Birds in Town and Village

W >> W. H. Hudson >> Birds in Town and Village

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The subject is a large one. In this paper the question of the
introduction of exotic birds will be chiefly considered. Birds have been
blown by the winds of chance over the whole globe, and have found rest
for their feet. That a large number of species, suited to the conditions
of this country, exist scattered about the world is not to be doubted,
and by introducing a few of these we might accelerate the change so
greatly to be desired. At present a very considerable amount of energy
is spent in hunting down the small contingents of rare species that once
inhabited our islands, and still resort annually to its shores,
persistently endeavouring to re-establish their colonies. A less amount
of labour and expense would serve to introduce a few foreign species
each year, and the reward would be greater, and would not make us
ashamed. We have generously given our own wild animals to other
countries; and from time to time we receive cheering reports of an
abundant increase in at least two of our exportations--to wit, the
rabbit and the sparrow. We are surely entitled to some return. Dead
animals, however rich their pelt or bright their plumage may be, are not
a fair equivalent. Dead things are too much with us. London has become a
mart for this kind of merchandise for the whole of Europe, and the
traffic is not without a reflex effect on us; for life in the inferior
animals has come or is coming to be merely a thing to be lightly taken
by human hands, in order that its dropped garment may be sold for filthy
lucre. There are warehouses in this city where it is possible for a
person to walk ankle-deep--literally to wade--in bright-plumaged
bird-skins, and see them piled shoulder-high on either side of him--a
sight to make the angels weep!

Not the angel called woman. It is not that she is naturally more cruel
than man; bleeding wounds and suffering in all its forms, even the sigh
of a burdened heart, appeal to her quick sympathies, and draw the ready
tears; but her imagination helps her less. The appeal must in most cases
be direct and through the medium of her senses, else it is not seen and
not heard. If she loves the ornament of a gay-winged bird, and is able
to wear it with a light heart, it is because it calls up no mournful
image to her mind; no little tragedy enacted in some far-off wilderness,
of the swift child of the air fallen and bleeding out its bright life,
and its callow nestlings, orphaned of the breast that warmed them, dying
of hunger in the tree. We know, at all events, that out of a female
population of many millions in this country, so far only ten women,
possibly fifteen, have been found to raise their voices--raised so often
and so loudly on other questions--to protest against the barbarous and
abhorrent fashion of wearing slain birds as ornaments. The degrading
business of supplying the demand for this kind of feminine adornment
must doubtless continue to flourish in our midst, commerce not being
compatible with morality, but the material comes from other lands,
unblessed as yet with Wild Bird Protection Acts, and "individual
efforts, and thousands of centres of personal influence"; it comes
mainly from the tropics, where men have brutish minds and birds a
brilliant plumage. This trade, therefore, does not greatly affect the
question of our native bird life, and the consideration of the means,
which may be within our reach, of making it more to us than it now is.
Some species from warm and even hot climates have been found to thrive
well in England, breeding in the open air; as, for instance, the black
and the black-necked swans, the Egyptian goose, the mandarin and summer
ducks, and others too numerous to mention. But these birds are
semi-domestic, and are usually kept in enclosures, and that they can
stand the climate and propagate when thus protected from competition is
not strange; for we know that several of our hardy domestic birds--the
fowl, pea-fowl, Guinea-fowl, and Muscovy duck--are tropical in their
origin. Furthermore, they are all comparatively large, and if they ever
become feral in England, it will not be for many years to come.

