Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children Part 1

Country Walks of a Naturalist with His Children.

by W. Houghton.

PREFACE.

In this little book my desire has been, not so much to impart knowledge to young people, as to induce them to acquire it for themselves. I have endeavoured to show that Country Walks may be full of interest and instruction to all who care to make good use of their eyes. If I have failed, the fault rests with me for the way in which I have treated the subject. I am aware that I have occasionally used words and phrases which may puzzle young brains, but I hope that nearly all will be intelligible to boys and girls of nine or ten years old, with a little explanation from parents or teachers.

The chief, if not the sole merit of this little book consists in the ill.u.s.trations which adorn it; and I must express my sincere grat.i.tude to Mr. Gould, the eminent ornithologist, for his kind permission to copy some of the magnificent drawings in his work on 'The Birds of Great Britain.' To Mr. R. S. Chattock, of Solihull, I am also deeply indebted, for the pains he has taken in reproducing, on a reduced scale, Mr. Gould's drawings, and for the drawings of the sticklebacks and the frontispiece. My generous friend and neighbour, Mr. Eyton, of Eyton, has furnished another instance of his numerous acts of kindness, in allowing me the use of Mr. Gould's work and of various woodcuts. To two lady friends I also express my best thanks; and last, though not least, to the publishers, Messrs. Groombridge, for the care they have taken to present the volume to the public in a very attractive form.

COUNTRY WALKS OF A NATURALIST

WITH

HIS CHILDREN.

WALK I.

APRIL.

We could not have a more pleasant day, children, for a ramble in the fields than to-day. It is warm and bright, and the birds are singing merrily, thoroughly enjoying the suns.h.i.+ne; the little lambs are frisking about, and running races with each other. Put away lessons then, and we will have a holiday. "Oh," said w.i.l.l.y, "it will be so pleasant, and I will take one or two bottles, and my gauze net, because we are sure to find something interesting to bring home. Where shall we go?" "I do not think it much matters where, for there is always much to observe and to admire wherever we stroll in the country." "Let us go on the moors, then," said Jack, "for you know, papa, a little boy in the village told me the other day he had found a peewit's nest with four eggs in, and I should like to try and find one myself." Well, here we are, then; we shall have to jump over a drain or two in our ramble, and as the banks are soft it will be necessary to take great care, or we may tumble in. Ah! do you see, there are two sand-martins, the first I have seen this year. See how fast they fly, now sailing high up in the air, now skimming quite close to the ground. I have not seen any swallows or house-martins yet, but no doubt they will make their appearance in a few days.

"Where do they come from, papa," asked May, "because we never see these birds in the winter? You often say, when the spring comes we shall see the swallows, and then they go away again towards the end of summer." Let us sit down on this clump of wood, and I will tell you about the swallows.

We have in this country four different species of the swallow family which visit us every year; they come to us from Africa: these are the sand-martin, two specimens of which we have just seen, the swallow, the house-martin, and the swift. A very little attention will enable you to distinguish these different kinds. The sand-martin is the smallest of the family; as the birds fly by us you notice that the back part is brown, or mouse colour; the under part white. The back of the house-martin is of a glossy black or bluish-black colour; it is white underneath; while the swallow, which is larger than the other two, has a glossy back, like the house-martin; but underneath it is more or less tinged with buff; and see, as I speak here is one flying past us. To-day is the 12th of April, about the time the swallow generally comes to this country. Now you see clearly enough its colour, and you will notice, too, a very marked difference in the form of its tail; see how much forked it is, much more so than the tail of the martin. This forked appearance is produced by the two outer tail feathers, which are much longer than the rest. Now I hope you will take notice of these differences, and call things by their right names, instead of jumbling them all up together under the name of swallow. I have not spoken of the swift, which does not visit this country till May; it is the largest of the swallow family, and has the whole of its body, both above and beneath, of a blackish-brown colour, except a small patch of dirty white under the chin.

"But, papa," said Jack, "do all these four kinds of swallows come from Africa? It is very curious to know how they can find their way backwards and forwards from Africa to this country, and how they come back to the very spots they visited the year before?" Indeed, it is a very curious thing; nevertheless experiments have been made to show that these birds return every year to the same localities.

