Inmates of my House and Garden

The bird that is off duty is fond of coming to visit me in the house. I am quite accustomed to see a dove sitting amongst my working materials; I have even found an egg lying on my writing-table as a modest gift and token of affection from my gentle Patience.

Peace looks very pretty when he perches on a white marble bust in the drawing-room. He dearly likes investigating anything fresh, and I once found him in the museum busily pulling an old nest to pieces, because it contained some materials he thought would be desirable for his own home.

I learn many lessons from my little doves. I see how affection begets confidence. These little creatures trust me perfectly, and that gives me true pleasure, and makes them very dear to me. I think it is thus our Heavenly Father would have us show our love to Him. He says, “I love them that love Me,” and the text goes on to say, “and those that seek Me early shall find Me.”

Then let all the dear young people who read about my doves try to learn, from their history, how they can please God by showing their love and trust in Him, by going to Him continually with all their difficulties, not doubting that He will hear, and abundantly answer their prayers.

FEEDING WILD BIRDS IN WINTER

“Blithe Robin is heard no more:
He gave us his song
When summer was o’er
And winter was long:
He sang for his bread and now he is fled
Away to his secret nest.
And there in the green
Early and late
Alone to his mate
He pipeth unseen
And swelleth his breast.
For, as it is o’er,
Blithe Robin is heard no more.”

    Robert Bridges.
ANY winter’s day a charming sight may be witnessed outside the long French window of my drawing-room, but this is especially the case in frosty weather, when the frozen-out birds come in flocks to partake of my bounty. Virtue is its own reward in this instance, for I derive untold pleasure from the lively scene which greets my eyes when I sit down each morning to carry on the dual occupation of writing letters and watching the birds.

This winter (February, 1895) is one of exceptional severity. More than a month of intense frost will have killed thousands of birds, especially of the insect-eating species. Tits have even attacked the woody galls upon the oak-trees, and extracted the grubs from them, thus doing the forest-trees good service.

It is curious how plainly individual character comes out in hungry birds. Nine robins are now, whilst I write, carrying on a guerilla warfare, pecking and flying at one another like little furies, as indeed they are. Much as I love robins, I must own they have villainous tempers, and will treat their own kith and kin with persistent cruelty.

Now a dozen or more fussy starlings have arrived for their breakfast, and eagerly pick up the coarse oatmeal, which seems to suit the requirements of most birds when they cannot get their own special diet. I like to listen to the busy chatter the starlings keep up all the time they are eating; it is varied by little tiffs, which constantly arise, when two birds spring into the air, peck at each other furiously for a moment, and then, the insult being avenged, drop down and resume their breakfast until there comes a scare about something, when away they all rush. Starlings are good emblems of perpetual motion – cheerful, busy creatures, they never seem to have a minute to spare, and make so much ado about both work and play that they are amongst the most amusing of the visitants to my window. Blackbirds, on the contrary, are sedately stolid, and usually keep in one position until their hunger is appeased, or, if compelled to fly off in the middle of their repast, they have the forethought to carry away a lump of bread or fat, which they can enjoy in private.

As a rule the thrushes stay away from my food supplies until they have exhausted other stores, but when they do join the throng of pensioners and accept outdoor relief, it is with a calm, fearless air, as if they had a full right to the choicest morsels. When all the rest take flight at some sudden noise, the thrushes generally remain and go on feeding with quiet dignity, as if quite above the silly frights of the vulgar herd. The busy scene would lose much of its interest without the calm effrontery of the blue tits. They perch upon the lumps of fat, assuming every possible attitude of graceful agility, and those who trench upon their domain have occasion to learn that their absurd little beaks can be exerted with considerable force and effect. The snowy lawn which forms the background to my bird-picture is a real “study in black and white.” About fifty rooks are either feeding under the tulip-tree or walking about on the frozen surface of the snow. Hardly any bird shows the inner working of its mind so clearly as the rook. One may learn from its actions the dawning of an idea and the subsequent working out of the same.

One of these birds is at this moment weighing pros and cons as to whether it would be safe to join the party at the window. Whilst all are feeding quietly it decides to come, and marches slowly on; then, when the starlings take one of their sudden flights, the rook stops, looks this way and that, and feels doubtful. However, a second rook joins the waverer, and the two take courage and advance together. One of them stands on a lump of suet and breaks off pieces with its huge beak – the rook sharing with other birds the universal love of fat – the lump becomes smaller and smaller, and at last the great beak grips it firmly and away flies the rook, closely pursued by a crew of sable comrades, who are all eager to share in the spoil which they were not brave enough to secure for themselves.

I have not spoken of the sparrows; their name is legion. And how they do eat! No other bird clears away the food so quickly. The sparrows do not move more than they can help, and peck with the utmost rapidity, as though absolutely starving.

