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CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
BIRDS OF SPRING.
BY MEAD AND STREAM.
CALLS BEFORE THE CURTAIN.
THE MINER’S PARTNER.
CURIOSITIES OF THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.
HUSH-MONEY.
DONALD—A PONY.
No. 9.—Vol. I.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, MARCH 1, 1884.
BIRDS OF SPRING.
BY RICHARD JEFFERIES, AUTHOR OF THE ‘GAMEKEEPERAT HOME,’ ETC.
The birds of spring come as imperceptibly as theleaves. One by one the buds open on hawthornand willow, till all at once the hedges appeargreen, and so the birds steal quietly into thebushes and trees, till by-and-by a chorus fills thewood, and each warm shower is welcomed withvaried song. To many, the majority of spring-birdsare really unknown; the cuckoo, the nightingale,and the swallow, are all with which theyare acquainted, and these three make the summer.The loud cuckoo cannot be overlooked by anyone passing even a short time in the fields; thenightingale is so familiar in verse that every onetries to hear it; and the swallows enter the townsand twitter at the chimney-top. But these arereally only the principal representatives of thecrowd of birds that flock to our hedges in theearly summer; and perhaps it would be accurateto say that no other area of equal extent, eitherin Europe or elsewhere, receives so many featheredvisitors. The English climate is the establishedsubject of abuse, yet it is the climate most preferredand sought by the birds, who have thechoice of immense continents.
Nothing that I have ever read of, or seen, or thatI expect to see, equals the beauty and the delightof a summer spent in our woods and meadows.Green leaves and grass, and sunshine, blue skies,and sweet brooks—there is nothing to approachit; it is no wonder the birds are tempted to us.The food they find is so abundant, that after alltheir efforts, little apparent diminution can benoticed; to this fertile and lovely country, therefore,they hasten every year. It might be saidthat the spring-birds begin to come to us in theautumn, as early as October, when hedge-sparrowsand golden-crested wrens, larks, blackbirds, andthrushes, and many others, float over on the galesfrom the coasts of Norway. Their numbers,especially of the smaller birds, such as larks, areimmense, and their line of flight so extended thatit strikes our shores for a distance of two hundredmiles. The vastness of these numbers, indeed,makes me question whether they all come fromScandin