LABORATORY OF ORNITHOLOGY CORNEHi UNIVERSITY iTHfCA, NEW YORK CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY LABORATORY OF ORNITHOLOGY LIBRARY Gift of ix Cornell University Library ®i The original of tiiis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924090283346 ^^(O ■^ >^sCO I^Bco S^^oo >-^^^CM I^Hg i^go u^^B'^ S^^^sCM 8^^S05 =co MY BIRDS IN FREEDOM &> CAPTIVITY Quam magnificata sunt opera tua, Domine ; Nimis profunda facta sunt cogitationes tua. MY BIRDS IN FREEDOM ^ CAPTIVITY BY THE REV. HUBERT D. ASTLEY MEMBER OF THE BRITISH ORNITHOLOGISTS' UNION, ETC. # m^'^^ NEW YORK: E. P. DUTTON is' CO. LONDON : J. M. DENT ^ CO. 1901 391106 TO mr WIFE , WHOSE KEEN INTEREST IN MY BIRDS HAS GREATLY ENCOURAGED ME TO PRODUCE THIS WORK MANDARIN DUCK PREFACE I DO not know which gives me the greatest pleasure of two things, namely, the keeping of birds as pets, or the representation of them in sketches. In attempting to be author and artist in one, both these pleasures have been mine ; for in writing about my birds I have kept them over again, especially as far as those are concerned which are but memories ; and in drawing them, I have been able to understand them better, and to provide myself with some- thing in the way of a lasting souvenir. And having done so, a desire has come to me to invite others to share the delights of this experience. Nowadays one is happy to believe that a growing interest is spreading in England for the love and protection of such a very beautiful portion of the Creator s work as X Preface are the birds — a love which cannot but bring with it more knowledge and further enlightenment, a protection which one trusts may in due time blot out that iniquitous habit prevailing among a certain class of men, of shooting down and destroying every rare bird they may happen to come across. The contents of this volume are not intended to treat of birds scientifically, but rather chattily, with a hope that many who would not read a learned book on ornithology will perhaps dip into what is simply a homely account of some of the birds that I have kept. People grow a little weary of discovering the same quotation time after time in so many books on birds ; of what is said by Gould, and Morris, and other eminent ornithologists ; weary, too, of the long lists of Latin names and elaborate descriptions of plumage, which are indeed necessary and instructive in the deeper study of the science, but are not food for all minds. As to the rough sketches which form the headings of the chapters, there may appear to be a lack of appropriate- ness when, for instance, a tufted duck is found as an introduction to an account of such a totally different family of birds as are the Indian shama and the magpie robin of the East ; but these chapter headings must be looked upon — like wild storks in England — as merely accidental visitors, having something in common with their surroundings, or not, as the case may be. The true subject of each chapter is to be found por- Preface xi trayed on the full page illustrations^ the smaller line drawings being introduced more or less promiscuously, as any bird I have kept seemed to occur to me as one that would go towards representing the all sorts and conditions amongst my pets. To Mr. Dent I hope I may express my thanks for the pains he has taken in causing my humble attempts at bird-drawing to be reproduced in such a manner, as to almost succeed in making silk purses out of sows' ears. I could not resist introducing as a frontispiece my beautiful old home in Buckinghamshire, of which my mother was heiress [now belonging to my brother, Mr. Frankland-Russell-Astley], a house restored in the reign of Slueen Elizabeth — who there for a time incarcerated Lady Mary, the sister of Lady Jane Grey — and where' once Lady Russell, one of the daughters of Oliver Cromwell, presided as mistress. On its chimneys many a stork has, of late years, rested ; and in its grounds many another of my birds has walked and flown. HUBERT DELAVAL ASTLET. Benham Park, Newbury, October, igoo. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE BIRDS THAT COME TO OUR HOUSES AND GARDENS I CHAPTER II WILD AND TAME HOOPOES .... 24 CHAPTER III BLUE THRUSHES ...... 42 CHAPTER IV ROCK THRUSHES ...... ^6 CHAPTER V NIGHTINGALES ...... 73 CHAPTER VI THE INDIAN SHAMA AND THE DHYAL BIRD . 90 CHAPTER VII VIRGINIAN NIGHTINGALES ..... 9^ xiv Contents CHAPTER VIII RING OUZELS AND WATER OUZELS . . . 109 PAGE CHAPTER IX GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND TITMICE . . II 9 CHAPTER X SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN FREEDOM . . .128 CHAPTER XI SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN CAPTIVITY . , . . I48 CHAPTER XII PARROTS AND PARAKEETS . . . • 163 CHAPTER XIII MANAGEMENT OF CAGES AND AVIARIES . . 187 CHAPTER XIV CRUELTY TO BIRDS ...... 2o6 CHAPTER XV STORKS AND CRANES ..... 227 INDEX 251 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PHOTOGRAVURES Chekers Court, Bucks, My Old Home (Storks, Herons, and Gulls in the garden) Pied Wagtail Fac, Turtle-Dove The Hoopoe Blue Rock Thrush Pied Rock Thrush ...... Nightingale Japanese Robins {Leiothrix) Indian Shama Dhyal Birds (Male and Female) Virginian Nightingale .... Ring Ouzel Golden-Crested Wrens .... Sea-Pie (or Oyster-Catcher) Puffins Razor-bill Greater Black-Backed Gull Grey Plover ...... Pigmy Doves . Frontispiece cing page 8 n ■>■> i6 n Jj 32 )j ■)■> 48 ») » 68 » j> 78 )) » 88 )) )) 92 » » 96 » 5> 104 J) » 110 » » 120 » » 130 ». ■>■> 136 5> n 144 » » 158 » » 162 » » 188 xvi List of Illustrations Redstart . , Facing page 220 White Stork » » 230 Australian Crane ..,...,,„ 244 CHAPTER HEADINGS PAGE Mandarin Duck ........ ix Pied Flycatcher i Little Crake 24 Wheatear -42 Orange-Cheeked Waxbills -56 Long-Tailed Finches (Australian) ..... 73 Tufted Duck .90 Pope Cardinal . -99 Pectoral Finches (Australian) . . . . . .109 St. Helena Waxbill , . . . . . . .119- Sheldrake 128 Spur-Winged Plover 148 Red Rump Parakeets -163 Zebra Finches (Australian) 187 At Capri 206 Egret 227 Flying Storks 237 PIED FLYCATCHER CHAPTER I BIRDS THAT COME TO OUR HOUSES AND GARDENS " If you are not inclined to look at the wings of birds, which God has given you to handle and see, much less are you to con- template or draw imaginations of the wings of angels, which you can't see " — Riiskin. BIRDS are such confiding things. They do not mind any noise and turmoil, so long as they feel that they themselves are unmolested. There they are, not only on the broad stretches of emerald lawns that lie secluded in the grounds of some " ancestral home," but even the row of villas with their humble patch of garden front can claim 2 Birds that come to our its birds. Where the asphalt pavement with its passers-by approaches the country towns, where the highroad which it borders is noisy with the sounds of wheels and hoofs of horses ; there, close by in the hedges on the one side, and the small patches of lilac and syringa on the other, are the birds. " II vit un oiseau voletant, Hochant la queue et becquetant Mouches sur I'herbette ; Un bel oiseau gris argent6, De petits points blancs mouchet^, Brun de coUerette . . . Ce bel oiseau qui voletait En faisant ' quit,' ' quit,' ' quit,' c'etait La bergercfnnette." Of all the birds that are most confiding, and of the many that are a delight to our eyes, none seems to be so more than the water-wagtail, - of which Gustave Mathieu so charmingly writes. True, there is the robin, our dear old English friend, who in English hearts has found a tender spot, which will flit about within a yard of you as you are gardening, and perch upon your wheelbarrow in which the weeds are fast accumulating, or on the handle of your spade, left for a moment upstand- ing in the border ; and the jaunty blackbird with his golden bill, flirting his broad tail as he pauses after a quick run on the turf. And the thrush too ! {I". Musicus, which is the Latin for the common or garden one), he is there, his big brown eye watching for any slight movement which will tell him that the worm is within his Houses ^ Gardens 3 reach. There he is, quite close to you as you sit under the yew-trees at the bottom of the garden. Nor is he afraid to stand on his tail and indulge in a tug of war with that worm, although he has had a good look at you, and his nest of young is a few paces behind you, in the unkempt growth of honey- suckle and wild roses which border the pond where the moorhens flirt their white tails, and wend their way amongst the Aponogeton and water- lilies, whose leaves are clustering upon the water's surface. And you may think the spotted flycatcher, which has taken up its position on a croquet-hoop hard by, is more confiding still, for there is much to be said for him, in spite of his lack of song and dulness of plumage. His shape is so graceful, his flight still more so ; and he is such an old, old friend. Why, it seems as if he has been there all my life, ever since I began to roam the garden on legs of not two years' standing. That little lithe brown bird with the iinely speckled breast, every May finds him home again. He has come so silently, without a moment's warning. Yesterday he wasn't there, and to-day there Jie is, sitting on the railings that divide the lawn from the rougher grass of the park, just as if he had never gone away at all, darting to catch a passing ily and back again. Let us put out the croquet hoops and sticks, if only to see our little flycatcher alight upon them during one more summer, a summer that is glorious and beautiful with scents of roses and £weet verbena, lilies, mignonette, and carnations, as 4 Birds that come to our well as sweet peas in gay successive lines from June to October — a summer bright and lovely with all its depth of foliage, its skies of unclouded blueness and cloudland too, its fiery sunsets, its refreshing rains — a summer which is not altogether perfect without the wondrous procession of flowers and birds. In the borders the oriental poppies, the snapdragons, penstemons, daisies, hollyhocks, dahlias, and many another to swell the host of beauties. In the shrub- beries and creepers the young of birds that flutter with stumpy tails and clamouring voices out of the nests, to swell the chorus of a future spring. It is not very long before the flycatcher has been joined by his mate ; neither does it seem but a week (so quickly do the days pass by) when one of the small brown fellows is seen to dart out from among the wistaria stems, that have twisted and twined over the porch of the front door. Very confiding of them to have built that lovely nest so close to one of the hall windows, but very unconfiding of the builder to feel that every time one passes in and out she is constrained to flit silently away, darting downwards across the gravelled terrace so closely that she surely fans the ground which is baking in the sunshine. But she will gain confidence, or at any rate courage, as she feels that those chestnut-spotted eggs are near to chip- ping. I have looked into the nest to-day, pushing aside the leaves as I leant out of the window. Lazy little flycatchers ! The wall against which you have partly built it all but does duty for one side, so frail is the gathering of moss just there. But you wisely Houses ^ Gardens 5 discerned that, in spite of the winter storms that blew and beat whilst you were in Africa, or no one knows where, the wall has remained firm ; and, with a natural desire for the old home, you said, " We'll prop up our nest in the arms of our lovely wistaria, and the red wall shall be our buttress." And now the wistaria is blossoming, such showers of mauve depending, en- hanced by stars of the small white clematis, which supports itself by clambering the stem of its neigh- bour, I push aside the leaves and the blossoms to look at that flycatcher's nest. Only a foot below me, and five eggs tucked inside. She was on, and stayed long enough to turn up her head when she saw mine, her bright eye filled with a glance of timidity, and then she was gone ! I heard her sharp " Chuck, Chuck," when she settled on some bough of a tree on the lawn, and her mate joined in with sympathy. Curious mix- tures of boldness and fear ! Later on the nest is pressed out of all its symmetry by the young birds when they are ready to fly. Pretty little fellows in plumage of dull dusty brown, flecked all over with whitish spots. Young flycatchers are not nearly so noisy in the nest as most birds. If only that lovely cousin of theirs, the pied flycatcher, would dwell in our English gardens as a summer visitor as generally as the commoner species. They are so local in their range, and betake themselves to wilder dis- tricts, such as Wales and Yorkshire, where wooded valleys and hill streams are to be found. Beautiful little birds, the male all white and black in conspicu- 6 Birds .that come to our ous distinctness. Birds that are unknov/n to the majo- rity of English people. Any one having the privilege to possess Lord Lilford's splendid work on " The Birds of the British Islands," will know very well what a pied flycatcher is like on looking at Mr. Thorburn's lovely plate. This spring I have nailed up small boxes, with a hole in one side and a ledge at the opening. The boxes are painted green, and are placed here, there, and everywhere, some on the face of the house amongst the creepers, and others on the trunks of trees, at a height of perhaps eight to ten feet. There are several species of birds that will select them as houses. They are " to let — rent free," for the summer months, with the proviso that the landlord may inspect his property from time to time. The tenants will agree to this, if the visits are not too frequent, nor made in too much of a spirit of interference and tire- some curiosity. Redstarts, flycatchers, robins, titmice, and a few others will build in these little detached villas, or shall we say rustic cottages .? Gardeners and children, especially boys on mischief bent, must be warned against touching or peering. In our garden a pair of robins have tenanted a box which is hung on a nail to the trunk of a large lime-tree in the shrubbery. The box is just low enough for a tall person to see the shining eye of the hen peering over the edge of the mossy nest, and just for once it won't hurt to lift down the box to see its contents. How wonderfully it has been arranged, the moss and leaf foundation compactly Houses ^ Gardens 7 pressed within, and the eggs, a clutch of four, lying in the small cup of horse-hair. Not long ago I heard of a country rector who, having placed thirty-six bird-houses in his garden, was rewarded by all but two of them being tenanted in one season. Talking of redstarts, can any bird be lovelier than the male with his black throat, the shining spot of white on the forehead, the russet breast, and the quivering tail of brightest orange-red ? A very conspicuous bird in the earlier spring, that is to say, after the first week of April, at which time he arrives from the great African continent. Very conspicuous, too, when the young are hatched and freshly flown ; but after that, showing only now and then, retiring apparently into the thicker foliage of the shrubberies and woods, until he leaves us for his winter quarters in August and September. Robins are bold indeed in choosing certain spots in which to build. For instance, a small potting-house, approached from beneath a covered way, in which gardeners are constantly working, was a birthplace for five robins in our kitchen-garden precincts last summer. In the farthest corner of this house a brick had been dislodged from the white-washed wall. In the cavity thus formed was the robin's nest, and the birds, for the space is curtailed, had to fly past the gardeners to reach it, the nest being on a level with, and within two feet of the men's faces as they stood to their work at the potting ledge. The birds had to enter at the door, the only window being a closed skylight in the roof. 8 Birds that come to our This brings me back to the subject of water- wagtails. Motacilla lugubris, our familiar pied wagtail — " lugubris " in point of comparative colouring only — is, as I have said, one of the most confiding of Eng- lish garden-birds. There are two pairs in our kitchen- garden this year. In the fern-house, or rather in a greenhouse, where the back wall is tapestried with moss and maidenhair fern, one pair of these birds has reared two broods. Entering through the half-opened lights in the front or by the skylights of the roof, the wagtails built their nest amongst the moss, where the maidenhair depended and hid it from one's view. When the gardeners syringed the ferns on a cloudless day, the phenomenon of a sharp shower around the nest must, could the birds have reasoned, have been a remarkable one. But syringing and plucking the ferns disturbed them in no way. The other pair of kitchen-garden wagtails were still bolder. In a row of open low frames in which plants are stored, the nest was built in the centre of four miniature cross-roads where four flower-pots met. Here the gardeners were constantly working, and the wagtail on her nest was very evident to all to whom she might be pointed out. And yet, in spite of such an exposed site, one or two visitors had to look twice before they discerned the bird, so beautifully did her plumage assimilate itself with the groundwork of scattered leaves and earth, amongst which she had built. The bright, cheerful twittering song of the pied wagtail is one of the first sounds that herald in the early spring, and in March one watches the ^,,./ 7f'2,^.rr/. Houses ^ Gardens 9 assumption of the more definite black, white, and grey plumage of the summer months, as these fairy-like birds trip nimbly along the gravelled terrace, or over the lawns in pursuit of insects. A quick run for three or four yards, and as quick a halt, with the wagging of the long slender tail. Then the graceful undulating flight, as the bird wends his way to settle on the stone balustrade or the gable of the house. " Polly Dishwasher " is one of the names bestowed upon him by some of our peasants. For some suc- cessive years a pair of these cheery little birds built in a hollow formed within a centre-piece of a garden fountain in the shape of three stucco dolphins, which stood on their heads with their tails intertwined, sup- porting a giant shell, in which sat a cupid holding a water-jet. This group was erected upon a pedestal of stone in the centre of the fountain, and that in its turn was in the middle of a Dutch garden before the south front of the house. The entrance to the wagtail's nest was by no means spacious, just where the dol- phins' heads were separated from one another at the base of the group ; but for all that, a wily cuckoo deposited her egg for three or four years in succession, I should say by means of her bill, in the nest. One summer the young cuckoo was extracted and placed in a large wicker cage whose bars were separ- ated somewhat broadly, through which we used to watch the foster-parents passing in order to feed their clamorous charge. How individual species of a genus differ in their habits ! If only the lovely and still more gracefully- lo Birds that come to our formed grey wagtail would take up its abode in our gardens, as does its pied cousin. " Grey wagtail " he is called, in spite of his brilliant yellow breast, his black throat, and his olive-green wings and tail with white edgings. It is a name which would be much more applicable to what is usually called the " white wagtail " {Motacilla Alba). The L,atin title of the " grey " bird is more appro- priate, i.e., Motacilla sulphurea. The late Lord Lilford suggested " the long-tailed wagtail." To find him, you must frequent mountain torrents and quiet rivers, where he builds in banks and under boulders. So too with the yellow wagtail (Ray's). In the water-meadows amongst the coarse grasses and the golden kingcups (the marsh marigolds), with which its breast vies in hue, this bright little fellow is seen, but never on our lawns. The swallows, on the contrary, may be looked upon as amongst the tamest of birds. I mean with regard to the sites they select for nesting. Year after year it is evident that particular pairs of birds return in April to their home of the previous summer. I believe that they would build in the rooms of the house, if they had the opportunity. They come to the porch, and will feed their young above your head as you stand upon the steps, and will often attempt again and again to build after the former efforts have been removed, through your careful con- sideration of the desirable cleanliness of the chief entrance to your home. And when .you have driven Houses ^ Gardens 1 1 them from one corner, the sparrows, about whom we will refrain from writing much, will treat them equally badly in another. Of course sparrows are a plague and a nuisance, but I cannot help being attached to their homely chirping. If sparrows could become hoopoes, or anything else in the way of a bird that is insectivorously useful, what a much more preferable arrangement it would be ! Why should the commonest be the plainest, and the most songless ? And what difficult birds to put out of the way ! I remember, after catching a cock sparrow in a basket trap, and knocking him violently on the back of his poor head, how I flung him down as a corpse, only to see him jump up in about ten minutes and flutter away. I beheaded the next one ! It is one of the chiefest joys of life to hear the warbling of swallows for the first time in the year, upon some bright sunny day in capricious April, after three or four weeks of March winds. The swallows are back once more, and spring is coming with the scent of hyacinths and the glory of flashing tulips. A thousand blooms of many-tinted narcissi are pushing themselves through the turf in the orchard and the "rookery"; the cuckoo's notes will soon ring out. When the house-martins select a house for their summer haunt, no birds give a more cheerful appear- ance to a place, be it a farm isolated in dewy meadows, or in a quiet sleepy country town, in which on a hot day the graceful flight of the little white-footed martins 12 Birds that come to our goes far towards enlivening the dulness of the High Street. They wheel backwards and forwards. They settle on the road to collect the mud for their wonder- ful nests after a thunder-shower has pelted down. Their snowy tail coverts really glisten as they shoot rapidly away. And there in long rows, under the broad eaves of some quaint red-brick house, with its tiled roof and its white-edged windows, they plaster their mud huts and line them with feathers. In building their nests they use straggling stems of hay or straw, which sometimes depend from between the layers of encrusted and hardened mud. When the young are hatched the parents flit to and fro from early morn till sunset, incessantly bringing the flies without which they would perish. Sites that one would think they would choose they pass by, and if the martins do not honour my house with their presence, I envy an aged lady down in the village, under the thatched eaves of whose white- washed cottage there are ten or a dozen nests. As she sits in her doorway with her lace pillow on her knees, her broad-brimmed spectacles perched on her nose, and her cat snoozing in the rays of the western sun, the bobbins clicking swiftly under horny but deft fingers, she is the centre-piece of so peaceful a scene, that one's feelings of envy seem to creep beyond the coveted martins. For the old lady looks happy. The deep furrows of age upon her face have formed themselves in wrinkles, significant of a peaceful heart and of troubles lived down. There are no stern lines to draw . Houses ^ Gardens 13 down the mouth with a sulk and a snapping-to ; nor is the brow, furrowed though it be, repellent with a hard-set frown. Her little garden is aglow with white lilies, sweet williams, pansies, and snapdragons ; and the porch under which the owner is sitting is made beauteous in a tangle of honeysuckle and sweet jessa- mine. Old " Fanny " is a spinster. Yet there are letters of faded ink within the brass-bound chest that would show how, long, long ago, her " young man " had courted her. But sailors marry the sea, and the sea will not always relinquish her claim to hold those betrothed to her. And so Old Fanny sits making her lace, and the martins return every year, but her sailor never comes with them, and never will till the sea gives up her dead. Perhaps she loves the house-martins more than one thinks for. Old friends they are to her. They have built under her eaves as long as she can remember, and who can tell what they have seen, as they winged their flight above the ocean at the season of autumn gales ? Dear little birds they certainly are, with their twittering calls and their glossy coats of burnished steel picked out with snowy white. Neither must we forget the more modest denizen of our gardens. I mean the misnamed hedge-accentor. He isn't a sparrow at all, yet " hedge-sparrow " he is invariably styled. A quiet little brown Jbird who is resident all the year through, with a bright melodious song of no great compass, which he pours out when winter days are mild and few rivals are about to drown 14 Birds that come to our his music. A " hedge-sparrow's " mossy nest, hidden low down in some evergreen shrub or ivy stump, is a real joy to find, with its complement of brilliant tur- quoise eggs. One wonders at so sombre and retiring a bird being able to thus decorate its nest with such vividly coloured shells. The hedge-sparrows do not hop about the lawns with the boldness of thrushes, blackbirds, and robins ; but generally keeping nearer to the bushes, seem to apologise for their presence, and quickly disappear. Chaffinches are very bold, half walking and half hopping with nodding heads in front of the windows, even in summer time, and then flitting off with white- banded wings, uttering their call note of " Pink, Pink." The cock bird is very handsome with his blue- grey head, his breast of dull pink, his greenish back, and white conspicuously marked wings and tail. Could <#^/Z?.