\ u \ i/ ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY AT CORNELL UNIVERSITY THE GIFT OF James A. Paley In Memory of Marilyn B. Paley 924 085 640 310 All books are subject to recall aft er two weeks DATE DUE GAVLORD PRINJ-ED IN U.S.A. The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924085640310 - // THE WEIR ON THE CHERWELL Winter Haunt of the Grey Wagtail Pp. lO, II A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS BY AN OXFORD TUTOR "L'uccello ha maggior copia di vita esteriore e interiore, che non hanno gli altri aoimali. Ora, se la vita 6 cosa pid perfetta che il suo contrario, ahneno nelle creature viventi : e se perci6 la maggior copia di vita k maggiore perfezione ; anche per questo modo s^guita che la natura degli uccelll sia piii perfetta." LeOPAEDI : Blogio degli uccelli. ©xfora B. H. BLACKWELL, 50 & 51 BROAD STREET LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL and Co. 1886 (5^ ©xforB PRINTED BY HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY PATKI MEO QVI CVM AVCVPIS NOMINE AVIVM AMOEEM EILIO TEADIDIT Five hundred copies printed PEEFACE. npHIS little book is nothing more than an attempt to help those who love birds, but know little about them, to realise something of the enjoyment which I have gained, in work- time as well as in holiday, for many years past, from the habit of watching and listening for my favourites. What I have to tell, such as it is, is told in close relation to two or three localities ; an English city, an English village, and a well-known district of the Alps.' This novelty (if it be one) is not likely, I think, to cause the ordinary reader any difficulty. Oxford is so familiar to numbers of English people apart from its permanent residents, that I have ventured to write of it without stopping to describe its geography: and I have purposely confined myself to the city and its precincts, in order to show how rich in bird-life an English town may be. The Alps, too, are known to thousands, and the walk I have described in Chapter III, if the reader should be unacquainted with it, may easily be followed by reference to the excellent maps of the Oberland in the guide-books of Ball or Baedeker. The chapters about the midland village, which lies in ordinary English country, will explain their own geography. a 3 VI PREFACE. One word about the title and the arrangement of the chapters. We Oxford tutors always reckon our year as beginning with the October term, and ending with the close of the Long Vacation. My chapters are arranged on this reckoning; to an Oxford residence from October to June, broken only by short vacations, succeeds a brief holiday in the Alps ; then comes a sojourn in the midlands ; and of the leisurely studies which the latter part of the Long Vacation allows, I have given an ornithological specimen in the last chapter. Some parts of the first, second, and fifth chapters, have appeared in the Oxford Magazine, and I have to thank the Editors for leave to reprint them. The third chapter, or rather the substance of it, was given as a lecture to the energetic Natural History Society of Marlborough CoUege, and has already been printed in their reports; the sixth chapter has been developed out of a paper lately read before the Oxford Philological Society. For the frontispiece, which represents one of the favourite nooks of the Oxford birds, I am indebted to the kindness and skill of a brother-Fellow. The reader will notice that I have said very little about un- common birds, and have tried to keep to the habits, songs, and haunts of the commoner kinds, which their very abundance endears to their human friends. I have made no collection, and it will therefore be obvious to ornithologists that I have no scientific knowledge of structure and classification beyond that which I PREFACE. Vll have obtained at second-liand. And, indeed, if I thought I were obtruding myself on the attention of ornithologists, I should feel as audacious as the Robin which is at this moment, in my neighbour's outhouse, sitting on eggs for which, with characteristic self-confidence, she has chosen a singular resting-place in an old cage, once the prison-house of an ill-starred Goldfinch. There are few days, from March to July, when even the shortest stroll may not reveal something of interest to the care- ful watcher. It was pleasant, this brilliant spring morning, to find that a Redstart, perhaps the same individual noticed on page 76, had not forgotten my garden during his winter sojourn in the south ; and that a pair of Pied Flycatchers, the first of their species which I have known to visit us here, were trying to make up their minds to build their nest in an old grey wall, almost within a stone's throw of our village church. KiNGHAM, OXON. April 24, 1886. CONTENTS. CHAPTEE, I. OxroKD: AnTOMN and Wimeb. PAGB How I came to notice birds. — Oxford favourable to bird- life. — Late lingerers in October. — Migration and pugnacity of Robins. — The Bull- finch and the buds. — Parsons' Pleasure and the Cherwell. — King- fishers rare in the summer Term. — Colouring of the Kingfisher. — The Grey Wagtail at the weir; its beauty. — The Lesser Redpoll. — An eccentric Jack-snipe. — Birds of the Park and Magdalen walk. — Lesser Spotted Woodpecker. — Christchurch meadow and the Botanic Garden ; Titmice, Blackbirds, Redwings. — Sea-birds in Port Meadow . . i CHAPTER II. OXTOED : Speiitg and Summer. Departure of winter birds. — Warblers ; explanation of the term. — Different kinds of warblers. — ^Tree-warblers. — Chiffchaff's arrival. — Willow-warbler's song and nest. — Blackcap and Garden- warbler ; their songs compared. — The two Whitethroats at Parsons' Pleasure ; how to distinguish them. — River-warblers ; comparative rarity of Reed-warbler; his song compared with Sedge-warbler's. — l4e Red- start and pollard willows. — Summer habits of Oxford Sparrows. — Flycatcher and other birds in the Parks 19 X CONTENTS. CHAPTER III. The Alps m June. PAGE The Alpine pastures in June. — Ornithologists and the Alps. — Johann Anderegg, a peasant naturalist. — Number of species in Switzer- land; abundance of food. — ^Migration, complete and partial. — The Alps a barrier to migrating birds. — Migrants from the North. — ^Red- poll breeding. — The three ornithological regions of Switzerland ; mi- grations within them. — Stanz-stadt and its reed-bed. — Valley of the Aa. — White Wagtail and Black Redstart. — ^The Swallow family. — ^The Alps proper and their birds; Water-pipit, etc. — Citril Finch at the Engstlen Alp. — Snow-finches. — ^Eock-oreeper ; its habita. — ^Birds of the pine-forests ; Woodpeckers, Titmice. — Crested Tit in the Gentel- thal — Bonelli's Warbler at Meiringen . . . . 40 CHAPTEK IV. A Midland Villagb : Gaeden and Meadow. Description of the rale of the Evenlode. — Situation of the village ; variety of scenery. — Movements of the birds in the district. — A bird- haunted garden. — Redstart; its increase of late years. — A Black Redstart on an ugly wall. — Cuckoo and Robin's nest. — Ingenious Nuthatches. — Spotted Flycatcher ; his peculiarities. — Allotments and Rooks. — Green Sandpiper in the brook ; occurrence in midwinter. — Habits of young birds.— Rooks hostile to intruders. — Long-tailed Tits on the ice ... .... 70 CONTENTS. XI CHAPTEE V. A Midland Village: Kailwat and Woodland. PAGE Bailways favourable to birds. — Whinohat and Stonecbat. — Pecu- liarities of the Buntings. — Nests by the railway. — Eing-ousel. — Song of the Tree-pipit. — Pipits, Larks, Wagtails. — Predatory birds of the woods. — Interview with a Grasshopper Warbler ; its ' reel.' — Beauty of the Nightingale ; its habits and song. — Song-birds of the woods. — Woodpeckers. — Birds of the hills. — Local migrations during the year. 90 CHAPTEE VI. The Bieds of Virgil. Virgil's haunts in Italy, in boyhood and manhood. — Vu'gil true to nature. — Pigeons in his poems. — Crane and Stork ; their migrations. — ■ Corvus and comix. — Swans. — The ' alcyon,' in Latin and Greek ornithology. — Voice of the Kingfisher. — The ' acalanthis ' warblers in Italy and Greece. — Virgils' sea-birds and swallows. — Nightingale in Homer and Virgil. — Simile of ghosts and birds in Sixth Aeneid. — Autumn migrations from the north . . . .... 107 CHAPTER I. Oxpokd: Autumn and Wintbe, T710E several years past I have contrived, even on the busiest or the rainiest Oxford mornings, to steal out for twenty minutes or half an hour soon after breakfast, and in the Broad Walk, the Botanic Garden, or the Parks, to let my senses exercise themselves on things outside me. This habit dates from the time when I was an ardent fisherman, and daily within reach of trout ; a long spell of work in the early morning used to be effectually counteracted by an endeavour to beguile a trout after breakfast. By degrees, and owing to altered circumstances, the rod has given way to a field-glass, and the passion for killing has been displaced by a desire to see and know ; a revolution which I consider has been beneficial, not only to the trout, but to myself. In the peaceful study of birds I have found an occupation which exactly falls in with the habit I had formed — ^for it is in the early morning that birds are most active and least disturbed by human beings ; an occupation too which can be carried on at all times of the day in Oxford with much greater success than I could possibly have imagined when I began it. Even for one B a OXFORD : AUTUMN AND WINTER, who tas not often time or strength to take long rambles in the country round us, it is astonishing how much of the beauty, the habits, and the songs of birds may be learnt within the city itself, or in its immediate precincts. The fact is, that for several obvious reasons, Oxford is almost a I'aradise of birds. All the conditions of the neighbourhood, as it is now, are favourable to them. The three chief requisites of the life of most birds are food, water, and some kind of cover. For food, be they insect-eaters, or grub-eaters, they need never lack near Oxford. Our vast expanse of moist alluvial meadow — unequalled at any other point in the Thames valley — is extra- ordinarily productive of grubs and flies, as it is of other things unpleasant to man. Anyone can verify this for himself who will walk along the Isis on a warm summer evening, or watch the Sand-martins as he crosses the meadows to Hincksey. Snails too abound ; no less than 93 species have been collected and recorded by a late pupil of mine. The ditches in all the water-meadows are teeming with fresh-water mollusks, and I have seen them dying by hundreds when left high and dry in a sultry season. Water of course is everywhere ; the fact that our city was built at the confluence of Isis and Cherwell has had a good deal of influence on its bird-life. But after all, as far as the city itself is concerned, it is probably the conservative tranquillity and the comfortable cover of the gardens and parks that has chiefly attracted the birds. I fancy there is hardly a town in Europe of equal size where such favourable conditions are offered them, unless it be one of the old-fashioned well-timbered kind, such as Wiesbaden, Bath,- A PAKADISE OF BIEDS. 3 or Dresden. The college system, which has had so much influence on Oxford in other ways, and the control exercised by the University over the government of the town, have had much to do with this, and the only adverse element even at the present day is the gradual but steady extension of building to the north, south, and west. A glance at a map of Oxford will show how large a space in the centre of the town is occupied by college gardens, all well-timbered and planted, and if to these are added Christchurch Meadow, Magdalen Park, the Botanic Garden, and the Parks, together with the adjoining fields, it will be seen that there must be abundant opportunity for ob- servations, and some real reason for an attempt to record them. Since the appearance in the Oxford Magazine in May 1884, of a list of ' The Birds of Oxford City,' I have been so repeat- edly questioned about birds that have been seen or heard, that it is evident there are plenty of possessors of eyes and ears, ready and able to make use of them. There are many families of children growing up in ' the Parks ' who may be glad to learn that life in a town such as Oxford is does not exclude them from some of the pleasures of the country. And I hold it to be an unquestioned fact, that the direction of children's attention to natural objects is one of the most valuable processes in education. When these children, or at least the boys among them, go away to their respective public schools, they will find themselves in the grip of a system of compulsory game-playing which will effectually prevent any attempt at patient ob- servation. There is doubtless something to be said for this system, though in my opinion there is much more to be said B 2 4 OXFORD : ATJTUMN AND WINTEE. against it; but the fact is beyond question that it is doing a great deal to undermine and destroy some of the Englishman's most valuable habits and characteristics, and among others his acuteness of observation, in which, in his natural state, he excels all other nationalities. It is all the more necessary that we should teach our children, hefore they leave home, some of the simplest and most obvious lessons of natural history. So in the following pages it wiU be partly my object to write of the Oxford birds in such a way that anyone of any age may be able to recognise some of the most interesting species that meet the eye or ear of a stroller within the precincts of the city. And with this object before me, it will be convenient, I think, to separate winter and summer, counting as winter the whole period from October to March, and as summer the warm season from our return to Oxford in April up to the heart of the Long Vacation ; and we will begin with the beginning of the Univer- sity year, by which plan we shall gain the advantage of having to deal with a few birds only to start with, and those obvious to the eye among leafless branches, thus clearing the way for more difficult observation of the summer migrants, which have to be detected among all the luxuriousness of our Oxford foliage. I shall call the birds by their familiar English names, where- ever it is possible to do so without danger of confounding species; but for accuracy's sake, a list of all birds noticed in these pages, with their scientific names according to the best, or at any rate the latest, terminology, will be given in an appendix. When we return to Oxford after our Long Vacation, the only LATE LINGEEEES. 5 summer migrants that have not departed southwards are a few Swallows, to be seen along the banks of the river, and two or three lazy Martins that may cling for two or three weeks longer to their favourite nooks about the buildings of Merton and Magdalen. Last year (1884) none of these stayed to see November, so far as I could ascertain ; but they were arrested on the south coast by a spell of real warm weather, where the genial sun was deluding the Eobins and Sparrows into fancying the winter already past. In some years they may be seen on sunny days, even up to the end of the first week of November, hawking for flies about the meadow-front of Merton, probably the warmest spot in Oxford. White of Selborne saw one as late as the 20th of November, on a very sunny warm morning, in one of the quadrangles of Christchurch. It is at first rather sad to find silence reigning in the thickets and reed-beds that were alive with songsters during the summer term. The familiar pollards and thorn-bushes, where the Willow- warblers and Whitethroats were every morning to be seen or heard, are like so many desolate College rooms in the heart of the Long Vacation. Deserted nests, black and mouldy, come to light as the leaves drop from the trees — nurseries whose children have gone forth to try their fortune in distant countries. But we soon discover that things are not so bad as they seem. The silence is not quite unbroken : winter visitors arrive, and the novelty of their voices is cheering, even if they do not break into song ; some kinds are here in greater numbers than in the hot weather, and others show themselves more boldly, emerging from leafy recesses in search of food and sunshine. 6 OXFOED : AUTUMN AND WINTER, Every autumn brings us a considerable immigration of birds that have been absent during the summer, and increases the number of some species who reside with us in more or less abundance all the year. Among these latter is the familiar Eobin. In the autumn of 1884 the Kev. F. O. Morris wrote to the Times from Yorkshire asking what had become of the Eobins, at the very time when the increase of the Eobin population was a matter of general notice all over the south and west of England. It does not seem that they come to us in great numbers from foreign shores, as do many others of our common birds at this time of the year ; but they move north- wards and southwards within our island, presumably seeking always a moderately warm climate. At Parsons' Pleasure I have seen the bushes literally alive with them in October and November, in a state of extreme liveliness and pugnacity. This is the great season of their battles. Most country-people know of the warfare between the old and young Robins, and will generally tell you that the young ones kill their parents. The truth seems to be that after their autumnal moult, in the confidence of renewed strength the old ones attack their offspring, and succeed in forcing them to seek new homes. This combativeness is of course accompanied by fresh vigour of song. Birds will sing, as I am pretty well convinced, under any kind of pleasant or exciting emotion — such as love, abundance of food, warmth, or anger ; and the outbreak of the Eobin's song in autumn is to be ascribed, in part at least, to the last of these. Other reasons may be found, such as restored health after the moult, or the arrival in a warmer climate after immigration, or possibly even EOBINS AND BULLFINCHES. ^ the delusion, already noticed, which not uncommonly possesses them in a warm autumn, that it is their duty to set about pairing and nest-building already. But all these would affect other species also, and the only reason which seems to suit the idiosyncrasies of the Robin is this curious rivalry between young and old. The Robins, I need not say, are everywhere ' ; but there are certain kinds of birds for which we must look out in particular places. I mentioned Parsons' Pleasure just now ; and we may take it very well as a starting-point, offering as it does, in a space of less than a hundred yards square, every kind of supply that a bird can possibly want ; water, sedge, reeds, meadows, gravel, railings, hedges, and trees and bushes of many kinds, forming abundant cover. In this cover, as you walk along the footpath towards the weir, you will very likely see a pair of Bullfinches. They were here the greater part of last winter, and are occasionally seen even in college and privatiB gardens ; but very rarely in the breeding-season or the summer, when they are away in the densest woods, where their beautiful nest and eggs are not too often found. Should they be at their usual work of devouring buds, it is well worth while to stop and watch the process ; at Parsons' Pleasure they can do no serious harm, and the Bullfinch's bill is not an instrument to be lightly passed over. It places him apart from all other common English birds, and brings him into the same sub-family as the Crossbill and ' It is worth noticing that this bird is much more abundant in England than on the continent. During a fortnight spent at Wiesbaden (a town full of gardens) I neither heard nor saw a single specimen. 8 oxpoed: autumn and winter. the Pine-Grosbeak. It is short, wide, round, and parrot-like in having the upper mandible curved downwards over the lower one, and altogether admirably suited for snipping off and retaining those fat young juicy buds, from which, as some believe, the Bullfinch has come by his name.^ Parsons' Pleasure, i. e. the well-concealed bathing-place which goes by this name, stands at the narrow apex of a large island which is formed by the river Cherwell, — itself here running in two channels which enclose the walk known as Mesopotamia, — and the slow and often shallow stream by which Holywell mill is worked. The bird-lover will never cross the rustic bridge which brings him into the island over this latter stream, without casting a rapid glance to right and left. Here in the summer we used to listen to the Nightingale, or watch the Redstarts and Flycatchers in the willows, or feast our eyes with the splendid deep and glossy black-blue of the Swallow's back, as he darted up and down beneath the bridge in doubtful weather. And here of a winter morning you may see a pair of Moorfowl paddling out of the large patch of rushes that lies opposite the bathing-place on the side of the Parks ; here they breed in the summer, with only the little Reed-warblers as com- panions. And here there is always in winter at least a chance of seeing a Kingfisher. Why these beautiful birds are compara- tively seldom to be seen in or about Oxford from March to July is a question not very easy to answer. The keeper of the ' The name is said to be a corruption of hud-finch. But Prof. Skeat (Etym. Diet. s. v. Bnll) compares it with T>ull-dogi the prefix in each case suggesting the stout build of the animal. KINGFISHEKS. 9 bathing-place tells me that they go up to breed in ditches which run down to the Cherwell from the direction of Marston and Elsiield; and this is perhaps borne out by the discovery of a nest by a friend of mine, then incumbent of Woodeaton, in a deserted c[uarry between that village and Elsfield, fully a mile from the river. One would suppose, however, that the birds would be about the river, if only to supply their voracious young with food, unless we are to conclude that they feed them principally with slugs and such small-fry. Here is a point which needs investigation. The movements of the Kingfisher seem to be only partly understood, but that they do migrate, whether for short or long distances, I have no doubt whatever. On the Evenlode, another Oxfordshire river, which runs from Moreton- in-the-Marsh to join the Isis at Eynsham, they are rarely to be seen between March and September, or August at the earliest, while I seldom take a walk along the stream in the winter months without seeing one or more of them. This bird is one of those which owe much to the Wild-birds Act, of which a short account will be found in my last chapter. It may not be shot between March and August, and though it may be slaughtered in the winter with impunity, the gun- licence and its own rapid flight give it a fair chance of escape. Formerly it was a frequent victim : By green Kother's reedy side The blue Kingfisher flashed and died. Blue is the prevailing tint of the bird as he flies from you ; it is seldom that you see him coming towards you, but should that happen, the tint that you chiefly notice is the chestnut of lO OXFORD: AUTUMN AND TTINTEK. the throat and breast. One Sunday morning, as I was standing on the Cherwell bank just below the Botanic Garden, a King- fisher, failing to see me, flew almost into my arms, showing this chestnut hue ; then suddenly wheeled, and flashed away all blue and green, towards Magdalen Bridge.^ One story is told about the Kingfisher which I commend to those who study the varying effect of colours on the eye. Thompson, the famous Irish naturalist, was out shooting when snow was lying on the ground, and repeatedly saw a small brown bird in flight, which entirely puzzled him ; at last he shot it, and found it to be a Kingfisher in its full natural plumage. Can it be that the swift flash of varying liquid colour, as the bird darts from its perch into the water, is specially calculated to escape the eye of the unsuspecting minnow 1 It nearly always frequents slow and clear streams, where its intense brightness would surely discover it, even as it sits upon a stone or bough, if its hues as seen through a liquid medium did not lose their sheen. But I must leave these questions to the philosophers, and return to Parsons' Pleasure. The island which I have mentioned is joined to Meso- potamia by another bridge just below the weir ; and here is a second post of observation, with one feature that is absent at the upper bridge. There all is silent, unless a breeze is stirring the trees ; here the water prattles gently as it slides ' Since the text was written, I have seen a Kingfiaher hovering like a dragon-fly or humming-bird over a little sapling almost underneath the bridge by which you enter Addison's Walk. Possibly it was about to strike a fish, but unluckily it saw me and vanished. The sight was one of marvellous beauty, though it lasted but a few seconds. THE GREY WAGTAIL. 1 1 down the green slope of the weir into the deep pool below. This motion of the water makes the weir and this part of the Cherwell a favourite 'spot of a very beautiful little bird, which haunts it throughout the October term.^ All the spring and early summer the Grey Wagtail was among the noisy becks and burns of the north, bringing up his young under some spray-splashed stone, or the moist arch of a bridge; in July he comes southwards, and from that time till December or January is constantly to be seen along Cherwell and Isis. He is content with sluggish water if he can find none that is rapid ; but the sound of the falling yfater is as surely grateful to his ear as the tiny crustaceans he finds in it are to his palate. For some time last autumn I saw him nearly every day, either on the stonework of the weir, or walking into its gentle water-slope, or running lightly over the islands of dead leaves in other parts of the Cherwell; sometimes one pair would be playing among the barges on the Isis, and another at Clasper's boat-house seemed quite unconcerned at the crowd of men and boats. It is always a pleasure to watch them ; and though all Wagtails have their charm for me, I give this one the first place, for its matchless delicacy of form, and the gentle grace of all its actions. The Grey Wagtail is misnamed, both in English and Latin ; as we might infer from the fact that in the one case it is named from the colour of its back, and in the other from that of its belly. It should be surely called the Long-tailed ' In 1885 Grey Wagtails were much less comnion than in 1884 : in Oxford I only saw one during the autumn. I a oxford: autumn and wintee. Wagtail, for its tail is nearly an inch longer than that of any other species ; or the Brook -Wagtail, because it so rarely leaves the bed of the stream it haunts. All other Wagtails may be seen in meadows, ploughed fields, and uplands ; but though I have repeatedly seen this one within the last year in England, Wales, Ireland, and Switzerland, I never but once saw it away from the water, and then it was for the moment upon a high road in Dorsetshire, and within a few yards of a brook and pool. Those who wish to identify it must remember its long tail and its love of water, and must also look out for the beautiful sulphur yellow of its under parts; in the spring both male and female have a black chin and throat, like our com- mon Pied Wagtail. No picture, and no stuffed specimen, can give the least idea of what the bird is like : the specimens in our Oxford Museum look very ' sadly,' as the villagers say ; you must see the living bird in perpetual motion, the little feet running swiftly, the long tail ever gently flickering up and down. How can you successfully draw or stuff a bird whose most remarkable feature is never for a moment stiU ? Let us now return towards Oxford, looking into the Parks on our way. The Curators of the Parks, not less generous to the birds than to mankind, have provided vast stores of food for the former, in the numbers of birches and conifers which flourish under their care. They, or their predecessors who stocked the plantations, seem to have had the particular object of attracting those delightful little north-country birds the Lesser EedpoUs, for they have planted every kind of tree in whose seeds they find a winter subsistence. Whether they KEDPOLLS AND JACK-SNIPE. 1 3 come every winter I am unable to say, and am inclined to doubt it; but in 1884, anyone wbo went the round of the Parks, keeping an eye on the birches, could hardly fail to see them, and they have been reported not only as taking refuge here in the winter, but even as nesting in the summer. A nest was taken from the branch of a fir-tree here in 1883, and in this present year, if I am not mistaken, another nest was built. I failed to find it, but I several times saw a pair of sportive Bedpolls at the south-east corner of the Parks. It is one of the prettiest sights that our whole calendar of bird- life affords, to watch these tiny linnets at work in the delicate birch-boughs. They fear no human being, and can he approached within a very few yards. They almost outdo the Titmice in the amazing variety of their postures. They prefer in a general way to be upside down, and decidedly object to the common- place attitudes of more solidly built birds. Otherwise they are not remarkable for beauty at this time of year; their splendid crimson crest — the'' Bluttropf,' as the Germans aptly call it, — is hardly discernible, and the warm pink of their breasts has altogether vanished. Before we leave the Parks I must record the fact that an eccentric Jack-snipe, who ought to have considered that he is properly a winter bird in these parts, was several times flushed here by the Cherwell in the summer of 1884, and the natural inference would be that a pair had bred somewhere near. Col. Montagu, the most accurate of naturalists, asserted that it has never been known to remain and breed in England ; yet the observer in this case, a well-known college tutor who 14 OXFORD : AUTUMN AND WINTER. knows a Jack-snipe when he sees it, has assured me positively that there was no mistake; and some well-authenticated cases seem to have occurred since Montagu wrote. There are plenty of common birds to be seen even in winter on most days in the Parks, such as the Skylark, the Yellow- hammer and its relative the Black-headed Bunting, the Pied Wagtail, the Hedge-sparrow, and others ; though where will these be, and where will the Skylark build her nest, when the sixteen cricket-grounds are levelled which the cricket- committee yearn for 1 But there are some birds which may be seen to greater advantage, in another part of Oxford, and we will take the short line to Christchurch Meadow, past Holywell church, doubtless the abode of Owls, and the fine elms of Magdalen Park, beloved by the Woodpigeons. All this lower part of the Cherwell, from Holywell mill to its mouth at the barges, abounds in snug and secure retreats for the birds. In Addison's Walk, as well as in the trees in Christchurch Meadow, dwell the Nuthatch and the Tree-creeper, both remarkable birds in all their ways, and each representative of a family of which no other member has ever been found in these islands. They are tree-climbing birds, but they climb in very different ways : the Creeper helping himself, like the Woodpeckers, with his downward -bent feathers of liis strong tail, while the Nuthatch, having no tail to speak of, relies chiefly on his hind claw. These birds are now placed, on account of the structure of their feet, in a totally diflferent order to that of the Woodpeckers, who rank with the Swifts and the Nightjars. WOODPECKERS. 