Yet There Must Have Been Something
There For All These Eager Bills - Eggs Or Pupae.
A jackdaw, with iron-grey
patch on the back of his broad poll, dropped in my garden one morning,
To
the great alarm of the small birds, and made off with some large dark
object in his beak - some beetle or shell probably, I could not
distinguish which, and should most likely have passed the spot without
seeing it. The sea-kale, which had been covered up carefully with
seaweed, to blanch and to protect it from the frost, was attacked in the
cold dry weather in a most furious manner by blackbirds, thrushes, and
starlings. They tore away the seaweed with their strong bills, pitching
it right and left behind them in as workmanlike style as any miner, and
so boring deep notches into the edge of the bed. When a blackbird had
made a good hole he came back to visit it at various times of the day,
and kept a strict watch. If he found any other blackbird or thrush
infringing on his diggings, he drove him away ferociously. Never were
such works carried on as at the edge of that seaweed; they moved a bushel
of it. To the eye there seemed nothing in it but here and there a small
white worm; but they found plenty, and the weather being so bitter, I let
them do much as they liked; I would rather feed than starve them.
Down at the sea-shore in the sunny hours, out from the woodwork of the
groynes or bulwarks, there came a white spotted spider, which must in
some way have known the height to which the tide came at that season,
because he was far below high-water mark. The moles in an upland field
had made in the summer a perfect network of runs. Out of curiosity we
opened some, and found in them large brown pupae. In the summer-house,
under the wooden eaves, if you look, you will find the chrysalis of a
butterfly, curiously slung aslant. Coming down Galley Hill, near
Hastings, one day, a party was almost stopped by finding they could only
walk on thousands of caterpillars, dark with bright yellow bands, which
had sprung out of the grass. The great nettles - now, nothing is so common
as a nettle - are sometimes festooned with a dark caterpillar, hundreds
upon each plant, hanging like bunches of currants. Could you find a spot
the size of your watch-seal without an insect or the germ of one?
The agriculturists in some southern counties give the boys in spring
threepence a dozen for the heads of young birds killed in the nest. The
heads are torn off, to be produced, like the wolves' of old times, as
evidence of extinction. This - apart from the cruelty of the practice - is,
I think, a mistake, for, besides the insects that injure crops, there are
some which may be suspected of being inimical to human life, if not
directly, indirectly; and if it were not for birds, we should run a very
good chance of being literally eaten up. The difficulty is that people
cannot believe what they cannot immediately see, and there are very few
who have the patience or who feel sufficient interest to study minute
things.
I have taken these instances haphazard; they are large instances, as it
were, of big and visible things. They only give the rudest idea of the
immensity and complexity of insect life in our own country. My friend the
sparrow is, I believe, a friend likewise to man generally. He does a
little damage, I admit; but if he were to resort to living on damage
solely in his enormous numbers, we should not have a single flower or a
single ear of wheat. He does not live by doing mischief alone evidently.
He is the best scavenger the Londoners have got, and I counsel them to
prize their sparrows, unless they would be overrun with uncomfortable
creatures; and possibly he plays his part indirectly in keeping down
disease. They say in some places he attacks the crocus. He does not
attack mine, so I suspect there must be something wrong with the
destroyed crocuses. Some tried to entice him from the flower with crumbs;
they would perhaps have succeeded better if they had bought a pint of
wheat at the seedsman's and scattered it. In spring, sparrows are not
over-fond of crumbs; they are inordinately fond of wheat. During the
months of continued dry, cold, easterly winds, which we have had to
endure this season, all insect-eating birds have been almost as much
starved as they are in winter when there is a deep snow. Nothing comes
forth from the ground, nothing from the deep crannies which they cannot
peck open; the larva remains quiescent in the solid timber. Not a speck
can they find. The sparrow at such a time may therefore be driven to
opening flower-buds. Looked at in a broad way, I am convinced he is a
friend. I have always let them build about the house, and shall not drive
them away.
If you do not know anything of insects, the fields are somewhat barren to
you. The buttercups are beautiful, still they are buttercups every day.
The thrush's song is lovely, still one cannot always listen to the
thrush. The fields are but large open spaces after a time to many, unless
they know a little of insects, when at once they become populous, and
there is a link found between the birds and the flowers. It is like
opening another book of endless pages, and coloured illustrations on
every page.
Blessings on the man, said Sancho Panza, who first invented sleep.
Blessings on the man who first invented the scarlet geranium, and thereby
brought the Hummingbird moth to the window-sill; for, though seen ever so
often, I can always watch it again hovering over the petals and taking
the honey, and away again into the bright sunlight.
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