Edmund Selous

There is a heronry on an estate here, into which, in the early spring, I have sometimes crept, coming before dawn, in silence and darkness, to be there when it awoke. What an awakening! A sudden scream, as though the night were stabbed, and cried out—a scream to chill one's very blood—followed by a deep “oogh,” and then a most extraordinary noise in the throat, a kind of croak sometimes, but more often a kind of pipe, like a subdued siren—a fog-signal—yet pleasing, even musical. Sometimes, again, it suggests the tones of the human voice—weirdly, eerily—vividly caught for a moment, then an Ovid’s metamorphosis. This curious sound, in the production of which the neck is as the long tube of some metal instrument, is very characteristic, and constantly heard. And now scream after scream, each one more harsh and wild than the last, rings out from tree to tree. Other sounds—strange, wild, grotesque—cannot even suffer an attempt to describe them. All this through the darkness, the black of which is now beginning to be “dipped in grey.” There is the snapping of the bill, too—a soft click, a musical “pip, pip”—amidst all these uncouth noises. On the whole, it is the grotesque in sound—a carnival of hoarse, wild, grotesque inarticulations. Amidst them, every now and then, one hears the great sweep of pinions, and a shadowy form, just thickening on the gloom, is lost in the profounder gloom of some tree that receives it.

Most of the nests are in sad, drooping-boughed firs—spruces, a name that suits them not—trees whose very branches are a midnight, as Longfellow has called them,11 in a great, though seldom-mentioned poem. Others are in grand old beeches, which, with the slender white birch and the maple, stand in open clearings amidst the shaggy firs, and make this plantation a paradise. Sometimes, as the herons fly out of one tree into another, they make a loud, sonorous beating with their great wings, whilst at others, they glide with long, silent-sounding swishes, that seem a part of the darkness. Two will, often, pursue each other, with harshest screams, and, all at once, from one of them comes a shout of wild, maniacal laughter, that sets the blood a-tingling, and makes one a better man to hear. Whilst sweeping, thus, in nuptial flight, about their nesting-trees, they stretch out their long necks in front of them, sometimes quite straight, more often bent near the breast like a crooked piece of copper wire. A strange appearance!—everything stiff and abrupt, odd-looking, uncouth, no graceful curves or sweeps. The long legs, carried horizontally, balance the neck behind—but grotesquely, as one gargoyle glares at another. Thus herons fly within the heronry, but as they sail out, en voyage, the head is drawn back between the shoulders, in the more familiar way. As morning dawns, the shadowy “air-drawn” forms begin to appear more substantially. Several of the birds may then be seen perched about in the trees, some gaunt and upright, others hunched up in a heap, with, perhaps, one statuesque figure placed, like a sentinel, on the top of a tall, slender larch, the thin pinnacle of the trunk of which is bent over to form a perch.

Other, and much sweeter, sounds begin now to mingle with the harsh, though not unpleasing screams, and, increasing every moment in volume, make them, at last, but part of a universal and most divine harmony. The whole plantation has become a song. Song-thrush and mistle-thrush make it up, mostly, between them, but all help, and all is a music; chatters and twitters seem glorified, nothing sounds harshly, joy makes it melody. There is a time—the daylight of dawn, but not daylight—when the birds sing everywhere, as though to salute it. As the real daylight comes, this sinks and almost ceases, and never in the whole twenty-four hours, is there such an hour again. The laugh, and answering laugh, of the green woodpecker is frequent, now, and mingles sweetly with the loud cooing of the wood-pigeons—not the characteristic note, but another, very much like that of dovecot pigeons, when they make a few quick little turns from one side to another, moving the feet dancingly, but keeping almost in the same place: a brisk, satisfied sound, not the pompous rolling coo of a serious proposal, nor yet that more tender-meaning note, with which the male broods on the nest, caressed by the female. But the representative of this last, in the wood-pigeon—the familiar spring and summer sound—is now frequently heard, and seems getting towards perfection. So, at last, it is day, and the loud, bold clarion of the pheasant is like the rising sun.

The above is a general picture of herons in a heronry. It is almost more interesting to watch two lonely-sitting birds, upon each of whom, in turn, one can concentrate the attention. They sit so long and so silently, such hours go by, during which nothing happens, and one can only just see the yellow, spear-like beak of the sitting bird pointing upwards amidst the sticks. Only under such circumstances can one really hug oneself in that ecstacy of patience which, almost as much as what one actually sees, is the true joy of watching. But at length comes that for which one has been waiting, and may wait and wait, day after day, and yet, perhaps, not see—the change upon the nest. It comes—“Go not, happy day.” There is a loud croak or two in the air, then a welcoming scream, and in answer to it, as her mate flies in, the sitting bird raises herself on the nest, and stretching her long neck straight up—perpendicularly almost, and with the head and beak all in one line with it—pours out a wonderful jubilee of exultant sounds. Then, standing on the nest together, vis-À-vis, and with their necks raised, both the birds intone hoarsely, and seem to glare at one another with their great golden eyes. Then the male bends down his head, raises his crest, snaps his bill several times, and, sinking down, disappears into the nest; whilst the female, after giving all her feathers and every portion of her person a very violent shake, as though to scatter night and sleep to the four winds, immediately flies off. The whole magnificent scene has lasted but a few seconds. As by magic, then, it is gone, and this quickness in departing has a strange effect upon one. The thing was so real, so painted there, as it were—the two great birds, with their orange bills and pale-bright colouring, clear in the morning air. It did not seem as if they could vanish like that. They looked like permanent things, not vanishing dreams. Yet before the eye is satisfied with seeing, or the ear with hearing, the one has flown off silently like a shadow and the other sunk as silently into invisibility. Now there is a great stillness, a great void, and the contrast of it with the flashed vividness of what has just been, impresses itself strangely. It is as though one had walked to some striking canvas of Landseer or Snider, and, as one looked, found it gone. That, however, would be magic. This is not, but it seems so. One feels as though “cheated by dissembling nature.”