1 5 I have never but once seen the Green Woodpecker in Oxford, and that was as he flew rapidly over the Parks in the direction of the Magdalen elms. If he lives there, he must be known to the Magdalen men, but I have not had intelligence of him. The fact is that he is a much wilder bird than his near relation, the Lesser-spotted Woodpecker, who is, or was, beyond doubt an Oxford resident. A correspondent of the Oxford Magazine, 'E. W. E,' states that this bird bred outside his window at Trinity a few years ago, ' but has not done so lately for reasons of his own, of which I approve.' Another cor- respondent, however, reports him from Addison's Walk ; and Mr. Macpherson of Oriel, whose eye is not likely to have erred, believed that he saw one in the Broad Walk a few years ago. I myself have not seen the bird nearer Oxford than Ken- nington; but I am pretty sure that it is commoner and also less shy than is generally imagined, and also that the ornitho- logist who sees it is not likely to mistake it for another bird : its very small size — it is not larger than a sparrow — its crimson head, and its wings, with their black and white bars, making it a conspicuous object to a practised eye. Christchurch Meadow is a favourite home of the Titmice. I believe that I have seen all the five English species here within a space of a very few days : English, not British, for there is one other, the Crested Tit, of which I shall have more to say in another chapter. A family of Longtails, or Bottle-tits, flits from bush to bush, never associating with the others,and so justifying its scientific separation from them. Another family is to be seen in the Parks; where they build a nest every year. These delightful l6 OXFORD: AUTUMN AND WINTER. little birds are however quite willing to live in the very centre of a town, indifferent to noise and dust. A Marsh-tit was once seen performing its antics on a lamp-post in St. Giles. A Great-tit built its nest in the stump of an old laburnum, in the little garden of Lincoln College, within a few yards of the Turl and High Street ; the nest was discovered by my dog, who was prowling about the garden with a view to cats. I took great interest in this brood, which was successfully reared, and on one occasion I watched the parents bringing food to their young for twenty minutes, during which time they were fed fourteen times. The ringing note of this Great-tit or his relations is the first to be heard in that garden in winter-time, and is always welcome. The little Blue-tit is also forthcoming there at times. One Sunday morning I saw a Blue-tit climbing the walls of my College quadrangle, almost after the manner of a Creeper, searching the crannies for insects, and even breaking down the crust of weathered stone. Among memories of the rain, mist, and hard work of many an Oxford winter spent among these gray walls, ' haeo dim meminisse juvabit.' But I have strayed away from Christchurch Meadow and the Botanic Garden. Here it is more especially that the Thrush tribe makes its presence felt throughout the autumn. In the Gardens the Thrushes and Blackbirds have become so tame from constant quiet and protection, that, like the donkeys at Athens of which Plato tells us, they wiU hardly deign to move out of your way. A Blackbird proceeded calmly to take his bath, in the fountain at the lower end near the meadow, one BLACKBIRDS AND BEEBIES. 1 7 morning when I was looking on, and seemed to be fully aware of the fact there was a locked gate between us. Missel-thrushes are also to be seen here ; and all these birds go out of a morning to breakfast on the thickly-berried thorn-bushes at the Cherwell end of the Broad Walk, where they meet with their relations the Eedwings, and now and then with a Fieldfare. The walker round the meadow in winter will seldom fail to hear the harsh call of the Redwing, as, together with Starlings innumerable, and abundance of Blackbirds, they utter loud sounds of disap- proval. There is one bush here whose berries must have some strange ambrosial flavour that Blackbirds dearly love. All the Blackbirds in Oxford seem to have their free breakfast-table here, and they, have grown so bold that they'will return to it again and again as I teasingly walk up and down in front of it, merely flying to a neighbouring tree when I scrutinise them too closely in search of a lingering Eing-ousel. Who ever heard of a, flock of Blackbirds'? Here however, in November 1884, was a sight to be seen, which might possibly throw some light on the process of developing gregarious habits. Books, Starlings, Jackdaws, and Sparrows, which abound here and everywhere else in Oxford, everyone can observe for them- selves, and of Sparrows I shall have something to say in the next chapter ; but let me remind my young readers that every bird is worth noticing, whether it be the rarest or the commonest. My sister laughs at me, because the other day she found an old copy of "White's Selborne belonging to me, wherein was inscribed on the page devoted to the Book, in puerile handwriting, the following annotation : ' Common about Bath' (where I was c 1 8 OXFOED : AUTUMN AND WINTBE. then at school). But I tell her that it was a strictly accurate scientific observation ; and I only wish that I had followed it up with others equally unimpeachable. But more out-of-the-way birds will sometimes come to Oxford, and I have seen a Kestrel trying to hover in a high wind over Christchurch Meadow, and a Heron sitting on the old gate- post in the middle of the field. Port Meadow constantly entices sea-birds when it is under water, or when the water is receding and leaving that horrible slime which is so unpleasant to the nose of man ; and in fact there is hardly a wader or a scratcher (to use Mr. Ruskin's term)^ that has not at one time or another been taken near Oxford. Sometimes they will come to enjoy themselves, sometimes they are driven by stress of weather. Two Stormy Petrels were caught at Bossom's barge in the Port Meadow not long ago, and exhibited in Mr. Darbey the birdstuffer's window. And a well-known Oxford physician has kindly given me an interesting account of his discovery of a Great Northern Diver, swimming disconsolately in a large hole in the ice near King's Weir, one day during the famous Crimean winter of 1854-5; this splendid bird he shot with a gun borrowed from the inn at Godstow. Specimens of almost all such birds are to be seen in the bird- cases of the Museum, and occasionally they may be seen in the flesh in the Market. Both Market and Museum will give plenty to do on a rainy day in winter : — TJbi jam breviorque dies et mollior aestas Quae vigilanda Tins ! ' I. e. for the Basores, in Love's Meirde ; where are some of the most delightfully wilful thoughts about birds ever yet published. CHAPTER II. Oxford : Speing and Eaely Summbe. A LL the birds mentioned in the last chapter are residents in Oxford, in greater or less numbers according to the season, except the Fieldfares and Kedwings, the Grey Wagtail, and the rarer visitors : and of these the Fieldfares and Eedwings are the only true winter birds. They come from the north and east in September and October, and depart again in March and April. When we begin our Summer Term not one is to be seen. The berries in the meadow are all eaten up long before Lent Term is over, and though these are not entirely or even chiefly the Redwing's food, the birds have generally disappeared with them. They do not however leave the country districts till later. "When wild birds like these come into a town, the cause is almost certain to be stress of weather; when the winter's back is broken, they return to the fields and hedges till the approach of summer calls them northwards. There they assemble together in immense flocks, showing all the rest- lessness and excitement of the smaller birds that leave us in the autumn ; suddenly the whole mass rises and departs like c 2 ao OXFORD : speing and early summer. a cloud. Accounts are always forthcoming of the departure of summer migrants, and especially of the Swallows and Martins, and there are few who have not seen these as they collect on the sunny side of the house-roof, or bead the parapet of the EadcUffe building, before they make up their minds to the journey. But few have seen the Fieldferes and Redwings under the same conditions, and I find no account of their migration, or at least of what actually happens when they go, in any book within my reach as I write. But on March 19, 1884, I was lucky enough to see something of their farewell ceremonies. I was walking in some water- meadows adjoining a wood, on the outskirts of which were a number of tall elms and poplars, when I heard an extra- ordinary noise, loud, harsh, and continuous, and of great volume, proceeding from the direction of these trees, which were at the time nearly half-a-mUe distant. I had been hearing the noise for a minute or two without attending to it, and was gradually developing a consciousness that some strange new agricultural instrument, or several of them, were at work somewhere near, when some Fieldfares flew past me to alight on the meadow not far oif. Then putting up my glass, I saw that the trees were literally hlack with birds ; and as long as I stayed, they continued there, only retreating a little as I approached, and sending foraging detachments into the meadow, or changing trees in continual fits of rest- lessness. The noise they made was like the deep organ-sounds of sea-birds in the breeding-time, but harsher and less serious. I would willingly have stayed to see them depart, but not ■WAEBLEUS. 31 knowing when that might be, I was obliged to go home : and the next day when I went to look for them, only a few were left. These birds do not leave us as a rule before the first summer visitors have arrived. In the case I have just mentioned, the spring was a warm one, and the very next day I saw the ever-welcome Chiff-chaff, which is the earliest to come and the latest to go, of all the delicate warblers which come to find a summer's shelter in our abundant trees and herbage. I use this word ' warbler ' in a sense which calls for a word of explanation ; for not only are the birds which are called in the natural history books by this name often very difficult to distinguish, but the word itself has been constantly used to denote a certain class of birds, without any precise explana- tion of the species meant to be included in it. Nor is it in itself a very exact word; some of the birds which are habitually called warblers do not warble in the proper sense of the word,^ and many others who really warble, such as the common Hedge-sparrow, have no near relationship to the class I am speaking of. But as it is a term in use, and a word that pleases, I will retain it in this chapter, with an explanation which may at the same time help some beginner in dealing with a difficult group of birds. * Wliat this sense is may be guessed from Milton, Paradise Lost, Bk. V. 195 — ' Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.' The word seems to express a kind of singing which is soft, continuous, and ' legato.' 22 OXFORD : SPRING AND EARLY SUMMER. If the reader of this book who really cares to understand the differences of the bird-life which abounds around us, will buy for a shilling Mr. Dresser's most useful lAst of Ewropean Bi/rds,^ he will find, under the great family of the Tv/rdidae, three sub-families following each other on pages 7, 8, and 9, respectively called Sylmcmae, or birds of woodland habits, Phylloscopinae,- or leaf-searching birds, and Acrocephalinae, or birds belonging to a group many of the members of which have the front of the head narrow and depressed; and under all these three sub-families he wiU find several species bearing in popular English the name of warbler. At the same time he will find other birds in these sub-families, which are quite familiar to him, but not as ' warblers ' in any technical sense of the word ; thus the Eobin will be found in the first sub-family, and the Golden-crested Wren in the second. But, leaving out these two species, and also the Nightingale, which is a bird of somewhat peculiar structure and habits, he will find four birds in the first sub-family belonging to the genus Sylvia, which are all loosely called warblers, and will be mentioned in this chapter as summer visitors to Oxford, viz. the Whitethroat (or White- throat-warbler), the Lesser Whitethroat, the Blackcap, and the Garden-warbler ; he will also find two in the second, belonging to the genus PhyUoseopus, the Chiff-chaff and the Willow-wren (or Willow-warbler), and two in the third, belonging to the genus Acrocephalus, the Sedge-warbler and ' Published by its author at 6 Tenterden Street, Hanover Square. DIVISION OF WAEBLEES. 23 the Eeed-warbler. Let it be observed that each of these three genera, Sylvia, Phylloscopus, and Acrocejphalus, is the representative genus of the sub-family in this classification, and has given it its name; so that we might expect to find some decided differences of appearance or habit between the members of these genera respectively. And this is precisely what is the case, as anyone may prove for himself by a day or twos' careful observation. The birds I have mentioned as belonging to the first genus, i. e. Whitethroat, etc., are all of a fairly substantial build, fond of perching, singing a varied and warbling song (with the exception of the Lesser Whitethroat, of whose song I shall speak presently), and all preferring to build their cup-shaped nest a little way from the ground, in a thick bush, hedge, or patch of thick-growing plants such as nettles. They also have the peculiarity of loving small fruits and berries as food, and are all apt to come into our gardens in search of them, where they do quite as much good as harm by a large consumption of insects and caterpillars. Secondly, the two kinds of bird belonging to the genus Phylloscopus, Chiff-chaff and Willow- warbler, are alike in having slender delicate frames, with a slight bend forward as of creatures given to climbing up and down, in an almost entire absence of the steady perching habit, in building nests upon the ground with a hole at the side, and partly arched over by a roof of dried grass, in feeding almost exclusively on insects, and in singing a song which is always the same, each new effort being undistinguishable from the last. In fact these two birds are so %4 OXFORD : SPRING KSO EAELT SDMMEK. jauch alike in every respect but their voices (whioli though monotonous are very different from each other), that it is almost impossible for a novice to distinguish them unless he hears them. Thirdly, the two species belonging to the genus Aerocephalits, the Sedge- and Eeed-warblers, differ from the other two groups in frequenting the banks of rivers and streams much more exclusively, where they climb up and down the water-plants, as their name suggests, and build a cup-shaped nest ; and also in the nervous intensity and continuity of their song. These eight species,, then, are the 'warblers,' of whom I am going to speak in the first place. They may easily be remembered in these three groups by anyone who wiU take the trouble to learn their voices, and to look out for them when they first arrive, before the leaves have come out and the birds are shy of approach on account of their nests and young. But without some little pains confusion is sure to arise, as we may well understand when we consider that a century ago even such a naturalist as White of Selborne had great difficulty in distin- guishing them; he was in fact the first to discover the Chiff-chaff (one of our commonest and most obvious summer migrants) as a species separate from the others of our second group. To give an idea of the progress Ornithology has made during the last century, I will quote Markwick's note on White's com- munication : — ' This bird, which Mr. White calls the smallest Willow wren, or Chiff-chaff, makes its appearance very early in the spring, and is very common with us, but I cannot make out the three different species of Willow-wrens, which he says he has dis- TREE-WAHBLEES. 25 covered.' ^ Nothing but a personal acquaintance — a friendship, as I must call it in my own case — ^with these little birds, as they live their every-day life among us, will suffice to fix the individuality of each species in the mind ; not even the best plates in a book, or the faded and lifeless figures in a museum. You may shoot and dissect them, and study them as you would study and label a set of fossils : but a bird is a living thing, and you will never really know him tUl you fully understand how he lives. Let us imagine ourselves taking a stroU into the Parks with the object of seeing these eight birds, not as skeletons, but as living realities. The first to present themselves to eye and ear will be the two species of the second group, which may roughly be described (so far at least as England is concerned) as containing Tree-warblers. From the tall trees in St. John's Gardens, before we reach the Museum, we are certain on any tolerably warm day to hear the Willow-warbler, which has been the last few years extremely abundant; in Oxford alone there must have been two or three hundred pairs in the spring of 1885. From the same trees is also pretty sure to come ringing the two notes of the Chiff-chaff, which is a less abundant bird, but one that makes its presence more obvious. Let us pause here a moment to make our ideas clear about these two. We may justly take them first, as they are the earliest of their group to arrive in England. ' The three species were the Wood-warbler, Phylloscopus sibilatrix (Beehst.), Willow-warbler, Ph. troohilus (Linn.), and Chiflf-chaff, Ph. collybita (Viell.). Markwick declares that he conld not distinguish the first of these from the other two. a6 OXFORD : SPRING AND EAELT SUMMER. When the first balmy breath of spring brings the celandines into bloom on the hedge-bank, and when the sweet violets and primroses are beginning to feel the warmth of the sun, you may always look out for the Chiff-chaff on the sheltered side of a wood or coppice. As a rule, I see them before I hear them ; if they come with an east wind, they doubtless feel chilly for a day or two, or miss the plentiful supply of food which is absolutely necessary to a bird in fuU song. Thus in 1884,' I noted March 20 as the first day on which I saw the Chiff-chaff, and March 23 as the first on which I heard him. The next year, the jnonth of March being less genial, I looked and listened in vain till the 31st. On that day I made q, circuit round a wood to its sunny side, sheltered well from east and north, and entering for a little way one of these grassy ' rides ' which are the delight of all wood-haunting birds, I stood quite still and listened. First a Eobin, then a Chaffinch broke the silence ; a Wood-pigeon broke away through the boughs ; but no Chiff-chaff. After a while I was just turning away, when a very faint sound caught my ear, which I knew I had not heard for many months. I listened still more keenly, and caught it again ; it was the prelude, the preliminary whisper, with which I have noticed that this bird, in common with a few others, is wont to work up his faculties to the effort of an outburst of song. In another minute that song was resounding throu'gh the wood. No one who hails the approach of spring as the real begin- ning of a new life for men and plants and animals, can fail to be gratefiil to this little brown bird for putting on it the stamp and WILLOW-WAEBLEE AND CHIFF-CHAFF. 27 sanction of his clear resonant voice. We may grow tired of Hs two notes — he never gets beyond two — ^for he sings almost the whole summer through, and was in full voice on the 25th of September in the same year in which he began on March 23rd.; but not even the first twitter of the Swallow, or the earliest song of the Nightingale, has the same hopeful story to tell me as this delicate traveller who dares the east wind and the frost. They spend the greater part of the year with us ; I have seen them still lurking in sheltered corners of the Dorsetshire coast, at the beginning of October, within sound of the sea-waves in which many of them must doubtless perish before they reach their journey's end. And now and then they will even pass the winter with us : this was the case with a pair that took up their sojourn at Bodicote near Banbury, in a winter of general mildness, though not unbroken, if I recollect right, by some very sharp frosts. The Willow-warbler follows his cousin to England in a very few days, and remains his companion in the trees all through the summer. He has the same brownish-yellow back and yellowish-white breast, but is a very little larger, and sings a very different song, which is unique among all British birds. Beginning with a high and tolerably full note, he drops it both in force and pitch in a cadence short and sweet, as though he were getting exhausted with the effort ; for that it is a real effort to him and all his slim and tender relations, no one who watches as well as listens can have a reasonable doubt. This cadence is often perfect, by which I mean that it descends gradually, not of course on the notes of our musical scale, by 3 8 OXFORD: SPKING AND EARLY StTMMEK,, which no birds in their natural state would deign to be fettered, but through fractions of one or perhaps two of our tones, and without returning upwards at the end; but stDl more often, and especially, as I fancy, after they have been here a few weeks, they take to finishing with a note nearly as high in pitch as that with which they began. This singular song is heard in summer term in every part of the Parks, and in the grass beneath the trees there must be many nests ; but these we are not likely to find except by accident, so beautifully are they concealed by their grassy roofs. Through the hole in the upper part of the side you see tiny eggs, speckled with reddish brown, lying on a warm bedding of soft feathers ; one of these was built last May in the very middle of the lawn of the Parsonage-house at Ferry-Hincksey, and two others of exactly the same build, one a Chifi'-chaff's, were but a little way outside the garden gate, and had escaped the sharp eyes of the village boys when I last heard of them. Though from being on the ground they probably escape the notice of Magpies and Jackdaws and other egg-devouring birds, these eggs and the young that follow must often fall a prey to stoats and weasels, rats and hedge- hogs. That such creatures are not entirely absent from the neighbourhood of the Parks, I can myself bear witness, having seen one morning two fine stoats in deadly combat for some object of prey which I conld not discern, as I was divided from them by the river. The piping squeaks they uttered were so vehement and loud, that at the first moment I mistook them for the alarm-note of some bird that was strange to me. One word more before we leave the Tree-warblers. In front BLACKCAP AND GARDEN WARBLBE. 2g of my drawing-room window in the country are always two rows or hedges of sweet peas, and another of edible peas ; towards the end of the summer some little pale yellow loirAs come frequently and climb up and down the pea-sticks, ap- parently in search of insects rather than of the peas. These are the young Willow-warblers, which after their first moult assume this gently-toned yellow tint ; and very graceful and beautiful creatures they are. We have to walk but a little further on to hear or see at least two of our first group, the Sylviae, or fruit-eating warblers. As we pass into the Park by the entrance close to the house of the Keeper of the Museum, we are almost sure, on any sunny day, to hear both Blackcap and Garden-warbler, and with a little pains and patience, to see them both. These two (for a wonder) take their scientific names from the character- istics which sensible English folk have thought best to name them by; the Blackcap being Sylvia atracapilla, and the Garden-warbler Sylvia hortensis. Mr. Euskin says, in that delicious fragment of his about birds, called Love's Meinie, that all birds should be named on this principle ; and indeed if they had only to discharge the duty which many of our English names perform so well, viz. that of letting English people know of what bird we are talking, his plan would be an excellent one. Unluckily Ornithology is a science, and a science which embraces all the birds in the world; and we m/ust have some means of knowing for certain that we shall be understood of all the world when we mention a bird's name. This necessity is well illustrated in the case of the warblers. 30 OXFORD : SPEING AND EARLY SUMMER. So many kinds of them are there, belonging to all our three groups, in Europe alone, not to speak of other parts of the world, that even a scientific terminology and description upon description have not been able to save the birds from getting mixed up together, or getting confounded with their own young, or with the young of other birds. If the Blackcap were not a Sylvia, he could not well be scientifically named after his black head, for other birds, such as Titmice, have also black heads, and I have frequently heard the Cole Tit described as the Blackcap. In any case he should perhaps have been named after his wonderful faculty of song, in which he far excels all the other birds of our three groups. Most people know the Blackcap's song who have ever lived in the country, for you can hardly enter a wood in the summer without being struck by it ; and all I need do here is to distinguish it as well as I can from that of the Garden-warbler, which may easily be mistaken for it by an unpractised ear, when the birds are keeping out of sight in the foliage, as they often most provokingly will do. Both are essentially warblers ; that is, they sing a strain of music, continuous and legato, instead of a song that is broken up into separate notes or short phrases, like that of the Song-thrush, or the Chiff-chaff. But they differ in two points : the strain of the Blackcap is shorter, forming in fact one lengthened phrase ' in sweetness long drawn out,' while the Garden-warbler will go on almost continuously for many minutes together ; and secondly, the Blackcap's music is played upon a mellower instrument. The most gifted Blackcaps — for THE WHITETHEOATS. 3 1 birds of the same species differ considerably in their power of song — excel all other birds in the soft quality of their tone, just as a really good boy's voice, though less brilliant and resonant, excels aU women's voices in softness and sweetness. So far as I have been able to observe, the Blackcap's voice is almost entirely wanting in that power of producing the harmonics of a note which gives a musical sound its brilliant quality ; but this very want is what produces its unrivalled mellowness. The other two members of our first group (we are stUl in genus Sylvia) are the two Whitethroats, greater and lesser, and we have not far to go to find them. They arrive just at the beginning of our Easter term, but never come to Oxford in great numbers, because their proper homes, the hedge-rows, are naturally not common objects of a town. In the country the greater Whitethroats are swarming this year (1885), and in most years they are the most abundant of our eight warblers ; and the smaller bird, less seen and less showy, makes his presence felt in almost every lane and meadow by the brilliancy of his note. Wliere shall we find a hedge near at hand, where we may learn to distinguish the two birds 1 We left the Blackcaps and Garden-warblers at the upper end of the Park ; we shall still have a chance of listening to them if we take the walk towards Parsons' Pleasure, and here in the thorn-hedge on the right hand of the path, we shall find both the Whitethroats. As we walk along, a rough grating sound, something like the noise of a diminutive corncrake, is heard on the other side of the 33 OXFORD : SPRING AND EARLY STTMMBR. hedge ; stopping when we stop, and Bounding a-head of us as we walk on. This is the teasing way of the greater White- throat, and it means that he is either building a nest in the hedge, or thinking of doing so. If you give him time, however, he will shew himself, flirting up to the top of the hedge, crooning, craking, and popping into it again ; then flying out a little way, cheerily singing a soft and truly warbling song, with fluttering wings and roughened feathers, and then perhaps perching on a twig to repeat it. Now you see the white of his throat ; it is real white, and it does not go below the throat. In one book I have seen the Garden-warbler called a "Whitethroat ; but in his case the white is not so pure, and it is continued down the breast. The throat of both Whitethroats is real white, and they have a pleasant way of puffing it out, as if to assure one that there is no mistake about it. But how to distinguish the two? for in size they differ hardly enough to guide an inexperienced eye. There are three points of marked difierence. The larger bird has a rufous or rusty-coloured back,' and his wing-coverts are of much the same colour ; while the back of the lesser bird is darkish or greyish brown. Secondly, the head of the lesser Whitethroat is of a much darker bluish-grey tint. But much the best point of distinction in the breeding season is in the song. As I have said, the larger bird warbles; but the lesser one, after a little preliminary soliloquy in an under-tone, bursts out into a succession of high notes, all of exactly the same pitch. It took me some time to find out who was the ' The scientific name is appropriate, viz. Sylvia rufa. EIVEE-WARBLEES. ^^ performer of this music which I heard so constantly in the hedges, for the bird is very restless and very modest. When I caught sight of him, he would not stop to be examined closely. One day however he was kind enough to alight for a moment in a poplar close by me, and as I watched him in the loose- leaved branches, he poured out the song, and duly got the credit for it. We are now close to our old winter-station on the bridge over the mill-stream, stnd leaning over it once more on the tipper side, we shall hear, if not see, both the remaining species of the warblers that Oxford has to show us. They are the only species of Eiver-warblers that are known to visit England regularly every year; these two, the Sedge-warbler and the B,eed-warbler, never fail, and the Sedge-warbler comes in very large numbers, but only a few specimens of other Eiver-warblers have been found out in their venturesomeness. Still, every young bird-hunter should acquaint himself with the characteristics of the rarer visitors, in order to qualify himself for helping to throw light on what is still rather a dark corner of English ornithology. These same species which we so seldom see are swarming in the flat lands of Holland, close by us, and why should they not come over to the island which birds seem to love so dearly 1 But there is no doubt that birds have ways, and reasons for them, which man is very unlikely ever to be able to understand. Why, aa Mr. Harting asks,' should the Eeed-warbler be so much less ' generally distributed ' than the Sedge- warbler ? That it ^ Our Summer Migrants, p. 82. 