Part 10

So runs an ancient legend still current among the Lapps. The stone which the devil threw is Scandinavia; the splinters which fell into the sea on either side are the skerries which form a richly varied wreath around the peninsula. The rents and cracks in the rock are the fjords and the valleys; the sprinkling of life-giving soil which fell from the gracious Creator’s hand forms the few fertile tracts which Scandinavia possesses. To appreciate the full depth and meaning of the childish story one must one’s self have visited Scandinavia, and especially Norway, have steered a boat among the skerries, and have sailed round the country from the extreme south to the farthest north. Marvellous, indeed, is the country; marvellous are its fjords; still more marvellous is the encircling wreath of islands and reefs.

Scandinavia is an alpine country like Switzerland and the Tyrol, yet it differs in a hundred ways from both of these. Like our Alps it has lofty mountains, glaciers, torrents, clear, still alpine lakes, dark pine and fir forests low down in the gorges, bright green birch woods on the heights, far-stretching moors--or more strictly tundras--on the broad shoulders of the mountains, log-huts on the slopes, and the huts of the cowherds in the upland valleys. And yet all is very different from our Alps, as is obvious to anyone who has seen both. The reason of this difference lies in the wonderful way in which two such grand and impressive features of scenery as lofty mountains and the sea are associated and harmonized.

The general aspect of Scandinavia is at once grave and gay. Stern grandeur and soft beauty go hand in hand; gloom alternates with cheerfulness; with the dead and disquieting is linked the living and exhilarating. Black masses of rock rear themselves perpendicularly out of the sea, rise directly from the deeply-cut fjords, and, riven and cleft, tower precipitously upwards and lean threateningly over. On their heads lie masses of ice stretching for miles, covering whole districts and scaring away all life save the torrents to which they themselves have given birth. These torrents spread themselves everywhere in ribbons of silver over the dark masses, and not only give pleasure to the eye, but murmur to the ear the sublime melody of the mountains. They rush down through every cleft to the depths below, they burst forth from every gorge, or plunge in mad career from rock to rock, forming waterfall after waterfall, and awakening echoes from the farthest mountain sides. These rushing mountain-streams which hurry down to the valley through every channel, the gleaming bands of water on every wall of rock, the ascending smoke-like spray which betrays the most secluded falls--these call forth life even in the most dread wilderness, in places where otherwise nought can be seen but rocks and sky--and they are most truly characteristic of the scenery of the interior.

But, majestic as this beauty is, bewildering and overwhelming as are the fjords with their precipitous walls, their ravines and valleys, headlands and peaks, they are yet less characteristic than the islands and skerries lying out in the sea, stretching from the south of the country up to the far north, and forming a maze of bays, sounds, and straits such as can hardly be seen elsewhere in the wide world.

The larger islands reproduce more or less faithfully the characters of the mainland; the smaller ones and the skerries present, under all circumstances, an aspect of their own. But, as one travels towards the north, this aspect changes more or less with every degree of latitude. Like the sea, the islands lack the richness of the south, but are, nevertheless, by no means devoid of beauty. Especially in the midnight hours, when the low midsummer sun stands large and blood-red on the horizon, its veiled brilliance reflected alike from the ice-covered mountain-tops and from the sea, they have an irresistible charm. This is enhanced by the homesteads which are dotted everywhere over the landscape--dwellings built of wood and roofed with turf, glowing in a strange, blood-red colour which contrasts sharply with the green turf roof, the black darkness of the adjacent mountain-side, and the ice-blue of the glaciers in the background of the picture.

The southerner remarks, with some surprise, that these homesteads become larger, handsomer, and more roomy the farther north he travels; that, though no longer surrounded by fields, but at the most by small gardens, they far excel in size and equipment the hut-like buildings of southern Scandinavia; and that the most pretentious of all may be on comparatively small islands, where the rocks are covered only with turf, and where not even a little garden can be won from the inhospitable soil.

The seeming riddle is solved when we remember that in Norland and Finland it is not the land but the sea that is ploughed; that there men do not sow and wield the scythe in summer, but reap in midwinter without having sowed; that it is in the months in which the long night holds its undisputed sway, when the light of the sun has given place to that of the moon, and the rosy flush of dawn and sunset to the glow of the Northern Lights, that the dwellers in the far north gather in the rich harvest of the sea.

