Part 17

The tree-creeper (certhia familiaris) is as little observed as any common bird we possess. A retired inhabitant of woods and groves, and not in any manner conspicuous for voice or plumage, it passes its days with us, creating scarcely any notice or attention. Its small size, and the manner in which it procures its food, both tend to secrete him from sight. It feeds entirely on small insects, which it seeks between the crevices in the bark of trees, or under the mosses and lichens that invest their limbs. In these pursuits its actions are more like those of a mouse than of a bird, darting like a great moth from tree to tree, uttering a faint trilling sound as it fixes on their boles, running round them in a spiral direction, when with repeated wriggles having gained the summit, it darts to another, and commences again; and so intent is it on the object of pursuit, and unsuspicious of harm, that I have seen it swept from the tree with a stick. Mr. Pennant thinks that it retires into milder regions upon the advance of winter; but many certainly remain with us. In the early part of the spring, when food is comparatively scarce in the woods, it will frequent the mossy trees in our orchards and gardens; but after a very short examination of them, is away to its usual retirements, seeking no familiarity with us, notwithstanding the social epithet it has obtained. This little creature is observed in no great numbers; yet its actions and manners seem to be such as would tend to its increase. The female lays eight or nine eggs; it roosts securely in the holes of large trees; and from its manner of feeding, and the places it inhabits, it can scarcely be destroyed by birds of prey; yet, from some counteracting cause, our little certhia, instead of increasing, apparently becomes a scarcer bird. The limits that are appointed to the increase of all the inferior orders of creation are very worthy of remark. There may be periods when a great augmentation of individual species takes place; but this circumstance is local, or temporary, and future numbers do not result from it. Some motive for the increase, no doubt, existed; but, the object being accomplished, it ceases, and apparent events, or imperceptible causes, reduce the profusion of the race, so that certain numbers only continue. This little tree-creeper, though always active, seems to possess most animation and restlessness in the autumnal months.

The yellow wagtail (motacilla flava) is so regularly seen with us in his season, as to be quite a common bird, breeding in our fields; yet generally observed as he is, he always invites our attention, by his graceful form and brilliant plumage, either actively running in our path, or sporting in the pastures with that animation and ease so remarkable in all this family, that we may justly distinguish them as the gentles of our fields. With manners and habits similar to the common gray ones, yet there seems to be but little intimate association between the species; and though they are occasionally intermixed, we most commonly observe them feeding by themselves and frolicking with their own particular race. In autumn, when their broods are united with them, they assemble in large parties towards the evening preparatory to their nightly roost, selecting low spreading bushes hanging over the pool, or as near the water as they can, and thus become secured from capture by nocturnal vermin. Being in full beauty at this time, the fine yellow breasts of the male birds render them very conspicuous as they glance about the dry bents of the pasture. Autumn advancing, we lose these flights; but now and then a single bird will appear in one of those occasional bright sunny days that even winter will produce, looking like some deserted straggler who has lost its passage, or from some other cause remaining with us, chasing the gnat on the margin of the sheltered pool, and then, when the sunny ray passes away, he departs with it, is hidden we know not where, supported by means we are not acquainted with, till another partial gleam allures him from retirement. In April, the flights once more appear with all the fine feather and freshness of autumnal birds, running about the furrows in arable fields, and catching the insects disturbed by the plow in its progress. Soon building their nest, and attending their families, they become bleached by the sun and rain of the season, and remain shabby for weeks. Though they may follow the course of the swallow and other migrating birds, yet their peculiar manner of flight seems to preclude long-continued exertion; not sailing and poising in air like the hirundines and others, but proceeding by jerks, by risings and sinkings, which at every pause require muscular action to set them in progress anew, which for any length of time could hardly be continued. It is probable that their migrations are not very remote. The mode of life assigned to these creatures requires great activity of body; for living solely upon insects and winged animals, they are constantly capturing or pursuing; and their length of tail, which is perpetually in motion, seems to aid and balance the operations of the body. In the evening, when the winged creatures are at rest, or, from the state of the atmosphere, in repose, the wagtail resorts to the pastures, feeding under the very bodies and noses of the cattle, who now become the starters of his game, which, moving from the animal, are captured by the bird. Being drowsy, and settling almost as soon as disturbed, their prey would escape, was the wagtail less nimble in his actions—for he does not appear to perceive the insect, except when it moves. How differently formed is this bird and the gray flycatcher! Though both are solely insectivorous, yet they secure their prey by very distinct means, the latter seldom capturing on the ground or using his legs in pursuit; the other uses actively his slender legs and extended wings to aid him. The swallow race, again, feed unlike them both, and haunting the pool, the stream, the mead, or the higher regions of the air, which his fraternity possess as a peculiar domain, satisfy their wants in peace, without collision or contention for the object.