34 OXFORD : SPEING AND STJMMEK. is SO, we can show well enough even from Oxford alone. You will find Sedge-warblers all along the Cherwell and the Isis, wherever there is a bit of cover, and very often they will turn up where least expected ; in a corn-field for example, where I have seen them running up and down the corn-stalks as if they were their native reeds. But you must either know where to find the Reed-warbler, or find out by slow degrees. Parsons' Pleasure is the only place known to me where The Beed-warbler swung in a nest with her young, Deep-sheltered and warm from the wind.' There is, however, in this case, at least a plausible answer to Mr. Harting's question. Owing to the prime necessity of reeds for the building of this deep-sheltered nest, which is swung between several of them, kept firm by their centrifugal ten- dency, yielding lovingly yet proudly to every blast of vrind or current of water — owing to this necessity, the Eeed-warbler declines to take up his abode in any place where the reeds are not thick enough and tall enough to give a real protection to himself and his brood. Now in the whole length of Isis between Kennington'' and Godstow, and of Cherwell between its mouth and Parsons' Pleasure, there is no reed-bed which answers all the requirements of this little bird. Now and then, it is true, they vrill leave the reeds for some other nesting-place ; one of them sang away all the Summer Term of 1884 in the bushes ' Mr. Courthope'a Paradise of Birds. No one who loyes birds or poetry should fail to read Mr. Buskin's commentary on the chorus &om which these lines are taken, in Love's Meinie, p. 1 39 and foil. ' Unless it be in the westernmost branch, which runs at the foot of the Berkshire hills. A. MOCKING BIKD. 35 behind the Museum, nearly half a mile from the river, and probably built a nest among the lilac-bushes which there abound. But that year they seemed to be more abundant than usual ; and this, perhaps, was one for whom there was no room in the limited space of the reeds at Parsons' Pleasure. Thick bushes, where many lithe saplings spring from a common root, would suit him better than a scanty reed-bed. There is no great difficulty in distinguishing Sedge- and Eeed-warblers, if you have an eye for the character of birds. The two are very different in temperament, though both are of the same quiet brown, with whitish breast. The Sedge-bird is a restless, noisy, impudent little creature, not at all modest or retiring, and much given to mocking the voices of other birds. This is done as a rule in the middle of one of his long and continuous outpourings of chatter ; but I one day heard a much more ridiculous display of impertinence. I was standing at the bottom of the Parks, looking at a pair or two of Sedge- warblers on a bush, and wondering whether they were going to build a nest there, when a Blackbird emerged from the thicket behind me, and seeing a human being, set up that absurd cackle that we all know so well. Instantly, out of the bush I was looking at, there came an echo of this cackle, uttered by a small voice in such ludicrous tones of mockery, as fairly to upset my gravity. It seemed to say ' Tou awkward idiot of a bird, I can make that noise as well as you : only listen ! ' — The Keed -warbler, on the other hand, is quieter and gentler, and utters, by way of song, a long crooning soliloquy, in accents D 2 36 OXFOED : SPRING AND SUMMEE. not sweet, but much less harsh and declamatory than those of his cousin. I have listened to him for half-an-hour together among the bushes that border the reed-bed, and have fancied that his warble suits well with the gentle flow of the water, and the low hum of the insects around me. He will sit for a long time singing on the same twig, while his partner is on her nest in the reeds below; but the Sedge-warbler, in this and other respects like a fidgety and iU-trained child, is never in one place, or in the same vein of song, for more than a minute at a time. It is amusing to stand and listen to the two voices going on at the same time ; the Sedge-bird rattling along in a state of the intensest excitement, pitching up his voice into a series of loud squeaks, and then dropping it into a long-drawn grating noise, like the winding-up of an old-fashioned watch, while the Eeed-warbler, unaffected by all this volubility, takes his own line in a continued prattle of gentle content and self-sufficiency. These eight birds then, are the warblers which at present visit Oxford. Longer walks and careful observation may no doubt bring us across at least two others, the Wood-warbler and the Grasshopper- warbler : the nest of the Wood- warbler has been found within three miles. Another bird too which is often called a warbler has of late become very common both in and about Oxford — the Eedstart. Four or five years ago they were getting quite rare ; but this year (1885) the flicker of the red tail is to be seen all along the Cherwell, in the Broad Walk, where they build in holes of the elms, in Port Meadow, where I have heard the gentle warbling song from the KEDSTARTS. 37 telegraph-'wires, and doubtless in most gardens. The Redstart is so extremely beautiful in summer, his song so tender and sweet, and all his ways so gentle and trustful, that if he were as common, and stayed with us all the year, he would certainly put our Robin's popularity to the proof. Nesting in our garden, or even on the very wall of our house, and making his presence there obvious by his brilliant colouring and his fearless domesticity, he might become, like his plainer cousin of the continent, the favourite of the peasant, who looks to his arrival in spring as the sign of a better time approaching- 'I hardly hoped,' writes an old Oberland guide to me, after an illness in the winter, ' to see the flowers again, or hear the little Rothel (Black Redstart) under my eaves.' The Oxford Redstarts find convenient holes for their nests in the pollard willows which line the banks of the Cherwell and the many arms of the Isis. The same unvaried and un- natural form of tree, which looks so dreary and ghastly in the waste of winter flood, is fuU of comfort and adaptability for the birds in summer. The works of man, though not always beautiful, are almost always turned to account by the birds, and by many kinds preferred to the solitude of wilder haunts. Whether he builds houses, or constructs railways, or digs ditches, or forces trees into an unnatural shape, they are ready to take advantage of every chance he gives them. Only when the air is poisoned by smoke and drainage, and vegetation retreats before the approach of slums, do they leave their natural friends to live without the charm of their voices — all but that strange parasite of mankind, the Sparrow. He, growing sootier 38 OXFORD: SPEING AND SUMMER. every year, and doing his useful dirty work with untiring diligence and appetite, lives on his noisy and quarrelsome life even in the very heart of London. Whether the surroundings of the Oxford Sparrows have given them a sense of higher things, I cannot say ; but they have ways which have suggested to me that the Sparrow must at some period of his existence have fallen from a higher state, of which some individuals have a Platonic dra/xvijo-ts which prompts them to purer walks of life. No sooner does the summer begin to bring out the flies among our pollard willows, than they become alive with Sparrows. There you may see them, as you repose on one of the comfortable seats on the brink of the Cherwell in the Parks, catching flies in the air with a vigour and address which in the course of a few hundred years might almost develop into elegance. Again and again I have had to turn my glass upon a bird to see if it could really be a Sparrow that was fluttering in the air over the water with an activity apparently meant to rival that of the little Fly-catcher, who sits on a bough at hand and occasionally performs the same feat with native lightness and deftness. But these are for the most part young Sparrows of the year, who have been brought here perhaps by their parents to be out of the way of cats, and for the benefit of country air and an easily-digested insect diet. How long they stay here I do not know ; but before our Autumn Term begins they must have migrated back to the city, for I seldom or ever see them in the willows except in the Summer Term. These seats by the Cherwell are excellent stations for ob- servation. Swallows, Martins, and Sand-martins flit over the COMMON OBJECTS BY THE CHlEWIiLL. 39 water ; Swifts scream overhead towards evening ; Greenfinches trill gently in the trees, or utter that curious lengthened sound which is something between the bleat of a lamb and the snore of a light sleeper ; the Yellow Wagtail, lately arrived, walks before you on the path, looking for materials for a nest near the water's edge ; the Fly-catcher, latest arrival of all, is perched in silence on the railing, darting now and then into the air for flies ; the Corn-crake sounds from his security beyond the Cherwell, and a solitary Nightingale, soon to be driven away by dogs and boats and bathers, may startle you with a burst of song from the neighbouring thicket. There I leave them for the present ; we shall see more of them further on in the course of a country walk. CHAPTER III. The Alps in June. T TTHEN the University year is over, usually about mid-June, responsibilities cease almost entirely for a few weeks; and it is sometimes possible to leave the lowlands of England and their familiar birds without delay, and to seek new hunting-grounds on the Continent before the freshness of early summer has faded, and before the world of tourists has begun to swarm into every picturesque hole and corner of Europe. An old-standing love for the alpine region usually draws me there, sooner or later, wherever I may chance to turn my steps immediately after leaving England. He who has once seen the mountain pastures in June will find their spell too strong to be resisted. At that early time the herdsmen have not yet reached the higher pastures, and cows and goats have not cropped away the flowers which scent the pure cool breeze. The birds are undisturbed and trustful, and still busy with their young. The excellent mountain-inns are comparatively empty, the Marmots whistle near at hand, and the snow lies often so deep upon footpaths where a few weeks later even the feeblest OENITHOLOGISTS AND THE ALPS, 4I mountaineer would, be at home, that a fox, a badger, or even a little troop of chamois, may occasionally be seen without much climbing. If bad weather assails us on the heights, which are liable even in June to sudden snow-storms and bitter cold, we can descend rapidly into the valleys, to find warmth and a new stratum of bird-life awaiting us. And if persistent wet or cold drives us for a day or two to one of the larger towns, Bern, or Zurich or Geneva, we can spend many pleasant hours in the museums with which they are provided, studying specimens at leisure, and verifying or cor- recting the notes we have made in the mountains. It is a singular fact that I do not remember to have ever seen an Englishman in these museums, nor have I met with one in my mountain walks who had a special interest in the birds of the Alps. Something is done in the way of butterfly- hunting; botanists, or at least botanical tins, are not uncommon. The guide-books have something to say of the geology and the botany of the mountains, but little or nothing of their fauna. I have searched in vain through all the volumes of the ' Jahrbuch ' of the Swiss Alpine Club for a single article or paragraph on the birds, and the oracles of the English Alpine Club are no less dumb. Not that ornithologists are entirely wanting for this tempting region ; Switzerland has many, both amateur and scientific. An ornithological congress was held at Zurich not long ago. Professor Fatio, of Geneva, one of the most distinguished of European naturalists, has given much time and pains to the birds of the alpine world, and published many valuable papers 4» THE ALPS IN JUNE, on the subject, the results of which have been embodied in Mr. Dresser's Birds of Europe. But what with the all-engrossing passion for climbing, and the natural indisposition of the young Englishman to loiter in that exhilarating air, it has come to pass that the Anglo-Saxon race has for long past invaded and occupied these mountains for three months in each year, without discovering how remarkable the region is in the movements and characteristics of its animal life. I myself have been fortunate in having as a companion an old friend, a native of the Oberland, who has all his life been attentive to the plants and animals of his beloved mountains. Johann Anderegg will be frequently mentioned in this chapter, and I will at once explain who he is. A peasant of the lower Hasli-thal, in the canton of Bern, born before the present ej:cellent system of education had penetrated into the mountains, was not likely to have much chance of developing his native intelligence ; but I have never yet found his equal among the younger generation of guides, either in variety of knowledge, or in brightness of mental faculty. He taught himself to read and write, and picked up knowledge wherever he found a chance. When his term of military service was over, he took to the congenial life of a guide and 'jager,' in close fellowship with his first cousin and namesake, the famous Melchior, the prince of guides. But a long illness, which sent him for many months to the waters of Leukerbad, incapacitated him for severe climbing, and at the same time gave him leisure for thinking and observing : Melchior outstripped him, and their companionship, always congenial to both as men possessed A PEASANT NATUEALIST. 43 of lively minds as well as muscular bodies, has long been limited to an occasional chat over a pipe in winter-time. But he remained an ardent hunter, and has always been an excellent shot : and it was in this capacity, I believe, that he first became useful to the Professor Fatio whom I mentioned just now. He did much collecting for him, and in the course of their expeditions together contrived to learn a great deal about plants, insects, and birds, most of which he retains in his old age. There is nothing scientific in his knowledge, unless it be a smattering of Latin names, which he brings out with some inaccuracy if with great relish ; but it is of a very useful kind, and is aided by a power of eyesight which is even now astonishing in its keenness. I first made his acquaintance in 1868, and for several years he accompanied my brother and myself in glacier-expeditions in all parts of the Alps ; but it has been of late years, since we have been less inclined for strenuous exertion, that I have found his knowledge of natural history more especially useful to me. He is now between sixty and seventy, but on a bracing alp, with a gun on his shoulder, his step is as firm and his enjoyment as intense, as on the day when he took us for our first walk on a glacier, eighteen years ago. The mention of his gun reminds me, that though my old friend's eyes and my own field-glasses were of the greatest help to me, I could not always satisfy myself as to the identity of a species ; and two years ago I was forced to sacrifice the lives of some six or seven individuals. This, it is worth knowing, is illegal in Switzerland (or at any rate in the Oberland) 44 THE ALPS IN JUNE. during the breeding-season, as it is now also in England ; and I had to obtain a license from the Cantonal Government at Bern, kindly procured for me by another old acquaintance, Hen" Immer of Meiringen and the Engstlen-alp, to shoot birds 'in the cause of science.' This delighted Anderegg; but at my earnest request he suppressed his sporting instincts, or only gave them rein in fruitless scrambles over rock and snow in search of Ptarmigan and Marmots. I propose to occupy the latter part of this chapter in taking my readers a short expedition, in company with Anderegg, in search of alpine birds; but let me first say something of the general conditions and characteristics of bird-life in Switzerland. And first of the number of species, and abundance of individuals. People sometimes tell me that they never see any birds in the Alps. An 'elderly German, whose bodily exertions were limited, and whose faculties seemed to turn inwards on himself instead of radiating outwards, could not understand why I should go to Switzerland to study birds — for he could see none. And it is indeed true that they do not swarm there, as with us ; in this respect Switzerland is like the rest of the Continent. It is a curious fact that though we have only lately begun to preserve our small birds by law in the breeding- season, they are far more abundant here than they are in any part of the Continent known to me : and this is the case even with the little delicate migrants, many of which seem to have a preference for England in spite of the risk of the sea-crossing. I remember taking up a position one afternoon by the side of NUMBEK OF SPECIES. 45 a rushing stream, dividing beautifal hay-meadows, and edged with dwarf willows ; and during the half-hour I sat there, I neither saw nor heard a single bird. In such a spot in England there would have been plenty. But this is an exception : the rule is, that you may read wherever you run, if you will keep your eyes and ears open, and learn by experience where chiefly to be on the look-out. Variety is more interesting than numbers; the birds are more obvious from their comparative variety ; and their voices are not lost, as is sometimes the case with us, in a general and unceasing chorus. As regards the number of species in the country, I have never seen an accurate computation of it. But looking over Mr. Dresser's very useful catalogue of the Birds of Europe, I calculate roughly that it would amount to about 300 in all; i.e. less by some 70 or 80 than the avi-fauna of the British islands. This is however a remarkably large number for a country that possesses no sea-board and very few of thos6 sea-birds which form so large a contingent in our wonderful British list ; and it suggests a few remarks on the causes which bring some birds to the Alps periodically, and have tempted others to make them their permanent home. The greatest attractions for birds, and therefore the chief agents — as far as our present knowledge reaches — in inducing birds to move from place to place are food and variety of temperature. Now in the Alps we find these conditions of bird-life everywhere present, except, of course, in the very highest levels of snow and ice. The seed-eating birds find sufficient in the rich hay, thick and sweet with flowers, which 4^ THE ALPS IN JUNE. covers the whole of the Alpine pastures from May to Julyv and abundance of com, flax and fruit in the valleys : in the Bteep pine-woods that usually separate these valleys from the pastures, the larger seed-eaters enjoy an endless supply of fir-cones. The insect-eating birds are still more fortunate. Nothing is more striking in the Alps than the extraordinary abundance in the summer of insects of all kinds, as we know to our cost in the sun-baked valleys ; and on the mountains it is equally wonderful though less annoying. There it is that the beetles have their paradise. In loose heaps of stone, often collected to clear a stony pasture ; in the wooden palings used to separate alp from alp ; in the decaying lumber of the pine-forests, beetles both small iaind great are absolutely swarming. A clergyman, pastor of a valley near Meiringen, who collected them, found more than 800 different species in his parish alone. All the birds shot for me at the Engstlen-alp had been living on a diet of minute beetles as their principal food. It is indeed wonderful to notice the strange disproportion between the abundance of food provided and the numbers of the birds who avail themselves of the repast : there is so much more to eat than can ever possibly be eaten. But we must remember that this is the case only during the warm months. During the greater part of the year the snow is on the ground in the regions of which I am speaking, and hardly any birds are to be found there. A great and general migration takes place, either to the valleys below, or out of the mountain region altogether, southward, or in a very few cases, northward. Switzerland is, in fact, an admirable centre for the study of MIGRATION. 47 migration ; migration, that is, on a large scale, where the birds leave the country entirely, and also on that limited scale, which we call in England ' partial ' migration. I am obliged to speak with hesitation on this subject, as it has been of course impos- sible for me to make any observations on it myself. But as I feel convinced that the very difficult question of migration on a large scale will be eventually explained by careful attention to the facts of migration on a small scale, which is constantly going on unnoticed around us, I believe that Switzerland will some day win the attention of the ornithologists as being one of the best of all European countries to serve as a centre of ob- servation. We wiU pause for a moment to glance at it in this light. We need hardly look at the map to see that the huge mass of the Alps lies directly in the path of the great yearly migration of birds fi-om south and east into northern Europe. The question arises at once, does this immense mountain range, with its icy peaks and wind-swept passes, act as an obstacle to the travelling birds, or do they rise to it and cross it, without going round, into the plains of North Switzerland and Germany] I con- fess that I should like to be able to answer this question with greater certainty: but I believe the right answer, in the rough, to be as follows. In the first place a large number of species never attempt to cross the mountains, but remain in the great basin of the Po, and in southern France, the whole summer, thus making the avi-fauna of Lombardy distinct in many points from that of Switzerland. If we look through the works of Dresser, Gould, or Bree, on European birds, with the object of learning some- 48 THE ALPS IN JUNB. thing on this point, we find that bird after bird, especially among the tenderer kinds of warblers, gets no further than North Italy and the southern slopes of the Alps, seldom straggling into Switzerland ptoper. On the other hand, some migrating birds, such as the Black Eedstart, the Citril Pinch, and some of the hardier warblers, seem to desire a cool climate to breed in, and doubtless come across the passes to inhabit the alpine pastures during the whole of the summer. How far this is also the case with the vast number of more delicate birds, such as the various Eeed- and Willow- warbjers, and Swallow tribe who live by the rivers and lakes during the summer, I cannot undertake to say ; and it is a mere guess on my part if I hazard an'opinion that many of these must come into Switzerland by way of France and Austria. Anderegg sent me word last autumn that he had noticed the Swallows leaving Meiringen, not south- wards over the Grimsel pass towards Italy, but westwards, as if they were seeking to turn the vast mountain barrier. Yet it is a known fact that on some of the passes birds are watched and killed in their passage. Unfortunately I have never yet been able to make a sojourn in the Alps at the time of migration, and so to make personal observations on this in- teresting point. A comparatively small number of birds come from the North to the Alps, and there spend the summer, and breed. One remark- able instance of this came under my observation last summer. Bird-lovers know well that our lesser British EedpoU {Linota rufescena, Viell.) has a very peculiar distribution ; ' Its area during the breeding-season,' says Prof. Newton, ' appears to be BEDPOLL BEBEPING. 49 confined to the British islajids.' It occurs on the continent pretty often in the winter, migrating southwards, but has not been known to breed, except, according to the assertion of a single naturalist (Bailly), in the Alps of Savoy. One day as I came in from a walk at the Engstlen-alp (6000 feet), Anderegg brought me a little bird he had shot, which he considered very rare, and called the Bluttropf, from the patch of blood-coloured feathers on the head. This was beyond all doubt the Eedpoll ; and as he had seen another, and this one was a female, I have no doubt at all that they had bred or were breeding. I was sorry for the death of the bird at the time ; bwt since I have learnt that its occurrence at that time and place is a curiosity, I have been glad that I was able to place its identity beyond all doubt. Ducks of all kinds come to Switzerland from the north in great numbers, attracted by the great lakes, and occasionally may breed upon the mountains. Anderegg was strolling out one morning very early, at the Engstlen-alp, smoking his pipe before breakfast, in meditative mood, with his hands in his pockets, and mounting a steep grassy slope, when just as his head came on a level with a little pool of water left by the melting snow, such a clatter and fluster took place almost under his very nose, that his mouth opened and his pipe fell out, before his hands could get out of his pockets to save it. The startled strangers were Wild-duck, who had thus passed the night within a stone's throw of the hotel ; to judge by the feathers they left behind them in the hubbub, I conjectured they were Teal. But I have still to speak of partial or internal migration in Switzerland ; and this is what, if I am not mistaken, will E 50 THE ALPS IN JUNE. prove a very fertile source of ornitliological knowledge when thoroughly understood. As I said before, the agents which chiefly cause birds to move from one place to another (so far as we know), are food-supply and temperature. Now we have only to look at a raised map of Switzerland to see at once how subject the birds must be to such incitements towards change of place. Anyone who has been to Switzerland wiU have noticed that the scenery falls into three great divisions— that of the lakes and valleys, that of the Alpine pastures and forests, and lastly, that of the regions on the border-line of perpetual snow, running upwards to the higher snow-fields. .The professional mountaineer pays little attention to any but the last of these ; the botanist and ornithologist have, fortunately, much reason to pause and reap a harvest in the lower levels, which are incomparably more beautiful. For convenience sake I will call the lowest, No. i ; the second — that of the Alpine pastures, No. 2 ; and the highest. No. 3. The distribution of birds in these three regions is continually changing. No. 3, in the winter, is entirely devoid of life and food. The Eagles and the great bearded Vultures, now very rare, can find not even a marmot to prey upon, for they are all asleep in their burrows. The Snow-finches and the Ptarmigan, which in the summer delight in the cool air of an altitude of 8000 to 10,000 feet, have descended to No. 2, or even lower, compelled by want of food and water : and so too the red-winged Eock-creeper, the Water-pipit and others, which may be seen in summer close to the great glaciers. In the same way the birds which haunt No. 2 in the summer — I am speaking of those which INTERNAL MIGRATION. 