Tits, as I think I have said, or implied, are a feature of Icklingham. They like the fir plantations, which, though of no great dimensions—for they only make a patch here and there—are to them, by virtue of their tininess, as the wide-stretching forests of Brazil. Sitting here, in the spring-time, on the look-out, with a general alertness for anything, but not thinking of tits in particular, one may become, gradually, aware—for their softness sinks upon one, one never sees them suddenly—of one of these little birds dropping, every few minutes, from the branches of a fir to the ground, and there disappearing. In a lazy sort of way you watch—to be more direct I once watched—and soon I saw there were a pair. They crossed one another, sometimes, going or coming, and, each time, the one that came had something very small in its bill. Walking to the tree, I found, at only a foot or two from its trunk, a perfectly circular little hole, opening smoothly from amongst the carpet of pine-needles, with which the ground was covered. Against this I laid my ear, but there were no chitterings from inside, all was silent in the little, future nursery—for evidently the nest was a-making. But how, now, was I to watch the birds closely? When I sat quite near they would not come, the cover being not very good; when I lay, at full length, behind a fir-trunk, and peeped round it, I could see, indeed, the ground where the hole was, but not the hole itself, which was just what I wanted to, inasmuch as, otherwise, I could not see the birds enter it. How they did so was something of a mystery, for they just flew down and disappeared, without ever perching or hopping about—at least I had never seen them do so. Here, then, was a difficulty—to lie, and yet see the hole, or to sit or stand, and look at it, without frightening the birds away. But Alexander cut the Gordian knot, and I, under these circumstances, climbed a fir-tree. There was one almost by the side of the one they flew to, and the closeness of its branches, as well as my elevated situation amongst them—birds never look for one up aloft—would, I thought, prevent their noticing me. Up, therefore, I got, to a point from which I looked down, directly and comfortably, on their little rotunda. Soon one of the coal-tits flew into its tree—the same one always—and dropping, softly, from branch to branch, till it got to the right one, dived from it right into the tiny aperture, and disappeared through that, in a feather-flash. It was wonderful. There was no pause or stay, not one light little perch on the smooth brink, not a flutter above it even, no twist or twirl in the air, nothing at all; but he just flew right through it, as though on through the wide fields of air. I doubt if he touched the sides of it, even, though the hole looks as small as himself. And it is the same every time. With absolute precision of aim each bird comes down on that dark little portal, and vanishes through it, like a ball disappearing through its cup. If they touch it at all, they fit it like that.

For upwards of an hour, now, the two birds pass and repass one another, popping in and out and carrying something in with them each time, but such a small something that I can never make out what it is—a little pinch of stuff, one may call it, only just showing in the beak. Sometimes it is green, as though the birds had picked off tiny pieces of the growing pine-needles, and sometimes it looks brown, which may mean that they have pulled off some bark—but always very small. An attempt to follow the birds on their collecting journeys, and see what they get, is unsuccessful. They fly, very quickly, into the tops of the firs, which stand dark and thick all around, and are immediately lost to view. Whatever the material is, they come to the nest with it every five or six minutes, nor do they once make their entrance except by flying directly through the aperture. They would be ashamed, I think, to perch and hop down into it. Very pretty it was to see these little birds coming and going—especially coming. Sometimes they would be with me quite suddenly, and yet so quietly, so mousily, they never gave me a start. At other times I used to see them coming, fluttering through the sun-chequered lanes of the fir-trees, till, reaching their very own one, they would sink, as it were, through its frondage, full of caution and quietude, descending, each time, by the same or nearly the same little staircase of boughs, from the bottom step of which they flew down. Some days afterwards, they were still building their nest, but after that I had to leave. The nest itself I pulled up and examined, a year afterwards, and it disproved all my theories as to what the birds had been building it with. It was of considerable size—round, as was the cavern in which it lay—and composed, almost wholly, of three substances, viz. moss, wool, and rabbits’ fur. The two latter had been employed to form the actual cup or bed—the blankets, so to speak—whilst the moss made the mattress. All three were in great abundance, and no royal personage, I think—not even Hans Andersen’s real princess—can ever have slept in a softer or warmer bed. It seems wonderful—almost incredible—that these two tiny birds, carrying, each time, such a tiny little piece, in their bills, could ever have got so great a mass of materials together. There it was, however, one more example of the great results which spring from constantly repeated small causes. The cavity in which the nest was placed, was, no doubt, a natural one, but the hole by which the birds entered it was so very round, that it must, I think, have been their own work, or, at least, modified by them. It looked just as if a woodpecker had made it.

It was in a hedge opposite to a plantation like this—a hedge made of planted branches of the Scotch fir, such as are common in these parts—that I once watched a pair of long-tailed tits building their much more wonderful nest. Like the coal-tits they are joint-labourers, and both seem equally zealous. Often they arrive together, each with something in its bill. One only enters, the other stays outside and waits for it to come out, before going in itself. This, at least, is the usual rÉgime. Occasionally, if the bird inside stays there a very long time, the other gets impatient, and goes in too, so that both are in the nest together—but this one does not often see. It is a prettier sight to see one hang at the entrance with a feather in his bill, which is received by the other—just popping out its head—upon which he flies away. This is in the later stages, when the nest is being lined, and when the birds come, time after time, at intervals of a few minutes, each with a feather in its bill. White these feathers often are, and of some size (so that they look very conspicuous). I have seen a bird, once, with two—two broad, soft, white ones that curled round, backwards, on each side of its head, so as almost to hide it. Such feathers must be brought from some particular place—a poultry-yard most probably—and both birds arriving with them, at the same time, is proof, or at least strong evidence, that they do their collecting in company. I have noticed, too, that if one bird comes with a feather of a different kind—for instance, a long straight one instead of a soft curled one—the other does too, showing how close is the association. At other times they bring lichen—with which the whole of the nest, outside, is stuck over—and so tiny are the pieces they carry, that I have, time after time, been unable to see them, even though sitting near and using the glasses. I have been so struck with this, that, sometimes, I have thought the lichen was carried rather in the mouth than in the bill, by which means it would be moistened, and so stick the easier on the outside surface of the nest.

It is most interesting to see the nest growing under the joint labours of the two little architects, and it does so at a quicker pace than one would have thought possible. At first it is a cup, merely, like most other nests—those of the chaffinch, goldfinch, linnet, &c.—and it is because the birds will not leave off working, but continue to build, that the cup becomes deeper and deeper till it is a purse or sack. Here, as I imagine, we see the origin of the domed nest. It was not helped forward by successive little steps of intelligence, but only by the strength of the building instinct, which would not let the birds make an end. The same cause has produced also, as I believe, the supernumerary nests which so many birds make, and which are such a puzzle to many people, who wonder at what seems to them extra labour, rather than extra delight. Even naturalists are always talking about the labour and toil of a bird, when building, but this, in my opinion, is an utterly erroneous way of looking at it. As Shakespeare says, “the labour we delight in physics pain,” and what delight can be greater than that of satisfying an imperious and deep-seated instinct? It is in this that our own greatest happiness lies, whilst the inability, from various causes, to do so, constitutes misery. But with the building bird there is no real labour, nothing that really makes toil, only a fine exhilarating exercise which must be a pleasure in itself, and to which is added that pleasure which ease and excellence in anything we do and wish to do, confers. The best human equivalent for the joy which a bird must feel in building its nest, is, I think, that of a great artist or sculptor, whose soul is entirely absorbed in his work. Those who pity the toils of such men in producing their masterpieces may, with equal propriety, pity the bird; but here, too, the latter has the advantage, for not even the sway of genius can be so o’ermastering as that of a genuine instinct, the strength of which we must estimate by those few primary ones—we call them passions—which are left in ourselves.

It is this mighty joy in the breast of the little tit, which, by the help of natural selection, has produced, as I believe, his wonderful little nest, and if we watch him building we may get a hint as to how the charming little round door that gives admission to it, has come about. He did not contrive it, but by having, always, his one way in and out, and continuing to build, it grew to be there; for even when the nest is but a shallow cup, open all round, the birds enter and leave it by one uniform way, so that this way must be left, right up to the very last, by which time it has become that neat little aperture, which looks so nicely thought out. Something like design may, perhaps, now have entered into the construction, which would account for the hole getting, gradually, higher, in the side of the nest—though this, too, I am inclined to attribute to the mere love of building. The bird builds everywhere that it can, and thus the place where it enters gets higher, with the rest of the nest. When, however, the top of the nest, on one side, is pulled over, so as to meet the other side,25 where the entrance is, it can go no higher, since, if it did, the bird would either be kept in or out. Thus, as it appears to me, the exact position of the hole in the nest, which is a somewhat curious one, is philosophically accounted for.

