Part 88

Although there appears considerable force in these arguments of Montagu, I am disposed to be of opinion, that birds sing most frequently from joy and buoyancy of spirits, and not unfrequently in triumphant defiance of rivalry or attack. I have a red-breast at present, who will sing out whenever I snap my fingers at him; and the sedge-bird sings when a stone is thrown into the bush where he may be.

Syme’s remarks upon the songs of birds, are worth quoting. The notes, he says, of soft-billed birds, are finely-toned, mellow, and plaintive; those of the hard-billed species are sprightly, cheerful, and rapid. This difference proceeds from the construction of the larynx; as a large pipe of an organ produces a deeper and more mellow-toned note than a small pipe, so the trachea of the nightingale, which is wider than that of the canary, sends forth a deeper and more mellow-toned note. Soft-billed birds, also, sing more from the lower part of the throat than the hard-billed species. This, together with the greater width of the larynx of the nightingale and other soft-billed warblers, fully accounts for their soft, round, mellow notes, compared with the shrill, sharp, and clear notes of the canary and other hard-billed songsters. In a comprehensive sense, the complete song of birds includes all the notes they are capable of uttering; and, taken in this sense, it is analogous to the speech of man. It is the vehicle through which these little creatures communicate and convey to each other their mutual wishes and their wants. It may be divided into six distinct separate sounds or parts, each of which is very expressive, even to us, of the feelings which agitate the bird at the moment. To describe their song more fully, we shall divide it in the following manner:—

First—The call-note of the male in spring.

Second—The loud, clear, ardent, fierce notes of defiance.

Third—The soft, tender, full, melodious, love warble.

Fourth—The notes of fear or alarm, when danger approaches the nest.

Fifth—The note of alarm, or war-cry, when a bird of prey appears.

Sixth—The note the parent-birds utter to their brood, and the chirp or note of the young.

The note of the young may be again divided into two; that which they utter while in the nest, and the chirp after they have left it; for they are very distinct sounds or notes; to which may be added, a soft, murmuring kind of note, emitted by the male, while he is feeding the female in the nest; and also by her while she is receiving the food. The call-note; the warble of love; and the notes of defiance, or prelude to battle, seem only to be understood by birds of the same species, at least in a wild state. Perhaps, in a state of domestication, birds of different genera, if nearly allied, may partially comprehend these notes, as the canary bird does the notes of the siskin, the goldfinch, and the linnet.

* * * * *

All the notes comprised in the song of birds convey delight to the mind of a lover of nature; but the bird-fanciers only prize their love warble, and notes of defiance; these notes, and these only, he considers to be their song. The musical notes of birds, whether of love or war, are sweet, and really charming in themselves; but they perhaps pour on the mind a greater degree of pleasure than mere sound is capable of conveying—we mean the recollections of youthful days, of endearing incidents, or of scenes connected with country pleasure. We ourselves prefer the mellow, plaintive melody of the soft-billed species; but others give the palm to the cheerful warble of the hard-billed tribe; which of these two styles is the sweetest melody we cannot determine. Both warbles may be equally fine; and the preference, perhaps, may depend on taste and feeling. But it is allowed, by all who have an ear for music, or rather, we should say, who have an ear and love for simple natural melody, that the song or warble of birds is truly delightful; but all their musical notes cease as soon as the brood is hatched.—_Montagu_—_Syme_—_Rennie._

SOPORIFIC, _a._ Causing sleep, opiate.

SOREL, _s._ A buck of the third year.

SOUP, _s._ Strong decoction of flesh for the table.

Hawker’s recipe for a mountain soup is simple and excellent—_Probatum est_.—ED.

Three pounds of meat, a large carrot, two onions, and two turnips. (The Frenchman adds also a cabbage; here John Bull may please himself.) Put them into two quarts of water, to simmer away till reduced to three pints. Let him season the soup to the taste, with pepper, salt, herbs, &c. He must then cut off square, a pound of the fattest part of the meat, and put it aside, letting the rest boil completely to pieces. After he has well skimmed off the fat, and strained the soup, let him put it by till wanted.

