Far out of the track of ships, in the most desolate stretch of the North
Atlantic, walled round with ceaseless thunder of the surf and wailed
about continually by innumerable sea-birds, the islet thrust up its bleak
rocks beneath a pale, unfriendly sky.
It was almost all rock, this little island—gray pinnacles of rock, ledges
upon ledges of rock, and one high, sunrise-facing cliff of rock, seamed
with transverse crevices and shelves. Only on the gentler southward slope
was the rock-frame of the island a little hidden. Here had gathered a few
acres of mean, sandy soil, dotted sparsely with tufts of harsh grass
which struggled into greenness at the bidding of a bitter and
fog-blighted June.
But this remote, sterile isle, shunned even by the whalers because of the
treachery of its environing reefs and tides, was by no means lifeless.
Indeed, it was thronged, packed, clamorous, screaming with life. It was a
very paradise of the nesting sea-birds. Every meagre foot of it, rock and
sand, was preempted and occupied by the myriad battalions of puffin,
skua, auk, and saddle-back. The incessant clamor of their voices, harsh
and shrill, overrode even the trampling of the surf.
Within the crowded little domain each tribe had its territory. The
puffins—or “sea-parrots,” as some of the sailor folk call them, because
of their huge hooked beaks—occupied the sandy slope, where they had their
nests in deep burrows for protection against the robber skuas and
saddle-backs. The auks had a corner of the cliff-face, where along every
ledge they sat straight up in prim, close array like so many dwarf
penguins, each couple occupied with its precious solitary egg. The rest
of the cliff-face was monopolized by the screaming hosts of the
saddle-backs, those great, marauding, black-backed gulls, whose yelps and
wild _ka-ka-ka-kaings_ made most of the deafening tumult in which the
rocks were wrapt. As for the skuas, or “men-o’-war,” less numerous than
the other inhabitants of the island, they occupied the lower ledges and
the rock-crevices around the base of the puffins’ field. These were the
situations which they preferred. If they had preferred the territory of
the puffins or the auks, or even of the big bullying saddle-backs which
were nearly twice their size, they would have taken it. But they neither
desired nor knew how to dig burrows like the droll little puffins; and
they valued their precious eggs too highly to want to risk them on the
narrow, exposed shelves of the cliff-face, where there was no room to
make a proper nest. They took the places they wanted, but as these were
not the places which the other tribes wanted, there was no one to feel
aggrieved. Saddle-back, auk, and puffin—each tribe thought it had the
pick of the island territory, and felt altogether satisfied with itself.
Now, the weakest of these tribes was the tribe of the puffins. But one
great strength they had, which fully made up for their deficiency in size
and power. They knew how to burrow deep holes for their nests, wherein
their eggs and nestlings were safe from the skuas and the saddle-backs.
Every available inch of soil on the island was tunnelled with these
burrows, like a rabbit-warren. At the bottom of each burrow was either
one big, solitary egg, or a strange-looking youngster with enormous head
and beak and an insatiable appetite for fish. At this season, late June,
most of the puffins had hatched out their eggs. At the doorway of almost
every burrow, therefore, was to be seen one of the parents on guard,
while the other was away fishing to supply the insatiable demands of the
chick. In dense ranks, sitting erect like auks or penguins, the seriously
grotesque little birds sentinelled their homes, maintaining a
business-like quiet in strange contrast to the ear-splitting volubility
of their neighbors.
At the extreme left of the territory of the puffins, where the rocks
broke abruptly, a tiny cleft-full of earth made room for just one nest.
The pair of puffins who had their burrow here were comparatively
isolated, being some eight or ten feet apart from the crowded ranks of
their kin. Their one big egg had been safely hatched. The ridiculous
chick, all gaping beak and naked belly, the one object of their
passionate solicitude, was thriving and hungry according to the finest
traditions of infant puffinhood. The father, at this moment, was on guard
at the mouth of the burrow, sitting solemnly erect on his webbed feet,
the backs of his legs, and his stiff, short tail; while the mother was
away fishing beyond the white turmoil of the surf.
