Part 18

The rook is common throughout the British Islands, and is our best-known large land bird, being everywhere the most abundant species, as well as the most conspicuous, owing to his great size, blackness, gregariousness, and habits of perching and nesting on the tops of trees, and of feeding on open grass spaces, where it is visible at a long distance. Without being a favourite of either the gamekeeper or the farmer, he is, in a measure, a protected species, the rookery being looked on as a pleasant and almost indispensable appanage of the country-house. It was not always so. In former times the rook was regarded as a highly injurious bird, and in the reign of Henry VIII. an Act of Parliament was passed to ensure its destruction. But this is ancient history. The existing sentiment, which is so favourable to the bird, probably had its origin centuries back in time, and the rook has everywhere come to regard the trees that are near a human habitation as the safest to build on. It is surprising to find how fearless of man he is in this respect, while retaining a suspicious habit towards him when at a distance from home. I recall one rookery on a clump of fir-trees so close to a large house that, from the top windows, one can look down on the nests and count the eggs in many of them; yet for miles round the area is a well-wooded park, where the birds might easily have found scores of sites as well or better suited to their requirements.

[Illustration: FIG. 56.--ROOKS AND NEST.]

The birds usually return to the rookery in February, and in March, or even earlier if the weather should prove mild, they begin to repair the old nests and build new ones. The nests are placed on the topmost branches of the tree--elm, oak, birch, or fir; but an elm-tree is generally made choice of. The tree to suit the rook must be tall--if possible, the tallest tree in the place--for it is the instinct of the bird not only to have his house far out of reach of all possible terrestrial enemies, but so placed that a wide and uninterrupted view of earth and sky may be obtained from it. As things now are his winged enemies do him little hurt, but it was not always so. In the next place, the branches must afford a suitable foundation to build on: they must be strong, and forked, so as to hold the fabric securely during high winds and sudden violent storms; furthermore, there must be a clear space above or at the side, to enable the bird to approach and leave it without striking against the surrounding boughs. It is a well-known fact that rooks will desert a rookery when the trees are decaying, even when, to a human eye, they appear sound. The most probable explanation which has yet been offered of this fact is, that a considerable amount of pliancy in the branches is necessary for the safety of the nest; for if the branches do not yield and sway to the force of the wind, the nest is in danger of being blown bodily out of its place: in the decaying tree the upper branches become too stiff, from the insufficient supply of sap.

The building and repairing time is one of great and incessant excitement in the rookery; and it is curious to note that birds of such a social disposition, and able to live together in concord at all other times, are at this period extremely contentious. As a rule, when one bird is abroad foraging for sticks, his mate remains on guard at the nest. Among these watchers and the birds that are leaving and arriving there is much loud cawing, which sounds like ‘language,’ in the slang sense of the word; and it might appear that they were all at strife, and each one fighting for himself. But it may be observed that a majority of the birds respect each other’s rights, and never come into collision, and that there are others, in most cases a very few, who depart from these traditions, and are, like freebooters, always on the watch to plunder sticks from their neighbours’ nests, instead of going afield to gather them. The presence of these objectionable members of the community may account for some of the curious episodes in the life of the rookery--as, for instance, the fact that all the birds will sometimes combine to persecute one pair, and demolish their nest again and again as fast as it is made.

The nest, when completed, is a large structure, two feet or more in diameter, made of sticks, and lined with dry grass. The eggs are four to six in number, and are bluish green, spotted and blotched with greyish purple and dull brown.

During incubation the male assiduously feeds his sitting mate, and occasionally changes places with her; and after the young are out of the shells both parents are engaged incessantly in collecting food for them. From early morning until dark they may be seen flying to and from the rookery, on each return journey carrying a cluster of worms and grubs in the mouth.

When the young are fully fledged they are seen perching awkwardly on the branches near the nest, occasionally making short, tentative flights, and apparently anxious to go forth into that wide green world spread out beneath their cradle and watch-tower. They are, happily, ignorant of the doom that awaits them; for the time is now near when the blood-tax must be levied on the community--the price which is paid for protection; and, the young only being eatable, the slaughter must fall on them. As a rule, a few of the young escape death, as, when the shooting begins, and the old birds rise in haste to scatter in all directions, a few of the most advanced young birds that are already strong on the wing follow their parents to a place of safety.

