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Birds in the Calendar - Frederick G Aflalo · Revolt of the Birds

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of Birds in the Calendar. This is a
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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  Speaker 1: Recording by Ruth Golding Birds in the Calendar by F. G. Aflalo, January.
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  Speaker 1: The pheasant as birds are to be considered throughout these
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  Speaker 1: pages from any standpoint but that of sport. Much that
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  Speaker 1: is of interest in connection with a bird, essentially the sportsman's,
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  Speaker 1: must necessarily be omitted at the same time. Although this
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  Speaker 1: gorgeous creature, the chief attraction of social gatherings throughout the
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  Speaker 1: winter months, appeals chiefly to the men who shoot and
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  Speaker 1: eat it, it is not uninteresting to the naturalist, with
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  Speaker 1: opportunities for studying its habits under conditions more favorable than
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  Speaker 1: these encountered when in pursuit of it with a gun
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  Speaker 1: in the first place. With the probable exception of the swan,
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  Speaker 1: of which something is said on a later page, the
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  Speaker 1: pheasant stands alone among the birds of our woodlands in
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  Speaker 1: its personal interest. For the historian. It is not in
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  Speaker 1: fact a British bird, save by acclimatization, at all, and
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  Speaker 1: is generally regarded as a legacy of the Romans. The
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  Speaker 1: time and manner of its introduction into Britain are, it
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  Speaker 1: is true, veiled in obscurity. What we know on authentic
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  Speaker 1: evidence is that the bird was officially recognized in the
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  Speaker 1: reign of Harold, and that it had already come under
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  Speaker 1: the aegis of the game laws in that of Henry
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  Speaker 1: the First, during the first year of which the Abbot
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  Speaker 1: of Amesbury held a license to kill it, though how
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  Speaker 1: he contrived this without a gun is not set forth
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  Speaker 1: in detail. Probably was first treed with the aid of
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  Speaker 1: dogs and then shot with bow and arrow. The original
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  Speaker 1: pheasant brought over by the Romans, or by whomsoever may
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  Speaker 1: have been responsible for its naturalization on English soil, was
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  Speaker 1: a dark colored bird, and not the type more familiar nowadays,
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  Speaker 1: since its frequent crosses with other species from the Far East,
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  Speaker 1: as well as with several ornamental types of yet more
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  Speaker 1: recent introduction in Tabooing the standpoint of sport, wherever possible
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  Speaker 1: from these chapters, occasional reference where it overlaps the interests
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  Speaker 1: of the field naturalist is inevitable. Thus there are two
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  Speaker 1: matters in which both classes are equally concerned. When considering
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  Speaker 1: the pheasant. The first is the real or alleged incompatibility
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  Speaker 1: of pheasants and foxes in the same wood. The question
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  Speaker 1: of ripe rivalry between pheasant and fox, or as I
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  Speaker 1: rather suspect, between those who shoot the one and hunt
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  Speaker 1: the other, admits of only one answer. The fox eats
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  Speaker 1: the pheasant. The pheasant is eaten by the fox. This
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  Speaker 1: not very complex proposition may read like an excerpt from
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  Speaker 1: a French grammar, but it is the epitome of the
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  Speaker 1: whole argument. It is just possible. We have no actual
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  Speaker 1: evidence to go on that under such wholly natural conditions
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  Speaker 1: as survive nowhere in rural England, the two might flourish
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  Speaker 1: side by side, the fox taking occasional toll of its
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  Speaker 1: agreeably flavored neighbours, and the latter, we may suppose, their
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  Speaker 1: wits sharpened by adversity, gradually devising means of keeping out
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  Speaker 1: of the robber's reach. In the artificial environment of a
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  Speaker 1: hunting or shooting country, However, the fox will always prove
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  Speaker 1: too much for a bird dulled by much protection, and
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  Speaker 1: the only possible modus vivendi between those concerned must rest
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  Speaker 1: on a policy of give and take that deliberately ignores
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  Speaker 1: the facts of the case. More interesting on academic grounds
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  Speaker 1: at any rate, is the process of education noticeable in
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  Speaker 1: pheasants in parts of the country where they are regularly shot.
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  Speaker 1: Sport is a great educator. Foxes, certainly, and hares probably
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  Speaker 1: run the faster for being hunted. Indeed, the fox appears
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  Speaker 1: to have acquired its pace solely as the result of
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  Speaker 1: the chase, since it does not figure in the Bible
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  Speaker 1: as a swift creature. The genuine wild pheasant in its
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  Speaker 1: native region a little beyond the Caucasus is in all
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  Speaker 1: probability a very different bird from its half domesticated kinsman
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  Speaker 1: in Britain. I have been close to its birthplace, but
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  Speaker 1: never even saw a pheasant there. We are told on
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  Speaker 1: what ground I have been unable to trace that the
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  Speaker 1: polygamous habit in these birds is a product of artificial environment.
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  Speaker 1: But what is even more likely is that the true
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  Speaker 1: wild pheasant of Western Asia, and not the acclimatized bird
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  Speaker 1: so called in this country, trusts much less to its
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  Speaker 1: legs than our birds, which have long since learnt that
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  Speaker 1: there is safety in running. Moreover, though it probably takes
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  Speaker 1: wing more readily, it is doubtful whether it flies as
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  Speaker 1: fast as the pace something a little short of forty
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  Speaker 1: miles an hour that has been estimated as a common
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  Speaker 1: performance in driven birds at home. The pheasant is in
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  Speaker 1: many respects a very curious bird at the threshold of life.
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  Speaker 1: It exhibits, in common with some of its near relations,
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  Speaker 1: a precocity very unusual in its class, and the readiness
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  Speaker 1: with which pheasant chicks only just out of the egg,
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  Speaker 1: run about and forage for themselves is astonishing to those
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  Speaker 1: unused to it. Another interesting feature about pheasants is the
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  Speaker 1: extraordinary difference in plumage between the sexes, a gap equalled
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  Speaker 1: only between the black cock and greyhn and quite unknown
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  Speaker 1: in the partridge, quail and grouse. Yet every now and again,
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  Speaker 1: as if resentful of this inequality of wardrobe, an old
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  Speaker 1: hen pheasant will assume male plumage, and this epicene raiment
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  Speaker 1: indicates barrenness. Ungallant feminists have been known to cite the
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  Speaker 1: case of the mule pheasant as pointing a moral for
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  Speaker 1: the females of a more highly organized animal. The question
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  Speaker 1: of the pheasant's natural diet, more particularly where this is
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  Speaker 1: not liberally supplemented from artificial sources, brings the sportsman in
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  Speaker 1: conflict with the farmer, and a demagogue whose zeal occasionally
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  Speaker 1: outruns his discretion. Has even endeavored to cite the mangold
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  Speaker 1: as its staple food. This, however, is political and not
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  Speaker 1: natural history. Although, however, like all grain and eating birds,
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  Speaker 1: the pheasant is no doubt capable of inflicting appreciable damage
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  Speaker 1: on cultivated land, it seems to be established beyond all
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  Speaker 1: questions that it also feeds greedily on the even more
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  Speaker 1: destructive lava of the crane fly, in which case it
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  Speaker 1: may more than pay its footing in the fields. The
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  Speaker 1: food stuff most fatal to itself is the ywe leaf,
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  Speaker 1: for which often with fatal results, it seems to have
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  Speaker 1: an unconquerable craving. The worst disease, however, from which the
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  Speaker 1: pheasant suffers, is gapes, caused by an accumulation of small
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  Speaker 1: red worms in the windpipe that all but suffocate the victim.
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  Speaker 1: Reference has been made to the bird's great speed in
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  Speaker 1: the air, as well as to its efficiency as a runner.
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  Speaker 1: It remains only to add that it is also a
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  Speaker 1: creditable swimmer, and has been seen to take to water
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  Speaker 1: when escaping from its enemies. The polygamous habit has been mentioned.
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  Speaker 1: Ten or twelve eggs or more are laid in the
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  Speaker 1: simple nest of leaves, and this is generally placed on
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  Speaker 1: the ground, but occasionally in a low tree or hedge,
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  Speaker 1: or even in the disused nest of some other bird.
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  Speaker 1: Comparatively few of the birds referred to in the following
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  Speaker 1: pages appeal strongly to the epicure. But the pheasant, if
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  Speaker 1: not perhaps the most esteemed of them, is at least
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  Speaker 1: a wholesome table bird. It should, however, always be eaten
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  Speaker 1: with chip, potatoes and bread sauce, and not in the
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  Speaker 1: company of cold lettuce. Those who insist on the English
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  Speaker 1: method of serving it should quote the learned freeman, who,
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  Speaker 1: when confronted with the Continental alternative, complained bitterly that he
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  Speaker 1: was not a silkworm. End of chapter one recording by
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  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding, Chapter two of Birds in the Calendar. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding.
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  Speaker 1: Birds in the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo, February. The Woodcock.
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  Speaker 1: There are many reasons why the woodcock should be prized
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  Speaker 1: by the winter sportsman more than any other bird. In
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  Speaker 1: the bag. In the first place, there is its scarcity.
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  Speaker 1: Half a dozen to every hundred pheasants would in most
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  Speaker 1: parts of the country be considered a proportion at which
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  Speaker 1: none could grumble, and there are many days on which
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  Speaker 1: not one is either seen or shot. Again, there is
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  Speaker 1: the bird's twisting flight, which, particularly inside the covert, makes
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  Speaker 1: it anything but an easy target. Third, and last, it
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  Speaker 1: is better to eat than any other of our wild birds,
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  Speaker 1: with the possible exception of the golden plover. Taking one
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  Speaker 1: consideration with another, then it is not surprising that the
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  Speaker 1: first warning cry of woodcock over from the beaters should
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  Speaker 1: be the signal for a sharp and somewhat erratic fusillade
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  Speaker 1: along the line, a salvo which the beaters themselves usually
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  Speaker 1: honor by crouching out of harm's way, since they know
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  Speaker 1: from experience that even ordinarily cool and collected shots are
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  Speaker 1: sometimes to be fired with a sudden zeal to shoot
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  Speaker 1: the little bird, which may cost one of them his eyesight.
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  Speaker 1: According to the poet Lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade,
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  Speaker 1: and so no doubt they do at meal time after sunset,
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  Speaker 1: but we are more used to flushing them amid dry
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  Speaker 1: bracken or in the course of some frozen ditch. Quite Apart, however,
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  Speaker 1: from its exhilarating effect on the sportsmen, the bird has
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  Speaker 1: quieter interests for the naturalist, since in its food, its breeding, habits,
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  Speaker 1: its travels, and its appearance it combines more peculiarities than
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  Speaker 1: perhaps any other bird, certainly than any other of the
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  Speaker 1: sportsman's birds in these islands. It is not legally speaking
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  Speaker 1: a game bird and was not included in the Act
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  Speaker 1: of eighteen twenty four, but a game license is required
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  Speaker 1: for shooting it, and it enjoys since eighteen eighty the
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  Speaker 1: protection accorded to other wild birds. This is excellent so
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  Speaker 1: far as it goes, but it ought to be protected
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  Speaker 1: during the same period as the pheasant, particularly now that
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  Speaker 1: it is once more established as a resident species all
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  Speaker 1: over Britain and Ireland. This new epoch in the history
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  Speaker 1: of its adventures in these islands is the work of
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  Speaker 1: the wild bird's protection acts. In olden times, when half
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  Speaker 1: of Britain was under forest, and when guns were not
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  Speaker 1: yet invented that could shoot flying woodcocks must have been
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  Speaker 1: much more plentiful than they are to day. In those times,
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  Speaker 1: the bird was taken on the ground in springes or
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  Speaker 1: when roading in the mating season in nets known as shots,
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  Speaker 1: that were hung between the trees. When the forest area receded,
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  Speaker 1: the resident birds must have kindled to the verge of extinction,
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  Speaker 1: for on more than one occasion we find even a
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  Speaker 1: seasoned sportsman like Colonel Hawker worked up to our rare
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  Speaker 1: pitch of excitement after shooting woodcock in a part of
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  Speaker 1: Hampshire where in our day these birds breed regularly. Thanks however,
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  Speaker 1: to the protection afforded by the law, there is once
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  Speaker 1: again probably no county in England in which woodcocks do
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  Speaker 1: not nest. At the same time, it is as an
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  Speaker 1: autumn visitor that with the first of the east wind
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  Speaker 1: in October or November we look for this untiring little
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  Speaker 1: traveler from the continent. Some people are of opinion that
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  Speaker 1: since it has extended its residential range, fewer come oversea
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  Speaker 1: to swell the numbers. But the arrivals are in some
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  Speaker 1: years considerable, and if a stricter watch were kept on
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  Speaker 1: unlicensed gunners along the foreshore of East Anglia, very much
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  Speaker 1: larger numbers would find their way westwards instead of to Leadenhall.
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  Speaker 1: As it is the wanderers arrive, not necessarily, as has
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  Speaker 1: been freely asserted, in poor condition, but always tired out
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  Speaker 1: by their journey, and numbers are secured before they have
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  Speaker 1: time to recover their strength. Yet those which do recover
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  Speaker 1: fly right across England, some continuing the journey to Ireland,
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  Speaker 1: and stragglers, even with help, no doubt from easterly gales,
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  Speaker 1: having been known to reach America. The woodcock is interesting
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  Speaker 1: as a parent because it is one of the very
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  Speaker 1: few birds that carry their young from place to place,
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  Speaker 1: and the only British bird that transports them clasped between
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  Speaker 1: her legs. A few others, like the swans and grebes,
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  Speaker 1: bear the young ones on the back, but the woodcock's
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  Speaker 1: method is unique. Scopoli first drew attention to his own
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  Speaker 1: version of the habit in the words Poulos rostro portat,
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  Speaker 1: and it was Old Gilbert White, who, with his usual
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  Speaker 1: eye to the practical, doubted whether so long and slender
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  Speaker 1: a bill could be turned to such a purpose. More
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  Speaker 1: recent observation has confirmed White's objection, and has established the
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  Speaker 1: fact of the woodcock holding the young one between her thighs,
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  Speaker 1: the beak being apparently used to steady her burden. Whether
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  Speaker 1: the little ones are habitually carried about in this fashion
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  Speaker 1: or merely on occasion of danger, is not known, And
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  Speaker 1: indeed the bird's preference for activity in the dusk has
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  Speaker 1: invested accurate observation of its habits with some difficulty. Among
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  Speaker 1: well known sportsmen who were actually so fortunate as to
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  Speaker 1: have witnessed this interesting performance. Passing mention may be made
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  Speaker 1: of the late Duke of Beaufort, the Honorable Grantly Berkley,
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  Speaker 1: and Sir Ralph Paine Galway. Reference has already been made
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  Speaker 1: to the now obsolete use of nets for the capture
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  Speaker 1: of these birds when roading. The cock shuts, as they
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  Speaker 1: were called, were spread so as to do their work
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  Speaker 1: after sundown, and this is the meaning of Shakespeare's allusion
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  Speaker 1: to cock shut time. This roading is a curious performance
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  Speaker 1: on the part of the males only, and it bears
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  Speaker 1: some analogy to the drumming of snipe. It is accompanied,
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  Speaker 1: indeed by the same vibrating noise, which may be produced
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  Speaker 1: from the throat as well, but is more probably made
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  Speaker 1: only by the beating of the wings. There appears to
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  Speaker 1: be some divergence of opinion as to its origin in
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  Speaker 1: both birds though in that of the snipe, such sound
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  Speaker 1: authorities as Messrs Able, Chapman and Harting are convinced that
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  Speaker 1: it proceeds from the quivering of the primaries, as the
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  Speaker 1: large quill feathers of the wings are called. Other naturalists, however,
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  Speaker 1: have preferred to associate it with the spreading tail feathers.
