Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn
Fenn George Manville
English
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Below is a summary of Featherland - How the Birds lived at Greenlawn
Featherland, or How the Birds lived at Greenlawn, by George Manville
Fenn.
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As he explains in the last paragraph the book was written for the
amusement of two little girls who were fond of leaning up against his
knee, and asking him to tell them a story. Fenn was a very good
naturalist, and I feel sure that he enjoyed looking out at the birds on
the lawn, and seeing their reactions to one another. From this he has
gone on to add occasional snatches of English speech, to illustrate to
the girls the way the birds, and a few other animals (the dog, the cat,
the bees, a hedgehog, the flies, the wasps), were behaving in each
other's presence.
On the whole the language is easy, and suitable for young children, but
just occasionally a word slips in such as "gourmandising", which would
need explaining to a child.
I am not much in favour of books that make animals talk as though they
were little human beings, but in this book such language is used only to
the very minimum, just enough to make the animals' activities
meaningful. For the rest the birds mostly make their appointed noises.
But I did enjoy the skylark's song. And once Fenn had put in one song
it was inevitable that he would put in another, for which the bluebottle
was the "singer". NH
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FEATHERLAND; OR, HOW THE BIRDS LIVED AT GREENLAWN, BY GEORGE MANVILLE
FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
HOW SPRING WAS COMING.
"Hallo, old Yellowbill! what's brought you out so early?" said a fine
fat thrush, one bright spring morning, stopping for a moment to look at
his companion, and leaving the great broken-shelled snail he had rooted
out of the ivy bush curling about upon the gravel path. "Hallo, old
Yellowbill! what's brought you out so early?"
"What's that to you, old snail-crusher?" said the blackbird, for he was
in rather an ill temper that morning, through having had a fright in the
night, and being woke up by old Shoutnight the owl, who had been out
mousing and lost his wife, and sat at last in the ivy-tod halloaing and
hoo-hooing, till the gardener's wife threw her husband's old boot out of
the window at him, when he went flop into the laurel bush, and banged
and bounced about, hissing and snapping with his great bill, while his
goggle eyes glowed so angrily that the blackbird's good lady popped off
her nest in a hurry and broke one of her eggs, and, what was worse, was
afraid to go back again till the eggs were nearly cold; and then she was
so cross about it, that although the broken egg was only a bad one, she
turned round upon Flutethroat, her husband, who had been almost
frightened to death, and told him in a pet it was all his fault for not
picking out a better place for the nest.
So it was no wonder that Flutethroat, the blackbird, turned grumpy when
neighbour Spottleover, the thrush, called him "Yellowbill;" for of
course he did not like it any better than a man with a red nose would
like to be called Hot-poker. But it was such a fine morning, and there
were so many dew-worms lying out in the cool grass that the neighbours
could not stop to be crabby. So Spottleover flew off with his snail,
and Flutethroat soon had hold of a thumping, great worm, and set to
work, tug-tug, to draw it from its hole, and then pulled and poked it
about till it was easily to be packed in a knot, when he took it in his
bill and flew off to the laurel bush, where Mrs Flutethroat was busy
sitting upon four green speckly eggs, and waiting very impatiently for
her breakfast.
Just then the sun cocked one side of his great round face over the hill,
and looked down upon Greenlawn garden, where all this took place, and
tried to make the dew-drops glitter and shine upon the grass and leaves;
but he could not, for Dampall, the mist, was out, and had spread himself
all over the place like a great wet smoke; and for ever so long he would
not move, for he did not like the sun at all, because he, as a mist, was
good friends with the moon, and used to let her beams dance all over
him. But it was a fine spring morning, and the sun had got up in a good
humour, and had no end of business to get through that day. There was
all the water on the lowlands to drink up; all the little green buds
just coming out on the trees to warm; the bees to waken up and send
honey-seeking amongst the crocuses, primroses, and violets, that were
all peeping out from amongst last autumn's dead leaves; flies to hunt
out of crevices where they had been asleep all the winter; and old
Bluejacket, the watchman beetle, to wake up from his long doze; as well
as Nibblenut the squirrel, Spikey the hedgehog, and ever so many more
old friends and neighbours; and so, of course, he was not going to be
put down by a cold, raw mist. And, "Pooh!" he said, looking sideways at
it, and, as he got his face a little higher, right through it, "Pooh!
that won't do; you've been up all night, so be off to bed, and don't
think that I am going to put up with any of your nonsense. You had it
all your own way whilst I was busy down south; but I've come back now to
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