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THE LIBRARY

OF

THE UNIVERSITY
OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES



NATURE'S STORY
OF THE YEAR



For all Lovers of Natural History.



Bird Life in Wild Wales.

By J. A. WALPOLE-BOND.
Illustrated from Photographs by
OLIVER G. PIKE.

Crown 8vo, cloth, 75. 6d.

Quiet Hours with Nature*

By Mrs. BRIGHTU'EX.
Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 55.

THE "BRIGHTWEN" SERIES.

Illustrated. Crown 8vo, Cloth, 2s.

1. Wild Nature won by Kindness.

2. More about Wild Nature.

3. Inmates of my House and Garden.

4. Glimpses into Plant Life : An Easy Guide

to the Study of Botany.

By Mrs. BRIGHTWEX.

5 In Birdland with Field-Glass and Camera.

By OLIVER G. PIKE.



LONDON : T. FISHER UNWIN.



NATURE'S STORY
OF THE YEAR

BY

CHARLES A. WITCHELL



AUTHOR OF "THE EVOLUTION OF BIRD SONG,
"THE CRIES AND CALLS OF WILD BIRDS," ETC., ETC



ILLUSTRATED




LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE MCMIV



(All rights reserved.)




PREFACE



OBSERVERS of Nature generally belong to
one of two classes the scientific and the
imaginative. If scientists, they refuse to consider
any thesis not founded on a vast array of facts ;
and if poets, they may readily initiate a theory
on too few data. These two classes are always
in conflict with each other. The scientist despises
the poet as a visionary ; and is himself regarded
by the adversary as a narrow-minded person.

The accurate classifier is of course highly com-
mendable ; but the propounder of mere theories is
not to be despised, for he is drawing visionary
maps of lines of thought along which the scientist
may find it convenient to travel ; he is like a



viii PREFACE

fruitful tree casting abroad its seeds, some of
which, falling on good material, may by the aid
of the scientist blossom into a tree of knowledge
indeed. And in this connection it must be borne
in mind that human research has not yet attained
the limits of its opportunities : we have arranged
the various orders of animals with some satisfaction
to ourselves, but we have not yet mapped clearly
their mental and moral horizons ; and, though in
any attempt to do so the data obtained must be
scrutinised with all the severity of the scientist,
the poet may well suggest the possible lines of
investigation which might advantageously be
adopted. Fact is the stone of science wherewith
its temples are built ; but imagination suggests
where that stone may be found. This must be
my apology for depicting some curious incidents
in Nature in a frame of imaginative colouring.

I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to my
sister, Miss Lucy C. Witchell, for kindly contri-
buting the frontispiece and the other drawings,
except those signed by Mr. Neale. The photo-
graphs are from various sources.

CHARLES A. WITCHELL.
CHELTENHAM, 1904.




CONTENTS



CHAITER

I. THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE

II. SIGNS OF SPRING

III. APRIL DAYS .

IV. MAY MUSES

(a) By the Stream.
(6) In the Thicket.

V. JUNE JOYS

VI. CONCERNING SWIFTS

VII. WITH INSECT WINGS .

VIII, A COTTESWOLD SUMMER UREEZE



PAGE
I

22
41

75



171

1 86



x CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

IX. AMONG THE TOILERS . . .196

X. AN AUGUST SONG . . . 2IO

XI. SIGNS OF AUTUMN . . . . 22O

XII. WINTRY DAYS . . . .251




LIST OF PRINCIPAL ILLUSTRATIONS



FREE AT LAST !

THE HURRYING STREAM

WHITE ARRAYS CHARGE UP THE SANDS

A WIND-TWISTED TREE

THE COURTSHIP OF THE SKYLARK

UP AND UP THEY GO .

A BRITISH NEWT

THE PENALTY ....