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  Speaker 1: Whether these eccentric gymnastics are performed as displays with a
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  Speaker 1: view to impressing admiring females, or whether they are merely
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  Speaker 1: the result of excitement at the pairing season cannot be determined.
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  Speaker 1: It is safe to assume that they aim at one
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  Speaker 1: or other of these objects, and further, no one can
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  Speaker 1: go with any certainty. The word roading r d ng
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  Speaker 1: is spelt roa d n g by Newton, who thus
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  Speaker 1: gives the preference to the Anglo Saxon description of the
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  Speaker 1: aerial tracks followed by the bird. For the alternative derivation
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  Speaker 1: from the French rode, which means to wander. The flight
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  Speaker 1: is at any rate, wholly different from that to which
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  Speaker 1: the sportsman is accustomed when one of these birds is
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  Speaker 1: flushed in covert. In the latter case, either instinct or
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  Speaker 1: experience seems to have torted extraordinary tricks of zigzag maneuvering
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  Speaker 1: that not seldom save its life from a long line
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  Speaker 1: of over anxious guns. Though out in the open, where
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  Speaker 1: it generally flies in a straight line for the nearest covert,
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  Speaker 1: few birds of its size are easier to bring down. Fortunately,
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  Speaker 1: we do not in England shoot the bird in springtime,
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  Speaker 1: the season of roading, but the practice is in vogue
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  Speaker 1: in the evening twilight in every continental country, and large
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  Speaker 1: bags are made in this fashion in its hungry moments.
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  Speaker 1: The woodcock, like the snipe, as at once the advantages
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  Speaker 1: and handicap of so long a beak on hard ground.
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  Speaker 1: In a long spell of either drought or frost, it
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  Speaker 1: must come within measurable distance of starvation, for its only
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  Speaker 1: manner of procuring its food in normal surroundings is to
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  Speaker 1: thrust its bill deep into the soft mud in search
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  Speaker 1: of earthworms. The bird does not, it is true, as
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  Speaker 1: was once commonly believed, live by suction, or, as the
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: Irish peasants say in some parts on water. But such
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a mistake might well be excused in anyone who had
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  Speaker 1: watched the bird's manner of digging for its food in
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  Speaker 1: the ooze. The long bill is exceedingly sensitive at the tip,
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  Speaker 1: and in all probability, by the aid of a tactile
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  Speaker 1: sense more highly developed than any other in our acquaintance,
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  Speaker 1: this organ conveys to its owner the whereabouts of worms
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  Speaker 1: wriggling silently down out of harm's way. On first reaching Britain,
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  Speaker 1: the woodcock remains for a few days on the seashore
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  Speaker 1: to recover from its crossing, and at this time of
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  Speaker 1: rest it trips over the wet sand, generally in the gloaming,
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  Speaker 1: and picks up shrimps and such other soft food as
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  Speaker 1: is uncovered between tidal marks. It is not among the
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  Speaker 1: easiest of birds to keep for any length of time
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  Speaker 1: in captivity, but if due attention be paid to its
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: somewhat difficult requirements in the way of suitable food, success
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  Speaker 1: is not unattainable. On the whole. Bread and milk has
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: been found the best artificial substitute for its natural diet,
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: with the Kiwi of New Zealand, a bird not even
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  Speaker 1: distantly related to the woodcock, and a cousin rather of
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the ostrich, but equipped with much the same kind of
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: bill as the subject of these remarks. An even closer
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: imitation of the natural food has been found possible in menageries.
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  Speaker 1: The bill of the kiwi, which has the nostrils close
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  Speaker 1: to the tip, is even more sensitive than that of
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  Speaker 1: the woodcock, and is employed in very similar fashion. At
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  Speaker 1: Regent's Park, the keeper supplies the bird with fresh worms
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  Speaker 1: so long as the ground is soft enough for spade work.
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  Speaker 1: They are left in a pan and the key we
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  Speaker 1: eat them during the night. In winter. However, when worms
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: are not only hard to come by in sufficient quantity,
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  Speaker 1: but also frostbitten and in poor condition, an efficient substitute
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  Speaker 1: is found in shredded filets steak, which, whether it accepts
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  Speaker 1: it for worms or not, the new Zealander devours with
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  Speaker 1: the same relish when a woodcock lies motionless among dead leaves.
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  Speaker 1: It is one of the most striking illustrations of protecting
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  Speaker 1: of coloring to be found anywhere. Time and again, the
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  Speaker 1: sportsman all but treads on one which is betrayed only
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  Speaker 1: by its large bright eye. There are men who, in
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  Speaker 1: their eagerness to add it to the bag, do not
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  Speaker 1: hesitate in such circumstances to shoot a woodcock on the ground.
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  Speaker 1: But a man so fond of ground game should certainly
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  Speaker 1: be refused a game license and should be allowed to
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  Speaker 1: shoot nothing but rabbits. End of chapter two recording by
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding, Chapter three of Birds in the Calendar. This
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Birds in the Calendar by Frederick G. L Flalo March.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: The woodpigeon. The woodpigeon is many things to many men.
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  Speaker 1: To the farmer, who has some claim to priority of verdict,
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  Speaker 1: it is a curse, even as the rabbit in Australia,
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  Speaker 1: the lemming in Norway, or the locusts in Algeria. The
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  Speaker 1: tiller of the soil, whose business brings him in open
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  Speaker 1: competition with the natural appetites of such voracious birds, beasts
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  Speaker 1: or insects, regards his rivals from a standpoint which has
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  Speaker 1: no room for sentiment. And the woodpigeons are to our farmers,
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  Speaker 1: particularly in the well wooded districts of the West Country,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: even as Carthage was to Cato the censor something to
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: be destroyed. It is this attitude of the farmer which
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: makes the woodpigeon pre eminently the bird of February. All
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: through the shooting season just ended, a high pigeon has
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: proved an irresistible temptation to the guns, whether cleaving the
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: sky above the tree tops, doubling behind a broad elm,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: or suddenly swinging out of a gaunt fir. Yet it
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: is in February, when other shooting is at an end,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: and the coverts no longer echo the fusillade of the
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: past four months, that the farmers, furious at the sight
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: of green root crops grazed as close as by sheep,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: and of young clover dug up over every acre of
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: their tilling, welcome the co operation of sportsmen, glad to
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: use up the balance of their cartridges in organized pigeon battues.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: These gatherings have, during the past five years become an
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: annual function in parts of Devonshire and the neighboring counties.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: And if the bag is somewhat small in proportion to
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the guns engaged, a wholesome spirit of sport informs those
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: who take part, and there is a curiously utilitarian atmosphere
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: about the proceedings. Everyone seems conscious that, in place of
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: the usual idle pleasure of the covert side or among
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: the turnips, he is out for a purpose, not merely
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: killing birds that have been reared to make his holiday,
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: but actually helping the farmers in their fight against nature.
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: As moreover, recent scares of an epidemic not unlike diphtheria,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: have precluded the use of the birds for table purposes.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: The powder is burnt with no thought of the pot.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: The usual plan is to divide the guns in small
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: parties and to post these in neighboring plantations or lining
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: hedges overlooking these spinneys. At a given signal, the firing
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: commences and is kept up for several hours, a number
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: of the marauders being killed, and the rest so harried
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: that many of them thus leave the neighbourhood, only to
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: find a similar warm welcome across the border. Some such
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: concerted attack has of late years been rendered necessary by
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: the great increase in the winter invasion from overseas. It
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: is probable that, as most writers on the subject insist,
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: the wanderings of these birds are for the most part
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: restricted to these islands, and are mere food forays, like
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: those which cause locusts to desert a district that they
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: have stripped bare for pastures new. At the same time,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: it seems to be beyond all doubt the fact that
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: huge flocks of woodpigeons reach our shores annually from Scandinavia,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: and their inroads have had such serious results that it
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: is only by joint action that their numbers can be
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: kept under For such work, February is obviously the month,
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: not only because most of their damage to the growing
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: crops and seeds is accomplished at this season, but also
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: because large numbers of gunners, no longer able to shoot game,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: are thus at the disposal of the farmers, and only
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: too glad to prolong their shooting for a few weeks
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: to such good purpose. Many birds are greedy. The cormorant
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: has a higher reputation of the sort to live up
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: to than even the hog, and some of the hornbills,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: though less familiar, are endowed with gargantuan appetites. Yet the
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: ringdove could probably vie with any of them. Mister Harting
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: mentions having found in the crop of one of these
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: birds thirty three acorns and forty four beech nuts, while
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: no fewer than one hundred and thirty nine of the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: latter were taken together with other food remains from another.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: It is no uncommon explivariance to see the crop of
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: a woodpigeon that is brought down from a great height, burst,
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: on reaching the earth with a report like that of
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: a pistol, and scatter its undigested contents broadcast. Little wonder then,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: that the farmers welcome the slaughter of so formidable a competitor.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: It is one of their biggest customers, and pays nothing
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: for their produce. One told me not long ago that
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: the woodpigeons had got at a little patch of young rape,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: only a few acres in all, which had been uncovered
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: by the drifting snow, and had laid it as bare
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: as if the earth had never been planted. Seeing what
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: hearty meals the woodpigeon makes, it is not surprising that
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: it should sometimes throw up pellets of undigested material. This is, not, however,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: a regular habit, as in the case of hawks and owls,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: and is rather perhaps the result of some abnormally irritating food.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Pigeons digest their food with the aid of a secretion
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: in the crop, and it is on this soft material,
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: popularly known as pigeons milk, that they feed their nestlings.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: This method suggests analogy to that of the petrels, which
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: rear their young on fish oil, partly digested after the
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: same fashion. Indeed, all the pigeons are devoted parents. Though
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the majority build only a very pretentious platform of sticks
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: for the two eggs, they sit very close and feed
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: the young ones untiringly. Some of the pigeons of Australia
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: indeed go even further. Not only do they build a
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: much more substantial nest of leafy twigs, but the male
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: bird actually sits throughout the day, Such paternal sense of
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: duty being all the more remarkable from the fact that
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: these pigeons of the Antipodes usually lay but a single egg. Australia,
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: with the neighbouring islands, must be a perfect paradise for pigeons,
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: since about half of the species known to science occur
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: in that region. Only the wonga wonga and bronze wing
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: and great fruit pigeons are like the bald pates of Jamaica,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: all favorite birds with sportsmen, and some of the birds
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: are far more brightly coloured than ours. It is, however,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: noticeable that even the gayest Queensland species with wings shot
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: with every prismatic hue, are dull looking birds seen from above,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and the late doctor A. R. Wallace regarded this as
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: affording protection against keen eyed hawks on the forage. His
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: ingenious theory receives support from the well known fact that
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: in many of the islands, where pigeons are even more plentiful,
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: but where also hawks are few, the former wear bright
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: clothes on their back as well. The woodpigeon has many
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: names in rural England. That by which it is referred
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: to in the foregoing notes is not perhaps the most satisfactory, since,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: with the possible exception of the smaller stock dove, which
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: lays its eggs in rabbit burrows, and the rock dove,
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: which nests in the cliffs, all the members of the
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: family need trees, if only to roost and nest in.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: A more descriptive name is that of ringdove, easily explained
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: by the white collar, but the bird is also known
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: as cushat queast or even culver. The last named, however,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: which will be familiar to readers of Tennyson, probably alludes
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: specifically to the rock dove, as it undoubtedly gave its
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: name to Culver Cliff, a prominent landmark in the Isle
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: of Wight, where these birds have at all times been
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: sparingly in evidence. The ringdove occasionally rears a nestling in captivity,
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: but it does not seem, at any time of life
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: to prove a very attractive pet. White found it strangely ferocious,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: and another writer describes it as listless and uninteresting. The
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: only notable success on record is that scored by sin John,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: who set some of the eggs under a tame pigeon
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: and secured one survivor that appears to have grown quite tame,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: but was unfortunately eaten by a hawk. At any rate,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: it did its kind good service by enlisting on their
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: side the pen of the most ardent apologist they have
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: ever had. Indeed, Sinjohn did not hesitate to rate the
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: farmers soundly for persecuting the bird in wilful ignorance of
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: its unpaid services in clearing their ground of noxious weeds. Yet,
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: however true his eloquent plea may have been in respect
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: of his native Lothian, there would be some difficulty in
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: persuading South country agriculturists of the woodpigeon's hidden virtues. To those, however,
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: who do not sow that they may reap. The subject
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: of these remarks has irresistible charm. There is doubtless monotony.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: In its cooing, yet heard in a still plantation of firs,
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: with no other sound than perhaps the distant call of
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: a shepherd or barking of a farm dog. It is
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: a music singularly in harmony with the peaceful scene. The
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: arrowy flight of these birds, when they come in from
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: the fields at sundown and fall like rushing waters on
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: the treetops, is an even more memorable sound to the sportsman.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Above all, the woodpigeon shows itself a splendid bird of freedom,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: more cunning than any hand reared game bird, swifter on
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: the wing than any other purely wild bird, a welcome
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: addition to the bag, because it is hard to shoot
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: in the open, and because in life it was a
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: sore trial to a class already harassed with their share
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: of this life's troubles. End of Chapter three recording by
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding, Chapter four of Birds in the Calendar. This
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding.
