The duck's labor of solitude: Biological monasticism and the evolutionary logic of abandonment

“ The fantastic has become the conceivable, the possible tends to become the real; the earth becomes the garden of man. Man’s chief problem is how to make the cohabitation of the individuals of his species possible; how, that is to say, to secure for each successive epoch the law, the order, the equilibrium which befits it. Division of labor allows him to explore in every direction at once; industry, science, art, law, education, morals, religion, politics, and economical relations—all are in process of birth. ”

“ The male bird, like other ducks, assumes no share of the labors of incubation, but entertains himself hunting fish in some solitary stream where food is plentiful, and in proper season returns to assume the duties of the head of his lusty family. ”

“ T THE eider-duck is here, but not its beauty, for at this fag-end of the summer and breeding season the males have all departed, and it is the sober-coloured female, either alone or accompanied by her little brood of ducklings, that one meets now along the shores of the island. True there must be males in their just proportion among the latter, but at this tender age—the age of fluff and innocence—the sex of a bird is in abeyance—a world that is not yet begun. ”

“ No, Reader, not a thought of this kind has he wasted on her whom he has left alone in charge of a set of eggs, and now of a whole flock of innocent ducklings, to secure which from danger, and see them all grow up apace, she manifests the greatest care and anxiety. She leads them along the shallow edges of grassy ponds, and teaches them to seize the small insects that abound there, the flies, the musquitoes, the giddy beetles that skim along the surface in circles and serpentine lines. At the sight of danger they run as it were on the water, make directly for the shore, or dive and disappear. ”

“ As the world is full of creatures on the prowl for tender mouthfuls, every mother has her apprehensions; she also has her natural wisdom, which advises her to establish her family in secret places. Very few neglect this precaution; each, in her own manner, conceals the eggs she lays.
In the case of the Labyrinth Spider, the protection of the brood is complicated by another condition. In the vast majority of instances, the eggs, once lodged in a favourable spot, are abandoned to themselves, left to the chances of good or ill fortune. ”

“ There were some monks sick, as one set of regulations points out, who were ailing merely from the effect of the very monotony and the necessarily irksome character of the life in the cloister; from the continued strain of silence; from the sheer fatigue of choral duties, or from sleeplessness and such-like causes. These did not need any special treatment under the infirmarian’s care; they required rest, not medicine; and the best cure for them was gentle exercise in the open air, in the garden or elsewhere, with temporary freedom from the strain of their daily service. ”

“ Usually the Mallard family have six to ten eggs in their nest. They are of a pale greenish color—very much like the eggs of our tame ducks that we see about the barnyards.
Those who have studied birds say that our tame ducks are descendants of the Mallards.
If you were to hear the Mallard’s quack, you could not tell it from that of the domestic duck.
The Mallard usually makes her nest of grass, and lines it with down from her breast. You will almost always find it on the ground, near the water, and well sheltered by weeds and tall grasses.
It isn’t often you see a duck with so small a family. ”

“ He had not the spirit of the newspapers, he did not live intensely in the present, but he had the spirit which has animated great poets, and saints, and sages, and far-seeing teachers of humanity. Not in vain had he lived alone with Nature, not in vain had he watched in solemn twilights and witnessed many a dawn. There is, there is a strength that comes to us in solitude from that shadowy, awful Presence that frivolous crowds repel!
Solitude may be and is sometimes deliberately accepted or chosen, but far more frequently men are driven into it by Nature and by Fate. ”

“ O wonder of maternity! Through its influence the rudest woman becomes artistic, tenderly heedful. But the female is always heroic. It is one of the most affecting spectacles to see the bird of the eider—the eider-duck—plucking its down from its breast for a couch and a covering for its young. And if man steals the nest, the mother still continues upon herself the cruel operation. ”

“ In a word, whilst the morning of each monastic day was devoted mainly to prayer and the church services, the afternoon was fully occupied in many and various labours and in the general administration of the monastery. Of course manual labour, that is the working in the gardens, or fields, or workshops of the establishment, always occupied at least a part of the working hours of every monastery, and frequently a large part. ”

“ This stupendous labour of construction and provisioning, this labour that absorbs the insect's whole life, is the work of the mother only, who wears herself out at her task. The father, intoxicated with sunlight, lies idle on the threshold of the workshop, watching the heroic female at her work, and regards himself as excused from all labour when he has plagued his neighbours a little.
Does he never perform useful work? Why does he not follow the example of the swallows, each of whom brings a fair share of the straw and mortar for the building of the nest and the midges for the young brood? ”