When one of a pair of long-tailed tits enters the nest, he first pays attention to that part of it which is exactly opposite to him, as he does so. This he raises with his beak, and, also, by pushing with his head and breast. He then, often, disappears in the depths of the cup, and you see the sides of it swell out, now in one place and now in another, as he butts and rams at them, which he does not only with his head, but by kicking with his legs, behind him. Then he turns round, the long tail appearing where the head has lately been, whilst the head emerges, projecting over the rim in exactly the same place as where he entered, but looking, now, outwards. This part he now pushes down with his chin, just as he raised the other with his head and beak, and having done this, he comes out. But often, sitting in the nest as he entered it, he turns his head right round, on one side or another, examining and manipulating the edges; and sometimes, bending it down over the rim, he presses or arranges a lichen, on the outside. This, however, he does more rarely than one would think, his best attention being given to the interior. Sometimes, too, he flutters his wings in the nest, as though to aid in the moulding of it. There is one extraordinary power which these tits possess, which is that of turning their bodies quite round in the nest, whilst keeping the tail motionless, and in exactly the same place all the time. I have often seen—or seemed to see—them do this, but as the tail sticks upright, and is—till the cup gets too deep—a very conspicuous object, it would not be easy to be mistaken. How they do it I know not—they are little contortionists—but I have often noticed how loosely and flexibly the long tail feathers of these birds seem just stuck into the body. There is another thing that I have seen them do, viz. turn the head entirely round without any part of the body seeming to share in the movement; but here, I think, there must have been some hocus-pocus.

I have spoken of these tits having but one way of entering and leaving the nest, even when all ways lie open to them: but, more than this, they have one set path, by which they approach and retire from it. You first notice this when one of the birds passes, inadvertently, on the wrong side of some twig or bough, which makes a conspicuous feature in its accustomed path. The eye is caught by the novelty, and you realise, then, that it is one. This happens but rarely, and, when it does, it has sometimes struck me that the bird feels a little confused, or not quite easy, in consequence. It has such a feeling, I feel sure, which, though slight, yet just marks its consciousness of having deviated from a routine. Possibly the feeling is stronger than I am imagining, for on one occasion, at least, I have seen a bird that had got the wrong side of a twig palisade, so to speak, in approaching its nest, turn back and pass it, on the right side. The nest, in this instance also, was in one of those fine, open hedges, made of the branches of the Scotch fir—planted and growing—which are common in this part of Suffolk, and through these there was a regular “approach” to the house, not straight, but in a crescent, as though for a carriage to drive up—the “sweep” of the days of Jane Austen—and the birds always went up and down it like dear little orthodox things as they are. During the later stages of construction, the hole in the side of the nest becomes so small and tight, that even these petite little creatures have, often, to struggle quite violently, in order to force themselves through it; and this, I think, also, is evidence that the door is not due to design—that the bird never has the thought in its mind, “There must be a door to get in and out by.” Instead of that, it keeps getting in and out, and this, of necessity, makes the door. These tits, when building, seem to rest, for a little, in the nest, before leaving it, and sometimes one will sit, for some minutes, quite still, with its head projecting through the aperture, looking like a cleverly-painted miniature in a round frame. At other times the tail projects, and that, though not quite such a picture, has still a charm of its own. Nothing can look prettier than these soft, little pinky, feathery things, as they creep, mousily, into their soft little purse of a nest: nothing can look prettier than they do, as they sit inside it, pulling, pushing, ramming, patting, and arranging: finally, nothing can look prettier than they look, as they again creep out of it, and fly away. It is a joy to watch them building, and their perpetual feat of turning in a way which ought to dislocate their tail, without dislocating it, is an ever-recurring miracle. Charming in and about the nest, they are; charming, too, in the way they approach it. They come up so softly and quietly, creeping from one tree or bush to another, seeming almost to steal through the air. They have a pretty, soft note, too, a low little “chit, chit,” which they utter, at intervals, and which often tells you they are there, before you catch sight of them. To hear that soft chittery note, and then to catch a soft pinkiness, with it, are two very pleasant sensations. Another is to see the one bird working in the nest, and to hear the other chittering in the neighbourhood, whilst it waits for it to come out.

In the absence of both the owners from the nest they were building, I have seen a wren creep very quietly into it, and, after remaining there for a little, creep as quietly out again. He carried nothing away with him, that I could see, so that pillage may not have been his object, though I know not what else it could have been. Perhaps it was simple curiosity, or, again, it may have been but a part of his routine work. Such a nest, with its hole of entrance, may have seemed to him like any other chink or cavity, which he would have been prepared to enter on general principles of investigation. Nests, however, in process of building by one bird, are looked at by others as useful supplies of material for their own—little depÔts scattered over the country. I have seen a pair of hedge-sparrows fly straight to a blackbird’s, and then on, with grass in their bills. Another blackbird’s nest, the building of which I was watching, supplied a blue tit with moss, whilst, in the very same tree, a pair of golden-crested wrens had theirs entirely demolished by an unfeeling hen chaffinch.