A SUNNY APRIL SCENE



Frontispiece

PAGE

9

14
16



33

35

40
43



xii LIST OF PRINCIPAL ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

A BRITISH LIZARD . . . . 55

HIS NOONTIDE SIESTA . . . -56

RINGED-SNAKE, WATCHFUL, BUT ALERT . 62

YOUNG SNAKES JUST HATCHED ... .69

THE BRITISH ADDER . . . . 72

WHERE THE BROOKLET SINGS . . -77

THE WILLOW-WREN'S LOVE-SONG . . Si

FEEDING HIS BROODING MATE . . -83

THE MALE THREE-SPINED STICKLEBACK AT HIS NEST 92

THE SONG-FLIGHT OF THE WOODWREN . 107

AS WE SAW HIM IN THE MOONLIGHT . . 113

THE SCHOOLBOY'S VICTIMS . . . 136

THE GAMEKEEPER'S WORK . . . . 157

SWIFTS GOING UP FOR THE NIGHT . . 164

AUTUMN FERNS . . . . .221

A WINTRY DAY . . 253

MY MOUSE, BEFORE I CAUGHT HIM . -263

THE RETREATING MIST . . . 272



NIVERS/IL

STRIFE-
O1/IFTEK-I




l\ l\ AN, born in a world of perpetual contest
*.** and conquest, compelled to witness the
ever-changing panorama of life from the cradle
to the grave is by nature qualified to appreciate
somewhat of that vaster strife which seems to rule
the universe. It may be from this cause that he is
so restless, so limitless in his aims and in his efforts
to attain variety ; but this temperament may have
been, on the other hand, the great factor enabling
man to rise so far above the brute in so many
respects, and, perhaps, to sink below him in so
many others. Yet, through it all, man ever
cherishes an ideal of a changeless blessedness in



2 NATURES STORY OF THE YEAR

which restless variation will be stilled in content.
The universe, however, provides no acceptable
evidence of such a state in a material condition
of existence ; even the worlds themselves, " at
whose immensity even soaring fancy stares,"
seem but to have their day, and to pass at their
appointed speed to their appointed fate. But in
these considerations we soon get out of our
mental depth ; we are like the moth that, living
only long enough to find the sweetest burden of
a flower, cannot foreknow the fruit of a later
season ; or like the meal-grub that, weaving
fluffy tubes in the corn-bin, cannot think why
grain is ground. Wearied by the ceaseless tur-
moil of existence, we dream of happy rest ; but
the world knows it not : the universe is a stranger
to it Change, ceaseless alteration, seems to be one
of the fundamental facts of creation ; ever in evi-
dence, though often seemingly delayed, as through
the eternities of the stars ; and sometimes enforced
with subtlety, as by those passive agencies that
fade the leaves ; or in the violence that strips a
flower, or a forest, in the prime. To the higher
forms of life it may bring deep pleasure or intense



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 3

pain ; rest, or frenzied effort ; while the helpless
atoms, active or passive, are borne down the tide
of life. None is free from the certainty of acci-
dent, and accident seemingly without purpose and
dictated by a controlling power careless of any
effect produced. The only care and kindness
apparent to us must be found in the general
averages, not in the fate of individuals. For of
the last it is impossible to estimate the chances.
Our sight, bewildered by the chaotic combat of
Nature, may rest for a moment on some being
that seems to be exactly in accord with its
environment ; but in that instant the creature
may be snatched away to fill the maw of a
stronger one. Meanwhile, some senseless para-
site, whose only weapon of defence is a bound-
less fertility, will survive to torture a world.
This law of the destruction of life that life may
live is comprehensible, but the accident which
seems to govern the application of the rule is
beyond our comprehension. We can only stand
awestruck before that

" Mighty whirling wheel of strife and stress
That none can stay or stem " ;



4 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

awestruck, indeed, but pitying the long tale of
its victims, whose ceaseless cry is the music of
its axletree.

But, though horrified at all the bloody tumult
of the world, let us not shut our eyes and try
to imagine that a different state of things exists,
but rather ceaselessly search out the truest facts
and the innermost laws that occasion it all ; and,
thus seeking, we may perchance gain some sense
of the almighty hidden forces that govern the
destiny of things ; seeing a blend of colour where
all seemed violent contrast, and hearing a har-
mony, though it be but faint, through the shriek-
ing discord. The discovery may not yield us
gold, it may not enable us to avoid one blow
of fate ; but if it merely render our leisure the
more refreshing, it will not have been in vain,
for it will thus strengthen us for the daily battle.
And it is not in the bulkiest forms that we shall
find the most important laws in operation, for in
the realm of Nature nothing is trivial ; indeed, man
has himself achieved some of his most artistic or
momentous triumphs by the aid of insignificant
helpers in Nature's workshop. Aided by organisms



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 5

so small we cannot see them without artificial
help, we combat fatal disease ; and another
minute slave is responsible for the incalculable
effects of fermentation. With others, again, we
are answering successfully the vital question of
sewerage. From what seemed at one time mere
profitless observation of Nature man has gleaned
ideas which have yielded the triumphs of steam
and electricity, and in the organic world watch-
fulness and thought have infinitely enriched us
with endless variety and with profit. Compara-
tively few of us, however, seem to have the
leisure, and fewer still the wish, to make any
sort of investigation of the things of Nature, or
even to notice what transpires in the world
around us.