I have described the welcoming cry raised by the female heron on the arrival of her mate as “a jubilee of exultant sounds,” which indeed it is, or sounds like; but what these sounds are—or were—their vocalic value—it is difficult to recall, even but a few minutes after they have been uttered. Only one knows that they were harshly, screamingly musical, for surely sounds full of poetry must be musical. The actions, however—the alighting of the one bird with outstretched neck, the leaping up at him, as one may almost say, with the marvellous pose, of the other, the vigorous shake, in which inaction was done with, and active life begun, and then that searching, careful contemplation of the nest by the male, before sinking down upon it—all that is stamped upon the memory, and will pass before me, many a night, again, as I lie and look into the dark.

It is the female heron, one may, perhaps, assume, who sits all night upon the nest, being relieved by the male in the morning. The first change, in my experience, takes place between 6 and 9. The next is in the afternoon—from 4 to 5, or thereabouts—and there is no other till the following day. Well, therefore, may the mother bird shake herself before flying swiftly off, after her long silent vigil. Perhaps, however, as darkness reigns during most of this time it is the male heron who really shows most patience, since his hours of duty include the greater part of the day.

It must not be supposed that the above is a description of what uniformly takes place when a pair of sitting herons make their change upon the nest. On the contrary, the actions of both birds vary greatly, and this is my experience in regard to almost everything that birds do. Sometimes the scene is far less striking, at other times it is just as striking, but all the details are different—other cries, other posturings, all so marked and salient that one might suppose each to be as invariable as it is proper to the occasion. The same general character is, of course, impressed upon them all, but with this the similarity is exhausted. This—and it is largely the case, I think, in other matters—makes any general description of little value. My own view is that, in describing anything an animal does, it is best to pick a case, and give a verbal photograph. Two advantages belong to this process. First, it will be an actual record of fact, as far as it goes, and, in the second place, it will also be a better general description than one given on any other principle. There will be more truth in it, looked at as either the one thing or the other.

The particular pair of herons that supplied me with this particular photograph had a plantation to themselves for their nest—at least, though other herons sometimes visited it, they were the only ones that bred there. I watched them from a little wigwam of boughs that I had put against the trunk of a neighbouring tree, from which there was a good view. They had built in the summit of a tall and shapely larch, and beautiful it was to look up and see nest and bird and the high tree-top set in a ring of lovely blue, so soft and warm-looking that it made one long to be there. The air looked pure and delicate, and the sun shone warmly down upon the nest and its patient occupant. But the weather was not always like this. Once there was a hurricane. The tree, with the nest in it, swayed backwards and forwards in the violent gusts of wind, and now and again there was the crash and tearing sound of a trunk snapped, or a large branch torn off. But the heron sat firm and secure. There were several such crashes, nor was it much to be wondered at, the plantation being full of quite rotten birches that I might almost have pushed over, myself. In a famous gale here, one Sunday, the firs in many of the plantations were blown down in rows and phalanxes, falling all together as they had stood, and all one way, so that, to see them, it looked as though a herd of elephants—or rather mammoths—had rushed through the place. A tin church was carried away, too—but I was in Belgium during all this stirring time.

A close, firm sitter was this heron, yet not to be compared with White’s raven, since the entry of any one into the plantation was sufficient to make her leave the nest. Unfortunately, the nest almost hid her, as she sat, yet sometimes, as a reward for patience, she would move the head, by which I saw it—or at least the beak—a little more plainly. Sometimes, too, she would crane her neck into the air or even stand up in the nest, which was as if a saint had entered the shrine. When she did this it was always to look at the eggs, and, having done so, she would turn a little round, before sitting down on them again. Very rarely I caught a very low and very hoarse note—monosyllabic, a sort of croak—but silence almost always reigned. At first, when I came to watch the nest, I disturbed the bird each time, and again on leaving: afterwards I used to crawl up to the wigwam, and then retire from it on my hands and knees, and, in this way, did not alarm her. Once in the wigwam, her suspicions soon ceased, and she returned to the nest, usually from sailing high over the plantation, evidently on the watch, but, sheltered as I was, I was invisible even to her keen sight. On one occasion she flew out over the marshlands, and went down upon them. I left the plantation almost at the same time as she did, and, on my way home, I saw her rise and fly towards it again. Halfway there she was joined by her mate, and the two descended upon it, together, most grandly—a really striking sight. Slowly they sailed up, on broad light wings that beat the air with regular and leisurely strokes. Mounting higher and higher, as they neared the plantation, they, at length, wheeled over it at a giddy height, from which, after a few great circling sweeps, they all at once let themselves drop, holding their wings still spread, but raised above their backs, so as not to offer so much resistance to the air. At the proper moment the wide wings drooped again, the rushing fall was checked, and with harsh, wild screams, the two great birds came wheeling down, in narrower and narrower circles, upon the chosen spot. Perhaps the swoop of an eagle may be grander than this, but I doubt it. The drop, especially, gives one, in imagination, the same sort of half-painful sensation that the descent part of a switchback railway does, when one is in it—for one substitutes oneself for the bird, but retains one’s own constitution.

