Part 31

Accentor modularis.

Crown ash-colour with brown streaks; side of neck, throat, and breast bluish grey; back and wings reddish brown streaked with dark brown; breast and belly buffy white. Length, five and a half inches.

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Most people know that a sparrow is a hard-billed bird of the finch family, and that the subject of this notice is not a sparrow, except in name. It is, in fact, a soft-billed bird belonging to that large and musical family which includes the nightingale, the redbreast, and the warblers. ‘How absurd, then, to go on calling it a sparrow!’ certain ornithologists have said from time to time, and have re-named it the hedge-accentor. But, as Professor Newton has said in his addition to Yarrell’s account of the bird, a name which has been part and parcel of our language for centuries, and which Shakespeare used, ‘is hardly to be dropped, even at the bidding of the wisest, so long as the English tongue lasts.’ Now, as the English tongue promises to last a long time, it seems safest to retain the old and, in one sense, incorrect name. Dunnock is another common name for this species; it is also called shufflewing, from the habit the bird has, when perched, of frequently shaking its wings.

Among our small birds, the hedge-sparrow is regarded with some slight degree of that kindly feeling, or favouritism, which is extended to the robin redbreast, the swallow, and the martin. It is one of the few delicate little birds that brave the rigours of an English winter, and occasionally enliven that dead season with their melody. With the wren and missel-thrush, it is a prophet, in February, of the return of brighter sunshine and lengthening days; and in hard weather it comes much about the house, for the sake of the small morsels of food to be picked up; and, while retaining its sprightliness at such times, it learns to be trustful. It is possible that the feeling or sentiment which no person, not even the most matter-of-fact scientific ornithologist, is quite proof against, is the cause of this species having been a little overpraised in many books about birds. The hedge-sparrow is often spoken of as a very charming little creature, while its song has been described as pleasing, as sweet, and as delightful. All birds are in a sense attractive, and even charming in appearance, but in different degrees, and the plain-coloured dunnock strikes one as being the least attractive among our birds. In the same way, the song may be said to be pleasant because it is a natural sound, and is heard in the open air when the sun shines, when leaves and blossoms are out, and it expresses the gladness which is common to all sentient things. But it has none of the rare qualities which are requisite to make a pleasant sound anything more than a merely pleasant sound.

The hedge-sparrow is a common bird throughout the British Islands--so common as to be familiar to most people, in spite of its shyness and love of concealment. It is pre-eminently a hedge-bird, and in that respect has been well named; even in the most populous districts, and in the suburbs of large towns, where a hedge remains, there the smoke-grey and brown little bird will have its home and make its nest, although it may seldom be able to rear its young. It is a very early breeder, a first brood being often reared in March. As a rule, the nest is placed in the centre of a hedge or thorny bush, three or four feet from the ground; it is made of dry grass and fine roots, and lined with hair; the eggs are five or six in number, bright greenish blue in colour, without spots. Two or three broods are reared in the season.

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The alpine accentor (Accentor collaris), a larger species than our hedge-sparrow, which it resembles in colour, is known as a straggler to England from the mountainous districts of Central and Southern Europe.

Dipper.

Cinclus aquaticus.

Upper plumage brownish black tinged with grey; throat and breast pure white; belly chestnut-brown; bill black; feet horn-colour. Female: colours dingy. Length, six inches and a half.

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The dipper, or water-ouzel, differs considerably in appearance, and still more in habits, from all other British birds; as is the case with such species as the wryneck, cuckoo, kingfisher, bearded tit, tree-creeper, starling, and nuthatch, there is no other like him. In figure he is wren-like, stout and compact in body, with short, rounded wings and short, square tail, which, as with the wren, is often carried upright and jerked. He is a little less than the song-thrush in size, and is conspicuously coloured, the greater part of the plumage being black, or blackish brown; and, in strong contrast, the throat and upper part of the breast shining white--a big black wren with a silvery white bib.

Some species always live and move within such narrow limits, or, in other words, are so dependent on certain conditions, that we invariably think of them in association with their surroundings:--the snipe with the boggy soil; the rock-pipit with the rock-bound seashore; the tree-creeper with the tree he climbs upon; the lark with the cultivated fields; and the swift with the void blue sky, through which he is perpetually rushing. In like manner we invariably think of the dipper in connection with the swift, brawling mountain-torrent he inhabits. He is never, or very seldom, found removed from it, and is probably more restricted to certain conditions, and consequently more bound to his home, than any one of the species just named. The stream he attaches himself to must have quiet and comparatively deep pools, and the water must be clear to enable him to detect the larvæ of water-beetles, dragon-flies, and other aquatic insects he preys on, all of which have a protective colouring. He does not range up and down a stream, like the kingfisher, to visit the various feeding-places; he limits himself to a portion of it, in many cases not more than a hundred yards in length, and explores the bottoms of the same pools from day to day, until they must be as familiar to him--all their inequalities, their stony ridges and half-buried boulders, and sandy or pebbled places, and all the holes and secret corners where sediment collects--as the rooms we live in are to us, and about which we are able to move freely in the dimmest light. In ascending a mountain stream such as these birds love, abounding in deep, quiet pools, with noisy cascades and shallow rapids, its bottom strewn with great fallen boulders partly submerged, the rocky banks overgrown with sheltering bushes and vines, when you disturb a dipper he flies up stream a short distance, perhaps twenty yards, and alights on a boulder, or in the shadow of an overhanging rock, and there waits, silent and motionless, until, disturbed again, he takes a second short flight up stream, and so on to the limit of his range, whereupon, rising up and doubling back, he flies to the spot he started from. And as often as you disturb him he will act in the same way, going just so far, and no farther. If you leave him behind and go on, you will find another pair of dippers, whose portion of the stream begins just where that of the first pair ends. They, too, will act in the same way, and fly on until the end of their range is reached, and will not venture beyond where a third pair are in possession. Where they are not disturbed a mountain stream may be found parcelled out in this way among a dozen or twenty couples. Probably the dipper, like the robin, jealously resents the intrusion of another bird of his kind into his chosen ground. Concerning this habit of the dipper, and its strange way of feeding under the water, something still remains to be known. It is, indeed, strange that this little perching song-bird should have the habit of diving for its food like a grebe or a guillemot, and other species that have structures specially adapted to such a way of life. For there is absolutely nothing in the dipper’s structure to lead anyone unacquainted with its habits to believe that it ever approaches the water, unless to drink and bathe, and perhaps to pick up an insect floating on the surface. That it is able to sink into and move freely about beneath the water close to the bottom of a stream, in spite of gravity, seems very astonishing, and would be incredible if the fact were not so familiar. Some ornithologists believe that it is related to the wren, others to the thrush;--that is a question capable of solution; but how by a short-cut it became a diver must remain a mystery.

