British Birds in their Haunts Part 36

The Coot, seen from a distance, either on land or water, might be mistaken for a Gallinule, flirting up its tail when it swims, jerking its head to and fro, and when on land strutting about with a precisely similar movement of all its members. On a nearer examination, it is clearly distinguished by its larger size and the white bare spot above the bill, in front, from which it is often called the Bald-headed Coot. It is only during the summer season that the two birds can be compared; for while the Gallinule remains in the same waters all the year round, the Coot visits the Azores, Madeira and the Canaries, North Africa and Egypt in winter, and gets as far south as the Blue Nile. Their note, in summer, is a loud harsh cry, represented by the syllable _krew_, as it would be uttered by a crazy trumpet. In winter they are nearly mute. During the latter season, Coots are confined to the southern parts of the island; but in the breeding season they are more generally diffused.

When seen on the sea-coast, they are readily distinguished from Ducks by the different position in which they sit on the water, with their heads low, poking forwards, and their tails sticking high above the body. When flying in large coveys, they crowd together into a ma.s.s, but when swimming scatter over a wide s.p.a.ce.

They have the same power of concealing themselves by diving among weeds that has been already said to be possessed by the Gallinule. I have seen a female Coot and her brood, when disturbed by a party of sportsmen, paddle for a small patch of rushes, and defy a long-continued and minute search conducted by keepers and clever water-dogs. The latter appeared to traverse, again and again, every square foot of the rush bed; but not a single bird was dislodged.

Owing to drainage the Coot is less plentiful than it was, although the late Lord Lilford said it had increased much on the river Nene of recent years.

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Stork [M]

Common Crane.

Night Heron.

Heron [F]

[_face p. 234_]]

[Ill.u.s.tration:

Kentish Plover [F] [M]

Grey Plover [M] (Summer and Winter)

Golden Plover [M]

Ringed Plover, young and [F]]

ORDER ALECTORIDES

FAMILY GRUIDae

THE CRANE GRUS COMMuNIS

General plumage ash-grey; throat, part of the neck, and back of the head, dark blackish grey; forehead and cere covered with black bristly hairs; crown naked, orange red; some of the secondaries elongated, arched, and having the barbs of the feathers free; bill greenish black, reddish at the base, horn-coloured at the tip; irides reddish brown; feet black.

_Young birds_ have the crown feathered, and want the dark grey of the neck and head. Length five feet. Eggs pale greenish ash, blotched and spotted with brown and dark green.

From the fact of nine Cranes being recorded among the presents received at the wedding of the daughter of Mr. More, of Loseley, in 1567, it would appear that these birds were tolerably common in England at that date.

Willughby, whose _Ornithology_ was published about a hundred years later, says that Cranes were regular visitors in England, and that large flocks of them were to be found, in summer, in the fens of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire. Whether they bred in England, as Aldrovandus states, on the authority of an Englishman who had seen their young, he could not say on his own personal knowledge.

Sir Thomas Browne, a contemporary of Willughby, writes, in his account of birds found in Norfolk: 'Cranes are often seen here in hard winters, especially about the champaign and fieldy part. It seems they have been more plentiful; for, in a bill of fare, when the mayor entertained the Duke of Norfolk, I met with Cranes in a dish.'

Pennant, writing towards the close of the eighteenth century, says: 'On the strictest inquiry, we learn that, at present, the inhabitants of those counties are scarcely acquainted with them; we therefore conclude that these birds have left our land.' Three or four instances only of the occurrence of the Crane took place within the memory of Pennant's last editor; and about as many more are recorded by Yarrell as having come within the notice of his correspondents during the present century. It would seem, therefore, that the Crane has ceased to be a regular visitor to Britain. It is, however, still of common occurrence in many parts of the Eastern Continent, pa.s.sing its summer in temperate climates, and retiring southwards at the approach of winter. Its periodical migrations are remarkable for their punctuality, it having been observed that, during a long series of years, it has invariably traversed France southward in the latter half of the month of October, returning during the latter half of the month of March. On these occasions, Cranes fly in large flocks, composed of two lines meeting at an angle, moving with no great rapidity, and alighting mostly during the day to rest and feed. At other seasons, it ceases to be gregarious, and repairs to swamps and boggy mora.s.ses, where in spring it builds a rude nest of reeds and rushes on a bank or stump of a tree, and lays two eggs. As a feeder it may be called omnivorous, so extensive is its dietary. Its note is loud and sonorous, but harsh, and is uttered when the birds are performing their flights as well as at other times.

The Crane of the Holy Scriptures is most probably not this species, which is rare in Palestine, but another, _Grus Virgo_, the Crane figured on the Egyptian monuments, which periodically visits the Lake of Tiberias, and whose note is a chatter, and not the trumpet sound of the Cinereous Crane. In the north of Ireland, in Wales and perhaps elsewhere, the Heron is commonly called a Crane.

A certain number of Cranes have been noticed in the Shetland Isles, and some in the Orkneys. The latest seen in Ireland was in 1884, County Mayo.

FAMILY OTIDIDae

No hind toe.

THE GREAT BUSTARD OTIS TARDA

Head, neck, breast, and edge of the wing ash grey; on the crown a longitudinal black streak; bill with a tuft of elongated loose feathers on each side of the lower mandible; upper plumage reddish yellow, streaked transversely with black; lower whitish; tail reddish brown and white, barred with black.

_Female_--smaller, without a moustache, the streak on the crown fainter. Length nearly four feet. Eggs olive-brown, irregularly blotched with dull red and deep brown.

