John Keble's Parishes Read online

  HOUSE-MARTIN (Hirundo urbica).-Twittering everywhere 'neath the straw-built shed.

  SAND-MARTIN (Hirundo riparia).-Swarms sit in rows along the electric wires, and bore deeply into every sand-pit.

  SWIFT (Cypselus murarius).-First to come and first to go. Their peculiar screech and floating flight are one of the charms of the summer evenings.

  NIGHTJAR (Caprimulgus europæus).-All through the twilight of the long days his purr-purr comes down from the heathery summit of Otterbourne Hill, where he earns his other name of Fern Owl, and may be seen flitting on silent wing in search of moths.

  KINGFISHER (Alcedo ispida).-This beautiful creature darts out of the reeds bordering the Itchen, and it used to be at Chandler's Ford before the place was so populated. It seems also to haunt ponds or marshy places in woods, for a young full-fledged one was brought into Otterbourne House by a cat, alive and apparently unhurt. Another took a fancy to the gold-fish in a stone basin at Cranbury, and was shot, as the poor fish could not escape.

  SPOTTED FLYCATCHER (Muscicapa grisola).-Late in summer these dainty little birds come whisking about the garden, perching on a rail, darting off after a fly, returning to the same post, or else feeding their young in nests on the side of the house. A pair built in 1897 in a flower-pot close to the window of Otterbourne House.

  BUTCHER-BIRD (Lanius collurio).-Said to have been seen at Otterbourne. A slug has been found impaled on a thorn, but whether this was the shrike's larder, or as a charm for removing warts, is uncertain.

  MISSEL-THRUSH (Merula viscivora).-This handsome bird is frequent, and commonly called House Screech. A story told by Warden Barter may be worth preserving. A pair of Missel Thrush seeing a peacock too near their nest, charged full at him, and actually knocked him down.

  SONG-THRUSH (Merula musica).-Happily everywhere warbling on warm days in autumn and winter with a sweet, powerful song, some notes more liquid than even the nightingale's. The shells of the snails he has devoured bestrew the garden-walks.

  BLACKBIRD (Merula vulgaris).-Out, with angry scream and chatter at the approach of an enemy, darts the "ousel cock so black of hue, with orange-tawny bill." How dull a lawn would be without his pert movements when he comes down alternately with his russet wife. One blackbird with a broad white feather on each side of his tail haunted Elderfield for two years, but, alas! one spring day a spruce sable rival descended and captivated the faithless dame. They united, chased poor Mr. Whitetail over the high garden hedge, and he was seen no more.

  REDWING (Merula iliaca).-Not common, but noted by J. B. Y.

  RING-OUZEL (Merula torquata).-Rare, but observed by J. B. Yonge in Otterbourne Park, 14th September 1865, and it has been seen several times later.

  FIELDFARE (Merula pilaris).-In flocks in winter.

  WHEATEAR (Sylvia ænanthe).-Comes to the downs.

  STONECHAT (Saxicola rubicola).-Hops about on stones.

  WHINCHAT (Saxicola rubetra).-On furze bushes on Otterbourne Hill.

  REDBREAST (Sylvia rubecula).-A whole brood, two old and four young, used to disport themselves on the quilt of an old bedridden woman on Otterbourne Hill. It is the popular belief that robins kill their fathers in October, and the widow of a woodman declared that her husband had seen deadly battles, also that he had seen a white robin, but she possibly romanced.

  REDSTART (Phænicura ruticilla).-Sometimes seen, but not often.

  GRASSHOPPER-WARBLER (Salicaria locustella).-Well named, for it chirps exactly like a grasshopper in the laurels all through a summer evening.

  SEDGE-WARBLER (Salicaria fragilis).-Whoever has heard it scolding and chattering in a ridiculous rage at a strange footstep will not wonder at the Scotch name of Blethering Jock. A pair nested in Dell Copse for some years, and the curious nest has been found among the reeds on the banks of the Itchen.

  NIGHTINGALE (Sylvia luscinia).-Every year about the 18th of April the notes may be heard by the gate of Cranbury, in a larch wood on Otterbourne Hill, in the copse wood of Otterbourne House, at Oakwood, and elsewhere. For about a week there is constant song, but after nesting begins, it is less frequent. One year there was a nest in the laurels at Otterbourne House (since taken away), and at eight in the morning and seven at night the nightingale came on the lawn to feed, and was every morning chased by a surly John Bull of a robin. When the young are coming out of the nest the parents chide them, or strangers, in a peculiarly harsh chirp.

