Part 10

These birds are very assiduous in their attentions to their young, and in continual progress to collect worms and insects for them. However strong parental affection may be in all creatures, yet the care which birds manifest in providing for their nestlings is more obvious than that of other animals. The young of beasts sleep much; some are hidden in lairs and thickets nearly all the day, others take food only at intervals or stated periods, the parent ruminating, feeding, or reposing too: but birds, the young of which remain in their nests, as most of them do, excepting the gallinaceous and aquatic tribes, have no cessation of labor from early morning till the close of eve, till the brood can provide for themselves. What unceasing toil and perseverance are manifest in the rooks, and what distances do they travel to obtain nourishment for their clamorous brood! It is a very amusing occupation for a short time, to attend to the actions of a pair of swallows, or martens, the family of which have left the nest, and settled upon some naked spray, or low bush in the field, the parents cruising around, and then returning with their captures to their young: the constant supply which they bring, the celerity with which it is given and received, and the activity and evolutions of the elder birds, present a pleasing example of industry and affection. I have observed a pair of starlings for several days in constant progress before me, having young ones in the hole of a neighboring poplar tree, and they have been probably this way in action from the opening of the morning—thus persisting in this labor of love for twelve or thirteen hours in the day! The space they pass over in their various transits and returns must be very great, and the calculation vague; yet, from some rude observations it appears probable that this pair in conjunction do not travel less than fifty miles in the day, visiting and feeding their young about a hundred and forty times, which consisting of five in number, and admitting only one to be fed each time, every bird must receive in this period eight-and- twenty portions of food or water! This excessive labor seems entailed upon most of the land birds, except the gallinaceous tribes, and some of the marine birds, which toil with infinite perseverance in fishing for their broods; but the very precarious supply of food to be obtained in dry seasons by the terrestrial birds renders theirs a labor of more unremitting hardship than that experienced by the piscivorous tribes, the food of which is probably little influenced by season, while our poor land birds find theirs to be nearly annihilated in some cases. The gallinaceous birds have nests on the ground; the young leave them as soon as they escape from the shell, are led immediately from the hatch to fitting situations for food and water, and all their wants are most admirably attended to; but the constant journeyings of those parent birds that have nestlings unable to move away, the speed with which they accomplish their trips, the anxiety they manifest, and the long labor in which they so gaily persevere, is most remarkable and pleasing, and a duty consigned but to a few.

We have no bird more assiduous in attentions to their young, than the red-start, (steort, Saxon, a tail,) one or other of the parents being in perpetual action, conveying food to the nest, or retiring in search of it; but as they are active, quick-sighted creatures, they seem to have constant success in their transits. They are the most restless and suspicious of birds during this season of hatching and rearing their young; for when the female is sitting, her mate attentively watches over her safety, giving immediate notice of the approach of any seemingly hostile thing, by a constant repetition of one or two querulous notes, monitory to her or menacing to the intruder: but when the young are hatched, the very appearance of any suspicious creature sets the parents into an agony of agitation, and perching upon some dead branch or a post, they persevere in one unceasing clamor till the object of their fears is removed; a magpie near their haunts, with some reason, excites their terror greatly, which is expressed with unremitting vociferation. All this parental anxiety, however, is no longer in operation than during the helpless state of their offspring, which, being enabled to provide their own requirements, gradually cease to be the objects of solicitude and care; they retire to some distant hedge, become shy and timid things, feeding in unobtrusive silence.

The brown starling, or solitary thrush (turdus solitarius), is not an uncommon bird with us. It breeds in the holes and hollows of old trees, and, hatching early, forms small flocks in our pastures, which are seen about before the arrival of the winter starling, for which bird, by its manners and habits, it is generally mistaken. It will occasionally, in very dry seasons, enter our gardens for food, which the common stares never do; and this year (1826) I had one caught in a trap, unable to resist the tempting plunder of a cherry tree, in conjunction with half the thrushes in the neighborhood. I have seen a few, small, thrushlike birds associate and feed with the missel-thrush in our summer pastures, which I suspect to be solitary starlings: but, wild and wary like them, they admit no approach to verify the species; and they appear likewise to follow and mix with this bird, when it visits us in autumn, to gather the berries of the yew and the mountain ash. I am not certain where it passes its winter season, but apprehend it mingles in the large flights of the common species. It returns to our pastures, however, for a short period in the spring, in small parties of six or ten individuals. The common stare, when disturbed, rises and alights again at some distance, most generally on the ground; but the brown starling settles frequently on some low bush, or small tree, before it returns to its food. I know of no description that accords so well with our bird as that in Bewick’s supplement, excepting that the legs of those which I have seen are of a red brown color, the bill black, and the lower mandible margined with white; but age and sex occasion many changes in tints and shades. This species possesses none of those beauties of plumage so observable in the common starling, and all those fine prismatic tintings that play and wander over the feathers of the latter are wanting in the former. Its whole appearance is like that of a thrush, but it presents even a plainer garb; its browns are more dusky and weather-beaten; and for the beautiful mottled breast of the throstle, it has a dirty white, and a dirtier brown. I scarcely know any bird less conspicuous for beauty than the solitary thrush: it seems like a bleached, wayworn traveller, even in its youth.

