NEW DEVELOPMENTS
It is curious to see the guillemot-ledges so thronged now, when
everything speaks of the departure of summer, if that, indeed, can be
said to depart which has never, apparently, arrived. As I said before,
there are very few young birds to be seen, and since the sexes in the
guillemot are alike, one might think, at first, that the mothers had
all gone off with their chicks, leaving only the males on the ledges.
This, however, cannot be the case, since there is much cossetting, and
sometimes a touch of "the wren," and "small gilded fly," of King Lear--I
trust I express myself clearly.
I was beginning to think that there were no young guillemots at all here
now, but just at this moment a bird flies in with a fish in its bill,
and, running up to another one, with it, the chick immediately appears
from under a projecting cranny of the ledge, where it has been concealed,
and receives and eats the fish. It is the usual thing--the wings of the
two parents drooped, like a tent, in which the little thing stands,
and both of them equally interested. This chick seems of considerable
size--as guillemot chicks go--is properly feathered, and the plumage has
the colouring of the grown birds, except that the throat and chin are
white as well as the breast--a continuity of white, therefore, over the
whole under surface. Moreover, from each eye to the base of the bill, on
the corresponding side, there is a thick black line. The wings, which I
have seen it flap, are small, with the quills not sufficiently developed
for flight--at least, I should think not. Some time after this I saw a
smaller chick which had been hidden hitherto behind the two parents. The
non-locomotion of both was as marked a feature as ever--for this struck
me very much the last time I was here. The smaller one I could never make
out again. The other was for a long time invisible behind its slight
escarpment, and then, though it came out and was active where it stood,
it did not move more than an inch or so beyond it, or in any direction.
As this chick evidently could not fly, it, as evidently, could not have
left the ledge, and returned to it. Imagine, therefore, that the chicks
are conveyed down by the parents, in this state, as it is asserted that
they are, and the emptiness of the ledges, of young birds, is explained;
for by the time they could fly they would have forgotten all about them,
even if they were not far away, as they probably by that time would be.
But if they wait till they can fly before leaving the ledges, why do they
not fly back to them, and then backwards and forwards, like the young
kittiwakes, or the young shags? Why do they not accompany their parents
when _they_ return, since their parents _will_ not stay with them upon
the sea? All this is explained upon the supposition that the parent
guillemot flies down with the chick on its back, but it does not follow
that there is no other way of explaining it. I think there is another;
for though the chick, when it leaves the ledge, may not be able to fly in
any true sense of the word, yet it might make a shift to flutter down to
the sea, in a line sufficiently diagonal to avoid the danger of striking
upon the face of the cliff where it projected at a lower elevation, or
upon the rocks at its base. This may not be likely, but at least it is
possible, and, on the other hand, if the parent guillemots do really
carry their chicks down, why do they not do so shortly after they are
hatched, or, at least, much sooner than they do? Why should they feed
them on the ledges for a fortnight or three weeks, for I think they are
as long as that there, during all which time they are getting larger and
heavier? Though the young guillemot keeps so quiet on the ledge, yet it
has the full use of its limbs, and seems quite as forward and capable as
are young chickens and ducklings. It would, no doubt, be at home in the
water at once, if only it were put there. Does it, then, wait until it
can get there itself, or does the parent bird take it? This question I
hope to be able to answer before I leave here.
A bird that has no chick now brings in a fish to the ledge, and seems
not to know what to do with it. At last he puts it down, and another
bird--not, I think, the partner, but it may be--takes it. It seems as
though the instinct of feeding the young still continued with this bird,
though its young one is gone. We may think "out of sight, out of mind"
with animals, but what is probably wanted to make them remember is a
reminder of some sort; and when they are reminded, though their memory
may be less capacious than ours, it does not follow that it is likewise
less vivid within their own limited range. Indeed, I think there is some
reason to conclude the contrary. The imagination of a great writer is
such that he sees the scenes and persons that exist but in his own mind,
as clearly, possibly, as we do our own familiar friends and their, or
our, all as familiar surroundings. We must suppose so, at any rate, as we
read Scott or Shakespeare; and indeed their productions are such that it
cannot be far short of this. I question if any man ever saw his absent
friend more clearly than did Shakespeare his _Falstaff_, for instance,
or Scott his _Balfour of Burleigh_. But does it, therefore, follow that
either of these great writers would, when hungry, have summoned up
before him a clearer picture of his approaching dinner, than does the
equally hungry or very much hungrier boor? This I doubt; and on the same
principle I doubt if the said boor would see _his_ dinner more clearly
than a wolf, bear, or tiger would theirs when in quest of it.
The memory of an animal, as compared with that of a man, may be not so
much weaker as less multitudinous. As a rule we remember those things
best in which we take the greatest interest. This gives to man a much
wider range of memory than any animal can possess, with a proportionately
increased area for association to work over. But there are certain
primitive interests, as we may call them, connected with food, and the
family and sexual relations, which are very strong in animals, and in
regard to which the memory, when put in action, may be equally strong.
Who shall say that a man, returning to his home at the end of the day,
sees in his mind's eye a clearer picture of what awaits him there than
does the bird flying to its nest, or the bee to its hive? Now could
anything, by association, call up this picture, suddenly, in the bird's
or insect's mind, they would, no doubt, act for the moment as though
it were real--as did Darwin's dog when he called him after five years'
absence; and thus I can understand one of these guillemots flying with a
fish to its ledge, to feed its chick, although its chick were no longer
there. It might be so; I can see no reason against it. In the actions
of these two birds there may lie--for me, now, there does lie--a great
psychological interest. Suggestive they certainly are. I shall keep this
in my mind and watch the ledges more closely.
The larger of the two young guillemots is now frequently flapping its
wings, and latterly it has been jumping up, at the same time, though
always it keeps in one place by its mother, and does not run about.
Mother and chick often delectate themselves by nibbling the tip of each
other's bills. And now there comes a surprise. For the first time that I
have ever seen, the chick moves right away from where it was, leaving its
father and mother. It travels along the ledge, often uncomfortably near
to the edge of it, and at last gets round a corner, out of my sight. The
parents, as far as I can make out, have not followed it. This is quite
a new development in my experience of the chick, if not in the chick's
own experience. It is not, then, quite immovable, till it flies or is
carried down. Were it to fall now, how aptly would it illustrate that law
of natural selection which I have called in to account for its general
quiescence. I hope it won't though--which is to my credit surely.
I note one more thing before leaving. A bird picks up and, as it were,
plays with some feathers lying on the ledge, one of which it now brings
to its partner, lays it on the rock, and then both pull it about. This,
too, I noticed when I was last here. I have mentioned it in my _Bird
Watching_, and account for it by supposing that we here see a last trace
of the once active nest-building instinct. Perhaps, however, the act is
too trivial to need any special accounting for.