Part 13

and the unusual sound of their harsh croak, still, when illness is in the house, with some timid and affectionate persons, brings old fancies to remembrance, savoring of terror and alarm. I am no friend to the superstition of converting natural transactions, or occasional events, into signs and indications of coming things; superstitions are wearing out, and shortly will waste away, and be no more heard of; but I fear, in their place, deism, infidelity, impiety, have started up, the offspring of intuitive wisdom: the first belief arises from weakness and ignorance; the latter disbelief is ingratitude, pride, wickedness.

Of the natural duration of animal life it is, from many circumstances, difficult to form an accurate statement, the wild creatures being in great measure removed from observation, and those in a condition of domestication being seldom permitted to live as long as their bodily strength would allow. It was formerly supposed that the length of animal life was in proportion to its duration in utero, or the space it remained in the parent from conception to birth, and the length of time it required to obtain maturity. This notion might have some support in reason and fact, occasionally, but in many cases was incorrect, and in regard to birds had no foundation. Herbivorous animals probably live longer than carnivorous ones, vegetable food being most easily obtainable in all seasons in a regular and requisite supply; whereas animals that subsist on flesh, or by the capture of prey, are necessitated at one period to pine without food, and at another are gorged with superfluity: and when the bodily powers of rapacious creatures become impaired, existence is difficult to support, and gradually ceases; but with herbivorous animals in the same condition, supply is not equally precarious, or wholly denied. Yet it is probable that few animals in a perfectly wild state live to a natural extinction of life. In a state of domestication, the small number of carnivorous creatures about us are sheltered and fed with care, seldom are in want of proper food, and at times are permitted to await a gradual decay, continuing as long as nature permits; and by such attentions many have attained to a great age; but this is rather an artificial than a natural existence. Our herbivorous animals, being kept mostly for profit, are seldom allowed to remain beyond approaching age; and when its advances trench upon our emoluments by diminishing the supply of utility, we remove them. The uses of the horse, though time may reduce them, are often protracted; and our gratitude for past services, or interest in what remains, prompts us to support his life by prepared food of easy digestion, or requiring little mastication, and he certainly by such means attains to a longevity probably beyond the contingencies of nature. I have still a favorite pony—for she has been a faithful and able performer of all the duties required of her in my service for upwards of two-and-twenty years—and, though now above five-and-twenty years of age, retains all her powers perfectly, without any diminution or symptom of decrepitude; the fineness of limb, brilliancy of eye, and ardor of spirit, are those of the colt and though treated with no remarkable care, she has never been disabled by the illness of a day, or sickened by the drench of the farrier. With birds it is probably the same as with other creatures, and the eagle, the raven, the parrot, &c., in a domestic state attain great longevity; and though we suppose them naturally tenacious of life, yet, in a really wild state, they would probably expire before the period which they attain when under our attention and care. And this is much the case with man who probably outlives most other creatures; for though excess may often shorten, and disease or misfortune terminate his days, yet naturally he is a long- lived animal. His “threescore years and ten” are often prolonged by constitutional strength, and by the cares, the loves, the charities, of human nature. As the decay of his powers awakens solicitude, duty and affection increase their attentions, and the spark of life only expires when the material is exhausted.

That rare bird the crossbill (loxia curvirostra) occasionally visits the orchards in our neighborhood, coming in little parties to feed upon the seeds of the apple; and, seldom as it appears, is always noticed by the mischief it does to the fruit, by cutting it asunder with its well- constructed mandibles, in order to obtain the kernels. A native of those extensive pine forests in the neighborhood of the Rhine, it makes excursions into various parts of Europe in search of change of food; and, though several instances are recorded of its visits to our island, I know but one mention of its having bred in England. A pair was brought to me very early in August, and the breast of the female being nearly bare of feathers, as is observable in sitting birds, it is very probable that she had a nest in the neighborhood.

