The Soul of a Cat, and Other Stories

by Margaret Benson

The long lines of herons in the water are more typical of the meditative side of Oriental character. They stand out in long grey lines, on long yellow spits of sands in the slow, great curves of the river. But no bird can boast one half the resolute patience of the Griffin Vulture. Round some long curves of the Nile I saw the great grey birds stand; as we drew slowly nearer we could distinguish five, of which two were standing opposite to one another with immense wings spread, ready to fight. When we came opposite it was seen that they were quarrelling about a dead sheep; as we drew away they were still exchanging the retort courteous, the quip modest, the reply churlish, the reproof valiant and the countercheck quarrelsome; and we were out of sight again before either gave the lie direct. Indeed, for all I know, they may still be typifying the Concert of Europe.

The Egyptian vulture is much smaller and much more attractive than this abhorred great bird. Rachen, white with black-edged wings, has a beauty of his own as he circles luminously against the sky; there is even a horrid grandeur about him as he springs into sight from the blue, and beats steadily up the wind, allured by carrion scent among the sandhills.

But of all the birds at Luxor the bee-eater is perhaps the loveliest and the pied kingfisher the most lovable. This kingfisher is dappled white and grey, he poises over water in the position of the dove in stained-glass windows; his wings are lifted fluttering, his head bent down. So he hovers intent and busy, careless of those who pass, till he has perfectly found his aim. Then he drops as a stone falls, the waters close above his head, and in a moment he emerges with a fish curving silver from his bill. If “our loves remain” my spirit will sometimes seek a little horseshoe lake with thick green water, above which sit a parliament of lion-headed goddesses, and there it will watch this kingfisher hover and poise and fall. At this place I once saw our own kingfisher, but he is a travelled fellow and has lost the fearless, busy confidence of the grey native; he does his fishing on the sly, and went by like a blue flash to hide behind some carven stone. And I do not know how soon the pied fisher will learn to follow his example. A German, who thought himself a sportsman, also loved these kingfishers, but, as Browning says, it was “another way of love.” He came home one day with a bunch hanging from his hand. I do not know if he took them home and stuffed them to look like nature; more probably he tired of the little grey bodies and threw them away. They would not be so pretty when the soul was gone.

And some men, Englishmen too, have been known to shoot the bee-eater. This is a small light-green bird, as green as growing corn. From its tail hang two long dark feathers; it has a long black beak, with a stripe passing by the eye across paler cheeks. There are some kinds more brilliantly coloured than this; the beauty of it is most manifest when it is bee-eating. Then it spreads bronze wings, turns and flutters like a butterfly, and as it turns a gold sheen ripples over the green. These are sociable birds, and they sit by half-dozens on a branch of carob, taking turns to flutter and catch.

Compared to this bird the crowned hoopoe himself seems almost gross. He is at ease again, since Solomon took back his gift, and the crown of feathers is raised and lowered with a jaunty, self-sufficient air. Where the market road of Luxor ran out into the fields, close by the hole dug by an Arab weaver in the middle of the way to set his loom in, was a favourite place for the hoopoes, and here you might see two or three together, as large as thrushes, with bodies coloured like the russet jay, fine curving bills, and the gay crest. But if you wish to love a hoopoe do not watch it when it eats a thick-bodied moth.

Over the plain of Thebes the swallow plays, glancing by; you hail him as a fellow countryman, but foreign travel would seem to have altered his customs and driven away his dear domestic habits. The old Egyptians carved on stone two little birds like swallows, but one had a wing curled upwards, and one had a straighter wing; and whereas the latter symbolised greatness, the former portended evil. One would need all the wisdom of Egypt to know what mystery lies behind the curling of the wing.

Through the fields another merry bird comes into sight—the crested lark, which is so bold that it will hardly move from the path your donkey takes; or it sits among the corn blades as you go by, and runs but a few steps as you canter past. The birds are tame, because the Arabs do not kill them; Mohammed took a very narrow view of the subject, and it is left to Englishmen and Germans to check the excessive familiarity of birds and men, and to try to make nature more normal.

If these rarer birds are tame, our own bold sparrows are a hundred times more impudent. As the Arab waiters clear away the breakfast they chase the sparrows out through the doors; if you sleep with shutters open you may expect to find a sparrow or two sitting on your bed when you wake; they pry into your cupboard if the doors are left open; they pull a thread out of the mat near your feet to make a nest behind the electric bell wires in the hall; and one determined pair set themselves to build behind the books in our bookcase. We pulled the nest to pieces many times, but they had us at last, and we found two eggs laid upon a wisp of hay.

There is another bedroom visitor with better manners—namely, the little grey owl who mews high up in the palm tree; he does not make himself so common as the sparrow, but in my bedroom one evening he appeared on the window-sill, bowed about a dozen times and went out again.