Part 15

A much less frequent visitor to this country than the preceding, but by no means ranking among our rarest birds, specimens occurring in the winter of every year in some part of England or another, especially in Devon and Cornwall. Its habits are much the same as those of its congener; but it generally chooses a loftier situation for its nest, which is placed in the walls of buildings, at an elevation varying from a few feet to eighty or ninety. Its plumage differs in being much darker in the fore part of the body, while the tail is of a brighter red. The eggs are white. It generally arrives in England about the first week in November, and remains with us all the winter. Its nest has never been found in this country.

THE REDBREAST, OR ROBIN ERÍTHACUS RUBÉCULA

Upper parts brownish grey tinged with olive; forehead, lore, and breast red, the red edged with ash-grey; abdomen white. Female like the male, except that the upper parts are ash-brown, the red less bright, and the grey surrounding it less conspicuous. Length, five inches and three quarters. Eggs yellowish white, spotted with light reddish brown.

The Redbreast is everywhere invested with a kind of sanctity beyond all other birds. Its wonted habit of making its appearance, no one knows whence, to greet the resting traveller in places the most lonely--its evident predilection for the society of the out-of-door labourer, whatever his occupation--the constancy with which it affects human habitations--and the readiness with which, without coaxing, or taming, or training, it throws itself on human hospitality--engender an idea that there must be some mysterious connexion between the two--that if there were no men, there would be no Redbreasts. Trust on one side engenders confidence on the other, and mutual attachment is the natural result. There is something, too, beyond the power of explanation in the fact that the Robin is the only bird which frequents from choice the homes of men.

The habits of the Redbreast are so well known, that to describe them would be simply to write down what every one has seen or may see.

It generally builds its nest in a hole, near the bottom of a hedge or under the stump of a tree, in an ivy-clad wall, or amidst the creepers trained round the veranda of a cottage. I have seen it also placed in a niche in a wall intended for the reception of a vase, in a bee-hive stored away on the rafters of an outhouse, and under a wisp of straw accidentally left on the ground in a garden. It is usually composed of dry leaves, roots, bents, and moss, lined with hair and wool, and contains five or six eggs. The young birds are of a brown tint, and have the feathers tipped with yellow, which gives them a spotted appearance. Until they acquire the red breast, they are very unlike the parents, and might be mistaken for young Thrushes, except that they are much smaller. They may be often observed in gardens for many days after they have left the nest, keeping together, perching in the bushes, and clamorous for food, which the old birds bring to them from time to time. It is said, that only one brood is reared in a year, but this I am inclined to doubt, having observed in the same locality families of young birds early in the spring, and late in the summer of the same year. Towards the end of August, the young birds acquire the distinctive plumage of their species, and are solitary in their habits until the succeeding spring. The call-notes of the Redbreast are numerous, and vary beyond the power of description in written words; the song is loud, and it is needless to say, pleasing, and possesses the charm of being continued when all our other feathered songsters are mute. The red of the breast often has a brighter tint, it is occasionally almost a carmine red. The late Lord Lilford told the editor such were often birds that had been bred on the Continent. Numbers of young birds come across the sea to us each autumn.

Wheatear

Nightingale

Hedge-sparrow Robin

Whitethroat Garden Warbler

Lesser Whitethroat

Blackcap ]

THE NIGHTINGALE DAULIAS LUSCÍNIA

Upper plumage russet brown; tail bright rust-red; under plumage buffish white; flanks pale ash colour. Length six and a quarter inches; breadth nine and a half inches. Eggs uniform olive-brown.

The southern, eastern, and some of the midland counties of England, enjoy a privilege which is denied to the northern and western--an annual visit, namely, from the Nightingale. It is easy enough to understand why a southern bird should bound its travels northwards by a certain parallel, but why it should keep aloof from Devon and Cornwall, the climate of which approaches more closely to that of its favourite continental haunts than many of the districts to which it unfailingly resorts, is not so clear. Several reasons have been assigned--one, that cowslips do not grow in these counties; this may be dismissed at once as purely fanciful; another is, that the soil is too rocky; this is not founded on fact, for both Devon and Cornwall abound in localities which would be to Nightingales a perfect Paradise, if they would only come; a third is, that the proper food is not to be found there: but this reason cannot be admitted until it is proved that the portions of the island to which the Nightingale does resort abound in some kind of insect food which is not to be found in the extreme southern counties, and that the Nightingale, instead of being, as it is supposed, a general insect-eater, confines itself to that one; and this is a view of the question which no one has ventured to take. My own theory--and I only throw it out for consideration--is that the Nightingale is not found in these two counties on account of their peculiar geographical position. The continental Nightingales are observed to take their departure in autumn, either eastward through Hungary, Dalmatia, Greece, and the islands of the Archipelago; or southwards across the Straits of Gibraltar, but none by the broad part of the Mediterranean. Hence we may infer that the bird dislikes a long sea voyage, and that when in spring it migrates northward and westward, it crosses the English Channel at the narrowest parts only, spreads itself over the nearest counties in the direction of its migration, but is instinctively prevented from turning so far back again to the south as the south-west peninsula of England. From Scotland it would be naturally excluded by its northern position, and from Ireland by the Welsh mountains and the broad sea.