That these large kinds thrive so well with us is an encouraging fact;
but the question that concerns us at present is the feasibility of
importing birds of the grove, chiefly of the passerine order, and
sending them forth to give a greater variety and richness to our bird
life. To go with such an object to tropical countries would only be to
court failure. Nature's highest types, surpassing all others in
exquisite beauty of form, brilliant colouring, and perfect melody, can
never be known to our woods and groves. These rarest avian gems may not
be removed from their setting, and to those who desire to know them in
their unimaginable lustre, it will always be necessary to cross oceans
and penetrate into remote wildernesses. We must go rather to regions
where the conditions of life are hard, where winters are long and often
severe, where Nature is not generous in the matter of food, and the
mouths are many, and the competition great. Nor even from such regions
could we take any strictly migratory species with any prospect of
success. Still, limiting ourselves to the resident, and consequently to
the hardiest kinds, and to those possessing only a partial migration, it
is surprising to find how many there are to choose from, how many are
charming melodists, and how many have the bright tints in which our
native species are so sadly lacking. The field from which the supply can
be drawn is very extensive, and includes the continent of Europe, the
countries of North Asia, a large portion of North America and Antarctic
America, or South Chili and Patagonia. It would not be going too far to
say that for every English species, inhabiting the garden, wood, field,
stream, or waste, at least half a dozen resident species, with similar
habits, might be obtained from the countries mentioned which would be
superior to our own in melody (the nightingale and lark excepted),
bright plumage, grace of form, or some other attractive quality. The
question then arises; What reason is there for believing that these
exotics, imported necessarily in small numbers, would succeed in winning
a footing in our country, and become a permanent addition to its
avifauna? For it has been admitted that our species are not few, in
spite of the losses that have been suffered, and that the bird
population does not diminish, however much its character may have
altered and deteriorated from the aesthetic point of view, and probably
also from the utilitarian. There are no vacant places. Thus, the streams
are fished by herons, grebes, and kingfishers, while the rushy margins
are worked by coots and gallinules, and, above the surface, reed and
sedge-warblers, with other kinds, inhabit the reed-beds. The decaying
forest tree is the province of the woodpecker, of which there are three
kinds; and the trunks and branches of all trees, healthy or decaying,
are quartered by the small creeper, that leaves no crevice unexplored in
its search for minute insects and their eggs. He is assisted by the
nuthatch; and in summer the wryneck comes (if he still lives), and
deftly picks up the little active ants that are always wildly careering
over the boles. The foliage is gleaned by warblers and others; and not
even the highest terminal twigs are left unexamined by tits and their
fellow-seekers after little things. Thrushes seek for worms in moist
grounds about the woods; starlings and rooks go to the pasture lands;
the lark and his relations keep to the cultivated fields; and there also
dwells the larger partridge. Waste and stony grounds are occupied by the
chats, and even on the barren mountain summits the ptarmigan gets his
living. Wagtails run on the clean margins of streams; and littoral birds
of many kinds are in possession of the entire sea-coast. Thus, the whole
ground appears to be already sufficiently occupied, the habitats of
distinct species overlapping each other like the scales on a fish. And
when we have enumerated all these, we find that scores of others have
been left out. The important fly-catcher; the wren, Nature's diligent
little housekeeper, that leaves no dusty corner uncleaned; and the
pigeons, that have a purely vegetable diet. The woods and thickets are
also ranged by jays, cuckoos, owls, hawks, magpies, butcher-birds--
Nature's gamekeepers, with a licence to kill, which, after the manner of
game-keepers, they exercise somewhat indiscriminately. Above the earth,
the air is peopled by swifts and swallows in the daytime, and by
goatsuckers at night. And, as if all these were not enough, the finches
are found scattered everywhere, from the most secluded spot in nature to
the noisy public thoroughfare, and are eaters of most things, from
flinty seed to softest caterpillar. This being the state of things, one
might imagine that experience and observation are scarcely needed to
prove to us that the exotic, strange to the conditions, and where its
finest instincts would perhaps be at fault, would have no chance of
surviving. Nevertheless, odd as it may seem, the small stock of facts
bearing on the subject which we possess point to a contrary conclusion.
It might have been assumed, for instance, that the red-legged partridge
would never have established itself with us, where the ground was
already fully occupied by a native species, which possessed the
additional advantage of a more perfect protective colouring. Yet, in
spite of being thus handicapped, the stranger has conquered a place, and
has spread throughout the greater part of England. Even more remarkable
is the case of the pheasant, with its rich plumage, a native of a hot
region; yet our cold, wet climate and its unmodified bright colours have
not been fatal to it, and practically it is one of our wild birds. The
large capercailzie has also been successfully introduced from Norway.
Small birds would probably become naturalized much more readily than
large ones; they are volatile, and can more quickly find suitable
feeding-ground, and safe roosting and nesting places; their food is also
more abundant and easily found; their small size, which renders them
inconspicuous, gives them safety; and, finally, they are very much more
adaptive than large birds.

