BOOK II.

INHABITANTS OF THE AIR.

§ I. RAPTORES. _Diurnal Birds of Prey._

“But who the various nations can declare, That plough with busy wing the peopled air? These cleave the crumbling bark for insect food, Those dip the crooked beak in kindred blood: Some haunt the rushy moor, the lonely woods; Some bathe their silver plumage in the floods; Some fly to man, his household gods implore, And gather round his hospitable door, Wait the known call, and find protection there From all the lesser tyrants of the air. The tawny Eagle seats his callow brood High on the cliff, and feasts his young with blood.” BARBAULD.

THE GOLDEN EAGLE is one of the largest and most powerful of all those birds that have received the name of Eagle. It weighs above twelve pounds. Its length, from the point of the beak to the end of the tail, is about three feet; the breadth, when the wings are extended, is seven or eight feet. The beak is horny, crooked, and very strong. The feathers of the neck are of a rusty colour, and the rest dark brown. The feet are feathered down to the claws, which have a wonderful grasp; the toes are yellow, and the four talons are crooked and strong. As in all birds of prey, the female is the larger, and more powerful.

Eagles are remarkable for their longevity, and their faculty of sustaining a long abstinence from food. Of all birds the Eagle flies highest; and from thence the ancients have given it the epithet of the _Bird of Heaven_:

“Bird of the broad and sweeping wing, Thy home is high in heaven, Where wide the storms their banners fling, And the tempest’s clouds are driven. Thy throne is on the mountain top, Thy fields the boundless air; And hoary peaks, that proudly prop The skies, thy dwellings are.”

This formidable bird may be considered among its own species what the lion is among quadrupeds; and in many respects they have a strong similitude to each other. Solitary, like the lion, he keeps the wilds to himself alone; it is as extraordinary to see two pairs of Eagles in the same mountain, as two lions in the same plain.

The Eagle is found in Great Britain and Ireland, in Germany, and nearly all parts of Europe. It is carnivorous, and, when unable to obtain the flesh of larger animals, feeds on serpents and lizards. The story of the Eagle, brought to the ground after a severe conflict with a cat, which it had seized and taken up into the air with its talons, is very remarkable; Mr. Barlow, who was an eye-witness of the fact, made a drawing of it, which he afterwards engraved. Two instances are said to have occurred in Scotland of the Eagle having flown away with infants to its nest; but in both cases it is added that the children were recovered, without being materially injured. This bird has been often tamed, but in this situation it still preserves an innate love of liberty. The nest of the Eagle is composed of strong sticks, and generally built on the point of an inaccessible rock, whence it darts upon its prey with the rapidity of lightning. The period of incubation is said to be thirty days; and when the young are hatched, both the male and female exert all their industry to provide for their wants. In the county of Kerry a peasant is said once to have formed the resolution of plundering an Eagle’s nest built upon a small island in the beautiful lake of Killarney. He accordingly swam to the island while the parents were away; and, after robbing the nest of the young, was preparing to swim back with the Eaglets tied in a string; but while he was yet up to the chin in the water, the old Eagles returned, and, missing their family, fell upon the invader with such fury, that, in spite of all his resistance, they despatched him with their beaks and talons.

Another native of Kerry was more fortunate in his dealings with the Eagles. During a season of scarcity he obtained sustenance for himself and his family by plundering an Eagle’s nest of the food brought in by the parents for their young ones: and he was so artful as to prolong the supply by cutting the wings of the Eaglets so as to prevent their flying, and thus compelled the old birds to continue their attention to their progeny.

THIS bird, known also as the White-tailed Eagle, from the inside feathers of its tail being white, differs from the golden eagle in the greater length of its beak, in its sluggish and cowardly habits, and in its coarser taste. It is a native of Great Britain, where it inhabits the high rocks and cliffs that overhang the sea, and whence it pounces on the birds, fish, or seals that it can procure for its prey. It is smaller than the golden eagle, rarely reaching three feet in length; and in young birds the tail feathers are brown.

THIS bird is about three feet long, and seven feet broad, measuring to the tips of the extended wings. The bill resembles that of the golden eagle, and from the chin hang some small hairy feathers like a beard. As it is found alike in the frigid and the torrid zone, it is provided for enduring rapid changes of temperature, and its whole body is clothed under the feathers with a kind of down, white and soft like that of the swan. This bird builds its nest on lofty cliffs by the sea-shore, and on the banks of rivers or lakes, and feeds almost entirely upon fish.

It is generally regarded by the Anglo-Americans with peculiar respect, as the chosen emblem of their native land. The great cataract of Niagara is mentioned as one of its favourite places of resort, not merely as a fishing station, where it is enabled to satiate its hunger upon its most congenial food, but also in consequence of the vast quantity of four-footed beasts, which, unwarily venturing into the stream above, are borne away by the torrent, and precipitated down those tremendous falls:

“High o’er the watery uproar silent seen, Sailing sedate in majesty serene, Now ’midst the pillar’d spray sublimely lost, And now emerging, down the rapids toss’d, Glides the Bald Eagle, gazing calm and slow O’er all the horrors of the scene below; Intent alone to sate himself with blood, From the torn victim of the raging flood.”

The number of birds of prey of various kinds which assemble at the foot of the rocks to glut themselves upon the banquet thus provided for them, is said to be incredibly great, but they are all compelled to give place to the Eagle when he deigns to feed on dead animals; and the crow and the vulture submit without a struggle to the exercise of that tyranny, which they know it would be in vain to resist. “We have ourselves,” says Wilson, “seen the Bald Eagle, while seated on the dead carcase of a horse, keep a whole flock of vultures at a respectful distance, until he had fully sated his own appetite:” and he adds another instance, in which many thousands of tree squirrels having been drowned, in one of their migrations, in attempting to pass the Ohio, and having furnished for some length of time a rich banquet to the vultures, the sudden appearance among them of the Bald Eagle at once put a stop to their festivities, and drove them to a distance from their prey, of which the Eagle kept sole possession for several successive days.

These Eagles sometimes hunt in pairs in a manner which shows their great sagacity. Aware that water-fowl have the power of eluding their grasp by diving, they hover at a distance from each other over their prey. One of them then darts towards it with great swiftness, but the water-fowl easily avoids the first attack by diving. The pursuer then rises into the air, and his mate resumes the attack just as the fowl is emerging to breathe, and compels it to plunge again. The Eagles continue alternately to proceed in this manner till their victim is so exhausted that it falls an easy prey.

This Eagle also frequently attacks the Osprey or Fish Hawk, when he is returning from a successful excursion loaded with a large fish, and compels him to drop his prey; the Eagle then descends with wonderful rapidity, and generally succeeds in seizing the fish before it reaches the water.

“True to the season, o’er our sea-beat shore The sailing Osprey high is seen to soar With broad unmoving wing; and circling slow, Marks each loose straggler in the deep below; Sweeps down like lightning, plunges with a roar, And bears its struggling victim to the shore.”

THIS bird is always found on the sea-shore, or near rivers or lakes, as it feeds entirely on fish. It is common in Great Britain, and also in America, where large colonies of it are found, the birds living together like rooks. “When looking out for its prey,” says Dr. Richardson, “it sails with great ease and elegance, in undulating and curved lines, at a considerable height above the water, till it perceives its prey, when it pounces down upon it. It seizes the fish with its claws, sometimes scarcely appearing to dip its feet in the water, and at others plunging entirely under the surface with force sufficient to throw up a considerable spray. It emerges again, however, so speedily, as to render it evident that it does not attack fish swimming at any great depth.” The toes are armed beneath with numerous sharp points, evidently intended to assist the bird in getting a firm hold of its slippery prey.

The Osprey builds a large nest either on trees or rocks, and lays two or three eggs, which have a reddish tinge, and are spotted with brown at the larger end. The old birds feed the young ones even after they have left the nest, and only rear one brood in the year.

SOME ornithologists suppose this to be merely the golden eagle in its young state, but others make it a distinct species. It is about twice as large as the raven. The parts about the beak and the eye are bare of feathers, and somewhat reddish; the head, neck, and breast black; in the middle of the back, between the shoulders, there is a large white spot, dashed with red; a black streak sweeps along the feathers, and is followed by a white one; the remaining part of the wing to the tip is of a dark ash-colour. This bird has beautiful hazel eyes, full of animation: his legs are feathered down a little below the tarsal joint, the naked part being red; his talons are very long. He is found in France, Germany, Poland, and delights in Alpine mountains, where he makes the vales and woods resound with his incessant screamings when in search of prey.

The Abbé Spallanzani had an eagle of this species, so powerful as to be able to kill dogs that were much larger than itself. When a dog was placed before it, the bird would ruffle up the feathers on its head and neck, cast a dreadful look at its victim, take a short flight, and immediately alight on its back. It held the head firmly with one foot, and thus secured the dog from biting, and with the other grasped one of his flanks, at the same time driving its talons into the body; and in this attitude it continued, till the dog expired with fruitless outcries and efforts.

The eyes of eagles are celebrated for their brilliancy and strength, which has given rise to the popular opinion that they can gaze on the sun without shrinking: though this, from the overhanging eyebrow of the Eagle, would be an extremely difficult feat for the bird to perform. The eyes of all birds are curiously constructed, so as to enable them to see both distant objects and near ones with equal facility; and for this purpose they are furnished with a membrane placed near the edge of the crystalline lens of the eye, by which it can be moved at pleasure. The orbit of the eye is formed of about twelve or sixteen bony plates, which slide over each other when necessary. Birds are also furnished with an additional eyelid, of extremely thin texture, with which they occasionally appear to shade their eyes.

THE VULTURE. (_Vultur Monachus._)

THE first rank in the description of birds has been given to the eagle, not on account of its size, but because it is nobler in its habits and more delicate in its appetites. But it belongs to the falcon tribe, and should be placed after the Vultures. The eagle, unless pressed by famine, will not stoop to carrion; and generally devours only what he has earned by his own pursuit. The Vulture, on the contrary, is disgustingly voracious; and seldom attacks living animals when it can be supplied with dead. The eagle meets and singly opposes his enemy: the Vulture, if he expects resistance, calls in the aid of its kind, and overpowers its prey by combination. Putrefaction, instead of deterring, only serves to allure it. The Vulture seems among birds what the jackal and hyæna are among quadrupeds, who prey upon carcases, and root up the dead.

Vultures may be easily distinguished from eagles by the nakedness of their heads and necks, which are without feathers, and only covered with a very slight down, or a few scattered hairs; their eyes are more prominent; those of the eagle being buried more in the socket, and shaded by an overhanging eyebrow. Their claws are shorter and less hooked. The inside of the wing is covered with a thick down, which is different in them from all other birds of prey. Their attitude is not so upright as that of the eagle, and their flight is more difficult and heavy.

In this description we may include the Golden, the Ash-coloured, and the Brown Vulture, which are inhabitants of Europe; the Spotted and the Black Vulture of Egypt; the Bearded Vulture, the Brazilian Vulture and the King of the Vultures, of South America. They all agree in their nature, being equally indolent, rapacious, and unclean. The Condor also belongs to the Vulture tribe.

THE KING VULTURE, or King of the Vultures, is so called, because when he makes his appearance amongst a whole company of other birds of his kind engaged in a feast upon a dead carcase, they all retire before him and wait respectfully at a little distance until this monarch has eaten his fill. He is an inhabitant of South America.

The head and neck of this bird are without feathers; the body above, reddish buff, beneath, yellowish white: quills greenish black; tail black; craw pendulous, and orange-coloured. It is about the size of a turkey; and is chiefly remarkable for the odd formation of the skin of the head and neck; this skin, which is of an orange colour, arises from the base of the bill, whence it stretches on each side of the head; the eyes are surrounded by a red skin, and the iris has the colour and lustre of pearl. Upon the naked part of the neck is a collar formed by soft longish feathers. Into this collar the bird sometimes withdraws his whole neck, and sometimes a part of its head, so that it looks as if it had hidden its neck in its body.

THIS bird measures three or four feet long, and its wings, when expanded, from ten to twelve feet. Its bill and talons are exceedingly large and strong; and its courage is equal to its strength. The throat is naked, and of a red colour. The upper parts in some individuals (for they differ greatly in colour) are variegated with black, gray, and white, and the body is scarlet. Round the neck it has a white ruff of loose hairy feathers. The feathers on the back are generally quite black, and perfectly bright. These enormous birds, which are inhabitants of South America, breed among the highest and most inaccessible rocks. The female makes no nest, but lays two white eggs, somewhat bigger than those of a turkey, on the bare rock. Some writers have affirmed that a Condor can carry off a sheep in its claws, and others that it has carried off children in the same manner; but these tales are manifestly absurd, as the Condor’s feet and talons are not fitted for carrying any great weight. Both the talons and the bill are indeed of extraordinary strength, but they are intended for tearing objects to pieces; and consequently we find that the Condor feeds chiefly on dead or dying cattle, or horses, which he tears to pieces and devours where they lie. When the Condor is gorged the hunters attack him, but his strength and fierceness are so great, that one of Sir Francis Head’s companions, who attempted to seize a gorged Condor, said he never had “such a battle in his life;” though he had been a Cornish miner and was reckoned an excellent wrestler in his own country.

“The noble Buzzard ever pleased me best; Of small renown, ’t is true; for, not to lie, We call him but a Hawk by courtesy.” HIND AND PANTHER.

_This_ is a rapacious bird, of the hawk kind, and the most common of all in England. It is of a sluggish, indolent nature, often remaining perched on the same bough for the greater part of the day: as if, indifferent either to the allurements of food or of pleasure, it were doomed, like some of the human species, to pass its allotted span of life in passive contemplation. It feeds on mice, rabbits, frogs, and often on all sorts of carrion. Too idle to build itself a nest, it frequently seizes upon the old habitation of a crow, which it lines afresh with wool and other soft materials. In general this bird, whose colour varies considerably, is brown varied with yellow specks; at a certain age its head becomes entirely gray. The female generally lays two or three eggs, which are mostly white, though sometimes spotted with yellow. Its length is usually twenty-two inches, and its breadth upwards of fifty.

The following anecdote, related by Buffon, will show that the Buzzard may be so far tamed as to be rendered a faithful domestic. A Buzzard, which had been caught in a snare, was brought to a gentleman, who undertook to tame it. It was at first wild and ferocious, but by depriving it of food he succeeded in constraining it to come and eat out of his hand. By pursuing this plan he brought it to be very familiar; and, after having shut it up about six weeks, he began to allow it a little liberty, taking the precaution, however, to tie both pinions of its wings. In this condition it walked out into his garden, and returned when called to be fed; after some time, thinking he might trust to its fidelity, he removed the ligatures, and fastened a small bell above its talon, and also attached to its breast a bit of copper with his name engraved on it. He then gave it entire liberty, which it soon abused; for it took wing and flew into the forest of Belesme. The bird was given up for lost; but four hours afterwards, it rushed into the gentleman’s hall, pursued by five other Buzzards, which had driven it into its former asylum. After this adventure it preserved its fidelity, coming every night to sleep under the window. It soon became familiar, attended constantly at dinner, sat on a corner of the table, and often caressed its master with its head and bill, emitting a weak, sharp cry, which, however, it sometimes softened. It had a singular propensity of seizing from the head and flying away with the red caps of the peasants; and so alert was it in whipping them off, that they found their heads bare without knowing what was become of their caps; it even treated the wigsof the old men in the same way, hiding its booty in the tallest trees.

Wilson says that one he shot in the wing lived with him several weeks: but refused to eat. It amused itself by hopping from one end of the room to the other, and sitting for hours at the window, looking down on the passengers below. At first, he put himself in an attitude of defence when approached; but after some time became quite familiar, permitting himself to be handled. Though he lived so long without food, his stomach was found on dissection to be enveloped in solid fat of nearly an inch in thickness.

THIS Buzzard eats lizards, frogs, and snails. It also feeds upon the larvæ of bees and wasps, which form the chief food of the young birds. Buffon says that in winter, when fat, it is good eating, a very rare circumstance with birds of this genus. It seldom flies, excepting from one bush to another; but, when on the ground, it runs with great rapidity, like a domestic fowl.

Willoughby observes that it builds its nest with twigs, on which it lays wool to receive its eggs. He saw one that took possession of an old kite’s nest to breed in, and that fed its young with the larvæ of wasps, for in the nest were found the combs of wasps’ nests, and, in the stomachs of the young, fragments of wasp-maggots. In the nest were two young ones, covered with white down, spotted with black. In the crop of one of them were two lizards entire, with their heads lying towards the mouth, as if they sought to creep out.

It would be highly interesting could we discover the manner in which this bird conducts its attack on a wasps’ nest. The close feathering round the base of the bill, is, no doubt, a protection against the stings of the insects which they attack.

BREEDS in lofty trees in Scotland, and destroys a great quantity of small game, which he seizes with his sharp and crooked talons, and carries to his nest. He is of the hawk tribe, and somewhat larger than the common buzzard; his bill is blue, and he has a white stripe over each eye, and also a large white spot on each side of the neck. The general colour of the plumage is deep brown; the breast and belly white, transversely streaked with black; and the legs yellow. Buffon, who brought up two young Goshawks, a male and a female, makes the following observations: “The Goshawk, before it has shed its feathers, that is, in the first year, is marked on the breast and belly with longitudinal brown spots; but after it has had two moultings they disappear, and their place is occupied by transverse bars, which continue during the rest of its life.” He further observes that, “though the male was much smaller than the female, it was fiercer and more vicious.” The Goshawk is found in France and Germany; it is not common in England, but is more so in Scotland. In former times the custom of carrying a Hawk or Falcon on the hand was confined to men of high distinction; so that it was a saying among the Welsh, “You may know a gentleman by his Hawk, horse, and greyhound.” Even the ladies in those times were partakers of this gallant sport, and have been represented in pictures with Hawks on their hands. At present hawking is almost entirely laid aside in this country, as the expense which attended it, being very considerable, confined it to princes and men of the highest rank. In the time of James the First, Sir Thomas Monson is said to have given a thousand pounds for a cast of Hawks. In the reign of Edward the Third it was made felony to steal a Hawk; to take its eggs, even in a person’s own grounds, was punishable with imprisonment for a year and a day, together with a fine at the king’s pleasure. Such was the delight our ancestors took in this royal sport, and such were the means by which they endeavoured to secure it. The Falcons, or Hawks, chiefly used in these kingdoms were the Goshawk, the Peregrine Falcon, Iceland Falcon, and the Ger Falcon. The game usually pursued were cranes, wild geese, pheasants, and partridges. The Duke of St. Albans is still hereditary grand falconer of England, but the office is not now exercised, except for the Duke’s own amusement.

THE SPARROWHAWK is a bold-spirited bird; the length of the male is twelve inches, that of the female fifteen; the beak is short, crooked, and of a bluish tint, but very black towards the tip; the tongue black, and a little cleft; the eyes of a middling size. The crown of the head is of a dark brown; above the eyes, in the hinder part of the head, there are sometimes white feathers; the roots of the feathers of the head and neck are white, the rest of the upper side, back, shoulders, wings, and neck of a dark brown. The wings, when closed, scarcely reach to the middle of the tail; the thighs are strong and fleshy, the legs long, slender, and yellow; the toes also long, and the talons black. The female lays about five eggs, spotted near the blunt end with brown specks. When wild they feed only upon birds, and possess a boldness and courage above their size; but in a domestic state they do not refuse raw flesh and mice. They can be made obedient and docile, and readily trained to hunt quails and partridges.

THIS bird, though it belongs to the falcon tribe, is called ignoble, because it is never used in hawking. It is easily distinguished from other birds of prey by its forked tail, and the slow and circular eddies it describes in the air whenever it spies from the regions of the clouds a young duck or a chicken which has strayed too far from the brood. When this is the case, the Kite, pouncing on it with the rapidity of a dart, seizes it in its talons, and carries it off to its nest. It is, however, a great coward, and if the hen flies at it, which she always does if she sees it, it will drop the chicken and fly off. It is larger than the common buzzard; and though it weighs somewhat less than three pounds, the extent of its wings is more than five feet. The head and neck are of a pale ash colour, varied with longitudinal lines across the shafts of the feathers; the back is reddish; the lesser rows of the wing feathers are party-coloured, of black, red, and white; the feathers covering the inside of the wings are red, with black spots in the middle. The eyes are large, the legs and feet yellow, the talons black. It is a handsome bird, and seems almost always on the wing. It rests itself on the air, and does not appear to make the smallest effort in flying, but rather to glide along with the gentlest breeze.

THE FALCON is a predaceous bird, of which there are several species. Of these the _Gerfalcon_ (_Falco Gyrfalco_) is the largest, and is found in the northern parts of Europe; and, next to the eagle, is the most formidable, active, and intrepid of all voracious birds, and the most esteemed for falconry. The bill is crooked and bluish; the irides of the eye dusky; and the whole plumage of a whitish hue, marked with dark lines on the breast, and dusky spots on the back.

THE PEREGRINE FALCON, which is the most common kind, is from fifteen to eighteen inches in length. The bill is blue at the base, and black at the point; the head, back, scapulars, and coverts of the wing are barred with deep black and blue; the throat, neck, and upper part of the breast are white, tinged with yellow; the bottom of the breast, belly, and thighs are of a grayish white; and the tail is black and blue. Wilson enumerates no less than ten varieties, dependent chiefly upon age, sex, and country. It is found, more or less abundantly, throughout the whole of Europe, principally in the mountain districts in North and South America, dwelling in the clefts of rocks, especially such as are exposed to the mid-day sun. It breeds upon the cliffs in several parts of England, but appears to be more common in Scotland and Wales. Its food consists principally of small birds; but it scruples not to attack the larger species, and sometimes gives battle even to the kite. Falcons rarely take their prey upon the ground, like the more ignoble birds of the class to which they belong; but pounce upon it from aloft, in a directly perpendicular descent as it flies through the air, bear it downwards by the united impulse of the strength and rapidity of their attack, and sticking their talons into its flesh, carry it off in triumph to the place of their retreat. Like most predatory animals, they are stimulated to action by the pressure of hunger alone, and remain inactive and almost motionless while the process of digestion is going on, until the renewed cravings of their appetite stimulate them to further exertion. In different stages of its growth, the Peregrine Falcon has been known by various English names. Its proper appellation among falconers is the Slight Falcon, the term Falcon Gentle being equally applicable to all the species when rendered manageable. In the immature state, this Falcon is also called a Red Hawk, from the prevailing colour of its plumage. The male is called a Tiercel, to distinguish it from the female, which, in the Falcon tribe, is commonly one-third larger than the male.

In China there is said to be a variety, which is mottled with brown and yellow, and used by the emperor of China in his sporting excursions, when he is usually attended by his great falconer, and a thousand of inferior rank. Every bird has a silver plate fastened to its foot, with the name of the falconer who has the charge of it, that, in case it should be lost, it may be restored to the proper person; but if it should not be found, the name is delivered to another officer, called the guardian of lost birds, who, to make his situation known, erects his standard in a conspicuous place among the army of hunters.

In Syria there is a species of Falcon, which the inhabitants call Shaheen (_Falco peregrinator_), and which is of so fierce and courageous a disposition, that it will attack any bird, however large or powerful, which presents itself. “Were there not,” says Dr. Russel, in his Account of Aleppo, “several gentlemen now in England to bear witness to the fact, I should hardly venture to assert that, with this bird, which is about the size of a pigeon, the inhabitants sometimes take large eagles. This Hawk was in former times taught to seize the eagle under the pinion, and thus depriving him of the use of one wing, both birds fell to the ground together; but the present mode is to teach the Hawk to fix on the back, between the wings, which has the same effect, only, that as the bird tumbles down more slowly, the falconer has more time to come to his Hawk’s assistance; but in either case, if he be not very expeditious, the falcon is inevitably destroyed. I never saw the Shaheen fly at eagles, that sport having been disused before my time; but I have often seen him take herons and storks. The Hawk, when thrown off, flies for some time in a horizontal line, not six feet from the ground; then mounting perpendicularly, with astonishing swiftness, he seizes his prey under the wing, and both together come tumbling to the ground.”

IS the smallest British species of the Falcon tribe, and, as its name implies, is not very different in size from the blackbird; the word Merlin signifying in French a small _merle_, or blackbird. Though small the Merlin is not inferior in courage to any of the other Hawks; it is noted for its boldness and spirit, often attacking and killing at one stroke a full-grown partridge or a quail; but it differs from the Falcons and all the other rapacious kinds, in the male and female being of equal size. The back of this bird is party-coloured, of dark blue and brown; the quill feathers of the wings black, with rusty spots; the tail is about five inches long, of a dark brown or blackish colour, with transverse white bars: the breast is of a yellowish white, with streaks of rusty brown pointing downwards; the legs are long, slender, and yellow; the talons black. The head is encircled with a row of yellowish feathers, not unlike a coronet. In the male the feathers on the rump, next the tail, are bluer; a mark by which the falconers easily discern the sex of the bird. The Merlin does not breed here, but visits us in October: it flies low, and with great celerity and ease. In the days of falconry, the Merlin was considered the lady’s hawk.

In ancient days--in ancient days, When ladies took a strange delight In hawks and hounds and sporting ways, A Merlin was a pleasant sight.

“’T was gentle when, in trappings gay, Upon its lady’s wrist it stood; Till its hood was raised and it saw its prey, When its eye betrayed the bird of blood.”

IS the commonest of all the British Hawks, and may be seen in almost all parts of the country hovering over the fields in search of mice and other small animals. His flight is very peculiar. He advances only for a short distance at a time, and then suspends himself in the air by very short but quick movements of his wings. If no prey make its appearance beneath him, he then goes on a little further, and again remains stationary, but the moment a mouse or other small quadruped stirs amongst the grass, his wings close, and he descends with the greatest velocity. The Kestrel will also feed upon small birds and insects.

The Kestrel is a handsome little Hawk, from twelve to fifteen inches in length, with a blue beak and yellow cere and feet. Its plumage is reddish brown or fawn colour, elegantly marked with black spots and bars. Its nest is built among rocks, or in the holes and corners of old buildings and church towers, and the female lays four or five eggs, which are reddish white, with brown spots.

THIS singular bird, which is a native of Southern Africa, differs from all the other predaceous birds in the great length of its legs, which are so long that some naturalists have placed it among the Wading Birds. It stands between three and four feet high when erect, and is of a bluish ash colour on the back and nearly white beneath; its tail is long, and has the two middle feathers much longer than the others and nearly reaching to the ground; and the back of the head is adorned with a tuft of black feathers, which the bird can raise at pleasure. It is from this tuft that the bird has obtained his name; the Dutch colonists of the Cape of Good Hope fancied they saw some resemblance in it to the pen of a clerk stuck behind his ear, and accordingly called him the Secretary Bird. Clerks and secretaries are no doubt useful personages in their way, and the Secretary Bird, although he cannot take his pen from behind his ear, finds abundance of work to do, although of a kind very different from the peaceful labours of his namesakes. He is the great destroyer of the snakes and other reptiles which swarm in many parts of Southern Africa, and which, but for him, would increase in numbers so as to become a positive nuisance. And here we may call our young readers to admire the wonderful manner in which the structure of a hawk has been modified by the hand of the Creator to suit it for a particular mode of life. As the bird advances to attack a snake his long legs, protected by hard horny scales, elevate his body to a considerable height above the ground, thus giving him an advantageous position, and at the same time enabling it to move with great speed. One of the large and powerful wings, armed at the end with a strong spur, is raised a little from the body and held forward like a shield, but constantly shaken, as if to distract the attention of the foe, and thus, like a skilful boxer sparring up to his antagonist, the Secretary makes his way towards his intended prey. As he approaches he watches for the moment when the snake is about to spring upon him; a single blow from the spurred wing is usually sufficient to lay the reptile writhing in the ground in a helpless state; it is then soon despatched and as speedily swallowed. Some idea of the quantity of reptiles destroyed by this bird may be gained from Le Vaillant’s statement, that the crop of one of them examined by him contained eleven lizards, three snakes as long as aman’s arm, and eleven small tortoises, together with a good many insects. The inhabitants of the Cape Colony are quite aware of the services rendered to them by the Secretary Bird, and sometimes keep him among their poultry to protect them from injurious animals; he is said to behave with great propriety under these circumstances, rarely doing any mischief to his companions, unless his supply of food has been neglected.

