to add much more to Mr. Herman’s graphic description. Perhaps it is not known to all our readers, however, that a great number of Robins migrate to our country every autumn from the Continent, whilst some of our home-bred birds leave our shores. As a rule the red on the breast of the former is brighter than with those bred here. There are, however, as we know, individual birds which will attach themselves to a home where they have been treated kindly, for a number of successive winters, entering the open window and feeding with the children.
The Robin has three different styles of song, one the gay, joyous outpouring which delights us on sunny days, then the autumnal dirge, which proclaims the approach of cold stormy days, and is often uttered just before it leaves us for warmer quarters; and again, the long drawn-out cries, notes of distress, when some prowling cat or other enemy approaches its nest.
Robins, as we all know, devour great quantities of worms and insects. It is a most valuable species to the gardener and fruit grower, for, except under the stress of thirst, it lives only on animal food.
The Robin needs little description. The whole of the upper side, including the back of the head and crown, is olive brown, the under-parts dingy white; throat, breast, and brow a beautiful rose-red with us,—in some districts more chestnut-red,—whence the bird is called the Redbreast. There are plainly discernable oblique stripes of a lighter shade on the wings. Eyes dark brown and large; legs dark and strong; beak finely pointed; plumage fine, soft, and loose. The nest is always placed low down, in the thickest bushes, in hollow trees, holes, and crevices. It is well and delicately built; the outer covering consists of dry leaves, the inner of thickly woven moss, rootlets, hair, and feathers. It is difficult to find. The eggs usually number five, occasionally seven; they are of a yellowish olive-brown speckled with rust colour, the speckling being closer in a ring round the thicker end. Two or even three broods are produced in the year.
Grahame sang—
The Wren is certainly the most lively of little birds. With its confiding nature, especially in winter, it approaches close to men, and with lightning speed dashes into the openings and gaps in the wood stack. It is visible only for a moment at a time, and, with its little upright tail, its nodding and see-sawing, its appearing and disappearing, its popping in and out, it disposes even the most morose persons to cheerfulness. It slips through the prickliest bunch of blackthorn like the nimblest mouse, and has scarcely vanished on one side, before it appears on the other, shoots about like an arrow and is quickly lost in the neighbouring hedge. It does not fly far. If it finds itself in difficulties in the open, it slips into a mouse-hole. It feeds on the tiniest, and most hidden insects. It finds the smallest spiders, caterpillars, chrysalises, and grubs, which it wants, with skill and inexhaustible energy. It is found both in summer and winter with us.
This little bird has also its song, which is louder than might be expected, suggesting somewhat that of the Canary. A listener to whom it is not known, is astonished if he happens to discover the tiny vocalist. It sings always in an open place. Its cry is “Zrr’s Zezerr.”
A Lancashire naturalist writes of “the irrepressible vitality of the Wrens which prompts them to fling a song in the face of winter whenever they get a chance.” A chiding, chattering song it is; flung out also in advance of the intruding footsteps that disturb the
privacy of the hedge-row at the foot of which the bold, pert little creatures are seeking their food. In old nests in the thatch and holes in the walls, they find warmth and shelter during the winter, a little batch of them together. They are supposed to build special nests, “cocks’ nests,” they are called. A Staffordshire acquaintance tells how, being curious as to the number sleeping in one of these which he had previously noted in a grotto in his grounds, he and gardener surprised them one night by the light of a lanthorn, and no fewer than six Wrens fluttered out of the nest.
Another friend who was fishing near Brambridge, in Hampshire, tells me that he knows one such nest under the thatch of an under-keeper’s cottage, and he has seen five or six enter this in the early twilight of a winter evening. On two different occasions, when a dogcart sent to the keeper’s cottage at which he puts up, was waiting for him to drive to his day’s fishing, a Wren settled on the back of the standing horse, near the cottage door, and remained there for a few minutes, as though enjoying the warmth coming through the creature’s coat.
In Ireland every Wren that can be seen is hunted down and killed on St. Stephen’s Day; and a Surrey man tells me that up to twenty-five years ago he has witnessed the same persecution in the home counties. Tradition says that it is due in Ireland to the fact of a party of Wrens hopping over a drum’s head, and thereby disturbing a sentinel, when a party of Irish were on the point of surprising their enemies.
