Bird Watching/Chapter 8

by Edmund Selous

 

CHAPTER VIII


Watching Birds at a Straw-Stack

 

One of the most interesting ways of watching birds at very close quarters is to conceal oneself in one of the corn-stacks or wheat-ricks that in the autumn begin to spring up like mushrooms all over the country-side. This is a winter pastime, and the harder the weather the greater will be the results yielded. To have chaffinches, greenfinches, bramblings, tree-sparrows, buntings, yellow hammers, blue-tits, starlings, perhaps a blackbird or two, pheasants and partridges, all about one and quite near, one should choose a bitterly cold day with a biting wind driving the snowflakes before it, and the snow itself whitening the landscape, but not so deeply as to cover things beyond a bird's power of scratching. Rising early, one gets to the stack whilst it is still dark. At one side there is always a great heap of refuse material of the stack, threshed ears of corn, chopped and winnowed straw, as well as—at least where picturesque farming prevails (and may it long prevail)— a vast quantity of thistle-heads, poppy-pods, campion, columbine, and all sorts of other plants and flowers that have been garnered in with the harvest. Small birds come down on this in flocks, and where the slope of the heap on one side joins the stack, one should make in the latter, by a process of pulling out and pressing in, a nice cosy cavern just big enough to squeeze into. On the floor of this one should lay a shawl or plaid, and then, enveloping oneself in another, enter it backwards, and, kicking one's legs farther into the body of the stack so as to be out of the way, pull down the straw over the aperture, arranging it thinly just in front of one's face so as to have a good outlook. Even on the coldest morning one is warm and comfortable under such circumstances, and the snow without and frosted stalks that one's near breath is thawing, make one feel all the warmer. It is for warmth, indeed, that such an ensconcement is principally needed, for on days like this small birds, at any rate, will come within a few paces of one, if only one sits still. Even when one walks up to the stack in broad daylight, they only fly round to another side of it, and one has scarcely settled oneself before they begin to come again. But hidden thus before "black night" has ceased to "steal the colours from things," one may have stragglers from the main crowd within the length of one's arm, and I have even tried catching one—for the bizarrerie of the thing—by gliding my hand stealthily through the loose straw underneath it. The attempt failed, but I believe such a feat would be quite possible.

As the light begins to creep upon the darkness and the world to grow more and more white, the arrivals commence. First a few greenfinches—principally hens—fly down upon the heap, then chaffinches, both cocks and hens, but hens predominating, with a few yellow-hammers, mostly of immature plumage, and a hedge-sparrow or two. These birds come and go independently for some little time, and it is not till the morning has grown lighter that they begin to form a band, in the sense not of their numbers only, but also of their actions. It is only gradually, for instance, that their habit of all flying away together into the neighbouring trees and returning quickly again in the same way becomes at all marked. They are at first independent units, but as the day brightens and the numbers increase they become more and more interdependent. Now, too, there is more equality in the numbers of the sexes. The females still predominate, but one would not always think that this was the case, for as they all whirr into a large oak tree that is beginning now to be gilded by the beams of the tardily-rising sun, its bare boughs and twigs, as well as the surrounding bushes, are made suddenly lovely with bright, soft green and mauvy-purplish red. A glorious winter foliage this, that might make an old tree feel young again!

All the time the birds are down on the heap they are busily feeding, seeming to put their whole soul into each peck (like the single jest at the Mermaid) and all in a kind of sociable, yet but half friendly, competition with each other. Gradually they spread out a little from the heap, half-a-dozen greenfinches are amongst the straw that one has oneself pulled out from the stack, and one of them is feeding positively within three feet. To see them so near, and to think that they think you anywhere rather than where you are! It is like eavesdropping, it hardly seems right. Now the nearest greenfinch picks out an ear of the corn and, as if to show you just how he does it, comes even a thought nearer. He turns it till it is crosswise in his beak, snips off the stalk, rapidly divests it of what remains of the outer huskiness—in doing which you see him work his mandibles in a delicate, tactile manner—and swallows the inner essence. Throughout he does not help himself with his claws at all. It is pleasant to see this, but still more so to have so many little dicky birds just within a pace or two, all free and unconstrained and knowing nothing whatever about it. It is as if you had somehow got into a bird-cage without alarming the inmates, but even as this occurs to you you recognise the poverty of the simile, and rejoice to be in nature's aviary—at least one may say this of the birds if not of the straw-stack.

