[10]Bird Watching, pp. 170-1.
[10]Bird Watching, pp. 170-1.
Numbers of young kittiwakes are still on the ledges; they look quite mature, and much like some pretty species of dove. Many are on the nests and close beside the parent birds, though sometimes, but not often, the latter seem impatient of their presence and force them to take flight. Anywhere else than on the ledges the young seem to keep to themselves, swimming together in large flocks upon the sea, or standing so on the rocks. One may sometimes see an old bird amongst them, but the association is half-hearted, nor does it last long. Of the fulmar petrels I have nothing more to record except that my statement in regard to the hen bird not permitting her husband to sit with her by the chick was incorrect, or, at least, needs qualification,as I have now seen several such family parties. The grown birds continue, in some cases, to swell the throat and open the beak at one another, rolling, at the same time, the head, and uttering the hoarse, scolding note which seems reserved for the ledges—for I have never heard it in the air.
CHAPTER XXV
UNORTHODOX ATTITUDES
W
WHEN I saw eider-ducks eating seaweed off the coast of my island I was aware that they were doing something which they had no business to be doing; for it is stated in works of authority that they are purely animal feeders. I have had misgivings, therefore, ever since making the observation, but now, having seen a black guillemot also eating a piece of this same brown seaweed, I feel more comfortable about it, for surely this bird should be as exclusively a fish-eater as the eider-duck is supposed to be a devourer of shell-fish, crustaceans, etc. It was certainly, I think, a piece of this seaweed—short, brown, bunchy, and covered with little lobes—that this particular bird had in its bill. Through the glasses I could see it distinctly, and most distinctly it swallowed it. I doubt myself if there is any bird that feeds exclusively on anything, or that is absolutely confined to an animal or vegetable diet. They seem ever ready to enlarge their experience according to their opportunities of doing so, thus illustrating one of Darwin's most pregnant remarks.
When this "tysty" dived it presented a beautiful appearance under the water, owing to the snow-white patches on its wing-coverts, which flashed out distinguishablyfor some time. Besides this—whether or not this had anything to do with it—it became all at once of a lovely glaucous green colour, luminous, and with bubbles flashing about it. Gradually the form became lost, but the luminous green was never lost, and after becoming dimmer and dimmer began to get brighter and brighter again, till the bird reappeared out of it on the surface at some distance off. It seems just possible that this effect may be due in some measure to the white patches, since when the shag dives nothing of the sort, or, at any rate, nothing so marked, is to be seen, nor do I remember noticing it either in the guillemot, razorbill, or puffin, which are all dark above and only white underneath. On second thoughts, however, the colouring can have little or nothing to do with it, since the effect is very marked in the eider-duck of both sexes, and the female is uniformly dark. But how is the effect produced? by the clinging of innumerable small air-bubbles to the bird's plumage? If so, they may not cling equally to that of all species. The seal presented the finest appearance of all, but his size may perhaps have had something to do with this. Whatever may be the cause, I do not remember to have remarked the same thing in river-birds when diving. It is more difficult, indeed, to follow them under water when they dive, on account of the absence of cliffs to look down from. Still, one sees them sometimes, and, as I say, I do not remember noticing this luminous effect, so that it must be, at any rate,much less striking. I have seen the same thing with a shark at sea.
This morning the ravens again flew over the ness, going the other way, however, and I only saw three of them. As before, it was the skuas who informed me of this, but, in spite of their shrieking, they did not seem to meddle much with the grim, black birds. Though there is an impressiveness about the raven's whole appearance which, with the knowledge of what it is, sets the imagination working, yet there is nothing majestic in its actual flight, and these three, with their measured, laboured flappings, offer a clumsy contrast to the arrow-like grace of the skuas.
The chick is still upon the ledge, so I have still a chance of seeing him leave it; but even with two plaids, on one of which I lie and in the other wrap myself, like an embalmed mummy, it is cold work waiting—and still more when one has the lumbago. I was awakened early this morning by nasty pains, more right on the hip—the very bone of it—than in the true lumbagoey region; but it plays right lumbago music—"'tis enough, 'twill serve." This comes of lying on the rocks for six hours at a time in a Shetland summer. I was a fool, I think, to come here; but is there any one who is not, either in thinking or acting at any timeici bas?
When we are born we cry that we are comeTo this great stage of fools.