Admirably adapted to the requirements of each creature as their dispositions and institutions are known to be, yet their peculiar modes of dieting, or inclination for particular food, and formation of the organs that digest it, should not be utterly unheeded, because by these appointments of Omniscience, abundance is produced for every race of created things in all places, without variance or unfitting exertions to procure it. Could we unite into one district a human being from every square mile upon the surface of the globe, unshackled by bigotry or the tenets of any faith, they probably, without reluctance, having the means, might feed upon and be nourished by one natural diet—we will say the flesh of the ox, with potatoes or rice—but this is by no means the case with the inferior animals. Most of them, having different conformations and inclinations, are supported by variety of diet; by which means every station and place is made an abode, and maintains its inhabitants, for the “Creator hath opened his hand, and filled all things living with plenteousness.”

As a brief note, not a disquisition, upon the subject, is designed, we will pass over the habits and dispositions of beasts and insects, strongly charactered as they are, and only instance a few of our land birds, as affording the most familiar instances; and we shall find that it is not the genera only, but the individuals which compose them in many instances, that are supported by different aliment. And first, those birds which we denominate as Rapacious, such as falcons, hawks, owls, live upon animal food which they capture, kill, and devour; abstaining, unless stimulated by necessity, from creatures they may find dead. Then come the pies: of these, the raven and crow likewise eat animal food, but it is generally such as has been killed by violence or ceased to exist, only in cases of want[54] killing for themselves. The rook, the daw, the magpie, consume worms, grubs, and are not addicted, except from hunger, to eating other animal matters. The two first feed at times in society; the latter associates with neither, but feeds in places remote from such as are frequented by them. The jay too eats grubs and such things, but seeks them out under hedges, in coverts and places which others of his kind abandon to him. The cuckoo seems principally to live upon the eggs of birds with a few insects and larvæ occasionally; the wryneck upon emmets, from heaps under hedges near concealment—the woodpeckers upon insects found upon trees; and when they seek for the emmet, they prefer the antheaps of commons and open places;—the halcyon upon small fishes:—thus all these creatures, even when they require similar aliment, diet at their separate boards. Of the Gallinaceous birds, the wood-grouse is supported by the young shoots of the pine in his forests; but the black and red grouse live upon berries found on the moor, the seeds and tops of the heath; the partridge upon seeds in the field, blades of grass or of corn; the pheasant upon mast, acorns, berries from the hedge or the brake. The bustard is content to live upon worms alone, found in early morning upon downs and wide extended plains, where none dispute his right or compete with him, but one species of plover. The doves make their principal meals in open fields, upon green herbage and seeds. The stare again feeds upon worms and insects, but in places remote from the bustard, nor does he contend with the rook, or the daw, but takes his meat and is away.

The Passerine birds, indeed, are remarkably dissimilar in their manner of feeding. The missel-thrush will have berries from the mistletoe, or seeks for insects and slugs in wild and open places, the heath or the down. The song-thrush makes his meal from the snail on the bank, or worm from the paddock; but the blackbird, though associating with him, leaves the snails, contenting himself with worms from the hedge-side, or berries from the brier or the bush. The fieldfare consumes worms in the mead or haws from the hedge. The crossbill will have seeds from the apple, or cone of the fir—the green-finch, seeds from the uplands, or door of barn, or rick-yard. The bunting is peculiarly gifted with a bony knob in the roof of his bill, upon which he breaks down the hard seeds he is destined to feed upon. The bull-finch selects buds from trees and bushes. The goldfinch is nurtured by thistle seeds, or those of other syngenesious plants. Sparrows feed promiscuously. Linnets shell out seeds from the cherlock, or the rape, or the furze on the common. One lark will feed in the corn-fields, another in the mead, another in the woodlands—one titmouse upon insects frequenting the alder and willow; some upon those which are hidden under mosses, and lichens on large trees; a third upon coleopterous creatures, secreted in the hedge-row and the coppice. The gray wagtail finds food with us all the year; but the yellow one must seek it in other regions. The nightingale diets upon a peculiar grub, and when that is not found in the state he prefers, he departs. The domestic swallow feeds round our houses, or in the meadow; but the bank swallow never comes near us, chases his food beneath the crag, and along the stream. The swift prefers the higher ranges of the air, dieting upon the flies that mount into those regions. The goat- sucker does not notice the creatures of the day, capturing the moths and dorrs of the night. The wheatear feeds only upon such insects as he finds upon fallow lands, the down or the heath; and thus almost every individual might be characterized by some propensity of appetite, by some mode or place of feeding; and hence individuals are found as tenants of the homestead, the wild, the stream, the air, rock, down, and grove—in every place finding plenty, and fulfilling their destination without rivalry or contention: nor perhaps is there any race of creatures that associates more innocently, or passes their lives more free from bickering and strife, than these our land birds do, persevering, from period to period, with undeviating habits and propensities, manifesting an original appointment and fixed design of Providence, whose bounteous table, wherever we look around, is spread for all, and good things meted out to each by justice, weight, and measure.