It was a very ancient observation, and modern investigation seems fully to confirm it, that many of the serpent race captured their prey by infatuation or intimidation; and there can be no doubt of the fact, that instinctive terror will subdue the powers of some creatures, rendering them stupefied and motionless at the sudden approach of danger. We have two kinds of petty hawks, the sparrow-hawk (falco nisus) and the kestrel (falco tinunculus), that seem fully to impress upon their destined prey this species of intimidation. A beautiful male bull-finch, that sat harmlessly pecking the buds from a blackthorn by my side, when overlooking the work of a laborer, suddenly uttered the instinctive moan of danger, but made no attempt to escape into the bush, seemingly deprived of the power of exertion. On looking round, a sparrow-hawk was observed on motionless wing gliding rapidly along the hedge, and, passing me, rushed on its prey with undeviating certainty. There was fully sufficient time from the moment of perception for the bull-finch to escape; but he sat still, waiting the approach of death, an unresisting victim. We have frequently observed these birds, when perched on an eminence, insidiously attentive to a flock of finches and yellow-hammers basking in a hedge, and after due consideration apparently single out an individual. Upon its moving for its prey, some wary bird has given the alarm, and most of the little troop scuttle immediately into the hedge; but the hawk holds on its course, and darts upon a selected object. If baffled, it seldom succeeds upon another; and so fixed are its eyes upon this one individual, that, as if unobservant of its own danger, it snatches up its morsel at our very sides. A pigeon on the roof of the dovecot seems selected from its fellows, the hawk rarely snatching at more than one terror-stricken bird. The larger species of hawks appear to employ no powers excepting those of wing, but pursue and capture by celerity and strength.

We converse annually upon early and late seasons; and such things there are. A mild winter, a warm February and March, will influence greatly the growth of vegetation: not that a primrose under that bank, or a violet under the shelter of this hedge, affords us any criterion of earliness; but a general shading of green, an expansion of buds, an incipient unfolding of leaves, gives notice of the spring’s advance. The principal blossoming of plants usually takes place at nearly stated periods; but particular mildness in the atmosphere and additional warmth in the soil, accelerate this season; and of all the evils which threaten the horticulturist, an early spring is most to be deprecated. An April breathing odors, wreathed in verdure and flowers, the willow wren sporting in the copse, the swallow skimming over the pool, lambs racing in the daisied mead, may be a beautiful sight to contemplate,—

“Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyrs blow;”

but it is like the laugh of irony, the smile that lures to ruin,

“Which, hushed in grim repose, awaits his certain prey.”

Then comes a ruthless May, with Winter in her train, who, with his frosty edge, unpitying shears away all the expectancies, the beautiful promise of the year; and we have to await returning seasons, and patient hope for better things. A garden pining and prostrate from the effects of a churlish, frosty May, leaves crisp and blackened, flowers withered, torn, and scattered around, are a melancholy sight—the vernal hectic that consumes the fairest offspring of the nursery. There is a plant, however, the white thorn (mespilus oxycanthus), the May of our rustics, common in all places and situations, that affords a good example of general steadiness to time, uninfluenced by partial effects. An observation of above twenty years upon this plant has proved how little it deviates in its blossoming in one season from another; and, under all the importunities and blandishments of the most seductive Aprils, I have in all that period never but twice seen more than a partial blossom by the first of May. We hail our first-seen swallow as a harbinger of milder days and summer enjoyments; but the appearance of our birds of passage is not greatly to be depended upon, as I have reason to apprehend from much observation. They will be accelerated or retarded in the time of their departure by the state of the wind in the country whence they take their flight; they travel much by night, requiring in many instances the light of the moon to direct them; and the actual time of their arrival is difficult to ascertain, as they steal into our hedges and copses unperceived. If the weather be bright or warm, their voices are heard; if gloomy and cold, they will lie secreted till the call of hunger or of love intimates their presence. Though we rarely see these birds in their transits, yet I have at times, on a calm bright evening in November, heard high in the air the redwing and the fieldfare, on progress to a destined settlement, manifested by the signal-notes of some leading birds to their scattered followers. These conductors of their flocks are certainly birds acquainted with the country over which they travel, their settlements here being no promiscuous dispersion: it being obvious that many pairs of birds return to their ancient haunts, either old ones which had bred there, or their offspring. The butcher-bird successively returns to a hedge in one of my fields, influenced by some advantage it derives from that situation, or from a preference to the spot where hatched; but we have perhaps no bird more attached to peculiar situations than the gray flycatcher (muscicapa grisola), one pair, or their descendants, frequenting year after year the same hole in the wall, or the same branch on the vine or the plum. Being perfectly harmless, and hence never molested, they become

“Enamor’d with their ancient haunts, ——and hover round.”