A GRAND DESCENT
Herons coming down on to Nest

Earlier in the year—in cold bleak February—I used to watch this same pair of herons pursuing one another, in nuptial flight, over the half-sandy, half-marshy wastes, that, with the moorland, lie about the lonely, sombre spot that they had chosen for their home. This, too, is “a sight for sair een.” How grandly the birds move “aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,” beating it with slow measured strokes of those “sail-broad vans” of theirs. They approach, then glide apart, and, as they sweep in circles, tilt themselves oddly from one side to another, so that now their upper, and now their under surface catches the cold gloomy light—a fine sight beneath the snow-clouds. With a shriek one comes swooping round upon the other, who, almost in the moment of contact, glides smoothly away from him. The pursuer plies his wings: slow-beating, swift-moving, they pass over the desolate waste, one but just behind the other. Again a “wild, wild” cry from the pursuing bird is answered by another from the one pursued, and then, on set sails, they sink to earth, in a long, smooth, gently descending line, reaching it without another wing-beat. Queer figures they make when they get there. One sits as though on the nest, his long legs being quite invisible beneath him. The other stands in varying attitudes, but all very different from anything one ever sees represented, either in a picture or a glass case. That elegant letter S, which—especially under the latter hateful condition—the neck is, of custom, put into, occurs in the living bird less frequently than one might suppose it would. When resting or doing nothing in particular, herons draw the head right in between the shoulders—or rather wings—which latter droop idly down, and being, thus, partially expanded, like a fan fallen open, cover, with their broad surface, the whole body and most of the legs. The thighs, so carefully shown in the cases, are quite hidden, and only about half the shank is seen beyond the square, blunt ends of the wings. The beak points straight forward, or almost so. It is a loose, hunched-up pose, not elegant, but very nice; one can smack one’s lips over it; it is like a style in writing—a little slipshod perhaps, like Scott’s, as we are told;12 but then give me Scott’s “slipshod”(!) style—I prefer it to Stevenson’s, though Stevenson himself did not. Then, again, when the bird is alarmed or thrown on the alert about anything, the long neck is shot, suddenly, forward and upward, not, however, in a curve, but in a straight line, from the end of which another straight line—the head and beak—flies out at a right angle. The neck, also, makes a somewhat abrupt angle with the body, and the whole has a strange, uncouth aspect, which is infinitely pleasing.

One might suppose that, with its great surface of wing, and the slowness with which it is moved, the heron would rise with some difficulty—as does the condor—and only attain ease and power when at some little height. This, however, is not the case. It will rise, on occasions, with a single flap of the great wings, and then float buoyantly, but just above the ground, not higher than its leg’s length—if this can be said to be rising at all. A single flap will take it twenty paces, or more, like this, when, putting its legs down, it stands again, and thus it will continue as long as it sees fit.

From the length of time which herons spend out on the marshes, or adjoining warrens, they must, I suppose, feed a good deal on frogs, or even less aquatic prey—moles, mice, shrews, as I believe, for I have found the remains of these under their trees, in pellets which seemed to me far too large, as well as too numerous, to be those of owls, the only other possible bird: yet I have not observed them in the pursuit of “such small deer,” and herons look for their food far more, and wait for it far less than is generally supposed. See one, now, at the river. For a minute or two, after coming down, he stands with his neck drawn in between his shoulders, and then, with a stealthy step, begins to walk along under the bank, advancing slowly, and evidently on the look-out. Getting a little more into the stream, he stands a few moments, again advances, then with body projecting, horizontally, on either side of the legs—like the head of a mallet—and neck a little outstretched, he stops once more. At once he makes a dart forward, so far forward that he almost—nay, sometimes quite—overbalances, the neck shoots out as from a spring, and instantly he has a fair-sized fish in his bill, which, after a little tussling and quiet insistence—gone through like a grave formal etiquette—he swallows. Directly afterwards he washes his beak in the stream, and then drinks, a little, as though for a sauce to his fish. There is, now, a brisk satisfied ruffle of the plumage, after which he hunches himself up, again, and remains thus, resting, for a longer or shorter time. In swallowing the fish, the long neck is stretched forwards and upwards, and, when it has swallowed it, the bird gives a sort of start, and looks most comically satisfied. There is that about him—something almost of surprise, if it could be, at his own deediness—which, in a man, might be expressed by, “Come, what do you think of that, now? Not so very bad, is it?” A curious sort of half-resemblance to humanics one gets in animals, sometimes—like, but in an odd, bizarre way, more generalised, the thing in its elements, less consciousness of what is felt. They wear their rue with a difference, but rue it is. It is interesting, too, to see the way in which the fish is manipulated. It is not tossed into the air, and caught, again, head downwards, nor does it ever seem to be quite free of the beak, at all points; but keeping always the point, or anterior part of the mandibles, upon it, the heron contrives, by jerking its head about, to get it turned and lying lengthways between them, en train for swallowing. The whole thing has a very tactile appearance; it is wonderful with what delicacy and nicety, in nature, very hard, and, as one would think, insensitive material may be used. How, in this special kind of handling, does the human hand, about which so much has been said, excel the bird’s beak? The superiority of the former appears to me to lie, rather, in the number of things it can do, than in the greater efficiency with which it can do any one of them. It is curious, indeed, that the advantage gained here is due to the principle of generalisation, as against that of specialisation, which last we see more in the foot.

