If any one asks, is the application of Art to the chase really so old, so very very old, as this? I refer them to the stars. How long ago is it since the constellations received their names? At what date were they first arranged in groups? Upon the most ancient monuments and in the most ancient writings they have the same forms assigned to them as at this day, and that too in countries remote from each other. The signs of the Zodiac are almost as old as the stars themselves; that is, as old as the time when the stars were first beheld of human eyes. Amongst them there is the Archer—Sagittarius—the chase in the shape of man; greatest and grandest of all the constellations is Orion, the mighty hunter, the giant who slew the wild beasts by strength. There is no assemblage of stars so brilliant as those which compose the outline of Orion; the Hunter takes the first place in the heavens. Art exists in the imagination—imagination drew lines from star to star, and repeated its life on earth in the sky.
So it is true that the first picture—whether drawn by the imagination alone in the constellations, on the walls of the cave with ochre and similar materials, or engraved with keen splinters of flint on the mammoth's tusk—the first picture was of the chase. Animals are earliest, the human form next, flowers and designs and stories in drawings next, and landscape last of all. Landscape is peculiarly the art of the moderns—it is the art of our civilisation; no other civilisation seems to have cared for it. Towers and castles are indeed seen on the bas-reliefs of Assyria, and waving lines indicate rivers, but these are merely subsidiary, and to give place and locality to the victories the king is achieving. The battle is the interest, the landscape merely the stage. Till the latter days of European life the artist took no notice of landscape.
The painting of hills and rocks and rivers, woods and fields, is of recent date, and even in these scenes the artist finds it necessary to place some animals or birds. Even now he cannot ignore the strong love of human beings for these creatures; if they are omitted the picture loses its interest to the majority of eyes. Every one knows how wonderfully popular the works of Landseer have been, and he was an animal painter, and his subjects chiefly suggested by sport. The same spirit that inspired the Cave-dweller to engrave the mammoth on the slab of ivory still lives in the hearts of men.
There is a beautiful etching of "The Poacher" (to which I shall have to recur); he is in the wood, and his dog is watching his upraised finger. From that finger the dog learns everything. He knows by its motion when to start, which way to go, what to do, whether to be quick or slow, to return or to remain away. He understands his master quite as well as if they conversed in human speech. He enters into the spirit of the enterprise. 'If you want your business done, go; if not, send' is true only of men. The poacher wants his business done, and he sends his agent—his dog—certain that it will be done for him better than he could do it himself. The dog is conscientious, he will omit nothing, he will act as if his master's eye was on him the whole time. Now this attitude of the dog's mind is so exquisitely rendered in the picture that he seems verily to speak with intelligence. I love that dog though he does but exist in ink; he is the true image of a real dog, and his mind shines through his body. This effect upon me as the spectator is produced by a clever arrangement of lines upon the plate from which the etching was printed, thin lines cut into the copper with curious sharp tools, behind a screen of tissue-paper to shield the eyes from the light, done in the calm of the studio, thoughtfully, with artistic skill. Given the original genius to conceive such a dog, the knowledge how to express the ideas, and the tools to work with, and we see how it became possible to execute the etching. But suppose the artist supplied with a piece of smooth ivory for his plate, and a sharp penknife for his etching needle, and set behind a boulder to watch the mammoth and sketch it by incision on the ivory, and there would be produced very much the same kind of picture as the Cave-man made. It could not have the delicate shading, the fine edge, the completion and finish of the dog; it could not visibly think as that dog thinks. It would consist of a few quick strong dashes, conveying the weight and force and image of the elephant in as few strokes as possible. It would be a charcoal sketch; broad and powerful lines that do not themselves delineate, but compel your imagination to do the picture in your mind, so that you see a great deal more than is drawn. So that the Cave-man was really a great artist—his intense interest in the chase supplied the lack of academics and scientific knowledge and galleries to copy from. This primeval picture thus tells you that the highly educated artist of the present day, removed from his accessories, away from his liquid colours, easels, canvas, prepared paper, and so frith, can only do what the Cave-man did. But still further, he can only do that if he possesses great natural genius—only a man who could draw the poacher's dog could do it. Those who depend altogether on the prepared paper and liquid colours, patent easel and sketching stool, could simply do nothing.