About the time of the autumnal equinox strong men are preparing themselves all along the coasts of Norway to secure the harvest of the North. Every town, every village, every hamlet sends one or more well-manned ships to the islands and skerries within the Polar Circle, to anchor for months in every suitable bay. Making the ships or the homesteads on shore their head-quarters, the fishermen proceed to gather in the abundant booty. In the height of summer the whole country is still and deserted, but in winter the bays, islands, and sounds are teeming with busy men, and laborious hands are toiling night and day. Spacious as the dwelling-houses appear, they cannot contain the crowds of people who have assembled; many must remain in the ships, or even seek a rough-and-ready shelter in rudely-constructed turf-covered huts on the shore.

The bustle is at its height about the time of the winter solstice, when we celebrate our Christmas, and the Norsemen their Yule festival. For weeks the sea has been yielding its treasures. Impelled by the strongest impulse which moves living beings, guided by irresistible instinct to sow the seed of future generations, there rise from the depths of the sea innumerable shoals of fishes--cod, haddock, and the like. They ascend to the upper strata of the water, approach the coasts, and throng into the straits, sounds, and fjords in such numbers that they cover the surface of the sea for many miles. Animated, almost maddened, by one impulse, the fish swim so thickly that the boat has literally to force a way among them, that the overweighted net baffles the combined strength of the fishermen or breaks under its burden, that an oar placed upright among the densely packed crowd of swimmers remains for a few moments in its position before falling to one side. Wherever the rocky islands are washed bare by the raging high tides, from the mean tide-mark to the lower edge of the turf which covers their summits, the naked rocks are covered by an unbroken ring of fish split open and laid out to dry, while trestles are also erected that other fish may be exposed for the same purpose to the sharp and drying air. From time to time the rocks and frames are cleared of dried fish, which are packed in bundles and stored in sheds, but only that room may be found for others which in the meantime have been caught and prepared.

For months the bustle continues, and the traffic is uninterrupted; for months the North continues to exchange its treasures with the South. Then in the days when about noon a clear light in the south heralds the coming of the sun still hidden, or when the first rays of sunlight fall for a brief space upon the land, the rich catch comes gradually to an end. The dried cod and ling are carried from the storing sheds to the ships, all available space from keel to deck is filled up, and the fishermen prepare to journey homewards, or abroad into the wide world. One ship after another hoists its brown-edged sails and steers away.

The North becomes quieter again, more deserted the land, desolate the sea. At last, by the time of the spring equinox, all the migrant fishermen have left the fishing grounds, and all the fish have returned to the depths of the sea. But the sea is already sending forth other children to people afresh the straits and sounds, and along with them the skerries and islands; and soon from those same cliffs, at whose base there was but lately all the bustle of the winter, millions of bright bird eyes look down upon the waves.

It is a deeply-affecting trait in the life of all true sea-birds that only two causes can move them to visit the land: the joyous spring-time sense of new-awakening love, and the mournful foreboding of approaching death. Not even Winter with its long night, its cold, and its storms can drive them to the land; they are proof against all the terrors of the North, and seek their food upon or under the waves; not even the threatening jaws of voracious fish scare them ashore. They may alight occasionally, but only for a short time, often on a solitary island in the sea, to oil their feathers more thoroughly than can be done in the water. But when, with the sun’s first brightness, love stirs in their breasts, all, old and young alike, though they may have to swim and fly thousands of miles, strive to reach the place where they themselves first saw the light of day. And if, in mid-winter, months after the breeding-places have been left desolate, a sea-bird feels death in his heart, he hastens as long as his strength holds out, that he may, if possible, die in the place where he was cradled.

The annual assembling of innumerable birds at the breeding-places fills these for several months with a most marvellous life. The communities differ like the sea-birds themselves, and the places, or bergs (as the Norsemen call them), which they people vary also. While some choose only those reefs which rise just above the high-tide mark, and bear no more vegetation than is enough to provide scanty material for the nest hollowed out in the sea-weed heaps, others select islands which rear themselves straight and steep for several hundred feet above the sea, and are either rich in shelves, ledges, cavities, fissures, and other hiding-places, or are covered by a thick layer of peat-like plant remains. The Norseman calls the lower islets ‘eider-holms’ (or eider bird-hills, as the German would say), for they are the favourite brooding-places of what is to him the most valuable, and, what is the same thing, the most useful of all sea-birds. The higher islands which rise precipitously from the sea, and are chiefly peopled by auks and gulls, are included under the general name of bird-bergs.