And no wonder ! For even the briefest glance
into that animate world, at almost any time of
year, is sure to reveal some scene of tragedy,
cruelty, horror ; and the inanimate world is an
endless record of shattering and grinding and
distortion. The mind which has attained to
kindliness is shocked by this revelation, and
would fain discover some calm retreat. But in



6 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

our realm of Nature no such retreat exists not
even beneath the starry sky of midnight, when
the wind seems dead. For out of the black
nothingness flashes a meteor, flaming " lawless
through the void," yet bursting and crumbling
in its glory. The stars, those slow pendulums
swung from the hand of God, may suggest a
sense of peace and rest ; yet they also are the
media of opposing forces. Slight as is our know-
ledge of them, we are sure that they are subject
to the twin (yet eternally conflicting) agencies of
gravity and centrifugal force. Out of the blue
nothing of our sky clouds are born to drench
the earth, and from the deep steely mists the
lightning stretches a vivid arm to rend the
giant trees.

Probing the earth, we find evidence of past
convulsions that wrinkled and fretted the sur-
face of the globe, even to the extent of upheaving
whole formations hundreds of feet in thickness,
and making them overlap like sheets of paper
jostled on a table. There are the ashes of fires
that reared mountains in the molten vomit of
volcanoes. And, when the dead world reveals a



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 7

record of so much violence, we must not be
surprised if in the living world war prevails,
though peace may be desired. Even the placid
stream, stealing softly through its sedges, deep
and tranquil itself, provides a vortex of strife,
where every summer day millions are born but
to fight and die.

And the stream itself has wrought violence.
High up in the hills it was born, racing out
into the day, careless, violent, and irrepressible.
It fretted the gravel, every grain of which bears
marks of rough usage, bruises and abrasions,
which have worn it almost out of recognition.
The original form of the fragment has been lost
in the endless stress of the water. The stone,
dislodged from the face of a rock long ages
ago (by frost or by the crashing descent of a
larger mass), lay for ages in a loamy bed, and
as each successive year threw its green mantle
above, so surely was that garment left to wither
and add a film to the deepening coverlid of mould.
Meanwhile, water began to ooze from the spot,
and every drop that passed rendered easier the
transit of its successors. The million other drops



8 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

that oozed along the clay-bank of the hill found
less easy courses. Here the channel deepened
rapidly, the area of supply as quickly widened,
and the lighter particles of soil having been
borne away, the water began to move the larger
stones. Each fragment within the growing power
of the stream was seized, torn from its bed, flung
this way and that, rolled over multitudes of smaller
nuggets under multitudes of larger ones. Soon
the crude characters of the fragment vanished, as,
amongst ourselves, the stress of a toilsome life will
obliterate individual qualities and tastes. But as
the pebble retains within its true geological nature,
so we retain through every change of life some
trace of the experiences of childhood. Some of
us remain in our loam for life, but the majority
have to become as pebbles or as grains of sand,
worn and chipped and ground into the common-
place, hurrying along the course of life's river, and
fortunate if unshattered by a plunge down sbme
unsuspected precipice.

The rivulet, effectively draining its ever-widening
basin, was not the only leak of the watershed ;
presently it met another stream, a rival miner,



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 9

porter, and singer, and at the point of meeting
a contest occurred. There was a disturbance in
the waters, and a surging like that of opposing
hostile crowds of people ; the rival currents of
water strove each to be first in the race along a




THE HURRYING STREAM.



wider path. They seemed to jostle each other
intentionally, pushing and recoiling, then, clasped
in a whirlpool, reeling like exhausted wrestlers,
and, sinking helpless, grasping for aid the flotsam
and jetsam of the stream and dragging it with



io NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

them. Perpetual reinforcements rushing from
higher reaches continued the contest, but with
always the same result ; the weaker rivulet, how-
ever boisterously it may have laughed from ferny
ledges, only leaped into a grave. It might be said
literally to feed the rival in which it is merged, for
nutrition is but little more than absorption.