Gesner has called the common rook (corvus frugilegus) a corn-eating bird. Linnæus has somewhat lightened this epithet by considering it only as a gatherer of corn; to neither of which names do I believe it entitled, as it appears to live solely upon grubs, various insects, and worms. It has at times great difficulty to support its life, for in a dry spring or summer most of these are hidden in the earth beyond its reach, except at those uncertain periods when the grub of the chaffer is to be found; and in a hot day we see the poor birds perambulating the fields, and wandering by the sides of the highways, seeking for, and feeding upon grasshoppers, or any casual nourishment that may be found. At those times, was it not for its breakfast of dew-worms, which it catches in the gray of the morning, as it is appointed the earliest of risers, it would commonly be famished. In the hot summer of 1825, many of the young brood of the season perished from want; the mornings were without dew, and consequently few or no worms were to be obtained; and we found them dead under the trees, having expired on their roostings. It was particularly distressing, for no relief could be given, to hear the constant clamor and importunity of the young for food. The old birds seemed to suffer without complaint; but the wants of their offspring were expressed by the unceasing cry of hunger, and pursuit of the parents for supply, and our fields were scenes of daily restlessness and lament. Yet, amid all this distress, it was pleasing to observe the perseverance of the old birds in the endeavor to relieve their famishing families, as many of them remained out searching for food quite in the dusk, and returned to their roosts long after the usual period for retiring. In this extremity it becomes a plunderer, to which by inclination it is not much addicted, and resorts to our newly-set potato-fields, digging out the cuttings. Ranks are seen sadly defective, the result of its labors, I fear; and the request of my neighbors now and then for a bird from my rookery, to hang up _in terrorem_ in their fields, is confirmatory of its bad name. In autumn a ripe pear, or a walnut, becomes an irresistible temptation, and it will occasionally obtain a good share of these fruits. In hard frost, it is pinched again, visits for food the banks of streams, and in conjunction with its congener the “villain crow,” becomes a wayfaring bird, and seeks a dole from every passing steed. Its life, however, is not always dark and sombre: it has its periods of festivity also. When the waters retire from meadows and low lands, where they have remained any time, a luxurious banquet is provided for this corvus, in the multitude of worms which it finds drowned on them. But its jubilee is the season of the cockchaffer (melolantha vulgaris), when every little copse, every oak, becomes animated with it and all its noisy, joyful family feeding and scrambling for the insect food. The power or faculty, be it by the scent, or by other means, that rooks possess of discovering their food, is very remarkable. I have often observed them alight on a pasture of uniform verdure, and exhibiting no sensible appearance of withering or decay, and immediately commence stocking up the ground. Upon investigating the object of their operations, I have found many heads of plantains, the little autumnal dandelions, and other plants, drawn out of the ground and scattered about, their roots having been eaten off by a grub, leaving only a crown of leaves upon the surface. This grub beneath, in the earth, the rooks had detected in their flight, and descended to feed on it, first pulling up the plant which concealed it, and then drawing the larvæ from their holes. By what intimation this bird had discovered its hidden food we are at a loss to conjecture; but the rook has always been supposed to scent matters with great discrimination.

It is but simple justice to these often censured birds, to mention the service that they at times perform for us in our pasture lands. There is no plant that I endeavor to root out with more persistency in these places than the turfy hair-grass (aira cæspitosa). It abounds in all the colder parts of our grass lands, increasing greatly when undisturbed, and, worthless itself, overpowers its more valuable neighbors. The larger turfs we pretty well get rid of; but multitudes of small roots are so interwoven with the pasture herbage, that we cannot separate them without injury; and these our persevering rooks stock up for us in such quantities, that in some seasons the fields are strewed with the eradicated plants. The whole so torn up does not exclusively prove to be the hair-grass, but infinitely the larger portion consists of this injurious plant. The object of the bird in performing this service for us is to obtain the larvæ of several species of insects, underground feeders, that prey on the roots, as Linnæus long ago observed upon the subject of the little nard grass (nardus stricta). This benefit is partly a joint operation: the grub eats the root, but not often so effectually as to destroy the plant, which easily roots itself anew; but the rook finishes the affair by pulling it up to get at the larvæ, and thus prevents all vegetation; nor do I believe that the bird ever removes a specimen that has not already been eaten, or commenced upon, by the caterpillar.

The rook entices its young from the breeding trees, as soon as they can flutter to any other. These young, for a few evenings after their flight, will return with their parents, and roost where they were bred; but they soon quit their abode, and remain absent the whole of the summer months. As soon however as the heat of summer is subdued, and the air of autumn felt, they return and visit their forsaken habitations, and some few of them even commence the repair of their shattered nests; but this meeting is very differently conducted from that in the spring; their voices have now a mellowness approaching to musical, with little admixture of that harsh and noisy contention, so distracting at the former season, and seems more like a grave consultation upon future procedure; and as winter approaches they depart for some other place. The object of this meeting is unknown; nor are we aware that any other bird revisits the nest it has once forsaken. Domestic fowls, indeed, make use again of their old nests; but this is never, or only occasionally, done by birds in a wild state. The daw and rock-pigeon will build in society with their separate kindred: and the former even revisits in autumn the places it had nestled in. But such situations as these birds require, the ruined castle, abbey, or church tower, ledge in the rock, &c., are not universally found, and are apparently occupied from necessity. The rooks appear to associate from preference to society, as trees are common everywhere; but what motive they can have in view in lingering thus for a few autumnal mornings and counselling with each other around their abandoned and now useless nests, which before the return of spring are generally beaten from the trees, is by no means manifest to us.