Now I have the lumbago, with very little for it, and had I not come here I should be regretting the loss often times as much as I have found, with no thought of the lumbago thereby avoided. Thus each way would have had its own particular foolery; and which way has not? Does not this apply to much greater matters, and often where there might seem to be no doubt as to where the foolery lay? The way of sin, for instance, that leads to remorse, has always been thought a foolish way, and that of virtue and clear conscience a wise one. Nevertheless, he who goes the first gains such knowledge by experience as can never be acquired in any other way, and is therefore to this extent the superior of the other unlesshehas already gained it, either in a life before this or in some other manner. If he has not, it seems probable that he will have to do so at one time or another, by the laws of development—assuming that personal life and personal development survive the thing called death. Who, then, if we make these assumptions, stands the better off, he who has learnt a great truth through his sinning, or he who, often owing to circumstances merely, has neither the sin nor the truth? Quite possibly, as it seems to me, the former; for what do we really know except through our own actual experience? What a dream must this life soon become to us if we are born, through death, into another one widely different from it! and seeing what death does to this body of ours, how can it be other than widely different? If, therefore, we could pass from life to life, or rather from stage to stage of life, keeping the knowledge gained in each to help usin the next, such knowledge, however bitterly, or, as we call it, evilly gained, would be really all in all good. The gain would be eternal and the pain transient as well as necessary. We may suppose, too, that it would become an ever-lessening quantity, as "John Brown went marching on." But somewhere and somehow all deep, essential knowledge—as the knowledge of good and evil—must, I believe, be individually gained if the individual is to advance. Innocence, though so highly recommended, is really a very trumpery thing.
That the path of individual advance should be through evil to good seems, in itself, likely, since it has been that of the race, and, moreover, what other can be imagined? Perhaps, however, it should rather be said to be through ignorance to knowledge. Evil is a misleading word. We speak of it as though it were something fixed and unchangeable, whereas there is no thing, however evil it may be in one set of circumstances, that may not be good in another. Murder, for instance, is good amongst bees, and sometimes also—so statesmen who make wars must think—amongst ourselves. Knowledge of good and evil consequently is knowledge of conditions; and how can one learn the conditions of anything better than by acting in disaccord with them? Putting aside, therefore, the question of inherited experience—another perplexing element in this perplexing problem—is it not possible that sometimes, at any rate, a sinner may be in a state of advance whilst a virtuous person is stagnatingmerely, or that the former at any rate—for most virtuous persons sin pettily—may be advancing more quickly than the latter? I feel sure of it myself. "My dukedom," however (if I had one), "to a beggarly denier," that said virtuous person would think very differently—which makes him, perchance, just a little more but one of the "fools" on "this great stage," where there are so many.
It might well be argued, I think—at any rate, I have seen many such arguments—that Shakespeare, in the lines I have quoted, intended to convey all this, in which case I have his great authority to shelter under. Goethe, however—at least, I am told so—supports me, if not more plainly, yet more categorically. He thought—or somebody, perhaps Eckermann, thought he thought—that we became good by sinning out our evil, and that evil still in us, in the shape of desire, was like prurient matter which ought to be discharged, and, at some time, would have to be, to the consequent benefit of the constitution. Given, as I say, a continuance of life and advance—I cannot, for myself, imagine the one without the other—there seems to me much force in this doctrine, and I commend it—as that sort of physic which Lady Macbeth so much needed—to the members of any cabinet that has made any war, and to politicians and millionaires generally, and to South African millionaires in particular.
All this must be the effect of lumbago, which is the effect of the Shetlands; but let me shake it off. The chick has been fed once, but I was taken by surprise,and almost missed it. Now, at only a quarter of an hour's interval, he is fed again, and over this there is quite an interesting little scene. The chick, when a very substantial fish is brought in for him, is asleep under his mother's wing, and both parents seem averse to disturbing him. The plain one with the fish seems quite embarrassed. He approaches, stands still, looks at his partner as if for advice, shuffles about, turns this way and that, and several times, bending his head, gives a choked and muffledjodel, for his mouth is almost too full to speak. Still the chick sleeps on and still the parents seem to doubt the advisability of waking him. At length, however, they admit it to be necessary. The father shuffles up into his usual position, the mother rises by slow and reluctant stages, as though apologetically, and finally stirs the chick several times with her bill till at last he rouses. Then, in a moment, he brisks up, and, seizing the large fish, swallows it in one good whole-hearted gulp. Perhaps there may have been a second, but it was a weak one if there was, and hardly necessary. It was more like the grace after the meal, that can very well be dispensed with. Instantly then the father, having done his business, flies off, the mother sinks down, and the chick, retiring with the taste of the fish still in his mouth, there is peace on the ledge again. The eye of the guillemot is very bright, and seems to beam with intelligence. No bird, I believe, ever looked more intelligent, albeit embarrassed, than the one just gone as he stood with the fish in his billwaiting for the chick to wake up. He, it will be remembered, was the plain bird; and such are very greatly in the majority. The white mark round the eye impairs this look of intelligence. It is lost in strangeness, and the bird so adorned has something the appearance of one of those queer kind of demons that one sees in Japanese drawings. The eye itself is black.
