“HALF ANGEL AND HALF BIRD.”

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12911, 3 September 1902, Page 9

“HALF ANGEL AND HALF BIRD.”

Few things in life are more piquant than to lie on the summit of a beetling cliff and watch the breeding sea-fowl on the ledges below (writes Edmund Selous in the “ Saturday Review ”). In the Shetland®, at least, it is possible to do this in perfect safety, for the strata of the rock have often been tilted np to such an extent that whilst the_precipice formed by their broken edges is of, the most fearful description, their slope, - even on the landward tide, is so steep that, when one has climbed it, one’s head looks down as from a slanting wall against which tbe body leans. To rail over one would first have to fall upwards, and theknowledge of this gives a feeling of security without which one could hard.y observe or take notes. The one danger lies* in becoming abstracted and forgetting where one is. Those steep, green banks—for the rock, except in smooth, nuciinibabie patches is covered with rich, lush grass—have no appearance as of an edge, and 1 have often suuddeied, whilst p.odding mechanically upwards to find myself just awakened from a reverie within a yard or so of their softcurled lap-like crests. However, let us imagine mat we have gone thus far and no funner, and now t upon looking over, a wonderful and never-to-be-forgotten sight presents itself. Not only are there the guillemots standing in long gleaming rows and little salient clusters, equally conspicuous by the compact shape and vividly contrasted colouring, but above and below them, on nests which look like- some natural lulled growth of the sheer jagged rock, and which touch, or almost touch each other, sit hundreds and hundreds of kittiwakes, the soft bluey grey and downier white of whoso plumage, with their more yielding and accommodating outlines, make them .as a tone and tinting of the rook itself, and delight with grace as do the other's with boldness. Seen from a distance all except tho white is lost, and then they have tna c-lfect of snow covering large surfaces of tlio hard, perpendicular rock. Nearer they look like iittie nodules or bosses of snow projecting iroui a Hatter and less pure expanse of it. An innumerable cry goes up from them, a vocherc-us, shrieking chorus, the sharp and ear-piercing treble to the deep, s-o-iiibruus bass of the waves. The actual note is supposed to be imitated in tue name of the mrd, but to my own ear it much more resembles—to a degree indeed approaching exactitude—the words "it’s getting late” uttered with a grean emphasis on the " late,” and repeated over ana over again in, a thrill, harsh and discordant shriek. The effect—though this is not really the case—is as though me whole of the birds were shrieking out this remark at the same time. There is a constant clang and scream, an eternal -harsh music—■ harmony in discord—through and above which, dominating it as an organ does lesser instruments—or like "that deep and dreadful organ-pipe, the thunder ’V-there rolls,, at intervals, one of.the most extraordinary voices, surety, that "nature has given to her w.id children, a roiling, rumbling volume of sound, so rough and. deep, yet so full, grand, and sonorous that it seems as though the very cliffs were speaking, ending in a distinct, gruff laugh, or inmost laugu, of

" Ho, ho, ho—Hco, boo, hoo.” This marvellous note is the nuptial one —the wed-> ding march, as it were—of the fulmar > X>etrEl, and when you hear it, some one or more pairs of this bird are singing a “song of songs ” together on the highest, bare ledges of the most- awful, beetling parts of tho precipice. No one could imagine that it was a bird doing this,' least of all such

a bird, for it is one,'of the most placid-lo-oki-ng and delicately 'dove-like beautiful beings of all air’s kingdom, with- a flight of such extreme and marvellous grace, such buoyant case, such wonder, that when, one sees it for the first time one could think that no bird had ever flown before, and that this alone were flight; for a moment, at any rate, one forgets even the nightjar.

One cannot, indeed, watch for long the flight of the fulmar petrel, without becoming dissatisfied, or -at least critical in regard to that of other sea birds. The larger gulls grow hopelessly coarse and heavy, the kittiwake is not what it was, something is gone from the bold, corsair-like sweeps of the arctic skua, and even in the laboured grace of the tern tho eye begins to- dwell more on the labour and less on the grace. All these birds are bodies; the fulmar petrel has more the appearance of a soul. Something of this it owes to its colouring, which, though approaching to- the blue above and of the purest seeming white below, yet has in it that exquisitely smoked or shadowed quality whicii allows of no glint or gleam, avoids all saliency, and almost seems alien from substance itself. It blends with the air, of which, it seems to be a condensation rather than something introduced into it. Yet most lies in the flight. In this there is conveyed to one a sense, not so much of power over as of actual partnership in the element in which the bird floats, as though it had been born there, as though it would sleep and awake there, as though it had never been nor ever could be anywhere else. It is, I sup pose, the small apparent mechanism of the flight that gives this impression, the absence or the ease of effort. Sliding, as it were, from tho face of the precipice, and oftenest from the most towering Height of it, the thin, elever-like wings are at once or after a few quick quivering vibrations spread to their lull extent, and on them the bird floats, sweeps, circles, now sinking towards the sea, now cresting the summit of the cliff, but keeping for the mostpart within, the middle space between the two. Ever and anon it sails smoothly into its own rocky ledge, pauses above it as though to think ‘‘my home,” then with another quick shimmer or flicker of the thin shadow-wings sweeps smoothly out again, once more to enter on those wonderful down-sliding, up-gliding circles that are magic, and seem drawn to charm. This, light flickering of the wings as I have called it—for they cannot bo said to flap or beat, even quiver is too gross a term for so delicate a motion—is a characteristic part of

the fulmar petrel’s flight. They move for a moment—for a few seconds more or less — in the way in which a shadow flickers on the wall, and . then the bird glides, and circles, holding them outspread and at rest, opposing their thin, flat surface now to this point, now to that, by a turn of the head or body, but giving them no independent motion. Then another flicker, and again the gliding and circling. When spread thus, flat to the air, the wings have a ven thin, paper-knifey appearance. The simile does not seem worthy either of them or of the bird, but as it was continually brought to my mind I must employ it, albeit apologetically. It is the shape of them that suggests it. Their ends ai-e smooth and round, and they are held so straight thr’ they seem to bo in one piece, without a joint, though just when the wind catches them freshly and drives 1 lie bird swiftly along they are turned slightly upwards towards the tips through the momentary yielding of the quills. Strange though it may seem, this straightness, almost stiffness, of the wing-contour adds to—nay, gives—the grace of this bird's flight, and the pronounced bend at the joint which makes the fore-part of the wing slope backwards in gull and Idttiwake looks almost clumsy in comparison. The reason, I think, is that the petrel’s straight wings look so splendidly set to the wind, suggesting a graceful ship in fullest sail, whilst the ■' others seem timidly furled and reefed by comparison. Sometimes, indeed, the wings do bend just a little—for, after all, they have a joint—but the straight-set attitude I is more germane to them, and soon they assume it again, shooting forward so brisk I ly, yet softly, that one seems to hear a soft little musical click. And thus with wings laid full and flat to the blast, and looking like a shadow upon it, this dream of a motion floats and flickers along, sweeping and gliding, rising and falling in circles of consummate ease. No, it is not dominion, it is union and sweet accord. Lighter than the air that it rides on, the bird seems married to it, clasps it as a bride.