Birds in Town and Village

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The astonishing thing in this case was that the bird never uttered a
note of his own original and exceedingly copious song; and I could only
suppose that he had never learned the thrush melody; that he had,
perhaps, been picked up as a fledgling and put in a cage, where he had
imitated the sounds he heard and liked best, and made them his song, and
that he had finally escaped or had been liberated.

The wild thrush, we know, does introduce certain imitations into his own
song, but the borrowed notes, or even phrases, are, as a rule, few, and
not always to be distinguished from his own.

Sometimes one can pick them out; thus, on the borders of a marsh where
redshanks bred, I have heard the call of that bird distinctly given by
the thrush. And again, where the ring-ouzel is common, the thrush will
get its brief song exactly. When thrushes taken from the nest are reared
in towns, where they never hear the thrush or any other bird sing, they
are often exceedingly vocal, and utter a medley of sounds which are
sometimes distressing to the ear. I have heard many caged thrushes of
this kind in London, but the most remarkable instance I have met with
was at the little seaside town of Seaford. Here, in the main shopping
street, a caged thrush lived for years in a butcher's shop, and poured
out its song continuously, the most distressing throstle performance I
ever heard, composed of a medley of loud, shrill and harsh
sounds--imitations of screams and shouts, boy whistlers, saw filing,
knives sharpened on steels, and numerous other unclassifiable noises;
but all, more or less, painful. The whole street was filled with the
noise, and the owner used to boast that his caged thrush was the most
persistent as well as the loudest singer that had ever been heard. He
had no nerves, and was proud of it! On a recent visit to Seaford I
failed to hear the bird when walking about the town, and after two or
three days went into the shop to enquire about it. They told me it was
dead--that it had been dead over a year; also that many visitors to
Seaford had missed its song and had called at the shop to ask about the
bird. The strangest thing about its end, they said, was its suddenness.
The bird was singing its loudest one morning, and had been at it for
some time, filling the whole place with its noise, when suddenly, in the
middle of its song, it dropped down dead from its perch.

To drop dead while singing is not an unheard of, nor a very rare
occurrence in caged birds, and it probably happens, too, in birds living
their natural life. Listening to a nightingale, pouring out its powerful
music continuously, as the lark sings, one sometimes wonders that
something does not give way to end the vocalist's performance and life
at the same instant. Some such incident was probably the origin of the
old legend of the minstrel and the nightingale oa which Strada based his
famous poem, known in many languages. In England Crawshaw's version was
by far the best, and is perhaps the finest bird poem in our literature.

The blackbird, like the thrush, sometimes borrows a note or a phrase,
and, like the thrush again, if reared by hand he may become a nuisance
by mimicking some disagreeable sound, and using it by way of song. I
heard of such a case a short time ago at Sidmouth. The ground floor of
the house where I lodged was occupied by a gentleman who had a fondness
for bird music, and being an invalid confined to his rooms, he kept a
number of birds in cages. He had, besides canaries, the thrush,
chaffinch, linnet, goldfinch and cirl bunting. I remarked that he did
not have the best singer of all--the blackbird. He said that he had
procured one, or that some friend had sent him one, a very beautiful
ou?el cock in the blackest plumage and with the orange-tawniest bill,
and he had anticipated great pleasure from hearing its fluting melody.
But alas! no blackbird song did this unnatural blackbird sing. He had
learnt to bark like a dog, and whenever the singing spirit took him he
would bark once or twice or three times, and then, after an interval of
silence of the proper length, about fifteen seconds, he would bark
again, and so on until he had had his fill of music for the time. The
barking got on the invalid's nerves, and he sent the bird away. "It was
either that," he said, "or losing my senses altogether."

