"Shouted down into the smoke-flue,Shook the lodge-poles in his fury,Flapped the curtain of the doorway,"
but not the wind that one knows so well in England and hears for ever in those lines ofMaud—
"And out he walked when the wind like a broken worldling wailed,And the flying gold of the ruined woodlands flew through the air."
There can never be a wind like that here, where there are no leaves when "summer woods are leafy" and no trees "when winter storms sing i' the tree."
Plague take the wind! It is like a bombardment.
CHAPTER XXIII
LOVE ON THE LEDGES
T
THE ledges are thinning. There are only thirty-seven birds now where I counted more than a hundred the other day; but some may be coming back. My special young one is lying on the ledge with its face to the cliff, and the white-eyed bird standing over it; but very soon it turns, and is under the wing, as usual. The left wing seems the favoured one. Always, except once, it has been that. The other young one is also lying under the wing, just as it was yesterday, and here, too, as always before, it is the left one. All these guillemots keep constantly uttering exclamations, as they may be called—different intonations of a deep "ur!" or "oor!" with an occasional much louder "ara!" or "hara!" of which last I have spoken. This has been the case since I came here. There is a great deal of expression in these sounds—quite as much so, it seems to me, as in some of our own exclamations. Any emotion which rises above the ordinary level of feeling, be it to do with fighting, feeding, loving, may give rise to the prolonged, deepjodel. The plain parent now flies in with a fish for the young one, and there is exactly the same scene as the last time, all the birds near, as well as the father and mother,jodel-ing excitedly. The fish is then laid on the ledge before the chick, who, getting it head downwards, swallowsit voraciously. Directly afterwards the white-eyed bird, for the first time that I have yet seen, flies from the ledge into the sea, but too far off for me to watch. The other one remains, but he does not seem ready with his wing. The chick makes several attempts to take sanctuary, but they are not responded to, so he is reduced to standing and preening himself, the father standing just behind him, between him and the sea. At last, however, he forces himself under the wing, but it hangs over him awkwardly, not clasping him at all, and very shortly—in less than a minute—he comes out again.
A well-grown young shag now, distinguishable only by its brownness, is fed on the rocks by the old bird. The manner of it is just the same as when on the nest. It flaps its wings the whole time it is being fed, as young rooks do, and the parent at last shakes it off and flies down into the sea. I cannot follow these shags for any distance under the water. They seem to strike deep from the moment they plunge, and the way they plunge, indeed, suggests this; but guillemots often swim for a long time, not far below the surface. Contradicted again! to my very face, by some shags in the pool here. They have swum quite like the guillemots in this respect. Birds are sometimes very rude.
The eyed guillemot has now been absent for two hours, and all this time the chick has sat or stood with the other parent by him, but not under his wing, nor have I seen any further attempt on his part to getthere. This certainly looks like a partition of office as between the two parents, but it is hardly worth while saying so, for everything one says or thinks one hour or day is contradicted the next. There is little or no uniformity in the actions of birds. That is my constant experience. The other chick has been for long clasped under the parental (left) wing, but whether it has always been the same parent I cannot say, for there is nothing here to distinguish the two. Now, however, there is an interlude, both the parent and chick standing and preening themselves. The chick stands comparatively alone, with nothing between him and the sea. Now he has disappeared, moving a little along the cliff's edge, but soon I see him again, clasped tight beneath the wing of one or other parent, who sits close brooding on the rock. I think there has been a change of parents here, so here is the accustomed contradiction.
Looking down through the glasses at the chick, it appears to me to be feathered, but to have, at least on the back, a close crop of down projecting above them. The beak is nothing like so long as the parents', either actually or in proportion to the chick's size, or the size of its head. The feet, however, are relatively quite as large, or even larger. The bird is getting on in size, and again I wonder why, if it is taken down on the parent's back, this flight is so long delayed. It is difficult, indeed, when one sees the little wings flapped, to think that the chick can fly yet, in any proper sense of the word, but it does not seem to meimpossible that these little wings should be adequate to take it down in a slanting line to the sea, and the longer it stays on the ledge the less impossible does this become. This gives a reason for its staying so long; but why should the mother not take it, if she does do so, almost from the very first?