The observant naturalist is of course tempted to study and describe in detail each individual brooding bird of the sea, but the rich variety of the inhabitants of the bird-bergs of the far north and the variety of their habits impose certain limits. Similarly, lest I exceed the time allowed to me, I must refrain from giving detailed pictures of the habits of all the berg birds, though I think it well at least to outline those of a few in order to bring into prominence some of the chief characteristics of sea-bird life. Selection is difficult, but one, at any rate--the eider-duck, which returns every spring to these islands, and helps to beautify them and their surroundings so marvellously--must not be left undescribed.

Three species of these beautiful ducks inhabit or visit European shores; one of these, the true eider-bird, is to be found every summer, even on the north-western islands of Germany, especially Sylt. Its plumage is a faithful mirror of the northern sea. Black and red, ash-gray, ice-green, white, brown, and yellow are the colours harmoniously blended in it. The eider-duck proper is the least beautiful species, but it is nevertheless a handsome bird. The neck and back, a band over the wings, and a spot on the sides of the body are white as the crests of the waves; throat and crop have a white ground faintly flushed with rose-colour as though the glow of the midnight sun had been caught there; a belt on the cheeks is delicate green like the ice of the glacier; breast and belly, wings and tail, the lower part of the back and the rump are black as the depths of the sea itself. This splendour belongs only to the male; the female, like all ducks, wears a more modest yet not less pleasing garb, which I may call a house-dress. The prevailing rust-coloured ground, shading more or less into brown, is marked with longitudinal and transverse spots, lines and spirals, with a beauty and variety that words cannot adequately describe.

No other species of duck is so thoroughly a child of the sea as the eider-duck; no species waddles more clumsily on land, or flies less gracefully, but none swims more rapidly or dives more deftly and deeply. In search of food it sinks fully fifty yards below the surface of the sea, and is said to be able to remain five minutes--an extraordinarily long time--under water. Before the beginning of the brooding season it does not leave the open sea at all, or does so very rarely; following a whim rather than driven by necessity. Towards the end of winter the flocks in which they congregate break up into pairs, and only those males who have not succeeded in securing mates swim about in little groups. Between two mates the most perfect unanimity reigns. One will, undoubtedly that of the duck, determines the actions of both. If she rises from the surface of the water to fly for a hundred yards through the air, the drake follows her; if she dives into the sea, he disappears directly afterwards; wherever she turns he follows faithfully; whatever she does seems to express his wishes. The pair still live out on the sea, though only where the depth is not greater than twenty-five fathoms, and where edible mussels and other bivalves are found in rich abundance on the rocks and the sea-bottom. These molluscs often form the sole food of eider-ducks, and to procure them they may have to dive to considerable depths. But it is the abundance of this food which preserves the eiders from the scarcity from which so many other species of duck often suffer severely.

In April, or at the latest in the beginning of May, the pairs approach nearer and nearer the fringe of reefs and the shores of the mainland. Maternal cares are stirring in the breast of the duck, and to these everything else is subordinated. Out at sea the pair were so shy that they never allowed a ship or boat to get near them, and feared man, if he ever happened to approach them, more than any other living creature; now in the neighbourhood of the islands their behaviour changes entirely. Obeying her maternal instincts, and these only, the duck swims to one of the brooding-places, and paying no attention to the human inhabitants, waddles on to the land. Anxiously the drake follows her, not without uttering his warning “Ahua, ahua”, not without visible hesitation, for every now and then he remains behind as if reflecting for a while, and then swims forward once more. The duck, however, pays no heed to all this. Careless of the whole world around her, she wanders over the island seeking a suitable brooding-place. Being somewhat fastidious, she is not satisfied with the first good heap of sea-weed cast up by the tide, with the low juniper-bush whose branches straggling on the ground offer safe concealment, with the half-broken box which the owner of the island has placed as a shelter for her, or with the heaps of twigs and brushwood which he has gathered to entice her, but approaches the owner’s dwelling as fearlessly as if she were a domestic bird. She enters it, walks about the floor, follows the housewife through rooms and kitchen, and capriciously selects, it may be, the inside of the oven as her resting-place, thereby forcing the housewife to have her bread baked for weeks on another island. With manifest alarm the faithful drake follows her as far as he dares; but when she, in his opinion, so far neglects all considerations of safety as to dwell under the same roof with human beings, he no longer tries to struggle against her wayward whim, but leaves her to follow it alone, and flies out to the safety of the sea, there longingly to await her daily visit. His mate is in no wise distracted by his departure, but proceeds to collect twigs and brushwood--a task in which she willingly accepts the Norseman’s help--and to pile up into a heap her nest materials, which include sea-weed as well as twigs. She hollows out a trough with her wings and makes it circular by turning round and round in it with her smooth breast. Then she sets about procuring the lining and incorporating it with the nest. Thinking only of her brood, she plucks the incomparably soft down from her breast and makes with it a sort of felt, which not only lines the whole hollow but forms such a thick border at its upper edge that it serves as a cover to protect the eggs from cold when the mother leaves the nest. Before the work of lining is quite completed, the duck begins laying her comparatively small, smooth-shelled, clouded-green or grayish-green eggs. The clutch consists of from six to eight, seldom more or fewer.

