Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/42

26 a better source of pleasure than the gratification of animal propensities, it indicates but a sorry intellectual capacity in those who inquire concerning every pursuit that is unconnected with the necessities of life—Cui Bono, "What good is it?"

"I have never known a man," says an old author, "become a worse husband, a worse father, or a worse friend, because he shared his love with a bird, a beetle, or a butterfly; and such an one is no less entitled to respect because he does not scorn to learn a lesson from the meanest thing that God has made."

N these modern days of hirsute appendages, when bipeds in moustaches are by no means rare, it may be a novelty to some to learn that the infection of fashion extends to "bipeds with feathers," and that a little bird, a Tit, is indigenous to our own country, which bears a most [sic]unmistakeable pair of sleek, black, pointed moustaches, but with which the males only are furnished. The Tits are a daring, impudent family from the Great Tit down to Tomtit, and carry a saucy appearance in their very physiognomy. Everyone who has an orchard knows the Blue Tit, and his lively fantastic evolutions about the branches of apple trees, sometimes on one side of a bough and then on the other; as often head downwards as with his head uppermost; with his rough hair-like coat of feathers blowing about like that of a Skye terrier, or the shaggy tuft which surmounts the head of a little city Arab. Our Tit is a far sleeker, smarter bird, he is in fact the "exquisite" of the family of Tits, and so far has severed connection with the plebian Tits, that he has taken to himself a new family name, and is regarded by naturalists as the type and scion of a new house, allied by family ties and old associations with the Tits, but no longer destined to bear their classical name (Parus). The Bearded Tit, for so it is most commonly called, has been dignified with a more aristocratic title (Calamophilus ) long enough to satisfy the most emulous of birds, and it no doubt glories, if bird can glory, in its trim, sleek, aristocratic appearance, an aristocratic pair of long black moustaches, and an aristocratic name. Little boys in Norfolk make "game" of it and call it reed pheasant, but it bears the sobriquet without complaint. Neither does it resent being called "Pinnock" as in some localities, though perfectly innocent of "Catechisms." Specimens of this bird mounted on little wooden perches, and placed on the shelves of glazed cases in public museums, are gross libels upon the bird in its state of nature. We have never seen a stuffed specimen quite to our mind, and scores that we strongly object to. Amongst his native reeds he is the liveliest little "acrobat" one ever saw, running up and down, sometimes with head uppermost, but as often with the long tail thrust out towards the zenith, and his head where ordinary and less vivacious birds seen by their conduct to consider that the tail ought to be. One of the best descriptions yet given of this bird in its native habitat is that of an observer, in the eighth number of Loudon's Magazine, nearly forty years ago, but the facts are true still. "I went," he wrote, "accompanied by one person and a dog to a piece of reeds below Barking Creek, on a cold, windy, dull morning, weather by no means favourable for my purpose. Arrived on our ground, we traversed it for some time without success; and were about to leave it, when our attention was roused by the alarm cry of this species, and looking up, we saw eight or ten of these beautiful little creatures on the wing, just topping the reeds over our head, uttering in full chorus their sweetly musical note, which resembles (if it may be likened to a word) the monosyllable ping, ping; pronounced at first slow and single, then two or three times in a more hurried manner: it may be compared to the music of very small cymbals; is clear and ringing, though soft, and corresponds well with the delicacy and beauty of the form and colour of the bird. We saw several flocks during the monring,