COUNTRY LIFE
The Fen Harvest This year's harvest is a very beautiful spectacle, esRecially in the Fen Country, and indeed the heavy clay-land that .ringes the Eastern Fens on the inland side. The wheats are magnificent, in bulk, in colour and in quality. A great number of the cornfields are separated by large areas of sugar- beet, which has brought good profits in the last few years, and that, too, looks flourishing today, though at one time the very worst was feared. It would surprise many people, not well acquainted with the Fens, to see how much land, even on larger farms, is planted with celery. Most of the wheat is in stook and a short period of dry weather would be invaluable.
Water-Bird Warfare By the side of a large pond, once the moat of a country house, vanished these hundreds of years, a pair of wild duck hatched out this spring an enormous family. They are now reduced to two. Their chief and most mortal enemy was a bird that had also bred a large family in the rushes by the same pond. It belongs to a species that appears to be steadily relapsing to barbarism and the habits of the jungle. The young mallard were almost all.killed by the moor-hen, which were caught red-handed (or red-headed) in the act. It is hard to understand why one water-bird should kill another water-bird' simply for wantonness. The moor-hen pecked the young duck to death and left the bodies where the dastard deed was done. There was, of-course, no question of feeding on the prey. ' It happens that I have lately come upon several examples of such aimless destructiveness on the part of the moor-hen.- -In a Norfolk sanctuary the moor-hen have attacked not the young' but the eggs of the duck. They give each egg a peck or two, as if solely with the idea of sterilisation. I have seen eggs- so punctured and the hole was so small in girth as to rule out the theory that the eggs were broken for purposes of " oval suction." The moor-hen were not the only mortal enemies of. the duck on the pond. One or two were known to have been killed by the small. Spanish owls.
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The Balance of Nature The explanation is, perhaps, the old one, that the morality of birds goes to pieces if they are over-numerous. The moor-hen were very carefully preserved on this midland pond, their eggs covered up when thought advisable and all enemies kept at bay. They were the spoilt children of the place. This protection, given to birds whose families are of enormous proportions,. had probably multiplied the birds beyond a natural population. Comparative examples are many. If the rookeries flourish exceedingly, the rooks take on the character of the carrion crow, and destroy both eggs and young birds, which else are quite foreign to their dietary. In places coot have multiplied even more exorbitantly than the moor-hen and have now become a real menace on some of the urban reservoirs. Sparrows, tits and finches, like squirrels, rooks and little owls, all extend their catholicity of taste when their numbers are excessive. A very scientific enquiry into this subject was made many years ago in Hungary (by M. Svetozar, I think) in regard el to the rook. ,The chief enquirer was himself a farmer ; and he came to the conclusion, based on a large sum of evidence, that the rook was among the most beneficent of birds till it became over-numerous. Then it proved an enemy both to grain crops and young birds. As a rule in England the balance is nicely kept.
* * * * A Rectory Record
A good example of the discoveries made by those scientific researchers who ring the legs of birds, is contained in the records of one country garden on the borders of the Fens. One swallow ringed as a nestling was found four years later in the Orange Free State. It had probably taken this immense journey twice since it was ringed. This likelihood is made more likely by another record from the same Huntingdonshire garden. A swallow ringed in the garden one year was caught on her nest in the same garden the next year, and thus further proof supplied that the swallows are wont to return not only to the same district but to the same spot. A journey of 4,000 miles each may does not disturb the memory or alter the
affection for home. The way of a swallow in the air is inu.:11 more wonderful than the Solomonic wonder of the way of an eagle : the mechanics of flight are less admirable than the affectionate fidelity of the mind.
Rare Visitors New friends among birds as well as old have been welcomed among the visitors of the year. An observer, who had time only for a short visit to a Norfolk sanctuary, saw the other day both avocets and spoonbills. That marvellous chain of sanctuaries—Scolt Head, Blakeney Spit, Cley—and the inter- vening marshes and flats are progressively exerting their influence on birds that had at one time quite deserted their English haunts. The bittern is common ; the spoonbill becomes a regular visitor, and we may soon see nesting pairs of the ruff and reeve. Over these sanctuaries, watchers, both amateur and professional, " keep watch and ward " against collectors of eggs and skins, and the promiscuous longshore gunman. Birds will discover even small isolated sanctuaries ; but contiguous sanctuaries of wide scope are almost necessary for the attraction of bigger and wilder birds. On this account alone a great debt is owed to Dr. Long, the founder of the Norfolk Trust, and everyone will wish him a quick return to health.
* * * * The Cache A small but very valuable bag of pea seed containing the results of twenty-five years of careful selection was fotind at sowing time to be completely empty. A mouse had made a small hole and carried off or eaten the whole of the contents. The research-worker could find only four seeds, so thoroughly had the mouse or mice done their work. Knowing the habit of the mouse to make store-heaps he searched all likely nooks, but in vain. This summer he noticed an unexpected leaf or two. protruding from a patch of aubrietia on his rock garden; and, lifting the mat of stems and leaf, uncovered a number of pea seedlings; which presently proved to be of the precious variety; and also a heap of ungerminated seed which sprouted successfully when sown. By this discovery the ruin of twenty- five years of work was averted ; and a satisfactory bulging bag of seed-pods is in being. It will be carefully protected ; but the ingenuity and gymnastic skill of rodents are difficult to baffle. For example : a number of heads of sweet corn of a- special sort were carefully suspended well away from the walls. They were nevertheless almost wholly consumed by rats or mice which jumped on to the seed heads from the narrow take off of a skirting board. The feat was worthy of a
flying squirrel.
* * * * In the Garden Most of us are too little imaginative, too conventional in our gardens, especially our potagers. The number of pleasant, earlier vegetables is very great ; the number included in most gardens is very small and hardly varies from year- to year. Some few exceptions are to be found. I visited last week a small garden presided over by a man of science who has a special fondness for France and a great love of experiment. His small plot' contained among other rarer things Portulaccas, the goosefoot known as Good King Henry (of Navarre ?), Chinese cucumber, the purple bean, a specially selected mange-tout pea, celeriac, varieties of endive, a large purple radish, of which the seedpods are found to be edible, and purslane. The practical value of some of these is a closed cookery book to me ; but two of them I have enjoyed at the table, and both seem to me well worthy of a place, I mean Good King Henry and purslane. Purslane has a double virtue. It is excellent as a salad plant (better even than the wild sorrel, a much neglected weed), and it is excellent when cooked as a green vegetable. The whole of the stalk and leaf is edible whether before or after cooking ; and it resembles such a plant as lucerne in its re-emergence. You may cut the same plant three times within the season. The garden contained also a number of sweet-smelling herbs, one of them, discovered growing wild in Spain, near Barcelona. A garden growing such things is not only beautiful or useful : it is also exciting.
W. BEACH THOMAS.
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