I suppose one ought to pity a “frozen out” sparrow as much as any other bird, but I could wish there were fewer of them at these times when one wishes to befriend the rarer kinds of the birds, and, if it were possible, reserve the food mainly for them instead of the plebeian sparrows.

The kind of provision I find best and most suitable for all tastes is coarsely ground oatmeal, Indian corn, hemp-seed, sultana raisins, chopped-up fat of any kind, and boiled liver cut up finely.

The raisins attract the wild pheasants, and it is a truly beautiful sight to watch these birds feeding quietly near the window, with the morning sun glancing upon their lovely sleek plumage until they look as if made of bronze and gold. During the autumn I have sacks of acorns and beech-mast collected and laid by until the birds are distressed for food, and then a large basketful is scattered daily beneath the tulip-tree upon the lawn, to the great delight of rooks, jackdaws, pheasants, and wood-pigeons. Even two moorhens from my lake have come up through the fields and remained for the last two months, not only feeding with other birds on the lawn, but visiting the poultry yard, picking up grain with the fowls, and several times they have also roosted in the henhouse. The lovely grey and orange nuthatches haunt the dining-room windows, where they share the nuts which are daily bestowed upon the squirrels.

This place, with its surrounding woods and gardens, where all birds have been protected and encouraged for the last twenty years, naturally abounds with feathered fowl of many kinds, but in most gardens, even somewhat near a town or city, birds may be coaxed to come by constantly placing attractive food where they can pick it up without danger from cats. This is best arranged either in a basket hung at a window or in a box fastened to a high pole. Any one may find pleasure in watching the various kinds of birds flying to and fro, and, for an invalid, it would be adding a charm to daily life, besides doing a kindness to a useful tribe of creatures which are too often persecuted rather than jealously protected, as they ought to be, in return for the valuable services they render to the gardener and agriculturist.

STARVING TORTOISES

“Where’er he dwells, he dwells alone,
Except himself has chattels none,
Well satisfied to be his own
Whole treasure;
Thus, hermit-like, his life he leads,
Nor partner of his banquet needs,
And if he finds one, only feeds
The faster.”

    Vincent Bourne.
I CANNOT refrain from drawing attention to the cruelty with which these inoffensive creatures are often treated with regard to their food. One constantly hears the remark, “We had a tortoise for a few months, but it died.” Either from carelessness or ignorance the poor tortoise is hardly ever properly fed, and, though it can endure privation for a longer time than most creatures, yet unless food is supplied it must die miserably of starvation at last. The ordinary land-tortoise feeds on cabbage, sow-thistle, lettuce-leaves, and dandelion flowers, while some specimens will enjoy bread and milk as well. I have been carefully watching a tame one in my conservatory, and find that, day after day, he eats a lettuce nearly half his own size. If, then, he requires so much food to keep him in health and vigour, how pitiable must be the condition of those kept without food, or those that are perhaps offered a dandelion flower once a week!

The water-tortoises are equally ill-used, for often from lack of knowledge they are constantly offered vegetable diet which they cannot eat, their proper food being the live creatures they find in the water they exist in. They are best fed in captivity by supplying them with little portions of raw meat, or remains of boiled cod or turbot. They are easily distinguished from the land-tortoises by their livelier movements, and by their being able to swim in water. Still even they do not care to be always afloat, so there should be a piece of cork or some small island upon which they can rest when they are tired of swimming.

One day I saw on a shelf in a village shop a handsomely marked tortoise-shell, which I rather desired to purchase for my museum. Upon inquiry I found it had been bought for a few shillings from a man who was going through the village with a truck-load of these poor creatures for sale. The shopkeeper knew nothing about the requirements of his new acquisition, and thought it would be quite happy in the water-butt, where he placed it for the night. It being a land-tortoise, it was of course found dead in the morning – one of the many victims of well intentioned ignorance. Those who sell tortoises in the streets know nothing about their habits, they only want to get rid of their stock as quickly as possible. The purchasers may never even have seen a tortoise before, and have not, as a rule, the vaguest idea of how it should be treated, so that the unfortunate creatures are almost sure sooner or later to perish miserably of mismanagement and starvation.

They are entirely vegetable feeders, so that the idea that a tortoise will clear the kitchen of black-beetles is an absurd fiction, though it is, I believe, urged by street sellers of tortoises as an inducement for the householder to purchase his stock.

One day a tortoise was brought to me by a man who said he had picked it up in one of my fields. I felt sure it must have strayed from its rightful owner, and we therefore made every inquiry amongst our neighbours round about in order to discover, if possible, its previous home. As no one would own the tortoise, we placed it in the conservatory that we might be able to observe its ways and habits, as it happened to be the first specimen of the kind that had been enrolled amongst my pets. When placed on the lawn for exercise the creature would greedily snap off every hawkweed flower he came to, and as these abounded in the turf he had happy times feasting on flowers and basking in the sun.

