Wild Life in a Southern County Part 9

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

THE HOME-FIELD--HAZEL CORNER--THE DIVINING-ROD--RABBITS' HOLES--THE CORNCRAKE--VENTRILOQUISM OF BIRDS--HEDGE FRUIT.

A wicket-gate affords a private entrance from the orchard into the home-field, opening on the meadow close to the great hedge, the favourite highway of the birds. Tracing this hedge away from the homestead, in somewhat more than two hundred yards it is joined by another hedge crossing the top of the field, thus forming a sheltered nook or angle, which has been alluded to as the haunt of squirrels.

Here the highway hedge is almost all of hazel, though one large hawthorn tree stands on the 'sh.o.r.e' of the ditch. Hazel grows tall, straight, and is not so bushy as some underwood; the lesser boughs do not interlace or make convenient platforms on which to build nests, and birds do not use it much.

The ancient divination by the hazel wand, or, rather, the method of searching for subterranean springs, is not yet forgotten; some of the old folk believe in it still. I have seen it tried myself, half in joke, half in earnest. A slender rod is cut, and so trimmed as to have a small fork at one end; this fork is placed under the little finger in such a way that the rod itself comes over the back of the other fingers; it is then lightly balanced, and vibrates easily. The magician walks slowly over the ground selected, watching the tip of the wand; and should it bend downwards without volition on his part, it is a sign that water is concealed beneath the spot.

The nuts upon the bushes do not all ripen at the same time: one or two bushes are first, and offer ripe nuts before the rest have hardened sufficiently. The leaves on these also drop earlier, turning a light yellow. The size and even the shape of the nuts vary too, some being nearly round and others roughly resembling the almond. Their flavour when taken from the bush is sweet, juicy, 'nutty.' When they will 'slip udd' is the proper time to gather them--i.e. when the hood or outer green covering slips off at a touch, leaving the light-brown nut in the palm: it is a delicately shaded brown. Cut off just the tip of the nut--the pointed keystone of its Gothic arch--with a penknife; insert the blade ever so slightly, and a gentle turn splits the sh.e.l.l and shows two onyx-white hemispheres of kernel.

With a little care the tallest boughs may be pulled down uninjured; if dragged down rudely the bough will be 'sprung' where it joins the stole below, and will then wither and die. The plan is simply to apply force by degrees, pulling the main bough only so far forward as to enable the hand to reach air upper branch, seizing the upper branch, and by its aid reaching a still higher one, and gradually bending the central stem till it forms a bow. If done gradually and the bow not too acute, the tallest bush will spring up when released without the least injury.

With a crook to seize the bush as high up as possible--where it bends more easily--not a twig need be broken, and nutting may be enjoyed without doing the least damage.

Under a tall ash tree rising out of the hazel bushes, and near the great hawthorn on the edge or sh.o.r.e of the ditch, the gra.s.s grows rank and is of the deepest green. The dove that could be heard cooing from the orchard built her nest in the hawthorn, which, where it overhangs the gra.s.s like a canopy, is bare of boughs for six or seven feet up the gnarled stem. The cattle, who love to shelter under it from the heat of the sun, browsed on the young shoots, so that no branch could form; but on the side towards the ditch there are immense spiny thorns, long enough and strong enough to make a savage's arrow-head or awl. The doves do not seem nearly so numerous as the wood-pigeons (doves too, in strict language); they are much smaller, rather duller in colour--that is, when flying past--and are rarely seen more than two together. When the summer thunder is booming yonder over the hills, and the thin edge of the dark cloud showers its sweet refres.h.i.+ng rain, with the suns.h.i.+ne gleaming through on the hedge and gra.s.s here, between the rolling echoes the dove may be heard in the bush coo-cooing still more softly and lovingly to her mate.

Just in the very angle formed by the meeting hedges the ditch becomes almost a fosse, so broad and deep; the sandy banks have slipped, and the rabbits have excavated more, and over all the brambles have arched thickly with a background of brake fern. The flower of the bramble is very beautiful--a delicate pink bloom, succeeded by green berries, to ripen red, and later black, under the sun. A larger kind are found here and there--the children call them dew-berries or jew-berries indifferently. Some of the bramble leaves linger on a dull green all through the winter.

