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Poachers and Poaching

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Title: Poachers and Poaching

Author: F.L.S. John Watson


        
Release date: May 1, 2013 [eBook #42628]
                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POACHERS AND POACHING ***

POACHERS AND POACHING


"Knowledge never learned in schools."


[Illustration: LURCHERS.]



POACHERS AND POACHING


By

JOHN WATSON, F.L.S.

AUTHOR OF
"NATURE AND WOODCRAFT," "SYLVAN FOLK," "BRITISH SPORTING FISHES,"
EDITOR OF "THE CONFESSIONS OF A POACHER."


With a Frontispiece


LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL
LIMITED
1891

[_All Rights reserved_]

WESTMINSTER:
PRINTED BY NICHOLS AND SONS,
25, PARLIAMENT STREET.




Transcriber's Note: Minor spelling and typographical errors have
been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and
inconsistencies have been retained as printed.




NOTE.


These chapters originally appeared as articles in _Macmillan's
Magazine_, the _Cornhill Magazine_, the _National Review_, the
_Gentleman's Magazine_, the _St. James's Gazette_ and the _Pall Mall
Gazette_; and I have to thank the Editors and Proprietors of these
periodicals for permission to reprint them. The chapter entitled
"Water Poachers" is reprinted by permission from the _Nineteenth
Century_.

As to the facts in the volume, they are mainly taken at first hand
from nature.

J. W.




CONTENTS.


                                                       PAGE

CHAPTER I.

POACHERS AND POACHING.--I                                 1

CHAPTER II.

POACHERS AND POACHING.--II                               17

CHAPTER III.

BADGERS AND OTTERS                                       33

CHAPTER IV.

COURIERS OF THE AIR                                      44

CHAPTER V.

THE SNOW-WALKERS                                         86

CHAPTER VI.

WHEN DARKNESS HAS FALLEN                                 94

CHAPTER VII.

BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR NESTS AND EGGS                     118

CHAPTER VIII.

MINOR BRITISH GAME BIRDS                                143

CHAPTER IX.

WATER POACHERS                                          162

CHAPTER X.

WILD DUCKS AND DUCK DECOYING                            195

CHAPTER XI.

FIELD AND COVERT POACHERS                               223

CHAPTER XII.

HOMELY TRAGEDY                                          245

CHAPTER XIII.

WORKERS IN WOODCRAFT                                    266

CHAPTER XIV.

SKETCHES FROM NATURE                                    287




POACHERS AND POACHING.




CHAPTER I.

POACHERS AND POACHING.--I.


The poacher is a product of sleepy village life, and usually "mouches"
on the outskirts of country towns. His cottage is roughly adorned in
fur and feather, and abuts on the fields. There is a fitness in this,
and an appropriateness in the two gaunt lurchers stretched before the
door. These turn day into night on the sunny roadside in summer, and
before the cottage fire in winter. Like the poacher, they are active
and silent when the village community is asleep.

Our Bohemian has poached time out of mind. His family have been
poachers for generations. The county justices, the magistrates' clerk,
the county constable, and the gaol books all testify to the same fact.

The poacher's lads have grown up under their father's tuition, and
follow in his footsteps. Even now they are inveterate poachers, and
have a special instinct for capturing field-mice and squirrels. They
take moles in their runs, and preserve their skins. When a number of
these are collected they are sold to the labourers' wives, who make
them into vests. In wheat-time the farmers employ the lads to keep down
sparrows and finches. Numbers of larks are taken in nooses, and in
spring lapwings' eggs yield quite a rich harvest from the uplands and
ploughed fields. A shilling so earned is to the young poacher riches
indeed; money so acquired is looked upon differently from that earned
by steady-going labour on the field or farm. In their season he gathers
cresses and blackberries, the embrowned nuts constituting an autumn in
themselves. Snipe and woodcock, which come to the marshy meadows in
severe weather, are taken in "gins" and "springes." Traps are laid for
wild ducks in the runners when the still mountain tarns are frozen
over. When our poacher's lads attain to sixteen they become in turn the
owner of an old flintlock, an heirloom, which has been in the family
for generations. Then larger game can be got at. Wood-pigeons are
waited for in the larches, and shot as they come to roost. Large
numbers of plover are bagged from time to time, both green and grey.
These feed in the water meadows through autumn and winter, and are
always plentiful. In spring the rare dotterels were sometimes shot as
they stayed on their way to the hills; or a gaunt heron was brought
down as it flew heavily from a ditch. To the now disused mill-dam ducks
came on wintry evening--teal, mallard, and pochards. The lad lay coiled
up behind a willow root, and waited during the night. Soon the
whistling of wings was heard, and dark forms appeared against the
skyline. The old duck-gun was out, a sharp report tore the darkness,
and a brace of teal floated down stream and washed on to the mill
island. In this way half-a-dozen ducks would be bagged, and dead or
dying were left where they fell, and retrieved next morning. Sometimes
big game was obtained in the shape of a brace of wild geese, the least
wary of a flock; but these only came in the severest weather.

At night the poacher's dogs embody all his senses. An old black bitch
is his favourite; for years she has served him faithfully--in the whole
of that time never having once given mouth. Like all good lurchers, she
is bred between the greyhound and sheepdog. The produce of this cross
have the speed of the one, and the "nose" and intelligence of the
other. Such dogs never bark, and, being rough coated, are able to stand
the exposure of cold nights. They take long to train, but when
perfected are invaluable to the poacher. Upon them almost wholly
depends success.

Poaching is one of the fine arts, and the most successful poacher is
always a specialist. He selects one kind of game, and his whole
knowledge of woodcraft is directed against it. In autumn and winter the
"Otter" knows the whereabouts of every hare in the parish; not only the
field in which it is but the very clump of rushes in which is its
"form." As puss goes away from the prickly gorse bush, or flies down
the turnip "rigg," he notes her every twist and double, and takes in
the minutest details. He is also careful to examine the "smoots" and
gates through which she passes, and these spots he always approaches
laterally. He leaves no scent of hand nor print of foot, and does not
disturb rough herbage. Late afternoon brings him home, and upon the
clean sanded floor his wires and nets are spread. There is a peg to
sharpen and a broken mesh to mend. Every now and then he looks out upon
the darkening night, always directing his glance upward. His dogs whine
impatiently to be gone. In an hour, with bulky pockets, he starts,
striking across the land and away from the high-road. The dogs prick
out their ears upon the track, but stick doggedly to his heels. After a
while the darkness blots out even the forms of surrounding objects, and
the poacher moves more cautiously. A couple of snares are set in holes
in an old thorn fence not more than a yard apart. These are delicately
manipulated, and from previous knowledge the poacher knows that the
hare will take one of them. The black dog is sent over, the younger
fawn bitch staying with her master. The former slinks slowly down the
field, sticking closely to the cover of a fence running at right angles
to the one in which the wires are set. The poacher has arranged that
the wind shall blow from the dog and across the hare's seat when the
former shall come opposite. The ruse acts, and puss is alarmed but not
terrified; she gets up and goes quietly away for the hedge. The dog is
crouched and anxiously watching her; she is making right for the snare,
though something must be added to her speed to make the wire effective.
As the dog closes in, the poacher, bowed, and with hands on knees,
waits, still as death, for her coming. He hears the trip, trip, trip,
as the herbage is brushed; there is a rustle among the leaves, a
momentary squeal--and the wire has tightened round her throat.

Again the three trudge silently along the lane. Suddenly the trio stop
and listen; then they disperse, but seem to have dissolved. The dry
ditch is capacious, and its dead herbage tall and tangled. A heavy
foot, with regular beat, approaches along the road, and dies slowly
away in the distance.

Hares love green corn stalks, and a field of young wheat is at hand. A
net, twelve feet by six, is spread at the gate, and at a given sign the
dogs depart different ways. Their paths would seem soon to have
converged, for the night is torn by a piteous cry, the road is
enveloped in dust, and in the midst of the confusion the dogs dash over
the fence. They must have found their game near the middle of the
field, and driven the hares--for there are two--so hard that they
carried the net right before them. Every struggle wraps another mesh
about them, and soon their screams are quieted. By a quick movement the
poacher wraps the long net about his arm, and, taking the noiseless
sward, gets hastily away from the spot. These are the common methods of
hare-poaching.

In March, when they are pairing, four or five may often be found
together in one field. Although wild, they seem to lose much of their
natural timidity, and now the poacher reaps a rich harvest. He is
careful to set his nets and snares on the side _opposite_ to that
from which the game will come, for this reason: That hares approach any
place through which they are about to pass in a zig-zag manner. They
come on, playing and frisking, stopping now and then to nibble the
sweet herbage. They run, making wide leaps at right angles to their
path, and sit listening upon their haunches. A freshly-impressed
foot-mark, the scent of dog or man at the gate, almost invariably turns
them back. Of course these traces are necessarily left if the snare be
set on the _near_ side of the gate or fence, and then they refuse
to take it even when hard pressed. Where poaching is prevalent and
hares abundant, the keepers net every one on the estate, for it is well
known to those versed in woodcraft that an escaped hare once netted can
never be taken a second time in the same manner. The human scent left
at gaps and gateways by ploughmen and shepherds the wary poacher will
obliterate by driving sheep over the spot before he begins operations.
On the sides of the fells and uplands hares are difficult to kill. This
can only be accomplished by swift dogs, which are taken _above_
the game; puss is made to run down hill, when, from her peculiar
formation, she goes at a disadvantage.

Our poacher is cooly audacious. Here is an actual incident. There was a
certain field of young wheat in which were some hares. The knowledge of
these came by observation during the day. The field was hard by the
Keeper's cottage, and surrounded by a high fence of loose stones. The
situation was therefore critical, but that night nets were set at the
gates through which the hares always made. To drive them the dog was to
range the field, entering it at a point furthest away from the gate.
Silence was essential to success. To aid the dog, the poacher bent his
back in the road at a yard from the wall. The dog retired, took a
mighty spring, and, barely touching his master's shoulders, bounded
over the fence without touching. From that field five hares were
killed.

It need hardly be remarked that the intelligent poacher is always a
naturalist. The signs of wind and weather he knows as it were by heart,
and this is essential to his silent trade. The rise and wane of the
moon, the rain-bringing tides, the local migration of birds--these and
a hundred other things are marked in his unwritten calendar. His
out-door life has made him quick and taught him of much ready animal
ingenuity. He has imbibed an immense amount of knowledge of the life of
the woods and fields, and he is that one man in a thousand who has
accuracy of eye and judgment sufficient to interpret nature aright.

It has been already remarked that the poacher is nothing if not a
specialist. As yet we have spoken only of the "moucher" who directs his
attention to fur. But if there is less scope for field ingenuity in the
taking of some of our game birds, there is always the possibility of
more wholesale destruction. This arises from the fact of the birds
being gregarious. Partridges roost close to the ground, and sleep with
their heads tucked together. A covey in this position represents little
more than a mass of feathers. They always spend their nights in the
open, for protective reasons. Birds which do not perch would soon be
extinct as a species were they to seek the protection of woods and
hedge-bottoms by night. Such ground generally affords cover to
vermin--weasels, polecats, and stoats. Although partridges roam far by
day, they always come together at night, being partial to the same
fields and fallows. They run much, and rarely fly except when passing
from one feeding ground to another. In coming together in the evening
their calls may be heard at some distance. These sounds the poacher
listens for and marks. He remembers the nest under the gorse bush, and
knows that the covey will not be far distant.

Partridges the poacher considers good game. He may watch half-a-dozen
coveys at once. Each evening at sun-down he goes his rounds and makes
mental notes. Three coveys are marked for a night's work--one in
turnips, another among stubble, and a third on grass. At dark he comes
and now requires an assistant. The net is dragged along the ground, and
as the birds get up it is simply dropped over them, when usually the
whole covey is taken. In view of this method of poaching and on land
where many partridges roost, low scrubby thorns are planted at regular
intervals. These so far interfere with the working of the net as to
allow the birds time to escape. If the poacher has not accurately
marked down his game beforehand, a much wider net is needed. Among
turnips, and where large numbers of birds are supposed to lie, several
rows or "riggs" are taken at a time, until the whole of the ground has
been traversed. This last method requires time and a knowledge of the
keeper's beat. On rough ground the catching of the net may be obviated
by having about eighteen inches of smooth glazed material bordering the
lower and trailing part of the net. Partridges are occasionally taken
by farmers in the following unorthodox fashion. A train of grain is
scattered from ground where game is known to lie. The birds follow
this, and each morning find it more nearly approach to the stackyards.
When the birds have become accustomed to this mode of feeding, the
grain train is continued inside the barn. The birds follow, and the
doors are closed upon them. A bright light is brought, and the game is
knocked down with sticks.

Partridges feed in the early morning--as soon as daybreak. They resort
to one spot, and are constant in their coming if encouraged. This the
poacher knows, and adapts himself accordingly. By the aid of a clear
moon he lays a train of grain straight as a hazel stick. He has brought
in a bag an old duck-gun, the barrels of which are short, having been
filed down. This short weapon can easily be carried in his capacious
pocket, and is only needed to fire at short distances. Into this he
crams a heavy charge of powder and waits for the dawn. The covey comes
with a loud whirring of wings, and the birds settle to feed
immediately. Firing along the line, a single shot strews the ground
with dead and dying. In ten minutes he is a mile from the spot, always
keeping clear of the roads. The poacher has yet another method. Grain
is soaked until it becomes swollen and is then steeped in the strongest
spirit. This, as before, is strewn in the morning paths of the
partridge, and, soon taking effect, the naturally pugnacious birds are
presently staggering and fighting desperately. The poacher bides his
time, and, as opportunity offers, knocks the incapacitated birds on the
head.

The wilder grouse poaching of the moorlands is now rarely followed. The
birds are taken in nets similar to those used for partridges. By
imitating the peculiar gurgling call-notes of the grouse, old poachers
can bring up all birds within hearing distance. As they fly over the
knolls and braes they are shot. Many of the birds sold in London on the
morning of the "Twelfth" are taken in this way. In the north, since the
inclosure of the Commons, numbers of grouse are killed by flying
against the wire fences. When the mists cling to the hills for days, or
when the weather is "thick," these casualties occur. At such times the
birds fly low, and strike before seeing the obstacle. The poacher notes
these mist caps hanging to the hill tops, and then, bag in hand, walks
parallel to miles and miles of fence. Sometimes a dozen brace of birds
are picked up in a morning. Not only grouse, but on the lowlands
pheasants and partridges are killed in this way, as are also snipe and
woodcock.

In summer, poachers make and repair their nets for winter use. Large
hare nets are made for gates, and smaller ones for rabbit burrows and
"smoots." Partridge nets are also necessarily large, having sometimes
to cover half a field. Although most of the summer the poacher is
practically idle, it is at this time that he closely studies the
life of the fields, and makes his observations for winter. He
gets occasional employment at hay or harvest, and for his darker
profession treasures up what he sees. He is not often introduced to
the heart of the land, and misses nothing of the opportunity. On in
autumn, he is engaged to cut down ash poles or fell young woods, and
this brings him to the covert. Nothing escapes his notice, and in the
end his employers have to pay dearly for his labour. At this time the
game birds--pheasants, partridge, and grouse--are breeding, and are
therefore worthless; so with rabbits and hares. But when game is
"out," fish are "in." Fish poaching has decreased of late years,
owing to stricter watching and greater preservation generally. In
summer, when the waters are low, fish resort to the deep dubs. In
such spots comes abundance of food, and the fish are safe, be the
drought never so long. The pools of the Fell becks abound at such
times with speckled brown trout, and are visited by another
poacher--the otter. When the short summer night is darkest, the man
poacher wades through the meadows by the river. He knows the deeps
where the fish most congregate, and there throws in chloride of lime.
Soon the trout of the pool float belly uppermost, and are lifted out,
dazed, in a landing net. In this way hundreds of fish are taken, and
find a ready sale. The lime in no wise poisons the edible parts; it
simply affects the eyes and gills, covering them with a fine white
film. Fish so taken, however, lose all their pinky freshness. The
most cowardly part of this not uncommon proceeding is that the lime
is sometimes put into the river immediately below a mill. This, of
course, is intended to mislead watchers and keepers, and to throw the
blame upon the non-guilty millowner. And, seeing that chloride of
lime is used in various manufactures, the ruse sometimes succeeds.
Many of the older poachers, however, discountenance this cowardly
method, for by it the destruction of fish is wholesale, irrespective
of size. The old hands use an old-fashioned net, to work which
requires at least two men. The net is dragged along the quiet river
reaches, a rope being attached to each end. The trout fly before it,
and are drawn out upon the first bed of pebbles. In this way great
hauls are often made. To prevent this species of poaching, stakes are
driven into trout stream beds; but they are not of much avail. When
it is known that a "reach" is staked, a third man wades behind the
net and lifts it over. A better method to prevent river poaching is
to throw loose thorn bushes into the bed of the stream. In trailing
along the bottom the net becomes entangled, and long before it can be
unloosed the fish have escaped. This wholesale instrument of fish
poaching is now rarely used. The net is necessarily large and
cumbersome. Wet, it is as much as two men can carry, and when caught
in the act, there is nothing for it but to abandon the net and run.
This is an effectual check for a time, as a new net takes long to
knit and is expensive, at least to the poacher. When salmon and trout
are spawning their senses seem somewhat dulled, and they are taken
out of the water at night by click-hooks. In this kind of river
poaching a lighted tar brand is used to show the whereabouts of the
fish. A light, too, attracts salmon. Of course, this can only be
attempted when the beats of the watchers and keepers are known. The
older generation of poachers, who have died or are fast dying out,
seem to have taken the receipt for preparing salmon roe with them.
For this once deadly bait is now rarely used. Here is a field
incident.

A silent river reach shaded by trees. It is the end of a short summer
night. We know that the poachers have lately been busy knitting their
nets, and have come to intercept them. The "Alder Dub" may be easily
netted, and contains a score nice trout. Poachers carefully study the
habits of fish as well as those of game, both winged and furred. To the
alder dub they know the trout make when the river is low. The poachers
have not noted signs of wind and weather and of local migrations for
twenty years past to be ignorant of this. And so here, in the
dew-beaded grass, we lie in wait. It is two o'clock and a critical
time. A strange breaking is in the east: grey--half-light, half-mist.
If they come they will come now. In an hour the darkness will not hide
them. We lie close to the bank thickly covered with bush and scrub. Two
sounds are and have been heard all night--the ceaseless call of the
crake and the not less ceaseless song of the sedge-bird. A lapwing gets
up in the darkness and screams--an ominous sound, and we are all ear.
Three forms descend the opposite bank, and on to the gravel bed. They
empty the contents of a bag and begin to unroll its slow length. The
breaking of a rotten twig in a preparatory movement for the rush
sufficiently alarms them, and they dash into the wood as we into the
water--content now to secure their cumbersome illegal net, and thus
effectually stop their operations for three weeks at least. The grey
becomes dawn and the dawn light as we wade wearily home through the
long wet grass. And still the sedge warbler sings.




CHAPTER II.

POACHERS AND POACHING.--II.