Shakespeare writes of “the Wren with little quill,” in Bottom’s song of birds; and again, in “Cymbeline,” Imogen says, “if there be yet left in Heaven as small a drop of pity as a Wren’s eye.” The comparisons drawn by old-fashioned country folk are often very quaint. I remember an old lady who, if she were asked to take more of some dish at table, often said, “Just a bit the size of a bee’s knee,” to the great edification of us youngsters. The song of the Wren is always the same: a few separate notes, a trill, a rattle and a trill, while its call-note has been likened to the clicking of a watch while it is being wound up. There is no more winsome picture of bird-life than this tiny creature dotting about, with little tail erect and fan-like, in quest of its insect food among the dry bramble leaves, so vivacious in its movements that no camera could ever do it justice.
The Wren is almost the smallest of European birds. There is not much to be said about the colouring of its feathers, which are the brown of the tree trunks, with beautiful thick oblique stripes of a darker shade. The colour is lighter over the eyes, on throat and breast. The tail feathers are especially fine, and thickly striped. The beak is slightly depressed, fine and sharp as a needle; the brown legs relatively strong. The nest is placed under the cover of felled boughs, between roots, in secluded corners of abandoned huts, which it can slip into. The nest is comparatively large, with a spacious entrance, and consists of a foundation of leaves and fine twigs, within which is a layer of moss, and again within that a mass of smooth, finely broken feathers. The clutch is six, sometimes, but rarely, eight small white eggs, with fine blood-red speckles.
This is not a true migrant, for it is only in severe winters that it seeks a warmer climate. In autumn it comes from the hills, down into the plain, to the neighbourhood of human habitations, where it leads a restless life. It is timid, and easily startled; while flying it utters its shrill cry “seu, seu, seu.” The striking bulk of its beak indicates the strength it has to use in obtaining its food; and it is so, for the kernels of the hardest cherry stones are its favourite dainty.
It flies in small flocks, and when these light on a cherry tree, they are quite quiet, not a sound is heard, except the cracking of the hard shells by the strong bills, which are specially formed for the work. The cherry stone lies in the lower mandible, the upper one being ribbed and so perfectly adapted for cracking the stone. This bird breaks with ease a fruit stone, which a full-grown man can only crush with the heavy pressure of his boot heel. Towards spring, when there are no more fruit stones to be found, it attacks and destroys the young leaf buds.
This bird is not very commonly found in Hungary.
The number of Hawfinches has been steadily increasing in England of late years. This is probably due to Bird Protection, which is so much more enforced than it used to be. The young are fed chiefly on caterpillars, but unfortunately they soon take to eating peas, which brings them into bad repute with gardeners, and numbers of young birds are shot and buried in gardens where peas are grown. It is pleasant, on the other hand, to watch them amongst the wild plums and sloes and crab-trees in one of our old hedgerows, but is not an easy matter as they are so suspicious. In districts where many peas are grown for the market, these birds are a perfect plague. In Germany this bird is called Kernbeisser (kernel biter) because of the ease with which it cracks cherry stones with its powerful bill. With us it eats the seeds of the horn-beam and other trees, beechmast, haws, etc.
Only one brood is raised in a season, but if the first nest is meddled with, another one is made.
In “Within an Hour of London Town” the writer interviews a gardener on the subject of Hawfinches. We give it here as it stands.
“What do I want with the gun? Hawfinches; they hawfinches in my peas!” he grunts.
As he leaves the tool-house I quietly follow, and place myself with him behind a low faggot-stack which stands in a line with the peas.
“Jest hear ’em! ain’t it cruel!” he whispers. “I hope the whole roost of ’em may git in a lump so that I ken blow ’em to rags an’ tatters. If you didn’t know what it was you’d think some old cow was grindin’ up them peas. Ain’t they scrunchin’ of ’em! All right now, I ken see you, you grindin’ varmints! Now for it!” Bang!
Three birds fall—young ones in their first plumage, which has a strong likeness to that of a greenfinch.