In the angle a narrow opening runs through between the two banks, which do not quite meet: it is so overgrown with bramble and fern, convolvulus and thorn, that unless the bushes were parted to look in no one would suspect the existence of this green tunnel, which on the other side opens on the ash copse, where a shallow furrow (dry) joins it. This tunnel is the favourite way and pa.s.sage of the rabbits from the copse out into the tempting pasturage of the meadow; through it too, now and then, a fox creeps quietly. Rabbit-holes drill the bank everywhere, but one near this green bye-way is noticeable because of its immense size.

It must measure eighteen inches or nearly in diameter at the mouth; nor does it diminish abruptly, but continues almost as large a yard or more inside the bank. Spaniels will get right into such a 'bury,' till nothing but the tail can be seen, and, if permitted, stay there and dig and scratch frantically. They would sometimes, perhaps, succeed in reaching the prey were it not for the roots of thorn bushes or trees which cross the holes here and there like bars; these they cannot scratch through, but will bite and tear with their teeth--coming out now and then to breathe and shake the sand from their muzzles, then back again with a whine of eager excitement, till presently, in sheer exhaustion, they lie down at the mouth of the cave and pant. This is not allowed if it is known; but spaniels now and then steal away privately, and so frequently make for a hole like this that when their absence is discovered it is the first place visited in search of them.

The mingled patience and excitement, the vast labour they will undergo, the quant.i.ty of sand they will throw out, the whine--it is not a bark-- expressing intense desire, prove how deep is the hunting instinct in the dog.

Even if the burrows be ferreted, in a few weeks this great hole shows signs of fresh inhabitants; and such a specially enlarged entrance may be found somewhere in most of the banks frequented by rabbits. Why do they make an aperture so many times larger than they can possibly require? It may be a kind of ancestral hall, the favourite cave of the first settlers here, clung to by their descendants. Within, perhaps three, or even more, tunnels branch off from it. So busy are they, and so occupied when excavating a fresh pa.s.sage, that sometimes when waiting quietly on a bank you may see the miner at work. The sand pours out as he casts it behind him with his hinder paws; his back is turned, so that he does not notice anyone.

Along the banks evidence maybe found of attempts at boring holes, abandoned after a few inches of progress had been made: sometimes a root, or a stone perhaps, interferes; sometimes, and apparently more often, caprice seems the only cause why the tunnel was discontinued.

The gra.s.s in this corner is sweeter to their taste than elsewhere: their runs are everywhere--crossing and winding about.

In the evening, as the shadows deepen and a hush falls upon the meads, they come out and chase and romp with each other. When a couple are at play one will rush ten or a dozen yards away and begin to nibble as if totally unconscious of the other. The second meanwhile nibbles too, but all the while stealthily moves forward, not direct, but sideways, towards the first, demurely feeding. Suddenly the second makes a spring; the first, who has been watching out of the corners of his eye all the time, is off like the wind. Or sometimes he will turn and face the other, and jump clean over, a foot high. Sometimes both leap up together in the exuberance of their mirth.

By the trunk of a mighty oak, growing out of the hedge that runs along the top of the field, the brambles and underwood are thinner, as is generally the case close under a tree; and it is easy to push through just there. On the other side, a huge root covered with deep green moss affords a pleasant seat, leaning back against the trunk. Upon the right, close by, is the ash copse, with its border of thick fir trees; on the left oaks at intervals stand along the hedge; in front stretches the undulating surface of an immense pasture field called The Warren.

Like a prairie it rolls gently away, dotted with hawthorn bushes, here and there a crab tree, and two rows of n.o.ble elms, in both of which the rooks are busy in spring. Beyond, the ground rises, and the small upland meadows are so thickly timbered as to look like distant glades of a forest; still farther are the downs.

Under this great oak in the stillness is a place to dream--in summer, looking upward into the vast expanse of green boughs, is an intricate architecture, an inimitable roof, whose lattice-windows are set with translucent _lapis lazuli_, for the deep blue of the sky seems to come down and rest upon it. The acorns are already there, as yet all cup, and little of the acorn proper showing; there is a tiny black speck on the top, and the young acorn faintly resembles some of the ancient cups with covers, the black speck being the k.n.o.b by which the cover is lifted. After the first frosts, when the acorns are browned and come out of their cups from their own weight as they fall and strike the ground, the lads select the darkest or ripest, and eat one now and then; they half-roast them, too, like chestnuts.

In the early spring, when the night is bright and clear, it is a place to stand a moment and muse awhile. For the copse is dark and gloomy, the bare oaks are dark behind; the eye cannot see across the prairie, whose breadth is doubled by the night. But yonder lies a great grey sa.r.s.en boulder, like an uncouth beast of ancient days crouching in the hollow. Hus.h.!.+ there was a slight rustling in the gra.s.s there, as of a frightened thing; it was a startled hare hastening away. The brightest constellations of our lat.i.tude pour down their rays and influence on the birth of bud and leaf in spring; and at no other season is the sky so gorgeous with stars.

The gra.s.s in the meadow or home-field as it begins to grow tall in spring is soon visited by the corncrakes, who take up their residence there. In this district (though called the corncrake) these birds seem to frequent the mowing gra.s.s more than the arable fields, and they generally arrive about the time when it has grown sufficiently high and thick to hide their motions. This desire of concealment--to be out of sight--is apparently more strongly marked in them than in any other bird; yet they utter their loud call of 'Crake, crake, crake!' not unlike the turning of a wooden rattle, continuously though only at a short distance.

It is difficult to tell from what place the cry proceeds: at one moment it sounds almost close at hand, the next fifty yards off; then, after a brief silence, a long way to one side or the other. The attempt to mark the spot is in vain; you think you have it, and rush there, but nothing is to be seen, and a minute afterwards 'Crake, crake!' comes behind you.

For the first two or three such attempts the crake seems to move but a little way, dodging to and fro in a zigzag, so that his call is never very far off; but if repeated again and again he gets alarmed, there is a silence, and presently you hear him in a corner of the mead a hundred yards distant. Perhaps once, if you steal up very, very quietly, and suddenly dart forward, or if you have been waiting till he has come unawares close to you, you may possibly see the gra.s.s move as if something pa.s.sed through it; but in a moment he is gone, without a glimpse of his body having been seen. His speed must be very great to slip like this from one side of the field to the other in so few seconds.

The fact that the call apparently issues from the gra.s.s in one place, and yet upon reaching it the bird is not to be found, has given rise to the belief that the crake is a ventriloquist. It may be so; but even without special powers of that kind, ventriloquial effects would, I think, be produced by the peculiar habits of the bird. When that which causes a sound is out of sight it must always be difficult to fix upon the exact spot whence the sound comes. When the sound is made now here, now yonder, as the bird travels swiftly--still out of sight--it must be still more difficult. The crake doubtless often cries from a furrow, which would act something like a trough, tending to draw the sound along it. Finally the incessant repet.i.tion of the same note, harsh and loud, confuses the ear.

Some say in like manner that the starling ventriloquises. He has, indeed, one peculiar long-drawn hollow whistle which goes echoing round the chimneypots and to and fro among the gables; but it never deceives you as to his position on the roof unless you are indoors and cannot see him. It is the same with the finches in the trees, when the foliage is thick. Their notes seem to come from this side among the branches, but on peering carefully up there is no bird visible; then it sounds higher up, and even in the next tree; all the while the finch is but just overhead, and the moment he moves he is seen. Other birds equally deceive the ear: the yellowhammer does sometimes, and the chattering brook-sparrow; so will the blackbird when singing--always provided that they are temporarily invisible.

When the crake remains a long time in one place, uttering the call continuously, the illusion disappears, and there is no more difficulty in approximately fixing its position than that of any other bird. One summer a crake chose a spot on the 'sh.o.r.e' of the ditch of the highway hedge, not forty yards from the orchard ha-ha. There was a thick growth of tall gra.s.s, clogweed, and other plants just there, and some of the bushes pushed out over the sward. The nest was placed close to the ditch (not in it), and the noise the crakes made was something astonis.h.i.+ng. 'Crake, crake; crake!' resounded the moment it was light-- and it is light early at that season: 'Crake, crake, crake!' all the morning; the sound now and then, if the bird moved a few yards nearer, echoing back from some of the buildings. There was, or seemed to be, a slight cessation in the middle of the day, but towards evening it recommenced, and continued without cessation till quite dark. This lasted for some weeks: it chanced that the meadow was mown late, so that the birds were undisturbed. Why so apparently timid a bird should choose a spot near a dwelling is not easy to understand.