The confines of a large estate constitute a poacher's paradise; for
although partridge and grouse require land suited to their taste,
rabbits and pheasants are common to all preserved ground. Since the
reclamation of much wild land these latter afford his chief spoil. And
then rabbits may be taken at any time of the year and in so many
different ways. They are abundant, too, and always find a ready market.
The penalties attached to rabbit poaching are less than those of game,
and the vermin need not be followed into closely preserved coverts. The
extermination of the rabbit will be contemporaneous with that of the
lurcher and poacher--two institutions of English village life which
date back to the planting the New Forest. Of the many modes of taking
the "coney," ferreting and field-netting are the most common. Traps
with steel jaws are sometimes set in their runs, and are inserted in
the turf so as to bring them level with the sward. But destruction by
this method is not sufficiently wholesale, and the upturned white under
parts show too plainly against the green. The poacher's methods must be
quick, and he cannot afford to visit by day traps set in the dark. When
the unscrupulous keeper finds a snare he sometimes puts a leveret into
it, and secretes himself. He then waits, and captures the poacher "in
the act." As with some other methods already mentioned, the trap
poacher is only a casual. Ferreting is silent and usually successful.
In warrens, both inequalities of the ground and mounds and ditches
afford cover for the poacher. A tangled hedge bank with tunnellings and
coarse herbage is always a favourite spot. There are generally two and
often half-a-dozen holes in the same burrow. Small purse nets are
spread over these, and the poacher prefers them loose to being pegged
or fixed in any way. When the nets are set the ferrets are taken from
the moucher's capacious pockets and turned in. They do not proceed
immediately, but sniff the mouth of the hole; their decision is only
momentary for soon the tips of their tails disappear in the darkness.
Now, above all times, silence is essential. Rabbits refuse to bolt if
there is noise outside. A dull thud, a rush, and a rabbit goes rolling
over and over entangled in the net; one close after it gets clear away.
Reserve nets are quickly clapped to the holes as the rabbits bolt,
these invariably being taken, except where a couple come together.
Standing on the mound a shot would stop these as they go bounding
through the dead leaves; but this would bring up the keeper, and so the
poacher practices self-denial. Unlike hares, rabbits rarely squeal when
they become entangled; and this allows the poacher to ferret long and
silently. Rabbits that refuse to take the net are sometimes eaten into
by the ferret, but still refuse to bolt. If a rabbit makes along a
blind burrow followed by a ferret, the former is killed, and the latter
gluts itself upon the body. When this occurs it is awkward for the
poacher; the ferret in such case usually curls itself up and goes to
sleep; left to itself it might stay in the hole for days; and so it has
either to be dug or starved out. Both processes are long, the burrows
ramify far into the bank, and it is not certainly known in which the
ferret remains.

The poacher's wholesale method of night poaching for rabbits is by
means of two long nets. These are set parallel to each other along the
edge of a wood, and about thirty yards out into the field or pasture.
Only about four inches divides the nets. A clear star-lit night is best
for the work, and at the time the nets are set the ground game is far
out feeding. The nets are long--the first small in mesh, that
immediately behind it large. When a hare or rabbit strikes, the impetus
takes a part of the first net and its contents through the larger mesh
of the second, and there hanging, the creature struggles until it is
knocked on the head with a stick. Immediately the nets are set two men
and a couple of lurchers begin to range the ground in front--slowly and
patiently, gradually driving every feeding thing woodwards. A third man
quietly paces the sward behind the nets, killing whatever game strikes
them. And in this way hundreds of rabbits may be, and are, taken in a
single night. Some years ago half-a-dozen young rabbits appeared in our
meadow-lot which were of the ordinary grey with large white patches.
Whilst feeding these stood out conspicuously from the rest; they were
religiously preserved. Of these parti-coloured ones a normal number is
now kept up, and as poachers rarely discriminate, whenever they
disappear, it is _primâ facie_ evidence that night work is going
on.

Of all poaching that of pheasants is the most beset with difficulty;
and the pheasant poacher is usually a desperate character. Many methods
can be successfully employed, and the pheasant is rather a stupid bird.
Its one great characteristic is that of wandering, and this cannot be
prevented. Although fed daily, and with the daintiest food, the birds,
singly or in pairs, may frequently be seen far from the home covers. Of
course the poacher knows this, and is quick to use his knowledge. It by
no means follows that the man who rears the pheasants will have the
privilege of shooting them. In autumn, when beechmast and acorns begin
to fall, the pheasants make daily journeys in search of them; and of
these they consume great quantities. They feed principally in the
morning, dust themselves in the turnip-fields at noon, and ramble
through the woods in the afternoon; and when wandered birds find
themselves in outlying copses in the evening they are apt to roost
there.

It need hardly be said that pheasants are generally reared close to the
keeper's cottage; that their coverts immediately surround it. Most
commonly it is a gang of armed ruffians that enter these, and not the
country poacher. Then there are reasons for this. Opposition must
always be anticipated, for the covert should never be, and rarely is,
unwatched. And then there are the results of capture to be taken into
account. This effected, and with birds in his possession, the poacher
is liable to be indicted upon so many charges, each and all having
heavy penalties.

When wholesale pheasant poaching is prosecuted by gangs, it is in
winter, when the trees are bare. Guns, the barrels of which are filed
down so as to shorten them, are taken in sacks, and the birds are shot
where they roost. Their bulky forms stand sharply outlined against the
sky, and they are often on the lower branches. If the firing does not
immediately bring up the keepers, the game is quickly deposited in bags
and the gang makes off. It not unfrequently happens that a light cart
is waiting to receive the men at some grassy lane end. But the moucher
obtains his game in a quieter way. He eschews the preserves, and looks
up outlying birds. He always carries a pocketful of corn, and day by
day entices the birds further and further away. This accomplished he
may snare them; and take them in iron traps. He sometimes uses a gun,
but only when other methods have failed. A common and successful way he
has is to light brimstone beneath the trees in which the pheasants
roost. The powerful fumes soon overpower the birds, and they come
flapping down the trees one by one. This method has the advantage of
silence, and if the night is still need not be detected. Away from the
preserves time is no object, and so the moucher who works
systematically, and is content with a brace of birds at a time, usually
gets the most in the end, with least chance of capture. The pugnacity
of the pheasant is well known to him, and out of this trait he makes
capital. When the whereabouts of the keeper is known, he takes under
his arm a game cock fitted with artificial spurs. These are attached to
the natural ones, are sharp as needles, and the bird is trained how to
use them. Upon the latter's crowing one or more cock pheasants
immediately respond and advance to meet the adversary. A single blow
usually suffices to lay low the pride of the pheasant, and in this way
half-a-dozen birds may often be taken whilst the poacher's
representative remains unhurt.

The most cruelly ingenious plan adopted by poachers, however, is also
one of the most successful. If time and opportunity offer, there is
scarcely any limit to the depredations which it allows. A number of
dried peas are taken and steeped in boiling water; a hole is then made
through the centre with a needle or some sharp instrument, and through
this a stiff bristle is threaded. The ends are cut off short, leaving
only about a quarter of an inch of bristle projecting at each end. With
these the birds are fed, and are greedily eaten. In passing down the
gullet, however, a violent irritation is set up, and the pheasant is
finally choked.

The birds are picked up in a dying condition from beneath the hedges,
to which shelter they almost always run. The plan is a quiet one; may
be adopted in roads and lanes where the birds dust themselves, and does
not require trespass.

The methods here set forth both with regard to pheasants and rabbits
are those ordinarily in use. In connection with the former it might
have been remarked that the gamekeeper sometimes outwits the poacher by
a device which is now of old standing. Knowing well from what quarter
the depredators will enter the woods, wooden blocks representing
roosting birds are nailed to the branches of the open beeches. The
poacher rarely fires at these "dummies," and it is only with the casual
that the ruse works. He fires, brings the keepers out of their hiding
places and so is entrapped.

It need hardly be said that our poacher is a compound of many
individuals--the type of a numerous class. The tinge of rustic romance
to which we have already referred as exhibited in his character may
have been detected in his goings. And we may at once say that he in
nowise resembles the armed ruffian who, masked and with murderous
intent, enters the covert at night. Although his life is one long
protest against the game laws, he is not without a rude code of
morality. He complains bitterly of the decrease of game, and that the
profession is hardly now worth following. Endowed with marked
intelligence, it has never been directed aright. His knowledge of
woodcraft is superior to that of the gamekeeper, which personage he
holds in contempt. He quietly boasts of having outwitted the keepers a
hundred times. The "Otter" is chary as to those he takes into
confidence, and knows that silence is essential to success. He points
to the "Mole,"--the mouldy _sobriquet_ of a compatriot--as an
instance of one who tells poaching secrets to village gossips. The
"Mole" spends most of his time in the county gaol, and is now
undergoing incarceration for the fifty-seventh time. Our "Otter" has
certainly been caught, but the occasions of his capture form but a
small percentage of the times he has been "out." He is a healthy
example of pure animalism, and his rugged nature has much in common
with the animals and birds. As an accurately detailed reflection of
nature, his monograph of any one of our British game-birds would excel
even those of Mr. Jefferies himself; yet of culture he hasn't an idea.
He admires the pencilled plumage of a dead woodcock, and notes how
marvellously it conforms to the grey-brown herbage among which it lies.
So, too, with the eggs of birds. He remarks on the conformation to
environment--of partridge and pheasant, the olive colour to the dead
oak leaves; of snipe and plover to the mottled marsh; of duck and water
fowl to the pale green reeds.

As to his morality with regard to the game laws, it would be difficult
to detect exactly where he draws the line. He lives for these to be
repealed, but his native philosophy tells him that when this time comes
game will have become well nigh extinct. Upon the Ground Game Act he
looks with mingled feelings, for, after all, are not rabbits and hares
the chief product of his nights? The farmers now get these, and the
poacher's field is limited. They engage him, maybe, to stay the ravages
upon clover and young wheat, or to thin the rabbits from out the
pastures. He propitiates the farmer in many ways. Occasionally in the
morning the farm lad finds half-a-dozen rabbits or a hare dropped
behind the barn door. How these came there no one knows--nor asks. The
country attorney is sometimes submitted to a like indignity. In
crossing land the poacher is careful to close gates after him, and he
never breaks down fences. He assists cattle and sheep which he finds in
extremity, and leaves word of the mishap at the farm. Is it likely that
the farmer will dog the steps of the man who protects his property, and
pays tolls for doing it?

And it frequently happens that the poacher is not less popular with the
village community at large than with those whose interests he serves.
It is even asserted that more than one of the county Justices have, in
some sort, a sneaking affection for him. The same wild spirit and love
of sport take him to the fields and woods as his more fortunate
brethren to the moor and covert. It is untrue, as has been said, that
the poacher is always a mercenary wretch who invariably sells his game;
he as frequently sends in a brace of birds or a hare to a poor or sick
neighbour. He comes in contact with the law just sufficient to make him
know something of its bearings. When charged with being in possession
of "game," he reiterates the old argument that rabbits are vermin.
Being committed for four months "for night poaching," he respectfully
informs the presiding Justice that at the time of his capture the sun
had risen two hours, and that the law does not allow more than half the
sentence just passed upon him. The old clerk fumbles for his horn
spectacles, and, after turning over _Stone's Justices' Manual_
solemnly informs the Bench that defendant in his interpretation is
right. He remembers this little episode and chuckles over it. There is
another which is equally marked in his memory. The "Otter" poached long
and successfully ere he was caught, and then was driven into an
ambuscade by a combination of keepers. Exultant at his downfall, the
men of gaiters flocked from every estate in the country-side to witness
his conviction. Some, who had only seen a vanishing form in the
darkness, attended to see the man. This wild spirit of the night was
always followed by an old black bitch. She, too, was produced in court,
and was an object of much curiosity. The "Otter" had been taken in the
act, he told the Bench. "He deserved no quarter and asked none.
Poaching was right by the Bible, but wrong by the Law." One of the
Justices deigned to remark it was a question of "property," not
morality. "Oh!" rejoined the "Otter," "because blue blood doesn't run
in my veins, that's no reason why I shouldn't have my share." And after
a moment's pause: "But it's a queer kind o' property that's yours in
that field, mine in the turnpike, and a third man's over the next
fence."

The end of it was, however, a fine of £5, with an alternative. And so
the case ended. But that day the keepers and their assistants had
forgotten the first principles of watching. The best keeper is the one
that is least seen. Only let the poacher know his whereabouts, and the
latter's work is easy. It was afterwards remarked that during the trial
of the "Otter" not a poacher was in court. This fact in itself was
unusual--and significant. It became more so when he was released by
reason of his heavy fine being paid the same evening. More than one
woman had been seen labouring under loaded baskets near the local game
dealer's, and these were innocently covered with mantling cresses, and
so at the time escaped suspicion. Upon this memorable day the pheasants
had been fed by unseen hands and had vanished. The only traces left by
the covert side were fluffy feathers everywhere. Few hares remained on
the land; these had either been snared or netted at the gates. The
rabbits' burrows had been ferreted, an outhouse near the keeper's
cottage being entered to obtain possession of the ferrets. It need
hardly be said that had the "Otter" been aware he would not have
countenanced these lawless doings of his _confrères_. He claimed
to "poach square," and drew the line at home-reared pheasants, allowing
them "property." Those he found wild in the woods, however, were
_feræ naturæ_, and he directed his engines accordingly.

Every poacher knows that the difficulty lies not so much in obtaining
the game as in transporting it safely home. Their dogs are always
trained to run on a couple of hundred yards in advance, so as to give
warning of anyone's approach. If a police constable or keeper is met on
the highway the dog immediately leaps the fence, and, under its cover,
runs back to its master. Seeing this the game-bag is dropped into a
dry ditch, and dog and man make off in different directions. County
constables loiter about unfrequented lanes and by-paths at daybreak.
The poachers know this and are rarely met with game upon them. Ditches,
stacks, and ricks afford good hiding places until women can be sent to
fetch the spoil. These failing, country carriers and morning milk carts
are useful to the poacher.

In one sleepy village known to us both the rural postman and the parish
clerk were poachers. The latter carried his game in the black bag which
usually held the funeral pall. The smith at the shoeing forge was a
regular receiver, and there were few in the village who had not poached
at some time or other. The cottage women netted fish, and shut the
garden gates on hares and rabbits when they came down to feed in
winter. Upon one occasion a poacher, taking advantage of a country
funeral, had himself and a large haul taken to the nearest market town,
the hearse disgorging its questionable corpse behind the nearest game
shop. Another of the poachers, nicknamed the "gentleman," was wont to
attire himself in broad-brimmed hat and frock coat similar to those
worn a century ago by the people called Quakers. In the former he
carried his nets, and in the capacious pockets of the latter the game
he took. These outward guarantees of good faith away from his own
parish precluded him from ever once being searched.

Of late years egg poaching has been reduced to a science; and this is
one of the worst phases of the whole subject. In certain districts it
is carried on to a large extent, and comes of artificial rearing. The
squire's keeper will give six pence each for pheasants' eggs and four
pence for those of partridges. He often buys eggs (unknowingly, of
course) from his own preserves, as well as from those of his
neighbours. In the hedge bottom, along the covert side, or among gorse
and broom, the poacher notices a pair of partridges roaming morning
after morning. Soon he finds their oak-leaf nest and olive eggs. These
the keeper readily buys; winking at what he knows to be dishonest.
Plough-boys and farm-labourers have peculiar opportunities for
egg-poaching. As to pheasants' eggs, if the keeper is an honest man and
refuses to buy, there are always London dealers who will. Once in the
covert, pheasants' eggs are easily found. The birds get up heavily from
their nests, and go away with a loud whirring of wings. In this species
of poaching women and children are largely employed. At the time the
former are ostensibly gathering sticks, the latter wild flowers. A
receiver has been known to send to London in the course of a week a
thousand eggs--probably every one of them stolen.

When depredations are carried on nightly, or game disappears in large
quantities, warrants are obtained, and search made for nets. Except for
immediate use the poachers seldom keep their nets at home. They are
stowed away in church tower, barn, rick, or out-house. Upon one
occasion it got abroad that the constables would make a raid upon a
certain cottage where a large net was known to be. The dwelling was a
disused toll bar on the turnpike, and commanded a long stretch of road.
The good woman of the house saw the constables approaching, and made
the most of her time. Taking off her gown, she fastened one end of the
net, which was long and narrow, to a projecting crook in the wall; then
retiring to the further side of the kitchen, she attached the other end
of it to the whalebone of her stays, and by turning round and round,
wound the net about her capacious person. When the constables arrived
she accompanied them into every corner of the cottage, but no net could
be found.




CHAPTER III.

BADGERS AND OTTERS.


Hazelhurst was a long line of woodland, on one side skirted by the sea
and on the other by a crumbling limestone escarpment. It was woodland,
too, with the deep impress of time upon it--a forest primeval. The
branches and boles of the oaks were tortured out of all original
conception. Save for colour they might have been congealed water or
duramen muscles. Down in the hollows there was deep moss, elastic and
silent, over all. For centuries the pines had shed their needles
undisturbed. These and the pine trunks sent up a sweet savour from the
earth--an odour that acted as a tonic to the whole being. There were
sun-flashes in the glades, where the jays chattered and the cushats
cooed, and where ever and anon a rabbit rustled through. Often over
these the kestrel hung and vibrated its shadow on the spot beneath; or
the sparrow-hawk with its clean-cut figure stared with the down on his
beak on a dead pine bough. In the summer red creatures that were bits
of light gracefully glided among green tassels, and the chatter of
squirrels was heard. The older trees attracted woodpeckers, and the
nuthatch threw out fine fibres of rotten wood. Sometimes a pheasant or
a partridge would startle, getting up from its olive eggs by a log left
by the charcoal-burners. Thus rudely disturbed, it had no time to
scatter leaves over its nest, as is its wont. The shaggy and corrugated
bark of the old trees is larvæ-haunted, and consequently mouse-like
creepers abound. These little creatures on every trunk showed
conspicuously as they ran their marvellous adaptation to an end, and
fulfilled it perfectly. All the wood-birds were there--the
White-throat, the Wood and the Willow Wren, the Chiffchaff, and
Garden-warbler. These sang from the leafy boughs. But higher up,
towards the escarpment, the floor of the wood was rugged and
rock-strewn. Boulders had rolled from above, and among these dwelt
weasels and ermines. There were at least a pair of martins, and foxes
from the fells had their tracks through the woods. A primitive mansion
had once stood in the wood, but now was gone. It had been large, and
green mounds, now laid low, marked out its dimensions. Old
oak-panelling, with long-gone dates, were sometimes dug up, and these
were covered with carvings--"carvings quaint and curious, all made out
of the carver's brain." Lying around this had been an extensive
orchard, the rich, though old trees of which remained. And now, in this
glorious summer-time, the golden fruit fell unheeded to the ground. For
Hazelhurst was long distant from town or nearest village. Brambles held
their luscious fruit, and every species of ground berry grew there. No
wonder it was a paradise to mice and squirrels and birds. They revelled
in nature's ample provision, and were undisturbed.

Here, in the days of our immediate ancestors, Badgers were plentiful.
Now, where a ridge of rock ran through the wood, there was a hole, the
entrance to a somewhat spacious cavity. This could be seen for the
seeking, not otherwise. Brambles and ground-ivy protected it. Black
bryony and woodbine twisted up every available stem, and a knot of
blackthorn grew over all. The spot was protected and dense. One day we
invaded it, but after long crawling and sticking fast had to return. In
it lived the badgers--had done so time out of mind, and the few
poachers who knew it called it "Brock-holes." "Brock" is the old
north-country word for badger, and, as we have said, everything
testified to its presence. In this wild fruit paradise at least two
pairs of badgers bred. Each pair had more than one apartment--at least
the young were not produced in that which formed the general abode.
These were at the ends of the burrow, where were the beds, composed of
roots and dried grass. The young were brought forth in April, and after
about six weeks might have been seen sitting about the mouth of their
hole, or accompanying their dam to short distances when on her evening
rambles. We always found the badgers unoffending, harmless creatures
unless first attacked. They fed almost entirely on roots, wild fruit,
grain, and occasionally insects. They were, however, extremely shy and
wary. Beautiful it was to see these creatures on summer evenings
searching for food among the low bushes, occasionally giving a low
grunt when some favourite root was turned up. When insects came within
their reach they were snapped up somewhat after the manner of a dog
catching flies. The life of the badger is eminently that of a peaceful
creature, harmless in all its ways, unoffending, interesting in its
life-history, useful, and, above all, fitted with a quiet contentment
almost human. The body of the badger is long and heavy and its legs
short, which give it an awkward shambling appearance when running. Its
beautifully-shaped head has two long lines running from the snout to
the tips of the ears. The upper parts of its body are light grey,
becoming darker below, the lower parts being quite black.

The total length of a fully-grown male badger is about thirty-six
inches. The structure of the creature is especially adapted to its mode
of life, this being shown in the slender muzzle, with movable snout,
which is employed in digging. It is when thus occupied, too, that the
short, stout limbs are seen fulfilling their end; and when no natural
cavity exists it is these limbs and snout that provide one. Both are
brought into frequent requisition when digging for roots, of certain of
which the badger is particularly fond. Badgers are quite susceptible of
domestication, and a friend had a pair which he led about in collars.
They are possessed of great affection for their young, and rush blindly
into danger, or even suffer themselves to be killed, in attempting to
rescue them....