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: Birds in the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo April Birds
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: in the High Hall gard Garden all March. The rooks
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: were busy in the swaying elms. But it is these
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: softer evenings of April, when the first young leaves are
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: beginning to frame the finished nests, and the boisterous winds
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: of last month no longer drown the babble of the
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: tree top parliament. At the still hour, when farm laborers
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: are homing from the fields, that the rooks peculiarly strike
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: their own note in the country scene. There is no
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: good reason to confuse these curious and interesting fowl with
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: any other of the crow family. Collectively, they may be
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: recognized by their love of fellowship, for none more sociable
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: than they individually. The rook is stamped unmistakably by the
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: bald patch on the face where the feathers have come
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: away round the base of the beak. The most generally
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: accepted explanation of this disfigurement is the room rook's habit
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: of thrusting its bill deep in the earth in search
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: of its daily food. This, on the face of it,
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: looks like a reasonable explanation, but it should be borne
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: in mind that not only does some individual rooks retain
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: through life the feathers normally missing, but that several of
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: the rook's cousins dip into nature's larder in the same
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: fashion without suffering any such loss. However, the featherless patch
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: on the rook's cheeks suffices, whatever its cause, as a
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: mark by which to recognize the bird, living or dead.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: Unlike its cousin, the jackdaw, which commonly nests in the cliffs,
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: the rook is not, perhaps commonly associated with the immediate
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: neighborhood of the sea, but a colony close to my
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: own home in Devonshire displays sufficiently interesting adaptation to esturine
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: conditions to be worth passing mention. Just in the same
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: way that gulls make free of the wireworms on wind
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: swept plowlands, so in early summer do the old rooks
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: come sweeping down from the elms on the hill that
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: overlooks my fishing ground and take their share of cockles
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: and other muddy fair in the bank uncovered by the
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: falling tide. Here, in company with gulls, turnstones and other
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: fowl of the foreshore, the rooks strut importantly up and down,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: digging their powerful bills deep in the ooze, and occasionally
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: bullying weaker neighbours out of their hard earned spoils. The
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: rook is a villain, Yet there is something irresistible in
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: the effrontery with which one will hop sidelong on a
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: gorging gull, which beats a hasty retreat before its sable rival,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: leaving some half prized shellfish to be swallowed at sight
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: or carriage to the greedy little beaks in the tree tops.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: While rooks are far more sociable than crows, the two
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: are often seen in company, not always on the best
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: of terms, but usually in a condition suggestive of armed neutrality.
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: An occasional crow visits my estuary at low tide, but
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: though the bird would be a match for any single rook,
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: I never saw any fighting between them. Possibly the crow
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: feels its loneliness and realizes that in case of trouble,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: none of its brothers are there to see fair play. Yet,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: carrion crows, like herons, are among the rook's most determined enemies,
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: and cases of rookeries being destroyed by both birds are
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: on record. On the other hand, though the heron is
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: the far more powerful bird of the two, heronries have
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: likewise been scattered and their trees appropriated by rooks, probably
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: in overwhelming numbers. Of the two. The heron is particularly
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: in the vicinity of a preserved trout stream the more
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: costly neighbour. Indeed, it is the only other bird which
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: nests in colonies of such extent. But there is this
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: marked difference between herons and rooks, that the former are
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: sociable only in the colony. When away on its own business,
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: the heron is among the most solitary of birds, having
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: no doubt, like many other fishermen, learnt the advantage of
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: its own company. One of the most remarkable habits in
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: the rook is that of visiting the old nests in midwinter.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Now and again. It is true a case of actually
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: nesting at that season has been noticed, but the fancy
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: for sporting round the deserted nests is something quite different
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: from this. I have watched the birds at the nests
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: on short winter days year after year, but never yet
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: saw any confirmation of the widely accepted view that their
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: object is the putting in order of their battered homes
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: for the next season. It seems a likely reason, but
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: in that case the birds would surely be seen carrying
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: twigs for the purpose, and I never saw them do
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: so before January. What other attraction the empty nurseries can
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: have for them is a mystery, unless indeed they are
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: sentimental enough to like revisiting old scenes and cawing over
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: old memories. The proximity of a rookery does not affect
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: all people alike. Some who ordinarily dwelling in cities suffer
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: from lack of bird neighbors would regard the deliberate destruction
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: of a rookery as an act of vandalism. A few,
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, actually set about establishing such
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: a colony where none previous existed, an ambition that may
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: generally be accomplished without extreme difficulty. All that is needed
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: is to transplant a nest or two of young rooks
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and lodge them in suitable trees. The parent birds usually
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: follow rear the broods, and forthwith found a settlement for
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: future generations to return to. Even artificial nests with suitable
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: supplies of food have succeeded, and it seems that the
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: rook is nowhere a very difficult neighbor to attract and establish.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Why are rooks more sociable than ravens? And what do
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: they gain from such communalism? These are favorite questions with
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: persons informed with an intelligent passion for acquiring information and
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the best answer, without any thought of irreverence is God knows.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: It is most certain that we, at any rate do not.
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: So far from explaining how it was that rooks came
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: to build their nests in company, we cannot even guess
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: how the majority of birds came to build nests at all,
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: instead of remaining satisfied with the simpler plan of laying
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: their eggs in the ground that is still good enough
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: for the petrels, penguins, kingfishers, and many other kinds. Protection
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: of the eggs from rain, frost, and natural enemies suggests
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: itself as the object of the nest. But the last
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: only would to some extent be furthered by the gregarious habit.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: And even so we have no clue as to why
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: it should be any more necessary for rooks than for crows.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: To quote, as some writers do the numerical superiority of
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: rooks over ravens as evidence of the benefits of communal
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: nesting is to ignore the long hostility of shepherds towards
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: the latter birds, on which centuries of persecution have told irreparably. Rooks,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, though also regarded in some parts
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: of these islands as suspects have never been harassed to
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the same extent, and if anything in the nature of
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: general warfare were to be inaugurated against them, the gregarious habit,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: so far from being a protection, would speedily and disastrously
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: facilitate their extermination. Another curious habit noticed in these birds
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: is that of flying on fine evenings to a considerable height,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: and then swooping suddenly to earth, often on their backs.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: These antics, comparable to the drumming of snipe and roading
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: of woodcock, are probably to be explained on the same
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: basis of sexual emotion. The so called Parliament of the
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: rooks probably owes much of its detail to the florid
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: imagination of enthusiasts, always ready to exaggerate the wonders of nature,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: but it also seems to have some existence in fact,
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: and privileged observers have actually described the trial and punishment
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: of individuals that have broken the laws of the commune.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I never saw this procedure among rooks, but once watched
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: something very similar among the famous dogs of Constantinople, which
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: no longer exist. The most important problem, however, in connection
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: with the rook, is the precise extent to which the
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: bird is the farmer's enemy or his friend on the
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: solution hangs the rook's fate in an increasingly practical age,
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: which may at any moment put sentiment on one side
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: and decree for it, the fate that is already overtaking
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: its big cousin, the raven. Scotch. Farmers have long turned
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: their thumbs down and regarded rooks as food for the gun,
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: but in South Britain the bird's apologists have hitherto been
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: able to hold their own and avert catastrophe from their favorite.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: The evidence is conflicting. On the one hand, it seems
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: undeniable that the rook eats grain and potato shoots. It
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: also snaps young twigs off the trees, and may, like
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: the jay and magpie, destroy the eggs of game birds.
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, particularly during the weeks when it
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: is feeding its nestlings, it admittedly devours quantities of wireworms,
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: leather grubs, and weevils, as well as of couch grass
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and other noxious weeds. While some of its favorite dainties
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: such as thistles, walnuts and acorns will hardly be grudged
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: at any time. It is not an easy matter to decide,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: and if the rook is to be spared. Economy must
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: be tempered with sentiment, in which case the evidence will
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: perhaps be found to justify a verdict of guilty with
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: a strong recommendation to mercy. End of Chapter four recording
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: by Ruth Golding, Chapter five of Birds in the Calendar.
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding. Birds in the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: may the cuckoo, with the single exception of the nightingale
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: bird of lovers. No other has been more written of
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: in prose or verse than the so called harbinger of spring.
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: This is a foolish name for a visitor that does
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: not reach our shores before, at any rate, the middle
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: of April. Even Whittaker allows us to recognize the coming
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: of spring nearly a month earlier. And for myself impatient,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: if only for the illusion of nature's awakening, I date
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: my spring from the ending of the shortest day. Once
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: the days begin to lengthen it is time to glance
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: at the elms for the return of the rooks, and
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: to get out one's fishing tackle again. Yet the cuckoo
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: comes rarely before the third week of April, save in
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: the fervent imagination of premature heralds, who, giving rain to
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: a fancy winged by desire or honestly deceived by some
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: village cuckoo clock heard on their country rambles, solemnly write
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: to the papers announcing the inevitable march cuckoo. They know
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: better in the Channel Islands, for in the second week
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: of April, and not before, there are cuckoos in every bush,
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: hundreds of exhausted travelers, pausing for strength to complete the
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: rest of their journey to Britain. Not on the return
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: migration in all to do the wanderers assemble in the islands,
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: since having but lately set out, they are not yet
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: weary enough to need the rest. The only district of
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: England in which I have heard of similar gatherings of
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: cuckoos is East Anglia, where about the time of their
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: arrival they regularly collect in the bushes and indulge in
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: preliminary gambols before flying north and west. Cuckoos then reach
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: these islands about the third week of April, and they
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: leave us again at the end of the summer, the
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: old birds flying south in July, the younger generation following
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: three or four weeks later. Goodness knows by what extraordinary
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: instinct these young ones know the way. But the young
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: cuckoo is a marvel altogether in the manner of its education,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: since when one comes to think of it, it has
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: no upbringing by its own parents and cannot even learn
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: how to cry cuckoo by example or instruction. Its foster
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: parents speak another language, and its own folk have ceased
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: from singing by the time it is out of the nest.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: A good deal has been written about the way in
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: which the note varies, chiefly in the direction of greater
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: harshness and a more's toccato and less sustained note towards
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: the end of the cuckoo's stay. According to the Rustic rhyme,
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: it changes its tune in June, which is probably poetic
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: license rather than the fruits of actual observation. It is, however,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: commonly agreed that the cuckoo is less often heard as
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: the time of its departure draws near, and the easiest
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: explanation of its silence once the breeding season is ended
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: is that the note, being the love call of a
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: polygamous bird, is no longer needed. In Australia, the female
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: cuckoo is handsomely barred with white, whereas the male is
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: uniformly black. But with our bird it is exceedingly difficult
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: to distinguish one sex from the other on the wing,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: And were it not for occasional evidence of females having
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: been shot when actually calling, we might still believe that
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: it is the male only that makes this sound. The
• 50:25
  Speaker 1: note is joyous only in the poet's fancy, just as
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: he has also read sadness into the sobbing of the nightingale.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: There is, indeed, when we consider its life, something fantastic
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: in the hypothesis that the cuckoo can know no trouble
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: in life merely because it escapes the rigors of our
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: winter eternal summer must be a delight. But the cuckoo
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: has to work hard for the privilege, and it must
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: at times be harried to the verge of desperation by
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: the small birds that continually mob it in broad daylight.
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: This behavior, on the part of its pertinacious little neighbours
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: has been the occasion of much futile speculation. But the
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: one certain result of such persecution is to make the cuckoo,
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: along with its fellow sufferer, the owls preferably active in
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the sweet peace of the gloaming when its puny tyrants
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: are gone to roost. Much heated argument has raged round
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: the real or supposed sentiment that inspires such demonstrations on
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: the part of linnets, sparrows, chaffinches, and other determined hunters.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: Of the cuckoo. It seems impossible, when we observe the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: larger bird's unmistakable desire to win free of them, to
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: attribute friendly feelings to its pursuers. Yet some writers have
• 51:52
  Speaker 1: held the curious belief that, with lingering memories of the
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: days when a year ago they devoted themselves to the
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: ugly foster child, the little birds still regard the stranger
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: with affection. If so, then they have an eccentric way
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: of showing it, and the cuckoo, driven by the chattering
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: little termagants from pillar to post, may well pray to
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: be saved from its friends. On the other hand, even
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: though convinced of their hostility, it is not easy to believe,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: as some folks tell us that they mistake the cuckoo
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: for a hawk. Even the human eye, though slower to
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: take note of such differences, can distinguish between the two
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: and the cuckoo's note would still further undeceive them. The
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: most satisfactory explanation of all, perhaps, is that the nest
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: memories do, in truth survive, not however, investing the cuckoo
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: with a halo over romance, but rather branding it as
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: an object of suspicion, an interloper to be driven out
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: of the neighborhood at all costs, where it has time
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: to billet its offspring on the hard working residence. All
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: of which is, needless to say, the merest guess work,
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: since any attempt to interpret the simplest actions of birds
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: is likely to lead us into erroneous conclusions. Yet, of
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: the two, it certainly seems more reasonable to regard the
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: smaller birds as resenting the parasitic habit in the cuckoo
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: than to admit that they can actually welcome the murder
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: of their own offspring to make room in the nest
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: for the ugly changeling foisted on them by this fly
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: by night. On the lucas ur known lucendo principle, the
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: cuckoo is chiefly interesting as a parent. The bare fact
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: is that our British kind builds no nest of its own,
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: but puts its eggs out to hatch, choosing for the
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: purpose the nests of numerous small birds which it knows
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: to be suitable. Further investigation of the habits of this
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: not very secretive bird shows that she first lays her
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: egg on the ground and then carries it in her
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: bill to a neighboring nest. Whether she first chooses the
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: nest and then lays the egg destined to be hatched
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: in it, or whether she lays each egg when so
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: moved and then hunts about for a home, for it
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: has never been ascertained. The former method seems the more
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: practical of the two. On the other hand, little nests
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: of the right sort are so plentiful in may that
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: with her mother instinct to guide her, she could always
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: find one at a few moments. Notice, some people, who
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: are never so happy as when making the wonders of
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: nature seem still more wonderful than they really are, have
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: declared that the cuckoo lays eggs to match those among
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: which she deposits them, or that, at any rate, she
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: chooses the nests of birds whose eggs approximate resemble her own.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: I should have liked to believe this, but am unfortunately
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: debarred by the memory of about forty cuckoos eggs that
• 55:10
  Speaker 1: I took seven and twenty summers ago in the woods
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: round Dartford Heath. The majority of these were found in
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: hedge sparrows nests, and the absolute dissimilarity between the great
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: spotted egg of the cuckoo and the little blue egg
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of its so called dupe would have impressed even a
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: color blind animal. Occasionally, I believe a blue cuckoo's egg
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: has been found, but such a freak could hardly be
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: the result of design. As a matter of fact, there
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: is no need for any such elaborate deception. Up to
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: the moment of hatching. The little foster parents have, in
• 55:48
  Speaker 1: all probability no suspicion of the trick that has been
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: played on them. Birds do not take deliberate notice of
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: the size or color of their own eggs. Kirton somewhere
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: relates how he once induced a blackbird to sit on
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: the eggs of a thrush, and a lapwing on those
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: of a red shank. So two farmyard hens will hatch
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: the eggs of ducks or game birds, and wild birds
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: can even be persuaded to sit on eggs made of
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: painted wood. Why, then, since they are so careless of appearances,
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: should the cuckoo go to all manner of trouble to
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: match the eggs of hedge, sparrow, robin or warbler. The
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: bird would not notice the difference, and even if she did,
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: she would probably sit quite as close, if only for
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: the sake of the other eggs of her own laying.