-. Virginian Nightingales 105 I keep the fact of that nest a profound secret, and I determine not to go near it for a week ; at the end of which time, walking quietly past the bush, I can just see the scarlet bill of the hen bird, where the sun- shine, glinting in, catches it. If nothing more comes of it, I feel something has been achieved. In a Buckinghamshire garden I have seen a Virginian nightingale seated on her nest ! Before she hatched her eggs I found out there were four ; and never did I feel more ornithologically uplifted than when I saw, after a fortnight's incubation, that four young ones were alive and well. Neither did I ever feel more despondingly down- hearted than when, after a week's healthy growth on their part, I discovered that some marauding wretch of a rat, or a cat, or a squirrel, had done away with the whole boiling ! (as they say). Or was it a jay .? Whatever it was, my feelings were those of rage and despair. In about a week those plucky birds had com- menced another nest, which I discovered by quiet watching. In a less public spot of the shrubbery, and in a securer position, the second nest was built. It was in a holly tree, in a depending branch, a foot or two above one's head — they never seem to build at any great height. The laburnums were coming into flower after the hen was steadily sitting, and the male bird used to io6 Virginian Nightingales take up a prominent position in one of these trees that overhung the rock garden, where his brilliant scarlet breast showed in striking contrast to the shower of golden blossoms surrounding him. I don't think he ever assisted his wife in the work of incubation ; but he fed her on her nest most atten- tively, and sang roundelays to her most cheerily. Not that she couldn't tune up also, for hen Virginians imitate their lords in weaker tones. Into the second nest I never looked, until it seemed by the behaviour of the parent birds that there were young ones, when I ventured, standing on some car- penter's steps to get a view. Yes 1 it was all right. There were three. I made up my mind that with marauders about, I would take them, and try to rear them by hand. They lived for two or three days, and they died after that. End of Vol. ii. ! Vol. iii. was commenced in July by those inde- fatigable Americans, in the shape of a third nest, built in a box tree. This time, two young ones ! " I must try and rear one ; " and success crowned my efforts. With our trusty housekeeper's motherly care and help, a young cock bird grew up. His brother or sister, left to the care of its parents, fell a prey, as had other brothers and sisters before it, to some wretch. So I was glad that one had been rescued. "Joey" was a beauty, and lived happily ever after- wards, as the story books say. Virginian Nightingales 107 That is, he flourished for some years, and was a most charming bird companion. We reared him as a nestHng to a very large extent upon grapes ; skinning them first, extracting the pips, and cutting each one into three or four pieces, which " Joey " sucked down with avidity. In his early youth he was rather ugly, it must be owned ; but, like the ugly duckling, he made up for it afterwards when in his second moult he put on most of his scarlet coat. An extraordinarily tame bird was poor "Jo." Whenever I entered the room, after an absence of an hour or two, he used to hop up and down in his cage, depressing his crest and quivering his wings with evident delight ; and when the door was opened, the bird began to sing ! He would flit on to my shoulder, erect his crest, and sidling up, would simply shout into my ear, " Jug- jug-jug-weet-weet-weet-weet-r-r-r-r." Though always a cage bird, yet he kept the brilliancy of his plumage well, owing probably to the fact that he had plenty of fruit and mealworms, as well as flights about the room. He would let me walk with him into the garden, sitting on my shoulder all the time. "Jo" was a favourite with every one who knew him. His body was laid to rest in a tin box lined with green moss, in a bank where every spring great bunches of daffodils grow — nice, old-fashioned, yellow "daffadown dillies." It was quite fifteen years afterwards, in 1897, ^^^' io8 Virginian Nightingales I again experimented with a pair of Virginian nightin- gales, by letting them have their freedom in the garden, and again, as in the former case, their behaviour was the same. The nest which was built — which is now in the Rothschild Museum at Tring Park, with its three eggs — was placed in a box hedge bordering one of the shrubbery paths. Unfortunately a tremendous June thunderstorm, with buckets of rain, seems to have been too much for the poor hen bird ; and on the following morning I found the nest deserted and soaked through, with the eggs quite cold. The whole structure was carefully removed, and the eggs equally carefully blown. In one there was a young bird, which ought to have hatched in another two or three daySi By dint of leaving it out of doors where a colony of ants could get to it, the egg-shell was finally cleared of its contents, and the clutch of three safely preserved. As far as I know, these instances are the only ones of Virginian nightingales nesting and breeding in full freedom in England. Such experiments are most interesting, and might possibly be successful with birds such as blue American robins, and perhaps Pekin robins — the leiothrix of India and the Himalayan mountains — green cardinals and red-crested, as well as certain kinds of parakeets. ^*^=^^' PECTORAL FINCHES (AUSTRALIAN) CHAPTER VIII RING OUZELS AND WATER OUZELS " However dressed, and wherever born, the ouzel is essentially a mountain-torrent bird." HOW few people know much about one of the handsomest British birds — the ring ouzel ; partly because he is not a winter resident, he is very local, and he is seldom seen as a cage bird. 109 no Ring Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels Then, too, he lives in the very wildest part of England and Scotland, where he arrives in April, and is not conspicuous in his migration like swallows and birds which are more apt to rest on their way in our gardens, even though they may not be going to stay. So that it is perhaps not to be wondered at that when a lady saw my beautiful cock ring ouzel in his cage, and asked what country he came from, she said that she had no idea that it was an English bird. He is to all intents and purposes a " blackbird " with a white bib on, but his feathers below the striking white band which stretches across his breast, are delicately edged with white, and his bill, though yellow, is not so brilliant as his cousin's. All the hilly parts of Western England, where there are boulders and streams, are favourite dwelling- places of the ring ouzel. And then he loves Wales, and Derbyshire, parts of Yorkshire, Cumberland, and other northern counties, and Scotland, where you can find him right away up to Cape Wrath. Derbyshire, all about the Peak, is a sure find, and beautiful Dovedale resounds with his piping. As you enter the valley just below the " Isaac Walton " Hotel, where the Dove comes rippling along between walls of rock, eddying and swirling round and over its stony bed, one of the most lovely views in English scenery is before you. Above, the rocks are scattered amongst a luxuriant growth of trees, which, overhanging the river, are ■" f% ,yuyna O/M^l . Ring Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels 1 1 1 here and there reflected on the surface of the pools, where the trout lie hidden near mossy banks and beneath the shelter of stones. A rough pathway leads you, now up, now down, where the silvered stems of birch trees shine out against the more distant green of the wooded glen. And above all the beautiful growth of wild wood- land, overhang the beetling rocks, for which Derbyshire is famous ; backed by a May-day sky. Every stretch of the rushing stream is claimed by a pair of dippers — the pretty bob-tailed water ouzel — with white chemisette and back of purple-brown. There sits one on a moss-grown boulder in mid-stream, bobbing up and down, whilst his mate is diving be- neath the troubled surface of the crystal water in search of caddis worms and larvas. Now he is off with rapid arrow-like flight, and shrill but musical pipe. He has settled again, but is almost invisible amongst that strand of shining stones and washed-up sticks, so closely does his plumage resemble his surroundings. There ! his mate has joined him. She is sitting close under the opposite bank, where the moss hangs thickly over, shaded and cooled by sycamore and beech trees, and both birds show signs of anxiety. Doubtless there is a nest close by ; indeed, you may be actually looking at it, mistaking it for an extra bunch of moss and withered leaves, and passing it by. I put on my wading boots, and staggering against 112 Ring Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels the strength of the current, with a feeling that I shall either suddenly plunge into a deep hole or be carried off my weighted legs, search diligently along the bank and amongst the river stones where sticks and leaves have accumulated, but in vain. No nest is more cunningly built than a dipper's. We saw one — a nest of the previous year probably — which was suspended about a foot above the stream, amongst some overhanging branches, and which, with its entrance out of our sight, exactly resembled a bunch of withered grass and leaves caught by the winter's floods, and left there ; more especially as such accumulations were collected on several branches in close proximity. A clear case of an intuitive power of imitation on the part of the water ouzels. Wading out, I found the entrance of the domed nest — much like a giant wren's — where a thick thatch overhung it, so that only when one put one's fingers in, was it discernible. Inside this negligie exterior all was neat and com- pact ; so much so, that I began to doubt its having yet been used. There is a peculiar fascination in the birds that are only found where mountain torrents whirl impetuously amongst grey boulders, where nature is more left to her own devices, and beauty unadorned. It is there that you find the nest of the grey wagtail, the dipper, and perhaps the pretty pied fly- catcher. All about Dovedale the wily carrion crow builds Ring Ouzels c^ Water Ouzels 113 his solitary nest in some conspicuous position in a tree top, before even the young leaves have budded. There he sits croaking ominously, a raven in miniature — black, wicked, and marauding. But he has held his ow^n more successfully than the raven, who in England is now an uncommon bird. In the rocky heights of Dovedale the ring ouzels build, and unless you see the birds as evident possessors of their nest, the latter is very easily mistaken for a blackbird's, both in the matter of the materials and style of architecture, as well as the eggs. In the distance, up a rocky cutting above us, as we keep to the winding path, we hear the fluting of the ouzel, somewhat resembling in voice his cousin, the blackbird, but less melodious, yet attuning delightfully with the wildness of the scenery, accompanied by the swishing of running water below us. Leaving this fairy glen, we can clamber up to the downland above, where stone walls divide the sheep runs and pastures. If you look carefully along the walls, in the hollows amongst the stones you may find a ring ouzel's nest, and perhaps a wheatear's, to get at which you would probably have to pull out many stones. But happily the mere passing boy — a thing of mischief and destruction — does not venture to do so, and the pretty white-backed wheatears rear their brood in safety. A very clever bird is the wheatear at concealing his nesting-place. Like the black redstart in the Swiss mountains, H 114 ^i^g Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels he often requires carefully watching through field- glasses. But the ring ouzel often betrays the whereabouts of his nest by over-anxiety and clamorous fussiness. With blackbird-like calls and much flirting of tails, a pair will come round you as you trespass on their ground. To lie still and simply watch, is a joy that the ordinary unobserver of birds doesn't know. Just as we are told that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, the things which God has prepared for them that love Him, in the future life; so, too, some in the present seem to have already entered upon this inherit- ance in part, which others as yet find no particular delight in. Seeing, they see not ; and hearing, they hear not ; is such a truth. Just as men and women with great artistic powers evidently discern shades, tints, and colours which are hidden to the ordinary human being, so, too, there are some who in wild life and country walks will be more keenly alive to birds' voices and ways, as well as to beauties of flowers, concealed for the most part from the tourist throng. Can these divine joys have entered into the spirit of those who, having devoured their sandwiches and drunk their ginger-pop by the banks of the Dove^ or amongst the bracken and the oaks of royal Windsor, or the Glens of Killicrankie, scatter their grease-stained paper wrappings in vulgar confusion around ? Ring Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels 115 'Arry and 'Arriet, what ''ave yer done ? You've cut yer " noimes " in the turf : YouVe flung yer bottles of ginger-beer, To float in the river's surf ; Why scatter your paper bags about, Because you've finished yer 'am ? Is iAaf all you come to Dovedale for. To devour yer tarts and jam ? You've shocked the ouzels amongst the rocks, You've made the wild rose blush, You've frightened the birds in the midst of their songs, And stilled the sweet notes of the thrush. The hills resound with hysterical yells. Your screams have carried a mile ; It makes one think of the poet's words That, " only man is vile." ■vp 7^ tJ? v|r T?P In the wild hills of Sutherlandshire the ring ouzel can be seen. Perched on the summit of a boulder, round which stretches down the mountain side a tangled growth of heather, bog myrtle, and ling, his showy cravatte of white shines conspicuously against his black coat. You may be lying hid from the deer, waiting as a herd comes browsing, until a royal is within shot, or hungrily devouring your frugal lunch at the edge of a trickling stream, and the ouzel cock flits uneasily about, warning the members of his family of the intruder's presence. A mountain bird, giving a touch of life where at times all is so solitary. There is nothing finer in its own particular way than this deer forest, barren of trees and severe in beauty, the home of the ptarmigan amongst the rocky mist- veiled summits, and of the merganser, which dives in the mountain tarn to feed upon the trout that have 1 1 6 Ring Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels darted up the burn from pool to pool until they have reached this cul de sac. Further down is the meeting of the waters — Gobernuisgach — where, on a grassy plateau amongst the hills, the smoke curls up from the chimneys of the shooting-lodge. With the clamouring notes of the startled ouzel, you wend your way home — happy, because behind you comes the pony, feeling his way carefully over the rough path with its rolling stones and pebbles, bur- dened as he is with the dead weight of your eighteen- stone stag, now no longer the monarch of the glen. And as you look proudly back to count his points once more, you stop before you clamber down to an- nounce the death of a " Royal." Filled with exultation as you are, you still recall the sadness of his fall, when, sinking amongst the heather, the splendid beast seemed with glazing sight to look wistfully after the departing herd as they dis- appeared over the brow of the hill. Above your head soars a golden eagle, scenting the blood maybe. And so you trudge home, wet and footsore — leaving the ouzel to pipe and flute where the red stag fell down — to your well-earned dinner and your rest. So the night falls, ushering in the frolics of otters amongst the salmon in the burn, and the prowlings of wild cats from their lairs in the rocks. And the northern lights dart upwards in the sky. * « * # * As a cage bird a ring ouzel is desirable, for if Ring Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels 117 reared from the nest he is steady, handsome, and cheery in song. A large wicker cage is as good as any, and he loves a daily bath. He is a hearty feeder, and likes grated carrot, pre- viously boiled, added to his insectivorous mixture. Potato, too, and scraps of raw beef are additional luxuries — and mealworms, of course. The hen bird is a " washed " edition of her mate in colouring : her white collar not being nearly so pure in tint ; but the whole effect is soft and pretty. She is not unlike a hen blackbird with a grey- white chemisette, but on closer inspection her breast feathers are seen to have pale lacings. A pair of ring ouzels that I had in an out-door aviary commenced nest-building one spring ; but their efforts did not amount to very much, although the hen bird was repeatedly carrying about beaksful of grass and leaves. The white gorget of the male is very much whiter in the summer than in the winter, and his bill, which is darkish after the breeding season is over, again grows bright saffron yellow on its return. There is no actual spring moult, as in the case of the pied rock thrush [Petrocmc/a Saxatilis), but the edges of the feathers seem to wear away, leaving the whole colouring purer and brighter, unless it be that there is a flow of pigment to deepen or heighten certain tints. The same change of plumage occurs with the blue thrush, in whose case such a flow of colouring matter — '■ at least in the head feathers — would seem to take place ; for the whole head changes from smalt blue to quite a 1 1 8 Ring Ouzels ^ Water Ouzels pale " old china " blue — as I have already mentioned in the chapter on that bird — a tint which certainly does not exist even in the more concealed part of the feathers after his autumnal moult. Why, in the case of two birds so closely allied as the blue thrush and the rock thrush, the former should save himself the trouble of a vernal moult, whilst the latter sheds every feather, except the flight feathers and those of the tail, is curious. It is, as a rule, only by keeping certain birds alive that one is able to discover the various changes of plumage and the manner in which they are effected. ST. HELENA WAXBILL CHAPTER IX GOLDEN-CRESTED WRENS AND TITMICE " Dainty and delightful creatures in all their ways, — voice only dubitable, but I hope not a shriek or a squeak." A N experience that I had in rearing the tiniest / \ of European birds was an interesting one. A. JL. Wandering one bright June day amongst the wilder parts of a Buckinghamshire garden, where for centuries the birds have sung, and built their nests, and died, I found myself beneath the overhanging boughs of an old yew tree. Happening to look upwards, immediately above my head I caught sight of a wee cup-nest hung on the under side of a branch, about eight feet from the ground. At the same moment that I saw it, there came the sharp mouse notes of a golden-crested wren, querulously squeaking in a nervous manner. 119 I20 Golden-Crested Wrens In another moment the tiny bird flitted down within a few feet of my face, peering at me with beady eyes. She was quickly followed by her mate, in whose beak was some small insect. Apparently he hadn't seen me until then, for he hurriedly disappeared, leaving his wife to defend the position ; and his sharp notes of alarm sounded out from amongst the thicket close at hand. Standing perfectly still for a while, I was able to see the pretty little hen bird as she boldly hopped about and crept amongst the twigs. That there were young ones was evident, nor could I resist putting my fingers into the nest to feel them. There was a solid lump of tiny bodies, compressed with timidity at this strange intrusion, and by reason of the alarm notes of the parents. The bough under which the wee nest hung was easily pulled downwards, but my doing so proved more than the wrenlets could bear. They were all but ready to fly, but now, poor little chaps, their flight was somewhat premature ; for, with a confused fluttering of tiny wings, out they all bundled, helter-skelter, taking refuge amongst the undergrowth and weeds of the ground. This tragedy and rout quite threw all timidity on the parents' part to the winds, for they both came so close to me in their endeavours to distract my attention that I could have touched them had they kept still, but golden-crested wrens, except when asleep, are never so. To try and find some of the little ones was my 'MH-*^ r /f^/f/^-'y/'if (''A'//'.j/y'y/ / f y^' a/.j. and Titmice 121 next endeavour — a difficult task, for they had wriggled away into nettles and grass. But by careful search I at last found three — ^^there were seven or eight in all, I believe — and I was not proof against the temptation of taking them with a hope of rearing them. Their age was an awkward one. It was more than probable that they would sulk. And they did, for a few hours ! After that, one more bold or more hungry than the others, suddenly stretched up his neck, encouraged by chirpings on my part, opened a tiny mouth of brightest orange, and received therein an atom of raw beef. This apparently pleased him so much, that down the orange lane it went, and up went his head for more, as he uttered a minute jarring squeak. My hopes were raised. His example was beneficial. A second baby wren put up its head, with open bill, and his hunger likewise was gratified. The difficulty was to place such tiny pieces of food in such tiny mouths, but much practice with other birds no doubt made the task an easier one. On the following morning I found the poor little fellows were evidently suffering from cold, although they had been tucked up in some flannel for the night. So I fetched a hot-water bottle in its red jacket, and placed them on it. The effect was magical. Their feathers, which had become puffed out, all tightened up ; their eyes brightened ; and they stretched 122 Golden-Crested Wrens out their small wings to catch the invigorating heat, as a bird stretches out its wings to sun itself. Then they sat up and began to preen themselves, fluttering about, and seeming extremely jolly. One was smaller and less advanced than the others, and this poor " Dolly " died. The other two prospered, and in a few days would sit side by side on one of my fingers. They were most fascinating. I used to give them bits of mealworm, as well as ants' eggs. They were placed in a cage, the bars of which were of cane, and fairly close together ; but one day a small gold-crest popped through them without the slightest difficulty, and, what is more,popped through the open window as easily, and lived happily ever afterwards. At least I hope so ! / never saw him again ; ungrateful little bird ! His little brother survived only a year, after which time, he turned up his little toes. He was the jolliest little bird, without the slightest fear, and full of curiosity, always peering through the bars of his cage to see what was going on outside. His gold crown appeared with his first autumnal moult ; until then his head was a dull green along with his body. When alarmed in any way he could compress the feathers of his crest until there was only a tiny streak of saffron yellow edged with black. At other times it would widen out and show very plainly what he was. Whole mealworms were too big for him, so I and Titmice 123 used to scald them, and squeeze out the insides, which come away quite easily from within the skin. The little gold-crest used to cling to the bars of his cage and peck out the contents as I held the skin in my fingers. Such an operation may sound very nasty, but food for birds must be studied as much as food for human beings ; and squeezing out mealworms' in- teriors isn't half so nasty as doing something of that sort to rabbits that are to be cooked for our dinners. " Oh ! la, la ! " as the French say. The structure of a golden-crested wren's nest is very wonderful — quite as wonderful as that of another kind of Wren, of which there was only one, and that was Regulus Christopher os, which, though at first sight may appear to mean a crested wren, does not. This was Christopher Wren, who built a wonderful nest, usually known as St. Paul's Cathedral. Well ! as I was saying, the nest of Regulus cristatus is in its way equally marvellous. Not so lasting, it is true, as that of K. christopheros, but the architecture thereof is as much to be admired and wondered at. R. christopheros, like the London sparrow, chose to build in the great metropolis ; though, of course, when first constructed, it was more rural in its sur- roundings than to-day. R. cristatus distinctly prefers the country, where in firs, and yews, and cedars, he finds that thickly- needled and flattened foliage, on branches beneath which he can hide his nest — a Turkish coffee-cup of moss, spiders' webs, and lichens. 124 Golden-Crested Wrens And he hangs it immediately under the branch, which spreads over it protectingly ; so that from above the nest is quite invisible, and even from under- neath is often difficult to find. The edges of it are woven round the twigs ; and between the top of the nest and the overhanging branch there is just space enough, in some instances, for the little wren to creep on to her eggs. And this tiny creep-mouse of a bird is very num- erous in the British Isles, although by hundreds of people it is never noticed, whilst its faint squeaking notes don't reach their ears. It is said that the island of Heligoland, that orni- thological magnet set in the sea, is crowded on scarce occasions during October or November by countless thousands of golden-crested wrens, which must have the appearance of bushels of leaves blown across the ocean, as their minute bodies flutter down from the sky. But if butterflies can cross the sea in migration, why not gold-crests ? Both cases are equally a subject of interest and admiration. I have sometimes derived much pleasure in rearing young birds, allowing them as soon as they can fly to have their liberty in the garden, and there feeding them. Of course they have come to look upon one as their means of sustenance and protection ; and will continue to do so, in some instances, for a length of time. and Titmice 125 My hoopoes are a case in point, already described. But I tried the same kind of thing with some ox-eye titmice, which, after rearing them from the age of ten days in the house, were allowed, as soon as they were strong on the wing, to fly about outside. There were two, for I had by no means deprived their parents of all their progeny. One would have thought that as soon as the young titmice had heard once more the call-notes of the old birds, they would have returned instinctively to them. Yet, although the latter were close at hand, my head and shoulders for some time continued to be their point of vantage whenever I came into the garden and whistled for them. And they made use of such perches even when I was playing at games on the lawn. A titmouse settling on one's lawn-tennis racquet as one is on the point of serving is embarrassing. A pair of ox-eye tits were very fond of one of the nesting boxes, fixed in a Portugal laurel, and one summer, as many young ones seemed to come flutter- ing out as letters from a post-box at Christmas time. Strikingly handsome birds are these greater tits, with the bold black line running down the centre of their yellow breasts. I recall my intense joy, when on a visit to Brighton in my boyhood, I was given a cage full of blue tom- tits by my Mother. She had taken me to a bird-show, and that which fascinated me most was this cage, open to the front 126 Golden -Crested Wrens and in a portion of the top, and lined inside with Virginian cork. In the centre, at the back, the cork was brought out in a circular form, so as to form a hollow within, and holes were bored for the birds to enter this snug retreat. A small door at the back enabled one to peep in. The cage was tenanted by four little tom-tits, whose round heads, with their delicately-tinted caps of cobalt blue, peeped out from the holes ; their bright beady eyes looking inquiringly at one. The tiny and sharp black bill * of a tom-tit adds considerably to his beauty and his perky expression. I departed from the show with an intense longing to possess that cage and its inmates, which desire I expect I probably expressed quite honestly and openly. My joy was great when, after the show had closed, I found the cage on a table in my bedroom. Another time I kept a pair of the lovely little bearded titmice, so different in many ways to other members of a fascinating family ; if they really be- long to it, which is doubtful. But in a cage they are too fidgety and restless, giving one the idea that they are not happy, so I didn't keep them. I have seen these birds hawked about the streets of Milan in February. They are most lovely, and, if it were not for indefatigable egg stealers, would be far more common in England than they are. and Titmice 127 Of course they are birds which show themselves very little in public, creeping and flitting about in the broad stretches of reeds in Cambridgeshire fens and Norfolk broads. Sometimes people manage to keep in captivity the beautiful little long-tailed titmouse, but he never under those circumstances looks quite happy. Nothing is more marvellous in bird architecture than the bottle-tit's nest, as this bird is called ; and how such tiny bills manage to construct that wonderful oval of lichen-covered moss, with the little entrance in the side, is a mystery. A flock of these little people in winter, as they follow each other in quick succession from tree to tree, is a pretty sight ; their long slender tails showing conspicuously. One would imagine that their faint squeaking notes are not far off the borderland of those sounds which fill the world, but which are beyond the reach of the human ear. And a bat's squeak is shriller still. SHELDRAKE CHAPTER X SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN FREEDOM " To begin with ; of old Man went naked and cold Whenever it pelted and froze. Till lue showed him how feathers Were proof against weathers, With that, he bethought him of hose." THERE are spots on our coasts, and there are sea- girt islands, which are a joy for ever, where Atlantic billows, rolling and heaving, finally dash their spray with a magnificent roar on to the rocks, and against the cliffs which intercept their course. Thundering in, they are broken in prodigious volumes of froth ; and repulsed, roll back, dragging with them the pebbles and stones of the shore. On comes another giant billow, with white and curling crest, beneath which the water, where the sun is shining