The Ocean Waifs Part 23

At the termination of that time, an exclamatory phrase, escaping from his lips, proclaimed the discovery of some object that, to his mind, accounted for the odd behaviour of the albacores.

"De frigate-bird!" was the phrase that came mutteringly from between s...o...b..ll's teeth. "Ya, ya,--dar am two ob dem,--de c.o.c.k an' hen, I s'pose. Dat 'counts for de scariness of dese hya fish. Dat's what am doin' it."

"O, a frigate-bird!" said Ben Brace, recognising in s...o...b..ll's synonyme one of the most noted wanderers of the ocean,--the _Pelica.n.u.s aquila_ of the naturalists, but which, from its swift flight and graceful form, is better known to mariners under the appellation given to it by s...o...b..ll.

"Where away?" interrogated the sailor. "I don't see bird o' any sort.

Where away, Snowy?"

"Up yonner,--nearly straight ober head,--close by dat lilly 'peck ob cloud. Dar dey be, one on de one side, odder on fodder,--de ole c.o.c.k an' de ole hen, I'se be boun!"

"Your daylights be uncommon clear, n.i.g.g.e.r. I don't see ne'er a bird-- Ah, now I do!--two of 'em, as you say. Ye're right, Snowy. Them be frigates to a sartainty. It's easy to tell the cut o' thar wings from any other bird as flops over the sea. Beside, there be no other I knows on as goes up to that height. Considerin' that thar wings be spread nigh a dozen feet, if not all o' that, and that they don't look bigger than barn-swallows, I reckon they must be mor'n a mile overhead o' us.

Don't you think so, Snowy?"

"Mile, Ma.s.sa Brace! Ya, dey am two mile 'bove us at de berry lees. Dey doan' 'peer to move an inch from dat same spot. Dar be no doubt dat boaf o' 'em am sound 'sleep."

"Asleep!" echoed little William, in a tone that betokened a large measure of astonishment. "You don't say, s...o...b..ll, that a bird can go to sleep upon the wing?"

"Whoo! lilly w.i.l.l.y, dat all you know 'bout de birds in dis hya part ob do worl'? Sleep on de wing! Sartin dey go 'sleep on de wing, an' some time wif de wing fold close to dar body, an' de head tuck under 'im,-- don't dey, Ma.s.s' Brace?"

"I ain't sartin as to that," doubtingly answered the ex-man-o'-war's-man. "I've heerd so: but it _do_ seem sort o'

unnat'ral."

"Whoo!" rejoined s...o...b..ll, with a slightly derisive inclination of the head; "why for no seem nat'ral? De frigate hersef she sleep on de water widout sails set,--not eben a st.i.tch ob her canvas. Well, den: why no dem frigate-birds in de air? What de water am to de ship de air am to de birds. What hinder 'em to take dar nap up yonner, 'ceptin' when dar's a gale ob wind? Ob coos dat u'd interrup' dar repose."

"Well, n.i.g.g.e.r," rejoined the sailor, in a tone that betokened no very zealous partisanship for either side of the theory, "you may be right, or you may be wrong. I ar'n't goin' to gi'e you the lie, one way or t'

other. All I know is, that I've seed frigates a-standing in the air, as them be now, making way neyther to windart or leuart; f'r all that I didn't believe they was asleep. I kud see thar forked tails openin' and closin' jist like the blades o' a pair o' shears; and that inclined me to think they war wide awake all the time. If they was asleep, how kud they a-kep waggin' thar tails? Though a bird's tail be but feathers, still it must ha' some feelin' in it."

"Law, Ma.s.sa Ben!" retorted the negro, in a still more patronising tone, as if pitying the poverty of the sailor's syllogism, "you no tink it possible that one move in dar sleep? You nebber move you big toe, or you foot, or some time de whole ob you leg? Beside," continued the logician, pa.s.sing to a fresh point of his argument, "how you s'pose de frigate-bird do 'idout sleep? You know berry well he not got de power to swim,--him feet only half web. He no more sit on de water dan a guinea-fowl, or a ole hen ob de dunghill. As for him go 'sleep on de sea, it no more possyble dan for you or me, Ma.s.sa Ben."

"Well, Snowy," slowly responded the sailor, rather pushed for a reply, "I'm willin' to acknowledge all that. It look like the truth, an' it don't,--both at the same time. I can't understan' how a bird can go to sleep up in the air, no more'n I could hang my old tarpaulin' hat on the corner o' a cloud. Same time I acknowledge that I'm puzzled to make out how them thar frigates can take thar rest. The only explanation I can think o' is, that every night they fly back to the sh.o.r.e, an' turns in thar."

"Whoogh! Ma.s.sa Brace, you knows better dan dat. I'se heerd say dat de frigate-bird nebber am seed more'n a hunder league from de sh.o.r.e. Dam!

