Then we shoved out the boat and watched from a distance. Five or six minutes passed and a skinny, crooked, two-fingered mitten of an arm reared upward out of the muddy flood and the nestling, black and glistening, hauled itself out of water.
Thus must the first amphibian have climbed into the thin air. But the young hoatzin neither gasped nor shivered, and seemed as self-possessed as if this was a common occurrence in its life. There was not the slightest doubt however, that this was its first introduction to water. Yet it had dived from a height of fifteen feet, about fifty times its own length, as cleanly as a seal leaps from a berg. It was as if a human child should dive two hundred feet!
In fifteen minutes more it had climbed high above the water, and with unerring accuracy directly toward its natal bundle of sticks overhead. The mother now came close, and with hoarse rasping notes and frantic heaves of tail and wings lent encouragement. Just before we paddled from sight, when the little fellow had reached his last rung, he partly opened his beak and gave a little falsetto cry,—a clear, high tone, tailing off into a guttural rasp. His splendid courage had broken at last; he had nearly reached the nest and he was aching to put aside all this terrible responsibility, this pitting of his tiny might against such fearful odds. He wanted to be a helpless nestling again, to crouch on the springy bed of twigs with a feather comforter over him and be stuffed at will with delectable pimpler pap. Such is the normal right destiny of a hoatzin chick, and the whee-og! wrung from him by the reaction of safety seemed to voice all this.
XII
PHILIP HENRY GOSSE
IT IS not easy to charm most of us who have positively patriotic feelings about our familiar birds, with des scriptions of exotic song and plumage. I know that, for myself, I have long reached a stage of contentment with the bird world about which I still know all too little—the avifauna of North America and Europe. Towards the stranger and often more gorgeous creatures of nearly fabulous places, I have reservations. So that it was with some cool skepticism that I first opened Gosse’s Birds of Jamaica. But my languor was short. I was presently delivered over to the writer, and still more to West Indian birds, which he has made me long to see and hear. The spell of island life, the beauty of wild tropical scenery, and the adventure of toiling through mountain jungles to hear the mysterious notes of some unseen singer, he made me feel. And since, except among ornithologists aware of the history of their science, Gosse has been so nearly forgotten, it gives me pleasure to bring him forward, without claiming anything extravagant for him, to the attention of modern readers.
Philip Henry Gosse was born in Worcester, England, in 1810. From his father, a miniature painter, the future naturalist inherited, no doubt, his talent for drawing, that went so far to make him the most popular of popularizers of science in a former generation.
Gosse’s earliest employment was in a whaler’s office in Newfoundland. There he beguiled the tedium of his life by making his first acquaintance with the northern birds of the New World and a little later he tried, unsuccessfully, to farm in Canada and then taught school in Alabama. His Letters from Alabama are marked by much humor and appreciation; we see the man in the full ebullience of youth, his style still unformed and not yet quite satisfactory but already vivid and popular. Many notices of birds occur in these letters, but the debt he owes to Wilson and Audubon, not apparent to English readers, is a little too great.
Before long Gosse had either had enough of Alabama or it of him (he is a critical guest) and he returned to England, writing on the voyage his Canadian Naturalist, soon followed by an Introduction to Zoölogy. But The Ocean (1844) definitely established him as a remarkable writer on natural history, and, receiving a teaching appointment at the British Museum, he was assured, after much penury, of some income.
This was an era when great movements were afoot in English science; the air tingled with a coming battle of titans; the public too was eager for popularizations of natural science, and the collecting mania (which is not really scientific at all) had just discovered in tree and pond, on the shore and in the tidal pools, an untouched field where the objects of collection cost nothing and might, as they became rare, sell dear. Gosse was the cabinet god and encyclopedia of these people. His personal approach, his easy narration and his style deeply tinged with appreciation of Nature, as well as his high repute as a sound naturalist, destined him to great success.
To this happy period we owe The Birds of Jamaica (1847) from which my quotations are made. For Gosse had been sent to that island by the British Museum to collect specimens, and there had remained two years. The book reveals him as an excellent ornithologist of the time, a keen observer, and a most fluent and yet unaffected describer. In particular Gosse seems to have had an ear for bird song and the rarer ability to make us feel the song even when we do not know how it goes.
On his return Gosse labored on many books at once, both technical and popular. He injured his health, withdrew from London and the association of scientific men, and met and married Emily Bowes. Partly under her influence, perhaps, his naturally conscience-searching and emotional nature was drawn in conversion to a small religious sect more Calvinist than Calvin.
To this couple was born in 1849 the future poet and critic, Edmund Gosse. The naturalist disposes of the event in his diary thus:
“E. delivered of a son. Received green swallows from Jamaica.”
