The Bird Watcher in the Shetlands, with Some Notes on Seals—and Digressions

by Edmund Selous

ON coming to the cliffs, to-day, I saw, lying on the rock in the little pool where I have watched the sea-leopard, as I call it, and that other which I have hitherto called the bottle-nosed seal, or Bottle-nose—because that seems to be a local name for it, and its nose, I thought, bore it out—a mighty creature, the same, I at once saw, as had lain there on the seaweed, that first morning. It presented, as before, an extraordinary appearance, seeming to be parti-coloured, light above and dark below. The tide was coming in, and, wishing to see it go off with the wash, I descended rapidly—indeed, a little too rapidly. My knee, which is sometimes, in a rheumatic sort of way, painful to bend, has lately become very much so in descending the cliffs. To ease it, therefore, I sat, and began to slide down the steep, green incline, and, in doing this, my foot missed, or slid over, the little depression that I had destined for it, which produced such an acceleration of speed that, with several great bumps and a change of position from the perpendicular to the horizontal, I had nearly still further abridged the distance, and eased, perhaps, more than my knee. However, I managed to stop myself some way before a sheer edge, which, though not much in the way of height, would, no doubt, have been as good as Mercutio's wound for me—"'tis enough, 'twill serve." Continuing with more caution, I got down, and was on the promontory behind the "chevaux de frise" I had lately erected, before the tide was yet much over the rock. It would have floated off an ordinary seal perhaps, but this vast creature lay there, swayed to and fro by the waves, like a buoy, but still firmly anchored—"built," as one might say, "upon the rock."

At once, upon getting down, I saw that this was my bottle-nosed animal, and, also, that I had been entirely mistaken about his skin. On the lower side, where it was wet, this looked the same that it had ever done, as naked as that of the hippopotamus; but the other side, which was quite dry, showed a fur which seemed to be rather thick than otherwise, and of a brownish colour, but so light that it looked almost silvery. The head, whenever the creature looked round—for his burly back was turned to me—with the nose and muzzle, seemed much more elongated than in the common seal; it much resembled, in fact, that of the polar-bear—quite remarkably so, I thought, when turned profile. Now, however, I could see nothing very peculiar about the nose, nothing to justify the allusion to it contained in the local name—which, however, I have only heard once. The bottle-nosed seal—for there is such a species—of course he is not, though, at first, in my want of all learned equipment, I thought he might be. What seal he is, scientifically, I know not, but he is certainly not the common one, for besides the pronounced difference in the shape of the head and face, colour and appearance of the fur, etc., he is much larger, the great barrel of the body being, perhaps, twice the size. The figure, too, though less human, is more buoy-like, increasing more rapidly, though very smoothly, from behind the head and below the chin, and tapering more abruptly towards the tail. The fur may have some markings upon it, but, if so, they are so faint as to give it the appearance of being of one uniform colour—a light, browny silver. When wet it becomes bluish, and how smooth it then lies may be judged by my having mistaken it, up to the present, for the naked skin. True, I know of no seal that has a naked skin; but when in the open, with my notebook, I like to forget what I know, and make my own discoveries.

I watched this great seal for some ten minutes or so, as he lay in indolent repose, throwing his head, every now and again, over his great, swelling shoulder, till at length the elevatory power of the sea became too much, even for his proportions, and after rolling lazily about for a little, half moved by, half helping the waves to move him, he at length heaved himself around, and with a vasty, whale-resembling motion, plunged and disappeared beneath the deeply submerged edge of the rock-mass on which he had been lying.

In the adjoining little twin cove, or pool, the usual complement of seals lay on the great slanting slab with two or three upon the rocks around. Another was in the water, and I was much interested in watching the persistent but ineffectual efforts which this one made to get out upon a certain large rock, on which he had evidently set his fancy in a very unremovable manner. To look at this rock, no one would ever have thought of it as one on which a seal, or anything else, could lie. Its top was a sharp ridge, whilst its sides presented, every way, so steep a slope as to be quite unscalable. But there was a little projecting point, or chin—as sharp as Alice's Duchesse's chin—in which the central ridge ended, and behind which the mass was cleft, for some way, longitudinally, making a narrow ledge just large enough for one seal to lie on. This little spike of rock was a foot or so above the water, even when the sea swelled up towards it—it being not yet high tide—and as it projected out like a bowsprit, there was nothing underneath it for the seal's hind feet to get a hold on, so that everything had to be done by a first leap up from the sea. This leap the seal made over and over again, shooting up sometimes almost like a salmon—his hind feet alone remaining in the water—and grasping the hard little triangle between his fore-arms, or flippers, so as to assist the impetus by hoisting himself upon it. But he always had to fall back again, after clinging convulsively, and pressing tightly with his chin against the rough surface of the rock, which, just at this one little point only, had shell-fish upon it. He tried to time his efforts with the swell of the wave, but in this he was not always successful; that is to say, he did not always hit the exact moment. Having tried and failed several times, he would fall into a sort of rage or pet. He bit at the rock, cuffed the water, as he fell back into it, with one of his flippers, and then, as though this were an insufficient outlet for his irritated feelings, flung about with tremendous brio, revolving, contorting, curving his body to a bent bow, and then violently unbending it, diving and flashing up again, almost together, making a foam of the water, lashing it in all directions. Then, for a little, he would disappear, but always he would return and renew his efforts, always to be again frustrated in them. This lasted for half an hour, or longer. Once, after the first ten minutes or so, I thought he had given it up, for he swam to the great central slab, and began to make his way up towards the other seals. But when he had gone but a little way, he turned, and, flapping down again, swam back to that coveted rock, where it all commenced over again. This extremely human touch interested me greatly—as who would it not have done? How strong the desire must have been, and what an individual liking this seal must have taken for that particular rock, to make him leave a comfortable place amongst his companions, and go back to try, again, where he had so often failed before! How strong, too, must have been his memory of what he liked so much!—for it does not seem likely that any seal would so have tried to achieve a special practicable spot on an otherwise impracticable rock, unless he had lain there before. If so, I can only account for his inability to get on to it on this occasion by supposing that it was not a sufficiently high tide, though, at the last, the waves, when they washed up to their highest point, were quite on a level with the point of rock. It certainly seems curious that he could not manage it, even then; but such great longing and striving must, I think, have been for a pleasure known and tasted.