Dis n.i.g.g.a hab seed dat same ole c.o.c.k five time dat distance from land,-- in de middle ob de wide Atlantic, whar we sees 'um now. Wish it was true he nebber 'tray more dan hunder knots from de land; we might hab some chance reach it den. Hunder league! Golly! more'n twice dat length we am from land; and dere 's dem long-wing birds hov'rin' 'bove our heads, an sleepin' as tranquil as ebber dis n.i.g.g.a did in de caboose ob de ole _Pandora_."

Ben made no reply. Whether the reasoning of the Coromantee was correct or only sophistical, the facts were the same. Two forms were in the sky, outlined against the back ground of cerulean blue. Though distant, and apparently motionless, they were easily distinguishable as living things,--as birds,--and of a kind so peculiar, that the eye of the rude African, and even that of the almost equally rude Saxon, could distinguish the species.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

THE FRIGATE-BIRD.

The frigate-bird (_Pelica.n.u.s aquila_), which had thus become the subject of conversation on board the _Catamaran_, is in many respects very different from other ocean-birds. Although generally cla.s.sed with the pelicans, it bears but a very slight resemblance to any species of these misshapen, unwieldy, goose-like creatures.

It differs from most other birds frequenting the sea in the fact of its feet being but slightly webbed, and its claws being _talons_, like those of hawks or eagles.

Otherwise, also, does it resemble these last birds,--so much that the sailors, noting the resemblance, indifferently call it "sea-hawk,"

"man-of-war hawk," and "man-of-war eagle." The last appellation, however, is sometimes given to the great wandering albatross (_Diomedea exulans_).

The male frigate-bird is jet black all over the body; having a red bill, very long, vertically flattened, and with the mandibles abruptly hooked downwards at the point. The female differs in colour: being sooty black above, and having a large white disc on the abdomen.

The legs are short in proportion to the bulk of the bird; the toes, as already stated, being furnished with talons,--the middle one scaly, and notched underneath; while the legs are feathered to the feet, showing another point of affinity with predatory birds of the land. Still another may be pointed out: in the innermost toe or _pollex_, being turned outwards, as if intended for perching,--which the frigate-bird actually does when it visits the sh.o.r.e, often making its nest upon trees, and roosting among the branches.

In fact, this creature may be regarded as a sort of connecting link between the birds of prey who make their home on the dry land, and the web-footed birds that equally lead a predatory life upon the sea.

Perhaps it continues the chain begun by the ospreys and sea-eagles, who take most of their food out of the water, but do not stray far from the sh.o.r.e in search of it.

The frigate-bird, a true sea-hawk,--sea-eagle, it may be called, since its bold, n.o.ble qualities ent.i.tle it to the name,--makes its excursions so far from the sh.o.r.e that it is not unfrequently seen in the very middle of the Atlantic. Now, this is the most curious circ.u.mstance in its history, and one that has. .h.i.therto perplexed ornithologists. Since its feet are not provided with the "web," it cannot swim a stroke; nor has it ever been seen to alight on the water for the purpose of taking rest. It is not likely that it can settle on the wave,--the conformation of its feet and body making this an impossibility.

How, then, does it find rest for its tired wings? This is the question to which an answer is not easily given.

There is a belief, as Ben alleged, that it returns every night to roost upon the land; but when it is considered that to reach its roost would often require a flight of a thousand miles,--to say nothing of the return journey to its fishing-ground,--the statement at once loses all _vrai-semblance_, Many sailors say that it goes to sleep suspended aloft in the air, and so high up as to be sometimes invisible. This was the belief of s...o...b..ll.

Now, this belief, or conjecture, or whatever you may--term it, on the part of Jack tar, though sneered at as impossible, and even scoffed at as ridiculous, may, after all, not be so very far beyond the truth.

Jack has told some rare tales in his time,--"yarns" that appear to be "spun" out of his fancy, quite as much as this one,--which, after having run the gauntlet of philosophic ridicule on the part of closet naturalists, have in the long run turned out to be true! Has not his story of the "King of the Cannibal Islands,"--Hokee-pokee-winkee-wum, with his fifty wives as black as "sut," and all his belongings, just as Jack described them,--actually "turned up" in reality, in the person of Thakombau and a long line of similar monsters inhabiting the Fiji Islands?

Why, then, may not his statements, about the frigate-bird going to sleep upon the wing be a correct conjecture, or observation, instead of a "sailor's yarn,"--as sage and conceited, but often mistaken, professors of "physical science" would have us regard it?

Such professors as are at this moment, in almost every newspaper in the country,--scientific journals among the number,--abusing and ridiculing the poor farmer for destroying the birds that destroy his grain; and telling him, if he were to let the birds alone, they would eat the insects that commit far greater devastation on his precious _cerealia_!