The chick, therefore, has had two good fish—one a particularly large one—within twenty minutes. There is now an interval of near three hours, and then the father flies in again with yet another fish—a very long sand-eel it looks like, even bigger than the last—and the chick seizing it as it is let drop, before it touches the ledge, it disappears by a process which looks like magic. They are like little bag-purses, these guillemot chicks, and when they are full of money—i.e.fishes—it is difficult to think that there is room for anything more inside them—anatomy seems out of the question. Just before this, this particular one has lain in the queerest way under his mother's wing, flat upon the rock, with his legs stretched straight out behind him as one sometimes sees dogs lie. He has lain like this several times altogether, but never for long at a time. Now, after his surfeit, he has retired again. By the way, the inside of the little chick's mouth is pinky-flesh-coloured merely, whereas that of the old bird is of a fine lemon. Why should we, in so many species, find this difference in coloration between young and old in such a region—themature tint being, in all of them, so vivid and so often exposed—unless sexual selection has been the operating cause? We would not, I suppose, find a corresponding difference in the colour of the internal organs, according to the age of the bird.
The mother guillemot, now, for the first time whilst I have been here, utters that guttural, yet sharp "ik, ik, ik," note, which, two years ago, in June and early July, was the only one I ever heard on the ledge I watched so closely. When another fish is brought in there is some more of it, mixed with thejodel-ing; so that it seems now to be becoming more frequent. But never have I been able to make out with anything like clearness that the chick has uttered any note at all. No undoubted sound from it has reached me. The time before last that it was fed, however, I thought I heard a sharp little cry, but it was impossible to be sure whether this was from the chick or some of the thronging and clamouring kittiwakes perched and flying all about. In any case, it was nothing particular.
On the ledge, where there were fifteen birds yesterday, there are now only eight; on my ledge, which from here I see in its entirety, only the mother and chick, another bird—not the father—having just flown off. On all the others together I make out only thirty-six. I see but one other chick, but a bird is sitting as if she might have one under her. Nothing can be plainer than that the old birds have stayed behind on the ledges after the young oneshave left them, though whether the latter went by themselves or were conducted by their parents, who afterwards returned, I cannot tell. As the ledges, when I first came, were thick with guillemots, and as both sexes were represented, there being still a considerable amount of coquetry and dalliance, carried sometimes to an extreme length, there is no room for the hypothesis that the great majority had gone with their chicks, leaving only a few, who, for some reason, had not reared one. Had I got here to-day only I might have thought this, but, as it is, I should rather think that, full as the ledges were on my arrival, they were fuller still a few days earlier, and that the proportion of chicks was not much greater. The statement, therefore, which is made in works of authority, that, at the end of the breeding season, the young and old guillemots go off together for good, seems not to be in accordance with the facts of the case. Certainly it does not apply to the state of things here, in this particular year.
The chick is again stretched out quite flat on the rock with its legs behind it, looking most funny. Well, funny as you are, I must leave you for a little, for I've the cramp, as well as lumbago, so
I am gone, sir, and anon, sir,I will be with you again.
And I am back at about seven, and find my little Sir still on the ledge, clasped by his mother's wing. I almost expected he would be gone, but have still achance now to see the flight down—if it should not take place in the night—a parlous fear. I was away for some four hours, and during this time had a splendid sight of seals. Quite near to where I watch the guillemots there is a little iron-bound creek or cove, walled by the precipice, guarded by mighty "stacks," and divided for some way into two by a long rocky peninsula running out from the shore. On the rocks in one of these alcoves were lying eight seals, which were afterwards joined by another, making nine, whilst in the adjoining one were four—also, as it happened, joined by another whilst I watched—making fourteen in all: such a sight as I had never seen before, except something like it as the steamboat passed a small rocky islet on my way to Gutcher. Here lay, indeed, some nine or ten seals; but oh, the difference in the conditions! The horrid, vulgar steamboat, with the whistle blowing to frighten them; the men, the women, the remarks—a stick pointed gunwise—oh, dear! Oh, the difference, the difference! They were soon all in the water and, with their little oasis, left far behind. The sooner the better. Worse than "crabbed age and youth" "together" is wild nature seen from amidst vulgar surroundings, in vulgar company—like a drive through paradise with the Eltons "in the barouche-landau." But here—ah, here it is different. Not one human being save myself (and one excuses oneself), no tiresome prosaic figure—"god-like erect"—to break the sky-line above the mighty towering precipice that rises just behindthis dark, still, frowning bay. I can gloat on what I see here.
