The Natural History of Selborne Volume I Part 13

Was your reed-sparrow, which you kept in a cage, the thick-billed reed-sparrow of the Zoology, p. 320; or was it the less reed-sparrow of Ray, the sedge-bird of Mr. Pennant's last publication, p. 16?

As to the matter of long-billed birds growing fatter in moderate frosts, I have no doubt within myself what should be the reason. The thriving at those times appears to me to arise altogether from the gentle check which the cold throws upon insensible perspiration. The case is just the same with blackbirds, etc.; and farmers and warreners observe, the first, that their hogs fat more kindly at such times, and the latter that their rabbits are never in such good case as in a gentle frost. But when frosts are severe, and of long continuance, the case is soon altered, for then a want of food soon overbalances the repletion occasioned by a checked perspiration. I have observed, moreover, that some human const.i.tutions are more inclined to plumpness in winter than in summer.

When birds come to suffer by severe frost, I find that the first that fail and die are the redwing-fieldfares, and then the song-thrushes.

You wonder, with good reason, that the hedge-sparrows, etc., can be induced at all to sit on the egg of the cuckoo without being scandalised at the vast disproportionate size of the supposit.i.tious egg; but the brute creation, I suppose, have very little idea of size, colour, or number. For the common hen, I know, when the fury of incubation is on her, will sit on a single shapeless stone instead of a nest full of eggs that have been withdrawn: and, moreover, a hen-turkey, in the same circ.u.mstances, would sit on in the empty nest till she perished with hunger.

I think the matter might easily be determined whether a cuckoo lays one or two eggs, or more, in a season, by opening a female during the laying-time. If more than one was come down out of the ovary and advanced to a good size, doubtless then she would that spring lay more than one.

I will endeavour to get a hen, and to examine.

Your supposition that there may be some natural obstruction in singing birds while they are mute, and that when this is removed the song recommences, is new and bold: I wish you could discover some good grounds for this suspicion.

I was glad you were pleased with my specimen of the caprimulgus, or fern-owl; you were, I find, acquainted with the bird before.

When we meet I shall be glad to have some conversation with you concerning the proposal you make of my drawing up an account of the animals in this neighbourhood. Your partiality towards my small abilities persuades you, I fear, that I am able to do more than is in my power: for it is no small undertaking for a man unsupported and alone to begin a natural history from his own autopsia! Though there is endless room for observation in the field of nature, which is boundless, yet investigation (where a man endeavours to be sure of his facts) can make but slow progress; and all that one could collect in many years would go into a very narrow compa.s.s.

Some extracts from your ingenious "Investigations of the Difference between the Present Temperature of the Air in Italy," etc., have fallen in my way, and gave me great satisfaction: they have removed the objections that always arose in my mind whenever I came to the pa.s.sages which you quote. Surely the judicious Virgil, when writing a didactic poem for the region of Italy, could never think of describing freezing rivers, unless such severity of weather pretty frequently occurred!

P.S.--Swallows appear amidst snows and frost.

LETTER VI.

SELBORNE, _May 21st_, 1770.

Dear Sir,--The severity and turbulence of last month so interrupted the regular process of summer migration, that some of the birds do but just begin to show themselves, and others are apparently thinner than usual; as the white-throat, the black-cap, the red-start, the fly-catcher. I well remember that after the very severe spring in the year 1739-40, summer birds of pa.s.sage were very scarce. They come probably hither with a south-east wind, or when it blows between those points: but in that unfavourable year the winds blowed the whole spring and summer through from the opposite quarters. And yet amidst all these disadvantages two swallows, as I mentioned in my last, appeared this year as early as the 11th April amidst frost and snow; but they withdrew again for a time.

I am not pleased to find that some people seem so little satisfied with Scopoli's new publication; there is room to expect great things from the hands of that man, who is a good naturalist: and one would think that a history of the birds of so distant and southern a region as Carniola would be new and interesting. I could wish to see that work, and hope to get it sent down. Dr. Scopoli is physician to the wretches that work in the quicksilver mines of that district.

When you talked of keeping a reed-sparrow, and giving it seeds, I could not help wondering; because the reed-sparrow which I mentioned to you (_Pa.s.ser arundinaceus minor Raii_) is a soft-billed bird; and most probably migrates hence before winter; whereas the bird you kept (_Pa.s.ser torquatus Raii_) abides all the year, and is a thick-billed bird. I question whether the latter be much of a songster; but in this matter I want to be better informed. The former has a variety of hurrying notes, and sings all night. Some part of the song of the former, I suspect, is attributed to the latter. We have plenty of the soft-billed sort; which Mr. Pennant had entirely left out of his "British Zoology," till I reminded him of his omission. See "British Zoology" last published, p.

16.

I have somewhat to advance on the different manners in which different birds fly and walk; but as this is a subject that I have not enough considered, and is of such a nature as not to be contained in a small s.p.a.ce, I shall say nothing further about it at present.

No doubt the reason why the s.e.x of birds in their first plumage is so difficult to be distinguished is, as you say, "because they are not to pair and discharge their parental functions till the ensuing spring." As colours seem to be the chief external s.e.xual distinction in many birds, these colours do not take place till s.e.xual attachments begin to obtain.

