The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands/Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXXII
THREE MURDERERS
GONE they are. The ledges are quite bare—not a bird to be seen there—nothing but the spray and the wild winds to love them now. It was what I had expected, had been sure of; but again I felt bitter disappointment. It is more than disappointment—a sadness and emptiness of heart at finding these accustomed tenants, that have for days given life and beauty and domestic happiness to the desolate frowning precipice, gone, and their known places void. How I miss them! I retract now what I said before about wild creatures giving no relief to the sense of solitude. These guillemots did, I believe, and I feel lonelier now without them. And so, whilst I lay warm under the bedclothes, were you, you little mite of a guillemot—but stay, I have apostrophised you once already, and am not going to do it again.
There was rain, mist, and wind extraordinary today, but the sea dashed finely over the rocks. The pool, though a haven, was often seething, yet I saw Bottle-nose, and, later, a common seal, in it. The latter was the only one I watched. He came up at intervals of a few minutes only, and, as on former occasions, always rose perpendicularly in the water, with his nose pointed to the sky. In this position he remained all the while he was up—which was never more than a minute—and then sank without altering it, differing in this last respect from the two larger seals, which always went down with a porpoise-like roll. His eyes were shut all the while, even when he went down, but still I supposed that, once beneath the surface, he was accustomed to swim away and enter upon some active employment "under the glassy, cool, translucent wave": the line, indeed—which, by the way, with its exquisite context, is not to be found in that overpraised pert piece of ex cathedra dictation. The Golden Treasury—for the gold non olet, but out on its many omissions and at least one vile, prudish mutilation!—hardly suits such a pot-boil as this haven now is; but it is always untroubled in the deeps. But I was deceived in this supposition, for once he came sufficiently near to the great bulk of rock where I was lying for me to see him for some time before he rose; and, to my surprise, I saw that he was floating in just the same attitude, and just as quiescently. As he came up his eyes were fast closed, so that I think he must have been dozing, or sleeping, like this, under the water, all the while, yet rising—perhaps automatically—at the requisite intervals. The common seal, if it be not as nocturnal as the cat tribe, from which it may have descended, is certainly a very great sleeper.
The eye of the puffin is, by virtue of its setting, almost as marked a feature as the beak itself. First it is surrounded by a ring of naked skin, much resembling the feet in colour—of an orange-red, that is to say—and just within this ring there is a dot at one point of the iris, and a straight line at the other, both of which are really of a bluish or slaty hue, but have the appearance of being black. This line and dot form the base and apex respectively of a sort of little triangle, the sides of which are formed by a deep depression in the skin, and within it the eye is framed like a little miniature, and, as is sometimes the case with pictures, partly encroached upon by the frame, so that its circular shape is interfered with. The effect of the whole—for all these details blend together, and can only be distinguished with the glasses—is that the bird seems to have a triangular eye, and this bizarre appearance is heightened by another, and much deeper, line, or fold, in the feathers, which runs back from the base of the triangle till it meets, or tries to meet, the black feathers of the head and neck, in a little delta between the two. Hardly less wonderful than the eye are the cheeks—if one may call them so—those two sharply defined oval surfaces of light, shining grey, so smooth and polished that they do not suggest feathers at all, but look much more like little veneered panels of fancy woodwork, let into a framework of ebony. To all this the beak has been added, to give full and crowning effect to the idea that governed at the puffin's making, which was that it should be "as remarkable a figure of a bird as any in our country," or elsewhere.