After picking the birds up, we examine the pea-rows. There is no doubt as to the mischief the birds have done. The old fellow’s own expression, “grinding up,” is the best to convey any idea of the destruction that has taken place. Where the birds have been, nothing remains but the stringy portion of the pods of his precious “Marrer fats.”
There is enormous power in the bill of the Hawfinch, when the size of the bird is considered. The pea-pod is simply run through the bill, and the contents are squeezed out in a state of green pulp and swallowed.
“Varmints I call ’em, an’ nothin’ else,” is the remark my old friend makes, as he goes towards the tool-house and takes from a shelf a hen Hawfinch and two young ones, the former probably the mother of some of the birds that are about, if not, indeed, of the whole brood, her plumage showing that she has been sitting.
“People wants me to git ’em full-feathered old birds for stuffin’, but bless ye, ye might as well try to ketch weasels asleep. A cock Hawfinch is about one o’ the most artful customers as I knows on. The only time to get a clip at ’em is in winter, under the plum and damson trees. They gits there after the stones, any amount o’ stones lays jest under the ground, an’ they picks ’em out an’ cracks them easy. I gits plenty o’ young ones when peas are about—the old ones lets ’em come, but they take precious good care they don’t come off the tops o’ the trees themselves afore they knows there ain’t nobody about. Some says they’re scarce birds. I knows they ain’t—leastways not when my peas are ready to gather.”
The Hawfinch is seven inches in length and has a thick head, short tail, and very strong bill. Crown and cheeks cinnamon brown, neck greyish, mantle chestnut. There is a black patch on the throat, the base of the bill, and the eye, and a white patch on the wing. The tail is white in the middle and darker at the sides, the underparts are greyish with a tinge of violet. The middle wing feathers are serrated in wavy curves, and look as if clipt with scissors, the bill is exceptionally strong, very thick at the base, and sharp at the point. It lays four to six eggs of a pale green colour slightly speckled. The nest is well-built and is placed in fruit trees, and in open spaces in the woods, at a height of from six feet upwards.
The moral of the story of the gardener and the Hawfinch is that the gardener must protect his peas.
The Chaffinch is a useful bird, and is also an ornament to the woods and gardens, not only by its lovely plumage, its friendliness, and its movements, but especially by its clear voice which rings like a silver bell. Its call-note is “fink-fink,” and it has a short, cheery little song. Through the whole laying and brooding season it is busy with the destructive grubs and insects, especially the little caterpillars and tiny beetles which destroy the buds on the trees. When the seeds are ripe it lives entirely on them, but almost exclusively on those which it is able to pick up from the ground. It is true that when a considerable number of these birds visit a vegetable garden they do a great deal of harm, but this is outweighed by the good they do.
In very severe winters, it comes either in flocks or small parties with other starving companions—Yellow-Hammers, Siskins, Crested Larks, and Sparrows—into the villages, and even towns, and picks over the heaps of street refuse and gutter sweepings.
It is still common with us in Hungary.
This Chaffinch is one of our common British species in winter, although in some seasons their numbers are unaccountably smaller than in others. It was called cœlebs, or bachelor, because of a partial separation of the sexes which takes place during the winter. Large flocks arrive from the Continent at that season on our East coast, whilst others come from the North of our islands to spread themselves inland. Unfortunately the
Chaffinch is the favourite bird in the shops of the Seven Dials in London, and before the Bird Protection Acts came into force, many a country lane has been cleared of Chaffinches to the great disgust of many of the residents in the neighbourhood.
In Germany this is called the Buchfink—Beechfinch—because of its fondness for beech woods. In the Thurigen Forest they have come to our table like Sparrows for crumbs. It frequents our suburban gardens.
The Chaffinch is a delightful bird in garden and wood. The full-grown male has a broad white stripe and a smaller yellow stripe on the wings; the two outer feathers of the tail are large, with white wedge-shaped spots, which give the bird in flight a very variegated appearance. Crown and neck are bluish-grey; brow black; cheeks and under parts brownish-red; wings and tail black, except the white spots. The female and young are more plainly coloured; otherwise, like the male. Its nest is built among the high tree-tops, sometimes quite in the open, and is made of tufts of hair, moss, root-fibres, wool, and hair, very skilfully constructed. It lays five or six eggs with dark dots and fine markings, but occasionally of a uniform colour.