The crakes, however, when thus localised deceived no one by their supposed ventriloquial powers; therefore it seems clear that the deception is caused by their rapid changes of position. The mouse in like manner often gives an impression that it must be in one spot when it is really a yard away, the shrill squeak, as it were, left behind it.

It is not easy sometimes to fix the position of the death-tick in woodwork. The home-field or meadow here is a favourite haunt of the crakes, for like all other birds they have their special places of resort. Another meadow, at some distance on the same farm, is equally favoured by them. This meadow adjoins that second line of bird-travel, following a brook previously alluded to. But as the crakes, though they will take refuge in a hedge, do not travel along it habitually, this circ.u.mstance may be accidental. Crakes, notwithstanding they run so swiftly, do not seem to move far when once they have arrived; they appear to restrict themselves to the field they have chosen, or, at the furthest, make an excursion into the next and return again, so that you may always know where to go to hear one.

The mowers cutting these meadows find the eggs--the nest being on the ground--and bring them to the farmstead, both as a curiosity and to be eaten, some thinking them equal to plover's eggs. Though you may follow the sound 'Crake, crake!' in the gra.s.s for hours at a time, and sometimes get so near as to throw your walking-stick at a bunch of gra.s.s, you will never see the bird; and nothing, neither stick nor stone, will make it rise. Yet it is easy to shoot, as I found, in one particular way. The trick is to drive it into a hedge. Two persons and a spaniel well in hand walk towards the 'Crake, crake!' keeping some distance apart. The bird at first runs straight away; then, finding himself still pursued, tries to dodge back, but finds the line extended.

He then takes refuge in silence, and endeavours to slip past unseen and unheard; but the spaniel's power of scent baffles that. At last he makes for the hedge, when one person immediately goes on the other side, and the spaniel beats up it. The bird is now surrounded and cannot escape, and, as the dog comes close upon him, is compelled to rise and fly. As he rises his flight at first somewhat resembles the partridge's, but it is slower and heavier, and he can be shot with the greatest ease. But if not fired at, after he has got well on the wing the flight becomes much stronger, and it is evident that he is capable of a long voyage.

Sometimes, by patience and skilfully antic.i.p.ating his zigzag motions in the gra.s.s, the crake may be driven to the hedge without a dog. He will then, after a short time, if still hunted, 'quat' in the thickest bunch of gra.s.s or weeds he can find in the ditch, and will stay till all but stepped on, when he can be knocked down with a walking-stick. After the gra.s.s is mown, the crakes leave the meadows and go to the arable fields, where the crops afford them shelter. This district seems a very favourite resort of these birds.

The mowing gra.s.s while standing does not appear to attract other birds much; but immediately the scythe has pa.s.sed over they flock to the swathes from the hedges, and come, too, to the hay itself when quite dry. In hay there are many plants whose stems are hollow. Now, as soon as a stalk is dry, if there be any crevice at all, insects will creep in; so that these tiny tubes are frequently full of inhabitants, which probably attract the birds.

Sometimes a bird will perch for a moment on a haymaker's hat as he walks slowly down a lane with hedges each side; the fibres of hay have adhered to it, and the keen eyes above have detected some moving creature on them. Birds that are otherwise timid will remain on the footpath to the very last moment, almost till within reach, if they chance to be dissecting a choice morsel, some exquisite beetle or moth--pecking at it in eager haste and running what to them must seem a terrible risk for the sake of gratifying their taste.

The wood-pigeons are fond of acorns, and come for them to the oaks growing in an irregular row along the hedge at the top of the home-field. They are most voracious birds and literally cram their crops with this hard fruit. Squirrels and mice enjoy the nuts in Hazel Corner, and the thrushes and pigeons feed on the peggles which cover the great hawthorn bush there so thickly as to give it a reddish tint.