In my own experience it is the hen chaffinch, alone, that builds the nest, and I have even seen her driving away a cock bird, which I took to be her mate. After putting him to flight, this particular hen made fifteen visits to the nest, at intervals of about ten minutes, bringing something in her beak each time, and worked at it, singly, with great fervour and energy. To the actions which I have been describing in the long-tailed tits—viz. pressing herself down in it, ramming forward with her breast, kicking out with her feet, behind, and so on—actions, I suppose, common to most nest-building birds—she added that one of clasping the rim tightly with her tail, bent strongly down for the purpose, which I have referred to, before, in the blackbird. I could not, however, repeat the comments which I have made when describing it in her case. Whatever may have been the origin of the habit, it has become, in the chaffinch, a mere business-like affair—purely utilitarian, doubtless, in its inception and object. Though upon this and other occasions of the nest-building, the hen chaffinch, alone, has seemed to be the architect, it by no means follows that this is always the case. A process of transition is, as I believe, taking place in this respect with the males of various birds. With the long-tailed tits, for instance, we have just seen how prettily husband and wife can work together; and that they do so in the great majority of instances, I have little doubt. Yet the first time that I ever watched these birds building, it was only one of the pair who did anything; the other—doubtless the male—though he came each time with his mate, never brought anything with him, and did not once enter the nest. He did not even go very near it, but merely stayed about, in the neighbourhood, till the worker came out, on which the two flew off together. This has been exactly the behaviour of the cock blackbird during nidification, in such cases as have fallen under my observation; and here I have been a very close watcher, for hours at a time, and for several days in succession. Yet I have, myself, seen the cock flying off with grass, from a field, whilst Mr. Dewar has seen him fly up with some into the ivy on a wall, where a nest was known to be in construction. The cock nightingale attends the hen, when building, in just the same way that the cock blackbird does, but I have not yet seen him take a part in its construction. Now to take the blackbird—since here we have a clear case of individual difference—is it a process of transition from one state of things to another, that we see, or has the transition been made, and are the exceptional instances due to reversion merely? But then, which are the exceptional instances, or in which direction is the change proceeding? Is the male becoming, or was he once, a builder or a non-builder? For myself, I incline to the transitional view, and inasmuch as the lapse of such a habit as nest-building must be consequent upon a loss of interest in it—which would mean a decay of the instinct—this does not seem to me consistent with the extremely attentive manner in which the cock follows the hen about, and the manifest interest which he takes in all she does. It seems to me more likely, therefore, that he is learning the art than losing it. Still, as an instinct might weaken very gradually, it is impossible to do more than conjecture which way the stream is running, if we look only at a single species. The true way would be to take all the species of the genus to which the one in question belongs, and find out the habits of the majority, in regard to this special point. If both the male and female of the genus TurdidÆ help, as a rule, in building the nest, then this, no doubt, was the ancient state of things, and vice versÂ.

One might suppose—it would seem likely on a prim facie view of it—that where the cock bird took no part in the building of the nest, he would take none, either, in incubating the eggs. This is so with the blackbird—at least I have never come upon the male sitting, and whenever I have watched a nest where eggs were being incubated, there has never been any change upon it; the birds, that is to say, have never relieved one another, but the hen, having gone off, has always returned, the nest being empty in the interval. But if the suppression, in the male bird, of these two activities—of nest-building and incubation—are related, by a parity of reasoning one would suppose that he would take no part in the feeding of the young. This, however, with the blackbird, is by no means the case, for the cock is as active, here, and interested as the hen—or nearly so. At least he recognises a duty, and performs it to the best of his ability. It is the same with the wagtail, and, no doubt, with numbers of other birds—a fact which seems to suggest that the instinct of incubation, and that of parental love, are differentiated, the second not making its appearance till after the eggs are hatched. This, at first sight, seems likely, and then—if one considers it a little—unlikely, or, perhaps, impossible. It is from birth that the maternal love, the st???? dates, and birth, here, is represented by the egg. True, there is a second birth when the egg is hatched, which makes it possible that the true st???? has waited for this. Yet the mother continues to brood upon the young in the same way that she has been doing on her eggs, and, except for the feeding, which does not commence immediately, the whole pretty picture looks so much the same that it is difficult to think a new element has been projected into it. No one, whilst the young are still tiny, could tell whether they or the eggs were being brooded over by the parent bird. An interesting point occurs here. When incubation is shared by the two sexes, the hatching of the eggs must frequently, one would think, take place whilst the male bird is sitting. What, then, are his feelings when this happens? By what, if any, instinct is he swayed? If we suppose that the true st???? dates, in the mother’s breast, from the hatching of the egg, and the appearance of the formed young, does, now, a similar feeling take possession of the male? Does he too feel the st????, seeing that the young have been born from the egg, under his breast? If so, we could understand his subsequent devotion to the young, as shown by his feeding them with the same assiduity as the mother. But what, then, of the mother? She has been away at this second birth, so that if her psychology would have been affected, in any way, by the act—if it can be called an act—of hatching out the eggs, it ought not to be so affected now; she should be less a mother, in fact, than the cock. This, however—unless the eggs always are hatched out under the hen—is contradicted by facts, so that it seems plain that whatever special tie there may be between the female bird, as distinct from the male, and the young, must date from the laying of the eggs. But if this be so—and it seems the plain way of nature—what is it that makes the cock bird incubate? Is he moved by a feeling of the same nature, if weaker, as that which animates the hen, or has he, merely, caught the habit from her? The fact that some male birds leave the whole duty of incubation to the hen, and yet help to feed the young, seems to point in the latter direction, since imitation might well have acted capriciously, whereas one would suppose that feelings analogous, in their nature, in the two sexes, would show themselves at the same time. It would, however, be a stronger evidence for imitation, as the cause of the parental activities of the male, were he to take his part in incubation, but leave the young to the female. I do not know if there is any species of bird, where the cock acts in this way. Perhaps it may be impossible to answer these, or similar, questions, but light might, conceivably, be thrown upon them by a more extensive knowledge of the relative parts played by the male and female bird in nidification, incubation, and the rearing of the young, throughout a large number of species. These, however, are not the questions with which ornithologists busy themselves. By turning to a natural history of British birds, one can always find how many eggs are laid by any species, their coloration—often illustrated by costly plates—and when and where the laying takes place; but in regard to the matters above-mentioned—or, indeed, most other matters—little or no information is forthcoming. One might think that such works were written for the assistance of bird-nesters only, and whether they are or not, that is the end which they, principally, fulfil. I believe, myself, that if the habits—especially the breeding habits—of but one species in every group or genus had been thoroughly studied, so that we knew, not only what it did, but how it did it, the result would make an infinitely more valuable work, even in regard to British birds only, than any now in existence, though all the other species were left out of it, and little or nothing was said about the number of eggs, their coloration, and the time at which they were laid.

