Birds useful and birds harmful

by Ottó Herman; J. A. Owen

The Nest of the Long-tailed Tit.

It is not only in our latitudes that the nest of the Long-tailed Tit is considered a masterpiece, but even far away south where nature works such marvels, where the little humming birds, scarcely bigger than the joint of a child’s finger,

LONG-TAILED TITS AND FAMILY.

shine in the sunlight like diamonds and rubies, and build nests no bigger than half a small hen’s egg,—even there, this nest is looked upon one of the finest specimens of bird architecture. It is the most charming, most beautiful, and warmest bird abode. Most often it is round, the twigs supporting it like the fingers of the hand, and often it stands free like a little beehive. It is beautifully roofed in with a domed top, and has at the side an opening large enough for a big bumble bee. It is constructed of the finest moss, and the softest fluff from the meadows and poplars; it is soft, and yet so strongly put together that no human workman can imitate it.

In this soft, warm nest the tiny bird lays its nine, sometimes eleven, eggs. These are white with rose-coloured spots at the thicker end. The male and female birds sit alternately on the eggs for fourteen days; and then the hard work begins—twelve babes to nourish, and with the finest food!

The industry of the Swallow is truly great, but that of the Long-tailed Tit is still greater. The Swallow seizes its booty while on the wing, and has only to open its beak; but the Tit has to go from branch to branch, working sometimes head downwards, sometimes swinging, in order to secure the tiny morsels.

Truly he who does not delight in the sight of this tiny family united by love, who is not moved when the twelve baby birds are seen sitting close pressed together on a slender bough, and the little parents come and go, with their continuous cry, bringing food and giving it in turn to the young ones—he whom such a sight does not fill with pleasure, must have a stone in his breast instead of a heart.

MUST BE KEPT IN CHECK.

THE TREE SPARROW.

THE HOUSE SPARROW.

CHAPTER VI.
WORKERS ALL THE YEAR ROUND.

The House Sparrow.
(Passer domesticus.)

This is among birds what the street-boy is in the towns—merry, audacious, obtrusive and quarrelsome, always moving and picking up what it can. A human habitation without Sparrows is inconceivable. In the street it rummages in the tracks of the horses; in the markets, it sees when the stall-keeper is dozing, and helps itself out of her basket to anything that takes its fancy.

When the wheat ears are soft it betakes itself to the fields and fills its stomach and also feeds its young with their milky juice; when the corn is ripe he attacks it and knocks more grains out of the ears than it can possibly eat. It does the same with cherries, mulberries, and all kinds of seeds. It also breaks off young buds and the points of young shoots.

It drags the Titmice out of their nest-holes and establishes itself there. It presence is easy to recognise by the straws sticking out of the hole. The only method of preventing this is to make the entrance-hole narrower and to hang the nest-hole lower down.

It is true that when there is a great abundance of cockchafers it consumes a great quantity of these creatures; but as soon as it finds something it likes better, and is easily obtained, he leaves the destructive chafers to others. The most useful service it does is in severe snowy winters, when, in company with a large number of other Sparrows, it scours the fields and picks up the seeds of noxious weeds; besides this it feeds its young with insects. It should not be suffered to increase too much, for it does on the whole considerable mischief. The humane way of lessening its numbers, as we have before pointed out, is to pull down the nest wherever we can.

A word for our English Sparrows. E. Newman, F.Z.S., says: “A Sparrow-hawk left to himself, even by scaring the Sparrow from ripe grain, will save the wages of at least ten boys.” And the head gardener of a large garden which was protected with a network of black cotton only, said: “Nobody knows what good a Sparrow does in a garden. In fields it eats charlock, chickweed, plaintain, buttercup, knot-grass,” etc. When the hay lies in swathes in the fields it haunts them in quest of what are called “haychaffers”; craneflies, earwigs, blight, etc., are part of its prey. “They have been known,” writes Curtis of Sparrows in “Farm Insects,” “to gorge themselves with the larvæ of the May-bug till they were unable to fly.” A French writer says: “Under one Sparrow’s nest the rejected wing-cases of cockchafers were picked up; they numbered over 1,400. Thus one pair had destroyed more than 700 insects to feed one brood.” Much of the harm attributed to Sparrows is the work of a small Weevil, which is very destructive to many kitchen-garden plants. Mr. Joseph Nunn of Royston, a farmer, writing of the Sparrow during 1897, says that Sparrows do not eat more corn from the stacks than other Finches or the Buntings, and that a farmer must learn how to protect his property the same as any other tradesman.

As to its colour, we may say that its crown is grey with chestnut stripes, throat black—that is, the male bird. The throat of the female is whitish, and there are whitish lines on the head and over the eyes. Beak strong, wedge-shaped, pointed. The whole bird suggests strength. It lays five or six eggs, which are white, thickly speckled with dark marks. The nest is composed of straw, wood, tow, hair and feathers carelessly put together, still it is soft and warm. This bird breeds twice a year, sometimes three times.

The Tree Sparrow.
(Passer Montanus.)

The habits of this Sparrow vary from those of the house species in that it dwells among fields and foothills where wood and thicket alternate. It also frequents gardens, and behaves very audaciously. In hollow places in old trees it is sure to be met with. It is a bold builder, and will place its nest with us in Hungary under the Eagle’s eyrie, or the Stork’s nest. It may generally be said to be a hole-nester, and a much greater insect eater than its congener the House Sparrow.

Its manner of nesting makes it all the more dangerous to the artificial nest-holes, and we cannot guard them against this species, either by decreasing the size of the entrance or by placing the nest-holes lower; it drags the Tits out and takes possession of the hole; the only thing that can be done is to drive it away with small shot; otherwise we should harbour Tree Sparrows instead of Tits, and, although they are not as numerous as the House Sparrow the supply of them is more than enough.

The Tree Sparrow is also rarer with us in Great Britain than its ubiquitous relative. It is quite local as to habitat. Until quite recently it was unknown in Ireland. Large numbers arrive, however, in autumn along the east coast, and its settlements in Scotland are chiefly on the eastern side, up as far as Sutherland. Its nest with us will be found at times at some distance from human dwellings; in the soft rotten wood of trees often, but it builds also about farm-buildings, beneath roof-tilings and in cliffs by the sea. The eggs are more glossy than the House Sparrow’s; two and even three broods will be reared in a season. The young are fed on caterpillars and other insects, soft vegetable matter, etc., but in winter both young and old frequent farmyards, and visit the ricks; also they seek grain among horse-droppings in the streets. The illustration shows the difference in the markings of the two species of Sparrow.

This bird is smaller than the House Sparrow, and more slender. The colouring is, on the whole, the same in the male and female birds. From crown to tail it is chestnut brown, passing into ash-grey, with dark markings round the ears and on the throat. Both in colour and demeanour it is a true Sparrow. It lays five or six, occasionally seven, light-coloured speckled eggs.

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THE HEDGE SPARROW.

The Hedge Sparrow.
(Accentor modularis.)

This is no vulgar little city arab, picking about in untidy stables, in the refuse on the streets, and among the droppings of horses. Does not its Latin name rather proclaim it one of the aristocrats of bird life. Its dress may be dull-coloured, but its form and its motions are not inelegant, despite its familiar name of “Shufflewings” and “Smokie,” in deference to its characteristic motion and its colouring. Head and nape are a bluish-grey, streaked with brown, back and wings are a reddish-brown, streaked blackish; the lower wing-coverts are tipped with clayish colour, in bar-fashion, underparts a dull white; the sides are marked with dark streaks on a pale reddish-brown ground; the bill brown, the base being of a lighter shade; the legs and feet are yellow brown. Length 5.5 inches. The slate-grey on the head and throat is not seen on the young birds, which are browner and more spotted than the adults. This is a friendly bird and very easily tamed, so that it will often bring its mate to the kitchen door for food in winter, and its song is more melodious than many of our singers. The nest is built of moss, bits of stick, roots, and dry grass, in all kinds of hedges, or roadside thickets. The eggs, four to six, greenish-blue without spots and rough in texture. Many bird-lovers refuse to call this bird by the plebian name of Sparrow, with them it is always the Hedge Accentor.

The food of this bird mainly consists of caterpillars, eggs of insects, wood-lice, earwigs, chrysalids, small seeds of weeds, house-refuse, etc.

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THE SKYLARK.

The Skylark.
(Alauda arvensis.)

It can raise a tuft on its head at will. A long, slightly hooked claw is on the back toe. The nest is placed on the ground, more rarely among corn or meadow grass, but rather on fallow ground or clover field, among low thick growth; it assimilates so closely with its surroundings that it is difficult to discover. It usually contains five eggs, which, being of a dingy, grey-green speckled with a darker colour, also somewhat resemble the colour of the earth.

This Lark occurs most numerously in the northern regions, and as regards its habits is one of the best known and most popular of birds. It arrives in Hungary early in the spring, settles down, and does not allow any other bird to approach it, pecking them away if possible. Its little territory often occupies only a hundred paces. The different territories are contiguous, and disputes between the neighbours are perpetually going on. The combatants may constantly be seen, darting here and there with lightning speed, flying near the ground, in pursuit of one another. During the pairing and brooding-time the male bird sings unweariedly, flinging his song into the air. He rises towards the sky, with vibrating wings, higher and higher, dropping his ever-changing trilling notes,—often rising to such a height that he disappears from sight and the song dies away. Then suddenly he reappears, becomes silent, and drops like a stone to earth.

In his poem “In Winter,” Johann Arány says of the Lark:—

“Like the poor poet,
Who in the sun’s bright rays spreads out his wing
And bears towards heaven his song: he turns and falls,
And he is silent.”

The Lark lives partly on seeds, but its chief food is gathered from the insect world. It is almost universally considered by epicures a great delicacy, and is snared by thousands. Fortunately it exists in great numbers, but its snaring is to be deprecated.

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In England larks have been very largely eaten, but happily the practice is now most strongly opposed by thoughtful people. If the consumption of Larks in our country went on as it was doing a few years ago the species would soon be extinct. Yet this singer—whom poets have delighted to honour and one—possibly because of its alert ways and its sentinel-like attitude—which Julius Cæsar chose as an emblem for one of his famous legions,—devours wireworms, grubs and various larvæ when these lie hidden in the short winter pastures, and just at the stage when the latter are most greedy of nourishment, so that the grass would suffer incredibly but for the bird’s work. A recent authority stated that it was to be deplored that not a tenth part of the Skylarks that formerly frequented the Midland pastures were there now. Unfortunately this bird is a favourite among those who are given to the caging of singing birds.

This bird is bigger and more slender than the Sparrow, and the colouring generally of the upper parts is a warm yellowish-brown. It is distinguished from its congener, the Woodlark, by its tail feathers. The two outermost feathers are white, growing darker only about the shaft. The outer web of the second feather is white. The tail feathers have dark-brown centres and tawny edges.

The Kingfisher.
(Alcedo ispida.)

The Kingfisher is the arch-enemy of the fish, and it is hardly credible that this relatively small bird, should gulp down, as it does, fish as long as your finger, in order to fill his stomach. It digests very quickly, and spits out the bones, scales, and fins. It watches, from a bough, for the little fish. Where a bush bending over the water undisturbed by the eddy forms a calm mirror,—there does this resplendent fish-poacher settle itself on an overhanging bough, to watch—motionless and with incredible tenacity—the water and the living things beneath it. If a trout or other small fish, feeling quite safe, comes to the surface, the Kingfisher drops on it like a piece of lead; it grasps its prey with its sharp beak, and, shaking the water from its plumage, flies back to its perch, gulps down its delicate morsel, and sets itself again to watch. Its colour protects the bird when diving. The underparts are much the same colour as a fallen leaf, and this arouses no suspicion in the fish—the back, on the other hand, shines like the blue shimmer of the running stream, and that often protects the bird from the circling Sparrow-hawk. If it comes to a flat shore on the side of a small stream, which offers no overhanging perching place, it settles on a stake or a clod of earth, and now and then hovers over the water, and flutters like a hawk. It is an inconstant bird. It appears, and disappears from a district, and then, perhaps after some years, presents itself again. Its flight is rapid, and it raises its cry, as it goes, “teet.”

It does harm, but is scarce in Hungary.

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HARMFUL

THE KINGFISHER.

In Great Britain it was also becoming scarce, but of late years Bird Protection and the ever increasing number of bird-lovers has been in favour of this beautiful ornament of streams and meadows. It is, however, often shot because its feathers are of value for dressing artificial flies. Personally I could not call a bird hurtful because it seeks the food which its Creator intended it to eat, which is no more the property of man when it is taken in its natural conditions than it is that of the bird, and I confess I would rather see the brilliant blue of the Kingfisher flash up a meadow stream than the angler’s figure there with his rod.

The Kingfisher is seven and a half inches long, a short thick set bird, with short tail and straight pointed beak, which sticks out like a lath nail. The colouring of its plumage, which, in its flight, sparkles like precious gems, makes it one of the marvels of nature. Crown, neck, mantle, and rump are of an exquisite brilliant blue; a cinnamon brown stripe passes over the eye, growing lighter as it extends over the side of the neck. Eyes brown, throat white, underparts a brilliant rust-red, legs red, rather short, the toes slightly joined at the root. It nests on the banks of rivers and streams, boring in the bank, on a level just above the surface of the water a tunnel a yard long, which it enlarges at the end into a cauldron-shaped cavity. It does not build a nest here, but lays its round white eggs on rejected fish-bones. The eggs number six or seven.

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THE DIPPER.

The Dipper.
(Cinclus aquaticus.)

The Dipper’s habits are most interesting. The bird frequents the most picturesque streams, perching on the dry boulders, with the water gurgling and splashing about him. From this he dives and walks under the water, turns over the small pebbles and returns to his stone. This led to his being suspected of being an enemy to the fisherman. It has, however, be proved by the inspection of the contents of the stomachs of several Dippers that only insect remains and small shell-fish were eaten. The fact that he will attach himself to brooks which contain no fish at all, proves that he does not feed on these. The bird’s plumage is simply watertight, and therefore admirably adapted to a bird which can swim as well as dive.

The song of the Dipper is strong and cheery; and the lively ways of this Water-ouzel, as it often called, lend a charm to our mountain streams. With us in Hungary a thorough investigation of the life-habits of this bird, which spread over a considerable period, and involved much correspondence, has resulted in the complete vindication of this bird’s character.

Mr. Herman’s verdict on the Dipper and the Kingfisher, are the more valuable because he is the great authority, in his own country, in all that relates to pisciculture. The Dipper remains with us all the year round, especially in the Peak District in Derbyshire, and the hill-streams of North Staffordshire. It is, however, found in the British Islands, wherever there are rapid rivers or stony brooks and streams. All the Highland burns and rivers have a few pairs. In Ireland, too, it is resident in the mountainous districts, but it forsakes these often, at the approach of winter, for the mouths of tidal rivers and the salt flats of the seashore. In the valley of the Dove it remains about the stream all through the winter. The birds are clever in contriving to make so heavy a nest cling to the wall of rock or stone, where it is placed. It cocks up its short tail very much as a Wren does, and dips its head in a way, which has gained for it the quaint local name of “Betty Dowker.” As it feeds much on the larvae of the May-fly and bank-fly, and others which are destructive to the salmon spawning beds, it must be of good service to the fisher. The young birds are able to swim as soon as they leave the nest, and to chase the water insects, using both legs and wings in pursuit. The wings serve as oars. The song of the bird is begun in autumn, and it will often be heard all through the winter, but always in early spring, and fully fledged young have been found by the twenty-first of March.

This is a thick-set but charming bird a little over six inches in length. Head and nape are umber-brown, tail and wing-feathers dark brown; chin, throat, and upper breast white, passing off into chestnut-brown, dark-grey and black on the belly; bill brownish-black, legs and feet brown; upper parts mottled with dark grey and brown. The beak is awl-shaped, and the sharp toes on the strong feet are long and well divided. The nest is generally placed close to a running stream, preferably near to, and even behind some little waterfall. It is a large oval ball of leaves, grass, and moss, lined with dry grass and dead leaves. The entrance is low down in the side. From four to six eggs are laid, which are glossy white at first, but become dull as the bird sits. Two broods are reared in a season.

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THE THRUSH.

The Thrush.
(Turdus musicus.)

This bird is the same size as a Blackbird. The upper side is olive-brown; throat and under parts whitish; breast rusty-yellow with dark heart-shaped spots and flecks. A light eye-brow stripe runs over the eye. The under side of the wing is rusty-yellow; beak and legs brownish-yellow. Its nest is very remarkable. It builds by preference in trees with dense foliage, at a medium height, and employs stalks, grass, and small twigs well woven together, the crevices being filled with moss. There is nothing remarkable in this, for there are many better woven nests; but the cup of the nest is a work of art. It is wide, and deep, having inside a strong layer finely cemented and smoothed, about the thickness of the back of a table knife. This is composed of pulverised atoms of decayed wood, which the Thrush mixes with its sticky saliva, and kneads into a paste, with its beak. It lays five or six eggs of a vitriol-green colour, with very fine spots.

The Thrush is a fine strong bird, and moves firmly and skilfully among the branches. When on the ground it holds its head and beak well up; always alert. When it sees its prey it springs on it at once with lowered head, seizes it and tears it to pieces with its beak. On mossy grounds it is very skilful in turning over tufts of moss, in order to reach the insects which crawl about underneath. It also catches grasshoppers, and in the late summer and autumn attacks the wild berries.

It has many enemies. The Jay is the worst plunderer of its nest; but it has recently been ascertained that the Squirrel also sucks the eggs.

Its song is beautiful, flooding the woods far and near, with its rich fluty tones. It sings from the highest branches of trees, sitting quietly meanwhile, as if itself steeped in the dreamy rapture of its own performance.

The Song Thrush in Scotland is called the Mavis. This is strange as it is the Redwing which is known in France under the name of Mauvis. The song of the Blackbird is often confused with that of the Thrush; yet that of the latter is a very distinctive one, because in the middle of a strain of song there is the repetition of its three chief notes. You will seem to hear it saying “Pretty dear, pretty dear,” or “Wait a bit, wait a bit.”

We must own that the Thrush is a very active thief, although it does feed much on insects, worms, and snails. It is absolutely necessary to protect one’s fruit against this depredator.

