The principal colour is black, shining, with a steely blue lustre on the neck and back. The beak strong, distinctly curved, and black, as are also the feet; the eyes are dark brown. The Carrion Crow makes its nest in woods and is for the most part solitary; when with others, each one nests alone on a separate tree. The nest consists of twigs, roots, leaves, etc. The hollow of the nest is softly lined, and in the spring, four to six eggs may be found in it, of a pale green colour, speckled with brown and grey.
The Carrion Crow is sly and cunning; courageous, but at the same time, cautious, and extraordinarily clever; it discriminates exactly between the farmer and the hunter, and allows the former to come quite close to him. Its sense of smell is very delicate; it scents carrion a mile away, under snow and earth. This bird is to the West what the Hooded Crow is to the East—from Austria onward through the whole of Germany and in Great Britain. It croaks hoarsely “Caw, caw, caw.”
The Carrion Crow follows the plough, and devours grubs and mice; it eats the insects in large quantities, and lies in wait for the mice about their holes. On the sea shore, it will seize a large muscle with its beak, fly up to a considerable height in the air, then drop the muscle on to a rock, so that the shell is broken to pieces, and the contents emptied out. The Carrion Crow steals and plunders the nests of the useful birds, spoils fruit and crops; but the great naturalist Naumann advises that these birds should not be too hastily destroyed, for they do mischief only for a short time, while during the rest of the year they make war on the numerous pests, and are of great service to the husbandman.
Since so much bird protection has been inculcated, these Crows are enjoying much more immunity from harm than heretofore. The result is that in some of our London suburbs the bold but handsome creature comes to feed with the small birds at our very doors in cold weather. I have often watched the ungainly yet cautious manœuvres of a Crow which has frequented my little lawn at Ealing. The letting of his heavy body down from over the ends of the outstretching bough of a great elm, which has its trunk on the other side of my fence, so as to quietly drop on to the grass on the feeding side of the fence—is very comical. He evidently wishes to do it as slyly and as quietly as possible. Caution and cunning are inherited traits with the once persecuted crow. I confess to a liking for him, but then I am not interested in the preservation of game. He pairs for life too, and is therefore a respectable character so far. And he too is useful as a scavenger, and takes also plenty of rats as well as insects and grubs. When the pair are on the hunt together, one watches whilst the other feeds. He greatly resembles his greater relative the Raven, in shape and plumage, and gamekeepers hate him even more than they do the latter bird, which country folks generally regard as the more ill-omened of the two.
Speaking of my own pet Crow, a new maid I had came to my bedside early the morning after her arrival, to inform me that she could not possibly stay in my house as a Crow had croaked about her bedroom window “something dreadful.”
In Thibet, we read, there is an evil city of Crows, and Hiawatha is said to have known of a land of dead crowmen. The Crow, according to the old Vedas, fell from Paradise, and in Norway there is “the Hill of Bad Spirits,” where the souls of the wicked fly about in the guise of crows. Happy the present generation who are taught more toleration for “all things both great and small.”
The Carrion Crow has always done good work as a scavenger, for which he has had small thanks. The poets have all combined in holding him up to execration.
It is good to believe that “sweetness and light” are gradually getting the upper hand; and the gibbet with its ghastly burden, and most of the cruel superstitions concerning some of the most useful of God’s feathered creatures are alike a thing of the past.
The Raven is fully one third larger than the crow. Its plumage is black, with a blue or green lustre. Tail wedge-shaped; beak large and slightly curved; the breast feathers pointed. It builds its nest in woods, on the tops of high trees; selecting most cunningly such trees as cannot be climbed. The clutch consists of four to six light green eggs with dark speckles.
It flies well, and can hover in circles, and is a cunning, shy bird, always ready for plunder—but a splendid creature. It is really sad that it should allow itself to be led away to the paths of dishonesty by the sight of shining objects. It attacks everything from earth-worms to hares, plunders and steals nests, takes eggs and fledgelings, and also feeds on carrion. According to popular superstition, it first pecks out the eyes of its prey. The proverb says:—One crow does not peck out the eyes of another.
Another proverb allegorically expresses the fact that the young brood are black:—It may be freely translated as follows:—
The Raven lives to a great age; it becomes tame in confinement, and can be easily taught. It even learns to speak, and can pronounce words clearly. It is the jester among the animals in the farm-yard. It sometimes happens that the black colouring matter is wanting in the plumage of the raven, and the bird is then white. This, however, occurs very rarely—so that when people wish to explain that a certain thing is quite exceptional, they speak of it as a white raven.