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: Once the ugly nestling is hatched, there comes swift awakening,
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: yet there is no thought of reprisal or desertion. It
• 56:51
  Speaker 1: looks rather as if the little foster parents are hypnotized
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: by the uncouth guest, for they see their own young
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: ones elbowed out of the home, and continue with unflagging
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: devotion to minister to the insatiable appetite of the greedy
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: little murderer. A bird so imbued as the parasitic cuckoo
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: with the wanderlust would make a very careless parent, and
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: we must therefore perhaps revise our unflattering estimate of its
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: attitude and admit that it does the best it can
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: by its offspring by putting them out to nurse. This habit,
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: unique among British birds, is practiced by many others elsewhere.
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: And in particular by the American trupiles or cattle starlings.
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: One of these indeed goes even farther, since it entrusts
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: its eggs to the care of a nest building cousin.
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: There are also American cuckoos that build their own nest
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: and incubate their own eggs. On the whole, our cuckoo
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: as a friend to the farmer, for it destroys vast
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: quantities of hairy caterpillars that no other bird resident or
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: migratory would touch. On the other hand, no doubt the
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: numbers of other small useful birds must suffer, not alone
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: because the cuckoos sucks their eggs, but also because, as
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: has been shown, the rearing of every young cuckoo means
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: the destruction of the legitimate occupants of the nest. So far, however,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: as the farmer is concerned, this is probably balanced by
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: the reflection that a single young cuckoo is so rapacious
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: as to need all the insect food available. The cuckoo,
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: like the woodcock, is supposed to have its forerunner, just
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: as the small horned owl, which reaches our shores a
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: little in advance of the latter, is popularly known as
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: the woodcock owl, so also the RhE neck, which comes
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: to us about the same time as the first of
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: the cuckoos, goes by the name of cuckoo Leader. It
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: is never a very conspicuous bird, and appears to be
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: rareer nowadays than formerly. Schoolboys know it best from its
• 59:13
  Speaker 1: habit of hissing like a snake, and giving them a
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: rare fright when they cautiously insert a predatory hand in
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: some hollow tree in search of a possible nest. It
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: is in such situations that, along with tit mice and
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: some other birds, the rye neck rears its young, and
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: it doubtless owes many an escape to this habit of hissing,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: accompanied by a vigorous twisting of its neck and the
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: infliction of a sufficient peck, easily mistaken in a moment
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: of panic for the bite of an angry adder. Thus
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: does nature protect her weaklings. End of chapter five recording
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: by Ruth Golding, Chapter six of Birds in the Calendar.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding. Birds in the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: June Voices of the Night. The majority of nocturnal animals,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: more particularly those bent on spoliation, are strangely silent. True
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: frogs croak in the marshes, bats shrill overhead at so
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: high a pitch that some folks cannot hear them, and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: owls hooted from their ruins in a fashion that some
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: voked melodious and romantic, while others associate the sound rather
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: with midnight crime and dislike it Accordingly. The badger, on
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: the other hand, with the otter and fox, all of
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: them sad thieves from our point of view, have learned, and,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: whatever their primeval habits, to go about their marauding in
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: stealthy silence. And it is only in less settled regions
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: that one hears the jackals barking, the hyaenas howling, and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: the browsing deer whistling through the night watches. There are, however,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: two of our native birds, or rather summer visitors, since
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: they leave us in autumn, closely associated with these warm
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: June nights, the stillness of which they break in very
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 1: different fashion, and these are the nightingale and night jar.
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: Each is of considerable interest in its own way. It
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: is not to be denied that the churring note of
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: the night jar is to ordinary ears the reverse of attractive,
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: and the bird is not much more pleasing to the
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: eye than to the ear, while the nightingale, on the contrary,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: produces such sweet sounds as made Isaac Walton marvel what
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: music God could provide for his saints in heaven when
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: he gave such as this to sinners on earth. The
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: suggestion was not wholly his own, since the father of
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: angling borrowed it from a French writer, but he vastly
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: improved on the original, and the passage will long live
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: in the hearts of thousands who care not a jot
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: for his instructions in respect of worms. At the same time,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: the night jar, though the less attractive bird of the two,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: is fully as interesting as its comrade of the summer darkness,
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: and there should be no difficulty in indicating the little
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: that they have in common, as well as much wherein
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: they differ in both habits and appearance. Both, then are
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: birds of sober attire. Indeed, of the two, the night jar,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: with its soft and delicately penciled plumage and the conspicus
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: white spots, is perhaps the handsomer, though as it is
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: seen only in the gloaming, its quiet beauty is but
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: little appreciated. The unobtrusive dress of the nightingale, on the
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: other hand, is familiar in districts in which the bird abounds,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: and is commonly quoted by contrast with its unrivaled voice
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: as the converse of the gaudy coloring of raucous maccaws
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: and parakeets. As has been said, both these birds are
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: summer migrants, the nightingale arriving on our shores about the
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: middle of April, the night jar perhaps a fortnight later. Thenceforth. However,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: their programmes are wholly divergent. For whereas the night jars
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: proceed to scatter over the length and breadth of Britain,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: penetrating even to Ireland in the west and as far
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 1: north as the Hebrides, the nightingale stops far short of
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: these extremes and leaves whole counties of England, as well
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: as probably the whole of Scotland and certainly the whole
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: of Ireland, out of its calculations. It is, however, well
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: known that its range is slowly but surely extending towards
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: the west. This curiously restricted distribution of the nightingale indeed
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: within the limits of its summer home. Is among the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: most remarkable of the many problems confronting the student of distribution,
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: and successive ingenious but unconvincing attempts to explain its seeming eccentricity,
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: or at any rate, caprice in the choice of its
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: nesting range only makes the confusion worse. Briefly, in spite
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 1: of a number of doubtful and even suspicious reports of
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: the bird's occurrence outside of these boundaries, it is generally
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: agreed by the soundest observers that its travels do not
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: extend much north of the city of York, or much
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: west of a line drawn through Exeter and Birmingham. By
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: way of complicating the argument, we know on good authority
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: that the nightingale's range is equally peculiar elsewhere, and that
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: whereas it likewise shuns the departments in the extreme west
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: of France, it occurs all over the Peninsula, a region
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: extending considerably farther into the sunset than either Brittany or Cornwall,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: in both of which it is unknown. No satisfactory explanation
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: of the little visitors objection to wild whales or Cornwall
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: has been found, and it may at once be stated
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: that its capricious distribution cannot be accounted for by any
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: known facts of soil, climate or vegetation, since the surroundings
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: which it finds suitable in Kent and Sussex are equally
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: to be found down in the West count but fail
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: to attract their share of nightingales. The song of the nightingale,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: in praise of which volumes have been written, is perhaps
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: more beautiful than that of any other bird, though I
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: have heard wonderful efforts from the mocking bird in the
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 1: United States and from the bull balls along the banks
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: of the Jordan. The latter are sometimes, more especially in poetry,
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: regarded as identical with the nightingale, and indeed some ornithologists
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: hold the two to be closely related. What a gap
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: there is between the sobbing cadences of the nightingale and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: the rasping note of the night jar, which, with specific
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: reference to a colonial cousin of that bird, Tasmanians ingeniously
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: render as more pork. It seems almost ludicrous to include
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: under the head of bird song not only the music
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: of the nightingale, but also the croak of the raven
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: and the booming note of the ostrich yet these also
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: are the love songs of their kind, and the hen
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: Ostrich doubtless finds more music in the thunderous note of
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: her lord than in the faint melody of such songbirds
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: as her native Africa provides. The nightingale sings to his
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: mate while she is sitting on her olive green eggs,
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: perching on a low branch of the tree, at foot
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: of which the slender nest is hidden in the undergrowth.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: So much is known to every schoolboy, who is too
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: often guided by the sound on his errand of plunder.
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 1: And why the song of this particular warbler should have
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: been described by so many writers as one of sadness,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: seeing that it is associated with the most joyous days
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: in the bird's year, passes comprehension. So obviously is its
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: object to hearten the female in her long and patient vigil,
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: that as soon as the young are hatched, the male's
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: voice breaks, like that of other choristers, to a guttural croak.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: It is said, indeed, though so cruel an experiment would
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 1: not appeal to many, that if the nest be destroyed
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: just as the young are hatched, the bird recovers all
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: his sweetness of voice and sings anew while another home
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: is built. Although poetic license has ascribed the song to
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: the female, it is the male nightingale only that sings,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: and for the purpose aforementioned. The note of the night jar,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, is equally uttered by both sexes,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: and both also have the curious habit of repeatedly clapping
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: the wings for several minutes. Together, they moreover share the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: business of incubation, taking day and night duty on the eggs,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: which two in number are laid on the bare ground
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: without any pretense of a nest, and generally on open
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: commons in the neighborhood of patches of fern break. Like
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: the owls, these birds sleep during the day and are
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: active only when the sun goes down. It is this
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: habit of seeking their inset food only in the gloaming
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: which makes night jars among the most difficult of birds
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: to study from life, and all accounts of their feeding
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: habits must therefore be received with caution, particularly that which
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: compares the bristles on the mouth with balin in whales
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: serving as a sort of strainer for the capture of
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: minute flying prey. This is an interesting suggestion, and may
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: even be sober fact, but its adoption would necessitate the
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: bird flying open mouth among the oaks and other trees
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: beneath which it finds the yellow underwings and cockchafers on
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: which it feeds, And I have more than once watched
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: it hunting its victims with the beak closed. I noticed
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: this particularly when camping in the backwards of eastern Canada,
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: where the bird goes by the name of nighthawk. In
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 1: all probability, its food consists exclusively of insects, though exceptional
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: cases have been noted in which the young birds had
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: evidently been fed on seeds. The popular error, which charges
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: it with stealing the milk of ewes and goats, from
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 1: which it derives the undeserved name of goat sucker, with
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: its equivalent in several continental languages, is another result of
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: the imperfect light in which it is commonly observed. Needless
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: to say, there is no truth whatever in the accusation,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: for the night jar would find no more pleasure in
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: drinking milk than we should in eating moths. Here, then,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: are two night voices of very different caliber. These are
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: not our only birds that break the silence on moonlight nights.
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: In June. The common thrush often sings far into the night,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: and the sedge warbler is a persistent caroller that has
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: often been mistaken for the nightingale. The difference in this
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: respect between the two subjects of these remarks is that
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: the night jar is invariably silent all through the day,
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: whereas the nightingale sings joyously at all hours. It is
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: only because his splendid music is more marked in the
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 1: comparative silence of the night, with little or no competition,
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: that his daylight concert is often overlooked. End of chapter six,
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: according by Ruth Golding, Chapter seven of Birds in the Calendar.
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding, Birds in the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: July Swifts, swallows and martins. When the trout fisherman sees
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: the first martins and swallows dipping over the sward of
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: the water meadows and skimming the surface of the stream
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: in hot pursuit of such harried water insects as have
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: escaped the jaws of greedy fish, he knows that summer
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: is coming. In the signs of spring have been evident
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 1: in the budding hedgerows for some weeks. The rooks are
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: cawing in the elms. The cuckoo's note has been heard
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: in the spinney for some time before these little visitors
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: pass in jerky flight up and down the valley. Then
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: a little later come the swifts, the black and screaming swifts, which,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: though learned folk may be right in sundering them utterly
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: from their smaller traveling companions from the sunny South, will always,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: in the popular fancy, be associated with the rest. Colonies
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: of swifts, Swallows and martins are a dominant feature of
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: English village life during the warm months, and though there
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: are fastidious folk who take not wholly culpable exception to
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: their little visitors on the score of cleanliness, most of
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: us welcome them back each year, if only for the
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: sake of the glad season of their stay. If moreover,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: it is a question of choice between these untiring travelers
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: resting in our eaves and the stay at home starling
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: or sparrow. The choice will surely fall on the first
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: every time. The swift is the largest and most rapid
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: in its flight, and its voice has a penetrating quality
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 1: lacking in the notes of the rest swifts. Screaming in
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: headlong flight about a belfry, or up and down a
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: country lane, are the embodiment of that sheer joy of life, which,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 1: in some cases, with slender reason, we associate peculiarly with
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: the bird world. Probably, however, these summer migrants are as
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: happy as most of their class. On the wing, they
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: can have few natural enemies, though one may now and
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: again be struck down by a hawk, and their light
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: on the ground so rarely as to run little risk
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: from cats or weasels, while the structure and position of
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: their nests alike afford effectual protection for the eggs and
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: young compared with that of the majority of small birds. Therefore,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: their existence should be singularly happy and free from care.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: And though that of the swift can scarcely, perhaps, when
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: we remember its shrill voice be described as one grand,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: sweet song, it should not be checkered by many troubles.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: The greatest risk is, no doubt, that of being snapped
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: up by some watchful pike if the bird skims too
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: close to the surface of either still or running water.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: And I have even heard of their being seized in
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: this way by hungry Marcia. Those great barble which gladden
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: the heart of exiled anglers whose lot is cast on
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: the banks of Himalayan rivers. It is, however, the sparrows
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: and starlings, rivals for the nesting sites, who show themselves
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: the irreconcilable enemies of the returned prodigals. Terrific battles are
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 1: continually enacted between them, with varying fortunes, and the anecdotes
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: of these phrase would fill a volume. Jesse tells of
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 1: a feud at Hampton Court, in the course of which
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 1: the swallows, having only then completed their nest, were evicted
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: by sparrows, who forthwith took possession and hatched out their eggs.
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: Then came nemesis, for the sparrows were compelled to go
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 1: foraging for food with which to fill the greedy beaks,
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: and during their enforced absence, the swallows returned in force,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: threw the nestlings out and demolished the home. The sparrows
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: sought other quarters, and the swallows triumphantly built a new
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: nest on the ruins of the old. A German writer
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: relates a case of revolting reprisal on the part of
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: some swallows against a sparrow that appropriated their nest and
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 1: re fused to quit. After repeated failure to evict the intruder,
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: the swallows, helped by other members of the colony, calmly
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: plastered up the front door so effectually that the unfortunate
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: sparrow was walled up, alive and died of hunger. This
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: refined mode of torture is not unknown in the history
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: of mankind, but seems singularly unsuited to creatures so fragile.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: The nests of these birds show, as a rule little
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: departure from the conventional plan, but they do adapt their
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: architecture to circumstances, and I remember being much struck on
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: one occasion by the absence of any dome or roof.