Surely the most curious figure of all the sea-birds was his. For the
body, it was not so far out of the ordinary,—about the size of a big and
sturdy cockatoo,—white below and blackish-brown above, sides of the face
white, and a dingy white collar on the neck; the webbed feet of a duck;
the stiff, short tail of a penguin; very short, strong wings; and a round
head. But the beak was like a gaudy caricature. Curved from base to tip
like a parrot’s, it was as long and high as the head which it seemed to
overweigh, and adorned apparently aimlessly with exaggerated horny
ridges. Over each eye was a little wart-like horn, and at each corner of
the beak, where it joined the skin of the face, a vivid red, wrinkled
excrescence, in shape a sort of rosette, of skinny flesh. Serviceable, to
be sure, this beak was obviously, whether for burrowing, fighting, or
catching fish; but it could be imagined as performing all these offices
equally well without its monstrous eccentricities of adornment.
Everywhere in front of the cliff-face, over the ledges, above the white
shuddering of the surf, and far out over the smooth leaden-gray rollers,
the air was full of whirling and beating wings. These were the wings of
the giant gulls and the skuas. The puffins did no more flying than was
necessary—swift and straight from their nests out to the fishing-grounds,
and back with their prey to the nests. Above their little domain,
therefore, the honeycombed south-sloping field, there were no soaring or
whirling wings, save for three or four pirate skuas, on the watch for a
chance of robbery.
It was these marauders that the waiting puffin by his nest door, on the
outskirts of the colony, had most dread of. He was a wise old bird, of
several seasons’ experience and many a successful battle; and he knew
that the light-darting skua, though not much more than half the size of
that bully of the cliffs, the saddle-back, was much more dangerous than
the latter because so much more courageous. An impatient croak from the
hungry nestling in the burrow made him poke his big beak inside and utter
a low, chuckling admonition. When he withdrew his head and looked up, he
fluttered the feathers on his neck and opened his beak angrily. A large
skua, of a rusty, mottled black all over, with long tail and long,
hawk-like wings, was circling above him, staring down at him with savage
eyes.
Just a moment or two before this the hen puffin, fishing out at sea, had
marked a plump herring about a foot below the surface of a transparent,
glassy roller. Diving into the water with a violent splash, she had
pursued the fish in his own element, swimming at an altogether miraculous
speed. To gain this speed she used not only her strong, webbed feet, but
also her short, sturdy wings. Darting through the water in this fashion,
just below the surface, she was an amazing figure, some fantastic link,
as it were, between bird and fish. The herring was overtaken, and
clutched securely in the vice of the great parrot beak. Then, with much
desperate flapping and splashing, she burst forth and rose into the air,
heading homeward, straight as a bullet, with her prize.
Flying close to the surface of the sea, she passed through the high-flung
spray of the surf. At this moment some premonition of her coming drew her
mate’s eyes, and he caught sight of her, just mounting above the ledges.
Following his look, the skua, whirling above his head, caught sight of
her also, and marked the prey she carried in her beak. With one
magnificent effortless thrust of his long pinions, he swooped to
intercept her.
The puffin, her great beak and the prize it clutched looking much too big
for her swiftly beating wings to upbear, was coming up over the ledges at
a humming pace, when she saw the dark robber descending upon her. She
swerved, and so escaped the full force of the blow; but she felt herself
enveloped in a whirlwind of wings and beaten down almost to the ground.
At the same time a long, straight, powerful beak, with the tip hooked
like a vulture’s, snapped loudly at the side of her head, grasping at the
fish she carried. Bewildered and terrified as she was, she was at the
same time full of fighting obstinacy. Hanging doggedly to her prize, she
recovered her wing balance, and rocketed on toward her burrow.
Her mate, meanwhile, had seen the attack. One grotesque little bob of
indecision, then he had launched himself down the slope to her succor. He
was not in time to interfere in the first encounter, but as he came
slanting down like a well-aimed missile, the robber was just about to
swoop again. The indignant puffin volleyed into him from the rear,
turning him almost end over end. For an instant his wings flopped
frantically, and he almost came down upon the rocks. By the time he had
recovered himself his assailant had struck the water and was swimming
comfortably on a great gray swell beyond the surf; while the female, with
the herring gripped still in her absurd beak, was just diving
triumphantly into her burrow to feed the ravenous and complaining chick.