I watched these seals of mine on this, my first meeting with them, for a considerable time from the top of the cliffs—the glasses giving me a splendid view—and soon knew more about them than I had before, and got rid of some popular errors. For instance, I had always imagined that seals had one set attitude for lying on the rocks—viz. flat on their bellies—a delusion which every picture of them in this connection had helped to foster. Imagine my surprise and delight when it burst upon me that only some three or four were in this attitude, and that even these did not retain it for long. No; instead of being in this state of uninteresting orthodoxy, they lay in the most delightful free-thinking poses, on their sides, or much more than on their sides, showing their fine portly columnar bellies in varying degrees and proportions, whilst one utter infidel was right and full upon his broad back—yet looked like the carved image of some old crusader on the lid of his stone sarcophagus. Then every now and again they would give themselves a hitch, and bring their heads up, showing their fine round foreheads and large mild eyes; a very human—mildly human—and extremely intelligent appearance they had, looking down upon them from above. Again, they had the oddest or oddest-appearing actions, especially that of pressing their two hind feet or flippers together, with all their five webbed toes spread out in a fan,with an energy and in a manner which suggested the fervent clasping of hands. Then they would scratch themselves with their fore feet lazily and sedately, raising their heads the while, looking extremely happy, having sometimes even a beatific expression. And then again they would curl themselves a little and roll more over, seeming to expatiate and almost lose themselves in large luxurious ease—more variety and expression about them lying thus dozing than one will see in many animals awake and active.
Even in this little time I learnt that they were animals of a finely touched spirit, extremely playful, with a grand sense of humour and—once again—filled "from the crown to the toe, top-full" of happiness. Thus one that came swimming up the little quiet bay, in quest of a rock to lie upon, seemed to delight in pretending to find first one and then another too steep and difficult to get up on to (for obviously they were not) and would fling himself off from them in a sort of little sham disappointment, gambolling and rolling about, twisting himself up with seaweed, and, generally, having a most lively solitary romp. A piece of bleached spar, some four or five feet long, happened—and I am glad that it happened—to be floating in the water at quite the other side of the creek, and, espying it, this delightful animal swam over to it and began to play with it as a kitten might with a reel of cotton or a ball of worsted. More frolicsome, kitten-hearted, and withal intelligent play I never saw. He passed just underneath it, and, comingup on the opposite side, rolled over upon it, cuffed it with one fore-foot, again with the other, flipped it, then, with his footy tail as he dived away, and returning, in a fresh burst of rompiness, waltzed round and round with it, embracing it one might almost say. At last, going off, he swam to a much steeper rock than any he had made believe to find so difficult, and, scrambling up it with uncouth ease, went quietly to sleep in the best possible humour.
What intelligence all this shows! Much more, I think, than the sporting of two animals together. This seal was alone, saw the spar floating at a distance, and swam to it with the evident intention of amusing himself in this manner. That spar may be a piece of a shipwreck, may have floated out of the crash and confusion of human agony, hands may have grasped it, arms clung around it, to be washed off, stiffened in death. Now, in these silent dream-pools of the sea's oblivion, it is played with by a happy animal. And of all those influences that cling about a thing life-touched, and tell their several tales to the clairvoyant, I would choose to feel and breathe this last.
A SEAL'S PLAYTHING
A SEAL'S PLAYTHING
Later, another seal played with this same spar in much the same way; yet both of them seemed to be quite full-grown animals. Then I saw something which looked like a spirit of real humour, as well as fun. Three seals were lying on a slab of rock together, and one of them, raising himself half up, began to scratch the one next him with his fore-foot. The scratched seal—a lady, I believe—took it in the most funny manner—a sort of serio-comic remonstrance, shown in action and expression. "Now do leave off, really. Come now, do leave me alone"—and when this had reached a climax the funny fellow left off and lay still again; but as soon as all was quiet, he heaved up and began to scratch her again. This he did—and she did the other—three times, at the least, and if not to have a little fun with her I can hardly see why.
On my last return from the guillemots, the tide was rising, and most of the rocks where the seals had been lying were covered. I was in time, however, to see one—an immense parti-coloured seal—gradually floated off. He lay upon a great mass of seaweed, and as long as he could stay there, he did; but little by little, as the waves came in, he rose unwillingly, seeming to cling to it to the last. Whether he really did grasp the seaweed with his hind feet, and stay, thus anchored, as long as he possibly could, I cannot say; but certainly, for a good many minutes, and keeping in much the same place, he stood, or rather floated, perpendicularly in the water, even including his head, so that his nose, which projected just a little above the surface, pointed straight up into the air. This was, at once, seen to be the case when he brought it down and stood with head in the usual position, as he did at intervals. Finally, he rolled slowly over and sought the depths in a vanishing blue streak. Another seal clung, in like manner, to the smooth rock he was on, letting the rising waves wash him about till at last he swam off.
