If Requiring .Special 
 
 Books 
 Send Me Your Wants. 
 
 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 
OUR BIRD FRIENDS 
 
RE FLECTIONS. 
 
"IT'S MY TURN NOW, BROTHER BILLY" (PAGES.) 
 
OUR BIRD FRIENDS 
 
 A BOOK FOR ALL BOYS AND GIRLS 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD KEARTON, F.Z.S. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA," "WiT.u LIKE AT HOMK 
 ETC. ETC. 
 
 WITH ONE HUNDRED ORIGINAL ILLUSTRATIONS FROM 
 PHOTOGRAPHS BY 
 
 C. KEARTON 
 
 CASSELL AND COMPANY, LIMITED 
 
 LONDON, PARIS, NEW YORK & MELBOURNE 
 1900 
 
 ALL BIGHTS RESERVED 
 
.BIOLOGY 
 
TO 
 THE LITTLE NATURALIST 
 
 WHO 
 TRIED TO CATCH 
 
 A 
 WILY OLD SPARROW 
 
 WITH 
 A PINCH OF SALT 
 
 yj / 
 
 fr^T? 
 
 AT x^^^- 
 
 T 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 I HAVE always been a lover of birds. Their sweet 
 songs and interesting habits were the chief charm 
 of my boyhood's days, and still continue to give me 
 unalloyed pleasure. 
 
 When quite a tiny toddler, I used to sit on my 
 grandfather's knee, and listen open-mouthed to the 
 old man's wonderful stories about our feathered 
 friends, and clap my hands with glee whenever he 
 imitated the cries of Owls and Peewits for me. As 
 a special treat he used to make up cunning little- 
 rhymes about birds exchanging their nests, in order 
 to show me what a world of confusion would be 
 likely to arise out of species of different habits trying 
 to manage each other's affairs. He was a lover of 
 all living things, and I never heard of his trying to 
 shoot a bird but once, and that single attempt, 
 curiously enough, ended only in a great smashing 
 of crockery. It came about in this way. An im- 
 pudent and troublesome Carrion Crow alighted in 
 a row of trees in front of his house, and he took my 
 father's single-barrelled gun from its moorings along- 
 side a beam in the old farm kitchen. The piece 
 and my grandfather being strangers to each other, 
 so to speak, it went off bang before he had time to 
 leave the house, and broke every plate in the oak 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 crockery rack save such as were of pewter and 
 stood shining in the bottom row. 
 
 There was no house along the whole countryside 
 more beloved by the Martins than my grandfather's, 
 and scarcely a foot of eave with a southern aspect 
 was without its tiny dwelling of baked mud. The 
 old man delighted to be awakened at the first peep 
 of day by the happy little birds twittering joyously 
 in their nests, but not so his woman servant Jane, 
 who railed loudly against " the dirty things," when- 
 ever a heavy thunder shower brought a nest to the 
 ground, and spread the moistened clay over the clean 
 stone flags whereon she used to sweeten her milk pails 
 in the wind and sun. 
 
 It was not long before I knew where to find the nest 
 of every species breeding in our neighbourhood, and 
 to distinguish the cry of any feathered friend almost 
 as soon as it was uttered. Then a terrible calamity 
 befell me. I was climbing a wall one day, a thing 
 I often did from sheer lightness of heart and over- 
 flowing spirits, when I fell and broke my hip. This 
 accident confined me to the house for many weary 
 months, but no sooner had I got out on a pair of 
 crutches than I was collecting all the nice clean 
 feathers round our fowlhouse and dropping them over 
 the side of an old stone bridge that crossed our 
 moorland stream just where it plunged through a 
 rocky defile, in order that the Swallows, skimming 
 like shadows over the surface of the chattering beck 
 below, might catch and carry them away to line their 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 nests with. And rare good fun it was. I greatly en- 
 joyed the sport; and I am quite sure the birds were 
 delighted. They hardly ever missed a feather, and 
 they seemed to like little curly ones off white Ducks 
 the best of all. 
 
 In the pages of this little book I have endeavoured 
 to arouse and encourage such an interest in my 
 young readers as my dear old grandfather kindled 
 in me. They will enjoy a great advantage over me 
 in being able, through the achievements of my 
 brother's camera, to examine accurate pictures of 
 the birds living, loving, and labouring amidst their 
 natural surroundings. 
 
 The work in no way pretends to be anything in 
 the nature of a scientific treatise, but rather a chatty, 
 though, so far as care and pains can make it, accurate 
 little volume dealing Avith just such phases of bird 
 life as are likely to attract attention and, I hope, set 
 my readers observing and inquiring for themselves. 
 
 For valuable assistance most ungrudgingly given 
 in the preparation of the book we have to ex- 
 press our grateful thanks to Cameron of Lochiel ; 
 the Rev. M. C. H. Bird, of Stalham ; Mr. Walpole 
 Green well, of Harden Park; Mr. J. Whitaker, of 
 Mansfield; Mr. H. A. Paynter, of Alnwick; Messrs. 
 Charles and Frank Rutley, of Birchwood ; Mr. G. 
 Armstrong, of Tillingdown : Mr. James Woollen, of 
 Horley; Mr. John Harker, of Nutfield; Mr. James 
 Alderson, of Potts Valley, and many other friends 
 and bird-lovers throughout the country. 
 
x PREFACE. 
 
 A great store of interesting knowledge may be 
 gained without collecting a single bird's egg, nest, or 
 skin, and I hope that every reader of this book will 
 do all in his or her power to promote kindness to 
 birds and prevent them from being robbed of their 
 little treasures in the spring-time. 
 
 I am very sorry to say that many country boys 
 are guilty of thoughtlessly smashing birds' eggs, and 
 some even of the unspeakable cruelty of killing little 
 baby chicks, and barring up with stones mother birds 
 brooding in holes in trees and banks, and leaving 
 them to starve to death. Such conduct is a dis- 
 grace to any British bo}^, whether he be the son of 
 prince or peasant, and one would like to ask those 
 who do such things what they would think of a 
 giant who treated them in a similar manner. Not 
 long ago a gentleman in Suffolk came upon a boy 
 beating a small brown object in the middle of a 
 turnpike lane with a stick, and exclaiming after 
 each blow, " I'll larn you for being a toad ! " He 
 taught that lad a lesson by applying his stick 
 vigorously to his back, and exclaiming at each 
 stroke, " I'll larn you for being a boy ! " 
 
 Let us not forget that the weakest living thing 
 on the face of the earth has its rights, and that it is 
 both wicked and cowardly of us to abuse our 
 superiority of mind or body over inoffensive members 
 of the brute creation. 
 
 R K. 
 
 CATERHAM VALLEY, SURREY. 
 October, 1900. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, AND SUPPER. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 What the World would be like without Birds Their Uses in 
 Keeping down Insects How Nature Provides for Birds 
 A Birds' Restaurant in Winter Cheeky Charlie and No-Tail 
 Johnny The Blue Tit and the Kestrel Hawk Selfishness 
 of Robin Redbreasts - The Industrious Starling Town Birds' 
 Ignorance of Rural Things Wise and Foolish Rooks How 
 Privation Spoils Birds' Morals -How Sea-Gulls Feed 
 Birds that Live upon Flies Why Birds Put their Heads 
 on One Side Birds that Catch Fish Birds that Prey on 
 other Birds Differences between Individual Birds of the 
 same Species What Owls Like Skuas : the Robbers of the 
 Air Curious Accidents to Birds in Catching their Prey . 1 
 
 'CHAPTER II. 
 SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 
 
 The Author's Delight at Finding his First Bird's-nest 
 Some Birds better Nest-builders than others of the same 
 Species Instances of Birds Departing from Nesting Rules 
 Wise and Foolish, Idle and Industrious Birds Feathered 
 Thieves Birds that Take in Lodgers 'Non-Gregarious 
 Birds that Dwell Together Ancestral Homes of Birds 
 Nests in Curious Situations Strange Materials used for 
 Nests Accidents to Nest-builders Birds that never Build 
 Nests for Themselves Prudent Birds that Build Spare 
 Nests Ground-building Birds The Cock Sparrow and 
 the Fighling Roosters 32 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS (continued}. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Open-topped Nests The Artfulness of the Carrion Crow 
 Covered Nests Diggers of Tunnels and Pits The Wicked 
 Boy who Stopped up Sand-Martins' Nesting Holes --Builders 
 in Holes in Trees, Rocks, Walls, and Banks Birds that 
 Hiss when their Nests are Molested Birds that Cover their 
 Eggs when Leaving their Nests Biids that it is Difficult 
 to See The Eider Duck on her Nest Birds that do with- 
 out Nests More Exceptions to Nesting Rules Differences 
 in Egg-shells Sizes of Eggs Shape as Tending to Pre- 
 servation Colour and Markings Number of Eggs Laid 
 by Birds of Different Species The Cuckoo and its Eggs 
 Incubation ...... .... 56 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 YOUNG : HOW THEY ARE FED AND PROTECTED. 
 
 How Chicks of Various Species Differ Chicks that are 
 Covered with Down and those that are not The Baby 
 Oyster- Catcher that had a Great Fall The First Week in 
 the Life of a Baby Blackbird" Me Won't Sit ! "- Oyster- 
 Catchers Watching over their Chicks Wiles of Parent 
 Birds to Decoy Intruders from their Young Bravery of 
 Birds in Defending their Young Daring Ducklings How 
 Parent Birds Work to Support their Families A Tit-bit 
 for Mother Young Rooks Learning to Forage for Them- 
 selves Wasteful Birds Times of Plenty A Welcome 
 Home for Mother and Father What Young Birds do when 
 they Leave Home The Cuckoo and its Bad Habits . . 92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 THE WONDERS OF FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 
 
 Man's Attempts to Fly A Feather under the Microscope 
 Stages of Growth Feathers of a Common Curlew How 
 
CONTENTS. xiii 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Feathers are Adapted to the Habits of Birds "Why the 
 Gannet is not Harmed when it Falls upon Water Tail 
 Feathers : Effect of Use and Disuse Difference between 
 an Owl's and a Wood Pigeon's Feathers The Trouble 
 Birds take with their Feathers Moulting, Complete and 
 Partial A Thing that is Best Done when Half Done- 
 Birds that Wear Stockings in Winter Shape of Flight 
 Feathers Shapes and Sizes of Wings Rates at which 
 Different Species Beat their Wings How Birds use the 
 Wind to Fly Upwards Shapes their Wings Assume in 
 Flight How they Alight The Tail Feathers Noises 
 Made by Wings Wonders of Bird Migration . . .136 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 WONDERFUL CALLS AND SONG-NOTES. 
 
 Sight and Sound Cheered by a Sparrow's Chirping Why 
 Birds Sing Where the Music is Made A Ludicrous Per- 
 formance How Birds Learn to Sing Timing a "Skylark's 
 Vocal Exercises Singing Competitions among Chaffinches 
 The Phonograph's Record of Thrushes' Songs Black- 
 birds as A T ocalists The Times when Birds Begin to Sing 
 in the Morning and Cease to Sing in the Evening The 
 Nightingale The Sedge Warbler The Grasshopper 
 Warbler Ventriloquial Birds The Nightjar Peewits 
 The Common Snipe and its Weird Sound What a Cuckoo 
 says when he is Angry Frightened to Death by a Tawny 
 Owl's Hooting Birds that Sing Borrowed Songs : the 
 Starling, the Sedge Warbler, the Marsh Warbler, the Robin, 
 the House Sparrow, the Red-backed Shrike The Black- 
 cap Warbler Bird Language Birds that Act as Sentinels 
 Call Notes The Red GrouseThe? Long-tailed Tit- Call 
 Notes that Resemble Other Sounds Baby Birds that Recog- 
 nise the Call Notes of their Parents Birds that Require 
 Corroborative Evidence . . . .167 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 " It's my turn now, Brother Billy " . . . . Frontispiece. 
 A Feast for Birds : Hawthorn Berries ..... 5 
 
 Young Blue Tit Waiting to be Fed 7 
 
 Ivy Berries ........... 8 
 
 Greenfinches Eating Sunflower Seeds 9 
 
 Blue Tit Feeding on Suspended Kernel of Nut . . . .10 
 Song Thrush on Hummock of Snow . . . . . .12 
 
 A Robin Waiting for his Breakfast 13 
 
 Starlings Feeding in Winter . . . . . . .14 
 
 Cock Sparrow Ready for Dinner . . . . . .10 
 
 1, An Edible Snail. 2, Snail with Broken Shell Repaired. 3, Shell 
 
 after Snail has been Eaten . . . . . . .17 
 
 Snipe's Bill 20 
 
 Peregrine Falcon's Beak 21 
 
 An Experiment in the Transmission of Sound . . . .22 
 
 Some Snails that British Birds Eat 24 
 
 Wild Cherry Stones Dropped by Birds and Collected by a Mouse 27 
 Gamekeeper's Daughter Feeding Wild Chaffinch . . .29 
 Food which Birds Love : Blackberries in Early Autumn . . 31 
 Great Crested Grebe's and Coot's Nests . . . . .37 
 
 Dipper's Nest in Tree . .41 
 
 Waterhen's Nest on Cart Spring .45 
 
 Heron's Nest Made of Wire . 48 
 
 Blackbird's Nest in Wire 49 
 
 Waterhen's Spare Nest .53 
 
 Linnet's Nest .......... 57 
 
 Tree Pipit's Nest Hidden in Grass 58 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv 
 
 J'AGE 
 
 The same Nest Uncovered by the Photographer .... 59 
 
 Long-tailed Tit and Nest .\ . - 63 
 
 Great Spotted Woodpecker's Nesting Holes . . 65 
 
 Starling Going to Nesting Hole in Rick 67 
 
 Great Crested Grebe's Nest with Eggs Covered by Parents . 68 
 
 The same Nest with Eggs Uncovered 69 
 
 1, Eider Duck's Nest with Eggs Uncovered. 2, Eider Duck on 
 
 Nest. 3, Eider Duck's Nest with Eggs Covered with Down 72 
 
 Waterhen's Nest in Reeds 74 
 
 Waterhen's Nest in Brambles . . . . " . . .75 
 
 Fulmar Petrel's Egg 78 
 
 Smallest and Largest British Birds' Eggs 80 
 
 Raven's and Common Curlew's Eggs 80 
 
 Song Thrush's Eggs 82 
 
 Blackbird's Eggs 82 
 
 Yellow Hammer's Nest containing Dwarf Egg .... 83 
 
 Eggs of Guillemot and Tawny Owl 84 
 
 Peewit's Eggs, (1) with Pointed Ends In, (2) with Pointed Ends 
 
 Out . .85 
 
 Ringed Plover's Eggs as Laid 88 
 
 Starling's Eggs in the same Nesting Place ..... 89 
 
 Young Peewit Standing 94 
 
 Young Peewit Crouching 95 
 
 Baby Curlew 96 
 
 Young Curlew Hiding .97 
 
 The First Week in a Baby Blackbird's Life .... 9i 
 Female Blackcap Sitting on Nest Full of Young . . .101 
 Arctic Tern Guarding Her Nest . . . . . . .104 
 
 A Missel Thrush at Nest 109 
 
 In Dreamland 114 
 
 " Who said Mice ?" 115 
 
 Merlin's Nest, with Newly-hatched Chick 119 
 
 Gannet and Young . . . . . . . . .123 
 
 Young Crested Tits .127 
 
 Male Bearded Tit Feeding Young 129 
 
 Kitti wake and Young . 131 
 
 " Where on Earth has Mother Gone ? " 132 
 
xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A Baby Jackdaw's First Peep into the World . . . .135 
 Proper Feather and Down of Young Chick . . . . 137 
 
 Young Chaffinch 139 
 
 Young Common Gulls. . . . . . . . .140 
 
 Young Robin . . . .141 
 
 Curlew's Feathers . . . . . . . . .143 
 
 After-shaft Feathers of Various Birds . . . . .145 
 
 Breast Feathers of Heron and Gannet . . . . .146 
 
 Tail Quill of Great Spotted Woodpecker and of Corncrake. . 147 
 
 Flight Feather of Swift and of Partridge 147 
 
 Flight Feather of Owl and of Pigeon 151 
 
 Heron on the Wing 156 
 
 Sea Gulls on the Thames Embankment . . . . .159 
 Sandwich Terns on the Wing . . . . . . .161 
 
 Osprey Alighting on Dead Stump .163 
 
 Enjoying a Cool Bath 166 
 
 Lesser Black-backed Gulls . 170 
 
 Young Song Thrush . . . 175 
 
 Cock Chaffinch 177 
 
 Lark on Ground 183 
 
 Blackbird " Wetting its Whistle" after a Song . . . .189 
 
 Willow Wren .192 
 
 A Nightingale in its Bower 199 
 
 "Caw, Caw, Caw !" 205 
 
OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, AND SUPPER. 
 
 What the World would be like without Birds Their Uses in 
 keeping down Insects How Nature Provides for Birds A 
 Bird's Restaurant in Winter Cheeky Charlie and No-Tail 
 Johnny The Blue Tit and the Kestrel Hawk Selfishness of 
 Robin Redbreasts The Industrious Starling Town Birds' 
 Ignorance of Rural Things Wise and Foolish Rooks How 
 Privation Spoils Birds' Morals How Sea-Gulls Feed Birds 
 that Live upon Flies Why Birds Put their Heads on One Side 
 Birds that Catch Fish Birds that Prey on other Birds 
 Differences between Individual Birds of the same Species What 
 Owls Like Skuas : the Robbers of the Air Curious Accidents 
 to Birds in Catching their Prey. 
 
 feeding habits of birds are extremely varied 
 and interesting, and I propose to say some- 
 thing in this chapter about the usefulness of those 
 habits to man as well as to the birds themselves. 
 
 What would the world be like without the fowls of 
 the air ? A desolate and very possibly uninhabitable 
 wilderness; for we should have hardly a leaf upon 
 our trees, a flower in our fields, or a railway train 
 running at certain seasons of the year; and every 
 time we clapped our hands we should feel a distinct 
 B 
 
2 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 layer of winged insects between them. I have seen 
 huge oak trees in England denuded of their leaves 
 by small caterpillars that were hanging by their 
 fine silken threads from every bough, branch, 
 and twig. In America, some years ago, a mighty 
 host of caterpillars bade defiance for days together 
 to a railway train by crossing the line upon 
 which it was advancing in such prodigious numbers 
 that their crushed bodies made the metals too 
 greasy for the engine wheels to grip them, and 'after 
 the contents of the sand-boxes had given out they 
 simply slipped round and round without making 
 any progress. 
 
 In most countries the stock topic of conversation 
 amongst acquaintances is the weather, but in South 
 America, instead of remarking, "It's a fine morning!" 
 they salute each other with some reference to insect 
 life, such as, "How are you with regard to mos- 
 quitoes ? " Humboldt, the great traveller, records the 
 fact that his boatmen got so used to slapping each 
 other's bare backs, in order to drive away the 
 mosquitoes, that the poor fellows used to keep on 
 slapping even whilst they were asleep. I have my- 
 self seen gnats rise in such clouds from tree tops 
 on a sultry summer's evening that they looked like 
 pillars of smoke, and I once witnessed a number of 
 hay harvesters absolutely driven from a field by 
 midgets. Not long ago, I was compelled to aban- 
 don a small row-boat, which I was dragging through 
 some deep heather growing on a piece of land dividing 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 3 
 
 two Highland lochs, because of the torturing agony 
 caused by the attacks of myriads of the same kind 
 of hungry insects. At each footfall they rose in 
 savage clouds, assailing every exposed part of my 
 head and hands, even finding their way into my 
 nostrils and ears, and making me sneeze and shiver 
 in abject misery. It may come as news to some 
 people that workmen, while building houses in the 
 British Isles, have been known to wear veils to 
 protect them from midgets. 
 
 Visitors to Venice in the spring-time notice how 
 numerous the mosquitoes become after the Swallows 
 have left, in the month of May, for their breeding 
 haunts in the north of Europe, and precisely the 
 same thing occurs at the places the birds leave 
 behind them on their return journey south. 
 
 Some years ago, a gentleman calculated that the 
 value of the agricultural produce of the United States 
 in a single year was no less than three thousand eight 
 hundred million dollars, or, in round numbers, seven 
 hundred and sixty million pounds in English money, 
 and that one-tenth, or nearly ten million pounds' 
 worth, was destroyed every year by insects. 
 
 Not long since the Government paid for thirty- 
 five million caterpillars, which weighed no less than 
 thirty-six tons, and were destroying the trees and 
 plantations in Hong Kong Island before the natives 
 were set to work catching them. 
 
 The people of France once made the experiment 
 of doing without birds, but suffered so disastrously 
 
4 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 in consequence that the wise men of the country, 
 after taking a lot of evidence on the subject, gave 
 their verdict that " birds can live without man, but 
 that man cannot live without birds." 
 
 Only last year, the agriculturists in a certain part 
 of Scotland shot hundreds of Rooks on their nests 
 and destroyed thousands of eggs, but this year 
 they have asked that the birds may be left 
 alone on account of the increase of an injurious 
 grub that Rooks are specially useful in destroying. 
 
 Of course, there is no denying that certain species 
 of birds do harm in fields and gardens, especially 
 when they become too numerous, but whilst taking 
 this side of the account into consideration, we must 
 not, in common fairness, overlook the other, namely, 
 the enormous amount of good they do us by devour- 
 ing immense numbers of injurious insects and vast 
 quantities of the seeds of troublesome weeds, without 
 ever once asking for anything in the nature of a 
 reward, except such a measure of peace as will allow 
 them to enjoy their wild free lives in safety. 
 
 It is wonderful how Nature provides for her 
 children. The ripening fruits of autumn come along 
 in such order as to help the birds. First we get 
 bilberries, then rowan- and elder-berries, followed by 
 a great feast of blackberries, to say nothing of several 
 other sorts of wild fruits. When these have all been 
 devoured, millions of hips and haws bedeck our 
 hedgerows with their bright warm colours. Wild 
 fruits differ just as much in their qualities of mellow- 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 5 
 
 ness and flavour as cultivated kinds, and birds are 
 good judges of what is nice and what is not ; indeed, 
 one might almost charge them with daintiness upon 
 occasion. For instance, I know two fine hawthorn 
 
 A FEAST FOR BIRDS : HAWTHORN BERRIES. 
 
 trees growing side by side in Surrey, and during the 
 last two autumns they have both been laden with 
 fruit. Blackbirds and Thrushes pay great attention 
 to one of them, and it is soon bare, whilst the other is 
 left severely alone, and in the spring of last year it 
 had a lot of old fruit still hanging even when the 
 new leaves were on. 
 
6 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 After the hips and haws have been consumed 
 during the late autumn and winter, the mistletoe 
 and ivy seeds ripen between February and April, 
 and afford a plentiful supply of food in many parts 
 of the country before the advent of snails, worms, 
 and all kinds of creeping and winged insects. 
 
 During long, hard winters, when the ground and 
 all its insect life are lying fast asleep beneath a thick 
 blanket of snow, the birds have a very hard time 
 indeed of it, and boys and girls a grand opportunity 
 of bein^ of real service to the hungry little creatures 
 and at the same time enjoying a lot of first-rate 
 fun. 
 
 My little daughters and I turn our garden into a 
 birds' restaurant every winter. We save all our sun- 
 flower heads in the autumn, and directly the snow- 
 flakes commence to fly we take one or two out and 
 tie them to upright sticks fastened to the palings or 
 stuck in the ground, and the Greenfinches are not 
 long in paying us a visit. One will alight on the top 
 of a head and quietly extract seed after seed, cleverly 
 shelling each and dropping the husk to the ground, 
 all the while keeping a sharp look-out for the 
 approach of any marauding cat. If a companion 
 attempts to share the feast, the bird already in 
 possession will at once stretch out his wings and, 
 opening his great conical bill very wide, threaten to 
 swallow the intruder head, tail, legs, feet and all. I 
 know of no bird that can look quite so fierce as an 
 angry Greenfinch. Great Tits are very bold, dashing 
 
YOUNG BLUE TIT WAITING TO HE FED. 
 
8 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 birds, and in spite of all the threats and savage 
 bluff a Greenfinch can summon they will, when- 
 ever it suits their fancy, rush in and, seizing a 
 seed, carry it off from beneath the self-ap- 
 pointed owner's very nose. Occasionally a com- 
 
 IV Y BERRIES 
 
 panion will turn up, and, alighting on the branch 
 below the sunflower, will cock his head on one side 
 in the most comical way, as if asking the bird in 
 possession to throw him down a seed. 
 
 For the Tit family generally we suspend a cocoanut 
 with a piece sawn off either end ; but I am afraid 
 that the members of the Great or Oxeye species do not 
 give the others much in the way of a chance. It is 
 highly amusing to watch them feeding, one at either 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 9 
 
 end, especially when nearly all the kernel has gone. 
 They remind one of two boys trying to get through a 
 barrel from opposite 
 ends during an ob- 
 stacle race. Having 
 thus to work in the 
 dark, after a vigorous 
 peck or two they 
 jerk their heads out 
 to see if anyone is 
 coming. Often one 
 of the birds will get 
 scared by seeing a 
 head bob in at the 
 opposite end of the 
 nut every time he 
 attempts to take a 
 bite, and, jumping 011 
 the top, will begin 
 to chatter and plainly 
 request his brother 
 Billy to look sharp 
 and allow him a 
 
 chance . at his end, as depicted in the frontispiece to 
 this work. 
 
 We were able to recognise one or two members of 
 this species every time they came along. One we 
 christened Cheeky Charlie with the Clean Yellow 
 Waistcoat, because he was much brighter than his 
 fellows, could drive any of them off, and snap his bill 
 
 GREENFINCHES EATING SUNFLOWER 
 SEEDS (;;. 8). 
 
10 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 at an old cock Sparrow or laugh at an angry Green- 
 finch with equal ease. He was a fine strong fellow. 
 Another we named No-Tail Johnny, because he 
 had lost all his tail feathers by some accident. 
 He generally turned up to tea about four o'clock 
 every afternoon. 
 
 As the poor Blue Tits had to shiver round and 
 
 content themselves 
 with an occasional 
 grain of maize snatched 
 from the fowl run, and 
 cleverly hammered to 
 bits on a neighbouring 
 telegraph wire, we had 
 to organise an over- 
 flow table for them. 
 We passed a piece of 
 black cotton thread 
 through the kernel of 
 a Barcelona nut, and 
 then suspended it from 
 a stump. The little 
 chaps seized the dan- 
 gling bit of food with 
 both feet, and then 
 hammered away at it 
 whilst hanging abso- 
 lutely upside down, as 
 
 BLU. m nnn.0 ON SUSPEND sh Wn mtheaccom- 
 
 KERNEL OF NUT. panying picture. 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 11 
 
 Great Tits tried time after time to imitate their 
 lighter brethren, but never once succeeded in main- 
 taining their hold upon the kernel. But one, wiser 
 than the rest, did a much cleverer thing one day. 
 He stood on the stump, and, seizing the thread, 
 hauled it in reef by reef with his bill and feet until 
 he got the kernel to the top, when he held it down 
 and chipped his well-deserved reward off it. 
 
 One day, whilst watching a Blue Tit feeding in my 
 garden, I saw a Kestrel Hawk come hovering over, and 
 directly the wee bird caught sight of him it dashed 
 straight at the window through which I was looking, 
 struck the glass, and fell stunned to the ground. I 
 ran out, secured it, and brought it indoors, where I 
 kept it until consciousness returned, when it occurred 
 to me to make a little experiment on it just to see 
 how far the fright had affected its appetite and nerves. 
 I painted the crown of its head vermilion, so that I 
 might recognise it again, and then released it. To 
 my surprise, the plucky little thing was back again 
 inside of an hour pecking away as merrily as ever. 
 
 For the Thrushes, Blackbirds, Sparrows, and Robins 
 we have a large table made of a hummock of snow, 
 when there is any on the ground, with a hollow 
 in the centre. In this we place soaked dog 
 biscuits, greatly to the delight of all our feathered 
 customers. The Robins, of course, dash in in their 
 own perky way, and commence to help themselves 
 without any kind of ceremony. Not so the sly, 
 suspicious old Sparrows. They sit on garden fence 
 
12 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 and chimney-pot, and talk wisely to each other about 
 cats, traps, nets, and guns, until by-and-by along 
 comes an old mother Thrush, hopping sedately for a 
 few yards, and then stopping to listen for several 
 seconds, with her head cocked on one side in the most 
 
 SONG THRUSH ON HUMMOCK OF SNOW. 
 
 comical way. The Sparrows descend upon seeing their 
 bigger and simpler-minded neighbour approach the 
 food, and, following close behind, wait until she has 
 detached a piece and turned away to enjoy it in some 
 quiet corner, when the artful thieves rush in, seize it, 
 and dash away in a noisy, laughing rnob, leaving the 
 rightful owner of the tit-bit in a state of blank 
 surprise. 
 
 Robin Redbreasts are, of course, very pretty, con- 
 fiding little birds, but it is a great pity they are so 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 13 
 
 selfish during the winter months. Instead of two of 
 them feeding together like brothers from a piece of 
 food large enough to make a meal for fifty members 
 of their family, they will stand on either side of it 
 glaring and scolding at each other like a pair of rival 
 
 A KOBIN WAITING FOR HIS BREAKFAST. 
 
 bus conductors, whilst a quiet little Hedge Sparrow, in 
 his coat of sober brown, eats away as if he were in a 
 bun-consuming competition at a country fair. 
 
 Starlings love suet and all kinds of raw meat, and 
 so do the Tits ; but it is better to give the latter 
 cocoanut, as suet greases, dulls, and dirties their 
 beautiful feathers. I am very fond of Starlings 
 because they are such busy, bustling birds, and teach 
 us all a great lesson in industry. When they go forth 
 
14 OUR BIRD FRIENDS, 
 
 in search of food they do not dawdle and hang about 
 like tradesmen's errand boys, but rush round as if the 
 welfare of the whole universe depended upon their 
 individual exertions. 
 
 In order to secure the picture of the old cock 
 
 STARLINGS FEEDING IN WIXTEH. 
 
 Sparrow on page 16, we put some suitable food 
 down at the foot of the sweet pea sticks on which 
 he is standing, and, fixing up the camera in front, 
 attached a pneumatic tube to the shutter and retired 
 indoors to wait and watch. By-and-by along carne 
 our " sitter," the air-ball at the end of the pneumatic 
 tube was squeezed, the shutter released, and the 
 Sparrow's portrait secured. A day or two afterwards 
 one of my little daughters, then only a child of six 
 years of age, saw the picture and thought that she 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 15 
 
 would like to try her hand at natural history. She 
 secured a supply of crumbs which she placed on the top 
 of the stick in front of the bird's head, and a pinch of 
 salt which she deposited on the end of the stick near 
 his tail, and then retired indoors to watch and wait, 
 judging that when the Sparrow turned up to break- 
 fast and began to peck the crumbs, in all probability 
 his tail would come in contact with the salt and 
 she would have him ! 
 
 Town-bred birds, like town-bred boys and girls, 
 have a very different notion of things from their 
 brothers and sisters in the country. For instance, 
 some bird lovers in the country, and especially on the 
 Continent, give their feathered friends a treat at 
 Christmas by fixing up an unthreshed sheaf of corn 
 in a convenient situation for the hungry creatures, 
 who are, of course, greatly delighted. An old friend 
 of mine, living in the northern suburbs of London, 
 thought he would give the birds a treat last Christ- 
 mas, and, after a considerable amount of trouble, 
 secured a sheaf of corn with the grain still attached 
 and fixed it up in his garden. The birds had never 
 seen such a thing before, and it scared them to 
 such an extent that they would not come near the 
 garden even. 
 
 I have made some experiments on country birds 
 by dyeing corn blue and then offering it to them. 
 They simply would not touch it. 
 
