise dates,
because in the first place they vary annually, and in the next an
observer can, in astronomical language, only sweep a limited area, and
that but imperfectly; so that it is very likely some ploughboy who
thinks nothing of it--except to immediately imitate it--hears the cuckoo
forty-eight hours before those who have been listening most carefully.
So that these dates are not given because they are of any intrinsic
value, but simply for illustration. On the 14th of April (the same
spring) the fieldfares and redwings were passing over swiftly in small
parties--or, rather, in a long flock scattered by the march--towards the
North Sea and their summer home in Norway. The winter birds, and the
distinctly spring and summer birds, as it were, crossed each other and
were visible together, their times of arrival and departure overlapping.
As the sap rises in plants and trees, so a new life seems to flow
through the veins of bird and animal. The flood-tide of life rises to
its height, and after remaining there some time, gradually ebbs. Early
in August the leaves of the limes begin to fade, and a few shortly
afterwards fall: the silver birch had spots of a pale lemon among its
foliage this year on August 13. The brake fern, soon after it has
attained its full growth, begins to turn yellow in places. There is a
silence in the hedges and copses, and an apparent absence of birds. But
about Michaelmas (between the new and old styles) there is a marked
change. It is not that anything particular happens upon any precise
day, but it is a date around which, just before and after, events seem
to group themselves.
Towards the latter part of September the geometrical spiders become
conspicuous, spinning their webs on every bush. Some of these attain an
enormous size, and, being so large, it is easier to watch their mode of
procedure. When a fly becomes entangled, the spider seizes it by the
poll, at the back of the head, and holds it for a short time till it
dies. Then he rapidly puts a small quantity of web round it; and next
carries it to the centre of the web. There, taking the dead fly on his
feet--much as a juggler plays with a ball upon his toes--the spider
rolls it round and round, enveloping it in a cocoon of web, and finally
hangs up his game head uppermost, and resumes his own position head
downwards. Another spider wraps his prey in a cocoon by spinning
himself and the fly together round and round. At the end of September
or beginning of October acres of furze may be seen covered with web in
the morning, when the dew deposited upon it renders it visible. As the
sun dries up the dew the web is no longer seen.
On September 21 of last year the rooks were soaring and diving; they
continued to do this several days in succession. I should like to say
again that I attach no importance to these dates, but give them for
illustration: these, too, were taken in a warm district. Rooks usually
soar a good deal about the time of the equinox. On September 29 the
heaths and furze were white with the spiders' webs alluded to above.
September 27, larks singing joyously. October 2, a few grasshoppers
still calling in the grass--heard one or two three or four days later.
October 4, the ivy in full flower. October 7, the thrushes singing
again in the morning. October 6 and 7, pheasants roaming in the hedges
for acorns. October 13, a dragon-fly--large and green--hawking to and
fro on the sunny side of hedge. October 15, the first redwing. During
latter part of September and beginning of October, frogs croaking in the
ivy.
Now, these dates would vary greatly in different localities, but they
show, clearer than a mere assertion, that about that time there is a
movement in nature. The croaking of frogs, the singing of larks and
thrushes, are distinctly suggestive of spring (the weather, too, was
warm and showery, with intervals of bright sunshine); the grasshopper
and dragon-fly were characteristic of summer, and there were a few
swallows still flying about; the pheasants and the acorns, and the
puff-balls, full of minute powder rising in clouds if struck, spoke of
autumn; and, finally, the first redwing indicated winter: so that all
the seasons were represented together in about the space of a fortnight.
I do not know any other period of the year which exhibits so remarkable
an assemblage of the representative features of the four quarters: an
artist might design an emblematic study upon it, say for a tesselated
pavement.
In the early summer the lime trees flower, and are then visited by busy
swarms of bees, causing a hum in the air overhead. So, in like manner,
on October 16, I passed under an old oak almost hidden by ivy, and
paused to listen to the loud hum made by the insects that came to the
ivy blossom. They were principally bees, wasps, large black flies, and
tiny gnats. Suddenly a wasp attacked one of the largest of the flies,
and the two fell down on a bush, where they brought up on a leaf.