It is not at all probable that the red-legged partridge will ever drive
out our own bird, a contingency which some have feared. That would be a
misfortune, for we do not wish to change one bird for another, or to
lose any species we now possess, but to have a greater variety. We are
better off with two partridges than we were with one, even if the
invader does not afford such good sport nor such delicate eating. They
exist side by side, and compete with each other; but such competition is
not necessarily destructive to either. On the contrary, it acts and
re-acts healthily and to the improvement of both. It is a fact that in
small islands, very far removed from the mainland, where the animals
have been exempt from all foreign competition--that is, from the
competition of casual colonists--when it does come it proves, in many
cases, fatal to them. Fortunately, this country's large size and
nearness to the mainland has prevented any such fatal crystallization of
its organisms as we see in islands like St. Helena. That any English
species would be exterminated by foreign competition is extremely
unlikely; whether we introduce exotic birds or not, the only losses we
shall have to deplore in the future will, like those of the past, be
directly due to our own insensate action in slaying every rare and
beautiful thing with powder and shot. From the introduction of exotic
species nothing is to be feared, but much to be hoped.

There is another point which should not be overlooked. It has after all
become a mere fiction to say that _all_ places are occupied. Nature's
nice order has been destroyed, and her kingdom thrown into the utmost
confusion; our action tends to maintain the disorderly condition, while
she is perpetually working against us to re-establish order. When she
multiplies some common, little-regarded species to occupy a space left
vacant by an artificially exterminated kind, the species called in as a
mere stop-gap, as it were, is one not specially adapted in structure and
instincts to a particular mode of life, and consequently cannot fully
and effectually occupy the ground into which it has been permitted to
enter. To speak in metaphor, it enters merely as a caretaker or ignorant
and improvident steward in the absence of the rightful owner. Again,
some of our ornamental species, which are fast diminishing, are fitted
from their peculiar structure and life habits to occupy places in nature
which no other kinds, however plastic they may be, can even partially
fill. The wryneck and the woodpecker may be mentioned; and a still
better instance is afforded by the small, gem-like kingfisher--the
only British bird which can properly be described as gem-like.
When the goldfinch goes--and we know that he is going rapidly--other
coarser fringilline birds, without the melody, brightness, and charm of
the goldfinch--sparrow and bunting--come in, and in some rough fashion
supply its place; but when the kingfisher disappears an important place
is left absolutely vacant, for in this case there is no coarser bird of
homely plumage with the fishing instinct to seize upon it. Here, then,
is an excellent opportunity for an experiment. In the temperate regions
of the earth there are many fine kingfishers to select from; some are
resident in countries colder than England, and are consequently very
hardy; and in some cases the rivers and streams they frequent are
exceedingly poor in fish. Some of them are very beautiful, and they vary
in size from birds no larger than a sparrow to others as large as a
pigeon.

Anglers might raise the cry that they require all the finny inhabitants
of our waters for their own sport. It is scarcely necessary to go as
deeply into the subject as mathematical-minded Mudie did to show that
Nature's lavishness in the production of life would make such a
contention unreasonable. He demonstrated that if all the fishes hatched
were to live their full term, in twenty-four years their production
power would convert into fish (two hundred to the solid foot) as much
matter as there is contained in the whole solar system--sun, planets,
and satellites! An "abundantly startling" result, as he says. To be well
within the mark, ninety-nine out of every hundred fishes hatched must
somehow perish during that stage when they are nothing but suitable
morsels for the kingfisher, to be swallowed entire; and a portion of all
this wasted food might very well go to sustain a few species, which
would be beautiful ornaments of the waterside, and a perpetual delight
to all lovers of rural nature, including anglers. It may be remarked in
passing, that the waste of food, in the present disorganized state of
nature, is not only in our streams.