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: It was in Asia Minor, on the seashore that I
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: came upon a cottage long deserted, its door hanging by
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: one hinge, and all the glass gone from the windows.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: In the empty room, numerous swallows were rearing twittering broods
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: in roofless nests. No doubt, the birds realized that they
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: had nothing to fear from rain, and were reluctant to
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: waste time and labor in covering their homes with unnecessary roofs.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: Most birds are careful in the education of their young,
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and indeed thorough training at an early stage must be
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: essential in the case of creatures that are left to
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: protect themselves and to find their own food when only
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: a few weeks old. Fortunately, they develop with a rapidity
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: that puts man and other mammals to shame, and the
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: helpless bald little swift lying agape in the nest will
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: in another fortnight be able to fly across Europe. One
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: of the most favored observers of the early teaching given
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: by the mother swallow to her brood was an angler
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: who told me how one evening, when he was fishing
• 1:19:02
  Speaker 1: in some ponds at no great distance from London, a
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: number of baby swallows alighted on his rod. He kept
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: as still as possible, fearful of alarming his interesting visitors,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: But he must at last have moved, for with one accord,
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: they all fell off his rod together, skimmed over the
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: surface of the water, and disappeared in the direction from
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: which they had come a few moments earlier. Swifts fly
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: to an immense height these July evenings, mounting to such
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: an altitude as eventually to disappear out of sight. Altogether.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: This curious habit, which is but imperfectly understood, has led
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 1: to the belief that, instead of roosting in the nest
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 1: or among the reeds, like the swallows, the males at
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: any rate, spend the night flying about under the stars.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: This fantastic notion is not, however, likely to commend itself
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: to those who pause to reflect on the incessant activity
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: displayed by these birds the livelong day. So rarely, indeed
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: do they alight, that country folk gravely deny them the
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: possession of feet, And it is in the last degree
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: improbable that a bird of such feverish alertness could dispense
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: with its night's rest. No one who has watched swifts, swallows,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: and martins on the wing can fail to be struck
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: by the extraordinary judgment with which these untiring birds seem
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: to shave the arches of bridges, gate posts, and other
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: obstacles in the way of their flight by so narrow
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: a margin as continually to give the impression of catastrophe
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: imminent and inevitable. Their escapes from collision are marvelous, But
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: the birds are not infallible, as is shown by the
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: untoward fate of a swallow in Sussex. In an old
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 1: garden in that county, there had for many years been
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: an open doorway with no door, and through the open
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: space the swallows had been wont year after year to
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: fly to and fro on their hunting trips. Then came
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: a fateful winter during which a new owner took it
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 1: into his head to put up a fresh gate and
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 1: to keep it locked, And as ill luck would have it,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: he painted it blue, which, in the season of fine weather,
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: probably heightened the illusion. Back came the happy swallows to
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: their old playground, and one of the pioneers flew headlong
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: at the closed gate and fell stunned and dying on
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: the ground, a minor tragedy that may possibly come as
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: a surprise to those who regard the instincts of wild
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: birds as un erring. That the young swallows leave our
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: shores before their elders late in August or early in
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: September is an established fact, and the instinct which guides
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: them aright over land and sea without assistance from those
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: more experienced, is nothing short of amazing. The swifts last
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: to come, are also first to go, spending less time
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: in the land of their birth than either swallows or martins.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: The fact that an occasional swallow has been seen in
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 1: this country during the winter months finds expression in the
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 1: adage that one swallow does not make a summer, and
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: it was no doubt this occasional apparition that in a
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: less enlightened age seemed to warrant the extraordinary belief, which
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: still ekes out a precarious existence in misinformed circles, that
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: these birds, instead of wintering abroad, retire in a torpid
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: condition to the bottom of lakes and ponds. It cannot
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 1: be denied that these waters have occasionally, when dredged or drained,
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: yielded a stray skeleton of a swallow. But it should
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: be evident to the most homely intelligence that such debris
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: merely indicates careless individuals that, in passing over the water,
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: got their plumage water logged and were then drowned. It
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: seems strange that Gilbert White, so accurate an observer of birds,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: should actually have toyed with this curious belief, though he
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 1: lent rather to the more reasonable version of occasional hibernation
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: in caves or other sheltered hiding places. The rustic mind, however, preferred,
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: and in some unsophisticated districts still prefers, the ancient belief
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: in diving swallows, and no weight of evidence, however carefully presented,
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: would shake it in its creed. Fortunately, this eccentric view
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: of the swallows habits brings no harm to the bird itself,
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: and may thus be tolerated as an innocuous indulgence on
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 1: the part of those who prefer this fiction to the
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: even stranger truth. End of chapter seven recording by Ruth Golding,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: Chapter eight of Birds in the Calendar. This LibriVox recording
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. Birds
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: in the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo, August the seagull.
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: So glorious is the flight of the seagull that it
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: tempts us to fling aside the dryer's dust, theories of
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: mechanism of flexed wings, coefficient of air resistance, and all
• 1:25:03
  Speaker 1: the abracadabra of the mathematical biologist, and just to give
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: thanks for a sight so inspiring as that of gulls
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: ringing high in the eye of the wind, over hissing
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: comas that break on sloping beaches or around jagged rocks.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: These birds are one with the sea, knowing no fear
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: of that protean monster, which, since Earth's beginning has always,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: with its unfathomable mystery, its insatiable cruelty, its tremendous strength,
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: been a source of terror to the land animals that
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: dwell in sight of it. Yet the gulls sit on
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: the curling rollers as much at their ease as swimmers
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: in a pond, and give an impression of unconscious courage,
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: very remarkable in creatures that seem so frail. Hunger may
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: drive them in land, or instincts equally irresistible at the
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: breeding season, but never the worst gale that lashes the
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: sea to fury, for they dread it in its hour
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 1: of rage, as little as on still summer nights, when
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: in their hundreds they fly off the land to roost
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: on the water outside the headlands. It is curious that
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: there should be no mention of them in the sacred writings.
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: We read of quails coming in from the sea, likewise
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 1: of four great beasts, but of sea fowl never a word,
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: though one sees them in abundance on the coast near Jaffa.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: And the Hebrew writers might have been expected to weave
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: them into the rich fabrics of their poetic imagery, as
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: they did the pelican, the eagle, and other birds less familiar.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: Although seagulls have of late years been increasingly in evidence
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: beside the bridges of London, they are still, to the
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: majority of folk living far inland, symbolical of the August
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: holiday at the coast, and their splendid flight and raucous
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: cries are among the most enduring memories of that yearly
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: escape from the smoke of cities. The voice of gulls
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: can with difficulty be regarded as musical, yet those of
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: us who live the year round by the sea find
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: their plaintive mewing as nicely tuned to that wild environment
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 1: as the amorous gurgling of nightingales to moonlit woods in May.
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: Their voice may have no great range, but at any
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: rate it is not lacking in variety, suggesting to the
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: playful imagination, laughter, tears, and other human moods to which
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: they are in all probability strangers. The curious similarity between
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: the note of a sea gull and the whining of
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: a cat's bereft of her kittens is very striking, and
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: was on one occasion the cause of my being taken
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: in by one of these birds in a deep and
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: beautiful backwater of the Sea of Marmora, beside which I
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: spent one pleasant summer in this particular gulf, at the
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: head of which stands the ancient town of Ismitt. Gulls,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 1: though plentiful in the open sea, are rarely in evidence,
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: being replaced by herons and pelicans. I had not therefore
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: set eyes on a sea gull for many weeks, when
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: early one morning I heard from the farther side of
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: a wooded headland a new note suggestive of a wild
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: cat or possibly a lynx. My Greek servant tried in
• 1:28:56
  Speaker 1: his patois to explain the unseen owner of the mysterious voice,
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: but it was only when a small gull suddenly came
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: paddling round the corner that I realized my mistake. In
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: addition to being at home on the seashore, and particularly
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: in estuaries and where the coast is rocky, gulls are
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: a familiar sight in the wake of steamers at the
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: beginning and ending of the voyage, as well as following
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: the plow and nesting in the vicinity of inland meares
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: and marshes. The black headed kind is peculiarly given to
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: bringing up its family far from the sea, just as
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: the salmon ascends our rivers for the same purpose. It
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: is not perhaps a very loving parent, seeing that the
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: mortality among young gulls, many of which show signs of
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: rough treatment by their elders, is unusually great. On most
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: lakes rich in fish, these birds have long established themselves,
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 1: and they were I remember as familiar at Geneva and
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: neuchatel As along the shores of Lake Tahoe in the
• 1:30:04
  Speaker 1: Californian Sierras, itself two hundred miles from the Pacific and
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: more than a mile above sea level. Gulls also follow
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: the plow in hordes, not always to the complete satisfaction
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: of the farmer, who is not unreasonably skeptical when told
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 1: that they seek wireworms only and have no taste for grain. Unfortunately,
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: the ordinary scarecrow has no terror for them, and I
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: recollect in the neighborhood of Maryport, seeing an immense number
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: of gulls turning up the soil in close proximity to
• 1:30:42
  Speaker 1: several crows that, dangling from gibbets, effectually kept all black
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: marauders away. Young gulls are, to the careless eye, apt
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: to look larger than their parents, an illusion possibly due
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: to the optical effect of their dappled plumage, and few
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: people unfamiliar with these birds in their succeeding molts readily
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: believe that the dark birds are younger than the white
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: down in little Cornish harbours, I have sometimes watched these
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: young birds turned to good account by their lazy elders,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: who call them to the feast whenever the ebbing tide
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: uncovers a heap of dead pilchards lying in three or
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: four feet of water, and then pounce on them the
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: moment they come to the surface with their booty. The
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: fact is that gulls are not expert divers. The cormorant
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: and puffin and guillemot can vanish at the flash of
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: a gun, reappearing far from where they were last seen,
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: and can pursue and catch some of the swiftest fishes underwater.
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: Some gulls, however, are able to plunge farther below the
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: surface than others, and the little kittiwake is perhaps the
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: most expert diver of them all, though in no sense
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: at home underwater, like the shag i have often when
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 1: at anchored ten or fifteen miles from the land and
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 1: attended by the usual convoy of sea birds that invariably
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 1: gather round fishing boats. Amused myself by throwing scraps of
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: fish to them and watching the gulls do their best
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: to plunge below the surface. When some coveted morsel was
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: going down into the depths, and now and again a
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: little roman nosed puffin would dive headlong and snatch the
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: prize from under the gull's eyes. Most of the birds
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: were fearless enough. Only an occasional saddleback the greater black
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: backed gull of the textbooks, knowing the hand of man
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: to be against it for its raids on game and poultry,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: would keep at a respectful distance. Considered economically, the smaller gulls,
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: at any rate, have more friends than enemies, and they
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: owe most of the latter, not so much to their appetites,
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: which set more store by offal and carrion than by
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: anything of greater value, as to their exceedingly dirty habits.
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: These unclean fowl are in fact anything but welcome in
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: harbours given over in summer to smart yachting craft, and
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: I remember how at avalon the port of Santa Catalina Island, California,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: various devices were employed to prevent them alighting. Boats at
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: their moorings were festooned with strips of bunting, which apparently
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: had the requisite effect, and the railings of the club
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: were protected by a formidable armor of nails. On the
• 1:33:48
  Speaker 1: credit side of their account with ourselves, seagulls are admittedly
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 1: assiduous scavengers, and their services in keeping little tidal harbors
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: clear of decaying fish, which, if left to accumulate, would
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: speedily breed a pestilence cannot well be overrated. The fishermen,
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: though they rarely molest them, do not always refer to
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: the birds with the gratitude that might be expected. Yet
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 1: they are still further in their debt, being often apprised
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: by their movement of the whereabouts of mackerel and pilchered shoals,
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: and in thick weather, getting many a friendly warning of
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: the whereabouts of outlying rocks from the hoarse cries of
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: the gulls that have their haunts on these menaces. To
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: insure navigation, Sea gulls are not commonly made pets of
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: the nearest approach to such adoption. Being an occasional pinioned
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: individual enjoying qualified liberty in a back yard, their want
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: of popularity is easily understood, since they lack the music
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: of the canary and the mimicry of parrots. That they are, however,
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: capable of appreciating kindness has been demonstrated by many anecdotes.
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: The Reverend H. A. Macpherson used to tell a story
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: of how a young gull, found with a broken wing
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: by the children of some Miller Eggue crofters, was nursed
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: back to health by them, until it eventually flew away.
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 1: Not long after it had gone, one of the children
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 1: was lost on the hillside, and the gull flying overhead
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: recognized one of its old playmates and hovered so as
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: to attract the attention of the child. Then, on being called,
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: the bird settled and roosted on the ground beside him.
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 1: An even more remarkable story is told of a gull
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 1: taken from the nest on the coast of County Cork
• 1:35:52
  Speaker 1: and brought up by hand, until in the following spring
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: it flew away in the company of some others of
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: its hind that passed over the garden in which it
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: had its liberty. The bird's owner reasonably concluded that he
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: had seen the last of his protegee, and great was
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: his astonishment when in the first October gale, not only
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: did the visitor return tapping at the dining room window
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: for admission, as it had always done, but actually brought
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: with it a young gull, and the two paid him
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: a visit every autumn for a number of years. On
• 1:36:33
  Speaker 1: either side of the gulls, and closely associated with them
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: in habits and in structure, is a group of birds
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: equally characteristic of the open coast, the skewers and turns.