It is nearly certain that if the primeval man sketched the mammoth he likewise carved his spear-shaft, the haft of his knife, the handle of his 'celt,' that chisel-like weapon whose shape so closely resembles the front teeth. The 'celt' is a front tooth in flint or bronze, enlarged and fitted to a handle for chipping, splitting, and general work. In museums celts are sometimes fitted to a handle to show how they were used, but the modern adapter has always overlooked the carving. Wild races whose time is spent in sport or war—very nearly synonymous terms—always carve or ornament their weapons, their canoes, the lintels of their doors, the posts of their huts. There is in this the most singular difference from the ways of landscape civilisation. Things that we use are seldom ornamented—our tables, our chairs, our houses, our carriages, our everything is as plain as plain can be. Or if ornamented, it is ornamented in a manner that seems to bear no kind of relation to the article or its uses, and to rouse no sympathies whatever. For instance, our plates—some have the willow pattern, some designs of blackberry bushes, and I really cannot see what possible connection the bushes or the Chinese summerhouses have with the roast beef of old England or the côtellette of France. The last relic of Art carving is visible round about a bread platter, here and there wreaths of wheatears; very suitable these to a platter bearing bread formed of corn. Alas! I touched one of these platters one day to feel the grain of the wood, and it was cold earthenware—cold, ungenial, repellent crockery, a mockery, sham! Now the original wooden platter was, I think, true Art, and the crockery copy is not Art. The primeval savage, without doubt, laboriously cut out a design, or at least gave some curve and shape to the handle of his celt or the shaft of his spear, and the savages at this clay as laboriously carve their canoes. The English sportsman, however, does not cut, or carve, or in any way shape his gun-stock to his imagination. The stock is as smooth and as plain as polished wood can be. There is a sort of speckling on the barrels, and there is a conventional design on the lock-plate; conventional, indeed, in the most blasé sense of the word—quite blasé and worn out, this scratch of intertwisted lines, not so much as a pheasant even engraved on the lock-plate; it is a mere killing machine, this gun, and there is no Art, thought or love of nature about it. Sometimes the hammers are filed, little notches crossing, and there imagination stops. The workman can get no farther than his file will go, and you know how that acts to and fro in a straight groove. A pheasant or hare at full speed, a few trees—firs as most characteristic—could be put on the plate, and something else on the trigger guard; firs are easily drawn, and make most appearance for a few touches; pheasants roost in them. Even a coat of arms, if it were the genuine coat-of-arms of the owner's family, would look well. Men have their book-plates and stamp their library volumes, why not a gun design? As many sportsmen scarcely see their guns for three-fourths of the year, it is possible to understand that the gun becomes a killing machine merely to them, to be snatched up and thrown aside the instant its office is over. But the gamekeeper carries his gun the year through, and sits in the room with it when indoors, still he never even so much as scratches an outline of his favourite dog on it. In these landscape days we put our pictures on the walls only, and no imagination into the things we handle and use. A good deal of etching might be done on a gun, most of it being metal, while more metal could be easily inlaid for the purpose. Etching, I suppose, is the right word; at all events, designs, records of actual sporting feats, or outlines of favourite sporting places—nooks in the woods, falls of the stream, deep combes of the hills—could be cut in with aquafortis. So many draw or paint nowadays, and in this manner they could make some use of their skill, drawing perhaps for those who only understand the use of cartridge-paper when it has gunpowder inside it. Sportsmen see the very best of scenery, and come across old hollow trunks and curious trees, effects, and 'bits' of every kind, from a twisted hawthorn to an antlered stag; if they could get an artistic friend to see these, there would be some good gun-etchings done.
[BIRDS' NESTS]
'Perfectly lovely!' 'Such pretty colours!' 'So neat; isn't it wonderful how the little things do it with their beaks?' 'The colours are so arranged as to conceal it; the instinct is marvellous;' and so on. These comments were passed on a picture of a bird's nest—rather a favourite subject with amateur painters. The nest was represented among grass, and was tilted aside so as to exhibit the eggs, which would have rolled out had they been real. It was composed of bright-green moss with flowers intertwined, and tall bluebells, rising out of the grass, overhung it. Nothing could be more poetical. In reality, the flowers—if ever actually used by a bird—would have faded in a day, and the moss would never have had so brilliant and metallic a tint. The painter had selected the loveliest colours of the mead and gathered them into a bouquet, with the nest in the centre. This is not exactly like nature: a robin's nest for instance, the other day was discovered in an old shoe, discarded by a tramp and thrown over the wall into the shrubbery. Nests are not always made where flowers grow thickest, and birds have the oddest way of placing them—a way which quite defeats rational search. After looking into every nook, and places where if built a nest would be hidden from passers-by, suddenly it is found right in front of you and open to view. You have attributed so much cunning to the bird that you have deceived yourself. In fact, it sometimes happens that the biggest fool is the best bird's-nester, and luck in eggs falls to those who have no theory. But December throws doubt even on the fool's capacity, for as the leaves fall there appear nests by the dozen in places never suspected, and close to people's faces. For one that has been taken ten have escaped.
