Birds in London Part 2

The persistency with which the carrion crow keeps to his nesting-place may be seen in the case of a pair that have bred in private grounds at Hillfield, Hampstead, for at least sixty years. Nor is it impossible to believe that the same birds have occupied the site for this long period, the crow being a long-lived creature. The venerable author of 'Festus,'

who also has the secret of long life, might have been thinking of this very pair when, more than half a century ago, he wrote his spirited lyric:--

The crow! the crow! the great black crow!

He lives for a hundred years and mo'; He lives till he dies, and he dies as slow As the morning mists down the hill that go.

Go--go! you great black crow!

But it's fine to live and die like a great black crow.

Many persons might be inclined to think that it must be better for the crow to have his nest a little way out of the hurly-burly, or at all events within easy reach of the country; for how, they might ask, can this large flesh-eating, voracious creature feed himself and rear a nest full of young with cormorant appet.i.tes in London?

Eliza Cook, whose now universally neglected works I admired as a boy, makes the bird say, in her 'Song of the Crow':--

I plunged my beak in the marbling cheek, I perched on the clammy brow; And a dainty treat was that fresh meat To the greedy carrion crow.

The unknown author of 'The Twa Corbies' was a better naturalist as well as a better poet when he wrote--

I'll pick out his bonny blue een.

But this relates to a time when the bodies of dead men, as well as of other large animals, were left lying promiscuously about; in these ultra-civilised days, when all dead things are quickly and decently interred, the greedy carrion crow has greatly modified his feeding habits. In London, as in most places, he takes whatever he finds on the table, and though not in principle a vegetarian, there is no doubt that he feeds largely on vegetable substances. Like the sparrow and other London birds, he has become with us a great bread-eater.

Mr. Kempshall, the superintendent at Clissold Park, relates a curious story of this civilised taste in the crow. The park for very many years was the home of a pair of these birds. Unfortunately, when this s.p.a.ce was opened to the public, in 1889, the birds forsook it, and settled in some large trees on private grounds in the neighbourhood. These trees were cut down about three years ago, whereupon the birds returned to Clissold Park; but they have now again left it. One summer morning before the park was opened, when there were young crows in the nest, Mr. Kempshall observed one of the old birds laboriously making his way across the open ground towards the nesting-tree, laden with a strange-looking object. This was white and round and three times as big as an orange, and the crow, flying close to the ground, was obliged to alight at short intervals, whereupon he would drop his pack and take a rest. Curious to know what he was carrying, the superintendent made a sudden rush at the bird, at a moment when he had set his burden down, and succeeded in getting near enough to see that the white object was the round top part of a cottage loaf. But though the rush had been sudden and unexpected, and accompanied with a startling shout, the crow did not lose his head; striking his powerful beak, or _plunging_ it, as Eliza Cook would have said, into the ma.s.s, he flopped up and struggled resolutely on until he reached the nest, to be boisterously welcomed by his hungry family. They had a big meal, but perhaps grumbled a little at so much bread without any ghee.

Probably the London crows get most of their food from the river. Very early every morning, as we have seen, they wing their way to the Thames, and at all hours of the day, when not engaged in breeding, crows may be seen travelling up and down the river, usually in couples, from Barnes and Mortlake and higher up, down to the sea. They search the mud at low tide for dead fishes, garbage, bread, and vegetable matter left by the water. Even when the tide is at its full the birds are still able to pick up something to eat, as they have borrowed the gull's habit of dropping upon the water to pick up any floating object which may form part of their exceedingly varied dietary. It is amusing to see the carrion crow fishing up his dinner in this way, for he does not venture to fold his wings like the gull and examine and take up the morsel at leisure; he drops upon the water rather awkwardly, wetting his legs and belly, but keeps working his wings until he has secured the floating object, then rises heavily with it in his beak. Another curious habit of some London crows in the south-west district, is to alight, dove-like, on the roofs and chimney-stacks of tall houses.