Mrs. Gosse died while the boy was young. The father with the best of intentions now charged himself with the lad’s upbringing and attacked it with appalling zeal. At heart the boy was a creative artist, in need of mental liberty. The atmosphere at home was one of a revival meeting relieved only by the disciplines of science. So began a struggle of two temperaments, made not less poignant by their mutual love and dependence for society.
The fearful record of these years has been told by Edmund Gosse, in Father and Son. This astounding biography concerns us here only so far as it records the falling star of an eminent naturalist.
For the Darwinian controversy had begun to rage. And as Gosse’s sect demanded a literal interpretation of the Bible, and all his training demanded that he accept the evidence for evolution written upon the very rocks, Gosse’s mental conflict was terrible. In the end he decided to save his soul.
Other scientists—Agassiz and Fabre for instance—have denied evolution, continued splendid work without it, and retained the esteem of fellow workers. But Gosse committed a fatal blunder. He tried to reconcile science and religion by two books embodying an explanation in scientific terms of the way in which even the most complex organisms could have sprung from the dust in a twinkling, and the very fossils have taken their place in the rocks at once.
His friend Darwin forbore to comment. Huxley’s scorn was acid. Even the approval of the pious was no consolation, for they imagined that Gosse had claimed that God put the fossils in the rocks to tempt geologists to infidelity.
From this time dates the downfall of Gosse as a scientist. But his capacities as an interpreter of Nature were not abated. Turning to further popular works, always illustrated with exquisite draftsmanship, he hastened, by his very success, the stripping of the tidal pools of England of all their rarities, at the hands of collectors fired by his beautiful descriptions.
Finally, disappointed on all counts, Gosse abandoned authorship and devoted himself to a second wife and to the raising of orchids. To this date belongs a letter I happen to own, which illustrates, though but a scrap, the irreconcilable currents in his nature:
Sandhurst, 8 Sept. 1887
Wm. Lavers, Esq.
Accept, my very kind Friend my best thanks for the beautiful little Nepenthes * you so generously left for me just now; it is unfortunate that it occurred during my Scripture Reading. We unite in true affection to you all.
Yours ever,
P. H. Gosse
I would draw attention to a detail in the excerpts which follow, a detail that illustrates the scientific times. I refer to his attempts to capture al
ive and transplant for possible acclimatizing in England, some West Indian hummingbirds. We note the same desire on Wallace’s part, with respect to birds of paradise. How difficult a task was this Gosse did not well understand. It seems that a bird must have some undesirable features, like starlings and house sparrows, to make its way in a new environment. The western and eastern hemispheres cannot readily exchange their hummingbirds and nightingales. And today our understanding and appreciation of Nature have so altered that the idea of transplanting even beautiful birds that belong elsewhere hardly seems interesting or in good taste. But the Victorian drawing-room was notoriously overornamented.
* Pitcher-plant. [Ed.]
LONG-TAILED HUMMINGBIRD
THIS is the gem of Jamaican Ornithology. Its slender form, velvet crest, emerald bosom, and lengthened tail-plumes, render it one of the most elegant even of this most brilliant family. Though peculiar, as far as I am aware, to Jamaica, it has long been known, though it would seem from received figures and descriptions very imperfectly.
In the latter part of February, a friend showed me a nest of this species in a singular situation, but which I afterwards found to be quite in accordance with its usual habits. It was at Bognie, situated on the Bluefields mountain, but at some distance from the scenes above described. About a quarter of a mile within the woods, a blind path, choked up with bushes, descends suddenly beneath an overhanging rock of limestone, the face of which presents large projections, and hanging points, encrusted with a rough, tuberculous sort of stalactite. At one corner of the bottom there is a cavern, in which a tub is fixed to receive water of great purity, which perpetually drips from the roof, and which in the dry season is a most valuable resource. Beyond this, which is very obscure, the eye penetrates to a larger area, deeper still, which receives light from some other communication with the air. Round the projections and groins of the front, the roots of the trees above have entwined, and to a fibre of one of these hanging down, not thicker than whipcord, was suspended a Humming-bird’s nest, containing two eggs. It seemed to be composed wholly of moss, was thick, and attached to the rootlet by its side. One of the eggs was broken. I did not disturb it, but after about three weeks, visited it again. It had been apparently handled by some curious child, for both eggs were broken, and the nest was evidently deserted.