In its manipulation of the fish the serratures in the upper mandible of its bill must be a great help to the heron, and this may throw some light on the use of the somewhat similar, though more pronounced, ones in the claw of its middle toe. Concerning this structure, Frank Buckland—whose half-part edition of White’s “Selborne” I have at hand—says: “The use of it is certainly not for prehension, as was formerly supposed, but rather, as its structure indicates, for a comb. Among the feathers of the heron and bittern can always be found a considerable quantity of powder. The bird, probably, uses this comb to keep the powder and feathers in proper order.” Why “certainly”? And how much of observation does “probably” contain? This is what Dickens has described as making a brown-paper parcel of a subject, and putting it on a shelf, labelled, “Not to be opened.” But, “By your leave, wax,” and I shall open as many such parcels as I choose. It is possible, indeed, that the heron’s serrated claw may not be, now, of any special use. It may be a survival, merely, of something that once was. If, however, it is used in a special manner, what this manner is can only be settled by good affirmative evidence, and of this, as Frank Buckland does not give any, we may assume he had none to give. Instead we have “certainly” and “probably.” But I, now, have “certainly” seen the heron use his foot to secure an eel, which had proved too large and vigorous for him to retain in the bill, and which he had dropped, after just managing to fly away with it to the mud of the shore. Here, therefore, “probably” the serrated claw was of some assistance, and the fact that this heron flew to the shore, whenever he caught an unwieldy eel, and dropped it there, goes to show that this was his regular plan, viz. to put it down and help hold it with his foot, or two feet. There was always a little water where the eel was dropped—it was not the shore, to be quite accurate, but only the shallow, muddy water near it—and therefore it was only on one occasion that I saw the foot used in this way, with absolute certainty. But as I did see it this once, I cannot doubt that it was so used each time, as indeed it always appeared to me to be. It is the inner side of each of the two claws that is serrated, and one can imagine how nicely an eel, or fish, thus dropped into the mud, could be pinched between them. This, then, is affirmative evidence. Negatively, I have seen the heron preen itself very elaborately, without once raising a foot so as to touch the feathers. On these occasions the bird often, apparently, does something to its feet, with the beak, what, exactly, it is difficult to say, inasmuch as a heron’s feet are hardly ever visible, except while it walks. But the head is brought right down, and then moves slightly, yet nicely, as a hand might that held some long, fine instrument, with which a delicate operation was being performed. Were the extreme tip of the bill to be passed between the serratures of the claw, the motion would be just like this, at least I should think it would.

People about here talk of a filament which they say grows out of one of the heron’s toes, and by looking like a worm in the water, attracts fish within his reach, in the same way as does the lure of the angler-fish. In Bury, once, seeing a heron—a sad sight—hanging up in a fishmonger’s shop, I looked at its feet, but did not notice any filament. This, indeed, was before I had heard the legend, but my idea is that it has sprung up in accordance with the popular view that the heron always waits, “like patience on a monument,” for his prey to come to him; whereas my own experience is that he prefers to stalk it for himself. I suspect, myself, that when the bird stands motionless, for any very great length of time, he is not on the look-out for a fish or eel, as commonly supposed, but resting and digesting merely. Certainly, should one approach, he might find himself under the necessity of securing it—his professional pride would be touched—but why, if he were hungry, should he wait so long? Why should he not rather do what, as we have seen, he is very well able to do, set out and find his own dinner? It need not take him five minutes to do so. One use, probably, of the long neck is that, from the height of it, the bird can peer out into the stream, as from a watch-tower, which is the simile that Darwin13 has made use of in regard to the giraffe, an animal whose whole structure has been adapted for browsing in trees, but which has thereby gained this incidental advantage, with the result that no animal is more difficult to approach.

I have given a picture—or, rather, a photograph—of how a pair of sitting herons relieve each other on the nest. It is interesting, also, to see one of them come to it, and commence sitting, when the other is away. Alighting on one of the supporting boughs that project from the mass of sticks, he walks down it with stealthy step and wary mien, the long neck craned forward, yet bent into a stiff, ungraceful S. Upon reaching the nest, he stands for some seconds on its brim, in a curious perpendicular attitude, the legs, body, and neck being almost in one straight line, from the top of which the snake-like head and spiked bill shoot sharply and angularly out. Standing thus, he raises himself a-tip-toe once or twice, as though it were St. Crispin’s Day, or to get the widest possible view of the landscape, before shutting himself out from it, then stepping into the nest, and sinking slowly down in it, becomes entirely concealed in its deep, capacious cavity. Both here, and, still more, in alighting, one cannot but notice the strange rigid aspect that the bird presents. “Cannot but,” I say, because one would like it to be otherwise—graceful, harmonious—but it is not. There are no subtle bends or curves—no seeming symmetry—but all is hard, stiff, and angular. Even the colours look crude and harsh, as they might in a bad oil painting. Nature is sometimes “a rum ’un,” as Squeers said she was. Here she looks almost unnatural, very different from what an artist who aimed at being pleasing, merely, or plausible, would represent her as. This shows how cautious one ought to be in judging of the merits, or otherwise, of an animal artist. There are many more human than animal experts, and the latter, as a rule, are not artistic, so that, between critical ignorance and uncultured knowledge, good work may go for long before it gets a just recognition. Those who talk about Landseer having stooped to put human expressions into his animals, seem to me to be out of touch at any rate with dogs. Probably the thought of how profoundly the dog’s psychology has been affected by long intercourse with man has not occurred to them, it being outside their department. Sure I am that the expression of the dog in that picture, “The Shepherd’s Chief Mourner,” and of the two little King Charles spaniels lying on the cavalier’s hat, are quite perfect things. Even in that great painting of Diogenes and Alexander—removed, Heaven knows why, and to my lasting grief, from the National Gallery—though here there is an intentional humanising, yet it is wonderful how close Landseer has kept to civilised canine expression—though one would vainly seek for even the shadows of such looks in the dogs of savages. As for Diogenes, the blending of reality with symbolical suggestion is simply marvellous. Never, I believe, will any human Diogenes, on canvas, approach to this animal one. Yet this masterpiece has been basely spirited away from its right and only worthy place—its true home—in our national collection, to make room, possibly, for some mushroom monstrosity of the time, some green-sick Euphrosyne or melancholy, snub-nosed Venus (the modern-ancient Greek type has often a snub nose). However, no one seems to mind.