There is now, besides chaffinches and greenfinches, which form the great bulk of the numbers, quite a little crowd of bramblings—twenty or more—their beautiful gold-russet plumage gleaming out in an easy pre-eminence of colour; for they are, indeed, much handsomer than the handsomest cock chaffinch or greenfinch, and as both the sexes are alike, nothing of them is lost, there are no dead-weights. Even the yellow-hammers when at their yellowest cannot compete with these chestnut beauties, and the pretty little blue-tits who feed softly—two or three together—on the poppy seeds are beaten, whether they confess it or not. A hedge-sparrow or two hopping very quietly and unobtrusively about on the outskirts of the great central crowd have, of course, no pretensions to anything like distinguished beauty, but there is one bird—one, unfortunately, not only as a species but individually—that may, perhaps, stand up in rivalry even with the brambling.

This is a solitary male goldfinch who, as though knowing the sad and waning state of his clan, feeds all by himself and—as one seems to fancy—in a melancholy manner. Be this as it may, his mode of feeding is quite different to that of the other birds. Whilst all, or nearly all, of these are pecking odds and ends from amongst the straw and draff of the heap, using their beaks only and seeming to swallow something at each little peck, like chickens with grain, he makes successive little excursions to the stack itself, from which he extracts a blade of corn, a campion, or a thistle-head, and then, standing with the claws of both his feet grasping it (like a crow with a piece of carrion), picks it to pieces and devours it, or the seeds it contains, in a leisurely, almost a phlegmatic, way. This is quite different from the greenfinch, which—as just seen—in extracting the grain from an ear of corn, uses only its bill, standing the while in an ordinary upright attitude, and not pick-axeing down upon it as it lies along the ground. Perhaps the goldfinch can do this too, but as this particular one did not on any morning employ a different method to that which I have described, it must, I should think, be the usual one; nor did I ever see it pecking up anything from the ground in a careless haphazard fashion, like the other birds.

One can feed the birds with bread if one likes, and, when found and tasted, this is appreciated. But the pieces that one throws are not noticed, as they lie amongst the straw, so readily as one would have supposed, and often birds will pass quite near to, or even almost touch them, without seeing them or, at least, discovering what they are. A whole Osborne biscuit, upon one occasion, was an object of suspicion. Several chaffinches came up as though to peck at it, but their courage failed them at the last moment, and it was never touched the whole time I was there. Of course, when larger and more wary birds come to the stack, one must keep quite still and not play any tricks like these, if one wishes them to stay. A hen blackbird is now feeding on the outskirts of the heap. She will not permit any small birds to be near her, but drives them all off if they come within a certain distance, so that she is soon in the centre of a little space which she has all to herself. Into this a starling flies down and seems at first inclined to meet the blackbird on equal terms, for, of course, the two instantly recognise each other as rivals, and cross swords as by mutual desire. But even in the first encounter the starling has to give way, and then beats a series of retreats before the other's sprightly little rushes, till at length, being left no peace, he has to fly away. Later, some half-dozen starlings come down together almost on the top of the heap, and feed in just the same way as the small birds they alight amongst. Soon there is a combat between two of these. Both keep springing from the ground, going up again the instant they alight, and each trying, as it seems, to jump above the other, whether to avoid pecks delivered or the better to deliver them. They never jump quite at the same time, but always one goes up as the other comes down, which has a funny effect. They never close or grapple, they do not even seem to do much pecking, and when it is all over, neither of them "seems one penny the worse." The great thing, evidently, is to jump, and as long as a bird can do it he has no cause to be dissatisfied. It is delightful to watch them from so close. One can see the gleam of each feather, catch their very expressions, and sympathise with every spring. They look very thin and elegant, and their plumage is all gloss and sheen. All the while they keep uttering a sort of squealing note which it is quite enchanting to hear.