Shakespeare speaks of the “throstle with his note so true,” and Clare wrote

“And thrushes too ’gan clear their throats,
And get by heart some two ’r three notes
Of their intended summer song.”

But Browning still more finely enters into the spirit of this bird’s song:—

“That’s the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never can recapture
The first, fine, careless rapture!”

The Blackbird.
(Turdus merula.)

This is a lively, cheery bird, an ornament to the thickets and clearings of the woods. Just before the evening twilight, in company with others of the Thrush family, it seeks the clearings and openings of the woods, and delights the eye of the beholder, by its hopping here and there, its darting and hunting—busily dragging worms out of the ground and attacking all the mischievous Chafer family. Then it flies on to the summit of a bush or an over-spreading bough, and its powerful, pure flute-like song resounds through the wood, and makes the listener forget all else. In autumn it eats the berries, sometimes fruit; but being very timid it is easily driven off. It is a useful bird and a pleasure to eye and ear.

This is the bird which is so often taken from the nest and reared. The male bird fetches a good price in Hungary, for it learns to whistle tunes—even from street-organs. Because it learns so easily, it sometimes happens, that in the middle of a beautiful tune which it has been taught, some most excruciating sound is heard, reminiscent of an ungreased cart-wheel. In Germany the Blackbird has become a town-bird; and people spread dried ant-eggs, chopped meat, and maggots, and make a nest for it near their vine-covered windows. It stays there also during the winter.

And what about the East? Why are children ever brought up in such a way that they seize a stone directly they see a Blackbird?

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THE BLACKBIRD.

In February our English Blackbird will be thinking of mating. We are all familiar with the usual nesting-site which is chosen—evergreen, thick bushes, and hedgerows—but it has been known to build successfully and to lay its eggs, in the heart of what is known as the thousand-headed cabbage. The young of the early broods sometimes help the parents to feed the young of the second brood of the season.

The Blackbird is commoner in the South than the Thrush, and is as a rule more popular with the country people than the latter bird. Gardeners look upon it as a terrible thief, but the good it does in feeding on moths, beetles, other insects and larvæ, caterpillars, cockchafer grubs, quite counterbalances the harm it does in taking fruit. A well-known Zoologist says, “Short-sighted agriculturists kill the Blackbirds that, at the rate of sixty an hour, destroy their worst foes, or working as they do from early dawn to dusk six hundred in the course of a single day, which, given ten Blackbirds, raises the total of vermin put out of the way to six thousand per diem, against which a few dozens of strawberries should count as the dust in the balance. But the horticulturist sees the Blackbirds pick a raspberry now and again, and he does not see the same bird kill a dozen or two of grubs or snails for each morsel of fruit he may help himself to.” Another, a Fruit-grower, says that during one hard winter when some of his fruit trees were killed, and in some places the Thrush tribe were all but annihilated, snails were a scourge in the following summer, and gooseberry bushes were stripped by caterpillars innumerable. This is the testimony of the late Joseph Witherspoon, a well-known fruit grower. He goes on to say, “When gardens are surrounded by woods, it is only by a liberal use of nets that any reasonable portion of fruit can be saved, as swarms of Blackbirds and Thrushes will eat every fruit as it ripens. I provide nesting-places, and thus have my birds so near my caterpillars, and so far from house morsels that they eat the pest greedily; but fruit crops being thereby secured, we must next draw on our ingenuity to prevent the birds taking more than their fair tithe.”

In winter Blackbirds feed principally on snails, the shells of which they break by raising them in the bill and dashing them against a hard stone, just as Thrushes do. But for these birds, we should be quite unable to save our gardens from the wholesale ravages of those enemies to plant life.

The Blackbird, of course, belongs to the Thrush family, and its relatives the Fieldfare, the Redwing, and the Mistle Thrush all have the same habits of feeding. They all devour snails, slugs, worms, and insects, and in the autumn take wild berries. The Fieldfares are only with us in winter, and they seek their food over the fields and pasture lands in mild weather, and eat the berries when frost comes, and snow covers the ground. The Redwing is a delicate bird, and often comes to grief in our country during a hard winter. The Mistle Thrush is with us all the year, and its food consists, not of mistletoe as used to be supposed, but of the berries of the yew, holly, mountain ash, hawthorn, etc., worms, snails, and insects, and, it must be confessed, of a little fruit occasionally.

The male bird is pure black, the eyes bordered with a fine golden yellow. The beak is also of this colour. Legs blackish. The female is dark-brown, chin whitish, breast a shabby brown with dark spots, beak and legs brown. The male does not attain his brilliant blackness until his third year. It builds its nest in bushes and thick foliage, where it is well hidden. It is composed chiefly of moss, fine twigs, and tufts of hair; and is strong and durable. The clutch consists of four to six eggs of pale green, speckled with pale rust-red and violet.

An evening lyric.

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THE GOLDEN ORIOLE.

The Oriole.
(Oriolus galbula.)

This bird is noisy in the spring and the early summer, its voice, which is full and deep like the note of the reed-pipe, fills the edge of the woods and the great gardens. “Next to the call of the Cuckoo, the flute-like note of the Oriole most enlivens the early summer woods and so contributes to the perfect harmony of a sunny spring-tide day; ‘deelee-adid-leen,’ or ‘ditleo, deega, ditleeo’ it sounds, always clear and joyous out of the bushy treetops.” In Hungary, it endeavours to lure away boys from too close proximity to the nest, by the cry, “kell-cy dió, fiu?” which means “Boys do you want some nuts?”

Except at the fruit season, the Oriole is a very useful bird, and there is no kind of caterpillar that it will not pick up. In seasons when there are a great many cockchafers, it carries on a perfect war of extermination on these unhappy creatures. It is unfortunately true, however, that when the summer fruit is ripe—it departs for warmer regions before autumn—it troubles itself little about chafers, but turns its attention to cherries, apricots, morellas, and early pears. Still the good it does in destroying insects, is much greater than the harm it does otherwise, and therefore we will be indulgent to it. Besides, its lovely colour is a delight to the eye.

This Oriole comes annually to Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, but can only be called a visitor to our country, although nests have been found occasionally in some counties, especially in Kent. It is not unfrequently noticed in the Southern and Eastern counties of England.

Unfortunately collectors cannot resist adding this beautifully plumaged bird to their lists. I have watched it myself in Southern Germany and Hungary. It is not at all shy, and one of the most beautiful things in bird-life I have ever seen was a number of Orioles flitting from tree to tree in an orchard situated amongst vineyards on the hilly banks of the Danube in Baranya. The black on the wing-coverts and tail-feathers is in striking contrast with the golden-yellow of the greater part of the plumage. The male has a very flute-like call, hence its French name of Loriot. The female is a devoted mother. Where these birds have been protected on private estates in our country they have reared broods successfully; it would surely add to the beauty of our rural landscapes, if they were encouraged and protected.

The Oriole is rather larger than the Thrush. The male is a beautiful golden-yellow; wings and tail black except the end of the tail which is yellow. A black stripe passes across the eyes from the base of the beak; the beak is a reddish flesh colour, the eye blood-red. In the female and the young, all the parts which in the male are golden-yellow are greenish, the underparts a greyish-white with darker stripes. The nest is quite a work of art. It is always placed in the base of a fork of a branch, and is fastened to the bough with fine root fibre and bast; it is lined with any fine soft material, even cob-webs are sometimes found in it. The clutch usually consists of five eggs, which are white with a few very prominent dark specks. It also nests in gardens.

The Robin.
(Eríthacus rubécula.)

The Robin is one of the cleverest courtiers. It alights on the ground, alternately appears and vanishes for a few moments, then suddenly stands still, makes a low bow, droops its wings, raises its tail, then looks up at one with shining eyes, full of confidence, as if to say: “I trust you.” It hunts beetles with great energy, and does not even recoil before the slug, still less before a small earthworm, which the lordly hedge-sparrow would not touch for all the world.

Sometimes it flies on to a high branch, keeping quite still, except that now and then it makes a bow and raises its tail; then all at once it flies to the ground, pounces on the awaited booty, returns to its bough and devours its prey. Its song is beautiful, exquisite, rivalling, but not excelling, that of the Lark. The bird sits quietly and sings, and is in no hurry to cease. Its cry is a light piercing “see.”

It is a bird which may be said to become tame almost immediately when caught. It likes to move at liberty about a room. Poor people with us like to keep it, for it catches the flies in the room, the spiders in the corners or even on the bed; or any other moving thing. This bonny bird deserves every protection.

The ways of the “cheery little Ruddock,” as Shakespeare calls him, are so well known that it is not necessary

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THE ROBIN.

to add much more to Mr. Herman’s graphic description. Perhaps it is not known to all our readers, however, that a great number of Robins migrate to our country every autumn from the Continent, whilst some of our home-bred birds leave our shores. As a rule the red on the breast of the former is brighter than with those bred here. There are, however, as we know, individual birds which will attach themselves to a home where they have been treated kindly, for a number of successive winters, entering the open window and feeding with the children.

The Robin has three different styles of song, one the gay, joyous outpouring which delights us on sunny days, then the autumnal dirge, which proclaims the approach of cold stormy days, and is often uttered just before it leaves us for warmer quarters; and again, the long drawn-out cries, notes of distress, when some prowling cat or other enemy approaches its nest.

Robins, as we all know, devour great quantities of worms and insects. It is a most valuable species to the gardener and fruit grower, for, except under the stress of thirst, it lives only on animal food.

The Robin needs little description. The whole of the upper side, including the back of the head and crown, is olive brown, the under-parts dingy white; throat, breast, and brow a beautiful rose-red with us,—in some districts more chestnut-red,—whence the bird is called the Redbreast. There are plainly discernable oblique stripes of a lighter shade on the wings. Eyes dark brown and large; legs dark and strong; beak finely pointed; plumage fine, soft, and loose. The nest is always placed low down, in the thickest bushes, in hollow trees, holes, and crevices. It is well and delicately built; the outer covering consists of dry leaves, the inner of thickly woven moss, rootlets, hair, and feathers. It is difficult to find. The eggs usually number five, occasionally seven; they are of a yellowish olive-brown speckled with rust colour, the speckling being closer in a ring round the thicker end. Two or even three broods are produced in the year.

“The Robin and the Wren
Are God Almighty’s cock and hen.
Him that harries their nest,
Never shall his soul have rest.”

Grahame sang—

“Dearer the redbreast’s note,
That mourns the fading year in Scotia’s vales,
Than Philomel’s where spring is ever new;
More dear the redbreast’s sober suit,
So like the withered leaflet, than the glare
Of gaudy wings that make the Iris dim.”

The Wren.
(Troglodytes párvulus.)

The Wren is certainly the most lively of little birds. With its confiding nature, especially in winter, it approaches close to men, and with lightning speed dashes into the openings and gaps in the wood stack. It is visible only for a moment at a time, and, with its little upright tail, its nodding and see-sawing, its appearing and disappearing, its popping in and out, it disposes even the most morose persons to cheerfulness. It slips through the prickliest bunch of blackthorn like the nimblest mouse, and has scarcely vanished on one side, before it appears on the other, shoots about like an arrow and is quickly lost in the neighbouring hedge. It does not fly far. If it finds itself in difficulties in the open, it slips into a mouse-hole. It feeds on the tiniest, and most hidden insects. It finds the smallest spiders, caterpillars, chrysalises, and grubs, which it wants, with skill and inexhaustible energy. It is found both in summer and winter with us.

This little bird has also its song, which is louder than might be expected, suggesting somewhat that of the Canary. A listener to whom it is not known, is astonished if he happens to discover the tiny vocalist. It sings always in an open place. Its cry is “Zrr’s Zezerr.”

A Lancashire naturalist writes of “the irrepressible vitality of the Wrens which prompts them to fling a song in the face of winter whenever they get a chance.” A chiding, chattering song it is; flung out also in advance of the intruding footsteps that disturb the

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THE WREN.

privacy of the hedge-row at the foot of which the bold, pert little creatures are seeking their food. In old nests in the thatch and holes in the walls, they find warmth and shelter during the winter, a little batch of them together. They are supposed to build special nests, “cocks’ nests,” they are called. A Staffordshire acquaintance tells how, being curious as to the number sleeping in one of these which he had previously noted in a grotto in his grounds, he and gardener surprised them one night by the light of a lanthorn, and no fewer than six Wrens fluttered out of the nest.

Another friend who was fishing near Brambridge, in Hampshire, tells me that he knows one such nest under the thatch of an under-keeper’s cottage, and he has seen five or six enter this in the early twilight of a winter evening. On two different occasions, when a dogcart sent to the keeper’s cottage at which he puts up, was waiting for him to drive to his day’s fishing, a Wren settled on the back of the standing horse, near the cottage door, and remained there for a few minutes, as though enjoying the warmth coming through the creature’s coat.

In Ireland every Wren that can be seen is hunted down and killed on St. Stephen’s Day; and a Surrey man tells me that up to twenty-five years ago he has witnessed the same persecution in the home counties. Tradition says that it is due in Ireland to the fact of a party of Wrens hopping over a drum’s head, and thereby disturbing a sentinel, when a party of Irish were on the point of surprising their enemies.

Shakespeare writes of “the Wren with little quill,” in Bottom’s song of birds; and again, in “Cymbeline,” Imogen says, “if there be yet left in Heaven as small a drop of pity as a Wren’s eye.” The comparisons drawn by old-fashioned country folk are often very quaint. I remember an old lady who, if she were asked to take more of some dish at table, often said, “Just a bit the size of a bee’s knee,” to the great edification of us youngsters. The song of the Wren is always the same: a few separate notes, a trill, a rattle and a trill, while its call-note has been likened to the clicking of a watch while it is being wound up. There is no more winsome picture of bird-life than this tiny creature dotting about, with little tail erect and fan-like, in quest of its insect food among the dry bramble leaves, so vivacious in its movements that no camera could ever do it justice.

The Wren is almost the smallest of European birds. There is not much to be said about the colouring of its feathers, which are the brown of the tree trunks, with beautiful thick oblique stripes of a darker shade. The colour is lighter over the eyes, on throat and breast. The tail feathers are especially fine, and thickly striped. The beak is slightly depressed, fine and sharp as a needle; the brown legs relatively strong. The nest is placed under the cover of felled boughs, between roots, in secluded corners of abandoned huts, which it can slip into. The nest is comparatively large, with a spacious entrance, and consists of a foundation of leaves and fine twigs, within which is a layer of moss, and again within that a mass of smooth, finely broken feathers. The clutch is six, sometimes, but rarely, eight small white eggs, with fine blood-red speckles.

1

2

1. Wren’s Egg. 2. Great Bustard’s Egg.

Comparative sizes.

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THE HAWFINCH.

The Hawfinch.
(Coccothraustes vulgaris.)

This is not a true migrant, for it is only in severe winters that it seeks a warmer climate. In autumn it comes from the hills, down into the plain, to the neighbourhood of human habitations, where it leads a restless life. It is timid, and easily startled; while flying it utters its shrill cry “seu, seu, seu.” The striking bulk of its beak indicates the strength it has to use in obtaining its food; and it is so, for the kernels of the hardest cherry stones are its favourite dainty.

It flies in small flocks, and when these light on a cherry tree, they are quite quiet, not a sound is heard, except the cracking of the hard shells by the strong bills, which are specially formed for the work. The cherry stone lies in the lower mandible, the upper one being ribbed and so perfectly adapted for cracking the stone. This bird breaks with ease a fruit stone, which a full-grown man can only crush with the heavy pressure of his boot heel. Towards spring, when there are no more fruit stones to be found, it attacks and destroys the young leaf buds.

This bird is not very commonly found in Hungary.

The number of Hawfinches has been steadily increasing in England of late years. This is probably due to Bird Protection, which is so much more enforced than it used to be. The young are fed chiefly on caterpillars, but unfortunately they soon take to eating peas, which brings them into bad repute with gardeners, and numbers of young birds are shot and buried in gardens where peas are grown. It is pleasant, on the other hand, to watch them amongst the wild plums and sloes and crab-trees in one of our old hedgerows, but is not an easy matter as they are so suspicious. In districts where many peas are grown for the market, these birds are a perfect plague. In Germany this bird is called Kernbeisser (kernel biter) because of the ease with which it cracks cherry stones with its powerful bill. With us it eats the seeds of the horn-beam and other trees, beechmast, haws, etc.

Only one brood is raised in a season, but if the first nest is meddled with, another one is made.

In “Within an Hour of London Town” the writer interviews a gardener on the subject of Hawfinches. We give it here as it stands.

“What do I want with the gun? Hawfinches; they hawfinches in my peas!” he grunts.

As he leaves the tool-house I quietly follow, and place myself with him behind a low faggot-stack which stands in a line with the peas.

“Jest hear ’em! ain’t it cruel!” he whispers. “I hope the whole roost of ’em may git in a lump so that I ken blow ’em to rags an’ tatters. If you didn’t know what it was you’d think some old cow was grindin’ up them peas. Ain’t they scrunchin’ of ’em! All right now, I ken see you, you grindin’ varmints! Now for it!” Bang!

Three birds fall—young ones in their first plumage, which has a strong likeness to that of a greenfinch.

After picking the birds up, we examine the pea-rows. There is no doubt as to the mischief the birds have done. The old fellow’s own expression, “grinding up,” is the best to convey any idea of the destruction that has taken place. Where the birds have been, nothing remains but the stringy portion of the pods of his precious “Marrer fats.”

There is enormous power in the bill of the Hawfinch, when the size of the bird is considered. The pea-pod is simply run through the bill, and the contents are squeezed out in a state of green pulp and swallowed.

“Varmints I call ’em, an’ nothin’ else,” is the remark my old friend makes, as he goes towards the tool-house and takes from a shelf a hen Hawfinch and two young ones, the former probably the mother of some of the birds that are about, if not, indeed, of the whole brood, her plumage showing that she has been sitting.

“People wants me to git ’em full-feathered old birds for stuffin’, but bless ye, ye might as well try to ketch weasels asleep. A cock Hawfinch is about one o’ the most artful customers as I knows on. The only time to get a clip at ’em is in winter, under the plum and damson trees. They gits there after the stones, any amount o’ stones lays jest under the ground, an’ they picks ’em out an’ cracks them easy. I gits plenty o’ young ones when peas are about—the old ones lets ’em come, but they take precious good care they don’t come off the tops o’ the trees themselves afore they knows there ain’t nobody about. Some says they’re scarce birds. I knows they ain’t—leastways not when my peas are ready to gather.”