IS seen about forests, heaths, and other retired places, especially in the neighbourhood of marshy grounds, where it destroys vast numbers of snipes, woodcocks, and wild ducks. It is about seventeen inches long, and three feet wide; its bill is black, and cere yellow. The upper part of its body is of a bluish gray; and the back of the head, breast, belly, and thighs are white. The legs are long, slender, and yellow; and the claws black.

§ II.--_Nocturnal Birds of Prey._

IS one of the largest of the Owls, and has two long tufts growing from the top of its head, above its ears, and composed of six feathers, which it can raise or lay down at pleasure. Its eyes are large, and encircled with an orange-coloured iris; the ears are large and deep, and the beak black; the breast, belly, and thighs, are of a dull yellow, marked with brown streaks; the back, coverts of the wings, and quill feathers, are brown and yellow; and the tail is marked with dusky and red bars. It inhabits the north and west of England, and Wales. The conformation of the organ of sight in the Owl is so peculiar, and so much in its nature resembling that of the feline kind, that it can see much better at dusk than by daylight. The Barn Owl sees in a greater degree of darkness than the others; and, on the contrary, the Horned Owl is enabled to pursue his prey by day, though with difficulty. Owls are sometimes tamed by persons in the country, who carefully rear them in a domestic state, from their propensity to chase and devour mice and other vermin, of which they clear the houses with as much address as cats. The Owl is a solitary bird, and is said to retire into holes in towers and old walls in the winter, and pass that season in sleep.

“The solitary bird of night, Through the pale shade now wings his flight, And quits the time-shook tower; Where, shelter’d from the blaze of day, In philosophic gloom he lay, Beneath his ivy bower.” CARTER.

THE HARFANG, or GREAT SNOWY OWL, (_Surnia nyctea_,) is another species which takes its prey occasionally by daylight. It is seldom seen in England, but frequently visits North Britain, particularly the Orkney and Shetland Islands. It is one of the few Owls that feed on fish, into which it strikes its talons while in the water, and carries them off to its nest. These Owls are very common in the northern parts of North America, and are eaten not only by the Indians, but by the Europeans engaged in the fur trade.

“---- from yonder ivy-mantled tower, The moping Owl does to the moon complain Of such as, wandering near her secret bower, Molest her ancient solitary reign.” GRAY.

THIS bird is about the size of a large pigeon. Its beak, hooked at the end, is more than an inch and a half long. There is a circle or wreath of white, soft, and downy feathers, encompassed with yellow ones, beginning from the nostrils on each side, passing round the eye and under the chin, somewhat resembling the hood that women used to wear; so that the eyes appear to be sunk in the middle of the feathers, and only the tip of the beak projects from them. The breast and feathers of the inside of the wings are white, and marked with a few dark spots; the upper parts of the body are of a fine pale yellow colour, variegated with black and white spots. The legs are covered with a thick down to the feet, but the toes have only thin-set hairs around them.

In ancient mythology, another common species, the _Brown Owl_ (_Syrnium aluco_), was consecrated to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom; in allusion to the lucubrations of wise men, who study in retirement and during the night.

“Now the Hermit Owlet peeps From the barn, or twisted brake; And the blue mist slowly creeps, Curling on the silver lake.” CUNNINGHAM.

§ III.--_Insessores, or Perching Birds._

THE GREAT BUTCHER-BIRD, or SHRIKE, is about as large as a thrush; its bill is black, an inch long, and hooked at the end. It is only an occasional visitor to this country, where it is generally found between autumn and spring. “The Shrike,” says Mr. Yarrell, “feeds on mice, shrews, small birds, frogs, lizards, and large insects. After having killed its prey, it fixes the body in a forked branch, or upon a sharp thorn, the more readily to tear off small pieces from it. It is from their habit of killing and hanging up their meat, that the Shrikes are called Butcher-birds.” The head, back, and rump are ash-coloured; the chin and lower part of the body white; the breast and throat varied with dark lines crossing each other; the tips of the feathers of the wings are, for the most part, white; it has a black spot by the eye; the outermost tail feathers of the male are all over white; the two middlemost have only their tips white, the rest of the feathers being black, as well as the legs and feet. It builds its nest among thorny shrubs and dwarf trees, and furnishes it with moss, wool, and downy herbs, where the female lays five or six eggs. A peculiarity belonging to the birds of this kind is, that they do not, like most other birds, expel the young ones from the nest as soon as they can provide for themselves, but the whole brood live together in one family. The Butcher-bird will chase all the small birds upon the wing, and will sometimes venture to attack partridges, and even young hares. Thrushes and blackbirds are frequently their prey: the Shrike fixes on them with its talons, splits the skull with its bill, and feeds on them at leisure. On this account Linnæus classed the Shrikes with the birds of prey; but modern naturalists have placed them with the insect-eaters, as insects are their principal food. It is easy to distinguish these birds at a distance, not only from their going in companies, but also from their manner of flying, which is always up and down, seldom in a direct line, or obliquely.

_The Little Butcher-bird_ (_Lanius collurio_), called in Yorkshire, _Flusher_, is about the size of a lark, with a large head. About the nostrils and corners of the mouth it has black hairs or bristles; and round the eyes a large black longitudinal spot; the back and upper side of the wings are of a rusty colour; the head and rump cinereous; the throat and breast white, spotted with red. It builds its nest of the stalks of plants, and the female lays six eggs, nearly all white, except at the blunt end, which is encircled with brown or dark red marks. The female is somewhat larger than the male; the head is of a rust colour, mixed with gray; the breast, belly, and sides of a dirty white; the tail deep brown; the exterior web of the outer feathers white. Its manners are similar to those of the large Butcher-bird. It frequently preys on young birds, which it takes in the nest; it likewise feeds on grasshoppers, beetles, and other insects. During the period of incubation, the female soon discovers herself at the approach of any person by her loud and violent outcries.

IS found in most parts of this island, and is about the size of the common blackbird. It feeds upon aquatic insects and small fish. The head and upper side of the neck are of a kind of umber colour, and sometimes black with a shade of red; the back and coverings of the wings are a mixture of black and ash-colour, the throat and breast perfectly white.

The Dipper is said to walk along the bottom of a lake or river as easily as on land; but this is far from being the case, as, though it readily plunges into the water, it appears to tumble about in a very extraordinary manner, with its head downwards. Even on land the bird walks awkwardly, as its feet are best adapted for the slippery stones on which it passes the greater part of its life, watching for the insects which it picks up on the edge of the water. Its movements under water are really performed by means of the wings, the bird positively flying through the water. When disturbed, it usually flirts up its tail, and makes a chirping noise. Its song in spring is said to be very pretty. In some places this bird is supposed to be migratory.

“The smiling morn, the breathing spring, Invite the tuneful birds to sing; And, while they warble from each spray, Love melts the universal lay.” MALLET.

THIS well-known songster does not soar up to the clouds, like the lark, to make his voice resound through the air; but keeps to the shady groves, which he fills with his melodious notes. Early at dawn, and late at dusk, he continues his pleasing melody; and when incarcerated in the narrow space of a cage, still cheerful and merry, he strives to repay the kindness of his keeper by singing to him his natural strains; and beguiles his irksome hours of captivity by studying and imitating his master’s whistle. Blackbirds build their nests with great art, making the outside of moss and slender twigs, cemented together and lined with clay, and covering the clay with soft materials, as hair, wool, and fine grass. The female lays four or five eggs, of a bluish green colour, spotted all over with brown. The bill is yellow, but in the female the upper part and point are blackish; the inside of the mouth, and the circumference of the eyelids are yellow. The name of this bird is sufficiently expressive of the general colour of his body. He feeds on berries, fruit, insects, &c.

THE MISSEL THRUSH, so called from its feeding on the berries of the misletoe, differs but little from the Song Thrush, except in size. He is larger than the fieldfare, while the Throstle is smaller. The female lays five or six bluish eggs, with a tint of green, and marked with dusky spots.

_The Song Thrush_ or _Throstle_, (_Turdus musicus_,) is one of the best songsters of the evening hymn in the grove. His voice is loud and sweet; the melody of his song is varied, and, although not so deep in the general diapason of the woodland concert as that of the blackbird, yet it fills up agreeably, and bursts through the inferior warblings of smaller performers. His breast is of a yellowish white, spotted with black or brown dashes, like ermine spots.

The term Merle for the Blackbird, and Mavis for the Thrush, are used chiefly by the poets.

“Merry is it in the good green wood, When the Mavis and Merle are singing, When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter’s horn is ringing.” SCOTT.

“Take thy delight in yonder goodly tree, Where the sweet Merle and warbling Mavis be.” DRAYTON.

IS rather less than the song thrush; but the upper part of the body is of the same colour; the breast not so much spotted; the coverings of the feathers of the under side of the wings, which in the thrush are yellow, are of orange colour in this bird; by which marks it is generally distinguished. The body is white, the throat and breast yellowish, marked with dusky spots. It is migratory in this island, builds its nest in hedges, and lays six bluish eggs. Like the fieldfare, it leaves us in spring, for which reason its song is quite unknown to us; but it is said to be very pleasing. It is delicate eating; and the Romans held it in such estimation, that they kept thousands of them together in aviaries, and fed them on a sort of paste made of bruised figs and flour, to improve the delicacy and flavour of their flesh. Under this management these birds fattened, to the great profit of their proprietors, who sold them to Roman epicures for three denarii, or about two shillings sterling each, which at that early period was a large price.

IS a well-known bird in this country. Fieldfares fly in flocks, together with the redwing and starling, and change their haunts according to the season of the year. They abide with us in winter, and disappear in spring, so punctually, that after that time not one is to be seen. The flesh is esteemed a great delicacy, and is highly prized in Germany, where it is known as the _Krammsvögel_, and is sold in the markets of Westphalia by the dozen. Their favourite food is the juniper-berry, whence its German name. The head is ash-coloured, and spotted with black: the back and coverts of the wings of deep chesnut colour; the rump cinereous; and the tail black, except the lower part of the two middle feathers, which are ash-coloured, and the upper sides of the exterior feathers, which are white. They collect in large flocks; and it is supposed they keep watch, like the crow, to mark and announce the approach of danger. On any person approaching a tree that is covered with them, they continue fearless, till one at the extremity of the bush, rising on its wings, gives a loud and peculiar note of alarm. They then all fly away, except one, which continues till the person approaches still nearer, to certify, as it were, the reality of the danger, and afterwards he also flies off, repeating the note of alarm.

Mr. Knapp, in his “Journal of a Naturalist,” says, that in the county of Gloucestershire the extensive low-lands of the river Severn, in open weather, are visited by prodigious flocks of these birds.

THE RING OUZEL differs from the fieldfare and redwing, to which it is nearly allied, in being a summer visitor to the British islands, instead of a winter one. It is found only in the wildest and most mountainous districts; particularly among the Welsh mountains and on Dartmoor, in Devonshire, where it has been known to breed.

THE MOCKING BIRD, (_Turdus polyglottus_,)

WHICH is also a species, is found in both North and South America, and in the West Indian islands. He has a beautiful song, which he varies by imitating the notes of almost all other birds, so that a person passing by his haunt is regaled with a complete ornithological concert, all by a single performer. Unfortunately, the Mocking Bird’s taste is not equal to his musical powers. His talent for imitation is so great that he mimics every sound he hears, and as he introduces all his imitations freely into his songs, he often interrupts the most delightful melody with the scream of a hawk, the bark of a dog, the squalling of a cat, or similar discordant noises.

“The Redbreast oft, at evening hours, Shall kindly lend his little aid, With hoary moss, and gathering flowers, To deck the ground where thou art laid.” COLLINS.

THE REDBREAST, or _Robin_, as he is popularly called, seems always to have enjoyed the protection of man, more than any other bird. The prettiness of his shape, the beauty of his plumage, the quickness of his motions, his familiarity with us in winter, and, above all, the melody and sweetness of his voice, claim our admiration, and have insured him that security which he enjoys among us; though the aid of fable has also been called in, to guard him from the assaults of thoughtless boys.

“Little bird with bosom red, Welcome to my humble shed! Courtly domes of high degree Have no room for thee and me; Pride and pleasure’s fickle throng Nothing mind an idle song. Daily near my table steal, While I pick my scanty meal; Doubt not, little though there be, But I’ll cast a crumb for thee; Well rewarded if I spy Pleasure in thy glancing eye; And see thee, when thou’st eat thy fill, Plume thy breast, and wipe thy bill.” LANGHORNE.

In the winter season, impelled by the potent stimulus of hunger, the Redbreast frequents our barns, gardens, and houses, and often alights, on a sudden, on the rustic floor; where, with his broad eye incessantly open, and looking askew upon the company, he picks up eagerly the crumbs of bread that fall from the table, and then flies off to the neighbouring bush, where, by his warbling strains, he expresses his gratitude for the liberty he has been allowed. He is found in most parts of Europe, but nowhere so commonly as in Great Britain. His bill is dusky; his forehead, chin, throat, and breast are of a deep orange-colour, inclining to vermilion; the back of his head, neck, back, and tail are of a pale olive-brown colour; the wings are somewhat darker, the edges inclining to yellow; the legs and feet are the colour of the bill. The female generally builds her nest in the crevice of some mossy bank, near places which human beings frequent, or in some part of a human dwelling. Robins have been known to build in a sawpit where men worked every day, and in various other equally extraordinary places. When the Crystal Palace at Sydenham was being fitted up, several Robins built their nests in holes of the large roots used to raise the flower beds within the building. So little fear did they exhibit that their bright eyes might be seen glancing from holes close to which men were passing every moment. The elegant poet of The Seasons gives us a very exact and animated description of this bird in the following lines:

“---- ---- Half afraid, he first Against the window beats: then, brisk alights On the warm hearth; then, hopping on the floor, Eyes all the smiling family askance, And pecks, and starts, and wonders where he is, Till, more familiar grown, the table-crumbs Attract his slender feet.”

An old Latin proverb tells us that two Robin Redbreasts will not feed on the same tree; it is certain that the Redbreast is a most pugnacious bird, and that he does not live in much harmony and friendship with those of his own kind and sex. The male may be known from the female by the colour of his legs, which are blacker.

The Redbreast attends the gardener when digging his borders; and will, with great familiarity and tameness, pick out the worms almost close to his spade.

“Sweet bird, that shunn’st the noise of folly, Most musical, most melancholy! Thee, chantress, oft, the woods among, I woo to hear thy even song.” MILTON.

THE NIGHTINGALE has little to boast of in respect to plumage, which is of a pale tawny colour on the head and back, dashed with a slight shade of olive; the breast and upper part of the belly incline to a grayish tint, and the lower part of the belly is almost white; the exterior web of the quill feathers is of a reddish brown; the tail of a dull red; the legs and feet ash-coloured; the irides hazel; and the eyes large, bright, and staring. But it is hardly possible to give an idea of the extraordinary power which this small bird possesses in its throat, as to the extension of sound, sweetness of tone, and versatility of notes.Its song is composed of several musical passages, each of which does not continue more than the third part of a minute; but they are so varied, the passing from one tone to another is so fanciful and so rapid, and the melody so sweet and so mellow, that the most consummate musician is pleasingly led to a deep sense of admiration on hearing it. Sometimes, joyful and merry, it runs down the diapason with the velocity of lightning, touching the treble and the base nearly at the same instant; at other times, mournful and plaintive, the unfortunate _Philomela_ draws heavily her lengthened notes, and breathes a delightful melancholy around. These have the appearance of sorrowful sighs; the other modulations resemble the laughter of the happy. Solitary on the twig of a small tree, and cautiously at a certain distance from the nest, where the pledges of his love are treasured under the fostering breast of his mate, the male fills constantly the silent woods with his harmonious strains, and during the whole night entertains and repays his female for the irksome duties of incubation. The Nightingale not only sings at intervals during the day, but waits till the blackbird and the thrush have uttered their evening call, even till the stock and ringdoves have, by their soft murmurings, lulled each other to rest, and then pours forth his full tide of melody:

“---- ---- Listening Philomela deigns To let them joy, and purposes, in thought Elate, to make her night excel their day.” THOMSON.

It is a great subject of astonishment that so small a bird should be endowed with such potent lungs. If the evening is calm, it is supposed that its song may be heard above half-a-mile. This bird, the ornament and charm of our spring and early summer evenings, as it arrives in April, and continues singing till June, disappears on a sudden about September or October, when it leaves us to pass the winter in the North of Africa and Syria. Its visits to this country are limited to certain counties, mostly in the south and east; as, though it is plentiful in the neighbourhood of London, and along the south coast in Sussex, Hampshire, and Dorsetshire, it is not found in either Cornwall or Wales. As soon as the young are hatched, the song of the male bird ceases, and he only utters a harsh croak, by way of giving alarm when any one approaches the nest. Nightingales are sometimes reared up, and doomed to the prison of a cage; in this state they sing ten months in the year, though in their wild life they sing only as many weeks. Bingley says that a caged Nightingale sings much more sweetly than those which we hear abroad in the spring.

The Nightingale is the most celebrated of all the feathered race for its song. The poets have in all ages made it the theme of their verses; some of these we cannot resist giving:

“The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, Which late bare earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes----.” SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

“---- ---- ---- Beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk; all but the wakeful Nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung.” MILTON.

“And in the violet-embroidered vale, Where the lovelorn Nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.” MILTON.

“O Nightingale, that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover’s heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo’s bill, Portend success in love. Oh, if Jove’s will Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why: Whether the muse, or love, call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I.” MILTON. “---- ---- Now is the pleasant time, The cool, the silent, save where silence yields, To the night-warbling bird, that, now awake, Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song.” MILTON.

“How all things listen while thy muse complains, Such silence waits on Philomela’s strains, In some still evening, when the whispering breeze Pants on the leaves, and dies upon the trees.” POPE.

“There’s a bower of roses by Bendemeer’s stream, And the Nightingale sings round it all the year long; In the days of my childhood, ’t was like a sweet dream To sit in the roses, and hear the bird’s song.

“That bower and its music I never forget, But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year, I think, Is the Nightingale singing there yet? Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?” MOORE.

IS a very small warbler, not weighing above half-an-ounce. The top of the head is black, whence he takes his name; the neck ash-coloured, the back an ashy-brown, the wings of a dusky colour, the tail nearly the same; the nether part of the neck, throat, and upper part of the breast of a pale ash colour; the lower part of the belly white.

The Black-cap visits us about the middle of April, and retires in September; it frequents gardens, and builds its nest near the ground. The female lays five eggs of a pale reddish-brown, sprinkled with spots of a darker colour. This bird sings sweetly, and so like the nightingale, that in Norfolk it is called the mock nightingale. White observes, that it has usually a full, sweet, deep, loud, and wild pipe, yet the strain is of short continuance, and its motions desultory; but when it sits calmly, and earnestly engages in song, it pours forth very sweet but inward melody; and expresses a great variety of modulations, superior perhaps to any of our warblers, the nightingale excepted. While it sings, its throat is greatly distended.

“Fast by my couch, congenial guest, The Wren has wove her mossy nest; From busy scenes and brighter skies To lurk with innocence she flies; Her hopes in safe repose to dwell, Nor aught suspects the sylvan cell.” T. WARTON.

THE WREN is a very small bird; but, as if nature had intended to compensate the want of size and bulk in the individuals, by multiplying them to a greater extent, this little bird is one of the most prolific of the feathered tribe, its nest containing often upwards of eighteen eggs, of a whitish colour, and not much bigger than a pea. The male and female enter by a hole contrived in the middle of the nest, and which, by its situation and size, is accessible only to themselves. The Wren weighs no more than three drachms. Its notes are very sweet, and rival those of the robin redbreast, in the middle of winter, when the coldness of the weather has condemned the other songsters to silence. Like the redbreast, it frequently approaches the habitation of man, enlivening the rustic garden with its song during the greater part of the year. It begins to make a nest early in the spring, but frequently deserts it before it is lined, and searches for a more secure place. The Wren does not, as is usual with most other birds, begin to build the bottom of the nest first. When against a tree, its primary operation is to trace upon the bark the outline, and thus to fasten it with equal strength to all parts. It then, in succession, closes the sides and top, leaving only a small hole for entrance.

THE WILLOW WREN is somewhat larger than the common Wren. The upper parts of the body are of a pale olive-green; the under parts are pale yellow, and a streak of yellow passes over the eyes. The wings and tail are brown, edged with yellowish green; and the legs are inclined to yellow. This bird is migratory, visiting us usually about the middle of April, and taking its departure towards the end of September. The female constructs her nest in holes at the roots of trees, in hollows of dry banks, and other similar places. It is round, and not unlike the nest of the Wren. The eggs are dusky white, marked with reddish spots, and are five in number. A Willow Wren had built in a bank of one of the fields of Mr. White, near Selborne. This bird, a friend and himself observed as she sat in her nest, but were particularly careful not to disturb her, though she eyed them with some degree of jealousy. Some days afterwards, as they passed the same way, they were desirous of remarking how the brood went on; but no nest could be found, till Mr. White happened to take up a large bundle of long green moss, which had been thrown, as it were, carelessly over the nest, in order to mislead the eye of any impertinent intruder.

Mr. White distinguished no fewer than three varieties of the Willow Wren. “I have now,” he writes, “past dispute, made out three distinct species of the Willow Wrens, which constantly and invariably use distinct notes.” “I have specimens of the three sorts now lying before me, and can discern that there are three gradations of sizes, and that the least has black legs, and the other two, flesh-coloured ones. The yellowest bird is considerably the largest, and has its quill feathers and secondary feathers tipped with white, which the others have not. The last haunts only the tops of trees and high beechen woods, and makes a sibilous grasshopper-like noise, now and then, at short intervals, shivering a little with its wings when it sings.” Mr. Markwich, however, declared that he was totally unable to discover more than one species.

IS the smallest of British birds, measuring only three inches and a half in length. It is of an olive colour, with a beautiful crest of golden yellow feathers on its head. This charming little bird is generally found in fir woods; it feeds on insects, and has a soft and pleasing song.

THERE is not a brook purling along two flowery banks, not a rivulet winding through the green meadow, which is not frequented by this beautifully coloured and elegantly shaped little creature. We even see them in the streets of country towns, following with quick pace the half-drowned fly or moth, which the road-side streamlet carries away. Next to the robin redbreast and the sparrow, they are the boldest in approaching our habitations. The Wagtails are much in motion; seldom perch, and perpetually flirt their long and slender tails, (whence they derive their name,) principally after picking up some food from the ground, as if that tail were a kind of lever, or counterpoise, used to balance the body on the legs. They are observed to frequent, more commonly, those streams where women come to wash their linen; probably not ignorant that the soap, the froth of which floats upon the water, attracts those insects which are most acceptable to them.

THERE are two common species of Wagtails, the Grey kind and the Pied Wagtail. The Grey Wagtail is retiring in its habits, and much slower in its motions; its breast is yellow, and its wings grayish, but the Pied Wagtail, which is a very lively little bird, and seems always in a bustle, is black, softening into ash-colour and white; it is also bold, and will take the food thrown to it with as much confidence as a robin redbreast.

The Yellow Shepherdess (_Budytes flava_) is another species of Wagtail. The male is olive-green on the back, and yellow on the lower part of the body, but the breast of the female is nearly white. These birds do not frequent the banks of rivers, but are generally found walking among the grass of meadows, and following sheep. They are summer visitors to England.

White says, that “while the cows are feeding in the moist, low pastures, broods of Wagtails, white and grey, run round them, close up to their noses, and under their very bellies, availing themselves of the flies that settle on their legs, and probably finding worms and larvæ that are roused by the trampling of their feet. Nature is such an economist that the most incongruous animals can avail themselves of each other.”

“Interest makes strange friendships!”

“From the low-roof’d cottage ridge See the chattering Swallow spring; Darting through the one-arch’d bridge, Quick she dips her dappled wing.” CUNNINGHAM.

SWALLOWS are easily distinguished from all other birds, not only by their general structure, but by their twittering note and mode of flying, or rather darting from place to place.

They appear in Britain in April, and build in some outhouse, or, in part of a human dwelling, where they lay their eggs and hatch their young. About August they disappear, and do not return till the following spring. Swallows kept in a cage moult about Christmas, and seldom live till spring.

There are several species of the Swallow: the general characters of which are a small beak, but large, wide mouth, for the purpose of swallowing flying insects, their natural food; and long forked tail and extensive wings, to enable them to pursue their prey. The common Swallow builds under the eaves of houses, or in chimneys, near their top; it is frequently called the Chimney Swallow from its preference for the last-mentioned rather singular situation; the Martin also builds under eaves, and most commonly against the upper corner or side of our very windows, and seems not afraid at the sight of man, yet it cannot be tamed, or even kept long in a cage. The nature of the Swallow’s nest is worthy of close observation: how the mud is extracted from the sea-shores, rivers, or other watery places; how masoned and formed into a solid building, strong enough to support a whole family, and to face the “pelting storm,” are wonders which ought to raise our mind to Him who bestowed that instinct upon them.

It is related that a pair of Swallows built their nest for two successive years on the handle of a pair of garden shears, that were stuck up against the boards of an outhouse; and, therefore, must have had their nest spoiled whenever the implement was wanted. And what is still more strange, a bird of the same species built its nest on the wings and body of an owl that happened to hang dead and dry from the rafter of a barn, and so loose as to be moved by every gust of wind. This owl, with the nest on its wings, and with eggs in the nest, was taken to the museum of Sir Ashton Leaver as a curiosity. That gentleman, struck with the singularity of the sight, furnished the person who brought it with a large shell, desiring him to fix it just where the owl had hung. The man did so; and in the following year a pair of Swallows, probably the same, built their nest in the shell and laid eggs.

Modern poets have not been unmindful of the Swallows; and our immortal Shakspeare mentions the Martin, in Macbeth, in the following manner:

“This guest of summer, The temple-haunting Martlet, does approve, By his loved mansionry, that the Heaven’s Breath smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, Buttress, nor coigne of ’vantage, but this bird Hath made his pendent bed and procreant cradle: Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, The air is delicate.”

“The Swallow,” writes Sir Humphry Davy, “is one of my favourite birds, and a rival of the nightingale, for he cheers my sense of seeing as much as the other does my sense of hearing. He is the glad prophet of the year, the harbinger of the best season--he lives a life of enjoyment amongst the liveliest forms of nature--winter is unknown to him; and he leaves the green meadows of England in autumn for the myrrh and orange groves of Italy, and for the palms of Africa; he has always objects of pursuit, and his success is secure. Even the beings selected for his prey are poetical, beautiful, and transient. The ephemeræ are saved by his means from a slow and lingering death in the evening, and killed in a moment when they have known nothing but pleasure. He is the constant destroyer of insects, the friend of man, and may be regarded as a sacred bird. His instinct, which gives him his appointed season, and teaches him when and where to move, may be regarded as flowing from a divine source; and he belongs to the oracles of nature, which speak the awful and intelligible language of a present Deity.”

The Chimney Swallow is, on the head, neck, back, and rump, of a shining black colour, with purple gloss and sometimes with a blue shade; the throat and neck are of the same colour; the breast and belly are white, with a dash of red. The tail is forked, and consists of twelve feathers. The wings are of the same colour with the back. Swallows feed upon flies and other insects; and generally hunt their prey on the wing:

“Away! away! thou summer bird; For Autumn’s moaning voice is heard, In cadence wild, and deepening swell, Of winter’s stern approach to tell.”

THE MARTIN is something less than the swallow, with a comparatively large head, and a wide mouth; the colour of the upper parts a bluish black, the rump and all the under parts of the body white, the bill black; the legs covered with short white down.

These birds begin to appear about the middle of April, and for some time pay no attention to the business of nidification, but sport and play about as if to recruit themselves from the fatigue of the journey.