5 1 do not leave the country altogether — descend in the autumn to No. I, and there remain till the following spring: among these are the Eiag-ousel and Blackbird, the Pipits, the Titmice, the Alpine Choughs, the Alpine Accentor, and others. Then in the spring the reverse process takes place. As the spring advances up the ' mountain-slopes, which it does slowly, not reaching the highest region of vegetation till June or even July, the birds follow it. Eegion No. i, now peopled by the immigrations from Africa and the Mediterranean, sends on large numbers of its winter birds to region No. 2, where, like the cows and the herdsmen who ascend about the same time, they enjoy cool air and abundance of food in the well-watered pastures. Meanwhile the Snow-finches, the Ptarmigan, and the birds of prey, who have been living during the winter in the lower slopes and woods of region No. 2, retire upwards to breed in the rocks and snowy crevices of No. 3. We can hardly help believing that with all these wonderful provisions of nature for their change of scene and -temperature, these partial migrants of Switzerland must lead a life supremely happy. Man himself and his cattle are partial migrants in the Alps ; and no day is so welcome to the herdsman as that on which the authorities of his commune fix for the first movement of the cows upwards. Bitter indeed has been the disappointment of my old guide, now the happy possessor of two cows, when he has not been able to follow them in their annual migration to the cooler pastures. He could realise the feelings of a caged bird, unable to seek ' fresh fields and pastures E 2 5a THE ALPS IN JUNE. Before leaving this subject I should, perhaps, note that these three regions are not divided from each other by any definite line ; and in respect of tbeir bird-life I need hardly say they slide insensibly into each other. But I think it will be found that the division is a fair one for our purposes, and is a useful one to bear in mind in all dealings with the natural history of the country. I will now ask my readers to follow me mentally in an expedition which will bring us into actual contact with many of the birds I have noticed in Switzerland. We will choose a route which from its great beauty, comparative quiet, and good inns, has always been a favourite of mine, and will carry us over parts of all the three regions I have just described, enabling us to compare their avi-fauna with that of our own country. Starting from the village of Stanz-stadt, famous in Swiss history, which stands on that arm of the lake of Lucerne which lies immediately beneath Mount Pilatus, we will pass up the luxuriant valley of the Aa, in canton Untei^walden, to . Engelberg, wbere most of the land and forest is owned by the monks of a great monastery, whose care for their possessions has doubtless helped to make thepa. a pleasant home for the birds ; then we will mount to the pastures of the Gerstni- alp, in region No. 2, and so upwards to the Joch-pass, which in early summer is covered with snow, and introduces us to region No. 3. Descending for an hour to the Engstlen-alp, loveliest of Swiss pastures, we find ourselves here, at the excellent inn, again in No. 2, but still within very easy reach of No. 3 ; and then we can pass downwards through the Gentel- EEED-BED AT STANZ-STADT, 53 thai, or along the pastures that look down on it from the north, — for there are three different ways, aU of them of the rarest beauty — ^to the deep valley of the Aar, or HasU-thal, where we arrive once more in region No. i. On reaching Stanz-stadt, I always take a turn along the road that here forms a narrow causeway between two divisions of the lake, and is bordered on one side for some distance by a broad bed of reeds. Any ornithologist would see at once that some- thing is in store for him here, and if I had had time or patience to stay here in the heat, I might probably have seen more than I did see. The Bittern occasionally visits these reeds, for the landlord of the inn showed me a very fine specimen which he himself had shot. They are also the summer residence of those Warblers which love reeds, and which abound much more on the reedier lakes of Sarnen and Lungern and those of Biel and Neuchitel. On my last visit to Stanz-stadt, my companion being in a hurry to get into cooler climes, I had only a quarter of an hour to spend on this bit of road; but my ear instantly caught the song of our Eeed-warbler, to which I had been listening for many weeks at Oxford, while learning to distinguish it from that of its near relation the Sedge- warbler. It was pleasant to hear the familiar strain the very instant my long journey was over. The Marsh-warbler, the Aquatic-warbler, and others of their kind, are all to be seen by the rivers and lakes of our lowest region (No. i), never ascending higher ; and he who has the courage to spend a few days in the baking and biting valley of the Ehone, for example, wUl find them all among the desolate reed and willow-beds of that, to man, most inhospitable river. 54 THE ALPS IN JUNE. Here also, at Stanz-stadt, and all up the valley to Engelberg, and at Engelberg itself in abundance, may be seen the White "Wagtail of the continent, which is as comparatively rare in England, as our common Pied Wagtail is abroad. The two forms are very closely allied, our Pied Wagtail in winter very closely resembling the White bird in its summer dress. The difficulty of distinguishing the two caused me to pay great attention to these White Wagtails whenever I saw them. If you see a bird in summer which has a uniform pearl-grey back, set off sharply against a black head, the black coraing no further down than the nape of the neck, it is the White Wagtail. You must look at his back chiefly ; it is far the most telling character. The male Pied Wagtail has at this season a black back, and the female has hers darker and less uniform in colour than the genuine White bird. I shall have something more to say of Wagtails in the course of our walk ; but let me take this opportunity of asking the special attention of travellers on the continent to these most beautiful and puzzling birds, whose varieties of plumage at different seasons of the year seem almost endless, and whose classification is still by no means finally settled. As we travel up the valley to Engelberg, and in the higher portion of it in which Engelberg stands, a considerable variety of birds may be seen which are familiar to us as British species. The Whin-chat is nesting in the meadows, and swaying itself on the tops of the long grasses ; our common English Eedstart is seen here and there, but not often, on the walls and palings ; the Creeper runs up the stems of the fruit-trees, and the Nut- VALLEY OF ENGELBBEG. 55 hatch has its nest in holes in the maple-trees, which in these valleys are of great size and beauty. In the woods and under- growth you may see the Chiff-chaff, and WiUow-wren, and Garden-warbler, and here and there a Buzzard-hawk : the Kohin and Blackbird are about, but not nearly so common as with us, and we are at first surprised at the total absence of Song-thrushes, and the comparative rarity of Sparrows, Sky- larks, and Yellowhammers. The commonest bird of all in the Engelberg valley, is one which we seldom see in England, and never in the summer. This is the Black-redstart, a bird which has a wide summer distribution all over Europe, and is found in Switzerland at all altitudes, suiting itself to all temperatures. Wherever there is a chalet under the eaves of which it can build, there it is to be found as soon as spring has begun to appear, even though the snow is lying all around. I have found it myself nesting in chalets before the herdsmen and cows had arrived there, and at a height of 6000 feet or more, it has woke me at dawn with its song : yet at the same time it is abounding in the plains of France and Germany, and nowhere have I seen greater numbers than in the park at Luxembourg. It is one of the puzzles of ornithology, that in spite of this, the bird never comes to England in the summer ; and that the stragglers that do visit us always appear as winter visitants ; straying to our foggy shores as if by mis- take, when they ought to be on their way to the sunny south. The little ' Eothel,' as they call him, is a great favourite with the Swiss peasantry ; he is trustful and musical, and will sing sometimes when you are withia a few feet of him. They are 56 THE. ALPS IN JtrUE. sorty to part witli Mm m autumn, and canboi make out what becomes of him. One of them told me that twenty-two of these birds were once found in the winter fast asleep in a cluster, like swarming beesy in the hollow trunk of a cherry-tree ; how far the story was mythical, I will not venture to say. The Swallow tribe have been with us aU the way along the valley, but they will follow us no further. Even at Engelberg (3500 feet) they seem to be a little chilly in the early summer. "When I first arrived there, in cold weather, there was not a Swift to be seen; but one morning when I woke I heard them screaming, and afterwards I always knew a fine morning by the sound of their voices. Higher up, when we leave the highest limits of region Eo, i, we shall see neither Swifts Martin, nor Swallow, and nothing is more striking on the 'Alps,' tha;n the sense that you have left these birds of summer behind you. The highest point at which I saw a swallow last summer was at the glacier of the Shone, where Anderegg pointed me out a single straiggler as a curiosity: but later iu ithe year they are probably bolder. Their place is taken in regions Nos. 2 and 3 by two other species, by no means common, and of great interest — the Alpine Swift and the Crag-martin. I have not found the latter in the district of which we are Speaking, but he is always to be seen in a place well-known to most travellers in Switzerland — the steep descent of the Gemmi, to Leukerbad. As you wind down those tremendous precipices, you will see a little ghostly bird flitting up and down them, something after the manner of a bat, and reminding you of our Sand- ASCENT TO THE JOCH-PASS. 57 martin — this is tlie Crag-martin, wMck spends the summer here, and builds in the crevices of the rocks. In the same place and others of the kind, you may see the Alpine Swift, whose flight is probably faster than that of any European bird ; a splendid sight it is to watch him wheeling in the sunshine, borne along on wings that expand to a width of nearly two feet. I have already strayed away from the valley to speak of these birds, and it is time that we should ascend to region No, 2, by the well-known path to the south of Engelberg. Just at the foot of the hill, where the path begins to mount, you may hear an unfamiliar note ; it is that of the Pied Flycatcher, a bird not unfrequently seen in England, but welcome under all circumstances. As we go upwards through the wood, we hear very few birds : but as we suddenly emerge on a grassy slope between the pines, a large bird comes sailing high over us, with large brown outstretched wings, which we may believe is a Golden Eagle, so grave and silent its flight, so huge its outline against the sky. After half-an-hour's walk we come out upon the Alps proper, i. e. the flowery pas- tures which form the bulk of region No. 2. Here the bird-life begins very sensibly to change. The Swallows, as I have said, do not venture so high: of the warblers, the only ones left are the Chiff-chaff, which sings its familiar two notes in the underwood far up on the steep slopes above us. We are now on the ' Pfaffenwand,' a very steep and stony ascent separating the lower from the higher pastures ; and here each year this tiny little bird seems to choose for his haunt, and perhaps 58 THE ALPS IN JUNE. for his nesting-place, the very highest bit of real cover, consisting only of stunted bushes, that he can find iij all this district. Here, too, we are not unlikely to find a flock of Alpine Choughs ; noisy chattering birds, with yellow beaks, long and thin and with a downward curve ; their legs are bright red and their plumage a bright and glossy black. The Cornish Chough {Pyrrhocorax graculus, Linn.), is also found in the Alps, but it is much less common ; it is a larger bird, and has a red bill instead of a yeUow one. The Alpine Chough is the characteristic corvus of the Alps, as it is also of the Apennines, and its lively chatter, breaking suddenly on vast and silent solitudes, recalls to memory the familiar jackdaw we left behind us in the Broad Walk at Oxford, or in the tower of our old village church. But as I think of those delicious pastures, nestling under the solemn precipices, and studded in June with gentians, primulas, anemones, where each breath of crystal air is laden with the aromatic scent of Alpine herbage, I seem to hear one favourite song resounding far and near — a song given high in air, and often by an invisible singer ; for so huge is the mass of mountain around us, that he seldom projects himself against the sky in his flight, and may well escape the quickest eye. But he is never many minutes together on the wing, and will soon descend to perch on some prominent object, the very top twig of a pine, or a bit of rock amid the Alpine roses — Those quivering wings composed, that music still. His nest is not far ofi', and may sometimes be stumbled on in WATER-PIPIT AND ACCENTOR. 59 the grass and fern. This blithe spirit of the flowery pastures is the Water Pipit {^AntTius spinoletta, Linn.), a little grey and brown bird somewhat more distinctly marked than our English Pipits, having a lightish stripe over the eye, whitish-'breast, and black legs ; but in other respects much like his relations, both in habits and in its song, which is a long succession of clear bell-like notes, slackening somewhat in rapidity and force as he descends. He has very rarely been found in England, but may possibly be commoner than we fancy. Should I ever meet with him, he will surely carry me back in fancy to his true home among the Alps, where in the common speech of the peasants he is no longer a prosaic Pipit, but as he may well be called, the Alpine Lark. Another bird which haunts this region, though not in such numbers, and whose habits are much like those of the Water-pipitj is the Alpine Accentor. This belongs to a family (^Accentoridae) which has only one other representative in Western Europe — our own familiar little Dunnock or Hedge- sparrow. In plumage and song the two are not unlike, though the Alpine bird is rather larger and of a more variegated warm brown colouring : but I cannot help pausing for one moment to point out the remarkable instance that we have here of two very closely allied birds developing habits of life so entirely distinct, — ^the one being stationary, the other migratory; the one breeding in the road-side hedge where it lives all the year, and the other retreating to the highest limits of the Alpine pastures and making its nest in the holes of the rocks. In the winter however the Alpine bird descends 6o THE ALPS IN JUITE. to the valleys, and there finds it convenient to aBsociate more closely with man and his works ; in the Hasli-thal it is known as the ' Bliem-trittel,' a term which Anderegg explained to me as meaning that it regales itself on the seeds of the flowers and grass which escape through the timbers of the chalet-built hay-bams. Thus it lives on two distinct diets in summer and winter ; for in summer it feeds chiefly on the innumerable small beetles of the pastures, while in winter it is driven to become a vegetarian. As our time is running short, we will now cross the snow- covered Joeh, a pass barely high enough to bring us well into region No, 3, and drop down on the exquisite Engatlen-alp with its comfortable inn (600Q feet), whence we can climb to the highest region at any time with ease : this well-watered and well-timbered Alp being so placed that it stands nearly at the top of region No. 2, with easy access to No. 3, and afiFords us another glimpse at the former before we finally leave it. As we sit at lunch after our walk, there faces us exactly opposite the window of the salle-i-manger, at a distance of a few yards, a little dark-brown hay-chalet ; always a picturesque object, whether it stands out on a clear day against the mighty distant mass of the Wetter-horner, or looms huge and uncertain in the swirls of a mountain mist. This old friend of fourteen years' standing gained a new interest for me on my last visit. Every now and then a pair of little greenish-yellow birds would come and twitter on its roof, or pick up seeds and insects from beneath its raised floor. I took these at fiirst for the Serin-finch, the well-known favourite cage-bird of the continent, and the THE ENGSTLEN-ALP. 6 1 near relation of the Canary and of our English Siskin. I had no wish to shoot such trustful and beautiful creatures, and therefore remained in ignorance of their true nature till I returned to England, when I found from Dresser's work that ihej must have been not the Serin but the Citril-finch. The two are closely allied, but the Serin seems to content itself with the valleys and plains of region No. i, while its place is taken in the mountains by its cousin. Mr. Dresser has an interesting account of a successful search for it on the highest summit of the Black Forest. It builds its nest in the pine branches, but may always be looked out for near chalets or palings at a considerable height, which it ransacks for food ; and an elaborate search for its nest which I made in the chalet was a wild-goose chase into which I find that more distinguished ornithologists have been misled before me. If we now stroll out across this beautiful alp to the lake which bounds and waters it, we shall find it alive with birds. Besides the Pipits and the Accentors, there are families of young Eing- ousels and Missel-thrushes, which have evidently been born and brought up near at hand ; Wheatears, of our English species, are perched on the big stones that lie about, and in- the ancient pines above them, you may now and then see a Crossbill or a EedpoU. In the broad stream that issues from the lake you will always see the Dipper, and associated with it is the Grey Wagtail, seemingly the only bird of its kind that affects the higher Alps ; for the White Wagtail seems to stay in the valleys even in the summer, and to love the larger streams and the farmyard pool ; and the other species which I might have 6Z THE ALPS IN JUNE. expected to meet, the Blue-headed Wagtail {Motdcillaflava, Linn.), did not once offer himself to my field-glass, nor did his near relative, our common Yellow Wagtail of spring and summer. But it is time that we should leave the pastures and make an expedition into the higher region of rock and snow. There is of course but little bird-life there, but that little is interesting. The- best way is to go straight up the steep grass-slopes to the north- west of the inn, which are carpeted in June with millions of fragrant pansies and gentians, until we arrive, after a chmb of some I goo feet, at a little hollow filled with snow and limestone boulders, and having on one side a precipitous wall of rock, and on the other a series of upward-sloping stretches of snow, interspersed with patches of rock and short grass. Early in the season, when this desolate region is stUl quite undisturbed, you may see a good deal here by lying in wait. In my first walk here, no sooner did I reach this hollow, than a badger got up about ten yards from me and shuffled away behind some boulders ; and while following up his tracks over the snow, I found them crossing and recrossing the 'spur' of chamois. A little further on, I saw the Ptarmigan creeping about among the rocks, and very soon I heard the call of the Snow-finches. Tlvese birds, who thus live and breed almost within the limits of perpetual snow, might be supposed, as Gould says of them, to dwell in unmolested security.' I was soon able to judge of the accuracy of his statement, for as soon as I had caught sight of them with the field-glass, I saw that something was causing anxiety to the little family. It was their alarm-call that I had heard; and as I was cautiously watching them fluttering on or SNOW-FINCHES. 6^ close to the ground, I suddenly saw a small red fox make a hungry dash upon them, startling me and causing me for the moment unwittingly to move the glass and lose the whole scene. When I found them again the fox was gone, the finches were greatly troubled, and I fear there is no doubt that he secured a dinner. The Snow-finch is a beautiful bird, rather larger than a Green- finch or Sparrow, with long wings in which the primary quill- feathers are much longer than the rest, as in some other birds of airy and graceful flight. The strong contrast of jet-black and purest white in the plumage, e. g. in the taU, which has two black feathers in the middle while the rest are as white as snow, makes the bird conspicuous at a long distance, and a more striking object than the browner Snow-bunting, which occasion- ally strays from the north to the Alps. Seldom have I seen a more beautiful sight, unless it be a flight of Plover on English water-meadows, than the wavings and whirlings of a flock of Snow-finches, with their white feathers glistening in the sun one moment, while the next their black ones will show clear against the snow. One other bird, which loves these great heights in the summer, may occasionally be seen within a few minutes' walk of the place where the Snow-finch fell a victim. This is the red- winged Kock- or Wall-creeper, a bird so beautiful and so unique that it demands at least a passing notice. Wherever there is a steep wall or rock facing the sun, this bird may be looked for and occasionally seen, even in the midst of a snow-field or a glacier ; for it seems, like so many human beings, to love a combination 64 THE ALPS m JUNE. of cool air and warm sun, showing, by its peculiar habit of getting up very late in the morning, that it objects to have the one without the other. To those who have not seen it, it may best be described as in shape almost exactly like our common little Tree-creeper, the only other European representative of the family, but larger, and instead of its cousin's sober brown plumage, presenting such an exquisite contrast of colour as is hardly to be found even among the fauna of -the tropics. Its head, neck, and back, are soft ash-grey, and when its wings are closed you would hardly distinguish it from the grey rock to which it clings ; but in an instant, as it begins half to climb and half to flutter from crevice to crevice, you will seetihe brilliant crimson of its lesser quill-feathers standing out, not unlike the underwings of a well-known moth, against that delicate grey. Its biU is long and slender, but strange to say, it is without the long tongue, that wonderful far-darter, with which the wood-peckers are provided; so the insects which it seeks in the crevices have to be rummaged for with the bill itself, and conveyed in some mysterious manner to the tongue, which does not reach much more than half way down it. Perhaps this may partly account for a statement made to me hy Anderegg, and positively insisted on by him', that the bird loses the end of its bill every autumn, regaining it in the course of the winter. I am not in a position either to accept or refute this story. Anderegg declared that he had sent Professor Fatio specimens in order to prove it ; but the Professor, who has studied the bird carefully, has not, so far as I know, drawn attention to any such peculiarity. I am inclined to think the truth may lie in the liability of the PINE-FOEESTS. 65 bird to wear away or even break the tip of its bill in tlie course of its indefatigable efforts to obtain food, and I have seen a specimen in the Bern Museum whose broken bill may possibly be a confirmation of this explanation. The peasant mind is apt enough to elevate an accidental circumstance into a law of nature. We must now leave region No. 3 altogether, and descend from the Engstlen-alp westwards towards the Hasli-thal, passing through long stretches of the pine-forests which so often separate the upper pastures from the valleys. There are two families of birds to be met with in these forests, of which I must say a very few words,— the Woodpeckers and the Titmice. The former are not abundant, and it needs much patience to find them. I was to have visited a nesting-place of the Great Black Woodpecker (that awe-inspiring bird, which has borne its name of Picus Martins ever since it was the prophetic bird of Mars), but fate decreed that I should have to go that day in an opposite direction. The three Spotted Woodpeckers — great, middle, and lesser — all occur, but our familiar green bird, which does not seem at home among the pines, is less common. Earest of all is the Three-toed Woodpecker, with yellow head, which dwells — so Anderegg told me, and I find from the books that he was right — only among the highest and most solitary pine- woods. At intervals, as in an English wood, the trees will be astir with Titmice. The Cole-tit and the Marsh-tit, the Blue-tit and the Great- tit, are all to be seen here, the last two undistinguishable from the British form, whUe the Cole-tit 66 THE ALPS IN JUNE. has a bluer back than ours, and the Marsh-tit in these higher levels differs, according to Professor Fatio, even from the same bird when found lower down, and approaches rather to the Scan- dinavian form. This single fact is enough to show how inter- esting would be a persevering study of this particular family. I will not venture to say whether these slight differences in plumage are enough to justify a specific separation of the forms. In the case of the continental Long-tailed Tit, which is decidedly different in colouring from ours, even amateurs may perhaps see a suflScient reason ; but will prefer to suspend their judgment as to the other two. There is yet a Titmouse, nearly always to be heard and seen between the Engstlen-alp and the Gentelthal, which is even more attractive to the ornithologist than any of its cousins. This is the Crested-tit {LcyphopTw/nes eristatus, Linn.), now so rare even in Scotland, and, according to Anderegg, not too common even in these pine-forests. It needs a vigilant eye and ear to detect it, so closely does it resemble its relatives (and especially the Blue species) both in voice and appearance, until you- catch the well-marked crest on the head, and the additional shade of melancholy in the note. So close indeed are this bird and the Blue-tit in form, habits, and note, that I am astonished that the crest by itself (a few feathers raised on the head) should have been thought a sufficiently strong character to raise it into a separate genus — Lophophanes. If we notice the other Tits, we shall find that they also often elevate their head-feathers into something like a crest ; imagine this a little larger, and the bright colouring of the Blue-tit sobered into a soft bluish grey, and THE CRESTED-TIT. 67 you will get a very good idea of the appearance of the male Crested -tit. His lady is brown rather than grey, causing Anderegg to make one of those mistakes to which the peasant- naturalist is liable ; he assured me that there were two species, answering to the two prevailing tints. I never can forget the spot where my old friend's sharp ear first caught for me the note of these rare little birds. If any bird-lover should chance to walk from Engstlen down to the Hasli-thal, he should stop near the foot of the first rapid descent among the pines, where the stream which he has lately crossed tumbles over a ledge of rock into a deep dark pool. At the very edge of this pool stand a few black pine-trees, and among the thick branches of these the Tits were playing. Above us were vast mountain walls, and at our feet was the mossy grass, damp with the spray of the fall ; among the grey boulders the Alpine rhododendron was coming into bloom. At a little distance a robin was singing its ever-welcome song, mingling its English music with the sound of Alpine cow-bells from the pasture further down the vaUey. Such scenes Unger for ever in the memory, and are endeared to us by the thought of the blithe creatures who live and sport among them during a long golden summer, long after we have returned to the ^^land of misty meadows and miry ways. But we must now leave these woods and pastures, and descend to the deep valley of the Hasli-thal, where we shall end our journey at Meiringen. If, instead of following the ordinary path, we skirt along the heights to the north towards Hasliberg, and so keep in cooler air, enjoying endless views, we shall r 2 68 THE ALPS IN JUNE. finally descend by a very steep winding path, which is the only means of communication between the population of the valley and that of the' higher slopes. In the willows and hazels among which this path winds, and also on the opposite side of the valley on the way to Kosenlaui, I have always heard a little warbler whose voice was quite strange to me. More than once I have done all I could to obtain a good sight of it ; but the restless caprice of these little birds, who flit rapidly in and out of the bushes while the ornithologist waits with his head in a burning sun, only to lose sight of the tiny creature the moment the glass is upon him, defeated my purpose of finding out his species beyond the possibility of error ; and Anderegg was as unwilling to use his gun so near the village, as I should have been to sacrifice a joyous life to the spirit of curiosity. But I have every reason to believe that my little tormentors belonged to a species with which I shall hope some day to make a closer acquaintance ; it bears the name of the Italian naturalist Bonelli, and is a very near relation of our friends the Chiff-chaff and "Willow- wren (Phylloscopis Bonndlii,\iQ\\). Our walk is now ended, and this chapter is already quite long enough. Were we to take another, we might see many other species not less interesting than those we have met with on the way from Stanz-stadt ; we might find Hawks and Pigeons, Nutcrackers in the pine-woods, the Golden Oriole, or the beautiful Blue-breast. But I have thought it better to be content, for the most part, with the birds I have actually met with in the walk we have chosen to take, rather than to furnish a catalogue of all those we might be lucky enough to THE HASLI-THAL. 69 meet with if we stayed some weeks in the country. And thus I hope I may have given my readers some little idea of the impression left by the birds of a well-known Alpine district on the memory of a rather hurried traveller, who has not been always able to go or to stay as his own inclination would prompt him. CHAPTER IV. A Midland Village : Gakden and Meadow. TT is a curious fact that, when I return from Switzerland, I am at first unable to discover anything in our English midlands but a dead level of fertile plain. The eye has ac- customed itself in the course of two or three weeks to expect an overshadowing horizon of rock and snow, and when that is removed, it fails to perceive the lesser differences of height. This fact is an excellent illustration of the abnormal condition of things in the Alps, aflFecting the life both of the plants and animals which inhabit them ; and it also shows us how very slight are the differences of elevation in most parts of our own island. In ordinary weather, the temperature does not greatly differ in an EngHsh valley and on an English ridge of hill, and the question whether their fauna and flora vary, is one rather of soil than of temperature. StUl, there are manifest differences to be observed as we proceed from river- valleys to rising wooded ground, and from this again to a bare hill-side ; and it may be interesting, after our walk in the Alps, to note the bird-life of an English rural district which is provided with all three, recalling dimly and per- haps fancifully the three regions of the Alpine world. YALLEY OP THE EVENLODB. 