[21] See the uniquely interesting letter of Mr. Severn to the Times of July 25th, 1872, as quoted by Romanes in his Animal Intelligence (International Scientific Series), pp. 260-2.
No, these are not my plans of reform for the Gardens, and though I entirely condemn certain abuses in the feeding of snakes, for the disappearance of which I am thankful, yet I cannot sympathise with a movement which, though it has incidentally brought this about, is founded upon a principle which I think is a false one, and calculated to produce unhappy results in regard to the animal kingdom at large. Except where it cannot be helped, I do not believe in altering or modifying the laws of nature, as enforced upon animals, by one jot or one tittle. Nature, nature, nature—that is the beginning and end of my ideas about a collection of living wild animals. It is simpler even than Hamlet's view—long since become obsolete—as to the office and function of the stage—"to hold as 'twere, the mirror up to nature"—for here, instead of the mirror, there should be nature herself. I would keep no animal in respect to which proper and adequate arrangements could not be made for it to live its own life, and, where practicable, to die its own death. And in regard to suffering inflicted by one animal on another, I would ask only this one question, and be governed by the answer: "such suffering in accordance with the laws of nature, and the conditions of things in the world at large, or is it not?" In proportion as the power of exercising its natural functions and aptitudes is taken from it, I pity an animal, and that is why I hate—with an intellectual quite as much as with a humanitarian hatred—the miserable cellular confinement inflicted upon wild creatures in a Gardens like ours. But I would never curtail the activities of one animal in order to preserve the life or diminish the sufferings of another, though I would rigidly guard against those sufferings being unduly, i.e. artificially, increased. In my snake-house, by the way, the question as to the propriety of presenting the inmates with domestic animals, could hardly arise, since it would be co-extensive with a rabbit-warren, and my gardens indeed, could I have my real wish, would be quite as large as Rutlandshire (Yorkshire for choice).
In the principle of interference, as between one animal and another, I have no belief. It does not appear to me to be sound or healthy in itself, and its effect must be to check the growth of knowledge. Not, of course, that I would wish to curtail the liberty of personal action in this respect, any more than I would wish mine to be curtailed. He who, in his private capacity, keeps a snake, and feeds it on fruit or meat, has my hearty approval; but if a naturalist, seeking instruction, were to keep it in this way, he would be largely wasting his time. That he should be obliged, or considered morally bound, to do so, is intolerable. I lift up my voice, and protest against such an idea. I go very far—very far indeed, I think—in my humanitarian views in regard to animals, but as a naturalist I must draw the line somewhere, and I draw it at officious intermeddling, at any attempt to stop the course of nature in the animal world; in which term, however, I do not include domestic animals.
COMPARING NOTES
W
WHO would have thought that this same gull—the herring-gull—which kills and devours the young kittiwakes and puffins, besides living, habitually, on fish, crustaceans, molluscs, and any garbage it can find, is also a fruit-eater? It is, though, since the black berries of the stunted heather, here, are certainly its fruit, and these it eats, not as an occasional variation of diet merely, but systematically and with avidity. Indeed, these berries, now that they are ripe, seem to me to be the bird's favourite food. I will now give the evidence on which this statement is founded, and which I think will be admitted to be conclusive. During the last week of my stay here, I began to notice, more and more, as I walked over the ness, droppings of some bird, which were of a dark blue, or purple, colour—in fact, a very rich and beautiful dye. These droppings were full of the small seeds of some plant, and upon comparing these with the seeds of the heather-berries, I found them to be the same. They were too large and too numerous to be due to any birds except either gulls or skuas, and as I constantly found them over the domains of the Arctic skua, I thought at first, "Ye are their parents and original." One morning, however, whilst sitting on the rocks, watching my dear seals, there was a down-dropping on my right trouser (workman's cords at 6s. 6d.), making a great splotch of as fine a colouring, almost, as I have seen, and ineradicable, which makes me think that a splendid dye might be produced from these berries—in fact, it was produced. Looking up, at once, I saw a young gull just passing over me, there being no other bird about—with the exception of puffins, which made the atmosphere. Therefore I felt sure it was the gull, nor do I think that Sherlock Holmes, with a similar clue and a sound knowledge of puffins, would have concluded otherwise. Then, too, side by side with these droppings, I had lately been finding pellets such as birds habitually disgorge, formed generally of a mass of the skins and seeds of these same berries, but sometimes containing a certain number of them intact, or but slightly bruised. Some of these had seemed to me too large for any bird smaller than a herring- or lesser blackbacked-gull, and latterly I had found them mixed with the broken shells of mussels, and other shell-fish such as gulls eat, but which skuas, I believe, do not, or, at any rate, not as a rule.
Some of these pellets, by the way, made very curious objects. I have taken a few as specimens, but I regret that others, still more curious, formed of broken pieces of crab-shell, coagulated together into a globular form, which two years ago were very plentiful on the island, I have not this year been able to find. I would here suggest that a collection of this kind would be both interesting and instructive. It would form a key to the diet of every bird represented in it, but its crowning merit—one quite beyond estimation—would be that it would not increase the rarity or cause the extinction of a single species. For these reasons—more particularly the last one—I do not at all anticipate that such a collection will ever be made.