I have spoken of the extreme nervousness of the first pheasant. The later arrivals, just as would be the case with men, were not nearly so nervous, though all were wary and circumspect. But now it is most interesting to watch them, and to remark how, in these cautious birds, timidity—or say, rather, a proper and most necessary prudence—is tempered with judgment, and modified by individual character or temperament. They are capable of withstanding the first sudden impulse to flight, and of subjecting it to reason and a more prolonged observation. Thus, when the small birds fly, suddenly, off in a cloud, as they do every few minutes, and with a great whirr of wings, the pheasants all stop feeding, look about, pause a little, seeming to consider, and then recommence, as though they had decided that such panic fear was uncalled for, and that there was no rational ground for alarm. An hour or two later three out of the four birds—for two have got gradually to the other side of the stack—see enough of me in the straw to make them suspicious, and go off at half pace. The fourth bird notes their retreat, looks all about, can see nothing to account for it, and instead of following them, as might have been expected, goes on feeding. This, though it may seem to show a defect in the reasoning power (the power itself it certainly does show), at least argues strength of character and independence of judgment. A certain line of conduct is suggested by the action of a bird's three companions, but this suggestion—this powerful stimulus, one would think—is resisted by the one bird, put to the test of its own powers of observation, and the line of conduct dictated by it, rejected. This self-reliant quality and power of not being swayed by others, I have constantly observed in birds.
As will have been gathered, these six pheasants that came and fed together at the stack were all males, and this has been my usual experience. Under such circumstances I have always found them agree together perfectly well, but there is generally some fighting to be seen amongst the small birds, though, perhaps, not much, if one takes their numbers into consideration. Chaffinches are the most pugnacious, though, here again, a similar allowance must be made, for they largely predominate, even over greenfinches, whilst, compared to these two, the others—excepting sometimes bramblings—are only scantily represented. Chaffinches fight by springing up from the ground against each other, breast to breast (as do so many birds), and they may rise thus to a considerable height, each trying to get above the other, and claw or peck down upon it—at least, it would seem so. Their position in the air is thus perpendicular, and as they mutually impede each other, they are more fluttering than flying. Sometimes, however—generally after they have got to a little height—they will disengage, and then there will be between them a series of alternate little flights up and above, and swoops down upon each other, very inspiriting to see. Sometimes they will commence the fight with these swoopings, but it is more common for them to flutter perpendicularly up as described, and then down again. Often, too, they will rise beak to beak only, the position being then between perpendicular and horizontal, but more the latter, the tail part of them giving constant little flirts upwards—as when a volatile Italian in an umbrella shop leans his whole weight on the stick of one of the umbrellas and leaps, or, rather, swings himself from the ground, kicking his heels into the air, to demonstrate its strength. Imagine two volatile Italians thus testing two umbrellas whose handles touch, continually throwing up their heels, rising a little as they do so, never coming quite down again, and so getting a little higher each time, and you have the two chaffinches. Or there will be a series of alternate flying jumps from the ground like the starling's, but more aerial. These are the more usual ways, but if one bird can, whilst on the ground, suddenly seize another by the nape of the neck, and then, getting on his back, twist his beak about in the skin and feathers, it is all the better—for that one. Such fights as these are usually between two male birds, but hen chaffinches sometimes fight, whilst scuffles between a cock and a hen over food may also be witnessed.
Greenfinches fight in much the same manner, but they are more stoutly built, and their motions are not quite so brisk and airy, though chaffinches themselves are but clumsy birds in this respect compared to many others—larks, for example. They, too, fight tenaciously. After a brisk partie in the air, I have seen one, on their falling together, seize the other by the nape and be dragged about by it over the snow.
But what has interested me more than anything else in my frequent watchings of small birds congregated together at the stacks, is the way in which every few minutes or so—sometimes at longer, and sometimes at shorter intervals—they take instant and simultaneous flight, rising all together[15] with a sudden whirr of wings, and flurrying away to some near tree or trees, or into the hedgerow, to return in a much more scattered and gradual manner very soon—sometimes almost directly afterwards. These sudden spontaneous flights, where one and the same thought seems suddenly to take possession of a whole assembly of beings, I had before, and have often afterwards, observed in rooks, starlings, wood-pigeons, etc., and I have been equally puzzled to account for it in all of them. I do not remember that this habit, which is, indeed, common in a greater or less degree to a very great number of birds, has ever been brought forward as something difficult of explanation, and many, perhaps, will doubt there being any such difficulty in regard to a thing so ordinary and commonplace. As to this, I can only say that I have arrived at a different conclusion.