There is a difference even in this fruit: on some bushes the peggles consist mainly of the internal stone, the edible coating being of the thinnest. On others the stone is embedded in, a thick mellow covering affording twice as much food. Like other products of the hedge, they are supposed to be improved by frost.

Farther down the highway hedge, by the gateway, a large elder bush, or rather tree, bears a profusion of berries. Blue-black sloes adhere to-- they do not hang on--the blackthorn bushes: in places the boughs are loaded with them. Here and there crabs cling to the tough crab tree, whose bark has a dull gloss on it something like dark polished leather.

Bunches of red berries s.h.i.+ne on the woodbine: fruit growing in bunches usually depends, but these are often on the upper side of the stalk; and the latter bloom shows by them--flower and fruit at the same time. The berry has a viscous feel.

Larger berries--some red, some green, on the same bunch--cl.u.s.ter on the vines of the bryony. The white bryony, whose leaf is not unlike that of the grape, has a magical reputation, and the cottage folk believe its root to be a powerful ingredient in love potions, and also poisonous.

They identify it with the mandrake. If growing in or close to a churchyard its virtues are increased, for, though becoming fainter as they lengthen, the shadows of the old superst.i.tions linger still. Red nightshade berries--not the deadly nightshade, but the 'bitter-sweet'-- hang sullenly among the bushes where this creeping plant has trailed over them. Here and there upon the bank wild gooseberry and currant bushes may be found, planted by birds carrying off ripe fruit from the garden. A wild gooseberry may sometimes be seen growing out of the decayed 'touchwood' on the top of a hollow withy-pollard. Wild apple trees, too, are not uncommon in the hedges.

The beautiful rich colour of the horse-chestnut, when quite ripe and fresh from its p.r.i.c.kly green sh.e.l.l, can hardly be surpa.s.sed; underneath the tree the gra.s.s is strewn with the sh.e.l.ls, where they have fallen and burst. Close to the trunk the gra.s.s is worn away by the restless trampling of horses, who love the shade its foliage gives in summer.

The oak-apples which appear on the oaks in spring--generally near the trunk--fall off in the summer, and lie shrivelled on the ground not unlike rotten cork, or black as if burned. But the oak-galls show thick on some of the trees, light green, and round as a ball; they will remain on the branches after the leaves have fallen, turning brown and hard, and hanging there till the spring comes again.

One of the cottagers in the adjacent hamlet collects these brown b.a.l.l.s and strings them upon wire, making flower-stands and ornamental baskets for sale. They seem to appear in numbers upon those oak bushes rather than trees which spring up when an oak has been cut down but the stump has not been grubbed up. These shoots at first often bear leaves of great size, many times larger than the ordinary oak leaf; some are really immense, measuring occasionally fourteen or fifteen inches in length. As the shoots grow into a bush the leaves diminish in size and become like those of the tree.

In the ditch the tall teazle lifts its p.r.i.c.kly head. The large leaves of this plant grow in pairs, one on each side of the stem, and while the plant is young are connected in a curious manner by a green membrane, or continuation of the lower part of the leaf round the stem, so as to form a cup. The stalk rises in the centre of the cup, and of these vessels there are three or four above each other in storeys. When it rains, the drops, instead of falling off as from other leaves, run down these and are collected in the cups, which thus form so many natural rain-gauges.

If it is a large plant, the cup nearest the ground--the biggest--will hold as much as two or three wine-gla.s.ses. This water remains there for a considerable time, for several days after a shower, and is fatal to numbers of insects which climb up the stalk or alight on the leaves and fall in. While the gra.s.s and the earth of the bank are quite dry, therefore, the teazle often has a supply of water; and when it dries up, the drowned insects remain at the bottom like the dregs of a draught the plant has drained. Round the p.r.i.c.kly dome-shaped head, as the summer advances, two circles of violet-hued flowers push out from cells defended by the spines, so that, seen protruding above the hedge, it resembles a tiara--a green circle at the bottom of the dome, and two circles of gems above.

Some of the gra.s.ses growing by the hedge are not to be handled carelessly, the edge of the long blade cutting like a lancet: the awn-like seeds of others, if they should chance to get into the mouth, as happens occasionally to the haymakers, work down towards the throat, the attempt to get rid of them causing a creeping motion the opposite way. This is owing to the awns all slanting in one direction.