After the breeding season, which is usually over at the beginning of June, the rookery is forsaken; in some cases the birds disappear, and do not return until the next spring; more often they pay an occasional visit to the rookery, and some rookeries are visited almost daily by the birds. But for the rest of the year their roosting-place is elsewhere, often at a considerable distance. In districts where rooks are abundant there is generally one great roosting-place, where the communities inhabiting the country for many miles around are accustomed to congregate at the end of each day. As the evening draws near the birds begin to arrive from two, or three, or more directions, in detachments or long, loose trains, flying steadily, at an equal height above the ground. Where they settle the tree-tops are black with their numbers; and as fresh contingents pour in the noise of the cawing grows louder and more continuous, until it is in volume like the sound of a surging sea. At intervals large numbers of birds rise up, to hang like a black cloud above the trees for some minutes, but as the evening darkens they all finally settle down for the night; still, in so vast an assemblage there are always many waking individuals, and a noise of subdued cawing may be heard throughout the hours of darkness. With the returning light there is a renewal of the loud noise and excitement, as the birds rise up and wheel about in the air before setting out on their journey to their distant feeding-grounds.

Raven.

Corvus corax.

[Illustration: FIG. 57.--RAVEN. ¹⁄₁₂ natural size.]

Black with purple reflections; tail black; iris with two circles, the inner grey, the outer ash-brown. Length, twenty-five inches.

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The raven has the reputation, true or false, of being one of the longest-lived birds; certainly it is one of the hardiest, and capable of adapting itself to the greatest extremes of temperature. Its range in the northern hemisphere extends from the regions of ‘thick-ribbed ice’ to the damp, hot woods and burning coasts of Southern Mexico and Central America. The tropical jaguar may help it to a meal at one extremity of its range, the polar bear at the other. Compared to such diversities of climate and of other conditions, those of the British Islands are as nothing. From the Isle of Wight and the southern coast to the northern extremity of Scotland, and beyond, to ‘utmost Kilda’s lonely isle,’ the raven has lived in what, to a bird of his grit, must have been a very pleasant garden with a mild and equable temperature throughout the year. Formerly he was a fairly common bird in all parts of our island, and it is probable that some protection was accorded to him by owners of large estates, in spite of his evil reputation, on account of some such sentiment as now exists with regard to the rook. A pair of ravens in a woodland district, Seebohm says, ‘was often considered the pride and pest of the parish.’ But the sentiment, if it existed, was not strong enough, and the constant persecution of the bird by its two principal enemies, the gamekeeper and the shepherd, joined by a third during the present century in the ‘collector,’ has gradually driven it from all, or well-nigh all, its ancient inland haunts, and it now exists in its last strongholds, the rugged iron-bound sea-coast on the northern coasts of Scotland and the neighbouring islands. A few--a very few--pairs are still to be met with on some of the cliffs on the south and south-west coasts of England, and on the Welsh coast; but even in the rudest and most solitary localities inhabited by it the bird can keep its hold on life only by means of a wariness and sagacity exceeding that of most other wild and persecuted species.

Like most of the members of its family, the raven is omnivorous, feeding indiscriminately on grubs, worms, insects, grain, fruit, carrion, and animal food of all kinds. Being so much bigger and more powerful than other crows, with a larger appetite to satisfy, he is more rapacious in his habits, and bolder in attacking animals of large size. He will readily attack a small lamb left by its dam, and pick out its eyes; but, as a rule, his attacks on lambs and sheep are confined to the very young and to the sickly or dying. He also attacks hares, rabbits, and birds of various kinds, when he finds them ailing or wounded by shot. He is fond of eggs, as well as of nestlings, and plunders the nests of the sea-birds that inhabit the cliffs in his neighbourhood. But the greatest part of his food consists of dead animal matter cast up by the sea, and carrion of all kinds: a dead sheep will afford him pasture for some days, and keep him out of mischief--for he can be hawk or vulture as occasion offers.

In appearance the raven is a larger rook or carrion crow; he is a fine bird, and his large size, the uniform blackness of his plumage, and his deep, harsh, and human-like, croaking voice, strongly impress the imagination. But the effect produced on the mind by the raven is, doubtless, in part due to the bird’s reputation, to its ancient historical fame, its large place in our older literature, and to the various sombre superstitions connected with it. When feeding on a carcase his appearance is not engaging: there is a lack of dignity in his sidling or ‘loping’ motions, and savage haste in tearing at the flesh, with a startled look round after each morsel. When disturbed from his repast the slow, cumbrous, flapping flight as he rises strongly reminds you of the vulture. He makes a nobler figure when soaring high in the air, or along the face of some huge beetling cliff that fronts the sea; for then his flight has power and ease as he falls and rises, playing, like a giant chough or jackdaw, with his mate.

