The winners in life's race

by Arabella B. Buckley

The plovers scatter o’er the heath,

And sing their wild notes to the listening waste.”

The mother will no sooner see you than she will crouch down, running along a rut, and then move slowly away with a drooping wing as if wounded, hoping to make you follow her and pass by the little earthy hollow where her precious eggs are lying. The experience of life has made these little ground-nesting birds very intelligent, since they have had a land as well as a watery home, and the little moor-hen, which, like the rails and crakes, has taken entirely to a freshwater life in ponds, brooks, canals, and rivers, has learned to hide her nest so skilfully, and to dive and swim so cleverly, that even a trained water-spaniel often loses her when close upon her home.

And as the swimmers have their large birds in the albatross, so the waders too have theirs in the Herons, the Storks, and the Cranes. Who does not know how the storks fly in flocks to the sunny south in winter, and come back in the spring to build their nests in the chimneys of the houses of Holland and Germany, feeding on the banks of rivers, and in the fens on lizards, fish, frogs, and water-snakes; or how the cranes pass their summer in the stormy north, and their winter among the old ruins of Egyptian greatness? But the herons remain with us all the year, feeding on shrimps and crabs on the weed-covered shores, or more often in ponds and lakes upon frogs, water-rats, and fish. How patiently you may see a heron stand with his head slightly bent, still and motionless, till a fish passes by! Then quick as a flash of lightning, his head darts forward, impaling or seizing the prey in the strong beak, and he is off to eat it at his leisure. Thus he lives a solitary life all the year until the springtime, when he flies off to some group of lofty trees where for generations his family have built their nests, and, meeting with his fellows, piles up huge masses of sticks and grass among the tangled boughs.

And there the young herons are hatched and fed in the ancient heronry till they can perch and fly. For now among the waders we have come to birds that can perch, as we did among the swimmers (see [p. 148]). The heron has no longer the three-toed flat foot of the wader, with perhaps a slight spur behind, but a large fourth toe, with which he can grasp the bough; and as he flies across the country, uttering his strange harsh cry, often rising even higher than the hawks and falcons, and alighting on the top of some tall tree, few people would think of classing him among the waders, so like is he to those true land-birds whose life is spent in the air and whose home is in the trees.

THE FIRST KNOWN LAND BIRD

CHAPTER VII.
THE FEATHERED CONQUERORS OF THE AIR.
Part II.—From Running to Flying: From Mound Laying to Nest Building: From Cry to Song.

So the deserts and plains have their ostriches and cassowaries, the open ocean its albatrosses and its penguins, the shores their ducks, gulls, and waders, and the little inland pools and marshes their water-birds, which come there to build their nests and seek for food. Yet these are after all not by any means the larger portion of the bird world. It is in the woods and forests, the moors and pastures, on the solitary mountain peaks above, and in the snug valleys nestling below, that we find the myriads of song birds and game birds and birds of prey; of climbing birds such as the Woodpeckers; swiftly sailing birds such as the Swifts, cooing Wood-pigeons and cawing Rooks; terrible Eagles and Hawks, or sweet-singing Nightingales and Thrushes.

All these birds have had a very different education from that of the far-sailing albatross or the running ostrich. They have grown up in the midst of innumerable dangers; for enemies of all kinds—beasts and reptiles and other birds—live all round about them, making food scarce and destroying their young, so that of the millions born into the world thousands upon thousands perish every year before they grow up. We should expect, then, that these land birds would learn many devices for protecting themselves and their little ones. The guillemot can afford to lay her egg on the bare rock, for few animals can climb the high cliffs where she makes her home; and the penguin on her solitary island may lay hers in the mud on the ground. But the little lark must look carefully for high grass in which to build her nest, and the rook must weave a strong basket-work of twigs to make a home for her nestlings in the top of the high elm.