  BLACKCAP (Sylvia atricapilla).-Fair and sweet, but not very frequent; nested in Dell Copse.

  WHITETHROAT (Sylvia cinerea).-Darts about gardens, and is locally called Nettle-creeper.

  LESSER WHITETHROAT (S. curruca).-Eggs in Dell Copse.

  WOOD-WARBLER (Sylvia sylvicola).-Eggs taken at Cranbury.

  WILLOW-WARBLER (Sylvia trochilus).-Eggs taken at Baddesley.

  CHIEFCHAFF (Sylvia hippolaïs).-Common in spring.

  GOLDEN-CRESTED WREN (Sylvia auricapilla).-A happy little inhabitant of the fir-trees, where it nests, and it is often to be seen darting in and out of a quickset hedge.

  SKYLARK (Alauda arvensis).-The joy of eyes and ears in every open field. True to the kindred points of heaven and home.

  WOODLARK (Alauda arborea).-Otterbourne Park and Cranbury.

  YELLOW-BUNTING or YELLOW-HAMMER (Emberiza citrinella).-A great ornament, especially in autumn, when it sits on rails, crying, "A little bit of bread and no che-e-ese!"

  BLACKHEADED or REED BUNTING (Emberiza schænidus).- Brambridge, April 1896.

  SPARROW (Passer domesticus).-One curious fact about this despised animal is that the retired farmer, after whom Elderfield is named, made it his business to exterminate the village sparrows. He often brought them down to one, but always by the next morning that sparrow had provided himself with a mate to share his Castle Dangerous. Sparrows' (or sprows') heads make a figure in many church ratebooks.

  CHAFFINCH (Fringilla cælebs).-Chink is the Hampshire name. The hens do not here migrate in winter, but a whole flight of them has been seen in the autumn on the Winchester road, evidently on their way; and once, after an early severe frost, about a hundred were found dead in a haystack near Basingstoke. Thomas Chamberlayne, Esq., who had a singular attraction for birds, used to have them coming to eat grain from his pocket. It has the perfection of a nest.

  GOLDFINCH (Carduelis elegans).-This exquisite little bird is frequent on the borders of the chalk hills, where there is plenty of thistledown.

  HAWFINCH (Coccothraustes vulgaris).-Sometimes seen, but not common.

  LINNET (Linota cannabina).-Fairly frequent.

  GREEN LINNET (Coccothraustes chloris).-Greenfinch, or Beanbird as they call it in Devonshire, is a pleasant visitor, though it has a great turn for pease.

  WREN (Sylvia troglodytes).-This brisk little being Kitty Wren is to be seen everywhere. Whether Kingsley's theory is right that the little birds roll themselves into a ball in a hole in the winter, I know not. Single ones are certainly to be seen on a bank on a frosty, sunshiny day. Have they come out to view the world and report on it? Those very odd, unused nests are often to be found hanging from the thatch within outhouses. May it be recorded here that a wren once came to peck the sprigs on Miss Keble's gown?

  GREAT TITMOUSE (Parus major)-or Ox-eye, as he is here called, bold and bright, crying "Peter" in early spring, and beautiful with his white cheek, and the black bar down his yellow waistcoat.

  BLUE TIT (Parus cæruleus).-Bolder and prettier is the little blue-cap, a true sprite and acrobat as Wordsworth calls him.

  MARSH-TIT (Parus palustris).-Known by less bright colouring and white breast.

  COLE-TIT (Parus ater).-More grey, and very graceful. All these four will gladly come to a window in winter for a little fat hung to a string, and will put themselves into wonderful inverse positions.

  LONG-TAILED TIT (Parus caudatus).-Long-tailed Caper, as is his local name, is more shy, and will not come to be fed; but the antics of a family after they have left their domed nest are delightful to watch, as they p
lay in the boughs of a fir-tree.

  HEDGE-SPARROW (Accentur modularis).-Quiet, mottled bird, to be seen everywhere.

  PIED WAGTAIL (Motacilla lutor).-Most of these stay with us all winter, but one March evening at least forty-three descended on the lawn at Elderfield, doubtless halting in their flight from southern lands. Most winning birds they are, with their lively hop and jerking tails. Dish-washer is their Hampshire name.

  GREY WAGTAIL (Motacilla boarula).-This pretty bird is really partly yellow. It is not very frequent here, but is sometimes found on the Itchen bank; likewise the nest in a reedy meadow.

  RAY'S WAGTAIL (Motacilla Rayi).-Ray's Wagtail was catching flies on a window at Otterbourne House in 1890.