 Rooks are very wise on some points and very 
 unwise in regard to others. For instance, I have 
 
i6 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 watched them pull 
 the thatch of a corn 
 stack out straw by 
 straw because they 
 knew there was some 
 golden grain beneath 
 and they would come 
 upon it if they only 
 worked long enough. 
 On the other hand, 
 those living round 
 London are so foolish 
 that they mistake the 
 red indiarubber rings 
 out of lemonade and 
 other aerated water 
 bottles for food, and, 
 whilst wandering 
 
 COCK SPARROW KEADY .FOR DINNER (p. 14). 
 
 which town refuse 
 
 has been spread, collect thousands of these india- 
 rubber round O's and carry them off to their 
 nests. 
 
 They are fond of edible snails, and the illustration 
 on the opposite page shows a perfect specimen ; an- 
 other which has had its shell broken, but succeeded in 
 escaping and repairing the damage, in all probability 
 through its assailant being driven off by some in- 
 truder ; and the third an empty shell from which the 
 bird has extracted the succulent morsel. 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 17 
 
 AN EDIBLE SNAIL. 
 
 Long terms of privation 
 spoil some birds' morals. The 
 hard winter of 1895 drove 
 Rooks to the sad extremity 
 of killing and devouring Star- 
 lings, and I am sorry to say 
 that I have since watched them 
 trying to repeat such mur- 
 derous tactics when the excuse of starvation could 
 not be urged with so much force. The exception- 
 ally severe weather of the 
 winter I have just mentioned 
 did Londoners and Seagulls a 
 great service. It made them 
 shake hands with each other, 
 so to speak, and they have 
 been on the very best of terms 
 ever since. The birds, con- 
 sisting mostly of black-headed 
 Gulls, in winter dress, were driven by hunger up 
 the River Thames in search of food, and directly 
 they arrived at Black friars 
 Bridge they met with such an 
 outburst of hospitality as fairly 
 astonished them. Thousands of 
 people turned out on the Em- 
 bankment and the bridge to 
 see and feed them with sprats, 
 bits of bread, and other ac- 
 ceptable morsels daily. I was 
 c 
 
 SNAIL, WITH BROKEN 
 SHELL REPAIRED. 
 
 SHELL AFTER SNAIL HAS 
 BEEN EATE.V. 
 
1 8 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 down feeding them one day, when a lady stopped 
 and asked me what they were. " Black-headed 
 Gulls, madam," I answered. 
 
 " How absurd ! " she exclaimed. " Why, their 
 heads are white ! " 
 
 "Quite right/' I replied; "but they were chris- 
 tened in summer when they are black, or, to be more 
 precise, a very dark brown." 
 
 In the early spring the birds all took their depar- 
 ture on breeding duties intent, but directly food 
 began to grow scarce in the North Sea the following 
 autumn, they said to each other, " Let us away and 
 see our friends in London." This has now become 
 a fixed habit with them, and besides earning a good 
 living for themselves they have helped at least one 
 poor man to gain his daily bread. He buys a sackful 
 of sprats every morning, and, standing on the Em- 
 bankment, doles out the fish all day long. For the 
 amusement of the crowd of spectators, he lets the 
 birds take their food off his head, or out of his 
 hand, or throws it to them to catch it in mid- 
 air like Swallows. Just fancy the dexterity of a 
 bird that can catch and hold a slippery little 
 sprat sent twirling through the air like a glint of 
 sunshine ! 
 
 Well, the same hard winter made Scottish Sea 
 Gulls try turnips as food, and they liked the vegetable 
 so much that they have continued the habit. They 
 have also started eating corn standing in the fields, 
 and if they keep on invading farm produce in this 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. ig 
 
 way we shall soon have to change their name from 
 Sea to Land Gulls. 
 
 A very strange thing about the feeding habits ot 
 Lesser Black-backed Gulls is that although the birds 
 will seize and swallow a live young Eider Duck on 
 land whenever they get the chance, a dead adult 
 Eider may lie for days together quite untouched 
 on a small island inhabited by thousands of hungry 
 Lesser Black Backs. 
 
 The question at once occurs, " But perhaps they 
 do not like the flesh of tough old Eiders ? " That is 
 not the explanation, however, for directly the body of 
 the dead bird is thrown into the sea there is a fierce 
 scramble for a taste of it, arid I have never met any- 
 one who could explain why it was not touched whilst 
 lying on land. 
 
 Birds are structurally adapted in a marvellous 
 degree for their various methods of feeding. Take 
 their bills, for instance. The long, nerve-crowded one 
 of the Snipe has been specially developed in order 
 that it might be thrust deep into the soft mud of the 
 swamp and telegraph to the brain of its owner the 
 presence of some wriggling worm, the slightest move- 
 ment of which it is capable of at once detecting ; and 
 the short, curved one of the Falcon, so that it may 
 swiftly and easily rend its prey. The short, conical 
 equipment of the Finches facilitates the husking and 
 crushing of grain, and the spear-like one of Herons 
 the transfixing of slippery fishes; the broad, flat 
 bills of ducks the sifting of mud, and the narrow 
 
2o OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 chisel-like ones of the Oyster- catcher the prising of 
 limpets off their native rocks. 
 
 Swifts, Swallows, and Martins obtain their liveli- 
 hood by dashing through the air at lightning speed 
 and seizing all the flies they can secure in their path. 
 On still summer evenings I have often heard the 
 snap of their bills as they suddenly closed upon some 
 unfortunate victim. They occasionally mistake a 
 trout angler's artificial fly for the real thing, and, 
 seizing it, get hooked. Moorish ladies used to amuse 
 themselves by angling for Swifts with artificial flies 
 from the windows of their harems, and one can only 
 hope that they have now discovered some more 
 humane pastime. 
 
 Other birds catch flies, but in a totally different 
 way. The Pied and Spotted Flycatchers sit upon 
 some branch, post, or other coign of vantage, and 
 wait for winged insects to come their way, when they 
 
 SNIPE'S HILL (p. 19). 
 
 take a short fluttering excursion into the air and 
 secure their prey, whilst appearing to be trying to 
 alight upon something that is not in existence. 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 21 
 
 Birds have a very acute sense of hearing, which, 
 no doubt, helps many of thein in detecting the exact 
 whereabouts of their prey. Woodpeckers, when run- 
 ning up a tree, often stop suddenly to listen, and, in 
 all probability, thus discover larvse at work driving 
 tunnels in the wood, for my brother and I have 
 conducted several experiments which all tend to 
 prove the reasonableness 
 of this. He has climbed 
 thirty or forty feet up a 
 lofty tree on a calm day, 
 as shown on the next 
 page, and, clapping his 
 ear close to the trunk, 
 has been able to tell ine 
 exactly how many times I 
 scratched it with a pen- 
 knife close to the ground. 
 Wood transmits sound almost like a telephone 
 wire, as can be easily proved by anyone putting 
 his ear close to one end of the trunk of a felled 
 tree of any size and getting a friend to scratch the 
 other with a pin. 
 
 Thrushes hop about quietly in grass fields, stop- 
 ping often to listen with their heads on one side. I 
 have frequently seen one, after remaining in that 
 attentive attitude for several seconds, suddenly rush 
 forward and, seizing a big worm by the head, engage 
 in a most vigorous tug-of-war, hanging back and 
 pulling until it was obliged to prop itself up with its 
 
22 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 tail. When the weather is too dry to tempt worms 
 to the surface of the ground the birds go in search 
 
 AX EXPERIMENT IN THE TRANSMISSION OF SOUND (;;. 21). 
 
 of garden, banded, and other snails, of which they 
 are very fond. Upon discovering one of these mail? 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 23 
 
 clad creatures the} 7 hasten off with it to some stone, 
 upon which the unfortunate victim is hammered 
 until the walls of his house give way, when he is 
 promptly dragged forth and swallowed. 
 
 The illustration on the next page shows a 
 number of snails which birds, such as Rooks, Black- 
 birds, and Thrushes, love to eat. The three large kinds 
 are hammered on stones until their shells are broken, 
 but the smallest one is sometimes swallowed whole. 
 One day I was watching a Tree Pipit on her nest 
 from the interior of a stuffed bullock standing only a 
 yard away, and was surprised to see her suddenly 
 jump up and seize and swallow a snail that was 
 leisurely journeying up a grass stem eight or ten 
 inches away, entirely unconscious of danger. A friend 
 of mine once counted no less than one hundred and 
 eighty empty snail shells lying round a single flint, 
 and, being prompted by curiosity to weigh them, 
 found that they scaled over a pound. 
 
 Both Crows and Gulls take shellfish from the sea 
 shore, and, rising to a considerable height in the air, 
 drop their victims upon rocks or some other hard 
 substance in order to break the shells, when they 
 promptly descend to enjoy the feast. At Oban, in 
 Scotland, the latter birds may frequently be seen 
 doing this; but the ingenious individual that takes 
 the mollusc aloft does not always reap the reward of 
 his industry, for some sly old companion will quietly 
 watch his movements and rush in and seize the 
 savoury morsel directly it has struck the ground, and 
 
24 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 fly off with it before its rightful owner has had time 
 to come near. 
 
 It is wonderful to what an extent wild creatures 
 help each other to gain a livelihood. In some 
 American rivers large fish chase small ones, upon 
 which they prey until they make some of them leap 
 on to the low muddy banks in their frightened efforts 
 to escape. This is a true case of " out of the frying- 
 pan into the fire," for before they have time to 
 wriggle back into their own element the unfortunate 
 little creatures are devoured by birds lying in wait 
 for them. I suspect that a very similar fate often 
 awaits worms escaping from moles. Any little 
 vibration in the ground sends a number of worms to 
 the surface in a great state of fear, and from the way 
 I have tracked Blackbirds and Thrushes hopping 
 after a mole throwing up his little hillocks of mould 
 
 SOME SNAILS THAT BRITISH BIHDS EAT. 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 25 
 
 through a thin layer of snow, I doubt not there was 
 a shrewd notion of benefits to be derived. 
 
 Birds also help quadrupeds to obtain their food 
 upon occasion. The illustration on page 27 shows 
 a number of wild cherry stones which were brought 
 from a neighbouring wood by birds, and dropped 
 from the branches of a big tree growing near the 
 middle of an open pasture. They were collected by 
 some mouse and carried to the hole shown in the 
 picture, in order to be stored and gnawed open for 
 their kernels as required for consumption. 
 
 Gannets, Terns, and Kingfishers, although all of 
 them unable to dive in the proper sense of the word 
 like Cormorants and Grebes, yet get their living by 
 plunging headlong into the water after fish swim- 
 ming not far from the surface. The Gannet breeds 
 in vast numbers on the giant rock stacks round the 
 island of St. Kilda, also on Ailsa Craig and the Bass 
 Rock, and a very good authority has computed that 
 the birds catch more herrings round the coast of 
 Scotland than all the fishermen of that country 
 put together. 
 
 The natives of the Orkney Islands used to try to 
 reduce the stock of Gannets fishing in their neigh- 
 bourhood by painting counterfeit herrings on blocks 
 of wood, which they moored in such positions as 
 to allow them to float a little way below the surface 
 of the ocean. When a bird came sailing along he 
 fancied he espied a nice fat herring below, and 
 straightway plunging upon it, struck the block of 
 
26 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 wood with his bill and broke his unlucky neck in 
 the process. 
 
 Terns always face the wind if there is any blowing 
 when they make a plunge into the sea after surface- 
 swimming fry, and it is a very pretty sight to see 
 the males feeding the females whilst brooding with 
 the glittering little fishes they have caught. 
 
 It is really astonishing to Avhat an extent birds 
 prey upon each other. Even the mild and simple- 
 minded domestic Duck has recently been proved 
 guilty of seizing and swallowing young Moorhens 
 after drowning the dusky little wretches. 
 
 Peregrine Falcons, Merlins, and Sparrowhawks are 
 all fierce, relentless marauders, that live almost 
 entirely by devouring their defenceless feathered 
 neighbours. Some idea may be gathered of their 
 prowess when it is mentioned that they can fly off 
 with victims twice their own weight. 
 
 The Golden Eagle slays lambs, hares, rabbits, 
 Grouse, and Ptarmigan, and during the breeding 
 season provides a liberal table. A poor man in 
 Ireland once tided over a famine with the aid of a 
 pair of Golden Eagles. He gained access to their 
 eyrie, and, clipping the wings of their young ones, 
 forced the parent birds to keep on bringing food, of 
 which he took a share for himself and family. 
 
 Many people think that all wild birds of the same 
 species are exactly alike in disposition. Nothing could 
 be further from the fact. Two members of almost any 
 species will differ as much in character as any two 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 27 
 
 human beings in any country in the world. For 
 instance, some members of a species are bolder than 
 others, some kinder, more industrious, more skilful, and 
 so on. I have seen a perfectly wild Kestrel Hawk sit 
 on a telegraph 
 wire and watch 
 an express train 
 rattle by at top 
 speed without 
 the least con- 
 cern. I have 
 also known a 
 Robin alight on 
 a lady's head, 
 and I saw the 
 male Chaffinch 
 figured in the 
 illustration on 
 page 29, after 
 feeding from the 
 dish of Pheasant 
 food in the hand 
 of a Highland 
 gamekeeper's 
 daughter, alight 
 
 on her father's shoulder and knee without the least 
 sign of fear. Jock, as they christened the bold 
 bird, tried to induce his wife to come along and 
 join him, but she lacked his strong nerves, and 
 always remained at a respectful distance. 
 
 WILD CHERRY STONES DROPPED BY BIRDS 
 AND COLLECTED BY A MOUSE (p. 25). 
 
28 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Owls are very useful in keeping down the supply 
 of mice and voles, and not many years ago did the 
 farmers in the south of Scotland a real service by 
 ridding them of a plague of the latter. They also 
 kill small birds, and occasionally trout. An ingenious 
 naturalist has suggested that they attract the latter 
 to the surface by their luminous eyes, knowing that 
 fish swim up in great wonderment to a light. The 
 owl has no need, however, to do this, for in summer- 
 time trout visit shallow pools in the evening in search 
 of the larvae of flies, and when so engaged I have 
 on many occasions seen them with their backs out of 
 water, thus affording any hungry owl an excellent 
 opportunity of seizing and carrying them off. 
 
 The Common and the Arctic Skua are veritable 
 robbers of the air. Watching until some luckless 
 Gull catches a fish, they instantly give chase and 
 harry the poor bird until it is obliged to relinquish 
 its prey, when they at once plunge headlong through 
 the air after it, and are so swift of wing that they 
 can invariably secure it before it reaches the surface 
 of the ocean below. 
 
 Some birds have peculiar ways of dealing with 
 their prey. The Red-backed Shrike, for instance, 
 keeps a regular larder. It has the strange habit 
 of impaling its victims on thorns, and has in this 
 way earned for itself the popular name of Butcher 
 Bird. It lives upon beetles and other winged 
 insects principally, but does not hesitate to attack 
 lizards, mice, and small birds, and has been known 
 
GAMEKEEPER'S DAUGHTER FEEDING WILD CHAFFINCH (p. 27), 
 
3O OVR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 to kill Great Tits and Robins, and even to carry 
 off a newly-hatched Pheasant. The sizes of these 
 victims testify to the bird's courage and prowess, 
 for it is little bigger than a House Sparrow. It 
 has a strong hooked beak, and some naturalists are 
 of opinion that it impales its prey in order to pull 
 it to pieces with greater ease ; but I am inclined to 
 think that from the number of small victims such 
 as beetles I have met with, and the few large ones 
 such as mice and birds, that its real object is to 
 have a well-stocked larder. 
 
 Birds of prey often come to grief whilst in pursuit 
 of their victims. A Sparrowhawk chased a small bird 
 through a railway carriage window some years ago, 
 and, becoming entangled in the meshes of the hat 
 rack, was secured by a passenger sitting in the 
 compartment. 
 
 The White-Tailed or Sea Eagle feeds upon fish 
 amongst other things, and sometimes, when warm 
 weather attracts such species as skate and halibut 
 to bask on the surface of the sea, he pounces upon 
 them and, burying his talons deeply in their backs, 
 is dragged under and drowned. 
 
 Cormorants and Kingfishers occasionally attempt 
 to swallow captures too large for their throat capacity, 
 and are choked in consequence. 
 
 Herons take up their stand on the edge of some 
 lake or stream, and when an eligible trout or eel 
 happens to pass near enough, the thing that looked 
 in all probability to them a mere old grey stump 
 
AT BREAKFAST, DINNER, TEA, SUPPER. 31 
 
 standing out of the water, darts out a long neck with 
 a lance-like bill on the end of it, and they are trans- 
 fixed before they can say "fly." Not long ago a 
 Heron speared an eel right through the eyes and was 
 unable to extricate its bill. The victim writhed in 
 such a way as to coil round its captor's neck and 
 strangle him. 
 
 FOOD WHICH BIRDS LOVE : BLACKBERRIES IX EARLY 
 AUTUMN. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 
 
 The Author's Delight at Finding his First Bird's-nest Some Birds 
 better Nest-builders than others of the same Species Instances 
 of Birds Departing from Nesting Rules Wise and Foolish, Idle 
 and Industrious Birds Feathered Thieves Birds that Take in 
 Lodgers Non- Gregarious Birds that Dwell Together Ancestral 
 Homes of Birds Nests in Curious Situations Strange Materials 
 used for Nests Accidents to Nest-builders Birds that Never 
 Build Nests for Themselves Prudent Birds that Build Spare 
 Nests Ground-building Birds The Cock Sparrow and the 
 Fighting Roosters. 
 
 THERE are few natural objects that children view 
 with half the delight a wild bird's nest and eggs 
 can give. How sweetly I remember the first one 
 I ever found ! It belonged to a Song Thrush, and 
 rested on an old moss-clad ash stump which leant 
 over a pool of clear water in such a way that I 
 could see myself plainly mirrored below whilst 
 climbing to find out what the wonderful little 
 treasure-house contained, and had serious mis- 
 givings as to the ducking I should suffer in the 
 event of the stump breaking with me. Upon 
 reaching a point high enough to command a view 
 of the interior of the nest, I rubbed my youthful 
 eyes with delight. Was ever such a sight seen 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 33 
 
 before ? Four beautiful blue eggs, spotted with 
 black, just as if some careless schoolboy had made 
 his pen sputter ink over them. I can, in fancy, 
 still hear the old mother Throstle scolding me in 
 loud, angry notes from the branches of an elm tree 
 close by for daring to intrude upon her domestic 
 arrangements. 
 
 Since that day I have wandered over the greater 
 portion of the British Isles in search of birds' nests, 
 not in the hope of robbing and spoiling, but that 
 my brother's camera might figure them and their 
 contents exactly where they were placed by their 
 owners. During the course of my rambles I have 
 seen specimens of nearly every bird's nest that is 
 built in this country, and I propose in this and 
 the next chapter to relate some of the most 
 interesting things about them and the eggs they 
 contained. 
 
 Birds' nests are truly wonderful things, and do 
 very great credit in many instances to their builders ; 
 but it is absurd for poets to say that a man with 
 " twenty years' apprenticeship," and all the tools 
 which science has placed within his reach, could 
 make nothing of a similar kind which would not 
 be put to shame by our feathered friends. Man is 
 and will ever remain by far the cleverest and most 
 wonderful creature on the face of the earth, and it 
 is much better to teach or learn the truth than to 
 delude ourselves or others by exaggerations against 
 which reason rebels. 
 D 
 
34 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Many people think that all wild birds belonging 
 to the same species build nests exactly alike in 
 regard to style of architecture, size, materials em- 
 ployed, workmanship displayed, and situation chosen ; 
 in fact, that they are all ruled by an unerring force 
 called instinct, and that they could not depart from 
 its cast-iron laws even if they tried. Nothing could 
 be further from the fact. Although it is quite true 
 that the little homes of birds belonging to the same 
 species bear a strong family resemblance by which 
 they may be readily recognised, there can be no 
 denying that the skill, industry, opportunities, and 
 3ven experience and wisdom of the builder play 
 their part almost as much as they do amongst the 
 builders of human dwellings. For instance, every- 
 body easily recognises a nest built by a Song 
 Thrush, because it is deep, basin-shaped, made of 
 twigs and grass stems, lined with mud or some 
 other substance that will dry hard and smooth, and 
 is placed in some evergreen bush or hedgerow ; but 
 a close observer will notice that one Thrush's nest 
 is bigger and bulkier than another, better built, the 
 materials varied according to the builders' oppor- 
 tunities of getting them handily, and the situation 
 for it selected with far greater or far less wisdom. 
 Last spring I made careful measurements of two 
 Thrushs' nests which I found within a very little 
 distance of each other. The first was situated on a 
 flat, outspreading fir-bough, and was two inches deep 
 and four wide across the top ; the second nest was 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 35 
 
 in a blackthorn bush, and measured three inches 
 deep and three and a half across the top. 
 
 Nearly all wild creatures differ from each other 
 in individual qualities, like human beings, and, 
 what is more, behave differently according to cir- 
 cumstances ; and in order that my readers may 
 see the force of this, I will give a few striking 
 instances of birds departing from established nesting 
 rules. 
 
 The Common Wren builds a nest which is domed 
 over and has a sort of bull's-eye entrance in front, 
 but specimens have been found quite open at the 
 top, because they had been built under a sheltering 
 ledge of rock, and the birds evidently judged them 
 to be without need of a domed covering in conse- 
 quence. This may, I think, be taken as a clear 
 instance of departure from architectural style. 
 
 The Spotted Flycatcher makes her nest, as a rule, 
 of straws, fibrous roots, moss, hair, feathers, rabbits' 
 down, and cobwebs ; but not long ago a specimen 
 was discovered near Hyde Park Corner, London, 
 made of old wax vestas and cigarette-papers, simply 
 because smokers who had rested on surrounding 
 seats had rendered these materials far more plentiful 
 than those used by the species in the ordinary way, 
 and which were practically unprocurable except by 
 long nights into the country and back again a 
 truly wonderful instance of a bird adapting itself to 
 circumstances. 
 
 The Great Tit or Oxeye selects a hole in a tree, 
 
36 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 wall, or bank, in which to hide and have its nest 
 well covered and protected; but not long* ago I was 
 shown one built in the old nest of some other bird 
 situated in a thin, straggling hedgerow, and the little 
 lodger's eggs and newly-hatched chicks were quite 
 open to the sky. 
 
 Thus we have instances of complete departure from 
 rule in respect of architecture, materials, and situa- 
 tion. I shall have more to say about this presently, 
 but let me here turn aside to point out that 
 some birds are very wise and others very foolish. 
 I have known a Song Thrush have its first nest 
 blown down by a gale of wind, and immediately 
 set to work and build a new one, the foundation 
 materials of which were so twisted round the 
 branches upon which it rested that it was impossible 
 for the wind again to dislodge it. On the other 
 hand, a bird of this species will try again and again 
 to make its nest on some ledge of rock to which 
 she has taken a fancy, despite the fact that every 
 time the structure assumes certain proportions it 
 topples over and rolls away to destruction. 
 
 Some feathered folk are extremely idle, whilst 
 others are just as industrious. A few years ago 
 a small farm boy in the North of England took 
 it into his head that he would build a pair of 
 Jackdaws a nest in a hole in the wall of an old 
 barn. He did so, and a pair of birds came along, 
 adopted it, and reared a happy family of young 
 ones in it. But, of course, there is another side to 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 37 
 
 this question. A pair of these birds, whilst out 
 hunting for apartments in which to start house- 
 keeping, went into an old church steeple. They 
 
 CHEAT CHESTED GREBE's AND COOT'S NESTS (p. 43). 
 
 liked the elevation and peace of the place, but it 
 had its drawbacks, as nearly all other dwelling- 
 places have. From the stairway on which they 
 would have to lay their foundation sticks to the hole 
 through which they would be obliged to bring them 
 was a distance of ten feet. This did not deter the 
 
38 OLR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 brave-hearted, energetic pair, for they set to work 
 with a will, and inside of three weeks built a pillar 
 of sticks ten feet in height, and when these were 
 finally removed they filled the body of an ordinary 
 cart. What a lesson in industry ! 
 
 When they breed early in the season, birds take a 
 much longer time to build their nests and work far 
 more leisurely than they can afford to do later on 
 whilst preparing to rear a second brood. I have 
 known a Robin Redbreast take a full fortnight to 
 build a nest during the early days of a cold, backward 
 Spring, and, later on, when the sunshine was warm, 
 food plentiful, and everything aglow with life and 
 energy, finish building, have her eggs all laid, and 
 be sitting in far less time. 
 
 Some of the migratory birds, such as the Wry- 
 neck, set to work searching for a suitable breeding 
 place almost directly upon their arrival on our 
 shores from the sunny South. 
 
 I am sorry to say that feathered thieves are by 
 no means unknown. The Green Woodpecker takes 
 great pains to chisel a hole ten to eighteen inches 
 deep in some decaying tree for the reception of her 
 eggs, but hardly ever has a chance of using the 
 same abode twice over, because, long ere she dreams 
 of family affairs the following Spring, a pair of 
 Starlings have found and promptly taken possession 
 of the old home. Starlings are awful rogues in 
 this respect. Only last Spring my brother and I 
 watched a pair of Green. Woodpeckers chisel out 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 39 
 
 their third nesting-hole in an old tree at great 
 labour and pains. Their two previous homes had 
 been stolen, and were then in the possession of four 
 iridescent thieves. But worse remained to follow. 
 After the Woodpeckers had been at work for the 
 best part of a fortnight, another pair of Starlings 
 came along and impudently robbed the poor birds 
 of their new home before they had had an oppor- 
 tunity of using it ! 
 
 As an indication of the demand for breeding 
 apartments in hollow trees, I will mention the 
 case of a hole in an old apple tree. It was 
 tenanted one year by a pair of Starlings, the 
 next by House Sparrows, and the third by Great 
 Tits. 
 
 Sparrows have a bad habit of stealing House 
 Martins' nests, and, in order to accomplish their 
 wicked ends, will, upon occasion, even turn the 
 eggs of the rightful owner out and smash them. 
 Indeed, I have known the little ruffians do this 
 with each other's eggs when engaged in a noisy 
 family squabble over the ownership of a box nailed 
 up against a bedroom window for the encouragement 
 of this impudent and aggressive species of our 
 streets, which seeins little in need of help from any 
 quarter. Besides robbing House Martins of their 
 wee homes of mud under our eaves, Sparrows steal 
 the nesting holes dug in banks by Sand Martins, 
 those hewn by Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers in trees, 
 and even the abodes prepared by Nuthatches, which 
 
4O OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 plaster up a hole in some hollow tree until no 
 bigger robber con Id squeeze in and out. 
 
 The jolly, honest-looking little Brown Wren will, 
 upon occasion, give way to temptation and deliber- 
 ately steal quantities of nice soft moss from the 
 sides of some other bird's nest whilst its owner is 
 away in search of food. 
 
 Some Rooks are arrant thieves, and I have sat 
 and watched them steal sticks from the nests of 
 more honest and industrious neighbours whilst these 
 were absent looking for additional materials. They 
 will even venture to abstract twigs from the great 
 Heron's stately mansion of sticks, and it is quite 
 laughable to see them dash away when the enraged 
 owner suddenly turns up, bent on punishing the 
 rogue with a thrust from his long, spear-like bill, 
 which will easily transfix a rat. 
 
 I once watched a very industrious old Gannet 
 from close quarters building her nest on the narrow 
 ledge of a dizzying ocean cliff, and directly the poor 
 bird turned her back to go in search of another 
 piece of seaweed, down flew a cunning member of 
 the same species from a ledge above, seized a piece 
 of the honest bird's materials, and hastened away 
 to her own ne c t with it. By-and-by, along carne 
 the owner of the lower nest with a great long riband 
 of seaweed which trailed in the air behind her like 
 the tail of a boy's kite. No sooner had she placed 
 it in position and departed for more, than down 
 swooped the robber, and, in extracting the choice 
 
DIPPER'S NEST IN TKEE (p. 46). 
 
42 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 morsel, tore the nest about in such a shameful 
 manner that I felt angry and strongly tempted to 
 hurl a stone at her. When the poor builder of 
 good character returned and saw the injury that 
 had been wrought, she gazed in silence for some 
 moments, then gave utterance to a few deep guttural 
 notes and looked about her inquiringly. All her 
 neighbours, including the thief, were busy putting 
 into position the seaweed and grass they had just 
 acquired. 
 
 The injured Gannet did not spend much time 
 bemoaning her loss, but set to work repairing the 
 damage, and then, taking wing, sailed away out of 
 sight round a great promontory of rock. In a 
 minute or two, down came the thief once more. 
 Whether the honest bird's immediate return was 
 intentional or accidental I do not know, but sud- 
 denly back she flew and caught the robber in the 
 very act. She was naturally very furious, and at 
 once fell upon the thief. A desperate battle ensued, 
 and finally both combatants rolled off the ledge 
 and over the cliff, a confused bundle of wings, legs, 
 heads, and tails. 
 
 I know it sounds funny to say that some birds 
 take in lodgers, but such is certainly the case, for 
 a pair of House Sparrows may frequently be seen 
 busy entering and leaving the foundations of a 
 Rook's nest where they have a thriving family 
 housed, entirely unmolested by their sable landlord 
 and landlady upstairs. 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 43 
 
 Starlings have no fear of such great birds as 
 Ospreys, and sometimes find lodgings in the base- 
 ments of their eyries, where they rear their noisy 
 broods in perfect security. 
 
 Of course, gregarious birds, such as Rooks and 
 House Martins, that live in colonies, often have 
 their nests so close to each other that they touch. 
 I have seen as many as thirty-seven Hooks' nests 
 in a single tree, and have counted no less than 
 fifty-two Martins' nests under the eaves of a single 
 small stable. Last June the watchers over the 
 sea-fowl breeding on the Fame Islands showed me 
 fifty clutches of Sandwich Terns' eggs on forty-five 
 square feet of ground. 
 
 Other birds that are not gregarious, and conse- 
 quently do not live in companies, sometimes make 
 their nests close together, and I have seen a pair 
 of Eider Ducks' homes actually touching. The 
 illustration on page 37 represents the nests of a 
 Great Crested Grebe and Coot within a few feet 
 of each other. They were both occupied at the 
 time the photograph was taken. 
 
 Some birds evince great love for a favourite old 
 nesting-place. Successive generations of Peregrine 
 Falcons and Blue Tits have been known to occupy 
 the same breeding site for close upon a hundred 
 years with hardly a break. Kestrel Hawks have been 
 found rearing a brood on the same ledge of rock 
 for upwards of twenty years in unbroken succession, 
 Eider Ducks for seven, and Herons for fourteen. 
 
44 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 An Osprey in the Highlands of Scotland repaired 
 its old eyrie spring after spring for so long that it 
 eventually reached a height of nine feet, when it 
 was blown down by a gale of wind. 
 
 J O 
 
 I mentioned in the opening pages of this chapter 
 the case of a Great Tit building its nest in an old 
 structure belonging to some other bird in a hedge- 
 row, instead of following the general rule of the 
 species and placing it in a hole. I will now relate 
 a few other interesting departures from usual habits 
 on the part of birds belonging to widely different 
 species. Blackbirds and Thrushes generally place 
 their nests in evergreens, bushes, hedgerows, amidst 
 ivy growing round the trunks of trees and against 
 walls, and in similar situations ; but specimens are 
 sometimes found right down upon the ground, where 
 one might expect to meet with those of pheasants 
 and partridges. On the other hand, instead of the 
 two latter species sticking to their usual habit of 
 breeding on the ground, where their young ones 
 will want to commence running about directly they 
 are hatched, they are occasionally discovered in 
 such elevated situations as deserted squirrels' dreys 
 in trees and on the tops of ricks. Wild Ducks 
 have been found breeding in old Carrion Crows' 
 nests in high trees. Hock Pigeons build on ledges 
 in ocean caves, but occasionally both Rock Pigeons 
 and Jackdaws condescend to occupy a humble 
 rabbit's burrow. The Dipper fixes its nest in 
 some fissure of rock or some hole in a stone bridge 
 
WATEKHEX'S NEST OX CART SPRING (p. 46). 
 
