O tempora! O mores! then the Elder was glad!—all his compunction drowned in the pleasure of connecting himself, even through the gates of death, with a youthful fascination.
It now occurred to me—and the conjecture proved correct—that these plats of shrubbery must serve as hiding-places for the duck. The Canadians, whose behavior was all along mysterious, had forborne to give us any hint. I was vexed at them then, but had no reason perhaps. This was their larder, which they could not wish to impoverish. Besides, fishermen and visitors on this coast are so sweeping and ruthless in their destructions, that one might reasonably desire to protect the birds against them. It is not so much by shooting the birds as by destroying their eggs that the mischief is done. A party will take possession of an island at night, carry off every egg that can be found, and throw it into the sea,—then, returning next forenoon, take the fresh eggs laid in the mean time for food. On the whole, I feel less like blaming our guides than like returning to make apologies. Yet to us also the ducks are necessary, for we have no fresh meat but such as our guns obtain; and to one seeking health, this was a matter of some serious moment.
The elder Canadian has also shot a duck, and, besides, a red-breasted diver, a noble bird; and with these prizes we set sail for another island, frequented by "Tinkers." The day meanwhile had cleared, the sun shone richly, and we began to see somewhat of the glory, as well as grimness, of Labrador. Away to the southwest, eminent over the lesser islands, rose Mecatina, all tossed into wild billows of blue, with purple in the hollows; while to the north the hills of the mainland lifted themselves up to hold fellowship with it in height and hue.
"Tinker," we found, meant Murre and Razor-Billed Auk. These are finely shaped birds, black above and white below, twice the size of a pigeon, and closely resembling each other, save in the bill. That of the murre is not noticeable; but the other's is singularly shaped, and marked with delicate, finely cut grooves, the central one being nicely touched with a line of white, while a similar thread of white runs from the bill to the eye.
I notice it thus, because it suggested to me a reflection. Looking at this bill, I asked myself how Darwin's theory comported with it. "The struggle for life,"—are all the forms of organic existence due to that? But how did the struggle for life cut these grooves, paint these ornamental lines? "Beauty is its own excuse for being"; and that Nature respects beauty is, to my mind, nothing less than fatal to the Darwinian hypothesis. That his law exists as a modifying influence I freely admit, and accredit him with an important addition to our thought upon such matters; that it is the sole formative influence I shall be better prepared to believe when I see that beauty is not regarded in Nature, but is a mere casual attendant upon use. The artist Greenough did, indeed, strenuously maintain this last. But the sloth and the bird-of-paradise are equally useful to themselves; if beauty were but an aspect of use, these should be equally comely in our eyes. No; "the struggle for life" has not grooved the bill of the auk, and painted the tail of the peacock, any more, so far as I can see, than it has given to evening and morning their scarlet and gold. And so my auk said to me, "Any attempt to string existence upon a single thread has failed and will fail, unless it be that thread which man can never formulate, never stretch out into a straight line,—the Eternal Unity, God."
These birds have a catlike instinct of fidelity to old haunts, and, having once chosen a habitat, adhere to it, despite many a year of persecution. They prefer inaccessible cliffs, on every projecting shelf and jut of which the eggs are laid, but also inhabit islands where are many clefts, fissures, and holes made by tumbled masses of rock. This at which we had arrived was not much more than a hundred feet high; and the cliffs in which it terminated on one side were scarcely to be named inaccessible. The number of birds upon it seemed to our novice-eyes immense, but at a later period would have seemed trivial. They are always flying about the shores, and have also a laudable curiosity, which leads them to investigate when any strange form appears or any strange noise is made in the neighborhood of their homes.
On landing, the Judge made off to the left, and was soon heard from,—as it afterwards appeared, with immediate success. The Canadian and myself took our station upon a broad platform some forty feet above the sea, with steep rocks behind, and were soon busily engaged in—missing! It was nothing but bang! pish! bang! pshaw! for half an hour. It could not be said that the birds were indifferent to the prospect of being immortalized as specimens. On the contrary, they showed an appreciation of the honor, and an open zeal to obtain it, which were worthy of the highest commendation. But they very properly declined to be bungled even into a taxidermist paradise. Nothing could be more admirably orthodox than their resolution to be immortalized secundum artem; and considering how many are ready to sneak, without the smallest regard to desert or self-respect, into any attainable post mortem felicity, this honorable cut direct to all mere aukward and heterodox inductions into happiness begot in me toward these creatures sentiments of the highest consideration. All the while they kept flying past, often near, but always going through the air like a dart, as if they would say, "Take, but earn!"
At first the effect of this superior behavior on their part was to produce humiliation, and, along with this, a weak, nervous excitement, and an attempt to reach my ends by mere determination. I accordingly got to pulling upon them with a vehemence which probably disturbed my aim, as if I had been drawing at a halibut rather than at a trigger. But the gates which are appointed to fly open before a high behavior are but as the barred gates of Destiny toward mere low strength. The gods and birds were immitigable. I must do better, not merely do more.
Meditating on these matters, and moved by the lofty demeanor of my challengers, I at length proceeded seriously to self-amendment. Exchanging my large duck-shot for some of smaller size, I no longer blurted at my auk when he was just abreast; but, deferentially allowing him to pass, and then, aiming after him, as if I accepted his lead, I gently suggested to him my desires; whereupon, in the most becoming manner, he descended and plumped into the sea, without so much as flapping a wing, or being guilty of the faintest impropriety. It was beautiful. Continuing this behavior, I found my attentions uniformly reciprocated. Once, indeed, when I fell into a shade of brusquerie, the individual whom I had complimented stood upon his self-respect, and, as I thought, flew away; but Bradford, who had courteously come up just as I began to succeed, was so kind as to see him fall punctiliously into the water, when he had gone far enough to suggest a reprimand of my slight unseemliness. And now, when the Artist was Christian enough to exclaim, "Why, Blank, I did not know you were such a shot!" I thought it high time to rest on my (back and) laurels. Reposing, therefore, upon the round leathern pillow which was my inseparable and invaluable companion, I enjoyed my spine-ache cum dignitate till the others were ready to return.
On the way to the ship an eider sprang up from a steep ridge we were passing, and fell in a second, Bradford exclaiming, "That's the best shot to-day!" The yawl soon followed us. Ph—— had taken two eiders on the wing; we had six in all. Others brought auks and murres; but the Judge still led the van. Next morning the Colonel and Judge brought in four eiders,—the last for the entire voyage. Others were afterward seen, but only seen. The Parson, some weeks later, closed our intrusive intimacy with them by an attempt to capture some of their young in the water. It couldn't be done. They were only a few days old, but, rich in pre-natal instruction, they always waited until the hand was just upon them,—not to waste any part of their stay beneath water,—and then—under in a moment. One saw that pirate saddle-back must needs bestir himself in order to catch them, and one could appreciate the sagacity of the mother duck in hurrying her brood, almost as soon as they are born, into the water.