Chapter 6

92. In which, you see, we have the reason for its being called 'water-blackbird,' being, I think, the only one of the dabchicks that really sings. Some of the others, (sand-pipers) pipe; and others, the stints, say 'stint' in a charming manner; but none of them _sing_ except the oiselle. Very singularly, the black-bodiced one seems to like living near manufactories. "The specimen in the Norwich Museum," says Mr. Gould, "is the one mentioned by Mr. Lubbock, in 1845, as 'lately' shot at Hellesdon Mills; and two others are stated by the same author to have been seen at different times by trustworthy observers at Marlingford and Saxthorpe. Of more recent occurrence I may mention a male in my own collection, which was brought to me in the flesh, having been shot in November, 1855, whilst hovering over the river between the foundry bridge and the ferry. It is not a little singular that a bird so accustomed to the clear running streams of the north, and the quiet haunts of the 'silent angler,' should be found, as in this case, almost within the walls of the city, sporting over a river turbid and discolored from the neighboring factories, and with the busy noise of traffic on every side. About the same time that this bird appeared near the city, three others were observed on more than one occasion on the Earlham river, by Mr. Fountaine, of Easton, who is well acquainted with our British birds; but these suddenly disappeared, and were not seen again."

And all will disappear, and never be seen again, but in skeleton, ill-covered with camphorated rags of skin, under the present scientific dispensation; unless some kind-hearted northern squire will let them have the run and the dip of his brooks; and teach the village children to let them alone if they like to wade down to the village.

I am sixty-two, and have passed as much time out of those years by torrent sides as most people. But I have never seen a water-ouzel alive.

II.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA. LILY-OUZEL.

93. We have got so far, by help of our first example, in the etymology of our entire class, as to rest in the easily memorable root 'dab,' short for dabble, as the foundation of comprehensive nomenclature. But the earlier (if not Aryan!) root 'dip,' must be taken good heed to, also, because, as we further study the customs of aquatic chickens, we shall find that they really mass themselves under the three great heads of 'Duckers,' birds that duck their heads only, and stick up their tails in the air;--'Dippers,' birds that take real dips under, but not far down, in shallow water mostly, for things at the bottom, or else to get out of harm's way, staying down about as long as we could ourselves, if we were used to it;--and 'Divers,' who plunge like stones when they choose,--can go nobody knows how deep in the deep sea,--and swim under the water just as comfortably as upon it, and as fast, if not faster.

But although this is clearly the practical and poetical division, we can't make it a scientific one; for the dippers and dabblers are so like each other that we must take them together; and so also the duckers and divers are inseparable in some of their forms: so that, for convenience of classing, we must keep to the still more general rank I have given--dabchick, duck, and gull,--the last being essentially the aerial sea-bird, which _lives_ on the wing.

94. But there is yet one more 'mode of motion' to be thought of, in the class we are now examining. Several of them ought really to be described, not as dipchicks, but as _trip_-chicks; being, as far as I can make out, little in the habit of going under water; but much in the habit of walking or tripping daintily over it, on such raft or float as they may find constructed for them by water-lily or other buoyant leaves. Of these "come and trip it as you come" chicks,--(my emendation of Milton is surely more reasonable than the emendations of commentators as a body, for we do not, any of us, like to see our mistresses "trip it as they _go_")--there are, I find, pictured by Mr. Gould, three 'species,' called by him, Porzana Minuta, Olivaceous Crake; Porzana Pygmæa, Baillon's Crake; and Porzana Maruetta, Spotted Crake.

Now, in the first place, I find 'Porzana' to be indeed Italian for 'water-hen,' but I can't find its derivation; and in the second place, these little birds are neither water-hens nor moor-hens, nor water-cocks nor moor-cocks; neither can I find, either in Gould, Yarrell, or Bewick, the slightest notice of their voices!--though it is only in implied depreciation of their quality, that we have any business to call them 'Crakes,' 'Croaks,' or 'Creaks.' In the third place, 'Olivaceous' is not a translation of 'Minuta,' nor 'Baillon's' of 'Pygmæa,' nor 'spotted' of 'Maruetta'; which last is another of the words that mean nothing in any language that I know of, though the French have adopted it as 'Marouette.' And in the fourth place, I can't make out any difference, either in text or picture, between Mr. Baillon's Crake, and the 'minute' one, except that the minute one is the bigger, and has fewer white marks in the center of the back.

