Chapter 5

[6]The Colours of Animals(International Scientific Series).

AERIAL PIRACY

CHAPTER XVIII

LEARNING TO SOAR

IHAD not before imagined that the puffin was one of those birds that suffered from the extortions of the Arctic or lesser skua, but I have found it out to-day without knowing whether it is in a British Bird book or not. Twice have the two passed me, close together, and flying with tremendous velocity, their wings—especially, I think, those of the skua—making a portentous sound just above my head. The puffin, though hotly pursued, was a little in front, and such was his speed that it seemed doubtful if the skua would overtake him. I suppose, however, that the latter must be competent to do so, or, having learnt otherwise by experience, he would long ago have ceased giving chase.

The puffin, like the partridge and other birds that progress by a succession of quick strokes with the wings, flies with great rapidity. He is so small and light that perhaps one ought not to be surprised at this, so I reserve my wonder for the guillemot. How this solid and weighty-looking bird can, with wings that are small out of all proportion to its bulk, narrow to a degree, and by no means long, get through the air at the rate it does, how it can even stay in it at all and not come plump down like the wooden bird that it looks, is to me a mystery. Thewing, I think, is considerably smaller in proportion to the body than is that of the wild duck. When I see these birds going along over the sea at the rate they do, it does not seem to me impossible that a man should fly, if only his arms were to sprout feathers and his pectoral muscles enlarge sufficiently to enable him to move them with the same quickness. Is there, by the by, any special adaptation to the power of flight in the body and bones of a bat? We are generally referred to such arrangements in reference to the flight of birds, with a view to lessening the wonder of it, as if birds were the only things that flew. Bats, however, are mammals like ourselves, and their aerial performances are very wonderful. I have often watched them and the swifts together, at the close of a summer day, and have been hardly able to decide which of the two showed the greater mastery over the element in which both moved. The swifts indeed alone skimmed on outspread wings, without pulsating them; but in quick, sudden turns in every direction, in the power of instantaneously and abruptly changing the angle of their flight, and especially in descending, sometimes almost perpendicularly, the bats excelled them. In regard to speed, the disparity did not appear to be so great as I suppose it must have been. I do not know if any observations have been made to determine the speed at which bats fly, but they often seem to go very fast.

To return to the puffins, their powers of flight extend a little beyond mere speed gained by constantexertion, for they do sometimes make swift gliding circles through the air, not indeed without moving the wings at all, yet moving them but little, and at intervals—a few pulsations and then a sweep. Yet this is never very much. They seem to be just in the way of getting to something more advanced in flying, without quite knowing what they would be at. However, I think in time they will begin to understand, get a hint of their real feelings, like the heroines in novels, who find all at once that they have been in love for some while without noticing it. (Shakespeare's heroines, by the by, seem to have had a clearer insight into their state of mind—but then, there was more for them to know about.) They—the puffins, I mean, not the heroines—will often, when they leave their nests, mount up to a considerable height and then descend in a long slant to the sea. In this they are peculiar, as far as I have observed, and for some time I could not imagine why they did it; but tearing up some letters one day as I sat on the rock's edge and throwing them towards the sea, the pieces were carried upwards, some of them rising almost perpendicularly, and continuing to do so for some while before they were blown against the higher slopes of the cliff. The puffins, I then felt sure, must mount upon this upward current of air, either as a matter of enjoyment, or as finding it easier to do so. Probably it is the latter consideration which influences them, but ease is nearly allied to enjoyment, passes insensibly into it; and thus, in time, these little puffins maylearn to soar. I was wrong, perhaps, to speak of them as light, for they are solidly made, and no doubt heavy enough in proportion to their bulk. Still, for their type of flight, they seem to me to fly lightly; and there is a little—just a little—tendency, as I have noticed, towards a higher development. I may be mistaken, but I hope that it is so; no one can become intimate with the puffin without wishing him well. It is most interesting to see things in their beginnings, and to speculate on what, if they continue, they are likely, in time, to become.

The puffin has other and far more fatal enemies than the skua. His remains, all picked and bleeding—often as though a feast had but just been made on him—I am constantly finding about, generally on the rocks, but sometimes—once, at least—on the heather above the cliffs. At first, when I began to find these bloody relics, I thought of nothing but peregrines, and the one inhabitant of this great lonely ness confirmed me in this view. But I have never seen one of these birds (or any other hawk) all the time I have been here, and this seems strange if it is really their doing; for I have been out all day long whenever it has not poured continuously—which last, indeed, in spite of the wretchedness of the weather, has not happened often. I hardly think I should have missed seeing one or other of these large birds beating about in wide circles, as is their custom, did they really sojourn here; and yet what more likely place could be found? Lately it has occurred to methe great skua, or the herring or black-backed gull, may be the authors of these tragic occurrences, but I have not seen any of them kill anything yet—not even young birds. However it be, many a scene of ruthless rapine is enacted on these black rocks, beneath these great cliffs, by the surge of the sullen sea. None see it; most, I verily believe, forget it. But it is there, and always there; and so, in ghastly and horrible multiplication, through the whole wide world. How unpitying, howgodlessis nature, when man, with his disguising smiles and honey-out-of-vinegar extractions, is not there to gloze and apologise, to strew his "smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs"!

