The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands/Chapter 31

by Edmund Selous

CHAPTER XXXI

AN ALL-DAY SITTING

ANOTHER all-day sitting with the seals. From the edge of the cliffs in the morning, and in the same pool by which I had sat all yesterday, I saw a creature which I at first thought was a seal of the common kind, then—for it began to look larger—that it was the bottle-nosed one, but which soon proved to be neither the one nor the other. In size it looked equal to Bottle-nose, if not even larger, but it had a magnificent skin, the whole of the under-surface, as well as the sides, being blotched and spotted black and white, like a leopard's or jaguar's, except that the markings are larger. In heaven's name, now, what creature is this? Can it be the sea-leopard that I have often read about, but of whose habitat, etc., I know nothing till I can look it up again?—the state of many a naturalist in regard to many a species, sometimes, perhaps, but shortly before he writes a treatise upon it. Upon coming down, now, and watching it closely, I see that in shape and general appearance—except for its wonderful skin—it is very like the bottle-nosed seal. Its body, however, is not so cylindrical, but bulges out into a greater roundness below the neck and shoulders, so that its weight may be somewhat greater. Its nose looks broader, and nearly, if not quite, as long. I think, indeed, it is the larger animal of the two. I can make these comparisons, for both are here together now, and they continue for hour after hour to haunt the pool; but whilst he of the bottle-nose rises always at his long intervals and soon goes down, the knight of the leopard comes up at as short, or even shorter ones than the common seal does, and sometimes stays for a longer time, as witness these twelve successive appearances, with their corresponding disappearances, which I timed, partly to know, and partly to feel scientific: from 11.44 to 11.48; from 11.50¼ to 11.53¾; from 11.55 to 12; from 12.1¼ to 12.5½; from 12.7¾ to 12.11; from 12.14 to 12.17¾; from 12.20 to 12.24; from 12.25¾ to 12.30¼; from 12.32 to 12.37½; from 12.44 to 12.49; from 12.50¾ to 12.55.

Also, though he often pegtops it, he has never yet pointed his nose straight up into the sky, which my bottle-nosed seal invariably does. Generally he soon adopts the horizontal attitude, and continues in it for the rest of the time he is up. When he goes down, he rolls round, as well as over—by which I mean both like a porpoise and like a barrel—and then his spotted, or rather blotched, belly makes a splendid mosaic under the water, for it is not only itself, which were enough of beauty, but the most lovely glaucous green is flung upon it, through which, all glorified, the pattern appears. A magnificent sight! "The very phenix!" Poor Bottle-nose is quite eclipsed.

This great beauty of the skin—which, strange to say, instead of being invisible was most conspicuously apparent—can only, I think, have been gained through sexual selection, and its being confined to the belly and sides may bear some relation to the habits of the animal. Suppose that this one is the male, then does his leopardess look up at him as he rolls in blubberly grace and barrel-like symmetry above her, or, since he swims with equal ease upon his back or belly, has the fair, portly expanse of the latter made it the principal area of decoration? Does he offer it as a carpet to her when she goes abroad, saying "Swim upon me," or display it over her as a banner, crying "Be these thy colours!" or, in swift circumvolution, does he enmesh and entwine her with it, playing about her like a stout coruscation, as the two swim together through grots, and caves, and pebbled halls, and cool groves of golden-brown seaweed? All this is the secret of the deep; but there is the belly, and it fires the imagination.

I am now sure that it was this great and glorious sea-leopard, and not the other large seal, that I first saw lying on the seaweed, and I had hoped it might have done so again as the tide went out. But I was again disappointed. As before, little of this deep-growing seaweed was exposed by the tide, nor did either of the two lie on the rock itself, or on any other one. Neither did the common seal come this time, whereas, in the adjoining cove, there was the accustomed complement. This one seems the haunt par excellence of these two superior creatures, but, very unlike the common seal, they are always in the water.

I have now satisfied myself that the young guillemot is petted, sometimes, by birds that are not its parents. The facts are as follows: having watched the seals till past five, I determined to explore a little, and walked out along the promontory which forms the opposite side of this little Shetland fiord, and the end of which, except for the outlying stacks, must be about the most northern point of that portion of the British Empire which imperialists care least about—I mean the British Isles. Here I found some more guillemot and kittiwake ledges, and on one of these were some half a dozen of the former birds, one being a young one. The latter was with its parents, on a place which, though it seemed to project but a hair's breadth, was yet the safest part of the ledge, which was very narrow and dangerous-looking. Here I left him for a very short time, to get further down the rocks, but on my return I found he had left this comparatively secure place and was now right away, on what, but for a very slight slanting slope, with a giddy projection here and there, looked like the sheer face of the precipice. No bird was with it: the chick was evidently in distress, and now, for the first time, I heard a little sharp note proceeding from it, which really did sound something like the word "guill," or "guilly." Some feet above where the chick was, but separated from it by a fearfully steep and dangerous face of rock, another guillemot sat on a ridge, which it almost covered. The chick made several efforts to scale this mauvais pas, failed as many times, but at last, with manifest danger to its poor little life, got up it, and stood by this bird, on the tiny ridge. The latter immediately stood up also, and bent over it, jodel-ing, and cossetting it with its beak. Here, then, it seemed evident, was one of the parents. But now there appeared, pressing forward amongst others, on that part of the cliff where the chick had been, an eye-marked bird who seemed to be much excited. She made her way along to near the place from which the chick had scrambled up, and, as one may say, called it down to her, though I heard no cry, for it followed her back along that fearfully steep and dangerous place, having now always to climb down instead of up, until, at last, it was back on the ledge where it had, at first, been sitting, and which, compared to where it had strayed to, looked almost safe.