through, gleams with translucent green. Another thundering roar, and again a wave breaks up 128 Sea ^ Shore Birds 129 with a noise of swishing and rattling of stones. A splendid fountain of spray, caused by the body of water colliding with a boulder, showers around. On the cliffs, where the gorse is golden against the delicate blue of the sky, where foxgloves are nodding pink blossoms amongst a tangle of honeysuckle and brambles, the rosy-breasted linnets are twittering merrily to the accompaniment of the music of the sea, and the skylarks are soaring in the air. Amongst the thrift, whose tufts of pink heads are massed in sweeps of colour, pipits are flitting and building their nests in some clump where the long coarse sand-grass affords concealment and shelter. There go the ships on the horizon of the troubled waters, their white sails gleaming in the sunshine. Along the face of the cliffs clacking jackdaws are hopping and flying ; and perhaps, in a few favoured spots, the handsome choughs, now so scarce. There may also be some rock pigeons, which have founded a colony, and have built their fragile nests in some cavern, into the base of which at high tide the waves boom and dash. In a sandy cove, round which the rocks rise in precipitous and picturesque confusion, sheltering the little golden bay from rough winds, groups of shore birds are tripping, and bobbing their heads. As you stand on the edge of the cliff above, you can see the conspicuous pied plumage of the oyster- catchers, their scarlet bills gleaming in the sunshine, and their shrill pipings sound clearly in the still air of a bright May day. 130 Sea ^ Shore Birds Now a pair of them has taken flight, skimming "with quickly beating wings over the surface of the waters, making a circle on the wing, in order to land once more in the sandy bay, where, after taking a few tripping steps, they stand bobbing their heads in much the same way as green plovers. Amongst some of the islands that are grouped in the Atlantic Ocean, off the western shores of the British Isles, countless thousands of sea birds of various species take up their abode in the spring time. There, in many instances, no human beings dwell. Nature in such spots left to her own devices is absolutely lovely, whether in rough weather or fine. But perhaps it is on those cloudless May days towards the latter end of the month, amidst the rich purples and blues and greens of an ocean through which the Gulf Stream 'wends its course, that these sea-girt isles have attained the perfection of beauty. As the keel of your boat scrapes up on the shingle, or is brought alongside some rocks affording a landing, the water on all sides is clear as crystal, and the golden- brown seaweed is tossing to and fro by the movement of the tide. Crimson and wine-coloured sea-anemones are studding the rocks like rubies ; and turquoises in their turn encircle the mouths of these wonderful creatures of the waves. Others are floating on the surface amongst the seaweed — flesh-coloured ones, with mauve-tipped ten- tacles. As you land, the rocks are slippery with blistered brown weed, which pops under your feet ; whilst you in Freedom 131 have to be careful lest you pop under the waves, or, falling on the rocks, bruise yourself unpleasantly. As on the ice, so on this glutinous and slippery sea- weed, your feet have a most provoking way of suddenly precipitating themselves above your head. One doesn't laugh when it happens to oneself, but it is certainly very difficult to refrain from merriment when one of your companions is forced into some undignified position of that sort. With ladies as companions most alarming accidents used to happen upon some of these western islands, where during a four months' stay I have acted as cicerone. Some were eager to collect the lovely canary- coloured shells and delicate pink cowries, as well as many other sea-creatures' fairy houses tossed up by the sea, from which the tenants had disappeared. I remember how one poor lady, elated at having picked up more rarities than usual, was standing on a rock not long laid bare by the outgoing tide, and proclaiming the invention of some especial treasure, when in the middle of her sentence there came a crash ! and a tableau ! The basket containing the shells flew one way ; the shells every way ! As for the lady herself — well ! I looked the other w^z:^ ! A sad wreck ! And the poor lady had to be supported home with a sprained back. Yet I laughed ! Why does one laugh at sad things ? 132 Sea ^ Shore Birds One's nerves give way, I suppose. It was very mean and very ungallant ; but laugh I did. I remember, too — and that time I laughed im- moderately — how another lady fell over a rock into a gorse bush ; and, although she did not spoil her beauty (for it would take a good deal to do t^at), wounded her very distinguee nose, by the fact of a large gorse-prickle sticking exactly in the tip of it. And she wounded my feelings by the fact that she declared it was my fault ; and wouldn't allow me to come to the rescue by extracting that prickle ! More- over, I wounded hers by my laughter. So we were all wounded together ! But this, like our luncheons amongst the rocks and the sea-pink, is a digression. As we sit eating as voraciously as the cormorants which are diving for fish not far off, a pair of ringed plover are tippeting about, crying " Tluy-tluy ; " and, our luncheon having disappeared, I walk off along the stony shore to find their eggs. Sometimes one comes across them accidentally at once ; another day one may search for a length of time before discovering them. Ah ! there they are on the sand, amongst the pebbles, by some tussocks of sea-grass — four, pale buff^, very pointed at one end, and dotted over, especially on the larger part, with brown spots and little blotches. The pointed ends lie inwards, meeting one another. They are evidently far on in incubation, for they are heavy and quite warm. in Freedom 133 The pretty little plovers watch not far off, with their white breasts banded with black across the front, and their pale-brown backs, assimilating in a most beautiful manner with the stones amongst which they are standing. There seems to be nothing in nature which has not its counterpart, so that, however brilliant a bird's plumage may be, it always finds surroundings on the ground or amongst the trees which will assist in con- cealing it from view. The male golden oriole, for instance, a bird of brilliant yellow and black plumage, can become almost invisible in an oak tree, where the sunlight strikes down through the foliage, causing bright yellow lights on the leaves and also deep shadows. And birds are supplied with plumage not only to shield them from others that prey upon them, but these again in their turn are coloured in such a way that they may be unobserved by birds on which they wish to prey. The ger-falcon and the snowy owl are instances. For they live a great deal in regions where there is much snow, but their white plumage renders them invisible to the ptarmigan and willow grouse on which they feed, and whose feathers are also white in winter to conceal them. But the raven, on whom no other bird preys, and who is content to devour carrion, although he may have his residence in similar regions, needs not a protective plumage, and is satisfied with a colouring of boldest black. Yet he, too, amongst the clefts and shadows of the rocks, can render himself a by no means striking object. 134 S^^ ^ Shore Birds So also with certain brilliantly plumaged birds in tropical countries, there is in the trees in which they pass so much of their time, either foliage, flowers, or fruits of a similar colouring with themselves, which aid in deceiving the eye, especially, of course, when they are not moving. It is extraordinary how indiscernible a deer-stalker or a gillie can be amongst the boulders and heather of the Scotch hills, when dressed in a suit to some extent resembling the surrounding ground. A seal, also, lying upon a rock amongst the waves, until it moves, might well be a portion of the rock itself. Gulls perhaps do not need to conceal themselves, but their young require protection. Consequently, the parent birds gradually assume a conspicuous plumage of white and grey, or white and black for the most part, whilst the young are so mottled and splashed with dull greys and browns of various shades, that they are extremely difficult to distinguish, especially when newly hatched and in the fluffy stage. Yet even the old gulls assimilate wonderfully with strong lights upon cliffs and snowy crests of waves at sea. Lights and shadows on the plumage of birds have much to do with this power of concealment. Amongst insects, of course, it is equally marvellous, especially in the case of those that are distinctly an imitation of a bird's dropping. In this there is a quaint irony. Let us now sail away to an island which, in the western seas that wash against England's shores, lies away where the Atlantic rollers often hurl themselves in Freedom 135 angrily against the rocks. In no part do its surf- beaten shores attain to any great height, although at one end the land rises with giant boulders and forma- tion of rocks, to an extent that they are not ignored by the peregrine falcons as a nesting-place. But for the most part the ground is not much raised above the ocean's level, and the loamy soil is carpeted with coarse grass, sea-pink in sheets of pale rose-colour, and bracken. Against the brilliancy of the really blue sea — the colour of which can vie with that of the Mediterranean — the thrift's pink has a marvellous and intensely lovely effect. Here in May the amount of bird life is positively bewildering. Putting aside the fact that there are countless thousands of puffins, the ground beneath your feet is thickly populated with Manx shearwaters (a big petrel), which are, to a great extent, nocturnal in their wanderings, and are now busy in their burrows, each pair incubating a snow-white egg with a beautifully polished surface. In places, at almost every step you take, your feet sink with a sudden jerk into the soft dry soil, honey- combed close under the surface by the burrowings of the shearwaters and the puffins ; and it is very trying for the poor birds, which often happen to be sitting immediately under the spot into which your foot plunges. There is a scrambling under your feet, and amidst an avalanche of pulverised peat and loam, a poor puffin looks indignantly out, his comical little yellow eyes half filled with dust. Sea ^ Shore Birds 136 To have the roof of one's house on one's head like that, and a great beetle-crusher into the bargain, must be most trying. If you peep in amongst the crevices of the rocks where the puiEns, and perhaps some guillemots also, are talking to each other in grunts, and guttural ex- clamations, which sound like " aw — aw — aw," you will see a comical " pufF " with his head on one side, and his leery eye cocked at you, as much as to say, " Who on earth are you ? I can't say I altogether admire you." And if you put your hand down a hole, at the end of which a puffin is sitting, doesn't he let you know it ? His brilliantly-decorated summer bill has un- commonly sharp edges. But the fun is to take a seat upon a soft tussock of thrift and watch the puffins' habits and manners. All around you are their burrows, out of which, here and there, they toddle. They are rather like little Japanese people. A big parrot-bill appears at the entrance, followed by the owner, in dapper black coat, white waistcoat, and scarlet shoes, looking very much like a little fussy old gentleman who is going out to dinner in London, and who can't get a cab. Mr. Puff runs out, looks round, thoroughly on the fuss, squints at you for a moment, and toddles indoors again. One almost hears him muttering to himself as he goes — " I shall be late, I know I shall." Under such circumstances he rather reminds one of the White Rabbit in " Alice in Wonderland." I expect Mr. and Mrs. Puff take turns in warming ;*' '^^ in Freedom 137 up that precious egg of theirs, which between them they have managed to make in a rare mess ; so that if, when Mrs. PufFis out on the spree (or rather, the sea), she does not return when she ought, it looked un- commonly as if Mr. Puff, when he bustled out in the way that I have just mentioned, was grumbling at her want of punctuality. And if you've never seen a pufBn, you can't imagine how utterly comical he looks at such times. I remember how we watched one bird in particular, whose burrow was quite close to where we were having our picnic luncheon, and if that bird bundled out once, looked round, and bundled in again, he did it at least half-a-dozen times. And each time we were convinced his language grew stronger and stronger. Poor puff ! we men can sympathise with him ! We know what these feminine delays are, when we wait, and we wait, whilst the ladies who went upstairs to get on their hats, saying as they go — " We'll be down in a moment," are still apparently " titivating " after quite half-an-hour has sped. At last Mrs. Puff really did come back, and you should have seen the way in which the old gentleman bundled, off. He must have been in a rage, knowing that he couldn't leave the egg to grow cold. In the nesting seasons puiEns are everywhere at once — floating in companies on the waves ; diving beneath for small fry ; squatting about on the rocks and the bunches of thrift ; in their burrows, busy with Sea £^ Shore Birds 138 incubation ; and in addition to all this, hundreds and hundreds are constantly flying backwards and forwards, or circling round with small and quickly-beating pinions, their bright orange webbed feet straddled out on each side of their short tails making them look like mechanical toys. The brightly-coloured horny sheath assumed over the bill proper, would seem to be an ornamental appendage for the breeding season. The sheath is dropped with the autumnal moult, and also the blue warty skin above and below the eye, along with the yellow edging to the corners of the mouth. Young puffins are most quaint little balls of dark grey fluif, with white underparts. They are not unlike young chickens, such as those of the black Minorca, &c. After a while they will toddle to the mouth of the burrows in which they are hatched, there to await the arrival of their parents with sprats and sand eels. The old birds fly up from the sea with quite a row of small fish in their parrot-like bills — the silvery sand eels glittering in the sunshine. If one sails through a colony of puffins at sea, it is interesting to watch them as they swim away, turning their heads from one side to another to look at the approaching boat, and then with a sudden header disappearing below the waves, bobbing up serenely, some yards off, from below. When the Manx shearwaters are abroad in the daytime, it is a striking sight to sail close to an in- numerable company of what appear to be giant swifts. in Freedom 139 Sooty black in colour, with white breasts, they glide with their long pointed pinions all but touching the surface of the waves as they go. With a few rapid strokes they then sail on with outstretched wings, as the whole company, of perhaps some hun- dreds, moves away towards its own particular island. After a long May day of brilliant sunshine, when the setting sun is tinging the sea with a golden light, such a company of shearwaters have the effect of a great funereal procession : so black do they appear ; so silently do they proceed. In their burrows they can be heard " cukarooing," as the male and female sit together, keeping their white egg warm. We came across one shearwater — an old maid, we imagined — that was solemnly sitting on an ancient and weather-beaten cork ! We thought it kinder to throw it away, and to chuck her into the air, in order that she might take wing out to sea and find a husband. Shearwaters are sometimes utterly helpless, in spite of their long wings, when pulled out of their holes ; and if put down on the ground they will struggle off in the weakest manner, as if maimed or wounded. The truth is, their legs are so short and weak in com- parison with their bodies, that they find much difficulty, when flurried, in rising on the wing ; but if thrown by the hand, well up, they can then manage to keep themselves going sufficiently to get up full swing. Sitting concealed amongst the rocks one day watching the sea-birds, a Manx shearwater fell sud- 140 Sea ^ Shore Birds denly in a fluttering wounded way from the air above, close to me. Looking up, I saw a peregrine in the act of following his prey, when he caught sight of me, and swerved off. That same day, too, I noticed in the distance a bird with an unfamiliar undulating flight. Marking it on a rock on which it settled, my delight was great when, on levelling my field-glasses at it, I discovered a hoopoe ; evidently on its migration, perhaps to the mainland, there in all probability to be shot by some destructive land-lubber. On this island, bare of all shrubs and trees, the bird was most conspicuous. Here, too, there were wrens, meadow pipits, and rock pipits, whose nests I found. In the centre of the island, where the bracken grows, was a large clamorous colony of lesser black- backed gulls ; their pretty mottled brown eggs in twos and threes, all over the place. Walking through this guUery, the birds rise up and wheel overhead, their snowy breasts, yellow bills, and dark grey wings set off against the blue of the sky. " Meow-meow ! Keau, keau," they cry, and settle down again, one after the other, as you walk away from their individual nests. There are some herring-gulls amongst them, and two or three pairs of marauding greater black-backs. A few graceful little terns, lately arrived from more southerly climes, are skimming about, with a curiously buoyant and sculling flight. in Freedom 141 They hover, like a kestrel, over the shallower water, and suddenly plunge downwards with a splash on the surface, all but disappearing, to rise again with a small fish in their pointed crimson bills. Walking over the accumulation of big and small round stones at the edge of the sea, which has washed from between them all the soil, one may hear beneath one's feet a curious frog-like croaking. A strong oily and aromatic odour is about. It is the peculiar smell of the stormy petrel, which to my mind ought to have been named the sea swallow sooner than the terns — or perhaps the sea martin. Flying over the waves, much of a size with the house martin, he is very similar in the tints and distribution of his colouring. As in the martin, there is a conspicuous patch of white on the back, above the tail ; and the generally black plumage with pointed wings enhances the likeness. The first time that I heard the curious chattering croak emitted by these pretty little petrels under the stones, I was unaware by what it was uttered, and immediately proceeded to remove what proved to be the roof of the stormy petrel's nesting-place, A most unfortunate accident happened. With me was a sister-in-law, as well as a brother and the skipper of the little private steamer in which we had come, and one of the boatmen. We were all keenly interested in unearthing the petrels, the skipper with his splendid physique and his 142 Sea ^ Shore Birds height of at least six feet two, removing heavy stones as if they were small pebbles. Whilst he chucked some one way, the boatman rolled some another ; and I, another. At. last, as a large stone was removed, my sister-in- law saw a small dark-coloured bird quickly sidling away to hide between those stones which formed the walls of the big hollow we had made. In her eager- ness to look at the petrel she suddenly leant her head over the edge, and I, not seeing this, and equally eager, at that moment threw out a largish stone in the direction where a second before the coast was clear. To my horror I heard a moan of pain, and looking quickly up, saw my poor sister-in-law sink back on the bank of thrift close by, with a long stream of blood trickling down her face from her forehead. It was an awful moment ! Had I struck her temple and killed her ? It rushed through my mind that in my excitement I had been horribly careless in not looking to see where I was throwing the stones to. And careless no doubt I was. All the joy of discovering the stormy petrels, and the sunshine of a perfect spring day, died out. Fortunately, with some brandy and fresh water at hand in the luncheon-basket, she soon recovered the faintness which had seized her, and was able to be steamed home across the waters at once. But she had a poor bandaged head for some days. I remember with what kindliness she received a blow in Freedom 143 which might have been a fatal one, and how she endeavoured to make the best of a nasty job. Another day she laughingly returned to the scene of the disaster, nothing daunted. A British heart is not easily cowed, even when the body is wounded ! So we set to work again, and with due caution in removing the stones, were rewarded by finding not only several stormy petrels, but also eggs. The whole of the long stretch of rocky bank was evidently full of them. They, like so many sea-birds, only lay one egg, which, when the yoke is within the shell, is of a delicate whitish pink, owing to the thinness of the shell. When blown it is quite white. At the rounder end of the egg there is usually a zone of minutest spots of dull reddish brown, which in some instances is merely a light powdering. One is able to remove the little petrels from under the stones, when they immediately open their bills to eject, with a spurt, quite a quantity of rich brownish oily matter. When you open your hand and let the little fellows go, they flit away with an uneven flight, jerking first in one direction and then another, until they gain the element on which they are most at home, when they move away rapidly close over the surface of the waves, their white tail-coverts showing conspicuously. They have the slenderest little black legs, with tiny webbed feet. The smallest of sea-birds. 144 Sea ^ Shore Birds From their habit of paddling on the surface of the sea as they fly, giving the idea that they are walking on the waves, they derive their name of petrel, or little Peter. To see the guillemots in their full glory, we must visit a more rocky and precipitous island than the one we have just been on. So we steam away to effect a landing where, even on the smoothest days, the swell of the Atlantic con- stantly washes somewhat roughly upon the rocks on the verge of the sea. However, one can watch one's opportunity, and, as the swell lifts the landing-boat up to some large flat boulder, step out, taking care not to slip up as you do so. It is certainly very whiffy near the top of the island, up which you have clambered from rock to rock ; for besides the shags, which have their nests in some of the large crevices, there is a colony of cor- morants. The nests, which for the most part contain well-grown young ones, with a sprinkling of rotten eggs, are great uncouth accumulations of seaweed. Lying about, absolutely putrid under the hot sun, are portions of wrasse, some of which have been pre- viously half-digested and ejected. There may be a fish quite freshly caught, which the cormorants, disturbed by our arrival, have not had time to give their children. Walking amongst the nests, and holding our noses, for the stench is abominable, the young birds stretch up their ugly bodies, distending their throats and croaking wheezily. . yi-izyto^-^ '^ in Freedom 145 Some take wild headers down the face of the rocks, floundering about and trying to flap their half- grown pinions ; either taking refuge in some cavity beneath the stones or gaining the sea, where they swim away to try and join the old birds, who have collected together on the water and are watching us. Young cormorants are certainly extremely awkward and ugly, with their soot-coloured bodies and huge splayed web-feet. But out at sea they are picturesque-looking birds, where they are collected on some group of boulders over which the waves are dashing. Here they sit, extending their wings to dry in the sun. On all sides, after our landing is effected, hundreds of razor-bills and guillemots fly heavily off^ the rocks, taking, as they go, a downward course, until they are supplied with an impetus sufficient to carry them out to sea, from which they sometimes return in their flight, and circle round with their small wings quickly beating. There is a long ledge deeply and narrowly indented under huge stones, where a lot of guillemots have laid their eggs. Clambering up to this with difficulty, I find the birds still there, as if they flattered themselves they couldn't be got at ; and as I look over the ledge, and into the fissure, they all begin sidling away to an opening at one end, through which they shuffle and scramble one after the other, leaving a long row of great pear-shaped eggs, some of which are a beautiful turquoise blue, blotched over with deep brown at the thickest end. K Sea 9^ Shore Birds 146 Others are creamy white, covered with Egyptian- looking hieroglyphics, whilst others are sea-green or pale brown, all more or less blotched and scribbled over with black and deep brown lines and spots. These eggs are extremely thick in the shell, as well they may be, considering they are laid on the bare and rough surface of the rock. I expect that if a guillemot begins by laying a blue egg, she continues to do so each successive year ; and so also with eggs of other tints and colours. Speaking of eggs, it would seem as if puffins had not always laid theirs under the ground, for though white to the chief extent, they are faintly blotched with big grey spots, which, when the empty egg- shell is held up to the light, show very clearly and in greater quantities. Probably, therefore, the ancestors of the puffins originally laid their eggs, like razor-bills and guille- mots, more or less in the open air. Now that they do so no longer, the need of colours and spots has departed, as protective marks. Maybe that in cen- turies to come their eggs, if the puffins continue their present habits in nesting, will be like the Manx shearwaters, pure white. These sea-birds must, I fancy, be very long-lived, otherwise how could they manage to maintain the countless numbers in which they gather year after year at their favourite nesting- places ? For in the case of guillemots, razor-bills, and puffins, as instances, only one egg is laid. They /00k like birds that might be any age ; in fact. in Freedom 147 I am convinced that if one could hold a conversation with some of these leery-eyed old puffins, that grunt in their holes, one could hear many an interesting and exciting tale about Trafalgar, or even the Spanish Armada in the days of Queen Bess ! But it is time to steam home again, carrying with us a few specimens of eggs — by no means collected wantonly or in a spirit of thoughtless destruction. So we clamber aboard once more ; our giant skipper calls to the man at the engine, " Go ahead, Peter," and we pufF away, leaving the sea-birds once more in peace, and feeling that we have had no right to trespass and purloin on land that seems essentially their property. For have they not owned it, by inherit- ance, from generation to generation ? As we reach our destination the cry rings out, " Stop her, Peter " — the sun is sinking like a huge golden lamp on the horizon of the western sea, and we, more than ready for our dinner, tramp home over the sand and up the road which leads to the house. With difficulty we keep awake when our dinner is over ; but attempting to do so by means of a game of " Piquet," find even that to be unavailing, and whilst waiting for my partner to declare his elder hand, hear that the only announcement he can give vent to is a snore. SPUR-WINGED PLOVER CHAPTER XI SEA AND SHORE BIRDS IN CAPTIVITY " That is the main definition of a great many birds — meant ' to eat all day, chiefly grubs or grain ; not at all, unless under wintry and calamitous conditions, meant to fast painfully, or be in concern about their food." ON an island, one of a group that springs up in the Atlantic off the west of England, I used often to sit on fine spring days and watch the sea-gulls busy with their nests. 