We have stretched our length along a slab of rock which margins the
bank and recedes far under it. The stream for the most part is rapid,
but here narrows to slow, black depth. Ever and ceaselessly does the
water chafe and lap among the shelving rocks, and this, with the
constant "drip," only seems to make the silence audible. Fungi and
golden mosses light up our dark retreat. Never was green more green nor
lichen tracery more ravishing. Close-clinging and rock-loving is all
life here. Water percolates through the bank, and spreads its silver
filament over all. Far out and beyond the deep wood it comes from the
scaurs, and the limestone sends its carbonate to dome our retreat.
Miniature stalactites hang from the roof, and bright bosses rise from
the floor. Frail fern fronds depend from the crevices, and as the light
rushes in, masses of golden saxifrage gild all the chamber. The beams
will not long stay, for the sun dips in the western woods. From the
mouth of our recess we take in a silent river reach. It is thickly
embowered and overhung. Long drooping racemes of green tree flowers
attract innumerable insects, especially those of the lime, and intent
upon these a flycatcher sits lengthwise upon a branch. How beautiful
are its short flights, the iridescence of its plumage, its white
eye-lines, and barred forehead! Numerous small waterfalls, the gauze
and film veils of which, when the wind blows, and dripping moss, have
attracted the dippers. Kingfishers, too, in their green flight, dash
over the still water. The remote pines have lost their light, and stand
black against the sky. Sundown has come, and it is the hour of vesper
hymns. The woods are loud swelling volumes of sound. Behind us is a
woodland enchanted, though with no sadder spirits than blackbirds and
thrushes that whistle to cheer it. This loud evening hymn lasts for an
hour, then subsides, and the woods hush. The stem of the silver birch
ceases to vibrate to the blackbird's whistle. The polyglot wood-thrush
is dreaming of gilded fly and dewy morn, and finally that last far-off
song has ceased. Silence--an intense holy calm--is over the woods.
Chill comes, the dew rises, and twilight;--and the night side of
nature. How rich and varied is that of the stream side! The fern-owls
with their soft plumage and noiseless flight come out, as do the great
moths and bustards.

This prevalence of life at the same time is as Nature would have
it--the one acting as food for the other. The beat of unseen pinions is
heard above, but no object visible--some night-haunting bird flying off
to its feeding ground. Through the short night summer snipe whistle and
wail. Newly-arrived crakes call from the meadows, and a disturbed
lapwing gets up crying from the green cornstalks. Maybe the disturber
was the hare whose almost human cry now comes from the thorn fence. For
it the corn sprouts have come for the last time, and soon it will be in
the poacher's wallet. A loud splash comes from the water, and a great
black trout has sucked down its prey. This is a large-winged night-fly.
That first splash is a token of more abundant night food, and soon the
reach boils. Every speckled trout is "on its feed." How we long for
the pliant, sympathetic rod! Then, ye lusty trout, how would the
undefinable thrill rush at intervals up our arm! But our mission
to-night is not this. The herons scream, the wood-owls hoot, and--what
is that other night sound? The crescent moon shows a bit of light at
intervals; soon masses of cloud intervene.

A faint whistle, unlike that of any bird, comes up stream, and although
imperceptible the dark, still water is moved. The trout cease to rise.
The whistle comes nearer, and then a rustle is heard. The osier beds
are stirred, and some long dark object makes its way between the parted
stems. A movement would dispel the dark shadow, and which in turn would
divide the dark water and take it silently away. The otters have
reconnoitered, and all is safe. They come paddling down stream, and,
arriving at the pool, stop, tumble and frolic, rolling over and over,
and round and round, and performing the most marvellous evolutions you
could possibly conceive. They swing on the willow spray, and dash with
lightning velocity at a piece of floating bark, tumble with it, wrestle
with it, and go through a hundred wonderful movements. They are
motionless, then begin to play, and so continue for nearly an hour,
when, as if suddenly alarmed, they rush down stream to their fishing
grounds, and leave us cold and benumbed. We plod through the meadow
beneath the moon and stars, chilled to the marrow by the falling dew.

Otters are still abundant on the banks of most northern streams, as
also among the rocks and boulders of the coast-line. Human invasion
drives them from their haunts, although, where waters remain
unpolluted, they not unfrequently pass up the rivers by towns and
villages during the still night. On the margins of the more secluded
tarns of the fells, otters, too, are yet found. Fitted for an aquatic
existence, the structure of the otter beautifully exhibits the
provisions suitable to its mode of life. On land it can travel swiftly,
though the water is its best element. Immersed in this, its coat
appears smooth and glossy. In pursuing its prey it performs the most
graceful movements, doubling and diving so rapidly that it is difficult
to follow its evolutions. When fishing, its object is to get beneath
the object pursued, as, from the construction of its eyes, which are
placed high in the head, it is better enabled to secure its prey. This
it seldom fails to do, its whole structure, as already remarked,
greatly facilitating its movements in the water. Its uniform dusky
brown coat has, like all aquatic creatures, a soft under-fur with long
hair above.

The otter generally takes possession of a natural cavity, a drain, or a
hole made by the inundation of the stream. The entrance is usually
under water, and inclines towards the bank. Situations where the latter
is overhung with bushes and with tall water plants in the vicinity are
generally chosen. From this the young, when three or four weeks old,
betake themselves to the water. If captured now they may easily be
domesticated. One of our friends has to-day a young otter, which he
leads about in a leash. At Bassenthwaite a man and his son trained a
pair of otters to fish in the lake. They would return when called upon,
or follow their master home when the fishing was over. The males in
spring fight desperately, and once, when hidden, we witnessed a fight
which lasted an hour, and so engrossed did the combatants become that
we approached and, taking the part of the lesser, shot its aggressor.

And now a word as to the food of the otter. That it destroys fish we
are not about to deny. But this liking for fish has become such a
stereotyped fact (?) in natural history that it is glibly repeated,
parrot-like, and so continues until most readers have come to accept
it. The otter destroys but few fish, using the word in its popular
acceptation. What it destroys are for food, and not out of love of
killing. The greater part of its diet consists of fresh-water crayfish,
thousands of which it destroys, and it is for these that long journeys
are so frequently made. This does not apply to the pairing season; the
wanderings have then another end. Many miles in a night are traversed
for these crustaceans, the beds of mountain and moorland streams being
tracked to their source, almost every stone on the way being examined.
At least upon two occasions have we found the remains of the moor-hen
after an otter's meal.




CHAPTER IV.

COURIERS OF THE AIR.


The power of flight being almost exclusively the characteristic
attribute of birds, it is somewhat strange that even the most eminent
naturalists should be silent upon it. And yet this is almost
universally so. Those who mention the speed of flight do so upon the
most insufficient evidence, as witness Michelet's statement that the
swallow flies at the rate of eighty leagues an hour. Roughly this gives
us a thousand miles in four hours; but assuredly, even in its dashes,
the swallow does not attain to anything like this speed. The Duke of
Argyll is rather under than over the mark when he computes the speed at
more than a hundred miles an hour. Here, however, the mechanism of
flight in the swallows is carried through an ascending scale, until in
the swift it reaches its highest degree of power both in endurance and
facility of evolution. Although there are birds which may, and probably
do, attain to a speed of one hundred and fifty miles an hour, this
remarkable rate is not to be looked for in any of the birds of the
swallow kind. There is something fascinating in the idea of eliminating
time and space, and with this attribute popular fancy has in some
measure clothed the swallows. At the greater rate of speed indicated
above the swallow might, as has been stated, breakfast round the
Barbican, and take its mid-day _siesta_ in Algiers. This, however,
is a popular myth. In their migrations swallows stick close to land,
and never leave it unless compelled; they cross straits at the
narrowest part, and are among the most fatiguable of birds. From this
it will be seen that although swallows may possess considerable speed,
they have no great powers of sustained flight or endurance. These
attributes belong, in the most marked degree, to several ocean birds.

Any one who has crossed the Atlantic must have noticed that gulls
accompany the ship over the whole distance; or, at least, are never
absent throughout the voyage. The snowy "sea swallows," as the terns
are called, seem quite tireless on the wing; though the petrels and
albatross alone deserve the name of oceanic birds. Sir Edwin Arnold, in
an account of his voyage to America, writes as follows of the
sea-swallows: "Every day we see playing round the ship and skimming up
and down the wave-hollows companies of lovely little terns and
sea-swallows, the latter no larger than thrushes. These fearless people
of the waste have not by any means followed us from land, living, as
gulls often will, on the waste thrown from the vessel. They are vague
and casual roamers of the ocean, who spying the great steamship from
afar, have sailed close up, to see if we are a rock or an island, and
will then skim away on their own free and boundless business. Yonder
tiny bird with purple and green plumage, his little breast and neck
laced with silver, is distant one thousand miles at this moment from a
drop of fresh water, and yet cares no more for the fact than did the
Irish squire who 'lived twelve miles from a lemon.' If his wings ever
grow weary it is but to settle quietly on the bosom of a great billow
and suffer it for a time to rock and roll him amid this hissing
spendrift, the milky flying foam, and the broken sea-lace which forms
and gleams and disappears again upon the dark slopes. When he pleases,
a stroke of the small red foot and a beat of the wonderful wing launch
him off from the jagged edge of his billow, and he flits past us at one
hundred knots an hour, laughing steam and canvas to scorn, and steering
for some nameless crag in Labrador or Fundy, or bound, it may be,
homeward for some island or marsh of the far-away Irish coast.
Marvellously expressive of power as is our untiring engine, which all
day and all night throbs and pants and pulses in noisy rhythm under the
deck, what a clumsy affair it is compared to the dainty plumes and
delicate muscles which carry that pretty, fearless sea-swallow back to
his roost."

No deserts seem to bound the range of the petrels, and they are found
at every distance from land. Different species inhabit every
ocean--from the fulmar in the far north to the giant petrel which
extends its flight to the icebanks of the south. Here the Antarctic and
snowy petrels appear, floating upon the drift ice, and never leaving
these dreary seas. Another bird of immense wing power is the tiny
stormy petrel, the smallest web-footed bird known. It belongs to every
sea, and although so seeming frail it breasts the utmost fury of the
storm, skimming with incredible velocity the trough of the waves, and
gliding rapidly over their snowy crests. Petrels have been observed two
thousand miles from nearest land, whilst at half that distance Sir
James Ross once saw a couple of penguins quietly paddling in the sea. A
pair of the rudimentary wings of this bird are lying before me as I
write. These are simply featherless paddles, but by their aid so
rapidly does the bird swim that it almost defies many of the fishes to
equal it. The enormous appetite of the giant penguin (which weighs
about eighty pounds) may have something to do with its restricted
powers of flight, and in the stomach of one of these Ross found ten
pounds of quartz, granite, and trap fragments, swallowed most likely to
promote digestion.

But surely the lord of the winged race is the bird which does not rest;
and this may almost be said of the man-of-war or frigate bird. He is a
navigator who never reaches his bourne, and from his almost ceaseless
flight it would seem as though earth and sea were equally prohibited to
him. To a bird with such an immense and superior wing apparatus, the
metaphor, "he sleeps upon the storm," becomes almost literal. This
black, solitary bird is nearly nothing more than wings, his prodigious
pinions measuring fifteen feet, even surpassing those of the condor of
the Andes. Although sometimes seen four hundred leagues from land, the
frigate bird is said to return every night to its solitary roost.

Of all birds, the albatross has, perhaps, the most extended powers of
flight. It has been known to follow a vessel for several successive
days without once touching the water except to pick up floating food;
and even then it does not rest. In describing the flight of this bird
from personal observation, Captain Hutton writes as follows: "The
flight of the albatross is truly majestic, as with outstretched
motionless wings he sails over the surface of the sea--now rising high
in the air, now with a bold sweep and wings inclined at an angle with
the horizon, descending until the tip of the lower one all but touches
the crests of the waves as he skims over them. I have sometimes watched
narrowly one of these birds sailing and wheeling about in all
directions for more than an hour without seeing the slightest movement
of the wings, and have never witnessed anything to equal the ease and
grace of this bird as he sweeps past, often within a few yards--every
part of his body perfectly motionless except the head and eye, which
turn slowly and seem to take notice of everything. 'Tranquil its spirit
seemed and floated slow; even in its very motion there was rest.'" But
these birds and the frigate bird are sea and ocean species, and, with
rare exceptions, are able to rest upon the waters. This, however,
cannot be said of many of the land birds, and here observation is
easier.

As an antithesis to the apparently lifeless wings of the albatross,
Pettigrew compares the ceaseless activity of those of the humming-bird.
In these delicate and exquisitely beautiful birds, the wings, according
to Gould, move so rapidly when the bird is poised before an object that
it is impossible for the eye to follow each stroke, and a hazy circle
of indistinctness on each side the bird is all that is perceptible.
When a humming-bird flies in a horizontal direction, it occasionally
proceeds with such velocity as altogether to elude observation. Mention
of the calm majestic flight of the albatross suggests the possibility
of birds resting on the wing. An American naturalist asserts that birds
of prey and some others have the power to lock securely together those
parts of the wing holding the extended feathers, and corresponding to
the fingers of the human hand. The action of the air on the wing in
this condition extends the elbow, which is prevented from opening too
far by a cartilage, and the wings may keep this position for an
indefinite length of time, with no muscular action whatever on the part
of the bird. While resting in this way, the bird cannot rise in a still
atmosphere; but if there be a horizontal current, it may allow itself
to be carried along by it, with a slight tendency downward, and so gain
a momentum by which, with a slight change of direction, it may rise to
some extent, still without muscular action of the wings. This same
naturalist also believes it quite possible for birds to sleep on the
wing. As bearing on this subject, Professor J. S. Newbury asserts that
he once shot a bird which came slowly to the ground as if still flying,
but reached it dead. He believed that it had died high in the air; but
had never been able to account for the manner of its descent till now,
when he found an explanation in the statement just given.

Thousands of gold-crests annually cross and recross the North Sea at
the wildest periods of the year, and unless the weather is rough
generally make their migrations in safety. And yet this is the
smallest and frailest British bird--a mere fluff of feathers,
weighing only seventy grains. Another of the tits, the oxeye, has
been met upon two occasions at six hundred and nine hundred miles
from land. With regard to those birds which cross the Atlantic, it
matters not for our purpose whether they are driven by stress of
weather or cross voluntarily--suffice it they come. Less likely birds
that have occurred in Britain are the belted kingfisher and American
yellow-billed cuckoo. The white-winged crossbill must be mentioned
with less certainty, for, although a North American bird, it is also
found in some northern European countries.

All birds of great and sustained powers of flight have one well-marked
characteristic--they have long wings, with sharply-pointed ends. The
general truth of this will be at once admitted if the rule be applied
to the various species mentioned above. Another point is worthy of
notice. The apparent speed of flight to an unpractised eye is most
deceptive. A heron, as it rises and flaps languidly along the course of
a brook, appears not only to progress slowly but to use its wings in
like manner. Yet the Duke of Argyll has pointed out, and any one may
verify the statement by his watch, that the heron seldom flaps his
wings at a rate of less than from one hundred and twenty to one hundred
and fifty times in a minute. This is counting only the downward
strokes, so that the bird really makes from two hundred and forty to
three hundred separate movements a minute. The rook and heron fly in
almost straight lines, have large rounded wings, and float with the
greatest ease upon the air. The rook in its measured flight makes about
five-and-twenty miles an hour; the heron thirty. Our short-winged game
birds fly with incredible velocity, and any attempt to observe or count
their wing movements leaves but a blurred impression on the eye, whilst
in some species so quick is the vibratory movement as to prevent its
being seen. Driven grouse flying "down wind" have been known to
seriously stun sportsmen by falling upon their heads. A grouse does not
move its wings so rapidly as a partridge, though the late C. S. was
once clean knocked out of a battery by a grouse he had shot falling
upon him; and in this way loaded guns have frequently been fired by
dead birds. The Duke of Beaufort upon one occasion picked up a brace of
grouse which had cannoned and killed each other in mid-air, and
colliding is not an unfrequent occurrence. As illustrating a remarkable
quality of flight, the case of the kestrel or windhover may be taken.
On a summer day one may frequently see this pretty little falcon
standing against the blue in what seems an absolutely stationary
position, as though suspended by an invisible silken thread. But let a
meadow-mouse so much as move and it drops to the sward in an instant.

As has been already stated, there is perhaps nothing more wonderful in
nature than the power of flight, and no subject which yields such
startling facts upon investigation. "The way of an eagle in the air" is
one of those things of which Solomon expressed himself ignorant; and
there is something truly marvellous in the mechanism which controls
the scythe-like sweep of wings peculiar to most birds of prey. The
noblest of these, the peregrine, has been seen flying over mid-Atlantic;
and Henry IV., King of France, had a falcon which escaped from
Fontainebleau, and in twenty-four hours after was found in Malta, a
space computed to be not less than 1,350 miles, a velocity equal to
fifty-six miles an hour, supposing the hawk to have been on the wing
the whole time. Indeed, in Montagu's opinion, the rapidity with which
hawks and other birds occasionally fly is probably not less than at the
rate of a hundred and fifty miles an hour, when either pursued or
pursuing. The speed of flight of the peregrine cited above is about
that of our best trained pigeons; and it may here be remarked that the
flight of these two (otherwise dissimilar) birds very much resembles
each other. The beautiful swallow-tailed kite has accomplished the feat
of flying across the whole Atlantic Ocean, which is hardly to be
wondered at seeing its vast powers of flight. Lieuwenholk relates an
exciting chase which he saw in a menagerie about one hundred feet long
between a swallow and a dragon-fly (Mordella). The insect flew with
incredible speed, and wheeled with such address that the swallow,
notwithstanding its utmost efforts, completely failed to overtake and
capture it. The best speed of a railway train is only a little more
than half the velocity of the golden eagle, the flight of which often
attains to the rate of one hundred and forty miles an hour. Of all
birds, the condor mounts highest into the atmosphere. Humboldt
describes the flight of this bird in the Andes to be at least twenty
thousand feet above the level of the sea. Upon one occasion a falcon
was observed to cut a snipe right in two, with such strength and
speed did it cut down its prey. Sparrow-hawks and merlins have not
unfrequently been known to crash through thick plate-glass windows
when in pursuit of prey, or at caged birds.

Of all British birds, none is so beautiful or so secluded in its habits
as the kingfisher. Its presence is peculiarly in keeping with the rapid
rocky trout streams which it loves to haunt. Its low, arrow-like
flight, as it darts like a streak of azure, green, and gold, is
familiar to every angler. He hears it far down stream; it comes under
the old ivied bridge, passes like a flash, and is gone--how quickly the
following will show. Mr. George Rooper, the well-known Biographer of
the Salmon, was travelling on the Great Western Railway, which between
Pangbourne and Reading runs parallel with, and close to, the Thames. As
the train approached the river a kingfisher started from the bank and
flew along the river for nearly a mile. Mr. Rooper watched it the whole
distance, and its relative position with the window never varied a
yard; the bird flying at exactly the same pace as that at which the
train travelled, and which the observer had just previously ascertained
to be fifty-five miles an hour. This is about half the speed at which
the eider-duck flies, as, when fairly on the wing, it makes upwards of
one hundred and twenty miles an hour. The rapidity with which all birds
of the plover kind fly is well known, and a "trip" of golden plover
have been seen midway between Hawaii and the mainland. An officer in
Donald Currie's line recently brought home with him a specimen of the
St. Helena waxbill which he caught when on watch on the bridge of the
_Grantully Castle_. At the time the nearest land was distant a
thousand miles, and the little captive was so distressed that it
quietly allowed the officer to capture it.