The Hawfinch is seven inches in length and has a thick head, short tail, and very strong bill. Crown and cheeks cinnamon brown, neck greyish, mantle chestnut. There is a black patch on the throat, the base of the bill, and the eye, and a white patch on the wing. The tail is white in the middle and darker at the sides, the underparts are greyish with a tinge of violet. The middle wing feathers are serrated in wavy curves, and look as if clipt with scissors, the bill is exceptionally strong, very thick at the base, and sharp at the point. It lays four to six eggs of a pale green colour slightly speckled. The nest is well-built and is placed in fruit trees, and in open spaces in the woods, at a height of from six feet upwards.

The moral of the story of the gardener and the Hawfinch is that the gardener must protect his peas.

The Chaffinch.
(Fringilla coelebs.)

The Chaffinch is a useful bird, and is also an ornament to the woods and gardens, not only by its lovely plumage, its friendliness, and its movements, but especially by its clear voice which rings like a silver bell. Its call-note is “fink-fink,” and it has a short, cheery little song. Through the whole laying and brooding season it is busy with the destructive grubs and insects, especially the little caterpillars and tiny beetles which destroy the buds on the trees. When the seeds are ripe it lives entirely on them, but almost exclusively on those which it is able to pick up from the ground. It is true that when a considerable number of these birds visit a vegetable garden they do a great deal of harm, but this is outweighed by the good they do.

In very severe winters, it comes either in flocks or small parties with other starving companions—Yellow-Hammers, Siskins, Crested Larks, and Sparrows—into the villages, and even towns, and picks over the heaps of street refuse and gutter sweepings.

It is still common with us in Hungary.

This Chaffinch is one of our common British species in winter, although in some seasons their numbers are unaccountably smaller than in others. It was called cœlebs, or bachelor, because of a partial separation of the sexes which takes place during the winter. Large flocks arrive from the Continent at that season on our East coast, whilst others come from the North of our islands to spread themselves inland. Unfortunately the

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THE CHAFFINCH.

Chaffinch is the favourite bird in the shops of the Seven Dials in London, and before the Bird Protection Acts came into force, many a country lane has been cleared of Chaffinches to the great disgust of many of the residents in the neighbourhood.

In Germany this is called the Buchfink—Beechfinch—because of its fondness for beech woods. In the Thurigen Forest they have come to our table like Sparrows for crumbs. It frequents our suburban gardens.

The Chaffinch is a delightful bird in garden and wood. The full-grown male has a broad white stripe and a smaller yellow stripe on the wings; the two outer feathers of the tail are large, with white wedge-shaped spots, which give the bird in flight a very variegated appearance. Crown and neck are bluish-grey; brow black; cheeks and under parts brownish-red; wings and tail black, except the white spots. The female and young are more plainly coloured; otherwise, like the male. Its nest is built among the high tree-tops, sometimes quite in the open, and is made of tufts of hair, moss, root-fibres, wool, and hair, very skilfully constructed. It lays five or six eggs with dark dots and fine markings, but occasionally of a uniform colour.

Chaffinches at the stream.

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THE BULLFINCH.

The Bullfinch.
(Pyrrhula europœa.)

The Bullfinch lives in summer in the mountains, and descends in late autumn to the plains, where it meets its far bigger relatives who come to us for the winter from the Far North, and joins company with them in wood and grove and garden, even in the immediate neighbourhood of dwellings. When the sunshine glistens on frost and snow, and these splendidly coloured birds settle on a dry bough, the scene presents a lovely winter landscape the impression of which is heightened by its melancholy subdued cry, “deeu,” or “beut, beut.” In captivity it learns to sing tunes. It is easily caught, for it is incautious.

In winter it visits plants, choosing the young wild vines, buds, seeds of all kinds, berries including those of the alder, and the wayfaring tree; it does not attack weeds. In very severe winters, when starving, it will also do mischief among the buds of the fruit-trees.

It is frequently seen in winter.

The Bullfinch has been causing much dissension in and near an East Anglian district where I have lately been staying. A net had been placed over the gooseberry bushes to protect the blossom, and much indignation was caused early one morning by the sight of three lusty Bullfinches within the meshes, and a quantity of promising blossom on the ground. “There would be no gooseberries whatever, this season; it was positively unbearable; sentiment was utterly misplaced.” The three birds were caught by the hand within the net, two were put in a cage in the stable, and one was exposed in a small cage on the top of the garden wall to attract others to the like fate. The gardeners were inexorable. Madame was irritated by the sight of the rifled twigs. “And all last Sunday was spent, by the wife and me,” said the gardener, “shying stones at the rascals among the trees in our own garden.” The next day a market-gardener shot no less than six Bullfinches on his grounds.

As a rule, my friends on this estate, are extremely good to birds, and they attract them by placing breeding boxes, and supplying food in winter; but these sturdy rascals find no quarter. I pleaded hard for them, but, I fear, without result. The gooseberry blossom was certainly nearly all destroyed, but it was in a quest for the destructive larvæ of the winter moths, which make their appearance in the early spring and eat the not yet expanded buds. A fruit grower has stated that he allowed the Bullfinches to eat as much as they pleased; the crop of fruit has usually been as good as if the birds had not done any disbudding, and when, by a rare chance, the trees had borne no fruit at all, he knew it was because the trees required clearing, and the next year the crop would be all the finer. In some cases the tree appears to be entirely disbudded, and still fruit has appeared.

It is only for a short period that the Bullfinches visit the fruit trees. During the rest of the year they eat the seeds of harmful weeds—dock, thistle, groundsel, plantain; and one authority states that a single Bullfinch has been known to devour 238 seeds of the common spear-thistle in twenty minutes! A writer in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society say that he has seen “a small party of these birds eagerly devouring the seeds of the large sow-thistle.” A little fruit more or less in a season, in one’s own domain, is a small matter in comparison with the vast amount of noxious weeds destroyed on our fields.

The Bullfinch is an ornament in a garden. Crown, wings, and tail are shining black, and the same colour surrounds the bill; mantle a beautiful ashen-grey, rump and under tail cover snow white, breast and under-parts a fine red. In the female the under-part is ashen-grey. Bill short but very thick, at the end curved and hooked. The clutch is composed of five green eggs with purple and grey speckles. It nests in the fir woods of the mountains, at a height of about six yards; the nest is made of thin twigs and is lined with hair.

The Goldfinch (Carduélis élegans) is so well known in Great Britain that it requires little description. Unhappily for the “Proud Tailor,” as he is called in the Midlands, he has always been a favourite cage-bird, and on the South Downs Goldfinches have been captured in thousands at the times of migration, to be miserably caged in dozens for the bird dealers.

They are birds which found their food on the waste lands where large thistles used to grow, and with the improvement of these waste lands the thistles have gone, and the Goldfinches with them. Increased Bird Protection is, however, causing more Goldfinches to breed amongst us, which is a good thing for agriculture, this bird’s food consisting, as it does, of the seeds of the thistle, knap-weed, groundsel, dock, and other plants. The Goldfinch is considered to be one of the most useful of all our birds, feeding, as it does, on the seeds of noxious plants of which there is a succession all the year round. It ought to be encouraged in orchards, where it feeds its young on small caterpillars, and destroys great numbers of other insects for them.

Its relative, the Greenfinch (Ligurinus chlóris), a common and well-known species everywhere, is not quite so valuable a bird to the agriculturist as the above species. It is well known that it steals much swede and turnip seed, still it devours quantities of the seeds of such weeds as dandelion, corn marigold, charlock, wild vetch, etc., and the parents capture immense quantities of moths, flies, caterpillars, and other pests for their young.

A Feast of Thistle Seed.

The Yellow Hammer.
(Emberiza citrinella.)

This is a pretty, cheerful, friendly bird, that lives in gardens, thickets, or the outer part of the woods. Its chief distinguishing characteristic is that it loves to associate with other kinds of birds, especially the Fieldfares, with which it is most intimate. During the brooding time and before the seeds are ripe it lives chiefly on grubs and insects, being particularly fond of the smooth caterpillars, which the other birds do not much relish. It also likes seeds, and rather the floury than the oily ones. In winter it flies about the fields with other birds, and destroys the seed of the runners, and the weeds that shoot up through the snow—and is thus doubly of use to the farmer.

In a severe winter it comes with other feathered visitors into the inhabited districts. At the weekly market it appears with Finches, Crested Larks, and Sparrows, and picks up the oats and other grain which are lying about, showing little timidity in doing so. It has a dipping flight. It enlivens the country-side in spring and summer with its song.

It is very numerous with us in Hungary.

This bird is resident and common in most parts of Great Britain. From morning till evening it sings the same song all through the spring and summer; it has been transcribed as “Little bit of bread and no che-eese.” The form and hardness of its bill, proclaims the bird to be a grain eater, and of course it will pick up a great deal of corn, where it is to be found, yet both

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YELLOW HAMMER OR BUNTING.

old and young birds live upon insects largely, as well as the seeds of baneful weeds, and it has been estimated with us that the good it does far outweighs any harm which the farmer suffers through it.

The Yellow Bunting, well known under its universal name of Yellow Hammer, says “A Son of the Marshes,” “is a very handsome bird and a very common one. The plumage is splashed with rich yellows, warm red-browns and darker streaks; this is his nesting suit. In winter the colouring is not quite so gay. Where farms or farm-buildings show, you will be sure to find Yellow Hammers round about them. Stand just inside the stable, after the horses have left it in the morning for their work in the fields, and look at the birds gathered round the open door, all busily picking up the grains of oats that have fallen from the nose-bags. A fine mid-April morning suits the bird to perfection, for he droops his wings, spreads his tail out, and glides here and there pecking up as he goes, in the most dainty manner. Then, for a time, he visits the trees.

The lowering of the wings, until they almost touch the ground, and the spreading out of the tail, is a peculiar trait seen more or less in the whole of the Bunting family.

Trees and fields are necessary to the well-being of the Yellow-Hammer, which may be considered one of the farmer’s friends; for at certain seasons he, as well as others of his family, live in the fields, only leaving them to rest, or roost in the trees that surround them. Innocent as the creature is in all its ways and means of living, superstition has linked its name with evil. I have been assured, in the most solemn manner, that the badger, the toad, and the Yellow Hammer are all in league with the Prince of Darkness.”

The Cirl Bunting, often called the French Yellow Hammer, which is distinguished from the commoner bird by the dark throat gorget, is more numerous at times than it is supposed to be. In fact it is becoming fairly common as a resident species.

The Yellow Hammer is the size of a Sparrow but longer and more elegant. Throat, underparts, and crown of the full-grown male, golden-yellow; mantle rust-red merging into green. The bill is peculiar, the lower half is compressed, and the upper half is so formed that it is adapted for shelling seeds. Its well built nest is placed low down among the bushes. It lays five eggs which have dark markings on a light ground.

The Turtle Dove.
(Turtur communis.)

The Turtle Dove has a pretty, dainty walk, an uncommonly rapid flight, and is altogether a beautiful pleasant cleanly bird. The pairs are devoted to each other. Their cooing, “turr, turr,” is pleasing, gentle, and rich. It is a harmonious sound which makes a soothing impression on the mind. It is no wonder that, from its whole nature, the Turtle Dove has been chosen as the symbol of faithful love. Popular sentiment is shown in the widespread belief, that if his mate is taken from him, the male bird dies of grief—or that in sorrow for his loss he never again sits on a green bough. The Turtle Dove loves the border of a wood, or the trees, and rows of poplars that skirt a corn-field. It likes to be near clear water to which the birds come in flocks to drink. Its food consists almost entirely of seeds, chiefly those of weeds. That is why this bird is so useful to the farmer. It does, indeed, sometimes take toll of the grains, in the corn-field, when they have not been properly covered by the harrow. Then, indeed, the Doves so fill their crops, that bare places do not fail to appear on the ground. But this bad behaviour lasts only for a short time; besides it is not very bad, for they eat chiefly the superfluous grains. It is quite different with regard to the seeds of weeds, which they destroy the whole summer through in great quantities. A student of bird-lore once opened the crop of a Dove in midsummer, and found in it 1942 seeds, of which all but one were the seeds of the poisonous willow-leaved wolfs-milk—the one exception being also the seed of a noxious

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THE TURTLE DOVE.

weed. There can be no doubt that this bird does more good than harm—and we will, therefore, encourage and protect it.

It is still common in Hungary.

It is common in some parts of England, but is very local in its visitations and is only a summer visitor. A “Son of the Marshes,” says, “It is common enough in some parts of Surrey. I have seen from ten to thirty of them rise from the standing oats, or from the long grass in the hayfield, at one flight. One of my friends shot a couple as they were rising from the oats, and opened their crops. Not a single grain of oat did he find in them. They were full of a little vetch that grew abundantly at the roots of the oats, or, to express it in true rustic agricultural phrase, ‘at the stam o’ the whuts.’ I was with the man at the time; after that examination of the birds’ crops he declared he would never shoot another pigeon.”

Another member of this family, the beautiful Ring Dove or Wood Pigeon (Colúmba palumbus), called Queest in Ireland, and Cushat in the North, because of its soft notes, is a bird that we could ill-spare from our woods and coppices. It is, however, an undeniable fact that the members of this voracious species have increased of late years in a manner which is alarming to the hard-working farmer. Many writers have taken up the cudgels in defence of these birds on account mainly of the amount of noxious weeds, wild mustard seed, and leaves they devour, but, as that great naturalist, the late Lord Lilford, wrote, in sending me a little box of the contents of the crops of three birds extracted by himself: “In a highly-farmed country these weeds hardly exist; and,” he added, “in my opinion his good deeds are in no way comparable to the damage done. I have frequently, when shooting Wood Pigeons in the winter months, seen their crops burst on coming down dead from a height, from distension with hearts, acorns, barley, and turnip-tops.” The contents of the three birds’ crops sent to me were 129 peas, 85 beans, and some broken vegetable matter.

The amount of good or of harm done by this species varies, as in the case of other birds, according to the weather and the scarcity or plenty of their natural food about the woods and the lands skirting these. Considering the numbers that breed in our midst the farmers might well thin these, and send a better supply of birds to the market.

The Turtle Dove is smaller than the Pigeon, slenderer, and it has a more stately form. Crown and brow are a beautiful grey, cheeks and ear parts flushed with rust colour. On each side of the neck it has an ornament of black and white dots arranged in rows. The mantle is ashen-grey with dark specks which have a reddish border. The rump is ashen-grey with a shade of rust colour. Throat and breast reddish, melting into violet; the under-parts are white. The wings are black, shaded with slate colour; tail slate colour; four, at least, of the tail feathers have white tips. Beak black, the irides fiery red; legs blood-red. The young birds are of soberer colour. The nest is placed in thickets and is well hidden. It is composed of little branches and twigs, very lightly put together—indeed so loose and open is it, that the eggs and the sitting hen can be seen through it. It lays two white eggs.

CHAPTER VII.
SOME WILDFOWL.

The Lapwing.
(Vanéllus vulgáris.)

The reedlands and meadow-lands, moist fields, marsh and lake districts, would be desolate and lifeless without the beautiful Lapwings. They wheel and flap, and twist, and wheel again, on the large open uplands, so that their varied plumage almost dazzles the eye, and when several pairs frequent the same field they embellish air and sky. When the nesting time arrives the whole neighbourhood resounds with the call which the bird utters while in flight. The call-note sounds like “Keevit,” from which, of course, its name is taken. The pairing note sounds like “Ka kerkhoit, kewit, kewit, kewit, kewit.” It can run well and quickly on the ground. If a dog or a crow approaches the nest it flies at it with a loud, despairing cry, “Chrait,” and strikes at the enemy with its beak; if a man shows himself it practices all kinds of cunning tricks. It flies along near the ground, repeatedly stopping, and so lures him away from the nest. The eggs of the Lapwing are much sought after. Its usual food consists of worms, the various kinds of snails, chafers, grasshoppers. In autumn it covers the fields and meadows in great flocks like a cloud, and destroys the pests of agriculture. It departs in winter. It is recommended for protection both on account of its beauty and its usefulness.

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THE LAPWING.

Sir Herbert Maxwell, writing last autumn, 1908, in the Pall Mall Gazette, after referring to another species, says: “There is another bird equally industrious in ridding the farm of insect pests and with no fruit or grain eating propensities whatever, which we allow each year to be slain in increasing numbers. Already in poulterers’ shops, not of the first class, may be seen strings of Lapwings exposed for sale, and this will continue till far on in next spring. May I make my annual protest against this mischievous traffic? Great Britain has held aloof from the Convention of Continental States formed for the protection of birds useful to agriculture. Her Government decided upon this attitude on the ground that Parliament had already effected by legislation most of the objects which the Convention has in view. But the continued slaughter of Lapwings is altogether at variance with—nay, is in direct opposition to—the main provisions of the Convention. It is true that powers have been conferred upon County Councils enabling them to prohibit the killing, capture or exposure for sale, of Lapwings or any other kind of bird at any or every season; but so long as these powers are not exercised this senseless slaughter will go on. For, unhappily, there is a ready market for the carcases of these useful birds. People whose palates are so gross as to be gratified by the flesh of carnivorous birds eat Lapwings greedily enough. Why not compel them to be content with their eggs? seeing that every Lapwing destroyed means the preservation of hundreds of noxious insects, such as leather grubs, wireworms, click-beetles, caterpillars, and such like.”

In England drainage and the improvement of waste lands have caused its numbers to diminish, still it holds its own on most of our high-lying moorlands. In Scotland it is plentiful, and is even on the increase in many of the northern districts. Unfortunately, its eggs are in great demand. In Ireland this is not the case; the eggs are not sought after as they are in England, but the birds are netted in numbers for eating.

