Part 12

The robin (motacilla rubecola) associated with malignants is not, perhaps, in the place where it generally would be sought; but sad truths might be told of it too. It might be called pugnacious, jealous, selfish, quarrelsome, did I not respect ancient feelings, and long- established sentiments. A favorite by commiseration, it seeks an asylum with us; by supplication and importunity it becomes a partaker of our bounty in a season of severity and want; and its seeming humbleness and necessities obtain our pity: but it slights and forgets our kindnesses the moment it can provide for itself, and is away to its woods and its shades. Yet it has some little coaxing ways, and such fearless confidence, that it wins our regard; and its late autumnal song, in evening’s dusky hour, as a monologue is pleasing, and redeems much of its character. The universality of this bird in all places, and almost at all hours, is very remarkable; and perhaps there are few spots so lonely, in which it would not appear, did we commence digging up the ground. I have often been surprised in the midst of woods, where no suspicion of its presence existed, when watching some other creature, to see the robin inquisitively perched upon some naked spray near me; or, when digging up a plant in some very retired place, to observe its immediate descent upon some poor worm that I had moved. The robin loses nearly all the characteristic color from its breast in the summer, when it moults, and only recovers it on the approach of autumn; which in some measure accounts for the extraordinary assertion of Pliny, that the redbreast is only so in winter, but becomes a firetail in summer.

The object of the song of birds is not agreed upon by ornithologists, and we will not now think of it, but merely in passing note how singularly timed the song of the robin is. The blackbird, and the thrush, in mild seasons, will sing occasionally throughout the winter; but the robin, after having been absent all the summer, returns to us late in autumn, and then commences its song, when most others of our feathered choristers are silent. An apparent contention in harmony ensues among them; at length the rivals approach, menace, and fight, with a seeming vexation at each other’s prowess. The song of no one bird is, perhaps, more observed and remembered than the autumnal and, at times, melancholy sounding farewell of the robin.

The chaffinch (fringilla cœlebs) appears to be universally spread throughout the English counties, and the male bird is remarkable for the cleanliness and trimness of his plumage, which, without having any great variety or splendor of coloring, is so composed and arranged, and the white on his wings so brilliant, as to render him a very beautiful little creature. The female is as remarkable for the quiet, unobtrusive tintings of her dress; and, when she lies crouching on her nest, elegantly formed of lichens from the bark of the apple tree, and faded mosses, she would hardly be perceptible, but for her little bright eyes, that peep with suspicious vigilance from her covert. With us the sexes do not separate at any period of the year, the flocks frequenting our barn doors and homesteads in winter being composed of both. In the northern parts of Europe, however, the females are said to migrate to milder regions, which induced Linnæus to bestow the name of “cœlebs” upon this species. In Gloucestershire and some of the neighboring counties, they are little known by the name of chaffinches; but, from the constant repetition of one note, when alarmed or in danger, they have acquired the name of “twinks,” and “pinks;” yet during incubation the song of the male bird, though without any variation of tune, is very pleasing in the general concert, as most vernal notes, if not harsh and wearisome from monotony, are. These birds make sad havoc with some of our spring flowers; and the polyanthus, in March, in our sheltered borders, is very commonly stripped of all its blossoms by these little plunderers, I suppose to obtain the immature seeds at the base of their tubes. They will deflorate too the spikes or whorls of the little red archangel (lamium purpureum); and we see them feeding in the waste places where this plant is found in the spring, their little mouths being filled with the green seeds of this dead nettle. At this period too they are sad plunderers in our kitchen gardens, and most dexterously draw up our young turnips and radishes, as soon as they appear upon the surface of the soil; but after this all depredation ceases, the rest of their days being past in sportive innocence. I have observed these birds, in very hot seasons, to wet their eggs, by discharging moisture from their bills upon them, or at least perform an operation that appeared to be so.