The raven pairs for life, and uses the same nest year after year. A pair or two may still breed in a tree somewhere in Scotland or in the north of England, but, in almost all cases, the bird now makes his nest on a ledge of rock on some cliff on the sea-coast. It is a rude, bulky structure, formed of sticks and heather, and lined with grass and wool. The eggs are four to six in number, bluish green in ground-colour, more or less thickly spotted and marked with dark olive-brown.

The raven is the earliest bird to breed in this country: the nest-building begins in January, and the eggs are laid in February or March.

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Besides the eight species described, a ninth member of the corvine family has been included among British birds; this is the nutcracker (_Nucifraga caryocatactes_), a very irregular straggler to our shores from northern Europe.

Skylark.

Alauda arvensis.

Upper parts varied with three shades of brown, the darkest of which lies along the shaft of each feather; a faint whitish streak over the eye; throat white; under parts yellowish white tinged with brown; the throat and sides of neck with dark brown lanceolate spots, which form a gorget just above the breast. Length, seven inches and a quarter.

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[Illustration: FIG. 58.--SKYLARK. ⅓ natural size.]

The skylark is so universally diffused in these islands, and so abundant, well known, and favourite a species, that anything beyond a brief and prosaic account of its habits would appear superfluous. His image, better than any pen can portray it, already exists in every mind. A distinguished ornithologist, writing of the sparrow, declines to describe its language, and asks his reader to open his window and hear it for himself. In like manner, I may ask my reader to listen to the lark’s song, which exists registered in his own brain. For he must have heard it times without number, this being a music which, like the rain and sunshine, falls on all of us. If someone, too curious, should desire me not to concern myself with the images and registered sensations of others’ brains, but to record here my own impressions and feelings, I could but refer him to Shelley’s ‘Ode to a Skylark,’ which describes the bird at his best--the bird, and the feeling produced on the listener. Some ornithologist (I blush to say it) has pointed out that the poet’s description is unscientific and of no value; nevertheless, it embodies what we all feel at times, although we may be without inspiration, and have only dull prose for expression. It is true there are those who are not moved by nature’s sights and sounds, even in her ‘special moments,’ who regard a skylark merely as something to eat with a delicate flavour. It is well, if we desire to think the best that we can of our fellows, to look on such persons as exceptions, like those, perhaps fabled, monsters of antiquity who feasted on nightingales’ tongues and other strange meats.

The skylark inhabits open places, and is to be met with on pastures, commons, downs, and mountain slopes; but he prefers arable land, and is most abundant in cultivated districts. In winter his song may be occasionally heard in mild weather; in February it becomes more frequent, and increases until the end of March, when it may be said that his music is at full flood; and at this high point it continues for several months, during which time successive broods are reared. A more inexhaustible singer than the lark does not exist; and when we consider how abundant and widely diffused the bird is, the number of months during which he is vocal, and the character of the song--a rapid torrent of continuous sound--it is almost possible to believe that the melody from this one species actually equals in amount that from all the other song-birds together.

The nest, made in April, is a slight hollow in the ground in a cornfield, or among the grass of a meadow, or any open place, and is composed of dry grass and moss, lined with fine grass and horsehair. The eggs are four or five in number, greyish white, spotted and clouded with greenish brown. Two or three broods are reared.

In September the skylarks begin to assemble in flocks and shift their ground. At this season they migrate in large numbers; but many remain throughout the year, except in the more northern districts. Large flocks of migrants from the Continent also appear during the winter months.

In winter the lark feeds chiefly on seeds; in summer he is an insect as well as a seed eater.

Woodlark.

Alauda arborea.

Upper parts reddish brown, the centre of each feather dark brown; a distinct yellowish white streak above the eye, extending to the back part of the head; under parts yellowish white streaked with dark brown. Tail very short. Length, six and a half inches.

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In appearance the woodlark is a lesser skylark, with a shorter tail in proportion to the body, and no apparent difference in colour, except that the spots on the breast and the pale streak over the eye are more conspicuous. It ranks with the six or eight finest British songsters, but is the least known of all. The tree-pipit, sometimes called woodlark, is a much better known songster. When the woodlark is seen and heard he is taken by most people for the skylark. The mistake is easily made, the song having the same character, and is a continuous stream of jubilant sound, delivered in the same manner; for the woodlark, too, soars, ‘and soaring, sings.’ He differs from the skylark in his manner of rising: that bird goes up and up, not quite vertically, but inclining now to this side, now to that, with intervals of suspension, but still as if drawn heavenwards by an invisible cord or magnet; the woodlark ascends in circles, and finally does not attain to so great a height. He also sings on his perch on a tree, and rises from the tree to sing aloft, and in this habit he is like the tree-pipit. Although the woodlark’s song resembles that of the larger bird in character, there is more sameness in the flow of sounds, and it is not so powerful; on the other hand, the sounds are sweeter in quality. Of the two, he is the more constant singer, and may be heard in mild weather throughout the autumn and winter months. His usual call is a melodious double note.