46 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 spanning a mountain torrent, if it cannot find a 
 suitable ledge behind or close to a waterfall; but 
 occasionally I have found one in a tree, as shown in 
 our illustration (p. 41), which was recently secured in 
 Highlands of Scotland. Starlings rear their chicks 
 in trees, old ruins, thatches of ricks, holes in rocks, 
 and similar elevated situations, but I have found 
 nests on several occasions in holes in the ground 
 and amongst loose stones. 
 
 These instances of departure from nesting rules 
 lead one on to the interesting cases of nests in 
 curious situations. Common Sparrows have been 
 found breeding in all kinds of strange places from 
 the inside of a railway station gong sounded more 
 than one hundred times in twelve hours, to the 
 cartridge-box of a gun-carriage, in spite of the fact 
 that the piece was fired twice every day ; in a 
 stone lion's mouth, and in the skeleton of a 
 bullock's head. I have myself seen Robins' nests 
 in old coffee-pots, teapots, kettles, watering-cans, 
 biscuit-boxes, jam-jars, hand-baskets, and the hubs 
 of cartwheels ; also Tits' nests in street-lamps, letter- 
 boxes, old pumps, mowing machine knife-boxes, and 
 packing-cases. The illustration on the preceding page 
 shows a Waterhen sitting on her nest built upon 
 the spring of an old cart which had been wheeled 
 into a pond and left there for a while. Last year 
 a Chaffinch built her nest under the chin of the 
 effigy of a woman kneeling on the top of a grave- 
 yard monument, and was seen brooding just as 
 
SOME REMARK-ABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 47 
 
 contentedly as if she had been occupying a little 
 cup-shaped home on a hawthorn bough. 
 
 I could, if space would permit, multiply instances, 
 from my own experience and that of other observers, 
 of birds' nests built in all sorts of strange places. 
 
 From curious situations for nests it is a natural 
 and easy step to pass to a consideration of uncommon 
 materials employed in their construction. 
 
 A Heron in Nottinghamshire built a nest of 
 wire, as shown on the next page, and a Black- 
 bird in Surrey built its nest amidst a collection 
 of old fence-wire in the same season (p. 49). A 
 pair of House Sparrows in Switzerland made their 
 nests not long ago entirely from old watch-springs. 
 Chaffinches sometimes decorate the outsides of their 
 nests with bits of paper, and I once found one 
 studded all over with small pieces of an old news- 
 sheet. Kites have quite a love for bits of flannel, 
 rags, and paper wherewith to build their nests. A 
 very strange thing once happened to a well-known 
 English naturalist in connection with this curious 
 habit of the Kite. He was away in some wild part 
 of Spain studying birds, and, on climbing to a 
 Kite's nest, was astonished to find part of an old 
 newspaper in it containing an account of the assas- 
 sination of President Lincoln, of which lamentable 
 crime he then learnt for the first time. 
 
 Upon climbing to a nest belonging to this 
 interesting bird, away up amongst the Welsh moun- 
 tains last spring, my brother was surprised to find 
 
48 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 it lined with quite a large piece of flannel. A friend 
 standing at the bottom of the tree called out to him 
 to turn the material over and see if there were any 
 eggs beneath it, explaining that a naturalist once 
 put a Kite off her nest day after day and was greatly 
 
 HERON'S NEST MADE OF WIRE (p. 47). 
 
 puzzled to know why she sat on it, because there 
 were no eggs to be seen from a high, adjoining rock 
 which commanded an excellent view of the interior 
 of the structure. One day his curiosity prompted 
 him to climb the tree, and upon reaching the nest 
 he discovered that a piece of flannel, forming a great 
 part of the lining of the nest, had flapped over the 
 eggs, and the brooding bird sat on the top of it. 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 49 
 
 Turning aside for a moment, it is sad to think 
 of the poor Kite's career as a British species. 
 During the reign of Henry VIII. it was so numerous 
 
 BLACKBIRD'S NEST IN WIKE (p. 47). 
 
 in the streets of London that it acted the part of 
 a useful scavenger, would take food from the hands 
 of children, and was one of the wonderful sights of 
 the town to all foreigners. It has so decreased in 
 numbers since that time that only one or two pairs 
 are now left breeding in this country, and ornitho- 
 
50 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 legists fear that unless something is done to protect 
 its eggs, which are highly valued by collectors, it 
 will become extinct at no distant date so far as the 
 British Islands are concerned. 
 
 I have seen a Raven's nest made almost entirely 
 of the wooden hoops belonging to barrels that had 
 been washed ashore by the Atlantic waves and broken 
 up on the beach of an island in the Shetlands. 
 
 Some strange things have been found in birds' 
 nests from time to time. A soldier's jacket and an 
 arrow, amongst other articles, were once discovered 
 in that of a Gannet at St. Kilda. 
 
 I have seen Shags' nests adorned with freshly- 
 gathered wild flowers, and Sandwich Terns' eggs 
 lying on a beautiful collection of tiny blue mussel 
 shells, which appeared to have been gathered for 
 purely decorative purposes. 
 
 Although birds have no scaffolding to give way 
 or iron girders to collapse and injure them, they yet 
 suffer from fatal accidents whilst building their tiny 
 homes. Town Sparrows are sometimes hanged by 
 becoming entangled in bits of string they pick up 
 from the streets to build their nests with behind sign- 
 boards and rain-pipes. Chaffinches are occasionally 
 strangled by getting the horsehairs with which they 
 line their charming little homes twisted about their 
 necks. House Martins and Skylarks have both 
 been found hanged by their own efforts to escape 
 from the entanglement of straws in or near their 
 nests, and instances of mishaps of this character 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 51 
 
 could be mentioned in regard to many other 
 species. 
 
 Some birds never dream of building a nest of 
 their own, but remain content to use the old home 
 of another species. The Long-Eared Owl and the 
 Kestrel Hawk afford conspicuous examples of this 
 kind of domestic idleness, for they content them- 
 selves with the disused nests of Crows, Magpies, 
 Herons, Sparrow Hawks, Ravens, Wood Pigeons, 
 and even condescend to utilise a second-hand 
 Squirrel's drey. The Long -Eared Owl has been 
 known, when unable to find a suitable deserted 
 home, to descend to the earth and drop its eggs into 
 some sheltered hollow there, and the Kestrel Hawk 
 often deposits its eggs on the ledge of a precipice, 
 but has never been known, so far as I am- aware, 
 to attempt to make any sort of a nest of its own 
 beyond that afforded by the undigested bones and 
 down of mice which the bird ejects in almost dry 
 pellets. These pellets, or " castings " as they are 
 called by naturalists, are sometimes very plentiful 
 on the ledge of a favourite cliff, and when broken 
 up by the Kestrel form a beautiful soft bed for its 
 eggs to rest upon. 
 
 Thrushes and Blackbirds both occasionally build 
 on the remains of each other's old nests, and 
 Robins, Pied Wagtails, and different members of 
 the Tit family have been known to build inside 
 them. A few years ago I found a very strange- 
 looking Hedge Sparrow's nest in a bundle of pea- 
 
52 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 sticks standing in the corner of a kitchen garden. 
 It was twice the height of an ordinary specimen, 
 and, as the brood of young ones that had been 
 reared in it had flown, I took it carefully to pieces 
 and discovered that the lower half consisted of 
 what had no doubt been an earlier effort containing 
 a clutch of addled eggs. 
 
 In the spring 'of last year a Song Thrush built 
 a very pretty little nest on the gnarled roots of a 
 tree, growing on a high bank near my home. 'She 
 was soon robbed by a mischievous boy, and the 
 empty nesi remained all the following summer, 
 autumn, and winter in an excellent state of preser- 
 vation because the overhanging bank shielded it 
 from rain, snow, and falling leaves. At the end ot 
 March of this year a young Thrush commenced to 
 lay in it. I feel sure she was not the original owner, 
 because the eggs of the second clutch were smaller 
 than those of the first, and small eggs are generally 
 laid by young birds the first breeding season. 
 
 Before passing on to describe different types of 
 nests and their uses, I must not forget to mention 
 the names of a few prudent birds that build extra 
 nests for different purposes. 
 
 The Common Skua, or Bonxie, often constructs 
 a spare nest near to the one occupied by its pair 
 of eggs, and when .the latter is swamped by a heavy 
 rainstorm, has been known to remove her possessions 
 to her higher and drier home. 
 
 The Great Crested Grebe and the Waterhen both 
 
REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 
 
 53 
 
 build spare nests, which some naturalists think are 
 constructed as landing stages for their chicks. The 
 nest figured in our illustration had been built by 
 the latter bird 
 for the accom- 
 modation of its 
 young. 
 
 Everybody 
 knows that the 
 Common Wren 
 makes two or 
 three spare 
 nests for every 
 one occupied by 
 eggs, but no- 
 body is quite 
 sure what pur- 
 pose these extra 
 empty houses, 
 which are known 
 as "cocks' nests," 
 are intended to 
 serve. They 
 never contain 
 
 the inner lining of soft feathers and down which 
 declare the character of a finished abode with cer- 
 tainty. Some naturalists have given it as their 
 opinion that they are built to be used as sleeping 
 apartments; but my investigations do not bear out 
 this theory, for I have found the birds comfortably 
 
 WATEIUIEN'S SPARE NEST. 
 
54 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 tucked up for the night under the thatch of a rick, 
 whilst "cocks' nests," built only a few feet below, 
 were left quite unoccupied. I have, however, found 
 joth Blue Tits and Cole Tits sleeping in these un- 
 finished Wrens' nests, and they did not at all relish 
 being visited by a glaring bull's-eye lantern at ten 
 o'clock on a dark, cold winter's night. 
 
 Some ground-building birds, such as the Red- 
 shank, are quite fastidious about the selection of a 
 suitable site for their nests, and scratch out a "lot 
 of little hollows in and close beside big tufts of 
 dead grass before they finally decide upon lining 
 one and commence to lay their eggs in it. 
 
 It is truly surprising to consider to what an 
 extent wild creatures unconsciously help each other. 
 Rabbits scratch the ground a good deal during the 
 night, in the springtime especially, and dislodge 
 quantities of nice soft moss and dead grass, which 
 birds are very glad to use for nest-building purposes. 
 The same lively quadrupeds also quarrel and fight 
 during the hours of darkness, and in the course of 
 their struggles often pluck and scratch liberal 
 quantities of down off each other's bodies. In the 
 morning along comes some sharp-eyed feathered 
 dweller in the neighbourhood, and takes it away 
 forthwith to line a nest. Cows and horses rub 
 themselves against gate-posts and walls, and in 
 doing so detach hairs which are very useful to a 
 dozen kinds of birds amongst which such material 
 is fashionable for nest lining. Sheep lose tufts of 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 55 
 
 wool from their sides in the springtime by grazing 
 too near brambles and briars; along comes a Missel 
 Thrush, very glad of the opportunity of utilising 
 the material, for it will entangle itself amongst the 
 lichens growing upon the branches of some tall tree 
 in the forks of which she has decided to build her 
 nest. This bird breeds in the early spring, when 
 there are no leaves upon the trees, and the wool 
 used as a foundation effectually anchors her little 
 household to its surroundings at a time when fierce 
 spring gales and sleet come whistling through the 
 woodland. 
 
 The feathers of birds that die a natural death 
 are sometimes used as a lining for nests. 
 
 A year or two ago I had a very comical illus- 
 tration of the old saying that it is an- ill wind 
 that blows nobody an}^ good. Upon looking over a 
 wooden fence into a field I saw two Roosters hard 
 at it fighting to see who should be master of the 
 situation. They were making each other's hackle 
 feathers fly round in all directions, and, to my 
 surprise, an old cock Sparrow stood by, enjoying 
 what no doubt appeared to him to be the best of 
 fun, for he picked their feathers up as they fell 
 and flew away as hard as he could go with great 
 billfuls to his nest. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS (continued). 
 
 Open-topped Nests The Artfulness of the Carrion Crow Covered 
 Nests - Diggers of Tunnels and Pits The Wicked Boy who 
 Stopped-up Sand-Martins' Nesting Holes -Builders in Holes in 
 Trees, Rocks, Walls, and Banks Birds that Hiss when their 
 Nests are Molested Birds that Cover their Eggs when Le iving 
 their Nests Birds that it is Difficult to See The Eider Duck on 
 her Nest Birds that Do without Nests More Exceptions to 
 Nesting Rules Differences in Eggshells Sizes of Eggs 
 Shape as Tending to Pre?ervati< n Colour and Markings 
 Numher of Eggs Laid hy Birds of Different Species The 
 Cuckoo and its Eggs Incubation. 
 
 THERE is a fierce struggle for existence constantly 
 going on amongst wild birds, and as the breeding 
 season is the fullest of danger both to brooding 
 parents and to the contents of their nests, it naturally 
 behoves each species to make such a nest as will 
 best suit its habits and ensure the greatest amount 
 of safety to its eggs and helpless chicks. 
 
 In order to show the utility of different kinds 
 of nests, I propose to divide them roughly into six 
 separate classes (1) open-topped nests, (2) covered 
 nests, (3) nests in tunnels purposely dug for them, 
 (4) nests in natural holes, (5) nests covered over by 
 birds when leaving voluntarily, (6) nests that are 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 57 
 
 not nests at all in the true sense of the word ; and 
 to give some particulars of each. 
 
 I. Open - topped nests are by far the most 
 numerous. Those built by Thrushes, Blackbirds, 
 
 LINNET 8 -NEST. 
 
 Hedge Sparrows, Chaffinches, Goldfinches, and Linnets 
 are all sufficiently deep and cup- shaped to prevent 
 the eggs or young from falling out. They are, as 
 a rule, well hidden in evergreens, thick bushes, and 
 
58 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 hedgerows. I used to wonder, when I was a boy 
 how the builders of these beautiful nests managed to 
 make them so wonderfully round and smooth inside. 
 I have since learnt, by watching some of them at 
 
 TREE PIPIT S NEST HIDDEN IN GRASS. 
 
 work, that they accomplish their end by placing 
 the materials in position and then twirling round 
 and round, all the while rubbing and pressing their 
 breasts against the inside walls of the structure. 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 59 
 
 The ground colour of the eggs deposited in 
 every one of them contains green or blue, which are 
 much more useful colours than white would be in 
 preventing discovery. 
 
 THE SAME NEST UNCOVERED BY THE PHOTOGRAPHER. 
 
 The nests of Snipe, Dunlin, Larks, Pipits, the 
 Reed Bunting and Yellow Wagtail are all fairly deep, 
 open at the top, and well hidden amongst rough 
 grass, tufts, and rushes, as illustrated by the pair of 
 
60 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 pictures of a Tree Pipit's nest as it was found and 
 after the eggs had been opened to view by the 
 parting of the grass in front. The eggs of each of 
 them are coloured in browns and greys of various 
 shades, so that if seen they will not afford a strik- 
 ing contrast with the dead grass or horse-hair 
 forming the lining of the nests in which they lie. 
 
 Other open-topped nests belong, as a rule, to 
 birds capable of defending their contents either in 
 colonies or in pairs, to say nothing of the inacces- 
 sible situations of some of them in the faces of 
 cliffs and near the tops of tall trees. Seagulls of 
 various species, Rooks, Ravens, CroAvs, Eagles, and 
 Peregrine Falcons belong to this division. 
 
 Of course, there are some builders of these 
 open topped nests that have to provide against 
 other dangers than discovery and destruction by 
 their natural enemies. The Carrion Crow often 
 places its nest amongst the slender branches of a 
 tree where it would be dangerous for even a boy to 
 climb to it. But the surmounting of that danger 
 creates another. The nest is violently swayed to 
 and fro by every strong wind that blows, and were 
 it at all shallow the eggs would roll out and be 
 hurled. in fragments to the ground below. The wise 
 builder therefore constructs a deep cup-shaped home 
 which affords safety to anything in it. I must con- 
 fess that I admire this cunning bird for its wonder- 
 ful sagacity. If approached by a gamekeeper with 
 a gun whilst sitting on its nest, it does not fly off 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 61 
 
 as about ninety-nine out of every hundred birds 
 would do namely, straight away. No, that would 
 give the arch-enemy in velveteen too good a 
 chance by half; therefore the crow slips over the 
 edge of its nest, darts straight down through the 
 branches like a plummet, and flies off with the 
 tree between it and its would-be assailant. 
 
 Another species which builds a very deep cup- 
 shaped, open-topped nest is the Reed Warbler. The 
 bird attaches its little home to three or four reed 
 stems, and during the prevalence of strong winds 
 it is roughly swung and swayed in all directions 
 night and day. 
 
 II. The builders of covered nests are the Dipper, 
 Common Wren, Long-tailed Tit, Chiffchaff, Wood 
 Wren, and Willow Warbler, to say nothing of the 
 House Martin and Barn Swallow, both of which 
 build so as to have a covering touching, or very close 
 to, the tops of their homes. Every one of these birds 
 lays an egg with a white ground colour, two species 
 out of the eight have no markings whatever on 
 them, and the rest are spotted with red or reddish- 
 brown. 
 
 The Dipper's nest is a most ingenious and ser- 
 viceable structure. I have seen it dripping water 
 splashed on to it by a roaring mountain torrent', 
 and almost washed away by part of the flood oozing 
 through the crevices of the rock upon which it was 
 resting, and yet the brooding bird within sat per- 
 fectly dry in her nest of leaves. The front of the 
 
62 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 domed roof comes so far down that it is impossible 
 for a stray splash to find its way on to the eggs or 
 the young. Sometimes it is built right away behind 
 a cascade through the i ailing waters of Avhich the 
 bird is obliged to fly on leaving and entering her 
 nest. I once saw one driven right down into the 
 foaming cauldron by the force of the flood when 
 leaving her nest, but she very quickly gained wing 
 and flew away none the worse for her experience. 
 
 The Common Wren is a wonderfully adaptive 
 bird. When making its nest in the side of a hay- 
 rick it invariably uses straws for the front of its 
 home, and, when making it in a wood, it uses 
 dead leaves, which look so very like an accidental 
 collection dropped between the sprouting twigs, 
 where some bough has been lopped off, and the 
 trunk, that I have on several occasions passed 
 one by. If built amongst ferns on a bank it is 
 generally made of dead fronds, and under a 
 mossy, overhanging bank it is made of moss. I 
 used to think that the bird really employed its 
 materials with the fixed intention of deceiving its 
 enemies, but one day I found a nest in the side of 
 a haystack and the whole of its front was made of 
 moss and dead leaves picked out of a ditch directly 
 beneath. Since that I have watched members of 
 the species at work, and have been surprised at the 
 very short distance they travelled for their materials, 
 a fact which has driven me to the conclusion that 
 they use whatever comes handiest, as a rule. 
 
LONG-TAILED TIT AND NEST (p. G4). 
 
64 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 The Long- tailed Tit, or Bottle Tit, as it is called 
 in recognition of the likeness of its nest to a bottle, 
 is a clever little weaver. It makes its home of 
 moss, spiders' webs, and lichens, all well interwoven 
 and felted. The interior is often a literal feather- 
 bed; it is so liberally lined that upon one occasion 
 a Scottish naturalist counted no less than two 
 thousand three hundred and seventy-nine separate 
 feathers in a single nest. What is more curious 
 still is that whilst the female is brooding the male 
 comes along and keeps her company by roosting 
 alongside her in the nest every night. I have fre- 
 quently put my finger into one and found both birds 
 sitting in it. Our illustration (p. 63) will naturally 
 suggest the question, " What do the birds do with 
 their long tails whilst sitting inside their little 
 bottle-shaped house ? " They dispose of them in 
 the most ingenious fashion. When sitting at rest 
 they fold their long tails over their backs, and the 
 tips of these appendages point out of the entrance 
 hole in the same direction as the tips of their bills. 
 
 III. The diggers of tunnels and pits are the Sand 
 Martin, Kingfisher, Puffin, and the Woodpeckers, all 
 of which lay white eggs unspotted, with the exception 
 of the Puffin, the single egg of which is indistinctly 
 marked with a few spots of pale brown and grey. 
 
 The first named bird excavates its gallery with 
 its bill, and works in all positions, sometimes being 
 absolutely upside down. I have examined many 
 tunnels in process of construction, and always found 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 65 
 
 them deepest in the 
 centre, just as if they 
 had been made by a 
 sharpened stick thrust 
 into the bank. They 
 vary in depth 1'rom ten 
 or twelve inches to three 
 or four feet. The size 
 of the chamber and 
 quantity of nesting ma- 
 terials used also vary 
 considerably. The gal- 
 leries invariably rise 
 from the entrance to 
 their termination, as 
 they do also in the 
 case of those used by 
 Kingfishers, so as to 
 allow any water which 
 might percolate through 
 the earth above to find 
 an easy exit. 
 
 Whilst out trout- 
 fishing once on a York- 
 shire stream, I was 
 horrified to discover 
 that a wicked boy living 
 in a village close by had 
 been guilty of the un- 
 speakable cruelty of 
 
 F 
 
 GREAT SPOTTED WOODPECKER'S 
 NESTING HOLES. 
 
66 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 barring up a number of Sand Martins' nesting-holes 
 with stones. The courageous little birds had in 
 nearly every case set to work digging a fresh tunnel 
 round the obstruction. In a few cases they had 
 got through, and, wherever they had not, I at once, of 
 course, put their minds at rest by removing the stones. 
 
 The Kingfisher does not always trouble to dig 
 its own tunnel, but makes shift with an old one 
 excavated by a Sand Martin or occasionally by a 
 Water Rat. The bird feeds upon small fish, which 
 it swallows Avhole, and, like the Kestrel, casts them 
 up in pellets. These, with the dry mould at the 
 bottom of the chamber, form the bed upon which 
 the Kingfisher's eggs are laid. 
 
 The illustration on the previous page shows several 
 holes dug by a Greater Spotted Woodpecker at dif- 
 ferent breeding seasons for the reception of its eggs. 
 At the time the tree was photographed a Pied Fly- 
 catcher and a Great Tit were also nesting in holes 
 excavated in it by the Woodpecker. 
 
 Puffins love a soft, low, peaty island upon 
 which to breed, for then they can be quite happy 
 digging their numerous tunnels, until the whole 
 place becomes so honeycombed that the earth 
 feels as if it were giving way. It is said that 
 the birds become so absorbed in their task whilst 
 excavating that they pay no heed to a human visitor, 
 and will at such times allow themselves to be taken 
 by hand. If they should arrive upon an island 
 already tenanted b} T rabbits, they do not trouble to 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 67 
 
 dig their own tunnels, but simply eject the bunnies 
 and quietly take possession of their homes. It must, 
 
 STARLING GOING TO NESTING HOLE IN KICK. 
 
 indeed, be a laughable sight to see an old mother 
 rabbit rushing out of her hole with a little Sea Parrot, 
 as the bird is sometimes called, hanging on to her 
 tail by its great Fifth-of-November looking bill. 
 
 IV. Builders in holes in trees, rocks, walls, ricks, 
 and banks are the Screech Owl, Tawny Owl, Stock 
 
68 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 THE GREAT-GUI STE1> GREBE S XEST WITH EGGS 
 COVERED BY PARENTS. 
 
 Dove, Rock 
 Dove, Wry- 
 neck, Nut- 
 hatch, Great 
 Tit, Blue Tit, 
 Cole Tit, 
 Marsh Tit, 
 Crested Tit, 
 Stormy Pet- 
 rel, Fork- 
 tailed Petrel, 
 Starling, 
 Wheatear, 
 Redstart, and 
 Pied Fly- 
 catcher. The 
 first five of 
 these birds 
 lay pure white 
 eggs entirely 
 unmarked, 
 the next nine 
 white eggs, 
 more or less 
 spotted with 
 red or red- 
 dish-brown, 
 and the last 
 four lay pale 
 blue or 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 69 
 
 greenish-blue 
 eggs without 
 markings, ex- 
 cept the Pied 
 Flycatcher, 
 whose eggs 
 are said to be 
 occasionally 
 spotted with 
 reddish- 
 brown, al- 
 though I 
 have never 
 once met 
 with marked 
 specimens. 
 
 The Wry- 
 neck and the 
 di ffe r e n t 
 species of 
 Tits named 
 above possess 
 the curious 
 habit of hiss- 
 ing like a 
 snake when 
 they are mo- 
 lested in their 
 breed ing - 
 holes, and I 
 
 THE SAME NEST WITH EGGS UNCOVERED. 
 
7o OUR BIKD FRIENDS. 
 
 once saw a number of inexperienced boys from 
 London get a rare fright. They saw a member 
 of the Tit family enter a hole in an old stump, 
 and one of them thrust his hand in with the 
 evident intention of capturing her, but there was 
 such a spitting and hissing that he withdrew it 
 on the instant, and, securing a stick, Avas about 
 to try to dislodge the unfortunate bird, when I 
 sprang from my hiding-place with a suddenness that 
 startled the little crowd, and saved the Tit from 
 further molestation. 
 
 The Owls and the Petrels which I have men- 
 tioned enter and leave their nesting-holes during 
 the hours of twilight or darkness, and the Petrels 
 have a peculiar habit of beguiling the tedium of 
 brooding by uttering a warbling kind of chatter, 
 which they are said to indulge in both day and 
 night, 
 
 V. The nests of the Great Crested Grebe, Lesser 
 Grebe or Dabchick, Wild Duck, Eider Duck, Pheasant 
 and Partridge, are all open-topped, but the parent 
 birds, when leaving them of their own accord, take 
 the wise precaution of carefully covering over their 
 eggs. None of these birds make conspicuous-looking 
 homes for themselves. In fact, those of the Grebes 
 are in most cases mere rafts of rotting water-weeds 
 moored to surrounding reed stems, and they look so 
 much like accidental collections of dead vegetation 
 that hardly one in a thousand people taken in- 
 discriminately out of the streets of any large town 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 71 
 
 would ever for a moment suspect them to contain 
 anything in the nature of birds' eggs. The illus- 
 trations on pages 68 and 69 show a Great Crested 
 Grebe's nest just as the parent bird left it, and 
 then with her covering removed so as to show her 
 little secret. 
 
 In the case of Ducks and the Pheasant we. meet 
 with an exceedingly interesting provision of Nature 
 for their preservation. The male birds wear gaily- 
 coloured, showy dresses during the breeding season, 
 and are therefore allowed to take no part in the 
 important duties of incubation, as their brilliant 
 plumage would only serve to advertise the where- 
 abouts of their nests and eggs, the destruction of 
 which would be sure to follow. Their female com- 
 panions, on the other hand, are clad in sober brown 
 feathers of varying shades, so wonderfully arranged 
 that their wearers look like a part of their natural 
 surroundings. Is it not astonishing that a hen 
 Pheasant sitting on her nest at the foot of a hedge- 
 row should, by its artful colouring, resemble sunlight 
 and shadow so much that one's first glance appears 
 to go clean through her, and her presence is often 
 only revealed by her eye ? The birds themselves 
 evidently know the value of a dress which harmonises 
 well with their surroundings, and sit very closely, 
 without the slightest movement, until they are 
 compelled to seek safety in flight. How very closely 
 the Eider Duck sits may be understood when it is 
 stated that I have on a good many occasions stroked 
 
EIDER DUCK 8 NEST WITH EGGS UNCOVERED. 
 
 EIDER DUCK ON NEST. 
 
 JiID2R DUCK S NEST WITH EGGS COVERED WITH DOWN. 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 73 
 
 the bird on her back without in the least disturbing 
 her ; and this is all the more wonderful when it is 
 taken into consideration that she is a very shy bird 
 when not engaged in brooding. 
 
 In order that my readers should be in a position 
 to understand and appreciate the breeding habits 
 of the bird that supplies us with the materials for 
 the manufacture of the light warm quilts under 
 which most folks like to nestle on cold winter 
 nights, I think it well to show by illustration an 
 Eider Duck on her nest, a nest showing the eggs, 
 and one with the down carefully folded over so as 
 to hide its contents. The down is plucked from 
 the underparts of the bird's body in increasing 
 quantities as incubation advances, and serves another 
 exceedingly useful purpose besides that -.of hiding 
 the eggs. It prevents an undue escape of heat, and 
 enables the mother Duck to remain away as long 
 as three hours at a stretch without fear of injury 
 to her forthcoming young. 
 
 The eggs of these birds that make open-topped 
 nests and cover their contents when they leave 
 them voluntarily are Grebes, white when newly 
 laid ; Ducks, greenish or buffish white ; Pheasant 
 and Partridge, olive brown. 
 
 Individual members of other species sometimes 
 find it useful to hide their nests, and I have known 
 a Blackbird dispose her little home so cleverly in 
 the side of a hayrick that its presence was only 
 detected by a keen-eyed naturalist discovering the 
 
74 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 orange-coloured bill of the sitting bird protruding 
 beyond the edge. Waterhens occasionally hide 
 their homes in the most ingenious manner. When 
 nesting amongst reeds, they bend some of them 
 
 down, as shov:n 
 in our illustra- 
 tion, so as to 
 prevent the 
 eggs from being 
 seen fro'm 
 above, instead 
 of leaving them 
 plainly visible 
 as they were in 
 the nest shown 
 on the oppo- 
 site page. My 
 brother and I 
 once had the 
 most convin- 
 cing proof of 
 the usefulness 
 of this little 
 dodge. We 
 
 found a nest so hidden one morning, and, returning 
 later in the day to photograph it, were dismayed 
 to see half-a-dozen boys wading up and down 
 in search of Waterhens' nests. We watched 
 them from behind a blackthorn bush, and were 
 delighted to see each of them wade within a 
 
 W ATE RH EN'S :\EST IN KEEUS. 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 75 
 
 couple of feet of our nest without discovering its 
 presence. In the picture we have, of course, 
 parted the reeds in front of the nest and taken 
 our view from quite low down in front, so as 
 to show the 
 cleverness of 
 the mother 
 bird's idea. 
 
 VI. Birds 
 that make no 
 nest at all, or 
 next to none, 
 are Terns, 
 Ringed and 
 Kentish Plo- 
 vers, Peewits, 
 Stone Curlews, 
 and Oyster 
 Catchers, 
 amongst others. 
 They breed 
 upon the 
 
 ground, and WATERHE.N'S NEST IN BRAMBLES. 
 
 their eggs re- 
 semble their surroundings so closely that they are 
 difficult to find. In such circumstances, a bulky 
 nest would only serve to betray the whereabouts 
 of the eggs, which the brooding birds, in nearly 
 every instance, slip away from at the earliest sign 
 of approaching danger. 
 
76 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Some individual Terns belonging to a colony 
 breeding on a shingly beach have been knoAvn to 
 carry quantities of pebbles on to the grass above 
 tide reach, and, after making a miniature beach of 
 their own, lay their eggs upon it. This is un- 
 doubtedly very clever, but, on the other hand, 
 there are Terns, like human beings, that cannot 
 leave well alone; for I once found some eggs, 
 belonging to a member of this family, lying on a 
 pavement of little blue mussel- shells, which looked 
 conspicuous on the golden-grey sand, and, in turn, 
 showed up the stone-coloured eggs and their brown 
 and chestnut markings so distinctly that they could 
 be seen from quite a distance. 
 
 Ringed Plovers do not, as a rule, indulge in a 
 proper nest, but will sometimes, when breeding on 
 a rocky shore, where there is very little sand or 
 shingle, collect tiny shells and pebbles, and, placing 
 them at the bottom of a shallow crevice, lay their 
 eggs upon the top of them. Not long ago I found 
 a nest belonging to this species made entirely of 
 wee sandstone pebbles which the bird had lifted 
 out of the dry bed of a tiny streamlet and placed 
 on the bank where there was nothing but grass. 
 This struck me as being a case of real wisdom, for 
 the stones were deposited at such a point as would 
 have been most likely to save the eggs from the 
 consequences of a flood suddenly descending the 
 channel of the stream. 
 