CHAPTER XXVI
PIED PIPERS
I
IHAVE just seen a sea-pie several times pull and tweak with his bill at the seaweed, apparently, till he secured something that had a white appearance. Holding this between the extreme tip of his mandibles, he each time retired up the rock with it, placed it, as it seemed to me, amidst some seaweed, and then ate it. This was looking down upon a great stack of rock at some distance, so that it was impossible to be certain in regard to such minutiæ. It seemed to me, as it has seemed before, that he had pulled, not hit, some small limpet or other shell-fish from off the seaweed, and then wedged it amidst other seaweed higher up so as to be able to pick out the inside more easily. Possibly, however, he merely laid it down without wedging it, but I cannot tell, and it is very difficult to get close enough to see just what these birds really do when they feed. On the grass, which they probe like starlings, one can get a pretty good sight of their actions, but not on the seashore. One thing I cannot help noticing, that whereas limpets are all about on the rocks and need no looking for, they walk about as if they were looking for something, and they leave the bare rock that is all stuck over with them for the parts that are covered with seaweed, and atthis they pull and tweak. In spite, therefore, of the peculiar wedge-like bill with its obtuse tip that seems so well adapted for striking a limpet or other shell-fish with a sudden blow from the rock to which it had been clinging, I am beginning to doubt whether they often use it in this way, and especially whether limpets are a special food of theirs. I remember, however, once seeing a sea-pie make just the sort of blow required on the theory, but ineffectively, and in a peculiar half-hearted way, as a man might feebly clench his fist and strike in his sleep. It is curious that this trivial action, which seemed to be of an involuntary nature, made under a misapprehension discovered in time to check, but not to stop, the blow, has remained in my memory with a strange persistence and vividness, and on the strength of it I still think that limpets are sometimes struck from the rock in this way. There must, I think, have been something very specialised in the movement of the head and bill, slight as it was, to make me retain it so long in my mind's eye.
Afterwards I watched several of these birds feeding on the rocks, and I distinctly saw one with his beak amongst a bed of the same small blue mussels that I have seen the eider-ducks feeding on, picking and pulling at them in much the same way. Others, like the first one, pulled at the brown, or black, seaweed with which the rocks are plentifully hung. They ran down upon it when the sea receded, and back, or else jumped into the air or flew to another rock, when itfoamed in again. The sea boils in about the rocks off these iron shores in a tremendous manner, even when, like to-day, it is quite calm. On the stillest day, indeed, there is often a sullen swell which makes varying patches and long chequered lines of foam all around them. The sea never sleeps in these islands—only slumbers uneasily like some terrific monster that anything may awake.
It is observable that some of these sea-pies are bolder than others in outstanding the swell of the waves. Some flee it before it comes, others fear not to have it wet their feet, whilst others, again, will almost risk being soused in it. But are these different birds, or are they all different at different times? On that, of course, must depend whether a process of differentiation, on evolutionary lines, is in action amongst them or not. For myself, I think the first, and that, from waders or paddlers, some of these birds may in time become swimmers—which would make them a sort of sea moorhen. The redshanks has gone farther in this direction, for he sometimes swims, but I know of no intermediate form, no sea and seashore bird corresponding to our moorhen or coot.—Mussels, then, and the beak thrust in amongst seaweed; but no limpets up to the present. Now limpets, as I said before, are all over the rocks, and so need no searching for. Why so chary, then, if the birds really affect them?
What ails ye at the puddin'-brooThat boils into the pan, O?
Under favourable circumstances—solitude and nonmolestation are, no doubt, the most favourable—oyster-catchers leave the foreshore, and browse, in flocks, over the grass-land beyond it. There are now, for instance, twenty-one, at the least, browsing, and I have watched them for some time digging their beaks well into the soil—to half their length, perhaps, sometimes—and then tugging violently at something. What this was, however, I could not, in any case, make out. It appeared to be taken into the beak before the latter was withdrawn. At last, however—for I like to see it all through the glasses, if I can—I went to the place, and, going down on my hands and knees, commenced a minute investigation. All about were round, straight holes going down through the grass into the turf, like those on a lawn after starlings have searched it, but, of course, larger. With my knife I cut down into several of these, and in two or three I found a small worm quite near the surface of the soil. It seemed as though the bird's bill had passed it in looking for or aiming at another one deeper down. Be this as it may, worms, it seems likely, form a common food of the sea-pie, for what else could these ones have been searching for? Worms, however, must be taken to include grubs, caterpillars, and so forth, an ordinary land diet, in fact, and did these birds get to preferring it, their habits would rapidly change. These, I should think, must a good deal depend upon locality, and perhaps, too, on their numbers, for birds become bolder whenthey go many together. Even here the sea-pie is wary, and in a more populous place I doubt if anything would tempt him inland. Yet it is curious that in an island where I have been the one inhabitant I have never seen these birds feeding or walking anywhere except on the tidal shore, quite near the sea, though they often flew over the island, whereas here, in Unst, I have seen them thus searching the greensward in the neighbourhood of Burra Firth, which is a village, though a small one. But then they are much more numerous here, and it was always in the close neighbourhood of the beach, even when not upon it, that I saw them. In this last instance, too, they were no distance at all from the sea—but again, most of the smooth, turfy stretches, where it would be easy to find worms, are so situated. Here, then, is another path along which differentiation might proceed, and by which, in time, an oyster-catcher might become a bird with the habits of the great plover. It is curious that one of the cries of the latter bird in the spring, though very much weaker, is a good deal like the "ki-vick, ki-vick, ki-vick, ki-vick, ki-vick!" of the sea-pie, so that the one rendering might stand for both.