In an article on this bird which appeared in the 'Fortnightly Review'

for May 1895, I wrote: 'It sometimes greatly adds to our knowledge of any wild creature to see it tamed--not confined in any way, nor with its wings clipped, but free to exercise all its faculties and to come and go at will. Some species in this condition are very much more companionable than others, and probably none so readily fall into the domestic life as the various members of the crow family; for they are more intelligent and adaptive, and nearer to the mammalians in their mental character than most birds. It is therefore curious to find that the subject of this paper appears to be little known as a domestic bird, or pet. A caged crow, being next door, so to speak, to a dead and stuffed crow, does not interest me. Yet the crow strikes one as a bird with great possibilities as a pet: one would like to observe him freely a.s.sociating with the larger unfeathered crows that have a different language, to learn by what means he communicates with them, to sound his depths of amusing devilry, and note the modulations of his voice; for he, too, like other corvines, is loquacious on occasions, and much given to soliloquy. He is also a musician, a fact which is referred to by aesop, Yarrell, and other authorities, but they have given us no proper description of his song. A friend tells me that he once kept a crow which did not prove a very interesting pet. This was not strange in the circ.u.mstances. The bird was an old one, just knocked down with a charge of shot, when he was handed over in a dazed condition to my informant.

He recovered from his wounds, but was always a very sedate bird. He had the run of a big old country house, and was one day observed in a crouching att.i.tude pressed tightly into the angle formed by the wall and floor. He had discovered that the place was infested by mice, and was watching a crevice. The instant that a mouse put out a head the crow had him in his beak, and would kill him by striking him with lightning rapidity two or three times on the floor, then swallow him. From that time mouse-catching was this bird's sole occupation and amus.e.m.e.nt, and he went about the house in the silent and stealthy manner of a cat.

'I am anxious to get the history of a tame crow that never had his wing-feathers clipped, and did not begin the domestic life as an old bird with several pellets of lead in his body.'

Curiously enough, not long after this article appeared another bird-lover in London was asking the same question in another journal.

This was Mr. Mandeville B. Phillips, of South Norwood, then private secretary to the late Archbishop of Canterbury. By accident he had become possessed of a carrion crow, sold to him as a young raven taken from a nest at Ely. This bird made so interesting a pet that its owner became desirous of hearing the experiences of others who had kept carrion crows. Mr. Phillips, in kindly giving me the history of his bird, says that at different times he has kept ravens, daws, jays, and magpies, but has never had so delightful a bird friend as the crow. It was a revelation to him to find what an interesting pet this species made. No other bird he had owned approached him in cleverness and in multiplicity of tricks and devices: he could give the cleverest jackdaw points and win easily. If his bird was an average specimen of the race, he wondered that the crow is not more popular as a pet. This bird was fond of his liberty, but would always come to his master when called, and roosted every night in an outhouse. Like the tame raven, and also like human beings of a primitive order of mind, he was excessively fond of practical jokes, and whenever he found the dog or cat asleep he would steal quietly up and administer a severe prod on the tail with his powerful beak. He would also fly into the kitchen when he saw the window open, to steal the spoons; but his chief delight was in a box of matches, which he would carry off to pick to pieces and scatter the matches all over the place. He was extremely jealous of a tame raven and a jackdaw that shared the house and garden with him, and which he chose to regard as rivals; but this was his only unhappiness. The appearance of his master dressed in 'blazers' always greatly affected him. It would, indeed, throw him into such a frenzy of terror that Mr. Phillips became careful not to exhibit himself in such bizarre raiment in the garden. My informant concludes, that he is not ashamed to say that he shed a few tears at the loss of this bird.

I may add that I received a large number of letters in answer to my article on the carrion crow, but none of my correspondents in this country had any knowledge of the bird as a pet. In several letters received from America--the States and Canada--long histories of the common crow of that region as a pet bird were sent to me.

CHAPTER IV

THE LONDON DAW

Rarity of the daw in London--Pigeons and daws compared--aesthetic value of the daw as a cathedral bird--Kensington Palace daws; their disposition and habits--Friendship with rooks--Wandering daws at Clissold Park--Solitary daws--Mr. Mark Melford's birds--Rescue of a hundred daws--The strange history of an egg-stealing daw--White daws--White ravens--Willughby's speculations--A suggestion.