 There are very few rules which are not supplied 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 77 
 
 with their exceptions, and I now propose to mention 
 a few remarkable exceptions to the rules prevail- 
 ing in the different classes of nests of which I have 
 spoken. For instance, both the Wood Pigeon and 
 the Turtle Dove build open-topped nests and yet 
 lay white eggs, which may sometimes be plainly 
 seen through the twigs composing the flimsy plat- 
 form upon which they lie by an observer standing 
 at the foot of the tree or bush in which the nest 
 is situated. And yet, in spite of this great draw- 
 back, the birds have increased in numbers in Britain 
 during recent years, but, it must be pointed out, 
 mainly owing to the strict preservation of game in the 
 districts AAhere they breed, which means the practical 
 extermination of their natural enemies. The Fulmar 
 Petrel and Solan Goose are exceptions, too, as they 
 each lay a single white egg, but both breed on the 
 most dizzying ocean cliffs to say nothing of the 
 facts that the former defends itself by squirting 
 quantities of evil-smelling amber-coloured oil at its 
 enemies, and the latter by vigorous pecks from a 
 very formidable bill. Herons and Cormorants are 
 also both exceptions, because they lay white or pale- 
 blue eggs ; but here again the parent birds are 
 capable of taking care of their property. 
 
 The Whinchat and the Stonechat lay pale, 
 greenish-blue eggs, sparingly speckled in the case 
 of the former species with reddish-brown, yet both 
 nest on or near the ground. I ought to add, how- 
 ever, that the nests are so splendidly hidden that 
 
78 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 the colour of the eggs in them very seldom, if ever, 
 betrays their presence. 
 
 Having thus dealt with the different kinds of 
 nests and the useful ends they serve, let us pass 
 on to consider the most interesting characteristics 
 of the eggs they contain. 
 
 When I was a boy I used to think that the 
 colour of a bird's egg would bear some sort of 
 
 JFULMAH PETREL'S EGG (p. 77). 
 
 relationship to that of the bird which laid it, but 
 experience soon taught me that such was by no 
 means the case. 
 
 Egg-shells differ very considerably in character. 
 Those of the Woodpeckers are smooth and polished, 
 whilst those laid by Grebes are rough and chalky. 
 Cormorants and Shags lay pale blue and pale green 
 eggs respectively, but both are, as a rule, so thickly 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 79 
 
 coated with chalk that the real shell cannot be seen 
 until the covering is scraped away. 
 
 A strange thing about a bird's egg is that an 
 injury to the shell just after it is laid does not 
 appear to do the coming chick any harm, provided 
 the air be excluded. 
 
 One day a gentleman living in one of the eastern 
 counties of England found a Blackbird's nest near 
 his fruit garden, in which he takes great pride, and 
 thinking that if he destroyed the four fresh eggs it 
 contained the bird would set to work again at once 
 and build a new one where he might not discover 
 it, he thought he would waste her time. Taking a 
 pin, he drove it right through each egg, and then 
 went his way. The albumen welled up, filled each 
 hole, hardened, and so effectually excluded the air 
 that a fine strong chick emerged from each egg in 
 due season. 
 
 A German scientist, of a rather inquisitive and 
 certainly ingenious turn of mind, once took it into 
 his head that he would like to watch a chick grow 
 inside an egg. He at once set to work, and, with 
 a number of delicate tools and the exercise of great 
 care, he managed to remove a piece of shell and 
 actually fix a tiny window in its place. Through 
 this window he was successful in watching the 
 development of the chick for four or five days 
 
 Eggs differ enormously in size, as may be seen 
 from our illustration on the next page of the largest 
 and smallest laid in the British Islands. The wee 
 
8o 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 specimen belongs to a Golden-crested Wren, and 
 the large one to a Wild Goose. Of course, these 
 extremes are easily beaten by birds of other 
 
 SMALLEST AND LARGEST BRITISH BIRDS EGGS. 
 
 countries. For instance, some of the tiny Hum- 
 ming-birds of America lay a pair of eggs so small 
 that they find room enough in a nest no bigger 
 
 RAVEN'S AND COMMON CURLEW'S EGGS (jr. 81). 
 
 than a walnut shell, and the extinct Epyornis of 
 Madagascar has left behind it the empty shells cf 
 
SOME REMARK-ABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 81 
 
 eggs capable of holding 12,000 of those produced 
 by a Humming-bird, 150 of those laid by a Com- 
 mon Fowl, or nine dropped by an Ostrich. Just 
 fancy sitting down to such an egg for breakfast, 
 and having to crack its three-quarters-of-an-inch- 
 thick shell with a coal-hammer ! 
 
 Birds' eggs also vary greatly in size quite irre- 
 spectively of the size of the parent birds. A 
 Common Curlew is a smaller bird than a Raven, 
 but the illustration on page 80 shows how greatly 
 their eggs differ in the opposite direction, although 
 it is only fair to add that the former bird's full 
 complement of eggs is only four, whereas the latter 
 lays from five to seven. The explanation of the dit- 
 ference is that the young of the Curlew begin to 
 run about among coarse grass, rushes, ancT heather 
 directly they are hatched, and therefore need their 
 additional size a-nd strength much more than the 
 young Ravens, which are carefully fed and tended by 
 their parents in a nest until they are nearly full- 
 grown, well- feathered, and able to fly. 
 
 The size and shape of eggs laid by birds of the 
 same species also vary to some extent, as may be 
 seen by a glance at the two Thrushs' and two 
 Blackbirds' eggs on the next page. It is young 
 birds that generally lay the smallest eggs, during 
 their first breeding season. 
 
 Most people have seen the miniature eggs 
 dropped by domestic fowls towards the end of the 
 laying season, but I do not think it is at all 
 G 
 
82 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 generally known that wild birds occasionally produce 
 similar tiny specimens. Our illustration on the 
 
 SONG THRUSHS' EGGS (]). 81). 
 
 opposite page shows a Yellow Hammers nest with 
 one of these Tom Thumb specimens in it. 
 
 The shape of some eggs plays a wonderful part 
 
 ]iLACKBIHI)s' EGGS (p. 81). 
 
 in their safety and even in the future well-being of 
 the chicks they contain. 
 
 The Common Guillemot lays a single large egg 
 on the top of some bare, flat rock-stack or the 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 83 
 
 ledge of an ocean cliff, and makes not the slightest 
 nest of any kind whatsoever obviously very dan- 
 gerous places to drop anything so liable to roll 
 away to destruction as a bird's egg. But let us 
 see how wonderfully the problem of preservation 
 
 YELLOW HAMMER'S NEST CONTAINING DWAHF EGG (p. 82). 
 
 has been solved in this matter. The Common 
 Guillemot's egg has been much elongated, so that when 
 stirred by a strong gust of wind or by the parent 
 bird suddenly leaving it, instead of rolling away 
 like a marble, it spins round on its own axis like a 
 boy's top lying on its side, describes a small circle, 
 and is thus saved. Of course, even this beautiful 
 provision of Nature does not always prevent Guille- 
 mots' eggs from being destroyed, for they are 
 
84 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 sometimes laid on ledges so narrow that the 
 slightest rough movement makes them slip off 
 before they have a chance of describing a quarter 
 of their small circle, and I have seen them fall in 
 a shower into the sea when the sitting birds have 
 suddenly been frightened away by the discharge of 
 a tourist steamer's brass cannon. 
 
 This illustration shows a Common Guillemot's egg 
 beside that of a Tawny Owl, which is usually laid 
 
 EGGS OF GUILLEMOT AND TAWNY OWL. 
 
 in a hole in a tree, rock, old ruin, or some other 
 place where it has no chance of rolling about. 
 Were the two species to change places for a little 
 while we should very soon have none of the latter 
 birds left alive. 
 
 In cases where chicks run about directly they 
 are hatched, it is, of course, necessary that all the 
 size and strength obtainable should be secured. 
 With this end in view, the eggs of the Lapwing 
 and other birds belonging to its family are large, 
 and so pear-shaped that when lying in the nest, as 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 85 
 
 shown in our illustration, they practically cover a 
 square and prevent the waste of much-needed space 
 between them. I have over and over again tested 
 the mother bird's appreciation of the value of this 
 shape as a space economiser by turning one of her 
 eggs sharp end outwards, for she always promptly 
 altered my arrangement when she returned. Any- 
 one taking a piece of wire and making a ring round 
 a Lapwing's eggs with it as they lie in the nest 
 just as the bird left them, and then turning them 
 all so that their round ends are in the centre, will 
 find that their sharp points protrude such a long 
 way over the wire, as shown in the illustration below, 
 that they are much less easy to cover by the 
 parent bird. 
 
 The colour and markings of some eggs play a 
 very important part in their preservation. Those 
 of the Kentish and Ringed Plovers are splendid 
 examples of protective coloration, for they often 
 
 PEEWIT'S EGOS, (1) WITH POINTED ENDS IN, (2) WITH POINTED 
 ENDS OUT. 
 
86 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 match so closely the pebbles upon which they lie 
 that they are difficult to distinguish from a distance 
 of only a few feet, and are then only discovered, 
 as a rule, by their greater regularity of outline than 
 the stones around them. In order to demonstrate 
 the value of this wonderful provision of Nature, 
 we photographed a clutch of Ringed Plover's eggs 
 just where the bird laid them, and then a similar 
 number of Starling's eggs in the same place (see 
 pp. 88 and 89). The object-lesson brings home to 
 one the value of harmonising colours when there is 
 no nest in a rather striking manner. 
 
 The colouring of birds' eggs varies in richness 
 and beauty with age and the condition of health 
 of their layers. I have seen a Blackbird's eggs 
 quite unmarked, those belonging to a Starling 
 pure white instead of pale blue, specimens laid by 
 a Chaffinch pale greenish-blue without a trace of 
 the usual reddish-brown suffusion or dark markings ; 
 and once I found a dead Wren sitting on a clutch 
 of eggs without a single one of the usual brownish- 
 red spots on them, 
 
 An interesting point in reference to the color- 
 ation of birds' eggs is that, although they may vary 
 very widely indeed in a species, an individual bird 
 of that species appears to be bound down to a single 
 pattern. For instance, eggs laid by Common Guille- 
 mots are white, cream, yellowish-green, pea-green, 
 blue, reddish-brown or purplish-brown in ground 
 colour, with every imaginable shade between, and are 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 87 
 
 spotted, blotched, and streaked with, black, dusky- 
 brown, greyish-brown and other tints, but each, of 
 these varieties is produced by a different bird, which 
 goes on producing similarly tinted eggs if any 
 accident should happen to the first or second laid. 
 The gatherers of sea-birds' eggs at Speaton Cliffs, 
 near Flamborough, in Yorkshire, asserted this a long 
 while ago ; and whilst ray brother and I were at 
 St. Kilda I asked the fowlers there if this coincided 
 with their experience, and they answered that it did ; 
 and during our stay on the island I had an oppor- 
 tunity of confirming the statement for myself. 
 
 A strange thing about the eggs of the House 
 and Tree Sparrows is that one in each clutch is 
 generally covered with much bolder markings than 
 the rest. 
 
 The number of eggs laid by birds of different 
 species varies very considerably, in accordance with 
 the food supply procurable for the chicks, their 
 habits, and their defensive capacity. 
 
 The Petrels, Puffin, Common Guillemot, Razorbill, 
 and Gannet lay a single egg ; the Pigeons two ; Lap- 
 wing, Golden Plover, Snipe, Common Curlew, and 
 other members of the wading-bird family, four. 
 The great majority of birds do not lay a fixed 
 number of eggs. Eagles vary from one to four, 
 but generally have two ; Gulls two to three, some- 
 times four; Ducks five or six to from eight to 
 fifteen or sixteen ; Tits five or six to ten or a dozen ; 
 Partridges ten to eighteen or twenty indeed, as 
 
88 
 
 Oi /A' BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 many as thirty-three have been found in a nest, 
 but they were undoubtedly the production of two 
 females. 
 
 This brings us to the question, Do birds lay 
 in each other's nests ? Undoubtedly they do, and, 
 what is more, a member of one species will 
 
 I 
 
 KINGED PLOVEll's EGGS AS LAID (p. 86). 
 
 drop its eggs into the nest of a bird belonging 
 to an entirely different one. Thrushes and B'ack- 
 birds occasionally mix their eggs, and the Pheasant 
 .is quite notorious for its carelessness in this way, 
 and has been known to lay in the nests of the 
 Common and Red-legged Partridge, Red Grouse, 
 Capercailzie, and Wild Duck. Teal and Red Grouse 
 have also been known to drop their eggs into the 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 89 
 
 same nest once at least. I have seen a Coot's egg 
 in a Great Crested Grebe's nest, and those ot 
 Blackbirds and Thrushes mixed, but in neither 
 instance could I be sure that they had been placed 
 where they were by the birds and not by some 
 experimentally minded human being. 
 
 STARLING'S LOGS IN THE SAME NESTING PLACE (p. 86). 
 
 Anyone making a close study ot Nature and 
 the ways of her children is constantly encountering 
 strange freaks of behaviour. Last summer, whilst 
 staying in the ruins of St. Cuthbert's Tower on the 
 Fame Islands, I went out with my friend Mr. 
 Paynter, the greatest friend of Seafowl in the British 
 Islands, and he shoAvcd me a Lesser Black-backed 
 Gull's nest containing three eggs which were being 
 
9O OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 sat upon by an Eider Duck. The two birds had 
 nested within a few feet of each other; and as 
 the Lesser Black Back or some of its neighbours 
 had sucked the Eider Duck's eggs the shells 
 of which were lying scattered round she had 
 promptly retaliated by usurping the Gull's nest 
 and eggs. 
 
 Of course, everybody knows of the Cuckoo's 
 strange habit of making other birds do its work at 
 the expense of their own offspring. Cuckoo's eggs'are 
 only about one quarter the size they ought to be 
 in proportion to the bird that lays them ; they vary 
 in colour more than those of almost any other 
 bird, and have been found in the nests of upwards 
 of a hundred different species. Some naturalists 
 think that the bird has the power of adapting the 
 colour of its egg to that of the foster-parent, into 
 the nest of which it drops it. Two Cuckoos' eggs 
 have frequently been found in one nest, and on 
 rare occasions even three. There can be no doubt 
 that the egg is first laid and then taken in 
 the bill and safely deposited in the nest of the 
 bird selected to become the foster-parent, for it 
 has been found in covered nests, and Cuckoos have 
 been shot with their eggs in their bills. 
 
 The period of incubation varies considerably. 
 .Some birds, such as Tits, Thrushes, and Blackbirds, 
 sit about a fortnight, whilst others, such as Wild 
 Ducks and Seagulls, brood double that time. The 
 Puffin is said to sit on her single egg for five weary 
 
SOME REMARKABLE NESTS AND EGGS. 91 
 
 weeks, and the Fulmar Petrel for an even longer 
 period. 
 
 The majority of birds only have one brood in 
 a season, but, on the other hand, a great many 
 rear two. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 YOUNG : HOW THEY ARE FED AND PROTECTED. 
 
 How Chicks of Various Species Differ Chicks that are Covered with 
 Down and those that are not The Baby Oyster- Catcher that 
 had a Great Fall The First Week in the Life of a Baby 
 Blackbird " Me Won't Sit !" Oyster-Catchers Watching over 
 their Chicks Wiles of Parent Birds to Decoy Intruders from 
 their Young Bravery of Birds in Defending their Young 
 Daring Ducklings How Parent Birds Work to Support their 
 Families A Tit-bit for Mother Y'oung Rooks Learning to 
 Forage for themselves Wasteful Birds Times of Plenty A 
 Welcome Home for Mother and Father What Young Birds 
 do when they Leave Home The Cuckoo and its Bad Habits. 
 
 THE periods occupied by nest-building and brooding 
 are no doubt happy, hopeful times, but the real 
 joys and cares of a mother bird's life only com- 
 mence when the young burst forth from their little 
 prison-houses of shell. 
 
 The chicks of some species may be distinctly 
 heard cheep-cheep-cheeping before a particle of the 
 shell of the egg in which they lie tucked away is 
 broken. At such times I have watched the sitting 
 parent rise, turn the contents of her nest carefully 
 over, listen for a little while, and sitting down 
 again, look the very happiest thing in all the 
 countryside. And when the young ones have come 
 forth, what a wealth of love and care is lavished 
 upon them ! Day in and day out, almost every 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION or YOUNG B/KDS. 93 
 
 thought and action of one or both parents is for 
 the welfare of their offspring, as I hope to show 
 during the course of the present chapter by retail- 
 ing a few of the interesting things I have seen 
 during my rambles in birdland. 
 
 The young of different species vary to an in- 
 credible extent when they emerge from the shell, 
 in development, in appearance, and in intelligence. 
 Those of Blackbirds, Thrushes, Sparrows, Larks, 
 and similar birds, have their eyes closed, very little 
 down upon their bodies, and only enough sense to 
 open their mouths in dumb appeal for food, and 
 they remain in their nests from a week to a fortnight 
 after they are hatched. On the other hand, baby 
 Plovers, Sandpipers, and Curlews arrive open-eyed, 
 with a thick coat of down all over their bodies, 
 leave the nest directly they are hatched, and possess 
 such an instinctive knowledge of the world and its 
 ways that, even an hour after they have first seen 
 the light of day, if a Hawk passes overhead they 
 crouch flat and trust to escaping discovery and 
 destruction by means of the varying tints of the 
 upper parts of their dress corresponding with their 
 natural surroundings. Our illustrations on the 
 next two pages show how well this harrnonisation of 
 colour can protect a tiny Peewit crouching flat in 
 a field. Three yards away it is almost impossible 
 to see the creature until it stands up and com- 
 mences to move about. 
 
 Common Curlews breed in great numbers on the 
 
94 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 moors, pastures, and even meadows in some parts 
 of the North of England. The chicks of the birds 
 nesting in the two first-named situations easily 
 hide amongst the brown, half-dead grass, with which 
 they harmonise very closely indeed ; but those in- 
 habiting the 
 fields where the 
 < herbage is short 
 and beautifully 
 green are not so 
 well off for cover. 
 The baby chick 
 figured in the 
 illustration on 
 page 96 was met 
 with in a mea- 
 dow, and photo- 
 graphed whilst 
 standing on a 
 stone, where it 
 looked very plain 
 and conspicuous 
 PEEWIT STAND-ING (p. 93). against a light- 
 
 green back- 
 
 ground. It is not long, however, before young 
 birds living in such places learn an effectual method 
 of hiding. Whilst watching one in a little meadow 
 one day and wondering at the tremendous fuss its 
 parents made about its safety, I saw it run into a 
 corner formed by two old stone walls meeting 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 95 
 
 each other at right angles, and suddenly missed it. 
 Upon a nearer approach, I was astonished to find 
 that it had plastered itself up against the stones 
 so cleverly, and harmonised so closely in colora- 
 tion with them, that it was difficult to detect only 
 a f e w p aces 
 away. Although 
 supporting its 
 weight on one 
 leg only, it never 
 moved a muscle 
 whilst its por- 
 trait was being- 
 taken (see page 
 1)7) in its won- 
 derful hiding- 
 place. 
 
 The young 
 of all species 
 that run or swim 
 about directly 
 they are hatched 
 are well sup- 
 pi i c d with a 
 
 warm coat of down, and so also are those ot 
 Eagles, Falcons, and Owls, although they remain 
 in their eyries for a long while on account of slow 
 development. On the other hand, young Cormorants 
 and Shags emerge from the shell without a particle 
 of down upon them, and their little black, shiny 
 
 PEEWIT CROUCHING (p. 93). 
 
96 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 bodies render them strangely suggestive ot winged 
 niggers. 
 
 A good covering of down serves other purposes 
 sometimes besides keeping its wearer warm and 
 protecting it from discovery by matching in color- 
 ation with natural surroundings : it acts the part of 
 
 MAMY CURLEW (p. 94). 
 
 a useful buffer in the case of an accidental fall. On 
 one occasion I saw a baby Oyster Catcher fall off 
 a ledge ten feet in height and jump up and run 
 away as if nothing whatever had happened directly 
 it reached the rough stones below. The little 
 creature could not have stood more than three 
 inches in height, and yet fell one hundred and 
 
YOUNG CURLEW HIDING (p. 94). 
 
98 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 twenty inches. I wondered what would have hap- 
 pened to a child standing three feet in height after 
 falling one hundred and twenty feet and striking 
 nothing but hard rocks. 
 
 The chicks of some species grow very rapidly, 
 as will be seen from the accompanying series of 
 illustrations representing the first week of the life 
 of a baby Blackbird. 
 
 The egg in the first picture on the next page 
 was photographed on the morning of the 9fh of 
 May, and the chick, which was carefully marked, at 
 ten o'clock every morning from the 10th to the 16th 
 of the month, when it and its brothers and sisters 
 were slain by a cat, to my great grief. The camera 
 was most carefully fixed on wooden pegs driven into 
 the ground, and the distance from the lens to a dot 
 in the centre of the black board on which the chick 
 rested was measured every time a plate was exposed, 
 so as to ensure absolute accuracy. 
 
 On the morning of the 10th, llth, and 12th the 
 little fellow lay quite still whilst having his portrait 
 taken; but on the 13th he began to struggle, and 
 on the following day his eyes were partly open. 
 On the 15th his eyes were a bit more widely opened 
 and his feathers shooting quite nicely. He grew 
 very uneasy, and before the plate was exposed 
 upon him began to kick, struggle, and roll about 
 and tell us in the plainest of bird language. " Me 
 won't sit ! " On the 16th his last day of facing the 
 camera troubles, poor little chap ! he made very 
 
May 10. 
 
 May 14. 
 
 May 12. May 16. 
 
 THE FIRST WEEK IN A BABY BLACKBIRD'S LIFE. 
 
ioo OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 free use both of his legs and his wings, the latter of 
 which he used like oars, and said some very nasty 
 things about natural history photographers. It Avill 
 be noticed that the last two days of his brief life 
 made a great difference in the length of his wing 
 quills, A strange thing about him was that only 
 a few hours after he had left the shell he could 
 sit straight up on end, like a ginger-beer bottle, in 
 the palm of my hand and beg for food with his 
 little mouth very widely opened. 
 
 As young birds grow and fill the cavity of cup- 
 shapcd nests, the mother bird, when covering them 
 during periods of rest from her labours and at 
 night-time, is lifted higher and higher; and it is 
 no uncommon thing to see her sitting in the ele- 
 vated position depicted in the illustration of a 
 Blackcap on the opposite page, with three or four 
 inquiring heads thrust from beneath her wings and 
 puffed- out breast feathers. 
 
 Chicks that have to be left in a nest whilst 
 their parents fly a long way off in search of food 
 are no doubt a source of great anxiety ; but so 
 are those that run about with their elders directly 
 they are hatched. 
 
 One day, whilst lying hidden in a crevice of 
 rock by the sea, I saw a pair of old Oyster Catchers 
 proudly walking along the strand. By-and-by they 
 approached my place of concealment, and as their 
 behaviour became somewhat strange I gave them 
 particular attention. They kept on running back- 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 101 
 
 wards and forwards in a state of concern upon the 
 sand and shingle just above the wetted line left 
 by the succeeding waves of a rising tide, and I 
 discovered that they each had a pair of mis- 
 chievous baby Oyster Catchers in their charge. 
 The youngsters seemed to want to paddle very 
 
 FEMALE BLACKCAP SITTING OX NEST Ft'LL OF YOUNG (p. 100). 
 / 
 
 badly, but their parents headed them off every 
 time they approached the water and made them 
 run about where it Avas quite safe. I must admit 
 that this parental care seemed even to me to be 
 very much overdone, but I soon had a striking 
 lesson to the contrary. A number of tourists 
 landed from a boat which came ashore a hundred 
 yards or so further down the bay, and one of the 
 
102 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 old Oyster Catchers rushed off to try to make 
 them believe its nest was on a rocky promontory 
 close by. A few seconds later one of the venture- 
 some chicks thought it could cross a tiny creek of 
 shallow water before an incoming wave had time 
 to catch and overwhelm it. This was "a sad mis- 
 take ; for the rushing flood of water knocked it 
 down and rolled it over and over, and the backwash 
 sucked it away towards deep water. The downy 
 little thing struggled and kicked most gallantly 
 shorewards, but before it had a chance of setting 
 foot on the solid sand the next breaker bowled it 
 over and I lost sight of it in the smother of broken 
 water. The unfortunate creature would have 
 perished to a certainty had I not promptly jumped 
 up and run along and rescued it. Those old Oyster 
 Catchers kneAv the ways of adventurous chicks and 
 tumbling waves far better than I did, and I shall 
 never doubt their wisdom again. 
 
 The behaviour of parent birds differs very widely 
 when danger threatens their helpless children. 
 Some species, such as the Red Grouse and Common 
 Partridge, decoy an intruder away from the presence 
 of their offspring by feigning injury. Crouching 
 quite still and silent in the heather or grass, with 
 eyes and ears alert, they allow an enemy to 
 approach very close indeed, in the hope that they 
 may be passed by unseen ; but when they judge it 
 unsafe to remain quiet any longer, they suddenly 
 jump up and scuffle along the ground as if quite 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 103 
 
 unable to fly. No sooner has the startled intruder 
 recovered from his surprise than he gives chase, in 
 the almost certain hope of catching the wounded 
 bird, which flaps and tumbles along a yard or two 
 in front of him. Exactly what the wily creature 
 desires him to do ; and as soon as he has been 
 enticed a safe distance away, up she jumps as hale 
 and well as any bird alive, and mounting the air, 
 flies off laughing at her disappointed dupe, who 
 turns round in the vain hope of retracing his steps 
 to the spot from which the winged trickster first 
 started. Even if he succeeded it would be quite 
 useless, for directly the mother bird fluttered away 
 the cunning chicks scattered helter-skelter north, 
 south, east and west, as if they had not the least 
 connection with each other. When the danger has 
 quite passed the parent bird returns to the spot 
 and calls her children up to her. Along they all 
 run as fast as their little feet will carry them, and 
 as soon as the excitement is over and they have 
 congratulated their clever old mother upon the 
 success of her cunning, and she them upon their 
 prompt dispersal, they fall back upon the tAvo great 
 pursuits of their wild lives: looking out for food 
 and enemies. 
 
 A few species defend their young by attacking 
 their enemies in the most courageous manner. The 
 Common Skua, which breeds in the Shetland 
 Islands, is one of these birds, and I have repeatedly 
 had my cap dashed off my head by it when 
 
IO4 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 standing near a nest containing newly - hatched 
 young. 
 
 Occasionally an Arctic Tern or Sea Swallow will 
 boldly attack an intruder and strike him a stinging 
 blow upon the crown of the head with'^its bill. 
 
 ARCTIC TERN GUARDING HER NEST. 
 
 Whilst studying Seafowl in their breeding haunts 
 on the Fame Islands last spring I was attacked by 
 one of these dainty little birds close by the place 
 where the photograph which is reproduced above 
 was obtained, and I must admit that the vigour 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 105 
 
 and suddenness of her onslaught astonished me. 
 I was wandering along a shingly beach, carefully 
 examining every inch of ground for fear of setting 
 foot on any eggs or chicks belonging to the cloud 
 of white-winged, noisy birds in the air above me, 
 when all of a sudden I received a stinging blow on 
 the top of my head. It felt as if I had been struck 
 by a smartly hurled pebble, and T think its deliverer 
 must have suffered somewhat from the jar of the 
 collision, for she did not renew her attacks with so 
 much force, although she hit me several times 
 during my retreat to escape her fury. I have also 
 been attacked by Lesser Black-Backed Gulls, and 
 even such small birds as the Red-Backed Shrike, 
 in the defence of their young. 
 
 The Missel Thrush is a brave bird, and not in- 
 frequently perishes in the noble act of trying to 
 protect her children. If a prowling Cat happens 
 to ascend the tree in which her nest is situated, 
 she will dash at it in the boldest manner and pay 
 the penalty of her devotion. Occasionally she will 
 be guilty of the extreme imprudence of attacking 
 a Weasel or Stoat upon the ground near to her 
 breeding quarters ; and the unequal contest ends 
 in a harsh scream and a bundle of disordered 
 feathers being dragged away by the four-footed 
 maurauder. 
 
 The bird figured in our illustration (p. 109) saw 
 a Screech Owl sitting on a branch close to her nest 
 when she returned with food one day, and 
 
io6 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 promptly dashed at it and knocked it over. It was 
 a stuffed one I had had given to me, and I put 
 it there to hear what the angry Missel Thrush 
 would say. She soon had her husband by her side, 
 and they and a couple of Blackbirds and a Wren 
 or two said the most dreadful things about Owls 
 and all their kindred that I ever heard in my life. 
 
 Owls, in their turn, are not slow to defend their 
 helpless children, and the Tawny species sometimes 
 supplies such fierce examples that ladies and child- 
 ren fear to go anywhere near their quarters after 
 the dusk of evening has fallen. One such bird 
 lived close to a village in the Eastern counties of 
 England not long ago, and went so far as to carry 
 off men's caps, bury its talons in the scalps of 
 innocent wayfarers, and commit other outrages Avhich 
 rendered it such a terror that it had to be shot. 
 
 The size of a bird counts for little in a passage 
 of arms, especially in mid-air; for I have seen a 
 plucky little Ringed Dotterel drive a great hulking 
 Seagull away from the neighbourhood of her 
 children which he would have been very glad to 
 swallow one by one by rushing up beneath and 
 behind him and pecking vigorously between his 
 legs. The Gull simply tore off for his life, and 
 yelled as he flew in abject terror of his wee 
 assailant. 
 
 The Rook sometimes chases the great Heron 
 about and laughs at his cowardice ; but the sable 
 gentleman, in his turn, cannot stand the dashing 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 107 
 
 onslaughts of an enraged mother Peewit. One day, 
 whilst lying hidden at the foot of an old hedgerow, 
 with my field-glasses I saw the funniest bit of bird 
 war I ever witnessed. A mother Peewit had four 
 downy little chicks in a bare grass field on my left, 
 and a pair of Carrion Crows were trying their very 
 best to make a meal off them. Poor Mrs. Peewit ! 
 She was in a great state of excitement, charging 
 first one would-be robber and then the other. When 
 she had succeeded in driving them oft' for a few 
 minutes, she alighted and called her children 
 together just as plainly as if she had said, " Keep 
 close together, bairns; then I can guard you all 
 the better against those great black villains over- 
 head." At last I rose and helped the distressed 
 mother out of her dilemma by pointing my stick 
 at the Crows as if it were a gun and thus frightening 
 them away. 
 
 That old mother Peewit was the most sensible 
 bird I ever met. One day, when I visited her par- 
 ticular field, she was busily engaged driving off 
 Rooks. I could not make out for a while why she 
 stood twenty or thirty yards to the left of her 
 chicks, but by-and-by discovered the excellence of 
 her wisdom. A strong wind was blowing from her 
 children towards herself, and numbers of Rooks 
 were busy seeking food for their callow broods in 
 a wood a few hundred yards to her left. The 
 cunning bird knew that her unscrupulous neigh- 
 bours always flew low against the breeze on their 
 
io8 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 journey in search of food, so she planted herself 
 in such a position as to be able to drive off' any 
 dark snatcher flying in the line of her offspring. 
 
 The young of birds of prey have a curious habit 
 of defending themselves by turning over on their 
 backs and striking upwards with their powerful 
 feet. This odd method of warfare sometimes leads 
 to awkward results; for men in want of young 
 Peregrine Falcons, for instance, do not trouble to 
 descend a cliff' for them, but lower a bundle of 
 wool on the end of a long rope to the ledge 
 whereon the fierce creatures are sitting. As soon 
 as the wool comes near them they roll over on 
 their backs, and, striking upward viciously, bury 
 their talons deeply in the mass, and being unable 
 to extricate them on account of the hooked char- 
 acter of their strong claws, are drawn up entirely 
 helpless. 
 
 Despite all the watchful care and vigilance of 
 mother birds over their broods, thousands upon 
 thousands of promising young members of the 
 feathered world perish every spring. 
 