On your return, while seeing your dogs fed, which every sportsman ought to do, let the soup be put on the fire for twenty minutes, with some fresh vegetables, (if you like to have them,) and, for the last ten minutes, boil again the square piece of meat which was reserved. Another necessary part of the recipe also should be prescribed, lest the dish should fall into disrepute. To prevent the deputy cook from helping himself, and filling it up with water, let him have a partnership in the concern, and when he has occasion to quit the room, he should either lock the door, or leave one of your relay dogs for a sentry.

You will then have a good wholesome gravy-soup to begin with, and afterwards some tender meat, which, if eaten with mustard, a little raw parsley chopped fine, and a few anchovies, you will, it is presumed, find an excellent dish. A pot of anchovies might easily be carried in a portmanteau, being, of all the luxuries from an oil-shop, one of the most portable and most useful.—_Hawker._

SOW, _s._ A female pig, the female of a boar; an oblong mass of lead; an insect, a millepede.

SPADE, _s._ The instrument of digging; a suit of cards.

SPADILLE, _s._ The ace of spades at ombre and quadrille.

SPANCOUNTER, or SPANFARTHING, _s. obs._ A play at which money is thrown within a span or mark.

SPANIEL, _s._ A dog used for sport in the field, remarkable for sagacity and obedience.

_Anatomical Character of Spaniels._—The head very moderately elongated; the parietal bones do not approach each other above the temples, but diverge and swell out so as to enlarge the forehead and the cerebral cavity. This group includes the most useful and intelligent dogs.

Var. E—Spaniel, _Can. fam. extrarius_, LINN. The name of the spaniel race is derived from its supposed original country, Spain.

The sub-varieties are—_a_, The smaller spaniel, with a small round head, the ears and tail covered with long hair; _b_, King Charles’s spaniel, _Can. brevipilis_, LINN.; _c_, _La Pyrame_, BUFF.; _d_, The Maltese, _Bichon_, BUFF.; _e_, The lion dog, _Can. leoninus_, LINN.; _f_, the Calabrian dog; _g_, The hunting spaniel or cocker, which yields the setter, _Can. index_, LINN. Addenda—The Newfoundland dog; The Alpine spaniel.

Var. F—The water spaniel, _Canis aquaticus_, LINN.; _chien barbat_, BUFF.

Sub-varieties—_a_, small water spaniel, _petit barbet_, BUFF.; _chien griffon_, a dog between the water spaniel and the shepherd’s dog.—_Blaine._

SPAR, _v._ To fight like cocks with prelusive strokes; to box with gloves.

SPARK, _s._ A small particle of fire, or kindled matter; anything shining; anything vivid or active.

SPARROW (_Passer domesticus_, ALDROVAND), _s._ A small bird.

This well-known species weighs near seven drachms; length about six inches; the bill is dusky; irides hazel; the crown of the head ash-colour; round the eye, and between that and the bill, is black; behind the eyes, surrounding the back part of the head, bay; cheeks, white; chin and under part of the neck, black, mixed with grey; belly, dirty white; the coverts of the wings are chestnut and black mixed, with a whitish bar across them; the back a mixture of black and rufous; quills dusky, with rufous edges; tail dusky, edged with grey; legs brown. The bill of the female is lighter; behind the eye a line of white; the head and whole upper parts are brown, the under dirty white, dashed with ash-colour; no black on the chin or neck. In the country the sparrow exhibits a gloss and intermixture of colours rarely to be seen in those inhabiting large towns, which soon become of a dingy and almost uniform hue, from the accumulation of dust and smoke upon their plumage.