The Lapwing is twelve inches in length. It can be immediately recognised by the long pointed crest which begins on the crown, extending backwards and being slightly curved upwards at the end, resembling a good deal a waxed military moustache. This is black, as are also the brow, throat and breast; the under parts are quite white, the rump a brilliant rust-colour; the base of the tail white; the end of the tail is adorned with a broad black border. Mantle shining, iridescent black. Legs red, eyes brown and bright; beak shaped like a thick awl. Such is the appearance of the males; the female bird and its young are much plainer in colour, and have a smaller crest. The nest is placed in the reed-beds and in shallow parts of the marshes; it is simply a scratched out hollow bedded with dry chaff. The clutch usually consists of four pear-shaped eggs, which have olive-brown spots and flecks on an olive-green ground. The young leave the nest as soon as they are hatched, sometimes even carrying part of the shell on their feathers.

The Common Curlew.
(Numenius arquata.)

This bird takes up its residence with us in Hungary as a visitor only on its way during the long migratory journey, which extends from the northernmost parts of our hemisphere to the Nile.

Its habits are most varied, for it stays sometimes on the flat sea shore, sometimes on the border of the desert, sometimes on a rocky river-bank; with us it settles on pasture land, fallow fields, marshy flats, and lowlands. It destroys everywhere immense numbers of grasshoppers and beetles. Crickets are the food it likes best, but it also eats snails, and sometimes even frogs. It is, therefore, of great service to the farmer, more especially as it frequents and cleanses the fields in large numbers. It does not require much protection for it is an extremely shy bird, and he must be a clever marksman who can bring it down with a shot. But the sportsmen of the lowlands are even more cunning than the Curlew. At certain places they lure the birds with a decoy—a bird dried in the oven which is placed on the lake edge—and a pair of Curlews are almost certain to fall victims to the ruse.

Its call-note is audible at a considerable distance, floating pleasantly, something like a modulated human whistle: “Klowit!” or “Taue taue,” and “Tlouid tlouid!” Shepherds believe that when this cry is heard it foretells wind.

The Common Curlew is to be found in Great Britain, wherever there are sand and mud-flats, and rocks covered

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THE COMMON CURLEW.

with sea-weed left high and dry at ebb-tide. It is with us during the entire year, for when the old birds go inland in spring, the young birds take their place and remain for the summer. As long as the young birds remain on the moors and pastures, their food consists of berries, insects, spiders, worms, and snails, and they then become excellent for the table; but after feeding near the sea, they become unpalatable.

Its plumage, mottled, speckled, and cut up with broken tones of brown grey white and light red, makes it look like a Plover when squatted, unless its long scythe-shaped bill can be detected,—a most difficult matter when in that position. It is wary in the extreme; morning, noon, and night on the alert. That it is brought to bay at times is certainly no fault of its own, but is mainly due to its surroundings.

The Curlew is a most interesting bird, see it when you may, on some upland with the sheep, in the grass meadows, or on the shore, when huge dark storm-clouds roll in from open water, a gale blowing, and the white parts of its plumage showing like large snowflakes as the bird and its companions are driven shrieking and wailing in all directions, or in the calm, still days of early autumn.

“From a fishing smack,” says “A Son of the Marshes,” I have watched it probing for lug-worms, running nimbly or walking sedately on the mingled sand and ooze.

Curlews allow themselves to be blown, or drifted only, when waiting over some favourite feeding-ground, before the tide has sufficiently left for them to feed. I have repeatedly watched mobs of them, waiting for the tide, when a heavy gale has been blowing. The birds know that their food is just below them so they merely flap to and fro and put up with the inconvenience of being blown about. At any other time they would shoot clean through in the teeth of the gale. Only those who have seen a frightened Curlew go up or down a creek lined with shore-shooters, shrieking as it flies, can form any idea of the bird’s swiftness. I have known a bird of this kind “fly the gauntlet” for three miles, and there has been bang! bang! bang! from every shooter that it passed, good shots too. It escaped the lot without being touched. Swift flyers at all times, their ordinary speed is as nothing compared with what it is when they are frightened.”

The Curlew is 24 inches in length. It has a long scythe-shaped bill, a long neck, and long, waders’ legs. The plumage is marked with hemp-seed speckling, the specks somewhat elongated, here and there arrow-shaped. Tail white, slightly tinged with brown; every feather has brown bars. Eye brown. It does not usually nest with us, but is more a spring and autumn visitor; yet it sometimes happens that a pair of these birds build and rear their young. In its northern home it builds on the ground, on the moorlands. It lays four pear-shaped eggs, as large as those of the farmyard duck, of an olive green colour, with dark speckling.

The Common Redshank.
(Totanus cálidris.)

The Redshank enlivens whatever place in the reed-land or marsh it happens to nest in by its voice and its varied plumage. It is a beautiful sight when it spreads out its wings, rises into the air and stretches out its long legs. Its resounding whistle is pleasant to the ear. It runs well, wades in water, and in case of need can swim. When the young ones are hatched, anyone approaching the nest should be moved by the wailing cry which it utters in anxiety for its young, though it has a thousand ways of luring people away from the nest and of misleading them, when it takes the trouble to do so. With a plaintive cry it settles on the ground, makes all kinds of bows and curtseys, utters its flute-like note, then begins to run, as if to say, “Follow me, man!” When it has come out of the immediate neighbourhood of the nest it settles on a branch or a stake, or even attempts to perch on a telegraph wire. Then its voice becomes more plaintive even than that of the Lapwing. Even a shot does not scare it away. It moves away, disappears, but in a very short time it is back in the same place to continue its bitter lamentations; its note sounds like “Dlue, dlue, dlue, dlue-dee-dee-deedle-dee.”

Like all the waders of the marshlands, the Redshank is very voracious, and has an excellent stomach. It devours beetles, grasshoppers and snails with great

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THE REDSHANK.

avidity. All for the good of plants, and of men who derive benefits out of the sedge and reed beds.

This bird is a migrant.

The Redshank is still to be found breeding in most of the marshy districts in England and here and there in Wales; it appears inland from the middle of March, and early in autumn it begins to resort to the coast, being joined there by numbers of migrants from the Continent. When the winter is mild, birds are to be found throughout the year, more especially in the south and west. It is abundant as far as the Shetlands in Scotland; in Ireland it is fairly plentiful during the summer, and on the bays of the west it is numerous at other times of the year, wherever there is a sufficient supply of zostera marina left behind by the tide for it to feed amongst.

“Redshank, pool-snipe, teuke or toak, sandcock, red-leg, redlegged-horseman,—all these names are given to him, as well as another, which exactly expresses the main characteristic of the bird—the yelper; and he certainly does yelp. When the tide is up all is level on the flats, even the blite is covered until the tide goes down. To all appearance the blite is left dry; but this is not the case, for thousands of small pools are left at the roots of the blite shrubs. These cannot be seen, because the thick grey-green leaves cover them. Most of the fowl feed in the numerous gullies that run through this salt vegetation. Some of the smaller kinds feed in the pools under it. If any web-footed fowl are about they are sure to pitch in one or other of the gripes and gullies.”

The Common Redshank is eleven inches in length. Its plumage also has the hemp-seed speckling, but is more thickly speckled and barred. Beak long; legs long, of a bright orange-red. It is perceptibly webbed between the toes. Tail white, with dark bars. The dark wings are adorned with a white patch, the sides with pointed spots like drops. Its nest is found in wet marsh, or moorland, between the weeds and creeping stems, in little dips, and consists simply of straw litter. It lays four pear-shaped eggs, which are arranged in the nest with the points towards one another. The ground colour is clay-yellow, and they are speckled with greyish and dark-brown spots and flecks.

The Green Sandpiper.
(Totanus óchropùs.)

The flight of the Green Sandpiper is very rapid; the note is a shrill tui-tui-tui. The food of the bird consists of insects chiefly, with small red worms and fresh water snails. It is not good to eat, having a disagreeable musty odour.

The Green Sandpiper is not uncommon in many parts of England and Wales, on the spring as well as on the autumnal migration. On the east side of Scotland it is fairly frequent, but in the north it is very rare. To Ireland it pays unfrequent visits, even in autumn. “The Green Sandpiper is a restless bird, for ever moving on,” says “A Son of the Marshes.” “Something impels him to constant haste.... The first time I met him, unexpectedly, was on a breezy upland common, with just enough wind blowing to carry the white clouds along without blowing them to pieces, a few sheep were wandering about, their bells tinkling. On one side of the common are a number of old blackthorns, with wisps of wool sticking on their rough stems, then comes the long high-road, and close to the road is a small pond, gravel-edged, where the cattle that graze on the common come to drink. A shrill whistle, and in front of us is a beautiful bird. He runs a short distance, his feet just in the water, picks at something, whistles, and is off, over some old beech-trees. I have examined him dead, and have seen him and his mate exquisitely set up by a naturalist and bird-stuffer, but you must see him alive to form any idea of the dashing vitality of the bird itself.”

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THE GREEN SANDPIPER.

The eggs of the Sandpiper are rarely found with us, being laid in deserted nests of Crows, Woodpigeons, Blackbirds, Jays or Thrushes, or even old squirrel dreys; although its haunts are about the peaty swamps, hill streams and ponds. Its nesting habits differ from the others of its congeners. Its cousin, the Common Sandpiper (Totanus hypoleucus), is also a lively creature, that goes by the name of Fidler Willy-wicket, Dicky-dy-dee, and Water-junket. Fish is sure to be in the stream about which trips the Fiddler. Its note on rising to take flight is “Wheet! wheet!” and its alarm cry a shary “Giff! giff!” At Madely, in Staffordshire, a pair of these Sandpipers hatched out their young in a vicarage garden a few summers ago, the fact being recorded by the vicar, the Rev. T. W. Daltry.

In June you may come on a hen Sandpiper, with her young, beside some moorland stream. The little ones are precocious in their ways, and run about nimbly as soon as hatched out. The young of the Green Sandpiper are not so easy to observe.

The Green Sandpiper is a little over nine inches in length. Upper parts olive brown tinged with metallic green, speckled and mottled, the lower parts white, so that when flying it looks like a black and white bird; the middle tail feathers having broad black bars, towards the end, the two outside feathers almost white. Feet greenish. The bird lays its eggs in old Squirrels’ dreys, or the nests of Mistle-and Song-Thrushes, Blackbirds, Jays, and Woodpigeons; sometimes even on the ground, or on mossy stumps, and spines heaped upon fir branches, as high up as thirty-five feet but always near to pools. The eggs are light greenish-grey, with small purplish brown spots, generally four in number.

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THE NIGHT HERON.

The Night Heron.
(Nycticorax gríseus.)

The Night Heron nests with large numbers of its congeners in inaccessible spots in the marshes where marshy tracts and broom bush are close together. In such places will be found on each tree as many nests as there is room for. The nest itself is carelessly built of a few branches laid one on another, with a final layer of dry rush and sedge leaves. It contains four or five pale green-blue eggs.

It is not so secluded in its habits as the Bittern, and is not so fond of the broad open ponds and reed beds, but prefers the marshes, especially where there are slimy puddles, alternating with broken rushes, bushes, and trees. In such places it breeds, in great colonies, and watches for its prey, which it obtains from ooze—mud fish and other small fishes, water-rats, lizards, and all kinds of large insects. When flying, it draws in its legs and head, and so scarcely looks like a Heron, but when it settles on a tree, as it often does, draws in its neck and hunches itself up, it greatly resembles a Raven, whence it is sometimes called the “Nightraven.” Also from its voice, which is like the croak of the Raven, and sounds like “Koā,” “Koari,” or “Koay.” Wherever the Night Heron settles it does much harm among the fish. It is not numerous in Germany; in Hungary it is still fairly common, but with the draining of the marshes the number of these birds is likely to decrease.

The Night Heron has been increasing in numbers in the British Islands during the last hundred years, so that it may now be ranked as an annual visitor to this country.

It is about 23 inches in length; wing 12 inches. The crown and nape are black with a green metallic lustre. Brow white, about the base of the beak. Two or three, occasionally four, snow-white feathers, pointing backwards, adorn its crown. The eye is large with a carmine-red iris; the long, pointed beak is black; the back is black with a greenish lustre; neck, wings and tail are ashen-grey. Underparts white, legs reddish-yellow. The female bird is more uniform in colour. The young are speckled, while still in the nest.

The Common Heron (Ardea cinerea) is well distributed throughout Great Britain. There are, as before, when this bird was used in the old Falconry days, very many colonies, although these are not so crowded with nests as they used to be. The long-legged grey fisher is one of the most interesting sights beside our streams and meres. “Judy o’ the Bog” is the name given to the Heron by the peasants in the south of Ireland. Young Herons were much in favour as table birds in the olden times. They are still eaten in some districts, but they are only good at certain seasons, if then; the flesh has mostly a very oily, fishy taste. The good this bird does in devouring water-rats, field-mice, worms and insects is counterbalanced by its depredations amongst the fish where the latter are a consideration.

Let me give here again a presentment of our Common Heron in the Marshlands of Kent. “An empty stomach has caused the Heron to leave his sanctuary in the Scotch firs that close in one end of the now frozen mere, and to come floating down to the river side. He has left bitter weather behind him, at any rate, for out in the west it is a cold steel-grey above, with a glow like that of the northern lights resting on the crests of the distant hills. For once he places caution on one side; one ring round directly over our head, and then he drops and folds his wings by the edge of a bit of water that is not frozen because it runs sharply over some shallows. The grey and white fisher has come here for his supper, knowing well that when waters are icebound, the fish will work up to any open piece of water, or even to a small hole broken through the ice, for air. They must have air; even eels, which are supposed to be able to live anyhow or anywhere.

To prevent him rising I take a wide range out in the water meadows, frozen down nearly two feet in depth; but I might just as well have been saved the trouble for a lot of rooks that have been trying to stock out a last scanty meal before roosting, from some manure heaps—that have been placed there to dress the meadow for the hay crop—come for him as one bird, and the lonely fisher is up and away again to his sanctuary in the fir trees.”[5]

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THE BITTERN.

The Bittern.
(Botaurus stellaris.)

The bittern is a strange-looking bird which as it moves stealthily among the reed-beds, has given rise to many superstitions and weird beliefs. Yet it is nothing but a greedy, insatiable cousin of the Heron, living on small fishes, but not despising young birds, water-rats, water-beetles, frogs, and even horse-leeches as food. Its eyes at once announce that it is a night bird. On a still night its booming can be heard more than a mile and a half away; and from this the bird has received some of its local names, such as “Bumble” and “Mire-drum.” The sounds which it utters are deep, hollow roars, as though they came from some large animal; many people will not believe that these sounds proceed from a slender bird. They sound like “Cu-prumb-cu-prumm-cu-um.” Sometimes, though not often, a “boo” is added to the “prumb.” Learned scientific books have been written on the nature of these sounds. The truth is that they occur when the bird draws air into its feed-pipe until it is full and then expels it forcibly. In this way it produces its mating-call, the love-song of the male bird. It is not given to every bird to sing like the nightingale.

This deep-toned cry is rarely heard now in our British marshlands, where the bird now comes only to be shot and sent to the shop of the bird preserver. It has, of course, been getting scarcer every year. In Selby’s time it was very scarce in some seasons, yet he records the fact that in the winter of 1830 to 1831 ten bitterns were exposed for sale on one morning in Bath, and sixty were taken the same season in Yorkshire. “Butter-bumps” was the popular name for the noisy bird, which, as some said, bellowed like a bull. The late Lord Lilford wrote that he knew a lady who said that when she was first married, about the year 1845, and went to live in East Norfolk, she was constantly kept awake by the Bittern’s booming in the neighbouring marshes. Tennyson’s farmer called it the bogle.

Some of us were not sorry to hear that one of these rare visitors had been able to have its revenge on one of its persecutors lately. Being wounded only, it turned on the dog of “the man with the gun,” who could not resist shooting a stranger, and used its strong bill and claws to good purpose. Its haunts are reed-beds, and the nest is composed of dried flags and reeds. Its flesh is said to taste and look like that of the leveret, with a slight flavour of wild-fowl, and to be more bitter eating than that of the young Heron. In the North Kent marshes Bitterns were called “Yaller French Herns,” and the fen dwellers could get half a guinea for each bird. In France, of a coarse and stupid man, they often say, “C’est un vrai butor (Bittern);” Molière says, “Peste soit du gras butor;” and Georges Sand wrote, “If your provincial bourgeois heard that, they would take our daughters for ‘des butordes,’[6] such as their own are.” Voltaire speaks again of “les butorderies de cet univers.” In Saxony again the peasants say of a noisy brawler, “He booms like a Bittern.”

That a pair of Bitterns which had been observed for some little time on an estate near Hertford should have been shot lately, 1908, and that just before breeding season, is a fact to be deplored. I saw a beautiful specimen in Berkshire that had also fallen to the gun of a collector. With the advance of civilisation and the drainage of the fens we cannot, of course, expect to have Bitterns nesting in our country again; but our children will we trust, be educated, in these days of Nature-Study, to welcome rare visitors, whilst respecting their right to live. Molluscs, frogs, lizards, small snakes and insects form their diet, and these we can all spare; and we should protect a vanishing species. A nest was taken in England in 1868, but we have not had a later one recorded. A friend of the late Lord Lilford, writing to him, said: “My brother and myself, about the year 1825, shot seven Bitterns in a field.” This was at Holme Fen, near the New River. “The Son of the Marshes” says: “The Bittern is the bird of desolation, and it is in desolate places you will find him if he is about at all. All his habits are secretive ones. As a rule he comes out with the marsh owls. His plumage mimics the marsh-tangle perfectly, and the Bittern draws himself up by the side of that tangle, his dangerous bill pointing upwards in a line with the great rush stems, so that you might be within a yard of him and yet not see him. Frequently it has been the case that shooters have had these birds clutter up close to their feet.”

The Bittern is 28 to 30 inches in length, but its loose feathers, long neck and thin legs make it look much bigger. The arrangement and colouring of the plumage are not unlike those of the Owl; it is yellowish with brown speckles. Bill yellowish-green, but the back of it brown. The legs are also yellowish-green, and have long toes. Eyes yellow, as in many owls. The bird can draw in its neck and cover it with feathers in such a way that only its long legs betray its species as being that of the Heron. The nest stands always alone in thick reed-beds near standing water. The eggs are usually three to five in number, and are pale bluish-green in colour.

The Waterhen or Moorhen.
(Gallinula chloropus.)

