Part 9 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ARCTIC PUFFIN. Swedish, Lunnefogel. (Mormon Arcticus, L.) THE BLACK GUILLEMOT. Swedish, Tejst. (Uria Grylle, L.) ]
The sea fowl mentioned above are never met with inland.
They never settle on a gra.s.sy sward or on a level sandy beach. The steep fowl-fell sides, the sea, ground-ice, pieces of drift-ice and small stones rising above the water, form their habitat. They swim with great skill both on, and under the water. The black guillemots and rotges fly swiftly and well; Brunnich's guillemots, on the contrary, heavily and ill. The latter therefore do not perhaps remove in winter farther from their hatching places than to the nearest open water, and it is probable that colonies of Brunnich's guillemots are not located at places where the sea freezes completely even far out from the coast. On this perhaps depends the scarcity of Brunnich's guillemot in the Kara Sea.
While sailing in the Arctic Ocean, vessels are nearly always attended by two kinds of gulls, the greedy _stormaosen_ or _borgmaesteren_, glaucous gull (_Larus glaucus_, Brunn.), and the gracefully formed, swiftly flying _kryckian_ or _tretaoiga maosen_, kittiwake (_Larus tridactylus_, L.), and if the hunter lies to at an ice-floe to flense upon it a seal which has been shot, it is not long till a large number of snow-white birds with dark blue bills and black legs settle down in the neighbourhood in order that they may get a portion of the spoil. They belong to the third kind of gull common in the north, _ismaosen_, the ivory gull (_Larus eburneus_, Gmel.).
[Ill.u.s.tration: BREEDING-PLACE FOR GLAUCOUS GULLS. Borgmaestareport on Bear Island, after a midnight photograph taken by the Author on the 18th-19th June, 1864. ]
In disposition and mode of life these gulls differ much from each other. The glaucous gull is sufficiently strong to be able to defend its eggs and young against the attack of the mountain fox. It therefore breeds commonly on the summits of easily accessible small cliffs, hillocks or heaps of stones, preferably in the neighbourhood of ”loomeries” or on fowl-islands, where the young of the neighbouring birds offer an opportunity for prey and hunting during the season when its own young are being fed. Sometimes, as for instance at Brandywine Bay on Spitzbergen, the glaucous gull breeds in great flocks on the ledges of steep fell-sides, right in the midst of Brunnich's guillemots. On Bear Island I have seen it hatch on the very beach, at a place, for instance, under the arch of a waterfall leaping down from a precipitous cliff. The nests, which, to judge from the quant.i.ty of birds' dung in their neighbourhood, are used for a long succession of years, are placed in a depression in the rock or the ground, and lined with a little straw or a feather or two. The number of the eggs is three or four. After boiling they show a jellylike, half transparent white, and a reddish yellow, and are exceedingly delicious. The young birds have white flesh, resembling chicken. The burgomaster is common everywhere along the coasts of Novaya Zemlya and Spitzbergen. Yet I have not seen the nest of this gull on the north coast of North East Land or on the Seven Islands.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A. THE KITTIWAKE B. THE IVORY GULL. Swedish, Kryckia.
(Larus tridactylus, L.) Swedish, Ismaos (Larus eburneus, L.) ]
Still more common than the glaucous gull in the lands of the High North is _kryckian_, the kittiwake. It is met with far out at sea, where it accompanies the vessel whole days, circling round the tops of the masts, and sometimes--according to the statements of the walrus-hunters, when a storm is approaching--pecking at the points of the pendant. When the vessel is in harbour, the kittiwakes commonly gather round it to pick out anything eatable in the refuse that may be thrown away. They breed in great flocks on the steep escarpments in some separate part of the fowl-fells, in connection with which, it is evident that the kittiwakes always endeavour to choose the best places of the fell--those that are most inaccessible to the fox and are best protected against bad weather. Among the birds of the north the kittiwake is the best builder; for its nest is walled with straw and mud, and is very firm. It juts out like a great swallow's nest from the little ledge to which it is fixed.
Projecting ends of straw are mostly bent in, so that the nest, with its regularly rounded form, has a very tidy appearance. The interior is further lined with a soft, carefully arranged layer of moss, gra.s.s and seaweed, on which the bird lays three to four well-flavoured eggs. The soft warm underlayer is, however, not without its inconvenience; for Dr. Stuxberg during the voyage of 1875 found in such a nest no fewer than twelve kinds of insects, among them _Pulex vagabundus_, Bohem. in nine specimens, a beetle, a fly, &c.
The ivory gull, called by Fr. Martens ”Rathsherr,” the Councillor, is found, as its Swedish name indicates, princ.i.p.ally out at sea in the _pack_, or in fjords filled with drift-ice. It is a true ice-bird, and, it may almost be said, scarcely a water-bird at all, for it is seldom seen swimming on the surface, and it can dive as little as its relatives, the glaucous gull and the kittiwake. In greed it competes with the fulmar. When any large animal has been killed among the drift-ice, the ivory gull seldom fails to put in an appearance in order to quench its hunger with flesh and blubber. It consumes at the same time the excrements of the seal and the walrus, on which account from three to five ivory gulls may often be seen sitting for a long time round a seal-hole, quiet and motionless, waiting patiently the arrival of the seal (Malmgren).
[Ill.u.s.tration: RARE NORTHERN GULLS. A. Sabine's Gull (Larus Sabinii, Sabine) B. Ross's Gull. (Larus Rossii, Richaids.) ]
The proper breeding places of this bird scarcely appear to be yet known. So common as it is both on the coasts of Spitzbergen from the Seven Islands to South Cape and on the north coast of Novaya Zemlya and America, its nest has only been found twice, once in 1853 by McClintock at Cape Krabbe in North America in 77 25' N.L., the second time by Dr. Malmgren at Murchison Bay, in 82 2'
N.L. The two nests that Malmgren found consisted of depressions, twenty-three to twenty-six centimetres in diameter, in a heap of loose gravel, on a ledge of a steeply-sloping limestone-rock wall.
In each nest was found only one egg, which, on the 30th July, already contained a down-covered young bird. For all the ivory gulls which have their home on Spitzbergen there were doubtless required several hundred such breeding-places as that at Murchison Bay. When to this is added the fact that we never in autumn saw on Spitzbergen any full-grown young of this kind of gull, I a.s.sume that its proper breeding-place must be found farther north, on the sh.o.r.es of some still unknown Polar land, perhaps continually surrounded by ice. It deserves to be mentioned with reference to this, that Murchison Bay was covered with ice when Malmgren found the nests referred to above.
Besides these varieties of the gull, two other species have been found, though very rarely, in the Polar regions, viz., _Larus Sabinii_, Sabine, and _Larus Rossii_, Richards. Although I have myself only seen the latter, and that but once (on the Chukchi Peninsula), I here give drawings of them both for the use of future Polar explorers. They are perhaps, if they be properly observed, not so rare as is commonly supposed.
Often during summer in the Arctic regions one hears a penetrating shriek in the air. When one inquires into the reason of this, it is found to proceed from a kittiwake, more rarely from a glaucous gull, eagerly pursued by a bird as large as a crow, dark-brown, with white breast and long tail-feathers. It is _labben_, the common skua (_Lestris parasitica_, L.), known by the Norwegian walrus-hunters under the name of _tjufjo_, derived from the bird's cry, ”_I-o i-o_,” and its shameless thief-nature. When the ”tjufjo” sees a kittiwake or a glaucous gull fly off with a shrimp, a fish, or a piece of blubber, it instantly attacks it. It flies with great swiftness backwards and forwards around its victim, striking it with its bill, until the attacked bird either drops what it has caught, which is then immediately snapped up by the skua, or else settles down upon the surface of the water, where it is protected against attack. The skua besides eats eggs of other birds, especially of eiders and geese. If the eggs are left but for a few moments unprotected in the nest, it is immediately to the front and shows itself so voracious that it is not afraid to attack nests from which the hatching birds have been frightened away by men engaged in gathering eggs only a few yards off. With incredible dexterity it pecks a hole in the eggs and sucks their contents. If speed is necessary, this takes place so quickly and out of so many eggs in succession that it sometimes has to stand without moving, unable to fly further until it has thrown up what it had swallowed. The skua in this way commonly takes part in the plundering of every eider island. The walrus-hunters are very much embittered against the bird on account of this intrusion on their industry, and kill it whenever they can. The whalers called it ”struntjaeger”--refuse-hunter--because they believed that it hunted gulls in order to make them void their excrements which ”struntjaegeren” was said to devour as a luxury.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A. THE COMMON SKUA. Swedish, Labben, (Lestris parasitica, L.) B. BUFFON'S SKUA. Swedish, Fjellabben. (Lestris Buffonii, Boie.) C. THE POMARINE SKUA. Swedish, Bredstjertade Labben (Lestris pomarina. Tem.) ]
The skua breeds upon low, unsheltered, often water-drenched headlands and islands, where it lays one or two eggs on the bare ground, often without trace of a nest. The eggs are so like the ground that it is only with difficulty that they can be found. The male remains in the neighbourhood of the nest during the hatching season. If a man, or an animal which the bird considers dangerous, approaches the eggs, the pair endeavour to draw attention from them by removing from the nest, creeping on the ground and flapping their wings in the most pitiful way. The bird thus acts with great skill a veritable comedy, but takes good care that it is not caught.
