Scarcely a bird is to be seen in our vicinity at present, nesting operations calling them elsewhere. A few foraging gannets are seen daily passing and repassing, catering for their sitting mates on the Bass Rock. The terns and gulls will probably have their wants supplied from the shores in the neighbourhood of their nurseries. The nest of the tern is of the simplest description—a slight depression on a gravelly beach or grassy mound, or even the bare surface of a rock is considered sufficient for their purpose, nest-building, in their estimation, being evidently considered superfluous. It is surprising that the eggs remain in some of the positions in which they are deposited. I have frequently set them rolling along the rock surface by the action of my breath. On their exit from the egg the young are immediately led by the parents to a shingly beach, or other place of concealment, where it is extremely difficult to detect them from their surroundings. Here they are fed with sand-eels and other small fry till such time as they are able to wing their way to the fishing grounds themselves, though even then they are frequently the recipients of the parents’ generosity, their hunting powers being as yet inadequate to supply their needs.
The work in connection with the alterations here progresses rapidly, and by the end of next month it is expected but little will be left undone. To all external appearance the work is already finished, but the building of the huge lens and revolving machinery, along with the internal fittings, have yet to be completed.
July 1902
JULY 1902.
Myriads of medusae or jellyfishes are constantly streaming past our door, apparently without any powers of volition of their own, but helplessly at the mercy of the tides. Of various sizes, shapes, and colours, they impart quite a gay appearance to the seascape, somewhat resembling a grassy sward carpeted with beautiful flowers—huge sunflowers predominating—the whole moving silently just beneath the green, glassy surface. Great tremulous discs, twelve inches in diameter, trail their streaming tentacles several feet behind them; others, again, no larger than a pea possess the power of radiating, from the ciliary bands with which they are furnished, all the colours of the rainbow. Stranded high and dry, what a contrast to their former glory, now an inert mass of slobbery mucilage. At one period of their existence they appear quite plant-like in their habits. Attached to the rocks, they closely resemble miniature fir trees, each plant ultimately producing whole colonies of juvenile medusae. Fish have been fairly plentiful this month, but owing to the work at present in progress we have but little time to avail ourselves of the opportunity. On the 6th a red chequered pigeon, stamped “J. B. Sollaway, Beeston,” on wing, was released after a night’s detention. On Saturday the 12th, other two pigeons were captured at 8.30 p.m. One a red chequered homer, with aluminium ring on leg marked N.U. 01, H.A. 587, also rubber racing ring on other leg, marked 132 outside and 263 Q inside; the other a blue chequered homer, with leg ring marked N.U. 99, C. 8953, and racing ring marked Q 513 inside and 174 outside; wing feathers stamped “Walter H. Walker, Bank House, Horsforth, Leeds.” Both pigeons, after being watered and fed, were released at 11 a.m. on 13th, each steering a sou’-westerly course from the Rock.
On the evening of Sunday the 27th our new light was exhibited for the first time, the coveted honour of “first light” falling in the ordinary routine of duty to the writer. The new apparatus—a bewildering arrangement of massive glass prisms—is in striking contrast with its predecessor, the old reflector system of lighting, a system, by the way, now almost obsolete. The following description of the new light is copied from an engraved plate affixed to the new apparatus:—“Combined hyper-radiant and 1st order apparatus, with equiangular dioptric elements and catadioptric back prisms; power of red flash and white flash equalised. White and red flashing light, showing white and red flashes alternately every half minute, the period being one minute. Designed by Messrs Stevenson, Civil Engineers, Edinburgh. Contractors, Messrs Steven & Struthers, Glasgow, and Messrs Société Des Etablissements Henry Lepaute, Paris. David A. Stevenson, Engineer to the Board. Apparatus makes one revolution in one minute—1901.”
Occasionally during the progress of the alterations our population, unlike that of Arbroath, increased to a somewhat alarming extent, mounting at times to a grand total of seven all told. Considering that the majority of the population were unaccustomed to life under such “cribbed, cabined, and confined” conditions, it was surprising to witness the cheerfulness and good humour with which they accepted their sixteen weeks’ solitary confinement. At times the resources of our commissariat were taxed to their utmost. Beef, which is stored in our safe on the balcony, and retains its freshness for a fortnight in cold weather, demands a liberal salting at present, otherwise it does become a trifle “gamey,” but, on the whole, it is preferable to its relative in tins—a relationship, by the way, extremely difficult to prove, and hopelessly so should the label be missing. What though at times a transverse section of our loaves disclosed a landscape in cerulean tints undreamt of by the most vivid impressionist, the transference to “hard tack” was accepted with better grace than when a similar move had to be made from the salted meat to the “embalmed commodity.”
August 1902
AUGUST 1902.
The coating of acorn barnacles with which the higher surfaces of the Rock and also the base of the tower are whitened in summer is fast disappearing before the ravages of that ruthless destroyer the white whelk. Seen from the balcony, this encrustation resembles a lime-hauled wall, and presents a suitable background for the observation of moving objects under water. These barnacles are frequently mistaken by the casual observer for young limpets, whereas, unlike the limpet, which moves freely from place to place in quest of vegetable diet, the moment the young barnacle settles to erect his limey habitation, he possesses a fixity of tenure which terminates only with his existence. An outer wall, with razor edges, surrounds a hollow cone, his private apartment, and probably guards his four-leaved door from injury. This opening, through which all business with the outer world is transacted, is scarcely discernible when above water; but immediately the tide covers it, the hollow cone is seen to fall apart in four vertical sections, a bunch of fingers is thrust forth and rhythmic clutches made at invisible food. How little they resemble their relatives who swing by their pendulous stalks from ships’ bottoms or submerged wreckage, and see the world without any exertion of their own. The ancients firmly believed that from these animals certain birds were produced, probably from the resemblance of their shelly casement to the beak of a bird, and the bird known as the barnacle-goose owes his name to this belief. Even to-day there are persons who solemnly declare that the Northern Diver is so evolved.