It seems funny to be looking over a ledge, all day long, and to eat one's lunch whilst so doing. But I just look up to make my notes, and on looking down again, almost right under me, I see a seal hanging lazily in this quiet shore-pool of the sea; for to-day there is hardly a foam-line round the stacks and rocks. When he sinks I can follow him for some time under the water. His hind fins or feet seem to become quiescent, as though only the front ones were used; but this last I cannot see. As he recedes, going both downwards and outwards, he becomes greener and greener, and the green darker and fainter, till, at last, having first looked dimly luminous, he disappears. Some guillemots are on the water, too—thirty-two in all, that I can see—but not one of these has a young one swimming by it. Farther off, a kittiwake, I think, is feeding on the floating carcase of one of its own species—a young one. Horrid sight! The prettiness of the bird contrasts so with what it is doing. But what a joy should this be to the optimist, who always seems to extract a comfort from the most uncomfortable things, as though they not only justified his position, but made it self-evident.
Another half-hour has gone, and still the eyed orwhite-eyed parent has not returned, nor has the chick ever been taken properly under the wing of the other one, or stayed there more than a few seconds, when it has managed to squeeze itself in. For the last two hours and more, too, it has stood and squatted on the rock, giving up all attempts, and the parent never volunteering. Thus I leave them; but coming again the next day, about noon, I find the chick lying in the usual way under the right wing of the plain parent bird. It is evident, therefore, that this office may be performed by either parent; but I still think one of them—the mother, as I suppose—undertakes it more willingly and cheerfully. She—the white-eyed bird—is off the ledge, this being the first time I have not found her there on my arrival.
The other chick is gone. Yes, gone; for I go to several points from which I can see the whole of this small ledge—on a part of which only I look directly down—and from none of them can I see the second chick, which, were it there, I think I must. Without any doubt, this time, I think, it is gone, and so must have either flown or been carried down within the last twenty-four, or rather twenty-two, hours; for it was here on the ledge with its parent when I went away yesterday, at two or thereabouts. There are only seven birds in all, on this ledge, now. On another one where, when I first came, there were more than a hundred, and, two days ago, sixty odd, there are now fifteen only. Elsewhere, counting all the ledges I can see, there are only forty odd birds—sothat soon the whole cliff will be empty. That, however, will be nothing to me. But my little chick! Would I had seen it go!
A guillemot now flies up to the ledge underneath this one, and which I cannot see for this—for I have returned to my original position—and as it disappears there, there is a greatjodel-ing from several birds—I cannot say how many. On going round to the point of rock which fronts them both, I see that there is another young guillemot on this lower ledge, squeezed into the corner angle of it, which I think I have missed all along. It is, indeed, extremely easy to miss a chick, even when one seems to see the whole ledge very plainly. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that one of the two on my ledge is gone. My own little one—still under its mother's left wing—is the only one left there now. After a while it comes out, and the mother, as she stands by it, from time to time just stirs or nibbles the feathers of its face with the end of her bill—an action which has all the spirit of wiping a child's face or nose. The father now walks up, stops in front of the chick, bends down its head, andjodels. Then it lifts it up andjodelsmore loudly; then, stooping again, preens the chick's head and face a little with the point of its bill, and nibbles at it affectionately. The chick, after this, goes off on a little excursion along the ledge, then toddles back again, and, on getting near home, makes a little run to one of its parents, who, again bending down its head with the neck curved over it till the point of its billalmost touches the ledge, and with both the wings extended so as altogether to enclose it,jodelsand trills softly, and then nibbles it as before. And are not these pretty little domestic scenes, on the cold bare rock, with the sea beneath and the blowing wind all about? What a snug little boudoir this ledge of the precipice—white with droppings and wet with the sea-spray—becomes as one watches them! Such tenderness amidst such roughness seems wonderful.
And now I have to make one of those doubtful-certain entries—certain at the time, doubtful as one thinks of it afterwards—like that about the raven. It will be admitted that it was natural for me to suppose that the bird which has just acted this scene with the chick was one or other of its parents; but, to my surprise, just after it is over and the chick has toddled away to the white-eyed bird—undoubtedly its parent, and the only one so marked on the ledge—in flies another guillemot with a fish, and amidst loudjodel-ings from the few birds on the ledge, gives it to the chick. Afterwards this bird, who seems thus to have proved its relationship, walks a little way along the ledge, then returns, and he and the white-eyed one make passes at and then nibble one another with their bills so energetically,jodel-ing and barking the while, that it almost seems as though it would pass into a fight—more proof that they are married. Then the one that has brought the fish flies off to sea again. Now he flew in with that fish just as the chick had toddled away from the bird that had petted it, thisbird continuing to stand where it had been, and I had been watching them up almost to that very second, my head over the ledge all the time. Even could the bird which had petted the chick have flown off without my noticing it—which I do not think it could have done—it would have been impossible, surely, for it to have caught a fish and returned in so very short a time. The chick, therefore, appears to have been petted by a third bird, not being either of its parents, for the white-eyed one stood apart all the time, so that even if it had not been distinguished in this way I could not have confused it with either of the other two. This is interesting, I think, if it is really the case, for here, as with terns, we see the beginning of what might in time lead to something similar, in a social community of birds, to what we see in those of insects—the absorption, that is to say, of the individualised parental instinct into the generalised one of the whole community.
It is natural, at present, we will suppose, for every pair of birds in a colony of terns or guillemots to feel affection for, and to tend, their own young. Were this affection, and the active expression of it, to extend to the young of other members of the community, then, as every pair of birds would probably be able to supply the wants of more than its own young, a lesser number than the whole community would be sufficient for nursery work, leaving the others free for—what we cannot say, but nature might evolve her product out of the material thus placed at her disposal. Somenew activity might well arise, which, if fostered, would be of advantage to the general commonwealth. But let us consider the old ones. Terns, as we have seen, are vigorous in the defence of their eggs and young. They mob and attack any one—be it bird, beast, or man—who trespasses upon their breeding-grounds. If, therefore, only about half the colony were needed for the nurture of the young, and thus gradually came to be the equivalent of the workers amongst ants and bees, in the other half there would exist the elements of a soldier caste. Of these it would become at first the more special, and in time the exclusive business, to drive all enemies away from the ternery; and since efficiency in so important an office might well outweigh the otherwise ill effects of a loss of fertility in certain members of the commonwealth, the soldiers, both male and female, might, in the continuous prosecution of their task, come gradually to lose the sexual instinct, which, again, would allow the others to lay, with advantage, a greater number of eggs. I have mentioned the case of a dog making regular daily expeditions to a ternery, in order to feast upon the eggs; and if one dog could commit havoc like this, what might not some wild egg-eating species do, if not efficiently kept away? It is obvious that the eggs thus destroyed might amount to more in number than those by the loss of which they would be saved to the community; and, on the other hand, a caste whose sole task it was to guard the eggs and young might be competent to guard a greater number thanthe whole community would be, if "a divided duty" claimed their attention.
It is not at all necessary to show that the socialism of insects has advanced along these lines—their greater fertility allowing of a still more remarkable specialisation—in order to make out a case for the possibility, or even likelihood, of its hereafter doing so in the case of some birds. There are insect communities, however, composed of males and fertile females, or of the latter only, that may be compared, without much violence, to those of terns or weaver-birds. There are the mason-bees, for instance—numbers of whom labour side by side, each at making its own nest, in which, perhaps, we see an early state of our more truly social hymenoptera. But in nature many ways constantly lead to the same goal, and what this is, or is likely to be, must depend on the kind of advantages which the general conditions prescribe and make possible. It is difficult in the case of animals, no less than in that of man, to imagine any great social advance except through, or side by side with, subdivision of labour; and for real social labour to be subdivided, it must first be extended, that is to say in common. The separate attention paid by each pair of birds in a community to its own young only is not subdivision of labour in the proper socialistic sense of the term; for this labour is not social, but solitary. It appertains, that is to say, to every solitary-breeding animal, or, if not to both parents, at least to one, so that, at best, we do not get beyondthe family, which in social matters is generally taken as a unit. Numbers of animals living and breeding together may be said to be social by virtue of their contiguity, and, no doubt, are so, to a greater or less extent, in their feelings. But until they help and support one another in some way, true social labour has not begun amongst them. When it does begin it will become distributed through the whole community, and it is only after this early point in social advance has been reached, that the other and greater advance, which consists in the limitation to a certain number of the labour which was before shared by all, can take place.
To this first stage these guillemots have, perhaps, not yet attained, but if some of them are interested in, and show kindness towards, the young of the community generally, as distinct from their own, then, as it appears to me, they are on the way towards it, and when they have reached it they will probably begin to advance socially along the general lines by which both man and social insects have advanced. This is why such a little incident as that I have just recorded is to me a matter of so much interest, so that I get quite excited in trying to be sure about it. It may be little or nothing now, but what does that matter if, in no more, perhaps, than another million of years, it has led to most important developments, if not in guillemots, yet in some other species of bird, possibly in a very great many?—supposing, that is, that we do not exterminate all of them—which is likely,except perhaps sparrows—not counting poultry of course. Already the terns have gone a good deal further than the guillemots, for they not only show the liveliest interest in the common progeny, and combine together for their defence, but there is also, I believe, a good deal of communistic feeding amongst them. Other birds, perhaps, have gone further still.
In what does the interest taken by a bird—let us say by one of these guillemots—in a chick which is not its own originate? Does not the sight of it arouse, by association of ideas, all those feelings which, but shortly before, its own chick was daily arousing? And if this be so, does it not in a manner mistake it for its own? It would be interesting, were something to happen to the parents of this little chick, to see if it would be fed and taken care of by any of the other birds on the ledge. If it were to be, I should be inclined to think this the reason of it. That one bird (or pair of birds) should foster the young of another, knowing all the while that it was another's, and not its own, seems to me very unlikely. There must be some confusion of thought. By association of ideas the stranger chick would excite in the stranger bird the feelings proper to rearing, whilst at the same time supplying in itself the proper object for their translation into act. When once this point had been reached, the foster-parent, if it did not look upon the chick as its own, would have—always supposing it to be one of these guillemots here—to retain a clear recollection of the chick that it hadreared, all the while that it was rearing the foundling, to keep the two distinct, and remember not only that it had finished with its own chick, and seen it leave or gone off with it from the ledge, but also that it had not had another one since then. But though I believe that mental association may call up a very clear image of some past event in a bird's mind, I cannot credit it with such retentiveness and perspicuity of memory as this. Moreover, what idea of ownership in a chick can a bird have, other than those feelings which compel it to rear it? When once they are roused, the chick before it is its own.
But has not this a bearing upon the nature and origin of sympathy? When we sympathise with others we, by a quick mental process, put ourselves in their place, and feel to a lesser degree in ourselves what we suppose them to be feeling. In a certain degree, therefore, we are them, but our reason assures us that this is not really the case. We can distinguish; but can animals, or can they other than partially? Anthropologists have much to say—sometimes, perhaps, almost too much—on the extent to which savages mistake their subjective impressions for objective reality; but what applies to the savage should apply with much greater force to the animal. When a herd of fierce animals—as, say, of peccaries—are filled with sudden rage at the sight of a companion struck down by some beast of prey—bear, jaguar, or puma—and attack the assailant, is each member of it distinctly conscious that he is acting in defence ofanother, or does he not, rather, imagine that he is repelling an attack made upon himself? I believe myself that this last, or something very like it, is really the case, and that sympathy, if traced far enough back along the line of our descent, would lead us to a time when it made no conscious distinction between itself and its object; thus rooting our best feelings in the purest selfishness.
There is, indeed, this to be objected against the noblest emotions by which the highest natures are actuated—those very exalted ones about which there has been, and still is, so much self-laudation—viz. that they are all tainted in their origin. This is an objection—I mean as against the optimistic standpoint—which nobody ever seems to consider; but with me it is a very grave one. What matters it—that is to say, what ground of jubilation is it—that some "noble numbers," as Herrick calls them, have somehow got into a great "sculduddery book," written upon a plan, and, as far as we can see, with an object which never contemplated or thought of them at all, but only of the sculduddery, in relation to which they exist as a small pool may by the side of a great muddy, turbulent river, out of which it has leaked, and, by some accident, become clear? If this is all, then they are mere by-products, and it is not by a by-product that any scheme can be justified. It is to the scheme itself we must look, judging of it by what seems its clear object and intent, and having regard to the mass of the facts through which itreveals itself; not to some few merely which may seem, at first sight, to be in opposition to these, but, looked at more closely, are seen to be sequences only, quite reconcilable with them, and not obstructing them in any way. In a word, we must think of the stream and flow of the river, not of some eddies in it, or a back-wash here and there. Though it does not seem to be, yet the water that makes these is really going the way that the stream is, and our "noblest numbers," when closely analysed, are found to be "sculduddery" after all.
Es tanzen zwölf Klosterjungfraun hereinDie schielende Kupplerin führet den ReihnEs folgen zwölf lüsterne Pfäffelein schonUnd pfeifen ein Schandlied im Kirchenton.
