seen to be the only suitable, I might say the only possible, garment
which she could wear. Among the tangle which surrounds the nest she
is completely hidden even from the sharp eyes of the falcon or the
sea-eagle. Not only the general colouring, but every point and every
line is so harmonious with the dried sea-weed, that the brooding-bird,
when she has drawn down her neck and slightly spread out her wings,
seems to become almost a part of her surroundings. Many a time it has
happened that I, searching with the practised eye of a sportsman and
naturalist, have walked across eider-holms and only become aware of
the brooding duck at my feet, when she warned me off by pecking at my
shoes. No one who knows the self-forgetting devotion with which the
birds brood will be surprised that it is possible to come so near an
eider-duck sitting in her nest, but it may well excite the astonishment
of even an experienced naturalist to learn that the duck suffers one to
handle the eggs under her breast without flying away, and that she does
not even allow herself to be diverted from her brooding when one lifts
her from the nest and places her upon it again, or lays her on the
ground at some little distance in order to see the charmingly quaint
way in which she waddles back to her brood.
The eider-duck’s maternal self-surrender and desire for offspring show
themselves in another way. Every female eider-duck, perhaps every duck
of whatever species, desires not only the bliss of bearing children,
but wishes to have as many nestlings as possible under her motherly
eye. Prompted by this desire, she has no scruples in robbing, whenever
possible, other eiders brooding near her. Devoted as she is in her
brooding, she must nevertheless forsake her nest once a day to procure
her own food, and to cleanse, oil, and smooth her plumage, which
suffers considerably from the heat developed in brooding. Throwing a
suspicious glance at her neighbours to right and left, she rises early
in the forenoon, after having perhaps suffered the pangs of hunger
for some hours, stands beside her nest and carefully spreads the
surrounding fringe of down with her bill, so that it forms a concealing
and protecting cover for the eggs. Then she flies quickly out to the
sea, dives repeatedly, and hastily fills crop and gullet to the full
with mussels, bathes, cleans, and oils herself, and returns to land,
drying and smoothing her feathers continuously as she walks towards
her nest. Both her neighbours sit seemingly as innocent as before,
but in the interval a theft has been perpetrated by at least one of
them. As soon as the first had flown away, one of them rose from her
nest, and lifting the cover of her neighbour’s nest, quickly rolled
one, two, three, or four eggs with her feet into her own nest, then
carefully replaced the cover, and resumed her place, rejoicing over her
unrighteously-increased clutch. The returning duck probably notices the
trick that has been played, but she makes not the slightest sign, and
calmly settles down to brood again as though she thought, “Just wait,
neighbour, you must go to the sea, too, and then I’ll do to you what
you have done to me”. As a matter of fact, the eggs of several nests
standing close together are shifted continuously from one to another.
Whether it is her own or another’s children that come to life under her
motherly breast seems to matter very little to the eider-duck--they are
children, at any rate!
The duck sits about twenty-six days before the eggs are hatched. The
Norseman, who goes to work intelligently, lets her do as she pleases
this time, and not only refrains from disturbing her, but assists her
as far as possible by keeping away from the island all enemies who
might harass the bird. He knows his ducks, if not personally, at least
to this extent, that he can tell about what time this or that one will
have finished brooding, and will set out with her ducklings to seek
the safety of the sea. The journey thither brings sudden destruction
to many unwatched young eider-ducks. Not only the falcons breeding
on or visiting the island, but even more the ravens, the skuas, and
the larger gulls watch for the first appearance of the ducklings,
attack them on the way, and carry off one or more of them. The owner
of the island seeks to prevent this in a manner which enables one
to appreciate how thoroughly the duck, ordinarily so wild and shy,
has become a domestic bird during the breeding season. Every morning
towards the end of the brooding-time he inspects the island in order
to help the mothers and to gather in a second harvest of down. On his
back hangs a hamper, and on one arm a wide hand-basket. Going from
nest to nest he lifts each duck, and looks to see whether the young
are hatched and are sufficiently dry. If this be the case, he packs
the whole waddling company in his hand-basket, and with adroit grasp
divests the nest of its downy lining, which he throws into his hamper,
and proceeds to another nest. Trustfully the duck waddles after him
or rather after her piping offspring, and a second, third, tenth nest
is thus emptied, in fact the work goes on as long as the basket will
accommodate more nestlings, and one mother after another joins the
procession, exchanging opinions with her companions in suffering on
the way. Arrived at the sea, the man turns the basket upside down and
simply shakes the whole crowd of ducklings into the water. Immediately
all the ducks throw themselves after their piping young ones; coaxing,
calling, displaying all manner of maternal tenderness, they swim about
among the flock, each trying to collect as many ducklings as possible
behind herself. With obvious pride one swims about with a long train
behind her, but soon a second, less favoured, crosses the procession
and seeks to detach as many of the ducklings as she can, and again a
third endeavours to divert a few in her own favour. So all the mothers
swim about, quacking and calling, cackling and coaxing, till at length
each one has behind her a troop of young ones, whether her own or
another’s who can tell? The duck in question certainly does not know,
but her mother-love does not suffer on that account--they are in any
case ducklings who are swimming behind her!
In every case the flock thus collected follows the mother or
foster-mother faithfully even in the first hours of free life. The
mother leads them to places where edible mussels cover the rocks up to
low-water mark, gathers as many as she and her family require, breaks
the shells of the smallest and lays the contents before her brood. On
the first day of their lives the ducklings are able to swim and dive as
well as their parents, and they even excel them in one respect, for
they are incomparably more nimble on land, being able to move about
with surprising activity. If they become tired near an island the
mother leads them on to it, and they run about like young partridges,
and, by simply crouching down at the first warning cry, conceal
themselves so effectively that they can only be found after long
searching. If they get fatigued when they are far from land, the mother
spreads out her wings a little and offers them these and her back as
a resting-place. As they never know want they grow with extraordinary
rapidity, and at the end of two months will have attained nearly the
size, certainly all the adroitness, of their mother. The father soon
joins them in order to pass the winter with his family--usually in
company with many other families, so that a flock of thousands may
occasionally be formed.
The high and annually increasing price of its incomparable down makes
the eider-duck the most valuable of all berg-birds. A thousand pairs
of ducks form a possession well worth having. At least three or four
thousand pairs brood on each island, and the fortunate possessor of
still more numerously visited breeding-places derives revenues through
his birds which many a German land-owner might envy. But besides the
eider-ducks there breed also on the holms oyster-catchers and black
guillemots, whose eggs are preserved and used for food for months, or
are exported to a distance. Furthermore, the flesh of the young birds
is sometimes salted for winter use, and thus the holms yield a rich
harvest. They are therefore strictly preserved and protected by special
laws.[3]
A brooding island peopled by eider-ducks and other sea birds presents a
spectacle as unique as it is fascinating. A more or less thick cloud of
brilliantly white sea-gulls veils such an island. Without intermission
troops and swarms of brooding birds arrive and fly out to sea again,
visiting the neighbouring reefs also, and sometimes marvellously
adorning the drained moorland, now covered with green turf, in front
of the red log-huts. With justifiable pride a dweller on the Lofodens
pointed to several hundred gulls which were assembled directly before
his door seeking for insects. “Our land is too poor, too cold, and
too rough”, he said, “for us to be able to keep domestic birds as
you do in the south. But the sea sends us our doves, and, I ask, have
you ever seen more beautiful?” I could but answer in the negative,
for the picture of the dazzling white and delicate blue-gray gulls on
the luxuriant green turf amid the grand environment of the northern
mountains was indeed magnificent. It is these gulls chiefly which make
the brooding holms conspicuous from a distance, and distinguish them
from others which are physically the same. The other members of the
feathered population are but little noticed, though they number many
thousands. Only when one of the admirable light boats of the country
is pushed off from the inhabited shores and rowed towards the holm
does the quiet life of the birds change. Some oyster-catchers, which
have been feeding directly above the high-water mark, have observed
the boat and fly hastily towards it. These birds, which are absent
from none of the larger islands, scarcely from any of the skerries,
are the guardians of the safety and welfare of the peacefully united
colony. More inquisitive and active than any other birds known to
me, self-possessed, cautious, and deliberate, they possess all the
qualities necessary to make them the sentinels of a mixed colony.
Every new, unusual, or extraordinary event arouses their curiosity,
and incites them to make closer examination. Thus they fly to meet
the boat, sweep round it five or six times in ever-narrowing circles,
screaming uninterruptedly the while, thus attracting others of their
own species to the spot, and rousing the attention of all the cautious
birds in the colony. As soon as they have convinced themselves of the
presence of actual danger, they fly quickly back, and, with warning
notes, communicate the result of their investigation to all the other
birds on the berg who will pay any attention, as indeed many do. Some
gulls now resolve to investigate the cause of the disturbance for
themselves. Five or six of them fly towards the boat, hover falcon-like
in the air, perhaps even dart boldly down upon the intruders, and
return to the holm more quickly than they came. Just as if their report
was mistrusted, twice, three, four--ten times the number take wing,
proceeding exactly as the first spies had done, and soon a cloud of
birds forms above the boat. This cloud becomes thicker and thicker,
more and more threatening, for the birds not only endeavour with
continually increasing boldness to strike against the intruders in the
boat, but they bestow upon them stuff which does not exactly tend to
adorn faces and clothing. In the neighbourhood of the breeding-place
the excitement increases to an apparently distracted confusion, the
cries of individuals unite to form a maddening noise a thousand times
repeated. Before the boat has touched the land the eider-drakes, who
have been visiting their mates, have waddled to the shore and are
now swimming out to sea with a warning “Ahua-ahua”. The cormorants
and mergansers follow them, but the oyster-catchers, plovers, black
guillemots, eider-ducks, gulls, and terns, as well as the stone-chats
and water-wagtails, cannot make up their minds to forsake the island.
Running birds innumerable rush up and down the shore as if pursued by
the evil one; the black guillemots, which had glided up the slanting
blocks of rock, squat flat down upon them and stare in innocent wonder
at the strangers, and the eider-ducks prepare to make themselves
invisible after their fashion when the right moment comes.
The boat touches the shore. We step upon the holm. A screech rises from
thousands of voices at once, the cloud of flying birds thickens to
opaqueness; hundreds of brooding gulls rise croaking to join those in
flight; dozens of oyster-catchers scream loudly, and the maze of moving
birds and the noise of their screeching become so bewildering that one
feels as if one perceived with the bodily senses the din and riot of
the witches’ revel on the Blocksberg.
“Voices o’er us dost thou hear?
Voices far, and voices near?
All the mountain-range along
Streams a raving Witches’ Song.”
Mephisto’s words are realized. The noise and tumult, the confusion of
forms and cries, fatigue all the senses; everything swims and flickers
before our eyes; there is singing and ringing in our ears, till at
length we are conscious of neither colour nor noise, scarcely even
of the usually very penetrating odour. In whatever direction we may
turn the cloud covers the island; nothing is to be seen but birds, and
when thousands alight to rest thousands more take wing, their care and
anxiety for their brood making them forget their own powerlessness,
and encouraging them to a defence which, though not dangerous, is
certainly embarrassing to the explorers.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.--The Bird-bergs of Lapland.]
Essentially different from the life--after all very inoffensive--on an
eider-holm is the picture presented by an island peopled by silver,
herring, or great black-backed gulls. These also congregate on certain
islands for the breeding season in hundreds and hundreds of pairs, one
such island being sometimes inhabited by from three to five thousand
pairs. The island presents quite as beautiful and noble a spectacle
as the eider-holm. The large, dazzling white, and light or dark gray
forms contrast wonderfully with the whole surroundings, and their
movements possess much of the grace which characterizes all gulls. But
these strong, powerful, rapacious gulls, though gregarious, are not
peaceable neighbours. No member of such a colony trusts any other. Each
pair lives by itself, marks out a definite brooding-ground, however
small its diameter, allows no other pair within its boundaries, and
both birds never leave the nest at the same time. If they have been
disturbed by a powerful common enemy they hasten back as quickly as
possible to the nest to protect it from others of their own species.
Less noisy, but certainly not less impressive, is the life on the
real bird-bergs, the breeding-grounds of razor-bills, guillemots, and
puffins, with at most here and there one or other of the gulls or of
the cormorants. It will suffice if I attempt to describe one such berg
in narrative form.
To the north of the large island belonging to the Lofoden group, and
about three hundred yards from its shore, lie three bell-shaped rocky
islands (the Nyken), rising rugged and steep for about three hundred
feet above the surface of the sea, and closely surrounded by a circle
of little reefs. One of these rocky cones is a bird-berg, and one can
hardly imagine a finer of its kind.
We prepared to visit the island on a beautiful summer day when the
sea was unusually smooth and calm, the sky clear and blue, the air
warm and pleasant. Powerful Norsemen rowed our light boat in and out
among innumerable skerries. Look where we would, we saw birds. Almost
every rock which rose above the surface of the water was peopled with
them. Some of the reefs were coated with white by the excrement of
the cormorants which regularly spent a portion of each day there in
rest. Arranged in rows, like soldiers drawn up, they sat in tens,
twenties, or hundreds, in the most extraordinary positions, their necks
stretched, their wings spread out so that every part of their bodies
might have full benefit of the sunshine, waving their wings also as
if to fan each other, and all the while casting watchful glances in
every direction. On our approach, they threw themselves heavily with
hollow cries into the sea, and then, swimming and diving, defied all
our attempts to get near them. Other reefs were covered with gulls,
hundreds and thousands of the same species; or with male eiders, which
had probably come from some eider-holm or other, to amuse themselves
after the fashion of their sex while their mates were busied with
maternal cares. Around other rocky islands the dazzling eider-birds,
perhaps newly-plucked males, had congregated and arranged themselves
in a circle, suggestive of the great white water-lilies of our quiet
freshwater lakes. In the sounds that were not too deep one could see
the fishing mergansers and divers, one or other of which would every
now and then give full vent to its shrill, far-reaching cry--a cry so
long-drawn-out and so varied in tone that one might call it a song,
were it not rather a wild melody such as can only be executed by a
child of the North Sea who has listened to the howling and blustering
of winter storms, and has echoed the roar of the surging waves. Proud
as a prince upon his throne sat here and there a sea-eagle, the terror
of all the feathered creatures of the sea; sometimes we saw a whole
company of these robbers gorged with prey; the jerfalcon, who had his
eyrie on one of the steep precipices, flew through his wide domain
with the swiftness of an arrow; fluttering gulls and kittiwakes and
fishing terns darted up and down; oyster-catchers greeted us with their
trilling cries; razor-bills and guillemots appeared and disappeared all
about us as they rose to the surface or dived underneath.
In such company we proceeded on our way. When we had traversed about
ten nautical miles we came within range of the Nyke. In whatever
direction we looked we saw some of the temporary dwellers on the berg,
fishing and diving in the sea, or, startled by our boat, flying along
so close to the surface of the water that their bright red webbed feet
struck spray from the waves. We saw swarms of from thirty to fifty or
a hundred birds streaming from or towards the berg, and we could not
doubt that we were approaching a very populous breeding-colony. But
we had been told of millions of brooding birds, and as yet we could
see nothing of such numbers. At length, after we had rowed round a
projecting ridge, the Nyke lay before us. In the sea, all around, were
black points, at the foot of the hill white ones. The former were
without order or regularity, the latter generally in rows, or sharply
defined troops; the one set consisted of razor-bills swimming, with
head, throat, and neck above the water, the others were the same birds
sitting on the hill with their white breasts turned towards the sea.
There were certainly many thousands, but not millions.
After we had landed at the opposite island and refreshed ourselves
in the house of the proprietor of the Nyke, we crossed over to it,
and choosing a place round which the seething waves did not surge
too violently, we sprang out on the rock and climbed quickly up to
the turf which covers the whole Nyke, with the exception of a few
protruding peaks, ledges, and angles. There we found that the whole
turf was so pierced with nest-hollows something like rabbit holes,
that on the whole hill not a single place the size of a table could be
found free from such openings. We made our way upwards in a spiral,
clambering rather than walking to the top of the berg. The undermined
turf trembled under our feet, and from every hole there peeped, crept,
glided, or flew out birds rather larger than pigeons, slate-coloured on
the upper part of the body, dazzlingly white on breast and belly, with
fantastic bills and faces, short, narrow, pointed wings, and stumpy
tails. Out of every hole they appeared and even out of the fissures and
clefts in the rocks. Whichever way we turned we saw only birds, heard
only the low droning noise of their combined weak cries. Every step
onwards brought new flocks out of the bowels of the earth. From the
berg down to the sea, from the sea up to the berg there flew swarms
innumerable. The dozens became hundreds, the hundreds became thousands,
and hundreds of thousands sprang incessantly from the brown-green turf.
A cloud not less thick than that over the holm enveloped us, enveloped
the island, so that it--magically indeed, but in a way perceptible by
the senses--seemed transformed into a gigantic bee-hive, round which
not less gigantic bees, humming and buzzing, hovered and fluttered.
The farther we went, the more magnificent became the spectacle. The
whole hill was alive. Hundreds of thousands of eyes looked down upon
us intruders. From every hole and corner, from every peak and ledge,
out of every cleft, burrow, or opening, they hurried forth, right,
left, above, beneath; the air, like the ground, teemed with birds. From
the sides and from the summit of the berg thousands threw themselves
like a continuous cataract into the sea in a throng so dense that
they seemed to the eye to form an almost solid mass. Thousands came,
thousands went, thousands fluttered in a wondrous mazy dance; hundreds
of thousands flew, hundreds of thousands swam and dived, and yet
other hundreds of thousands awaited the footsteps which should rouse
them also. There was such a swarming, whirring, rustling, dancing,
flying, and creeping all about us that we almost lost our senses; the
eye refused duty, and his wonted skill failed even the marksman who
attempted to gain a prize at random among the thousands. Bewildered,
hardly conscious, we pushed on our way until at length we reached the
summit. Our expectation here at last to regain quietness, composure,
and power of observation, was not at once realized. Even here there was
the same swarming and whirring as further down the slope, and the cloud
of birds around us was so thick that we only saw the sea dimly and
indefinitely as in twilight. But a pair of jerfalcons, who had their
eyrie in a neighbouring precipice, and had seen the unusual bustle,
suddenly changed the wonderful scene. The razor-bills, guillemots,
and puffins were not afraid of us; but on the appearance of their
well-known and irresistible enemies, the whole cloud threw themselves
with one accord, as at the command of a magician, into the sea, and
the outlook was clear and free. Innumerable black points, the heads of
the birds swimming in the sea, stood out distinctly from the water,
and broke up the blue-green colouring of the waves. Their number was
so great that from the top of the berg, which was over three hundred
feet high, we could not see where the swarm ended, could not discover
where the sea was clear from birds. In order to make a calculation, I
measured out a small square with my eye, and began to count the points
in it. There were more than a hundred. Then I endeavoured mentally to
place several similar squares together, and soon came to thousands
of points. But I might have imagined many thousands of such squares
together and yet not exhausted the space covered by birds. The millions
of which I had been told were really there. This picture of apparent
quiet only lasted for a few moments. The birds soon began to fly
upwards again, and as before, hundreds of thousands rose simultaneously
from the water to ascend the hill, as before a cloud formed round it,
and our senses were again bewildered. Unable to see, and deafened by
the indescribable noise about me, I threw myself on the ground, and
the birds streamed by on all sides. New ones crept constantly out of
their holes, while those we had previously startled now crept back
again; they settled all about me, looking with comical amazement at the
strange form among them, and approaching with mincing gait so close
to me that I attempted to seize them. The beauty and charm of life
showed themselves in every movement of these remarkable birds. With
astonishment I saw that even the best pictures of them are stiff and
cold, for I remarked in their quaint forms a mobility and liveliness
with which I had not credited them. They did not remain still a single
instant, their heads and necks at least were moved incessantly to
all sides, and their contours often showed most graceful lines. It
seemed as though the inoffensiveness with which I had given myself
up to observing them, had been rewarded by unlimited confidence on
their part. The thousands just about me were like domestic birds; the
millions paid me no more attention than if I had been one of themselves.