It is somewhat curious to find that the jackdaw is an extremely rare bird in London--that, in fact, with the exception of a small colony at one spot, he is almost non-existent. At Richmond Park, where pheasants (and the gamekeeper's traditions) are preserved, he was sometimes shot in the breeding season; but in the metropolis, so far as I know, he has never been persecuted. Yet there are few birds, certainly no member of the crow family, seemingly so well adapted to a London life as this species. Throughout the kingdom he is a familiar town bird; in one English cathedral over a hundred pairs have their nests; and in that city and in many other towns the birds are accustomed to come to the gardens and window-sills, to be fed on sc.r.a.ps by their human neighbours and friends.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PIGEONS AT THE LAW COURTS]

While the daw has diminished with us, and is near to vanishing, the common pigeon--the domestic variety of the blue rock--has increased excessively in recent years. Large colonies of these birds inhabit the Temple Gardens, the Law Courts, St. Paul's, the Museum, and Westminster Palace, and many smaller settlements exist all over the metropolis. Now, a flock or cloud of parti-coloured pigeons rushing up and wheeling about the roofs or fronts of these imposing structures forms a very pretty sight; but the daw toying with the wind, that lifts and blows him hither and thither, is a much more engaging spectacle, and in London we miss him greatly.

I have often thought that it was due to the presence of the daw that I was ever able to get an adequate or satisfactory idea of the beauty and grandeur of some of our finest buildings. Watching the bird in his aerial evolutions, now suspended motionless, or rising and falling, then with half-closed wings precipitating himself downwards, as if demented, through vast distances, only to mount again with an exulting cry, to soar beyond the highest tower or pinnacle, and seem at that vast height no bigger than a swift in size--watching him thus, an image of the structure over and around which he disported himself so gloriously has been formed--its vastness, stability, and perfect proportions--and has remained thereafter a vivid picture in my mind. How much would be lost to the sculptured west front of Wells Cathedral, the soaring spire of Salisbury, the n.o.ble roof and towers of York Minster and of Canterbury, if the jackdaws were not there! I know that, compared with the images I retain of many daw-haunted cathedrals and castles in the provinces, those of the cathedrals and other great buildings in London have in my mind a somewhat dim and blurred appearance. It is a pity that, before consenting to rebuild St. Paul's Cathedral, Sir Christopher Wren did not make the perpetual maintenance of a colony of jackdaws a condition.

And if he had bargained with posterity for a pair or two of peregrine falcons and kestrels, his glory at the present time would have been greater.

There are, I believe, about sixteen hundred churches in London; probably not more than three are now tenanted by the 'ecclesiastical daw.'

On the borders of London--at Hampstead, Greenwich, Dulwich, Richmond, and other points--daws in limited numbers are to be met with; in London proper, or inner London, there are no resident or breeding daws except the small colony of about twenty-four birds at Kensington Palace. Most of these breed in the hollow elms in Kensington Gardens; others in trees in Holland Park. There is something curious about this small isolated colony: the birds are far less loquacious and more sedate in manner than daws are wont to be. At almost any hour of the day they may be seen sitting quietly on the higher branches of the tall trees, silent and spiritless. The wind blows, and they rise not to play with it; the graceful spire of St. Mary Abbott's springs high above the garden trees and palace and neighbouring buildings, but it does not attract them.

Occasionally, in winter, when the morning sun shines bright and melts the mist, they experience a sudden return of the old frolicsome mood, and at such moments are capable of a very fine display, rushing over and among the tall elms in a black train, yelping like a pack of aerial hounds in hot pursuit of some invisible quarry.

A still greater excitement is exhibited by these somewhat depressed and sedentary Kensington birds on the appearance of a flight of rooks; for rooks, sometimes in considerable numbers, do occasionally visit or pa.s.s over London, and keep, when travelling east or west, to the wide green way of the central parks. Now there are few more impressive spectacles in bird life in this country than the approach of a large company of rooks; their black forms, that loom so large as they successively appear, follow each other with slow deliberate motion at long intervals, moving as in a funeral procession, with appropriate solemn noises, which may be heard when they are still at a great distance. They are chanting something that corresponds in the corvine world to our Dead March in 'Saul.' The coming sound has a magical effect on the daws; their answering cries ring out loud and sharp, and hurriedly mounting to a considerable height in the air, they go out to meet the processionists, to mix with and accompany them a distance on the journey. It is to me a wonderful sight--more wonderful here in Kensington Gardens, which have long been rookless, than in any country place, and has reminded me of the meeting of two savage tribes or families, living far apart but cherishing an ancient tradition of kinship and amity, who, after a long interval, perhaps of years, when at last they come in sight of each other's faces rush together, bursting into loud shouts of greeting and welcome. And one is really inclined to believe at times that some such traditional alliance and feeling of friendship exists between these two most social and human-like of the crow family.

