The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands/Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV
NEW DEVELOPMENTS
IT is curious to see the guillemot-ledges so thronged now, when everything speaks of the departure of summer, if that, indeed, can be said to depart which has never, apparently, arrived. As I said before, there are very few young birds to be seen, and since the sexes in the guillemot are alike, one might think, at first, that the mothers had all gone off with their chicks, leaving only the males on the ledges. This, however, cannot be the case, since there is much cossetting, and sometimes a touch of "the wren," and "small gilded fly," of King Lear—I trust I express myself clearly.
I was beginning to think that there were no young guillemots at all here now, but just at this moment a bird flies in with a fish in its bill, and, running up to another one, with it, the chick immediately appears from under a projecting cranny of the ledge, where it has been concealed, and receives and eats the fish. It is the usual thing—the wings of the two parents drooped, like a tent, in which the little thing stands, and both of them equally interested. This chick seems of considerable size—as guillemot chicks go—is properly feathered, and the plumage has the colouring of the grown birds, except that the throat and chin are white as well as the breast—a continuity of white, therefore, over the whole under surface. Moreover, from each eye to the base of the bill, on the corresponding side, there is a thick black line. The wings, which I have seen it flap, are small, with the quills not sufficiently developed for flight—at least, I should think not. Some time after this I saw a smaller chick which had been hidden hitherto behind the two parents. The non-locomotion of both was as marked a feature as ever—for this struck me very much the last time I was here. The smaller one I could never make out again. The other was for a long time invisible behind its slight escarpment, and then, though it came out and was active where it stood, it did not move more than an inch or so beyond it, or in any direction.
As this chick evidently could not fly, it, as evidently, could not have left the ledge, and returned to it. Imagine, therefore, that the chicks are conveyed down by the parents, in this state, as it is asserted that they are, and the emptiness of the ledges, of young birds, is explained; for by the time they could fly they would have forgotten all about them, even if they were not far away, as they probably by that time would be. But if they wait till they can fly before leaving the ledges, why do they not fly back to them, and then backwards and forwards, like the young kittiwakes, or the young shags? Why do they not accompany their parents when they return, since their parents will not stay with them upon the sea? All this is explained upon the supposition that the parent guillemot flies down with the chick on its back, but it does not follow that there is no other way of explaining it. I think there is another; for though the chick, when it leaves the ledge, may not be able to fly in any true sense of the word, yet it might make a shift to flutter down to the sea, in a line sufficiently diagonal to avoid the danger of striking upon the face of the cliff where it projected at a lower elevation, or upon the rocks at its base. This may not be likely, but at least it is possible, and, on the other hand, if the parent guillemots do really carry their chicks down, why do they not do so shortly after they are hatched, or, at least, much sooner than they do? Why should they feed them on the ledges for a fortnight or three weeks, for I think they are as long as that there, during all which time they are getting larger and heavier? Though the young guillemot keeps so quiet on the ledge, yet it has the full use of its limbs, and seems quite as forward and capable as are young chickens and ducklings. It would, no doubt, be at home in the water at once, if only it were put there. Does it, then, wait until it can get there itself, or does the parent bird take it? This question I hope to be able to answer before I leave here.
A bird that has no chick now brings in a fish to the ledge, and seems not to know what to do with it. At last he puts it down, and another bird—not, I think, the partner, but it may be—takes it. It seems as though the instinct of feeding the young still continued with this bird, though its young one is gone. We may think "out of sight, out of mind" with animals, but what is probably wanted to make them remember is a reminder of some sort; and when they are reminded, though their memory may be less capacious than ours, it does not follow that it is likewise less vivid within their own limited range. Indeed, I think there is some reason to conclude the contrary. The imagination of a great writer is such that he sees the scenes and persons that exist but in his own mind, as clearly, possibly, as we do our own familiar friends and their, or our, all as familiar surroundings. We must suppose so, at any rate, as we read Scott or Shakespeare; and indeed their productions are such that it cannot be far short of this. I question if any man ever saw his absent friend more clearly than did Shakespeare his Falstaff, for instance, or Scott his Balfour of Burleigh. But does it, therefore, follow that either of these great writers would, when hungry, have summoned up before him a clearer picture of his approaching dinner, than does the equally hungry or very much hungrier boor? This I doubt; and on the same principle I doubt if the said boor would see his dinner more clearly than a wolf, bear, or tiger would theirs when in quest of it.
The memory of an animal, as compared with that of a man, may be not so much weaker as less multitudinous. As a rule we remember those things best in which we take the greatest interest. This gives to man a much wider range of memory than any animal can possess, with a proportionately increased area for association to work over. But there are certain primitive interests, as we may call them, connected with food, and the family and sexual relations, which are very strong in animals, and in regard to which the memory, when put in action, may be equally strong. Who shall say that a man, returning to his home at the end of the day, sees in his mind's eye a clearer picture of what awaits him there than does the bird flying to its nest, or the bee to its hive? Now could anything, by association, call up this picture, suddenly, in the bird's or insect's mind, they would, no doubt, act for the moment as though it were real—as did Darwin's dog when he called him after five years' absence; and thus I can understand one of these guillemots flying with a fish to its ledge, to feed its chick, although its chick were no longer there. It might be so; I can see no reason against it. In the actions of these two birds there may lie—for me, now, there does lie—a great psychological interest. Suggestive they certainly are. I shall keep this in my mind and watch the ledges more closely.
The larger of the two young guillemots is now frequently flapping its wings, and latterly it has been jumping up, at the same time, though always it keeps in one place by its mother, and does not run about. Mother and chick often delectate themselves by nibbling the tip of each other's bills. And now there comes a surprise. For the first time that I have ever seen, the chick moves right away from where it was, leaving its father and mother. It travels along the ledge, often uncomfortably near to the edge of it, and at last gets round a corner, out of my sight. The parents, as far as I can make out, have not followed it. This is quite a new development in my experience of the chick, if not in the chick's own experience. It is not, then, quite immovable, till it flies or is carried down. Were it to fall now, how aptly would it illustrate that law of natural selection which I have called in to account for its general quiescence. I hope it won't though—which is to my credit surely.
I note one more thing before leaving. A bird picks up and, as it were, plays with some feathers lying on the ledge, one of which it now brings to its partner, lays it on the rock, and then both pull it about. This, too, I noticed when I was last here. I have mentioned it in my Bird Watching, and account for it by supposing that we here see a last trace of the once active nest-building instinct. Perhaps, however, the act is too trivial to need any special accounting for.