British Birds in their Haunts Part 23

it was a commone tale That it were G.o.de to here the Nightingale, Moche rathir[26] than the lewde[27] Cuckowe singe.

So, when on a certain occasion he heard the Cuckoo first, and was troubled in consequence, he represents the Nightingale as thus addressing him:

be thou not dismaied For thou have herd the Cuckow erst than me, For if I live it shall amendid be The nexte Maie, if I be not afraied.

More recently Milton thus addresses the Nightingale:

Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow Cuccoo's bill, Portend success in love.

Whether any traces of this popular belief yet linger in our rural districts, I do not know; but I can recall my childish days in the west of England (where there are no Nightingales), when I looked forward with implicit faith to the coming of the Cuckoo, to 'eat up the dirt', and make the Devonshire lanes pa.s.sable for children's spring wanderings.

The song of the Cuckoo, I need scarcely remark, consists of but two notes, of which the upper is, I believe, invariably, E flat, the lower most frequently C natural, forming, however, not a perfect musical interval, but something between a minor and a major third.

Occasionally two birds may be heard singing at once, one seemingly aiming at a minor, the other a major third; the effect is, of course, discordant. Sometimes the first note is p.r.o.nounced two or three times, thus 'cuck-cuck-cuckoo', and I have heard it repeated rapidly many times in succession, so as to resemble the trilling note of the Nightingale, but in a lower key. The note of the nestling is a shrill plaintive chirp, which may best be imitated by twisting a gla.s.s stopper in a bottle. Even the human ear has no difficulty in understanding it as a cry for food, of which it is insatiable. Towards the end of June the Cuckoo, according to the old adage, 'alters its tune', which at first loses its musical character and soon ceases altogether. In July the old birds leave us, the males by themselves first, and the females not many days after; but the young birds remain until October.

Referring to the young cuckoo's manner of ejecting the eggs of its foster-parents, and the reason for this apparently cruel action, the editor refers our readers to Mr. W. H. Hudson's interesting chapter in _Idle Days in Hampshire_.

[23] Plin. _Nat. Hist._ lib. x. cap. ix.

[24] Mr. Wells Bladen, of Stone, wrote an interesting brochure on this point.--J. A. O.

[25] _Familiar History of Birds._

[26] Earlier.

[27] Unskilful.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

White Winged Crossbill [M] [F]

Crossbill, _imm._ [F] [M]

Cuckoo [M]

[_face p. 138._]]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Brown Owl.

Short-eared Owl [M]. Long-eared Owl [M] young.

Barn Owl and Egg.]

ORDER STRIGES

FAMILY STRIGIDae

SUB-FAMILY STRIGINae

THE BARN OWL STRIX FLAMMEA

Beak yellowish white; upper parts light tawny yellow minutely variegated with brown, grey, and white; face and lower plumage white, the feathers of the margin tipped with brown. Length fourteen inches; breadth nearly three feet. Eggs white.

Returning from our Summer-evening's walk at the pleasant time when twilight is deepening into night, when the Thrush has piped its last roundelay, and the Nightingale is gathering strength for a flesh flood of melody, a sudden exclamation from our companion 'What was that?'

compels us to look in the direction pointed at just in time to catch a glimpse of a phantom-like body disappearing behind the hedgerow.

But that the air is still, we might have imagined it to be a sheet of silver paper wafted along by the wind, so lightly and noiselessly did it pa.s.s on. We know, however, that a pair of Barn Owls have appropriated these hunting-grounds, and that this is their time of sallying forth; we are aware, too, how stealthily they fly along the lanes, dipping behind the trees, searching round the hay-stacks, skimming over the stubble, and all with an absence of sound that scarcely belongs to moving life. Yet, though by no means slow of flight, the Barn Owl can scarcely be said to _cleave_ the air; rather, it _fans_ its way onwards with its down-fringed wings, and the air, thus softly treated, quietly yields to the gentle force, and retires without murmur to allow it a pa.s.sage. Not without meaning is this silence preserved. The nimble little animals that const.i.tute the chase, are quick-sighted and sharp of hearing, but the pursuer gives no notice of his approach, and they know not their doom till they feel the inevitable talons in their sides. The victim secured, silence is no longer necessary. The successful hunter lifts up his voice in a sound of triumph, repairs to the nearest tree to regale himself on his prize, and, for a few minutes--that is, until the chase is resumed--utters his loud weird shriek again and again. In the morning, the Owl will retire to his private cell and will spend the day perched on end, dozing and digesting as long as the sunlight is too powerful for his large and sensitive eyes. Peep in on him in his privacy, and he will stretch out or move from side to side his grotesque head, ruffling his feathers, and hissing as though your performance were worthy of all condemnation. Yet he is a very handsome and most amusing bird, more worthy of being domesticated as a pet than many others held in high repute. Taken young from the nest, he is soon on familiar terms with his owner, recognizes him by a flapping of wings and a hiss whenever he approaches, clearing his premises of mice, and showing no signs of pining at the restriction placed on his liberty. Give him a bird, and he will soon show that, though contented with mice, he quite appreciates more refined fare. Grasping the body with his talons, he deliberately plucks off all the large feathers with his beak, tears off the head, and swallows it at one gulp, and then proceeds to devour the rest piece-meal. In a wild state his food consists mainly of mice, which he swallows whole, beetles, and sometimes fish, which he catches by pouncing on them in the water.

