The little boat she is tossed about,
Like a sea-weed to and fro;
The tall ship reels like a drunken man,
As the gusty tempests blow:
But the sea-bird laughs at the pride of man,
And sails in a wild delight,
On the torn up breast of the night-black sea,
Like a foam-cloud calm and white.
MARY HOWITT.
AMONG the birds of the far North, the snow-bunting—_Emberiza nivalis_—is
one of the most interesting. Who has not seen the pretty “snow-bird”
during a driving snow-storm, come round the barn for some hay-seed, or
to the house for a crumb? But where do they go in summer? Why, they go
to Iceland, and a nice time they have of it. They build their nests in
the crags; and the male perches on some rock in the vicinity and sings
all day long, while the female lays five small round eggs. The male bird
takes his turn in sitting on the nest; and they feed on the seeds of
grass, rushes, and other hardy northern plants. How extensively this
bird migrates, it is difficult to tell. We naturally suppose that small
birds have less power of flight than large ones; but the Mother Carey’s
chicken is found on the stormy ocean, a thousand miles from land. In
America, the snow-bird probably goes to the region of Labrador and
Hudson’s Bay in summer. Some may fly across Baffin’s Bay to Greenland,
or even across the Greenland Strait, from there to Iceland, a journey
that would not require a sea-flight of over 300 miles at any one place.
The snow-birds that summer in Iceland may, and very likely do, fly
south, taking the range of the Faros, Shetland, and Orkney, and so to
Scotland, England, and the Continent. Great numbers of these birds spend
their summer in Lapland, where they get very fat on the seeds that they
gather on the plains, and in the lowlands. The Laplanders kill many of
them for food, and prize them highly. In their winter plumage they are,
like the ptarmigan, almost entirely white; but in summer they are more
of a brown. In summer, this bird is fond of rocky and mossy places,
where there are no trees and few bushes.
A singular characteristic of most migrating birds, is very conspicuous
in the snow-bunting. The male is most sensitive to heat, and the female
to cold. In northern climes the male of this, as well as some other
birds, is often seen in spring several days before the female. Then
in their autumn migration the female appears in the region of its
winter residence considerably before the male. We should suppose they
would migrate together, when the male bird would have an opportunity
of showing off his gallantry; which, with another class of bipeds, is
considered mutually agreeable. Many of these modest and unostentatious
birds have I seen, while riding across the dreary heaths of Iceland,
perched on a stone or a mossy ridge, and singing and chippering away,
as much as to say, “Here I am, as far north as old Boreas will let
me go.” The snow-birds undoubtedly take pretty long flights at sea,
for they usually appear on the coast of England and Scotland late in
the autumn, along with, and apparently driven by the northeast winds,
having undoubtedly flown across the German Ocean, from the Norwegian
coast. On their arrival, they appear sadly emaciated and exhausted, and
some of them perish. With the wind that brings them, or soon after,
generally comes a fall of snow. Without resting on the water, like the
Mother Carey’s chicken, the gull, the pochard, the Solan goose, and
other sea-birds, the snow-bunting must have a weary time of it in his
flight across the stormy sea.
Of gulls, there is almost an endless variety in Iceland; and,
apparently, quite an endless quantity. Some of these are very large,
larger than geese; and, though much “run to feathers,” and not as much
solid flesh as the goose, will often weigh six or eight pounds. Their
wings extend over six feet. This bird is common, in some of its numerous
families, wherever there is salt water; but there is one species
peculiar to this country, and rarely found south of here—the Iceland
gull—_Larus Icelandicus_. It is a kind of bluish ash-color on the back,
and the rest of the bird white. Like all his brethren, he is a great
fisherman, and he knows where he can go and catch his dinner.
The skua gull—_Lestris Cataractes_—is a bird of very peculiar habits.
It is seldom found except in the Arctic or Antarctic regions. Captain
Cook found it while he was skirting the polar ice. They are a very
exclusive sort of bird, living in large colonies, where none but
their own species are allowed to come. They are terrible fighters; and
other gulls, or even the eagle or the raven, or scarcely man himself,
can invade their colony with impunity. Against a large bird of prey,
during the breeding-season, they will charge _en masse_; and wo be to
their enemy! He will get pierced with scores of angry beaks. It is
hazardous for man, and instances are mentioned of some who have gone
among them without much protection to their heads, and actually got
their skulls broken by these powerful birds. These gulls are not fond
of fishing; they prefer that others should fish for them. When the
great gull, or any other of the fishing-tribes, has got a load, and
filled his stomach, neck, and bill, with fish, and is flying slowly and
heavily away to his expectant brood, this arrant freebooter, the skua
gull, dashes at the sober fisherman; and his only chance of life is to
disgorge all he has, and the skua catches it in its fall, or picks it
up from the surface of the water or land. The Icelanders sometimes, in
visiting the haunts of skua, carry a sharp pike projecting a little
above the head, and the heedless gull comes dashing down at the man,
and is transfixed on the murderous iron.
One of the birds found in Iceland, and peculiar to high Arctic and
Antarctic regions, is the large snowy owl—_strix nyctea_. This is a
magnificent bird, two feet in length, and four feet and a half in the
stretch of its wings. One of these birds adorns the parlor of Mr.
Simpzen, an Iceland merchant at Reykjavik. This bird is literally as
white as snow, though the females and the younger birds have some
brownish feathers. The snowy owl is a bird of prey, and night and day
are the same to him. The ptarmigan and the tern, cannot, all of them,
find food during the long Iceland winters; therefore, some of them, in
their turn, furnish dinners for his majesty, the white owl. When the
wind beats, and the snow drives, so that they would sweep the birds to
destruction, out comes this king of the wilds, clad in his armor of
impenetrable down and feathers; and, riding on the wings of the tempest,
keeps holiday amid the wildest turmoil of nature. All parts of the bird,
except the point of the beak, the nails, and the eye-balls, are covered
with feathers, so that he fears not the cold. This bird remains the
whole year in Iceland, and is very rarely, and that in the coldest of
weather, found as far south as Great Britain.
One more feathered resident, and I have done. One of the hawk-tribe,
peculiar to this country, the Jer-Falcon—_Falco Icelandicus_—is a most
remarkable bird. He is peculiarly adapted to the wilds of Iceland, and
the cold, naked cliffs of the Northern Isles. Though not often seen,
there is no reason to believe their numbers are as small as might be
supposed. They are no parasites, like the skua gull. Not they. They
catch their prey alive and on the wing; and so terrible and unerring is
their flight, that nothing can escape them. Except his near relative,
the peregrine falcon, there is probably not a bird in the world that can
equal his speed on the wing. Gray, like his native cliffs, he will sit
on a projecting crag, quiet for hours, until a flock of rock-doves or
some ducks, are seen flying by. He leaps into the air, vaulting upwards
till he has “got the sky” of his prey, to a sufficient height for
gaining the necessary impetus; his wings shiver for a moment, as he
works himself into a perfect command and poise, and to the full extent
of his energy. Then he dashes downwards with such velocity that the
impression of his path remains on the sky, like that of the shooting
meteor or the flashing lightning, and you fancy there is a torrent of
falcons rushing through the air. The stroke is as unerring as the motion
is fleet. If it take effect in the body, the bird is trussed, and the
hunt is over; but if a wing only is broken, the maimed bird is allowed
to flutter to the earth, and another victim is selected. It sometimes
happens that some inferior bird of prey comes in for the wounded game;
but in order to get it, he must proceed cautiously and stealthily, for
wo betide it if it rises on the wing, and meets the glance of the
falcon. The raven himself, never scoops out another eye, if he rises to
tempt that one. This bird is found in Norway, and sometimes in the north
of Scotland. In former days they were used in hawking, and, in
consequence of their strength and daring and their unerring stroke, they
were more prized in falconry than any other; but they were difficult to
train; and, consequently, in the days of falconry they brought very high
prices. The velocity of their flight, as well as that of the peregrine
falcon, is put down at one hundred and fifty miles an hour. Compare that
to a modern “express train!” How the latter lags behind! The flight of
birds on long journeys is well ascertained, and numerous instances are
recorded of the amazing velocity of falcons. King Henry IV., of France,
had a peregrine falcon that flew to Malta, thirteen hundred and fifty
miles, and arrived there the same day that he left Fontainbleau. Mudie
says, the peregrine falcon is THE falcon, _par excellence_, of the
falconers, on account of his rapid, powerful flight, great tractability,
and other good qualities.
The _falcon_, in falconry, always means the female, as they only are
trained. The male is called the _tercel_. Indeed, our Saxon ancestors
must have had some lofty sport. Wish I had been there! The jer-falcon,
our Iceland bird, is not by any means confined to his native cliffs.
Iceland is four or five hundred miles from Scotland, but only a
morning’s flight for this fleet traveler! He could take his breakfast in
his native wilds, with the sun high in the heavens, fly over to
Scotland, dine on a ptarmigan or a rock-dove, sleep through the heat of
the day, and return to Iceland long before sunset. Such is the flight of
this powerful, swift-winged bird of prey.