But can I be quite sure that it was a strange guillemot, and not one of the two parents, that acted that little scene with the chick which I have described? It is easy, certainly, as I know by experience, for a bird to go off the ledge without one's noticing it—even under one's very nose—if one's eye is not actually on it all the time, and that, I suppose, mine was not. Again, the plain parent has just made a very quick return with another fish, though not, I think, quite so quick as the other one would have been, had it been he and not a stranger bird that I had seen on the ledge all the while. All I can say is that it certainly looked like what I supposed was the case, and I feel pretty sure that it was so; but I have never seen such a thing before, and it is morelikely, perhaps, that I was mistaken. Still, one must remember the interest taken by the other birds when a chick is fed, as shown by theirjodel-ing, and also that these have now no chick of their own to be busy with.
There is something in the sight and feel of a fish, indeed, which goes to the soul of a guillemot. Two, with one between them, have been making a most extraordinary noise, harahing andjodel-ing as they bend over it. It is laid on the ledge and taken up again several times, by one or another of them, and finally one swallows it. Thisjodel-ing note of the guillemot—and there is no other word, to my mind, which expresses it nearly so well—constantly begins with another and almost louder one, of two syllables, which is pretty exactly like the word harā ("hurrah!" but with the first syllable as in harrow). There is a moment's pause, and then follows a second "hara"—or "harrah" would be the better spelling—in a higher key, and it is the last syllable of this which, prolonged in a wonderful manner, makes what I call thejodel, and thisjodeloften ends in a kind of barking. "Hărrāh—hărrāh—hărrāh!" from one bird or another, without its continuation and in a low, sometimes almost a soft tone, is constantly to be heard on this ledge, and, no doubt, on all the ledges. Though suitable to any and every occasion, it seems mostly the vehicle of parental affection. As, for example, the chick which has been asleep, and almost buried for some time, now rouses himself, comes out,and begins to walk along the ledge. The mother follows and says "harrah!" He stops and turns. She goes up to him with "harrah!"; then, bending down her head till her beak almost touches the rock, shejodelssoftly, as though very pleased both with herself and him. He moves on again. "Harrah!" ("Will he really do so?") He turns to go back. "Harrah!" ("In that case she will follow him.") And so on and so on, an "harrah!" for whatever he does, there being, in each one, a certain indefinable tone of interest, mixed with a little surprise.
During this last promenade the chick flapped its wings a good deal, and, once or twice, came a little towards the edge of the rock, nor did the mother keep so between it and him as I should have expected. By some instinct, however, he goes along the length of the ledge, but never for more than a step or two forward towards the sea. One of the two chicks is already gone, and this restlessness on the part of the other, which has never been so marked before, may be the prelude to his going too. I would fain see the flight, if I could, however it may be, but I have been here all day, and mother and chick are now, again, crouched together as usual. It is near seven, and so cold and wretched that I can stand it no longer, but have to go. When I get up I can hardly stand steady, and lumbago has crept upon me unawares. Understanding that he lodges with me, the toothache, later, pays him a little visit, and the two chat together all the evening. Bitterly cold it was during the lasthour or so, and a wretched sort of day altogether. Getting to bed at last—for cooking takes a woful time—I turn to the British Bird-book again; and reading there about the plaintive cry of the young guillemot for food reminds me that I have not once heard either of my two little birds utter a syllable—at least, not to be sure. Once I thought I caught a very faint thin note, such as most young birds utter, but that was the only time. When I was here before, too, at a time when there were numbers of young birds on the ledges, I never noticed this cry, so find it difficult to believe that it ever attracted the attention of the French sailors sufficiently to make them name these birds "guillemots" in imitation of it, as is here suggested. To judge by all I have seen, the young guillemot is the most contented little thing, and generally squats asleep under the wing of the one parent, till the other brings it a fish, when it comes out, swallows it, swells, preens itself, and goes back to "sleepy-by" again, like Stella.
