HOME WALKS AND HOLIDAY RAMBLES.* THE pleasure we take in
a book of this sort, that deals with the every-day aspect of nature, and enters, as it were, into the private life of animals, regarding them less as species to be classified, or data for fresh theories, than as valuable friends and amusing ac- quaintance, is quite out of proportion to the literary or scien- tific skill it may display. Sound knowledge and an easy style doubtless render it yet more attractive; but mere gossip, as such, about the lower life that passes too often unnoticed around us, is as enticing to a certain order of minds as that personal talk with which the meditative poet refused "to season his fireside" more than sparingly, is to the world in general. We do not think that even Wordsworth would object to the style of gossip contained in the volume before us. If it does not greatly exercise the intellect, it gives it, at least, an innocent re- laxation. Scandal cannot creep into anecdotes of beast, bird, or insect; nor, while we discuss the characters of our dumb favour- ites, are we haunted (as is sometimes the case when our friends form the subject of analysis) by a dim consciousness of some- thing written somewhere of a charity that thinketh no evil.
The very harmlessness of the amusement, perhaps, may make it seem childish to some, who yet could not go to the length of "hating innocent pleasures;" but there are many who, not a little burdened by the weight of their "moral being," find it an un- speakable refreshment to lose the sense of it for a while among those who know nothing of care or responsibility, who are troubled by no doubts or scruples—those happy citizens of an in- voluntary world who realize most completely the enviable but imaginary description :— " Glad hearts without reproach or blot, That do Thy will, yet know it not."
It has been well observed that one cause of the universal popu larity of tin stage, and of the rest and delight men have ever found in good acting, may be sought for in the freer conditions under which life is carried on in the mimic than in the actual world. People there, moving in a sort of border land between truth and fiction, are not tied down by the conventionalities nor bound by the lesser moral rules of life. Things from them are accepted as right and fitting which would raise much sur- prise and reprobation if they took place in the circle of our ac- quaintance. Nature is allowed pretty free play, and if she does go a trifle wrong, we are ready to acquiesce good-humouredly in the answering plea that" to step aside is human." This vacating of the moral chair is a great relief to the mind, and if it is so where the difference between the two worlds is more imaginary than real, where we cannot, after all, get quite rid of the feel- ing of right and wrong th tt attache, itself to all actions professedly human, how much more must it be so where no painful sense of morality nosed intrude, where judgments of any kind are quite out of place. Our enjoyment of the cunning of daw or magpie need be spoilt by no fear of encouraging knavery. The crow that in Sir Emerson Tennent's capital story tricked the house-dog of his bone, leaving him howling with pain and disappointment, awakens our unmitigated admiration of hie ingenuity. We do not feel ourselves called upon to interfere between a couple of pugnacious robins, but, taking up at once the imaginary position of bottle-holders, we watch the pluck and obstinacy of the diminutive prize-fighters with complacent interest. The case, indeed, becomes strong in the story, we hope apocryphal,—related by our author on the authority of a French officer—of an eagle-owl who, after devouring both father and brother, ended by eating up her husband in the honeymoon; yet even here there is a certain satisfaction in the total absence of anything like conscience in the unamiable bird, and we are far from looking upon the piece of calf's liver that choked her finally as sent in judgment for her sins. Considered in this light, dogs are not to be recommended as desirable studies. They have, if not a conscience, something too like one to make them perfectly resting and satisfactory. We know a dog who, if reproached in ever so gentle a tone, hangs his head in mute dejection of spirits ; who, like human beings, is deeply ashamed of being found out, but will commit a pleasant sin if pretty sure of concealment. Cate are much more healthy subjects for recreative purposes; their selfishness is patent, and without re- pentance. Differences of disposition may be found even among them, and some cats are capable of disinterested attachment; but, • Home Walls and Holiday Ramlik& By the Bor. C. A. John; B. A., F. L. 8. London : I.ongnian and Co.
as a rule, their unscrupulousness is all that can be desired. Among birds the tom-tit and the robin come only second to the daw tribe. Mr. Johns gives an amusing account of a banquet he prepared and witnessed. We are tempted to extract it, both as showing the recreation to be found by merely looking out of window, and as a specimen of tho tone and style of the book.