148 Sea ^ Shore Birds 149 It is an island that rises in the centre to a fair height, the whole of its sides being built up with , rock, on which the boulders lie in picturesque con- fusion from almost the summit down into the sea itself, beneath which many are plunged, some showing themselves at low tide and affording resting-places for huge fawn-coloured seals. All around, the water is so beautifully clear that when a seal is in sight, if you climb on to some rock whose sides cut down sheer into the sea, you can watch its movements as it dives below. The way in which its long heavy body cuts through the water is splendid ; giving one an insight into the strength of these animals and the swiftness of their gliding movements : so different to what they are on land, when all that velocity is changed into laboured floppings and waddlings, reminding one of a man attempting to move along when his arms and legs are tied, and he flat on his face. At a little distance a floating seal with only his bullet head above water, has an uncanny resemblance to a man bathing. Talking of seals reminds me of an amusing prac- tical joke which, when staying in the islands already mentioned, I played upon one of my unfortunate guests. Being a true Englishman — and they say an Eng- lishman is never happy unless he is killing some- thing — he was very anxious to add to his many other trophies in the way of stags' and chamois' heads, &c., one of a seal. 150 Sea ^ Shore Birds At least I fancy that would have been the end of the animal, had he succeeded in obtaining one. Personally, I think it must be rather a nuisance never to see a wild bird or animal without wishing to slay it — a great nuisance for the bird or the animal, at any rate ! One is supposed not to be a sportsman unless one evinces an anxiety for killing ; but I am not sure that one does not often get more sport out of watching wild creatures in their natural haunts, and quite as much pleasure as shooting them, if not more. For instance, a naturalist's diary is surely a more interesting record than a game-book, which seems a good deal to aim at recording how many more par- tridges or pheasants you have been able to kill than your neighbours. At any rate, here was a guest with a real love for knocking shot and bullets into various creatures ; and so his great desire to shoot a seal must be gratified. I did give him a fair chance before conceiving so mischievous a joke as I finally played him. Two or three times expeditions were made, but somehow or other the seals never would come and take their siestas where they ought to have : it was too idiotic of them ! For instance, on a Tuesday, when a whole party of us were out together, chattering like magpies, in a steam-launch, if there weren't three seals, as big as hippopotomi, lying on a rock close by to which we steamed. [Of course, all this time I am supposed to be in Captivity 151 writing about sea and shore birds in captivity ; but I'm not !] Then on the Wednesday away would go our killing man, only to return at the completion of some hours, with a distressed and rather vexed look on his face. " Would you believe it, the brutes weren't there." Then on the Thursday, or perhaps that very same afternoon, out we all went again ; of course without a rifle, but with photographic cameras, luncheon baskets, and plenty of puffing from our launch. And there are the seals on the very same rock. Obstinate, contrary animals ! However, one day we really did come across some when the rifle was in the boat. We had left the launch, and were rowing in the punt amongst a lot of rocks to visit an outlying island, when sud- denly, " Sh-h ! — keep quiet, everybody." There, on a rock close to us, lay stretched, with their backs our way, two huge seals — an old, fawn- coloured one of about eight or nine feet long, and a smaller darker one. The Slayer seized his rifle. Some one sneezed ! I know he wished the culprit under the boat instead of in it, rocked in the bosom of the sea ! Everybody tried to whisper diff^erent directions, and everybody said " Sh-h ! " in turns. How we laughed afterwards ! We lost our heads and the seal his life, and then we lost the seal. So, altogether, there was rather a muddle. 152 Sea ^ Shore Birds Well ! the boat was steadied as far as was possible from being rocked by the swell, and Baf7g ! Everybody began yelling, and no one for a moment listened to what the other person said. The big seal was shot ! With the blood pouring from the poor brute's side, he managed to roll into the sea, where he lay floating, the waters dyed crimson around him. " Shoot him again," said one boatman. " No, no ! get the boat up to him," said the other. " Oh ! poor beast," said I, as one felt that his jolly, free, rollicking life was over." " Give me another bullet," yelled the Slayer. " Sit down ; pray, sit down," shrieked the ladies. " Quick ! he's sinking," said another voice. The great brute gave a heave. The boat was urged up to him, but it was too late ; with a sad look in his dying eyes, the seal sank under the blood-stained waters like — well ! I was going to say " a sack of coals," but that sounds so unpoetical ; I think I had better be more original than that, and say — like nothing I ever saw before, or, for the matter of that, ever want to see again. Like Nanki-Poo in the " Mikado," I can't bear killing ; and I never shall forget the day when I accidentally sat on a dormouse ! That was, at any rate, better than a certain don of a great University, who, having settled himself steadily on the sofa upon a comfortable-looking arrangement of cushions, arose with a horror-struck countenance, in Captivity 153 saying guiltily to his wife, " My dear, I fear I've sat on our child ! " So that was the end of the baby — No ! I mean the old fawn-coloured seal, and a very unsatisfactory end too. Sometimes the sea gives back her dead, but she never did in this case, though experts declared she would. And the disappointment of the Slayer was great ! " It was something to have hit him," was his only means of comfort. Now, in the entrance-hall of the house in which we were for a time staying, there were several old seal-skins spread about on the stone flooring ; and, walking over the largest of these a few days after this seal hunt, it suddenly occurred to me that I would give the Slayer a grand stalk, with plenty of excite- ment to himself, and no harm to the seals. So I surreptitiously removed that big skin to a play-room in the garden, fetched a bundle of straw from the stables, and a bodkin with a ball of string from the house, and proceeded to stuff that seal skin. Luckily a seal has no legs, and a shape which, with a little punching about after the skin has been sewn together and duly stuffed, will enable one to make a very good imitation of a live one. Taking the skipper of the boats into my con- fidence, I instructed him, when we were all away from home, to carry that seal down to the sea, and, hoisting him into one of the punts, place him on a rock in view of the house when the tide was ebbing. After five o'clock tea, when we were all to be back from one of our daily expeditions, the skipper was to 154 Sea ^ Shore Birds come rather excitedly, but quite solemnly, to inform the Slayer that a fine big seal was lying on a particular rock, and might possibly lie there until he was shot. It was more than probable that it would continue to do so even afterwards ! All the house party were informed of the nature of the beast, except, of course, the Slayer. Then came the message. " A fine seal on a rock not far from the shore, and — with the glasses — in view of the house." Fearful excitement, by no means feigned on any one's part, for all are bursting with curiosity to know how the seal-stalking will end. I, arch-hypocrite, standing on the terrace by the Slayer's side, who is awaiting the coming of his rifle, look through a telescope and say mournfully, as if fearful of breaking such bad news, that for my part the supposed seal only looks like a lump of seaweed. And I can bear being told by the Slayer, somewhat flatly and in an unvarnished kind of way, that I am an idiot, for I think to myself that those who laugh may win, or is it " those who win may laugh " ? At present my laugh is up my sleeve ; it will come out later on. " .Sif^zweed ! any fool can see it's a seal." I retort, that not being a fool, is no doubt the reason why I haven't made that discovery ! But these compliments from the Slayer come to an abrupt end by the fact of his rifle being handed to him ; and, accompanied by his brother, who winks back at the rest of us, away he goes for the shore and the punt. in Captivity 155 As soon as we see by our glasses that they are safely embarked, we all make for the rocks in order to obtain a nearer view of this wonderful " stalk." The sun is nearly setting, and its rays glint on the old seal, who is now nothing but skin and straw, but who once lay in just such a manner in real life. There is something rather pathetic in that thought. Slowly the punt is rowed towards a group of rocks about fifty yards away from where it lies. When these are reached there is a long pause and much mysterious fidgeting. The Slayer jumps overboard up to his knees in water, and stooping down slinks to the shelter at hand. His brother follows. Then the latter turns back to the boat, where he seems to stay for an age. It turned out afterwards that the telescope, which had been taken, had been purposely left by him in the punt, much to the Slayer's annoyance, who turned indignantly to his brother with, " You're a nice sort of fellow to come out seal-stalking, you are." So the telescope has to be fetched, and the delay in doing so is caused by the cunning idea of unscrewing it, and removing an inner lens, which would effectually prevent the seal being viewed through it, when immediate detection of the fraud would have been the result. With more grumblings caused by this un- warrantable delay, the Slayer levels the glass, only to exclaim that he can see nothing through it. So he must take his chance, and shoot where he thinks the animal's head, or heart, is. 156 Sea ^ Shore Birds The truth was that it was a little difficult to make out its head, seeing that it hadn't one ! and its heart was straw ! Then from the shore we heard the report of the rifle, followed by shrieks of laughter from us all. Of course the trick is discovered ! Yet the Slayer still kneels cautiously in conceal- ment behind his rock. When to our intense satisfaction — Bang ! If he hasn't fired again ! With a splash and a scramble he is into the punt — head foremost, apparently ; and is at once rowed towards what he imagines to be his dead trophy. But when the boat is about twenty yards from the seal, we can make out that the trick is discovered at last. An amusing part of the whole thing was, that, although a very good rifle-shot, the Slayer, owing to his intense excitement, had never hit the target at all ! Perhaps the best part of it all, was the kindly way in which he bore all this fooling at his expense, and laughed as heartily about it as any one. On the following day he had to leave us, and the report flew about that his departure was owing to the fact that he couldn't stand the "chaff" that he was subjected to. Personally, I never saw any one stand such fooling better. ***** Now we must return to our island to look at the gulls. All along the south side there are numerous in Captivity 157 nests by the middle of May, with their complement of eggs, some of which are not far off hatching. Here there is a mixed colony of lesser black-backed and herring gulls, and on the summit of the island are three or four isolated nests of great black-backs. Some very noisy oyster-catchers show us that they also have eggs, and if you go carefully along a little above the high-tide mark, and know what sort of spot to look in, you'll find them. Look ! there is a nest, just amongst the big pebbles of the sand bank ! merely a slight hollowing, and a few bits of shell and sea-weed gathered round the edge. So little, as not to be really noticeable. The eggs are amongst the prettiest of the waders', rounder in shape than the plovers', and of a pale fawn colour, dotted about with very clear and rather small brown spots. How often have I revisited the oyster-catchers' nests, and how often have I found the whole clutch of eggs stolen. Nest after nest was treated like this, much to my regret. I was anxious to rear up some young gulls, and having found a nest or two in which the eggs were chipping, returned the following day. The egg-shells were th,ere, but no baby gulls to be seen. At that moment an old herring gull nearly knocked my cap off as she swooped at me, so that I knew the young ones were there somewhere. Carefully scrutinising the surrounding ground, Sea ^ Shore Birds 158 which is entirely rocky and full of little crevices, my eyes suddenly realise that one of these newly-hatched babies is actually close to my feet, but, with a few greyish stones scattered about, looking so exactly like them that I had passed it over. Warned by the parent birds, it is crouching down, and keeping absolutely still. Directly I take it in my hand it begins to struggle and cry, knowing that all further deception is useless. A pretty little fellow, with his grey fluffy body, relieved by darker spots and stripes about the head. His two brothers were close by, wedged into crannies in the rock. Putting them into a basket, I clamber up to the plateau, on the island's top, to try and obtain some greater black-back babies. Here the view is quite lovely : the panorama of the islands all round ; the sea as smooth as glass, and of a brilliant blue, varied with purple and green patches of colour. The foxgloves are in blossom, and against the deep colour of the water below, give a glorious combination. Not a breath of wind, and the rocks are hot under the sun's rays. The varied cries of the sea-birds, some close at hand, some in the farther distance, are the only sounds, except for the singing of the linnets in the gorse and the swish-swish of the waves on the shore. In such a spot dull care has gone, and exhilaration of mind and body is all one feels. From a neighbouring island there rings across the ■■"■ J 1 in Captivity 1^9 intervening waters the mellow notes of a cuckoo. Once more I visit the nests of the great black-back gulls, which are sailing overhead, uttering hoarse but pleasing cries, for their calls fit in perfectly with the whole scene. In one of the nests the young ones are hatched, and one tiny fellow is not yet dry ; so recently has he come into the world. And so my basket contains three more baby gulls. As soon as I have them at home they lose all fear when out of reach of the warning cries of the old birds, and devour small pieces of mackerel greedily. They have spacious maws for their size ; and they grow apace. Besides them I have two young cormorants, and a couple of baby " puffs." But the little black " puffs," although they thrive for about a week, collapse ; which is sad. Oyster-catchers, if you can get them on the shore when they are half grown, but still unable to fly, are quite easy to rear up on worms and small pieces of meat or fish, and look extremely pretty on a lawn, as they trip along, piping, and prodding for worms. In a mild winter, where they have .plenty of space, they will manage to feed themselves entirely, and keep in good health. They like a large shallow dish to bathe and paddle in, unless there is a stream in the garden, where they can run into the water where not too deep. It is interesting to watch the change of plumage in the gulls. i6o Sea ^ Shore Birds At first, greater and lesser black-backs, as well as herring gulls, are of a mottled brown, their bills dark horn-colour, and their legs and feet grey. In the second autumnal moult a large sprinkling of white feathers appear on the back in the case of the herrings, and dark grey in that of the black-backs. In the third autumn the adult plumage is almost entirely assumed ; and in the following spring, the fourth, my birds seemed to have their full plumage. Perhaps their bills do not attain the height of the bright yellow colouring with the orange spot, until a little later. The length of time that these gulls take in assum- ing their full plumage, probably is a sign that they are very long-lived birds. One herring gull that I had was a real tyrant ; and, especially during the breeding season, would run at people with outstretched wings, mewing in a weird and defiant way. Woe betide your legs if he pinched you on the calf! After several vicious pecks, he would throw his head back, and scream " Cab, cah, cab, cab," with widely-opened throat. One spring he busily collected sticks and leaves, of which he made a nest on the verge of a fountain in the garden, where he would sit solemnly for hours at a time. " Snub," a very sporting black pug, was one morn- ing sniffing about not far off, with his back to the old gull, quite innocent of any danger. in Captivity i6i The gull rose from his nest, took one quick run, and to poor Snub's horror, seized him viciously by his curly tail. There was one shriek of fright, and pain, too, I should think, from poor Puggins, and another of victory from the gull, who walked solemnly back with a wicked expression in his yellow eye, which plainly said — " Had you that time, my friend " — and then sat down again on his nest. He grew tired of that one, and went farther afield into the park, where he built another at the foot of a tree trunk, and pecked boldly at the heels of the Jersey cows if they wandered too near him. When he moulted he used to fly about, for unlike my other gulls, he wasn't pinioned ; so that when the old cut quills of his wings fell out, he was able of course to grow new ones. And very pretty it was to see him flying round, much to the envy of his confreres. They had been pin- ioned when they were quite babies, which only meant the removal of a small piece of gristle on one wing. A very slight operation, causing no inconvenience five minutes after it was performed. I can hardly believe that the splendid great black-back gulls that I now have in their adult plumage, were once the small fluffy babies that I took from their nest when a few hours old. The poor old herring gull met his match, and his fate too. To my sorrow I found him one day lying dead in the park, with a big hole prodded in his back, stiletto-like. One of my Australian cranes was the murderer. L 1 62 Sea f^ Shore Birds If, in the grounds of a large garden, there is a stream or a pool, a very pretty collection of the smaller waders might be kept, by covering over some portion of the water and part of the adjoining lawn or rough ground, as the case may be, with wire of a fairly large mesh, after the style of the Eastern Aviary at the London Zoological Gardens. Here one could have oyster-catchers, curlews, knots, plovers, little gulls (black-headed, for instance), and perhaps some glossy ibis. The latter are charming birds, and under fairly favourable conditions will breed. Poles with large shallow boxes on the top, on which a collection of sticks could be firmly fastened with small staples, would make nesting sites ; and ivy or honey- suckle could be trained up the poles. Godwits are also pretty birds, and avocets are showy and graceful. Then, too, there is the gorgeous scarlet ibis, a magnificent touch of colour amongst the rest. The call notes of the wader family have a pecu- liarly wild and pleasing sound, bringing back memories of Atlantic waves and thrift-covered rocks. In a walled garden, grey and golden plover, so long as marauding cats can be kept away, look very pretty as they trip swiftly over a lawn, piping " Tlwee — Tlwee " [with a whistling sound] as they run. And they will soon come to know the time for their pan of chopped meat or raw liver to be put out for them. During all the months of the year, except perhaps January and part of February in hard winters, they will find plenty of slugs and worms. ;5^. s RED RUMP PARAKEETS CHAPTER XII PARROTS AND PARAKEETS " That it only clutches with its claws, and does not snatch or strike with them ; — that it helps itself about with its beak on branches or bars of cage ... are by no means the most vital matters about the bird." IT is impossible to write in one chapter in any real detail on the numerous members of such a beautiful family of birds as the parrots and parakeets, as well as of the branches of the chief family, such as the lories. 163 164 Parrots ^ Parakeets There are about eighty genera, containing some five hundred species. The lories alone can fill a large volume, as any one who has seen or possesses Mr. Mivart's monograph with the beautiful coloured plates by Mr. Keulemans, very well knows. Parrots have probably, amongst birds, been kept as cage pets as early as any other kind, and every one is familiar with the old grey Polly with the red tail, from the frequenter of the gin palace to that of the royal one. One sees them sometimes in cottages, where some proud mother standing over her wash-tub tells you of her sailor son, and shows you her parrot as the present he brought her home the last time he set foot on the shores of old England. Polly figures, too, in the best-parlour window of some neatly-kept suburban villa ; her whistling and talking issues from the inmost recesses of the landlord's kitchen in a country village " pub " ; whilst up at the big house on the hill she again finds a welcome and a cage that is suitable to her surroundings, in the spacious hall of the old manor. Drive down the Mile End Road past the People's Palace : still Polly is to the fore, not perhaps in such opulent surroundings, either with regard to herself or her owner ; but still there she is, suiting herself to those about her, and realising that if she lives in Rome she had better do as the Romans do ! The consequence of which is, her language is not always of the choicest ; and if by chance she finds her Parrots $^ Parakeets 165 way to a West End drawing-room, she more often than not has to be hurriedly disposed of — at least, it speaks badly for her purchasers if she isn't. There are many anecdotes about parrots ; but one that was once told me struck me as good, though rather calculated to shock, A dean's wife — why do disreputable parrots always belong to ecclesiastics and their wives ? — complained to the bishop's wife, who also owned a parrot, that her bird used such shocking language ; whereupon the bishop's lady generously offered to lend hers, in order to assist the deanery bird to become more refined in its conversation, and enlarged upon its charming and correct vocabulary. The following day the dean's wife, hearing that the episcopal parrot had arrived on its mission to convert its heathen brother, entered the dining-room where the cages had been placed side by side. " Go to the devil ! " shrieked her parrot. " We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord," solemnly said the parrot of the palace ! A dear old grey parrot that I have had for twenty years and more — she was twenty years old when I purchased her — is one of the clearest enunciators I ever came across. There is no mistaking what she says, and her sentences are appropriately strung together and intro- duced. Always at five o'clock' tea, but never at any other time of the day, she calls emphatically for " Bread and butter," but she says " Br-r-read." 1 66 Parrots ^ Parakeets On one occasion she fitted two separate sayings together in a mysteriously appropriate way. She often called "John ;" to me, an unknown person; and a favourite exclamation was, " You ugly brute ! " One day a new footman arrived, whose name was John. For the first time in his fresh situation he brought in the tea-tray with its complement of cups, saucers, &c. As he steered shyly and gingerly through the elaborate maze of chairs and small tables which distinguishes the modern method of drawing-room arrangement, Polly for the first time in her life con- nected these two sayings together. A loud and masterful voice from behind a screen, close to which the footman was passing, exclaimed, " "John ! you ugly br-r-rute!" John recovered the shock, but for one moment there was every prospect of the tea-tray and its contents being hurriedly deposited on the floor. For the time being he must have thought that some inmate of the house was slightly off his head, with a particular craze for devouring bread and butter, for the parrot had immediately added, " Bread and but." This bird's favourite sentence is, " How are you off for soap, my dear ? " each word pronounced with astonishing clearness, in a very pompous and masculine voice. " Do you see any green in my eye ? " was a ques- tion he used to put to visitors ; and he frequently placed our feelings on the rack by calling insinuatingly, "Puff, Puff, Puff; poor old Puff'; come along ! " Parrots ^ Parakeets 167 Now as PufF, a very favourite black poodle, had been underground for about six years, it really was rather trying, and Polly knew it ; therefore he empha- sised the fact, with a sly and mischievous gleam in his straw-coloured eye. That poor dog ! He was as clever as Polly in his way, and when he was the wrong side of the door, instead of scratching the varnish of a good mahogany, as a vulgar and ill-mannered dog would do, he stood sideways and thumped on the panels with his tail. Necessity was the mother of invention, for he had been told so very severely, by a decidedly Spartan- minded mistress, not to scratch. With regards his body, this order didn't seem to apply. I suppose he thought he might, at any rate, do what he liked in tliat direction, for scratch he certainly did. There never was such a dog for scratching ; it was evidently irresistible. Then, too, when one night on retiring to roost — I can't help saying " roost," since I am supposed to be writing on birds — he found that his rug was not spread in the usual place in a corner of the room ; after re- peatedly being told to lie down, but refusing to do so, he at last jammed his woolly head under a chest of drawers where his rug was stowed during the day, dragged it out in his mouth, and proceeded to claw it into bed-shape with his paws. Then, and not till then, did he curl himself up with a contented sigh. After that it was a nightly trick, to the amusement of visitors, as with bedroom candle in hand they came in to their hostess's room to see the performance. 