Below the pine wood on the slope of the hill a plough was already at work, the crop of peas having been harvested. The four horses came up the slope, and at the ridge swept round in a fine curve to go back and open a fresh furrow. As soon as they faced down-hill they paused, well aware of what had to be done, and the ploughman in a manner knocked his plough to pieces, putting it together again the opposite way, that the earth he was about to cut with the share might fall on what he had just turned. With a piece of iron he hammered the edge of the share, to set it, for the hard ground had bent the edge, and it did not cut properly. I said his team looked light; they were not so heavily built as the cart-horses used in many places. No, he said, they did not want heavy horses. "Dese yer thick-boned hosses be more clutter-headed over the clots," as he expressed it, i.e. more clumsy or thick-headed over the clods. He preferred comparatively light cart-horses to step well. In the heat of the sun the furze-pods kept popping and bursting open; they are often as full of insects as seeds, which come creeping out. A green and black lady-bird—exactly like a tortoise—flew on to my hand. Again on the heath, and the grasshoppers rose at every step, sometimes three or four springing in as many directions. They were winged, and as soon as they were up spread their vanes and floated forwards. As the force of the original hop decreased, the wind took their wings and turned them aside from the straight course before they fell. Down the dusty road, inches deep in sand, comes a sulphur butterfly, rushing as quick as if hastening to a butterfly-fair. If only rare, how valued he would be! His colour is so evident and visible; he fills the road, being brighter than all, and for the moment is more than the trees and flowers.
Coming so suddenly over the hedge into the road close to me, he startled me as if I had been awakened from a dream—I had been thinking it was August, and woke to find it February—for the sulphur butterfly is the February pleasure. Between the dark storms and wintry rains there is a warm sunny interval of a week in February. Away one goes for a walk, and presently there appears a bright yellow spot among the furze, dancing along like a flower let loose. It is a sulphur butterfly, who thus comes before the earliest chiffchaff—before the watch begins for the first swallow. I call it the February pleasure, as each month has its delight. So associated as this butterfly is with early spring, to see it again after months of leaf and flower—after June and July—with the wheat in shock and the scent of harvest in the land, is startling. The summer, then, is a dream! It is still winter; but no, here are the trees in leaf, the nuts reddening, the hum of bees, and dry summer dust on the high wiry grass. The sulphur butterfly comes twice; there is a second brood; but there are some facts that are always new and surprising, however well known. I may say again, if only rare, how this butterfly would be prized! Along the hedgerow there are several spiders' webs. In the centre they are drawn inwards, forming a funnel, which goes back a few inches into the hedge, and at the bottom of this the spider waits. If you look down the funnel you see his claws at the bottom, ready to run up and seize a fly.
Sitting in the garden after a walk, it is pleasant to watch the eave-swallows feeding their young on the wing. The young bird follows the old one; then they face each other and stay a moment in the air, while the insect food is transferred from beak to beak; with a loud note they part. There was a constant warfare between the eave-swallows and the sparrows frequenting a house where I was staying during the early part of the summer. The sparrows strove their utmost to get possession of the nests the swallows built, and there was no peace between them It is common enough for one or two swallows' nests to be attacked in this way, but here every nest along the eaves was fought for, and the sparrows succeeded in conquering many of them. The driven-out swallows after a while began to build again, and I noticed that more than a pair seemed to work at the same nest. One nest was worked at by four swallows; often all four came together and twittered at it.
[NATURE ON THE ROOF]
Increased activity on the housetop marks the approach of spring and summer exactly as in the woods and hedges, for the roof has its migrants, its semi-migrants, and its residents. When the first dandelion is opening on a sheltered bank, and the pale-blue field veronica flowers in the waste corner, the whistle of the starling comes from his favourite ledge. Day by day it is heard more and more, till, when the first green spray appears on the hawthorn, he visits the roof continually. Besides the roof-tree and the chimney-pot, he has his own special place, sometimes under an eave, sometimes between two gables; and as I sit writing, I can see a pair who have a ledge which slightly projects from the wall between the eaves and the highest window. This was made by the builder for an ornament; but my two starlings consider it their own particular possession. They alight with a sort of half-scream half-whistle just over the window, flap their wings, and whistle again, run along the ledge to a spot where there is a gable, and with another note, rise up and enter an aperture between the slates and the wall. There their nest will be in a little time, and busy indeed they will be when the young require to be fed, to and fro the fields and the gable the whole day through; the busiest and the most useful of birds, for they destroy thousands upon thousands of insects, and if farmers were wise they would never have one shot, no matter how the thatch was pulled about.