The coat-of-arms of the renowned Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus, bears a raven with a golden ring in its beak. There were more Ravens in those old troublous days, of long, wild trains of warriors and robbers, when slaughtered men and fallen cattle remained unburied by the wayside, and when the gallows stood in the open field, as a sign and a warning to men,—than there are now, in our days of milder methods.
The Raven is not altogether common with us.
Don Quixote says that King Arthur did not die but was changed by witchcraft into a raven, and that some day he will put on his own shape again and claim his old rights. And so no Englishman—he says—has ever been known to kill a raven, for fear he should kill King Arthur. The Raven, it seems, has continued to build every year since 1856 either at Badbury Rings—Mount Badon, where King Arthur defeated the West Saxons, or else, so the late Mr. Bosworth Smith told us, “in the adjoining park of Kingston Lacy, where they are safe under the protection of Mr. Ralph Bankes.”
The necromancers of old are said to detect sixty-five intonations of the Raven’s voice; he certainly croaks and barks and chuckles, but it has some pleasanter, more musical notes early in the year in the courting season, and the great solemn looking bird becomes quite playful and even graceful in his movements when his mate and he are about to make their nest. He performs evolutions in the air and turns somersaults most gleefully. The pair play together and tumble down as if shot, and turn over on their backs. Then whilst his mate is sitting he keeps careful watch over her and utters savage croaks if any footstep approaches. He will fight any large bird of prey that dares to approach his nesting place. A faithful creature, he pairs for life and, says one of his lovers “you will hear him utter a low gurgling note of conjugal endearment which will sometimes lure his mate from her charge; and then after a little coze and talk together, you will see him, unlike many husbands, relieve her for the time of her responsibilities, and take his own turn on the nest.”
The Raven is in danger of extinction in our country unless better protection can be procured for him. Sheep farmers have a special grudge against him. Its numbers are kept down in the South of England by the prices paid for the young birds. Still they continue to breed all along the south coast and from North Devon to Wales, wherever there is a suitable headland. The so-called Raven-trees are much fewer than they used to be. The Raven is rare in the eastern counties and in the Midlands. In Scotland it is not uncommon wherever it finds suitable cliffs to build in. In Ireland its numbers are fast decreasing. Its fondness for weakly ewes, lambs and game make him an object of hatred in many districts.
The Jackdaw is considerably smaller than the Crow. The crown of its head is black, the nape and throat grey at the sides; the back and the tail also black; the underpart slatey-grey and black. The plumage and eyes of the Jackdaw become whitish in old age. It builds its nest in hollow trees, in the clefts of banks and of old masonry, and in towns between the ornamental parts of buildings. The eggs, which usually are five in number, are of a light bluish-green speckled with dark grey and olive brown.
The movements of this bird are quick and active, it is light on the wing, busy in flight and call. Its cry sounds like “Cáee, Caee.” Heard from a height it attracts attention to the approaching birds. Jackdaws usually fly in small flocks; they mix with other Crows and roam about the fields and meadows with them. It is a confiding bird, that not only visits large towns, but actually dwells in them. It is true that it does not despise a brood of young birds, if fortunate enough to secure one; but its principal food consists of the numerous insects, maggots, worms, caterpillars, and other creatures which the plough discovers with the upturned clod in field and meadow. It is pleasant to observe the bird following the ploughman at a distance of five or six paces, watching with its sharp, bright eyes for what the ploughshare may turn up—and descrying, instantly, even the very tiniest grub or maggot. The slight harm which it may do among the young birds or the fruit, or occasionally in the young maize ears, is outweighed a thousand times by the services performed for men by this lively, busy bird, as a destroyer of insect pests.
The Jackdaw becomes very tame if caught young; it accustoms itself to life indoors, and becomes attached to members of the household—and can be taught many funny tricks and games. It is a great thief, taking away and hiding any shiny object it can carry. It loves a bath, and immediately paddles about in any little piece of water it can find.
The Jackdaw is found throughout the greater part of Europe; South of Germany it is somewhat rare. Nowhere is it so numerous as in Russia.