Besides this small remnant of birds native to London, flocks of jackdaws from outside occasionally appear when migrating or in search of new quarters. One morning, not long ago, a flock of fifteen came down at Clissold Park. They settled on the dovecote, and amused themselves in a characteristic way by hunting the pigeons out of their boxes; then, having cleared the place, they remained contentedly for an hour or two, dozing, preening their feathers, and conversing together in low tones. The bird-loving superintendent's heart was filled with joy at the acquisition of so interesting a colony; but his rejoicing was premature, the loud call and invitation to fly was at last sounded, and hastily responded to--_We have not come to stay--we are off--good-bye--so-long--farewell_--and forthwith they rose up and flew away, probably in search of fresher woods and less trodden pastures than those of Clissold Park.

There are also to be met with in London a few solitary vagrant daws which in most cases are probably birds escaped from captivity. Close to my home a daw of this description appears every morning at the house of a friend and demands his breakfast with loud taps on the window-pane.

The generous treatment he has received has caused him to abandon his first suspicious att.i.tude; he now flies boldly into the house and explores the rooms, and is specially interested in the objects on the dressing-table. Articles of jewellery are carefully put out of sight when he makes a call.

My friends, Mr. and Mrs. Mark Melford, of Fulham, are probably responsible for the existence in London of a good number of wandering solitary jackdaws. They cherish a wonderful admiration and affection towards all the members of the crow family, and have had numberless daws, jays, and pies as pets, or rather as guests, since their birds are always free to fly about the house and go and come at pleasure.

But their special favourite is the daw, which they regard as far more intelligent, interesting, and companionable than any other animal, not excepting the dog. On one occasion Mr. Melford saw an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a hundred daws to be sold for trap-shooting, and to save them from so miserable a fate he at once purchased the lot and took them home. They were in a miserable half-starved condition, and to give them a better chance of survival, before freeing them he placed them in an outhouse in his garden with a wire-netting across the doorway, and there he fed and tended them until they were well and strong, and then gave them their liberty. But they did not at once take advantage of it; grown used to the place and the kindly faces of their protectors, they remained and were like tame birds about the house; but later, a few at a time, at long intervals, they went away and back to their wild independent life.

Of the many stories of their pet daws which they have told me, I will give one of a bird which was a particular favourite of Mrs. Melford's.

His invariable habit was, on returning from an expedition abroad, to fly straight into the house in search of her, and, sitting on her head, to express his affection and delight at rejoining her by pa.s.sing his beak through her hair.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LADY AND THE DAW]

Unfortunately, this bird had a weakness for eggs, which led him into many sc.r.a.pes, and in the end very nearly proved his undoing. He was constantly hanging about and prying into the fowl-house, and whenever he felt sure that he was not observed he would slip in to purloin an egg. His cunning reacted on the fowls and made them cunning too. When he appeared they looked the other way, or walked off pretending not to see him; but no sooner would he be inside exploring the obscure corners for an egg than the battle-cry would sound, and then poor Jackie would find it hard indeed to escape from their fury with nothing worse than a sound drubbing. In a day or two, before his many sores and bruises had had time to heal, the cackling of a hen and the thought of a new-laid egg would tempt him again, and at length one day he could not escape; the loud cries of rage and of vengeance gratified attracted some person to the fowl-house, where Jackie was found lying on the ground in the midst of a crowd of fowls engaged in pounding and pecking his life out, scattering his hated black feathers in all directions. He was rescued more dead than alive, and subsequently tended by his mistress with loving care. He lived, but failed to recover his old gay spirits; day after day he moped in silence, a picture of abject misery, recalling in his half-naked, bruised, and bedraggled appearance the famous bird of Rheims, the stealer of the turquoise ring, after the awful malediction of the Lord Cardinal Archbishop had taken effect:

On crumpled claw, Came limping a poor little lame jackdaw, No longer gay As on yesterday; His feathers all seemed to be turned the wrong way; His pinions drooped, he could hardly stand, His head was as bald as the palm of your hand; His eye so dim, So wasted each limb, That, heedless of grammar, they all cried 'That's him!'

By-and-by, when still in this broken-hearted and broken-feathered state, a sight to make his mistress weep, he disappeared; it was conjectured that some compa.s.sionate-minded neighbour, finding him in his garden or grounds, and seeing his pitiable condition, had put an end to his misery.

