Part 4 (1/2)
WALK VII.
JUNE.
This morning, before we started for our walk, we went to look at a hedgehog which had been brought to us the preceding day. We discovered that the animal, in the course of the night, had crept into a bag with a quant.i.ty of bran in it, and that there were four little ones with her. There they were as snug as possible, the mother and little urchins! Very curious little animals too these young hedgehogs. The spines or p.r.i.c.kles were nearly white and soft, and were not spread over the whole body, but arranged in rows down it. The appearance was that of a plucked duckling when it is what is called ”penny.” They were perfectly blind, and the pa.s.sage of the ear was quite closed; they uttered faint, puppy-like cries. I was desirous to try and rear them; but I had grave doubts about the old one, for those who have attempted to rear young hedgehogs have generally found that the mother ate her offspring. We removed her, young and all, to another place, giving them plenty of straw and supplying bread and milk for the old one. Buffon, amongst others, relates ”that he had repeatedly placed the mother with the young in a place of confinement; but that, instead of suckling them, she invariably killed and devoured them, notwithstanding that she was provided with plenty of food.”
However, we determined to give our young urchins a chance, and hoped the mother hedgehog would be favorably disposed towards her offspring; so we now left her undisturbed. w.i.l.l.y wished to know whether hedgehogs were injurious creatures, for ”you know, papa,” he said, ”that country lads and gamekeepers always kill them whenever they have a chance.” I am convinced that hedgehogs do much more good than harm, by the destruction they cause to insects, slugs, snails, field-mice, and other pests of the farm. There is a foolish idea in the minds of the uneducated that these animals suck cows. You have only to laugh at such an absurdity; but I doubt you will scarcely ever succeed in persuading such people that the idea is a ridiculous one, and utterly unsupported by fact. Hedgehogs will undoubtedly destroy eggs, and one can understand why gamekeepers wage war against them, fearing for the safety of the eggs or young birds of their favorite partridges or pheasants. This is natural. I suspect, however, that hedgehogs seldom molest the nests, and that the injury they do in this respect is very small. ”But you know, papa,” said Jack, ”that they will eat young birds. Do you not remember the dead sparrow we once gave to a hedgehog, and how furiously he went at it, and how soon he ate it all up except the feathers.” ”Yes,” added w.i.l.l.y, ”and do you not also remember our putting a toad in the same box with a hedgehog? Oh! how angry he seemed, and how savagely he shook the unfortunate toad! He did not, however, seem to like the flavour, and soon gave up the fight.” Hedgehogs will certainly destroy young birds; but we must remember to set the good any animal does against the harm, and strike the balance; and, as I said, I suspect in this case the good will largely preponderate. Hedgehogs are extremely fond of beetles; they seize on them with great earnestness, and crack them with as much delight as you lads crack nuts. Hedgehogs are sometimes kept in houses for the purpose of eating the c.o.c.kroaches so often abounding in kitchens. Snakes are also devoured by hedgehogs. The late Professor Buckland, having occasion to suspect that hedgehogs sometimes preyed on snakes, ”procured a common snake and also a hedgehog, and put them in a box together. Whether or not the latter recognised its enemy was not apparent; it did not dart from the hedgehog, but kept creeping gently round the box. The hedgehog was rolled up, and did not appear to see the snake. The professor then laid the hedgehog on the snake, with that part of the ball where the head and tail meet downwards, and touching it. The snake proceeded to crawl; the hedgehog started, opened slightly, and seeing what was under it gave the snake a hard bite, and instantly rolled itself up again. It soon opened a second, and again a third time, repeating the bite. This done, the hedgehog stood by the snake's side, and pa.s.sed the whole body of the snake successively through its jaws, cracking it, and breaking the bones at intervals of half an inch or more, by which operation the snake was rendered motionless. The hedgehog then placed itself at the tip of the snake's tail, and began to eat upwards, as one would eat a radish, without intermission, but slowly, till half of the snake was devoured.
The following morning the remaining half was also completely eaten up.” When rather young these animals make very interesting pets; they soon become tame, and will allow you to stroke their cheeks. You remember our placing a hedgehog on the study table, and seeing how it got off on to the ground. It came to the edge, and threw itself off, coiling up its body partly as it fell; the elastic nature of its p.r.i.c.kly covering enabling it to bear the shock of the fall without the slightest inconvenience.
[Ill.u.s.tration: GREAT GREY SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD, WITH ITS VICTIMS--SHREWS AND BLUE t.i.tMOUSE.]
Let us go on the moors again, and watch the coots and water-hens in the reedy pools near the aqueduct. Do you see that great t.i.t on a branch of this poplar? He is actually at work doing a bit of butchery on a small warbler. See how he is beating the poor little fellow on the head; he wants to get at his brains. ”Are there not birds called butcher-birds?” asked w.i.l.l.y, ”that fix their victims on thorns, and then peck off their flesh? Shall we see any of them?” There are three kinds of butcher-birds that have been known to come to this country.
