Love's Meinie Part 5

Not stomachic in profile; far from cheerful in disposition; more or less lonely in habit; or, if gregarious, out of the way of men. The balance of these on the wing, is no less essential a part of their picturing, than that of the buntings, robins, and ducks on the foot, or breast: and therefore, especially the position of the head in flying.

86. Accordingly, for complete ornithology, _every_ bird must be drawn, as every flower for good botany, both in profile, and looking down upon it: but for the perchers, the standing profile is the most essential; and for the falcons and gulls, the flying _plan_,--the outline of the bird, as it would be seen looking down on it, when its wings were full-spread.

Then, in connection with these general outlines, we want systematic plan and profile of the foot and head; but since we can't have everything at once, let us say the plan of the foot, and profile of the head, quite accurately given; and for every bird consistently, and to scale.

Profile and plan in outline; then, at least the _head_ in light and shade, from life, so as to give the expression of the eye. Fallacious, this latter, often, as an indication of character; but deeply significant of habit and power: thus the projecting, full, bead, which enables the smaller birds to see the smallest insect or grain with good in it, gives them much of their bright and often arch expression; while the flattened iris under the beetling brow of the falcons,--projecting, not in frown, but as roof, to shade the eye from interfering skylight,--gives them their apparently threatening and ominous gaze; the iris itself often wide and pale, showing as a lurid saturnine ring under the shadow of the brow plumes.

87. I speak of things that are to be: very a.s.suredly they will be done, some day--not far off, by painters educated as gentlemen, in the strictest sense--working for love and truth, and not for l.u.s.t and gold.

Much has already been done by good and earnest draughtsmen, who yet had not received the higher painter's education, which would have enabled them to see the bird in the greater lights and laws of its form. It is only here and there, by Durer, Holbein, Carpaccio, or other such men, that we get a living bird rightly drawn;[18] but we may be greatly thankful for the unspared labor, and attentive skill, with which many ill.u.s.trations of ornithology have been produced within the last seventy or eighty years. Far beyond rivals.h.i.+p among them, stands Le Vaillant's monograph, or dualgraph, on the Birds of Paradise, and Jays: its plates, exquisitely engraved, and colored with unwearying care by hand, are insuperable in plume-texture, hue, and action,--spoiled in effect, unhappily, by the vulgar boughs for sustentation. Next, ranks the recently issued history of the birds of Lombardy; the lithographs by Herr Oscar Dressler, superb, but the coloring (chromo-lithotint) poor: and then, the self-taught, but in some qualities greatly to be respected, art of Mr. Gould. Of which, I would fain have spoken with grat.i.tude and admiration in his lifetime; had not I known, that the qualified expressions necessary for true estimate of his published plates, would have caused him more pain, than any general praise could have counteracted or soothed. Without special criticism, and rejoicing in all the pleasure which any of my young pupils may take in his drawing,--only guarding them, once for all, against the error of supposing it exemplary as art,--I use his plates henceforward for general reference; finding also that, following Mr. Gould's practical and natural arrangement, I can at once throw together in groups, easily comprehensible by British children, all they are ever likely to see of British or Britain-visitant birds: which I find fall, with frank casting, into these following divisions, not in any important matters varying from the usual ones, and therefore less offensive, I hope, to the normal zoologist than my heresies in botany; while yet they enable me to make what I have to say about our native birds more simply presentable to young minds.[19]

[18] The Macaw in Sir Joshua's portrait of the Countess of Derby is a grand example.

[19] See the notes on cla.s.sification, in the Appendix to the volume; published, together with the Preface, simultaneously with this number.

88. 1. The HAWKS come first, of course, ma.s.sed under the single Latin term 'Falco,' and next them,

2. The OWLS second, also of course,--unmistakable, these two tribes, in all types of form, and ways of living.

3. The SWALLOWS I put next these, being connected with the owls by the Goatsucker, and with the falcons by their flight.

4. The PIES next, whose name has a curious double meaning, derived partly from the notion of their being painted or speckled birds; and partly from their being, beyond all others, pecking, or pickax-beaked, birds. They include, therefore, the Crows, Jays, and Woodp.e.c.k.e.rs; historically and practically a most important order of creatures to man. Next which, I take the great company of the smaller birds of the dry land, under these following more arbitrary heads.

