As a matter of fact, our short nights in summer have often as much melody as the days. Not so much chatter and chirruping and twittering, but quite as much song, for there are none of our singing-birds that, when the fancy takes them, will not add a beauty to a fine night by their music. Sleeping out of doors (I do so as often as I can get the chance), I have at one time or another heard them all, the cuckoo and the owl together, the robin and the nightingale.
There is one exception, the skylark, and inasmuch as I have never heard it singing in the dark, I always consider it either the sleepiest or the most methodical of all birds. To call the lark lazy and a “slug-abed,” to use Shakespeare’s word, sounds, I know, like treason, for has not every poet from Chaucer onwards told us that it wakes the day; and is not “to rise with the lark” a household word for being up very early? But if we come to prosy facts, they are all dead against the skylark, for by the time it begins to think of awaking the day, the other birds have been already doing it for hours. Of course, it may be that the sun does not pay any attention to the other birds, regards them as unlicensed watchmen who have no business to try and wake him up before his proper time, and that he waits for the lark, as the only genuine certificated waker-up of the firmament, before he gets out of bed. Robins and blackcaps, woodlarks and reed-warblers are perhaps mere irresponsible amateurs. The skylark is the one properly diploma’d professor. He alone really knows when the sun ought to be awakened; the rest only think they know.
To tell the truth, if Phœbus were to attend to every bird that chooses to call him, he might just as well breakfast overnight; lie down on the sofa with his hat and boots on, or not go to sleep at all. Moreover, the skylark has the merit of punctuality and is regular. He is always up and singing by the time there is light enough to see him by. The sun can rely upon him, which is more than can be said for the robin, who, though I do not wish to say anything about him that might injure his character, sings in the mornings decidedly tipsily, as if he had been out all night at a party and were just coming home “with the milk.”
But no treason of the robin! More than any other bird it has endeared itself to our race, and our earliest literature bears witness to the national affection for “the charitable ruddock.” Somehow or another, the pretty fancy has attached itself to the bird, that it “covers the bodies of unburied men,” and long before Shakespeare utilised it to beautify a passage it had passed into the proverbs of the country. But even those who do not remember the charming legend with which the story of “The Babes in the Wood” familiarises every English nursery, love the robin for its beautiful confidence in man and woman, and for its brave-hearted song. While the trees are still bare in spring, and before the thrushes and blackbirds have begun to try their voices, the robin chants his cheery song, so full of bright faith and gladsome hope that the hearer cannot but take fresh heart on hearing him sing of better times. In summer, when “varied music burthens every bough,” the voice of the little preacher of the wood is lost for a while, but by-and-by, when the songsters all have gone southward with the sunshine, and the chill rain drips from empty boughs upon the russet drifts of autumn leaves, the robin mounts the vacant choir, and out of the fulness of his own brave little heart utters his sweet brief canticle, “thanking God” so it seems “for a life so fair,” and bidding all the sad who listen to him to renew their hopes and be light-hearted, to continue in their joy. And so to December and the end of the year, which the robin-redbreast always sings out with a happy Christmas carol.
INDEX
[A], [B], [C], [D], [E], [F], [G], [H], [I], [J], [K], [L], [M], [N], [O], [P], [R], [S], [T], [V], [W], [Y].