It is pleasant to see a fair-sized flock of these birds gathered together on a smooth stretch of sand just above the line of the waves. Some walk about or stop to preen themselves, others lie all along, whilst a few stand motionless upon one leg, fast asleep, with the head turned and the red bill hidden amongst the piedplumage. Sometimes, when excited, or about to fly, they will run, for a little, over the sand, holding the wings elevated above the back, which has a quaint yet graceful appearance. They keep together, generally, in a group or series of groups, but at other times stand in a long row amidst or but just beyond "the light sea-foam" beating from the waves, looking as though the sea had cast them up, like a line of drifted seaweed. Gulls often come down amongst them, and the two sit or stand, side by side, quite indifferent to one another, each hardly conscious of the other's presence—so far, at least, as one can judge. Besides the piping note I have mentioned, these sea-pies have others—"queep, queep!" and a kind of twittering trill leading up to it—which remind one strangely of the great plover, and suggest a common ancestry.
I have confirmed to-day all that I said inBird Watching(pp. 90-3) about the love-piping of these sea-pies. For some reason or other—rivalry, I think, passing into a form—two birds, that I put down as males, seem to like to pipe together to one who, by her quiescence and general deportment, I judge to be the female. I have seen this twice since coming here, once yesterday, and now again within these few hours. This last time it was almost as marked as in the instances I have described, and towards the end one of the piping birds showed a tendency to go down on his shanks, as though kneeling to his lady love. I do not think he quite did this, but he bent towards it.I am convinced myself that the dance of three peewits, as described by Mr. Hudson inThe Naturalist in La Plata, has had some such origin as this. What one wants, in order to arrive at the real nature of the latter, is a number of detailed descriptions, instead of a mere general one, never in my opinion of much value in such matters. Pains, also, should be taken to ascertain the sexes of each of the three birds that takes a part in the show.
Another nuptial sport or play which these birds indulge in belongs to air—where, indeed, they pipe as strongly and easily as upon the ground. This that I speak of, however, appeals in an equal degree to the eye and ear. Two birds pursue each other closely, mounting all the while in a steep slant, till, having gained some elevation, both turn at an acute angle, and descend in the same manner, in a reversed direction, thus tracing the shape of a pyramid. Having completed the air-drawn figure, they immediately reproduce it, and thus they continue on quickly vibrating wings—now upwards, far above the cliff-line, now downwards, almost to the sea—piping the whole time in the fullest-throated way. Even in a small and sober-suited bird such a performance might attract attention. How much more here where, to the boot of the large size of the twoartistes, and the noise they make, the boldly contrasted black and white of their plumage, the deep rose-red of the bill, and pale rose-pink of the legs, give it a very lovely appearance. For myself, I have seen few things more striking.
CHAPTER XXVII
A BITTER DISAPPOINTMENT
A
AMAN here—one accustomed to the sea, but not a Shetlander—had told me that seals come up on the rocks as the tide goes out, and are floated off them as it comes up again—and this, indeed, I have seen. He did not seem to think that they lay on the rocks independently of the tides, so, as the tide to-day should be out about 5.30, I resolved to go to the same place as yesterday—the accustomed haunt of seals here—about two, so as to be in good time. I arrive accordingly, but what is my astonishment to see, on a vast, sloping slab of rock, ending in a miniature cliff, far above the highest line of moist seaweed, and comfortably independent of all tides, twelve seals, of varying figures and different degrees of obesity, lying, roughly, in two rows, and in all sorts of attitudes and depths of repose. What a sight! What beautiful, fat, sleepy things! and what a lovely little secret creek of the wave-lashed, iron-ribbed coast have they found to sleep in! How the waters sleep in it, too! How gently they creep to shores strewn with a wild confusion of titanic black boulders heaped about still huger fragments of the cliff's wastage, so huge, some of them, that they are dwarfed only by the frowning precipices that tower behind! How they lick up upon the brown hanging seaweed that drips against thehigh, dark walls of this their boudoir, falling back from it again with a deep-sucked gurgle that ravishes the ear! What a snug sea-chamber, formed and fashioned by the waves! How the cormorants dive and fish in it, how the gull tears at the drifted carcase of its kind, how the puffins, in ceaseless flight between ocean and their myriad burrows, arch and dome it in! Oh, it is a fine apartment! Its portals on either side are columns of spouting foam, and beyond lies the wild, houseless sea. A seal's dormitory!—how well do the wild things choose! So here, at once, one learns something different to what one is told. Seals care nothing about tides when they can get great slanting slabs that lie high and dry above them. At high tide, or low tide, or middle tide, they are equally ready to sleep.