If the male bird has only caught the habit of feeding the young from the female, we can the better understand why, in so many species, the cock feeds the hen, and this without any reference to whether she is able or unable to feed herself. As the young birds grow up in the nest, they resemble their parents more and more, and it would be easier for the male to confuse them with the female, and thus take to feeding her too, or to transfer the habit from the one to the other, than it would be for the female, with a maternal instinct to guide her, to do the same by the male. Yet this, too, would be possible, and if, in any species, the female is accustomed to feed the male also, I would account for it in a similar way. This habit, on the part of the cock bird, has become, in some cases, a part of his ordinary courting attentions to the hen; and here, I believe, we have the true meaning of that billing, or “nebbing,” as it is called, which so many birds indulge in at this season. This habit, with its grotesque resemblance to kissing, has always struck me as both curious and interesting, but one seldom, in works of ornithology, meets with a reference to it, much less with any attempt to explain its philosophy. Where birds, now, merely, bill, they once, in my opinion, fed each other—or the male fed the female—but pleasure came to be experienced in the contact alone, and the passage of food, which was never necessary, gradually became obsolete. I think it by no means improbable that our own kissing may have originated in much the same way; and that birds, when thus billing, experience the same sort of pleasure that we do, when we kiss, must be obvious to any one who has watched them. With pigeons, to go no further, the act is simply an impassioned one. It would be strong evidence of the origin of this habit having been as I suppose, if we only found it amongst birds the young of which are fed by their parents. As far as I know, I believe this to be the case, but my knowledge does not enable me to speak decidedly, nor have I been able to add to it, in this particular, by consulting the standard works. Birds whose young are not fed from the bill, by their parents, are, as I think—for I am not certain in regard to all—the gallinaceous or game birds, the rapacious ones (accipitres), the plovers and stilt-walkers, the bustards, the ostriches, &c. In none of these, so far as I know, do the male and female either feed or “neb” one another—there is neither the thing, nor the form, or symbol, of it. Birds where there is either the one or the other, or both, belong, amongst others, to the crow, parrot, gull, puffin, tit or finch tribes, and all these feed the young. In the grebe family, too, the two customs obtain, but whether they are combined in any one species of it, I cannot with certainty say. It would not, of course, follow that a bird which fed its young, should, also, feed its mate, or that the pair, when caressing, should seize each other’s bills; but is there any species belonging to those orders where the chick shifts for itself, as soon as it is hatched, or, at the least, does not receive food from the parent’s beak or crop, which does either, or both, of these things? In conclusion, I can only wonder that a habit so salient, and which, to me, seems so curious—especially in the case of the caress merely, for a caress it certainly is—should not, apparently, have been thought worth consideration—hardly, even, worth notice. Of all beings, man, alone, is supposed to kiss. Birds, I assert, do, in the proper and true meaning of the word, kiss, also, and I believe that the origin of the custom has been the same, or approximately26 the same, in each instance. To take food from one’s mouth, and put it into some one else’s, is an act of attention, I believe, amongst some savage tribes.

