Part 13
A correspondent at San Francisco informs me that an important trade is carried on in that city in the eggs of sea birds. He states, that the Farallones de los Frayles, a group of rocky islets, lying a little more than twenty miles west of the entrance to the Bay of San Francisco, are the resort of innumerable sea-fowl, known by the fishermen as ‘murres.’ These islands are almost inaccessible, and, with a single exception, are uninhabited. They, therefore, very naturally afford a resort for great multitudes of birds. Some time since a company was organized in San Francisco for the purpose of bringing the eggs of the murres to market. An imperfect idea of the numbers of these birds may be formed from the fact, that this company sold in that city the last season (a period of less than two months, July and parts of June and August) _more than five hundred thousand eggs_! All these were gathered on a single one of these islands; and, in the opinion of the eggers, not more than one egg in six of those deposited on that island was gathered. My correspondent informs me that he was told by those familiar with the islands that all the eggs brought in were laid by birds of a single kind. Yet they exhibit astonishing variations in size, in form, and in colouring. There is no reason to suppose that he was misinformed in regard to these eggs being deposited by a single species. The men could have had no motive for deception, and similar facts are observable on the Labrador coast and in the islands north of Scotland. Besides, the writer ascertained from other sources, that all the eggs brought to the market were obtained from a limited portion of the island, known as the Great Farallone--called the Rookery, where a single species swarm in myriads, and where no other kind of bird is found. Naturalists, who have received specimens of these birds, pronounce them to be the thick-billed or Brunnich’s guillemot, or murre, of Labrador and Northern Europe. The eggs are three and a half inches in length, and are esteemed a great delicacy.
There is a small island off the Cape of Good Hope, named Dassen Island, about six miles from the mainland, which is one and a half mile long by one broad, from which 24,000 eggs of penguins and gulls are collected every fortnight, and sold at Cape Town for a half-penny each.
The late Lieut. Ruxton, R.N., speaking of the Island of Ichaboe, on the Western Coast of Africa, says, ‘Notwithstanding that the island had been occupied for nearly two years, during which time thousands upon thousands of penguins had been wantonly destroyed, on the cessation of work these birds again flocked to their old haunts, where they had again commenced laying their eggs. The rocks round the island are literally covered with penguins, cormorants, and albatrosses. The former, wedged together in a dense phalanx, have no more dread of man than ducks in a poultry-yard, although they have met with such persecution on the island; and any number might be taken by the hand without any difficulty. The sailors eat the livers and hearts, which are exceedingly palatable, but the flesh of the body is rank and oily.’[16]
Captain Morrell, also writing of Ichaboe (_Nautical Magazine_, vol. 13, p. 374), tells us, ‘Eggs may be obtained here in great quantities. In the months of October and November this island is literally covered with jackass-penguins and gannets, which convene here for the purpose of laying and incubation. The nests of the gannets are formed like those of the albatross, but are not so much elevated; while the jackass-penguins lay their eggs in holes in the ground from twelve to thirty inches in depth, which they guard with the strictest vigilance. They frequently lay three or four eggs, but the gannet seldom lays more than two.’