The sparrow is well known in every part of England; it inhabits the dwellings of the rich and the poor, taking possession of the humble thatched cottage in preference to the sumptuous palace. It is rarely seen far from the habitation of man, as it delights in the fruits of his labour; the highest cultivated parts producing the greatest quantity. It might be said of this bird, as of some species of water fowl, which remaining always within soundings, warn the mariner of his approach to land; so on the extensive and dreary mountains, not a sparrow is ever to be seen, and the sight of one bespeaks some habitation near. It makes a nest conformable to the place it chooses for incubation, whether in a hole of a wall, in thatch, or under the tiles of a house, or in a window swallow’s nest, it must conform to the size of the place; but when the nest is made in a tree, it is of large size, and covered at top, composed of hay and straw, lined warmly with feathers and fragments of thread or worsted, bits of cloth, or any refuse material of that sort, found about houses.

This accommodation of the structure of the nest to the locality where it is built, is in no instance, with which we are acquainted, more conspicuous than in the proceedings of the house-sparrow. Dr. Darwin mentions, seemingly as an extraordinary circumstance, that “in the trees before Mr. Levet’s house, at Litchfield, there are annually nests built by sparrows, a bird which usually builds under the tiles of houses or the thatch of barns;” but if he had been acquainted with the works of Bonnet, he would have learned that in Switzerland, at least, the sparrow “most usually (_pour l’ordinaire_) builds near the tops of trees,” while its nestling under tiles is an accidental exception. In the vicinity of London also, we venture to say that three pair of sparrows build on trees to one pair that nestle in holes; and so commonly is this noticed, that the tree-sparrow is popularly supposed to be a different species from the house-sparrow. The tree-sparrow (_Passer montanus_) of Yorkshire is indeed a different species, which lays pale brown eggs without spots; but the London ones, which build either on trees or in holes, have not a shade of difference.

It is worthy of notice, that they always proportion the quantity of materials to the size of the nest hole, which is generally packed close, leaving only a sufficient cavity for hatching the eggs and rearing the young. I have one of these nests, for example, which could almost be hid in the hollow of the hand, and another, built about a yard from it, which would fill a hat. When the nest is built on a tree, however, it is always nearly of the same dimensions, about a foot in diameter each way. From the bird nestling occasionally in holes, it might be imagined that when it made choice of a tree, it would be on account of thus obtaining a canopy of thick boughs to form a roof; but, on the contrary, sparrows, for the most part, select a high, exposed branch, as if they were more anxious to be out of the reach of cats, than of cold winds. When sparrows build in the ivied wall of a house, as they often do, they do not consider the thick clustering of the leaves above the nest as a sufficiently warm coping; and in such cases usually, if not always, construct a dome of straw, though much more slight than in nests built on the exposed branches of trees.

From its anxiety to procure shelter, the sparrow indeed seizes upon any convenience it can find best adapted to its purpose, whether that be accidental or have been prepared by some other bird. One very cogent reason for this appears to be its looking forward prospectively to the winter, for sparrows occupy their nests at night throughout the year, and though they are hardy birds, they require a warm shelter during severe frosts.

I am not aware that any contrivance is resorted to in Britain, to entice birds to build in particular places, except in the case of the house-sparrow. In the vicinity of London more particularly, pots of unglazed delft ware of a sub-oval shape, with a narrow hole for an entrance, are fixed upon the walls of houses, several feet below the eave, and the sparrows finding a domicile so suited to their habits, very soon took possession of every pot thus provided for them. But those who are so careful to accommodate the sparrows, do it not because they are fond of their neighbourhood or their yelping concerts, but to prevent their nestling under the eaves, where they dig out the mortar with their strong bills, when they do not find holes large enough for their accommodation. It probably never struck those wise persons, that by thus encouraging the sparrows to breed, they are promoting the increase of the race, and unless they multiply their sparrow pots yearly, they may be almost certain that the supernumeraries will resort to eaves nearest their birth-place. In Holland, square boxes are placed on the house-tops, to entice the stork (_Ardea ciconia_) to build; and for the same purpose it was customary in France, in Belon’s time, to place wheels there, a practice said to be still followed in some parts of Germany.