Mr. Herman’s mention of the Jackdaw’s nesting place being in towns among the ornamental parts of buildings reminds me of an act of great apparent cruelty on that bird’s part which a friend witnessed and reported to me. He was passing by Apsley House at Hyde Park corner one Spring morning when he noticed a Jackdaw pounce on a Pigeon which was about one of the ornamental parts of that mansion. The Jackdaw literally tore the poor bird to pieces. Whether the Pigeon was invading ground the Jackdaw looked upon as its own domain he could not say; but the sight was cruel enough. That this species is intolerant in nature is shown by the fact that he would hardly ever nest in the same neighbourhood as the Chough when this bird was more plentiful than it is now. The Chough has ousted it—or at any rate taken its place in Kerry and Donegal, and other wild parts of the Irish coast, though it is numerous in other districts. Large numbers of Jackdaws come to our eastern coast in autumn.
I have referred more than once to the late Rev. R. Bosworth Smith, but I feel that I must give one other fact here which came to me through a friend of his own who attended his funeral. It has not, I believe, been recorded before. He had a special affection for the bird now under notice. After a very serious operation in London this gentleman—and how truly gentle he was, many a one knows—declared that he wished “to be back amongst his dear birds again” at Bingham’s Melcombe old Manor House. In his delightful book “Bird Life and Bird Lore” he has told us of the falling of the big tree in which eleven pairs of Jackdaws had their ancestral home. It fell, crushing an unlucky cow that happened to be taking an afternoon nap beneath it. After its fall, the whole colony of daws sat on the stump and held a conference. Other Jackdaws who had lately been shut out by wirework from the Manor House chimneys, and more whom the churchwardens had banished from the church belfry were also hard put to, at the same time, to find proper lodgings. Their numbers did not, however, diminish, in the grounds, and when their friend came home to die in the midst of his feathered friends, strangely enough a Jackdaw circled round about the church whilst the last service was held for him, followed the coffin to the grave, and hovered about this, and near the friends who were there, until the last sad rites were over. If space allowed one could tell other stories of the strange sympathy between birds and their human friends.
Many a sheep farmer can speak to the services Jackey renders to his sheep in ridding them of their tormentors in the shape of ticks, not to speak of the friend he is to the grazier in ridding his beasts of the flies that harass and nearly madden them at times. This goes far beyond making up for the eggs of small birds, pheasants and partridges. It is on record that 400 maggots, each an inch in length, have been taken from one wretched beast, and of the Ox Bot-fly we read that the eggs having been laid in the hair on the skin of cattle and the maggots being hatched out, these eat their way through the skin, and, taking a lodging beneath it, they form large tumours known as warbles. The grub can enlarge this at will through a breathing hole left in the skin. After staying in these horrible quarters for ten or eleven months, feeding on the nastiness there, it creeps out, drops to the ground, and buries itself to pass through the pupa stage, whence it emerges a winged fly. Then there is the Sheep Bot-fly which is worse still, laying its eggs in the nostrils of sheep. The maggots force their way upwards as far as the bones of the forehead where they abide for about nine months, causing vertigo and staggers, and sometimes death. Finally they descend by the nostrils and are got rid of by the poor sheep’s sneezing. They get so to ground and bury themselves. From the pupa they pass to the winged stage so as to lay eggs in summer.
Who that has seen our bird on the back of one of these tormented creatures could ever complain of “that wicked Jackdaw.”
The gardener also may welcome it with justice. Earwigs and spiders, with their white bags of eggs or young, Jackey makes short work of, also snails. It is true he takes ripe fruit, peas, etc., but we may not grudge one of the very best of our bird lovers a tithe of the produce which his own good services have increased immeasurably to our benefit. That ancient poet who wrote of the cave where
was not so good an agriculturist as one might have expected him to be.
Cowper appreciated the character of the Jackdaw to the full. He says
This is an extraordinarily clever, sly, and calculating bird, which, although living mostly in the neighbourhood of man, never becomes confiding, though bold enough to steal a young bird off the nest, and make away with it. When a pig is killed, it lurks around for hours with other birds of the crow species, near the spot where the pig is singed and cut open; and at an opportune moment darts down, siezes something, and is instantly back on the roof or the hay rick.
In a hard winter it will come into the farmyard or the village, and filch whenever and whatever it can. It builds its nest, preferably, on a road where rows of acacia trees border the cornfields; a spot which offers a wide field for its activity: doing mischief by decimating the young birds; but on the other hand it destroys grubs and beetles, and in this way is useful. It does, however, considerable harm, and therefore its numbers should be lessened in my opinion.
It is well known that the Magpie steals any shining object it can find. Its call sounds like “Shakerack.” There is a saying in Hungary, where it is very numerous, that when the Magpie cries on the roof there are visitors coming.
