Essays in Natural History and Agriculture Part 8

THE MARSH t.i.tMOUSE.

I have been much interested this spring at witnessing in two or three instances the tenacity with which the Marsh t.i.tmouse sits on its nest. Being in a wood near my own house, I perceived a pair of these birds in one of the trees, and having seen them in the same place several times before, and being desirous of finding the nest, I sat down to watch their motions. After examining me on all sides with much chattering and many gesticulations, indicative of dislike and suspicion, the female flew to the root of a tree, three or four yards off, and disappeared, as she had gone to the opposite side of the tree to that on which I sat; and as there were several holes about the root I was at a loss to know in which the nest was built, and began to strike the root with a stick, expecting her to fly out, but nothing appeared. I then examined the holes one by one, and whilst doing so heard her hissing and puffing from within, in such a way that if I had not known she was there I should have thought it was a snake rather than a bird.

However, as she would not come out, and the hole was so small that I could not get my hand in, I was obliged to raise the siege until next morning, when I returned armed with a hammer and chisel with which to storm her citadel. As the wood was sound, the hole small, and the nest six or eight inches within the tree, I was five or ten minutes before I could get to it, during which I gave her repeated opportunities of escaping if she chose; but she still sat on her nest, puffing and pecking at the stick that I thrust in in order to drive her off. She at last crept to the further edge of the nest, which I then took out, as I wanted it for one of my friends who is a collector of eggs, but on attempting to blow one I found they had been sat upon too long, and I then felt desirous of seeing whether the old bird would hatch them after having her nest torn from under her, and I turned back to the tree whence I had taken them, and found her still sitting in the hole where I had left her. I regret to add that the humane part of my experiment did not succeed, for although she remained after I had returned the nest to its place, she left it immediately after, and did not return to it again.

Another instance which I witnessed was in a nest containing young ones. This was also at the root of a tree, but the situation did not appear to be so well chosen as is usually the case with the t.i.tmouse tribe; for in this instance the hole went quite through the tree, and on one side was large enough to admit the hand. As the young ones were exposed to the weather, and were also liable to be seen by anyone going along the adjoining footpath, I attempted to remedy this defect by covering the larger hole with a sod, which to a casual observer would appear to have grown there.

On taking the sod off one day, to see how the nestlings were going on, I perceived that a clod of earth had fallen from the sod upon them, and I took a stick and hooked it out, lest it should smother them. Whilst I was doing this I perceived the old one sat on the further side of the nest, so still and quiet that until I perceived her eye I fancied she was dead; and she also endured several pokings with the stick before she would move, although the hole on the opposite side of the tree enabled her to escape whenever she thought proper.

Perhaps Mr. Rennie, in his next edition of Montagu's Dictionary, will give us a new name for this bird, as the one it has at present is no more applicable to this species than it is to the _Parus caeruleus_, or the _Parus major_, and not half so much so as it would be to the _Parus biarnicus_; and he has changed good names into bad ones with far less reason, witness _Corvus frugilegus_ into _Corvus predatorius_. The former name is strictly applicable to that species, and to that alone; and so useful a bird does not deserve the name of a thief. The Chaffinch (which received its name of _Coelebs_ from Linnaeus on account of the males alone remaining in Sweden in the winter, which fact is corroborated by White, who found scarcely any but females in Hampshire during that season) has had its name changed by Mr.

Rennie into _Spiza_. The old name is characteristic of a remarkable fact in the habits of this bird; why the new one is more appropriate (neither understanding Greek, nor having read Aristotle), I cannot say. Will Mr. Rennie condescend to enlighten me?

Once for all--if we are to have a new nomenclature, let a committee of able naturalists decide upon it, or let us submit to the authority of a master (for instance Linnaeus or Temminck), but don't let every bookmaker who publishes a work on Natural History, rejecting names long established and universally received, give new ones in such a way as serves only to show his own presumption and to confuse what it ought to be his business to elucidate.

CREEPER.

The Nuthatch does not occur in this, and I doubt if in any part of Lancashire, but the Creeper is very common, and is a bird with the habits and peculiar call of which I have been acquainted from my childhood. Mr. Bree, who combines with accurate and extensive information, an amiable and pleasant manner of communicating it, has not, I perceive, witnessed the Creepers a.s.sociating with the t.i.tmice in winter, at which I am rather surprised, and think if they are numerous in his neighbourhood, he will hereafter not fail to perceive them among the small flocks of t.i.tmice which a.s.sociate through the winter.

WRENS' NESTS.

In Mr. Rennie's edition of Montagu's Dictionary, and also in his "Architecture of Birds," after copying what I have said on the subject of Wrens' nests being lined with feathers, he says:-- "There can be no doubt, I apprehend, of these supposed c.o.c.k-nests being nothing more than the unfinished structures of paired birds; otherwise the story would require the support of strong evidence to render it credible." Mr. Rennie afterwards goes on to say that in two instances he had seen nests which had about half-a-dozen feathers interwoven into the linings with hair; and Mr. Jennings, if I recollect aright, as I have not the work to refer to at present, says that Wrens don't line their nests with anything but moss, and he thinks Montagu is in error when he says they are lined with feathers. Along with this I send you three or four Wrens' nests, which you will perceive have abundance of feathers in the inside; and although the Wren will occasionally use cows'

hair along with the feathers, yet I am persuaded from the localities in which I have met with them, that cows' hair has been used because feathers were not to be found; but when the nests are in the vicinity of a rookery, a farm-yard, or any other locality where feathers are abundant, the Wrens will use them exclusively.

What the "strong evidence" must be which will convince Mr. Rennie about c.o.c.k-nests, I don't know; but I know of a dozen of these nests at the present moment, several of which have remained in the state in which they were left in the middle of April. Other nests found about the same time have now young ones in them. I doubt not these nests are occasionally used for breeding in: for instance, if the first nest of a Wren be taken, or if it breed a second time, it will occasionally take possession of a c.o.c.k-nest; as I have sometimes found that after remaining in the same unfinished state for several weeks, they have afterwards been fitted up with a lining, and bred in.

Mr. Rennie a.s.serts that Montagu is wrong when he says that the Wren always adapts its materials to its locality. Although it certainly is not always the case, yet so very generally is it so, that I think it is not surprising that Montagu made this a.s.sertion.

Thus, if a Wren build in a haystack, the front of the nest is generally composed of the hay from the stack; if it be built in a bush by the side of a river, and (which is frequently the case) below flood mark, it is generally covered on the outside with the rubbish which has been left there by the flood; and if it build in a mossy stump, the front of the nest is composed of the dark- coloured moss which grows there. (May 22, 1832.)

Along with my last letter, I sent some Wrens' nests lined with feathers, and I could easily have increased them to a dozen of the same sort, only I did not wish to deprive so many of my little favourites of their eggs and young. Every day convinces me more decidedly, that I am right both with regard to the lining of the Wrens' nests, and as to the c.o.c.k-nests also. The nests I sent you will prove the former, and I know of at least twenty instances of the latter, in nests which I have known of all through the spring, from April to the present time, which have remained in the same unfinished state, although they are not forsaken, as I have found the birds in them, in several instances, when I have examined them. I found one of these nests on the 10th of April, under a bank on the side of the river; and I examined it repeatedly through April and May, and always found it in the same state, although there was always a pair of Wrens about, and I could find no other nest; yet I am sure there was another, for in the beginning of this month (June) there were some young Wrens, which had evidently only just come out of the nest; and there were only two or three bushes grew thereabouts, so that it is not probable they had come from any other quarter, but the bushes were filled with dead leaves, and other rubbish brought down by the flood.

However, when I heard them, I looked out for another nest, as I believe (notwithstanding what Montagu says, that there are few birds, if any, that would produce a second lot of eggs if the first were unmolested) that most of the small birds which are early breeders build a second time the same year, even when they succeed in rearing the first brood. I have had proof of this (if anything can be considered proof, except marking the birds), in the Throstle, the Blackbird, the Wren, the Redbreast, and the Hedge Sparrow, whose second nests may be found contiguous to the first; and in point of time, this always happens just when the first brood have left the nest. The c.o.c.k-bird, too, who had been silent whilst his young were unfledged, begins to sing again, and throwing off the anxious and care-beset manners of a parent, again a.s.sumes that of a bridegroom. But to return to Wrens' nests. I found one within ten yards of the one I had known of since the 10th of April, lined, and ready for an egg. As I was anxious to prove what I had so long believed, I pulled out this nest, thinking that the old bird was ready for laying a second lot of eggs; and that when I had destroyed this, as she had no other nest ready, she would probably take up with the c.o.c.k-nest.