Many years ago Dr. Jenner procured several swifts from a farmhouse in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and marked them by cutting off two claws from the foot of twelve of them. Next year their hiding places were examined in the evening, when the birds had gone to roost, when Dr. Jenner found many of the birds he had marked by cutting off the two claws. For two or three consecutive years he examined their nesting places, and always found some of his marked birds. At the end of seven years a cat brought a swift into the farmer's kitchen, and this was one of those which Dr. Jenner had marked. Now, w.i.l.l.y, I will ask you a question in geography. The swallow family visits this country from Africa. What sea, then, must the birds fly across? "The Mediterranean, papa." Quite right; and now can you tell me the narrowest part of the Mediterranean Sea? "The Straits of Gibraltar." Right again; and there the pa.s.sage is about five miles wide; and at Gibraltar swallows, swifts, and martins are often seen as well as several other bird-visitors of this country.

People on board s.h.i.+p have seen swallows a long way from land pa.s.sing between Europe and Africa. Sometimes the poor birds are so tired from their flight that they are obliged to rest on the masts, yards, and rigging of the vessels. This often happens when the weather is hazy.

Holloa, Jack, what is that splash in the water about six yards off?

Keep quiet, and we shall see what it was. Ah! it is one of my friends, the water-voles; I see the rogue, with his large yellow teeth and black eyes. Do you see? He is on the other side of the drain, nibbling away at something. People generally call him a water-rat, but he is no relation at all to a rat, nor is he an injurious creature like it.

"Well, but papa," said w.i.l.l.y, "the lads in the village always kill these water-rats, as they call them, whenever they can. I suppose they take them for common rats. Do you say they do no harm?" Very little, water-voles will not eat young chickens and ducklings; nor do they find their way into stacks and consume the corn; their food is entirely confined to vegetables, such as the roots and stems of water-weeds. I feel, however, pretty sure that the water-vole is fond of beans, and will occasionally do some mischief where a field of newly-sown beans adjoins the river or stream, in the banks of which these animals form their holes. I will clap my hands, and off our little friend with his dusky coat starts, diving under the water, whence when he comes out he will probably escape into a hole on the bank. Some day I will show you the skulls of a water-vole and a rat, and you will see there is a great difference in the form and arrangement of the teeth, and that the first-named animal is not, as I said before, related to the rat. The water-vole is really a relative of that interesting creature you have often read of--I mean the beaver. "Well, papa," said Jack, "I am tired of sitting here, let us now go and hunt for peewit's eggs." All right, Jack, and if you find any you shall each have one for your breakfast in the morning. When hard-boiled and cold, a peewit's egg is a very delicious thing, though I think the peewits are such valuable birds, and do so much good, that I should not like to take many of their eggs. We had better separate from each other, so as to have a better chance of finding a nest. Soon we hear a shout from w.i.l.l.y, whose sharp eyes had discovered a nest with four eggs in it; so off we all scamper to him. See how the old bird screams and flaps, and how near she comes to us; she knows we have found her eggs, and wishes to lure us away from the spot; so she pretends she has been wounded, and tries to make us follow after her.

Now, Jack, run and catch her. Hah! Hah! There they go. I will back the peewit against the boy. So you have given up the chase, have you?

Well, rest again, and take breath. The peewit, as you saw, makes scarcely any nest, merely a hollow in the ground, with, perhaps, a few dried gra.s.ses. The peculiar instinct of the peewit in misleading people as to the whereabouts of its eggs, or young ones, is very curious.

[Ill.u.s.tration: LAPWING.]

A very observant naturalist says, "As soon as any one appears in the fields where the nest is, the bird runs quietly and rapidly in a stooping posture to some distance from it, and then rises with loud cries and appearance of alarm, as if her nest was immediately below the spot she rose from. When the young ones are hatched, too, the place to look for them is, _not_ where the parent birds are screaming and fluttering about, but at some little distance from it. As soon as you actually come to the spot where their young are, the old birds alight on the ground a hundred yards or so from you, watching your movements. If, however, you pick up one of the young ones, both male and female immediately throw off all disguise, and come wheeling and screaming around your head, as if about to fly in your face." Peewits are certainly bold birds when their young ones are in danger. Mr.

