Jethou; or, Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles

by Ernest R. Suffling

I found sea fowl of all kinds to be very tenacious of life, especially the common large gull. One case of this occurs to me as I write. I fired at a gull and brought it down on the rocks; but it was only winged, and picking it up, I wrung its neck, and flung it down, thinking it was dead, but in a couple of minutes it gave such signs of returning animation that I put the butt of my gun on its neck, which was upon the hard pathway, and pressed with all my might. But the thing would not die, so I got cross with both it and myself, with the bird for not dying and myself for causing it so much unnecessary pain. Thinking to kill the bird instantaneously, I took out my penknife, and ran it (or supposed I was in the right spot) quite through the brain, so that the blade projected half an inch on the other side. Just then some more gulls came within shot, and I threw the bird on the ground, and made an onslaught on the others. I dropped one, and scrambled down the cliffs for it, and at length having secured it, climbed laboriously up the steep rocks again. Judge of my surprise when, purring and blowing from my exertions, just as my head rose above the ledge of the pathway where I had left the transfixed bird, I saw it rise to its feet, give a loud Quah! and before I could prevent it, away it went, half flying and flopping, half running and scrambling, with my knife still in its skull, and was quickly out of sight.

The different kinds of gulls visiting Jethou are very numerous, and some of them very pretty. One of the finest being the swift sea swallow, with its lovely grey feathers, forked tail, and long graceful wings. Another is the sea-pie, a very shapely black and white gull, which makes a noise quite peculiar to itself when hunting among the rocky inlets for its food, thus betraying its presence.

Whenever I killed a bird of which I did not know the name, I would fasten it up to some sticks in as life-like manner as possible, and make a water colour drawing of it, taking great care to shew every detail, so that in time I had over thirty drawings, each of which took me half a day to execute. These are now in the writer's possession, and form a pretty memento of his Crusoe days.

I took to making these drawings, because my attempts at taxidermy were grotesquely ludicrous; to put it plainly, they were unmitigated failures. These remarks apply to my very early attempts, for I would not have the readers think me incapable after long practice of turning out a shapely bird or a fish fair to behold. I must own that my early struggles at skinning and stuffing were certainly funny, as except from the colour of the feathers one could not tell a tern from a Kentish crow after I had mangled it about for a few hours. They were wonders of natural history these specimens of mine, not altogether from my unskilfulness in handling them, but from the fact that I lacked materials to work with. During the long nights of autumn, I, to a certain extent, perfected myself in setting up specimens, but found they would not keep, as I had no arsenic to work with, using in its place a disinfectant which was not a preservative, consequently my specimens began to get mouldy and to smell high, and this prevailing mustiness brought them to an untimely end, or at least the greater portion of them. Thinking a day in the sunshine and fresh air might improve them, I took them all out of the house, and carried them a few at a time down to the small lawn, as it was nice and open, placing them promiscuously down on the green sward; and a funny lot they looked. Fish of all kinds, condition, and colors, and birds in all positions, natural and unnatural; the Chamber of Horrors at Madame Tussaud's Waxworks was a pleasant sight in comparison to my collection, at least that was the impression I gleaned from "Begum" and "Flap," both of whom seemed perfectly mad at seeing such an array of scarecrows on their favourite playground.

It was a lovely mild day, and I spent best part of it at La Fauconnaire, rabbit and gull shooting, bringing home for my day's sport as many as I could fairly carry. Leaving them in the storehouse I fed "Eddy," and proceeded to perform the same office for the goat and pigs, but they were nowhere to be seen. After a fair amount of searching I gave them up for the time, and proceeded to take in my stuffed wonders, but alas, the pigs and goat had been before me, for in the morning I had not properly latched the lawn gate, and they had got in and created awful havoc. Many of my specimens the pigs had actually eaten, others they had disjointed and mangled in such a manner as to be perfectly useless, while what they had not fallen foul of my Quixotic goat had, by spiking them with her single horn, till she had had the satisfaction of knocking the stuffing out of them. What was left of my most magnificent collection now looked as if a charge of dynamite had played havoc with it. Thus my friends and the world in general were prevented from gazing upon one of the most curious collections of birds, beasts, and fishes that have ever been stuffed (with whatever was handiest) since the art of taxidermy was introduced.

The stormy petrel during rough weather used to be a frequent visitor to the Perchée Channel, skimming just above the dark waves so close to the surface, as to appear to walk up a wave, rise above its crest, and then walk down into the valley of water on the opposite side. I shot several specimens, two of which I stuffed, but they were both eaten by those horrid pigs.

Oyster-pickers were quite plentiful, and I quickly discovered that they might also aptly be termed limpet-pickers, for they seemed to take these shell fish as their staple food. The modus operandi of feeding is to pounce down upon a rock which the receding tide has left bare, and with a single sharp blow with its beak, detach a limpet, and turning it mouth upward, pick out the fish at its leisure. If it failed to detach the limpet at once it would go on to another, knowing that when once disturbed the limpet requires great force to detach it. Oysters lie in deep waters where they are inaccessible to these birds, so whence is their name derived?

Then there were various kinds of divers, the principal of which class was the cormorant, greatly resembling a half-starved black swan, that is, it had a longer and thinner and less graceful body; but in many points it was superior to the swan, especially in its flying and diving powers, and in its quickness of action. Its head appears never to be still, but constantly bobbing and turning from side to side, as if saying, "Did you ever catch a cormorant asleep?" Knowing that the Chinese train these birds to catch fish, I endeavoured to induce one to come to me, and serve his apprenticeship as a fisherman, but to no purpose. It was just as well I could not catch one, for I find they must be trained from their young days to the art, as they are intractable in their grown-up wildness, and I was thus spared a great deal of unnecessary trouble and irritability of temper.

Although I had a store of simple medicines with me, I scarcely ever required to open the case. Once and once only, I felt poorly for a whole week, but that I fancy was attributable to fruit and the heat. Although not well, I thoroughly enjoyed a whole lazy week, most of which I spent by the side of my fish pool, studying the habits of my finny comrades in captivity. Some of the rock fish became so tame that they would rise to the surface when I dropped crumbs of biscuits on the water, and I verily believe if I had had the patience, I might have taught them to feed from my fingers. Sometimes for a treat I would bring "Flap" and place him near the water, and he seemed to enjoy looking at the denizens; but they were all too big for him to gobble, or he would have made an Aldermanic dinner of some of them.

I occasionally saw a snake, but always of the harmless, blindworm variety. Of this species I caught two and admired them, but I did not make pets of them as I did of nearly everything else I could lay hands on.