One day, a year later, Mrs. Melford, who was just recovering from an illness, was lying on a sofa in a room on the ground floor, when her husband, who was in the garden at the back, excitedly cried out that a wild jackdaw had just flown down and alighted near him. 'A perfect beauty!' he exclaimed; never had he seen a jackdaw in finer plumage!

The lady, equally excited, called back, begging him to use every device to get the bird to stay. No sooner was her voice heard than the jackdaw rose up and dashed into the house, and flying the length of three rooms came to where she was lying, and at once alighted on her head and began pa.s.sing his beak through her hair in the old manner. In no other way could this wild-looking and beautified bird have established his ident.i.ty. His return was a great joy; they caressed and feasted him, and for several hours, during which he showed no desire to renew his intercourse with the fowls, he was as lively and amusing as he had ever been in the old days before he had got into trouble. But before night he left them, and has never returned since; doubtless he had established relations with some of the wild daws on the outskirts of London.

Before ending this chapter I should like to say a word about white jackdaws. It is a mystery to me where all the albinos occasionally to be seen in the London bird markets come from. I have seen half a dozen in the hands of one large dealer, two at another dealer's, and several single birds at other shops; altogether about sixteen or eighteen white daws on sale at one time.

One often hears of and occasionally sees a white blackbird or other species in a wild state, but these uncoloured specimens are rare; they are also dear to the collector (n.o.body knows why), and as a rule are not long permitted to enjoy existence. Besides, in nine cases out of ten the abnormally white birds are not albinos. They are probably mere 'sports,'

like our domestic white pigeons, fowls, and ducks, and would doubtless be more common but for the fact that their whiteness is a disadvantage to them in their struggle for life. It is rather curious to find that among wild birds those that have a black plumage appear more subject to loss of colour than others. Thus we find that, of our small birds, whiteness is more common in the blackbird than in any other species.

Within the last twelve to eighteen months I have known of the existence of seven or eight white or partly white blackbirds in London; but during the same period I have not seen nor heard of a white thrush, and have only seen one white sparrow. My belief is that the species most commonly found with white or partly white plumage are the blackbird, rook, and daw. When carrion crows and ravens were abundant in this country it was probably no very unusual thing to meet with white specimens. The old ornithologist, Willughby, writing over two centuries ago, mentions two milk-white ravens which he saw; but the fact of their whiteness is less interesting to read at this distant date than the old author's delightful speculations as to the cause of the phenomenon. He doubts that white ravens were as common in this country as Aldrovandus had affirmed that they were, and then adds: 'I rather think that they are found in those mountainous Northern Countries, which are for the greatest part of the year covered with snow: Where also many other Animals change their native colours, and become white, as _Bears_, _Foxes_, _Blackbirds_, &c., whether it proceeds from the force of imagination, heightened by the constant intuition of Snow, or from the cold of the Climate, occasioning such a languishing of colour; as we see in old Age, when the natural heat decays, the hair grows grey, and at last white.'

To return to the subject of the beautiful albino daws, and the numbers sometimes seen in our bird markets. One can only say that the monster London throws its nets over an exceedingly wide area, capturing all rare and quaint and beautiful things for its own delight. Thinking of these wonderful white daws, when I have cast up my eyes to the birdless towers and domes of our great London buildings, it has occurred to me to ask the following question: Is there not one among the many very wealthy men in London, who annually throw away hundreds of thousands of pounds on their several crazes--is there not one to give, say, fifty or sixty pounds per annum to buy up all these beautiful albinos, at the usual price of one or two guineas per bird, for three or four years, and establish a colony at Westminster, or other suitable place, where thousands of people would have great delight in looking at them every day? For it would indeed be a strange and beautiful sight, and many persons would come from a distance solely to see the milk-white daws soaring in the wind, as their custom is, above the roofs and towers; and he who made such a gift to London would be long and very pleasantly remembered.

CHAPTER V

EXPULSION OF THE ROOKS

Positions of the rook and crow compared--Gray's Inn Gardens rookery--Break-up of the old, and futile attempt of the birds to establish new rookeries--The rooks a great loss to London--Why the rook is esteemed--Incidents in the life of a tame rook--A first sight of the Kensington Gardens rookery--The true history of the expulsion of the rooks--A desolate scene, and a vision of London beautified.