the
exception of a slight drizzle on Saturday the last ten days have been
wonderfully fine for the season [February 1870]. Seldom, indeed, have we
been so near realising the "ethereal mildness" of Thomson's "Spring" so
early in the year. And, in sooth, it was high time that some such
pleasant change in the weather should take place, for no living wight
can remember anything so incessant and persistent as were the rain and
the storm of the previous six weeks.
"When frost and snow come both together,
Then sit by the fire and save shoe leather,"
quoth Jonathan Swift, the honest Dean of St. Patrick's,
being evidently no curler, and more given to satire than to
snow-balling; but really for the six weeks above specified nothing less
than the direst necessity could tempt one to any other pastime than the
prudential and prosaic one recommended in the couplet. Grant him but
license to grumble, however, and man can endure, and that scathlessly,
much more than he wots of. And how easily is he after all restored to
equanimity and even cheerfulness ! Here we are already, placid and
pleased, enjoying the fine weather ; the cold and the wet and the
boisterous gales of January and December altogether forgotten, or, if
remembered, remembered only to give zest to the bright and sunshiny
present. And never, we believe, were song-birds in such free and full
song on St. Valentine's day. Morning and evening (the interval, you must
know, dear reader, is as yet passed in tender dalliance and
nest-building), from copse and woodland, ring out tbe richest strains of
our native warblers, thrush, redbreast, blackbird, throstle,
white-throat, wren (whom the Germans, on account of his indomitable
pluck and pre-eminence as a songster, term the kingbird), and
a score of other " musical celebrities," vie with each other in the
richness and the melody of their incomparable song. Within a month,
should the weather continue favourable as at present, most of our
wild-birds will have finished their nests, and commenced the labours of
incubation. We trust that our readers "will do all they can this season
to prevent children and others from
what is called "birds'-nesting," one of the most cruel pastimes to which
any one could turn himself. All good men, and most great ones, have been
remarkable for their attachment to animals, both domesticated and wild,
and particularly to song-birds. Listen to Virgil's passing allusion to
the subject in his Georgies, a
magnificent poem, of itself sufficient to immortalise the name of any
one man :—
"Qualis populea moerens Philomela, sub umbra," &c.,
thus rendered into English :—
''Lo, Philomela from the umbrageous wood,
In strains melodious mourns her tender brood,
Snatch'd from the nest by some rude ploughman's hand,
On. some lone bough the warbler takes her stand;
The live-long night she mourns the cruel wrong,
And hill and dale resound the plaintive song."
And hear our own matchless "ploughman bard," in one of
his sweetest lyrics, The
Posie :—
"The hawthorn I will pu', wi' its locks o' siller grey,
Where, like an aged man, it stands at break o' day,
But the songster's next within the bush I winna tab air ay—
't And a to be a posie to my ain dear May."
Verily, dear reader, he who wrote that verse,
despite the pious murmurings of the rigidly righteous, and the cold
shudderings of religious fanaticism at his shortcomings, must have been
a man of largest heart and widest sympathies; and, properly understood,
there is much truth, and no irreverence, in his own finding, that even
"The light which led astray
Was light from heaven."
"We were much amused the other day at seeing a heron, a
long-necked, long-legged bird, doubtless familiar to the reader, for
once in a "fix." We say "for once," for it is a most sagacious bird and
thoroughly master of its own particular role, which,
it is needless to say, is principally fish-catching. "We were amusing,
ourselves on the seashore during low-water, watching the habits of
periwinkles, hermit-crabs, star-fish, &c., when we observed a heron at
some hundred yards distance, leaping about, wriggling its body, and
performing other strange and unheron-like antics, as if it had suddenly
gone mad. Knowing the staid and sober habits of the bird in general, we
at once came to the conclusion that something extraordinary " was up,"
and determined, if possible, to discover what it was. Making a slight detour to
avoid alarming him—for it was a he, a
very handsome, full-crested male—we easily managed' to creep within
fifty yards or so of him, and the cause of his excitement and unwonted
posturings became at once apparent. He had caught an eel (a great dainty
with the heron family) of about two feet in length, and of girth like a
stout walking-stick, notwithstanding which, however, Mr. Heron would
soon have satisfactorily dined upon it, had he not made a slight mistake
in the mode of striking his prey. The eel was held in the heron's bill
at a point only some three or four inches from the extremity of its
tail, the greater part of its body and its head being thus left at
liberty to twist, and wriggle, and wallop about ad
libitum. To
swallow the eel in this position the heron knew was impossible, and to
let it go, even for an instant, for the purpose of getting a better
"grip" of his slippery customer was altogether out of the question. The
heron was standing on the very margin of the sea, into which the eel, if
for a moment at liberty, would have shot like an arrow. It was too large
to be tossed into the air and recaught in its descent, as herons
frequently do with other fish; and in short the heron was at his wit's
end, and wist not what to say or do. To make matters worse, the eel was
wriggling and twisting about its captor's legs, breeehless
and exposed legs be
it observed, and might, for all we or the heron knew, take one of them
at any time between its teeth, and sharp and cruel, as probably the
heron knew, are an eel's teeth when any part of an enemy has the
misfortune to get between them. Apprehensive, doubtless, of some such
danger, the heron danced and shuffled about, lifting now one leg and now
another, as if he had been practising a new and somewhat complicated
hornpipe. He would at one time leap a foot or two to one side, and
immediately after spring into the air as many inches, attempting the
while to strike his prey against the stones, but always failing in doing
this effectually, owing to want of sufficient "purchase" and the
insecurity of his hold. Having watched this novel combat for some time,
we made a rush to the scene of action, hoping to succeed in surprising,
perhaps, both the spoiler and his prey. We were disappointed. The heron
instantly took wing, carrying the eel for some instance in his
sharp-edged and powerful bill, but finally dropping it into the sea,
doubtless confessing to himself, as he indignantly winged his flight to
another fishing ground, that once in his life at least he had caught a
Tartar.
