NA TURE 



4C9 



THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 1893. 



BIRDS IN A VILLAGE. 



Birds in a Village. By W. H. Hudson, C.M.Z.S., author 

 of "Idle Days in Patagonia," "The Naturahst in La 

 Plata," &c. (London : Chapman and Hall, Limited, 



1893-) 



MR. HUDSON would probably think it a doubtful 

 compliment if we were to say that his last book 

 is as good as either of the two which preceded it. But 

 to say that "Birds in a Village" is not equal to 

 " Idle Days in Patagonia," and not to be mentioned in 

 the same breath as the charming " Naturalist in La 

 Plata," by no means implies that it is other than a 

 pleasantly readable book, with here and there— more 

 particularly in the chapter which gives the title — graphic 

 sketches of the habits of the birds he watched in his ideal 

 country village, such as only a close and loving observer 

 of Nature, and a practised writer, can give. 



The unregenerate man may perhaps at first be a little 

 inclined to rebel when he finds his insular ignorance of 

 languages brouglit, he may think, rather too obtrusively 

 home to him by untranslated Spanish poetry and a 

 critical discussion on the superiority of Melendez to 

 Tennyson in a chapter in which he had hoped to forget 

 himself and his failings among blackbirds and thrushes. 

 But any resentment he may have felt for the moment will 

 be forgotten as he looks over the fence into the cottage 

 garden and sees the hedge sparrow feeding the young 

 cuckoo with caterpillars, " like dropping a bun into the 

 monstrous red mouth of the hippopotamus at the 

 Zoological Gardens," or lolls on the moss in the wood to 

 watch through Mr. Hudson's binocular the jay, "high 

 up amongst the topmost branches," as he " flirts wings 

 and tail, and lifts and lowers his crest, glancing down 

 with wild, bright eyes . . . inquisitive, perplexed, sus- 

 picious." 



By the time he has wandered up the brook-side to the 

 corner where " buttercups grew so thickly that the glazed 

 petals of the flowers were touching, and the meadow was 

 one broad expanse of yellow," and has caught sight of 

 the kingfisher, " like a waif from some far tropical land,'' 

 flying off " so low above the flowery level that the swiftly 

 vibrating wings must have touched the yellow petals," he 

 will have realised that he is in the company of one of the 

 devoted worshippers of Nature, by whom " where'er they 

 seek her she is found," and for whom every spot — country 

 village, London park, or solitary South American plain — 

 is "hallowed ground." 



.As might be expected of a man who has lived on such 

 impartially friendly terms with living things of many 

 kinds that, after lying helpless and alone miles away 

 from any one, with a revolver bullet in his knee, he could 

 find relief to his pain in the knowledge that the poison- 

 ous snake which had shared his rug with him through the 

 night had got off in the morning without inhospitable 

 treatment at the hands of his returning friend, Mr. 

 Hudson rejects as " utterly erroneous " the " often quoted 

 I dictum of Darwin, that birds possess an instinctive fear 

 , of man," and quotes in support of his view — in which we 

 [ entirely concur— the tameness of the moorhens in St. 

 James's Park. 



KO. 1244, VOL. 48] 



The wood-pigeons — in the country the wariest 

 of birds, in London tamer if possible than the 

 sparrows — are even stronger witnesses for him. 

 It is said that the Paris wood-pigeons, which are as 

 common and tame there as with us, and make frequent 

 excursions to neighbouring country places, the moment 

 they leave the precincts of the town assume their natural 

 wildness, putting it off again the moment they return to 

 the children and bonnes in the Tuileries Gardens. 



By-the-bye, in connection with wood-pigeons we have 

 a very small bone to pick with Mr. Hudson. Since 

 Science has become a religion it was only to be expected 

 that the religious parasite — odium tlieologicum — would 

 develop new forms to suit. It has done so, and too 

 many recent scientific works — notably one of the best 

 modern bird books — are disfigured by sneers at other 

 writers. 



A charm of Mr. Hudson's writings hitherto has been, 

 and we hope it always will be, that he has kept himself 

 free from smallnesses of the kind. But there is " a little 

 pitted speck" in this last fruit which we have never 

 noticed in any of his eailier gatherings, and, microscopic 

 though it is, we are sorry to see it. He is perfectly 

 justified if he thinks it so in speaking of the wood- 

 pigeon — the " deep, mellow crush " of whose note in 

 Campbell's ears " made music that sweetened the calm " 

 of the birchen glades he loved — as " that dismal 

 croaker." But having done so he ought not to fall foul 

 of a brother ornithologist and his ancestry, and to throw 

 Wordsworth at his head because he has ventured to write 

 disrespectfully in Blackwood or Macmillan of the note of 

 the greenfinch. We hope that Mr. Hudson will feel grate- 

 ful to us for a friendly reminder that people who live in 

 glass houses should not throw stones. 



Mr. Hudson, as many another writer has done, 

 protests in impassioned language against the practice 

 of eating larks. The song of the " blythe spirit " 

 of meadow and corn-land is as sweet to us as to 

 him ; and, being unfashionable enough not to ap- 

 preciate, as every self-respecting diner should do, mau- 

 viettes en surprise aux truffes, or in any other dainty 

 form, we may venture with a clear conscience to express 

 a doubt whether the supply of larks to the markets affects 

 appreciably, if at all, the numbers remaining to breed in 

 England. Wherever they may come from, there can be 

 no question the number of immigrants in winter is almost 

 incredible. The most striking feature of a partridge 

 drive at the headquarters of the sport, in the flat country 

 round Thetford and Brandon, towards the end of the 

 season, is the sight of the apparently interminable flocks 

 which stream over the waiting guns. We have heard it 

 said by a large landowner in the district, an ardent bird- 

 lover, that it is no exaggeration to say that larks there 

 are, when the early corn is first shooting, a nuisance to 

 the farmers scarcely less serious than are the rats in 

 more enclosed parts. 



Space will not allow us to follow Mr. Hudson into the 

 interesting questions touched upon m his later chapters. 

 We fear that, whatever may lie before our children in 

 good times to come, the dimming eyes of our own genera- 

 tion will not be refreshed by the sight of the glancing 

 colours of exotic kingfishers reflected in English 

 streams, nor can we ourselves look forward with any 



