of the rocks served as places of retreat for Penguins, which swarmed
there. "This bird," says Le Vaillant, which is about two feet in length,
"does not carry its body in the same manner as others: it stands
perpendicularly on its two feet, which gives it an air of gravity, so
much the more ridiculous as its wings, which have no feathers, hang
carelessly down on each side; it never uses them but in swimming. As we
advanced towards the middle of the island we met innumerable troops
of them. Standing firm and erect on their legs, these animals never
deranged themselves in the least to let us pass; they more particularly
surrounded the mausoleum, and seemed as if determined to prevent us from
approaching it. All the environs were entirely beset with them. Nature
had done more for the plain tomb of the poor Danish captain than what
proceeds from the imaginations of poets or the chisels of our artists.
The hideous owl, however well sculptured in our churches, has not half
so dead and melancholy an air as the Penguin. The mournful cries of this
animal, mixed with those of the sea-calf, impressed on my mind a kind of
gloom which much disposed me to tender sensations of sadness. My eyes
were sometime fixed on the last abode of the unfortunate traveller, and
I gave his manes the tribute of a sigh."
Sir John Narborough says of the Patagonian Penguins that their erect
attitude and bluish-black backs, contrasted with their white bellies,
might cause them to be taken at a distance for young children with white
pinafores on. A line of them is engraved in Webster's "Voyage of the
Chanticleer," and reminds us of one of the woodcuts in Hood's "Comic
Annual."
The "towns, camps, and rookeries," as they have been called, of Penguins
have been often described. At the Falkland Islands are assemblies of
Penguins, which give a dreary desolation to the place, in the utter
absence of the human race. In some of the towns voyagers describe a
general stillness, and when the intruders walked among the feathered
population to provide themselves with eggs, they were regarded with
side-long glances, but they seemed to carry no terror with them. In many
places the shores are covered with these birds, and three hundred have
been taken within an hour; for they generally make no effort to escape,
but stand quietly by whilst their companions are knocked down with
sticks, till it comes to their turn.
The rookeries are described as designed with the utmost order and
regularity, though they are the resort of several different species.
A regular camp, often covering three or four acres, is laid out
and levelled, and the ground disposed in squares for the nests, as
accurately as if a surveyor had been employed. Their marchings and
countermarchings are said to remind the observer of the manoeuvres of
soldiers on parade. In the midst of this apparent order there appears
to be not very good government, for the stronger species steal the
eggs of the weaker if they are left unguarded; and the King Penguin
is the greatest thief of all. Three species are found in the Falkland
Islands. Two, the _Kings_ and the _Macaroni_, deposit their eggs in
these rookeries. The _Jackass_, which is the third, obtained its English
name from its brayings at night. It makes its nests in burrows on downs
and sandy plains; and Forster describes the ground as everywhere so
much bored, that a person, in walking, often sinks up to the knees; and
if the Penguin chance to be in her hole, she revenges herself on the
passenger by fastening on his legs, which she bites very hard.
But these rookeries are insignificant when compared with a settlement of
King Penguins, which Mr. G. Bennett saw at the north end of Macquarrie
Island, in the South Pacific Ocean--a colony of these birds, which
covered some thirty or forty acres. Here, during the whole of the day
and night, 30,000 or 40,000 Penguins are continually landing, and an
equal number going to sea. They are ranged, when on shore, in as regular
ranks as a regiment of soldiers, and are classed, the young birds in one
situation, the moulting birds in another, the sitting hens in a third,
the clean birds in a fourth, &c.; and so strictly do birds in a similar
condition congregate, that, should a moulting bird intrude itself among
those which are clean, it is immediately ejected from them. The females,
if approached during incubation, move away, carrying their eggs with
them. At this time the male bird goes to sea, and collects food for the
female, which becomes very fat.
Captain Fitzroy describes, at Noir Island, multitudes of Penguins
swarming among the bushes and tussac-grass near the shore, for moulting
and rearing their young. They were very valiant in self-defence, and
ran open-mouthed by dozens at any one who invaded their territory. The
manner of feeding their young is amusing. The old bird gets on a little
eminence and makes a loud noise, between quacking and braying, holding
its head up as if haranguing the Penguinnery, the young one standing
close to it, but a little lower. The old bird then puts down its head,
and opens its mouth widely, into which the young one thrusts its head,
and then appears to suck from the throat of its mother; after which the
clatter is repeated, and the young one is again fed: this continues for
about ten minutes.