I have sometimes wondered if the fish which the puffin catches so deftly, and then carries home, a dozen at a time, are paralysed at the sight of it. If a shoal of sand-eels fainted, and lay strewed about the bottom of the sea, it would then be easy for their enemy to pick them up one after the other, pack them securely, and get a firm grip on all of them before they began to revive and wriggle. At least, it ought to be easier; but how the bird chases and catches each in succession, without losing those it has already caught, and which lie in a row across its beak, it is not so easy to see. I have sometimes, I believe, made out a dozen, at the least—all sand-eels—closely wedged together along the cleft of the mandibles, their heads and tails hanging down on either side of the lower one. Perhaps, however, the difficulty is not so great as it seems to be—of understanding it, of course, I mean; it is no doubt easy enough for the bird to do. My theory, at any rate, of its modus operandi is this. The first sand-eel is, no doubt, passed to the base of the mandibles, and being firmly wedged against the membrane that unites them, I suppose that they are finally closed upon it. Were they opened again, at all widely, to catch the next and subsequent ones, there would be a danger of as many as were already there either escaping by their own efforts, or being floated out owing to the pressure of the water. But the beak of the puffin, though broad and leaf-like in its shape, is sharply tipped, and by opening it but a little, and pressing the fish against the bottom, the bird could no doubt pinch up the skin so as to get a secure hold of it. The various little tactile movements of the mandibles upon the fish by which the latter would be first grasped between, and then passed carefully down them, to lie against the one last caught, can be pretty well imagined, and they could be very effectively aided by the rubbing or pressing of it, on either side, against the sand, rocks, stones, etc., of the bottom. It must be remembered, too, that the mandibles open like a scissors, so as to be wider apart at the tips than at the base, which would diminish the difficulty; and moreover, each fish is so deeply indented by the sharp, cutting blades—which, however, do not seem to pierce the skin—that, although alive—reflecting possibly on the beauty of maternal affection—they would be likely to "cleave to their mould" like putty, for a little while after the pressure were relaxed.
I think that the broad, blade-like bill of the puffin has to do with this power that the bird possesses of holding many fish at a time, and that the razorbill whose beak is of the same type, and who bites the fish across in just the same way, is in the habit of doing so also. Be this as it may, the guillemot, whose bill is quite differently shaped, holds the fish, as a rule, in a different manner, longitudinally namely, with the head towards the throat, and the tail drooping over to one side. This is not invariable; but I have never myself seen a bird bring in more than one fish at a time. It is the same, I think, with the black guillemot, at least in this latter respect, but I have seen much less of it than the other. Unless, however, it be supposed more difficult to catch and hold many fish than many insects, there is no reason why the puffin should be singled out for wonder in this respect. The water wagtail, when feeding its young, fills its bill with insects, which it catches, not only on the ground, but flying also—a great feat, surely—and the lesser spotted woodpecker brings a similar assortment to the nesting-tree. I believe myself that most insect-eating birds do the same whilst feeding their family, unless when they catch an insect sufficiently large to be a host in itself.
What a whirr of pinions, and fine wild chase beneath the beetling precipice, and out to sea! It was the Arctic skua, pursuing, this time, a black guillemot, no doubt en route for its young. They went so fast—the skua with the swoop of a peregrine falcon—that I could only just follow the smaller bird, but I caught its white wing-patches, so am sure it was not a puffin. Half-way out of the cove the guillemot must have dropped its fish, for its pursuer descended, and hung hovering over the water, seemingly embarrassed, and without alighting upon it. This, at first sight, seems evidence in favour of the theory that the skua, unless it succeeds in catching the spoil before it touches the sea, will have nothing to do with it; but as a herring-gull now flew up, and behaved in the same way, the more legitimate inference is that both birds were looking for what neither of them could see, and that the fish, being alive, as it probably would be, had, by a remarkable conjunction of two lucky accidents, escaped. But, on the other hand, would the herring-gull have dared to interfere with the skua?—which it would have been doing, were the latter in the habit of picking up the fish from the water. On other occasions I have seen the skua fly off as soon as he had missed his swoop, and I have once seen a herring-gull following the chase, with a view, as seemed obvious, to such a contingency. This happened on the island, so that I remember it quite plainly, though, what with one thing and another, it got crowded out of my notes. I was, however, much interested at the time, for it pointed to a possibility of a further and more complex development of these curious parasitic relations; for why should not gulls become, in time, the constant attendants of such chases as these, on the off-chance merely of the skua failing to get the fish that he had forced the bird he was chasing to drop? Here would be a secondary act of piracy grown out of the first and more direct one.