"I procured a good lump of beef fat, perhaps a quarter of a pound, and with a stout string tied it firmly to one of the horizontal branches of an apple tree which stands close to my dining-room window, and watched the result from the inside. I had scarcely taken my stand when a red- breast appeared and set vigorously to work; but before he could have done much more than taste my fare a chaffinch alighted on a twig hard by, and gazed with eager look on the rich and bountiful supply. The redbreast desisted at once, and drove him angrily from the neighbour- hood ; but before he had returned another redbreast had spied out the store and was vigorously helping himself. Thereupon ensued a tussle in the air, and before that was concluded five or six more chaffinches dropped in for a meal. The scene now became most amusing. They fluttered like hawk-moths round the morsel, each, as the bone, or, more correctly, the fat of contention was left unoccupied, darting on it, picking off a minute portion, and flying off with it to a distant branch, the redbreasts faring decidedly the worst, either because they were not now so emboldened by hunger' having enjoyed a full meal off the crumbs which had been placed for their exclusive benefit on the sill of the kitchen window, or that their selfish pugnacity gained its desired end in spoiling the enjoyment of others. The scene was soon varied by the appearance of a great tit, who, stationing himself on tho meat, pegged away for many continuous minutes, regarding with supreme indifference, or not at all, the longing glances of the hungry party around him. The appearance of this tyrant unnerved even tile robins, who, though busy, occasionally made a feint of attacking the arch invader, took fright at the absence of all impression made on the enemy by their sallies, and, withdrawing to a respectful distance,. brooded over their discomfiture and loss of fame. The great tit hav- ing satisfied his hunger, departed, and the squabbling began again."
The great tit would seem to be a bird, not only of undoubted strength and courage, but of great intellectual capacities. Mr. Johns having hung a walnut by a string to the branch or an apple tree, watched the various devices of the hungry birds for seeming a portion of this moveable feast. The blue tits perched. head downwards according to their wont, and hammered away ; hedge-sparrows and robins picked up the pieces as they fell to the ground ; a nuthatch tried the force of his bill, but, swinging in vacancy, the nut avoided his heavy blows. A great tit now appeared, who, perching on the twig above the nut, seized hold of the string with his beak, and drew it up "as cleverly as a sailor would haul in a rope."
"For this purpose he on one occasion was observed to employ one of his feet in pulling up the string, the other being occupied in securing and pressing beneath it against the twig each turn as it was handed in. His usual method is, however, to haul up the string with his beak, and to place it turn by turn under his feet. The nut thus gradually rises to the twig on which he is standing, and he feeds away at his leisure. It is a solitary bird, I think, which adopts this plan, for though I have seen two engaged about the same nut, one clung to the nut itself, and while he was thus occupied, another perched on the twig and proceeded to pull up the nut with his fellow attached. He soon desisted, how- ever, for what reason I know not. Perhaps the weight overtaxed his strength, or he shrank from the prospect of the battle which would certainly have ensued before the one actually in possession relinquished his claim."
The lower forms of life, again, contribute their share to the amusement of any one who has in any degree the gift, not so much in general wanting, as quite uncultivated, of seeing into "the life of things." We know few prettier sights than the de- parture of the winged ants from their birthplace on a fine sum- mer's day. Upwards in countless throngs they come from the dark chambers and narrow passages where they have so long dwelt ; their gauzy wings glitter in the sunlight as, with noise- less flight, they spring up into the warm, cheerful light of the sun. The air shimmers with the motion, and the whole garden is filled with life. Glow-worms are general favourites; few people, however, know anything of their habits and history, and we are bound to say they will not like them the better for closer inquiry into the matter. The unsightly and voracious worm is best hidden by its own light ; we do not thank Mr. Johns much for his revelations on this point.
It is to young people especially that our author devotes these jottings from his note-book in the hope of winning them to a personal interest in what he has himself found to be a source of unfailing pleasure. It is not they only, or chiefly, who need to have their eyes opened to all "truths around them," who would be the better for a closer intercourse with the simple and hap- pier forms of life, for the "silence and the calm of mute insen- sate things ;" but it is probable that among them he wilt find his best pleased readers, and his readiest followers in studying for themselves the lesson taught to unheeding eyes and ears for more than eighteen centuries by the fouls of the air and the lilies of the field.
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