A few partridges now come down over the thin snow towards the stack, at first fast, with a pause between each run, during which they draw themselves up and throw the head and neck a little back. Then they seem to waver in their intention; and, whilst one pecks at the body of a frosted swede, another bends above it and sips with a delicate bill a little of the rime upon its leaves. Then they come on again, but, as they near the stack, with slower and more hesitating steps, and no longer uttering their curious, grating cry "ker-wee, ker-wee." Instead, one hears now—for now they are in close proximity—all sorts of pretty, little, soft, croodling sounds, seeming to express contentment and happiness with a quiet under-current of affection. Then they feed quietly on the frontiers of their winter oasis.

All at once something gorgeous and burnished steals and then flashes into sight. It is a pheasant. He has come invisibly from another direction, and ascending the opposite slope of the great chaffheap, rises over it like a second sun. Surely such splendour should come striding in majesty, but he is very nervous, full of apprehension, open to the very smallest ground of fear or suspicion. Often he stops and looks anxiously about, half crouches, then makes a little start forward with the body as though on the point of running, but checks himself each time and begins to peck instead. Sometimes he draws himself up to his full height, and looks all round as from a watch-tower, but after each fit of fear he decides that all is well and goes on feeding again. And now another sun rises and immediately afterwards three—no, four ("dazzle my eyes, or do I see four suns?") advance together over the crest of the hill which, though of straw and all inflammable materials, does not—a miracle!—take fire and burn. But the snow and the dampness must be taken into consideration. All of them are now feeding quietly, but not all together or in view. Two have set again, but three and the tail of another, in partial eclipse from behind, is a sight of sufficient magnificence. Looking at them, at their splendid body-plumage of burnished orange gold, gleaming even in the dull morning without any sun but themselves—for the great one is now "over-canopied"—at their glossy blue heads, rich scarlet wattles, and long graceful tails, one cannot help wondering how beautiful a bird would have to be before compunction would be felt in killing it. Would the golden or Amherst pheasant produce the sensation? Idle thought! Peacocks are shot in India, trogons in Mexico, humming-birds both there and in the Brazils, and birds of paradise in the islands of the east. Of paradise——. Then are there birds in heaven, and do our sainted women wear their feathers? But such speculations are beyond the province of this work.

Now the feeding goes on apace. All the splendid birds keep scratching backwards in the chaff-heap as do fowls, sending up clouds of it into the air. Like the partridges, too, they utter, from time to time, a variety of curious, low notes, which, unless one were quite near, one would never hear, and once they make a quick little piping sound, all together, standing and lifting up their heads to do it, as though filled with mutual satisfaction and a friendly feeling. The low sounds are of a croodling or clucking character. They are not quite so soft as those of the partridges, and, low as they are, one still catches in them that quality of tone whereof the loud, trumpety notes are made.

I have spoken of the extreme nervousness of the first pheasant. The later arrivals, just as would be the case with men, were not nearly so nervous, though all were wary and circumspect. But now it is most interesting to watch them, and to remark how, in these cautious birds, timidity—or say, rather, a proper and most necessary prudence—is tempered with judgment, and modified by individual character or temperament. They are capable of withstanding the first sudden impulse to flight, and of subjecting it to reason and a more prolonged observation. Thus, when the small birds fly, suddenly, off in a cloud, as they do every few minutes, and with a great whirr of wings, the pheasants all stop feeding, look about, pause a little, seeming to consider, and then recommence, as though they had decided that such panic fear was uncalled for, and that there was no rational ground for alarm. An hour or two later three out of the four birds—for two have got gradually to the other side of the stack—see enough of me in the straw to make them suspicious, and go off at half pace. The fourth bird notes their retreat, looks all about, can see nothing to account for it, and instead of following them, as might have been expected, goes on feeding. This, though it may seem to show a defect in the reasoning power (the power itself it certainly does show), at least argues strength of character and independence of judgment. A certain line of conduct is suggested by the action of a bird's three companions, but this suggestion—this powerful stimulus, one would think—is resisted by the one bird, put to the test of its own powers of observation, and the line of conduct dictated by it, rejected. This self-reliant quality and power of not being swayed by others, I have constantly observed in birds.