The service which the Barn Owl renders to the agriculturist, by its consumption of rats and mice, must be exceedingly great, yet it is little appreciated. "When it has young", says Mr. Waterton, "it will bring a mouse to the nest every twelve or fifteen minutes. But in order to have a proper idea of the enormous quant.i.ty of mice which this bird destroys, we must examine the pellets which it ejects from its stomach in the place of its retreat. Every pellet contains from four to seven skeletons of mice. In sixteen months from the time that the apartment of the Owl on the old gateway was cleared out, there has been a deposit of above a bushel of pellets."

The plumage of the Barn Owl is remarkable for its softness, its delicacy of pencilling on the upper parts and its snowy whiteness below. Its face is perfectly heart-shaped during life, but when the animal is dead becomes circular. The female is slightly larger than her mate, and her colours are somewhat darker. The nest of the Barn Owl is a rude structure placed in the bird's daily haunt. The eggs vary in number, and the bird lays them at different periods, each egg after the first being hatched (partially at least) by the heat of the young birds already in being. That this is always the case it would not be safe to a.s.sert, but that it is so sometimes there can be no doubt. The young birds are ravenous eaters and proverbially ugly; when craving food they make a noise resembling a snore. The Barn or White Owl is said to be the most generally diffused of all the tribe, being found in almost all lat.i.tudes of both hemispheres, and it appears to be everywhere an object of terror to the ignorant. A bird of the night, the time when evil deeds are done, it bespeaks for itself an evil reputation; making ruins and hollow trees its resort, it becomes a.s.sociated with the gloomiest legends; uttering its discordant note during the hours of darkness, it is rarely heard save by the benighted traveller, or by the weary watcher at the bed of the sick and dying; and who more susceptible of alarming impressions than these? It is therefore scarcely surprising that the common incident of a Screech-Owl being attracted by a solitary midnight taper to flutter against the window of a sick room, and there to utter its melancholy wail, should for a time shake the faith of the watcher, and, when repeated with the customary exaggerations, should obtain for the poor harmless mouser the unmerited t.i.tle of 'harbinger of death'.

SUB-FAMILY SYRNIINae

LONG-EARED OWL ASIO oTUS

Beak black; iris orange yellow; egrets very long, composed of eight or ten black feathers, edged with yellow and white; upper parts reddish yellow, mottled with brown and grey; lower parts lighter, with oblong streaks of deep brown. Length fifteen inches; breadth thirty-eight inches. Eggs white.

Though not among the most frequent of the English Owls, this species occurs in most of the wooded parts of England and Ireland, as indeed it does in nearly all parts of the world where woods are to be found.

It is more common than is usually supposed in France, where it unites in its own person all the malpractises which have been popularly ascribed to the whole tribe of Owls. It is there said to be held in great detestation by all the rest of the feathered tribe; a fact which is turned to good account by the bird-catcher, who, having set his traps and limed twigs, conceals himself in the neighbourhood and imitates the note of this Owl. The little birds, impelled by rage or fear, or a silly combination of both, a.s.semble for the purpose of mobbing the common enemy. In their anxiety to discern the object of their abhorrence, they fall one after another into the snare, and become the prey of the fowler. The Long-eared Owl is not altogether undeserving of the persecution which is thus intended for her, her princ.i.p.al food being field-mice, but also such little birds as she can surprise when asleep. In fact, she respects neither the person nor the property of her neighbours, making her home in the old nests of large birds and squirrels, and appropriating, as food for herself and her voracious young, the carcases of any that she finds herself strong enough to master and kill.

The cry of this bird is only occasionally uttered--a sort of barking noise. The note of the young bird is a loud mewing and seems to be intended as a pet.i.tion to its parents for a supply of food. A writer in the _Zoologist_[28] who has had many opportunities of observing this species in its native haunts, says that it does not confine its flight entirely to the darker hours, as he has met with it in the woods sailing quickly along, as if hawking, on a bright summer day. It is curious to observe, he says, how flat they invariably make their nests, so much so, that it is difficult to conceive how the eggs retain their position, even in a slight wind, when the parent bird leaves them. The eggs are four to six in number, and there are grounds for supposing that the female bird begins to sit as soon as she has laid her first egg.

