THE BIRDS OF OUR LAWNS.
" OPEN spaces," however popular with the feathered citizens of London, do not appeal universally to the birds of the country. A large number, including nearly all the warblers, never overcome the disinclination to move from cover which seems part of their natural temperament. Others, without any of this dread of the human eye, prefer open spaces which to our fancy are detestable. Goldfinches and linnets, for example, revel among the weedy mounds of old brickyards and disused quarry workings. The result ie that the bird population of the lawns by our country houses,
the prettiest "open spaces" in rural England, are a select and curiously assorted body, agreeing in a general liking for our society and the enjoyment of the lawns which we are at such pains to cut and roll constantly for their enjoyment, but with only a chance association with each other.
The point of view from which they regard this their favourite haunt, also differs. There is no doub', for instance, that the spatted flycatchers, the only dis- tant migrants which conic annually over the seas to enjoy a particular lawn, though there are a dozen other kinds which come to inhabit the shrubberies and garden, regard the turf as the bottom of a fine aerial pool, in which posts are set, with nets fastened to them, for the flycatchers to stand upon, and to dive thence into the air to catch the insects which rise from the grass, the bottom of the "pool," or fall down into it from the trees around. Flycatchers are increasing every year, largely because the area of lawn is in- creasing also, and the country is becoming more exactly what they want. They nest all round the lawns, and never move from them till migrating time. The water-wagtails, on the contrary, use the lawn as a flat hunting ground, the most perfect place imaginable on which to run after flies and catch them, that being their way of hunting. They bring the young to the lawns in successive families the instant that they can fly. This year the first broods were brought on June 1st. Starlings are also casual visitors, very busy, as a rule, in May every time that the grass is cut, and on wet days. They bring their broods there in June, and then depart. The regular "all the year round" lawn birds are the thrush family and the robins. Yet these are curiously fanciful in their choice. The great attraction of the turf to these birds is, that wherever grass is regularly cut and rolled there are ten times as many earthworms as on other land. It is a kind of worm-pie, with the cover taken off every time the mowing machine cats the grass. Yet redwings, which live on worms, never visit a lawn, and fieldfares will not even approach the house. Missel-thrashes, though far tamer than the two Northern species, do not as a rule use the lawn. except during the spring. In autumn and winter they seek food elsewhere. Only one of the finches, the chaffinch, regu- larly visits the grass plots, though the sparrow, and in London the wood-pigeon, have lately taken a fancy to sit on the soft grass, the sparrows making a merit of catching daddy-long- legs there as they come up through the stems. There is no doubt that the robins regard the lawn partly in the same light as we do, and choose it not only for domestic, but also for social, reasons, and because they prefer to assert them- selves and to eat their meals in public, and show the other birds what large and choice worms they live on. What our lawn birds lack is not character, but colour. Only the robin and the chaffinch approach the ideal in this respect. The steady refusal of the brilliant-hued bullfinch or the yellowhammer to show their tints on the green background is regrettable, because it is difficult to find a substitute. Several instances have lately been recorded of the successful domestication of some of the paroquets in gardens, where they have built and remained out of doors during the Bummer.
The peacock seems the natural ornament of paths and terraces rather than of lawns, and the golden pheasant is far too shy to show itself, even if let run free. Partridges, on the other hand, though not ornamental in colour, make a charming addition to the garden. If a covey be reared at the present time, they will remain perfectly tame and true to their home on the grass plot, feeding across it quietly in line morning and evening, and coming there during the midday heat to lie and rest, even if they fly into the fields later. The odd differences of likes and habits among some of our commonest birds are shown in the unaccountable dislike of some to appear in the open, even though they may have selected a nesting place which looks out on the cool and tempting turf. The writer recently " prospected " carefully in the trees and shrubs round a favourite lawn to find exactly what birds were nesting by its margin, which were seldom or never visible on its surface. Of four species which had nests and eggs, or young, adjacent to the lawn, three have never been seen on it. These are the linnet and the yellowhammer, both of which had nests in a large cedar, the lower boughs of which swept the turf, and the common wren. Two other garden species which live with us throughout the year, though one is scarce everywhere, are the greenfinch and the hawfinch. The latter is constitutionally shy, the shyest of all our small birds; and the greenfinch seems to share this feeling in some degree. We hare scarcely ever seen green- finches on the turf, even though their nests may be all round it. This summer, for example, we found four greenfinches' nests in trees overhanging a large tennis and croquet ground, yet during the whole time, though they could be watched sit- ting on their eggs, the birds were never visible from the windows. Once only have we seen a hawfinch on a lawn. He took advantage of a quiet wet morning (a favourite time with all lawn birds), when even wood-pigeons and rooks will come down into a croquet ground, to hop quietly about, cracking and eating kernels of wild cherries which lay on the turf. Garden birds are so constantly under our eyes that we can with difficulty believe that any part of their life escapes us ; yet it is among the most elusive. We can never be certain that our guests at Christmas are really the same as those which we fed in spring or autumn, or that the redbreast who comes for crumbs or sits in the leafless rose-bush may not have flown to us from as many hundreds of miles to the North, as the flycatchers, which came to the same lawn in summer, did from the far South. That the young robins migrate we know. Unless they did our gardens would be overrun by them. But where do the oversea robins spend the winter which arrive in autumn ? It is only lately that the arrival of these migrant robins has been noted. They are seen on the North Lincoln coast, near the Humber, swarming in the hedges near the sea, and haunting every piece of cover and thicket on the sand dunes and in the " marram " beds, and sheltering in the old wrecks that stud the sandbanks along the coast, more than a mile from land. Sometimes, in cold weather, the companies of newly-arrived robins will all fly to the sunny side of a hedge near the shore, and sit there, making the bank as bright as a flower border with the hundreds of red breasts. Where do these robins, whose arrival is thus seen and described by Mr. J. Cordearix, fly to for a winter home ? Without a doubt, to our English gardens, whence they depart again in spring for the North, probably from exactly the same point on the coast as that on which they alighted. This is a not a new phase in robin history, but merely one that we have recently learnt. In not one item of robin character will you find them tripping, even when crossing the sea. When they alight on a ship they take possession at once, and look upon the deck as a garden, however small the vessel. Two which alighted on a fishing smack, and spent a night and a day there, divided the boat between them, one sitting on the prow and the other on the stern, and if either flew into the other's territory the owner gave battle and drove him out. We doubt whether, except the common wren and the sparrow, we have a single garden bird which may not be regarded as an occasional or regular migrant, and even the wrens occasionally seek change of scene, for they have been known to appear in flocks on the Scilly Islands.
The young thrushes and blackbirds, the greenfinches, chaffinches, even the wood-pigeons, are wanderers, though a few of the cock chaffinches remain true to the garden all the winter through. Missel-thrushes come in yearly increasing numbers to winter with us. Bnt those which share the meal set out on the lawn in snow-time are not necessarily the birds hatched in the orchard in spring. These all wander off by the time the hay is cut, and join the flocks of young starlings in the meadows at midsummer.
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