The Bullfinch lives in summer in the mountains, and descends in late autumn to the plains, where it meets its far bigger relatives who come to us for the winter from the Far North, and joins company with them in wood and grove and garden, even in the immediate neighbourhood of dwellings. When the sunshine glistens on frost and snow, and these splendidly coloured birds settle on a dry bough, the scene presents a lovely winter landscape the impression of which is heightened by its melancholy subdued cry, “deeu,” or “beut, beut.” In captivity it learns to sing tunes. It is easily caught, for it is incautious.
In winter it visits plants, choosing the young wild vines, buds, seeds of all kinds, berries including those of the alder, and the wayfaring tree; it does not attack weeds. In very severe winters, when starving, it will also do mischief among the buds of the fruit-trees.
It is frequently seen in winter.
The Bullfinch has been causing much dissension in and near an East Anglian district where I have lately been staying. A net had been placed over the gooseberry bushes to protect the blossom, and much indignation was caused early one morning by the sight of three lusty Bullfinches within the meshes, and a quantity of promising blossom on the ground. “There would be no gooseberries whatever, this season; it was positively unbearable; sentiment was utterly misplaced.” The three birds were caught by the hand within the net, two were put in a cage in the stable, and one was exposed in a small cage on the top of the garden wall to attract others to the like fate. The gardeners were inexorable. Madame was irritated by the sight of the rifled twigs. “And all last Sunday was spent, by the wife and me,” said the gardener, “shying stones at the rascals among the trees in our own garden.” The next day a market-gardener shot no less than six Bullfinches on his grounds.
As a rule, my friends on this estate, are extremely good to birds, and they attract them by placing breeding boxes, and supplying food in winter; but these sturdy rascals find no quarter. I pleaded hard for them, but, I fear, without result. The gooseberry blossom was certainly nearly all destroyed, but it was in a quest for the destructive larvæ of the winter moths, which make their appearance in the early spring and eat the not yet expanded buds. A fruit grower has stated that he allowed the Bullfinches to eat as much as they pleased; the crop of fruit has usually been as good as if the birds had not done any disbudding, and when, by a rare chance, the trees had borne no fruit at all, he knew it was because the trees required clearing, and the next year the crop would be all the finer. In some cases the tree appears to be entirely disbudded, and still fruit has appeared.
It is only for a short period that the Bullfinches visit the fruit trees. During the rest of the year they eat the seeds of harmful weeds—dock, thistle, groundsel, plantain; and one authority states that a single Bullfinch has been known to devour 238 seeds of the common spear-thistle in twenty minutes! A writer in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society say that he has seen “a small party of these birds eagerly devouring the seeds of the large sow-thistle.” A little fruit more or less in a season, in one’s own domain, is a small matter in comparison with the vast amount of noxious weeds destroyed on our fields.
The Bullfinch is an ornament in a garden. Crown, wings, and tail are shining black, and the same colour surrounds the bill; mantle a beautiful ashen-grey, rump and under tail cover snow white, breast and under-parts a fine red. In the female the under-part is ashen-grey. Bill short but very thick, at the end curved and hooked. The clutch is composed of five green eggs with purple and grey speckles. It nests in the fir woods of the mountains, at a height of about six yards; the nest is made of thin twigs and is lined with hair.
The Goldfinch (Carduélis élegans) is so well known in Great Britain that it requires little description. Unhappily for the “Proud Tailor,” as he is called in the Midlands, he has always been a favourite cage-bird, and on the South Downs Goldfinches have been captured in thousands at the times of migration, to be miserably caged in dozens for the bird dealers.
They are birds which found their food on the waste lands where large thistles used to grow, and with the improvement of these waste lands the thistles have gone, and the Goldfinches with them. Increased Bird Protection is, however, causing more Goldfinches to breed amongst us, which is a good thing for agriculture, this bird’s food consisting, as it does, of the seeds of the thistle, knap-weed, groundsel, dock, and other plants. The Goldfinch is considered to be one of the most useful of all our birds, feeding, as it does, on the seeds of noxious plants of which there is a succession all the year round. It ought to be encouraged in orchards, where it feeds its young on small caterpillars, and destroys great numbers of other insects for them.