* * *

As all or most singing birds learn their songs from the adults of the
same species, it is not strange that there should be a good deal of what
we call mimicry in their performances: we may say, in fact, that pretty
well all the true singers are mimics, but that some mimic more than
others. Thus, the starling is more ready to borrow other birds' notes
than the thrush, while the marsh-warbler borrows so much that his
singing is mainly composed of borrowings. The nightingale is, perhaps,
an exception. His voice excels in power and purity of sound, and what we
may call his artistry is exceptionally perfect; this may account for the
fact that he does not borrow from other birds' songs. I should say, from
my own observation, that all songsters are interested in the singing of
other species, or at all events, in certain notes, especially the most
striking in power, beauty, and strangeness. Thus, when the cuckoo starts
calling, you will see other small birds fly straight to the tree and
perch near him, apparently to listen. And among the listeners you will
find the sparrow and tits of various species--birds which are never
victimized by the cuckoo, and do not take him for a hawk since they take
no notice of him until the calling begins. The reason that the double
fluting call of the cuckoo is not mimicked by other birds is that they
can't; because that peculiar sound is not in their register. The
bubbling cry is reproduced by both the marsh warbler and the starling.
Again, it is my experience that when a nightingale starts singing, the
small birds near immediately become attentive, often suspending their
own songs and some flying to perch near him, and listen, just as they
listen to the cuckoo. Birds imitate the note or phrase that strikes them
most, and is easiest to imitate, as when the thrush copies the piping
and trilling of the redshank and the easy song of the ring-ouzel, which,
when incorporated into his own music, harmonizes with it perfectly. But
he cannot flute, and so never mimics the blackbird's song, although he
can and does, as we have seen, imitate its chuckling cry.

There is another thing to be considered. I believe that the bird, like
creatures in other classes, has his receptive period, his time to learn,
and that, like some mammals, he learns everything he needs to know in
his first year or two; and that, having acquired his proper song, he
adds little or nothing to it thereafter, although the song may increase
in power and brilliance when the bird comes to full maturity. This, I
think, holds true of all birds, like the nightingale, which have a
singing period of two or three months and are songless for the rest of
the year. That long, silent period cannot, so far as sounds go, be a
receptive one; the song early in life has become crystallized in the
form it will keep through life, and is like an intuitive act. This is
not the case with birds like the starling, that sing all the year
round--birds that are naturally loquacious and sing instead of screaming
and chirping like others. They are always borrowing new sounds and
always forgetting.

The most curious example of mimicry I have yet met with is that of a
true mocking-bird, Mimus patachonicus, a common resident species in
northern Patagonia, on the Atlantic side, very abundant in places. He is
a true mocking-bird because he belongs to the genus Mimus, a branch of
the thrush family, and not because he mocks or mimics the songs of other
species, like others of his kindred. He does not, in fact, mimic the set
songs of others, although he often introduces notes and phrases borrowed
from other species into his own performance. He sings in a sketchy way
all the year round, but in spring has a fuller unbroken song, emitted
with more power and passion. For the rest of the time he sings to amuse
himself, as it seems, in a peculiarly leisurely, and one may say,
indolent manner, perched on a bush, from time to time emitting a note or
two, then a phrase which, if it pleases him, he will repeat two or
three, or half a dozen times. Then, after a pause, other notes and
phrases, and so on, pretty well all day long. This manner of singing is
irritating, like the staccato song of our throstle, to a listener who
wants a continuous stream of song; but it becomes exceedingly
interesting when one discovers that the bird is thinking very much about
his own music, if one can use such an expression about a bird; that he
is all the time experimenting, trying to get a new phrase, a new
combination of the notes he knows and new notes. Also, that when sitting
on his bush and uttering these careless chance sounds, he is, at the
same time, intently listening to the others, all engaged in the same
way, singing and listening. You will see them all about the place, each
bird sitting motionless, like a grey and white image of a bird, on the
summit of his own bush. For, although he is not gregarious as a rule, a
number of pairs live near each other, and form a sort of loose
community. The bond that unites them is their music, for not only do
they sit within hearing distance, but they are perpetually mimicking
each other. One may say that they are accomplished mimics but prefer
mimicking their own to other species. But they only imitate the notes
that take their fancy, so to speak. Thus, occasionally, one strikes out
a phrase, a new expression, which appears to please him, and after a few
moments he repeats it again, then again, and so on and on, and if you
remain an hour within hearing he will perhaps be still repeating it at
short intervals. Now, if by chance there is something in the new phrase
which pleases the listeners too, you will note that they instantly
suspend their own singing, and for some little time they do nothing but
listen. By and by the new note or phrase will be exactly reproduced from
a bird on another bush; and he, too, will begin repeating it at short
intervals. Then a second one will get it, then a third, and eventually
all the birds in that thicket will have it. The constant repeating of
the new note may then go on for hours, and it may last longer. You may
return to the spot on the second day and sit for an hour or longer,
listening, and still hear that same note constantly repeated until you
are sick and tired of it, or it may even get on your nerves. I remember
that on one occasion I avoided a certain thicket, one of my favourite
daily haunts for three whole days, not to hear that one everlasting
sound; then I returned and to my great relief the birds were all at
their old game of composing, and not one uttered--perhaps he didn't
dare--the too hackneyed phrase. I was sharply reminded one day by an
incident in the village of this old Patagonian experience, and of the
strange human-like weakness or passion for something new and arresting
in music or song, something "tuney" or "catchy."