7 1 The traveller by railway from Oxford to Worcester leaves the broad meadows of the Isis about three miles above Oxford, and after crossing a spur of higher land, strikes the little river Evenlode at Handborough Station, not far from its junction with the Isis at Cassington. This Evenlode is the next con- siderable stream westward of the Cherwell, and just as the line of the latter is followed by the Birmingham railway, so the line to Worcester keeps closely to the Evenlode for nearly twenty miles, only leaving it at last in its cradle in the uplands of Worcestershire. Westward again of the Evenlode, the Windrush comes down from the northern Cotswolds, to join the Isis at Witney, and further still come Leach, and Coin, and others, bringing the clear cold water in which trout delight, from the abundant springs at Northleach and Andoversford. But the Evenlode is not a Cotswold stream, though trout may still be caught in it where it has not been polluted ; it skirts for many miles the north-eastern slope of the Cotswolds, which may be seen from the train-windows closing in the horizon all the way from Shipton-under-Wychwood to Evesham and Wor- cester, but it has the slow current and muddy bottom of a lowland stream, and runs throughout its course among water- meadows liable to flood. For the first few miles of its course it is little more than a ditch; but shortly after passing the historic lawns of Daylesford, it is joined by two other streams, one descending from the slope of the Cotswolds, and the other from the high ground of Chipping Norton eastwards. These two join the Evenlode exactly at the point where it enters Oxfordshire, and the 7a A MIDLAND VILLAGE :. GARDEN AND MEADOW. combination produces a little river of some pretension, wHch enjoys a somewhat more rapid descent for some miles from this junction, and almost prattles as it passes the ancient 3,bbey-lands of Bruerne and the picturesque spire of Shipton church. Close to the point of junction, on a long tongue of land which is a spur of Daylesford hill, and forms a kind of pro- montory bounded by the meadows of the Evenlode and the easternmost of its two tributaries, lies the village where much of my time is spent in vacations. It is more than four hundred feet above the sea, and the hills around it rise to double that height; but it lies in an open country, abounding in com, amply provided with hay-meadows by the alluvial deposit of the streams already mentioned, and also within easy reach of long stretches of wild woodland. For all along the valley the observant passenger wiU have been struck with the long lines of wood which flank the Evenlode at intervals throughout its course ; he passes beneath what remains of the ancient forest of Wychwood, and again after a considerable gap he has the abbey- woods of Bruerne on his left, and once more after an interval of cultivation his view is shut in by the dense fox-covers of Bledington and Oddington, the border villages of Gloucester- shire. It is just at this interval between Bruerne and Bledington that the junction of the two streams with the Evenlode takes place; so that from this point, or from the village already spoken of, it is but a short distance to an ample and solitary woodland either up or down the valley. Beyond that woodland lies a stretch of pasture land which brings you to the foot of the A TAEIED COTJNTEY-SIDE. 73 long ridge of hill forming the north-eastern boundary and bulwark of the Cotswolds, and hiding from us the little old- world towns of Burford and Northleach. We have therefore within a radius of five or six miles almost every kind of country in which birds rejoice to live. We have watfer-meadow, corn- land, woods, and hills, and also here and there a few acres of scrubby heath and gorse ; and the only requisite we lack is a large sheet of water or marshy ground, which might attract the waders and sea-birds so commonly found near Oxford. We are neither too far north to miss the southern birds, nor too far south to see the northern ones occasionally; we might with advantage be a little farther east, but we are not too far west to miss the Nightingale from our coverts. Such a position and variety would be sure to produce a long list of birds, both residents and visitors ; not only because there are localities at hand suited to be their dwelling-places during the whole or a part of the year, but because they offer the change of scene and food which is essential to the welfare of many species. An open country of heath and common will not abound in birds of more than a very few species, unless it is varied with fertile oases, with garden, orchard, or meadow ; for many of the birds that delight to play about in the open, and rove from place to place during the first few months of their existence, wUl need for their nests and young the shelter of trees and shrubs. While the young are growing, they require incessant feeding, and the food must be at hand which they can best assimilate and digest; and it does not follow that this is the same as that which the parents habitually 74 A MIDLAND TILLAGE: GARDEN AND MEADOW. eat, or which the young themselves will most profit by when they are fledged. The relation between the movements of birds and their food is a problem which has not, so far as I know, been fully investigated as yet ; but it is certain that the minor migrations within a certain district are largely due to two causes : (i) that already mentioned, the necessity of proper food for the young both as nestlings and fledgelings ; (2) the stress to which birds are driven by severe weather and by the change of seasons. No one has as yet discovered any one convincing reason for the great migrations of spring and autumn, nor is it likely that there is one cause to be found for them. But what influences birds in short journeys, influ- ences them also, I have very little doubt, in long ones ; and I believe that a more minute and scientific study of the food of young and old during the breeding-time, and an exact comparison of this with the food which supports them in the winter, together with a final resolution of the much-debated question whether they ever breed in their wint&r quarters, would go far to throw some light upon the great mystery of bird-life. Other problems of absorbing interest at present occupy the attention of men of science. The sure foothold which has been gained by the theory of development has placed the great questions of classification in a new light, and brought the struotwre of animals into the foreground ; the microscope each year discovers new wonders in the development of that structure from the earliest visible germ of life, and the habits of the living animal, and the relations of animals to each other, have consequently fallen a little into the back- A rATOTJEITB GAKDEN. 75 ground. No ornithological researches, so far as I am aware, have been lately published in this country, which can compare with those of Sir J. Lubbock on the intelligence of insects. Birds are in fact an extremely difficult subject for minute study ; abundant leisure at thq proper season, indefatigable perseverance, and the means and opportunity of travel, are its necessary con- ditions, which are denied to most men. And, it must be added, a considerable sacrifice of the life and happiness of birds is another sine qua non of investigations of this kind ; and thus the growing sensitiveness of cultivated men is brought into conflict with the ardour of the enthusiastic savant. But to return to my village ; it is astonishing how many birds, in spite of the presence of their deadliest enemies, boys and cats, will come into our gardens to buUd their nests, if only fair oppor- tunities are offered them. In a garden close to my own, whose owner has used every means in his power to attract them, there were last May fifty-three nests, exclusive of those of swallows and martins. The garden is not, more than two or three acres in extent, including the little orchard which adjoins it ; but by planting great numbers of thick bushes and coniferous trees, and by placing flower-pots, old wooden boxes, and other such odds and ends, in the forks of the branches at a considerable height from the ground, he has inspired them with perfect confidence in his goodwill and ' philornithic ' intentions. The fact that a pair of Missel-thrushes reared their young here only a few feet from the ground, and close to a stable and a much-frequented walk, shows that even birds of wild habits of life may be brought to repose trust 76 A MIDLAND VILLAGE : GAEDEN AND MEADOW. in man by attention to their wants and wishes. The Blackcap, which almost always nests in woods, had here found it possible to take up its quarters close to the fruit it loves ; and of all the commoner kinds the nests were legion. Three Greenfinches built in the same tree one over another,, the nests being little more than a foot apart ; a Wren had so closely fitted a little box with the usual materials of its nest, that the door corresponded with the only opening in the box; a Robin had found an ample basis of construction in the deserted nest of a Blackbird. The only bird that had been forbidden access to this Eden was the Bullfinch; he duly made his appearance, but was judged to be too dangerous to the buds of the fruit-trees. Siskins and Hawfinches have occasionally looked into this garden ; but the Hawfinch has never bred here, and for some unexplained reason the same is the case with the Redstart. In my own garden, within a few feet of the house, this last- mentioned friend found a very convenient abode in a hole in my largest apple-tree. The parents became very tame, and when they knew their young were discovered, made very little scruple about exposing themselves in going in and out. The food they brought their young, whenever we happened to see it, was a small green caterpillar; and I sincerely hope we may have them again next year, both for the benefit to my garden and for the pleasure they give me. May the sad loss of one fledgeling depart from their memory before next summer ! It was just launched into the world when it fell a victim to my dog, for I had seen it in the nest only an hour or two before; I had left strict injunctions for the confinement of all domestic animals as soon A EEDSTAETS NEST. 77 as the young were seen to leave the nest, but had not expected them to face the world so soon. This was a beautiful little bird, showing already the rich russet colour in what he had of tail ; his legs and claws were of extreme slightness and delicacy, and his whole colouring and framework was far more engaging than is the case with most young birds of his age. He had already picked up, or had been given by his mother, a pebble or two to assist his digestion. The Redstart was not a very common bird about us until about three years ago, but now its gentle song is heard in May in almost every garden and well-hedged field. In August and September the young birds are everywhere seen showing their conspicuous fire-tails as they flit in and out of the already fast- browning hedges : yet three or four years ago my daily walks did not discover more than a few dozen in a summer. What can be the cause of this surprising increase of population 1 If it is anything that has happened in this country, such as the passing of the Wild Birds Protection Act, we must suppose that the same individuals which breed and are born here in one spring, return here the nest year ; i. e. our supply of this summer migrant depends on the treatment it receives here, and not upon the number of Redstarts available in the world generally. I am inclined indeed to think, though it is difiScult to prove it, that the wholesale slaughter of young birds in our neighbour- hood is less horrible than it used to be before the passing of the Act ; but when we remember that other creatures, certain butterflies for example, whose relations to man never greatly differ from year to year, are found to be much more abundant 78 A MIDLAND VILLAGE: GARDEN AND MEADOW. in Bome years than others, the more rational conclusion seems to be that an increase or decrease of numbers depends, in the case of migrating birds, on certain causes which are beyond the reach of mankind to regulate. What these may be, it is possible only to guess. A famine in the winter-quarters would rapidly decimate the numbers of those individuals which were with us last summer, and we cannot tell whether the deficiency would be supplied from other sources. Even a severe storm in the spring or autumn journey would destroy an immense number of birds so tender and fragile ; and we must not forget that these journeys take place at the very seasons when storms are especially frequent and violent. Any very serious alteration in the methods of dealing with the land in this country, such as the substitution of railings or ditches for hedges, or the wholesale felling of woods and copses, would also most certainly affect the numbers of this and most other birds ; but in the course of the last few years no such change of any magnitude has taken place, and the increase of the Redstarts must be put down, I think, to causes taking effect beyond the sea. The only really annoying destruction of hedges in our im- mediate neighbourhood within my recollection is one for which I ought always to be grateful, for it brought me a sight of the only Black Eedstart I have ever seen in England. I mentioned in the last chapter that this little bird, which is so abundant on the continent all through the summer, never comes to this country except in the autumn, and then only in very small numbers along the south-west coast. It is generally seen in Dorset, Devon, and Cornwall in November, but never breeds A EAEE VISITOK. 79 there, and it is seldom that a straggler finds Ms way further north. On the 6th of November, 1884, I was returning from a morning walk, and about a mile from the village came to a spot which a few years ago was one of the prettiest in the country- side. Here one road crosses another, and formerly the crossing was enclosed by high hedges and banks, forming a comfortable nook where the hounds used to meet, and where the Sand- martins bored their way into the light and sandy soil. A land- agent descended here one day, like a bird of ill omen, and swept the hedges away, filling their place with long lines of bare and ugly wall j the martins sought a lodging elsewhere, for they could no longer feed their young with the insect-life of the hedge- rows ; the hounds followed their example, and all my associations with the spot were broken. But it was upon this very wall, new, useful, straight, and intensely human, that this rare little bird chose to sun himself that bright November morning. A thousand times have I seen him on the old grey fern-covered walls of the Alpine passes, but never did I expect to see him on this hideous ' improvement ' of civilisation. Except that he was silent and alone, he seemed as much at home here as on the flowery slopes of the Engstlen-alp. There is nothing that man can erect that is too uncomely for the birds. I have digressed for a moment to tell this tale of the Black Kedstart, but I have hardly yet done with the village itself. We have of course plenty of Eobins and Hedge-sparrows breeding in our gardens, and in the nests of these the Cuckoo is fond of depositing its egg. It would not be always true to say that the Cuckoo lays its egg in its victim's nest, for in some 8o A MIDLAND VILLAGE : GAKDEN AND MEADOW. instances at least the egg is dropped from the hill. A Kohin built its nest in a hole in the wall of my garden, several inches deep and with a rather narrow entrance : several eggs were laid and all was going well. It was three or four days from my first knowledge of the nest to my second visit, when I was greatly annoyed to find all the eggs but one on the ground at the foot of the wall, broken to fragments. I accused the hoy who filled the office of boot-cleaner ; he was more or less of a pickle, but he positively denied all complicity. Meanwhile in my indig- nation I had forgotten to examine the remaining egg ; but the mystery was soon solved. Noticing that the Eobins had not deserted, I looked again after awhile and found a young Cuckoo. The ugly wretch grew rapidly, and soon became too big for the nest, so we hung him up in a basket on a branch, where the Eobins continued to feed him. His aspect and temper were those of a young fiend. If you looked at him, he would swell with passion, and if you put your finger towards him, he would rise up in the basket and ' go for it.' One fine morning he disappeared and was never heard of more. In this case the egg was unquestionably deposited with the bill, while the same instrument must have been used to eject the Kobin's eggs, thus saving the young Cuckoo when hatched the trouble of getting rid of the young Robins by muscular exertions. Next year a Cuckoo's egg was laid in a Hedge- sparrow's nest in an adjoining garden ; but the intended foster- parents wisely deserted, and I was able to take possession of the nest and eggs. Every year in June we are sure to notice a persistent cuckooing close by us, and nearly every year an egg NUTHATCHES. 8 1 is found in some nest in tlie village. Once (I think it was at the time when the Eobin was the victim) boys reported that they saw a Cuekoo sitting on a bough hard by, ^D^th an egg m its hill. There is no doubt whatever that the bill can hold the egg, which is hardly as large as a starling's. "We have another much smaller bird in the village which can hold lai^e objects between its mandibles — objects almost as large, and sometimes more bulky, than the egg of the Cuckoo. This is the Nuthatch, which will carry away from a window any number of hard dessert nuts, and store them up in all sorts of holes and comers, where they are sometimes found still un- broken. These plump and neat little birds, whose bills and heads and necks seem all of a piece, while their bodies and tails are not of much account, have been for years accustomed to come for their dinners to my neighbours' windows. One day while sitting with my friend, Col. Barrow, F.E.S. (to whom the Oxford Museum is indebted for a most valuable present of Arctic Birds), we set the Nuthatches a task which at first puzzled them. After letting them carry off a number of nuts in the usual way, we put the nuts into a glass tumbler. The birds arrived, they saw the nuts, and tried to get at them, but in vain. Some invisible obstacle was in the way; they must have thought it most uncanny. They poked and prodded, and departed dizpoKToi. Again they came, and a third time, with the like result. At last one of them took his station on a bit of wood erected for perching purposes just over the lintel ; he saw the nuts below him, down he came upon the tumbler's edge, and in a moment his long neck was stretched downwards and G 83 A MIDLAND TILLAGE: GAEDBN AND MEADOW. the prize won. The muscular power of the bird is as well shown by this feat, as his perseverance and sagacity by the dis- covery of the trick ; for holding on by his prehensile claws to the edge of the tumbler, he contrived to seize with his bill a large nut placed in the bottom of it, without any assistance from his wings ; the length of the tumbler being little less than that of the bird. But after all, this was no more than a mo- mentary use of the same posture in which he is often to be seen, as he runs down the trunks of trees in search of insects. The spotted Flycatcher is another little bird which abounds in our gardens and orchards ; it is always pleasant to watch, and its nest is easy to find. One pair had the audacity to build on the wall of the village school : it was much as if a human being should take up his residence in a tiger's jungle, but if I recollect right, the eggs and young escaped harm. Another pair placed their nest on a sun-dial in Col. Barrow's garden, as late as mid-July. This Flycatcher is the latest of all the summer migrants to arrive on our shores ; the males and females seem to come together and begin the work of nesting at once, i.e. in the middle of May ; if the nest is taken, as was probably the case with this pair, the second brood would not be hatched till July. The bird is singularly silent, never getting beyond an oft- repeated and half-whispered phrase, which consists of three notes, or rather soimds, and no more; the fii'st is higher and louder than the others, which are to my mind much like that curious sound of disappointment or anxiety which we produce by applying the tongue to the roof of the mouth, and then suddenly withdrawing it. But is the Flycatcher always and ' THE FLYCATCHERS. 83 everywhere a silent bird 1 Has he no love-notes wherewith to woo his spouse when spring approaches, and before he reaches us ? I can as yet find no hint of a song in any of the many accounts of him I have read. It is most singular that he should be unattractive in colour also — grey and brown and in- significant ; but perhaps in the eyes of his wife even his quiet voice and his grey figure may have weight. This Kycatcher is an excellent study for a young ornithologist. He is easily seen, perching almost always on a leafless bough or railing, whence he may have a clear view, and be able to pick and choose his flies ; and he will let you come quite close, without losing his presence of mind. His attitude is so unique, that I can distinguish his tiny form at the whole length of the orchard ; he sits quietly, silently, with just a shade of tristesse about him, the tail slightly drooped and still, the head, with longish narrow bill, bent a little downwards, for his prey is almost always below him ; suddenly this expectant repose is changed into quick and airy action, the little wings hover here and there so quickly that you cannot foUow them, the fly is caught, and he returns with it in his biU to his perch, to await a safe moment for carrying it to his young. All this is done so unobtrusively by a little greyish-brown bird with greyish-white breast, that hundreds of his human neighbours never know of his existence in their gardens. He is wholly unlike his handsomer and livelier namesake, the Pied Flycatcher, in all those outward characteristics which attract the inexperienced eye ; but the . essential features are alike in both, the long wing, the biU flat at the base, and the gape of the mouth famished with strong G 2 84 A MIDLAND tillage: gakden astd meadow. hairs, wHeli act like the baekwar-d-^hent teeth of the pike in pre- venting the escape erf the prey. Our village is so placed, that all the birds that nest m our gardens and orchards have easy and immediate access to a variety of feeding^grounds. From my window, as I write, I look over the village allotments, where all kinds of birds can be supplied with what they need, whether they be grai»-eating or ^nit-eating; here come the Kookg, from the rookOTy eiose by, and quite unconscious of my presence behind the window, and regardless of the carcasses of former eomrgdes which swing on some of the allotments, they turn out the grubs with those featherless white bills which are still as great a mystery as the serrated claw of the Nightjar. Here also com© the Wood-pigeons and in late summer the Turtle-doves— far worse enemies to the cottager than the rooks; here all the common herd of Blackbirds, Thrushes, SpaiTows, ChafiSnehes, and Greenfinches, help to clear the gromng v€getables of crawling pests at the rate of hundreds and thousands a day, yet the owners of the allotments have been accustomed since their childhood to destroy every winged thing that comes within their cruel reach. Short-sighted, unobservant as they are, they decline to be instructed on matters of which they know very little, but stick to what they know like limpets. For my part, I decline to protect my gooseberries and currants from the birds ; their ravages are grossly exaggerated, and what they get I do not grudge them, considering their services during the rest of the year. Beyond the allotments the ground falls to the brook which I GHEEN SANDPIPER. 85 meiitioried as deficending frbm Chipping Norton to join the iEvenlode, This brbok is dammed up just belo* to supply an old flour-mill, and has been so used for centuries ; its bed is therefore *en lined with mud, and when the WaAer is let out, which often happens (for the mill is on its last legs, and supports itself by aid of a beer-Hcense which is the plague of the village), this mud appears in little banks under the eheMng rat-riddled lip of tlie meadow. Here is a chance for some of the more unusual birds, as- every ornithologist would say if h^ saw the stream ; but both water and mud are often thick with the dye from the Chipping Norton tweed-mill, and no trout will live below the pcant at which th« poisoned w&iter comes in. Strange to say, the poisoning does not seem to affect the birds; Two pairs of Grey Wagtails, w'Mch I seldom see in the Evemlbde, passed a happy time here froffi- July t(S December last year, preferring some turn of the brook where the water broke over a few stones or a miniature weir; and through Attgflst and September they were joined by several Green Sandpipers. These beautiftd birdsj whose departure I always regret, are on their way from their breeding- places in the North to some winter residence ; they stay only a few weeks in EnglaMd, and little is known about them. Many a time have 1 stalkeid them, looking far along the Stream with a powerful glass in hopes of dateMag them at work with their long bills ; each effort comes to the same provoking conclusion, the bird suddenly shooting up from beneath your feet jg'ust at a place which you fancied you had most carefully scanned. When they first arrive they will fly only to a short distance, and the bright white of their upper tail-feathers enables you to mark them 86 A MIDLAND VILLAGE: 6AEDEN AND MEADOW. down easily for a second attempt ; but after a few days they will rise high in air, like a snipe, when disturbed, and uttering their shrill pipe, circle round and round and finally vanish. It should be noted that this species is called the Green, Sandpiper because its legs are green ; such are the wilful ways of English terminology. It is the only Sandpiper we have beside the common species, which invariably prefers the Evenlode, where it may every now and then be seen working its rapid way along the edge of the water, quite unconcerned at a spectator, and declining to go off like a champagne cork. Both kinds come in spring and late summer, but the Green Sandpiper is much more regular in his visits, and stays with us, in autumn at least, much longer. A stray pair found their way here last winter in a hard frost, and rose from beneath my feet as I walked along the Evenlode on December 24th. This is the only time I have ever seen them here except in the other brook; and I have very little doubt that they were total strangers to the locality. Had they ever been here before, I make bold to say that they would have gone to their old haunts. Beyond the brook lies a magnificent meadow nearly a mile long, called the Yantle, in which, a century and a half ago, the little "Warren Hastings used to lie a^d look up with ambitious hopes and fears at the hills and woods of Daylesford. This meadow was once doubtless the common pasture ground of the parish : it now serves as ager puhlicus for great numbers of winged families bred in our gardens and orchards. Gold- finches, linnets, starlings, redstarts, pipits, wagtails, white- HABITS OF YOUNG BEBDS. 87 throats, and a dozen or two of other kinds, spend their whole day here when the broods are reared. The Yellow Wagtails are always conspicuous objects; not that they are brilliantly coloured, for the young ones are mostly brown on the back, and would hardly catch an inexperienced eye, but because of the playfulness of their ways and their graceful wavy flight. Young birds play just like kittens, or like the fox-cubs I once caught playing in Daylesford wood at the mouth of their earth, and watched for a long time as they rolled and tumbled over each other. Only yesterday (July 15, 1885) I watched a host of young wiUow-wrens, whitethroats, titmice, and others, sporting with each other in a willow-coppice, and mixiiig together without much reserve. Once I was taken aback by the sight of two young buntings at play ; for a time they quite deceived me by their agility, fluttering in the air like linnets, unconscious that a single winter was to turn them into burly and melancholy buntings. The student of birds who sighs when the breeding-season is over and the familiar voices are mute, is consoled by the sight of all these bright young families, happy in youth, liberty, and abundance. His knowledge too is immensely increased by the study of their habits and appearance. His sense of the ludicrous is also sometimes touched, as mine was yesterday when I went to see how my young swallows were getting on under the roof of an outhouse, and found them all sitting in a row on a rafter, like school-children ; or when the young goldfinches in the chestnut tree grew too big for their nest, but would persist in sitting in it till they sat it all out of shape, and no one could make 88 A MIDLAND TltLASB : GARDEN AND MEADOW. out how they eontrived to hold on by it any langer. Young birds too, like young troirt, are much less suspicious than old ones, and wUl often let you come quite close to them. In Magdalen Walk at Oxford the young birds delight to hop about on the gravel path, supplying themselves, I suppose, with the pebbles which they need for digestion; and here one day in July a young Eobin repeatedly let me come within two yards of Mm, at which distance from me he picked up a fat green caterpillar, swallowed it with great gusto, and literaiUy smacked his bill afterwards. The very close examination thus afforded me of this living young Eobin disclosed a strong rufous tint on the tail-coverts,, of which I can find nothing in descriptions of the bird ; if this is usually the ease, it should indicate a close connexion with the Redstarts, the young of which resemble the young Eobin also in the mottled brown of the rest of their plumage. Our meadows are liable to flood occasionally in the winter, and also in a summer wetter than usual. One stormy day in July, some years ago, I espied two common Gulls standing in the water of a slight flood, apparently quite at home. But OUT Eooks found them out, and considering the Yantle sacred to themselves and such small birds as they might be graciously pleased to allow there, proceeded to worry them by fflying round and round above them incessantly until the poor birds were fain to depart. Eooks are very hostile to intruders, and quite capable of continued teasing ; I have watched them for a whole morning persecuting a Kestrel. No sooner did the Kestrel alight on the ground than the rooks ' went for it' and drove it away ; and TITMICE ON THE lOB. 89 ■wherever it went they pursued it, backwards and forwards, over a space of two or three miles. In winter the floods will sometimes freeze. One very cold day, as I was about to cross the ice-bound meadow, I saw some little things in motion at the further end, like feathers dancing about on the ice, which my glass discovered to be the tails of a family of Long-tailed Tits. They were pecking away at the ice, with their tails high in the air. As I neared them they flew away, but marking the place where they were at work, I knelt down on the ice and examined it with the greatest care. Not a trace of anything eatable was to be found. Were they trying to substitute iee for water 1 Not a drop of water was to be found anywhere near. I have seen Fieldfares and Eedwings doing the same thing in Christ Church meadow at Oxford, but the unfrozen Cherwell was within a few yards of them. Wbether or no tke Long-tails were trying to appease their thirst, I may suggest to those who feed the starving birds in winter, that they should remember that water as well as food is necessary to support life. The Yantle is a great favourite with Plovers, Turtle-doves, and "Wood-pigeons, and in the winter it is much patronised by Fieldfares and Eedwings. And a day or two ago I surprised four Curlew here (March 21), on their way from the sea to their inland breeding-places. But enough of the village and its gardens and outlying meadows ; in the next chapter we will stroll further afield CHAPTER V. A Midland Village: Eailway and Woodland. T)EYOND the Yantle we come upon a line of railway, running down from Chipping Norton to join the main line to "Wor- cester. Just as the waters of the Evenlode are reinforced at this point in its course by the two contingent streams I described in the last chapter, so the main railway is here joined by two subsidiary lines, the one coming from Chipping Norton and the other from Cheltenham over the Cotswolds. Paradoxical as it may seem, I do not hesitate to say that this large mileage of railway within a small radius acts beneficially upon our bird-life. Let us see how this is. In the first place, both cuttings and embankments, as soon as they are well overgrown with grass, afford secure and sunny nesting-places to a number of birds which build their nests on the ground. The Whin-chat for example, an abundant bird here every summer, gives the railway-banks its especial patronage. The predatory village-boys cannot prowl about these banks with impunity except on Sundays, and even then are very apt to miss a Whin-chat's nest. You may see the cock-bird sitting on the telegraph wires, singing his peaceful little song, but unless you THE CHATS. 