THE BIRDS' BEDTIME.
GIVEN certain circumstances, there are few things more enjoyable than a thoroughly wet day. Two conditions at least are necessary to this enjoyment. It must be abso- lutely wet—not a niggardly drizzle, but a drenching down- pour—a day which has made up its mind to moisture. There shall be no pause or diminution of energy, no intention of that surrender at 5 p.m. to which wet days are liable. Secondly, it must be in the country. Rain in town or suburb is depressing to the verge of melancholia; the only time when it may be tolerable is in that heavy splashing shower at nightfall which mitigates the sweltering summer. On new red brick, on grey stucco, on lines of slate and asphalt, rain is the dismallest thing in life. But if you would ex- plore to the utmost its potentialities of pleasure, you must be intimate with the clean, cool, country flood of it. You must face it and never flinch ; you must receive it honestly and with no craven hankering after shelter ; and then, should familiarity breed contempt, let distance lend enchantment to your rain : its beauty is many-sided. The best place for studying both distance and enchantment is a fir-wood in winter.
It is the so-called winter of January in the South Country, when the evening twilight slowly lengthens week by week. Spring is latent in sap and soil, and a vague sense of quicken- ing impulse stirs the air. Under the Gothic arches of the fir-boughs, stretching away through columnar aisles of infinite shade, it is perfectly Ary,—always dry. The red-brorn carpet of immemorial leaf-mould is almost warmly soft to the tread. The 'rain Spurts and elides off the polished grooved' fir-spires; where it eventually rests we know not. But you see
it soaking the outskirts of the wood, the steep banks breaking away in clumps of furze and heather. You hear it swishing, incessant cataracts, among the leafless trees there, oak, and birch, and crooked stems of chestnut. It is kind to these bare sprays ; it imparts depth to the shadows, tone to the colours, richer green to the moss, glossier burnish to the ivy. The tree-trunks trending away into distant woodlands take a softer grey. As evening draws in, the flame-coloured brackens gleam with the lustre of wet sea-shells.
The fir-woods are very silent, for there is no wind to stir their organ-notes. There is no evidence of animal life beyond the infrequent stutter of a rabbit. One has all the more leisure to enjoy the voice of falling waters. Rain in winter has a thinner and harder note than in summer, when, brushing through innumerable leaves, it emits a dense full sound, heavy and luscious. But while the brief light wanes, and a dripping dusk settles down, the sibilant rattle of the rain is companioned by the rush of wings. First they come few and seldom, but shortly in battalions, whirring, flapping, fluttering. The birds have supped ; and now it is their bedtime.
January is a hungry month. The bird is hard put to it for meals; and becomes a picker-up of hitherto unconsidered trifles, a groper in unpromising regions ignored in better days. Desperate appetite drives the needy blackbird to dig the hedge-banks for arum-root hardly yet sprouting, and the missel-thrushes must ransack the stream-sides for stray seeds of water-hemlock. " Colepexy," as Wessex men call the gleaning of the last fruit left on the orchard boughs, is a winter-long business with the birds. The robins, for instance, go " colepexing " after any haws and holly-berries which the bigger starvelings may have passed over. The fieldfares gobbled up all the red mountain-ash berries directly they arrived in the autumn ; the thrushes have cleared off every attainable yew-berry, discreetly omitting the yew-berry's poison- ous seed. The starlings have supped in rick-yards, orchards, and gardens, and not done so badly on the whole, especially where the crumbs of charity were being wrangled over by petulant small fry. The wood-pigeons and jays have depleted the acorns, and gorged on beech-mast under the squirrel's indignant eyes. But wherever and with whatever success the birds have foraged, now, supperful or supperless, they all come home through the rain. The serene shelter of the fir- woods is like a solid block of sleep.
When you come to think of it, a bird must be pretty tired at night. A day's hunting, especially in such wet, would exhaust the most vivacious. But like a child, he is never too tired to be noisy; and, also like a child, fatigue is apt to make him quarrelsome. The jays scream ferociously, struggling for places in the summit of the tallest trees. The chaffinches " pink " louder and louder the darker it grows. Every quiet bough becomes suddenly alive with wings and ejaculations. Here come the myriad wood-pigeons streaming in, flopping and rustling in the firs. They, with the jays and starlings, select the highest possible pinnacles for roosting. It is as though one should prefer to sleep in the main-top. Cer- tainly their cradles must be well rocked if a storm-wind sing their lullaby. It seems odd that birds should regard their nests simply as breeding-places and nurseries, never as houses for the night. Squirrels, however, annex the deserted nests of rooks and jays, which are probably mal- odorous at best. There are all manner of strange nocturnal signals and summons among the feathered folk ; furtive notes uttered very gently and as gently answered, or shrill volubilities of excited neighbours. Are they bidding good-night P are they crying " Bedtime, children !" to the younger ones, and the younger ones replying, "I don't want to go to bed one bit !" Are they murmuring vespers ? or is it all but an expiring effort at sociability, a tradition of tribal lays sung at evening, as among certain savage peoples ? The partridges, who roost in the deepest and thickest ling, or along the crest of furzy banks, call each to each, in curious creaky tones, across the far-off heath tracks. The pheasants crow sotto voce in the couch-grass. At the rim of the wood little birds, probably linnets and woodlarks, are whispering and flickering in the herbage. They twitter tiny fluty phrases over and over again to themselves, the way that sleepy children say their prayers at night. The redwings, with snatches of their sweet unfamiliar melody, come hurrying to rest, and the trooping fieldfares with their raucous call-note. The robins, chinking little pebbly sounds, dive into holly- bushes and hawthorns, the tits drop into holes in tree or bank, the yellowhammers consort with the linnets, the finches' dormitory appears to be on the lower fir- boughs. The pigeons are very light sleepers, and, once they have settled to rest, after immense preliminary fussing. it annoys them dreadfully for any one to pass through their wood. Your carefullest footstep will break their dreams, and they all flap out, and huddle in and out of the branches, in the most irrational discomposure. The thrush mutters a few low trills before it nestles down into silence ; the jays vociferate final discords. And now, through the rain-veiled twilight, there comes a sudden whirl of plumage. Two huge flocks of starlings are wheeling overhead. It is the most singular spectacle imaginable, this eontre-lane of birds, with woven paces and with waving arms," or rather pinions. Measured, ordered, symmetrical, the aery dance goes on. The two com- panies circle round and round ; they meet in mid-air, looping in and out, passing and repassing, describing intricate evolutions with the most practised and infallible art. It is almost incredible while you watch it, this last after-supper dance, this merry game before the party breaks up. In vain the eye endeavours to follow the mazy movements threaded by the players ; however often recapitulated, they are ingenious beyond belief. Suddenly, with a harsh whooping scream, the flocks separate as at some recognised signal. In a sweeping torrent of wings, with a noise of pouring cascades, they swoop to the birch and fir tops, there to fight and scold for eligible positions till drowsiness shall reluctantly overtake them. When the last starling has ceased to fidget, and the last wood-pigeon has temporarily assured himself that nobody is on the prowl, the stillness that accrues is like a blanket flung over a cage. Black and palpable darkness wraps the slumberers, and the rain runs on above their hidden heads. With no tent-pegs to hammer, no fires to light, no clothes to dry, no blankets to spread—as having nothing, and yet possessing all things—the vagabond families of the air have camped for the night.
Previous page