The skua was disgusted. Had he been what he in some ways so much
resembled, namely, a goshawk or falcon, with a hawk’s deadly talons, the
encounter would have had a very different result. But his handsome black
feet were armed with nothing more formidable than webs for swimming. His
only weapons were his hook-tipped beak and his long, powerful, buffeting
wings. Backed, however, by his pluck and his audacity, which were worthy
of a better occupation, these weapons were usually sufficient, and he was
not used to being balked as these two serious little householders had
balked him. With a vicious yelp, he went swooping low along the sentinel
ranks of the puffins, followed by a snapping of indignant beaks which
crackled along the lines as he went—a curious, dry sound, audible through
the deep roar of the surf and the high-pitched clamor of bird-cries. Here
and there a buffet of his wing, as it dipped suddenly, would knock over
one of the grotesque but dauntless doorkeepers, who would pick himself
up, ruffle his feathers, and waddle back to his post with outraged
solemnity.
But revenge for his recent discomfiture was not the only or the chief
reason for this raid of the pirate skua over the domain of the citizen
puffins. What he wanted above all was food—whether fish, or eggs, or
nestlings, it was all the same to him. A fairly competent fisherman
himself—though not, of course, in the same class with the puffins,
because of their power of swimming under water—he nevertheless preferred
to make others do his fishing for him, and to take toll of their honest
gains by force. A hardy and fearless highwayman, there was satisfaction
for him in the robbery itself. As he flew thus close, and with the air of
set purpose, above the puffin burrows, a few desultory saddle-backs who
were circling just above dipped lower to see what was going to happen. In
case of a scrimmage of any sort, there was always the possibility of a
chance to snatch something.
As the skua skimmed along, just ahead of him came a puffin, volleying
upward from the sea with a particularly fine fish in his beak. The lucky
fisherman shot straight to his hole. But, by the finest hairbreadth, the
robber got there before him. There was a wild mix-up of wings. The puffin
was knocked clean over on his back, losing the fish, which fell just
before the next burrow. Like a flash the proprietor of that next burrow
bobbed his head forward and snatched at the unexpected windfall. He
caught it by the tail, and turned to plunge into the burrow with it. But
in that same instant the long beak of the skua caught it by the head. For
a second or so the two tugged savagely at the prize, with a vast flapping
and squawking. Then the outraged owner, recovering himself, floundered
up, fixed his beak in the exposed belly of the fish, and began to pull
and jerk like an angry terrier.
Feathers and sand flew into the air as the triangular tug-of-war went on.
But frantic as was the turmoil of scuffling and flapping, the near-by
ranks of puffins paid no attention to it whatever, except to turn their
great beaks, all at the same angle, and stare solemnly, like so many
fantastic maskers. The gulls overhead, however, gathered down with
excited cries, seeking a chance to take part in the scuffle.
But before they could get their greedy beaks into it, it had come to an
end. The fish was torn apart. The puffin who had grabbed the tail fell
backwards with it, ruffled but triumphant, into his burrow; the original
owner was left with just so much as his beak could hold—fortunately no
mean mouthful; while the too-successful marauder, bearing by far the
largest share of the prize, beat vigorously aloft through the screaming
gulls, who would have tried to rob him had they dared. Rising strongly
above them, he headed for the flat ledge, a little inland, where he and
his dusky mate had made their nest.
Meanwhile, on the neighboring cliff-face, had just occurred one of those
incidents which were forever stirring up excitement among the colonies of
the auks and the saddle-backs. It began in the usual way. Each pair of
auks, it must be remembered, has but one egg, which is laid, with no
pretence of a nest, on the bare narrow ledge. As these eggs lie side by
side along the rock, just far enough apart for the parents to brood them,
and as they all look amazingly alike, sometimes the owners themselves get
mixed up as to the identity of their speckled property. In this instance,
two mothers, on a crowded shelf some forty feet above the sea, claimed
the same egg, and both insisted on brooding it at the same time. With
curious, strident grumblings, deep in their throats, they struggled over
it. Their mates, chancing both to return from their fishing at this
moment, joined vigorously in the discussion. The egg was promptly rolled
off the ledge and smashed on the rocks below. But in the excitement its
absence was not noticed. Meanwhile the combatants were making things most
uncomfortable for their nearest neighbors, so these presently were
dragged into the fight. The unfortunate eggs began dropping over the
ledge. Instantly the great saddle-backs, from the noisy colony higher up
the cliff, swept down to gather in the juicy harvest. They loved eggs,
whether fresh or half brooded. Screaming joyously, they thronged the air
just below the scene of the quarrel, which still went on with zest. Some
of the tumbling eggs were stabbed cleverly and sucked in mid-air as they
fell, while others were devoured or sucked up, according to the stage of
development of their contents, on the rocks below. So long did the
foolish auks continue their quarrel, so unusual was the rain of eggs, so
wild was the screaming of the delighted banqueters below the ledge, that
presently a number of the brooding saddle-backs—those who should have
stayed by their charges to guard them, whatever their consorts might be
doing—were seduced from their too tame responsibilities. Standing up in
their dizzy nests,—most of which held either two or three muddy-colored
eggs, scrawled with markings of dull maroon,—they stretched their fierce
yellow beaks over the brink and peered down with predacious eyes. For
many of them the temptation was not to be resisted. With hoarse cries
they launched themselves downward, and joined deliriously in the
scramble.
About level with the crest of the cliff, some half dozen of the dusky
skuas were sailing leisurely. They saw their chance. There was nothing in
the world more to their taste than eggs—and particularly the big, rich
eggs of the great saddle-back gulls. Down they swooped upon the unguarded
nests; and in a moment, plunging their long beaks through the shells,
they were feasting greedily. All around them sat the other gulls, by the
hundred—faithful ones who had resisted temptation and stuck to their
nests. These screamed angrily, but made no attempt to interfere. “Let
each look out for his own” was frankly their policy. Before any of the
delinquent brooders came back, the skuas had cleared out every unguarded
nest, and sailed off with derisive cries.
And so it came about that an unwonted number of saddle-backs, freed from
domestic ties until they should be ready to lay new clutches of eggs, but
very savage and vindictive for all their release, now came flapping
inland over the island on the lookout for any possible chance to avenge
themselves.
At this moment the great skua who had robbed the puffin of its fish came
in sight of his nest. At his approach the female, who had grown
impatient, arose from her handsome, greenish-brown, mottled eggs, sprang
into the air, and sailed off toward the sea. For just about ten or a
dozen seconds the precious eggs were left exposed, while the male swept
down to them on a long, swift glide. But in those brief seconds fate
struck. With an exultant yelp a huge saddle-back dropped out of the sky,
directly upon the nest, and plunged his beak into one of the eggs. The
egg was not far from hatching. He dragged forth the naked chick and
swallowed it ravenously. Before he could turn to another egg, the skua
had fallen upon him, hurling him clear of the nest, and tearing at him
with desperate beak.
Now, the great gull, fully two feet and a half in length from the tip of
his punishing yellow beak to the tip of his tail, was not far from twice
the size of his fearless and furious assailant. Moreover, having just had
his own nest destroyed, he was in a fighting mood. Ordinarily, being a
thorough bully, he would have cowered and fled before the skua’s swift
rage, but now he turned and struck back savagely. More nimble than he,
the skua evaded the blow, and caught him by the neck. And promptly the
two became entangled into a flapping, tearing jumble of beaks and
feathers.
It was close beside the nest that the struggle went on; but meanwhile the
two remaining eggs were lying uncovered to the eyes of prowlers. They did
not lie there long. Two more big saddle-backs straightway pounced upon
them, crushing them flat in the scuffle. Engrossed though he was, the
skua saw them. He was only a shameless robber, but his mettle was of a
temper of the finest, and he knew not fear. Tearing himself free from his
heavy foe, he pounced frantically upon these new assailants of his home.
Startled, they hesitated whether to fight or flee. Then, seeing the odds
so far in their favor, they turned to fight. The first saddle-back
joining them, they presently succeeded in pulling the skua down. Then
against their great weight and overpowering wings, his courage availed
him little. Smothered, beaten, trodden upon, he disappeared from sight
beneath the yelping turmoil. The odds had been too great for him. In half
a minute the battle was over and his dark body, with the throat
completely torn out, lay unresisting beneath the broad, pink,
heavy-webbed feet of his conquerors.
Suddenly, as if at a signal, all three saddle-backs lifted their heads
and stared about them. They marked their victim’s mate winging upward
toward them from the sea, swiftly, as if a prescience of evil had
summoned her. They saw two other skuas sailing down from the cliff-top,
as if to demand their business in skua territory. They had no stomach to
face that demand; they had no heart for a fight on anything approaching
fair terms. Flapping heavily into the air, they flew off in haste to lose
themselves in the myriads of their screaming fellows. The female skua,
returning, hovered low; but she did not alight. In silence, her head
thrust downwards, she circled and circled endlessly on dark wings above
the scattered ruins of her nest, the bedraggled and tattered body of her
slain mate. And the stiff ranks of the puffins, like fantastic toy birds
carved in wood and painted, stared down upon her solemnly from the slopes
near by.