9 1 disturb Ms wife from her beautiful blue eggs you are very- unlikely to find them in the thickening grass of May or June. And even if she is on the nest, she will sit very close ; I have seen an express train fly past without disturbing her, when the nest was but six or eight feet from the rails. The young, when reared, will often haunt the railway for the rest of the summer, undismayed by the rattle and vibration which must have shaken them even when they were still within the egg. Occasionally a Wleatear will make its appearance about the railway, but I have no evidence of its breeding there ; nor is the Stone-chat often to be seen here, though it is a summer visitor not far oflf among the hills. Let me say incidentally that no one who has either good eyes or a good glass ought ever to confound the two Chats together. In the breeding-season the fine black head of the cock Stone-chat distinguishes him at once ; but even the female should never be the subject of a blunder, if the observer has been at all used to attend to the attiivdes of birds. The Stone-chat sits upright and almost defiant, and is a shorter and stouter bird than the Whin- chat, which perches in an attitude of greater humility, and always seems to me to deprecate your interference rather than to defy it. And it is quite in keeping with this that the ' chat ' of the latter is not so loud and resonant as that of the former, as I have satisfied myself after careful observation of both ; the Stone-chat penetrating to my dull ears at a greater distance than his cousin. This really means that the bill of the one, and in fact his whole muscular system, is stronger than the same in the other, and the to 6vfioet8es of his constitution is more largely gH A MiDLAUD village: railway and woodland. developed. Fot the chat, wMeh is simply (as I believe) an alarm-note, is produced by a violent snapping of the bill, to which the requisite force is given by a jerk of the whole body including the tail. Anyone can verify this for himself by getting close to one of these birds, and watching his action with a glass. If I walk alongade of the railway, as it passes beiweea ttie water-meadows and the corn-fields which lie above them, di- vided on each side from these by a low-lying withy-bed, I always keep an eye upon the telegraph-wires ahead, knowing by long experience that they will tell me what bir^ are breeding or have bred about here. As autumn approaches, grea/t numbers indeed of visitors. Swallows, Martins, Linnets, and others^ will come and sun themselves here, and even tempt a Spai'row-hawk or Kestrel to beat up and down the line ; but in early summer, beside the Whin-chats, and the Whitethroats nesting in great numbers in the thick quickset hedges which border the line, it is chiefly the melancholy tribe of Buntings that will attract my notice. I ttust my friends the Buntings will not take ofenee at being called melancholy ; I cannot retrapt the word, except in what is now called ' a parliamentary sense.' I have just been looking through a series of plates and descriptions of all the Buntings of Europe, and in almost every one of them I see the same deflected tail and listless attitude, and read of the same monotonous and continually repeated note. The Buntings form in fact, though apt ,to be confused with one another owing to their very strong family likeness, perhaps the tnost clearly-marked and idiosyncratic genuB among the whole range of our smaller birds. This may be very easify illustrated from our three common English species. THE BTJISTTINGS. 93 Look at the common Corn Bunting, as he sits on the wires or the hedge-top ; he is lumpy, loQsp-feathered, spiritless, and flies off with his legs hanging down, and without a trace of agility or vivacity ; he is a dull bird, and seems to know it. Near him sits a Yellow Bunting (Yellowhammer), a beautiful bird when in full adult plumage of yellow head, orange-brown back, white outer tail-feathers, and pink legs; yet even this valued old friend is apt to be untidy in the sit of his feathers, to perch in a melancholy brown study with .deflected tail, and to utter the same old song all the spring and summer through. This gong, however (if indeed it can be ealJed one), is a much better one than that of the Corn Bunting, and is ocoaisionally even a little varied.^ Just below, on an alder-branch or withy-sapling, sits a fine cook Eeed Bunting, whose jet-black head and white neck make him a conspicuous object in spite of the sparrow-like brown of his back and wings. Except in plumage, he is exactly like his rela- tions. He will sit there, as long as you like to stay, and shuffling his feathers, give out his odd tentative and half-hearted song. Like the others he builds on or close to the ground, in this case but a few yards from the rails, and his wife, like theirs, lays eggs streaked agd lined in tikat curious way that is peculiar to Buntings alone. I have not had personal experience of our rarer Buntings, the Ortolan, the Snow Bunting, or even the Cirl Btrntiug, as living birds ; bat all the members of this curious race seem to have the characteristics mentioned above in ^ See Note B at tke end of the volume. 94 A MIDLAND TILLAGE : RAILWAY AND WOODLAND. a greater or less degree, and also a certain hard knob in the upper mandible of the bill, which is said to be used as a grind- stone for the grain and seeds which are the food of them all in the adult state. Keeping yet awhile to the railway, let us notice that even the station itself meets with some patronage from the birds. In the- stacks of coal which are built up close to the siding, the Pied Wagtails occasionally make their nests, fitting them into some hospitable hole or crevice. These, like all other nests found in or about the station, are carefully protected by the employes of the company. In a deep hole in the masonry of the bridge which crosses the line a few yards below the station, a pair of Great Titmice built their nest two years ago, and successfully brought up their young, regardless of the puffing and rattling of the trains : for the hole was in the inside of the bridge, and only some six feet from the rails of the down line. A little coppice, remnant of a larger wood cut down to make room for the railway, still harbours immense numbers of birds; here for example I always hear the ringing note of the Lesser Whitethroat ; and here, until a few years ago, a Nightingale rejoiced in the density of the overgrown underwood. A Eing-ousel, the only specimen, alive or dead, which I have seen or heard of in these parts, was found dead here one morning some years ago, having come into collision with the telegraph wires in the course of its nocturnal migration. It was preserved and stuffed by the station-master, who showed it to me as a piebald Blackbird. A little further down the line is another bridge, in which THE TEEE-PIPIT. 95 a Blue-tit found a hole for its nest last year; this also was in the inside of the bridge, and close to the up-line. This bridge is a good place from which to watch the Tree-pipit, and listen to its charming song. All down the line, wherever it passes a wood or a succession of tall elms and ashes, these little greyish-brown birds build their nest on or close to the grassy banks, and take their station on the trees or the telegraph-wires to watch, to sing, and to enjoy themselves. A favourite plan of theirs is to utter their bright canary-like song from the very top twig of an elm, then to rise in the air, higher and higher, keeping up their energies by a quick succession of sweet shrill notes, till they begin to descend in a beautiful curve, the legs hanging down, the tail expanded and inclined upwards, and the notes getting quicker and quicker as they near the telegraph-wires or the next tree-top. When they reach the perching-place, it ceases altogether. So far as I have noticed, the one part of the song is given when the bird is on the tree, the other when it is on the wing. The perching-song, if I may call it so, is possessed by no other kind of Pipit ; but the notes uttered on the wing are much the same with all the species. The young student of birds may do well to concentrate his attention for awhile on the Pipits, and on their near relations, the Larks and the Wagtails. These three seem to form a clearly- defined group ; and though in the latest scientific classification the Larks have been removed to some distance from the other two (which form a single family of MotacMidae), it must be borne in mind that this is in consequence only of a single though g6 A MIDLAND VILLMIB : BAIliWAY AND WOODLAUD. remarkable point of difference. Apart from definite structural characters, a very little observation will show that their habits are in most respects alike. They all place their nests on the ground; and they all walk, instead of hopping; the Larks and the Pipits sing in the air, while the Pipits and the Wagtails move their tails up and down in a peculiar manner. All are earth-loving birds, except the Tree-pipit and the Woodlark. We may now leave the railway, and enter the woodland. Most of the birds that dwell here have been already men- tioned ; and I shall only mention in passing the Jays, the Magpies, and the Crows, those mischievous and predatory birds, which probably do more harm to the game in a single week of April or May, than the beaulifml mice-eating Kestrel does during the whole year. They all rob the nests of the pheasants and partridges, both of eggs and young; and when I saw one day in the wood the bodies of some twenty robbers hung up on a branch, aU belonging to these tiffee species, I could not but feel that justice had been done, for it is not only game birds who are their victims. A large increase of these three species would probably have a serious result on the smaller winged population of a wood. Among the more interesting inhabitants of the wood, there are two species which have not as yet been spoken of in these chapters — ^the Grasshopper Warbler and the Nightingale. The former has no right to be called a warbler, except in so far as it belongs to one of those three families mentioned in a former chapter, in which aU our British 'warblers' are now included. It has no song, properly so called ; but no one who A 6EASSH0PPEE WAEBLEE. 97 has the luck to watch it alive, even without a detailed examin- ation of its structure, will doubt its true relationship to the Sedge-warhler and the Reed-warhler. It is not a water-haunting bird, but still rather recalls the ways of its relations, by choosing deep ditches thickly grown with grass and reeds, and sheltered hy bramble-bushes; it seems to need something to climb up and down, and to creep about in ; like the sedge- birds, it seldom flies any distance, and one is tempted to fancy that all these species would gradually lose the use of their wings as genuine organs of flight, if it were not for the yearly necessities of migration. I once had a remarkable opportunity of watching this very curious bird. It was about the beginning of May, before the leaves had fully come out; a time which is very far the best in the year for observing the smaller and shyer birds. Intent on pairing or nest-building, they have little fear, if you keep quite quiet, and you can follow their movements with a glass without danger of losing sight of them in the foliage. I was returning from a delicious morning ramble through Brueme wood, and was just rounding the last comer of it, where a small plantation of baby saplings was just beginning to put on leaf, when my ear caught the unmistakable ' reel ' of this bird. Some other birds of the warbler kind, wren, robin, sedge-bird, can produce a noise like the winding-up of a watch, but none of these winds it up with such rapidity, or keeps it going so long as the Grasshopper Warbler, nor does any cricket or grasshopper perform the feat in exactly the same way. Our bird's noise — we cannot call it a voice — is H 98 A MIDLAND VILLAGE : EAILWAT AND WOODLAND, like that of a very well-oiled fisherman's reel, made to run at a very rapid rate, and its local name of the 'reel-bird' is a perfectly just and good one. I was on the outside of a little hedge, and the noise proceeded from the saplings on its further side. In order to see the bird I must get over the hedge, which could not be done without a scrunching and crackling of branches sufficient to frighten away a much less wary bird than this. There seemed however to be no other Chance of getting a sight of the bird, so through the hedge I went ; and tumbled down on the other side with such a disturbance of the branches that I gave up all hope of attaining my object. Great was my astonishment when I saw only a few yards from me a little olive-brown bird creeping through the saplings, which I knew at once to be the Grasshopper Warbler. I then took up a fixed position, the little bird after a minute or two proceeded to do the same, and for some time I watched it with my glass, as it sat on a twig and continued to utter its reel. It was only about ten paces from me, and the field-glass which I carried placed it before me as completely as if it had been in my hands. What struck me most about it was its long supple olive-green neck, which was thrust out and again contracted as the reel was being produced ; this being possibly, as I fancy, the cause of the strange ventriloquistic power which the bird seems to possess ; for even while I watched it, as the neck was turned from side to side, the noise seemed to be projected first in one direction and then in another. The reel was uttered at intervals, and as a general rule did not continue for more than AN UNWELCOME INTEUDEE. 99 a quarter of a minute, but one spell of it lasted for forty seconds by my watch. It is said to continue sometimes for as much as twenty minutes, but I have never been fortunate enough to hear it for anything approaching to that length of time. Our interview was not to last very long. It unluckily happened thai my little terrier, who accompanies me in all my walks, and i^ trained to come to heel when anything special is to be observed, had been out of sight when I broke the hedge ; and now he must needs come poking and snuffling through the saplings just as if a Grasshopper Warbler were as fair game as a mole or a water rat. Nevertheless so astonishing was the boldness of this bird that he allowed the dog to hunt about for some time around him without being in the least discon- certed. When at last he made off he retreated in excellent order, merely half flying, half creeping with his fan-like tail distended, until he disappeared in the thick underwood. I would have taken the dog under my arm and tried for another interview, which no doubt he would have given me, if I had not been obliged to depart in order to catch a train to Oxford. This bird was undoubtedly a male who was awaiting the arrival of the females : just at this time they not only betray themselves more easily by the loudness of their reel, but also are well known to be less shy of showing themselves than at any other period of their stay with us. This is the case with most of our summer migrants. Only a few minutes before I found this bird, I had been watching a newly-arrived cock nightingale, who had not yet found his mate, and was content to sing to me from the still leafless bough of an oak-tree, H 3 lOO A MIDLAND VILLAGE : EAILWAT AND WOODLAND. without any of the shyness he woT:dd. have shown two or three weeks later. We have every spring a few pairs of Nightingales in our woods. Except when a wood has been cleared of its under- growth, they may always be found in the same places, and if the accustomed pair is missing in one it is almost sure to be found in another. The edge of a wood is the favourite place, because the bird constantly seeks its food in the open; also perhaps because the best places for the nest are often in the depth of an overgrown hedge, where the cover is thicker than inside a wood. Sitting on the sunny side of such a wood I have often had ample opportunity of hearing and watching a pair : for though always somewhat shy, they are not frightened at a motionless figure, and will generally show themselves if you wait for them, on some prominent bough or bit of railing, or as they descend on the meadow in quest of food. I am always surprised that writers on birds have so little to say of the beauty of the Nightingale's form and colouring. It is of the ideal size for a bird, neither too small to be noticed readily, nor so large as the somewhat awkwardly built black- bird or starling. All its parts are in exquisite proportion ; its length of leg gives it a peculiarly sprightly mien, and tail and neck are formed to a perfect balance. Its plumage, as seen, not in an ornithologist's cabinet, but in the living and moving bird a little distance from you, is of three hues, all sober, but all possessing that reality of colour which is so satisfying to the eye on a sunny day. The uniform brown of the head, the wings, and the upper part of the back, is much THE NIGHTINGALES BEAUTY. lOI like the brown of the robin, a bird which in some other respects strangely resembles the Nightingale ; but either it is a little brighter, or the larger surface gives it a richer tone. In both birds the brown is set off against a beautiful red ; but this in the Nightingale is only distinct when it flies or jerks the tail, the Upper feathers of which, as well as the longer quills, and especially the innermost ones, are of that deep but bright russet that one associates with an autumn morning. And throat and breast are white ; not pure white, but of the gentle tone of a cloud where the grey begins to meet the sunshine. In habit the Nightingale is peculiarly alert and quick, not restless in a petty way, like the fidgety titmice or the lesser warblers, but putting a certain seriousness and intensity into all it does. Its activity is neither grotesque nor playful, but seems to arise from a kind of nervous zeal, which is also characteristic of its song. If it perches for an instant on the gorse-bush beneath the hedge-row which borders the wood, it jerks its tail up, expands its wings, and is off in another moment. If it alights on the ground, it rears up head and neck like a thrush, hops a few paces, listens, darts upon some morsel of food, and does not dally with it. As it sings, its whole body vibrates, and the soft neck feathers ripple to the quivering of the throat. I need not attempt to describe that wonderful song, if song it is, and not rather an impassioned recitative. The poets are sadly to seek about it ; Wordsworth alone seems to have caught ' O Nightingale, thou surely art A creature of a fiery heart 1 103 A MIDLAND VILLAGE: RAILWAY AND WOODLAND. and Wordsworth, as he tells us in the next stanza, found the cooing of the stock-dove more agreeable to his pensive mind. I never yet heard a Nightingale singing dolefully, as the poets will have it sing ; its varied phrases are all given out con brio, and even that marvellous crescendo on a single note, which no other bird attempts, conveys to the mind of the listener the fiery intensity of the high-strung singer. It is a pity to compare the songs of birds ; our best singers, thrush, blackbird, blackcap, robin, and garden-warbler, all have a vocal beauty of their own ; but it may safely be said that none approaches the Nightingale in fire and fervour of song, or in the com- bination of extraordinary power with variety of phrase. He seems to do what he pleases with his voice, yet never to play with it ; so earnest is he in every utterance — and these come at intervals, sometimes even a long silence making the per- formance still more mysterious — that if I were asked how to distinguish his song from the rest, I should be inclined to tell my questioner to wait by a wood side till he is fairly startled by a bird that puts his whole ardent soul into his song. But if he will have a description, let him go to old Pliny's tenth book, or rather to Philemon Holland's translation of it, which is much better reading than the original ; and there he will find the most enthusiastic of the many futile attempts to describe the indescribable. The Nightingale's voice is heard no more after mid-June ; and from this time onwards the woods begin to grow silent, especially after early morning. For a while the Blackcap breaks the stillness, and his soft sweet warble is in perfect BTKDS OF THE WOODS. IO3 keeping with the quiet solitude. But as the heat increases, the birds begin to feel, as man does, that the shade of a thick wood is more oppressive than the bright sunshine of the meadows ; and on a hot afternoon in July you may walk through the woodland and hardly catch a single note. But on the outskirts of a wood, or in a grassy ' ride,' you may meet with life again. The Titmice will come crooning around you, appearing suddenly, and vanishing you hardly know how or whither; wood-pigeons will dash out of the trees with that curious impetuosity of theirs, as if they were suddenly sent for on most pressing business. A Robin will perch on a branch hard by, and startle you with that pathetic soliloquy which calls up instantly to your memory the damp mist and decaying leaves of last November. The Green Woodpecker may be there, laughing at you from an elm, or possibly (as I have sometimes seen him) feeding on the ground, and looking like a gorgeous bird of the tropics. Other birds of the Woodpecker kind are not common in our woods. The Greater Spotted Woodpecker has not occurred, within my recollection ; the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, which I have heard country folk call the French HecMe, seldom catches the eye,' though to judge by the number of stuffed specimens which adorn the parlours of inns and farm-houses, it can by no means be very rare. For this name ' heckle,' ' A Woodpecker on a railway bridge is a curiosity. But a Lesser Spotted bird was once seen on the stonework of the bridge which spans the Chipping Norton branch line, by the Bector of my parish, who knows the bird well. I04 A MIDLAND TILLAGE : RAILWAY AND WOODLAND. and all its curious local variants, I may refer the reader to Professor Skeat's most valuable etymological contribution to Newton's Edition of Yarrell's Birds;* but why, one may ask, should it be called the French Heckle ? A very old gamekeeper, who described to me by this name a bird which was certainly the Lesser Spotted Woodpecker, also used the expression English Heckle for the Wryneck — a bird (he said) much plainer than the French Heckle, and apt to hiss at you if you try to take its eggs. I imagine that French is here contrasted with English to indicate superior brightness and dappemess of plumage. Beyond the woods where these birds live, we come out on scrubby fields, often full of thistles, and spotted with furze- bushes. These fields are the special favourites of the Linnets and Goldfinches; the Linnets are in great abundance, the la,tter, since the Wild Birds Act came into operation, by no means uncommon in autumn. The ground now rises towards the hills which form the limit of our western horizon. On these hills may now and then be seen a few birds which we seldom meet with in the lower grounds, such as the Stone-chat, the Brambling, the Wheatear; but as the hills are for the most part cultivated, and abound in woods and brooks, the difference between the bird life of the uplands and the lowlands is not remarkable at any time of the year. It may be worth while, however, to note down in outline the chief movements of the birds in our district in the course of a single year. In January, which is usually the coldest ' Vol. ii. pp. 461-463. Sidcwall seems to be the recognised ortho- graphy ; but I spell the word as it was pronounced. LOCAL MIGKATIONS. I05 month in the year, the greater number of our birds are col- lected in flocks in the open country, the villages only retaining the ordinary blackbirds, thrushes, robins, etc. The winter migrants are in great numbers in the fields, but they and almost all other birds will come into villages and even into towns in very severe weather. In February, villages, orchards, and gar- dens are beginning to receive more of the bird population, while the great flocks are beginning to break up under the influence of the approach of spring. In March the same process goes on more rapidly; the fields are becoming deserted and the gardens fuller. But meanwhile hedges, woods, thickets and streams are filling with a population from beyond the seas, some part of which penetrates even into the gardens, sharing the fruit-trees with the residents, or modesty building their nests on the ground. As a rule, though one of a very general kind, it may be laid down that our resident birds prefer the neighbourhood of mankind for nesting purposes, while the summer migrants build chiefly in the thickets and hedges of the open country ; so that.just at the time when chaffinches, greenfinches, goldfinches, and a host of other birds are leaving the open country for the precincts of the village, their places are being taken 'by the new arrivals of the spring. Or if this rule be too imperfect to be worth calHng a rule at all (for all the swallow kind but one British species build in human habitations), it is at least true that if a garden offers ample security for nesting, the proportion of residents to migrants taking advantage of it, will be much greater than in a wood or on a heath. I06 A MIDLAND TILLAGE : RAILWAY AND WOODLAND. Just as the population of the open country begins to decrease in numbers in early spring, so it increases rapidly in the first weeks of summer. The young broods that have spent their infancy in or near the village now seek more extended space and richer supplies of food, and when the hay is cut, they may be found swarming in all adjacent hedges and on the prostrate swathes, while the gardens are comparatively empty. But before July is over an attentive watcher will find that his garden is visited by birds which were not born and bred there : while the residents are away in the fields, the migrants begin to be attracted to the gardens by the ripening fruits of all kinds. Whitethroats, willow-warblers, chifi-chaffs, haunt the kitchen-garden for a while, then leave it on their departure for the coast and their journey southwards. After this last little migration, the villages and gardens remain almost deserted except by the blackbirds and thrushes, the robins and the wrens, until the winter drives the wilder birds to seek the neighbourhood of man once more. Even then, unless the garden be well-timberpd, they will be limited to a very few species, except in the hardest weather; and it is remarkable how little variety will be found among our winter pensioners — those recipients of out-door relief, who spoil their digestions by becoming greedy over a food which is not natural to them. This rough attempt to sketch the local migrations of birds must be understood as applying to my own village only, and to gardens which are not surrounded with extensive parks. CHAPTEE VI. The Birds of Viegil. TT might naturally be supposed, that an Oxford tutor, who finds his vocation in the classics and his amusement in the birds, would be in the way of noticing what ancient authors have to say about their feathered friends and enemies. One Christmas vacation, when there was comparatively little to observe out-of-doors, I made a tour through the poems of Virgil, keeping a sharp look-out for all mention of birds, and compiled a complete collection of his ornithological passages. I chose a Latin poet because in Latin it happens to be easier to identify a genus or species than it is in Greek ; and I chose Virgil partly because the ability to read and understand him is to me one of the things which make life most worth living, and partly because I know that there is no other Latin poet who felt in the same degree the beauty and the mystery of animals. I believe there are still people who think of Virgil as a court-poet, writing to order, and drawing conventional ideas of nrture from Greek authors of an earlier age.. This is, of course, absolutely untrue. Virgil's connexion with Augustus J08 THE BIRDS OF VIEGIL. was accidental, and was probably no more to the poet's taste than any other result of an education and an occasional residence in the huge city of Rome. If we compare what is known of his life with the general character of his poetry, we get a very different result. The first sixteen years of his life were spent in his native country of Cisalpine Gaul, almost under the shadow of the Alps, three hundred miles away from Eome. His parents were ' rustic,' and he himself was brought up among the woods and rushy meads of Mantua and Cremona. 