The Sun's Babies Part 18

Delicate sea-plants, red and purple and green, waved their slender fronds beneath the shelter of their stronger forest brothers.

Bright-scaled fishes darted through the trees. Sh.e.l.l-fish, safe in spiral, fluted homes, climbed their trunks and cut with saw-edged tongues sweet daily meals of amber leaf and stem. Sea-urchins and starfishes crawled over their roots; anemones spread their lovely cruel arms to catch their prey; sh.e.l.l-less sea-snails, crystal clear, hid between the branches, peering out with bright black eyes at all that pa.s.sed in this gay water-world. At night, a million tiny phosph.o.r.escent creatures shone and glowed from every leaf and branch and stone, as if a million fairy lanterns had been lit beneath the sea.

A great storm came. Far out to sea the black clouds lowered; they loosed their lightning sheets. The leaden rollers rose and fell and muttered to the thunder's crash. Sea-birds screamed and fled to land.

From the line where sea met sky came the hoa.r.s.e, roaring wind, lashing little waves into foaming billows, tearing them up and flinging them far through the maddened air. Below the surface of the sea the swimming, crawling creatures sank like startled shadows to the floor for safety till the storm was past. Only the great kelp trees were left to bear its brunt. Wave after wave crashed against the branches, tossed them this way and that, whipped off their floats and leaves, tore the slighter stems away and strewed them high upon the rocks.

When the storm was over, and sunny days had come again, and children played and paddled on the beach, the sand was strewn with little floats. The children stamped on them, and laughed to hear them pop as the pent-up air escaped. One toddler wondered loudly what they were and where they grew. Down among the rocks the wearied seaweed raised its torn and battered branches through the sea, and set to work again to grow its slender stems, its ridge-veined leaves, its scores of pointed amber floats. Slowly its full beauty returned, till once again the fairy lights shone on the old gay life of wonderland.

VI.--BLACK s.h.a.g

Black s.h.a.g was a lonely bird, but she liked her loneliness, and drove away intruders. Her special haunt was a narrow inlet of the sea, winding between peaceful bush that overlooked the little lapping waves.

Here she would swim for hours, her graceful head sometimes erect, sometimes bent beneath the sea to watch for prey. A silvery gleam, a movement of a fin, and like a hurled stone she would dive and pursue, hunting the fleeing fish until she overtook it. Seizing it in her long, hooked bill, she bore it up to the air, there to gulp it whole down her capacious throat. Then below she would go again to hunt for further feasts. Her appet.i.te was marvellous; she was no delicate lady in her feeding. Fortunately, fish were plentiful and varied in her inlet of the sea.

Tired of swimming, she would fly up to her favourite perching place--a great bare rock that overhung the water. Here she spread her long black wings to dry them in the sun, and preened her bronzy back and white throat band and glossy breast. She could not, like a duck, shake herself but once and then be dry, for so little oil have her kind for their feathers that "as wet as a s.h.a.g" has become a world-wide saying.

But sun and winds helped in her drying, and time made no calls on her.

For long hours she sat there at her ease, silent, solitary, satisfied.

Winter pa.s.sed. With the first warm breath of early spring, when fresh life woke in bush and sh.o.r.e and sea, her last year's mate came up the inlet seeking her. "Come with me," he said. At the words mother-longings stirred in Black s.h.a.g's heart. Into her thoughts came memories of nest and shining eggs, of helpless babies, and her love for them. She left her rock. With her mate she flew along the coast to where her people built their rookery year by year. Here were friends and busy life. High cliffs faced the sea. On the top, where strong, coa.r.s.e gra.s.ses grew, nests were built beside each other. Sticks were gathered and twisted in and out, gra.s.s blades were pulled and laid amongst the sticks; then the nest was ready for the eggs.

Three handsome green-white eggs soon lay in Black s.h.a.g's nest. Then followed the long sitting, the mother's patient sacrifice of food and freedom; till at last the eggs were hatched, and three half-fluffed, half-naked babies lay beneath the sheltering breast. They showed no beauty to a casual eye, but their mother thought them perfect. In her fond eyes no baby birds could be more sweet and lovable. Gone was now the old life for Black s.h.a.g, with its leisureliness and ease. With three children to feed and guard, the days became a rush of work. "You must help, father," she said to her mate. In turns they fished, swallowing enough for the babies as well as themselves, then returning to the nest and drawing up from their long food-bags the delicious oily fish that the children loved.

The babies grew fat. Fluffy down grew so thickly over them that they began to look like brown and white b.a.l.l.s of wool. Nestling together, they kept one another warm; gradually Black s.h.a.g found herself able to leave them for longer and longer periods. They fished together now, she and the father s.h.a.g. As the children grew bigger still, and more and more able to take care of themselves, the parents stayed away all day. They flew off in the morning to their favourite fishing waters, satisfied their own hunger, and loaded themselves with extra fish, then returned at nightfall to feed the clamouring little ones.

The summer months pa.s.sed by. In the nest the children grew full-sized and feathered. "Learn to swim and fish for yourselves," cried Black s.h.a.g, and she tumbled them one by one into the water below. There they floundered about till they learned to paddle with their black webbed feet. Then the mother left them, knowing that her work for them was done.

