_The gannet--Gannets at St. Ives--At Treen Dinas--Appearance of the
bird when fishing--The rise before the fall--Gannet and gull--A
contrast--Gull and Great Northern Diver--Gulls and gannets in the
pilchard season--Bass, pollack and sand-eels--An extraordinary
accident._
|BRITISH pelican" may seem almost too grand a name for a bird the size
of our gannet, or Solan goose; but he is of that family, and was
once, in the Linnæan classification, of the very genus--a _Pelicanus._
Moreover, in this land of small birds--thanks to the barbarians who have
extirpated the big ones--the _Sula bassana_ is very large, being little
inferior to the goose, though he is certainly small compared with his
magnificent rose-coloured relation, the greatest of the true pelicans.
Until I came to Cornwall I never had a proper opportunity of observing
this noble fowl and his fishing methods; here he is common all round the
coast, especially in the winter months, and when, as frequently happens,
he fishes close to the land, he may be watched very comfortably by the
hour from a seat on some high foreland. A rock two or three hundred feet
above the sea is the very best position for the spectator; the birds
float to and fro almost on a level with his eyes, and their beautiful
motions can be better seen than from a boat or ship.
Standing on the yellow sands in the little cove behind St. Ives I
watched the tide coming in one rough cloudy evening, the sea as it
advanced rising into big glassy billows of a clear glaucous green colour
before bursting in foam and spray running far and wide over the pale
smooth sandy floor. Close behind the advancing waves a number of birds
were flying to and fro, mostly herring gulls, but there were also a good
many gannets. These moved up and down in a series of wide curves at a
rate of speed which never varied, with two or three or four beats of the
powerful, pointed, black-tipped white wings, followed by a long interval
of gliding; the bird always keeping at a height of about twenty-five
feet above the surface, and, without an instant's pause or hesitation,
dashing obliquely into the sea after its prey.
That is how they fish sometimes, flying low and seeing the fishes a
good distance ahead, and is but one of several methods. When next I
was watching them their manner was very different. The air was calm
and clear and full of bright sunlight, and I watched them from the
stupendous mass of rock forming the headland on which stands the famous
Logan Rock.
The birds were in considerable numbers, sweeping round in great curves
and circles at a uniform height of about two hundred and fifty feet from
the surface. They were distributed over an immense area; ranging, in
fact, over the entire visible sea, from those that fished within a
couple of hundred yards off the rocks on which I sat, to the furthest
away, which appeared as moving white specks on the horizon. When fishing
from that height the gannet drops straight down on its prey, striking
the sea with such force as to send up a column of water eight or ten
feet high, the bird disappearing from sight for a space of five or six
seconds, or longer, then rising and after floating a few moments on the
surface rising laboriously to resume its flight as before.
The fall of the big white bird from such a height is a magnificent
spectacle, and causes the spectator to hold his breath as he watches
it with closed wings hurl itself down as if to certain perdition. The
tremendous shock of the blow on the sea would certainly kill the bird
but for the wad of dense elastic plumage which covers and protects it.
For it hits itself as hard as it hits the sea, and how hard that is we
may know when we watch the gannet drop perpendicularly like a big white
stone, and when at a distance of a quarter of a mile we can see the
column of water thrown up and distinctly hear the loud splash. Yet no
sooner has it hurled itself into the sea than it is out again as if
nothing had happened, ready for another fall and blow!
One wonders how, when the gannet is flying high, on catching sight of
a fish directly beneath him in the water, he is able instantly to check
his course, get into position and fall just at the right spot. One would
suppose that he could not do it, that the impetus of so heavy a body
moving swiftly through the air would carry him many yards beyond the
spot, and that he would have to return and search again. He does not, in
fact, bring himself to a sudden stop as the small light kestrel is able
to do, nor does he, I think, keep the fish all the time in his eye, but
he is nevertheless able to accomplish his purpose, and in this way: The
instant a fish is detected the bird shoots up a distance of a dozen to
twenty feet; thus the swift motion is not arrested, but its direction
changed from horizontal to vertical, and this is probably brought about
by a lightning-quick change in the set of the wing feathers; but it is
a change which the eye cannot detect, even with the aid of the most
powerful binocular. The upward movement is not exactly vertical; it
describes a slight curve, and, at the top, when the impetus which
carried him up has spent itself, the bird wheels round, turning half
over and bringing his head down, pointing to the sea. I suppose that he
then quickly recovers the fish he had lost sight of for a moment, for
with a pause of scarcely a second he then closes his wings and lets
himself fall.