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: The skewers, darker and more courageous birds, are familiar to
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: those who spend their August holiday sea fishing near the
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: land's end, where, particularly on days when the east wind
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: brings the gannets in porpoises close in shore, the great
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 1: skewer may be seen at its favorite game of swooping
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: on the gulls and making them disgorge or drop their
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: launchs or pilchard, which the bird usually retrieves before it
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 1: reaches the water. This act of piracy has earned for
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: the skewer its West Country sobriquet of jack Harry, and
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: against so fierce an onslaught. Even the largest gull, though
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: actually of heavier build than its tyrant, has no chance,
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: and seldom indeed seems to offer the feeblest resistance. These
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: skewers rob their neighbors in every latitude, and even in
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: the Antarctic. One kind closely related to our own, makes
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: havoc among the penguins, an episode described by the late
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: doctor Wilson, one of the heroes of the ill fated
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: Scott Expedition. Far more pleasing to the eye are the
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 1: graceful little turns or sea swallows, fairy like creatures with
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: red legs and bill, long pointed wings and deeply forked tail,
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 1: which skim the surface of the sea or hawk over
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: the shallows of trout streams in search of dragonflies or
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: small fish. It is not a very rare experience for
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 1: the trout fisherman to hook a swallow, which may happen
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: to dash by at the moment of casting. But a
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 1: much more unusual occurrence was that of a turn on
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 1: a well known pool of the spay actually mistaking a
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: salmon fly for a small fish and swooping on it.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: Only to get firmly hooked by the bill. Fortunately for
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: the too venturesome turn, the fisherman was a lover of birds,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: and he managed, with some difficulty to reel it in gently,
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: after which it was released, none the worse for its mistake.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter eight. Recording by Ruth Golding, Chapter nine
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 1: of Birds in the Calendar. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. Birds in the
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo, September. Birds in the Corn,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: more than one of our summer visitors, like the nightingale
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: and cuckoo, are less often seen than heard, but certainly
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: the most secretive hydra of them all is the land rail.
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 1: This harsh voiced bird reaches our shores in May, and
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: it was on the last of that month that I
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: lately heard its rasping note in a quiet park not
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: a mile out of a busy market on the Welsh border,
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: and forgave its monotone because, more emphatically than even the
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: cuckoo's disyllable, it announced that at last summer was a
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: comin in. This feeble looking but indomitable traveler is closely
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: associated during its visit with the resident partridge. They nest
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 1: in the same situations, hiding in the fields of grass
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: and standing corn, and eventually being flushed in company by
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: september guns. Walking abreast through the clover bud sport is
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 1: not the theme of these notes, and it will therefore
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: suffice to remark in passing on the curious manner in
• 1:40:46
  Speaker 1: which even good shots, accustomed to bring down partridges with
• 1:40:50
  Speaker 1: some approach to certainty, contrive to miss these lazy, flapping
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: fowl when walking them up. Dispassionately considered, the landrail should
• 1:41:02
  Speaker 1: be a bird that a man could scarcely miss on
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: the first occasion of his handling a gun. In cold fact,
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: it often survives two barrels, apparently untouched. This immunity it
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: owes in all probability to its slow and heavy flight.
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: Since those whose eyes are accustomed to the rapid movement
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: of partridges are apt to misjudge the allowance necessary for
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: such a laggard and to fire in front of it,
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: it is difficult to realize that, whereas the strong winged
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: partridge is a stay at home, the deliberate land rail
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: has come to us from Africa, and will, if spared
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: by the guns, return there perhaps the most curious and
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: interesting habit recorded of the landrail is that of feigning
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: death when suddenly discovered, a method of self defense which
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: it shares with a possums, spiders, and in fact other
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: animals of almost every class. It will, if suddenly surprised
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: by a dog, lie perfectly still and betray no sign
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 1: of life. There is, however, at least one authentic case
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 1: of a landrail actually dying of fright when suddenly ceased,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: and it is a disputed point whether the so called
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 1: pretense of death should not rather be regarded as a
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: state of trance. Strict regard for the truth compels the
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: admission that, on the only occasion on which I remember
• 1:42:36
  Speaker 1: taking hold of a live corncrake, the bird, so far
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: from pretending to be dead, pecked my wrist heartily. Just
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: as the country folk regard the rheineck as leader of
• 1:42:49
  Speaker 1: the wandering cuckoos and the short eared owl as forerunner
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: of the woodcocks, so the ancients held that the landrail
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: performed the same service pioneer to the quail on its
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 1: long journeys over land and sea. Save in exceptional years,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: England is not visited by quail in sufficient numbers to
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 1: lend interest to this aspect of a bird attractive on
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: other grounds, but the coincidence of their arrival with us
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 1: is well established. The voice of the corn crake, easily
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: distinguished from that of any other bird of our fields,
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 1: may be approximately reproduced by using a blunt sore against
• 1:43:32
  Speaker 1: the grain on hard wood. So loud is it at
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: times that I have heard it from the open window
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: of an express train, the noise of which drowned all
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: other birds song, And it seems remarkable that such a
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: volume of sound should come from a throat so slender.
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: Yet the rasping note is welcome during the early days
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: of its arrival, since just as the cuckoo gave earlier
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 1: message of spring, so the corn crake, in sadder vein
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: heralds the ripeness of our briefer summer. The East Anglian
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: name dacca hen comes from an old word descriptive of
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 1: the bird's halting flight, and indeed, to see a land
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: rail drop, as already mentioned after flying a few yards,
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: makes one incredulous when tracing its long voyages on the map.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: In the first place. However, it should be remembered that
• 1:44:30
  Speaker 1: the bird does not drop back in the grass because
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: it is tired, but solely because it knows the way
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 1: to safety by running out of sight. In the second,
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: the apparent weakness of its wings is not real. Quails
• 1:44:44
  Speaker 1: have little round wings that look ill adapted to long journeys.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: I have been struck by this times and again when
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 1: shooting quail in Egypt and Morocco. Yet of the quails
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: fitness for travel there has never, since Bible days been
• 1:44:59
  Speaker 1: any question. The landrail is an excellent table bird. Personally
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: I prefer it to the partridge, but this is perhaps
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: praising it too highly. Legally, of course, it is game.
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: As a game license must be held by anyone who
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: shoots it, and though protected in this country only under
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: the wild Birds Act, Irish law extends this by a
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 1: month so that it may not be shot in that
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: country after the last day of January. Like most migratory birds,
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: its numbers vary locally in different seasons, and its scarcity
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: in Hampshire, to which White makes reference, has by no
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 1: means been maintained of recent years, as large bags have
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: been recorded in every part of that county. The common
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: partridge is, at any rate for the naturalist a less
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: interesting subject than its red legged cousin, which seems to
• 1:45:59
  Speaker 1: have been first introduced from France, or possibly from the
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: island of Guernsey, where it no longer exists in the
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: reign of Charles the Second. That this early experiment was not, however,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: attended by far reaching results seems probable, since early in
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: the reign of George the Third we find the Marquess
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 1: of Hartford and other well known sporting landowners making fresh attempts,
• 1:46:26
  Speaker 1: the stock of Frenchmen being renewed from time to time
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: during the next fifty years, chiefly on the east side
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: of England, where they have always been more in evidence
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: than farther west in Devon and Cornwall. Indeed, the bird
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: is very rare, and in Ireland almost unknown. Its red
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: legs stand it in good stead, for it can run
• 1:46:50
  Speaker 1: like a hare, and in this way it often baffles
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: the guns. It is not, however, so much its reluctance
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: to rise that has brought into disrepute with keepers, as
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: its alleged habit of ousting the native bird in much
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: the same way as the hanover rat has superseded the
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: black Aboriginal, although far from the Frenchman, driving the English
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: partridge off the soil. There appears to be even no
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: truth in the supposed hostility between the two, since they
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: do not commonly affect the same type of country, and
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: even when they meet, they nest in close proximity and
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: in comparative harmony. Nevertheless, the males, even of the same species,
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: are apt to be pugnacious. In the breeding season. Both
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: the partridge and landrail run serious risk from size and
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: plow while sitting on the nest. Landrails have before now
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: been decapitated by the swing of the scythe and a
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: case is on record in which a sitting partridge, seeing
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: that the plow was coming dangerously near her nest, actually
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: removed the whole clutch of eggs numbering over a score
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 1: to the shelter of a neighboring hedge. This was accomplished,
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 1: probably with the help of the mail, during the short
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: time it took the plow to get to the end
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: of the field and back, and is a remarkable illustration
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: of devotion and ingenuity. Not for nothing, indeed, is the
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: partridge a game bird, for it has been seen to
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 1: attack cats and even foxes in defense of the covey.
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: And I have seen in the manuscript notes of the
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: second Earl of Malmesbury, preserved in the library at heron Court,
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: mention of one that drove off a carrion crow that
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 1: menaced the family. Both partridge and landrail sit very close,
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: particularly when the time of hatching is near, and Charles
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: sin John saw a partridge which his dog, having taken
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: off the nest, was forced to none the worse for
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: her adventure goes straight back to her duties, though, as
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: he adds, if it had not been that she knew
• 1:49:08
  Speaker 1: the eggs were already chipping, she would in all probability
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: have deserted her post for good and all. Whether or
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 1: not France is to be regarded as the original home
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: of the red leg, the fact remains that in that
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: country it is becoming scarcer every year, its numbers being
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: maintained only in Brittany, Calvados, Orn and Sart. Its distribution
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: in Italy is equally capricious, for it is virtually restricted
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: to the rocky slopes of the Apennines, the Volterrano hills
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 1: in Tuscany, and the coast ranges of Elba. It seems, therefore,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: that in continental countries as well as with us, the
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 1: bird extends its range reluctantly. Game preservers seem, however, to
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: agree that partridges and pheasants are beyond a certain point incompatible.
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: As with a limited supply of natural food, the smaller
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: bird goes to the wall. Like most birds, partridges grow
• 1:50:14
  Speaker 1: bold when pressed by cold and hunger. And I recollect
• 1:50:18
  Speaker 1: hearing of a large covey being encountered ten or twelve
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 1: years ago in an open space in the heart of
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 1: the city of Frankfort. End of Chapter nine recording by
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding, Chapter ten of Birds in the Calendar. This
• 1:50:41
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Ruth Golding.
• 1:50:47
  Speaker 1: Birds in the Calendar by Frederic ga Flalo, October. The
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: moping owl music vocal or otherwise, is always a matter
• 1:50:59
  Speaker 1: of taste, and individual appreciation of bird song varies like
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: the rest. One man finds the cuckoos cry intolerably wearisome.
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 1: Another sees no romance in the gargling of doves. While
• 1:51:14
  Speaker 1: comparatively few care for the piercing scream of the starling
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: or the rasping note of the corn crake. Yet few
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: birds perform to a more hostile audience than the owl.
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 1: I say advisedly, the owl, since the vast majority of
• 1:51:33
  Speaker 1: people make no distinction whatever between our three resident kinds
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 1: of owl, not to mention at least half a dozen
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: more visitors. Some excuse for such carelessness might perhaps be
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 1: found in the similar flight and habits of different owls.
• 1:51:50
  Speaker 1: But it might have been thought that greater measure of
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 1: individual recognition on their own merits would have been conceded
• 1:51:57
  Speaker 1: to birds that range in size from the dimensions of
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 1: a sparrow to those of a duck. But no, an
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 1: owl is just an owl. Why the soft and haunting
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: cry of these birds should not merely displease, but actually
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: alarm so many people unaccustomed to such sounds of the
• 1:52:20
  Speaker 1: gloaming and darkness. It would be difficult to say, but
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 1: the voice of owls may possibly owe some of its
• 1:52:27
  Speaker 1: disturbing effect to contrast with their silent flight, which, thanks
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: to their fluffy plumage with its broad quills and long barbs,
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: prevents their making much more noise than ghosts when hunting
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 1: rats and mice in moonlit fields. Only one other English
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 1: bird has so quiet a flight, and that is the
• 1:52:51
  Speaker 1: night jar, another creature of the darkness, which, though no
• 1:52:56
  Speaker 1: cousin to these nocturnal birds of prey is known in
• 1:52:59
  Speaker 1: slight parts of the country as the fern owl. Visitors
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 1: unprepared for the eerie woodland music of these autumn nights
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 1: shudder when they hear the cry of the owl, as
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: if it suggested midnight crime. For myself, I have more
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 1: agreeable associations, since I never hear one of these birds
• 1:53:21
  Speaker 1: without recalling a gallant fight I once had with a
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: big tweed salmon in the weak light of a young moon,
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 1: while three owls hooted amid the ghostly ruins of Norham Castle.
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: Yet even apart from this wholly agreeable memory, I find
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: nothing unpleasant in their music, and can readily conceive that
• 1:53:46
  Speaker 1: the moping owl may sing to his mate as passionately
• 1:53:50
  Speaker 1: as Philammel. Not only is there the popular lack of
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: distinction between one owl and another already referred to, but
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: scientific ornithologists have displayed similar want of finality in classifying
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 1: these birds. There are as in seals, eared and earless owls,
• 1:54:12
  Speaker 1: though the so called ears in the birds are not
• 1:54:14
  Speaker 1: actually ears at all, but tufts of feathers that give
• 1:54:18
  Speaker 1: rather the impression of horns. There are bare legged owls
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: and owls with feather stockings. There are owls that fly
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: by day and owls that fly by night, though this
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 1: is a less satisfactory distinction than that between the diurnal
• 1:54:35
  Speaker 1: butterflies and nocturnal moths. Any reliable classification of owls must,
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 1: in short rest on certain structural bony differences of interest
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 1: only to the student of anatomy. Nearly all these birds
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 1: are able to turn the outer toe completely round, and
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 1: most of them also have very keen hearing, which must
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: to be an invaluable aid when hunting small animals in
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: the dark. Did the ancients actually regard the owl as
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: a wise bird or was the fashion of depicting it
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: in the following of Minerva merely dictated by the presence
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: of these birds on the acropolis. It seems hardly conceivable
• 1:55:23
  Speaker 1: that they could so have blundered as to call the
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 1: owls that we know clever birds, and the alternative assumption
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: that owlish intellect can have appreciably changed in the interval
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: is even less acceptable. It is probable that too much
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: significance need not be attached to such association between the
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: Greek goddess of wisdom and her attendant owls. For Hindu
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 1: symbolism represented Ganesa, god of wisdom, with the head of
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 1: an elephant. Yet that animal, which the natives of India
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: know better than the men of any other race, has
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: never figured in their folklore as a type noted for
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 1: its cunning. About the owl as we know it today,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: with its spectacled face and blinking eyes, there is nothing
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 1: strikingly intelligent, and schoolboy slang in which the word does
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: duty as synonymous with foolishness, discovers a more accurate appreciation
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: of these birds. Seen at its worst, when surprised in
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 1: the glare of daylight and mobbed by a furious rabble
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: of little birds, an owl looks a helpless fool. Indeed,
• 1:56:38
  Speaker 1: though this is not the proper moment to judge of
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 1: the bird's possibilities under happier circumstances, Why these small fowl
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 1: should bully it at all is one of those woodland
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: problems that no one has yet solved. The first and
• 1:56:55
  Speaker 1: obvious explanation is that they know it for their enemy.