As it was half a mile from my house, I did not visit it again until the 16th of June, and was then delighted to find the old bird sitting on six or seven eggs in the c.o.c.k-nest, which had remained so long unoccupied. I believe that in this instance there is very little lining (fur, feathers, &c.) in the nest, although I should be sorry to examine it minutely until the young have left it; but I consider it an exception to the general rule, inasmuch as I believe the bird was ready to lay when I pulled out the other nest. As she would have to find another with as little delay as possible, she would not have time to embellish the inside in the same manner as she probably would have done if she had had more time.

On examining another Wrens' nest a few evenings ago, I found the young ones had flown, and as there was a c.o.c.k-nest in some wrack left by the river in a bush a few yards off, I gave it a shake to see if the old ones had taken possession of it for another brood; and I was surprised to see one, and then a second young one come flying out, and a third putting out its head to reconnoitre.

Whether the whole brood was there I don't know, as I did not disturb them further. As I had examined this nest only ten days before, when it had not an egg in it, I was at first at a loss to account for these young ones; but I have now no doubt they were the young from the adjoining nest, which had taken up their quarters for the night in the new house. But how had they learnt the way? Young birds generally roost where night finds them, and if I had found only one, I should not have been surprised, but to find at least three, probably six or seven, in a nest where I am certain they were not bred, was something new to me. I went several times in the evening after this, but never found them; I suppose the fright I gave them deterred them from lodging there again.

The editor of "Loudon's Magazine," in a paragraph appended to this article, says: "We have examined the Wrens' nests sent; their staple materials are moss, feathers, and hair. Into the moss on the exterior of the nest are woven a more or less perfect but feeble frond or two, and separate pinnae as well of Aspidium Filix-Mas, and leaves of apple, elm, and oak trees. Interiorly cows' hair is not scarce, and is partly inwoven with the moss and laces it together, and partly mingled with the feathers; a horse- hair or two are also observable. The feathers in each nest, apparently those of domestic fowls, are numerous enough to fill the hollow of the hand when the fingers are so folded over as not to much compress the feathers."

ALARM-NOTE OF ONE BIRD UNDERSTOOD BY OTHER SPECIES OF BIRDS.

In Montagu's "Ornithological Dictionary," under the article "Song of Birds," there is the following remark: "Regarding the note of alarm which birds utter on the approach of their natural enemies, whether a Hawk, an Owl, or a Cat, we consider it to be a general language perfectly understood by all small birds, though each species has a note peculiar to itself." I was last April very much pleased at witnessing an ill.u.s.tration of the truth of this opinion. I found a nest of young Throstles at the root of a hazel, and although they could scarcely fly, yet as they were near a footpath, and the next day was Sunday, when many idle and mischievous lads would be rambling about, I thought they would be safer out of their nest than in it; and as I knew that when so far fledged, if they were once disturbed they would not continue in the nest, I took one from the nest and made it cry out, and then put it back again; but in one minute, not only it but its three companions had disappeared in the long dry gra.s.s which was round about. On hearing the cry of their young one, the parent bird set up such shrieks of alarm as brought all the birds in the wood to see what was the matter. I noticed the Blackbird, the Chaffinch, the t.i.tlark, the Robin, the Oxeye (greater t.i.tmouse), the Blue and Marsh t.i.tmouse, and the Wren all uttering their cries of alarm and apprehension; even the golden-crested Wren, which usually seems to care for nothing, was as forward and persevering as any of them in expressing its fears on this occasion; indeed, the only bird which seemed indifferent to all these manifestations of alarm was the Creeper, which continued its anxious and incessant search for food, as it flitted from one tree to another, examining them from root to branch without ever seeming to understand or to care for what seemed to have so much frightened the others. (June 30th, 1832.)

DATES OF THE APPEARANCE OF SOME SPRING BIRDS IN 1832, AT c.l.i.tHEROE.

Young Rooks heard, 5th April; House Martin seen, 14th; Sandpiper, 14th; Willow Wren, Spring Wagtail, and Redstart, 17th; Wheatear, 19th (this is generally the first spring bird seen); Sand Martin and Swallow, 22nd; Cuckoo heard, 26th; Wood Wren, Blackcap, and Whinchat, 28th; Mocking-bird and Whitethroat, 4th May; Swift, 7th; Flycatcher, 11th; and Fieldfares were not seen until the 2nd of May, which is later than I ever observed them before. (In the parish of Allesby, near Coventry, Fieldfares were observed as late as the 14th of May.)

No doubt many of these birds were in the neighbourhood earlier than the dates I have attached to them, but they are the periods at which I saw or heard them.