I have ascribed this seal's biting of the rock to irritation, as those other actions which so well became him, and which I have very inadequately described, certainly were due to this. But another explanation is possible here. I have several times seen seals, when on the rocks, take the long brown seaweed, growing upon them, into their mouths, in such a manner as to make me think it might have been to pull themselves along by, as one would use a rope fixed at one end. However, I could never be sure whether it was for this or any other practical purpose, or only sportively, that it was laid hold of. But now, if seaweed is ever really used by seals in this way—to pull themselves along the rocks, that is to say, or to hoist themselves up on to them, then a strong growth of it here would have been most useful to this much-striving one, so that it may have been with an idea of this sort, though not amounting to more than a regret—an "Oh if there were only!" sort of feeling—that he bit upon the rock. If so, he showed another human touch, for the nakedness of this particular rock, and especially of this point of it that he had been so often nearly up on, must have been well known to him. Perhaps, however, he thought to get some purchase on it with his teeth; and there remains my first theory of petulance. I ought to add that in all these little outbursts of pique and disappointment which I have recorded, something of a frolicsome nature also entered; there was nothing morose or gloomy in them. At the worst, the creature was a disappointed seal only, and "in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, whirlwind of his passion" there was a touch of humour, a something of make-believe, a dash of most lovable playfulness.

Lovable and delightful creatures these seals are, indeed, for which reason the great idea is to shoot them, and they have been almost driven from our seas. The hunting instinct is an extremely strong, and a quite natural one, for it is lineally descended from our savage ancestors, who hunted and were demi-devils, of necessity. Therefore, perhaps, it may be said to be a healthy instinct, and therefore it seems right. Nevertheless, reason and humanity alike rebel against it, and there is no valid answer that I can see against their protest, except, indeed, that one I have already mentioned, viz. that it is in strict accordance with the scheme of the universe. I confess I hardly know how to get over this, except by admitting what I call an appeal against God; but putting this difficulty aside, then once let a man think (I mean, of course, a man who can think), and, if he be a sportsman, "farewell the quiet mind, farewell content." Though "Othello's occupation" be not yet "gone," yet from that moment he can no longer "go to 't" with that entire lightheartedness, that "in unreproved pleasures free" feeling, which hitherto he has done. A little leaven of uneasiness will mingle with what was once an unalloyed delight, it will grow and grow, until, at last, with some men, first the pleasure in the thing, and then the thing itself will cease. With others the instinct will remain too strong, but, even with them, something will have been done, since no thought, if only we could trace it out, is ever thought in vain. It occurred, no doubt, one day, to some Roman sitting in the colosseum, that what he was witnessing was not quite a right state of things. He continued all his life to witness it; but if the whole progress of that age could be laid before us, that thought would have its place.

I have said that both reason and humanity rebel at the unnecessary killing of wild animals. For the humanity, that is self-evident—to torture is not humane: and for the reason, when one comes to think of it a little, how absolutely silly it is! It is destruction, the child's pleasure, the unmaking of what one could not possibly make, smashing, breaking up, dashing to pieces, vandalism applied to the living works of nature, leading to their eternal perishing, with a hideous void in their stead. Something was alive, interesting, beautiful: you make it dead, uninteresting, ugly—at least, by comparison. And yet the hunting instinct—the heritage from countless generations in whom it was a virtue—is so strong that those—and there are many—in whom it is not developed, should not judge those in whom it is, too harshly—indeed, not at all; for how should one judge what one cannot feel? One can only hope that that dreadful way of being interested in animals which leads to their killing, and, ultimately, to their extinction, will one day cease in man. Nor is the hope vain. It will cease. I know it will, and should be happy in the knowledge did I not also know that the animals will have ceased first. As it is, my only comfort is that I will have ceased before either.