On the sultry afternoons of the latter part of the summer the hedge is all but silent. Waiting in the gateway there is no sound for half an hour at a time, no call or merry song in the branches, nothing but the buzz of flies. The birds are quiet, or nearly so: they slip about so noiselessly that it is difficult to observe them, so that many perhaps migrate before it is suspected, and others stay on when thought to be gone. In the gra.s.s the gra.s.shoppers make their hiss, and towards evening the yellowhammers utter a few notes; but while the corn is being reaped the meadows are all but still.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

THE ASH COPSE--THE NIGHTINGALE--CLOUD OF STARLINGS--HEDGEHOGS--HERON'S HEAD--MOORHENS--AMONG THE REEDS.

A gap in the hedge by Hazel Corner leads through a fringe of hawthorn bushes into the ash copse. There is a gate at a little distance; but somehow it is always more pleasant to follow the bye-way of the gap, where two steps, one down into the ditch, or rather on to the heap of sand thrown out from a rabbit bury, and one up on the mound, carry you from the meadow--out of cultivation--into the pathless wood. The green sprays momentarily pushed aside close immediately behind, shutting out the vision, and with it the thought of civilisation. These boughs are the gates of another world. Under trees and leaves--it is so, too, sometimes even in an avenue--where the direct rays of the sun do not penetrate, there is ever a subdued light; it is not shadow, but a light toned with green.

In spring the ground here is hidden by a verdant growth, out of which presently the anemone lifts its chaste flower. Then the wild hyacinths hang their blue bells so thickly that, glancing between the poles, it is hazy with colour; and in the evening, if the level beams of the red sun can reach them, here and there a streak of imperial purple plays upon the azure. Woodbine coils round the tall straight poles, and wild hops, whose bloom emit a pleasant smell if crushed in the fingers. On the upper and clearer branches of the hawthorn the nightingale sings--more sweetly, I think, in the freshness of the spring morning than at night.

Resting quietly on an ash-stole, with the scent of flowers, and the odour of green buds and leaves, a ray of sunlight yonder lighting up the lichen and the moss on the oak trunk, a gentle air stirring in the branches above, giving glimpses of fleecy clouds sailing in the ether, there comes into the mind a feeling of intense joy in the simple fact of living.

The nightingale shows no timidity while all is still, but sings on the bough in full sight, hardly three yards away, so that you can see the throat swell as the notes are poured forth--now in intricate trills, now a low sweet call, then a liquid 'jug-jug-jug!' To me it sounds richer in the morning--sunlight, flowers, and the rustle of green leaves seem the natural accompaniment; and the distant chorus of other birds affords a contrast and relief--an orchestra filling up the pauses and supporting the solo singer.

Pa.s.sing deeper into the wood, it is well to be a little careful while stepping across the narrow watercourse that winds between the stoles.

Rushes grow thickly by the side, and the slender stream seems to ooze rather than run, trickling slowly down to the brook in the meadow. But the earth is treacherous on its banks--formed of decayed branches, leaves, and vegetable matter, hidden under a thin covering of aquatic gra.s.ses. Listen! there is a faint rustling and a slight movement of the gra.s.s: it is a snake gliding away to its hole, with yellow-marked head lifted above the ground over which his dull green length is trailing.

Stepping well over the moist earth, and reaching the firmer ground, there the thistles grow great and tall, many up to the shoulder; it is a little more open here, the stoles having been cut only two years ago, and they draw the thistles up.

Sometimes the young ash, shooting up after being cut, takes fantastic shapes instead of rising straight. The branch loses its roundness and flattens out to a width of three or four inches, curling round at the top like the conventional scroll ornament. These natural scrolls are occasionally hung up in farmhouses as curiosities. The woodmen jocularly say that the branch grew in the night, and so could not see its way. In some places (where the poles are full-grown) the upper branches rub against each other, causing a weird creaking in a gale.

The trees as the wind rises find their voices, and the wood is full of strange tongues. From each green thing touched by its fingers the breeze draws a different note: the bennets on the hillside go 'sish, sish;' the oak in the copse roars and groans; in the firs there is a deep sighing; the aspen rustles. In winter the bare branches sing a shrill 'sir-r-r.'