A correspondent, writing from Tristan d’Acunha, in September, gives an account of his adventures in taking penguins’ eggs. ‘This is now the time for penguins’ eggs. They get great numbers of them. There are two rookeries, as they call them; one on the east, and one on the west, of us. To the one on the west, they go over land, beyond Elephant Bay. I went there last year, when I saw the great sea elephant and the penguins for the first time. But this year I have been disappointed, the weather has been so unsettled. But yesterday was a fine day, and they were going in the boat to the other, to which they can go only by water; so I went with them. It was a good day, and we landed easily, though it is a very bad beach. Fancy the scene--a long, very narrow strip of land, at the foot of a great rock, covered with the thick tussac grass, far higher than my head; the whole place swarming with these penguins--pretty to look at, but the most ungainly creatures in their movements that I ever saw? They stand almost upright. The breast is glossy white, the rest is gray. A couple of tufts of those pretty yellow feathers, of which I sent home a few, adorn each side of the head and give them a very lively appearance. They have no wings, but instead, a couple of flippers, as they call them, like arms, which they use about as gracefully as Punch does his. And then the way in which they hop along! Talk of the motion of a frog! it is elegance itself compared with them. Altogether, they are the most interesting, curious things in Tristan. They are about as big, and twice as noisy, as a duck. Fancy going into the midst of thick grass higher than your head, with thousands of them round you, all croaking out in a harsh, loud, quick note, ‘Cover up! cover up!’ and then kicking them right and left, quickly, taking care they do not get hold of you,--seizing their great eggs, till you have got some hundreds of them in your bosom. The men wear a large shirt, tied round their waist, so as to form a large loose bag in front, and so pop them in as fast as they can pick them up. The men will gather two or three hundred in this way, and the boys from one to two; and from the other rookery carry them the whole way home--no little load. The eggs vary much in size, from a large hen’s egg to a goose’s. They mostly lay two at once. Their nests are sometimes close together, so you can soon pick up a lot. They stand in pairs, each couple at their nest to defend it, and some will not give up till they have been kicked away two or three times. They can give a good sharp bite, if they get hold of you. The men found me a spot where the eggs were very thick, and very little tussac, and though I was a new hand at the work, and therefore obliged to look sharp to escape a bite, I managed to collect more than a hundred of them in a short time. Fancy what work, to stand amid hundreds of the birds, all screaming round you, so as almost to deafen you, tumbling them here and there, and picking up their eggs as fast as you can gather them! It is really amusing sport. I must remind you the kicking them over with our soft moccasins (shoes) does not hurt them in the least, and the next day they will have just as many eggs.
‘Six of the men went round in the boat. We were there about four hours, and gathered about four thousand--pretty near a boat’s load; and could have got more if we had chosen. It was a pleasant day, and we had a good row back.’
An interesting account which recently appeared in a Jamaica paper, respecting egg gathering, is also worth quoting.
The annual egg gathering visit, which the boatmen of Port Royal make to the Pedro Keys, we may set down as a remnant of Indian life. In the work entitled _The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus, compiled from his papers by his son Don Ferdinand_, we are informed, that on the 13th of November, 1492, the discovery squadron weighing from the Rio de Mares, Cuba, stood to the eastward, to search for the island called Bohio by the Indians, and coming to an anchor among some high raised islets on the coast, found them to be places visited by the Indians at certain seasons of the year, for supplies of fish and birds. ‘The islands,’ Columbus says, ‘were not inhabited, but there were seen the remains of many fires which had been made by the fishermen; for it afterwards appeared that the people were in use to go over in great numbers in their canoes to these islands, and to a great number of other uninhabited islets in these seas, to live upon fish, which they catch in great abundance, and upon birds and crabs, and other things which they find on the land. The Indians follow this employment of fishing and bird-catching according to the seasons, sometimes in one island sometimes in another, as a person changes his diet, when weary of living on one kind of food.’[17]
‘From the lighthouse on the Port Royal palisades to Portland in Vere, a line encloses a system of coast islands, reefs, banks, and shoals colonized by numerous birds and fishes. Each kind has its own locality. Pelican Key and Pigeon Island never interchange inhabitants, and the bank that gives the king-fish furnishes neither the snapper nor the grouper. Southward from Portland, at a distance of some few leagues, the great Pedro bank is reached, stretching near 100 miles. There are islets at each extremity, but the group that attracts the egg gatherers every year, are the Keys, distinguished as the Pedros, at its eastern end. We shall loiter a little to describe a living world there that must have been a great attraction to the aboriginal Indians, in those periodical junketings that came under the notice of Columbus.
‘The Port Royal boats bound for the egg harvest, bring to, at the outermost of the Portland Keys, and start at midnight from there, to gain with a favourable breeze in 14 or 15 hours the shelter of the Pedros, and to be snug at anchor long before sundown. The vessels in their voyage steer for a single rock in fathomless water, the Isla Sola of the Spanish maps. It rises about 30 or 40 feet out of the sea like a castle in ruins, over which the surf breaks fiercely; and in about five or six hours after making it, they anchor within what are properly called the Keys.