After keeping the tortoise about a year, it happened that a policeman living in a neighbouring village called here to see a friend of his, and this comrade (one of my gardeners) took him to see the flowers in the conservatory. After a few minutes the policeman exclaimed, “Why, there’s our Jack!” An explanation ensued, and it turned out that the tortoise had really belonged to him, as he proved by showing a little hole he had bored through the shell in order to tether Master Jack and prevent his straying away. The tortoise had been the gift of a dear friend, and the loss of this pet had been quite a sorrow in the family. “My missus will cry for joy at seeing Jack again,” said the man; and very glad was I to restore the truant to his rightful owner, whose pet he had been for four years.

Although somewhat slow and inert, a tortoise is quite worth keeping, and when well cared for, properly fed, and taken notice of, it has a good deal of a quaint sort of intelligence. The one I now possess will feed from my hand, gives an angry hiss when offended, will put on double quick speed, when the door is opened, in order to elope into the garden, and what mind he has is greatly exercised about the lemurs. I judge this because I so often find him gazing at them through the wirework, his shell tilted at an angle as if he would fain climb up to satisfy his curiosity.

To the poor people who often visit my place in summer, many of whom have never seen such a creature before, the tortoise is an object of surprise, not unmixed with fear, for one woman asked if he would “fly at her,” and others seem to suppose him a creature of ferocious tendencies, judging by the way they keep at a distance and eye him askance.

I happened to be at the Zoological Gardens one autumn day when some of the large Galapagos tortoises were fairly active, and was fortunate enough to see one digging a hole in a rather hard gravel path. The excavation was carried on entirely by the hind legs; first one and then the other went down and grasped a few stones with the claws on the foot; these stones were dropped on the surface of the ground, and down went the other leg, and slowly it brought up a little soil, and this process went steadily on for ten minutes or more, and the hole became about eight or nine inches deep. The sturdy tail of the tortoise is used as a sort of boring instrument in first beginning the hole, and when deep enough the tortoise cautiously deposits her eggs at the bottom of the cavity, and when all are laid the hole is filled up with earth, well pressed down, and the mother leaves her precious deposits to be hatched by the heat of the sun.

Gilbert White has remarked upon the tortoise as a weather prophet. He says, “As sure as it walks elate, and as it were on tiptoe, feeding with great earnestness in the morning, so sure will it rain before night.” I can confirm this statement from my own observation, and when my tortoise walks in a weak sort of fashion, as if his limbs had no strength, it is a sure presage of fine weather. I frequently see another habit in my pet which is noticed in White’s “Selborne”: “He inclines his shell, by tilting it against the wall, to collect and admit every feeble ray.” The sun shines upon the floor of my conservatory in different places according to the time of day, and my tortoise “improves the shining hour” by seeking these pleasant sunny spots and basking in them in rotation as the day goes on.

A young dove that is allowed to fly about in my conservatory is remarkably fond of the tortoise, and may often be seen sitting on its back and pluming itself; it stays there whilst the tortoise walks about, apparently quite unaware that it is carrying an “outside passenger.”

In the Japanese islands these creatures grow to an enormous size. I possess a shell which is highly polished and ornamented with gold lacquer work; the measurement of it is three feet one inch by three feet four inches across, and, as these animals live to an immense age, this specimen may probably be several hundred years old.

As each year appears to be marked by a ring round each plate of the tortoise-shell, much as one sees them in a section of tree stem, it might have been possible to reckon the age of my huge shell, but in polishing the surface the rings have been effaced, so its age can only be conjectured.

Let it not be forgotten that a tortoise is a thirsty creature, and needs to have access to water in some very shallow pan out of which it can drink. My own specimen knows well the sound of falling water, and goes beneath the hanging baskets in the conservatory after the gardeners have soaked them, and there enjoys the dripping moisture, drinking from the pools upon the tiled floor.

The shell of a tortoise should be well oiled every few weeks, as it is apt to grow too dry, and might be liable to crack or peel off, the artificial life the creature leads in confinement tending to have a desiccating effect upon the shell.

If each reader of this book would kindly tell those who possess tortoises the kind of food they require it would greatly tend to reduce unintentional cruelty.

TEACHING VILLAGE CHILDREN TO BE HUMANE

“Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Loved the wood-rose, and left it on its stalk?
At rich man’s tables eaten bread and pulse?
Unarmed, faced danger with a heart of trust?
Oh, be my friend, and teach me to be thine.”

    Emerson.