1 68 Parrots S^ Parakeets And before I end about PufF, I must just mention PufFs end. He was run over by a carriage, which accident paralysed his hind-quarters, so that he had very little control over them. The consequence was, when his mistress was airing him in the village, much to the astonishment of the inhabitants, PufF would suddenly kick his hind legs high in the air, not infrequently turning a somersault (as a little girl of my acquaint- ance, during her Sunday questions, accused Lot's wife of doing), and the parishioners stared at Puff, and thought, " What a tricky dog, to be sure." At last things grew so bad that no one quite knew which was Puff's tail or head, he got so mixed up ; certainly his expression of face went to show that he didn't always know himself; so he ^as "planted" in the dogs' cemetery ; and every one, including the parrot, said "Poor old Puff," but the parrot has said so ever since, and will insist on asking him how he is off for soap. Happy thought ! Surely Messrs. Pears, or Monkey Brand, or Sunlight, would give me a small fortune for Polly ! Hundreds of grey parrots are imported every year from Africa, when they are almost nestlings, and hundreds of them die in a very short time. It is almost useless to buy one of these unac- climatised birds ; their price sounds cheap and tempting, when in reality it is cheap and nasty, for to find your grey parrot on his back with his toes curled up, is very nasty and disappointing. Parrots ^ Parakeets 169 It is much better to give a bigger price for a finger-tame bird, the colour of whose eyes prove him to be more than a nestling. Quite young grey parrots have dark grey eyes, adult birds have pale yellow ones. I have known people give ten shillings or twelve shillings time after time for these newly-imported parrots, only to lose each one, when a ;^5 note, already spent in driblets, would have been better laid down in a lump. Certainly, taking it all round, the grey parrot is the most clever talker, although some of the green Amazons, as individuals, are wonderfully talented, especially perhaps the double-fronted Amazon, a very large green parrot with a primrose face and forehead and pale flesh-coloured bill. The Amazons are, in a way, more comical than the greys, and when one does sing and laugh well, he would make the gravest person smi/e, at any rate. There are several different kinds of Amazons, the commonest in England, as a cage bird, being the blue- fronted. He is green, with a yellow face and a small patch of pale blue feathers on his forehead. There are about twenty-four species of the Amazon family, one of the finest and best known being the golden-naped Amazon. He is a large bird, as large as the double-fronted, green in his general plumage, like the rest, but with a bright yellow patch of feathers on the back of the neck. 1 70 Parrots ^ Parakeets One I know is most vicious to all but two or three people, but if any small bird or dormouse is placed in a cage when the parrot is about in a room, he waddles up, puts his head on one side, and makes ridiculous little coaxings under his breath, like a fond mother soothing a small baby. Then there are the cockatoos of Australia ; giant black ones as big as ravens, and the well-known snow- white ones with yellow crests. The leadbeater cock- atoo is the handsomest of any, with his beautiful rose- flushed plumage, his brown eyes, and his lovely crest barred with pale pink, orange, and red. A pair of these birds, almost the first that were imported, were given to my mother, and excited much admiration — in the sixties, I think — at the Crystal Palace bird show. After keeping them many years, they were given to a lady in Norfolk, who had a splendid collection of different parrots and parakeets, and finally — as far as I know — they found a home at Sandringham, where they may be still. But cockatoos are, as a rule, noisy pets, with their harsh wild screams which, unlike grey parrots, they never relinquish in captivity. The smaller white cockatoos, both lemon and sulphur-crested, are very pretty, and become extremely tame. But they, along with others of the parrot tribe, have their likes and dislikes, so that I was forced to part with a small lemon-crested cocky that used to fly about the garden, because if he did take a dislike to Parrots ^ Parakeets 171 people, he evinced it by swooping down on to their shoulders, and nipping the backs of their necks in a very harsh and painful manner. Then, too, they are dreadfully destructive. Amongst my numerous pets there was at one time a large white cockatoo which, like the smaller one, had its full liberty out of doors. The rose trees suffered as well as lots of others ; but that was a trifle compared with indoor damage. One afternoon when we came in to tea, the floor of the hall, under a large stained-glass window, was liber- ally sprinkled with fragments of the said glass. We looked up. Clinging to the leading outside was the shadowy form of a large bird, but poked through one of the many holes made in the window between an aperture of the lead was cocky's head, looking down with a trium- phant expression in his eye at his work of destruction. He had carefully picked at each framing of lead, and so let the glass fall out. Exit cocky ! The roseate cockatoo, with a grey back and bright pink breast, is a handsome bird imported in large numbers ; preferable, as a rule, in a large aviary, where with plenty of room and hollow logs, they might nest. They are very hardy, as are most of their tribe, when acclimatised. There is a curious but rare cockatoo called the gang-gang, the male of which species has a dark grey mottled body, with a brilliant scarlet head and crest ; and this curls forward as if it had been crimped. 172 Parrots ^ Parakeets They are not very desirable cage birds, unless they have been reared from the nest, when they can be very gentle. They rejoice in the title of Gallocephalon Galeatum, but no one would want to ask for that in a bird shop, so that the everyday bird fancier need not trouble to commit it to memory. It is a pity there are no pigmy cockatoos, for there is something extremely attractive in miniatures, which occur in certain tribes and families of birds. Amongst the parrots there are the tiny hanging ones, and the pretty little love-birds of West Africa with their brilliant green bodies, bright orange faces, and stumpy tails barred with blue and red. The peach-faced love-birds, or rose-faced — which is better — will breed in an aviary, but they are often spiteful to other inmates. They are hardier than their orange-faced cousins, and slightly larger. Then there is the family of conures, medium-sized parakeets with horrible shrill voices. The golden one with green wings is very striking. Conures are generally ill-tempered to most people, but there are, of course, exceptions to every rule. A family of small parrots usually noted for gentle- ness in captivity is that of pionus, of which there are six or seven known species, coming from South America. The bronze-winged pionus is peculiarly coloured. Deep brown and blue blend together, producing a sombre yet rich effect, whilst a lovely cerise under the tail sets off the other parts. Parrots ^ Parakeets 173 When the wings are spread, the flight feathers are dark blue outside and a beautiful verdigris blue under- neath. They are very scarce birds as cage pets, and a specimen in full colour, such as swells the number of my ornithological family, is a decided rarity. He is not exactly an able-minded member of society, but he is most amiable, and gives vent to very few sounds that grate on the ear. He will come on to one's hand directly it is put into his cage, and loves to be petted and made much of. They don't talk, these pioni, but they are beggars to think. I am not concerned with parrots I have never known much about, such as the big gaudy eclecti, the females of which family are red and the males green. Each sex is equally gorgeous in its own style of plumage, and no one at first sight would take them for the same kind of bird. They are inhabitants of the Moluccas and the Solomon Archipelago. It is in that quarter of the globe that all the gorgeous lories are found. They are distinguished from other parrots by the peculiar brush on the tip of the tongue, which enables them to suck the honey from flowers. None of the lories are larger than a turtle-dove, and some are no bigger than a sparrow ; but greater or smaller, all vie with one another in the brilliancy and variety of their colouring, and, for the most part, in the ear-piercing shrieks which they utter. 174 Parrots ^ Parakeets Unlike others of their tribe, they can hop from one twig to another as well as climb, and when on the ground they proceed by a series of rapid hops. A pair of lories together, such as the Australian blue mountain, the scaly lorikeet, Forsten's, &c., play together like two kittens, rolling over and over each other, puffing themselves out, fluttering their extended wings, hanging downwards from their perch, and per- forming a variety of entertaining gymnastics. In spite of their extremely tropical appearance, and their native homes in New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific Ocean, some of the lories are extremely hardy, and will live in an unheated outdoor aviary all the year round, with only canary seed and a certain amount of green food and fruit as an addition or change in their diet. Forsten's lory is a gorgeous bird, with a rich green back, wings, and tail, a purple mask to his face, a yellow collar round his neck, and a flaming blood-red chemisette. Gorgeous, but unsafe with other birds. I kept a pair in an aviary on the Chiltern Hills, where the snow and the rain beat down, and no lory could have been in more brilliant plumage or finer condition in Sumbawa itself, the island of the South Seas from which these birds had come. Indeed their condition was far healthier, and their feathers more sleek, than when they were caged with- in the house. Like everything else, they prospered better in fresh air, and were not, like many human beings, afraid of it. Parrots £^ Parakeets 175 • One kind of lory is a gorgeous azure blue, others are for the most part brilliant scarlet with yellow, blue, and green markings. Flocks of the Blue Mountain lory inhabit the eucalyptus forests of Australia and Tasmania, moving with an arrow-like flight from tree to tree, where they extract the honey from the flowers. They would be delightful cage pets if only their voices were more melodious, but their shrill cries and constant screamings are most trying. Then there are the big nestor parrots of New Zealand. The kea, a fine bird with olive - green plumage, mingled with blue and yellow in the wings and tail, and scarlet underneath, has degenerated sadly ; for it chases the sheep, gnaws a hole in their backs, and eats the kidney fat ; so that it is killed down as much as possible, and will probably in time become extinct. A pity ! for it is a handsome bird, and a decidedly pleasant cage pet. But of all the parrot tribe, my favourites are the various kinds of Australian parakeets, many species of which used to be imported to England much more than they are now. It is said that the reason for their rarity, as in the case of the pretty little turquoisine, is the fact that they have been driven much farther inland away from more civilised haunts, from several reasons. Turquoisines used to be imported quite frequently ; now they are barely obtainable. Such lovely little fellows, with their rich green bodies, tails, and wings, the latter being adorned with a 176 Parrots ^ Parakeets dark red patch about the shoulders in the males, and their brilliant azure blue faces. They breed readily in an aviary, and a baby turquoisine reared from the nest becomes a most charming pet. One that I once had, used to sit on my shoulder, and in winter time would perch on the fender to spread out his wings and tail before the fire, as he would have done in the rays of the sun. He had been taken from the nest in a London aviary, and brought up by hand, or rather by mouth, for the only way to feed baby parakeets is to masticate some biscuit — "Albert" is as good as any — and cram your nestling with the naturally warmed and moist food. Parrots, like pigeons, disgorge their half-digested food from their crops into the mouths of the young birds. It is not altogether an operation to be performed in public, but then I never can feed young birds in any way with successful neatness when people are watch- ing me. Left to myself, I am all right. Turquoisines are not much larger than the well- known budgerigar, the little bright green parakeet with the scalloped upper plumage, so often seen in bird shops and with Italian women in the London streets. After all, how true it is that familiarity breeds contempt. If none of us had ever seen a budgerigar until yesterday, we should go wild with enthusiastic ad- Parrots ^ Parakeets 177 miration, but we have become so used to it, that most people think little of it. For all that, one always keeps a warm corner in one's bird affections for this jolly, cheery little fellow, with his swallow-like warblings, his brilliant colouring, and his readiness to adapt himself to his surroundings and rear up a numerous progeny. And now mankind is putting his mark on the little green bird, so that he has in some instances become pale yellow all over — whereby he has decidedly deteriorated — and will possibly in time be blue as well. Nothing, however, will excel the natural colours and design. The female is easily distinguishable from the male by the brown cere over her bill, which in her mate is blue. When a hen bird is going to nest, this cere becomes deeper in colour and rougher in texture. The small black spots on the feathers of the face are very quaint, and the whole outline of the bird is extremely elegant. In a large aviary their flight is extraordinarily swift as they dart from one end to the other, screaming shrilly as they fly. Any amount of them will sit together in a row, each pair warbling to one another, and caressing. There is another of the small grass parakeets of Australia, which is said to be numerous in the vicinity of the Swan River, but which is never, or very, very seldom, sent to England — the Earl of Derby parakeet, M 178 Parrots ^ Parakeets a beautiful bird like a miniature roselle, which would probably be quite as hardy as turquoisines or budgerigars. And the " elegant," too, closely allied to the other grass parakeets, and readily nesting in captivity. Then there is the " splendid," a glorified turquoisine, with all that bird's bright colouring, and a magnificent crimson breast into the bargain. Australia's birds are most lovely, and the flocks of various parakeets are amongst the most fascinating. The paradise parakeet is a joy to behold, with his extremely graceful shape and intense beauty of plum- age, a description of which is really worse than useless. Only Gould's Birds of Australia can assist one to realise it. I remember seeing cages full of " paradise " and " many-coloured " parakeets some fifteen or twenty years ago in the East London bird-dealers' shops, but alas ! it is but a memory, A stray pair or two occasionally arrive, and command high prices ; and one pines for some of these beauties, as well as for others still undiscovered in the wilds of their native land. Bourke's parakeet is another that I have longed for ; a bird as large as a turquoisine, with delicate blue feathers set off by pale salmon pink. The larger kinds are very showy in aviaries. The king parrot, as big as a dove, but looking larger on account of his long broadened tail. He is a vivid scarlet on head and breast, and richest green on the back, whilst along the shoulders- runs a line of emerald green ; the wings and tail Parrots ^ Parakeets 179 being dark blue black. The queen, his mate, is slightly larger than he is, when fully grown ; and where he is scarlet she is green. To breed king parrots successfully, as indeed is the case with many others, it is best to give them an aviary to themselves, with some large hollow logs placed in various positions. Perhaps the most showy of all the Australians is the blood-winged parakeet — somewhat smaller than the king — whose plumage is boldly divided in rich contrast of colouring. The dazzling emerald green head and breast, the small coral red bill, the deep black-grey of the shoulders, the magnificent cardinal of the upper wing, and the broad green tail, with its upper coverts of brilliant blue, go to making up as fine a combination of colours as one could hope to see. The hen is, for the most part, green in different shades ; affording a pretty set off to her mate's more gaudy feathering. These larger parakeets are much more frequently imported, frequenting as they do districts nearer the coast. There are several more, such as rose hills (rosellas), mealy rosellas, pennants, barrabands. Port Lincolns, fiery parakeets, redrumps, &c. I regret that owing to a necessary curtailment in the number of my sketches, I am unable to give any illustrations of them ; but after all, when they are not done in colours, it is difficult to convey any real idea of their true beauty. i8o Parrots ^ Parakeets It seems a great pity that special aviaries for the hardy parrots and parakeets are not built at the London Zoological Gardens ; for it is anything but encouraging to see these graceful and active birds cooped up in small cages in that deafening babel of screams and close atmosphere, in the parrot-house. A Forsten's lorikeet — \yhich I presented to the Society, and which with me lived in an outdoor aviary all the year, with no artificial heat, and looked the picture of health ; with only seed for food, and greens in summer — I found in the vitiated air of the parrot-house, on a mild October day, with some very sloppy bread and milk in addition to its seed ; looking as different in its condition as an East London child does to a country one. Rows of cages jammed together, which in the winter time are dominated by an upper tier of raucous-voiced macaws, backed by lines of cockatoos and amazons shrieking against each other ; while here and there a plaintive " Poor Cocky " makes itself heard, as much as to say, " Take me out of this ; I'm not used to such language, and my head aches fearfully." Mingled in with all these boisterous birds are tiny finches and delicate tanagers, as well as flashy-billed toucans and green hunting jays. So much money has been expended upon reptile houses, &c., where room enough is given to some monstrous python to strike a miserable guinea-pig or a wretched trembling rabbit and then curl himself up in a blanket for a fortnight ; yet these lovely birds are still refused the model dwellings they deserve and the Parrots f^ Parakeets i8i ampler space that they need. For the more delicate ones, an aviary within a glass-house, such as the monkey-house, with an ambulatory for visitors on three sides, would be an object of much interest, and flowers, palms, &c., could be grouped about. Here the tanagers, sun-birds, tiny finches, zosterops, and many others would be perfectly happy, and in the end far less trouble than when confined in fifty separate cages. The tanagers are a large family of most brilliant plumage for the most part, and would under such con- ditions be exceedingly attractive. The waders, ibises, and flamingoes enjoy the bounti- ful space of the eastern aviaries ; whilst many different doves, bower-birds, and what-not, move freely in the western ; but a need is felt for greater freedom in the case of those smaller and more delicate ones, along with the less quarrelsome parakeets — of Australia and New Zealand, par excellence. There are two species from the latter country, now, like others, seldom imported, which make charming pets for cage and aviary. Both bear a close resemblance to each other, in size about that of a thrush, of a bright rich green in general colour : the one (the New Zealand parakeet, as it is called) having a stripe of bright cardinal red running across the eye from the bluish bill, and the same colour in a band round the middle of the back ; the other having a patch of that same red upon the forehead. They are extremely active in their movements, running very quickly about the cage, and hopping on the ground. 1 82 Parrots £^ Parakeets And they breed successfully in captivity. Ml. Dutton, the Vicar of Bibury, a well-known authority on the parrot tribe, once sent me a young New Zealand parakeet, one of a brood of five that was hatched in his aviaries, and a more charming pet I never had. It would sit on my hand and clamber with swift movfements up my arm on to my shoulder, uttering its peculiar crowing cry. There is another, closely allied to this species, with a golden front to its head. They fly exceedingly swiftly, and they are hardy enough for an outdoor aviary in England. Some of the macaws are well known, with their formidable bills and gaudy feathers. One is scarlet with yellow and blue in the wings and a blue tail. Another is blue and yellow, and another a deep bright blue all over (the hyacinthine macaw), inhabit- ing Brazil. Illiger's macaw is considerably smaller and very pretty. I know of two or three owners of macaws who allow them to fly about the gardens. A fine sight they are. At a country house in Yorkshire there is a splendid fellow who flies down from the trees directly the mid- day dinner-bell is rung, and presents himself at the door of the kitchen quite regularly. When I went up the Nile in 1899 on a Dahabeah, I could not resist purchasing a fine red and blue macaw in Cairo at a native bird-dealer's. Parrots ^ Parakeets 183 He was a great attraction on our boat, his bright colours exactly matching the blue, red, and yellow awnings of the upper deck, where he used to sit on a perch. The members of our crew would supply him, " Se Ra"^ (as we named him), with pieces of mawkisk sugar cane, cutting alternately a piece for themselves and the macaw, who squeezed each morsel about in his huge beak, drinking the sap greedily and then dropping the fragment of pith on the deck, whilst his eyes glistened with dilating pupils at the prospects of some more. At luncheon one day as we sailed merrily before a favourable wind, which was by no means always the case, a fearful commotion was heard outside the saloon in which we were feeding, followed by a loud splash in the river. We all rushed to the windows, where we saw " Se Ra" floating with outstretched wings on the turbid waters, looking absolutely terrified as the strong current bore him swiftly away. Following in his wake was one of our Arab crew, who had been the cause of the prodigious splash. Only his head appeared above the water, and as he passed along he gave us a look of triumphant and virtuous assuredness, which said, " Is it likely ' Se Ra ' will perish when Mousri is there to save him." Mousri was more brave than beautiful, for he was deeply pock-marked and squinted with the one eye that retained its sight, most excruciatingly. But he grasped the macaw, and landed him forlorn, and 1 Pronounced " Say Rar." 184 Parrots ^ Parakeets dripping from the tip of his beak to the end of his tail, through the nearest window of the Dahabeah ; Mousri as a reward receiving a nip from the bird, and a piece of silver from me. On another occasion the macaw was all but drowned, but was again rescued by the undefeated Mousri. That time " Se Ra " was almost insensible, and had to be held upside down for a pint of Nile water to escape from his interior ! That macaw has seen a good many sides of life. He and Mousri were great characters in their own peculiar ways. The latter ever ready to proffer his aid to the helpless, as a sister-in-law of mine, who was with us, discovered when, on hesitating as to how she could clamber down the bank to the Dahabeah, after a ramble under the light of a brilliant moon, she found herself suddenly clasped tightly in Mousri's arms, and caught the gleam of his straying eye within an inch of her face. Another moment and she was on the shore, Mousri looking triumphant and courtier-like, happy in feeling sure he had done absolutely the right thing at the right moment. The bewildered lady, in her best Arabic, murmured her thanks, but in her con- fusion said " Quaiss ketir," which, being interpreted, means " Very nice " ; at which Mousri was absolutely overjoyed! To keep the parrot family in good health either indoors or out, cleanliness is essential, pure fresh water. Parrots ^ Parakeets 185 and for those in cages as much exercise as is possible under the circumstances. Big parrots delight in coming out so that they may exercise their wings, and it is not a bad plan to train them to come on to a stick, which can then be waved gently up and down, so that the bird has to flap its wings in order to keep its balance. With the larger parrots it is best in sunny weather to syringe them, so long as they are in robust health, unless an individual bird is successful in taking a bath for itself in a large pan ; for parrots are naturally effective ablutioners, and the feathers of one that has a regular douche are very superior in gloss and colour to one who never knows that boon. Baths and exercise will often prevent the rather incurable evil of feather eating, sometimes brought on by over-heating diet, and perhaps, too, by stuffy rooms, for which many folk have an inordinate affection, whereat evil microbes rejoice, and whereby they largely flourish. In their natural state birds breathe in extremely cold air at nights, even in Africa, at certain times of the year. The best seed should be given, including several sorts, and good mixtures can be bought both for the larger and the smaller species. Parrots are very fond of fruit in season, and bananas and oranges can be given all through the winter as dessert. The Australian parakeets love large bunches of flowering grasses — their natural food — which can be 1 86 Parrots f^ Parakeets picked in the country from May or June until the autumn. If the garden is a large one, a small plot can be set aside especially for aviary use. Chickweed and groundsell are pounced upon by every bird, and it is a pretty sight to see twenty or thirty brilliantly- coloured birds scrambling about for the especial salad that they love. The yellow of saffron finches, the scarlet of king parrots, the vivid emerald green of nimble budgerigars, the splendid crimson and violet of the pennants, the blood-red patches of the crimson- wings, the more sombre grey and white of the cockateels with their rouged cheeks on primrose heads, the lovely blue of the robins from America, who have especially darted down with plaintive notes after a mealworm, the flaring red of the Virginian nightingales — all these, and many others in a choice collection, form a picture of beauty which is ever a joy. A saucer of fresh white bread, soaked in milk and squeezed out fairly dry, is much appreciated, and many parakeets ■yvill take mealworms with avidity. Grey parrots, Amazons, macaws, and cockatoos are very fond of sweetened tea ; neither does it seem to do them any harm, to judge by the condition of my forty- five year old grey — as I believe his age to be — who has always had a liberal drink of this sort at five o'clock. That birds are always dying, like everything else, is true ; but with attention to diet, with personal care to details, and common sense upon thoughtfulness, there is no necessity for their dying before their appointed time. ZEBRA FINCHES (AUSTRALIAN) CHAPTER XIII MANAGEMENT OF CAGES AND AVIARIES " Birds have not their town and country houses, — their villas in Italy, and shooting-boxes in Scotland. The country in which they build their nests is their proper home." IT is often rather puzzling that even amongst people whose eyes for neatness and cleanliness are evi- dently keen, those qualities should apparently be lacking w^ith regard to the state of bird cages, where 187 1 88 Management of Cages the owners' rooms, persons, and general surroundings are soigni and cared for. One sees bird cages in the conservatories or sitting-rooms of the richer classes, in a state lacking in smartness that would never for a moment be permitted elsewhere in the establishment, either in the house or garden. It does not always seem completely important that a cage should not be splashed with remnants of stale food and dirt, that the perches should not be soiled, that the water should be scrupulously clean, or the food perfectly sweet and fresh. A bird must not be a mere ornament in a room, an adjunct to the rest of the surroundings. The cage must be placed where the position will suit the inmate ; not merely where it will be least in the way or look most picturesque. As we study the wants of our children and dogs, so also, in a comparative degree, our birds. Fresh air is important for their well-being, but a draught is hurtful, and sometimes fatal. Housemaids, unless strictly warned, are very apt when sweeping the rooms in the early morning to allow birds to be left exactly between an open window and door on a cold winter's morning, when perhaps they have no food left from overnight — especially in the case of in- sectivorous birds— wherewith to maintain the warmth of the body. I have not found that the cages, except in cases of illness, require covering over at night ; indeed, like the old four-posters with the curtains drawn tightly around, they would necessarily keep out the fresher air and shut in the stale. ,^l^ and Aviaries 189 To inhale one's own exhalations all the night long can be neither good for man, beast, or bird. Besides which, the birds are often left with their cages covered until perhaps nine o'clock in the morn- ing, so that in the artificial gloom they have been unable to break their fast. During the long mid-winter nights I often place a candle near my birds up to ten o'clock, in order that they may, by feeding, strengthen themselves to better endure the long hours of darkness ; for in the first place it grows darker within the house sooner than outside, and secondly, the birds that in hard weather perish in a wild state, do so far more from lack of food and water than on account of the intense cold, as is proved by the fact that well-fed aviary birds will be warbling merrily in the snow, when the wild ones the other side of the wire are humped and miserable. It is food that warms the body ; and birds, with their quickness of digestion, need a constant supply, especially the smaller kinds. Therefore the custom of covering over the cages with tightly-fitting green baize is exactly the opposite one to that which I have adopted for many years. But common sense must be used. Let me give an example. A nightingale of mine — the one from whom my sketch was taken — developed a cold in January ; ceased to sing, sneezed and gasped for breath. The influenza was rampant in the house at the time, and our doctor did not jeer when I suggested that the nightingale may 190 Management of Cages have caught it. On the contrary, he seemed to think it perfectly possible. The poor little bird shivered, his eyes sunk into his head, and he barely ate a morsel. As soon as he ceased his daily song I knew some- thing was amiss, and immediately covered up all but the front of his cage — which is one of Indian split bamboo, open on all sides — and at night left a small lamp burning where no harm could come of it, so that the light fell just upon the food and water vessels. In his drinking water I gave him a daily dose, made from a prescription taken from a very useful book on British birds by Wallace, in which various bird ailments are described, along with their cures. In this instance I selected the medicine recom-» mended for catarrh, and found it effectual. The fact that the nightingale was able to eat and drink at any time of the long winter night no doubt helped his recovery considerably ; and recover he did, regaining his health, with more vehement song than ever, so that by March, in spite of easterly winds of the most bitter description, he was almost too loud for one's sitting-room, when one wished to converse with friends and visitors. I found another prescription from this same book most efficacious in a case of inflammation of the stomach in my rock thrush. Parrish's chemical food is good to put in the water once or twice a week in winter time. But only experience will teach one how to treat birds, both ill and well ; and only careful observance will show the and Aviaries 191 attention in details that is necessary for their health and happiness. The state of the interior should be looked to by the outward signs thereof, deposited on the sand ; if there is much diarrhoea, three or four drops of castor oil are beneficial so as to thoroughly purge out any poison in the system. The bird must be taken in the left hand, and the bill opened with the fingers — handling birds is again only learnt by experience — whilst the oil on a clean quill pen is carefully dropped down the throat. This, if neatly done, will in no way smear the feathers round the beak. Then the bird must be kept warm, and perhaps given some bread soaked in hot milk. Constipation can be treated in the same way. It is most important that food should be perfectly fresh ; yet many people feed their birds, especially those that eat " soft " food, as if they fed themselves in this manner. Supposing your dinner was served up on one dirty plate, with fragments still on it of the previous day's meal, some of which is no longer exactly sweet, such as fish may be in hot weather ; and supposing you partake of the present meal, with all that refuse mixed in ! Is it not likely that you may before long have a decided pain in what is politely called your " tummy " ? Or if at five o'clock tea the milk and cream jugs were not washed out, and the fresh milk and cream had simply been poured into that of the previous day's supply ! 