CHAPTER XIX

THE DANCE OF DEATH

ON this first day of August I was awakened early by something about the hut which I could not understand. It kept shaking, and there was a noise as of something in some kind of indirect contact with it. I only thought of man; and what any one should be doing on this solitary hill at such an hour I could not for the life of me imagine. The shaking and straining, however, continued; so I got up, and, on opening the door, away, with startled looks, rushed two sheep—a dam and her big lamb—who had been rubbing themselves against the iron wires that run from each corner of the roof of my little sentry-box to stakes set in the ground, to which they are fastened in order to strengthen the building. How they stared at me through the thin, damp mists of the morning, petrified at first! and then how wildly they plunged away! I remembered then often to have seen sheep's wool hanging to these wires; and one of them is very much loosened. So there is a little harm done, even by these "woolly fools"; and were they wild creatures, the Philistine mind, which is the great controlling power in everything, would have nothing to set against it. Only the pleasure of killing it is thought worthy to be set in competition against the smallest degree of damage that a wild animal, howeverbeautiful and interesting, may do; but this is such a great set-off that the whole country might be ruined by beasts before any true sportsman would wish to have the evil ended together with his daily blood-draught. The same man who would keep up foxes, to the ruin of agriculture and the depopulation of poultry-yards, makes a shout against the poor cormorants, because to the million enemies that prevent any one kind of fish from crowding out every other kind, it adds its wholly inappreciable efforts. "This also is vanity and a great evil." But what a picturesque morning call to receive!

The three young guillemots are still where they were, but the fourth, which was the first one I saw, and the largest, seems to be gone. I saw this little bird pretty plainly through the glasses, and often flapping its little wings; and it seemed to me evident that it could not yet fly. But who shall say absolutely that it could not, seeing how soon young pheasants do, and how strange and little fitted for it they look? Still more, who shall say that, though it cannot fly, it may not have been able to flutter down to the sea? Until, therefore, the young guillemot is actually seen to leave the ledge, there can be no certainty as to the manner in which it leaves it. Perhaps it has been seen to.Je n'en sais rien, nor do I want to except through experience. What is a cake to me ifIcannot eat it?

I have just seen a curious contrast. A pair of birds, for some reason, began to fight, and foughtmost vigorously. Suddenly they stopped, both of them in a funny set attitude, and each the counterpart of the other. A moment afterwards they were cossetting with the greatest tenderness—every mark of the strongest affection. It is to be presumed, therefore, that they were bird and wife. Guillemots, in their marital relations, are the most affectionate of birds; but this is compatible with the most violent jars—just as it is amongst ourselves. "Ce sont petites choses qui sont de temps en temps nécessaires dans l'amitié; et cinq ou six coups de bâton entre gens qui s'aiment, ne font que ragaillardir l'affection."

Now a bird flies in with a fish, and one of the two chicks left on this part of the cliffs is fed. It was just the same as in the make-believe yesterday—attitude, etc., and the other parent bustling up—except that as the chick was there to take the fish, and wanted no pressing, the ceremony was much sooner over. It is such a cold, sharp wind, now, though the 2nd of August, that I have to tent myself in my Scotch plaid as though I were a young guillemot, besides having a Shetland shawl round my waist, to keep away the lumbago—which, for all that, still plays light fantasias on this poor "machine that is to me." So "here I and sorrow sit," on a razor-blade between two precipices, the one sheer, the other a horrible slant, and look down at another, on the ledges of which are my guillemots and shrieking kittiwakes. Heavens, on what slopes and inclines some of the former sit and crawl! They can fly, it is true; butI cannot, and cannot but remember this, though I am so altruistic that I keep on imagining myself to be them. Now I see the chick that I thought had gone, making the fourth again, in all. It must have moved some distance, to get to where it is. And now comes the Shetland rain.

This was a sharp shower, and by being driven to take refuge I have found a better place. I now look down upon the same slab of rock, not thirty feet below me, that I watched before across a gulf. Seven grown guillemots are full in view, and, now and then, two of the chicks. In these I notice that the black of the upper surface is beginning to encroach upon the white of the throat, which, a day or two back, extended to the beak, being continuous with the breast and belly. Now a little collar of black is pushing round from both sides under the chin, and trying to meet, thinly and faintly, in the centre. The colouring of the adult bird, therefore, in which the neck and throat are dark like the body, is in process of establishing itself.

Each of these two chicks is guarded by a parent bird, who stands between it and the sea; but one of them more relentlessly so than the other. Another parent, who may pass for the mother, stands a little behind one of them, and stretches out a wing. The little one, snuggling up to her, presses its little head amongst the feathers of her side, just under this wing. The mother immediately clasps him with it, and, with half of him thus concealed, he squats down on the rock and evidently goes to sleep. And so close andtight is the embracement that if the mother moves a little, to one or the other side, the chick, moving its little legs, goes with her, partly pulled and partly waddling, but as though all in one with her. Thus they sit together, mother and child, for half an hour or more at a time; and, at these intervals, the chick wakes up, comes out of his feathery dark-closet, and, standing on the rock, preens himself, like a spruce little gentleman. Then, in a few seconds, he goes in again, and the mother, as ready as ever, covers him up as before. The wing is just like an arm, tenderly pressing the child to the mother's side. But all this while—and I think I must have watched them about two hours—the other little chick stands free on the rock, and most busily preens himself. He is guarded, however, as I said. Had it not been for that other chick that I saw go for quite a little walk by itself, I should have thought that they always were, till they left the ledge. But probably as they get older they become just a trifle more independent, and possibly also the size of the ledge or cranny they are born on makes a difference.