For the dwellers in these unfavoured districts alone is my description of the Nightingale intended; for, where it abounds, its habits are too well known to need any description. Twenty-four hours of genial May weather spent in the country with a good use of the eyes and ears, will reveal more of the life and habits of the bird than is contained in all the ornithological treatises that have been written on the subject, and they are not a few.

No great amount of caution is necessary in approaching the Nightingale while singing at night. One may walk unrestrainedly across the fields, talking in an ordinary tone of voice, and not even find it necessary to suppress conversation when close to a singing bird. Either he is too intent on his occupation to detect the presence of strangers, or he is aware of the security in which he is wrapped by the shades of night, or he is actually proud of having listeners. In the neighbourhood of my present residence in Hertfordshire, Nightingales are numerous. They arrive about the seventeenth of April, and for the first few days assemble year after year in the bushes and hedges of a certain hillside, the position of which it would be unsafe to indicate particularly, and taking their station two or three hundred yards apart from each other, set up a rivalry of song which is surpassingly beautiful. At this season, one may hear five or six chanting at once; every break in the song of the nearest being filled up by the pipings or wailings of the more distant ones. The male birds arrive several days before the female, and employ the interval, it is fancifully said, in contending for the prize in a musical contest. This period is anxiously watched for by bird-catchers, who have learnt by experience that birds entrapped before they have paired will bear confinement in a cage, but that those captured after the arrival of their mates pine to death. The Nightingale being a fearless bird and of an inquisitive nature is easily snared; hence, in the neighbourhood of cities, the earliest and therefore strongest birds fall ready victims to the fowler's art.

It must not be supposed that this bird sings by night only. Every day and all day long, from his first arrival until the young are hatched (when it becomes his duty to provide for his family), perched in a hedge or on the branch of a tree, rarely at any considerable height from the ground, he pours forth his roundelay, now, however, obscured by the song of other birds. But not even by day is he shy, for he will allow any quietly disposed person to approach near enough to him to watch the movement of his bill and heaving chest. At the approach of night he becomes silent, generally discontinuing his song about an hour before the Thrush, and resuming it between ten and eleven. It is a disputed point whether the Nightingale's song should be considered joyous or melancholy. This must always remain a question of taste. My own opinion is, that the piteous wailing note which is its most characteristic nature, casts a shade of sadness as it were over the whole song, even those portions which gush with the most exuberant gladness. I think, too, though my assertion may seem a barbarous one, that if the Nightingale's song comprised the wailing notes alone, it would be universally shunned as the most painfully melancholy sound in nature. From this, however, it is redeemed by the rapid transition, just when the anguish of the bird has arrived at such a pitch as to be no longer supportable, to a passage overflowing with joy and gladness. In the first or second week of June he ceases his song altogether. His cataract of sweet sounds is exhausted, and his only remaining note is a harsh croak exactly resembling that of a frog, or the subdued note of a raven, wate-wate or cur-cur. On one occasion only I have heard him in full song so late as the fourth week in June: but this probably was a bird whose first nest had been destroyed, and whose song consequently had been retarded until the hatching of a second brood. From this time until the end of August, when he migrates eastward, he may often be observed picking up grubs, worms, and ants' eggs on the garden lawn, or under a hedge in fields, hopping from place to place with an occasional shake of the wings and raising of the tail, and conspicuous whenever he takes one of his short flights by his chestnut brown tail-coverts.

The Nightingale's nest is constructed of dead leaves, principally of the oak, loosely put together and placed on the ground under a bush. Internally it is lined with grass, roots, and a few hairs. It contains four or five eggs of a uniform olive-brown.

This is the opinion of Gilbert White.