I once knew a pair of these birds bring off two broods in one season from the same nest. This flycatcher delights in eminences. The naked spray of a tree, or projecting stone in a building, or even a tall stick in the very middle of the grass-plot, is sure to attract its attention, as affording an uninterrupted view of its winged prey; and from this it will be in constant activity a whole summer’s day, capturing its food and returning to swallow it. The digestion of some birds must be remarkably rapid, to enable them to receive such constant replenishments of food. The swift and the swallow are feeding from the earliest light in the morning till the obscurity of evening; the quantities of cherries and raspberries that the blackcap and pettichaps will eat are surprising, as they are unremittingly consuming from morning till night; and this flycatcher seems to require a proportion of food equal to any bird, being in constant progress, capturing one moment, and resting the next. But fruit and insects are with us only for a short season; and their privations, when these no longer afford a supply, indicate, that they possess the power of abstinence, as well as that of consumption.

We observed this summer two common thrushes frequenting the shrubs on the green in our garden. From the slenderness of their forms, and the freshness of their plumage, we pronounced them to be birds of the preceding summer. There was an association and friendship between them, that called our attention to their actions: one of them seemed ailing, or feeble from some bodily accident; for though it hopped about, yet it appeared unable to obtain sufficiency of food; its companion, an active sprightly bird, would frequently bring it worms, or bruised snails, when they mutually partook of the banquet; and the ailing bird would wait patiently, understand the actions, expect the assistance of the other, and advance from his asylum upon its approach. This procedure was continued for some days, but after a time we missed the fostered bird, which probably died, or by reason of its weakness met with some fatal accident. We have many relations of the natural affection of animals; and whoever has attended to the actions of the various creatures we are accustomed to domesticate about us can probably add many other instances from their own observation. Actions which are in any way analogous to the above, when they are performed by mankind, arise most commonly from duty, affection, pity, interest, pride; but we are not generally disposed to allow the inferior orders of creation the possession of any of these feelings, except perhaps the last: yet when we have so many instances of attachment existing between creatures similar and dissimilar in their natures, which are obvious to all, and where no interest can possibly arise as a motive; when we mark the varieties of disposition which they manifest under uniform treatment, their various aptitudes and comprehensions, sensibility or inattention to sounds, &c., it seems but reasonable to consider them as gifted with latent passions; though being devoid of mind to stimulate or call them into action by any principle of volition or virtue, how excited to performance we know no more than we do the motives of many of their bodily actions! The kindnesses and attentions which the maternal creature manifests in rearing its young, and the assistance occasionally afforded by the paternal animal, during the same period, appears to be a natural inherent principle universally diffused throughout creation; but when we see a sick or maimed animal supplied and attended by another, which we suppose gifted with none of the stimuli to exertion that actuate our conduct, we endow them by this denial with motives with which we ourselves are unacquainted; and at last we can only relate the fact, without defining the cause.

The throstle is a bird of great utility in a garden where wall fruit is grown, by reason of the peculiar inclination which it has for feeding upon snails, and very many of them he does dislodge in the course of the day. When the female is sitting, the male bird seems to be particularly assiduous in searching them out, and I believe he feeds his mate during that period, having frequently seen him flying to the nest with food, long before the eggs were hatched; after this time the united labors of the pair destroy numbers of these injurious creatures. That he will regale himself frequently with a tempting gooseberry, or bunch of currants, is well known, but his services entitle him to a very ample reward. The blackbird associates with these thrushes in our gardens, but makes no compensation for our indulgences after his song ceases, as he does not feed upon the snail; but the thrush benefits us through the year by his propensities for this particular food, and every grove resounds with his harmony in the season; and probably if this race suffered less from the gun of the Christmas popper, the gardener might find much benefit in his ensuing crop of fruit, from the forbearance.

