VIII
JUST out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common, lived in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so many kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a favourite spot with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and fluttered, as if wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve yards before flying away. Not many minutes after seeing the wagtail, a reed-bunting--a bird which I had not previously observed on the common--flew down and alighted on a bush a few yards from me, holding a white crescent-shaped grub in its beak. I stood still to watch it, certainly not expecting to see its nest and young; for, as
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a rule, a bird with food in its beak will sit quietly until the watcher loses patience and moves away; but on this occasion I had not been standing more than ten seconds before the bunting flew down to a small tuft of furze and was there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its young. I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had seen, but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat the turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on a little further, until at last it rose up and flew to a bush.
After admiring the reed-bunting's action, I turned to the dwarf bush near my feet, and saw, perched on a twig in its centre, a solitary young bird, fully fledged but not yet capable of sustained flight. He did not recognise an enemy in me; on the contrary, when I approached my hand to him, he opened his yellow mouth wide, in expectation of being fed, although his throat was crammed with caterpillars, and the white crescent-shaped larva I had seen in the parent's bill was still lying in his mouth unswallowed. The wonder is that when a young bird had been stuffed with food to such an extent just before sleeping time,
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he can still find it in him to open his mouth and call for more.
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How wonderful it is that this parental instinct, so beautiful in its perfect simulation of the action of the bird that has lost the power of flight, should be found in so large a number of species! But when we find that it is not universal; that in two closely-allied species one will possess it and the other not; and that it is common in such widely-separated orders as gallinaceous and passerine birds, in pigeons, ducks, and waders, it becomes plain that it is not assignable to community of descent, but has originated independently all over the globe, in a vast number of species. Something of the beginnings and progressive development of this instinct may be learnt, I think, by noticing the behaviour of various passerine birds in the presence of danger, to their nests and young. Their actions and cries show that they are greatly agitated, and in a majority of species the parent bird flits and flutters round the intruder, uttering sounds of dis-
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tress. Frequently the bird exhibits its agitation, not only by these cries and restless motions, but by the drooping of the wings and tail--the action observed in a bird when hurt or sick, or oppressed with heat. These languishing signs are common to a great many species after the young have been hatched; the period when the parental solicitude is most intense. In several species which I have observed in South America, the languishing is more marked. There are no sorrowful cries and restless movements; the bird sits with hanging wings and tail, gasping for breath with open bill--in appearance a greatly suffering bird. In some cases of this description, the bird, if it moves at all, hops or flutters from a higher to a lower branch, and, as if sick or wounded, seems about to sink to the ground. In still others, the bird actually does drop to the ground, then, feebly flapping its wings, rises again with great effort. From this last form it is but a step to the more highly developed complex instinct of the bird that sinks to the earth and flutters painfully away, gasping, and seemingly incapable of flight.
It would be a great mistake to suppose that the bird when fluttering on the ground to lead an
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enemy from the neighbourhood of its nest is in full possession of all its faculties, acting consciously, and itself in as little danger of capture as when on its perch or flying through the air. We have seen that the action has its root in the bird's passion for its young, and intense solicitude in the presence of any danger threatening them, which is so universal in this class of creatures, and which expresses itself so variously in different kinds. This must be in all cases a painful and debilitating emotion, and when the bird drops down to the earth its pain has caused it to fall as surely as if it had received a wound or had been suddenly attacked by some grievous malady; and when it flutters on the ground it is for the moment incapable of flight, and its efforts to recover flight and safety cause it to beat its wings, and tremble, and gasp with open mouth. The object of the action is to deceive an enemy, or, to speak more correctly, the result is to deceive, and there is nothing that will more inflame and carry away any rapacious mammal than the sight of a fluttering bird. But in thus drawing upon itself the attention of an enemy threatening the safety of its eggs or young, to what a terrible
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danger does the parent expose itself, and how often, in those moments of agitation and debility, must its own life fall a sacrifice! The sudden spring and rush of a feline enemy must have proved fatal in myriads of instances. From its inception to its most perfect stage, in the various species that possess it, this perilous instinct has been washed in blood and made bright.
What I have just said, that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action we have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in blood, applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of life, both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that, for one thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in order to meet cases which commonly occur in the life of a species. The instinct is not prophetic and does not meet rare or extraordinary situations. Unless intelligence or some higher faculty comes in to supplement or to take the place of instinctive action then the creature must perish on account of the limitation of instinct. Again, the higher and more complete the instinct the more perilous it is, seeing that its efficiency depends on the absolutely perfect health and balance of all
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the faculties and the entire organism. Thus, the higher instinctive faculty and action of birds for the preservation of the species, that of migration, is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all. It is so perfect that by means of this faculty millions and myriads of birds of an immense variety of species from cranes, swans, and geese down to minute goldcrests and firecrests and the smallest feeble-winged-leaf warblers, are able to inhabit and to distribute themselves evenly over all the temperate and cold regions of the earth, and even nearer the pole: and in all these regions they rear their young and spend several months each year, where they would inevitably perish from cold and lack of food if they stayed on to meet the winter. We can best realize the perfection of this instinct when we consider that all these migrants, including the young which have never hitherto strayed beyond the small area of their home where every tree and bush and spring and rock is familiar to them, rush suddenly away as if blown by a wind to unknown lands and continents beyond the seas to a distance of from a thousand to six or seven thousand miles; that after long months spent in those distant places, which in turn have grown
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familiar to them, they return again to their natal place, not in a direct but ofttimes by a devious route, now north, now north-east, now east or west, keeping to the least perilous lines and crossing the seas where they are narrowest. Thus, when the returning multitude recrosses the Channel into England, coming by way of France and Spain from north or south or mid-Africa and from Asia, they at once proceed to disperse over the entire country from Land's End to Thurso and the northernmost islands of Scotland, until every wood and hill and moor and thicket and stream and every village and field and hedgerow and farmhouse has its own feathered people back in their old places. But they do not return in their old force. They had increased to twice or three times their original numbers when they left us, and as a result of that great adventure a half or two-thirds of the vast army has perished.