Should the weather prove favourable, it begins to build early in May, placing its nest generally beneath the eaves of a house, often against a perpendicular wall: without any projecting ledge to support any part of the nest, its utmost efforts are necessary to get the first foundation firmly fixed, so as to carry the superstructure safely. On this occasion, it not only clings with its claws, but partly supports itself by strongly inclining its tail against the wall, making that a fulcrum; and thus fixed, it plasters the materials into the face of the brick or stone. But that this work may not, while soft, sink by its own weight, the provident architect has the prudence and forbearance not to proceed too fast; but by building only in the morning, and dedicating the rest of the day to food and amusement, he gives it sufficient time to dry and harden. By this method, in about ten days, the nest is formed, strong, compact, and warm, and perfectly fitted for all the purposes for which it is intended. But nothing is more common than for the house-sparrow, as soon as the shell is finished, to seize on it, eject the owner, and line it according to its own peculiar manner. Sometimes, however, the Martins prove too clever for the sparrow; when the intruder obstinately retained possession of the nest, the Martins have been known to collect from all parts of the neighbourhood, each bringing a pellet of mud, with which the orifice of the nest was soon securely closed, and the unfortunate sparrow was then left to die of starvation. The Martin will return for several seasons to the same nest, where it happens to be well sheltered and secured from the injuries of the weather. They breed the latest of all our swallows, often having unfledged young ones even so late as Michaelmas.

The first hatch consists of five eggs, which are white, inclining to dusky at the thicker end; the second, of three or four; and of a third, of only two or three. While the young birds are confined to the nest the parents feed them, adhering by the claws to the outside; but as soon as they are able to fly they receive their nourishment on the wing, by a quick and almost imperceptible motion.

“Welcome, welcome, feathered stranger, Now the sun bids Nature smile; Safe arrived and free from danger, Welcome to our blooming isle.” FRANKLIN.

WHICH is sometimes called the Black Martin, arrives in England later, and takes its departure earlier than any of our swallows. The Swift is the largest of the swallow tribe, and the most rapid in its flight. Its nest, which is generally built in the crevices of old towers and steeples, is constructed of dried grass, feathers, thread, and similar materials, glued together by a sort of spittle, with which the bird is provided. The bird collects them whilst on the wing, picking them up with great dexterity. They seldom alight upon the ground, and if by accident they fall upon a level surface, they recover themselves with difficulty, owing to the shortness of their legs, and the length of their wings. During the heat of the day they remain within their holes, and at morning and evening sally out in quest of food. They may then be seen in flocks, whirling round some lofty edifice, or describing in mid-air an endless series of circles upon circles. Swifts fly higher, and wheel with bolder wing than the swallows, with whom they never intermingle.

THIS curious bird, called also the Nightjar, and the Fern Owl, comes to this country from Africa about the middle of May and usually leaves by the end of August. These birds are generally found in low bushes, or amongst tufts of large ferns, and generally fly at night: hence their name of Fern Owl. The beak is furnished with bristles, and the middle toe of each foot has a claw toothed like a comb. The female lays her eggs upon the ground, without any nest, and lays only two. The name of Goatsucker originated in an absurd idea that this bird sucked the goat’s milk, from its habit of lying on the ground near cows or she goats, and catching the flies that torment them by fixing on their udders. Mr. Waterton, who is certainly the closest observer of nature who ever wrote on Natural History, states, in one of his very interesting works, that he has frequently seen the Goatsuckers catching insects in this manner, and thus proving themselves the best of friends to the animals they are accused of annoying.

“Go, tuneful bird, that gladd’st the skies, To Daphne’s window speed thy way; And there on quivering pinions rise, And there thy vocal art display.” SHENSTONE.

THE SKYLARK is distinguished from most other birds by the long spur on the back toe, the earthy colour of his feathers, and by singing as he mounts in the air. These birds generally make their nest in meadows among the high grass, and the tint of their plumage resembles so much that of the ground, that the body of the bird is hardly distinguishable as it runs along.

“The daisied lea he loves, where tufts of grass Luxuriant crown the ridge: there, with his mate, He founds their lonely house, of withered herbs, And coarsest spear-grass; next the inner work, With finer, and still finer fibres lays, Rounding it curious with his speckled breast.” GRAHAME.

Larks breed twice a year, in May and July, rearing their young in a short space of time. They are caught in great quantities in winter, and are considered choice and delicate food. It is a melancholy observation, that man should feed upon, and indulge his sense of taste with those very birds which have so often delighted his sense of hearing with their songs, when they usher to the gladdened creation the return of their best friend, the sun. The instinctive warmth of attachment which the female Skylark bears towards her own species, even when not her nestling, is remarkable. “In the month of May,” says Buffon, “a young hen bird was brought to me, which was not able to feed without assistance. I caused her to be reared; and she was hardly fledged, when I received from another place a nest of three or four unfledged larks. She took a strong liking to these newcomers, which were but little younger than herself; she tended them night and day, cherished them beneath her wings, and fed them with her bill. Nothing could interrupt her tender offices. If the young ones were torn from her she flew to them as soon as they were liberated, and would not think of effecting her own escape, which she might have done a hundred times. Her affection grew upon her; she neglected food and drink; she at length required the same support as her adopted offspring, and expired at last, consumed with maternal solicitude. None of the young ones long survived her. They died one after another; so essential were her cares, which were equally tender and judicious.”

The Lark mounts almost perpendicularly, and by successive springs, into the air, where it hovers at a vast height. Its descent is in an oblique direction, unless threatened by some ravenous bird of prey, or attracted by its mate, when it drops to the ground like a stone. On its first leaving the earth, its notes are feeble and interrupted; but, as it rises, they gradually swell to their full tone. As the Lark’s flight is always at sun-rise, there is something in the scenery that renders its song peculiarly delightful: the opening morning, the landscape just gilded by the rays of the returning sun, and the beauty of the surrounding objects, all contribute to heighten our relish for its pleasing melody.

“---- Up springs the Lark, Shrill-voiced and loud, the messenger of morn, Ere yet the shadows fly, he, mounted, sings Amid the dawning clouds, and from their haunts Calls up the tuneful nations.” THOMSON. “Alas! it’s no thy neebor sweet, The bonnie Lark, companion meet! Bending thee ’mang the dewy weet! Wi’ speckled breast, When upward springing, blythe to greet The purpling east.” BURNS.

“Early, cheerful, mounting Lark, Light’s gentle usher, morning’s clerk, In merry notes delighting.” SIR JOHN DAVIS.

THIS species is smaller than the skylark, and its voice deeper; it has also a circle of white feathers encompassing the head, from eye to eye, like a crown or wreath, and the utmost feather of the wing is much shorter than the second, whereas in the common lark they are nearly equal. This bird sometimes emulates the nightingale; for which, when pouring forth his sweet melody in the grove, during a silent night, he is often mistaken. These birds sit and perch upon trees, unlike the common lark, which always keeps to the ground. They build their nest at the foot of a bush, near the bottom of a hedge, or in high dry grass. The number of their eggs is about four, of a pale bloom colour, beautifully mottled, and clouded with red and yellow. Like the skylark, they assemble in large flocks during frosty weather. Their usual food consists of small beetles, caterpillars, and other insects, as well as the seeds of numerous kinds of wild plants.

“Bright o’er the green hills rose the morning ray, The Woodlark’s song resounded on the plain, Fair nature felt the warm embrace of day, And smiled through all her animated reign.” LANGBOURN.

THE common Titmouse or Tom-tit is a very small bird, only four inches and a half in length. He has a blue head, with white cheeks and a white stripe over each eye; his back is greenish, his wings and tail blue, and the lower surface of his body yellow. This bird, and all the species related to it, live on insects, as well as on seeds. When kept in a cage, it is really amusing to see with what quickness the Titmouse darts at any fly or moth which comes imprudently within its reach. If this kind of food be deficient, as generally happens in winter, it feeds upon several kinds of seed, and particularly that of the sunflower, which it dexterously holds upright between its claws and strikes powerfully with its sharp little bill, till the black covering splits, and yields its white contents to the persevering bird. Its general food consists of insects, which it seeks in the crevices of the bark of trees, and when thus engaged, clinging in every possible position to the branches, it looks like a very diminutive blue parrot. In winter the Titmouse visits our gardens and orchards, where he is often seen picking the buds of fruit trees to pieces; but in doing this he inflicts little or no injury upon the gardener, his object being the capture of insects which would probably cause far more mischief in the ensuing summer. The nest of the Titmouse is built in the hole of a tree or wall; the female lays usually eight or ten eggs, and when sitting defends her nest with great courage, pecking at the fingers of boys so vigorously that in some parts of the country she is known by the name of Billy Biter. The _Long-tailed Tit_ is also a common bird about hedges, orchards, and plantations. He is an active lively little fellow, and resembles the common Tit in his habits.

THIS bird is somewhat larger than the sparrow. Its head is of a greenish yellow, spotted with brown; the throat and belly are yellow; the breast and sides, under the wings, mingled with red. These birds build their nests on the ground, near some bush, where the female lays five or six eggs. The Yellowhammer may be sometimes seen perched on the finger of some poor man or woman in the streets of London, in a state of complete tameness; but this is the transitory effect of intoxication, and soon after the bird is bought and brought home, it dies, overcome by the power of the laudanum that has been given it.

This bird feeds on seeds and various sorts of insects, and is common in every lane, on every hedge, throughout the country, flitting before the traveller, and about the bushes. Happily for him, we have not yet acquired the taste of the natives of Italy, where the Yellowhammer falls a daily victim to the delicacy of the table, and where its flesh is esteemed very delicious eating. There he is often fattened, for the purpose of gratifying the palate of epicures.

The Ortolan, (_Emberiza hortulana_,) which is another species of the same genus, is common in the central and southern provinces of Europe, where it is thought exquisitely flavoured as an article of food. When first taken it is frequently very lean, but if supplied with abundance of food, it is said to be so greedy, that it will eat till it dies of repletion.

THE WHEATEAR is one of our earliest visitants, and may be found in every part of Britain. In the North, it generally frequents heaps of stones, ruins, or the dry stone walls of burial-grounds, and though it is a very handsome bird, and in the early season sings sweetly, its haunts have obtained it a bad name. The common alarm-note resembles the sound made in breaking stones with a hammer, and as it utters that note from the top of the heap which haply covers the bones of one who perished by the storm, or his own hand, popular fancy has not unnaturally associated the Wheatear with the superstition that belongs to the place of graves. Beneath that heap of stones, or in some neighbouring fallow, its nest may be discovered, formed of moss and dried grass, lined with hair, feathers, or wool, and containing five or six eggs of a delicate bluish white. These birds congregate on the southern downs about the middle of July; they are then caught in vast numbers, in horse-hair nooses, which are set between two pieces of turf turned against each other.

_The Whin Chat_ is a beautiful bird, compact in form, with a rich and elegant plumage. Its song, which is peculiarly soft and sweet, may be heard in spring on the bushy margins and gorse of extensive heaths. Its nest, constructed in thick tufts of grass and under bushes, is most carefully concealed. It is usually approached by a labyrinth to which the rising of the bird affords no clue, and it may long be sought in vain, though perhaps not more than a yard distant all the time. The eggs are bluish green, without any spots, and are never more than six in number.

The following lines, addressed to the English Ortolan, or Wheatear, by Mrs. Charlotte Smith, allude to the foolish timidity of that bird:

“To take you, shepherd boys prepare The hollow turf, the wiry snare, Of those weak terrors well aware, That bid you vainly dread The shadows floating over downs, Or murmuring gale, that round the stones Of some old beacon, as it moans, Scarce moves a thistle’s head. And if a cloud obscure the sun, With faint and fluttering heart you run Into the pitfall you should shun, And only leave when dead.”

THIS bird is, next to the robin redbreast, the boldest of the small feathered tribe which frequent our barns and houses: he is a courageous little creature, and fights undauntedly against birds ten times bigger than himself. Sparrows are accused of destroying a great quantity of corn, and in several counties the landlord or farmer puts a price on a Sparrow’s head; but the farmer is the person most injured by the plan, as the good Sparrows, in ridding land of caterpillars, more than compensate for the loss of grain they destroy. Mr. Bradley, in his Treatise on Husbandry and Gardening, shows, by a calculation, that a pair of Sparrows, during the time they have their young ones to feed, destroy on an average, every week, three thousand three hundred and sixty caterpillars.

This bird is easily tamed, and will hop about the house, and on the table with great familiarity. It will feed on anything, and is particularly fond of meat cut into small pieces. The song of the Sparrow, if we can so call its chirping, is far from agreeable: this arises, however, not from want of powers, but from its attending solely to the note of the parent bird. A Sparrow, when fledged, was taken from the nest and educated under a linnet: it also heard by accident a goldfinch; and its song was in consequence a mixture of the two. The male is particularly distinguished by a jet-black spot under the bill upon a whitish ground. Sparrows are found nearly in every country of the world.

IS about the size of the goldfinch; and compensates, by an extremely melodious voice, the want of variety in its plumage, which, except in the red-breasted species, is nearly all of one colour. Its musical talents are, like those of many other birds, repaid with captivity; for it is kept in cages on account of its singing.

The Redpole (_Fringilla linaria_) is a small species of Linnet, little more than four inches in length, distinguished by a deep blood-red spot on the crown of his head. He visits Britain in the autumn and stays with us during the winter, his favourite summer residence being far away in the north. Redpoles are taken in great numbers by the bird-catchers in the autumn. Their only song is a twittering note, but they are often attached by a brace and chain to an open cage and trained to draw their water in a bucket.

The Green Linnet is rather larger than the house sparrow. Its head and back are of a yellowish-green, the edges of the feathers grayish; the rump and breast more yellow. The plumage of the female is much less vivid, inclining to brown. Its song is trifling, but in confinement it becomes tame and docile, and will catch the notes of other birds.

AS his name imports, this bird is a native of the Canary Islands; where, in his wild state, he has a dusky gray plumage, and a much stronger voice than when in a cage. In our northern countries his feathers undergo a great alteration; and the bird often becomes entirely white or yellow. Of this bird, Buffon says, “that if the nightingale is the chantress of the woods, the Canary is the musician of the chamber; the first owes all to nature, the second something to art. With less strength of organ, less compass of voice, and less variety of note, the Canary has a better ear, greater facility of imitation, and a more retentive memory; and as the difference of genius, especially among the lower animals, depends in a great measure on the perfection of their senses, the Canary, whose organ of hearing is more susceptible of receiving and retaining foreign impressions, becomes more social, tame, and familiar; is capable of gratitude and even attachment; its caresses are endearing, its little humours innocent, and its anger neither hurts nor offends. Its education is easy; we rear it with pleasure, because we are able to instruct it. It leaves the melody of its own natural note, to listen to the melody of our voices and instruments. It accompanies us, and repays the pleasure it receives with interest, while the nightingale, more proud of his talent, seems desirous of preserving it in all its purity, at least it appears to attach very little value to ours, and it is with great difficulty that it can be taught any of our airs. It despises them, and never fails to return to its own wild wood notes. Its pipe is a masterpiece of nature, which human art can neither alter nor improve; while that of the Canary is a model of more pliant materials, which we can mould at pleasure; and therefore it contributes in a much greater degree to the pleasures of society. It sings at all seasons, cheers us in the dullest weather, and adds to our happiness, by amusing the young and delighting the recluse, charming the tediousness of the cloister, and gladdening the soul of the innocent and captive.” It breeds generally twice a year when domesticated; and it sometimes happens that the female lays her eggs for the second time before the first brood is fledged. The male then good-naturedly takes her place on the eggs while she feeds the young ones, and feeds them in his turn, when she sits in the nest. They are very easily tamed, when brought up with attention and kindness, and take their food out of the hand, often perching on the shoulder of their mistress, and feeding out of her mouth. The Canary-bird is sometimes, and with success, matched with the linnet or the goldfinch; and the produce is a beautiful bird, partaking of the talents and plumage of both.

Canary-birds live twelve or thirteen years in our climate, and sing well to the end of their life.

The following curious anecdote of one of these birds is related by Dr. Darwin: “On observing a Canary-bird at the house of a gentleman near Tutbury, in Derbyshire, I was told it always fainted away when its cage was cleaned; and I desired to see the experiment. The cage being taken from the ceiling, and the bottom drawn out, the bird began to tremble, and turned quite white about the root of the bill: he then opened his mouth, as if for breath, and respired quick; stood up straighter on his perch, hung his wings, spread his tail, closed his eyes, and appeared quite stiff for half-an-hour; till at length, with much trembling and deep respirations, he came gradually to himself.”

Some years ago, a Frenchman exhibited in London twenty-four Canary-birds, many of which he said were from eighteen to twenty-five years of age. Some of these balanced themselves, head downward, on their shoulders, having their legs and tail in the air. One of them taking a slender stick in its claws, passed its head between its legs, and suffered itself to be turned round, as if in the act of being roasted. Another balanced itself, and was swung backward and forward on a kind of a slack rope. A third was dressed in military uniform, having a cap on its head, wearing a sword and pouch, and carrying a firelock in one claw: after some time sitting upright, this bird, at the word of command, freed itself from its dress, and flew away to the cage. A fourth suffered itself to be shot at, and falling down as if dead, was put into a little wheelbarrow, and wheeled away by one of its comrades!

THE CHAFFINCH is of the same dimensions as the sparrow, but more lightly and elegantly formed. Its nest, which is of the most beautiful and elaborate construction, is composed of mosses and lichens, interwoven and lined with wool, hair, and feathers. “Four or five eggs,” says Mr. Waterton, “are the usual number which the Chaffinch’s nest contains, and sometimes only three. The thorn, and most of the evergreen shrubs, the sprouts on the boles of forest trees, the woodbine, the whin, the wild rose, and occasionally the bramble, are this bird’s favourite places for nidification. Like all its congeners, it never covers its eggs on retiring from the nest, for its young are hatched blind. There is something peculiarly pleasing to me in the song of this bird. Perhaps association of ideas may add a trifle to the value of its melody; for when I hear the first note of the Chaffinch, I know that winter is on the eve of its departure, and that sunshine and fine weather are not far off. The Chaffinch never sings when on the wing; but it warbles incessantly on the trees, and on the hedgerows, from the early part of February to the second week in July; and then (if the bird be in a state of freedom) its song entirely ceases.”

THIS is a very docile bird, and will nearly imitate the sound of a pipe, or the whistle of man, with its voice, the mellowness of which is really charming. It is, by bird-fanciers, considered to excel all other small birds, except the linnet, in the softness of its tones, and in the variety of its notes. In captivity, its melody seems to be as great a solace to itself, as it is a pleasure to its master. By day, and even when the evening has called for the artificial light of candles, the Bullfinch pursues his melodious exertions, and if there be any other birds in the apartment, awakes them gently to the pleasing task of singing in concert with him. His notes are upon one of the lowest keys of the gamut of birds.

The plumage of the Bullfinch is beautiful, though simple and uniform, consisting only of three or four colours. In the male, a lovely scarlet or crimson colour adorns the breast, throat, and jaws, as far as the eyes; the crown of the head is black; the rump and tail are white; the neck and back grey, or lead-coloured. The name of this bird originates from its head and neck being, like those of the bull, very large in proportion to the body. The female does not share with the male the brightness of colours in the plumage. Bullfinches build their nests in gardens and orchards, and particularly in places that abound in fruit-trees, as they are passionately fond of fruit, which they often destroy before it is ripe.

THIS bird is also called the Thistlefinch, from his fondness for the seeds of that plant. He is very beautiful, his plumage being elegantly diversified, his form small, but pleasing, and his voice not loud, but sweet. He is easily tamed, and often exhibited as a captive, with a chain round his body, drawing up with trouble, but yet with amazing dexterity, two small buckets, alternately, one containing his meat, the other his drink. If he is old when caught, the Goldfinch, after a few weeks, if well attended to, and gently treated, becomes as familiar as if he had been brought up by the hand of his keeper. Some have been taught to fire a small piece of artillery, and go through the drilling exercise, to the great astonishment of the spectators; but the cruel and severe treatment that animals undergo, when taught performances altogether contrary to their nature, should prevent us from encouraging such exhibitions.

This bird, as if conscious of the beauty of his plumage, likes to view himself in a glass, which is sometimes fixed for this purpose in the back of the cage. The art with which it composes and builds its nest is really worthy of admiration; it is generally interwoven with moss, small twigs, horsehair, and other pliant materials; the inside stuffed most carefully with fine down, and tufts of cotton grass. There the female deposits five or six eggs, which are whitish, marked at their upper end with purple dots.

“The Goldfinch weaves, with willow down inlaid, And cannach tufts, his wonderful abode; And oft suspended at the limber end Of plane-tree spray, among the broad-leaved shoots, The tiny hammock swings to every gale. Sometimes in closest thickets ’tis concealed; Sometimes in hedge luxuriant, where the brier, The bramble, and the plum-tree branch Warp through the thorn, surmounted by the flowers Of climbing vetch, and honeysuckle wild.” GRAHAME.

The following lines were written by Cowper on a Goldfinch starved to death in his cage. The Goldfinch speaks:--

“Time was when I was free as air, The thistle’s downy seed my fare, My drink the morning dew; I perched at will on every spray, My form genteel, my plumage gay, My strains for ever new.

“But gaudy plumage, sprightly strain, And form genteel were all in vain, And of a transient date; For caught and caged, and starved to death, In dying sighs my little breath Soon passed the wiry grate.

“Thanks, gentle author of my woes, Thanks for this most effectual close And cure of every ill. Never your cruelty repress! For I, if you had shown me less, Had been your prisoner still.”

THE CROSSBILL is a native of the vast pine forests of northern Europe, and is by no means abundant in England. The bill of this singular bird is of considerable length, and the mandibles towards the point are very sharp and strong, curved in opposite directions, so that when closed the points cross each other, from which the bird derives his name. This curious organization enables them to obtain their food, which chiefly consists of the seeds of the cones of the fir, with the greatest facility. These seeds, for a considerable time after they have ripened, are so firmly enclosed within their ligneous scales, that the bill of no ordinary bird could reach them. Fixing itself across the cone, the Crossbill brings the mandibles of its beak immediately over each other, and insinuates them between the scales, then forcing them laterally, the scales open. The mandibles are again brought in contact, between the scales, and the bird then picks out the seed with their tips. It is very interesting to find that a structure so anomalous as that of the bill of the Crossbill is really beneficial to the creature, and not, as was formerly rather flippantly asserted, a defect or error of nature.

IS about the size and shape of a blackbird; the tips of the feathers on the neck and back are yellow; the feathers under the tail of an ash-colour; the other parts of the plumage are black, with a purple or deep blue gloss, changing as it is variously exposed to the light. In the hen, the tips of the feathers on the breast and belly, to the very throat, are white; which constitutes a material point in the choice of the bird, as the female is no singer. She lays four or five eggs, lightly tinctured with a greenish cast of blue. Starlings build in hollow trees and clefts of rocks and walls, are very easily tamed, and can add to their natural notes any words or modulations which they are taught.

In the winter season Starlings collect in vast flocks, and may be known at a great distance by their whirling mode of flight. The evening is the time when they assemble in the greatest numbers, and betake themselves to fens and marshes. Sterne has immortalized the Starling in his “Sentimental Journey:” “The bird flew to the place where I was attempting his deliverance, and thrusting his head through the trellis, pressed his head against it, as if impatient.--‘I fear, poor creature,’ said I, ‘I can’t set thee at liberty.’--‘No,’ said the Starling, ‘I can’t get out.’ ‘Disguise thyself as thou wilt, still, slavery,’ said I, ‘still thou art a bitter draught!’”

THIS singular bird was first brought before the notice of the public by Mr. Gould, in his splendid work, the “Birds of Australia,” from which the following extracts are given by permission of its author. The most remarkable circumstance relating to this bird, is its construction of a bower-like tenement, the object of which, it should seem, is a sort of playing-ground, or hall of assembly.

“The Satin Bower-bird,” says Mr. Gould, “is not a stationary species, but appears to range from one part of a district to another, either for the purpose of varying the nature, or of obtaining a more abundant supply of food. Judging from the many specimens I dissected, it would seem that it is altogether granivorous and frugivorous; or, if not exclusively so, that insects form but a small portion of its diet. The brushes it inhabits are studded with enormous fig-trees, some of them towering to the height of two hundred feet; among the lofty branches of which the Satin Bower-bird finds, in the small wild fig with which the branches are loaded, an abundant supply of a favourite food: this species also commits considerable depredation on ripening corn. It appears to have particular times in the day for feeding, and when thus engaged among the low shrub-like trees, I have approached within a few feet without creating alarm; but at other times I have found this bird extremely shy, especially the old males, which not unfrequently perch on the topmost branch of the loftiest tree, whence they can survey all around, and watch the movements of the females and their young in the brush below. Besides the loud liquid call peculiar to the male, both sexes frequently utter a harsh, unpleasant, guttural note, indicative of surprise or displeasure. The old black males are exceedingly few in number, as compared with the females and young male birds in the green dress, from which, and other circumstances, I am led to believe that at least two, if not three years, elapse before they attain the rich satin-like plumage, which, when once perfectly assumed, is, I believe, never again thrown off. The extraordinary bower-like structures alluded to above, are usually placed under the shelter of the branches of some overhanging tree in the most retired part of the forest, and differ considerably in size. The base consists of an extensive and rather convex platform of stick, firmly interwoven, on the centre of which the bower itself is built: this, like the platform on which it is placed, and with which it is interwoven, is formed of sticks and twigs, but of a more slender and flexible description, the tips of the twigs being so arranged as to curve inwards and nearly meet at the top: in the interior of the bower the materials are so placed, that the forks of the twigs are always presented outwards, by which arrangement not the slightest obstruction is offered to the passage of the birds. The interest of this curious bower is much enhanced by the manner in which it is decorated at and near the entrance with the most gaily-coloured articles that can be collected, such as the blue tail-feathers of the Rose-bill and Pennantian parrots, bleached bones, the shells of snails, &c.; some of the feathers are stuck in among the twigs, while others with the bones and shells are strewed about near the entrances. The propensity of these birds to pick up and fly off with any attractive object, is so well known to the natives, that they always search the runs for any small missing article, as the bowl of a pipe, &c., that may have been accidentally dropped in the brush. I myself found at the entrance of one of them a small neatly-worked stone tomahawk, of an inch and a half in length, together with some slips of blue cotton rags, which the birds had doubtless picked up at a deserted encampment of the natives. For what purpose these curious bowers are made is not yet, perhaps, fully understood; they are certainly not used as a nest, but as a place of resort for many individuals of both sexes, which, when there assembled, run through and around the bower in a sportive and playful manner, and that so frequently, that it is seldom entirely deserted.”

“The Raven sits On the raven-stone, And his black wing flits O’er the milk-white bone; To and fro, as the night-winds blow, The carcass of the assassin swings: And there alone, on the raven-stone, The Raven flaps his dusky wings. The fetters creak--and his ebon beak Creaks to the close of the hollow sound: And this is the tune by the light of the moon, To which the witches dance their round.” BYRON’S MANFRED.