We have no bird, I believe, more generally known, thought of, or mentioned with greater indifference, perhaps contempt, than the common sparrow (fringilla domestica), “that sitteth alone on the house-top;” yet it is an animal that nature seems to have endowed with peculiar characteristics, having ordained for it a very marked provision, manifested in its increase and maintenance, notwithstanding the hostile attacks to which it is exposed. A dispensation that exists throughout creation is brought more immediately to our notice by the domestic habits of this bird. The natural tendency that the sparrow has to increase will often enable one pair of birds to bring up fourteen or more young ones in the season. They build in places of perfect security from the plunder of larger birds and vermin. Their art and ingenuity in commonly attaching their nests beneath that of the rook, high in the elm, a bird whose habits are perfectly dissimilar, and with which they have no association whatever, making use of their structure only for a defence to which no other bird resorts, manifest their anxiety and contrivance for the safety of their broods. With peculiar perseverance and boldness, they forage and provide for themselves and their offspring; will filch grain from the trough of the pig, or contend for its food with the gigantic turkey; and, if scared away, their fears are those of a moment, as they quickly return to their plunder; and they roost protected from all the injuries of weather. These circumstances tend greatly to increase the race, and in some seasons their numbers in our corn-fields towards autumn are prodigious; and did not events counteract the increase of this army of plunderers, the larger portion of our bread corn would be consumed by them. But their reduction is as rapidly accomplished as their increase, their love of association bringing upon them a destruction, which a contrary habit would not tempt. They roost in troops in our ricks, in the ivy on the wall, &c., and are captured by the net: they cluster on the bush, or crowd on the chaff by the barn-door, and are shot by dozens at a time, or will rush in numbers, one following another, into the trap. These and various other engines of destruction so reduce them in the winter season, that the swarms of autumn gradually diminish, till their numbers in spring are in no way remarkable. I have called them plunderers, and they are so; they are benefactors likewise, seeming to be appointed by nature as one of the agents for keeping from undue increase another race of creatures, and by their prolificacy they accomplish it. In spring and the early part of the summer, before the corn becomes ripe, they are insectivorous, and their constantly increasing families require an unceasing supply of food. We see them every minute of the day in continual progress, flying from the nest for a supply, and returning on rapid wing with a grub, a caterpillar, or some reptile; and the numbers captured by them in the course of these travels are incredibly numerous, keeping under the increase of these races, and making ample restitution for their plunderings and thefts. When the insect race becomes scarce, the corn and seeds of various kinds are ready; their appetite changes, and they feed on these with undiminished enjoyment.

We have scarcely another bird, the appetite of which is so accommodating in all respects as that of the house-sparrow. It is, I believe, the only bird that is a voluntary inhabitant with man, lives in his society, and is his constant attendant, following him wherever he fixes his residence. It becomes immediately an inhabitant of the new farm-house, in a lonely place or recent inclosure, or even in an island, will accompany him into the crowded city, and build and feed there in content, unmindful of the noise, the smoke of the furnace, or the steam- engine, where even the swallow and the marten, that flock around him in the country, are scared by the tumult, and leave him: but the sparrow, though begrimed with soot, does not forsake him; feeds on his food, rice, potatoes, or almost any other extraneous substance he may find in the street; looks to him for his support, and is maintained almost entirely by the industry and providence of man. It is not known in a solitary and independent state.

Though I remember no bird so peculiarly associated with the human race as this is, yet there are other animals that seem dependent on man for support, or at least that find his means subservient to their comforts, and domesticate themselves with him. The meadow and the long-tailed mouse occasionally become foragers in our gardens and domains, when a natural supply of food becomes difficult of attainment, yet they are not wholly settlers with us; but the common mouse (mus domesticus) resorts entirely to our premises, and seems to exist wholly on food of our providing. In towns it accommodates its appetite to the variety of sustenance it finds there; and will enjoy the preserve in the pot, the cheese in the rack, or the pie in the pantry. In the country it will ransack the cupboard, live in the barn, or colonize in our ricks. Still, in all these cases, the store and provision of man are its delight, and its only resource; and it will even quit a residence which is abandoned by its provider. It is true it maintains the same love of liberty as its celebrated ancestor is reported to have done; but the simplicity of manners and taste of the sage, the “hollow tree, the oaten straw,” have been abandoned; it has become pleased with household comforts, and a luxurious citizen in its appetite.

The rat (mus rattus), too, perhaps, may be united with these companions of mankind. Not knowing it in an independent state, we cannot say what its resources might be, but so sagacious and powerfully endowed an animal could always provide for its own necessities; yet it prefers our provision to any precarious supply from its own industry. In summer it partially quits our dwellings, the heat and dryness of our buildings becoming irksome to it, and the occasional difficulty of obtaining water, in which it delights, prompts it to resort to hedges and banks for a certain period; but it always returns when our barns are filled, and ready for it.

The house fly (musca carnaria) is another creature that appears domesticated with us; in some seasons a very numerous, and always a very dirty inmate. It associates in our windows at times with a similar insect (stomoxys calcitrans), that loves to bask on stones and posts, and which is now biting my legs with the most teasing perseverance. But this phlebotomist has not the same attachment to our habitations, is a more solitary insect, and does not unite in those little social parties, that circle for hours in a sober uniformity of flight below the ceilings of our chambers. Wherever man appears, this house fly is generally to be seen too: and instances are known, when islands have been taken possession of very far removed from the main land, that for a time no flies were visible, yet ere long these little domestic insects have made their appearance; neither natives of the isle, nor can we reasonably suppose them to have taken flight from a distant shore; but probably the offspring of parents that came with the stores in the vessel of the party.