Amoremarked or prettier picture of maternal love than this mother guillemot sitting thus on the bare, cold ledge above the great sea, and closely clasping her little one to her side, I do not think all bird life has to offer. Her feelings, too, are written in her expression; her looks are full of love, and of peace, which is ever ready to pass into anxious care and solicitude. It is good that sportsmen are notan observant race of men, for sights like this might upset them—however, to speak candidly, I don't think they would; that was only afaçon de parler. But are sportsmen unobservant? for I make no doubt that some will demur to this proposition. There are, of course, exceptions to all rules, but my own opinion is that it is the tendency of sportsmen to overlook, or pay slight regard to, anything in an animal which does not lie in the path of its being killed by themselves. With its habits in relation tothis, its ruses, wariness, and so forth, they necessarily become acquainted to some extent, generally in a very inappreciative and unsympathetic sort of way—a disgusting way, in fact—"very," as Jingle says—but that, as a rule, is all, or nearly all. The actuating motive is to kill, and the rest—this that I say—follows of necessity. It is easy to deny this, but I appeal to sporting works generally. What a mass of them there are, and, off these special lines, what a little do we know of natural history from the greater number of them! We do not sufficiently appreciate this truth, because the bulk of what we do know in this department comes to us from men who have in some degree been sportsmen. We cannot, of course, expect such knowledge from those whose activities lie in quite different directions—from chemists, astronomers, lawyers, artists, etc.—and the greater part of those who come much in contact with animal life do so—sometimes almost necessarily—as destroyers of it.

It is, I admit, an unhappy truth that the naturalistis generally more or less in combination with the sportsman, but it seems to me that as either element gains ground the other weakens, so that if a man is really and truly a naturalist the passion of killing—and also of collecting—tends to pass into that of observing. When the latter has become very strong in such a man, so that he is interested in the more minute and intricate things in the lives of animals—in their domesticities and affections, their instincts, their intelligence and psychology generally, and with the questions and problems presented by all of these—he is then, I believe, either no more a sportsman or very little of one, though, perhaps, he may not care to admit this to his old sporting friends. In a word, the two things—observation of life and the taking of it—are opposed to each other, though they may be often combined in one and the same man. But whilst the naturalist—by virtue of our savage ancestry—has almost always something of the sportsman in his composition, the sportsman has, for his part, little or nothing of the naturalist. I should never expect the same man to be great in both departments, and I believe that a list of names would support this contention. By "sportsman," however, I understand a man who kills animals primarily on account of the pleasurable sensations which he experiences in so doing. He who really only kills or collects for the purpose of increasing knowledge (so he calls his collection) is no sportsman, in my opinion—though I think he does a great deal more harm than if he were one. The collector I lookupon as the most harmfully destructive animal on this earth, and the more scientific the more destructive he is. The other kind wearies, or may weary, but he never does. His whole life, in thought or act, is one long ceaseless crime against every other life. His goal is extermination, and nature, for him, a museum. He is the most disgusting figure, in my estimation, that has ever appeared in the world, nor is there any thought more painful to me than that of the slaughter he is every day perpetrating, and the extermination of species resulting from it. What deaths may he not achieve in a lifetime! Of all Thugs, he has the biggest record. That he is often an agreeable, intelligent, and cultivated man—a very good fellow and otherwise unoffending member of society—is infinitely to be regretted. I would he were a street nuisance, a swindler, tsar or grand duke, to the boot of his much greater enormities, for then he might be put down, whereas now there is little chance of it.

Thank heaven he is not here, to put all these pretty little families under glass cases, and steal every egg on the ness. To get a thing dead, that is what his love of nature amounts to, and he does it for those like himself. I know the kind of people who enjoy those groups in the museum at South Kensington, and I am sick at heart that they should be there for them. Who is there, with a soul in his body, who can see a lot of young stuffed herons, say, in a nest with their parents, without feeling more disgust atthe Philistine slaughter which procured them than pleasure in the poor lifeless imitation for the sake of which it is perpetrated, and will be perpetrated, over and over again, for wretched little fusty museums in thousands of provincial towns, who must all take this as their model. Some years ago—three or four, I think—a gentleman, commissioned to supply one of these, visited Iceland in the breeding time. Though, by the laws of the country, the birds and eggs, at this season, are most strictly preserved, yet he persuaded one of the magistrates to override these laws and give him a permit for the procuring of specimens, with over three hundred of which—young and old, nests, eggs, and everything, he returned to England. I commend the account of this matter to the notice of the Society for the Protection of Birds, and earnestly hope that, by communicating with the Icelandic—or Danish—Government they may be able to prevent the threatened repetition—for it was threatened in the account itself—of a thing so horrible. It does not seem altogether impossible that the magistrate in question, by allowing himself to be persuaded into granting such permission, committed an illegal act, for which, had it been known, he would have incurred the just rebuke of those in authority over him. If so, it should not be difficult to nip in its poisonous bud an abuse which, if unchecked, will make Iceland a paradise, not of birds for ever, but of bird shooters and stuffers for a few years only.