This is the time for which the Norseman has been waiting, for it was self-interest that prompted all his hospitality to the bird. The host now becomes the robber. Ruthlessly he takes the eggs and the nest with its inner lining of costly down. From twenty-four to thirty nests yield about two pounds of down, worth at least thirty shillings on the spot. This price is sufficient explanation of the Norseman’s way of acting.

With a heavy heart the duck sees the downfall of her hopes for that year. Perturbed and frightened, she flies out to sea, where her mate awaits her. Whether he takes the opportunity of repeating his warnings more urgently I cannot say, but I can testify that he very soon succeeds in consoling her. The joy and spirit of the spring-time still live in the hearts of both; and in a very few days our duck waddles on land again as though nothing had happened, to build a second nest! This time she probably avoids her former position and contents herself with the first available heap of tangle which is not fully taken up by other birds. Again she digs and rounds a hollow; again she begins to probe among her plumage in order to procure the lining of down which seems to her indispensable. But, however much she exert herself, stretching her neck and twisting it in intricate snake-like curves, she can find no more. Yet when was a mother, even a duck mother, at a loss when her children had to be provided for? Our duck is certainly at none. She herself has no more down, but her mate bears it untouched on his breast and back. Now it is his turn. And though he may perhaps rebel, having a lively recollection of former years, he is the husband and she the wife, therefore he must obey. Without compunction the anxious mother rifles his plumage, and in a few hours, or at most within two days, she has plucked him as bare as herself. That the drake, after such treatment, should fly out to the open sea as soon as possible, and associate for some months only with his fellows, troubling himself not in the least about his mate and her coming brood, seems to me quite comprehensible. And when, as happens on every nesting island, a drake is to be seen standing by the brooding duck, I think he must be one who has not yet been plucked!

Our duck broods once more assiduously. And now her house-dress is seen to be the only suitable, I might say the only possible, garment which she could wear. Among the tangle which surrounds the nest she is completely hidden even from the sharp eyes of the falcon or the sea-eagle. Not only the general colouring, but every point and every line is so harmonious with the dried sea-weed, that the brooding-bird, when she has drawn down her neck and slightly spread out her wings, seems to become almost a part of her surroundings. Many a time it has happened that I, searching with the practised eye of a sportsman and naturalist, have walked across eider-holms and only become aware of the brooding duck at my feet, when she warned me off by pecking at my shoes. No one who knows the self-forgetting devotion with which the birds brood will be surprised that it is possible to come so near an eider-duck sitting in her nest, but it may well excite the astonishment of even an experienced naturalist to learn that the duck suffers one to handle the eggs under her breast without flying away, and that she does not even allow herself to be diverted from her brooding when one lifts her from the nest and places her upon it again, or lays her on the ground at some little distance in order to see the charmingly quaint way in which she waddles back to her brood.

The eider-duck’s maternal self-surrender and desire for offspring show themselves in another way. Every female eider-duck, perhaps every duck of whatever species, desires not only the bliss of bearing children, but wishes to have as many nestlings as possible under her motherly eye. Prompted by this desire, she has no scruples in robbing, whenever possible, other eiders brooding near her. Devoted as she is in her brooding, she must nevertheless forsake her nest once a day to procure her own food, and to cleanse, oil, and smooth her plumage, which suffers considerably from the heat developed in brooding. Throwing a suspicious glance at her neighbours to right and left, she rises early in the forenoon, after having perhaps suffered the pangs of hunger for some hours, stands beside her nest and carefully spreads the surrounding fringe of down with her bill, so that it forms a concealing and protecting cover for the eggs. Then she flies quickly out to the sea, dives repeatedly, and hastily fills crop and gullet to the full with mussels, bathes, cleans, and oils herself, and returns to land, drying and smoothing her feathers continuously as she walks towards her nest. Both her neighbours sit seemingly as innocent as before, but in the interval a theft has been perpetrated by at least one of them. As soon as the first had flown away, one of them rose from her nest, and lifting the cover of her neighbour’s nest, quickly rolled one, two, three, or four eggs with her feet into her own nest, then carefully replaced the cover, and resumed her place, rejoicing over her unrighteously-increased clutch. The returning duck probably notices the trick that has been played, but she makes not the slightest sign, and calmly settles down to brood again as though she thought, “Just wait, neighbour, you must go to the sea, too, and then I’ll do to you what you have done to me”. As a matter of fact, the eggs of several nests standing close together are shifted continuously from one to another. Whether it is her own or another’s children that come to life under her motherly breast seems to matter very little to the eider-duck--they are children, at any rate!

