AERIAL STEEPLEJACKS.
COMMENTING on the ascent of the Nelson Column by steeplejacks in order to fix the decorations for Trafalgar Day, an evening paper stated that a pair of peregrine-falcons once nested on the summit. This story needs corroboration, as the fact would have been at once noted by naturalists in London. But it is true that a pair of kestrels did make a home on the Column for a Beason, and nested in the coil of rope carved at the back of the figure of Lord Nelson. This seems an odd place for a bird to choose as a home; but experience shows that such is not the case. There is above all great cities an aerial plane, far remote from the human life below, broken at intervals by the sky- piercing summits of cathedrals, columns, monuments, and towers, a real "nephelococcygia," which is only haunted by one species of man, the steeplejack, but is the chosen and peculiar home of several species of the larger birds. The birds' contempt of the creatures who build stone spires 400 ft. high, which they cannot even climb, would probably be great indeed if they only realised the facts. As it is, they probably look upon the tall structures as built especially for their use, or when ancient, as natural features in the land. scape, on which they can find complete isolation and security. Towers and spires also appeal to another side of tha bird. mind. Some species, though not all, are never satisfied unless they occupy the absolutely highest point in the neighbour. hood. Thus, while the jackdaw will sit on any part, from the buttresses to the vane of a cathedral, the stork, the gull, the cormorant, or the falcon always seem un. easy unless perched upon the summit of the building or crag which they choose for a resting.place. From an interesting letter on the peregrine-falcons on Salisbury spire, recently communicated to the Field by the Rev. A. Morres, for thirty- five years a resident in the Close at Salisbury, and the author of an excellent pamphlet on the "Birds of the Faroe Islands," it appears that Salisbury spire has for years attracted the peregrines from the meadows of the Avon and from Salisbury Plain, and also the falcons "on passage." "The first year in which I noticed them," writes Mr. Morres, "was in 1866. The restoration of the spire was going on at the time, and I saw four peregrines together, one of which settled on the top of the weathercock (400 ft. high), and I picked up a snipe's leg and other debris of their prey left by them in the gutters. Ever since that date no year has passed without peregrines being seen soaring round the spire, and in the autumn months apparently roosting there. Their numbers are generally increased at this time of the year, doubtless by migratory birds, and a pair very often stay on in the spring, and would undoubtedly nest on the tower if due accommoda- tion (which I hope one day to obtain leave to make) were pre- pared for them."
Their favourite haunt on the Cathedral is the parapet of the tower, from inside which the spire springs, and though they do not nest there, the hen-falcons constantly " drop " their eggs on the platform ; a pair of these were picked up by one of the Canons, and are now in the local museum. The falcons seem to feel that this aerial territory is so much their own, that they approach quite closely on the rare occasions on which any one is permitted to ascend to the doors of the spire. One perched on the first band of fretwork round the spire, about 40 ft. above Mr. Morres's head, and another allowed itself to be shot by a workman, who carried a gun up on to the scaffolding.
