Chapter III (4)

A grassy bank close by had been cut into square patches like a chess-board (a square of turf of about eighteen inches being removed, and a hollow excavated), and all these squares were occupied by ducks. A windmill was infested with them, and so were all the out houses, mounds, rocks, and crevices. In fact, the ducks were everywhere. Many of them were so tame as to allow the stranger to stroke them on their nests; and their mistress said there was scarcely a duck on the island which would not allow her to take its eggs without flight or fear. When she first became possessor of the island, the produce of down from the ducks did not exceed fifteen pounds weight in the year, but under her careful nurture it had risen, in twenty years, to nearly one hundred pounds annually. About a pound and a half are required to make a coverlet for a single bed; and the down is worth from twelve to fifteen shillings per pound. Most of the eggs are taken and pickled for winter consumption, one or two only being left to hatch.

Eider-ducks congregate in numerous flocks, generally in deep water; they dive with wonderful force, and thus are enabled to capture the shell-fish which form their principal food. If a storm threatens, they retire to the rocky shores where they love to breed and rest. The Greenlanders kill them with darts, pursuing them in their little boats, watching their course by the air-bubbles that come floating upward when they dive, and dexterously aiming at them as soon as they rise to the surface wearied. Their flesh is eaten by the Greenlanders, but it is not well-flavoured; their eggs, however, are held in high esteem.

The king eider (_Somateria spectabilis_) belongs to the same genus as the former.

We suppose that every reader is acquainted with the beautiful lines in which Tennyson has embodied the fable of the dying swan singing its own dirge:--

“With an inner voice the river ran,
Adown it floated a dying swan,
And loudly did lament....
The wild swan’s death-hymn took the soul
Of that waste place with joy
Hidden in sorrow: at first, to the ear
The warble was low, and full, and clear;...
But anon her awful jubilant voice,
With a music strange and manifold,
Flowed forth on a carol free and bold....
And the creeping mosses and clambering weeds,
And the willow-branches hoar and dank,
And the wavy swell of the soughing reeds,
And the wave-worn horns of the echoing bank,
And the silvery marish-flowers that throng
The desolate creeks and pools among,
Were flooded over with eddying song.”

But the wild swan’s voice, even in its death-hour, has no such musical sweetness as the poet here sets forth. It is always harsh and dissonant, and when it breaks on the silence of the Arctic skies carries with it an almost painful impression.

The lakes of Iceland, and its streams, abound with these beautiful birds. They are very numerous on the Myvatn, or Great Lake, as well as the wild duck, the scoter, the common goosander, the red-breasted merganser, the scaup duck, and other anserines. The wild swan is shot or caught for its feathers, which are highly prized for ornamental purposes. It is sometimes found in large flocks, sometimes in single pairs; and besides the lakes and streams, it frequents the salt and brackish waters along the coast. It is chiefly at the pairing season, or at the approach of winter, that it assembles in multitudes; and as the winter advances it mounts high in air, and shapes its course in search of milder climates.

The female builds her nest of the withered leaves and stalks of reeds and rushes, in lonely and sequestered places. She usually lays six or seven thick-shelled eggs, which are hatched in about six weeks, when both parents assiduously guard and feed the cygnets. When full-grown, this fine bird measures nearly five feet in length, and above seven in breadth across its extended wings; it weighs about fifteen pounds. The entire plumage is of a pure white, and next to the skin lies a coat of thick fine down.

The wealth of the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas is apparently inexhaustible. In many parts cod are plentiful, and supply the Greenlanders with a valuable article of food. The capelin (_Mullotus vitlosus_), which in May and June frequents the Greenland waters, is eaten both fresh and dried; in the latter case forming a useful winter provision. The halibut is found of a large size; and ocean also contributes the Norway haddock, the salmon-trout, the lump-fish, and the bull-head. Nor are the crustacea unrepresented: long-tailed crabs being abundant, while the common mussel may be gathered almost everywhere at ebb-tide. The seas, however, grow poorer as we advance towards the Pole, and many important species of fish do not penetrate further north than the Arctic Circle.

