Part 13 (1/2)
The fact that the nests of these swifts are cemented with coagulated saliva establishes a.n.a.logy with that other member of the family which builds in the caves of frowning precipices near the sea, making edible nests greatly appreciated by Chinese gourmands, some of whom maintain the fantastic theory that the swift catches quant.i.ties of a small, delicately flavoured fish which it exposes on rocks until desiccated, to be afterwards compounded into nests. The ancients were wont to believe in the existence of hostile mutuality between the swifts and the beche-de-mer, though they have little in common in respect of appearance, attributes, and habits. If memory serves, one of the genera had the specific t.i.tle of HIRUNDO, founded on the faith that the swift, by flying over the sea-slug exposed by receding tide, and vexing it by jeers, caused it to exude glutinous threads which the swift seized and bore away to its cave to be consolidated and moulded into a nest. To the fable was appended a retributive moral, viz., that the beche-de-mer occasionally revenged itself by expelling such a complicated ma.s.s of gluten that it became a net for the capture of the swift, which was slowly a.s.similated by its enemy. The Chinese, it may be said, with but slight perversion of fact, show equal partiality for the respective emblems of speed and sloth.
Since the dates mentioned it has been ascertained by personal observation that the breeding season of the swiftlet extends over four months, during which probably four young are reared, each clutch being single.
The nests do not provide accommodation for more than one chick, which before flight is obviously top large for its birthplace. Looking down into the cave, the eggs well advanced towards incubation seem to have a slight phosph.o.r.escent glow. The earliest date so far recorded of the discovery of a newly laid egg is October 14th, but there is reason to believe that the breeding season begins at least a month earlier. On January 10th this year (1910) half the nests in the cave originally described contained eggs, in most of which (judging by opacity) incubation was far advanced, while in several were young birds, some newly hatched, others apparently ready to depart from their gloomy, foul-smelling quarters. These latter clung so determinedly to their nests with needle-like toes that the force necessary to remove them would certainly have caused injury.
It may be remarked that the breeding season of the nutmeg pigeon is also protracted over a third of the year--from September to the end of January, two or three single successive clutches being reared. The pigeon is a visitor, the swift a resident.
II. THREE FISHERS
At the outset it is almost inc.u.mbent to announce that this is not a fish story. It is not even a story, though fish play a secondary part in it.
Therefore it should not make s.h.i.+pwreck of the faith of those who smile and sniff whensoever a fish or a snake is informally introduced in print.
The imagination of some observers of the wonders of natural history paints incidents so extravagantly that their ill.u.s.trative value is depreciated if not entirely distorted.
As I would wish to establish a sort of general confidence with any chance reader of these lines who, like myself, finds no need for exaggeration in the chronicling of observations, being well aware that Nature with the ease of consummate art outwits the wisest and laughs at the blotches of the boldest impressionist, it seems but common politeness to explain that though the Island may be romantic, the art of romancing is alien from its sh.o.r.es, albeit (as some one has hinted) that in imagination reverently applied lies the higher truth.
The distance from the mainland is not so great as to deprive the Island of generally distinctly Australian characteristics. It was, no doubt, in the remote past, merely a steep and high range of hills separated from other hills and mountains by plains and lagoons. Delicate land sh.e.l.ls, salt-hating frogs, and subtle snakes are among the living testifiers to past connection with Australia, but while all the animals and nearly all the birds native to the island are common on the mainland, several mainland types are conspicuously absent.
If, therefore, the birds and mammals seem in these literal chronicles to have little ways of their own, may they not owe obedience to true and abiding circ.u.mstances--a kind of unavoidable fate--due to isolation? It would indeed be singular if an island so long separated from Australia as to possess no marsupial did not impress certain idiosyncrasies upon its fauna and flora. It would be absurd to contend that as a rule, the untamed creatures carry any marks of distinction, but I have had the opportunity of studying facts of which I have never been fortunate to have confirmation either by reading or by ”swapping lies” with other students of Nature.
Occasionally when bewilderment has come I call to mind what Mrs. Jarley said of her waxwork, and let the case pa.s.s: ”I won't go so far as to say that, as it is, I've seen waxwork quite like life but I've certainly seen some life that was exactly like waxwork.” When I see a crab not easily distinguishable from a piece of sponge and a piece of sponge far more like a crab generally than the crab, that unconsciously mimics it, and possessing just as much apparent animation, I am content to be tricked in many other ways by the good mother of us all.
Having ventured so far by way of preface, it is quite possible that the reader may have concluded that something exceptionally marvellous is to follow. Disappointment was inevitable from the first. The relation of some of the quaint distinguis.h.i.+ng traits of the Island fauna must be left until the historian imagines that he has established a reputation for subduing, rather than heightening, the tone of his facts. This introduction has not a particular but a wide bearing.
Chief among the birds of prey are the osprey, the white-headed sea-eagle, and the white-bellied sea-eagle. The great wedge-tailed eagle (eagle-hawk) is a rare visitor, and is not a fisher. The others are resident and are industrious practisers of the art which, according to their interpretation, is anything but gentle. As they indulge in it, the sport is so rough and boisterous and clumsy that one wonders that so many fish should be caught. Each soars over the sea in circles at a height of about 60 feet or 80 feet, and when fish are seen flies down and, plunging into the water, seizes its prey with its talons. Unless the bird is watched closely its att.i.tudes while preparing for the downward cast and during the descent are misunderstood. ”And like a thunderbolt he falls”
is quite, according to local observations, an erroneous description of the feat performed by the fis.h.i.+ng eagle. Take as an example of the others the actions of the n.o.ble bird the white-headed sea-eagle. As it circles over the blue water its gaze is fixed and intent. Flight seems automatic--steady, fairly swift, rippleless. Immediately a fish is sighted, att.i.tudes and poses become comparatively strained and awkward.