192. Management of Cages It is after this fashion that I have seen birds fed. A certain quantity of food is left over in the morning in the cage of a nightingale, a shama, or a blue thrush, enough to last with a little more added, and so the supply overlaps for some days. It is like the butter to match the bread, and then the bread to fit the butter ! The economy of not wasting the supply is a very false one, for you waste your bird's constitution instead, and then you hear the complaint : " I shall give up keeping those insectivorous birds, they are always dying." Make it a rule that the cage drawer is cleaned every morning, unless Sunday is excepted in the case of many cages ; and that fresh sand — good gritty sand — is liberally sprinkled on, that each vessel is thoroughly scoured and as clean as you wish your own breakfast plate to be, that the food shall be sweet and the water pure. As to both of these, see that neither one nor the other is placed under any perch where the birds can mess into them. It exasperates me to see people who have no eye for that which is an immediate eyesore. These sort of things can quite well be avoided, and when they happen - must imply that the bird keeper has not really a love for birds. Imagine making a poor bird, who in a wild state would always obtain the purest water — in the case of a blue thrush the clear running water of a mountain rill — drink that which is con- taminated by that which when dropped on the sand is perfectly cleanly and of no offence to the laws of and Aviaries 193 sanitation. Yet I have seen the water in the drinking vessels in a most filthy state, even in ladies' drawing- rooms and conservatories, simply because the dear ladies njoill not use their eyes and their brains, or con- sider that birds are, as a rule, the very cleanliest of God's creatures ; why, then, treat them as if they were Boers, who prefer to have things dirty and to go unwashed ? By-the-bye, don't forget the bath, which should always be hung on to the cage door, and not placed inside, because then the sand is wetted so much more,, and the cage messed about. Perches should be kept clean and sweet, for often- times they are to be seen soiled with dirt ; and in placing them, care should be taken that they are not so close to the wire that the birds' tails will rub against the latter, especially, for instance, with a shama, whose tail is abnormal in length. But a bird of that species should not be kept in a wire cage at all, nor should any softer feathered birds, which the insectivorous ones are. Cages with cane or fine wooden bars are much better, for they do not fray and break the feathers like wire ones. Give the cages, at any rate, a spring cleaning, scald them out, repaint and revarnish, if it has already been done in that style. In the summer time, in fine weather, they can be hung out of doors, but not in the full sunshine for any undue period, since birds in their wild state are con- stantly shaded-by overhanging branches and sheltering leaves, especially in the great heat of mid-day. Where there is not too much draught they can be N 1 94 Management of Cages put under the trees of the lawn and garden, so long as cats are not about ; but as a rule birds prefer to be hung up not lower than the level of a person's face, for they do not care, as with human beings, to be looked down on. The really fresh out-of-door air will do them a world of good, and will, when they bathe, dry their feathers much quicker than when in a room. There is a way of talking to one's birds, which perhaps is a particular gift, but when possessed or acquired, makes a large difference to the tameness and behaviour of one's cage pets. Just as in some gardens, plants will flourish because their owner delights in them individually and under- stands them, so with the birds. Nothing is done well without trouble, simply because the command of " Six days shalt thou labour " is divine, and therefore the truth. If we put birds in cages they are denied to a great extent the privilege of obeying that law, and their owners must in consequence carry it out for them. For nothing labours more industriously than a bird. The work of keeping itself clean, of finding its food, of building its nest and rearing its young, is continuous and unceasing, each in its own turn and season. The morning, mid-day, and evening hymns of praise are never missed when the time comes for singing ; the plan for their existence, I had almost said their redemption, is completely and faithfully carried out. and Aviaries 195 Birds to those who understand them, and conse- quently appreciate them, are a privilege which words cannot duly express : a very wonderful and a very beautiful part of a wonderful creation, A gift of the Creator, not lightly to be accepted, or carelessly looked upon. Amongst the poorer classes there is very often a lamentable absence of common sense about keeping some poor little linnet, canary, goldfinch, or bullfinch in a cleanly state. Neither is this lack due to an insufficient supply of j(^, s. d., but rather to that of thought. It is the bird that may cost a few shillings to buy, and the seed ; but the water is at hand always, and in the country, sand also. I pity the poor thrushes and blackbirds, especially in towns, that one sees imprisoned in some dirty, filthy cage. The poor birds are, more often than not, minus tails, except for a few broken stumps, and their flight feathers not much better. The floor of the cage is a nasty, unsavoury smelling collection of dirt and food, and the bird's whole body is often encrusted. And that is what our splendid blackbird with his golden bill, his glossy plumage, and his broad tail has been brought to. A veritable prisoner of Chillon ! In every village, any one who loves birds might offer prizes to their poorer brothers and sisters who keep them, for those that are in the best all round condition ; and simple little rules could be printed on 196 Management of Cages cards, giving practical hints for helping the owners to win such a prize. Of course the neglect is much worse in some counties and districts than others, for the simple reason that the owners themselves are such imperfect ablutioners. On the other hand, I have seen blackbirds, jays, magpies, &c., in cottages, or outside them, whose condition were models of neatness and good health ; so that it can be done ; and if it can't, people shouldn't attempt to have any birds. I have gone so far, if it is to be considered as going far, as to preach in church at the children's service upon kindness to birds, and how to keep them ; much to the children's interest and pleasure. Certainly in that case I did ^ feel I was not preaching what I didn't practise, which is not, one is afraid, always so ! But kindness to animals is part of the gospel, a fact that the Italians do not realise ; because, at any rate in Naples, they hold that dumb creatures are not Christians ! Consequently they can be bullied and maltreated to any extent. The example of cleanliness is certainly not set by all the larger bird and animal dealers in London and elsewhere, for the suffocating and evil odours that rush in on one's olfactory nerves on entering one or two well-known shops are simply horrible. A lady that I took one day to visit one of these establishments felt so overcome, after five minutes, with the filth of the op- pressive atmosphere, that she was forced to beat a hasty retreat, whereby the proprietor lost a good customer. and Aviaries 197 Coming from such places, is it to be wondered at that the birds are affected with typhus fever and other contaminating and deadly diseases ? It is cruel to thtm, and dishonest to their purchasers. I remember remarking to a dealer who does a large trade, that his shop rather stood in need of a spring cleaning, and received the answer : " Oh, we have no time for that sort of thing ! " And now a little about aviaries. There are those that can be partly indoor ones, when attached to and almost part of a conservatory. The birds may be seen through the glass, or there need be merely a wire partition, against which palms and flowers can be arranged. It depends upon the formation of the conservatory itself and of the house, as to what shape the aviary will take ; but if the former is one that runs along part of the wall of the house the latter can be a continuation of it, with the flight in the more conspicuous position, and the roosting-house at the other end. When the aviary is divided from the conservatory by glass, the hot pipes can run through, supposing that the aviary is also covered in, and more delicate tropical birds, such as tanagers, are kept. Windows can be made to open, with wire meshing filling the openings. The water that supplies the conservatory can be carried through, and if a large shallow basin is con- structed in the centre, into which and out of which water can flow, so much the better. In such a-n aviary it would be a pity to keep hardy foreigners ; but a 1 98 Management of Cages collection of the little fairy-like waxbills of Africa and Australia, lavender finches, small Brazilian and Gould's finches, sun-birds, and other delicacies, would be de- lightful. Sometimes people have some of the tiniest ones at liberty in the conservatory itself, such as the beautiful little fire finch of Africa, with his sleek little browny-red wife ; the well-known St. Helena waxbill. with his slender tail tippeting from side to side, his finely-pencilled mouse-grey body, brightened by a streak of crimson down the centre of the breast, and, enhancing the whole effect, the small crimson beak. I heard of a lady whose St. Helenas reared several broods successfully, which had their liberty in this way. At first she had great difficulty in inducing them to content themselves with a nesting-box, but at last contrived one which at once suited them. It was a long box, with a division in the centre, in the middle of which was a hole connecting the two compartments thus formed, and a hole in either of these afforded exit and entrance. The consequence of this construction was, that in one division the nest was built, and in the other the little wee cock bird used to sit where he could see his mate through the inner hole. When she popped out of her compartment to feed, he popped through the hole in the division to take his share of incubating the tiny eggs. Thus four broods were successfully reared in one season. Amongst the ferns and plants of the conserva- tory no' doubt many a green bug was captured, whereby two birds (not the St. Helenas) were killed and Aviaries 199 with one stone, for both plants and baby waxbills benefited. Such minute specimens of bird life would not be in the least harmful to flowers in any way, and flitting amongst palms and bamboos would add greatly to the charm of a well-arranged winter garden. The orange-cheeked and grey waxbills are smaller than golden-crested wrens, and beautifully neat and compact in their plumage. They are quite cheap and common in the bird- dealers' shops, but none the less beautiful for that. And the little Indian avadavats, too ; the male bird rich red, speckled over with seed pearls, and the female warm brown, and less liberally spotted. Then for the outdoor aviary. It must be built first. If you are opulent, you will probably go to a professional builder of such things, but don't leave the plan to him, for it may run the risk of being unpractical and merely showy. Sometimes part of a garden wall is made use of, with the flights in front, facing the flower garden and the roosting-houses on the other side, perhaps in the vicinity of tool and potting sheds. A high wall already well grown with creepers is helpful, and doors can be constructed in it, as well as. bolt holes as ingress and exits for the birds. A good foundation should be laid — which advice is not peculiar to an aviary alone — a foundation of con- crete, which alone will keep out one of the biggest plagues of life — the rats. 200 Management of Cages The wire flights must, of course, be firmly and closely secured to the wall by iron bolts, &c., and the supports and framework are best in iron. It is advisable to leave the floor perfectly clear of encumbrances, partly because it looks better, and partly because the mice, which are difficult to keep out, have less chance of finding a permanent shelter. The roosting house or houses at the back must be well built ; and the roof should have felting between tiles and plaster, to keep it cool in summer and warm in winter. Perhaps it is advisable to feed the birds inside, because the food (seed or insectivorous mixture) keeps dry in wet weather ; besides which, the birds are not induced to keep out too much, which, even in the hardest weather, they are very apt to do. And the food must not be on the ground, nor under any perches, but on a table with legs of a build that will puzzle mice to climb. Outside, any tit-bits that will be eaten up during the day can be placed, along with green food and mealworms. For the water, if there is a handy supply, it is much better to adopt the plan in the Western Aviaries of the Zoological Gardens of London. Shallow concrete basins with rims, into which the water runs by means of a pipe, right through each pen. A waste pipe must be constructed to draw the water off^ each morning, so that the basins can be brushed out. But they must be shallow, at any rate towards the rim, or birds, especially new arrivals in perhaps shabby plumage, will be drowned. and Aviaries 201 It is always a pleasure to see them gathering round for their morning bath, dipping about at the edge, and finally hopping in to flutter and splash. Of course the aviaries must be kept scrupulously clean, the concrete floor being swept over once a week, and fresh sand with plenty of fine grit sprinkled evenly about. Not more than two people should ever be allowed within, namely the owner and the attendant. It is fatal for the birds' nesting arrangements if those that are strangers to them pry about amongst them. Birds are particularly sensitive to their presence, and will be quite timid and wild with those to whom they are unused, when they are perfectly tame with one or two whom they see every day, and whose move- ments, voice, and clothes they are familiar with. Clothes they notice in a moment. In constructing an outdoor aviary it is very advan- tageous to have the eaves of the roosting-house broadened out to such an extent that it forms a real shelter for the birds when they are not within ; and these eaves, which add considerably to the artistic appearance of the building, can be supported by posts fixed in the concrete floor of the flights. There can be quite a snug space immediately beneath them, where the projecting timber supports the tiles, under which nesting-boxes can be fixed. The space thus formed is all part of the flights, and gives shelter both from too hot a sun or from wind and rain. 202 Management of Cages The height within is lo feet to the point from where the roof springs ; the two outside flights are lo feet, with a flat roof of wire meshing reaching to the broad eaves, underneath which the height is increased. The middle pen has a semi-circular dome, reaching as far as these eaves, and is 14 feet at its highest point. In this pen are some glossy ibises, small waders, such as knots, and also plovers. On either side of them are, in one flight, the parakeets, larger finches, and a few foreign pigeons ; whilst on the other are smaller finches and insectivorous birds, such as Pekin and blue robins, Australian finches, &c. The basin in the concrete floor is larger and deeper, for the ibises than it is for the smaller birds. When broad eaves are built, the food can be placed under their shelter instead of inside the roosting- houses. The birds come in and out through open windows, which can be closed in very cold weather, and still, of course, admit the light. The aviaries are built upon ground that slopes to-, wards the south and west ; and by a wood, on rising ground immediately behind them, are sheltered from easterly and northerly winds. It is a mistake to over- crowd, because many birds of various kinds are sure to disturb each other, and give less satisfaction in the end ; for one of the chief pleasures is to suddenly come across a row of four or five plump young parakeets of some kind or another seated on a perch and Aviaries 203 outside a nesting-box, before you were scarcely aware that the parents meant business ; and these successful broods are often marred by too many inmates, who poke about with inquisitive eyes and meddling bills, spoiling half the fun. There are meddlesome birds as well as people ! And there must be plenty of nesting sites, that is, more than there are pairs of birds that are likely to take notice of them, because what suits one bird doesn't suit another ; just as when a married couple are hunting for a house, one that pleases the wife because it has a pretty garden doesn't find favour with the husband because it isn't within anything like a respectable distance of a decent pack of hounds, &c., ad lib ! So, too, with budgerigars and cockateels and other couples who have plighted their troth. The cock bird has evidently set his heart on one particular cocoa-nut or hollow log, and is constantly viewing it, popping in and popping out, and fidgeting backwards and forwards, to which his wife pays very little attention, and promptly goes and lays an egg in exactly the opposite direction, perhaps down in a corner on the floor of the roosting-house ; whereat he says, " Really these women are beyond a joke," and she says, " How selfish men are ! " not seeing that he was doing his best to choose her the nicest room in the aviary. And the consequence was — the eggs were addled ! and the world said — but that's neither here nor there ! What is more to the point is this. 204 Management of Cages Have nesting-boxes to suit all shapes and sizes, and scour them thoroughly out after any families have vacated them. For the larger and smaller parakeets logs can be hollowed out by a carpenter, and the open end fastened up with a flat piece of wood about half an inch or more in thickness, cut from the same piece that forms the hollow. I say the open end, because only one will be so ; for the log will be scooped out to a depth of a foot in a piece of wood fourteen inches long, leaving the bottom bowl-shaped, so that when it is placed upright there will be a natural receptacle for the eggs, which will not be able to roll to any edge. The bowl must be fairly shallow, always sloping gradually from the wooden sides to the centre. « The piece of wood that covers the top (the roof) will be all the better if it projects a little, forming slight eaves, so that, if it be placed in the open, the rain has less chance of penetrating ; and if it is painted, there is still more security in this respect. It can be fastened with a nail to the log, so that it will turn, as on a pivot, for the purpose of examining the nest when necessary, and for cleansing. Then a circular hole is cut in the side of the nesting-box, according to the proportions of the birds for which it is intended, and a perch can be fixed by it to afford easier entrance. At the back a smaller hole can be drilled, through which the head of the nail on which the log hangs can intrude. Parrots and parakeets naturally make no nest, but and Aviaries 205 lay their eggs in some hollow of a branch or tree trunk upon soft chips of rotten wood. And other birds, too, such as blue robins and small finches, will appreciate these logs, and carry nesting materials into them. The entrance hole must be five or six inches above the inner base, where the eggs will be laid, or even more. Foreign pigeons and doves, building frail and open nests, require some open foundation, except stock doves, which prefer a hollow tree trunk. Circular basket lids can be securely fastened to beams and eaves, and slender sticks and fir twigs, as well as heather, will be used by the birds to construct their nests on them. Garden brooms can be firmly wired to the walls in the corners of the roosting-house, with the centres hollowed out, the broom pointing upwards. Some hay and moss placed in these receptacles may tempt Virginian nightingales, cardinals, &c., to build their house on a firm foundation. But necessity, being the mother of invention, will no doubt, as it arises, produce many an ingenious and original idea to each one in turn who embarks upon the sometimes disappointing yet fascinating pursuit of breeding birds in captivity. CHAPTER XIV CRUELTY TO BIRDS " The chief interest of the leisure of mankind has been found in the destruction of the creatures which they professed to believe ' even the Most High would not see perish without pity." I HAVE touched upon different ways in which birds are neglected and improperly treated in cap- tivity, but there are many things yet which human beings have to realise more fully and more universally with regard to cruelty. People of some nations are much more humane to dumb animals than those of others. Northern nations are fonder of them, as a rule, than southern. But even in England, the country far excellence where birds and animals are kept in a superior way, there is much to be corrected and rectified. Amongst birds in a wild state there is that abominable and ruthless destruction of particular 206 Cruelty to Birds 207 species, chiefly because there is a demand for their eggs ; or because they are themselves rare ; or, and this reason is worse still, because the ladies of Europe — and every female is a " lady " nowadays — refuse to relinquish the fashion of wearing the plumes of egrets, birds of paradise, and hundreds of other sorts in their hats, whereby it is said that the males of the great bird of paradise will before long be extinct. It is lamentable that these lovely creatures are to be wiped off the face of the earth merely to gratify the passing vanity of women, who, in spite of distinct appeals, at least in London, still continue to encourage a really cruel slaughter. The Creator has not peopled the world with birds of marvellous plumage in colours and designs for us to kill them down without a thought for anything but our own personal adornment. " For His pleasure, they are, and were created." Let me give a particular instance. The following letter was published in the 3is of January 1900, written from Foochow by Mr. C. B. Rickett, and dated 25th August 1899. " I am sorry to say that the native ' shooting-men ' have at last found out that there is a silver-mine in the * plume trade,' with the result that one of the greatest ornaments of our landscapes is apparently doomed to destruction. " It was a pretty sight in the spring to see a stretch of paddy-fields with the brilliant green of the young rice setting off the silvery white plumage of a number of egrets, as they stalked about in search of food. That, however, is now a thing of the past. Last year 2o8 Cruelty to Birds the natives got an inkling that money was to be made, and shot a good number of the birds. The prices realised astonished them, and this spring every man who could shoot at all was on the look-out. A terrible slaughter began on the arrival of the wretched egrets, and continued until from Suey Kao, seventy miles up river, to Hing-hua, some sixty miles south of Foochow, the country may be said to have been swept clean. " I will give you one or two cases only, of all the sickening details told of the massacre. " A ' heronry ' of Herodias garzetta, which used in summer to be a beautiful sight from the river, with the white plumage of the birds showing out in strong contrast to the dark green foliage of the two huge trees in which their nests were placed, has been, entirely depopulated. " Further down river was a ' herony ' of H. garzetta with a sprinkling of H. eulophotes, in a village. The local mandarin put up notices warning people against molesting the birds. " The ' shooting-men,' however, found out that the birds flew in a certain line down a narrow valley to their feeding-grounds. " Selecting an afternoon with a stiff breeze that not only deadened the reports of the guns, but made the birds fly low, a party of five or six stationed them- selves at the end of the valley, and shot down the whole colony. " One of these men told me that the villagers were very angry because of the bad smell that arose from the decaying bodies of the nestlings. Cruelty to Birds 209 " A native caught lurking about with a gun near a ' herony ' in the suburbs of the city was severely bam- booed, and had his gun confiscated by the mandarins. '^ I asked the man who told me, whether that would protect the birds. He said, ' No, we wait for them outside ; ' and added, with a chuckle, ' They must come out to feed sometimes.' " Of course here we cannot do anything in the matter, and it is doubtful whether the new Game Preservation Society started in Shanghai to prevent the export of pheasants' skins, and which I under- stand intends to include all feathers in its field of work, will be able to do much good. " It is to the CIVILISED world that one must look, and I fear look in vain, for help ! " The hoopoe I have already written a good deal about. It raises one's ire to know that these birds endeavour year by year to find a summer residence in England, and that year by year they are shot on their arrival. Mr. Kearton has given an account of the persistent persecution of the red-necked phalarope, an uncommon and very dainty little bird of the wader family, which breeds in the far north of the British Isles. The phalarope's eggs are taken as soon as they are laid, to enrich the purses of the peasant inhabitants, to whom the money is supplied by egg-collectors ; and hundreds of sea-birds' eggs are spirited away to meet the same demand. I don't think that boys ought to be allowed to collect eggs merely as a passing whim or fashion. o 2,io Cruelty to Birds At Eton in my boyhood it was the fashion to do so, and of course created rivalry, so that each boy strove to outdo the other in both quantity and quality of specimens. And there sat an old woman, almost sacred in memory to all old Etonians of her reign, which was a long one. Old Mother Lipscombe on her camp stool, with wrinkled face, blear eyes, and croaking voice. In form not unlike a gigantic toad ; a much worn and tattered bonnet on her ancient pate. Day by day in the summer term she squatted near the entrance to the school yard, or by the wall beneath the trees, a pile of boxes at her side on the one hand, and " /S'/r^zrberries and cherries" for the "gentlemen" on the other. " Any fresh eggs to-day, Mrs. Lipscombe ? " came the query from a group of boys ; and the old lady would proceed with palsied fingers (that was in the seventies) to lift the lids from off the boxes to disclose her treasures. A daily supply of the eggs of chaffinches, bull- finches, goldfinches, thrushes, blackbirds, wrens, tit- mice of different sorts, willow warblers, reed buntings, •corncrakes, cuckoos, wrynecks, and others, must have considerably diminished the ranks of these poor birds ; with Mother Lipscombe's myrmidons scouring the country side for the space of several square miles. And a very large quantity of the eggs finally came to nothing. Now, I believe, the birds are very much more protected in the neighbourhood of Eton than forrnerly, and I trust it is the case. When a boy Cruelty to Birds 211 shows a really keen interest in the matter, it is a different thing, and a taste to be encouraged ; otherwise let them employ their leisure hours in stamp and other collections, which will bring no harm to economy and beauties of nature. In any case, to buy eggs at a shop is uninteresting and unromantic. On looking at some boy's collection, you catch sight of some rare eggs, and on asking how he came by them, are told they were bought in London ! Owing to the local protection of birds, there seems to be less taking of eggs by the village boys, for one does not see the festoons of blue and white shells depending on cottage walls, as one used to some thirty years ago. There is much cruelty amongst professional bird-catchers, who entrap hundreds of larks, goldfinches, linnets, &c., and imprison them in miserable little cages in which the poor birds can barely hop about. And nightingales, too ! which are caught in April when they first arrive, just when their small bodies and minds were beating high with the instinct of the propagation of their species, with the return of spring- time and song. In order to see the haunts of the London bird- catchers, I penetrated one Sunday morning into the streets of Whitechapel, where on that day the mart is especially busy. One street was so crowded that it was difficult to walk with any ease. Men in Sunday suits with red cloth ties round their necks, unrelieved by collars, jostled each other, holding one cage or more, usually tied up in coloured handkerchiefs. 