Back to her old haunt she went, to live again, till spring returned, her life of leisured ease. In her narrow inlet, where peaceful bush overlooks the little lapping waves, she hunts her daily feasts, or sits for hours upon her bare brown rock, silent, satisfied, alone.

VII.--THROUGH DAYS OF GROWTH

On a gra.s.sy tableland a pair of albatrosses made their nest. They dug a ring of earth and pushed it into a central mound, then hollowed out the top and lined it with gra.s.s. Here the mother laid her one white egg. Father and mother took turns in sitting on the egg. When the little one was hatched they again took turns in feeding him and sheltering him from cold sea winds. All through the summer days and nights they tended him with utmost love and care, until, when autumn came, they could safely leave him in the nest. Then back to their old sea life they went, skimming the rolling waves throughout the day, but winging their patient way at each fresh dawn to feed their little one.

Where they had left him, there the baby albatross sat in his nest, day after day, week after week, month after month. His thick brown coat of down kept him warm, his rich morning meals supplied his growth, his stillness fattened him. Motionless he sat, hour by hour. Above him sea birds wheeled against the bright blue sky and golden sun. Winds danced among the gra.s.ses; storms drove over the hills. Half a mile away the racing waves boomed loudly up the beach. At night the quiet stars looked down on his contented sleep.

A wild duck came and looked at him.

"How slow you are!" she cried. "Why don't you move? My babies learned to fly and swim long months ago, yet they are not so old as you."

He turned untroubled eyes towards the sea.

"Some day," he said, "I shall follow where the white waves lead. My time has not yet come."

The wild duck flapped impatiently.

"Slow!" she said. "If you were mine I'd turn you off that nest before another day had pa.s.sed."

She flew away. The baby albatross still sat and watched the sky and sun, and listened to the waves.

Summer came again. One afternoon the parent birds returned. They stroked their little one and fondled him with loving beaks.

"Dear one, you must leave the nest," his mother said. "We need it for this season's egg."

The baby was dismayed. "But I do not wish to go! The nest is mine,"

he said.

"It is not good that you should stay too long in it," his mother said.

"You are nearly twelve months old. It is time for you to learn to fly and swim. Come off, and exercise yourself."

But the baby was afraid. "I don't know where to go," he said. "I must stay here." He would not move.

Between the mother and the father pa.s.sed an understanding look. With their strong bills they gently turned him off the nest and rolled him on the ground. "Pick yourself up and go down to the sea," laughed the mother. She sat on the nest to keep him off.

The baby picked himself up and looked at them. It was hard to understand this treatment, after all their loving care of him.

However, he had rather liked his feelings when he flapped his wings to right himself, so he flapped them once again. He raised himself and tried to fly; he waddled several steps on his wide webbed feet. But he was fat and heavy, and his limbs were soft and quite unused to exercise; he was soon glad to rest.

"Keep at it," said his mother. "Power will come with use."

For several days he stayed about the nest, encouraged by the parent birds to exercise his wings till he could fly. Then very slowly he made his journey to the sea, walking, flying, resting, sleeping on the way, for many days and nights, till at last that long half-mile was pa.s.sed, and the welcome beach was won.

Here he learned to swim and catch his food, the juicy cuttle-fish that floated on the sea. He grew and gathered strength, but his flights from land were short--his power was not yet at its full.

Another year pa.s.sed by. Again with autumn days the parents left the nest to go to sea. From the waves a n.o.ble bird rose up to accompany them. His snowy plumage glistened in the sun, his wide-spread wings cut through the air with a majestic grace. It was the baby albatross, grown at last to his full strength. Sailing, gliding, rising high above the shining waves, dipping low on downward curve, he followed to the far-off sh.o.r.eless tracts, there to live his life of tireless flight, the splendid marvel of the sea.

VIII.--f.a.n.n.y FLATFACE

Where the waters of an estuary entered the sea were many wide and sunny shallows. Here the flounders fed, and here in early summer their little eggs, laid in the quiet water, rose up and floated at the top.

Rocked on the gentle waves, warmed daily by the golden sun, the eggs hatched into flounder babies. Hundreds and thousands of them there were, crystal clear except for two black eyes, and so very small that they could only just be seen. The tide came in and swept them to and fro, and somehow f.a.n.n.y lost the shoal and was carried out to sea.

There the big waves jostled her about, the great sea creatures frightened her. She was lonely and sad and terrified. "Whatever will become of me?" she thought.

On the third day she fell in with a shoal of tiny whitebait, all about her own age and size. "I am lost; please let me swim with you," she begged.

"You poor little thing! Of course you may," they said. So for several days she swam with them towards the sh.o.r.e, playing and feeding in happy forgetfulness of all past misery. At this time she was so like the whitebait that no stranger could tell the difference. She had the same long slender body, the same round head and pointed tail. A week pa.s.sed by. One day she said: "I must go down to the sand. Good-bye."

Before they had time to speak she had dropped from their midst. "How very extraordinary!" said the whitebait to each other. For a day or two they played about as usual, but by-and-by one said: "The thought of f.a.n.n.y worries me. Suppose we go down to see what has happened to her?"

"A good idea," said the others.

They found her lying aslant near the bottom of the sea.

"Are you sick? Why don't you come up?" they asked. "You look very queer, lying on your side like that."

"I feel very queer," she said. "Can you see what is the matter with my left eye?"