5. The SONGSTERS. The Thrush, Lark, Blackbird, and Nightingale, and one or two choristers more. These are connected with the pheasants in their speckledness, and with the pies in pecking; while the nightingale leads down to the smaller groups of familiar birds.

6. The ROBINS, going on into the minor warblers, and the Wrens; the essential character of a Robin being that it should have some front red in its dress somewhere; and the Cross-bills being included in the cla.s.s, partly because they have red in their dress, and partly because I don't know where else to put them.

7. The CREEPERS and t.i.tS--separated chiefly on the ground of their minuteness, and subtle little tricks and graces of movement.

8. The SPARROWS, going on into Buntings and Finches.

9. The PHEASANTS (subst.i.tuting this specific name for that of Scratchers).

10. The HERONS; for the most part wading and fis.h.i.+ng creatures, but leading up to the Stork, and including any long-legged birds that run well, such as the Plovers.

11. The DABCHICKS--the subject of our present chapter.

12. The SWANS and GEESE.

13. The DUCKS.

14. The GULLS.

Of these, I take the Dabchicks first, for three sufficient reasons;--that they give us least trouble,--that they best show what I mean by broad principles of grouping,--and that they are the effective clasp, if not center, of all the series; since they are the true link between land and water birds. We will look at one or two of their leading examples, before saying more of their position in bird-society. I shall give for the heading of each article, the name which I propose for the bird in English children's schools--_Dame_-schools if possible; a perfectly simple Latin one, and a familiar English one. The varieties of existing nomenclature will be given in the Appendix, so far as I think them necessary to be known or remembered.

I.

MERULA FONTIUM. TORRENT-OUZEL.

89. There are very few good popular words which do not unite two or more ideas, being founded on one, and catching up others as they go along. Thus I find 'dabchick' to be a corruption of 'dip-chick,'

meaning birds that only dip, and do not dive, or even duck, for any length of time: but in its broader and customary use it takes up the idea of dabbling; and, as a cla.s.s-name, stands for 'dabbling-chick,'

meaning a bird of small size, that neither wades, nor dives, nor runs, nor swims, nor flies, in a consistent manner; but humorously dabbles, or dips, or flutters, or trips, or plashes, or paddles, and is always doing all manner of odd and delightful things: being also very good-humored, and in consequence, though graceful, inclined to plumpness;[20] and though it never waddles, sometimes, for a minute or two, 'toddles,' and now and then looks more like a ball than a bird.

For the most part, being clever, they are also brave, and would be as tame as any other chickens, if we would let them. They are mostly sh.o.r.e birds, living at the edge of irregularly broken water, either streams or sea; and the representative of the whole group with which we will begin is the mysterious little water-ouzel, or 'oiselle,' properly the water-blackbird,--Buffon's 'merle d'eau'--for ouzel is the cla.s.sic and poetic word for the blackbird, or ouzel-_c.o.c.k_, "so black of hue," in 'Midsummer Night's Dream.' Johnson gives it from the Saxon 'osle'; but in Chaucer it must be understood simply as the feminine of oiseau. The bird in question might, however, be more properly called, as Bewick calls it, 'water pyot,' or water magpie, for only its back and wings are black,--its head brown, and breast snow white.

[20] Or in French, 'embonpoint.'

90. And now I must, once for all, get over a difficulty in the description of birds' costume. I can always describe the neck-feathers, as such, when birds have any neck to speak of; but when, as the majority of dabchicks, they have not any,--instead of talking of 'throat-feathers' and 'stomach-feathers,' which both seem to me rather ugly words, I shall call the breast feathers the 'chemisette,' and all below them the 'bodice.'

I am now able, without incivility, to distinguish the two families of Water-ouzel. Both have white chemisettes, but the common water-ouzel (Cinclus aquaticus of Gould) has a white bodice, and the other a black one, the bird being called therefore, in ugly Greek, 'Melanogaster,'

'black-stomached.' The black bodice is Norwegian fas.h.i.+on--the white, English; and I find that in Switzerland there is an intermediate Robin-ouzel, with a red bodice: but the ornithologists are at variance as to his 'specific' existence. The chemisette is always white.

91. However dressed, and wherever born, the Ouzel is essentially a mountain-torrent bird, and, Bewick says, may be seen perched on a stone in the midst of a stream, in a continual _dipping_ motion, or short curtsey often repeated, while it is watching for its food, which consists of small fishes and insects,--water insects, that is to say, caught mostly at the bottom; many-legged and shrimpy things, according to Gould's plate. The popular tradition that it can walk under the water has been denied by scientific people; but there is no doubt whatever of the fact,--see the authentic evidence of it in the delightful little monograph of the bird published by the Carlisle Naturalist's Society; but how the thing is done n.o.body but the ouzel knows. Its strong little feet, indeed, have plenty of grip in them, but cannot lay hold of smooth stones, and Mr. Gould himself does not solve the problem. "Some a.s.sert that it is done by clinging to the pebbles with its strong claws; others, by considerable exertion and a rapid movement of the wings. Its silky plumage is impervious to wet; and hence when the bird returns to the surface, the pearly drops which roll off into the stream are the only evidence of its recent submersion. It is, indeed, very interesting to observe _this pretty bird walk down a stone, quietly descend into the water_, rise again perhaps at a distance of several yards down the stream, and 'fly'[21] back to the place it had just left, to perform the same maneuver the next minute, the silence of the interval broken by its cheerful warbling song."

[21] "Wing its way" in the ornithological language. I shall take leave usually to subst.i.tute the vulgar word 'fly,' for this poetical phrase.

92. In which, you see, we have the reason for its being called 'water-blackbird,' being, I think, the only one of the dabchicks that really sings. Some of the others, (sand-pipers) pipe; and others, the stints, say 'stint' in a charming manner; but none of them _sing_ except the oiselle. Very singularly, the black-bodiced one seems to like living near manufactories. "The specimen in the Norwich Museum,"

says Mr. Gould, "is the one mentioned by Mr. Lubbock, in 1845, as 'lately' shot at h.e.l.lesdon Mills; and two others are stated by the same author to have been seen at different times by trustworthy observers at Marlingford and Saxthorpe. Of more recent occurrence I may mention a male in my own collection, which was brought to me in the flesh, having been shot in November, 1855, whilst hovering over the river between the foundry bridge and the ferry. It is not a little singular that a bird so accustomed to the clear running streams of the north, and the quiet haunts of the 'silent angler,' should be found, as in this case, almost within the walls of the city, sporting over a river turbid and discolored from the neighboring factories, and with the busy noise of traffic on every side. About the same time that this bird appeared near the city, three others were observed on more than one occasion on the Earlham river, by Mr. Fountaine, of Easton, who is well acquainted with our British birds; but these suddenly disappeared, and were not seen again."

And all will disappear, and never be seen again, but in skeleton, ill-covered with camphorated rags of skin, under the present scientific dispensation; unless some kind-hearted northern squire will let them have the run and the dip of his brooks; and teach the village children to let them alone if they like to wade down to the village.

I am sixty-two, and have pa.s.sed as much time out of those years by torrent sides as most people. But I have never seen a water-ouzel alive.

II.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHaeA. LILY-OUZEL.

93. We have got so far, by help of our first example, in the etymology of our entire cla.s.s, as to rest in the easily memorable root 'dab,'

short for dabble, as the foundation of comprehensive nomenclature. But the earlier (if not Aryan!) root 'dip,' must be taken good heed to, also, because, as we further study the customs of aquatic chickens, we shall find that they really ma.s.s themselves under the three great heads of 'Duckers,' birds that duck their heads only, and stick up their tails in the air;--'Dippers,' birds that take real dips under, but not far down, in shallow water mostly, for things at the bottom, or else to get out of harm's way, staying down about as long as we could ourselves, if we were used to it;--and 'Divers,' who plunge like stones when they choose,--can go n.o.body knows how deep in the deep sea,--and swim under the water just as comfortably as upon it, and as fast, if not faster.

