Watching Gulls and Skuas
The oyster-catcher brings us to the sea, so to sea-birds I will
consecrate the next few chapters.
Gulls and skuas are best watched on some lonely, island, where they
breed, and thither we will now transfer ourselves.
They breed together, or, more strictly speaking, conterminously, and
more than half of the whole island--all that part where it is a peaty
waste clothed with a thin brown heather--is now, in early June, their
assembly ground and prospective nursery. The gulls are in much the
greater numbers, and all of them here are of the black-backed species,
mostly the lesser of the two so named, but with a fair sprinkling of
the greater black-backed also. Lying down and sweeping the distance
with the glasses--for near they have risen and float overhead in a
clamorous cloud--one sees everywhere the bright, white dottings of
their breasts, soft-gleaming amidst the uniform brown of the heather.
They are not at all crowded, but scattered widely about at irregular
and, for the most part, considerable intervals. There is rarely a
group, and though many pairs may be seen standing closely together, yet
this is the exception rather than the rule. Most birds of such pairs as
are present are some three or four to a dozen or twenty yards apart,
whilst the greater number of the whole assembly stand singly, the bird
nearest to each, at a much greater distance, being one of another pair.
This is because the partner birds are for the time being absent, but
every now and again one may be seen to fly up and join the solitary
one, whilst, similarly, one of a couple will from time to time fly
off and leave the other alone. Thus, though the eye will distinguish
at any time many paired couples, to the majority of the birds it will
not be able to assign a partner with certainty. But this varies very
much. On some occasions there will be many more close couples than on
others, and it is when this is the case that the gullery has the most
pleasing appearance. Here and there one sees a bird, not standing, but
couched closely down amidst the heather. These birds have laid, and are
now hatching, their eggs. For the most part they are alone, but as the
season advances and they become more and more numerous, the partner may
often be seen standing near the nest, and presenting every appearance
of a joint interest and proprietorship in it.
When a bird flies up to its partner it usually comes down close beside
it. The two will then be together for awhile, but soon they either walk
or fly to a little distance from one another. After remaining apart
for a longer or shorter time they visit again, then again separate, and
so they continue to act, at longer or shorter intervals, till one or
other of them flies off to sea.
This system of making each other little visits and then going away
and remaining for some time apart, seems a feature of the gull tribe
generally, and it is particularly marked in the case of the great skua.
A pair of these birds will each have its apartments, so to speak, and,
by turns, each will be the caller on or the receiver of a call from the
other. Either, one will walk or fly directly over to where the other is
standing or reclining, or it will make several circling sweeps before
coming down beside it, or else--for this is another fashion--each of
them will set out to call on the other, and meeting in the centre
between their respective places, have their gossip there.
However the meeting takes place, when the birds are together one of
them will commonly bow its head down towards the ground in a heavy sort
of manner, whilst the other stands facing it with the head and bill
lifted into the air. All at once one of the birds--usually, I think,
the caller, if either has remained at home--turns round, raises its
wings above its back, and holding them thus, makes a heavy sort of
spring or running leap forward along the ground. This it does several
times, lowering the wings each time that it pauses, and raising them
again to make the leap. From this it might be thought that the bird
flew rather than leapt, but this, when I saw it, did not appear to me
to be the case. It did not fly, but only jumped with the wings held up.
The birds are now apart again as before, but after a short interval
the one that has behaved in this odd way returns, and they again stand
_vis-à-vis_, regarding each other, but this time without so much bowing
or raising of the head. Then one of them--and I think it is the same
one--turning as before, there is almost an exact repetition, and this
may take place some three or four times in the course of an hour.
The two will then often take wing and fly for a while together,
sometimes over the sea, but more often in a series of wide circles
round and about their home. They are masters of flight, and, after
two or three flaps, will glide for long distances without an effort,
alternately rising and sinking, varying their direction by a turn of
the head or, as it seems, by presenting the broad surface of their
wings to the different points of the compass, and sweeping either with
or against the wind, apparently with equal ease. Or, with the wind
blowing violently (its normal state), they will neither advance nor
recede, and it is certainly a very surprising thing to see one of these
great sombre-plumaged birds hanging motionless, or almost motionless
at but a foot or so above the long coarse grass, which is being all
the while bent and swayed in the direction towards which its head is
turned; if it advances at all, it is against the bend of the grass.
But though I have said that the great skua is a master of flight, I
have not yet termed its flight either graceful or majestic. For a
long time, indeed (during which I had only seen it near its temporary
home), I was unable to do so, not, at least, with a full conviction,
for though I admired it, yet there seemed always to be in it some want
which I felt, but was unable to define. It puzzled me, but at last I
discovered what it was, and my discovery, which acquits the bird and is
to the honour of nature, I will give as I wrote it down directly after
I had made it.
"One of the great skuas has now flown right out to sea. There its
flight, which is peculiar, becomes instantly very graceful. Descending
with a sweep, which, though majestic, is yet soft and gentle, it seems
about to sink upon the waves, when, almost as it touches them, it
glides again softly upwards, to descend once more in the same manner.