‘There are numerous outlying rocks just above and beneath the water, between the Pedro shoal and the open sea, on which the winds and the currents roll a heavy surf. The spots properly called the islands are seven in number, and vary from forty to some three or four acres in size. They are upthrown masses of broken coral and shell cemented by calcareous sand, washed upon rocky ledges above the sea. The breakers shift with the shifting winds, rolling these fragmentary deposits on before them. By the regularity of their change of action, they have done the work of accumulation pretty equally on all sides: they have raised a wall all round the islands, and left the centres hollow.
‘From time to time storms of unusual violence have carried the heaped-up coral and sand suddenly, and in thick layers, over portions of the islands where the dung of the sea birds had accumulated for years, and these irruptions have made intermediate deposits of animal matter and cemented rock. It is evident from the prevalence of this succession of deposits within the hollow centres of the islets, that the sea has washed in the fragmentary materials of the outer margins, by a more than ordinary rise of the waters, and laid them in pretty equal strata at distant intervals of time, so that the centres have risen in height as the sea walls have been built and cemented up. The animal deposits, which may be characterized as loosely cohering urate of lime, are sometimes found two feet beneath the strata of cemented coral and shells, and run about an inch or an inch and a half thick.
‘Immediately within the islands, the waters shoal, and make a bank called the Vibora by the Spaniards. It runs to the Cascabel rock, 90 odd miles westward, bristled with reefs and sunken rocks, having a depth of from 7 to 17 fathoms. Easterly winds, that is, the trade winds, veering southward and northward, for determinate portions of the year, roll constant billows over it. Westerly breezes, varying northerly and southerly, bring tremendous gales and heavy swells. The rough agency of all these movements has heaped up the sands, and the corals, and shells, cementing them into rock, and giving the island an elevation of from 15 to 20 feet.
‘The vegetation on these islands is stunted surianas, among whose tough and twisted branches the birds find nestling places. To these lonely islets resort thousands and tens of thousands of sea-fowl. As soon as visitors land, myriads of birds are upon the wing in all directions. Some flocks rise in circling flight high up into the air, and descending again in the same dense numbers as they rose, settle in more remote places; others break away hurriedly, and fly in a wide sweep far around, but return again hastily to the rocks they had quitted, reconciled to bear with the disturbance. The turmoil and hubbub of the thousands of birds thus suddenly put upon the wing, overpower for a moment the roar of the breakers, and darken the air like the sudden passing of a cloud.
‘The constant inhabitants of the rocks are several species of the booby, gannets, terns, gulls, and petrels--and the frigate pelican. The frigate-birds preserve their predilection for rapine amid the teeming plenty of the waters, and subsist by pillaging the gulls and gannets. The migratory visitors are ducks, herons, plovers, snipes, sandpipers, curlews, and ibises, with the several falcons that follow them. In the autumnal movement of these birds towards the equatorial regions, they would be found steering from north to south, but at the time when the egg gatherers visit the islets, they are seen coming from the south, just resting and departing north. The successive months of March, April, and May, are those of the egg harvest.
‘The Keys are open to all adventurers, but the egg gathering is regulated by a custom which recognises the first coming vessel as commanding for the season. The second vessel in seniority is called the Commodore, the first being styled the Admiral. They have a code of laws, to which, in a spirit of honourable compliance, all are expected to show obedience; and in case of any infraction of the obligations thus voluntarily imposed upon themselves, a jury selected from the several vessels tries complaints, and with due formality inflicts punishment for offences.