Flight is checked by the enormous brake-power of outspread tail, and backward beating wing. The eagle poises over the spot, stretches out its legs, and extends its talons to the utmost; flies down in a series of zig-zags, and with the facial expression of the dirty boy undergoing the torture of face-was.h.i.+ng, plunges breast first with outstretched wings with a mighty splash into the water. Disappearing for four or five seconds, it finds it no easy task to rise with a two-pound mullet.
Splendid as the feat undoubtedly is, it does not coincide with the description usually given. Have we not often been told of the headlong, lightning like drop that almost baffles eyesight? The circ.u.mstance that baffles is that fish are so un.o.bservant or so slow that they do not always, in place of sometimes, escape. For the excuse of the fish it must be acknowledged that very few members of the tribe are fitted with eyes for star-gazing. The eagle captures a dinner, not by the exercise of any very remarkable fleetness or adaptiveness or pa.s.sion for fis.h.i.+ng, but because of certain physical limitations on the part of the fish.
”As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it By sovereignty of nature.”
The subserviency of fish to the osprey was noted by the ancients, who attributed a fabulous power of fascination to the bird so that as it flew over the ponds the fish ”turned their glistering bellies up” that it might take liberal choice. Certainly some limitation on the part of the fish seems to operate in favour of the osprey, otherwise the clumsy fisher would oft go hungry.
It goes against the grain to speak slightingly of the knightly, white-headed sea-eagle--a friend and almost a companion; but as any one may see that it fishes not for the sport but for the pot, and that the plunge into the water is a shock that is dreaded, no injustice is done.
Some birds--and they the most graceful--seem to fish for sport alone. These three fishers fish because, like Kipling's kangaroo, they have to--only the kangaroo hopped.
Now, the white-headed sea-eagle, which seems, and with good reason, to be proud of its ruddy back, appears to have no enemy of its kind. While the osprey and the white-bellied sea-eagle fall out and chide and fight, it looks down from some superior height and placidly watches the fish trap, for though knightly it is not above accepting tribute, for it likes fish though it hates fis.h.i.+ng.
The great osprey seldom crosses the bay without a challenge from its stealthy foe, the white-belly. The voices of both are alike in their dissonance though different in quality and tone, and the smaller bird is invariably the aggressor. This is how they fight, or rather engage in a vulgar brawl which has in it a smack of tragedy. The osprey, with steady beat of outstretched wing, flies ”squaking” from its agile enemy, who endeavours to alight on the osprey's back. Just as white-belly stretches its talons for a grip among the osprey's feathers, the osprey turns--and turns without a tremor in its long, sweeping wings--to shake hands with white-belly. For a moment the huge bird rests on its back, silhouetted against the luminous sky, to interlock talons with its nimble foe. But white-belly is fully alive to the risk of getting ”into hoults” with so heavy a weight, for on the instant it swoops up with a harsh cry of rage or disappointment. With but a single flap and no quiver of wing the osprey rights itself and sails away (a methodic, unflurried flight) with fleeter white-belly in pursuit, which when within striking distance swoops again, to be faced by the grim, outstretched talons of the osprey, who has turned in flight with machine-like precision. So swift and sudden is the discreet upward swoop of the white-belly that it almost appears to be a rebound after contact with the bigger bird. So the scrimmage, or, to be exact, screamage, proceeds, for each party to it tells the whole Island of its valour, and business stands still as the series of most graceful, yet savage, aerial evolutions is repeated until the rivals are blotted out by distance.
Once I saw a bunch of feathers fly from the osprey's back. The aerial capsize had not been timed with accustomed accuracy. Weight told, and it speedily shook itself free; but I am waiting for the day when, in mid-air, the osprey and the white-bellied sea-eagle shall clasp hands. It will be an exciting moment for the sea-eagle. The osprey is a cuter as well as a heavier bird, and, in the phrase of the blacks, ”That fella carn let go!”
When the osprey comes skirting the hollows of the hills for c.o.c.katoos, its hunger will be unsatisfied until, by elaborate and disdainful manoeuvres, the c.o.c.katoos are induced to take flight. Perched on the top of a tree, they may jeer in safety as long as they like; but let the flock fly into the open and the osprey will be surprised if it does not get one, and that which is singled out it follows ”like a grim murderer still steady to his purpose.” Now is the time for this, greatest of the three fishers, to, wax fat and become pompous, for its diet is to be varied with nutmeg pigeons, and the pigeons have come in their thousands and tens of thousands, and if the eaglets do lack and suffer hunger, it will be on account of the laziness of their parents.
For all its laborious fis.h.i.+ng, the red-backed sea-eagle is sometimes deprived of its spoil by a bird much inferior in size and weight and which has not the slightest pretensions to the art. An eagle had captured a ”mainsail” fish (banded dory) which loomed black against its snowy breast as in strenuous spirals it sought to gain sufficient height whence to soar over the spur of the hill to its eyrie. The fish, though not weighty, was awkward to carry, and the presence of the boat rather baffled the bird, which was shadowed in envious though discreet flight by a white-bellied eagle. Low over the water, close to the fringe of jungle the eagle flew, when a grey falcon dashed out, s.n.a.t.c.hed from its talons the wriggling fish, and with one swoop disappeared under a yellow-flowered hibiscus bush overhanging the tideway. The falcon is no match for the eagle; but, most subtle of birds of prey, it had watched the perplexity of its lord and master, and with audacious courage taken advantage of a moment's embarra.s.sment.