CHAPTER XXIV
GROUSE ASPIRATIONS
T
THE wind last night was simply awful. Why it has no effect on the sea I cannot understand, for it is always calm now. No, there is little beauty in the sound of the wind here—no mournful sighings, no weary complainings, no intangible strange sounds, but a horrible howling and blustering, the whole night through, like a mere rage, so that it has not that soothing quality that it is wont to have in England: there is no lullaby in it. Bed here is dreadful, partly on account of its hardness, partly of its narrowness, partly of its coming-untuckedness, partly because the wind comes in on both sides, through walls and clothes, and shares it with one. With all this I lie in a continual prologue to a play of lumbago, with wandering pains all about me. Oh for a nice little cosy, comfy cottage here, with my good old Mrs. Brodby to cook for me! I could be always out then. For the outdoor part of it, "this life is most jolly," but the indoor part is a weariness, and, with all he can do, man, in this country and climate, is a wretched indoor animal. If it were not so, I would be beetling over the ledges, now, for though moist and damp, and under a heavy pall of dun-grey cloud, it is yet not raining, so may pass for a fine day here: it is not Tahiti. But to get up a fire, to wash, andhave some sort of breakfast—all in huge discomfort—takes time. Biscuits and cheese in my pockets serve me for the day, but rain and mist may drive me in, and something for a supper one must have. Oh the time that goes in waste of time, when one has to cook for one's self! And the washing first, at intervals—for I leave everything dirty as long as I can, that is my system—is worse still, much the worst. I thought, at first, I would only use one plate, andneverwash it, but I had to give that up. How I do hate the washing! Oh, if there are meals in heaven, and I get there, I hope Mrs. Brodby may get there too!
This morning I heard a great noise of skuas—the smaller kind—and, coming out, saw a crowd of them chasing four ravens that were passing over the ness. I had previously seen them thus mobbing one. The ravens sometimes uttered an annoyed croak, and gave a twist round as though to defend themselves, but whether they were ever seriously attacked or pecked at I cannot say. The cries of the skuas, on this occasion, were different from their ordinary one, though the general tone and character was there.
On my island there were no ravens. Either the pair that bred there two years ago had hatched out another brood, and they had then all left the island together, or else, in spite of all Mr. Hoseason's efforts, they have been driven away by persecution—perhaps killed. A general raven battue is now in progress throughout the Shetlands, every landowner beinganxious to exterminate this bird, so interesting both in itself and through the world of old legend and superstition that adheres to it, in order that they may have grouse to bang at over their barren brown moors. Had these men anything within them that responded to the real and only charms that these bleak northern isles they were born in possess, or ever can possess, except to vulgarians—their wildness, that is to say, their wild bird-life, and their past—they would care more for one raven than for a thousand brace of grouse. They would rejoice and congratulate themselves whenever they saw its sable flight, and think its presence amongst them a point of high superiority over richer and more fertile lands. They would see, then, how the gaunt, black bird was in keeping and harmony with their scathed hills and storm-lashed coasts, and, seeing and knowing and feeling, they would seek to keep it amongst them, with every other wild and waste-haunting thing. But no; instead of rejoicing they lament. Born to such a heritage, they would exchange it for a park and a game-preserve if they could; as they cannot—for the grouse will have nothing to say to them, it draws the line at the Orkneys—they will do their best to turn a living wilderness into a dead one, they will chase away the only smile that ever sat on the hard-featured face of their country, take away its youth—for the birds, each spring, are that—and leave it childless and unchild-bearing, like a gaunt, hideous, barren old hag. That is what they will do, these romantic islanders, for therugged old mother that bore them.[8]"Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!" is their cry. Down with the raven, the eagle, the peregrine, gull, skua, cormorant, and let the soul of the gamekeeper live for ever in the wild Shetland Islands!
[8]Not all, of course. To Mr. Lawrence Edmondston, of Unst, and to Mr. Hoseason, of Yell, all lovers of birds and wild nature are greatly indebted.
[8]Not all, of course. To Mr. Lawrence Edmondston, of Unst, and to Mr. Hoseason, of Yell, all lovers of birds and wild nature are greatly indebted.
There is something, I verily believe, in a gun and cartridges, that dries up all poetry in a man's heart. Of all the inventions that this world has ever seen, I most deplore that of gunpowder—not because it kills men, but because it kills beasts—and next to that I deplore railways, which take away all charm from the country, and kill the ballads and songs of a people. Would that I had lived before them, in the quiet days of Gilbert White! It is the absence, I believe, of all reference to railways in the writings of our grandfathers and grandmothers that makes, or helps to make, them such pleasant reading. Who would care for Sterne's Sentimental Journey, had he made it by rail? and is it not delightful, when reading Miss Austen, to know that none of those dear little quiet-world circles, into which, for years, you have had theentrée, and which have given you a thousand times more pleasure, through life, than you have derived from your real acquaintance—is it not delightful to know that they could none of them run up to town in an hour or a few minutes, as is the case now? How nice it is to have Highbury, through the whole ofEmma, a quiet, untownified little place, and to knowthat it was not till long afterwards that it became absorbed into London, like the village that you once used to live in. Considerations of this kind add a charm, I really do believe, even to the character-drawing of Jane Austen. We are not so lucky with the other—the gunpowder. It is always, I confess, a little unpleasant to me to find Mr. Bennet going pheasant-shooting. I always wish he hadn't, such anesprit finas he is. Bingley—or even Darcie—but I can'tseeMr. Bennet pheasant-shooting. However, those were not the days of battues, and he would have worn knee-breeches, not knickerbockers.
