The Humble Naturalist And Nature-Worshipper Can
Only Witness The World Glorified - Transfigured; What He Finds
Is The Important Thing.
I fancy the mystics would have been
nearer the mark if they had said that their experiences during
their
Period of exaltation could not be reported, or that it
would be idle to report them, since their questioners lived on
the ground and would be quite incapable on account of the
mind's limitations of conceiving a state above it and outside
of its own experience.
The glory passed and with it the exaltation: the earth and sea
turned grey; the last boat was drawn up on the slope and the
men departed slowly: only one remained, a rough-looking youth,
about fifteen years old. Some important matter which he was
revolving in his mind had detained him alone on the darkening
beach. He sat down, then stood up and gazed at the rolling
wave after wave to roar and hiss on the shingle at his feet;
then he moved restlessly about, crunching pebbles beneath his
thick boots; finally, making up his mind, he took off his
coat, threw it down, and rolled up his shirt-sleeves, with the
resolute air of a man about to engage in a fight with an
adversary nearly as big as himself. Stepping back a little
space, he made a rush at the sea, not to cast himself in it,
but only, as it turned out, with the object of catching some
water in the hollow of his hands from the top of an incoming
wave. He only succeeded in getting his legs wet, and in
hastily retreating he fell on his back. Nothing daunted, he
got up and renewed the assault, and when he succeeded in
catching water in his hands he dashed it on and vigorously
rubbed it over his dirty face. After repeating the operation
about a dozen times, receiving meanwhile several falls and
wettings, he appeared satisfied, put on his coat and marched
away homewards with a composed air.
Chapter Twenty: Salisbury Revisited
Since that visit to Salisbury, described in a former chapter,
when I watched and listened to the doves in those cold days in
early spring, I have been there a good many times, but never
at the time when the bird colony is most interesting to
observe, just before and during the early part of the
breeding-season. At length, in the early days of June, 1908,
the wished opportunity was mine - wished yet feared, seeing
that it was possible some disaster had fallen upon that unique
colony of stock-doves. It is true they appeared to be long
established and well able to maintain their foothold on the
building in spite of malicious persecuting daws, but there was
nothing to show that they had been long there, seeing that it
had been observed by no person but myself that the cathedral
doves were stock-doves and not the domestic pigeon found on
other large buildings. Great was my happiness to find them
still there, as well as the daws and all the other feathered
people who make this great building their home; even the
kestrels were not wanting. There were three there one
morning, quarrelling with the daws in the old way in the old
place, halfway up the soaring spire. The doves were somewhat
diminished in number, but there were a good many pairs still,
and I found no dead young ones lying about, as they were now
probably grown too large to be ejected, but several young
daws, about a dozen I think, fell to the ground during my
stay. Undoubtedly they were dragged out of their nests and
thrown down, perhaps by daws at enmity with their parents, or
it may be by the doves, who are not meek-spirited, as we have
seen, or they would not be where they are, and may on occasion
retaliate by invading their black enemies' nesting-holes.
Swallows, martins, and swifts were numerous, the martins
especially, and it was beautiful to see them for ever wheeling
about in a loose swarm about the building. They reminded me
of bees and flies, and sometimes with a strong light on them
they were like those small polished black and silvery-white
beetles (Gyrinus) which we see in companies on the surface of
pools and streams, perpetually gliding and whirling about in a
sort of complicated dance. They looked very small at a height
of a couple of hundred feet from the ground, and their
smallness and numbers and lively and eccentric motions made
them very insect-like.
The starlings and sparrows were in a small minority among the
breeders, but including these there were seven species in all,
and as far as I could make out numbered about three hundred
and fifty birds - probably the largest wild bird colony on any
building in England.
Nor could birds in all this land find a more beautiful
building to nest on, unless I except Wells Cathedral solely on
account of its west front, beloved of daws, and where their
numerous black company have so fine an appearance. Wells has
its west front; Salisbury, so vast in size, is yet a marvel of
beauty in its entirety; and seeing it as I now did every day
and wanting nothing better, I wondered at my want of
enthusiasm on a previous visit. Still, to me, the bird
company, the sight of their airy gambols and their various
voices, from the deep human-like dove tone to the perpetual
subdued rippling, running-water sound of the aerial martins,
must always be a principal element in the beautiful effect.
Nor do I know a building where Nature has done more in
enhancing the loveliness of man's work with her added
colouring. The way too in which the colours are distributed
is an example of Nature's most perfect artistry; on the lower,
heavier buttressed parts, where the darkest hues should be, we
find the browns and rust-reds of the minute aerial alga, mixed
with the greys of lichen, these darker stainings extending
upwards to a height of fifty or sixty feet, in places higher,
then giving place to more delicate hues, the pale tender
greens and greenish greys, in places tinged with yellow, the
colours always appearing brightest on the smooth surface
between the windows and sculptured parts.
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