The sparrow lays six eggs of a whitish colour, spotted with dusky brown or ash-grey, and varying much in the shades as well as the thickness of the spots; each weighs from forty-three to forty-eight grains. Accidental varieties occur, such as white, black, and yellowish.

_Sparrow Shooting._—If, however, there are persons who still think the practice of shooting swallows to be of assistance in acquiring the art, we will venture to recommend another mode which is nearly similar, but, in our opinion, much better. This is, by putting small pieces of white paper round the necks of sparrows, or other small birds, by the means of a hole cut in the middle of the paper, then throwing a single bird into the air, the young shooter may deliberately take his aim, for by this device the flight of the bird is rendered less rapid and more regular, and at the same time presents a much better mark for practice, besides it affords an excellent diversion in seasons when game cannot be pursued, or in wet weather from underneath the shelter of a shed or a barn-door. Some of the first shots in the kingdom have been perfected by this mode.—_Montagu_—_Art of Shooting._

SPARROWHAWK (_Accipiter fringillarius_, RAY), _s._ The female of the musket-hawk.

_The Sparrowhawk._ (_Falconisus_, LINN.; _L’Epuvier_, BUFF.)—The length of the male is twelve inches; that of the female fifteen. Its bill is blue, furnished with bristles at the base, which overhang the nostrils; the colour of the eye is bright orange; the head is flat at the top, and above each eye is a strong bony projection, which seems as if intended to secure it from external injury: from this projection a few scattered spots of white form a faint line running backward towards the neck: the top of the head and all the upper parts of the body are of a dusky brown colour; on the back part of the head there is a faint line of white; the scapulars are marked with two spots of white on each feather; the greater quill feathers and the tail are dusky, with four bars of a darker hue on each; the inner edges of all the quills are marked with two or more large white spots; the tips of the tail feathers are white; the breast, belly, and under coverts of the wings and thighs are white, beautifully barred with brown; the throat is faintly streaked with brown; the legs and feet are yellow; claws black.

The above is the description of a female; the male differs both in size and colour; the upper part of his body is of a dark lead colour; and the bars on his breast are more numerous.

The female builds her nest in hollow trees, high rocks, or lofty ruins, sometimes in the old nest of a crow, and generally lays four or five eggs, spotted with reddish spots at the longer end.

The sparrow-hawk is very numerous in various parts of the world, from Russia to the Cape of Good Hope. It is a bold and spirited bird; but is obedient and docile, and can be easily trained to hunt partridges and quails; it makes great destruction among pigeons, young poultry, and small birds of all kinds, which it will attack and carry off in the most daring manner.—_Bewick._

SPARROW-OWL, _s._ (_Noctua passerina_, SAVIGNY.)

The sparrow owl is a very rare species in England. In France it is said to frequent ruined edifices. It makes a nest in the holes of rocks and walls, and lays five or six eggs, spotted with yellowish and white. It is said to fly by day, and to give chace to small birds; but its principal food is mice. It is said to build in chimneys in Carniola; and Mr. Edwards mentions two having been taken in England by coming down chimneys. In 1808, one was shot by Mr. Comyns, in North Devon.—_Montagu._

SPAVIN, _s._ This disease in horses is a bony excrescence, or crust as hard as a bone, that grows on the inside of the hough.

_Bony spavin_ consists of a small bony enlargement on the inside of the hock, which often is not very observable. It occasions, however, a peculiar kind of lameness, which cannot well be mistaken, that is, a quick catching up of the leg, especially in trotting. This lameness is of course in various degrees, and sometimes scarcely observable except on first starting, and sometimes in confirmed and bad spavins; the lameness diminishes, and sometimes appears to go off by exercise, but after resting for some time the horse becomes very stiff and lame. The only remedy for this complaint is firing, and blistering immediately after. The horse should then be turned into a box for a short time, and afterwards to grass; in about a month he may be put to work. I have been informed that introducing a seton over the diseased part of the hock is now practised at the Veterinary College, in preference to firing. I have never tried this remedy, being satisfied that firing is the best, and indeed the only remedy where the disease is curable. The hot iron should be carried through the skin immediately over, and a little way into, the bony excrescence.