I believe that these poor stuffed groupings of bird family life, for each of which a whole live family has to be killed, and which have been so much praised, are really nothing but an evil, or, at least, that there is no good in them at all comparable to the evil. All naturalists "of the right breed" whocansee them alive, and not dead, will. Those who cannot will take little consolation in so poor a substitute, and will rather spend their time in seeing what they can than in filling their eyes with mere deadness. It is not for such that these odious slaughters, these revolting barbarities are committed, but for sauntering mechanics, booby children, "Oh my!"-ing servant maids, and a few panel-painting young ladies. These are the beneficiaries; but the real moving motive of it all—thecausa causans—is the inextinguishable fire of slaughter that burns for ever in the human breast. It burns for ever, but, as time works his changes, some new imagined motive must be found for the old passion and the old deed; so over them both science now flings her ample, hypocritical cloak. "For the sake of science"—that is the formula of the professor who sends out the naturalist to slay, and of the naturalist who goes and slays. With that charm on their lips both quench the thirst of their hearts, and feel no evil in the draught. To the strong band of slayers they add their strength, nay, supply it, if that were needed, with an added incentive, preaching a crusade of destruction to its very enthusiasts who, though they love nothing better, yet may nod sometimes, like thegood Homer, and are then urged and begged to continue with "Kill more, and fill our museums. Forget not us poor old professors wearying amidst empty glass cases. Throw us a specimen or two to mumble, while yet there are specimens left. For the sake of science, gentlemen, for the sake of science!" And so, for the sake of science, they add to the dearth of its living material, and kill, very complacently, the goose with the golden eggs.

Science might use her influence to check the dance of death, instead of making it caper more wildly, but there is something in a museum which brings down the high to the level of the low, and makes the learned biologist and the banging idiot the best of good friends and confederates. That museum must be filled, and when it is full the next thing to do is to fill it again; so the cry is ever for specimens, ever "Kill!" That the creature wanted is rare makes it all the more wanted, and a moment's pause in getting it may lead to another museum getting it first: perhaps—coveted honour!—only just before it becomes extinct. For extinction adds a charm to a specimen when once your own museum has obtained it: the rarer it becomes after that, the more the curators chuckle, and with its ceasing for ever rivals are left out in the cold. So science leagues itself with death, and the museums roar, one against another, "Kill!"

A young shag, now, to take these unpleasant reflections out of my mind, is being fed by one of the parents on a great slab of rock, which has no nestupon it that I can see. Now this young bird is nearly, if not quite, as large as the grown one, and only to be distinguished from it by its unadorned brown plumage and the paleness of the skin where naked. There is no doubt at all, I think, that it must long have been swimming, since I have seen smaller and younger-looking birds doing so. The young shag, therefore, must be fed for some time after leaving the nest, and taking to the sea.

CHAPTER XX

"BYANYOTHER NAME"!

AT last I have been able to extract a young puffin from an all-turf hole, which, by reason of its straightness, shortness and narrowness, seems to have been made by the parent birds themselves, not merely found and appropriated by them.Comme il est drôle, ce petit!—though not quite so comic as he will be by and by. Here we have a very salient example of the difference exhibited between the young and mature animal, in regard to some specially developed part or organ, since the beak of this baby is not only without the smallest trace of the colours which seem painted on that of its parents, but, to the eye at least, shows hardly anything of the mature shape, though measurement brings it out more clearly. It is of a uniform black, and hardly looks more than an ordinary beak when one thinks of the grown puffin, or rather when one looks at any of the hundreds standing all about. Though of a good size—some three-quarters grown perhaps—there are no true feathers on the body, at present—all fluffy, black above and whitish underneath. That this black, fluffy, colourless thing should ever become a puffin at all, seems wonderful.

This is not the only little funny thing I have seen to-day. On my way back to the hut I saw an absurdlittle figure running before me, which, at first, looked like nothing, but soon became a little great skua ("my little good Lord Cardinal"). I pressed after, and when it found me overtaking it, it stopped and bit at me, but not as hard as another had done, nor was it so rude when I took it up. This little thing was still covered with a whitey-yellowish fluff, under which the brown feathers were well appearing. When I put it down it ran away lustily, yet in a slow and heavy fashion, as though a great skua through all. All the while, the two parent birds kept circling round with distressed cries of "ak, ak!" and swooping at me often. This they continued to do till I went right away, even whilst I lay on the ground at some distance, in hopes to see something between them and the chick. They never touched me, however, so that it is evident that the fierceness of these birds very much diminishes as the chicks get older. This one must have been out some time, I think, though still in the fluff—or partly in it—so that I cannot say exactly when the diminution commences; but the younger the chick, I think, the fiercer the attack. Valour, probably, has the same ebb and flow with the smaller skua, but I cannot be sure of this, since I did not see the chicks of the birds that attacked me lately. What I am sure of, however, is that they attacked me with unimpaired vigour and no loss of nerve, so that, had I set my cap for them to knock off, why, they would have knocked it off, and some one with a camera might have made a photograph of it.