The fly was very large, of a square build, and wrestled with its
assailant vigorously. But in a few seconds, the wasp, getting the
mastery, brought his tail round, and stung the fly twice, thrice, in
rapid succession in the abdomen, and then held tight. Almost
immediately the fly grew feeble; then the wasp snipped off its
proboscis, and next the legs. Then he seized the fly just behind the
head, and bit off pieces of the wings; these, the proboscis, and the
legs dropped to the ground. The fell purpose of the wasp is not easily
described; he stung and snipped and bit and reduced his prey to utter
helplessness, without the pause of a second.
So eager was he that while cutting the wings to pieces he fell off the
leaf, but clung tight to the fly, and, although it was nearly as big as
himself, carried it easily to another leaf. There he rolled the fly
round, snipped off the head, which dropped, and devoured the internal
part; but slipped again and recovered himself on a third leaf, and as it
were picked the remaining small portion. What had been a great insect
had almost disappeared in a few minutes.
After the arrival of the fieldfares the days seem to rapidly shorten,
till towards the end of December the cocks, reversing their usual
practice, crow in the evening, hours before midnight. The cockcrow is
usually associated with the dawn, and the change of habit just when the
nights are longest is interesting.
Birds have a Feng-shui of their own--an unwritten and occult science of
the healthy and unhealthy places of residence--and seem to select
localities in accordance with the laws of this magical interpretation of
nature. The sparrows, by preference, choose the southern side of a
house for their nests. This is very noticeable on old thatched houses,
where one slope of the roof happens to face the north and another the
south. On the north side the thatch has been known to last thirty years
without renewal--it decays so slowly. The moss, however, grows thickly
on that side, and if not removed would completely cover it. Moss
prefers the shade; and so in the woodlands the meadows on the north or
shady side of the copses are often quite overgrown with moss, which is
pleasant to walk on, but destroys the herbage. But on the south side of
the roof, the rain coming from that quarter, the wind and sun cause the
thatch to rapidly deteriorate, so that it requires to be constantly
repaired.
Now, instead of working their holes into the northern slope, sheltered
from wind and rain, nine out of ten of the sparrows make their nests on
the south, and, of course, by pulling out the straw still further assist
the decay of the thatch there. The influence of light seems to be
traceable in this; and it does occur whether other birds that use trees
and bushes for their nests may not really be guided in their selection
by some similar rule. The trees and bushes they select to us look much
the same as others; but the birds may none the less have some reasons of
their own. And as certain localities, as previously observed, are great
favourites with them and others are deserted, possibly Feng-shui may
have something to do with that also.
The nomadic tribes that live in tents, and wander over thousands of
miles in the East, at first sight seem to roam aimlessly, or to be
determined simply by considerations of water and pasture. But those who
have lived with and studied them say that, though they have no maps,
each tribe, and even each particular family, has its own special route
and special camping-ground. Could these routes be mapped out, they
would present an interlaced pattern of lines crossing and recrossing
without any appreciable order; yet one family never interferes with
another family. This statement seems to me to be most interesting if
compared with the habits of birds that roam hither and thither
apparently without order or method, that come back in the spring to
particular places, and depart again after their young are reared.
Though to us they wander aimlessly, it is possible that from their point
of view they may be following strictly prescribed routes sanctioned by
immemorial custom.
And so itinerant labourers move about. In the particular district which
has been described their motions are roughly these:--In the early spring
they go up on the uplands, where there are many thousand acres of arable
land, for the hoeing. Then comes a short space of employment--haymaking
in the water-meadows that follow the course of the rivers there, and
which are cut very early. Next, they return down into the vale, where
the haymaking has then commenced. Just before it begins the Irish
arrive in small parties, coming all the way from their native land to
gather the high wages paid during the English harvest time. They show a
pleasing attachment to the employer who has once given them work and
treated them with a little kindness. To him they go first; and thus it
often happens that the same band of Irish return to the same farm year
after year as regularly as the cuckoo. They lodge in an open shed,
making a fire in the corner of the hedge where it is sheltered. They
are industrious, work well, drink little, and bear generally a good
character.