It has been computed that a red-throated diver swims about four and a
half miles on the surface of the water, and between six and seven
beneath the surface per hour. Macgillivray states that upon one
occasion he watched a flock of red-breasted mergansers pursuing sand
eels, when the birds seemed to move under the water with almost as much
velocity as in the air, and often rose to breathe at a distance of two
hundred yards from the spot at which they had dived. To show to what
depth this bird flies beneath the water it may be mentioned that one
was caught in a net at thirty fathoms; while a shag, or green
cormorant, has been caught in a crab pot fixed at twenty fathoms below
the surface; and guillemots literally fly under water without even
using their feet. As bearing directly on the interesting subject of
flight under water the case of another of the divers may be mentioned.
It has been said that one of the strong and original strokes of nature
was when she made the "loon," a bird which represents the wildness and
solitariness of the wildest and most solitary spots. It dives with such
marvellous quickness that the shot of the gunner gets there just in
time to cut across a circle of descending tail feathers and a couple of
little jets of water flung upward by the web feet of the loon. Speaking
of this bird Burroughs says that in the water "its wings are more than
wings. It plunges into this denser air, and flies with incredible
speed. Its head and beak form a sharp point to its tapering neck. Its
wings are far in front, and its legs equally far in the rear, and its
course through the crystal depths is like the speed of an arrow. In the
northern lakes it has been taken forty feet under water upon hooks
baited for the great lake trout. I had never seen one till last fall,
when one appeared on the river in front of my house. I knew instantly
it was the loon. Who could not tell a loon a half-mile or more away,
though he had never seen one before? The river was like glass, and
every movement of the bird as it sported about broke the surface into
ripples, that revealed it far and wide. Presently a boat shot out from
shore, and went ripping up the surface toward the loon. The creature at
once seemed to divine the intentions of the boatman, and sidled off
obliquely, keeping a sharp look-out as if to make sure it was pursued.
A steamer came down and passed between them, and when the way was again
clear the loon was still swimming on the surface. Presently it
disappeared under the water, and the boatman pulled sharp and hard. In
a few moments the bird reappeared some rods further on, as if to make
an observation. Seeing it was being pursued, and no mistake, it dived
quickly, and when it came up again had gone many times as far as the
boat had in the same space of time. Then it dived again, and distanced
its pursuer so easily that he gave over the chase and rested upon his
oars. But the bird made a final plunge, and when it emerged upon the
surface again it was over a mile away. Its course must have been, and
doubtless was, an actual flight under water, and half as fast as the
crow flies in the air. The loon would have delighted the old poets. Its
wild, demoniac laughter awakens the echoes on the solitary lakes, and
its ferity and hardiness were kindred to those robust spirits." Another
specially interesting bird which does something nearly approaching to
flying under water is the dipper. The ouzel is essentially a bird of
the running brook, though as to what part this pretty white-breasted
thrush plays in the economy of nature naturalists are by no means
agreed. Its most frequent stand is upon some mossy stone in a river
reach, and here its crescented form may oftenest be seen. It haunts the
brightly-running streams in winter as in summer, and when these are
transformed into roaring torrents seems to love them best. Let us watch
it awhile. It dashes through the spray and into the white foam,
performing its morning ablutions. Then it emerges to perch on a stone,
always jerking its body about, and dipping, dipping, ever dipping.
Presently it melts into the water like a bubble, but immediately
emerges to regain its seat, then trills out a loud wren-like song, but,
breaking off short, again disappears. We are standing on an old stone
bridge, and are enabled to observe it closely. By a rapid, vibratory
motion of the wings, it drives itself down through the water, and by
the aid of its wide-spreading feet clings to and walks among the
pebbles. These it rapidly turns over with its bill, searching for the
larvæ of water flies and gauzy-winged _ephemeræ_. It searches the
brook carefully downwards, sometimes clean immersed, at other times
with its back out, then with the water barely covering its feet. It
does not always work with the stream, as we have frequently seen him
struggling against it, but retaining its position upon the bottom. Even
at the present day there are naturalists who, from the examination of
cabinet specimens, aver that it is not in the power of the bird to walk
on the bottom of the brook, but then they know nothing of him along his
native streams.

Taking advantage of two birds remarkable for their long and sustained
powers of flight, experiments have recently been conducted with a view
to utilising swallows and pigeons as war messengers. In this connection
the use of trained pigeons is one of the oldest institutions in the
world; though now that certain European Powers have trained falcons to
cut down pigeons, it is said that the pigeon-post is not sufficiently
reliable. In consequence a number of French _savants_ recently
approached the Minister of War, and induced him to found a military
swallow-cote whence the birds might be trained. The Governor of Lille
was charged to test the plan, and certain experiments made at Roubaix
last year are now commanded to be repeated under the supervision of
Captain Degouy of the Engineers. During the coming autumn this
gentleman is to be present at a grand flight of messenger swallows; and
if his report is favourable, a swallow-cote will be founded and placed
under the care of special trainers at Mont Valérian. The idea of
engaging swallows in war is a pretty one, as in future all European
wars will have to be conducted in "Swallow-time"--when the warm winds
blow from the sunny south. This arrangement will at least obviate
night-watches in frozen trenches; nor is it likely that pickets will
any longer be starved to death at their posts. The incident is also
quoted in proof of the fact that we are nearing the time when Europe
will be governed by the Parliament of Man, the Federation of the World.
But, after all, the idiosyncrasies of France have a way of not being
fulfilled; and the reign of the swallow will doubtless be as ephemeral
as that of the _brav' Général_ himself. In all their military
operations of late the French have made considerable use of pigeons in
conveying despatches; and in the Franco-German war the birds played a
conspicuous part. Upon several occasions, indeed, the inhabitants of
beleaguered cities looked upon the successful flights of these birds as
their only hope betwixt death and starvation.

At the time the French were making trials with messenger swallows, the
young German Emperor ordered extensive experiments to be carried out
with carrier pigeons, the same to be tested at the Imperial
manoeuvres. Upon this, six of the first Columbarian Societies of
Germany each offered to supply twenty-four birds, which are now in
training. So we have it that the French are endeavouring to train
swallows, the Germans pigeons, and the Russians falcons. Whether the
falcons are themselves to convey messages, or are to be used to cut
down the swallows and pigeons whilst so engaged, is not stated. The
pigeon is a tried messenger, and has, moreover, some interesting and
remarkable records. The claim of the swallow, on the other hand, lies
all in its possibilities. In this connection "swallow" must stand in a
generic sense, and include all birds of the swallow kind as well as the
swift. Although, as already stated, swallows are among the most
fatiguable of birds, yet one of the American species--the purple
martin--would seem to be an exception, and the fact of its having
crossed the Atlantic is well known. It is true that swallows attain to
an immense speed in their rushes, and there is a well-authenticated
instance of one having flown twenty miles in thirteen minutes. The
probable speed of the swallow, flying straight and swift, is about one
hundred and twenty miles an hour; its ordinary speed ninety miles. The
swift attains to two hundred miles, and seems quite tireless on the
wing. If swifts can be inspired with a sense of discipline; if French
wars can invariably be arranged for the summer months; and if some
arrangement can be made with the insect hosts to keep the upper
air--_then_ something may come of the Lille experiments. If these
things cannot be, the French sharpshooter will never be asked to try
flying shots at swifts rushing through the air at the rate of two
hundred miles an hour. If the Russians are training falcons to catch
pigeons, the Germans must train raptors to catch swallows. Here is a
fact which proves the possibility. The hobby falcon, a summer migrant
to Britain, hawks for dragon-flies--among the swiftest of
insects--which it seizes with its foot and devours in mid-air. It cuts
down swifts, larks, pigeons, and, where they are found, bee-birds--all
remarkable for their great powers of flight. By way of testing the
speed of flight in birds of the swallow kind, Spallanzani captured and
marked a sand-martin or bank-swallow--the feeblest of its genus--on her
nest at Pavia and set her free at Milan, fifteen miles away. She flew
back in thirteen minutes. In striking contrast with the rate at which
birds with long pointed wings fly is the fact that one of a pair of
starlings (which are short-winged birds) was captured and sent in a
basket a distance of upwards of thirty miles by train. It was then
freed, and was three hours before it found its way back to its
nestlings.

To turn from swallows to pigeons. The power of pigeons on the wing is
proverbial. All trained birds of this species have two qualifications
in a marked degree. The first is speed; the second long and sustained
powers of flight. This proposition can be amply demonstrated, and the
following are some of the most remarkable records. On the 6th of
October, 1850, Sir John Ross despatched a pair of young pigeons from
Assistance Bay, a little west of Wellington Sound; and on October 13th
a pigeon made its appearance at the dovecote in Ayrshire, Scotland,
whence Sir John had the pair he took out. The distance direct between
the two places is two thousand miles. An instance is on record of a
pigeon flying twenty-three miles in eleven minutes; and another flew
from Rouen to Ghent, one hundred and fifty miles, in an hour and a
half. An interesting incident of flight is the case of a pigeon which,
in 1845, fell wounded and exhausted at Vauxhall Station, then the
terminus of the South-Western Railway. It bore a message to the effect
that it was one of three despatched to the Duke of Wellington from
Ichaboe Island, two thousand miles away. The message was immediately
sent on to his Grace, and by him acknowledged. In a pigeon competition
some years ago, the winning bird flew from Ventnor to Manchester, two
hundred and eight miles, at the rate of fifty-five miles an hour. As an
experiment a trained pigeon was recently dispatched from a northern
newspaper office with a request that it might be liberated for its
return journey at 9.45 a.m. It reached home at 1.10 p.m. having covered
in the meantime one hundred and forty miles, flying at the rate of
forty miles an hour. In the north pigeons have long been used to convey
messages between country houses and market towns; and in Russia they
are now being employed to convey negatives of photographs taken in
balloons. The first experiment of the kind was made from the cupola of
the Cathedral of Isaac, and the subject photographed was the Winter
Palace. The plates were packed in envelopes impenetrable to light, and
then tied to the feet of the pigeons, which safely and quickly carried
them to the station at Volkovo. Here is another interesting instance of
speed and staying power. The pigeons in this case flew from Bordeaux to
Manchester, and not only beat all existing records, but flew more than
seventy miles further than anything previously attempted by English
flyers. The winning bird flew at the rate of eighteen hundred and
seventy-nine yards a minute, or over sixty-four miles an hour, and that
for a distance of one hundred and forty-two and a half miles. The same
club has flown birds distances of six hundred and thirteen, and six
hundred and twenty-five miles. These latter, however, were several days
in returning, and in their case the only wonder is that they could
accomplish the distance at all. The following is still more
interesting, as it entailed a race between birds and insects. A
pigeon-fancier of Hamme, in Westphalia, made a wager that a dozen bees
liberated three miles from their hive would reach it in better time
than a dozen pigeons would reach their cot from the same distance. The
competitors were given wing at Rhynhern, a village nearly a league from
Hamme, and the first bee finished a quarter of a minute in advance of
the first pigeon, three other bees reached the goal before the second
pigeon, the main body of both detachments finishing almost
simultaneously an instant or two later. The bees, too, may be said to
have been handicapped in the race, having been rolled in flour before
starting for purposes of identification.

The American passenger pigeon compasses the whole Atlantic ocean. The
speed of its flight is approximately known; it is able to cover one
thousand six hundred miles in twenty-four hours. This, however, is
marvellous, when it is seen that, flying at the rate of nearly seventy
miles an hour, it takes the bird two days and nights to cross. What
must be the nature of the mechanism that can stand such a strain as
this? This pigeon is now recognised as a British bird. Several examples
have occurred, and whilst some of these were probably "escapes," others
doubtless were wild birds. These had perfect plumage, were taken in an
exhausted condition, and their crops showed only the slightest traces
of food. As is well known, the passenger pigeon is a bird of immense
powers of flight, and in its overland journeys often flies at the rate
of a mile a minute. Wild birds, however, can only come from America;
and this opens up the interesting question as to the possibility of
birds crossing the Atlantic without once resting. Naturalists of the
present day say that this feat is not only probable, but that it is
accomplished by several birds. Mr. Darwin somewhere asserts that one or
two of them are annually blown across the ocean; and it is certain that
half-a-dozen species have occurred upon the west coasts of England and
Ireland, which are found nowhere but in North America. Mr. Howard
Saunders states that passenger pigeons are often captured in the State
of New York with their crops still filled with the undigested grains of
rice that must have been taken in the distant fields of Georgia and
South Carolina; apparently proving that they passed over the
intervening space within a few hours. It certainly seems remarkable
that a bird should have the power of winging its way over four thousand
miles of sea; but recently two persons have recorded the fact that they
have noticed pigeons settle upon the water to drink, then rise from it
with apparent ease. And Mr. Darwin says that, where the banks of the
Nile are perpendicular, whole flocks of pigeons have been seen to
settle on the water and drink while they floated down the stream. He
adds that, seen from a distance, they resemble flocks of gulls on the
surface of the sea. The passenger pigeon is one of the handsomest of
its kind. The accounts of its migrations in search of food are known to
all. It is said to move in such vast flocks as to darken the earth as
they pass over, and that one of these columns brings devastation
wherever it comes.

In the Anglo-Belgian pigeon races, some of the birds attain to nearly a
mile a minute, and this when the race is for five hundred miles. The
English, French, and Germans all rear pigeons in their fortresses; and
the birds are utilised by the Trinity House in conveying messages from
the lightships. They are also in use on the Indian stations. The
following are additional remarkable instances of quick and long
sustained powers of flight which show what the pigeon is capable of
doing. Thirty-three birds were recently brought from Termonde, in
Belgium, and were liberated at Sunderland at 5 a.m. A telegram received
at the latter place stated that sixteen of the birds reached home at
1.35 the same afternoon, having accomplished the distance of four
hundred and eighty miles in about eight and a half hours, or about
fifty-six miles an hour. A week previous the same birds had flown from
London to Brussels.

It has frequently been suggested that homing pigeons should be used
to carry telegraphic messages between country houses and post
offices. In many cases pigeons have been used as telegraphic
messengers with the most successful results. Sending into town, by
the people of the Hall is a frequent occurrence, and whenever a
messenger had occasion to go, some pigeons, bred at the Hall are sent
in a hamper by the dog-cart or what-not. These are taken possession
of by a local tradesman living near the post office, who also
receives the telegrams. The latter are rolled up and tied either
round the bird's leg, or so that it lies across the upper part of its
breast. The pigeon is then liberated, and in about ten minutes from
the time of despatch the telegram is delivered at the Hall, five
miles distant. The reverse process is repeated with the tradesman's
pigeons kept at the Hall if a reply to the telegram is required. The
platform leading into the pigeon-house is connected with an electric
bell that rings when the pigeon, reaching home, alights on the
platform, and thus notifies the servants the arrival of a telegram;
one of them then goes and unties it from the bird's neck. Much saving
in porterage is thus accomplished; the telegrams are delivered in a
few minutes, and rarely, if ever, lost. The ordinary homing pigeon is
best adapted for the purpose, being an inexpensive purchase. In proof
of this fitness the following most remarkable incident may be
recorded. A number of English homers were recently sent to Lassay, an
inland town of France, but for some reason the French police
authorities refused to start them, and the birds were relegated to
Cherbourg, where they were liberated at 7 a.m. One of them was seen
to alight on the roof of its loft at 11.30 the same forenoon. It had
accomplished the entire distance of about three hundred miles,
including one hundred miles of water, in a bee-line from Cherbourg to
Birkenhead at the rate of over a mile a minute. This particular bird
had never been any great distance from home, and although English
bred it was from a famous strain of Belgian "homers." The large
provincial towns in the north of England are the great centres of
pigeon-flying. Recently as many as two thousand five hundred birds
were liberated at a flight. Every one of these pigeons were out of
sight in one minute from the time they were thrown up, a fact which
shows how strong is the "homing" instinct within them. The homing
pigeon may not supersede the telegraph; but in disturbed times it is
the business of an enemy to cut the wires, to tap them, or even to
send misleading despatches along them. No such danger need be
apprehended from a carrier pigeon, for, if well trained, it will fly
straight from loft to loft, never parting with its tiny scroll unless
killed or taken--a mishap which is not likely to befall more than one
or two of a flight. As already stated, some remarkable results have
already been achieved, not only by Government birds--whose
performances and proceedings are, of course, kept secret--but by
those belonging to the numerous carrier-pigeon societies which have
been established on the Continent either for mere amusement or with
more patriotic objects in view. Thus, some years ago, a homing pigeon
covered the six hundred and fifteen miles--air-line--between Liége,
in Belgium, and San Sebastian, in Spain, in the course of a single
day; and in the United States as much as five hundred miles has been
traversed in from twenty-four to twenty-eight hours--that is, the
birds were absent from loft to loft for that period. But, as the
progress of the pigeon from one station to another cannot be
accurately followed, it may have halted on the way. The bird is
believed to travel the first day without stopping, and being stiff
and sore, to rest the second day, resuming its journey on the third,
since it is seldom that "a return" comes back travel-stained or weary.

When the rearing and training of carrier-pigeons for French military
service was seriously undertaken, the first thing to be done was to
find a breed of birds at once intelligent, hardy, strong, light on the
wing, and of a dull, uniform colour, likely to escape notice and
pursuit. All these attributes are possessed by the Belgian breed, which
is divided into two classes; the large, heavy Antwerp, and the smaller,
lighter Luttrich variety. The scientific training, which must be begun
early, is as follows: As soon as the young pigeons can fly they are
taken out of the pigeon-house, put into a basket, and carried (always
with the flying-hole of the basket kept carefully turned towards the
pigeon-house), to an unknown spot at a short distance, where they are
set free and let fly home. It is seldom that a pigeon fails, in the
first short trial, to find its way back to its paternal nest. At each
trial the distance is slightly lengthened. Pigeons six months old are
liberated at a distance of eighty kilometres from home, those of a year
old at one hundred and fifty kilometres, those of two years at three
hundred kilometres, and older tried birds at six hundred to eight
hundred kilometres. These, of course, are average measurements, and are
varied according to circumstance. The percentage of losses naturally
increases with increasing distance. In long flights the birds meet with
innumerable hindrances; rain, hail, fog, wind, and thunderstorms not
only impede their flight, but often affect their wonderful sense of
locality and direction. The birds are remarkably sensitive to
electricity, so that thunderstorms are peculiarly baffling to them, and
large forests, great extents of water, and ranges of mountains
influence and alter the upper air currents, by the direction of which
the pigeons, taught by some marvellous "instinct," are able to steer
their course. The average speed of a pigeon is reckoned at a kilometre
a minute, and on this basis, and taking into consideration the time of
year, length of daylight, weather, &c., calculations are made of the
distance a pigeon can be sent. In summer, when daylight begins at
half-past three in the morning and lasts till half-past eight at night,
a trained pigeon can fly about one thousand kilometres in a day, while
on a foggy November day, when the daylight begins late and darkness
comes on early, the same bird cannot accomplish more than four hundred
kilometres. One great drawback hitherto attendant on the use of pigeons
has been the supposed impossibility of making them fly backwards and
forwards between two points; they would only fly in one direction. Now,
however, Captain Malogoli, the head of the Italian military carrier
pigeon depôts, has, after immense and unwearying trouble, succeeded in
getting his pigeons to fly backwards and forwards between Rome and
Civita Vecchia (seventy-two kilometres). This practical success has
shattered the theories of various ornithologists, as Russ, who have
affirmed that pigeons cannot be made to fly in two directions. The
chief points to be observed in the rearing of pigeons are--roomy, warm
houses, facing toward the sun; scrupulous cleanliness, light food, and
abundance of clean, fresh water. The smaller the bird, and the quieter
its colour, the better chance it stands of safety from human and other
enemies; among the latter the falcon is the most dangerous. The
military pigeon-post is best organised in Germany, Italy, and France.
In the last French budget a sum of sixty-eight thousand francs was
devoted to this branch of the service, and there are at present in
France twenty-two sub-depôts, besides the chief pigeon station. In
Italy there are twelve sub-depôts, and five in the Italian possessions
in Africa.

The following are the regulations as to training and flying in
connection with the messenger war pigeons in Italy. The posts of
Digdegha, the wells of Tata, as well as the detachments sent out to
reconnoitre towards Ailet, Assur, &c., send their reports by means of
pigeons from the dovecote installed at Massowa, whence they are
forwarded to the headquarters at Saati. On rainy days, and when the
communications are confidential, the despatches are introduced into
goose-quills and sealed; but as this operation, above all when the
troops are on the march, entails a certain loss of time, they must
only, when possible, write a despatch on a leaf of a pocket-book with
which every officer and non-commissioned officer is provided; the
despatch is then tied to a tail-feather of the bird. Conventional signs
are also used in the case of a detachment being surprised by the enemy
and not having time to send a telegram. For instance, when one or more
pigeons arrive at the dovecote without despatches, and with the loss of
some tail feathers, it is a sign that the troops have been attacked.
Sometimes marks made with colour supply such-and-such information. Each
detachment carries three or four pigeons in a light basket of bamboo
and net. The distances being short, each despatch is sent by one
pigeon. A first despatch is sent at the hour fixed in advance by the
commander, the others successively as there is news to transmit. The
pigeon-basket is borne by soldiers, who relieve one another at stated
intervals. The grains of wheat and vessels of water are confided to a
corporal, who has the care of the pigeons. When the detachment has to
remain absent more than a day, they take with them four pigeons, with
wheat and water in a leathern case. If they have to return in a day,
they carry but three pigeons, with the food and drink necessary. The
frequent arrival of these birds from all quarters presents a curious
appearance. When they arrive they perch at the window of the dovecot,
where their mates and young await them. To enter they must pass through
a sort of cage-trap, which does not permit them to return, and at the
same time separates them from the other pigeons. The weight of the
newcomer sets an electric bell ringing; and this signal continues all
the time the bird remains in the trap; thus giving notice to the
sergeant of the guard, who takes the despatch and forwards it to
headquarters.