On this calm, bright day, with scores of birds in sight, I was well able
to observe this beautiful aerial maoeuvre--a sort of looping the loop,
and seemingly an almost impossible feat which they yet accomplish with
such apparent ease.
The spectacle of many gannets fishing, all moving in a perpetual
series of curves, wavering lines and half circles, at exactly the same
altitude, and all performing the same set of actions on spying a fish,
produces the idea that they are automata moved by extraneous forces, and
are incapable of varying their mode of action. As a fact, they vary it
constantly according to the state of the atmosphere and the sea, and
probably also the depth at which the fish are swimming. But whatever the
method for the day may be, one is impressed and amazed at the marvellous
energy of the bird, and this strikes us most when we see gannets and
gulls together.
The gull is a waiter on the tide, and on wind and rain and sunshine and
any change which may bring him something to eat--a sort of feathered Mr.
Micawber among sea-birds. His indolent happy-go-lucky way of making a
living reminds you of his friend the fisherman who, when not fishing,
can do nothing but lounge on the quay with his hands in his pockets, or
stand leaning against a sunny wall revolving the quid in his mouth and
making an occasional remark to the idler nearest to him. H is brief and
furious fits of activity are followed by long intervals of repose, when
he floats at the will of wind and wave on the sea or sits dozing on a
rock. He also spends a good deal of his time in a kind of loitering,
probably waiting for something to turn up, when he is seen in a loose
company scattered far and wide about the sea, one here, two or three a
little distance off, and a few more a hundred yards away; others flying
about in an aimless way, dropping down at intervals as if to exchange
remarks with those on the water, then wandering off again.
One day sitting on a rock at Gurnard's Head, I watched a company of
forty or fifty gannets fishing in a calm sea where a great many herring
and lesser black-backed gulls were scattered about idly rocking on the
surface in their usual way. The gannets were sweeping round at a height
of about a hundred feet, and were finding fish in plenty as their falls
into the sea were pretty frequent. The gulls saw nothing, or knew that
the fishes were not for them, and they were consequently not in the
least excited. By and by I saw a gannet drop upon the sea just where two
gulls were floating, sending a cloud of spray over one bird and causing
both to rock and toss about like little white boats in a whirlpool. I
could imagine one of those gulls gasping with astonishment and remarking
to his fellow: "That was a nice thing, wasn't it! Coming down on me like
that without a by-your-leave! I suppose if the fish had been swimming
right under me he would have run me through with his confounded beak;
and when he had shaken me off and seen me floating dead on the water,
he would have said that it served me jolly well right for getting in
his way! Certainly these gannets are the greatest brutes out--but what
fishers!--and what splendid fellows!"
Gulls are all robbers by instinct but have not the power and courage
of the predaceous Bonxie or Great Skua of the Shetlands, a pirate by
profession who lives mainly on the labours of others. The gull must
fend for himself and levy tribute when he gets the chance, when he can
intimidate some other bird or snatch a morsel from his beak. From the
gannet he gets nothing; it would be dangerous for him to come in that
bird's way, and no sooner is the fish caught than it is swallowed. The
gannet takes no more notice of the gull than of a bubble floating on
the surface, and probably does not even know that the negligible bird
regards his fishing operations with a good deal of interest and hungrily
wishes he could have a share in the spoil. But how far gulls will go in
their desire to get something for nothing may be seen in the following
incident which was witnessed by some fishermen at Sennen Cove, close to
the Land's End. A Great Northern Diver made its appearance at the cove
and spent a part of the winter there, and as he was not disturbed and
grew accustomed to the sight of human beings he lost all shyness and
often fished close to the rocks where the men stood watching him. One
day they saw him with a small flat fish which he could not swallow; it
was too broad to go down his gullet, but he would not let it escape and
continued to toss it up and catch it again, as if determined to get it
down somehow. Or it may have been that he was only playing with it just
as a cat when not hungry plays with a mouse. By and by a black-backed
gull swam to him and began following him and making snatches at the
flounder each time the diver tossed it up. But the diver would not let
him have the fish, he simply turned round to get away from the teasing
gull, and the quiet way in which he took it only emboldened the other
until he became quite excited and was almost violent in his efforts to
get the fish. Then suddenly the diver, dropping the fish, turned on him
and struck him like lightning, driving his sharp powerful beak into his
neck or the base of the skull. The gull flapped his wings violently
once or twice, then turned over and floated away, belly up, quite
dead. Instantly after dealing the blow, the diver went down and quickly
reappeared with the flounder, and resumed tossing and catching it again,
just as if nothing had happened, while the dead gull slowly drifted
further and further away.
What struck the men who witnessed the tragic incident as most remarkable
was the sudden change in the temper of the diver, when he turned at
last on the other, dealt him the swift killing blow, then immediately
returned to his play with the fish as if the slaying of that big
formidable bird had affected him no more than it would have done to
shake off a drop of water. My thought on hearing about it was that the
act of the diver was wonderfully like that of many a human being to
whom killing is no murder, who kills in a casual way because of some
religious or ethical or political idea, or merely because he has
been annoyed or stung into a fit of anger, and who, the killing done,
recovers his normal placid temper and thinks no more about it.
An exceedingly painful incident of this kind is related by Darwin
in describing the natives of Tierra del Fuego in his _Voyage of a
Naturalist_. Another very pathetic case is related by Browning, in the
_Dramatic Idylls_, in which the woodcutter in a Russian village who is
able to handle his axe so deftly strikes off the head of a young woman
who has just escaped from the wolves that pursued her in the forest.
They sprang upon her in her sleigh and dragged her child from her arms;
the pious woodcutter thought she should have allowed herself to be torn
to pieces before releasing the child. Then, after striking her head off
he goes to his cottage, puts down the axe, and plays with his children
on the floor and is greatly surprised that any fuss should be made by
his fellow-villagers at what he had done.
The gulls have a particularly uncomfortable time when, as occasionally
happens during the pilchard fishing, a number of gannets appear to claim
their share in the spoil. No sooner has the circle of the seine been
completed, forming a pool teeming with fish in the sea as it were,
than the gulls are there in a dense crowd. Then if the gannets appear
hovering over them and hurling themselves down like rocks into the seine
the gulls scatter in consternation and have to wait their turn. The
wonder is that the gannets diving with such violence, bird following
bird so closely, all in so small an area, do not collide and kill each
other. Somehow as by a miracle they escape accidents, and when they have
gorged until they can gorge no more they retire to digest their meal at
sea, and immediately the gulls return to feast with a tremendous noise
and much squabbling, each bird fighting to deprive his neighbour of the
fish he picks up. This lasts until the gannets, having quickly digested
their first meal or got rid of it by drinking sea-water, return with
a fresh appetite for a second one, and the poor gulls are once more
compelled to leave that delectable spot, teeming and glittering with
myriads of rushing, leaping, terrified pilchards.
At other times, when fishing-birds are attracted to one spot by shoals
of mackerel, herring, sprats or pilchards, gulls and gannets feast
together very comfortably, and as the gulls take good care not to get
in the way of their too energetic neighbours there are probably no
accidents. Occasionally at such times they have an opportunity of
feeding on the launce or sand-eel, a favourite food of all the rapacious
creatures, fish and fowl, that get their living in the sea. The launce
is a long slender eel-like silvery fish that has the curious habit of
burying itself in the sand, and it is said that when out feeding if
pursued it instinctively darts down to the bottom of the sea to escape
by burying itself in the sand. Bass and pollack are the greatest
persecutors of the launce, and when a number of these greedy fishes come
upon a shoal of sand-eels in deep water they get beneath them to hold
them up, and surround them as well to prevent their escape. Day, in his
_British Fishes_, states that pollack have been observed acting in this
way on the coast of Norway; but many Cornish fishermen have witnessed
it too, though it has not been described by Jonathan Couch and other
writers on the habits of the native fishes as occurring in our waters.
A native of Hayle, a boatman and a keen observer of bird and fish life,
gave me the following account of a scene he witnessed in St. Ives Bay,
not far from the Godrevy Lighthouse. His attention was attracted by a
great concourse of gulls and gannets, and rowing to the spot he found
the surface of the sea boiling with an immense shoal of sand-eels
rushing about on the surface and leaping clean out of the water in their
efforts to escape from their pursuers. It was a very unusual sight, as
the shoals of sand-eels are usually small, but here they swarmed at the
surface over a very large area--probably six or seven acres. It was a
fine bright day and the water being marvellously clear he could see
the pollack ranging swiftly about at a considerable depth and rising at
intervals to the surface to capture their prey. Meanwhile the birds in
hundreds were hovering overhead, the gannets coming down in their usual
way like huge stones hurled into the sea, the gulls swooping lightly and
snatching their prey and rising with the long silvery wriggling fishes
in their beaks.
Every gull thus rising with a launce in its beak was of course instantly
pursued and set upon by all the others flying near and had to fight
furiously to retain his capture.
That is invariably the gull's way: even when fish are swarming on
the surface and easily taken they must give vent to their predatory
instincts and waste time and energy in robbing one another and in
squabbling and screaming, instead of every bird trying to catch as many
as he can for himself. It is very different with the gannet; he never
in all his life--and it may be a life of a century or longer for all we
know to the contrary--wastes as much energy as would be the equivalent
of a single feather's weight in trying to take a morsel out of the beak
of another gannet or bird of any kind. One might say that his faculties
are so perfect, his power so great, that he has no need to descend to
such courses. Indeed, so admirably is he fitted for his sea life, that
when we view him in very bad weather, when he is travelling, following
the coastline, in an everlasting succession of beautiful curves and
wave-like risings and fallings; and when he is fishing, even when the
sky is black with tempests and the tumbling ocean is all grey and white
with whirling spindrift; when the furious wind has blown the whole tribe
of gulls inland many a league, he appears to us as a part of it all--of
wave and spray and wind and cloud--a fragment, one of a million, torn
away by the blast, into which a guiding spirit or intelligent principle
or particle has been blown to make it cohere and give it form and weight
and indestructibility.
I can but express it in my blundering fashion, but the thought has been
in my mind when, sitting on a rock on some high foreland, I have watched
the gannets passing by the hour, travelling to some distant feeding area
or to their breeding haunts in the far north; a procession many a league
long, but a very thin procession of twos and twos, every bird with his
mate, following the trend of the coast, each bird in turn now above the
sea, now down in the shelter of a big incoming wave, and every curve and
every rise and fall of one so exactly repeated by the other as to
give the idea of a bird and its shadow or reflection, with bird and
reflection continually changing places.
After seeing the gannet every day for months one would be apt to think
that this species is incapable of making a mistake and is beyond reach
of accidents, but that cannot be supposed of any living creature,
however perfect the correspondence may appear between it and the
environment. At Sennen I heard of an extraordinary mishap which befell
and caused the destruction of a large number of gannets. It was told to
me by several of the fishermen who witnessed it at Sennen Cove, at the
Land's End, and by a gentleman of the place, who is a keen ornithologist
and was present at the time. A strong wind was blowing straight into the
bay, and there was a very big sea on. The sea, they told me, presented
a singular appearance on account of the enormous waves rolling in; the
village people, in fact, were all out watching it. A large number
of gannets were busy fishing and were coming further and further in,
following the shoal. Then a wonderful thing happened on this day of
wonders; the wind which had been blowing a gale fell quite suddenly and
was succeeded in a very few minutes by a perfect calm. Some of the men
assured me they had never known such a thing happen before. I have known
it once, and that was in South America, when a violent southwest wind
which had been blowing for many hours dropped suddenly, and the air was
a dead calm before the loud noise of the gale in the trees was out of
my ears. The change was disastrous to the gannets; in that windless
atmosphere in the sheltered bay and with the sea in that state they
could not rise. They were seen struggling on the water and carried
shore-wards by the huge incoming waves; but their fellows flying to
and fro above them, intent on their prey, did not see or heed their
distress; they continued dashing down into the sea, bird after bird, and
every one that hurled itself down remained down, until they were all in
the sea, all vainly flapping and struggling to keep out and still being
carried nearer and nearer to the shore. Then the waves began to fling
them out on the flat sandy beach, and as wave followed wave, bringing
more and more of the birds, the men and boys who were watching went mad
with excitement and set off at a run, every one as he went snatching up
a stick or an iron bar or whatever would serve as a weapon. There was no
escape for the birds, for their wings could not lift them, and they
were slaughtered without mercy, even as shipwrecked men on this dreadful
coast in the ancient days had been slaughtered, and the sands were
covered with their carcasses. The ancient wreckers got something from
the unhappy wretches they slew, but these people got nothing from the
gannets. I asked them why they slew the birds, and they could only shrug
their shoulders or answer that they had the birds cast out by the sea
at their mercy--what was there to do but to kill them? And it was added
that after all, being dead, they did serve some good purpose, for by and
by a farmer came and carried them away by cartloads to manure his land.
[Illustration: 0111]