Among the Osiers, boyish sport, [202-5]
Artifices of birds, [63]
Birds:
of the seasons, [13], [14]
calendar of, [47]
of the months, [54]
little noticed, [101]
of the sea, [158]
flight of coloured, [162]
in the poets (see Poets)
Bird-pests, [104], [105]
Bird-voices, expressiveness of, [113]
song of caged birds, [33], [34]
Bittern, its folk-names, [48]
Black-backed gull (see Gull)
Blackbird, [30]
curious folk-belief about, [31]
what becomes of its surplus numbers, [31]
its nest, [32]
its “piping,” [33], [34-37]
Blackcap, [101]
its song mistaken for the nightingale’s, [102]
its eggs and nest, [117], [118]
“Blasquet chickens,” [177]
Boyish sport among the osiers, [202-205]
British Museum, curious notions as to what it wants, [201], [202]
Caged Birds Singing, [33], [34]
Calendar of birds, [47]
Cat concerts, 35
Colour in flights of birds, [162]
Coot, [50]
Corn-crake, [113]
its cry, [114], [117]
Cuckoo, [99]
its foster-parents, [100]
food and song, [101]
Curlew, folk-lore of, [49]
Cushat (see Wood-pigeon)
Dabchicks, [205]
“Davy Jones’s locker,” [173], [174]
Dotterel, [64]
its note, [67]
Eagle, [71], [72]
in poetry, [153]
its flight, [154]
(see Erne)
Egg-gathering at Flamborough, [167]
Eider-duck, [182]
Erne, [155]
its haunts, [156]
its young, [157], [158]
its raids on young birds, [165]
raids on puffins and rabbits, [170]
and black-backed gull, [183]
and skua, [184]
Evening sounds, [67], [114], [117]
Falcon, [72], [75], [76]
a falconry, [75]
the Laggar-falcon, [71]
Fern-owl, its song, [67]
its flight, [68], [69]
Fieldfares, [54]
Finches, [50]
the goldfinch a pest in New Zealand, [104]
Flamingoes, [162]
Flitter-mouse, [117]
Flycatchers, 191
Gamekeepers, their stupidity, [144]
Garden-warbler, [101], [102]
Goatsucker (see Fern-Owl)
Goldfinch a pest in New Zealand, [104]
Grasshopper warbler, [119]
Great Tit (see Tit)
Grouse, [70]
Guillemots, [161], [162]
their haunts and young, [163]
their eggs, [164]
the raids on their young, [165-167]
Gull, the Black-backed, [178]
its habits and resorts, [181-183]
Günther, Dr., on the Great Tit of Rowfant, [128], [129]
Halcyon (see Kingfisher)
Hawks, chased by swallows, [40]
British, [75]
Heron, [48], [143]
its persecution by gamekeepers, [144]
its effect in landscape, [147]
its post of observation, [148]
a heronry at breeding-time, [149]
in hawking days, [150]
“Hewel,” the (Woodpecker), [49]
Insects, destruction of, by swallow, [39]
Jay, [138]
Kestrel, [139]
its destruction of mice, [140-143]
Kingfisher, its effect in the landscape, [147]
its haunts and habits, [189-192]
it colouring, nest and eggs, [193], [194]
the mystery of the halcyon, [195]
folk-beliefs, [196]
hardships in winter, [196]
its association with the picturesque, [199], [200]
the method of feeding its young, [200], [201]
£100 for its nest, [201], 202
Laggar-Falcon, [71]
Lark: the skylark, [69]
its song, [103], [104]
a pest in New Zealand, [104]
its late rising and regular song, [214], [215]
the woodlark, its song, [102]
Lighthouses and migrants, [20], [21]
Lion’s cries, [34-37]
Magpie, [136-138]
Mavis (see Thrush)
Merle (see Blackbird)
Migration and overcrowding, [16]
flights of migrants, [20], [21]
mystery of migration, [21-26]
mortality among migrants, [25]
what makes “home” for a bird, [56-58]
Mice, destruction of, by kestrel, [140]
“Molly-hawks,” [184], [185]
Months, birds of the, [54]
Moorhen, [199], [206], [207]
its young, [208]
haunts and nest, [209]
a rat adventure, [210], [211]
“Mother Carey’s chickens,” [173]
Night, bird-music in summer, [213], [214]
Nightingale, migration of, [19], [20]
song of, [33]
in spring, [56]
the blackcap’s similarity of song, [102]
Nightjar (see Fern-Owl)
Nuthatch, [123], [124]
its nest-hole, [125]
Ossifrage, the, in India, [154]
Owl, [133]
its utility, [134]
its ill-names, [135]
the burrowing owl, [170]
