British Birds in Their Haunts

by C. A. Johns

This bird, which in brilliancy of plumage vies with the Hummingbirds, possesses little claim to be ranked among soberly clad British birds. Stray instances are indeed met with from time to time, but at distant intervals. In the islands of the Mediterranean, and in the southern countries of Europe, they are common summer visitors, and in Asia Minor and the south of Russia they are yet more frequent. They are gregarious in habits, having been observed, both in Europe, their summer, and in Africa, their winter residence, to perch together on the branches of trees in small flocks. They also build their nests near each other. These are excavations in the banks of rivers, variously stated to be extended to the depth of from six inches to as many feet. Their flight is graceful and light, resembling that of the Swallows. Their food consists of winged insects, especially bees and wasps, which they not only catch when they are wandering at large through the air, but watch for near their nests. The inhabitants of Candia and Cyprus are said to catch them by the help of a light silk line, to which is attached by a fish-hook a wild bee. The latter in its endeavour to escape soars into the air, and the Bee-eater seizing it becomes the prey of the aërial fisherman.

FAMILY UPUPIDÆ

THE HOOPOE
UPUPA EPOPS

Crest orange-red tipped with black; head, neck, and breast pale cinnamon; back, wings, and tail barred with black and white; under parts white. Length twelve inches; width nineteen inches. Eggs lavender grey, changing to greenish olive.

Little appears to be known of the habits of this very foreign-looking bird from observation in Great Britain. The season at which it is seen in this country is usually autumn, though a few instances have occurred of its having bred with us. In the south of Europe and north of Africa it is of common occurrence as a summer visitor, but migrates southwards in autumn. Its English name is evidently derived from the French Huppe, a word which also denotes 'a crest', the most striking characteristic of the bird. It is called also in France Puput, a word coined, perhaps, to denote the noise of disgust which one naturally makes at encountering an unpleasant odour, this, it is said, being the constant accompaniment of its nest, which is always found in a filthy condition, owing to the neglect of the parent birds in failing to remove offensive matter, in conformity with the laudable practise of most other birds. In spite of the martial appearance of its crest, it is said to be excessively timid, and to fly from an encounter with the smallest bird that opposes it. It lives principally on the ground, feeding on beetles and ants. On trees it sometimes perches but does not climb, and builds its nest in holes in trees and walls, rarely in clefts of rocks. It walks with a show of dignity when on the ground, erecting its crest from time to time. In spring the male utters a note not unlike the coo of a Wood-pigeon, which it repeats several times, and at other seasons it occasionally emits a sound something like the shrill note of the Greenfinch. But it is no musician and is as little anxious to be heard as seen. The nest is a simple structure composed of a few scraps of dried grass and feathers, and contains from four to six eggs. It would breed here annually if not always shot on arrival.

FAMILY CUCULIDÆ

THE CUCKOO
CÚCULUS CANÓRUS

Upper plumage bluish ash colour, darker on the wings, lighter on the neck and chest; under parts whitish with transverse dusky streaks; quills barred on the inner webs with oval white spots; tail-feathers blackish, tipped and spotted with white; bill dusky, edged with yellow; orbits and inside of the mouth orange-yellow; iris and feet yellow. Young—ash-brown, barred with reddish brown; tips of the feathers white; a white spot on the back of the head. Length thirteen inches and a half, breadth twenty-three inches. Eggs varying in colour and markings.