Game-preservers have managed to destroy more Magpies than Jays in Great Britain, but the Magpie is still fairly numerous and the species is distributed widely throughout our country. In Ireland it is even increasing in numbers. The Magpie confers immense benefits by devouring slugs, snails, worms, rats and mice, and these ought surely to weigh against its depredations in the poultry yard, and where eggs and game are concerned.
A number of Magpies together have, under stress of hunger, been known to attack weakly animals, and the late Lord Lilford recorded an instance of fourteen or fifteen of these birds fastening on to a sore-backed donkey in very severe snowy weather, and after the death of this animal, from natural causes, several of the birds were shot as they fed on its body. But what will starving creatures not do if they can fill their empty stomachs? Their keen eyes also see when a fox is growing exhausted, and they will hover and swoop over it in a most suggestive manner.
In point of fact the Magpie robs poultry yards, taking eggs, chicks and young ducks, during the months of May and June especially; but these might be protected. Some fruit too he will steal; but let us consider that all the year round he feeds on the very worst enemies to agriculture, and that it feeds its young, generally six of these in each nest, on insects chiefly and later on rats, mice, etc. The short-tailed Vole or field mouse of which from time to time our country has a perfect plague “overwhelming the whole earth, in the marshes,” said one old chronicler, is especially sought for by the Magpie and these Field Voles have three or four litters in the year, litters of from four to eight young. One writer states his belief that the destruction of Kestrels and Magpies is the cause of the increase of Field Voles. The Rev. J. G. Wood considered that it more than compensated for the harm it did to game and poultry by its good offices in ridding the gardens and cultivated grounds of their varied foes, and Macgillivray gave the bird a good character on the whole. Our cattle are grateful for its services; like the Jackdaw it frees them often of the vermin which annoy them so persistently. The large White—or cabbage butterflies, it devours largely, and these feed on other crops beside cabbage, both the leaves and seed-pods of turnips for instance, horse-radish too and watercress. Enormous flights of these insects come to us from abroad from time to time.
It is of course a noisy chattering creature, and, as a child, I remember I had a perfect terror of a tame Magpie that ran after me, pecking at my heels. Its “tricks and manners” leave much to be desired, it must be owned, yet it is an ornament to the country side, and to meet more than one Magpie is considered to be a very lucky omen, that is, I believe, up to six. In Scandinavia it is the bird of good luck, par excellence, and its presence is much desired about the homestead.
Montgomery wrote:
but the Magpie retorts:
Head, neck, throat, mantle, rump, and thighs black; breast, underparts, shoulder and the inside of the wing feathers pure white. This gives the bird a very pied appearance. The tail is long, arrow-shaped, and like the wings have a beautiful metallic lustre. Its nest, which is a work of art, is built in trees. Dry twigs and thorns form the foundation, and on this lies the cup made of earth or clay and lined with fine roots, leaves and hair. Over this is a domed roof of thorns and twigs: the opening of the nest is at the side. The clutch consists of four to seven eggs of greenish grey speckled with brown.
Wherever this bird is found woods and gardens ring with the sound of its voice. Its usual cry sounds like “Matyash” (Hungarian for the name Matthias) by which name it is consequently often called in that country. It is an active, restless visitor to the bushes and gardens, when they are near a wood. It is not dainty and its voracity is great. Nuts, filberts, acorns, beechnuts, fruits, berries, but also insects from grubs upwards, grasshoppers, beetles,—everything finds its way into its crop. Such things as nuts and filberts, which have a hard shell, it collects in crevices and holes. All this is not so bad, but another of its habits is evil—it is a nest plunderer. Eggs, naked fledglings, half-fledged young, sitting on the edge of the nest awaiting the mother’s return—all become its prey. In order to reach them it squeezes through the thick growth of the whitethorn. In fact it is a shameful bird that deserves no consideration.
If caught young and kept in a cage or running about the house, he is often found to be an amusing fellow, even if not quite tame,—and proves himself a perfect master in imitating the notes of other birds. In the first place he learns the noises of the domestic fowls and animals. He chirps like the little chickens, crows and cackles; then he howls like the dog, cries like the cat, squeaks like the unoiled hinges of a door, or a cart-wheel. He answers the Cock, like a cock, the goose, like a goose. His usual cry is a screeching “Retch” or “Rey”—or when in fear “Kay” or “Kray.”
It is fairly numerous with us, and is on account of its brilliant plumage, an ornament of the woods.