The liability of so defenceless a bird as the pigeon to attack has led
to experiments being undertaken from time to time with young ravens,
which make fairly quick and reliable messengers up to a distance of
about fifty miles. As the raven is very teachable (it can be made to
"retrieve" most creditably), and as it manifests a strong attachment to
its birth-place, there seems no reason why its training should not be
further extended in the new direction, for which its great spirit and
endurance appear eminently to fit it.

Here I have only touched upon the speed and power of flight, but the
whole subject is one of the most fascinating branches of natural
history. No reference has been made to the marvellous movements of
birds in the air, which constitute the very poetry of motion--the
stationary balancing, hovering, circling, and gliding, all of which may
be observed, especially among our own birds of prey.

Although much is known of the speed of birds and animals, there are but
few ascertained facts concerning that of insects and fishes. The
comparatively low intelligence of these two classes of animals makes it
difficult to direct them. They rarely fly or swim in anything
approaching to a straight line, and experiments give only approximate
results. Pike in pursuit of their prey seem to flash through the water;
and salmon and trout move almost as quickly. The Spanish mackerel, with
its smooth, cone-shaped body, is among the swiftest of fishes, and for
speed only finds a parallel in the dolphin. There is a great similarity
in shape between these two, and both cut the water like a yacht. The
first follows the fastest steamers with the greatest ease, in its
dashes swimming at five times their speed. The bonito is also a fast
swimmer; and all those fishes "trimmed" in like fashion with him.

There is one insect to which attention may be drawn, as affording a
most striking example of speed among lowly-winged creatures. That is
the dragon-fly. I have frequently had an opportunity of dropping into
company with the largest species (_Libellula grandis_), in its
aerial excursions in autumn by a particular roadside, along which
there was a rushy-margined pool. At such times the writer has been
occasionally on foot,--more frequently driving. On foot one has
scarcely any means of judging of its speed, for in a moment it is past
and gone out of sight. But what is the experience when you are driving,
say at ten or twelve miles an hour? This rapid voyager passes over,
proceeds beyond you almost out of sight, then turns, swerving widely
from right to left, repasses again in both directions, traversing
repeatedly the ground, while you are travelling, or rather dragging,
over the same space of about a mile only once. We are apt to exaggerate
in these matters, but with every allowance, having compared the flight
of a dragon-fly with that of a passing hawk, swallow, or cuckoo, I have
computed that this large species is capable of flying at a speed of
from eighty to one hundred miles an hour--an enormous draw upon the
creature's nerves and muscular powers, as manifested by occasional
rests of a few minutes upon a bush or a piece of sedge, its habits not
requiring uninterrupted flight at such a pace. Perhaps the need of
these occasional rests is an erroneous opinion founded upon too limited
an area of observation. For Cuvier has stated that M. Poey, who had
particularly studied the insects of Cuba, informed him that at certain
seasons of the year the northerly winds bring to the city of Havannah
and its neighbourhood an innumerable quantity of specimens of one
of the species of _Libellulæ_. Other instances of the periodical
flights or migrations of dragon-flies have been noted by observers.
And even butterflies have been seen to migrate to distant points of
land, making flights of fifty or sixty miles across water. These long
journeys may be relieved by occasional rests, as Mr. Newman and others
have ascertained that lepidopterous insects are able to alight upon the
water, rest awhile, and then rise with apparent ease--a fact readily
credited by fishermen, who so frequently see the green-and-grey drake
and other _ephemeræ_ float down stream, and, if not taken by the
trout, suddenly spring up again, and resume their aerial dances. But
this power of rapid movement in the dragonfly, be the rate more or
less, is in just keeping with its structure. The insect's body is
slender, the chest strongly developed, though firm; the wings, four
in number, are narrow, of great length, and consist of fine, thin,
dry membrane, stretched upon a series of lightly made _costæ_, or
rafters. No wonder, then, that with such a mechanism the creature
pursues its prey of smaller insects with such rapidity.

There are many insects which one would little suspect being furnished
with apparatus suited to swift and more or less continuous flight.
House flies frequent the insides of our windows, buzzing sluggishly in
and out of the room. But what different creatures are they when they
accompany your horse on a hot summer's day. A swarm of these little
pests keep pertinaciously on wing about the horse's ears; quicken the
pace up to ten or twelve miles an hour, still they are there; let a
gust of wind arise and carry them backwards and behind, the breeze
having dropped, their speed is redoubled, and they return to their post
of annoyance to the poor horse, even when urged to its fastest pace.
But this example gives only a partial proof of the fly's power of
flight, as the following will show. The writer was travelling one day
in autumn by rail at about twenty-five miles an hour, when a company of
flies put in an appearance at the carriage window. They never settled,
but easily kept pace with the train; so much so, indeed, that their
flight seemed to be almost mechanical, and a thought struck the writer
that they had probably been drawn into a kind of vortex, whereby they
were carried onward with little exertion on the part of themselves. But
this notion was quickly dispelled. They sallied forth at right-angles
from the carriage, flew to a distance of thirty or forty feet, still
keeping pace, and then returned with increased speed and buoyancy to
the window. To account for this look at the wings of a fly. Each
is composed of an upper and lower membrane, between which the
blood-vessels and respiratory organs ramify so as to form a delicate
network for the extended wings. These are used with great quickness,
and probably six hundred strokes are made per second. This would carry
the fly about twenty-five feet, but a seven-fold velocity can easily be
attained, making one hundred and seventy-five feet per second, so that
under certain circumstances it can outstrip the fleetest racehorse. If
a small insect like a fly can outstrip a racehorse, an insect as large
as a horse would travel very much faster than a cannon-ball.

Bees and wasps are even swifter than flies. Here is another actual
incident. The present writer has sprinkled individual wasps and bees
with rose-coloured powder, and has found that thus handicapped they
could with ease keep up with the fastest trains when speeding down
"Shap Summit," one of the steepest gradients in the country. Nor were
these carried along in the rush of air caused by the train. They would
come in and out of the window, sometimes disappearing for a minute or
more, but frequently returning again and again. At distances of from
five to ten miles they dropped behind, when others took their places.
All of us have seen the flagging, lazy butterfly, flitting from flower
to flower in our gardens--not quite so lazy, however, if goaded on by
some urgent motive. For when this little flutterer, touched by some
strange and mysterious feeling which we cannot read, mounts on sportive
wings, "through fields of air prepared to sail," she hurries onwards
and onwards to some new haven of real or fancied delight and happiness.
Such were the thoughts which occurred when one of these wanderers
accompanied the writer by the roadside for a couple of miles, never
flagging a yard behind, nay, sometimes being before a horse that was
travelling at the rate of nine or ten miles an hour. What could all
this speed and earnestness of the little creature mean? It is not easy
to explain how the butterfly, with its broad, soft, feathery wings,
should be able to accomplish the feat of speed just recorded.[1]

          [1] For several interesting facts concerning the flight of
          insects, especially the dragon-fly, I am indebted to the late
          Dr. Gough.

In the tropics countless swarms of locusts sometimes suddenly make
their appearance, and as suddenly vanish. They cover every leaf-bearing
thing, and occasionally completely denude whole districts of greenery.
So great are their powers of flight that they have been seen at sea
nearly four hundred miles from nearest land. In Natal the farmers,
rightly or wrongly, believe that the locusts introduce injurious seeds
upon their grass-lands, and the following would seem to show that their
belief is well founded. A Mr. Weale, who was of their way of thinking,
collected a packet of dried pellets and sent them to England. When
closely examined under the microscope they revealed a number of tiny
seeds, from which plants of seven kinds of grasses were ultimately
raised.

Among animals, those which have been longest under the care of man
have attained to the greatest degree of perfection in all those
qualities it has been deemed wise to develop. With his mind bent on
utility, man has striven to improve the staying and flying power of
pigeons; the strength and swiftness of horses; and has himself proved
to be a marvellous instance of speed and endurance. To observe the
differences of locomotion, both as regards structural contrivance and
speed among animals--the term "animal" being extended to every
member, high or low, within the province of the animal kingdom--is
one of the most fascinating of out-door studies. It is not an easy
matter, however, to compute the speed or mileage of quick-moving
animals. Among quadrupeds, the horse perhaps may be considered the
fleetest. "Hambletonian" covered a space of four miles in eight
minutes, which is but thirty miles an hour, if it could be continued.
"Firetail" ran a mile in one minute and four seconds; and the famous
"Eclipse" is said to have gone at the rate of a mile in a minute for
a short distance. But it is difficult to form any exact estimate of
his speed, as he never met with an opponent to put him to the test.
During one of his trials, an old woman, according to Youatt, was
asked if she had seen a race. Her reply was that "she could not tell
whether it was a race or not, but she had seen a horse with a white
leg running away at a monstrous rate, and another horse, a great way
behind, trying to run after him; but she was sure he would never
catch the white-legged horse, even if he ran to the world's end." The
above records refer of course to horses galloping; but trotting,
which is more or less an artificial mode of horse progression, has,
with regard to speed, almost been reduced to an art. For facts
concerning it we must look mainly to America, and perhaps no records
are more interesting than those of the famous trotting mare "Maud S."
On September 1st, 1884, Maud ran a mile over the Hartford track in
two minutes twenty-eight seconds; and every fourth day she trotted
over the same distance, the first being the slowest, and the fourth
the fastest--two minutes twenty seconds. At the end of eight days her
training consisted of trotting over two or three mile journeys, with
the result that the time was brought down to two minutes thirteen
seconds; and three days later to two minutes eleven and three-quarter
seconds. Resting some days, Maud was again tried, and among other
times succeeded in trotting the mile in a fraction of a second over
the above, but went marvellously in the last half-mile. Subsequently
to this she was shipped to Lexington, Kentucky, and when she had
covered the mile distance in two minutes sixteen and a half seconds,
it was decided that three days hence she should endeavour to beat her
own great record. This she succeeded in doing by trotting a mile in
two minutes nine and a half seconds; and a year later Maud made the
world's record--two minutes eight and three-quarter seconds. This is
what no other horse ever accomplished, and the interesting phase of
the situation is that the mare is even now in training to beat her
own splendid record given above.

As compared to the rate of speed in animals, those attained by man are
interesting. A hundred yards has been run in ten seconds; two hundred
yards in twenty and two-fifths; three hundred yards in thirty-one and a
half; and a quarter of a mile in forty-eight and four-fifths seconds,
by Messrs. A. Wharton, J. Shearman, C. G. Wood, and L. E. Myers
respectively. Mr. W. G. George holds the championship for one mile and
up to ten miles; his time for the former distance being four minutes
eighteen and two-fifths seconds, and for the latter fifty-one minutes
twenty seconds. For fifteen, twenty, and twenty-five miles Mr. G. A.
Dunning holds the record; the first distance being covered in one hour
twenty-four minutes and twenty-four seconds; the last in two hours
thirty-three minutes forty seconds. The same gentleman is champion at
forty miles. Mr. J. A. Squires has run thirty miles in three hours
seventeen minutes thirty-six and a-half seconds; and Mr. J. E. Dixon is
fifty-mile champion with six hours eighteen minutes and twenty-six and
one-fifth seconds--all truly marvellous performances.




CHAPTER V.

THE SNOW-WALKERS.


This morning--

    We looked upon a world unknown,
    On nothing we could call our own.
    Around the glistening wonder bent
    The blue walls of the firmament;
    No cloud above, no earth below,
    A universe of sky and snow.

The sun shines, and a rosy suffusion is over the landscape. All the
fences are buried deep, and the trees stand starkly outlined against
the sky. Millions of snow-crystals glint athwart the fields. Birds
swarm in the garden--the home birds more confiding and the wild birds
tame. Tits hang to the suet bags, and a general assembly flock to the
cornsheaf. A ring-ouzel flies wildly from the rowan-tree, and four or
five species of thrushes are among the berries of the shrubs.

So softly winnowed is the falling snow that it scarce bends the few
grasses and dead plants that now appear above its surface. The kindly
snow obliterates the torn and abraded scars of nature; but it not the
less effectually reproduces the prints of her children. To the light
the snow reveals the doings of the night. Does a mouse so much as
cross, she leaves her delicate tracery on the white coverlet. Away from
the homestead rabbits have crossed and recrossed the fields in a
perfect maze. That ill-defined "pad" tracks a hare to the turnips.
Pheasants and wood-pigeons have scratched for mast beneath the beeches,
and we find red blood-drops along the fence. These are tracked to a
colony of weasels in the old wall. Last night a piteous squeal might
have been heard from the half-buried fence, and the little tragedy
would be played out upon the snow. Five wild swans cleave the thin air
far up, and fly off with outstretched necks. The tiny brown wren bids
defiance to the weather; darting in and out of every hole and crevice,
usually reappearing with the cocoon of some insect in its bill. These
delicate footprints reproduce the long toes of the lark, and those are
the tracks of the meadow pipit. The hedge-berries are almost gone; and
here the redwing and fieldfare have run along the fence bottom in
search of fallen fruit. Those larger tracks by the sheep troughs show
that the hungry rooks have been scratching near, and the chatter of
magpies comes from the fir-tree tops. Scattered pine cones betoken a
flock of incessantly chattering crossbills; and once in the fir wood we
caught a glimpse of the scarlet appendages of the rare Bohemian
waxwing. The gaudily-coloured yellow-hammer shows well against the
snow, and bathes its orange plumage in the feathered rain. How our
British finches seem to enjoy the frost and snow! Certain it is that
now their stores of food become scant; but then they throw in their lot
with the sparrows of barn-door and rick-yard. The bright bachelor finch
stands out from his pure setting, and the daws look black against the
snow. "Tweet," "tweet," comes through the cold thin air, and is
startling in its stillness; and now we may hear as well as see the
flight of a flock of linnets and goldfinches. Here observe a tall,
nodding thistle-head, its once dark green leaves shrivelled up and
turned to grey, its purple flower-rays to russet brown. They contain
ripened seeds. A goldfinch hangs to the under surface, and a
rose-breasted linnet clings to the topmost spray. The two frail things
are not unlike in form, though the goldfinch is by far the handsomer
bird. His prettily-shaped beak is flesh-coloured, as are also his legs.
His head has patches of scarlet, white, and black, each well defined
and setting off the other. The breast and back are of varying tints of
warm russet brown, and the feathers of the wing are picked out with
orange. His tail is alternately elevated and depressed as he changes
his position; and the patches of golden yellow are well brought out as
he flutters from spray to spray. Thus do the linnet and the goldfinch
go through the winter, together ranging the fields, and feeding upon
the seeds they can pick up.

Along the meadow brook a stately heron has left its imprints; the
water-hen's track is marked through the reeds; and there upon the icy
margin are the blurred webs of wild ducks. A bright red squirrel runs
along the white wall. In its warm furs it shows sharply against the
fence. Naturalists say that the squirrel hibernates through the winter;
but this is hardly so. A bright day, even though cold and frosty,
brings him out to visit some summer store. The prints of the squirrel
are sharply cut, the tail at times just brushing the snow. The mountain
linnets have come down to the lowlands; and we flush a flock from an
ill-farmed field where weeds run rampant. When alarmed the birds wheel
aloft, uttering the while soft twitterings, then betake themselves to
the trees. The seeds of brook-lime, flax, and knapweed the twite seems
partial to, and this wild-weed field is to them a very paradise. Just
now, walking in the woods, the cry of the bullfinch is heard as perhaps
the most melancholy of all our birds, but its bright scarlet breast
compensates for its want of cheeriness. A flock of diminutive
gold-crests rush past us, and in the fir wood we hear but cannot see a
flock of siskins.

Higher up the valley, towards the hills, tracks of another kind begin
to appear. On the fells we come across a dead herdwick, trampled about
with innumerable feet. We examine these closely, and find that they are
only of two species--the raven and the buzzard. Further in the scrub we
track a pine-marten to its lair in the rocks. The dogs drive it from
its stronghold, and, being arboreal in its habits, it immediately makes
up the nearest pine trunk. Its rich brown fur and orange throat make it
one of the most lithely beautiful of British animals. A pair of stoats
or ermines, with their flecked coats just in the transition stage, have
their haunt in the same wood. From the snow we see that last night they
have threaded the aisles of the pines in search of food. This clear-cut
sharp track by the fence is that of a fox.

Another fascinating aspect of nature in winter are the woods. When
snow-covered there is a grandeur and majesty about them such as they
never wear at other times. The giant limbs of the trees stand starkly
outlined against the sky, and nought but sound silence possesses the
aisles of plumed pines. Except the faint trickle of the stream, it
would seem almost as though the pulse of nature had ceased to beat. Of
course, this only applies to the interior of the woods, and the
suggestion is emphasised by the thick soft carpetings of pine needles
where these have dropped for many tree-generations.

Once again we are enjoying the pleasure of wild shooting in winter, but
now in the open glades. Again there has been a slight fall of snow,
and, sure, morning was never more beautiful. The feathered rain is
crisp to the tread, and the warm sun converts the air to that of
summer. The sea is blue, the hills rose-tinted, and the snow-crystals
make the landscape gloriously, dazzlingly bright. A coating of snow
will always arrest the eye of the observant sportsman, more especially
if he have a _penchant_ for natural history. There are the tracks
and trails of birds and animals, and what zest is added to the search
in the possibility of finding a new one! Only those who follow the
tracks of the snow-walkers know really how rich is the land in all
animate nature. Be the stitching on the white coverlet never so faint
or so delicate, it is always rendered faithfully. In the snow we read
out the history of the wild creatures immediately about us, the
existence of which we never even suspected. In our home fields there
are two or three mice, as many shrews, and a couple of voles. These
latter leave their tracks in the hedge-bottoms, or along the stream
sides, and we see not only where they have burrowed, but what they have
eaten. The shrews and mice are on dryer ground, and their delicate feet
have pencilled the prettiest patterns upon the snow. The tracks of the
partridge are pretty, too, and from them we read what ceaseless runners
the birds are. A depression shows where they have roosted last night,
and then their tracks may be followed through the stubble and seed
fields. By the brook-side are the hair-like tracings of innumerable
small birds; and the water margins here record the fullest registering.
This may be owing to the soft brook banks and their aquatic life, when
the rest of the fields are icebound. Then many of the spawning fish are
still on the redds, and the prospect of these may be an additional
inducement to some of the fish-feeding creatures. Here, clutching a
tuft of couch-grass is a dead barn-owl, for which the intense cold has
proved too much--one enemy less to the shrews and field mice, whose
hasty tracks here and there show that more than once last night they
have had to beat a hasty retreat. Once during the day, as the ferrets
were turned into a burrow, some one pointed out a brace of ermines that
had doubtless been looking after the rabbits on their own account. They
were still in their brown summer fur, and made their way over the snow
and out of harm's way at a remarkably rapid rate. This little incident
reminds us of a brown owl which emerged from a rabbit-hole just as the
ermines did, and curiously enough these birds had a couple of eggs and
a young one even in December, with the ground snow-covered. The heavy
blurred tracks of grouse were at first difficult to determine, and the
key to them was only to be found in the birds themselves, as they rose
with a startling whirr. They had been driven from the higher to the
lower ground in search of food. One of the terriers disinterred a spiny
hedgehog from its warm, leafy retreat, and "Prickles" probably felt
much mystified to find himself in a world of dazzling whiteness.