It chanced that when I left London a new popular song had come out and
was "all the rage," a tune and words invented or first produced in the
music-halls by a woman named Lottie Collins, with a chorus to
it--_Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay_, repeated several times. First caught up in
the music-halls it spread to the streets, and in ever-widening circles
over all London, and over all the land. In London people were getting
tired of hearing it, but when I arrived at my village "in a hole," and
settled down among the Badgers, I heard it on every hand--in cottages,
in the streets, in the fields, men, women and children were singing,
whistling, and humming it, and in the evening at the inn roaring it out
with as much zest as if they had been singing _Rule Britannia._

This state of things lasted from May to the middle of June; then, one
very hot, still day, about three o'clock, I was sitting at my cottage
window when I caught the sound of a rumbling cart and a man singing. As
the noise grew louder my interest in the approaching man and cart was
excited to an extraordinary degree; never had I heard such a noise! And
no wonder, since the man was driving a heavy, springless farm cart in
the most reckless manner, urging his two huge horses to a fast trot,
then a gallop, up and down hill along those rough gully-like roads, he
standing up in his cart and roaring out "Auld Lang Syne," at the top of
a voice of tremendous power. He was probably tipsy, but it was not a bad
voice, and the old familiar tune and words had an extraordinary effect
in that still atmosphere. He passed my cottage, standing up, his legs
wide apart, his cap on the back of his head, a big broad-chested young
man, lashing his horses, and then for about two minutes or longer the
thunder of the cart and the roaring song came back fainter, until it
faded away in the distance. At that still hour of the day the children
were all at school on the further side of the village; the men away in
the fields; the women shut up in their cottages, perhaps sleeping. It
seemed to me that I was the only person in the village who had witnessed
and heard the passing of the big-voiced man and cart. But it was not so.
At all events, next day, the whole village, men, women and children,
were singing, humming and whistling "Auld Lang Syne," and "Auld Lang
Syne" lasted for several days, and from that day "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"
was heard no more. It had lost its charm.

VIII

Just out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized
pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now
overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common,
lived in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so
many kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a
favourite spot with me. One evening, just before sunset, as I lingered
near it, a pied wagtail darted out of some low scrub at my feet and
fluttered, as if wounded, over the turf for a space of ten or twelve
yards before flying away. Not many minutes after seeing the wagtail, a
reed-bunting--a bird which I had not previously observed on the
common--flew down and alighted on a bush a few yards from me, holding a
white crescent-shaped grub in its beak. I stood still to watch it,
certainly not expecting to see its nest and young; for, as a rule, a
bird with food in its beak will sit quietly until the watcher loses
patience and moves away; but on this occasion I had not been standing
more than ten seconds before the bunting flew down to a small tuft of
furze and was there greeted by the shrill, welcoming cries of its young.
I went up softly to the spot, when out sprang the old bird I had seen,
but only to drop to the ground just as the wagtail had done, to beat the
turf with its wings, then to lie gasping for breath, then to flutter on
a little further, until at last it rose up and flew to a bush.