In Great Britain the Jay finds little consideration, save from the makers of artificial flies, after he has been shot or trapped. The lovely blue wing-feathers are used by these men. Gamekeepers also show him scant mercy. Still he manages to hold his own in the woodlands and is fairly common in England and Wales. In Ireland its numbers are fast decreasing. On the east coasts large flocks sometimes arrive from the Continent to stay for a time; but the Jay is of course resident with us as a species.
The Jay is perhaps now receiving a little more toleration than formerly. It devours worms and insects, certainly, and to a considerable extent. A Son of the Marshes puts it in a light which is worthy of consideration. To quote from “Nature’s Raiders”—“The Jays have scant mercy shown them as a rule. On some estates extreme measures are carried out against them but this is not always the case. Taking their numbers into consideration, they cannot be half so hurtful as they are represented to be from the gamekeepers’ point of view, or they would be thinned off more. Jays are excellent covert guards in the daytime in the same way in which the peewits, at night, guard the fields which they frequent. Both birds give tongue as it is termed. To the small allotment holders who have their cultivated patches in sheltered hollows close to the woods, this bird must be considered as a feathered benefactor, for he will, if allowed to do so, keep within due bounds the small raiders that play havoc with their garden produce. Recently I saw at least a dozen watching for—and capturing also—some of the wood mice that had ventured out on the sunny slopes of the allotment grounds. As the crops were vegetable ones the less attention these have paid to them by the mice, when in a young state, the better.”
The voice of the Jay is against him, however. It does not evoke sympathy. Montgomery wrote:
And the Jay retorts:
The Jay is smaller than the Jackdaw. Its plumage is reddish grey, the bridle wide and black; crown nearly white with dark longitudinal flecks; rump and undertail-cover white; on the wings a white spot; tail black,—with pale blue cross bars. Its great beauty is due to the upper wing feathers which are striped with white, black and a beautiful blue. It has bright shining eyes of light blue. The nest is built in trees, sometimes high, sometimes low, and five to nine eggs are laid, which on a pale, usually greenish, ground are thickly speckled with dark but delicate spots.
This Gull is a migrant in Hungary. Many, however, pass the winter with us, leaving the frozen inland waters for the open streams of the rivers, where they pass their time until spring returns. It has quite adapted itself to life on land, and there is no bird which more assiduously follows the plough in those districts where it has its nesting place on the inland waters, or more zealously clears the cornfields, meadows, and rush-beds of all kinds of noxious worms and grubs, than this gull. It also feeds its young on these insects, and many of the landowners, have to thank the Blackheaded Gull that they are free from the annoyance of these pests. It frequents the ponds and lakes, however, in autumn, and makes havoc among the little fishes. Its screeching call can be heard at a great distance, “Kreā, Kreā,” or “Krackackark.”
It is an exceedingly useful bird, and ought to be protected.
This species is generally distributed on our shores all through the year in Great Britain, but in spring it betakes itself to marshy places near the coast and to inland lakes and meres. Near Poole in Dorset is a colony of these Gulls, they ought rather to be called Brown than Black-headed; on the coast of Essex, several in Norfolk, small ones in Yorkshire—one large one near Brigg in Lincolnshire; and those of Aqualate Mere in Staffordshire and Norbury have existed for some centuries. In many other districts to the North they are even
more plentiful—right up as far as the Shetlands. In Ireland it is the commonest species of its family.
To the farmer the services of this Gull are invaluable. Like the Rook it follows the plough, devouring vast quantities of worms and grubs. It can capture moths and cockchafers on the wing, and will eat indeed almost anything, acting also like others of its congeners as a scavenger of the foreshores. Farming in districts near the coast benefits greatly from the services of these birds. They are partial to snails also, and as no Gull feeds on plants, seeds or fruits, a Gull in a garden, wing-clipped, is often kept as a useful pet.
This Gull is sixteen inches in length, that is almost as big as a crow. The beak is not strong, the point is curved downwards; the head a beautiful dark-brown. This colour extends to the throat. There is a white ring round the eyes. Neck and mantle a beautiful ashen-grey, throat, breast and underparts white, with pinkish tinge; outer primaries dark with white stripes. The upper parts of the wings are light grey; beak and legs carmine, also the irides and their borders; the toes are joined together by a web. The head becomes white in winter, the beak and feet lose their brilliant red colour and become flesh colour, and then brownish. It nests with others in settlements consisting sometimes of 3000 to 4000 nests. The nest is placed on broken reeds, turf clods, tufts of rushes; the bird, without much skill, makes a little heap, scratches a hollow in it, smoothes the inside, prepares a litter of dry rush and sedge leaves, and the nest is finished. The nests are placed close together. The clutch consists of two or three eggs, very rarely four, usually of a yellowish clay colour, marked, or regularly speckled with a dark shade.