I came down the steep descent in a way which made me and everything I had on, or carried with me—which was everything I have here to keep me warm and dry—both wet and dirty. At the bottom there was a mass of nasty, brown, wet discomfort; but it had successfully stalked the seals. They lay now right before me, so near as to make the glasses almost a superfluity. Yet how splendidly they showed them up—every mark, turn, and expression, their whiskers, wrinkles, and their fine eyes. And now, still more markedly than yesterday, I note that the favourite attitude of a seal, when lying asleep or dozing, is either on its back or half or three-quarters rolled over towards it. Out of all these twelve, only one lies inthe way that all illustrations persist in depicting them as lying. Three are absolutely on their backs, with their faces, or rather chins, looking, for long periods, straight up into the sky; others are almost as supine, but, by turning their faces sideways, seem to be less so, whilst the rest vary between this and full on their side, in which position they look much like a huge salmon lying on a fishmonger's dresser. Who has ever drawn seals like this? Where is there such a rendering? Always, as far as I can remember, they are made to lie on their stomachs. Yet here is the living thing.
As various as their attitudes seems to be the degree of their rest. Some raise their heads and look to this side or that, at irregular intervals that are not very long apart. Others seem sunk in deep and heavy slumber, their very attitudes—or rather, their attitudes more than anything else—expressing "the rapture of repose that's there." Yet even these, if watched for long enough, are seen occasionally to raise their heads, or scratch themselves lazily with their front paws, or expand or interlace their hind ones, moving them sometimes in a very curious manner suggesting the rotating screw of a steamer. It would seem, therefore, that, however fast asleep they may look, they are really only in a sort of doze.
Many of these seals are scarred and marked in a very bad way; raw and bleeding the places are sometimes, and I notice here and there what lookslike a deep and gaping bite. These wounds are mostly on the belly, but the tail of one seal is bloody all round, as though another had seized it in its mouth and severely bitten it. No doubt it is all due to fighting, and the claws, I think, must have played as great a part as the teeth. Two other seals lie on a smaller rock, raised similarly above high-water mark, and a third on one that has only just become uncovered. Altogether, then, there are fifteen of them, making me think of Virgil's description of the Protean herds, written in those happy days before the accursed gun had thinned, as it now has, almost to the verge of extinction, the brave, honest, animal world. Surely the lower thing rules on earth for ever. Those who love living animals, with souls inside them, must see this world made dead and empty by those who love only their skins, stuffed with straw. They conquer, these Philistines, and the finer-touched spirit lies bleeding and suffering beneath them. How grossly we deceive ourselves!... I say that the "pale Galilean" hasnotconquered here, but that Thor has, though often in his rival's name.
The modern Christian poet speaks truth as though it were falsehood, and falsehood as though it were truth. Hear Longfellow, for instance—
Force rules the world still,Has ruled it, shall rule it,Meekness is weakness,Strength is triumphant,Over the whole earthStill is it Thor's-Day!
Now that is truth—simple, plain truth. So it is put into the mouth of Thor—a heathen god—who, of course, is brought up only to be knocked down, and what he says confuted. Only through some such machinery can poets now speak the truth.
These seals differ greatly from one another, both in size, figure, markings, and colour of the fur, and especially, as a result of all, in beauty. Most of them look rough, swollen, dropsical creatures, but some are very pretty and elegant, and as these are smaller I suppose them to be the females. Often one may see a look and action in them that seems to speak of coquetry and being wooed.
It is curious that the one seal that lies on its face is the only one out of the twelve that is turned towards the sea. The sea, however, in this case is only a narrow inlet between the rock on which it lies and the shore, the great expanse of it being entirely hidden by the rock itself, which rises perpendicularly, like a cliff, from the highest point of its upward slope. The seal, therefore, really looks shorewards, but across a narrow strip of sea. His eyes, I notice, seem never shut, and at frequent intervals he turns his head to one side or another. All the rest lie either sleeping or dozing, though, as said before, most of them from time to time raise their heads a little and give a lazy look before sinking back into slumber. Is the one seal a sentinel? It looks like it. But why, if this were their custom, should seals ever sleep singly? And this they often do.