I am neither inclined to seek after, nor desirous of detailing, the little annoyances that these wildings of nature, in their hard struggles for existence, may occasionally produce; being fully persuaded that the petty injuries we sometimes sustain from birds are at others fully compensated by their services. We too often, perhaps, notice the former, while the latter are remote, or not obtrusive. I was this day (Jan. 25) led to reflect upon the extensive injury that might be produced by the agency of a very insignificant instrument, in observing the operations of the common bunting (emberiza miliaris); a bird that seems to live principally, if not entirely, upon seeds, and has its mandibles constructed in a very peculiar manner, to aid this established appointment of its life. In the winter season it will frequent the stacks in the farm-yard, in company with others, to feed upon any corn that may be found scattered about; but, little inclined to any association with man, it prefers those situations which are most lonely and distant from the village. It could hardly be supposed that this bird, not larger than a lark, is capable of doing serious injury; yet I this morning witnessed a rick of barley, standing in a detached field, entirely stripped of its thatching, which this bunting effected by seizing the end of the straw, and deliberately drawing it out, to search for any grain the ear might yet contain; the base of the rick being entirely surrounded by the straw, one end resting on the ground, the other against the mow, as it slid down from the summit, and regularly placed as if by the hand; and so completely was the thatching pulled off, that the immediate removal of the corn became necessary. The sparrow and other birds burrow into the stack, and pilfer the corn; but the deliberate operation of unroofing the edifice appears to be the habit of this bunting alone.

Old simplicities, tokens of winds and weather, and the plain observances of rural life, are everywhere waning fast to decay. Some of them may have been fond conceits; but they accorded with the ordinary manners of the common people, and marked times, seasons, and things, with sufficient truth for those who had faith in them. Little as we retain of these obsolete fancies, we have not quite abandoned them all; and there are yet found among our peasants, a few who mark the blooming of the large white lily (lilium candidum), and think that the number of its blossoms on a stem will indicate the price of wheat by the bushel for the ensuing year, each blossom equivalent to a shilling. We expect a sunny day, too, when the pimpernel (anagallis arvensis) fully expands its blossoms; a dubious, or a moist one, when they are closed. In this belief, however, we have the sanction of some antiquity to support us; Sir F. Bacon records it; Gerarde notes it as a common opinion entertained by country people above two centuries ago; and I must not withhold my own faith in its veracity, but say that I believe this pretty little flower to afford more certain indication of dryness or moisture in the air, than any of our hygrometers do. But if these be fallible criterions, we will notice another, that seldom deceives us. The approach of a sleety snow-storm, following a deceitful gleam in spring, is always announced to us by the loud untuneful voice of the missel-thrush (turdus viscivorus), as it takes its stand on some tall tree, like an enchanter calling up the gale. It seems to have no song, no voice, but this harsh predictive note; and it in great measure ceases with the storms of spring. We hear it occasionally in autumn, but its voice is not then the prognostic of any change of weather. The missel- thrush is a wild and wary bird, keeping generally in open fields and commons, heaths, and unfrequented places, feeding upon worms and insects. In severe weather it approaches our plantations and shrubberies, to feed on the berry of the mistletoe, the ivy, or the scarlet fruit of the holly or the yew; and should the redwing or the fieldfare presume to partake of these with it, we are sure to hear its voice in clattering and contention with the intruders, until it drives them from the place, though it watches and attends, notwithstanding, to its own safety. In April it begins to prepare its nest. This is large and so openly placed, as would, if built in the copse, infallibly expose it to the plunder of the magpie and the crow, which at this season prey upon the eggs of every nest they can find. To avoid this evil, it resorts to our gardens and our orchards, seeking protection from man, near whose haunts those rapacious plunderers are careful of approaching; yet they will at times attempt to seize upon its eggs even there, when the thrush attacks them and drives them away with a hawklike fury; and the noisy warfare of the contending parties occasionally draws our attention to them. The call of the young birds to their parents for food is unusually disagreeable, and reminds us of the croak of a frog. The brood being reared, it becomes again a shy and wild creature, abandons our homesteads, and returns to its solitudes and heaths.