The duck sits about twenty-six days before the eggs are hatched. The Norseman, who goes to work intelligently, lets her do as she pleases this time, and not only refrains from disturbing her, but assists her as far as possible by keeping away from the island all enemies who might harass the bird. He knows his ducks, if not personally, at least to this extent, that he can tell about what time this or that one will have finished brooding, and will set out with her ducklings to seek the safety of the sea. The journey thither brings sudden destruction to many unwatched young eider-ducks. Not only the falcons breeding on or visiting the island, but even more the ravens, the skuas, and the larger gulls watch for the first appearance of the ducklings, attack them on the way, and carry off one or more of them. The owner of the island seeks to prevent this in a manner which enables one to appreciate how thoroughly the duck, ordinarily so wild and shy, has become a domestic bird during the breeding season. Every morning towards the end of the brooding-time he inspects the island in order to help the mothers and to gather in a second harvest of down. On his back hangs a hamper, and on one arm a wide hand-basket. Going from nest to nest he lifts each duck, and looks to see whether the young are hatched and are sufficiently dry. If this be the case, he packs the whole waddling company in his hand-basket, and with adroit grasp divests the nest of its downy lining, which he throws into his hamper, and proceeds to another nest. Trustfully the duck waddles after him or rather after her piping offspring, and a second, third, tenth nest is thus emptied, in fact the work goes on as long as the basket will accommodate more nestlings, and one mother after another joins the procession, exchanging opinions with her companions in suffering on the way. Arrived at the sea, the man turns the basket upside down and simply shakes the whole crowd of ducklings into the water. Immediately all the ducks throw themselves after their piping young ones; coaxing, calling, displaying all manner of maternal tenderness, they swim about among the flock, each trying to collect as many ducklings as possible behind herself. With obvious pride one swims about with a long train behind her, but soon a second, less favoured, crosses the procession and seeks to detach as many of the ducklings as she can, and again a third endeavours to divert a few in her own favour. So all the mothers swim about, quacking and calling, cackling and coaxing, till at length each one has behind her a troop of young ones, whether her own or another’s who can tell? The duck in question certainly does not know, but her mother-love does not suffer on that account--they are in any case ducklings who are swimming behind her!

In every case the flock thus collected follows the mother or foster-mother faithfully even in the first hours of free life. The mother leads them to places where edible mussels cover the rocks up to low-water mark, gathers as many as she and her family require, breaks the shells of the smallest and lays the contents before her brood. On the first day of their lives the ducklings are able to swim and dive as well as their parents, and they even excel them in one respect, for they are incomparably more nimble on land, being able to move about with surprising activity. If they become tired near an island the mother leads them on to it, and they run about like young partridges, and, by simply crouching down at the first warning cry, conceal themselves so effectively that they can only be found after long searching. If they get fatigued when they are far from land, the mother spreads out her wings a little and offers them these and her back as a resting-place. As they never know want they grow with extraordinary rapidity, and at the end of two months will have attained nearly the size, certainly all the adroitness, of their mother. The father soon joins them in order to pass the winter with his family--usually in company with many other families, so that a flock of thousands may occasionally be formed.

The high and annually increasing price of its incomparable down makes the eider-duck the most valuable of all berg-birds. A thousand pairs of ducks form a possession well worth having. At least three or four thousand pairs brood on each island, and the fortunate possessor of still more numerously visited breeding-places derives revenues through his birds which many a German land-owner might envy. But besides the eider-ducks there breed also on the holms oyster-catchers and black guillemots, whose eggs are preserved and used for food for months, or are exported to a distance. Furthermore, the flesh of the young birds is sometimes salted for winter use, and thus the holms yield a rich harvest. They are therefore strictly preserved and protected by special laws.