I am not quite sure, now I come to think of it, that the hen wagtail does do all the incubation—as I said, some lines back, she did—but I think that this is the case, as when I watched a pair I never saw the two birds together, either at or near the nest, and only once in the neighbourhood of it, all the time the eggs were being hatched. The nest, in this case, had been built, very prettily, in the last year’s one of a thrush, which it quite filled, and which made a splendid cup for it. It was interesting to see the hen bird at work. Each time, after flying down from the ivied wall of my garden, in which the nest was situated, she would feed, a little, making little runs over the lawn, after insects, with often a little fly, but just above the grass, at the end of the little run, the tail still flirting up and down. Then she would fly off for more materials, appear on the lawn, again, in a few minutes, with some in her bill, run, with them, to under the wall, fly up into the ivy, and, upon coming out, go through it all again. Thus, the wagtail makes building and eating alternate with one another, unlike the house-martins, which build, says White, “only in the morning, and dedicate the rest of the day to food and amusement.” The yellow, widely-gaping bills of the fledgling wagtails, as they hold their four heads straight up, in the nest, together, look just like delicate little vases of Venetian glass, made by Salviati; or, treating them all as one, they resemble an artistic central table-ornament, of the same manufacture. It is the inside that one sees. Just round the edge, is a thin rim of light, bright yellow, whilst all the rest is a deep, shining gamboge—not as it looks when painted on anything, but the colour of a cake of it—“all transfigured with celestial light.” No prettier design than this could be found, I am sure, for a beaker. Wagtails—I am speaking, always, of the water-wagtail—collect a number of flies, or other insects, as they run about, over the grass, before swallowing them, or flying, with them, to feed their young—that pretty office, which has been dwelt upon only from one point of view. Marry! when a tigress carries off a man to her cubs, and watches them play with him—an account of which, I believe a true one, I have read—we see it from another, such shallow, partial twitterers as we are. There is as much of beneficence in the one thing, I suppose, as the other—the flies, at least, would think so, creatures that, but a moment ago, were as bright, happy, and ethereal as the bird itself—their tiger.

Why, yes, one must go on trusting, I suppose (nothing else for it), but meanwhile one of this pair of wagtails has a good-sized something in his bill, to which he keeps adding, and as he sometimes, also, drops a portion of it, and again picks it up, it must be composed of a number of different entities. This living bundle he deposits, after a time, on the lawn, and then eats it piecemeal, after which he runs over the grass, making little darts, and eating at once, on secural. Shortly afterwards, however, I see him, again, with such another fardel, and with this he keeps walking about, or standing still, for quite a long time, without swallowing it—indeed, he has now stood still for so long that I am tired of watching him. This is interesting, I think, for as I have never seen birds collect insects, like this, except when young were in the nest, I have no doubt this wagtail’s idea is to feed his. But, first, his own appetite prevents him from doing so, and, then, it is as though there were a conflict between the two impulses, producing a sort of paralysis, by which nothing is done. I make sure that this is the male bird; but now appears the other—the female, “for a ducat”—carrying what I can make out, with the glasses, to be a bundle of flies, to which she keeps adding, and, shortly, she repairs, with them, to the nest. The male now comes again, and runs about, collecting a similar packet; and I can notice how, sometimes, he is embarrassed to pick up one fly more, without losing any he has, and how he secures it, sometimes, sideways in the beak, when he would, otherwise, have made a straightforward peck at it. Not only this, but, with his beak full of booty, he will—I have just seen him—pursue insects in the air. Whether he secures them, under these circumstances, I cannot, with assurance, say, but he turns and zigzags about, as does a fly-catcher, and certainly seems to be doing so. There is the attempt, at least, and would he attempt what he was not equal to? I have no doubt, myself, that he performs this feat, and yet what a wonderful feat it is! Both birds now feed the young—for the female has been collecting, for some time, again. Now, instead of, or besides, flies, each bird has in its bill a number of long, slender, white things, which hang down on each side of it, and must, I think, be grubs of some sort, though I do not know what. But stay—beneficence again!—are they—not flies in their entirety indeed, but—oh optimism and general satisfactoriness!—fly entrails, protruding, bursting, hanging, forced out by the cruel beak? Yes, that is it, it is plain now—too plain—and some of the flies are moving. I have seen a wasp tear open and devour a bluebottle—a savage sight—and it looked something the same. But all hail, maternal affection!—and appetite! to bring in the wasp. “Banquo and Macbeth, all hail!”