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 1: And it may be indeed that owls commit depredations on
• 1:57:04
  Speaker 1: the nests of wild birds of which we who academically
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: regard their food as consisting of rats, bats, and mice,
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: or in the case of larger species of young game
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: and leveretts have no inkling. If, however, such is the case,
• 1:57:21
  Speaker 1: it is strange that the habit should have been overlooked
• 1:57:24
  Speaker 1: by those who have paid close attention to this curious
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: and interesting group. Bird catchers, at any rate, without troubling
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: to inquire into the reason, turn the instinct to profitable account,
• 1:57:39
  Speaker 1: and in some parts of the country a stuffed owl
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: is an important item of their stock in trade. The
• 1:57:47
  Speaker 1: majority of owls that either reside in or visit these
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 1: islands are benefactors of the farmer and should be spared.
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: The larger eagle owl and snowy owl eat more expensive food, though,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: seeing that they come to us at any rate in
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 1: the South Country only in winter, and even then irregularly,
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: they can do no damage to young game birds and
• 1:58:13
  Speaker 1: are probably incapable of capturing old The worst offender among
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 1: the residents is the tawny owl, to which I find
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: the following reference in the famous Malmesbury manuscripts. Common here
• 1:58:28
  Speaker 1: a great destroyer of young game and leveretts. They sit
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: in ivy bushes during the day, and I have known
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: one remain, although its mate was killed in the same
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: tree in such a state of torpa, did it appear
• 1:58:42
  Speaker 1: to be. The screech owl is a harmless bird and
• 1:58:47
  Speaker 1: a terror to mice, and any doubt as to its
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 1: claim on the farmer's hospitality would at once be removed
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: by cursory examination of the undigested pellets, which, in common
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 1: with hawk, these birds cast up after their meals. On
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: the other hand, there is sometimes good reason for modifying
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: any plea for kindness to owls. Handsome is as handsome does,
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 1: and many of these birds are, during the nesting season
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: not only savage in defense of their young, but actually
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: so aggressive as to make unprovoked attack on all and
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: sundry who unwittingly approached closer to the tree than these
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: devoted householders think desirable. Accounts of this troublesome mood in
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: nesting owls come from several parts of the country, and
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: notably from Wales. In one case on record, a pair
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 1: of barn owls had their home in a tree overlooking
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: Milford Haven, and the vicinity of the nest soon became dangerous.
• 1:59:53
  Speaker 1: The male owl tore a boy's ear, knocked a man down,
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: and attacked numerous human beings and dogs that made use
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: of a path leading past the tree, and these episodes
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 1: were in fact of daily occurrence until someone shot the bird.
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: Another pair of barn owls nested in a wood on
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 1: the shore of men I Straight, and in this case
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: the young birds managed to fall out of the nest
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 1: and lay on the ground in full view of a
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 1: public right of way. Why the old birds did not
• 2:00:28
  Speaker 1: put their offspring back in the nest no one knew.
• 2:00:32
  Speaker 1: Possibly they realized that the talons which so efficiently gripped
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: rats might not prove gentle enough for the transport of
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 1: owlets at any rate. Whatever their reason, they left the
• 2:00:46
  Speaker 1: young birds on the ground, feeding them in that position,
• 2:00:49
  Speaker 1: and flew at everyone who passed that way, clawing face
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 1: and ears, and eventually establishing a reign of terror. Another
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 1: owl behaved in somewhat similar fashion in a spinney close
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: to Axmouth, South Devon, punishing a coastguard so severely that
• 2:01:08
  Speaker 1: the man took to his heels. Such determined tactics in
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: defense of the young are the more singular when we
• 2:01:17
  Speaker 1: remember that owls are, in normal circumstances shy and retiring birds,
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 1: yet they occasionally seem to be possessed by more sociable instincts,
• 2:01:29
  Speaker 1: in proof of which one of the long eared kind
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: has been seen feeding in the company of tame hawks.
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: A pair of owls once nested in a dove cut
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: close to a keeper's lodge in the Highlands, and wild
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: owls have been known to pay knightly visits to a
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 1: cage in the botanic gardens at Launston, Tasmania, in order
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 1: to bring food to their captive friends. Even apart from
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: these rigorous measures of defense, the nesting habit of owls
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: are not without interest. The majority lay their eggs in
• 2:02:05
  Speaker 1: either hollow, trees or ruins, and it is worth remark
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: that these nocturnal birds bring up their young in darkness,
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: whereas the hawks birds of daylight, rear theirs in open nests,
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: high up in trees or on rocky ledges in the
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: full glare of the sun. One owl indeed habitually burrows
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: in the prairies and pampas in the curious company of
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 1: marmots and rattle snakes, and this burrowing habit is also
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 1: in some parts of the United States adopted by the
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: common barn owl. Owls generally brood from the laying of
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: the first egg, with the obvious result that young birds
• 2:02:48
  Speaker 1: in various stages of plumage are found together in the nest.
• 2:02:53
  Speaker 1: It has been suggested that the body of the first
• 2:02:56
  Speaker 1: to leave the egg helps to keep the unhatched eggs
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: warm while the parents are away foraging. Else its presence
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: would be a serious handicap. The first little owl to
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: hatch out is usually ready to leave the nest soon
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 1: after the arrival of the last, though these chicks come
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: into the world more helpless even than the majority of birds.
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: End of Chapter ten recording by Ruth Golding, Chapter eleven
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: of Birds in the Calendar. This LibriVox recording is in
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Recording by Ruth Golding. Birds in the
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo, November water Fowl. Had these
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 1: notes been written from the standpoint of sport, the three
• 2:03:51
  Speaker 1: familiar groups of birds which together make up this worldwide
• 2:03:55
  Speaker 1: aquatic family might better have borne their alternative title Wildfire,
• 2:04:00
  Speaker 1: with its covert sneer at the hand reared pheasant and
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: artificially encouraged partridge that between them furnish so much comfortable
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: sport to those with no fancy for the arduous business
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: of the mudflats. It is true that of late years
• 2:04:18
  Speaker 1: the mallard has inexperienced hands made a welcome addition to
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: the bag in covert shooting, as those will remember who
• 2:04:26
  Speaker 1: have shot the lockward beat on the last day of
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: the shoot at Nonham. And there is historic evidence of
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 1: wild duck having been reared for purposes of sport with hawks.
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: In the reign of Charles the first yet such armchair
• 2:04:42
  Speaker 1: shooting of wild fowl was ignored by Colonel Hawker and
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 1: the second Earl of Malmesbury, both of whom gunning in
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: the creeks and estuaries of the South coast made immense
• 2:04:54
  Speaker 1: bags of ducks and geese, working hard for every bird,
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: and displaying sp spart an indifference to the rigors of
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: wintry weather. To hardy sportsmen of their type, wild fowl
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: offer red letter days with punt or shoulder guns, not
• 2:05:12
  Speaker 1: to be dreamt of under the ages of the gamekeeper.
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: In this country. At any rate, we associate the v
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: shaped companies of widgeon and gaggles of geese with an
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: ice bound landscape, though in exceptional years, even where they
• 2:05:28
  Speaker 1: no longer stay to breed, these night flying Northerners linger
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 1: to the coming of spring, and Hawker noticed the curious
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: apparition of gray geese and swallows in company on the
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: first day of April eighteen thirty nine. This wedge formation
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: of flight over land and sea is not only peculiar
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: to these water fowl, but is not apparently adopted by
• 2:05:53
  Speaker 1: any other long distance migrants. No satisfactory explanation of their
• 2:06:00
  Speaker 1: preference for flying in this order has been found, but
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: it is thought to lessen the air resistance, which must
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: be a consideration for these short pinioned fowl that weigh
• 2:06:11
  Speaker 1: heavy in proportion to their displacement and at the same
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: time lack the tremendous speed of wing that enables the
• 2:06:18
  Speaker 1: wandering albatross to soar for days together over the illimitable ocean.
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: With one noticeable exception, these water fowl exhibit a more
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: extraordinary range of size and weight than any other family
• 2:06:32
  Speaker 1: of birds, from the hooper swan five feet long and
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 1: twenty five pounds on the scales, down to the little
• 2:06:39
  Speaker 1: teal with an overall measurement of only fourteen inches and
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: a weight that does not exceed as many ounces. The
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 1: only other family of birds running to such extremes is
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: that of the birds of prey, which include at once
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: the stately condor of the Andes, with its wings spreaders
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: fifteen feet and the miniature red legged fork inate of
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: India and adjoining countries in which the same measurement would
• 2:07:08
  Speaker 1: scarcely reach as many inches. Since even game birds are
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: derisively referred to as tame only by those ignorant of
• 2:07:18
  Speaker 1: the facts, the birds now under notice differ in this
• 2:07:22
  Speaker 1: respect from all those previously dealt with, and they are
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 1: geographically apart again from our other domesticated animals, since they
• 2:07:31
  Speaker 1: are not like the barn door fowl and most of
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 1: the rest of Asiatic origin, but must often, in the
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: gray of a winter morning, be conscious of their near relations.
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 1: Flying at liberty across the sky. The geese and ducks
• 2:07:48
  Speaker 1: have been remarkably transformed by the process of domestication, and
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 1: a comparison between those of the farmyard and their kindred
• 2:07:57
  Speaker 1: in the marshes should illustrate not only the relative value
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: of most virtues, but also the all importance of Aristotle's
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: how when and where. Strictly speaking, no doubt, the tame
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: birds have degenerated, both mentally and physically as surely as
• 2:08:17
  Speaker 1: the tame asks. They have lost the acute perceptions and
• 2:08:22
  Speaker 1: swift flight of their wild relations. Economically, on the other hand,
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: they are immeasurably improved, since the farmer indifferent to the
• 2:08:32
  Speaker 1: more inspiring personality of the gray goose, and the mallard
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: merely wants his poultry to be greedy and stupid, fattening
• 2:08:41
  Speaker 1: themselves incessantly for leadenhall and easily captured when required. Between swans,
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: geese and ducks, there is little anatomical difference, save in
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: the matter of size. The swans are the giants of
• 2:08:57
  Speaker 1: the race, and the swans of three continents are white.
• 2:09:02
  Speaker 1: It was left for Australia, land of topsy turvidum to
• 2:09:06
  Speaker 1: produce a black swan. I spare the reader the obvious
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: classical tag, and this remarkable bird, first observed by Europeans
• 2:09:16
  Speaker 1: in the early days of sixteen ninety seven, was quickly
• 2:09:19
  Speaker 1: brought to Europe and figured in the earliest list of
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 1: animals shown in the London Zoological Gardens. All these birds
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 1: have a curious trick of hissing when angry, and this habit,
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 1: perhaps because it is usually accompanied by a deliberate stretching
• 2:09:37
  Speaker 1: of the neck to its full length, is seriously regarded
• 2:09:41
  Speaker 1: by some as conscious mimicry. Of snakes, a proposition that
• 2:09:46
  Speaker 1: must be left to individual taste, but that strikes me
• 2:09:49
  Speaker 1: as somewhat far fetched. At any rate, it gives to
• 2:09:54
  Speaker 1: these birds a formidable air. And though the current belief
• 2:09:58
  Speaker 1: in its power of breaking a man's arm with a
• 2:10:00
  Speaker 1: blow from its wing is probably unwarranted, an angry swan
• 2:10:05
  Speaker 1: disturbed on its nest is an awesome apparition of which
• 2:10:10
  Speaker 1: I have twice taken hurried leave. On the first occasion,
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 1: I had nothing but a valuable camera with me, and
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: it was in fact, after a futile attempt to photograph
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: the bird on the nest, that I was moved to
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: seek the boat and push off from the little island
• 2:10:27
  Speaker 1: in the Upper Thames on which it had its home.
• 2:10:31
  Speaker 1: The other encounter was on a Devonshire trout stream, and
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: my only weapon was a fragile trout rod. The certainty
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: that discretion is under these circumstances the better part of
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: valor is emphasized by the knowledge that any violence to
• 2:10:48
  Speaker 1: the bird would probably lead to a prosecution. Even the
• 2:10:53
  Speaker 1: smaller geese can inspire fear when they dash hissing at intruders. Hence,
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: no doubt the nurse Maide's favorite reproach of children too
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 1: frightened to say boo to a goose, an expression made
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: classical by Swift. The majority of these water fowl are
• 2:11:12
  Speaker 1: insectivorous in the nursery stage, and vegetarian when full grown,
• 2:11:17
  Speaker 1: fish forms an inappreciable portion of their food, with the
• 2:11:22
  Speaker 1: two notorious exceptions of the goosander and merganza. Though anglers
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: are much exercised over the damage real or alleged, done
• 2:11:32
  Speaker 1: by these birds to their favorite roach and dace. In
• 2:11:35
  Speaker 1: the Thames, these swans belong for the most part to
• 2:11:40
  Speaker 1: either the Crown or the Dyers and Vintner's companies, and
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: the practice of uppings, which consists in marking the beaks
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: of adult birds and pinioning the signets, is still, though
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: shorn of some of its former ceremonial observed some time
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: during the month of June. Swans, like both of the
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 1: other groups, are distinguished by a separate name for either sex,
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: pen and cob for the swan, gander and goose, drake
• 2:12:12
  Speaker 1: and duck, and the figurative use of some of these
• 2:12:16
  Speaker 1: terms in such popular sayings as making ducks and drakes
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: of money. Source for the goose, et cetera is too
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 1: familiar to call for more than passing mention. Nearly all
• 2:12:29
  Speaker 1: these water fowl, though seen on dry land to much
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: the same disadvantage as fish out of water, are exceedingly
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: graceful in either air or water, though not all ducks
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 1: are as capable of diving as the name would imply.
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: The proverbial futility of a wild goose chase recognizes the
• 2:12:50
  Speaker 1: pace of these birds on the wing, which, though in
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: common with that of some other birds popularly exaggerated, is
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: considerably faster than, owing to their short wings and heavy
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: build might appear to the careless observer. Ducks have a
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 1: curious habit of adding down to the nest after the
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: eggs are laid and before incubation, and this provision of
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: warm packing is turned to account in Iceland and other
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: breeding places of the ider duck, commercially the most valuable
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: of all ducks. The nest is robbed of this down
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 1: once before the eggs hatch out, with the result that
• 2:13:32
  Speaker 1: the female plucks another store from her own breast, supplemented,
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: if necessary, from the body of the drake. The sitting
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: bird is then left in peace till the nest has
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: fulfilled its purpose. When the remaining down is likewise removed.
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 1: This down, which combines warmth and lightness, gives a high
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: market value to the ider, which throughout Scandinavian countries is
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: strictly prett collected by law and even more effectually by
• 2:14:03
  Speaker 1: public opinion. The majority of ornamental ducks interbreed freely in captivity.