THE RAVEN is about twenty-six inches in length, and his weight about three pounds. The bill is strong, black, and hooked at the tip. The plumage of the whole body of a shining black, glossed with deep blue; the back of the lower part inclining to a dusky colour. He is of a strong and hardy disposition, and inhabits all climates of the globe. He builds his nest in trees; and the female lays five or six eggs of a palish green colour, spotted with brown. It is said that the life of this bird extends to a century; and even beyond that period, if we can believe the accounts of several naturalists on the subject. The Raven unites the voracious appetite of the crow to the dishonesty of the daw and the docility of almost every other bird. He feeds chiefly on small animals; and is said to destroy rabbits, young ducks, and chickens, and sometimes even lambs, when they happen to be dropped in a weak state. In the northern regions, he preys on carrion, in concert with the white bear, the arctic fox, and the eagle. The faculty of scent in these birds must be very acute; for in the coldest of the winter days, at Hudson’s Bay, when every kind of effluvium is almost instantaneously destroyed by the frost, buffaloes and other beasts have been killed, where not one of these birds was seen; but in a few hours scores of them have been found collected about the spot, to pick up the blood and offal. The Raven possesses many diverting and mischievous qualities; he is active, curious, sagacious, and impudent; by nature a glutton, by habit a thief, in disposition a miser, and in practice a rogue. He is fond of picking up any small piece of money, bits of glass or any thing that shines, which he carefully conceals under the eaves of roofs, or in any other inaccessible place. He is easily tamed; and, like the parrot and starling, can imitate the human voice, in articulating words. At the seat of the Marquis of Aylesbury, in Wiltshire, a tame Raven, that had been taught to speak, used to ramble about in the park, where he was commonly attended and beset with crows, rooks, and others of his inquisitive tribe. When a considerable number of these were collected round him, he would lift up his head, and with a hoarse and hollow voice shout out Holloa! This would instantly put to flight and disperse his sable brethren; while the Raven seemed to enjoy the fright he had occasioned. When domesticated, the Raven is of great service, both as a scavenger and in keeping watch, in the last of which he is more alert and vigilant than almost any other animal. The Raven was the ensign of the invading Danes, and the prejudice thereby engendered against the bird is not yet quite extinct. Of its perseverance in the act of incubation, Mr. White relates the following singular anecdote:

“In the centre of a grove near Selborne, there stood an oak, which, though on the whole shapely and tall, bulged out into a large excrescence near the middle of the stem. On this tree a pair of Ravens had fixed their residence for such a series of years, that the oak was distinguished by the title of ‘The Raven-tree.’ Many were the attempts of the neighbouring youths to get at this nest: the difficulty whetted their inclinations, and each was ambitious of surmounting the arduous task; but when they arrived at the swelling, it jutted out so in their way, and was so far beyond their grasp, that the boldest lads were deterred and acknowledged the undertaking to be too hazardous. Thus the Ravens continued to build, nest upon nest, in perfect security, till the fatal day on which the wood was to be levelled. This was in the month of February, when those birds usually sit. The saw was applied to the trunk, the wedges were inserted into the opening, the wood echoed to the heavy blows of the mallet, the tree nodded to its fall; but still the dam persisted in sitting. At last, when it gave way, the bird was flung from her nest; and though her parental affection deserved a better fate, was whipped down by the twigs, which brought her dead to the ground!” The croaking of the Raven was formerly considered a note of ill omen:

“The Raven croaked as she sat at her meal, And the old woman knew what he said; And she grew pale at the Raven’s tale, And sickened and went to her bed.”

THIS bird is less in size than the raven. The bill is strong, thick, and straight. The general colour is black, except the extremities of the feathers, which are of a greyish tint. His delight is to feed upon carcasses and dead animals, or malefactors exposed on the gibbet. He roosts upon trees, and takes both animal and vegetable food. Crows, like rooks, are gregarious, and often fly in large companies in the fields or in the woods. On the upland moors, Crows occupy the place which rooks fill in the low country; and as the Crow has a very coarse and uncouth voice, the Lowlanders of Scotland are in the habit of saying that the Highland rooks “speak Gaelic.” They are great destroyers of partridges’ eggs, as they often pierce them with their bills, and carry them in that manner through the air to a great distance to feed their young. The female lays five or six eggs.

Mr. Montagu states that he once saw a Crow in pursuit of a pigeon, at which it made several pounces, like a hawk; but the pigeon escaped by flying in at the door of a house. He saw another strike a pigeon dead from the top of a barn. The Crow is so bold a bird that neither the kite, the buzzard, nor the raven, can approach its nest without being driven away. When it has young ones, it will even attack the peregrine falcon, and at a single pounce sometimes bring that bird to the ground.

THE cawing of these birds, on the tops of high trees near gentlemen’s houses, and in the middle of cities, is not very pleasing; yet old habits, to which we are reconciled, have as much influence upon us as if they were productive of amusement. Hence it has been seldom attempted to destroy a rookery; although the noise and other inconveniences that accompany these birds render their vicinity often troublesome. They feed entirely on corn and insects, and are little bigger than the common crows. In Suffolk, and in some parts of Norfolk, the farmers find it their interest to encourage the breed of Rooks, as the only means of freeing their grounds from the grub, which produces the cockchafer, and which in this state destroys the roots of corn and grass to such a degree, that instances have been known where the turf of pasture land might be turned up with the foot. The farmers in a northern county, a good many years ago, waged a war of extermination against the Rooks, but the very next year the crops were so completely cut up by grubs, that the same proprietors were at considerable expense in getting Rooks back again. Young Rooks are good eating, but should be skinned before they are dressed. The colour is black, but brighter than that of the crow, which the Rook resembles in shape. The female lays the same number of eggs; and the male shares with her the trouble of fetching sticks, and interweaving them to make the nest, an operation which is attended with a great deal of fighting and disputing with the other Rooks.

New comers are often severely beaten by the old inhabitants, and are even frequently driven quite away; of this an instance occurred near Newcastle, in the year 1783. A pair of Rooks, after an unsuccessful attempt to establish themselves in a rookery at no great distance from the Exchange, were compelled to abandon the attempt, and take refuge on the spire of that building; and, though constantly interrupted by other Rooks, they built their nest on the _top of the vane_, and reared their young ones, undisturbed by the noise of the populace below. The nest and its inhabitants were of course turned about by every change of the wind! They returned and built their nest every year on the same place, till 1793, soon after which year the spire was taken down. A small copperplate was engraved, of the size of a watchpaper, with a representation of the spire and the nest; and so much pleased were the inhabitants and other persons with it, that as many copies were sold as produced to the engraver a profit of ten pounds. The woodcut by Bewick, in the title-page to his Select Fable gives, a view of the old Exchange, with the Rook’s nest on the vane.

It is amusing to see Rooks coming at sunset as thick as a cloud hovering over a grove, and, after several eddies described in the air, and incessant cawings, each repairing to its own nest, and settling in a few minutes to rest, till the dawn calls them up again to their pasture in the neighbouring fields.

Dr. Darwin has remarked, that an instinctive feeling of danger from mankind is much more apparent in Rooks than in most other birds. Any one who has in the least observed them will see that they evidently distinguish that the danger is greater when a man is armed with a gun, than when he has no weapon with him. In the spring of the year, if a person happened to walk under a rookery with a gun in his hand, the inhabitants of the trees rise on their wings, and scream to the unfledged young to shrink into their nests from the sight of the enemy. The country people observing this circumstance so uniformly to occur, assert that Rooks can smell gunpowder.

THIS bird is much less than the crow. He has a large head and long bill, in proportion to the size of his body. The colour of the plumage is black, but on some parts inclining to a bluish hue; the fore part of the head is of a deeper black. The Jackdaw feeds upon nuts, fruits, seeds, and insects; and builds in ancient castles, towers, cliffs, and all desolate and ruinous places. The female lays five or six eggs, smaller, paler, and marked with fewer spots than those of the crow.

Jackdaws are easily tamed, and may with little difficulty be taught to pronounce several words. They conceal such parts of their food as they cannot eat, and often, along with it, small pieces of money or toys, frequently occasioning, for the moment, suspicions of theft in persons who are innocent. In Switzerland there is found a variety of the Jackdaw, which has a white ring round its neck. In Norway, and other cold countries, they have been seen entirely white. In a state of nature, jackdaws and rooks frequently feed together, and the Jackdaws come to meet the rooks in the morning, and also accompany them for some distance on their retreat at night.

“From bough to bough the restless Magpie roves, And chatters as he flies.” GISBORNE.

THIS bird resembles the daw, except in the whiteness of the breast and wings, and the length of the tail. The black of the feathers is accompanied with a changing gloss of green and purple. It is a very loquacious creature, and can be taught to imitate the human voice as well as any of the feathered creation.

Plutarch relates a singular story of a Magpie belonging to a barber at Rome, which could imitate, to a wonderful extent, almost every noise that it heard. Some trumpets happened one day to be sounded before the shop; and for a day or two afterwards the Magpie was quite mute, and seemed pensive and melancholy. This surprised all who knew it; and they supposed the sound of the trumpets had so stunned the bird as to deprive it at the same time of voice and hearing. This, however, was not the case; for, says the writer, the bird had been all the time occupied in profound meditation, and was studying how to imitate the sound of the trumpets; accordingly, in the first attempt, it perfectly imitated all their repetitions, stops, and changes. This new lesson, however, made it entirely forget everything that it had learned before.

The Magpie feeds on everything; worms, insects, meat, cheese, bread, milk, and all kinds of seeds, and also on small birds, when they come in its way: the young of the blackbird and of the thrush, and even a strayed chicken, often fall a prey to its rapacity. It is fond of hiding pieces of money or wearing apparel, which it carries away by stealth, and with much dexterity, to its hole. Its cunning is also remarked in the manner of making its nest, which it covers all over with hawthorn branches, the thorns sticking outward; within, it is lined with fibrous roots, wool, and long grass, and then plastered all round with mud and clay. The canopy above is composed of the sharpest thorns, woven together in such a manner as to deny all entrance except at the door, which is just large enough to permit egress and regress to the owners. In this fortress the birds bring up their brood with security, safe from all attacks, but those of the climbing schoolboy, who often finds his torn and bloody hands too dear a price for the eggs or the young ones.

There are many superstitions respecting Magpies; and it is singular that in all the southern and middle districts of England, two Magpies together are thought to betoken luck; while in Lancashire, and other northern counties, they are thought to betoken misfortune. The chattering of Magpies was formerly supposed to foretell the arrival of strangers.

IS like the jackdaw in shape and colour, but somewhat larger. The bill and legs are of a red colour, and hence the bird is frequently called the red-legged Crow. It is an inhabitant of Cornwall, Wales, and all the western coasts of England, and is generally to be found among rocks near the sea, where it builds, as well as in old ruinous castles and churches on the sea-side. The voice of the Chough resembles that of the jackdaw, except that it exceeds it in hoarseness and strength.

Mr. Montagu describing a Chough in the possession of a friend, says, “his curiosity is beyond bounds, never failing to examine everything new to him: if the gardener be pruning, he examines the nail-box, carries off the nails, and scatters the shreds about. Should a ladder be left against the wall, he instantly mounts, and goes all round the top of the wall: and if hungry descends at a convenient place, and immediately travels to the kitchen window, where he makes an incessant knocking with his bill, until he is fed or let in. If allowed to enter, his first endeavour is to get up-stairs; and if not interrupted, goes as high as he can, and gets into any room on the attic story; but his intention is to get upon the top of the house. He is excessively fond of being caressed, and would stand quietly by the hour to be smoothed; but resents an affront with violence and effect, by both bill and claws, and will hold so fast by the latter, that he is with difficulty disengaged.”

IS less than the magpie, and resembles him more in the habits of his life than in the shape and colour of his body. Like him he is talkative, and ready to imitate all sounds, but boasts of ornamental colours, which the magpie is deprived of. The ablest painter can produce no colour to equal the brightness of the chequered tablets of white, black, and blue, which adorn the sides of his wings. His head is covered with feathers, which are moveable at will, and the motion of which is expressive of the internal affections of the bird, whether he is stimulated by fear, anger, or desire.

A Jay, kept by a person in the north of England, had learned at the approach of cattle to set a cur dog upon them, by whistling and calling him by his name. One winter, during a severe frost, the dog was by this means excited to attack a cow that was big with calf, when the poor thing fell on the ice, and was much hurt. The Jay was complained of as a nuisance, and its owner was obliged to destroy it.

The hen lays five or six eggs, of a dull white colour, mottled with brown.

IS about the size of the jay. Its bill is black, sharp, and somewhat hooked. The head is of a dirty green, mingled with blue; of which colour is also the throat, with white lines in the middle of each feather; the breast is of a pale blue, like that of the pigeon; the middle of the back, between the shoulders, is red; the rump and lesser coverts of the wings are dark blue; the feet are short, and, like those of a dove, of a dirty yellow colour.

The Roller is wilder than the jay, and frequents the thickest woods; it builds its nest chiefly on birch-trees. It is a bird of passage, and migrates in the months of May and September. In Africa, it is said to fly in large flocks in the autumn, and is frequently seen on cultivated grounds, with rooks and other birds, searching for worms, insects, seeds, berries, roots, and in cases of necessity, small frogs.

IS the Halcyon of the ancients, and his name recalls to our mind the most lively ideas. It was believed, that, as long as the female sat upon her eggs, the god of storms and tempests refrained from disturbing the calmness of the waves, and _Halcyon days_ were, for navigators of old, the most secure times to perform their voyages:

“As firm as the rock, and as calm as the flood, Where the peace-loving Halcyon deposits her brood.”

But although this bears analogy to a natural coincidence between the time of breeding assigned to the Kingfishers and a part of the year when the ocean is less tempestuous, yet Mythology would exercise her fancy, and turn into wonders that which was nothing else than the common course of nature.

This bird is nearly as small as a common sparrow, but the head and beak appear proportionally too big for the body. The bright blue of the back and wings claims our admiration, as it changes into deep purple or lively green, according to the angles of light under which the bird presents itself to the eye. It generally haunts the banks of rivers, for the purpose of seizing small fish, on which it subsists, and which it takes in amazing quantities, by balancing itself at a distance above the water for a certain time, and then darting on the fish with unerring aim. It dives perpendicularly into the water, where it continues several seconds, and then brings up the fish, which it carries to land, beatsto death, and afterwards swallows. When it cannot find a projecting bough, it sits on some stone near the brink, or even on the gravel; but the moment it perceives the fish, it takes a spring upwards of twelve or fifteen feet, and drops from that height upon its prey.

The Kingfisher lays its eggs, to the number of seven or more, in a hole in the bank of the river or stream that it frequents. Dr. Heysham had a female brought alive to him at Carlisle by a boy, who said he had taken it the preceding night when sitting on its eggs. His information on the subject was, that “having often observed these birds frequent a bank upon the river Peteril, he had watched them carefully, and at last he saw them go into a small hole in the bank. The hole was too narrow to admit his hand; but, as it was made in soft mould, he easily enlarged it. It was upwards of half a yard long; at the end of it the eggs, which were six in number, were placed upon the bare mould, without the smallest appearance of a nest.” The eggs were considerably larger than those of the yellow-hammer, and of a transparent white colour. It appears, from a still later account, that the direction of the holes is always upward; that they are enlarged at the end, and have there a kind of bedding formed of the bones of small fish, and some other substances, evidently the castings of the parent animals. This bedding is generally half an inch thick, and mixed with earth; and on it the female deposits and hatches her eggs. When the young ones are nearly full-feathered they are extremely voracious; and as the old birds do not supply them with all the food they can devour, they are continually chirping, and may be discovered by their noise.

THERE are several distinct species of these birds, of which the best known are the large and small Emerald Birds of Paradise, which are very similar in appearance, and are both imported into Europe as ornaments for ladies’ dress. Their appearance when flying in their native forests is said to be most beautiful. M. Lesson, a French naturalist, gives the following account:--“Soon after our arrival on this land of promise (New Guinea) for the naturalist, I was on a shooting excursion. Scarcely had I walked some hundred paces in those ancient forests, the daughters of time, whose sombre depth was, perhaps, the most magnificent and stately sight that I had ever seen, when a Bird of Paradise struck my view: it flew gracefully and in undulations; the feathers of its sides formed an elegant and aërial plume, which, without exaggeration, bore no remote resemblance to a brilliant meteor. Surprised, astounded, enjoying an inexpressible gratification, I devoured this splendid bird with my eyes; but my emotion was so great that I forgot to shoot at it, and did not recollect that I had a gun in my hand till it was far away.”

The head is small, but adorned with colours which vie with the brightest hues of the feathered tribe; the neck is a beautiful fawn, and the body very small, but covered with long feathers of a browner hue, tinged with gold: the two middle feathers of the tail are little more than filaments, except at the point and near the base. Although the body is no larger than that of a thrush, the total length is two feet. This bird has long been esteemed by ladies as a head-dress; and as those sent to Europe for this purpose always had the legs cut off for the convenience of packing, it was reported, and at one time believed, that the Bird of Paradise had no legs, but that it lived always on the wing. Indeed, a very fierce controversy arose on this subject among the earlier naturalists.

The native place of these birds is New Guinea and the neighbouring islands, where they are generally found in flocks of thirty and forty, roosting on fig or teak trees. They always fly against the wind, that it may not ruffle their light and spreading plumage, as, if the wind came from behind, it would blow their long tails over their back. They take shelter from storms in the most dense thickets, and feed principally on figs, the berries of the teak, and insects. The note of the Bird of Paradise is very unpleasant, and resembles the cawing of a raven; it is chiefly heard in windy weather, when they dread being thrown on the ground.

IS less than the chaffinch. The head, neck, and beak are of an ash-colour; the sides under the wings red; the throat and breast of a pale yellow; the chin white, and the feathers under the tail red, with white tips. The Nuthatch feeds upon insects and also upon nuts, which he hoards in the hollow part of a tree; and it is pleasing to see him fetch a nut out of the hole, place it first in a chink, and standing above it with his head downwards, striking it with all his might, break the shell, and catch up the kernel. The hen is so attached to her brood, that, when disturbed from her nest, she flutters about the head of the depredator, and hisses like a snake. The Nuthatches are shy and solitary birds, and like the woodpeckers frequent woods, and run up and down the trees with surprising facility. They often move their tails in the manner of the wagtail. They do not migrate, but during the winter approach nearer to inhabited places, and are sometimes seen in orchards and gardens. The female lays her eggs in holes of trees.

THE CREEPERS are dispersed through most countries of the globe, and feed chiefly on insects, in search of which they run in a spiral direction round the stems and branches of trees, with great agility.

The Common Creeper is about five inches in length; its colour is tawny, the quills being tipped with white or light brown. Its nest is formed of dry grass and bark, and is placed in the hollow of some decayed tree.

IS larger than a house-sparrow. It has a long, slender, black bill; the head, neck, and back are of an ash-colour, the front of the neck and throat being a deep black; the breast is white; the wings a compound of lead-colour and red. It is a brisk and cheerful bird, and has a pleasant note. Clefts and crevices of rocks and the walls of old edifices are its favourite haunts, and sometimes, but very rarely, the trunks of trees. It feeds on insects, and is especially fond of spiders and their eggs. The nest is made in clefts of the most inaccessible rocks, and in the crevices of ruins, at a great height.

THIS bird is found in New South Wales, near Port Philip, but it is the male only that possesses the splendid tail whence it derives its name. It feeds on snails, and builds a nest like a magpie.

“Of all the birds I have ever met with,” says Mr. Gould, “the Menura is by far the most shy and difficult to procure. While among the brushes, I have been surrounded by these birds, pouring forth their loud andliquid calls, for days together, without being able to get a sight of them; and it was only by the most determined perseverance and extreme caution that I was enabled to effect this desirable object; which was rendered the more difficult by their often frequenting the almost inaccessible and precipitous sides of gullies and ravines, covered with tangled masses of creepers, and umbrageous trees: the cracking of a stick, the rolling down of a small stone, or any other noise, however slight, is sufficient to alarm it; and none but those who have traversed these rugged, hot, and suffocating brushes, can fully understand the excessive labour attendant on the pursuit of the Menura. Independently of climbing over rocks and fallen trunks of trees, the sportsman has to creep and crawl beneath and among the branches with the utmost caution, taking care only to advance when the bird’s attention is occupied in singing, or in scratching up the leaves in search of food: to watch its actions, it is necessary to remain perfectly motionless, not venturing to move even in the slightest degree, or it vanishes from sight, as if by magic. Although I have said thus much on the cautiousness of the Menura, it is not always so alert: in some of the more accessible brushes through which roads have been cut, it may frequently be seen, and even on horseback closely approached, the bird apparently evincing less fear of those animals than of man. At Illawarra it is sometimes successfully pursued by dogs trained to rush suddenly upon it, when it immediately leaps upon the branch of a tree, and its attention being attracted by the dog which stands barking below, it is easily approached and shot. Another successful mode of procuring specimens is, by wearing a tail of a full-plumaged male in the hat, keeping it constantly in motion, and concealing the person among the bushes, when the attention of the bird being arrested by the apparent intrusion of another of its own sex, it will be attracted within the range of the gun: if the bird be hidden from view by the surrounding objects, any unusual sound, as a shrill whistle, will generally induce him to show himself for an instant, by causing him to leap with a gay and sprightly air upon some neighbouring branch to ascertain the cause of the disturbance:immediate advantage must be taken of this circumstance, or the next moment it may be half-way down the gully. So totally different is the shooting of this bird to anything practised in Europe, that the most expert shot would have but little chance, until well experienced in the peculiar nature of the country, and the habits of the bird. The Menura seldom, if ever, attempts to escape by flying; it easily eludes pursuit by its extraordinary power of running. None are so efficient in obtaining specimens as the naked black, whose noiseless and gliding steps enable him to steal upon it unheard and unperceived, and with the gun in his hand, he rarely allows it to escape, and in many instances he will even kill it with his own weapons.

“The Lyre-bird is of a wandering disposition, and although it probably keeps to the same brush, it is constantly engaged in traversing it from one end to the other, from mountain-top to the bottom of the gullies, whose steep and rugged sides present no obstacle to its long legs and powerful muscular thighs: it is also capable of performing extraordinary leaps; and I have heard it stated, that it will spring ten feet perpendicularly from the ground. It appears to be of solitary habits, as I have never seen more than a pair together, and these only in a single instance; they were both males, and were chasing each other round and round with extreme rapidity, apparently in play, pausing every now and then to utter their loud shrill calls; while thus employed they carried the tail horizontally, as they always do when running quickly through the bush, that being the only position in which this great organ could be conveniently borne at such times. Among its many curious habits, the only one at all approaching to those of the _Gallinacæa_, is that of forming small round hillocks, which are constantly visited during the day, and upon which the male is constantly trampling, at the same time erecting and spreading out his tail in the most graceful manner, and uttering his various cries, sometimes pouring forth his natural notes, at others mocking those of other birds, and even the howling of the native dog, or dingo. The early morning and the evening are the periods when it is most animated and active.”

There is another kind of Lyre-Bird, also found in New South Wales, to which Mr. Gould has given the name of _Menura Alberti_, in honour of the late Prince Consort.

THERE are numerous species of Humming-Birds, but that represented above, is one of the most common. They are abundant in South America, particularly in Brazil; and are so small and so brilliant in their colours, that when seen fluttering about in the brilliant rays of a tropical sun, they look like flying gems. They are extremely active, darting about, and thrusting their long beaks and flexible tongues into every flower they see, in search of food. Sometimes they will remain suspended in the air for a long time together, vibrating their wings with such velocity, that they cannot be seen distinctly, but appear like a mist round the body of the bird, while they make that curious humming noise from which the bird takes its name. Sometimes they quarrel, when their little throats become distended, their crest, tails, and wings expand, and they fight with inconceivable fury, till one of them falls exhausted on the ground. The most common species is _Trochilus colubris_, the Ruby-throated Humming-Bird, and one of them has been kept alive in a cage for more than three months, by feeding it with sugar and water. This species is found in North America, where it migrates to the north in summer, and is there seen even in Canada and the country of Hudson’s Bay.

THIS is a small bird, measuring no more than twelve inches from the point of the bill to the end of the tail. The bill is sharp, black, and somewhat bending. The head is adorned with a very beautiful, large moveable crest, a kind of bright halo, the radiation of which places the head nearly in the centre of a golden circle. This pleasing ornament, which the bird sets up or lets fall at pleasure, is composed of a double row of feathers, reaching from the bill to the nape of the neck, which is of a pale red. The breast is white, with black streaks tending downwards; the wings and back are varied with white and black cross-lines. The food of the Hoopoe consists chiefly of insects, with the remains of which its nest is sometimes so filled as to become extremely offensive. This beautifully-crested bird is not at all common in this country, and is solitary, two of them being seldom seen together, while in Egypt, where Hoopoes are very common, they are often seen in small flocks. The female generally constructs her nest in a hollow tree, the materials employed, in addition to the remains of their food, being very scanty, consisting in fact of a few dried grass stalks and feathers. She lays from four to seven eggs at a time, of a pale lavender grey, about an inch and a half long. The young are generally hatched in June; it is said, however, that two or three broods are produced in the course of the year. The name alludes to the note of the bird, which resembles the word “hoop” repeated several times in a low voice.

Though this bird is found occasionally both in England and Scotland, it rarely breeds with us. It is common in Italy, where its strange startling cry is often heard, without the bird being seen, as it keeps itself concealed among trees. It is also not uncommon on the banks of the Garonne in France, where it may be seen skimming along the ground amongst the willows in search of the insects upon which it feeds.

There are several species of this magnificent family. The most brilliant is undoubtedly the Upupa Superba, or Grand Promerops of New Guinea. “There does not perhaps exist,” says Sonnerat, “a more extraordinary bird. Its body is delicate and slender, and, although it is of an elongated form, appears excessively small in comparison with the tail. Nature seems to have pleased herself in painting this being, already so singular, with her most brilliant colours. The head, the neck, and the belly are a glittering green; the feathers which cover these parts have the lustre and softness of velvet to the eye and to the touch; the back is changeable violet; the wings are of the same colour, and appear, according to the lights in which they are held, blue, violet, or deep black, always however imitating velvet.” This bird is rare, and a specimen is seldom seen even in the most complete collections.

§ IV.--_Scansores, or Climbers._

“Hail, beauteous stranger of the wood, Attendant on the spring! Now Heaven repairs thy rural seat, And woods thy welcome sing.

“Soon as the daisy decks the green, Thy certain voice we hear; Hast thou a star to guide thy path, Or mark the rolling year? “Delightful visitant! with thee I hail the time of flowers, When heav’n is fill’d with music sweet, Of birds among the bowers.” LOGAN.

THE well-known notes of this bird, in spite of their monotony, are heard with pleasure in spring, as a sure prognostic of fine weather. The Cuckoo is generally first heard about the middle of April, and ceases towards the end of June. This bird is so shy that he is seldom seen when uttering his singular note. The female does not build a nest, but lays her eggs in that of some other bird.

The Cuckoo is somewhat less than the magpie, his length being about twelve inches from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail. He is remarkable for his round prominent nostrils; the lower part of the body is of a yellowish colour, with black transverse lines on the throat and across the breast; the head and upper part of the body and wings are beautifully marked with black and tawny stripes, and on the top of the head there are a few white spots. The tail is long, and on the exterior part, or edges of the feathers, there are several white marks; the ground colour of the body is a sort of grey. The legs are short, and covered with feathers, and the feet are composed of four toes, two before and two behind.

We are indebted to the observations of Dr. Jenner for the following account of the habits and economy of this singular bird in the disposal of its eggs. He states that, during the time the hedge-sparrow is laying her eggs, which generally occupies four or five days, the Cuckoo contrives to deposit her egg among the rest, leaving the future care of it entirely to the hedge-sparrow. This intrusion often occasions some disorder; for the old hedge-sparrow, at intervals while she is sitting, not only throws out some of her own eggs but sometimes injures them in such a way that they become addled, so that it frequently happens that not more than two or three of the parent bird’s eggs are hatched: but, what is very remarkable, it has never been observed that she has either thrown out or injured the egg of the Cuckoo. When the hedge-sparrow has set her usual time, and has disengaged the young Cuckoo and some of her own offspring from the shell, her own young ones and any of her eggs that remain unhatched are soon turned out: the young Cuckoo then remains in full possession of the nest, and is the sole object of the future care of the foster parent. The young birds are not previously killed, nor are the eggs demolished; but they are left to perish together, either entangled in the bush that contains the nest, or lying on the ground beneath it. On the 18th June, 1787, Dr. Jenner examined a nest of a hedge-sparrow, which then contained a Cuckoo’s and three hedge-sparrow’s eggs. On inspecting it the day following, the bird had hatched: but the nest then contained only a young Cuckoo and one hedge-sparrow. The nest was placed so near the extremity of a hedge, that he could distinctly see what was going forward in it; and, to his great astonishment, he saw the young Cuckoo, though so lately hatched, in the act of turning out the young hedge-sparrow. The mode of accomplishing this was curious; the little animal, with the assistance of its rump and wings, contrived to get the bird upon its back, and making a lodgment for its burden by elevating its elbows, climbed backward with it up the side of the nest, till it reached the top; where, resting for a moment, it threw off its load with a jerk, and quite disengaged it from the nest. After remaining a short time in this situation, and feeling about with the extremities of its wings, as if to be convinced that the business was properly executed, it dropped into the nest again. Dr. Jenner made several experiments in different nests, by repeatedly putting in an egg to the young Cuckoo, which he always found to be disposed of in the same manner. It is very remarkable that nature seems to have provided for the singular disposition of the Cuckoo in its formation at this period; for, different from other newly-hatched birds, its back, from the scapulae downward, is very broad, with a considerable depression in the middle, which seems intended for the express purpose of giving a more secure lodgment to the egg of the hedge-sparrow or its young one, while the young Cuckoo is employed in removing either of them from the nest. When it is about twelve days old, this cavity is quite filled up, the back assumes the shape of that of nestling birds in general, and at that time the disposition of turning out its companion entirely ceases. The smallness of the Cuckoo’s egg, which in general is less than that of the hedge-sparrow, is another circumstance to be attended to in this surprising transaction, and seems to account for the parent Cuckoo’s depositing it in the nest of such small birds only as these. If she were to do this in the nest of a bird that produced a larger egg, and consequently a larger nestling, the design would probably be frustrated, the young Cuckoo would be unequal to the task of becoming sole possessor of the nest, and might fall a sacrifice to the superior strength of its partners. Dr. Jenner observes, that the egg of two Cuckoos are sometimes deposited in the same nest; and gives the following instance which fell under his observation. Two Cuckoos and a hedge-sparrow were hatched in the same nest; one hedge-sparrow’s egg remained unhatched. In a few hours a contest began between the Cuckoos for possession of the nest; and this continued undetermined till the afternoon of the following day, when the one which was somewhat superior in size, turned out the other, together with the young hedge-sparrow and the unhatched egg. The contest, he adds, was very remarkable; the combatants alternately appeared to have the advantage, as each carried the other several times nearly to the top of the nest, and again sank down oppressed by the weight of its burden; till at length, after various efforts, the strongest of the two prevailed, and was afterwards brought up by the hedge-sparrow.

The American Cuckoo, or Cow bird, is quite different in its habits to the European Cuckoo, as it builds a nest for its eggs, and hatches its young itself like other birds.

RECEIVES his name from his habit of pecking the insects from the chinks of trees and holes in the bark. The bill is straight, strong, and angular at the end; and in most of the species is formed like a wedge, for the purpose of piercing the trees. The nostrils are covered with bristles. The tongue is slender, and cylindrical in shape, and to the touch is hard and bony. The Woodpecker, in common with the Humming Bird, though for a different object, possesses the remarkable property of being able to dart out its tongue and secure insects at a considerable distance from its beak. For the purpose of effectually capturing the stronger insects, the tongue is barbed at the end, and provided with glutinous secretion. The toes of this bird are placed two forward and two backward; and the tail consists of ten hard, stiff, and sharp-pointed feathers. A Woodpecker is often seen hanging by his claws, and resting upon his breast against the stem of a tree; when, after darting his beak against the bark, with great strength and noise, he runs round the tree with much alacrity, which manœuvre has made the country people suppose that he goes round to see whether he has not pierced the tree through, though the fact is, the bird is in search of the insects, which he hopes to have driven out by his blow.

The following lines, from Moore’s beautiful song, allude to the noise which the Woodpecker makes in searching for its food:

“I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curl’d Above the green elms, that a cottage was near, And I said, if there’s peace to be found in the world, A heart that was humble might hope for it here. Every leaf was at rest, and I heard not a sound, But the Woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree.”

The fact is, that this beating against the bark is for no other purpose than to rouse the insects which the chink contains, and to force them to come out, which they do from their alarm at the noise, when the Woodpecker turning round takes them unawares, and feeds upon them: if the insects do not answer the delusive call, he darts his long tongue into the hole, and brings out, by this means, his reluctant prey. The plumage of this bird is a compound of red and green, two colours, the approximation of which is always productive of harmony in the works of nature. They nestle in the hollows of trees, where the female lays five or six whitish eggs, without making any nest, trusting to the natural heat of her body to hatch them.

The Green Woodpecker is seen more frequently on the ground than the other kinds, particularly where there are ant-hills. It inserts its long tongue into the holes through which the ants issue, and draws them out in abundance. Sometimes with its feet and bill it makes a breach in the nest, and devours the ants and their eggs at its ease. The young ones climb up and down the trees before they are able to fly; they roost very early, and repose in their holes till day. There are many different kinds of Woodpecker, five of which are common to this country.

THIS bird, Mr. Gould tells us, has received its English name from its habit of moving its head and neck in various directions, and with an undulating motion, like that of a snake; indeed, in some parts of England it is called the snake-bird. When found in its usual retreat in the hole of a tree, it makes a loud hissing noise, raises the feathers of the crown, and writhing its head and neck towards each shoulder alternately, with grotesque contortions, becomes an object of terror to a timid intruder; and the bird, taking advantage of a moment of indecision, darts with the rapidity of lightning from a situation where escape appeared impossible.

The Wryneck deposits its eggs on fragments of decayed wood within a hollow tree, and makes scarcely any nest. The birds when caught young are easily tamed.

IS a native of South America, very conspicuous for the magnitude and shape of its bill; which, in some of the species, is nearly as long and as large as the body itself. The length of its body is about eighteen inches (the size of the magpie); the head is large and strong, and the neck short, in order the more easily to support the bulk of such a beak. The head, neck, and wings are black; the breast of a most lovely orange saffron colour; the lower part of the body and the thighs are vermilion; the tail black. Mr. Gould’s specimen represents a narrow straw-coloured belt across the centre of the breast, dividing the orange tint from the vermilion. One of these birds that was kept in a cage was very fond of fruit, which it held for some time in its beak, touching it with great delight with the tip of its feathery tongue, and then tossing it into its throat by a sudden upright jerk; it also fed on small birds, insects, caterpillars, &c.

THE tongue of the Parrot is not unlike a black soft bean, and fills so completely the capacity of its beak, that the bird can easily modulate sounds and articulate words; the beak is composed of two pieces, both moveable, which is a peculiarity belonging almost exclusively to this tribe of birds. The bill of the Parrot is strongly hooked, and assists it in climbing, catching hold of the boughs of the trees with it, and then drawing its legs upwards; then again advancing the beak, and afterwards the feet, for its legs are not adapted for hopping from bough to bough, as other birds do. Several stories are told of the sagacity of these birds, and of the aptitude of their interrogatories and answers, but they have been no doubt the effect of chance.

Dr. Goldsmith says that a Parrot, belonging to King Henry the Seventh, having been kept in a room next the Thames, in his palace of Westminster, had learned to repeat many sentences from the boatmen and passengers. One day, sporting on its perch, it unluckily fell into the water. The bird had no sooner discovered its situation, than it called out aloud, “A boat! twenty pounds for a boat!” A waterman, happening to be near the place where the Parrot was floating, immediately took it up, and restored it to the king; demanding, as the bird was a favourite, that he should be paid the reward the bird had called out. This was refused; but it was agreed that, as the Parrot had offered a reward, the man should again refer to its determination for the sum he was to receive. “Give the knave a groat,” screamed the bird the instant the reference was made.

The memory of Parrots is very astonishing, and they can not only imitate discourse, but can sing verses of songs, and mimic gestures and actions. Scaliger saw one that performed the dance of the Savoyards at the same time that it repeated their song. The song was well imitated, but when the bird tried to caper, it was with the worst grace imaginable, as he turned in his toes, and kept tumbling back in a most clumsy manner.

Willoughby tells us of a Parrot, which, when a person said to it, “Laugh, Poll, laugh,” laughed accordingly, and the instant after screamed out, “What a fool to make me laugh!” Another, which had grown old with its master, shared with him the infirmities of age. Being accustomed to hear scarcely anything but the words “I am sick;” when a person asked it, “How do you do, Poll?” “I am sick,” it replied in a doleful tone, stretching itself out, “I am sick.”

Parrots are very numerous in the East and West Indies, where they assemble in companies, like rooks, and build in the hollows of trees. The female lays two or three eggs, marked with little specks, like those of the partridge. They never breed in our climate, though they live here to a great age. They feed entirely upon vegetables, but, when tame, will take from the mouth of their master or mistress any kind of chewed meat, and chiefly eggs, of which they seem particularly fond. They bite or pinch very hard, and some of them possess so much strength in their beak, that they could easily break a man’s finger. The Parrot is sensible of attachment, as well as of revenge; and if in their mimic attitudes they show great pleasure at the sight of their feeders, they also fly up with anger to the face of those who once have affronted or injured them.

WHICH is perhaps more commonly seen in England than the African Grey Parrot, is a native of South America, and receives its name from the great river Amazon, on the banks of which it is common. In its native country it does much damage to the plantations, and indeed many of the Parrots are as injurious in this respect as they are beautiful in their plumage. The Green Parrot resembles the Grey species in its habits, and may likewise be taught to speak with much distinctness.

IS one of the largest of the parrot tribe, and painted with the finest colours Nature can bestow. The beak is uncommonly strong; and the tail proportionally longer than that of any of the parrot tribe. Its voice is fierce and tremulous, sometimes sounding like the laugh of an old man; and it seems to utter the word “Arara,” which occasions its bearing that name in its native country.

When tame, it eats almost every article of human food, and is particularly fond of bread, beef, fried fish, pastry, and sugar. It cracks nuts with its bill, and dexterously picks out the kernels with its claws. It does not chew the soft fruits, but sucks them by pressing its tongue against the upper part of its beak: and the harder sort of food, such as bread and pastry, it bruises, or chews, by pressing the tip of the lower upon the most hollow part of the upper mandible.

_The Scarlet Macaw_ (_M. Macao_) is another large species, of a bright red colour, with some blue and yellow feathers on the wings, and blue ones about the base of the tail. It was formerly common in the West Indian Islands, but has now become rare there. Its voice is very loud and harsh.

THIS beautiful species, no less remarkable for the elegance of its form than for its docility and imitative powers, is supposed to have been the first of the parrot species known to the ancients, from the time of Alexander the Great down to the age of Nero. It is about fifteen inches long; its bill is thick and red; the head and the body a bright green; the neck, breast, and the whole of the under side of a paler tint. It has a red circle, or ring, which encompasses the neck, and is about the breadth of a little finger at the back; but grows narrower by degrees towards the sides, and ends under the lower bill. The lower part of the body is of so faint a green, that it seems almost yellow. The tail also is of a yellowish green, and the legs and feet ash-coloured.

THE WARBLING GRASS PAROQUET.

(_Melopsittacus undulatus._)

GREAT numbers of Paroquets of different species are found in Australia, and most of these live and seek their food upon the ground rather than in trees. One of them is called the _Ground Paroquet_, as it is never seen to perch upon trees, but is always running about among the grass and herbage. The Warbling Grass Paroquet is a well known and beautiful little Australian bird, of which considerable numbers have been imported into this country of late years; it is deservedly a favourite, both on account of its elegance, and from its possessing a gentle warbling note very different from the harsh screaming of many species of its tribe. It can, however, scream vigorously for its size. In the interior of Australia these charming little birds occur in countless multitudes. They feed chiefly on the seeds of grasses, which they pick up whilst running upon the ground, but they perch in crowds upon the gum-trees for shelter from the noon-day heat, and also before starting on an expedition in search of water.

THIS bird is distinguished from the parrots, by a beautiful crest, composed of a tuft of elegant feathers, which he can raise or depress at pleasure. We meet with some of a beautiful white plumage, and the inside feathers of the crest of a pleasing yellow, with a spot of the same colour under each eye, and one upon the breast. The Cockatoos are natives of the Indian Islands and Australia, where they are found in great abundance. Their food consists of seeds and soft and stony fruits, which last their powerful bill enables them to break with ease. They are easily tamed when taken at an early age, after which they become familiar and even attached, but their imitative powers seldom go beyond a very few words added to their own cry of Cockatoo.

In a wild state they are shy, and cannot easily be approached. The flesh of the young birds is accounted very good eating. The female is said to make her nest in the rotten limbs of trees, using nothing more than the accumulation of vegetable mould formed by the decayed parts of the bough. The eggs are white, without spots; there are no more than two young at a time. The natives first find the nest by the pieces of bark and twigs which the old birds strip off the trees adjoining that in which the nest is situated. It is a remarkable fact that the bark is never stripped off the tree which contains the nest.

Mr. Bennet, in speaking of the large black Cockatoo of New Holland, says, that if this bird observes on the trunk of a tree indications of a larva being within, it diligently labours to get at it with its powerful beak, and should the object of its pursuit be deep within the wood, as often happens, the trunk becomes so extensively hacked, that a slight gust of wind will lay the tree prostrate.

§ V.--_Gallinaceous Birds._

ASTONISHED at the unparalleled beauty of this bird, the ancients could not help indulging their lively and creative fancy, in accounting for the magnificence of his plumage. They made him the favourite of imperial Juno, sister and wife to Jupiter; and not less than the hundred eyes of Argus were pulled out to ornament his tail; indeed, there is scarcely anything in nature that can vie with the transcendent lustre of the Peacock’s feathers. The changing glory of his neck eclipses the deep azure of ultramarine; and at the least evolution, it assumes the green tint of the emerald, and the purple hue of the amethyst. His head, which is small and finely shaped, has several curious stripes of white and black round the eyes, and is surmounted by an elegant plume, or tuft offeathers, each of which is composed of a slender stem and a small tuft at the top. Displayed with conscious pride, and exposed under a variety of angles to the reflections of light, the broad and variegated disks of his train, of which the neck, head, and breast of the bird become the centre, claim our admiration. By an extraordinary mixture of the brightest colours, it displays at once the richness of gold, and the paler tints of silver, fringed with bronze-coloured edges, and surrounding eye-like spots of dark brown and sapphire. The hen does not share in the beauty of the cock, and her feathers are generally of a light brown. She lays only a few eggs at a time, generally at an interval of three or four days; they are white and spotted, like the eggs of the turkey. She sits from twenty-seven to thirty days.

The loud screamings of the Peacock are worse than the harsh croakings of the raven, and a sure prognostic of bad weather; and his feet, more clumsy than those of the turkey, make a sad contrast with the elegance of his plumage:

“Though richest hues the Peacock’s plumes adorn, Yet horror screams from his discordant throat.”

The spreading of the train, the swelling of the throat, neck, and breast, and the puffing noise which they emit at certain times, are proofs that the Turkey and the Peacock stand nearly allied in the family chain of animated beings.

The flesh of the Peacock was anciently esteemed a princely dish; and the whole bird used to be served on the table with the feathers of the neck and tail preserved; but few people could now relish such food, as it is much coarser than the flesh of the turkey. The Italians have given this laconic description of the Peacock: “He has the plumage of an angel, the voice of a devil, and the stomach of a thief.”

WAS originally an inhabitant of America, whence he was brought to Europe by some Jesuit missionaries, which accounts for his being called a Jesuit in some parts of the continent. The general colour of the feathers is buff and black; and turkeys have about the head, especially the cock, naked and tuberous lumps of flesh of a bright red colour. A long fleshy appendage hangs from the base of the upper mandible, and seems to be lengthened and shortened at pleasure. The hen lays from fifteen to twenty eggs, which are whitish and freckled. The chicks are very tender, and require great care and attentive nursing, until they are able to seek their food. In the county of Norfolk the breeding ofTurkeys, which is there a considerable branch of trade, is brought to great perfection; and some weighing upwards of twenty pounds each have been raised there. They appear to have a natural antipathy to everything of a red colour.

Though extremely prone to quarrel among themselves, they are, in general, weak and cowardly against other animals, and fly from almost every creature that ventures to oppose them. On the contrary, they pursue everything that appears to dread them, particularly small dogs and children; and after having made these objects of their aversion scamper, they evince their pride and satisfaction by displaying their plumage, strutting about among their female train, and uttering their peculiar note of self-approbation. Some instances, however, have occurred, in which the Turkey-cock has exhibited a considerable share of courage and prowess; as will appear from the following anecdote:--A gentleman of New York received from a distant part a Turkey-cock and hen, and with them a pair of bantams; which were put all together into the yard with his other poultry. Some time afterwards, as he was feeding them from the barn-door, a large hawk suddenly turned the corner of the barn, and made a pounce at the bantam hen: she immediately gave the alarm, by a noise which is natural to her on such occasions; when the Turkey-cock, who was at the distance of about two yards, and without doubt understood the hawk’s intention, flew at the tyrant, with such violence, and gave him so severe a stroke with his spurs, as to knock him from the hen to a considerable distance; by which means the bantam was rescued from destruction.

The wild Turkey-cock is, in the American forests, an object of considerable interest. It perches on the tops of the deciduous cypress and magnolia:

“On the top Of yon magnolia, the loud Turkey’s voice Is heralding the dawn: from tree to tree Extends the wakening watch-note far and wide, Till the whole woodlands echo with the cry.” SOUTHEY.

THIS bird, which is also called the _Pearled Hen_, was originally brought from Africa, where the breed is common, and seems to have been well known to the Romans, who used to esteem the flesh of this fowl as a delicacy, and admit it at their banquets. It went then by the name of Numidian Hen, or _Meleagris_, because it was fabled that the sisters of Meleager, who unceasingly deplored his death, were metamorphosed into Guinea Hens by Diana. In fact, although they are now domesticated with us, they still retain a great deal of their original freedom, and have a stupid look. Their noise is very disagreeable: it is a creaking note, which, incessantly repeated, grates upon the ear, and becomes very teasing and unpleasant. They belong to the class of birds called _pulveratores_; as they scrape the ground and roll themselves in the dust like common hens, in order to get rid of small insects which lodge in their feathers.

The Pintado is somewhat larger than the common hen; the head is bare of feathers, and covered with a naked skin of a bluish colour; on the top is a callous protuberance of a conical form. At the base of the bill on each side hangs a loose wattle, red in the female and bluish in the male. The general colour of the plumage is a dark bluish grey, sprinkled with round white spots of different sizes, resembling pearls, from which circumstance the epithet of _pearled_ has been applied to this bird; which at first sight appears as if it had been pelted by a strong shower of hail.

If trained when young, these birds may easily be rendered tame. M. Bruë informs us, that when he was on the coast of Senegal he received as a present from an African princess two Guinea fowls. Both these birds were so familiar that they would approach the table and eat out of his plate; and, when they had liberty to fly about upon the beach, they always returned to the ship when the dinner or supper bell rang.

In a wild state, it is asserted that the Pintado associates in large flocks. Dampier speaks of having seen between two and three hundred of them together in the Cape de Verd Islands. They were originally introduced into our country from the coast of Africa somewhat earlier than the year 1260.

In Jamaica, where they have run wild, and become very destructive to the plantations, they are sometimes caught, Mr. Gosse tells us, by the following stratagem:--A small quantity of corn is steeped for a night in proof rum and is then placed in a shallow vessel, with a little fresh rum, and the water expressed from a bitter cassava grated. This is deposited within an enclosed ground to which the depredators resort. A small quantity of the grated cassava is then strewed over it, and it is left. The fowls eat the medicated food greedily, and are soon found reeling about intoxicated, unable to escape, and content with thrusting their heads into a corner. It is almost unnecessary to observe that in this state they become an easy prey. Pigeons are sometimes caught in this manner in Germany by the poachers.

This bird has, of late years, greatly increased in this country, and is often seen hanging at the poultry shops and in the markets; the great abundance of them has considerably reduced their value, and they now sell, proportionally, like other fowls. The eggs are smaller and rounder than those of the common hen, and of a speckled reddish-brown colour. They are esteemed a very delicate food.

IT is remarkable that this bird does not hatch its eggs by incubation. It collects together a great heap of decaying vegetables as the place of deposit of its eggs, thus making a hotbed, arising from the decomposition of the collected matter, by the heat of which the young are hatched. This mound varies in quantity from two to four cart-loads, and is not the work of a single pair of birds, but is the result of the united labour of many.

Mr. Gould, in his _Birds of Australia_, gives the following account of the discovery of one of these nests by Mr. Gilbert:--

“I landed beside a thicket, and had not proceeded far from the shore, ere I came to a mound of sand and shells, with a slight mixture of black soil, the base resting on a sandy beach, only a few feet above high-water mark; it was enveloped in the large yellow-blossomed Hibiscus, and was of a conical form, twenty feet in circumference at the base, and about five feet in height. On pointing it out to the native, and asking him what it was, he replied, ‘Oooregoorga Rambal,’ Jungle-fowls’ house or nest. I then scrambled up the sides of it, and, to my extreme delight, found a young bird in a hole about two feet deep; it was lying on a few dry withered leaves, and appeared only a few days old. So far I was satisfied that these mounds had some connection with the bird’s mode of incubation; but I was still sceptical as to the probability of these young birds ascending from so great a depth as the natives represented, and my suspicions were confirmed by my being unable to induce the native, in this instance, to search for the eggs, his excuse being that he knew it would be no use, as he saw no traces of the old birds having recently been there. I took the utmost care of the young bird, intending to rear it if possible; I therefore obtained a moderate-sized box, and placed in it a large portion of sand. As it fed rather freely on bruised Indian corn, I was in full hopes of succeeding; but it proved of so wild and intractable a disposition, that it would not reconcile itself to such close confinement, and effected its escape on the third day. During the period it remained in captivity, it was incessantly occupied in scratching up the sand into heaps, and the rapidity with which it threw the sand from one end of the box to the other was quite surprising for so young and small a bird, its size not being larger than that of a small quail.

“At night it was so restless, that I was constantly kept awake by the noise it made in its endeavours to escape. In scratching up the sand it only used one foot, and having grasped a handful, as it were, the sand was thrown behind it, with but little apparent exertion, and without shifting its standing position on the other leg: this habit seemed to be the result of an innate restless disposition, and a desire to use its powerful feet, and to have but little connection with its feeding; for although Indian corn was mixed with the sand, I never detected the bird in picking any of it up while thus employed.

“I continued to receive the eggs without having any opportunity of seeing them taken from the mound until the 6th of February; when, on again visiting Knocker’s Bay, I had the gratification of seeing two taken from a depth of six feet, in one of the largest mounds I had then seen. In this instance the holes ran down in an oblique direction from the centre towards the outer slope of the hillock, so that, although the eggs were six feet deep from the summit, they were only two or three feet from the side. The birds are said to lay but a single egg in each hole, and after the egg is deposited the earth is immediately thrown down lightly, until the hole is filled up; the upper part of the mound is then smoothed and rounded over. It is easily known when a Jungle-fowl has been recently excavating, from the distinct impression of its feet on the top and sides of the mound, and from the earth being so lightly thrown over, that with a slender stick the direction of the hole may readily be detected; the ease or difficulty of thrusting the stick down indicating the length of time that has elapsed since the birds’ operations. Thus far it is easy enough; but to reach the eggs requires no little exertion and perseverance. The natives dig them up with their hands alone, and only make sufficient room to admit their bodies, and to throw out the earth between their legs: by grubbing with their fingers alone, they are enabled to fellow the direction of the hole with greater certainty, which will sometimes, at a depth of several feet, turn off abruptly at right angles, its direct course being obstructed by a clump of wood, or some other impediment.”

In all probability, as Nature has adopted this mode of reproduction, she has also furnished the tender birds with the power of sustaining themselves from the earliest period; and the great size of the egg would equally lead to this conclusion, since in so large a space it is reasonable to suppose that the bird would be much more developed than is usually found in eggs of smaller dimensions. The eggs are perfectly white, of a long, oval form, three inches and three quarters long by two inches and a half in diameter.

There are several other Australian birds which adopt the same singular mode of hatching their eggs; one of these is called the Native Pheasant (_Leipoa ocellata_), and another the Brush Turkey (_Talegalla Lathami_). The latter has its head and neck covered with a naked skin, like the turkey, but the lower part of this is much thickened, warty, and bright yellow.

THE name of this bird implies that he was originally a native of the banks of the river Phasis, in Armenia; how and when he emigrated, and began to frequent our groves, is unknown. He is of the size of the common cock; the bill is of a pale horn colour; the nostrils arched; the eyes yellow, and surrounded by a naked warty skin, of a beautiful scarlet, finely spotted with black; immediately under each eye there is a small patch of short feathers, of a dark glossy purple; the upper parts of the head and neck are of a deep purple, varying to glossy green and blue; the lower parts of the neck and breast are of a reddish chesnut, with black indented edges; the sides and lower part of the breast are of the same colour, with tips of black to each feather, which, in different lights, vary to glossy purple; indeed, the whole colour of this half-domesticated fowl is very beautiful, uniting the brightness of deep yellow gold to the finest tints of the ruby and turquoise, with reflections of green; the whole being set off by several spots of shining black; but in this, as in every other kind of gorgeously-feathered birds, Nature has for some wise purposes, yet unknown to us, denied the female that admirable beauty of plumage which belongs to the male. The Pheasant lives in the woods, which he leaves at dusk to perambulate corn-fields and other sequestered places, where he feeds with his females, upon acorns, berries, grain, and seeds of plants, but chiefly on ants’ eggs, of which he is particularly fond. His flesh is justly accounted better meat than any of the domestic or wild fowls, as it unites the delicacy of the common chicken to a peculiar taste of its own. The female lays eighteen or twenty eggs once a year, in the wild state; but it is in vain that we have attempted to domesticate this bird entirely, as she never will remain patiently confined, and if she ever breeds in confinement is very careless of her brood.

There are great varieties of Pheasants, of extraordinary beauty and brilliancy of colours: many of these, such as the Gold and Silver Pheasants (_Phasianus pictus_ and _P. Nycthemerus_), brought from the rich provinces of China, are kept in aviaries in this kingdom.

This beautiful bird is elegantly described in the following passage:--

“See! from the brake the whirring Pheasant springs, And mounts exulting on triumphant wings; Short is his joy; he feels the fiery wound, Flutters in blood, and panting beats the ground: Ah! what avails his glossy, varying dyes, His purple crest, his scarlet-circled eyes, The vivid green his shining plumes unfold, His painted wings, and breast that flames with gold!” POPE’S WINDSOR FOREST.

THESE Partridges are natives of Guernsey and Jersey; but are also very frequently found on the adjoining coasts of France. Of late years they have spread very rapidly in England; and as they are stronger and fiercer than the common partridge, the latter becomes scarce wherever the Red-legged Partridges are abundant. In the Western districts of France they are very abundant, and their flesh is plump and juicy. In England it is as white as in France, but more dry. The side-feathers are very handsomely speckled, and there is a rich black mark beginning behind the eye and forming a kind of gorget on the breast. The eyelids are of a bright red, as are the bill and feet, and the claws are brown. They build their nests on the ground; but are sometimes found perched on trees, or on a fence or paling.

IS in weight about fourteen ounces. The plumage, although it cannot boast of gaudiness, is very pleasing to the eye, being a mixture of brown and fawn-colour, interspersed with grey and ash-colour tints. The head is small and pretty; the beak strong, but short, and resembling that of all other granivorous birds. The female lays fifteen or eighteen eggs, and leads her brood in the corn-fields with the utmost care. Young Partridges are among the birds which run fleetly the moment they come out of the shell, and may sometimes be found running with a piece of the shell still remaining on their heads. The affection of Partridges for their offspring is peculiarly interesting. Both the parents lead them out to feed: they point out to them the proper places for their food, and assist them in finding it by scratching the ground with their feet. They frequently sit close together, covering the young ones with their wings; and from this position they are not easily roused. If, however, they are disturbed, most people acquainted with rural affairs know the confusion that ensues. The male gives the first signal of alarm, by a peculiar cry of distress; throwing himself at the same moment more immediately into the way of danger, in order to mislead the enemy. He flutters along the ground, hanging his wings, and exhibiting every symptom of debility. By this stratagem he seldom fails of so far attracting the attention of the intruder as to allow the female to conduct the helpless unfledged brood into some place of security.

The nest is usually on the ground; but on the farm of Lion Hall, in Essex, belonging to Colonel Hawker, a Partridge, in the year 1788, formed her nest, and hatched sixteen eggs, on the top of a pollard oak-tree! What renders this circumstance the more remarkable is, that the tree had fastened to it the bars of a stile, where there was a footpath; and the passengers, in going over, discovered and disturbed her before she sat close. When the brood was hatched, the birds scrambled down the short and rough boughs, which grew out all around the trunk of the tree, and reached the ground in safety. It has long been a received opinion among sportsmen, as well as among naturalists, that the female Partridge has none of the bay feathers of the breast like the male. This, however, is a mistake; for Mr. Montague happening to kill nine birds in one day, with very little variation as to the bay mark on the breast, he was led to open them all, and discovered five of them were females. On carefully examining the plumage, he found that the males could only be known by the superior brightness of colour about the head; which alone, after the first or second year, seems to be the true mark of distinction. They fly in coveys till about the third week in February, when they separate and pair; but if the weather be very severe, it is not unusual to see them collect together again. We are told that a gamekeeper, in Dorsetshire, hearing a Partridge utter a cry of distress, was attracted by the sound into a field of oats, when the bird ran round him very much agitated; upon his looking among the corn, he saw in the midst of her infant brood a large snake, which he killed; and perceiving its body much distended, he opened it, when to his astonishment two young Partridges ran from their prison, and joined their mother; two others were found dead in its stomach. Partridges have ever held a distinguished place at the tables of the luxurious: we have an old distich:

“If the Partridge had the woodcock’s thigh, ’Twould be the best bird that e’er did fly.”

IS a small bird, being in length no more than seven inches. The colour of the breast is a dirty pale yellow, and the throat has a little mixture of red: the head is black, and the body and wings have black stripes upon a hazel-coloured ground. Its habits and manner of living resemble those of the partridge, and it is either caught in nets by decoy birds, or shot by the help of the setting-dog, its call being easily imitated by tapping two pieces of copper one against another. The flesh of the Quail is very luscious, and next in flavour to that of the partridge. Quails are birds of passage, the only peculiarity in which they differ from all other of the poultry kind; and such prodigious numbers have sometimes appeared on the western coast of the kingdom of Naples, that one hundred thousand have been caught in one day, within the space of three or four miles. In some parts of the south of Russia they abound so greatly, that at the time of their migration they are caught by thousands, and sent in casks to Moscow and St. Petersburg. The female seldom lays more than six or seven eggs.

The ancient Athenians kept this bird merely for the sport of fighting with each other, as game-cocks do, and never ate the flesh. The Quail was that wild fowl which God thought proper to send to the chosen people of Israel as a sustenance for them in the desert.

The Chinese Quail is a beautiful little bird, and is often kept in cages in China, for the singular purpose, as it is said, of warming people’s hands in winter; as taking the soft, warm body of the bird in the hand diffuses through it an agreeable warmth. It is also very pugnacious, and is employed in fighting.

IS larger than the Common Quail, and is something between a Quail and a Partridge.

The CALIFORNIAN QUAIL (_O. Californicus_) is distinguished by its possession of a curious crest or tuft of feathers on the crown of the head.

“High on exulting wing the Heath-Cook rose, And blew his shrill blast o’er perennial snows.” ROGERS.

THIS bird is called by some ornithologists the _Moor Cock_, and by others _Red Game_. The beak is black and short; over the eyes there is a bare skin of a bright red. The general colour of the plumage is red and black, variegated, and intermixed with each other, except the wings, which are brownish, spotted with red, and the tail, which is black; the feet are covered with thick feathers down to the very claws. It is common in the north of England, in Scotland, and in Wales; and not only affords great diversion to the noblemen and gentlemen of those countries who are fond of shooting, but also repays them well for their trouble, as the flesh is very delicate, and holds on our table an equal place with that of the partridge and the pheasant. The season of Grouse shooting commences on the 12th of August. In winter they are found in flocks of sometimes fifty to one hundred in number, which are termed by sportsmen _packs_, and become remarkably shy and wild, seldom allowing the sportsman to approach them within one hundred yards. They keep near the summits of the heathy hills, and seldom descend to the lower grounds. Here they feed on the mountain berries and on the tender tops of the heath. The hen lays seven or eight eggs of a reddish black colour.

IS somewhat larger than a pigeon; its bill is black, and its plumage in summer is of a pale brown colour, elegantly mottled with small bars and dusky spots. The head and neck are marked with broad bars of black, rust-colour, and white; the wings and belly are white. The White Grouse is fond of lofty situations, where it braves the severest cold. It is found in most of the northern parts of Europe and America, even as far as Greenland. In this country it is only to be met with on the summits of some of our highest hills, chiefly in Scotland, and in the Hebrides and Orkneys, but sometimes in Cumberland and Wales. Its plumage becomes pure white in winter, with the exception of the tail feathers, which remain black.

IS about four pounds in weight; but the female, which is usually called the Grey Hen, is often not more than two. The plumage of the whole body of the male is black, and glossed over the neck and rump with shining blue; the coverts of the wings are of a dusky brown, with the quill feathers black and white. The tail is much forked in the male. These birds never pair; but in the spring the males assemble at their accustomed haunts on the tops of heathy mountains, where they crow and clap their wings:

“And from the pine’s high top brought down The giant Grouse, while boastful he display’d His breast of varying green, and crow’d and clapp’d His glossy wings.” GISBORNE.

The females, at this signal, resort to them. The males are very quarrelsome, and fight together like game-cocks. On these occasions they are so inattentive to their own safety, that two or three have sometimes been killed at one shot; and instances have occurred of their having been knocked down with a stick.

Like the Capercalzie, or Cock of the Woods, a larger species of this genus, these birds are common in Russia, Siberia, and other northern countries, chiefly in wooded and mountainous situations; and in the northern parts of our own island on uncultivated moors.

WAS also formerly an inhabitant of the forests of Scotland, but has been extinct in Britain for many years. The male is as large as a good-sized turkey, the female considerably smaller. Several attempts have been made to rear the Capercalzie, and domesticate it in this country, but without effect. They are now most numerous in Sweden, where they are much esteemed as food. Of late years they have been brought to the English market, and are considered very good eating.

“While the Cock, with lively din, Scatters the rear of darkness thin; And to the stack, or the barn door, Stoutly struts his dames before.” MILTON.

THIS bird is so well known that it would be needless to say much of him. His plumage is various and beautiful, his courage very great and proverbial, and his intuitive knowledge of the period of sunrise has baffled the most scrutinising researches of naturalists. When of a good breed, and well taught to fight, he will die rather than yield to his adversary. The hen lays a great number of eggs, and will hatch as many as thirteen at one sitting; but this is considered the extreme number, being as many as she can well cover. When in the secluded state of incubation she eats very little; and yet is so courageous and strong that she will rise and fight any men or animals that dare to approach her nest. It is impossible to conceive how, with such a scanty sustenance as she takes, she can, for twenty-one days, emit constantly from her body as much heat as would raise Fahrenheit’s thermometer to ninety-six degrees. The flesh of this bird is delicate and wholesome, and universally relished as nourishing and agreeable food.

There are several varieties of families of this fowl. The Hamburg Cock has a beautiful tuft of feathers about his ears and on the top of his head; and the Bantam has his legs and toes entirely feathered, which is more an impediment than an ornament to the bird.

The cruel sport of cockfighting may be traced back to the earliest antiquity. The Athenians seem to have received it from India, where it is even now followed with a kind of frenzy; and we are told that the Chinese will sometimes risk not only the whole of their property, but their wives and children, on the issue of a battle. The religion of the Greeks could not see that game with pleasure, and therefore cockfighting was allowed only once a year; but the Romans adopted the practice with rapture, and introduced it into this island. Henry VIII. delighted in this sport, and caused a commodious house to be built for the purpose, which, although now applied to a very different use, still retains the name of the Cockpit. The part of our ships so called, seems also to indicate that in former times the diversion of cockfighting was permitted, in order to beguile the tedious hours of a long voyage. The Cock has been a subject of considerable interest with the poets; and has been very commonly called by them “Chanticleer:”

“Within this homestead lived, without a peer For crowing loud, the noble Chanticleer.” DRYDEN.

“The feathered songster, Chanticleer, Had wound his bugle-horn, And told the early villager The coming of the morn.” CHATTERTON.

FROM the Bankiva fowl nearly all the various kinds of fowls found in British poultry-yards are said to have sprung. It is a native of the island of Java, and is characterised by a red indented comb, red wattles, and ash-grey legs and feet. The cock has a thin indented or scalloped comb, and wattles under the mouth. The feathers of the neck are long, falling down, and rounded at the tips, and are of the finest gold colour. The head and neck are fawn-coloured, the wing-coverts dusky brownish and black; the tail and belly black. The hen is of a dusky ash-grey and yellowish colour, and has a much smaller comb and beard than the cock.

THE PADUAN, OR JAGO FOWL.

(_Gallus giganteus._)

THE wild species, termed by Marsden the Jago fowl, is a native of Java and Sumatra, and is supposed by Temminck to be the original of this fine breed, though little is known of the wild sort, further than that it is double the size of the Bankiva, or common fowl. Marsden says he has seen in the East a cock of this species tall enough to pick crumbs from a dining-table. They are said to weigh from eight to ten pounds. The combs of both the cock and hen are large, frequently double, of the form of a crown, with a tufted crest of feathers, which is largest in the hen; the voice is stronger and harsher than that of other fowls; but the most singular peculiarity is, that they do not come into full feather till about half grown. The Cochin-China fowls are said to be a variety of the Jago fowls. There are numerous hybrids and varieties of the Jago fowl found under different names in poultry-yards, but all of them lay fine large eggs, and are highly esteemed for the excellent flavour of their flesh. One of the most interesting of these varieties is called

THE SPANISH FOWL,

the body and tail feathers of which are of a rich black, with occasionally a little white on the breast. The cock of this variety is a most majestic bird; its deportment is grave and stately, and its eyes are encircled with a ring of brown feathers, from which rises a black tuft that covers the ears. There are other similar feathers behind the comb and beneath the wattles. The legs and feet are of lead colour, except the sole of the foot, which is yellowish.

THE BANTAM FOWL

is a small variety, with short legs, most frequently feathered to the toes, so as sometimes to obstruct walking. Many Bantam fanciers prefer those which have clear bright legs, without any vestige of feathers. The full-bred Bantam cock should have a rose comb, a well-feathered tail, full hackles, a proud lively carriage, and ought not to weigh more than a pound. The nankeen coloured and the black are the greatest favourites. If of the latter colour, the bird should have no feathers of any other sort in his plumage. The nankeen bird should have his feathers edged with black, his wings barred with purple, his tail feathers black, his hackles slightly studded with purple, and his breast black, with white edges to the feathers. The hens should be small, clean-legged, and match in plumage with the cock.

SWIFTNESS has generally been considered the attribute of birds, but the Dodo appears never to have had any title to this distinction. Instead of exciting the idea of swiftness by its appearance, in the drawings that have been preserved of it, it strikes the imagination as a thing the most unwieldy and inactive of all nature. Its body is massive, almost round, and covered with grey feathers. It is just barely supported upon two short thick legs, like pillars; while its head and neck rise from it in a manner truly grotesque. The neck, thick and pursy, is joined to the head, which consists of two immense jaws, opening far beyond the eye. The Dodo formerly inhabited the Isle of France; but it has been long extinct--so long, indeed, that the very fact of its ever having existed at all has been a subject of dispute amongst naturalists and scientific men. A great deal of evidence, in the form of old pictures as well as in writings, has been brought forward to prove that the Dodo is not a fabulous bird, and its reality is now generally admitted. In fact, we have very reliable testimony that a single specimen was actually exhibited publicly in London in the year 1638.

The Dodo was supposed by the earliest naturalists who described it, to be a kind of turkey, as in the flavour of its flesh it resembled that bird. Later naturalists supposed it to be a kind of swan, and this opinion was followed by the celebrated Buffon. Others thought it was a kind of vulture; and others, judging from the shortness of its wings, placed it in the ostrich tribe. Modern naturalists, however, having carefully examined the bones of the bird, which have been preserved, are of opinion that it was a gigantic pigeon. An entire specimen existed about a hundred years ago in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, but only part of the bird and one of the feet remain; there is also a foot preserved in the British Museum. There is a reference to this extinct species in Humboldt’s Cosmos. (See Bohn’s edition, vol. i. page 29, and a note on the Dodo, by Dr. Mantell, at the end of the volume.)

The _Solitaire_ is another remarkable bird which was formerly found in the Mauritius and the adjoining islands, but which has now become extinct.

IS the largest Pigeon found in our island, by which it may be distinguished from all others; its weight is about twenty ounces, its length eighteen inches, and its circumference about thirty. It is usually known as the Wood Pigeon. This bird is of a bluish grey colour, with the feathers of the sides of the neck tipped with white, forming several imperfect rings; the breed is common in Britain. Its habits are like those of other birds of the tribe, but it is so strongly attached to its native freedom, that all attempts to domesticate it, with a few rare exceptions, have hitherto proved ineffectual.

These birds build their nests chiefly on the pine, or holly, with dried sticks thrown rudely together; and the eggs, which may frequently be seen through the bottom of the nest, are larger than those of the domestic Pigeon.

Mr. Montague bred up a curious assemblage of birds, which lived together in perfect amity; it consisted of a common pigeon, a ringdove, a white owl, and a sparrowhawk; the ringdove was master of the whole.

“The Stockdove, recluse, with her mate, Conceals her fond bliss in the grove, And murmuring seems to repeat, That May is the mother of love.” CUNNINGHAM.

THIS bird is called the Stockdove, because it builds in the stocks of trees which have been headed down, and are become thick and bristly; and not, as some have supposed, because it is the stock, or original, from which all the tame pigeons have sprung. Sometimes these birds lay their eggs in deserted rabbit-warrens, on the sod, without making any nest.

The colour of the Stockdove is generally of a deep slate or lead tint, with rings of black about the feathers. While the beech woods were suffered to cover large tracts of ground, these birds used to haunt them in myriads, frequently extending above a mile in length, as they went out in the morning to feed. They are still found in considerable quantities in many parts of England, but never in Scotland, forming their nests in the hollows of trees; not like the ringdove, on boughs. Their murmuring strains, or cooings, in the morning and at dusk, are highly pleasing, and throw an agreeable melancholy on the solitude of the grove. The poet of the Seasons expresses this in the following lines, with a beautiful instance of imitative harmony:

“---- the Stockdove breathes A melancholy murmur through the whole.” _Spring._

Wordsworth also gives a pleasing description of the mournful cooing of these birds:

“I heard a Stockdove sing or say His homely tale this very day; His voice was buried among trees, Yet to be come at by the breeze; He did not cease; but cooed and cooed; And somewhat pensively he wooed; He sang of love with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending; Of serious faith and inward glee, That was the song--the song for me.”

THE shape of this bird, which is the original stock of our domestic Pigeons, is well known, and the plumage of the wild birds is exactly similar to that of the commonest kind seen in our dove-cots--bluish-grey, with black bands across the wings. In its wild state it inhabits the cavities of high rocks and cliffs on the sea coast, where it is found abundantly in our own country. The female Pigeon lays two eggs at a time, which produce generally a male and a female. It is pleasing to see how eager the male is to sit upon the eggs, in order that his mate may rest and feed herself. The young ones, when hatched, are fed from the crop of the mother, who has the power of forcing up the half-digested peas which she has swallowed to give them to her young. The young ones, open-mouthed, receive this tribute of affection, and are thus fed three times a day.

There are upwards of twenty varieties of the domestic Pigeon, and of these the carriers are the most celebrated. They obtain their name from being sometimes employed to convey letters or small packets from one place to another. The rapidity of their flight is very wonderful. Lithgow assures us that one of them will carry a letter from Babylon to Aleppo (which, to a man, is usually thirty days’ journey) in forty-eight hours. To measure their speed with some degree of exactness, a gentleman, many years ago, on a trifling wager, sent a Carrier Pigeon from London, by the coach, to a friend at Bury St. Edmunds, and along with it a note, desiring that the Pigeon, two days after its arrival there, might be thrown up precisely when the town clock struck nine in the morning. This was accordingly done, and the Pigeon arrived in London at half-past eleven o’clock on the same morning, having flown seventy-two miles in two hours and a half. An instance of still greater speed is mentioned by Mr. Yarrell, in which a Carrier flew from Rouen to Ghent, a hundred and fifty miles in a straight line, in one hour and a half. From the instant of its liberation, its flight is directed through the clouds, at a great height, to its home. By an instinct altogether inconceivable, it darts onward, in a straight line, to the very spot whence it was taken, but how it can direct its flight so exactly will probably for ever remain unknown to us.

“Led by what chart, transports the timid Dove, The wreaths of conquest, or the vows of love? Say through the clouds what compass points her flight? Monarchs have gazed, and nations blessed the sight. Pile rocks on rocks, bid woods and mountains rise, Eclipse her native shades, her native skies:-- ’Tis vain! through ether’s pathless wilds she goes, And lights at last where all her cares repose. Sweet bird, thy truth shall Harlem’s walls attest, And unborn ages consecrate thy nest.” ROGERS.

The Carrier Pigeon is easily distinguished from the other varieties by a broad circle of naked white skin round the eyes, by the large fleshy wattle at the base of its bill, and by its dark blue or blackish colour.

It would be as fruitless as unnecessary to attempt to describe all the varieties of the Tame Pigeon; for human art has so much altered the colour and figure of this bird, that pigeon-fanciers, by pairing a male and female of different sorts, can, as they express it, “breed them to a feather.” Hence we have the various names of Carriers, Tumblers, Jacobins, Croppers, Pouters, Bunts, Turbits, Shakers, Fantails, Owls, Nuns, &c., all of which may, at first, have accidentally varied from the Rockdove, and these have been further improved by crossing, food, and climate. An actual post system, in which pigeons were the messengers, was established by the Sultan Noureddin Mahmoud, which lasted about a century, and ceased in 1258, when Bagdad fell into the hands of the Moguls.

“Go, beautiful and gentle Dove, And greet the morning ray; For lo! the sun shines bright above, And the rain is pass’d away.” BOWLES.

THIS Dove brings to the heart and mind the most pleasing recollections; its name is nearly synonymous with faithfulness and unvariable affection. The male or female is so much attached to its respective mate that it is said, perhaps with more poetry than truth, that if one die the other will never survive; however, the author of these observations was an eye-witness to the death of a female Turtle Dove, who was unfortunately killed by a spaniel, in the absence of the male; the disconsolate survivor, after having in vain searched everywhere for his mate, came and mournfully perched upon the wonted trough, waiting patiently for her to repair thither in order to get food; but, after two days of unavailing expectation, he, by spontaneous abstinence, pined and died on the place. Such examples are not common; and we believe that, when not domesticated, the appearance of another female, in the time of coupling, sets at defiance all natural propensity to constancy, and puts an end to the much-famed disconsolate widowhood. Their general colour is a bluish grey; the breast and neck of a whitish purple, with a ringlet of beautiful white feathers with black edges about the sides of the neck. Nothing can express the sensation which is excited in a feeling mind when the tender and sweetly plaintive notes of the Turtle Dove breathe from the grove on a beautiful spring evening:

“Deep in the wood, thy voice I list, and love Thy soft complaining song, thy tender cooing; Oh, what a winning way thou hast of wooing, Gentlest of all thy race--sweet Turtle Dove! Thine is a note which doth not pass away Like the light music of a summer’s day; Hushing the voice of mirth, and staying folly, And waking in the breast a gentle melancholy.” INGLIS.

§ VI. _Grallatores, or Waders._

THIS bird is a native of Africa, and is so tall that when it holds up its head it is seven or eight feet in height. The head is very small in comparison with the body, being hardly bigger than one of the toes, and is covered, as well as the neck, with a kind of down, or thin-set hair, instead of feathers. The sides and thighs are entirely bare and flesh-coloured. The lower part of the neck, where the feathers begin, is white. The wings are very short in proportion to the size of the bird, and in fact are too small to enable it to fly; but when it runs, which it does with a strange jumping kind of motion, it raises its short wings and holds them quivering over its back, where they seem to serve as a kind of sail to gather the wind, and carry the bird onwards. The speed which it will thus attain is enormous. The swiftest greyhound cannot overtake it; and indeed an Arab on his horse cannot hope to capture an ostrich without having recourse to stratagem. He dexterously throws a stick between its legs as it runs, and so tripping it up, is enabled to secure it.

In its flight it spurns the pebbles behind it like shot against the pursuer. And this is not their only mode of annoyance. They have been known to attack men with their claws, with which they are able to strike with terrific force. The feathers of the back in the cock are coal black, in the hen only dusky, and so soft that they resemble a kind of wool. The tail is thick, bushy, and round; in the cock whitish, in the hen dusky, with white tops. These are the feathers so generally in requisition to decorate the head-dress of ladies and the helmets of warriors.

The Ostrich swallows anything that presents itself, leather, glass, iron, bread, hair, &c., but the old notion that the Ostrich could digest metals is certainly incorrect. An Ostrich in the Zoological Gardens in the Regent’s Park was killed by swallowing a lady’s parasol.

“O’er the wild waste the stupid Ostrich strays In devious search, to pick a scanty meal, Whose fierce digestion gnaws the temper’d steel.” MICKLE’S LUSIAD.

They are polygamous birds, one male being generally seen with two or three, and sometimes with five, females. The female Ostrich, after depositing her eggs in the sand, trusts them to be hatched by the heat of the climate; in the Book of Job there is a beautiful passage relating to this habit of the Ostrich, “which leaveth her eggs in the earth, and warmeth them in the dust; and forgetteth that the foot may crush them, or that the wild beast may break them. She is hardened against her young ones, as though they were not hers. Her labour is in vain; without fear, because God hath deprived her of wisdom; neither has he imparted to her understanding. What time she lifteth up her head on high, she scorneth the horse and his rider.” It appears, however, that the female Ostrich sits upon her eggs like other birds, although generally at night only, and brings up her young. The eggs are as large as a young child’s head, with a hard stony shell, and one has been known to weigh upwards of three pounds. The time of incubation is six weeks. That Ostriches have great affection for their offspring may be inferred from the assertion of Professor Thunberg, who says that he once rode past the place where a hen Ostrich was sitting in her nest, when the bird sprang up and pursued him, evidently with a view to prevent his noticing her eggs or young. Every time he turned his horse towards her she retreated ten or twelve paces, but as soon as he rode on again she pursued him till he had got to a considerable distance from the place where he had started her. In the tropical regions, some persons breed Ostriches in flocks, for they may be tamed with very little trouble. When M. Adanson was at Podar, a French factory on the southern bank of the river Niger, two young but full-grown Ostriches, belonging to the factory, afforded him a very amusing sight. They were so tame that two little blacks mounted both together on the back of the largest. No sooner did he feel their weight than he began to run as fast as possible, and carried them several times round the village, and it was impossible to stop him otherwise than by obstructing the passage. This sight pleased M. Adanson so much that he wished it to be repeated, and, to try their strength, directed a full-grown negro to mount the smaller, and two others the larger of the birds. This burden did not seem at all disproportioned to their strength. At first they went at a tolerably sharp trot, but when they became a little heated they expanded their wings, as though to catch the wind, and moved with such fleetness that they scarcely seemed to touch the ground. The foot of the Ostrich has only two toes, one of which is extremely large and strong.

OR AMERICAN OSTRICH, is about half as big as the African species. It has its head covered with feathers, and each of its feet consists of three toes. It is found on the great plains of South America, and, like the African Ostrich, is polygamous, but the curious part of the matter is that the females often lay their eggs almost anywhere on the ground, and the male takes the trouble of collecting them into a sort of nest, and sitting on them until the young birds are hatched. When thus occupied, the males often become very fierce, and will attack any one that approaches them too closely.

INSTEAD of the beautiful plumes of the ostrich, has his wings furnished only with five stiff quills without barbs, which project curiously from the feathers of the body. His plumage is black; his head is small and depressed, with a horny crown or helmet, and covered with a naked red skin; the head and neck are deprived of feathers; about the neck are two protuberances of a bluish colour, in shape like the wattles of a cock. The feathers consist of long, slender, separate barbs, which hang down on each side of the body, so that at a distance he looks as if he were entirely covered with the hairs of a bear rather than with the plumage of a bird. His height is about five feet. The Cassowary is as voracious as the ostrich, and eats indiscriminately whatever comes in his way, and does not seem to have any sort of predilection in the choice of his food. The Dutch travellers assert that he can devour not only glass, iron, and stones, but even burning coals, without testifying the smallest fear, or sustaining the least injury; and it is said that the passage of his food is performed so speedily that even eggs will pass unbroken. He is a native of some of the Indian islands. The eggs of the female are nearly fifteen inches in circumference, of a greenish colour. It has been said of the Cassowary that he has the head of a warrior, the eye of a lion, the armament of a porcupine, and the swiftness of a courser.

A Cassowary once kept in the menagerie of the museum at Paris, devoured every day between three and four pounds weight of bread, six or seven apples, and a bunch of carrots. In summer it drank about four pints of water in the day, and in winter somewhat more. It swallowed all its food without bruising it. This bird was sometimes ill-tempered and mischievous, and much irritated when any person approached it of a dirty or ragged appearance, or dressed in red clothes, and frequently attempted to strike at them by kicking forward with its feet. It has been known to leap out of its enclosure and to tear the legs of a man with its claws.

The Cassowary is very vigorous and powerful; its beak being, in proportion, much stronger than that of the ostrich, it has the means of defending itself with great advantage, and of easily pulling down and breaking in pieces almost any hard substance. It strikes in a very dangerous manner with its feet either behind or before, not unlike the kicking of a horse, at any object which offends it, and runs with surprising swiftness.

THE head of this bird is without any horny crest, and feathered, but the cheeks and throat are nearly naked. The general colour is a dull brown, mottled with a dingy grey, and the young are striped with black. In appearance it closely resembles the ostrich, next to which it is the tallest bird known, but is of a more thick-set and clumsy make, though at the same time very swift and strong, and able to make a formidable defence against its hunters and their dogs, by kicking in a very vigorous and dangerous manner. It is, however, very docile, and if taken young may be easily tamed. The flesh is considered excellent eating, and is said to possess a flavour something between a sucking-pig and a turkey. The only sound that this bird emits is a low drumming noise, produced by means of a valve attached to the lungs. The female Emeu lays her eggs in different places, but they are afterwards collected by the male, by rolling them to one place, when he sits on them.

THIS curious bird, which has the shortest wings of any member of its class, is found only in New Zealand, where it is called _Kivi-Kivi_ by the natives, in imitation of its cry. It is smaller than any of the species of wingless birds just described, and its legs are short and stout; it has three strong front toes on each foot, and a short hinder toe armed with a very strong claw. The body of the Apteryx is something like that of the cassowary in its form; the neck is rather long, and, like the head, clothed with feathers; but the most singular part of the bird is its bill, which is long, rather slender, and slightly curved, and has the nostrils situated quite at its tip. This curious structure of the bill is intended to enable the bird more readily to obtain the worms and insects upon which it feeds, and which it drags out of their holes in the ground. It runs quickly, but only at night, and when in motion it might easily be mistaken for a small dusky-brown quadruped. The plumage resembles that of the emeu in its texture, and the skins are highly esteemed by the New Zealanders, who use them for making cloaks.

Among the many curious characteristics of this bird is its habit of leaning, when at rest, upon the tip of its long bill. When hunted it scrapes a hole in the sand with its powerful feet, in which it hides; or it runs into some natural cavity, if there is any near, where access is difficult for its pursuers, and often makes a valiant defence.

