The Curse of the Labrador Duck

by Glen Chilton

  The Labrador Duck was housed in an uninspiring gray metal cabinet along with two Pink-headed Ducks, four Great Auk eggs, and an assortment of other extinct and precious items. Julie waited patiently as I slowly pored over the drake, poking and peering and measuring with calipers and dividers. Trying, but failing, to improve on nature, someone in the specimen’s murky past had painted portions of the bill mustard yellow. The most peculiar feature of the Parisian Labrador Duck is that its feet are not its own. The base on which it stands is careful to point out that “les pattes sont factices,” “the feet are fake.” The duck’s original feet were nibbled by mice and replaced by those of a Mallard. At some point the specimen’s eight-sided wooden base had been painted gray-white, but the painter had been too lazy to remove the duck first, and had slopped some paint on the feet. I filled Julie in on what I was doing as I proceeded to examine my tenth specimen, and in a little less than an hour we were done.

  As Voisin led us toward the exit, we passed a number of large white cabinets labeled TYPE. I guessed that the word meant the same thing to a French biologist as to an English one, but I asked anyway. Yes, indeed, said Voisin, the cabinets were filled with valuable type specimens; the museum owned a couple of hundred of them. These are the individual specimens that taxonomists use for comparative purposes to represent the whole species. For perspective, you might keep in mind that Canada’s National Museum in Ottawa does not have even a single type specimen of a species of bird. She gladly pulled out a number of cormorant and penguin type specimens. Most had been prepared as taxidermic mounts, but had been removed from their wooden bases and restuffed as study skins, lying flat on their backs in plastic storage boxes, in order to take up less space and to minimize the risk of damage.

  JULIE SET OFF for home and I set off in search of dinner. Being an exceptional hostess, Julie had provided me with a very thoughtful gift—a French phrase book to lead me through those awkward little social encounters when she wasn’t available to keep me out of trouble. Ordering dinner, for instance. The book provided me with helpful suggestions for conversation starters, including “Pouvez-vous me donner des bon marché préservatifs, s’il vous plaît?” (Can you give me some inexpensive condoms, please?). The book suggested that I try such helpful French expressions as “Permettez-moi de vous offrir quelque chose à boire.” (Let me buy you a drink, baby!), followed by “Si on allait dans un endroit un peu plus calme?” (Shall we get out of this joint?). If the first request fails, but the second and third work out, the guide suggests that I might be listening to a physician say, “Vous avez une inflammation de les chaussettes” (you have an inflammation of your socks), to which I am apparently supposed to respond, “Je voudrais du citron et une couche!” (I would like some lemons and a diaper!). This sort of dialogue left me wondering how much Julie had paid for the phrase book.

  Even so, I became quite dedicated to the little book. It did, however, overlook the one key phrase that might be more valuable than any other. It would go something along the lines of “Pardon me, but I am astonishingly useless at French. Instead of having me mess up your beautiful language, if I point at something, will you please package it up in exchange for a handful of euros?” In the absence of that altogether invaluable phrase, the book still allowed me sufficient hacking and slashing of the French language to obtain milk, a vegetable panini, and raisin buns from an assortment of shops.

  I took my culinary treats to a park close to the police station and sat on a bench with all of the other patrons enjoying a quiet moment in the early evening’s warmth, after a long day of work. I ate while watching children play in the shade under the careful eye of their keepers. A couple of pigeons wandered by, hoping for a handout. Julie had warned me that Parisians are not all so fond of pigeons as I am, and so I left the little fellows to forage for themselves. My reserve held until a particularly pathetic little pigeon hopped by on one leg, trying to hold the stump of his amputated second leg out of the dust. I ripped a few crumbs from my raisin bun and tossed them to the little guy. An instant later he and I were surrounded by five of his avian friends, followed moments later by five young screaming boys with toy guns and water pistols, trying to shoot the pigeons. The tranquillity of that corner of the park had been shattered, and I was under the full glare of every park patron. I bundled up the remainder of my dinner and fled to find another park.