My pair of starlings were frequently at this ledge last autumn, very late in autumn, and I suspect they had a winter brood there. The starling does rear a brood sometimes in the midst of the winter, contrary as that may seem to our general ideas of natural history. They may be called roof-residents, as they visit it all the year round; they nest in the roof, rearing two and sometimes three broods; and use it as their club and place of meeting. Towards July the young starlings and those that have for the time at least finished nesting, flock together, and pass the day in the fields, returning now and then to their old home. These flocks gradually increase; the starling is so prolific that the flocks become immense, till in the latter part of the autumn in southern fields it is common to see a great elm-tree black with them, from the highest bough downwards, and the noise of their chattering can be heard a long distance. They roost in firs or in osier-beds. But in the blackest days of winter, when frost binds the ground hard as iron, the starlings return to the roof almost every day; they do not whistle much, but have a peculiar chuckling whistle at the instant of alighting. In very hard weather, especially snow, the starlings find it difficult to obtain a living, and at such times will come to the premises at the rear, and at farmhouses where cattle are in the yards, search about among them for insects.
The whole history of the starling is interesting, but I must here only mention it as a roof-bird. They are very handsome in their full plumage, which gleams bronze and green among the darker shades; quick in their motions, and full of spirit; loaded to the muzzle with energy, and never still. I hope none of those who are so good as to read what I have written will ever keep a starling in a cage; the cruelty is extreme. As for shooting pigeons at a trap, it is mercy in comparison.
Even before the starling whistles much, the sparrows begin to chirp: in the dead of winter they are silent; but so soon as the warmer winds blow, if only for a day, they begin to chirp. In January this year I used to listen to the sparrows chirping, the starlings whistling, and the chaffinches' "chink, chink" about eight o'clock, or earlier, in the morning: the first two on the roof; the latter, which is not a roof-bird, in some garden shrubs. As the spring advances, the sparrows sing—it is a short song, it is true, but still it is singing—perched at the edge of a sunny wall. There is not a place about the house where they will not build—under the eaves, on the roof, anywhere where there is a projection or shelter, deep in the thatch, under the tiles, in old eave-swallows' nest. The last place I noticed as a favourite one in towns is on the half-bricks left projecting in perpendicular rows at the sides of unfinished houses, Half a dozen nests may be counted at the side of a house on these bricks; and like the starlings, they rear several broods, and some are nesting late in the autumn. By degrees as the summer advances they leave the houses for the corn, and gather in vast flocks, rivalling those of the starlings. At this time they desert the roofs, except those who still have nesting duties. In winter and in the beginning of the new year, they gradually return; migration thus goes on under the eyes of those who care to notice it. In London, some who fed sparrows on the roof found that rooks also came for the crumbs placed out. I sometimes see a sparrow chasing a rook, as if angry, and trying to drive it away over the roofs where I live, the thief does not retaliate, but, like a thief, flees from the scene of his guilt. This is not only in the breeding season, when the rook steals eggs, but in winter. Town residents are apt to despise the sparrow, seeing him always black; but in the country the sparrows are as clean as a pink; and in themselves they are the most animated, clever little creatures.
They are easily tamed. The Parisians are fond of taming them. At a certain hour in the Tuilleries Gardens, you may see a man perfectly surrounded with a crowd of sparrows—some perching on his shoulder; some fluttering in the air immediately before his face; some on the ground like a tribe of followers; and others on the marble seats. He jerks a crumb of bread into the air—a sparrow dexterously seizes it as he would a flying insect; he puts a crumb between his lips—a sparrow takes it out and feeds from his mouth. Meantime they keep up a constant chirping; those that are satisfied still stay by and adjust their feathers. He walks on, giving a little chirp with his mouth, and they follow him along the path—a cloud about his shoulders, and the rest flying from shrub to shrub, perching, and then following again. They are all perfectly clean—a contrast to the London Sparrow. I came across one of these sparrow-tamers by chance, and was much amused at the scene, which, to any one not acquainted with birds, appears marvellous; but it is really as simple as possible, and you can repeat it for yourself if you have patience, for they are so sharp they soon understand you. They seem to play at nest-making before they really begin; taking up straws in their beaks, and carrying them half-way to the roof, then letting the straws float away; and the same with stray feathers, Neither of these, starlings nor sparrows, seem to like the dark. Under the roof, between it and the first ceiling, there is a large open space; if the slates or tiles are kept in good order, very little light enters, and this space is nearly dark in daylight. Even if chinks admit a beam of light, it is not enough; they seldom enter or fly about there, though quite accessible to them. But if the roof is in bad order, and this space light, they enter freely. Though nesting in holes, yet they like light. The swallows could easily go in and make nests upon the beams, but they will not, unless the place is well lit. They do not like darkness in the daytime.