IS a large and fine bird which was formerly common in some parts of England, but has now become so rare here that the capture of a specimen is looked upon as something remarkable. It is still abundant in some parts of the continent of Europe. The male Bustard measures nearly four feet in length, and has the head and neck greyish, the back buff or pale chestnut, with a great many black bars, and all the lower part of the body white. From each side of the chin there springs a tuft of slender feathers about seven inches in length, standing out like a pair of stiff moustaches. The female is a good deal smaller than the male, or about three feet in length; she is also distinguished from her partner by the want of the tufts on the chin, although in some cases these exist in the female, but shorter than in the male.

The Bustard feeds on green vegetables and insects, and are also said to kill and eat small quadrupeds and reptiles. They are polygamous, and when the female has laid her two or three eggs in a slight depression of the ground, and commenced the business of incubation, the male most ungallantly deserts her, and retires to take his ease in some neighbouring marsh. It was formerly supposed that the male Bustard paid so much attention to his mates as to provide them with water, which he was said to bring to them in a large pouch, capable of holding nearly a gallon, situated under his throat. It is true that the female is without this appendage; but modern naturalists all agree in stating that the male bird is never seen in company with the female after she has begun to sit. The use of this pouch is therefore still a subject of controversy.

The female lays her eggs among clover, or more frequently in corn-fields, the nest being merely a hollow scraped in the ground. The eggs are two, or sometimes three, in number, and their colour is a yellowish-brown, inclining to green.

A peculiarity of the Bustard, noticed by most naturalists, is the extreme rapidity with which they can run. They skim along the ground, raising the wings over the back in the same manner as the ostrich. It is said that in former times, when the breed was commoner, it was a practice to hunt the young birds, before they had acquired the power of flying, with greyhounds.

As an article of food the flesh of the Bustard has always been held in great estimation.

There are several other species peculiar both to Asia and Africa.

CRANES frequent marshy places, and live upon small fish and water-insects. Their long beaks enable them to search the water and mud for their prey, and their long necks prevent the necessity of their stooping to pick up from between their feet the objects of their search. The top of the head, the throat, and sides of the neck are of a blackish hue; the back, the wings, and the body are ash-coloured. The tertial feathers of the wings are very long, with loose webs, forming elegant plumes, which fall over the sides of the tail. They used to be common in the fen countries, Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, but are not now so frequently seen in England as formerly. In their flight, Cranes mount high in the air, but their voices can be heard even when the birds cease to be perceptible to the eye, and it is said that their sight is so keen that they discover at a great distance any field of corn or other food which they are fond of, and presently alight and enjoy it. These depredations they generally commit during the night, trampling down the ground as if it had been marched over by an army. They generally form themselves in the air in the shape of a wedge.

“---- ---- Part more wise, In common, ranged in figure, wedge their way, Intelligent of seasons, and set forth Their aëry caravan high over seas Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing Easing their flight. So steers the prudent Crane Her annual voyage, borne on winds. The air Floats as they pass, fann’d by unnumber’d wings.” MILTON.

This bird lives to a considerable age, and as it is easily tamed, it has been ascertained that the Crane often reaches his fortieth year. Its nest is usually built amongst the reeds and sedges of a marsh, but sometimes upon a ruined building. The female lays two eggs, of a pale brown colour, with darker spots.

According to Kolben, they are often observed in large flocks on the marshes about the Cape of Good Hope. He says he never saw a flock of them on the ground that had not some placed apparently as sentinels, to keep a look out while the others are feeding, who on the approach of danger immediately give notice to the rest. These sentinels stand on one leg, and at intervals stretch out their necks, as if to observe that all is safe. On notice being given of danger, the whole flock are in an instant on the wing. Kolben also adds that in the night time each of the watching Cranes, which rest on their left legs, hold in their right claw a stone of considerable weight, in order that, if overcome by sleep, the falling of the stone may awaken them.

IS originally, as the name expresses, a native of Majorca and Minorca, in the Mediterranean sea, which were formerly called the Balearic Isles, but is chiefly found now in the Cape Verd Islands. The shape of its body is not unlike that of the common Crane, but it has a principal and distinctive mark on the head; which is, a tuft of hairs, or rather strong greyish bristles, standing out like rays in all directions, from which peculiarity this species takes its other name of the Crowned Heron. They roost and feed in the manner of peacocks.

The Demoiselle, or Numidian Crane (_Anthropoides virgo_), is remarkable for the grace and symmetry of its form, and the elegance of its deportment. It is rather larger than the species above described, and is a native of many parts of Africa. It frequents damp and marshy places, in search of small fishes, frogs, &c., which are its favourite food. It is easily domesticated.

THE neck, head, breast, and body of this bird are white, the rump and exterior feathers of the wings black; the eyelids naked; the tail white, and the legs long, slender, and of a red colour. Storks are birds of passage. When leaving Europe they assemble together on some particular night, and all take their flight at once. As they feed on frogs, lizards, serpents, and other noxious creatures, it is not to be expected that man should be inimical to them, and therefore they have been generally a favourite with the nations they visit. The Dutch have laws against destroying them: they are therefore very common in Holland, and build their nests and rear their young on the tops of houses and chimneys in the middle of its most frequented and populous cities, and may be seen by dozens familiarly walking about the markets, where they feed on the offal. In some places, the stork is supposed to be a herald of good fortune to the house on which it builds its nest, and the inhabitants place boxes on their roofs to induce the birds to take up their abode there.

The Stork much resembles the crane in its conformation, but appears somewhat more corpulent. The former lays four eggs, whereas the latter lays but two.

It is said that Storks visit Egypt in such abundance, that the fields and meadows are white with them. The Egyptians, however, are not displeased with the sight; as frogs are there generated in such numbers, that did not the Storks devour them, they would overrun everything. Between Belba and Gaza, the fields of Palestine are often rendered desert on account of the abundance of mice and rats; and were they not destroyed the inhabitants could have no harvest. The disposition of the Stork is mild and placid; it is easily tamed, and may be trained to reside in gardens, which it will clear of insects and reptiles. It has a grave air, and a mournful aspect; yet, when roused by example, exhibits a certain degree of gaiety; for it joins in the frolics of children, hopping about and playing with them.

During their migrations, Storks are observed in vast quantities. Dr. Shaw saw three flights of them leaving Egypt, and passing over Mount Carmel, each of which appeared to be nearly half a mile in width; and he says they were three hours in passing over.

The Stork, like the ibis, was an object of worship among the ancients, and to kill them was a crime punishable with death. The Stork is remarkable for its great affection towards its young. This was remarkably evinced during the great conflagration of Delft, in Holland, during which a female Stork was noticed using every endeavour to carry off her young family, and continuing this labour of love until the smoke and flames prevented her own escape, and she perished with her brood.

ALSO called the Gigantic Crane, is a bird of the stork kind, and a native of India, and other warm countries. The head and neck are bare of feathers, as in the ostrich; the former looking as if made of wood; the latter of a flesh-colour. The coverts of the wings and the back are black, with a bluish cast; the under part of the body whitish; the legs are long, without feathers, and of a greyish hue, as are the thighs, which seem to be as slender as the leg. The bill is of enormous size, and the bird is fond of clatting the two mandibles together. Under the chin, there is a kind of bag or pouch which hangs down in front of the neck, like the dewlap of a cow; in this the Adjutant stores away any provisions that may fall in his way, after his immediate wants are satisfied. He is a most voracious bird, and devours every kind of food, and as he has no objection to carrion, his presence is encouraged in towns, where he assists the vultures, crows, dogs, and jackals, in performing the duties of scavengers. Indeed his rapacity is so great that he swallows such innutritious substances as bone with such eagerness and relish as to have received the name of “_Bone-eater_,” or “Bone-taker.” When he comes about the houses he requires to be carefully watched, as his power of swallowing is so great that a fowl, a rabbit, or even a leg of mutton, is disposed of at a single mouthful. Sir E. Horne states that in the stomach of an Adjutant were found a tortoise nearly a foot long, and a large black cat; from, which we may see that the Adjutant is by no means squeamish in his diet.

The Adjutant is indeed a very gigantic bird. Its wings often measure fourteen or fifteen feet from tip to tip, and it is five feet high when it stands erect.

Dr. Latham, in his “General History of Birds,” gives some very interesting information about the habits of this bird. “One of them, a young bird about five feet high, was brought up tame, and presented to the chief of the Bananas, where M. Speakman lived; and being accustomed to be fed in the great hall, soon became familiar, daily attending that place at dinner-time, placing itself behind its master’s chair frequently before the guests entered. The servants were obliged to watch narrowly, and to defend the provisions with switches; but, notwithstanding, it would frequently seize something or other, and even purloined a whole boiled fowl, which it swallowed in an instant. Its courage is not equal to its voracity, for a child of eight or ten years old soon puts it to flight with a switch. Everything is swallowed whole, and so accommodating is its throat that not only an animal as big as a cat is gulped down, but a shin of beef broken asunder serves it but for two morsels.”

Another species of Adjutant (_Leptoptilus marabou_) is found in tropical Africa. It is even uglier than the Indian bird, which has not much beauty to boast of, but is valuable not only as a scavenger, but from its furnishing those beautiful plumes called marabout feathers, which are so much used for ladies’ head-dresses.

THE habits of the Heron are peculiar. Perched on a stone, or the stump of a tree, by the solitary current of a brook, his neck and long beak half-buried between his shoulders, he will wait the whole day long, patient and unmoved, for the passing of a small fish, or the hopping of a frog; but his appetite is insatiable.

This bird is about four feet long from the tip of the bill to the end of the claws; to the end of the tail about thirty-eight inches; its breadth, when the wings are extended, is about five feet. The male is distinguished by a crest or tuft of black feathers hanging from the hinder part of his head, which in chivalrous times was of great value, and held as a peculiar mark of distinction when worn above the plume of ostrich feathers.

Virgil places the Heron among the birds that are affected by and foretell the approaching storm:

“When watchful Herons leave their watery stand, And mounting upward with erected flight, Gain on the skies, and soar above the sight.” DRYDEN.

The Heron, though living chiefly in the vicinity of marshes and lakes, forms its nest on the tops of the loftiest trees. It resembles the rook in its habits: a great number of Herons living together in what is called a Heronry, as rooks do in a rookery. The female lays four large eggs, of a pale green colour; the natural term of this bird’s life is said to exceed sixty years.

In England, Herons were formerly ranked among the royal game, and protected as such by the laws; and when falconry was in fashion, the pursuit of the Heron was a favourite amusement.

“---- ---- Now, like the wearied stag, That stands at bay, the Hern provokes their rage; Close by his languid wing in downy plumes Covers his fatal beak, and cautious hides The well-dissembled fraud. The falcon darts Like lightning from above, and in her breast Receives the latent death: down plumb she falls, Bounding from earth, and with her trickling gore Defiles her gaudy plumage. See, alas! The falconer in despair, his favourite bird Dead at his feet: as of his dearest friend, He weeps her fate; he meditates revenge, He storms, he foams, he gives a loose to rage; Nor wants he long the means; the Hern fatigued, Borne down by numbers, yields, and prone on earth He drops; his cruel foes wheeling around Insult at will.” SOMERVILLE.

It is extremely dangerous to go near a wounded Heron, and the utmost caution is necessary in doing so. Though apparently almost dead, he will yet dart at his enemy’s face, and sometimes inflict a most severe wound.

IS not quite so large as the common heron; its head is small, narrow, and compressed at the sides. The crown is black, the throat and sides of the neck red, with narrow black lines, and the back of a pale red, mixed with yellow. The claws are long and slender, the inside of the middle one being serrated, the better to enable it to hold its prey. The bill is about four inches in length. The most remarkable character in this bird is the hollow and yet loud rumbling of his voice; his bellowing is heard at the distance of a mile, at the time of sunset, and it is hardly possible to conceive at first how such a body of sound, resembling the lowing of an ox, can be produced by a bird comparatively so small. The booming noise was formerly believed to be made while the bird plunged its bill into the mud; hence Thomson:

“---- So that scarce The Bittern knows his time, with bill ingulf’d To shake the sounding marsh.”

And Southey also describes the peculiar noise of this bird in his poem of Thalaba:

“And when at evening, o’er the swampy plain, The Bittern’s boom came far, Distinct in darkness seen-- Above the low horizon’s lingering light, Rose the near ruins of old Babylon.”

Sometimes in the evening the Bittern soars on a sudden in a straight, or, at other times, in a spiral line, so high in the air, that it ceases to be perceptible to the eye. When attacked by the buzzard, or other birds of prey, it defends itself with great courage, and generally beats off such assailants; neither does it betray any symptoms of fear when wounded by the sportsman, but eyes him with a keen, undaunted look; and, when driven to extremity, will attack him with the utmost vigour, wounding his legs, or aiming at his eyes with its sharp and piercing bill. It was formerly held in much estimation at the tables of the great, and is again recovering its credit as a fashionable dish. The flesh is considered delicious. In autumn it changes its abode, always commencing its journey at sunset. Its precautions for concealment and security seem directed with great care and circumspection. It usually sits in the reeds with its head erect; and thus, from its great length of neck, sees over their tops, without itself being perceived by the sportsman. The principal food of these birds, during summer, consists of fish and frogs; but in autumn they resort to the woods in pursuit of mice, which they seize with great dexterity, and always swallow whole. About this season they usually become very fat.

IS a large bird; the colour of the whole body is white, and the resemblance of the bill to a spoon has caused the denomination of the bird. In some specimens the plumage inclines from white to pink colour. On the hind part of the head is a beautiful white crest, reclining backward. The legs and feet are black. The wisdom of Providence is most conspicuous in the conformation of the bill, which is entirely adapted to the habits and manner of feeding of these birds: the frogs and fishes, which constitute the principal food of the Spoonbill, may often escape the thin and narrow beak of the heron and other birds, but the mandibles of this bird are so large at the end, that the prey cannot slip aside. Like rooks and herons, Spoonbills build their nests on the tops of high trees, and lay three or four eggs, which are white, sprinkled with pale red, and the size of those of a hen. These birds are very noisy during the breeding season. The Spoonbill migrates northward in the summer, and returns to southern climes on the approach of winter; and is found in all the intermediate low countries between the Faroe Isles and the Cape of Good Hope.

The _American_ or _Roseate Spoonbill_ (_Platalea Ajaja_) is very beautiful. Its colour is white, tinged with rose, which deepens in the wings and tail into the richest carmine. The feet are half-webbed, and the bird is generally found on the sea-coast, where it wades into the sea in quest of the small shell-fish of different kinds, on which it feeds.

THE IBIS was regarded as a sacred bird by the ancient Egyptians, who used to have these birds walking about in their temples, and embalmed their bodies after death with as much care as those of their priests and kings. The cause of this veneration is not clearly ascertained, some authors supposing it to be due to the services rendered by the bird in destroying serpents and other noxious creatures; others to a fanciful resemblance between the bird and one of the moon’s phases; and others, again, to the arrival of the birds in Egypt at or about the period of the annual inundation of the Nile. The sacred Ibis has a long, stout, curved black bill; the head and neck are black and naked, and the plumage is white, with the tips of the wings black. Another species, the _Glossy Ibis_ (_Ibis falcinellus_), shared the veneration of the Egyptians with the Sacred Ibis; it has a more slender bill than the Sacred Ibis, and its plumage, which is beautifully glossy, is dark green above and reddish-brown beneath. This bird is common in the south of Europe, and specimens have been shot in England. The _Scarlet Ibis_ (_Ibis rubra_) is a beautiful species, which adorns the banks of the great rivers of South America, in company with the Roseate Spoonbill.

“Soothed by the murmurs of the sea-beat shore, His dun-grey plumage floating to the gale, The Curlew blends his melancholy wail With those hoarse sounds the rushing waters pour.” MISS WILLIAMS.

“Wild as the scream of the Curlew, From rock to rock the signal flew.” SIR WALTER SCOTT.

THE CURLEW is a large bird, weighing about twenty-four ounces; and is found in winter on the sea-shore on all sides of England. The middle parts of the feathers of the head, neck, and back are black, the borders or outsides ash-coloured, with a mixture of red; and the lower part of the body white. The beak has a regular curve downward, and is soft at the point. This bird’s flesh may challenge for flavour and delicacy that of any other water-fowl, and the people of Suffolk say proverbially:

“A Curlew, be she white, be she black, She carries twelve pence on her back:”

but it must be confessed that the quality and goodness of the flesh of Curlews depend on their manner of feeding, and the season in which they are caught. When they dwell on the sea-shore, they acquire a kind of rankness, which is so strong, that, unless they are basted on the spit with vinegar, they are not agreeable eating.

THIS bird has received its name from the colour of its legs, which are of a crimson red. In size it is between the lapwing and the snipe, and is sometimes called the _Pool Snipe_. The head and back are of a dusky ash-colour, spotted with black, the throat party-coloured black and white, the black being drawn down along the feathers. The breast is whiter, with fewer spots. The Redshank delights in the fen countries, and in wet and marshy grounds, where it breeds and rears its young. The female lays four whitish eggs, with olive-coloured dashes, and marked with irregular spots of black. Pennant and Latham say, that it flies round its nest when disturbed, making a noise like a lapwing. It is not so common on the sea-shore as several others of its kindred. We must here observe, that this bird has often been mistaken for others. The fact is, that several birds changing their plumage, and increasing or diminishing their size according to their age, the season of the year, and the climate they live in, set all nomenclators at defiance, and confound all classifications.

IS met with in various parts of Great Britain, and is rather larger than the woodcock, which it much resembles in appearance. In spring and summer it resides in the fens and marshes, where it rears its young, and feeds on small worms and insects; but in winter it seeks the salt marshes and the sea-shore, where it feeds upon the shell-fish and marine animals left by the retiring tide. A peculiarity belonging to this bird is the shape of its bill, which is a little turned upwards. The head, neck, and back are of a reddish brown; the under part of the body white; the legs dusky, and sometimes black.

The Godwit is much esteemed by epicures as a great delicacy, and sells very high. It is caught in nets, to which it is allured by a _stale_ or stuffed bird, in the same manner and in the same season as the ruffs and reeves.

IT is curious to see, in our observation of natural objects, how the creative power of Providence seems to have tried all forms and shapes in the composition of species. In the cock bird of this species a circle or collar of long feathers, somewhat resembling a ruff, encompasses the neck under the head, whence the bird has received the name of Ruff. It is about a foot in length, with a bill about an inch long. There is a wonderful and almost infinite variety in the colours of the feathers of the males; so that in spring there can scarcely be found two exactly alike; but after moulting they become all alike again.

The males are sometimes called Fighters, on account of their quarrelsome disposition. It is a bird of passage, and arrives in the fens of Lincolnshire, and other similar places, in the spring. Mr. Pennant tells us, that in the course of a single morning more than six dozen have been caught in one net, and that a fowler has been known to catch between forty and fifty dozen in a season.

THE female is called a Reeve, and its flesh is thought a great delicacy for the table. They are smaller than the cocks, and their feathers undergo no change. The Ruff and Reeve are taken in nets. They used to be seen in vast numbers in many parts of England, especially in the Isle of Ely and the Lincolnshire fens. The improvements in drainage and cultivation that have been made during the present century have deprived these birds of their accustomed haunts, and they are no longer common. A writer of the last century said he had seen the ground so covered with the nests and eggs of Plovers and Reeves that “one could scarce take a step without stepping on them.” They are now most common on the shores of southern Scotland and of Northumberland.

Reeves are fattened for the table by feeding them on boiled rice or wheat, bread and milk, hemp seed, &c. They are obliged to be kept in a dark room during the process, as the least gleam of light is the signal for a furious battle.

“The Snipe flies screaming from the marshy verge, And towers in airy circles o’er the wood; Still heard at intervals; and oft returns, And stoops as bent to alight; then wheels aloft With sudden fear, and screams and stoops again, Her favourite glade reluctant to forsake.” GISBORNE.

THE SNIPE weighs about four ounces. A pale red line divides the head longways; the chin under the bill is white; the neck is a mixture of brown and red; the lower part of the body is almost all white. The back and wings are of a dusky colour. The flesh is tender, sweet, and in flavour ranks next to that of the woodcock. Snipes feed especially upon small red worms, and insects, which they find in muddy and swampy places, on the banks of rivulets and brooks, and on the clayey margin of ponds. It is said that Snipes remain with us all the summer, and build in moors and marshes, laying four or five eggs; but most of them are migratory, and, when forced by severe frosts to sheltered springs, are often seen in large flights. Mr. Daniel states that, about thirty years ago, Snipes were so abundant in the fens of Cambridgeshire, that as many were taken in Milton fen, by means of a lark-net, in one night, and by a single man, as could be contained in a small hamper.

IS somewhat less than the partridge. The upper side of the body is party-coloured of red, black, and grey, and very beautiful. From the bill almost to the middle of the head it is of a reddish ash-colour. The lower part of the body is grey, with transverse brown lines; under the tail the colour is somewhat yellowish; the chin is white, with a tincture of yellow. Woodcocks are migratory birds, coming over into Britain in autumn, and departing again in the beginning of spring; they pair before they go, and are seen flying in braces.

The colours of this timid bird render it difficult to discern him among the withered stalks and leaves of fern, sticks, moss, and grass, which form the background of the scenery, by which he is sheltered in his moist and solitary retreats. By habit only is the sportsman enabled to discover him, and his leading marks are the full eye and glossy silver white-tipped tail of the bird. The flesh is held in high estimation, and hence he is eagerly sought after. It is hardly necessary to observe that in dressing a Woodcock for the spit the entrails are not drawn, but are allowed to drop upon slices of toasted bread, and are relished as a delicious kind of sauce. By some late observations, it appears that several individuals of the species remain with us the whole year. They frequent especially wet and swampy woods, the thick hedges near rivulets, and places affording them their allotted food, which consists of very small insects found in the moist ground.

“The Woodcock’s early visit and abode Of long continuance, in our temperate clime, Foretell a liberal harvest.” PHILIPS.

IS a small bird, whose head and back are of a dusky ash-colour, or dark grey; while the lower part of the body is pure white, or white varied by black lines. The sides under the wings are spotted with brown. The bird weighs about four ounces and a half, and generally makes its appearance in Lincolnshire in the beginning of winter, and abides there for two or three months, after which they fly off in flocks. They are caught in great numbers by nets, into which they are decoyed by carved wooden figures, painted to represent themselves, and placed within them, much in the same way as the ruff. When the knot is fat, its flesh is considered excellent food. It is also fattened for sale, and then considered equal to the ruff in flavour. The season for taking it is from August to November, after which the frost compels it to disappear. This bird is said to have been a favourite dish with Canute the Great; and Camden observes that its name is derived from his--Knute, or Knout, as he was called--which, in process of time, has been changed to Knot.

IS about twelve inches long and twenty-four across the wings: the head, back, and coverts of the wings are black, with tips of a greenish white; the chin white; the throat spotted with brown or dusky spots; the breast and thighs white. The flavour of the flesh, when the bird is caught in the proper season, is delicate and savory; at other times it is hard, and has a strong and rank taste. This bird is generally found in small packs, and is not nearly so common as the beautiful Golden Plover. The male becomes entirely black on the lower surface in the spring, or black interspersed with patches and spots of white.

The Grey Plover is found in the northern parts of Europe, and, it is said, breeds in Egypt, Java, and Japan. Like the Ruff, it is an exceedingly quarrelsome bird, and fights fiercely in the spring. The young, when hatched, are covered with a thick, soft down, and immediately begin to follow their parents about and search for food.

IS about the size of the former. The colour of the whole upper side is black, thick set with yellowish green spots; the breast brown, with spots as on the back; the body is white. The male of this species is also black beneath in the spring. The flesh is sweet and tender, and therefore esteemed a choice dish in this and other countries.

The Golden Plover feeds principally during the night, and during the day time may be seen sitting or standing on the ground, asleep. The parent birds are very careful in guarding their young. When any intruder approaches their nest, they use all sorts of stratagems to divert his attention.

The “Plover eggs,” frequently seen at the tables of the opulent and luxurious, are not those of the Plover, but of the Lapwing.

IS proverbially accounted a foolish bird, yet why so it is hardly possible to say. Its length is about ten inches; the bill is not quite an inch long, and is black. The forehead is mottled with brown and grey; the top of the head is black; and over each eye there is an arched line of white. The back and wings are a light brown; the breast is a pale dull orange; the middle of the body is black, and the rest and the thighs are of a reddish white. The tail is brown, black towards the end, and tipped with white. This bird is migratory, and makes its appearance in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, and Derbyshire in April, but soon leaves those counties and passes on towards the north, breeding in the mountains of the north of England and Scotland. In April, and sometimes in September, Dottrels are seen in Wiltshire and Berkshire. They are generally caught, like other birds, by night; when, dazzled by the light of a torch, they are at a loss to know where to fly for safety, the whole place being in darkness, and generally select the very spot which they should avoid. Many ridiculous stories have been propagated about the gestures of this bird, and its endeavouring to imitate the actions of the fowler, and thereby falling into the snare laid for him; but they ought to be entirely disbelieved.

THIS well-known bird is found in nearly all countries, and is of the size of a common pigeon. The female lays four or five eggs, of a yellow colour, varied all over with large black spots and strokes. Lapwings build their nests on the ground in the middle of some field or heath, open and exposed to view, laying only some few straws under the eggs: so soon as the young are hatched, they instantly forsake the nest, running away with the shell on their back, and following the mother, only covered with a kind of down, like young ducks. The parents have been impressed by nature with the most attentive love and care for their offspring; for if the fowler, or any other enemy, should come near the nest, the female, panting with fear, lessens her call to make her enemies believe that she is much further off, and thereby deceives those that search for her brood; she also sometimes pretends to be wounded, and utters a faint cry as she limps away, to lead the fowler from her nest. This bird is really beautiful, although it does not exhibit that gaudiness of colours of which other species of the feathered tribe can boast: it weighs about half-a-pound. The head, and the crest which elegantly adorns it, is black; this crest, composed of unwebbed feathers, is about four inches in length. The back is of a dark green, glossed with blue shades; the throat is black; the hinder part of the neck and the breast are white. The Lapwing, when in search of food, stamps with his feet upon the ground, and when the earth-worms, alarmed at the noise, appear, he seizes and devours them. His voice, on the swampy places along the sea-shores, heard at night, resembles the sound of _peewit_, or _teewit_, and hence his name in several parts of Great Britain; he is also called the _Great Plover_ by several ornithologists. This bird is one of those who attract the fowler’s attention in winter:

“With slaughtering gun th’ unwearied fowler roves, When frosts have whiten’d all the naked groves; Where doves in flocks the leafless trees o’ershade, And lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade. He lifts his tube, and levels with his eye; Straight a short thunder breaks the frozen sky: Oft, as in airy rings they skim the heath, The clamorous Lapwings feel the leaden death: Oft, as the mounting larks their notes prepare, They fall, and leave their little lives in air.” POPE.

The following anecdote, from Bewick’s “History of Birds,” exhibits the domestic nature of the Lapwing, as well as the art with which it conciliates the regard of animals materially differing from itself, and generally considered as hostile to every species of the feathered tribe. Two Lapwings were given to a clergyman, who put them into his garden; one of them soon died, but the other continued to pick up such food as the place afforded, till winter deprived it of its usual supply. Necessity soon compelled it to draw nearer to the house, by which it gradually became familiarised to occasional interruptions from the family. At length one of the servants, when she had occasion to go into the back kitchen with a light, observed that the Lapwing always uttered his cry of “pee-wit,” to obtain admittance. The bird soon grew more familiar; as the winter advanced, he approached as far as the kitchen, but with much caution, as that part of the house was generally occupied by a dog and cat, whose friendship, however, the Lapwing at length conciliated so entirely, that it was his regular custom to resort to the fireside as soon as it grew dark, and spend the evening and night with his two associates, sitting close by them, and partaking of the comforts of a warm hearth. As soon as spring appeared, he discontinued his visits to the house, and betook himself to the garden; but, on the approach of winter, he had recourse to his old shelter and friends, who received him very cordially. Security was productive of insolence; what was at first obtained with caution, was afterwards taken without reserve; he frequently amused himself with washing in the bowl which was set for the dog to drink out of; and while he was thus employed, he showed marks of the greatest indignation if either of his companions presumed to interrupt him. He died in the asylum he had thus chosen, being choked with something that he had picked up from the floor.