  TRAVELERS ARE NOW able to catch a very fast train between Paris and Strasbourg. Arriving in France one year too early, Julie and I had to settle for a rather more pedestrian but perfectly pleasant journey of about four hours. Slower than an airplane, certainly, but far less claustrophobic, and without the frustrating argument with security personnel about the terrorist potential of a nail file, or the endless wait in a departure lounge, which has precious little to do with either lounging or departing. Not that I would try to judge a region from the window of a train, but the tops of clouds have never taught me anything about anywhere.

  I watched as inner city Paris was replaced by sprawling suburbs, then an assortment of agricultural fields, grains, and broad-leafed crops, vineyards, and finally deciduous and coniferous forests. At the journey’s halfway point, the vegetation gave the impression that the region was warm and dry, although Julie assured me the area was notably cool and damp. Odd place to grow grapes, then, I would have thought. More and more vineyards spread out on either side of the rail line. We saw a church spire encased in scaffolding, and a giant inflated Ronald McDonald. We whizzed by the Regional Center for the Distribution of Sugar, and a number of small towns, cemeteries, and factories, some covered with graffiti, no less sensible in French than in English.

  That we were on a train to Strasbourg at all was somewhat surprising. It had taken seven years of inquiries to get a response about the Labrador Duck in that city. I knew that the duck, a hen, existed, because Paul Hahn’s book told me so. He reported that it was from the Verreaux collection and had been taken in Labrador in 1865. Hahn didn’t say what or who Verreaux is or was. My letters of inquiry dating back to 1995 had all gone unanswered. But when Julie got on the trail, the wheels immediately started turning. Julie made contact with Dr. Marie-Dominique Wandhammer, Conservatrice du Musée Zoologique, who proved extremely cooperative, sending me fantastic print photographs of the duck and offering to welcome me whenever I wished to see their duck.

  With the whole evening free, Julie and I made our attack on Strasbourg. The city is the seventh-largest in France and is the birthplace of pâté de fois gras. It is also the site where the French national anthem, “La Marseillaise,” was composed, in 1792. The University of Strasbourg counts Goethe, Napoléon, and Pasteur among its alumni. The city hosts the Council of Europe and is home to a branch of the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights. Gutenberg perfected the printing press while in exile in Strasbourg in the fifteenth century. All was incredibly noble and grand.

  We crossed a few of the twenty or so bridges spanning the river Ill, a tributary of the Rhine. The best way to see the heart of Strasbourg is on foot, because automobile traffic is restricted in the core. If you go there, do not rely on street names, as they serve only to confuse. Rue Gutenberg is magically transformed into rue des Hallebardes, which goes on to become rue des Juifs, which continues along as rue du Parchemin, which then becomes rue des Récollets before crossing the Pont de la Poste and resuming as rue J. Massol, which finally becomes rue du Genéral Gouraud. You could walk from one end to the other in about ten minutes, and no one living on that street has ever been known to get the correct mail. There is so much wonderful architecture along this street, as along others in the medieval city’s core, that Strasbourg has been designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.

  We treated ourselves to a walk through the eleventh-century Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Strasbourg; tall, ornate, cinnamon brown with dark chocolate sprinkles, and completely awe-inspiring. The architecture makes you want to use words like garret and crenellated and Wilhelmian, even if you aren’t su
re what they mean. I particularly recommend the sculptured tribute to the Wise and Foolish Virgins, which I completely missed. The cathedral’s spire, which can be seen from all over the city, was the tallest one in all of Christendom until some naughty, vain church beat it out in the 1800s. Even so, it makes a great landmark while strolling the city’s twisting, turning streets.

