Into her bonnie breast to fa’!
Oh! there, beyond expression blest,
I’d feast on beauty a’ the night;
Seal’d on her silk-saft faulds to rest,
Till fleyed awa’ by Phœbus’ light.”
Cunningham’s ornithological objection to the song we believe to be well founded; and it is not a little to his credit, as proving what a close and clear observer of the habits of our song-birds he must have been, that he was the first, so far as we know, to notice, how reluctant they are to have anything to do with the lilac while in flower, though at other seasons they perch upon it as freely as upon other shrubs. We are not as sure, however, that our song-birds object to the lilac because of anything disagreeable to them in the perfume of its flowers. Except in the case of some of the Raptores, birds as a rule are neither acute nor delicate of smell, our little song-birds least of all perhaps. We rather think the reason of their dislike to it is to be found, partly at least, if not wholly, in the fact that while it is in flower, its bark, particularly along the smaller branches and twigs, is covered with a slimy secretion or exudation at once viscid and acrid; and if there is one thing more than another which our wild-birds unanimously and with all their hearts detest, it is to have their legs or toes come in contact with anything glutinous or “sticky.” Every bird-fancier knows how uncomfortable and generally miserable is a bird just upon being taken off a limed twig; not, observe, because he is a captive—thoughts of that may trouble him afterwards—but immediately and in the first instance because of the bird-lime about his toes. The first thing, therefore, that the bird-catcher does is to cleanse the captive’s feet and toes by rubbing them gently between his finger and thumb with fine sand, and afterwards washing them with water; an operation no sooner performed and the bird restored to its cage, than it evinces its satisfaction at being relieved from its state of intolerable discomfort in many little ways that cannot well escape the notice of even the most unobservant. We have known a newly captured chaffinch, placed in a cage directly on being taken off the limed twig, and inadvertently left uncared for till the evening, peck its toes until red flesh appeared, in his attempts to rid them of the bird-lime attached to them. But whether the song-bird’s dislike to the lilac when in flower be owing to its perfume or to the disagreeably glutinous exudations of its bark in early summer, or to both combined, it is simply the fact that such an aversion exists; and Allan Cunningham’s objection to the lilac in this connection is perfectly well founded. And even if this particular objection had not been well founded, it would have been better, we think, if Burns had selected some one or other of our native flowering shrubs, such as the hawthorn, for example, rather than a comparatively rare exotic like the lilac—rare now, and rarer still a hundred years ago. If those who give any heed at all to these matters will only consider the question, they will be ready, we think, to confess that they never yet knew an instance of a bird’s nest in a lilac tree. About our own place here, where the lilac grows to a large size, and flowers splendidly, we ourselves have never known or heard of such a thing. Within the shelter of every other tree and shrub of any consequence about the place, we have known our song-bird friends to build at some time or other—never once in the lilac, nor, it may be added, in the fuchsia, which in the warm shelter of this genial spot grows to the dimensions of a tree, all the year round too, without the slightest petting or special protection of any kind, as hardy and self-reliantly as its companion hawthorns, hollies, and hazels. The fuchsia is probably avoided for the same reason as the lilac. It also exudes in spring and early summer a viscid secretion almost as “sticky” and disagreeable, if you run your hand along a twig, as that of the lilac itself; and, as we have already said, anything of this kind is an utter abomination to the Insessores or perchers, who are as particular about their feet and toes as ever was dainty and delicate belle about the state of her hands and fingers.
Such of our readers as care about these things, and have the opportunity, may very profitably and pleasantly give an occasional half-hour to the doings of our song-birds at this season. Their little love quarrels and rivalries are very amusing. All this forenoon a pair of cock chaffinches have been bickering and quarrelling after their fashion along the hedgerows and amongst the trees immediately opposite our study window. The casus belli is of course a female, handsome and coy, and fully conscious, you may believe, of her own value, who keeps flitting about at a little distance, proud and pleased, doubtless, to be the object of rivalry between a pair of such gay and lively chaffinch beaux. Varium et mutabile, she has evidently great difficulty in making up her mind as to which of the suitors she shall select; her state of indecision being probably akin to that of the renowned Captain Macheath in the Beggar’s Opera:—
“How happy could I be with either,
Were t’other dear charmer away!
But while you thus tease me together,