IS also called the _Moor-Hen_, or _Moor-Coot_, and the _Gallinule_. The breast is of a lead-colour, the lower part of the body inclining to ash-colour, and the back dark olive brown. As she swims or walks, she often flirts up her tail. Water-hens feed upon aquatic plants and roots, and upon the small insects which adhere to them; they grow fat about the latter end of September, and their flesh is then considered nearly equal to that of the teal; yet it can seldom be entirely deprived of its fishy taste. They build their nests amongst reeds, long grass, roots, and stumps by the water-side, breeding twice or thrice in the course of a summer; the eggs are white, with a tint of green, dashed with brown spots.

There are very few countries in the world where these birds are not to be found. They generally prefer the cold mountainous regions in summer, and lower and warmer situations during winter.

“The fish are leaping, and the Water-hen Dives up and down. A storm is coming on.” SCHILLER.--WILLIAM TELL.

IS a migratory bird, appearing in England in April, and departing in October. At the time of its arrival it is very lean, but becomes excessively fat before it quits the island. Their favourite haunts are cold and humid upland districts, corn-fields in the vicinity of water, and marshy grass-lands. Their cry is a peculiar roll of short notes, all in the same key and of the same length. The sound, crec, crec, crec, has been compared to the noise made by drawing the finger along the teeth of a comb. The legs of the Corn-Crake are unusually long for the size of the bird, and hang down while it is on the wing. Its flesh is greatly esteemed for its delicate flavour. This bird is never seen on the wing in this country, and is extremely difficult to capture; they cannot be made to rise like partridges and many other birds, nor is it of much use to invade their cover. They glide through the corn, without the least perceptible rustle, and with wonderful rapidity, considering the size of the bird, and if the sportsman follows in the direction of the sound, it ceases for a while, and then, perhaps, is heard far in the rear; if he follows it again, it is not long before the sound is heard setting in its former or some other direction.

It is said by some writers that the Corn-Crake is a sort of natural ventriloquist, and can make his note appear to proceed from quite another direction than the spot in which he lies hid. It is probable, however, that the delusion arises from the astonishing swiftness with which the bird passes through the covers, where it is usually found. And as they can never be made to rise, the observer has very seldom the means of deciding whether the bird was in the place its cry seemed to proceed from or not.

The nest is made in a hole in the ground, and is lined with dead leaves, moss, and other soft substances. There are generally ten, twelve, or fourteen eggs. The peculiar cry by which the bird is recognised is only uttered during the period of incubation.

Corn-Crakes are occasionally found to have a great fondness for water. An anecdote is related by Craven, in his “Young Sportsman’s Manual,” of a young bird of this species, in the possession of a Mr. Jervis, which had a remarkable partiality for water, in which it would dive and splash, as if unused to any other element. If the habits of this bird could be watched more closely, perhaps we should find that this fondness for water is not uncommon in its wild state.

THIS bird has so many traits in its character, and so many features in its general appearance like the rails and water-hens, that to place it after them seems a natural and easy gradation; and accordingly this has been done by Cuvier, though it was considered by Linnæus to belong to a group distinct from those birds, and from the waders in general, on account of its being fin-footed, and its constant attachment to the waters, which, indeed, it seldom quits. The manner in which Coots build their nest is very ingenious. They form it of interwoven aquatic weeds, and place it among the rushes, in such a way that it may occasionally rise with, but not be washed away by, the stream: and if ever this accident happens, steady on her nest, the hen does not desert her brood, but follows with them the destiny of their floating cradle. This bird, in the figure and shape of its body, resembles the water-hen, and weighs about twenty-four ounces. The feathers about the head and neck are low, soft, and thick. The colour about the whole of the body is black, but of a deeper hue about the head. The sere rises upon the forehead in a peculiar manner, and appears as if Providence had designed it for a means of defence. It changes its whitish colour to a pale red or pink in the breeding season. Coots are very shy, and seldom venture abroad before dusk. When attacked, they defend themselves with their feet, and they do this so energetically, that sportsmen say, “Beware of a winged Coot, or he will scratch you like a cat.”

§ VII. _Palmipedes, or Web-footed Birds._

IS in size about equal to the swan; the colour of the body is white, inclining to pink; the beak is straight and long, with a sharp hook at the end; the skin of the lower mandible is so capable of distension, that it may be dilated to contain fish in large quantities. This pouch Providence has allotted to the bird, that he may bring to his eyrie sufficient food for several days, and save himself the trouble of travelling through the air, and watching and diving so often. The legs are black, and the four toes palmated. It is a very indolent, inactive, and inelegant bird, often sitting whole days and nights on rocks or branches of trees, motionless and in a melancholy posture, till the resistless stimulus of hunger spurs it on, and forces it to the sea in search of nourishment; when thus excited to exertion, the Pelican flies from the spot, and, raising itself thirty or forty feet above the surface of the water, turns its head with one eye downward, and continues to fly in that position till it sees a fish near the surface. It then darts down with astonishing swiftness, seizes its prey with unerring certainty, and stores it in its pouch. Having done this, it rises into the air, and repeats the same action till it has procured a sufficient stock. The Pelican is by no means destitute of natural affection, either towards its young ones or towards others of its own species. Clavigero, in his “History of Mexico,” says, that sometimes the Americans, in order to procure, without trouble, a supply of fish, cruelly break the wing of a live Pelican, and, after tying the bird to a tree, conceal themselves near the place. The screams of the miserable bird attract other Pelicans to the place, which, he assures us, eject a portion of the provisions from their pouches for their imprisoned companion. As soon as the men observe this, they rush to the spot, and after leaving a small quantity for the bird, carry off the remainder.

In America, Pelicans are often rendered domestic, and are so trained, that at command they go in the morning and return before night with their pouches distended with prey, part of which they are made to disgorge, while the rest is left them for their trouble. The bird is said to live sometimes a hundred years.

Our forefathers attributed extraordinary affection to this bird, more than is attested by any save heraldic evidence. Thus, in several crests, it is represented in the act of feeding its young with its own blood, which it procures by striking its breast with the sharp point of its beak. And the ancients fully believed that in times of scarcity the female Pelican resorted to this means of supporting her brood. The nest of the Pelican is made with sedges and grass, close to the water’s edge; the female lays two or three white eggs, and the male is said to supply his partner with food while she is engaged in the work of incubation.

IS a large water-bird, nearly allied to the pelican, possessed with a very voracious appetite, and consequently of a very rapacious disposition. It lives upon all sorts of fish; the fresh water and the briny waves of the sea both paying a large contribution to its craving stomach. The bill is about five inches in length, and of a dusky colour; the predominant tints of the body are black beneath, and dark brown above; on each thigh there is a white patch. The smell of these birds when alive is excessively rank and disagreeable; and their flesh is so disgusting that even the Greenlanders, among whom they are very common, will scarcely eat it. They were formerly tamed in England for the purpose of catching fish, as falcons and hawks were for chasing the fleet inhabitants of the air. This custom is still in practice in China. The birds are taken to the water in a boat, with leather thongs tied round their necks to prevent their swallowing the fish; at the word of command they descend into the water, swim about, and dive in pursuit ofprey, and bring whatever they capture to their owner’s boat. Sometimes two Cormorants will unite their efforts to capture a large fish; and if any of the birds neglect their business the man will slap on the water with a bamboo, as a schoolmaster does with his cane on the desk, to recall the idlers to a sense of their duty. This bird, although of the aquatic kind, is often seen, like the pelican, perched upon trees. Milton tells us that Satan

“---- ---- ---- On the tree of life, The middle tree, and highest there that grew, Sat like a Cormorant.”

In the year 1793, one of them was observed sitting on the vane of St. Martin’s steeple, Ludgate Hill, London, and was shot there in the presence of a great number of people.

IS of a dark green, with a singular tuft on the front of the head in the spring. It breeds in rocky caves on the sea-coast.

THESE birds are insatiably voracious, but are somewhat particular in their choice of prey; disdaining, unless in great want, any food worse than herrings or mackerel. No fewer than one hundred thousand Gannets are supposed to frequent the rocks of St. Kilda; and of these, including the young ones, at least twenty thousand are annually killed for food by the inhabitants. The Gannet is somewhat more than three feet in length, and weighs about seven pounds. The bill is six inches long, straight almost to the point, where it is a little bent; its edges are jagged, to enable it the better to secure its prey; and about an inch from the base of the upper mandible there is a sharp process pointing forward. The general colour of the plumage is a dingy white, with a greyish tinge. Surrounding each eye there is a naked skin of a fine blue colour; from the corner of the mouth a narrow slip of naked black skin extends to the hind part of the head; and beneath the chin there is a pouch capable of containing five or six herrings. The neck is long; the body flat, and very full of feathers. On the crown of the head, and the back part of the neck, is a small buff-coloured space. The quill-feathers, and some other parts of the wings, are black; as are also the legs, except a fine pea-green stripe in front. The tail is wedge-shaped, and consists of twelve sharp-pointed feathers.

These birds chiefly resort to those uninhabited islands where man seldom comes to disturb them. The islands to the north, Ailsa Craig, on the west coast of Scotland, the Skelig Islands, off the coasts of Kerry in Ireland, and those that lie in the North Sea off Norway, abound with them. But it is on the Bass Bock, in the Frith of Forth, that they are seen in the greatest abundance. “There is a small island,” says the celebrated Harvey, “called the Bass, not more than a mile in circumference; the surface is almost wholly covered during the months of May and June with the nests of the Solan Geese, their eggs, and their young. It is scarcely possible to walk without treading on them: the flocks of birds upon the wing are so numerous as to darken the air like a cloud; and their noise is such, that one cannot without difficulty be heard by the person next to him. When one looks down upon the sea from the precipice, its whole surface seems covered with infinite numbers of birds of different kinds, swimming and pursuing their prey. If, in sailing round the island, one surveys its hanging cliffs, in every crag or fissure of the broken rocks may be seen innumerable birds, of various sorts and sizes, more than the stars of heaven when viewed in a serene night. If they are viewed at a distance, either receding or in their approach to the island, they seem like one vast swarm of bees.”

“Fair is the Swan, whose majesty prevailing O’er breezeless water, on Locarno’s lake, Bears him on, while, proudly sailing, He leaves behind a moon-illumined wake: Behold! the mantling spirit of reserve Fashions his neck into a goodly curve-- An arch thrown back between luxuriant wings Of whitest garniture, like fir-tree boughs. To which, on some unruffled morning, clings A flaky weight of winter’s purest snows! Behold! as with a gushing impulse heaves That snowy prow, and softly cleaves The mirror of the crystal flood; Vanish inverted hill, and shadowy wood, And pendent rocks, where’er in gliding state Winds the mute creature, without visible mate Or rival, save the queen of night, Showering down a silver light From heaven upon her chosen favourite!” WORDSWORTH.

THE two best known species of this elegantly-formed and majestic bird are commonly known as the Wild and the Tame, or the Whooping and Mute, Swans. They may easily be recognised by the peculiarities of the bill: the Tame Swan has the bill orange-coloured, with its base black, and surmounted by a black knob; the Wild Swan has no knob, and it is the tip instead of the base of the bill that is black.

IS also a fine bird, with beautifully white plumage; unlike the Tame Swan, which is nearly mute, it has a loud and rather melodious voice, which it utters frequently, as it flies along at a great height in the air, during its migrations. It is found in England in the winter, but resides all the year in the north of Scotland. Its favourite place for breeding is in the extreme north. The Tame Swan is the largest of our web-footed water-fowl, sometimes weighing about thirty pounds: the whole body of the full-grown Swan is covered with a beautiful pure white plumage, but the young ones are grey; under the feathers is a thick, soft down, which is of very great use, and often employed as an ornament. The elegance of form which this bird displays, when, with his arched neck and half-displayed wings, he sails along the crystal surface of a tranquil stream, which reflects, as he passes, the snowy beauty of his dress, is worthy of admiration. Thomson describes the Swan in the following beautiful manner:

“---- ---- ---- The stately sailing Swan Gives out his snowy plumage to the gale, And arching proud his neck, with oary feet, Bears forward fierce, and guards his osier isle, Protective of his young.”

Swans have for ages been protected on the river Thames as royal property; and it continues at this day to be accounted felony to steal their eggs: by this means their increase is secured, and they prove a delightful ornament to that noble river. Latham says the estimation in which they were held, in the reign of Edward IV., was such, that only those who possessed a freehold of the clear yearly value of five marks were permitted even to keep any. In those times, hardly a piece of water was left unoccupied by these birds, as they gratified the palate as well as the eye of their lordly owners of that period: but the fashion of those days has passed away, and Swans are by no means as common now as they were formerly, being by most people accounted a coarse kind of food, and consequently held in little estimation: but the Cygnets (so the young Swans are called) are still fattened for the table, and are sold very high, commonly for a guinea each, and sometimes more; hence it may be presumed they are better food than is generally imagined.

At Abbotsbury there was generally a noble Swannery, the property of the Earl of Ilchester, where six or seven hundred birds were kept, but the collection has of late been much diminished. The Swannery belonged anciently to the abbot, and, previously to the dissolution of monasteries, the Swans frequently amounted to double the above number.

From the whiteness of this bird, the expression of a “Black Swan” was used in ancient times as equivalent to a nonentity; but a species nearly entirely black has been lately discovered in Australia. This bird is as large as the white Swan, and its bill is of a rich scarlet. The whole plumage (except the primaries and secondaries, which are white) is of the most intense black.

Swans are very long lived, sometimes attaining the great age of a century and a half.

“The farmer’s Goose, who in the stubble Has fed without restraint or trouble, Grown fat with corn, and sitting still, Can scarce get o’er the barn-door sill; And hardly waddles forth to cool Her body in the neighbouring pool; Nor loudly cackles at the door, For cackling shows the Goose is poor.” SWIFT.

THE GOOSE is very different in outward appearance from the last-named bird. Stupidity in her look, uncouthness in her walk, and heaviness in her flight are her principal characteristics. But why should we dwell upon these defects? they are not such in the great scale of the creation. Her flesh feeds many, and is not disdained even by the great; her feathers keep us warm; and even the very pen I hold in my hand was plucked from her wing.

These birds are kept in vast quantities in the fens of Lincolnshire; several persons there having as many as a thousand breeders. They breed in general only once a year, but if well kept they sometimes hatch twice in a season. During their sitting, the birds have spaces allotted to each, in rows of wicker pens placed one above another; and the Goose-herd, who has the care of them, drives the whole flock to water twice a day, and bringing them back to their habitations, places every bird (without missing one) in its own nest. It is scarcely credible what numbers of Geese are driven from the distant counties to London for sale, frequently two or three thousand in a drove; and, in the year 1783, one drove passed through Chelmsford, in its way from Suffolk to London, that contained more than nine thousand. However simple in appearance or awkward in gesture the Goose may be, it is not without many marks of sentiment and understanding. The courage with which it protects its offspring and defends itself against ravenous birds, and certain instances of attachment, and even of gratitude, which have been observed in it, render our general contempt of the Goose ill-founded.

The Goose was held in great veneration among the Romans, as having by her watchfulness saved the Capitol from the attack of the Gauls. Virgil says, in the seventh book of the Æneid,

“The silver goose before the shining gate There flew, and by her cackle saved the state.” DRYDEN.

The colour of this useful bird is generally white; though we often find them of a mixture of white, grey, black, and sometimes yellow. The feet which are palmated, are orange-coloured, and the beak is serrated. The male of the Goose is called the Gander; and the young ones Goslings. Geese are very long-lived, one is known to have lived above seventy years.

The Wild Goose is the original of the tame one, and differs much in colour from her, the general tint of its feathers being a greyish black. Wild Geese fly by night in large flocks to more southern countries; and their clang is heard from the regions of the clouds, although the birds are out of sight.

THE COMMON DUCK is of two kinds, the wild and the tame, the latter being but the same species altered by domestication; the difference between them is very trifling, save that the colour of the Mallard, or male wild Duck, is constantly the same in all the individuals, whereas the Drakes, or tame ones, are varied in their plumage. The females do not share with the males in beauty of plumage: the admirable scarf of glossy green and blue, which surrounds the neck of Drakes and Mallards, being an exclusive prerogative of the male sex. There is also a curious and invariable peculiarity belonging to the males, which consists of a few curled feathers rising upon the rump.

Wild Ducks are caught by decoys in the fen countries, and in such prodigious numbers, that in only ten decoys in the neighbourhood of Wainfleet, as many as thirty-one thousand two hundred have been caught in one season. They do not always build their nests close to the water, but often at a considerable distance from it; in which case the female will take the young ones in her beak, or between her legs, to the water. They have sometimes been known to lay their eggs in a high tree, in a deserted magpie’s or crow’s nest; and an instance has been recorded of one being found at Etchingham, in Sussex, sitting upon nine eggs in an oak, at the height of twenty-five feet from the ground: the eggs were supported by some small twigs laid cross-ways.

The tame Ducks, reared about mills and rivers, or wherever there is a sufficient quantity of water for them to indulge their sports and to search for food, become a branch of trade, which proves very profitable to their owners.

WHICH is found about the coasts of the north of England and Scotland, becomes more numerous as we go further north, and is most abundant on Iceland and the Arctic shores, both of Europe and America. This bird is particularly valuable for the great quantity of down which it furnishes, as this is so light and elastic that beds and quilts made from it are preferable to any others. The birds line their nests with this beautiful material plucked from their own bodies, and it is chiefly by plundering the nests that the down is obtained. Each nest will furnish about half a pound of down in the season, and it is worth about four dollars a pound.

WEIGHS about twenty-two ounces, and feeds upon grass and roots growing at the bottom of lakes, rivers, and ponds. The plumage of this bird is much variegated, and its flesh esteemed a great delicacy, though not so highly praised as that of the teal. The bill of the Widgeon is black; the head and upper part of the neck of a bright bay; the back and sides under the wing waved with black and white; the breast purple; the lower part of the body white, and the legs are dusky. The young of both sexes are grey, and continue in this plain garb till the month of February; after which a change takes place, and the plumage of the male begins to assume its rich colourings, in which, it is said, he continues till the end of July; and then again the feathers become dark and grey, so that he is hardly to be distinguished from the female.

Widgeons commonly fly in small flocks during the night, and may be known from other birds by their whistling note, while they are on the wing. They quit the desert morasses of the north on the approach of winter, and as they advance towards the ends of their destined southern journey, they spread themselves along the shores, and over the marshes and lakes, in various parts of the continent, as well as those of the British isles; and it is said that some of the flocks advance as far south as Egypt.

The Widgeon is easily domesticated in places where there is plenty of water, and is much admired for its beauty, sprightly look, and busy, frolicsome manners; yet it is generally asserted that they will not breed in confinement, or at least that the female will not make a nest and perform the act of incubation; but that she will lay eggs, which are generally dropped into the water.

IS the least of the duck tribe, weighing only twelve ounces. The lower part of the body is of a dingy white, inclining to a grey tint. The back and sides under the wings are curiously varied with lines of white and black; the wings are all over brown, and the tail of the same colour. This bird is common in England during the winter months, and it is still uncertain whether it does not breed here as it does in France. Dr. Heysham says it is known to breed in the neighbourhood of Carlisle. The female makes her nest of reeds interwoven with grass; and, as it is reported, places it among the rushes, in order that it may rise and fall with the water. Their eggs are of the size of those of a pigeon, six or seven in number, and of a dull white colour, marked with small brownish spots; but it appears that they sometimes lay ten or twelve eggs, for Buffon remarks that that number of young are seen in clusters on the pools, feeding on cresses, chervil, and some other weeds, as well as upon seeds and small insects that swarm in the water. The flesh of the Teal is a great delicacy in the winter season, and has less of the fishy flavour than any of the wild duck kind. It is known to breed and remain throughout the year in various temperate climates of the world, and is in the summer met with as far northward as Iceland.

THE COMMON GULL. (_Laruscanus._)

THE GULLS, of which there are a great many different kinds, are very common birds around our coasts and at the mouths of rivers; they have long wings, and fly with great rapidity and buoyancy. Their plumage is thick, and they float very lightly on the surface of the water, but do not dive. The Gulls are very voracious, and not only devour great quantities of fishes, shell-fish, and other marine animals, but even condescend to feed upon the dead bodies of animals which they find floating on the water or cast up on the shore. Some of the smaller kinds come inland, and catch insects on the wing, in the same way as the Swallows.

The Common Gull is rather a large species, being more than eighteen inches in length when full grown. Its plumage is pearly grey above and white beneath; the largest wing feathers are black, with white tips and white spots near the tip; and the bill and feet are greenish grey. This bird breeds in the salt marshes or on the ledges of cliffs. The female lays two or three eggs, which are olive brown, with dark brown and black spots.

It is a very pretty sight to watch from the top of a lofty cliff the multitudes of these birds that often haunt our coasts; gliding with beautiful ease and swiftness through the air, skimming the surface of the water in pursuit of their prey, or reposing upon its bosom. Even their rather harsh and discordant cry is in harmony with the wild and imposing heights on which they love to dwell. This, however, does not protect them from the frequenters of our seaside towns, with whom seagull shooting is a favourite amusement; an amusement the more to be reprehended as the flesh of the bird is quite useless.

Gulls are frequently caught alive, and, after having their wings clipped to prevent their escape, are kept to satisfy their voracious appetite on snails, slugs, and other garden pests.

“O’er the deep! o’er the deep! Where the whale, and the shark, and the sword-fish sleep, Outflying the blast and the driving rain, The petrel telleth her tale in vain; For the mariner curseth the warning bird, Who bringeth him news of the storm unheard! Oh! thus does the prophet, of good or ill, Meet hate from creatures he serveth still; Yet he ne’er falters:--So, Petrel! spring Once more o’er the waves on thy stormy wing.” PROCTER.

THE STORMY PETREL is not larger than a swallow; and its colour is entirely black, except the coverts of the tail, the tail itself, and the vent-feathers, which are white: its legs are slender. Ranging over the expanse of the ocean, and frequently at a vast distance from the land, this bird is able to brave the utmost fury of the storms. Even in the most tempestuous weather it is frequently observed by the mariners skimming with almost incredible velocity along the billows, and sometimes over their summits. They often follow vessels in great flocks, to pick up anything that is thrown overboard; but their appearance is looked upon by the sailors as the sure presage of stormy weather in the course of a few hours. It seems to seek protection from the fury of the wind in the wake of the vessels; and it is probable that for the same reason it often flies between two surges. The nest of this bird is found in the Orkney Islands, under loose stones, in the months of June and July. It lives chiefly on small fish; and although mute by day, it is very clamorous by night. The young of this bird are fed with an oily matter or chyle, which is ejected from the stomachs of the parents.

Mudie, in his very entertaining work on British Birds, says that they are called Petrels, or “little Petrels,” because they move along the surface as if they were literally walking on the water. He also informs us that they are at times very full of oil, and that the Faroese, taking advantage of this circumstance, convert them into lamps, by fixing them in an upright position and drawing a wick through their bodies, which they light at the mouth.

IS a larger kind of Petrel, which is found not uncommonly on the British coasts, and is exceeding abundant in the Arctic seas. Here it is a regular attendant upon the whale-fishers when they are engaged in cutting up a whale. Any fragments of blubber that happen to fall into the water are immediately snapped by these greedy birds, which clamour and squabble over the feast with so little regard to the vicinity of the sailors, that they may be knocked on the head with a boat-hook. They are in high estimation in the countries they inhabit, on account of the large amount of oil they contain. It is only rarely they are seen in England, nor do they regularly frequent any part of Great Britain, except a few of the northernmost islands of Scotland. Like the other Petrels, they feed their young with a sort of oil, which they have the power of exuding at will.

ALSO resembles the diminutive Petrels in some respects; but instead of being a pigmy it is a giant among birds. Its wings often measure as much as fifteen feet in extent and are of corresponding power, as they have to support the Albatross by the day together above the stormy waves of the great Southern Ocean. Indeed, so enormous is their strength and endurance, that they have been known to follow ships for whole days together, without once resting upon the water. From time to time the gigantic bird plunges down into the sea to capture the fishes with which he satisfies his hunger; and it is said that where Albatrosses are numerous they will even attack sailors who may happen to fall overboard. From their abundance at the Cape of Good Hope they are often called by mariners Cape sheep.

Albatrosses generally weigh from twenty to thirty pounds. The plumage is white, except some narrow bars upon the back, and some of the long wing feathers, which are black, and of the head, which is a reddish grey. The beak is long and powerful, and curved at the end, and would be a most terrible weapon if the owner were of a pugnacious disposition. It is, however, quite inoffensive, and is even sometimes attacked by much smaller birds, when it invariably takes to flight, and the immense power of its wings generally enables it to distance its pursuers. The Albatross, like most sea birds, has a most insatiable appetite, and devours immense quantities, not only of fish, but of other sea-animals,--such as molluscs. They are so greedy that they are caught by a line baited with a piece of flesh, which the ever-hungry bird swallows at a gulp, paying with his life for the dear repast. They are taken by the natives of the countries they frequent, not for their flesh, which is tough and insipid, but for the sake of their entrails, which are very large and elastic, and are used for a number of useful purposes.

THE GREAT NORTHERN DIVER is found most abundantly in the Arctic seas, but a considerable number of them dwell on the shores of Scotland. It has a rather long, strong, and sharply pointed bill; its back and wings are black, ornamented with numerous white spots; its lower surface is greyish-white; and its head and neck are black, with a couple of white collars across the front of the neck. The Great Northern Diver is a large bird, measuring nearly three feet in length; its wings are small in proportion to its size, but yet the bird is able to fly very rapidly. It is, however, in the water that it is most active; it swims and dives with the most remarkable ease, and even under water goes as fast as a four-oared boat. Its food consists of fishes, and it breeds amongst the herbage of the sea-shore, the female laying two or three eggs in a neat nest made of grass.

IS another short-winged water bird, but, unlike the Northern Diver, it visits us in the summer, and breeds on our shores. It is about a foot long, and has the back and wings black, the cheeks and all the lower parts of the body, except a band round the neck, white, and the feet orange. Its bill is very curious, and has obtained for it the names of Sea Parrot and Coulterneb in some places. This organ is large and strong, but flattened at the sides; it is of a bluish colour, with three grooves and four ridges of an orange colour. The Puffin flies swiftly, and swims and dives almost as well as the Great Diver; it breeds sometimes in crannies amongst the rocks, and sometimes in a hole which it digs in the turf or in a rabbit-warren.

WHICH is sometimes called the Northern Penguin, is a large bird, furnished with very small wings, which, although formed of regular feathers, like those of other birds, are far too weak to raise their owner into the air. They are, however, of use in another way. When the Auk dives, which it frequently does, they serve as fins, and, with its powerful webbed feet, enable it to swim underneath the water with even greater rapidity than on the surface. This bird was formerly seen occasionally on the northern coasts of Britain, and became more plentiful towards the Arctic seas; but no specimens have now been met with for many years, and there is reason to believe that the bird is quite extinct on our coasts. In the water the Great Auk, like the Diver, is wonderfully active, swimming on the surface or beneath the waves with equal ease. Mr. Bullock, when in the Orkneys, pursued a male bird for several hours in a six-oared boat without being able to kill him.

The Great Auk is generally about three feet long, and changes its plumage in summer. The breeding-season is in June and July, when the female lays one large egg, of a yellowish colour, marked with black spots.

OF which numerous species abound on the shores and islands of the great Southern Ocean, is remarkable for its almost incredible agility in the water; it swims and dives like a fish, and in fact is described as coming to the surface for air, and descending again so suddenly as to give rise to the impression that it is a fish jumping in sport. It is found in vast numbers in hiding places, where the females are seen sitting upright and holding their single egg between their legs.