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A gentleman in this neighbourhood had two milk-white rooks in one nest. A booby of a carter, finding them before they were able to fly, threw them down and destroyed them, to the regret of the owner, who would have been glad to have preserved such a curiosity in his rookery. I saw the birds myself nailed against the end of a barn, and was surprised to find that their bills, legs, feet, and claws were milk-white.

A shepherd saw, as he thought, some white larks on a down above my house this winter: were not these the emberiza nivalis, the snow-flake of the Brit. Zool. ? No doubt they were.*

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A few years ago I saw a cock bullfinch in a cage, which had been caught in the fields after it was come to its full colours. In about a year it began to look dingy; and, blackening every succeeding year, it became coal-black at the end of four.

Its

(mustela foina), now extremely rare in the south-eastern counties, and the yellow-breasted marten (mustela martes), which is chiefly found in Wales and Scotland, being everywhere an inhabitant of wilder and more elevated districts than the other.-ED.

Snow-flecks (plectrophanes nivalis of modern naturalists) are but very rarely observed south of the metropolis, even in severe winters. They are visitants from the extreme north, lively and interesting birds, allied to the buntings, being modifications of that form, approximating in several particulars toward the larks, that can either run like the one or hop like the other, but which in general use the former mode of progression, having the hind claw lengthened as in the lark genus, though not (in the common and typical species) to such an extent. The wing is differently formed from either, being more pointed, and not exhibiting any elongation of the tertiary feathers, as is more or less the case with all the members of both those genera. In the countries where they breed, they are said to sing upon the wing like larks, though I should suspect, from the diverse shape of the organs of flight, not exactly in the same manner. Here they are very gregarious, frequenting the open country, and are never seen to perch--at least upon trees, which however they do with perfect facility in confinement. They are restless, seldom remaining long in one situation, fly rather swiftly, and like starlings in a compact body, and "frequently before settling on the ground," as is well remarked by Mr. Selby, "they make sudden wheels, coming almost in collision with each other, at which time a peculiar guttural note is produced." Their call-note is pleasing (a sort of chee-urt), and is often repeated during their flight. They are hardy and healthy birds in captivity, but do not moult well, and in the cage are always remarkably uneasy and restless during the night, at which time their peculiar shrill call-note is often uttered. "Their song," as Bechsteen correctly observes, "would be rather agreeable, were it not interrupted in a peculiar manner: it is a warbling mingled with some high noisy notes, descending slowly from shrill to deep, and a little strong and broken whistling." They are fond of bathing, or rather of sprinkling themselves with water, but their piumage being very close and thick, adapted to a cold climate, does not readily become wet.

chief food was hemp-seed. Such influence has food on the colour of animals!* The pied and mottled colours of domesticated animals are supposed to be owing to high, various, and unusual food.t

I had remarked, for years, that the root of the cuckoopint (arum) was frequently scratched out of the dry banks of hedges, and eaten in severe snowy weather. After observing, with some exactness, myself, and getting others to do the same, we found it was the thrush kind that searched it out. The root of the arum is remarkably warm and pungent.

Our flocks of female chaffinches have not yet forsaken us. The blackbirds and thrushes are very much thinned down by the fierce weather in January.

In the middle of February I discovered, in my tall Cuckoo-pint. hedges, a little bird that raised my curiosity: it was of that yellowgreen colour that belongs to the salicaria kind, and, I think, was softbilled. It was no parus; and was too long and too big for the golden-crowned wren, appearing most like the largest willowwren. It hung sometimes with its back downwards, but never

They are difficult to tame. Another species, the lark-heeled snow-fleck (P. lapponica), which approximates still more towards the lark genus, has lately occurred two or three times in this country (once in Sussex), and may be looked for among the heaps of dead larks which are every winter exposed for sale in the markets; it is said to sing very like a linnet.-ED.

Many species of small birds are liable to be thus affected by feeding much upon hemp-seed; among others, the field-lark and the wood-lark, but none perhaps so readily as the alp, or "bullfinch" (pyrrhula vulgaris). Still it would appear that this diet is only a predisposing, not the real cause of this change of colour, for I have known the small tropical amandavat (amandava punctata? mihi, fringilla amandava Linnæus), of the bird-shops, to become wholly black when fed entirely on Canary-seed.-ED.