I believe that most birds that feed their young with insects brought in the bill, collect them in this way. Indeed the habit is common throughout the bird-world, and may be observed, equally, in the blackbird or thrush, with worms, and in the puffin, with fish—in this last case, perhaps, we see the feat in its perfection. The smallest of our woodpeckers I have watched bringing cargo after cargo of live, struggling things to his hole, but the green woodpecker, for a reason which, for aught I know, I shall be the first to make known, does not do this. From behind some bushes which quite hid me, and which commanded the nest, I have watched the domestic economy of two pairs of these birds as closely as, in such a species, it well can be watched. The glasses, turned full upon the hole, I fixed on a little stick platform, just on a level with my eyes, as I sat. Thus no time was lost in getting them to bear, but the instant one of the birds flew in, I had it, as it were, almost upon the platform in front of me. In this luxurious manner I have seen scores and scores of visits made to the nest, but never once, before the bird made its entry, through the hole, have I been able to detect anything held by it in the beak, which was always fast closed. Had anything in the shape of an insect projected from it, I must certainly have seen it, but this was never the case, and I can, therefore, say with confidence, that the green woodpecker does not feed its young by bringing them insects in its bill, as does the lesser spotted, and, no doubt, the greater spotted one also—all the woodpeckers, probably, that have not changed their habits, in relation to their food and manner of feeding. I am the more sure of this, because, as the little woodpecker collected a number of insects, each time, there can be little doubt that the green one would do this, likewise, were he accustomed to feed the young in the same way. How, then, does he feed them? I give the answer from my notes.

“At 12.10 the male woodpecker flies to the hole, and, almost immediately, enters. In a few minutes he looks out, cautiously, turning his head from side to side. I can make out nothing in the bill, but I notice that he works the mandibles, just a very little. Then he draws in his head, but projecting it, again, almost immediately, something is now evident, protruding from the mandibles, on both sides. It is white, brilliantly white, and looks like a mash of something. It reminds me of what I have seen oozing or flowing from the bills of rooks, as they left the nest after feeding their young—but even whiter, it seemed, as the sun shone on it. Insects it does not in the least resemble, except, by possibility, a pulp of their white interiors. If so, however, it must represent multitudes of them. But where are the wings, legs, and crushed bodies? It is formless, and seems to well out of the bill.” On a subsequent occasion, I saw the same outflow—“a thick, milky fluid,” I this time describe it as—from the bill of the female; so that, principally through this, but, also, because of many other little indications, such as that working by the bird of its mandibles—as before noticed—in leaving the nest, and an occasional little gulp or less pronounced motion of the throatal muscles, as though it were swallowing something down, the head being at the same time raised, I came to the conclusion that these woodpeckers feed their young by some process of regurgitation. This confirms an opinion which has long been gaining ground with me, viz. that the green woodpecker is now almost wholly an ant-eater. Here, at least, where the country is open and sandy, and where, till lately, there has been a great and happy dearth of posts and palings, I believe that this is the case. I have often watched the bird, in trees, and have seen it give, now and again, a spear with the bill against the trunk; but this has never been continued for long, and that eager and absorbed manner which a bird has when actively feeding, has never, in my experience, gone along with it. I doubt, myself, whether insects are really secured on these occasions, for there is something so nonchalant and lazy in the way the stabs are delivered, that they have more the appearance of a mere habit than of a means to an end. Sometimes there is a little more animation, but it soon flags, and the bird desists and sits idle. Very different are its actions, and its whole look and appearance, when feeding on the ground. Now its interest—its keenness—is manifest, whilst a certain careful, systematic, and methodical way of proceeding, shows it to be occupied in the main daily business of life. There are four clearly marked stages in the process by which a green woodpecker extracts ants from the nest. First there is a preliminary probing of the ground, the beak being inserted—always, I think, in the same place—gently, and with great delicacy—tenderly as it were, and as Walton would recommend; next comes a sharp, quick hammering, or pickaxing, with the beak, into the soil, after which the bird throws the loosened earth from side to side, with so quick a motion that the head seems almost to move in a circle. Finally, there is the quiet and satisfied insertion of the bill, many times in succession, into the excavation that has been made, followed, each time, by its leisurely withdrawal. At each of these withdrawals the head is thrown up, and the bird seems to swallow down, and enjoy, what it has just been filling its beak with—as no doubt is the case.