For all his hat tricks—and I have certainly felt mine move as he flicked it—this great skua seems to me a rather uninteresting bird, so far as he can be studied on land. His piracies, presumably, take place far out at sea, whilst jealousy to guard his young makes it impossible to watch him in his care and nurture of them. For the rest, he does nothing in particular, and he has no wild cry like that which rings out so beautifully to "the wild sky" from his smaller relative. In beauty of form and of colour, in grace and speed of flight, in the wild, inspiring music of its cry, in its sportings, its piracies, its pretty sociable ablutions, and in its attacks, too, wherein the boldness is equal and the poised sweeps more splendid and lovely, the lesser skua, say I, the Arctic skua—Stercorarius crepidatus—a bird that has only one thing prosaic about it, its prænomen of "Richardson's" namely, which is a thing it can't help, it having been forced upon it by prosaic people. Oh, how all the poetry seems to go out of bird or beast when it is named in that Philistine fashion, brought into perpetual association with some man—some civilised man—appropriated to him, made the slave of the "Smith," or the "Brown" or the "Robinson"! What a vulgar absurdity to make the name of a species a mere vehicle for the sordid commemoration of some one or other's having been the first to see and slaughter it! What, when we think of any wild creature, do we care to know about that? What should its name call up before us but a picture ofits wild self alone? Who wants some man's ugly phiz to be projected upon it? The lion—the eagle—the albatross—we see them as we say their names. But Jones's lion—Smith's eagle—Thomson's or somebody's albatross, what do these body forth for us? Not only the animal itself, but everything it suggests, as pertaining to it, that should make its appropriate setting in our minds, the sea, the mountain peaks, the sand-swept, bush-strewn desert, with the ideas belonging to each, the feelings they arouse, the whole mental picture in fact, is blurred or cruelly blotted out by the obtrusive image of some human face or form, which insists upon fitting itself to the irrelevant human name, and which, as there is no knowledge to guide it, is made up, usually, of the most commonplace elements. Thus an indistinct prosaic figure of our own species is substituted for that of the species itself—obsesses us, as it were, and prevents that legitimate, placid enjoyment which a naturalist should receive through the name alone of any animal. I hate these obtrusions. Why, at least, cannot they be shrouded in the Latin only—since every species has its Latin name? Thus decently buried, the Temmincks and the Richardsons, the Schalks, Burchells, and Grevys, would not so much bother us. But for heaven's sake let the vernacular name of any creature have to do with itself only. It is intolerable to want to see a bird of paradise—"in my mind's eye Horatio"—and to have to see Herr Schalk, or a zebra and have to see Monsieur Grevy—a shadowygentleman each time, which we know is not the real one—instead of a beautiful bird or beast. However, it's a prosaic age, and few feel strongly on such matters.

The other young great skua that I came across—a day or two ago—was almost full-fledged, with only hairs of fluff here and there. But though he looked much more emancipated he did not run away like this one, but lay crouched where he was. On approaching my hand, however, he bit it more fiercely than any gull yet has, and when I took him up his anger, or fear, or both, discharged itself at either extremity, for from one he ejected a fish, and from the other a mighty volume of white matter in a semi-fluid state. It took effect, fortunately, on my umbrella only, which I had to wash, and was very effective in allowing the perpetrator to escapeà lacuttlefish.

The note of the puffin is very peculiar—sepulchrally deep and full of the deepest feeling. In expression it comes from the heart, but in tone and quality from somewhere much lower down. It varies a little, however, or rather there are more notes than one, and some of them are combined into a poem or symphony, which is the puffin's chief effort. This, however, is not often heard in its entirety—from end to end, like the whole of a fine poem. As a rule one has to be satisfied with extracts; but when one does get it all, it sounds something like this—for I can best express it by a diagram.

Another note is much more commonly heard, viz.a long, deep, slowly-rising "awe!" uttered in something a tone of solemn expostulation, as though the bird were in the pulpit. In the general quality and character of the sound, this less-developed note resembles the more elaborate one, or collection of ones. It is more continuous, however; the theme is less broken. There are no separate headings; the remonstrance is general, and includes everything worth it in one grand diapason that never leaves off. I do not, therefore, consider it a mere part of the other—an extract from the full poem, or sermon—but something different, yet akin; another, though allied, treatment of a closely similar theme.

CHAPTER XXI

"NOT ALWAYS TO THE STRONG"

IN the little black sentry-box where I pass the night there are two or three books belonging to its more permanent occupant. One of them is a British Bird book, and so last night when I got to bed I turned up the peregrine falcon. The author finds it the most infallible of all the hawk and eagle tribe; the one that least often misses its prey, and never attempts more than it is capable of performing. Never in his experience, I think he says, has he seen it strike in vain. I have not had his experience—I wish I had—but from the little I have seen and what I hear now from an eye-witness, I cannot help thinking that, in this respect, the peregrine does not differ greatly from others of his kind. It is there and thereabouts with him, I suspect, for under my very nose, down in Suffolk, he was foiled by a partridge in the most discreditable way, and here in the Shetlands he is quite capable of not succeeding with ordinary dovecote pigeons, as I will show, not upon my own evidence, unfortunately, for I wish I had seen it, but upon that of a lady, well known here, who saw it and told me of it herself. I got to Balta Sound last Sunday, and on the following Monday I called upon Mrs. Saxby at her pretty little white comfy cottage, who took me to look at a dovery which, since my last coming, she had had put up inher garden. Several rows of boxes were arranged against one side of the house, but a less usual and more attractive feature was a pretty little rockery on the lawn beneath, about which the birds loved to be. They cooed and strutted, or sat basking and sunning, on every little pinnacle and "jutty frieze" of it, thus at the same time emphasising their descent from the rock-loving Columbia Livia and the dullness and want of taste of the average mortal who, when he keeps pigeons, never thinks of providing a rockery for them, in accordance with their inherited tastes and proclivities. One glance was sufficient. It was instantly evident that not even on the most elegant cot do these pretty birds look nearly so pretty as amongst rocks and stones tastefully and conveniently arranged. This rockery was a flower-bed also, and with the flowers the pigeons did not interfere, whilst the beauty of them was greatly set off by their own, and their own by that of the flowers. The art of exhibiting birds and beasts to the most picturesque advantage, in which we should be equally studying both our and their happiness, as well as adding largely to our knowledge, is indeed hardly understood amongst us.