It is beautiful to see seals thus active under natural conditions. In spite of what they are and what one might expect them to do, one has to be surprised. Everything is increased beyond expectation; they make a greater splashing, a greater noise in the water, produce more foam, give more elastic leaps, make swifter progress, than your imagination had supposed them capable of. They are creatures of the waves, you know, modified, adapted, made like unto fishes, and strong, as all animals are. Therefore, though you may have hitherto seen them only in their languid moods—and till now, in fact, there has been nothing very violent—yet you might have imagined, and you have tried to imagine, what they could be when moved, roused, excited, "perplexed in the extreme." Yes, you have tried—but ineffectually. Nature, you find, as ever, emporter's it sur vous. Sur moi, I should rather say, perhaps, since there are certain lofty spirits to whom everything—the grandest sights of nature—come as disappointments, so much superior to them have been their own before-imaginings of what they were going to be. Well, I am not one of these. With Miranda, I can say, "my desires are, then, most humble." The sea, the Alps, the Himalayas, the Vale of Cashmere, the Falls of the Zambesi, the Zambesi itself, have all been good enough for me, as now these seals are, even. It is a humiliating reflection, but it is better to admit inferiority than affect the other thing—so I admit it freely.

Returning, now, to these seals, I have spoken of their great activity in the water, and yet I find myself wondering whether, on the principles of evolution, it ought not to be greater still. This craves a short disquisition. Give heed, then, ye puffins, ringing me round like a vast and attentive audience. "Lend me your ears." You shall know my thoughts on the matter; a lecture for nothing—for with you I am not shy—so "perpend." Is it not a somewhat curious thing, mark me, that, throughout nature, we find beings that are but partially adapted to some particular mode of existence, excelling others in it that, both by habit and structure, one might think would be altogether their superiors? Thus the seal, otter, penguin, cormorant, etc., creatures which, in comparison with fish, may be said to be but clumsily fitted for the water, are yet able to make the latter their prey. The reason, however—at least, I suppose so—lies in their greater size, since even the fleetest fishes cannot be expected to go eight or nine times their own length in the same time that seals or penguins take to double theirs, only. In the case of the otter, however, there is often no such great discrepancy in size, and here we must suppose the victory of the mammal to be due to its superior intelligence, or its power—as, perhaps, a result of it—of taking the fish by surprise.[17] But it is not only in such cases as the above, that this curious law of the superiority of the apparently less fit may be made out, or imagined. It obtains also amongst animals differing but slightly from one another, and whose habits are identical, or nearly so. Look, for instance, at the seals themselves. The common one of our northern coasts has much more lost the typical mammalian form, and become much more like a fish, to look at, than several species that are moving in the same direction, amongst them the fur-bearing seal that is skinned alive to keep ladies here warm, whilst the Japanese in Manchuria wear sheep-skins. In these, all four limbs are still used for their original purpose of terrestrial locomotion, so that instead of jerking themselves painfully forward on their bellies, as the common seal and others have to do, they go upright, and even fairly fast, though with a peculiar swing and shuffle. Inasmuch, therefore, as they have become far less unfitted for the land, one might imagine that they would be less fitted for the water, and that the common seal, from having been more modified in relation to an aquatic life, would here have considerably the advantage of them. But the reverse is the case, at least if one can at all judge from a comparison of the swimming powers of the two kinds as exhibited in captivity. Never have I seen anything more wonderful than the way in which these otariidæ tore through the water, when pieces of fish were thrown to them, in that wretched concrete basin which disgraces both our humanity and common sense at that beast-Bastille of our Gardens. The speed seemed really—I do not say it did—to approach to that of a galloping horse, and, in comparison to it, that of the seal, which could get nothing, and had to be fed afterwards, might almost be called slow. Yet whilst the latter swam with the motions of a fish, and looked like one, the other had more the appearance of a quadruped gone mad in the water. The great fore-flippers were largely used—indeed, they seemed to do the principal part of the work—whilst the much smaller ones of the common seal were pressed, as here, against the sides, and progress was almost wholly due to the fish-like motions of the posterior part of the body, and the hind feet or paddles, making, together, the tail. This was many years ago, when the common seals at the Gardens used to occupy the larger, or, to speak more properly, the less minute of the two concrete basins provided for oceanic animals. It was not till after the arrival of their more showy relatives that these poor creatures—the homely dwellers about our own coasts—were relegated to one that, though an ordinary man might find it rather large for such a purpose, would be of a convenient size enough for Chang, or some other giant, to wash his hands in. In neither, naturally, could a pinnipede do himself justice, and perhaps these ones felt it more than the other kind. Now, however, I have seen them far more active in their native ocean, yet they fell short of those others, in captivity, to a degree which makes me think they would never be able to compete with them.

[17] It is stated, however, in The Watcher of the Trails, that an otter can actually outswim a large and powerful trout.