TAME DIVERS.
Whenan ideal home for the diving birds is constructed at the Zoo, we may hope to see them sitting in the sunlight on the flat rocks they love, and watch the guillemots and razorbills rearing their young, or swimming on the surface with their offspring sitting on their backs as they do off the cliffs of Freshwater and Flamborough Head. These rock-fowl, unlike the gulls and terns, are more easily tamed, and in a sense domesticated, than any other bird except the parrot. But unlike the parrots, they have so little fear of man in a wild state, that is when quite young, but able to fish for themselves at sea, that two or three days in human company are enough to attach them firmly to their new acquaintances. The tameness of the full-grown young razorbills when engaged in fishing in the narrow waters of the lochs on the west coast of Scotland has been more than once mentioned to the writer; they hardly care to move out of the way of a yacht’s boats, when these are rowing to and from the shore or rowing up the lochs. The young full-grown birds would allow the boats almost to rowover them, and when a hand was stretched out to pick them up they would just dive below the keel, and rise as near on the other side. In the Irish Sea they kept so close to a yacht that the spray from the bow, or the parting waves under the stern, seemed often about to break over them. That this was due to a certain confidence in man is partly shown by the behaviour of a young bird which was found by some members of the same ship’s party, swimming by itself in a small lagoon left by the tide off the Norfolk coast. Razorbills are not common near this low shore, and this young bird had probably come in pursuit of a shoal of fish, and been unable to find its companions again. In any case it was quite alone, and in the absence of any of its own kind, made itself one of a bathing party of young people who frequented the part of the beach where it was first seen. It allowed itself to be caught and taken up to the house, where, on the arrival of the elders from a drive, it was found in the stableyard, sitting in the middle of a large preserving-pan which had been turned into a temporary stew-pond for a number of small eels which the children had amused themselves with catching when paddling in the stream the day before. “It has eatenallthe fish!” was the first intelligence of the ways of the new arrival; as a fact, there were one or two eels left, at which the razorbill, looking like one who had greatly dined, now and then aimed an apathetic peck. To be carried inland by children, and then, surrounded by a whole family of humans,to catch and eat about twenty live eels in a stew-pan, is good evidence of the confidence which these birds have in man. From that day until its lamented death the bird was as much a member of the family as the fox-terrier or the cats. Next day it was carried down to the beach, and placed on the wet sand by the breakers. It waddled down to the water, took a swim round, and came back to the shore. This happened twice or thrice, and as it showed no disposition to return to the sea it was carried back once more to the house. Every day the bird was taken down to the beach and set free, while the whole party bathed from tents set on the shore. It would swim out sometimes as far as a quarter of a mile, until it was a mere black speck on the water. Then, just as it seemed about to leave its friends for good, the black speck turned into a white one as the bird turned its white breast towards the shore. It would swim steadily towards the bathing-tent, scramble out of the water, and walk up to the shingle bank on which the party were lying enjoying the sun after their bathe. The razorbill, having completely identified itself with the habits of its hosts would do the same, opening its wings and sunning itself beside them. One rather rough day, with a choppy sea, it was carried some way down the shore by a current, and landed at a considerable distance from its usual point; but it succeeded in landing at a place opposite to where some of the party were waiting for it. During these excursionsit dived and fished in the small lagoons left by the tide, and the provision of a further supply was of course a delightful occupation to the children, to whom the razorbill’s unfailing appetite was a valid reason for being on the shore and in the water at all hours. This curious alliance lasted for some nine or ten days, when the bird was choked by its food in a rather odd way. One of the children was holding in one hand a flat-fish, which was about to be cut up into pieces of a size more suited to the size of the razorbill’s throat. The bird was sitting on her other hand at the time, and reaching across seized the fish by the head, jerked it from her hand, and swallowed it. But though not choked at the time, it never recovered the effects of its surfeit of flounder, and died greatly lamented on the following day.
The penguin can be tamed almost as easily, or rather are often tame from the first. The keeper of the diving birds, like many others at the Zoological Gardens, is an East Anglian, coming from one of the most secluded and least aquatic districts of Central Suffolk. But the instinct for the care of animals, from cart-horses down to geese and game-bantams, is innate in the intelligent Suffolk and Norfolk countryman; and Waterman usually has at least one penguin which is almost as companionable as a child. Prince, a rock-hopper penguin from New Zealand, was perhaps the most amusing and interesting of these amphibious pets. It was the owner of a smart red flannel jacket with yellow facings, which had been presented to itby an admirer, and dressed in this the penguin would hop, hop, hop, in the most ludicrous and serious fashion, after its keeper, or make an excursion on to the lawn outside, where theflightof the sparrows seemed a constant source of interest to this wingless bird. Poor Prince died a victim to influenza, and it will be long before his place is taken by a more friendly or amusing creature.