The sense of smelling seems often to supply in animals the want of faculties they are not gifted with; and it is this power which directs them to their food with greater certainty, than the discernment of man could do. That we have every faculty given us necessary for the condition in which we are placed, is manifest; yet the mechanical talents and intuition of the insect, the powers that birds and beasts possess, and the superior acuteness of some of their senses, of which, perhaps, we have little conception, makes it evident that all created things were equally the objects of their Maker’s benevolence and care; the worm that creepeth, and the beast that perisheth, deserve our consideration, and claim from human reason mercy and compassion.

The tall tangled hedge-row, the fir grove, or the old, well-wooded inclosure, constitutes the delight of the magpie (corvus pica), as there alone its large and dark nest has any chance of escaping observation. We here annually deprive it of these asylums, and it leaves us; but it does not seem to be a bird that increases much anywhere. As it generally lays eight or ten eggs, and is a very wary and cunning creature, avoiding all appearance of danger, it might be supposed that it would yearly become more numerous. Upon particular occasions we see a few of them collect; but the general spread is diminished, and as population advances, the few that escape will retire from the haunts and persecutions of man. These birds will occasionally plunder the nests of some few others; and we find in early spring the eggs of our out-laying domestic fowls frequently dropped about, robbed of their contents. That the pie is a party concerned in these thefts, we cannot deny, but to the superior audacity of the crow we attribute our principal injury. However the magpie may feed on the eggs of others, it is particularly careful to guard its own nest from similar injuries by covering it with an impenetrable canopy of thorns, and is our only bird that uses such a precaution, securing it from all common depredation, though not from the hand of the bird-nesting boy. When a hatch is effected, the number of young demand a larger quantity of food than is easily obtained, and whole broods of our ducklings, whenever they stray from the yard, are conveyed to the nest. But still the “magot” is not an unuseful bird, as it frees our pastures of incredible numbers of grubs and slugs, which lodge themselves under the crusts formed by the dung of cattle. These the birds with their strong beaks turn over, and catch the lurking animals beneath, and then break them to search for more; by which means, during the winter they will spread the entire droppings in the fields; and by spring I have had, especially under the hedges, all this labor saved to me by these assiduous animals.

Natural affection, the love of offspring, is particularly manifested in birds; for in general they are timid and weak creatures, flying from apprehended dangers, and endowed with little or no power of defending themselves; but they will menace when injury is threatened to their brood, and incur dangers in order to obtain food for their young, that they will encounter in no other period of their lives.

The common jay (corvus glandarius) affords a good example of this temporary departure from general character. This bird is always extremely timid and cautious, when its own interest or safety is solely concerned; but no sooner does its hungry brood clamor for supply, than it loses all this wary character, and becomes a bold and impudent thief. At this period it will visit our gardens which it rarely approaches at other times, plunder them of every raspberry, cherry, or bean, that it can obtain; and will not cease from rapine as long as any of the brood or the crop remains. We see all the nestlings approach, and, settling near some meditated scene of plunder, quietly await a summons to commence. A parent bird from some tree surveys the ground, then descends upon the cherry, or into the rows, immediately announces a discovery by a low but particular call, and all the family flock in to the banquet, which having finished by repeated visits, the old birds return to the woods, with all their chattering children, and become the same wild, cautious creatures they were before. Some of our birds separate from their broods, as soon as they are able to provide for themselves; but the jay and its family associate during all the autumn and winter months, taking great delight in each other’s company, and only separate to become founders of new establishments. We see them in winter under the shelter of tall hedges, or on the sunny sides of woods and copses, seeking amid the dry leaves for acorns, or the crab, to pick out the seeds, or for the worms and grubs hidden under cowdung; feeding in perfect silence, yet so timid and watchful, that they seldom permit the sportsman to approach them. When disturbed, they take shelter in the depth of the thicket, calling to each other with a harsh and loud voice, that resounds through the covert. The Welsh call this creature “_screch y coed_,” the screamer of the wood. The jay is a very heavy, inelegant bird. Its general plumage is sober and plain, though its fine browns harmoniously blend with each other: but the beautiful blue-barred feathers, that form the greater coverts of the wings, distinguish it from every other bird, and, in the days when featherwork was in favor with our fair countrywomen, were in such request, that every gamekeeper, and schoolboy brother with his Christmas gun, persecuted the poor jay through all his retirements, to obtain his wings.