As will have been gathered, these six pheasants that came and fed together at the stack were all males, and this has been my usual experience. Under such circumstances I have always found them agree together perfectly well, but there is generally some fighting to be seen amongst the small birds, though, perhaps, not much, if one takes their numbers into consideration. Chaffinches are the most pugnacious, though, here again, a similar allowance must be made, for they largely predominate, even over greenfinches, whilst, compared to these two, the others—excepting sometimes bramblings—are only scantily represented. Chaffinches fight by springing up from the ground against each other, breast to breast (as do so many birds), and they may rise thus to a considerable height, each trying to get above the other, and claw or peck down upon it—at least, it would seem so. Their position in the air is thus perpendicular, and as they mutually impede each other, they are more fluttering than flying. Sometimes, however—generally after they have got to a little height—they will disengage, and then there will be between them a series of alternate little flights up and above, and swoops down upon each other, very inspiriting to see. Sometimes they will commence the fight with these swoopings, but it is more common for them to flutter perpendicularly up as described, and then down again. Often, too, they will rise beak to beak only, the position being then between perpendicular and horizontal, but more the latter, the tail part of them giving constant little flirts upwards—as when a volatile Italian in an umbrella shop leans his whole weight on the stick of one of the umbrellas and leaps, or, rather, swings himself from the ground, kicking his heels into the air, to demonstrate its strength. Imagine two volatile Italians thus testing two umbrellas whose handles touch, continually throwing up their heels, rising a little as they do so, never coming quite down again, and so getting a little higher each time, and you have the two chaffinches. Or there will be a series of alternate flying jumps from the ground like the starling's, but more aerial. These are the more usual ways, but if one bird can, whilst on the ground, suddenly seize another by the nape of the neck, and then, getting on his back, twist his beak about in the skin and feathers, it is all the better—for that one. Such fights as these are usually between two male birds, but hen chaffinches sometimes fight, whilst scuffles between a cock and a hen over food may also be witnessed.

Greenfinches fight in much the same manner, but they are more stoutly built, and their motions are not quite so brisk and airy, though chaffinches themselves are but clumsy birds in this respect compared to many others—larks, for example. They, too, fight tenaciously. After a brisk partie in the air, I have seen one, on their falling together, seize the other by the nape and be dragged about by it over the snow.

But what has interested me more than anything else in my frequent watchings of small birds congregated together at the stacks, is the way in which every few minutes or so—sometimes at longer, and sometimes at shorter intervals—they take instant and simultaneous flight, rising all together^[1] with a sudden whirr of wings, and flurrying away to some near tree or trees, or into the hedgerow, to return in a much more scattered and gradual manner very soon—sometimes almost directly afterwards. These sudden spontaneous flights, where one and the same thought seems suddenly to take possession of a whole assembly of beings, I had before, and have often afterwards, observed in rooks, starlings, wood-pigeons, etc., and I have been equally puzzled to account for it in all of them. I do not remember that this habit, which is, indeed, common in a greater or less degree to a very great number of birds, has ever been brought forward as something difficult of explanation, and many, perhaps, will doubt there being any such difficulty in regard to a thing so ordinary and commonplace. As to this, I can only say that I have arrived at a different conclusion.

What would be the ordinary way of accounting for such sudden and simultaneous taking to flight of a number of birds? One may suppose, in the first place, that a particular note is uttered by one or more of them on the espial of danger, and that this acts as a sauve qui peut to the rest. This seems a satisfactory explanation, but as against it, no such note is, as a rule, uttered, and even if it were, it would not account for all the facts as I have often observed them.

Day after day, and for hours at a time, I have watched these crowds of little birds under the circumstances described, and only on one single occasion was the sudden rising into the air in flight preceded by any note at all, nor did I observe anything—I do not believe there was anything to be observed—which could have frightened them.