Yet even where these are wanting, the ocean-waters teem with life; and a recent writer is fully justified in remarking that the vast multitudes of animated beings which people them form a remarkable contrast to the nakedness of their bleak and desolate shores. The colder surface-waters are, as he says, almost perpetually exposed to a cold atmosphere, and being frequently covered, even in summer, with floating ice, they are not favourable to the development of organic life; but this adverse influence is modified by the higher temperature which constantly prevails at a greater depth. Contrary to the rule in the Equatorial seas, we find in the Polar-ocean an increase of temperature from the surface downwards, in consequence of the warmer under-currents, flowing from the south northwards, and passing beneath the cold waters of the superficial Arctic current.

Hence the awful rigour of the Arctic winter, which strikes the earth with a death-blight, is not perceptible in the ocean-depths, where myriads of organisms find a secure retreat from the frost, and whence they emerge during the long summer’s day, either to haunt the shores or ascend the broad rivers of the Polar world. Between the parallels of 74° and 80°, Dr. Scoresby observed that the colour of the Greenland sea varies from the purest ultramarine to olive-green, and from crystalline transparency to striking opacity; and these appearances are not transitory, but permanent.[8] The aspect of this green semi-opaque water, which varies in its locality with the currents,--often forming isolated stripes, and sometimes spreading over two or three degrees of latitude,--is mainly due to small medusæ and nudibranchiate molluscs. Many thousands of square miles must literally run riot with life, since the coloured waters we speak of are calculated to form one-fourth of the sea between the 74th and 80th parallels.

On the Greenland coast, where the transparency of the waters is so great that the bottom and every object upon it are clearly discernible, even at a depth of eighty fathoms, the ocean-bed is covered with gigantic tangles, so as to remind the spectator of the ocean-gardens of the Tropical Zone. Alcyonians, sertularians, ascidians, nullipores, mussels, and a variety of other sessile animals incrust every stone, or congregate in every fissure and hollow of the rocky ground. A dead seal or fish flung into the sea is soon converted into a skeleton, it is said, by the myriads of small crustaceans which infest these northern waters, and, like the ants in the equatorial forests, perform the part of scavengers of the deep.

It is evident, from the observations of Professor Forbes, that _depth_ has a very considerable influence in the distribution of marine life. From the surface to the depth of 1380 feet eight distinct zones or regions have been mapped out in the sea, each of which has its own vegetation and inhabitants; and the number of these regions must now he increased, after the astonishing results of the deep-sea soundings of Dr. Carpenter and Professor Wyville Thomson. The changes in the different zones are not abrupt: some of the creatures of an under region always appear before those of the region above it vanish; and though there are a few species the same in some of the eight zones, only two are common to all. It is to be observed that those near the surface have forms and colours analogous to the inhabitants of southern latitudes, while those at a greater depth are analogous to the animals of northern waters. Hence, in the sea, _depth_ corresponds with latitude, as _height_ does on land. Mrs. Somerville adds, in language of much terseness, that the extent of the geographical distribution of any species is proportioned to the depth at which it lives. Consequently, those which live near the surface are less widely dispersed than those inhabiting deep water.

The larger and more active inhabitants of the seas obey the same laws with the rest of creation, though their provinces, or regions, are in some instances very extensive. Above the 44th parallel the Atlantic species frequently correspond with those of the Pacific. The salmon of America is identical with that of the British Isles, and the coasts of Sweden and Norway; the same is true of the _Gadidæ_, or cod. The _Cottas_, or bull-head tribe, are also the same on both sides of the Atlantic; increasing in numbers and specific differences on approaching the Arctic seas. The same law holds good in the North Pacific, but the _generic_ forms differ from those in the Atlantic. From the propinquity of the coasts of America and Asia at Behring Strait, the fish on both sides are nearly alike, down to Admiralty Inlet on the one side, and the Sea of Okhotsk on the other.