I think some law ought to be enacted to protect great works against the changes of fashion. Has not the view that succeeding ages judge better than that in which a poet or artist lived, been pressed a great deal too far, or, rather, has it not for too long gone unchallenged? If something must be gained by time in the power of forming a correct estimate, much also may be lost through its agency. It is true that the slighter merit—that dependent on changing things—dies in our regard, whilst the greater, which is independent of these, lives on in it and may be better understood as time goes by. But this better understanding belongs to the Élite of many ages, not to each succeeding age as a whole. And what, too, is understanding, without feeling? Must not the one be in proportion to the other—in all things, at least, into which feeling enters? But if an age sinks, it sinks altogether, both heart and head. We know how Shakespeare fared in the age of Charles the Second, when time had run some fifty years. It would be very interesting, I think, if we could compare an Elizabethan audience with one of our own—full of languid press critics—at a Shakespearean play—King Lear, for instance. Should we not have to confess that the age which produced the thing responded to it—that is, understood it—best? And this, indeed, we might expect—it was in MoliÈre’s own day, and he himself was on the stage, when that cry from the pit arose: “Bravo MoliÈre! VoilÀ la bonne comÉdie!” But all Shakespeare’s excellences—MoliÈre’s as well—were of the permanent order, the high undying kind, so that it was of this that his age had to judge, and judged, there can be little doubt—for King Lear, as he wrote it, was a popular play—much better than our later one. If we will not confess this with Shakespeare, take Spenser, the delight of his age, whose glorious merits none will deny, though few, now, know anything about them. Why, then, must we think that time is the best judge of men’s work, or dwell only on the truth contained in this proposition? There is a heavy per contra against it. At the time when a man’s reputation is most established, his work may be quite neglected, showing that there is knowledge, merely, accumulated and brought down through the ages, but no real appreciation—a husk with nothing inside it. That best judgment which we think we get through time, even where it exists, is too often of the head only, whilst more often still it is nothing at all, a mere assurance received without question—as we take any opinion from anybody, when we neither know nor care anything about the subject of it. How easy to agree that Milton’s greatness is more recognised, now, than it was, when we have never yet been able, and never again intend to try, to read the “Paradise Lost”! It is the same with our detractions. If all the inappreciative, silly things said about Pope are really meant by the people who say them—as they seem to wish us to believe, and, as for my part, I do not doubt—if they really cannot enjoy “The Rape of the Lock,” “The Dunciad,” or the various “Essays,” then, in the matter of Pope, what a dull age this must be, compared to that of Queen Anne! And are we really to believe that Goethe, Scott, Shelley, with the rest of their generation, were mistaken about Byron, whilst we of to-day are not? What was it that Scott’s, that Shelley’s organism thrilled to, when they read him, with high delight, if some microscopic creature who reads him now is right when he finds him third-rate? It is very odd, surely, if the most gifted spirits of an age do really “see Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt” in this way. To me it seems less puzzling to suppose that successive generations have, as it were, varying sense organs, which are acted upon by different numbers of vibrations of the ether, so that for one to belittle the idol of another, is as it would be for the ear to fall foul of millions in a second, it being sensitive, itself, only to thousands. We do, indeed, admit the “Zeitgeist,” but if ever we allow for it when we play the critic, it is always in favour of our own perspicuity—and this against any number of past spiritual giants. This is an age in which most things are questioned. Is it not time for that dogma of what we call “the test of time”—by which everybody understands his own time—to be questioned, too?