  To me, Strasbourg has a peculiar German flavor, which is probably not surprising given the number of times it has flipped between German and French rule. Imagine the confusion caused by a street that started off as avenue Napoléon, became Kaiser-Wilhelmstrasse in 1871, switched to boulevard de la République in 1918, was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Strasse in 1940, before finally settling down as avenue du Général-de-Gaulle in 1945. I suppose a local would say that Strasbourg has a distinctive character that is neither fully French nor German. The current dividing line between the nations, the Rhine River, is just a couple of miles to the east.

  The following day we set off to the Musée Zoologique de l’Université Louis Pasteur et de la Ville de Strasbourg for my second French duck. At the reception desk, after the usual little song and dance about who we were and why we were there, we found all of the museum staff to be the most incredibly cooperative and happy people imaginable. Marie-Dominique Wandhammer was not immediately available, but we were left in the competent and enthusiastic care of Dominique Nitka, who took us directly to the Labrador Duck. Given the value of the duck, I was astonished to find it sitting on the sort of metal shelving I use to store power tools in my garage. This housing is not particularly dustproof, nor, would I think, theft resistant. In order to save space, the shelves can be run together, but any bird with a particularly long tail is likely to have it rammed into the head of a specimen on the next shelf. The Labrador Duck is simply shoved in with all of the other ducks and geese in the museum’s collection.

  Labrador Duck 11

  Other than being a little grimy, and perhaps a little plump, the hen in Strasbourg is in fantastic shape. Her breast feathers were a mosaic of light brown and gray, and her tail feathers were a bit frayed but otherwise undamaged by her long incarceration at the museum. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to mount her properly, and the skin around the eyes and the webs of the feet were particularly well done. Attached to the plain wooden base was a small, old, red card that read Camptoloemus labradorius (Gm.) Labrador 1865 Verreaux. I asked Nitka about the collector Verreaux. He dug through the records for a few minutes and found that it was actually the name of a shop in Paris dealing with natural history artifacts. Nitka also provided me with a catalogue of all the ducks, swans, and geese in the collection of the museum. The catalogue showed that fifteen of these birds were purchased from Verreaux dating back to 1856; most of them, like the Labrador Duck, were acquired in 1865. Perhaps Verreaux was having a going-out-of-business sale, and the museum in Strasbourg cleaned up on bargains.

  When Wandhammer caught up with us, resplendent in glasses with electric-red rims, she offered us a tour of the museum and asked if there was anything else we particularly wanted to see. I asked if they had a stuffed Great Auk and Nitka replied with pride that they did indeed. The museum had an impressive display dedicated to extinct and endangered species, including the Great Auk, a couple of Passenger Pigeons, and a Carolina Parakeet, behind a sliding glass door that ran from floor to ceiling. When I said that it was a shame that I couldn’t photograph the auk through the display’s glass door, Nitka dashed off in search of the key, despite my protests about its being too much trouble. When he returned, we found that the glass door opened only halfway, and the Great Auk remained trapped inside. Not put off for a moment, Nitka climbed into the display cabinet to grab it. My first fear was that he was going to drop the auk on some other extinct creature, and then that he was going to break the bird off at the legs as he carried it to a back room for me to examine.

  Everyone stepped back to let me have a good look. After all that bother, there was nothing else for me to do but give the poor beggar a good going-over. I stroked my chin and peered intently. I stuck the tip of the small finger of my right hand in my mouth, made “hmmmm” noises, and nodded at the bird. I pointed to spots on the bird as though I was trying to make an important point to an imaginary colleague. The Great Auk in Strasbourg has seen better days, and should probably be downgraded to a Reasonably Good Auk. Moths have taken away a lot of its feathers, giving it an air of mange. It was mounted with its mouth open and I almost thought I could hear it screaming. With most of the feathers around its eyes missing, it certainly had a look of terror. After ten minutes of scholarly peering, I picked the little devil up to return him to his cabinet. Then, thinking better of it, I turned him over to Nitka. If he dropped the auk, he would be reprimanded. If I dropped it, I would be trying to talk my way out of a Strasbourg jail.