As is well known, we know only two varieties of colour in this bird, a self-coloured brown, and a brown on the upper part of the body with white below. Of these I have only once in the Arctic regions seen the self-coloured variety, viz. at Bell Sound in 1858. All the hundreds of skuas which I have seen, besides, have had the throat and lower part of the body coloured white.
This bird is very common on Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya. Yet perhaps it scarcely breeds on the north part of North-East Land.
Along with the bird now described there occur, though sparingly, two others:--_bredstjertade labben_, the Pomarine skua (_Lestris pomarina_, Tem.) and _fjellalbben_, Buffon's skua (_Lestris Buffonii_, Boie). The latter is distinguished by its more slender build and two very long tail-feathers, and it is much more common farther to the east than on Spitzbergen. I have not had an opportunity of making any observations on the mode of life of these birds.
As the skua pursues the kittiwake and the glaucous gull, it is in its turn pursued with extraordinary fierceness by the little swiftly-flying and daring bird _taernan_, the Arctic tern (_Sterna macroura_, Naum.). This beautiful bird is common everywhere on the coasts of Spitzbergen, but rather rare on Novaya Zemlya. It breeds in considerable flocks on low gra.s.s-free headlands or islands, covered with sand or pebbles. The eggs, which are laid on the bare ground without any trace of a nest, are so like lichen-covered pebbles in colour, that it is only with difficulty one can get eyes upon them; and this is the case in a yet higher degree with the newly-hatched young, which notwithstanding their thin dress of down have to lie without anything below them among the bare stones. From the shortness of their legs and the length of their wings it is only with difficulty that the tern can go on the ground. It is therefore impossible for it to protect its nest in the same way as the ”tjufjo.” Instead, this least of all the swimming birds of the Polar lands does not hesitate to attack any one, whoever he may be, that dares to approach its nest. The bird circles round the disturber of the peace with evident exasperation, and now and then goes whizzing past his head at such a furious rate that he must every moment fear that he will be wounded with its sharp beak.
Along with the swimmers enumerated above, we find everywhere along these sh.o.r.es two species of eider, the _vanliga eidern_, common eider (_Somateria mollissima_, L.) and _praktejdern_, king-duck (_Somateria spectabilis_, L.). The former prefers to breed on low islands, which, at the season for laying eggs, are already surrounded by open water and are thus rendered inaccessible to the mountain foxes that wander about on the mainland. The richest eider islands I have seen in Spitzbergen are the Down Islands at Horn Sound. When I visited the place in 1858 the whole islands were so thickly covered with nests that it was necessary to proceed with great caution in order not to trample on eggs. Their number in every nest was five to six, sometimes larger, the latter case, according to the walrus-hunters, being accounted for by the female when she sits stealing eggs from her neighbours. I have myself seen an egg of _Anser bernicla_ in an eider's nest. The eggs are hatched by the female, but the beautifully coloured male watches in her neighbourhood and gives the signal of flight when danger approaches.
The nest consists of a rich, soft, down bed. The best down is got by robbing the down-covered nest, an inferior kind by plucking the dead birds. When the female is driven from the nest she seeks in haste to sc.r.a.pe down over the eggs in order that they may not be visible. She besides squirts over them a very stinking fluid, whose disgusting smell adheres to the collected eggs and down. The stinking substance is however so volatile or so easily decomposed in the air that the smell completely disappears in a few hours. The eider, which some years ago was very numerous on Spitzbergen,[63] has of late years considerably diminished in numbers, and perhaps will soon be completely driven thence, if some restraint be not laid on the heedless way in which not only the Eider Islands are now plundered, but the birds too killed, often for the mere pleasure of slaughter.
On Novaya Zemlya, too, the eider is common. It breeds, for instance, in not inconsiderable numbers on the high islands in Karmakul Bay.
The eider's flesh has, it is true, but a slight flavour of train oil, but it is coa.r.s.e and far inferior to that of Brunnich's guillemot. In particular, the flesh of the female while hatching is almost uneatable.
[Ill.u.s.tration: HEADS OF THE A. EIDER; B. KING DUCK; C. BARNACLE GOOSE; D. WHITE-FRONTED GOOSE. ]
The king-duck occurs more sparingly than the common eider. On Spitzbergen it is called the ”Greenland eider,” on Greenland the ”Spitzbergen eider,” which appears to indicate that in neither place is it quite at home. On Novaya Zemlya, on the other hand, it occurs in larger numbers. Only once have I seen the nest of this bird, namely, in 1873 on Axel's Islands in Bell Sound, where it bred in limited numbers together with the common eider. In the years 1858 and 1864, when I visited the same place, it did not breed there.