A brooding island peopled by eider-ducks and other sea birds presents a spectacle as unique as it is fascinating. A more or less thick cloud of brilliantly white sea-gulls veils such an island. Without intermission troops and swarms of brooding birds arrive and fly out to sea again, visiting the neighbouring reefs also, and sometimes marvellously adorning the drained moorland, now covered with green turf, in front of the red log-huts. With justifiable pride a dweller on the Lofodens pointed to several hundred gulls which were assembled directly before his door seeking for insects. “Our land is too poor, too cold, and too rough”, he said, “for us to be able to keep domestic birds as you do in the south. But the sea sends us our doves, and, I ask, have you ever seen more beautiful?” I could but answer in the negative, for the picture of the dazzling white and delicate blue-gray gulls on the luxuriant green turf amid the grand environment of the northern mountains was indeed magnificent. It is these gulls chiefly which make the brooding holms conspicuous from a distance, and distinguish them from others which are physically the same. The other members of the feathered population are but little noticed, though they number many thousands. Only when one of the admirable light boats of the country is pushed off from the inhabited shores and rowed towards the holm does the quiet life of the birds change. Some oyster-catchers, which have been feeding directly above the high-water mark, have observed the boat and fly hastily towards it. These birds, which are absent from none of the larger islands, scarcely from any of the skerries, are the guardians of the safety and welfare of the peacefully united colony. More inquisitive and active than any other birds known to me, self-possessed, cautious, and deliberate, they possess all the qualities necessary to make them the sentinels of a mixed colony. Every new, unusual, or extraordinary event arouses their curiosity, and incites them to make closer examination. Thus they fly to meet the boat, sweep round it five or six times in ever-narrowing circles, screaming uninterruptedly the while, thus attracting others of their own species to the spot, and rousing the attention of all the cautious birds in the colony. As soon as they have convinced themselves of the presence of actual danger, they fly quickly back, and, with warning notes, communicate the result of their investigation to all the other birds on the berg who will pay any attention, as indeed many do. Some gulls now resolve to investigate the cause of the disturbance for themselves. Five or six of them fly towards the boat, hover falcon-like in the air, perhaps even dart boldly down upon the intruders, and return to the holm more quickly than they came. Just as if their report was mistrusted, twice, three, four--ten times the number take wing, proceeding exactly as the first spies had done, and soon a cloud of birds forms above the boat. This cloud becomes thicker and thicker, more and more threatening, for the birds not only endeavour with continually increasing boldness to strike against the intruders in the boat, but they bestow upon them stuff which does not exactly tend to adorn faces and clothing. In the neighbourhood of the breeding-place the excitement increases to an apparently distracted confusion, the cries of individuals unite to form a maddening noise a thousand times repeated. Before the boat has touched the land the eider-drakes, who have been visiting their mates, have waddled to the shore and are now swimming out to sea with a warning “Ahua-ahua”. The cormorants and mergansers follow them, but the oyster-catchers, plovers, black guillemots, eider-ducks, gulls, and terns, as well as the stone-chats and water-wagtails, cannot make up their minds to forsake the island. Running birds innumerable rush up and down the shore as if pursued by the evil one; the black guillemots, which had glided up the slanting blocks of rock, squat flat down upon them and stare in innocent wonder at the strangers, and the eider-ducks prepare to make themselves invisible after their fashion when the right moment comes.

The boat touches the shore. We step upon the holm. A screech rises from thousands of voices at once, the cloud of flying birds thickens to opaqueness; hundreds of brooding gulls rise croaking to join those in flight; dozens of oyster-catchers scream loudly, and the maze of moving birds and the noise of their screeching become so bewildering that one feels as if one perceived with the bodily senses the din and riot of the witches’ revel on the Blocksberg.

“Voices o’er us dost thou hear? Voices far, and voices near? All the mountain-range along Streams a raving Witches’ Song.”

Mephisto’s words are realized. The noise and tumult, the confusion of forms and cries, fatigue all the senses; everything swims and flickers before our eyes; there is singing and ringing in our ears, till at length we are conscious of neither colour nor noise, scarcely even of the usually very penetrating odour. In whatever direction we may turn the cloud covers the island; nothing is to be seen but birds, and when thousands alight to rest thousands more take wing, their care and anxiety for their brood making them forget their own powerlessness, and encouraging them to a defence which, though not dangerous, is certainly embarrassing to the explorers.