Thus, ever rising and sinking, seeming always about to rest, yet never
resting, it glides, tireless, and seems to coquet with the sea. On
land, too, these wide circling sweeps had had a grace and charm, but
it had not entirely pleased the eye. Something had been absent, but
what that something was, it had been beyond me to say. Now, I knew
it. What it wanted had been the illimitable plain of the ocean which,
in a moment, took away all heaviness from the form and all harshness
from the colouring. The sombreness of the sea blends now with its own,
and the waves are moving with its own motion. All is in harmony, the
picture has found its frame." Gulls, too, are more graceful when they
sweep over the sea than the shore near it. They have then softness and
expanse as a background. The latter, I think, is the more important,
and may be unconsciously demanded by association of ideas. Earth had
not been wide enough for the great skua.
[Illustration: _Great Skuas: Nuptial Flight and Pose._]
Often when one of the great skuas is circling round, and the other
standing at its post, this one will stretch itself up and raise its
wings above the back every time its partner passes. This raising of
the wings enters into one of the most salient of the many nuptial
antics of this bird, which I will now describe. In its completest form
it commences aerially. "The two birds have been circle-soaring one
above the other, and are now at a considerable height above one of
their chosen standing-places, when the lower one floats with the wings
extended, but raised very considerably--half-way, perhaps, towards
meeting over the back--an action which, in their flight, is uncommon.
As it does this it utters a note like 'a-er, a-er, a-er' (a as in
'as'), upon which, as at a signal, the other one floats in the same
manner, and both now descend thus, together, to the ground. Standing,
then, the one behind the other, at about a yard's distance and faced
the same way, both of them throw up their heads, raise their wings
above their backs, pointing them backwards, and stand thus for some
seconds fixed and motionless, looking just like an heraldic device. At
the same time they utter a cry which sounds like 'skirrr' or 'skeerrr.'
The foremost bird then flies off, and is instantly followed by the
other."
If the wings were not extended, this pose would somewhat resemble that
of the great plovers, for though the neck is stretched more forwards,
it is curved in the same curious way, and the head, though held
high, is bent towards the ground. The wings, however, give it quite
a different character, and I have, I feel sure, seen some figures of
birds on a shield whose attitude bore a wonderful resemblance to that
of these skuas. May not some of the figures of animals in heraldry
have come right down from savage times, even if they do not represent
totems? Savages, as we know, catch the more salient and strongly
characterised attitudes of animals with wonderful truth and force.
The two birds will often (as might be expected) assume this pose
without any previous descent on upraised wings, and, presumably, such
descent need not be followed either by this or any other special
attitude. Also, when so posing, they do not always stand in line, but
indifferently sometimes, as far as relative position is concerned,
though at the same approximate distance from one another. I have seen
the descent followed by the pose, but not in line, and I have seen the
pose exactly as I have described it, but not preceded by the descent.
Obviously (or, at least, in all probability), the birds would be as
likely to stand in line when posing on one occasion as on another, and
I have therefore put them into line here to give a picture of this
nuptial sport when at its best and fullest.
Sometimes during these visits that the birds pay to each other, the two
will bend their heads down together and pick and pull at the grass.
When they raise them there may be a blade or two of it in the bill of
one, which is allowed to drop in a negligent, desultory way. Or one,
which I take to be the female, plucks up a tuft and walks with it to
the male as though to show him. She lets it drop, and then both birds,
standing front to front, lower their heads at the same time and utter
a shrill though not a loud cry. This seems as though one bird were
suggesting to the other the propriety of building a nest, but it
may be the actual manner in which the nest is built. There would, of
course, be no doubt as to this, if the birds--or one of them--were to
continue thus to pluck and bring tufts or blades of grass. But this
was never the case when I saw them, nor did I ever remark any action
on their part that had more the appearance of systematic nest-building
than this. The nest of the great skua is very slight, a mere
pressed-down litter of coarse long grass, shallow, and having a pulled,
tattered look round the edges suggestive of the crown of a shabby straw
hat or bonnet from which the remaining portion has been torn. Compared
to it, the nest of a gull, being formed of quite a considerable
quantity of bog-moss and heather, basin-shaped, and fairly regular and
with well-formed, soft, cushiony rim all round it, is almost a work of
architecture.
Yet neither do gulls seem to work regularly or systematically in the
building of their nests. One may be seen piking into the ground with
its powerful beak and then withdrawing it with a tuft of moss or a
sprig of heather held between the mandibles. After making a few sedate
steps with this the bird lays it down, but instead of fetching some
more, now, and continuing the work, it merely stands there and appears
to forget all about it. Another will fly up with some material, and,
after circling a little above its partner on the ground, will alight
and lay it down as a contribution beside it, in a very stolid sort
of way. The other bird does not help, and does not seem particularly
interested, and the two now stand side by side for about half-an-hour,
when the one that has last arrived flies away, and, on returning
again, brings nothing. Sometimes a gull may be seen walking with
moss or heather in the bill, whilst its consort walks beside it, but
without having anything. When the heather is placed by the one bird,
the other stands by and seems interested, but does not assist, and no
further supply is brought. It would appear, therefore, that only one
bird--and this, no doubt, the female--actually builds the nest, though
the other--the male--may look on and take a greater or less amount of
intelligent interest in what she is doing. But though the above is from
the life it hardly seems possible that gulls could get their nests done
at all if they worked no better than this. When I first got to that
island "de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme," but few eggs had yet been
laid and many of the nests were only half finished, or not even so far
advanced as that. Most, however, were completed, or nearly so, and it
is probable that what I saw represented merely the finishing touches,
which will also apply to the great skuas.