But while I lingered in the romantic place, picking up some of the landshells which were scattered among the rocks, suddenly I heard the whirr of a Humming-bird, and, looking up, saw a female Polytmus hovering opposite the nest, with a mass of silk-cotton in her beak. Deterred by the sight of me, she presently retired to a twig, a few paces distant, on which she sat. I immediately sunk down among the rocks as quietly as possible, and remained perfectly still. In a few seconds she came again, and after hovering a moment disappeared behind one of the projections, whence in a few seconds she emerged again and flew off. I then examined the place, and found to my delight, a new nest, in all respects like the old one, but unfinished, affixed to another twig not a yard from it. I again sat down among the stones in front, where I could see the nest, not concealing myself, but remaining motionless, waiting for the petite bird’s reappearance. I had not to wait long: a loud whirr, and there she was, suspended in the air before her nest: she soon espied me, and came within a foot of my eyes, hovering just in front of my face. I remained still, however, when I heard the whirring of another just above me, perhaps the mate, but I durst not look towards him lest the turning of my head should frighten the female. In a minute or two the other was gone, and she alighted again on the twig, where she sat some little time preening her feathers, and apparently clearing her mouth from the cotton-fibres, for she now and then swiftly projected the tongue an inch and a half from the beak, continuing the same curve as that of the beak. When she arose, it was to perform a very interesting action; for she flew to the face of the rock, which was thickly clothed with soft dry moss, and hovering on the wing, as if before a flower, began to pluck the moss, until she had a large bunch of it in her beak; then I saw her fly to the nest, and having seated herself in it, proceed to place the new material, pressing, and arranging, and interweaving the whole with her beak, while she fashioned the cup-like form of the interior, by the pressure of her white breast, moving round and round as she sat. My presence appeared to be no hindrance to her proceedings, though only a few feet distant; at length she left again, and I left the place also. On the 8th of April I visited the cave again, and found the nest perfected, and containing two eggs, which were not hatched on the 1st of May, on which day I sent Sam * to endeavour to secure both dam and nest. He found her sitting, and had no difficulty in capturing her, which, with the nest and its contents, he carefully brought down to me. I transferred it, having broken one egg by accident, to a cage, and put in the bird; she was mopish, however, and quite neglected the nest, as she did also some flowers which I inserted; sitting moodily on a perch. The next morning she was dead.
The tongue of this species, (and doubtless others have a similar conformation) presents, when recent, the appearance of two tubes laid side by side, united by half their length, but separate for the remainder. Their substance is transparent in the same degree as a good quill, which they much resemble: each tube is formed by a lamina rolled up, yet not so as to bring the edges into actual contact, for there is a longitudinal fissure on the outer side, running up considerably higher than the junction of the tubes; into this fissure the point of a pin may be inserted and moved up and down the length. Near the tip the outer edge of each lamina ceases to be convoluted, but is spread out, and split at the margin into irregular fimbriae, which point backward, somewhat like the vane of a feather; these are not barbs, however, but simply soft and flexible points, such as might be produced by snipping diagonally the edge of a strip of paper. I conjecture that the nectar of flowers is pumped up the tubes, and that minute insects are caught, when in flowers, in these spoon-like tips, their minute limbs being perhaps entangled in the fimbriæ, when the tongue is retracted into the beak, and the insects swallowed by the ordinary process, as doubtless those are which are captured with the beak in flight. I do not thoroughly understand the mode by which liquids are taken up by a Humming-bird’s tongue, though I have carefully watched the process. If syrup be presented to one in a quill, the tongue is protruded for about half an inch into the liquor, the beak resting in a pen, as it is held horizontal: there is a slight but rapid and constant projection and retraction of the tubes, and the liquor disappears very fast, perhaps by capillary attraction, perhaps by a sort of pumping, certainly not by licking.
When I left England, I had laid myself out for the attempt to bring these radiant creatures alive to this country. Very many were caught by myself and my lads: the narrow path on Bluefields peak already mentioned, was the locality to which we resorted on these expeditions. A common gauze butterfly-net, on a ring of a foot in diameter and a staff of three or four feet, we found the most effective means of capture. The elaborate traps recommended by some authors, I feel would suit the natural history of the closet, better than that of the woods. We often found the curiosity of these little birds stronger than their fear; on holding up the net near one, he frequently would not fly away, but come and hover over the mouth, stretching out his neck to peep in, so that we could capture them with little difficulty. Often too, one when struck at unsuccessfully, would return immediately, and suspend itself in the air just above our heads, or peep into our faces, with unconquerable familiarity. Yet it was difficult to bring these sweet birds, so easily captured, home; they were usually dead or dying when we arrived at the house, though not wounded or struck. And those which did arrive in apparent health, usually died the next day. At my first attempt in the spring of 1845, I transferred such as I succeeded in bringing alive, to cages immediately on their arrival at the house, and though they did not beak themselves, they soon sunk under the confinement. Suddenly they would fall to the floor of the cage, and lie motionless with closed eyes; if taken into the hand, they w
ould perhaps seem to revive for a few minutes; then throw back the pretty head, or toss it to and fro as if in great suffering, expand the wings, open the eyes, slightly puff up the feathers of the breast, and die: usually without any convulsive struggle. This was the fate of my first attempts.
From that time to the end of May, I obtained about twenty-five more, nearly all males. Many of those which were found alive, were in a dying state, and of those which were turned out into the room, several more died in the first twenty-four hours; so that out of the twenty-five, only seven were domesticated. These, however, became quite at home; and I may here observe that there was much difference in the tempers of individuals; some being moody and sulky, others very timid, and others gentle and confiding from the first. I have noticed this in other birds also; Doves, for instance, which manifest individuality of character, perhaps as much as men, if we were competent to appreciate it. My ordinary plan of accustoming them to the room, and teaching them to feed, was very simple. On opening the basket in which one or more newly-caught Humming-birds were brought home, they would fly out, and commonly soar to the ceiling, rarely seeking the window; there for awhile, or against the walls, as above mentioned, they would flutter, not beating themselves, but hanging on rapidly vibrating wings, lightly touching the plaster with the beak or breast, every second, and thus slightly rebounding. By keeping a strict watch on them while so occupied, we could observe when they became exhausted, and sunk rapidly down to alight; commonly, they would then suffer themselves to be raised, by passing the finger under the breast, to which they would apply their little feet. Having thus raised one on my finger, and taken a little sugar into my mouth, I inserted its beak between my lips. Sometimes it would at once begin to suck eagerly; but at other times it was needful to invite it thus many times, before it would notice the sugar: by persevering, however, they commonly learned. And when one had once fed from the mouth, it was always ready to suck afterwards, and frequently, as above narrated, voluntarily sought my hps. Having given one his first lesson, I gently presented him to the line, and drawing my finger from under him, he would commonly take to it, but if not, the proceeding had to be repeated: and even when perched, the repetition of the feeding and placing on the line was needful to induce the habit. If the bird’s temper were kindly, it soon began to perch on the line of its own accord; when I ceased to feed it from my lips, presenting to it, instead, the glass of syrup. After it had sucked thus a time or two, it found it as it stood at the edge of a table; and I considered it domesticated. Their ordinary mode of coming down to drink was curious. Instead of flying down soberly in a direct line, which would have been far too dull for the volatile genius of a Hummingbird, they invariably made a dozen or twenty distinct stages of it, each in a curve descending a little, and ascending nearly to the same plane, and hovering a second or two at every angle; and sometimes when they arrived opposite the cup more quickly than usual, as if they considered it reached too soon, they would make half a dozen more horizontal traverses before they would bring their tiny feet to the edge of the glass and insert their sucking tongue. They were rather late in retiring to roost, frequently hawking and sporting till dusk; and when settled for the night, were restless, and easily disturbed. The entrance of a person with a candle, at any hour, was liable to set one or two upon the wing; and this was always a matter of regret with me, because of the terror which they seemed to feel, incapacitating them from again finding the perching line. After having inhabited my specimen-room for some time, (those first caught almost four weeks,) I transferred them, five in number, all males, to a large cage with a wired front, and two transverse perches; I had much dreaded this change, and therefore did it in the evening, hoping that the intervening night would calm them. I had in some measure prepared them for the change by placing the cage (before the front was affixed) upon the table some days previously, and setting their syrup-cup first close to the cage, then a little within, then a little farther, until at length it stood at the remotest corner. And I was pleased to observe that the birds followed the cup every day, flying in and out of the cage to sip, though at first very shyly and suspiciously, many times flying in and suddenly darting out without tasting the fluid. After I had shut them in, they beat and fluttered a good deal; but by the next day I was gratified to find that all had taken their places quietly on the perches, and sipped at the syrup, though rather less than usual. I had now high hopes of bringing them alive to England, thinking the most difficult task was over; especially as within a day or two after, I added to them two more males, one of which presently learned both to perch and to find the cup, and also a female. The latter interested me much, for on the next day after her introduction, I noticed that she had seated herself by a long-tailed male, on a perch occupied only by them two, and was evidently courting his caresses. She would hop sideways along the perch by a series of little quick jumps, till she reached him, when she would gently peck his face, and then recede, hopping and shivering her wings, and presently approach again to perform the same actions. Now and then she would fly over him, and make as if she were about to perch on his back, and practise other little endearments; to which, however, I am sorry to say, he seemed most ungallantly indifferent, being, in fact, the dullest of the whole group. I expected to have them nidificate in the cage, and therefore affixed a very inviting twig of lime-tree to the cage wall, and threw in plenty of cotton, and perhaps should have succeeded, but for the carelessness of my servant. For he having incautiously left open the cage door, the female flew out and effected her escape.
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