“In April,” says the rhyme, “the cuckoo shows his bill.” Somewhat late April, in my experience, at least about this bleak, open part of Suffolk, which, however, contrary to what might be expected, seems loved by the bird. Almost opposite to my house, but at some little distance from it, across the river, there is a wide expanse of open, sandy land, more or less thinly clothed with a long, coarse, wiry grass, and dotted, irregularly, at very wide intervals, with elder and hawthorn trees and bushes—a desolate prospect, which I prefer, myself, to one of cornfields, unless the corn is all full of poppies and corn-flowers, which, indeed, it is here, and I am told it is bad agriculture. If that be so, then, À bas the good! Part of this space, where the sand encroaches on the grass, till it is shared, at last, only by short, dry lichen, which the rabbits browse, I call the amphitheatre, it being roughly circular in shape. One solitary crab-apple tree—from the seed, no doubt, of the cultivated kind—growing on its outer edge, is a perfect glory of blossom in the spring, and becomes, then, quite a landmark. This barren space is a favourite gathering-ground of the stone-curlews; whilst cuckoos seem to prefer the more grassy expanse, flying about it from one lonely bush or tree to another, and down a wild-grown hedge that tops a raised bank on one side, running from a tangled plantation standing sad and sombre on the distant verge. Beyond, and all around, is the moorland; whilst nearer, through a reedy line, the slow river creeps to the fenlands. I have seen sights, here, to equal many in spots better known for their beauty, not meaning to undervalue these; but as long as there is sun, air, and sky, one may see almost anything anywhere. Take an early May morning—fine, but as cold as can be. Though the sun is brilliant in a clear, blue sky, the earth is yet white with frost, and over it hang illuminated mists that rise curling up, like the smoke from innumerable camp-fires. A rabbit, sitting upright with them all around him, looks as though he were warming his paws at one, and cuckoos, flitting through the misty sea, appearing and fading like the shades of birds in Hades, make the effect quite magical. Nature’s white magic this—oh short, rare glimpses of a real fairyland, soon to be swallowed up in this world’s great tedium and commonplace! It is in the afternoon, however, from 5 o’clock or thereabouts, and on into the evening, that the cuckoo playground is best worth visiting. Quite a number of cuckoos—a dozen sometimes, or even more—now fly continually from bush to bush, or sit perched in them, sometimes two or more in the same one. They fly irregularly over the whole space, and, by turns, all are with one another, and on every bush and tree that there is. Two will be here, three or four there, half-a-dozen or more somewhere else, whilst the groups are constantly intermingling, the members of one becoming those of another, two growing into four or five, these, again, thinning into two or one, and so on. But during the height of the play or sport, or whatever we may term it, there is hardly a moment when birds may not be seen in pursuit, or, rather, in graceful following flight, of one another, over some or other part of the space. This space—an irregular area of about 1100 paces in circumference—they seldom go beyond or leave, except for good, and as they repair to it daily, at about the same times, this makes it, in some real sense, their playground, as I have called it.

But, now, what is the nature of the play, and in what does the pleasure consist? If it be sexual, as I suppose, then it would seem as if the passions of the cuckoo were of a somewhat languid nature. The birds, even when there is most the appearance of pursuit, do not, in a majority of cases, seem to wish to approach each other closely. The rule is that when the pursued or leading cuckoo settles in a tree or bush, the pursuing or following one flies beyond it, into another. Should the latter, however, settle in the same bush, the other, just as he alights—often on the very same twig—flies on to the next. This certainly looks like desire on the part of the one bird; but where two or more sit in the same tree, or in two whose branches interpenetrate, they show no wish for a very near proximity. The delight seems to be in flying or sitting in company, but the company need not be close. That the sexual incentive is the foundation-stone of all, can hardly be doubted, but this does not appear to be of an ardent character, and perhaps social enjoyment, independent of sex, may enter almost as largely. After all, however, the same may be said of the sportings of peewits and other birds, when the breeding-time is only beginning, so that, perhaps, there is not really any very distinctive feature. Be it as it may, this sporting of cuckoos is a very pretty and graceful thing to see. Beginning, as I have said, in the latter part of the afternoon, it is at its height between 6 and 7 o’clock, then gradually wanes, but lasts, as far as odd pairs of birds are concerned, for another hour or more. As may be imagined, it does not proceed in silence; but what is curious—yet very noticeable—is that the familiar cuckoo is not so often heard. Far more frequent is a noisy “cack-a-cack, cack-a-cack,” a still louder “cack, cack, cack”—a very loud note indeed—the loud, single “cook” disjoined from its softening syllable, and the curious “whush, whush” or “whush, whush, whush-a-whoo-whoo.” The last is very common, seems to express everything, but is uttered, I think, oftenest when the bird is excited. Again, instead of “cuckoo,” one sometimes hears “cuc-kew-oop,” the last syllable being divided, with a sort of gulp in the throat, making it a three-syllabled cry. This difference is very marked, and, moreover, the intonation is different, being much more musical. All these notes, and others less easy to transcribe, are uttered by the bird, either flying or sitting. Another one, different from all, and very peculiar, is generally heard under the latter condition, but by no means invariably so. It is a sharp, thin “quick, quick, quick-a-quick,” or “kick, kick, kick-a-kick,” pronounced very quickly, and in a high tone. Whether this is the note of the female cuckoo only, I cannot say. I have often heard it in answer to a “cuckoo,” but I am not yet satisfied that even this last is uttered by the male bird alone. To this point, however, I will recur.