Ravens, however, are very wary, and I hope may be able to hold their own in this their last stronghold of the British Isles, in spite of all the efforts of their unworthy and little-souled persecutors. Things seem to me to go very strangely in this world, and only satisfactorily to the optimist. In the days when Britain was full of birds and animals, before there were railways or breechloaders, before there was a large population, before the fens were drained or the broads crowded, in those days there were no naturalists, and now that there are naturalists the materials for natural history have disappeared, or are fast disappearing. Railways, towns, factories, golf-links, breechloading guns, quietude banished, solitude overrun—all is over, and the real naturalist is not a man for this world. But regrets are useless, so let me on to the affairs of state.
Along the opposite shores of the bay that skirts thishill on one side, a raven or two are generally to be seen; and I once saw one, whilst flying at some height, make an odd sort of manœuvre, the meaning of which I did not quite catch. It appeared to me, however, that he brought his foot forward towards his bill, and, at the same time, disgorged something, which he caught hold of with it. A second or two afterwards, as he came back into his natural pose, I thought I just saw something fall from him, like a faint shadow on the air, and almost instantly disappear. This raven had not been carrying anything in his bill before—at least, I believe not, for nothing broke the clear outline of it against the sky. What I believe he did was to bring up one of those curious pellets of indigestible materials that birds, generally, are in the habit of disgorging. But who would have thought that he would have first taken it into his claws, whilst flying, before letting it drop? But though I cannot be quite certain, yet Ifeelcertain that this is what he did do.
Herrings are still scattered over that part of the ness where the great skua breeds, and still they are headless, as I noticed the first time I came here, and have recorded in myBird Watching. Out of twenty-four, for instance, that I have counted, all but three of them are in this condition. With the exception of the head but little of them has been eaten, and, of some, not any. Whether it is the old bird that eats the head only, before bringing the fish to the chick, or whether the chick helps to eat it, or whether it iseaten at all, I cannot say; but I have noticed that the guillemot, also, sometimes brings in a sand-eel to the ledges, that has been neatly decapitated. I can quite understand that the head of a herring, if swallowed by a greedy young chick, might have a bad effect on it, but that the old birds, through some process of natural selection—for we cannot suppose that they are impelled by ordinary foresight—should have acquired the habit of first decapitating the herrings and thus removing the risk, seems very unlikely. On the other hand, that they should eat one particular part, and no other, of each fish that they bring to their young, is almost as difficult to believe. I have elsewhere suggested another explanation,[9]but this too I find it difficult to adopt, and the only remaining one I can think of is that the gulls who catch these herrings, and who are robbed of them by the skua, either bite off their heads in order to kill them, or eat the head separately. Whatever the reason of it may be, I once more draw attention to the fact.
[9]Bird Watching, p. 117.
[9]Bird Watching, p. 117.
At the tail, so to speak, of this track of herrings, I find another young great skua, and sit down by him to make my entry. He is a big chick, but the fluff still remains upon his head, neck, and under surface, springing from the ends of the true feathers, which have thus gradually pushed it out. On the back it is almost gone, thin patches of it only appearing above a thick brown panoply of the mature plumage. This chick is of milder mood than either of the other two.He lets me stroke him, and though, when I approach my finger to his face, he opens his beak, yet he cannot be said to show much fierceness. The father and mother sail overhead, and once the chick reaches up with its neck stretched straight into the air, and opening its mandibles widely and excitedly, utters a thin little sound. This is to the parents, I feel sure—a cry of distress—and has no reference to me, unless it be to call a rescue. It seems like this, certainly, yet neither of them make, for some time, even a pretence of swooping at me. Now, however, they begin, but always swerve off when some yards away. Meanwhile the chick has run off; but when I follow him I find him just as he was before, crouched against a little bank of heather, with his head pressed somewhat into it. It is curious how he now, a second time, lets me stroke him, without in the least moving.
