LEARNING TO SOAR
I had not before imagined that the puffin was one of those birds that
suffered from the extortions of the Arctic or lesser skua, but I have
found it out to-day without knowing whether it is in a British Bird book
or not. Twice have the two passed me, close together, and flying with
tremendous velocity, their wings--especially, I think, those of the
skua--making a portentous sound just above my head. The puffin, though
hotly pursued, was a little in front, and such was his speed that it
seemed doubtful if the skua would overtake him. I suppose, however, that
the latter must be competent to do so, or, having learnt otherwise by
experience, he would long ago have ceased giving chase.
The puffin, like the partridge and other birds that progress by a
succession of quick strokes with the wings, flies with great rapidity.
He is so small and light that perhaps one ought not to be surprised
at this, so I reserve my wonder for the guillemot. How this solid and
weighty-looking bird can, with wings that are small out of all proportion
to its bulk, narrow to a degree, and by no means long, get through the
air at the rate it does, how it can even stay in it at all and not come
plump down like the wooden bird that it looks, is to me a mystery. The
wing, I think, is considerably smaller in proportion to the body than is
that of the wild duck. When I see these birds going along over the sea
at the rate they do, it does not seem to me impossible that a man should
fly, if only his arms were to sprout feathers and his pectoral muscles
enlarge sufficiently to enable him to move them with the same quickness.
Is there, by the by, any special adaptation to the power of flight in the
body and bones of a bat? We are generally referred to such arrangements
in reference to the flight of birds, with a view to lessening the wonder
of it, as if birds were the only things that flew. Bats, however, are
mammals like ourselves, and their aerial performances are very wonderful.
I have often watched them and the swifts together, at the close of a
summer day, and have been hardly able to decide which of the two showed
the greater mastery over the element in which both moved. The swifts
indeed alone skimmed on outspread wings, without pulsating them; but in
quick, sudden turns in every direction, in the power of instantaneously
and abruptly changing the angle of their flight, and especially in
descending, sometimes almost perpendicularly, the bats excelled them. In
regard to speed, the disparity did not appear to be so great as I suppose
it must have been. I do not know if any observations have been made to
determine the speed at which bats fly, but they often seem to go very
fast.
To return to the puffins, their powers of flight extend a little beyond
mere speed gained by constant exertion, for they do sometimes make swift
gliding circles through the air, not indeed without moving the wings
at all, yet moving them but little, and at intervals--a few pulsations
and then a sweep. Yet this is never very much. They seem to be just in
the way of getting to something more advanced in flying, without quite
knowing what they would be at. However, I think in time they will begin
to understand, get a hint of their real feelings, like the heroines in
novels, who find all at once that they have been in love for some while
without noticing it. (Shakespeare's heroines, by the by, seem to have had
a clearer insight into their state of mind--but then, there was more for
them to know about.) They--the puffins, I mean, not the heroines--will
often, when they leave their nests, mount up to a considerable height
and then descend in a long slant to the sea. In this they are peculiar,
as far as I have observed, and for some time I could not imagine why
they did it; but tearing up some letters one day as I sat on the rock's
edge and throwing them towards the sea, the pieces were carried upwards,
some of them rising almost perpendicularly, and continuing to do so
for some while before they were blown against the higher slopes of the
cliff. The puffins, I then felt sure, must mount upon this upward current
of air, either as a matter of enjoyment, or as finding it easier to
do so. Probably it is the latter consideration which influences them,
but ease is nearly allied to enjoyment, passes insensibly into it; and
thus, in time, these little puffins may learn to soar. I was wrong,
perhaps, to speak of them as light, for they are solidly made, and no
doubt heavy enough in proportion to their bulk. Still, for their type of
flight, they seem to me to fly lightly; and there is a little--just a
little--tendency, as I have noticed, towards a higher development. I may
be mistaken, but I hope that it is so; no one can become intimate with
the puffin without wishing him well. It is most interesting to see things
in their beginnings, and to speculate on what, if they continue, they are
likely, in time, to become.
The puffin has other and far more fatal enemies than the skua. His
remains, all picked and bleeding--often as though a feast had but just
been made on him--I am constantly finding about, generally on the rocks,
but sometimes--once, at least--on the heather above the cliffs. At first,
when I began to find these bloody relics, I thought of nothing but
peregrines, and the one inhabitant of this great lonely ness confirmed
me in this view. But I have never seen one of these birds (or any other
hawk) all the time I have been here, and this seems strange if it is
really their doing; for I have been out all day long whenever it has not
poured continuously--which last, indeed, in spite of the wretchedness
of the weather, has not happened often. I hardly think I should have
missed seeing one or other of these large birds beating about in wide
circles, as is their custom, did they really sojourn here; and yet what
more likely place could be found? Lately it has occurred to me the
great skua, or the herring or black-backed gull, may be the authors of
these tragic occurrences, but I have not seen any of them kill anything
yet--not even young birds. However it be, many a scene of ruthless
rapine is enacted on these black rocks, beneath these great cliffs,
by the surge of the sullen sea. None see it; most, I verily believe,
forget it. But it is there, and always there; and so, in ghastly and
horrible multiplication, through the whole wide world. How unpitying,
how _godless_ is nature, when man, with his disguising smiles and
honey-out-of-vinegar extractions, is not there to gloze and apologise, to
strew his "smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs"!