The introduction of one or more of these lovely foreign kingfishers
would not certainly have the effect of hastening the decline of our
native species; but indirectly it might bring about a contrary result--a
subject to be touched on at the end of this paper. Practical naturalists
may say that kingfishers would be far more difficult to procure than
other birds, and that it would be almost impossible to convey them to
England. That is a question it would be premature to discuss now; but if
the attempt should ever be made, the difficulties would not perhaps be
found insuperable. In all countries one hears of certain species of
birds that they invariably die in captivity; but when the matter is
closely looked into, one usually finds that improper treatment and not
loss of liberty is the cause of death. Unquestionably it would be much
more difficult to keep a kingfisher alive and healthy during a long
sea-voyage than a common seed-eating bird; but the same may be said of
woodpeckers, cuckoos, warblers, and, in fact, of any species that
subsists in a state of nature on a particular kind of animal food.
Still, when we find that even the excessively volatile humming-bird,
which subsists on the minutest insects and the nectar of flowers, and
seems to require unlimited space for the exercise of its energies, can
be successfully kept confined for long periods and conveyed to distant
countries, one would imagine that it would be hard to set a limit to
what might be done in this direction. We do not want hard-billed birds
only. We require, in the first place, variety; and, secondly, that every
species introduced, when not of type unlike any native kind, as in the
case of the pheasant, shall be superior in beauty, melody, or some other
quality, to its British representative, or to the species which comes
nearest to it in structure and habits. Thus, suppose that the
introduction of a pigeon should be desired. We know that in all
temperate regions, these birds vary as little in colour and markings as
they do in form; but in the vocal powers of different species there is
great diversity; and the main objects would therefore be to secure a
bird which would be an improvement in this respect on the native kinds.
There are doves belonging to the same genus as stock-dove and
wood-pigeon, that have exceedingly good voices, in which the peculiar
mournful dove-melody has reached its highest perfection--weird and
passionate strains, surging and ebbing, and startling the hearer with
their mysterious resemblance to human tones. Or a Zenaida might be
preferred for its tender lament, so wild and exquisitely modulated, like
sobs etherealized and set to music, and passing away in sigh-like sounds
that seem to mimic the aerial voices of the wind.

