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              BIRDS
         IN THE CALENDAR

         BY F. G. AFLALO

          [Decoration]


      LONDON: MARTIN SECKER
 NUMBER FIVE JOHN STREET ADELPHI




_First Published 1914_


Transcriber's Note:

    Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Common
    bird names remain as originally printed. Inconsistent hyphenation
    has been standardised. The oe ligature is represented by [oe].




CONTENTS


                                          PAGE

 January: The Pheasant                      11

 February: The Woodcock                     21

 March: The Woodpigeon                      33

 April: Birds in the High Hall Garden       45

 May: The Cuckoo                            55

 June: Voices of the Night                  67

 July: Swifts, Swallows and Martins         79

 August: The Seagull                        91

 September: Birds in the Corn              103

 October: The Moping Owl                   113

 November: Waterfowl                       125

 December: The Robin Redbreast             137




NOTE


These sketches of birds, each appropriate to one month of the twelve,
originally appeared in _The Outlook_, to the Editor and Proprietors of
which review I am indebted for permission to reprint them in book form.

                                                            F. G. A.

EASTER, 1914.




JANUARY

THE PHEASANT




THE PHEASANT


As birds are to be considered throughout these pages from any standpoint
but that of sport, much that is of interest in connection with a bird
essentially the sportsman's must necessarily be omitted. At the same
time, although this gorgeous creature, the chief attraction of social
gatherings throughout the winter months, appeals chiefly to the men who
shoot and eat it, it is not uninteresting to the naturalist with
opportunities for studying its habits under conditions more favourable
than those encountered when in pursuit of it with a gun.

In the first place, with the probable exception of the swan, of which
something is said on a later page, the pheasant stands alone among the
birds of our woodlands in its personal interest for the historian. It is
not, in fact, a British bird, save by acclimatisation, at all, and is
generally regarded as a legacy of the Romans. The time and manner of its
introduction into Britain are, it is true, veiled in obscurity. What we
know, on authentic evidence, is that the bird was officially recognised
in the reign of Harold, and that it had already come under the aegis of
the game laws in that of Henry I, during the first year of which the
Abbot of Amesbury held a licence to kill it, though how he contrived
this without a gun is not set forth in detail. Probably it was first
treed with the aid of dogs and then shot with bow and arrow. The
original pheasant brought over by the Romans, or by whomsoever may have
been responsible for its naturalisation on English soil, was a
dark- bird and not the type more familiar nowadays since its
frequent crosses with other species from the Far East, as well as with
several ornamental types of yet more recent introduction.

In tabooing the standpoint of sport, wherever possible, from these
chapters, occasional reference, where it overlaps the interests of the
field-naturalist, is inevitable. Thus there are two matters in which
both classes are equally concerned when considering the pheasant. The
first is the real or alleged incompatibility of pheasants and foxes in
the same wood. The question of rivalry between pheasant and fox, or (as
I rather suspect) between those who shoot the one and hunt the other,
admits of only one answer. The fox eats the pheasant; the pheasant is
eaten by the fox. This not very complex proposition may read like an
excerpt from a French grammar, but it is the epitome of the whole
argument. It is just possible--we have no actual evidence to go on--that
under such wholly natural conditions as survive nowhere in rural England
the two might flourish side by side, the fox taking occasional toll of
its agreeably flavoured neighbours, and the latter, we may suppose,
their wits sharpened by adversity, gradually devising means of keeping
out of the robber's reach. In the artificial environment of a hunting or
shooting country, however, the fox will always prove too much for a bird
dulled by much protection, and the only possible _modus vivendi_ between
those concerned must rest on a policy of give and take that deliberately
ignores the facts of the case.

More interesting, on academic grounds at any rate, is the process of
education noticeable in pheasants in parts of the country where they
are regularly shot. Sport is a great educator. Foxes certainly, and
hares probably, run the faster for being hunted. Indeed the fox appears
to have acquired its pace solely as the result of the chase, since it
does not figure in the Bible as a swift creature. The genuine wild
pheasant in its native region, a little beyond the Caucasus, is in all
probability a very different bird from its half-domesticated kinsman in
Britain. I have been close to its birthplace, but never even saw a
pheasant there. We are told, on what ground I have been unable to trace,
that the polygamous habit in these birds is a product of artificial
environment; but what is even more likely is that the true wild pheasant
of Western Asia (and not the acclimatised bird so-called in this
country) trusts much less to its legs than our birds, which have long
since learnt that there is safety in running. Moreover, though it
probably takes wing more readily, it is doubtful whether it flies as
fast as the pace, something a little short of forty miles an hour, that
has been estimated as a common performance in driven birds at home.