The Great Bustard was formerly not unfrequent in Britain, but of late years it has become so rare that it is now impossible to describe its habits on the testimony of a living eye-witness. In several parts of the Continent it is indeed still to be met with; but I find so many discrepancies in the various accounts which I have consulted, that it is hard to believe all the writers who describe it to have had the same bird in view. Some of these the reader may examine for himself.

The earliest mention of it which I find occurs in the Anabasis of Xenophon, who describes a plain or steppe near the Euphrates full of aromatic herbs, and abounding with Wild a.s.ses, Ostriches, and Bustards (_Otis_). The latter, he says, 'could be caught when any one came on them suddenly, as they fly to a short distance like Partridges and soon give in. Their flesh is delicious.' Pliny's description of the Bustard is very brief. He says it approaches the Ostrich in size; that it is called _Avis tarda_ in Spain, _Otis_ in Greece; its flesh is very disagreeable, in consequence of the strong scent of its bones.'

Our countryman Willughby, who wrote in the middle of the seventeenth century, gives a longer account. 'The Bustard has no hind claw, which is especially worthy of notice; for by this mark and by its size it is sufficiently distinguished from all birds of the tribe. It feeds on corn and the seeds of herbs, wild cabbage, leaves of the dandelion, etc. I have found in its crop abundance of the seeds of _cicuta_, with but a few grains of barley even in harvest-time. It is found on the plains near Newmarket and Royston, and elsewhere on heaths and plains.

Bustards are birds of slow flight, and raise themselves from the ground with difficulty, on account of their size and weight; hence, without doubt, the name _tardu_ was given to them by the Latins. By the Scotch, on the authority of Hector Boethius, they are called _Gustardae_.'

M. Perrault, who wrote in 1676, gives an account of a tame Bustard which was kept for a while in summer in a garden, and died of cold in the winter. 'He killed mice and sparrows with his bill by pinching their heads, and then swallowed them whole, even when of considerable size. It was easy to observe a large mouse going down his throat, making a moving tumour till it came to the turn of the neck; it then moved backwards, and although out of sight, yet its progress was traced by the feathers between the shoulders separating, and closing again as soon as it pa.s.sed into the gizzard. He was fond of worms, and while the gardener was digging, stood by him and looked out for them.

He ate the buds of flowers, and particularly of roses; also the substance of cuc.u.mbers, but not the outside. From these observations the Bustard is evidently fitted more particularly to live on animal food.'

The average number of Bustards annually supplied to Chevet, the great game-dealer of the Palais Royal, Paris, about fifty years ago, was six. Its princ.i.p.al place of resort in France was the wild country between Arcis-sur-Aube and Chalons, in most other districts it was as little known as with us.

Several authors of undoubted veracity state that the adult male Bustard has a capacious pouch, situated along the fore part of the neck, the entrance of which is under the tongue, capable of holding several quarts of water--it is said not less than seven. Montagu, in his _Ornithological Dictionary_, expresses his doubt whether the bird could carry as much as seven quarts, or fourteen pounds, while flying; he admits, however, that 'it is large, as may be seen in the Leverian Museum'; and he adds, 'that it is only discoverable in adults, as it is most likely intended for the purpose of furnishing the female and young in the breeding with water.' Of this pouch a figure is given by Yarrell, copied from Edwards' _Gleanings of Natural History_, and there inserted on the authority of Dr. James Douglas, the discoverer.

Some doubts having arisen in Mr. Yarrell's mind as to the accuracy of the statement, he took much pains to ascertain the truth by dissecting several adult males, and found no peculiarity of structure--a result which was also arrived at by Professor Owen, who dissected one with a view of obtaining a preparation of the supposed pouch for the Museum of the College of Surgeons. A paper by Mr. Yarrell,[45] read before the Linnean Society since the publication of his admirable work on Ornithology, contains many other interesting particulars respecting this bird, to which the reader is referred.

Bustards have been seen in England at various intervals during the last eighty or a hundred years, sometimes in small flights and sometimes as solitary specimens, more frequently in Norfolk than in any other county, but they have ceased to breed in this country. I lately met a gentleman in Norfolk who well recollected the time when Bustards were to be met with in that county. On the lands near Flamborough Head there used to be droves of them. They were occasionally seen in the middle of the large uninclosed plains with which Norfolk formerly abounded, and in such situations he had himself seen them. When disturbed they move off rapidly, employing both their feet and wings, rising heavily, but at an angle so acute that they advanced perhaps a hundred yards before they attained the height of a man. When once on the wing, they flew swiftly. They formerly bred in the parish of Deepdale, and he could himself recollect an instance when an attempt was made to rear some in captivity from the eggs, but failed. The Bustard is now only a very rare visitor to Great Britain.

Its last fertile eggs were taken in Norfolk and Suffolk about the year 1838.

[45] _Lin. Trans._, vol. xxi. p. 155.

ORDER LIMICOLae

FAMILY GLAREOLIDae

THE PRATINCOLE GLAReOLA PRATiNCOLA

Crown, nape, back, scapulars, and wing-coverts, greyish brown; throat and front of the neck white, tinged with red, and bounded by a narrow black collar, which ascends to the base of the beak; lore black; breast whitish brown; lower wing-coverts chestnut; under parts white, tinged with brownish red; tail-coverts, and base of tail-feathers, white; the rest of the tail dusky, much forked; beak black, red at the base; irides reddish brown; orbits naked, bright red; feet reddish ash.

Length nine inches and a half. Eggs pale stone colour, spotted with grey and dusky.

The Pratincole, called on the Continent, but without good reason, _Perdrix de mer_, or Sea Partridge, is a rare visitor to Great Britain, inhabiting for the most part the northern part of Africa, and the countries in the vicinity of the Don, the Volga, the Caspian, and the Black Sea. It has been observed also from time to time in several of the countries of Europe.