After the haymaking in the vale is finished, the itinerant families turn
towards the lighter soils, where the corn crops are fast ripening, and
soon leave the scene of their former labours fifty miles behind them. A
few perhaps straggle back in time to assist in the latter part of the
corn harvest on the heavy lands, if it has been delayed by the weather.
The physicians say that change of air is essential to health: the
migration of birds may not be without its effect upon their lives, quite
apart from the search for food alone.
The dry walls which sometimes enclose cornfields (built of flat stones)
are favourite places with many birds. The yellowhammers often alight on
them, so do the finches and larks; for the coarse mortar laid on the top
decays and is overgrown with mosses, so that it loses the hard
appearance of a wall. When the sparrow who has waited till you are
close to him suddenly starts, his wings, beating the air, make a sound
like the string of a bow pulled and released--to try it without an
arrow.
The dexterous way in which a bird helps itself to thistledown is
interesting to watch. The thistle has no branch on which he can perch;
he must take it on the wing. He flies straight to the head of the
thistle, stoops as it were, seizes the down, and passes on with it in
the bill to the nearest bough--much in the same way as some tribes of
horsemen are related to pick up a lance from the ground whilst going at
full speed.
Many birds twirl their `r's;' others lisp, as the nightingale, and
instead of `sweet' say `thweet, thweet' The finches call to each other,
`Kywee, kywee--tweo--thweet,' which, whatever may be its true
translation, has a peculiarly soothing effect on the ear. Swifts
usually fly at a great height, and, being scattered in the atmosphere,
do not appear numerous; but sometimes during a stiff gale they descend
and concentrate over an open field, there wheeling round and to and fro
only just above the grass. Then the ground looks quite black with them
as they dart over it: they exhibit no fear, but if you stand in the
midst come all round you so close that they might be knocked down with a
walking-stick if used quick enough. In the air they do not look large,
but when so near as this they are seen to be of considerable size. The
appearance of hundreds of these jet black, long-winged birds, flying
with marvellous rapidity and threading an inextricable maze almost, as
it were, under foot is very striking.
The proverbial present of a white elephant is paralleled in bird life by
the gift of the cuckoo's egg. The bird whose nest is chosen never
deserts the strange changeling, but seems to feel feeding the young
cuckoo to be a sacred duty, and sees its own young ejected and perishing
without apparent concern. My attention was called one spring to a
robin's nest made in a stubble rick; there chanced to be a slight hollow
in the side of the tick, and this had been enlarged. A cuckoo laid her
egg in the nest, and as it happened to be near some cowsheds it was
found and watched. When the young bird began to get fledged some sticks
were inserted in the rick so as to form a cage, that it might not
escape, and there the cuckoo grew to maturity and to full feather.
All the while the labour undergone by the robins in supplying the wide
throat of the cuckoo with food was something incredible. It was only
necessary to wait a very few minutes before one or other came, but the
voracious creature seemed never satisfied; he was bigger than both his
foster-parents put together, and they waited on him like slaves. It was
really distressing to see their unrewarded toil. Now, no argument will
ever convince me that the robin or the wagtail, or any other bird in
whose nest the cuckoo lays its egg, can ever confound the intruding
progeny with its own offspring. Irrespective of size, the plumage is so
different; and there is another reason why they must know the two apart:
the cuckoo as he grows larger begins to resemble the hawk, of which all
birds are well known to feel the greatest terror. They will pursue a
cuckoo exactly as they will a hawk.