But although this is clearly the practical and poetical division, we can't make it a scientific one; for the dippers and dabblers are so like each other that we must take them together; and so also the duckers and divers are inseparable in some of their forms: so that, for convenience of cla.s.sing, we must keep to the still more general rank I have given--dabchick, duck, and gull,--the last being essentially the aerial sea-bird, which _lives_ on the wing.

94. But there is yet one more 'mode of motion' to be thought of, in the cla.s.s we are now examining. Several of them ought really to be described, not as dipchicks, but as _trip_-chicks; being, as far as I can make out, little in the habit of going under water; but much in the habit of walking or tripping daintily over it, on such raft or float as they may find constructed for them by water-lily or other buoyant leaves. Of these "come and trip it as you come" chicks,--(my emendation of Milton is surely more reasonable than the emendations of commentators as a body, for we do not, any of us, like to see our mistresses "trip it as they _go_")--there are, I find, pictured by Mr. Gould, three 'species,' called by him, Porzana Minuta, Olivaceous Crake; Porzana Pygmaea, Baillon's Crake; and Porzana Maruetta, Spotted Crake.

Now, in the first place, I find 'Porzana' to be indeed Italian for 'water-hen,' but I can't find its derivation; and in the second place, these little birds are neither water-hens nor moor-hens, nor water-c.o.c.ks nor moor-c.o.c.ks; neither can I find, either in Gould, Yarrell, or Bewick, the slightest notice of their voices!--though it is only in implied depreciation of their quality, that we have any business to call them 'Crakes,' 'Croaks,' or 'Creaks.' In the third place, 'Olivaceous' is not a translation of 'Minuta,' nor 'Baillon's'

of 'Pygmaea,' nor 'spotted' of 'Maruetta'; which last is another of the words that mean nothing in any language that I know of, though the French have adopted it as 'Marouette.' And in the fourth place, I can't make out any difference, either in text or picture, between Mr.

Baillon's Crake, and the 'minute' one, except that the minute one is the bigger, and has fewer white marks in the center of the back.

95. For our purposes, therefore, I mean to call all the three varieties neither Crake nor Porzan, but 'Allegretta,' which will at once remind us of their motion; the larger one, nine inches long, I find called always Spotted Crake, so that shall be 'Allegretta Maculata,' Spotty Allegret; and the two little ones shall be, one, the Tiny Allegret, and the other the Starry Allegret (Allegretta Minuta, and Allegretta Stellaris); all the three varieties being generally thought of by the plain English name I have given at the head of this section, 'Lily-Ouzel' (see, in -- 7, page 5, the explanation of my system of dual epithet, and its limitations. I note, briefly, what may be properly considered distinctive in the three kinds.)

II.A.

ALLEGRETTA NYMPHaeA, MACULATA. SPOTTED ALLEGRET.

96. Water-Crake or 'Skitty' of Bewick,--French, 'Poule d'eau Marouette,' (we may perhaps take Marouette as euphonious for Maculata, but I wish I knew what it meant);--though so light of foot, flies heavily; and, when compelled to take wing, merely pa.s.ses over the tops of the reeds to some place of security a short distance off. (Gould.) The body is "in all these Rails _compressed_" (Yarrell,--he means laterally thin), which enables them to make their way through dense herbage with facility. I can't find anything clear about its country, except that it 'occasionally visits' Sweden in summer, and Smyrna in winter, and that it has been found in Corfu, Sicily, Crete,--Whittlesea Mere,--and Yarley Fen;--in marshes always, wherever it is; (nothing said of its behavior on ice,) and not generally found farther north than c.u.mberland. Its food is rather nasty--water-slugs and the like,--but it is itself as fat as an ortolan, "almost melts in the _hand_." (Gould.) Its own color, brown spotted with white; "the spots on the wing coverts surrounded with black, which gives them a studded or pearly appearance." (Bewick,--he means by 'pearly,' rounded or projecting.) Hence my specific epithet. Its young are of the liveliest black, "little b.a.l.l.s of black glistening down," beautifully put by Mr.

Gould among the white water Crowfoot (Ranunculus Aquatilis), looking like little ducklings in mourning. "Its nest is made of rushes and other buoyant materials matted together, so as to float on, and rise or fall with, the ebbing or flowing of the water like a boat; and to prevent its being carried away, it is moored or fastened to a reed."

(Bewick.)