 A Shelduck will bring a family of ten or a dozen 
 beautiful children from a dark tunnel in which they 
 have been hatched and proudly paddle out on 
 to the brown waters of some lonely loch with 
 them. She tries her very best to keep them near 
 her, but all in vain : some venturesome spirit will 
 persist in wandering a little, and sooner or later 
 down swoops a hungry Gull and carries off the 
 
A MISSEL THRUSH AT NEST (p. 105) 
 
i io OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 disobedient duckling for his supper. Even those 
 that keep close by their mother's side are not safe, 
 for they have their enemies in the waters beneath 
 as well as the air above, and fierce Pike thrust up 
 their hungry jaws and ruthlessly drag them down 
 and devour them. This sometimes goes on day 
 after day until the poor distracted mother Shelduck 
 is left without a single child to love and look after. 
 
 Young Eider Ducks and Wild Geese are, ac- 
 cording to my observations, much more obedient 
 than baby Wild Ducks. I have seen whole families 
 of the two former species swimming so close under 
 their mothers' tails where the water was, of course, 
 sheltered and easy to paddle through that they 
 might almost have been covered by an ordinary 
 pocket-handkerchief. On the other hand, the child- 
 ren of the last named species wander about in such 
 a reckless fashion that I have sometimes wondered, 
 whilst watching them from one of my hiding-places, 
 that they did not drive their unfortunate mother 
 out of her mind. 
 
 Water-fowl have a lot of enemies to contend 
 against, and the care of the young in the Duck 
 Avorld devolves upon the mothers. When on land 
 they have to keep a sharp look-out for Foxes, Cats, 
 Stoats, Weasels, and Rats; and Avhen on the water 
 they are obliged to run the gauntlet of hungry 
 fishes; for even Trout weighing under two pounds 
 have been known to try to swallow ducklings and 
 choke themselves in the attempt. It must be a 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 1 1 1 
 
 fearsome thing to be seized from below and dragged 
 under water and drowned between the jaws of a 
 fish; but even this long list of enemies does not 
 include all the dangers which beset the life of a 
 duckling. I have known a whole family of water 
 fowl perish by becoming entangled in the weeds 
 growing at the bottom of a shallow lake, into 
 which they dived to escape an overhead enemy. 
 
 Some species, such as the Woodcock, carry their 
 young about from place to place when danger 
 threatens or food grows scarce at a particular spot. 
 They manage it in different ways, according to the 
 testimony of numerous observers, some in their 
 claws, others between their thighs, and so forth. I 
 have only had the good luck to see it done once, 
 in the Island of Mull, when the parent bird ap- 
 peared to have her chick pressed between her legs 
 and held by the claws and toes of both feet. 
 
 Wild Ducks, when nesting on the tops of ricks 
 in old Crows' nests built in high trees, and similar 
 elevated situations, have been seen throwing 
 their young ones down to the ground below, and 
 also carrying them in their bills ; and I have no 
 doubt that the greater or lesser height of the 
 nesting-place has much to do with the method of 
 conve} 7 ance to what the little boy described as 
 terrible firmer. 
 
 Whilst visiting a great colony of Arctic Terns 
 in the Fame Islands, upon one occasion I was sur- 
 prised to see a member of the species lift up and 
 
ii2 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 attempt to fly away with a }^oung one only a day 
 or two old. Whether it was one of her own chicks 
 or not I was unable to determine, because directly 
 it dropped upon the sand it jumped up and ran 
 off as if nothing whatever had happened, and Avas 
 soon lost to vieAV in the wandering crowd of its 
 kind. 
 
 It sounds strange, I know, to say that some 
 parent birds give their young ones pick- a- backs, 
 but, nevertheless, such is literally the case. I nnve 
 seen an old Great-Crested Grebe carrying one of 
 its children on its back whilst swimming away 
 across a broad at great speed. The question 
 naturally arises But how does the chick manage 
 to keep its seat ? In the most ingenious manner. 
 It seizes hold of a feather or two with its bill and 
 holds on as if it were handling a pair of reins. 
 
 The male members of a few species, such as 
 Pheasants, Eider Ducks, and Wild Ducks go off 
 and leave their mates directly they commence to 
 sit, and take no further notice of household affairs ; 
 but the great majority of British birds, at any rate, 
 act quite differently. The male Great-Crested 
 Grebe makes a model father, and takes charge of 
 the young ones as they are hatched, thus leaving 
 his wife quite free to bestow all her attention on 
 the unhatched eggs still remaining in the nest. 
 Father Moorhens and Coots build spare nests or 
 platforms whilst their wives are brooding, in order 
 that their dusky little sons and daughters may 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 113 
 
 have a dry place to sit on and sun themselves in 
 after getting tired of the water, to which they take, 
 one by one, almost directly they leave the shell. 
 
 Where big families prevail, as in the case 
 of the Common Partridge, the male helps the 
 female to cover the chicks. A friend of mine, who 
 is a man with a wide experience, says that the 
 adult birds always sit close together tail to tail 
 when thus engaged. Personally I have only had 
 the good fortune to see such a sight once, and I 
 shall never forget it. The birds were crouching in 
 the middle of a bare patch in a bed of stunted 
 bracken, and I got within three or four yards of 
 them before they saw me. The parent birds were 
 sitting close together, although not quite tail to 
 tail, and seven or eight little heads, with their 
 bonny bright eyes, were thrust inquiringly from 
 beneath the plumage of each. I stared and stared 
 my fill at this unusual sight, and then slowly 
 withdrew without disturbing the happy family. 
 
 The male members of some species will, in 
 addition to assisting to look after fledgelings, sit 
 upon the nest and help to keep the callow brood 
 warm and dry during the absence of their mates ; 
 and I have seen a Blackbird exchange the proud 
 occupation of piping mellow notes on the topmost 
 branch of a tall ash-tree for this kind of feminine 
 duty. 
 
 The question of finding an adequate supply of 
 suitable food for a large family of hungry chicks 
 I 
 
114 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 is a very trying 
 one for many 
 kinds of birds 
 during dry, cold 
 springs. Both 
 male and female 
 work as hard as 
 they can from 
 early morn till 
 dewy eve, "and 
 still the cry is, 
 " More, please ! " 
 Young Rooks 
 sometimes suffer 
 a considerable 
 amount of priva- 
 tion before they 
 
 leave the nest, on account of droughty weather 
 cutting short their supply of natural food : and at 
 such times their parents will assume the habits ot 
 Carrion Crows, and steal the eggs and callow young 
 of other species for a meal. 
 
 When I was a boy I often used to wonder how 
 birds managed to feed their broods without favour 
 ing one individual chick more than another. It 
 puzzled me greatly to know, for instance, if the 
 father of a family remembered whether he gave 
 the grub to Dicky or Billy when he visited the 
 nest last, and how he knew he was not giving 
 it to Polly or Sally whom his wife had just fed. 
 
 X DREAMLAND (p. 119). 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 115 
 
 I have since those juvenile speculations watched 
 many, many birds feed their young, and have come 
 to the conclusion that they never even try to 
 remember which chick they fed last, but simply 
 drop their gleanings into the mouth of the strongest 
 and most energetic child until it is satisfied and 
 retires to the bottom or back of the nest 
 and gives its weaker brothers and sisters a 
 chance. 
 
 Parent birds coming home with a good haul 
 of worms or grubs will sometimes divide their 
 catch by dropping one into 
 this and one into that widely- 
 opened rnouth, until the supply 
 is exhausted. 
 
 Not long 
 ago I had an 
 opportunity 
 of watching 
 a mother 
 Lark feed her 
 small family 
 of two child- 
 ren, and saw 
 her do some 
 interesting 
 things. She 
 brought them 
 small cater- 
 pillars and " WHO SAID MICE ?" 
 
ii6 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 moths on an average five times an hour, her 
 shortest absence being five minutes, and her longest 
 thirty. She divided her catch very impartially 
 every two visits out of three ; and when I laid a 
 dead humble bee beside the nest she promptly 
 removed it to a safe distance. Whilst she was 
 standing watching .her chicks it was a bad day 
 for any blue-bottle or other fly that came near, 
 for she at once dashed after it. Another Lark 
 tried hard to get a peep at her children, but*- she 
 drove the inquisitive intruder off in a great outburst 
 of fury. One morning a heavy thunderstorm crept 
 up, and as I was not likely to get very wet in my 
 artificial rubbish-heap fixed within three feet of the 
 birds' home, I stayed to see what she would do to 
 protect her offspring from a wetting. Directly the 
 rain commenced to fall she hastened back, disposed 
 of her catch of caterpillars, and sitting down upon 
 the nest with wings spread out a little and head to 
 windward she prepared to face the coming storm. 
 The lightning flashed, and the thunder rattled and 
 thumped, but she never once moved a muscle. By- 
 and-by the rain increased to a perfect deluge, but 
 she took not the slightest notice of it beyond 
 closing her eyes and sipping in the water which 
 ran down her bill. When the storm was over she 
 flew away, looking like a drowned rat. The sun 
 immediately shone out again bright and hot, and, 
 to my surprise, the brave bird was back again in 
 fifteen minutes by my watch with a fresh supply 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 117 
 
 of food, and every feather on her body as dry, for 
 aught I could see, as before the rain descended. 
 
 A strange thing about a great many birds is 
 that when the male and female are bringing food 
 to their chicks, if they both happen to meet at the 
 nest with a supply, one or both of them will com- 
 mence to quiver their wings, just as if they were 
 expectant fledgelings themselves. 
 
 It is very amusing to watch Rooks feeding their 
 young in the early spring. Not long ago I had a 
 pair under observation for a whole day, and some- 
 times the fun was as good as a pantomime. The 
 old mother Rook sat tight upon the nest until her 
 husband came along with a supply of food, when 
 she stood up on the edge arid watched him feed 
 their chicks, caw-cawing, shaking her wings, and 
 asking in the plainest of bird language for a tit-bit. 
 Her husband hopped sedately away a few feet, and 
 she followed him in quivering expectation, all the 
 time saying the very sweetest things about him 
 until he gave her a nice piece which he had saved 
 at the back of his commodious mouth. Then they 
 sat still for a few seconds, looking very grave and 
 thoughtful, the female generally breaking the reverie 
 by fondling round her companion's bill and utter- 
 ing a long-drawn Caaw, which seemed to say, "Did 
 you find grubs very hard to get this morning, dear ? " 
 and he answered with a short, sharp Ka, which 
 doubtless meant " Yes," for the weather was dry 
 and cold. 
 
ii8 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Occasionally the male Eook took a turn upon 
 the nest, whilst his wife flew away on a food- 
 hunting expedition. 
 
 If a brood of young Rooks should enjoy the 
 good fortune to escape the gunner on pie-making 
 intent, and get away to the fields with their parents, 
 they are instructed in the gentle art of finding and 
 extracting the larvae of all sorts of flies, drawing 
 obstinate worms from their hiding-places Avithout 
 breaking them, and other items of field craft. One 
 day I watched a brood of four so engaged. They 
 observed their mother very closely, and whenever 
 she made a find they all crowded very closely round 
 her, shaking their drooping wings and Ka, Ka, /ia-ing 
 their " Me first, mother, please ! " as loudly as ever 
 they could. By-and-by they tried to help her, but 
 soon got tired and disappointed, so sat in a bunch 
 and talked over old times when they lived in a 
 nest. 
 
 After a while old mother Rook thought they had 
 better shift to the other side of the field, where 
 there were not so many friends and neighbours on 
 the same quest as themselves ; so she called her 
 children, and away they all flew. Upon alighting, 
 one of her sons had the great good fortune to espy 
 a fine fat worm wriggling out of his tunnel by the 
 end of a drain. He was upon it in a tick, swal- 
 lowed it, and then retired to the topmost rail of an 
 old wooden fence to wipe his beak and congratulate 
 himself, 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIKDS. 1 19 
 
 Birds of prey are very hard upon their feathered 
 neighbours during the breeding season, when they 
 have a number of hungry mouths to fill. 
 
 The parents of the young Tawny Owl figured 
 on pages 114 and 115 and a pair of Carrion 
 
 ME KLIN'S NEST, WITH NEWLY-HATCHED CHICK (p. 121). 
 
 Crows lived close together in a glen, and used to 
 work unconsciously to each other's advantage. The 
 former killed small birds as they sat brooding on 
 their nests by night, and the latter carried off 
 the eggs of the unfortunate victims by day. 
 When Mrs. Crow could not meet with an 
 
120 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 adequate supply of wild birds' eggs, she used to 
 visit a farmer's Fowl-house and take away Hens' 
 eggs, and even the Indian corn upon which the 
 birds were fed. I saw her leave the Fowl-house 
 one day and found the maize at her nest, which I 
 discovered whilst wandering about in a little hill- 
 side wood not far away. It was in a rather 
 awkward tree to climb, so I thought I would try 
 to find out what it contained by a little trick. I 
 croaked like a Crow, and at the very first call four 
 black heads shot up and four great mouths opened 
 horribly wide. Later on I climbed the tree in 
 order to make a closer inspection of the sable 
 family; but upon my approach the chicks all took 
 wing, save one, which had its portrait taken and 
 was kept for some days by a cousin of ours as 
 a pet. It soon began to understand things, and 
 swallowed worms, young frogs, minnows, and so 
 forth with equal relish and good results so far as 
 its bodily health was concerned. 
 
 The different methods adopted by birds of 
 various species in feeding their young are very 
 interesting. 
 
 The Osprey plunges like an arrow from the 
 clouds into the dark depths of a mountain loch, 
 and seizing a large trout, brings it along in its 
 talons and, standing on the edge of its eyrie, tears 
 pieces off and drops them into the widely-opened 
 mouths of its chicks, even when they have grown 
 quite large ; but the Golden Eagle appears to allow 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 121 
 
 its offspring to tear pieces of prey for themselves 
 at any rate, after a certain age because I have 
 watched Eaglets sit up in their own comical way 
 and tear off pieces from Mountain Hares a form 
 of diet with which their fierce parents kept them 
 most liberally supplied. 
 
 Tawny Owls appear to lay in a good stock of 
 food, from which their children may take a few 
 bites whenever they feel so disposed. I have found 
 the hind quarters of a half-grown rabbit, part of a 
 mole, young Peewit, adult Barn Swallow, Ring 
 Ouzel, and Missel Thrush lying round the young of 
 this species on the loft of an old barn in Westmor- 
 land ; but I do not think that the Screech or Barn 
 Owl provides such liberal fare for its olive branches, 
 although it, too, is a very hard-working bird. 
 
 Some people think that Owls only come forth 
 at night in search of prey. Nothing could be 
 further from the fact, for Screech Owls may often 
 be seen at five or six o'clock on a dull summer's 
 evening diligently quartering hedge-sides in search 
 of mice wherewith to supply the wants of a family 
 of four or five hungry young ones. 
 
 Merlin Hawks breed upon the ground, as will be 
 seen from our illustration (p. 119) of a nest containing 
 three eggs and a newly-hatched chick. They feed 
 their offspring upon young Grouse, Snipe, and small 
 birds of different species, which they are very care- 
 ful not to pluck and prepare anywhere near their 
 homes, for fear the gamekeeper should see tell-tale 
 
122 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 feathers scattered about on the heather and thereby 
 find and destroy their family of white fluffy 
 bairns. 
 
 Sea-birds generally keep the best of tables, and 
 when the young are out a large colony of Cor- 
 morants is hardly approachable for the smell of 
 fish in all stages of decay. The waste of good food 
 is simply wicked, and I have seen beautiful Eels 
 and Sand Dabs lying about quite neglected, save 
 when a cunning old Lesser Black-Backed Gull took 
 advantage of the absence of the adult Cormorants 
 and snatched up whatever unconsidered trifle he 
 could find. 
 
 Gannets, too, feed their single youngsters on the 
 most liberal scale, as may be seen from the fat, 
 podgy fellow sitting by his mother in the illustration 
 opposite. I am sure that young Gannets, or Solan 
 Geese, as they are otherwise known, ought to 
 grow up obedient and dutiful children ; for 
 they enjoy the love and protection of the most 
 considerate and devoted mothers in the bird world 
 I have walked from ledge to ledge of a Gannet 
 colony on the top of a dizzying ocean cliff when 
 the old birds were sitting on their nests guarding 
 their young and pecking vigorously at my legs 
 with their great strong bills, as much as to say, 
 " You be oft' ! We are not going to desert our 
 babies for anything or anybody." Of course, I 
 admired the brave birds, and readily forgave their 
 attacks on my legs. 
 
124 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 The most comical sight of all sea-bird life, I 
 think, is to see an old Puffin with its mask-like 
 beak stuck full from end to end of small fish as 
 it enters its nesting burrow to feed . the single 
 youngster sitting in the dark at the end of it. 
 The little fishes are held by the middle, and their 
 heads dangle down one side and their tails down 
 the other of the under mandible of their grotesque- 
 looking captor. 
 
 Terns of different species feed their chicks '-on 
 Sand Eels and the fry of surface-swimming sea 
 fishes, and it has always been a puzzle to me to 
 know how they distinguish their young ones from 
 those of their neighbours in a big colony where 
 they run about like a flock of miniature sheep. 
 
 Insect-eating birds with large families are com- 
 pelled to work terribly hard in order to keep the 
 wolf from the door. 
 
 During the dry windy weather which prevailed 
 last May I had under observation a pair of Star- 
 lings feeding their young under the roof of a 
 friend's stable in Norfolk. Between seven and eight 
 o'clock in the morning the birds, between them, 
 brought food twenty times an hour ; but at a 
 corresponding period in the evening, when grubs 
 were no doubt scarcer and the energies of the 
 seekers somewhat diminished from prolonged exer- 
 tion, they only entered their home at the rate of 
 twelve times an hour. These birds had a pair of 
 neighbours just as hard at work feeding a large 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 125 
 
 family under the same roof, so I timed their 
 efforts and found no appreciable difference in their 
 performances at either end of the day. Whilst I 
 was watching, however, I saw two curious things. 
 A stray Starling waited his opportunity and then 
 examined both nests, one after the other, during 
 the absence of the parent birds. Whether he was 
 an inspector of schools or not I do not know ; 
 but after having a violent altercation with a pair 
 of House Sparrows into whose nesting-hole he 
 unsuccessfully tried to force his way, he flew off 
 The other strange thing I saw was a Barn Swallow* 
 running about on the ground like a Wagtail, only 
 not half so nimbly, and feeding upon flies that had 
 settled in the snug shelter of a thick row of pea- 
 sticks close beside where I was sitting. 
 
 Sometimes parent birds find food for their young 
 ones very easily indeed. About the middle of June 
 I was staying at a lonely farmhouse away up a little 
 dale in the North of England. The May Fly hap- 
 pened to be " on," as anglers term it, and every 
 rock and stone wall by the beck was covered. As 
 there were very few Trout indeed about, owing to 
 the depredations of Herons and Otters, the birds 
 had a most enjoyable time of it; and I watched a 
 pair of Wheatears enter their nesting-hole in a 
 rocky bank no less than forty-two times in an hour 
 with bundles of May Flies, which they often did 
 not travel more than a score of yards away to catch. 
 In a day or two the glut of these insects had 
 
126 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 passed ; and when the Wheatears were driven back 
 upon Beetles and Caterpillars, their visits with food 
 fell by nearly half. 
 
 A pair of Redstarts nesting in a hole in a bank 
 close by never exceeded twenty-four excursions 
 with food per hour, and the female made two 
 journeys to the male's one. They commenced their 
 labours at a quarter to four in the morning, and 
 kept them up until nine o'clock at night. 
 
 On another occasion I watched the parents*- of 
 a brood of seven or eight young Blue Tits feed 
 their offspring for the best part of a day, and 
 their industry simply astonished me. In the 
 afternoon, the birds entered the hollow tree, in 
 which they had their family, with food no less 
 than six times in the space of five minutes 
 that is, of course, counting the journeys of both 
 the father and mother. They generally had two 
 or more small green caterpillars in their bills each 
 time they came along. This was in June, when 
 birds are able to, and as a matter of fact do, work 
 sixteen or seventeen hours a day, and after making 
 all allowances for rest, their own meals, and occasional 
 rather lengthy journeys and searches after prey, we 
 may safely conclude that the two birds destroyed a 
 thousand caterpillars a day. 
 
 The parents of the pair of baby Crested Tits 
 figured on the opposite page were most industrious 
 in their search after food wherewith to supply the 
 wants of these and other feathered bairns. I have 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 127 
 
 watched adult Crested Tits at work searching for 
 food in some of the great forests in the Highlands 
 
 
 YOUNG CRESTED TI1S. 
 
 of Scotland, and wondered how any insect could 
 escape their sharp eyes. 
 
 The male Bearded Tit, or Reed Pheasant a 
 very pretty bird found breeding on the Norfolk 
 
128 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Broads makes a most dutiful husband and father. 
 He helps his wife to incubate the eggs, and when 
 the chicks come forth he works like a slave all day 
 long to find them an adequate supply of food. I 
 have seen him feed his young two or three times 
 to his wife's once ; and the rather rude mouthful 
 which the chick in our illustration (p. 129) has been 
 caught by the camera endeavouring to swallow, testifies 
 to the fact that he believes in liberal supplies. 
 
 Kittiwake Gulls are the most gentle and sedate 
 of all sea-birds. They will stand on the edge of 
 the nest, as depicted on p. 131, for hours together, 
 quietly guarding their young, which in some cases 
 they hardly ever appear to leave whilst there is 
 even the suspicion of an enemy about. 
 
 When dwellers in nests, such as Starlings, 
 Blackbirds, Larks and Robins, have grown large and 
 opened their eyes, they sit on the edges of their 
 little homes and watch for the return of their 
 parents with food ; and as soon as ever they see or 
 hear them coming they give a welcome chirrup by 
 way of salute. It is about this time that chicks 
 living in open-topped nests begin to exercise their 
 wings and pass remarks to each other about things 
 in general. One will stand up on tiptoe and flap 
 his rapidly-growing wings as hard as ever he can 
 make them go, whilst the rest of the family look 
 on in evident admiration, and think of the time 
 when they will all have dominion over the air. 
 
 Some venturesome chicks try to enforce the 
 
MALE BEAUDED TIT FEEDING YOUNG (p. 128). 
 
130 OUR BIRD FKIENDS. 
 
 coming of this happy time by leaving the nest far 
 too soon, and, alas ! often pay for their impatience 
 with their lives. 
 
 Not long ago I was wandering alongside an old 
 hedgerow when I heard a faint, distressed sort of 
 cry coming from a bunch of nettles, and, upon 
 looking closer, found a young Song Thrush in a very 
 weak state. It could not fly a bit, and I imagined 
 it must belong to a nest not far away. There \vas 
 a tuft of ivy on the top of an old stump some fifteen 
 or twenty feet above, so up I went, with the youth- 
 ful traveller in my jacket pocket. Sure enough, 
 there was a Thrush's nest with two young ones 
 about the same size as my friend in it ; so I 
 quietly popped him in between them, and slid down 
 the stump. Just as I got to the bottom, I espied 
 another adventurer holding with both his wings on 
 to some little twigs sprouting out below where the 
 nest was situated, whilst his legs dangled down 
 at full length. Up I went again, post-haste, but 
 regret to say I was too late : the venturesome chick 
 was dead and cold. Happening to pass the place 
 a day or two afterwards with my brother. I was 
 telling him about the tragedy, when he remarked, 
 " Why, there they are sitting," and piomptly 
 turned his camera upon the surviving trio and 
 photographed them, as shown in our illustration 
 (p. 132). 
 
 The question as to the age at which young 
 birds reared in nests commence to feed themselves 
 
K1TTIWAKE AND YOUNG (p. 128). 
 
132 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 in a wild state is an interesting one, and offers a 
 wide field for young observers to exercise their 
 talents in. I have watched both young Larks and 
 
 ' WHERE OX EARTH HAS MOTHER GONE ? " (p. 130). 
 
 Pipits trying to catch flies passing close to their nests 
 even two or three days before they fledged, and 
 from the movements of youthful House Martins 
 watching for the return of their parents with 
 food, I have no doubt that they, too, do the same 
 thing. 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OP YOUNG BIRDS. 133 
 
 Another question of interest in regard to young 
 birds is as to what becomes of them once they 
 have left the nest and taken to the fields and 
 hedgerows to be taught how to find their own 
 living. Those of Starlings flock at once, by one 
 brood joining another, until there is a great noisy 
 crowd that sticks together, more or less, until 
 the following spring, when it is again broken up 
 into breeding pairs and scattered all over the 
 country. 
 
 Double-brooded birds, such as Thrushes, Black- 
 birds, Sparrows, and Robins, gradually allow their 
 first families to go their own way as soon 
 as they can provide for themselves, and then 
 turn their thoughts to a fresh start in house- 
 keeping. 
 
 Waterhens rear two or more broods during a 
 season, and it is said that the members of the first 
 family help their father and mother to build their 
 second riest and nurse the younger generation of 
 children. 
 
 The Long-tailed or Bottle Tit is a bird with 
 very strong family ties, and the father and mother, 
 sisters and brothers, all keep together during the 
 summer, autumn, and winter after they are hatched, 
 flying from tree to tree in search of food, and 
 calling to each other until the warm days of spring, 
 when little birds' fancies "lightly turn to thoughts 
 of love," and a new season of pairing and nest- 
 building commences. 
 
134 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 I have mentioned a few instances of birds of 
 one species dropping their eggs into nests belonging 
 to the members of other species, and it naturally 
 follows that foster-parents must sometimes occur as 
 a result. A covey of Partridges is occasionally met 
 with containing one or two abnormally large chicks 
 which will, in all probability, turn out to be young- 
 Pheasants. 
 
 The Cuckoo, of course, makes foster-parents of 
 a great number of small birds which it victimises 
 by placing its egg in their nests. A very strange 
 thing about the young Cuckoo is that during the 
 first few days of its life it has a slight hollow or 
 depression in its back which appears to have been 
 specially provided by Nature in order to help it to 
 eject the young or eggs belonging to the bird in 
 the nest of which the intruder finds itself, and it 
 never rests until it remains in undisputed pos- 
 session of the stolen home. The astonishing part 
 of the whole thing is that the parent birds of the 
 ejected chicks do not resent the intrusion of the 
 hungry robber and murderer who has thrown their 
 helpless children out of doors to starve and die in 
 the gutter, as it were. Instead of leaving him to his 
 well-merited fate, they work like galley-slaves to pro- 
 vide him with food, and, should any accident befall 
 the usurper, show just as much anxiety as if he 
 had been one of their own flesh and blood. I once 
 saw an inexperienced gunner shoot a fully-fledged 
 Cuckoo in mistake for a Hawk, and its foster- 
 
FEEDING AND PROTECTION OF YOUNG BIRDS. 135 
 
 mother showed the most touching signs of distress, 
 alighting close by the dead bird and uttering all 
 sorts of entreaties to it to get up and fly away to 
 a safer place. 
 
 A KABY JACKDAW'S FIRST PEEP 
 INTO THE WORLD. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE WONDERS OF FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 
 
 Man's Attempts to Fly A Feather under the Microscope Stages of 
 Growth Feathers of a Common Curlew How Feathers'- are 
 Adapted to the Habits of Birds Why the Gannet is not Harmed 
 when it Falls upon Water Tail Feathers : Effects of Use 
 and Disuse Difference between an Owl's and a Wood Pigeon's 
 Feathers The Trouble Birds take with their Feathers Moulting, 
 Complete and Partial A Thing that is Best Done when Half 
 Done Birds that Wear Stockings in Winter Shape of Flight 
 Feathers Shapes and Sizes of Wings Rates at which Different 
 Species Beat their Wings How Birds use the Wind to Fly 
 Upwards Shapes their Wings Assume in Flight How they 
 Alight The Tail Feathers Xoises Made by Wings Wondeis 
 of Bird Migration, 
 
 OF all the faculties possessed by the wild creatures 
 of the earth, none has ever been envied half so 
 much by man as a bird's power of flight. Even the 
 Psalmist of old sighed after " the wings of a dove," 
 in order that he might fly away to more peaceful 
 realms, and since his day millions of human hearts 
 have longed madly for the same swift and pleasant 
 means of transport from place to place. 
 
 I have asked lots of boys and girls what they 
 would like to be supposing they were not human 
 beings, and nearly all of them answer "A bird." 
 And when I inquire "Why?" they say, "So that I 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 137 
 
 could fly"; and there is every reason to suppose 
 that it would be an exceedingly nice and useful 
 accomplishment. I am a great hand at dreaming. 
 In fact, I have dreamed every night in my life 
 since I can remember anything, and have often, 
 during my slumbering fancies, been gifted with the 
 powers of flight. The sensation of gliding over 
 church steeples and tree-tops and away through 
 airy space a thousandfold swifter and easier than 
 one's enraged enemies in hopeless pursuit upon the 
 ground far below, is, indeed, a grand dreamland 
 experience, and makes one sorry to wake up and 
 find it is not true after all. 
 
 The question of flight has occupied the thoughts 
 of scientific men throughout all the ages, and many 
 brave souls have perished in their attempts to 
 imitate the progress of birds through the air by 
 
 means of artificial ap- 
 pliances, but so far 
 without any practical 
 results. It is true we 
 have balloons, but they 
 
 PROPER FEATHER AND DOWN" OF YOUNG CHICK (p. 141). 
 
138 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 are floating rather than flying machines ; they are 
 maintained simply by imprisoned gas, and have no 
 propulsive energy whatever. Even soaring contriv- 
 ances on the principle of a boy's kite have proved 
 highly difficult and dangerous to those courageous 
 enough to entrust their lives to them at any 
 elevation. 
 
 Of the three elements, earth, water, and air, the 
 last is obviously the most difficult travelling medium. 
 A locomotive engine rests on rails laid upon the sur- 
 face of the earth, and a tug-boat floats on the water, 
 and both are driven forward by the power of steam ; 
 but in the case of flight, power is needed to lift the 
 machine off the ground and maintain it in space as 
 well as to drive it onward in any desired direction. 
 A little consideration of this very important fact 
 will convince anyone that the flight of a bird is 
 indeed a wonderful performance. 
 
 It has been well said that a bird's wing is 
 much harder to understand than a railway engine 
 or a watch, and some of the greatest thinkers of 
 modern times have described it as " a highly 
 complex apparatus," and "an exquisite and com- 
 plicated structure." 
 
 Feathers and flight cover a field sufficiently wide 
 to furnish interesting matter for a whole volume, 
 and it is therefore obvious that I can only describe 
 and illustrate a few such wonders as I think will be 
 calculated to set my readers observing and thinking 
 for themselves. 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 
 
 139 
 
 First of all, it is necessary to state that feathers 
 are composed of the same material as hairs and 
 nails. They vary greatly in size, shape, texture, 
 and strength, according to the portion of the body 
 
 YOUNG CHAFFINCH (p. 141). 
 
 upon which they grow and the life and habits of 
 their wearers. 
 
 A flight-feather taken from either the wing or 
 tail of a bird and studied under a moderately 
 powerful microscope shows how ingeniously it has 
 been constructed so as not to allow the air to slip 
 through it. It consists of a central shaft, or quill, from 
 either side of which shoot out flattened branches, 
 or barbs. These branches, in turn, throw out much 
 
140 
 
 OUR BIKD FRIENDS, 
 
 finer ones of their own called barbules, or, in other 
 words, miniature barbs, ending in booklets and 
 other hairlike growths of extreme delicacy, which 
 interlock themselves with similar growths from 
 barbules to right and left of them in such a way 
 as to hold the vane, as the parts on either side 
 of a quill or shaft are called, firmly together. A 
 certain amount of movement being necessary to 
 
 give free play to 
 the flexible bar- 
 bules and barbs, 
 the booklets slide 
 to some extent 
 up and down in 
 grooves, thus 
 adding to the 
 much - needed 
 elasticity of the 
 feather. 
 
 It has been 
 calculated by an 
 
 YOUNG COMMON GULLS (p. 141). 
 
 eminent scien- 
 
 tific authority 
 
 that the flight feather ot an Eagle contains two 
 thousand barbs, five and a half million barbules, 
 and no less than fifty-four millions of booklets and 
 other hairlike growths, which are so very tiny that 
 they only measure about one- thousandth part of an 
 inch in length. 
 
 Chicks are first of all supplied with a coat of 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 
 
 141 
 
 soft down feathers similar to the small one shown 
 on page 137. These are really only the temporary 
 tips of proper feathers which are growing directly 
 beneath them, and which, as they mature, push 
 the down feathers up- 
 wards and further and 
 further away from the 
 skin of the chick. The 
 same picture shows a 
 proper feather, Avith its 
 surmounting down still 
 adhering to its tip, and 
 the young Chaffinch 
 on page 139 illustrates 
 the grotesque effect 
 caused by this peculiar 
 continuity of growth. 
 The down feathers 
 gradually wear off the 
 tips of the proper ones, 
 never to appear again. 
 Chicks in down, and 
 
 also in their first dress of feathers, are often cloth eJ 
 for concealment. Young Common Gulls, whilst sit- 
 ting quite still, look like little patches of chequered 
 sunshine, and a baby Robin with its brown instead 
 of scarlet breast is not nearly so easy to see in a 
 hedgerow as its parents. A curious thing about the 
 first coat of proper feathers is that in some species 
 they differ in shape from those that follow them. 
 
 YOUNG ROBIN. 
 
142 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 The breast feathers of young Red Grouse are pointed, 
 whereas those of adult birds are rounded. 
 
 When a feather is young and growing, the quill 
 is filled with blood wherewith it is nourished and 
 strengthened ; but as maturity approaches, the quill 
 becomes dry and hollow and the completed feather 
 a much "deader" thing than a human hair. It is 
 deader because it has not the power to regrow any 
 part cut off, but is not quite lifeless because it 
 retains power to change colour, not by the loss" -of 
 anything, but by the addition of a tint. 
 
 In order to show the different characteristics of 
 birds' feathers, 1 have thought it well to have the 
 principal ones from the body of a Common Curlew 
 photographed (p. 143). Fig. 1 represents a wing 
 quill, or flight feather; Fig. 2, an outer or upper 
 wing covert ; Fig. 3, an under wing covert ; Fig. 4, a 
 feather from the middle of the bird's back ; Fig. 5, 
 a tail quill ; Fig. 6, an under-part feather and its 
 after-shaft ; Fig. 7, an upper tail covert ; Fig. 8, an 
 under tail covert. 
 
 The feathers on the upper parts of birds are 
 stronger, closer and darker in colour^ as a rule, than 
 those growing on their under parts; but, curiously 
 enough, this rule is reversed in regard to the 
 downy feathers underlying the proper ones in the 
 case of the Curlew, the down being darker and 
 thicker on the under parts than upon the upper. 
 Nearly all feathers have soft, downy barbs or 
 branches, without booklets, near the bottom of the 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 143 
 
 shaft, and those growing upon the body throw out 
 downy after-shafts which vary greatly in length 
 
 CUKLEW'S FEATHER (p. 142). 
 
 and character in different species. In the Curlew 
 they are short and tufty, and, like the feathers from 
 which they spring, not very strong or numerous, 
 
144 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 but round about them is a thick warm crop of 
 down feathers springing direct from the skin. On 
 the other hand, in the case of the Grouse, the body 
 feathers of which are long, strong, and numerous, 
 the after-shafts are long and thickly clothed with 
 down, very little of which grows in independent 
 tufts direct from the skin, as in the case of the 
 previously-mentioned species. This shows that the 
 bodies of birds of varying habits are kept warm 
 and dry by different methods. 
 
 Feathers are long or short, strong or weak, 
 according to the part of the body upon which they 
 grow, and the uses to Avhich their wearers put 
 them. The soft, plume-like one from the under part 
 of a Heron would never do to fly with, for it 
 would let the air slip through it, and its owner 
 would be very much in the position of a boatman 
 trying to sail his craft with a fishing-net instead 
 of a sheet of canvas. 
 
 The Gannet, or Solan Goose, gets its living by 
 flying along at some height over the surface of the 
 sea, and, directly it espies a suitable fish to prey 
 upon swimming near the surface of the water 
 below, down it plunges headlong and disappears in 
 a seething patch of white foam churned up by its 
 impact with the water. The shock produced by 
 such a heavy bird suddenly striking the surface of 
 the ocean after descending from a considerable 
 height at great velocity would kill some species of 
 similar size on the spot. But the Gannet has been 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 145 
 
 properly equipped for its task. The shafts and 
 vanes of its breast feathers have been tremendously 
 strengthened, and their quills are buried in a 
 quarter-inch-thick pad of very close-set down, which 
 acts like a buffer when its wearer strikes the surface 
 of the sea. 
 
 The Heron also is a large fish-feeding bird, but 
 catches its prey in an entirely different manner. 
 It stands in some shallow pool and patiently waits 
 until a fish swims within striking distance of its 
 long neck and spear-like bill, and then, by a sudden 
 dart, transfixes its victim. This kind of work calls 
 for no special development of breast feathers, and 
 they are, in consequence, mere straggling plumes, 
 
 AFTER-SHAFT FEATHERS OE VARIOUS BIRDS. 
 
 1, Feather of Partridge, showing how After-shaft is attached; -2 
 Alter-shaft of Heron ; 3, After-shaft of Grouse ; 4, After-shaft of 
 Grey Crow ; 5, After-shaft of Curlew. 
 
 K 
 
146 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 with their quills hidden in a sparse bed ot very 
 soft down. The striking difference in the character 
 of the breast feathers of the two species is well 
 shown in the illustration below. 
 
 Use and disuse have also had a wonderful effect 
 
 BREAST FEATHERS (1) OF HERON, (2) OF GANNET. 
 
 in the development of tail feathers. The larger 
 of the two in the illustration on the top of the 
 opposite page represents one of the principal tail 
 quills of a Greater Spotted Woodpecker. It has 
 a very powerful shaft, and the barbs at and near 
 the tip are almost as strong as bristles just the 
 kind of feather to push down into the cracks and 
 crevices of the bark of some old tree and help 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 
 
 147 
 
 TAIL QUILL (1) OF GREATER SPOTTED WOODPECKER AND 
 (2) OF CORNCRAKE. 
 
 to prop its owner up whilst clinging to the trunk 
 with both feet and hammering away after some 
 insect buried in the wood. The smaller feather is 
 one of the tail quills of a Corncrake, a bird that 
 lives amongst tall grass, iris beds, corn and other 
 crops, and only flies when obliged to do so 
 during its migratory trips, or when hunted by its 
 enemies. 
 
 A bird like the common Partridge has not far 
 to travel for its food, and is a most excellent runner, 
 therefore it does not need long and powerful flight 
 feathers as in the case of the Swift, which has to 
 find and capture every particle of its food on the 
 
 FLIGHT FEATHER (1) OF SWIFT, (2) OF PARTRIDGE. 
 
148 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 wing. The short, concave feather of the former, 
 and the long, narrow, sword-like one of the other 
 (see page 147), afford a most striking lesson of how 
 Nature fits out her children for the kind of life 
 they have to lead. 
 
 Owls generally feed by night, and it is necessary 
 for them to steal noiselessly upon their prey. How 
 well they are able to accomplish this, 1 once had a 
 good opportunity of proving. I was standing in 
 an old cart-shed one moonlit winter's night, when 
 I saw a Screech Owl sail round a corn-stack and 
 fly straight towards me. I stood perfectly still, 
 and being in deep shadow the bird could not see 
 me, and passing close over my head alighted on 
 a beam behind me without making the slightest 
 sound until its claws tapped upon the hard oak 
 beam on which it alighted. Its feathers are very 
 broad, peculiarly soft, and clothed with very fine, 
 downy hair, which renders their flight inaudible. 
 On the other hand, the. flight feathers of the Wood 
 Pigeon are somewhat narrow, and so very hard that 
 every stroke of the bird's wings can be heard cutting 
 the air at a considerable distance on a calm day ; and 
 when their owner chooses to make them meet over 
 its back, they can be heard smack-smack-smacking 
 like a pair of hard bits of board being brought 
 smartly together. 
 
 Feathers do not grow in an irregular, haphazard 
 way on the body of a bird, but are set along definite 
 tracts, the arrangement of which varies in different 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 149 
 
 species, and is best in those that fly much. They 
 serve a variety of useful purposes. By entangling 
 the air they reduce the specific gravity of the 
 creature upon which they grow; and air being a 
 bad conductor of heat, that which is held by the 
 feathers assists to maintain the high temperature of 
 the bird. 
 
 Generally speaking, birds are very particular 
 about their feathers, and spend a good deal of time 
 in cleaning, preening, and oiling them. Seagulls 
 will sometimes fly quite a distance daily from the 
 ocean to some fresh-water loch in order to indulge 
 in a bath, and Starlings delight in a real good 
 splash on the very coldest day in winter. I have, 
 as a matter of fact, seen them get into a bowl 
 placed for them in my garden and tumble about 
 amongst a number of miniature icebergs floating in 
 it, only a few minutes before they went off to 
 roost, and it made me shudder to look at them. 
 Most birds bathe either in dust or in water ; and 
 although they take a lot of care of their feathers, 
 the wear and tear of time damages and fades them 
 until their replacement by new ones becomes 
 necessary. This is, however, not always the case, 
 as some species such as the Ptarmigan, for instance 
 are obliged to change their dress as a means of 
 self-preservation, and the males of others are com- 
 pelled to don gay suits in order to gratify the 
 vanity of the opposite sex. 
 
 The moulting season is, without doubt, the most 
 
150 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 trying period in the yearly round of a bird's 
 life, and silence reigns o'er every grove where it 
 is going on. 
 
 A great number of birds, such as Ducks, Owls, 
 Hawks, and Swallows, have only one moult every 
 year, and that takes place in the autumn, when 
 every feather, great and small, is cast off and 
 replaced by a new one. 
 
 Gulls, Plovers, Pipits, and Wagtails, amongst 
 others, have a spring and autumn moult, in some 
 cases including all or most of the siy,;_ll feathers and 
 some of the wing and tail quills. Amongst double 
 moulters may also be included the Bed Grouse, 
 a very strange thing about which is that the males 
 and females change their plumage at different times. 
 The former moults in autumn and winter, and the 
 latter in the summer and autumn. 
 
 Some species, such as Ptarmigan, Willow Grouse, 
 and Grebes, change their dresses, partially or 
 completely, as many as three times a year. 
 
 In addition to these complete and partial moults, 
 there is what naturalists term a " border moult," 
 which means the shedding of certain portions of 
 a bird's feathers, whereby a visible change of colour 
 is effected. It is believed that an absolute seasonal 
 change of colour takes place in the feathers of such 
 birds as the Wheatear and Stonechat, without even 
 the assistance of a partial moult. 
 
 In the springtime, when everything is filled with 
 awakening life and rivalry, the male members of 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 151 
 
 FLIGHT FEATHER (1) OF OWL, (2) OF PIGEON (p. 148). 
 
 many species drop the dull, unobtrusive portions 
 of their garments and don the gay and decorative 
 plumes of the marriage season. 
 
 Nature has wisely ordained that the shedding 
 of old feathers shall be as gradual as the growth of 
 the new ones, and that when a flight feather drops 
 from the right wing its fellow shall, at the same 
 time, fall from the left, so as to maintain a correct 
 balance in the powers of flight. 
 
 I once knew a London lady who had migrated 
 to the country cut both wings of her Fowls in 
 order to prevent them from flying over the fence 
 dividing their run from a neighbour's garden. By 
 a little extra effort, the birds still managed to scale 
 the boundary wall, and their owner declared that 
 wing-clipping was no remedy unless carried to a 
 disfiguring extent. I told her to cut the feathers 
 
152 OUR BIRD 
 
 of one wing only next year, ana thus upset the 
 balance of the birds. This she did, and kept her 
 Fowls within their own grounds as a consequence. 
 
 Nature's admirable rule in regard to the gradual 
 shedding of old feathers has some remarkable ex- 
 ceptions, however, for the Laughing Owl of New 
 Zealand casts those growing upon its body so 
 quickly that it becomes nearly naked and is occa- 
 sionally stung to death by bees. A great many 
 members of the Duck family, too, become quite 
 unable to use their Avings for a time, as a result 
 of losing so many of their flight feathers all at 
 once. 
 
 Feathers play an extremely important part in 
 the preservation of birds from destruction whilst 
 they are young and inexperienced, as I have en- 
 deavoured to show in the chapter on Chicks, and 
 also earlier in this chapter ; and in some species 
 they render the adult birds the same service. 
 If Ptarmigans retain their dark dresses in the 
 autumn after a fall of snow on the mountains, or 
 continue to wear their white ones after the snow 
 has disappeared, great havoc is wrought amongst 
 them by their natural enemies. 
 
 Some birds, such as the Grouse, wear thick, 
 downy stockings right down to their toe-nails in 
 the winter-time, and others that swim, dive, and 
 obtain their food from water, such as Ducks 
 and Cormorants, possess an oil gland at the root 
 of the tail from which oil is pressed with the 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 153 
 
 bill whilst "preening," and applied to the feathers 
 so as to render them waterproof. 
 
 Very few species like to fly or roost with a 
 strong wind blowing behind them, as it ruffles their 
 plumage. 
 
 From a consideration of feathers we pass on to 
 speak of flight, of which there are three modes 
 (1) sailing or soaring, (2) gliding, and (3) flapping. 
 The great majority of birds practise the second and 
 third methods, and but few the first. 
 
 The flight feathers in all. birds' wings are more 
 or less convex or rounded on the outside, and con- 
 cave or hollow on the inside, so that by taking a 
 moderately large one and striking the air with it, 
 first with the rounded side down, and then with 
 the hollow side down, it is at once discovered that 
 the resistance of the atmosphere is much greater 
 in the latter than in the former stroke. Having 
 by this little experiment formed some idea of the 
 lifting powers of a single feather driven rapidly 
 through space, it is easy to conceive what a number 
 may be able to accomplish when firmly interlocked 
 and driven by powerful muscles, of which a bird's 
 wing is said to contain no less than forty-eight. 
 The air slips ofl the rounded side of this wonderful 
 combination of flight feathers in the same way that 
 it does from the cover of an open umbrella, and is 
 caught by the hollow side just as it is by the inside 
 of an umbrella. 
 
 Wings vary greatly in shape and size, accordin ; 
 
154 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 to the habits of their owners. In Eagles and 
 Vultures they have a rounded appearance, but the 
 feathers being long, the birds fly well, sailing round 
 and round in majestic circles and remaining in the 
 air for long periods of time with ease. Peregrine 
 Falcons, Swifts, and Swallows have narrow, pointed 
 wings, and fly with remarkable rapidity. In strong- 
 flying species the folded wing generally measures 
 twice the length of its owner's body, that is, taking 
 the distance from the breast to the root of -the 
 tail. 
 
 Wing area varies very considerably in relation 
 to the weight of the body to be carried. A French 
 naturalist has calculated that a Swallow weighing 
 one pound would require the enormous wing area 
 of something like five square feet. The Australian 
 Crane flies well on half a square foot per pound ; 
 and if a man weighing twelve stone were thinking 
 of adopting flight as a means of locomotion, and 
 could go to a shop and order a pair of wings 
 on the very low basis of the Australian Crane, 
 each one would need to be fourteen feet long and 
 three broad, or double the area ol an ordinary 
 room door. 
 
 Wing beats vary in rapidity from about ninety 
 per minute in the slow-going Heron to an un- 
 countable speed. Even such birds as Seagulls 
 manage to get in as many as one hundred and 
 eighty strokes in a minute. Many species may be 
 distinguished at great distances by their methods 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 155 
 
 of flight. A Pigeon can be easily identified 
 from a Rook when a long way off by its much 
 more rapid wing flaps, and a Wagtail from a 
 Swallow by the fact that the former flies in waves, 
 beating its wings rapidly until it has risen to the 
 top of one imaginary wave in the air, when^ 
 partly closing them, it glides down to the bottom 
 of the hollow between the wave it has just sur- 
 mounted and the next, then rising quickly again. The 
 latter bird, on the other hand, dashes away in long 
 sweeps and graceful curves. Seagulls are very 
 clever at soaring in a breeze, and can follow a 
 steamer travelling at the rate of twenty miles an 
 hour without ever appearing to flap their wings ; 
 but they have to yield the palm to the Fulmar 
 Petrel, which is so wonderfully adroit that it can 
 glide in and out amongst great, angry ocean waves 
 in a way that would make any boy or girl quake 
 for its safety, and yet never stir a feather. A 
 strange thing about this species is that it never 
 appears to fly over land. I have sat for hours 
 together on the top of a cliff' in the face of which 
 thousands upon thousands were breeding, and 
 although great numbers of them were constantly 
 gliding to and fro over the sea in front, not one 
 passed over any part of the land behind me. 
 
 A breeze of some sort is necessary for soaring 
 birds, and it is marvellous how they can make use 
 of its varying forces. I have been on a sea-rock 
 some three or four hundred feet high on a windy 
 
1 5 6 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 day, and when I have put ray head over the edge 
 of that side struck by the breeze, instead of feeling 
 it on the top of my head, it came straight upwards 
 into my face in a strong and almost steady blast. 
 
 HERON ON THE WING (p. 154). 
 
 Upon striking the perpendicular wall of the crag the 
 wind was forced upwards, and the Gannets inhabiting 
 it appeared to lie literally on the upward rushing 
 currents of air with outstretched wings. 
 
 When taking wing, birds rise against the wind 
 because the solidity of the air enables them to 
 strike it with their wings. By pushing themselves 
 forward against the breeze they make it lift them 
 in the same way that a boy does his kite when he 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 157 
 
 hauls at the string. If they attempted to rise 
 with their tails to windward and mount into space 
 in that way, they would be under the same dis- 
 advantage that a child would be trying to bounce 
 a ball on soft sand instead of solid rock. Many 
 birds find the effort of rising the first few feet very 
 trying indeed if there is no wind to help them, 
 and sometimes cannot take wing at all off a level 
 surface. The Albatross, for instance, can soar for 
 days together in the blue vault of heaven with 
 perfect ease, but cannot rise off the deck of a ship 
 in calm weather. Some years ago a great flock of 
 Gannets had the misfortune to get into a bay in 
 the south of England during a dead calm, and the 
 poor birds, being unable to rise, were rolled ashore 
 by a heavy sea in such numbers that one man 
 alone took away a cartload. 
 
 Kestrel Hawks and Buzzards love a breeze in 
 which to hover, because it enables them to steady 
 themselves with far less effort than a calm, and 
 thus to examine the ground below more leisurely 
 for prey. 
 
 Some birds fly for the mere pleasure of the 
 exercise, and others hardly ever take wing except 
 from necessity. Rooks indulge in airy waltzes 
 occasionally, and even somersaults ; but Corn 
 Buntings are so lazy that flying from one telegraph 
 post to another appears to be such a great effort 
 that they often trail their legs behind them. 
 
 During flight many birds' wings assume all sorts 
 
158 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 of curious positions, as shown in our illustration 
 opposite of Blackheaded Gulls on the Thames Em- 
 bankment in winter time. As a matter of fact, 
 they can make their tips meet over their backs or 
 beneath them, thus completing a circle, although 
 they do not indulge in this kind of gymnastic 
 exercise when flying about on the ordinary business 
 of their lives. A Seagull's wings have been photo- 
 graphed in twelve different positions in a second, 
 and the picture on page 161, which represents*. an 
 enlarged section of a photograph of Terns in the 
 air, shows several different wing positions. 
 
 In alighting, some species depress their spread- 
 out tails and work their wings with the shoulders 
 up and the tips pointing towards the ground, and 
 as soon as they have touched the earth fold them 
 gracefully to their sides ; whilst others extend them 
 straight out with their tips pointing skywards. The 
 picture on page 163 of an Osprey in the act of 
 alighting on a dead stump above its eyrie shows 
 this bird's peculiar manner of stopping. 
 
 What has often struck me as being very mar- 
 vellous about the flight of my feathered friends is 
 their quickness of sight and judgment. An old 
 Cock Sparrow having a wing stretch of eight or 
 nine inches will fly between two garden palings 
 considerably less than three inches apart without 
 appearing to slacken his pace, and a flock of 
 Starlings, thousands strong, will alight upon a tree 
 until its branches are t>orne down by their weight, 
 
-If 
 
 1 60 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 yet two birds never appear to have selected the 
 same spot to settle upon when they suddenly drop 
 from the air for a rest. Of course, they do occa- 
 sionally make errors of judgment ; for even such a 
 sharp-eyed, swift-winged bird as a Swallow is struck 
 down by a golf ball ; and I remember once accident- 
 ally felling one to the ground whilst making a 
 cast for Trout with a fly-rod. A curious instance 
 of speed miscalculation by a Swallow happened to 
 a gentleman of my acquaintance in Westmorland 
 last summer. He was riding his bicycle along a 
 country road one day when he noticed a Swallow 
 attempt to cross his path dangerously close in front 
 of him, and instantly heard a curious rustling noise. 
 Jumping off his machine, he was sorry to find 
 the unfortunate bird ruffled and dead amongst the 
 spokes of his front wheel. Partridges, too, are 
 guilty of making the same kind of mistakes, and 
 by attempting to cross the line in front of a train 
 in motion sometimes get knocked down and killed 
 by the engine. 
 
 The size, shape, and texture of a bird's tail 
 feathers have a great deal to do with its mode and 
 powers of flight. Tails are capable of being ex- 
 panded or closed, elevated or depressed, and they 
 more or less act as rudders to their wearers. 
 Where the wings and tail are both ample, as in 
 the case of a Sparrow Hawk, the flight is easy and 
 graceful"; where the tail is short and the wings 
 fairly long and vigorous as in the Snipe, for 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 
 
 161 
 
 instance the flight 
 is generally rapid 
 and impetuous ; but 
 where the tail is 
 long and the wings 
 are short and 
 rounded, as in the 
 Magpie, the flight 
 is a. laborious 
 flutter. 
 
 The noise made 
 by the wings of 
 some species is very 
 great. For instance, 
 that produced by a 
 flock of Golden 
 Plover flying close 
 to one's head on a 
 dark night is some- 
 thing like that 
 made by a draper 
 tearing linen. When 
 a Great Skua at- 
 tacks the head of 
 an intruder upon its 
 nesting-ground, the 
 roar of its swift 
 wings through the 
 air is like the rush 
 of an express train. 
 L 
 
 SANDWICH TERNS ON THE WING. (p. 158). 
 
1 62 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Even such soaring birds as the Albatross, Vul- 
 tures, and Pelicans produce a loud, musical " sing " 
 with the tips of their Avings, and their presence is 
 often detected, it is said, by the noise. What must 
 be a particularly annoying thing to a bird that 
 flies much is to get one of its flight feathers 
 cut in two b} T an accident in such a way that 
 every wing-beat produces a loud ivuff, ivuff, vcnf. 
 A Rook with such a feather lives in my neighbour- 
 hood, and yet his companions do not object to*- fly 
 with him because of the noise. 
 
 The speed and endurance ot some species are 
 subjects of marvel. It is asserted that both the 
 Common Swift and the Virginian Plover can travel 
 at the astonishing rate of well over two hundred 
 miles an hour, and the former bird is on its untiring 
 wings sixteen hours a day. We talk about our 
 " ocean greyhounds," and our " Flying Scotsman " 
 and " Flying Dutchman " expresses ; but with an 
 unlimited consumption of coal and water their 
 performances are paltry in the extreme when we 
 compare them with those of a bird which could 
 easily fly from London to New York during the 
 light of a single day on a mere thimbleful or two 
 of gnats, or of one that can take its breakfast in 
 Canada and its supper in Brazil. 
 
 Sustained powers of flight are chiefly useful to 
 the majority of birds during their migratory journeys. 
 On these occasions they perform some astonishing- 
 feats, principally during the night-time, when I 
 
OSPREY ALIGHTING OX BEAD STUMP (p. 158). 
 
164 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 have heard different species talking to each other as 
 they passed over London. The migratory move- 
 ments of birds are in many respects very curious 
 indeed. For instance, no species belonging to the 
 northern hemisphere ever journeys south to breed, 
 and no winged inhabitant of the southern hemi- 
 sphere ever bends its course north in the spring to 
 propagate its species. All breeding movements are 
 in the direction of the Poles and away from the 
 Equator. 
 
 An adequate supply of food has no doubt been 
 the greatest cause in establishing migratory move- 
 ment; but this cannot be urged as a reason in all 
 birds, for there are instances where long journeys 
 are made and innumerable dangers encountered 
 without any apparent cause. 
 
 These great spring and autumn movements take 
 place over certain well-established tracks, called 
 " fly-lines " by naturalists, and the mystery of 
 mysteries in regard to the travellers over them is 
 that during the autumn journey the birds that 
 know nothing about them from actual experience 
 go first. Out of three hundred and sixty different 
 kinds making the island of Heligoland in the 
 North Sea their temporary resting-place, only in 
 one single instance do the old birds precede the 
 young ones, and that is in the case of the Cuckoo. 
 
 Migrants from Europe spend the winter in 
 Africa as a rule, and it is said that those breeding 
 farthest north in the summer fly farthest south in 
 
FEATHERS AND FLIGHT. 165 
 
 winter, and that British Swallows and Martins reach 
 Natal and Cape Colony. 
 
 In Greece and Egypt the natives say that a lot 
 of small birds ride across the three hundred odd 
 miles of the Mediterranean Sea on the backs of the 
 migrating Cranes ; and, strangely enough, it is a 
 generally accepted belief that a small bird of the 
 Finch family rides north every spring on the back 
 of the Canada Goose at any rate, they always 
 travel together. 
 
 Of course, a lot of local migration goes on in 
 addition to oversea travelling. Curlews leave the 
 moors on which they breed in the summer and 
 spend the winter on the mud flats by the sea. In 
 August and September every year numbers of 
 Gulls may be seen flying across the north of England 
 from the German Ocean to the Irish Sea. 
 
 The flight of birds has had a great influence on 
 the distribution of plant life, and many forests owe 
 their existence in a great measure to seed eating 
 birds. There is a species of plant in the West 
 Indies which depends entirely for its distribution 
 upon its seeds being carried away clinging to the 
 feathers of birds, and it overloads its little servants 
 to such an extent at times that they are unable to 
 fly, and perish under their burdens. 
 
 Partridges living on heavy land get their feet 
 so clogged with earth during wet weather that their 
 flight is considerably reduced in speed in conse- 
 quence of the additional weight they have to carry. 
 
1 66 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 By this means the seeds of various plants are 
 carried from one place to another, as is proved by 
 the fact that Darwin once had a wounded Partridge 
 sent to him by Professor Newton with a ball of 
 earth attached to one of its legs. The clod was 
 kept for three years and then broken up and 
 watered, with the startling result that no less than 
 eighty-two plants sprang from it. 
 
 ENJOYING A COOL HATH. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SOME WONDERFUL SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 
 
 Sight and Sound Cheered by a Sparrow's Chirping Why Birds 
 Sing Where the Music is Made A Ludicrous Performance 
 How Birds Learn to Sing Timing a Skylark's Vocal Exercises 
 Singing Competitions among Chaffinches The Phonograph's 
 Record of Thrushes' Songs Blackbirds as Vocalists The Times 
 when Birds Begin to Sing in the Morning and Cease to Sing in 
 the Evening The Nightingale The Sedge Warbler The 
 Grasshopper Warbler Ventriloquial Birds The Nightjar 
 Peewits The Common Snipe and its Weird Sound What a 
 Cuckoo says when he is Angry Frightened to Death by a 
 Tawny Owl's Hooting Birds that Sing Borrowed Songs : The 
 Starling, the Sedge Warbler, the Marsh Warbler, the Robin, the 
 House Sparrow, the Red-Backed Shrike The Blackcap Warbler 
 Bird Language Birds that Act as Sentinels Call Notes The 
 Red Grouse The Long-tailed Tit Call Notes that Resemble 
 Other Sounds Baby Birds that Recognise the Call Notes of their 
 Parents Birds that Require Corroborative Evidence. 
 
 THERE is probably no country under the sun which 
 is at once so crowded with busy human life and 
 so filled with the joyous melody of wild bird 
 song as Britain. 
 
 I have listened to our feathered vocalists during 
 every hour of the day and night in solitary marshes 
 and on breezy mountain tops, in shady copses and 
 flower - decked meadows, on lonely islands and 
 within sound of the roaring hum of big cities, from 
 the most northern of the Shetland Isles to the 
 
1 68 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 most southern of the English counties, and I fear to 
 think what the country would be like without their 
 cheering strains. The gloom of a birdless land has 
 been strikingly forced upon me by visiting a York- 
 shire moor in June, when Larks, Meadow Pipits, 
 Golden Plover, Peewits, Curlews, Ring Ouzels, and 
 other species have filled the air with their cries, 
 and by revisiting it six months afterwards when 
 everything has been thickly wreathed in snow and 
 wrapped in the very silence of the grave. 
 
 I have only lately come to know what a source 
 of comfort and solace wild bird songs must be to 
 the unfortunate blind, and why we appreciate the 
 sweet notes of nocturnal singers so much more than 
 those poured forth by daylight performers. This 
 discovery has been brought about by having to hide 
 up in artificial tree trunks, rubbish heaps, and 
 inside stuffed bullocks, in order to watch some of 
 my shy feathered friends at close quarters. When 
 we walk about in the fields by day our attention is 
 divided between the senses of sight and sound. 
 Our ear messages only receive half the attention 
 they command during the hours of darkness, and 
 I have been simply astonished at the increased 
 effect produced by the song of a Skylark mount- 
 ing the still air above the contrivance in which 1 
 lay hidden and unable to use my eyes. 
 
 The poet has it that human " song lightens toil " ; 
 and so does that of our feathered friends, for even 
 the despised House Sparrow's of t- repeated Chissick! 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 169 
 
 Ckissick ! Ckisxick ! has lightened the dulness of 
 ID any a dreary London day for me, and I have 
 tried to repay him by a noontide dole of crumbs 
 spread upon the sill of my office window. A 
 friendly carpenter fixed me a high draught board 
 at the foot of this window, and I drilled a hole in 
 it with a gimlet in order that I might watch my 
 grimy visitors consume their share of my lunch. 
 
 The best time to hear Nature's choir is about 
 four o'clock on a fine still morning during the first 
 week in June, when the air is cool and sweet and 
 every blade of grass bears its twinkling diamond of 
 dew. Then each bush and tree appears to possess 
 its winged vocalist, pouring forth such an ever- 
 swelling flood of music that the very air around 
 seems to palpitate with joy, and one wonders 
 if even Heaven itself can be half so sweet and 
 glorious. I have, happily, know.i many such grand 
 mornings, and the iHad remembrance ot them is 
 
 O ' O 
 
 a priceless possession. Take my advice, boys and 
 girls : don your strongest boots and go out to hear 
 the birds sing their first morning hymn it is the 
 freshest and gladdest of all the day. 
 
 " But why do birds sing ? " ask some of my young 
 friends of me. For several reasons. First and fore- 
 most, I should say, because they are creatures of 
 abundant health and spirits, and, like human beings, 
 give vent to their overflowing happiness in song. 
 They also sing from rivalry a great deal, and with 
 such vehemence that they have been known to drop 
 
I/O 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 dead whilst so engaged through rupturing some blood- 
 vessel. I remember a sad accident of this kind 
 happening to a gifted Thrush that used to sing on 
 a tree-top in a friend's garden not far from my home. 
 
 LESSER BLACK BACKED GULLS (p. 172). 
 
 Strange as it may seem, they also sing from anger 
 in some instances. Last summer I found a Garden 
 Warbler's nest, and every time the hen was put off 
 her eggs, in order that the camera might be focussed 
 and made ready for her to be photographed on her 
 return, she treated us to a very poor imitation of a few 
 bars of her mate's beautiful sonq- before she commenced 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 171 
 
 to abuse us in her ordinary harsh language. This 
 generally happened whilst the male was warbling 
 away his hardest in some bushes not far away, 
 so that there could be no mistaking the sex of 
 the angry songster. Then there is the well-known 
 case of the Sedge Warbler. If a stone or clod of 
 earth be thrown into some bush wherein a member 
 of this species is sleeping, the startled bird at once 
 commences to sing, which performance can hardly 
 be considered as anything in the nature of a vote 
 of thanks for being so rudely awakened from its 
 slumbers. 
 