In the one case referred to, which was different, "the flight was certainly preceded by a note—a very peculiar one, single, long, and remarkably loud, taking the size of the birds into consideration. It suggested somewhat the sudden blowing of a horn—though, of course, a small one. I could not tell which bird uttered it, but feel sure, from the quality of the tone, that it was a greenfinch. To the best of my observation, the note was uttered before the flight commenced, and the flight followed before it had ceased. Almost immediately afterwards I heard, for the first time, the caw of rooks, and my theory is (or was) that one of these, appearing suddenly in the air from the back of the hay-stack, had been mistaken for a hawk, and that the bird so mistaking it had immediately uttered the appropriate warning note. Unfortunately for my little mouse" ("theories," says Voltaire, "are like mice; they run through nineteen holes, but are stopped by the twentieth"), "only the other day, when I was at the same place and equally near, a genuine hawk (a sparrow one) had flown by, when, instead of a warning note, there had been a sudden hush and silence, followed by a flight which, as it seemed to me, was not so close and compact as usual. Difficulties of this sort are always occurring in observation—at least in my observation—and show how cautious one should be in translating the particular into the general. For instance, with moor-hens, I have noted that in one or two of their many timorous flights to the river a peculiar cry was uttered by a single bird, which had all the appearance and seemed to have all the probability of being a warning note; but this was not the case on other occasions." Even here, then, there is some difficulty in accepting the theory of a danger-signal uttered by one bird, and causing the simultaneous flight of all, whilst in all other instances (I am speaking now of small birds at the stacks) either no note at all or none distinguishable from a general chirping was uttered. Manifestly,^[2] then, this explanation will not serve. But it may be said, either that there is a leader whose movements all the birds follow, or that when one bird flies, for whatever reason, the rest take alarm and fly also. But where different species of birds are all banded together, it seems very unlikely that there should be a leader, and both this and the other explanation, which at first sight seems satisfactory, are destroyed by the salient fact that in hardly any case do all the birds rise and fly away together, but only the great majority. Almost invariably a certain number of them, though sometimes only half-a-dozen or so, or even less, remain, nor has this anything to do with the particular species of bird. Moreover, the flying up of any bird from the crowd does not, of itself, communicate alarm to the others, for first one and then another and often several at a time may constantly be doing so, whilst the rest feed quietly and take no notice. It may be said that it is only when a bird flies off in alarm that its flight communicates alarm to its companions. That it does so necessarily, even in such a case, I, from general observation, very much doubt, and also, if the facts as I have given them be a little considered, it will be seen that the difficulties are not met by this view of the case.

The theory of a leader seems more applicable to birds like rooks, which are gregarious, and may be constantly watched in large numbers together, without the intermixture of any other species. The same difficulties, however, apply here, and even to a greater extent, for the movements of rooks are more complicated, whilst alarm or any such primary impulse as the origin (I do not say the explanation) of them, is in most cases quite out of the question. An instance or two of these sudden and quite simultaneous movements of bodies of rooks I have noted down directly after observing them. They would be much in place here, but as I have two chapters devoted to these birds, and, moreover, as they but make a part in general scenes and pictures, I will not separate them from their context nor any bird from its companions.

Starlings, again, furnish striking examples of the same phenomenon. Their aerial evolutions before roosting are sufficiently remarkable, but, perhaps, still more so from this point of view is the manner in which they leave the roosting-place in the morning. This is not in one great body, as might have been expected, but in successive flights at intervals of some three or four to ten or twelve minutes, each flight comprising, sometimes, hundreds of thousands of birds—the numbers, of course, will vary in different localities—and the whole exodus occupying about half-an-hour. Each of these great flights or uprushes from the dense brake of bush and undergrowth where the birds are congregated, takes place with startling suddenness, and it seems as though every individual bird composing it were linked to every other by some invisible material, as are knots on the meshes of a net by the visible twine connecting them. There is no preliminary,^[3] nor does it seem as though a certain number of more restless individuals gradually affected others, but at once a huge mass roars up from the still more immense multitude, as does a wave from the sea, or as a sudden cloud of dust is puffed by the wind from a dust-heap. I am speaking here of the great main flights, which are, in most cases, of this character. The fact that quite small bands of birds will sometimes fly off between the intervals of these, does not detract from the more striking phenomenon or lessen the difficulty of explaining it. For, surely, there is a difficulty in explaining how the example of one vast body of birds, soaring forth on the morning flight, should not affect every individual of the still vaster body of which they form a part—the whole occupying, it must be remembered, a small and densely packed area—and why the impulse of the flying birds to fly should, apparently, become uncontrollable in each individual of them at the same instant of time. If we saw soldiers issuing in this manner from an encampment, or performing all sorts of collective movements and evolutions before entering it in the evening (as do the starlings before descending on their roosting place), and yet satisfied ourselves that there were neither captains nor officers, signals nor words of command amongst them, we should probably wonder, and might think the phenomenon sufficiently curious to make it worth study and investigation.

