British birds

by W. H. Hudson; Frank E. Beddard

INTRODUCTION.

The plan followed in the descriptive portion of this work has, I trust, the merit of simplicity. A brief account is given of the appearance, language, and life-habits of all the species that reside permanently, or for a portion of each year, within the limits of the British Islands. The accidental stragglers, with the irregular or occasional visitors, have been included, but not described, in the work. To have omitted all mention of them would, perhaps, have been to carry the process of simplification too far. And as much may be said of the retention in this book of Latin, or ‘science’ names. The mass of technical matter with which ornithological works are usually weighted is scarcely wanted in a book intended for the general reader, more especially for the young. Nor was there space sufficient to make the work at the same time a technical and a popular one: the briefest description that could possibly be given of the characters of genera would have occupied thirty to forty pages. The student must, in any case, go to the large standard works on the subject, especially to those of Yarrell (fourth edition), Seebohm, and Howard Saunders, which are repositories of all the most important facts relating to our bird life, gathered from the time of Willughby, the father of British ornithology, down to the present.

The order in which I have placed the species, beginning with the thrushes and ending with the auks, is that of Sclater, based on Huxley’s classification, and is the arrangement adopted in the official list of the British Ornithologists’ Union (1883). The B.O.U. list enumerates 376 species; and of this number 211 species are counted as residents and regular visitants; the remaining 165 being loosely described as ‘Occasional Visitants.’ About these aliens, which are claimed as citizens, something requires to be said.

It has long been the practice of our ornithologists to regard as ‘British’ any species of which one specimen has been found in a wild state within the limits of the United Kingdom. As a result of this excessive hospitality we find in the list about forty-three species of which not more than three specimens have been obtained; in a majority of cases only one. We also find that there are not fewer than forty-five exclusively American species in the list; but by what means, or by what series of extraordinary accidents, these lost wanderers have been carried thousands of miles from their own region, across the Atlantic, and have succeeded in reaching our shores alive, it is impossible to imagine. It is highly probable that some of the American, Asiatic, and European waifs that have been picked up in these islands were birds that had escaped from confinement; but whether brought by man or borne on the wings of the tempest to our shores, the fact remains that they are not members of our avifauna, and the young reader should clearly understand that only by a pleasing fiction are they called ‘British.’

I have spoken at some length on this subject, because it is one that appears to interest a great many persons who are not ornithologists. How many British species are there? is a question that is continually being asked of those who are supposed to know. I should say that, in round numbers, there are 200; at the very outside, 210. Seebohm, in the introduction to his great work, gives 222 as the number of species ‘fairly entitled to be considered British birds’; but he probably counted some that are usually regarded as irregular visitors, and perhaps others which have been exterminated in recent times. Of the 165 species set down in the ‘British’ list as occasional visitors, about 55 or 60 deserve that description, since they do, as a fact, visit the British Islands at irregular intervals. All the others are accidental stragglers.

It only remains to add something on another subject—the little life-histories of the two hundred and odd species described in this volume. Although this is in no sense a controversial subject, the apologetic tone must be still used. I wish that these sketches had been better done, but I do not greatly regret that they had to be brief. The longest history of a bird ever written, the most abounding in facts and delightful to read, when tested in the only sure way—namely, by close observation of its subject—is found to be scarcely more complete or satisfactory than the briefest, which contains only the main facts. This is because birds are not automata, but intelligent beings. Seebohm has well said, ‘The real history of a bird is its life-history. The deepest interest attaches to everything that reveals the little mind, however feebly it may be developed, which lies behind the feathers.’ It has been remarked more than once that we do not rightly appreciate birds because we do not see them well. In most cases persecution has made them fearful of the human form; they fly from us, and distance obscures their delicate harmonious colouring and blurs the exquisite aërial lines on which they are formed. When we look closely at them, we are surprised at their beauty and the indescribable grace of their varied motions. An analogous effect is produced by a close observation of their habits or actions, which, seen from afar, may appear few and monotonous. Canon Atkinson, in his ‘Sketches in Natural History’ (1865), has a chapter about the partridge, prefaced by Yarrell’s remark, that of a bird so universally known there was little that was new to be said. While admitting the general truth of this statement, the author goes on to say: ‘Still, I have from time to time observed some slight peculiarity in the habits of the partridge that I have not seen noticed in any professed description of the bird, forming certain passages, as it were, of its minute history. It is precisely this ‘minute history’ that gives so great and enduring a fascination to the study of birds in a state of nature. But it cannot be written, on account of the infinity of ‘passages’ contained in it, or, in other words, of that element of mind which gives it endless variety.

Let us imagine the case of a youth or boy who has read and re-read half a dozen long histories of some one species; and, primed with all this knowledge, who finally goes out to observe it for himself. It will astonish him to find how much he has not been told. He will begin to think that the writers must have been hasty or careless, that they neglected their opportunities, and missed much that they ought not to have missed; and he may even experience a feeling of resentment towards them, as if they had treated him unfairly. But after more time spent in observation he will make the interesting discovery that, so long as they are watched for, fresh things will continue to appear. The reflection will follow that there must be a limit to the things that can be recorded; that the life-history of a bird cannot be contained in any book, however voluminous it may be; and, finally, that books have a quite different object from the one he had imagined. And in the end he will be more than content that it should be so.

W. H. H.

British Birds.

THE ANATOMY OF A BIRD.

It is very important that every one who studies birds should have some acquaintance with their insides as well as with their outsides. To have a proper appreciation of the mechanism of flight, the most distinctive attribute of a bird, we must explore the air reservoirs and muscles, which combine, with other organs, to form a complicated, but exquisitely adjusted, system. It is true that other animals show a similar adaptation to their several modes of life, but in a bird the necessities of life seem to have produced a more obvious and striking harmony between structure and habit. Furthermore, the young ornithologist should not be content with gaining the ability to recognise the different kinds of birds: he should understand their mutual relations, and the place of a bird in Nature. To form an opinion about these matters needs more than an acquaintance with the colours and outward form, and with the eggs and nest. A great deal can be learnt from these characters, but they are at most only useful in linking together closely related species. All the members of the extensive tribe of parrots, for example, are bound together by their hooked bills, their white eggs, their grasping feet, &c. But we want to go further, and determine what are the relations of the parrots to other birds which differ totally from them in all outward and visible signs. To solve, or rather to attempt to solve, broader questions of this kind we must have recourse to the scalpel, and even to the microscope. Besides, there not only are birds, but there were birds, which have now passed away utterly, leaving behind only a few bones embedded in the rocks. Nothing of an external nature will avail us in considering what these birds were like in their day, and which of existing kinds they most resembled. We must have a knowledge of bones, of osteology, to grapple with the problems which they present. For these reasons I have dealt in the following pages principally with the organs of flight, and with those internal and external characters which are admitted to be of most use in classificatory questions. I have paid less attention to those organs which are not of importance from these points of view.