He sings in a quiet, leisurely way, as a great artist should—there is no haste, no notes thickening on notes in swift crescendo. His voice (so to speak) drops from him, without an effort, and is so clear that it may be heard at a long distance. It is not a set song; perhaps, in strict language, it is hardly a song at all, but rather a succession of detached notes with intervals between. Except when singing, the blackbird does not often frequent trees; he is a hedge-bird, though sometimes when you are looking at a field of green corn or beans one will rise out of it and fly to a tree—a solitary tree such as is sometimes seen in the midst of an arable field. At Wick Farm, sitting in the cool parlour, or in the garden under the shade of the trees, you may hear him almost every morning in the meadows that come right up to the orchard hedge. That hedge is his favourite approach to the garden: he flies to it first, and gradually works his way along under cover till nearer the cultivated beds. Both blackbird and thrush are particularly fond of visiting a patch of cabbages in a shady, quiet corner: there are generally two or three there after the worms and caterpillars, and so forth.
The thrushes build in the garden in several places, especially in an ivy-hidden arbour—a wooden frame completely covered with ivy and creeping flowers. Close by is a thick box-hedge, six feet high and nearly as much through, and behind this is a low-thatched tool-house, where spades, moletraps, scythes, reaping-hooks, and other implements are kept. Here lies a sarsen-stone, hard as iron, about a foot thick, the top of which chances to be smooth and level. This is the thrush’s favourite anvil.
He searches about under the ivy, under which the snails hide in their shells in the heat of the day, and brings them forth into the light. The shell is too large for his beak to hold it pincer-fashion, but at the entrance—the snail’s doorway—he can thrust his bill in, and woe then to the miserable occupant! With a hop and flutter the thrush mounts the stone anvil, and there destroys his victim in workmanlike style. Up goes his head, lifting the snail high in the air, and then, smash! the shell comes down on the stone with all the force he can use. About two such blows break the shell, and he then coolly chips the fragments off as you might from an egg, and makes very few mouthfuls of the contents. On the stone and round about it lie the fragments of many such shells—relics of former feasts. Sometimes he will do this close to the bay-window—if all is quiet—using the stone-flags for an anvil, if he chances to find a snail hard by; but he prefers the recess behind the box-hedge. The thrushes seem half-domesticated here; they are tame, too, in the hedges, and will sit and sing on a bough overhead without fear while you wait for a rabbit on the bank beneath.
Chapter Nine.
The Orchard—Emigrant Martins—The Missel-thrush—Caravan Route of Birds and Animals—A Fox in Ambush—A Snake in a Clock.
Broad green paths, wide enough for three or four to walk abreast, lead from the garden at Wick into the orchard. On the side next the meadows the orchard is enclosed by a hawthorn hedge, thick from constant cropping; on the other a solid stone wall, about nine feet high, parts it from the road. One summer day a party of martins attacked this wall outside, and endeavoured to make their nest-holes in it. These birds are called by the labourers ‘quar-martins,’ because they breed in holes drilled in the face of the sandy precipices of quarries. The boys ‘draw’ their nests—climbing up at the risk of their limbs—by inserting a long briar, and, when they feel the nest, giving it a twist which causes the hooked prickles of the stick to take firm hold, and the nest is then dragged bodily out. The flight that came to the orchard wall numbered about ten or twelve, and for the best part of the day they remained there, working their very hardest at the mortar between the stones.
The wall being old, some of the mortar had crumbled—it was not of the best quality—and here and there was a small cavity. These a portion of the birds tried to enlarge, while others boldly laboured in places where no such slight openings existed. It was interesting to watch their patient efforts as they clung to the perpendicular wall like bats. Now, two or three flew off and described a few circles in the air, as if to rest themselves, and then again returned to work. At last, convinced of the impossibility of penetrating the mortar, which was much harder beneath the surface, they went away in a body with a general twitter, leaving distinct marks of their shallow excavations. The circumstance was the more interesting because the road was much-frequented (for a rural district) and many people stopped to look at them; but the birds did not seem in the least alarmed, and evidently only left because they found the wall impenetrable. Instinct, infallible instinct, certainly would not direct these birds to such an unsuitable spot. Neither was there any peculiar advantage to attract them; it was not quiet or retired, but the reverse. The incident was clearly an experiment, and when they found it unsuccessful they desisted.
If we suppose this flight of martins to represent a party emigrating from a sand quarry (there were three such quarries within a mile radius), where the population had overflowed, it seems possible to trace the motive which animated them. I imagine that the old birds drive the young ones away, when the young return to this country with their parents after the annual migration. This is particularly the case after a very favourable breeding season, when more than the usual proportion of young birds survive. After such a season, upon returning next year to the sand quarry, the older birds drive off the younger; and if these are so numerous that they cannot find room in another part of the quarry, they emigrate in small parties.