†The resemblance of most animals to the general hue of their indigenous locality is almost too obvious to need exemplification. The wood-snipe is of the exact tint of the dead leaves over which it runs, the snipe that of the marsh, and the rail that of coarse and decaying vegetation in the ditch: "the ptarmigan," observes Mr. Mudie, and he might have added the mountain-hare (lepus montanus), "is lichened rock in summer, hoar frost in autumn, and snow in winter; grouse (red ptarmigan) are brown heather, black-game are peat-bank and shingle, and partridges are clods and withered stalks the whole year round." A provision of course intended to furnish them with some means of eluding the piercing ken of their winged enemies. When creatures are taken from their particular natural haunts, a disposition, in the next generation, to vary in hue is commonly evinced more or less, according to the species; efforts, as it were, of nature to accommodate the offspring to the change; and so remarkable is this in some species, that the breeders of white and pied pheasants declare that albino or mettled individuals may almost always be raised from an ordinarily coloured pair, by merely confining the latter in a room whitewashed, or splashed with whitening. Cattle have a great disposition to associate in pairs, so much so that graziers are well aware that oxen will rarely fatten, unless stalled in winter next to their favourite companion; and it has been observed that a cow's first calf much more frequently resembles its female companion than it does the sire, however different in colour these may be. To fo..ow out this subject in its various bearings, would far exceed the limits of a note, but I may here further observe, in conclusion, that, were Jacob's curious experiments to be tried agaiu at the present day, they would doubtless be attended with very similar results.-ED.

continuing one moment in the same place. I shot at it, but it was so desultory that I missed my aim.*

I wonder that the stone curlew, charadrius adicnemus,† should be mentioned by the writers as a rare bird: it abounds in all the champaign parts of Hampshire and Sussex, and breeds I think all the summer, having young ones, I know, very late in the autumn. Already they begin clamouring in the evening. They cannot, I think, with any propriety, be called, as they are by Mr. Ray, "circa aquas versantes;" for with us, by day at least, they haunt only the most dry, open, upland fields and sheep-walks, far removed from water: what they may do in the night I cannot say. Worms are their usual food, but they also eat toads and frogs.‡

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European Thicknee.

I can show you some good specimens of my new mice. Linnæus perhaps would call the species mus minimus.

LETTER XVI. To T. PENNANT, Esq.

DEAR SIR,

Selborne, April 18, 1768. THE history of the stone curlew, charadrius ædicnemus, is as follows. It lays its eggs, usually two, never more than three, on the bare ground, without any nest, in the field; so that the countryman, in stirring his fallows, often destroys them. The young run immediately from the egg like partridges, &c., and are withdrawn to some flinty field by the dam, where they

I know of no kind that will correspond altogether with this description. It certainly was not that lovely-plumaged species, the bearded pinnock (calamophilus biarmicus), as captain Brown strangely imagines, in his edition of this work, for that bird has no "yellow-green colour" about it: nor would it appear to be either of the summer warblers, the time of the year precluding this supposition; besides which, none of them ever hang with the back downwards. By the term salicaria, Mr. White evidently intends the pettychaps, or "willow-wren" genus (sylvia, as now limited), and not the reedlings, or "aquatic warblers," which in modern nomenclature are designated by that name.-ED.

+ European thicknee, adicnemvs Europaus.-ED.

↑ Likewise small mammifers, which the bustards, also, and the different poultry tribes, are not very scrupulous about swallowing, the common fowl being quite an adept at catching mice. Sir W. Jardine has even taken a field-mouse from the stomach of a meadow-crake, or "land. Fail" (crer pratensis). In the stomachs of the adicnemi I have chiefly found the remains of various beetles.-ED.

sculk among the stones, which are their best security; for their feathers are so exactly of the colour of our grey spotted flints, that the most exact observer, unless he catches the eye of the young bird, may be eluded. The eggs are short and round; of a dirty white, spotted with dark bloody botches. Though I might not be able, just when I pleased, to procure you a bird, yet I could shew you them almost any day; and any evening you may hear them round the village, for they make a clamour which may be heard a mile. Oedicnemus is a most apt and expressive name for them, since their legs seem swoln like those of a gouty man. After harvest I have shot them before the pointers in turnip-fields.* I make no doubt but there are three species of the willow-wrens: two I know perfectly; but have not been able yet to procure the third. No two birds can differ more in their notes, and that constantly, than those two that I am acquainted with; for the one has a joyous, easy, laughing note; the other a harsh loud chirp. The former is every way larger, and three-quarters of an inch longer, and weighs two drams and a half; while the latter weighs but two: so the songster is one-fifth heavier than the chirper. The chirper (being the first summer-bird of passage that is heard, the wryneck sometimes excepted) begins his two notes in the middle of March, and continues them through the spring and summer till the end of August, as appears by my journals. The legs of the larger of these two are flesh-coloured; of the less, black..