'Doubtless there is many a reminiscence of his early years in the Georgics, where his love of the woods, in which he must have wandered as a boy, meets us in every page.' ^ In that day it is probable enough that the great plain of the Po was still largely occupied by those- dense forests, the destruction of which is said to be the chief cause of the floods to which the river is liable. Much land must also have been still undrained and marshy : and we can still trace in the neighbourhood of Mantua the remains of those ancient lake-dwellings which an ancient people had built there long before the Gauls, from whom our poet was perhaps descended, had taken possession of the plain. These woods and marshes, as well as the land which Eoman settlers had tilled for vine or olive, must have been alive with birds in Yirgil's day. There would be all the birds of the woods, the pigeons and their enemies the owls and hawks; there would be cranes and storks in their yearly migrations, and ' Ancient Lives of Virgil (Prof. Nettleahip), p. 33. TIEGIL S ITALIAN HOMES. IO9 all manner of waterfowl from the two rivers Po and Mincio, and from the Lacus Benacus (Lago di Garda) which is only about twenty miles distant. It would be strange indeed, if, even when following the tracks of a Greek poet, Virgil had not in his mind some of the familiar sights on the banks of Mincius. But later in life he was at least as much in southern as in northern Italy. That the first three Georgics were written, or at least thought out, on the lovely bay of Naples, is certain from the lines at the end of the fourth Georgia : — lUo Virgilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope, etudiis florentem ignobilis oti.'^ Here were all the sea-birds, and the wild-fowl that haunt the sea ; here, as we shall see, the summer visitors might land on their way from Africa. Here, from the sea and all its varying life, the poet's mind would enrich itself with sights unknown to him in the flat-lands of the Padus, and grow to understand more fully day by day the impressions — often duU ones — which Nature had made on the poets who had sung before him. Rome he never loved, though he had a house there : perhaps he had seen enough of the huge city during the years given to the dreary rhetorical education of the day, after first leaving his home. He loved Campania, and beloved SicUy'*; ^ I Virgil then, of sweet Parthenope The nursling, woo'd the flowery waJks of peace Inglorious, &c. ' ' Habuit domum Bomae Esquiliis juxta hortos MaecenatianoB, quamquam secessu Campaniae Siciliaeque plurimum uteretur' (Life by Suetonius, oh. 13.) no THE BIEDS OF VIRGIL. at Tarentum also he is found, probably visiting the friendly and jovial Horace. The hill-country of the peninsula, and of the island that belongs to it, became a part of his poetical soul ; and as he probably spent much of his time at his own Cisalpine farm, after he was restored to it by his patron's kindly influence, he must have been constantly moving among all the phases of Italian landscape — in the plain, on the hills, by the sea. Everything, then, in Virgil's history, shows him a genuine poet of the country, and at the same time no one who really knows his poems can deny that they fully bear out the evidence of his life. It is true that he drew very largely on other poets, and could, not disengage himself from the antecedents of his art. From Homer, Hesiod, Aratus, or Theocritus, for example, come nearly all the passages in his works in which birds are mentioned. But though they descend from these poets, and bear the features of their ancestors, they are yet a new and living generation, not lifeless copies modelled by a mere imitator; and their beauty and their truth is not that of Greek, but of Italian poetry. Let any one compare the transla- tions of Aratus by other Koman hands, by Cicero, Festus, and Germanicus, with Virgil's first Georgic, and he will not fail to mark the difference between the mere translator and the poet who breathes into the work of his predecessors a new life and an immortal one. There is hardly to be found, in the whole of Virgil's poems, a single allusion to the habits of birds or any other animals, which is untrue to fact as we know it from Italian naturalists. Here and there, of course, there are DIFFICTTLTIES OF NOMENCLATUEE. Ill delusions which were the common property of the age. If, for example, he tells us in the fourth Georgic that bees oft weigh up tiny stones As light craft ballast in the tossing tide, Wherewith they poise them through the cloudy vast : let us remember that the true history of bees has been matter of quite recent discovery. And we may note at the same time that Pliny, a professed naturalist, living at least a generation after Virgil, has actually asserted that cranes, when flying against the wind, will take up stones with their feet, and stuff their long throats full of gravel, which they discharge when they alight safely on the ground ! Virgil mentions about twenty kinds of birds, most of them several times. These twenty kinds do not correspond so much to our species as to our genera ; for the Greeks and Romans, I need hardly say, had only very rough-and-ready methods of classification, just as is the case with uneducated people at the present day. When they found birds tolerably like each other, they readily put them down as of the same Knd, rarely marking minor differences. Thus corvus appears to stand for both crow and rook ; picus stands for all the woodpeckers inhabiting Italy; by accipiter may be understood any kind of hawk. But in spite of this difficulty, it is sometimes possible to make out the particular species which is alluded to, partly by getting inform- ation as to those which are found in Italy at the present day, partly by comparing Virgil with Pliny and other Koman writers, and where Virgil is using a Greek original, by trying to discover, chiefly through Aristotle's admirable book on natural history, what bird is indicated by the Greek word translated, and 113 THE BIRDS or VIEGIL. ■whetter that bird is an Italian bird as well as Greek, and therefore likely to be known to Virgil at first hand. I am not going to trouble my readers with much of the uninteresting detail of an inquiry like this (in which indeed the game might seem to be hardly worth the candle), but merely to give them some idea of the bird-knowledge on which this greatest of Eoman poets drew, whether at first or second-hand, for description or illustration ; and in so doing to make clear to them, so far as I can, the particular kinds of birds which he had in his mind. I shall quote him in the original, but shall add translations in foot-notes : in the Georgics, his poem of hus- bandry, I take advantage of a poet's translation, that of my friend Mr. James Ehoades, which caifnot easily be outdone either in exactness of scholarship or in beauty of diction ; and in the Aeneid I make use of Mr. Mackail's prose translation, which I prefer on the whole to any poetical version I know. One passage from the Eclogues I have translated myself. The first birds we find mentioned in the poems are the Pigeons, and we may as well begin with them as with any other. Meliboeus tells Tityrus that the farm to which he is returned after a long exile — the same farm which the poet himself lost and found again — shall yield him much true comfort and delight, even though he find it overgrown with reeds, and spoilt with the stones and mud of overflowing Mincius :— ■ Neo tamen interea raucae, tua cura, palumbes, Neo gemere aeria cessabit tv/rtu/r ab ulmo.' ' And all the while, with hollow voice, thine own Loved woodpigeon shall soothe thee, nor alone. For from the lofty elm the dove shall ever moan. PIGEONS OP ANCIENT ITALY. II3 Here two distinct species are clearly meant by the words palumbes and turtur. About the latter of these there is no difficulty ; from all that is told us of it we gather that it is the same bird which the French still call towrtereUe and the Italians tortorella, and which we know as the Turtle-dove ; it is still found in small numbers passing the summer and breeding in Italy, and is most frequent in the sub-alpine region of which Virgil is here writing. But what bird is here meant by palumhes 1 Both this word and its near relative colwmha must be trans- lated by 'pigeon, but can we distinguish them as different species ? Here the commentaries and dictionaries give us no substantial help, and I may be pardoned for pausing a moment to consider a question of some interest to historical ornitho- logists. There are at the present day three kinds of pigeons beside the turtle-dove just mentioned, which are found in Italy ; they are the same three which we know in England as the Wood-pigeon or King-dove, the Stock-dove, and the Rock-dove or Blue-rock. Of these the last, which with us is the rarest, only found on certain parts of our coast, is by far the most abundant in Italy, and is the only one which habitually breeds there. The other two species pass over Italy in spring and autumn regularly, but seldom or never stay there ; they go northwards in the spring from Africa and the east, and return again in the autumn after . breeding in cooler climes. But it is fairly certain that in ancient times two species of pigeons bred in Italy : (i) the bird meant by palwnibes, of which Virgil makes the shepherd Damoetas say in the third Eclogue that he has ' marked the place where they have I 114 THE BIEDS OF TIIl&IL. gathered materials for nesting'^: and of which Pliny tells his readers that when they see this bird upon her nest they may know that midsummer is past (Pliny, Nat. Hist, xviii. 267). (2) the bird named columha ; which word, though etymologically the same as pdlvmhes, is used by Pliny, and also by the Eoman agricultural writers, to represent a bird which is cer- tainly to be distinguished from ipalumabes.^ The columha was in fact the tame pig«on of the Eomans : it was also their carrier- pigeon ; for in the siege of Mutina, b. c. 43, the besieged general communicated with the relieving force by means of oolwmhae, to the feet of which letters were attached (Plin. x. no). The words may here and there be used loosely, and it is possible that attempts may have been made to domesticate the palumhes a,a well as the columha ; but in the vast majority of passages the coh/mhsi is certainly either the domestic bird or a wild bird of the same species, while palumhes is some other kind of pigeon. Even in Yirgil the distinction is maintained; for while palwmhes breeds in the jelm in the first Eclegue, already quoted (which poem, it should be noted, is genuinely north-Italian, and independent of a Greek original), colvmha on the other hand has her nest in a rock, as the following well-known and beautiful passage will plainly show — Qualis spelunca Bubito commota columba, Cui domua et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, Fertur in arva vdlana, plausumque ezterrita penriis Dat teoto ingentem, mox aere lapaa quieto Kadit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet aJas, ' Eclogue iii. 68. ^ ColiffieUa viii. 8. Cato de Be Bu«tia», 9Q. COLUMBA AWD PALTTMBES. II5 And in the same fifth Aeneid, the bird which served as a target in the archery coEtest — a domestic bird, we may suppose — was a columba, not a palumhes. Now it is a fact almost universally recognised by modem ornithologists that our domestic pigeon is in all its varieties descended from the wild Eoek-dove; and thus when we find that the Romans used columba to denote their domestic bird, and also a wild bird which made its nest in rocks, the eoncln- sion is almost certain that by that word we are to understand our Blue-rods; pigeon {Cdiumba lima); and if this is so, by jpalumbes must be meant one of the other two Italian pigeons, the Wood-pigeon [GalunAa pahmibus, Linn.) or the Stock-dove {fjaluwha aenas, Linn.). Both species, as I have said, are now birds of passage in Italy, while the Blue-rock is resident ; and Pliny tells us of the palttmbes that it arrived every year in great numbers from the sea— he does not say at what season. Perhaps the Stock-dove ^ is the more likely of the two to have been the bird generally meant by palumhes ; but it is quite possible that, like the unskilled of the present day, the • Romans confounded the two species, and wrote of them as one. But there is still a difficulty. The palumhes in the time of Virgil and Pliny seems to have bred in Italy; Pliny knew all about their breeding (x. 147 and 153), and Virgil makes Damoetas mark the place where their nesting is going on. But it is mow very rarely, if we may trust Italian naturalists, that either Bing-dove or Stock-dove passes a summer in Italy. Birds ^ Philemon Holland so IxaDslates paltmies iu his viersion oF FliBy, I 2 Il6 THE BIKDS OF TIEGIL. seek a cool climate for their breeding-places ; probably because in very hot countries the food suitable to their nestlings will not be found in the breeding-season. Has the climate of Italy become hotter in the last two thousand years, discouraging these birds from lingering south of the Alps ? This is an old question which has been well threshed out by the learned, and the general conclusion seems to be in the affirmative. The last eminent writer on the subject takes this view,^ and his argument would receive a decided clinch if it could be proved that certain kinds of birds, which formerly bred in the country, do so no longer, and that this is not due to other causes, such as the well-known passion of the Italians for killing and eating all the birds on which they can lay their hands. If we now turn to the first Georgic, in which, following the Greek poet Aratus with freedom and discretion, Virgil has told us more of animal life than in all the rest of his poems, we find frequent mention of the long-legged and long-billed birds with which he must have been very famUiar in his boyhood at Mantua. The first of these we meet with is the Crane (Latin grus). About the meaning of the word griis there can» be no doubt ; it would seem that the Crane was a bird accurately distinguished by the forefathers of our modern Aryan peoples even before they separated from each other. The Greek word yipavos, the Latin grus, the German Kranich, and the Welsh garan are all identical, and point to a period when the bird was known by the same name to the whole race. Probably it was much more abundant both in Europe and Asia, at a time ' NiBsen, Italiache Landes&unde, p. 374. CRANES AND CEOPS. II7 when the face of the country was covered by Vast tracts of swamp and forest; Even now, at the period of migration, they swarm in the east ; ' the whooping and trumpeting of the crane,' says a great authority (Canon Tristram), ' rings through the night air in spring, and the vast flocks we noticed passing north near Beersheba were a wonderful sight.' Virgil mentions the Crane in two passages as doing damage to the crops : and this is fully borne out by modern accounts from Asia Minor and Scinde, quoted by Mr Dresser in his Birds of Europe. The poet says of them {Georgic i. 118) — Neo tamen haec cum sint homiuumqiie boumque labores Versando terram experti, nihil improbna anser Strymoniaeque grues et amaris intuba fibris OfEiciunt aut umbra uocet.'^ And in line 307 of the same book he tells the husbandman that the winter is the time to catch them : — Turn gruibus pedioas, et retia ponere cerris Auritosque sequi lepores;'' a passage from which it might appear as if the Crane were snared as an article of food, not only as an enemy to the ' But no whit the more For all expedients tried and travail borne By man and beaat in turning oft the soil, Do, greedy goose and Strymon-haunting cranes And succory's bitter fibres not molest Or shade not injure — ' Time it ia to set Snares for the crane, and meshes for the stag And hunt the long-eared hares. Il8 THE BIEDS OF TIEGIL. agriculturist. And indeed in Pliny's time the epicure's taste was all in lavour of cranes and against storks ; but when Virgil wrote, the reverse was the case. This little fact, so character- istic of the Sway of fashion over the gourmand: of that luxurious age, was recorded by Cornelius. Nepos, and ia quoted from him, by Pliny {Nat. Hist. x. 60). The Crane is now a bird of passage in Italy, and the Stork also ; they appear in spriisg on their way to northern breeding-places, and in autumn re-appear with their numbeis reinforced by the young broods of the year. These habits seem to have been the same in Virgil's day. In the passage just quoted (Georgic i. 120) it is evidently in the spring that the bird was hurtful to the crops, as the seed was to be sown in the spring (line 43, etc.) On the other hand, in line 307, the Crane is to be snared in the idnter; yet I can hardly believe that aay nunafber could have stayed in Italy during winter, if the climate was then colder than it is now. Moreover Pliny speaks of the Crane as ' aestatis advena,' that is, a summer visitor, as opposed to the Stork, who was a winter visitor. But these Latin words ' aestas ' and ' hiems ' are to be understood loosely for the whole warm season, and the whole cold or stormy season ; and if cranes came on their passage northwards, when warm weather began, they must also have appeared, on their return journey, when cold weather was beginning ; so that both crane and stork might equally be styled ' aestatis advena,' or ' hiemis advena.' Pliny was surely making one of his many blunders when he distinguished the two birds by these two expressions. The migration of such great birds as these, unlike those of MIGRATION OP CEAlirBS. II9 our tiny tisitors to England, could hardly escape the notice even of men who knew nothing of scientific observation. Virgil has given us a momentary glimpse of the Crane's migration in spring; he is following in the tracks of Homer, but as a Mantuan he must have seen the phenomenon himself also. Clamorem ad sidera toUunt Dardanidae e muris ; spes addita Buacitat Iras ; Tela manu jaciunt ; qualms sub nubibus atria Strymoniae dant signa gruea, atque aethera tranant Cum sonitu, fugiuntque Notoa clamors secundo.^ Here, as they fly before a southern wind, they are on their way to the north in the spring. But in another passage he seems rather to be thinking of autumn ; it is where he is telling the husbandman how to presage an approaching storm, such a storm as descends in autumn from the Alps upon the plains of Lombardy : — Nunquam imprudentibus imber Obfuit ; an* ilium surgentem vaUibug imis- Aeriae fugere grues, aut bucula coelum Suspiciens patulis captavit naribus auras, Aut arguta lacus oircumvolitavit hirundo.^ ^ ' Tbe Dardanians on tbe walls raise a shout to the sky. Hope comes to kindle wrath; they hurl their missiles strongly; even as under black douds cranes from the Strymou utter their signal notes and sail clamour- ing across the sky, and noisily stream down the gale. Aen. i. 262 foil. ' Never at unawares did showers annoy; Or, as it rises, the high-soaring cranes Flee to the hills before it, or, with face Upturned to heaven, the heifer snuffs the gale Through gaping nostrils, or about the meres Shrill-twittering flits the swallow. Georff. i. 373. 120 THE BIEDS OF VIKGIL. The general tenor of the whole passage of which these lines are a fragment, as well as their original in the Diosemeia of Aratus, points to the approach of ' hiems,' the stormy season, as the event indicated ; the falling leaves dance in air, the feathers of the moulting birds float on the water, but the swallow is not yet gone. The deep Alpine valleys seethe with swirling mist, which rises into gathering cloud, and soon becomes stormy rain beating upon the plains, as we may see it in any ' Loamshire ' of our own, that lies below the stony hills of a wilder and wetter country-side. In this striking and truth- ful passage, Virgil has not followed his model too closely, but was evidently thinking of what he must often have witnessed himself. The Stork is only mentioned by Virgil in a single passage : Cum Tere nibenti Candida venit avis longis inviga colubris.^ Doubtless the bird arrived in great numbers in spring on the Mantuan marshes, and found abundance of food there in the way of frogs and snakes. Its snake-eating propensity was considered so valuable in Thessaly, that the bird was preserved there by law, says Aristotle.'' But did it remain to breed in Italy 1 It is remarkable that both Aristotle and Pliny have very little to say of its habits, and hardly anything as to its breeding; and if the Stork had been a bird familiar to them, they could hardly have failed to give it a prominent place in ' in blushing spring Comes the white bird long-bodied snakes abhor. ' MirdbiUa 23. PETEONITJS ON THE STOKK. 131 their books. At the present time it seems to pass over Italy and Greece on its passage northwards, never staying to breed in the former country and rarely in the latter ; yet this can hardly be owing to temperature, as it breeds freely in the parallel latitudes of Spain and Asia Minor. As regards ancient Italy, however, the question seems to be set at rest by a very curious passage from the Satyricon of Petronius, which has been Idndly pointed out to me by Mr. Robinson Ellis. It is remarkable not only for its Latin, but for its concise and admirable > description of the charac- teristic ways of the Stork : — Ciconia etiam grata, peregrina, hospita, Pietatieultrix, graciIipeB, crotalistria, Avis exsul hiemis, titulus tepidi temporia, Nequitiae mdnm in cacabo fecit meo. 'A Stork too, that welcome guest from foreign lands, that devotee of filial duty, with its long thin legs and rattling bill, the bird that is banished by the winter and announces the coming of the warm season, has made his accursed nest in my boiler.' I am reminded also of a story, which has the authority both of Joi'nandes and Procopius, that at the siege of Aquileia in A. D. 452, Attila was encouraged to persist by the sight of a Stork and her young leaving the beleaguered city. ' Such a domestic bird would never have abandoned her ancient seats unless those towers had been devoted to impending ruin and solitude.' ' Here then we seem to have another example of a bird abandoning its ancient practice of breeding, * Gibbon, vol. iv. p. 240, ed. Milman. 133 THE BIRDS OF VIRGIL. occasionally af; least, in Italy. If this is due to persecution-, the persecutors have made a great mistake. The Stork does no harm to man, but rather rids his fields of vermin; the Crane', ■which belongs to a different order of birds, may do serious damage, as we have seen, to cultivated land, like the ' improbus anser,' and other birds which Virgil in this first Georgic instructs the husbandman to catch with lime or net, or to frighten away from the fields.^ Let us now turn to the big black birds of the race of the Crows, which are always so difficult to distinguish from one another : for the Boman savant not less difficult than for our own unlearned. There are to be found in Italy at the present day the Eaven, th« Crow, the Kook, the Jackdaw, the Chough, and the Alpine Chough ; all of these seem to be fairly common and resident in one or other part of the country, except our familiar friends the Crow and the Eook, the former of which is very rare, and the latter hardly more than a bird of passage. We cannot of course expect to find these accurately distin- guished by the ancient Italians ; and there is in fact still some uncertainty as to the identification of certain birds of this kind mentioned by Virgil. The two commonest of these are the eorvus and the cornix — words which undoubtedly represent two different species. The Koman augurs, who were always busily engaged in observing birds (and it were to be wished that they had observed them to some better purpose), clearly distinguished corvus and cornix.^ 1 Georff. i. 120, 139, 154, 271. ' Cic. de Dill. i. 35. COEVTJS AND COHNIX. 1 33 So also did Pliny,' ia the following curious passage : ' The Corvus lays its eggs before midsummer, and is then in bad condition for sixty days, up to the ripening of the figs in autumn : but the cornix begins to be disordered after that time.' Virgil also uses the words for two distinct, species ; his cornix is solitary- Turn conrix plena pluviam vooat improba voce Et sola in sicca secum spatiatur arena ; ^ while corvus is gregarious, as is shown in the following memor- able description of Nature and of the birds taking heart after the storm has passed : — Turn liquidas corvi presBO ter gutture voces Aut quater ingeminant, et saepe cubilibus altis Nesoio qua praeter solitum dulcedine laeti, Inter se in foliis strepitant ; juvat imbribus actis Progeniem parvam dulcesque revisere natos.' That in these last beautiful lines corvus means a Book, no Englishman is likely to deny ; yet there are two diificulties to be put aside before we can make the assertion with entire confidence. The first is, that Virgil, here following Aratus, 1 N. H. X. 32. ' Then the crow With full voice, good-for-nought, inviting rain, Stalks on the dry sand mateless and alone. ^ Soft then the voice of rooks from indrawn throat ' Thrice, four timesj o'er repeated, and full oft On their high cradles by some hidden joy Gladdened beyond their wont, in bustling throngs Among the leaves "they riot ; so sweet it is When showers are spent, their own loved nests again And tender brood to visit. Qearg. i. 410. 134 THE BIRDS OF VIRGIL. translated by corvus the Greek word Kopi^, which is not generally accepted as meaning a Rook. This is the word which the Greek historian Polybius uses for those naval machines invented by the Eomans, in the first war with Carthage, for grappling with a hooked projecting beak the galleys of the enemy ; and the rook's bill is much less suited to give a name to such an engine than that of the crow or raven, which has the tip of the upper mandible sharply bent downwards, like that of most flesh-eating birds.^ Still I must hold it probable that Aratus was here using the word for the rook, as he makes it gregarious, and so, I think, did the Alexandrian scholar Theon, who wrote a commen- tary on his poem. The only other possibility is that he was thinking of the Alpine Chough, a bird which he might possibly have known, and one of thoroughly social habits. But that Virgil, though he too probably knew this bird, was not thinking of it when he wrote the lines just quoted, I feel tolerably sure ; he would most likely have used the word graculus rather than corvus, which latter never seems to have been applied like monedula and "graculus to the smaller birds of the group, such as the Alpine Chough and the Jackdaw. The second difficulty lies in the fact that the Rook is now only a bird of passage in Italy, never stopping to breed in the south- ern part of the peninsula, and very rarely in the northern; while Virgil speaks of the corvi in the last-quoted passage as loving to revisit their nests. But this difficulty has been overcome by the delightful discovery that the rooks still stay and breed in the ^ Sundevall ( Thierarten des Aristoteles, p. 1 23) pronounces Kopci( to have been our Baven, AUTHORS VERSUS DICTIONARIES. 135 sub-alpine neighbourhood where Virgil passed his early life.^ As I have remarked about the pigeons and the stork, the climate may have been such as would induce some birds to stop south of the great Alpine barrier, which now find there no climate cool enough for breeding ; and the rook was perhaps a more regular resident and breeder then than he is now. We may conclude then that Virgil's eorvus is our old friend the Rook, even if some Latin authors use the word equally for Eook, Crow, and Eaven. Pliny for example tells us {N. H. x. 23- 121) that the eorvus can be taught to speak (fancy a bird talking Latin, that stiff and solemn speech !), that he eats flesh for the most part, and that he sometimes makes his nest in elevated buildings ; feats which we are not used to associate with Rooks. In fact it is plain that Pliny, who was more of a learned book-reader than a careful observer of the minutiae of nature, was not quite clear in his notions about the big black birds. But if we can be pretty sure about eorvus, what is Virgil's cornix, stalking on the shore in solitary state, and uttering admonitory croaks from the hollow holm-oak ? If we consult dictionaries we shall learn that cornix is the Crow or Book, 'a smaller bird than eorvus.'^ Where did the dictionaries get this authority for making confusion worse confounded ? If Virgil distinguished eorvus and cornix, and if eorvus is the rook, then cornix must be the crow or the raven, and in fact the word probably stands for both. I should incline on the whole to the raven, seeing that at the present day it is much the commoner bird of the two in Italy. Alpine choughs and jackdaws are not wont to stalk about * See Newton's Ya/rrell, ii. 290. 12,6 THE BIEDS 0¥ VIEGIL. alone ; and though the larger «hough (our Cornish chough) might do so, and is to be found in the mountain districts of Italy, he cannot well be the bird generally unjderstood by comix. Could a chough learn to talk with his long thin red bill ? But Pliny knew of a talking comix ', ' while I was engaged upon this book ' he says, ' there was in Eome a cornix from the south-west of Spain, belonging to a Roman knight, which was of an amazingly pure black, and, could say certain strings of words, to which it frequently added new ones.' Swans are frequently mentioned by Virgil, as by other Latin and Greek poets. This splendid bird must have been much commoner then throughout Europe than it is now, and accord- ingly attracted much attention. It doubtless abounded in the swampy localities of the north of Italy, and at the mouths of the great rivers of Thrace and Asia Minor, as well as in the north of Europe, where it came to be woven into many a Teutonic fable. Homer has frequent and beautiful allusions to it ; and the town of Clazomenae, at the mouth of the river Hermus, has a swan stamped upon its coins. This Swan of the old poets is without any doubt the whooper {Cycnv/S omisieus) whose voice and presence are still well-known in Italy and Greece. Virgil had seen it at Mantua, on the watery plain of the Mincius : Pasoentem niveos lierboso flumine cyonps.' And in an admirable simile in the eleventh book of the Aeneid, he likens the stir and dissension in the camp of Turnus, when * Whose weedy water feeds the snow-white swan. Qeorg. ii. 199. ALCYON 4ND jlCALANTHIS. 127 the news suddenly arrives that Aeneas is marching upon them, to the loud calls of this bird : Hio undique clampr Disseusu vario magnus ee toUit ad auras : Hand seous atque alto in luco cum forte catervae Consedere avium, piscoaove amne Padusae Dant Bonitum rauci per stagna loquaoia oyeni.