The pheasant is in many respects a very curious bird. At the threshold
of life, it exhibits, in common with some of its near relations, a
precocity very unusual in its class; and the readiness with which
pheasant chicks, only just out of the egg, run about and forage for
themselves, is astonishing to those unused to it. Another interesting
feature about pheasants is the extraordinary difference in plumage
between the sexes, a gap equalled only between the blackcock and greyhen
and quite unknown in the partridge, quail and grouse. Yet every now and
again, as if resentful of this inequality of wardrobe, an old hen
pheasant will assume male plumage, and this epicene raiment indicates
barrenness. Ungallant feminists have been known to cite the case of the
"mule" pheasant as pointing a moral for the females of a more highly
organised animal.

The question of the pheasant's natural diet, more particularly where
this is not liberally supplemented from artificial sources, brings the
sportsman in conflict with the farmer, and a demagogue whose zeal
occasionally outruns his discretion has even endeavoured to cite the
mangold as its staple food. This, however, is political, and not natural
history. Although, however, like all grain-eating birds, the pheasant is
no doubt capable of inflicting appreciable damage on cultivated land, it
seems to be established beyond all question that it also feeds greedily
on the even more destructive larva of the crane-fly, in which case it
may more than pay its footing in the fields. The foodstuff most fatal to
itself is the yew leaf, for which, often with fatal results, it seems to
have an unconquerable craving. The worst disease, however, from which
the pheasant suffers is "gapes," caused by an accumulation of small red
worms in the windpipe that all but suffocate the victim.

Reference has been made to the bird's great speed in the air, as well as
to its efficiency as a runner. It remains only to add that it is also a
creditable swimmer and has been seen to take to water when escaping from
its enemies.

The polygamous habit has been mentioned. Ten or twelve eggs, or more,
are laid in the simple nest of leaves, and this is generally placed on
the ground, but occasionally in a low tree or hedge, or even in the
disused nest of some other bird.

Comparatively few of the birds referred to in the following pages appeal
strongly to the epicure, but the pheasant, if not, perhaps, the most
esteemed of them, is at least a wholesome table bird. It should,
however, always be eaten with chip potatoes and bread sauce, and not in
the company of cold lettuce. Those who insist on the English method of
serving it should quote the learned Freeman, who, when confronted with
the Continental alternative, complained bitterly that he was not a
silkworm!




FEBRUARY

THE WOODCOCK




THE WOODCOCK


There are many reasons why the woodcock should be prized by the winter
sportsman more than any other bird in the bag. In the first place, there
is its scarcity. Half a dozen to every hundred pheasants would in most
parts of the country be considered a proportion at which none could
grumble, and there are many days on which not one is either seen or
shot. Again, there is the bird's twisting flight, which, particularly
inside the covert, makes it anything but an easy target. Third and last,
it is better to eat than any other of our wild birds, with the possible
exception of the golden plover. Taking one consideration with another,
then, it is not surprising that the first warning cry of "Woodcock
over!" from the beaters should be the signal for a sharp and somewhat
erratic fusillade along the line, a salvo which the beaters themselves
usually honour by crouching out of harm's way, since they know from
experience that even ordinarily cool and collected shots are sometimes
apt to be fired with a sudden zeal to shoot the little bird, which may
cost one of them his eyesight. According to the poet,

    "Lonely woodcocks haunt the watery glade;"

and so no doubt they do at meal-time after sunset, but we are more used
to flushing them amid dry bracken or in the course of some frozen ditch.
Quite apart, however, from its exhilarating effect on the sportsman, the
bird has quieter interests for the naturalist, since in its food, its
breeding habits, its travels, and its appearance it combines more
peculiarities than perhaps any other bird, certainly than any other of
the sportsman's birds, in these islands. It is not, legally speaking, a
game bird and was not included in the Act of 1824, but a game licence is
required for shooting it, and it enjoys since 1880 the protection
accorded to other wild birds. This is excellent, so far as it goes, but
it ought to be protected during the same period as the pheasant,
particularly now that it is once more established as a resident species
all over Britain and Ireland.

This new epoch in the history of its adventures in these islands is the
work of the Wild Birds' Protection Acts. In olden times, when half of
Britain was under forest, and when guns were not yet invented that could
"shoot flying," woodcocks must have been much more plentiful than they
are to-day. In those times the bird was taken on the ground in springes
or, when "roding" in the mating season, in nets, known as "shots," that
were hung between the trees. When the forest area receded, the resident
birds must have dwindled to the verge of extinction, for on more than
one occasion we find even a seasoned sportsman like Colonel Hawker
worked up to a rare pitch of excitement after shooting woodcock in a
part of Hampshire where in our day these birds breed regularly. Thanks,
however, to the protection afforded by the law, there is once again
probably no county in England in which woodcocks do not nest.