I will take one more example from my notes on wood-pigeons before returning to the flocks of small birds at the stacks.

"A number of wood-pigeons" (this was early on a very cold winter's morning) "have now settled on the elms near me. I am quite still, and they have sat there quietly for some little time. All at once the whole band fly out, to all appearance at one and the same moment, and in a peculiar way, with sudden sweeps and rushes through the air in a downward direction, shooting and zig-zagging across each other with a whizzing whirr of the wings, in much the same manner as do rooks. On account of this peculiar flight, which seems to be joyous and sportive, I do not believe they have seen me. But whether they have or not, the absolutely simultaneous flight of the whole body is, to me, equally hard to account for. Supposing—what would be most likely—that only one bird has seen me, how has this knowledge been communicated, instantaneously, to all the rest? There was no note uttered of any kind. I must have heard it, I think, if it had been, so near as I was, nor are pigeons supposed to have an alarm-note. It may be said that the sudden abrupt flight of one alarmed the rest, but all cannot have been looking at this one at the same time, and it is difficult to suppose that there was anything to discriminate in the actual sound of the wings—for one or more than one bird may, at any time, fly eagerly off without affecting the others. Moreover, if this were the explanation, there would have been an appreciable interval of time between the flight of the alarmed bird and the others, which, to my sense, there was not. But, as I say, I do not believe that the birds saw me, and, if not, the collective, instantaneous impulse of flight seems still harder to account for on ordinary known principles. It is, of course, easy to give a plausible explanation of a thing and take for granted that all the facts are in accordance. But the facts, when one watches them, are apt to discredit the theory. Observation and difficulties begin, often, at the same time."

Returning now to the little winter collections of chaffinches, greenfinches, bramblings, etc., which come and feed at the corn-stacks during the winter, in general they whirr up every three or four minutes, but the intervals vary, and may be much longer. Sometimes only about half the flock flies off, the rest not appearing to care much about it; usually a much greater number does, and this often appears to be the whole number, but almost always—unless, of course, on the approach of a man or some other such alarming occurrence—some few, at least, remain. As with the starlings, these flights seem often to be absolutely instantaneous, the birds all rising together in a solid block, but this is not always the case, and the cloud may be preceded by a little half-hopping, half-chasséeing about of three or four individuals, whilst sometimes there is, for a second or two, a very quick following of one another. If this were always so, and if one bird could not fly off without others following it, there would be little or nothing to explain, but, as we have seen, this is very far from being the case. In nine cases out of ten the birds begin to come back almost as soon as they are gone; but, in spite of this, I came to the conclusion that the cause of flight was almost always a nervous apprehension, such as actuates schoolboys when they are doing something of a forbidden nature and half expect to see the master appear at any moment round the corner. Though there might be no discernible ground for apprehension, yet after some three or four minutes it seemed to strike the assembly that it could not be quite safe to remain any longer, and presto! they were gone. Afterwards it was recognised that there had been no real reason for alarm, and they came back, but this seemed to strike them individually rather than collectively. Now it was by stacks in the open fields under no more cover, as a rule, than the neighbouring hedgerow, that I had noticed these phenomena, and, coming one day upon such a heap of chaff or draff—though without any stack—in the centre of a small plantation of fir and pine trees, I determined to watch here, a number of small birds having flown up as I approached. I was able to conceal myself very well amidst some bushes that grew quite near, and very shortly the birds—chaffinches, bramblings, hedge and tree-sparrows, etc., but not greenfinches—were down again. I stayed a considerable while, but, except once or twice when I moved a little so as to alarm them, they remained feeding all or most of the time. Sometimes, indeed, some or other of them would fly into the surrounding trees or bushes, but this they did at their leisure, without alarm or hurry, and only as desiring a change. The simultaneousness was wanting—there were none of those nervous flights at short intervals that I had observed when watching at the open corn-stacks. Here, amongst the pines, and protected on every side, the birds felt, apparently, quite secure, though whether it was altogether a rational security may be questioned. This observation strengthened me in my conclusion as to these flights being caused by a feeling of nervous apprehension or alarm, but I am bound to add (another case of the mouse) that I subsequently watched by stacks in the open, where, also, a considerable sense of security seemed to prevail. Temperature may perhaps have something to do with the explanation, but I have as yet taken no steps to test this theory.