* We now come to two birds mentioned in the same line of the third Georgic. The poet is telling the farmer to water his flocks in the eool evening of a hot day : Oum frigidus aera veeper Temperat, et saltus leficit jam roscida luna, Litoraque alcyonen reeonaat, acalanthida dumi.^ The first of these birds is also mentioned in a line of the first Georgic, which is mainly taken from Aratus : but it is significant that Aratus does not mention the 'alcyon' either here or anywhere else. Non tepidum ad solem penaaa in littore pandunt Djlectae Thetidi aleyanes.' That the 'alcyon' of these two passages is to be identified with * With that a great noise rises aloft in diverse contention, even as when flocks of birds haply settle on a lofty grove, and swans utter their hoarse cry among the vocal pools in the fish-filled river of Padusa. Aen. xi. 456 ; cp. vii. 700. ' Wlen cool eve Allays the air, and dewy moon-beams slake The forest glades, with halcyon's voice the shore And every thicket with the goldfinch rings. &eorg, iii. 3^8. " Not to the Sun's warmth there npon the shore Do halycons dear to Thetis ope their wings. Qeorg, i, 398. ia8 THE BIEDS OF 'VIKGIL. our Kingfisher, which is still an Italian bird and the only one of its kind, I can have no reasonable doubt ; for Pliny's description of the bird is too exact to be mistaken. 'It is,' he says, 'a little larger than a sparrow, of a blue-green colour (colore cyanea), red in the under parts, having some white feathers close to its neck, and a long thin bill.' This description, it is true, is copied almost word for word from Aristotle, the only exception being the allusion to the white feathers on the side of the neck, which are a well-known feature in the Kingfisher.^ Whether both were thinking of the same bird it is impossible to decide ; but that Pliny was describing our Kingfisher, and believed Aristotle to have done so in the passage he copied, it is almost unreasonable to doubt. It is however an open question whether the bird ordinarily known to the Greeks as oKkvosu is to be identified with the King- fisher. The greatest living authority on the birds of the Levant, Canon Tristram of Durham, tells me that he has convinced himself that it is not the Kingfisher, but the Tern, or Sea-swallow : a rare coin of Eretria led him to this conclusion, on which a Tern is figured, sitting on the back of a cow." ^ This exception is singular, as Pliny seems to depend on Aristotle for everything else which he tells about the bird. I am inclined to think that in this case Fliny must have supplemented his master's account from his own observation. He had a villa on the bay of Naples, which bay was probably the ' littus ' referred to by Virgil ; and both may here have seen the bird on the shore. ' I have seen a photograph of this coin, and satisfied myself that the bird was meant for a Tern. But I have so far been unable to discover any connexion between Eretria and the oKieiav. Sundevall is confident that Aristotle's bird is the Kingfisher. VOICE OF THE KINGIISHEE. 129 And it must be allowed that the Greeks seem to have thought of their aiKKvav as a sea bird no less than as a river bird. Aristotle remarks that it goes up rivers, but he seems to have thought of it mainly as a sea bird, and a well-known passage in the seventh Idyll of Theocritus appears to bear him out. But I am not here specially concerned with Greek ornithology, and what Virgil says of the alcyon piping and pluming himself on the shore is perfectly consistent with the habits of the bird. I have myself seen it on the coast of Dorset, 'pennas in littore pandens,' and taking flight over a bay full half a mile in width. A greater difficulty lies in the alleged vocal powers of the bird ; they sing, Pliny tells us, in the reeds, and Virgil's alcyon makes the shore echo with his voice. The Kingfisher, so far as I know, is a silent bird except when disturbed ; he will then utter a shrill pipe as he flies away. But I am quite at a loss to explain his singing, except by supposing that this was one of several curious delusions that had gathered round a curious bird.-' The other bird mentioned in the lines last quoted is, and perhaps will remain, a puzzle. Mr. Ehoades makes it the Goldfinch, following the commentators, who themselves follow an old tradition which will not bear criticism, and in favour of which I can find nothing more convincing than the argument that acantM^ means in Greek a thorny or prickly tree, while the Goldfinch's favourite food is the seed of the thistle. Let us ^ E.g. Aristotle gives, and Pliny copies from him, an extraordinary account of the nest and eggs. Nat. Mist. ix. 14. * Acalanthis is supposed to be formed by reduplication from acanthis. K 130 THE BIKDS OF VIEGIL. notice however, first, that it is not the way of the Goldfinch to sit in a thicket and sing, as Virgil describes the Acalanthis ; it is a restless, lively, aerial bird, fond of singing on the wing, and by no means disposed to lurk under cover ; and secondly, that the word aKavBi] does not necessarily mean a thistle, but is equally applied to all kinds of thorny trees and shrubs,^ such as the dwmi in which Virgil makes the voice of the bird resound. Where did Virgil get this Greek word acanthis^ or acalanthis, which he thus appropriated to express some bird familiar to himself ?' Probably from a very beautiful passage in Theocritus' seventh Idyll, where, lying on the vine-leaves, Damoetas and Daphnis hear the birds singing, and the murmur of the bees : — ''Aeidov KopvSot Kal 6.feav$i5eSf effreve rpv^iiv, 'this larks and the acantJiides were singing, and the turtle- dove was moaning.' But what kind of bird was Theocritus himself thinking of 1 Here we must have recourse to Aristotle, who in his book on birds describes the bird known to the Greeks as acanthis as beiag ' of poor colouring and habits, but having a clear shrill voice.' ' This cannot possibly be the Goldfinch, the happiest and most brightly coloured of our smaller English birds ; one too whose song would hardly be picked out to be described as \iyvpa, which word denotes a sustained high and shrill sound, and would not well express ^ TheophrastuB for example applies it to the Egyptian mimosa, the thorns of which lately'proved bo damaging to our troops in the Soudan. (Lenz, Botcmik der Gnechen, p. 735.) ° There is another reading ' et acanthida.' ' Kax60ios «al KaK6xpoos, ^avijv fiivToi \iyvpa,v txo"'"''. Sist. Anim. ix. I'j. WAEBLEES IN ITALY AND GREECE. I3I a twitter or a quiet warble. Sundevall, the Swedish scholar- naturalist, has pronounced this acanthis of Aristotle to be the linnet ; a conclusion with which no one would be likely to agree who is fresh from a sight of that lively bird in its splendid summer plumage, or who knows its gentle twittering song. Let us remember that Aristotle is of all naturalists, down to the time of Willughby and Ray, the most exact and trustworthy, and that when he uses an adjective to describe a bird or its voice, he means something exact and definite, and is not talking loosely. Before we try to come to a conclusion about the dmvdis, let us note that Aristotle paentions another small bird, the aKavBvWts, which, from the name, we may guess to have been one of the same kind as the ocantMs. This bird builds a nest which is round and made of flax, and has a small hole by way of entrance. Now let us observe that Italy and Greece are swarming for the greater part of the year with a variety of those small brown or dusky-coloured birds which naturalists roughly call 'warblers' — birds for the most part apt to creep and lurk about in thickets or small trees, and having voices more or less shrill, which may very well indeed be called Xiyvpat. In England we have some species of this order which are abundant in the summer; e.g. in Oxford, the chifichaff, willow-wren, sedge-warbler, and reed^warbler- — the two former of which build spherical nests on the ground with a small entrance-hole. These birds correspond with both of Aristotle's birds in being KuKo^toi — i. e. leading a poor lurking life ; KOKdxpooi, as being all very sober-coloured and difficult to distinguish from one another, even by a modern expert; in K 2 133 THE BIUDS OF VIKGIL. having a clear, sustained, or sibilant song,^ and lastly in building — some of them, that is — round nests with small holes for ingress and egress. Now in Italy and Greece the number of species of these little birds is much larger than in England, and it is hardly possible that they could have escaped the notice of either poet or naturalist. It is with these that I think we are to identify the acanthis and acanthyllis of Aristotle, the acanthis of Theocritus, and the acalanChis of Virgil, with which we started this too lengthy discussion. Towards the evening of a hot summer day, when the flocks have to be watered, as he enjoins the shepherd, these little warblers would begin their song afresh, and sing, as does our own Sedge-warbler, far on into the night. Neither Goldfinch, nor Linnet would be likely to sing at that time in a thicket of thorn-bushes : those fairy creatures would be playing in the cool air, or seeking the water for a refreshing bath or draught. There are several other passages in Virgil which invite both translation and discussion ; but I must be content with giving one or two, and must dispense with lengthy remarks on them. Every Latin scholar knows the description, in the first Georgic, of the birds flying shorewards before the storm : — Continuo, ventis aurgentibus, aut freta ponti Incipiunt agitata tumescere et aridus altis MontibuB audiri fragor, aut resonantia longe liitora mieceri et nemorum increbrescere murmur. ■■^ A eibilant trill is probably what is meant in a passage of the Greek Anthology (i. 175)3 ^lyvpbv fioix^evffiv oK&vBLSes ; suggesting the Grass- hopper Warbler (see p. 97), or the Sedge Warbler. TIEGIL S SBA-BIEDS. I33 Jam sibi turn curvis male temperat unda carinis, Cum medio oeleres revolant ex aequore mergi Clamoremque ferunf ad litora, cumque maiinae In sicoo ludunt fulioae, notasque paludes Deserit atque altam supra volat ardea nubem.' The words mergi and fulicae in these lines have been the subject of much discussion among commentators. That Virgil meant by mergus some particular bird known to himself, there can be little doubt ; for he has transferred to the m&rgus what Aratus (here his original) says of the Heron (ip&hios). And rightly so; for the Heron never goes out to sea to fish, as it needs standing ground and is no swimmer. This nwrgus stands probably for the Gull in a generic sense ; Virgil had doubtless seen them flying to the Campanian coast before a coming storm, and altered Aratus accordingly. The fidica marina is translated by Mr. Blackmore ' sea-coot,' which is correct but meaningless, and by Mr. Ehoades^ 'cormorant'; ^ deorg. i. 356 foil. I quote this time Mr. K. D. Blackmore^s admirable rhyming version. Ere yet the lowering storm breaks o'er the land A suUen groundswell heaves along the strand, On mountain heights dry snapping sounds are heard, The booming shores bedrizzled are and blurred And soughs of wind sigh through the forest stirred. The wave already scarce foregoes the hull When homeward from the oflSng flies the gull. With screams borne inland by the blast; and when Sea-coots play round the margin of the fen; The heron quits the marsh where she was bred And soars upon a cloud far overhead. * Following Keightley*s commentary, which is the best we possess on Georg. i. 351-423- 134 THE BIRDS OP VIEGIL. but in ttis case we have no means of determining the species of which the poet was thinking. He used the word fulica, a coot, to help him out in naming a bird which was something like a coot, but a bird of the sea, and one for which he had no word ready, or none that would suit his metre. Another beautiful passage is to be found in the twelfth book of the Aeneid; it is one in which our poet is evidently describing an everyday sight of an Italian spring and summer, and writing independently of an original : — Nigra velnt magnas domim cum divitis aedea PerTolat et pemuB alta atria lustrat hirundo, Pabula parva legens, nidisque loquacibus esoas ; Et nunc porticibus vaculs, nunc humida ciroum Stagna sonat: eimilis medios Jutui-na per hostes Fertur equis, rapidoque volans obit omnia curru.' Though it seems odd to compare to a swallow the fierce female warrior careering in her chariot, it should be noted that Juturna's object is not to fight, but by constant rapidity of movement to keep Turnus and ^neas from meeting each other. This simile is, I think, the most perfect passage ahout the Swallow that I have ever met with in poetry. The hirwndo of the Eomans had of course a generic sense, and included all the different species of Martin and Swallow. When Virgil writes (Georg. iv. 107) of the chattering hvruTido which hangs its nest from the beams, he clearly means the * Aen. xii. 473. Mr. Mackail translates: 'As when a black swallow flits througli some rich lord's spacious house, and circles in flight in the lofty haUs, gathering her tiny food for sustenance to her twittering nestlings, and now swoops down the spacious colonnades, now round the wet ponds,' &c. THE NIGHTINGALE IN VIEGIL. 1 35 House-martin ; for the Swallow places his upon the rafters, while the Martin does exactly what Virgil describes. Both Aristotle and Pliny distinguish three or more species of these birds, — the Swallow, Sand-martin, Swift, and possibly the Crag-martin ; and their habits seem to have been the same as at the present day. I shall not trouble my readers with any of Virgil's passages^ about the Hawks and Eagles, in all of which he follows Homer more or less closely. Nor need we pause to dwell on the single passage in which he has mentioned the Nightingale ; for beautiful as it is, it is not only based on Homer, but is inferior in truth to Homer's lines. The older poet sings truthfully of the Nightingale ' sitting in the thick foliage of the trees,' and ' pouring a many-toned music with many a varied turn' ; but Virgil has neither of these touches. Still his lines have a beauty of their own : — Qualis populea moerena philomela sub umbra AmisBos queritur foetus, quos durus arator Observans nido implnmes detraxit ; at ilia Elet noctem, ramoque sedens miserabile carmen Integrat, et moestis late loca questibua implet.' I will • finish this chapter by quoting one more passage ; in which I think we may see Virgil's own observation of the ' Aen. Ix. 564; xi. 721, 751 ; xii. 247. " As in the poplar-shade a nightingale Mourns her lost young, which some relentless swain, Spying, from the nest has torn unfledged, but she Wails the long night, and perched upon a spray With sad insistence pipes her dolorous strain. Till all the region with her wrongs o'erflows. &eorg. iv. 511. 136 THE BIEDS OF TIEGIL, habits of birds. It is a famous passage in the sixth Aeneid, where Aeneas has embarked with Charon to cross the Styx, and the ghosts collect upon the bank to beg for passage to the other side ; they gather in numbers, Quam multa in silvia autumni frigore primo Lapsa cadunt folia, ant ad teiTam gurgite ab alto Quam multae glomerantnr aves, ubi frigidus annus, Trans pontum fugat, et terris immittit apricis.^ This passage is a very embarrassing one, and is not suf&- ciently cleared up by the commentators. The wellTknown lines which they quote from Homer (Iliad iii. 3 foil.), though they may have suggested, are very far from explaining it. The ghosts are praying piteously for passage, and hold out their hands in entreaty, 'with strong desire for the further shore' : and they are compared to birds driven on by cold weather, and seeking entrance to warmer lands. Ghosts and birds are alike uneasy ; they long for relief in a home that is now their natural one. So far so good. But the birds are arriving from the sea (gn/rgite ab alto) in the autumn, and this must be a northern sea, and the coast on which they collect must be the threshold of a more genial climate. Where could Virgil have seen birds collecting on the shore from the North, on their way to the South ? Either we must have recourse to the impossible hypothesis that the poet was writing of what he did not understand, ' Aen. vi. 309. ' Multitudinous as leaves fall dropping in the forests at autumn's earliest frost, or birds swarm landward from the deep gulf, when the chill of the year routs them over seas and drives them to sunny lands.' SIMILE OF GHOSTS AND BIEDS. I37 or we must recall the fact, which is told us in his life by Suetonius, that he spent a great part of his time in Campania and SicUy, where in an autumn walk by the sea he might have seen what he here refers to. The multitude of migrants from France, Holland, and England, take a south-easterly course in their autumn migration, and alight on any resting-place they can find, — ships, islands, or wide* sea-coasts like those of South Italy and Sicily. Here Virgil, we may be faii-ly sure, had seen them, and the longing of their hearts had entered into his, and borne fruit in a noble simile that is his, and not another's. Their journey, when he saw them, was not ended ; like the pale and longing ghosts, they had yet another sea to cross, before they could find a winter's home in the secure sunshine of the south. NOTES. Note A, p. 9. I originally intended to have added a short chapter to the book upon the Wild Birds Act and the results obtainable from it ; but aa other chapters have grown to greater length than I expected, I confine myself to giving in this note, for the convenience of those who are kindly disposed towards the birds, the substance of the Act of 1 880, with a few words of explanation. Those who wish for more complete information should send for ' The Wild Birds Protection Acts 1880 and 1881, with explanatory notes ' (pub. by Horace Cox, the Field Office, 346 Strand, W.C., price is.) The Act in question, which was the result of most careful consideration, by experts outside as well as inside Parliament, and was seen through the House of Commons by L. L. Dillwyn, Esq., M.P., one of a family of naturalists, repealed the then existing Acts relating to Wild Birds, which had been passed in the previous years without sufficient care for all interests. Its main provisions were as follows : — 1 . To protect all wild birds of every description from being caught or killed between the ist of March and the ist of August. 2. To except from the above plain rule birds caught or killed by the owner or occupier of land on his own land, or by some person authorised by him. 3. To affix as penalties for offences against the above, for first offence, reprimand and discharge on payment of costs ; for subsequent offences, a fine not exceeding five shillings. 4. To schedule a number of birds which may not be caught or killed even on his own land, by owner or occupier, during the close time, and for the catching or killing of which the penalty is a summoi exceeding one pound. These are chiefly rare birds, and a certain number of sea-birds ; but among them are Cuckoo, Curlew, Dotterel, Fern-owl or Goatsucker, Gold- finch, Kingfisher, Lark, Nightingale, Plover, Sandpiper, and Woodpecker. NOTES. 139 It will be observed that this Act only protects the living bird of all ages, but not the egga : so that bird-nesting may still go on with impunity. But the framera of the Act had very good reasons for omitting this, wanton cruelty as it often is ; for as the offenders are usually of tender age, they must be appealed to rather by education and moral suasion than by the terrors of the law. It lies with the clergyman and the schoolmaster to see that gross cruelty meets with its proper punishment — cruelty such as that which once occurred in my village, where some boys stopped up with clay the hole of a tree in which a Tit had laid her eggs, because it was too small to allow the entrance of the thieving hands. The worst kind of bird-nesting is carried on by boys after they leave the village school, when they make this the employment of idle Sundays and holidays. The best remedy for this, and other habits that are worse, is to find other and rational employment for them. Eeading-rooms, games, music, &c., I may remark, are usually out of their reach on Sundays, when most of the mischief is done. Note B. On the Songs of Birds. (Pp. 28 and 93.) As I have some musicaJ. knowledge, and have given some attention to the music of birds' songs, it may be worth while to add one or two remarks on a subject which is as difficult as it is pleasing. I need hardly say that birds do not sing in our musical scale. Attempts to represent their song by our notation, as is done for example in Mr. Harting's Birds of Middlesex, are almost always misleading. Birds are guided in their song by no regular succession of intervals ; in other words, they use no scale at all. Their music is of a totally different kind to ours. Listen to a Eobin in full song ; he, like most other birds, hardly ever dwells for a. moment on a single note, but modifies it by slightly raising or lowering the pitch, and slides insensibly into another note, which is perhaps instantly forsaken for a subdued chuckle or trill. The same quality of song may also be well observed in the Black-cap and in the Willow Warbler : the song of the latter descends in an almost imperceptible manner through fractions of a tone, as I have already observed on page 27. Strange as it may seem, the songs of birds may perhaps be more justly compared with the human voice when sfeaking, than with a musical instrument, or with the 140 NOTES. human voice when singing ; and we can no more represent a bird's song in musical notation, than the inflections of Mr. Griadstone's voice when delivering one of his great speeches. The human voice when speaking is musically much freer than when singing ; it is not tied down to tones and semitones. If we remember that there are in our scale only twelve notes to the octave, and that between each of these an infinite number of sounds are possible, we shall get an idea of the endless variety which is open to the birds, and also, but in a less degree, to the human speaiking voice. Some birds, however, occasionally touch notes of our scale, and sometimes, though rarely, two in succession. The Cuckoo, as has often been noticed, sings a major or a minor third when it first arrives ; not that the interval is always exact. The Thrush may now and then repeat two or three notes many times over, which almost, if not quite, answer to notes in our scale, usually from C to i' of our treble stave. The Nightingale's crescendo is a good instance of a single definite note ; the song of the Chiff-chaff is perfectly plain and unvaried, but its two notes have never corresponded, when I have tested them, to an interval of our scale. The Yellow-hanmier's curious song, which I examined carefully, may certainly be given in musical notation as keeping to a single note (often C or C sharp), but in the concluding note of the song it is almost impossible to represent, for the pitch of the original note is raised or lowered by an interval varying from a minor third to less than a semitone. It is to be noted that in this species different individuals (according to my observation) have different modifications of the song, though these are slight enough ; I think I have noticed the same in the case of the Chaffinch. I have a note, made while travelling in Belgium, to the effect that the Chaffinches there did not seem to sing precisely the same song as ours in England. On the other hand, some observations which I made last year on the Chiff-chaff's two notes in different localities led me to believe that the various birds were all singing at about the same pitch and in much the same manner. There are many other interesting points connected with birds' songs, e. g. the mechanism of the music ; the song as a language ; the entire absence . of song in many birds, some of which, as the Crow, are among the most highly developed and intelligent ; and the causes which operate in inducing song. It would be well if some well qualified naturalist would investigate NOTES. 141 some of these points with greater attention than they have yet received. It would be hardly possible to find a subject of greater interest to the public, as well as to the savartt. Note C, see p. 38. It is very possible that some of the young Sparrows which haunt the Cherwell and play about the poUard-willows in June, belong to the more uncommon species known as the Tree Sparrow (Passer, montarms), though I have not yet been able to ascertain this as a fact. But as I have not alluded to the Tree Sparrow elsewhere, I may perhaps here ask the attention of Oxonian t)ird-lovers to a species which is by no means without interest, yet constantly overlooked. It is a smaller and neater bird than the House Sparrow ; the top of its head is of a pure chestnut colour, and, unlike its relation, it has a black mark under the eye. Close examination will also discover two light-coloured stripes on the wing, instead of the House Sparrow's single one ; but the lower of these is faint, and would hardly be noticed unless looked for. Its chirp is less reedy, excited, and valga/r than that of the House Sparrow (I have just been listening to the two) which seems to have degenerated into coarse and untidy habits since it began to associate closely with man. Let me take this opportunity of mentioning the following valuable book on the House Sparrow and its misconduct of various kinds, ' The House Sparrow, by J. H. Gumey jun.. Col. Russell, and Dr. Coues.' Wesley and Son, 28 Essex Street, Strand. INDEX OP BIEDS MENTIONED IN THE VOLUME. (The scientific names a/re those used in Dresser's List of Ewropean Birds.) Accentor, Alpine. Accentor coUa- ris {Scop.), 59. Accentor, Hedge. Accentor modu- laris {Linn.), 59. Aquatic Warbler. Acrooeplialus aquations {Gmel.), 53. Bittern. Botaurus stellaris {Idnn.), 53- Blackbird. Turdus merula, Linn., 17. 35, £1, SS- Blackcap. Sylvia atricapilla {lArni.), 29 foil., 76, 102. Bonelli's Warbler. PhyUosoopus BonelUi(FieiZZ.), 68. Brambling. Fringilla montifringilla, , IdTi/n., 104. Bunting, Keed. Emberiza jchoeni- «lus, idrm., 93. Bunting, Com. Emberiza miliaria, Linn., 87, 93. Bullfinch. Pyrrliula europaea Vieill., 7. 76. Buzzard. Buteovulgaris, icoci, 55. ChifFchafF. Phylloscopus coUybita (Vieill.), 21, 23 follj, 65, 57. Note B. Chough, Alpine. Pyrrhocorax al- pinus, Koch., 51, 58, 122, 124. Chough, Cornish. Pyrrhocorax gra- culus (lAnn.), 58. Citril Finch. Chryaomitris citri- nella {Linn.), 48, 61. Coot. Eulioa atra, Linn., 34. Corncrake. Crex pratensis, BecTist., 39- Crane. Grus communis, Bechst., 116 foU. Creeper. Certhia familiaris, Linn., 14, 54- Crow. Corvus corone, Linn., 96, 122, 125. Cuckoo. Cnculus canorus, lAnn., 79, 80. Curlew. Numenlusarquata(ii»».), 89. Dipper. Cinclus aquaticus Bechst., 61. Diver, Great northern. Colymbus glacialis, Linn., 18. Eagle, Golden. Aquila chrysaetus {Lmn.), 57. Fieldfare. Turdus pilaris, Linn., 20, 89. Flycatcher, Spotted, Muscicapa griaola, Lmn., 38. 82. Flycatcher, Pied. Muscicapa atri- capilla, Linn., 57, 83. Garden-warbler. Sylvia salicaria {Linn.), 29 foil., 55. Goldfinch. Carduelis Steph., 87, 104, 129. Grasshopper-warbler. Locustella naevia {Bodd.), 96 foil. Greenfinch. Ingurinus chloris {Linn.), 39. 76. INDEX OP BIEDS. 143 Gull, Common. Lams canue, Linn., 88. Hawfinch. Coccothraustes vulgaris, Pall., 76. Heron. Ardea cinerea, Linn., 133. Jackdaw. Corvus mouedula, Linn., 122. Jay. Garrulus glandarius, Lirm., 96. Kestrel. Falco tinnunculus, Linn., 18, 88, 96. Kingfisher. Alcedo ispida, Linm., 9, 128. Lark, Sky. Alauda arvensis, Linn., 55- Linnet. Linota cannabina (Linn,), 104, 131. Magpie. Picus nistica (_Seop.), 96. Marsh Warbler. Acroceph^us pa- lustris (Bechst.), 53. Martin, Crag. CheUdon rupestris {Scop.), 56. Martin, House. Chelidon urbica (Linn.), 5, 135. Missel-thrush. Turdus viscivorus, lAnn., 61, 75. Moorhen. Gallinula chloropus {Linn.), 8. Nightingale. Daulias lusoinia {Lirm.), 39, 100 foil., 135. Nightjar. Caprimulgus europaeus, lAnn., 84. Nuthatch. Sittacaesia, Wolf, 14, 81. Petrel, Stormy. Procellariapelagioa, Linn., 18. Pipit, Water. Anthus spinoletta {Linn.), 50, 58. Pipit, Tree. Anthus trivialis {Linn.), 95. Plover, Common. Vanellus vulgaris Bechst,, 63, 89. Ptarmigan. Lagopus mutus, Leach, 50, 51, 62. Eaven. Corvus corax, Limn., 122, 125. Bedstart. Eutioilla phoenieums {Linn.), 36, 37, 54, 76 foil. Kedstart, Black. Euticilla tithys {Scop.), 48, 65, 78 foil. Eedpoll, Lesser. Linota rufescens (yieill.), 12, 48,61. Redwing. Turdus iliacus, Linm,., 17, 89. Eeed-warbler. Acrocephalus stre- perus (Vieill.), 23, 33, 53. Eing-dove. Columba palumbus Linn., 113 foil. 'Eing-Ousel. Turdus torquatus Linn., 51, 61, 94. Eobin. Erithaous rubecula {Limn.), 6, 55. 76, 80, 88. Eock-dove. Columba livia, Bownat, "3,115- Eook. Corvus frugilegus, Linn., Sandpiper Common. Totanus hypoleucus {Linn.), 86. Sandpiper Green. Totanus ochropus {Linn.), 85. Sedge - Warbler. Acrocephalus schoenobaenug {Linn.), 22,24, 33' Serin Finch. Serinus hortulanus, Koch., 61. Siskin. Chrysomitrisspinus(ii!««.), 76. Snipe, Jack. GaUinago gallinula {Linn.), 13. Snow-Finch. Montifringilla nivalis {Linn.), 50, 62, 63. Sparrow. Passer domesticus(£i»».), 37, 55- Sparrow, Tree. Passer mbntanus (Linn.), Note C. Stonechat. Pratincola rubicola {Linn.), 91. 144 INDEX OF BIRDS. Swallow. Hirando rustica, Idrm, 6, 56, 135- Swift. Cypselus apua (ii«».), 39, 66- Swift, Alpine. Cypselus melba (ii»».), 56. Teal. Querquedula crecca {Linn.), 49. Tern. Sterna fluviatilis, Narnn., 138. Thrash, Song. Turdua musicus, Linn., 17. Tit, Bine. Parus caeruleus, lAnn., 16, 65. 95- Tit, Cole. Parua ater, Linn., 30, 65. Tit, Crested. Lophophanes eriatatus. {Linn.), 66. Tit, Great. Parua major, Lirni., 16, 65, 94. Tit, Long-tailed. Aeredula caudata {Lirni.), IS, 66, 89. Tit, Marsh. Parus palustris, Lirm., 16, 65. Turtle-dove. Turtur communis, Selhy., 84, 113. Wagtail, Pied. Motaoilla lugubris Temm., 54, 94. Wagtail, Grey. Motacilla melanope, Pall., II, 61. Wagtail, Yellow. Motacilla rail Bp; 39. 87. . Wagtail, White. Motaoilla alba Lin/n., 54, 61. Wall Creeper. Tichodroma muraria (Jyiwa.), 50, 63, 64. Wheateair. Saxicola oenanthe {lAnn.), 61, 104. Whinchat. Pratineola rubetra {Linn.), 54, 90, 91. Whitethroat. Sylvia rufa {Bodd.), 22, 23: 31 foil. Whitethroat, Lesser. Sylvia cur- ruca {Linn.), 22, 31 foil. Willow-warbler. Phyllosoopus tro- chilus {Linn.), 23, 23, 27, 55. Wood-pecker, Gijeat Black. Dryo- popua martius {Limi.), 65. Wood-pecker, Green. Gecinua Vi- ridia {Linn.), 15, 103. Wood-pecker, Lesser Spotted. Pi- cus minor, Linn., 15, 103. Wood-pecker, Three-toed. Piooidea tridactyluB {Linn.), 65. Wryneck. Junx torquilla, Linm., 104. Yellow-hammer. !Emberiza citrin- ella Linn., 55.