LITERARY SPECTATOR.
BIRDS,
" RISE up, my love, my fair one, and come away," says the royal poet to his Egyptian bride ;, " for lo ! the winter is past, the rain is over-gone; the flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing is come, and the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." We have no such marked distinction between our seasons as the rainy and the dry season of Judea presented ; but summer and winter, spring time and harvest, visit the Isles of the West by as sure a promise as they did the Holy Land ; and the indica- tions of their approach are not the less pleasing that they are more gradual. Of these the most grateful is that which forms the chiefest recommendation to out-of-doors activity in the beauti- ful pastoral of Solomon—" the time of the singing." It is a theory, that the singing of birds depends on the same cause as the gossiping of naturalists—that out of the abundance of the heart the mouth of the feathered as well as of the unfeathered biped speaketh. Birds that are kept encaged, and plentifully fed, cer- tainly warble much longer than those that are left to pick up scanty fare by burn and brae. But whether it be l' amour or la cuisine that gives utterance to the shrill note of the linnet, and the mellow whistle of the blackbird, is of small moment to him who listens with " purged ears" to the one or the other. To such a one, in- deed, all the stops of Nature's mighty organ are delightful. The deep low of the kine returning homeward—the bleat of the sheep on the upland pastures—the caw of the rook slowly winging his way eastward to his remembered tree—even the hoarse croak of the solitary " corbie" has music in it, to which the most exquisite harmonies of the musician are tame and the most finished execu- tion feeble. Birds, in particular, have a strong hold over the heart, exclusive of the melody which they pour and the season of prime which their melody accompanies. They are associated with our earliest sports, when fatigue was a stranger to our limbs and sorrow to our hearts—when the past was unembittered by re- morse, or the future by fear. Who does not look back with a sigh on those days, when miles of weary plodding over hill and dale, through bush and briar, watching the lighting of a linnet in one quarter, the starting of a thrush in another, were amply rewarded by the discovery of a nest with five eggs? How cautiously was the spot marked where the prize lurked ! how anxiously was it revisited! what joy was felt when it was " black sitting !" how eagerly was the first appearance of the callow young hailed, and with what triumph were the fledglings carried home Then, again, the singing of birds comes over us in company with images of waving woods and scented hedgerows, and thymy banks, and winnowybbreezes—With all the pleasurei of those scenes where the
finger of Heaven is more.. especially manifest, and the strong yearning after which no length of prisonment in smoky towns " where works of man are closely clustered round" can sensibly diminish. It is passing sweet in itself, and it is associated with all that is goodly in life and in nature. It is not in towns, amid the discordant sounds of artificial life that the simple denizens of air can be listened to with advantage.)
• The British Naturalist. Vol. II. London, 1830. '
The outskirts of a country village in a chamRign country,' where trees and copses are iaiinerbiis, tint-not dense t for sorig-birds affect neither the wood nor the-wild), is the place where these compa- nions of the spring are truly at home; and he who would most exquisitely enjoy their untaught warblings must wake when they wake. In the.heat of noon-tide, when the insect' tribe are on the wing, the birds are too busy in procuring 'subsistence to attend to play. Then it is that the call of business is imperative, in the country as in the town ; and the merry lark chants not to the idle, but to the industrious. The morning is the time for enjoying the song of birds ; and he who would hear it in perfection i must not grudge to watch for it the livelong night. It is only in this way that the first starting note of the joyous concert, as well as its dying fall, can be heard. The nightingale is said to sing her amorous descant all night long ;. but there are not a few that go far to rival her in this respect. The thrush will often be heard after twilight has far advanced ; and later in the season; the song of the robin echoes round the cottage, when, from the dim decaying light, the body of the warbler can no longer be seen. Most of the other song-birds cease their notes when the disk of the sun sinks behind the western hills. About half-past nine, the thrush begins to nod on the bough, (we speak of those latitudes to which Phi- lomel comes not, and to which much of our author's experience ap- pears to have reference) : the only sound that strikes the ear from the time that she has ceased to charm it, is the cry of the land- rail. It is wonderful how brief is the interruption to the not un- pleasing " craik " of this singular bird. We have heard it until within a quo rter of twelve, and it sounded again by half-past twelve. This was in a part of the island, where, in the middle of June, there is twilight even at the noon of night. By one o'clock, or a very little after, there may be distinguished a few faint twitters at intervals. These are the gathering-call of the lark. At first it does not soar as it sings. The sound is as it were the dream of its day-song. By two, it springs from the dewy daisy which had bent under its breast, to greet the sun 'from the gates of heaven. For some time the early chorister is unaccompanied. Gradually, however, as it rises, the light increases ; the cold blue streak in the far north-east begins to change to red ; the breath of morn blows cool ; the ruddy glow shoots upward ; at length the golden rim of the glorious sun touches the horizon ; and in an instant, as if roused by an electric shock, one universal matin-hymn bursts from every tree and bush, as far round as the ear can drink in the notes. The change from the solitary voicing of the lark to the universal chorus, in which
"The linnet, chaffinch, bulfinch, goldfinch, greenfinch, And all the finches of the grove,"
