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C. J. Cornish - The Naturalist on the Thames
the heads of these uprights, which are bent and bound horizontally to the other uprights or stakes. This is
the universal "stake and bond" hedge of the shires, impenetrable to cattle, unbreakable, and imperishable,
because the half-cut bonds, the stakes, and the small stuff all shoot again, and in a few years make the
famous "bullfinch" with stake and bond below, and a tall mass of interlacing thorns and small stuff
above.
During the last era of prosperous farming there was a mania for destroying hedges and cutting down the
timber. If ever prosperity returns it will smile on a better-informed class of occupier and owner. It is now
seen that the hedges were of the greatest value to shelter cattle, sheep, and horses, and benefited to some
extent even the sown crops, especially at the blossoming time. As cattle are now the farmer's main
reliance, it will be long before he grubs up or destroys the welcome shelter given by the hedges from sun,
rain, and storm.
THE ENGLISH MOCKING BIRD
One winter an unusual number of peewits visited the flats near Wittenham and Burcote, and remained
there for several months. One or two starlings which haunted the house in which we stayed, and slept in
their old holes in the thatch, picked up all the various peewits' calls and notes, and used to amuse
themselves by repeating these in the apple-trees on sunny mornings. The note was so exact a
reproduction that I often looked up to see where the plover was before I made out that it was only the
starling's mimicry.
A correspondent of the Newcastle Journal, writing from Yeare, near Wooler, in Northumberland,
recently described the performances of a wild starling which has settled near his house. It is such an
excellent mimic of other birds' notes that no one can help noticing its performances. A record has been
kept of the variety entertainments provided by the bird. Besides its own calls, whistles, and song, it
reproduces the song of the blackbird and thrush absolutely correctly, and mimics with equal nicety the
calls of the curlew, the corncrake, and the jackdaw.
It is appropriate that this eulogy of the starling should appear in a Newcastle paper, for Bewick when
residing there always regretted the absence of these birds from the town, and hoped that they might in
time become numerous, as in the South and West. Starlings are such intelligent, interesting, and really
remarkable birds that if they were rare they would be among the most prized of pets. Their open-air vocal
performances are quite as remarkable as their latest admirer says. They are the British mocking-birds,
able, when and if they choose, to reproduce almost any form of song. They do this partly, no doubt,
because their throats are adaptable, but more from temperament and a kind of objective mind not very
common in birds. Like parrots, starlings are given to spending a good deal of every fine morning in
contemplating other people, including other birds, and then in thinking them over, or talking them over to
themselves. Any one who is sitting or working quietly near a room where a parrot is in its cage alone can
fairly follow the train of thought in the parrot's mind. It is evidently recalling episodes or things which
form part of its daily mental experiences. It begins by barking like the dog, then remembers the dog's
mistress, and tells it to be quiet, as she does. Then it hears the housemaid, and imitates a window-sash
being let down, or some phrase it has picked up in the servants' quarters. If it has been lately struck with
some new animal noise or unusual sound, it will be heard practising that. Starlings do exactly the same
thing. When the sun begins to be hot on any fine day, summer or winter, the cock bird goes up usually
alone, to a sunny branch, gable, or chimney, and there indulges in a pleasant reverie, talking aloud all the
time. Its own modes of utterance are three. One is a melodious whistle, rather low and soft; another is a
curious chattering, into which it introduces as many "clicks" as a Zulu talking his native language; and
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