We may have some few other instances of these apparent dependences of animals on man; yet, if we consider the relative situations of both, we shall find them existing, with very few exceptions, independent of him, and that he is more indebted to them for their services, than they are for his protection and support. Man from the earliest periods began to subject the animal world to his dominion, and avail himself of its properties and powers to improve his own condition. As his wants or propensities occurred, he compelled to his aid such animals as he could subdue, or were adapted to his purposes. The chief objects for which we require the aid of animals are for food, clothing, vigilance, and strength. Though the two former are highly essential to our comforts, they are not indispensable; the vegetable world supplies them in abundance to large portions of the inhabitants of the globe, and the companionable qualities, watchfulness, and swiftness of the dog might be dispensed with. It is the strength of animals that makes us sensible of our own weakness. By their power we build our dwellings, effect an intercourse with distant places, obtain much of our food, and the fuel of our hearths: a state of civilization requires, as an indispensable requisite, these things and others, rendering most manifest our obligations to the animal world. Animals were created before man; but some of them were apparently endowed with their useful and valuable properties for his comfort and assistance; for he had the dominion of them consigned to him, and was commissioned to subdue them. Having used their products for food and clothing, conjointly with the fruits and seeds of the vegetable world, and their bodies for the carriage of his burdens, after a long age of abstinence he began to feed on their flesh; and they have continued his faithful and assiduous servants, contented with their destiny, and submissive to his desires. He gives them food and shelter in payment of service, attending them with diligence and care: all this may be for his own emolument and pleasure, yet the well- being of the creature, had it continued wild, would not have required it: most of them live longer, and have more enjoyment in a wild and unreclaimed state, than when domesticated with him. By art, and for profit, he has in many instances altered the very nature of the animal, and created ailments, rendering his cares and attentions necessary, which in a state of nature are not required. The lives of many of them, even when subjected to the best of treatment, are consumed with labor and fatigue; and when their unhappy destiny consigns them to the power of poverty and evil passions, what an accumulation of misery and suffering do these wretched creatures undergo! If these arguments have any foundation in truth, it will appear, that animals are not necessarily dependent on man, and generally derive no benefit from their intercourse and association with him; but that, in conformity with original appointment, they aid him to acquire the enjoyments and accomplish the necessities of civilized life. Yet there is one creature, that seems designed by its natural habits to be the servant and dependant of man; and of all that fall under his dominion, not one receives an equal portion of his care, or is more exempt from a life of exhaustion in his service. The dog is fed with him, housed, and caressed; associates with him in his pleasures, is identified with and enjoys them with his master; living with him, he acquires the high bearing and freedom of his lord; feels he is the companion and the friend; deports himself as a partaker of the importance and superiority, we might almost say of the sorrows and pleasures of the man; is elated with praise, and abased by rebuke; submissive when corrected, and grateful when caressed: his anxiety and tremor when he has lost his master, and with him himself, is pitiable; when deserted by his lord, he becomes the most forlorn of animals, a never-failing victim to misery, famine, disease, and death. His ardor may excite him at times until overpowered by fatigue; but he is not generally stimulated by pain or menace to attempts beyond his natural powers: view him in all his progress, his life will be found to be an easy, and frequently an enjoyable one; and though not exempt from the afflictions of age, yet his death, if anticipated, becomes a momentary evil. When in a native state, he is a wretched creature, a common beast of the wild, with no innate magnanimity, no acquired virtues; has no elevation, no character to maintain, but passes his days in contention and want, is base in disposition, meager in body, a fugitive, and a coward.

The wheatear (sylvia œnanthe) frequents annually our open commons and stone quarries, and breeds there. I have seen it with nesting materials in its bill, and have had its eggs, though rarely, brought me. This bird visits England early in the spring, and continues with us till nearly the end of September, that is, during the entire breeding season. Yet it is remarkable, notwithstanding its numbers, and the little concealment which its haunts afford, how rarely its nests are found. Its principal place of resort is the South Downs in Sussex; and it appears from the accounts of the most experienced and credible persons of that county, from whom I have my information, that the females are performing their duties of incubation during the month of March; as at that time scarcely any but male birds are visible, of which hundreds are then flying about; while the females with their families appear early in May, and are captured afterwards in great numbers; yet the oldest shepherds have seldom seen their nest! When found, it has been concealed beneath a large stone, or some hollow of the rugged chalk hills, containing six pale blue eggs. With us the wheatear stays only to hatch her brood. When this is effected, and the young sufficiently matured, it leaves us entirely, and by the middle of September not a bird is found on their summer stations. They probably retire to the uplands on the seacoasts, as we hear of them as late as November in these places, where it is supposed they find some peculiar insect food, required by them in an adult state, and not found, or only sparingly, in their breeding stations, in which the appropriate food of their young is probably more abundant. Thus united on the coasts, they can take their flight, when the wind or other circumstances favor their passage, all of them departing upon the approach of winter.

