Blomfield states that the great avenue of elm trees in Chapel Field, also partly visible from my garden, was planted in 1746 by Sir Thomas Churchman, who is understood to have then lived in my present house, and who, I believe, then hired the open Chapel Field of the Norwich Corporation. It may be interesting to state here that some three or four years ago one of the largest of that row of elm trees was blown down in a gale. When this tree was sawn across, I took the trouble to count the rings which this section displayed. The outer ones were so thin and irregular that it was not possible to tell their number quite exactly, but as nearly as I could count the total number was between 140 and 150. This number, added to the few which would exist on the young tree when planted, would give a date approximating very closely to that assigned by Blomfield. This is an interesting historical fact, though, perhaps, somewhat irrelevant, and its mention will, I hope, be excused on this ground.
In my own garden the various trees appear to be healthy, but some of them increase very slowly. A small pear tree planted against the ivy-covered wall some twenty years ago is scarcely larger than when planted there, even although it every year sends out a full quantity of fresh green shoots. And a pink thorn tree, transplanted into it a few years ago, actually remained perfectly quiescent, as if dead, for a whole year, and then resumed vitality and growth. It is now a vigorous healthy tree, sending forth every year its normal shoots and blossoms.
Animal Life.—Such a garden as mine affords a considerable opportunity for observing the ways, and habits, and manners of many animals, none of which are uninteresting. Shall I weary you by mentioning the cats, which so often make it their playground, and their afternoon as well as their nightly meeting-place? Although I cannot say that caterwauling is harmonious, or equivalent to the strains of the bands which so agreeably discourse music in the adjacent Chapel Field on summer evenings, yet there is much of interest, as well as amusement, to be derived from noting the varied yet distinct language, and from watching the very curious customs of the cats themselves, familiar as these may be to all of us. I am favoured with visits of cats of all sizes and all colours—black, grey, cyprus, sandy, grey and white, and almost all intermediate shades. And it is certainly curious to watch the manifestations of their loves and their hates, their friendliness and their jealousies, their sunny enjoyments and their predatory instincts, and their methods of attack and defence. These latter, though often very noisy, by no means necessarily consist in open fighting, but are very commonly carried on by what Mr. C. Morris calls the mentality of latter-day life. These hostile cats (as you have probably observed) will very constantly settle their relative superiority, not by biting and scratching, or actual fighting, but by what is actually a “staring match,” in which the influence of mind over matter is well demonstrated. They place themselves a few feet apart, and stare at each other, until one of them confesses himself beaten, by slowly backing away from his opponent, and then suddenly turning round and running away. This is a form of duelling which might well be copied in human life; and, still more, might properly be adopted in the case of nations, where “mental” arbitration, from a steady calculation of strength, would take the place of bullets and bayonets.
As with Cats, so with Sparrows; it may be said that they are constant friends that are always with us. Yet, though so common, they are a never failing source of interest in a city garden, if only because they always provide some conspicuous life and motion; and in mine, because they may nearly always be heard chirping or quarrelling in the ivy, which covers so much of the garden walls.
I am sorry that Miss Ormerod gives them such a bad character as to their appetites. But not being personally engaged in agriculture, I can only rejoice that nature has provided them with such strong constitutions, and healthy and active digestions. Beyond this, it is certainly a pleasure to a townsman to note their chatterings, their amicable, if noisy, contentions for the best places in the ivy, their demonstrative courtships, their dust-baths in the dry ground, or their water-baths in the pans provided for them for this purpose, and their evident love for the neighbourhood and companionship (at a properly regulated distance) of mankind.
What a contrast there is between the active, fluttering, often noisy House Sparrow, and its quiet, retiring, and gentle-mannered neighbour, the Hedge Sparrow.
This was well illustrated in the early part of last December, in this way; the Hedge Sparrow (or Dunnock or Accentor) does not often visit my garden, but one of these pretty birds did come at this time, and having incautiously entered the open door of my greenhouse, got shut up in it. Next morning, on my entering, it was, of course, somewhat frightened. But instead of violently fluttering about, and dashing itself against the window, as the House Sparrow will do in like circumstances, it very quietly and gently flew away from me, and then at once dropped down behind the brick flue, where it remained quiet and concealed, in spite of my efforts to find it, as I desired to do in order to give it its liberty. The same thing exactly happened on some following mornings; and being fed regularly, it has remained there to the present time, i.e. the date of this paper.
There are plenty of other birds whose visits and whose peculiarities would provide abundant material for a paper much longer than I can venture now to inflict upon you. But they are all welcome for the sake of the varieties of life and habits they present—as well as for what Tennyson so prettily describes as their “singing and calling.”
My grass-plot is the feeding-ground of the greedy and quarrelsome Starlings, which will often come for their meal of worms or other food at quite regular hours, usually at ten or eleven o’clock in the morning, and three to four in the afternoon. And occasionally the Jackdaws, from our neighbouring church-steeple, where they live and breed, will venture—most carefully and cautiously—to alight on the grass in search of food. Whilst even the Norwich Rooks will, when hard pressed in bad weather, occasionally dart down from a tree for crusts of bread or other edible matter obtainable in the garden.
Thrushes and Blackbirds are chiefly in evidence during the nesting season; and it is noticeable how tame or rather incautious they appear to become during this period. It would almost seem as if the sitting process produced in them (as has been noted of other birds) a dullness or partial stupor of intelligence. Whilst after hatching, the urgent and continuous calls of their young ones for food evidently renders their desire to satisfy these imperative and destructive of prudence. This very year a full-grown Blackbird ventured along the grass in search of worms almost up to the house verandah, in which, unfortunately, a cat lay basking; and, as a matter of course, the bird was instantly pounced upon. She escaped, however, almost by a miracle, but she left nearly the whole of her feathers behind her, and almost in a state of nudity.