212 Cruelty to Birds Women in varied raiment stood in groups, gesticu- lating, nodding, chattering, and at times harshly laughing. Some were matrons of stalwart and ponderous figures, arms akimbo, and bonnetless. Others were factory girls, resplendent in violet or butcher-blue gowns, and yellow or red shawls ; their heads surmounted by magnificent broad-brimmed hats, adorned with ribbons and shabby ostrich feathers of painfully brilliant hues. Children dodged about amongst their elders ; some, street arabs of the ordinary shock-headed, bare-footed type ; others, whose parents were of the well-to-do order, in gorgeous reach-me-downs, purchased in the Mile End Road. Many of the windows of the squalid houses were ^ framed in bird cages, and the notes of linnets, gold- finches, chaffinches, and larks made themselves heard through the hubbub of human tongues. Singing matches were in progress in some of the gin palaces, with champion chaffinches, and bets were evidently being made over the favourites. Indeed, the general scene was the idea of a third- rate racecourse, where the Upper Ten was conspicuous by its absence. The sight of all these birds, many of whom had but the day before been flying " o'er the downs so free," saddened me. The coarse language grated on one's ears. Yet the general behaviour was perfectly orderly, and the crowded gathering a friendly one. Still ! there were the birds ! and one knows that Cruelty to Birds 213 as a consequence the brilliant flitter of goldfinches' wings, the farmer's friends who eat the thistle seeds, have become more and more scarce, where once large flocks flew twittering over the fields and commons. Only the strict carrying out of the law can restore them to their former numbers ; but at present there is a great deal of talking and very little doing, unless some county magnates happen to interest themselves keenly in the matter, and bestir the county police. In Switzerland birds are much more unmolested, and the laws which produce this effect are, I believe, strict. In France and Italy the destruction of birds is lamentable and mean ; all the more so because large numbers of those that are trapped and eaten, are our English migrants, especially when on the autumnal passage — redstarts, robins, thrushes, and other warblers. At Marseilles I entered a bird shop, presided over by a flaunting lady speaking an appalling French of a cockney order, whose face I did not catch a sight of, owing to the thick covering of paint, and whose hair was coloured a brilliant yellow. Some of the cages wore veils of calico, which were violently disturbed by the flutterings of birds within. It was mid April, the season of the vernal migration. I lifted a covering, and expected as much. Freshly caught spring migrants ! Pied flycatchers, yellow and blue-headed wagtails, and blackcaps! I remarked that they were freshly caught, and that 214 Cruelty to Birds I thought it very cruel to imprison them on their way to their nesting quarters. My French was faultless ! Consequently she did not mistake my meaning, but truth was not one of the virtues practised by her. " Oh, mon Dieu ! Non ! they have been there for a year ; they are very tame, only Monsieur is a stranger to them." The frantic fluttering of the birds belied her words, and their plumage, though frayed a little, was unmis- takably that of birds that had not been in that small shop for a year, or a week either. I said, " Ce n'est pas vrai; bonjour, Madame," and departed. In Italy one sees most harassing sights. In Verona, in the picturesque market-place, where the big white umbrellas, like groups of gigantic mush- rooms, shelter stalls of many wares and fruit, there are in September, at the time of the autumnal migration, trays full of all sorts of birds, freshly trapped and killed. I remember seeing quantities of robins and red- starts, as well as titmice, common thrushes, and even blue rock thrushes. They were sold for eating ! and are caught in decoys up in the mountains, regularly constructed for that purpose. It is said that the Pope [Leo XIII. j takes much pleasure in entrapping small birds in the Vatican garden. If the chief clergyman of Europe does this sort of thing, what are you to expect ? Staying at a private villa at Cadenabbia, I remem- ber seeing in the kitchen one day a large dish, around Cruelty to Birds 215 the edge of which were ranged about twenty little birds plucked and trussed for cooking. By their slender black legs and feet I knew at once that they were not sparrows. I asked the cook. " Pettirossi, Signore," was the answer, " Buonis- simi." ActuaWj robins / Abominable man to recommend robins to me as excellent eating ! When I told his mistress, she, as an Englishwoman, was horrified, and gave very decided orders that such a dish was not to appear again in the menu. In Florence a case of downright cruelty came under my notice about ten years ago. Passing a bird shop, I entered in, and after looking about amongst the birds in the front part, penetrated towards the back. Some ortolans and Citril finches were sitting very still in a cage, with their heads moving from side to side in an unnatural manner. I looked more closely. They couldn't see ! Over their eyes there was a thick blister. In a moment I realised what it was. By a heated needle or iron they had been blinded, at least for a while, to prevent their fluttering about ; and to the uninitiated they appeared very tame. I almost flew at the shop proprietor then and there. Oh ! how I longed to give ^is eyes something which- would at the least discolour them. Startled at my outburst of heartfelt indignation. 21 6 Cruelty to Birds which lent volubility to my Italian, he merely shrugged his shoulders with a deprecatory foreign movement; and I, hurling a final Diavolo at him, rushed from the shop. In Rome a man used to stand at the bottom of the great steps leading to the Church of the Trinita dei Monti from the Piazza di Spagna, with a slight frame- work hung from his shoulders, on which sat, apparently at liberty, a lot of the pretty little Serin finches, and also goldfinches. I had looked at these, en passant, but one day stopped to examine them more closely. He usually had one which he used to make hop from one finger to another of either hand. Any one not understanding much about birds, would naturally _ be attracted by their apparent tameness in the open air. It didn't take one long to find out two things. First, that their flight feathers were all pulled out ; and, secondly, 'that they were evidently drugged, for to a practised eye it was easy to see that the poor little birds were almost unaware of their surroundings. Asking the man whether they could fly, he said, " Oh yes, but they are very tame ; they do not wish to go away," &c., &c. Then I rent him. Taking a bird in my hand, and extending its pinion on either side, I said in Italian — " Can birds fly without wings ? " " Can birds fly that have been given medicine so that they know not where they are .? " Cruelty to Birds 217 The flash of fury that shot into that Roman's eyes was a sight. Whenever I passed through the Piazza on sub- sequent days, he would make for me gesticulating and threatening. He was the more angry because several people had gathered round and heard my protest. But Naples is worse still in its openly cruel treat- ment of dumb animals, although the English, who sow the seeds of practical Christian humanity wherever they go, have done much to put it down, and the Queen Dowager of Italy herself has long ago taken the matter in hand. By a lady, who was once one of her ladies in wait- ing, I was told of Queen Margherita's keen distress when, on visiting a town in her country, the people not merely threw flowers in front of her carriage, but also little birds with their flight feathers drawn, so that they fell fluttering under the horses' feet ! Hundreds of migrants, arriving from Africa in April, are caught in the " environs " of Naples. Seeing a man by the public gardens with a very large flat cage of cane bars, I walked up to him, and found in it about two hundred blue-headed wagtails ; lovely little birds with blue-grey heads, green backs and tails, the latter edged with white, and breasts of a brilliant saffron yellow. One sees them in winter time in the fields border- ing the Nile. I asked him for how much he would sell me the lot. " Cinque lire, Signore " (five francs), was the answer. I handed him the money. 21 8 Cruelty to Birds " Now," I said, " open the cage door." " But they will escape, Signore." " That is what I wish them to do," I answered. The man looked at me as much as to say, " What fools these Inglesi are ! " But he opened the door, and in another minute the whole air was alive with fluttering wagtails, the large majority of which, I believe, escaped. One poor little bird, weak for want of food, ran feebly over the ground, and was pounced upon by a big tabby cat that was lurking in the neighbour- hood. I questioned the man as to who would have bought them. He answered that people take them, clip their wings, and let them run about in smalL court-yards and rooms, where they catch the flies. Perhaps if the Neapolitans were not so dirty there would be less of these pests. Spending a night on the island of Capri, that rises out of the Mediterranean within the precincts of the bay of Naples, my mind was again disturbed by sights of cruelty. Riding to the higher parts, I passed a party of Italians, having the appearance of being members of the upper class, each of whom was on a mule or donkey. One of these poor animals had a large and un- sightly sore upon one of his hip bones, and his rider, a fashionably-dressed man, was carefully belabouring the poor beast on the actual sore itself in a really brutal manner with a heavy stick. Cruelty to Birds 219 Some people think that one small voice in the world does little or no good. At any rate, I couldn't resist raising mine in protest, and that, too, indignantly. He flushed up and moved on ; but I did not see the stick used again as long as the cavalcade was in sight. Continuing my ride on an animal that I had taken care to assure myself had a whole skin, I was very in- terested to see that all over the island large quantities of redstarts had settled, and were apparently resting before their final arrival on the mainland of Europe. I couldn't help wondering whether any of the indi- vidual birds I saw on Capri would in another day or two be flying about in my own garden in England. Chi lo sa ? as the Italians say. Who knows .? In the small straggling hamlet which climbs towards the summit of the island there were three or four cottages, on the walls of which cages were hung with golden orioles, evidently by their behaviour being newly caught. I kept my eyes alert for some of these birds at liberty, as well as for hoopoes, but saw none. The view from the highest point is one of great beauty ; the sea immediately below is of an intense blue, which fades in tone as the eye wanders farther towards the distance, where Naples with its white houses fringes the shore in the heart of the bay. Behind, the waters stretch to the African coast, sparkling in the sunshine ; in front, the Italian shores curve from the entrance of the bay, and are lost in the haze of the spring afternoon. In the inn, where I 220 Cruelty to Birds stayed my feet, two men and two girls were dancing the " Tarantella " to the accompaniment of a guitar, played by the Padrona. On the following morning I explored the other portion of the island, in the vicinity of the famous Blue Grotto. This time I walked, and by myself. As I was picking my way up a stony path, at my feet there lay a beautiful male redstart, apparently injured. Stooping to take him in my hand, there came a sudden resistance. Then I saw that the poor bird was tied by a string. Following it up, I found a man at the other end, seated among some rocks, with a child of about four years old by his side. The string was tied so tightly round the bird's shoulder and under the wing that it was cutting into the flesh, and the poor thing was sadly mauled. This inhuman brute was dragging the redstart over the rocks as a plaything for his child, and the expres- sion in the bird's eye was one of faintness and exhaustion. With difficulty untying the string, which was covered with blood where it had been wound round the shoulder, I saw at once that the bone had been broken, and that it was much kinder to put it out of sits misery, which I did. Behind and above the man, stood a huge statue of the Virgin, looking pityingly down upon the scene from a niche in the rocks ; a very finely-carved statue, presented to the island by an Englishman. vV^l'#> ^he.aUt^^t/^. Cruelty to Birds 221 " If your priests," I said, with intense indignation, " taught you kindness of heart instead of your gabbling prayers at the foot of that image, it would be better." The scene was positively tragic ! Neither did I speak without knowledge. I had been present in the previous year at a " Canistra," which is the harvest festival of the Roman Church. At a " Canistra," every possible sort of thing is brought to the church of the village, in kind, as an offering for the benefit of the parish priest. It was at Lenno, a little village touching the shores of the beautiful lake of Como. A hot Sunday afternoon in September, and the people had gathered in a picturesque crowd on the level grass of the church piazza. A procession of maidens veiled in white, and carry- ing lighted candles, wended their way through the open doors, from which the wheezy organ, fitfully played with dance-like music, made itself heard. The congregation was swelling within, and the lights on )the altar, with its tawdry lace and artificial flowers, were shining in the semi-gloom of the building. Every moment men, women, arid children were arriving, each with an offering. Some carried cakes, others live geese, tied tightly down into roomy baskets, and ornamented with numerous ribbons ; others bore plates of fruit, and sweetmeats ; others, vegetables. Presently there came by a little girl, her head half draped in a bright-coloured shawl, her dark eyes sparkling with excitement, and in her right hand, held 222 Cruelty to Birds high, a branch of a tree, from the twigs of which, hung by their necks, were perhaps a couple of dozen dead robins ! The graceful little figure pushed her way through the crowd, in at the church door, up the aisle to the front of the altar, where her offering was duly received, and where she, like the rest, kissed the glass of a tawdry casket, immediately underneath which grinned the skull of the village saint. Two priests were standing close to me in the crowd without. I asked them whether they approved of such an offering as had just been proffered. " Certainly," was the answer ; " why not ? " I explained to them how unnecessary and indeed cruel it seemed to an Englishman. They shrugged their shoulders ! I asked them whether it seemed good for children to be brought up with the idea that God's creatures were intended only for killing and eating. They answered that all these things have been given for our use, and by their tone and manner plainly showed that they encouraged such destruc- tion. It is evident that all things being given for our use, doesn't necessarily mean for our mouth and for destruction. I didn't altogether relish the netting of the quails on Capri, which was in full swing during my visit. The poor birds, migrating at night, and exhausted with their long flight over the sea, drop into the nets -spread all ready to catch them. This certainly seems a mean trick to play on them. Cruelty to Birds 223 and thousands on the island of Capri alone thus fall a prey to the demands of London, Paris, and other poulterers. But it is not quails only that are caught. It was on my return to Naples on board a steamer that I noticed a large sack lying at the feet of a rough- looking Neapolitan ; a sack of a most lively nature, for the whole of it was in motion, as if it were full of rats. The neck was tightly secured with string. Therefore, to gratify curiosity, I asked the owner what was inside. " Turtle doves," was the answer. Yes ! it was crammed with turtle doves ; the European species, which arrives as a bird of passage in England in May, and whose soft coo blends so charm- ingly with the note of the cuckoo and the songs of other birds. I always associate it with bright days in June, when the great white clouds are floating lazily in the sky, and the scythes are sharpened for the mowing of grass in fields and meadows. Yet how many of these pretty summer doves of ours are deprived of their lives by being intercepted on their journey. And swallows, too, which are killed on the French and Italian coasts, when they are exhausted on migra- tion ; killed in order to supply women with ornaments for their hats and bonnets. Amongst Eastern nations there is, at least in Egypt and the Soudan, a curious apathy with regard to an interest in bird life, at any rate amongst the poorer 224 Cruelty to Birds classes, and a complete indifference to the fact that birds and animals have any feelings. When they are captured and handled they are treated as if they were devoid of any possibility of suffering. Riding through the fields one day near Minieh, on the banks of the Nile, an Arab came up to us with a wretched sparrow, whose wings had appar- ently been literally torn from its body, leaving nothing but two mangled stumps, and the poor little bird was tightly tied up with a piece of string. The only way to impress its captor with the cruelty of the act was to administer some really hard whacks across his shoulder-blades with a stick, which I very promptly did, upon which he retreated at a consider- ably quicker pace than he had advanced. But I gave chase on my donkey, and didn't let him off easily. Had I gently conversed with him on the subject, he would only have grinned, and have written me down an ass ! At Luxor it was noised abroad that I was wishing to rear up a brood of hoopoes. Consequently other birds were brought to the Dahabeah ; amongst them a pair of the lovely little green bee-eaters {Merops viridis), which are so often to be seen at that part of the Nile, and towards Assouan, either sitting upon the telegraph wires, from which they dart off to catch flies and other winged insects, returning to their perch to devour them, or else amongst the bushes and palm trees of the river's banks or gardens of houses. Cruelty to Birds 225 They are most gracefully shaped birds, with slender bills and long pointed tails. Brilliant green, with a lovely golden chestnut in the flight feathers, which is seen when they are on the wing. Those that were brought me were a pair, evidently caught in their nesting-hole overhanging the river, for their bills were encrusted with Nile mud, showing that they were preparing a site for their eggs. They were tied by string round their little stumpy legs. Knowing that it would be hopeless to keep them, and cruel ; I quietly betook myself to the other side of the Dahabeah, cut the strings, and liberated them across the river. Then I returned to the man, and informed him they were gone. It was fortunate, perhaps, that I only knew a little Arabic, for I am sure that his language was appalling ! But it taught him and others standing by, a prac- tical lesson that I did not want to deprive such birds either of their liberty or their lives. The Arabs catch the quails, taking a large bunch of perhaps two dozen birds, tie their legs promiscu- ously and tightly with string, and carry the poor little fellows with their heads hanging downwards. If a man stops anywhere, he throws his living bundle on the ground, where they lie, many of them bleeding from the rough usage. It is declared that on some of the Dahabeahs, &c., scullions think nothing of plucking pigeons and fowls alive. 226 Cruelty to Birds Had I caught our cook-boy at such work I should have pitched him into the river with promptitude. But Europeans are, not unnaturally, looked upon by the natives as people who want to kill birds, and many make no protest at unnecessary cruelties, which are frequently looked upon as the custom of the coun- try, and only to be expected in those who know no better. But they can be taught, and are then most kind and thoughtful to dumb creatures. As soon as our Dahabeah crew discovered my great love for such things, they one and all took pleasure in attending to their wants. If it was the macaw, he would be the first to receive a piece of sugar-cane as soon as a fresh consignment was brought on board ; if it was the gazelle, they would bring anything from off the shore, such as clover, &c., which they thought the little animal would like to nibble at ; and by the end of our voyage they had discovered the pleasure of tending to their needs, and of satisfying their hunger. Easterns have an innate faculty for taming dumb things, and only need to be shown what kindness to them means, to turn them from thoughtless cruelty and ignorant treatment. To imbue men, women, and children — especially the latter, because it is good to begin early — with a love for birds and animals, is undoubtedly a means of raising the moral tone, as well as of creating an interest in life which will give an impetus to a recreation both refreshing and instructive. CHAPTER XV STORKS AND CRANES " To give power, we must have plumes that can strike as with the flat of a sword-blade." EVERYONE who has been to parts of Holland, Sweden, and Germany, in the spring or summer time, cannot fail to notice the white storks ; so conspicuous in the choice of their building sites, on the top of roofs, chimneys, and, in some instances, poles, on which have been placed cart-wheels or plat- forms, as foundations for their big nests of sticks. In the end of March or the commencement of April the storks return from their winter quarters in Egypt, India, &c., and every one knows how fortunate the 227 2z8 Storks ^ Cranes peasants of European countries consider themselves when a pair of these birds select any particular house as their nesting-home. Every one, too, knows how the German parents tell their children that the storks bring the babies. In England, as, alas ! there are no storks, different little harmless inventions are resorted to. Like the hoopoe, the stork is probably another instance of a bird which would still come regularly to the British Isles if it were not so persistently shot as soon as one puts in an appearance. It may be argued that England being so much more drained and cultivated, where formerly there was marshy ground, is a sufficient reason for the disappear- ance of the white stork. Long years ago it probably was a regular summer resident. But about the marshes of Lincolnshire, the fens of Cambridgeshire, and the Norfolk broads, not to mention other localities, there is undoubtedly ground on which the storks would find a good supply of food in the shape of frogs, fish, mice, &c. Hardly a year goes by without one hears of one or two storks being shot. In Poole Harbour — about 1880, if I remember right — three were seen together, one of which was shot by Mr. Hart, of Christ Church, and its skin is still to be seen, beautifully mounted, as an addition to one of the most splendid collections of stuffed birds in the kingdom. I believe it is Mr. Hart who tells an interesting Storks ^ Cranes 229 story about a §tork that was marked and also " made in Germany," although I did not hear the anecdote first hand. At any rate, it may be said, that a German put a ring upon a stork's leg, marking on the ring the place where it was hatched, and the bird was allowed to fly. Away he went at the migrating season, and in the following spring returned again. How they managed to catch him, I don't know ; he may have been very tame and have walked into an outhouse, or anything of that kind. On looking at the ring, or it may have been a second one, these additional words had been engraved : " Friends in Bombay greet friends in Berlin " (sup- posing Berlin to have been the place where the bird was originally marked). This story was, so I understood, told to Mr. Hart by a German who was visiting his museum. Having suffered from the way in which my tame storks have been shot, which I have time after time allowed to have their full liberty, I feel all the more keenly the foolish and wanton destruction of these birds, and other rare ones. It is always interesting to try experiments with birds by allowing them in semi-captivity their full liberty ; and this I have done with white storks for several years. Purchasing them as nestlings, or almost so, in Leadenhall Market, generally in the beginning of June, when they are too young to fly ; I take care to ask beforehand that their flight feathers shall not be clipped. Sometimes they are such babies, that for 230 Storks @^ Cranes three or four days after their arrival they cannot even stand up on their wobbling legs, and when they do at last rtianage it, they rock about and stagger in the weakest way. Voracious things they are too at that age, and gollop down raw liver to any extent, making a curious rasping, wheezing noise as they do so. I always put them on the open lawn so that they may become used to the look of the place before they can fly. In a short time they begin to gain strength. At this age the feet are light reddish, but the legs are dull brown, and do not become red until the later portion of the summer. The bills, too, instead of being red, are almos^ black, except for a promise of the future colour at the base. And so my young storks march solemnly about, bending down their bodies when they are hungry, and flapping their weak wings up and down. When there are one or two adult birds amongst them, the babies run after them persistently, in the hopes of receiving a frog or a locust. How should they know that these are not their parents, and that they have left them across the sea ? Then comes a day when they begin to exercise their wings a great deal ; hopping along on both feet, flapping and pirouetting. And then — at last they find the use of them. Away goes the biggest and the strongest, as yet unversed in the art of steering. He takes a low flight out into the park ; and, Storks ^ Cranes 231 evidently afraid to go too far, or unable, swings round on his big flopping wings, and is soon down again. The next day another gets on the wing, and in a week all four are flying. Perched on the chimneys of a lovely old red brick house, that was restored in the reign of Elizabeth, storks look extremely picturesque ; and all the storks I have ever had, have always selected to roost on some particular block of chimneys. Every evening at about six o'clock, sometimes earlier, as we sat in the garden, the storks would come flapping round, sailing close over our heads as we were playing croquet, until they had circled sufficiently to enable them to reach their roosting point. With the rays of the setting sun glinting on their snow-white and deep black plumage, and their red legs and bills, they used to excite much admiration, with their forms clearly silhouetted against the evening sky. And then on moonlight nights we used to go outside and look up at them, getting a view of them, with the moon as a background. Hans Andersen's delightful tales about the storks came to one's mind. They used to sit like statues — each with one leg up. Well ! they wouldn't have been proper storks if they hadn't. Their morning exercises were beautiful, especially in the beginning of August, when they commenced to prepare for their flight to Egypt. 