Charles St. John says he has often seen the hooded crows hunting the fields frequented by the peewits, as regularly as a pointer, flying a few yards above the ground, and searching for the eggs. The cunning crow always selects the time when the old birds are away on the sh.o.r.e.

As soon as he is perceived, however, the peewits all combine in chasing him away. We are told that they will also attack any bird of prey that ventures near their breeding ground; they are quarrelsome, too, and the c.o.c.k birds will fight with each other should they come into too close quarters. A c.o.c.k bird one day attacked a wounded male bird which came near his nest; the pugnacious little fellow ran up to the intruder, and taking advantage of his weakness, jumped on him, and pecking at his head, dragged him along the ground as fiercely as a game c.o.c.k. This was witnessed by Mr. St. John.[A] "I have often heard peewits uttering their peculiar noise," said w.i.l.l.y, "quite late at night. What do they feed on? I should so much like to have a tame young one." The food of the peewits consists of insects, worms, snails, slugs, the larvae of various insects; I am certain they do much good to the farmer by destroying numerous insect-pests. "Oh, papa,"

exclaimed May, "do come here, what a splendid cl.u.s.ter of bright golden flowers is growing on the side of the drain." Yes, indeed it is a beautiful cl.u.s.ter; it is the marsh-marigold, and looks like a gigantic b.u.t.tercup; it is sometimes in flower as early as March, and continues to blossom for three months or more. Country people often call it the may-flower, as being one of the flowers once used for may-garlands. I dare say you have sometimes seen wreaths hanging on cottage doors.

Some people have invented what I think very ugly names for this showy plant, such as horse-blob, water-blob.

"Beneath the shelving bank's retreat The horseblob swells its golden ball."

I have somewhere read that the young buds are sometimes pickled and used instead of capers, but I do not think I should like to try them.

"And what," asked May, "are those bright green feathery tufts under the water? they are very pretty, but they do not bear any flowers."

No, there are no flowers at present, but in about a month's time you will see plenty. Out of the middle of the feathery tuft there grows a single tall stem with whorls of four, five, or six pale purple flowers occurring at intervals. Its English name is water-violet,--not a fitting name for it, because this plant is not at all related to the violet tribe, but is one of the primrose family; so we should more correctly call it water-primrose. Its Latin name is _Hottonia pal.u.s.tris_; it is called Hottonia in honour of a German botanist, Professor Hotton, of Leyden. w.i.l.l.y will tell us that the word _pal.u.s.tris_ means "marshy," in allusion to the places where the water primrose is found growing. It is a very common plant in the ditches on the moors here, and I will take care to show you its pretty tall stem when the flowers appear. While I was talking to May about the water primrose, Jack espied a sulphur-coloured b.u.t.terfly, and off he set in full chase; he did not, however, succeed in capturing it, for his foot tripped over a molehill and down he tumbled--the beautiful sulphur b.u.t.terfly having fled across a wide ditch and escaped. Not far from where he fell there was a thorn bush and a number of unfortunate moles gibbeted thereon: some had been killed quite recently, so I took three or four from the thorn with the intention of taking them home and examining their stomachs to see what they had eaten. In the meantime, down we sat on an adjoining bank covered with primroses looking so gay and smelling so sweet. w.i.l.l.y then wanted to know the history of the mole; why people generally think it right to kill these animals, and whether they really are blind. May, of course, could not resist the charm of collecting primroses for mamma. The two boys cared more for animals, so I answered their questions about the mole. First of all I pointed out the amazing strength of its feet, its soft and silky fur, the form of its body so well adapted for a rapid progress through the underground pa.s.sages it forms. Look, I said, at its soft fur, how it will lie in any direction; each delicate hair is inserted in the skin perpendicularly to its surface, so that the mole can move rapidly either backwards or forwards with great ease; the fur, lying as readily in one direction as another, makes no difficulty to a backward retreat. If you look closely when I push away the fur with my finger and breath in the neighbourhood of the eyes, you will see two tiny black specs; so we can hardly call the mole a blind animal; but as it lives for the most part underground its power of vision must be small.

The fore feet do the work of the spade and potato-fork combined; its sense of smell is acute, and this, no doubt, aids the animal in the search of its food; the mole's sense of hearing is also very good.