[15] This is the effect produced, but for greater accuracy see p. [245].
What would be the ordinary way of accounting for such sudden and simultaneous taking to flight of a number of birds? One may suppose, in the first place, that a particular note is uttered by one or more of them on the espial of danger, and that this acts as a sauve-qui-peut to the rest. This seems a satisfactory explanation, but as against it, no such note is, as a rule, uttered, and even if it were, it would not account for all the facts as I have often observed them.
Day after day, and for hours at a time, I have watched these crowds of little birds under the circumstances described, and only on one single occasion was the sudden rising into the air in flight preceded by any note at all, nor did I observe anything—I do not believe there was anything to be observed—which could have frightened them.
In the one case referred to, which was different, "the flight was certainly preceded by a note—a very peculiar one, single, long, and remarkably loud, taking the size of the birds into consideration. It suggested somewhat the sudden blowing of a horn—though, of course, a small one. I could not tell which bird uttered it, but feel sure, from the quality of the tone, that it was a greenfinch. To the best of my observation, the note was uttered before the flight commenced, and the flight followed before it had ceased. Almost immediately afterwards I heard, for the first time, the caw of rooks, and my theory is (or was) that one of these, appearing suddenly in the air from the back of the hay-stack, had been mistaken for a hawk, and that the bird so mistaking it had immediately uttered the appropriate warning note. Unfortunately for my little mouse" ("theories," says Voltaire, "are like mice; they run through nineteen holes, but are stopped by the twentieth"), "only the other day, when I was at the same place and equally near, a genuine hawk (a sparrow one) had flown by, when, instead of a warning note, there had been a sudden hush and silence, followed by a flight which, as it seemed to me, was not so close and compact as usual. Difficulties of this sort are always occurring in observation—at least in my observation—and show how cautious one should be in translating the particular into the general. For instance, with moor-hens, I have noted that in one or two of their many timorous flights to the river a peculiar cry was uttered by a single bird, which had all the appearance and seemed to have all the probability of being a warning note; but this was not the case on other occasions." Even here, then, there is some difficulty in accepting the theory of a danger-signal uttered by one bird, and causing the simultaneous flight of all, whilst in all other instances (I am speaking now of small birds at the stacks) either no note at all or none distinguishable from a general chirping was uttered. Manifestly,[16] then, this explanation will not serve. But it may be said, either that there is a leader whose movements all the birds follow, or that when one bird flies, for whatever reason, the rest take alarm and fly also. But where different species of birds are all banded together, it seems very unlikely that there should be a leader, and both this and the other explanation, which at first sight seems satisfactory, are destroyed by the salient fact that in hardly any case do all the birds rise and fly away together, but only the great majority. Almost invariably a certain number of them, though sometimes only half-a-dozen or so, or even less, remain, nor has this anything to do with the particular species of bird. Moreover, the flying up of any bird from the crowd does not, of itself, communicate alarm to the others, for first one and then another and often several at a time may constantly be doing so, whilst the rest feed quietly and take no notice. It may be said that it is only when a bird flies off in alarm that its flight communicates alarm to its companions. That it does so necessarily, even in such a case, I, from general observation, very much doubt, and also, if the facts as I have given them be a little considered, it will be seen that the difficulties are not met by this view of the case.
[16] My very close proximity must be taken into account.
The theory of a leader seems more applicable to birds like rooks, which are gregarious, and may be constantly watched in large numbers together, without the intermixture of any other species. The same difficulties, however, apply here, and even to a greater extent, for the movements of rooks are more complicated, whilst alarm or any such primary impulse as the origin (I do not say the explanation) of them, is in most cases quite out of the question. An instance or two of these sudden and quite simultaneous movements of bodies of rooks I have noted down directly after observing them. They would be much in place here, but as I have two chapters devoted to these birds, and, moreover, as they but make a part in general scenes and pictures, I will not separate them from their context nor any bird from its companions.