_Bog spavin_ and _thorough pin_ is a swelling on the inside of the hock, rather towards the fore part; the large vein which is so conspicuous on the inside of the leg passing over it. It depends either upon a distension, or rupture of the membranes which form the synovial cavity, or bursa mucosa, through which the great flexor tendon passes. The swelling is soft and yielding to the pressure of the finger, but rises again as soon as the pressure is removed. Sometimes, however, there is a swelling on the outside of the hock also, and in that case the fluid or synovia which the swelling contains, may be forced from one to the other. It is generally produced by hard work, or violent exertion for a short period, generally in breaking in a colt and putting him upon his haunches, as it is termed, at too early an age. It seldom occasions lameness, unless considerable, and then makes a horse go very stiff, especially after working much. The only remedy is firing, and sufficient rest; and when it is so considerable as to cause any degree of stiffness, it is advisable to have recourse to this operation. It often exists however in a slight degree, and without occasioning any inconvenience, and then it is better to leave it alone.—_White._

SPAWN, _s._ The eggs of fish or of frogs; any product or offspring.

SPAWN, _v._ To produce as fishes do eggs; to generate, to bring forth.

SPAWNER, _s._ The female fish.

SPAY, _v._ To castrate female animals.

Spaying is performed by making an opening in the flank on one side, when the ovaria, being enlarged by pregnancy, are readily distinguishable, and may be drawn out and cut off, first one and then the other; securing the ends by a ligature lightly applied to each surface, but leaving the threads without the wound, which is to be closed by stitches and bandaging. Farriers often apply no ligature, but content themselves with simply sewing up the wound, and no ill consequence seems to ensue. Bitches, after they have been spayed, become fat, bloated, and spiritless, and commonly prove short-lived.—_Blaine._

SPEAR, _s._ A long weapon with a sharp point, used in thrusting or throwing; a lance; a lance generally with prongs to kill fish.

SPEAR, _v._ To kill or pierce with a spear.

SPECIES, _s._ A sort, a subdivision of a general term; class of nature, single order of beings.

SPECIFIC, _s._ A specific medicine.

SPEED, _s._ Quickness, celerity, haste, hurry, despatch; the course or pace of a horse.

_Speed of the Horse._—Common report says that Flying Childers could run a mile in a minute, but there is no authentic record of this. He ran over the Round Course of Newmarket (three miles, six furlongs, and ninety-three yards) in six minutes and forty seconds; and the Beacon Course (four miles, one furlong, and one hundred and thirty-eight yards), in seven minutes and thirty seconds. In 1772, a mile was run by Firetail, in one minute and four seconds. In October 1741, at the Curragh meeting in Ireland, Mr. Wilde engaged to ride 127 miles in nine hours. He performed it in six hours and twenty-one minutes. He employed ten horses, and allowing for mounting and dismounting, and a moment for refreshment, he rode for six hours at the rate of twenty miles an hour. Mr. Thornhill, in 1745, exceeded this, for he rode from Stilton to London and back, and again to Stilton, being 213 miles, in eleven hours and thirty-four minutes, which is, after allowing the least possible time for changing horses, twenty miles an hour for eleven hours, and on the turnpike road and uneven ground. Mr. Shaftoe, in 1762, with ten horses, and five of them ridden twice, accomplished fifty miles and a quarter in one hour and forty-nine minutes. In 1763, Mr. Shaftoe won a more extraordinary match. He was to procure a person to ride one hundred miles a day, on any one horse each day, for twenty-nine days together, and to have any number of horses not exceeding twenty-nine: he accomplished it on fourteen horses, and one day he rode 160 miles, on account of the tiring of his first horse. Mr. Hull’s Quibbler, however, afforded the most extraordinary instance on record of the stoutness as well as speed of the race-horse. In December, 1786, he ran twenty-three miles round the flat at Newmarket, in fifty-seven minutes and ten seconds.