Chapter One.
The Downs—The Entrenchment—Ways of Larks—Hares—A Combat—Happiness of Animals—Ants—A Long Journey.
The most commanding down is crowned with the grassy mound and trenches of an ancient earthwork, from whence there is a noble view of hill and plain. The inner slope of the green fosse is inclined at an angle pleasant to recline on, with the head just below the edge, in the summer sunshine. A faint sound as of a sea heard in a dream—a sibilant ‘sish, sish,’—passes along outside, dying away and coming again as a fresh wave of the wind rushes through the bennets and the dry grass. There is the happy hum of bees—who love the hills—as they speed by laden with their golden harvest, a drowsy warmth, and the delicious odour of wild thyme. Behind the fosse sinks, and the rampart rises high and steep—two butterflies are wheeling in uncertain flight over the summit. It is only necessary to raise the head a little way, and the cool breeze refreshes the cheek—cool at this height while the plains beneath glow under the heat.
Presently a small swift shadow passes across—it is that of a hawk flying low over the hill. He skirts it for some distance, and then shoots out into the air, comes back half-way, and hangs over the fallow below, where there is a small rick. His wings vibrate, striking the air downwards, and only slightly backwards, the tail depressed counteracting the inclination to glide forwards for awhile. In a few moments he slips, as it were, from his balance, but brings, himself up again in a few yards, turning a curve so as to still hover above the rick. If he espies a tempting morsel he drops like a stone, and alights on a spot almost exactly below him—a power which few birds seem to possess. Most of them approach the ground gradually, the plane of their flight sloping slowly to the earth, and the angle decreasing every moment till it becomes parallel, when they have only to drop their legs, shut their wings, and, as it were, stand upright in the air to find themselves safe on the sward. By that time their original impetus has diminished, and they feel no shock from the cessation of motion. The hawk, on the contrary, seems to descend nearly in a perpendicular line.
The lark does the same, and often from a still greater height descending so swiftly that by comparison with other birds it looks as if she must be dashed to pieces; but when within a few yards of the ground, the wings are outstretched, and she glides along some distance before alighting. This latter motion makes it difficult to tell where a lark actually does alight. So, too, with snipe: they appear to drop in a corner of the brook, and you feel positive that a certain bunch of rushes is the precise place; but before you get there the snipe is up again under your feet, ten or fifteen yards closer than you supposed, having shot along hidden by the banks, just above the water, out of sight.
Sometimes, after soaring to an unusual elevation, the lark comes down, as it were, in one or two stages: after dropping say fifty feet, the wings are employed, and she shoots forward horizontally some way, which checks the velocity. Repeating this twice or more, she reaches the ground safely. In rising up to sing she often traces a sweeping spiral in the air at first, going round once or twice; after which, seeming to settle on the line she means to ascend, she goes up almost perpendicularly in a series of leaps, as it were—pausing a moment to gather impetus, and then shooting upwards till a mere speck in the sky. When ten or twelve larks are singing at once, all within a narrow radius—a thing that may be often witnessed from these downs in the spring—the charm of their vivacious notes is greater than when one solitary bird alone discourses sweet music which is lost in the blue dome overhead.
At that time they seem to feed only a few minutes consecutively, and then, as if seized with an uncontrollable impulse, rush up into the air to deliver a brief song, descend, and repeat the process for hours. They have a way, too, of rising but six or eight yards above the earth, spreading the wings out and keeping them nearly still, floating slowly forward, all the while uttering one sweet note softly. The sward by the roadside appears to have a special attraction for them; they constantly come over from the arable fields, alight there, and presently return. In the early spring, when love-making is in full progress, the cornfields where the young green blades are just showing, become the scene of the most amusing rivalry. Far as the eye can see across the ground it seems alive with larks—chasing each other to and fro, round and round, with excited calls, flying close to the surface, continually alighting, and springing up again. A gleam of sunshine and a warm south wind brings forth these merry antics. So like in general hue is the lark to the lumps of brown earth that even at a few paces it is difficult to distinguish her. Some seem always to remain in the meadows; but the majority frequent the arable land, and especially the cornfields on the slopes of the downs, where they may be found in such numbers as rival or perhaps exceed those of any other bird.
At first sight starlings seem more numerous; but this arises from their habit of gathering together in such vast flocks, blackening the earth where they alight. But you may walk a whole day across the downs and still find larks everywhere; so that though scattered abroad they probably equal or exceed the starlings, who show so much more. They are by no means timid, being but little disturbed here: you can get near enough to watch every motion, and if they rise it is only to sing. They never seem to know precisely where they are going to alight—as if, indeed, they were nervously particular and must find a clod that pleases them, picking and choosing with the greatest nicety.
Many other birds exhibit a similar trait: instead of perching on the first branch, they hesitate, and daintily decline the bough not quite to their fancy. Blackbirds will cruise along the whole length of a hedge before finding a bush to their liking; they look in several times ere finally deciding. Wood-pigeons will make straight for a tree, and slacken speed and show every sign of choosing it, and suddenly, without the slightest cause apparently, go half a mile farther. The partridge which you could vow had dropped just over the hedge has done no such thing; just before touching the ground she has turned at right angles and gone fifty yards down it.