95. For our purposes, therefore, I mean to call all the three varieties neither Crake nor Porzan, but 'Allegretta,' which will at once remind us of their motion; the larger one, nine inches long, I find called always Spotted Crake, so that shall be 'Allegretta Maculata,' Spotty Allegret; and the two little ones shall be, one, the Tiny Allegret, and the other the Starry Allegret (Allegretta Minuta, and Allegretta Stellaris); all the three varieties being generally thought of by the plain English name I have given at the head of this section, 'Lily-Ouzel' (see, in § 7, page 5, the explanation of my system of dual epithet, and its limitations. I note, briefly, what may be properly considered distinctive in the three kinds.)

II.A.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA, MACULATA. SPOTTED ALLEGRET.

96. Water-Crake or 'Skitty' of Bewick,--French, 'Poule d'eau Marouette,' (we may perhaps take Marouette as euphonious for Maculata, but I wish I knew what it meant);--though so light of foot, flies heavily; and, when compelled to take wing, merely passes over the tops of the reeds to some place of security a short distance off. (Gould.) The body is "in all these Rails _compressed_" (Yarrell,--he means laterally thin), which enables them to make their way through dense herbage with facility. I can't find anything clear about its country, except that it 'occasionally visits' Sweden in summer, and Smyrna in winter, and that it has been found in Corfu, Sicily, Crete,--Whittlesea Mere,--and Yarley Fen;--in marshes always, wherever it is; (nothing said of its behavior on ice,) and not generally found farther north than Cumberland. Its food is rather nasty--water-slugs and the like,--but it is itself as fat as an ortolan, "almost melts in the _hand_." (Gould.) Its own color, brown spotted with white; "the spots on the wing coverts surrounded with black, which gives them a studded or pearly appearance." (Bewick,--he means by 'pearly,' rounded or projecting.) Hence my specific epithet. Its young are of the liveliest black, "little balls of black glistening down," beautifully put by Mr. Gould among the white water Crowfoot (Ranunculus Aquatilis), looking like little ducklings in mourning. "Its nest is made of rushes and other buoyant materials matted together, so as to float on, and rise or fall with, the ebbing or flowing of the water like a boat; and to prevent its being carried away, it is moored or fastened to a reed." (Bewick.)

II.B.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA, STELLARIS. STARRY ALLEGRET.

97. Called 'Stellaris' by Temminck.--I do not find why, but it is by much the brightest in color of the three, and may be thought of as the star of them. Gould says it is the least, also, and calls it the 'Pigmy'; but we can't keep that name without confusing it with the 'Minuta.' 'Baillon's Crake' seems the most commonly accepted title,--as the worst possible. Both this, and the more quietly toned Tiny, in Mr. Gould's delightful plates of them, have softly brown backs, exquisitely ermined by black markings at the root of each feather, following into series of small waves, like little breakers on sand. They have lovely gray chemisettes, striped gray bodices, and green bills and feet; a little orange stain at the root of the green bill, and the bright red iris of the eye have wonderful effect in warming the color of the whole bird: and with beautiful fancy Mr. Gould has put the Stellaris among yellow water-lilies to set off its gray; and a yellow butterfly with blue and red spots, and black-speckled wings (Papilio Machaon), to harmonize both. It is just as if the flower were gradually turning into the bird. Examples of the Starry Allegret _have_ been 'obtained'--in the British Islands. It is said to be numerous, unobtained, in India, China, Japan, Persia, Greece, North Africa, Italy, and France. I have never heard of anybody's seeing it, however.

II.C.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHÆA, MINUTA. TINY ALLEGRET.