We still continue here that very ancient custom of giving parish rewards for the destruction of various creatures included in the denomination of vermin. In former times it may have been found necessary to keep under or reduce the numbers of many predaceous animals, which in a thickly wooded country, with an inferior population, might have been productive of injury; and we even find parliamentary statutes enacted for this purpose: but now, however, our losses by such means have become a very petty grievance; our gamekeepers do their part in removing pests of this nature, and the plow and the ax leave little harbor for the few that escape; and thus we war on the smaller races of creation, and call them vermin. An item passed in one of our late church-wardens’ accounts was, “for seventeen dozen of tom-tits’ heads!” In what evil hour, and for what crime, this poor little bird (parus cæruleus) could have incurred the anathema of a parish, it is difficult to conjecture. I know hardly any small animal that lives a more precarious life than the little blue tom-tit. Indeed it is marvellous how any of the insectivorous birds, that pass their winter with us, are supplied with food during inclement seasons, unless they have greater powers of abstinence than we are aware of: but our small birds are generally much more active than those of a larger bulk; the common wren is all animation, its actions and movements bespeak hilarity and animal spirits; and that minute creature, too, the golden-crested wren, is always in motion, flitting from the yew hedge to the fir, or darting away to taller trees with a spring and a power we could not expect from its size. These muscular exertions must greatly counteract the effects of seasons, and enable these atoms of animals to support so cheerfully and gaily the winters of our climate. But in truth this tom-tit perishes in severe winters in great numbers. It roosts under the eaves of our haystacks, and in little holes of the mows, where we often find it dead, perished by cold or hunger, or conjointly by both; yet the race survives, and this annual waste is recruited by the prolificacy of the creature, the nest of which will frequently contain from seven to nine young ones. Its chief subsistence is insects, which it hunts out with unwearied perseverance. It peeps into the nail-holes of our walls, which, though closed by the cobweb, will not secrete the spider within; and draws out the chrysalis of the cabbage butterfly from the chinks in the barn: but a supply of such food is precarious, and becomes exhausted. It then resorts to our yards, and picks diminutive morsels from some rejected bone, or scraps from the butcher’s stall: yet this is the result of necessity, not choice; for no sooner is other food attainable, than it retires to its woods and thickets. In summer it certainly will regale itself with our garden pease, and shells a pod of marrowfats with great dexterity; but this, we believe, is the extent of its criminality. Yet for this venial indulgence do we proscribe it, rank it with vermin, and set a price upon its head, giving four-pence for the dozen, probably the ancient payment when the groat was a coin. However powerful the stimulus was then, we yet find it a sufficient inducement to our idle bat-fowling boys to bring baskets of poor toms’ heads to our church-warden’s door.

The wiles and stratagems of every creature are deserving of attention, because they are, for the most part, the impulse of the weak and feeble, instinctive efforts to preserve their own existence, or more generally to secure or defend that of their offspring. Few are able to effect these objects by bodily power; but all creatures probably exert a faculty of some kind, to ward off injury from their young, though not observed by, or manifested to us. This poor little blue tom-tit, which has neither beak, claws, nor any portion of strength to defend itself from the weakest assailant, will nevertheless make trial by menace to scare the intruder from its nest. It builds almost universally in the hole of a wall, or a tree; and its size enables it to creep through so small a crevice, that it is pretty well secured from all annoyances, but those of bird-nesting boys; and these little plunderers the sitting bird endeavors to scare away, by hissing and puffing in a very extraordinary manner from the bottom of the hole, as soon as a finger is introduced, and so perfectly unlike the usual voice of a bird, that many a young intruder is deterred from prosecuting any farther search, lest he should rouse the vengeance of some lurking snake or adder.

They who have seen much of birds, and attended to their actions, will in general be certain of the creature that flits past, by the manner of its flight; or that utters its note unseen by the peculiarity of voice; but the tribe of titmice[47] (parus), especially in the spring of the year, emit such a variety of sounds, that they will occasionally surprise and disappoint us. Hearing an unusual voice, and creeping with caution to observe the stranger from which it proceeds, we perceive only our old acquaintance, the large tom-tit (parus major), searching for food amid the lichens on the bough of an apple-tree. This bird, and that little dark species the “coal,” or “colemouse” (parus ater), in particular, will often acquire or compound a note, become delighted with it, and repeat it incessantly while sporting about the catkins of the alder, for an hour or so, then seem to forget or be weary of it, and we hear it no more.

Our tall hedge-rows and copses are frequented by a very amusing little bird, the long-tailed titmouse (parus caudatus). Our boys call it the long-tailed tom-tit, long tom, poke-pudding, and various other names. It seems the most restless of little creatures, and is all day long in a state of progression from tree to tree, from hedge to hedge, jerking through the air with its long tail like a ball of feathers, or threading the branches of a tree, several following each other in a little stream; the leading bird uttering a shrill cry of twĭt, twĭt, twĭt, and away they all scuttle to be first, stop for a second, and then are away again, observing the same order and precipitation the whole day long. The space travelled by these diminutive creatures in the course of their progresses from the first move till the evening roost must be considerable; yet, by their constant alacrity and animation, they appear fully equal to their daily task. We have no bird more remarkable for its family association than this parus. It is never seen alone, the young ones continuing to accompany each other from the period of their hatching until their pairing in spring. Its food is entirely insects, which it seeks among mosses and lichens, the very smallest being captured by the diminutive bill of this creature. Its nest is as singular in construction as the bird itself. Even in years long passed away, when, a nesting boy, I strung my plunder on the benty grass, it was my admiration; and I never see it now without secretly lauding the industry of these tiny architects. It is shaped like a bag, and externally fabricated of moss and different herbaceous lichens, collected chiefly from the sloe (lichen prunastri), and the maple (lichen farinaceus); but the inside contains such a profusion of feathers, that it seems rather filled than lined with them, a perfect feather-bed! I remember finding fourteen or sixteen pealike eggs within this downy covert, and many more were reported to have been found. The excessive labor of the parent birds in the construction and collection of this mass of materials is exceeded by none that I know of; and the exertions of two little creatures in providing for, and feeding, with all the incumbrances of feathers and tails, fourteen young ones, in such a situation, surpasses in diligence and ingenuity the efforts of any other birds, persevering as they are, that I am acquainted with.