Its relative, the Greenfinch (Ligurinus chlóris), a common and well-known species everywhere, is not quite so valuable a bird to the agriculturist as the above species. It is well known that it steals much swede and turnip seed, still it devours quantities of the seeds of such weeds as dandelion, corn marigold, charlock, wild vetch, etc., and the parents capture immense quantities of moths, flies, caterpillars, and other pests for their young.
This is a pretty, cheerful, friendly bird, that lives in gardens, thickets, or the outer part of the woods. Its chief distinguishing characteristic is that it loves to associate with other kinds of birds, especially the Fieldfares, with which it is most intimate. During the brooding time and before the seeds are ripe it lives chiefly on grubs and insects, being particularly fond of the smooth caterpillars, which the other birds do not much relish. It also likes seeds, and rather the floury than the oily ones. In winter it flies about the fields with other birds, and destroys the seed of the runners, and the weeds that shoot up through the snow—and is thus doubly of use to the farmer.
In a severe winter it comes with other feathered visitors into the inhabited districts. At the weekly market it appears with Finches, Crested Larks, and Sparrows, and picks up the oats and other grain which are lying about, showing little timidity in doing so. It has a dipping flight. It enlivens the country-side in spring and summer with its song.
It is very numerous with us in Hungary.
This bird is resident and common in most parts of Great Britain. From morning till evening it sings the same song all through the spring and summer; it has been transcribed as “Little bit of bread and no che-eese.” The form and hardness of its bill, proclaims the bird to be a grain eater, and of course it will pick up a great deal of corn, where it is to be found, yet both
old and young birds live upon insects largely, as well as the seeds of baneful weeds, and it has been estimated with us that the good it does far outweighs any harm which the farmer suffers through it.
The Yellow Bunting, well known under its universal name of Yellow Hammer, says “A Son of the Marshes,” “is a very handsome bird and a very common one. The plumage is splashed with rich yellows, warm red-browns and darker streaks; this is his nesting suit. In winter the colouring is not quite so gay. Where farms or farm-buildings show, you will be sure to find Yellow Hammers round about them. Stand just inside the stable, after the horses have left it in the morning for their work in the fields, and look at the birds gathered round the open door, all busily picking up the grains of oats that have fallen from the nose-bags. A fine mid-April morning suits the bird to perfection, for he droops his wings, spreads his tail out, and glides here and there pecking up as he goes, in the most dainty manner. Then, for a time, he visits the trees.
The lowering of the wings, until they almost touch the ground, and the spreading out of the tail, is a peculiar trait seen more or less in the whole of the Bunting family.
Trees and fields are necessary to the well-being of the Yellow-Hammer, which may be considered one of the farmer’s friends; for at certain seasons he, as well as others of his family, live in the fields, only leaving them to rest, or roost in the trees that surround them. Innocent as the creature is in all its ways and means of living, superstition has linked its name with evil. I have been assured, in the most solemn manner, that the badger, the toad, and the Yellow Hammer are all in league with the Prince of Darkness.”
The Cirl Bunting, often called the French Yellow Hammer, which is distinguished from the commoner bird by the dark throat gorget, is more numerous at times than it is supposed to be. In fact it is becoming fairly common as a resident species.
The Yellow Hammer is the size of a Sparrow but longer and more elegant. Throat, underparts, and crown of the full-grown male, golden-yellow; mantle rust-red merging into green. The bill is peculiar, the lower half is compressed, and the upper half is so formed that it is adapted for shelling seeds. Its well built nest is placed low down among the bushes. It lays five eggs which have dark markings on a light ground.