The violence of the stream is suggested by its
voice, which is a babel. In the distance the sounds
blend to a soothing strain, but near they are a
boisterous chorus, a wrangle of waterfalls. Some
of the voices in this hurly-burly are sweet, but they
may be lost in the roar of an arching jet which
leaps from a high barrier, a crush of twigs and
leaves, a ledge of rock, or perchance from some
crumpled old tin canister which once contained
charges for a gun, or bait for the trout whose
young now sometimes pause in the hollow
below it.

Often its greatest strife is caused by the narrow-
ing of the course of the stream where it plunges
down a fall into the shade and sends forth a roar
no merry trills and doubles like those sung from
easy gradients, but hisses and rough shouts, almost



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 11

resembling the cries of savage men. Here the little
pebbles are most severely battered, for here the
water strikes them hardest against the rocky walls
as it slowly chips out a wider way. The burden of
the flood, however, is not restricted to the debris of
rocks. It bears onward other relics skeletons of
leaves, rotted twigs, insects of many kinds, the
writhing leech, the drowning moth : all are hurried
along, or are crowded and pressed into the frequent
bars that silt up across the course of the stream.
The noise is ceaseless, and seems to vaunt the
eternal activity and power of the water. Did we
not long ago put this to the test ? Did we never
try to stop a rill ? We tilted a great stone into its
narrow gorge. It was only delayed for a moment.
Little currents seemed to turn back from the ob-
stacle to tell the news up stream. The water began
to mount. We pushed stones, sticks, turves any-
thing at hand down on the rock, and made a
solid barrier. But the stream rose as quickly.
Little jets began to peep down, and when we
turned aside, discomfited, a hundred brook-voices
laughed from the rough projections, while all the
softer materials were dissolved and whirled away.



12 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

What is the purpose of this ceaseless babbling
stream ? The dip whence it comes proves that
though it trickles clear it bleeds the heart of its
parent. By boiling the water we discover its
unseen burden, to the extent of some twenty-two
grains of soluble matter per gallon. If we credit
the streams with the removal of a third of the rain-
fall (a moderate estimate) they would give the
figure of two hundred tons of dissolved materials
per square mile, removed by them every year. To
this calculation must be added the amount of the
organic matter carried by the water ; and we then
have an indication how valleys have been shaped,
if not wholly formed.

The watery vapours rise pure and empty from
the sea. They pass over the land, and the liquid
falls

"To trickle down the hills, and glide again,
Having no pause or peace."

But when it passes in rivers to the sea, it is satu-
rated with the burden of dissolved matters. Thus
the sea, for ever pouring upon the land a vapoury
tide, and for ever receiving from it an enormous



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 13

amount of matter in solution, in addition to all the
muddy suspended substances that dull the streams,
is for ever making a subtle attack on the land.
Along the shores the onset is delivered with open
violence. Here the forces of gravity and tidal
action cause an endless contest, which is increased
to frenzy by storms that buffet the water and
shriek on the rocky shores. The agitation of the
great surface of the deep is then awfully apparent.
There is a tossing of waves like shackled arms that
can threaten but not strike ; while the wind flings
them this way and that, raises them and hurls
them down, wanton child that she is, seeming to
rejoice in destruction. From the land it seems
that the sea is then trying to escape from her
prison. She seems to be rising from her eternal
bed, when she thunders against the rocky shore.
But the rigid walls repel the attempt. Yet she
returns to them again and again, grovelling below
them, with moaning lamentation. They are
drenched with the silvery tears. It is the
shattered hands of water that beat against them.
But all in vain. Then the water is also springing
far up the pebbly beach ; but the battered frag-



M NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

ments afford no shelter to the disturber, though
some are dragged into deeper water. Where the
slope is gradual, white arrays charge up the smooth
sands, each with equal velocity, and each with
equal failure. The long waves seek out every




WHITE ARRAYS CHARGE UP THE SANDS.

hollow ; but the rush changes to a glide, and
at last fades backward down the slope. Yet
all this strife is not quite vain : a few frag-
ments are chipped from the rocks ; a few
pebbles are crushed ; a little sand is wafted on
the changing tide. Thus the sea gathers down



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 15

a little more of the land, and enlarges her
boundaries.

All this violence on the shores, all the inland
torrent of rain, however, probably produces but a
small effect as compared with that of a more
subtle agent the frost, which strikes with sword
and dagger at once for the water, and levers out of
balance ponderous masses of rock that even the
lightning could not dislodge. Silent, seemingly
without motion, the frost inserts a slender weapon
between the rocks, and thrusts them asunder.
When hard weather arrives, there is no change in
the appearance of a cliff, save that the boulders
are stippled with white ; the masses are, indeed,
more firmly bound together by the ice, as with a
crystal cement, though an expanding one. But
the thaw alters the scene. Then countless chips
of stone and fragments of mould fall from the face
of every rocky steep ; and at intervals a boulder
crashes down. The record of this chipping in past
ages may be found in the great beds of angular
gravels, countless chips from exposed rocks, and
not yet waterworn.