There was one other track which it would be long and devious to
follow--one which had been abroad under the moon and stars, and from
its trail would seem to have known the ways and the haunts of both
furred and feathered game by heart--and that was the old poacher. The
snow is a great tell-tale, but it causes the poacher's eye to grow keen
and his step firm; and nothing but the gaol walls will prevent his
being a snow-walker. His life has been one long protest against the
game laws; and whatever he is, or is not, he believes them to be
unjust.




CHAPTER VI.

WHEN DARKNESS HAS FALLEN.


A time of absolute quiet can never be observed in the country. It
matters not as to time and season; there seems to be no general period
of repose. There is always something abroad, some creature of the
fields and woods, which by its voice or movements is betrayed. Just as
in an old rambling house there are always strange noises that cannot be
accounted for, so in the by-paths of nature there are innumerable
sounds which can never be localised. To those, however, who pursue
night avocations in the country--gamekeepers, poachers, and
others--there are always calls and cries which bespeak life as animate
under the night as that of the day. This is attributable to various
animals and birds, to night-flying insects, and even to fish. Let us
track some of these sounds to their source.

"When comes still evening on, and twilight grey hath in her sober
liv'ry all things clad," then it is that the white owl comes abroad.
Passing the remains of an old baronial hall, its piercing screech comes
from the dismantled tower. Here the owls have lived time out of mind,
and we have seen and heard them, asleep and awake, through every hour
of the day and night. It is unnatural history to assert, as Mr. Gray
does, that the barn-owls ever mope or mourn or are melancholy. Neither
are they grave monks nor anchorites nor pillared saints. A boding bird
or a dolorous! Nonsense, they are none of these. They issue forth as
very devils, and like another spirit of the night, sail about seeking
whom they may devour. The barn-owl is the "screech" owl of bird
literature; the brown owl the true hooting owl. This species is found
in heavily-timbered districts, and it particularly loves the dark and
sombre gloom of resinous pine woods. But the barn-owl is only the
precursor of new life--life as animate under the night, as that of the
birds and butterflies under the day. We follow the path by the river,
and on through the meadows. Among the nut-bush tops a bat is hawking
for night-flying insects. Great white moths get up from the grass and
go looming away through the darkness. A bend in the stream brings us to
a quiet river reach with brown pebbles and a shallow.

A sentinel heron that has been standing watchful on one leg rises, and
flaps languidly away down the river reach. The consumptive figure of
the gaunt bird stands by the stream through all weathers. He knows not
times nor seasons, and is a great poacher. In the wind, when taking his
lone stand, his loose fluttering feathers look like drift-stuff caught
in the bushes. He reminds one of the consumptive, but, unlike him, has
wonderful powers of digestion, and withal an immense capacity for fish.
Woe to the luckless mort or trout that comes within reach of his
formidable pike, or to the attacking peregrine that he attempts to
impale on his bill. The heron is essentially a wanderer, and, like
Wordsworth's immortal leech-gatherer, he roams from pond to pond, from
moor to moor. Herons come and go by the same routes; and night after
night have we flushed our fisher from the selfsame shallow.

The peculiarly wild whistle of the curlew comes from out the night sky,
and swifts screech for an hour after darkness has fallen. We are now by
the covert side, and a strange churring sound comes from out the
darkened glades. Waiting silently beneath the bushes, it approaches
nearer and nearer until a loud flapping is heard in the bushes. The
object approaches quite closely, and it is seen that the noise is
produced by a large bird striking its wings together as they meet
behind. Even in the darkness it may be detected that each wing is
crossed by a definite white bar. The bird is a goatsucker or nightjar.
Had we it in our hand, we should see that it was a connecting link
between the owls and the swallows, having the soft plumage and
noiseless flight of the one and the wide gape of the other. The object
of the noise it produces is probably to disturb from the bushes the
large nightflying moths upon which it feeds. The name goatsucker the
bird has from a superstitious notion that it sucks goats and cows--a
myth founded probably upon the fact of its wide gape. It is certain
that these birds may often be seen flitting about the bellies of cattle
as they stand knee-deep in the summer pastures. The reason of this is
obvious, as there insect food is always abundant. Unless disturbed, the
nightjar rarely comes abroad during the day, but obtains its food at
twilight and dusk. Upon the limestone-covered fells it conforms
marvellously to its environment, it being almost impossible to detect
its curiously mottled plumage as it basks upon the grey stones, not
more still than itself. Here it lays its two eggs, often without the
slightest semblance of a nest, frequently upon the bare rock. Quite a
peculiar interest attaches to the bird, inasmuch as it is furnished
with a remarkable claw, the use of which is guessed at rather than
known. This claw is serrated on its inner edge, and from actual
experiments made upon nightjars in captivity, we should surmise that
its use is to free the long whiskers from the soft, silvery dust which
usually covers the bodies of night-flying moths. Certain it is that
this substance gets upon the whiskers of the bird, and that the long
hairs referred to are combed through the serrated claw. About the mouth
the goatsucker is very swallow-like. It has a bullet-shaped head, large
eyes, and a wide gape. Like the swallows, too, it has a weak,
ineffective bill, and weak feet. This is explained by the fact that the
bird, except when nesting, is rarely seen on the ground, and that it
captures its insect prey on the wing. From twilight till grey does the
fern-owl "churr" and fly through the night.

As we proceed, a splash comes from the river, and some large-winged fly
has been sucked under. The night food comes on, and the reach boils.
Water-rats, voles, and shrews are busy among the stones searching for
insect larvæ, or gnawing the stalks of water-plants. The wafting of
wings overhead betokens a curlew flying through the darkness to its
feeding ground. The peculiarly lonely wail of the summer-snipe comes
down stream, and a teal stretches her neck low over the sand. The river
here resolves itself into a gorge, and runs deep betwixt shelving
rocks. The water ceaselessly moans and chafes down there in the
darkness. Badgers have their haunt deep in the brambles, their tortuous
burrows running far out among the boulders. From the tree-tops we may
watch them digging for roots and wasps' nests, and now and then
snapping at flies. Passing the deep dub by the "Force," we find old
Phil, the fisher, plying his silent trade even thus into the night.
Phil leads his own life, and is contemplative as becomes his craft.
Nature's every sight and sound he has, as it were, by heart, and he
makes friends even with the creeping things. As we watch, a salmon,
fresh from the sea, leaps from the silvery foam and flashes in the
moonlight.

One of the greatest night-helps to the gamekeeper in staying the
depredations of poachers is the lapwing. It is the lightest sleeper of
the fields, starting up from the fallows and screaming upon the
slightest alarm. Poachers dread the detection of this bird, and the
keeper closely follows its cry. A hare rushing wildly past will put the
plover away from its roost; and when hares act thus in the darkness,
there is generally some good cause for it. The skylark and woodlark are
both occasional night-singers, and it is common to hear cuckoos call in
the densest darkness. Still we follow on. Rabbits have made pitfalls in
the loose, yellow sand, and we see their white scuts as vanishing
points in the darkness. Mice rustle away, and a hedgehog comes to the
pool to drink. One of the latter we saw just now taken in the keeper's
trap, the latter baited with a pheasant's egg. The squeal of a foumart
comes from the loose stones. Later it will feed on the frogs now
croaking from the ditch; these it kills by piercing their skulls.

If the cuckoo tells her name to all the hills, so does the
sedge-warbler to the fluted reeds. And, like that wandering voice, our
little bird seems dispossessed of a corporeal existence, and on through
summer is "still longed for, never seen"--and this though common
enough, for you may wander long among the willows, with a bird in every
bush, without one showing outside its corral of boughs. Wherever
vegetation grows tall and luxuriant, there the "reed-wren" may be
found. It travels in the night: you go out some May morning, and the
rollicking intoxication of the garrulous little bird comes from out the
self-same bush from which you missed it in autumn. From the time it
first arrives it begins to sing louder and louder as the warm weather
advances, especially in the evenings. Then it is that it listens to the
loud-swelling bird-choir of the woods, selecting a note from this and
another from that; for the sedge-warbler is an imitator, a mocking
bird, and reproduces in fragments the songs of many species. The little
mimic runs up and down the gamut in the most riotous fashion, parodying
not only the loud, clear whistle of the blackbird, but the wholly
differing soft, sweet notes of the willow-wren. This is kept up through
the night, and the puzzle is when the little musician sleeps. If the
sedge-warbler ceases its song through any hour of the day or night, a
clod thrown into the bushes will immediately set it going again. Yet
what can be said of a song that a clod of earth will produce? Sometimes
for a moment it is sweet, but never long-sustained. In the North, where
there are few ditches, the species frequents river-banks and the sides
of tarns; in the South, it abounds everywhere in marshy places. Here
the rank grass swarms with them; the thicker the reed-patch or willow,
the more birds are there. With perfect silence, a distant view of the
bird is sometimes obtained at the top of the bushes, as it flits after
an insect. As it runs up and clings to the tall grass stalks, it is
pleasing both in form and colour. Among the grasses and water-plants it
has its game preserves. Water-beetles, ephemeræ, and the teeming
aquatic insects constitute its food. To watch through a glass the
obtaining of these is most interesting. Reed-sparrow and reed-wren are
pretty provincial names of the bird, each expressive enough.

A powerful perfume rises from the ground-weeds, and stooping low, we
detect dame's violet. The purple _Hesperis matronalis_ emits its
sweet smell only at night, and is fertilised by moths. This, too, holds
good of the evening campion (_Lychins vespertina_), only its scent
is fainter. For this, however, the colour of its white petals amply
compensates, as they are more easily seen in the darkness. Further on,
we detect _Orchis bifolia_, which is also particularly sweet, and
with the same object. All these emit fragrance at night, and are
fertilised _only_ by night-flying insects. A crash! the underwood
is rudely torn, and a form disappears in the darkness. The crackling of
boughs and dead sticks mark on the stillness of night the poacher's
sinuous path through the woods. Soon his old black bitch slinks by the
hedge, clears the fence at a bound, and doggedly follows her master's
footsteps. Crake answers crake from the meadows as they have done
through the night. Now they are at our feet, now far out yonder. The
night call of the partridge comes from the gorse, and the first
pheasant crows from the larch branches. On the hill we wade through a
herd of recumbent heifers, their sketchy forms sharply outlined in the
darkness. These are quietly chewing the cud, and turn upon us their
great soft eyes; some even press their dewy noses against us. The sweet
breath of kine is wafted on the night, and the drone of many insects.

It is wonderful how lightly the creatures of the fields and woods
sleep. The faintest rustle brings chirping from the bushes, and in the
densest darkness the wood pigeons coo. Jays screech in the glade, and
the wood-owls hoot. One of the essentially night-singers is the
grasshopper warbler. Shy and retiring in its habits, it is rarely found
far distant from aquatic vegetation. Moist situations are most
congenial, as among the plants that effect them it finds its winged
food. Although generally effecting such spots as indicated, it
sometimes seeks out considerable elevations. These are covered with
coarse grass, bent, furze, and heather; and here, far into the night,
it reels out its continuous cricket-like song. It returns to the same
spot year after year, and although from these the particular notes may
be often heard, the singer itself is nowhere to be seen. At the least
noise it drops from the support on which it may be depending into the
grass beneath, then is silent. The song is long continued, but the
sounds are constantly shifting, marking the restless track of the
singer on the night. It needs no stretch of imagination to detect in
the notes of this species the similarity to the grasshopper, and the
"monotonous whirr like the spinning of a fishing-reel," is fairly
expressible of the bird's song. Perfect master of intricate maze and
covert, it is never far from them. Even though it has ventured above
his accustomed limits, its vigilance sends it back at the least noise,
though its retreat is rarely observed, for instead of flying, it creeps
closely, never rising when alarmed. Again we pass into the darkness.
Moles have thrown up ridges of loose, light soil; and these cross us
again and again. The short, sharp bark of a fox comes from the scrub;
and soon dog and vixen answer each other across the dale.

And now we enter the park. The deer, disturbed in the darkness, get up
and walk quietly away. A white fawn is outlined against the dark herd.
Whenever an owner dies, say the menials at the Hall, a great bough is
riven from the giant oak; whenever a new heir comes to the estate, a
white fawn is born. Under the dark slabs by the river the otters breed;
but it is impossible to dislodge them. Iron-sinewed, shaggy
otter-hounds have tried, but never with success. The fishermen complain
of the quantity of fish which the otter destroys. Trout are found dead
on the rocks; salmon are there bitten in the shoulder, but only
partially eaten. The evolutions of the otter in its native element are
the poetry of motion minus only the metre.

When almost the whole of the insect-world has folded its wings in
sleep, there is a class of night-flyers whose hours of activity are
those of darkness. Among the more interesting of these is the male
glow-worm--the English lantern-fly--whose light may be plainly seen as
he flits past, pale and ghostly against the dark background of some
deeply-foliaged bank or shadowy wood. Then there is the great army of
night-flying moths, whose nocturnal wanderings present such a weird
appearance in the darkness, and whose life-history contrasts so sharply
with the sunny dalliance of their butterfly cousins. As moths have to
contend with the night winds their constitution is more robust than
that of the _rhopolocera_, or day-fliers. Their bodies are
thicker, their wings narrower and more strongly nerved. As they settle
themselves on corrugated bark or grey stones to their deep, diurnal
sleep, their sober and inconspicuous colouring invariably saves them
even from detection. In many species this daily trance is so profound
that a slumbering insect may be transfixed and never detect the
occurrence until twilight again comes round. But if the closely-folded
upper wings are quiet and sober in colouring this is only for
protective reasons; for brilliant toilets are presented when twilight
falls and affords its dewy veil. Under the closely-folded wings of
dusky grey are bright bodices of red, scarlet, crimson, and orange.
What an admirable chapter "The Loves of the Night-Flyers" would afford
by one who had fondly watched the fairy things through the dewy hours
of a short summer night.

The twilight-flyers afford a distinct class to the night-flyers,
and have several well-marked characteristics. These are termed
hawk-moths, and have long, sharp, scythe-like wings. The death's-head
moth, the largest and most interesting British species, belongs to
this group. It seldom comes abroad before darkness has fallen, and is
always conspicuous in its nocturnal flight. Linnæus, following his
habitual system of nomenclature, placed this insect in the "sphinx"
family on account of the form of its magnificent caterpillar, and
gave it the specific name of _Atropos_, in allusion to the popular
superstition. Atropos being, according to Hesiod, the one of the
fates whose office it was to cut the thread of human life, spun
by her sisters, Clotho and Lachesis. Modern entomologists have
preserved the idea of Linnæus, giving to the new genus the name of
_acherontia_--pertaining to Acheron, one of the streams which, in the
Greek mythology, have to be passed before entering the infernal
regions. A low, wailing sound which this insect emits has greatly
added to the terror which its appearance inspires among ignorant
rustics. The death's-head moth is a really splendid insect. Its
stretched wings cover four and a half inches, and it is the largest
of the British Lepidoptera. As is well known, it has its popular name
from a marvellously good representation of a skull and crossbones
upon the upper part of the thorax--a mark which has caused it to be
an object of dread in every country which it inhabits. Fluttering at
the window in the darkness, or entering the house by the open door,
just after the close of twilight, it is considered a certain omen of
death. Like the hoarse croak of the raven, and the "boding" hoot
of the owl, the appearance of this moth is said to be followed by
disease and death. The power possessed by the death's-head insect of
emitting a shrill, creaking sound, is thought to be unique among the
British Lepidoptera, and each time the strange sound is emitted, the
whole body gives a convulsive sort of start. The insect can be
induced to utter this strange note by being irritated.

Another especially interesting night-flyer is the ghost moth. Just as
the twilight of a summer evening is deepening into darkness, and a
soft, warm wind stirs the foliage of the woods, the ghost moth comes
abroad. The observer sees a fitful apparition which suddenly vanishes
into space. First a large insect with long wings is seen advancing, it
comes straight on, then flutters in the air--and is gone. Whilst
endeavouring to discover the mysterious retreat of the moth, it will
suddenly reappear, and even whilst the eye closely follows its flight,
will again vanish. This effect is produced by the different colour of
the wings on their upper and lower sides. Above they are snowy white,
and consequently visible even in the deep twilight; but on the under
side they, as well as the whole body, are of a deep dusky brown so that
when that side is suddenly turned towards the spectator it becomes
invisible. As the male flies in the night, the white shining upper
surface of the wings glitters curiously, almost appearing as if they
were giving out their own light.

Standing in one of the rides of a woodland glade just as day is
departing, one is pierced, thrilled by a perfect storm of song. This
loud swelling volume of sound softens as the darkness deepens, and then
only the polyglot wood-thrush is heard. The stem of the silver birch
has ceased to vibrate to the blackbird's whistle, and as darkness comes
a new set of sounds take possession of the night. But passing down
through the meadows we have other thoughts than listening to these.

Another night singer is the blackcap. The flute-like mellowness and
wild sweetness of its song give it a high place among British
warblers--next only to the nightingale. The blackcap has neither the
fulness nor the force, but it has all and more of the former's purity.
This little hideling, with its timid obtrusiveness, never strays far
from cultivation. One provision it requires, and this is seclusion. Its
shy and retiring habits teach it to search out dense retreats, and it
is rarely seen. If observed on the confines of its corral of boughs it
immediately begins to perform a series of evolutions until it has
placed a dense screen of brushwood between itself and the observer.

Many times have we heard the round, full, lute-like plaintiveness of
the nightingale, sounds that seem to seize and ingrain themselves in
the very soul, that "make the wild blood start in its mystic springs."
To us the delicious triumph of the bird's song lies in its utter
_abandon_. The lute-like sweetness, the silvery liquidness, the
bubbling and running over, and the wild, gurgling "jug, jug, jug!" To
say this, and more--that the nightingale is a mad, sweet polyglot, that
it is the sweetest of English warblers, the essence and quintessence of
song, that it is the whole wild bird achievement in one--these are
feeble, feeble! This "light-winged dryad of the trees" is still "in
some melodious spot of beechen green and shadows numberless, singing of
summer in full-throated ease," and here she will remain. Unlike the
songs of some of our warblers, hers can never be reproduced. Attempt to
translate it, and it eludes you, only its meagre skeleton remains.
Isaac Walton, in his quaint eloquence, tries to say what he felt: "The
nightingale, another of my airy creatures, breathes such sweet, loud
music out of her little instrumental throat, that it might make mankind
to think miracles are not ceased. He that at midnight ... should hear,
as I have very often, the clear airs, the sweet descants, the natural
rising and falling, the doubling and redoubling of her voice, might
well be lifted above earth, and say, 'Lord, what music hast Thou
provided for the saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such
music on earth!'"

Although Britain can show no parallel either in number or brilliance to
the living lights of the tropics, we are not without several
interesting phosphorescent creatures of our own. Those whose business
leads them abroad in the fields and woods through the short summer
nights are often treated to quite remarkable luminous sights. Last
night the writer was lying on a towering limestone escarpment, waiting
to intercept a gang of poachers. The darkness was dead and unrelieved,
and a warm rain studded every grass blade with moisture. When the day
and sun broke, this would glow with a million brilliant prismatic
colours, then suddenly vanish. But the illumination came sooner, and in
a different way. The rain ceased, and hundreds of tiny living lights
lit up the sward. In the intense darkness these shone with an unusual
brilliancy, and lit up the almost impalpable moisture. Every foot of
ground was studded with its star-like gem, and these twinkled and shone
as the fireflies stirred in the grass. The sight was quite an
un-English one, and the soft green glow only paled at the coming of
day. One phase of this interesting phenomenon is that now we can have a
reproduction of it nightly. The fireflies were collected, turned down
on the lawn, and their hundred luminous lamps now shed a soft lustre
over all the green.