232 Storks ^ Cranes With the fine sweep of their wings, they would mount up to a great height in a very few minutes, and many a day did I think I had seen the last of them. Sometimes when there was a light breeze, they would sail far above the house, with outstretched and apparently unmoving pinions, looking no larger than rooks. And away they would go in ever widening circles, until they were at times hidden by the clouds. I have watched them through field-glasses, soaring for long distances from home, yet they never settled anywhere but on the house itself, or on the lawn, or the part of the park immediately fronting the house. To a pond in the park they were very fond of going ; but if I whistled to them at their supper time, one after the other, they would rise up to come flapping home. In 1899 I bought some silver rings, on which I had the year and the name of their English home engraved, and slipped one on to an ankle of each bird. This was not easy, for the ring must not be too large for the stork's leg, and yet large enough to go over his foot. Of course one might have them made with a snap which would close for ever, when shut to ; but it would be a more costly business. So I managed, by putting vaseline on the birds' feet, and thus slipped the rings over. Storks ^ Cranes 233 That year one of the young storks arrived with a broken wing, and had to be taken to the hospital, which was really the drying-ground of the laundry. And a professional nurse was in attendance — she happened to be with us at the time — who bound up the broken wing with the tender care of one whose heart was naturally a soft one for all wounded crea- tures, human or dumb. For some days the bird seemed to be a rather refractory patient, for he constantly managed to struggle about and peck the bandages loose. At last the bone seemed to have joined, but the wing for a long time drooped at the shoulder, and the bird, unable to fly, looked yearningly up at his brothers as they sailed over his head. But one day he managed to get on the wing, and although he was rather a lop-sided kind of a boat ; still he went along fairly well, at no great height from the ground. When his fellows left, he, poor bird, had to stay behind, but during September his wing seemed to grow stronger, until at last he too soared round at great heights ; and, by dint of perseverance, to be imitated by many a malade imaginaire, finally was lost to sight in the far, far distance of a clear September sky, soaring round in ever-widening circles, until his bearings were ascertained. Let us hope he reached the land of pyramids and temples in safety ; where in the marshes of the Soudan he could join that mighty host of comrades. 234 Storks ^ Cranes As he winged his way out of sight, it seemed like some mysterious departure of a spirit, seeking a sunnier and a better clime. Would my storks ever return in the spring-time to the old English home ? What a triumph if they did ! That year I really believe they all four left England's hostile shores in safety, for although I looked carefully in the obituary column — I beg its pardon, I mean the natural history notes of the Fie/d — where more than once I have seen the slaughter of my storks recorded, there was, to my great relief, no announcement that any white storks had been shot. In other years, as sure as fate, about a week or a fortnight after my storks had left for their winter quarters, I was sure to see — " A white stork shot in Kent," or somewhere else. And wouldn't I have enjoyed peppering the legs of the sportsman who did the deed ! On one occasion one of my storks was resting on a chimney of a farmhouse in Kent, before crossing the Channel, and the farmer came out and knocked him over with a gun-shot. My storks of 1899 may have met with the same sad fate ; and any one who killed them, finding the silver rings on their ankles, would perhaps have been too ashamed to make the matter public. " Speriamo di no," as the Italians say. No doubt, if they are, on the other hand, safely somewhere in the neighbourhood of Fashoda, the other storks will believe them to be princes in disguise when they see their silver anklets. Storks ^ Cranes 235 A really lovely sight is the vernal migration of battalions of storks, as they wend their way from the Soudan along the course of the Nile from about the end of February to the end of March. A first vanguard passed over Assouan on the 22nd of February 1899, composed of perhaps two or three hundred birds. And all through March, about every fourth or fifth day, companies would come wheeling from the south, on their way to their nesting-homes in Europe and Asia. But on the 20th of March of the year I was up the Nile, the whole sky over Assouan was, as far as the eye could see, southwards and northwards, filled with countless hundreds of these birds. Against the wonderful brilliancy of the Egyptian sky, battalion after battalion, company after company, came wheeling along, their red legs and bills against the azure background, and their shining white plum- age, with the broad black pinions, showing out in strongest contrast of colours. They did not always fly at any very great height ; indeed, many were below the level of the surrounding hills. Neither did they fly straight ahead, but wheeled and sailed in magnificent curves and circles, crossing and recrossing each other, several hundreds flying one way ; and others, another. The eff^sct was enhanced by the absolute silence that reigned amongst them, which lent dignity to an already dignified procession. Storks are mute vocally, and give vent to a call by 236 Storks ^ Cranes clattering their mandibles loudly and rapidly together. But I have never heard them do this when on the wing. This great procession of the 20th of March seemed to be the finale of all that had gone before — a mag- nificent accumulation of a full army corps. This beautiful flight of birds must have continued for at least an hour. When they arrive in Europe they gradually separ- ate into smaller companies, and finally into pairs. They are most useful birds in devouring the locusts, on which they feed their young, in places where those insects are indigenous. I remember being told by a very keen and well- known naturalist 'how, when he was sitting quite close to a stork's nest (it must have been in some part of Asia) the old birds came near him fearlessly, constantly bringing locusts to the young birds. It is curious that the black stork should be so much more unsociable in the choice of his nesting places, as far as human beings are concerned. But in winter one sees small companies of them wading in the shallows of the Nile, or standing in groups of a dozen or so upon some spit of sand in mid- river, accompanied by spoonbills, egrets, ruddy shel- drakes, and Egyptian geese. It is a very great pity that the birds of the Nile should be shot at as they are, principally, it would seem, by Greeks and Germans. Of course those unsightly steamers with their obtrusive " wash " in attendance, have helped a great %L- ^i >>x\ f^"'^ V > Vi/, r ^"^^r^ K > ^k\ ^^1 -^ .-^ ^1 \il"^"- )' Storks ^ Cranes 239 deal to drive away the waders and ducks of various species, but a constant persecution at the hand of Europeans has lamentably lessened their numbers. I remember how anxious my Syrian dragoman was to have a shot from our Dahabeah at a griffon vulture, which was floating down stream on the carcase of a - dead donkey. But I indignantly forbade such useless slaughter of a most useful bird. Its dead body would have floated away to be, in its turn, the same sort of stuff as that on which it was feeding. Let us hope that stringent laws will be made, and carried out, for the protection of birds and animals in the Soudan. People say that there are thousands of such and such a bird. Yes ! no doubt there are ! But there are also thousands of a kind of tourist, who, without any real interest in collecting bird-skins for scientific purposes, bang away at everything they see. There used to be thousands, to use a fagon de parler, of buff-backed herons all along the Nile. In the winter of 1899, though I was constantly spying at every bird I saw, through my glasses, I should think that fifty was the limit of these birds' numbers. We came across them only very occasionally. My dragoman told me that he remembered the fields white with them some thirty years ago. Yet one of the 240 Storks ^ Cranes most interesting touches to the scenery of the great river of Egypt are the birds. Birds which are alive to-day figure upon the walls of temples built 3500 years ago. On the walls of Dehr-el-Bahari, the way in which the different species of birds are drawn and coloured is most striking, and there is no mistaking ducks of various kinds, notably the pintail ; as well as geese, ibises, herons, and cranes. Now, the sacred ibis is an inhabitant of Egypt no more. The modes in which different birds were captured and secured is shown clearly at the temple of Queen Hatepsu just mentioned. Cranes, for instance, could peck as much in the days of the ancient Egyptians as they can now. Consequently their bills were tied down to the front of their necks, with a cord passing round the neck itself. The different kinds of cranes are extremely orna- mental in captivity, from the graceful little demoiselle, with its pretty white ear tufts, to the great grey Sarus crane of India, or the black and white Mantchurian, immortalised on Japanese screens, cabinets, and porce- lain. Personally, my experience of cranes as pets has been limited to the European, the Sarus, the Australian " companions," Demoiselle, and White Siberian. Will people wonder that I sometimes entertain bitter feelings towards those who shoot rarce aves, amounting in one instance to anger, hatred, and malice. Storks ^ Cranes 241 when I record the following story about my Sarus cranes. , They were a magnificent pair of birds, which used to walk with stately gait about the park ; and, having only the primaries of one wing clipped, when they moulted and grew new feathers, soon managed to fly. I tried to catch them, but I was placed on the horns of a dilemma. Either catch them, in which case the new feathers would not be sufficiently grown to cut with any due effect, or leave the feathers to grow long enough, in which case one wouldn't catch them. And the latter came to pass. So these great birds used to take flights round the park, their enormous pinions flapping along. As the feathers grew, their flights became longer, and they went farther afield. But they always returned home ; at least they did so until they didn't ; which seems to happen with a good many things in this life ! When at last it came about that the cranes were absent a whole twenty-four hours, search and inquiry was made for them in the immediate neighbourhood. It was reported that at a farm about three miles off they had been shot. What epithets are strong enough for that farmer who did the deed ? The report was only too true. The cranes had settled, and were feeding with the poultry in a field close to the farmhouse. The dunder-headed farmer, who merely remarked that Q 242 Storks ^ Cranes he thought they were " Molly Ur-rns " — by which he meant herons — went indoors, seized his gun, and murdered both my poor cranes then and there. Being absent at the time, I wrote to remonstrate with him, but never even received an answer to my letter, much less an apology. He lived near Princes Risborough, in Bucking- hamshire. If any man deserved to be peppered through his gaiters, he did ; and I honestly confess it would have given me the keenest satisfaction to have done it ! Exactly the same thing happened with a pair of my white storks. It was in May, and having kept them in with undipped wing feathers all the winter, liberated them when I thought the vernal migratory instincts had died down. Much clattering of mandibles took place, and the male bird several times carried sticks about in his bill. But a big storm came on, during which, whilst on the wing, the storks were swept along in the teeth of the gale, and settled in a meadow only two miles from home. The next view I had of them was in a farm cart, in which one was lying dead, and its mate so wounded that it did not survive more than a day or two. Here again was an instance of one of that class of farmers, who love to prowl about with a gun, banging at everything in the shape of a wild bird or animal that is seen. Storks ^ Cranes 243 A gun, with crass ignorance behind it, is a nasty weapon. In this instance also, it was pleaded that they were mistaken for " urns " ; though why, even then, they should have been slaughtered, I fail to understand. There was no trout stream to protect. And to think they were herons, must have meant that he knew more or less what those birds are like. Whoever saw herons with snow-white plumage, black wings, and red legs and bills ! To the bucolic mind of that class of farmer apparently any biggish bird that owns long legs and bill is an " urn," and must consequently be shot. In August (1900) five white storks, which had remained at home during the summer, were ruth- lessly shot by a local doctor when, on crossing out of Berkshire to the sea for their migration, they settled to rest on the tower of the Gosport waterworks. Although I twice wrote to ask for an explanation and to remonstrate, I received no answer ! ! On these occasions, insult is certainly added to injury ! After the murder of my Sarus, I purchased a splendid pair of Australian " native companion " cranes, as they are called. Closely resembling the Sarus, they are not quite so tall, and their colouring is perhaps a grey of a softer and more pearly tint. They have the same bare head, covered with scarlet papillose crustations on the skin, and black bristles. 244 Storks ^ Cranes A dark-coloured pouch at the throat becomes enlarged in the spring time. The male bird is always taller than the female, and generally walks with his head more erect. The characteristics of the two sexes are evident in the case of my Australian cranes. They are very tame — indeed visitors sometimes wish they were wilder ; and whilst the hen bird walks along with shorter steps, her skirts hanging downwards, in the shape of elongated feathers of the wings, her head coquettishly on one side, he strides round, taking a wider circle in his walk, with long jerky steps, erect and tall, his bright brown-red eye looking unutterable defiance. If you remain long enough to gaze at them, the lady will gradually sidle closer and closer, as at the same time her mate draws nearer to you on the other side ; when, at an apparently given signal, they will suddenly attack you with really hard pecks from their bills, flapping their big wings to disconcert you. One of my legs received a hard pinch on one occasion. But there was something that roused their ire more than anything else. That was their first sight of a lady on a bicycle ! What would they think of the ladies of Paris ? Their bare well I that portion of their limbs that ought to be covered with stocking and petticoats, and which very often is not, would afford a fine target for the cranes' onslaughts ! \ Storks ^ Cranes 245 If it wasn't that I should blush to be seen walking with them in such an unwomanly undress, I should enjoy showing some of them round the park, in the vicinity of my Australian cranes! Perhaps it might induce them to give up making a spectacle of them- selves to the world at large. However, one is thank- ful that our English women have naturally shrunk from such an unwomanly garb .(although they too, in some instances, might be more clothed in the upper portion of their persons), and in the instance I am speaking of there really was no need for the cranes to be so indignant. Two English ladies, bicycling in all modesty of dress and demeanour, were learning to find a steady seat on their saddle, when, passing along the road, they met my cranes. In a moment those pugilistic birds, with a flank movement, had attacked the first fair rider. The next scene was — bicycle and rider flat on the road, and the cranes dancing with outstretched wings and aggressive bills on the top of them ! But, before any harm was done, they were routed by another lady, who was walking close by, and who bravely charged them and belaboured them with her parasol ! After this every one will agree that cranes are most charming pets. They invariably give vent to a loud duet of reson- ant trumpeting, especially if any one stops to look at them and then turns to walk away. The hen bird is always the first to throw up her head in the air, with a loud rattling croak, which is immediately caught up Storks ^ Cranes 246 by her mate, who, while she continues to croak, utters his trumpet calls, which, when the wind is blowing towards me, I have heard distinctly at a distance of two miles, and this, too, when they have been on the high ground of the Chiltern Hills, and I in the level vale below. These loud notes were always preceded by a low inward growl. The male always lowers his wings, shaking them up and down in time with his trumpetings, and both birds stand close together with their beaks pointing upwards. When they are separated, especially at night and in foggy weather, they call to each other with one loud monosyllabic croak. They are evidently extremely attached to one an- other, and in a wild state pair for life. The crane's cry is exceedingly wild, and one can understand how fine it must sound on their native plains and marshes. A very splendid member of this magnificent family of birds is the white crane of Asia, with the red skin of the face, black primaries, and pink legs. The Mantchuriari, or Japanese crane, will breed in captivity, and is a splendid ornament on the margin of a lake. But unless you happen to want several begonia plants taken up, don't let cranes into the flower garden. If, however, you are short of labourers in the autumn, when your bedding plants have to be taken up for the winter, they might be useful, for they will Storks @^ Cranes 247 uproot a large bed of geraniums in double-quick time. They are better at this kind of work than at plant- ing anything. When I first had my native companions, they worked away splendidly at some begonia beds, but unfortunately their zeal and labour was mistaken, for it happened to be in June. They may have been like we were in childish days : anxious to see whether the plants were rooting nicely ! And so my cranes were politely shown the garden gate, which was carefully closed behind them. For the future they had to be content with digging up bits of turf in the rougher grass of the park. The Stanley crane of South Africa is extremely quaint and graceful, with its pearl-grey plumage, its curious puffed head, and its elongated feathers of the wing, which almost touch the ground. Then there is the crowned crane (balearic) of the northern region of Ethiopia, with its wonderful buff-coloured shaving-brush on the back of its head, and rich chestnut of the secondaries of the wings, set off by the white of the wing coverts, and dark grey of the other parts. It was, I think, a crane of this species that was taken by Colonel Smith-Dorrien from the com- pound of tJie Khalifa's house in Omdurman, after the great battle of 1898, and sent to Tresco Abbey. The demoiselle is the smallest of the family. A crane often seen in the beautiful Japanese drawings Storks f^ Cranes 248 is the " tan-cho " — a very handsome bird with grey plumage and white on the back of the neck and throat ; the wing-quills and tail being black. As far as food goes, cranes are more convenient to keep than storks and herons of different kinds, as the latter need animal food, such as cut up rats, liver, greaves, &c. — not always pleasant, especially in hot weather ; whereas the cranes will do well on large grain, pieces of bread, and soaked dog biscuit. Flamingoes are beautiful in a collection of the larger waders, but are more difficult to keep in health ; for they need shrimps to a certain extent, but boiled rice will suit them as a staple diet. One of the most wonderful sights in wild bird life is a flock of flamingoes, with their delicate rosy plumage, and long spindle legs of pale pink, as they stand in soldier-like ranks in the shallows of some mud flat or lake. As one steams along the Suez Canal it is an inspiring sight. One morning the early light of an Eastern dawn was breaking in through my open port-hole ; and, rising from my berth, the delicious air of the desert blew refreshingly into one's lungs. The whole sky was of a pale golden yellow, deepening to rose colour, where the sun was about to rise, but of a clear transparent smalt blue towards the west. A pearly grey and gold light shimmered over the sand and the shallow waters of the great lake, which verges on the banks of the Canal. In the deliciously clear atmosphere a long line of flamingoes, with their necks and legs outstretched, Storks ^ Cranes 249 flapped over the still surface of the waters ; their pink forms reflected in the mirror beneath them. Their loud gaggling cries sounded weirdly in the stillness of this beautiful dawn. Then the sun rose, mounting rapidly above the horizon, and in a moment flooded the scene in a glory of bright gold ; whilst the stars, which had to the last scintillated and shone where the sky still carried the blue tints of night, now paled and went out in the presence of a greater glory. And as the rays struck over the earth's surface, they lit up the ranks of flamingoes as they stood like companies drawn up in battle array, in uniforms of rosy pink. In the farther distance, what seemed to be a row of one-storied Eastern houses made of plaster, painted a pale saffron yellow, and built apparently in the middle of the great stretch of waters, was a large flock of pelicans, as it proved to be on closer examination through my glasses. The atmosphere caused them to look even larger than they really were, and they were sitting com- pactly gathered together in a great company ; pro- ducing the effect described. The golden light shone on their white breasts. Once a great company flew overhead, as we sailed up the Nile in a Dahabeah, when the sun was setting below marvellous ruby-red clouds, flecked over a sky of clearest sea-green. And again the sun's rays shone on the pelicans' breasts, as backed in the east by a sky of deep blue, which was tinged with the shades of approaching night, the great boat-billed birds flapped 250 Storks ^ Cranes high above us in wonderful riband-like lines, which waved and undulated like some giant pennon of black and amber. Or else it might have been a monstrous serpent of the air, so closely and evenly did each individual bird keep its place behind the one immediately in front of it. Yet the whole company waved continually as it moved ; at one moment the black pinions darkening the line ; at another their white breasts, amber- coloured in the light of the setting sun, flashing out. And so they wended their way towards the radi- ance of the western sky, as if unwilling to allow the shades of night to overtake them. # Such a radiancy of glory, Shining in the west, Telling us the welcome story Of the final rest ; And the^ rising on the morrow Of the sun's glad light, Promises that pain and sorrow Pass away with night. INDEX PAGE AUVERGNE ...... . 60 „ peasants ..... . 64 Aviary, in conservatory .... • 197 „ in garden ..... ■ 199 • Bank Holiday trippers, desecration of the beautiful by • "5 Bird-catchers, Whitechapel .... . 211 „ on Continent . • 213 Birds, illnesses of . 190 „ kept dirtily • 195 „ usefulness of insect-eating . 85 „ lecture on • 87 „ slaughter on Nile • 239 Blackcap . 16 Black Stork . • 236 Blue Tits, in cage . 125 Boxes, nesting 6, 204 Budgerigar • 177 Bullfinch . 18 Cages, cleaning of . • 193 Canistra, offering of birds at . . 221 Capri .... . 218 Cleanliness of food, &c. 88, 188, 191 Cranes, Egyptian frescoes of . . 240 „ Australian . 241 the Khalifa's . • 247 „ Manchurian . . 246 „ slaughter of . . 241 „ Stanley • 247 252 Index Cockatoos Como, Lake of 170 45 Dehr-el-Bahari, temple of . Dove, Turtle- Dovedale, Ouzels at . 44, 240 • 223 . no Egg-collecting Egrets, destruction of. 209 207 Flamingos, Suez. Canal Flycatcher, nesting of 248 5- Garden, ponds in Golden Oriole Guillemot Gulls, assumption of plumage , 22 • 133 • 144 134, 160 Herons, Buff-backed Hoopoes, in British Isles „ Cairo House Martins, nesting of ■ 239 25, 40, 140 ■ 32 II Insectivorous Food Company Lories 93 174 Macaws Manx Shearwater Nesting-boxes Nestlings, travelling with New Zealand Parakeet as pet Nightingale, nesting of „ tame in garden . I«2 • 139 6, 204 . 66 . 181 . 80 . 81 Index ^53 Oriole, Golden .... PAGE Ouzels, Ring ..... iio, 117 „ nest of Water- . 112 Owl, Short-eared .... 21 Owls ..... 20 Oyster-Catcher .... • 157 „ rearing of . ■ 159 Parakeets, desirable for aviaries • 179 Parrot, Grey, as talkers . . . 165 „ Amazon .... . 169 „ House, Zoological Gardens . . 180 Parrots, treatment of . . 185 Passer a Solitaria .... . 42 Pelicans ..... . 249 Petrel, nesting of Storm- . 141 „ egg of Storm- .... • 143 Phalarope, Red-necked . 209 Pionus, Bronze-winged . 172 Plumage, assimilation to surroundings . 59, 133 Puffin, change of beak sheath . . 138 „ nesting of . • 135 Quails, on board ship • 37 „ cruelty to . . 225 Rock Thrush, escape of . . 70 „ „ Lugano • 57 Sea-Anemones, beauty of . • 130 Seal, stalking of ... . • 149 Shama, purchase of . . 91 „ food for . ^. 94 Stork, Black ..... '• 236 „ White, in British Isles . 228 „ „ homing instinct of . 229 „ „ spring migration from Egypt . • 235 ^54 Index Thrush, Blue Rock .... „ Pied Rock .... Tits ...... Turquoisine, hand-reared Virginian Nightingale, freedom in garden . „ „ rearing young by hand Waders, aviary for . Wagtail, Blue-headed „ Grey „ Pied, nesting of Waxbills Wren, nesting of Wrens^ Golden-crested, nesting of „ „ in Heligoland „ „ rearing of 42 57 125 176 181 107 162 217 49 8 198 16 120 124 121 THE END Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson 55* Co. Edinburgh is" London UBORATORY OF ORNITHMjOGX CORNELL UNIVERSITY ITHACA, NEH YORK ^ iiliii: