Love's Meinie Part 7

114. I think the epithet 'changeful' prettier, and, until we know what a coot _is_ like, more descriptive, than 'coot-like'; the bird having red plumage in summer, and gray in winter, while the coot is always black. It is a little less pretty and less amiable than its sister fairy; otherwise scarcely to be thought of but as a variety, both of them being distinguished from the coot, not only by color, but by their smaller size;--(they eight inches long, it sixteen)--and by the slender beaks, the coot having a thick one, half-way to a puffin's.

And here, once for all,--for I see I have taken no note yet of the beaks or bills of my dabchicks,--I will at once arrange a formula of the order of questions which it will be proper to ask, and get answered, concerning any bird, in the same order always, so that we shall never miss anything that we ought to think of. And I find these questions will naturally and easily fall into the following twelve:

1. Country, and scope of migration.

2. Food.

3. Form and flight.

4. Foot.

5. Beak and eye.

6. Voice and ear.

7. Temper.

8. Nest.

9. Eggs.

10. Brood.

11. Feathers.

12. Uses in the world.

It may be thought that I have forced--and not fallen into--my number 12, by packing the faculties of sight and hearing into by-corners. But the expression of a bird's head depends on the relation of eye to beak, as the getting of its food depends on their practical alliance of power; and the question, for instance, whether peac.o.c.ks and parrots have musical ears, seems to me not properly debatable unless with due respect to the quality of their voices. It is curious, considering how much, one way or another, we are amused or pleased by the chatter and song of birds, that you will scarcely find in any ornithic manual more than a sentence, if so much, about their hearing; and I have not myself, at this moment, the least idea where a nightingale's ears are!

But see Appendix, p. 122.

I retain, therefore, my dodecahedric form of catechism as sufficiently clear; and without binding myself to follow the order of it in strictness, if there be motive for discursory remark, it will certainly prevent my leaving any bird insufficiently distinguished, and enable me to arrange the collected statements about it in the most easily compared order.

115. We will try it at once on this second variety of the t.i.tania, of which I find nothing of much interest in my books, and have nothing discursive myself to say.

1. Country. Arctic mostly; seen off Greenland, in lat. 68, swimming among icebergs three or four miles from sh.o.r.e. Abundant in Siberia, and as far south as the Caspian. Migratory in Europe as far as Italy, yet always rare. (Do a few only, more intelligently curious than the rest, or for the sake of their health, travel?)

2. Food. Small thin-skinned crustacea, and aquatic surface-insects.

3. Form and flight. Stout, for a sea-bird; and they don't care to fly, preferring to _swim_ out of danger. Body 7 to 8 inches long; wings, from carpal joint to end, 4-3/4,--say 5. These quarters of inches, are absurd pretenses to generalize what varies in every bird. 8 inches long, by 10 across the wings open, is near enough. In future, the brief notification 8 10, 5 7, or the like, will enough express a bird's inches, unless it possess decorative appendage of tail, which must be noted separately.

4. Foot. Chestnut-leaved in front toes, the lobes slightly serrated on the edges. Hind toe without membrane. Color of foot, always black.

5. Beak. Long, slender, straight. (How long? Drawn as about a fifth of the bird's length--say an inch, or a little over.) Upper mandible slightly curved down at the point. In t.i.tania arctica, the beak is longer and more slender.

6. Voice. A sharp, short cry, not conceived by me enough to spell any likeness of it.

7. Temper. Gentle, pa.s.sing into stupid, (it seems to me); one, in meditative travel, lets itself be knocked down by a gardener with his spade.

8. Nest. Little said of it, the bird breeding chiefly in the North.

Among marshes, it is of weeds and gra.s.s; but among icebergs, of what?

9. Eggs. Pear-shape; narrow ends together in nest; never more than four.

10. Brood. No account of.

11. Feathers. Mostly gray, pa.s.sing into brown in summer, varied with white on margin. Reddish chestnut or bay bodice--well oiled or varnished.

12. Uses. Fortunately, at present, unknown.

V.

RALLUS AQUATICUS. WATER-RAIL.

116. Thus far, we have got for representatives of our dabchick group, eight species of little birds--namely, two Torrent-ouzels, three Lily-ouzels, one Grebe, and two t.i.tanias. And these we a.s.sociate, observe, not for any specialty of feature in them, but for common character, habit, and size; so that, if perchance a child playing by any stream, or on the sea-sands, perceives a companionable bird dabbling in an equally childish and pleasant manner, he may not have to look through half a dozen volumes of ornithology to find it; but may be pretty sure it has been one of these eight. And having once fastened the characters of these well in his mind, he may with ease remember that the little grebe is the least of a family of chestnut-leaf-footed, and sharp-billed creatures, which yet in size, color, and diving power, go necessarily among Ducks, and cannot be cla.s.sed with Dabblers; though it must be always as distinctly kept in mind that a duck _proper_ has a flat beak, and a fully webbed foot.