On crags and cliffs along the coast sea-fowl always occupy the highest points. On the Needles, or the "Horse Rock" oft Culver Cliffs, if there be only a single bird on the crag, it will in nine cases out of ten be perched on the highest jut of chalk. But it is not generally known that cormorants, when driven inland, make a home on the tops of church spires. Newark-on-Trent possesses an unusually fine and beautiful parish church, with a spire like a minor Salisbury. On the evening of September 23rd, 1893, a great black bird was seen to fly in from the meadows by the Trent, and with a steady flapping flight to rise on a gradual slant to the summit of the spire, where it alighted on the arrow of the weathercock. It was seen seated there early on the following morning, and was recognised as a cormorant. Unlike the author of "Paradise Lost," the vicar and people of Newark saw nothing of ill-omen in this visit, and regardless of the classic line showing how Satan flew into Eden and "sat like a cormorant on the tree of life," they welcomed the coming of the bird, and quoted the death of the albatross in "The Ancient Mariner " in its defence, in their parish magazine. For seven weeks and five days the cormorant returned at dusk to its perch upon the arrow, where every night it had the satisfaction of knowing that it sat higher than any living creature in the valley of the Trent. It departed, as it came, after a great gale which blew on November 18th, and though it was reported to have been shot on the river, there is reason to think that the storms, which had driven it inland, may also have carried it back to the ocean shore. This visit of the cormorant to the summits of lofty inland spires is not un- precedented. Two birds of the same kind had roosted on Newark spire some years before for a single night ; and they have also been seen on Salisbury Cathedral. Storks, which show their delight in the upper regions of the air by their habit of soaring for hours at vast altitudes, are also noted for their determination to occupy the highest possible point when at rest. As several species of stork prefer to live in the society of man, and frequent great cities, thia tendency may be observed without difficulty. In India the adjutant-storks always prefer to stand on the topmost pinnacles of high buildings. In one town it was noticed that an adjutant always sat on the top of the pediment of a native college. An Englishman who was engaged in examining another part of the roof, noticed that a single brick had been laid on the parapet of the pediment, and that the adjutant, anxious to gain a couple of inches in altitude, was standing on this brick,—poised, according to custom, on one leg. A crow slipped up behind, and pulled the stork's tail, upsetting it twice from its post. As it approached to do this a third time the adjutant caught sight of it, darted down its enormous beak, caught the crow., and swallowed him whole, after which, with a noli me tangere air, it reoccupied its brick pedestal. In villages, where the stork nest on the gables of the barns, or in cities, where no tower is too high for them, the common white storks have the same fancy. At Antwerp the highest points, higher even than the old many-storied church towers, are the two huge towers of the new Reich's Museum. Their Pictures, painted by their own great artists, are the national possessions most prized by the Dutch ; and this splendid new palace forms a worthy home for them. The towers are capped by steep roofs, on each end of the ridges of which is an elaborate finial of gilded ironwork. In one of these a stork has built its nest ; and so lofty is the tower and so high the walls of the building that even those employed about the building were incredulous that the luck-bringing " oyer- Vogels " had made a domicile upon their new State Museum. One notable exception to this habit of the storks is, or was, seen at Strasburg, where they nested, not on the completed towers of the Cathedral, but on that which is unfinished and only rises level with the West Front. On the other hand, in the ruins of Persepolis the storks have sought the capitals of the pillars in the Hall of Forty Columns, and nearly every pillar holds a nest on the summit which once supported the cedar-roof beams of the palace of good Darius, burnt as the climax of Alexander's feast. In Turkey, and in the East generally, the storks do not occupy the summits of the minarets, which take the place of church spires, because these are mainly capped with slopes of smooth cement, unsuitable sites for nests. Hence they build on the flat house-tops, generally selecting those of the Turks, who protect them. For some reason their numbers have diminished greatly since the last war with Russia, and the Moslems look on this as an evil omen for the future of their race in Europe.
There are other tribes of tower-dwelling birds, which are content with other parts of buildings than their summits, but look upon them as a place of security and convenience. Pigeons prefer them to any other nesting-place. In Upper Egypt huge clay-brick towers are built for their convenience, set with hundreds of clay-pots built into the walls for nesting. holes. At Rochester the pigeons have appropriated the whole interior of the Norman keep, and rear their young there, even as late as December, in numbers beyond belief. The whole interior resounds in spring with the multiplied cooing of the doves. Kestrels and owls always love the "ivy-mantled towers," and sometimes nest in the same village church. More often they seek a ruined church or fortress and lay their eggs in the crumbling mould among the ivy. roots. One of the most beautiful sites of a kestrel's nest which the writer has seen was in Conisboro' Castle, on the ruined wall of the hall of Athelstane. So, too, in the Castle of Falaise the jackdaws have multiplied until the ridges of the walls are black with the chattering flocks ; and in some of our English country churches the accumulations of sticks and rubbish made by them in nesting-time have drawn an edict from the Bishops that their visits shall be stopped by wiring the openings of the louvre-boards. But the jackdaws are irrepressible. They drop the sticks outside, littering the bases of the towers with dead wood, and carry in smaller and more objectionable rubbish to cushion their young among the belfry timbers.
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