The Turtle Dove has a pretty, dainty walk, an uncommonly rapid flight, and is altogether a beautiful pleasant cleanly bird. The pairs are devoted to each other. Their cooing, “turr, turr,” is pleasing, gentle, and rich. It is a harmonious sound which makes a soothing impression on the mind. It is no wonder that, from its whole nature, the Turtle Dove has been chosen as the symbol of faithful love. Popular sentiment is shown in the widespread belief, that if his mate is taken from him, the male bird dies of grief—or that in sorrow for his loss he never again sits on a green bough. The Turtle Dove loves the border of a wood, or the trees, and rows of poplars that skirt a corn-field. It likes to be near clear water to which the birds come in flocks to drink. Its food consists almost entirely of seeds, chiefly those of weeds. That is why this bird is so useful to the farmer. It does, indeed, sometimes take toll of the grains, in the corn-field, when they have not been properly covered by the harrow. Then, indeed, the Doves so fill their crops, that bare places do not fail to appear on the ground. But this bad behaviour lasts only for a short time; besides it is not very bad, for they eat chiefly the superfluous grains. It is quite different with regard to the seeds of weeds, which they destroy the whole summer through in great quantities. A student of bird-lore once opened the crop of a Dove in midsummer, and found in it 1942 seeds, of which all but one were the seeds of the poisonous willow-leaved wolfs-milk—the one exception being also the seed of a noxious
weed. There can be no doubt that this bird does more good than harm—and we will, therefore, encourage and protect it.
It is still common in Hungary.
It is common in some parts of England, but is very local in its visitations and is only a summer visitor. A “Son of the Marshes,” says, “It is common enough in some parts of Surrey. I have seen from ten to thirty of them rise from the standing oats, or from the long grass in the hayfield, at one flight. One of my friends shot a couple as they were rising from the oats, and opened their crops. Not a single grain of oat did he find in them. They were full of a little vetch that grew abundantly at the roots of the oats, or, to express it in true rustic agricultural phrase, ‘at the stam o’ the whuts.’ I was with the man at the time; after that examination of the birds’ crops he declared he would never shoot another pigeon.”
Another member of this family, the beautiful Ring Dove or Wood Pigeon (Colúmba palumbus), called Queest in Ireland, and Cushat in the North, because of its soft notes, is a bird that we could ill-spare from our woods and coppices. It is, however, an undeniable fact that the members of this voracious species have increased of late years in a manner which is alarming to the hard-working farmer. Many writers have taken up the cudgels in defence of these birds on account mainly of the amount of noxious weeds, wild mustard seed, and leaves they devour, but, as that great naturalist, the late Lord Lilford, wrote, in sending me a little box of the contents of the crops of three birds extracted by himself: “In a highly-farmed country these weeds hardly exist; and,” he added, “in my opinion his good deeds are in no way comparable to the damage done. I have frequently, when shooting Wood Pigeons in the winter months, seen their crops burst on coming down dead from a height, from distension with hearts, acorns, barley, and turnip-tops.” The contents of the three birds’ crops sent to me were 129 peas, 85 beans, and some broken vegetable matter.
The amount of good or of harm done by this species varies, as in the case of other birds, according to the weather and the scarcity or plenty of their natural food about the woods and the lands skirting these. Considering the numbers that breed in our midst the farmers might well thin these, and send a better supply of birds to the market.
The Turtle Dove is smaller than the Pigeon, slenderer, and it has a more stately form. Crown and brow are a beautiful grey, cheeks and ear parts flushed with rust colour. On each side of the neck it has an ornament of black and white dots arranged in rows. The mantle is ashen-grey with dark specks which have a reddish border. The rump is ashen-grey with a shade of rust colour. Throat and breast reddish, melting into violet; the under-parts are white. The wings are black, shaded with slate colour; tail slate colour; four, at least, of the tail feathers have white tips. Beak black, the irides fiery red; legs blood-red. The young birds are of soberer colour. The nest is placed in thickets and is well hidden. It is composed of little branches and twigs, very lightly put together—indeed so loose and open is it, that the eggs and the sitting hen can be seen through it. It lays two white eggs.