Herring-gulls—they are much the commonest species here—seem now to feed a good deal on the floating carcases of young kittiwakes, so I think it likely that the bird I twice saw doing this before, and took each time for a grown kittiwake, was really a herring-gull. It was at some distance, and I jumped to a conclusion without taking the trouble to verify it. But are these young kittiwakes first killed by the gulls, or found dead by them merely? As to this I can say nothing, except that I have not yet seen such an attack made—which is not much.
In the last two or three days I have pretty well demonstrated that seals, when they lie on the rocks, in company, do not post sentinels. In descending the cliffs, I have several times alarmed one or more out of the ten or a dozen that have lain on the great, slanting slab where they rendezvous; but their retreat, more or less precipitate, has not induced the others to a like course. Some have looked about a little, but remained where they were, whilst the greater number have lain in fancied—and this time real—security. It may be said that the seals which took to the water need not have been the sentinels, but this is an argumentum ad absurdum, since a sentinel that neither saw danger itself, nor gave the signal when it saw others in a state of alarm, would be no good.
For me, therefore, seals do not post sentries, at least not in these seas, but it does not necessarily follow that they may not do so in others where they are more persecuted by man, and preyed on by polar-bears. Whether this has been asserted, or not, I do not know, but I dare swear it has been, for sportsmen, besides that they draw very hasty inferences, like to get full credit for their miserable triumphs over brute intelligence. Take this very matter of sentinel-posting. It has been lightly made, and far too lightly credited. If you have a herd, or flock, of animals—say some geese browsing—some must stand on the outside, which is where we would post sentinels. That is enough for the sportsman. Such individuals are sentinels, and his skill, consequently, in outwitting them, something extraordinary. But let him bring some evidence of this—I mean of the first proposition; as for the other—the corollary—we will take it for granted, sentinels or not. No doubt of the man's capabilities. He can set his wit to a goose's, and shame, or cry quits, with it—but was the goose really so extremely clever? Was it anything more than a wary, vigilant bird, that a man of parts might be expected, sometimes, to get the better of? I doubt it extremely—at any rate, I doubt the sentry-go. When one comes to think of it, the systematic tailing off of one, or some, particular members of a band of animals, to warn the others in the event of danger, is a very high act of collective intelligence; and nothing short of this amounts to anything. That the first animal who takes alarm should utter a cry, and thus warn the rest, is a very different matter. These seals did not even do this, though the ones who saw me, and took to the water, must have associated my presence with danger. Of this I have now had another example, for in ascending the cliff, one out of two seals lying close together on a small rock saw me and went off. The other had not seen me, but evidently felt uneasy, owing to the haste and abrupt motions of his companion. Nevertheless, he took some time to make up his mind, and was on the rock, I should say, about two minutes after the other had left: whereas, had this latter communicated his alarm to him by any recognised signal, he would have been in the water almost at the same time. On the great slab itself ten seals were lying as I began to go up, but one went off whilst I sat quiet, without observing me. This left nine, and, of these, two saw me as I scrambled up an exposed ridge, and went off, whilst the other seven slumbered on.
As far as I can see, therefore, there was no communication of intelligence between these seals. Each acted for himself, and without thought of the others. I have noticed the same thing often with birds, and on the whole I cannot help thinking that, in a loose sort of way, wild animals are often credited with acting in a more highly organised manner than they really do, and that a too intelligent interpretation is often put upon their actions. When, for example, a bird, scenting danger, flies off, with a cry that warns all the others (though it frequently does so in silence), it does not follow that it was thinking of those others, nor can the cry be shown to be a special one until it has been heard, over and over again, in the same, or similar, circumstances, but not upon other occasions. Even then it will often be found to be due to excitement, merely, so that instead of expressing any definite idea, it but reflects the emotional state of the individual uttering it—it is the difference between thinking and feeling. The familiar alarm-note, as it is called, of the blackbird, is an example of this, for I have often heard the bird utter it when there has been neither fear nor danger—only excitement. Its organism reacts in this way to a certain state, which may be caused by a variety of incidents, so that no special, circumstantially limited meaning can attach, in its mind, to the cry.