The extraordinary change of character which many creatures exhibit, from timidity to boldness and rage, from stupidity to art and stratagem, for the preservation of a helpless offspring, seems to be an established ordination of Providence, actuating in various degrees most of the races of animated beings; and we have few examples of this influencing principle more obvious than this of the missel bird, in which a creature addicted to solitude and shyness will abandon its haunts, and associate with those it fears, to preserve its offspring from an enemy more merciless and predaceous still. The love of offspring, one of the strongest impressions given to created beings, and inseparable from their nature, is ordained by the Almighty as the means of preservation under helplessness and want. Dependent, totally dependent as is the creature, for every thing that can contribute to existence and support, upon the great Creator of all things, so are new-born feebleness and blindness dependent upon the parent that produced them; and to the latter is given intensity of love, to overbalance the privations and sufferings required from it. This love, that changes the nature of the timid and gentle to boldness and fury, exposes the parent to injury and death, from which its wiles and cautions do not always secure it; and in man the avarice of possession will at times subdue his merciful and better feelings. Beautifully imbued with celestial justice and humanity as all the ordinations which the Israelites received in the wilderness were, there is nothing more impressive, nothing more accordant with the divinity of our nature, than the particular injunctions which were given in respect to showing mercy to the maternal creature cherishing its young, when by reason of its parental regard it might be placed in danger. The eggs, the offspring, were allowed to be taken; but “thou shalt in anywise let the dam go;” “thou shalt not, in one day, kill both an ewe and her young.” The ardent affection, the tenderness, with which I have filled the parent, is in no way to lead to its injury or destruction: and this is enforced, not by command only, not by the threat of punishment and privation, but by the assurance of temporal reward, by promise of the greatest blessings that can be found on earth, length of days and prosperity.

The jack snipe (scolopax gallinula) is with us here, as I have always known it, a transitory visitor in the winter only—a solitary, unsocial bird—an anchorite from choice. With the exception of our birds of prey, the manner of whose existing requires it, and a few others, all the feathered tribe seem to have a general tendency towards association, either in flocks, family parties, or pairs; but the individuals of this species pass a large portion of their lives retired and alone, two of them being rarely, or perhaps never, found in company, except in the breeding season. They are supposed to pair and raise their young in the deep marshy tracts or reedy districts of the fen counties, which afford concealment from every prying eye, and safety from all common injuries. Driven by the frosts of winter from these watery tracts, their summer’s covert, they separate, and seek for food in more favored situations, preferring a little, lonely, open spring, trickling from the side of a hill, tangled with grass and foliage, or some shallow, rushy streamlet in a retired valley. Having fixed on such a place, they seldom abandon it long, or quit it for another; and though roused from it, and fired at repeatedly through the day, neither the noise nor any sense of danger seems to alarm them; and, if we should seek for the little judcock on an ensuing morning, we find it at its spring again. The indifference with which it endures this daily persecution is amazing. It will afford amusement or vexation to the young sportsman throughout the whole Christmas vacation; and, from the smallness of its body, will finally often escape from all its diurnal dangers. The rail, and several other birds, confide for safety more in their legs than their wings, when disturbed; but this snipe makes little use of its feet, and takes to its wings with such reluctance, from an apparent indolence of disposition, that, could it be seen in the rushes, or tufts of herbage, where it hides, it might be captured by the hand. It leaves us early in the spring. Fond of concealment as this little bird usually is, yet there are times when it is infinitely less so than at others; and, I think, upon the relenting of a frost, or when there is a tendency to a thaw, it shows unusual alacrity, springs from its rushy drain almost as readily as the common snipe, and occasions, for the moment, a doubt of the species. The mandible of this species is of a weak and spongy nature.