98. 'Tiny Allegret,'--Yarrell's 'Little Crake,' (but see names in Appendix). It is a little more rosy than 'Stellaris' in the gray of its neck, passing into brown; and Mr. Gould has put it with a pink water plant, which harmonizes with it to the bird's advantage; while the tiny creature stands on the bent leaf of a reed, and scarcely bends it more! "It runs with rapidity over broken reeds, and moves gracefully, raising and displaying its tail at every step." It has so very small a tail to display, however, that I should hardly think the display was worth while. "It is very cunning, and especially noticeable for the subtlety with which it wearies the dog of the sportsman by executing a thousand evolutions with surprising celerity; whence comes the trivial name of 'kill-dog' bestowed upon it in some localities. Pursued to extremity, it casts itself into the water, swims with ease, and dives at the moment its enemy is about to seize it; or it conceals itself in a tuft of reeds or a bush, and by this means often escapes with impunity. It loves to breed among the reeds, and in long and thick grass, frequently in small companies of its own species, or of the Stellaris. The female lays her eggs on an inartificially constructed platform of decayed leaves or stalks of marsh plants, slightly elevated above the water." How elevated, I cannot find proper account,--that is to say, whether it is hung to the stems of growing reeds, or built on hillocks of soil, but the bird is always liable to have its nest overflowed by floods. The full-grown bird is dressed in an exquisite perfection of barred bodice, spotted chemisette, and waved feathers edged with gray on the back.

99. The reader will please recollect these three Allegrets as the second group of the dab- or dabble-chicks; and, while the water-ouzel is a mountain and torrent bird, these inhabit exclusively flat lands and calm water, belonging properly to temperate, inclining to warm, climates, and able to gladden for us--as their name now given implies--many scenes and places otherwise little enlivened; and to make the very gnats of them profitable to us, were we wise enough. Dainty and delightful creatures in all their ways,--voice only dubitable, but I hope not a shriek or a squeak;--and there seems to be no reason whatever why half our fen lands should not be turned into beds of white water lilies and golden ducks, with jetty ducklings, to the great comfort of English souls.[22]

[22] Compare Bishop Stanley's account of the larger tropical 'Jacana,' p. 311. "One species is often tamed, and from its being a resolute enemy to birds of prey, the inhabitants of the countries where it is found" (which be they?) "rear it as a protector for their fowls, as it not only feeds with them, but accompanies them into the fields, and brings them back in the evening!"

III.

TREPIDA STAGNARUM. LITTLE GREBE.

100. The two birds--Torrent-ouzel, and Lily-ouzel,--which we have been just describing, agree, you will observe, in delicate and singular use of their feet in the water; the torrent-ouzel holding itself mysteriously at the bottom; and the lily-ouzel, less mysteriously, but as skillfully, on the top (for I forgot to note, respecting this raft-walking, that the bird, however light, must be always careful not to tread on the edges of leaves, but in the middle, or, rather, as nearly as may be where they are set on the stalk; it would go in at once if it trod on the edges). But both the birds have the foot which is really characteristic of land, not water-birds; and especially of those land species that run well. Of the real action of the toes, either in running, or hopping, nothing is told us by the anatomists--(compare lecture on Robin, § 26); but I hope before long to get at some of the facts respecting the greater flexibility of the gripping and climbing feet, and elasticity of running ones; and to draw up something like a properly graduated scale of the length of the toes in proportion to that of the body.

And, for one question, relative to this--the balance of a bird _standing_, not gripping--is to be thought of. Taking a typical profile of bird-form in its abstract, with beak, belly, and foot, horizontal (Fig. 12), the security of the standing, (supposing atomic weight equal through the bird's body, and the _will_, in the ankle, of iron,) is the same as of an inverted cone, between the dotted lines from the extremities of the foot to those of the body; and, of course, with a little grip of the foot or hind claw, the bird can be safe in almost any position it likes. Nevertheless, when the feet are as small in proportion as the Torrent-ouzel's, I greatly doubt the possibility of such a balance as Bewick has given it (Fig. 13 _a_). Gould's of the black-bodiced Ouzel (Fig. 13 _b_) is, I imagine, right. Bewick was infallible in plume texture, and expression either of the features of animals, or of any action that had meaning in it; but he was singularly careless of indifferent points in geometry or perspective; and even loses character in his water-birds, by making them always swim on the top of the water.