And the case is the same in quadrupeds; among whom, in their younger days, the s.e.xes differ but little: but, as they advance to maturity, horns and s.h.a.ggy manes, beards, and brawny necks, etc., etc., strongly discriminate the male from the female. We may instance still farther in our own species, where a beard and stronger features are usually characteristic of the male s.e.x: but this s.e.xual diversity does not take place in earlier life; for a beautiful youth shall be so like a beautiful girl that the difference shall not be discernible;

"Quem si puellarum insereres choro, Mire sagaces falleret hospites Discrimen obscurum, solutis Crinibus, ambiguoque vultu."

HOR. ODES, II. od. 5-21, p. 131, orig. edit.

LETTER VII.

RINGMER _near_ LEWES, _Oct. 8th_, 1770.

Dear Sir,--I am glad to hear that Kuckalm is to furnish you with the birds of Jamaica; a sight of the _hirundines_ of that hot and distant island would be a great entertainment to me.

The Anni of Scopoli are now in my possession; and I have read the _Annus Primus_ with satisfaction; for though some parts of this work are exceptionable, and he may advance some mistaken observations, yet the ornithology of so distant a country as Carniola is very curious. Men that undertake only one district are much more likely to advance natural knowledge than those that grasp at more than they can possibly be acquainted with: every kingdom, every province, should have its own monographer.

The reason perhaps why he mentions nothing of Ray's Ornithology may be the extreme poverty and distance of his country into which the works of our great naturalist may have never yet found their way. You have doubts, I know, whether this Ornithology is genuine, and really the work of Scopoli; as to myself I think I discover strong tokens of authenticity; the style corresponds with that of his Entomology; and his characters of his Ordines and Genera are many of them new, expressive, and masterly. He has ventured to alter some of the Linnaean genera with sufficient show of reason.

It might perhaps be mere accident that you saw so many swifts and no swallows at Staines; because, in my long observation of those birds, I never could discover the least degree of rivalry or hostility between the species.

Ray remarks that birds of the _gallinoe_ order, as c.o.c.ks and hens, partridges, and pheasants, etc., are _pulveratrices_, such as dust themselves, using that method of cleansing their feathers, and ridding themselves of their vermin. As far as I can observe, many birds that dust themselves never wash; and I once thought that those birds that wash themselves would never dust; but here I find myself mistaken: for common house-sparrows are great pulveratrices, being frequently seen grovelling and wallowing in dusty roads; and yet they are great washers. Does not the skylark dust?

_Query_.--Might not Mahomet and his followers take one method of purification from these pulveratrices? because I find from travellers of credit, that if a strict Mussulman is journeying in a sandy desert where no water is to be found, at stated hours he strips off his clothes, and most scrupulously rubs his body over with sand or dust.

A countryman told me he had found a young fern-owl in the nest of a small bird on the ground; and that it was fed by the little bird. I went to see this extraordinary phenomenon, and found that it was a young cuckoo hatched in the nest of a t.i.tlark; it was become vastly too big for its nest, appearing

". . . . . in tenui re Majores pennas nido extendisse . . "

and was very fierce and pugnacious, pursuing my finger as I teased it, for many feet from the nest, and sparring and buffeting with its wings like a game-c.o.c.k. The dupe of a dam appeared at a distance, hovering about with meat in its mouth, and expressing the greatest solicitude.

In July I saw several cuckoos skimming over a large pond; and found, after some observation, that they were feeding on the _Libellulae_ or dragon-flies; some of which they caught as they settled on the weeds, and some as they were on the wing. Notwithstanding what Linnaeus says, I cannot be induced to believe that they are birds of prey.

This district affords some birds that are hardly ever heard of at Selborne. In the first place considerable flocks of cross-beaks (_Loxiae curvirostrae_) have appeared this summer in the pine-groves belonging to this house; the water-ouzel is said to haunt the mouth of the Lewes river, near Newhaven; and the Cornish chough builds, I know, all along the chalky cliffs of the Suss.e.x sh.o.r.e.

I was greatly pleased to see little parties of ring-ouzels (my newly discovered migrators) scattered, at intervals, all along the Suss.e.x downs, from Chichester to Lewes. Let them come from whence they will, it looks very suspicious that they are cantoned along the coast in order to pa.s.s the channel when severe weather advances. They visit us again in April, as it should seem, in their return; and are not to be found in the dead of winter. It is remarkable that they are very tame, and seem to have no manner of apprehensions of danger from a person with a gun.

There are bustards on the wide downs near Brighthelmstone. No doubt you are acquainted with the Suss.e.x downs; the prospects and rides round Lewes are most lovely!

As I rode along near the coast I kept a very sharp look-out in the lanes and woods, hoping I might, at this time of the year, have discovered some of the summer short-winged birds of pa.s.sage crowding towards the coast in order for their departure: but it was very extraordinary that I never saw a red-start, white-throat, black-cap, uncrested wren, fly-catcher, etc.