We might naturally suppose that by the end of winter, all those little birds which are solely supported by insect food would find some difficulty in providing for their wants, having consumed by their numbers and exertions nearly all that store of provision which had been provided in the summer and deposited in safety; but I have found the stomachs of the tree-creeper, and this small titmouse, even in February, quite filled with parts of coleopterous creatures, which by their activity and perseverance they had been enabled to procure beneath the mosses on the branches, and from the chinks in the bark of trees, where they had retired in autumn. Such plenty being procurable after the supply of so many months, renders it apparent that there is no actual deficiency of food at any one period of the year. The small slugs, and some few insects, may perhaps be consumed by the severity of winter, but the larger portion of them are so constituted, as to derive no injury from the inclemency of that season, but afford during many months provender to other creatures, multitudes yet remaining to continue their races and animate the air, when the warm days of spring shall waken them to active life.

The construction and selected situations of the nests of birds are as remarkable, as the variety of materials employed in them; the same forms, places, and articles, being rarely, perhaps never, found united by the different species, which we should suppose similar necessities would direct to a uniform provision. Birds that build early in the spring seem to require warmth and shelter for their young, and the blackbird and the thrush line their nests with a plaster of loam, perfectly excluding, by these cottage-like walls, the keen icy gales of our opening year; yet should accident bereave the parents of their first hopes, they will construct another, even when summer is far advanced, upon the model of their first erection, and with the same precautions against severe weather, when all necessity for such provision has ceased, and the usual temperature of the season rather requiring coolness and a free circulation of air. The house-sparrow will commonly build four or five times in the year, and in a variety of situations, under the warm eaves of our houses and our sheds, the branch of the clustered fir, or the thick tall hedge that bounds our garden, &c.; in all which places, and without the least consideration of site or season, it will collect a great mass of straws and hay, and gather a profusion of feathers from the poultry-yard to line its nest. This cradle for its young, whether under our tiles in March or in July, when the parent bird is panting in the common heat of the atmosphere, has the same provision made to afford warmth to the brood; yet this is a bird that is little affected by any of the extremes of our climate. The wood-pigeon and the jay, though they erect their fabrics on the tall underwood in the open air, will construct them so slightly, and with such a scanty provision of materials, that they seem scarcely adequate to support their broods, and even their eggs may almost be seen through the loosely connected materials: but the goldfinch, that inimitable spinner, the Arachnè of the grove, forms its cradle of fine mosses and lichens, collected from the apple or the pear-tree, compact as a felt, lining it with the down of thistles besides, till it is as warm as any texture of the kind can be, and it becomes a model for beautiful construction. The golden- crested wren, a minute creature, perfectly unmindful of any severity in our winter, and which hatches its young in June, the warmer portion of our year, yet builds its most beautiful nest with the utmost attention to warmth; and, interweaving small branches of moss with the web of the spider, forms a closely compacted texture nearly an inch in thickness, lining it with such a profusion of feathers, that, sinking deep into this downy accumulation, it seems almost lost itself when sitting, and the young, when hatched, appear stifled with the warmth of their bedding and the heat of their apartment; while the whitethroat, the blackcap, and others, which will hatch their young nearly at the same period, or in July, will require nothing of the kind. A few loose bents and goose- grass, rudely entwined with perhaps the luxury of some scattered hairs, are perfectly sufficient for all the wants of these; yet they are birds that live only in genial temperatures, feel nothing of the icy gales that are natural to our pretty indigenous artists, but flit from sun to sun and we might suppose would require much warmth in our climate during the season of incubation; but it is not so. The green-finch places its nest in the hedge with little regard to concealment; its fabric is slovenly and rude, and the materials of the coarsest kinds: while the chaffinch, just above it in the elm, hides its nest with cautious care, and moulds it with the utmost attention to order, neatness, and form. One bird must have a hole in the ground; to another a crevice in a wall, or a chink in a tree, is indispensable. The bull-finch requires fine roots for its nest; the gray flycatcher will have cobwebs for the outworks of its shed. All the parus tribe, except the individual above- mentioned, select some hollow in a tree or cranny in a wall, and, sheltered as such places must be, yet will they collect abundance of feathers and warm materials for their infants’ beds. Endless examples might be found of the dissimilarity of requirements in these constructions among the several associates of our groves, our hedges, and our houses; and yet the supposition cannot be entertained for a moment that they are superfluous, or not essential for some purpose with which we are unacquainted.[48] By how many of the ordinations of supreme intelligence is our ignorance made manifest! Even the fabrication of the nests of these little animals exceeds our comprehension—we know none of the causes or motives of that unbodied mind that willed them thus.