Mrs. Saxby told me that her pigeons had attracted some peregrines to the neighbourhood, and that they had several times attacked them, but, as yet, without success. In one pursuit which she witnessed a particular bird was singled out, separated from its companions, and struck at again and again, but always managed to avoid the rush of the hawk, and, atlast, got back to the boxes, where it lay for some time in a seemingly exhausted condition. Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, in his gossipy work,The Wonders of Bird Life, describes how, in modern falconry, he has seen a rook dodge, time after time, with the same success, till he at last reached the wood for which he had been making; and here, I think, the falcon was also a peregrine. For myself, therefore, I do not believe that this bird is a greater adept than others of the class to which he belongs, nor do I see why he should be. All have to live by overcoming in speed and agility birds whose speed and agility has been gained in direct relation to themselves, from which it should follow that the hunter and the hunted ought to fail and succeed about as often as each other.

There is probably no bird of prey that pigeons have not a fair chance of foiling. I have seen some wild ones that lived amongst the rocky precipices of a hill overlooking Srinagar foil a pair of eagles many times in succession, and I do not think one of them had been caught when I went away. The great downward rushes of these eagles, or rather the tremendous rushing sound that they made—for I only seem to remember them as swift, storm-like shadows on the air—as also the marvels of speed and quick turning exhibited by the pigeons, and their dreadful fear—expressed sometimes vocally if I mistake not[7]—I shall never, to the end of life, forget. In effecting theirnumerous escapes, the face of the rock stood them in good stead, and they deliberately made use of it, in my opinion, for, dashing in and out, they would cling to or double against it in places where the eagles, as larger birds, could not follow them so deftly, and had perforce to check their speed. The principle was the same as that by which a hare would be enabled to run at top speed almost right up to a wall, whereas a man, pursuing on horseback, would be forced to pull up at a greater distance from it. The discrepancy, however, being here not so great, and the weaker party having often, in spite of the adage, to go from the wall, the interest and excitement—to say nothing of its loftier character—was in proportion. All this is vaguely, though vividly, in my recollection, but I can give no details; it was years ago, and I carried no notebook then. The sound, I find, is what has remained most strongly impressed on my mind; those wonderful grand rushing sweeps of the great pinions—the spirit of all storms seemed to live in each one of them.

[7]That peculiar coo of terror which anyone may hear who enters any place where dove-cot pigeons are kept, and approaches their boxes closely.

CHAPTER XXII

CHILDREN OF THE MISTS

IT was to-day that I saw that pursuit by an Arctic skua of a rock-pipit to which I have before alluded. It was over the heath, though near the cliffs. As to the rock-pipit never leaving the seashore (as I find stated), or any other bird or animal never varying its usual habits, that is a proposition which I will never accept, it being altogether against my experience. The skua pursued for some time, with murder, I thought, printed upon every feather of him; but the pipit was too quick, and by turning and doubling in a space proportionate to his own small size, eluded every sweep of the enemy, who, at last, gave up. It would appear, therefore, that this smaller skua preys on small things, for one cannot suppose him sinking so low as toroba rock-pipit—who, besides, carried nothing that I could see. Possibly, however, the chase was for mere amusement.

These skuas bathe every day, and at all times of it, in the two little meres, or pools rather, amidst the heather, not far from the hut. Sometimes there are a dozen or more together, of all shades of coloration, and generally it is a social gathering. They seem very exclusive, for I have never seen a gull bathing in the same pool with them. This, however, is nothing, as gulls do not breed on this part of the ness, and butseldom fly over it, being chased by the skuas when they do. Elsewhere I have seen them both bathing at the same time; but always, I think, a little apart. I never remember to have seen the great skua bathing; but then there is no special pool in his territory, and partly for reasons given, and also because of the hilly and bumpy character of the ground, it is difficult to watch him. I have done my best, however, and most of what I have to say about him I have said inBird Watching; but it does not amount to very much.

These Arctic skuas bathe together very prettily. They sit high and light on the water, duck their heads under it, and throw it over them with their wings. Between their ablutions they often sport in the air, swooping at and chasing one another. Their motions are such as one might imagine those of elemental spirits to be, and their wild cry adds to this imaginary resemblance. Oh, that cry, that wild, wild cry, that music of the winds, the clouds, the drifting rain and mist—like them, free as them, voicing their freedom, making their spirit articulate! Who can describe it, or put down into poor, paltry syllables the glory that lives in it? Let none try. Let no clumsy imitation disfigure it, but let it live for ever in the memory of him who has sat on the great ness-side, on the dividing-line of sea and sky, and heard it pealing so clearly, so cheerly, so gladly wild, so wildly, madly glad. So let it come to him again in his own soul's music, scudding with the clouds, driving with the driving mists, ringing out like "thewild bells to the wild sky." And never let that sky be blue that it rings to, unless in pale, moist patches, drowning amidst watery clouds; and never let there be a sun, to be called one, but only a glint and a gleaming, a storming of stormy light, a wet beam flung on a rain-cloud. Child of the mists, of the grey-eyed and desolate north-land, what hast thou to do with the robes of the vine and the olive? To be brief, I know of no cry, of no voice so exhilarating as that of this poetic bird.