After admiring the reed-bunting's action, I turned to the dwarf bush
near my feet, and saw, perched on a twig in its centre, a solitary young
bird, fully fledged but not yet capable of sustained flight. He did not
recognise an enemy in me; on the contrary, when I approached my hand to
him, he opened his yellow mouth wide, in expectation of being fed,
although his throat was crammed with caterpillars, and the white
crescent-shaped larva I had seen in the parent's bill was still lying in
his mouth unswallowed. The wonder is that when a young bird had been
stuffed with food to such an extent just before sleeping time, he can
still find it in him to open his mouth and call for more.

* * *

How wonderful it is that this parental instinct, so beautiful in its
perfect simulation of the action of the bird that has lost the power of
flight, should be found in so large a number of species! But when we
find that it is not universal; that in two closely-allied species one
will possess it and the other not; and that it is common in such
widely-separated orders as gallinaceous and passerine birds, in pigeons,
ducks, and waders, it becomes plain that it is not assignable to
community of descent, but has originated independently all over the
globe, in a vast number of species. Something of the beginnings and
progressive development of this instinct may be learnt, I think, by
noticing the behaviour of various passerine birds in the presence of
danger, to their nests and young. Their actions and cries show that they
are greatly agitated, and in a majority of species the parent bird flits
and flutters round the intruder, uttering sounds of distress. Frequently
the bird exhibits its agitation, not only by these cries and restless
motions, but by the drooping of the wings and tail--the action observed
in a bird when hurt or sick, or oppressed with heat. These languishing
signs are common to a great many species after the young have been
hatched; the period when the parental solicitude is most intense. In
several species which I have observed in South America, the languishing
is more marked. There are no sorrowful cries and restless movements; the
bird sits with hanging wings and tail, gasping for breath with open bill
--in appearance a greatly suffering bird. In some cases of this
description, the bird, if it moves at all, hops or flutters from a
higher to a lower branch, and, as if sick or wounded, seems about to
sink to the ground. In still others, the bird actually does drop to the
ground, then, feebly flapping its wings, rises again with great effort.
From this last form it is but a step to the more highly developed
complex instinct of the bird that sinks to the earth and flutters
painfully away, gasping, and seemingly incapable of flight.

It would be a great mistake to suppose that the bird when fluttering on
the ground to lead an enemy from the neighbourhood of its nest is in
full possession of all its faculties, acting consciously, and itself in
as little danger of capture as when on its perch or flying through the
air. We have seen that the action has its root in the bird's passion for
its young, and intense solicitude in the presence of any danger
threatening them, which is so universal in this class of creatures, and
which expresses itself so variously in different kinds. This must be in
all cases a painful and debilitating emotion, and when the bird drops
down to the earth its pain has caused it to fall as surely as if it had
received a wound or had been suddenly attacked by some grievous malady;
and when it flutters on the ground it is for the moment incapable of
flight, and its efforts to recover flight and safety cause it to beat
its wings, and tremble, and gasp with open mouth. The object of the
action is to deceive an enemy, or, to speak more correctly, the result
is to deceive, and there is nothing that will more inflame and carry
away any rapacious mammal than the sight of a fluttering bird. But in
thus drawing upon itself the attention of an enemy threatening the
safety of its eggs or young, to what a terrible danger does the parent
expose itself, and how often, in those moments of agitation and
debility, must its own life fall a sacrifice! The sudden spring and rush
of a feline enemy must have proved fatal in myriads of instances. From
its inception to its most perfect stage, in the various species that
possess it, this perilous instinct has been washed in blood and made
bright.