"Well, but, papa," exclaimed Jack, "a mole has got no ears, so how can it hear?" There is no outward appearance of ears, it is true, but look: I blow away the fur, and now you see clearly a hole which is the beginning of the pa.s.sage that leads to the internal ear. The ears of many animals are very admirably made and fitted for the purpose of receiving sounds, but you must not suppose that because some animals--as moles, seals, whales, &c.--have no outward appendages, they are dest.i.tute of ears and the power of hearing. But you must wait till you are a little older, and then I will explain to you the matter more fully. The little curiously shaped earbones which are found in all mammalia are found also in the mole; and I have in my drawer at home a mole's earbones which I dissected from the animal.

But here comes, I do think, the mole-catcher himself; let us hear what he has to say. "Good morning, Mr. Mole-catcher; have you been setting any more traps to-day? I suppose those unfortunate fellows gibbeted on yonder thorn were caught by you." "Well, yeez, sir," he replied, "I reckons as they were; I have stopped their play, I guess; but there's a plaguey lot more on them about, I'm a thinking." "What harm do you consider that moles do?" I asked. "Harm, maister? why, lor' bless you, see them hummocks they throw up all about. The farmers dunna like them ugly heaps, I can a.s.sure you." "Probably not; still if they were spread on the land the soil would be as good as top-dressing. Do you know what moles eat?" "Well, sir, I believes they eats worms." "Yes, they feed princ.i.p.ally on worms, but they also devour wireworms and other creatures which prey upon the farmer's crops. I think moles do more good than harm, and I have examined the stomachs of many, and I am of opinion that it is a mistake to kill them." "Lor', sir, you be's a gemman that has seen the inside of a mole's stomach, has you? You may be a cliver sort of a mon, but moles be varmint." Thus saying, the old fellow wished us good morning and left us. "Papa," said w.i.l.l.y, "do not moles make very curious places under the ground in which they reside at times? I think I have somewhere seen pictures of these encampments." Yes, they do; but I only know of them from description and figures; the fortress is generally made under a hillock; it consists of many galleries connected with each other, and with a central chamber. You remember a young mole was brought to us last summer, and that we put it into a box with plenty of loose earth and some worms. We only kept it a day or two. One morning I found it dead.

I suppose it had not enough to eat. The mole has an insatiable appet.i.te, and, according to the observations of some naturalists, it will devour birds. Mr. Bell says that "even the weaker of its own species under particular circ.u.mstances are not exempted from this promiscuous ferocity; for if two moles be placed together in a box without a very plentiful supply of food the weaker certainly falls a prey to the stronger. No thoroughbred bulldog keeps a firmer hold of the object of its attack than the mole. Mr. Jackson, a very intelligent mole-catcher, says that, when a boy, his hand was so severely and firmly laid hold of by one that he was obliged to use his teeth in order to loosen its hold."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HERON AND YOUNG.]

We now proceeded on our ramble, and I espied about one hundred yards off a heron on the bank of the Strine. He did not see us at first, but when we got a little nearer, off he flew, with his long legs stretched out behind, and his head bent close to his shoulders. He had evidently been fis.h.i.+ng, for we could see the scales of fish on the side of the bank. w.i.l.l.y asked whether herons built on trees, and Jack wanted to know how they managed with their great long legs while sitting on their nests. These birds in the breeding season a.s.semble together and make their nests on tall firs or oak trees; sometimes they build on rocks near the sea coast. It is said, too, that they will occasionally build on the ground. The heron's nest is not unlike that of the rook, only larger and broader; it is made of sticks and lined with wool and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s; the female lays four or five eggs of a green colour, her long legs are tucked under her. Rooks and jackdaws sometimes take up their quarters near to a heronry, and do you know they steal their eggs, the rogues, and devour them. Both male and female herons take great care of their little ones and bring them food. Besides fish the heron will eat frogs, rats, young ducks, and coots. Eels are great dainties in the opinion of Mr. Heron; and sometimes an eel, after being pierced through the head by the sharp and strong bill of the heron, manages to wrap himself so tight round the bird's neck as to stop his breathing and cause his death. A good many years ago herons were protected by the law; they were considered royal game, and their capture by the peregrine falcon was looked upon as very exciting sport. As we followed the bank of the stream out flew a couple of kingfishers with straight and rapid flight; we distinctly heard the shrill note these birds utter; they flew about two hundred yards and lighted on a rail near the water's edge. Let us see if we can get a little nearer to them, I said, and then sit down and see what they will do. "Papa," said May, "is not the kingfisher a very beautiful bird, and the most brightly coloured of all British birds?" Yes, it is; its splendid colours remind one of the gorgeous plumage of tropical birds, and we have no other British bird with such brilliant colours. There, did you see that? one of the birds darted off the rail into the water. I have no doubt he has caught a small fish; and now he has lighted on the same rail, and with my pocket telescope I can see him throw his head up and swallow some dainty morsel. It is not at all an uncommon sight to see a kingfisher hover over the water after the manner of a kestril-hawk; suddenly it will descend with the greatest rapidity and again emerge, seldom failing to secure a fish for its dinner. "Did you ever find a kingfisher's nest, papa?" w.i.l.l.y inquired.

