"Tilting,
Point to point at one another's breasts,"
they are ready to seize hold of each other should the opportunity occur, and when the fight is fierce, and the birds in their eagerness press in upon each other, they then strike smartly with their wings. Sometimes, too, each tries to seize the other's beak, but this is not usual, as I imagine it to be with herring-gulls and cormorants. These single combats rarely become mêlées, though, if one bird is forced to retreat, those amongst whom he pushes will be ready to peck at him and at each other. Of course, a bird, if really in distress, can always fly down from the ledge into the sea, and this it is often forced to do if it has been standing near the edge when the combat broke out. The better-placed bird seems then to recognise its advantage, and presses boldly forward upon the other. There is a short retreat, a recognition of the danger and vigorous rally, another forced step backwards, an ineffectual whirring of wings on the extreme brink, and, turning in the moment of falling, the discomfited one renounces all further effort and plunges into the abyss. And, no doubt, the little lice who crawl about upon the ledge and see such mighty doings, would, were they poets, write long epics telling of the wars and falls of angels. But only combats on the brink have such dramatic terminations, and farther inland a fight must be of an exceptionally violent kind to make the birds not think of preening themselves, and thus bring it to an end.
Birds that are incubating will fight as well as the others, and no respect seems to be paid to them on this account. Often one thus occupied may be seen thrusting up at a standing bird, who, in turn, thrusts down at it, or two recumbent ones will spar vigorously at each other. One wonders that under these circumstances the eggs are not sometimes broken, as may possibly be the case; but with regard to this, I will here quote the following note which I made on the management of the egg during incubation:—
"It appears to me that the guillemot sits with the egg not only between its legs, but resting on the two webbed feet, and pressed slightly by them against the breast. At any rate, I have just distinctly seen the bird rise up, take the egg carefully in this way between its two feet, sliding them underneath it, and then sink gently down upon it again. I believe that the egg was so placed when the bird rose, and that it rose for the purpose of improving its position. It seems likely that if the egg rests upon the bird's feet instead of on the bare rock, it must be less liable to fracture, and could be pressed slightly up by the bird amongst its feathers, so that the two opposed pressures could be combined to advantage, or either of them relaxed when it was to the bird's convenience.
"Have just seen another sitting bird rise, and, in settling down again, she certainly seemed to place her feet under the egg, assisting at the same time to place it with the bill. When she rose the partner bird came forward to her, and, lowering his head, looked at the egg with the tenderest interest, then cosseted her as she stood, and again when she had resettled.
"Another bird has half risen, showing the egg quite plainly. It is certainly resting on the feet."
Guillemots, as is well known, lay their single egg on the bare rock, but sometimes they will pick up and play with a feather, and I have seen one carry some fibres of grass or root, which had perhaps fallen or been blown from a kittiwake's nest, to its partner, and lay them down as if showing her. In such acts we may perhaps see a lingering trace of a lost nest-building instinct. They walk, as a rule, with the whole shank, as well as the actual foot resting on the surface of the rock, but sometimes they will draw themselves up so that they stand upon the foot, or rather the toes, alone, just in the way in which a penguin does, and in this attitude they can both walk and run. Anatomically speaking, the shank is, I believe, a part of the foot, corresponding to our own heel, and functionally it is so, too, in the guillemot, as well as in the razorbill and puffin. It is interesting, therefore, to see the occasional assumption of an attitude which in the penguins has become habitual. Their ordinary walking attitude is with the head held erect, but they often sink it to or below the breast, at the same time craning the neck right forward, which gives them a grotesque and uncanny appearance, like one of the evil creatures in Retche's outlines of Faust. Again, one of them will sometimes throw the head and neck slightly forward, and at the same time jerking the wings sharply behind the back, will, after remaining with them thus "set" for a moment, run briskly forward, giving them a vigorous shaking. But in spite of wings and beaks, and a few other dissimilarities, it is of men that one has to think when watching these erect, white-waistcoated, funny little bodies. Indeed, they are much like us, for they fight, love, breed, eat, and stand upright, which is most of what we do, though we make so much more pother about it. But it has a funny effect to see it all going on—like a "picture in little"—on a ledge of the bare rock.
If guillemots are watched closely, one may be noticed now and again to scrape with its beak for some time at the ledge where it is lying, opening and closing its mandibles upon it. Every now and then—as I make it out—it encloses a small object between them, which must, I think, be a piece of the rock, and with a quick jerk of the head sideways and upwards, swallows this. This, then, is how guillemots procure the small stones which are, no doubt, necessary to them for digestive purposes. The great mass of the rock forming the island is sedimentary, and in a more or less crumbling state, much of it, indeed, quite rotten and dangerous to trust to.