‘The south-west is the principal of the Pedro Keys. The stay of the birds that resort there to breed is prolonged by the successive loss of the eggs they lay. Each loss is a stimulus to a fresh act of pairing; a new lot of eggs being the result, possibly in number equal to the former lot, but probably less, as the latter deposits are a forced production, at the expense of the vigour of the bird, without any additional strength to the constitution by the increased nourishment of food, the process by which domesticated birds, in changing their habits, are led to lay a continuance of eggs for a long season. The egg gatherers are careful observers of the progress of incubation, and take only the eggs they know to be fresh laid. These are a part of the regulations they require to be observed, or the constant depredations committed on the birds would fatally thin their numbers.
‘Without going into the discussion of naturalists, who see in the different colours of eggs a certain relation to circumstances favourable to concealment, it may be observed that the blotched egg, laid by the _Hydrochelidon fuliginosa_, properly distinguished as the _egg-bird_, is found among sticks and dried leaves of the suriana, whilst the white eggs of the boobies and petrels are deposited in hollows of the coral rocks, amid sand and chalky dung. There is one curious coincidence between the eggs of the noddy, _Sterna stolida_, and the peculiarities of the nest, that must not, however, be unremarked. The elaborate pile of sticks slightly hollowed, in which they deposit their eggs, is always embellished with broken sea shells, speckled and spotted like the eggs. Audubon records the same occurrence in the nests of the noddy terns he inspected in the Florida Keys. The obvious suggestion for this curious prevalence of instinct is deceptiveness, arising from similarity between the egg shell and the sea shell. The nests are pillaged by what is called the laughing gull (the _Larus atricilla_, not the _ridibundus_); the numerous empty shells lying among the rocks being always set down to the predatory visits of the laughing gull.
‘South-west Key, and the other sandy islets around it, are beside, annually resorted to by the fishermen in the turtling season for a different harvest of eggs. The turtles (_Chelone midas_) visit these shoals to deposit their eggs in the dry sand, and leave them to the fostering influence of the sun. They repeat their layings thrice, at the interval of two or three weeks, laying a hundred at a time. Some experience is necessary to trace the place of deposit, for the eggs are always laid in the night; but few of them escape the detection of the turtler.’
Geese are reared in large numbers in Alsace, the livers of which are used in making the famous Strasburg pies. In Denmark, geese and ducks are salted down for winter use.
In Greenland, the snow goose affords great subsistence to the natives, and the feathers are an article of commerce. Each family will kill thousands in a season; these, after being plucked and gutted, are flung in heaps into holes dug for that purpose, and are covered only with earth. The mould presses, and forms over them an arch; and whenever the family have occasion to open one of these magazines, they find their provisions perfectly sweet and good.
In Captain Sir John Ross’s _Arctic Voyage to Regent Inlet_, it is recorded, that when they discovered that the wild geese had begun to lay on the margin of the lakes, their eggs formed a dainty and wholesome repast. ‘The eggs on being weighed were found on an average to be 4½ ounces--of a dingy white, faintly speckled. The discovery of a goose’s nest, where the process of incubation had not begun, was regarded by them in the light of a treasure. To the natives, however, it appeared to be a matter of very trifling import whether the egg were freshly laid, or whether it were within a few days of being hatched. Half-a-dozen eggs beaten up with the young ones, in all stages of their growth, from the first development of the form to the complete formation of the fœtus, proved to the natives what a dish of callipash and callipee is to the gourmandizing alderman; nor were they very particular as to the embryos being wholly divested of the shells, for the latter appeared to be nearly of the same use as beans to the food of a horse, to force him to masticate the oats more thoroughly.’
The cygnet, or young of the swan, was formerly much esteemed; at Norwich they were fattened for the corporation. The flesh of the old birds is hard and ill tasted.
The pintail (_Anas acuta_) is a very choice bird--the very ‘ring tail’ of the duck tribe. They are undoubtedly a _recherché morceau_, for, being essentially grain feeders, they have no fishy flavour.
Widgeon and teal are in great favour when in good condition.
REPTILIA.
We find various reptiles, _Chelonian_, _Saurian_, and _Ophidian_, still forming articles of food in many quarters of the world, and some so repulsive in their appearance, that it seems difficult to conceive how they could first have been tasted.