Formerly it was believed that the dipper was able to walk freely about on the bottom of the stream, but that was an error. It is difficult to watch the bird moving about under water; but a few good observers have succeeded in doing so, and from their accounts it would appear that the dipper propels itself by powerful wing-beats, moving by a series of rushes or jerks, keeping close to the bottom of the stream. It appears to swallow its food under water, but comes up at intervals to breathe, then sinks again beneath the surface.

On land the dipper is somewhat inactive, and will stand on a boulder or under an overhanging rock without moving for a long time. One would imagine that their eyes, fitted so well to see in the dim light beneath the surface, must be very sensitive to the glare above.

The dipper’s song is short but brilliant, and very much like that of the wren in character; it is heard most frequently in the love season, and occasionally in autumn and in winter, when the sun shines, even during very cold weather.

The nest is made among the rocks, usually in a crevice, and is very large for the size of the bird, being sometimes a foot across, and is globular in form, with a small opening near the top. It is composed principally of moss, loosely felted, the inside lined with dry grass, fine rootlets, and dead leaves. Four to six eggs are laid, pure white, and unspotted.

The dipper is most common in mountainous districts in Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and is found in suitable localities in England.

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The black-billed dipper (Cinclus melanogaster), the Scandinavian and North Russian form of Cinclus aquaticus, has been met with on two or three occasions as a straggler to the east coast of England.

Bearded Titmouse.

Panurus biamicus.

Head bluish grey; between the bill and eye a tuft of pendent black feathers, prolonged into a pointed moustache; throat and neck greyish white; breast and belly white tinged with yellow and pink; upper parts light orange-brown; wings variegated with black, white and red; tail very long, orange-brown, the outer feathers variegated with black and white. Female: the moustache the same colour as the cheek; the grey on the head absent. Length, six inches and a half.

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This bird, although by name a tit, and placed next to the titmice by many naturalists in their systems, differs widely from those birds in some points. The question of its true position among passerine birds has, indeed, been a subject of controversy for a long time past, and is not yet settled. Some writers would have it that it comes nearest to the shrikes; others, that it is most closely related to the buntings; and still others place it next to the waxwing. Leaving aside anatomical subjects, it may be said that the bearded tit is unlike all these different birds and the titmice in habits, language, colouring, and in its curious feather-ornaments--the erectile, pointed, black feathers that grow between the beak and eyes, and form the curious long moustache which gives the bird its name.

The bearded tit, although at all times an extremely local species, on account of its being exclusively an inhabitant of reed-beds, was once fairly common in many parts of England; but owing to the draining of marshes and to the persecution of collectors, it has now become one of the rarest of British birds. At present it is confined to the district of the Broads in Norfolk, where it is, unhappily, becoming increasingly rare, and is threatened with extinction at no distant date.

It is a very pretty bird in its buff and fawn coloured dress; very elegant in form, its singular black moustache and long, graduated tail enhancing the beauty of its appearance; and exceedingly graceful in its motions. It lives in the beds of reeds growing in the water; and the slim, graceful, clinging bird, and the tall, slender stems, with their pale, pointed leaves and feathery flowers, seem adapted each to the other. In seeking its food it clings to the reeds, much as the blue tit does to the pendent twigs of the birch. Its food consists of small insects and their larvæ, small molluscs, and the seeds of the reeds. In autumn and winter it is gregarious, three or four, or more, families uniting in a flock, and roaming from reed-bed to reed-bed and from broad to broad. When disturbed, or alarmed at the appearance of a hawk, they drop down into concealment among the reeds, but in a short time rise to the surface again, climbing parrot-like up the slender stems. There are few birds without a brilliant colouring that have so attractive an appearance as the bearded tit, especially when seen flying just above the top of the reeds, or when perched on a slender stem near its top, and swayed to and fro by the wind. Their alarm-note is harsh, but they have a variety of calling and singing notes, which are somewhat metallic in sound and very musical. A writer in Loudon’s ‘Magazine of Natural History’ describes the bearded tits in flight as ‘uttering in full chorus their sweetly musical notes; it may be compared to the music of very small cymbals, is clear and ringing, though soft, and corresponds well with the delicacy and beauty of the form and colour of the bird.’