On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills: Pilgrimages to Snowdon and Scafell

by Henry S. Salt

Eagles, then, we have none in our Welsh and English mountains, and the kite having now been reduced to so poor a remnant as to be numbered with the lost British birds, we turn perforce to the buzzard and the peregrine as the two most noteworthy representatives of the family of the Falcons. The fiery-hearted peregrine, or “falcon-hawk,” as the dalesmen call him, still breeds on certain rocky ramparts, whence he can overlook the valleys and dart forth unerringly on any passing prey. An eye-witness once described to me how a falcon, having struck down one of two pigeons in a field at the head of Langdale, and being scared from his victim by some harvesters who saw the chase, rose instantly and was off at lightning speed after the other pigeon over the ridge of Bowfell!

We look in vain to the buzzard for such indomitable energies; yet it is a grand sight to watch him sailing aloft in leisurely circles, or hanging poised, as he sometimes does, off the edge of some broken escarpment, so near that you can see his barred feathers and quickly glancing eye. On a misty day in rounding a sharp headland, I have sometimes come suddenly upon a perched buzzard at only a few yards’ distance, and have seen him flutter up in a panic, to lose himself in the clouds; in the nesting season the bird will occasionally “shadow” an intruding climber almost as the curlew does, and follow him at close distance along the ridge of the mountain until he has conducted him off his estate. I have frequently seen buzzards and ravens sparring at each other in the sky, in that desultory and ineffective manner of warfare which many birds seem to adopt.

The raven, who, in default of the eagle, divides with the buzzard the empire of the crags is, perhaps, the most interesting bird that now claims our attention; and robber though he is, we are always glad to hear his deep “kronk,” or his wild dog-like bark, before the black form is seen skirting the edge of the precipice or winging straight across the glen. It is somewhat strange that in spite of the persecution of shepherds, the cupidity of collectors, and the inroads of rock-climbers, so large a bird can still find undisturbed breeding-places, and maintain his numbers as well as he does among our British hills; but I think the case of the raven, as far as these districts are concerned, is hardly so desperate as ornithologists give us to understand. To walk for several hours among the Carnarvonshire or the Cumberland mountains without evidence of ravens, is in my experience rather unusual, and at times one may see them there in great strength; a few years ago, for example, I watched nine birds one August afternoon soaring and skimming with playful antics along the edge of Grasmoor, and so intent on their game that they allowed me to come within quite close range; on another occasion I saw more than a score of them rise together from the side of Skiddaw, doubtless from a carrion feast.

It is astonishing how near this wary outlaw will approach to dwelling-houses in the early summer mornings before mankind is on the stir. It so happened that from the cottage at Capel Curig where I used to stay, I could see a section of the hillside above as I lay in bed, and on two successive mornings I was puzzled by what seemed to be a concourse of large fowls hopping and squabbling, a few hundred yards from my window, round some object on the bank. On further investigation I found this object to be the carcase of a sheep, and the combatants to be hungry ravens “on the grab.”

But there are other and more cheery singers in the mountain choir. In the early summer, when the bird-life of these upland valleys is at its prime, two voices above all others are resonant along the Welsh hillsides, those of the cuckoo and the curlew, who fill the clear air with their clear melody the whole of the long June day, and not a little of the night. There are, perhaps, few sounds in wild nature more fascinating than the curlew’s call, starting, as it does, with its strange single note, and gradually rising and breaking into what seems like rings and bubbles of exquisitely liquid song, which fall here and there on the grey moorland while the singer is often unseen. As for the cuckoo, that improbus anser of the hills, there are seasons when he seems to be ubiquitous; you pass him shouting in the valley as you start out; you meet him again and again about the middle region of heathery boulders and grass slopes; and when you emerge on the sky-line and think you have left him far below, his voice comes after you, as jubilant as ever, and pursues you to the very cairn on the top.