The defect of nest-building lies in the absence of protection for the young birds. When they grow large and feel strong they bubble, as it were, over the edge of the cup-shaped nest. Their wings, though not yet full-grown, save them from injury in descent by spreading out like a parachute, but are powerless to assist them after reaching the ground. In the grass they are the prey of rooks, crows, magpies, jackdaws, snakes, rats, and cats. They have no means of escape whatever: they cannot fly nor run—the tall grass stops running—and are frequently killed for amusement by their enemies, who do not care to eat them. Numbers die from exposure in the wet grass, or during rain, for they are not able to fly up and perch on a branch. The nest requires a structure round it like a cage, so that the fledglings might be prevented from leaving it till better able to save themselves. Those who go to South Kensington to look at the bird's-nest collection there should think of this if they hear any one discoursing on infallible instinct on the one hand, or evolution on the other. These two theories, the infallible instinct and that of evolution, practically represent the great opposing lines of thought—the traditional and the scientific. An examination of birds' nests, if conducted free of prejudice, will convince any independent person neither that the one nor the other explains these common hedge difficulties. Infallible instinct has not supplied protection for the young birds, nor has the experience of hundreds of years of nest-building taught the chaffinch or the missel-thrush to give its offspring a fair start in the famous 'struggle for existence.' Boys who want linnets or goldfinches watch till the young are almost ready to bubble over, and then place them in a cage where the old birds come and feed them. There is, then, no reason why the nest itself should not be designed for the safety of the fledgling as well as of the egg. Birds that nest in holes are frequently very prolific, notably the starling, which rears its brood by thousands in the hollow trees of forests. Though not altogether, in part their vast numbers appear due to the fact that their fledglings escape decimation.
Country boys set some value on the eggs of the nettle-creeper or whitethroat because the nest is difficult to find, and the eggs curiously marked. They want the eggs as soon as laid, when they blow well; and it is just at this stage that the nest is most difficult to discover, as the bird gives little evidence of its presence. The nest is placed among the thick grasses and plants that grow at the verge or down the sides of dry ditches, and is frequently overshadowed by nettles. But there does not appear to be any conscious effort at concealment. The bird spends the day searching for food in such places—hence its name nettle-creeper—creeping along the hedges, under brambles and thorns, and builds its nest in the locality to which it is accustomed. It may appear to be cunning to a superficial human observer, but it is certain that the bird does not think itself cunning. Men who live by fishing build their houses near the sea; those who cultivate wheat, in open plains; artisans, by factories. The whitethroat frequents the hedge and ditch, and there weaves its slender nest. So much has been attributed to birds of which they are really quite unconscious. It has even been put forward that the colours of their eggs are intended to deceive; and those of the dotterel, laid on the open beach, are often mentioned as an instance. The resemblance of the dotterel's egg to a pebble is no greater than the resemblance between many eggs laid in nests and pebbles. If the whitethroat eggs were taken from the nest and placed among particoloured pebbles such as are common on some shores, it would need care to distinguish them. If the dotterel's eggs were put down among grass, or even among the clods of ploughed land, they would be equally difficult to find. You might as well suppose that the whitethroat is aware that nettles will sting the human hand approaching its nest as that eggs are especially adjusted in colour to deceive human eyes. As for deceiving the eyes of those birds that are fond of eating eggs, the thing is impossible; the size of the egg is alone sufficient: how conceal an object of that size from an eye that can distinguish insects? The egg takes its chance, coloured or not. Sportsmen would be very glad if pheasants would kindly learn by experience, and lay eggs of a hue invisible to the poaching rook or crow. Nor is this nest, that seems so slender and so delicately made, really so slender to the bird itself. To a man or woman, so many times larger than the nest, its construction appears intricate. Suppose a lady stands five feet four inches high, and the nest placed in her hand measures two inches across: the difference is immense. The bird who built it is smaller than the nest. The thing is reversed, and it does not look tiny to the bird. The horsehair or fibre, which to us is an inch or two long, to the bird is a bamboo or cane three or four feet in length. No one would consider it difficult to weave cane or willow wands as tall as himself. The girls at Luton perform much more difficult feats in weaving straw-plait for bonnets than any bird accomplishes. A rook's nest looked at in the same way is about as large to the bird as a small breakfast-parlour, and is composed of poles. To understand birds you must try and see things as they see them, not as you see them. They are quite oblivious of your sentiments or ideas, and their actions have no relation to yours. A whole system of sentiment and conduct has been invented for birds and animals based entirely upon the singular method of attributing to them plans which might occur to a human being. The long-tailed tit often builds its nest in the midst of blackthorn thickets (which afford it the lichen it uses), or in deep hawthorn bushes. A man comes along, sees the nest, and after considerable exertion—having to thrust himself into the hedge—and after some pain, being pricked by the thorns, succeeds, with bleeding hands, in obtaining possession of it. 'Ah,' he moralises, 'what wonderful instinct on the part of this little creature to surround itself with a zareba like the troops after Osman Digma! Just look at my hands.' Proof positive to him; but not to any one who considers that through the winter, up till nesting-time, these little creatures have been creeping about such thorns and thickets, and that they had no expectation whatever of a hand being thrust into the bushes. The spot which is so difficult of access to a man is to them easy of entrance. They look at the matter from the very opposite point of view. The more thoroughly the artificial system of natural history ethics is dismissed from the mind the more interesting wild creatures will be found, because while it is adhered to a veil is held before the eyes, and nothing useful can ever be discovered. Put it aside, and there is always something new and as interesting as a fresh nest to a boy.