If the guillemot is less poetic, he is still more interesting as a close study—or at least one can study him more closely. Coming to my ledge again this afternoon, I find both the little chicks reposing beneath the parental wing, as described in the last chapter. It is a misty and mist-rainy day, which may incline them all the more to take shelter, if, indeed, they are open to such influences. But whether they are or not, they are not afraid to come out, and in about ten minutes there is an interesting scene. The partner of one of the two birds that have chicks flies on to the ledge with a fish that looks like a large-sized sardine in his bill. Instantly two or three of the birds standing about begin to utter their curious cry—a kind of shrieking Swissjodelending in barks—till it swells into a full chorus. Full of importance, and with a very paternal look, the new-comer bustles up to wife and child, and the latter, emerging with great vivacity, receives the fish and gulps it down whole, showingin the process such a receptive power as I have hardly seen excelled, even in a snake. He looks like a little bag that the fish goes comfortably into, and that with a little swelling might hold another, but hardly more. After this there is a matrimonial greeting scene between the two parents. They make little playful tilts at each other with their stiletto-like bills, and both utter the curious yapping note with which thejodelcommonly ends. With this the effusion is over, and things settle down into their old course. The chick is now ready to go to sleep again, and, with the fish inside him, toddles to his mother, and pecks at, or, rather, rams with his bill, amongst just those feathers that make his accustomed awning. She, however, is not yet ready for him. She is preening herself, and for a few minutes she keeps her wing close. After that he is admitted, and the two repose in the accustomed way. In about a quarter of an hour the chick is out again, and this time goes a little farther afield than usual. He is alone comparatively—about a foot from the sheltering wing—when all at once the other parent—the father—opening his bill, andjodel-ing, comes walking up to him, bends his head over him,jodel-ing still, then tenderly probes and preens him with the point of his bill. He acknowledges this by burrowing into his new guardian's side, upon which the paternal wing opens and closes upon him. It does not, however, seem to go so well as it did just before with his mother, and in a little while he comes out and goes over to heragain. She meets him,jodelsover him a little, and soon they are lying close pressed together, as before.

I have now to mention that the parent who, up to the present, has taken most charge of the chick, and which I have therefore been calling the mother, has the curious narrow white circle, or rather ellipse, round the eye, with a straight line, also white, projecting backwards from the backward corner of it. The other one has no such mark, or rather he has it without the white feathers, for, as I believe is the case with all these birds, the same thing is represented by a depression or groove in the plumage, which is especially noticeable along the backward-running line. If we suppose the white mark to be an adornment gained by sexual selection, what are we to think of the depression which preceded it? Is it sufficiently obvious to be noticed by the birds in each other, and if so, can it be supposed to be pleasing to them? Considering how close together guillemots stand on the ledges, I should think it must be as plain to their observation as a parting down the hair is to ours. Hair-partings are admired by us, and so, too, are gashes on the face, even in intellectual Germany. But though the mark may not represent any special sexual adornment, the white colour which so powerfully emphasises it may, and this, perhaps, has come about owing to the nipping in of the feathers, along the line of depression, having stopped the flow of the colouring pigment.

The little chick, now, pushing, as it seems, againsthis mother, stretches his legs straight out behind him on the rock, and lies like this for a few seconds, as we sometimes see a cat or a dog do. Then he comes out, preens himself, and voids his excrement, and I cannot but record—for indeed it was very funny—that this hits exactly in the eye, and over the face generally, another guillemot standing about two feet from him on the edge of the ledge. The poor bird thus distinguished stands with a comical look, and for some while shakes its head very vigorously. Later, when it comes somewhat near to the chick, the latter's mother utters thejodelin a warning tone of voice, seeming to say, "Thus far, but no farther." The chick, having preened itself a little, goes again to its mother, and is received this time beneath her other wing, which is the farther one. I look down upon them now a little more perpendicularly, so that he seems almost to have disappeared altogether.

It is really wonderful—and the incident just given illustrates it—what a power all these sea-birds have of ejecting their excrement to a distance. Not only is it propelled with great force forwards, but also upwards, so that its course is crescentic; and in this, perhaps, we may look back to a time when the guillemot and fulmar petrel made nests, for it is by this arrangement that the nest of the shag is kept clean whilst the rock all about it is coated with excrement. I mention the fulmar petrel as well as the guillemot, because, whatever may be the case elsewhere, herethese birds lay on the bare rock without a shadow of a nest.

I remark now what in my slaughterous days I remember noticing, without attaching any meaning to it, viz. that there is a particular line or scroll or outswelling of feathers on each side of the guillemot's body, all along the lower breast and ventral surface. They are longer than the close feathers in front, and begin to be flecked with grey. It is just into this zone of deeper plumage that the young guillemot insinuates itself when wishing to go "sleepy-by." Also, when the old bird flaps its wings I seem to notice a little depression or alcove just underneath them—the chick's cradle, boudoir, or dormitory, as I am inclined to think—like a sleeping-bunk in the wall of a Highland cottage. Similar depressions I thought I saw once on the back of the dabchick, when I watched her domestic arrangements; but I will not be sure in either case.

