SPOILER AND SPOILED
To the one smooth beach that there is here come the terns, each year,
to breed, and from these, as well as from the various gulls that nest
upon the island, the lesser or Arctic skua--whom some call Richardson's,
as though it belonged to that gentleman--is accustomed to take toll.
Sweeping the sea with the glasses, one detects, here and there upon its
surface, a dusky but elegantly shaped bird, that sometimes rises from the
water and descends upon it again, slowly and gracefully, but is never
seen to poise and hawk at fish, like the terns themselves, or, more
rarely, some of the gulls. These are those skuas who elect to take their
chances at sea, and whenever a tern rises after making his plunge, with
a fish in his bill, they rise also and pursue him. Then may be witnessed
a long and interesting chase, in the course of which the two birds will
sometimes mount up to a considerable height, rising alternately, one
above the other, as though each were ascending an aerial ladder. There
are no gyrations in these ascents. They are, or at least they have the
appearance of being, almost perpendicular, so that they differ altogether
from those of the heron and hawk, once familiar in falconry, and of which
Scott has given us such a splendid description in "The Betrothed," that
delightful work which an obtuse critic and publisher (_l'un vaut bien
l'autre_ very often) almost bullied its author into discontinuing. The
victory is by no means always to the robber bird, and I believe that if
a tern only persevere long enough it has nothing to fear, for, as in the
case of the black-headed gull and the peewit, with much threatening,
there is never, or, to be on the safe side, very rarely, an actual
assault. It almost seems as if this logical sequence of what has gone
before had dropped into desuetude, and that the skua, from having long
been accustomed to succeed by the show of violence only, had become
incapable of proceeding beyond the show. Why, if this were not the case,
should he always leave a bird that holds out beyond a certain time? It
is not that he is outstripped in the chase, for the skua's activity and
powers of flight have always seemed to me to be sufficient to overtake
any bird of his own size, however swift, with whom he has piratical
relations. Of his own size, or something approaching to it, for I have
seen him altogether baffled by the smaller turns and evasions of such a
comparatively feeble flyer as the rock-pipit. But this was out of the
ordinary way of his profession. The rock-pipit carried nothing, and,
even if he had done, it would have been too insignificant for the skua's
attention. Either amusement or murder--or the amusement _of_ murder,
which is felt by birds as well as men--must have been the object here,
nor does this contravene the theory I have just laid down, since such
generalised and legitimate longings are only indirectly related to the
bird's special instinct.
I do not myself see how these curious relations of robber and robbed
could have arisen, unless there had been, from the beginning, a marked
difference in the relative powers of flight possessed by each. The skua,
originally, must have caught fish, like the birds on whose angling
it is now dependent, and only an easy mastery over the latter could
have induced it to abandon the one way of living for the other. This
superiority was probably first impressed upon the weaker species through
bodily suffering, but it would have been less trouble for the stronger
one could it have succeeded without coming to extremities, and this, and
its constantly doing so, might in time have made it forget, as it were,
the last act of the drama. But say that the skua has forgotten this,
then it is likely that a certain number of the persecuted birds have by
practice discovered that it has, and so emancipated themselves from the
tyranny. Whether this be the reason or not, I have often noticed the
persistence with which some terns refuse to yield the fish, though the
nearness of the skua, and its sweeping rushes, seem quite sufficient to
induce them to. Those, on the other hand, who drop it quickly, often do
so whilst the enemy is still at a distance, in which case the fish falls
upon the water before the skua can catch it. Upon this, the latter--if
not invariably, as the fishermen assert, yet certainly in the greater
number of instances--flies off without any further attempt to secure
it, and I have then seen the tern sweep back, and, plunging down, retake
possession of its booty. Whether, in such cases, the fish was designedly
relinquished, in order to be secured again, I cannot say, but here, at
any rate, we see another way in which the parasite might come to be
outwitted by the more intelligent of its _vaches à lait_.
These competitions between skua and tern, both of them birds of such
swift and graceful flight, are very interesting to watch. The skua,
in the midst of the chase, will frequently sweep away, as if it had
abandoned all hope, and then return in a wide circling rush, at the end
of which there may be a sudden upward shoot, for the tern generally seeks
to elude its pursuer by rising higher into the air. Often--and again this
is just as with the peewit and gull--a pair of skuas will give chase
to the same tern, and then one may see the slender, shining bird quite
overshadowed by the two evil figures, as, pressing upon either side, they
rise or sink towards it, often almost covering it up with their broad
and dusky pinions. Twin evil geniuses they look like, seeking to corrupt
a soul, or else dark shadows that this soul itself has summoned up, and
that attend it, hardly now to be shaken off:
Da hab' ich viel blasse Leichen
Beschworen mit Wortesmacht.
Sie wollen, nun, nicht mehr weichen
Zurück in die alte Nacht.
For imagination can easily multiply the two into many--cares, shadows,
sorrows, they are easily multiplied.
A tern that either eludes or is not molested by a skua at sea, flies
home with its fish, to feed its young. But here it has often to run
the gauntlet of other skuas, who wait and watch for it upon the land,
sitting amidst the short stunted heather, with the brown of which their
plumage, as a rule, harmonises. There are, therefore, land-robbers and
sea-robbers--pirates, and highwaymen--amongst these aristocratic birds,
and it would be interesting to know whether the two rôles are performed
by different individuals, or indifferently by the same one. To ascertain
this satisfactorily I have found a difficult matter, but I believe that
here as elsewhere--in everything, as soon as one begins to watch it--a
process of differentiation is going on.
Where there are terns to be robbed, the skuas--I am speaking always of
the smaller and, as I have found it, the more interesting species--seem
to prefer them to any other quarry, so that the gulls, generally, benefit
by their presence; otherwise all are victimised, except, as I think, the
great black-backed gull. The latter will, himself, attack the skua, who
flies before him, so that, taking this and his size into consideration,
it does not seem very likely that the parts should ever be reversed
between them, nor can I recall any clear instance in which they were.
Of all the birds attacked, the common gull--which, like common sense,
seems to be anything but common--makes, in my experience, the stoutest
resistance; for it will turn to bay and show fight, both in the air and
on the water, when it has been driven down upon it. Generally it is
able to hold its own, and I look upon it as a vigorous young Christian
nationality, in course of establishing its independence against the
intolerable yoke of Turkish oppression.
These skuas love brigandage so much that, amongst themselves, they
play at it; swooping, fleeing, and pursuing, each feigns, in turn, to
be spoiler or spoiled. So, at least, I understand it, for nothing ever
comes of these mock skirmishings, no real fight or flight, or anything
approaching to one. It is fun, frolic, with a sense of humour, maybe,
as though two pirates were playfully to hoist the black flag at each
other. I love the humour of it. I love the birds. Above all, I love that
wild cry of theirs that rings out so beautifully "to the wild sky," to
the mists and scudding clouds. By its general grace and beauty, by its
sportings and piracies, its speed of flight and the rushing sweeps of its
attack, this bird must ever live in the memories of those who have known
it: but, most of all, it will live there by the inspiring music of its
cry.