Yes; some years ago I found one in a hole in a bank; there were four eggs in it, and I had to put my whole arm into the hole before I got at the nest, which consisted of sand mixed with a great quant.i.ty of very small fish bones. The eggs are very pretty, having a delicate pink tinge, the sh.e.l.l is thin, and the form of the egg almost round.

"But where," asked Jack, "do the little fish bones of the nest come from?" I think I have told you that many birds--hawks, eagles, owls, shrikes, &c.--throw up from their crops the indigestible portions of their food. It is not uncommon to find these on the ground in the course of one's rambles. Kingfishers possess this power; they throw up the undigested fishbones, and curiously enough, as it would appear, form them into a nest. There is a kingfisher's nest in the British Museum, which I remember to have seen a few years ago. It has been a disputed point whether the parent bird throws the fishbones up at random into the hole where she is going to lay, or whether she forms them into a nest. The nest in the British Museum was secured at the expense of great patience and pains by the celebrated ornithologist and splendid draughtsman, Mr. Gould, whose drawings you may one day see in the library of the museum at Eyton. This specimen, if I remember right, was of a flattened form and fully half an inch thick.

It is said that the kingfisher always selects a hole that has an upward slope, so that, though heavy rains may cause the water of the river bank to rise into the hole, the eggs will be dry. Some naturalists have said that kingfishers do not make their own holes, but use those already made by other animals. Mr. Gould, however, is of opinion that kingfishers drill their own holes. The tunnels always slope upwards, as I said; at the further end of the tunnel is an oven-like chamber where the nest is made. The fish-bone nest is thought by Mr. Gould to be really a nest, and intended to keep the eggs off the damp ground. However, there is difference of opinion on this point, and I reserve my own. We will see if we cannot find a kingfisher's nest some time this summer. Now, May, what little plant have you got hold of? "Indeed I don't know, papa, but it is a very curious little plant; I gathered it at the bottom of that hedge bank."

Ah, I know it well, and a little favorite it is too; it is the moschatell. You see it is about five inches high, with pale green flowers and leaves; the flowers are arranged in heads of five each, namely, four on the side, and one on the top; it has a delicate musk-like odour, very pleasant and refres.h.i.+ng. Take a few specimens home and put them in water with your primroses. Mamma, I know, is very fond of the pretty little moschatell.

"Oh, papa," exclaimed w.i.l.l.y, "look at the bottom of this drain; what is that strange-looking insect crawling slowly about at the bottom?" I see; it is a water-scorpion, a very common insect in these drains on the moors,--indeed, it is common everywhere; let us catch him and take him home for examination. He is a queer-looking creature, with a small head and pointed beak; his forearms are something like lobster's claws; his prevailing colour blackish-brown, like the mud upon which he crawls; his body is very flat, and ends in two long stick-like projections; underneath these h.o.r.n.y covers of the creature may be seen his two wings. He is an aquatic murderer; inserting that pointed beak into the body of some other insect, and holding his victim in his lobster-like forearms--oh! fatal embrace--he sucks out the juices of the struggling prey. Kirby and Spence say that some of the tribe of insects to which the water-scorpion belongs are so savage that they seem to love destruction for its own sake. A water-scorpion which was put into a basin of water with several young tadpoles killed them all without attempting to eat one. The tail projections, I ought to tell you, are connected with the insect's breathing; they are protruded out of the water and conduct the air to the spiracles at the end of the body, about which I must tell you more at another time. The eggs of the water-scorpion I have frequently found; they are of an oval form, with seven long hair-like projections at one end. But it is time to go home, our walk to-day is over; let us look forward to another holiday and another country ramble.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote A: 'Wild Sports of the Highlands,' p. 136.]