And I remember to have made the same remark in former years, as I usually come to this place annually about this time. The birds most common along the coast, at present, are the stone-chatters, whinchats, buntings, linnets, some few wheatears, t.i.tlarks, etc. Swallows and house-martins abound yet, induced to prolong their stay by this soft, still, dry season.

A land tortoise, which has been kept for thirty years in a little walled court belonging to the house where I now am visiting, retires under ground about the middle of November, and comes forth again about the middle of April. When it first appears in the spring it discovers very little inclination towards food; but in the height of summer grows voracious; and then as the summer declines its appet.i.te declines; so that for the last six weeks in autumn it hardly eats at all. Milky plants, such as lettuces, dandelions, sowthistles, are its favourite dish. In a neighbouring village one was kept till by tradition it was supposed to be a hundred years old. An instance of vast longevity in such a poor reptile!

LETTER VIII

SELBORNE, _Dec. 20th_, 1770.

Dear Sir,--The birds that I took for aberdavines were reed-sparrows (_Pa.s.seres torquati_).

There are doubtless many home internal migrations within this kingdom that want to be better understood: witness those vast flocks of hen-chaffinches that appear with us in the winter without hardly any c.o.c.ks among them. Now was there a due proportion of each s.e.x, it should seem very improbable that any one district should produce such numbers of these little birds; and much more when only one-half of the species appears; therefore we may conclude that the _Fringilloe coelebes_, for some good purposes, have a peculiar migration of their own in which the s.e.xes part. Nor should it seem so wonderful that the intercourse of s.e.xes in this species of bird should be interrupted in winter; since in many animals, and particularly in bucks and does, the s.e.xes herd separately, except at the season when commerce is necessary for the continuance of the breed. For this matter of the chaffinches see "Fauna Suecica," p. 58, and "Systema Naturae," p. 318. I see every winter vast flights of hen-chaffinches, but none of c.o.c.ks.

Your method of accounting for the periodical motions of the British singing birds, or birds of flight, is a very probable one; since the matter of food is a great regulator of the actions and proceedings of the brute creation; there is but one that can be set in compet.i.tion with it, and that is love. But I cannot quite acquiesce with you in one circ.u.mstance when you advance that, "when they have thus feasted, they again separate into small parties of five or six, and get the best fare they can within a certain district, having no inducement to go in quest of fresh turned earth." Now if you mean that the business of congregating is quite at an end from the conclusion of wheat sowing to the season of barley and oats, it is not the case with us; for larks and chaffinches, and particularly linnets, flock and congregate as much in the very dead of winter as when the husbandman is busy with his ploughs and harrows.

Sure there can be no doubt but that woodc.o.c.ks and fieldfares leave us in the spring, in order to cross the seas, and to retire to some districts more suitable to the purpose of breeding. That the former pair before they retire, and that the hens are forward with egg, I myself, when I was a sportsman, have often experienced. It cannot indeed be denied but that now and then we hear of a woodc.o.c.k's nest, or young birds, discovered in some part or other of this island; but then they are all always mentioned as rarities, and somewhat out of the common course of things: but as to redwings and fieldfares, no sportsman or naturalist has ever yet, that I could hear, pretended to have found the nest or young of those species in any part of these kingdoms. And I the more admire at this instance as extraordinary, since, to all appearance, the same food in summer as well as in winter might support them here which maintains their congeners, the black-birds and thrushes, did they choose to stay the summer through.

From hence it appears that it is not food alone which determines some species of birds with regard to their stay or departure. Fieldfares or redwings disappear sooner or later according as the warm weather comes on earlier or later. For I well remember, after that dreadful winter 1739-40, that cold north-east winds continued to blow on through April and May, and that these kind of birds (what few remained of them) did not depart as usual, but were seen lingering about till the beginning of June.

The best authority that we can have for the nidification of the birds above-mentioned in any district, is the testimony of faunists that have written professedly the natural history of particular countries. Now as to the fieldfare, Linnaeus, in his "Fauna Suecica," says of it, that "_maximis in arboribus nidificat_;" and of the redwing he says, in the same place, that "_nidificat in mediis arbusculis_, _sive sepibus_; _ova s.e.x coeruleo-viridia maculis nigris variis_." Hence we may be a.s.sured that fieldfares and redwings build in Sweden. Scopoli says, in his "Annus Primus," of the woodc.o.c.k, that "_nupta ad nos venit circa oequinoctium vernale_;" meaning in Tyrol, of which he is a native. And afterwards he adds "_nidificat in paludibus alpinis: ova ponit_ 3-5." It does not appear from Kramer that woodc.o.c.ks breed at all in Austria; but he says, "_Avis hoec septentrionalium provinciarum oestivo tempore incola est_; _ubi plerumque nidificat_. _Appropinquante hyeme australiores provincias pet.i.t_; _hinc circa plenilunium mensis Octobris plerumque Austriam transmigrat_. _Tunc rursus circa plenilunium potissimum mensis Martii per Austriam matrimonio juncta ad septentrionales provincias redit_." For the whole pa.s.sage (which I have abridged) see "Elenchus,"