The Waterhen likes ponds surrounded by thick bushy growth and builds its nest on the edge. It clambers nimbly about the reeds, and also swims very well although not web-footed; it dives, and is able to remain some time under the water. It does this when pursued, only occasionally sticking its bill out of the water to breathe. It takes long strides when walking, and can run fast, can stand on the broad round leaves of water plants, on the water grasses, and floating rubbish, its long toes preventing it breaking through and sinking in. It is a very pleasant bird, and if left alone becomes very confident, and it is then an ornament to its surroundings. Its food consists of insects and water-wort; it also rips off the points of sprouting rushes, and the fleshy sedges. In fact it is an innocent and indeed a useful bird.

The little tail is always turned upward, both in running and swimming, and with each movement it nods its pretty head. It is a truly charming sight when the Waterhen first takes her eight or ten black, silky, roguish-eyed nestlings to the water—each one being about the size of a walnut, they bob about like so many black corks.

This bird is worthy of every protection.

The Moor or Waterhen is well distributed throughout the British Islands and it is, as a rule, settled in its habitat although in severe winters many migrate from the northern to the southern parts of the country.

When the sooty chicks are out, the Moorhen parents

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THE WATERHEN OR MOORHEN.

have a very anxious time of it, for the Heron is on the look-out for them, and he does a lot of wading in the reeds and the swamps all the time the young Moorhens are about. They would be far more numerous were they not hunted for, so persistently, by furred, finned, and feathered prowlers.

The Pike is one of their worst enemies, and the youngsters are kept often in about three inches of water to escape his murderous bite.

“The Moorhen can both swim and dive, and he flies well when fairly on the wing; but as his real flights take place, as a rule, at night, very little is known about them. I once saw a flight at daybreak that very much astonished me. The bird shifts considerably about at night at times. When alarmed it is occasionally very clever in concealing itself, and it will sham death to perfection, even when caught alive by a good dog, without a feather being injured.”

The Waterhen is rather larger than the Partridge; it has longer legs, of a green colour, and much longer toes. It has a small growth on the wings like a spur. On the brow is a bare crescent-shaped red patch, the pupil of the eye is carmine; neck and the whole of the mantle dark, greenish-olive brown; the other parts of the body slate colour, the inside of the lower tail-cover being of a darker shade, with a broad yellowish white border. The feathers on the edge of the wings are tipped with white, forming a beautiful white line, to the front of the wings. The bill is green, red at the base. The nest is nearly always placed in dry sedge-bushes on the edge of the water; the dry grass serves for litter. The clutch consists of ten eggs, which have a pale yellowish red ground speckled with violet and reddish-brown.

THE COMMON TERN.

The Common Tern.
(Sterna fluviatilis.)

This birds nests in companies, in grassy places near a river bank, where a nest, without any foundation, is made, being a flat hollow in the ground. In this it lays two or three eggs of a clay-or brownish-yellow colour, speckled with violet-grey and brown. The Tern is a real ornament to our large rivers and lakes, with its guileless nature and its fine swinging flight. If it were to disappear we should lose one of the joys and beauties of life. All day long it flies over the water, with only short intervals of rest which it takes on a gravel heap or a hurdle, with neck drawn in and pointed upwards, only turning its head now and then to look at the water. It constantly flies at the same height, and as soon as its prey comes to the surface of the water it spreads its tail stiffly downwards, and hovers, beating with its wings, and gazing fixedly on the spot where the victim showed itself. Then, suddenly, it drops like a stone, with a loud splash, into the water. It has then secured its booty, usually a small fish. Its usual voice sounds like “Kriey”; sometimes, when in trouble, it utters a light “Kek” or “Krek.” It is not common enough in Hungary to do much mischief.

In Great Britain we find the Common Tern along the shores of the Channel and up the West coast as far as the Isle of Skye, and again from the Moray Firth down to Kent. In Ireland it is plentiful in the South. “Three species at least of the beautiful terns, well within my own time, bred freely in this country; but their colonies on the flats and the foreshores have been harried for eggs and birds so persistently, season after season, that they have ceased to exist as breeding places. A few hatch out in lonely shingle runs here and there on the coast lines; others have changed their breeding grounds for good. The ring-dotterels have suffered in the same way, but, from their different nesting habits nothing like so much as the terns have done. When dogs are trained for egg hunting, and the capture of young birds alive, without hurting them, is it to be wondered at if the poor birds shift elsewhere? The size of a place has nothing to do with its nesting capacities; if the conditions are favourable, there the birds will come in their seasons to settle down. If they are not interfered with they will come again, until at last you may count on their arrival almost to a day. One place I frequently visit, where the birds, water-fowl and waders have been protected for forty years, not by keepers or lookers, but by the people that pass that way, because the owner of a fine sheet of water desired that they might not be frightened. This is as it should be, yet for all that they are wild birds pure and simple, free to come and go just as they please, according as their inclinations move them.”[7]

The Common Tern is 14·25 inches in length but its long wings and tail make it appear larger. The legs are red, the feet webbed. Beak red with a sharp point; crown and nape quite black; mantle a fine bluish grey. Throat and breast beautifully white; wing feathers darkish. Tail forked like that of the House Swallow. The longest, outer side feathers, which form the fork, are dark grey, the other tail feathers, and the rump white. The eye reddish-brown.

The Bean Goose.
(Anser ségetum.)

The Bean Goose visits us only in winter, for it breeds in the most northern portion of our hemisphere, whence it is driven to our milder regions by the extreme cold of winter. Here it waits for spring, then it hurries back to its breeding place on the coasts of the Northern Ocean. It lays seven to ten white eggs in its simply-formed nest in the inhospitable desolate land of its birth. When obliged to leave the nest it carefully covers up the eggs in order to preserve their warmth.

These birds move southwards in great flocks towards autumn. Some of them come to us, and in many places cover the fields in swarms, and in the case of their settling constantly in the same places, they may do considerable harm by nibbling, tearing up and trampling over everywhere generally.

When the winter is very severe here, and the seeds are covered with a thick layer of snow, Geese go still further south, some of them even crossing the Mediterranean; but they return directly the weather becomes milder. From this comes the shepherd’s prophecy: “When the geese go south we may expect great cold; when they go north warmer weather is coming.” The birds assemble in great flocks,—usually at the beginning of March, if wind and weather are favourable—and return to their home, where, separating into strings, they scatter themselves over the Polar regions.

This is the “Wild-goose” as known to shore shooters. It does not breed in our islands at all, but comes to us in

THE BEAN GOOSE.

the autumn, and is to be seen in numbers on some of our coasts all through the winter. In cold weather it is fairly common on the mainland of Scotland. From autumn to spring it is found in all parts of Ireland, and is the commonest of the inland feeding Geese.

“Very awkward mistakes, and sad ones too some of them, have been made sometimes when these birds have been feeding on the saltings and marshes close to the tide, for at certain seasons the Geese will feed at night and then is the time to go after them. On one occasion a fowler shot his horse by mistake, and at another time a man shot his own son. Such incidents were once only too common. Fowl, feeding at night, bunch themselves up, taking strange shapes, and when alarmed they run before flighting, but they are not very wary, nor have they the keen sight of other wild fowl.”

“Gabble-retchet” is the term applied to the cry of the Geese on flight. An old proverb says: “Its aye fine when the Goose honks (or cries) high.” This in the Eastern States of America has been corrupted into: “It’s aye fine when the goose hangs high,” and is often taken as meaning when there’s plenty in the larder.

This Goose is 34 inches in length. The beak is black, the knob of it being orange-coloured, as is also a broad oblique stripe on the nostrils. The points of the wings when folded extend over the tail. The prevailing colour is brownish-grey; the edges of the feathers and the breast lighter. The flight feathers are dark brown, so are the eyes, legs reddish-brown.

HARMFUL.

THE WILD DUCK OR MALLARD.

The Wild Duck or Mallard.
(Anas bóscas.)

The nest of the Mallard is placed in the sedges of the marsh, in cornfields, and—strangely enough—on willow stumps and in large holes in trees. It is carelessly put together, but is lined with soft downy feathers. It lays ten or twelve strong yellowish-white eggs.

The way in which a mother Duck, who has nested in a tree hole rather high up, brings her young family to the water is remarkable. As soon as they are dry after hatching, she carries them one by one in her bill down to the water’s edge. Each duckling as it is set down remains motionless as a stone on the ground, until the mother has brought the last baby to join the others, then the whole family begins to cackle and pipe, the young ones follow their mother into the water, swimming at once, and their duck life begins its ordinary course.

Their usual diet consists of water plants, duckweed, sundew, the green parts of the water-nut and the seeds of water grasses. They let the water flow, filtering through their beaks as beseems a well brought up duck, and in this way allow many little water creatures, fish spawn and such like, to enter their crops. But they can also do mischief. At harvest time the duck visits the cut corn lying on the ground and the sheaves, picks out the corn and treads down the ears. Therefore—and also because it is so good for the table—it is worthy of a well-aimed shot.

It is still very common in Hungary.

“Mallards manifest bird chivalry and courtesy to perfection—the drakes industriously finding mussels for their sober-coloured mates, not because these are not able to find for themselves but because the males consider it their place to do so. Stretching out their necks and ruffling all their feathers they softly call when they have a lucky find; up rushes the duck, nips fast hold of the gaper and swings it from side to side as a terrier shakes a rat: after wrenching it from the shell she washes it in the water of the runnel and swallows it.

It is a matter of serious regret to many a sportsman and one entailing loss to the longshore shooter that the numbers of our common Wild Ducks or Mallards are each year becoming less. But for those bred in the Arctic regions—those the North Kent marshman calls “foreign flighters,” we should be in a bad way as to the Wild Duck.

The latter arrive in great numbers from the Continent during the colder months. Drainage of the fens, and improvements in agriculture have, of course, lessened the numbers of those that breed with us; but flapper-shooting on the flats and the want of protection are decimating them largely on the Essex and North Kent marsh-lands. All good authorities on the subject agree that there ought to be a close time for our Wild Duck up to the 1st of September, whereas in Essex protection extends only to August 16th, and in Kent only till the 13th of that month. In shooting the Flappers, or young birds, many an old Drake gets killed; having lost his quills he is incapable of flight. He does not put on his full new dress until the middle of October. Flappers are easily killed as they reach full growth before their wings are fledged; so that it is not really fair sport, which should give a free field. As old Peter Hawker, the father of Wild Duck Shooting said, flapper-shooting is often more like hunting water-rats than shooting birds. They haunt deep and retired parts of a brook, or stream, in families. Flappers are only called Wild Ducks when they take wing.

In the Fens formerly, until put a stop to by Act of Parliament, not only were Flappers shot as they are now, but an annual driving of the young birds before they could fly took place. A vast tract was beaten, and the birds were forced into a net placed where the sport was to terminate. A hundred and fifty dozens have been taken at once in this fashion. If our handsome British Wild Duck is to be preserved to us, further steps must now be taken to enforce and extend the close time for our home-bred birds of this species.

Both duck and drake are the size of the domestic duck, which is a near relation of its wild congener. It is the loudest cackler of the ponds. The drake has splendid plumage. The whole of the head has a fine green metallic lustre, this being separated from the rest of the colouring by a white band round the neck. A small bunch of feathers, curled upwards, stands on the rump, which is smooth black, as is also the under tail cover. It has a beautiful, lustrous violet patch bordered on each side with white, on its wings. Neck and breast are chestnut-brown; the mantle finely and beautifully spotted. The underparts light grey, each feather having fine dark stripes. Bill greenish; legs orange. The female bird is yellowish-brown speckled with dark brown.

CHIEFLY USEFUL.

THE PINTAILED DUCK.

The Pintailed Duck.
(Dafila acuta.)

The nest of the Pintail is placed among the sedges, rushes, and reeds of open ponds. The clutch consists of eight to ten greenish eggs, which are smaller and somewhat thicker than those of the common Wild Duck. It is a shy bird, difficult to surprise, which arrives here in large flocks, on its way elsewhere, only a few settling on large inaccessible ponds, or on the hidden pools hemmed in by huge reed beds, on the Platten See in Hungary, especially in shallow places where the white water-lilies and other water plants almost cover the surface with their leaves. In such places it pecks about the ground in the same way as the farmyard duck. Its food is tender duck-weed, and the young juicy shoots and points of water plants. But its most eager search is for water beetles, and the larvæ of dragon-flies and other such insects. As the marshes are drained and brought into cultivation the number of these beautiful birds decreases. It is still, however, not uncommon in Hungary.

This is a slender and finely shaped duck which is locally called the “Sea Pheasant.” It comes regularly to our British Islands in October, staying in some districts longer than in others. In the North it seldom tarries long. Its favourite resorts are about our Southern shores and estuaries. When it is feeding the tail is raised high above the water, its head being below the surface. A hybrid between the Mallard and the Pintail, a half-bred drake, is a very handsome bird. Pintails have also been known to pair with Wigeons.

The Pintailed Duck is smaller and more slender, but longer than the Common Wild Duck. The middle tail-feathers are long-shaped like a spit or awl, and from these the bird derives its name. The neck is long and thin like that of the Heron. The drake has fine summer plumage. The wings have a shining metallic green beauty-spot bordered with red in front and white behind. Head a dusky-brown, cheeks copper colour. Throat white on either side, and black in the middle from the back of the head downwards. The whole of the underparts white, also the mantle, which is adorned with fine, close, dark wavy lines. The long pointed shoulder feathers are black with a white border. Tail nearly black, the middle pointed feathers quite black, and also the under tail cover. Legs bluish-grey; beak bluish, eyes brown. The female bird is like the female wild duck in colour but has the long tail feathers.

The Shoveler.
(Spatula clypeata.)

The Shoveler has a stately, direct, and rapid flight. It can be recognised by its great beak even when flying high. It is less timid than the other ducks, and does not go about in flocks, but if it does join flocks of other ducks, it flies somewhat apart from them. As its beak indicates, its food consists less of plants than of small living creatures of the pond and lake, fish, insects, shell-fish, and other things which it finds in the water while it paddles around and lets the water run through the filtering edge of its beak. But the worst of it is this: The fish spawn in the shallow, tepid water near the bank, and there the young fishes are hatched. When the Shoveler comes to a spawning bed, in its voracity it destroys the young fish in thousands, before they are fully hatched. Thus it is a great pest to fishermen, and it is therefore fortunate that this bird belongs to the rarer species.

“Compared with the size of the Shoveler’s paddles, its webs are small. Splashes and reed-beds are what it delights in. Many days have I passed where these birds could be seen. All sorts of flying and creeping things lived there; in fact the amount of insect life to be found in the haunts of the Shoveler would have to be seen, nay more than that, it would have to be felt, before it could be thoroughly believed in. Some sorts of insects have a very short play-time. Coming forth in clouds as perfect flying creatures, they fulfil the purpose they were created for, and then they drop down in the reeds,

HARMFUL.

THE SHOVELER.

or in the water either dead or dying. So thickly at times do these short-lived insects cover the water that, in places, the masses look like large patches of grey film.

This is the time for the Shoveler. He and his mate, will, so to speak, lay their heads and necks on the water, the lower mandible being just under water; and they will paddle along feeding as they go. These insects are part of their food in the season. Then too, they can probe and spatter on the edge of the reeds, where they find plenty of food, for the soft mud at their roots is full of the seeds of water plants growing below. As to the undeveloped forms of insect life, the light vegetable mud is full of these. So this handsome bird goes on his way very happily if not disturbed.”[8]

Shovelers are plump ducks, and when their food is right are excellent for the table.

The Shoveler visits Great Britain during cold weather, and a fair number of the birds stay and breed with us.

The Shoveler is smaller than the Wild Duck and is more thick-set in build. Its chief characteristic is its powerful spoon-shaped, or rather shovel-shaped bill, which broadens out in front, and is furnished with a thickly toothed, comb-like arrangement on the inner edge which is specially adapted for filtering the water. The drake has beautiful plumage. The beauty spot on the wings is of a lustrous green, and has a white upper border, the wing itself is light blue. The sides of the head are bluish-green, with a fine lustre, the crop white. The forepart of the mantle is greenish-black, each feather having a white border; rump bluish—black as is also the under tail cover. Shoulder feathers pointed, black and white, legs orange, bill dark. The female bird resembles the female wild duck in colour, but the broad shovel-shaped bill, immediately marks the difference between the two birds. The nest is placed in the boggy parts of the marshes and is formed simply of litter. The clutch consists of seven to fourteen rusty yellow eggs.

The Great Crested Grebe.
(Podicipes cristatus.)

The nest of the Great Crested Grebe is built of various decaying plants, and floats on the water. It is not found in the thick reed-beds; but on their borders, where the reeds are already beginning to shoot. There it so fixed to a single stalk that it remains in one place, and cannot be washed away. It usually contains four longish white eggs, which, however, become brown and dirty during the long sitting and rotten surroundings. The young birds are grey with dark stripes. In times of danger the mother gathers them closely under her wings and then dives until the peril is past.

This Grebe is a remarkable diver; it dives with such lightning speed, that a shot aimed at it only strikes the surface of the water. It is a terror in the fishpond. When the fish feel secure, several of these birds join together and make a raid on them. They dive, and while under water drive the fish towards the shallow shore, and having thus placed them in a difficulty, the birds seize their prey from among the bewildered victims.

The Grebe endeavours to avoid danger to itself by diving, as long as it can—and it is able to remain under water for a long time and swim a considerable distance. If the rushes for which it is making, are still at some distance, it raises its head out of water for a moment, breathes once, and dives again. It is only in direst

HARMFUL.

THE GREAT CRESTED GREBE.

need that it takes to flight, and beats the water for some time before it begins to rise. Having once risen it flies rapidly and steadily.

Its powerful, piercing voice has various sounds. The call-note sounds like “Kekekeke”; during the brooding time its cry “Kroar” or “Kruor” is heard at a long distance.

The Great Crested Grebe is resident in Great Britain on many sheets of water where reeds grow in plenty, such as the Broads of Norfolk, the meres of Cheshire and Lancashire, lakes in Wales, and very occasionally only in Scotland. In the County of Stafford the Great-crested Grebe and Little Grebe, or Dabchick, are protected all the year round; and the meres in the West of Staffordshire, together with those of Shropshire, form one of the chief breeding areas of the former species of Great Britain and Ireland. On Trentham Lake, Dr. McAldowie has observed the Great-crested Grebe in mid-winter. They have also bred there of late years. On the rivers Dove and Trent, however, it has only been seen during the periods of migration. That it nests on the Lake Aqualate and on that in Trentham Park proves what the protection of landowners will do.