In spite of the shortness of all their four limbs, yet seals, as they stretch themselves, throw up the head, bend the neck and back, raise their fore-feet into the air, or push out the hind ones to their full length whilst at the same time stretching them apart, often have a very startling resemblance to a man. The curves and symmetries of the body—especially the upper portion of it—are sometimes wonderfully suggestive of the human torso, and the resemblance is often helped by the shape of the rock, which, by curving away from the body, allows the lines of it to appear. Nothing, in fact, can look both more like and more unlike a man than do these creatures. See one lying quiescent, a great, swollen, carrot-shaped bladder, and one may scoff at the possibility of any such resemblance; but wait and watch, and in a hundred odd ways one will catch it. When a seal scratches one of his front flippers it is wonderfully like a man scratching the back of one hand with the other. The hind feet can look almost more hand-like. It is true that when the toes are distended to their full width the whole foot is just like a fish's tail in shape, but when they are not stretched so widely apart, and those of the one play, as they often do, with those of the other, then they have a wonderful resemblance to fingers—swollen, gouty fingers, it is true; gloved, too, they look—but still fingers.
Another interesting sight now in the adjoining cove, or rather in the adjoining half of this semi-divided one! A seal comes to its rock there beforethe tide has sufficiently gone down to let it lie upon it. It plays about the rock, fawns upon it, caresses it, woos it, one might say, dives down and circumnavigates it, tries or pretends to try to lie upon it, even under the water, swims away and returns, and does the same thing several times; and as soon as the water is sufficiently shallow to allow of it, it reclines, sea-washed and gently heaving, till the receding tide leaves it high and dry. A pretty thing it is—very—to see a seal thus waiting for its chosen rock to appear.
I was at the ledges about twelve, and found my particular one a blank—not a bird there. Mother and child—father too, and every other bird besides—was off; the cupboard was bare. A bitter disappointment seized hold upon me, sunk into my very soul. Yet what else could I have expected? They may have gone in the night; and, in any case, how, except by actually bivouacking above that ledge, could I have hoped to be there at the exact moment when the departure took place? This I might have managed, or at least have managed better, had my little black sentry-box been a cottage, with some one in it to cook for me. Then I could have got to bed by eight, or at least nine, and been up by three or four; but without this it was impossible. I can do—and I do now—with as little as most men, but porridge here is like charity, and oh, the time that it takes to make! They talked to me of ten minutes or a quarter of an hour at the outside, spoke even ofboiling milk flung upon the raw meal—said it would be good like that. "Women said so, that will say anything." Sweetly they smiled, but they understood not the conditions. Oh fire that will not burn up! Oh kettle that will not boil! Oh egg thatwillcrack when you drop it in! Oh one spoon that goeth a-missing! This, and much more "of this harness," as the Spaniard says, has kept me up till ten or later—till eleven, once, when the frying bacon, "in the very moment of projection," was breathed on by the flame of paraffin. (Nothing but paraffin will make a fire burn up in the Shetlands, and even that gets damp sometimes.) So that, having my notes to extend and decipher, and with hard boards, and the wind, and a flea or so, and sometimes the lumbago, I may say, with Comus, almost any night, "What has night to do with sleep?" but without being able to continue, for certainly it has no "better sweets to prove."
But perhaps I should have missed it in any case. Perhaps—nay, I will be certain of it, to lessen heart-ache—they went off in the night. To think of it! that young, tiny creature! And was it then, in the dark night, when the wind was blowing so furiously, that you were carried down—a little soft, fluffy, delicate-looking thing—to be put upon the great tumultuous sea? through mist and driving spray, with neither moon nor stars to light you, to toss, for the first time in life, on those tumbling, rough-playing waves? I, a grown man, was glad of all I could heap on my bedto keep the wind away. I lay and thought of ship-wrecks as I listened to it roaring, but I never thought of you, flitting out to sea through it all, cradled so delicately on your mother's back—if that, indeed, was the way of it. How could I imagine it? Even to watch you, as you lay warm on your cold ledge in the daytime, gave me the lumbago, though wrapped in two good plaids. But at night, and with nothing round you, to leave eventhatshelter, to cast off from the sheer, horrid edge "into the empty, vast, and wandering air," and then souse into yeasty salt water, without cold or chill taken, without a touch of lumbago—oh, what an iron constitution!Youare not the lathe painted to look like iron; you are feathers in steelwork, rather, a powder-puff made out of adamant. But here I register a vow that I will return here, some day, in the height of the putting-off season, and see the little guillemots fly from their cliff's cradle, or ride down on one cradle to another—their mother's soft, warm back, and then
In cradle of the rude, imperious surge.
CHAPTER XXVIII
TAMMY-NORIE-LAND