The Quail is about the size of a large clenched fist, and is almost as round as a skittle ball. Its entire plumage is clay-coloured speckled with a darker shade, and marked with light lines, like the head of oats. The whole marking of it, especially of its back, is designed to avert man’s attention from this crouching bird. The throat of the cock is black, the beak and legs like those of the barn-door fowl. The bright eye light nut-brown. The nest is placed on the ground, and is simply a scratched-out hole, which is rather littered than lined with blades of grass. In this the female bird lays her eggs of olive yellow, beautifully speckled with brown, sometimes to the number of sixteen, but usually ten. The chicks run after their mother as soon as they are hatched and dried—which is a very pretty sight. They can make themselves invisible by crouching on the ground, so that the colour of their down assimilates with that of the earth.
The habits of this bird are those of the domestic fowl. From early morning till evening twilight, the Quail is on its feet, searching the ground for grains of seed or little beetles. It scratches like a hen, and when it finds a sunny, dusty or sandy place, it bathes in the sand, flinging the dust all about. The Quail is a useful bird—for it picks up only the seed which lies on the ground, and feeds its young with the same. It therefore deserves shelter and care. Its voice and habits are pleasant and agreeable to man. Its familiar and homelike cry, sounds from out of the cornfields, and the little hen answers. The mating call of both is, “Bue bee wee.”
The bird’s cry of “Bit by bit,” and his mate’s reply, “Wet my weet, Wet my weet,” as we render it, is not often heard now in our own country. This is attributed by some to the fact that most of the Quail’s favourite feeding-grounds have been “improved” away. Fine pasture-lands are now where the ground was once coarse and covered with tussock, bent, thistles, burdock, hawkweed, and such plants as flourish in uncared-for lands, and in such surroundings the Quail delighted to remain. Now, only very few winter with us; the majority leave in October for the South.
The Quail is an accomplished ventriloquist, and the late Lord Lilford, in his “Notes on the Birds of Northamptonshire,” says that he often heard a caged Quail calling when within a few feet of him, which yet gave the impression of being many yards distant. On the western side of Corfu he found numbers of these birds in the currant-vines on very steep hill-sides, and vast numbers are bred in the cultivated plains around and below Seville, where their numbers are thinned in the pairing season by a clever method of calling the birds into a net by imitating the call-note of the female. On the island of Capri, in the Bay of Naples, it is on record that as many as 160,000 have been netted in a single season.
Many of us have eaten them in the South of France during the grape season. The birds can be caught by the hand when they have, as the French say, intoxicated themselves by feeding on the ripe grapes. During the winter and the early spring they feed on the seeds of the plantain, dock, vetch, and chickweed. Slugs also and insects help to form the bird’s diet. The Italian’s notion that it is unwholesome to eat Quails at a given season arises, no doubt, from the fact that it is pleasanter eating and the flesh is plumper at certain times of the year than at others, owing largely to the varying nature of the bird’s food.
The Quail is a favourite pet in Spain; the birds are kept much in cages there, and are valued because of their song; and that the Quails have been taken on the Continent in vast numbers when netting them, at the time of the vernal migration, is not to be denied. “We remember,” says Lord Lilford, “seeing a steamer at Bressina, in the month of May, 1874, one of whose officers assured us that he had six thousand pairs of Quails alive on board, all destined for the London market. The unhappy birds are carried in low flat cages on boxes, wired only in front, and it is surprising what a very small percentage of them die on the voyage, unless “a sea” happens to break over them. They thrive well on millet, and soon become fat; but, in our opinion, this traffic should be prohibited, as the unfortunate birds are caught on their way to their breeding quarters, and some of them at all events would afford sport at a legitimate season when naturally fit for the table.” “Chaud comme caille,” says the French proverb, because Quails are exceedingly amorous and pugnacious at the time of pairing. They thrive well in confinement, and are easily “fatted up” for the table.