The Great Crested Grebe is the size of a Wild Duck but more slender. The general appearance of the bird, with its long outstretched thin neck is that of a long-necked bottle. It has on its black crown a double crest, forked and inclining backwards something in the manner of ears; on its neck, beginning at the back of the head and reaching to the throat, it has a red collar of split feathers with dark borders closely set together, which surrounds the sides of the head and the throat. The legs are constructed for propelling by a sideways stroke; instead of a true web, it has divided, cross-ribbed broad flaps on the toes, the pads of which are flat and broad. Beak sharp and pointed as a dagger; tail consists of a few little ragged feathers. The spot on the wings is white. The female has a smaller collar, and is more uniform in colour.

An Elegy.

Our children will perhaps know less than we do of the delightful poems of Robert Burns, composed as so many of them were whilst he followed the plough, with ever a keen eye for bird and blossom wherever his work might lead him. I cannot resist quoting here that wonderful elegy of his:—

“Mourn, ye wee songsters of the wood;
Ye Grouse that crap the heather bud;
Ye Curlews, calling thro’ a clud;
Ye whistling Plover,
And mourn, ye whirring Paitrick broo’,
He’s gane for ever!

Mourn, sooty Coots and speckled Teals;
Ye fisher Herons, watching eels;
Ye Duck and Drake, wi’ airy wheels,
Circling the lake.
Ye Bitterns, till the quagmire reels,
Rair for his sake!

Mourn, clam’ring Crakes at close of day
’Mang fields o’ flow’ring clover gay,
And when ye wing your annual way
Frae our cauld shore,
Tell the far warlds, wha lies in clay
Wham we deplore.

Ye Howlets frae your ivy bow’r
In some old tree or eldritch tow’r,
What time the moon wi’ silent glow’r,
Sets up her horn:
Wail through the dreary midnight hour
Till waukrife morn!”

HARMFUL.

THE GOLDEN EAGLE.

CHAPTER VIII.
SOME OF THE FALCONIDÆ.

The Golden Eagle.
(Aquila chrysáëtus.)

In Scotland the living prey of the Golden Eagle, called there the Black Eagle, consists largely of mountain hares, but it takes lambs, grouse and other birds, sometimes even fawns and the young of the red-deer. In Hungary he sweeps down towards autumn from the higher regions to the vast plains, where he works havoc among the smaller wild animals, especially the hares. Only when driven by extreme hunger will he feed on carrion. On sunny days he soars circling above, with shrill squeal, until quite lost to sight, looking as it were into the very face of the sun.

The breeding places of the Eagle are confined in Great Britain to the Highlands of Scotland and the islands of the Western side, and they are now protected by the owners of deer forests from the grouse preservers and sheep farmers who greatly thinned their numbers in former years. In Ireland very few pairs now remain; they were nearly all destroyed there by poison. They rarely visit England. So far from attacking any one who visits the eyrie or tries to take an egg or young, those who know them best say that they can be photographed without the least difficulty, in fact the old birds will soar high above, seemingly ignoring the presence of the intruders. A visitor to one eyrie, in which was a baby Eaglet, found there four grouse, part of a hare, and a monk stoat! the latter, as the gamekeeper said, being an unheard of thing. Sometimes an enraged Hoodie Crow has been seen in full chase of a Golden Eagle which had been too near the nest and young of the former.

Mr. Seton Gordon says that when this Eagle is pursued by a small bird, the Mistle Thrush for instance, it never turns on its pursuer, although it could kill it with the greatest ease; but as he adds “in nature it seems to be the invariable rule that the pursued flies from the pursuer no matter what the relative sizes may be.”

The Golden Eagle is now slightly on the increase in Scotland. It is a most interesting bird, the type of nobility and of valour. The naturalist with whom I collaborated over the signature, “A Son of the Marshes,” has told of two live Golden Eagles which were chained to stands just inside the courtyard of the old coaching inn at Sittingbourne, in Kent, when he was a boy, objects of wondering delight to himself and of much daily curiosity to the passengers on the coaches. They snatched up more than one cat that came too close to their stands after the meat that was given to them.

Many poets have sung of the Golden Eagle:

“On sounding pinion borne, he soars, and shrouds,
His proud aspiring head among the clouds.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Soaring
With upward pinions through the flood of day,
And, giving full bosom to the blaze, gain on the sun.”
. . . . . . . . . .
“Trying his young against its rays,
To prove if they’re of generous breed, or base.”
. . . . . . . . . .

Somerville, in “Field Sports,” gives some fine lines, descriptive of this bird, untamed though we call it, as one of sport:

“In earlier times, monarchs of Eastern race
In their full blaze of pride—a story tells—
Trained up th’ imperial eagle, sacred bird.
Hooded, with jingling bells, she, perched on high,
Not, as when erst on golden wings she led
The Roman legions o’er the conquered globe,
Mankind her quarry, but a docile slave,
Tamed to the lure and careful to attend
Her master’s voice.”

This noble bird measures from 32 to 36 inches and the female is larger than the male. In reality he is about the size of a goose but his mighty wings and the breadth of tail make him seem far larger. The general colour is dark brown, tawny about the head and nape, hence his name golden. The tail has a greyish bar below, is mottled with dark grey in the adults, but the basal half is white in the young. The legs are feathered in front to the toes, thighs dark brown, toes yellow, claws hooked and sharp. The beak is curved from the cere. The brown eye is keen and strong as befits a bird who sights his quarry from afar. The nest, or eyrie, which is placed on a crag in a mountainous district, but often in a tree, is a large platform of sticks lined with softer materials. The Eagle never uses dead branches but always breaks them fresh off the tree. There are two and sometimes three dull greyish-white eggs streaked and blotched with every shade of reddish-brown and lilac. One of the eggs is generally addled. The young are covered with white down. During incubation the Eagle keeps near to his eyrie.

HARMFUL.

THE RED KITE.

The Red Kite.
(Milvus ictínus.)

The flight of this bird is very beautiful; it mounts in circles to a great height, but swoops down quite near to the ground when pursuing its prey. Its food consists of mice, lizards, adders, and unfledged birds; but most of all it likes poultry, hens, ducks, geese. In this way it is very hurtful. Fortunately, it is a cowardly bird, and a good clucking hen can soon put it to flight.

In the spring when the flocks of geese with their young ones are grazing in the tender grass, the Red Kite will suddenly appear and cause great consternation among young and old. The poor bare-footed guardians of the geese, strive to drive the intruder away with shouts, or by waving rags, and throwing stones; and though they generally succeed, the bird occasionally gains the day. This bird is nowhere very common, and is in any case only a summer visitor. Its cry is a shrill whéw, heh-heh-heh.

This Kite was formerly known in Great Britain by its old Anglo-Saxon name of Gled or Glead, which comes from its gliding flight, and is styled Red Kite in order to distinguish it from its relatives. That it was once common enough in the South of England, a proverb, still used in the New Forest shows, “Yallow as a Kite’s claw” the folk say there in describing one who has a jaundiced appearance. So common was it in the streets of London up to 200 years ago, acting the part of a scavenger in those days, that visitors from the Continent wrote of it. Some are now living who knew it as fairly common in the wooded parts of Great Britain—Ireland excepted—but the last nest in Lincolnshire, where it once was abundant, was known in 1870. In Wales, where a few still breed, the landowners are trying to protect what they consider an interesting species. The use of its tail feathers for salmon-flies brings about the bird’s destruction in Scotland, and the gamekeeper is its pronounced enemy. In Ireland it has been seldom observed. Considering the adders, rats, and enormous numbers of mice the Kite devours, the term hurtful, as applied to it, ought perhaps to be modified.

A naturalist, writing in 1839, tells how he once took away a young Kite from a nest containing two; it became very tame and would sit on his hand, never attempting to hurt him with its sharp talons. Sometimes he let it stray away and it always came home, though it might be out for a day or two; until it intruded on an old crone in her cottage. She quickly killed it as an ill-favoured fowl. I have seen a tame Kite swoop down during a circling flight and take a mouse from the hand of the late Lord Lilford as he sat, as was his wont, in his wheeled chair among his favourite birds.

Macaulay, alluding to the Kite’s love for carrion writes:

“The kites know well the long stern swell
That bids the Romans close.”

Wordsworth was familiar with it in his walks:

“Near the midway cliff the silvered kite
In many a whistling circle wheels her flight.”

Robert Burns was not a friend of the bird, Quarles’ “brood-devouring kite,” for he likened the “father of all evil” to it:

“Here is Satan’s picture,
Pouncing poor Redcastle
Like a blizzard gled,
Sprawlin’ like a taed.”

But Hurdis was more kind and just:

“Mark but the soaring kite and she will read
Brave rules for diet; teach thee how to feede;
She flies aloft; she spreads her ayrie plumes
Above the earth; above the nauseous fumes
Of dang’rous earth; she makes herself a stranger
T’ inferior things, and checks at every danger.”

We may perhaps be allowed, by the chariest of agriculturists, to say that a species may be most undesirable in certain districts, but a welcome and even useful bird in others; and this is specially true of birds who devour carrion.

The Kite is about 24 inches in length. The back is rusty-red, the feathers there having dark shaft lines and edges. The tail is strongly forked. The female is less brightly coloured than the male and the young still less so. The thighs are clad with feathers, the legs bare, claws moderately strong and sharp. The bill is sickle-shaped and has a yellow cere at its base. The irides are yellowish-white. The Kite is a keen-sighted bird of prey, and builds its nest for the most part on the highest trees in the woods. It lays two or three eggs, more rarely four, with dirty blotches, smears, and spots on a greenish-white ground.

USEFUL.

THE RED-FOOTED FALCON.

MALE AND FEMALE.

The Red-footed Falcon or Orange-legged Hobby.
(Falco vespertinus.)

Unlike all the rest of his congeners this beautiful Falcon lives exclusively on insects. It is considered by the Mohammedan races as a sacred bird, on account of the way in which it destroys grasshoppers. Its flight is easy and bold, and the way in which he circles and floats in the air is beautiful. The young ones are also fed on insects, and as soon as they are fledged the little flock betake themselves to the meadows or the seashore and there begin with zeal their work of insect hunting. They settle on the meadows, on the freshly mown rows, and destroy the grasshoppers, and when there is a plague of these insects the Falcons are untiring in their work of extermination. It is one of the most gentle of birds, and the young ones when caught become tame in the course of a day. It can easily be seen from the expression of the eyes that there is no savagery at all in its nature. How different from the glance of the Sparrow-Hawk! It is a remarkable characteristic of this bird that not only does it differ from others of its species in its food, but also in regard to its nest. As a rule, it does not build a nest, but occupies one, generally at the cost of a battle, belonging to one of a colony of rooks. The fight for the nest is a fine spectacle, for in it the bird exhibits to the full its fine art of flight. In Hungary it is a regular migrant, and arrives in fairly large numbers.

The Red-footed Falcon is only a rare wanderer to the British Islands on its migratory flight, and chiefly to England. One was recorded as shot in Scotland in 1866—another, which is in the Dublin Museum, was taken in County Wicklow in 1832. It is a pity that this useful species, living as it chiefly does on insects and field mice, should only appear in our country to be shot.

On the steppes of Orenburg in Russia it has decreased during the last fifty years, owing apparently to the immigration of great numbers of the Lesser Kestrel, which used to be rare there. The flight of the Red-footed Falcon is not nearly so dashing as that of the Kestrel; you can note a difference in the expression of the eye and the shape of forehead of the two birds.

The clutch of eggs numbers five to six. They are of a yellowish-white ground-colour, with spots and marblings, some darker, some lighter. The nest structure is scanty, and is seldom built by the bird itself; it appropriates the old nest of a Crow, Magpie or Rook. The male of this species is for the most part slate-grey in colour, the thighs and under side of the tail are bright chestnut-red. The iris and the feet are red. The colouring of the female is more diversified. The mantle is bluish-grey, with blackish stripes, like those on the tail; the sides of the belly are light rusty-brown, throat and nape white. The forehead is whitish; top of the head rust-coloured, legs and feet reddish. The claws are nearly white.

The Common Buzzard.
(Búteo vulgáris.)

This bird is equally at home in the plains and in the highlands. It goes South in the winter, except in mild seasons. Like the Kite it soars to a great height with a fine sweeping movement, crying “keo-keo.” It descends and with an easy stroke hovers near the ground, from which it seizes frogs, lizards, and even poisonous snakes; but besides marmots, moles, rats, and leverets, its chief diet is mice, of which it requires 20 to 30 for one good meal. It usually perches on a hayrick, a post, or a dry tree to watch for its prey, sitting motionless save for a movement of its head from side to side, until a mouse emerges from its hole. Then it raises its wings, darts downwards, and secures the booty. In years when a superabundance of mice appear, the Buzzards also are numerous, and fare plenteously. At such times, hundreds of tufts of mouse-hair are found beneath the trees where the Buzzards spend the night.

It would be a good thing if the farmer were to set up perching posts in the places which are infested by mice, so that the Buzzards might settle on them to watch the ground. Posts about the height of a man, and the thickness of an arm, with a cross piece at the top, would perfectly serve the purpose.

The Buzzard, then, is useful; but it cannot be denied that it sometimes does harm when it gets into a pheasant run, or places where partridges and hares are preserved.

The bird is still common in Hungary.

USEFUL.

THE COMMON BUZZARD.

The Buzzard may still be seen circling high in the air in some of our own wilder wooded districts, uttering its mewing cry, especially in Wales, but it is fast decreasing. A correspondent from South Devon wrote me that it was not infrequently shot there. As Mr. Howard Saunders wrote, “It used to breed in Norfolk and other counties abounding with Partridges and ground game, without being considered incompatible with their well-being; but now that Pheasant worship has increased, the doom of that great devourer of field mice, moles, and other pests of the farmer which has never been proved to be destructive to Partridges and Pheasants is sealed. Still it might yet increase if fairly encouraged, and it is an interesting sight, either soaring over head or resting in its characteristic sluggish way on the branch of a tree. In the New Forest this used to be a common enough sight, but the bark strippers being at work just at the time of incubation, and knowing that they can easily obtain five shillings for a good well-marked specimen—the Buzzard has little chance now.

I find in my note book, “My glass shows a great brown and grey bird resting on a stumpy willow—what they call here a Mouse-Buzzard—that species so useful to the grazier, which we drive away by persecution. Presently it rises high to soar in fine circles over its hunting ground. The farmers encourage it because of its wonderful stowage capacity for voles, rats, and other small deer,—the game-preservers persecute it, because when pressed by hunger it takes old hen pheasants and even larger creatures. On our friend’s estate here it is encouraged; the stomach of a dead Buzzard has been found to contain thirty mice. Also it is a deadly foe to the viper, although a bite from the latter has been death to the Buzzard occasionally. A Buzzard was once found dead on its nest with a viper lying under his body. The bird had carried it there to devour. This is a gentle looking creature, yet when hard pressed by hunger—madly ravenous, it has been known to attack an ox. Humans are apt to become desperate under similar circumstances.

Said Butler in “Hudibras”:

“He’d prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a lord may be an owl.”

There is a good deal of variation observable in the colouring of the Buzzard, inclining sometimes to whitish, sometimes to brown or even to blackish. With its thick-set body, this bird of prey exceeds the Raven in size. Its constant distinguishing marks are these: The cere at the base of the bill, and the legs, which are bare of feathers, are yellow; the nostrils are oval; the iris grey or brown. The shafts of the primaries and secondaries are white. The tail is crossed by seventeen dark bands, and appears fore-shortened. The bill is curved and hooked. The nest is built in the loftiest beeches and oaks. Three to four eggs form the clutch. They are rarely white, more often clouded with dirty-yellow on a lighter ground.

The Sparrow-hawk.
(Accipiter nisus.)

Though the Sparrow-hawk, taken altogether, is a small bird, yet he is a great thief, as may be gathered from his piercing eye. He is the terror of all birds of the Starling size, which he seizes while on the wing. Like a true robber, he watches for his booty in a secret kind of way; having selected one from among a company of flying birds, he flies below, among the furrows in the cornfield, along the hedges, and the border of the woods, and on to a haystack. When he has seen his destined prey he flutters sideways, rises into the air in circles, and when the little birds fly up he sinks somewhat lower; when at the proper height he claps his wings close to his body, and drops like a piece of lead on to the chosen, fluttering victim, seizes it by the neck in its flight, and strangles it with his sharp claws. He then flies slowly with it to a bush or a grassy-mound and devours it.

It winters in Hungary; it is not rare, but at the same time not very common. Its cry sounds like “Kirk, kirk, kirk,” or a rapid “ki, ki, ki,” or a long drawn-out “kāk, kāk.”

This bird was the sporting Hawk of our forefathers, and the people of the interior of Asia, and the Kurds, employ it for hunting at the present day. Wherever it goes it carries devastation in its train, especially among the domestic fowls. Its cry is loud and protracted. “Iwiā!” it repeats quickly on seizing its prey. When

HARMFUL.

THE SPARROW-HAWK.

pairing the note is Gāck, gāck, gāck,” and then more rapidly “Giā, giack, giack.”

The Sparrow-hawk is well known all over Great Britain and also in Ireland, in all those districts which are well timbered. Its food consists for the most part of small birds, from the Thrush to the Wren. These are snapped up as the bird glides stealthily along the hedgerows or on the outskirts of some wood. In our own country it has been trained to take Partridges, Quails, etc. In India and Japan also it is used by the native falconers. It is a bold daring raider of our woods and fields. This bird has a history which reaches back into the far past. It received its latin name, Accipiter nisus, because of a myth relating to King Nisus of Megara, who, it is said, had one hair of red-gold colour, on the preservation of which depended the conservation of his kingdom. Scylla, the daughter of Nisus, being in love with Minos, King of Crete, son of Jupiter and Europa, treacherously cut the golden hair of her father Nisus, and therefore he and his country were easily vanquished. The gods, angry with the unnatural daughter, changed her into a Lark, and Nisus into a Sparrow-hawk, under which form the unhappy father pursues his daughter unceasingly, in order to satisfy a thirst for vengeance. The ancients had all sorts of mysterious ideas, in connection with the Sparrow-hawk; they believed, for one thing, that he was the primogenitor of the Cuckoo. There is always something interesting in such old myths, in spite of their apparent absurdity.