Mr. Darwin, having placed himself between a Penguin, on the Falkland
Islands, and the water, was much amused by watching its habits. "It
was a brown bird," says Mr. Darwin, "and, till reaching the sea, it
regularly fought and drove me backwards. Nothing less than heavy blows
would have stopped him: every inch gained, he firmly kept standing close
before me, erect and determined. When thus opposed, he continually
rolled his head from side to side in a very odd manner. While at sea,
and undisturbed, this bird's note is very deep and solemn, and is often
heard in the night time. In diving, its little plumeless wings are used
as fins, but on the land as front legs. When crawling (it may be said
on four legs) through the tussacks, or on the side of a grassy cliff,
it moved so very quickly that it might readily have been mistaken
for a quadruped. When at sea, and fishing, it comes to the surface
for the purpose of breathing with such a spring, and dives again so
instantaneously, that I defy any one, at first sight, to be sure that it
is not a fish leaping for sport."
Bougainville endeavoured to bring home a Penguin alive. It became so
tame that it followed the person who fed it; it ate bread, flesh, or
fish; but it fell away and died. The four-footed Duck of Gesner might
have owed its origin to an ill-preserved Penguin. The notion of its
being four-footed might have been fortified by some voyager who had seen
the bird making progress as Mr. Darwin has above described.
Mr. Webster describes the feathers of Penguins as very different from
those of other birds, being short, very rigid, and the roots deeply
embedded in fat. They are, in general, flat, and bent backwards, those
on the breast being of a satin or silky white, and those on the flippers
so short and small as to approach the nature of scales, overlaying each
other very closely. The skins are loaded with fat. Their feet are not
regularly webbed, but present a broad, fleshy surface, more adapted for
walking than swimming. Mr. Webster saw great numbers of Penguins on
Staten Island. They are the only genus of the feathered race that are
there, and live in the water, like seals. He saw them at the distance of
200 miles from the land, swimming with the rapidity of the dolphin, the
swiftest of fishes. When they come up to the surface for fresh breath,
they make a croaking noise, dip their beaks frequently in the water, and
play and dive about near the surface, like the bonita. Penguins have
great powers of abstinence, and are able to live four or five months
without food. Stones have been occasionally found in their stomachs,
but they generally live on shrimps and crustacea, gorging themselves
sometimes to excess. The sensations of these curious birds do not seem
to be very acute. Sparrman stumbled over a sleeping one, and kicked it
some yards, without disturbing its rest; and Forster left a number of
Penguins apparently lifeless, while he went in pursuit of others, but
they afterwards got up and marched off with their usual gravity.
The bird is named from the Welsh word, _Pengwyn_. White head (_pen_,
head; _gwyn_, white), and is thought to have been given to the
bird by some Welsh sailors, on seeing its white breast. Davis, who
discovered, in 1585, the straits which are named after him, was of
Welsh parents. Might he not have given the name _Pengwyn_ to the bird?
Swainson considers the Penguins, on the whole, as the most singular
of all aquatic birds; and he states that they clearly point out that
nature is about to pass from the birds to the fishes. Others consider
Penguins more satisfactorily to represent some of the aquatic reptiles,
especially the marine _testudinata_.
PELICANS AND CORMORANTS.
Pelicans are described as a large, voracious, and wandering tribe of
birds, living for the most part on the ocean, and seldom approaching
land but at the season of incubation. They fly with ease, and even with
swiftness. Their bill is long, and armed at the end with an abrupt
hook; the width of the gape is excessive; the face is generally bare
of feathers, and the skin of the throat sometimes so extensible as to
hang down like a bag; it will occasionally contain ten quarts. "By this
curious organization," observes Swainson, "the Pelicans are able to
swallow fish of a very large size; and the whole family may be termed
_oceanic vultures_."
The neighbourhood of rivers, lakes, and the sea-coast, is the haunt of
the Pelican, and they are rarely seen more than twenty leagues from
the land. Le Vaillant, upon visiting Dassen Island, at the entrance
of Saldanha Bay, beheld, as he says, after wading through the surf,
and clambering up the rocks, such a spectacle as never, perhaps,
appeared to the eye of mortal. "All of a sudden there arose from the
whole surface of the island an impenetrable cloud, which formed, at the
distance of forty feet above our heads, an immense canopy, or, rather, a
sky, composed of birds of every species and of all colours--cormorants,
sea-gulls, sand-swallows, and, I believe, the whole winged tribe of this
part of Africa, were here assembled." The same traveller found on the
Klein-Brak river, whilst waiting for the ebb-tide, thousands of Pelicans
and Flamingoes, the deep rose-colour of the one strongly contrasting
with the white of the other.
Mr. Gould says the bird is remarkable for longevity and the long period
requisite for the completion of its plumage. The first year's dress is
wholly brown, then fine white. The rosy tints are only acquired as the
bird advances in age, and five years are required before the Pelican
becomes fully mature. The expanse of wings is from twelve to thirteen
feet. Although the bird perches on trees, it prefers rocky shores. It is
found in the Oriental countries of Europe; and is common on the rivers
and lakes of Hungary and Russia, and on the Danube. That the species
exists in Asia there is no doubt. Belon, who refers to Leviticus xi.
18, where the bird is noted as unclean, says that it is frequent on
the lakes of Egypt and Judæa. "When he was passing the plain of Roma,
which is only half a day's journey from Jerusalem, he saw them flying
in pairs, like swans, as well as in a large flock. Hasselquist saw the
Pelican at Damietta, in Egypt. "In flying, they form an acute angle,
like the common wild geese when they migrate. They appear in some of the
Egyptian drawings."--(_Rossellini._)
Von Siebold saw the Pelican in Japan. "Pelicans," says Dr. Richardson,
"are numerous in the interior of the fur countries, but they seldom
come within two hundred miles of Hudson's Bay. They deposit their eggs
usually on small rocky islands, on the brink of cascades, where they can
scarcely be approached; but they are otherwise by no means shy birds.
They haunt eddies under waterfalls, and devour great quantities of carp
and other fish. When gorged with food they doze on the water, and may be
easily captured, as they have great difficulty in taking wing at such
times, particularly if their pouches be loaded with fish."
The bird builds on rocky and desert shores: hence we read of "the
Pelican of the wilderness," alluded to in these beautiful lines:--
"Like the Pelicans
On that lone island where they built their nests,
Nourish'd their young, and then lay down to die."
The bird lives on fish, which it darts upon from a considerable height.
James Montgomery thus describes this mode of taking their prey:--
"Eager for food, their searching eyes they fix'd
On Ocean's unroll'd volume, from a height
That brought immensity within their scope;
Yet with such power of vision look'd they down,
As though they watch'd the shell-fish slowly gliding
O'er sunken rocks, or climbing trees of coral,
On indefatigable wing upheld,
Breath, pulse, existence, seem'd suspended in them;
They were as pictures painted on the sky;
Till suddenly, aslant, away they shot,
Like meteors chang'd from stars in gleams of lightning.
And struck upon the deep; where, in wild play,
Their quarry flounder'd, unsuspecting harm.
With terrible voracity they plunged
Their heads among the affrighted shoals, and beat
A tempest on the surges with their wings,
Till flashing clouds of foam and spray conceal'd them.
Nimbly they seized and secreted their prey,
Alive and wriggling, in th' elastic net
Which Nature hung beneath their grasping beaks;
Till, swoll'n with captures, th' unwieldy burthen
Clogg'd their slow flight, as heavily to land
These mighty hunters of the deep return'd.
There on the cragged cliffs they perched at ease,
Gorging their hapless victims one by one;
Then, full and weary, side by side they slept,
Till evening roused them to the chase again."
_Pelican Island._
Great numbers of Pelicans are killed for their pouches, which are
converted by the native Americans into purses, &c. When carefully
prepared, the membrane is as soft as silk, and sometimes embroidered by
Spanish ladies for work-bags, &c. It is used in Egypt by the sailors,
whilst attached to the two under chaps, for holding or baling water.
With the Pelican has been associated an old popular error, which has not
long disappeared from books of information: it is that of the Pelican
feeding her young with her blood. In reference to the actual economy
of the Pelican, we find that, in feeding the nestlings--and the male
is said to supply the wants of the female, when sitting, in the same
manner--the under mandible is pressed against the neck and breast, to
assist the bird in disgorging the contents of the capacious pouch; and
during this action the red nail of the upper mandible would appear to
come in contact with the breast, thus laying the foundation, in all
probability, for the fable that the Pelican nourishes her young with her
blood, and for the attitude in which the imagination of painters has
placed the bird in books of emblems, &c., with the blood spirting from
the wounds made by the terminating nail of the upper mandible into the
gaping mouths of her offspring.
Sir Thomas Browne, in his "Vulgar Errors," says:--"In every place we
meet with the picture of the Pelican opening her breast with her bill,
and feeding her young ones with the blood distilling from her. Thus it
is set forth, not only in common signs, but in the crest and scutcheon
of many noble families; hath been asserted by many holy writers, and
was an hieroglyphic of piety and pity among the Egyptians; on which
consideration they spared them at their tables."
Sir Thomas refers this popular error to an exaggerated description of
the Pelican's fondness for her young, and is inclined to accept it as an
emblem "in coat-armour," though with great doubt.
In "A Choice of Emblems and other Devices," by Geoffrey Whitney, are
these lines:--
"The Pelican, for to revive her younge,
Doth pierce her breste, and geve them of her blood.
Then searche your breste, and as you have with tonge,
With penne procede to do your countrie good:
Your zeal is great, your learning is profounde;
Then help our wantes with that you do abound."
In George Wither's "Emblems," 1634, we find:--
"Our Pelican, by bleeding thus,
Fulfill'd the law, and cured us."
Shakspeare, in "Hamlet," thus alludes to the popular notion:--
"To his good friends thus wide I'll ope my arms;
And like the kind, life-rendering Pelican,
Repast them with my blood."
In a holier light, this symbol signifies the Saviour giving Himself up
for the redemption of mankind. In Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art," vols.
i., xx., xxi., we find in the text, "God the Son (is symbolized) by a
Pelican--'I am like a Pelican of the wilderness.' (Psalm cii. 6.)" To
which is added the following note:--"The mediæval interpretation of this
symbol is given by Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, Lion King, nephew of
the poet, in his MS. 'Collectanea,' preserved in the Advocates' Library.
Edinburgh."
Sir Thomas Browne hints at the probability of the Pelican occasionally
nibbling or biting itself on the itching part of its breast, upon
fulness or acrimony of blood, so as to tinge the feathers in that part.
Such an instance is recorded by Mr. G. Bennett of a Pelican living at
Dulwich, which wounded itself just above the breast; but no such act has
been observed among the Pelicans kept in the menagerie of the Zoological
Society or elsewhere; and the instance just recorded was probably caused
by local irritation.
Of the same genus as the _Pelican_ is the _Cormorant_, an inhabitant
of Europe generally and of America. It swims very deep in the water;
even in the sea very little more than the neck and head are visible
above the surface. It is a most expert diver, pursuing the fish which
forms its food with great activity under water; it is said to be very
fond of eels. It perches on trees, where it occasionally builds its
nests, but it mostly selects rocky shores and islands. Upon the Fern
Islands its nest is composed of a mass of sea-weed, frequently heaped
up to the height of two feet. The species is easily domesticated; and
its docility is shown by the use often made of Cormorants in fishing.
Willughby, quoting Faber, says:--"They are wont in England to train up
Cormorants to fishing. When they carry them out of the room where they
are kept they take off their hoods, and having tied a leather thong
round the lower part of their necks, that they may not swallow down the
fish they catch, they throw them into the river. They presently dive
under water, and there for a long time, with wonderful swiftness, pursue
the fish, and when they have caught them they arise presently to the
top of the water, and pressing the fish tightly with the bills, they
swallow them, till each bird hath after this manner devoured five or six
fishes. Then their keepers call them to the fish, to which they readily
fly, and little by little, one after another, vomit up all the fish, a
little bruised with the nip they gave them with their bills." When they
have done fishing they loosen the string from the birds' necks, and for
their reward they throw them part of the prey they have caught, to each,
perchance, one or two fishes, which they catch most dexterously in their
mouths as they are falling in the air. Pennant quotes Whitelock, who
said that he had a cast of them, manned like hawks, and which would come
to hand. He took much pleasure in them, and relates that the best he
had was one presented him by Mr. Wood, master of the corvorants (as the
older name was) to Charles I. Pennant adds, it is well known that the
Chinese make great use of a congenerous sort in fishing, and that not
for amusement but profit.
Sir George Staunton, in his account of his Embassy to China, describes
the place where the _Leu-tze_, or famed fishing-bird of China, is bred
and instructed in the art and practice of supplying his owner with fish
in great abundance. The bird, a Cormorant, is figured in Sir George's
work, with two Chinese fishermen carrying their light boat, around the
gunnel of which their Cormorants are perched by a pole resting on their
shoulders between them. On a large lake are thousands of small boats
and rafts built entirely for this species of fishery. On each boat or
raft are ten or a dozen birds, which, on a signal from the owner, plunge
into the water; and it is astonishing to see the enormous size of fish
with which they return grasped between their bills. They appeared to be
so well trained that it did not require either ring or cord about their
throats to prevent them from swallowing any portion of their prey except
what the master was pleased to return to them for encouragement and
food. The boat used by these fishermen is remarkably light, and is often
carried to the lake, together with the fishing-birds, by the men who are
there to be supported by it.
Belon gives an amusing account of the chase of this bird during calms,
especially in the neighbourhood of Venice: the hunt is carried on in
very light boats, each of which being rowed by five or six men, darts
along the sea like the bolt from an arbalest, till the poor Cormorant,
who is shot at with bows as soon as he puts his head above water, and
cannot take flight after diving to suffocation, is taken quite tired out
by his pursuers.
Cormorant fishing has occasionally been reintroduced upon our rivers.
In 1848 there were brought from Holland four tame Cormorants, which had
been trained to the Chinese mode of fishing. Upon one occasion they
fished three miles on a river, and caught a pannier-full of trout and
eels. A ring placed round their necks to prevent them from swallowing
large fish, but which leaves them at liberty to gulp down anything not
exceeding the size of a gudgeon. The birds on these occasions are put
into such parts of the river as are known to be favourite haunts of
fish; and their activity under water in pursuit of fish can be compared
to nothing so appropriate as a swallow darting after a fly.
Blumenbach tells us the Cormorant occasionally increases in a few years
to many thousands on coasts where it was previously unknown. It varies
much both in size and colour. The late Joshua Brookes, the surgeon,
possessed a Cormorant, which he presented to the Zoological Society.
The Cormorant has a small sabre-shaped bone at the back of its vertex;
which bone may serve as a lever in throwing back the head, when the
animal tosses the fishes into the air and catches them in its open
mouth. The same motion is, however, performed by some piscivorous birds,
which are not provided with this particular bone.
Aubrey, in his "Natural History of Wilts," quotes the following weather
presage from May's "Virgil's Georgics":--
"The seas are ill to sailors evermore
When Cormorants fly crying to the shore."
TALKING BIRDS, ETC.
Certain birds are known to utter strange sounds, the origin of which
has much puzzled the ornithologists. The Brown Owl which hoots, is
hence called the Screech Owl: a musical friend of Gilbert White tried
all the Owls that were his near neighbours with a pitch-pipe set at a
concert pitch, and found they all hooted in B flat; and he subsequently
found that neither Owls nor Cuckoos keep to one note. The Whidah Bird,
one of the most costly of cage-birds, rattles its tail-feathers with a
noise somewhat resembling that made by the rattle-snake. The Chinese
Starling, in China called _Longuoy_, in captivity is very teachable,
imitating words, and even whistling tunes: we all remember Sterne's
Starling. The Piping Crow, to be seen in troops in the Blue Mountains,
is named from its ready mimicry of other birds: its imitation of the
chucking and cackling of a hen and the crowing of a cock, as well as
its whistling of tunes, are described as very perfect: its native note
is said to be a loud whistle. The Blue Jay turns his imitative faculty
to treacherous account: he so closely imitates the St. Domingo Falcon
as to deceive even those acquainted with both birds; and the Falcon no
sooner appears in their neighbourhood than the jays swarm around him and
insult him with their imitative cries; for which they frequently fall
victims to his appetite. The Bullfinch, according to Blumenbach, learns
to whistle tunes, to sing in parts, and even to pronounce words. The
note of the Crowned Crane has been compared by Buffon to the hoarseness
of a trumpet; it also clucks like a hen. Mr. Wallace, in his "Travels on
the Amazon," saw a bird about the size and colour of the Raven, which
uttered a loud, hoarse cry, like some deep musical instrument, whence
its Indian name, _Ueramioube_, Trumpet Bird: it inhabits the flooded
islands of the Rio Negro and the Solimoes, never appearing on the
mainland.[12] The only sound produced by Storks is by snapping their
bills. The Night Heron is called the Qua Bird; from its note _Qua_.