What I saw was, indeed, very little, and it is only a surmise that the
female gull builds the nest without being aided by the male. I think
so, however, because usually, when both the male and female assist in
the building, they work together, and whilst collecting the materials
keep more or less in each other's company, arriving with them either at
the same time or shortly after each other. This, at least, has been the
case with those birds which I have watched. I have, indeed, seen two
gulls pulling up the moss or heather within a yard or so of each other,
and these I at first put down as a married couple. This, however, was
not the case, for they laid down what they pulled in different places,
and several times they attacked each other and fought quite fiercely.
With other birds, too, I have noticed a kind of rivalry between the
females when collecting materials for the nest. Hen chaffinches seem
particularly jealous of each other in this respect. They pull the
lichens from the trunks of trees, fluttering up against them, and using
both their claws and beaks, and when thus engaged, or when flying off
with what they have got, two will often fly at each other and fight
furiously in the air. I do not think that the one tries to take what
the other has collected--there ought, one would think, to be enough
for all--but, rather, that the sight of one when thus occupied, has an
irritating effect on the other, and so it seemed to be with these two
gulls.
Male gulls fight, too, as might be expected, the motive being usually,
if not always, jealousy. Sometimes a little drama may be witnessed,
as when a pair who would fain be tender are annoyed and hampered by a
rejected suitor--the villain of the piece. This odious bird advances
upon them with a menacing and, it would almost seem, a scandalised
demeanour every time that he detects the smallest disposition towards
an impropriety of behaviour, and when the husband-lover rushes
furiously upon him he flies just out of his danger, and acts in the
same way on the next occasion, which is immediately afterwards.
This goes on for some time, the envious bird becoming more and more
rancorous and more and more torn between rage and discretion every
time valour assaults him. At last rage carries it, and, strange to
say,--considering it as melodrama--he, the villain, makes quite a
spirited stand against the "good" hero, who, by all the laws of such
things, should fell him to the ground and spurn him, so as to make the
orthodox situation. Instead of this there is an equal combat which ends
only in "nothing neither way," except that, as the bad gull still goes
on afterwards, it is more in his favour than the other's. He wins, in
fact, for the lovers are at length wearied out, and the contemplated
impropriety never does take place. It is a pity almost that it cannot
sometimes go like this in stage reality. To see the hero, just when
most reeking with noble utterance, put suddenly into an unshowy
position by the "hound" or the "cringing cur" would be a glorious
thing, a delightful--almost a Gilbertian--_dénouement_. One could
applaud it "to the very echo that should applaud again," but one never
gets the chance--or, rather, one would not if one tried, for I will not
suppose that anyone with a taste for nature affects the melodrama--or
even the drama nowadays.
Gull-fights are sometimes very fierce and determined, and when this is
the case they often cause great excitement among a number of others.
As on the human plane, fights between birds make impressions upon one
according to the greater or lesser amount of intensity manifested,
becoming sometimes quite tragic in their interest. Not only is this the
case with oneself, but birds that are not fighting seem affected in
the same way. I have noticed this with partridges somewhat--but more
in the gullery. An ordinary scuffle between two birds attracts little
if any notice from the others, but when it is sustained and bitter,
supported with great courage on either side, there may be quite a crowd
of excited onlookers. I have seen a very desperate combat which I at
first thought was a general scrimmage. It was not so, however. Two
alone were engaged, but a cloud of gulls swept over and hovered about
them, often hiding them from view. All were interested, and interested,
it seemed to me, against one of the two birds who stood all the time
on the defensive, beating or trying to beat off with wings and beak
the continual eager rushes of his assailant. Many times they closed
and went struggling and flapping over the ground, attended all the
time by gulls in the air and gulls walking about and near them. When
they disengaged, the same bird--as I inferred from the dramatic unity
of its conduct--attacked again in the same eager way, as though the
greater vivacity of its feelings or disposition made it always more
quick than the other, though this one was equally brave and determined.
One might almost fancy that the attacking gull had had some great wrong
done it by the one it attacked. This latter, however, a powerful and
steady fighter, finally beat off its assailant, who now took to the
air. Sweeping backwards and forwards above the hated one, it made each
time that it passed a little drop down upon it with dangling legs and
delivered, or tried to deliver, a blow with the feet, a strategy which
the other met by springing up and striking with the beak.
Such a conflict as this makes quite a commotion in the gull world,
all those birds that have been standing anywhere in the neighbourhood
flying and circling excitedly about above the combatants, or settling
and walking up to them. I did not see the _casus belli_, so merely
assume it to have been jealousy between two rival males. Quite possibly
the birds were females. In none of these fights, nor in others that
I have seen between black-backed gulls on the island, did there seem
to be any special set method either of attack or defence, as is so
noticeable in the case of some birds. It was a generalised fight--"a
pankration"--in which each bird did whatever it could without art or
plan. A fight between two herring-gulls that lasted a long time was of
another character. "They fought most savagely, but in a curious manner.
Each seized the other by the beak, which they then (or one of them)
endeavoured to extricate by pulling backwards, so that the stronger
bird, or each alternately, dragged the other over the ground, a process
which the one being dragged tried to resist by spreading the wings at
right angles and opposing them to the ground. To me it seemed that one
of the birds had each time seized the other to advantage and strove
to retain its hold against the efforts of the less fortunate one to
disengage. The length of time during which they remained with the beaks
thus interlocked was remarkable. I was not able to time them, but it
was so long as to grow tedious, and I several times turned the glasses
on to other objects and, after a short interval, brought them back
again, always finding them as before. A quarter of an hour, or, at the
very least, ten minutes, would not, I think, be an over-estimate of the
time they sometimes remained in this connection. The instant the beaks
were unlocked the birds fiercely seized each other by them again, there
was the same dragging and resistance, the same lengthy duration, and
this was repeated three or four times in succession. At length there
was a very violent struggle, and the bird that seemed to have the
advantage in its hold, by advancing upon the other while never relaxing
this, forced its head backwards and at length right down upon its back,
the bird so treated being obviously much distressed. At last, with a
violent effort, this latter got its bill free, and the two, grappling
together, and one, now, seizing hold of the other's wing, rolled
together down the steep face of the rock. At the bottom they separated.
The bird, as I think, that had had the worst of it all along flew back
to the place from which they had fallen, while the other remained,
seeming somewhat hurt by the fall. Some time later there was another
conflict between the same two gulls which was similar in all respects,
including the place at which it was fought, except in its ending. This
time there was no fall down the rock, but the one bird flew off, soon,
however, to alight again, the other one pursuing and continuing to
molest it with savage sweeps from side to side."
No doubt, in a fight like this, each bird seizes the other by the beak,
as fearing what it might otherwise do with it, as two men with knives
might seize hold of each other's wrists. But this might become in time
so confirmed a habit that the birds, when fighting, would have no idea
of doing anything else, and thus not attack each other in any less
specialised way, however much one might have the other at an advantage.
I do not mean to say that it has really come to this with the gulls in
question--the facts, indeed, do not bear out this view--but several
times, when watching birds fighting, I have seen, as I believe, a
tendency in this direction, and it has occurred to me that the process
might be carried even further.
There was no other bird very near to these two gulls during all the
long time that they fought, no female who was obviously the cause of
the affair, and to whom either of them went, or showed a desire to go,
either in the interval between the two combats or at the end of it all.
Yet that the two were rival males seems hardly to be doubted, taking
the season into consideration. This--and the same observation applies
to the two wheatears who fought for hours without the female being at
all _en évidence_--seems to show a power of retaining a vivid mental
impression of the loved or coveted bird in her absence, to which is
added a tranquil pleasure of the paired birds in each other's society
apart from mere sensual gratification. It is absurd, therefore, to
keep the word "love" to ourselves, as we do in the spirit if not the
letter. As in other things, there is no line drawn here in nature,
and it is in watching animals that one gets to know the real meaning
of all our high terminology. It is wonderful how long two birds who
have chosen each other will stand quite motionless close together, as
though they were a couple of stones, and then show by some mutual or
dependent action that each is in the other's mind. Here is an instance.
"A pair of herring-gulls have been standing for a long time one just
behind the other on the edge of the grassy slope of the cliff, quite
motionless, looking like the painted wooden birds of a Noah's ark. All
at once both, as in obedience to a common impulse, burst into wild
clamorous cries for a few seconds and then fly out over the sea. Quite
soon they return and, settling again in precisely the same spot and
relative position, stand motionless as before, for full three hours,
when one, uttering a little chattering, almost talking note, again
launches himself from the verge and flies around for some three or four
minutes in the near neighbourhood, with a frequent 'how, how, how.' He
then re-settles just in his old place behind the other, talks a little,
again flies off, returns and talks as before. The other gull has
remained motionless, or almost so, all the time, and the two now stand
silently as before." It seems strange that the birds should first act
so mutually and then so independently of each other, but far stranger,
as it struck me, was the absolute instantaneousness with which, on the
first occasion, they both burst out screaming.
It is possible that close attention to animals might lead to evidence
pointing in a new and unexpected direction, but I will leave this for
another chapter.
Gulls have no very salient or pronounced courting antics--I mean I have
observed none--and, in the same sense, there is no special display of
the plumage by one sex to the other. When amorous, they walk about
closely together, stopping at intervals and standing face to face.
Then, lowering their heads, they bring their bills into contact, either
just touching, or drawing them once or twice across each other, or
else grasping with and interlocking them like pigeons, raising then,
a little, and again depressing the heads with them thus united, as
do they. After this they toss up their heads into the air, and open
and close their beaks once or twice in a manner almost too soft to be
called a snap. Sometimes they will just drop their heads and raise them
again quickly, without making much action with the bills. This is
dalliance, and between each little bout of it the two will make little
fidgety, more-awaiting steps, close about one another. Always, however,
or almost always, one of the birds--and this one I take to be the
female--is more eager, has a more soliciting manner, and tender-begging
look, than the other. It is she who, as a rule, commences and draws
the male bird on. She looks fondly up at him, and raising her bill to
his, as though beseeching a kiss, just touches with it, in raising, the
feathers of his throat--an action light, but full of endearment. And in
every way she shows herself the most desirous, and, in fact, so worries
and pesters the poor male gull that often, to avoid her importunities,
he flies away. This may seem odd (to non-evolutionists), but I have
seen other instances of it. No doubt in actual courting, before the
sexes are paired, the male bird is usually the most eager, but after
marriage the female often becomes the wooer. Of this, I have seen some
marked instances. That of a female great plover calling up the male
by her cries, when pairing took place between them, I have already
given, and I have seen precisely the same thing in the case of the
kestrel hawk. Female rooks, too, are often very importunate with the
males in the rookery when building is going on. It is always a great
satisfaction when the male and female of a species differ noticeably in
their plumage, as then one is never in uncertainty as to which of them
it is that performs any act. Often one must remain quite in the dark as
to this, and often, again, one can only surmise. Of course, when one
watches birds for any time in the breeding season, one gets clear ideas
as to which is the male and which the female, but certainty is better,
and certainty, at any moment or on any occasion, unless there is some
marked difference between the sexes, one cannot have. In the case of
gulls, however, though the plumage is alike, there is a difference in
size sufficient to strike the eye, the male being larger--in the great
black-backed gull, greatly larger--than the female.
Leaving the palled blandishments of its spouse, the gull husband
cleaves the air, cuts the dark line of beetling precipice, and seeks
the free haven of the open sea, where, with other sensible, repentant
Benedicts, it wheels and circles. Suddenly a dusky form, slender and
swallow-like, though as large as a pigeon, shoots over the rounded
bastion of the heather, and sweeping upwards as it nears the cliffs,
darts upon one of the gulls. A second pirate follows. With wild cries,
and long, gliding sweeps, they press and harass the larger bird, who,
doubling, twisting, avoiding, dodging, but never resisting, utters
again and again a cry of distress and complaint. Its companions sweep
and eddy about them, shooting athwart and between. They protest, they
cry to heaven, their wild voices mingle in harsh, discordant unison
with the rock-dash of the waves, and the everlasting notes of the wind.
Suddenly something drops from the oppressed gull. There is a sinking
towards it of one of the dark shadows--swift beyond telling, but so
soft that the speed is not realised--the object is covered, lost, and
almost with a jerk, the eye--or rather the brain--realises that it
has been caught in the descent. Empty, and now unregarded, the robbed
bird sweeps on, the pirates sweep back to the heather, the cloud of
witnesses disperse themselves, and, as with us each day, each hour,
things smooth themselves again over the high-placed acts of successful
villainy. Who troubles over a robbed gull? What moral Nemesis concerns
itself with the wrongs of some cheated, done-to-death savage or tribe
of savages? Over both there is some shrieking, some eloquence at the
time, but both are soon lost in oblivion, the waves close over, the
world jogs on its way. Retribution, retributive justice--such fine
things may exist, perhaps, but, if so, it is for showier matters. Had
the skuas robbed an albatross, something, perhaps, would have happened.
Their sin might have found them out--then. A gull is like an Armenian,
or ... but there are so many.
Thus closes one of nature's wild dramas. The gulls are circling again
now, and all is as before.
"Es pfeift der Wind, die Möven schrein
Die Wellen, die wandern und schäumen."
Such a scene as the above may often be witnessed as one lies on the
heather and watches, but for one actual robbery that one sees there
will be a dozen or so unsuccessful attempts at it. Yet, if one believes
those who have the best opportunities of knowing, neither the great
nor the Arctic skua--the latter is the bird to which attention has
just been called--ever eat a fish that has not first been swallowed
by a gull or tern. They say, moreover--at least, this assertion is
made in regard to the great skua--that if the booty is not secured in
mid-air, but falls either on the sea or land, no further attention is
paid to it by the robber. For myself, I believe that the skuas always,
or almost always, feed in this way, because I think that when, in the
satisfaction of such a daily and almost constant want as hunger, some
curious and bizarre method had been adopted it would tend to become
habitual, to the exclusion of all others. Two such different plans of
obtaining fish as are, respectively, swooping upon them whilst swimming
in the water, and catching them in the air upon their being disgorged
by another bird, after a chase which is often long and arduous,
could hardly be carried on by the same bird; for it is probable that
either one, to be successful, would have to be habitually employed,
thus leaving no room for the other. Moreover, the adoption of such a
peculiar method of obtaining food at all implies a great advantage over
the older method, and this being the case it would tend entirely to
supersede it. But that the Arctic skua, at any rate, thus habitually
chases and robs gulls one can easily satisfy oneself, nor have I ever
seen either it or the great skua stooping on fish, like terns, gulls,
or gannets.
The young of the great skua are fed entirely on herrings, which are
first swallowed by the parent bird, and then disgorged on to the ground
in the neighbourhood of the nest. I cannot say that I have myself seen
this done, for it is impossible to watch the nesting habits of a bird
that always attacks you when you approach its nest, and continues to
do so as long as you stay anywhere near it. In these grey desolate
islands there is no sort of cover, no tree or bush with the branches of
which one can make oneself a shelter, and watch unobserved. Moreover,
as there is no night properly so speaking, only a portentous lurid
murkiness towards midnight, which seems neither to belong to night
nor day, and in which, as you can read small print, the skua can very
naturally see you, there is no approaching under cloud of darkness and
being there, ensconced, when morning dawns. But that the bird disgorges
the herrings for the young ones after the manner of gulls generally,
and does not carry them in its beak or claws, which is contrary to
their practice, there can be no doubt. Now, as every one of these
herrings has--as I believe it has--been secured in the manner above
described, it is curious to reflect that, when finally swallowed by the
young skua, it "goes a progress" for the third time, nor would it be
easy, perhaps, to find another instance (outside this family of birds)
of prey that has been twice given up, through fear once, and then,
again, through love.
The herrings lying about the nest, and which have thus been recently
disgorged for the second time, look almost as fresh and clean as if
nothing peculiar had happened to them. They are disgorged whole, or
nearly so; for, as I myself observed, in the great majority of cases
the head is absent. Thus at one nest, in the neighbourhood of which
(but this means often a considerable space of ground) forty-one
herrings or their remains were lying, only ten retained the head
or any part of it. At another, where there were thirteen, all were
entirely headless: at another there were eight, of which one only
had part of the head remaining: at another ten, eight of which were
headless: at another seven, six of which were: and at another four,
of which one retained the entire head. Thus, out of eighty-three
herrings, only fifteen had the heads to them, though the proportion
of the one to the other was different at different nests. The heads
when thus absent are entirely so--that is to say, they are not to be
found lying about separately. That the chick should eat the head of
the herring by preference seems unlikely, and particularly when it is
quite young. Yet I have seen four herrings lying about a newly-hatched
chick, which were quite fresh and almost untouched, but headless. The
question, therefore, arises whether the parent-bird eats the head after
disgorging the whole fish, or whether, in the majority of cases, it
is disgorged minus the head. Fish are, I believe, always swallowed
by birds which prey upon them, head first, and would therefore, one
would suppose, lie in the gullet in this direction. If disgorged again
tail first, as they lay, the gills, by expanding, might offer such
resistance that the head would be in most cases torn off. If this be
so, then the skua may often receive the fish headless from the gull,
or, if otherwise, the head would be still more likely to be torn off,
on a second disgorgement. This, however, one would think, must be a
very disagreeable process for the bird disgorging, and it would seem
more probable that the fish can be turned or shifted in the gullet, by
some muscular action on its part, so as to be brought up head foremost,
as it descended; but whether there is any evidence as to this, I do not
know. If the head of the herring does not remain in the gullet, then
it must be eaten by the parent skuas after ejection, and it would seem
that they looked upon this portion as their _peculium_, to which they
were honestly entitled, for they seem to leave the rest, mostly, for
the chicks, of which there are, commonly, two. At any rate, a number
of the herrings will have only a small portion eaten off them. There
is a great profusion, amounting to waste, and there does not seem any
reason why the skuas should vary their diet during the breeding season,
as they are asserted to do, since they have the sea always at hand, and
the gulls, that are to them as their milch cows, breed in their close
proximity.
In the skuas we see the habit of obtaining food by forcing another bird
to disgorge what it has swallowed, perfected and become permanent,
so that the birds practising it have risen--shall we say?--into
rapacious parasites; but amongst the gulls themselves, who suffer
by the practice, we may see, if I am not mistaken, the habit in its
incipiency, and may get a hint as to how it might have arisen. When
fishing-smacks are in harbour they are thronged round, sometimes, by
hundreds of gulls, all the more common kinds--viz. the lesser and
greater black-backed, herring-gulls, and kittiwakes--being mixed and
crowded together. When some offal is thrown out, the birds that secure
any are at once mobbed, and often it is torn away from them almost
before they have swallowed a mouthful. To avoid this, they often rise
with it in the beak and get it down as fast as they can on the wing,
dodging and jerking their head from side to side amongst the pursuing
crowd. But I have observed that the pursuit does not always cease
after the morsel has been swallowed, and sometimes--whether rarely or
frequently I am unable to say--the oppressed gull disgorges it again,
in order to be left in peace. Now, amongst a crowd of birds like this,
the greater number would be unable to see whether the one they were
pursuing had swallowed his morsel or not, and would therefore keep
pressing about him in the hope of being able to snatch at it. But, of
course when birds that were hustled began to disgorge, this would be
noticed and soon remembered, and they would then be hustled so that
they might do so. In this, or in some similar way, I can understand the
habit arising without any initial act of intelligence on the pursuing
bird's part.
Perhaps, however, there would be no great unlikelihood in assuming such
an act of intelligence. For one gull to conceive the idea of making
another bring up what it had swallowed, might not be so very much more
than for the sea-eagle to think, in regard to the osprey with the
fish in his talons, "I'll make him drop it." With all the gull tribe
the bringing up of the food again after swallowing it is an easy and
habitual action. Not only are the young fed thus, but I have some
reason to think that, during the nuptial season, the presenting in
this manner of some "pretty little tiny kickshaw" by the male bird to
the female is looked upon as a chivalrous and lover-like act. Perhaps
such acts are reciprocal, but I will give my two little instances and
let my readers draw their own conclusions. The first is the case of a
herring-gull. I was watching the mother bird (as I suppose) sitting
on the nest over two young ones, one of which had been hatched either
only that day or the day before, and the other a day or two earlier.
"At 12 o'clock a chick moves out from under the mother, and leaves the
nest. It is quite active, and has the general appearance of a young
chicken, being fluffy and of a yellowish grey colour, speckled with
black. At 12.40 the second young one appears, pushing itself out from
under the mother bird as she rises a little in the nest. At half-past
one the male gull, which has been near all the while, walks slowly
and importantly to the nest, which he passes and then, turning back
towards it, disgorges on to the rock a small fish, which he takes up
in just the tip of his bill and pushes towards both the chick on the
rock and the mother on the nest, all slowly and with a dry sort of
manner, as though the bird were a cynic. The mother gull leans forward
from the nest and takes it, and, first, holds it on the ground, while
the chick outside pecks at it. Then she swallows it herself. The male
now produces in the same way a small something--I suppose a gobbet
of fish--and draws the chick's attention to it by touching it with
his bill and pushing it a little towards him. The chick then swallows
it, upon which the male flies off and takes his accustomed stand on a
large projecting point of rock close at hand." This is a conjugal, a
domestic, picture. The other, which I shall now give, and in which the
hero was an Arctic skua, was, perhaps, "more condoling."
"The one bird stands still and upright, whilst the other, holding
the neck constrainedly down, but with the head raised as far as is
compatible with this, keeps moving round and round it. After revolving
thus several times, keeping, always, very close to and, sometimes,
actually touching the standing bird, this one also stands still, always
in the same attitude, and opens his beak. The other one, standing as
before, now raises the head and opens the beak also, upon which the
satellite bird, assuming, at last, his proper height, delivers into
it, from his own, something which he appears to bring up, and this,
as it seems to me, is swallowed by the bird receiving it. The morsel
is small, but the actions of giving and taking, and, afterwards, the
movements of the beak and throat of the bird that has parted with it,
are unmistakable. This would appear, therefore, to be a little friendly
act, or, perhaps, an act of courtship--a love-token between the male
and female bird--and I take the bird who delivers the morsel, and who
is cream-marked, to be the male, and the other, who is uniformly dark,
the female."
Skuas, as is well known, attack one if one comes at all near to
their nest, and gulls--at any rate the two black-backed kinds--will
sometimes, though much more rarely, come very near to doing so too.
For instance, the greater black-backed gull swoops at one backwards
and forwards, in the same way (though more clumsily) as do the skuas,
except that he neither touches you nor comes so near. Every time he
passes he gives a loud, harsh, tuneless cry, and drops down his legs
as though intending to strike with them. When he does this, he may be
some five or six feet above one's head--a little more, perhaps, or a
little less--and presents an odd, uncouth appearance. The skuas swoop
in silence, though the great one continually says "ik, ik" (or words to
that effect), whilst circling between the swoops. "On another occasion
two of the lesser black-backed gulls acted in this way, though one of
them continued to do so for a much longer time. These two seemed to be
angry with each other, making little motions and opening their bills in
the air as though each thought it was the other's fault." This little
trait, which would seem to raise them nearer humanity, I particularly
noted. The mode of attack, when thus aerially delivered, is the same in
all these birds, and, as it seems to me, curiously ineffective. The
beak, a powerful weapon, is not employed, nor is a blow--which, if it
were, might be of real force--delivered with one of the wings. Instead,
the webbed feet, which would seem to be weak in comparison, and have
no talons or grasping power, are made use of in the way I have already
described in the case of the two gulls fighting, when, after the tussle
on the ground, the one was swooped at by the other.
The following account of the attack of the smaller or Arctic skua, will
apply almost equally to the great one. "The bird comes swooping down in
a slanting direction, with great speed and impetus, and as it passes
over one's head, makes a slight drop with the feet hanging down, so
that they administer a flick just on the top of it, as it shoots by.
Having made its demonstration, it shoots on and upwards, and turning in
a wide sweep, again comes rushing down to repeat it, and so forwards
and backwards for perhaps some half-a-dozen times, after which the
intervals will become longer, the circling sweeps which fill them up
wider and more numerous, till the attacks cease, and the bird flies
away." (The great skua, however, will attack almost indefinitely.)
"The force of the downward rush is in all cases very great, and the
'swirr' which accompanies it quite startling, suggesting a larger bird,
or something of a more portentous nature altogether. In striking, the
bird shoots the feet forward as they dangle, so that they hit one
with the anterior surface, and there is not the slightest attempt to
scratch or grasp with them. The force that can be put into such a blow
is but slight, and, even in appearance, there is something trivial
and inadequate about it that takes away from the effect of the bold
sweep, which, in the case of the great skua especially, strikes the
imagination, and is, indeed, a fine sight. A terrific blow with the
wing, or a seizing and tearing with beak and claw, as with an eagle,
would seem the fitting sequel to such power and fierceness."
This failure of the sublime, and falling almost into the ridiculous,
cannot be observed when one is oneself the object of attack, and,
moreover, the buffets that one is constantly receiving, though quite
out of proportion to the size and fury of the birds, are often so
stinging and disagreeable as to spoil one for looking at the matter
from such a point of view. A ruse, however, may be adopted, and the
scales then fall from one's eyes. For instance: "To-day I sat down by
the almost fledged chick of a pair of great skuas, and, drawing my
plaid over my head, numbered the attacks of the parent birds. When I
began to count it was 3.13 P.M., and at 3.30 they had made between
them--turn and turn about--136 swoops at me. Of these, 67 were hits and
69 misses. Some of the hits were very--indeed, extremely--violent, so
that without the plaid I could not have stood it, and even as it was,
it was unpleasant. The blow is always delivered with the feet, though
sometimes (and pretty often as it seemed to me) a portion of the bird's
body touches one at the same time, thus giving more weight and force
to it. The force of the swoop is tremendous, and did the bird strike
one full with its whole bulk, it would, I believe, knock one over, as
a hare, it is said, has sometimes done by accident, in leaping over a
hedge. After this heroism, I stuck my umbrella (staff, or even stick,
would sound better, but it _was_ an umbrella) into the ground, arranged
my plaid upon it, and walked to a little distance. The birds, one after
another, swooped at the plaid but never hit it. As they got just above
it they stretched down their legs, but at the last moment seemed to
think something was wrong, and rose, so as just to clear it. 'But out
upon this half-faced fellowship!' This dangling down of the legs, in
which the speed is checked and the grand appearance lost, is quite
pitiful. Why cannot the birds fell you with a blow, or tear you with
the hooked beak? This would be 'Ercle's vein, a tyrant's vein,' but a
flick with the feet merely--it is a tame conclusion!"
I doubt now, if the bird ever does strike you with the body even
lightly. It feels as if there must be more than the feet at the time,
but, probably, this is not the case.
Both the male and female of the great skua defend the nest--and
especially the young--in this manner, but the swoopings of one of them,
probably of the female, are generally fiercer than those of the other.
In my limited experience this dual attack was almost invariable, but
in one instance the nest was guarded by one bird alone. This bird,
as though to make up for the deficiency, was even more than usually
fierce, making long rushing swoops from a great height and distance,
which would, I believe, have been effective each time had I not bobbed.
The other bird circled at a still greater height, and never once
joined in the attack. The height, I may say, from which the birds swoop
is not, as a rule, very considerable. The above does not apply equally
to the Arctic skua--at least in my own experience--for though often the
two birds would attack, yet in the greater number of cases only one of
them did so. Now the Arctic skua, as I have mentioned elsewhere, is
one of those birds which employs strategy (begging here the question
for the sake of brevity) as well as force to defend its young, and it
occurred to me that here might be a case of co-operation, the male
bird most probably attacking, and the female employing the ruse. I
satisfied myself, however, that the same bird sometimes does both one
and the other. How often this is so, and whether there is a tendency
on the part of either sex to resort by preference to one or the other
method, it might be difficult to find out. Yet I cannot help thinking
that this is the case, and that a process of differentiation is in
course of taking place. The facts are--or appeared to me to be--these.
In the case of the great skua, both sexes--almost, but not quite,
always--attack, and there is no ruse. In that of the Arctic skua both
sexes sometimes attack, but far more frequently (that, at least, was my
own experience) one alone does so, and here a ruse is employed. In the
former case we just see occasionally, as an exception, the raw material
(the non-attacking of the one bird) that might conceivably be utilised
by nature for the elaboration of another form of defence. In the latter
we _may_ see this other form being elaborated.
Questions of this nature might be settled in the future on facts
observed now, as easily as a reference to an iron ring where boats were
once moored settles the question as to whether the coast has risen or
the sea encroached. The coast and the sea, however, remain. Birds,
slaughtered by millions each year, must cease almost as a class before
any great period has gone by. Of what use then the ring, the record
when what it speaks of is no more?
Another interesting point in the Arctic skua (which it shares with at
least one other species of the genus) is its dimorphism--or rather,
to describe it more properly, its polymorphism. To me it seems to
offer a case of a species in course of variation from one form into
another. In the two extreme forms the plumage is, respectively, either
entirely sombre both above and below, or the whole throat, breast and
under surface, with a ring round the neck, and more or less of the
sides of the head, is of a fine cream colour. Between these extremes
there are various gradations, the cream being sometimes on the breast
only, whilst the throat is of a lighter or deeper grey, more or less
mottled with the still darker shade, or the lighter colour is hardly
or not at all discernible on these parts, whilst lower down it becomes
less and less salient till it is merely a not so dusky duskiness.
The cream-coloured birds, though numerous, are in the minority, and
both this and their being much handsomer suggests that the process
of change is in this direction, whilst the intermediate tintings may
represent the steps in this process. To what form of selection (if to
any) are we to attribute the change? As the cream colouring makes the
bird more conspicuous, natural selection (as distinct from sexual)
seems excluded, unless it could be shown that the change of colour
is correlated with some still greater advantage, and this is neither
apparent nor likely. There remains sexual selection, which to my
mind is strongly suggested. The modified colouring is, it is true,
shared by the two sexes, but this is quite compatible with the theory,
which supposes the tintings of the male kingfisher and numerous other
brilliant birds to have been thus acquired and transmitted in each
stage of progress to the female. It would, therefore, be interesting,
though, no doubt, difficult, to determine by observation whether the
creamy-coloured male birds were on an average more attractive to the
females than the other kind, and also whether the more handsome form
was increasing. In regard to the last point, this was the opinion of a
man guiltless of theories, but with a large amount of experience of the
birds.
Of these two species of skua, the great and the lesser or Arctic one,
the latter appears to me to be the boldest and most aggressive. It
will chase not only gulls, but occasionally the great skua also, this
last, as it would seem, for sport or pleasure rather than for any
particular object. In the same way they often chase each other. A too
near approach to the nest may, perhaps, be the reason in either case,
but having watched them attentively I do not think that the pursuing
bird is often under any real apprehension. Gulls are persecuted by them
in the manner I have described, and sometimes, I think, also in mere
wantonness. The larger ones seem never to resist, but the kittiwake
will sometimes go down upon the water, turn to bay, and drive the
robber off. Gulls seem to fear the great skua less than the Arctic one,
and will sometimes mob and molest it. A single pair that had nested on
the outskirts of a gullery were a good deal subject to this annoyance.
One and then another gull would pursue them when they flew near, and
sometimes even swoop at them from side to side as they stood upon the
heather. But I never saw them annoy the Arctic skuas in this manner.
The latter, however, were much more numerous.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]