SUB-FAMILY ACCENTORINÆ

THE HEDGE SPARROW ACCENTOR MODULÁRIS

Crown of the head ash colour, with brown streaks; sides of the neck, throat, and breast, bluish grey; bill strong and broad at base; wing-coverts and feathers on the back reddish brown, with a tawny spot in the centre; middle wing-coverts tipped with yellowish white; lower tail-coverts brown, with a whitish border; middle of abdomen white. Length five and a half inches. Eggs greenish blue, without spots.

Inveterate custom has so attached the name of Hedge Sparrow to this bird, that in spite of all the efforts of ornithologists to convince the world that it is no sparrow at all (a hard-beaked, grain-eating bird), but a true warbler, it is still more frequently called by its popular name than by any of those that have been suggested. The gentle, innocent, confiding, little brown bird, which creeps like a mouse through our garden flower-beds, picks up a meagre fare in our roads and lanes, builds its nest in our thorn hedges, and though dingy itself, lays such brilliant blue eggs, has been known to us from our infancy as a 'Hedge Sparrow', and we decline any innovation: the name is a time-honoured one, and no one will mistake us. Hedge Accentor, Hedge Warbler, and Shuffle-wing, are names open to those who prefer them, but we adhere to the old-fashioned designation of Hedge Sparrow. This bird is a genuine Warbler, and one of the few belonging to the tribe who remain with us all the winter; we should suppose, indeed, that he never wandered far from the place of his birth. At all seasons his habits and food appear to be the same. All day long he is shuffling about on the ground picking up minute atoms, whether seeds or insects, who knows? Every day, nearly all the year round, he repairs at intervals to the nearest hedge, where he sings a song, soft and gentle like himself; and every evening, when the Blackbird rings his curfew bell, he fails not to respond with his drowsy cheep, cheep, as he repairs to the bush he has selected for his night's rest. Very early in spring, before his brother warblers have arrived from the south, he has chosen his mate, built his snug nest, and too probably commenced a second; for unsuspicious in nature, he does not retire to solitary places for this purpose, and the leafless hedges but ill conceal his labours from the peering eyes of all-destroying ploughboys. Such are nearly all his "short and simple annals". He quarrels with no one, he achieves no distinction, throwing no one into ecstasies with his song, and stealing no one's fruit; unobtrusive and innocent, he claims no notice, and dreads no resentment; and so, through all the even tenor of his way, he is, without knowing it, the favourite of children, and of all the good and gentle.

SUB-FAMILY SYLVIINÆ

THE WHITETHROAT SYLVIA CINÉREA

Head ash-grey; rest of the upper parts grey, tinged with rust colour; wings dusky, the coverts edged with red; lower parts white, faintly tinged on the breast with rose colour; tail dark brown, the outer feather white at the tip and on the outer web, the next only tipped with white. Female without the rose tint on the breast, but with the upper plumage more decidedly tinged with red; feet brown. Length five inches and a half; breadth eight and a half. Eggs greenish white, thickly spotted with reddish and greenish brown. Young, leaving nest, differ very little from adult birds.

The Whitethroat is in England the most common of all the migratory warblers, and is generally diffused. It is essentially a hedge-bird, neither taking long flights nor resorting to lofty trees. Early in May it may be detected in a hawthorn or other thick bush, hopping from twig to twig with untiring restlessness, frequently descending to the ground, but never making any stay, and all the while incessantly babbling with a somewhat harsh but not unpleasant song, composed of numerous rapid and short notes, which have but little either of variety or compass. Occasionally it takes a short flight along the hedge, generally on the side farthest from the spectator, and proceeds to another bush a few yards on, where it either repeats the same movements, or perches on a high twig for a few seconds. From time to time it rises into the air, performing curious antics and singing all the while. Its short flight completed, it descends to the same or an adjoining twig; and so it seems to spend its days. From its habit of creeping through the lower parts of hedges, it has received the popular name of 'Nettle-creeper'. From the grey tone of its plumage, it is in some districts of France called 'Grisette', and in others, from its continuous song, 'Babillarde', names, however, which are popularly applied without distinction to this species and the next. While singing it keeps the feathers of its head erected, resembling in this respect the Blackcap and several of the other warblers. Though not naturally a nocturnal musician, it does not, like most other birds, when disturbed at night, quietly steal away to another place of shelter, but bursts into repeated snatches of song, into which there seems to be infused a spice of anger against the intruder. Its food consists of insects of various kinds; but when the smaller fruits begin to ripen, it repairs with its young brood to our gardens, and makes no small havoc among raspberries, currants, and cherries. It constructs its nest among brambles and nettles, raised from two to three feet from the ground, of bents and the dry stems of herbs, mixed with cobweb, cotton from the willow, bits of wool, and horsehair. It usually lays five eggs.