The Starling is a very lively, jovial bird, very active, hunting about, and chattering over what it snaps up. It is also very sociable. These birds often collect in such numbers, in places, where a wood is bounded by pastures or reed-beds that when the flock rises together, it throws a shadow like a dark cloud. It specially seeks out flocks—cattle, horses, sheep or pigs, and stalks about in their shadow, under the very noses of the wallowing swine, in order to drag out of the earth the desired worms, in company with the Blue headed Wagtail. It also perches on the bodies of the beasts, and operates on them where there are maggots or worms. The animal knows the bird is doing him a good turn, and remains perfectly still.
It is true that this bird also attacks cherries, blackberries, raspberries and grapes; and, if present in numbers, it does, indeed, considerable harm.—Then it must be frightened off with rattles, blank-shot, and whatever else is of use. Still, the year through, it does a thousand times more good than harm and therefore deserves to be protected and cherished.
It becomes very tame and trusting in captivity and can be easily taught. It can learn to sing tunes and speak words—and becomes attached to its owner.
Mrs. Edward Phillips of Croydon rescued forty starlings once from the pockets of a working man who said he was selling them to serve as pigeon dummies, in shooting matches amongst his friends. Needless to say she paid for and set them at liberty. I was struck with the scarcity of Starlings in the centre of France, and country folks there told me they were getting scarce. Perhaps they were not much protected, for I saw in Anjou a family of the young birds in the hands of a boy who told me he was carrying them home to train for sale as singing and talking pets. They are not good to eat and yet they will feed on them in that part—birds these that, if spared, eat up tons of those grubs and larvæ which ruin the crops in the field. Sometimes even they have been shut up and fed on vegetable diet to make them taste better. This has only made the bird thinner, proof positive that the enemies of “green stuff” and not itself form their natural diet. Feeding as they do at all seasons on our pasture lands the services they render are incalculable.
In November, or somewhat earlier, they arrive on our east coasts in great numbers; whilst others migrate westward, deserting some localities entirely for a time. Great numbers also visit the South of Ireland then. They settle on the salt marshes for a while sometimes; but often they pass on further inland in perfect silence, with a swift direct flight, and a way altogether unlike their usual chattering fussy ways. They begin to pair in January in some of our districts. Naturalists call them Ambulatores, or walking birds; they are quaint creatures in all their ways and habits. Of late years they have been accused of pecking into apples more than is desirable. As the season advanced, and fruit was not so varied and plentiful, I used to find that when all the leaves were off my pear trees—in a former home—they ate the few pears that were left hanging high up until nothing but stalk was left, but they touched neither apples nor pears whilst the leaves were on the trees.
The best way of keeping Starlings away from high cherry trees, that I have seen, is fixing a long narrow flag to a strong top branch. Large flocks of them resort to cowfolds, where the stock are all night, and before these are let out the birds are there seeking for larvæ and worms in the dried dung, perching now and anon on the backs of the cattle, chattering low all the time. They rid trees of caterpillars, and the turnip fields, where they have been known to clear these of “fly”; also to visit field peas that were infected with aphides and do good work there; and they devour great numbers of Daddy-longlegs. Waterton,—that past-master in the art of observing and chronicling the doings of birds, wrote: “There is not a bird in all Great Britain more harmless than the Starling: still, it has to suffer persecution, and is often doomed to see its numbers thinned by the hand of wantonness or error. The author of ‘Journal of a Naturalist’ observed a pair of Starlings having young ones for several days, and he wrote, ‘It appears probable that this pair, in conjunction, do not travel less than 50 miles a day, visiting and feeding their young about 140 times, which, consisting of five in number, and admitting only one to be fed each time, every bird must receive in this period twenty portions of food.”
In 1891 twelve farmers, replying to Miss Ormerod’s question as to which kinds of birds were specially useful in destroying caterpillars, all replied in favour of the Starling. Now what, after all, matters a little fruit taken from private gardens in view of all this good work done. And as to the professional fruit grower, it will pay him to employ a boy or two during a short season of the year, to keep birds off his trees.
Sir Herbert Maxwell, who writes on the whole in favour of Starlings, and remarks truly that all naturalists are agreed that the good they do outweighs the evil, says that “from many a dovecote the legitimate occupants have been expelled by the intrusion of these irrepressible creatures.” And Waterton wrote, “The farmer complains that it sucks his pigeons’ eggs, and when the gunner and his assembly wish, the keeper is ordered to close the holes of entrance to the dovecot overnight, and the next morning three or four dozen of Starlings are captured to be shot.... Alas! these poor Starlings had merely resorted to it for shelter and protection, and were in no way responsible for the fragments of egg-shells which were strewed on the floor.... The rat and the weasel were the real destroyers,” etc.
