Chapter 8

After my long talk with the bird-catcher on June 24, and two more talks equally long on the two following days, I found that something of the charm the common had had for me was gone. It was not quite the same as formerly; even the sunshine had a something of conscious sadness in it which was like a shadow. Those merry little brown twitterers that frequently shot across the sky, looking small as insects in the wide blue expanse, and ever and anon dropped swiftly down like showers of aerolites, to lose themselves in the grass and herbage, or perch singing on the topmost dead twigs of a bush, now existed in constant imminent danger--not of that quick merciful destruction which Nature has for her weaklings, and for all that fail to reach her high standard; but of a worse fate, the prison life which is not Nature's ordinance, but one of the cunning larger Ape's abhorred inventions. Instead of taking my usual long strolls about the common I loitered once more in the village lanes and had my reward.

On the morning of June 27 I was out sauntering very indolently, thinking of nothing at all; for it was a surpassingly brilliant day, and the sunshine produced the effect of a warm, lucent, buoyant fluid, in which I seemed to float rather than walk--a celestial water, which, like the more ponderable and common sort, may sometimes be both felt and seen. The sensation of feeling it is somewhat similar to that experienced by a bather standing breast-deep in a dear, green, warm tropical sea, so charged with salt that it lifts him up; but to distinguish it with the eye, you must look away to a distance of some yards in an open unshaded place, when it will become visible as fine glinting lines, quivering and serpentining upwards, fountain-wise, from the surface. All at once I was startled by hearing the loud importunate hunger-call of a young cuckoo quite close to me. Moving softly up to the low hedge and peering over, I saw the bird perched on a long cross-stick, which had been put up in a cottage garden to hang clothes on; he was not more than three to four yards from me, a fine young cuckoo in perfect plumage, his barred under-surface facing me. Although seeing me as plainly as I saw him, he exhibited no fear, and did not stir. Why should he, since I had not come there to feed him, and, to his inexperienced avian mind, was only one of the huge terrestrial creatures of various forms, with horns and manes on their heads, that move heavily about in roads and pastures, and are nothing to birds? But his foster parent, a hedge-sparrow, was suspicious, and kept at some distance with food in her bill; then excited by his imperative note, she flitted shyly to him, and deposited a minute caterpillar in his great gaping yellow mouth. It was like dropping a bun into the monstrous mouth of the hippopotamus of the Zoological Gardens. But the hedge-sparrow was off and back again with a second morsel in a very few moments; and again and again she darted away in quest of food and returned successful, while the lazy, beautiful giant sat sunning himself on his cross-stick and hungrily cried for more.

This is one of those exceptional sights in nature which, however often seen, never become altogether familiar, never fail to re-excite the old feelings of wonder and admiration which were experienced on first witnessing them. I can safely say, I think, that no man has observed so many parasitical young birds (individuals) being fed by their foster-parents as myself, yet the interest such a sight inspired in me is just as fresh now as in boyhood. And probably in no parasitical species does the strangeness of the spectacle strike the mind so sharply as in this British bird, since the differences in size and colouring between the foster-parent and its false offspring are so much greater in its case. Here nature's unnaturalness in such an instinct--a close union of the beautiful and the monstrous--is seen in its extreme form. The hawk-like figure and markings of the cuckoo serve only to accentuate the disparity, which is perhaps greatest when the parent is the hedge-sparrow--so plainly-coloured a bird, so shy and secretive in its habits. One never ceases to be amazed at the blindness of the parental instinct in so intelligent a creature as a bird in a case of this kind. Some idea of how blind it is may be formed by imagining a case in widely separated types of our own species, which would be a parallel to that of the cuckoo and hedge-sparrow. Let us imagine that some malicious Arabian Night's genius had snatched up the infant male child of a Scandinavian couple--the largest of their nation; and flying away to Africa with it, to the heart of the great Aruwhimi forest had laid it on the breast of a little coffee-coloured, woolly-headed, spindle-shanked, pot-bellied, pigmy mother, taking away at the same time her own newly-born babe; that she had tenderly nursed the substituted child, and reared and protected it, ministering, according to her lights, to all its huge wants, until he had come to the fullness of his stature, yet never suspected, that the magnificent, ivory-limbed giant, with flowing yellow locks and cerulean eyes, was not the child of her own womb.

XI

Bright and genial were all the last days of June, when I loitered in the lanes before the unwished day of my return to London. During this quiet, pleasant time the greenfinch was perhaps more to me than any other songster. In the village itself, with the adjacent lanes and orchards, this pretty, seldom-silent bird was the most common species. The village was his metropolis, just as London is ours--and the sparrow's; its lanes were his streets, its hedges and elm trees his cottage rows and tall stately mansions and public buildings. . We frequently find the predominance of one species somewhat wearisome. Speaking for myself, there are songsters that are best appreciated when they are limited in numbers and keep their distance, but of the familiar, unambitious strains of swallow, robin, and wren I never tire, nor, during these days, could I have too much of the greenfinch, low as he ranks among British melodists. Tastes differ; that is a point on which we are all agreed, and every one of us, even the humblest, is permitted to have his own preferences. Still, after re-reading Wordsworth's lines to "The Green Linnet," it is curious, to say the least of it, to turn to some prosewriter--an authority on birds, perhaps--to find that this species, whose music so charmed the poet, has for its song a monotonous croak, which it repeats at short intervals for hours without the slightest variation--a dismal sound which harmonizes with no other sound in nature, and suggests nothing but heat and weariness, and is of all natural sounds the most irritating. To this writer, then--and there are others to keep him in countenance--the greenfinch as a vocalist ranks lower than the lowest. One can only wonder (and smile) at such extreme divergences. To my mind all natural sounds have, in some measure an exhilarating effect, and I cannot get rid of the notion that so it should be with every one of us; and when some particular sound, or series of sounds, that has more than this common character, and is distinctly pleasing, is spoken of as nothing but disagreeable, irritating, and the rest of it, I am inclined to think that there is something wrong with the person who thus describes it; that he is not exactly as nature would have had him, but that either during his independent life, or before it at some period of his prenatal existence, something must have happened to distune him. All this, I freely confess, may be nothing but fancy. In any case, the subject need not keep us longer from the greenfinch--that is to say, _my_ greenfinch not another man's.

From morning until evening all around and about the cottage, and out of 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.