Somerville, in “Field Sports,” takes only the falconer’s view of the Sparrow-hawk, when he says:

“Enough for me
To boast the gentle spar-hawk on my fist,
Or fly the partridge o’er the bristly field,
Retrieve the covey with my busy train,
Or with my soaring hobby, dare the lark.”

The male Sparrow-hawk is about 12 inches long, the female often 15 inches. It has a long tail; its legs are slender, long and bare of feathers. The claws are sharp as needles. The toes are strong and the middle one is very long and slender. The bill is abruptly curved from the base, with a greenish-yellow cere. The plumage is bluish-grey above; while beneath, on the belly, it is crossed with wavy lines on a light ground. The tail has five dark ribbon-like bands across it. The Sparrow-hawk nests by preference in spruce plantations at a height of from 12 to 15 feet; it also makes use of deserted crows’ nests. The clutch consists of four or five, occasionally six, and still more rarely seven eggs, chalky-white or greenish in colour, with drab-coloured spots.

Too often a victim.

The Goshawk.
(Astur palumbárius.)

The Goshawk is bold in attack, and powerful in thrust. It is comparatively easy to tame, or at all events shows a certain tractability. Its aspect is cunning and cruel, and its claws must be carefully avoided. It is the terror of the poultry-yard and the dove-cote. When pursuing its prey nothing can divert its attention. It will even penetrate into the interior of a house. It will steal any warm-blooded animal that it can overcome, even an old hare. It seizes little Siskins, Goldfinches, Weasels, squirrels, and even mice. It lives in a constant state of warfare with the Crows. The latter birds fall upon it in flocks, pull and touzle it, when they catch it, but the Hawk usually carries the day. With a mighty thrust he seizes his prey from among the black mass, and gets away from his pursuers. It likes best districts where wood and field alternate, but it also settles in the neighbourhood of villages where it causes great damage among the poultry.

Next to the Lanner—falco lanarius—the Goshawk was the favourite among sportsmen in the olden days as indeed it still is among the nomadic tribes of Asia.

The Goshawk—Goosehawk—comes to Great Britain as an occasional visitor only, in autumn, winter, and now and again in the spring. There used to be some eyries in old fir-woods in the valley of the Spey a century ago, but in Scotland the Peregrine Falcon is called the Goshawk. In some old Scottish works on Falconry it is stated that the best Goshawks came from Ireland.

CHIEFLY HURTFUL.

THE GOSHAWK.

I know a place in Southern Germany, a sandy, raised piece of ground, in the middle of a wood, near the point of a peninsula, where only high fir-trees are; and there the bold Goshawk has his bulky nest which he uses year after year. On a clearing close to the Goshawk’s nest there lie innumerable remains of Starlings and young hares. The Starlings fear him greatly; when he comes gliding low in pursuit of his quarry over the marshy ground beyond his wood, they keep close to the Crows, which are numerous on this peninsula. They feed with these birds whenever the Goshawk is in their neighbourhood, knowing that the Crows will attack him sturdily. During the skirmish with the Crows, the knowing Starlings make away from the scene.

The Goshawk punishes that bad but beautiful bird, the Jay, who does more harm here than the Sparrow-Hawk and all the three species of Butcher-birds put together. The Sparrow-Hawk attacks the Jay also; but he only gets the better of him after a long struggle, whereas the Goshawk punishes quickly.

As I stood under the high fir-tree from which a pair of Goshawks took flight on my approach, one of the sudden thunderstorms common to the neighbourhood at this time of year broke overhead, and I had to shelter long, so that I had time to marvel at the great quantity of creatures these birds had taken to their family larder—hares, starlings, pigeons, ducks, and poultry of all sizes. The farmer here dreads it more than he does any other bird of prey, and we have no cause to regret its ceasing to build in our midst. A male and a female bird were caught in a trap in the forest of Bowland, Lancashire, about the year 1835; now only an occasional bird is to be seen.

A French writer says that the Goshawk is still used in Persia in hunting the gazelle, and that it is trained to feed on that creature’s beautiful eyes by placing its food in the empty eye-sockets of a stuffed gazelle, so that when used in the hunt the Goshawk stops its victim by attacking and tearing out its eyes—a horribly cruel form of sport.

Keats writes:

“O Sorrow! why dost burrow
The lustrous passion from a falcon-eye?”

and Young:

“Pride, like hooded hawks in darkness soars
From blindness bold, and towering to the skies.”

“Mark the gay squadron through the copse descending
The greyhound with his silken leash contending
Wreathed the lithe neck; and on the falconer’s hand
With restless perch and pinions broad depending,
Each hooded goshawk kept her eager stand.”

Burns says:

“Swift as a gos drives on a wheeling hare.”

In the young bird the underpart is clay colour with narrow cross stripes and large longitudinal flecks. The iris golden-yellow; feet sulphur yellow. Claws strong and sharp. The adult has a narrow white line about the ear coverts and the eye; upper parts ash-brown; four broad dark bars on the tail; underparts white, thickly barred with ash-brown; cere, iris, and legs yellow. Length of the male 20 inches; of the female 23 inches.

The large nest of the Goshawk is composed of hard twigs. The eggs, usually four, are pale bluish-grey, but later they become dirty greenish-yellow, and sometimes have a few rusty or olive markings.

The Hobby.
(Falco subbuteo.)

Called in Germany the Tree Falcon.

Of all the Hungarian falcons the Hobby has the swiftest flight; he even pursues the Swallow with success. All the small birds scream with terror when this bird appears. The Swallow dart in an agony of fear under their eaves; the Larks and other small birds press themselves down on the earth; the Quails and Partridges do the same. If a little bird happens to be in flight it tries with all its strength to soar higher and higher, so that the Falcon may remain beneath it, otherwise it is a lost bird. If the Falcon gets above, it shoots like an arrow, with closed wings, down on to the bird. The Hobby does not despise a grasshopper as food, in the twilight a moth does not come amiss; indeed it has lately been observed that it sometimes snaps at bees. But it does not eat carrion.

In the olden days the Hobby has also been used to hunt small birds.

At the present day it is a great friend to the railway, where it circles about the trains and drives away the small birds. It is by no means rare in Hungary.

In England the Hobby arrives about the latter part of May, and it may at intervals be found breeding in most of the Southern counties, notably in Hampshire. Once it nested in Essex pretty regularly, also to a certain extent in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire and Norfolk, rarely in Yorkshire, sometimes in the Midlands, but in the West and in Wales it is scarce. It has never been known to nest in Scotland, and very few Hobbies have been seen in Ireland.

HARMFUL.

THE HOBBY.

It will follow the sportsman and seize a Quail in front of him, according to the late Howard Saunders, but Lord Lilford demurred to this, and said a Hobby will wait on over ranging dogs, on the chance of a young or moulting Skylark, but never attack game birds, as it could not hold them. It is a terror to Larks as well as Swallows, but it does some good in reducing the numbers of cockchafers and dragonflies, which are favourite articles of its diet, with other small insects.

In our country it never makes a nest for itself, but it takes possession of one that has been built by a Crow, Magpie or other bird, in a tree. The female has a curious habit of brooding on an empty nest or upon eggs of the Kestrel before she lays her own. In autumn it leaves the woodlands to take to the open country.

Cowley wrote:

“Like larks when they the tyrant hobby spy,
Some wonderstrook, stand fix’d, some fly.”

And Dryden:

“Larks lie dar’d to shun the hobbies’ flight.”

The Hobby is as big as a small pigeon, but has a slenderer body. The tip of the wing reaches to the end of the tail or even beyond it. Legs and cere are yellow. The eyes are dark brown, with a keen expression. The serrated bill is yellowish at its base, but black at the tip, which is strongly curved. The back is slate-coloured, while breast and belly are marked with black longitudinal stripes on a light ground. The Hobby builds its nest in the tops of high trees in small woods. The eggs number three or four, and are marked with thick rusty-brown spots and streaks on a ground-colour of pale buff.

USEFUL.

THE KESTREL.

The Kestrel.
(Falco tinnúnculus.)

The Kestrel also has a beautiful flight; but it is not able to catch small birds when on the wing. It is a master in the art of remaining in one spot in the air, with a very slight apparent motion of the wings. It stops suddenly in its flight at about the height of an ordinary church tower, bends its spread tail stiffly downwards and beats rapidly with its wings. It often poises itself in this way over meadows, cornfields and moorlands, and marks with its brown, sharp eyes any mouse or marmot that slips out of its hole. Sometimes it finds a brood of young birds, and these it does not spare. Crickets, grasshoppers and lizards also fall a prey to this hunter, but mice form its chief diet, and for this reason the bird is useful. When it has caught sight of its prey from a height in the air it suddenly closes its wings and drops, but when quite near the ground it spreads them again, and thus picks up its victim. It eats the smaller insects out of its claws while flying; but larger prey it carries to a quiet spot. Its twittering cry is often heard; it sounds like “Klee, klee, klee.” It leaves Hungary in severe winters. The Kestrel is the most numerous of the birds of prey in that country, where it is quite at home, even in the rush and noise of towns.

The Kestrel is commonly known as the Wind-hover, on account of its habit of hanging motionless in the air against the wind. It has a very graceful flight. This Falcon is quite the commonest of the British birds of prey, and we should have still more of these useful Falcons in our country were it not for the prejudice and ignorant ideas of so many of our gamekeepers and farmers. In Scotland the former are becoming much more aware of the harmlessness and the usefulness of the Kestrel. Considering the fact that the creatures forming its principal food are mice, it is strange that our agriculturalists have not valued its services sooner. The gracefulness of its flight makes it an interesting point in a landscape. It is as well known to country children in our Southern counties as is the Cuckoo. If their nest is robbed before the full number of eggs is laid the pair will remove such eggs as are left to the next suitable empty nest they can find and proceed with their family duties there. The Kestrel is a pleasanter bird to keep as a pet than others of his family; it is easily tamed, and afterwards can be kept at liberty, as it will come to call or whistle if it is fed regularly at the same time and place. The late Lord Lilford, who knew more practically about Falcons than most ornithologists said: “I cannot altogether acquit the Kestrel of an occasional bit of poaching; a small Partridge or Pheasant astray in the grass is no doubt too tempting a morsel to be resisted, but any petty larceny of this sort may well be condoned on account of the great number of field-mice and voles destroyed by these birds.” In Spain its food consists chiefly of beetles.

A great many of our Kestrels leave us at the approach of winter when the food they like best is too hard to find.

The Kestrel is about the same size as the Hobby, but is a slenderer bird, and its tail is longer. The tail is of a beautiful grey colour and extends far beyond the tips of the wings. Near its extremity it is adorned with a broad, dark, transverse bar; the tip itself, however, is white. The back is reddish with dark, triangular markings; the flanks light-coloured with black longitudinal marks. The bill is curved from the base, and is short and strongly hooked. Cere and feet are yellow. The tail of the female has several narrow transverse bars, with tip as in the male. For nesting places the Kestrel chooses by preference ruins, towers, and lofty crags, very seldom selecting a site in a tree. It lays four or five eggs, rarely more than six. They are thickly spotted and splashed with brownish-red on a light ground.

The Merlin or Stone-hawk (Falco æsalon) is the smallest bird of our British Falcons. It breeds regularly on our moorlands, not in such numbers in the South as beyond Derbyshire. In many parts of Wales too it nests. It is fairly common too in the mountainous parts of Ireland. In the autumn the dashing little fellow comes down to the coast and bays where he can prey on Dunlins, Snipe and other waders. He has high courage and will kill birds you would not think him capable of mastering. The Merlin will kill the Skylark if pinched by hunger, but both he and the Hobby prefer birds of the Finch family.

HARMFUL.

THE MARSH-HARRIER.

The Marsh-Harrier.
(Circus œruginosus.)

(Formerly known as the Moor-Buzzard.)

The Marsh-Harrier is one of the shyest and most cunning of our birds of prey. It immediately attracts attention by its size and its constant activity; but it requires a good sportsman to get a shot at it. It is most easily got at when feasting among the high grass at the edge of the reedy marsh; it then forgets to be prudent and sometimes takes flight only too late. Early and late it hovers over the borders of the marshes and reed-beds, sweeping, circling without rest, now and then making a swift descent into the rushes and the sedges and securing its prey. There is no small creature of the marsh, the bog, the heath, or the moor that this bird will not take; it works special destruction among the singing birds which nest among the reeds and sedges. It does not wait for the young birds to be hatched, but is very clever in breaking open the eggs and devouring the contents, always bringing them on to dry land for the purpose.

The birds of the reed-land know this raider well, and as soon as the first flap of his wing is heard the terrified Lapwings, Gulls, Terns, and others, arise with loud cries and attack him tooth and nail. When brooding it lives almost exclusively by egg stealing; later on the moor hens afford provender for this insatiable thief. It leaves Hungary for the winter, but returns in early spring. Its cry varies. In spring it is “kei, kei,” in autumn it is like that of the Jay. The female utters a loud “pitz! pitz.”

This bird is common in the Hungarian marshes.

The drainage of our Eastern fens and the reclaiming of marshland in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Shropshire, Dorset, Somerset, and some other counties once frequented by this bird has caused it to become scarce where formerly it used to breed freely. Sometimes a pair having wandered over from Holland will try to rear a brood in our Norfolk Broads district, but the sportsman—sic—and the collector will not allow them to succeed. In Ireland the bird was formerly common enough about Lough Erne, along the Shannon valley, in Co. Cork, and other districts, but during the last fifty years the gamekeepers have nearly exterminated it by poison. It is known to be a great destroyer of the eggs and young of Waterfowl, but during most of the year it feeds on small mammals, frogs, and reptiles as well as birds.

This is the Duck-Hawk of the marshmen. When the sun is glinting through the mist he may be seen gliding hither and thither, low down over the grey-green flats. At noon he is high up in the clear blue sky. The tender young ducks—called “flappers” are his favourite diet.

Jean Ingelow, in “The Four Bridges,” says:

“The bold Marsh-Harrier wets her tawny breast—
We scared her oft in childhood from her prey.”

The Marsh-Harrier is smaller and noticeably slimmer in build than the Buzzard. The tail is long, the legs are long, thin, and bare of feathers, and the claws sharp. The Head has something about it that suggests an Owl, for the facial disk is conspicuous and the eyes glance forwards as well as to the side. The bird’s plumage is brown, very dark in places: but the head is light-coloured, being whitish in males and yellowish in females. Inhabiting reed-beds, the bird builds its nest among reed-stems or bulrushes. The eggs, five or less frequently six in number, are greenish-white in colour.

The Hen-Harrier.
(Circus cyaneus.)

The nest of the Hen-Harrier is built of roots and plant stems, is soft within and is often placed on the ground; if in heather, or dried up marsh, it is often a foot high. From four to six bluish-white eggs, sometimes yellowish-brown or rufous markings, are laid.

This bird of prey has a light, sweeping flight. It leaves Hungary in winter. It hunts alone and takes its food exclusively from the ground. This consists of small mammals, especially mice, the bird is also particularly fond of robbing the nests of such birds as build on the ground; it sucks the eggs and devours the small downy creatures within them. It also takes the little hares—in short, it is one of the most destructive birds in the fields which it frequents and hunts over untiringly. On the other hand, there comes a time when the number of field mice has increased beyond measure. Then the Hen-Harrier joins the other birds of prey and destroys enormous numbers of those enemies of the farmer. For this reason the species should not be altogether exterminated.

Of late years the numbers of the Hen-Harrier have been greatly thinned by game-preservers, and it only nests now on a few of our largest and wildest moorlands and wastes. Even in Scotland it is fast decreasing so far as nesting goes, whereas it was once plentiful there. Still there are a fairly large number of young birds in the autumn, and then, too, the adult birds come down from the higher-lying districts to the lowlands. It used

HARMFUL

THE HEN-HARRIER.

to breed in the Fen-lands of East Anglia until the reclaiming of marsh lands drove it away. As to this I may be allowed to quote again here from an old ballad written before the fens were drained, it gives the feeling of the fen-dwellers of that day.

“Come brethren of the water, and let us all assemble,
To treat upon this matter which makes us quake and tremble;
For we shall rue it, if it be true that fens be undertaken,
And where we feed on fen and reed, they’ll feed both beef and bacon.
. . . . . . . .
The feathered fowl have wings, to fly to other nations,
But we have no such things to help our transportation;
We must give place—oh, grievous case—to hornéd beast and cattle,
Except that we can all agree to drive them out to battle.”

“As a gamekeeper once said to me,” says ‘A Son of the Marshes,’ “The sooner them big ’uns is gone or done for the better; there’s nothin’ but a chow-row from morning to night. Our head ’un says they must be knocked over, and the guv’nor he’s got the same tale. They can’t git at ’em no more than we. It ain’t so much what they ketches, tho’ they tries hard at it, as what they frightens off the fields; it spiles the shootin’. Them ’ere damned great things hovers an’ swishes after the birds till at last the coveys makes for the hedgerows an’ you has to git ’em out as if you was beatin’ for cocks. We ain’t had none o’ them ’ere blue an’ ring-tailed hawks—harriers—’bout here lately. They’re reg’lar wussers; they kills ’em dead at one clip, an’ takes ’em out in the middle o’ them big fields to eat ’em. They ain’t goin’ to let you get near ’em, not they, an’ they wun’t fly over a place where you kin hide. I’ve tried to git at ’em, but it all cum to nothin’. Them ’ere blue hawks an’ ring-tails would circumvent the devil.”

The adult male has the upper parts a slatey-grey tone of colour, the rump white, throat and breast bluish-grey—under parts white. The female is brown above, the neck rufous-brown streaked with white—there is a distinct facial ruff, giving the head an owl-like appearance, suggesting that this species might be the link between Owls and Hawks—tail brown, having five darker bars, hence the old name of Ring-tail given to the female of this bird; under parts buff-brown with darker stripes. Length 21 inches. The young resemble the female.

CHAPTER IX.
Rational Bird Protection.