“ Should the females be robbed of their eggs, they immediately go off in search of mates, whether their previous ones or not I cannot tell, although I am inclined to think so. However this may be, the duck in such a case soon meets with a drake, and may be seen returning the same day with him to her nest. They swim, fly, and walk side by side, and by the end of ten or twelve days the male takes his leave, and rejoins his companions out at sea, while the female is found sitting on a new set of eggs, seldom, however, exceeding four. ”

“ In 1908, a very wet spring, almost as many pintails bred here as mallards, and in eight nests observed the maximum number of eggs was nine. They resemble those of mallards, consisting of twigs with a few feathers placed on the mud, and easily seen through the open clump of samphire which shelters them. [75]
Mallard (Anas boschas) , in the marisma, nest in precisely similar situations, but their eggs number twelve or fourteen. Elsewhere their nests (being among bush or reedbeds) are less easily seen. ”

“ Anxious for its young, it has little care for itself. In its season of solitude Nature spares it the tortures of prevision. Sad and dejected rather than alarmed, it is silent, it sinks down and hides its little head under its wings, and even its neck disappears among the plumes. This position of complete self-abandonment, of confidence, which it had held in the egg—in the happy maternal prison, where its security was so perfect—it resumes every evening in the midst of perils and without protection.
[Pg 177]
Heavy for all creatures is the gloom of evening, and even for the protected. ”

“ The law of silence, for instance, was hardly relaxed at all in the infirmary; the sick man could indeed talk about himself and his ailments and necessities to the infirmarian at any time, and the latter could give him every consolation and advice; but there was apparently no permission for general conversation, even among the sick, except at the regular times for recreation; even at meal times the infirm ate in silence and followed, as far as might be, the law of the convent refectory. ”

“ It is a spirit of strongly marked individualism. Each worked for his personal advance in virtue; each strove to do his utmost in all kinds of ascetical exercises and austerities—in prolonging his fasts, his prayers, his silence. ”

“ The society appears to have been a sort of spiritual democracy, ruled by the personal influence of the leading ascetics, but there was [Pg 4] no efficient hold upon individuals to keep them from falling into extravagances.... A young man would put himself under the guidance of a senior and obey him in all things ”

“ Impatiently they set forth; with rapid wings they oar their way across five or six hundred leagues of sea, without other resting-place than occasional pieces of floating ice may, for a few moments, offer them. They arrive, and all is ready. A summer of thirty days' duration makes them happy.
With a grave happiness. The happiness of discovering a profound tranquillity separates them from the sea where their sole element lies. The season of love and incubation is, therefore, a time of fasting and [Pg 76] inquietude. The blue fox, their enemy, chases them into the desert. But union is strength. ”

“ In the course of a few days six of the young ducklings were hatched, and the hens were both so unhappy at their difficulty of continuing to sit while they had the care of their young ones on their mind, that one hen and all the little ones were removed to a distance from the other’s nest, and the whole of the eggs were put under the remaining hen. The four swans and five more ducks were safely hatched, when the hen refused to sit longer, and the remaining eggs were lost. Now that the swans were safely hatched, the boys told their sisters what they really were, and their delight was extreme. ”

“ It is a common practice in the country, to set a hen, as it is [Pg 248] called, with ducks’ eggs; and the agony which she suffers, when she sees her young charge first take to their natural element, the water, has often been observed with sympathy. The following anecdote may be relied upon, as the circumstance was observed by a gentleman of science:—
A hen, which was employed to hatch some ducks’ eggs in the neighbourhood of a dyer’s mill, where there was a small pond, was observed to exhibit the usual symptoms of terror and alarm when the ducklings first took to the water ”

“ If fowls intended for exhibition are allowed to sit, the chickens are apt to cause injury to their plumage, and loss of condition, while if prevented from sitting, they are liable to suffer in moulting. Their chickens may be given to other hens, but the best and safest plan is to set a broody exhibition hen on duck's eggs, which will satisfy her natural desire for sitting, while the young ducklings will give her much less trouble, and leave her sooner than a brood of her own kind. ”

“ If the pond is not too deep, the hen wades in till the water reaches half-way up her legs, and runs along the edge, calling her dear brood. In vain her courageous devotion, to no purpose her anxiety and grief: the ducklings gain the deep water whither she cannot follow them, and, heedless of the mother admonishing them from the shore, they wag their little pointed tails with joy. ”

“ Note, on the contrary, the foot of the hen and the guinea-fowl, both untiring walkers. The toes are short, knotty, and sheathed with strong leather, without any connecting membrane. That is the true footgear of the pedestrian. But what will become of the duck on rough ground, with its wide sandals that a mere nothing can wound? You all know its pitiful walk. It waddles along, as ill at ease as a person afflicted with corns on the rough pavement of some of our streets. No, the duck is not made for walking.
“But in water those expanded feet will make vigorous swimming oars. ”

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