This instinct of crouching and lying still when young is one which both the skuas here share with terns, gulls, peewits, etc. All of them lie in a very marked attitude, with the head and neck stretched straight out along the ground; yet all of them, as soon as they learn to fly, quite give up this habit. The stone-curlew, however, which, when young, has a precisely similar one, is supposed to keep it through life, but though this may be the case, I am convinced, from my own observation, that the grown bird acts in this manner far less frequently. To run with great swiftness, and then, if they think it worth while, to fly, istheir common practice when approached—I, at least, have found it so—whilst the young ones, according to Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, as invariably crouch. The question is if the latter, when of a respectable size, are not sometimes mistaken for the fully-grown birds, for certainly none of these have ever allowed me to come close up to them as they lay crouched, like a pheasant, revealing their presence, at last, only by the bright golden eye, as they are said to do. It is this element of confusion, in my opinion, together with the fact that it is "a ratite bird," and thereforeoughtto act like one, which has caused that strange scientific delusion in regard to the domestic habits of the ostrich; a delusion which, it seems, is destined to endure till some one or other of the learned persons responsible for it happens to be living on an ostrich-farm, instead of in a museum or a class-room, since the statements of those who have, or have had, that advantage are not regarded by them. No, no! the ostrich is "a ratite bird," and the scientific exigencies of such a position require it to do what it doesn't do. In regard to the above crouching habit, it may conceivably relate to an antecedent period in the life of the various species which, in their young days, practise it, during which they may have been flightless, though perhaps at a still earlier period they flew as well as, or better than, they do now. Doubtless, the ostrich once flew—so much of truth is contained in the Arab fable—and were any gradual change in the character of the countries it inhabits to render swift running less practicable whilst, at the same time, itsgrowth became stunted, it would be almost certain to fly again.
Young kittiwakes—as no doubt the old ones, too, though I have not yet noticed them doing so—bathe, or rather play about in the sea, very prettily. They flap their wings in an excited way, or hold them spread on the water whilst turning round, or half round in it, then, with their wings still spread, they make a little spring upwards, and flop down on it again, like a kite falling flat, and repeat the performance any number of times. There are staider intervals during which they duck and sprinkle themselves in the ordinary way, but this is not such a prominent feature as the other. I doubt if these little round-abouts, which seem to please the bird so much, are really in the nature of bathing, and the same doubt has been still more strongly impressed upon me in the case of the shag, and, to some extent, of the coot. To me it seems that the so-called bathing of many aquatic birds much more resembles an antic than movements made for a definite purpose—or rather I suspect that the one thing is in process of passing into the other.
The passage, as I believe, might take place in this way. A land-bird bathes in water with the express object of cleaning itself, and therefore the energy which it expends in so doing is both guided and regulated. It is confined within a certain channel, which it does not leave. But when this same bird takes to the water—for I assume all aquatic birds tohave been land-birds once—bathing, as a special activity, is not so necessary to it there as it was on the land. Being always in the bath, it needs not to specially bathe, or, always bathing, it wants no special bath. It finds itself, however, with an inherited habit which it is impelled to continue; but as the constant sensation of being in the water weakens the desire, as the fact of being there does the necessity, for special ablutions, this energy becomes gradually less governed, and its direction less fixed. The movements being no longer limited to the purpose in which they originated, or exclusively shaped by it, grow more violent, and corporeal activity producing mental excitement, which again reacts upon the former, this violence tends to increase. The result is a mad sort of romp, or play, more or less boisterous in proportion to the greater or less vitality of the bird, or its quieter or livelier disposition, which perhaps is the same thing; and when we have this we have what, in bird life, is called an antic. To generalise it, this antic will be due to the continuance of an energy once directed to a special purpose, but which is now no longer so, or not exclusively; and this, I believe, has been one of the principal paths along which antics have been evolved.
I can, I think, see another reason why the bathing of aquatic birds has passed, as I believe it has in several instances, into an antic or something partaking of that character. They bathe in their own element—water—in which they are thoroughly at home, whilstthe wide expanse of it around them allows of free and extended movement. But when a land-bird washes itself it does so under very different conditions, and a more or less lively tubbing is the utmost one would expect it to evolve out of the situation. Anything more than this would probably go hand-in-hand with an increased liking for the water, that is to say with a gradual change of habitat. Some, perhaps, may think that the fact which I am trying to account for has not yet been made out, but I beg these, if they have not already done so, to watch shags bathing, and then I think they will say that it has. I have already described it in the work to which I so often have to allude,[10]but any mere description must be weak compared with the reality.