The study of Natural History is perhaps as little followed in this neighbourhood as in any part of the kingdom, notwithstanding the facilities which are offered. Our flora is beautiful, varied, and possesses many rare plants, yet I only know of two herbaria; the birds are abundant, yet there is but one collector of them; and as for insects, although I frequently take what I consider rare species, yet I cannot find an entomologist in the whole district, or I would send them to him.

In conclusion, allow me to say, that the leisure hours a somewhat busy life has enabled me to spend in these pursuits, have been some of the happiest of my existence, and have awakened and cherished such an admiration of nature and such a love for the country and its scenes, as I think can never be appreciated by the inhabitants of large towns, and which I cannot describe so well as in the words of one of my friends in a beautiful apostrophe to England, when leaving it--never to return: [11]--

"To thee Whose fields first fed my childish fantasy, Whose mountains were my boyhood's wild delight, Whose rocks, and woods, and torrents were to me The food of my soul's youthful appet.i.te; Were music to my ear--a blessing to my sight."

THE ROOK SERVICEABLE TO MAN.--PREJUDICE AGAINST IT.

A strong prejudice is felt by many persons against Rooks, on account of their destroying grain and potatoes, and so far is this prejudice carried, that I know persons who offer a reward for every Rook that is killed on their land; yet so mistaken do I deem them as to consider that no living creature is so serviceable to the farmer as the Rook, except his own live stock.

In the neighbourhood of my native place is a rookery belonging to William Vavasour Esq., of Weston in Wharfdale, in which it is estimated there are 10,000 Rooks, that 1 lb. of food a week is a very moderate allowance for each bird, and that nine-tenths of such food consists of worms, insects, and their larvae: for although they do considerable damage to the crops for a few weeks in seed-time and harvest, particularly in backward seasons, yet a very large proportion of their food, even at these times, consists of insects and worms, which (if we except a few acorns, walnuts, and potatoes in autumn) at all other times form the whole of their subsistence.

Here, then, if my data be correct, there is the enormous quant.i.ty of 468,000 lbs., or 209 tons of worms, insects, and their larvae destroyed by the birds of a single rookery, and to everyone who knows how very destructive to vegetation are the larvae of the tribes of insects (as well as worms) fed upon by Rooks, some slight idea may be formed of the devastation which Rooks are the means of preventing. I have understood that in Suffolk and in some of the southern counties, the larvae of the c.o.c.kchafer are so exceedingly abundant that the crops of corn are almost destroyed by them, and that their ravages do not cease even when they have become perfect insects. Various plans have been proposed to put a stop to their ravages, but I have little doubt that their abundance is to be attributed to the scarcity of Rooks, as I have somewhere seen an account that these birds are not numerous in those counties (I have never been there), either from the trees being felled in which they nested, or from their having been destroyed by the prejudiced farmer. I am the more inclined to be of this opinion, because we have many Rooks in this neighbourhood where the c.o.c.kchafer is not known as a destructive insect, and I know that insects of that cla.s.s and their larvae are the most favourite food of the Rook, which may be seen in the twilight catching both c.o.c.kchafers and the large blackbeetles which are flying at that time in the evening.

I will mention another instance of the utility of the Rook which occurred in this neighbourhood. Many years ago a flight of locusts visited Craven, and they were so numerous as to create considerable alarm among the farmers of the district. They were, however, soon relieved from their anxiety, for the Rooks flocked in from all quarters by thousands and tens of thousands, and devoured the locusts so greedily that they were all destroyed in a short time.

Such, at least, is the account given, and I have heard it repeatedly mentioned as the reason why the late Lord Ribblesdale was so partial to Rooks. But I have no means of ascertaining how far this is true.

It was stated in the newspapers a year or two back that there was such an enormous quant.i.ty of caterpillars upon Skiddaw, that they devoured all the vegetation on the mountain, and people were apprehensive they would attack the crops in the enclosed lands; but the Rooks (which are fond of high ground in the summer) having discovered them, put a stop to their ravages in a very short time.

(June 30th, 1832.)

These remarks are confirmed by a writer in the "Ess.e.x Herald" and by Mr. Waterton. The former says:--"An extensive experiment appears to have been made in some of the agricultural districts on the Continent, the result of which has been the opinion that farmers do wrong in destroying Rooks, Jays, Sparrows, and, indeed, birds in general on their farms, particularly where there are orchards."