One notice more of the parus tribe (the parus cæruleus), and these little creatures may retire to their leafy shades and be forgotten. I was lately exceedingly pleased in witnessing the maternal care and intelligence of this bird; for the poor thing had its young ones in the hole of a wall, and the nest had been nearly all drawn out of the crevice by the paw of a cat, and part of its brood devoured. In revisiting its family, the bird discovered a portion of it remaining, though wrapped up and hidden in the tangled moss and feathers of their bed, and it then drew the whole of the nest back into the place from whence it had been taken, unrolled and resettled the remaining little ones, fed them with the usual attentions, and finally succeeded in rearing them. The parents of even this reduced family labored with great perseverance to supply its wants, one or the other of them bringing a grub, caterpillar, or some insect, at intervals of less than a minute through the day, and probably in the earlier part of the morning more frequently; but if we allow that they brought food to the hole every minute for fourteen hours, and provided for their own wants also, it will admit of perhaps a thousand grubs a day for the requirements of one, and that a diminished brood; and give us some comprehension of the infinite number requisite for the summer nutriment of our soft-billed birds, and the great distances gone over by such as have young ones, in their numerous trips from hedge to tree in the hours specified, when they have full broods to support. A climate of moisture and temperature like ours is peculiarly favorable for the production of insect food, which would in some seasons be particularly injurious, were we not visited by such numbers of active little friends to consume it.

The raven (corvus corax) does not build with us. A pair indeed attempted to raise a brood in our wych elm; but they love retirement and quiet, and were soon scared away, and made no second trial. Ravens visit us, however, frequently, and always during the lambing season, watching for any weak and deserted creature, which, when perceived, is instantly deprived of its eyes; but they make no long stay in our pastures. They abide nowhere in fact, but move from place to place, where food may chance to be found. Should an animal die, or a limb of fresh carrion be on the hooks in the tree, the hoarse croak of the raven is sure immediately to be heard, calling his congeners to the banquet. We see it daily in its progress of inspection, or high in the air on a transit to other regions, hastening, we conjecture, to some distant prey. With the exception of the snipe, no bird seems more universally spread over the surface of our globe than the raven, inhabiting every zone, the hot, the temperate, the severe—feeding upon, and removing noxious substances from the earth, of which it obtains intimation by means of a faculty we have little conception of. Sight it cannot be; and we know not of any fetor escaping from an animal previous to putrescence, so subtile as to call these scavengers of nature from the extremity of one county to that of another; for it is manifest, from the height which they preserve in their flight, and the haste they are making, that their departure has been from some far distant station, having a remote and urgent object in contemplation.

In England the raven does not seem to abound; but it is most common on the shores of harbors, or near great rivers, where animal substances are more frequently to be met with than in inland places. In Greenland, and Iceland, where putrescent fishy substances abound, they appear to be almost domesticated. Horace calls the raven “_annosa cornix_;” and in a tame state it has attained a very long life. How long extended its existence may be, when roaming in an unrestricted state, we have no means of ascertaining. This liberty may be most favorable to longevity; yet, from the numerous contingencies attending the condition of these creatures, it is probable that few of them live out all their days, so as to become the “bird of ages.” However, the supposed longevity they have attained, their frequent mention and agency in holy writ, the obscure knowledge we possess of their powers and motives, with the gravity of their deportment, like an “all-knowing bird,” have acquired for them, from very remote periods, the veneration of mankind. The changes in our manners and ideas, in respect to many things, have certainly deprived them of much of this reverence; yet the almost supernatural information which they obtain of the decease, or approaching dissolution, of an animal, claims still some admiration for them. This supposed faculty of “smelling death” formerly rendered their presence, or even their voice, ominous to all, as

“The hateful messengers of heavy things, Of death and dolor telling;”