The Starling is as big as a thrush; it has bluish iridescent plumage, the feathers tipped with white. Beak relatively small, brow flat; eyes near the base of the beak, which gives it a cunning expression. The feathers are small and tapering at the point; beak yellowish. The hen is paler, the young ones still more so. The legs are strong, with sharp claws. It selects for its nest holes in oak trees in the woods near which is pasture land or water stocked with reeds and rushes. In warmer regions it breeds twice in the summer. The first clutch consists of five to seven eggs, the second of four or five of a pale light blue colour.
In Hungary this bird is only a summer guest, and single pairs may be met with in various parts of the country. Its appearance in large numbers always coincides with the time of the grasshopper plague;—a fact which was first observed in 1814. The distinguished Hungarian ornithologist, Petényi, described his observations in 1837. He states that, so long as the grasshoppers are not fully developed, the bird feeds on all sorts of insects; but as soon as the grasshopper is sufficiently matured, this insect forms its sole food, and is pursued with great eagerness. Thus, in the year 1907 great numbers of Rose Starlings appeared on the well-known Puerta of Hortshágy where just at that time the grasshopper plague was raging. There we may enjoy the spectacle which Petényi described as follows: “To the eye of the beholder a flock of these birds in flight has the appearance of a roseate cloud, always moving,—backwards, forwards, sideways, in ever changing forms of beauty—or, alighting, they give an exquisite impression of whole bunches of wandering roses moving on the green turf.”
Although the Rose Starling also loves fruit-berries and causes such damage to them by its great numbers, that in some parts it is called the “devil’s bird”—the fact remains that its chief food is the grasshopper. In Tartary, its native land, it destroys the locusts which in former times visited Hungary. A Turkish proverb says that the Rose Starling kills ninety-nine grasshoppers before it eats one. When a flight of these birds descends upon a grasshopper infested district, it consumes an enormous number of these insects, and that, in places where human defences can do nothing; in this consists the value of its actions.
Among the grasshoppers found in Hungary at the present time are the Stauronatus maroccanus and in smaller numbers the Colopterus italicus, the latter of which belongs naturally to the Hungarian fauna.
The note of the Rose Starling is a harsh and continuous babble. This bird is protected in the Caucasus and elsewhere because locusts are the favourite food of both the old and the young birds. In the East it is said to be, however, very injurious to grain during the colder season; also I believe, in Africa. This beautiful bird has occurred of late years in most parts of Great Britain, but only, alas, to be shot and “stuffed.” As a rule it visits us in summer and autumn, single birds, perhaps separated somehow from flocks of their own species. In such a case they generally join our own Starlings.
This beautiful species is the same size as its congener, the Common Starling, and it resembles the latter in form although so much smarter in appearance. Rump, back, shoulders, breast and underparts are a bright rosy pink, head, neck and throat are a glossy black, wings and tail are a metallic greenish-black. The bill is a yellowish-pink, black at the base; legs yellowish-brown. The long crest of the adult male is composed of fine violet-black feathers. The female is not so brightly tinted and has a smaller crest. The nest of the Rose Starling is built in its own native home in south-eastern Europe in some crevice in a ruin in quarries, cliffs, or among stones in a ravine or a railway cutting. The clutch consists of five to six eggs of a pale bluish-white colour, or pale bluish-green.
This beautiful little bird has its nesting place in the far north. It often visits Mid-Europe in winter in great numbers, principally frequenting juniper plantations, where it is easily snared. Its flesh being a great delicacy, it is much sought for. Moving along the headlands it passes also into the valleys, and even visits the gardens and parks of great towns, especially where mistletoe is found on the old trees. When in need it eats seeds; it also feeds on the berries of whitethorn, mountain ash, hawthorn, and other bushes. It has a good appetite and digests its food very quickly, but is somewhat inactive in its movements. It lives in colonies sometimes smaller sometimes larger. Its breeding range extends across Behring Straits to Alaska and the Rocky Mountains.
The Waxwing visits Great Britain at irregular intervals, often in large numbers, during the winter. Being an inhabitant of the Arctic regions, its visits are more frequently paid to the Northern and Eastern sides of the country, but it has been seen often in the Southern counties. In Norfolk, on the spring migration, it is sometimes seen up to the first week in May. It is a silent, gentle-mannered bird and its only note is a low cir-ir-ir-ir-re. It is essentially a wandering species and is very erratic as to its nesting places, belonging to the class the poet refers to in those lines