I do not say that there are no cries, amongst animals, which have a certain definite meaning, and no other. Very possibly there are, and one may, perhaps, perceive the origin of them; for if such cries—at first general—were, in a large majority of cases, consequent upon a particular state of things, such state of things would come to be more and more associated with the cry, though from this to a definite and purposed signal, given by one and received by many, is a very considerable step. But the fact—if it really is one—ought to be better made out than it is. A sportsman has only to talk about the leader, a signal, or sentinels, in regard to any bird or beast, and no one pauses upon it. It is accepted as though it had dropped from heaven instead of from the lips of a man whose main interest lies in killing animals, who is generally most hasty in drawing inferences about them, and whose belief in their intelligence pays a compliment to his own.
The minds of some people must be in a strange state about animals, I think. They will not allow that they have reasoning powers, yet find no difficulty in crediting them with all sorts of actions, schemes, plans, and arrangements, that seem to demand a quite human understanding. Perhaps I, who admit the one, make too much difficulty over the other; but I like evidence (and plenty of it), and do not take conviction as proof. More, perhaps, than any other subject, natural history abounds with statements, the evidence for which there is often no getting at, or, if one does get at it, it amounts to very little.
Oh, thou villain gull! What have I not just seen thee do? But heroics are out of place with animals, so I will just recount the incident in a staid, sober way. As, in my ascent of the cliff, I came over the crest of a green peak, a herring-gull flew up from the ground with something in its bill, which, as it mounted aloft, I saw to be a young puffin. It hung by the nape of the neck from the very tip of the gull's beak, the legs dangling pitifully down—a pathetic spectacle—though I could not make out any movement in it, indicating that it was alive. The gull made for the sea, and, crossing to one of the great "stacks" that stands frowning a little off the shore, mounted high above it, and then let the puffin fall. Down, down, down, and down it came, a horrible descent; and I seemed to hear the far-off thud, as it struck that cruel rock. Then, in a second or two afterwards, the gull came circling down upon it, and began to feed upon the body, dragging it from this place to that, and seeming to fear a shag, which came up the stack towards it. I can hardly think it coveted the morsel, but I am reminded that I certainly saw another one with its beak at a dead kittiwake. No doubt, therefore, it did, and thus, once again, the fact is driven home to me that there is no such thing as "always" 
"ONE MORE UNFORTUNATE"
Was the puffin dead when the gull flew up with it? If it was, then had it found it so, or killed it itself? Did it drop it on purpose, to kill it, or let it fall by accident? These questions I am unable to answer; but in regard to the two last, gulls are credited here with letting crabs fall on the rocks, in order to break their shells. Even if the puffin were dead before, such a fall, by bursting or bruising the body, might make it easier to tear open—an operation which the gull, I believe, had not yet had time to perform.
The whole ground where this gull went up with its victim—for I have little doubt myself as to what had taken place—was honeycombed with puffin-burrows, and troops of puffins stood everywhere about. I sat down where I had halted, and before long two other herring-gulls came and stood in the same locality, close to several of these poor little birds, who, I thought, seemed embarrassed by their presence, but powerless to resent it, and perhaps not sufficiently intelligent to divine its true purport.