I will not say that that is because they mistake it for a hawk, for the
longer I observe the more I am convinced that birds and animals often
act from causes quite distinct from those which at first sight appear
sufficient to account for their motions. But about the fact of the
lesser birds chasing the cuckoo there is no doubt. Are they
endeavouring to drive her away that she may not lay her egg in either of
their nests? In any case it is clear that birds do recognise the cuckoo
as something distinct from themselves, and therefore I will never
believe that the foster-parent for a moment supposes the young cuckoo to
be its own offspring.
To our eyes one young robin (meaning out of the nest--on the hedge) is
almost identical with another young robin; to our ears the querulous cry
of one for food is confusingly like that of another: yet the various
parent birds easily distinguish, recognise, and feed their own young.
Then to suppose that, with such powers of observation--with the keenness
of vision that can detect an insect or a worm moving in the grass from a
branch twenty feet or more above it, and detect it while to all
appearance engaged in watching your approach--to suppose that the robin
does not know that the cuckoo is not of its order is past credit. The
robin is much too intelligent. Why, then, does he feed the intruder?
There is something here approaching to the sentiment of humanity, as we
should call it, towards the fellow-creature.
The cuckoo remained in the cage for some time after it had attained
sufficient size to shift for itself, but the robins did not desert it:
they clearly understood that while thus confined it had no power of
obtaining food and must starve. Unfortunately, a cat at last discovered
the cuckoo, which was found on the ground dead but not eaten. The
robins came to the spot afterwards--not with food, but as if they missed
their charge.
The easy explanation of a blind instinct is not satisfactory to me. On
the other hand, the doctrine of heredity hardly explains the facts,
because how few birds' ancestors can have had experience in
cuckoo-rearing? There is no analogy with the cases of goats and other
animals suckling strange species; because in those instances there is
the motive--at all events in the beginning--of relief from the painful
pressure of the milk. But the robins had no such interested motive: all
their interests were to get rid of their visitor. May we not suppose,
then, that what was begun through the operation of hereditary instinct,
i.e., the feeding of the cuckoo, while still small and before the young
robins had been ejected, was continued from an affection that gradually
grew up for the helpless intruder? Higher sentiments than those usually
attributed to the birds and beasts of the field may, I think, be traced
in some of their actions.
To the number of those birds whose call is more or less apparently
ventriloquial the partridge may be added; for when they are assembling
in the evening at the roosting-place their calls in the stubble often
sound some way to the right or left of the real position of the bird,
which presently appears emerging from the turnips ten or fifteen yards
farther up than was judged by the ear. It is not really ventriloquial,
but caused by the rapid movements and by the circumstance of the bird
being out of sight.
We constantly hear that the area of pasture in England is extending, and
gradually overlapping arable lands; and the question suggests itself
whether this, if it continues, will not have some effect upon bird and
animal life by favouring those that like grass lands and diminishing
those that prefer the ploughed. On and near ploughed lands modern
agriculture endeavours to cut down trees and covers and grub up hedges,
not only on account of their shade and the injury done by their roots,
but because they are supposed to shelter sparrows and other birds. But
pasture and meadow are favourable to hedges, trees, and covers: wherever
there is much grass there is generally plenty of wood; and this again--
if hedges and small covers extend in a corresponding degree with
pasture--may affect bird life.
A young dog may be taught to hunt almost anything. Young pointers will
point birds' nests in hedges or trees, and discover them quicker than
any lad. If a dog is properly trained, of course this is not allowed;
but if not trained, after accompanying boys nesting once or twice they
will enter into the search with the greatest eagerness. Labourers
occasionally make caps of dog-skin, preserved with the hair on. Cats
not uncommonly put a paw into the gins set for rabbits or rats. The
sharp teeth break the bone of the leg, but if the cat is found and let
out she will often recover--running about on three legs till the injured
fore-foot drops off at the joint, when the stump heals up. Foxes are
sometimes seen running on three legs and a stump, having met with a
similar disaster. Cats contrive to climb some way up the perpendicular
sides of wheat ricks after the mice.