Again, he may recollect that with these leaf-footed ducks of the calm and fresh waters, must be a.s.sociated the leaf-footed or fringe-footed ducks of the sea;--'phalaropes,' which by their short wings connect themselves with many clumsy marine creatures, on their way to become seals instead of birds; and that I have kept the two little t.i.tanias out of this cla.s.s, not merely for their niceness, but because they are not short-winged in any vulgar degree, but seem to have wings about as long as a sandpiper's;--and indeed I had put the purple sandpiper, Arquatella maritima, with them, in my own folio; only as the Arquatella's feet are not chestnutty, she had better go with her own kind in our notes on them.

117. But there are yet two birds, which I think well to put with our eight dabchicks, though they are much larger than any of them,--partly because of their disposition, and partly because of their plumage,--the water-rail, and water-hen. Modern science, with instinctive horror of all that is pretty to see, or easy to remember, entirely rejects the plumage, as any element or noticeable condition of bird-kinds; nor have I ever yet tried to make it one myself; yet there are certain qualities of downiness in ducks, fluffiness in owls, spottiness in thrushes, patchiness in pies, bronzed or rusty l.u.s.ter in c.o.c.ks, and pearly iridescence in doves, which I believe may be aptly brought into connection with other defining characters; and when we find an entirely similar disposition of plumage, and nearly the same form, in two birds, I do not think that _mere_ difference in size should far separate them.

Bewick, accordingly, calls the water-rail the 'Brook-ouzel,' and puts it between the little crake and the water-ouzel; but he does not say a word of its living by brooks,--only 'in low wet places.' Buffon, however, takes it with the land-rail; Gould and Yarrell put it between the little crake and water-hen. Gould's description of it is by no means clear to me:--he first says it is, in action, as much "like a rat as a bird;" then that it "bounds like a ball," (before the nose of the spaniel); and lastly, in the next sentence, speaks of it as "this _lath_-like bird"! It is as large as a bantam, but can run, like the Allegretta, on floating leaves; itself, weighing about four ounces and a half (Bewick), and rarely uses the wing, flying very slowly. I imagine the 'lath-like' must mean, like the more frequent epithet 'compressed,' that the bird's body is vertically thin, so as to go easily between close reeds.

118. We will try our twelve questions again.

1. Country. Equally numerous in every part of Europe, in Africa, India, China, and j.a.pan; yet hardly anybody seems to have seen it.

Living, however, "near the perennial fountains" (wherever those may be;--it sounds like the garden of Eden!) "during the greater part of the winter, the birds pa.s.s Malta in spring and autumn, and have been seen fifty leagues at sea off the coast of Portugal" (Buffon); but where coming from, or going to, is not told. Tunis is the most southerly place named by Yarrell.

2. Food. Anything small enough to be swallowed, that lives in mud or water.

3. Form and flight. I am puzzled, as aforesaid, between its likeness to a ball, and a lath. Flies heavily and unwillingly, hanging its legs down.

4. Foot. Long-toed and flexible.

5. Beak. Sharp and strong, some inch and a half long, showing distinctly the cimeter-curve of a gull's, near the point.

6. Voice. No account of.

7. Temper. Quite easily tamable, though naturally shy. Feeds out of the hand in a day or two, if fed regularly in confinement.

8. Nest. "Slight, of leaves and strips of flags" (Gould); "of sedge and gra.s.s, rarely found," (Yarrell). Size not told.

9. Eggs. Eight or nine! cream-white, with rosy yolk!! rather larger than a blackbird's!!!

10. Brood. Velvet black, with white bills; hunting with the utmost activity from the minute they are hatched.

11. Feathers. Brown on the back, a beautiful warm ash gray on the breast, and under the wings transverse stripes of very dark gray and white. The disposition of pattern is almost exactly the same as in the Allegretta.

12. Uses. By many thought delicious eating. (Bewick.) The fact is, or seems to me, that this entire group of marsh birds is meant to become to us the domestic poultry of marshy land; and I imagine that by proper irrigation and care, many districts of otherwise useless bog and sand, might be made more profitable to us than many fishing-grounds.

VI.

PULLA AQUATICA. WATER-HEN.

(_Gallinula Chloropus.--Pennant, Bewick, Gould, and Yarrell._)

119. 'Green-footed little c.o.c.k, or hen,' that is to say, in English; only observe, if you call the Fringe-foot a Phalarope, you ought in consistency to call the Green-foot a Chlorope. Their feet are not only notable for greenness, but for size: they are very ugly, having the awkward and ill-used look of the feet of Scratchers, while a trace of beginning membrane connects them with the fringe-foots.

Their proper name would be Marsh-c.o.c.k, which would enough distinguish them from the true Moor-c.o.c.k or Black-c.o.c.k. 'Moat-c.o.c.k' would be prettier, and characteristic; for in the old English days they used to live much in the moats of manor-houses; mine is the name nearest to the familiar one; only note there is no proper feminine of 'pullus,' and I use the adjective 'pulla' to express the dark color.