The instinct which in character comes nearest to that of the parent simulating the action of a wounded and terrified bird struggling to escape in order to safeguard its young, is that one, very strong in all ground-breeding species, of sitting close on the nest in the presence of danger. Here,
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too, the instinct is of prime importance to the species, since the bird by quitting the nest reveals its existence to the prowling, nest-seeking enemy--dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England; and in the country where I first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo, opossum, snake, wild cat, and animals of the weasel family. By leaving its nest a minute or half a minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs or young; by staying a moment too long it is in imminent danger of being destroyed itself. How often the bird stays too long on the nest is seen in the corn-crake, a species continually decreasing in this country owing to the destruction caused by the mowing-machine. The parent birds that escape may breed again in a safer place, but in many cases the bird clings too long to its nest and is decapitated or fatally injured by the cutters. Larks, too, often perish in the same way. To go back to the ailing or wounded bird simulating action: this is perhaps most perfect in the gallinaceous birds, all ground-breeders whose nests are most diligently hunted for by all egg-eating creatures, beast or bird, and whose tender chicks are a favourite food for all rapacious animals. In the fowl, pheasants, partridges, quail,
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and grouse, the instinct is singularly powerful, the bird making such violent efforts to escape, with such an outcry, such beating of its wings and struggles on the ground, that no rapacious beast, however often he may have been deceived before, can fail to be carried away with the prospect of an immediate capture. The instinct and action has appeared to me more highly developed in these birds because, in the first place, the demonstrations are more violent than in other families, consequently more effective; and secondly, because the danger once over, the bird's recovery to its normal quiet, watchful state is quicker. By way of experiment, I have at various times thrown myself on pheasants, partridges and grouse, when I have found them with a family of recently-hatched chicks; then on giving up the chase and turning away from the bird its instantaneous recovery has seemed like a miracle. It was like a miracle because the creature did actually suffer from all those violent, debilitating emotions expressed in its disordered cries and action, and it is the miracle of Nature's marvellous health. If we, for example, were thrown into these violent extremes of passion, we should not escape the
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after-effects. Our whole system would suffer, a doctor would perhaps have to be called in and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the development of toxins in the muscles, and give us a bottle of medicine.
I will conclude this digression and dissertation on a bird's instinct by relating the action of a hen-pheasant I once witnessed, partly because it is the most striking one I have met with of that instantaneous recovery of a bird from an extremity of distress and terror, and partly for another reason which will appear at the end.
The hen-pheasant was a solitary bird, having strayed away from the pheasant copses near the Itchen and found a nesting-place a mile away, on the other side of the valley, among the tall grasses and sedges on its border. I was the bird's only human neighbour, as I was staying in a fishing-cottage near the spot where the bird had its nest. Eventually, it brought off eight chicks and remained with them at the same spot on the edge of the valley, living like a rail among the sedges and tall valley herbage. I never went near the bird, but from the cottage caught sight of it from time to time, and sometimes watched it with my
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binocular. There was, I thought, a good chance of its being able to rear its young, unless the damp proved injurious, as there was no dog or cat at the cottage, and there were no carrion crows or sparrow-hawks at that spot. One morning about five o'clock on going out I spied a fox-terrier, a poaching dog from the neighbouring village, rushing about in an excited state a hundred yards or so below the cottage. He had scented the birds, and presently up rose the hen from the tall grass with a mighty noise, then flopping down she began beating her wings and struggling over the grass, uttering the most agonizing screams, the dog after her, frantically grabbing at her tail. I feared that he would catch her, and seizing a stick flew down to the rescue, yelling at the dog, but he was too excited to obey or even hear me. At length, thanks to the devious course taken by the bird, I got near enough to get in a good blow on the dog's back. He winced and went on as furiously as ever, and then I got in another blow so well delivered that the rascal yelled, and turning fled back to the village. Hot and panting from my exertions, I stood still, but sooner still the pheasant had pulled herself up and stood
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there, about three yards from my feet, as if nothing had happened--as if not a ripple had troubled the quiet surface of her life! The serenity of the bird, just out of that storm of violence and danger, and her perfect indifference to my presence, was astonishing to me. For a minute or two I stood still watching her; then turned to walk back to the cottage, and no sooner did I start than after me she came at a gentle trot, following me like a dog. On my way back I came to the very spot where the fox-terrier had found and attacked the bird, and at once on reaching it she came to a stop and uttered a call, and instantly from eight different places among the tall grasses the eight fluffy little chicks popped up and started running to her. And there she stood, gathering them about her with gentle chucklings, taking no notice of me, though I was standing still within two yards of her!
Up to the moment when the dog got his smart blow and fled from her she had been under the domination of a powerful instinct, and could have acted in no other way; but what guided her so infallibly in her subsequent actions? Certainly not instinct, and not reason, which hesitates between
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different courses and is slow to arrive at a decision. One can only say that it was, or was like, intuition, which is as much as to say that we don't know.