The sparrows are the best of gleaners: they leave very little grain in
the stubble. The women who go gleaning now make up their bundles in a
clumsy way. Now, the old gleaners used to tie up their bundles in a
clever manner, doubling the straw in so that it bound itself and enabled
them to carry a larger quantity. Even in so trifling a matter there are
two ways of doing it, but the ancient traditionary workmanship is dying
out. The sheaves of corn, when set up in the field leaning against each
other, bear a certain likeness to hands folded in prayer. By the side
of cornfields the wild parsnip sometimes grows in great profusion. If
dug up for curiosity the root has a strong odour, like the cultivated
vegetable, but is small and woody. Everyone who has gathered the
beautiful scarlet poppies must have noticed the perfect Maltese cross
formed inside the broad petals by the black markings.
Beetles fly in the evening with such carelessness as to strike against
people--they come against the face with quite a smart blow. Miserable
beetles may sometimes be seen eaten almost hollow within by in numerable
parasites. The labourers call those hairy caterpillars which curl in a
circle `Devil's rings'--a remnant of the old superstition that
attributed everything that looked strange to demoniacal agency.
There is a tendency to variation even in the common buttercup. Not long
since I saw one with a double flower; the petals of each were complete
and distinct, the two flowers being set back to back on the top of the
stalk. The stem of one of the bryonies withers up so completely that
the shrinkage, aided by a little wind, snaps it. Then a bunch of red
berries may be seen hanging from the lower boughs of a tree--a part of
the stem, twined round, remaining there--the berries look as if
belonging to the tree itself, the other part of the stem having fallen
to the ground.
In clay soils the ivy does not attain any large size; but where there is
some admixture of loam, or sand, it flourishes; I have seen ivy whose
main stem growing up the side of an oak was five inches in diameter, and
had some pretensions to be called timber. The bulrush, which is usually
associated with water, does not grow in a great many brooks and ponds;
in some districts it is even rare, and it requires a considerable search
to find a group of these handsome rushes. Water-lilies are equally
absent from certain districts. Elms do not seem to flourish near water;
they do not reach any size, and a white, unhealthy-looking sap exudes
from the trunk. Water seems, too, to check the growth of ash after it
has reached a moderate size. Does the May bloom, which is almost
proverbial for its sweetness, occasionally turn sour, as it were, before
a thunderstorm? Bushes covered with this flower certainly emit an
unpleasant smell sometimes quite distinct from the usual odour of the
May.
The hedge is so intensely English and so mixed up in all popular ideas
that it is no wonder it forms the basis of many proverbs and sayings--
such as, `The sun does not shine on both sides of the hedge at once,'
`rough as a hedge,' the verb `to hedge,' and so on. Has any attempt
ever been made to cultivate the earth-nut, pig-nut, or ground-nut, as it
is variously called, which the ploughboys search for and dig up with
their clasp-knives? It is found by the small slender stalk it sends up,
and insignificant white flower, and lies a few inches below the surface:
the ploughboys think much of it, and it seems just possible that
cultivation might improve it.
Rare birds do not afford much information as a rule--seen for a short
time only, it is difficult to discover much about them. I followed one
of the rarer woodpeckers one morning for a long time, but
notwithstanding all my care and trouble could not learn much of its
ways.
Even among cows there are some rudiments of government. Those who tend
them say that each cow in a herd has her master (or rather mistress),
whom she is obliged to yield precedence to, as in passing through a
gateway. If she shows any symptoms of rebellion the other attacks her
with her horns until she flies. A strange cow turned in among a herd is
at once attacked and beaten till she gets her proper place--finds her
level--when she is left in peace. The two cows, however, when they have
ascertained which is strongest, become good friends, and frequently lick
each other with their rough tongues, which seems to give them much
satisfaction.
Dogs running carelessly along beside the road frequently go sideways:
one shoulder somewhat in front of the other, which gives the animal the
appearance of being ever on the point of altering his course. The
longer axis of the body is not parallel to the course he is following.
Is this adopted for ease? Because, the moment the dog hears his master
whistle, and rushes forward hastily, the sidelong attitude disappears.