Two kinds are very uncommon, and we are not likely to meet with any of them in our walks. I may as well, however, tell you something about them; but, as I have no personal knowledge of the habits of any of the species, I must get my information from other sources. The great grey shrike, the red-backed shrike, and the woodchat shrike, are the three species of the family occurring in Great Britain; the red-backed shrike is the only tolerably common one, arriving in this country late in April, and quitting it in September. Mr. John Shaw tells me this bird visits the quarry grounds at Shrewsbury every spring, and an early riser, if he goes there, can see these birds readily. Mr.
Yarrell says that the great grey shrike is only an occasional visitor to this country, and is generally obtained between autumn and spring.
Its food consists of mice, shrews, small birds, frogs, lizards, and large insects. ”After having killed its prey, it fixes the body in a forked branch, or upon a sharp thorn, the more readily to pull off small pieces from it.” The following remarks are by a gentleman who had one of these birds in confinement:--”An old bird of this species,”
he says, ”taken near Norwich in October, 1835, lived in my possession twelve months. It became very tame, and would readily take its food from my hands. When a bird was given it, it invariably broke the skull, and generally ate the head first. It sometimes held the bird in its claws, and pulled it to pieces in the manner of hawks, but seemed to prefer forcing part of it through the wires, then pulling at it. It always hung what it could not eat up on the sides of the cage. It would often eat three small birds in a day. In the spring it was very noisy, one of its notes a little resembling the cry of the kestrel.”
It is a cunning as well as a bold bird. It is said that by imitating the notes of some of the smaller birds it calls them near it, and then pounces upon some deluded victim. The shrike is used by falconers abroad for trapping falcons; ”it is fastened to the ground, and by screaming loudly gives notice to the falconer, who is concealed, of the approach of a hawk.” You will notice in any picture of a shrike how admirably adapted is its curved beak for butchering purposes. The red-backed shrike ”frequents the sides of woods and high hedgerows, generally in pairs, and may frequently be seen perched on the uppermost branch of an isolated bush, on the look out for prey. The males occasionally make a chirping noise, not unlike the note of the sparrow.” It also imitates the voice of small birds. Mr. Yarrell says ”the food of the red-backed shrike is mice, and probably shrews, small birds, and various insects, particularly the common May-chaffer. Its inclination to attack and its power to destroy little birds has been doubted; but it has been seen to kill a bird as large as a finch, and is not unfrequently caught in the clap-nets of London bird-catchers, having struck at their decoy-birds;” and Mr. Hewitson says--”Seeing a red-backed shrike busy in a hedge, I found, upon approaching it, a small bird, upon which it had been operating, firmly fixed upon a blunt thorn; its head was torn off, and the body entirely plucked.”
”What an amazing quant.i.ty of little lady-bird beetles there are on this hedge-bank,” said May. ”The ground is almost red with them.” Yes, it is a very common, but very pretty species. You see there are seven black spots on its red wing-covers, three on each, arranged triangularly, and one at the top of the wing-covers, just at the point where they meet. ”Are these insects injurious, papa?” asked w.i.l.l.y; ”you say there are so many insects that are. I do hope the little lady-birds do no mischief.” I am happy, then, to tell you that they are as useful as they are pretty. You all know what are called plant-lice, those nasty green or black flies called Aphides, which cover the leaves or branches of so many trees and flowers, and do most terrible mischief. Well, the lady-birds, both when they are larvae and when they are beetles, eat these pests, and help to keep their devastating swarms in check. I have frequently seen an aphis in the mouth of a lady-bird; and the larva, a curious six-footed grub, about the third of an inch long, which you may often see late in the summer and the autumn, is still more fond of aphis food. Mr. Curtis says two lady-birds cleared two geranium plants of aphides in twenty-four hours. The species we are looking at is the ”seven-spotted lady-bird;”
there is another very common kind, whose scarlet wing-cases have one black spot on the centre of each. This species is subject to considerable variety; it is called the ”two-spotted lady-bird.” There is another you may often find; it is small and yellow, with eleven spots on each wing-cover. This is called the ”twenty-two-spotted lady-bird;” it is an elegant little creature. It is interesting to note how the observation of some particular animal has led naturalists to the choice of their favorite study. Mr. Gould tells us that his first inclination to the study of birds arose from his father having once lifted him up to peep into a hedge-warbler's nest. His admiration for the beautiful blue eggs led him to devote his time to ornithology, or the study of birds. If I remember rightly, Kirby's mind was directed to the study of insects by noticing the wonderful vitality shown by a little lady-bird beetle, which, after having been immersed twenty-four hours in spirits of wine, on being taken out actually flew away. ”What is the meaning,” asked Mary, ”of the nursery rhyme about the lady-bird?
Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home, Your house is on fire, and your children will burn?”
Indeed, I cannot tell you. There are different versions of the old song. One runs thus:
Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly away home; Your house is on fire, your children at home, All but one that lives under the stone,-- Fly thee home, lady-bird, ere it be gone.
In Yorks.h.i.+re and Lancas.h.i.+re it is--
Lady-bird, lady-bird, fly thy way home, Thy house is on fire, thy children all roam, Except little Nan, who sits in her pan, Weaving gold laces as fast as she can.
The names of Lady-bird, Lady-cow, no doubt originated from the general reverence for this insect and its dedication to the Virgin Mary. In Scandinavia this little beetle is called ”Our Lady's Key-maid,” in Sweden ”The Virgin Mary's Golden Hen.” Similar reverence is paid in Germany, France, England, and Scotland. In Norfolk it is called Bishop Barnabee, and the young girls have the following rhyme, which they continue to recite to it placed on the palm of the hand, till it takes wing and flies away.
”Bishop, Bishop Barnabee, Tell me when my wedding be; If if be to-morrow day, Take your wings and fly away!
Fly to the East, fly to the West, Fly to him that I love best.”
The word barnabee or burnabee, or, as Southey writes it, burnie-bee, no doubt has reference to the burnished or polished wing cases of the insect.
Let us now look out for the coots and water-hens, which love to dabble amongst the weeds of these pools, and to hide amongst the hedges and bulrushes that so thickly skirt them. See how rapidly the swifts or ”Jack-squealers,” as the country folks call them, are gliding by; you remember when we were noticing the swallows and martins that we thought of the swifts. Look at the beautiful scythe-like form of the wings; the tail, you see, is slightly forked; but the bird has the power of bringing the feathers together, so that sometimes you cannot see its cleft form. I generally notice swifts in the neighbourhood about the 5th of May; this year Mr. John Shaw tells me he saw some in Shrewsbury as early as the 23rd of April. Although they come to us the last of the swallow family, they leave us the soonest. By the middle of August most of the swifts will have left us.
This bird has remarkably short legs; and I remember more than once taking one off the ground when I was a boy at school, for unless it is raised a little above the level of the ground, it finds it very difficult to mount upwards by reason of its extremely short legs and long wings. If we had a swift in our hands, I could point out how it differed from the rest of the swallow family in the structure of its feet; in the other members the four toes are arranged three before and one behind; in the swift all the four toes are directed forwards.
There is another kind of swift, the ”white-bellied swift,” which has, on a few occasions, been noticed in this country. It is rather larger than the common swift, and has wings of greater length, and can fly even more rapidly. Hark! I hear the noise of a coot proceeding from the reeds of a pond. I dare say if we keep quite still we shall get a glimpse of her. There she comes; and do look, a lot of young ones with her; little black downy things they are, as we should see were we near enough to examine them. The old birds have a naked white patch on the forehead, and are therefore called bald-coots. You can see the white patch now she faces us and the sun is s.h.i.+ning; the body is a dingy black tinged with dark grey; you notice a little white about the wings. The feet of the coot are curiously formed, each of the four toes is partly webbed, having a membrane forming rounded lobes; the claws are very sharp, and the bird does not hesitate to make use of them if you catch hold of it carelessly; so Col. Hawker gives the following caution to young sportsmen--”Beware of a winged coot, or he will scratch you like a cat.”
I never saw a coot dive; and think it seldom does; water-hens, every one knows, are frequent divers.
The old bird is pulling up some of the weeds of the pool for the young ones; how carefully she attends to them; the heads of the little ones are nearly naked, and of a bright orange colour mixed with blue; but this brilliant colouring lasts only a few days. The nest is made of broken reeds and flags, and hidden amongst the tall rushes and edges in the water.
Bewick mentions the case of a coot having built her nest among some rushes, which were afterwards loosened by the wind, and of course the nest was driven about and floated upon the surface of the water in every direction; notwithstanding which, the female continued to sit as usual, and brought out her young upon her movable habitation. See, now they have all gone away to hide amongst the reeds; they like to come out into the open water late in the evening, and it is not often easy to observe them in the day-time. There are plenty of moor-hens or water-hens in these reedy pools. They are not so peaceful as the coots, for they have been known to attack young ducklings. There one swims, jerking up its tail, which is whitish underneath, and nodding its head; the moor-hen is a smaller bird than the coot, though resembling it both in form and habits. The feet, however, are very different, for, instead of the toes being furnished with a lobed membrane, they have a continuous narrow one down each. Moor-hens have been known to remove their eggs from the nest, in order to add to it, and to replace them again. Mr. Selby relates the following interesting account: