MOTHER AND CHILD
The young fulmar petrels here are still all in a state of fluff--not
one true feather to be seen--just as I left them in the middle of July,
on my last visit, though now it is the end of it. They are larger,
however, which, with their softness, whiteness, and general appearance,
as of a great powder-puff, makes them more marvellous-looking than
ever. Their shape, as they lie on the rock, is that of a round flat
disc--a muffin somewhat inflated, or an air-ball compressed. Only when
they flutter their wings, or waggle out their legs, have they any more
intricate shape than this, except that the funny little head, with the
black eyes and black hooked beak, projects permanently out of their
roundness. The latter is frequently held open, with the mandibles widely
distended--sometimes fixed so, at others gently moving. The neck, on
these occasions, is often stretched out and swayed from side to side,
so that we have here, in embryo, those curious movements which, in the
grown birds, are nuptial ones, and accompany the note then uttered.
Although the chick, as would be naturally expected, often opens its bill
in order to persuade the parent bird to feed it, yet after some hours'
watching I came to the conclusion that the action was too frequent and
too habitual to be altogether explained in this way, and I look upon it
as an inherited tendency. But may not the habit have originated in the
hunger of the chick, and have been worked in, sexually, at a later age,
when the reproductive system had become active? Strong emotion, one may
suppose, would require an outward manifestation in the shape of movements
of some sort, and it would be such as were already known, that, by first
coming to hand, would be likely to be first employed. If we had been
accustomed to do one kind of work for which we had a suitable implement,
and it became suddenly necessary to do some other for which we had none,
it would be natural for us to catch up the one we had and make a shift
with that. If a swim-bladder can be worked in as a lung, or a pair of
legs as part of a mouth, then why not a hunger-signal as a love-signal?
Be this as it may, it is certainly strange to see little fluffy chicks
on the nest going through the same sort of pantomime as their parents do
when in love. But why do I call them little? I have never seen such big
baby things, and their size makes them look all the weirder. So great,
indeed, is the chick's fluffiness that though the wings are tiny and the
tail invisible, it looks almost, if not quite, as big as the graceful and
delicately shaped parent bird sitting beside it.
The lethargy of these young fulmars is very noticeable. They do
occasionally rise a little on their feet and shuffle about in the place
where they sit, so that in this way they may, in time, turn quite round.
But after watching them now, for some two hours, I should doubt if they
ever moved more than an inch or so beyond an imaginary line drawn close
round them, as they lie. Here natural selection seems a demonstrable
thing, for often, were the chick to move so much as six inches forward,
or a few feet in any other direction, it must fall and be dashed to
pieces. What but this force--or, rather, process--can have produced
such a want of all inclination to move? It is the same, I suppose, with
birds that nest in trees or bushes. With the nightjar, however, though
the chicks become, after a while, somewhat active, so that the nest, or
rather nursery, is shifted from day to day, yet for some time they lie
very quiet, though well able to run about. Here the above explanation
does not apply, so that one can never be sure. "Theories," says Voltaire
"are like mice. They run through nineteen holes, but are stopped by the
twentieth." Still, it would generally be an advantage for young birds to
keep still when left by themselves, even in a field or wood, and how much
more so where a step or two, or one little run, would be death. Looking
at these fat, fluffy, odd-looking creatures as they sit motionless
from hour to hour, and then at the grown bird sailing on spread wings,
all grace and beauty,--a being that seems born of the air--the change
from one to the other--from the fixed to the free phase of life--seems
hardly less or more remarkable than that by which a chrysalis becomes
a butterfly. Not the egg itself differs more from this last stage of
its inmate--this free flitting, gliding thing--than does the round,
squat, stolid chick, which in appearance is nearer to an egg than to a
full-blossomed bird.
The mother fulmar--for I suppose it is the mother--cossets the chick
as she sits beside it, leaning tenderly over it, and nibbling with
her bill amidst its long, soft, white fluff, the chick sitting still,
the while, with its beak held open, but not at all as though it were
thinking of food. Sometimes, by inadvertence, the mother pricks the chick
a little, with her bill, upon which it turns indignantly towards her,
with distended jaws. She, to cover her _maladresse_, does the same, but
in a dignified, parental manner, as though it were she who had cause
to be angry. But it is easy to see that she is really a little ashamed
of herself, and purposes to be more careful another time. Mother and
chick often sleep side by side on the rock, and then it is noticeable
that whilst the mother has her head turned and partially hidden amongst
the feathers of the back--"under her wing," as one says--the chick's is
often held straight in the usual manner. Not always, however: at other
times, it is disposed of in the same way. As far as I can see, the chick
is in the charge of one parent only. On several occasions a bird, which
I suppose to be the other one, has flown in, and settled on the rock
near, but always, on its coming nearer than some three feet or so, the
one in charge, distending its jaws, and with threatening gestures, has
uttered an angry "ak, ak, ak, ak!" and, on two occasions, has squirted
something--I presume, oil--at the intruder, causing it to go farther off.
This cry is sometimes preceded by a more curious and less articulate one
of "rherrrrrr!"--at a venture: I would not answer for the spelling being
exact.
I believe it is the mother who takes charge of the chick, and becomes so
intensely jealous of it that she will not suffer even her _cáro spóso_,
to whom she was so much attached, to come within a certain distance
of it. One cannot, indeed, say for certain that it is the husband who
thus sometimes flies up, and seems to show a wish to approach his wife
or child, but it is not likely that a strange bird would act in this
way--for all are mated--and if both parents fed the young one, why should
either repulse the other? I feel sure, therefore, that only one does, and
this one is much more likely to be the female.
The chick, in order to be fed, places its bill within that of the parent
bird, and evidently gets something which she brings up into it. This
appears to be liquid and, I suppose, is oil. Had it been solid, I must,
I think, at this close distance, have seen it--or at least have seen
that it was. Where, however, this supply of oil comes from, or how it is
procured, I have no very clear idea. Though the actions of the old bird
in thus feeding the chick are something like those of a pigeon, yet they
are much easier and, so to speak, softer. The liquid food is brought up
without difficulty or straining, as one might, indeed, expect would be
the case, seeing the ease with which the bird can at any moment squirt
it out, when angry, and the distance to which it is shot. Nor is this
the only power of the kind which these petrels possess, for they are
able to eject their excrement to a quite astonishing distance--greater
even, perhaps, than that to which the cormorant or shag attains in this
art--at least it seems so at the time. This power is fully developed in
the chick--by whom, indeed, it is the more needed--and I notice that the
rock where each one lies is clean enough, though all round about it is
whitened.
[Illustration: ON THE EDGE OF THE PRECIPICE]
When the mother petrel leaves the chick, she, for the most part,
continually circles round in the neighbourhood, and almost at every
circle looks in at it, sometimes waking it up as it lies asleep, causing
it to give an impatient little snap of the bill towards her. It is as
though she could not sufficiently love, cherish, and look at it. It is
her only child, and a spoilt one.
I must not forget to note down--now that it is full before me--that
the inside of the chick's bill, with the mouth generally, is somewhat
more lightly coloured than in the old bird; it is more pink--which may
represent the natural colour--and less mauvy. This difference, as in the
other cases, is what we might expect to see, were the colour a sexual
adornment; but why, if it is not so, should there be any difference
depending on age in such a region?
The great skua still reigns here in its accustomed territory, which,
whilst encircled on all sides by that of the lesser one, is not
intermingled with it, even on the frontiers. Many of the young birds are
still about, but being now feathered and active in proportion to their
size, they are more difficult to find than when I was here before. Though
the old birds still swoop at one, they are not so savage as they were
when the chicks were young and fluffy; they do not actually strike, but
swerve off, particularly if one glances up at them as they approach. The
Arctic skua, on the other hand, is still as bold as ever, and will strike
one as repeatedly and come as near to knocking one's hat off without
doing it (not near at all, that is to say) as ever it did before; or the
great one either, I might add, as far as my own personal experience is
concerned. I would not, however, be unduly sceptical, and this I can say,
that I could easily set my hat on my head so that either bird--or any
bird--might knock it off again.