Now, all the above variants of the familiar “cuckoo”—the “cook,” “cack,” “cack-a-cack,” “cuc-kew-oop,” &c.—I have heard both in May and April, as any one else may do who will only listen. But in what other way does the cuckoo “change his tune,” which, according to the old rhyme, he does “in June”? “In June he changes his tune.” This, at least, is what I take it to mean, and it is so understood, about here. It can, I think, only mean this, and if it means anything else it is equally false in my experience. I think, before putting faith in old country jingles of this sort, one ought to remember two things. First, that ordinary country people are not particularly observant, except, perhaps, of one another; and then, that, as a general principle—this at least is my firm belief—a rhyme will always carry it over the truth, if the latter is not too preposterously outraged. Something, in this case, was wanted to rhyme with June, as with all the other months, in which it happened to come pretty pat. Oh, then, let the cuckoo change his tune, for you may hear him do it then as well as at another time. And many poets, too—most, perhaps, now and again—led by this same bad necessity of rhyming, run counter to truth in just the same way. Rhyme, indeed, is in many respects a pernicious influence. It is constraining, cramps the powers of expression, checks effective detail, and coarsens or starves the more delicate shades and touches. Yet, with all the limitations and shacklings which its use must necessarily impose, we have amongst us a set of purists who are always crying out against any rhyme which is not absolutely exact, though that it is sufficiently so to please the ear—and what more is required?—is proved by this, that many of our best-loved couplets rhyme no better—and by this, that the ear is pleased with rhythm alone, as in blank verse. And so the fetters, instead of being widened, as they ought to be, are to be pulled closer and closer, and, to get an absolute jingle, all higher considerations—and there can hardly be one that is not higher—are to be sacrificed. I doubt if there has ever been a poet whose own ear would have led him to be so nice in this way; but so-called critics—for the most part the most artificial and inappreciative of men—weave their net of nothing around them. Happy for our literature, and for peoples still to be moved by it, to whom what was thought by the old British pedants to constitute a cockney rhyme will be a matter but of learned-trifling interest—if of any—when “these waterflies” are disregarded! By great poets I would be understood to mean. As for the other ones, “de minimis”—yes, and “de minoribus,” too, here—“non curat lex.” Mais laissons tout cela.

There can hardly be a better place for observing the ways of cuckoos than this open amphitheatre which I have spoken of. It is not only their playing-ground, but their feeding-ground, too, and the way in which they feed is very interesting—at least, I think it so. The few hawthorns and elders that are scattered about, serve them as so many watch-towers. Sitting, usually, on some top bough of one, they seem to be resting, but really keep a watch upon the ground. The moment their quick eye catches anything “of the right breed” there, they fly down to it, swallow it on the spot, and then fly back to their station again. When they have exhausted one little territory they fly to a bush commanding another, and so from bush to bush. They always fly down to a particular spot, and in a direct line, without wavering. This proves that they have seen the object from where they were sitting, though often it is at a distance which might make one think this impossible. Their eyesight must be wonderfully good, but that, of course, one would expect. I have seen a cuckoo fly from one bush like this, and return to it, again, eight or nine times in succession, at short, though irregular, intervals. Both on this and on other occasions, whenever I could make out what the bird got, it was always a fair-sized, reddish-coloured worm, very much like those one looks for in a dung-heap, to go perch or gudgeon fishing. When the bush was near I could see this quite easily through the glasses, if only the bird showed the worm in its bill, as it raised its head. As a rule, however, it bolted it too quickly, whilst it was still indistinguishable amidst the grass. Now, from time to time, we have accounts of cuckoos arriving in this country somewhat earlier than usual—in March, say, instead of April—and these have been discredited on the ground that the proper insects would not then be ready for the bird, so that it would starve; though as birds, like the poor in a land of blessings, sometimes do starve, I can hardly see the force of this argument. However, here is the cuckoo feeding—largely, as it seems to me—upon worms, which are not insects, and this might make it possible for it to arrive, sometimes, at an earlier season, and yet find enough to eat. It is easy to watch cuckoos feeding in this way in open country, such as we have here, and a fascinating sight it is. Were I to see it every day of my life, I think I should be equally interested, each time. But is it an adaptation to special surroundings, or the bird’s ordinary way of getting its dinner? I think the latter, for I have seen it going on in one of the plantations, here, from shortly after daybreak. Here the birds flew from the lower boughs of oaks and beeches, and their light forms, crossing and recrossing one another in the soft, pure air of the early morning, had a very charming effect. Indeed, I do not know anything more delightful to see. Though, usually, the cuckoo eats what it finds where it finds it, yet, once in a while, it may carry it to the bush, and dispose of it there. I have, also, seen it fly up from the bush, and secure an insect in the air, returning to it, then, like a gigantic fly-catcher. Such ways in such a bird are very entertaining.

My idea is that the cuckoo is in process of becoming nocturnal—crepuscular it already is—owing to the persecution which it suffers at the hands of small birds. This is at its worst during the blaze of day. It hardly begins before the sun is fairly high, and slackens considerably as the evening draws on. Accordingly, as it seems to me, the cuckoo likes, in the between-while, to sit still, and thus avoid observation, though it by no means always succeeds in doing so. It is frequently annoyed by one small bird only, which pursues it, from tree to tree, in a most persevering manner, perching when it perches, sometimes just over its head, but very soon flying at it, again, and forcing it to take flight. This is not like the shark and the pilot-fish, but yet it always reminds me of it. I am not quite sure, however, whether the relation may not sometimes be a friendly one, not, indeed, on the part of the cuckoo, but on that of its persevering attendant. All over the country cuckoos are, each year, being reared by small birds of various species. When the spring comes round again, have these entirely forgotten their experience of the season before? If not, would not the sight, and, perhaps, still more, the smell of a cuckoo, rouse a train of associations which might induce them to fly towards it, in a state of excitement, and would it not be difficult to distinguish this from anger? Moreover, the probability, perhaps, is that the young cuckoos, as well as the old ones, return to the localities that they were established in before migration, and, in this case, they would be likely to meet their old foster parents again. It is true that the real parent and offspring, amongst birds, meet and mingle, in after life, without any emotion upon either side, as far, at least, as we can judge; but we must remember what a strange and striking event the rearing of a young cuckoo must be in the life of a small bird, at least the first time it occurs. The smell, also, would not be that of its own species, so that there would be more than appearance to distinguish it. In fact, the thing having been peculiar, the feelings aroused by it may have been stronger, in which case the memory might be stronger too, and revive these feelings, or, at least, it might arouse some sort of emotion, possibly of a vague and indistinct kind. Smell is powerful in calling up associations, and I speculate upon the possibility of its doing so, here, because the plumage of the young cuckoo, when it left its foster-parents, would have been different to that in which it must return to them. However, these are dreams. There is certainly much hostility on the part of small birds to the cuckoo, but perhaps it is just possible that l’un n’empÊche pas l’autre.