What I have just said, that the peculiar instinct and deceptive action
we have been considering is made and kept bright by being bathed in
blood, applies to all instinctive acts that tend to the preservation of
life, both of the individual and species. Necessarily so, seeing that,
for one thing, instincts can only arise and grow to perfection in order
to meet cases which commonly occur in the life of a species. The
instinct is not prophetic and does not meet rare or extraordinary
situations. Unless intelligence or some higher faculty comes in to
supplement or to take the place of instinctive action then the creature
must perish on account of the limitation of instinct. Again, the higher
and more complete the instinct the more perilous it is, seeing that its
efficiency depends on the absolutely perfect health and balance of all
the faculties and the entire organism. Thus, the higher instinctive
faculty and action of birds for the preservation of the species, that of
migration, is undoubtedly the most dangerous of all. It is so perfect
that by means of this faculty millions and myriads of birds of an
immense variety of species from cranes, swans, and geese down to minute
goldcrests and firecrests and the smallest feeble-winged-leaf warblers,
are able to inhabit and to distribute themselves evenly over all the
temperate and cold regions of the earth, and even nearer the pole: and
in all these regions they rear their young and spend several months each
year, where they would inevitably perish from cold and lack of food if
they stayed on to meet the winter. We can best realize the perfection of
this instinct when we consider that all these migrants, including the
young which have never hitherto strayed beyond the small area of their
home where every tree and bush and spring and rock is familiar to them,
rush suddenly away as if blown by a wind to unknown lands and continents
beyond the seas to a distance of from a thousand to six or seven
thousand miles; that after long months spent in those distant places,
which in turn have grown familiar to them, they return again to their
natal place, not in a direct but ofttimes by a devious route, now north,
now north-east, now east or west, keeping to the least perilous lines
and crossing the seas where they are narrowest. Thus, when the returning
multitude recrosses the Channel into England, coming by way of France
and Spain from north or south or mid-Africa and from Asia, they at once
proceed to disperse over the entire country from Land's End to Thurso
and the northernmost islands of Scotland, until every wood and hill and
moor and thicket and stream and every village and field and hedgerow and
farmhouse has its own feathered people back in their old places. But
they do not return in their old force. They had increased to twice or
three times their original numbers when they left us, and as a result of
that great adventure a half or two-thirds of the vast army has perished.

The instinct which in character comes nearest to that of the parent
simulating the action of a wounded and terrified bird struggling to
escape in order to safeguard its young, is that one, very strong in all
ground-breeding species, of sitting close on the nest in the presence of
danger. Here, too, the instinct is of prime importance to the species,
since the bird by quitting the nest reveals its existence to the
prowling, nest-seeking enemy--dog, cat, fox, stoat, rat, in England;
and in the country where I first observed animals, the skunk, armadillo,
opossum, snake, wild cat, and animals of the weasel family. By leaving
its nest a minute or half a minute too soon the bird sacrifices the eggs
or young; by staying a moment too long it is in imminent danger of being
destroyed itself. How often the bird stays too long on the nest is seen
in the corn-crake, a species continually decreasing in this country
owing to the destruction caused by the mowing-machine. The parent birds
that escape may breed again in a safer place, but in many cases the bird
clings too long to its nest and is decapitated or fatally injured by the
cutters. Larks, too, often perish in the same way. To go back to the
ailing or wounded bird simulating action: this is perhaps most perfect
in the gallinaceous birds, all ground-breeders whose nests are most
diligently hunted for by all egg-eating creatures, beast or bird, and
whose tender chicks are a favourite food for all rapacious animals. In
the fowl, pheasants, partridges, quail, and grouse, the instinct is
singularly powerful, the bird making such violent efforts to escape,
with such an outcry, such beating of its wings and struggles on the
ground, that no rapacious beast, however often he may have been deceived
before, can fail to be carried away with the prospect of an immediate
capture. The instinct and action has appeared to me more highly
developed in these birds because, in the first place, the demonstrations
are more violent than in other families, consequently more effective;
and secondly, because the danger once over, the bird's recovery to its
normal quiet, watchful state is quicker. By way of experiment, I have at
various times thrown myself on pheasants, partridges and grouse, when I
have found them with a family of recently-hatched chicks; then on giving
up the chase and turning away from the bird its instantaneous recovery
has seemed like a miracle. It was like a miracle because the creature
did actually suffer from all those violent, debilitating emotions
expressed in its disordered cries and action, and it is the miracle of
Nature's marvellous health. If we, for example, were thrown into these
violent extremes of passion, we should not escape the after-effects. Our
whole system would suffer, a doctor would perhaps have to be called in
and would discourse wisely on metabolism and the development of toxins
in the muscles, and give us a bottle of medicine.

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