The reedlands and meadow-lands, moist fields, marsh and lake districts, would be desolate and lifeless without the beautiful Lapwings. They wheel and flap, and twist, and wheel again, on the large open uplands, so that their varied plumage almost dazzles the eye, and when several pairs frequent the same field they embellish air and sky. When the nesting time arrives the whole neighbourhood resounds with the call which the bird utters while in flight. The call-note sounds like “Keevit,” from which, of course, its name is taken. The pairing note sounds like “Ka kerkhoit, kewit, kewit, kewit, kewit.” It can run well and quickly on the ground. If a dog or a crow approaches the nest it flies at it with a loud, despairing cry, “Chrait,” and strikes at the enemy with its beak; if a man shows himself it practices all kinds of cunning tricks. It flies along near the ground, repeatedly stopping, and so lures him away from the nest. The eggs of the Lapwing are much sought after. Its usual food consists of worms, the various kinds of snails, chafers, grasshoppers. In autumn it covers the fields and meadows in great flocks like a cloud, and destroys the pests of agriculture. It departs in winter. It is recommended for protection both on account of its beauty and its usefulness.
Sir Herbert Maxwell, writing last autumn, 1908, in the Pall Mall Gazette, after referring to another species, says: “There is another bird equally industrious in ridding the farm of insect pests and with no fruit or grain eating propensities whatever, which we allow each year to be slain in increasing numbers. Already in poulterers’ shops, not of the first class, may be seen strings of Lapwings exposed for sale, and this will continue till far on in next spring. May I make my annual protest against this mischievous traffic? Great Britain has held aloof from the Convention of Continental States formed for the protection of birds useful to agriculture. Her Government decided upon this attitude on the ground that Parliament had already effected by legislation most of the objects which the Convention has in view. But the continued slaughter of Lapwings is altogether at variance with—nay, is in direct opposition to—the main provisions of the Convention. It is true that powers have been conferred upon County Councils enabling them to prohibit the killing, capture or exposure for sale, of Lapwings or any other kind of bird at any or every season; but so long as these powers are not exercised this senseless slaughter will go on. For, unhappily, there is a ready market for the carcases of these useful birds. People whose palates are so gross as to be gratified by the flesh of carnivorous birds eat Lapwings greedily enough. Why not compel them to be content with their eggs? seeing that every Lapwing destroyed means the preservation of hundreds of noxious insects, such as leather grubs, wireworms, click-beetles, caterpillars, and such like.”
In England drainage and the improvement of waste lands have caused its numbers to diminish, still it holds its own on most of our high-lying moorlands. In Scotland it is plentiful, and is even on the increase in many of the northern districts. Unfortunately, its eggs are in great demand. In Ireland this is not the case; the eggs are not sought after as they are in England, but the birds are netted in numbers for eating.
The Lapwing is twelve inches in length. It can be immediately recognised by the long pointed crest which begins on the crown, extending backwards and being slightly curved upwards at the end, resembling a good deal a waxed military moustache. This is black, as are also the brow, throat and breast; the under parts are quite white, the rump a brilliant rust-colour; the base of the tail white; the end of the tail is adorned with a broad black border. Mantle shining, iridescent black. Legs red, eyes brown and bright; beak shaped like a thick awl. Such is the appearance of the males; the female bird and its young are much plainer in colour, and have a smaller crest. The nest is placed in the reed-beds and in shallow parts of the marshes; it is simply a scratched out hollow bedded with dry chaff. The clutch usually consists of four pear-shaped eggs, which have olive-brown spots and flecks on an olive-green ground. The young leave the nest as soon as they are hatched, sometimes even carrying part of the shell on their feathers.
This bird takes up its residence with us in Hungary as a visitor only on its way during the long migratory journey, which extends from the northernmost parts of our hemisphere to the Nile.
Its habits are most varied, for it stays sometimes on the flat sea shore, sometimes on the border of the desert, sometimes on a rocky river-bank; with us it settles on pasture land, fallow fields, marshy flats, and lowlands. It destroys everywhere immense numbers of grasshoppers and beetles. Crickets are the food it likes best, but it also eats snails, and sometimes even frogs. It is, therefore, of great service to the farmer, more especially as it frequents and cleanses the fields in large numbers. It does not require much protection for it is an extremely shy bird, and he must be a clever marksman who can bring it down with a shot. But the sportsmen of the lowlands are even more cunning than the Curlew. At certain places they lure the birds with a decoy—a bird dried in the oven which is placed on the lake edge—and a pair of Curlews are almost certain to fall victims to the ruse.