Only a savage, or an ignorant man, can harm or wish to get rid of a bird before he has convinced himself that it is harmful. I have said already that in the abstract there are no useful and harmful birds, as such. The bird exists as a product of Nature, to fulfil, like everything else, the tasks allotted to it by Nature and in Nature, which no other creature can perform.

It is man who makes the bird useful or hurtful to himself, when he tears up the turf, and sows such seed as brings rich crops which serve the bird for food; or when he plants an orchard or vineyard, where there was none before. Therefore, for the good of the birds—and also of man—we must carefully reflect what it is our duty to do and how we can best do it.

The Tits, Hedge Sparrows, Flycatchers and others whose industry know no rest, do invaluable service to a sensible man; for while the most observant and diligent gardener can only destroy those caterpillars’ nests which meet his eye wholesale, these useful birds, hopping about, darting and leaping, hanging and pecking, devour all the mischievous pests, even when they are quite out of reach of man, and certainly out of his sight.

These services can even be estimated to a certain extent.

The tiny Wren consumes in one year more than three million insects in different forms, either as eggs, chrysalis or perfect insects, which, if they were allowed to propagate would result in countless numbers.

The Blue Tit, not much larger, destroys six and a half million insects in one year. If it bring up a family of 12 to 16 young ones, it means that one family of Tits puts about twenty-four million destructive insects out of the power of doing harm. Whoever, therefore, either from cruelty or ignorance, catches or kills these useful little birds does a great injury to the common weal.

THE RAIDING HAWK.

The insect world has great power everywhere, and where birds and other insect-eating creatures are destroyed through ignorance there follows the destruction resulting from the ascendancy of these pests which appear, not in tens of thousands, but in millions. Twenty-one years ago any person who had ventured on such an assertion would have been laughed at, but it is now a well-known fact that some of the most renowned vineyards have been entirely ruined by the Phylloxera, an insect which can scarcely be seen by the naked eye.

In former times, when a great deal of uncultivated land covered the plain, in its natural state, the air rang with the song of birds. Woods, meadows, thickets and pools were thronged with the feathered songsters. In the course of time, however, things have greatly changed; in many districts the woods are thinned or grubbed up, the plough has torn up the meadows; every little scrap of thicket has been hewn down; whole forests are being cut down by degrees to supply the paper mills; and so the birds are losing their nesting places, and death and destruction lurk in waiting for them on their migrations. Devastating storms which overtake the immigrant flocks often destroy the feathered wanderers in great numbers. This, however, is the course of Nature, against which we are impotent.

After all the birds’ worst enemy is man, with his ignorance, or, still worse, his cupidity. He has plundered the nest and destroyed the brood; he grudges every grain of corn which the bird has richly deserved by its work throughout the year.

Steamers and railroads make it possible for birds, which are caught by millions, to be sent alive into the great cities as delicacies of the table. So, from year to year, they are becoming rarer.

So much the more are we bound,—for the good of heart and soul, as well as for the blessing of the land and its workers—to protect the useful birds as much as we conscientiously can so that they may increase in numbers.

Once, while on a journey to the Northern Ocean, I travelled the whole length of Denmark. Moor, bog and sandhills cover great stretches of land. Coarse heath grows over the sandhills. Poverty-stricken huts are scattered here and there in these districts, the tenants of which live by turf cutting. There is neither wood nor coal, so that the dried bog furnishes the sole fuel. A small spotted cow is usually seen tethered with a long rope near the cottage. This animal provides milk for the household. In front of the dwelling, at a distance of about fifteen paces, a pole, from 13 to 20 feet in height, is set up, at the top of which is fastened a nest-box for birds, and this is usually inhabited by Starlings.

It was a pleasant sight, towards evening, that of the weary turf-cutter, sitting on the little bench before his cottage, smoking his pipe, bending down to talk to his child, and then, with heartfelt pleasure, setting himself to watch the pair of Starlings chattering on the nest-box, and enjoying life generally. In many districts nest-boxes are fixed on fruit trees in gardens and in every other suitable place, and in these dwell all the best and most industrious workers—Tits, Flycatchers, Redstarts and others.

There is a proverb which may be translated as follows: “Take nest and eggs from brooding bird—no fruit is found, no song is heard.” Also in the Bible we read: “If a bird’s nest chance to be before thee in the way, in any tree or on the ground, whether they be young ones or eggs, and the dam sitting upon the young or upon the eggs, thou shalt not take the dam with the young.”

We must guard the nests from evilly disposed men and from roving predatory animals as much as lies in our power. But the real problem is this: The landowner uproots bushes, fells old trees, prevents the nest building of our most useful birds and cannot give back to them what they have lost. He prevents the possibility of their collecting again and increasing, and consequently from performing their useful duties, which are continually increasing. Where, however, bushes and trees have been rooted up, new ones may be planted, and the birds encouraged to return, although we cannot replace them at once—for hundreds of years may pass before the trees grow tall enough, and we cannot wait so long. Then we try to do by artificial means what we cannot do by nature; and we must be careful to study nature in our operations or we shall not succeed.

The Woodpecker, which lives in hollow trees, shows us how to build an artificial nest.

Table V., Fig. 1, gives a section of the nesting-hole of a Woodpecker built by himself.

Fig. 2 is a perfectly designed nest for Titmice.

Fig. 3 shows the same nesting-box complete, provided with entrance hole and cover.

Fig. 4 shows an open nest-box for Flycatchers and a black Redstart.

The most important is that shown in 2 and 3 as it is specially arranged to suit Titmice.

Nest-boxes, and especially their holes, should, of course, be of different sizes, according to the birds that are to inhabit them. The opening is always round, and is of varying size according to the species. Many directions as to these are given in a paper by Baron von Berlepsch, “On the Protection of Birds Generally,” published by the German Association for the Protection of the Bird World, and also by publications of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in Hanover Square, London.

Nesting Boxes on Poles.

The following are some approximate measurements for nest-boxes:—

For Titmice:

height, 11½ inches; depth from back to front, 4½ inches; diameter of round opening, 1¼ inches.

For birds of the size of a Starling:

height, 18½ inches; depth back to front, 9 inches; diameter of opening, 1¾ inches.

For Green Woodpeckers:

height, 19¾ inches; depth back to front, 9 inches; diameter of opening, 2⅜ inches.

The measurements for the Wild Pigeon are the same as these last, except for the opening, which should be about 4½ inches wide.

Flycatchers and Wagtails require a box as shown in Fig. 4. This is 9 inches high, and has an opening about 4 inches square.

The edge of the entrance to a nesting-box should be rounded off, as in the hole of a tree, to make it more natural to the bird’s feet.

The nesting-boxes should be fixed in orchards, gardens, and houses on the edge of a forest, on the trunks of trees and branches, also on poles, and fastened by means of strong flexible wire, or, still better, by screw-nails. They should be placed perpendicularly, slightly inclined or crooked, but never inclined backwards as the rain gets in and the Titmouse has sense enough to avoid such a nesting-box. They should be fixed a little lower than the average height of a man, and so arranged that the morning sun strikes the entrance hole if possible. The box is an exact copy of the nest-hole of the small spotted Woodpecker, and experience teaches us that the unoccupied nest-holes are frequently used by the Titmouse. In spring the Titmice not only fight among themselves for the possession of these nest-holes, but also with the hosts of House Sparrows which strive to rob them of the holes. These Sparrows come in crowds and make a great noise in the place. Being of a powerful build, and provided with sharp beaks, the birds finally oust the Titmice. To contravene the House Sparrow we must hang the nest-box somewhat low, about one yard from the ground. The careful and suspicious bird dares not trust himself in it. The Tree Sparrow, which does not come too near the haunts of man, but hovers on the fringe of the villages or street gardens, bushes and heaths, is a trusting bird, and not very heavy. It likes nest-holes immensely, and attacks those which are placed low, driving the Titmouse out. The Hedge Sparrow, again, lives on insects, but he is not clean, and is no friend of the garden; therefore, when we find him fighting with the Titmouse for possession of the nest-holes, we help to oust the Hedge Sparrow in the interests of the garden and the wood.

SPARROWS HAVE OUSTED THE TITMOUSE.

The following birds must be protected at nesting-time: The Great Titmouse, the Blue Titmouse, the Coal

A PLEASANT MEAL ON THE SEEDS OF THE SUNFLOWER: THORNS BELOW TO KEEP THE CAT AWAY.

Titmouse, the Marsh Titmouse, and Crested Titmouse, because all these birds are likely nesting-box dwellers. The method organised by Baron von Berlepsch, and used in Hungary by Minister Darányi, with slight alterations, is intended to bring the vanishing singing birds back again. By the use of different sized nest-boxes it is possible to collect different kinds of birds. I know by experience that by arranging the bushes in close, twisted branches we can get the useful and singing Whitethroats to build their nests.

The importance of a rational study of this question of the protection of birds, with particular regard to their economic significance in given districts, has been demonstrated in Southern Victoria in a remarkable manner, where great mistakes have been made by settlers who seem to have been desirous of encouraging our own British birds about their homesteads. To take steps which resulted in the nesting of a colony of Fieldfares in a district where they had so far been unknown to breed, as Baron von Berlepsch did, was most advantageous, since the Fieldfares drove the murderous Shrike from the field. Again, by fixing up artificial nesting-boxes, made according to this great naturalist’s pattern—on stakes placed in certain districts of North Germany, ninety per cent. of these became inhabited by Titmice, until that time strangers to the region, where, however, their services were most desirable.

On the other hand, Greenfinches, which were introduced into Southern Victoria by Australian settlers twenty-five years ago, took possession of the pine trees, which were the only trees that afforded enough shade and cover, and were the nearest approach there to their usual

A FEEDING-PLACE FOR WET WEATHER.

As a rule only feed the birds when weather reasons prevent them procuring their own food.

nesting-places; and they drove away from the district the useful little native Tits, which feed among these trees and have their own appointed work on them. A correspondent of a Geelong paper writes again of the charming sight of a number of English Blackbirds hopping about on a lawn beneath the spraying water-hose, and busily feeding on the worms. Yet this same bird is becoming a great nuisance to the fruit growers there. This is also the case in New Zealand, where large prices are now being offered for dead Blackbirds and their eggs. The Starling, again, which is so useful in our own pasture lands, has been known to clear out a vineyard in Southern Victoria in a single night. Thrushes are looked upon there as suspects, but opinions are divided as to this bird.

We have already written about the Quails, imported into the canefields of Hawaii, to be in their turn exterminated by the mongoose, who had been brought there to eat up the devastating rats.

To sum up the whole matter, interference with the balance of Nature must only be undertaken with knowledge and discretion; and those who undertake it must study, and profit by the recorded experiences of our accredited guides in this direction.

IN CONCLUSION.

The scope and limits of the present work does not allow of the inclusion of some of the chapters contained in the latest Hungarian edition, such as those treating of the skeleton, the viscera, etc., nor can this be taken as adequately representing the work of the Royal Hungarian Central Bureau of Ornithology of which Mr. Herman is the Director. That work is arranged on a regular scientific basis, and it includes that important investigation with regard to the food of birds, which is carried on by a fully qualified entomologist. The Bureau has its collection, which contains dried ingluvies, i.e., contents of the stomachs of nearly 9,000 different species of birds; skeletons, skins, eggs, nests and insects.

The Bureau has its meteorologist, its biologist, 267 corresponding professional ornithologists, and as many as 326 foresters contributing the results of their observations and experiences, besides a large number of foreign correspondents. There is a huge collection of data for the members of the regular staff to work from. These are written on separate slips, on each of which is the name of the collector, his point of observation, the character of the district in which this is carried on, the scientific name of the species, and the date of observation. The migration of birds is also made the subject of systematic observation.

An important publication, “Aquila,” serve well in keeping together these different workers in connection with the Central Bureau, and the whole expenditure of this office, including the publication of the journal is now included in the Budget of the State.

In order to prevent the abuses which might arise from a general invitation to send in specimens of the different species of birds for examination, the Hungarian Minister of Agriculture has issued various decrees which are enforced by law, the non-observance of which is punishable by fines. The taking alive or killing of protected species is allowed only for scientific purposes, and with permission obtained from the authorities, and any person found employed in this work must be able, on demand, to produce an order in writing from some Hungarian scientific institute, some expert, or known person who can prove that he is engaged in Natural History research. This license is drawn up according to a form legally provided. Another safeguard, provided by M. Darányi against the abuse of such permission, is that the authorities may only allow a license to the same individual for the capture of not more than 10 animals, or the taking of not more than 10 birds, nests, or eggs; and this maximum is only to be permitted in cases where there is no danger of the extinction of the species.

It may be added that, by a decree of the Minister of Agriculture, protection is afforded to Bats of all kinds, and at all times; to Moles, except in flower and kitchen gardens and nurseries, where it is permitted to destroy them; to all kinds of Shrew-mice, except the Water Shrew, which is injurious to fishing interests; and to Hedgehogs.

Further, in view of the great amount of deforestation which is taking place in Hungary, as in other countries, and the consequent destruction of the natural nesting places of birds, the Government provides artificial nesting-holes, and ensures the clipping of shrubs in a suitable manner for the encouragement of desirable bird-residents. These nesting-boxes are placed at a certain distance round the foresters’ houses and become the starting points for further extension. In these places the birds are regularly fed when the winter is a severe one.

A Winter Food Shelter.

Index.

[B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [J], [K], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [Q], [R], [S], [T], [W], [Y], [Z]

Bearded Reedling, [203-204]
Bills of Birds, [15-19]
Bittern, [302-305]
Blackbird, [245-249]
Blackcap, [162-164]
Blue-Tit, [209]
Bullfinch, [270-273]
Bunting:
“ Cirl, [278]
“ Yellow, [277]
“ Reed, [185]
Buzzard, Common, [343-346]
Chaffinch, [267-269]
Coal-Tit, [216]
Crossbill, [135-138]
Crow, Carrion, [64-67]
Crow, Hooded, [17], [57]
Cuckoo, [142-145]
Curlew, Common, [17], [287-290]
Dabchick, [329]
Dipper, [238-241]
Doves:
“ Ring, [281-282]
“ Turtle, [279-282]
Ducks:
“ Wild or Mallard, [316-319]
“ Pintailed, [320-322]
“ Shoveler, [323-326]
Duck-Hawk. See Harrier, Marsh
Eagle, Golden, [332-335]
Falcon, Peregrine, [351]
“ Red-footed, [340-342]
Feathers, [22-23]
Feeding of Birds, [378-380]
Feet of Birds, [19]
Fieldfares, [248]
Flycatcher, Spotted, [189-192]
“ Pied, [193-194]
Goatsucker. See Nightjar
Goose, Bean, [313-315]
Goldfinch, [273], [351]
Goshawk, [351], [352]
Grebe, Great-crested, [327-330]
Greenfinch, [274]
Gull, Blackheaded, [87-89]
Harriers:
“ Hen, [365-368]
“ Marsh, [362-364]
Hawfinch, [17], [262-266]
Herons:
“ Common, [17], [300-301]
“ Night, [298-301]
Hobby, [355], [358]
Hoopoe, [146-148]
Jackdaw, [72-77]
Jay, [83-86]
Kestrel, [358-361]
Kingfisher, [235-237]
Kite, [336-339]
Lapwing, [283-286]
Lark, [232]
Magpie, [78-82]
Mallard. See Duck, Wild
Martin:
“ House, [109-102]
“ Sand, [113-116]
Mavis. See Thrush
Mauvis. See Redwing
Merganser, [17]
Merlin, [361]
Moorhen, [307-309]
Nesting-boxes, [373-379]
Nettle-creeper. See Whitethroat
Nightingale, [165-167]
Nightjar, [120-123]
Nuthatch, [133-134]
Oriole, [250-252]
Owls:
“ Barn, [24-28]
“ Brown or Tawny, [29-33]
“ Little, [42-44]
“ Long-eared, [34-37]
“ Short-eared, [38-41]
Oxeye. See Titmouse, Great
Partridge, [17]
Peewit. See Lapwing
Pigeon, Wood, [281-282]
Pipit, Tree, [173-175]
Plover, Green. See Lapwing
Protection of Birds. [369-379]
Quail, [90-93]
Raven, [68-71]
Redbreast, [253]
Redshank, [291-294]
Redstarts:
“ Common, [168-170]
“ Black, [171-172]
Redwing, [248]
Reed Warbler, Great, [181-185]
Ringdove. See Pigeon, Wood
Robin, [253-256]
Rook, [45-56]
Sandpiper, Green, [295-297]
Screecher. See Swift
Shoveler, [323-326]
Shrikes:
“ Great Grey, [149-151]
“ Lesser Grey, [152-154]
“ Red-backed, [155-158]
Shuffle-wings. See Sparrow, Hedge
Siskin, [171], [351]
Skylark, [232-234]
Snake-bird. See Wryneck
Sparrow-Hawk, [347-350]
Sparrows:
“ Hedge, [230-231]
“ House, [224-227]
“ Tree, [228-229]
Starling, [94-98]
“ Rose, [99-100]
Stonechat, [200-202]
Stormcock. See Thrush, Mistle
Swallow, [104-108]
Swift, [116-119]
Tern, [310-312]
Thrush, [242-244]
“ Mistle, [248]
Titmouse:
“ Bearded, [203-204]
“ Blue, [209-212]
“ Coal, [216-218]
“ Crested, [215-216]
“ Great, [205-208]
“ Long-tailed, [17], [219-223]
“ Marsh, [217]
Tree-Creeper, [131-133]
Wagtails, [17]
“ Blue-headed, [178]
“ Pied, [180]
“ White, [176-178]
“ Yellow, [179]
Water-hen, [307-309]
Waxwing, [101-103]
Wheatear, [194-199]
Whitethroat, Lesser, [159-161]
Willow Wren, [186-188]
Wings of Birds, [19-21]
Wind-hover. See Kestrel
Woodcock, [17]
Woodpeckers, Green, [124-127]
“ Greater Spotted, [128-130]
“ Lesser Spotted, [127]
Wren, [257-261]
“ Gold-crested, [213-214]
Writing Lark. See Bunting, Yellow
Wryneck, [139-141]
Yaffil. See Woodpecker, Green
Yellow-Hammer, [275-278]
Zizi. See Bunting, Cirl

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JUST PUBLISHED.
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A FEW NOTICES OF THE BOOK.

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“Full of observant sympathy and special knowledge.”—Scotsman.

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