as Tilburina has it, bear their part, is exquisitely pleasing. For it may be noticed, that how various soever may be the notes of singing birds, they all harmonize ; there is infinite diversity of tone and of tune, but there is no discord. This universal_ burst of song continues for about a quarter of an hour, and then the silence becomes almost as perfect as it was before it was broken by the appearance of the sun. The little people having offered up their morning thanks, disperse in search of food; and though the parts of the chorus are taken up by numerous detached pipes in the course of the day, the whole is not rehearsed until another sun has once more given the signal. To those who would investigate the songs of particular birds, the evening is the best time ; for as the calm hour approaches, they one by one drop into silence, and their several excellencies may be the more easily appreciated. But if our readers, who have now the liberty which the charge of Ca- tering for their amusement denies to ourselves, of rambling o'er the fields, would hear the whole, they must do as we have been pointing out—watch a summer night for that purpose. We have been led into these somewhat discursive remarks, by the book whose title we quote below; which, among many other matters connected with the feathred creation, has some in- teresting notices on a numerous and eminently pleasing class of the English song-birds. The observations on the nightingale go far to rob that sweetest singer of much of the celebrity to which it has undeservedly attained; and those on the cuckoo, whose single note sounds so delightful in a calm summer-day, take away much of the marvellous from its history. We cannot, however, altogether agree with the ingenious author, that the sub- aqueous altogether of the swallow, and the conversion of a bar- nacle into a goose, are theories that, in the absence of contrary proof, claim an equal degree of credit with that of the " compa- nion of the spring," as LOGAN calls it. The notion that the cuckoo lays its egg in another bird's nest, is a very old and a very widely-received one ; and hence the description of its note, as a "word of fear," compared with which even the to-whit to-whoa of the staring owl is merry. That the bird is content to occupy the abandoned dwelling of any one of its neighbours that best suits itspurpose, seems undeniable. The story of the young cuckoo ejecting the weaker companions of its borrowed dwelling, is extremely doubtful ; and if ever, by chance, such a struggle has taken place as some naturalists . describe, it was probably occa- sioned, not by the instinctive hostility of the larger bird, but merely from want of room. - The author of the volume before us denies that there is any appearance of a hollow in the back of the Young. cuckoo, as has been pretended ; and he observes, that the Pairing-time of the hedge-sparrow and of the pipit precede that of the cuckoo ; so that the hatching of the eggs Of the latter by these birds is next to impossible. • Perhaps a minute investigation of the food of the two species would settle the-point in dispute. Touching what has been called the reasoning powers of animals, our author is, we -think, unreasonably sceptical. We are accus- tomed to say that acts and expressions that indicate connexion and design; when those acts and expressions appear in men,, spring from reason ; when they appear in animals; we say they spring from instinct. We care nothing about a word—the question is, does instinct really differ from reason in essence, or merely in degree ? 'Instinct varies with circumstances ; it is stronger in some individuals than in others ; it is susceptible of education. Birds in cages build their nests with little attention to warmth, and with none to security. In the domestic hen, the care which some birds exercise in protecting and providing for their young is sin- gularly great, compared with the stupidity and recklessness of others. great, shepherd's dog is, if we may so call it, the dux of his class ; he learns, with a facility which outruns instruction, every lesson that is communicated to him. Another is the dunce on whom kindness and severity are alike thrown away. Our author cites the elephant as an instance of reasoning power ; but the ex- ample is not in point. The trunk of the elephant gives it great advantages ; but deprived of that, it would seem a stupid beast. We forget what writer it is who says, that without that wonderful organ, the elephant would be no better than an overgrown hog,. which indeed it greatly resembles. The dog is a much more docile and tractable creature than the animal of India ; and though the stories of dogs are as numerous as those of the Arabian Nights, we feel tempted, in vindicating the ways of beasts to men, to add to the number. In our paternal mansion we had two spaniels,— the one very good-natured, and very intelligent ; the other very ill- natured, and very stupid, as ill-natured dogs, whether they go on four feet or on two, usually are. If the infant was left in the cradle unattended for a minute or half an hour, for the minute or the half hour did the good-tempered quadruped take its station by the baby's side—not to keep off all that approached it without discri- mination, but to keep off its crabbed brother, which, the sagacious animal knew, might, if patted or pulled about by the child, return the compliment by snapping at its fingers. In the village where a part of our youth was spent, a narrow street which led to the market-place passedthe end of the. house. There were always enow of greasy knaves loitering about to turn the cattle into the market-gate, but not al- ways to turn them into the street that led to it. When a drove came from the westward, the breadth of the way was so great that' a dog could easily pass the beasts and so head them ; but when they came from the eastward, it was so narrow that an attempt to pass would only have sent them scampering up all manner of streets. There was, however, a lane, turning first to the left and then to the right, by threading which a man or a dog might get into front without difficulty. Now, down that lane, as sure as it came to it, did one of the butchers dogs turn, and as invariably did it rest on the west side of the market-itreet, to pre- vent the cattle from passing further. But one case more. " I don't know if dogs understand reason or not," said an old cattle- dealer, "but I rather think they understand language. I have often tried an old dog of mine, when coming down by the Bowes brig. If I said .' Fittie, ware on the left,' to the left he went without ever making a mistake in his life. It was the. same if I was Now 1 have often spoken in an even tone, without waft of my hand or turn of my eye, to try him just ; but as sure as I told him to go to the right or the left, to the right or the left he went, as purpose-like as a body could. have done. They may speak of reason as they like, but no rational creature could do a bidding more discreetly, and make less din about it, than Effie could." We think it is of small importance, in such cases, whether we say the animal reasoned, or instincted. It is true that instinct has its limits ; and were it not that, with our finer and more com- plex organization, our wants grow still more rapidly than our dis- coveries, so would reason. The nest of the chaffinch was as neatly constructed, it may be, within the clefts of the branches of th.e- tree of knowledge, as it is after a lapse of six thousand years— but what then ? Must John Bull be the only animal in the crea- tion that has to boast of the wisdom of his ancestors ? In the matter of building, perhaps, even we rational bipeds may at last attain perfectibility. The genus NAS1f is not surely immortal. In some six thousand years more,
" Extinguishers may cease to pierce the sky, And dumpling domes to glad a Monarch's eye."
But we must have done. The present volume of the British Naturalist is in most respects equal, and in some points superior to the first. It is full of goodly and interesting matter, delivered in a pleasing style.
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