The great shrike, or butcher-bird (lanius excubitor), is not uncommon with us, and breeds annually near my dwelling. It is one of our late birds of passage, but its arrival is soon made known to us by its croaking, unmusical voice from the summit of some tree. Its nest is large and ill-concealed; and during the season of incubation the male bird is particularly vigilant and uneasy at any approach towards his sitting mate, though often by his clamorous anxiety he betrays it and her to every bird-nesting boy. The female, when the eggs are hatched, unites her vociferations with those of the male, and facilitates the detection of the brood. Both parents are very assiduous in their attentions to their offspring, feeding them long after they have left the nest; for the young appear to be heavy, inactive birds, and little able to capture the winged insects, that constitute their principal food. I could never observe that this bird destroyed others smaller than itself, or even fed upon flesh. I have hung up dead young birds, and even parts of them, near their nests; but never found that they were touched by the shrike. Yet it appears that it must be a butcher too; and that the name “_lanius_,” bestowed on it by Gesner two hundred and fifty years ago, was not lightly given. My neighbor’s gamekeeper kills it as a bird of prey; and tells me he has known it draw the weak young pheasants through the bars of the breeding coops; and others have assured me that they have killed them when banqueting on the carcass of some little bird they had captured. All small birds have an antipathy to the shrike, betray anger, and utter the moan of danger, when it approaches their nest. I have often heard this signal of distress, and, cautiously approaching to learn the cause, have frequently found that this butcher- bird occasioned it. They will mob, attack, and drive it away, as they do the owl, as if fully acquainted with its plundering propensities. Linnæus attached to it the trivial epithet “_excubitor_,” a sentinel; a very apposite appellation, as this bird seldom conceals itself in a bush, but sits perched upon some upper spray, or in an open situation, heedful of danger, or watching for its prey. This shrike must be most mischievously inclined, if not a predatory bird.—May 23d:—A pair of robins have young ones in a bank near my dwelling: the anxiety and vociferation of the poor things have three times this day called my attention to the cause of their distress, and each time have I seen this bird watching near the place, or stealing away upon my approach; and then the tumult of the parents subsided; but had they not experienced injury, or been aware that it was meditated, all this terror and outcry would not have been excited.

Many birds are arranged in our British ornithology not known as permanent inhabitants, but which have occasionally visited our shores during inclement seasons, or been driven from their general stations by tempestuous weather. An event like this, the violent gale of All-hallows eve, in 1824, brought to us the stormy petrel[49] (procellaria pelagica); a bird that resides far in the depths of the ocean, does not approach our shores, it is believed, except for the purposes of incubation, and we know only one place, the Isle of Sky, that it haunts even for this short period. It is a creature

——“that roams on her sea-wing, Unfatigued, and ever sleeps, Calm, upon the toiling deeps.”

It is a pretty good manifestation of the strength and extent of that hurricane, which could catch up a bird with a wing so powerful as to enable it to riot in the whirlwind and enjoy the storm, and bear it away irresistibly, perhaps, from the Atlantic waves, over such a space of land and ocean, and then dash it down on a rather elevated common in this parish, whence it was brought to me in a very perfect state. This little creature, scarcely as big again as a swallow, and the smallest of all our web-footed birds, has, like all the others of its genus, that extraordinary tube on its upper mandible, through which it spirts out an oily matter when irritated; but the real object of this singular provision seems unknown. Our seamen amuse themselves during the monotony of a voyage with the vagaries of “mother Carey’s chickens,” as they have from very early times called this bird. The petrels seem to repose in a common breeze, but upon the approach, or during the continuation, of a gale, they surround a ship, and catch up the small animals which the agitated ocean brings near the surface, or any food that may be dropped from the vessel. Whisking with the celerity of an arrow through the deep valleys of the abyss, and darting away over the foaming crest of some mountain wave, they attend the laboring bark in all her perilous course. When the storm subsides they retire to rest, and are no more seen. The presence of this petrel was thought in times past to predict a storm, and it was consequently looked upon as an unwelcome visitant.