That birds do mischief occasionally among ripe corn there can be no doubt; but the harm they do in autumn is amply compensated by the good they do in spring by the havoc they make among the insect tribes. The quant.i.ty of grubs destroyed by Rooks and of caterpillars and grubs by the various small birds, must be annually immense. Other tribes of birds which feed on the wing--as Swifts, Swallows, and Martins--destroy millions of winged insects which would otherwise infest the air and become insupportably troublesome. Even the t.i.tmouse and the Bullfinch, usually supposed to be so mischievous in gardens, have actually been proved only to destroy those buds which contain a destructive insect. Ornithologists have of late determined these facts to be true, and parish officers would do well to consider them before they waste the public money in paying rewards to idle boys and girls for the heads of dead birds, which only encourages children and other idle persons in the mischievous employment of fowling instead of minding their work or their schooling. But to return to the experiment alluded to. On some very large farms in Devonshire the proprietors determined a few summers ago to try the result of offering a great reward for the heads of Rooks, but the issue proved destructive to the farms, for nearly the whole of the crops failed for three succeeding years, and they have since been forced to import Rooks and other birds wherewith to re-stock their farms.

Of late years the extensive destruction of the foliage and young fruit in orchards by a species of caterpillar has excited the attention of the naturalist, and it has been found to have arisen from the habit of destroying those small birds about orchards which if left unmolested would have destroyed or kept down those rapacious insects.

SANDPIPERS.

Sandpipers breed about c.l.i.theroe. I this year (1832) started an old one from her nest at the root of a Weymouth pine. She screamed out, and rolled about in such a manner, and seemed so completely disabled, that, although perfectly aware that her intention was to allure me from her nest, I could not resist my inclination to pursue her, and in consequence I had great difficulty in finding the nest again. It was built of a few dried leaves of the Weymouth pine, and contained three young ones just hatched, and an egg through which the bill of a young one was making its way. Yet, young as they were, on my taking out the egg to examine it, the little things, which could not have been out of the sh.e.l.l more than an hour or two, set off out of the nest with as much celerity as if they had been running about a fortnight. As I thought the old one would abandon the egg if the young ones left the nest, I caught them again and covering them up with my hand for some time, they settled down again. Next day all four had disappeared.

Montagu says: "It is probable many of the Sandpipers are capable of swimming if by accident they wade out of their depth. Having shot and winged one of this species as it was flying across a piece of water, it fell, and floated towards the side, and as we reached to take it up, the bird instantly dived, and we never saw it rise again to the surface; possibly it got entangled in the weeds and was drowned." I quote this remark because the same thing has happened to myself. I winged a Sandpiper, and on going to take it up, it fluttered into the water and dived, but never rose again to the surface that I could perceive, although I watched long and attentively for it. In this instance the bird could not have been entangled by the weeds, inasmuch as the bottom of the river was covered with gravel and not a weed was growing there. Whether the Sandpiper laid hold of the gravel at the bottom with its feet, or how it managed, I cannot tell, nor have I ever been able to account for it. (June 30th, 1832.)

ON BIRDS DRESSING THEIR FEATHERS WITH OIL FROM A GLAND.

Mr. Waterton doubts ("Mag. of Nat. History," vol. v. p. 413) if the small nipple on the rump of birds is an oil-gland, or that birds ever oil their feathers with matter obtained from it; and he asks if any naturalist will say that he has ever witnessed this process, and if so how it is that the bird contrives to take this oil in its bill and how it manages to oil its head and neck? I will therefore state what I think I have witnessed, and trust to Mr. Waterton's forbearance if I am in error; yet I cannot help suspecting that Mr. Waterton's queries are (like those of Charles the Second to the Royal Society) more for the purpose of laughing at our ignorance than from any wish he has to obtain information, for I can scarcely suppose that so acute an observer can have failed to perceive everything perceptible on the point at issue.

I have just watched a Muscovy Duck go through the operation of preening and dressing its feathers, and it certainly appears obvious enough to me that this bird uses the gland on the rump for the purpose for which birds are generally supposed to use it. The bird erected the feathers on the rump so as to exhibit the gland very distinctly, and then, after pressing it with the bill, rubbed the under mandible and chin down to the throat upon it, and then, after drawing some of the feathers through the bill, rubbed the lower mandible and chin upon the back and scapulars, apparently to apply the oil which adhered to them, and then, turning its head back, it rubbed the crown and sides of the head and neck upon those parts which it had previously rubbed with the chin and under mandible. By this rubbing of the head and neck it is easy to perceive how birds can oil these parts if it be allowed that birds oil themselves at all.