When considering the character of our bird population with a view to its
improvement, one cannot but think much, and with a feeling almost of
dismay, of the excessive abundance of the sparrow. A systematic
persecution of this bird would probably only serve to make matters
worse, since its continued increase is not the cause but an effect of a
corresponding decrease in other more useful and attractive species; and
if Nature is to have her way at all there must be birds; and besides, no
bird-lover has any wish at see such a thing attempted. The sparrow has
his good points, if we are to judge him as we find him, without allowing
what the Australians and Americans say of him to prejudice our minds.
Possibly in those distant countries he may be altogether bad,
resembling, in this respect, some of the emigrants of our species, who,
when they go abroad, leave their whole stock of morality at home. Even
with us Miss Ormerod is exceedingly bitter against him, and desires
nothing less than his complete extirpation; but it is possible that this
lady's zeal may not be according to knowledge, that she may not know a
sparrow quite so well as she knows a fly. At all events, the
ornithologist finds it hard to believe that so bad an insect-catcher is
really causing the extinction of any exclusively insectivorous species.
On her own very high authority we know that the insect supply is not
diminishing, that the injurious kinds alone are able to inflict an
annual loss equal to £10,000,000 on the British farmer. To put aside
this controversial matter, the sparrow with all his faults is a pleasant
merry little fellow; in many towns he is the sole representative of wild
bird life, and is therefore a great deal to us--especially in the
metropolis, in which he most abounds, and where at every quiet interval
his blithe chirruping comes to us like a sound of subdued and happy
laughter. In London itself this merriment of Nature never irritates; it
is so much finer and more aerial in character than the gross jarring
noises of the street, that it is a relief to listen to it, and it is
like melody. In the quiet suburbs it sounds much louder and without
intermission. And going further afield, in woods, gardens, hedges,
hamlets, towns--everywhere there is the same running, rippling sound
of the omnipresent sparrow, and it becomes monotonous at last. We have
too much of the sparrow. But we are to blame for that. He is the
unskilled worker that Nature has called in to do the work of skilled
hands, which we have foolishly turned away. He is willing enough to take
it all on himself; his energy is great; he bungles away without ceasing;
and being one of a joyous temperament, he whistles and sings in his
tuneless fashion at his work, until, like the grasshopper of
Ecclesiastes, he becomes a burden. For how tiring are the sight and
sound of grasshoppers when one journeys many miles and sees them
incessantly rising like a sounding cloud before his horse, and hears
their shrill notes all day from the wayside! Yet how pleasant to listen
to their minstrelsy in the green summer foliage, where they are not too
abundant! We can have too much of anything, however charming it may be
in itself. Those who live where sceres of humming-birds are perpetually
dancing about the garden flowers find that the eye grows weary of seeing
the daintiest forms and brightest colours and liveliest motions that
birds exhibit. We are told that Edward the Confessor grew so sick of the
incessant singing of nightingales in the forest of Havering-at-Bower
that he prayed to Heaven to silence their music; whereupon the birds
promptly took their departure, and returned no more to that forest until
after the king's death. The sparrow is not so sensitive as the legendary
nightingales, and is not to be got rid of in this easy manner. He is
amenable only to a rougher kind of persuasion; and it would be
impossible to devise a more effectual method of lessening his
predominance than that which Nature teaches--namely to subject him to
the competition of other and better species. He is well equipped for the
struggle--hardy, pugnacious, numerous, and in possession. He would not
be in possession and so predominant if he had not these qualities, and
great pliability of instinct and readiness to seize on vacant places.
Nevertheless, even with the sturdy sparrow a very small thing might turn
the scale, particularly if we were standing by and putting a little
artificial pressure on one side of the balance; for it must be borne in
mind that the very extent and diversity of the ground he occupies is a
proof that he does not occupy it effectually, and that his position is
not too strong to be shaken. It is not probable that our action in
assisting one side against the other would go far in its results; still,
a little might be done. There are gardens and grounds in the suburbs of
London where sparrows are not abundant, and are shyer than the birds of
other species, and this result has been brought about by means of a
little judicious persecution. Shooting is a bad plan, even with an
air-gun; its effects are seen by all the birds, for they see more from
their green hiding-places than we imagine, and it creates a general
alarm among them. Those who wish to give the other birds a chance will
only defeat their own object by shooting the sparrows. A much better
plan for those who are able to practise it prudently is to take their
nests, which are more exposed to sight than those of other birds; but
they should be taken after the full complement of eggs have been laid,
and only at night, so that other birds shall not witness the robbery and
fear for their own treasures. Mr. Henry George, in that book of his
which has been the delight of so many millions of rational souls,
advocates the destruction of all sharks and other large rapacious
fishes, after which, he says, the ocean can be stocked with salmon,
which would secure an unlimited supply of good wholesome food for the
human race. No such high-handed measures are advocated here with regard
to the sparrow. Knowledge of nature makes us conservative. It is so very
easy to say, "Kill the sparrow, or shark, or magpie, or whatever it is,
and then everything will be right." But there are more things in nature
than are dreamt of in the philosophy of the class of reformers
represented by the gamekeeper, and the gamekeeper's master, and Miss
Ormerod, and Mr. Henry George. Let him by all means kill the sharks, but
he will not conquer Nature in that way: she will make more sharks out of
something else--possibly out of the very salmon on which he proposes to
regale his hungry disciples. To go into details is not the present
writer's purpose; and to finish with this part of the subject, it is
sufficient to add that in the very wide and varied field occupied by the
sparrow, in that rough, ineffectual manner possible to a species having
no special and highly perfected feeding instincts, there is room for the
introduction of scores of competitors, every one of which should be
better adapted than the sparrow to find a subsistence at that point or
that particular part of the field where the two would come into rivalry;
and every species introduced should also possess some quality which
would make it, from the aesthetic point of view, a valuable addition to
our bird life. This would be no war of violence, and no contravention of
Nature's ordinances, but, on the contrary, a return to her safe,
healthy, and far-reaching methods.

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