Could I give all the details of this fearful journey, it would make interesting reading, but I sat in rain and wind, and my hands were so numbed with cold that I found it difficult to use the glasses, and quite impossible to take notes. All that I can say now—this same evening—is that once, in getting down to its mother, who waited for it at different stages, it did actually fall and roll head over heels down the rock. I thought all was over, but it recovered itself on a tiny projection, seeming none the worse, and, shortly after, arrived with its mother on the ledge. Here there were some three or four more birds, and the

A PERILOUS JOURNEY

chick, as I noticed, now, and several times afterwards, seemed glad to go to any of them. One it ran up to, and this bird behaved exactly as the first one had done, jodel-ing over it, and caressing it with its bill. Now, if this last bird was the chick's parent, the one that had a little before done the same thing, and still sat in the same place on another part of the rock, could not also be, for that the eyed bird who had fetched it away must have been either its father or mother, is a thing indubitable, not only by reason of that one act, but also on account of its general conduct both before and afterwards. One, therefore, of the two birds that caressed the chick must have been a stranger to it, but the fact is that both were, for whilst the last that had done so was still on the ledge, and but shortly afterwards, in flew a bird from the sea with a fish in his bill, and fed the chick. Now, I cannot, as far as eyesight goes, affirm that this bird was not the one that the chick had first gone to, and by whom it had been kindly received; but that one of a pair of guillemots should sit for a long time, not only by itself, but far removed from the chick and the other one, and that afterwards, when the chick had gone to it, this other one, its own mate, should excitedly fetch it away, is a thing quite out of accordance with all I have yet seen of the domestic relations of these birds. It is true that, in this case, a motive can be imagined for the chick's excursion, but whilst my later observations have shown me that, as the chick gets older, it does move about, I have never known it trouble about an absent parent whilst it had one by it. I have never, that I remember, seen the chick seek to be fed before one or other of its dams had flown in with a fish, and I attribute the anxiety which this one showed to reach the bird in question, to its distress at finding itself in so precarious a situation. In this, however, I may be wrong, but since it is beyond doubt that one stranger bird caressed the chick, it is not very essential to prove that another did. The likelihood is that one would be as willing to as another, and I did, indeed, notice that all the birds on the ledge to which the chick was brought back, seemed to take a kindly interest in it, especially another white-eyed one, which the mother several times drove away from it—being jealous, as I suppose. The state of affairs appeared to me to be this, that all the birds had a tender feeling towards the chick, that the chick, if left to itself, was inclined to go to any one of them, and that whatever one it did go to was ready to jodel over it, and caress it. Not having been able to note down every little thing at the time, I cannot now give the general evidence on which this impression was founded, but I have recounted the special incidents.

An interesting question arises here—at least it seems interesting to me. Is the conduct that we have been considering the result of mistake or confusion on the part of either the grown birds or the chick—or of both of them—or does it spring from an extension of sympathy in the one, and of Kinderliebe, or cupboard-love, in the other? Personally, I believe that both of these two latter brain-processes have to do in producing the result in question, but that the first—a tenderness, namely, on the part of the old birds—is the preponderating influence. We must remember that all these childless birds upon the ledges—and when I first came the ledges were crowded—must have had children with them only a short time ago. When, therefore, a chick runs suddenly up to them, just as their own chick used to, I can understand a train of recent memories being so strongly revived as to cause them to act as they do. I did, in fact, to my own senses, notice something in the manner of these non-parent birds thus acting parentally—in a certain degree, that is to say—which was different to that of the true parents. A certain surprise, I thought, was exhibited at first, and then the bird seemed to fall into the old train of things. If, indeed, as I am much inclined to believe, the mere bringing of a fish to the ledge may raise, for a time, in the mind of the bird that brings it, the hallucinatory image or impression of a chick that is not there, it is not wonderful that the actual running up to it of a chick not its own, should cause it to feel and act as though it were the true parent.

What, then, has been the origin of sympathy? Even amongst ourselves, to feel with a person (σὺν πάθος) is to feel very much as though one were that person, and the effort of reason which assures us to the contrary might well be beyond the power of an animal. Indeed, when we think of what all children can pretend, and what many grown-up people believe, we should not expect too much of birds. The guillemot, we will say, upon seeing a young bird which, by calling up memories, takes the place of its own, becomes, in imagination, its parent—so that the sympathy it shows for it is not wider than that between parent and child. In other cases the feelings aroused in an animal when it sees, let us say, one of its fellows subjected to suffering or danger which it has been accustomed, itself, to fear and shun, may relate to itself only, so that any apparently sympathetic actions arising out of them would be due to that failure to distinguish between what is in the mind and what is outside of it (subjective and objective) that has often been remarked in savages—or, if not remarked, is at least attributed to them. Of this hypothesis I have given one illustration, and others may be easily imagined.