 An interesting thing, by the way, about song is 
 that only birds and men have the power of stirring 
 the emotions of their kind by means ol its exercise. 
 
 I find children almost unanimous in the belief that 
 birds sing with their bills. I suppose it was the 
 possession of this erroneous idea which made bird 
 fanciers of old split the tongues of unfortunate Jack- 
 daws and Starlings in order to make them talk all 
 the better. I once met one of these individuals, who 
 was under the firm conviction that no bird could talk 
 or sing well unless it had had its tongue divided by 
 means of a sixpence ground sharp ! 
 
 Bird notes are produced, as a matter of fact, deep 
 down the windpipe, at a point where it branches 
 off into bronchial tubes, the business of which is 
 to convey air to and from the lungs. At this point 
 is fixed a delicate little membrane which produces 
 the note of every bird that flies. Of course, variation 
 
1/2 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 in the size and skill of its possessor accounts lor the 
 wonderful differences in the sounds it can give forth, 
 and although it appears difficult to conceive that 
 the hoarse croak of the Raven and the shrill whistle 
 of the Sandpiper, the rasping skirl of the Partridge 
 and the liquid song of the Nightingale, can be pro- 
 duced by the same kind of instrument, yet such is 
 the case. 
 
 When a bird such as a Thrush is singing, the 
 neck is worked up and down like the sliding tube 
 of a trombone, in order to give its different notes 
 the proper pitch, and often the throat feathers may 
 be seen quivering as a consequence of the air 
 vibrations taking place within. 
 
 The way in which a Lesser Black - Backed 
 Gull manages to modulate the sound of its un- 
 musical voice is most laughable. It will stand 
 on a rock looking very solemn for a while, and 
 then, gravely bowing its head until it has reached 
 a position indicative of a sense of extreme humility, 
 it will commence to utter the bottom notes of its call. 
 The head is then slowly raised and thrown upwards 
 and backwards' until the crown sometimes comes 
 within a few inches of the shoulders, when the 
 top notes are reached and thrown out pell-mell 
 between a pair of widely-opened mandibles. I saw 
 the bird figured in the front of the illustration on 
 page 170 repeatedly do this before and after its 
 portrait was secured. 
 
 Most birds can quite easily utter their call and 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 173 
 
 alarm notes, and I have known the members of some 
 species even sing with food in their bills, but I doubt 
 very much whether a Lesser Black-Back could accom- 
 plish anything in this way. 
 
 In considering the songs and call notes of birds, 
 the question arises as to how young ones learn those 
 of their own species. Experiments have proved that 
 some inherit them from their parents, whilst others 
 learn by imitating them. It was at one time thought 
 that if the eggs of the common fowl were taken 
 to some remote island and hatched out by artificial 
 Warmth, the young cockerels would not know 
 how to crow if they never heard a rooster's cheer- 
 ing note, but the birds soon proved that theory to 
 be wrong bv crowing as lustily as any mainland 
 members of their kind. The same sort of experi- 
 ment tried upon puppies taken from their mothers 
 directly they were born proved that they knew 
 how to bark like their kind, the sound of whose 
 voices they had never heard. 
 
 Most birds have a baby language of their own 
 which is not used after they grow up. In this 
 language they make known their wants, fears, and 
 whereabouts to their parents, and it is surprising 
 how far off the apparently weak voice of a tiny 
 Grouse or Curlew can be heard. Of course, there 
 are exceptions to the use of a special language for 
 baby birds. The young Peewit, for instance, uses 
 the same note as its parents, only, of course, in a 
 Lowe? and weaker form, and so do young Rooks. 
 
OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Young birds spend a great deal of time in learn- 
 ing to sing, and those of such species as the Song 
 Thrush and Blackbird often commence in Sep- 
 tember and October, when their amateurish efforts 
 may be easily detected. 
 
 As the spring advances a great improvement 
 is often noticeable in the performances of many 
 vocalists that one can keep under observation, and 
 this is hardly to be wondered at when the enormous 
 amount of practice indulged in is taken into con- 
 sideration. The Chaffinch, for instance, reiterates 
 his ringing " Sweet, will you will you kiss me, dear ? " 
 which in some parts of the country has been ren- 
 dered as, '' In another month will come a wheat- 
 ear," thousands and thousands of times every day. 
 Song Thrushes, too, spend all the time left after 
 feeding and driving off rivals in repeating their 
 delightful songs. Skylarks do not waste much 
 time, especially on a warm spring evening after a 
 shower or two of rain, as I have repeatedly proved 
 by observation. On the evening of the 1st of April 
 of this year I timed a particular member of the 
 species upon my watch, and the results were as 
 follows: sang thirty seconds, rested forty-five; sang 
 one hundred and thirty, rested forty; sang seventy, 
 rested forty ; sang twenty, rested ninety : sang ten, 
 rested ten ; sang thirty-five. 
 
 The longest record of a Skylark's song I can find 
 in rny notebooks is six minutes and five seconds. 
 The bird went up between seven and eight o'clock 
 
176 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 in the evening on the 7th of May, and at the 
 time the weather was very fine and perfectly calm. 
 The longest song record obtained during the first 
 fortnight in July was two minutes and forty-five 
 seconds. 
 
 During the prevalence of breezy weather Larks 
 mount the air by soaring head to wind, but when 
 it is calm they are obliged to ascend in circles, 
 and these are often not described in the same 
 direction even on a single upward journey. Some 
 people think that a wild Skylark only sings in the 
 blue vault of heaven. This is by no means the 
 case, as some members of the species prefer 
 to pour forth their music Avhilst seated on the 
 ground. One such lives on the side of a hill at 
 the back of my house, and he enjoys the elevation 
 afforded by a surveyor's peg, from which coign of 
 vantage he habitually sings, regardless of the i'act 
 that I watch him frequently through rny field 
 glasses. 
 
 Then there are other birds that indulge in sing- 
 ing whilst upon the wing, although they are popularly 
 supposed to perform only upon such platforms as are 
 afforded by tree top, bush, or rock. These are the 
 Missel Thrush, Blackbird, Song Thrush, Nightingale, 
 Common Wren, Whitethroat, and Garden Warbler. 
 Other species that commonly sing while they fly 
 are the Skylark, Meadow Pipit, Tree Pipit, Swallow, 
 and Cuckoo. 
 
 A very strange thing about some species is that 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 177 
 
 they sing better in one part of the country than 
 another. Birdcatchers say that an Essex Chaffinch 
 can beat one from any other part of the British Isles, 
 and close observers with good musical ears have 
 noticed that this bird's notes are stronger and longer 
 in some districts than in others. 
 
 Singing competitions are still held amongst 
 
 Chaffinch fanciers in the East End of London, and it 
 is difficult to understand how the poor little prisoners 
 have the heart to utter a note in their cramped 
 cages, enfolded within thick handkerchiefs that make 
 the air dark and stifling. German birdcatchers 
 used to think that the blacker the darkness in 
 which a singing Chaffinch was kept the better it 
 sang, and were, sad to relate, guilty of the unspeak- 
 able cruelty of destroying the eyesight of their 
 unfortunate little prisoners with red-hot wire. 
 M 
 
178 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 The vocal accomplishments of some Song Thrushes 
 are as much superior to those of others as are the 
 notes of an Albert Hall concert singer to those of 
 a bawling yokel in a country sing-song. 
 
 My brother and I have proved this in our attempts 
 to secure records on the phonograph and comparing 
 them. He used to get up very early in the morning, 
 climb evergreens growing on a common not far 
 away, wherein we knew Thrushes habitually sang, 
 and fix the instrument in such a position that he 
 could start it directly the birds commenced to hold 
 forth at the first blink of day. We spent a lot of 
 time and money in our endeavours to record bird 
 songs, but to little purpose, as the records we did 
 obtain ofJThrushes' notes in the way described in- 
 variably split on account of the wax being so 
 susceptible to atmospheric changes. When near 
 enough to a bird to secure a really good record of 
 its song, the grinding of the needle cutting the 
 vibrations of its notes in the wax cylinder invariably 
 frightened it away. We, however, made the interest- 
 ing discovery that wild, free Thrushes sometimes 
 sing under their breath, in the same way that human 
 beings hum tunes over to themselves. 
 
 Bird songs are almost as difficult to turn into 
 words that represent their sounds as they are to 
 write down in musical notation. I have often tried 
 to catch them in shorthand, but the speed at which a 
 Thrush can rattle off his refrain is truly surprising 
 when the brain of the writer has to search for words 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 179 
 
 that have a similar sound to his utterances. The 
 following lines represent to my ears the sound of a 
 Thrush's song : 
 
 Hear, hear, hear. 
 Wicked Mick, wicked Mick, 
 Pay thy debt, pay thy debt. 
 Quite right, quite right. 
 Pay pay pay. 
 Yes I do, yes I do. 
 Feat, feat, fiddlestick. 
 Tit tit titty tit. 
 Quartet, quartet. 
 
 The famous Scottish naturalist Macgillivray ren- 
 dered it beautifully in the following words : 
 
 " Dear, dear, dear 
 
 Is the rocky glen ; 
 Far away, far away, far away 
 
 The haunts of men. 
 Here shall we dwell in love 
 With the Lark and the Dove, 
 Cuckoo and Corn-rail, 
 Feast on the banded snail, 
 
 Worm and gilded fly : 
 Drink of the crystal rill 
 Winding adown the hill, 
 
 Never to dry. 
 With glee, with glee, with glee, 
 
 Cheer up, cheer up, cheer up, here 
 Nothing to harm us, then sing merrily, 
 Sing to the loved ones whose nest is near : 
 Qui qui qui kweeu quip, 
 Tiurru tiurru chipiwl 
 Too-tee, too-tee, chiu choo, 
 Chirri chirri chooee 
 Quiu qui qui." 
 
I So OUR !3iRD 
 
 Of course, no human words can ever represent, 
 especially in cold type, the passionate vehemence, the 
 sprightliness, or the tender pleading of a Thrush's song, 
 which always reminds me of the methods of a clever 
 preacher with a good voice. The loud, clear notes 
 repeated in order to hammer home some important 
 truth, the exquisite pauses in order to let them 
 sink in, the low, sweet pleading and the cheerful 
 ring of hope, are all there. 
 
 The Missel Thrush is a great favourite of mine, 
 because he will sit on the topmost twig of some 
 high tree even in February and make his clarion 
 voice heard above the sound of the blast. Any 
 bird can sing Avhile food is plentiful, the skies clear, 
 and things generally cheerful, but it takes a brave 
 heart to bid defiance to the cold hurricane of a 
 winter's day. 
 
 Many people are very partial to the mellow, 
 flute-like notes of the Blackbird, and it must be 
 admitted that their power and sweetness are hard 
 to beat, especially when heard in some shady dell 
 on a calm summer's evening. This bird loves 
 the summit of a dead stump rising well above the 
 foliage of surrounding trees, from which to pipe his 
 morning and evening hymns, and will often, like 
 the Common Wren, run over a few bars after 
 having helped his mate to feed their young. The 
 bird figured in the illustration on page 189 used to 
 sing from a dead stump on the edge of a wood, 
 and was photographed from our stuffed bullock one 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 181 
 
 day when it came down to drink at a favourite 
 pond close by. 
 
 I have seen it stated in popular journals that 
 the Blackbird does not commence to sing until 
 after the sun has risen. This law does not certainly 
 hold good with all members of the species, or in 
 all parts of the country, for I have sat up all night 
 on several occasions in order to make notes upon 
 the time birds retire to rest and the time they 
 wake up, and the following figures represent what 
 I heard in Westmorland on the evening of the 7th 
 and morning of the 8th of last June. 
 
 The sun set about half-past eight o'clock in a 
 calm, cloudy sky, and rose again at about forty 
 minutes past three in a cold, grey haze, and there 
 was no moon visible, although its light on the 
 evening of the 7th no doubt prolonged the sing- 
 ing time of some species. 
 
 At fifteen minutes past eight o'clock Thrushes, 
 Blackbirds, Meadow Pipits, Willow Warblers, Garden 
 Warblers, Common Wrens, Chaffinches and Cuckoos 
 were all in full song. At halt-past eight Thrushes, 
 Blackbirds, Common Wrens, Willow Warblers and 
 Cuckoos only were heard, and flocks of Starlings 
 and Rooks were hieing awa}^ home to roost. By a 
 quarter to nine the Common Wren had dropped 
 out of the feathered concert as a performer. At 
 nine o'clock the following birds were still all in full 
 voice : Thrush, Blackbird, Willow Warbler, and 
 Cuckoo, But a quarter of an hour later the Willow 
 
1 82 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Warbler had ceased to make itself heard. The 
 competition between the Thrush and Blackbird now 
 became keen, and I grew quite excited. At twenty 
 minutes past nine the Blackbird stopped, and his 
 rival retired five minutes later, the Cuckoo keeping 
 on until just after ten o'clock. 
 
 Some of these times of retirement are, no doubt, 
 subject to considerable variation, for although the 
 Lark ceased to sing before the sun set, this bird 
 habitually sings after that time. 
 
 At five minutes past two o'clock next morning 
 a Wheatear commenced to salute the coming day, 
 and five minutes later a Lark began to sing. The 
 Cuckoo started to tell his name to all the hills 
 around at a quarter past two o'clock, and the Thrush 
 again beat his rival the Blackbird by piping forth 
 at thirty-two minutes past two, which was exactly 
 three minutes before his sable friend. 
 
 The Common Wren awoke at three o'clock, the 
 Garden Warbler two minutes later, the Meadow 
 Pipit at twenty minutes past three, the Willow 
 Warbler one minute later, and the Chaffinch last 
 of all at twenty^five minutes past three. 
 
 The mention of these early risers and of the 
 times at which they saluted the dawn of a new day, 
 suggests to me that my readers may be interested 
 in knowing the retiring and rising hours of some 
 of them at a corresponding period in winter. 
 
 On the 7th of December the sun sets at 
 London, near which my observations were made 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 
 
 183 
 
 at ten minutes to four o'clock in the afternoon, 
 and rises the following morning at six minutes 
 before eight. 
 
 LAUK ON GROUND. 
 
 House Sparrows retired at five minutes to four 
 o'clock, Great Tits five minutes later, Blackbirds at 
 ten minutes past four, Robins three or four minutes 
 
184 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 later, and Thrushes at about seventeen minutes after 
 the hour. 
 
 The following morning they were astir as follows : 
 Thrushes at thirty-five minutes past seven; Robins 
 three minutes later, followed by the Blackbirds at 
 ten minutes to eight ; House Sparrows two minutes 
 to the hour, and Great Tits exactly at eight o'clock. 
 
 I have found by comparing my notes that many 
 species will rise fifteen or twenty minutes earlier 
 on a bright, clear morning than they do on a dull, 
 dark one. 
 
 Thrushes and Robins retire latest and rise earliest, 
 and the differences in the sleeping hours of Black- 
 birds and Thrushes in winter and summer are 
 really wonderful when we come to compare them. 
 
 From early and late singers we come to a con- 
 sideration of vocalists of the night. These are not 
 many, and the great chief among them, if not of all 
 singers, is, of course, the Nightingale, a bird that has 
 given at once more pleasure and more disappoint- 
 ment than any other British songster. 
 
 Having been born and brought up in the York- 
 shire Highlands, beyond the bird's most northern 
 range, I never heard it sing until I was over twenty 
 years of age, and the poets had saturated me through 
 and through with the most unreasonable ideas 
 about " the sweet and plaintive Sappho of the dell " 
 warbling notes "far too pure for this gross earth/' 
 " that float from heaven on wandering wing," that 
 " angels listen to," and so forth, and then, in common 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 185 
 
 with thousands and thousands of others who have 
 listened to it for the first time, I was profoundly 
 disappointed. 
 
 There are Nightingales and Nightingales, even- 
 ings favourable and unfavourable to them, and I 
 had the misfortune to hear a poor singer on a cold, 
 breezy evening, instead of a really good performer 
 on a balmy, moonlight night, and the result was 
 that I would have given half a dozen Nightingales 
 for a single Skylark off my native hills. 
 
 But the poets and my ill fortune did the bird a 
 real injustice, and I have since come to love its 
 exquisite song so much that I have thrown my 
 bedroom window open and lain awake listening to 
 it throughout nearly the whole of a moonlit June 
 night. The power and richness of its melody 
 grow upon one, until the most prejudiced of us 
 are bound to admit that it is the prince of British 
 song birds. 
 
 Of course, its habit of singing in the shadowy still- 
 ness of the night when it has no rivals except of its 
 own species, and enjoys the undivided attention of 
 tbe listener, accounts for a great deal of its popu- 
 larity, and many people who go out specially to 
 hear it by night and belaud it do not even detect 
 its notes when uttered in the full chorus of the wood 
 by day. In fact, I have met lots of people living 
 in a Nightingale country who did not even know 
 that the bird sang by day at all. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all the laudation of the poets 
 
i86 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 and the bird's unsurpassed merits as a singer, we 
 do not all love it. Not long ago there was something 
 like a plague of Nightingales and Cuckoos in certain 
 parts of Surrey, and I heard the inhabitants say 
 hard things about them because of the fact that 
 they could not sleep for the " row " the birds made. 
 I wonder what some of the older poets would think 
 of the song of their sweet Philomel being described 
 as a " row " ! 
 
 Stranger still, the keepers on a big game preserv- 
 ing estate in the south of England destroyed numbers 
 of Nightingales because they fancied it disturbed 
 their Pheasants at night. 
 
 Some naturalists are of opinion that as male 
 Nightingales arrive in this country several days 
 before the females, they sing during the hours or 
 darkness in order to attract the attention of the 
 latter as they fly overhead on their northward 
 journey, but this theory does not account for the 
 fact that there are parts of the country populated 
 by the species and yet their songs are only heard 
 by day. 
 
 Another curious thing about this bird is that 
 its distribution is peculiarly limited, without any 
 apparent reason. It does not wander much beyond 
 Ripon in Yorkshire in a northern direction, or the 
 Valley of the Exe in a western one, although there 
 is reason to believe that it is slowly extending its 
 range. The inhabitants of Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, 
 claim to have heard it on at least one occasion. 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 187 
 
 The Sedge Warbler is another singer of the 
 night, a thing one would hardly have expected 
 when his extreme diurnal industry in this direction 
 during May and June is taken into consideration. 
 Whenever I visit the Norfolk Broads in the spring- 
 time, the bird's vehement scolding song becomes so 
 engraved upon my brain that I hear it repeated 
 over and over again, as if a phonographic record 
 of it were constantly being run off on my pillow 
 as I go to sleep. It is a queer lilting, jerky, hurried 
 little song, and, as mentioned on a previous page, 
 may be drawn from the bird even when it has no 
 disposition to give a voluntary performance by 
 flinging something into the place wherein it is 
 roosting and startling it. 
 
 The Grasshopper Warbler can hardly be called 
 a singer at all, for it reels out the strangest machine- 
 like sound that ever issued from a feathered throat. 
 In fact, the noise it makes is so unlike a bird's note 
 that few people unacquainted with it would ever 
 suspect that it came from an avian mouth at all. 
 
 The species has been named after the grass- 
 hopper because of the resemblance of its notes to 
 the noise made by that insect. Some naturalists 
 say that its song resembles the noise made by the 
 green field cricket, but to me it sounds very much 
 more like the rattling whirr of a woolspinner's reel 
 as I have heard it whilst looking over a cloth factory. 
 It is marvellously sustained, often lasting Aveli on 
 for a minute without pause or break. 
 
1 88 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 During calm summer weather the Reeler, or 
 Cricket bird, as it is called in many parts of the 
 country, keeps up its concert all night long. In 
 addition to its queer song it is distinguished by 
 being a most accomplished ventriloquist. Whilst 
 standing with its mouth wide open and its little 
 body quivering from the vibrations going on in its 
 throat, it can pitch its voice hither and thither, 
 near and far, with results the most bewildering to 
 the listener. 
 
 The Corncrake, too, another bird of the night 
 so far as the great bulk of its harsh, rasping notes 
 are concerned, is an excellent ventriloquist, able to 
 throw its voice about in the most deceptive manner, 
 especially whilst it is standing under the spreading 
 leaves of the coltsfoot plant. 
 
 The Nightjar, as its name implies, is another 
 nocturnal vocalist, with a voice somewhat similar 
 to that of the Grasshopper Warbler, only much 
 louder. Any boy can imitate it by raising the tip 
 of his tongue to the roof of his mouth and then 
 making it vibrate rapidly. The male bird has also 
 another curious trilling note, which has been very 
 aptly likened to the noise made by swinging a stout 
 rope rapidly through the air. 
 
 Peewits, or Lapwings, are particularly fond of 
 exercising their vocal organs during quiet spring 
 nights, and the cleverest rendering of their pretty 
 joyous note I have ever heard was invented by 
 John Nudd, a Norfolk rnarshman, and runs, " Week 
 
AND CALL NOTES. 
 
 189 
 
 after week three bullocks a week," which is, to my 
 mind, a better rendering of it than even the well- 
 known " Little bit of bread and no cheese " is of the 
 Yellow Hammer's song. 
 
 When I was quite a tiny toddler a Common 
 Snipe gave me a great fright. I had been taken 
 
 for a walk up the 
 hills one evening in 
 May by some older 
 boys, and darkness 
 
 ]$LACKBIIU> 'WETTING ITS WHISTLK " AFTER A SONG (p. 181). 
 
 fell upon the land before we reached home again. As 
 we passed a small, rush-clad swamp by the roadside 
 there arose the most weird drumming sound, followed 
 at intervals by a sharp ajick, ajick, ajick kind of 
 note, I had ever heard. Sometimes it appeared to be 
 to right and sometimes to left of us, but mostly 
 overhead, and my companions, noticing how closely 
 
190 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 I clung to them and kept silence, bade me have 
 no fear, as it was "nobbut a Hammer blate," the 
 local Yorkshire name for the Common Snipe. Since 
 that eventful evening I have heard the bird thousands 
 upon thousands of times, and watched it during dull 
 days mount the air to great heights and then pre- 
 cipitate itself headlong earthwards at terrific speed, 
 meanwhile uttering its strange drumming or bleat- 
 ing note, which is a male accomplishment peculiar 
 to the breeding season. An odd thing about .it is 
 that after hundreds of years of observation by the 
 best ornithologists the world has produced, no man 
 yet knows for certain how the bird makes this 
 wonderful sound. Some contend that it is of vocal 
 origin, others that it is made by the rapid vibration 
 of the wings as the bird descends through space, 
 whilst a third school claims that it is the result of 
 air rushing through the stiff outspread tail feathers. 
 
 During warm evenings in April and May the 
 air over a favourite breeding swamp is filled with 
 the drumming of Snipe and their sharp ajick-ajick 
 or tjick-tjick notes, which are uttered as they fly 
 upwards to prepare for a new descent. 
 
 The Cuckoo often sings during the night, when 
 I have had some rare good fun with the bird by 
 imitating its notes and making it angry, in the 
 same way that I used to break the slumbers of 
 many an old rooster, when a mischievous boy, by 
 crowing outside his house and making him believe 
 a very lively rival was waiting to interview him. 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 191 
 
 One night last summer I teased a very irate old 
 Cuckoo for a long while in the North of England 
 by sitting under a stone wall near a little wood and 
 mimicking him every time he sang. I allowed him 
 to utter a few notes, when I commenced, and he 
 instantly stopped to listen. After he had con- 
 sidered the merits of my song for a little while, he 
 used some dreadful bad language about it in the 
 following words : Cu cu, Id Id, cu, ca ca ca, era, 
 and at once proceeded to show how a Cuckoo's 
 song should be properly rendered. Nothing daunted, 
 I again held forth, and he as promptly stopped to 
 listen. By-and-by he alighted on the wall- top 
 within a few yards of my head, and said a lot of 
 nasty things in a harsh, barking undertone. I 
 never answered a word, and the grey of my clothes 
 harmonising with the stones of the old wall in the 
 semi-darkness, I was not detected. Again he sang 
 out nearer, clearer, and louder than I had ever 
 heard a member of his species before Cuckoo, 
 cuckoo, cuckoo. I thought to myself, "Well, I can 
 never match that, and you will discover the fraud 
 this time anyway." I tried again, however, and 
 with the most surprising success. He went almost 
 frantic with rage, and flew round and round me 
 until I broke the spell by laughing outright at him. 
 
 Owls are birds of nocturnal habits, and the 
 weird tu whit, to whoo of the Tawny, or Wood, 
 species may be heard at nights in many parts of 
 the country. It is very startling and uncanny 
 
192 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 when it first breaks upon the ear of a listener 
 standing close under the boughs of the tree in which 
 the bird is hooting. 
 
 It may seem curious, but it is nevertheless 
 true, that a human being has been frightened to 
 death by the note of a bird. 
 
 A number of years ago a labourer's wife in West- 
 morland took out a child one night and stood with 
 it in her arms in front of her cottage whilst she 
 listened for the homecoming footfall of its daddy. 
 A Tawny Owl happened at the time to come along, 
 and, alighting in a tree close by, gave vent to a loud 
 tu whit, to whoo, which so terrified the unfortunate 
 child that it had a fit on the spot, and subsequently 
 died from the effects of fright. 
 
 The next important class of singers to be con- 
 sidered is that of the imitators. In it we find many 
 clever birds that habitually borrow notes from other 
 species, and either mix them up with their own or 
 tack them on at the end of their songs. 
 
 The Starling is probably the best-known and 
 most accomplished British example of this art, 
 and I have many times been deceived by it. I 
 remember being on a bird's nest photographing 
 tour along with my brother in the Hebrides some 
 years ago, and very desirous of finding a Sand- 
 piper's eggs. Whilst tramping across a particu- 
 larly barren, rocky part of an island we suddenly 
 came upon a small loch, by the side of which 
 we sat down to rest for a while. In a few 
 
WILLOW WREN. 
 
 X 
 
194 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 minutes I heard a Sandpiper's low, sweet wheel 
 wheel, and, whipping out my field glasses, began to 
 search for the bird along the shores of the loch at 
 my feet. The note was repeated, and I pursued 
 my search with redoubled vigour until our pho- 
 tographer cracked out laughing at me. The note 
 came not from a Sandpiper at all, but from a 
 mimicking Starling seated on a rock not far away. 
 
 I have also been deceived by hearing the bird 
 repeat the notes of both the Golden Plover and-.the 
 Peewit from chimnej^-tops in the suburbs of London. 
 
 It has been said that the Starling is as clever 
 an imitator as the American Mocking Bird, but 
 although I have never had the pleasure of listening 
 to the latter, T am inclined to doubt the statement at 
 any rate, so far as bird songs are concerned for the 
 feathered mimic of the West has been known to 
 learn and repeat in two or three days the melodies 
 of particularly accomplished Blackbirds and Sky- 
 larks in such wonderful style that their original 
 singers became disgusted with their own efforts 
 and were reduced to pining silence. 
 
 From observations made in nearly every part of 
 the country, I should say that the Starling was 
 much cleverer at ^picking up call notes than actual 
 songs. I have heard it repeat those of the Curlew, 
 Common Partridge, Golden Plover, Peewit, Sand- 
 piper, and Ringed Plover, and there have been 
 people deceived into looking about for a Tawny 
 Owl hooting in the daytime, and even into rising 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 195 
 
 to let a supposed mewing cat into a house. It 
 has also been known to try to imitate the sound 
 of bells. 
 
 A Starling's own song is a chissicking, creak- 
 ing, snapping, rusty sort of production, with a 
 few finer notes that are mostly borrowed dropping 
 out here and there at intervals as if by accident, 
 and the wing-flapping, throat-vibrating fuss it 
 makes over its vocal efforts is really ludicrous. 
 
 The Sedge Warbler is a great mimic, and seems 
 to splutter out the notes of Sparrows, Chaffinches, 
 Swallows, and other birds in a tremendous hurry 
 and bewildering mixture. 
 
 The Marsh Warbler, a bird found breeding in 
 limited numbers in certain parts of England every 
 year, is considered by such ornithologists as Mr. 
 Ward Fowler, and others well acquainted with its 
 vocal powers, to be the prince of song-bird imitators, 
 as it does not jumble up a number of borrowed 
 notes, but runs separately through the songs of 
 the birds it copies. After it has dealt with one it 
 pauses for a while before commencing to run over 
 another belonging to a different species. 
 
 Goldfinches, Linnets, Wheatears, Blackbirds, 
 Thrushes, Jays, Robins, and even House Sparrows 
 can all copy other birds' notes. 
 
 The Hon. Daines Barrington, friend and corre- 
 spondent of the immortal White of Selborne, 
 conducted a series of experiments bearing directly 
 upon this interesting subject of imitation, and 
 
196 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 found that a young Robin brought up within hear- 
 ing of the song of a Nightingale had a melody 
 consisting of three-quarters of that of Philomel 
 and a quarter belonging to its own species. 
 
 Even the despised and unmusical House Sparrow 
 has been known to sing like both the Canary and the 
 Skylark when brought up in captivity among such 
 birds. Now and again one may be met with even 
 in the streets of a large town practising some strange 
 borrowed note. Only last winter, whilst spending a 
 few days in Edinburgh, I heard a bird of this 
 species making use of a strange note that I should 
 never have believed could proceed from the throat 
 of an old Cock Sparrow had I not identified the 
 bird in the roof-iron of the Hay market Railway 
 Station. 
 
 I have heard the male Red-Backed Shrike try 
 to sing to his lady love, but it was the poorest 
 bit of creaking out of notes borrowed from birds 
 of the neighbourhood that could be imagined. 
 It has been said that his near relative, the Great 
 Grey Shrike, acquires the notes of other birds in 
 order to draw them within his range of attack. 
 
 One would hardly expect the male bird of a 
 species to sing whilst sitting on the nest and doing 
 his share of the duties of brooding, yet such conduct 
 is ascribed to both the Song Thrush and the Black- 
 cap Warbler. The latter is a powerful and beautiful 
 singer, whose notes I have many times had the 
 pleasure of listening to in Surrey orchards and 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 197 
 
 woods; but although I love its song, my estimate 
 of it is not such that I would mention it as a rival 
 of the Nightingale, a proud place allotted to it by 
 many students of Nature. 
 
 The dividing line between songs and call notes 
 is an exceedingly difficult, if hot impossible, one to 
 draw, for those which are uttered by many species, 
 such as Cuckoos, Owls, and Pigeons, are practically 
 the only means of communication between one 
 bird and another. 
 
 Birds not ; only have a very definite and ^veil- 
 understood language for the benefit and convenience 
 of each species, but some of them have the power of 
 communicating the presence of a common danger 
 to every feathered neighbour living within hearing 
 of their voices. Blackbirds, Chaffinches, Common 
 Wrens, and Swallows ' all possess 'this power in a 
 marked degree, as I have proved by placing a stuffed 
 Owl close to their nests containing young ones. 
 
 The first-named bird's ringing S'pink, spink, spink ! 
 is capable of all sorts of 'subtle variations, each with 
 a separate meaning, j He says " good-night " and 
 /' good-morning ".; with it, and his neighbours pay 
 very little attention. ' If he be disturbed during 
 the night, he Hies out of the bush wherein he was 
 sleeping without a sound and utters a fairly fast 
 but not very loud Spink, spink, spink ! when he 
 blunders into another' whitethorn some distance 
 away, as much as to say,' ".Look out, neighbours, 
 there's something strange astir to-night." But if a 
 
198 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 cat should be seen stealthily approaching a favourite 
 roost shared by himself and other birds of different 
 species about bedtime, he rings out his notes as loud 
 and fast as a fire alarm, and every feathered neighbour 
 is instantly on the alert. 
 
 The Blackbird is, in short, a capital sentinel, and 
 many gamekeepers encourage its presence in the 
 fields where they have their Pheasant coops because 
 of the timely warning it gives of the approach of 
 vermin. 
 