  TREE PITT (Anthus arboreus), MEADOW PIPIT (Anthus pratensis ).-Small brown birds, not easy to distinguish; but the eggs differ, and both have been found.

  BULLFINCH (Pyrrhula vulgaris).-It is charming to greet the black head and red waistcoat in the tops of the laurels or apple-trees, and surely this destroyer of insect devourers does more good than harm, if he does pick the buds to pieces in the search. He is a delightful pet, of exclusive and jealous attachments, hating every one except his own peculiar favourite; and his sober-coloured lady has quite as much character as he. One which was devoted to her own mistress would assail another of the family with such spite as sometimes to drive her out of the room.

  STARLING (Sturnus vulgaris).-Green bedropped with gold when seen closely, but at a distance looking more like a rusty blackbird, though its gait on the lawn always distinguishes it, being a walk instead of a hop. Though not tuneful, no bird has such a variety of notes, and the clatter on the root the call-note, the impatient summons of the brood about to be fed, make it a most amusing neighbour, when it returns to the same tree year after year.

  RAVEN (Corvus corax).-He has flown over the village several times. One lived for many years in the yard of the George Inn at Winchester.

  CROW (Corvus coronæ).-Game-preserving has nearly put an end to him, but he is seen round the folds on the downs in lambing time.

  ROOK (Corvus frugilegus).-Shining and black the great birds come down on the fields. There is a rookery at Cranbury, another at Hams Farm at Allbrook, and a considerable one in the beeches near Merdon, for which the rooks deserted some oak-trees nearer the House. While these trees were still inhabited, Mr. G. W. Heathcote observed a number of walnuts under them, and found that the rooks brought them from the walnut avenues. A parliament of these wise birds is sometimes held on the downs, and there are woods where they assemble in great numbers in the autumn, contingents from all lesser rookeries pouring in to spend the winter, and whirling round and round in clouds before roosting.

  JACKDAW (Corvus monedula).-A very amusing, though very wicked pet. There used to be throngs of them in the tower of the old church at Hursley, and their droll voices might be heard conversing in the evening. Mr. Chamberlayne had one which, after being freed, always came down to greet him when he walked in the garden.

  MAGPIE (Corvus pica).-Pages might be filled with the merry mischief of this handsome creature. Perhaps the most observable characteristic of the three tame ones closely observed was their exclusive and devoted attachment to one person, whom they singled out for no cause that could be known, and followed about from place to place.

  JAY (Garrulus glandarius).-May be heard calling in the pine plantations on Hursley Common. It would be as amusing as the magpie if tamed.

  GREEN WOODPECKER (Picus viridis).-The laugh and the tap may be heard all through the Spring days. In 1890 Picus major, a small, black, and spotted French Magpie, as Devonians call it, was found, but we have no other right to claim it.

  WRYNECK (Yunx torquilla), or Cuckoo's mate, squeaks all round the woods with his head on one side just as the cuckoo comes.

  NUTHATCH (Sitta europæa).-This pretty creature will come and be fed on nuts at windows in the winter. These nuts he thrusts into crevices of bark to hold them fast while he hammers the shell. The remains may often be found. For many years a pair built in a hole half-way down an old apple-tree covered with ivy at Otterbourne House, and the exertions of the magpie with clipped wing to swing himself on a trail of ivy into the hole were comical, as well as his wrath when he fell off, as he uniformly did.

  TREE-CREEPER (Certhia familiaris), winds round and round the trees like a little mouse.

  HOOPOE (Upupa vulgaris).-Once in a frost caught alive by a shepherd on the downs, but it soon died.

  CUCKOO (Cuculus canorus).-They cuckoo till "in June he altereth his tune." Probably the stammer is the effort of the young ones to sing. One grew up in a wagtail's nest in the flints that were built into the wall of Otterbourne Churchyard. Another, carried to the other side of the road and caged, was still fed by its foster-parents till it was ready to fly.

  WOOD-PIGEON (Columba palumbus)-

  Take two cows, Taffy,

  Taffy, take two-o-o.

  Plenty of this immoral exhortation may be heard in the trees. One young pigeon taken from the nest proved incorrigibly wild and ready to flutter to death whenever any one came near it.

  TURTLE-DOVE (Columba turtur).-This pretty delicate creature with speckled neck builds in bushes lower than the wood-pigeon, and the mournful note resounds in the trees.

  PHEASANT (Phasianus colchicus).-Not a real native, but cultivated to any extent. A cock pheasant with the evening sun gilding his back is a rare picture of beauty.

  PARTRIDGE (Tetrao perdix).-Numerous.

