Travels in the Central Parts of Indo-China (Siam), Cambodia, and Laos (Vol. 2 of 2) / During the Years 1858, 1859, and 1860

by Henri Mouhot

THE DAMIER, OR CAPE PIGEON.

Procellaria Capensis.

THE CAPE PIGEON.

During a long voyage, when for months you have seen nothing but water and sky, the smallest novelty which appears and promises variety for the eye and the mind, though only for a few minutes, is joyfully welcome. Sometimes it may be a stormy petrel, flying like a swallow, skimming through the air in a hundred different directions, and seeming to play in that element; sometimes a ring-tail, which, with its piercing cry like that of a hawk, appears a messenger from the sun to bid the bold navigator welcome to the tropics, hovers for a few minutes over the ship, and then flies off with a jerk and disappears.

Sometimes are to be seen numerous blowers, who pass and repass the ship with bounds; or perhaps a whale, which almost stupefies you with the noise he makes as he displaces the water in rising to the surface to breathe: at another time it is some hungry shark, who, following in the wake of the ship, lets himself be caught by the bait thrown out to him, and which, when hoisted with great difficulty on deck, lashes it with his tail and looks formidable even after death; and this is a good take for the sailors, who divide the spoil and feast on it.

But of all the creatures dear and familiar to sailors, none rejoices him more than the faithful companion who, more than 3000 miles before he doubles the Cape of Good Hope or Cape Horn, appears to his sight, swims in the water, grazes a thousand times the hull or the rigging, pleases his eye by its parti-coloured plumage, and announces to him calm and tempest.

This bird, called by the French “Damier,” by the English the Cape Pigeon, and “Peintada” by the Portuguese, is the Cape Petrel, or Procellaria capensis of naturalists.

Gifted with great powers of flight, though less than other petrels, from morn till night, and often even a part of the latter when the moon is full, it is seen in the wake or alongside of the ship, describing in its flight, in which scarcely any movement is apparent, a thousand evolutions, sometimes touching the great waves which seem ready to overwhelm it, the moment after reappearing far above them, always wheeling about and careless of the storm.

The sight of this flight and of all these evolutions is most pleasing, and one involuntarily thinks of a graceful skater flying over the ice at his utmost speed, and seeking to attract admiration.

The whole life of this bird is perpetual movement, a constant chase after a scarce and insignificant prey. Unlike the swallow, who has his hours of pleasure and of amorous warbling, and nights of sleep in his warm nest, the Cape pigeon, pressed by hunger and by his ravenous appetite, only rests for a few minutes at a time at rare intervals during the day, in order to recruit his strength, and at night, rocked by the stormy wave, must find but little sleep.

Neither does the Cape pigeon know the delight of a peaceful retreat in a favourite spot sheltered by thick foliage or long reeds; and while most birds confine themselves to a limited district, where they are almost certain to be found at the same season, and to which they invariably return at the disappearance of the frosts which have chased them away for a time, this one, a sailor by nature, has for its domain an immense empire, namely the greatest part of the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans, and has to brave night and day, at one time an icy wind, and at another the rays of a burning sun.

But in a state of liberty nothing living is often unhappy, and the foreseeing Providence, who knows how to satisfy the wants of his creatures, also knows how to create joys for them, where we see nothing but trouble and misery. In like manner the industrious workman and the hardy traveller experience, perhaps, of all men the most lively joys; to them repose would be the greatest suffering.

Although inseparable companions of the sailor, it is not certainly for the pleasure of his society, nor for that afforded by the sight of the ship, that the petrels follow it, but for the certainty of finding in the scraps thrown overboard, as well as in the number of shells in the wake of the ship, food more abundant than he would discover elsewhere in the water. Nothing can equal their voracity but the quickness and vivacity with which they catch sight of the smallest prey and seize it even amidst a stormy sea. From a great distance, and long before the albatross, and the other descriptions of petrels which are often to be seen with the Cape pigeons, have remarked it, they see and pounce on it, and have generally swallowed it before the jealous rivals who follow them have been able to overtake them. The sense of smell does not here come in aid of that of sight, for they often pounce on a piece of wood or something of that description which falls from a vessel, and only abandon it when convinced by the touch that it is not fit for food. Their greediness is such that they will often let themselves be taken in dozens with hooks; no sooner are they on deck than they disgorge a thick liquid the colour of linseed oil.

When these birds rest on the sea and let themselves be tossed about by the waves, their appearance, dimensions, form, and colour of plumage strongly resemble our domestic pigeons, and hence the English seamen, struck with the similarity, have given them the name of Cape pigeons. Their size varies; the largest measuring more than 18 inches English from the beak to the tip of the tail, and rather more than a foot in circumference.

They are generally seen in great numbers only in stormy weather and in rather high latitudes. In the winter season—that is, during our June, July, and August—they follow the ships constantly between 23° S. lat. and 31° and 103° E. long.

Is it not a wonderful thing and worthy of admiration that the instinct with which this bold little navigator is endowed guides him safely through this vast space, where there is nothing to serve him as a landmark, enables him to rejoin his comrades if accidentally separated from them, and teaches him every year when the warm season returns to recognise and find the island or the solitary rock where he was born, and where in his turn he will bring up his young ones; while man, with his maps, his books, his nautical instruments, and in spite of all his long experience, has such difficulty in finding his way across the ocean? And yet we think that our intelligence raises us above the animals. This is what confounds and overwhelms the scholar when he seeks to fathom the great mysteries of creation.