[28] Vol. ii. p. 562.

THE SHORT-EARED OWL ASIO ACCIPITRiNUS

Face whitish; beak black; iris yellow; egrets inconspicuous, of a few black feathers; eyes encircled by brownish black; upper plumage dusky brown, edged with yellow; lower pale orange, streaked with brown. Length sixteen inches; breadth thirty-eight. Eggs white.

From the name, Hawk-Owl, sometimes given to this species, we should expect to find this bird not so decidedly nocturnal in its habits as the preceding; and such is the case; for, though it does not habitually hunt by day, it has been known to catch up chickens from the farmyard, and has been seen in chase of pigeons. If attacked during daylight, it does not evince the powerless dismay of the last species, but effects a masterly retreat by soaring in a spiral direction until it has attained an elevation to which its adversary does not care to follow it. Unlike its allies, it frequents neither mountains nor forests, but is found breeding in a few marshy or moorland districts; later in the year it is met with in turnip fields and stubbles. As many as twenty-eight were once seen in a single turnip-field in England; from whence it has been inferred that in autumn the Short-eared Owls are gregarious, and establish themselves for a time in any place they fall in with, where field-mice or other small quadrupeds are abundant. In England this bird is not uncommonly started by sportsmen when in pursuit of game. It then flies with a quick zigzag motion for about a hundred yards, and alights on the ground, never on a tree. By some it is called the Woodc.o.c.k-Owl, from its arriving and departing at about the same time with that bird; it is not, however, invariably a bird of pa.s.sage, since many instances are on record of its breeding in this country, making a rude nest in a thick bush, either on the ground, or close to it, and feeding its young on mice, small birds, and even the larger game, as Moor-fowl, a bird more than double its own weight. The Short-eared Owl affords a beautiful ill.u.s.tration of a fact not generally known, that the nocturnal birds of prey have the right and left ear differently formed, one ear being so made as to hear sounds from above, and the other from below. The opening into the channel for conveying sound is in the _right_ ear, placed _beneath_ the transverse fold, and directed _upwards_, while in the _left_ ear the same opening is placed _above_ the channel for conveying sound, and is directed _downwards_.

In the severe weather of January, 1861, I had the gratification of seeing three or four of these Owls among the sand-hills of the coast of Norfolk, near Holkham. I imagined them to be in pursuit of the Redwings and other small birds which had been driven by the intense cold to the sea-coast, since they flew about as Hawks do when hunting for prey, and occasionally alighted among the sand-hills. I even fell in with several heaps of feathers, showing where some unhappy bird had been picked and eaten. A few days afterwards, however, I inquired at another part of the coast whether there were any Owls there, and received for an answer, 'No, because there are no Rabbits'; from which I inferred that these birds have the reputation of hunting larger game than Thrushes, a charge which the size and power of their hooked talons seem to justify.

THE TAWNY OWL SYRNIUM ALuCO

Beak greyish yellow; irides bluish dusky; upper parts reddish brown, variously marked and spotted with dark brown, black, and grey; large white spots on the scapulars and wing coverts; primaries and tail feathers barred alternately with dark and reddish brown; lower parts reddish white, with transverse brown bars and longitudinal dusky streaks; legs feathered to the claws. Length sixteen inches; breadth three feet. Eggs dull white.

This bird, the Ulula of the ancients, took its name from the Latin _ululare_; the word used to denote, and partially to imitate, the cry of the wolf; it enjoys also the doubtful honour of giving name to the whole tribe of 'Owls', whether they howl, hoot, or screech. This species is much more common than the Barn Owl in many districts, although it is decreasing in others. Owing to its nocturnal habits, and dusky colour, it is not so often seen as heard. It has many a time been my amus.e.m.e.nt to repair, towards the close of a summer evening, to a wood which I knew to be the resort of these birds, and to challenge them to an exchange of greetings, and I rarely failed to succeed. Their note may be imitated so exactly as to deceive even the birds themselves, by forming a hollow with the fingers and palms of the two hands, leaving an opening only between the second joints of the two thumbs, and then by blowing with considerable force down upon the opening thus made, so as to produce the sound hoo-hoo-hoo-o-o-o. I have thus induced a bird to follow me for some distance, echoing my defiance or greeting, or whatever he may have deemed it; but I do not recollect that I ever caught sight of the bird.