Conceited theorists! it has never occurred to them, that the victims of the farmer's fowling-piece--_the birds that eat corn--would not touch an insect if they were starving_! The farmer does not make war on the insect-eating birds. Rarely, or never, does he expend powder and shot on the swallow, the wagtail, the tomt.i.t, the starling, the thrush, the blackbird, the wren, the robin, or any of the grub and fly-feeders. His "game" are the buntings and _Fringillidae_,--the larks, linnets, finches, barley-birds, yellowhammers, and house sparrows, that form the great flocks afflicting him both in seed-time and harvest; and none of which (excepting, perhaps, the last-mentioned gentry, who are at times slightly inclined towards a wormy diet) would touch an insect, even with the tips of their bills. Ha! ye scribblers of closet conceits! you have been sneering at "Chaw-bacon" long enough. He may turn and scoff at you; for, in very truth, the boot (of ignorance) is upon the other leg!

Let us make sure then, lest Jack's theory regarding the lumbers of the sea-hawk be not mythical in the mirror of our own incredulity.

That the bird can take rest in the air is perfectly certain. It may be seen--as the crew of the _Catamaran_ saw it--suspended on outspread wing, without any perceptible motion except in its tail; the long, forked feathers of which could be observed opening and closing at intervals; according to the sailor's simile, like the blades of a pair of scissors. But this motion might be merely muscular, and compatible with a state of slumber or unconscious repose. At all events, the bird has been seen to keep its place in the air for many minutes at a time, with no other motion observable than that of the long and gracefully-forking feathers of its tail.

A fish sleeps suspended in the water without any apparent effort. Why not certain birds in the air, whose body is many times lighter than that of a fish, and whose skeleton is constructed with air vessels to buoy them up into the azure fields of the sky? The sea-hawk may seldom require what is ordinarily termed rest. Its smooth, graceful flight upon wings, which, though slender, are of immense length,--often often feet spread,--shows that it is, perhaps, as much at ease in the air as if perched upon the bough of a tree; and it is certain that its claws never clasp branch, nor do its feet find rest on any other object, for weeks and months together.

It is true that while fishing near the sh.o.r.e it usually retires to roost at night; but afar over the ocean it keeps all night upon the wing. It does not, like many other ocean-birds,--as the b.o.o.by, one of its own genus,--seek rest upon the spars of ships, though it often hovers above the mastheads of sailing vessels, as if taking delight in this situation, and not unfrequently seizes in its beak, and tearing away the pieces of coloured cloth fixed upon the vane.

A curious anecdote is told of a frigate-bird taken while thus occupied,--its captor being a man who had swarmed up to the masthead and seized it in his hand. As this individual chanced to be a landsman, serving temporarily on board the ship, and being remarkably tall and slender, the crew of the vessel would never have it otherwise, than that the bird, accustomed only to the figure of a sailor, had mistaken its captor for a spare spar, and thus fallen a victim to its want of discernment!

Strictly speaking, the frigate-bird does not _fish_, like other predatory birds of the ocean. As it cannot either dive or swim, of course it cannot take fish out of the water. How, then, does it exist?

Where finds it the food necessary to sustain existence? In a word, it captures its prey in the air; and this commonly consists in the various species of flying-fish, and also the _loligo_, or "flying squids." When these are forced out of their own proper element to seek safety in the air, the frigate-bird, ready to pounce down from aloft, clutches them before they can get back into the equally unsafe element out of which they have sprung.

Besides the flying-fish, it preys upon those that have the habit of leaping above the surface, and also others that have been already captured by b.o.o.bies, terns, gulls, and tropic birds, all of which can both swim and dive.

These the frigate-bird remorselessly robs of their legitimate prize,-- first compelling them to relinquish it in the air, and then adroitly seizing it before it gets back to the water.

The storm is the season of plenty to this singular bird of prey; as then it can capture many kinds of fish upon the surface of the waves. It is during those times when the sea is tranquil or perfectly calm, that it resorts to the other method,--of forcing the fishing-birds to yield up their prey, often even to disgorge, after having swallowed it!

Its wondrous powers of flight not only enable it to seize with certainty the morsel thus rejected, but so confident is it of its ability in the performance of this feat, that, if a fish chance to be awkwardly caught in its beak, it will fearlessly fling it into the air, and, darting after, grasp it again and again, until it gets the mouthful in a convenient position for being gulped down its own greedy throat.

CHAPTER FORTY NINE.

BETWEEN TWO TYRANTS.

The two birds which had attracted the attention of the _Catamaran's_ crew were seen suddenly to abandon their fixed poise in the air, and commence wheeling in circles, or rather in spiral lines that gradually descended towards the surface of the sea.