Why our British fireflies are designated "glow-worms" is difficult to
understand. _Lampyris noctiluca_ has nothing worm-like about it.
It is a true insect. The popular misconception has probably arisen in
this wise. The female glow-worm, the light-giver, is wingless; the male
is winged. The latter, however, has but little of the light emitting
power possessed by the female. Only the light-givers are collected, and
being destitute of the first attribute of an insect, wings, are set
down in popular parlance as worms. Old mossy banks, damp hedgerows, and
shaded woods are the loved haunts of the fireflies, and the warm nights
of the soft summer months most induce them to burn their soft lustre.
Some widowed worm or firefly flirt may shed her luminous self in the
darkness even on into dying summer or autumn. But this is unusual. It
is not definitely known what purpose is served by the emission of the
soft green light, but it has long been suspected that the lustre was to
attract the male. Gilbert White found that glow-worms were attracted by
the light of candles, and many of them came into his parlour. Another
naturalist by the same process captured as many as forty male
glow-worms in an evening. Still another suggestion is that the
phosphorescence serves for a protection or means of defence to the
creatures possessing it, and an incident which seems to support this
view has been actually witnessed. This was in the case of a carabeus
which was observed running round and round a phosphorescent centipede,
evidently wishing but not daring to attack it. A third explanation of
the phenomenon is that it serves to afford light for the creature to
see by. A somewhat curious confirmation of this is the fact that in the
insect genus to which our British fireflies belong, the
_Lampyridæ_, the degree of luminosity is exactly in inverse
proportion to the development of the vision.

Fireflies glow with greatest brilliancy at midnight. Their luminosity
is first seen soon after dark:

    "The glow-worm shows the matin to be near,
    And 'gins to pale his ineffectual fire."

As the insects rest on the grass and moss, the difference in the amount
of light emitted is quite marked. While the luminous spot indicated by
a female is quite bright, the males show only as the palest fire. When
on the wing, the light of the latter is not seen at all. Heavy rain, so
long as it is warm, serves only to increase the brightness. The seat of
the light of the glow-worm is in the tail, and proceeds from three
luminous sacs in the last segment of the abdomen. The male has only two
of these, and the light proceeding from them is comparatively small.
During favourable weather the light glows steadily, but at other times
it is not constant. The fireflies of the tropics--those comprising the
genus _Lampyridæ_--vary to the extent that while certain species
control their light, others are without this power. The light of our
English glow-worm is undoubtedly under its control, as upon handling
the insect it is immediately put out. It would seem to take some little
muscular effort to produce the luminosity, as one was observed to move
continually the last segment of the body so long as it continued to
shine. The larvæ of the glow-worm is capable of emitting light, but not
to be compared to that of the developed insect. Both in its nature and
immature forms, _Lampyris noctiluca_ plays a useful part in the
economy of Nature. To the agriculturist and fruit-grower it is a
special friend. Its diet consists almost wholly of small shelled
snails, and it comes upon the scene just as these farm and garden pests
are most troublesome. British fireflies probably have never yet figured
as personal ornaments to female beauty. This is, and has always been,
one of their uses to the dusky daughters of the tropics. They are often
studded in the coiled and braided hair, and perform somewhat the same
office as diamonds for more civilised belles. Spanish ladies and those
of the West Indies enclose fireflies in bags of lace or gauze, and wear
them amid their hair or disposed about their persons. The luminosity of
our modest English insect is far outshone by several of its congeners.
Some of these are used in various ways for illumination, and it is said
that the brilliancy of the light is such that the smallest print can be
read by that proceeding from the thoracic spots alone, when a single
insect is moved along the lines. In the Spanish settlements, the
fireflies are frequently used in a curious way when travelling at
night. The natives tie an insect to each great toe; and on fishing and
hunting expeditions make torches of them by fastening several together.
The same people have a summer festival at which the garments of the
young people are covered with fireflies, and being mounted on fine
horses similarly ornamented, the latter gallop through the dusk, the
whole producing the effect of a large moving light.

Another phosphorescent little creature found commonly in Britain is a
centipede with the expressive name _Geophilus electricus_. This is
a tiny living light which shows its luminous qualities in a remarkable
and interesting fashion. It may not uncommonly be seen on field and
garden paths, and leaves a lovely train of phosphorescent fire as it
goes. This silvery train glows in the track of the insect, sometimes
extending to twenty inches in length. In addition to this, its
phosphorescence is exhibited by a row of luminous spots on each side
its body, and these points of pale fire present quite a pretty sight
when seen under favourable circumstances. It has been stated that the
light-giving quality of the fireflies might be designed to serve them
to see by; but this fails to apply to the little creature under notice,
as it is without eyes.

There are still other British insects which have the repute of being
phosphorescent, although the evidence is not yet quite satisfactory.
Among them are the male cricket and "daddy-longlegs," both of which are
reported to have been seen in a phosphorescent condition. But if there
is a dearth of phosphorescent land creatures which are native, this has
no application to the numerous luminous creatures living in our
Southern British seas. Among marine animals the phenomenon is more
general and much more splendid than anything which can be seen on land,
as witness the following picture by Professor Martin Duncan: Great
domes of pale gold, with long streamers, move slowly along in endless
procession; small silvery discs swim, now enlarging and now
contracting; and here and there a green or bluish gleam marks the
course of a tiny but rapidly rising and sinking globe. Hour after hour
the procession passes by, and the fishermen hauling in their nets, from
the midst drag out liquid light, and the soft sea jellies, crushed and
torn piecemeal, shine in every clinging particle. The night grows dark,
the wind rises and is cold, and the tide changes, so does the
luminosity of the sea. The pale spectres sink deeper and are lost to
sight, but the increasing waves are tinged here and there with green
and white, and often along a line, where the fresh water is mixing with
the salt in an estuary, there is brightness so intense that boats and
shores are visible. But if such sights are to be seen on the surface,
what must not be the phosphorescence of the depths! Every sea-pen is
glorious in its light; in fact, nearly every eight-armed alcyonarian is
thus resplendent, and the social pyrosoma, bulky and a free swimmer,
glows like a bar of hot metal with a white and green radiance.



CHAPTER VII.

BRITISH BIRDS, THEIR NESTS AND EGGS.


Oology may be said to be the latest of the sciences; and although
perhaps not a very profound one, it is certainly among the most
interesting. Those who are not ornithologists, or specially interested
in natural history, can have but little idea of the progress made of
late in all that pertains to the nidification of British birds.
Expensive and elaborately illustrated treatises have been written on
the subject; naturalists have spent thousands of pounds in tracking
birds to their breeding haunts; and some of the best scientific workers
of the day are devoting their lives to this and the kindred subject of
migration. Then again city "naturalists" have their continental
collectors, and are building up quite a commerce about the subject. The
money value of a complete set of clutches of eggs of British birds is
about £200, although more than double this sum would be given for eggs
taken within the British Islands. Of course a great number of birds do
not breed and never have bred here; for whilst the number of species
comprising the home list is three hundred and sixty-seven, only about
two hundred breed within our shores.

Not a few of the eggs of British birds are worth more than their weight
in gold, whilst those of certain species which are supposed to have
become extinct bring quite fabulous prices. A well-marked pair of
golden eagle's eggs have been known to fetch £25. The market value of
an egg of the swallow-tailed kite is three guineas, of Pallas's
sand-grouse thirty shillings, while ten times that amount was recently
offered for an egg of this Asiatic species taken in Britain. On the
other hand, the eggs of certain of the social breeding birds are so
common in their season as to be systematically collected for domestic
purposes. And this in face of the fact that many of them are remarkable
alike for size, shape, and beauty of colouring. This applies
particularly to the guillemot, whose eggs are often remarkably
handsome. As a rule the colour of these is bluish green, heavily
blotched, and streaked with brown or black; and the form that of an
elongated handsome pear. The guillemot is one of our commonest
cliff-birds, and is found in greatest abundance at Flamborough Head.
The eggs are systematically gathered by men who are let down the rocks
in ropes. They traverse the narrowest ledges, placing the eggs which
they gather daily in baskets fastened round their shoulders. The
guillemot makes no nest, lays but one egg, and incubation lasts about a
month. The birds sit upright, and when suddenly alarmed, as by the
firing of a gun, the eggs fall in showers into the sea. Most of those
collected at Flamborough are sent to Leeds, where the albumen is used
in the preparation of patent leather; whilst the eggs taken on Lundy
are used at Bristol in the manufacture of sugar. At the British
breeding-stations of the gannet, or Solan goose, thousands of birds
breed annually, though in numbers less than formerly. In this case the
young birds, not the eggs, are taken; and on North Barra from two
thousand to three thousand birds are captured in a season. The
collector kills the gannets as they are taken from the nests, and they
are then thrown into the sea beneath, where a boat is in waiting to
pick them up. In the Faroes the people keep January 25 as a festival in
consequence of the return of the birds.

The difference in size and colour which the eggs of different birds
exhibit is even more apparent than the great diversity of shape. The
giant eggs of wild swans and geese, or the extinct great auk, are
tremendous when compared with those of the warblers and titmice; while
the egg of the golden-crested wren is smaller still. This, the smallest
British bird, is a mere fluff of feathers, and weighs only eighty
grains. The relative sizes of the eggs named are as a garden-pea to a
cocoanut. Another interesting phase of the subject is the number of
eggs laid by different species. The Solan goose, guillemot, cormorant,
shag, puffin, and others lay but one egg; whilst some of the tiny tits
have been known to produce as many as twenty. In this respect the
game-birds and wild-fowl are also prolific, and a partridge's nest
containing from fifteen to twenty eggs is not at all an uncommon
occurrence. Where a greater number of eggs than this is found, it is
probable that two females have laid in the same nest. Certain species,
again, habitually bred once, twice, or thrice a season; whilst others
less prolific have but a single egg, and lay but once during the year.

Almost as interesting as the eggs they contain are the nests
themselves. Birds of the plover kind almost invariably deposit their
eggs in a mere depression in the ground; while many of the
shore-haunting birds lay theirs in sand and shingle--often upon the
bare stones. The present writer once found a ringed dotterell's nest on
a bank of _débris_, the eggs being stuck right on end, and
absolutely resembling the drift stuff. The lapwing's eggs invariably
have their smaller ends pointing inward. This bird is an early breeder,
and eggs may often be found by the middle of March. It is these first
clutches that fetch such fancy prices in the market, as much as fifteen
shillings having been paid for a single egg. So anxious are the
poulterers to obtain these that one of them expressed himself to the
effect that if he were assured of having the first ten eggs he would
not hesitate to give five pounds for them. Among birds the ground
builders are the most primitive architects; but their very
obtrusiveness certainly aids them to escape detection. Partridges and
pheasants almost invariably lay their olive eggs upon dead oak-leaves,
and, moreover, cover them when they leave the nest. The red speckled
eggs of the grouse are very much of the colour of the heather, as are
those of wild ducks to the green reeds and rushes. The nest of the
cushat, or woodpigeon, consists of a mere platform of sticks, and the
eggs may almost always be seen through the interstices of the crossed
twigs. The goatsucker makes no nest, but lays its eggs among burning
bits of limestone on the sides of the fells; and that of the golden
plover is equally non-existent. Among tree builders the jay is slovenly
and negligent, while the scarlet bull-finch is equally careless. Hawks,
falcons, and birds of the crow kind construct substantial platforms of
sticks; though the crafty magpie is an exception, and constructs a
domed nest. The reason for this is not easy to understand, but, being
an arrant thief itself, the pie is perhaps suspicious of birddom in
general. The pretty water-ouzel, or dipper, also builds a domed nest,
which as a rule resembles a great boss of bright green moss. The
domicile of the wren is simply a small edition of the last, and often
contains as many as seven or eight eggs. A curious habit may frequently
be observed in connection with the wren's nesting, that of beginning
several structures and then abandoning them. Nests, too, are not
unfrequently built and occupied in winter, quite a colony of wrens at
this time huddling together for the sake of warmth. Mr. Weir watched a
pair at work building, and found that although the nest was commenced
at seven o'clock in the morning it was completed the same night. There
can be no question as to the clever adaptation of the wren's nest to
its surroundings. When it is built in a mossy bank its exterior is of
moss, often with a dead leaf on the outside. A nest which was against a
hayrick was composed outwardly of hay; while another, in a raspberry
bush, was wholly composed of the leaves of that plant.

Probably the only hang-nests of British birds are those of the
gold-crest, reed-warbler, and long-tailed titmouse. The first is
usually hung among the long, trailing tassels of the pine, where it is
most difficult to detect. It is quite one of the prettiest examples of
bird architecture, and is thickly felted with wool, feathers, and
spiders' webs. The eggs are white, speckled with red. Montague kept a
brood of eight nestlings in his room, when he found that the female
bird fed them upon an average thirty-six times an hour, and that this
was continued sixteen hours a day. Besides being built in pines, the
nests are sometimes attached to yews and cedars. The cradle of the
reed-warbler is invariably hung upon the stalks of reeds, rushes, and
other aquatic plants; and the whole structure is often swayed about so
much by the wind as not unfrequently to touch the water. The
bottle-shaped nest of the long-tailed tit is almost as remarkable as
its builder. It is exquisite alike in form and material, and its
interior is a perfect mass of feathers. In one nest alone were found
two thousand three hundred and seventy-nine, chiefly those of the
pheasant, wood-pigeon, rook, and partridge. Sometimes a great many eggs
are found in the nest of the long-tailed titmouse--as many as twenty,
it is stated--and these are white, speckled, and streaked with red.

The colours of eggs in relation to birds and the site of their nests is
an exceedingly interesting phase of the philosophy of the subject. It
is found as an almost invariable rule that birds which lay white eggs
nest in holes as a means of protection. The high-flying,
loud-screeching swift is an instance of this. So is the burrowing
sand-martin, the kingfisher, the shell-duck, and the woodpecker; also
the puffin and the stock-dove, which breed in disused rabbit burrows.
All these lay white eggs.

The hole which the swift selects is usually in a high building; while
the delicate bank-swallows drill their holes in river banks or
sandholes. The eggs of the kingfisher are perhaps the most beautiful of
all. They are beautifully round, delicately white, glossy, and suffused
with an exquisite rosy flush. For breeding, the kingfisher either
drills a hole for itself or occupies that deserted by some small
rodent. The seven or eight eggs are placed at the end of the burrow,
upon a mass of dry fish bones ejected by the bird. The nest is so
friable that it is almost impossible to remove it, and at one time it
was said that the authorities at the British Museum were prepared to
pay one hundred pounds for an absolutely perfect nest of the
kingfisher.

The sheld is the largest and handsomest of British ducks. It invariably
breeds in a burrow on a plateau commanding the sea, and when
approaching its nest plumps right down at the mouth of the hole. Its
creamy eggs are large and round; and for a day or so after the young
are hatched they are kept underground. Emerging from their retreat,
they are immediately led or carried down to the tide. The young seem to
be able to smell salt water, and will cover miles to gain it. An
interesting fact anent another of our British ducks centres about the
golden-eye, an exquisite study in black and white, the back of the neck
and head being burnished with violet and green. A trait which the
golden-eye has is its almost invariable habit of nesting in holes in
trees--remarkable in the case of a duck--so that the Laps place
darkened boxes by the sides of rivers and lakes for the ducks to lay
in. Often as many as a dozen eggs are found, and the nests are lined
with the soft down of the birds. The golden-eye has been seen to
transport its young to the water from a considerable altitude. While
botanising by the side of a lake, where these beautiful birds breed in
great numbers, a Lap clergyman observed one of them drop into the
water, and at the same time an infant duck appeared. After watching
awhile and seeing the old bird fly to and from the nest several times,
he made out that the young bird was held under the bill, but supported
by the neck of the parent.

All the British woodpeckers bear out the theory already stated. They
lay glossy white eggs, and their nests, (if the touchwood upon which
their eggs are deposited can be so called,) are always built in holes
in growing wood or decayed timber. The stock-dove, one of our pretty
wild pigeons, nests in colonies in rabbit-burrows, as does the brown
owl. When ferreting for rabbits the writer has put both these birds out
of the holes instead of their rightful owners. The nuthatch is yet
another bird which upholds the same rule, and whose case is peculiarly
interesting. It not only lays purely white eggs in holes in trees, but
if the hole for ingress and egress is one whit too large it is
plastered up by the industrious bird until it barely admits the body of
the clever little architect.

The cuckoo is quite a Bohemian among birds, and it is doubtless owing
to its vagrant habits that there yet remain several points in its
life-history which have to be cleared up. The most interesting of these
questions are those which relate to its nesting and nidification. It
was once thought that the cuckoo paired, but it is now known that the
species is polygamous. The number of hens that constitute a harem is
not known, but from the number of bachelor birds the males must greatly
predominate over the females. Dissection conclusively proves that each
female lays a series of eggs, and that these occur in the ovary in
widely different stages of maturity. The older naturalists thought that
the cuckoo laid its eggs actually in the nests of other birds, but it
is now known that it conveys them thither in its bill. The egg of the
cuckoo has been found in the nests of sixty different species, several
of which are exceedingly small, and moreover domed. Among the sixty
nests patronised were the unlikely ones of the butcher-bird, jay, and
magpie--all either bird or egg destroyers. This may seem to reflect on
the cuckoo's stupidity; and the bird certainly exhibits deplorable
ignorance of the fitness of things when it deposits its egg in the nest
of the diminutive goldcrest or the cumbersome one of the cushat. A
goldcrest might conveniently be stowed away in the gape of a young
cuckoo without the latter detecting that the morsel was much more than
a normal supply. The nests in which the eggs of cuckoos are most
frequently found are those of the meadow-pipit, hedge-sparrow, and
reed-warbler. Now the eggs of these birds vary to a very considerable
degree; and the question arises whether the cuckoo has the power of
assimilating the colour of its egg to those among which it is to be
deposited. Certain eminent continental ornithologists claim that this
is so, but facts observed in England hardly bear out the conclusion.
Brown eggs have been found among the blue ones of the hedge-sparrow,
redstart, wheatear; among the green and grey ones of other birds; and
the purely white ones of the wood-pigeon and turtle-dove. The cuckoo's
egg is brown, and it must be admitted that the great majority of the
nests which it patronises contain eggs more or less nearly resembling
its own. There is a general family likeness about those laid by the
bird, not only in the same clutch, but from year to year. Admitting
that the eggs of the cuckoo as a species vary more than those of other
birds, it is yet probable that the same female invariably lays eggs of
one colour. This can only be surmised by analogy, though the one fact
bearing on the question is where two cuckoo's eggs were found in the
same nest, and which differed greatly. More might have been learnt from
the incident had it been known for certain whether the eggs were laid
by the same or different birds. There is a general tendency in the
habits of animals to become hereditary, and it seems not unreasonable
to suppose that a cuckoo which has once laid its egg in the nest of any
particular species should continue to do so, and that its offspring
also should continue the practice in after years. A possibility with
regard to the cuckoo is that it is not so destitute of maternal
instinct as is generally supposed, and that it occasionally hatches its
own eggs. It is certain that a female has been seen with her breast
destitute of feathers, and with young cuckoos following her and
clamouring to be fed. Some other species of the genus nearly akin to
our own bird are quite normal in their nesting habits, and I here
suggest that, under certain circumstances, our English cuckoo may be so
likewise.

The dotterel is one of the most interesting of British birds. It is a
summer visitant, and breeds upon the tops of the highest mountains. It
is every year decreasing as a species in consequence of the persistency
with which it is hunted down for its feathers; these are used for
dressing flies. I have found it breeding upon Skiddaw, Sea Fell, and
Helvellyn, though not since the year 1884. Part of the interest which
attaches to the bird arises from the fact of its extremely local
distribution, the mountains named being perhaps the only ones on which
it is known to breed in this country. Hewitson, the eminent
ornithologist, spent five consecutive seasons in looking for a
dotterel's nest; and it was upon Great Robinson and the Hindsgarth
range that he ultimately found its eggs. The large price offered for
these has acted as a prize for the dotterel's extermination by the
shepherds; and some years ago a quarryman had a dog which was trained
to find the nests. Owing to the great number of trout streams in the
Lake district, angling is general; and, as has been said, the
dotterel's decrease is due entirely to the great demand for skins. The
birds are mainly shot either on their spring or autumnal migration, and
at the former season the grandfather of the present writer upon one
occasion bagged seventeen birds in a morning.