101. But, whatever their balance of body, or use of foot, the two birds just examined are, as I said, essentially connected with the running land birds, or broadly, the Plovers; and with the Sand-runners, or (from their cry) Sandpipers, which Mr. Gould evidently associates mentally with the Plovers, in his description of the plumage of the Dunlin; while he gives to them in his plates of that bird--the little Stint, and common Sandpiper--most subtle action with their fine feet,--thread-fine, almost, in the toes; requiring us, it seems to me, to consider them as entirely land-birds, however fond of the wave margins. But the next real water-ouzel we come to, belongs to a group with feet like little horse-chestnut leaves; each toe having its separate lobes of web. Why separated, I cannot yet make out, but the bird swims, or even dives, on occasion, with dexterity and force. These lobe-footed birds consist first of the Grebes, which are connected with fresh-water ducks; and, secondly, of the Phalaropes, which are a sort of sea-gulls. No bird which is not properly web-footed has any business to think itself either true duck or true gull; but as, both in size and habit of life, the larger grebes and phalaropes are entirely aquatic and marine, I shall take out of them into my class of dabchicks, only those which are literally dabblers in habit, and chickens in size. And of the Grebes, therefore, only the one commonly known as the Dabchick, the 'Little Grebe,' 'Colymbus Minutus' (Minute Diver), of Linnæus. A summary word or two, first, respecting the Grebe family, will be useful.

102. Grebe, properly, I suppose, Grèbe, from the French, is not in Johnson, nor do any of my books tell me what it means. I retain it, however, as being short, not ugly, and well established in two languages. We may think of it as formed from gré, and meaning 'a nice bird.' The specialities of the whole class, easily remembered, are, first, that they have chestnut-leaf feet; secondly, that their legs are serrated behind with a double row of notches--(why?); thirdly, that they have no tails; fourthly, that they have, most of them, very fine and very comic crests, tufts, tippets, and other variously applied appendages to their heads and chins, so that some are called 'crested,' some 'eared,' some 'tippeted,' and so on; but the least of them, our proper Dabchick, displays no absurdity of this sort, and I have the less scruple in distinguishing it from others. I find, further, in Stanley's classes, the Grebes placed among the short-winged birds, and made to include all the divers; but he does not say how short their wings are; and his grouping them with guillemots and puffins is entirely absurd, all their ways and looks, and abodes, being those of ducks. We can say no more of them as a family, accordingly, until we know what a duck is;--and I go on to the little pet of them, whose ways are more entirely its own.

103. Strangely, the most interesting fact (if _fact_ it be) that it builds a floating nest, gains scarcely more than chance notice from its historians. Here is Mr. Gould's account of it: "The materials composing this raft or nest are weeds and aquatic plants carefully heaped together in a rounded form; it is very large at the base, and is so constantly added to, that a considerable portion of it becomes submerged; at the same time it is sufficiently buoyant to admit of its saucer-like hollow top being always above the surface. In this wet depression five or six eggs are laid. The bird, always most alert, is still more so now, and scarcely ever admits of a near examination of the nest-making, or of a view of the eggs. In favorable situations, however, and with the aid of a telescope, the process may be watched; and it is not a little interesting to notice with what remarkable quickness the dabchick scratches the weeds over her eggs with her feet, when she perceives herself observed, so as not to lead even to the suspicion that any were deposited on the ill-shapen floating mass. This work of an instant displays as much skill in deception as can well be imagined."