The cuckoo, when thus mobbed and annoyed, is supposed to be mistaken for a hawk. But do his persecutors fear him, as a hawk? My opinion is that they do not, and that even though they may begin to annoy him, under the idea that he is one, they very soon become aware, either that he is not, or, at least, that they need not mind him if he is. It is even possible that small birds may, long ago, have found out the difference between a hawk and a cuckoo, but that the habit, once begun, continues, so that it is, now, as much the thing to mob the one as the other. Be this as it may, I do not think that hawks suffer from this sort of annoyance, to anything like the same extent that cuckoos do. They have always seemed to me to be pretty indifferent, and the canaille to keep at a wary distance, whereas I have seen a chaffinch plunge right down on the back of a cuckoo, who ducked his head, and moved about on the branch where he was sitting, in a manner, and with a look, to excite pity, before flying off it, pursued by his petty antagonist. But hawks—even kestrels—may sit in trees for hours unmolested, though the whole grove know of their presence there.

Whilst watching the cuckoos sporting in their playground, and on other occasions, I have tried to come to a conclusion as to whether the male only, or both the sexes cuckoo. I have not, however, been able to make up my mind, and to me the point seems difficult to settle. (It has been settled, I know, but I don’t think that settles it.) The sexes being indistinguishable in field observation, we have to apply some test whereby we may know the one from the other, before we can say which of the two it is that cuckoos on any one occasion. But what test can we apply, other than the bird’s actions, and until we know how these differ in the sexes, how can we apply it? For how long, too, as a rule, can we watch any one bird, and when two or more are together how can we keep them distinct? Some crucial acts, however, there are, which one sex alone can perform, and if a man could spend a week or two in watching, for a reasonable length of time each day, cuckoos that in this way had declared themselves to be females, he would then be able to speak, on this point, with authority. One way, indeed, he might prove the thing in a moment, but not the other way. For instance, if he were to see a cuckoo lay an egg, and if that cuckoo cuckooed, the assumption that the male bird alone can do so would be, at once, disproved; but if it merely did not cuckoo, the question would lie open, as before. The chance, however, of making such an observation as this is an exceedingly small one. We must think of some other that would be equally a test. Certain activities may bring the sexes together, by themselves, but nidification, incubation, and the rearing of the young, are all non-existent in the case of the cuckoo. The problem cannot be solved in the way that I have solved it, with the nightjar. There is, however, the nuptial rite, and if we could see this performed, and were able to keep the sexes distinct, for some time afterwards, something, perhaps, might be got at. Let us suppose, then, that two cuckoos are observed under these circumstances, and that the male, only, cuckoos. Here, again, this would be mere negative evidence, in regard to the point in dispute. Either both the birds, or the female only, must cuckoo, or else the observation, so difficult to make, must be repeated indefinitely, and, moreover, each time that neither bird cuckooed—which might very often be the case—nothing whatever would have been gained.

This is the view I take of the difficulties which lie in the way of really knowing whether the male and female cuckoo utter distinct notes. Short of the test I have suggested, one can only, I believe, come to a conclusion by begging the question—which has accordingly been done. Personally, as I say, I have not made up my mind; but I incline to think that both the sexes cuckoo. On one occasion, when the behaviour of a pair that I was watching seemed emphatically of a sexual character, the bird which I should have said was the female did so, several times, in full view; and the other, I think, cuckooed also. But here, again, I could not say for certain that the two were not males, and that conduct, which seemed to me eager and amorous, especially on the part of one bird—it was the other that certainly cuckooed—was not, really, of a bellicose character. Another pair I watched for many days in succession, from soon after their first arrival, as I imagine, and when not another cuckoo was to be seen or heard far or near. They took up their abode in a small fir plantation, and were constantly chasing and sporting with one another. That, at least, is what it looked like. If what seemed sport was really skirmishing, then it seems odd that two males should have acted thus, without a female to excite them. Would it not be odd, too, for two males to repair, thus, to the same spot, and to continue to dwell there, being always more or less together and following one another about? Though it was early in April, therefore, and though we are told that the male cuckoo arrives, each year, before the female, I yet came to the conclusion that these birds were husband and wife. At first it seemed to me that only one of them cuckooed, but afterwards I changed my opinion, though the two never did so at the same time, or answered each other, whilst I had them both in view. This, however, had they both been males, they probably would have done. Space does not allow of my giving these two instances in extenso, so I will here conclude my remarks about the cuckoo; for I have nothing to say—at least nothing new and of my own observation—in regard to its most salient peculiarity—though for saying nothing, upon that account, I think I deserve some credit.