Do we become more, or less, sympathetic as we get more civilised? Two people who think and feel alike are said to be in sympathy, and the more primitive and uniform the conditions of life are, the more must those who live together under them think and feel alike. The process of advance may be a process of the more complete separation and realisation of one's own distinctive personality, and though reason and self-interest produce a higher power and degree of combination amongst civilised men than the state of animals, or the savage state of man, permits of, yet we must ask ourselves if, where it can and does exist amongst the latter, it is not of a more spontaneous and vigorous character, and if there is not more real sympathy attached to it. Where, for instance, can such perfect combination be found as amongst social insects—bees, wasps, ants, etc.—the conditions of whose existence are far simpler and more uniform than ours? And in what deep feelings of sympathy—or, as we may say, oneness—must blood-feuds have had their origin? If it is true that the sympathies of some civilised men have become widened so as to embrace humanity at large, and even the lower animals, is it not equally true that all civilised men stand more cut off from their immediate neighbours than do savages, because, owing to an increased diversity of individual character, consequent upon more diverse and complex conditions, they less resemble them? If so, though in one sense man may be said to sympathise more and more as he advances in culture, in another sense, and perhaps the truer one, he does so less and less; for as the river has widened it has become less deep, and the current less strong. Heine makes this same comparison in some interesting remarks upon the inhabitants of the Isle of Nordeney, which, as they exactly and felicitously express my meaning, I will here quote, albeit in a clumsy translation: "What links these men so fastly and inwardly together is not so much a mystic bond of love, as habit, the daily necessary living in each other's life, a common shared simplicity. The same spiritual width, or rather narrowness, issues in the same strivings and longings, whilst unity of ideas and experience makes mutual sympathy an easy matter. So they sit cosily by the fire in their little cabins, drawn close together against the cold, and, as they turn to speak, see their own thoughts in each other's eyes, read their own words, before they speak them, on each other's lips. Every life-memory, every life-experience, is a common possession, and with a tone, a look, a gesture, a silent motion, as much of joy, sorrow, or reflection is aroused in their bosoms as we can bring about through long expositions and spluttering declamations. For we live, in great part, mentally alone. Owing to different lines of education, to a different choice of reading—often accidentally stumbled on—difference, rather than sameness, of character has been developed amongst us. Each one of us, with masked spirit, thinks, feels, and strives in a lonely atmosphere of his own, and miscomprehensions are so many, and at-oneness, even in one household, is so rare, and we are everywhere cramped, everywhere repulsed, and everywhere strangers to each other."

This is just my idea, and though I had read Heine before I watched guillemots, I yet believe that my watching them has suggested it to me quite independently, for the passage quoted never came into my head till afterwards. Let us not, therefore, be too proud, for though there may, here and there among us, be a philosopher who feels himself able to sympathise with, say the Chinese—or a Chinese one with us—yet neither such philosophers, nor any of us, have that pleasant feeling of almost being one another which these islanders of Nordeney, or any tribe of simple-lived savages, or even, perhaps, some social animals, enjoy. So far from civilisation being altruistic in its tendencies, it appears to me (just at this moment) that by making the units more and more unlike each other, it fosters egotism and makes real sympathy harder.

I have as yet only speculated upon the feelings of the grown guillemots when they fête a chick that is not their own. Those of the chick are, I think, easier to understand. Its love for its parents is cupboard love; it is equally ready to be looked after by any other bird, and, if hungry and not fed, it will apply elsewhere. With what degree of accuracy it distinguishes its parents from the other birds on the ledge, I have not yet made up my mind; but I think it much depends upon the efforts of the parents themselves.

Besides the incidents which I have related, I noticed some other interesting points. Both the chick and the parents seemed ill at ease. The former did not seek to go to sleep, nor did the latter offer the wing. Often it struck me that one of the parents was on the point of doing something in regard to the chick, and, what was more curious, it also struck me that the other birds were restless, too, and that they, too, had designs upon, or, at least, felt an unusual interest in, the chick. In especial a second white-eyed bird came several times up to it with an important air, but also with a curious, hesitating action, and an expression as though in doubt what to do. The other white-eyed one would then bustle up in much the same way, causing the first to retreat; but after a little while, the two being exactly alike, I became quite bewildered, and could not possibly say which was and which was not the parent—a good evidence, I think, of the similarity of their behaviour. All this, and many other little things which struck me at the time, but which I could not then note down, and have now forgotten, convinced me that the flight from the ledge would not be long delayed. Though miserably uncomfortable, therefore, I waited and waited, in hopes to see it; but it grew late, the sun had sunk, and as I had a steep ascent to make, with some amount of climbing even before I came to it, it would not do to stay longer. Cliffs like these are not to be ascended in the dark—at least, not by me. To-morrow I feel quite certain that the birds will be gone.