Partial as I am to the habits and all the concerns of the country, I regret to say that rural amusements, connected as they commonly are with the creatures about us, are frequently cruel; and that we often most inconsiderately, in our sports, are the cause of misery and suffering to such as nestle around our dwellings, or frequent our fields, which, from some particular cause or motive, become the object of pursuit. I say nothing of the birds known as game, as perhaps we cannot obtain them by less painful means than we are accustomed to inflict, and the pursuit is frequently conducive to recreation and health; but the sportsman’s essaying his skill on the swallow race, that “skim the dimpled pool,” or harmless glide along the flowery mead, when, if successful, he consigns whole nests of infant broods to famine and to death, is pitiable indeed! No injury, no meditated crime, was ever imputed to these birds; they free our dwellings from multitudes of insects; their unsuspicious confidence and familiarity with men merit protection not punishment from him. The sufferings of their broods, when the parents are destroyed, should excite humanity, and demand our forbearance. But the wheatear, in an unfortunate hour, has been called the English ortolan, and is pursued as a delicate morsel through all its inland haunts, when hatching and feeding its young, the only period in which it frequents our heaths. I execrate the practice as most cruel: their death evinces no skill in the gunner; their wretched bodies, when obtained, are useless, being embittered by the bruises of the shot, and unskilful operations of the picker and dresser. No, let the parental duties cease, and when the bird retires to its maritime downs, if doomed to suffer, the individual dies alone, and no starving broods perish with it. I supplicate from the youthful sportsman his consideration for these most innocent creatures, the summer wheatear and the swallow.

The eggs produced by the wheatear are uniform in color and similar in shape; but the eggs of birds in general vary much, and are occasionally very puzzling to identify when detached from their nests, as the colorings and markings differ greatly in the same species, and even nest. Those of one color, like this wheatear’s, retain it, with only shades of variation; but when there are blotchings or spots, these are at times very dissimilar, occasioned in great measure probably by the age of the bird; though this cannot account for the difference of those in an individual nest. None vary more than the eggs of the common sparrow. Those of marine birds, especially the guillemot (colymbus troile), are often so unlike each other, that it requires considerable practice to arrange them. The plumage of birds has probably never varied, but remains at this hour what it originally was: but whether these markings on the eggs have any connexion with the shadings on the feathers, it is difficult to determine; as we know that eggs entirely white will produce birds with a variety of plumage. The shell of the egg appears to be designed for the accomplishment of two purposes. One of the offices of this calcareous coating, which consists of carbonate and phosphate of lime, is to unite with the white of the egg, and form, during incubation, the feathers and bone of the future young ones; but as a large portion of this covering remains after the young are produced, its other object is to guard from injury the parts within. As far as I have observed, in eggs of one hue, the coloring matter resides in the calcareous part; but where there are markings, these are rather extraneous to it than mixed with it. The elegant blue that distinguishes the eggs of the firetail and the hedge-sparrow, though corroded away, is not destroyed by the muriatic acid. The blue calcareous coating of the thrush’s egg is consumed; but the dark spots, like the markings upon the eggs of the yellow-hammer, house-sparrow, magpie, &c., still preserve their stations on the film, though loosened and rendered mucilaginous by this rough process. Though this calcareous matter is partly taken up during incubation, the markings upon these eggs remain little injured, even to the last, and are almost as strongly defined as when the eggs are first laid. These circumstances seem to imply, that the coloring matter on the shells of eggs does not contribute to the various hues of the plumage; but, it is reasonable to conclude, are designed to answer some particular object, not obvious to us: for though the marks are so variable, yet the shadings and spottings of one species never wander so as to become exactly figured like those of another family, but preserve, year after year, a certain characteristic figuring. Few animal substances, in a recent state, contain more hepatic gas than an eggshell, as is manifest from the very offensive smell that proceeds from it when burned. A little of this is caused by the gluten that cements the calcareous matter, but the overpowering fetor comes from the inner membrane that lines the shell.