No bird in a state of nature utters a note approaching so closely the sound of the human voice as the Cuckoo; on this account, perhaps, partially at least, it has at all times been regarded with especial interest. Its habits have been much investigated, and they are found to be unlike those of any other bird. The Cuckoo was a puzzle to the earlier naturalists, and there are points in its biography which are controverted still. From the days of Aristotle to those of Pliny, it was supposed to undergo a metamorphosis twice a year, appearing during the summer months as a Cuckoo, "a bird of the hawk kind, though destitute of curved talons and hooked beak, and having the bill of a Pigeon; should it chance to appear simultaneously with a Hawk it was devoured, being the sole example of a bird being killed by one of its own kind. In winter it actually changed into a Merlin, but reappeared in spring in its own form, but with an altered voice, laid a single egg, or rarely two, in the nest of some other bird, generally a Pigeon, declining to rear its own young, because it knew itself to be a common object of hostility among all birds, and that its brood would be in consequence unsafe, unless it practised a deception. The young Cuckoo being naturally greedy, monopolized the food brought to the nest by its foster parents; it thus grew fat and sleek, and so excited its dam with admiration of her lovely offspring, that she first neglected her own chicks, then suffered them to be devoured before her eyes, and finally fell a victim herself to his voracious appetite."[23]—A strange fiction, yet not more strange than the truth, a glimmering of which appears throughout. We know well enough now that the Cuckoo does not change into a Merlin, but migrates in autumn to the southern regions of Africa; but this neither Aristotle nor Pliny could have known, for the common belief in their days was, that a continued progress southwards would bring the traveller to a climate too fierce for the maintenance of animal life. Now the Merlin visits the south of Europe, just at the season when the Cuckoo disappears, and returns northwards to breed in spring, a fact in its history as little known as the migration of the Cuckoo. It bears a certain resemblance to the Cuckoo, particularly in its barred plumage, certainly a greater one than exists between a caterpillar and a butterfly, so that there were some grounds for the belief in a metamorphosis, strengthened not a little by the fact that the habits of the bird were peculiar in other respects. Even so late as the time of our own countrymen, Willughby and Ray (1676), it was a matter of doubt whether the Cuckoo lay torpid in a hollow tree, or migrated during winter. These authors, though they do not admit their belief of a story told by Aldrovandus of a certain Swiss peasant having heard the note of a Cuckoo proceed from a log of wood which he had thrown into a furnace, thought it highly probable that the Cuckoo did become torpid during winter, and were acquainted with instances of persons who had heard its note during unusually mild winter weather. A Cuckoo which had probably been hatched off too late to go away with the rest remained about the tennis ground of a relative of the present editor until the middle of November, getting very tame. Then, unfortunately, a cat got it. The assertion again of the older naturalists, that the Cuckoo is the object of hatred among birds generally, seems credible, though I should be inclined to consider its habit of laying its eggs in the nests of other birds as the cause rather than the consequence of its unpopularity. The contrary, however, is the fact, numerous anecdotes of the Cuckoo showing that it is regarded by many other birds with a respect which amounts to infatuation, rather than with apprehension. The statement that it lays but one egg is erroneous, so also is the assertion of Willughby that it invariably destroys the eggs found in a nest previously to depositing its own. Pliny's assertion that the young bird devours its foster brothers and sisters is nearer the truth, but his account of its crowning act of impiety in swallowing its nurse, is, I need not say, altogether unfounded in fact. Having disposed of these errors, some of which are entertained by the credulous or ill-informed at the present day, I will proceed to sketch in outline the biography of this singular bird, as the facts are now pretty generally admitted.

The Cuckoo arrives in this country about the middle of April; the time of its coming to different countries is adapted to the time of the foster-parents' breeding. During the whole of its stay it leads a wandering life, building no nest, and attaching itself to no particular locality. It shows no hostility towards birds of another kind, and little affection for those of its own. If two males meet in the course of their wandering they frequently fight with intense animosity. I was once witness of an encounter between two birds who chanced to meet in mid-air. Without alighting they attacked each other with fury, pecking at each other and changing places just as one sees two barn-door cocks fight for the supremacy of the dunghill. Feathers flew in profusion, and in their passion the angry birds heeded my presence so little that they came almost within arm's length of me. These single combats account for the belief formerly entertained that the Cuckoo was the only sort of Hawk that preyed on its own kind. The female does not pair or keep to one mate. It is, however, frequently accompanied by a small bird of another kind, said to be a Meadow Pipit.