The war of the elements is felt everywhere.



1 6



NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR



Storms batter every leaf, and strain each tree.
They press the grasses to the ground whence they
sprang, and dabble the flags of young corn in the




A WIND-TWISTED TREE.

mud. Solitary trees, especially those of the wide-
branched kinds, attest the strain to which they
are subjected, and are twisted by the prevailing
winds, which strike the most against the south-



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 17

ward and longest branches. The force that can
thus affect a great tree stem and make it grow
awry must be vast and continuous ; but sharper is
the violence which uproots a giant elm, or tears off
its branches.

Vegetation, however, strives not only with the
elements, but with itself. Plants are ready com-
batants. From dark recesses they crowd towards
the light. The greatest share of this is gained
by the strongest, or the 'most rapid in growth,
which increases the fatal shade upon its neigh-
bours. Each meadow is a battlefield, not only
for active insects and higher animals, but even
for the passive grasses, which obstruct each
other. The brightest blossoms in woodland glades
exhale odours or spread their glories in uncon-
scious competition for the presence of necessary
insects. The sweetest herbs on sloping banks
contest the possession of clumps of tree-roots
retaining a wealth of rich mould ; or, by means
of the annual casting of seeds, they outstrip each
other in races for the new clearings. There is
the flush of rivalry in their beauty, the poison
of jealousy in their stores of honey. The battle
3



1 8 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

of the plants is important to the seed-eating birds,
who conquer the victors.

But it is not in any particular region of creation
that this strife prevails. Everywhere, and through-
out the circling years, the same incidents are re-
peated, by the same or similar agents, and in forms
so numberless that to observe even a small propor-
tion of them is beyond the power of any single
person, who can only notice minutely a few
individual existences and must generalise as to
the remainder. Happy is he who can perceive
through this tumult some sign of the harmony of
primal energies, or draw some sweets from the
surrounding ferment of life and death, or detect
through the roar of the universal battle some con-
cordant strain. The sign of such a harmony is
not denied to the willing observer. The dull
plant or tree, even, whose slow, dim purpose
occupies a whole summer, or a century, in fulfil-
ment, writes in glowing hues other messages than
those of rivalry and ill-will, or whispers them from
laden branches. The wishes of these simpler
forms of life are not perceptible in a moment.
Place something in the ground to nourish these



THE UNIVERSAL STRIFE 19

growths, and weeks or months may elapse before
the long inquisitive rootlets discover it. Cattle
and other herbivorous mammals partake of prof-
fered greenstuff much quicker ; but even these are
slow as compared with the lightning-like move-
ment of some hungry predacious beast when the
immediate chance of catching prey is perceived.
The plant, therefore, only reveals its inclinations
comparatively slowly ; yet these may not the less
be imaginable, even by man. Is the blossom all a
challenge to rivals, or entirely an allurement for
insects? Does it tell of yet another emotion?
When its face is raised toward the supreme source
of all its effort to be beautiful, and, while absorb-
ing the golden rays, it opens its heart to sight,
more and more, until the very core is revealed,
does it not remind us of the growth of love for
what has seemed glorious and inspiring, in the
human heart ? And again, when the sun has
poured its rays into that hungry heart of the
flower, until it was content, and the merchant bees
have made their subtle exchanges of yellow dust ;
when the blossom sheds its finery, and throws the
arms of the involucre around the core, to guard it



20 NATURE'S STORY OF THE YEAR

from external foes, do we not trace here a sign of
the loving sacrifice that ennobles the nest of higher
forms of life ? For, deep within the shelter of
those arms, minute, yet virile, lies the wondrous
microscopic " cell " which embodies all the poten-
tialities of the parent plant, whose floral beauty it
may perpetuate in succeeding generations. Closely
is it guarded, until the mother-bloom has provided
it with hardy armature, and, in her own death,
commits it in safety to the rugged bosom of the
ground.

The birds, again, ferocious or cruel as many of
them are when attacking their prey, yet afford
suggestions of some calm depth of love underlying
all the hateful tumult of the surface. Without con-
sidering those passionate moments when the in-