June 27, I 91 8 
Land & Water 
17 
Birds as they Live: By Francis Stopford 
MAN is so much oc- 
cupied with his own 
great war that he is 
apt to forget there arc 
greater wars in pro- 
gress, until he is pulled up short by 
a catastrophe that threatens his 
nerves or his stomach. This summir 
it is caterpillars — bugs as they call 
them in America. Bugs are Boches ; 
birds are the Allies. But the Allied 
birds in this big .fight are, for the 
moment, unable to hold the enemy 
in check. Man is to blame^ After 
the manner of the Boche, the cater- 
pillar, until the hour for invasion 
drew near, jiractised peaceful pene- 
tration in the form of a chrysalis 
or posed as a gay and innocent 
butterfly. Man foolishly thought no 
harm could come from him. The bircN 
on the other hand, took open 
tribute from his orchards, gardens, 
and fields ; he deemed them the 
enemy, and sought their destruc^ 
tion. Now he knows better. And he 
would give no small thing to call 
back to life many of his winged 
friends, who if they had been spared 
would never have allowed the Huri Pheasants 
caterpillar to attain to the strength 
he has, devastating wild lands and threatening cultivation. 
It is said that the average Englishman knows less history 
than a similarly educated man of any other nation. And 
history includes natural history. The ignorance — not only 
in towns, but in the country — of the manners and habits of 
birds is amazing, and it is a curious fact that the spread of 
elementary education has certainly increased it. In the old 
days the countryman who knew neither to read nor to write, 
but could use his brains, acquired considerable and often 
intimate intelligence about the lives of wild creatures ; but 
with the opening of elementary schools and the spread of 
book-knowledge, that other book, which he who runs may 
read, appeared dull and hardly worth studying. It is a 
thousand pities it should have been so, more especially in 
rural districts ; but now comes the weapon wherewith to 
fight this ignorance in the form of a new edition of Mr. 
Archibald Thorburn's Brilish Birds* It is a work that 
every public library should obtain. Those who are starting 
village libraries should include it in their first list ; and 
whoever takes a lively mterest in a country school, and has 
the means, should present this school with a set of volumes. 
A study of their pages is fas- 
cinating, and for a child of good 
understanding they will open an 
entirely new vista of the land 
wherein he dwells. 
"The work," writes Mr. Thor- 
burn, in his preface, "has been 
designed mainly with the purpose 
of providing sketches in colour 
from life of our British birds, in- 
cluding not only the resident 
species, but also, in most cases, 
those which have more or less 
regularly or even rarely visited us 
from abroad." Thus we have here 
not only the house-sparrow, but 
the hoopoe, and vultures and the 
flamingo are depicted as well as 
hawks and the heron. VVe,^have 
italicised the words from life 
because, after all, it is in this 
respect that Mr. Thorburn's bird- 
paintings differ from those popular 
plates with which youth is more 
familiar. Tlic artist, it must be 
remembered, is^also a miniature- 
By .4. Thorburn.F.Z.S. 
•"British Birds": written and illus- 
trated by A. Thorburn, F Z S , with 
eighty-two plates in colour, showing 
over 400 .'species. In ionr volumes. 
Longmans, Green & Co. £S 8s. 
painter, and he gives to his feathered 
friends the saine study he bestows on 
a human subject before taking up 
his brush. As an illustration of this, 
take his painting of the cuckoo. 
Here wc have the bird with drooping 
wings and puft'ed-out throat, in the 
act of uttering its familiar cry, for 
the bird was drawn from hfe through 
field-glasses ; and in the letterpR'ss 
we are told what will be news to 
most-^-that the cuckoo calls with 
closed bill, as the pigeon coos. 
The advantage of drawing birds 
from life, and after a close study of 
them in life, is that the student 
acquires a much better knowledge 
of them before he begins to read 
their history. Look at the caper- 
caillie on this page. After having 
studied this beefy, bullnecked old 
cock, one is not the least surprised to 
hear that when in spring-time his 
thoughts turn to love, he squalls 
like a cat and turns somersaults until 
he is giddy. 
To revert to the preface, the author 
m«itions that, being more familiar 
with the brush than with the pen, it 
was at first his intention to make the 
book simply a sketch-book of British 
birds, but on second thoughts he decided to add rough 
notes. Second thoughts are tTie best, for these notes are 
admirable ; they are necessarily brief, but they are always 
stimulating, and urge one to discover more about a favourite 
or famihar wild bird. The biography of the jackdaw, for 
example, recalls the amazing fact, if true, which an old 
keeper told the present writer, that daws re-marr}', that is, 
if a sitting hen-bird is shot off the nest, the cock bird promptly 
finds a new mate, and brings her home to hatch out the 
brood. A very remarkable example of stepmotherly love, 
if it be true ! Everybody knows that the East is the origin 
of the long-tailed mangold- devouring fowl, whose portrait 
figures here, but to stigmatise the pheasant as a bloated 
parvenu, a newlv naturalised alien, or even as an eighteentlv- 
century Nabob, is to admit deplorable ignorance. He was 
here before William the Conqueror ; Harold the Saxon pre- 
served hint; he was known to be c'ommon in Ireland when 
Elizabeth reigned, and he made his presence felt in Scotland 
ten years before James I. came south to rule over English 
coverts. In these later days this lordly fowl has developed 
a new and patriotic character ; in country districts he is ever 
the first to cry " Take cover! " when 
Zeppelins raid on moonless nights. 
These notes not only contain 
interesting little items of news 
such as these, but they have a 
real and permanent educational 
value. They describe briefly the 
ordinary habits of the bird, his 
favourite haunts, fashion of his 
nest, difference between male and 
female, and, what is most impor- 
tant of all, his food. The green- 
finch is an avian instance of a 
dog with a bad name ; and in the 
massacre of innocents which local 
authorities and persons of position 
have been foolishly promoting and 
encouraging on nests and nestlings, 
during tlie last two or three years, 
we are certain no breed has suffered 
worse. Now read Mr. Thorburn's 
words on this finch : " This is a use- 
ful bird in the garden, destroying a 
great number of caterpillars and 
harmful insects, and during the 
winter it feeds on seeds and 
berries of various kinds." He 
who destroys finches in sheer 
stupidity has only himself to 
blame if his land be overrun 
with caterpillars. 
By A. Thorburn, F.Z.S. 
Capercaillie, or Wood Grouse 