In the class REPTILIA, we have in the first order _Chelonia_ or _tortoises_, comprising the following which are used as food:--1, several of the terrestrial tortoises, genus _Testudo_; 2, some of the marsh tortoises or Emydes, the chelodina, matamata, &c.; 3, the cryptopus or river tortoise; and 4, the marine tortoises or turtles.
In the second order SAURIA or lizards, we find--1, crocodiles and alligators contributing to the sustenance of man; 2, several of the iguarians.
In the third order, OPHIDIA or serpents, the rattlesnake, boas and pythons, and several other snakes.
In the fourth order, AMPHIBIA, some of the edible and tree frogs.
We know not, observes a recent writer, why the flesh of the vegetable-feeding tortoises should not be adopted, as well as that of the green turtle, among the various articles which are in request for the table. There is much in habit and association of ideas; and though persons who would not refuse turtle might turn from tortoise with disgust, they may rest assured that in Sicily and Italy these land tortoises are sold in the markets, principally for being made into soup, which dish is more esteemed than the flesh prepared in any other way.
The flesh of a tortoise, called the matamata by the aborigines of Cayenne (_Chelys matamata_, Dumeril, _C. fimbriata_, Spix), is said to be highly esteemed in various parts of Guiana.
There is a great variety of land tortoises in Trinidad and some of the other West Indian Islands, which in general are as delicious as the best green turtle.
The eggs of the close tortoise (_Testudo clausa_) of North America, are reckoned a delicacy, and are about the size of pigeons’ eggs.
The gopher tortoise (_Testudo Carolina_, of Leconte) occasionally makes considerable depredations in the potato fields of the farmer, and in gardens and other cultivated grounds, but its flesh is excellent, and hence it is sought after for the table.
The flesh of the Carolina terrapin or box tortoise (_Cistudo Carolina_) is occasionally eaten, but it is held in low estimation; the eggs, however, which are about as large as those of a pigeon, are accounted excellent, and are much sought after.
The flesh of the European box tortoise (_Cistudo Europæa_), though not very delicate, is nevertheless eaten on the Continent; it is said, however, to be greatly improved by feeding the animals for some time on grains, bran, and other vegetable aliment. The salt water terrapin (_Emys concentrica_), which is found both in North and South America, is in great request, its flesh being highly esteemed as a delicacy for the table, especially at the close of the summer, when the animals have returned to their winter dormitory. They are then fat, and considered as a luxury.
The eggs of the terrapin are not provided with a hard shell, but a skin like that purest of all parchments, parchment just before it receives the ink of law upon it.
The general method of killing these animals is a most barbarous one. They are laid upon their backs, either close to the fire, or upon the red wood-ashes, until the thick shell becomes so hot to the animal within that he desperately stretches out both legs and neck, in the vainest of endeavours to extricate himself from the walls of his burning house. The tender-hearted cook watches his opportunity, and when it is evident that, in ordinary phrase, the poor terrapin ‘cannot contain itself,’ or in other words, will no longer draw back his head into such a living furnace--the knife descends, and the head is cut away. The late Mr. Charles Hooton told me, that he had seen such heads at least half-an-hour after being cut off, attempt, on being touched, to bite with sufficient force to take the piece out of the finger. During this time the eyes will occasionally open, though generally they remain shut.
The flesh of the Indian Cryptopus, a river or fluviatile tortoise (_Cryptopus granosus_, Bibr., _Testudo scabra_, Latr.) is eaten in Pondicherry and Coromandel, where it lives in large sheets of fresh water or lagoons.
The flesh of the soft tortoise of America (_Trionyx ferox_, Cuvier), which inhabit the rivers of Carolina and Georgia, is eaten.
The curious New Holland tortoise (_Chelodina longicollis_), first described by Shaw, which, as far as the head and neck is concerned, reminds one rather of a snake than a tortoise, is abundant in some of the lakes of Western Australia, and is considered by the natives a great treat, as are also the snakes and lizards.