WALK II.

APRIL

We will walk to-day along the side of the ca.n.a.l bank as far as the aqueduct, then take the Duke's Drive and home by Lubstree Park; we shall find lots to see and to admire in the course of our ramble. We notice plenty of those beautiful b.a.l.l.s of green jelly (_Ophrydium versatile_) in the clear water of the ca.n.a.l which, you know, we see every spring. These b.a.l.l.s vary in size from that of a pea to that of Jack's fist; they are, you see, generally attached to some water-weed, and consist of myriads of very minute creatures called _infusoria_, which are imbedded in a ma.s.s of whitish jelly; these animals can detach themselves from the jelly and swim freely about; of course it requires a microscope to see the tiny green animalcules. If we examine a single specimen under a high power of the microscope we shall see its shape, which, when fully extended, is long and cylindrical, having at one end a mouth surrounded, as is usually the case in the _infusoria_, by a circle of very fine hairs, or _cilia_, as they are called, from the Latin word _cilium_ an eyelash; the mouth opens into a long narrow channel; the creature's throat, which leads to its stomach; towards the opposite extremity the animal tapers, till it ends in an extremely long fine hair-like tail which is fixed in the jelly-like ball; when the little creature prefers to swim freely about in the water it leaves its tail behind it, unlike, in this respect, to little Bo-peep's sheep! These b.a.l.l.s were once supposed to belong to the vegetable kingdom, but there is no doubt about their animal nature.

"Oh! papa, what is that bird with a black head that flew from the side of the ca.n.a.l to the hedge?" said w.i.l.l.y. "There, don't you see it?"

Yes! I see, my boy, it is the black-headed Bunting or Reed Sparrow, common on the sides of rivers, ca.n.a.ls, and ponds. The specimen you see on the hedge is a male bird, the females are a little smaller and have not black heads. See how beautifully contrasted are the deep-black head and white collar on the neck. In the spring and summer these birds may be frequently seen, male and female together; in winter they a.s.sociate with others of the finch tribe, forming large flocks. The nest is generally placed on the ground amongst the sedges and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s; the eggs, which are four or five in number, are laid in May and, I believe, a second brood sometimes is produced in July. The nests of the Reed-bunting are difficult to find, at least, I have seldom been successful. You know how cunning the peewit is in trying to lead people away from its nest or young ones. Well, some observers have remarked the same thing in the case of the reed-bunting. One writer says, "Walking last spring amongst some rushes growing near a river my attention was arrested by observing a black-headed bunting shuffling through the rushes and trailing along the ground, as if one of her legs or wings was broken. I followed her to see the result, and she, having led me to some considerable distance, took wing, no doubt much rejoiced on return to find her stratagems had been successful in preserving her young brood." "Ha! ha!" interrupted Jack, "the gentleman was nicely deceived then." No, not entirely, because he goes on to say he afterwards found the nest, which had five young ones in it. One thing more I ought to tell you; not to confuse the reed-bunting with the reed-warbler, a very different bird, which very probably we may notice in to-day's ramble.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHIRLIGIG BEETLE, MAGNIFIED.]

We now had another look into the ca.n.a.l, and saw numerous little whirligig beetles, performing their merry-go-rounds on the top of the water. With what amazing rapidity they skim along, to be sure! Some diving beneath the surface, some resting on a water leaf. If we catch one in our net and examine it more closely we shall see that, in form, it is like a miniature boat. It seems surprising that these little "whirligigs," "whirl-wigs," or "s.h.i.+ners," as they are called, should perform their rounds so closely together, without sometimes coming into collision. If you will look ever so long a time you will not see one animated boat run foul of another. Just think of a couple of hundred skaters on a small piece of ice playing at cros-stick. Oh!

would they not be constantly knocking one another over?

[Ill.u.s.tration: HEAD OF WHIRLIGIG BEETLE, MAGNIFIED.

_a._ Mouth. _b, c._ Eye.]