The superstitions and fancies of persons, though we may often contemn them, are yet at times deserving of notice, being occasionally to be traced to some former received belief or national custom, and perhaps when charactered by emblems or ceremonies may be considered as certainly originating from the tenets of some sect or popular observance; the partiality manifested by the English in general for flowers and horticultural pursuits is recently, from a sentence in Pliny (Nat. Hist. XIV. chap. 4), supposed to have been acquired from their Roman conquerors; and probably many other attachments and practices, though obscured and perverted by time, have been retained from the example of some of the various nations who have ruled in our island. Bird-nesting boys, I suppose, are yet to be met with in many a rural village, being a habit from immemorial antiquity, pursued with eagerness in contention with their fellows for numbers and rarity, but that accomplished, like so many of our pursuits in after life, the pleasure ceases when rivalry is no more: but regarding these birds’ eggs we have a very foolish superstition here; the boys may take them unrestrained, but their mothers so dislike their being kept in the house, that they usually break them; their presence may be tolerated for a few days, but by the ensuing Sunday are frequently destroyed, under the idea that they bring bad luck, or prevent the coming of good fortune, as if in some way offensive to the domestic deity of the hearth: having occasionally inquired for these plunders of our small birds at the cottages, to supply some deficiencies in a collection, I have found so general a prepossession against retaining them, as in most cases to fail of success.

The kite (falco milvus) is one of our rarest birds. We see it occasionally, in its progress to other parts, sailing along sedately on its way; but it never visits us. Our copses present it with no enticing harborage, and our culture scares it. In former years I was intimately acquainted with this bird; but its numbers seem greatly on the decline, having been destroyed, or driven away to lonely places, or to the most extensive woodlands. In the breeding season it will at times approach near the outskirts of villages, seeking materials for its nest; but in general it avoids the haunts of man. It is the finest native bird that we possess, and all its deportment partakes of a dignity peculiar to itself, well becoming a denizen of the forest or the park; for though we see it sometimes in company with the buzzard, it is never to be mistaken for this clumsy bird, which will escape from the limb of some tree, with a confused and hurried flight, indicative of fear; while the kite moves steadily from the summit of the loftiest oak, the scathed crest of the highest poplar, or the most elevated ash—circles round and round, sedate and calm, and then leaves us. I can confusedly remember a very extraordinary capture of these birds, when I was a boy. Roosting one winter evening on some very lofty elms, a fog came on during the night, which froze early in the morning, and fastened the feet of the poor kites so firmly to the boughs, that some adventurous youths brought down, I think, fifteen of them so secured! Singular as the capture was, the assemblage of so large a number was no less so, it being in general a solitary bird, or associating only in pairs.

The blackcap (motacilla atracapilla) is our constant visitor, but very uncertain in its numbers, as it fully participates in all the casualties of our migratory tribes; not by any great diminution probably in its winter residence, but by loss in its transits of autumn or spring. We have years when every little copse resounds with harmony; at other periods, only a few solitary songsters are to be heard; and the blackcap is the principal performer in the band of our domestic vocalists. In the scale of music it is the third for mellowness, and the third perhaps too for execution and compass. As this melody, however, continues only during the period of incubation, we hear it but for a short time; for this bird wastes no time in amusements, appearing to be in great haste to accomplish the object of its visit, and to depart. Thus, immediately upon its arrival, we observe it surveying and inspecting places fitting for nidification, and commencing a nest; but so careful and suspicious is it, that several are often abandoned before finished, from some apprehension or caprice: any intrusion is jealously noticed; and during the whole period of sitting and rearing its young, it is timid and restless. I have observed that both birds will occasionally perform the office of incubation.

It seems to live entirely by choice on fruits; and as soon as the brood can remove, it visits our gardens, feeding with delight and almost insatiable appetite on the currant and the raspberry; and so much is it engaged when at this banquet, that it suffers itself to be looked at, and forgets for the moment its usual timidity: but its natural shyness never leaves it entirely; and though it remains in our gardens or orchards as long as any of its favorite fruits continue, it avoids observation as much as possible, and hides itself in the foliage from all familiarity or confidence. This exceeding dislike of man is very extraordinary. Larger or more important birds might have an instinctive fear of violence; but this creature is too small and insignificant to have ever experienced or to apprehend injuries from him. It may arise from a long residence in wilds and solitary places, seldom visited by human beings, during those eight or nine months when it is absent from us, so that man becomes an unknown creature, and injury is suspected. Our native small birds, that reside all the year with us, and see us often, though they may retire at our near approach, do not exhibit such shyness and avoidance as several of our migrating birds. The gray flycatcher, and the swallow tribe, which seek their food, we conclude, all the year near the dwellings of man, where most abundantly found, manifest familiarity with us rather than dislike, are accustomed to the sight of human beings, and do not fear them; but whatever may be the cause that influences the precipitate retreat of certain birds, we note the original mandate, and see that the “fear of us, and the dread of us,” are still in operation with many of these little “fowls of the air,” that would never receive harm from our hands. The blackcap finishes its feast here with the jargonel pear, when it can meet with it, then leaves us for other fruits and milder climes.