(see Fern-Owl)
Ox-eye (see Tit)
Parrots, [162]
Partridges, [76-79]
Peregrine (see Falcon)
Pests, birds which have become, [104], [105]
Petrel, [173]
in folklore, [174]
excellent eating, [177]
mystery of its nesting, [177]
its burrows, [178]
Pheasant, [76-80]
Poets, the, and the birds:
Barry Cornwall, the Petrel, [173], [178]
the Sparrow, [109]
Beattie, the Ringdove, [118]
Bloomfield, the Robin and Wren, [83]
Burns, the Mavis, [14]
the Moorcock, [70]
the Corn-crake, [113]
Byron, the Partridge and Pheasant, [76]
Clare, the Partridge, [47]
the Moorhen, [209]
Cowper, the Sparrow, [105]
Cunningham, the Magpie, [136]
Drayton, the Blackbird (“woosell,”) [33]
the Bittern, [48]
the Dotterel, [64]
the Kingfisher, [189]
the Coot, [206]
Faber, the Sea-fowl, [167]
the Kingfisher, [192]
the Coot, [206]
Grahame, the Merle, [30]
the Eagle, [153]
the Grouse, [70]
Hood, the Blackbird, [31]
Hurdis, the Rook, [55]
Ingelow, Jean, the Finch, 70
Keats, the Thrush, [14]
the Swallow, [38]
the Finch, [59]
Leyden, the Heron, [143]
the Woodlark, [103]
Mackay, the Gulls, [162]
Mallet, on Migration, [21]
the Sea-fowl, [169]
Marvel, the Hewel (woodpecker), [50]
the Heron, [150]
Montgomery, the Nuthatch, [123]
the Sea-eagle, [170]
Pope, the Magpie, [136]
Prior, the Sparrow, [106]
the Turtle-dove, [120]
Scott, the Blackbird, [30]
Shakespeare, the Throstle, [14]
Shelley, the Ringdove, [59]
the Skylark, [103-4]
the Owl (Aziola), [133]
the Eagle, [190]
Shenstone, the Rook, [93]
Somerville, the Heron, [143]
Southey, the Nuthatch, [123]
Spenser, the Eagle, [153]
Tennyson, the Thrush, [14]
Thomson, the Rook, [55]
the Woodlark, [102]
White, Gilbert, the Rook, [55]
Wordsworth, the Bittern and Woodcock, [83]
the Cuckoo, [99]
Prairie-dog, [170]
Ptarmigan, [71]
Puffin, [167]
haunts and habits, [168], [169]
its nest-hole, [170]
Rabbit, and its enemy the erne, 170
Rat and blackbird’s nest, [32]
Reed-warbler, [211-213]
Ring-dove (see Wood-pigeon)
Robin, and wren, [86], [89]
early song of, [215]
Rook, [55]
and crow, [93]
value to the farmer, [94-96]
its habits, [97]
its young, [98]
Rowfant, the great tit of, [128], [129]
Sambhur-stag, [148]
St. Kilda and its puffins, [167], [168]
Sea-eagle (see Erne)
Seabirds, haunts of, [158]
Seasons, birds of the, [13], [14]
Sedge-warbler, [211-213]
Shrikes, [191]
Skua, [184-5]
Skylark (see Lark)
Snails, [27]
Song of caged birds, [33]
meaning of song, [34], [35]
song of warriors and savages, [37]
expressiveness of bird-voices, [113]
music of summer nights, [213], [214]
Sparrow, its wildness, [60], [61]
a pest in America and Colonies, [105], [106]
the sparrow-line in the U.S., [105]
a popular favourite, [106]
the London sparrow, [108]
the soldier and sailor’s comrade, [109], [110]
Squirrel and blackbird’s nest, [32]
Summer nights, music of, [213], [214]
Swallow, in folklore, [38]
its speed, care of young, destruction of insects, [39]
hawk-chasing, [40]
at brooding-time, [41], [42]
migration of, [43], [55]
Throstle (see Thrush)
Thrush, [14]
is it a migrant? [15], [19]
identification with throstle and mavis, [26]
food of, [27]
song of, [29]
in winter, [29]
companion of blackbird, [30]
appearance in March, [55]
Tit, the great, [126]
a curious experience, [127]
strange nesting-place, [129], [130]
Toucans, [191]
Turtle-dove, migration of, [19]
nest and nest-building, [119], [120]
its flight, [123]
Voices of Birds (see Song)
Vole (see Water-vole)
Wagtail, [50], [53]
Water-hen (see Moorhen)
Water-rat, [93]
and moorhen, [210], [211]
Water-vole, [93], [199], [200]
cutting reeds, [205]
Whelks, [27]
Woodcock, [83]
in the poets, [84]
Woodlark (see Lark)
Woodpecker, [49], [50]
Wood-pigeon, [59]
its tameness, [60]
defence of young, [61-63]
Wren, [84], [85]
in folklore, [86], [89]
Wryneck, [125]
Yaffingale (see Woodpecker)
15 & 16 Tavistock Street
Covent Garden, London