 The inhabitants of the far-famed island of St. 
 Kilda, situated some forty or fifty miles north-west 
 of the Outer Hebrides, say that the great flocks of 
 Gannets visiting the rock stacks round their isolated 
 home every summer to breed have a sentinel to 
 keep watch at night whilst the other members of 
 the species slumber. These hardy inhabitants of St. 
 Kilda, with whom my brother and I stayed for a 
 while on one occasion, have to depend for a great 
 part of their living upon the sea-fowl that visit 
 their lonely home to breed, and in consequence are 
 obliged to steal upon the sleeping Gannets and 
 capture a number of them in the dead of the night. 
 If the sentinel bird hears them climbing up the 
 face of the rocks, which are truly awful in their 
 steepness and height, he cries out to his friends, 
 Beero ! which means Beware. The fowlers then 
 remain quite still, with their caps drawn over their 
 eyes and their faces pressed against that of the 
 crag they are climbing. Should the sentinel con- 
 
A NIGHTINGALE IN ITS HOWEU. 
 
2oo OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 sider that he has made a mistake and there is no 
 danger after all, he cries out Gorrok ! gorrok I which 
 being interpreted means " All is well, friends, you 
 can go to sleep again." But if the fowlers should 
 be detected the whole colony of birds will instantly 
 take wing and fly away, uttering some angry language 
 which sounds like Beero ! harro ! boo ! 
 
 Of all my favourite wild bird calls the one I 
 love best is that of the Red Grouse, a species that 
 is not met with anywhere outside the British Islands. 
 I have heard it on a thousand hill-tops during the 
 dappled dawn of many a glorious autumn day, when 
 it has filled the air to such an incredible extent that 
 a stranger would have declared the whole moor alive 
 with birds. 
 
 At the first blink of day the females awake and 
 commence to call to their companions in a strange 
 nasal note which sounds like Yow, yow, yow ! and 
 the males answer by jumping up, and, after rising 
 on their wings some distance, throwing back their 
 heads and descending with a resounding Cabow, 
 cabow, cabeck, cabeck, cabeck, beck, beck, beck ! When 
 on the ground they also utter several other notes, 
 such as Gockaway, cockaway, go back, go back, the 
 last kind of cry with such astonishing plainness 
 that many people unacquainted with the bird have 
 mistaken it for a human voice. An old woman, who 
 was not a native, whilst crossing a Yorkshire moor, 
 heard a Grouse uttering its go-back note, and was 
 so convinced that it was someone talking to her that 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 201 
 
 she at last angrily exclaimed : " Go back ! not I, 
 indeed ! I'm off to market to sell my butter and 
 
 When danger threatens, an old male will run 
 up to the top of some heather knowe, or crag, 
 and utter an emphatic Cock ! cock ! cock ! which is 
 the signal to be off. 
 
 Grouse are, as a rule, the most noisy between the 
 first peep of day and the time the sun rises above 
 the horizon on a nice frosty October morning, but 
 often they have very little indeed to say, even under 
 such conditions, if the day is going to turn out wet. 
 
 Call notes are used for keeping families of birds 
 together whilst hunting for insects amongst the 
 foliage and branches of trees, and the different 
 members of a brood of Long- Tailed Tits signal each 
 other's whereabouts all day long during summer, 
 autumn, and winter by a sweet little See-see-see! 
 
 Such species as Golden Plover, Peewits and 
 Curlews, that fly about in flocks, keep together 
 in thick fogs, and during dark nights, by constantly 
 calling to each other. 
 
 There are very few people who have not heard 
 strange bird cries high overhead during autumn 
 nights. They proceed from migrants winging their 
 way to their winter quarters and anxious not to 
 lose each other in the darkness. 
 
 The call notes of some species are strangely like 
 other sounds. When the nest of the Common 
 Buzzard is visited the bird circles high overhead, 
 
2O2 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 uttering a cry something like the mewing ot a 
 cat. One low note uttered by a Waterhen whilst 
 with her young in a reed bed is just like the sound 
 made by a horse munching ha}^. The note of the 
 Turtle Dove is so like the croak of a frog that I 
 have known people take one for the other ; and 
 the hiss of a member of the Tit family whilst 
 sitting on its nest in a hole in a tree is so snake- 
 like and unbird-like that many a boy has been 
 deceived by it and frightened away. 
 
 The baby chicks of some species know the call 
 and alarm notes of their parents directly they leave 
 the eggshell, as may be easily discovered by anyone 
 who will take the trouble to study the habits of 
 such a common bird as the Peewit. And how 
 obedient many of these downy youngsters are to 
 their parents ! Last spring I spent a good many 
 hours in an artificial rubbish heap Avatching the 
 antics of a number of Redshanks that had young 
 ones on the boggy land around me. The birds 
 would shriek danger to their chicks for an hour 
 after they had watched me into my hiding-place, 
 and the wee things would obey the call as a rule 
 and keep quite still, although such a proceeding 
 must have been exceedingly wearisome to these 
 active creatures. Whenever one ventured to dis- 
 obey orders its parents flew close over its head and 
 uttered a loud ringing note which sounded exactly 
 like Down, down, down ! and the adventurer sought 
 the friendly cover of the rough grass. 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 203 
 
 Alarm notes are not, however, always believed 
 in by the birds to which they are addressed, if 
 they cannot see or hear something in the nature 
 of corroborative evidence themselves, as I proved 
 to my complete satisfaction on two occasions last 
 summer. 
 
 I watched a male Redstart drop into a bank 
 several times with food for his mate sitting on a 
 nest in a hole in the rock, and at once determined 
 to have a photograph of him. Waiting until the 
 chicks had made their appearance and both parent 
 birds were hard at work attending to their wants, 
 I stuck a bit of stick in the ground at the foot 
 of the bank and a little to the left of the nest 
 for them to alight upon and have their portraits 
 taken without being mixed up with the grass. 
 They seemed grateful for the perch and used it 
 constantly. By-and-by an artificial rubbish heap 
 covered Avith twigs, grass, and coltsfoot leaves made 
 its appearance a yard or two behind the stick. The 
 birds used some rather bad language about the 
 unsightliness of such an erection in the middle of a 
 beautiful green field, but in a day or two got used 
 to it, and went about the business of their lives 
 without further comment or protest. One fine morn- 
 ing I tried to slip inside the contrivance whilst they 
 were away searching for food, but the female was 
 too quick for me. She saw me disappear, and gave 
 out her alarm note very freely indeed from the 
 branches of a tree close by. By-and-by along came 
 
2O4 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 her husband with a handsome caterpillar in his bill. 
 After peeping about for a minute or so, neither 
 seeing nor hearing anything unusual, he evidently 
 concluded that his wife had had an attack of nerves, 
 and flew down to the stick by the nest. When 
 he reached this he just looked round as if to say, 
 " Dear me ! I don't know whatever you are making 
 such a fuss about," and popped into the nesting hole 
 with his caterpillar. He came again and again 
 with food, and went in and out of the bank without 
 paying any heed to his wife's warnings. 
 
 A precisely similar thing happened, with the 
 sexes reversed, in the case of a pair of Wheatears 
 nesting not far away. 
 
 However much one may discuss the peculiarities 
 and interesting points of birds' songs and call notes, a 
 very poor idea at best can be conveyed of their 
 sweetness and variety, and I would strongly advise 
 every reader of this little book to go out into the 
 fields and woods and listen for themselves. A 
 knowledge of the songs and notes of wild birds will 
 help to identify their unseen singers, not always 
 with certainty, perhaps, as will have been gathered 
 from the foregoing pages, on account of the trick 
 some of them have of borrowing each other's notes ; 
 but field glasses and careful stalking will generally 
 settle a doubt, and at the same time add very 
 materially to the interest and knowledge of the 
 student. 
 
 In conclusion, let me say that I have the 
 
SONGS AND CALL NOTES. 
 
 205 
 
 extreme satisfaction of having sent out numbers of 
 people of both sexes and all ages to study wild 
 life at home for themselves, with cameras and field- 
 glass, and have been inundated with letters bearing 
 testimony to the interest of the subject, while I 
 have never yet received a single complaint. 
 
 A knowledge of Nature can hardly fail to make 
 the student love her, and who can deny that a 
 love of Nature is far more productive of health and 
 happiness than is the possession of much gold ? 
 
 " CAW, CAW, CAW ! " 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Accidents to birds of prey, 30' 
 to birds whilst nest-building 
 
 50 
 Agricultural produce destroyed by I 
 
 insects, 3 
 Alarm notes that are not alway 
 
 heeded, 203 
 Angling for birds, 20 
 Anvil, A thrush's, 23 
 
 Battle, A desperate, between a pair 
 
 of gannets, 42 
 
 Bills of birds and their uses, 19 
 Bird language and danger, 197 
 Bird notes that resemble cats mew- 
 ing, snakes hissing, etc., 202 
 Birdless land, The gloom of a, 168 
 Birds adapting themselves to cir- 
 cumstances, 34 
 and biscuits, 11 
 
 and food, Experiments with, 
 15 
 
 and hard weather, 6 
 
 and wild fruits, 4 
 , Angling for, 20 
 
 - as foster parents, 89 
 , Baby language of, 173 
 , Behaviour of male parent, 112 
 , Bills of, and their uses, 19 
 , parent, Curious behaviour of, 
 at nest, 117 
 
 Birds, Feeding habits of, 1-31 
 , How they alight, 158 
 , How they benefit man, 1-4 
 
 , How they do harm, 4 
 
 , How they help four-footed 
 
 animals, 25 
 
 , How they open shellfish, 23 
 
 , Ideas of town-bred, 15 
 in France, 4 
 
 , Male, that sit on nests, 113 
 
 , Morals and privations of' 
 
 17 
 
 , Restaurant for, 6 
 
 , Strange freaks of, 88 
 
 that are unable to fly during 
 the moulting season, 152 
 
 that warble while brooding, 
 
 70 
 
 build new nests on old 
 
 ones, 51 
 
 cannot leave well alone, 
 
 76 
 
 carry their young about, 
 
 111 
 
 copy each other's notes, 
 
 192-96 
 
 cover their eggs when 
 
 leaving the nest, 70 
 
 defend their chicks, 103 
 
 dig tunnels, 64 
 
 fly for pleasure, 157 
 
 had their tongues split 
 
208 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 by fanciers to make them sing 
 well, 171 
 
 Birds that imitate the notes of 
 others, 192 
 
 lay in old nests belong- 
 ing to other species, 51 
 
 in each other's 
 
 nests, 87 
 
 white eggs in open- 
 
 topped nests, 77 
 leave their nests by 
 
 twilight, 70 
 
 live by devouring de- 
 fenceless neighbours, 26 
 
 make spare nests, 52 
 
 no nests or next to 
 
 none, 75 
 nest in natural holes in 
 
 trees, rocks, etc., 67 
 
 rear big families, 113 
 
 rise first 'and retire to 
 
 sleep last, 184 
 sing better in one part of 
 
 the country than another, 177 
 till they drop dead, 
 
 170 
 
 upon the wing, 
 
 176 
 
 whilst sitting on 
 
 nest, 196 
 
 sleep in old nests, 54 
 
 wear stockings, 152 
 
 with strong family ties, 133 
 
 , why they sing, 169 
 
 of prey, Accidents to, 30 
 
 , How the young of 
 
 defend themselves, 108 
 , the havoc they 
 
 commit amongst defenceless 
 
 species, 119 
 Biscuits and Birds, 11 
 Blackbird as gamekeeper's sentinel, 
 
 198 
 
 Blackbird, Growth of a young, 
 98 
 
 , Song of a, 180 
 
 Blackbird's nest in hayrick, 73 
 
 in wire, 47 
 
 notes, 197 
 
 Boys frightened by Tit hissing, 70 
 
 Call notes in fogs and on dark 
 
 nights, 201 
 
 of migrating birds, 201 
 
 used for keeping' families 
 
 of birds together, 201 
 Caterpillars destroyed by Blue 
 
 Tits, 126 
 
 destroying trees in Hong- 
 kong, 3 
 
 on oak trees, 2 
 
 stopping a railway train, 2 
 
 Chaffinch, A bold, 27 
 
 Chicks and exercise of their wings, 
 
 128 
 and methods of feeding them, 
 
 120 
 
 and the way they hide, 94 
 
 , a source of anxiety to their 
 
 parents, 100 
 
 , Behaviour of, in nest, 128 
 , Care of mother birds for 
 
 their, 93 
 
 , Destruction of, 108 
 
 heard cheeping in eggs, 92 
 
 , How a brood of is fed, 114 
 
 of double-brooded birds, 133 
 
 of one brood helping parents 
 
 to take care of another, 133 
 
 , Rapid growth of, 98 
 
 that enjoy pick-a-backs, 112 
 
 live in nests, 93 
 
 run about directly they 
 
 are hatched, 93 
 
INDEX. 
 
 209 
 
 Chicks that try to catch flies before 
 
 they leave the nest, 132 
 
 - understand call notes 
 
 directly they are hatched, 202 
 watch for the return of 
 
 their parents, 132 
 
 , Venturesome, 128 
 
 , what becomes of them when 
 
 they leave the nest, 133 
 
 with a good coat of down, 95 
 
 without down, 95 
 Child frightened to death by the 
 
 note of an owl, 192 
 Christening Tits, 9 
 Cocoanut and Tits, 8 
 Colonies, Birds that breed in, 43 
 Corncrake, Notes of the, 188 
 Crow, Carrion, The cunning of a, 
 
 60 
 Crows, A brood of young Carrion, 
 
 120 
 
 , how they open shellfish, 23 
 
 Cuckoo baby, and how it ejects 
 
 other chicks from a nest, 134 
 , colour of the egg of, 90 
 
 singing by night, 190 
 
 , Teasing a, 191 
 
 Dispositions of birds, Differing, 2G 
 Dotterel, Ringed, attacking Sea- 
 
 Gulls, 10G 
 Down and the purposes it serves, 96 
 
 growing upon chicks, 141 
 
 Ducklings destroyed by Pike, 110 
 Ducks, Domestic, swallowing 
 
 young Moorhens, 26 
 , how they convey their young 
 
 from elevated situations to the 
 
 ground, 111 
 
 Eagle, Golden, Food of the, 26 
 Effect of song on men and birds, 
 171 
 O 
 
 Egg, A window in an, 79 
 
 , Colour of, in relation to that 
 
 of its layer, 78 
 
 Eggs and varying periods of incu- 
 bation, 90 
 
 Colour of, 85 
 
 , Colour of, in relation to age 
 
 of layer, 86 
 
 , Difference in size of, 79 
 , Ground colour of, 59 
 , Injury to shell of, 79 
 
 laid in covered nests, 61 
 laid in holes, 67 
 
 laid on ground and their 
 
 colour, 60 
 
 , Marking on, 86 
 , Miniature, 81 
 , number laid by a single bird, 
 
 87 
 
 , Shape of, 82 
 
 , size of those of Raven and 
 Curlew, 81 
 
 , Variation in size of, 81 
 
 Egg shells and their characteristics, 
 
 78 
 Eider Duck and value of nesting 
 
 down, 73 
 Endurance and speed of birds on 
 
 the wing, 162 
 Enemies of waterfowls, 110 
 Existence, Struggle for, in the 
 bird-world, 56 
 
 Feather, Construction of a, 139 
 , Growth and life of a, 142 
 
 , Parts of a, 140 
 
 Feathered vocalists, Listening to, 
 
 167 
 
 Feathers, and the care birds take 
 of them, 149 
 
 , and the effects of use and 
 
 disuse upon them, 146 
 
210 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Feathers and the materials of which 
 
 they are composed, 139 
 
 and their aftershafts, 144 
 
 and the parts upon which they 
 
 grow, 144 
 
 , Colour and strength of, 142 
 
 - flight, in birds' wings, 153 
 
 found in a Tit's nest, 64 
 
 , How Nature manages the 
 
 shedding of, 151 
 , how they grow on a bird's 
 
 body, 148 
 
 of a Curlew, 142 
 
 of birds that fly a great deal 
 
 and those that fly very little, 
 
 147 
 
 of noiseless flyers, 148 
 
 of Pigeons, 148 
 
 on a Gannet's breast, 144 
 
 on a Heron's breast, 145 
 
 , Peculiarities of first coats of, 
 
 141 
 
 , Preservative qualities of, 152 
 
 used for climbing trees, 147 
 
 Feeding habits of birds, 1-31 
 
 of Flycatchers, 20 
 
 of Gannets, 25 
 
 of Hedge Sparrow, 13 
 
 of Kingfishers, 25 
 
 of Lesser Black-backed 
 
 Gull, 19 
 
 of Martins, 20 
 
 of Swallows, 20 
 
 of Swifts, 20 
 
 of Terns, 25 
 
 of Thrushes, 21 
 
 of Woodpeckers, 21 
 
 Seagulls on the Thames Em- 
 bankment, 17 
 
 Fish, How caught by Owls, 28 
 Flight, A wonderful performance, 
 
 138 
 , Modes of, 153 
 
 Flight of birds and distribution of 
 plants, 105 
 
 Flycatchers, Feeding habits of, 
 20 
 
 Flycatcher, Spotted, Strange ma- 
 terials in nest of, 35 
 
 Flying in Dreamland, 137 
 
 Food dyed for birds, 15 
 
 for chicks, 113 
 
 which Starlings love, 13 
 
 Foolishness of Rooks, 15 
 
 France, Birds in, 4 
 
 Fruits, Wild, and birds, 4 
 
 Gannet, A dishonest, 40 
 Gannets and their language, 198 
 , How the Orcadians used to 
 
 kill them, 25 
 
 , How they catch prey, 25 
 washed ashore for want of a 
 
 breeze, 157 
 , Young, and how they are fed, 
 
 122 
 German birdcatchers, Cruelty of, 
 
 177 
 
 Good done by birds, 4 
 Greek and Egyptian ideas as to 
 the migration of small birds 
 across the Mediterranean, 105 
 Greenfinches and Great Tits, 6 
 
 and sunflower heads, 6 
 
 Growth of chicks living in nests, 
 
 100 
 
 Grubs, Injurious, and Rooks, 4 
 Gull, Black Headed, Origin of 
 
 name of, 18 
 
 , Lesser Black-Backed, Feed- 
 ing habits of, 19 
 Gulls, How they open shellfish, 23 
 
 Harm done by birds, 4 
 Harmonisation of colour and its 
 value to chicks, 93 
 
INDEX. 
 
 211 
 
 Harvesters driven from a field by 
 
 Midgets, 2 
 
 Hawk Kestrel and Blue Tit, 1 1 
 Hawks, Young Merlin, and their 
 
 food, 121 
 
 Heron's nest made of wire, 47 
 Hissing, Birds possessing capa- 
 bility of, 69 
 Hours at which birds commence 
 
 and leave off singing, 181-2 
 Housebuilders forced to keep 
 
 Midgets at bay by veils, 3 
 Hovering birds of prey, 157 
 Humboldt's boatmen and insects, 2 
 
 Identifying birds by flight, 155 
 Individuality of birds, 35 
 Industrious habits of Starlings, 13 
 Industry of a pair of Redstarts, 
 
 126 
 Insects a topic of conversation, 2 
 
 and Humboldt's boatmen, 2 
 
 as destroyers of agricultural 
 
 produce, 3 
 
 Jackdaws, A pair of easy-going, 
 36 
 
 , A pair of industrious, 37 
 
 Judgment of birds on the wing, 158 
 
 Kernel of Nut and Blue Tits, 10 
 and Great Tits, 11 
 
 Kestrel Hawk, A bold, 27 
 
 King6sher, Strange nesting ma- 
 terials used by, 66 
 
 Kingfisher's galleries, 65 
 
 Kingfishers, How they catch their 
 prey, 25 
 
 Kite's eggs under flannel, 48 
 
 Kites as London scavengers, 49 
 
 Kites feeding from hands of 
 
 children, 49 
 Kittiwake, Gentleness of, 128 
 
 Larders of Shrikes, 28 
 
 Lark, Mother, feeding her two 
 
 chicks, 116 
 
 Lodger?, Birds that are, 42 
 London, Seagulls in, 17 
 
 Maize and Blue Tits, 10 
 
 Man's attempts to fly, 157 
 
 Marsh Warbler a clever mimic, 
 
 195 
 Martin, Sand, How it digs its 
 
 tunnel, 64 
 Martins, Sand, Tunnels of, barred 
 
 up by boys, 65 
 
 Martins, Feeding habits of, 20 
 Midgets causing author to abandon 
 
 boat, 3 
 
 driving harvesters from a 
 
 field, 2 
 
 forcing house builders to 
 wear veils, 3 
 
 Migration, Local, 165 
 
 Migratory journeys and flights, 162 
 
 movements of birds, 164 
 
 Mocking Bird, a wonderful mimic, 
 194 
 
 Moorhens, Young, swallowed by 
 Ducks, 26 
 
 Mosquitoes and Swallows in 
 Venice, 3 
 
 "Moult, Border," 150 
 
 Moulting as a means of preserva- 
 tion from enemies, 149 
 
 season and its trials, 149 
 
 three times a year, 150 
 
 Moults, Single autumn, 150 
 , Spring and autumn, 150 
 
212 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Nature's choir, Best time to hear. 
 
 169 
 Nest, A Jackdaw's, ten feet high, 
 
 38 
 , Delight over the first found, 
 
 32 
 ~ made of wax vestas and 
 
 cigarette papers, 35 
 
 , How a bird builds its, 58 
 
 Nesting habits of Wryneck, 38 
 holes, Demand for, 39 
 
 materials left by dead birds, 
 
 55 
 
 supplied by cows, horses, 
 
 and sheep, 54 
 
 , Uncommon, 47 
 
 site, Selection of a, 54 
 
 sites, Favourite, 43 
 
 , Interesting departures 
 
 from usual, 44 
 
 , Some curious, 46 
 
 tunnels dug by Sand Martins, 
 
 length of, 65 
 
 Nests adorned with flowers, 50 
 , and how long birds take to 
 
 build them, 38 
 belonging to birds capable of 
 
 defending them, 60 
 
 close together, 43 
 
 , Different kinds of, 56 
 
 , Open-topped, 57 
 
 , Spare, for chicks, 53, 112 
 
 _, , built by Wrens, 53 
 
 , Splendidly hidden, 77 
 
 , Strange things that havt 
 
 been found in, 50 
 that are annually repaired, 44 
 covered or domed, 
 
 61 
 
 - deep and cup- 
 shaped, 60 
 do not look like rests at 
 
 all, 70 
 
 Nests, Variation in workmanship, 
 shape and size of, 34 
 
 Nest-stealers, Sparrows as, 39 
 
 Nightingale, its song, 185 
 , limited distribution of, 186 
 
 , the prince of British song- 
 birds, 185 
 
 Nightingales not loved by some 
 
 people, 186 
 
 shot because they disturb 
 pheasants, 186 
 
 singing by day quite unde- 
 tected, 185 
 
 that only sing by day/ 186 
 
 , why they sing by night, 186 
 
 Nightjar, Peculiar notes of the, 
 188 
 
 Noise made by a broken flight 
 feather, 162 
 
 Notes, Call, imitated by Starling, 
 
 194 
 
 - , How a Lesser Black-Backed 
 Gull produces his, 172 
 
 , How birds produce their. 171 
 
 of the Red Grouse, 200 
 
 Obedience of ducklings and gos- 
 lings, 110 
 
 Oil glands and preening, 153 
 Orcadians, their cunning way of 
 
 killing Gannets, 25 
 Owl, Tawny, and its victims, 121 
 
 , , Fierceness of, 106 
 
 , , Note of the, 191 
 
 , , working to advantage 
 
 of Carrion Crows, 1 1 9 
 Owls and their useful services, 28 
 
 catching fish, 28 
 
 feeding by day, 121 
 
 Oyster Catcher, Great fall of a 
 young, 96 
 
INDEX. 
 
 213 
 
 Oyster Catchers, Baby, and their 
 parents, 100 
 
 Partridge, The, as a foster parent, 
 
 134 
 Parti-idges as distributors of plants, 
 
 166 
 
 killed by a train, 160 
 Peewit, Mother, a sensible, 107 
 , , defending- her young, 
 
 107 
 
 , Notes of the, 188 
 Phonograph, Recording bird songs 
 
 upon the, 178 
 
 Photographing- an old Cock Spar- 
 row, 14 
 
 Pipit, Tree, swallowing a snail, 23 
 Plants that trust to birds for the 
 
 distribution of their seeds, 105 
 Plover, Ringed, Nesting habits of, 
 
 76 
 Poets, Exaggerations of, about the 
 
 song- of the Nightingale, 184 
 - on nest- building skill of 
 
 birds, 33 
 
 Privation and morals of birds, 17 
 Protective colour of brooding birds. 
 
 71 
 Puffins and their tunnels, 66 
 
 and the way they bring food 
 
 for their young, 124 
 
 ejecting rabbits from their 
 
 burrows, 66 
 
 Rabbits, how they prepare nesting 
 materials for birds, 54 
 
 Railway train stopped by cat r- 
 pillars, 2 
 
 Raven's nes-t made of hoops, 50 
 
 Restaurant for birds, 6 
 
 Robin, A confiding, 27 
 
 Robins, Selfishness of, 13 
 Rooks, Amusing antics of, 117 
 
 and edible snails, 16 
 
 and injurious grubs, 4 
 as egg stealers, 114 
 
 as thieves, 40 
 
 chasing Herons, 106 
 
 devouring Starlings, 17 
 , "Wise and unwise, 15 
 
 , Young, learning- to find food, 
 
 118 
 Roosters, A pair of fighting, and a 
 
 cunning old Sparrow, 55 
 
 Salt, Catching a Sparrow with a 
 
 pinch of, 15 
 
 Sea birds and their food, 122 
 Seagulls and Scottish turnips, 18 
 
 in London, 17 
 
 on the Thames Embankment, 
 Feeding, 18 
 
 Sedge Warbler, A Night Singer, 
 187 
 
 as a mimic, 195 
 
 made to sing by dis- 
 turbing it during the night, 
 187 
 
 Shellfish, How opened by birds, 
 23 
 
 Shrikes and their larders, 28 
 
 Sight of birds, 158 
 
 Sing, How young birds learn to, 
 173 
 
 Singing and soaring of the sky- 
 lark, 176 
 
 birds that spend a lot of 
 
 time practising, 174 
 
 competitions in the East End 
 
 of London, 177 
 , First efforts of young birds, 
 
 174 
 from anger, 17C 
 
2I 4 
 
 OUR BIRD FRIENDS. 
 
 Singing with food in the bill, 173 
 Skuas, How they rob other birds, 
 
 28 
 Sleeping hours of birds in summer 
 
 and winter, 182 
 Snail and a Tree Pipit, 23 
 Snails, Edible, and Rooks, 1 6 
 
 as food for birds, 23 
 
 Snipe, Frightened by the weird 
 
 note of a, 189 
 , Theories about reproduction 
 
 of note of the, 190 
 Soaring of birds, 155 
 and singing of the skylark, 
 
 176 
 
 of the Albatross, 157 
 
 Song, Experiments in imitation, 
 
 195 
 
 of Missel Thrush, 180 
 
 of Nightingale, 184 
 
 of Red-backed Shrike, 196 
 
 of Skylark, Duration of, 174 
 
 of Starling, 1 95 
 
 , Power of a bird's, 180 
 
 Songs and call notes, Dividing 
 
 line between, 197 
 - of birds as a solace to the 
 
 blind, 168 
 
 of birds in Britain, 167 
 
 Sound, Transmission of, by wood, 
 
 21 
 Sparrow, Catching a, with a pinch 
 
 of salt, 15 
 , Hedge, feeding habits of, 13 
 
 notes, 169 
 
 , Cock, Photographing an old, 
 
 14 
 singing like a Canary, 196 
 
 using borrowed note, 196 
 Sparrow's nest made of old watch 
 
 springs, 47 
 
 Sparrows as nest stealers, 39 
 robbing a Thrush, 12 
 
 Speed and endurance of birds on 
 the wing, 162 
 
 of birds reduced by clay stick- 
 ing to their feet, 165 
 
 Spring decorations, 150 
 
 Starling, An inquisitive-minded, 
 125 
 
 imitating mewing of a cat 
 
 and sound of bells, 195 
 
 Starlings and the kind of food they 
 
 love, 13 
 and the rate at which they 
 
 feed their young, 124 
 
 as imitators, 192 
 
 devoured by Rooks, 17 
 
 , How a flock of alight, 160 
 
 , Industrious habits of, 13 
 stealing Woodpecker's holes, 
 
 38 
 | Sunflower heads and Greenfinches, 
 
 6 
 Swallow feeding on the ground, 125 
 
 killed by a cyclist, 160 
 
 Swallows and Mosquitoes in 
 
 Venice, 3 
 -killed by golf balls, 160 
 
 the way they catch their 
 
 prey, 20 
 
 Swifts, Feeding habits of, 20 
 
 Tails of birds and their uses, 160 
 Tern, Arctic, Attacked by an, 104 
 , , flying off with young, 
 
 111 
 Terns and their young, a feeding 
 
 puzzle, 124 
 , their habit of feeding tilting 
 
 females, 26 
 , how they catch their prey, 
 
 25 
 Terns making an artificial beach, 76 
 
INDEX. 
 
 215 
 
 Thieves, Feathered, 38 
 
 Tit, Blue, and Kestrel Hawk, 11 
 
 Tit, Great, nesting in strange 
 
 situation, 36 
 , Long-tailed, a clever weaver, 
 
 64 
 Tits and cocoanuts, 8 
 
 , Blue, and kernel of nuts, 10 
 
 , , and maize, 10 
 
 , Christening, 9 
 
 , Great, and Greenfinches, 8 
 
 , . and kernels of nuts, 11 
 
 , Hard work done by a pair of 
 
 Blue, 126 
 
 , Long Tailed, How they dis- 
 pose of their tails whilst 
 brooding, 64 
 , Young Bearded, fed mostly 
 
 by father, 127 
 Throat of a Thrush, Effect upon, 
 
 when singing, 172 
 Thrush, A young, that laid in an 
 
 old one's nest, 52 
 , What the song of a, 
 sounds like, 179 
 - Missel, attacking a stuffed 
 owl, 106 
 
 , , Bravery of, 105 
 
 Thrushes, feeding habits of, 21 
 
 singing under their breath, 
 
 178 
 , Young, leaving nest too 
 
 soon, 130 
 
 Town-bred birds, Ideas of, 15 
 Trees destroyed by Caterpillars at 
 
 Hong Kong, 3 
 Turnips, Scottish, and Seagulls, 18 
 
 Vocal accomplishments, Various 
 degrees of amongst song 
 Thrushes, 178 
 
 Vooalists of tho night, 184 
 Voles, A plague of, 28 
 
 Warbler Grasshopper, Song of the, 
 
 187 
 
 Waterfowl, Enemies of, 110 
 Waterhen's device for hiding her 
 
 nest, 74 
 
 Weather, Effect of on food supply, 
 114 
 
 , Hard, and its effect on birds, 
 
 6 
 Wild creatures, how they help 
 
 each other, 24 
 Wind, how it helps birds when 
 
 taking wing, 156 
 Wing beats, Slow and rapid, 154 
 - of a bird, its complexity, 
 
 138 
 
 Wings, Areas of, 154 
 , Clipping, 151 
 , Noise made by, 161 
 , Positions assumed by, during 
 
 flight, 158 
 
 , Shape and size of, 153 
 , When chicks begin to 
 
 exercise their, 128 
 Winter resort of our summer 
 
 birds, 164 
 
 Wisdom of Rooks, 15 
 Wonders of birds' nests, 33 
 Woodpeckers, Feeding habits of, 21 
 , Nesting holes of, stolen by 
 
 Starlings, 38 
 
 Wren, Brown, Thieving propen- 
 sities of, 40 
 
 , Common, Adaptiveness of, 62 
 , , departing from archi- 
 tectural style in nest-building, 
 35 
 Wryneck, nesting habits of, 38 
 
PRINTED BY 
 
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 LONDON, E.C. 
 
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