“And the fear of you, and the dread of you, shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, and upon all that moveth upon the earth.” This vesture of universal dread, which was to envelop man, though appointed from the beginning of time, has never been removed, but most signally and remarkably attaches to him still. It was ordained to be so; and so it is. In some few instances only does this awe of man subside: in extreme cases of want, for individual preservation, or when protection is required. In such cases, the fear or sensibility of pain, love of life, or a paramount duty, becomes the stronger principle, annihilating the weaker; and the dread of man’s supremacy is no more. The weakest, the very insect, then assails him, and at times becomes the victor. Does any conceivable or visible cause exist from which this awe can proceed? Does “his sublime countenance, contemplative of the heavens,” the image that he bears, or his deportment, afford any ascendent influence productive of this impression? In bodily power he is more weak and obnoxious to injury than many that shrink from a contest with him; his natural arms and means of protection are inferior often to those of the beings which he subdues; yet from an undefinable cause he is omnipotent over all. Terror in man most commonly arises from a knowledge of power, apprehension of ills from accident, or fear of the evil inclinations of another. What the fowls of the air, or the beasts of the field perceive, or are impressed with, we know not; but none of these causes can exist in a brute mind without intelligence or experience. These are the reflections of a thoughtful hour. The cause, “though a man labor to seek out, yet shall he not find it; and though a man think to know it, yet shall he not be able.” But the contemplation is not wholly an unworthy occupation of time. All ages, all people, must have perceived the admitted power and universal dread occasioned by the presence of man, but no reason, no motive, could have been assigned for it; but in these days, by revelation, we know the cause, have impressed upon our minds the immutable truth of that Being which ordained, and of that volume which has proclaimed his mandate to us. But man has the power assigned him of calling to his aid a visible object of dread, confided to him from the earliest periods; and he alone of all created beings has the agency of this terror. All the inferior orders have a fear of it, and flee from it, even when its effects could never have been known or experienced, but which appears to be innate and inseparable from all. Man alone has the knowledge, the means of calling heat into action; and though warmth is the delight, and essential to the being of most, yet, rouse it into active operation producing fire, and terror and flight succeed enjoyment and rest: it deters the approach of the most ferocious, and man and his charge abide unharmed when surrounded by the terror he has raised. In addition to the many characters given as a definition of man, we might call him a fire- producing creature.

The end of our summer months, and the autumnal season, afford us frequently the best periods for observing some of our occasional visiting birds. Upon their first arrival, and for a time afterwards, their notes announce their presence; but they are not always to be seen with satisfaction, and scattered in retired places, or occupied in the business of incubation, when they are particularly wary and suspicious, they are but casually noticed: but in the times above stated, our gardens, shrubberies, and orchards, become their resort, seeking for the fruits usually produced in those places. And, first, the pettychaps, with all her matured brood, is certain to be found, feeding voraciously upon our cultivated berries, or mining a hole in the fig or jargonel pear; and so intent are they upon this occupation, that they will permit a reasonable examination of their form and actions, but at other periods it is difficult to approach them. The blackcap discontentedly flits about our inclosures and thickets all the summer through, building her nest or tending her young; the fine clear harmony of the male bird resounding in the morning from the brake, yet, timid and alarmed, he ceases and hides himself if we approach: but he now introduces all his progeny to our banquet; cautious still, we can yet observe his actions, and easily distinguish the black or brown heads of the sexes, as they are occupied beneath the foliage of an Antwerp raspberry. The white throats, now, too, leave their hedges, and all their insect food, which for months had been their only supply, and in the thick covert of the gooseberry extract with great dexterity the pulp of the fruit, or strip the currant of its berry. The elegant, slender form of the female, her snowy throat and silvery stomach, render her very conspicuous as she scuttles away to hide herself in the bush: her plain, brown-backed mate seems rather less timid, but yet carefully avoids all symptoms of familiarity. Other doubtful little birds likewise appear, and are gone, several of which, however, are probably the young of ascertained species. And here the little willow wren is often to be seen: he comes in company with his travelling friends, not as a partaker of their plunder, appearing never to abandon his appetite for insect food: the species may change with the season, but still it is animal: he glides about our rows of peas, peeps under the leaves of fruit trees for aphides and moths, continuing this harmless pursuit until the cold mornings of autumn drive him to milder regions. All these fruit-eating birds seem to have a very discriminating taste, and a decided preference for the richest sorts—the sweetest variety of the gooseberry or the currant always being selected; and when they are consumed, less saccharine dainties are submitted to: but the hedge blackberry of the season our little foreign connoisseurs disdain to feed on, leaving it for the humbler appetited natives—they are away to sunnier regions and more grateful food.