Its call-note is audible at a considerable distance, floating pleasantly, something like a modulated human whistle: “Klowit!” or “Taue taue,” and “Tlouid tlouid!” Shepherds believe that when this cry is heard it foretells wind.
The Common Curlew is to be found in Great Britain, wherever there are sand and mud-flats, and rocks covered
with sea-weed left high and dry at ebb-tide. It is with us during the entire year, for when the old birds go inland in spring, the young birds take their place and remain for the summer. As long as the young birds remain on the moors and pastures, their food consists of berries, insects, spiders, worms, and snails, and they then become excellent for the table; but after feeding near the sea, they become unpalatable.
Its plumage, mottled, speckled, and cut up with broken tones of brown grey white and light red, makes it look like a Plover when squatted, unless its long scythe-shaped bill can be detected,—a most difficult matter when in that position. It is wary in the extreme; morning, noon, and night on the alert. That it is brought to bay at times is certainly no fault of its own, but is mainly due to its surroundings.
The Curlew is a most interesting bird, see it when you may, on some upland with the sheep, in the grass meadows, or on the shore, when huge dark storm-clouds roll in from open water, a gale blowing, and the white parts of its plumage showing like large snowflakes as the bird and its companions are driven shrieking and wailing in all directions, or in the calm, still days of early autumn.
“From a fishing smack,” says “A Son of the Marshes,” I have watched it probing for lug-worms, running nimbly or walking sedately on the mingled sand and ooze.
Curlews allow themselves to be blown, or drifted only, when waiting over some favourite feeding-ground, before the tide has sufficiently left for them to feed. I have repeatedly watched mobs of them, waiting for the tide, when a heavy gale has been blowing. The birds know that their food is just below them so they merely flap to and fro and put up with the inconvenience of being blown about. At any other time they would shoot clean through in the teeth of the gale. Only those who have seen a frightened Curlew go up or down a creek lined with shore-shooters, shrieking as it flies, can form any idea of the bird’s swiftness. I have known a bird of this kind “fly the gauntlet” for three miles, and there has been bang! bang! bang! from every shooter that it passed, good shots too. It escaped the lot without being touched. Swift flyers at all times, their ordinary speed is as nothing compared with what it is when they are frightened.”
The Curlew is 24 inches in length. It has a long scythe-shaped bill, a long neck, and long, waders’ legs. The plumage is marked with hemp-seed speckling, the specks somewhat elongated, here and there arrow-shaped. Tail white, slightly tinged with brown; every feather has brown bars. Eye brown. It does not usually nest with us, but is more a spring and autumn visitor; yet it sometimes happens that a pair of these birds build and rear their young. In its northern home it builds on the ground, on the moorlands. It lays four pear-shaped eggs, as large as those of the farmyard duck, of an olive green colour, with dark speckling.
The Redshank enlivens whatever place in the reed-land or marsh it happens to nest in by its voice and its varied plumage. It is a beautiful sight when it spreads out its wings, rises into the air and stretches out its long legs. Its resounding whistle is pleasant to the ear. It runs well, wades in water, and in case of need can swim. When the young ones are hatched, anyone approaching the nest should be moved by the wailing cry which it utters in anxiety for its young, though it has a thousand ways of luring people away from the nest and of misleading them, when it takes the trouble to do so. With a plaintive cry it settles on the ground, makes all kinds of bows and curtseys, utters its flute-like note, then begins to run, as if to say, “Follow me, man!” When it has come out of the immediate neighbourhood of the nest it settles on a branch or a stake, or even attempts to perch on a telegraph wire. Then its voice becomes more plaintive even than that of the Lapwing. Even a shot does not scare it away. It moves away, disappears, but in a very short time it is back in the same place to continue its bitter lamentations; its note sounds like “Dlue, dlue, dlue, dlue-dee-dee-deedle-dee.”
Like all the waders of the marshlands, the Redshank is very voracious, and has an excellent stomach. It devours beetles, grasshoppers and snails with great