But whatever may be the motive (which, of course, may vary) of such sudden flights—and here I am thinking of all the examples which I have brought forward, as well as others, in fact, the whole range of the phenomena—how are we to account for their simultaneousness, and the other special features belonging to them?

It would seem as though either one and the same idea were flashed suddenly into the minds of a number of birds in close proximity to each other at one and the same instant of time, or that this same idea, having originated or attained a certain degree of vehemence, at some one point or points—representing some individual bird or birds—spread from thence, as from one or more centres, with inconceivable rapidity, so as to embrace either the whole group or a portion of it, according to the strength of the original outleap. In other words, I suppose (or, at least, I suggest it) that birds when gathered together in large numbers think and act, not individually, but collectively; or, rather, that they do both the one and the other, for that individual birds are capable of withstanding the collective influence of the flock of which they form a part, I have ample evidence. The old Athenians—though slave-holders, wherein they may be compared to the Americans at one period—were a very democratic people, and lived a more public life than any other civilised community either before or after them, of which we have any record. They were also of a very emotional temperament, and it is curious to find amongst them the idea (at any rate) of the φημη—a sudden wave or current of thought which swept through an assembly, causing it to think and act as one man.^[4] When watching numbers of birds together, this φημη idea has constantly been brought to my mind, nor do I see how the whole of the facts are to be explained except upon some such hypothesis. If we suppose that the sudden flurryings away of a band of small birds from the chaff-heap where they have been quietly feeding, are caused by the apprehension of danger, we may well credit the birds with having sharper senses than our own, though that they are often mistaken is shown by their almost immediate return, and also by as many of them (sometimes) remaining as fly away. But it is impossible to imagine that every individual bird of a large number, crowded together and busily feeding, can at the same instant of time see the same object, or even hear the same sound of alarm, unless very loud or conspicuous, nor can it be supposed that the same thought, producing the same action, can flash independently into all their minds at once, by mere chance. But if we suppose thought to be like a wind, sweeping amongst them and producing, each time that it rises to a certain degree of strength, its appropriate act, then we can understand fifty, seventy, or a hundred birds rising in this thought-wind, like leaves or straws blown up in a sudden gust, and, in the same way as when a blizzard or tornado bursts on a town, some frail objects in a room through which it has torn may be left standing, whilst everything else is strewed about in ruin, so may the thought-wave (to use the more familiar term) moving with inconceivable rapidity amidst the flock, miss out some individuals, though right in the midst of those that are affected, in a manner which is hard to account for. Again, if we suppose two centres from which two opposite thought-waves or impulses spread, we can understand two groups of birds, which, together, have made one band, acting in different ways or going in different directions (as one may constantly see with rooks and starlings), whilst, by supposing that the wave, or energy, tends to exhaust itself after spreading to a certain distance around any point or centre where it may have originated or become focussed, we account for such facts as many thousands of starlings, say, rising from, perhaps, a million without the others being affected. But, no doubt, even in an Athenian assembly there were some men capable of withstanding the force of the φημη, and if we give to birds, even when thus assembled together, a power of individual as well as collective action, varying in each unit so that the one power is now more and now less under the control of the other—but with, on the whole, a preponderance in favour of the latter—we then, as it appears to me, come near to explaining what I must regard as the often very puzzling problem of the movements of such assembled bodies. This, of course, is the theory of thought-transference, and if this power does really exist in the case of any one species we might expect it to exist also in the case of others. With the evidence of its existence amongst ourselves I am not unacquainted, but I need say nothing of this or of my humble opinion concerning it, here. I have suggested it as a possible explanation of some of the actions of birds, because I have found it difficult to account for them in any other way. If it could be made out that animals did really, in some degree, possess this power, it might throw a new light upon many things, and, possibly, explain some difficulties of a larger kind than those which I have called it in to do. To me, at least, it has always seemed a little curious that language of a more perfect kind than animals use has been so late in developing itself; but animals would feel less the want of a language if thought-transference existed amongst them to any appreciable extent.