The greater part of both the morning and afternoon seems to be spent by these woodpeckers in thus depopulating ants’ nests, so that the negligent and desultory nature of any further foraging operations, which they may carry on amongst the trees, is amply accounted for. The bird is full of ants, which it has been swallowing wholesale, without any effort of searching. It cannot still be hungry, and, when it is, it will repair to those Elysian fields again. The tree, in fact, is now used more as a resting-place than for any other purpose, except that of breeding; and thus this species, with its marvellous tongue, specially adapted for extracting insects from chinks in the bark of trees, is on the road to becoming as salient an instance of changed habits, as is Darwin’s ground-feeding woodpecker, in the open plains of La Plata. Sure I am that here, at any rate, the green woodpecker feeds, almost wholly, upon ants, but if there be a doubt on the matter, ought not the contents of the excrements to decide it? I have examined numbers of these, which were picked up by me both in the open and at the foot of trees, and, in every case, the long narrow sac, of which the outer part consists, was filled, entirely, with the remains of ants. These I have turned out upon a sheet of white paper, and examined under a magnifying glass, but I have never been able to find the smallest part or particle of any other insect. This has surprised me, indeed, nor is it quite in accordance with the contents of other excrements which I have looked at in other parts of the country—for instance in Dorsetshire. There, the shards of a small beetle were sometimes mixed, in a small proportion, with the remains of the ants, and, once or twice, these formed the bulk of the excrement. These shards, however, seemed to me to be those of a ground-going species of beetle. What I have called the remains of the ants, contained in these excrements, were, or seemed to be, almost the whole of them—head, thorax, abdomen, legs, &c.—everything, in fact, except the soft parts, and juices of the body. Whether these, in the bird’s crop or stomach, would help to make a white milky fluid I do not know, but I think that they must do.

If the great staple of the green woodpecker’s food has come, now, to consist of ants, as I am sure is the case, the reason of its feeding its young, not as do other woodpeckers—the lesser spotted one, for instance—but by regurgitation, is at once apparent. Ants are too minute to be carried in the beak, and must, therefore, be brought up en masse, if the young are not to starve. We might, therefore, have surmised that, if ants were the sole or chief diet, the young must be fed in this way, and the fact that they are fed in this way is evidence of the thing which would account for it. In the green woodpecker we have an interesting example of a species that has broken from the traditions of its family, and is changing under our eyes; but it does not seem to attract much attention—only the inevitable number of the eggs, their colour, the time at which they are laid, &c. &c.

These woodpeckers must mate, I think, for life—as most birds, in my opinion, do—for they nest in the same tree, year after year, and go in pairs during the winter. It is very interesting, then, to see a pair resting together, after they have had their fill of ant-eating. First, one will fly into the nearest plantation, or small clump of trees, on the trunk of one of which it alights, and there clings, motionless. Shortly afterwards, the other comes flying in, perhaps with the wild laugh, but, instead of settling on the same tree, it chooses one close beside it, and there, side by side, and each on its own, the two hang motionless for a quarter of an hour, perhaps, or twenty minutes. Then, suddenly, there is a green and scarlet flash, as one flies off. The other stays, still motionless, as though she cared not. “Let him e’en go”—but, all at once, there is another flash, and she is gone, too, with equal suddenness—the dark trees darker without them. I have, more than once, seen a pair resting, like this, on two small birches, or firs, near each other, each about the same height from the ground, quite still, and seeming to doze. It seems, therefore, to be their regular habit, as though they did not care to sleep on the same tree, but preferred adjoining rooms, so to speak. The birds’ tails, when thus resting, are not fanned out, and although they are, sometimes, pressed against the tree, at other times they will not be touching it at all, so that the whole weight is supported by the claws, evidently with the greatest ease. I have taken particular notice of this, and from the length of time that a bird has sometimes remained, thus hanging, and the restful state that it was, all the while, in, I cannot think that the tail is of very much value as a support, though stress is often laid upon its being so. I do not know how it is, but a little close observation in natural history will give the lie to most of what one hears or reads, and has hitherto taken for granted. It all looks very plausible in books, but one book, when you ever do get hold of it, seems to disagree with all the other books, and that one is the book of nature.

There is another point, in which the green woodpecker either differs from its family, or shows that its family has not been sufficiently observed. I have read, somewhere—I am not quite sure where, but it was a good work, and one of authority—this sentence: “Some birds, such as woodpeckers and (I forget the other) are supposed never to fight.” I can understand how this idea has got about, because thrushes, which are commoner birds than woodpeckers, and easier to watch, are, also, thought not to fight. Of the thrush, and his doughty deeds, of an early morning, I shall have no space to speak in this volume, but I here offer my evidence that the green woodpecker, at any rate, is “a good fellow, and will strike.” As, however, I shall have to quote, at some length, from my notes, I will defer doing so to the following chapter. Perhaps I shall be saying a little too much about the green woodpecker, but let it be taken in excuse that, feeling all his charm, and having made a special study of him, I yet say less than I know.

Green Woodpecker