Although eagles are now more than rare in Britain, there was a time
when they bred among the crags of Cumbria. Gray and Sir Humphrey Davy
watched the eagles in their eyries, and the former tells how he saw
them robbed of their young. To say nothing of the carnage made on
hares, grouse, and waterfowl, these birds during the breeding season
destroyed a lamb daily. It is no wonder that the farmers, shepherds,
and dalesfolk were careful to plunder the eyries, though this was not
done without very considerable risk. In one case a man was lowered down
the rocks a distance of fifty fathoms, and during the descent he had to
protect himself against the attacks of the parent birds. Year by year
the eggs or eaglets were taken, and as their presence was injurious to
the interests of the farmers, the latter were willing to pay for their
extermination. If the nest contained young birds, these were to be the
cliff-climber's remuneration; but if eggs, every neighbouring farmer
paid for each egg five shillings. The nests were formed of the branches
of trees, and lined with coarse grass and bents that grew on the
neighbouring rocks. On the eagles being so frequently robbed of their
young, they became unsettled and removed from crag to crag. On one
mighty escarpment more inaccessible than the rest they nested for
fourteen consecutive years. These eagles and their progenitors had
probably bred in the near vicinity for centuries; and the conservatism
of birds--especially birds of prey--is quite remarkable. Of this two
instances may be given. In _Cotheca Wolleyana_ it is recorded that
a peregrine falcon's nest on a hill called Arasaxa, in Finland, is
mentioned by the French astronomer Maupertius as having been observed
by him in 1736. In 1799 it was rediscovered by Skjöldebrand and Acerti.
Wolley himself found it tenanted in 1853, and by examining the remains
of a young bird lying near the nest, proved that it belonged to this
species. It is probable, therefore, that this particular eyrie had been
used by the same species of falcon for one hundred and seventeen years.

The following is another instance, hardly less remarkable, though
having reference to an altogether different kind of bird. The
particular incident is well known to naturalists, and perhaps the
latest rendering of it is that by the Nestor of British ornithology,
Professor Newton. He says: "When the blue titmouse has taken possession
of a hole, she is not easily induced to quit it, but defends her nest
and eggs with great courage and pertinacity, puffing out her feathers,
hissing like a snake, and trying to repel the fingers of the
intruder.... The branch containing the nest may even be sawn off and
conveyed to a distance (a cruel experiment) without the mother leaving
it, and cases have been known in which, when this has been done, she
has still continued to sit on her eggs, hatch them, and rear her brood.
With equal persistence will this species year after year use as a
nursery the same hole, and a remarkable instance of this kind is on
record. In 1779, according to one account, in 1785, according to
another, it is said that a pair of these birds built their nest in a
large earthenware bottle which had been left to drain in the branches
of a tree in a garden at Oxbridge, in the township of Hartburn, near
Stockton-on-Tees, and safely hatched their young. The bottle having
been allowed to remain in the same position by the occupiers of the
farm, then and still a family of the name of Callendar, was frequented
for the same purpose and with a like result, until 1822, when, the tree
becoming decayed, the bottle was placed in one near by, and the tenancy
continued until 1851. In that year the occupiers of the farm omitted
drawing out the old nest, as had been the constant practice before the
breeding season, and in consequence the birds chose another place; but
in 1852 they returned to the bottle, and have annually built in it, or
in a second bottle, which has lately been placed close by it, up to the
present year, 1873, with the exception of one season, when a pair of
great titmice took possession of their inheritance. The intruders were
shot, and the tenancy, it is hoped, will not be again disturbed."

Many birds show that they have the power of not only cleverly adapting
themselves to circumstances in matters concerning their nesting, but
that they are also equal to unforeseen accidents, which not
unfrequently occur. From the secluded haunts and hideling habits of
birds of the rail kind, it would hardly be imagined that they were
endowed with much intelligence. Here is a striking instance, however,
to the contrary. A pair of waterhens built their nest upon an
ornamental piece of water of considerable extent, which was ordinarily
fed from a spring, and into which another large pond was occasionally
emptied. This upon one occasion was done while the female was sitting,
and, as the nest had been built at low water, the sudden influx from
the second pond caused the water to rise so rapidly as to threaten the
destruction of the eggs. This the birds seemed aware of, and
immediately took precautions against it. The gardener on the estate,
knowing of the sudden rise of water, went to look after the nest,
though quite expecting to find the eggs ruined. Instead of this he saw
both birds busily engaged about the nest, and adding, with all possible
despatch, fresh materials to the fabric to bring it above the impending
flood. This they not only succeeded in doing, but it was observed that
upon the first rush of water they had removed the eggs to a distance of
some feet from the margin of the pool. In the meantime the nest rose
rapidly in height, and when the water began to retire the eggs were
brought back and placed in the nest. In a few days these were hatched,
and the young were swimming with their parents about the pool. The nest
plainly showed the formation of the old and new material, and testified
to the instinct or reason of the bird architects. In this connection
birds have been known to adapt their nests to changed forms of
architecture; and almost innumerable little devices may be seen in
individual nests tending to their special safety or protection. As an
instance of adaptation to haunt it may be mentioned that in the north,
buzzards and ravens invariably nest among the rocks of the crags,
whilst in the south their nests are just as invariably found in trees.

Both the eggs and plumage of game birds offer interesting instances of
this adaptation. The pencilled plumage of the snipe lying still in the
brown marshes it is impossible to detect, although the birds get up at
one's feet everywhere. The same may be said of the woodcock in the
leaf-strewn woods, and of the nests and eggs of both species. The eggs
of the wild-duck assimilate to the colour of the green reeds, and those
of the lapwing to the ploughed field or the upland. The colour of the
red grouse conforms very nearly to that of the purple heather among
which it lies, as do the richly-speckled eggs. The partridge has a
double protection. It is difficult to pick out her quiet brown plumage
from a hedge-bottom so long as she remains still. She adopts the duns
and browns and yellows of the dead leaves, among which she crouches.
When she leaves her eggs she is careful to cover them with dead
oak-leaves; but this seems almost superfluous, for there is no great
contrast between the tint of the eggs and that of the leaves among
which they lie. A hen pheasant lying in a bracken-bed is equally
difficult to detect; and this applies particularly to all the young of
the game birds just mentioned. The bright, dark eyes of birds and
animals frequently betray them, as these are almost invariably large
and prominent. A short-eared owl on a peat-moss I have mistaken for a
clod of turf, and a gaunt heron with wind-fluttered feathers for drift
stuff caught in the swaying branches of the stream. Another
characteristic case of protective imitation is furnished by the
nightjar or goatsucker. This night-flying bird, half owl, half swallow,
rests during the day on bare bits of limestone on the fells. Its
mottled plumage exactly corresponds with the grey of the stones, and
its eggs, in colour like its plumage, are laid upon the bare ground
without the slightest vestige of a nest--and again entirely resemble
the stone.

It will be remarked that all the birds mentioned live much upon the
ground, obtaining the principal part of their food therefrom, and that
therefore they have need of special protection. Incubation in every
case takes place on the ground; and just as the imitation of the
plumage of the female bird is perfect, so will the fact tell upon the
survival of the species. There is no such need of protection for tree
builders, as these, for the most part, are out of the way of predatory
animals. The chaffinch is by far the most abundant bird of our fields
and woods; and there is one good reason why it should be so. It
invariably covers its nest on the outside with dead lichens, like to
those of the trunk against which it is built. Against boys and other
predatory creatures the device succeeds admirably, and the chaffinch as
a species flourishes vigorously. The wren constructs her nest of moss,
placing it upon a mossy background so as to present no sharp contrasts.
Sometimes she interweaves one or two dead oak-leaves, so as to render
the deception more deceitful; and, from the number of wrens which
abound, she evidently succeeds. Starlings and sparrows and jackdaws,
which build in holes at a considerable elevation, and have therefore
less need of protection, hang out straws and sticks and bits of wool
and feather as impudent advertisements. Wheatears and such birds as
build in low walls cannot afford to do this, but instead build neat
nests leaving no trace without. Several of our leaf-warblers drag dead
leaves to the outside of their nests, and a hundred others employ like
ingenuities.

With regard to sexual colour, the dull summer plumage which
characterises so many ground-breeding birds is all the more remarkable
as they are the mates of males for the most part distinguished by
unusual brilliancy. The few exceptions to this rule are of the most
interesting character, and go eminently to prove it. In these
exceptions it happens that the female birds are more brightly plumaged
than the males. But in nearly the whole of the cases this remarkable
trait comes out--that the male actually sits upon the eggs. Now this
fact more than any other would seem to indicate that the protection
afforded by obscure colouring is directly intended to secure the bird's
safety during the most critical period of its life-history. And it has
been seen that the law of protective colouring most influences those
birds which breed on the ground. One remarkable instance of this may be
given, that of the dotterel, a bird already mentioned. This is a
species of our own avi-fauna, one which breeds on the summits of the
highest mountains. Mr. Gould has remarked that dotterel have not
unfrequently been shot during the breeding season with the breast bare
of feathers, caused by sitting on the eggs; and the writer knows of his
personal knowledge that the shepherds on the Cumbrian mountains
occasionally kill dotterel on the actual nest, and that these almost
invariably turn out to be males. In winter the colouring of the sexes
is almost identical; but when the breeding season comes round the
female dons a well-defined, conspicuous plumage, while it is found that
the dull-coloured male alone sits upon the eggs. Mr. Wallace has
pointed out that bee-eaters, motmots, and toucans--among the most
brilliant of tropical birds--all build in holes in trees. In each of
these cases there is but little difference in the plumage of the sexes,
and where this is so the above rule is almost invariable. Again, our
native kingfisher affords an illustration. The orange-plumaged orioles
have pensile nests, which is a characteristic of the order to which
they belong, most of the members of which are conspicuous. Bird enemies
come from above rather than below, and it will be seen that the
modifications referred to all have reference to the upper plumage.

In 1888 an egg of a great auk was sold for one hundred and sixty
guineas, whilst more recently an egg of the same species fetched two
hundred and twenty-five pounds; and although these may seem enormous
sums to give for a relic, the transactions are not without others to
keep them in countenance. Only a few years ago two eggs of the same
kind fetched one hundred and one hundred and two guineas respectively;
while the egg first named realised thirty-three pounds ten shillings a
little over twenty years ago. At that time it was discovered, together
with four others, packed away in a dust-covered box in the museum of
the Royal College of Surgeons, these being sold in 1865. From this it
would seem that in the ornithological market the complete shell of a
great auk's egg is worth nearly one hundred and seventy pounds, and a
broken one only seventy pounds less. It will be seen that the purchase
of one of these may be a good investment; and what a mine of wealth a
great auk that was a good layer might prove to its fortunate possessor
can only be conjectured. At the present time the number of eggs of this
species known to exist is sixty-six, twenty-five of which are in
museums and forty-one in private collections. Of the total number
forty-three are retained in Great Britain. When a bird becomes so rare
that the individual remains can be counted, the same may be taken to be
practically extinct as a species. The great auk has pursued a policy of
extinction for the past two or three centuries, until now, like the
mighty moa and the dodo, it has ceased to exist. The great auk, or
gare-fowl, was one of those birds which, from long disuse, had lost at
once the power of flight and preservation. It was a great shambling
bird, as large as a goose, and ill adapted to travel on land. How these
things told against it may be inferred from the story of one Captain
Richard Whitbourne, who writing of the discovery of Newfoundland in
1620, says that among the abundant water-fowl of these parts are
penguins (great auks) "as bigge as geese, and flye not, for they have
but a short wing, and they multiply so infinitely, upon a certain flat
island, that men drive them from thence upon a boord, into their boats
by hundreds at a time." This process of extinction went on in Iceland
and elsewhere until about the middle of the present century hardly any
birds remained. The Icelanders robbed the auks of their eggs for
domestic use, and upon one occasion the crew of a British privateer
remained upon one of the skerries all day killing many birds and
treading down their eggs and young. This went on until the last birds
were taken, and there is but the faintest hope that it may yet linger
on in the inaccessible North. Although awkward, and travelling with the
greatest difficulty on land, the great auk was perfectly at home in the
water, and travelled both upon and under the surface with the rapidity
of a fish. The time of haunting the land was during the breeding
season, in early summer. At this period the auk resorted to the rocks,
in the dark recesses of which the females deposited one large
egg--large even for the size of the bird. These had a whitish-green
ground, streaked with brown, and nearly five inches in length.




CHAPTER VIII.

MINOR BRITISH GAME BIRDS.


At the time of the heaviest bird migrations in autumn, vast flocks of
woodcocks pitch on the English coasts. They stay through the winter,
and in spring the majority again cross the wild North Sea _en
route_ to their northern breeding haunts. The woodcock is a
"shifting" species, and just as any bird is erratic in its wanderings,
so it is interesting to naturalists. The British Association is already
on the track of the "woodsnipe," as are several individual observers in
a more literal sense. There was a time when the nesting of the woodcock
in England was of such rare occurrence as to be recorded in the natural
history journals. We now know that it has bred in almost every English
county, and that the number of birds which remain in our woods to breed
is annually increasing. This fact proves that the woodcock's habits are
being modified, and ornithologists have now to discover the reasons of
its extended range.

In coming to this country, woodcocks generally travel in the night and
against a head-wind. Those which are exhausted pitch upon the east
coast, and here lie resting until nightfall, when they pass on. The
probability is that if these birds had not experienced a rough passage
they would not have touched the eastern seaboard, but would have kept
well in the upper currents of the air, and first dropped down in our
western woods or even those of Ireland. The migratory bodies are
usually preceded by flocks of tiny goldcrests; and so invariable is
this rule that the latter have come to be called "woodcock-pilots." The
males precede the females by a few days; the latter bringing with them
the young that have been bred that year. It is a point worthy of
notice, and one upon which much confusion exists, that the birds that
come to us are usually in the very best condition. Soon after their
arrival they disperse themselves over the leaf-strewn woods, the same
birds being known to resort to the same spots for many successive
years. They seek out the warmer parts of the wood, and in such secluded
situations sleep and rest during the day. At dusk they issue forth in
their peculiar owl-like flight, to seek their feeding grounds. Like
many birds they have well-defined routes, and daily at twilight may be
seen flying along the rides and paths of the woods or skirting along
certain portions of plantations. Coppice-belts they like best,
especially such as contain spring-runs. It is here that the bird most
easily finds food, the soft ground enabling it to probe quickly and to
a considerable depth in search of earthworms. These constitute its
principal diet, and the quantity that a single bird will devour is
enormous. The long mobile bill of the woodcock is a study in itself.
The rapidity with which the bird uses it in following a worm in the
ground is marvellous. It is extremely flexible--so much so as to be
bent and twisted into every shape without suffering harm--and it is as
sensitive as flexible.

Every sportsman knows that woodcocks are here to-day, gone to-morrow.
He often finds that where there were plenty yesterday not a single
'cock remains. Ireland, perhaps, affords the best shooting. It was here
that the Earl of Clermont shot fifty brace in one day. This feat was
the result of a wager; and the bag was made by two o'clock in the
afternoon, with a single-barrelled flint-lock. The birds were shot in a
moist wood; and it is in such spots on the mild west coast that the
woodcock finds its favourite haunt. In England the birds affect
coppice-woods, frequenting most those which are wet, and such as have
rich deposits of dead and decaying leaves. Most of these copses are of
oak and birch and hazel, and being only of a few years' growth are
thick in the top. Killing 'cock, as they dash through the twigs of
these and seldom rising above the bushes, is one great test of a
shooter's skill. Then the birds have a habit of dropping down at a
short distance, which almost invariably deludes the inexperienced
gunner. When they are put up from their resting places during the day
the flight is rapid; at evening it is slow. It is now that they are
easiest to shoot; though in some parts of the country they are still
taken in nets as they fly at dusk through the paths of the woods.
Netting woodcocks was at one time the common way of taking them; for
they have always been highly esteemed as food. Another method of
capture was by "gins" and "springs;" and it would seem that in times
past the "woodsnipe" was considered a stupid bird. None of the denizens
of the woods conforms better or more closely to its environment. The
browns and duns and yellows of its plumage all have their counterpart
in the leaves among which it lies; and it has been pointed out that the
one conspicuous ornament of the bird is covered by a special provision
from the gaze of those for whose admiration it is not intended. This is
the bright colouring of the tail feathers, which cannot be seen except
at the will of the bird or in flight. Its protection lacks in one
thing, however, and that is its large dark eye; this is full, bright,
and (so to speak) obtrusive. It is not often that a special provision
of this kind is injurious to its owner; but the lustre which beams from
the woodcock's eye is apt to betray its presence, and even to negative
the advantage of its protective colouring. This has long been known.
Hudibras has it that:

    "Fools are known by looking wise,
    As men find woodcocks by their eyes."

The woodcock is an early breeder, the eggs being found by the second
week in March. These are usually four in number; and the nest is placed
among dry grass, leaves, and fern. The young are able to run
immediately they are hatched, and are sometimes found with portions of
shell adhering to their down. In a few days they are led to the
vicinity of water, where they remain until they are able to fly. It is
said that a small bank of moss is sometimes constructed by the old
birds, upon which worms are placed. In its yielding substance they have
their first lesson in boring, and obtain the kind of food which
constitutes their chief diet in after life. One of the most interesting
traits about the woodcock is the fact of its occasionally conveying its
young through the air; which is done by only one or two other birds.
This is no recent discovery. The fact was known as early as the middle
of last century; though Gilbert White rightly surmised that those
observers were mistaken who fancied the young were conveyed either by
or in the bill. It is just as erroneous, however, to substitute the
claws, as some have done, for the bill. The truth is, that when the
parent bird wishes to convey her young one from a place of danger to
one of safety, the tiny thing is gently pressed between the feet and
against the breast, the aid of the bill being resorted to only when the
burden has been hastily taken up. In this way the whole of the brood is
sometimes removed from one part of a wood to another, if the birds have
been much disturbed. This trait may be confirmed by any one who will
look out the bird in its haunts, and is all the more interesting as it
seems to be quite an acquired one. The bird is in no way adapted to
transport its young through the air.

There are upwards of a dozen species of British plover; birds
interesting to the naturalist, dear to the heart of the shore-shooter
and to the sportsman of the marshes. Some of these are summer visitants
to our shores, others come in winter, while a few stay with us
throughout the year. The common green plover or peewit, with its crest,
its peculiarly rounded wings, its plaintive cry, is the best known; and
this species breeds with us, as the abundance of its eggs shows. In
autumn the old birds and their young descend from the uplands where the
latter are bred, and seek out the mud-banks and ooze-flats on which to
spend the winter. Plashy meadows and marshes are also favourite feeding
grounds; and here the lapwing makes "game" for an army of gunners. The
vast flocks of plovers that congregate in autumn are said to be growing
in numbers. Hundreds of thousands of eggs are collected annually;
bunches of green plover are displayed at the gameshops during the
autumn; and yet there are more of these birds in England than ever
there were. This may be accounted for by the closeness with which the
plover conforms to its environment through every season. The plover is
dainty eating, as are also its eggs. "To live like a plover"--meaning
to live on the wind--is a saying of no aptitude. All the species are
voracious feeders on substantials. Their chief food consists of insects
and worms from ploughed land; but immediately upon the setting in of
frost they betake themselves to the mosses and marshes, or even to the
coast and estuaries of rivers. Here they feed liberally and at large,
becoming plump and fat. On these grounds the birds often remain till
the return of spring. Although many are shot, most of the birds that
find their way to market are taken in nets by professional fowlers.
When the flocks are heaviest, and during hard weather, from fifty to
eighty plovers are sometimes secured at one raising of the net.

Flying with the lapwing may often be seen flocks or "trips" of golden
plover--one of the most beautiful birds of its family, and much less
common as a species than the last. Like the rare dotterel it breeds on
the highest mountains, and in the nesting season has the golden
markings of its back set off by the rich velvety black of its breast.
This is an adornment donned only for the summer season, and is changed
at the time of the autumnal migration from the elevated breeding
grounds to the lowlands. At all times it has a piping, plaintive
whistle, which conforms well to the wild solitudes where it is heard.
The flocks of golden plover are usually smaller than those of green,
and are more compact. When feeding together the two kinds are not
easily discriminated. The moment they take wing, however, a difference
is detected; the golden plover flying straight and quick, often in a
V-shaped bunch; the green going loosely and without apparent order. All
plover are restless and shifting before a change of weather, and when
this is for the worse the golden plover always fly south. They are
delicate birds, in fact, and little fitted to withstand the rigours of
our northern climate. As a table bird it is more dainty even than the
green plover, and fetches a higher price. The death-dealing punt-gun is
terribly destructive to this species, from the compact mode of flying
described above. As many as a hundred birds have been killed at a
single shot.

The beautiful little ringed plover, or sea-lark, is another of our
breeding species. It is permanently resident on our coasts, and is one
of the most interesting of British shore-birds. At no time infrequent,
there is a considerable accession in win

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