Familiar friends, also, are the ring-ousel, or, as some call him, the rock-ousel, and the wheatear; the one as fussy and loquacious as his lowland cousin, the blackbird (thanks to his outcry, I have sometimes found his nest on a ledge of steep heather-covered rock, as under the northern front of Tryfan); the other flitting silent and watchful, with quick jerky movements, from stone to stone, or along the grey wall on the mountain. These with the ever-welcome meadow-pipit, are rarely absent from the hillside. Of the river birds there is none that has so strong a hold on the affections of the mountaineer as the water-ousel, delightful little sprite of the tumbling becks and eddies, from which his very being seems inseparable. No writer with whom I am acquainted has paid a juster tribute to the many charms of the water-ousel than the author of The Mountains of California, whose chapter on the American variety of the bird (Cinclus Mexicanus) recalls many of the traits of our English “dipper” as we have known him, none too plentifully, beside his native streams and pools. The grey wagtail and the sandpiper will be found in similar haunts.

The beasts of the mountain, as viewed by the passing observer are, with one exception, less interesting, because less wild, than the birds; for the fox and the “mart” are seldom seen by the climber, who, in his eagerness to reach his goal, has no time to devote, as the naturalist would, to a patient watching of their haunts. The exception is the wild goat, which, strange to say, is not known as a British species by the majority of naturalists, though it has much more right to that distinction than the “wild” Chillingham cattle; for it is a fact that on some of the Welsh mountains as on some Scottish islands, there are still herds of goats which, if not indigenous (that claim, it seems, is disproved by their mixed colours and the shape of their horns), are yet living in a state of absolute freedom and wildness, full of courage and resource, and able to hold their own under hardships of climate which no domestic animal could endure, and there is little doubt that these herds, though descended from escaped animals, and reinforced from time to time by “strays” that have taken to the hills, are of very great antiquity. They used to be common, a century or less ago, in a number of craggy spots, such as the Pass of Aberglaslyn, from which they have now been driven; but a remnant may still be seen on the Rhinog Fawr, and a few other lonely ranges, by those who approach them with due care.[18] It was lately stated in a London paper that “wild goat stalking among the Hebrides can fairly stand comparison with ibex shooting”; and I can remember, some forty-five years ago, hearing some talk at Pen-y-Gwryd about an expedition to Snowdon to shoot goats. There are as few goats as eagles on Snowdon now; but I can testify that the sport is an excellent one when the field-glass is substituted for the rifle, for in this way I have stalked some fine goats on the Rhinog and elsewhere, and have rejoiced to see them go bounding across the cliffs in style that would do credit to the Swiss chamois or the white goat of the Rockies. I was told that there was a similar herd on the Yewdale Fells, near Coniston; but the only wild goat that I have seen in the Lake District was a solitary one whom I surprised, in a steep and secluded hollow, on the rocky side of Glaramara.

These wild Welsh goats must not be confused with the half-domesticated herds which it was the custom until about fifty years ago to keep on the hills as sheep are now kept. We are told by Cliffe in his Book of North Wales (1851) that “but few of the national animal, the goat, are now kept, in consequence of the injury which they have done to the young plantations”; and the same writer gives a vivid account of a goat-hunt—apparently of the wild animal—which he witnessed on the Rhinog.

While ascending we heard much shouting, and barking of dogs, intermingled with piercing shrieks. Then we passed a gigantic snow-white billy-goat, with his legs tied, struggling at intervals convulsively, and uttering very shrill cries. Presently we came in sight of several men in a narrower part of the Pass, striving to capture another white billy-goat of greater size and even longer horns. The animal had taken refuge, after a long chase, on a very narrow ledge in a precipice, and apparently bid defiance to his pursuers. At last he bounded suddenly from a great height, and ran rapidly over broken rocks and heath for about six hundred yards, with the pack of dogs close at his heels, who ultimately brought him up, but were kept at bay by his horns.

From the mountain goats we pass naturally to the mountain sheep, who, though nominally domesticated, are so little subject to human interference and live so great a portion of their lives at large upon the hills, that as compared with our dull southern breeds they may almost be regarded as wild animals. Very familiar to every one who has spent much time on the mountains is the sharp “sneeze” of the sheep as he gives warning to his fellows that a stranger is approaching. Writing of the Welsh sheep, half a century ago, Cliffe tells us that they differed entirely in their habits from those of an enclosed country. “Roaming wherever inclination leads them, confined by few or no fences, they are obliged for mutual defence against foxes, ravens, and other birds of prey, to form parties of ten or twelve, of which number, if one perceives anything advancing towards the little flock, he turns and faces the object, when, if its appearance be hostile, he warns his companions by a shrill whistling noise, and the whole scamper off to the more inaccessible wilds.”