The gulls, I thought, had a sort of unpleasant, evil-boding look; a sullen, brazen, criminal appearance, like the two murderers in that scene with Clarence, just before the duke awakes—but this may have been partly due to imagination, after what I had just seen, with a late reading of Richard III. I love that play; almost more than ambition, perhaps, the keynote to its hero-villain's character is to be sought in his tremendous energy and intellectual activity. These are so great that they, to a large extent, guard him against the intolerable anguish of remorse—that constant attendant on the undiseased evil-doer—so that he fares better than Macbeth, who is inferior to Richard in both these respects, and whose more poetic and sensitive nature is much against him. Not that Macbeth is not an energetic and able man, but he is only normally so, while Richard's working qualities are abnormal. His energy, especially, is more like that of a Napoleon or Julius Cæsar. It is such a mighty and rapidly-moving stream, that, hurried along by it, he has no leisure to repine. It floats his crimes easily, one may say, making little dancing boats of them, whereas those of Macbeth are like huge vessels in a stream that has hardly volume enough to bear them. Is it not, in fact, almost impossible to feel mental depression, so long as the brain is very actively employed? It is in the calms and lulls of this activity that disagreeable reflections force themselves upon us, just as rain that has been kept from falling by a violent wind, falls as soon as it subsides. Accordingly, though Richard's robuster nature goes almost scot free by day—at least, for a considerable time—it becomes the prey of conscience by night, when the huge energy of his disposition is in abeyance; when, in Tennyson's language, "to sleep he gives his powers away." This we learn first through his wife Anne, who has been constantly "wakèd by his timorous dreams"—how strangely sounds the word "timorous" used of such a character!—and later—almost at the end—from himself, in that one terrifying outburst which gives the first and only clear view into the mental torments which this strong villain has to suffer, as soon as that daytime energy, which is to him as an armour, is laid aside. Is it not very striking—is it not the character-touch of this scene, how—when Richard is once fairly awake again, when the things of waking life have returned, with Ratcliff at the tent-door—how quickly this great load of suffering is shifted off?
A fortiori Macbeth suffers at night, too, but his life is all suffering. We never get the idea of his enjoying life, which, with Richard, we really do; for he is humorous—jocular even—in fact, in tiptop spirits often, but all by day, during the bustle and action of an energetic career. Later, the wound of guilt begins to show itself, and here, too, we may make an instructive comparison between these two practitioners in crime, so alike in their motive and careers, so different in their fibre and temperament, and yet yielding to the same law. Macbeth, indeed, suffers so much that his mind becomes, at last, almost unhinged, and, in the very end, conscience, perhaps, ceases to afflict him. The machine, too delicate for such rough work, has been broken by repeated blows—the nerve has throbbed itself out. Shakespearean parallels are, I think, very interesting and instructive, but they are seldom dwelt upon.
Thus far out of the path of what I am pledged to deal in, a fanciful comparison has led me; but I will go no further. Ne ultra crepidam sutor, etc., though, to be sure, I am no more altogether naturalist than King Lear's fool was "altogether fool." So as, from king or emperor downwards, I have no respect for titles, it is not much wonder if I forget now and again to be subservient to that of my own book.[1] Yet to do so is fiddle-de-dee, for books and people both, in this world, are judged of as they are labelled—often getting labelled by accident—and though, in this little excursion into other realms, I have talked no more nonsense than any literary critic may, without at all committing himself—except to nonsense, which doesn't at all matter—yet I talk it where it will not be thought sense. To return then—for your reviewer bites the thumb at a digression—I noticed many other herring-gulls hovering over these puffin-haunted slopes, and that they live largely upon the young of these birds, as well as on young kittiwakes, I do not now doubt. I can see no reason why they should not lie in wait, and drag the former from their holes. I must watch for this. This reminds me of how often I have found the newly-picked remains of puffins on the cliffs and shore; but these were all of full-grown birds. What bird, in especial, is responsible for this? Surely not gulls! And never having seen a peregrine falcon here, I have got to not much believe in him. I have seen no sign of such a thing on the part of the great skuas. The others, I think, are only robbers, or at least could hardly kill a puffin, whose beak should be more powerful than their own. It is somewhat of a mystery to me.
One more word upon the puffin. He is strongly ritualistic, if not actually a papist. I find it, as is so often the case, difficult to be sure which. See the whole series of pretty little genuflexions that he makes after coming down upon a rock, and then consider his vestments, his surplice—if that is the proper thing—"his rich dalmatic and maniple fine," his "rochet and pall," and so on—they are all there, I feel certain, for not otherwise could he look so extraordinary. His beak, too, if he only open it the least little bit in the world, is a bishop's mitre, and, for the ring, he wears it round his eye. "Pope," indeed, is one of his local names, but, on the whole, I class him as a ritualist, for he "out-herods Herod." Whether he secedes to Rome ever, or as near there as the mouth of the Tiber, I don't quite know; but if he does 'tis no matter, for he is sure to come back again.
- ↑ But I needn't have forgotten my own afterthought "—and Digressions." Hurrah! That frees me.