Once again the chick comes out and walks to a little way from its mother. Having preened itself, it goes back to her, and then flaps its little wings. The quill feathers are growing and look just about an inch long. They are a good deal separated from one another, and have a very feeble appearance. Still, they might serve to make a fall a long fall, which is all that would be required of them to take their owner to the sea. The preening over, the chick, with considerable insistence, burrows once more under its mother's wing, and I now leave, it being all mist and raininginto mist. I had meant to see the fulmar petrels again before returning, but by the time I get to the top of the path leading down to them it is nearly six, the drizzle increasing, and the mist on the hills thickening. The hut stands sufficiently high for it to be always enshrouded when a mist comes on, and it may then be difficult to strike. However, from the round house where the signals are shown, each morning, to the lighthouse on the great stack opposite, by a man who walks up from the village at the foot of the ness, there winds a foot-track with posts stuck at long intervals beside it. When one gets near to the fifth post one should see the hut if the mist is not very thick, and even if it is, one has then a good chance of striking it. The signal-house, or rather shed, one may strike by going constantly upwards till the highest point is reached; but it is possible to miss it, and also the track between post and post. As the gulls and the two kinds of skuas have each their separate breeding-place upon the ness—thus, as it were, mapping it out—they, too, are of some assistance in finding one's way. Still, the possibility of a night out at the end of any day is not a pleasant thing to think of, and I am always very glad when I see the hut through the mists, and still gladder when there are no mists to see it through.

It seems wonderful that any corner of the United Kingdom can hold a summer like this—little as I mistake the United Kingdom for paradise. It is like a bad November in England, but with more of thespirit of youth and freshness in it; always thought that the wind is perpetual and multiplied by about a hundred. I am told this summer is unprecedented, even in the Shetlands, but bad weather precedents are seldom remembered by the seasoned inhabitants of a place. I, as a visitor, can remember the June and July of two years ago, and "if it was not Bran, it was Bran's brother," as the Highlanders say.

I forgot to mention that whilst watching the guillemots on the ledges, one of them flew down into the sea, just below, which was like a great, clear basin, and thus gave me the first opportunity I have yet had of seeing a guillemot under water. It progressed, like the razorbill and puffin, by repeated strokes of its wings, which were not, however, outspread as in flight, but held as they are when closed, parallel, that is to say, roughly speaking, with the sides, from which they were moved outwards, and then back, with a flap-like motion, as though attached to them all along. Thus the flight through the water is managed in a very different way from the flight through the air.

The descent to these guillemot ledges—for they represent the first only, and lowest, of the up-piled strata of which the entire precipice is formed—seems to me, who am no particular cragsman, to get worse every day. There are parts of it which I very much dislike—a green edge, and not much of it, above a well-nigh precipitous slope of the same lush grass, starred, here and there, with points of rock, andending in nothing—sheer vacuity. How one would fly down this, and then over!—but not like a guillemot. It is horrid to think of, and the little painted puffins seem waiting to see it take place—grouped as they are on every rock and all over the green spongy turf, honeycombed everywhere with their breeding-holes—a vast amphitheatre of impassive spectators. Lower down, when it gets to the rock, it seems safer, but I doubt if it really is. The path then leads over a great jagged spur of the precipice, made up of its down-tumblings from the heights above, which are piled very loose, so that the blocks are sometimes hardly held together by the soil between them, this having been formed entirely out of their own crumblings and disintegration. I was appalled, the other day, by displacing a huge one just above me, which I had been going to climb up. It looked as firm as it was massive, and I have been very careful since. That boulder, which, had it really fallen, would have brought down an avalanche with it, has a nasty look to me now, and I have to pass it each time, descending and returning, the whole path being a razor's edge, though the mere climbing is easy enough.

As I halted and looked back, this afternoon, in the midst of my ascent, I was struck by the figure of a shag, or smaller cormorant, standing in the exact centre of the highest ridge of one of those great isolated piles of rock that the sea has cut off from their parent precipice, and which are called here "stacks." Ithad the wings spread out, after its fashion, and looked thus, and in its "pride of place," absurdly like the heraldic eagle of some cock-crowing nationality or other: American, Austrian, Russian, or any of them—for they all crow and will all, one day, "yield the crow a pudding."

What month in the year was it that King Lear was turned out into the storm? This is August, but what a night! I can see no farther than a few paces outside the hut. All is mist, with spit-fire storms of rain, and a wind that seems as though it would blow the ness into the sea. "A brave night to cool a courtesan in," and so it was, last night; nor did it greatly differ the night before.

The wind is not so pleasant to hear at night-time here as it is in England. I cannot lie and listen to it with the same feelings. It has not the same poetry, for there are no trees for it to sigh and moan through, and therefore it cannot produce those sad, weird, mysterious sounds which appeal so powerfully to the imagination. Instead, it strikes the hut with sudden bangs and blows which upset one's nerves and have an irritating effect upon one. There is noise, racket, and bluster, but no mystery, no haunting mournfulness. It plays no "eolian harps amongst the trees." No, the wind here is "the fierce Kabibonokka" that—

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