  THURSDAY WAS ANOTHER day to explore Paris before my final duck adventure in France. Having arranged to meet Julie at 11:00, I used the early-morning hours to explore the district near my hotel. The community was chockablock with six-story apartment blocks, shops selling spectacles or lingerie, and wave after wave of cafés, bistros, and brasseries for casual dining. One of the most impressive features of the Twentieth Arrondissement is the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. So grand is this 110-acre cemetery that guidebooks give it as many stars as the national museum dedicated to the works and life of the sculptor Rodin. Plaques at each entrance show where the traveler can find the final resting spots of such great persons as Ney and Masséna, Abélard and Hélöise, Piaf and Toklas, and a host of other celebrities that I had never heard of. The composer Chopin is buried at Père-Lachaise, but his heart apparently resides in Warsaw; no explanation was offered for the dissection. One of the most infamous residents of Père-Lachaise is rock-and-roll legend Jim Morrison. I have been told that stoned visitors to Morrison’s grave site cause such disruption that the city looked into the possibility of having him disinterred and removed to another site, but found that they had no legal right to do so. And so the Lizard King sleeps on in the City of Love.

  To me, the most impressive feature of the cemetery was not the personalities that rest there, but the opulence of all of the other grave sites, unlike anything that I had ever seen. The lives of some people have been commemorated by giant slabs of marble or granite. Some of these are turned on end to create great Space Odyssey–like monoliths. Other persons rest under enormous statues, some of half-carved individuals striving to leave behind their earthly shackles and ascend to heaven. Some statues are carved with a series of skulls and demons and a single angel. A few monuments have been embellished with large copper medallions, which have been oxidized by time and rain to leave long hideous green stains.

  In this cemetery, many persons, perhaps most of them, are remembered with mausoleums about the size of a queen-sized bed but rising 16 feet or more, although some take on the proportions of a small chapel. Many of these structures recognize a family or two rather than a single individual. The mausoleums have locked twin doors of iron, many of which are rusting away to nothing. A fair few have stained-glass windows featuring images of Christ, the Virgin, or both. Many windows in older tombs have been broken by vandals or by time.

  BEING REASONABLY DEDICATED to the phrase book Julie had given me, I was very proud when I could get out “Demain, je voudrais le petit déjeuner, s’il vous plaît” without inciting scornful looks. If pressed, I could even convey I was residing in room cent trois, and I would like my breakfast at huit heures. Even so, I generally relied on five key expressions. These were: bonjour or bonsoir, s’il vous plaît, numbers between un and vingt, merci, and au revoir. Much could be accomplished with those words and a bit of pointing.

  But I certainly had my limitations. A disturbing event occurred when Julie and I were on the Métro, but it came without any announcement at all. Rocketing along in a dark tunnel between stations, the driver suddenly threw the brakes into an agonizing squeal, leaving the passengers to catch one another. I had a good grip on a
rail, and was able to throw out my left arm to catch a lady before she crashed into the front of the coach. She thanked me four times. We were then left in darkness, save for the emergency lights. The train had stopped dead. Eyes darted, and a few people giggled nervously as a minute or two passed. Being in the front car, we could hear the shouts of at least three voices. They came at me too fast and I couldn’t make sense of a single word. The train started again, and we detrained at the next stop. Hoping that Julie could fill me in, I tried, “A rather quick stop!” as an opening line. It probably hadn’t occurred to her that I was the only person on the car who had absolutely no idea what was going on. She explained that someone had tried to kill themself by jumping in front of the train in the darkened tunnel. All credit to the driver, who spotted the person in time and stopped just shy of disaster. I was absolutely shattered by the news. I was having one of the greatest days of my life in one of the greatest cities in the world. And yet just a few yards away was a person so tortured that a dramatic and violent death seemed to be the only solution.

  I THINK I can claim to have learned a few small things about language, transportation, and general behavior while in Paris. I thought of them as my ten rules for getting by and staying alive in the French capital: