TAMMY-NORIE-LAND
Seal-cove again to-day, and there, upon the same great slab, and at much
the same time, five great seals are lying, whilst on other rocks there
are six more. The tide is coming in, and one that is on a low rock goes
gradually off with the wash of it. The others lie on, though now, at high
noon, the tide, I think, must be in. Seals, therefore, do not go off
their rocks at high tide, as a custom, unless the water leaves them no
choice. Of course if they have a favourite rock which is covered at high
tide, they are then compelled to do so, but in that case they can seek
another one which is not so restricted, and lie there sleeping, if they
will, "the washing of ten tides." Their bed-times are not governed by the
ebb and flow of the sea.
The larger seal which I spoke of yesterday is called here, locally, a
bottle-nosed seal, or at least some so designate it. He is here again
to-day, rising at intervals and staring at the sky, in the other of these
two-in-one-contained bays, which seems to be more particularly his own.
When he rises he remains for a full minute standing upright, as it were,
in the water, with his muzzle about six inches above it and pointing
straight into the sky. Then it sinks for an instant, and the next his
whole head appears above the surface, held horizontally. Another moment,
and his back makes a bent bow in the water, as with a rolling motion,
something like that of a porpoise, he dives and vanishes. He always makes
for a great mass of brown seaweed clothing the rocks, now covered, where
I had first seen him lying, and extending down into the depths. In this I
lose him, but whether he stays there or merely coasts along it I cannot
tell; but he always rises in about the same spot, and this suggests that
he comes each time from the same place. Seals may, perhaps, lie upon the
bottom, under the overarching edges of the rocks they bask on at low
water, and wound amongst the seaweed that grows on them; but their sleep,
if they slept, would be broken.
I took out my watch and measured the time this great seal stayed under
water, finding it to be, on an average, from ten to twelve minutes, his
longest submersion being fourteen minutes and a half. I then thought
I would descend the cliffs and get along the shore to just opposite
where he usually came up, which would be very near him. This I easily
managed, concealing myself once, when I knew that he would rise, and
going on again as soon as he was down. When he next came up I had the
satisfaction of beholding him from some dozen or twenty yards. He was
considerably larger than the common seal, his skin perfectly naked
and of a bluish colour, which, with the breadth of his back, gave him
something the appearance of a hippopotamus in the water. This was when
I just got his back, without the head or other parts. Seen _in toto_--or
as much of him as could be seen--he more suggested, both by shape and
colouring combined, a gigantic mole; or again, his head, with the long
cylindrical-looking nose, had a very porcine appearance. But whilst
floating upright in the way I have described, he looked like a buoy
merely, of which the muzzle, with its round-bore nostrils--they looked
as if a ping-pong ball would just fit into each of them--was the apex.
All resemblance to a living thing was then gone; but when the great beast
brought down his head again into a natural position, and looked about
with full eyes, dark and mild, one saw that he was an intelligent and
refined animal.
Modification seems to have gone considerably farther in this species
than in the common seal. The skin, except for the long, strong whiskers,
is absolutely smooth and hairless. The nose, head, and neck are more
in a line, whilst the back rises from the latter with a still gentler
undulation. This elongation and prominence of the nose, or rather the
muzzle, which is broad, also, in proportion, take away from that full
and rounded appearance of the forehead which gives such a look of
intelligence--almost of humanity--to the common seal. But this, no doubt,
is an inferiority in appearance only, and "the eye's black intelligence"
remains. But though the jewel is there the setting of it is very poor.
There appears to be no defined eyelid, so that when the eye is shut
it looks like a mere slit in the naked skin. Eyebrows, however, are
represented by three or four strong white bristles on either side. The
nostrils open and close with strong expansive and contractive power, and
blow the water away from them almost like the spouting of a miniature
whale. When wide open they look as round as the aperture of a champagne
or beer bottle, which they somewhat suggest, and this, perhaps, has given
their bearer his title of bottle-nosed. Whether this is more than a local
name amongst the Shetlanders I do not know. It is here that I first heard
it, and that was two years ago when I was describing this very selfsame
animal, as I now believe, to a young man who suggested that "perhaps it
was a bottle-nosed seal."
Such was the peculiar creature which I now set myself to observe, and
which, except for a long interval during which it disappeared altogether,
continued to rise and sink and rise again, till after five, when I left,
having observed it thoroughly. Several times he went down with a fine
roll over, sideways, as well as forward. This I should not have seen had
I gone away in an hour or two; but why I stayed so long was that I hoped
to see this great bottle-nosed seal lie upon the seaweed-covered rocks at
low water, as I had seen him do once before. For some reason or other,
however--I doubt not there is a good one--there has been no such low tide
since that day; the seaweed has but just shown for a little, and the
great creature, who could hardly have lain there, has not lain anywhere
else--not, at least, in this cove which he affects, or for the greater
part of the time. He seems to be a much less lazy sort of seal than the
common kind. I am not quite sure why he went away, as he did for an hour,
from about three. I thought at the time I had alarmed him, for although
I lay flat upon a huge slanting rock, with my head not projecting beyond
the edge, he seemed to look full at me with a questioning countenance,
and then till four o'clock the pool that had known him knew him no more.
Whilst he was gone I, with a lot of labour, brought a number of flat
stones from the chaos of rocks and boulders which makes the beach here,
and with these I made a sort of loopholed wall, through and from behind
which I could look, as I had done before to watch the shags on my island.
That, by the way, was still standing when I got there again after two
years. I wonder how long this other may remain on this most lonely shore,
to which no one, to judge by all appearances, ever comes down, from one
year's end to another. Long may it be so!
Just before beginning my masonry I had an interesting experience. From a
crevice in the pilings of these huge black boulders that lie strewn in
wild confusion between the base of the cliffs and the sea--making the
gloomy beach--from amongst these, I say, and within about three steps of
me, forth hopped a little wren, and began immediately to procure food
in the more or less near neighbourhood of my boots. The boulders had
hitherto seemed bare enough, but wherever the wren went numbers of little
hopping things, with long bodies and many legs, began to hop and skip
about like a routed army. They seemed to know the enemy was amongst them,
and for the wren, he pursued them with the most relentless activity, and
looking very fierce about it. He came so near me that I could see him
catch them individually, see the whole chase, all his little runs, hops,
turns, flights, flutters, each with its distinct object; nor did I ever
see him chase one that he did not shortly capture. From the very first,
something in the bird's manner shot into me the idea that he had never
before seen man--never, at least, with the eye of a full recognition.
Supposing him to live and breed in this one great rocky amphitheatre,
this would be likely enough, for even at the top of it, on the ness-side,
one man only lives, and that but for three months in the year. It is true
that during those three months the ness is often visited--by thieves and
others--but none, it is safe to assume, either know of or come down to
this cove.
At any rate this wren came at last so near me that I expected every
instant he would hop on to one of my boots, and although he did not
actually do this I believe it was simply because he saw nothing there to
catch. He often ran up the steep, rough sides of these great blocks with
the greatest ease, investigating all their chinks and every little piece
of moss or lichen that adhered to them. Always he had an air of severity,
something _farouche_, about him, which was very amusing to see. It is
fascinating, I think, thus to watch little familiar woodland birds by
the wild sea shore and amidst stupendous scenery like this.
Puffins, at the right time, are, no doubt, very amorous, as even now,
when they should be a little _passé_ in such matters, I have seen them
so. In this state they will sometimes indulge in quite a little frenzy
first of kissing and then of cossetting--nibbling, that is to say, each
other's feathers about the head and face. Indeed, such pretty little
lover-like actions--mostly on the part of one bird of the two, I presume
the female--were never seen.
But they are not only loving, these little birds. They are playful too,
and, as I think, sympathetic. Thus when one, standing on the rock, gives
its wings a little fluttering shake, another by the side of it--its
mate, probably, but perhaps only its friend--will sometimes catch one
of them in its adorned beak and playfully detain it. This is done with
wonderful softness--obviously in good part, and so it is received. Is
it not fun, then, playfulness? Perhaps it is not. It may be but a part
of the passion-play, and we should not step too lightly in our judgment
from primaries to secondaries. On my last visit here, for instance,
whilst climbing painfully along this black beach--a horror of heaped
stones and fragments, making, often, unscalable, albeit only miniature,
precipices--I happened to see--looking down from a huge tilted rock
that guarded one entrance to a little dark valley of confusion--I
happened to see there a poor little puffin that had got its head caught
in some way amongst the rocks at the bottom, and was struggling and
flapping its wings to escape, as it lay flat along one of them. Another
puffin was standing beside it, and whilst I looked it took hold of the
distressed one's wing and, as it seemed to me, pulled at it as though
trying to assist, but in a feeble half-knowing sort of way, which had
its pathos. But here, too, how careful one should be in attributing
motives, either to birds or men; for this puffin may merely have taken
hold of its companion's wing, as I have seen others do whilst standing
together at their ease. If so, then the action was not prompted by any
idea of aiding, but merely by general good-will, unsharpened by a proper
realisation of what had taken place. Here, once again, was a flapping
wing, which may have suggested no more to the mind of the bird taking
hold of it than it had upon other occasions. Not that I think this
myself, but in the little I saw there was no certainty. Unfortunately,
I startled away the helper (as I like to think of him) and this to no
purpose, since after various attempts to get to the distressed puffin
I had to give it up, for though I might have reached it there seemed a
likelihood, if I did, of my having to remain there indefinitely in its
place. To slide down a steep rock is one thing, but to climb up it again
quite another--nor was there any other way that I could see of getting
back when once at the bottom. Some time afterwards, however, I could not
see the bird, so, though I purposely did not look very closely, I am glad
to think that it had got free.
This little incident gives a hint as to some of the mischances which may
befall puffins here. With such a jumble of heaped rocks and boulders
there are great facilities for slipping or getting between them in such
a way as might make it difficult to get out again, and an alarmed bird,
caught as this one was, would, of course, pull and pull, wedging itself
all the tighter. If found in this situation by a gull--or perhaps,
skua--its fate would be sealed, and its picked and disembowelled carcase
would then be left upon the rocks, as I have so often found it. Such a
misfortune, indeed, cannot be supposed to be of common occurrence; but
the hundreds of thousands of puffins must be considered.
I have said that puffins are amorous. They are bellicose also--the
two, indeed, are interwoven together--and have a tendency--but this,
perhaps, is included in the main proposition--to fight in _mêlées_.
When two are about it a third and then a fourth joins, and so on, and
several will stand menacing one another with their sharp, razor-like
mandibles held threateningly open, and often moving like scissor-blades.
Then, all at once, one springs on another, seizes him by the scruff of
the neck, and--so it has often appeared to me--endeavours to throw him
over whatever edge they both happen to be near--for they are generally
near the edge of something. It is curious--or at least it takes one by
surprise--that when the beak is thus opened it looks quite different to
what it did before. Being divided, its breadth, which is such a peculiar
feature, is much diminished, and the leaf-like shape is also lost since
the mandibles diverge more and more widely towards the tips, like a real
pair of scissors. Thus the bird itself, since the beak is so salient a
part of it, suddenly loses its characteristic appearance.
Marvellous is this beak, and indeed, as far as its appearance is
concerned, it exists now wholly and solely for courting and nuptial
purposes, being put on each spring before the breeding season commences,
like the false nose in a pantomime, which, though not so artistic and
without the same justification for its employment, seems equally a
necessity to the æsthetic susceptibilities of a British audience.[11] It
reminds one something of the bill of a toucan, much abridged--beginning,
as it were, from near the tip--and as far as it goes it is perhaps even
more wonderful, for not only is it brilliant with rose-red, lemon-yellow,
and bright bluish-grey, but the lines of colour correspond to alternate
ridges and furrows running down the length of it, which give it a
fine embossed appearance, as though both the sculptor and painter had
exercised their art upon it. The funny little orange-vermilion legs
are more brilliant even than the bill, but they are cruder. You do not
think of a real artist in their case, only of a clever artisan with a
paint-pot, who, employed by the other, has taken up each bird as its
beak was finished, and given it several good coatings. That is what it
looks like, and so close do the little toy things stand, and so little
do they seem to think or care about you that, with the proper materials,
you almost think you could do it yourself; yes, and would like to try,
too--if only there were a few with the paint off--black coats, white
waistcoats, vermilion legs and all: except the beak and face, which are
beyond you, unless, indeed, you are an artist--and a clever one--yourself.
[Footnote 11: No wonder, when such a play as _The Palace of Truth_ as
played here by refined amateurs before the cultured and cultivated, is
thought to require one--and very like a puffin's, too, it was, before it
began to melt.]
It is wonderful sitting here. To have a dozen or twenty of these little
painted puffins on a rock within three paces of you, in full view,
with nothing whatever intervening, some standing up, others couched on
their breasts, some preening, some shaking their wings, most of them
unconscious of your presence, a few just looking at you, from time to
time, with an expression of mild curiosity unmixed with fear, seeming to
say "And who may _you_ be, sir?" is almost a new sensation.
Yes, this is Tammy-Norie-land. Puffins are everywhere. They dot all
the steep, green slopes, and cluster on the flat surfaces or salient
angles of half the grey boulders that pierce the soil, or lie scattered
all about it. Great crowds of them float on the sea, and other crowds
oppress the air with constant, fast-beating pinions, passing continually
from land to sea and from sea to land again, whilst many, on the latter
journey, even though laden with fish, circle many times round, in a wide
circumference, before finally settling. The soil, too, is honeycombed
with their burrows, and in each of these, as well as in the nooks and
chambers of rocks that lie closely together, there is a young fluffy
black puffin, which increases the population by about a third, to say
nothing of those parent birds which may also be underground. A million
of puffins, I should think, must be standing, flying, or swimming in the
more or less immediate vicinity; the air, especially, if it be a sunny
day--or, rather, for a sunny minute or so--is like one great sunbeam
full of little dancing bird-motes. On the shore they stand together
in friendly groups and clusters, and leave it for those much larger
gatherings where they ride, hundreds together, ducking and bobbing on the
light waves like a fleet of little painted boats, each one with a highly
ornamental bird- or, rather, puffin-headed prow. Thus their duties are
carried on under the mantle of social pleasure; it is all a coming and
going between a land-party and a sea-party, so that the domestic life of
these birds would be a type and pattern of feminine happiness if only
they were a little--by which I mean vastly--more noisy. Puffins indeed
are somewhat silent birds--at least they have been so during the time I
have seen them--from the middle of June, that is to say, till the middle
of August--though as they can and do utter with effect, on occasions,
they are, perhaps, more vociferous at an earlier period, before domestic
matters have become so far advanced. Not that amidst such a huge number
of them, their note--which I have described--is not frequently heard;
but still, whatever I have seen them doing they have generally been
doing it dumbly. This includes the series of funny little bows or bobs,
accompanied by a shuffling from one foot to the other, which the male,
one may say with certainty, is in the habit of making to the female,
but which probably the female--as in the case of other sea-birds I have
mentioned--also sometimes makes to the male. A display of this sort is
usually followed by a little kissing or nebbing match, after which, one
of the birds, standing so as directly to face the other, will often
raise, and then again lower, the head, some eight or nine times in
succession, in a half solemn manner, at the same time opening its gaudy
beak, sometimes to a considerable extent, yet all the while without
uttering a sound. All this looks very affectionate, but I have often
remarked that after one such display and interchange of endearments,
the bird that has initiated or taken the leading part in both, turns to
another, and repeats, or offers to repeat, the performance--for on such
occasions it does not, as a rule, receive much encouragement from the
second bird.
The male puffin, therefore--for I hardly suppose it to be the female
who acts in this way--would seem to be of a large-hearted disposition.
This silent opening of the bill which I have spoken of is, therefore,
an accustomed--probably an important--part of the advances made by the
one sex towards the other; and here again I have been much struck by the
bright yellow colour of the buccal cavity which is thereby revealed,
and the display of which supplies, in my opinion--as in the other cases
I have brought forward--the true motive of the bird's conduct in this
respect. Handsome--or, at any rate, _outré_--as the puffin's beak is,
it is hardly, if at all, more striking to the eye than is this vivid
gleam of one bright colour, revealed suddenly in a flash-light by this
distension of the mandibles. It is like the sword gleaming out of the
scabbard, whose brightness comes as a surprise, whereas the latter,
however rich and ornate, is a permanent quantity, and so lacks the charm
of novelty. The fact that the puffin's beak is a superlative ornament
does not, in my opinion, render it unlikely that there should be another
one lying within it. It is absurd in such a matter to say that this or
that is enough, and in the puffin's case we are certainly debarred from
doing so, since not only has the beak been decorated, but the parts
adjacent to it, as well as the whole head, have also been, so as to join
in the general effect. The eye is almost as salient a feature as the beak
itself, and moreover, where the mandibles meet at their base, there is on
either side a little orange button or rosette, formed by foldings of the
naked skin, which must certainly rank as a sexual adornment in the eyes
of all who believe in such a thing, and with which, apparently--as in the
other cases--the inner coloration is continuous.
The puffin, therefore, makes the seventh species of sea-bird in which,
as I believe from my own observation, the buccal cavity is displayed by
the one sex as a charm or attraction before the eyes of the other, having
been specially coloured in order to render it so. A question, however,
is raised by this conclusion in regard to which I have, as yet, said
nothing, but which I will shortly discuss in a separate chapter, since I
have been unable to compress it into any of the foregoing ones. It had
occurred to me as a result of my general field observations, before these
particular ones which have only served to emphasise it.