The grasshopper-lark began his sibilous note in my fields last Saturday. Nothing can be more amusing than the whisper of this little bird, which seems to be close by though at a hundred yards distance; and, when close at your ear, is scarce any louder than when a great way off. Had I not been a little acquainted with in

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Willow Wren.

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It is only the young of the year which have the upper part of the tarse so much swollen, as is the case indeed with the young of all running birds. This species is very rarely found exceptng on chalk, though I know of one instance of an immature bird having been shot on the "New red sand-stone" stratum, in Worcestershire, which, from its youth, must evidently have been bred in the neighbourhood. In Surrey they occur every where upon the chalky lands; I have nad specimens from Banstiad downs.-ED.

sects, and known that the grasshopper kind is not yet hatched, I should have hardly believed but that it had been a locusta whispering in the bushes. The country people laugh when you tell them that it is the note of a bird. It is a most artful creature, sculking in the thickest part of a bush ; and will sing at a yard distance, provided it be concealed. I was obliged to get a person to go on the other side of the hedge where it haunted; and then it would run, creeping like a mouse, before us for an hundred yards together, through the bottom of the thorns; yet it would not come into fair sight: but in a morning early, and when undisturbed, it sings on the top of a twig, gaping and shivering with its wings.* Mr. Ray

This curious species, the brake-locustelle (salicaria locustella dumeticola), is known in Surrey by the appellations "cricket-bird" and "rattlesnake-bird" both far more expressive than the commonly received name in the books, "grasshopper-warbler." It is not rare (as has been said) within a few miles of the metropolis; but may generally be found amid the furze and tangled bushes upon heaths and commons, often where the former is clipped, and stunted, and intermingled with hassocky tufts of grass. Sometimes, too, I have noticed it in woods, and occasionally in broad tangled hedges; but its principal habitat is upon open and extensive furze-brakes, where it by no means particularly affects (as some have said) the lower and more damp situations, as I have repeatedly found it in the dryest places. An allied species, the salicaria-locustella fluviatilis, frequents more the margins of streams and rivulets (like the true reedlings), and is common along the reedy banks of the Danube; and I much suspect that a third will be found to exist in the sylvia certhiola of Temminck's Manuel, but this I have not seen. Neither of the latter are found in Britain. They differ in many respects from the typical salicaria, or reedlings) with which they have commonly been associated), particularly in the structure of the feet and claws, which are peculiar. The wings are shorter and more rounded, the tail longer, more cuneiform, and flexile, and the rictus is without the array of bristles which in those birds is rather conspicuous. The markings of the plumage also are of a distinct character, somewhat approximating to those of the pipits and other ground birds, whence, indeed (the rather lengthened hind claw being also taken into consideration), we find Mr. White and other naturalists of the last generation styling our British bird a lark, from which genus it is widely removed. Our species has no note but the very singular one mentioned in the text (which that of fluviatilis resembles), and which, like the characteristic chattering song of the true reedlings, may be heard at all times of the night, but is chiefly emitted in the morning and evening, when all is quiet around. It is a very peculiar, continuous, sibilant kind of thrill, beginning always very low, and becoming in about a minute loud enough to be heard at a considerable distance, at which time, whenever the bird turns its head, a sort of ventriloquizing effect is produced, as is likewise observed in the meadow crake and various other species that utter similar rattling or croaking sounds. It is a remarkably shy and bidling bird, at least during the breeding season, and at times is very difficult to obtain a sight of; but in early spring, before pairing, it may be noticed at any hour of the day perched conspicuously on one of the highest twigs of a bush, shivering and thrilling most pertinaciously. I have never seen one rise upon the wing, but a correspondent of the Magazine of Natural History for February, 1836, observes of several that he saw" among the furze and bramble-bushes, on the extensive bed of shingle in the neighbourhood of Eastbourne, on the Sussex coast, in July and August," that "they were then in moult, but uttered their usual sibilant cry. I often heard them in the afternoon. They did not appear peculiarly shy; on the contrary, when disturbed, they frequently rose into the air, hovering over my head, and at the same time repeating their cricket-like note. I might have shot a considerable number, as they often perched, several together, on the tops of the bushes. In the last week in August, I observed one cast on shore by the waves This had probably been overtaken in its attempt at migration by a contrary wind which accompanied a thunder-storm, and, unable to withstand the tempest, had yielded to its fury," The last is interesting, as showing that they leave the country at the period when their crv first ceases to be heard; it having been supposed by Mr. Selby and others that they remained for some time longer silent among the bushes. The nest is situated within the closet furze or

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