The desolate creeks and pools among,
Were flooded over with eddying song.”
But the wild swan’s voice, even in its death-hour, has no such musical sweetness as the poet here sets forth. It is always harsh and dissonant, and when it breaks on the silence of the Arctic skies carries with it an almost painful impression.
THE HAUNT OF THE WILD SWAN.
The lakes of Iceland, and its streams, abound with these beautiful birds. They are very numerous on the Myvatn, or Great Lake, as well as the wild duck, the scoter, the common goosander, the red-breasted merganser, the scaup duck, and other anserines. The wild swan is shot or caught for its feathers, which are highly prized for ornamental purposes. It is sometimes found in large flocks, sometimes in single pairs; and besides the lakes and streams, it frequents the salt and brackish waters along the coast. It is chiefly at the pairing season, or at the approach of winter, that it assembles in multitudes; and as the winter advances it mounts high in air, and shapes its course in search of milder climates.
The female builds her nest of the withered leaves and stalks of reeds and rushes, in lonely and sequestered places. She usually lays six or seven thick-shelled eggs, which are hatched in about six weeks, when both parents assiduously guard and feed the cygnets. When full-grown, this fine bird measures nearly five feet in length, and above seven in breadth across its extended wings; it weighs about fifteen pounds. The entire plumage is of a pure white, and next to the skin lies a coat of thick fine down.
The wealth of the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas is apparently inexhaustible. In many parts cod are plentiful, and supply the Greenlanders with a valuable article of food. The capelin (Mullotus vitlosus), which in May and June frequents the Greenland waters, is eaten both fresh and dried; in the latter case forming a useful winter provision. The halibut is found of a large size; and ocean also contributes the Norway haddock, the salmon-trout, the lump-fish, and the bull-head. Nor are the crustacea unrepresented: long-tailed crabs being abundant, while the common mussel may be gathered almost everywhere at ebb-tide. The seas, however, grow poorer as we advance towards the Pole, and many important species of fish do not penetrate further north than the Arctic Circle.
Yet even where these are wanting, the ocean-waters teem with life; and a recent writer is fully justified in remarking that the vast multitudes of animated beings which people them form a remarkable contrast to the nakedness of their bleak and desolate shores. The colder surface-waters are, as he says, almost perpetually exposed to a cold atmosphere, and being frequently covered, even in summer, with floating ice, they are not favourable to the development of organic life; but this adverse influence is modified by the higher temperature which constantly prevails at a greater depth. Contrary to the rule in the Equatorial seas, we find in the Polar-ocean an increase of temperature from the surface downwards, in consequence of the warmer under-currents, flowing from the south northwards, and passing beneath the cold waters of the superficial Arctic current.
Hence the awful rigour of the Arctic winter, which strikes the earth with a death-blight, is not perceptible in the ocean-depths, where myriads of organisms find a secure retreat from the frost, and whence they emerge during the long summer’s day, either to haunt the shores or ascend the broad rivers of the Polar world. Between the parallels of 74° and 80°, Dr. Scoresby observed that the colour of the Greenland sea varies from the purest ultramarine to olive-green, and from crystalline transparency to striking opacity; and these appearances are not transitory, but permanent.[8] The aspect of this green semi-opaque water, which varies in its locality with the currents,—often forming isolated stripes, and sometimes spreading over two or three degrees of latitude,—is mainly due to small medusæ and nudibranchiate molluscs. Many thousands of square miles must literally run riot with life, since the coloured waters we speak of are calculated to form one-fourth of the sea between the 74th and 80th parallels.