104. It is still left to question, first, what is meant by a wet depression?--does the bird actually sit in the water, and are the eggs under it? and, if not, how is the water kept out? Secondly, is the floating nest anchored, and how? Looking to other ornithologists for solution of these particulars, I find nobody else say anything about a floating nest at all. Bewick describes it as being of a large size, and composed of a very great quantity of grass and water plants, at least a foot in thickness, and so placed in the water that the female hatches her eggs amidst the continual wet in which they were first laid. Yarrell says only that it is a large flat nest made of aquatic plants; while Morris finally complicates the whole business by telling us that the nest is placed often as much as twenty or thirty yards from the water, that it is composed of short pieces of roots, reeds, rushes, and flags, and that when dry the whole naturally becomes very brittle.[23]

[23] I hear, from a friend in whose statements I have absolute confidence, that he has found the eggs of the water-hen laid on a dead sycamore leaf by the side of a shallow stream, one of the many brooks near Uxbridge.

105. While, out of my fifteen volumes of ornithology, I can obtain only this very vague account of the prettiest bird, next to the kingfisher, that haunts our English rivers, I have no doubt the most precise and accurate accounts are obtainable of the shapes of her bones and the sinuosities of her larynx; but about these I am low-minded enough not to feel the slightest curiosity. I return to Mr. Gould, therefore, to gather some pleasanter particulars; first, namely, that she has a winter and summer dress,--in winter olive gray and white, but in summer, (changing at marriage time) deep olive black, with dark chestnut chemisette. Infant dabchicks have "delicate rose-colored bills, harlequin-like markings, and rosy-white aprons." The harlequin-like markings I should call, rather, agate-like, especially on the head, where they are black and white, like an onyx. The bodies look more like a little walnut-shell, or nutmeg with wings to it, or things that are to be wings, some day.

106. Even when full-grown, the birds never fly much,--never more, says Morris, "than six or ten feet above the water, and for the most part trailing their legs in it; but either on the water or under it, every movement is characterized by the most consummate dexterity, and facile agility. The most expert waterman that sculls his skiff on the Thames or Isis, is but an humble and unskillful imitator of the dabchick. In moving straightforward (under water?), the wings are used to aid its progress, as if in the air, and in turning it has an easy gliding motion, feet and wings being used, as occasion requires, sometimes on one side and sometimes on the other. It walks but indifferently, as may readily be imagined from the position of the legs, so very far back. It is pleasant to watch the parent bird feeding her young: down she dives with a quick turn, and presently rises again with, five times out of six, a minnow, or other little fish, glittering like silver in her bill. The young rush towards the spot where the mother has come up, but she does not drop the fish into the water for them to receive until she has well shaken it about and killed it, so that it may not escape, when for the last time in its own element. I have seen a young one which had just seized, out of its turn I have no doubt, the captured prey, chased away by her, and pursued in apparent anger, as if for punishment, the following one being willingly given the next fish without any demur."

107. Mr. Gould seems to think that the dabchick likes insects and fish spawn better than fish, or at least more prudently dines upon them. "That fish are taken we have positive evidence from examples having been repeatedly picked up dead by the fishermen of the Thames, with a bull-head or miller's thumb in their throats, and by which they had evidently been choked in the act of swallowing them. That it is especially fond of insects is shown by the great activity it displays, when in captivity, in capturing house-flies and other diptera. Those who have visited Paris will probably have seen the grebes in the window of the restaurateur in the Rue de Rivoli. For years have a pair of these birds been living, apparently in the greatest enjoyment, within the glass window, attracting the admiration of all the passers-by. The extreme agility with which they sailed round their little prison, or scrambled over the half-submerged piece of rock for a fly, was very remarkable. That no bird can be more easily kept in a state of confinement is certain."

108. This question about its food is closely connected with that of its diving. So far as I understand Mr. Morris, it dives only when disturbed, and to escape,--remaining under water, however, if need be, an almost incredible time, and swimming underneath it to great distances. Here we have, if we would only think of it, the same question as that about the water-ouzel, how it _keeps down_; and we must now note a few general points about diving birds altogether.