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: Those who, apparently, on reliable evidence distinguish between the polygamous
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: habit in tame ducks and the constancy of the mallard
• 2:14:21
  Speaker 1: and other wild kinds to a single mate, have hastily
• 2:14:25
  Speaker 1: assumed that such hybrids are unknown in the natural state. This, however,
• 2:14:32
  Speaker 1: is incorrect, as there have been authentic cases of crosses
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: between mallard and teal, pochard and scorp, and other species,
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 1: such hybrids having at different times been erroneously accepted as
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: distinct species and named accordingly. The wild duck's nest is
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: usually placed on the ground in some sheltered spot close
• 2:14:57
  Speaker 1: to still or running water, and the ducklings swim like corks,
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 1: soon learning the proper use of their flat little bills
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 1: in gobbling up floating insects and other water logged food. Occasionally,
• 2:15:13
  Speaker 1: ducks nest in trees, and they have been known to
• 2:15:17
  Speaker 1: take possession of a deserted rook's nest. There has been
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: some discussion as to whether in this case the mother
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 1: conveys her ducklings to the water in her bill, but
• 2:15:28
  Speaker 1: this has not actually been witnessed. In cases where as
• 2:15:33
  Speaker 1: is often observed, the nest overhangs the water, it has
• 2:15:37
  Speaker 1: been suggested that the young birds may simply be pushed
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 1: over the edge and allowed to parachute down to the surface,
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: as they might easily do without risk. Tame ducks are
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 1: among the most sociable of birds, and can even display
• 2:15:55
  Speaker 1: bravery when threatened by a common enemy. The naturalist Say
• 2:16:00
  Speaker 1: once learned this as the result of a somewhat cruel
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: experiment that he made in order to ascertain whether ducks invariably,
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 1: as alleged, fall upon a wounded comrade and destroy it.
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 1: Wishing to satisfy himself on the point, Orsay, having come
• 2:16:18
  Speaker 1: upon some ducks in a small pond, deliberately pelted them
• 2:16:22
  Speaker 1: with stones till he had wounded one of their number. Instead, however,
• 2:16:27
  Speaker 1: of behaving as he had been led to expect, the
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 1: rest of the ducks formed close order round the wounded
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: bird and sheltered it from further harm. Few domestic animals none,
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: possibly with the single exception of the camel, are less
• 2:16:44
  Speaker 1: suggestive of pets than such gross poultry. Yet even a gander,
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: the most vicious tempered of them all, has been known
• 2:16:53
  Speaker 1: to show last ingratitude for an act of kindness. The bird,
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: which had long been the terror of children in the
• 2:17:01
  Speaker 1: little Devonshire village near which it lived, managed one day
• 2:17:05
  Speaker 1: to get wedged in a drain, and there it would
• 2:17:08
  Speaker 1: eventually have died unseen if a passing laborer had not
• 2:17:12
  Speaker 1: seen its plight and set it at liberty. Down to
• 2:17:16
  Speaker 1: the day of its death, the bird, though no wise
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: relinquishing its spiteful attitude towards others, followed its rustic benefactor
• 2:17:25
  Speaker 1: about the place like a dog. End of Chapter eleven.
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: Recording by Ruth Golding, Chapter twelve of Birds in the Calendar.
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: Ruth Golding. Birds in the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo,
• 2:17:54
  Speaker 1: December the Robin Redbreast. Of all the old proverbs that
• 2:18:01
  Speaker 1: are open to argument, few offer more material for criticism
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: than that which has it that a good name is
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: more easily lost than one and if ever a living
• 2:18:13
  Speaker 1: creature serve to illustrate the converse to the proverbial dog
• 2:18:17
  Speaker 1: with a bad name, that creature is the companionable little
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: bird that we peculiarly associate with Christmas. Traditionally, the robin
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: is a gentle little fellow of pious associations, and with
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 1: a tender fancy for covering the unburied dead with leaves.
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: But in real life he is a little fire eater,
• 2:18:41
  Speaker 1: always ready to pick a quarrel with his less pugnacious neighbors.
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: Yet so persistently does his good name cling that, while
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: ever ready to condemn the aggressive sparrow for the same fault,
• 2:18:55
  Speaker 1: all of us have a good word for the robin,
• 2:18:58
  Speaker 1: and in few of our words. Wild birds are character
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: and reputation so divergent. Surely, However, the most interesting aspect
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: of this familiar bird is its tameness, not to say,
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: attachment to ourselves. And so marked is its complete absence
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: of fear that it is a wild bird in name only.
• 2:19:23
  Speaker 1: And indeed, few cage birds are ever so bold as
• 2:19:26
  Speaker 1: to perch on the gardener's spade, on the lookout for
• 2:19:30
  Speaker 1: the worms as he turns them up from the damp soil.
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: The robin might in fact furnish the text of a
• 2:19:38
  Speaker 1: laised sermon on the fruits of kindness to animals. And
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: those dialectical people who ask whether we are kind to
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: the robin because it trusts us, or whether, on the
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: other hand, it trusts us because we are kind to
• 2:19:52
  Speaker 1: it ask a foolish question that raises a wholly unnecessary
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: confusion between cause and effect. It is a question that
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: those at any rate who have seen the bird in
• 2:20:05
  Speaker 1: countries where it is treated differently will have no difficulty
• 2:20:09
  Speaker 1: whatever in answering. Broadly speaking, the red breast has the
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: best time of it. In northern Lands, this tolerance has not,
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: as has been suggested, any connection with Protestantism, for such
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: a distinction would exclude the greater part of Ireland, where
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: as it happens, the bird is as safe from persecution
• 2:20:29
  Speaker 1: as in Britain, since the superstitious peasants firmly believe that
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: anyone killing a spiddog will be punished by a lump
• 2:20:38
  Speaker 1: growing on the palm of his hand. The untoward fate
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: of the robin in Latin countries bordering the Mediterranean has
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: nothing to do with religion, but is merely the result
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: of a pernicious habit of killing all manner of small
• 2:20:52
  Speaker 1: birds for the table. The sight of rows of dead
• 2:20:56
  Speaker 1: robins laid out on Poulterer's stalls in the markets of
• 2:20:59
  Speaker 1: Italy and southern France inspires such righteous indignation in British
• 2:21:05
  Speaker 1: tourists as to make them forget for the moment that
• 2:21:08
  Speaker 1: larks are exposed in the same way in Bond Street
• 2:21:12
  Speaker 1: and at Leadenhall in Italy and Provence. Taught by sad experience,
• 2:21:18
  Speaker 1: the robin is as shy as any other small bird.
• 2:21:22
  Speaker 1: It has learned its lesson like the robins in the north,
• 2:21:26
  Speaker 1: but the lesson is different. The most friendly robin I
• 2:21:30
  Speaker 1: ever remember meeting with out of England was in a
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: garden attached to a cafe in Trebizond, where hopping round
• 2:21:38
  Speaker 1: my chair and picking up crumbs it made me feel
• 2:21:41
  Speaker 1: curiously at home. Similar treatment of other wild birds would
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: in time produce the same results, and even the suspicious
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: starling and standoff rook might be taught to forget their
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: fear of us. The robin, feeding less on fruit and
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: grip than on worms and insects, has not made an
• 2:22:03
  Speaker 1: enemy of the farmer or gardener. The common too common
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: sparrow is another fearless neighbor, But its freedom from persecution
• 2:22:14
  Speaker 1: of late somewhat threatened by sparrow clubs, is due less
• 2:22:18
  Speaker 1: to affection than to the futility of making any impression
• 2:22:22
  Speaker 1: on such hordes as infest our streets. No act of
• 2:22:29
  Speaker 1: the robins more forcibly illustrates its trust in man than
• 2:22:34
  Speaker 1: the manner in which, at a season when all animals
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: are abnormally shy and suspicious, it makes its nest not
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: only near our dwellings, but actually, in many cases under
• 2:22:46
  Speaker 1: the same roof as ourselves. Letter boxes, flower pots, old boots,
• 2:22:52
  Speaker 1: and bookshelves have all done duty. And I even remember
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: a pair of robins many years ago in Kent bringing
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: up two broods in an old rat trap, which, fortunately
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: too rusty to act, was still set and baited with
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: a withered piece of bacon. Pages might be filled with
• 2:23:14
  Speaker 1: the mere enumeration of curious and eccentric nesting sites chosen
• 2:23:19
  Speaker 1: by this fearless bird, But a single proof of its
• 2:23:23
  Speaker 1: indifference to the presence of man during the time of
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: incubation may be cited from the manuscript note books of
• 2:23:30
  Speaker 1: the second Earl of Malmesbury, which I have read in
• 2:23:33
  Speaker 1: the library at Heron Court. It seems that while the
• 2:23:38
  Speaker 1: east wing of that pleasant mansion was being built, a
• 2:23:42
  Speaker 1: pair of robins, having successfully brought up one family in
• 2:23:46
  Speaker 1: one of the unfinished rooms, actually reared a second brood
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: in a hole made for a scaffold pole, though the
• 2:23:54
  Speaker 1: sitting bird, being immediately beneath a plank on which the
• 2:23:58
  Speaker 1: plasterers stood at work, was repeatedly splashed with mortar. The
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: egg of the robin is subject to considerable variety of type.
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: I think it was the late Lord Lilford, who, speaking
• 2:24:14
  Speaker 1: on the subject of a bill for the protection of
• 2:24:16
  Speaker 1: wild birds eggs then before the House of Lords, gave
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: it as his belief that no ornithologist of repute would
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: swear to the name of a single British bird's egg
• 2:24:27
  Speaker 1: without positively seeing one or other of the parent birds
• 2:24:31
  Speaker 1: fly off the nest. This was perhaps a little overstating
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: the difficulty of evidence, since any schoolboy with a fancy
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: for birds nesting might without hesitation, identify such pronounced types
• 2:24:45
  Speaker 1: as those of the chaffinch with its purple blotches, the
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: song thrush with its black spots on a blue ground,
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: or the nightingale, which resembles a miniature olive. Eggs, on
• 2:24:59
  Speaker 1: the other hand, like those of the house sparrow, redshank
• 2:25:03
  Speaker 1: and some of the smaller warblers, are so easily confused
• 2:25:07
  Speaker 1: with those of allied species that Lord Lilford's caution is
• 2:25:11
  Speaker 1: by no means superfluous. Ordinarily speaking, the robin's egg is
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: white with red spots at one end, but I remembered
• 2:25:21
  Speaker 1: taking at Bexley nearly thirty years ago an immaculate one
• 2:25:25
  Speaker 1: of coffee color. As the robin is a favorite foster
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: parent with cuckoos, my first thought was that this might
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: be an unusually small egg of the parasitic bird, which
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: was very plentiful thereabouts. It so happened, however, that three
• 2:25:43
  Speaker 1: days after I had abstracted the first and only egg
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: I took from that nest, there was a second of
• 2:25:49
  Speaker 1: the same type, and much as I would have liked
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: this also for my collection, I left it in the
• 2:25:56
  Speaker 1: nest so as to set all doubts at rest. My
• 2:26:00
  Speaker 1: moderation was rewarded, for no one else found the nest,
• 2:26:04
  Speaker 1: and in due course the coffee colored egg produced a robin.
• 2:26:08
  Speaker 1: Like the rest. The robin is anything but a gregarious bird.
• 2:26:15
  Speaker 1: Its fighting temper doubtless leads it to keep its own company,
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: and we rarely see more than one singing on the
• 2:26:21
  Speaker 1: same bush or seeking for food on the same lawn. Yet,
• 2:26:26
  Speaker 1: though it is with us all the year, it is
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: known to perform migrations within these islands, and possibly also overseas,
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: chiefly connected with commissariat difficulties, and it is probable that
• 2:26:39
  Speaker 1: on such occasions many robins may travel in company, though
• 2:26:44
  Speaker 1: I have not been so fortunate as to come across
• 2:26:47
  Speaker 1: them in their pilgrimage. Equally interesting, however, is the habit
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: which the bird has in Devonshire of occasionally going down
• 2:26:57
  Speaker 1: to the rocks on the seashore, as I have often
• 2:27:00
  Speaker 1: noticed in the neighborhood of Tigmouth and Torquay. What manner
• 2:27:05
  Speaker 1: of food the redbreast may find in such surroundings is
• 2:27:08
  Speaker 1: a mystery, but there it certainly spends some of its
• 2:27:12
  Speaker 1: time bobbing at the edge of the rock pools, in
• 2:27:15
  Speaker 1: much the same fashion as the dipper on inland waters.
• 2:27:21
  Speaker 1: Young robins are turned adrift at an early age to
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: look after themselves, a result of the parent bird always
• 2:27:28
  Speaker 1: rearing two families in the year and in many cases
• 2:27:32
  Speaker 1: even three, so that they have not too much time
• 2:27:35
  Speaker 1: to devote to the upbringing of each. Another consequence of
• 2:27:40
  Speaker 1: this prolific habit is that the robin has to make
• 2:27:43
  Speaker 1: its nest earlier than most of our wild birds, and
• 2:27:47
  Speaker 1: its nest has in fact been found near Torquay during
• 2:27:51
  Speaker 1: the first week of January. It has long been the
• 2:27:56
  Speaker 1: pardonable fancy of Englishmen exiled to new homes under the
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: palms or pines, in the scorching tropical sun, or in
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: the biting northern blast, to misname all manner of conspicuous birds,
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: after well remembered kinds left at home in the woods
• 2:28:15
  Speaker 1: and fields of the old country, as might be expected
• 2:28:20
  Speaker 1: of a bird so characteristic of English scenes, and so
• 2:28:24
  Speaker 1: closely associated with the festival that always brings nostalgia to
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: the emigrant. The robin has its share of these namesakes,
• 2:28:33
  Speaker 1: and several of them bear little likeness to the original.
• 2:28:38
  Speaker 1: In New South Wales, I remember being shown a robin which,
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: though perhaps a little smaller, was not unlike our own bird.
• 2:28:47
  Speaker 1: But the robin that was pointed out to me in
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: the States from Maine to Carolina was as big as
• 2:28:53
  Speaker 1: a thrush. Yet it had the red breast, by which
• 2:28:57
  Speaker 1: particularly conspicuous against a background of snow. This popular little
• 2:29:02
  Speaker 1: bird is always recognizable, the male as well as the female. Indeed,
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: to all outward appearance, the sexes are absolutely alike, a
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: striking contrast to the cock and hen pheasant, the first
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: bird dealt with in these notes, as this is the
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: last end of Chapter twelve and end of Birds in
• 2:29:28
  Speaker 1: the Calendar by Frederick g Aflalo. Recording by Ruth Golding