The woodlark is very local in its distribution; it is nowhere common, and its range in this country is a somewhat limited one. In the north of England it is very rare, and in Scotland it has only once been observed breeding. In Ireland it breeds in some localities. It inhabits wooded parks and the borders of woods and commons, and grass-lands in the vicinity of trees and hedgerows; for although it feeds, roosts, and nests on the ground, it must, like the tree-pipit, have trees to perch on; and, like that bird, it has a favourite perch, where it may be confidently looked for at any hour of the day during the spring and summer months.

The nest is placed in a slight hollow in the ground, under a bush, or sheltered by grass and herbage, and is formed of dry grass and moss, and lined with finer grass and hair. The eggs are four or five in number, buffish or faint greenish white in ground-colour, freckled and spotted with reddish brown, with purple-grey under-markings. Three, and even four, broods are said to be reared in the season.

In autumn and winter the woodlarks unite in families or small flocks, and at this season they have a partial or internal migration, the birds that breed in the northern counties moving south. In the southern and south-western counties they remain stationary, and it is observed that during a spell of mild weather in winter these small flocks break up, but re-form at the return of cold.

Besides the two indigenous larks, we have as rare stragglers the following four species: the crested lark (_Alauda cristata_), an inhabitant of Europe and Asia; the short-toed lark (_Calendrella brachydactyla_), from southern Europe; the white-winged lark (_Melanocorypha sibirica_), a Siberian species, obtained once in England; and the shore-lark (_Otocorys alpestris_), an irregular winter visitor from North Europe, Asia, and America.

Swift.

Cypselus apus.

Sooty brown; chin greyish white; tarsi feathered; bill, feet, and claws shining black. Length, seven and a half inches.

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The swift arrives in this country about the end of April or early in May, and from that time onwards, throughout the spring and summer months, day after day, from morning until evening, he may be seen overhead, in twos, threes, and half-dozens, pursuing his mad, everlasting race through the air. Even as late as ten o’clock in the evening, or later, when his form can no longer be followed by the straining sight, his shrill, exulting cry may be heard at intervals, now far off, and now close at hand, showing that the daylight hours of these northern latitudes are not long enough to exhaust his wonderful energy. It has even been supposed by some naturalists that, when not incubating, he spends the entire night on the wing. This is hard to believe; but if we consider his rate of speed, and the number of hours he visibly spends on the wing, it would be within the mark to say that the swift, in a sense, ‘puts a girdle round the earth’ two or three times a month. Year after year the swifts return to the same localities to breed, and there are few towns, villages, hamlets, or even isolated mansions and farmhouses in the British Islands where this bird is not a summer guest. The bunch of swifts to be seen rushing round the tower of every village church are undoubtedly the same birds, or their descendants, that have occupied the place from time immemorial; and it is probable that the annual increase is just sufficient to make good the losses by death each year. It is hard to believe that a life so strenuous can last very long, and impossible to believe that birds so free of the air are subject to many fatal accidents. A spell of intense frost is very fatal to them in spring, but the cold is their only enemy in this country.

The black swift, or ‘develing,’ or ‘screecher,’ as he is sometimes named, with his exceedingly long, stiff, scythe-shaped wings, still ‘urging his wild career’ through the air, is a figure familiar to everyone. And his voice, too, is a familiar sound to every ear. It is usually described as a harsh scream. Wild and shrill and piercing it certainly is, but it varies greatly with the bird’s emotions, and is at times a beautiful silvery sound, which many would hear with delight if uttered by the song-thrush or nightingale.

The swift breeds in holes in church-towers and in houses, its favourite site being under the eaves of a thatched cottage; it also nests in crevices in the sides of chalk-pits and sea-cliffs, and sometimes in hollow trees. A slight nest of straw and feathers, made to adhere together with the bird’s saliva, is built, and two eggs are laid; they are oval in form, white in colour, and have rough shells. One brood only is reared in the season, and the birds depart at the end of August, but stragglers may be met with as late as October.

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