  HERON (Ardea cinerea).-Sometimes flies far overhead, the long legs projecting behind.

  SANDPIPER (Totanus hypoleucus).-Seen walking over a mass of weeds in the Itchen canal.

  SNIPE (Scolopax gallinago).-Brought in by sportsmen from the water meadows.

  WOODCOCK (Scolopax rusticola).-Not common, but sometimes shot.

  JACK-SNIPE (Scolopax gallinula).-Not common, but sometimes shot.

  LAND-RAIL (Crex pratensis).-Corn-Crake. May be heard "craking" in the long grass in early morning before the hay is cut.

  WATER-RAIL (Rallus aquaticus).-In a meadow at Otterbourne, 22nd January 1855.

  LITTLE GREBE (Podiceps minor).-Dabchick, as it is commonly called, swims in the Itchen and in Fisher's Pond (on Colden Common), dipping down suddenly without a trace of the least alarm.

  MOOR-HEN (Gallinula chloropus).-Very similar are the ways of the moor-hen, with its brilliant beak. But once, by some extraordinary chance, a moor-hen fell down a cottage chimney, and was brought alive for inspection by a boy, who, ignorant of natural objects, as was always the case in villages forty years ago, thought it a rare foreign specimen. It was a thatched cottage, but if it had been slated the moor-hen might have taken the roof for a sheet of water by moonlight, as the Great Water-Beetle has been known to do, and come down the chimney in like manner. A brood comes constantly to be fed on a lawn at Bishopstoke.

  PEEWIT (Vanellus cristatus).-Otherwise the Crested Lapwing. It floats along in numbers when migrating, the whole flock turning at the same time and displaying either the dark or the white side of their wings with a startling effect. They seem effaced for a moment, the next the white sails are shown, then gone again. When paired, and nesting in the meadows, their cry causes their local name, as their other English title is derived from their characteristic manuvres to lead the enemy from their young. Did they learn the habit when their so-called plovers' eggs became a dainty?

  GOLDEN PLOVER (Charadrius pluvialis).-Noted at Otterbourne meadows by J. B. Yonge.

  WILD DUCK (Anas boschas).-The mallard is splendid in plumage, and in shape is far more graceful than his domesticated brother. In early winter the wild ducks fly overhead in a wedge-shaped phalanx, and by and by they pair, and if disturbed start up with a sudden quack, quack from the copse-wood pond. Broods of downy wild ducks have been brought in by boys, but it has almost always proved impossible to rear them.

  TEAL (Querquedula anas).-This very pretty little duck used to build on Cranbury Common, but may have been frig
htened away by increasing population.

  GULL (Larus canus).-Flocks of those white-breasted birds sometimes alight on ploughed fields round Otterbourne, and even some miles farther from the sea. They are sometimes kept in gardens to destroy the slugs.

  These birds have all been actually seen and noted down by members of the Yonge family.

  FLOWERS

  TRAVELLER'S JOY (Clematis Vitalba).-Locally called Old Man's Beard, most appropriately, as its curling, silvery masses of seeds hang in wreaths over the hedges. There is a giant trunk growing up from the moat of Merdon Castle.

  MEADOW RUE (Thalictrum flavum).-Handsome foliage and blossoms, showing much of anthers, growing on the banks of the Itchen canal.

  WINDFLOWER (Anemone nemorosa).-Smellfoxes, as the villagers' children inelegantly term this elegant flower, spreading its pearl-white blossom, by means of its creeping root, all over the copses, and blushing purple as the season advances.

  WATER CROWFOOT (Ranunculus aquatilis).-The white flowers, with yellow eyes, make quite a sheet over the ponds of Cranbury Common, etc. Ivy-leaved (R. hederaceus).-Not so frequent. The ivy-shaped leaves float above, the long fibrous ones go below. When there is lack of moisture, leaves and flower are sometimes so small that it has been supposed to be a different species. It was once in a stagnant pond in Boyatt Lane, but is extinct again.

  BUTTERCUP or CROWFOOT-

  (R. sceleratus) Highly-polished petals, which spangle

  (R. acris) the fields and hedges with gold.

  (R. repens) All much alike; all haunting

  (R. bulbosus) kitchen-gardens and pastures, where the cattle, disliking their taste, leave the stems standing up alone.

  SPEARWORT (R. flammula).-Flower like the others, but with narrow leaves.

  GOLDILOCKS (R. auricomus).-More delicate, upper leaves spear-shaped, lower pinnate. In the borders of the copse wood of Otterbourne House.

  CORN CROWFOOT (R. Ficaria).-Small, growing between the corn with hooked capsules.