Assuming its existence, it is amongst gregarious animals that we might expect to find it most developed, and gregariousness has, probably, preceded any great mental advance. Therefore, before an animal reached a grade of intelligence such as might render the growth of a language possible, it would have become gregarious; and, assuming it then to have a certain power of feeling, and being influenced by the thought of its fellows, without the aid of sound or gesture, it is obvious that here would be a power tending to dull and weaken that struggle to express thought by sound, which may be supposed to have slowly and unconsciously led to the formation of a language. Here, then, would be a retarding influence. Still, as ideas communicated in this way would probably be of a general and simple kind, corresponding, perhaps, more to emotions and sensations than definite ideas, the need for more precise impartment would gradually, as mental power became more and more developed, become more and more felt. Then would come language (as spoken), and spoken language, once established, would tend to weaken the old primitive power, as an improvement on which it had arisen. Thus if thought-transference exist in man, it may, perhaps, represent a reversion to a more primitive and generalised means of mental intercommunion, or the older power may exist, and still occasionally act, or even do so habitually to some extent; in fact, it may not yet have entirely died out. Possibly, also, it might tend to survive, and even to some extent increase, as being, in certain ways and directions, superior to the more precise medium. But if so, it would become—unless specially cultivated—more and more limited to these directions. Certain it is that people seem often to approach each other mentally much more by feeling than by words, and in a wonderfully short space of time. We call this insight, intuitive perception, affinity, etc.,—but such words do not explain the process.

Is it not possible that birds living habitually together, as part of a crowd, may have acquired the faculty of thinking and acting all together, or in masses, each one's mind being a part of the general mind of the whole band, but each possessing, also, its individual mind and will, by virtue of which it is enabled to suspend its general crowd-acting, and act individually? Perhaps a careful observation of gregarious animals in a wild state, or even (if a more special definition be wanted) of large crowds or masses of men, might throw some light upon this subject, and it would, at any rate, be approaching it upon a broader basis, and by methods less tainted with our silly prejudices, than has hitherto been done.

But when I speak of gregarious animals in a wild state, I am forgetting that such hardly any longer exist. The great herds of bisons, zebras, antelopes, giraffes, etc., that once roamed over places now given over to humanity (and inhumanity) have disappeared, and what have we learnt from them? Who has watched them—at least very carefully or patiently—with thoughts other than of their slaughter? I know of no careful record of their movements, taken from hour to hour and from day to day. A few generalities, conveying some of the more obvious and striking facts—or what seemed to be so—will alone survive their extinction. Enlightened curiosity has been drowned in bloodthirstiness, and the coarse pleasure of killing has over-ridden in us the higher ones of observation and inference. We have studied animals only to kill them, or killed them in order to study them. Our "zoologists" have been thanatologists. Thus the knowledge gleaned even by the sportsman-naturalist has been scant and bare, for—besides that the proportions of the mixture are generally as Falstaff and Falstaff's page—there is little to be seen between the sighting of the quarry and the crack of the rifle. Observation has commonly left off just where it should have begun.

Had we as often stalked animals in order to observe them, as we have in order to kill them, how much richer might be our knowledge!

 

1. This is the effect produced, but for greater accuracy see p. 245.
2. My very close proximity must be taken into account.
3. As far, at least, as observable from just outside the plantation, and to judge from the sound. But previous movements within the plantation—unless we assume a quite human organisation—would not explain what is here assumed to require explanation.
4. In the wilderness of Grote's twelve volumes I cannot, now, find the passage which I seem to remember so well, nor can anyone (including the whole of the Psychical Research Society) help me to. My Greek word, I am told, too, is wrong. But let it stand till someone can give me the right one.