Illustrations taken from Our Native Songsters, a book by Anne Pratt published in London in 1853 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. The series of illustrations is part of the Biodiversity Heritage Library‘s commitment to make more accessible the legacy literature of biodiversity held in their collections and to make that literature available for open access and responsible use as a part of a global “biodiversity commons.”
The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) is a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries that works with the international taxonomic community, rights holders, and other interested parties to ensure that this biodiversity heritage is made available to a global audience through open access principles.
One of the earliest building birds is the Crossbill (Loxia curvirostra) which, as early even as January, and commonly during the two following months, is busy in this work of love and duty. It seems occasionally to build in England, and sometimes rears its young among tlie pine plantations of Scothmd, or more frequently still in Ireland. Flocks of these remarkable birds come to our shores from northern countries, at various seasons and at irregular periods. Sometimes they arc seen at Midsummer, but more commonly in autumn. During the latter end of the month of June, 1835, a flight of these birds was observed about the plantations of Saffron Walden and the neighbouring villages, and described by a naturalist there. He remarks, that in the early part of their visit, most of them were in a suit of plain, greenish, sober grey, some very dusky, so as to look very dark, almost black ; and he mentions one which was shot in the June of the following year, which was so dingy as almost to warrant the conclusion that it had chosen a chimney for its sleeping-place. The plumage, however, was continually changing ; some getting more green, or of brighter red or orange; and when in their full feathers, the birds became of rich crimson.
The Crossbill is seven inches in length. The plnmage varies nmch with sex and age : sometimes almost wholly scarlet; at others yellowish olive ; sometunes a mottling of these colonrs, or a combination of them into an orange, more or less bright. The wings and tail are dark brown.
The Martin (Hirundo urbica) which comes to us a few days after the swallow, has, also, a low guttural and pleasing song. Trusting its nest, with all its precious charge, immediately under our very eaves, and in the corners of our windows, we may often hear the gentle notes of the bird, and watch the process by which the mud chamber is gradually shaped into a comfortable and sheltered dwelling-place, destined, probably, for rearing a great number of young martins in the course of successive summers.
The Martin is about five inches and a quarter in length. Upper parts glossy blue-black ; rump, chin, and whole under parts pure white; beak black; feet clothed with grey down.
The power of imitating the notes of other birds is shared by another species of this family, the Wood-chat (Lanius rutilus). Its own tones are not sweet, but it will learn to sing so like a nightingale or linnet, as to deserve a passingmention among our singing birds. It can, however, be scarcely called a British species, being but occasionally seen in our island, though common in France, Germany, and Italy. It is a larger bird than the flusher, and much resembles it in its habits.
The Wood-chat is seven inches and a half in length. Head and neck chestnut; forehead, cheeks, and ear-coverts black ; back black; rump grey; wings and tail black, marked with white; under parts white.
The titmice are much to be admired for the rich tints of tlieir plumage. The greater tit has the most beautiful black feathers on the head and throat, which are brilliantly radiated with blue ; and the no less common Blue Tit* (Parus cwruleus) has the crown of the head of the most vivid blue, bounded on each side by a band of white. This is the blue titmouse, and the Billy Biter of the schoolboy, who, on his bird-nesting expeditions, has perchance known what it was to be pecked at and hissed at by this courageous little bird. But the monotonous tones of the blue tit, heard often as early as February, do not entitle it to a place among our singing birds, nor will the rapidly uttered notes of the Marsh Tit {Parus imlustris) heard among the hushes and osiers which fringe the waters, merry as they may he, arrest our footsteps by their music. Tlie blue tit is useful in ridding us of insects in spring and summer, and is still more so in clearing them when they lie hidden in the buds of winter or early spring. So cleverly does it pick the bones of small birds, on which it feeds, that Klein proposes to employ it in the preparation of skeletons.
The Blue Tit ia four inches and a half in length. Crown of the head light blue ; back and rvunp green ; wings and tail light blue ; the greater wing-coverts and tertials tipped with white ; face and sides of the neck white, divided by a stripe of rich deep blue passing from the beak through each eye to the nape ; another band of deep blue bounds the white below, coming round like a collar to the throat, and thence extending upwards to the chin, and downwards over the breast ; under parts pale yellow ] beak and feet nearly black.