At the same time, it is as an autumn visitor that, with the first of the
east wind in October or November, we look for this untiring little
traveller from the Continent. Some people are of opinion that since it
has extended its residential range fewer come oversea to swell the
numbers, but the arrivals are in some years considerable, and if a
stricter watch were kept on unlicensed gunners along the foreshore of
East Anglia, very much larger numbers would find their way westwards
instead of to Leadenhall. As it is, the wanderers arrive, not
necessarily, as has been freely asserted, in poor condition, but always
tired out by their journey, and numbers are secured before they have
time to recover their strength. Yet those which do recover fly right
across England, some continuing the journey to Ireland, and stragglers
even, with help no doubt from easterly gales, having been known to reach
America.

The woodcock is interesting as a parent because it is one of the very
few birds that carry their young from place to place, and the only
British bird that transports them clasped between her legs. A few
others, like the swans and grebes, bear the young ones on the back, but
the woodcock's method is unique. Scopoli first drew attention to his own
version of the habit in the words "_pullos rostro portat_," and it was
old Gilbert White who, with his usual eye to the practical, doubted
whether so long and slender a bill could be turned to such a purpose.
More recent observation has confirmed White's objection and has
established the fact of the woodcock holding the young one between her
thighs, the beak being apparently used to steady her burden. Whether the
little ones are habitually carried about in this fashion, or merely on
occasion of danger, is not known, and indeed the bird's preference for
activity in the dusk has invested accurate observation of its habits
with some difficulty. Among well-known sportsmen who were actually so
fortunate as to have witnessed this interesting performance, passing
mention may be made of the late Duke of Beaufort, the Hon. Grantley
Berkeley, and Sir Ralph Payne-Gallwey.

Reference has already been made to the now obsolete use of nets for the
capture of these birds when "roding." The cock-shuts, as they were
called, were spread so as to do their work after sundown, and this is
the meaning of Shakespeare's allusion to "cock-shut time." This "roding"
is a curious performance on the part of the males only, and it bears
some analogy to the "drumming" of snipe. It is accompanied indeed by the
same vibrating noise, which may be produced from the throat as well,
but is more probably made only by the beating of the wings. There
appears to be some divergence of opinion as to its origin in both birds,
though in that of the snipe such sound authorities as Messrs. Abel
Chapman and Harting are convinced that it proceeds from the quivering of
the primaries, as the large quill-feathers of the wings are called.
Other naturalists, however, have preferred to associate it with the
spreading tail-feathers. Whether these eccentric gymnastics are
performed as displays, with a view to impressing admiring females, or
whether they are merely the result of excitement at the pairing season
cannot be determined. It is safe to assume that they aim at one or other
of these objects, and further no one can go with any certainty. The word
"roding" is spelt "roading" by Newton, who thus gives the preference to
the Anglo-Saxon description of the aerial tracks followed by the bird,
over the alternative derivation from the French "roder," which means to
wander. The flight is at any rate wholly different from that to which
the sportsman is accustomed when one of these birds is flushed in
covert. In the latter case, either instinct or experience seems to have
taught it extraordinary tricks of zigzag man[oe]uvring that not seldom
save its life from a long line of over-anxious guns; though out in the
open, where it generally flies in a straight line for the nearest
covert, few birds of its size are easier to bring down. Fortunately, we
do not in England shoot the bird in springtime, the season of "roding,"
but the practice is in vogue in the evening twilight in every
Continental country, and large bags are made in this fashion.

In its hungry moments the woodcock, like the snipe, has at once the
advantages and handicap of so long a beak. On hard ground, in a long
spell of either drought or frost, it must come within measurable
distance of starvation, for its only manner of procuring its food in
normal surroundings is to thrust its bill deep into the soft mud in
search of earthworms. The bird does not, it is true, as was once
commonly believed, live by suction, or, as the Irish peasants say in
some parts, on water, but such a mistake might well be excused in anyone
who had watched the bird's manner of digging for its food in the ooze.
The long bill is exceedingly sensitive at the tip, and in all
probability, by the aid of a tactile sense more highly developed than
any other in our acquaintance, this organ conveys to its owner the
whereabouts of worms wriggling silently down out of harm's way. On first
reaching Britain, the woodcock remains for a few days on the seashore to
recover from its crossing, and at this time of rest it trips over the
wet sand, generally in the gloaming, and picks up shrimps and such other
soft food as is uncovered between tidal marks. It is not among the
easiest of birds to keep for any length of time in captivity, but if due
attention be paid to its somewhat difficult requirements in the way of
suitable food, success is not unattainable. On the whole, bread and milk
has been found the best artificial substitute for its natural diet. With
the _kiwi_ of New Zealand, a bird not even distantly related to the
woodcock, and a cousin rather of the ostrich, but equipped with much the
same kind of bill as the subject of these remarks, an